No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
XXIV.—A French Desert Island Novel of 1708
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Desert islands and shipwrecked crews are apparently very old themes in French prose fiction. There is a desert island episode in Les Amours de Clidamant et de Marilinde, a sentimental novel of 1603. The shipwreck of a Portuguese merchantman is the prelude to L'Isle des hermaphrodites, a satirical work of 1605. Accounts of such adventures in the “true voyage” literature of the first half of the 17th century in France are numerous. To cite only some works which went through several editions in this period, the Voyages of Jean Mocquet contains the story of a lone European on an unknown shore. Repeated editions in French translation of Garcilaso's Historia de los Incas contain the better known Serrano desert island story, while two editions of the Voyages du sieur Vincent Le Blanc furnish other material of like nature.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1921
References
1 Paris, in-12. Cf. G. Reynier, Le Roman sentimental avant l'Astrée, Paris, 1908. p. 183.
2 Paris, in-12. Cf. G. Atkinson, The Extraordinary Voyage in French Literature before 1700. New York (Columbia University Press), 1920.
3 Paris, 1617, in-8, livre II, pp. 148-150. First ed. Paris, 1616; other editions are of Rouen, 1645, and Rouen, 1665.
4 Paris, 1633, 2 vols., in-4 (transl. J. Beaudoin). Other editions are of 1658 and 1672. The Serrano story may he readily found in the more common 1737 edition, I, 17.
5 Paris, 1648, in-4, part I, p. 120. Other editions, Paris, 1649, in-4; Troyes, 1658.
6 W. E. Mann, Robinson Crusoé en France, Paris, 1916, p. 14. Dr. Mann cites the Nouvelles littéraires of Amsterdam for December, 1719.
7 E. Haag, La France Protestante, Paris, 1849-1860, article, Leguat.
8 In Litterarhistorische Forschungen, vii Heft, Weimar, 1898.
9 Enstehungsgeschichte von Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Berlin, 1909.
10 Nouveaux documents sur l'époque de la disparition de la Faune ancienne de l'Ile Rodrigue, in Annales des Sciences Naturelles, (6ième Série, Tome 2, Art. 4). Paris, 1875.
11 Hakluyt edition of Leguat, I, 74. The paper quoted was printed in Nature for Dec. 11, 1873.
12 Milne-Edwards, the French scientist, proposed this title, but Dr. Günther of the British Museum and Professor Arthur Newton of Cambridge University preferred the title Aphanapteryw Leguati. Cf. Hakluyt edition of Leguat, I, 81, note 3.
13 Editor's Preface, p. ix. The present writer found one copy of the Legitat in the Geographical Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris.
14 Leguat, II, 139-164. (The paging of the French editions of London, 1708, Amsterdam, 1708, and London, 1721, is identical.) In the Hakluyt edition, II, 271-298.
15 Les six Voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Paris (Clousier) 1681, in-4, pp. 458 et seq. (Or 1st ed. Paris, 1676, pp. 502 et seq., or Engl. transl. London, 1677-1678, vol. ii, pp. 204 et seq.) In all editions the account in question is in Part II, Book III.
16 This indebtedness of the author of Leguat to Tavernier has not, to my knowledge, been mentioned previously. Tavernier is, of course, especially known as a traveler in Persia and India.
17 Voyages, Paris, 1653. A careful and restrained writer of the type of the later Bernier.
18 A. A. Barbier, Examen critique et complément des dictionnaires, Paris, 1820, 1 vol. in-8., p. 355. Eug. & Emile Haag, La France Protestante, Article Misson. Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, Paris, 1879 IV, 1103. Thanks to a long quarrel between Misson and Casimir Freschot and to the successive prefaces in which they belabor each other, there can be no doubt about this attribution, made by Barbier.
19 Cf. G. Ascoli, L'Affaire des Prophètes français à Londres, Revue du dix-huitième siècle, 1916 (jan.-avril, pp. 8-28; mai-décembre, pp. 85-109).
20 Un Projet de République à l'Ile d'Eden (l'Ile Bourbon) en 1689 par le Marquis Henri Du Quesne. Réimpression d'un ouvrage disparu … précédé d'une notice par Th. Sauzier, Paris, 1887, in-8.
21 There is frequent mention of Paul B … le in the Leguat story. He is the only survivor in Europe beside “Leguat” himself. The story is explicit in stating: Il demeure présentement à Amsterdam. Sauzier would not have been, with some others, the victim of this literary trick if he had known the earlier voyage novels of Foigny and Vairasse. Cf. Note 2 supra.
22 Bibliothèque Britannique ou Histoire des ouvrages des savons de la Grande Bretagne, t. 5, Partie ii, La Haye (chez Pierre de Hondt), 1735, article xi, Nouvelles littéraires.
23 This evidence, published by Sauzier in 1887, and cited by the Hakluyt edition of Leguat, is to be found in the Biographie universelle (ed. Michaud), Paris, 1819, t. 23, Article Leguat, in which it is probable, although not certain, that Sauzier found it.
24 Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, décembre, 1707 (Jacques Bernard, éditeur), article I, pp. 603-622.
25 4th ed. in English, London, 1714. 3 vols. in-8. To the Reader, p. xvii.
26 Ibid. p. xxv.
27 An excessively rare book. Les Voyages faits par le sieur D. B. aux Isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, & Bourbon, ou Masoarenne, és années 1669. 70. 71. 72; ensemble les moeurs, religions, forces, gouvernemens & coutumes des habitons desdites isles, avec l'histoire naturelle du Païs. Paris, (Claude Barbin) MDCLXXIV, 1 vol. in-18. The Hakluyt edition has for title a literal translation of the French, with translator's name. London, 1897. 1 vol. in-8.
28 Introd., Hakluyt, Du Bois, p. xxvi.
29 Since 1897 there have been published bibliographies such as the monumental Sources de l'histoire de France (1610-1715) (Géographie et Histoires générales) by E. Bourgeois and L. André, Paris, (Picard) 1913, besides l'Orient clans la littérature française of M. P. Martino, Paris, 1906, and l'Amérique et le rêve emotique of M. G. Chinard, Paris (Hachette) 1913, and many books of more restricted scope.
30 French editions, 1708 and 1721, I, 107-108, or Hakluyt ed., I, 84-85.
31 Op. cit., pp. 180-182 or Hakluyt ed., p. 81.
32 The Hakluyt edition suggests that these “bats” are “flying foxes” common in the East Indies. The difficulty is not removed by this explanation, for the flying fox hangs all day and flies by night, as do other bats.
33 French editions, I, 103. Hakluyt ed., I, 81.
34 Relations veritables et curieuses de l'Isle de Madagascar et du Bresil. Paris (Courbe), 1651. p. 132.
35 Recueil de quelques mémoires servans d'instruction pour l'établissement de l'Isle d'Eden. Amsterdam, 1689. in-12. p. 62. This is the document reprinted by Sauzier. Cf. Note 20 supra.
36 French editions, vol. 1, pp. 98-102. Hakluyt ed., vol. 1, pp. 77-81.
37 Op. cit., p. 170 or Hakluyt ed. pp. 77-79.
38 Op. cit., p. 62.
39 Abbé Carré, Voyage des Indes Orientales, Paria, 1699, 2 vol. in-16. Vol. 1, pp. 12-13.
40 Op. cit., p. 130.
41 Ibid., p. 131.
42 Strong assertion of first-hand information is found repeatedly in the Leguat. Almost always this type of assertion is found coupled with some otherwise unbelievable statement.
43 French editions, I, 90-91. Hakluyt, I, 72-73.
44 Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Antilles, Rotterdam, 1658, in-4., p. 230.
45 Histoire Générale des Antilles, Paris, 1667, 2 vol. in-4., II, 231-232.
46 Relation du voyage et retour des Indes Orientales pendant les années 1690 et 1691, Paris, 1692, in-12. p. 311.
47 Op. cit., pp. 176-177. Hakluyt ed. pp. 79-81.
48 Op. cit., p. 55.
49 Op. cit., pp. 230-235.
50 French editions, I, 90. Hakluyt ed., I, 71-72.
51 French editions, I, 121. Hakluyt ed., I, 96. Captain Oliver, in a note to this page, explains the statement of “Leguat” by saying that although the sharks of Rodriguez were found to be “extremely aggressive forty years later,” still “those observed by Leguat had doubtless ceased to be dangerous to man, owing to the abundance of animal food.”
52 Du Tertre, op. cit., II, 268.
53 Although it is weary work at times to read quarto volumes of travel printed during the 17th century in France, nevertheless it would seem that such reading must be the basis of some of the criticism of later French novels.