Les explorateurs français
Six major French scientific expeditions to Australia took place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
These include Freycinet Peninsula, Recherche Bay and D’Entrecasteaux Channel in Tasmania; the Sydney suburb of La Perouse; Kangaroo Island’s Cape Vivonne and the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia; Esperance and Geographe Bay in southern Western Australia; and Cape Leveque in the Kimberley.
Likewise, most French people are unaware of the important contributions their nation made to Australia’s colonial development, in that period of maritime jostling, when Britain and France were competing for overseas territory, ports and trade.
When photojournalist Frédéric Mouchet arrived in Australia several years ago he quickly became intrigued by the French names of so many beautiful capes, beaches and reserves around our coastline and began to document them in his images. After reading my research on the Franco-British rivalry in the region, he was able to make the historical connections.
Frédéric and I subsequently published The Australia of the French Explorers, a bilingual book, in which we sought to illustrate and acknowledge the courage, diligence and skill of the many French sailors and scientists who participated in maritime exploration during the exciting but perilous Age of Sail. Many a brave European mariner perished from scurvy and other painful diseases, or as a result of fierce storms and shipwrecks in unfamiliar waters.
Seeing Frédéric’s stunning photos beside drawings and maps produced by the artists and cartographers of French expeditions to those same locations offers a vivid link with Australia’s fascinating past, in an artistic and a historical way. So too does learning about the origin of the names and the trials and tribulations endured by the officers and sailors behind them.
WELL BEFORE THE government-sponsored French expeditions in the Indo-Pacific region of the 18th and 19th centuries, which are the focus of this story, Portuguese and Dutch sailors had beaten a path to and from the Indian Ocean in search of pepper and other spices, to meet the growing demand for these commodities in Europe.
By the 16th century, several European nations had gradually become engaged in a race in the Indo-Pacific, to explore and acquire territories and goods they could trade, such as gold, silver, spices, silk and other exotic products not available in their homelands. By establishing the United East India Company (the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) as early as 1602, the Dutch were in a strong position to dominate the spice trade by 1620 and jealously guarded their territories in the East Indies.
The Dutch and possibly the Portuguese were probably among the first Europeans to land on Australian shores. But once Dutch traders realised that the Aboriginal population had no trade goods they wanted, they did not explore the terrain, except to mark
Despite having a reasonable grasp of our continent’s colourful history, many Australians would be unaware that numerous popular tourist destinations are among more than 400 Australian coastal places named by the French two centuries ago.
various dangerous reefs or safe natural harbours on their charts. The French, once they established their own French East India Company in 1664, set up several commercial bases in the Indian Ocean zone at Pondicherry (now Puducherry) and Chandernagore (Chandannagar) in India, and on the islands of Mauritius and Réunion.
And so France’s exploration of the southern oceans began as a commercial venture. However, during the 18th-century period of Enlightenment in Europe, French philosophers and scientists, including Diderot, d’Alembert, Voltaire and Rousseau, produced France’s 28-volume Encyclopédie (1751–72), which inspired adventurous French mariners to explore the world far beyond the bounds of Europe.
Count Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s circumnavigation of the world in 1766–69 aroused enormous public interest in France, especially as he brought back from Tahiti a handsome young prince, Aotourou, who quickly became the talk of Paris. This was in part because he seemed to be the living embodiment of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s promotion of a simple life in a natural environment, in contrast to the ‘decadent’ Parisian lifestyle of pre-revolutionary times. And the tales told by Bougainville’s sailors of scantily clad maidens paddling eagerly towards their vessels certainly gave an alluring impression of a South Sea Paradise of Love.
Other French navigators and scientists soon rallied to the call. Marion du Fresne visited Tasmania, before being killed along with 26 of his officers and crew in June 1772 in New Zealand. Early that same year, Kerguelen de Trémarec discovered what were later named the Kerguelen Islands. Meanwhile, his second-incommand, Louis de Saint-Aloüarn, became separated during a storm and sailed on to claim the western side of Australia for France, on 30 March 1772. From 1785 to 1788 Count Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse – who had become famous in France during the American War of Independence while fighting with the combined French and American forces against the British – conducted an extensive voyage in the Pacific Ocean. He went on to reach Botany Bay on 26 January 1788, just eight days after the arrival of Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet.
However, the French navigators, who had the most lasting influence on Australia’s early colonial development in that period, were Bruny d’Entrecasteaux (1791–94); Nicolas Baudin (1800–04); and Louis de Freycinet (1817–20).They charted long stretches of our coastline and coastal islands, sprinkling hundreds of French names along the western and southern coastlines of Australia’s mainland, and on Tasmania’s south-eastern coastal region. Fortunately, many of these locations still exist in a pristine state as national parks or conservation areas, as Frédéric’s superb photos illustrate.
MOSTAUSTRALIANS HAVE accepted the common wisdom that Britain had a major problem with overflowing prisons during the early 1780s, as sailors and soldiers swarmed back home when the American War of Independence ended in 1783. However, once the joyful reunions
“Lefèvre was attacked by a large shark that he could not protect himself from until he had knocked it senseless and harpooned it.” Nicolas Baudin — Shark Bay, March 1803
were over, many of the expatriated men could not find work and the crime rate soared. Britain clearly needed somewhere – preferably far away – to dump her criminals, who could no longer be sent to the newly founded United States of America.
An easy ‘solution’ was available to frustrated British authorities: what could be further away than the largely unexplored territory on the eastern coast of the Great South Land – then known as New Holland – which had been claimed for Britain in 1770 by the famous navigator James Cook? Moreover, a base in that region could be a handy stopover for naval vessels sailing between the Indian and Pacific oceans, as well as for China-bound trade vessels. It would also provide a potential market for Britain’s trade goods.
It seems, as new research shows, that the British decision to settle Australia in 1788 was more complex than merely to transport convicts. By the second half of the 18th century, a fierce rivalry had developed between Britain and France, both of which were eager to expand their knowledge of the southern Indo-Pacific and identify potential safe ports for their naval, whaling and trading vessels.
Some of the earlier French voyages were predominantly commercial ventures. But scientific expeditions led by Kerguelen (and Saint-Aloüarn), La Pérouse, d’Entrecasteaux, Baudin, Freycinet and others were strongly supported by the French government and included scientists from the disciplines of anthropology, astronomy, botany, geography, geology and zoology.All seafarers of that era – officers, crew members and scientists alike – suffered great privations as they endured the heat and maladies of the tropics, as well as the bitter winds and storms of the lower southern seas.
The 1771–72 expedition led by Kerguelen was highly significant for Australia’s western side and could easily have been a game-changer in the history of the future Commonwealth of Australia. On 30 March 1772, his second-in-command, Louis Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn, while in control of a second ship at Shark Bay, ordered his officers to claim all the territory on the western side of the Australian continent on behalf of the French king.
Proof of that claim was discovered in January 1998 at Turtle Bay on Dirk Hartog Island, by aWA team led by French historian Philippe Godard. A French coin with the portrait of King Louis XV bearing the date of 1766 was found in the sand attached to a lead bottle top.
A few months later, further authenticating the original find, a sealed bottle with a similar French coin and bottle top was found buried nearby by Myra Stanbury and other researchers from the WA Maritime Museum. Saint-Aloüarn seems to have taken the precaution of burying at least two bottles and coins, but tiny sand mites may have destroyed any recorded claim document in the intervening 226 years. Or is there a third bottle still waiting to be found?
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on one’s perspective, during the turbulent decades before and after the 1789 French Revolution, France did not follow up its claim by establishing a colony on the western side of this continent.We can only speculate about how different Australia’s early colonial history might have been if France had founded a viable settlement in the west.
France nevertheless retained an interest in the Indo-Pacific and instructed the famous Count of La Pérouse to investigate persistent rumours of a possible British settlement at Botany Bay. La Pérouse anchored there in late January 1788 shortly after the First Fleet. He was cordially welcomed by Captain John Hunter, because the Fleet Commander, Captain Arthur Phillip, had already sailed northwards to Port Jackson in search of a better water source. After a six-week stay, La Pérouse and his two vessels sailed from Botany Bay, only to vanish without trace for almost four decades, somewhere in the vast Pacific Ocean.
In 1791 Commander Bruny d’Entrecasteaux and his second in command, Huon de Kermadec, were sent to search for their esteemed compatriot. Although they sailed close to the island where both shipwrecks were eventually found – on a reef on the western side of the tiny island of Vanikoro in the Solomon Island group – they found no trace of La Pérouse or his vessels.
It was not until May 1826 that an Irish captain, Peter Dillon, discovered several French objects that had been salvaged by the inhabitants of a nearby island. Sadly, Kermadec and d’Entrecasteaux had both succumbed to illness in 1793 in the southern Pacific Ocean, not far from La Pérouse’s watery grave.
The next official French expedition was led in 1800 by Nicolas Baudin, sent by Napoléon Bonaparte who was eager to re-establish a presence in the southern seas following the decade of turmoil caused by the French Revolution.The Baudin Expedition gathered an impressive collection of scientific specimens from Australia and the Indo-Pacific region and became France’s most successful scientific voyage.
But after Baudin’s death in 1803, he was cruelly maligned by some of his younger officers and scientists, who gave him no credit for the achievements of the expedition he led.This included more than 2500 new species discovered by his naturalists and many exquisite drawings of Australia’s indigenous people of the early 19th century and of the southern continent’s unique fauna and flora. And all of this was recorded before the full force of British colonial settlement changed the landscape and environment forever. Some of the Lesueur Collection – named after Baudin’s artist Charles Alexandre Lesueur and held in Le Havre, France – will soon tour Australia, beginning at the South Australian Maritime Museum in June (see page 109).
In Frédéric’s extraordinary photos – some of which were taken from an ultra-light aircraft – he has skilfully captured the pristine beauty of the Australian coastal areas, as well as the local vegetation and animals, which were drawn so well by the French scientists and artists more than two centuries ago. Fortunately, many of
“If you should meet any natives, which is very likely, you are absolutely forbidden to commit a single act of hostility towards them, unless the safety of anyone in particular, or all in general, is at stake. Nicolas Baudin – Van Diemen’s Land, January 1802
these locations are now protected and have not been drastically altered by urban development, except for the modern city of Sydney, where drawings done by French artists in 1802 contrast vividly with the current skyline.
BEHIND THE HISTORICAL accounts of the now famous captains of the various French expeditions, there are many personal anecdotes. One can only imagine the conditions and potential friction aboard those small sailing vessels, as more and more boxes were loaded into already over-crowded holds. They contained an ever-growing collection of charts, drawings and scientific specimens: including rock and plant samples, bottled specimens of fish, spiders and snakes, and an assortment of small animals. Added to this there were many live plants and animals – such as kangaroos, emus and other birds – which needed to be fed and watered.And it all spilled out of the holds and into every available space, including the officers’ quarters, much to their discomfort and irritation.
As Nicolas Baudin sailed homeward in early 1803 he was frustrated by the magnitude of the tasks that still needed to be completed on behalf of the French naval authorities. Already in failing health due to the tuberculosis that would kill him in September that year, he drove his officers and crew hard, as he did himself. Scorned by some arrogant young officers and scientists as a mere commoner, he was sometimes caustic and brusque with his subordinates, who had not yet understood that the recent French revolution had already removed their traditional sinecures and privileges forever.
The brilliant young zoologist Francois Péron, though not an aristocrat himself, had become friends with some of this rebellious group. He had lost the use of an eye, which made orientation in Australia’s unfamiliar terrain difficult and he became ‘lost’ three times on the voyage. This had caused delays, which fuelled his commander’s annoyance, leading to a strained atmosphere. These irritations were compounded by a restricted diet and constant exhaustion, after more than three years of privation and homesickness. So, when Baudin died and could no longer defend himself, his achievements were largely ignored. Some of the surviving officers and scientists blamed their commander for their woes and claimed much of the glory. It was to be almost 200 years before the true story of this incredible expedition was revealed.
By bringing together these stories and images, Frédéric and I hoped to combine the compelling majesty and beauty of the Australian landscape, first peoples and flora and fauna, with the story of determination demonstrated by France’s finest navigators and scientists. They succeeded against great odds to document an impressive record of Australia as it once was, before the modern era swept away the vestiges of this fascinating past.