London, David Mortier, 1720.
2 volumes In-12 (166x100mm), 18th century binding, brown calf, spine with 5 raised bands, title label in gilt, and volume numbers on the spine.
New edition of 1720 decorated with 5 maps and plans, a folded table and 23 engraved plates, frontispiece bound to Volume 2.
Vol. 1 [4]ff. - Dedication [10]ff.I-XX - [164]pp. - [2]ff. Vol. 2 [2]ff. - Frontispiece - [180]pp.- [16]ff.
A remarkable story by François Leguat, the subject of the 2014 Goncourt Prize for Short Stories. "The Life of Mr. Leguat" by Nicolas Cavaillès.
The story of François Le Guat is intertwined with that of Marquis Henri Du Quesne, the shipowner who hoped to found a Protestant colony on Bourbon Island in 1689.
The island had belonged to France for about forty years and was populated by 309 souls at that time (Les Origines de l’île Bourbon. M. Guët 1885-1886).
When his project was discovered, France sent warships (7 according to Leguat) to defend it and Du Quesne abandoned his project in favor of an exploration mission on Rodriguez Island in which François LeGuat, a "gentleman from Bresse" participated. This is how the Hirondelle, armed with six cannons, carrying Leguat and his companions, left Amsterdam on July 10, 1690.
Told in the first person, this story describes the journey of these Huguenots, driven out of France by the revocation, which was marked by many adventures: a two-year stay on the small, then deserted island of Rodrigue, a perilous crossing on a makeshift boat to Mauritius, conflict with the Dutch authorities and deportation to a tiny islet off the coast of Mauritius, escape attempts and finally deliverance after nearly three years of painful captivity...
This book is a travel story without equivalent among the adventure books of the 17th century.
Indeed, it has given rise to much debate and research, among publishers, scientists and historians, since its release until today. Jean-Michel Racault, Alfred North-Coombes, Geoffroy Atkinson, Captain Pasfield Oliver, Th. Sauzier... all have helped us for the last three centuries and despite their differences to untangle the truth from the false, as it is sometimes complex to separate fiction from document in the travel literature of this period.
It is now proven that François Leguat did indeed exist and experienced all the events he reports, thanks to the presence of numerous Dutch archives from the colonies of Mauritius and the Cape (1), some of his descriptions concerning the fauna and flora of the island of Rodrigue, often considered extravagant, have been confirmed, either by contemporary testimonies that have remained unpublished, or by the discoveries of fossil bones made on site in the 19th century by naturalists (2).
Nevertheless, according to Atkinson's comparative studies, many of these descriptions remain extravagant or copied or inspired by the stories of other explorers and the introduction and several passages are due to the obvious intervention of Maximilien Misson, a successful author of the time.
And it is all this that has sown doubt. For his detractors like Atkinson, certain reinterpretations and descriptions have given the idea of a story, which in reality, never existed. For him, thanks to the adventures of Leguat, we would have imagined imaginary birds that disappeared for two centuries.
[...] Sir Alfred Newton, explorer and naturalist, in an article on the extinction of marine mammals, is quoted as saying: "Where are the dugongs of Rodriguez, so charmingly described by Leguat? Extinct!" Renowned 19th century naturalists went so far as to give a bird described in Francois Leguat's Voyage the euphonious title of "Erythromachus Leguati".(3)
While Atkinson points out real hoaxes with very interesting comparative bibliographical studies, North-Coombes shows us that plagiarisms are less numerous than he says and that the descriptions on the island of Rodrigue are accurate and unpublished.
We are certainly dealing here with a real travel story experienced by François Leguat and his companions but which has undergone developments, additions and inventions in order to make it more attractive and give the story a more solid literary structure. All this, certainly for commercial purposes.
[…] There are indeed few travel books written at the beginning of the 18th century that were reprinted in two languages towards the end of the 19th century. Leguat's story is one of them. As a novel written in 1707, often reprinted and considered an essentially true story, after two hundred years it is perhaps without equal. […] The continued publication of the book itself is doubtless a justification, by some standards, of this method of writing travel novels.(4) .
It is an important scientific reference for the fauna and flora of Rodrigue Island, a historical and literary composition unpublished for its time, a story of shipwrecked people, a profound reflection on solitude and the complexity of civilization more than ten years before Defoe's Robinson Crusoe published in 1719.
(1) (2) From the travel story to the novel: the example of François Léguât's Voyage, Jean-Michel Racault, 1986
(3)(4) Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 1921. Vol. XXXVI. Geoffroy Atkinson December 1921.
Read:
A French Desert Island Novel of 1708: https://www.jstor.org/stable/457349?searchText=casimir+freschot+le+guat&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dcasimir%2Bfreschot%2Ble%2Bguat%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae6a8f967626e2d739354fd5de73d4646&seq=1
A project of republic on the island of Eden: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k73850w/f4.item.r=henri%20Du%20Quesne
The Hakluyt edition of Captain Oliver's story of Leguat: https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.21256/page/n7/mode/2up
Jean-Michel Racault's article: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-03984749/document
The two volumes fully digitized on the BNF website:
Volume 1: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1040570n?rk=21459;2
Volume 2: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1040572g?rk=42918;4
Condition: good condition overall, the binding is patinated with time, the boxes have faded, the maps and leaflets are all preserved. There is a small tear inside the map of Rodrigue Island (see Photos).
