François Pouqueville
François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (French: [pukvil]; 4 November 1770 – 20 December 1838) was a French diplomat, writer, explorer, physician and historian, and member of the Institut de France.
François Pouqueville | |
|---|---|
 François Pouqueville in front of Ioannina, by Henriette Lorimier, 1830 | |
| Born | 4 November 1770 Le Merlerault, Normandy, France |
| Died | 20 December 1838 (aged 68) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation(s) | Academician, diplomat, writer, physician, historian, archaeologist |
| Known for | His influential diplomacy and writings |
He traveled extensively throughout Ottoman-occupied Greece from 1798 to 1820; first as the Turkish sultan's hostage, then as Napoleon Bonaparte's general consul at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina.
With his far reaching diplomacy and writings, he became a prominent architect of the Philhellenism movement throughout Europe[1] and contributed eminently to the liberation of the Greeks and the rebirth of the Greek nation.
Youth: minister and revolutionary
His uncommon talent as a writer revealed itself early in a lifelong correspondence with his younger brother, Hugues, and their sister, Adèle.
His detailed letters to his siblings are still an exceptional source of knowledge on the life of a world traveler, explorer, and diplomat during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, and the restoration of the French monarchy at the turn of the 19th century.
Pouqueville studied at the college of Caen before joining the Lisieux. He became a deacon and was ordained at 21. He then was vicar in his native Montmarcé.
Initially known as a young Royalist minister, he was protected and saved by his congregation from the massacres of aristocrats by revolutionary mobs in the Reign of Terror.
Like many young French aristocrats, he supported the rising democratic movement. When Le Merlerault adopted the new Constitution on 14 July 1793 (year 2 of the French Republic), Pouqueville was secretary of the assemblée primaire that approved it.
In 1793, he was assistant to the mayor; finding his vocation with the events of the French Revolution, he resigned from the clergy to become a teacher (1794) and a municipal assistant at Le Merlereault (1795). He remained a fervent Christian all his life.
However, his renunciation of the cloth, Republican speeches, and open criticism of the papacy made him the target of resurgent royalists in Normandy. He went into hiding (probably in Caen[2]) until the defeat in Quiberon by the army of the Republic led by Lazare Hoche of the royalist forces joined by Charette's chouans), as Bonaparte (nicknamed Captain Cannon) did at the Siege of Toulon, and later in Paris.
When Pouqueville returned to Le Merlerault, the town's physician, Dr. Cochin, who had been his colleague at the college of Caen, took him on as student-surgeon. He then introduced him to his friend, professor Antoine Dubois[3] of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. Dubois was later the Empress Marie-Louise's doctor when she gave birth to Napoleon's only son, Napoleon II in 1811.
In 1797, Pouqueville left Le Merlerault for Paris. The following year, Pouqueville was one of the surgeons who accompanied then-general Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt. This was a crucial decision that affected the rest of his life.
Pouqueville embarked at Toulon with the ill-fated French Fleet under the command of Général Bonaparte as it sailed towards Egypt. On the way, he witnessed the taking of Malta,[4] and he spent the days of the crossing to Alexandria teaching the French soldiers and sailors the vibrant lyrics of La Marseillaise, the new French national anthem.
Egypt: Bonaparte, Nelson and pirates
After the first battle of Aboukir in 1798, General Kleber entrusted Pouqueville with the negotiations for the exchange of prisoners with Admiral Nelson.
While meeting with leaders of the British Admiralty, he quickly developed a great respect for William Sidney Smith who spoke perfect French and proved to be courteous, human, and a man of honor. Conversely, his encounters with Nelson filled him with repugnance, for the Admiral's treatment of the French officers was both brutal and cruel. From that point, Pouqueville would only mention Nelson under the epithet "blood-thirsty cyclops."
Having caught a bad fever that prevented him from continuing his scientific researches, Pouqueville was advised by Kleber to return to France to receive better medical attention.
He boarded the Italian merchant ship La madonna di Montenegro in Alexandria. En route to Italy, the ship was attacked by Barbary Coast pirates near Calabria. Pouqueville was among those taken prisoner.
Prisoner of the Turkish sultan
Peloponnese: Pasha and physician
Pouqueville was first brought to Navarino and then to Tripolitza, the capital of the Peloponnese. The Ottoman Empire was at war with France at the time. He was remanded to the custody of the pacha of Morea, Moustapha.
Moustapha received him with some indifference, but he gave him decent lodging and protected him against the brutalities of the Albanian soldiers who guarded him.
Soon after, Moustapha was deposed and replaced by Achmet Pacha.[5]
Having learned that Pouqueville practiced medicine, the new pacha treated him well and, after seeing how successful Pouqueville was when healing some members of his entourage, named him official physician of his pashalic.
Pouqueville took advantage of his new situation by exploring the surrounding regions and by researching the sites of ancient Greece.[6] He remained in Tripolitza through the harsh 1798 winter.
Constantinople: prisons and harems
In the spring, the Sultan ordered that he be transferred with his co-prisoners to Constantinople, where they were incarcerated for two years in the Fortress of Seven Towers, Yedikule.
While living in abject conditions, Pouqueville wrote that they encountered members of the French embassy to whom the Sultan, under pressure from the British who had appropriated the embassy, had refused the usual diplomatic nicety of being confined in the French embassy palace.
Pouqueville tried saving the life of the dying Adjutant-general Rose, but it was too late. Rose had been France's representative in Epirus and had fallen victim to Ali Pasha of Ioannina's[7] cruel perfidy. A few years later, he would be replaced by Pouqueville himself in Ioannina.
While imprisoned, Pouqueville befriended French diplomat Pierre Ruffin who had been held prisoner since the expedition of Egypt. Pouqueville attended to Ruffin's health, nicknaming him the Nestor of the Orient, with whom he perfected his knowledge of orientalism. The two men continued their correspondence long after their release until Ruffin's death.
Soon after arriving in Constantinople, Pouqueville gained some liberty of movement, as his jailers had learned about his medical skills. He succeeded in exploring the surroundings of the fortress, including the Sultan's private gardens at the Topkapı Palace. With the help of the Sultan's gardener, whom he had befriended, he even explored the garden of the Sultan's harem.
On occasions, he convinced his guards to let him travel through the City of Constantinople and along the Bosphorus all the way to the Black Sea. He sought to attend to other French prisoners who were gravely ill and held in a distant jail. At the time, the plague was still prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean region. Pouqueville was determined to find the proper medical method to fight the terrible disease. His thesis on his plague observations were later published in Paris upon his return and were highly regarded.
Pouqueville's written accounts of his time abroad were the first detailed description by a westerner of the Turkish megalopolis, its diverse inhabitants, and way of life, customs, and habits. These were received in Europe with great astonishment and curiosity because "The Gate of Asia" had previously remained practically unexplored by westerners since the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
While in jail, Pouqueville studied modern Greek and translated Anacreon. He wrote several oriental pieces like: The Pariah, a short humorous poem, La Gueuseade in four chants and in sestets, and a few lighter poems dedicated to Rose Ruffin.
Throughout his captivity, Pouqueville kept a journal written in a secret code that he had devised. He managed to keep it hidden from his guards, leading them instead to find and confiscate unimportant writings on their occasional searches of his cell. It is from this journal that he was able to write the first two parts of his book[8] (nearly 600 pages) that he published in 1805.
His writings brought him fame and fortune. Part three of his book (about 300 pages) was devoted to the astonishing adventures that his friends and brothers in arms encountered before and after their release from the fortress of seven towers. Those friends included future baron and general Jean Poitevin, future general Charbonnel, and future consul-general Julien Bessières.
The emergence of Philhellenism[9]
As a hostage of the Turks in Ottoman Greece in 1798, Pouqueville was uneasy with the Greeks who were among his Ottoman guards. Not unlike Lord Byron, who at his death in 1824 also became a symbol of philhellenism,[10] Pouqueville felt at first unsure of the Greeks' sincerity.[11]
However, during his work as the pashalic's physician in Tripolitza, he had fewer Turkish escorts. His more frequent contacts with Greeks made him see their rich culture in a new light. Even as it was being suppressed by the seven generations-long occupation by their Ottoman rulers, Greek social identity appeared to be very much alive to Pouqueville.
As a fervent believer in the French revolution's humanism, he soon came to appreciate the budding Greek resurgence.
His condition as a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan prevented him from doing more than providing medical attention to the oppressed population, but his writings already showed both intellectual and emotional support.[12]
His humane survey of Greece as early as 1798 is an early manifestation of the philhellene movement. This impulse soon spread throughout Europe with the broad publication of his books, motivating the greatest minds of the time to follow his steps across the newly revealed land of Greece.
As part of the broader break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the ancient nation's rebirth followed over subsequent decades with its war of independence and its liberation.[13]
In 1801, twenty five months after being jailed in Constantinople, at the insistence of the French government and with the help from the Russian diplomats in Turkey, François Pouqueville was set free. He returned to Paris.[14]
Diplomat and archaeologist
Upon his return, he submitted his doctorate thesis De febre adeno-nevrosa seu de peste orientali a work on the oriental plague that caused him to be nominated for the awards for the prizes of the decade.
However, his interests for literature and archaeology were now for Pouqueville as strong as his passion for medicine.
The publication of his first book "Travel to Epirus, to Constantinople, to Albania and to several other parts of the Ottoman Empire", dedicated to the Emperor Napoleon I and published in 1805, was a huge literary success internationally and also resulted in his nomination as Napoleon's consul general to the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina.
His knowledge of the region and of the local languages made him the ideal diplomatic agent[16] for Napoleon and his foreign minister Talleyrand.
Pouqueville accepted the post that would also enable him to pursue his studies of Greece.
Increasing conflict with Ali Pasha of Ioannina
At first, he was welcomed by the famous pasha whom he accompanied on several of his excursions and who helped him discover his native Albania.
For a time, he was also accompanied by the British agent William Martin Leake in the course of several archeological surveys across Greece. Together, they reported many forgotten or previously unknown antique sites.[17]
His diplomatic status enabled Pouqueville to explore Greece in its entirety; he traveled as far as Macedonia and Thrace.[18]
He kept a detailed journal describing his observations and discoveries made in the course his numerous explorations of Greece and the Balkans during his 15 years of diplomatic service in Ioannina and in Patras.
In 1811, joined by his brother Hugues who had also been named consul in Greece, they researched and recorded the remains of no fewer than 65 antique cities in Epirus alone.[19]
In 1813, he discovered in Actium a stone slab with Acarnanian inscriptions which he deciphered. It pertained to the time when the Roman armies appeared in Greece (c. 197 BC) and was a decree of the Senate and of the people of Acarnania proclaiming the brothers Publius and Lucius Acilius as their friends and benefactors.[20]
In Ioannina, the court of Ali Pasha was increasingly the seat of political intrigues between the European powers[21] and the were encouraged by the pasha himself.[22] In this setting, Pouqueville was for years the target of disparaging and acrimonious critics[23] from English visitors to Ioannina. These included Lord Byron[24] with Hobhouse,[25] and Cockerell,[26] as they allowed themselves to be corrupted by the depraved lifestyle of the Court of Ioannina[27] when Pouqueville instead demonstrated rectitude and firmness against Ali Pasha's criminal abuses of power.[28]
Moreover, the literary and political fame he had acquired with the international success of his first book — dedicated to the Emperor Napoléon and positioning him, as early as 1805, as the spearhead of the emerging Greek revival movement — was evidently a cause for resentment on the part of the English.
However, after his visit to Ioannina, the distinguished Reverend T.S. Hugues wrote that he (unlike Byron and Hobhouse) "found him very polite, generous and humane, and thought him a scholar and man of the world, nor did that contest in which our respective countries were engaged, in the slightest degree repress his hospitality and attentions — an instance of good manners which would be surprising in the hate-ridden world of today."[29][30]
However, after Napoleon's 1807 treaty of Tilsitt, which foreshadowed of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, Ali Pasha renounced his alliance with France and yielded to British pressures.
Pouqueville's frequent Philhellene positions and his constant opposition to Ali's rule[31] made Pouqueville's situation progressively more dangerous.[32] After Pouqueville had ordered French troops to join the Greeks of Parga in their successful defense against Ali's murderous hordes, he often had to remain in his house lest Ali Pasha would have him assassinated.[33]
Thereafter, whenever he had an official communication for Ali, his brother Hugues[34] (himself French consul in nearby Arta ), had to bring it for him to the pasha whose atrocities he also witnessed throughout Epirus . In his memoirs, François Pouqueville concluded: "It was in this manner that the Turks, through their own excesses, prepared and fomented the Greek insurrection."
Finally, against Britain's continuous attempts to maintain and reinforce the Turks' brutal oppression of the Greeks, the brothers Pouqueville's consistent diplomatic skills succeeded in achieving the desired chasm between the Sultan and Ali Pacha, thus provoking the beginning of the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire that would enable the regeneration of free Greek nationalism.
Soon, Ali Pacha would be disposed of by the Turkish emissaries from Constantinople and his severed head brought back to the Sultan.[35]
With remarkable foresight due to his in-depth knowledge of the region,[36] François Pouqueville already predicted the recurrent troubles that would subsequently divide the Balkans: "I will tell how Ali Tebelen Zade – Ali Pasha – after having created for himself one of these horrible reputations that will resound in the future, fell from power leaving to Epirus, his homeland, the fateful inheritance of anarchy, unfathomable damages to the Ottoman dynasty, the hope of freedom for the Greeks, and perhaps extended causes of conflict for Europe.[37]" (Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce, tome I, chapter 1.)
Patras and the Greek War of Independence
After Napoleon's abdication in 1815, François Pouqueville left Ioannina and was sent as French consul to Patras until 1816, soon followed by his brother Hugues Pouqueville who replaced him as Consul.[38]
They pursued their increasing contacts with the growing Greek rebellion, which culminated in the Greek War of Independence, declared on 25 March 1821 in the Agios Georgios chapel in Patras.
Unlike the British consul Green[39] who refused to help the Greeks and collaborated[40] with the Turks,[41] the French consul Hugues Pouqueville[42] gave shelter to many refugees of any side in the French consulate while the Turkish repression was raging.[43]
His reports described these events as well as the destruction, which he qualified as devastating.(In his memoirs, Duke Pasquier, Chancellor of France, (1767–1862) wrote: "All the Greeks who were unable to escape from Patras were mercilessly slaughtered, regardless of sex or age. Only a few of the unfortunate victims could find refuge in the house of the consul of France, Mr Pouqueville. He saved them at the peril of his own life. This was the first example of the courageous self-sacrifice with which the French consuls fulfilled their duties."[44])
In the end, the foreign legations who had been supportive of the Greeks were forced to leave the country, and Pouqueville returned to France.[45]
While enjoying his retirement from international diplomacy,[46] François Pouqueville saw his support for the Greek war of independence provide some of the impetus for the French navy taking part in the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827. This naval victory sealed the fate of 360 years of Turkish occupation of Greece. In 1828, French troops expelled the Turkish garrison that had been holding the Patras citadel.[47] This occurred on the shores of Navarino, where, 30 years before, Pouqueville had been put in chains, to be imprisoned by the Turks, and where he took his first steps on Greek land.
As to the fate of the pirate Orouchs — who had seized Poqueville and sold him as a slave — he later boasted about his capture to Ali Pasha when Pouqueville was still in residence in Ioanina. At first, he was well rewarded with the command of one of Ali's ships; but later, and although Pouqueville had granted him his pardon, the pasha found an excuse to have the pirate impaled.
Return to Parisian life
Honors
Upon his return to France, François Pouqueville was awarded a seat at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.
He was elected member of the Institut d'Égypte, honorary member of the Paris' Academy of Medicine, associate member of the Royal Academy of Marseille, member of the Ionian Academy of Corcyre , member of the Society of Sciences of Bonn, and Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Writer of the regeneration of Greece
While writing about antique Greece in the numerous major works and articles he published from this moment, François Pouqueville mostly applied himself in denouncing the state of oppression crushing the Greeks under Turkish domination, and more specifically stood as witness of "the crimes and abominations perpetrated by Ali Pacha and his bands of assassins with the complicity of the Turkish Sultan and his allies."[48]
All along, he described the daily life, the usages and customs, and the traditions of the Greeks of the Peloponnese surviving under their appalling economic and political conditions.[49]
His observations became a powerful support for the cause of the Greek rebellion and its dramatic events, which he reported faithfully in substantial books that were quickly published and translated in several languages.[50]
They had a considerable influence throughout Europe as it was gained by the ideas of the French Revolution.[51]
His books also gave a precise and detailed description of the geography, archaeology, topography, and geology of the areas he traveled through, visited, or heard of[52] and his observations were highly regarded by later explorers and by the geographer Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage, author of a fine atlas attached to Barthelemy's Voyage du jeune Anarcharsis en Grèce dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l'ère vulgaire, and who was a founder of the Société de Géographie in 1821.
He is now generally considered as unreliable, because of his habit of mixing his own observations and mere hearsay, and his fictionalized treatment of history;[53][54][55] William John Woodhouse notes that he transforms "history into childish fable".[56]
For his services to their Country, the Greeks honored him with the award of the Order of the Savior.
"To M. Pouqueville" were the dedications by prominent French poet Casimir Delavigne of two of his Messeiennes, odes to the combats for freedom.
The epitaph engraved in the marble of François Pouqueville's grave proclaims, in French and in Greek: "With his writings he contributed powerfully to the return of their antique nationality to the oppressed Greeks"
Intellectual and artistic social life
He became a member of the Parisian gentry and was a regular at many salons,[57] such as Countess of Ségur's, who portrayed him in one of her best sellers Quel amour d'enfant! as the affectionate and humoristic character, Monsieur Tocambel.
He befriended many artists and intellectuals such as Chateaubriand, whom he inspired and guided, as early as 1805, to visit Greece and Egypt.[58] He also frequented physicists Arago and Ampère, and the novelist, Alexandre Dumas, who paid him homage in the book he wrote about Ali Pasha.[59]
by Francesco Hayez
The chapter he wrote about the massacre of the Souliots perpetrated by Ali Pacha in 1804 and published in his book History of Greece's regeneration (1824) inspired playwright Népomucène Lemercier to write "The martyrs of Souli or the modern Epirus" a tragedy in five acts (Paris, 1825), and romantic painter Ary Scheffer to paint "The Souliot women" (1827).[60]
His writings on the outrages inflicted upon the inhabitants of Parga when the city was abandoned by the British to Ali Pacha's cruelty in 1818[61] also inspired a major painting by Italian romantic painter Francesco Hayez (1791–1882).[62]
Final years and death
François Pouqueville's life companion was the popular painter-portraitist Henriette Lorimier. Master painter Ingres, who was one of their friends, also painted his portrait in 1834.
Pouqueville, aged 68, died peacefully at their residence at 3, rue de l'Abbaye in Paris on 20 December 1838. His grave at the Montparnasse cemetery is ornamented with an effigy made by one of his closest friends, the sculptor David d'Angers.
Works
- Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, en Albanie, et dans plusieurs autres parties de l'Empire Ottoman (Paris, 1805, 3 vol. in-8°), translated in English, German, Greek, Italian, Swedish, etc. available on line at Gallica
- Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly (London: Printed for Sir Richard Phillips and Co, 1820), an English denatured and truncated edition available on line
- Prisonnier ches les Turcs & Le Tigre de Janina Romans et Aventures Célèbres – Edition Illustrée – La Librairie Illustrée, Paris 8 c. 1820
- Voyage de la Grèce (Paris, 1820–1822, 5 vol. in-8° ; deuxième édit., 1826–1827, 6 vol. in-8°),[63] his capital work
- Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce (Paris, 1824, 4 vol. in-8°), translated in many languages. French original edition available on Google books
- Mémoire historique et diplomatique sur le commerce et les établissements français au Levant, depuis l'an 500 jusqu’à la fin du XVII siècle, (Paris, 1833, in-8°)
- La Grèce, dans l'Univers pittoresque (1835, in-8°) available on line at Gallica
- Trois Mémoires sur l'Illyrie
- Mémoire sur les colonies valaques établies dans les montagnes de la Grèce, depuis Fienne jusque dans la Morée
- Notice sur la fin tragique d'Ali-Tébélen (1822, in-8°)
Notes and references
- Speake, Jennifer, ed. (2014). Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia. London: Routledge. p. 511. ISBN 978-1579582470.
- From my solitude 1795 – notes and journals of François de Pouqueville (unpubl.)
- Professor A. Dubois liked Pouqueville as his own son. However, years later, on 13 December 1810, François Pouqueville wrote to Ruffin: "We are crossed, like friends can be, because I left the robe for the sword...Dubois looked at me as his own glory, and he was furious, when he saw me renegade. You can't imagine his anger truly comical: "It takes twelve things to be a doctor. You have eleven. – And which one do I lack? – You don't know how to make money. – Abrenuntio(I give up!), I told him." Unpublished correspondence of François Pouqueville. Édouard Champion, Publisher, Paris 1921.
- Having taken Malta, the French, in a typical magnanimous gesture, set free all the prisoners in the Maltese jails. Amongst those was Orouchs, a noted pirate who immediately went to the British Fleet to be rearmed, and resumed his criminal activities. It was him who, less than a year after being liberated in Malta, attacked the merchant vessel where Pouqueville was a passenger, took him prisoner and sold him to the Turks. Biographical notes François de Pouqueville (2009)
- 17 years later, Pouqueville found Achmet Pacha banished in Larissa, and brought him some financial help, but the former pacha died of starvation a short time afterwards.An unpublished correspondence of François Pouqueville Henri Dehérain. Édouard Champion, Publisher, Paris 1921
- "One can read in Pouqueville an exact description of Tripolitza, capital of the Peloponnese." Chateaubriand, From Paris to Jerusalem
- Page 94 The life of Ali Pacha of Jannina 2nd Edition, Lupton Relfe, London (1823) available online at Google Books
- "Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (MWS) was concerned to describe accurately the geography of the area; she wrote to Charles Ollier, the literary adviser for Henry Colburn, Mary's publisher: I am in great want of a book which describes minutely the Environs of Constantinople...you would oblige me if you would send it without delay(MWS letters I, 431). She would doubtless have received Colburn's publication of Pouqueville's Travels in the Morea, Albania and other parts of the Ottoman Empire...etc(1813, translated by Plumptre). Much of Mary's account of the geography and military history of the city could have been derived from Pouqueville's descriptions, maps and illustrations." afterwords by Joyce Carol Oates of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's The Last Man (Wordsworth Classics, 1826).
- "...Philhellenism was a movement inspired from a love of classical Greece but was distinct from the equally popular antiquarian interest in the cultural products of classical antiquity. Philehellenism encompassed mobilization around the cause of the fate of modern Greeks, seen as the descendants of their putative classical progenitors, and included in its ranks Lord Byron and François Pouqueville." Umut Özkinimli & Spyros Sofos Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey Columbia University Press (25 April 2008)
- "Byron had yet to die to make philhellenism generally acceptable" William Plomer "The Diamond of Jannina" (Taplinger Publishing New York 1970)
- "By-the-bye, I rather suspect we shall be at right angles in our opinion of the Greeks; I have not quite made up my mind about them, but you I know are decisively inimical." Lord Byron's Correspondence "Letter to Hobhouse"(1805)
- "For the references, I am indebted to Pouqueville (Voyage de la Grece)" Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion: a study in revivals by John Cuthbert Lawson (1898)
- At the time, Greece was little known and was considered a Turkish province. Pouqueville proved that it was not so, that the Hellenes had retained their originality and their hopes, he predicted their success, he brought them the interest of Europe and of France in particular for their future rebellion. Effectively, his book dates from 1805; therefore it greatly predates Chateaubriand's travel to Greece, and it has the quality of exactitude that compensates well the lack of style. H. Duclos, Publisher. "Romans et Aventures Célèbres" Paris, c.1820
- "When he left The Seven Towers, Pouqueville was well armed for the pursuit of his two careers as diplomat and as voyager-archaeologist in which he was to acquire a just notoriety". Henri Dehérain, Revue de l'Histoire des colonies françaises, Édouard Champion, Paris, 1921
- His is among the most colorful careers of Ingres' sitters. As his tombstone in Montparnasse tells us, he was an Honorary Member of the Academy of Medidine, a Consul general of France in Greece, a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles lettres, a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and l'Ordre du Sauveur. In addition he served with the Napoleonic forces in Egypt, then was, in turn, a prisoner of the Barbary pirates and the Turks. He lived as a prisoner in Greece. Profiting from his loneliness, he studied the geography of the country and its diseases, learning modern Greek while not neglecting ancient Greek art and literature. His medical publications were also noteworthy. He died in Paris, 20 December 1838, never having been married. He named as his sole heir, Henriette-Elizabeth-Marthe Lorimier, who erected the monument at the Montparnasse cemetery to his memory and to whom this drawing is dedicated. Her portrait by Ingres is in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow. It bears an inscription to Pouqueville. David Daniels, New York City, 1967.
- "As the British laboured to prevent Ali from forming an alliance with Napoleon, French interests were quietly being promoted in Janina by their agent, François Pouqueville." Miranda Vickers The Albanians: a modern history I.B. Taurus Editions, Revised 2001
- "Much of the intercourse in Greece has always gone on by small coasters. Pouqueville mentions traces of a paved road between Corinth and Argos" (7) W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Life and Epistles of Saint Paul
- "Nearly a century before Delphi was excavated, a French envoy to the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina visited the sleepy little village that stood on the site of the ancient oracular shrine. Pouqueville enthused over the wealth of inscriptions he saw: "marble slabs, pieces of walls, interiors of caves...covered with dedications and decrees that should be studied and carefully copied" (Voyages, 2nd ed., iv,113)Lamberton – Plutarch, 2001 Yale University Press
- "At length, M. Pouqueville, during a long residence in the dominions of the late Ali Pacha, actually discovered the remains of sixty-five cities, quite able to speak for themselves." Le Roy J. Halsey "The works of Philip Lindsey" Michigan Historical Reprint Series
- Page IV/347, "Manual of classical literature and art – Archaeology of Greek literature" from J.J. Eschenburg, by N.W. Fiske, Professor in Amherst College. (4th Ed. 1849)
- "The consuls of the principal european nations are established there, and imperial France's representative, François Pouqueville, is engaged in a power struggle for influence with his British counterpart." Michelin Guide, 2006
- "There he found Ali Pasha entertaining two Frenchmen, François Pouqueville and Julien Bessières...Ali Pasha assured Jack that he did not welcome their presence, and he appeared to be annoyed that Pouqueville was busy distributing French propaganda, and currying favours amongst the Greeks by providing medical treatment without charge." Henry McKenzie Johnston Ottoman and Persian Odysseys: James Morier(1823)
- "(2)Acherusia: According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina, but Pouqueville is always out.(3) The celebrated Ali Pacha: Of this extraordinary man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's Travels. Lord Byron "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto II"
- "In fact (as their critics pointed out) both Byron and Hobhouse were to some extent dependent upon information gleaned by the French resident François Pouqueville, who had in 1805 published an influential travelogue entitled Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, en Albanie...1798–1801" Drummond Bone The Cambridge Companion to Byron (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
- After having repeatedly criticised Pouqueville's work, Hobhouse finally wrote:Dr. Pouqueville's volume, being collected by himself during a long residence in the country, is deserving every attention. Hobhouse's Travels – London Morning Chronicle, 18 January 1822
- "On Cockerell the brothers Pouqueville made a much less pleasing impression. Perhaps he thought they did not take enough notice of him, or perhaps because he was a little too English..." William Plomer The Diamond of Jannina (Taplinger Publishing New York 1970)
- "The absence of women permits Byron himself to adopt a feminized role, as in his letters home describing his flirtatious relationship with the Pasha, and noting Ali's admiration of his 'small ears, curly hair, and his little white hands'" (BLJ, I, 208) Lord Byron's Correspondence – John Murray, Editor.
- In the same way, after murdering General Roze, who had treated him with uniform kindness, he submitted to the daily checks and menaces of Pouqueville, by whom he was replaced.|anonymous author, The Edinburgh Review, 1818
- "Travels in Greece and Albania" Rev. T.S. Hugues (London 1830)
- The reciprocal respect between François Pouqueville and the Reverend Hugues eventually developed into a true friendship and they soon travelled throughout Greece together. Many years later, when Pouqueville retired in France, T.S. Hugues came to visit him on occasions and stayed at Pouqueville's estate in Angiers. Biographical notes François de Pouqueville (2009)
- In the London Times of 21 October 1822, an English editorialist finally admitted:"Mons. Pouqueville, Mr. Holland, and Mr. Hughes, all describe Ali Pacha as a most perfect master of the art of dissimulation- as a cool, relentless villain, who, like 'our' Richard, "could smile, and murder while he smiled".
- "A few months later, Ali Pasha treacherously assassinated the Major Andrutzi, a Greek officer serving France, that he had kidnapped from one of our ships, and whose son and nephew owed their lives to the skilled firmness of M. Pouqueville, then general consul in Ioannina." Victor Duruy "Histoire de la Grèce ancienne. Tome 1" (1826)
- "Moreover, the famous Pasha of Ioannina, Ali of Tebelen, where Napoleon has a consul, Pouqueville, is increasingly hostile to France: he is just opposite Corfu and can forbid the island to resupply on the main land. As usual, Napoleon rages and threatens. For example, this letter dated 15 March 1811 to the Foreign Minister, then Mr Maret: " My intent is to declare war to Ali Pasha if Constantinople cannot keep him in check. You will write to my consul to Ali Pacha for him to inform him that at the first sign of him preventing the resupply of Corfu, and forbid the transit of cattle and foodstuff destined to this place, I shall declare war to him." Easy said or written. One day, Pouqueville will find himself in jail..." Yves Benot "Colonial madness under Napoléon"
- "Hugues Pouqueville, born in Le Merlerault on March 8th, 1779, was a precious support for his brother François in Janina. He was successively named vice-consul in Prevesa (1811), in Arta (1814), consul in Patras (1821) and in Cathagena (1829)." Henri Dehérain An unpublished correspondence of François Pouqueville Édouard Champion, Publisher, Paris (1921)
- "Ackmet-Nourri, with twenty of his men entered the kiosk of the terrible pasha of Yoannina to attack him. After having taken part of the murder of the Albanian satrap, he brought his head himself to Istanbul and presented it to the Sultan Mahmoud, who, as a reward for this act, gave him a coat of honor that he still wears to this day. Akmet-Nourri told us the tragic death of Ali Pasha. I won't report his story here: it is conform to that of M. Pouqueville." Baptistin Poujoulat Voyage dans l'Asie Mineure, en Mésopotamie, à Palmyre, en Syrie, en Palestine et en Egypte. Tome 2 (1836)
- To confirm my opinion, I will only refer to the last and most impartial observer of the modern Greeks: doctor Pouqueville.
Dr Pouqueville had the means to gather on Morea information far more exact than those given by the travellers who preceded him, and consequently his testimony must be admitted today as decisive.Thomas Thorton, The present state of Turkey, vol.II (1812) -
Pouqueville, who in 1805 became French consul at the court of Ali pasha of Ioannina and later in Patras, published memoirs abounding in valuable statistical data and geographic detail. He was one of the first to use the notion of Europe in an allegorical rather than purely geographic sense and to disassociate the Ottomans from the family of civilized European nations. He asserted that Constantinople had become "a city inhabited by a people who belong to Europe merely on account of the place they are inhabiting."
Imagining the Balkans Maria Todorova, author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. New York, 1997 - "With the departure of the French from the Ionian Islands and from Dalmatia as well there was little point in maintaining a consul at Jannina, so Pouqueville, after all his trying times, asked if he might be moved and was rewarded with a transfer to Patras" William Plomer The Diamond of Jannina Taplinger Publishing, New York 1970.
- "But Patras was no more; Yousouf, pasha of Serres, incited by the British consulate's drogman, Barthold, stormed this infortunate town, Germanos' undisciplined bands had fled and, except for 3000 people who owe their lives to the heroic self-sacrifice of the consul of France, M. Pouqueville, all the inhabitants of Patras perished by the swords and the fires. When told of the fate of Patras, the people of Beotia proclaimed their own insurrection." Raoul de Malherbe – L'Orient 1718–1845: Histoire, politique, religion, moeurs, etc. Tome 2
- On 11 June 1822, the Times published the text of the official protest by the Greek Provisional Government, as follows: I send you the Protest which our Provisional Government, The Messenian Senate, has made against the British Consul at Patras, Mr Philip Green. At the moment when Mr. H. Pouqueville, the French Consul, was employed in defending the Christian old men, women, and children of this city from the ferocity of the Mussulmen, the former was attending to his own private interest in trade and currants. The following is an exact translation of this document: PROTEST addressed by the Greeks of Peloponesus to Philip Green esq. Consul of the mighty British Empire at Patras. – "Sir, the just motives which compelled us to take arms against the Ottomans, in defence of our lives and propertiy, of which they attempted to deprive us, have been explained to you in a letter of ours, dated the 27 March. To this you replied through your own interpreter, Mr Barthelemy, that as long as the British Government would observe a neutrality in the contest, between us and the Turks, you would remain an indifferent spectator, without taking part with either the one or the other. Notwithstanding this declaration, we state, with great pain, that we have obtained uncontroversible proofs that your conduit has not been conformable to your profession of neutrality. From the commencement of the contest you have constantly observed all our motions and resolutions for the purpose of informing our enemies. When the packet-boat from Malta, commanded by Mr Hunter, arrived at Patras, you sent to Prevesa to urge the Captain-Bey to send immediate succour to the Turks at Patras; and the captain-Bey, in fact, dispatched a brig, a corvette and a galley. You wrote also to the Pachas assembled before Jannina who sent Yusuf Pacha and the Kihaya of Mahmoud Pacha, with a considerable land armament. And, moreover, you continued to send to the Turks shut up in the citadel of Patras, intelligence of every thing that passed by means of persons devoted to your interest. We have more than once summoned you to pay our countrymen the sums due to them in consequence of your late purchases. Although the credit has expired, you still persis in refusing the payment*. You have, besides, sent your brother and your interpreter, who conducted Yussuf Pacha hither and acquainted him with the places by which he could most easily enter the citadel: you prepared and communicated yourself to the Turks the distinctive sign of the cross by which the Greeks recognize each other, that the Turks might attack us more advantageously under this disguise. Finally, you advised the Turks to light in the City of Patras that terrible fire by which all the goods in private houses, and the warehouses of the Company of Merchants have been destroyed. Immediately after the conflagration, the city was pillaged by the Turks and more particularly by those attached to your person. Thus, you have violated the rights of nations, and followed a conduct contrary to that prescribed by the declaration of neutrality made by your Government and yourself. You have occasioned losses amounting to several millions; you have exposed several Christians to death and captivity. By these presents we protest against you, in order that, at a suitable time, you may be called upon to render an account of all the disasters occasioned by you in contempt of the laws. Calamata, 26 April (May 8),1822. (Signed by the notables of the Christian people of Peloponesus.) *Mr Green gave as a reason for this refusal that his goods had been destroyed in the burning of Patras.
- There were eight European consulates, and the two consuls who played important role were those of France and Britain. Pouqueville, the french consul was philhellene, while Green the British consul was philoturk. Philoturk was also the English governor of Ionian islands who forbade Ionian subjects to take part in the battles between Greeks and Turks. Spuridon Trikoupis – History of Greek Revolution.
- Younger brother of François Pouqueville, Hugues Pouqueville also pursued a brilliant diplomatic career for France. He was consul in Spain during the second French Republic (1848–1851) when its president, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, proclaimed the Second Empire, becoming Emperor Napoléon III. Among many distinctions, Hugues Pouqueville was awarded the Royal Order of Isabella-the-Catholic – the highest Spanish distinction. Biographical notes – François de Pouqueville (2009).
- Another report on the cruelty and vileny of Lord Maitland, High Commissioner in Corfu and, more generally, of the British in Greece at the time, this minute of a session of the Chamber of Commons in London on 10 June 1822 as reproduced by The Times: Sir R. Wilson begged to call the attention of the honourable Under Secretary for the Colonial Department to a transaction which he was informed had recently taken place in the Ionian Islands. He would state the facts as they were represented to him, in order that, if false, they might receive a contradiction, and that if they should appear to be true, the persons who had suffered from the conduct of the British Government in the Ionian Islands might, if possible, obtain some redress. It was represented to him, that a Greek, of the name of Berouka, aged 76, his wife, three married daughters, and their children, forming altogether a family of 15 or 16 persons, had, after the massacre of Patras, from which they had escaped through the intervention of the French Consul, M. de Pouqueville, taken refuge in the island of Ithaca. These persons lived there in quiet until March last, when an order came from the Lord High Commissioner, directing them to depart out of the Ionian Islands. The unfortunate Greeks represented that they had, during their residence in the island, always conducted themselves in a proper manner, and entreated that they might be permitted to stay. The order for their departure was, however, iterated. The family next requested that they might be allowed to delay their departure until the sea which at that time was crowded with corsairs, should be in some degree cleared of these pirates; but even this indulgence was not conceded to them. The result was that almost immediately after they had set sail, they were attacked by an Algerine corsair, and after a short resistance, during which the old man was desperately wounded in the face, captured, carried into Algiers, and sold for slaves. He had received his information from the most respectable sources, and believed it was strictly correct. Mr Wilmot responded that no information regarding the Berouka family had reached the Colonial Department, he further objected to the production of another statement, and said that an investigation should be made...
- Duke d'Audiffret-Pasquier – Mémoires de mon temps. Mémoires du chancellier Pasquier. Partie 2. Restoration.2. 1820–1824 (tome 5)
- Recently, gentlemen, the whole world has heard of the sacrifice of our consuls. Several of them, victims of their generosity, have only kept from their houses in flames the white banner around which Turcs and Christians found refuge. They should receive idemnities, and I can only offer them insufficient relief. Hence,... M. Pouqueville who lost everything in Patras, will receive three thousand francs. F-R de Chateaubriand, Opinions & Speeches, Vol.14, Paris (1852)
- In the "Brussels Papers" of the Morning Chronicles, London 28 September 1822: M. de Pouqueville, the Consul of France in the Morea, arrived on the 6th at Milan, from Florence. The noble conduct of this faithful and intrepid servant of his Most Christian Majesty has obtained him the most flattering reception from Ministers, Ambassadors, and Consuls of his majesty at Naples, Florence, and Milan. The Pope having met him at the Villa Albani, deigned to honour with his benediction the preserver of so many thousands of Christians; and it is not doubted, that if his voice could be heard at the Congress of Verona, it would induce Sovereigns to interest themselves in the cause of the Greeks. M. Pouqueville is said to be going to Marseilles.
- General Makriyannis, Memoirs (Excerpts). Translated by Rick Μ. Newton: The Charioteer 28/1986
- "Mr Pouqueville, in his substantial work filled with facts, has established the same truths." Chateaubriand Note on Grece – Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem
- On n'exagère pas en affirmant que Pouqueville parle de tout: il fait découvrir une nouvelle fois les moeurs et le caractère des habitants qu'il rencontre; il décrit leur physionomie, les arts, l'histoire, la religion, l'industrie, les langues (il y ajoute une digression sur la langue schype ou albanaise avec des tableaux de déclinaisons), pour parler enfin de la gastronomie, mais aussi de la numismatique, de la minéralogie, de la flore et de la faune (et plus précisément de l'ichtyologie, de l'ornitologie, de l'entomologie, des plantes médicinales), de la marine marchande...cette liste est loin d'être complète. Bien avant Fauriel il traduit et interprète des chansons populaires. L'ouvrage contient des statistiques sur la population et le commerce, des listes sur l'importation et l'exportation, voire même des tableaux du clergé et de ses revenus. Der Philhellenismus in der westeuropäischen Literatur 1780–1830 by Alfred Noe
- Announcement published in The Morning Chronicles London 9 December 1820: "Pouqueville's 14 years residence and travels in Greece will constitute the next number of the Journal of Voyages and Travels. Every man of letters knows the great importance of his work, and the value of the author's researches. The French booksellers gave a larger sum for the copyright, and it has excited a greater interest in France than any book on Greece since the appearance of the work of Abbé Barthélémy."
- The country was the first Ottoman province to wrestle its independence from its Muslims masters, and a "modern" nation-state was established almost forty years before the Italian Risorgimento for which it was an inspiration. De Pouqueville's story of the Greek revolution of the events 1740–1824 was translated into Italian in 1829 and not surprisingly published in Piedmont where it exercised considerable influence on Italian nationalists. Paul Sant Cassia, Constantina Barda. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology – Cambridge University Press (2006).
- according to Pouqueville in the introduction of his Le Voyage de la Grèce, the French Academician Carl-Bénédict Hase (1780–1864), himself member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, declared that the book "was the most remarkable volume written in the genre that had been published since the Renaissance of Literature"
- K. E. Fleming, The Muslim Bonaparte: diplomacy and orientalism in Ali Pasha's Greece p. 21
- D. Brewer, The Greek War of Independence p. 3
- Rousset, Les Doriens de la Métropole : Étude de topographie et de géographie historique note 18 (« Peut-être (...) emporté par une imagination mainte fois soulignée, Pouqueville s'est trompé (...) » )
- Aetolia; its geography, topography, and antiquities, 1897, p. 31 n.1 (en ligne)
- "In every salons in Paris, they now sing my lyrics, The Parguinot from my Voyage, that has been recorded and is now a song". François Pouqueville, Letter to Mr Ruffin. 14 April 1820
The lyrics of his song, entitled "Dernier chant des Parguinotes" was published in 1824 by member of the Académie française Népomucène Lemercier with the title "Hymne Funèbre sur Parga" and orchestrated by F. Regnault. In the notice of publication, Lemercier wrote: "The original text of this beautiful lament on the ruining of the Parguinots comes from the third volume, page 420, of the 'Travels in Greece' of M. Pouqueville. I translated it in the same number of verses, convinced that the measure of tempo must be in tune with the measure of the rhythm of the thoughts." Népomucène Lermercier. Urbain Canel, Libraire, Paris, 1824. - "M. Pouqueville showed me the way to a host of researches necessary to my work: I followed him without fear of being wrong, him who was my first guide through Sparta's fields. Together we have visited Greece's antiquities when they were lit only by their past glory. Together we have pleaded our hosts' cause, with certain success." Chateaubriand, Etudes historiques
- "But it is made certain by the learned researches of M. de Pouqueville that he (Ali Pasha) sprang from a native stock, and not an Asiatic one, as he pretended." Alexandre Dumas Ali Pasha
- Hugh Honor Romanticism (Icon Editions)
- The Chant of the Parguinots or "Hymne Funèbre sur Parga" as put in verses by Népomucène Lemercier says in its curse: O feu vengeur de la justice, Tonnerre du ciel irrité, Consume un Pacha détesté, Dévore l'Anglais, son complice, Et que tout opresseur pâlisse De tes coups sur l'iniquité! A note by Népomucène Lemercier, adds: "The English diplomat Lord Maitland had towards the Greeks, betrayed and abandoned to the Turks who had been unsuccessful in taking Parga, a far opposed conduit than that of the generous Lord Byron whose soul and lyra have rehabilitated the English Nation's honor on the Ionian shores."
- "Ottocento: Romantism and Revolution in 19th Century Italian painting" by Roberto J.M. Olsen- Philip Wilson Publishers (2003)
- Voyage de la Grèce, fourth volume
Sources
- Monmerqué, Biographie universelle Michaud
- Jules Auguste Lair, La Captivité de François Pouqueville en Morée, Recueil des publications diverses de l'Institut de France, Paris, 1902
- Jules Auguste Lair, La Captivité de François Pouqueville à Constantinople, 1800–1801 : (9 prairial, an VII −16 ventôse, an IX), H. Delesques, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, Caen, 1904 ;
- Tobias George Smollett, The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature ~ online:
- J. Rombault, François Pouqueville, membre de l'Institut, Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique de l'Orne, 1887
- Auguste Boppe, L'Albanie et Napoléon, 1914
- Henri Dehérain, Revue de l'histoire des colonies françaises, une correspondence inédite de François Pouqueville, Edouard Champion Publisher, Paris 1921
- New York Graphic Society, INGRES Centennial Exhibition 1867–1967, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1967
External links
Media related to François Pouqueville at Wikimedia Commons- Works by or about François Pouqueville at Internet Archive