Ludovic Beauvoir (de)

Comte, later Marquis Ludovic Hébert de Beauvoir (29 March 1846, Brussels — 10 December 1929, Paris) was a French traveler and explorator who launched in a two-year travel round the world in 1865 – 1867, when he was only 19.

Along with his childhood friend Prince Pierre, Duke of Penthièvre (1845−1919) — a grandson of the French king Louis Philippe I who lived in exile from after the 1848 Revolution — and a friend of Pierre’s, Albert-Auguste Fauvel, he visited Australia, the East Indies (mod. Indonesia), Singapore, Siam (mod. Thailand), China, Japan and ended his periple in California, following the path of the Chinese ‘coolies’ forced to leave Macao to work in the American West.

His travelogue, published in French and English in 1867, 1870 and 1872, was an instant success distinguished by the Prix de l’Académie Française, followed by an augmented, richly illustrated edition in 1878. Meanwhile, Beauvoir received the Légion d’honneur for his contribution in the French-Prussian War in 1870 – 1871, and joined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a budding diplomat, he had inquired during his stay in Bangkok on the Siamese delegation that was about to be sent to France in 1867.

1) On the Bangkok River, the arrival of the French explorers’ boat amongst the ‘Siamese naiads.’ 2) ‘His Majesty King Mongkut entering His Palace.’ [2 illustrations from Comte de Beauvoir, *Voyage autour du monde,* new illustrated edition, Paris, Plon, 1878.]

If De Beauvoir’s accounts reflected the Darwinist bias against ‘primitive’ people and the colonial mindset of his time, his work has been described as “critical Orientalism” in the sense given by Jennifer Yee — an Orientalism self-aware of its own limitation. Even the usual male prejudice against women was often challenged in his description, and he was able to express empathy with non-European individuals or groups. To quote a recent study on Comte de Beauvoir’s life and writings,

he saw Java primarily through a racist, Eurocentric lens, but also broke away from the homogenizing, derogatory Orientalist texts. He wrote of the more complex relations between the Dutch colonizers and the colonized peoples, and of the structural and social hierarchies in Java, which was inhabited by different ethnic groups and social classes, [and could] describe Dutch colonials as “leeches” and “parasites” on the Javanese (“gentle but proud people”). In his counternarrative, de Beauvoir provides an impressive, crosscultural description and understanding of the Other despite the constraints of his cultural and social milieu. […] Travel studies must recognize that views questioning orientalism and exoticism were emerging even when these ideologies were still dominant. [Wening Udasmoro, “Representing the Other: Marquis Ludovic de Beauvoir’s Account of Nineteenth-Century Java,” Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia 53: 2, 2017: 57 – 83.

Publications

Voyage autour du monde : Australie, Java, Siam, Canton, Pékin, Yeddo, San Francisco, Paris, Plon, 2 vols, 1867. | 3d vol. [Pékin, Yeddo, San Francisco], Paris, Plon, 1872.
A Voyage Round the World in Two Volumes, By the Marquis de Beauvoir, London, John Murray, 2 vols [V1: Australia, dedicated by the author to “Mrs Susan E. Macleay, for her hospitable kindness at Sydney.” 319 p. | V2: Java, Siam, Canton, 396 p.], 1870. [ENG translation]
Voyage autour du monde : Australie, Java, Siam, Canton, Pékin, Yeddo, San Francisco, Nouvelle édition illustrée de 360 gravures, Paris, Plon, 1878.

Abridged modern editions

Voyage autour du monde : Java, Siam et Canton, Paris/Pondicherry, Kailash Éditions, 1998. ISBN 2−909052−12−5.
Hong Kong et Macao : récit de voyage, Paris, Magellan et Cie, 2004.
Australie, Paris, Paris, Magellan et Cie, 2017, 296 p. ISBN 9782350744025.