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Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias

Portrait of Xavier   Brau de Saint-Pol Lias

Comte Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias (4 July 1840, Seix (Ariège), France — 6 May 1914, Paris) was a French explorer, naturalist and travel writer who visited Java and Sumatra in 1876, then Tonkin, Cochinchina, Cambodia and Malaysia in 1884. He used to take photographs of the places he visited.

Born into an ancient aristocratic family from Southwestern France (Albigeois region), the Saint-Pol branch, he worked as a lawyer with the French National Bank from 1868 until 1873, before devoting himself to naturalist and commercial explorations in Southeast Asia. A staunch advocate of colonization, he founded the Société des études coloniales in 1873 and the Société des colons-explorateurs in 1875.

Brau de Saint Pol Lias took part in an exploratory commercial and geographical mission to Cochinchina and Cambodia in Oct 1884-February 1885, which he related in his October 1885 conference for the Société de géographie commerciale de Paris. He traveled with ​“valiant collaborators M. le vicomte de Chabannes, ancien lieutenant de vaisseau, M. de Llamby, ingénieur des mines, M. le vicomte d’Osmoy et M. Edouard de la Croix.” Explorer and travel writer Marcel Monnier also joined in.

He imported to France rare fauna and flora specimen, for instance Callula [Kaloula] pulchra, the banded bullfrog, and treated, dyed and dried sap of Toxicodendron vernicifluum or related trees used in Asian lacquerware. An exhibition at Musee du Trocadero in September-December 1885 showcased numerous artefacts brought back from Java, Sumatra and mainland Southeast Asia, including a Buddha statue claimed to have originated from Borobodur Temple. 

F Xavier BRAU de St Pol Lias
Brau de Saint-Pol Lias in the 1870s (source: gal​li​ca​.bnf​.fr)

Publications

  1. La Légion du génie et les camps retranchés: Le présent, l’avenir, le futur, Poitiers, 1870.
  2. Pérak et les Orangs Sakéys, Voyage dans l’intérieur de la presqu’île Malaise, Plon, Paris, 1883.
  3. De France à Sumatra par Java, Singapoor et Pinang: les anthropophages, Oudin, Paris, 1884.
  4. Chez les Atchés : Lohong, Plon, Paris, 1884.
  5. “Au Tonkin, en Cochinchine et au Cambodge”, Bulletin de la Société de géographie commerciale de Paris, Oct. 1885, vol 8.
  6. “Au Cambodge, feuillets détachés du journal d’un voyageur”, La Nouvelle revue, 1885; repub. as Phnom Penh, journal de voyage, Magellan, 2005 (Kindle Edition 2016), 69 p.
  7. La côte du poivre : voyage à Sumatra, Oudin, Paris, 1891.