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Father Jean-Baptiste Labat And French Travel Literature

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Father Jean-Baptiste Labat And French Travel Literature

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Content This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 69 -17,887 RODGERS, Jr., Joseph James, 1939- FATHER JEAN -BAPTISTE LABAT AND FRENCH TRAVEL LITERATURE. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1969 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan (?) Copyright by JOSEPH JAMES RODGERS, JR. 1969 FATHER JEAN-BAPTISTE LABAT AND FRENCH TRAVEL LITERATURE by Joseph James Rodgers, Jr. A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (French) June 1969 UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOO L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by .....J.QSHPH... JAMES..B.QD.GERS.>. . . J R - ..... under the direction of hLs.... Dissertation Com-, mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Gradu ate School, in partial fulfillment of require ments for the degree of D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Date. Ju n e 1969 DISSERTATION COMMITTEE v Chairman „ , 8. ' PORTRAIT OF FATHER JEAN-BAPTISTE LABAT (Frontispiece, Vol. II of Voyages aux lies de l'Amerique [Paris: Duchartre, 1931]) ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1 Chapter I. LABAT'S RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER "ANTILLEAN" CHRONICLERS ............................... 5 Early Chroniclers Father Labat Labat's Successors Special Interest of Labat and Dutertre II. LABAT THE MAN: HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER .... 80 Childhood and Youth (1663-1684) Antillean Period (1694-1705) Spain and Italy (1705-1706) Reign of Silence (1706-1709) Italy Revisited (1709-1716) Vicarious Travel (1716-1738) Labat's Attitudes toward Religion Labat and Colonialism III . LABAT AS A MAN OF LETTERS..................161 Personal Memoirs Secondhand Accounts Critical Review CONCLUSION..........................................2 39 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................... ............... 246 iii INTRODUCTION Among the numerous travel-writers of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, Father Labat has long been accorded an honorable place. He is remembered chiefly for his Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Americme. which is a kind of omnibus account of his twelve-year sojourn in the West Indies at the close of the seventeenth century. The Nouveau voyacre is unquestionably Labat's major work, for it is the most consistently firsthand and immediate of all of them. Quantitatively, however, the Nouveau voyage comprises only a small part of Labat's published writings. These include one other work that is largely, but not entirely, firsthand: Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. The rest are, for the most part, "second-remove" works— usually translations, para phrases, or rearrangements of travel diaries and descrip tions of foreign lands written by other explorers and adventurers. These second-remove works turn out to be any thing but dull, routine compilations. In fact, not a single 1 one of them is untouched by the ingenuity and shrewd wit that are very much Labat's own. The present study, then, has as its aim the surveying of all Labat's works in an attempt to place his masterpiece, the Nouveau voyage, in proper perspective. But in the very process of doing that, other profits almost automatically accrue to the researcher. First, it becomes quite evident that not only the Nouveau voyage, but the Voyages en Espagne as well, have real literary value. But second and more important, it also becomes progressively more obvious that both those works, and the second-remove works as well, are the expression of an intensely live and robust personality, quite worthy of a place alongside the other colorful figures that people the earlier colonial history of France. Father Labat was a missionary for the Dominican Order. He was a sincere Catholic and remained submissive— though sometimes grudgingly— to his superiors until the very end. But he was anything but a recluse. He was a soldier-priest— one is tempted to say almost a buccaneer-priest. One cannot help feel that this world interested him much more than the hereafter. He took keen delight in the spectacle of mankind and nature, especially in the remoter, lesser-known parts of the earth. Universal curiosity is, of course, nothing unusual in a churchman; but what is far less common is Labat's interest in the -immediate, concrete situation and his eye for the new, uncatalogued phenomenon. Thus, while Labat the writer is interesting, Labat the man, the complex human being, is even more interesting; and it is hoped that the present study will contribute materi ally to a fuller understanding of his career and personal ity. At the very heart of his being there was a mal des voyages, an almost tormented restlessness, that is unti- mately explicable only in spiritual and psychological terms. We do not pretend to have "solved the Labat problem," but we do hope the present study will bring the reader closer to an understanding of the man's inner being. Of all the materials studied, by far the most important were the writings of Labat himself. Since those writings are so intimately involved with other travel-writing of the period, Chapter I of this study gives a,_survey of other important travel accounts of the period, especially those dealing with the West Indies. This survey enables one to see wherein Labat resembles, and differs from, the other writers, and wherein lies the originality of the information he provides. That survey is followed by a biographical account of Labat which considers, first, the chronological events of his very active career, and second, the psychological and moral make-up of the man who lived those events. The biographical considerations then allow us to make a more comprehensive judgment of Labat as a man of letters. His two main works and the numerous second-remove works are c considered individually, with special attention to the fac tual and literary interest of the content of all of them. And then an analysis of Labat's prose style is attempted, drawing on the whole body of his writings. The conclusion of this study must, perforce, once more bring together the writer and the man, because, fortunately for us, the two are never really separable. CHAPTER I LABAT'S RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER "ANTILLEAN" CHRONICLERS Labat takes his place among a host of other travel- writers of the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Accounts of the West Indies were, in fact, particularly numerous; and they must be examined if we are to view Labat's work in proper perspective. We shall concentrate on those travel-writers of the period 1640-1789 who were especially concerned with the Antilles. But before doing that, it may be well to give a brief historical and geographical sketch of the Caribbean islands. Extending from the eastern extremity of Puerto Rico to the mouth of the Orinoco River lies a bow-shaped string of small islands fringing the Caribbean Sea and separating it from the Atlantic Ocean. In the early days of discovery this crescent-like archipelago was called the Caribbee Islands, from the name of the aboriginal inhabitants, but 5 today is known as the Lesser Antilles. It is subdivided into two groups: the Leeward and the Windward Islands. The former embraces the islands north of and including Martinique, located about midway between the Orinoco and Puerto Rico, and the latter includes those lying south of Martinique. The Spaniards referred to the entire group as the Windward Islands and applied the term "Leeward" to the Greater Antilles. Great Britain has adopted the former classification and has divided the curve of the archi pelago into two distinct political units known as the Leeward and the Windward Islands. However, in the seven teenth century the French were the dominant power in the Lesser Antilles. Thus, between the years 1627 and 1652, France suc ceeded in establishing in the name of her King a number of islands spanning the great archipelago, notably Saint Christopher, popularly known as Saint Kitts, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Grenada, Saint Lucia and Dominica. On the other hand, the English, who by a strange coincidence settled on ^The term "Antilles" appears to be a deformation of "Ant-lsles," or the Fore-Isles of America. In the seven teenth century they formed a homogeneous whole and were styled as "Les Ant-lsles Habitees par les Francis. " the same island and at virtually the same time as the French for their debut, took possession of the smaller and less valuable islands, such as Nevis, Montserrat, and 2 Antigua. Thus, while the sixteenth century might be considered as one of discovery and conquest in the Western world, the seventeenth was a century of colonization which soon made it become evident that Spain and Portugal could no 3 longer have exclusive rights to the Antilles. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that Saint-Domingue 2 The first English settlement in the Antilles was made by Sir Thomas Warner and his associates at Saint Christopher in 1624. On October 31, 1626, Pierre Belain d'Enambuc and his co-commander, Urbain du Roissey, procured from Richelieu the privilege of establishing colonies in Saint Christopher and Barbuda. The expedition, three hundred strong, arrived in Saint Christopher early in 1627. The treaty of partition was drawn up on May 3, 162 7, whereby the English took the center and the French the two ends. As boundary lines, cactus hedges were planted. 3 The Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, divided the newly discovered Western Hemisphere between Spain and Portugal in his four Bulls of 1493, clarified by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, whereby, running a line across the face of the earth from north to south a hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, he declared that all heathen lands discovered and to be discovered west of that line should belong to Spain and all east of it to Portugal. By the Treaty of Tordesillas the line of division between the possessions of Spain and Portugal was removed to 370 leagues west of Cape Verde and it was this change of the meridian that gave Portugal its grounds for claiming Brazil. in the Greater Antilles was to become Prance's prize possession. Through the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) Spain ceded the western part of Hispaniola to France but retained the eastern sector, now known as the Dominican Republic. After the year 1627, date of the first French settle ment in the Antilles at Saint Christopher, descents upon the unoccupied islands came fast and relentlessly. Following France's lead in defying Spain and attempting regular colonization, swarms of English, Dutch, and Danish colonists poured like flies upon the rotting carcass of Spain's empire in the Caribbean and within ten years the face of the West Indies was permanently changed. Thi history of the West Indies is an unrelieved series of crimes and calamities. Although visited by pestilence and ravaged by hurricanes and earthquakes, the islands have witnessed no sufferings arising from natural causes as traumatic as those generated by moral and politi cal circumstances. When the horrors of the conquest were over and the native possessors of the soil, the Caribs, extirpated, and when the buccaneers were then suppressed, the colonies became pawns in a war during which they were to change hands among the rival European powers for nearly a century. France was not long in capitalizing on the new ardor for colonization that was aflame in Europe in the early seventeenth century. Under Richelieu and Colbert, she soon realized the advantages of establishing colonies in the Antilles which would supply her with products such as furs, tobacco, and sugar and which would furnish a market for French manufacture. It is evident that from the outset the principal aim of French colonization in the Antilles was commerce. However, in order to render this purely secular interest more palatable to Louis XIII, who was hesitant at first, Richelieu added a religious motive to his coloniza tion schemes. Disguising crass commercialism under the mantle of religion, he succeeded in convincing Louis XIII that colonization of the Antilles would be the proper vehicle for converting the savage Caribs to Catholicism. It was thus that the Catholic Church was used, not only to justify the inauguration of French colonialism in the West Indies, but once it had taken root, to be the leading supportive pillar of that system. Therefore, as early as 1627, acting on orders from Louis XIII, two Capuchin monks accompanied Du Roissey and D'Enambuc on 10 their expedition to Saint Kitts. Of the two monks, only Father Hyacinthe is known to us. The other died soon because of the insalubrious climate. According to a modern authority on French religious history, the two men of God went as explorers to study the possibility of establishing a mission there. Father Hyacinthe returned to France in 1635 either to give a report of his mission, to request auxiliaries, or to secure from Rome the authorization 4 required for founding a mission. As in the Middle Ages, the clerics represented the only educated elements, and it was they who transmitted the chronicles of their day. And so it was in the rudimentary societies of the Antillean colonies.. Only the missionaries possessed a culture broad enough to enable them to serve as annalists of the heroic age in which they lived. Moreover, nearly all the monks that colonized the Antilles spiritually were Capuchins, Dominicans, Carmelites, or Jesuits. Only two of these Antillean chroniclers con stituted exceptions: Biet, a secular priest, and Rochefort, a Protestant minister. Their role has been described 4 Joseph Rennard, Histoire reliqieuse des Antilles francaises des origines a 1914 (Paris, 1954), p. 12. 11 as follows by Lucien Peytraud: Les religieux n'etaient pas seulement des ministres de Dieu mais, au besoin, selon les exigences du moment, devenaient medecins, architectes, ingenieurs et en outre, comme Dutertre et Labat, ont employe leur loisir a retracer l'histoire des evenements auxquels ils ont participe.5 The Dominican Order, to which Father Labat belonged, was the second one to enter upon the Antillean scene but the first to do so with the Pope's blessing. The arrival of the Dominicans dates back to the year 1635, when L'Olive and Duplessis received from Pope Urban VIII authorization to colonize Guadeloupe, the largest island of the Lesser Antilles. According to Nellis M. Crouse, four Dominicans were sent by Richelieu on this expedition: Fathers Pierre Pelican, Superior of the mission, Nicolas Brechet, Pierre g Griffon and Father Raymond Breton. These men were to be the founders of the first mission to the Caribs outside of Saint Christopher and the forerunners of many others who attempted to convert the Indians to the Faith. Their appointment was ratified by Pope Urban VIII himself who 5 L'esclavacre aux Antilles frangaises avant 1789 (Paris, 1897), p. 13. g French Pioneers in the West Indies (New York, 1940), p. 45 . 12 sent a brief for the express purpose of blessing their mission. With these facts in mind/ let us now take a look at some of Father Labat's predecessors who traveled to the Antilles and who wrote about their experiences there. Early Chroniclers Bouton Naturally, only a few of the many missionaries and explorers who went to the West Indies left accounts of their sojourn in the islands, and the first to reach the Antilles were not the first to record their experiences for posterity. According to Rennard (p. 39), the Jesuit missions in the Antilles were founded by Fathers Bouton and Hempteau and by a lay brother who arrived in Martinique in 1640. Although the third religious order to settle in the Antilles, the Jesuits gave the world the first true West Indian chronicle in French. The author of this chronicle was Father Jacques Bouton who wrote the Relation de 11establissement des Fran9ais depuis l'an 1635 en l'isle de la Martinique, l'une des antilles de l'Amerique, published in 1640. Bouton was a Jesuit father sent to Martinique by Fouquet who favored the Society of Jesus, which, however, was resented by 13 Du Parquet, Governor of Martinique, who was prejudiced in favor of the Capuchins. But thanks to the excellent work performed by Father Bouton, Du Parquet became the Jesuits' enthusiastic supporter. Bouton recounts his personal tribulations in the 141-page work, although it is essen tially an historical work dealing with the first five years A of colonization in Martinique T1635-1640). Dedicated to the directors of the Company of the Isles of America, the work was written to present the colony in a favorable light at a time when the Company was in ill repute because of disorders in the islands. In dedicating his book to the directors of the Company, he "pretend faire quelque chose pour leur service et n'ecrire que pour leur contentement et leur satisfaction" (Dedicace). His travel account bears the semblance of a semi-offical document because of his protectors. The important role played by the Fouquets, father and son, in the first com panies of Richelieu's time is well known, as they were zealous protectors of the monks and missionaries. It is possible that one of them was the instigator of Bouton's 7 Relation. In any case, Bouton had to write according to 7 . . It must have been Nicolas Fouquet, the famous Minister of Finance, since his father, Francois, died on April 22, 1640. 14 the views of the Company of the Isles, which had replaced the original Company of Saint Christopher in 1635 and which by 1640 was already in ill repute. Father Bouton was asked to write an apology for the Company and its officers, and it is this tendency towards apology that puts one on guard against his assertions. Bouton, like most of the authors of his day, had only a superficial knowledge of the subject he was treating. His work appeared in October 1640, and he relates (p. 1) that he left Nantes on November 25 and that he did not reach Martinique until Good Friday. Admitting, as Jacques de Dampierre suggests, that he spent at least six weeks or two months on the return trip, the average duration, one must conclude that he wrote his chronicle after only a three- Q months' stay in the tropics. However, in the course of three months he was able to see much more than others in a comparatively longer period of time. Father Jean-Baptiste Dutertre spoke of the success of Bouton's ministry, described him as a man of merit and an excellent preacher, but said nothing of the cause or the date of his return from the Antilles. 0 Essai sur les sources de l'histoire des Antilles francaises (Paris, 1904), p. 80. 15 His work, divided into eleven chapters, reveals the situation of Martinique, favorable in some respects, unfavorable in others, and the manner in which French colonization began. Bouton describes the manners and customs of the aborigines and the condition of the slaves. He touches little upon the religious question: the author merely wonders if the work of evangelization is possible. From an historical point of view, Bouton's work is important because of the information it contains regrading the Caribs before their customs had been altered by frequent communication with the Europeans and before their constitu tion had been weakened by the harmful use of strong drinks. It is the first in date of the Antillean chronicles properly speaking, and according to Dampierre, "C'est la seule source narrative qui soit consacree exclusivement a la Martinique" (p. 82). Breton The first in date of all the travel accounts emanating from the Dominicans in Guadeloupe was the work written by Father Raymond Breton, one of the four original Dominicans who left Dieppe on May 25, 1635, to found the Dominican 16 9 mission m Guadeloupe. In manuscript form this work was to serve as the basis of many early travel accounts, espe cially those of Fathers Mathias du Puis, Dutertre, and even Rochefort Until fairly recently this account in manuscript form was believed to be lost. However, thanks to the diligent research of Joseph Rennard, a brilliant scholar in the field of Antillean history, the work was published in 1929 under the title Les Cara'ibes. La Guadeloupe (1635-1656). Histoire des vincrt. premieres annees de colonisation de la Guadeloupe, d'apres les relations du R. P. Breton (Paris, 1929). This work represents the labors of a man who spent some twenty years in the Antilles and who reported what he observed as an eyewitness. It is to be regretted that it was not better known to the general public during his time. It remained unpublished until 1929 and only privileged per sons were allowed to consult it in manuscript form. The account is mentioned at this point in the study because it was known to a few contemporary authors who relied reli giously upon it as an important historical source. Thus, 9 / / Revue historique des Antilles [Societe Historrque des Antilles], Nos. I-VII, p. 71. 17 indirectly the work was to achieve a certain acclaim even in its own day. Few if any authors possessed the expertise and breadth of knowledge that Father Breton had. That rugged Burgundian lived through the very difficult beginnings of the colonies and was from 1637 to 1640 the only one of the original Dominicans left in Guadeloupe. Father Carre, Superior of the Dominicans, had issued orders for his missionaries to return to France after the Company had failed to provide for their subsistence. However, Father Breton, disregarding the orders, remained in Guadeloupe and was still there in 1640 when a second contingent of Dominican missionaries composed of six new monks arrived.^ In 1641 he obtained permission to go evangelize the Caribs in Dominica.^ In 1665 the courageous missionary, chased out of Guadeloupe by Governor Houel in 1654, was back in France working on his linguistic 12 treatises dealing with the Carib language. ^°Andre Chevillard, Les desseins de son Eminence de Richelieu pour l'Amerique: ce qui s'y est passe de plus remarquable depuis 11etablissement des colonies (Rennes, 1659), p. 44. ■^Father Jean-Baptiste Dutertre, Histoire generale des Antilles habitees par les Franyais, I (Paris, 1667), 199. 12 . . . Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, cited m Dampierre, p. 85 . 18 The work of Father Breton, rich in picturesque details, lively, and precise, is of powerful interest to those interested in this veritable "chanson de geste" which is the account of those heroic times. For many years to come, other writers were to "embroider" their works on the history of the Antilles according to the pattern furnished by him. One must also be grateful to Joseph Rennard for making Breton's work available to the general public. Du Puis It is to another Dominican, Father Mathias du Puis, that the first historical work on Guadeloupe, published and known to the public in the seventeenth century, is attribut ed. The 248-page account is entitled Relation de l'etab- lissement d'une colonie franyaise dans la Guadeloupe, isle de l'Americrue, et des moeurs des sauvages, published in Caen in 1652. Father Du Puis joined the Dominicans in'Guadeloupe on November 24, 1644 and stayed there until 1649, according to Father Breton (p. 175). Du Puis gives a slightly differ ent version and asserts that he lived in Guadeloupe six or seven years as an apostolic missionary (Epistre). He also states in the Epistre that he borrowed from the memoirs of Father Raymond who was still alive at that time and who 19 verified his account of the events that took place in Guadeloupe prior to 1644. He affirms that, from 1644 on, he was an eyewitness to what he recounted. Father Raymond Breton's assertion that he made his manuscript available to Du Puis in order for him to compose his Relation seems to 13 corroborate the claims made by Father Du Puis. For this reason, the work by Du Puis is highly signifi cant, for it reproduced almost verbatim the chronicle of Father Breton, which was as yet inaccessible and generally unknown. The account by Du Puis is entirely historical and lacking in the digressions on zoology, geography, and botany, which were characteristic of contemporary travel accounts. The work was atypical in another respect: it was not a manual of information for future colonists or a modern-day travel guide. Part One gives a history of Guadeloupe, and Part Two is a dissertation on Indian customs. As he was directly and personally involved in the myriad conflicts between the various powers in the Antilles, Du Puis is extremely partial in Part One. His work is the 13 Preface, Dictionnaire caraibe-franyois (Auxerre, 1665), cited in Dampierre, p. 84. 20 best contemporary account of the' stormy administration of Hou&l, Governor of Guadeloupe, who was hostile to the Dominicans. Rennard (p. 37) reports that HouSl, having taken over as Governor of Guadeloupe as of September 1643, had designs on the land donated to Father Breton by L'Olive for the Dominicans. According to Rennard, this was the origin of the difficulties between Houel and the Dominicans. While generously distributing lands to other religious orders, he seized those that L1Olive had ceded to Father Breton and redistributed them among the colonists. The Dominicans who protested too openly were quickly obliged to return to France and replaced with missionaries of Houelfe choice. Thus, Capuchins, Carmelites, Jesuits and Augustin- ians took turns in being called to Guadeloupe as mission aries . Father Du Puis devoted 115 pages out of the 248 that constitute the entire book to this delicate subject of Houel. The reader is told how that violent man went so far as to insult the Dominicans and that he even assaulted Father Dutertre by striking him with his cane (p. 96). Even in those turbulent days there were mitigating circumstances, and the Dominicans found a governor in Martinique, Du Parquet, who was more kindly disposed to them and who 21 treated them well. The trend seems to have reversed itself, however, by the end of the century. Writing in 1704, Father Labat states that he did not feel comfortable in Martinique, where Machault was Governor, and the he pre ferred Guadeloupe, whose Governor was Monsieur de la Malmaison."^ Father Du Puis must be commended for devoting nearly half of his work to such a controversial subject at a time when those who protested too vociferously were quickly sup pressed and supplanted. He even tells more about Houel's administration than Dutertre does. Yet, for the very reason that he has been commended, one must be constantly on guard against the possible exaggerations of a man who had suffered too much under the governors of Guadeloupe to be impartial. Maurile de Saint-Michel After the Jesuits, the Capuchins, and the Dominicans, s . N the Carmelites made their contribution to Antillean litera ture through the work of Father Maurile de Saint-Michel. His work, published in 1652, bears the title Voyage des “ ^ Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerique (Paris, 1722), VI, 350. Isles Camercanes en l'Ameriaue qui font partie des Indes Occidentales. The "Isles Camercanes" referred to in the title was merely another name for the Antilles. Father Maurile was an intelligent man, well-educated, but who must not have had the qualities necessary to be a missionary; for he stayed hardly one year, 1646-1647, in the Antilles. He visited Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Christo pher, and Eustatius. Like many others, he shows a certain naivete and lack of method. In attempting to relate as much as possible, he mixes everything— geographical, botanical, zoological, and climatic information— with religious history. All of this he presents with a tiring prolixity. Although far from being a source of the first order, the work does contain personal observations of the author on the colonies as he found them, but with little of the historical events that shaped them. It is much more of a travel account than a chronicle, properly speaking. The author was more of a curious traveler, a little naive and rather garrulous, than a true chronicler. He relates (pp. 2, 326) that his Superior, Father Ambroise de Sainte Anne, and he were going to preach Lenten" services. By chance they traveled on the Loire in the com pany of a Sieur de Nuaily, who was planning to go to Grenada to establish a colony there. Fathers Ambroise and Maurile agreed to accompany him and left on July 18, 1646. On August 31, 1646, they were in Martinique where the colony disbanded and the two monks were left stranded. They were welcomed in Saint Christopher by Governor de Poincy, who had just chased out the Capuchins. From Saint Christopher the two Carmelites went to Guadeloupe on August 2, 1651, where despite Father Breton and the Dominicans, they established themselves. He adds that HouSl gave them a Church, recently constructed on the port, and promised to build a little presbytery for them nearby with a garden, lemon trees, orange groves, and banana trees. The truth of the matter, however, is that Houel did not get along well with the Carmelites very long either. Father Maurile was exaggerating, for Houel soon called the Jesuits to Guadeloupe. Houel was very generous when it was not a question of the Dominicans. He gave the Jesuits a large terrain extending from the Riviere Saint Louis to the Riviere aux Herbes. He also provided them with a plantation 15 house, furnishings, and slaves. 15 5 5 Archives coloniales, F A , cited in Rennard, Hxstoire reliqieuse, p. 38. 24 Dutertre The first truly great historian of the Antilles, and the one who was to eclipse all those preceding and most of those following him, was Father Jacques, called Jean- Baptiste, Dutertre. He was one of the six Dominican mis sionaries sent by Father Carre to Guadeloupe as a second contingent. They arrived there on March 4, 1640, and found their colleague Father Breton in a wretched condition. Dutertre made several trips to the Antilles. He was in Guadeloupe from 1640-1642, in Martinique in 1647 and in 1656-1657. He wrote his first work while in France from 1647-1655. The first edition of his monumental work is entitled Histoire generate des lies de Saint-Christophe. de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique et autres dans l'Amerique. This first edition, published in Paris in 1654, was hastily prepared by Dutertre in order to publish it before the plagiarized version of it appeared. According to Father Dutertre, a Protestant minister from Rotterdam, Cesar de Rochefort, stole the manuscript of his Histoire qenerale and was preparing it for publication 25 16 under his own name. The work by Rochefort appeared some four years after the publication of Dutertre's account under the title Histoire naturelle et morale des Antilles de 1'Amerique. Dampierre (p. 107) is of the opinion that the manu script was stolen by someone high in the administration of the Company of the Isles or by one of its agents in Guadeloupe who either sold or gave it to Rochefort after deleting certain passages that were unfavorable to the Company. Dutertre's work is based on the author's personal observations, on information gathered from the inhabitants, from preceding accounts, especially that of Father Breton. In this first edition Dutertre reproduced in the "Avis au Lecteur" the text of the Pater. the Ave, of the Credo and of the Commandments of God in the Carib language which Father Breton furnished him. Dutertre even solicited infor mation from the directors of the Company of the Isles of America and consulted and reproduced legislative acts in his work. His documentation is, therefore, extensive and 16 ✓ ✓ ' Preface, Histoire generate des Antilles habitees par les Francais, Vol. I (1657). 26 serious. Although he participated in the events which more than once troubled the French Antilles, and although he did not always praise the governors, he showed signs of no harshness in his writings. Like Father Du Puis, his col league, he also felt the sting of Houel's rancor, but when he praised or blamed, it was always with moderation and with great concern for facts and objective truth. Dutertre was to amplify and revise this work later when he was in a calmer and more relaxed frame of mind. It will be discussed as it appeared in final form later in this study. Pelleprat The Jesuit father, Pierre Pelleprat, was responsible for the first ample treatment of the religious situation in the Antilles. His work is entitled Relation des missions des P. P. de la Compagnie de Jesus dans les Isles et dans la terre ferme de 1'Amerique Meridionale and appeared in 1655. As the title of his_book indicates, Father Pelleprat belongs both to French Antillean history as well as to the history of Spanish missionary efforts in South America. However, this study is concerned primarily with his mission ary work in the Antilles. He was in the West Indies from 1651 to June 20, 1653, and from January 22, 1654 to 27 February 16, 1654, at which time he left for France to recover his health, which was severely weakened by overwork and the climate. Dampierre (pp. 129, 134) thinks that it was during his short stay in France that Pelleprat wrote his account. He was to take to the sea again soon after wards, but that time to lead an important mission among the aborigines of the American mainland (1656-1667). During his travels in the West Indies Pelleprat visited Saint Christopher, Marie-Galante, Saint Vincent, Martinique, and Grenada. What interested him most was the religious situation he had to face in the islands. He discloses much on this subject which even Father Dutertre does not mention. He was far from being a simple traveler of mediocre mind, stopping at the least detail that was new to him. He was a man of superior mind and of keen intelligence. In the gallery of missionaries he occupies a place all to himself. He is not the lively raconteur, friend of the directors of the Company, like Bouton. He is a universal man, intellec tually curious about natural science, politics, and history like Father Dutertre. Yet his mind is not open to the out side world, for he is an orthodox theologian. He partakes of the ascetic and contemplative monk but also of the apostle. What interests him most, both in the islands and 28 on the mainland, is his ministry. He devotes hardly five or six pages to the history and description of the Antilles in general, but when he does, he writes with a precision and sobriety that are rare among chroniclers of his day and which remind one of Tacitus. Unfortunately the apostolic emphasis of the work restricts the secular and historical interest it could have. Nevertheless, it corresponds aptly to its title, for Pelleprat discusses at length the mission ary activities of priests in various islands, the conversion of many Huguenot colonists, the difficulties which Irish Catholics experienced with their Protestant masters, and the work done among Negro and Indian slaves. Thus, he showed the interrelationships between the history of the Company of Jesus and the man who colonized, traded, or lived in the Antilles, especially in their various ethnic groups: French, Irish, English, Indians, and Negro. Rochefort As pointed out earlier, it was in 1654 that Dutertre published his hastily assembled Histoire naturelle et morale des Antilles in order to intercept a history of the Antilles which Cesar Rochefort, a Protestant pastor, was preparing for publication. The work by Rochefort appeared in 1658 29 under the title Histoire naturelle et morale des Antilles de 1'Amerique. Although Rochefort had gone to the West Indies and had lived there from 1636 to 1640, he admits modestly in the introduction to his work that he put nothing of himself in the book and that he merely summarized the accounts of the most celebrated travel-writers. The fact is that Rochefort made abundant use of his predecessors, especially Dutertre and Pelleprat. Moreover, he utilized information furnished him by the Governor of Saint Christopher, Louis de Poincy. He also inserted, on pages 515-527 of the 1658 edition of his work, Father Raymond Breton's dictionary of the Carib language. In the first part of the work the author describes the islands, the fauna, the flora and the climate. In the second part he speaks of the establishment of the foreign ers, then the French in the islands, and records historical events to about the middle of the century. He does so with great concern for erudition and especially for style, so that his work is more of a literary work than a true chronicle. In the preface of the 1667 edition of his Histoire generale des Antilles habitees par les Franyais. Dutertre criticized Rochefort's work, harshly declaring 30 that almost everything was so faithfully drawn from his work that the mistakes that he made were not even omitted. Regardless of Dutertre's accusations and even if Rochefort can be accused of plagiarism and of lack of originality, he cannot be accused of having chosen bad models or uncertain sources. Although not an eyewitness to the events about which he wrote, like Dutertre, Rochefort was a serious historian whose work was a valuable contribu tion to the historiography of the Antilles. The first part of the work is almost entirely descriptive, but the work presents the most" complete corpus of information on the Antilles compiled up to that time (1658). According to Gilbert Chinard, Rochefort, a Protestant, was seeking to do for his co-religionists what Dutertre was doing for the Catholics; that is, inciting them to go to the Antilles and establish colonies in which they could practice their religious faith in freedom. Chinard cites as proof of this the fact that the fourth edition (1681) is augmented with a 43-page appendix devoted to a review of the 17 work performed in the Antilles by English Protestants. 17 ✓ ✓ L1Amerique et le reve exotique dans la litterature francaise du XVIie et du XVIIie siecles (Nouvelle ed.; Paris, 1934), pp. .54-55. 31 Chevillard Fifteen years after Richelieu's death a Dominican, Father Andre Chevillard, wrote a chronicle concerning the West Indies which bore the following title: Les desseins de Son Eminence de Richelieu pour l'Amerique: ce qui s'y est passe de plus remarquable depuis 11etablissement des colonies. Et un ample traite du naturel, religion, et moeurs des Indiens insulaires et de la terre ferme (1658 or 1659). Little is known about the author except that he was born in Redon in Brittany and that he died in the Antilles 18 May 25 or 26, 1682. Chevillard probably composed his work in 1658 or 1659 in the presbytery of his Order in Rennes following his return from the islands. He drew from earlier works, especially from Dutertre and Pelleprat. The First Part of his work, relative to the designs of Richelieu and the establishment of the colonies, in negli gible except for the chapters devoted to the history of the missions, concerning which Chevillard is led to speak of political facts beginning with the year 1635. Those 18 Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, II, 695, cited in Dampierre, p. 136. 32 chapters dealing with the savages contain nothing new except some rather bizarre and peculiar details on the manner in which the Caribs and Negro slaves were instructed in the Catholic faith. Chevillard states (pp. 137-146) that the methods employed for catechizing the two groups differed vastly and that Negroes, who were not only perpetual ser vants but slaves, were more intelligent and understood the Catholic instructions more easily than the Caribs. In pre senting the concepts of one God, the Devil, Paradise and other rudiments of the Catholic faith to Negroes, he relates that the missionaries made use of telegraphic style, familiar, childlike speech, fragmentary sentences, and copious examples drawn from everyday experience. However, in the case of the Caribs, the method used was much more elaborate and detailed, for' they were much more recalcitrant and attached to their way of life. All contemporary mis sionaries seem to concur with him on that point. Like Pelleprat from whom he borrowed, Chevillard is concerned in Part Two about the apostolate of the religious missionaries among the many Protestants established in the islands. He states (p. 149) that he found in the registers of the presbyteries of the French islands the names of three thousand sixty-nine heretics who had been brought back into 33 the Catholic Church from 1624-1657. Part Two is of some importance, for it tells of missionary efforts to bring the Protestants back into the Catholic Church; but Part Three, in which the author describes the savages, does not contain any new information. Biet This study would be incomplete if it bore no mention of Antoine Biet, a secular priest who wrote the Voyage de la France Equinoxale en l1Isle de Cayenne entrepris par les Franyais en 11annee MDCLII, published in 1664. Biet's work is not so important for Antillean history but, as the title suggests, it is of great importance for the history of French colonization in Cayenne. On the first page of the preface to the book Biet asserts that Cayenne was in that part of America known as Cap-de-Nord, in South America. However, a modern writer maintains that Cayenne was always considered a part of the Antilles (Peytraud, p. 10). In any case, most of the work is devoted to Guiana and it is only incidentally that Biet mentions the Antilles, properly speaking He drew up a vocabulary list for Guiana for the evangelization of the Indians of that region. The diction ary of the Carib language takes up pages 399-432 but it is 34 very inferior to Father Raymond Breton's linguistic works on the Carib language. In Part Two (pp. 268-324) there is an account of a short journey made by the author to the Caribbee Islands in 1653. The account of his visits to the islands of Barbuda, Martinique, and Guadeloupe yields some useful information concerning these places. He relates that he was coldly received by Du Parquet, Governor of Martinique, when he arrived there on May 1, 1653. It is interesting to note that Biet was the only contemporary writer who was hostile to Du Parquet. He imagined that the Jesuit fathers who constituted the entourage of Du Parquet were responsible for the chilling reception accorded him. He was not even allowed to disembark, he says, and remained on board ship "in captivity" until May 13 or 14, 165 3. At that time the captain of a Flemish ship came with orders from Du Parquet to take him to Guadeloupe where Houel was Governor and where he was cordially welcomed. Biet speaks very highly of HouSl, his benefactor. He is one of the few contemporary authors r-who did speak well of the man; for as has been pointed out, Father Dutertre and Father Mathias du Puis were far from deifying him. Biet even returned to France with Houel when the latter had to go there on business on 35 July 10, 1653, but not before venting his wrath on all the monks of all the orders exercising in the islands. Dutertre (Histoire qenerale des Antilles, II [1667], 428-438) replied to his accusations. This lively polemic is instructive for the history of ecclesiastical manners in the Antilles. Sparing no adulation, Biet tells of Houel's sympathy for the indentured servants, a class which certainly deserved commiseration. They were often people of bad habits who, unaccustomed to labor, quickly fell ill when called upon to exert themselves. It was for them that HouSl built the hospital at Riviere aux Herbes, relates Biet (pp. 295-324) . One might be led to believe"that Houel had undergone something of a change in the five years that had elapsed between Father Dutertre's visit with him and that of Biet. The truth of the matter, however, is that Houel did receive Biet kindly and that he was unfriendly towards Dutertre. Thus, each described the Governor as he had seen him. Biet was not only hostile to monks in the islands but to all European colonists there (pp. 290ff). If one is to believe him, the French led a very dissolute life in the islands, the missionaries were of questionable quality— many of them had been banned from France. However, the 36 culminating abomination was to be found in the island of Barbuda among the English Protestants. As expected of heretics, they lived in adultery, incest, and other unspeakable crimes of a similar nature. They were pre occupied only with their horses and their carriages. When they had differences among themselves they settled them in base fashion by resorting to fist-fighting rather than opting for the more elegant settlement by duel. They gave each other black eyes, scratched, and employed all manner of degrading tactics. Generally speaking, Biet was equally hostile to the aborigines. He is forced to admit that the plunder and abduction of Indian women by the Europeans led the aborig ines to revolt against the Catholic faith and subjugation and that they were, therefore, not entirely to blame. How ever, their revolt and their easygoing way of life were crimes he could not pardon them and which justified all the ill treatment they received. For him, they possessed no kind of religious faith but adored the devil who delighted in deceiving them. Gilbert Chinard (L'Amerique et le reve exotique, p. 39) points out that Biet was made to remain in his presbytery of Sainte-Genevieve de Senlis and that he should never have attempted to lead the adventurous life for which he so bitterly repented. He maintains that Biet sounded the only dissonant note in the seventeenth century with respect to the savages. From 1664 on, there was to be only praise] all the savages were to be "noble savages" and to become the potent weapon of polemicists throughout the eighteenth century. Dutertre As this study reveals, France has a rich Antillean bibliography, but none of the writers mentioned thus far even approaches Father Labat in value except Father Dutertre. He was the first of these private, priestly chroniclers of the West Indies on whose writings knowledge of the early days of the islands is based. His predecessors — Rochefort, Bouton, Du Puis— are completely eclipsed by him. The monumental work written by Dutertre appeared in final form as follows: Histoire crenerale des Antilles habitees par les Francais, 4 tomes in 3 volumes (1667-1671). Volumes I and II appeared in 1667, followed by two supple mentary tomes in 1671. It was a more detailed version of 38 the sketch of the work which, as has been pointed out, he had hastened to publish in 1654. Dutertre's definitive history is composed of two parts of unequal value. Although he never claimed to produce any thing more than the work of an annalist, his book is also a resume of his memoirs and of his personal judgments and moral reflections on colonial society and slavery. It also contained geographical, botanical, and zoological digres sions characteristic of travel accounts of his age. Most of the preceding information is found in Tome II and is very detailed and generally exact. It presents more interest than the other three volumes, which are almost entirely historical. Historians still consult Dutertre's work today as the most complete history of the first forty years of French colonization in the West Antilles. According to the 1667 edition of the Histoire generale des Antilles (II, 44), Dutertre's first voyage to the West Indies was in 1640 when he visited Guadeloupe shortly before the new Governor, Aubert, for whom the monks had nothing but praise, took over the administration of that island. He left shortly afterwards for France in search of reinforce ments for the mission. However, he was not in France very long, for he was back in Guadeloupe by May 2 3, 1643 (Vol. I, Preface). Soon after Dutertre's second stay in Guadeloupe a new Governor* Houel, came to power. That intractable man was, through his intrigues, to sow discord among all the inhabitants. Father Dutertre was intimately involved in these disturbances, especially when Monsieur de Thoisy, named Lieutenant General of all the islands to replace De Poincy, unleashed a veritable civil war in all the colonies. Father Dutertre nearly paid with his life for his devotion to the cause of law and order in November 19 1646. Unable to bridle the good sense and recalcitrance of this monk, long familiar with the sight of a sword, Houel's henchmen cast him into a quagmire in order to ridicule his habit. When he continued to reproach them for their conduct, they sent two slaves with horns who blew so loudly into his ears that it was impossible for him to speak further (I, 348). To say that Dutertre did not nourish great esteem for HouSl is understatement, yet he is comparatively reticent concerning the stormy administration of his persecutor. There is little doubt that Dutertre feared reprisals from 19 Concerning Houel's ill treatment of Dutertre, see Du Puis, pp. 91, 96. 40 that powerful and vindictive man. Furthermore, the very theft of his manuscript bears cogent testimony to the well- founded nature of his fears. Little wonder that he did not prolong his stay in Guadeloupe after the departure of De Thoisy, crushed by Houel, and that he followed the former to Martinique in 1647 (I, 373). As by some strange freak of fate, he was not to find peace there either, for on January 17, 1647, authorities of that island came to arrest him and deliver him to De Poincy in exchange for their own 20 governor, Monsieur Du Parquet. Father Dutertre, the veritable Herodotus of French Antillean history, has been called by Geoffroy Atkinson the 21 "Bernardin de Saint-Pierre du dix-septieme siecle." Not only did he make meticulous observations about the flora and fauna of the islands but in the opinion of Gilbert Chinard (p. 39) he was the one writer who contributed most to fixing the traits of "l'homme de la nature," as he was to be described later in the eighteenth century by Jean-Jacques 20 Dutertre left on the same boat as le Sieur de Thoisy on January 1, 1647, according to Bibliotheque Nationale MS. fr. 24974, cited in Dampierre, p. 110. 21 ^ Les relations de voyages du XVIIe siecle et l1evolution des idees, contribution a 1*etude de la formation de 1'esprit du XVIIie siecle (Paris, 1924), p. 39. 41 Rousseau. He must also be given credit for giving the broad outlines of the idyllic landscape in which the Noble Savage was to move and have his being. He anticipated by a nundred years the concept of the Noble Savage, first popularized by le Baron de Lahontan and subsequently capitalized on by Rousseau. That Dutertre was one of the many sources drawn upon by Rousseau is fairly evident. Dutertre's description of the Caribs reads like the ideal preface to Rousseau's Discours sur l'inegalite; Les Sauvages de ces Isles sont les plus contens, les plus heureux, les moins vicieux, les plus sociables, les moins contrefaits, et les moins tourmentez de maladies, de toutes les nations du monde. Car ils sont dans une grande simplicite et naiifvete [sic] naturelle . . . Nul n'est plus riche, ny plus pauvre que son compagnon, et tous unanimement bornent leurs desirs a ce qui leur est utile, et precisement necessaire, et meprisent tout ce qu'ils ont de superflu, comme chose indigne d'estre • possedee. Ils n'ont d1autre vestement, que celuy duquel la nature les a couverts. On ne remarque aucune police parmi eux: ils vivent tous a leur liberte, boivent et mangent quand ils ont faim et soif, ils travaillent et se reposent quand il leur plaist; ils n'ont aucun soucy, ie ne dis pas du lendemain, mais du desjeuner au disner, ne peschant ou ne chassant que ce qui leur est pr6cis6ment necessaire pour le repas present, sans se mettre en peine de celuy qui suit, aymant mieux se passer de peu, que d'acheter le plaisir d'une bonne chere avec beaucoup de travail. (II, 357) On the following pages (II, 358-359) Dutertre ser monizes the Europeans on the theme of being good in the manner of the children of nature— a theme already found in 42 Montaigne and which was to become famous in the eighteenth century. Written by an old soldier, the following passage seems surprisingly romantic: Ils ont le raisonnement bon, et 1'esprit autant subtil que le peuvent avoir des personnes, qui n'ont aucune teinture des lettres, et qui n'ont jamais este subtilisez et polis par les sciences humaines, qui bien souvent en nous subtilizant 1'esprit, nous le remplissent de malice; et ie puis dire avec verite, que si nos Sauvages sont plus ignorans que nous, qu'ils sont beaucoup moins vicieux, voire mesme qu'ils ne S9avent presque de malice que ce que nos Franqois leur en apprennent ... Ils sont d'un naturel benin, doux, affable, et compatissent bien souvent, mesme jusqu'aux larmes, aux maux de nos Franqois, n'estant cruel qu'a leurs ennemis jurez. Commenting on Dutertre's description a la Pollyanna, W. Adolphe Roberts makes the following point: The Caribs assuredly were not benign and gentle, though their proud courtesy might have been so interpreted by a sentimentalist. The best that can be said is that they hated the French less than any other of their white conquerers.22 Father Dutertre speaks of the French in the islands again and compares them to the noble savages (II, 414). Concerning the French he asserts "leur Ambition, leur Avarice, leur Luxe, les dissolutions, les trahisons, les envies, et mille autres pechez ne sont pas mesme connus 22 The French in the West Indies (Indianapolis and New York, 1942), p. 92. 43 parmy les Sauvages." Perhaps nowhere else does one find, even in Las Casas, the great apostle of the Indians, a more violent accusation against the procedures of colonization employed by the Europeans in the islands. These poor people disappeared so thoroughly that a half a century later Father Labat had to organize a veritable expedition to find authen tic Caribs and regarded them as rare phenomena. Unlike Biet who painted the Caribs as monsters, Dutertre is obviously highly sympathetic toward the Caribs. Endowed with more pity than most men of his time, Dutertre was moved to tears by the plight of the wretched colonists, the poor indentured servants, but especially by the fright fully miserable condition of the Negro slaves and the aban donment in which they were left in their sicknesses, death, and funerals: Dans tous les autres estats, la misere finit avec la vie du miserable, mais elle persevere encore dans nos esclaves apres leur mortI ... Si la charite de nos missionnaires ne les assistoit de leurs prieres ... il ne faudroit pas s1attendre que personne les secourut ... et si jamais l'interet regne dans les Isles il est certain qu'ils n'auront plus de soulagement. (II, 5 38- 539) Not yet a humanitarian philosopher but a zealous priest, Dutertre, confronted with a fait accompli. 44 declined to discuss the principle of it: Je ne pretends pas traiter icy en jurisconsulte de la servitude, je me contenteray seulement d'en parler en historien et de faire connaistre au lecture la condition de ces pauvres miserables dont nos [Francois] se servent dans les Isles. (II, 483) As a historian, no one was better qualified to write a history of the Caribbees than Dutertre. He lived in the islands long enough to know personally the principal actors in the drama. From these men he obtained a tremendous amount of information that could never be unearthed by the most conscientious historian today. Additionally, he had access to all the important documents in France, many of which he quotes in extenso. Consequently, parts of his work read more like a collection of state papers than a histori cal narrative. While in Paris he also made several trips to seaports such as Havre, Dieppe, and Honfleur to interview sea captains and adventurers who made the voyage to the Antilles, men who could clarify certain ambiguous points. All this Dutertre wove together in an interesting, homo geneous story, extremely readable besides being authori tative. His work is the backbone of all accounts dealing with the early days of French colonization in the Antilles. Chateaubriand tried in vain to draw Dutertre out of the literary oblivion into which he had fallen by the early 45 nineteenth century by devoting Book Four, Chapter vii of his Genie du christianisme to him. However, today only his torians still consult his work, which still remains the best history of the early days in the Antilles, as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century when Chateaubriand wrote: "On ne connoit encore aujourd'hui rien de plus satisfaisant et de plus complet sur les Antilles que l'histoire du pere Dutertre, missionnaire de la congregation 2 3 de Saint-Louis." The second volume of Dutertre's work is the most important descriptive work devoted to the French Antilles in the course of the seventeenth century. Travel accounts published since then, with the exception of that of Labat, are, generally speaking, nothing more than literary para phrases devoid of new information. Labat is the exception, from a descriptive as well as from an anecdotal point of view. Esquemelinq Some of Father Labat's most astute observations deal with the lives and adventures of that wild brotherhood, the 23 s "Genie du christianisme," Oeuvres completes de Chateaubriand (Nouvelle ed.j Paris, [n.d.]), II, 459. 46 buccaneers, who styled themselves the "Brothers of the Coast." The word "buccaneer" seems to have been derived from the French word "boucan," itself probably of Carib origin, which described a process used by the Indians for drying meat by smoking it on a wooden frame. The place of origin of the buccaneers or "flibustiers," a corruption of the English word "freebooters," itself a corruption of the Dutch "vrijbuiter," was western Hispaniola, where a large number of wild Frenchmen settled around 1630, some time after the Spaniards had succeeded in exterminating the Caribs and after the Spaniards had deserted the island. Many were probably runaway sailors, shipwrecked or marooned mariners, and escaped criminals who banded together in that deserted island and earned their livelihood by hunting wild cattle and drying the meat by the process called "boucan." In the latter half of the seventeenth century when Spanish authorities decided to rid the island of them by slaughtering the wild cattle, their means of livelihood gone, the buccaneers turned to the sea. From that time to the early eighteenth century the filibusters, as they then came to be designated, lay in wait for Spanish vessels, seized them, and often put their crews to death. Throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century, their heyday 47 when they then numbered many thousands and were led by brave commanders, these half-hunters, half-pirates preyed upon Spanish galleons and Spanish settlements in the New World. Degenerate descendants of the buccaneers, the fili busters captured the island of Tortuga, off the north coast of Hispaniola, and used it as a fortified settlement to which they returned after their raids. These ruffians were not given to recording their deeds or misdeeds on paper; nevertheless, aside from Father Labat's work, what is known of them is largely drawn from the few books written by members of that strange fraternity. The head of these pirate authors was Alexander Olivier Exquemelin, anglicized as Esquemeling and gallicized as Oexmelin. A Flemish barber-surgeon who sailed with the pirates for many years, Esquemeling gave their story in a book originally published in Amsterdam in 1678 entitled De Americaenische Zee-Rovers. A Spanish translation of the work by A. de Buena-Maison appeared under the title Piratas de la America in 1687 and translations into other European languages followed, notably in English in 1684 and in French in 1686, each magnifying 48 the deeds of its own national hero, often at the expense of 24 Esquemeling's text. Few works have been more popular in their day. Although the narrative begins with the year 1666, it is the oldest of those bloodthirsty chronicles which describe the extraordinary manners of the indomitable corsairs who founded the French colony of Saint-Domingue in all their romanesque and wild savagery. The narrative takes the reader through the most glorious period of the "grande flibuste," which seems to have been the second half of the seventeenth century. Certainly, few works were more often translated and reproduced in the eighteenth century. Never before had the glory of the filibusters and their exploits been celebrated in one complete work. Esquemeling revealed the pirates as he allegedly knew them and described their peculiar customs in extremely read able fashion. They did not lie about in hammocks all day, judging from his work. Most of them had little reason to 24 References to Esquemeling throughout this study are to The Buccaneers of America; A True Account of the most remarquable Assaults committed of Late Years upon the Coast of the West Indies by the Buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga, trans. William Stallybrass (rev. ed.; London and New York, 1924). 49 love humanity. Many were Europeans who had been sold into slavery as indentured servants on the Antillean plantations where they had learned the lessons of cruelty through their own personal sufferings. Thus, Esquemeling went to the islands as an indentured servant, not to a peaceful planter, but rather in the service of one of those filibusters among whom he was to live nearly ten years. He was beaten, tor tured, and nearly starved to death in Tortuga. The poor Indians of the islands had a custom of sticking their prisoners all over with thorns wrapped in oily cotton which they set afire. Esquemeling saw and inflicted much of this kind of torture, which was not unusual, at least among the "Brothers of the Coast." Dampier Another professional pirate and member of that sea- roving republic— and the greatest of them all— was the English buccaneer, William Dampier. He wrote the New Voyage Round the World, although only a part of it concerns his adventures with the buccaneers. The New Voyage first appeared in 1697, followed by a second edition in the same year. There was a third edition in 1698, a fourth in 1699, a fifth in 1703, and the sixth in 1717. In 1709 appeared 50 the first edition of the Continuation of the New Voyage. Thus, it was not until the year 1709 that all of Dampier's volumes had appeared. Although much mention is made in bibliographies of the "three-volume Dampier," it must be remembered that each volume bore a different date and each date represented a different edition of that volume. On its publication Dampier's New Voyage met with immediate success. This naturalist-buccaneer, who circum navigated the globe three times and only just missed anticipating Cook in the discovery of Australia, was a greater success as a travel-writer than as a buccaneer. One writer describes him as "a clever man, but a poor 25 buccaneer." His works were best-sellers in the early eighteenth century, as evidenced by their editions and re-editions. They are characterized by exceptional clarity and simplicity of style, natural eloquence, and precise observations concerning exotic scenes, people, and places. Witness, for example, the description by Dampier of the island of Aves, found on page 49 of the 1697 25 Andrew Lang, "Adventures of Buccaneers," from Essays in Little: reprinted in Stallybrass, trans., The Buccaneers of America, p. xiv. 51 edition of his New Voyage Round the World; The Isle of Aves . . . so-called from its plenty of Birds, as Men of War and Boobies: but especially Boobies. The Booby is a Water-Fowl, somewhat less than a Hen, of a slight greyish colour: The Man of War is about the bigness of a Kite, and in shape, like it, but black; and the neck is red. It lives on fish, yet never lights on Water, but soars aloft like a Kite. English literature contains few livelier pictures than those drawn by Dampier. He and his brother in piracy, Esquemeling, have been included in this study because they are two of the best authoriti es to consult on that strange brotherhood which held such fascination for Father Labat, and to a certain extent for Dutertre. Of all the priestly historians— the French Jesuits, Dutertre, Charlevoix— Father Labat is the one who tells most about the buccaneers. Father Labat * The transition from the pirates to priestly Father Jean-Baptiste Labat may seem incongruous, although the good father's affinity for the adventurers has been well estab lished. For a picture of the religious situation in the islands when Father Labat reached there in 1694, it is again to the famous historian, Joseph Rennard, that one turns. According to Rennard, in 1665 le Sieur de la Barre, 52 Lieutenant General of the colonies* wrote: "Les besoins spirituels des isles sont administres pour la plupart par les pretres reguliers qui menent une vie exemplaire. Cependant, il y a quelques paroisses desservies par des pretres seculiers. Les peres Jesuites • et les Jacobins reformes ont deux grands etablissements a la Martinique. Les premiers ont d'ordinaire quatre pretres et les seconds en ont deux; les autres paroisses des isles sont desservies par des pretres seculiers. Ces memes Jesuites et Jacobins ont chacun un etablissement important a la Guadeloupe* aussi bien que les Carmes mitiges* et chacun d'eux dessert sa paroisse. Il y a* en outre* deux ou trois paroisses desservies par des pretres seculiers. Ces memes Jesuites* Jacobins et Carmes administrent les besoins spirituels de l'isle de Saint Christophe avec un pretre seculier qui y dessert une cure etablie. Les besoins spirituels de Saint Croix sont administres par des peres Jacobins* ceux de Marie Galante par des peres Carmes et ceux de la Grenade par deux peres Capuchins." (p. 48) Add to that* says"Hennard (p. 48)* the arrival of the Capuchins in Martinique between 1658 and 1667* and the overall view of the religious state of affairs towards the end of the seventeenth century* when Father Labat entered upon the Antillean scene, is complete. Although Father Labat touched upon Saint-Domingue* modern Haiti, in his narrative, which first appeared in 1722 as a six-volume work under the title Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerique, he gave only very 26 superficial information concerning that colony. 26 — Unless otherwise indicated, citations from Labat hereafter are from this 1722 edition of the Nouveau voyage. 53 The colony was in a way still in its religious infancy during Labat's time. Although Saint-Domingue had had French colonists for a number of years, it seems to have been neglected religiously. In 1681, according to Rennard (p. 58), there were only one Capuchin and a few secular priests there who served thirteen chapels as best they could. In 1683 there were five Dominicans serving Leogane, les Sources, and Grand Goave. From 1703 on, they were charged with all the parishes established or to be estab lished from Artibonite to Cape Tiburon. In short, Rennard adds (p. 59), in 1685 there were seven Dominicans in Martinique, four in Guadeloupe, one in Saint Croix and two in Saint-Domingue, a total of fourteen. The following year eight of their colleagues went to the islands, bringing considerable reinforcements; and since then, up to the French Revolution, more or less important contingents went each year to replace the sick or the deceased ones. Such was the case when Father Labat set sail for the Antilles in 1693. The eight-volume edition of Father Labat's Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerique appeared in 1742, four years after his death. However, he had announced as early as 1730 in the preface of his Voyages en Espagne et en Italie plans 54 for a second edition. He declared that he still had in his possession enough unpublished information on his stay in the islands to fill two additional volumes. Thus, plans for the eight-volume edition had been conceived by the author before his death; it was the task of his colleagues to see that those plans were realized. The work, although described by Labat in his preface as "memoirs," contains, nevertheless, a great deal of histori cal narrative. In fact, the fifth volume of the 1742 edi tion, an entirely new addition, is completely historical. Obviously, he was not an eyewitness to what he reported dealing with the period prior to 1594 and, therefore, had to consult documents no longer extant today, as well as other travel-writers such as Dutertre and Rochefort. Dampierre (pp. 155-157) lists him as one of the principal authors who used secondhand material to write a history of the Antilles. In this respect, he is all the more important, as he had access to documents that are no longer extant or which are not known today. The second major addition to the 1742 edition of the Nouveau voyacre is a long treatise on coffee which takes up pages 337-370 of the sixth volume. To achieve an eight- volume work the publishers fused several chapters of the 55 1722 version into one in the 1742 edition. They also put fewer chapters, and logically, fewer pages in each volume. That ingenious reshuffling of pages and chapters, combined with the two major additions mentioned, made possible the perfect execution of Labat's eight-volume plan. In order to place Father Labat in his proper per spective, we shall now examine some of the most important travel accounts written by missionaries and explorers whose stay in the Antilles followed Father Labat's nearly twelve- year sojourn there. Labat's Successors Charlevoix In the interval between the first and second editions of Labat's Nouveau voyage, another work of historical significance had appeared in 1730. It was the work of Pierre Francois-Xavier de Charlevoix, who wrote the Histoire de 11 lie espagnole ou de Saint-Domingue, ecrite particulierement sur les memoires manuscrits du Pere Jean-Baptiste le Pers, jesuite, missionnaire a Saint- Domingue et sur les pieces oriqinales qui se conservent au depot de la Marine. i 56 As in the seventeenth century, eighteenth-century chroniclers, like the first historians of the Antilles- , Were monks. In the eighteenth century the West Indies was still the meeting place of businessmen or planters, semi illiterate, or at least, not concerned about recording their memoirs. . Such was the case with the Histoire de l'ile espaqnole; it is based in part on the memoirs of the Jesuit missionary Le Pers who was in Saint-Domingue from 1705-17 30. Le Pers submitted the memoirs to Charlevoix, who had not visited the Antilles, for publication. Concerning the manner in which the work was composed and its validity, Charlevoix was attacked viciously by Henri 27 Lor in, author of a Latin thesis on Samt-Dommgue, but brilliantly defended by Dampierre (pp. 157-168). From that controversy, one may infer that for the period 1705-1730 the memoirs of Le Pers are reliable,since he was an eyewitness to events of that period. However, for the rest of the history the results of Charlevoix's research in the depot de la Marine are preferable and more accurate. Charlevoix 2 7 De praedenibus insulam sancti Dominici septimo decimo saeculo celebrantibus (Paris, 1895), cited in Emile Bourgeois, Les sources de 1'histoire de France (Paris, 1913- 1935), VI, 74. 57 judiciously deleted details relative to the work of the mission and expounded* instead, on the political, military, and moral history of the island. Although Charlevoix must be classified as a fireside traveler, for he never visited the islands, his work was a valuable contribution to travel literature of that time. The Spanish part of the island was hardly known to the French of those days. As for the French sector, what he related concerning its culture and population seems fairly accurate. The relevance of the work to contemporary history must also be noted. As the War of the Spanish Succession faded away into history, Saint-Domingue was created in 1714 as a separate colony with its capital at Leogane on the southern peninsula, a few miles west of Port-au-Prince. Until the year 1714 it had been under the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of the French Antilles, who functioned at Saint-Pierre in Martinique. According to W. Adolphe Roberts (p. 127), in 1714 Saint-Domingue was less than 50 percent a sugar country. Tobacco, indigo, and cotton were widely grown. Coffee was introduced in 1726 and proved to be an immediate success. The opulent three-quarters of a century (1715-1790) of Saint-Domingue's period of magnifi cence had begun. Saint-Domingue was to become the most 58 valuable tropical possession of its size on earth. Despite attempts at disparaging the work and despite his lack of firsthand travel experience in the Antilles, Charlevoix was a great historian. In the Histoire de Saint-Domingue (pp. 37-43) he revealed the method to follow in order to distinguish fact from fiction in the farrago accumulated by several generations of writers: J'avoue que cette diversite de sentiments entre des auteurs contemporains, et des memoires oculaires, est quelque chose de fort embarrassant pour un historien qui cherche a s'instruire; mais je ne crois pas qu'il soit absolument impossible de demeler le vrai a travers l'obscurite qu'elle y repand. Il ne faut, ce me semble, pour cela, que faire attention aux vues differentes, que ces auteurs avaient en ecrivant. Effectivement, il parait que 1'amour de la nation a un peu trop conduit la plume des uns, et les a portes a ne rien epargner pour diminuer 11 indignation du public et de la posterite contre leurs peres et leurs compatriotesj mais le zele de la religion a trop anime celle des autres et leur a fait exagerer un peu tout ce qui pouvait rendre odieux les auteurs des cruautes exercees contre des peuples, qu'on a mieux aime exterminer que de les amener au culte du vrai Dieu. Or, rien ne pouvait mieux produire I'effet que chacun se proposait, que de representer d'une part ces peuples, comme n'ayant de l'homme que la figure, et plonges dans les plus infames dissolutions, et de 1'autre, de les faire envisager au contraire, comme des hommes sans vices et sans passions. Chanvalon For an idea of mid-eighteenth century attitudes towards the Caribs and Negroes, it is to the work of Thibault de Chanvalon, a Creole born in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, that 59 one must turn. Chanvalon was educated in Paris and studied physics and natural history under the direction of Reaumur and Jussieu. He went to Martinique in 1751 on a mission to trace an exact tableau of that island. His work, the Voyage a la Martinique, published in Paris in 1763, won him member ship in the Royal Academy of Sciences. As pointed out earlier, brandy, quarrels, vendettas, struggles with the whites, led to the progressive disappear ance of the Caribs from the islands. The Franco-British Convention of 1660 relegated them into the forests of Dominica and Saint Vincent, which passed under English rule in 1763 through terms stipulated in the Treaty of Paris. Speaking of the Caribs in 1751 when he visited the islands, Chanvalon relates (pp. 39-41) that only the dregs of the Caribs were to be found in the Windward Islands. They had been decimated by war or had retreated into the mainland. Some lived dispersed in Guadeloupe and in Dominica. It was only in the colony of Saint Vincent that they were rather numerous, he states. He also alleges that there were a number of Negroes living among them who had adopted their customs and mores and who even practiced head shrinking. He mentions a theory advanced by Dutertre who maintained that the Caribs took Negro slaves from the Spaniards during their wars with them, spared them, and gave them their freedom and asylum among them. In any case, Chanvalon declared that the two groups did not get along very well in 1750, for the Negroes then outnumbered the Caribs and asserted their will to dominate. From time to time the Caribs were forced to appeal to the Governor- General of Martinique for help in dealing with the Negroes. Chanvalon speculated that eventually authorities would capitalize on the discord between the two groups by having those factions destroy each other and then seizing the island. What he relates regarding the Caribs as well as the Negroes is in perfect agreement with what Labat and Dutertre reported on the same subject . In fact, his observations on Negroes in the islands agree so perfectly with those of Labat formulated half a century earlier that one regrets that the plight of the slaves had not in the least changed for the better. In his opinion, the Caribs never took up arms to repulse usurpation but to defend their freedom, for they themselves were usurpers. He reports, that, although vin dictive by nature, the Caribs had forgotten the injustices and evils unleashed upon them by the French. 61 On page 38 of his Voyage a la Martinique he reiterates the old cry that missionary efforts among the Caribs met with little success. Often, he says, they were bribed with gifts which served to induce them to receive baptism. They would return time and time again, and for a pot of brandy receive baptism again. Although Chanvalon harbored no illu sions about the degree of intelligence of the Caribs, he exclaimed: "leurs yeux stupides sont le vrai miroir de leur ame" (p. 58). He also wrote a praise of them that sounds like a page taken directly from Dutertre, Rousseau, or Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: Comme ils n'ont que les plaisirs des animaux, ils paraissent n'avoir aussi que des peines semblables aux leurs. En sont-ils moins heureux? Ces hommes simples n'ont pas muitiplie comme nous les objets du bonheur, et par consequent les obstacles pour y parvenir. Les disirs sont bornis, leurs besoins sont en petit nombre, ils sont facilement satisfaits. Ils n'ont que le necessaire et ne connaissent pas le superflu. Les uns ne sont pas humilies pour elever les autres. Ils ne savent ce que c'est que la distinction des grands et du peuple. Ils se regardent tous comme les enfants d'un mime pere; ils meritent egalement de la patrie ... (p. 38) Raynal Modern writers often refer to the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) as the turning point of the first French colo nial empire. The overseas misfortunes of France at that 62 moment were great. Western Louisiana was lost to Spain in 1762; Canada and claims in India were lost to England in 1763. However, in the mid-eighteenth century these regions were relatively unimportant. The world still regarded the West Indian islands as the prized possessions of the Western Hemisphere. According to Carl Ludwig Lokke, Guadeloupe was 28 then considered as the equivalent of Canada. Saint- Domingue embarked on its long period of opulence in 1715 and maintained its magnificence until 1790. In the course of those three-quarters of a century it was to become the most valuable of the tropical possessions. The four "philosophes," sometimes referred to as "Fathers of the Revolution"— Rousseau, Mably, Montesquieu, and Voltaire— all wrote during the general period of the Seven Years' War and challenged the colonial system and slavery. Each in different ways contributed something before 1789 to destroying faith in the old colonial system. However, of all the four writers mentioned, none treated overseas affairs exclusively. They had not deemed the sub ject worthy of that degree of attention. Thus, the decade 2 8 France and the Colonial Question: A Study of Contem porary French Opinion 1763-1801 (New York, 1932), pp. 15-16. 63 after the Seven Years' War was an opportune moment for some one to write a philosophy and history of the European expan sionist movement. Guillaume Thomas Raynal, better known as Abbe Raynal, was that person, and the sonorous title of his work was the Histoire philosophique et politique des etablissements et du commerce des Europeens dans les deux Indes. The work, which appeared anonymously in 1770, has been attributed by some critics to a society of philosophers who collaborated to produce it in much the same way as in the case of the Encyclopedie. The six volumes of the origi nal 1770 edition were rare and expensive. Yet, the work soon reached a wide audience and had undergone as many as twenty editions by the time of Raynal's death in 1796. As early as 1774, date of the second edition, Grimm called the Histoire philosophique the literary monument since the Esprit des lois most worthy of being passed on to 29 posterity. Joachim Le Breton recorded that no book had been more widely read.^° 2 9 // / Frederic-Melchior Grimm, Correspondence litteraire, philosophique et critique, ed. Maurice Fourieux (Paris, 1877-1882), pp. 487-488. 30 "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Guillaume Thomas Raynal," Memoires de l'Institut National des sciences et arts. Sciences morales et politiques (Paris, 1798-1804), X, x-xxv. 64 As Raynal never visited the colonies, his history of the Antilles is derived largely from Dutertre and Labat for the origins of the expansionist movement in that region. It is, therefore, negligible for the seventeenth century. For the eighteenth century Raynal used reliable memoirs but failed to name the authors of them. He paraphrased the philosophers without giving them any credit. The inaccura cies in the Histoire are not surprising, when one considers the array of subject matter, which was far too prodigious to permit proper verification, granted the author's zeal for truth. Some idea of the contents and its unpredictable organization may be gained from the following evaluation by Horace Walpole: Our neighbors, inquisitive as their researches pretend to be, and instructive as they are asserted to be, will not, I doubt, attain by the suffrage of posterity an equal rank with the authors of the last century. One of their best modern writers (I speak only of the Histoire philosophique du commerce des deux Indes) the Abbe Raynal, is just arrived. One work indeed the French have lately exhibited (more remarkable for its frank impartiality than for the merit of the composition) which has given me more satisfaction than almost any history I ever looked into, from that first merit of history, the unquestionable authenticity of the materials. ...31 31 Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis (New Haven, 1951), XV, 136-137. 65 Raynal's work is so well known that to attempt to sum marize his ideas would be futile. What must here be re tained from his work is that the discovery of the New World and the travel accounts dealing with it had helped launch a moral revolution in France, a revolution calling for a revi sion of society and its conflicting natural, civil, and religious codes. Raynal's work was a mighty protest against the status quo, against the tyranny and injustice practiced by Europeans in other continents. His admiration for the Noble Savage and the state of nature was neither blind nor without reservations. He did not advocate a renunciation of all forms of civilization. He merely reiterated the appeal launched in the sixteenth century by Las Casas, and by Montaigne in his chapter "Of Coaches," which advocated pity and gentleness in the Europeans' relationships with primi tive races. He made it impossible for his contemporaries to forget the universality of abuses and, thus, he deserves a permanent place in the gallery of those who undermined the old colonial system. The facts collected by him demon strated the principles of the philosophers and completed their victories. Raynal wanted to advance the cause of liberty and equality overseas. The Histoire philosophique 66 was a real survey of European colonies in various parts of the known world, although nowadays it is considered super ficial. Raynal is an example of the way in which travel litera ture was used or misused in the eighteenth century. Just as members of the Royal Society or the Academie des Sciences searched voyage literature for scientific facts, philos ophers who remained at home raided it for proof of their hypotheses or disproof of the theories of their rivals. The France of liberal eighteenth-century thought shone as a beacon light to the Spanish colonies in America. They too were stimulated to cast off European bondage and emerge as free republics. France was the most powerful force from without that propelled them in the direction of freedom. Apart from the Encyclopedie, according to W. Adolphe Roberts (pp. 2 34-2 35), the most widely read foreign works in the Spanish colonies in America were the Contrat social of Rousseau and Raynal's Histoire philosophique, which obtained the widest distribution. Both of these works were strictly forbidden in the Spanish colonies but were introduced into .the islands by means of smuggling, a practice which became more and more widespread as the eighteenth century drew to its close. Jesuit Letters The religious bias of travelers and readers was more often than not directed against the Jesuits, whose greatest power lasted through the seventeenth century and until the Pope abolished their order temporarily in 1773. From the Recollet fathers, a branch of the Franciscans strongly opposed to the Jesuits, to Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, critics in France sought to suppress the Jesuits until their order was outlawed in France in 1764. Nevertheless, the Society of Jesus left an outstanding historical monument, not only as missionaries but as scientists and politicans as well. Their Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, published originally in 1702-1776 in thirty-four "Collections," recorded events, advances, and customs that history could not very well do without and the activities of the Jesuit mission in various parts of the less civilized world from 1702-1776. The Lettres were published finally in thirty- four volumes in 1776 by Du Halde, although the endeavor was started by Le Gobien in 1702. The preface of the 1810-1811 32 edition says that Le Gobien edited the first eight volumes 32 / References throughout the study are to ed. Abbe de Querbeuf (Toulouse, 1810-1811). 68 and was succeeded by Du Halde, who published eighteen volumes. Patouillet took over where Du Halde left off and continued the work. After each new edition of these Lettres there were approving reviews in Paris periodicals, summariz ing the separate pieces and seldom reproaching their authors. In the four volumes (Vols. VI to IX) dealing with America in the 1810-1811 edition of the Lettres edifiantes there are a few letters written from Saint-Domingue. Among them are found a few written by Father Margat, a missionary in Saint-Domingue, like Le Pers. Father Margat was prepar ing for publication some Memoires geoqraphiques. historiques. physiques et economiques de Saint-Domingue (Dampierre, p. 167). However, it seems that the publication of Charlevoix's Histoire de 11 tie espaqnole in 17 30 discouraged this father from pursuing and executing the plan. Conse quently his only published works are those dealing with Haiti in the Lettres edifiantes. Among the letters on Haiti is found one written by Margat that gives an excellent history of that island (VII, 118-144). The letters of Margat (VII, 84-144) are dated February 27, 1725 to February 2, 1729, during Saint-Domingue's period of opulence. 69 Following the letters about Haiti are those written from Cayenne in Guiana, on the South American mainland, although its history and destiny were closely bound to that of the Antilles. Among these letters are those written by Father Lombard (VII, 231-245; 2 56-266) which cover the period February 23, 1730 to April 11, 1733. Father Lombard was one of the first to succeed in converting the Indians in Guiana. He built a church in Kourou around 1726, and his mission is cited as a model. Chateaubriand devoted chapter vi of his Genie du christianisme to him (Oeuvres completes, II, 457-459). Although Father Lombard's efforts seem to have met with a degree of success, Father Margat felt that Negroes, as bad as they were, were nonetheless more easily converted than the Indians. He though that the favorable disposition shown by Negroes towards Christianity was Providence's way of com pensating for the recalcitrant Indians who were not so easily swayed and won over to Catholicism. Pacres Pierre-Marie-Fran90is de Pages is included in this study not because of his observations on the Antilles but rather because of his deliberate failure to include travel 70 details of his voyage to Saint-Domingue near the close of the eighteenth century. His Voyage autour du monde et vers les deux poles par terre et par mer, pendant les annees 1767. 1768. 1769. 1770. 1771. 1773. 1774 et 1776 was pub lished in Paris, 1782. Although he does not mention Kerguelen anywhere by name, neither in the title nor the body of the work, Pages was an officer on the expedition of Kerguelen who in 1772 discovered what came to be known as Kerguelen Island in the Indian Ocean, still belonging to France. Pages was a cor responding member of the Academie des Sciences and an invet erate globe-trotter. He relates having left Rochefort in 1766 bound for Saint-Domingue. He did not deem it wprth while to write in extenso about that island because he felt that the route leading to it and the island itself were already well known. His very lack of information regarding Saint- Domingue is more revealing than the tireless expatiation by others in a countless number of pages of -travel trivia. The refusal of Pages to give any details concerning his voyage to Saint-Domingue is cogent proof that the island's tinsel of exoticism had worn dim by the latter part of the eighteenth century. It was still in the state of its 71 phenomenal prosperity, but it was so well known by this time that it, as evidenced by the case of Pages, was taken for granted. Prevost There were a number of travel collections in the seven teenth and eighteenth centuries compiled generally by book sellers from re-editions of old travel accounts that had become rare, or from unpublished memoirs. The vogue *. increased during the course of the two centuries. Perhaps the best known of these was the one made up of re-editions and translations by Antoine Prevost. It is known as the Histoire generale des voyages, first published in Paris over a forty-three year period (1746-1789). Part of the work is a translation of John Green's New Collection of Voyages and Travels, written and published in London from 1745-1747 in weekly installments. The first ten volumes of the Histoire generale des voyages are from John Green's work; volumes XI to XV are by Prevost; and volumes XVI to XX were written by a society of geographers. The Histoire generale started out as a bookstore enter prise. Prevost was to translate the fascicules of John Green's New Collection of Voyages and Travels as they 72 appeared. The vogue of the "General History of Voyages" was so well established that, although France and England were at war when Prevost began to publish his work, the British government allowed the installments to pass freely into France. Prevost was, therefore, able to work without interruption. In the part dealing with America the Histoire generale contains a resume of all the travel accounts that had appeared on New France and the Antilles from Jacques Cartier up to and including Father Charlevoix. Thus, Father Labat's name appears many times in the work. All philosophical treatises on the savages, their manners, customs, and reli gions are found in condensed form in it, a ready arsenal for anyone seeking to overthrow the old regime. Prevost report ed them all, sparing none. He was not a philosopher who embraced all the defenses of the Indians, but in his haste he did not take the time to refute them. Not only is there a history of America but also one of Africa, Persia, China, Greenland, and even Australia. The lifetime of a single man would not have been suffi cient, even in those days, to examine all the travel accounts of French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Danish, and English travels that two centuries had accumulated. 73 However, Prevost did attempt to inject a little order into this veritable maze. At a time when Persians, Chinese, Indians, Turks, and Savages were to be summoned as witnesses against the old regime, and when the battle of the Encyclopedie was getting under way, Prevost furnished a tangible corpus of facts to the enemies of the old order. In popularizing the accounts of travelers, he revealed condemnations of the Christian religion by priests and savages; condemnations of European civilizations and colonialism; satires of European manners and customs; the relativity of morals and laws; the diversity of governments; and, indirectly, he fixed and completed the image of the Noble Savage. All that has preceded leads logically to the French Revolution which, with its creed of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, was to accord political rights to all free men of color and bring an end to France's first colonial empire. The year 1789 marked the end of the period of the Royal Government (1674-1789), inaugurated in 1674 by Louis XIV, who dissolved the West Indies Company after it had con-; tracted enormous debts. He thereby re-attached the Antilles and all other colonial possessions to the Royal Crown. 74 Thanks to the West Indies and to Father Labat, France had gained a monopoly on sugar— white gold as it was called— and won out over the European markets of England and the Nether lands . Commerce with the islands had assured France unpar alleled economic prosperity. The year 1789 is also a suitable vantage point from which to view the general state of affairs of France's first colonial empire at the end of the eighteenth century. As noted earlier, regular contingents of missionaries were sent to the Antilles each year from 1635 until the time of the Revolution. Thus, the religious history of the Antilles developed in parallel fashion along with the history of French colonial efforts there. By 1789 France's colonial possessions in the West Indies and Africa had dwindled to scattered fragments. In the Antilles, France still held on to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Tobago, Saint Lucia and Saint- Domingue (modern Haiti). When the Seven Years' War ended with the Treaty of Paris in 176 3, France had chosen to give up Canada to England and keep her Antillean possessions. Closely related to the group of colonies in the Antilles by proximity and by similarity of institutions was French Guiana, located on the South American mainland. On the western coast of Africa, with which Father Labat was also 75 concerned, lay Senegal, Saint Louis, Goree and Whydah, mere factories facilitating trade in slaves, ivory, and rubber. Special Interest of Labat and Dutertre To place Father Labat chronologically with respect to other travel writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen turies is, indeed, an easy task. However, to "situate" him as a man and as priest is something of a far different nature. Like most travel-writers of his day, he filled his work with digressions on geography, botany, and zoology. Nevertheless, this priest among priests combined into a homogeneous unity many traits possessed by his predecessors and followers in only scattered and fragmentary ways. Religious zeal and a desire for adventure and the exotic are two of the many facets of his character which he shared with other travelers of his day. Yet, this most versatile man was like none of them. There were so many sides to his per sonality: he was a priest, an able administrator, archi tect, engineer; he even possessed mild piratical tendencies. Of the long line of his predecessors and his followers that we have examined, there was only one man who could be even remotely compared to Labat. That man was Father Jean- Baptiste Dutertre. I 76 As we have already seen, Father Labat shares with Dutertre the distinction of being one of the two most val uable chroniclers of the early French West Indies. He spent eleven years on the islands (1694-1705), principally in Martinique and Guadeloupe. As he was a keen observer, what he saw and learned is of immense value. Both authors give considerable history. While Dutertre is undoubtedly the better historian, Labat's descriptions of the various indus tries, the fauna and flora, customs of the people, and the accounts of his own personal experiences enlivened by clever anecdotes, are markedly superior to those of Dutertre. It is noteworthy that more gentlemen went to Martinique and more peasant farmers to Guadeloupe, so that a distinc tion was soon to be made between the "messieurs de la Martinique" and "les bonnes gens de la Guadeloupe." Pio neer life in these colonies might have gone unsung had it not been for these two priestly chroniclers whose religious duties took them to the islands. One in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the other at its close, they both wrote vivid, discursive histories, which, unfortunately, remain little known in English and even in French. Both 77 33 were named Jean-Baptiste, both were Dominicans; and both were thirty years of age when they assumed duties as mis sionaries in the Antilles. Except for trips home to report to his Superiors, Dutertre spent sixteen years there; Father Labat, nearly twelve years. Both were adventurous; both spent considerable time in Martinique and Guadeloupe. However, the two priestly writers soon part ways. Father Labat was a more earthy, cosmopolitan priest, and also a better writer than Dutertre. We shall see that Father Labat was less of a sentimentalist and less com passionate than Dutertre (who was in fact most exceptional for his time) and that Father Labat treated ethnology, social behavior, agriculture, natural history, and the Caribs in a more realistic and noticeably superior fashion than Dutertre. Had Labat not lived and written his Nouveau voyage, one would have only a hazy idea of the early years of the War of the Spanish Succession as it affected the French Windward islands. Of all the travelers and travel writers examined in this study, Father Dutertre is the only one who bears any 33 Jean-Baptiste Dutertre was, in fact, named Jacques Dutertre. He adopted the name Jean-Baptiste after entering the Dominican Order on June 24, 1635. tincture of similarity to Father Labat. Yet, as pointed out, their resemblances were far less numerous than their differences. Thus, confronted with Father Labat, one finds oneself faced with a unique case in French literature. Cer tainly, this most lovable man and priest deserves to be better known; for of all the missionaries who exercised their ministry in Martinique before the French Revolution, Father Labat is the only one whose memory, though weirdly disguised by legend, still lingers in the oral traditions of the Negro people of that island. It was in Martinique that he lived the longest. Recalled from the islands at a time when his reputation was at its apogee, Father Labat soon became a legendary figure. In this regard, Lafcadio Hearn in his work, Two Years in the French West Indies (New York, 1890), pages 152-156, recounts a number of interesting anecdotes which were common in the oral tradition of Martinique when he visited the island in 1889. It is surprising to note that the legends that have grown up around Labat reveal the same ambiguity that the account of his actual life discloses. One legend pictures Labat as a good priest who, the victim of slander, was expelled from the West Indies but who cursed Martinique before leaving and promised to return and haunt the country 79 after his death. This is the legend of Labat the "revenant," who comes back with his lantern— undoubtedly the swamp gases that provided Europeans with will-o'-the-wisp— to haunt the country that banished him. As the good men do is often interred with their bones, Father Labat still lingers in the oral tradition of the people of Martinique as a kind of colonial bogey man, zombi, or ghost to be feared and venerated. Hearn relates, page 153, that mothers tell their children when they are naughty: "Mi! moin ke fai Pe Labatt vini pouend ou— oui!" ("I will call Father Labat to come and get you"). No doubt this reputation is attrib utable to the alleged brutality with which he treated his slaves; although, except for the thrashing he gave the Negro sorcerer at the bedside of a sick woman (Nouveau voyage, I, 498-499), there is nothing to substantiate the claim that Labat was excessively brutal in his relationships with his slaves. CHAPTER II LABAT THE MAN: HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER Having established the preeminent position of Labat's Nouveau voyage among the fairly copious "Antillean" litera ture of this time, we can now turn profitably to a consid eration of his total literary output. In order to facili tate that task, it is necessary to draw up as complete a biographical summary of Labat as available documents will permit. Labat's life was not an ordinary one, and the mere chronological recital of events already has a decided romanesque quality. Not only are there the travels in lands near and far and the skirmishes on the high seas or with members of his own and other Orders: there is even the required "mystery," since one whole period of Labat's life (1706-1709) has been virtually blotted out, and very little is known about his childhood and youth. 80 81 Childhood and Youth (1663-1684) Jean-Baptiste Labat was born in Paris in 1663.^ The exact day and month of his birth are not known. According to the Annee dominicaine (I, 144) "On ne sait rien de sa jeunesse ... il dit etre d'une famille de Paris." Never theless, Labat, who was extremely loquacious on other topics, says nothing more regarding his family or his back ground. To say that he came from a Parisian family was vir tually to say nothing, for there were a great number of families living in Paris at that time that had recently left Provence and settled in the capital city. In his writings Labat is completely reticent on the subject of the early part of his life. In any case, he must have come from a reasonably well-to-do family, since he drew He was not born in 1664 as indicates the L1annee dominicaine ou Vie des saints et illustres personnages de l'Ordre des Freres Precheurs de 1700 jusqu'a nos jours (Grenoble, 1912), I, 12 0-144. Labat himself states (Nouveau voyage, I, 1-2) that he was thirty years old when he left for the Antilles in 1693. Furthermore, the frontispiece of the eight-volume edition of the Nouveau voyage depicts a Negro kneeling on one knee exhibiting a portrait of the author. The oval frame of the portrait bears the note: "Le R. J. B. Labat, Jacobin, mort a Paris le 6 janvier 17 38, §ge de 75 ans ." Both of these facts substantiate the claim that he was born in 166 3. Aside from the Annee dominicaine, the chief sources of biographical information concerning Labat are his Nouveau voyage and Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. 82 a sum of money in advance on an income he had inherited when he became a priest and with it defrayed the expenses of his trip to the Antilles. Basing his conclusions on three cogent clues, Hyrvoix de Landosle asserts that Father Labat's family was origi- ✓ 2 nally from Bearn. To substantiate his point, Landosle cites the fact that in the Antilles, where the memory of Labat still lingers, the name "Labat" is actually pronounced 3 "Labatt," with the last letter fully sounded. As further proof, he relates that towards the end of the reign of Napoleon III the mayor of Bayonne, a native of that city, bore the name "Labat" which was also pronounced "Labatt," as throughout southern France. Finally, he cites an allusion to the easy virtue of Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henri IV and a native of Bearn, made by Labat in the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie (Amsterdam, 1731), V, 89. He con cludes that since he could find no mention of that little- known fact elsewhere, it must have been a rumor peculiar to Bearn and limited to that region. 2 v "Notice biographique sur l'auteur," Voyage du Pere Labat en Espagne (Paris, 1927), p. 7. 3 The same point is made by Lafcadio Hearn, Two Years in the French West Indies, p. 152. 83 A. t'Serstevens is of the opinion that Labat's family was originally from the Landes. As proof of his theory, he relates that the region of the Landes is highly populated with "Labats" and that he had seen a number of them while passing through the area. He reports having seen from his hotel window a sign on a cobbler's shop which read "Labatt" and that the correct pronunciation in the Landes, as in 4 Martinique, was "Labatt" and not "Labas." If little is known about Labat*s family origin, even less is known concerning his educational background. He was probably educated in the "college" of the Jacobin presbytery 5 of the rue Saint-Honore in Paris. It was also at Saint- Honore that in 1682, at the age of nineteen, he entered the noviciate. 4 / • Introd., Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerxgue, ed. Duchartre (Paris, 1931), p. v. 5 Saint Dominic, who founded the Order of Preachers, m 1217 sent seven of his disciples to Paris, headquarters of their first church, dedicated to Saint Jacques-le-Majeur and located on the rue Saint-Jacques. These seven Dominicans and all subsequent ones in France were called Jacobins. When in the early seventeenth century during the great Catholic reform the Church of Saint-Jacques fell into a cer tain laxity, the presbytery of Saint-Honore was founded between 1612 and 1614 for the benefit of the most zealous monks of the reformed Order. 84 Pre-Antillean Experience (1685-1693) On April 11, 1685, at the age of twenty-two, Father Labat entered the Holy Orders at the Jacobin presbytery of the rue Saint-Honore and took his final vows as a monk in the Order of Preachers. He was to remain attached to that presbytery the rest of his life, for it was there that, when his travels were over, he returned in order to meditate, to write, and die. After taking his vows, Labat was sent to Provence to engage in the ministry, and from there to Nancy, where he taught mathematics and philosophy at the Jacobin presbytery. Following his stay in Nancy, he accompanied the French army, undoubtedly as a regimental chaplain, to the wars in Flanders. It is not at all clear whether or not he actively participated in the war; nevertheless, from that time on he was to remain more military than religious. In 1693 he was at the presbytery of the rue Saint- Honore in Paris. At that time the Superiors of the Orders established in the Antilles wrote to their colleagues in Europe to request volunteers to compensate for the loss of missionaries decimated by the "mal de Siam," or yellow fever. One of these circulars was handed to Father Labat 85 by someone while he was watching a sunset one evening from the window of his study. He immediately resigned his pro fessorship and engaged himself for the mission leaving for Martinique. Labat was inspired, not by religious zeal, nor by a desire to convert the Caribs and Negroes, nor by the thirst for martyrdom, but by that "mal des voyages et de l'aventure" which was to hold him prey all his life. Near the end of his life when travel was no longer possible for him, he relived his own travels by reconstructing them in writing and traveled vicariously to distant lands and places by editing and translating the accounts of others. Labat's Nouveau voyage opens just before his departure for the New World, where he was to remain for nearly twelve years . At the time of his departure for Martinique in 1693, Labat was thirty years of age, frightfully thin— and so emaciated, in fact, that his doctors thought he was con sumptive and had only a short time to live. He was to acquire the well-rounded obesity revealed in the portrait of him by Bouis, which figured in the frontispiece of the 1742 edition of the Nouveau voyage, during the nearly twelve g A reproduction of this portrait is found as a frontis piece to this study. 86 years in the Antilles. It was not (as he seems to think) to chocolate, which he never ceases to extol, that the cure for Labat's neurasthenia must be attributed, but rather to the active life he led while in the Antilles. He relates in the Nouveau voyage the story of his departure from Europe in the following manner: Une maladie contagieuse ayant emporte la plupart des missionaires qui etoient aux lies Franqaises de l'Amerique, les Superieurs des ordres qui y sont etablis ecrivirent des lettres circulaires en France, pour engager leurs confreres a les venir secourir. Une de ces lettres m'etant tombee entre les mains, me pressa d'executer le dessein que j'avois forme depuis quelque temps de me consacrer aux Missions, comme a un emploi qui convenait tout a fait bien a ma profession. ... Je demandai les permissions necessaires pour passer aux lies, et on peut croire que je les obtins bien facilement. ... je partis de Paris le 5 aout 1693. (I, 1) Labat left Paris in the company of a thirty-eight-year old indentured servant, Guillaume Massonier, who had engaged himself to serve the Jacobin mission in Martinique for three years. He and Massonier arrived in La Rochelle on August 24, 1693, and from the very start of his voyage from France, Labat reveals himself on board ship as a man born to authority. In those days communication with the Antilles was slow, irregular, and hard. Labat had to wait three months in La Rochelle for a ship. While he and about ten others were 87 waiting in La Rochelle for passage to the Antilles, a certain Father Serre, about fifty years of age and a veteran of Antillean missionary efforts, joined the waiting group. Seeing so many monks bound for the Antilles, Father Serre became disturbed and immediately set out to discourage them from carrying out their plans for missionary duty in the Antilles. Pointing out the unfavorable living conditions there and the dire shortage of parishes, he sought to dis suade at least a few of the less zealous monks from making the trip. Father Labat quickly perceived that his colleague had hidden intentions and feared that because of his own incom petence he would be without a parish in the Antilles. Thus, Labat took the liberty of speaking for the others and told his confrere that they all intended to find sufficient work to occupy their minds but that he was free to stay behind if he feared the hardships that lay ahead. Shortly after that incident and in recognition of his born leadership abilities the other travelers waiting to sail from La Rochelle select ed Labat to take charge of the travel arrangements for the entire group bound for the West Indies. After three months of waiting at the presbytery of La Rochelle, Labat was so impatient that he contracted a 88 fever and had to take to bed on November 17, 1693. Labat states (I, 20) that he thought he was on the verge of leav ing on a voyage from which he was never to return. By November 26, 1693, he felt better, however, and was able to leave La Rochelle by November 29. He had not fully recov ered, but he left La Rochelle because he feared that other wise he would have to defer his voyage indefinitely . What a mixed group that was on the Loire, the ship on which Labat sailed I The company consisted of four mission aries, a militia captain from Martinique, and a captain of the buccaneers. As soon as he set foot on the vessel, although still ravaged by fever, Father Labat, who loved the good things of this world and made no pretense about it, had a rich soup and drank wine and liqueurs. He enjoyed the excellent fare provided at the cabin table. He reports that a regular item on the menu was a fresh salad, grown in large boxes full of soil (I, 30-31) . This is probably one of the earliest known records of instinctive measures taken on board ship to prevent scurvy, the curse of sailors. There is perhaps no better description of the daily life of a passenger aboard a seventeenth-century ship than the one found in Labat's journal. As if charged with writ ing the ship's log, Labat records the smallest incidents 89 and creates a remarkable sense of intimacy. All the little details, so important to those on a crowded ship on a long voyage, are noted with care. Even aboard ship, Labat, this half-priest, half-layman, displayed remarkable energy. He complained that no day was long enough for all he wanted to do. After fishing for sharks, giving lessons in chess and geometry, and holding Mass, Labat would read, walk on deck, and then teach cate chism to the apprentices and sailors Thus, there was not one idle moment throughout his long but far from tedious voyage to Martinique He even taught the captain mathe matics and invented games to relieve the monotony of the two months' voyage. As the culminating point of his voyage to the Antilles, Labat and the crew of the ship he was on, in sight of Martinique but still at sea on January 28, 1694, were attacked by an English pirate ship, the Chester. At the end of that encounter, the English reportedly sustained thirty- seven dead and more than eighty wounded— a bloody prelude to 7 future events in the Antilles. This sharp exchange of 7 This took place during France's struggle against the powers of the League of Augsburg, which began in 1688 and ended in 1694 with the Treaty of Ryswick. 90 cannonballs between the crew of the English frigate and that of Labat's ship merely warmed his blood for the adven ture that lay in store for him. Antillean Period (1694-1705) Father Labat so thoroughly enjoyed his voyage to the Antilles that he gained weight while aboard ship. Assuming that the reproductions found in the frontispiece of this study are accurate ones of the original portrait of Labat painted by Bouis, one may conclude that, as a mature man, Labat was short, fat,’rosy-colored, of a jovial physiognomy, had big, clear eyes, highly arched eyebrows, a big nose, a Rabelaisian smile, thick lips, and a widely stretched mouth. At any rate, he was a healthy man when he landed in Marti nique on January 29, 1694, after sixty-three days at sea. He was entertained by Negroes, men of the Church, and laymen. Almost immediately after arriving there he was sent by the Superior of the Dominicans to Macouba at the north western tip of Martinique. Father Labat was sent there ini tially for acclimation, as Macouba was then considered the healthiest part of the island. On February 13, 1694, he was appointed to take charge of the parish of Macouba. He 91 was warmly welcomed by all his parishioners. Labat fasci nated the whole community, even the filibusters . Their captain, Monsieur Pinel, on returning from his raids on two English vessels, gave Father Labat provisions which he needed and asked the father to remember him in his prayers. Father Labat capitalized on that general goodwill shown him by persuading his parishioners to rebuild the church at Macouba according to his own designs. The Caribs were not left out of the general welcoming accorded Father Labat. They offered him in homage the well- salted and stroked arm of an Englishman killed in a skirmish in Barbuda. Labat thanked them for the gift and offered them, in return, as much brandy as they desired. Judging from the auspicious arrival of Labat in the Antilles, it is hard to imagine that the end of his stay was to hold such a tragedy for him. So far, he had generated no ill will and everyone was his friend. Labat commented on the cordial welcome he received and declared that he had never seen people more eager to do a parish priest good (I, 146) . However, on June 17, 1694, cacophony was to disrupt that mellifluous welcoming; for the good father, like everyone else, came down with an attack of yellow fever. 92 Doctors attempted to treat him, but he had two of his slaves carry and mount him on a horse, on which he fled the doctors and their blood-letting and recovered his health. He was not permitted to stay at Macouba as long as he or his parishioners would have liked. His scientific and mathemetical aptitude made his presence desirable in Guadeloupe. His talents attracted widespread admiration and won for him an unprecedented reputation in the colonies. He was wanted everywhere. Thus, on March 1, 1696, after serving two years as parish priest in Macouba, Father Labat was sent by the Father General to Guadeloupe to construct a cane mill on a sugar plantation belonging to his Order and to build a canal for water power for the mill. Owing to lack of funds, Labat deferred building the mill, merely drew up plans for it, and spent the rest of the time sightseeing in Guadeloupe. How ever, he did complete the work on the canal, according to his own accounts, "dans deux jours" (II, 494). After sub mitting his plans for the mill and suggested repairs for the retrenchments, Labat left Guadeloupe to return to Martinique. He arrived there on June 3, 1696, and in Macouba on June 12, following a violent storm at sea. He 93 had been prompted to leave Guadeloupe by ramors that another priest had usurped his parish in Macouba. Returning to Macouba, he found his parish occupied by Father Rosie who seemed encamped there. Father Labat had left his parish on condition that he be allowed to resume his duties there following his return from Guadeloupe. On the other hand, Father Rosie, who had agreed to serve the parish in Labat's absence only on condition that he be per manently installed there, adamantly refused to return Labat his post. Unable to change matters, Father Labat accepted the appointment on December 21, 1696, as Procurator-Syndic, which placed him in charge of all the temporal affairs of the Dominican missions in Martinique. From that moment on, Labat was to find no peace in the Antilles. For three years, he was forced to exercise the occupation of a colo nist, make sugar, and do all the things but the two he held most at heart: administer his parish and devote his life to study. Shortly after his new appointment, Labat commenced to design and build a new presbytery for the Jacobins at Saint-Pierre, Martinique. The Jacobin parish church and presbytery were in the quarter of Saint-Pierre called "Les Mouillages," as it was situated opposite the anchorage. The presbytery, a small two-storied house thirty feet square and 94 built of wood, was in unquestionable need of being replaced. Father Labat described that turbulent period of his life and the coloration it gave his entire stay in the Antilles in the following manner: J'entrai dans un labyrinthe d'affaires et d'emplois, dont je ne pus rompre 1'enchainement jusqu'a la fin de 1705, lorsque je fus depute par la Mission pour venir en Europe. (II, 575-576) The. Jacobins also owned a large sugar plantation on the capesterre. or windward coast, called "Fond Saint Jacques." At the time Labat settled there and assumed duties as Procurator-Syndic, the estate was in very bad con dition. The buildings were dilapidated, the cultivation was neglected, the Order was riddled with debts; and the slaves were far too few, in bad health, and not properly cared for. Mismanagement of the Jacobins' sugar estate was the chief cause of the deplorable state of Dominican affairs at that time. One of their Superiors, Father Paul, had seriously mismanaged the estate and given an excessive amount in charity. This priest was interested in rescue work and, thus, supported a large number of those unfortunate French women who took all they could but refused to mend their ways. At that time the chief currency of the island of Martinique was "billets de sucre," and Father Paul had 95 issued more of these "billets" than the Dominican plantation could possibly meet. This was the situation Labat had to face when he took over the temporal administration of the missions. He immediately set out to remedy the appalling situation. He inspected everything and in less than two years Father Labat had not only rescued the plantation from bankruptcy but had made it rich through his perfecting the sugar industry. In 1697 Labat, who was not only a man of theory but one of practice as well, helped his slaves and his sugar refiner ward off an- attempted descent on the Martinique coast by a roving band of English corsairs. The corsairs found Labat with all the Negroes of the Saint Jacques plantation waiting to drive them back to their ships. Father Labat described that encounter in his typically humorous fashion: "Je leur dit de venir a terre et que je leur donnerois quelqu'un pour faire mouiller leur barque" (IV, 71). On January 7, 1700, Labat went to Guadeloupe to collect an inheritance left to the Dominicans. En route he spent seventeen days, January 9-28, 1700, with the Caribs in Dominica. He did not arrive in Guadeloupe until January 29. By August 2 3 he was back in Martinique. 96 In September of that same year, while on his way to Grenada, where he had been dispatched, Father Labat visited Barbados. On the return trip to Martinique he saw Saint Vincent and Saint Lucia. Labat returned to Martinique on September 28, 1700, and by October 3, was again in Guadeloupe. On November 26 of that year, Labat accompanied Father Cabasson, the Superior-General of the Jacobin mission, to Saint-Domingue, or modern Haiti. En route to Saint- Domingue, they stopped for a short time in Saint Kitts. While in Saint-Domingue, which was badly neglected religious ly, Labat was named Commissioner and Visitor to that island. On the return trip from Saint-Domingue to Guadeloupe, Labat's ship was attacked by Spanish pirates on March 21, 1701. The good priest managed to get into his habit since, as he remarks, he wanted to appear decent (V, 265) . When the Spanish pirates came aboard ship, Labat, in faltering Spanish, told them he was a priest and the ruffians immedi ately released him. They were dumbfounded, he relates, when they learned they had nearly taken the life of a man of God (V, 268-2 69) . Labat reports that they even asked for his forgiveness. Labat's trunk was opened and emptied of its contents except for a little silver cross of the 97 Avignon Inquisition. Labat took the cross, placed it about his neck, and posed as an officer of that august institu tion. He then presented himself before the commander of the pirates, Monsieur Des Portes, whom he asked whether or not he recognized that emblem and whether he realized that he was brutalizing an officer of the Holy Office. Labat asserts that the strategy produced the desired effect, for the pirates ceased their plunder. Commenting on the pirates' general lack of success in that escapade, Labat wittily remarks that he did not know from what country the pirates obtained their gun powder, but that it wanted no dealings with Labat and his men, and never caught fire (V, 270). Labat and his crew were released by the pirates on April 2, 1701, and resuming their return to Guadeloupe from Saint-Domingue, passed through Saint Thomas, Saba, and Saint Kitts. Labat reached Guadeloupe for the fourth time on May 8, 1701, after a trip lasting five months and twelve days. On May 8, 1702, he was named Superior of the Guadeloupe mission and supervised the new fortification work at the request of the Governor of Guadeloupe, Auger. The governor had sent for Labat to help defend and fortify the island 98 against the English during the War of the Spanish Succes sion. Father Labat was just as much at home building bastions, ravelins, and the like as he was making sugar on the plantation of Fond Saint-Jacques. The defense work in Guadeloupe almost completely occupied his time from May 1702 to March 1703. For the fourth time, Labat returned to Martinique on August 16, 1702, to see how the construction of the new pres bytery of "Les Mouillages" was progressing. He was sur prised to learn that the construction workers had not fol lowed his blueprint and promptly ordered everything to be changed in line with his plans. He returned to Guadeloupe on November 22, 1702, and was still there when the English declared war on France and came to attack Guadeloupe near the end of March 1703. Father Labat took an active part in the defense of that island and in that war, of which he gives a minute-by-minute description. After the English had been defeated and had returned to their country, Father Labat left Guadeloupe on October 3, 1703, and arrived on October 6 in Martinique, where he was again named Procurator-Syndic. He had been called there by the new Superior, Father Bedarides, to complete work on the new presbytery. Labat admits straightforwardly that he did 99 not desire the position again and would have returned to Guadeloupe if circumstances had permitted. He adds that he dreaded getting bogged down in such affairs since he knew that the estate of Fond Saint-Jacques was again debt-ridden and in total disarray (VI, 317). Shortly after his arrival in Martinique, Labat went to Fort Royal, now Fort-de-France, to meet the new Governor- General of the Isles, Monsieur de Machault. On September 11, 1704, Labat reluctantly accepted the joint appointment as Superior of the Missions of Martinique and as Vicar- Apostolic . After completing the new presbytery of the "Mouillages" at Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in October 1704 Labat undertook that series of voyages in the interest of the Dominican order which he describes so vividly in his memoirs. On January 7, 1705, he left Martinique on a pirate ship com manded by Captain Daniel bound for Guadeloupe. After pass ing through Aves, Saint Thomas, Saint Martin and other small islands in the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles, Labat arrived in Guadeloupe on February 27, 1705, after a voyage lasting fifty-two days and covering a distance of only thirty leagues. He left Guadeloupe for the last time on March 14, 1705, and arrived in Martinique the following day. 100 On returning to Martinique, Labat learned that the affairs of the missions were deteriorating. The Jesuits and Capuchins were forming a league against the Dominicans. The Jacobins' privileges were being assailed and they were becoming victims of cruel injustices. As if that were not enough, the number of monks was decreasing and conspicuously insufficient. The need for an embassy in Europe had been created, both to muzzle the anti-Jacobin cabal and to recruit new missionaries. In 1705 Father Fran^ois-Antonin Cloche, Master General of the Dominican Order, requested that a Dominican go to the Chapter General in Bologna, Italy, to represent the Order. Father Labat was chosen for the delegation. He was given two thousand francs, some chocolate, and some preserves. After eleven and a half years in the Antilles, seven of which were spent in Martinique, Father Labat boarded the Saint-Paul, commanded by Sieur Gauteaulme. He left from Les Mouillages in Martinique on August 9, 1705, passed through Bermuda, and arrived in Cadiz on October 10, 1705. 101 Labat describes his final departure from his beloved Antilles and the motives that determined his departure in the following laconic way: La situation des affaires de nos missions, les atteintes continuelles que l'on donnoit a nos privileges, les injustices criantes que l'on nous fasoit et le peu de religieux que nous avions nous avoit obliges de nous resoudre a deputer quelqu'un d'entre nous en Europe pour tacher de trouver quelque remede a tous ces maux: le sort tomba sur moi. (VI, 488-489) Spain and Italy (1705-1706) The Saint-Paul. the ship on which Labat made the voyage from the Antilles back to Europe, was bound for Marseilles. However, since the English had blockaded Gibraltar, the ship could not go further and therefore anchored in the port of Cadiz on October 10, 1705. The Nouveau voyage ends with Labat's arrival in Cadiz and the .8 . Voyages en Espagne et-en Italie takes up the narrative where the Nouveau voyage left off and continues the account of Labat's life up to 1716. The Voyages en Espagne et en Italie begins with the author's difficulties with Spanish health and customs officials in Cadiz before being per mitted to leave ship. Q Paris, 17 30. References throughout this study are to that edition, unless otherwise indicated. 102 Labat waited in Cadiz from day to day hoping to leave for Marseilles, but the English blockade was still in effect. Thus, for four months he was detained in Spain. Although he was in Spain not of his own volition but rather because of a strange freak of fate, he took advantage of his forced stay there to visit Cadiz and its environs. While there he also hunted, drank much chocolate, derided every thing and everybody, especially Spanish doctors. In this respect, he advised the reader never to become ill in Spain, because doctors there were ignorant but expensive. He added that one should also avoid dying there, for burial expenses were prohibitive (I, 271-272). After four months of waiting in Cadiz and weary of the whole affair, Labat decided to return to France. He left Cadiz on January 30, 1706, and reached La Rochelle on March 4, 1706. Displeased with his forced stay in Spain, Labat admits that despite the pleasures he had enjoyed dur ing the last month of his stay, he left that country without regret (I, 413) . He felt that the expenses incurred and the delay had been infinitely detrimental to the Dominican cause and had given its enemies all the additional time they needed to prejudice minds in their favor. 103 Labat decided to travel to Italy to attend the Chapter General of his Order. He went by way of southern France. After eight days in La Rochelle, he left on March 12, 1706, passed through Rochefort, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Beziers, and finally arrived in Marseilles on April 2, 1706. On April 13, 1706, he boarded a bark owned by a Monsieur Baudeuf. It was a comparatively small fore-and- aft-rigged vessel with one mast. What a motley group of passengers the little ship contained! It consisted of monks of all types and Orders, several Jews, and a couple of fraudulent bankrupts fleeing to Italy to avoid paying their debts. Labat describes the heterogeneous group as follows: "Jamais je n'avois vu un tel assemblage. Je ne sais si l'Arche de Noe en approchait" (II, 37). The full descrip tion of that assortment, found in Volume II, pages 36-37, of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, is a masterpiece of satire. On May 1, 1706, Labat arrived in Genoa. There he made fun of the avarice of the Genoese, then visited Livorno and its Jews, Pisa, Florence and its gardens, and arrived in Bologna on May 18, 1708. There he attended the Chapter General although he is more than reserved about the business 104 he had there. He merely (II, 341) states that matters had gone nearly as he had wished them to go. After attending the Chapter General in Bologna, he { returned to Genoa by way of Lombardy in a barouche in the company of five monks whom he described as unique experts in stinginess and of whom he thought it has been forever impossible to make copies (II, 364) . He arrived in Genoa on June 21, 1706, and went to stay in the presbytery of Saint Dominic. There he met a French monk from the presbytery of the rue Saint-Honore in Paris who, in expiation for his sins, had assumed the responsibility of taking to Paris for Monsieur Colbert, Archbishop of Rouen, a musician-priest with a clear voice who had undergone an operation in order to prevent his voice from changing. Labat wanted to visit Rome on his first trip to Italy, but the Master General, Father Cloche, felt it necessary that he return to the Antilles. Labat, thus, left Bologna on June 3, 1706, and arrived in Paris on July 30 of that same year. Reign of Silence (1706-1709) There is a hiatus in Father Labat's autobiography from July 30, 1706, date of his return to Paris following the first trip to Italy, to April 21, 1709, date of his second 105 departure from La Rochelle for Italy. Labat, careful not to furnish the missing link in his life story, could never boast of having laid his heart bare in the manner of a Rousseau or a Baudelaire. Just as for the early period, Labat buries three whole years of his life as if they had never been. All that is known is that he went to La Rochelle in January 1708 to board a ship, presumably to the Antilles, but returned to Paris, from where he went to Rome. Although Labat does not admit it, Louis XIV probably re called him from Italy and punished him for the excessive zeal which he had evinced during his stay in the islands. Labat wanted eagerly to return to the Antilles. He had contributed more than anyone else to the defense of Guade loupe during the War of the Spanish Succession. He had, undoubtedly, proved himself to be a versatile man with much to offer from the abundance of his resourcefulness. Louis XIV delighted in distributing honors and titles to those who had distinguished themselves by meritorious ser vice in the defense of the islands, yet he refused to honor Labat. Not only did he decline to show Labat any recogni tion but forbade him to return to the Antilles two years later. Thus, the good father saw the doors of the Antilles closed to him forever. He had incurred the wrath of the 106 mighty Sun King for not having exercised restraint in his scathing attacks on many influential families of Creole society. Perhaps there is additional material lying unsuspected in some archives in France; but so far as we can determine, this part of Labat's life remains quite obscure. Labat pre tends not to know the cause of his disfavor with the King. He merely states in the Nouveau voyage that he was never rewarded for the pains he had taken and the risks he had run to defend Guadeloupe. His modest complaint reads as • follows: M. le comte Desnots ... , gouverneur general des ties vint a la Guadeloupe le 2 7 juillet 1701. Je 1'accompagnai dans la vis ite qu'il fit avec notre gouverneur d'une partie de l'ile. ... Il me pria d'avoir soin des travaux, et me promit d'ecrire au ministre les services que j'avois deja rendus, et ceux que je continuerois de rendre afin qu'il y eut egard. Il n'a pas ete le seul qui a ecrit en Cour les peines que je me suis donnees, les travaux que'j'ai fait faire et les services que j'ai • rendus a l'ile de la Guadeloupe pendant plus de deux ans que j'y ai servi comme ingenieur, sans avoir jamais requ la moindre marque de reconnaissance, du moins jusqu'a 1'impression de ces Memoires. (IV, 392-393) A. t'Serstevens (Introd., Nouveau voyages aux isles [Paris, 1931], p. ix) asserts that the Jesuits and the Capuchins, whom Labat never spared and who were jealous of his popularity, plotted his downfall and led a powerful conspiracy at the Court against him. However, that 107 explanation seems hardly tenable since at that time the monks of all the religious orders in the Antilles were on good terms and, generally speaking, peace reigned among them. Labat, personally, had great respect for many Jesuits, such as Father Gombault, their Superior-General whom he praised highly in the Nouveau voyage (V, 425). In fact, it seems that Labat and Gombault held each other in mutual respect. As for the Capuchins, they had no influence at the Court and could not have led an anti-Labat cabal. Who, then, was responsible for turning Louis XIV against Father Labat after he had been of indisputable service to the country during his eleven and a half years in the Antilles? It was -the lowly Sieur Mithon, a civil worker in Martinique first named as Commissaire-Ordonnateur in 1705, then in 1706 as Intendant, who took it upbh himself to inform Louis XIV of Labat's undesirable conduct in the islands. Mithon1s letter, dated November 10, 1706, is cited by Joseph Rennard in his article entitled "Le Pere Labat aux Antilles," which appeared in the Revue d'Histoire des Missions, VII (June 1962), 226. In his letter to Louis XIV Mithon makes the following indictment of Father Labat: Depuis le depart du P. Labat, le superieur des Jacobins a tenu une conduite toute differente, il s'est 108 comporte avec beaucoup de moderation et de sagesse, il ne s'ecarte point du respect qu'il doit au general et contient ses religieux dans une retenue tres modeste dans leurs discours, ce qui prouve assez que le Pere Labat dont 1'esprit est remuant et passionne et qui l'obsedait entierement, l'entretient dans le meme esprit; il est tres prudent de l'empecher de retourner aux lies comme vous me le marquez, il ne pouvait qu'y causer beaucoup de desordre. (Archives Nationales, Colonies C 8 A 16) The Governor of Martinique, Monsieur de Machault, whom Labat claims (Nouveau voyage, VI, 318) had two sisters who were nuns in the Dominican Order in Poissy, and Pierre Arnoul, seigneur de Vaucresson, upheld the accusations made by their inferior. To buttress those made by Mithon, Vaucresson and Machault made the following allegations in their report of February 8, 1708: Quoique le Pere Labat soit un homme de merite, son esprit est si vif que c'est un bien qu'il ne revienne plus dans les colonies ou les genies trop intrigants ne conviennent nullement. (Archives Nationales, Colonies C 8 A 16; cited in Rennard, "Le Pere Labat aux Antilles," p. 226) Louis XIV took careful note of these charges which depicted Labat as an insubordinate, independent-minded per son who merely fomented discord and ill will. Thus, the great Sun King deemed it necessary to place Labat in a posi tion where he could no longer disturb the peace and tran quillity of the island. Louis XIV exiled Labat in the pres bytery of Toul, which he designated as his temporary 109 residence, a mere euphemism for prison. He likewise forbade Labat from further correspondence with the Antilles. Mean while, in 1708, Monsieur de Vaucresson received a minis terial letter which stated: "Le Pere Labat ne retournera plus dans les colonies, quelques instances qu'il fasse pour en obtenir la permission" (Archives Nationales, Colonies C 8 A 16, Volume des premiers ordres du roi de 1708, p. 147 j cited in Rennard, "Le Pere Labat aux Antilles," p. 227). After a year's penitence in the presbytery of Toul (1706-1707), Labat, towards the end of 1707, became confes sor of Sebastian Vauban, the famous military engineer, whose Projet de dime royale, in which he advocated a tax reform, drew upon him also the disfavor of Louis XIV, in 1707. Labat and Vauban seem to have been quite compatible. Not only did both have considerable military experience to their credit, they also "enjoyed" the added discredit of the wrathful Sun King's scathing vengeance. It is doubtful that much religion was involved in the relationship between these two old soldiers . From 1708-1709 Labat spent another year in retreat, al though this time at the presbytery of La Rochelle, where he promised to mend his ways. He promised so intently that his superiors finally believed him, but how mistaken they were! 110 Italy Revisited (1709-1716) Freed at last from his prison in Toul, thanks to the intervention of his Superior-General, Father Cloche, who fully appreciated Labat's uncommon aptitudes and intelli gence, Labat is charged with a new mission in Italy. It is at this point that the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie resumes the narrative. Labat left La Rochelle on April 21, 1709, on his second trip to Italy. He is again very vague about the purpose of his trip and merely states that he went to Italy "pour des affaires qui n1interessent que des personnes que la charite m'engage de menager" (III, 2) . He arrived in Rome on June 8, 1709, and there took lodgings in the presbytery of his Order, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. However, he would leave it early in the mornings only to return late at night. All day long, in the company of a Flemish monk, he went about the city of Rome visiting monuments and places of interest. He would eat wherever he happened to be, but since at that time monks were not allowed to enter public places, he went into them with the Flemish monk who furtively knocked in a certain conventional way at the secret door. Thus, Labat described restaurants, small eating places, and even the Pope's Cellar. He Ill described the carnivals also, even though monks were strictly forbidden to attend them. Nevertheless, he confesses . . . In July of 1709, Labat went to Tivoli as a guest of the Dominicans of San Biagio who buried their dead in heaps in the vaults of the church. There he pokes fun at the funerals and the sermons of his colleagues. From there he went to Civita-Vecchia, where he remained six years and nineteen days He helped rebuild the presbytery of his Order there and in the meantime visited Naples and Messina Returning to Civita-Vecchia, he made himself useful and dis agreeable wherever he went, with his frankness and his mania for reforming everybody and everything, barring himself. However, with his wit and good humor he won many friends in Italy also. He did not return to Paris until May 19, 1716, following an absence of seven years and five days. It is interesting to note that Labat's total travel experience occurred between the years 1693 and 1716. 9 According to the formula of Paul Hazard, between the years 1685 and 1715 Europe, and especially France, underwent a "crise de conscience," characterized by a reaction against 9 ✓ La crise de la conscience europeene (Paris, 1934-35). 112 royal absolutism, a tendency towards critical examination of the social and political order, philosophical, rather than theological, reflection, and a greatly augmented interest in peoples and lands outside of Europe. Labat, not fully aware of what was taking place in Europe, left France for the Antilles in 1693 when the "crise" was at its height. He did not return, except for the three years spent in penitence, until 1716 when the incipient stages of the crisis were over and Louis XIV, the full force of whose wrath he had known, was dead. Vicarious Travel (1716-17 38) Father Labat was fifty-three years of age when he returned to France in 1716. He returned to the presbytery of his Order at the rue Saint-Honore in Paris where he had entered the noviciate at age nineteen. As if his life had run its full circuit, Labat was to remain there until his death twenty-two years later. The travel urge had not left him; it never did. Thus, like a free-soaring bird trapped in a cage, Labat had to remain in his presbytery, having made himself a "persona non grata" not only in the Antilles but in Italy as well. He was too garrulous, meddled too much in affairs that did not concern him, and he was too 113 perspicacious. In short, he was an enfant terrible whose games were too dangerous for the religious community. With Louis XIV disappearing into the pages of history, Labat returned to France, and under the Regency, Cardinal \ Dubois allowed Father Labat to achieve the peace of mind he had desired for so long. Labat would rise late in the morning and occupy himself all day with the administration of the presbytery of Saint-Honore of which he was Procura tor. He never lost his gaiety nor his natural bent for intrigue. Unable to travel again, Father Labat would go back in his mind to the distant places that he had visited, and so he started to write his memoirs. Thus, the last twenty-two years of his life were spent reconstructing his travels in Spain, Italy, and in the Antilles and in vicariously travel ing by editing and translating the works and manuscripts concerning their travels that others had furnished him. Thus, Labat vicariously appeased that uncanny travel urge that seized him in 1693 and did not leave him until his death. Labat's character was too varied for his calling and extended far beyond the confines of ecclesiastical life The only exit from the quandary in which he found himself was through vicarious travel and recall. The years 114 1722-1735 he spent publishing his travel works, and on January 6, 1738, he died in Paris at the age of seventy- five. The seventy-five years of his life may be divided into four unequal segments: thirty years of pre-travel experience; twenty years of real travel; three years of penitent confinement, and twenty-two years of vicarious travel and travel-writing. The place of his burial is unknown. Perhaps, during the French Revolution, when so much was displaced, Labat's remains were carried off to some secret place of rest where he might at last find the peace he so energetically earned. As we have seen, certain aspects of Labat's kaleido scopic background have a romanesque and even mysterious quality. Fortunately, however, as we turn to the analysis of Labat's moral and psychological makeup, we find that the author’s own writings provide copious details concerning his character. Insights into Labat's complex moral and psycho logical constitution are, perhaps, nowhere more manifest than in his attitudes towards religion, towards his own Order, and towards non-Christians and Negroes. An ^A list of the complete works of Labat and all known editions of each are given in the bibliography of the present study. 115 understanding of the character of Labat is of particular importance to anyone seeking to gain an understanding of his works, for in Labat's case, the man and the writer are nearly always inseparable. While Labat himself leaves us uninformed about certain aspects of his life, he is pleas ingly generous in providing us with clues, expressed or implied, to his character. Les us, therefore, draw up a character profile of Father Labat based on the information furnished by the author himself in his own writings. Labat's Attitudes toward Religion Although an orthodox Catholic, Labat was obviously more of a soldier than a priest. He reminds one of those fabled medieval abbots, who were equally at ease wearing a helmet or a cowl. Surprisingly few pages of his voluminous works are devoted to the religious life of the Antilles. Religion is usually mentioned when it has some bearing on a more pressing topic, such as the proper way to treat slaves or the sovereignty of the French crown. What really interested Father Labat were the wars against the English; the flowers, animals, trees and insecLs of the West Indies; economic and agricultural problems; the individual personalities of each island; the customs of the English, Africans, Caribs, and 116 Spanish. The flimsiest excuse was sufficient for him to turn away from the shepherding of souls, and he thought up some of the most tenuous pretexts to justify visiting a great number of the Windward and Leeward islands and even some of the Greater Antilles. It would be unfair to assert that Father Labat was not a good priest, yet he remained to the end the chaplain of the regiment that he had been in Flanders before his depar ture for the Antilles. Left to choose between the duties of his religious charge and the pleasures of combat, Labat did not hesitate to choose the latter and made no pretense about it. He is bored while repairing the presbytery of the Dominican Order at the Mouillages in Martinique but, with diabolical glee, spends months and months building fortifi cations and digging trenches in Guadeloupe while awaiting the pleasure of greeting the English during the War of the Spanish Succession. It is not at all surprising to find him as Vauban's confessor in 1707; religion was'only a pretext for these two old soldiers to relive their glorious military past. It was no less surprising when earlier, in 1703, as the English were on the verge of attacking Guadeloupe and Labat was offered simultaneously the title of Superior of the Missions and that of military engineer, he chose the 117 second, offering the following explanation found in the Nouveau voyage; "Je continuai a travailler uniqueraent pour le Roy, sans plus me meler en aucune maniere des affaires de notre mission" (V, 491). That laconic statement reveals more lucidly than any other why, in reading him, one finds so many pages on a thousand and one temporal questions and so few on religion. Father Labat must be classified as a "liberal" with respect to religion. Certainly he must have had liberal Superiors who permitted him to publish such a satire of Italian and Spanish religious life as the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. In fact, the work is such a scathing reli gious satire that a modern editor, A. t'Serstevens, published it under the title Comedie ecclesiastique. It would not be far from the truth to assert that Labat's attitude toward religion and the French Catholic Church bordered on Gallicanism, which has given French Catholicism a coloration and character all its own. More than once Father Labat pokes fun at the religious practices he witnessed during his travels in Spain and in Italy. In Volume III, pages 384-392, of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. he relates a visit he made in July 1709 to Tivoli, Italy, as a guest of the Dominicans of San 118 Biago who buried the dead in heaps in the vaults of the church. Father Labat, who fully described one of these burials, seems as shocked with the entire affair as a modern-day reader might be: Quelque soin que se donne le Becamorto: c'est ainsi qu'on appelle le Fossoyeur, il est presque impossible que les Eglises ne soient infectees de la mauvaise odeur qui sort de ces caveaux, quand on les ouvre souvent, & avant que les corps qu'on y a mis soient ou tout-a-fait consommes, ou du moins desseches a un point qu'il n1en exhale rien, ou peu de chose. Comme on ne s'attendoit pas a une si abondante recolte, on n'avoit pas vuide les caveaux pendant l'hiver precedent, qui est le terns que l'on prend pour ce puant ouvrage, de maniere que des le mois d'Aout les Sepulchres etoient pleins, & on etoit oblige de porter les corps dans les endroits ou le bonheur vouloit que l'on trouvat encore une place. (Ill, 389) While in Tivoli Father Labat had occasion to witness another religious practice which, this time, he found amus ing. He relates this story in Volume IV, pages 104-105, of the the Voyages en Espacme et en Italie. He was there dur ing the great heat wave and, with the heat, a great many girls and women thought they were possessed by the devil. Together with the parish priest of San Biago, Father Labat went many times to exorcise the possessed women. Yet, he laughed to himself and thought the devil must have been doing likewise. 119 However, the parish priest of San Biago did not laugh, and disgusted, asked Father Labat if, by chance, in France the women were not also possessed by the devil. Father Labat's reply was that, to the contrary, in France women possess the devil. Following this brief exchange of wits, the two priests continued their therapeutic exorcism,.which consisted of a few simple steps. The women were given much to eat, many cool drinks, and then whipped. No devil could endure such an efficacious remedy. However, the French Dominican had to take care of the devils of Tivoli for another less cheerful reason: that of the hidden treasures. It is incredible, Labat relates in the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. IV, 12 5-135, how the Italians are convinced that their country is all sown with buried treasures. True, the country had been devastated and plundered, and it was possible that many people had hidden their savings to recover them when the invaders had gone. It was also possible that many landowners had ended up elsewhere and had died or been killed before confiding to their children or to their heirs where they had hidden the valuables. While these things were possible, Father Labat could not bring himself to understand why the devil would keep watch over such treasures. He could not understand 120 the devil's being so idle that he had nothing better to do. The explanation was that those who hid the treasure would propitiate the devil with a human or animal sacrifice, which they conscientiously buried along with their relics while pronouncing a sort of magic formula. The devil would be careful not to let anything be taken away, except by whoever would repeat the password. Thus, the devil, paid in advance, took the charge of being a guard and forbade the passage to the uninitiated. The careless and the intrepid ones ran the risk of being killed or finding themselves suddenly in the flames of hell. But there is a remedy for everything, and one could come to terms even with the devil, who was not always faithful to his trust. This pact, however, according to public opinion, could be executed only by priests and monks. Father Labat very often walked through the countryside of Tivoli. Many times he had the impression of being fol lowed and spied upon. Then, one day while he was pleasantly chatting with the brothers of the presbytery, he happened to relate how in France the hidden treasures were discovered by means of a divining rod. Not a word was said. However, shortly afterwards, the Sub-prior, whose name was Miliani, came to Labat's cell and without hesitation said to him that 121 if he so desired he could enrich the presbytery by revealing the treasure hidden in the garden. Miliani entreated him in such a fashion that Labat agreed to prepare the magic wand. He cut two vine shoots in the presbytery vineyard, while the good father Miliani was amazed that he did not pronounce any magic formula. Labat then asked to be left alone. Instead of the treasure, however, Labat thought of the Holy Office, which was no laughing matter. He left the wand there and abandoned Tivoli, its presbytery, and its hidden treasures. Father Labat's sarcasm in religious matters, however, was not directed solely against Italy. His short stay in Spain provided Labat with many an occasion to ridicule Spanish religious customs and practices. As nothing was too sacred for him to deride, not even religion, he laughs more than once at his Spanish colleagues. Speaking of his fellow priests in Spain, he relates: Tous les pretres espagnols, portent de grandes lunettes, tous ceux qui se melent de lire et d'ecrire, jeunes et vieux, les gens de justice, les medecins, les chirurgiens et meme les apothicaires, les teneurs de livres, la plupart des ouvriers et generalement tous les religieux portent de grandes lunettes. (Voyages en Espaqne et en Italie, I, 264) He extends his anti-Spanish attitude even to the churches, declaring "il n'y a point d'eglises plus laides et plus grossierement baties que celles de Cadix" (I, 387). Regular priests as well as secular ones— no one escapes his amused sarcasm. After spending a few days in Cadiz, he had occasion to witness a strange Spanish custom which he admits in Volume I, page 7 of the Voyages en Espacrne et en Italie he found singularly amusing. He declares that it was quite common for Spaniards who were in grave danger at sea to promise God to marry a poor girl as soon as they reached safety, provided her birth and conduct were beyond reproach. In case there is too great a disproportion between the man who makes such a vow and the girl he should marry, he is easily exempted from fulfilling that vow by merely present ing a dowry to the girl in question. If the marriage does take place, -the-wife then serves as a constant reminder of the perils from which God delivered the husband and his obligations towards God. Labat's attitude towards the Spanish and Italian Inquisition was one of involuntary respect. In the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. I, 2 36- 2 37, Labat describes a sanctuary for outlaws in Cadiz with marble portals and bronze chains. Labat took the majestic building for the Hall of Justice, but learned that all who withdrew into its hallowed walls enjoyed ecclesiastical immunity and could not be seized and brought to justice, except with the express permission of the ecclesiastical 12 3 Superiors, "qui ne 1'accordaient jamais, sauf dans le cas de 11Inquisition, au nom de laquelle toutes portes sont ouvertes." His observations concerning Lenten and Holy Week celebrations in Spain border on blasphemy. He relates that no religious devotions equalled in ridiculousness those con nected with the Easter season and reports having declined an invitation to watch the Procession of Penitents. His Spanish colleagues had told him that the parade was so authentic that it brought tears to one's eyes. Disgusted with the entire celebration, Labat explains that his affairs called him elsewhere, and that, moreover, he did not like to cry. He adds that, perhaps, being neither touched nor edified by that spectacle, he would not have experienced the same sentiments as his guests (I, 282). As if the preceding statement were not enough, Labat goes on to point out on the following page that he would have felt no compunction in seeing a troop of penitents, laden with ribbons and laces, flagellating each other in time to the music. He almost sacrilegiously admits "Je n'aurois peut-etre jamais pu m'empecher de rire, et de dire que c1est un ballet spirituel, et tout aurait ete gate." 124 On the other hand, Labat, who found comparatively few matters in religion too sacred to provoke a smile, became singularly defensive when others, especially non-Catholics, took the same liberties he permitted himself. Perhaps nowhere else is his religious bias better revealed than in his charges against Franyois Misson, the French Huguenot refugee living in England whose Nouveau voyage d'Italie first appeared in 1691.^ As Misson was attacked by nearly all French Catholics, writers or commentators, when he made judgments or observa tions relative to religion, Father Labat was merely perpetuating a trend. Yet, the charges of Father Labat were not always so trifling as those of other French Catholics, who often merely criticized Misson because they were jealous of the Protestant's popularity. Although he had great praise for Misson's style, Labat poked fun at Misson's 11 ... Misson was a French Huguenot refugee living in England, who had toured the European continent in 1687-1688 as tutor to the Earl of Arran. A popular Protestant, he was frequently attacked by French Catholics, travelers, or com mentators who felt obliged to find fault with his descrip tions of Italy and the other European countries, especially when he dealt with religion. References to Misson in this study are to Nouveau voyage d*Italie (La Haye, 1717). 125 short visit in Italy as compared to his own seven-year stay: C'est dommage que M. Misson qui a si bien ecrit le Voyage qu'il a fait en Italie, n'ait pas fait un plus long sejour a Florence, cette vieille Ville le meritoit bien, mais que peut-on voir depuis le dix-sept, jusqu'au vingt-trois May de la meme annee? D'autres que cet Auteur verroient peu, & ne diroient presque rien, mais il voit d'une maniere differente des autres hommes, il voit par les yeux d’autrui, & pourvu qu'il trouve a dechirer la Religion Catholique, ses Mysteres & ses Ministres, il ne lui en faut pas davantage pour remplir ses belles Lettres. (Voyages en Espaqne et en Italie, II, 222) While in Bologna, Italy, on May 30, 1706, Labat had occasion to witness ceremonies marking the return of a painting of the Virgin, attributed to Saint Luke, to the monastery of San Lucca. In the Voyages en Espaqne et en Italie, II, 294, Father Labat explains that each year the people of Bologna went on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Saint Luke to obtain the painting and bring it back to the Church of Saint Petronius in Bologna. There for a week, and in fulfillment of a vow the people of the city had made several centuries earlier to the Holy Virgin whose inter cession had caused them to be spared during the time of a pestilential plague, the image of the Virgin Mary was carried in solemn procession throughout the city. Misson in his Nouveau voyage d1Italie (1691), II, 382, had remarked 126 that if the people of Bologna failed to make the pilgrimage to secure the image of the Virgin, it would go to Bologna by itself, but that it was spared that trouble. Cpmmenting on that statement (II, 2-94), Labat calls Misson's attitude effrontery and accuses him of having invented that tale in order to belittle a holy act designed to perpetuate the memory of a grace received from Jesus Christ through Mary. Admitting that Misson recounted this tale as hearsay, Labat, nevertheless, asserts that he is certain that only Misson made that foolish statement. Furthermore, he challenged Misson and all writers of his sect, the Huguenots, to cite one single, rational person who reported such foolishness. It is quite possible that, given another set of circum stances, Labat himself might have derided the practice and criticized it even more harshly than Misson had done. Yet, the mere fact that it was the Huguenot Misson who took it upon himself to poke fun at a Catholic custom was sufficient reason for Labat to come to the defense of his religion. He explains that the people of Bologna went for the painting each year in order to display it for the veneration and edification of the people, lest they forget the grace accorded them by God through the Holy Virgin's intercession 12 7 and prayers. He relates (II, 296) that he even took part in these commemorative ceremonies. Father Labat, however, exclaims most vociferously at 12 the Protestant's perpetuating the legend of a Popess Joan. It is understandable why Catholics wished to suppress such information, especially from the Huguenot Misson who, in the preface to his Nouveau voyage d1Italie. complains that he was refused permission to consult documents dealing with the female Pope controversy by authorities at the Saint Ambroise Library in'Milan. It is equally noteworthy that the female Pope episode, found in its sordid entirety in the English translation of the Nouveau voyage, which appeared in London ih' 1699 under the title A New Voyage to Italy: with Curious Observations on Several Other Countries, as Germany, 12 The oldest form of the legend of the Popess Joan, according to Charles de Brosses, Lettres familieres sur 11Italie (Paris, 1931), I, x, is found in the chronicle of a Dominican from Auxerre, Jean de Mailly, written around 1250. The story of a German woman who disguised herself as a man and who was elected as Popess in the mid-ninth century, the legend was popularized by the Dominican, Martin de Troppau, called the Polish, who died in 12 78. De Brosses, who claimed to have been given access to all the documents deal ing with the controversy found in the Library of Saint Ambroise in Milan, Italy, reproduced the text of the legend on pages 122-12 3 of Volume I of his Lettres and gave its reference number: MS. C.N° 204 CVI. There is a card game resembling newmarket that is also called Pope Joan, from the name of the Popess. 128 Switzerland, Savoy, Geneva, Flanders, and Holland, was con spicuously deleted from the aforementioned 1717 French edition. — Closely related to the Popess scandal was the "sella exploratoria" controversy. Following the election of a lady Pope and in order to prevent a repetition of such an error, the custom was established, according to Misson, 1699 edi tion of the New Voyage to Italy, II, 55, whereby the newly elected Pope was to sit on a commode chair made of 13 porphyry and be examined to ensure that the mistake of electing a Popess had not been repeated. Misson relates on the same page: But I cannot forbear telling you, that I have seen the bor'd chair [sella exploratoria], about which you desire to be informed, that was formerly made use of in ceremony instituted to prevent all Doubts [sic] con cerning the pope's sex. "Tis a kind of arm'd chair of one single piece of porphyry. He goes on to affirm that whether the reason for and end of that examination gave rise to the use of the chair, whether 13 The "sella exploratoria" was in the cloister of Saint John of Lateran in Rome at the time Misson, Labat, and De Brosses wrote but is now in the Louvre. It was seized by the armies of the French Republic, and Pope Pius VII officially gave it to Louis XVIII. According to De Brosses, I, 124, the "sella exploratoria" was nothing more than a commode chair, opened in front for the convenience of the user. 12 9 the practice was instituted to remind the popes that they were still men and not gods and therefore subject to all human frailties, or whether the ceremony was ordained to serve both purposes, are matters that do not interest him and that he is willing to leave undecided. With respect to the Popess controversy, however, Misson states categorically that he is convinced of its veracity and advances several arguments to support his stand. Commenting on the "sella exploratoria" which Misson had attempted to use as proof of the existence of Popess Joan, Labat states that the chair was merely one commonly used in Roman baths and then makes the following observa- t ions: Cette chaise, suppose que l'on s'en soit servie, n'a ete employee que pour faire souvenir le Souverain Pontife, qu'il ne cessoit pas d'etre homme, quoique sa Charge l'elevat au-dessus de tous les hommes, de meme que les etouppes qu'on brQle devant lui dans la ceremonie de son couronnement, servent a lui montrer le peu de duree des grandeurs humaines. Je m'etonne que M. Misson ne se soit pas avise de dire qu'on brule des etouppes, pour voir si leur fumee n'excitera pas en lui les vapeurs!4 qui etoient autrefois 1'appanage des femmes, mais que les hommes de notre siecle ont juge a propos de partager avec elles. Sans cela M. Misson n'auroit pas manque de joindre cette epreuve, a celle de la sella exploratoria. C'est dommage qu'une aussi belle plume que la sienne, ait ete employee a ecrire une semblable faussete. (Voyages en Espaqne et en Italie, III, 257-258) ■^An old medical term for hypochondria or melancholy. 130 From the preceding, it is clear that Father Labat was as capable of extremes in matters regarding the Faith as he was in other domains. His attitude towards religion runs the gamut from irreverence and mild blasphemy to orthodox defense of the Church. Thanks to an innate pragmatism he is able to defend the very superstitutions and inconsistencies in the Catholic Church that he himself was quite capable of deriding. Thus, his religious attitudes at any given moment were relative to the time, place, and to the person attack ing the Faith. Basically a religious liberal with Gallican tendencies, Labat did not hesitate, however, to turn boldly conservative whenever the Catholic religion as a whole was under attack. Labat, defender of the Faith, is hardly recognizable in his verbal thrusts at the Italian Inquisition. As we have said, he reports (Voyages en Espaqne et en Italie, IV, 106) that while roaming the countryside of Tivoli he was often spied upon and suspected of searching for hidden treasures. Yet, he admits, he was never summoned before the Inquisition which condemned heretics only when irrefutable evidence was adduced. He added, on the other hand, that if the suspected heretic expressed himself "d'une maniere catholique" and promised to mend his ways he was readily 131 acquitted. Labat ended his anti-inquisition remarks with a promise that if his health permitted, he would someday write a history of that august institution. He added that the more than five years he, a Frenchman, spent as an officer of that tribunal had prepared him well for such an undertaking. Father Labat's attitudes towards religion in general, no doubt, influenced his attitudes towards the Dominican Order] for his attitudes towards both religion and his Order are characterized by ambivalence and relativity. Far from globally accepting all of the practices and tenets of his Order, Labat was a very practical, independent-minded priest. It was precisely his extreme individualism that kept him at frequent loggerheads with his Superiors. In Volume IV of the Nouveau voyage, pages 110-113, Labat relates a misunderstanding he had with Father Pierre la Fresche, newly appointed Superior-General of the Antillean missions, over the purchase of some slaves. Father Labat reports that at the end of May 1698 a shipload of slaves from Whydah arrived in Basse-Terre. Unable to locate the Superior-General and obtain his approval, Labat took it upon himself to purchase a dozen new slaves for work on the sugar plantation at Fond Saint-Jacques. When Labat saw the Superior-General twenty-four hours later, he was 132 told by him that he had overstepped the bounds of his authority and thereby laid himself open to dismissal. Labat retorted that it would be easier for him to resign since he was free to relinquish his charge whenever he desired but that the Superior-General was powerless and had no authority to terminate him. Labat reports that his firmness produced the desired effect and more, for the Superior-General not only apologized profusely for his impetuousness but declared publicly that he favored appointing Labat as Superior of Martinique, although the Superior-General died before realizing his dream. Just as he generally preferred life in the open air to the cloistered life, Labat often found certain religious celebrations and practices of his Order consummately boring. In the Voyacres en Espaqne et en Italie. IV, 342-345, he relates that on January 13, 1710, the Feast of Santa Ferma, patron saint of Civita Vecchia, was celebrated in that city and highlighted by a long procession in which Father Labat participated. He reported the entire sequence and route of the procession, he explains, so that he would not be forced to mention the parade every time it crossed his mind in the course of writing his narrative. He admits that he often repeated details concerning processions in which he took 133 part that most certainly were as boring to the reader as the processions themselves had been to him. Equally unimpressed was Father Labat with the manner in which the Lenten season was celebrated among the Dominicans in Civita Vecchia. He reports (IV, 380-381) that the Lenten season was ushered in by the tolling of a big bell of the parish church of the Dominicans. Throughout the Lenten season the use of butter, cheese, milk, eggs, or anything related to meat was forbidden. Labat states that so well- established was the custom of using only oil during that season that the bell that announced the beginning of the Lenten season was called the oil bell. He relates that he had great difficulty in becoming accustomed to the practice of preparing everything with oil, and he ate mostly dried fruits until someone noticed his repugnance to oil and served him roast fish with lemon juice and rice prepared with almond juice. The praise that he lavishes upon the manner in which the rice was prepared and its nutritional value seems to indicate that Father Labat was much more con cerned with the gastronomical aspects of the Lenten season than with its religious import. Nevertheless, Labat found certain religious customs among the Italian Dominicans laudable and worthy of being 134 introduced into France. In Volume III of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. pages 2 54-2 56, he speaks of the right of Dominican monks in Italy to inherit property and furni ture from their relatives. Labat felt that it was unjust to deprive a man of what nature had given him. He explained that such a practice was not an attack on the vow of poverty because it was not the monk who received the inheritance but rather his monastery, since all that a monk acquires he acquires for his monastery. Thus, Labat becomes a monk pleading his own cause and calls for a condemnation of a religious custom observed in France for centuries. But if Father Labat found certain religious customs in Italy preferable to those practiced by the Dominican Order in France, his observations regarding religious traditions found among the Spanish Dominicans are nearly always nega tive . From the time of his arrival in Cadiz on October 10, 1705, to the date of his final departure from that same city on February 7, 1706, Father Labat never ceased to complain of his fellow Spanish Dominicans. In Volume I, pages 3-5 of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, Labat reports that upon his arrival at the Dominican presbytery in Cadiz, he was coldly received by the Prior of the I 135 presbytery because he was not clad in the black cloak which the Dominicans usually wore over their white habit. Labat, who loved his freedom above all else, had his interpreter promptly remind the Prior that in the Antilles the Domini cans wore the black habit only while preaching, since it was not an essential part of the official garb of the Order. When he asked the Prior to lend or sell him a black cloak, he was told by his confrere to return to the presbytery when he was properly dressed. At that point, the interpreter informed the Prior that Father Labat was an influential priest who was going to Rome, where he was known by the General of the Order, and that there could be unpleasant repercussions for the Prior if Labat were to report the chilling reception he had received in Cadiz to the General of the Dominicans in Rome, Italy. Labat, who relished every word his interpreter had just spoken, made the following comment: Malgre sa gravite Espagnole [sic], il eut peur, et voulut raccommoder sa mauvaise reception, en m'offrant une chambre. Mais j1etois trop picque, je lui dis pourtant que je reviendrois, je me retirai. (I, 4-5) And return he did, five days later, fully clad in the habiliments of his Order, including the black cloak and all r * its accessories. On his return visit to the Dominican 136 presbytery, Labat was received by the Prior and three Spanish monks. Labat expressed his surprise at seeing the Prior remain seated and the three monks stand when he entered the presbytery: "Je m'en serois scandalise dans un autre lieu, mais en Espagne, ou l'on dit que la gravite a le pas sur la crainte de Dieu, je crus que cela etait du ceremonial" (I, 10). According to his version of his forced stay in Spain, Labat apparently underwent shock after shock in his dealings with his Spanish confreres. Exaspexated because he had to wait so long for a room, Labat makes the following comment about the Dominican presbytery in Cadiz: Elle ne pouvoit etre plus petite, le lit etoit compose d'un matelas d'un pouce, ou tout au plus de quinze lignes d'epaisseur etendu sur trois planches soutenues de deux petits bancs, le traversin etoit a peu pres de meme epaisseur que le matelas. Les linceuls etoient d'une bonne grosse toile de menage, qui etoit neuve quand on commenca a s'en servir trente ans et plus avant que j'arrivasse, il paroissoit qu'ils avoient ete a la lessive, la couverture etait de laine grise ouvragee en maniere de filigrane par les rats. (I, 13) In his careful attention to the observance of religious conventions and his meticulous concern for proper form and etiquette, Labat almost reminds one at times of his contem porary, the Due de Saint-Simon, who considered any behavior which did not conform to his own preconceived notions of 137 proper conduct as scandalous. With respect to the Spanish Dominicans, Father Labat shows a basic contradiction in his character. By nature opposed to formality and the strict observance of rules, Labat did not fail to express his indignation when he felt he was the victim of some breach of the rules. He relates his shock at learning that in Spain priests with certain charges were not given seats of dis tinction in places where the Dominicans assembled. He expresses his resentment over having to sit at the last table in the refectory of the Dominican presbytery in Cadiz. In addition, the tablecloths served as communal napkins, there were no plates, no spoons, no forks, nor knives. Labat reports that the monks had to bring their own knives and eating utensils, "avec obligation de les reporter avec eux sous peine de ne pas s'en servir deux fois" (I, 17). And Father Labat, who in the Antilles had dined with pirates— whose table manners were certainly not the most polished— complained that he had to use his handkerchief as a napkin and that with his pocket knife he had to carve the crust of his bread into the shape of a spoon in order to eat a dish of peas which he was served. In the Antilles among the filibusters, Labat would probably have considered that 138 meal a gustatory delight, but in Spain among his confreres he relates that the food had a strange, medicinal taste. After spending less than a week there, Labat left the Dominican presbytery in Cadiz and went to take lodgings at a hotel in town, although he declares that he continued to attend mass daily at the presbytery of his Order. Comment ing on the lack of attention paid him by the sacristan, Labat fails to convince the reader of his concern for his Spanish colleagues when he exclaims: "J'aurois pu aller autre part et j'y aurois ete bien reyu mais je voulais avoir cette deference pour mes Confreres" (I, 35). Although he never would have considered it as such, Father Labat actually resorted to bribery in order to soften the sacris tan. Labat, who did not smoke tobacco, one day pretended, nevertheless, to be an avid user and offered the sacristan some of his best Havana tobacco. Observing the miraculous results he obtained, Labat states: "L'effet que ce Tabac produisit sur le Sacristain reveche est incroyable" (I, 35). From that time on, Labat declares that the sacristan assumed a gay and gracious air whenever he entered the presbytery and never failed to ask him at which altar he preferred to say Mass. Labat comments: "Cela me fit connoitre que les betes les plus farouches se peuvent apprivoiser, et que les 139 presents sont des raisons puissantes pour gagner l'estime des gens interesses" (I, 36). No doubt still embittered by his forced stay and cold reception in Cadiz, Labat vented his anti-Spanish-Dominican feelings throughout the first volume of the Voyages en Espaqne et en Italie. He relates on page 2 78 of this work that in Spain it was customary for relatives to pay nuns of the Dominican Order so much per day for food and support, in addition to the money donated by relatives to the convent for receiving them. Nevertheless, it was an established custom for nuns to solicit additional money from their rela tives. Labat woefully exclaims: "Malheur a ceux qui ont des parents, amis, ou allies Religieux en ce Pa'is-la" (I, 2 78). In addition, he asserts that all convents, however rich, have workers who solicit alms for the convent with which they are said to be affiliated. Labat declares that these solicitors must fill a monthly or weekly quota and must not fall short, for "les Superieurs Espagnols sont hauts, fiers, et fort peu traitables, surtout en matiere d'interet" (I, 279). Father Labat warned those traveling in Cadiz against giving twice to the same solicitor, for, as he reports, the traveler then risked becoming a perennial alms- giver, a title more easily acquired than lost. Somewhat belying Christian charity, Labat is almost continuously ironical and satirical when he writes about his confreres in Spain. Although there was war between England and France during much of the period of his stay in the Antilles, and although Labat is frequently critical of his Protestant English neighbors, he is, nevertheless, more scathing in his attacks on his fellow Catholics, the Spanish. Although he had no metaphysical qualms about the Catholic religion, Labat often criticized the idiocy and bad taste of the non-French members of the Faith. Labat's pro found patriotism towards France led him to exempt virtually no one— regular priests or secular priests— from his often mordant attacks. After spending a night at the Dominican presbytery in Cadiz, Labat observed that he was the only one to rise when the bell rang for Morning Prayer. Justifiably indignant, Labat learned the next day that "nul n'assistoit aux offices de nuit mais qu'on ne laissoit pas de sonner pour 1'edification du peuple" (I, 15-16). Labat's Spanish colleagues took offense at his pulling up his habit and exposing his feet while walking, for "les pieds des religieux et ceux d'une femme doivent etre egalement caches a causes de certaines consequences qu'on en tire" (I, 246). Labat retorted that "Ces consequences ne me faisaient pas la 141 moindre peine" (I, 246), but that "j'en aurois beaucoup d'etre crotte jusqu'aux genoux ... que je ne blamois pas leurs coutumes" (I, 246), and that "avant que je me crusse oblige de m'y conformer, il falloit qu'ils eussent la bonte de faire nettoyer leurs rues" (I, 260). Although Labat was not- always pro-Dominican, as we have seen, he did not hesitate to draw closer to his Order when the occasion called for it. Although most of the religious orders sniped at each other during Labat's time, they were highly practical, as evidenced by the monks of various orders choosing Labat in 1694 to attend to the travel arrangements of all the monks waiting at La Rochelle for passage to the West Indies. The general goodwill that then existed among the various religious orders on such occa sions did not prevent Labat from verbally jabbing at the other religious orders. Labat derides the Carmelites whose buildings in Guadeloupe "se ressentent de la vieillesse de leur ordre" and which are not "mieux fourni d'arbres pour batir que de titres pour justifier leur origine prophetique" (Nouveau voyage, V, 404). He jokes over the Capuchins. Why did they abandon Saint-Domingue? Was it because of the high death rate among them? "Mais qu'est-ce que cela pour des ( / y / 142 Capucins dont on voit partout des quantites si considerables?" (Nouveau voyage. V, 211) . He pokes fun at the "Freres de la Charite." These monks had the job of pur suing white men who had illegitimate children by Negro slavewomen and collecting from the malefactors, for the benefit of the hospital run by the "Freres de la Charite," the fines which were imposed on white men for each crime of this nature. Labat reports that these monks often exposed themselves to embarrassing misadventures, such as the fol lowing one: J'ai eu quelquefois le plaisir d'entendre ces demelesj et une fois entre autres, la negresse d'un habitant d'une de nos paroisses soutint au Frere . .. que c'etait lui-meme qui etait le pere de 1'enfant mulatre dont elle etait accouchee. Par malheur pour ce religieux il avait passe neuf a dix mois auparavant chez le maitre de la negresse et y avait couche. ... Le juge mit tout en oeuvre pour 1'obiiger (la negresse) de se couper sans y pouvoir reussir; elle demeure toujours ferme, et comme elle tenoit son enfant entre ses bras, elle le presentait au Frere ... en lui disant, toi papa li. et puis elle le montroit a toute l'assemblee, pretendant qu'il ressemblait a deux gouttes d'eau au Frere ... le juge, malgre tous ses efforts, auroit succombe s'il n'eut fini cette scene en renvoyant la negresse chez son maitre jusqu'a plus ample informa tion, les depens reserves. (Nouveau voyage, II, 124-125) It is not surprising that Father Labat should laugh so heartily at other religious orders when he seems to have found even more amusing aspects about certain religious practices of his own Dominican Order. In a seemingly 143 casual manner, Labat recounts that in July 1697 when he was in Martinique, a certain Carmelite Father Raphael came there from Guadeloupe with intentions of establishing Carmelite priests in the parish churches of Cul-de-Sac Robert and Cul-de-Sac Franqois (Nouveau voyage, IV, 16-19). Labat informs us that the Dominicans had no monks in these two sections because the mysterious mal de Siam, or yellow fever, had depleted the ranks of the Dominicans. Labat relates that after spending a few days in the Dominican presbytery of "Les Mouillages," the Carmelite father expressed a desire to visit the capesterre, or wind ward side, of Martinique, on the pretext of being able to negotiate more easily with the inhabitants of Cul-de-Sac Robert and Cul-de-Sac Francois. The Superior of the Domini cans asked Labat to observe the Carmelite closely but in a manner that would arouse no suspicions. The Carmelite came to visit Labat at Fond Saint-Jacques where Labat declares he retained him for nearly a month in order to delay the Carmelite's visit to the windward coast and in order to thwart his plans for establishing parishes there. Finally, Labat received word that three Dominicans were expected to arrive from France, and then, without uttering a word to his guest, told him that he was ready to accompany him to Cul-de-Sac Robert and Franqois. Labat reports that he took the Carmelite to Cul-de-Sac Robert first. Just as his guest had nearly succeeded in convincing the inhabitants that they should request a Carmelite priest to serve their parish, Labat rose ominously from his silence to announce to the eager crowd that two Dominican priests were arriving from France and that they would be assigned, one to the parish of Cul-de-Sac Robert, the other to Cul-de-Sac Francis. He also informed the surprised Carmelite and his audience that these priests would be cures-in-residence. Thereupon, Labat left for Cul-de-Sac Francis alone; his Carmelite guest, disgusted at seeing his scheme miscarry, pretended to be inconvenienced and decided to wait in Cul-de-Sac Robert until Labat returned. Labat, who loved intrigue, admits that he invented that strategy in order to disconcert the Carmelite father, but that the Superior of the Dominicans had not intended for matters to work out quite the way Labat reported they would develop. He states that, owing to a shortage of mission aries caused by the heavy toll exacted by yellow fever, Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue needed priests more urgently than Martinique needed them. Therefore, the three new priests were distributed in the following manner: one was 145 assigned to serve the two parishes of Cul-de-Sac Robert and Franyois, one was asked to serve in Guadeloupe, and the last one was sent to Saint-Domingue. Thus, Labat showed the same ambivalence in his atti tudes towards his Order as he showed in his attitudes towards the Catholic Church as a whole, although on matters of doctrine he remained an orthodox Catholic. Essentially liberal with respect to the Catholic religion and to his Order, Labat, when called upon to choose between the Catholic Faith and his Order as opposed to another religion and another Order, did not hesitate to opt for and defend the former. Although he reserved for himself the right to criticize anything and anyone of his Faith and of his Order, Labat, as we have seen, became suddenly ultra-Catholic and ultra-Dominican whenever his religious Order and Faith were attacked from without. Father Labat was a very practical priest who was involved in concrete problems of everyday life in the Antilles, in Spain, and in Italy. The pragmatic aspect of Labat's personality explains, perhaps better than any other, his lifelong battle against ignorance and super stition. He was, in fact, one among many ecclesiastics of his time to combat ignorance arid superstition from within the Church. 146 Labat and Colonialism Closely related to the subject of Father Labat's atti tudes towards religion and towards his Order is the matter of his attitudes towards France and that country's colonial system. It may be said that Labat's attitude toward France was that of patriotism, • often bordering on chauvinism. In Spain especially, he was careful to follow rules of conduct which would reflect credit on his country. He reminds one of Roland and his concern for "douce France" when, in the following statement he relates his return in full dress to the Dominican presbytery in Cadiz, after being refused admission there the first time because he was not wearing the traditional black cloak: " ••• car je crus qu'il falloit soutenir l'honneur de la Nation dans un Pals comme . celui-la" (Nouveau voyage. I, 11). Later in the work, I, 30, Labat relates that when he left the presbytery of Cadiz he gave the Prior money to defray the expenses incurred during his stay there, remind ing the Prior that it was a French custom never to eat any one's bread without paying for it. The Prior accepted the money and requested a souvenir from Labat, as well as a pic ture of Louis XIV. 147 Speaking of his return to France after more than six years in Italy, Labat declares, Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, VI, 1-2, that love of his country prompted him to return to France and settle there permanently. He asserts that the obstacles set up by his Italian friends to prevent him from carrying out his plan merely heightened his desire to return home. No doubt, the death of Louis XIV was also instrumental in that decision, although Labat is careful not to mention that detail. It is also to extreme patriotism that one must attri bute Labat's support of the French colonial system. One of the firmest cornerstones of France's old colonial system was Negro slavery. Labat was careful not to dislodge that cornerstone, for in so doing he would have jeopardized the entire structure of the system. Nowhere in his memoirs does there occur any hint that Labat found anything wrong in the principle of employing enforced Negro labor, although he deplored the excessive cruelty that the system sometimes involved. On the other hand, he suggests that slavery was an effective redemptive force for saving Negroes from superstition and their souls from hell. He even purchased them himself for use on the Saint-Jacques plantation and rarely reveals an iota of 148 commiseration for their lot. Of great use to his mission in the islands, Labat was a good missionary but also a shrewd engineer and businessman. The process of manufacturing sugar and rum which he described at length,in the Nouveau voyage, but which existed before him, was considered the Father Labat system. Thus, Father Labat was a.ready collaborator in the French colonial system and encouraged and both consciously and unconsciously abetted the evils of that system. Volume III of the Nouveau voyage, pages 465-528, concludes with a survey of the products that could be exported in the . islands and the merchandise that could be imported there. Labat advocated growing and cultivating coffee, among other suggestions. He even predicts the emergence of a colonial literature: "11 me semble voir une foule d1auteurs sortir de nos chaudieres a sucre et de nos barriques" (III, 524- 525). Unfortunately, that literary prediction was not to be borne out. He also contemplates writing a book on colonial cookery entitled Le Cuisinier anglols-americain. avec la maniere de servir une table de cent vingt-cinq couverts dans une He deserte, magnifiquement et sans depense (VI/ 380). As might be expected, the destruction of the French colonial system was not to be the work of men like Father Labat but that of the philosophes— some atheists, others agnostics, deists or "neutrals." It must be noted, however, that although Raynal voiced objections, the philosophes were not opposed to the commercial side of colonialism. • Itself a possessor of slaves, the Church could not be expected to rise up against an institution that it had helped to found and perpetuate. Religion had been the pretext used by Richelieu to persuade Louis XIII to consent to the introduc tion of the system of Negro slavery in the Antilles. As we have seen, missionaries were sent along on the very first French expedition to the islands and went in regular contin gents up until the time of the Revolution. Thus, the Catholic Church became one of the main pillars of the evil system of slavery. Father_Labat's condemnation of slavery is one of degree rather than kind. His attacks were never against the institution itself, but rather certain abuses and harsh punishments that Negroes were made to endure. Father Labat aided and abetted the system more than some of his less energetic confreres, for he was ever busy building churches, fighting the English, or representing France and his Order in the various islands of the Antilles, in Spain, 150 and in Italy. Possessed with seemingly boundless energy* Labat could have been a powerful force for good. One can only regret that he did not channel some of that excessive life fluid and versatility into alleviating and challenging the oppressive ills of the first French colonial empire. As we have already witnessed Labat's impatience with certain of his own fellow Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike, we are not surprised to learn that Father Labat harbored certain anti-Semitic attitudes. He reports (Voyages en Espagne_et en Italie, II, 133) that in 1710 there were twenty-two thousand Jews in Livorno, Italy. He asserts that these Jews were not restricted to ghettos and that they regarded Livorno as a new Promised Land. According to Labat's account, they bore no stigma or mark that would distinguish them from Christians, were rich and shrewd businessmen, and "ont presque toutes les fermes du Prince." Labat declared that the Jews, because of their wealth, were only more odious to the rest of the world but that they did not care about the world's opinion of them. Labat adds that there was probably no other spot on earth where the Jews were more arrogant and proud. Labat then goes into a minute description of the commercial mechanism of the ghetto. He relates that the 151 Jewish quarter in Livorno had three streets, lined with beautiful houses, but that the streets themselves were more filthy than in any other area of town. "11 semble que la salete soit 1'apanage de cette malheureuse Nation" (II, 133-134) . He goes on to say (II, 134-135) that nearly all the Jews in Livorno were rich, well-clothed and had no reason to be ill-fed, if they were. Nevertheless, he relates that there was an ungodly odor that emanated from their houses. He asserts that upon entering a Jewish home, one did not have to ask whether or not a Jew lived there because the characteristic Jewish odor revealed all. According to popular prejudices of that time, the malodor ous scent came from the Jews' bodies and the odor was part of the punishment meted out by God upon the Jews because of the execrable deicide they had committed. Labat, however, refused to espouse this opinion entirely and left the reader to draw his own conclusions. Speaking of the languages spoken among the Jews, Labat relates that Portuguese was widely used among the Livorno Jews and that Hebrew was spoken only by the Rabbis. Labat denounced the Jews for passing themselves off as Portuguese whenever they were undesirable as Jews. He states that Portugal should take measures to prevent them from using its 152 language and from passing for citizens of that country. He adds: "Cette tolerance ne fait pas honneur a une Nation Chretienne" (II, 135-136). According to the report given by Labat (II, 137-139), the Jews had a very beautiful synagogue in Livorno, but they were irreverent towards their Rabbi and towards God. In their antiphonal responses to the Rabbi thesy had no well- ordered tone, remained seated and hatted, and paid no atten tion to the services. As soon as the antiphony was over, the Jews irreverently resumed their conversations with their neighbors. Labat reports that that little game was repeated nine or ten times when he first visited the syna gogue and that the Rabbi was so lifeless that Labat thought he was a statue. On the more trivial side, Labat takes up the theme of the statue again in discussing the famous marble statue of Moses by Michelangelo (III, 322-32 3)'. Labat points out that the sculptor gave Moses a long, flowing beard that extended from his ears to his waist. That beard, Labat asserts, condemned by its length and thickness the horrible goatees worn by contemporary Jews. He adds that Michel angelo was as well-versed in ancient history as in anatomy, architecture, painting and sculpture. From this fact, 153 Labat concludes that Moses wore a very long beard. As a corollary of his conclusions, Labat suggests that Jews who claim to imitate Moses -to the letter should either wear a beard a la Moses or relinquish their title of Jews. Need less to say, the good priest did not give the Jews as wide a set of alternatives as he, no doubt, would have given his pirate friends. Unrelenting in his criticism of the Jews, Father Labat seems much more tolerant in his attitudes towards the Caribs. Efforts to convert the Caribs to Christianity met with little success; therefore, the French were obliged to treat them as uncivilizable. Father Labat said that for more than thirty years, worthy French missionaries had made earnest attempts to convert the Caribs to Christianity but to no avail. He speaks (Nouveau voyage, II, 26-2 7) of two priests who spent twenty-five years in Dominica and baptized only a few children and some adults in articulo mortis. Father Labat admitted that it was not difficult to persuade them to submit to baptism, but that the missionaries soon realized the futility of baptizing indiscriminately people who had no idea of the meaning of the sacrament nor any intentions of embracing Christianity. On the whole, the Caribs were unpleasant neighbors for the Europeans, yet it 154 is hard to say whether or not they would have been more genial if they had been given more humane treatment. Since peace on a permanent basis was not possible between the savages and the Europeans, the former were driven from I island to island until by the end of the seventeenth century they were relegated to the two islands of Dominica and Saint Vincent, which had no permanent settlements as yet. Labat devotes pages 8-96 of Volume II of the Nouveau voyage to a discussion of the Caribs. He relates that they were never converted except outwardly and that they could never be allowed to return among their compatriots, for they would forget the Christian religion and become worse than those who had never had a smattering of Christianity. Of the three non-Christian groups discussed in this chapter, Father Labat was most tolerant of the Caribs. Although a rather rudimentary philosopher, Labat could not prevent himself from portraying the Caribs as noble savages. His only reproach was that the Caribs obstinately refused to work for the Europeans. He even justified cannibalism on the grounds that roasting their enemies helped to reinforce the Caribs' memory of the affront suffered and the vengeance inflicted in return. 155 As we have seen, Labat's unrelenting criticism of the Jews turned to something seemingly tolerant in the case of the Caribs. As for Negroes, he regarded them as graceful animals, but has neither fellow-feeling nor admiration for them. They are pieces of property, intractable animals that are expensive and that must be spared if one is to reap a profit from them. Thus, Negroes held the middle ground in Labat's attitudes towards the three religious and ethnic groups discussed in this chapter. Labat seems to have possessed only a small measure of the altruism that had been the distinguishing mark of Father Dutertre. Unlike Father Dutertre, who was filled with great pity for the condition ot the Negroes, Father Labat seldom shows compassion. On one rare occasion when Labat went to hear the confession of a Negro slave who had been badly bitten by a snake, Labat was moved to pity: "Je dois avouer que 1'etat ou je trouvai ce negre me fit compassion" (Nouveau voyage, I, 161). Arriving in Martinique on January 28, 1694, Labat saw Negroes for the first time in his life. To his regret, he was not able to observe authentic Caribs until nearly a year later, in November of 1694. Labat relates that when he reached Martinique in 1694, a few Negro slaves came aboard 156 ‘ ship. The impression they made upon him was very slight, as evidenced by the following comment: IIs n'avoient pour tout habillement qu'un simple cale9on de toile, beaucoup portoient sur leur .dos les marques des coups de fouets qu'ils avoient re9us; cela excitoit la compassion de ceux qui n'y etoient pas habitues, mais on s'y fait bientot. (Nouveau voyage, • I, 65) Labat became easily accustomed to the mark of the whip and did not hesitate to use the whip and the rod to dis cipline indocile slaves, for he regarded Negroes as natural children of the devil, congenital sorcerers wielding occult power. He even went so far as to say (Nouveau voyacre, IV, 137) that all Negroes who arrived in the Antilles from Africa as full-grown men dabbled in sorcery. This was, no doubt, an exaggeration, but he relates a number of cases of witchcraft that bear cogent testimony to his assertions. Having surprised a sorcerer or medicine-man, in the hut of a sick woman slave, Labat treated him in the following manner: Je le fis attacher et je lui fis distribuer environ trois cens coups de fouet qui 11ecorcherent depuis les epaules jusqu'aux genoux. Puis je fis mettre le sorcier aux fers apres 1'avoir fait laver avec une pimentade, c'est-a-dire de la saumure dans laquelle on a ecrase du piment et de petits citrons. Cela cause une douleur horrible a ceux que le fouet a ecorches, mais c'est un 157 remede assure contre la gangrene. Je fis aussi etriller tous ceux qui s'etoient trouves dans l'assemblee pour leur apprendre a n 'etre pas si curieux une autre fois. (Nouveau voyage. I, 498-499) The preceding description gives one an idea of the types of everyday problems that Father Labat had to face in the Antilles. Possessed with an innate pragmatism, Labat no doubt, unconsciously at least, attributed his seemingly harsh treatment of intractable slaves to his profound love and concern for them. It would be unfair to Father Labat to present only the negative aspects of his relationship with his slaves; for, as he was a creature of ambivalence, if he was capable of anger and hate, he was also capable of love. Labat deplores the condition of the early slaves of the British and Dutch West Indies. While in the French Antilles the slaves were allowed and encouraged to embrace Christianity, those in Barbados were not allowed to become Christians and those in Antigua and Saint Eustatius were denied Baptism until they were in articulo mortis— and were often refused it then (Nouveau voyage, V, 42-45). The French Antillean policy was initiated by Louis XIII, who consented to the introduction of slavery into the Antilles only when Richelieu had convinced him that the Africans 158 would be given the opportunity to embrace and practice Christianity. Labat also deplored the harsh system employed by some French colonists who put their newly arrived slaves to work before they had been properly acclimatized and strengthened for work. Labat reports (Nouveau voyage. I, 174, 188; IV, 144) that it was the custom to quarter the newcomers with old hands, who were practicing Christians. The old hands would "teach them the ropes" and also a smattering of the French language. The old hands would help the newly arrived slaves prepare for Baptism and stand as sponsors for them. Not only did the slaves receive Baptism, but they also attended Mass, Confession, and Holy Communion. Labat may be adduced as a witness that the slaves went to Mass and the two sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, for he relates (VI, 330) that the slaves had en inexplicable predi lection for Holy Water and that they always took some away in small calabashes when they left High Mass on Sundays. As proof of diligence as a priest, Labat reports (I, 148- 149) that at Macouba he spent the week immediately following Easter and a part of the next week getting the Negro slaves to perform their Easter Duties— to receive the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. 159 Thus, as a priest, Labat showed the same diversity of interest and breadth of character he showed as a traveler. A juvenescent, broad-minded Jack-of-all-trades, Labat seems to have been prepared to meet any emergency; for, in fine, he was more than a priest. Although an orthodox Catholic who had no qualms about the religious dogma of his Faith, r> Father Labat did not hesitate to attack superstition and ignorance from within the Church. With respect to Labat's attitudes towards non-Christians and Negroes, we must con clude that, while his observations concerning Negroes and Jews, especially, do not always reflect credit to his name and memory, Labat was, nevertheless, fairly enlightened— even for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Annee dominicaine, pages 12 0-121, summed up Father Labat's character in the following manner: Ce religieux mena toujours une vie parfaitement correcte et religieuse, sans pourtant se distinguer par une saintete extraordinaire. ... II brilla plutot par les dons superieurs del'intelligence que par des vertus remarquables. ... 11 rendit, en diverse circon- stances, de vrais services a la famille dominicaine et, ayant beaucoup voyage, il lui a conserve dans ses ouvrages une foule de details precieux pour l'histoire de l'Ordre au commencement du dix-huitieme siecle. . . From the material we have presented in this chapter, it seems legitimate to conclude that the cleric who contributed 160 these lines to the Annee dominicaine spoke judiciously and soundly of his brother in Christ. CHAPTER III LABAT AS A MAN OF LETTERS In the preceding chapters we have sought to establish the unique position of Father Labat in respect to other travel-writers of his day, to point out the major events of his life, and to indicate the essential traits of his char acter. We must now discuss the factual and literary in terest of individual publications of Labat and analyze the author's style. In order to carry out a preliminary evaluation of Labat's total literary output, it is necessary to make a distinction between the writer's firsthand works and those that may be appropriately termed "second-remove." Individ ual works of Labat are of unequal degrees of literary and factual value. Naturally, it is the firsthand works that lend themselves best to an analysis of Labat's prose style. Nevertheless, the second-remove works are anything but negligible, for they shed light on Labat's ingenious use of 161 162 sources and indicate the degree to which he assimilated and transformed the accounts of others. Consequently, it may be said that, to a certain extent. Father Labat imposed his absorbing and lively style upon all of his writings— the firsthand as well as the second-remove. Let us, first, turn to Labat's own personal memoirs, o which constitute the firsthand aspect of the author's lit erary production. Personal Memoirs Nouveau voyage . Shrewdly critical of the travel-writers who had pre ceded him, Father Labat in the Preface, p. ix, of the 1722 edition of the Nouveau voyage asserts that his colleague, Father Dutertre, was the first of the French to popularize the West Indies. Labat concedes that Dutertre's work was admirable for the time it was written but states that his predecessor was deceived by many of the secondhand reports upon which he relied as sources. As for the Protestant minister, Rochefort, Labat declares that though he never saw the Antilles with his own eyes, he did not hesitate to write a plagiarized history of the islands. Labat adds that, as if that were not enough, Rochefort completely 163 spoiled his narrative with inaccurate descriptions designed to. conceal his borrowings. Having thus given vent to his spleen, Labat promises to record all matters precisely as he saw, learned, or prac ticed them (Preface, p. xxv). Except for details to be dealt with later in this study, it may be said he was suc cessful in achieving his goal. He gave to the world the one contemporary account of the Antilles whose surprisingly modern and lucid style makes it as readable today as it was in 1722 when it was first published. Between the years 1722, date of the original publica tion, and 1742, date of its second, the Nouveau voyage went into five editions. For the eighteenth century, this fact represented a success a la Pierre Loti, as well as one which must be regarded as exceptionally long-lived for that time. Yet the work, which had a wide circulation in its day, has become extremely rare. The reasons for this seeming paradox are myriad. The climate and insects of the islands are responsible for the destruction of a great number of copies that were in colonial private collections. Wars, revolutions, and natural calamities have, likewise, exacted a heavy toll on the copies in the islands. Other copies of the work were deliberately destroyed by sensitive Creoles 164 who did not particularly relish the aspersions cast by Labat upon their families and who also did not cherish the idea of being constantly reminded of their modest beginnings in reading Labat's Nouveau voyage. On page xxxv of the Preface to the 1742 edition of the Nouveau voyage, Labat aptly re plied to these hypersensitive people, not without a hint of subtle satire: Quelques personnes se sont plaintes de ce que j1ai parle de leur origine, comme si j'avois eu dessein de les faire mepriser par cet endroit. Je n'en ai jamais eu la pensee. J'ai cru au contraire leur faire honneur, & e'en est un tres-reel & tres-veritable, d'etre par venus par leur application & leurs talens, a s'elever dans le monde aux Charges les plus respectables, & a la Noblesse m§me que le Roi, toujours juste, leur a accor- dee comme une recompense de leurs services & de leur fidelite. J'ai crti qu'en proposant leur exemple j'exci- terois les autres a les imiter. Heureux si je puis reussir dans mon projet; car il vaut mieux commencer sa noblesse que de la finir. J'ai lieu d'esperer que tout le monde sera content de cette nouvelle Edition. As suggested, all was not praise and esteem for the first edition of the Nouveau voyage, nor for the second. A very serious criticism of the 1742 edition is found in a review of the work published in the Mercure de France, October 1742, pages 2243-2248. The Mercure charged Labat with borrowing from the treatises of several authors for the part of his work dealing with coffee without citing a single one of them. According to the Mercure (p. 2247), the 165 authors to whom Labat was indebted were: Philippe-Sylvestre Dufour, Bevanda asiatica, hoc est Physiologia potus cafei (Geneve, 1609; Lyon, 1705); Nicolas de Blegny, Le bon usage du cafe pour la preservation et la guerison des maladies (Lyon et Paris, 1687); and the Traite historique de l1origine et du progres du cafe (Paris, 1716). While this accusation may be essentially true, Father Labat, neverthe less, added a great deal of information drawn from his own sources. Many of Labat's contemporaries attacked him because of the Nouveau voyage, but no one seems to have been more venomous than Father Le Pers, who furnished much of the information contained in Father Charlevoix's Histoire de l'isle Espagnole ou de Saint-Domingue, mentioned in Chapter % ,,tof this study. No doubt jealous of Labat's popularity, 1 Le Pers, in his unpublished letters to Father Charlevoix, often speaks harshly of Labat and qualifies his accounts as "monkeries." Yet, Le Pers himself was hardly more competent a writer, as he submitted notes accumulated during his stay in the Antilles to Charlevoix with orders for him to put •^According to Dampierre (p. 157), these letters are found in the Bibliotheque de l'ficole de Sainte-Genevieve, MS. Saint-Domingue, I. 166 them in order and prepare them for publication. The 1722 edition of Labat's Nouveau voyage also^ re ceived at least one partially unfavorable review. This negative criticism of the work appeared in the Memoires de Trevoux. July 1727, pp. 1303-1318, under the title "Observa tion d'un botaniste habitant des lies occidentales de l'Amerique sur les plantes dont parle le Pere Labat dans les i six tomes de son Voyage aux isles." As the title of his article suggests, the insular botanist took each plant alphabetically as it occurred in the six volumes of Labat's work, corrected those of Labat's botanical descriptions that were erroneous, and supplemented those that he considered inadequate. The editor of the Memoires de Trevoux, however, stated in a supplementary comment at the end of the article (pp. 1317-1318) that it was up to experts in the field to evaluate the islander's refutation and supplement, but that his staff greatly deplored the abusive language and immod erate terms employed in the article. Generally speaking, the Memoires de Trevoux seem to have featured favorable reviews _of Labat's Nouveau voyage. One such review of the 1722 edition is found in the March 1722 edition of the Memoires de Trevoux, pages 408-447, and continued in the April one, pages 630-651. Completely devoid 167 of value judgments and criticisms of the author, the review merely states that Labat did not fall into the category of 2 the "travel liar" who writes with deliberate intent to deceive, nor the ignorant travel-writer who tells a "white lie" through a paucity of facts or bad judgment on his part On the other hand, the article places Labat somewhere be tween these two extremes and makes the following point on pages 409-410: Sa probite, son discernement et sa capacite pre- viennent en sa faveur les Lecteurs, dont il amuse la curiosite par les scenes variees qu'il leur fait passer devant les yeux: il ne parle point par oiii dire; il est temoin occulaire et tres-eclaire de tout ce qu'il avance. Presse par ses amis de reduire sous differens chefs les matieres diverses qu'il a traitees, il a mieux aime suivre l'ordre de son journal, et ne montrer les choses qu'a mesure qu'il les a vdes, sans doute pour jetter dans son ouvrage plus de variete. Father Labat was a man to whom the restraint of a cloister would have been slow agony. He was intellectually curious about all manner of things and possessed an intelli gence and mind remarkably open to the outside world. He was one of those writers whose style, like that of Mon- • ^ taigne, is necessarily desultory; for-in life it is o The term is the ingenious invention of Percy G. Adams Travelers and Travel Liars 1660-1800 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962). 168 impossible for him to see without looking and scrutinizing* to hear without listening and perceiving* and to learn with out also teaching. Oftentimes information provided by writers of this sort is superficial and unreliable. Yet* on the other hand* as in the case of Labat* such writers fur nish a number of seemingly unimportant details that are* in fact* indispensable to history. Labat's Nouveau voyage is* therefore*.a valuable contribution to the history of French colonial efforts in the Antilles; but* to a greater degree* it is also an indispensable work for anyone seeking to gain an overall knowledge of the manners and customs of Antillean society in the seventeenth century. Labat never presents methodical catalogues of Antillean society, but rather ac cumulates* as while chatting with the reader, a wealth of portraits and authentic tales; he places the reader in front of the facts and the characters themselves. Obviously* Father Labat was not an eyewitness to all he reports in the. Nouveau voyage. The work contains a great deal of history that had been made even before Labat's birth. In fact* Dampierre* in his Sources de l'histoire des Antilles, pages 154-157* refers to Labat as one of the main authors who made use of secondhand materials to write their history of the Antilles. Since Labat was not, nor could he 169 have possibly been., an eyewitness to all he recounts, he borrowed in extenso from preceding travel accounts, and especially from Father Dutertre's Histoire generale des Antilles. Therefore, all the events Labat reports in which he was not intimately involved require confirmation. His work is the most picturesque and the best known..of all the early Antillean travel accounts, but the historical infor mation contained in it is often untrustworthy. Although Labat never boasted of being a naturalist, hi.s work is replete with botanical and zoological digressions. In fact, the Nouveau voyage shares this characteristic with nearly all contemporary travel works and reflects the read ing tastes of the seventeenth- and, especially, the eight eenth-century French public. The seventeenth and.eighteenth centuries constituted a kind of Golden Age for travelers, and those who remained at home read the accounts of others to satisfy their scientific or simply idle curiosity, and also the desire for escape that is found in all centuries and in all ages. Father Labat's Nouveau voyage fulfilled the longings "and desires of the stay-at-home, sedentary reading public. Through the Nouveau voyage, the readers were able to transport.themselves to the far-off Antilles and vicariously live the adventurous life of a colonialist 170 in all the pristine glory of the New World. Thus, the lure of the exotic made itself felt upon the eighteenth-century reading public. In the authentic natural setting furnished by Labat's detailed description of the fauna and flora of the Antilles, the reader was able to escape to the New World and enjoy a few precious hours of literary illusion that was yet anchored in concrete reality. Thus, the minute descriptions of plants and animals found in the Nouveau voyage represented a concession made by the author to his reading audience. Labat's audience was literally starved for exoticism, and this fact probably accounts for his detailed descriptions of many small and unimportant islands of the Lesser Antilles. Whatever his motive, the fact remains that, concerning many of these smaller islands, hardly any other information was then available. Of all the travel accounts of Labat, the Nouveau voyage is the one most highly esteemed. In his reviews of various manufacturing procedures and his descriptions of animals and plants Labat revealed a talent hardly characteristic of a monk— a stranger, so to speak, by his condition and prin cipal occupations, to the mechanical arts and to natural history. It is only regrettable that he enlarged his work 171 with numerous little anecdotes, mostly malign, about Creole families and which, of limited interest even at that time, are of practically none today. In his Nouveau voyage, Father Labat relates, year by year, month by month, and nearly day by day, what he saw, what he did, the public and private events in which he was involved. He also describes, gradually, as he visits it, the colony which was the stage upon which these events un folded. He comments on and discusses the races of men that inhabit it, the uses to which the plants that grow on it can be put, and the animals that live there. His work is, thus, a kind of encyclopedia of everything in the colonies that is of interest to the reader. It is an amalgam of exotic cur iosities, including a botanical and zoological guide, a manual on rural and domestic economy, a treatise on medicine and pharmacy, a local history, an excellent collection of recipes of colonial cuisine, historical and geographical data, gossip, clever jokes, and myriad quips. One has only to glance over the table of contents in order to note that the most disparate questions are treated in the work. There is something for everyone in the Nouveau voyage, and perhaps its diversity, .more than any other single aspect of it, accounts for its great popularity in 172 the eighteenth century. 3 Like the ex-Franciscan Rabelais, Labat felt that sad ness and sorrow are detrimental to one's health. For this reason, he delighted in enlivening his work with so much joviality and gaiety that it constitutes an excellent remedy for melancholy. The illustrious friar pokes fun at every body; his verve spares no one. Sometimes he laughs at talkative and envious women; sometimes he showers with ridi cule the doctors of his time, for whom he held the same dis respect as Moliere; sometimes he makes the reader laugh at the expense of his hosts, his friends, his colleagues or even of his superiors. Even death does not alter his tone, and he finds a way to smile when relating the death of his colleagues. Furthermore, death, with the Christian hopes that it implies, is for him only a great voyage no less interesting than the terrestrial ones. Fond of peregrina tion as he was, Labat deemed it' inappropriate to bemoan beyond reason the fate of those who undertake it. ^It should be recalled that around 1511 Rabelais en tered the Franciscan Order, perhaps the most strict of all religious orders and the least favorable to intellectual work. However, around 1525 he transferred to the Benedict ine Order, noted for its scholarly, literary and artistic pursuits. 173 One arises from the reading of the Nouveau voyage with a feeling akin to regret* for although Labat is a prolix writer* he is always able to interest the reader. The Nou veau voyage, the author's most popular work* could be quoted indefinitely. But we must leave the Nouveau voyage in order to examine the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. Voyages en Espagne et en Italie The Voyages en Espagne et en Italie may be regarded as the sequel to the Nouveau voyage and the continuation and end of Labat's personal memoirs. It, too* was a very popu lar work; and although it never gained the acclaim the Nou veau voyage received* it was also translated into several foreign languages. It is the work of the author in his maturity and is, from a literary point of view* of a super ior quality to the Nouveau voyage, for the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie reveals Labat in full possession of his satirical techniques. Nevertheless* because of the mental ity of the French reading public around 17 30* the Nouveau voyage was the more popular work. Judging from the reactions and over-reactions of a segment of Labat's Creole audience that protested his allu sions to prominent families in the Antilles* one might 174 advance the theory that Labat hesitated to publish the con tinuation and end of his personal memoirs, the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, because he feared reprisals similar to the indignities he had been forced to suffer in Toul. To relegate and restrict Father Labat to monastic life in a cloister was to condemn that man, born to be free and un restrained, to slow but sure death. There was a lapse of eight years between the publication of the Nouveau voyage, the beginning of his memoirs, and that of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, which records the conclusion of La- bat's personal travels. In the meantime, he had published the Nouvelle relation, and earlier in 1730 the Voyage de des Marchais, in order to divert the reader's attention from the Nouveau voyage and its scathing attacks on certain Creole families. As proof of the theory that fear of reprisals led Labat to postpone the publication of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, one has only to read the first three pages of the preface to that work. Those pages are a profusion of justifications reflecting at once the contempt and the fear of a man forced to justify himself in order to avoid the worst. In that same preface (p. iv) Labat assures the reader that he will recount only what he has seen and carefully 175 scrutinized in Italy: antiques, monuments, paintings, book stalls, curiosity shops, and the like. As for what he writes based on hearsay, the author promises to cite his sources and to do the same for information drawn from printed sources. With respect to the account of the voyage to Spain, Labat limited himself to what he saw in Cadiz and its en virons. But even there he borrows copiously from Dom Juan- Bautista Suares de Salazar, whom he actually cites, and whose work, Grandezas y antiquedades de la 'is'la y ciudad de Cadis, had been published in Cadiz as early as 1610. The second work from which Labat drew and which he cited was that of Father Jeronimo de la Concepcion, whose Emporio del orde Cadis ilustrada had appeared in Amsterdam in 1690. Labat, as in all the travel accounts emanating from his pen, enlivened the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie with gay and intriguing anecdotes, although his jokes and sarcasms are not always well chosen. As elsewhere, the author may also be accused of diffuseness of style in this work. Although Labat's account of the voyage to Spain amounts to little more than a relatively good description of Cadiz, the part dealing with Italy is much more extensive. Yet, the portion of the work concerning Italy does not contain 176 many instructive details, except for what relates to the papal government. At the time the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie ap peared in 1730* Italy was not as well known in France as one might think. Father Labat was the third of three European authors who published works of some importance on Italy prior to 1730. The first of these writers was Frangois Maximilien Misson, whose Nouveau voyage d1Italie first ap peared in the Hague in 1691. The other precursor of Labat in Italy was a Scotsman, Gilbert Burnet, whose work appeared 4 in Rotterdam and in Amsterdam in 1686 under the title Some Letters Containing an Account of What seemed most re- 5 marguable m Switzerland. Italy, etc. ^It is impossible to ascertain which was the first edition of that work, though it is highly possible that the publication of the two editions was simultaneous. Citations from Burnet throughout the study are to the 1686 Rotterdam edition. 5Burnet, an English Protestant, left his native country and came to France in 1685 at the advent of King James II, whose disfavor he had incurred for having been involved in a plot to exclude James II from the throne. From France, Bur net went to Italy but had to leave Rome when he became in volved in certain controversial arguments dealing with the Catholic Church. He visited other countries of Europe, notably Germany, Switzerland, and finally Holland, where he became a naturalized citizen upon learning that he was about to be convicted in England for high treason. Upon his return to England, he was made Bishop of Salisbury in 177 All of the three works just referred to, including Father Labat's, are by "secondary" writers on Italy. The first major account in French of Italy reflecting C i the kaleidoscopic variety of that country was the work of g President Charles de Brosses, who knew and respected Labat and who mentions him twice in his Lettres familieres sur 1'Italie, which first appeared in 1799. De Brosses visited Italy in 17 39-1740 and addressed letters to his friends in Dijon. However, some of these letters were actually written by De Brosses after he returned to France, when he was urged by his friends to publish his amusing missives. There were - ■' . many gaps, since De Brosses had not kept copies of his let ters and thus had to rely on the friends to whom the letters were sent to provide him with materials. To fill the in evitable gaps, De Brosses wrote a number of imaginary let- < ters. 1689. His work was also translated into French under the title Voyages de Suisse, d1Italie, de quelques endroits de l'Allemagne et de la France, faits en 1685 et 1686 (Rotter dam, 1718) . ^Charles de Brosses was President of the Parliament of Burgundy and friend of Buffon, Voltaire and D'Alembert. ^Labat is mentioned in I, 2 and 256 of the Paris, 1931 edition of the Lettres familieres, the one used for this study. 178 Often reminiscent of the picaresque novel, Labat's Voyages en Espagne et en Italie presents the adventures of a somewhat scornful monk among the great personages of the * Italian clergy: pope, priests of all types, .cardinals, ministers, members of the Inquisition. All of this he pre sents in the setting of popular Italy, and not the aristo cratic and Stendhalian Italy of De Brosses. Like the Nouveau voyage, the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie received a number of reviews, all generally favor able. One such review appeared in installments in the Journal des Savants, October (pp* 611-616), November (pp. 678-681), and December (pp. 741-744), 1730. This review is little more than a summary of the eight volumes of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. The review which appeared the following year in the March issue of the Journal de Trevoux, pages 529-54*4, on the other hand, is singularly revealing. Obviously pro-Labat, the writer of the review asserts on page 529 that Father Labat related only what he had seen for himself and did not copy from his predecessors Continuing his defense of Labat, the reviewer maintained that nature is a combination of the beautiful and the ugly and that if some of Father Labat1s portraits were grotesque they were nevertheless copies of the originals found in 179 nature. If such were the case, and if Labat's remarks about g Spain were completely authentic and objective, why were the Spanish, like the Creoles, offended? The truth of the mat ter is that Labat arrived in Spain with a ready baggage of preconceived ideas on that country. Some of these anti- Spanish attitudes he undoubtedly picked up from his envi ronment, as nearly everyone in the Antilles and in France was anti-Spanish in those days. Other ideas Labat drew perhaps from Bartolome de las Casas, the great apostle of the Indians, whom he mentions in Volume V of the Nouveau voyage, page 57. Nevertheless, it was from the Relation du voyage d1Espagne (Paris, 1691), written by Marie-Catherine 9 de la Motte, baronne d'Aulnoy, that Labat drew most of hxs anti-Spanish venom, though he never cites the work. The Relation du voyage d1Espagne was written by Mme d'Aulnoy as a sequel to her Memoires de la cour d'Espagne, which had appeared in 1690. Although she is best known for ®0nly the first volume of the Voyages en~Espagne et en Italie contains information on Spain. ^References in this study are to the Foulche-Delbosc edition of the Relation du voyage (Paris, 1927). The work is found in the Revue Hispanique, LXVII, Nos. 151-152 (June- August 1926), .1-569. 180 her children's fairy tales, she was also widely acclaimed for her lively memoirs on Spain. In the nineteenth century none other than Sainte-Beuve and Taine gave them unbounded praise. The works were also immediately .translated into other languages, many times into English. Although from the outset many readers questioned the reliability of Mme d'Aulnoy's accounts on Spain, written in the form of an epistolary-novel composed of fifteen lengthy letters addressed to a female cousin in France, it was not until 1926 that Professor Foulche-Delbosc, a scholar- detective, proved conclusively that her travels were fic titious, and on page 90 of his edition of the Relation du voyage en Espagne he can assert without fear of contradic tion: "Mme d'Aulnoy n'est pas allee en Espagne." He thor oughly exposes the fireside nature of Mme d'Aulnoy's travel books. Professor Foulche-Delbosc concludes that her two travel works on Spain are mere compilations, intelligently and adroitly put together. The amazing success of her hoax reveals to what degree they were, indeed, cleverly and in telligently assembled.( That Mme d'Aulnoy, whose literary cachet lay in the domain of the imaginary, should write a fictitious account of Spain is hardly surprising. But that Father Labat, who 181 promised so convincingly in the preface to the Voyages en Espagne to record matters as he had seen them and not to borrow from others, should exploit the reader's trust in his good faith through his extensive borrowings from Mme d'Aul noy is something closely approaching betrayal of a sacred trust. Precisely how completely that trust was betrayed is revealed in an article entitled "Le voyage de Pere Labat en Andalousie" by Jean Sarrailh which appeared in Paris in the Annales de l'Universite de Paris, XXXIII, No. 2 (April-June 1963), 169-189. In the last two pages of the article the writer compared certain observations of Mme d'Aulnoy con cerning Spanish life and customs with corresponding ideas found in Labat's Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. The re sults of that study reveal that, although Labat modified his models to a considerable degree, he found in them enough biased and satirical material to kindle his own anti-Spanish prejudices. Secondhand Accounts Having discussed the two works by Labat, the Nouveau voyage and the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, that con stitute, so to speak, the author's own personal memoirs, we 182 may now consider his second-remove works. While these second-remove accounts are generally not as absorbing as Labat*s own personal memoirs, they do supply valuable in sights into the literary techniques and style of the author. Nouvelle relation Turning from the Antilles, where he had seen Negroes for the first time, Labat shifted his interest to Africa, the homeland of the slaves among whom he had lived for nearly twelve years. Nevertheless, as he states in the preface to the Nouvelle relation, p. i, it was only vicar iously that he visited Africa: J'ay vu l'Afrique, mais je n'y ay jamais mis le pied, • • • Je ne parler’ ay done de l'Afrique que sur la foy d'autruy & sur des Memoires, mais sur des Memoires de gens sages, eclairez, d'une probite reconnue, qui ont demeure bien des annees dans les pa'is que je vais deerire, en qualite de Commandans pour le Roy & de Directeurs generaux pour la Compagnie Royale du Sene gal. ... Later (pp. vii-viii) in the preface, Father Labat states that he did not wish to commit the same mistakes as his predecessors who had written on Africa. For that rea son, he asserts, he would not exceed the boundaries he had prescribed to himself: not to give a description of the whole of Africa but, as the title indicates, to present-a 183 description only of the western coast of Africa, from Cape Blanco to Sierra Leone. He added that this work was but the beginning of a much more extensive plan, mentioned in the preface, page iii, which was to present a description of all of Africa in several different works, provided gentlemen would provide him with materials, as Brue had done for the work in question. As pointed out earlier in this study, as early-as 1742 Labat was accused of plagiarizing Sylvestre Dufour and Nicolas de Blegny in writing the long treatise on coffee which he inserted in the 1742 edition of the Nouveau voyage. Nevertheless, no one accused him of plagiarism in writing the Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique occidentale. For years, even over a century and a half, the Nouvelle relation was considered an excellent book, composed almost entirely from the memoirs of Andre Brue,^ and thus having the value of an authentic document and of a firsthand testimony. There fore, all subsequent writers treating Senegal drew from Labat as from a venerable source. It was like an—inex haustible mine from which numerous compilers drew, inserting ■^Director of the French colony in Senegal 1697-1702 and 1714-1720. 184 in their text entire pages from Labat's work without casting an iota of doubt on the validity of the author's assertions that the work was based on Brue (Nouvelle relation, I, 47). Two of the most gullible of these authors who wrote impor tant works on Senegal and accepted Labat's claim that the Nouvelle relation was actually based on Brue are fitienne 11 12 Felix Berlioux and Charles Anthanase Walckenaer. It was not until 1910 that an ingenious"researcher * named Prosper Cultru, then lecturer at the Sorbonne, pub lished in Paris his Les origines de l'Afrique occidentale. Histoire du Senegal du XVe siecle a 1870. In this work, Cultru proved that Labat did, in fact, use portions of the memoirs of Brue in order to write the Nouvelle relation but that the greater part of the work was taken textually from 13 the memoirs of Michel Jajolet de la Courbe, whom Labat ^ Andre Brue, ou l'oriqine de la colonie frangaise du Senegal. . (Paris, 1874); cited in Prosper Cultru, Introd., Premier voyage du Sieur de la Courbe a la coste d'Afrique en 1685 (Paris, 1913), p. i. •^Histoire generale des voyages, ou Nouvelle collection des relations de voyages par mer et par terre (Paris, 1826- 1831); cited in Prosper Cultru, Introd., Premier voyage du Sieur de la Courbe, p. i. •^Director of the French Senegalese colony 1688-1690 and 1709-1710. 185 mentions in Volume I, page 37 of the Nouvelle relation. This is undeniable proof that Labat was conversant with at least the name of la Courbe; but, going beyond a mere ac quaintance, he not only altered and arranged the text of la Courbe1s memoirs, but also attributed to Andre Brue what actually had been accomplished by Brue's predecessor in Senegal. The memoirs of la Courbe and his first voyage to Senegal were published in Paris by Prosper Cultru in 1913 under the title Premier voyage du Sieur de la Courbe a la coste d'Afrique en 1685. This work constitutes indisputable proof that Labat did, in fact, borrow extensively from la Courbe. Despite his plagiaristic bent, Father Labat must not be condemned too harshly, for his inordinate desire to render himself useful often led him to extremes. Even Prosper Cultru would concede that the Nouvelle relation did serve a useful purpose; for, as he states in Les origines de l'Af rique occidentale, page 73, it was the only source consulted for the history of Senegal in the period 1664-1697, about which little was known, since the archives of the various companies were not preserved. Furthermore, there was no way to control plagiarism before 1789, and copious borrowings were often a matter of course. 186 If Labat's zeal and desire to be useful may be adduced as extenuating circumstances, it may also be argued that he was a man who felt he had a role to play and a destiny to fulfill. In psychological terms, he was not only a proud Frenchman, ‘ but an ambitious one as well. Labat's tendencies toward practicality reveal themselves in his careful atten tion to include not only what is likely to capture and hold the reader's interest but also what may be of utilitarian value to him. Often, in his over-zealous efforts to fulfill his destiny and to prove himself the envoy of God which he imagined himself to be, Labat was remiss in his obligations to intellectual honesty. Like a breathless, effervescent child bursting into a room and bubbling over with news of a fresh encounter, Father Labat, in his desire to unbosom himself and tell all, often forgot to indicate the writers of his script. As in the case of the Nouveau voyage, the plan of the Nouvelle relation is highly irregular. The contents of the * book are disposed in haphazard fashion, and the author shows little regard for method and order. In characteristic fashion, Labat mixes facts concerning geography, natural, political and social history, ethnography and social be havior, apparently as he came across them. 187 Voyage de des Marshals The warm welcome accorded the Nouvelle relation when it appeared in 1728 encouraged Labat to pursue 'the plan men tioned in the preface (p. i) of that work to describe all of the African continent. The Voyage de des Marchais was thus written as a sequel to his first work on Africa, and con tains an account of Guinea and adjacent islands. The ac count of Africa found in the Voyage de des Marchais runs from Sierra Leone, where the Nouvelle relation ended, to the Cameroons. v' As Labat had never been to Africa, he again had to rely on the account of others for information to fill his work. Therefore, he had procured several memoirs, both in French and in Portuguese, which, although they furnished a great deal of information, were far from sufficient to complete the work. Labat was on the point of dropping the plan when he accidentally became acquainted with the Chevalier Renaud des Marchais, who in 1726 had just returned from Guinea, Senegal, and Whydah where he had commanded a vessel of the Indies Company and had unsuccessfully dabbled in the African slave trade. He had been forced to sell his human cargo— to his great profit, be it noted--in Cayenne, where his leaky, worm-nibbled ship left him stranded. Shortly upon 188 his return to France in 1726, he met Labat and submitted the manuscript of the account of his voyages in Africa and in «• • • Cayenne to him. The portion of the travel account by Des Marchais deal ing with Africa was quite complete. In the words of Labat (Voyage de des Marchais, Preface, p. vi): II n'y a point de Caps, de Golphes, de Montagnes, de Rivieres, de Ruisseaux, de Plages, de Mouillages, de hauts fonds, d'ecueils, qu'il n'ait vQs, frequentes, sondes, visites & dessines avec le soin & 1'exactitude d'un homme curieux, habile, entendu, bon Dessinateur, bon Geometre, bon Pilote, excellent Capitaine. Des Marchais could make himself understood in most of the languages of the African coast and was thus well- qualified to make valid observations on the country. Thanks to his linguistic abilities, he was also able to ingratiate himself with the inhabitants of the areas visited as well as with their chiefs. The account of Africa by Des Marchais was thus very helpful to Labat in writing the sequel to the Nouvelle relation. Des Marchais. also provided valuable details on life and customs in Cayenne, or French Guiana. Since they were more fragmentary, however, than the information concerning Af rica, Labat had to complete them with information drawn from other travel-writers. The account of Des Marchais1 voyages 189 in Africa and Cayenne, properly speaking, takes up Volumes I-III (chapters i-v) of the Voyage de des Marchais. N ’ In order to complete the information furnished by Des Marchais on Cayenne, Labat made use of an account written by a magistrate and former intendant of Guinea, the Cheva lier de Milhault. Apparently Labat consulted this memoir in manuscript form, as there is no evidence that it was ever published. The description of Guiana based on the memoirs of Milhault covers Volume III, chapter vi, pages 119-142 of 14 the Voyage de des Marchais. The next supplementary source used by Labat was the journal of the Jesuit Fathers Jean Grillet and Frangois Bechamel entitled Journal du voyage qu'ont fait les Peres Jean Grillet et Francois Bechamel dans la Guyane en 1674. The Jesuits' account had first appeared in the second volume of Marin le Roy Gomberville, Relation de la riviere des Amazones (Paris, 1679-1680). Later both Gomberville's Relation de la riviere des Amazones and the Journal de ■^The memoir of Milhault is a small-sized, eight-volume manuscript of 695 pages found in the Bibliotheque du Musee d'Histoire Naturelle under the title "Histoire de 11 lie de Cayenne et de la province de Guyane,1 1 according to Ferdinand Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie generale (Paris, 1852-1866), XXII, 57. 190 Grillet et de Bechamel were published at the end of the French translation of the voyage of Woodes Rogers, which was first published in Amsterdam under the title Voyage autour du monde, commence en 1708 en fini en 1711, par le capitaine Woodes Rogers. The Grillet-Bechamel journal is found in Volume III, pages 154-176 of the Voyage de des Marchais. Finally, on pages 72-136 of the fourth volume of the Voyage de des Marchais Labat reproduces several long letters, none of which are found in the Lettres edifiantes, of the Jesuit Father Pierre-Aime Lombard. This father has been referred to earlier in the study as one of the first French missionaries to achieve a degree of success in his mission ary efforts among the Indians of Cayenne. In general, as the title promises, the Voyage de des Marchais contains little more than a description of the African coast and the various tribes inhabiting these re gions, plus some geographical and botanical information on Cayenne. Of the four volumes that make up the work, the first two deal with Guinea and the last two with Cayenne. As the chief French slave-trading center in Africa was at Whydah, the author devoted all of the second part of the Voyage de des Marchais to a description of that kingdom, its inhabitants, their manners and customs, government, laws, 191 and religion. Des Marchais was at Whydah shortly before the Dahomies conquered it in 1727, following their invasion of Ardra in 1724. Thus, what he relates concerning serpent worship at Whydah is noteworthy, for it was during the period immedi ately following the conquest of Whydah and Ardra by the Dahomies that Haiti first received the voodoo cult brought by slaves from Ardra and Whydah. The narrative indicates that Des Marchais was an eyewitness of ophiolatry at Whydah, concerning which he related in the Voyage de des Marchais, II, 133-134, that the principal divinity of that country was the serpent, although the exact date of the beginning of the snake cult in Whydah could not be pinpointed. Nevertheless, he stated with certainty that the practice of ophiolatry originated in the Kingdom of Ardra. He reported that while the Whydahs were at war with the Ardras, a large serpent deserted the enemy's army and delivered himself to the Whydahs. Des Marchais pointed out that instead of biting like other animals of his species, the snake caressed and embraced everybody. In order to inspire the fighting Why dahs, the chief sacrificer held the compliant snake in full view of the entire army, which, divinely inspired, com pletely routed their enemies. Attributing their victory to 192 the serpent, the Whydahs built the new god a house, brought him sustenance, and adopted him as their chief god. Thus, the memoirs furnished by Des Marchais were a valuable addition to Labat's projected complete description of Africa. Ending the Nouvelle relation with the descrip tion of Sierra Leone was an ingenious yet logical device used by Labat, for, as he relates in the Voyage de des Marchais, I, 2-3, the Sierra Leone River was the boundary that separated the territories of the two companies that were known in France before 1718 by the name of Senegal and Guinea Companies. Labat arranged the Voyage de des Marchais in its entirety and was careful to indicate his principal sources in the preface to the work. Relation historique The Relation historique, as pointed out earlier in the study, is more of a collection of Italian and Portuguese travel accounts, recast by Labat, than it is an original work. Encouraged, no doubt, by the success of the Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique occidentale, published in 1728, and the Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinee, which ap peared in 1730, Labat decided to add still another part to his projected global description of Africa. The Relation 193 historique, published in 1732, was thus written to fulfill that purpose and takes up the description where the Voyage de des Marchais left off, describing the interior parallel ing the African coast from the Cameroons up to Cape Negro. With respect to the manner in which he utilized the account by Cavazzi, Labat wrote on pages vii-viii of the preface to the Relation historique: II ne faut pas s'attendre a trouver ici une traduc tion litterale comme celle d'un Ecolier: la langue Italienne dans laquelle cet Ouvrage est ecrit, a ses beautes, ses tours, ses expressions, ses elegances. Tout cela rendu mot pour mot dans notre langue auroit perdu infiniment de sa force & de son energie. J'ai traduit librement, j'ai pris la pensee de mon Auteur sans rien diminuer des beautes de 1'original. J'ai tAche de donner a ma traduction la noble simplicity de notre langue, & sans rien lui oter de sa force, je lui ai substitue nos expressions.. , Si mon stile n'est pas aussi eleve qu'on le pouroit souhaiter, je supplie le Lecteur de se souvenir que je fais ici le person- nage d'un [historien] & non celui d'un Orateur. J'ai crti que je pouvois remplir les vuides qui se sont trouves quelquefois dans mon Auteur, par ce que les meilleurs Historiens Espanols & Portugais m'ont fourni sur les memes sujets; je n'en ai fait qu'un corps nullement distingue du reste de 1'ouvrage. ... To call Labat's handling of the information found in Cavazzi*s account a free translation, as he did, is still a mild form of litotes. Labat's rearrangement of Cavazzi's work is a perfect example of how he was able to take an author's work, use it as a "plot" outline, and alter it 194 beyond recognition, while giving his own, often undocu mented, version of the subject. Labat himself makes no pretense about his method and admits (I, 54) that in order not to stray completely from Cavazzi, he is inserting a brief description of the kingdom of Matamba. Labat adds that he supplemented Cavazzi's work in order to give the • * reader a more coherent natural history of Matamba than the fragmentary one furnished by Cavazzi. Despite the sincere tone of that assertion, the fact remains that in the Relation historique Labat did not exer cise sufficient critical judgment with respect to the bor rowings he extracted from other writers. True, he did offer a number of critical comments; however, generally speaking, « in this work more than in any other of his works Labat gave free play to his sometimes amazing over-credulousness. For that reason, of all his works, the Relation historique is the most unreliable. However, with discrimination and on guard against everything in this account that smacks of the supernatural and the marvelous, one can find interesting information on the regions he describes. Memoires d'Arvieux This travel account, as the title indicates, was 195 15 embroidered upon the memoirs of Laurent d'Arvieux, who spent eleven years (1653-1665) in the Levant with his cousin, Bertandier, who was French Consul in Sidon. Pre sumably, D'Arvieux submitted the manuscript of his memoirs to Labat some time prior to his death in 1702, although no mention is made in the Memoires concerning how or when Labat secured the manuscript. A precocious polyglot, D'Arvieux learned most of the languages of the Levant. Because of his remarkable linguistic abilities and his genial manner, Louis XIV and Turenne sent him on many diplomatic missions to the Levant and to Africa. Thanks to his facility in the languages of the coun tries of the Levant, D'Arvieux returned to France after his first stay in 1665 with a plethora of information on the history, manners, customs, and governments of the countries of that region. Shortly after its publication, the Memoires d'Arvieux was attacked in an amusing 220-page work entitled Lettres critiques de Hadgi Mohemmed Effendi a Mme la Marquise de •^Labat reports on page iii of the preface to the Memoires d'Arvieux (Paris, 17 35) that the real name of D'Arvieux, who was of Italian origin, was Arveo and that D'Arvieux was a corruption of it. D'Arvieux was born in Marseilles June 21, 1635 and died there October 3, 1702. 196 ... , au sujet des Memoires du chevalier d'Arvieux, trad. du turc par Ahmed Frengui [Petis de la Croix] (Paris, 1735). A year later, the Journal de Trevoux, April 1736, pages 662- 680, in its review of Lettres critiques, came to the defense of Father Labat, pointing out that he was not to be held responsible for the repetitions, obscenities, libel, and untruths which were pointed out in the Lettres critiques. The Lettres critiques were allegedly written by Hadgi Mohemmed Effendi, who was then Director-General of Finances in Tripoli, and who had made two trips to France and was thus conversant with French manners and customs. According to the preface of the Lettres, the Marquise de G . . . had asked his opinion of the Memoires d'Arvieux, which she had read to him by her interpreter; whereupon Hadgi Mohemmed Effendi, who was none other than Petis de la Croix, sup posedly drew up a list of the mistakes he found in them. As the preceding examination of his literary production indicates, Father Labat was able to make all of the works he published interesting. He chose with a sure instinct the features most likely to captivate and catch the reader's attention. He is, to be sure, a little wordy, but since he writes without pretensions, and since his simplicity is heightened by a certain pleasing style, one is seldom bored 197 in reading him. As the April 1736 issue of the Journal de Trevoux ' pointed out, Father Labat should not bear the blame for the weaknesses of his sources. His translations, compilations, or rearrangements of others' works bear little resemblance to the two works which constitute his own true memoirs, the Nouveau voyage and the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. Into the works he translated or edited Labat manages to in sert a piquant word or phrase, which is inevitable for a man of his mettle. When Labat ceases to write from his own experiences, however, he ceases to be completely absorbing. The Nouveau voyage and the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie are his personal memoirs and, in truth, the only works that may be said to be truly his own. In all the other works, one senses the restraint and lack of freedom that monastic life implied, especially for Labat. Critical Review In the foregoing materials we have tried to evaluate the content of Labat's individual publications— both first hand and second-remove. We are now in a position to discuss the factual and literary interest of Labat1s total literary output. First of all, it may be said that Father Labat 198 should never have boasted of practicing complete intellec tual honesty in his writings. To some extent, Labat altered his borrowings from others in accordance with his own views and temperament. As a result, even his compilations and translations turn out to be anything but uninteresting. Nevertheless, in his desire to create an interesting but useful work, Labat added to his original sources whatever he found in conformity with his own views but rarely cited the authors to whom he was indebted. Iir must be remembered, however, that in Father Labat's time plagiarism was not the serious matter that it is nowadays, when it is punishable by law, and that copious borrowings from other authors were often a matter of course. If that fact may be adduced as an extenuating circumstance, Father Labat may surely be excused for a shortcoming that does not diminish in the least his effectiveness as a writer or his usefulness as a man and priest. * If, indeed, Labat may be accused of having plagiaristic tendencies, he may surely not be accused of producing boring or uninteresting works. It was no doubt in order to enliven his works that Father Labat often mixed historical, botani cal, zoological, and geographical information with his per sonal memoirs. In this respect, Labat's works are no 199 different from other contemporary travel accounts. By a sort of free association, Labat passes from one topic to another in a desultory manner that often reminds the reader of Montaigne. And, like his predecessor, Labat was fully aware of his extremely digressive style. Often he admits that he has been engaging in the pleasant art of rambling and that he must return to the matter at hand. Thus, after a long digression on the Nile and the Niger Rivers, Labat returns to his description of the Congo, while openly ad mitting that he has been temporarily occupied with other matters: "Je reviens a la description de mon auteur. ... " (Relation historique. I, 47). One could cite miany examples of such admissions by Labat, but the example given is suf ficient to show that Father Labat's method was, indeed, digressive, but that he was perhaps more aware of it than i 16 anyone else. The deliberate use of a digression has been cited as a valuable technique practiced by Labat in order to enliven his works and to give them an aspect of kaleidoscopic 16 Other examples of Labat's digressive style may be found in the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. IV, 2 07-2 08, 237, 337-378; I, 5-9, 246-247, 320; III, 171; and in the Nouveau voyage. I, 88-89; II, 57-61; III, 447-448; IV, 4, 210-211, 453-456; VI, 288-290. 200 variety. On the other hand, it may be.said that Father Labat's occasional credulousness in accepting the reports of others was a serious shortcoming on his part. He docilely accepted some of the most easily disproved reports as gospel truthj for this reason, the facts that he reports on the faith of others are often unreliable. For example, he in forms us in the Nouveau voyage, I, 485, that Pierre Dubuc went to Saint Kitts at eighteen, before 1637, and that he died after 1700 at only sixty-eight years of age. It is hard to believe that a former teacher of mathematics and philosophy made that statement, which is neither logically nor mathematically accurate. Perhaps nowhere does Labat's occasional credulousness show itself more clearly than in his acceptance of the then popular belief in the existence of the Muscovite lamb, a kind of pumpkin of flesh and bone, covered with wool, pro vided with four feet, a head and a tail, and which, attached by the navel to the soil which had given birth to it, grazed in the plains of Russia on the places of its birth until it was placed upon the spit or became the prey of wild beasts (Nouveau voyage. VI, 289-297). Labat cited the existence of the Muscovite lamb as proof of his argument that the distinction between fish and fowl and plants and animals 201 , was not an absolute one. Consequently, he asserted that the diablotin, a nocturnal West Indian bird, could be eaten by Catholics on Fridays because the bird had a distinctly fishy taste! It is true that Father Labat accepted and reported many common misconceptions, failing to exercise the critical judgment in such matters that a more discerning writer might have shown. Yet, Labat was no more credulous than the aver age missionary of his day; it merely appears so when his occasional credulousness is contrasted with his rationalism and extreme practicality in other matters. As the preceding information suggests, Father Labat shared many literary qualities with other travel-writers of his day. But by the unmistakable presence of mind that is felt behind all his works, and by his captivating person ality, Labat sets himself apart from all his contemporar ies . Relating an argument he had with one of his superiors over the purchase of slaves, Labat provided the key to his own personality when he declared: "Je ne suis pas natu- rellement fort patient, surtout quand je suis sflr d'avoir raison" (Nouveau voyage, IV, 112). Highly critical of others, Labat seems self-satisfied, yet companionable and congenial. In his own mind, he was rarely wrong, and he spared no one— especially women and doctors. The former he merely accuses of being too talka tive and inquisitive^ but, like Montaigne, he qualifies nearly all doctors as downright charlatans. Although there is no evidence in Labat's writings that he was a misogynist, he was, nonetheless, often less than chivalrous in his ob servations about the weaker sex.* An extremely practical person himself, Labat seems generally irritated by the lack of a sense of practicality in women and by their love of gossip. Faced with the concrete problems of everyday life among men in the Antilles, as well as in Spain and in Italy, Father Labat undoubtedly did not feel the need to develop a definite set of positive attitudes toward women. As a re sult, there is no indication in his works as to what his own personal relationships with women actually were. One may, at least, say without fear of contradiction that Father Labat was surely not one of those gallant abbes mondains that people French ecclesiastical history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But Father Labat was an extraordinary man. The priest and the writer are only two aspects of his complex person ality. So complex is that personality that one is tempted to say that Labat was a curious combination of elements 203 that we find in figures as diverse as Descartes, Samuel Pepys, Montaigne, Voltaire, and Surcouf. He was an adven turer and corsair, a learned naturalist, civil and military engineer, chaplain of the "flibuste," an energetic evan- o gelist, able administrator, architect, occasional doctor (in spite of his avowed hatred for medical men), soldier, philosopher, a gastronome and historian, a sociologist and ethnographer "avant la lettre," a counselor, and even a gardener. In belittling men and their institutions, Labat must surely have disturbed the equilibrium of the social and political order of his day to some degree. He was an enfant terrible who felt a compulsive urge to speak his mind al ways . This trait of his character, perhaps more than any other, explains why he was forbidden to return both to the Antilles and to Italy. Up to this point we have tried to show that the con tent, not only of the two main works, but even of the second-remove works, sets Labat apart from, and considerably above, the travel-writers who were his contemporaries. But one important aspect of his work has been touched upon only incidentally, and that is the purely literary aspect. Did Labat write well? Does he show any skill in narrative and expository techniques? Does he have any real gift for 2 04 exploiting the rhetorical and lexical resources of the French language? In the following pages we shall seek to prove that the answer to these questions is affirmative, and that it is this very real literary talent of Labat's that has been most overlooked. We cannot say to just what degree Labat had literary ambitions, but we do know that he read widely and was very much aware of languages, including— besides his own native French— Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and the exotic and as yet unrecorded languages of the Caribs and of the . 1 7 various slaves imported from Africa. There is even a sort 17 In the Nouveau voyage (IV, 135) Labat states that the most widely spoken of the African tongues were the languages used in the Kingdom of Ardra and in Whydah. He remarks on the following page: "Elle [la langue des Aradas] est fort facile. Les. verbes n'ont que trois terns, le present, le passe et le futur. Les noms ne se declinent point, il n'y a que 1'article qui change. Elle a beaucoup d'adverbes, & quoiqu'elle paroisse sterile, elle ne laisse pas de s'ex primer assez bien. Comme une partie de nos Negres du Fonds Saint Jacques etoient Aradas, & qu'il m'etoit important de sgavoir ce qui se passoit entre-eux, j'en obligeai un de me donner quelques principes de cette Langue, & en tres peu de terns j'en sgtis assez pour comprendre tout ce qu'ils di- soient, & pour leur expliquer mes pensees." Speaking of the; Carib language, Labat declares: "Au reste leur langue n'est; pas si difficile qu'elle parolt etre quand on l'entend pro- noncer. Elle n'est point chargee de conjugaisons, ni de declinaisonsj elle a des adverbes assez significatifs: son unique defaut est d'etre sterile. Mais n'en doit-on pas §tre content puisqu'elle suffit pour ceux qui s'en servent, ' qui n'ayant ni Etude ni Commerce, n'ont pas besoin de tant 205 of literary manifesto in the Preface to the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie: Ma sincerite et mon exactitude m'ont fait une autre classe d'ennemis: ce sont les mauvais relateurs, les voyageurs de cabinets, ces gens qui, a 1'ombre d'un style fleuri, d'une narration aisee, se croient en droit de tout dire et d'en imposer a tout le monde. Pour ceux- la, je leur declare une guerre ouverte, je ne veux avec eux ni paix ni tr§ve. J'en ferais presque autant qu'avec les charlatans. S'ils veulent me faire taire, qu'ils prennent la peine de se taire les premiers; s1ils veulent m'empicher d'ecrire conbre eux, qu'ils cessent d'ecrire ou qu'ils corrigent leurs ecrits. Voila le parti raison- nable que je leur propose. This passage is notable not only for its references to "un style fleuri" and "une narration aisee," but even more for the vigor and clarity of Labat's own style. He takes a stand for the plain, unvarnished truth as against falsehoods * « , . camouflaged with stylistic "flowers" and smooth narration. But the fact is that he himself was no mean master of narra tive techniques, and he has a style which, if not "fleuri," is clear, personal, vigorous, and varied. Father Labat was, in fact, quite a remarkable literary craftsman. He excels in the genre of the character sketch de termes" (IV, 336-337)." 18 Other examples of the character sketch may be found in the Nouveau voyage, I, 53; IV, 8-9; VI, 133-137, 139-141, 159. 206 The following description by Labat is a typically casual narrative biography of a foirmer indentured servant: i Le sieur Kercouet etoit ne a Paris. Son pere etoit un fameux teinturier des Gobelins, et sa mere etoit hollandaise. Ils'etoit echappe de la maison paternelle a quinze ans. Etant arrive a Dieppe, il s'engagea pour passer a Saint-Domingue ou il fut vendu a un boucanier avec lequel il passa le temps de son engagement. Il fit dans le suite le metier de boucanier et puis il alia en course. II avoit roule la mer du Sud et tout le golfe de Mexique, dont il connaissoit tous les recoinsj il s'etoit trouve dans les plus fameuses entreprises des flibustiers frangais et anglais qu'il avoit commandes en qualite de capitaine; enfin, s'etant trouve a la Martinique, il s'etoit amourache de la fille d'un con- fiturier nomme Louis et 1'avoit epousee. Cet etab- lissement l1avoit engage a faire un voyage a Paris pour y voir sa famille et s'y faire reconnaitre, car il y avoit plus de vingt ans qu'il n'avoit donne de ses nouvelles. Il revenoit aux! lies avec des merchandises *■ et des projets pour faire la course. C'etoit un tres brave homme, fort sage, fort probe, et qui auroit pu passer pour etre sans defaut, s'l n'etit point aime le jeu jusqu'a la fureur. (Nouveau voyage, I, 52-53) This biographical sketch of Kercouet is a typical exam- 19 pie of the amused satire of Labat. He often starts out with what looks like a perfectly objective fact and trans forms it to some degree. In the example just cited, he relates the principal events of Kercouet1s life but suddenly and unexpectedly introduces a moral idea which considerably 1 9 Other examples of the satirical device used by Labat may be found in the Nouveau voyage. I, 11-12, 451j IV, 81, 91-92j V, 201-202, 354. - — 207 modifies all that precedes. One must constantly be on guard in reading Labat for the other side of the coin., especially when he appears to be most objective and straightforward. Almost invariably he directs the reader into a certain path of interest and, without warning, steers him in the opposite direction. In the example cited, Labat leads us to believe that Kercouet was, indeed, a totally upright man, and then just as we are about to believe that Kercouet led an exem plary life, he informs us in no uncertain terms that the man was an inveterate gambler. Surprise is a satirical device constantly employed by Labat. He seems to delight in amiably mocking the reader, for he knows what the true facts of the matter arej but the reader must often wait until the end of the discussion to find out that all this time he has been mistaken. Perhaps this fact also explains Labat's frequent use of the peri odic sentence, which by its very nature lends itself to suspense and surprise. Often it is the little detail thrown in at the end of his commentary that shatters the entire image. In the Nouveau voyage, I, 499-492, Labat relates the story of a Negro slave who came to him to claim a sack which Labat had taken from the slave at the time of the Negro's 208 baptism. Having learned from the slave's master that the1 Negro dabbled in sorcery, Labat informs us on page 490: Apres quelques ceremonies il me dit qu'il n'en vou- loit point d'argent; mais que si je lui voulois rendre son petit sac je lui ferois un fort grand plaisir. Cette demande me fit de la peine, et je connus qu'il vouloit retourner a son vomissement. Cependant afin de connoitre mieux ce qu'il avoit dans le coeur je feignis de n'avoir pas grande difficulty a lui accor- der ce qu'il me demandoit. Labat listens to the Negro relate the various uses of the objects found in the bag and secures full particulars on the matter. Then, just as the Negro sorcerer and we, the readers, are convinced that Labat is favorable to the Ne gro's request, the mischievous priest informs us on the following page: Je changeai pour lors de ton, et apres lui avoir fait une reprimande terrible, je le menagai de le faire mettre entre les mains de la Justice qui ne manqueroit pas de le faire brtiler; et pour lui faire voir qu'il n'auroit jamais son sac, je dis a mon Negre de l'aller chercher, et de le faire brdler [le sac] sur le champ. ... Je fis tout jetter au feu devant lui, & le renvoyai chez son maitre, a qui j'ecrivis ce qui venoit d'arriver, afin qu'il veillcit plus soigneusement sur son Negre. On another occasion we find Father Labat stricken with yellow fever. He relates the story of how he was treated for the disease in the usual bloody manner (blood-letting was still common medical practice, if not a panacea). He 209 reports having a voracious appetite and a high fever. Up to that point, there is nothing in the narrative to indicate that Labat found anything wrong with the treatment he had r received, nor is there anything in the account to prepare the reader for the following "surprise" move on the part of Labat: Le huitieme jour sur le soir, je commandai a deux Negres que j1avods amene avec moi de notre Habitation, de me tenir mon cheval pret pour le lendemain trois heures avant le jour, & d'acheter deux ou trois vo- lailles roties, avec du pain et du vin pour eux & pour moi & surtout de ne dire a personne que je voulois partir. (Nouveau voyage, IV, 4) It is not until the following page that the mystery is cleared up and we learn why Labat made that move: "... pour n'avoir point de proces avec les Medecins, & mon Confrere, je voulois partir sans dire adieu a personne." Father Labat aiso reserves a surprise for the reader at the end of the following character sketch, found in the Nouveau voyage, I, 53: M. Roy Capitaine de Milice, Creolle de la Martinique, etoit le fils de M. Jean Roy premier Capitaine et Doyen du Conseil de la meme Isle; c'etoit un jeune homme plein de coeur, qui avoit fait des merveilles quand les Anglois avoient attaque la Martinique en 1692. il etoit aime de tout 1'equipage, excepte des mousses qu'il avoit soin de faire fouetter presque tous les jours. To a portrait of one of his slaves, found in the 210 Nouveau voyage, IV, 174-175, Labat adds a little detail of surprise: Il avoit de 1'esprit'autant qu'on en peut avoir, il etoit tres fidel, tres-sage, intelligent, affectionne, j'en recevois plus de service que je n'en devois natu- rellement attendre d'un enfant de quatorze a quinze ans, puisque je me reposois sur lui du detail de la maison, & de 11 Habitation, qui auroit assfirement embarasse une personne bien plus Sgee que lui. Mais avec ces bonnes qualites, il etoit fier et suberbe, & jamais je n’ai p€l 1' en corriger. Sometimes Labat's "surprise" technique produces the effect of suspense. In the Nouveau voyage, IV, 7 3-74, he relates an incident which builds in suspense until the very end. After describing the noise occasioned by the event, Labat relates: ... je me suis mis a lire dans mon lit pour m'endormir. Lorsque je commengois a m'assoupir, je fus eveille par nos chiens qui se mirent a abboyer dans la cour d'une maniere extraordinaire. Je fis lever un serviteur, qui couchoit dans ma chambre, pour voir ce que c'etoit. Dans le moment qu'il ouvrit la porte de la salle; je l'entendis jetter un grand cris,j 'oiiis en mdme-tems un trepignement dans la salle, comme si plusieurs per- sonnes y fussent entrees avec impetuosite. La premiere pensee qui me vint, fut que le Corps-de-Garde s'etoit laisse surprendre, et que les Anglois etoient dans la maison. Je sautai du lit, je pris mon fusil qui etoit a c6te de moi, & sortis de ma chambre avec la precipi tation qu'on se peut imaginer, pour tficher de repousser les ennemis, en me joignant a quelqu'un de nos gens. Comme je ne vis personne dans le cour je demandai a ce serviteur ce qui 1'avoit oblige de crier, mais il etoit si efraye qu'il fut long-terns sans pouvoir proferer une seule parole. A la fin, il me dit qu'un serpent qui poursuivit nos chiens etoit entre apres eux dans la 211 salle, & etoit passe entre ses jambes. Finally, the following example, found in the Nouveau voyage. IV, 109, suffices to show that the element of sur prise was not only one of Father Labat's favorite narrative devices, but that it was part and parcel of his very person ality. Speaking of serpents, Labat relates: J'ai eu une fois le plaisir d'en voir un qui avala devant moi un pilori. On doit se souvenir, que c'est une espece de rat naturelle aux Isles, presque blanc, & bien plus gros que les rats ordinaires originaires d‘Europe. Des que le serpent edt mordu le pilori, il se retira a quartier: car selon les apparences il craignoit que le pilori ne se jetta sur lui, & ne le mordit, il grimpe ensuite sur la branche d'un abris- seau, au pied duquel le pilori demeura un bon quart d'heure a se debattre; il tomba a la fin, s'etendit & mourut. Alors le serpent etant descendu se mit a rouler sur lui, & a achever de l'etendre a sa fantai- sie en bavant dessus, de maniere qu'il lui mit les deux pattes de devant le long des cdtez, & les deux de derriere le long de la queue. Et apres qu'il l'edt ainsi etendu & couvert de bave, il le prit par la tete qu'il engloutit, & en le sucgant peu a peu, il le fit entrer tout entier dans son ventre, quoique avec assez de peine: car il etoit petit, & le pilori fort gros, Ce fut son dernier repas: car apres que j'eus vd ce que je voulus voir, je le tuai. Moral reflections of the author concerning people and events are also characteristic of Father Labat's narrative style. Not that Father Labat was a strict moralist. But it is somehow inevitable that, being the man he was, Father Labat should voice his opinion of people and events that 212 affected him. His moral reflections run the gamut from permissive leniency, as his attitudes toward the pirates indicate, to righteous indignation. He even goes so far as to justify English capital pun ishment of slaves: J'avoue que ces supplices sont cruelsj mais il faut prendre garde avant de condamner les Habitans des Isles de quelque Nation qu'ils soient, qu'ils sont souvent contraints de passer les bornes de la moderation dans la punition de leurs Esclaves, pour les intimider, leur imprimer de la crainte & du respect, & s'empecher eux- m§mes d'etre les victimes de la fureur de ces sortes de gens, qui etant ordinairement dix contre un blanc, sont todjours prets a se revolter, a tout entreprendre, & a commettre les crimes les plus horribles, pour se mettre en liberte. ... il est vrai que le desir de la liberte & de la vengeance est toujours le meme chez tous les hommes, & les rend capables de tout entreprendre pour se satisfaire. (Nouveau voyage, IV, 403-404) * In condemnation of the practice in the British and Dutch West Indies of granting Negroes a certain quantity of brandy per week and free Saturdays, Labat points out that the practice is neither wise nor economical, and adds: Si cette raison d'interets ne les touchent .pas, en voici une autre, qui fera peut-etre plus d'impression sur leurs esprits, puisqu'elle est fondee sur 1'obli gation qu'ils ont comme Chretiens de fournir a leurs Esclaves, qu'ils doivent regarder comme leurs enfans, tout ce qui est necessaire a leur subsistance, sans les mettre par leur durete, dans la necessite prochaine de perir de misere, ou d'offenser Dieu en derobant pour vivre et pour s'entretenir. (Ill, 443) 213 Irony and disdain were two other equally effective devices cultivated by Father Labat. On the subject of one of his "betes noires," surgeons, Labat disdainfully ex claims : Je croi avoir remarque dans un autre androit en par-• lant des Isles du Vent, que de tous ceux qui s'enrichis- sent par leur travail, il n'y en a point qui le fassent plus stirement, & plus vite que les Chirurgiens. Il faut dire ceci, que c'est un vrai Perou pour eux. Quoique la pltipart soient ignorans au supreme degre, ils gagnent tout ce qui leur plait; & comme il leur plait de gagner beaucoup, on peut croire qu'ils sont bientdt tres-riches ... C'est un vrai bonheur, qu'il ne se soit point encore etabli de Medecin dans ce pais-la. Le Roi en entretient un a la Martinique pour l'Etat Major & les Troupes; je ne sgai pas s'il y en a a present a S. Domingue; & c'est encore un autre bonheur, que le mal de Siam, & les autres maladies n'ayent pas eu plus de respect pour eux que pour les autresi car si cette espece d'hommes vivoit un peu davantage, elle depeupleroit le Pais, & profiteroit des depouilles de tous les Habitans. (V, 201-202) When Father Labat speaks of the English, and especially of their treatment of slaves, he frequently makes use of ironic comparison. Witness the following observation: Leurs commandeurs les poussent au travail a toute outrance; les battent sans misericorde pour la moindre faute, & semblent se soucier moins de la vie d'un Negre, que de celle d'un cheval ... Les missionnaires ne les instruisent, & ne les baptisent pointj on les regardent a peu pres comme des bdtes a qui tout est permis pourvd qu'ils s'acquittent tres exactement de leur devoir. (IV, 401-402) Most often, however, Father Labat has recourse to 214 disdain by implication or ironic belittling, especially when speaking of other religious orders. In describing his first meeting with the Superior of the Capuchins, Labat relates: J'entrai dans la seconde salle, ou je trouvai un venerable Capuchin a la barbe longue et blanche, la tete et le cou enveloppez de serviettes, qui se prome- noit tout seul. Nous nous saluSmes. On apporta du vin, je lui en fis presenter par Guillaume, il but apres quel- ques ceremonies & nous li&mes ensemble une conversation latine. Je crtis que c'etoit quelque Provincial etranger, mais je ne m'imaginai jamais que ce fut le General des Capuchins. (I, 11-12) The following example shows Labat1 s skillful',' ironic exploitation of a stock phrase. In speaking of the Major of the Island of Guadeloupe, Labat relates that the major had spent a long time in Canada, "ou lion dit que la valeur est a tres-bon marche, [mais] il n'en avoit fait aucune provi sion. " Overstatement is a far more common literary device cul tivated by Labat than understatement. Often it is a case of the serious juxtaposed with the comic. But sometimes, as in the following example, it is a case of the more comic placed side by side with the- less comic. The following description, humorous in its restraint, is one of the rare examples of understatement found in the works of Labat: Les Apothequaires d'Italie sont infiniment plus propres que ceux de France, sans excepter meme ceux de 215 Paris. Ils ont plus de vases d'argent, plus de tables de marbre, plus de cristaux, leurs remedes sont toQjours de bonne odeur, ils les presentent avec politesse, et n'oublient rien de ce qui peut en dter le degoGt et 1'aversion. Leur pratique universelle est de faire prendre les medecines chaudes, clarifiees, et de bonn<e odeur. Ils les accompagnent d'un cornet de petit anis couvert de sucre, ou de quelques amendes pour en faire passer le goGt, le tout fort proprement accomode. Ils couvrent les pillules d'une feiiille d'or, ou d'argent, et ne manquent jamais de venir voir plusieurs fois l'ef- fet de leurs remedes. (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, II, 327-328) Labat makes frequent use of what might be termed par tial amplification or hyperbolic distortion. He reminds one at times of the baroque poets whose distorted vision of reality often borders on the ridiculous. Labat enlarges and magnifies reality in accordance with his prejudices and "betes noires." Far from resorting to understatement, in pointing out the foibles and abuses of his fellow men, Labat dwells on the ridiculous and often exceeds the bounds of "bienseance," and even of the truth. Such is the case in his description of his Spanish confreres, and especially of Women. Speaking of the Spanish women's entrance into the church, he recounts "qu'elles se mettent dans le quartier des animaux de leur espece" (Voyages en Espagne et en Ita lie , I, 397) . He accuses them of being extravagant spend ers, generally frivolous and given to "des conversations et souvent des intrigues" (I, 396). He goes so far as to 216 declare "avoir ete accoste bien des fois par des femmes" (I, 396). He adds, however: "Mais la conversation etait courte parce que nous ne savions pas assez la langue du pays" (I, 396). Father Labat can give hyperbole an ironic and even humorous nuance on occasion. Regarding Creole girls who ate all manner of things to make themselves sick so they could receive the last sacrament, Labat declares: "J'en a connu qui auroient mange plus de papier et de cire d'Espagne qu'on n'en auroit employe dans le Bureau d'un Secretaire d'Etat" (Nouveau voyage, I, 451). In the Nouveau voyage Father Labat also makes extensive use of the ironic metaphor. Witness, for example, his ob servations concerning the generally robust nature of hunters and their resistance to illness: L'exercice qu'ils font, le bon air qu'ils respirent, conserve leur embonpoint & leur sante, mais ils doivent bien prendre garde a'dux quand ils viennent dans les Bourgs, & n'y pas faire un long sejour: car ils sont plus susceptibles des maladies que les autres, & nos Chirurgiens ont soin de les expedier en poste en 11 autre monde. (V, 204-205) Father Labat's use of the comic gimile is equally ef fective. Describing the after-effects of a severe illness, Labat makes this observation: "Il ne me restoit de ma V 217 maladie que les marques du pourpre, qui m'avoient rendu le corps marque somme celui d'un Tigre" (Nouveau voyage, IV, 4). Concerning the voracious appetite he had as a result of this illness, Labat notes: "Je ne manquai pas de demander a manger en arrivant. On m'en apporta & je mangeai a peu pres comme un homme qui meurt de faim" (IV, 6-7). The pre ceding example illustrates Labat's comic use of a fixed phrase rather than his use of comic simile, properly speak ing . Labat combines both the comic metaphor and the comic simile in the following example, found in the Nouveau voyage, V, 274, where he describes the theft of some of his personal effects by a young sailor during a skirmish that Labat's ship and crew had with a Spanish pirate ship: Ce fut un opera d'arriver au lieu ou ma bourse etoit cachee. Il avoit pris dans la male cinq de mes caigons, & deux de mon Negre, & les avoit mis sur lui les uns sur les autres, avec deux autres, que je suppose lui appar- tenir; de sorte qu'il etoit revetu de neuf calgons, qu'on lui 6ta les uns apres les autres. Il sembloit que ce fut un oignon qu'on depoiiilloit dq ses robes. A variant of the comic metaphor is Labat's metaphorical use of verbal forms. The following three passages show how Father Labat was able to extend the use of metaphor to simple verbs and past participles. Labat describes M. de la Malmaison as being "d'une taille bien prise, quoique chargee d'un peu trop d1embonpoint" (VI, 135). Elsewhere, instead of stating that he killed the snake of which he speaks in the Nouveau voyage, IV, 74, Labat asserts: "Je regalai le serpent d'un coup de fusil." And speaking of punishment meted out to a thief by the ship's chaplain, Labat states: "Mais l'aumdnier ne le vouloit pas souffrir, au contraire, il 11apostropha de deux soufflets, & d'un coup de pied au derriere" (VI, 275) (italics mine). Father Labat cultivated the simile, the metaphor, antithesis, and oxymoron with equal artistry and skill. The following passage found in the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. II, 315-316, combines all four devices, appropri ately, in an analysis of the French: Le Frangais est volage, il n'aime rien, n'agit que par boutadej il rit et pleure sans etre touche et sans en savoir la raison. Il n'est ferme que dans son in- constancej aussi les etrangers comptent sur les paroles et sur le coeur des Frangais comme sur le tete d'une . „ girouette. Et ils ont raison ... Les Frangais se van- tent d'etre bien avec les femmes. Je ne sais si cela a ete autrefois aussi loin qu'ils le publientj mais je sais qu'il n'y a plus a present que les coquettes de profession et les folles qui lient commerce avec eux. The comic use of metaphor is nowhere better shown than in Labat's description of the bed and room assigned him by the Dominicans in Cadiz. On the subject of the bed, he 219 relates: "... la couverture etait de laine grise ouvragee en maniere de filigrane par les rats" (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, I, 13). Although Father Labat's theoretical interest in his own native tongue is more implied than expressed, it is obvious even from the quotations just given that, in practice, Father Labat handled French well. Labat was, after all, a cleric who, because of his ecclesiastical education, knew French and Latin well. In addition to his avowed interest in the African languages and in the then unrecorded lan guages of the Caribs, Father Labat showed great sensitivity to contemporary European tongues, notably Spanish and Ital ian. Confessing his ignorance of the Spanish language, Labat informs us that while in Cadiz "pour passer mon temps avec moins d'ennui, je me mis a apprendre la langue espagnole" (Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, I, 52). While Labat wa.s, generally speaking, anti-Spanish, he nevertheless found the Spanish language praiseworthy, as evidenced by the following statement: [La langue] est grave, majestueuse, riche et expres sive i elle est plus belle dans la bouche des femmes que dans celle des hommes, parce que les hommes parlent trop du gos.ier et avec certains mouvements de la bouche qui ne sont pas agreables. (I, 28) 220 Of all the languages mentioned by Labat, the Italian language is the one about which he had most to say. In the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie (III, 72), Labat informs us that his first step when arriving in Rome was to secure a map of that city and to apply himself to learning Italian. He says he had had a smattering of the language, but that he could not have sustained a lengthy conversation in it. "Il faut pourtant sgavoir la Langue du Pais pu l'on se trouve, ou se resoudre a n'avoir communication avec presque per sonne" (III, 72). On the same page, he writes: "Quelle peine n'est-ce pas d'etre oblige d1avoir toujours un Inter- prete a ses cfites." On the following page, he states that he recognized the importance of oral and aural language practice and that, through gifts he made to the petits Clercs who served the Dominican Church in Tivoli and in Civita Vecchia, he hired these young men to correct his spoken Italian. Labat admits: "et je leur suis redevable tie la plus grande partie de ce que je sais de leur langue" (III, 74) . He declares (III, 74) that the people in Rome speak and express themselves well but that they write in an entirely different manner. Labat dislikes their excessive use of figurative language. He declares "... il y a du phoebus dans leurs ecrits" (III, 74), especially in their compli mentary letters. He reports that, according to the Floren tines, the beauty of Italian epistolary style resides in the Aperiodic .sentence which holds the reader in suspense until the end where the meaning of the writer appears, is devel oped, and discovered. Labat asserts that the French could not adopt this style because they are too impetuous, and sloth is needed in order to read long, pompous galimatias before reaching the denouement. Labat concludes that Cicero and Pliny did not cultivate the periodic sentence, yet they- wrote very well— although, he says, it is true 'they were Latin, rather than Italian, authors. He concludes his observations on the Italian language by asserting (III, 75-76) that the language is not difficult to learn and that its highly pleasing, polished, and ener getic quality makes it difficult for one to be impolite in Italian. He states that one must first become accustomed to the pronunciation of the Italian alphabet. After mastering the sounds of the language, one must learn the auxiliary verbs essere and avere by heart. He declares that with this little preparation, some conversation and reading, one soon masters the language, and that one can be assured of not having "perdu ses peines." 222 Labat’s handling of his own native tongue was consider ably more than just competent. On analyzing his vocabulary and syntactical usage, we find that his sentence structure and grammar seem perfectly normal for the period during which he wrote. One fact about Labat's prose style, how ever, merits consideration. Many of Labat's sentences are very long ones, characterized by numerous transitional words, extensive punctuation, and cascades of subordinate clauses. Long sentences undoubtedly lend themselves more freely to the rambling and desultory workings of Labat's mind and translate his thoughts more faithfully than would shorter, terser sentences. As we have seen, Father Labat often proceeds by a sort of free association and goes from one idea to another in the most unpredictable manner. The long, multiple-clause sentence permits Labat to transcribe and preserve ideas evoked through free association while they are still fresh and as they are spontaneously produced. The following examples, all drawn from the Nouveau voyage, may suffice to show the extreme variety of Labat's sentence lengths. It must be remembered that the conven tions of punctuation varied from period to period'and that punctuation was frequently left to the discretion of the printers. Thus, what at first appear to be page-long, 223 non-stop sentences are found to be several sentences sepa rated by semicolons, colons, or even a simple comma, on occasion. If we examine the following pages syntactically, we find that they may be divided into several "real" sen tences of varying lengths. The following example is actually composed of two long and two short real- sentences, but it is notable that the first and last real sentences are both quite long. Je leur repondis que s'ils attendoient ses ordres, ils ne marcheroient point; mais que s'ils avoient envie de secourir leurs freres, sans que le Lieutenant General y pClt trouver a redire, ils n'avoient qu'a faire defiler leurs gens de long de la Falaise, & prendre les ennemis en flanc [1] : .cela fut execute sur le champ [2]; plus de deux cens hommes y coururent a toutes jambes [3], beaucoup. de-Flibustiers qui etoient venus a la Messe chez nous se joignirent a nos gens qui se voiant airisi secourus, pousserent vigoureusement les Anglois, les chasserent de derriere trois murailles seches, les unes apres les autres, & les reconduisirent, toGjours bat- tans, jusques dans les Retranchemans dont ils avoient environne leur poste [4]. (VI, 265-266) The following passage, considerably longer than the foregoing example, takes up the whole of page 45 of Volume I of the Nouveau voyage, even though it may be divided into several actual sentences, as indicated: Le meme jour nos matelots prirent un Requien qui de- puis deux ou trois jours ne quittoit point le Vais- seau [l]j on eut assez de peine a le mettre a bord, il avoit plus de dix pieds de long [2]; c'est le m§me poisson qu'on appelle a la Rochelle un Chien de mer, 224 mais ceux que j'y avois vti n'avoient au plus que deux pieds de longueur [3]5 sa peau est rude quand elle est seche, elle ressemble assez au Chagrin [4]; je croi que les Menuisiers s'en servent pour polir leurs ouvrages [5]: il a deux aislerons a c6te, & un autre sur le milieu du dos [6], sa queue est large, [echan- cree] en croissant [7], il a la t§te longue, sa gueule est a un bon pied au-dessous de l'extremite de son mu- seau, elle est armee de trois rangs de dents fortes, aigues, & tranchantes [8]; c'est un animal vorace, hardi, & dangereux, qui depeupleroit la mer sans la difficulty qu'il a de mordre; car la disposition de sa gueule est cause qu'il faut qu'il se renverse sur le cdte pour attraper ce qu'il poursuit, & ce contretems donne tres souvent le loisir a sa proye de s'echapper [9] • The foregoing description of the shark presents a visual picture that is both vivid and zoologically accurate. Note, first of all, the extreme precision of that descrip tion. Labat describes one of various small sharks, or dog fish. He compares the tough, dull-gray skin of the shark to shagreen leather, a variety of untanned leather prepared in Russia and the East, covered with small round granula tions and familiar to French readers, thanks to Balzac's famous Peau de chagrin. The appropriateness of that com parison becomes all the more significant when one realizes that today the rough skin of certain sharks and rays, when covered with small close-set tubercles, is actually also called shagreen leather, from its close resemblance to the original product. After describing the two fins found on 225 either side of the shark, Labat uses an expository metaphor ("echancree en croissant") to describe its crescent-shaped tail, which is carved or hollowed out like the curved blade of a sickle and whose figure is defined by a concave and convex edge. Having completed the physical description of the shark, Labat points out that this type of fish is very active, voracious, and destructive of other fishes, and that the larger ones are often dangerous to man. The final image of the shark turning over on his side in order to place him self in position to bite while his prey escapes, is as amusing as it is accurate and shows Labat's skillful, comic exploitation of a purely factual detail. As a sort of middle ground between the two examples just given, the passage found in Volume VI of the Nouveau voyage, pages 269-270, may be cited. It offers the follow ing syntactical divisions: • Des les premiers jours que les Anglois eurent mis pied a terre, j'avois mis en pratique une chose qu'on m'avoit enseigne il y avoit long-tems, & que je trouvai tres-bonne, pour ne pas manquer de vivres quand on se trouve eloighe de chez soi: c'etoit d'avoir todjours quelque foie de veau, de vache, ou de boeuf cuit a l'eau & au sel, ou, quand on le peut, dans un vin avec des herbes fines [l]j rien n'est meilleur, & d'une nourri- ture plus substancielle [2]: cela sert de pain et de viande tout a la fois, & se conserve tres-long-tems [3]j un morceau gros comme le poing est suffisant pour nourrir un homme pendant vingt-quatre_heures [4]. 226 In spite of the extreme variety of sentence-lengths which characterizes Father Labat's works, his writings show remarkable syntactical clarity.and correctness. Like the Medieval clerics, Father Labat undoubtedly received an ex cellent ecclesiastical education, although he does not speak of his educational background in his memoirs. In studying Latin, Father Labat inevitably became more aware of his own native language. This fact, perhaps more than any other, may explain the correctness of his syntax and the extreme clarity and appropriateness of his vocabulary. An analysis of that vocabulary shows it to be a happy mixture of accepted academic terms and many technical terms relating to special fields or subjects. Indeed, his vocab ulary seems as many-sided as his personality. As one might expect of a gastronome like Father Labat, there are many words in his writings that relate to food and drink. Culinary terms and those relating to gastronomical pleasures abound in the Nouveau voyage. Words such as cui sine , volailles. vins, boeuf, chocolat are common in the work. The following example is typical of Labat's use of gastronomical terms: On servoit ordinairement un jambon, ou un pSte avec un ragoust, ou une fricassee du beurre & du fromage, & 227 surtout de tres-bon vin, et dupainfrais, matin et soir. ... Le diner etoit compose d'un grand potage avec le bouilli qui etoit toujours d'une volaille, une poitrine de boeuf d'Irlande, du petit sale, & du mouton ou du veau frais, accompagne d'une fricassee de poulets, ou autre chose. On levoit ces trois plats, & on mettoit a leur place un plat de roti, deux ragouts & deux salades; pour le dessert nous avions du fromage, quelques com potes, des fruits crus, des marrons & des confitures. On sera peut-etre surpris que je marque tous les jours des salades, mais on cessera de l'etre quand on sgaura que nous avions bonne provision de beteraves, de pour- pier, de cresson, et de cornichons confits, & deux grandes caisses remplies de chicoree sauvage en terre, qui etoient gardees jour et nuit par un sentinelle, de peur que les rats et les matelots n'y fissent du dom- mage. (Nouveau voyage, I, 29-30) Predictably, Labat1s works also abound in incidental ecclesiastical terms: confreres, superieurs, profes, la Messe, Sainte Marie. Freres de la Charite, charite, offran- des, bapteme, breviaire, sacristain, oraison; and nearly all the orders exercising missions in the Antilles are men tioned— Jesuites, Dominicains, Capuchins, Jacobins, Carmes. Nevertheless, for a priest, Father Labat writes precious little about the religious situation in the Antilles. Con sequently, the vocabulary of the Nouveau voyage is composed of predominantly non-ecclesiastical terms. The Voyages en Espagne et en Italie contains considerably more references to various religions and, as a result, more ecclesiastical vocabulary. Yet neither work is overladen with the reli gious terms and concepts that one would normally expect in 228 a work written by a priest. Fond of travel as he was, Father Labat inevitably uses many words relating to various modes of travel. As all of his major trips were by sea, Labat makes constant.use of nautical terms. These words seem just as natural coming from the pen of Labat as do those relating to food. Besides the many familiar nautical terms, one finds less common ones, such as Vaisseau marchand, mSts, voilure, barques, brigantins, and others to be noted in a moment. Whenever he uses less familiar or specialized terms relating to ships and sailing, he is nearly always careful to explain them, as he does in the following example, taken from the Nouveau 20 voyage. In Volume I, page 149, he explains the term "faire Chapelle" in the following manner: On appelle faire Chapelle quand le Vaisseau vire malgre soi, cela peut arriver ou par 1'imprudence du Timonier qui laisse venir le vaisseau trop au vent, ou parce que le vent saute tout a coup d'un rhumb a un autre, ou parce que le gouvernail est trop faible pour tenir le Vaisseau en sujettion; de quelque maniere que cela arrive, on carque l'artimon, on manoeuvre sur le grand hunier, & ensuite on evante l'antimon pour aider au gouvernail. Quoique cette voile soit la plus petite elle n'est pas la moins necessaire. 20 Other examples of Labat's definitions of nautical terms may be found in the Nouveau voyage, I, 44; II, 30, 379, 37, 32; VI, 118; V, 39, 346, 516, 501. 229 As one of Father Labat's major interests was the fauna and flora of the Antilles as well as the various commercial industries established there, many words in the Nouveau voyage are zoological, botanical, and agricultural terms. Typical of this group are such words as sucrerie, chaudiere, fourneaux, Bois d1Inde ou Laurier aromatigue, tabac. scor pions , serpens. couleuvre, dorades, requien, coton de Siam, moulin a eplucher le coton, sucre, fabrique, cannes de sucre, moulins a sucre. In Volume III, pages 225-39 3 of the Nouveau voyage he lists the following types of sugars: sucre terre, sucre passe. sucre de sirop et d'Ecumes, sucre raffine, sucre roial, sucre tappe, and sucre Candi. On pages 416-417 of the same volume, Labat draws up a list of duties to be performed on a sugar plantation, along with the number of Negroes required to execute these func tions. That list includes the following terms or expres sions: laver les blanchets, la vinaigrerie, tonneliers la forge, la purgerie, Scieurs de longs charpentiers. maqons, menuisier. Charron. garder les bestiaux, couper du bois a bruler, faire la farine, couper les cannes. There are also many other technical terms found in Labat's works. A recurrent one is the mysterious Mai de 230 Siam, or yellow fever, which Labat describes in the Nouveau voyage, I, 72-7 3, as follows: Ordinairement elle commengait par un grand mal de t@te et de reins, qui etoit suivie tant6t d'une grosse fievre, & tantSt d'une fievre interne qui ne se mani- festoit point au dehors. In the same volume, on pages 95-96, Labat explains the difference between Cabesterre and Basse-Terre: II est bon d'expliquer ici ce qu'on entend dans les Isles par le nom de Cabesterre et de Basse-terre. Cabes terre est la partie d'une Isle qui regarde le Levant, et qui est toujours raffraichie par les vents alisez qui courent depuis le Nord, jusqu'a l'Est Sudest. La Basse terre est la partie opposee. He describes (IV, 364) L'Epian as , v le mal venerien"; vinaigrerie ou Distillatoire (III, 411) as the "lieu ou l'on fait de 1'Eau-de-Vie de Cannes"; the verb bouccaner (V, 131) he describes as "secher a la fumee la chair de cochon"; damoiselle. (Ill, 192) as a "piece de bois platte qui sert a retenir le bout de l'arbre des moulins a sucre"; senne (II, 175) as a "filet dont on se sert pour pecher au bord de la mer"; Couleuvre (I, 510) as an "instrument dont les Caraibes se servent pour presser la farine de manioc." While practical terms relating to the daily upkeep and maintenance of a plantation compose a large part of the vocabulary of the Nouveau voyage, exotic neologisms and 231 foreign phrases and terms make up an even larger portion of that vocabulary. The following exotic words and their defi nitions as given by Labat suffice to explain to some extent why the Nouveau voyage was such a popular work among Labat's exoticism-starved readers: La cassave, "pain de manioc" (I, 389); Orphy, "poisson" (I, 312); Ouycou, "boisson des Indiens" (I* 398); Becune, "poisson dangereux" (I, 465); caouanne, "espece de Tortue" (I, 308); canaris, "vaisseau de terre" (I, 397); la coyembouc, "une grosse calebasse d'arbres qu'on coupe a la quatrieme ou cinquieme partie de leur longueur" (I, 143-144); Guildine et Taffia, "eau-de-vie de canne" (I, 404); Diables et Diablotins, "oiseaux de pas sage" (IT/ 394); le Sanq-qris, "boisson venue des Anglois" (I, 405); la Ponche, "espece de boisson anglaise ... compo- see de deux parties d'eau-de-vie sur une d'eau" (I, 407); Indigo, "teinture bleue" (I, 268); Piloris, "rats musquez" (I, 428); Roucou ou achiotte, "teinture rouge" (I, 253); leagues, "especes de pommes" (III, 40) ; acajou, "arbre fruitier" (VI, 109); matatou, "table des Caraibes" (II, 44); poux de bois, "fourmis blanche" (II, 331); la case, "maison des Negres" (I, 114); Ecaille, "poisson" (I, 311); le Capi- taine, "espece de Carpe de Mer" (I, 311); le Chirurgien, "poisson" (I, 311); la Limonade a l1Anglaise, "se fait avec 2 32 du vin de Canarie, dans lequel on met du sucre, du jus de citron, de la canelle, de la muscade, du gerofle et un peu d'essence d'ambre, cette boisson est aussi delicieuse qu'elle est dangereuse" (I, 406). The foregoing analysis of the rich vocabulary found in the works of Father Labat helps to explain his extremely varied and colorful prose style. Indeed, Labat's prose style presents a medley of sounds, colors, odors, gustatory delights, tactile sensations, and visual images that at times brings to mind Baudelaire's famous "Correspondances." Labat's extensive vocabulary presents a prose style that is varied, pleasing, precise, elegant, and,' above all, per sonal. No one writes quite like Father Labatj he has cre ated a style that is all his own. He excels in choosing the mot juste and in exploiting the comic possibilities of the French language, for he seems to delight in choosing words that are precise and accurate, and which, at the same time, have a comical or humorous connotation. Historically speaking, Father Labat's prose style seems to belong more to the seventeenth than the eighteenth cen tury. Though the richness of vocabulary and the frequent vivid visual imagery sometimes remind one of the style of his contemporary, Saint-Simon, it is definitely not a return 233 to the sixteenth century as is, to a certain extent, the prose of Saint-Simon. Labat's style reflects the transi tional period during which he lived. Situated between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Father Labat borrowed literary techniques from both periods. From the seven teenth century, he inherited sobriety, simplicity, and the emphasis placed on the pleasing but useful side of a work 21 of art. To the eighteenth century belong the scientific emphasis of his work and, to some extent, his rather exten sive use of satire .in discussing certain religious matters. Labat's prose style is, however, closer to that of a La Bruyere than to that of a Montesquieu or a Voltaire. Father Labat's style is, however, even more reminiscent of another French writer, also a churchman; namely, the Cardinal de Retz, who also cultivated the comic metaphor extensively and whose Memoires appeared in 1717, five years before the Nouveau voyage. Witness the following descrip tion of Mazarin by the Cardinal de Retz: Comme il marchoit sur les pas du cardinal de Riche lieu, qui avoit acheve de detruire toutes les anciennes maximes de l'fitat, il suivoit un chemin qui etoit de ^The orthography found in his manuscripts reflects the instability and lack of standardization characteristic of seventeenth-century French. 2 34 tous cdtes borde de precipices; et comme il ne voyoit pas ces precipices, que le cardinal de Richelieu n'avoit pas ignores, il ne se servoit pas des appuis par les- quels le cardinal de Richelieu avoit assure sa marche.^ Oh "the following page, the Cardinal de Retz compares France during Richelieu's and Mazarin's time to a person in a state of convulsions: Le cardinal de Richelieu la vint traiter comme un empirique, avec des remedes violents, qui lui firent paroitre de la force, mais une force d1agitation qui en'epuisa le corps et les parties. Le Cardinal Mazarin, comme un medecin tres-inexperimente, ne connut point son abattement. Il ne le soutint point pax 'les secrets chimiques de son predecesseur; il continua de l'affoiblir par des saignees: elle tomba en lethargie, et il fut . assez malhabile pour prendre ce faux repos pour une veri table sante. Like Father Labat, the Cardinal de Retz expresses the diversity of his person in his style. De Retz is capable of all tones, running the gamut from casual and scathing irony to the most lofty eloquence. Father Labat and the Cardinal p de Retz are equally comfortable, natural, and competent at the various "levels" of their style. Just as we asserted of Father Labat, i t . , is very difficult to label the Cardinal de Retz, for every time we are sure of having discovered the real Cardinal, he presents a new aspect, a new literary o ^ Jean-Frangois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, Oeuv res du Cardinal de Retz (Nouvelle ed.; Paris, 1870), I, 288.. 235 manner, and a surprise and unexpected turn of phrase or of events. Nevertheless, the prose style" of the Cardinal de Retz is much more elaborate and trevaille than that of Father Labat. But both Labat and the Cardinal de Retz are born styl ists. Their prose flows with a lively and sustained move ment that seems ot model itself upon the very rhythm of the authors' thoughts. The purely descriptive and gratuitously picturesque elements are lacking, but both writers analyze, state the facts, and recount with perfect clarity. Their prose style is concise and elegant in its clarity. Yet, temperamentally and, to some extent, stylistic ally, Father Labat occasionally reminds us more of Montaigne than the Cardinal de Retz. Like Montaigne, Father Labat was naturally discursive and, therefore, given to a digressive style of writing. Like his predecessor, Labat; was filled with joie de vivre, which he, too, succeeded in transmitting to his works. But Father Labat offers the curious spectacle of a Montaigne who is an ecclesiastic and a man of action, « rather than the secular, contemplative sort of man that Montaigne actually was. Also like Montaigne, Father Labat loved to write freely and without restraint, and thus he goes from topic 2 36 to topic as his thoughts and associations lead him. For that reason, Father Labat's style is necessarily rambling and desultory. As we have seen, he himself was quite aware of this aspect of his writing; for this aspect of his style is merely a manifestation of the all-embracing personality of the author. Yet, in a way, Father Labat also continues that strain of Gallic wit found in writers- from the authors of the "fabliaux" and the Roman de Renart in the Middle Ages to Anatole France. Few matters are too sacred for Father Labat to ridicule, for he cannot blind himself to the imperfec tions and failings of humans and their institutions. Labat instructs and amuses at the same time. In read ing his works, one must never forget that Labat's two prin cipal goals, like those of all classical writers, were to instruct and to delight his readers. Judging from the wide popularity of his works in the eighteenth century, one may surmise that he admirably succeeded in achieving both goals. The number of editions of these works indicates that not even the clamor of women and doctors was able to hurt the popularity of the Nouveau voyage or the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. For a man who had so much to say and so little time 237 left to say it, Labat was, therefore, no mean writer. .One does sometimes get the impression that Labat was in a race against time. He sought to recapture the days he spent in the Antilles, Italy, and Spain and preserve them in works that remain as readable today as they were when they first appeared. He excelled in selecting details that are of universal interest and that continue to delight and amuse the modern reader. Father Labat is, indeed, a master raconteur. Few writers are able to tell a story more interestingly than he does. He has recourse to all the devices of good narration — skillful exposition, significant detail, suspense, irony, surprise— all combine to produce a story that is bound to amuse. As we have seen, the two most salient features of his writing technique, the use of comic metaphor and the element of surprise, were merely extensions of Father Labat's personality. He often had recourse to the element of surprise in his dealings with men, and he rarely missed the opportunity to capitalize on the comical aspects of everyday life. A naturally jovial man, Labat is much less harsh and solem'n in his writings that one would expect, of a monk. His easygoing, informal, and genial disposition was perhaps the 2 38 prime reason that led his Superiors to forbid his return to the Antilles. Yet it is to these same traits of Labat's character that are undoubtedly attributable the engaging interest and lucid style of his works, which have won Father Labat a permanent and unique place in the gallery of mis- - sionaries exercising their calling in the Antilles before 1789. One is tempted to say that the very diversity and variety of his personality, as revealed in his writings, have been Labat's saving grace; for in writing on a varied range of topics, he was able to address himself ' to a wider audience and, in so doing, to establish his reputation for countless generations to come. So, in the end, though we are reminded now of Retz, now of Montaigne, now of La Bru- yere— or even of Rabelais— Father Labat remains a stylist in his own right, expressing a varied and complex person ality in a homogeneous, lively prose. CONCLUSION The present study was undertaken on the hypothesis that the entire literary production of a writer who produced so lively a work as the Nouveau voyage might be well worth close scrutiny, and that such a scrutiny might give us greater insights into the man behind the work and a clearer understanding of the whole body of travel literature to which that work belongs. We hope that sufficient evidence has been presented to prove that hypothesis. The evidence reveals that Father Labat has been only very partially understood, rather than wrongly understood. His Nouveau voyage, which was a very popular work in the eighteenth century, had a wide reading audience in the nineteenth century, and still maintains a few faithful admirers in the twentieth. But the rest of the works from Labat's pen, with the qualified exception of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie, have been largely neglected. The detailed examination of the works that followed the 2 39 240 Nouveau voyage shows them to constitute a literary produc tion that is considerably richer than has heretofore been suspected, and likewise reveals a human being immeasurably more complex and rich in contradictions than the figure presented to us by Labat's most recent critics and commen tators . The prevailing view is tersely expressed in Gilbert Chinard's striking phrase describing Labat as a "simple Robinson en soutane" (L'Amerique et le reve exotique, p. 245). But is he simply that? True, he had Crusoe's practicality and sense of the concrete, and he possessed a modicum of the human warmth that Crusoe exhibited in his relationship with Friday. But was Father Labat as simple and as straightforward as Robinson Crusoe? In the chapter on Labat's life and character, we have sought to show how complex and sometimes even contradictory were Labat's motives and reactions. And the inevitable suggestion of a solitary existence implied in the mere mention of Robinson Crusoe completely falsifies the sociability and gregarious ness of Father Labat. And then, what about the still mysterious relations he maintained with his Order and with other churchmen? 241 On the other hand, this study certainly upholds Chinard's assertion that Father Labat was "le plus energique missionaire qui soit alle aux Antilles" (p. 250). Though, once more, the complex manner in which this missionary zeal • \ was expressed must be kept constantly in mind. Indeed, the extensive review of "Antillean" travel-writing that makes up the first chapter of the present study makes it clear that the good Father was not only the most zealous mission ary in the area, he was likewise— and even more unequivocal ly— the most significant of the numerous chroniclers of the "heroic" period of Antillean buccaneering. None of the other chroniclers, not even Father Dutertre, comes anywhere near him in the wealth of material presented and, even more obviously, in the lively and personal style. The casual note on Labat furnished by Paul Morand, in spite of its extreme brevity, repeatedly "hits the nail on the head," and our research on Labat has often added sub stance to Morand's affirmations or completed them in various ways. Morand was surely correct in saying that "Ce qui frappe chez le Pere Labat, c'est 1'aspect profondement pratique et realiste de sa tres vive intelligence ... " (Monplaisir ... en litterature [Paris, 1967], p. 223). But, in view of Labat's gift of sizing up and describing 242 the most diverse human beings, can we affirm as categori cally as Morand does on the same page that Labat is devoid of all traces of "psychologie comparee"? iIn the preceding chapter we have presented evidence r- which bears out another of Morand's assertions— namely, that Labat is a "styliste admirable" and "un cerveau parfait de notre parfait XVIIe siecle" (p. 224)— even though we may object to the double use of "parfait" in that declaration. And we can only applaud the extremely dis cerning judgment of Morand when he speaks of Labat's "phrases, rutilantes de la plus feroce ironie" (p. 225). With that idea in mind, we come to the man who regarded Labat as the dearest of his friends— the editor of both the Nouveau voyage and of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie— A. t'Serstevens. How right t'Serstevens was when, emphasiz ing the uniquely robust personality of Labat as reflected in his writings, he asserted in the Introduction to the Comedie ecclesiastigue;^ La personnalite du Pere Labat est si forte qu'elle empiete sur le recit. Nous voyons le conteur plus "S?'S erst evens considers the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie as a kind of ecclesiastical comedy, closely resembling the "commedia dell'arte." 243 encore que les choses qui nous sont contees. Il apparait a tous les detours de la phrase, avec son ironie embusquee derriere les mots les plus innocents. ... Il est truculent, sonore, il est plein de couleur et de fantaisie. On entend sa voix, on entend son rire, on le voit gesticuler, marcher,—faire des politesses, boire a grands coups, manger a grandsplats. (pp. 15-16) Tel est ce Pere Labat, comme je l'aime et comme je voudrais qu'on l'aimat, avec ses defauts attachants, ses vices pleins de couleur et ses vertus intellectuelles. Ce n'est pas un saint, ce n'est pas un homme de lettres: c'est un homme. Il se laisse vivre dans son livre, et il nous a donne son image intacte. C'est par la qu'il nous seduit. (p. 28) Up to this point, our study has backed up the asser tions of t'Serstevens; but those assertions, as accurate as they are, are far from being complete. After stating that Labat the man is inseparable from Labat the writer, t'Serstevens goes on to say: "Apres cela, je n'ai rien a dire de son style: c'est son geste et sa voix" (p. 29). We, of course, have had something to say about Labat's style. We have sought to complete the affirmations of t'Serstevens by analyzing Labat's prose style; and, in focussing our attention on the total literary output of the good Father, we have sought to show that even the second- remove works of Labat are, to a very significant extent, his very.own; Thus, up to the present time, Labat has remained a kind of two-dimensional figure; an interesting character among the many colorful figures that people the last years of the seventeenth and the early years of the eighteenth centuries. We have tried to show that Father Labat deserved better, and we have tried to realize our aim by making this study a three-dimensional undertaking. First, it has been a study in time, for it required a search into the past for facts concerning Labat's kaleidoscopic background. This has also been a study in space; for it has spanned two continents, from Labat's birthplace, Paris, to the West Indies, and then to Spain and Italy, and back to Paris. Finally, it has been a study in depth, for the "mal des voyages" that tormented Labat is ultimately explicable only in spiritual and psycho logical terms. Of all the materials studied, by far the most important-were the writings of Labat himself. If any thing unique is to be found in the present study, it is the careful scrutiny of Labat's known writings for insights into his complex psychological and moral makeup, making possible a better formulation of his aesthetic and literary value. B I B L I O G R A P H Y 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. PRIMARY WORKS Autograph Manuscript Fragments of the autograph manuscript of Father Jean- Baptiste Labat have been preserved in the Archives de France in Paris. This manuscript bears the reference K 12 31 numbers 1 to 7. The document is divided into seven segments apparently corresponding to seven successive returns of parts of the manuscript from the publisher's, as“many of the divisions carry the notation "manuscrit revenu de 11imprimerie." Segment number 1 contains fragments of Parts One, Four, Five, and Six, the index, table of contents, and various documents of the Nouveau voyage aux lies de l'Amerique. In segment number 2 are found fragments of Parts Three and Four of the Nouveau voyage and the table of contents of Parts Two and Four of the same work. 246 247 The third segment contains fragments of Part Five of the Nouveau voyacre and its index. Segment number 4 includes the fourth part of the first draft, which corresponds to chapters xxii to xxiv of Part Five of the published Nouveau voyage, to chapters i to xxvi of Part Six of the same work, and to the first two volumes of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie. It also contains the index to Part Four of the Nouveau voyage. In segment number 5 is found an important fragment of chapter v, Part Three of the Nouveau voyage: "Du sucre et de tout ce qui regarde sa fabrication et des differentes especes." The sixth division contains a segment of Part IV, chapter xxiii of the Nouveau voyage; "Du tabac." The seventh and final segment of the manuscript con tains an alphabetical index covering Parts One through Five of the Nouveau voyage and the table -of contents of the same parts . 248 Works and Compilations The following is a chronological listing of all imprints of works written, edited, or translated by Father Labat, as well as of various editions and translations of each. The bibliography is annotated, whenever necessary. 1722— Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique. Contenant l'histoire naturelle de ces pays, l'oricrine. les moeurs, la religion et le gouvernement des habitans anciens et modernes: les guerres et les evenements sincruliers qui v sont arrivez pendant le long seiour crue l1 auteur v a fait: le commerce et les manufactures qui v sont etablies et les movens de les augmenter. Avec une description exacte et curieuse de toutes les Isles. Ouvrage enrichi de plus de cent plane et figures en tailles-douces. 6 vols. Paris; Guillaume Cavelier, 1722. Some copies of the 1722 edition bear the names Giffart or Le Gras as publishers, since these printers, along with Cavelier, were charged with simultaneous publication of the work. It is generally agreed, how ever, that the Cavelier edition was the original one. Subsequent editions; 1724— 6 vols. La Haye; Husson, 1724. 1724— 2 vols. La Haye; Husson, 1724. The two 1724 editions differ only in format. 1738— 2 vols. La Haye; Husson, 1738.- The 1738 edition is merely a reprint of the 1724 edition, although the former has now become more rare than the latter. 249 1742— Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique. Contenant I'histoire naturelle de ces pays. l'oriqine, les moeurs, la religion et le gouvernement des habitants anciens et modernes. Les guerres et les evenements singuliers qui y sont arrives pendant le sejour que 1*auteur y a fait, par le R. P. Labat de l'ordre des Freres Precheurs. Nouvelle edition augmentee considerablement et enrichie de figures en tailles-douces. 8 vols. Paris; Guillaume Cavelier Pere, 1742. There are copies of this edition bearing as the name of publisher Delespine, T. le Gras, or Nully. It is difficult to ascertain which of these works was the first edition and highly possible that their publication was simultaneous. All the variations of the 1742 edition must there fore be considered as a single edition bearing various names as publishers. 1831— Voyage aux lies franyaises de l'Amerique. Edition abregee. Paris; Lefebre, 1831. This abridged edition, based on the original 1722 edition, neglects the historical aspects of the Nouveau voyage. It is adapted to the tastes of the French reading public around 1830 and contains mostly extracts dealing with geography, zoology, and botany. 1866-1868— 8 parties in-8 a deux colonnes. Saint- Pierre [Martinique]: [n.p.], 1866-1868. Efforts to locate this work both in this country and abroad have been futile. The Duchartre edition of the Nouveau voyage (Paris, 1931), p. 462, from which this bibliographical information was drawn, states that not a single copy of this work has been noted since 1913. 1931— Voyages aux lies de l'Amerique, Antilles, 1693- 1705. Trente-deux illustrations d'apres des documents de 11 epocrue ■ Avant-propos de A. t'Serstevens. 2 vols. Paris; Duchartre, 1931. This work may be regarded as the counterpart of the 1831 edition. Based on the 1724 edition, 250 it places its emphasis on the memoirs of Labat and omits most of the botanical and zoological references. 1931— Nouveau voyage aux lies. Paris: Les oeuvres representatives, 1931. The work contains historical, botanical, zoological and geographical extracts from the original 1722 edition. 1956— Voyages du Pere Labat aux Isles de l'Amerique. Adapte des textes originaux par Alain Gheerbrant. Edition accompagnee de vingt-trois gravures de l'epogue. de sept cartes et d'un portrait. Paris: Club des Libraires de France, 1956. This is an abridged version (393 pp.) of the original 1722 edition. 1728— Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique occidentale. Contenant une description exacte du Senegal et des pals situes entre le Cap Blanc et la riviere de Serrelionne. jusqu'a plus de trois cents lieues en avant dans les terres. L'histoire naturelle de ces pais, les differentes nations qui y sont repandues, leurs religions et leurs moeurs. Avec l'etat ancien et present des compagnies qui y font le commerce. Ouvrage enrichi de quantite de cartes, de plans et de figures en taille-douce. D'apres les memoires d'Andre Brue. 5 vols. Paris: Guillaume Cavelier, 1728. Some copies of this work bear the name Giffart as publisher. It was reprinted in Paris in 1732 and in 1758 . 1730— Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinee, isles voisines, et a Cayenne, fait en 1725-26-2 7. Contenant une description tres exacte et tres etendue de ces pals, et du commerce qui s'y fait. Enrichi d'un grand nombre de cartes et de figures en tailles-douces. Par le R. Pere Labat de l'ordre des Freres Precheurs. 4 vols. Paris: Prault, 17 30. 251 Subsequent editions: 1730— 4 vols. Paris: Charles Osmont, 1730. 1731— 4 vols. Amsterdam: aux depens de la Compagnie, 1731. 1730— Voyacres du Pere Labat de l'ordre des FF. Precheurs. en Espagne et en Italie. 8 vols. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Delespine et Charles J. B. Delespine fils, 17 30. A reprint of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie appeared in Amsterdam, 17 31. Subsequent editions: 1927 — Voyage du Pere Labat en Espagne. 1705-1706. Notes de M. Hyrvoix de Landosle. Paris: R. Roger, 192 7. As the title suggests, the work contains only extracts dealing with Labat's voyage to Spain. 192 7— La comedie ecclesiastique [an abridgement of Voyages en Espagne et en Italie1, Introduction d'A. t'Serstevens. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 192 7. In the Introduction, p. ix, A. t'Serstevens states that he means "comedie" in the Italian sense of the word. The meaning is, indeed, clear since the title implies "commedia dell'arte," a type of comedy created in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century whose text consisted of a simple plot outline around which the actors improvised the dialogue and developed the plot on stage. 1732— Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale. Contenant la description des royaumes de Congo, Angolle, et Matamba, traduite de l'italien du Pere Cavazzi, et augmentee de plusieurs relations portugaises des meilleurs auteurs, avec des notes. des cartes geographiques et un grand nombre de 252 figures en taille-douce. Par le R. P. J. B. Labat de l'ordre des Freres Precheurs. 5 vols. Paris: Jean- Baptiste Delespine le fils, 1732. This work is more of a collection of Italian and Portuguese travel works rather than an original account. The original works upon which it is based are: Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, Istorica descrizione dei trei regni Congo, Matamba e Angola situati nell1 Etiopia Inferiore occidentale e delle missioni apostoliche esercitateui da religiosi capuccini. accuratamente compilata dal P. Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecucculo. sacerdote capuccino il quale vi fui prefetto, e nel presente stile ridotta dal P. Fortunato Alamandini da Bologna (Bologna, 1687) (this work, paraphrased and enriched with numerous additions rather than translated by Labat, takes up' Volume I, page 1-Volume V, page 87 of the Relation historique) and Michael Angelo de Guattini e Dionigi de Carli, Viaggio nel regno del Congo, descritto per lettere continuate fino alia morte. dal porto di Genova alia citta di Loanda. dal sudetto P. Guattini al dillettis. padre in Reggio: con una fedele narrativa delli paesi del Congo, del detto P. Dionigi. et col suo ritorno in Italia (Bologna, 1674). A first French translation of the Italian work just mentioned had appeared earlier. It is this French translation, scarcely reshaped, that Labat reproduced in Volume V, pages 91-268 of the Relation historique. The transla tion appeared as follows: Michel Ange de Gattine, Relation curieuse et nouvelle d'un voyage de Congo fait es annees 1666 et 1667. par les R. R. P. P. Michel Ange de Gattine et Denys de Carli (Lyon, 1680). At the end of Volume V of the Relation historique. pages 269-408, is found the following work: Journal d'un voyage de Lisbonne a l1isle de S. Thome sous la ligne, fait par un pilote portugais en 1626, ecrit en portugais et traduit en francais par le P. Labat. Exhaustive efforts to verify the original Portuguese account as well as to secure additional biblio graphical data concerning it have produced negative results. As nothing is known of Labat's educational 253 background, it is quite conceivable that he knew Portuguese at least well enough to translate it, and that he had access to many travel accounts which are no longer extant. 1735— Memoires du chevalier d'Arvieux, envove extraordinaire du Roy a la Porte, consul d'Alep, d'Alger, de Tripoli, et autres echelles du Levant. Contenant ses voyages a Constantinople, dans l'Asie, la Syrie, la Palestine, l'Egypte, et la Barbarie, la description de ces pa'is, les religions, les moeurs, les coutumes, le negoce de ces peuples, et leurs gouvernements, l'histoire naturelle et les evenements les plus considerables, recueillis de ses memoires originaux, et mis en ordre avec des reflexions. Par le R. P. J.-B. Labat de 1‘ordre des Freres Precheurs. 6 vols. Paris: Charles Jean-Baptiste Delespine le fils, 1735. Translations of Labat The following is a chronological listing by language of translations of works by Father Labat: Dutch . _ 1725— Nieuwe Reizen naar de Franse Eilander van America. En in't Nederdeutsch in't ligt gebragt door W. C. Dyks. 2 vols. Amsterdam: B. Lakeman, 1725. This Dutch translation of the Nouveau voyage also exists in 4 volumes. English 1745— Account of the French Settlements between Cape Blanco and Sierra Leone [translated from Nouvelle relation de l'Afrique occidentale). In A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1745), II, 1-19. 254 1745— A Voyage to Guinea and the Adjacent Islands in 1725. By the Chevalier des Marchais. Now first translated from the French [English summary of Vols. I and II of the Voyage du chevalier des Marchais1. In A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1745), II| 457-463. 1931— Memoirs of Labat, translated and abridged by John Eaden. London: A. Constable and Co., 1931. German 1747— Reisen zu Wasser und zu Land langst den Westlichen Kusten von Africa. Durch Herrn Andreas Briie. Aus dem Franzosischen [or rather from the English transla tion of parts of the Nouvelle relation mentioned above]. In Johann J. Schwabe, Allegemeine Historie der Reisen zu Wasser und Lande, 1747, Bd. 2. 1748— Eine Fahrt nach Guinea und den anliegenden Evlanden im Jahre 1725. Durch der Ritter des Marchais. Jetzo zuerst aus des Franzosischen ubersetz [or rather translated from the aforementioned English summary of Vols. I and II of the Voyage des Marchais]. In Johann J. Schwabe, Allegemeine Historie der Reisen zu Wasser und Lande, 1748, Bd. 3. 1751— Reisen nach Spanien und Weisschland. Francfort, 1751. This German translation of the Voyages en Espagne et en Italie is cited by Emile Bourgeois in Les sources de l'histoire de France, I, 162; he gives only the date and place of publication. An extensive search by the National Union Catalogue has failed to locate one single copy of the work or to provide additional bibliographical data. 175 3-1756— Hinterlassene merkwurdige Nachrichten, worinnen er sowol seine Reise nach Konstantinopel, in Asien, Syrien, dem gelobten•Lande, Egyptien und der Barbarei als auch die Beschassenheit dieser Lander, die Religion, Sitten, Gebrauche, und handlung dieser 255 Fblker, nebst der Regierungsart. der naturlichen Historie, und den besondern in diesen Gegenden vor gefalien Beqebenheiten, genau und richtig beschreibet, im Franzosischen herausgegeben, von dem Herrn Labat, und jetzt in Deutsche ubersetz. 6 vols. Kopenhagen und Leipzig: Johann Benjamin Ackermann, 1753-1756. 1758-1761— Reisen nach Spanien und Weisschland aus dem Franzbsischen ubersetz von C. F. Troltsch und J. Ph. Schulin. 8 vols. Nurnberg, 1758-1761. 1782-1787— Reisen nach West indien oder den im Amerikanischen Meerliecrenden Inseln. . Nach der neuesten Pariser Ausgabe uber, setzet auch mit nothicren Anmerktingen und vollstanden Recfistern versehen von G. F. Casimir Schad. 7 vols. Nurnberg, 1782-1787. Italian - 1951--Un monaco•francese nell1Italia del settecento, Pref., traduzione, e note di Gustavo Brigante Colonna. Tivoli.: Aldo Chicca, 1951. This translation of parts of the Voyacre en Espagrne et en Italie concerning Italy may be regarded as the counterpart of the Voyage du Pere Labat en Espagne (Paris, 1927), which contained extracts dealing exclusively with Labat's involuntary sojourn in Spain. 256 II. SECONDARY MATERIAL Works about Labat References to Labat in Books Adams, Percy G. Travelers and Travel Liars 1660-1800. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962. Barquissau, Raphael. Les Isles. Paris: Grasset, 1941. Cesaire, Aime. Discours sur le colonialisme,'3d ed. rev. Paris: Presence africaine, 1955. _____________ . Toussaint l'Ouverture: La revolution franqaise et le probleme colonial, Preface de Charles- Andre Julien. Paris: Presence africaine, 1962. Chinard, Gilbert. L'Amerique et le reve exotique dans la litterature franyaise au XVIIe et au XVIIIS siecles. Paris: Droz, 1934. Cultru, Prosper. Les origines de l'Afrique Occidentale. Histoire du Senegal du XVe siecle a 1870. Paris: Emile Larose,.1910. ________________. Premier voyage du Sieur de la Courbe a la cbste d'Afrique en 1685. Libraires de la Societe de 1'Histoire des Colonies Franqaises. Paris: Edouard Champion et Emile Larose, 1913. De Leeuw, Henrik. Crossroads of the Buccaneers. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1937. Dessalles, Adrien. Histoire generale des Antilles. 5 vols. Paris, 1847-1848. Fermor, Patrick Leigh. The Traveller's Tree: A Journey through the Caribbean Islands. London: John Murray, 1950. 257 Fournier, Paul. Voyages et decouvertes scientifiaues des missionaires nat.uralistes franyais a travers le monde pendant cing siecles: XV£ a XXe siecles. Paris; Paul Lechevalier et fils, 1932. Hearn, Lafcadio. Two Years in the French West Indies. New York, 1890. Lacour, Auguste. Histoire de la Guadeloupe (1695-1830). Basse-Terre, 1855-1860. Martineau, Alfred. Histoire des colonies franpaises et de 1*expansion de la France dans le monde. Paris; Plon, 192 9. Morand, Paul. "Le reverend pere Labat," Monplaisir ... en litterature. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1967. Moreau de Saint-Mery, Mederic Louis Elie. Description topographigue. physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie francaise de 1'isle Saint- Domingue. Avec des observations generales sur la population, sur le caractere et les moeurs de ses divers habitants; sur son climat, sa culture, ses productions, son administration, etc. Accompagnee des details les plus propres a faire connattre l'etat de cette colonie a l'epoque du octobre 1789: et d'une nouvelle carte de la totalite de 1'isle. Par M. L. E. Moreau de Saint-Mery. Philadelphia, 1797-1798. Rennard, Joseph. Histoire religieuse des Antilles fran9aises des origines a 1914, d'apres des documents inedits. Paris: Societe de 1'Histoire des Colonies Fran9aises et Librairie Larose, 1954. Roberts, W. Adolphe. The French in the West Indies. New York and Indianapolis; Bobbs-Merrill, 1942. Rufz de Lavison, Etienne. Etudes historiques et statistiquessur la population de la Martinique. 2 vols. Saint-Pierre, Martinique, 1850. 258 Articles, Periodicals, and Reference Works Annales de l'Universite de Paris, XXXIII (1963), 169-189. L'Annee dominicaine ou Vies des Saints et illustres personnaqes de l'un et de 1'autre sexes de l1ordre des Freres Precheurs ... de 1700 jusqu'a nos jours. 4 vols. Grenoble: Vallier, 1912. I, 120-144. Boucherie de la Richarderie, Gilles. Bibliotheque universelle des voyages ou notice complete et raisonnee de tous les voyages anciens et modernes ... . 6 vols. Paris, 1806. Bourgeois, Emile, and L. Andre. Les sources de 1'histoire de France, XVIIe siecle~(1610-1715). 8 vols. Paris: Picard, 1913-1935. Browne, Arthur, trans. A General Bibliographical Dictionary from the German of Frederic Aldolphus Ebert . . . . 4 vols. Oxford, 1837. Bulletin de la Societe archeoloqique du midi de la France, 2e serie (Toulouse, 1893), pp. 26-28. Bulletin de la Societe Archeoloqique, Scientifique et Litteraire de Beziers, 4e serie, VIII (1942), 119-132. Cahiers du Sud, No. 389, pp. 3-5 3. Chalmers, Alexander. The General Biographical Dictionary: Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons in Every Nation. 32 vols. London, 1815. Coulon, Remi. Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, Editio altera. 2 vols. Paris: Picard, 1909-1934. I, 614-617. 259 Dampierre, Jacques. Essai sur les sources de 1'histoire des Antilles francaises. Paris; Picard, 1904. Debien, Gabriel. "La. nourriture des esclaves sur les plantations des Antilles franyaises aux XVlIe et XVIIie siecles," Caribbean Studies (Rio Piedras, Porto Rico), IV, No. 2 (July 1964), 3-27. Echard, Jacob. Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum. 2 vols. Paris, 1719-1721. Hoefer, Ferdinand. Nouvelle biographie generale. 46 vols. Paris, 1852-1866. Jesse, C. "Du Tertre and Labat on 17th Century Slave Life in the French Antilles," Caribbean Quarterly (University College of the West Indies, Jamaica), VII, No. 3 (December 1961), 137-157. Journal des Savants, octobre, novembre, et decembre 1730, pp 611-616, 678-681, 741-744. Memoires de Trevoux, mars 1722, pp. 408-447, 630-651; mars 1731, pp. 529-544; avril 1736, p. 662. Mercure de France, octobre 1742, pp. 2243-2248. Michaud, Joseph, and L. G. Michaud. Nouvelle biographie universelle. ancienne et moderne. 45 vols. Paris, 1843-1865. "Observations d'un botaniste habitant des lies occidentales de l'Amerique, sur les plantes dont parle le P. Labat dans son Voyage aux ties," Memoires de Trevoux, juillet 1727, pp. 1303-1318. Rennard, Joseph. Essai bibliographique sur 1'histoire religieuse des Antilles francaises. Paris; Missions des Peres de Saint-Esprit, 1931. _______________ . "Le Pere Labat aux Antilles," Revue d'Histoire des Missions. VII (1 juin 1926), 2 01-2 34. 260 Societe Historique des Antilles. Revue Historique des Antilles. Nos. 1-7. Other Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Travel-Writers Biet, Antoine. Voyage de la France Equinoxale en Isle de Cayenne. Paris, 1664. Bouton, Jacques. Relation de 1'establissement des Francais depuis l1an 1635. Paris, 1640. Breton, Raymond. Les Caraibes, La Guadeloupe 1635-1656. Histoire des vingt premieres annees de la colonisation de la Guadeloupe d'apres les Relations du R. P. Breton precede d'une Notice par l'abbe Joseph Rennard, cure au Frangais (Martinique). Paris: Libraire Generale et Internationale, G. Ficker, 1929. Brosses, Charles de. Le President de Brosses en Italie. Lettres familieres ecrites d1Italie en 17 39 et 1740 par Charles de Brosses. 2 vols. Paris, 1885. ____________________. Lettres familieres sur 1'Italie publiees d'apres les manuscrits. Avec une introduction et des notes par Yvonne Bezard. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1941. Burnet, Gilbert. Some letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, &c. Written by G. Burnet. Rotterdam, 1686. Chanvalon, Jean-Baptiste Thibault de. Voyage a la Martinique ... en 1751 ... . Paris, 1763. Charlevoix, Pierre-Francois-Xavier de. Histoire de 1'isle Espagnole ou de S. Domingue. Ecrite particulierement sur des memoires manuscrits, du P. Jean-Baptiste le Pers, Jesuite, missionaire a Saint Domingue, et sur lespieces originales qui se conservent au Depot de la Marine. 2 vols. Paris, 1730. 261 Chevillard, Andre. Les desseins de son Eminence de Richelieu pour l'Amerique: ce qui s'y est passe de plus remarquable depuis 11etablissement des colonies. Et un ample traite du naturel, religion. et moeurs des Indiens insulaires et de la Terre Ferme. A Madame la contesse de Montmoron. Par le P. Andre Chevillard ... . Rennes, 1659. Collection abregee des voyages anciens et modernes autour du monde: avec des extraits des autres voyaqeurs les plus celebres et les plus recens; contenant des details exacts sur les moeurs: les usages et les productions les plus remarquables des differens peuples de la terre; enrichie de cartes, figures et des portraits des principaux Navigateurs. Paris, 1809. Dampier, William. A New Voyage Round the World. Describing particularly the Isthmus of America, several Coasts and Islands in the West Indies, the Isles of Cape Verde. the Passage by Tierra del Fuego, the South Sea Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico: the Isle of Guam, one of ~the Ladrones. Mindanao, and other Philippine and East - India islands near Cambodia, China. Formosa, Luconia, Celebes etc.. New Holland. Sumatra, Nicobar Isles. the Cape of Good Hope, and Santa Hellena. Their Soil, Rivers, Harbours, Plants. Fruits, Animals, and Inhabitants. Their Customs, Religion. Government, Trade, etc. Illustrated with Particular Maps and Draughts. London, 1697. _. A New Voyage Around the World, Introd. by Sir Albert Gray, President of the.Hakluyt Society. London: The Argonaut Press, 192 7. _ . Voyages and Discoveries, Introd. and Notes by Clennell Wilkinson. London: The Argonaut Press, 1931. Du Puis, Mathias. Relation de 11etablissement d'une colonie francaise dans la Guadeloupe. Isle de l'Amerique, et des moeurs des Sauvages. Dedie a la tres-lllustre et tres-vertueuse Princesse Marie Leonor de Rohan, tres 262 dicme Abbesse de l'Abbaye Royale de Caen. Composee par le F. Mathias du Puis, Religieux de l1Ordre des FF. Prescheurs. Caen, 1652. Dutertre, Jean-Baptiste. Histoire generale des Antilles habitees par le Francais. Par le R. P. du Tertre de 1'Ordre des FF. Prescheurs. Paris, 1667. ________________________. Histoire generale des isles de Saint-Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique, et autres dans l'Amerique. Par le R. P. Jean-Baptiste du Tertre. Paris, 1654. Esquemeling, John. The Buccaneers of America: A True Account of the most remarkable Assaults Committed of Late Years upon the Coast of the West Indies by the Buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga, both English and French. Wherein are contained more especially the Unparalleled Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan, our English Jamaican Hero, who sacked Porto Bello, burnt Panama, etc. Written originally in Dutch by John Esquemeling, one of the Buccaneers who was present at these tragedies. Translated into Spanish by Alonso de Bonne-Maison, M.D., etc. Now faithfully rendered into English with Facsimiles of all the Original Engravings, Maps, etc. Translation of 1684-5. Revised and Edited by William Swan Stallybrass. To which is prefixed an Introductory Essay by Andrew Lang. London: Routledge, 1924; New York: Dutton, 1924. La Mothe, Marie Catherine. Relation de Voyage d1Espagne, Annotee par R. Foulche-Delbosc. New York and Paris; C. Klincksieck, 1926. Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, ecrites des missions etrangeres, Nouvelle ed. Toulouse, 1810-1811. Misson, Fran9ois Maximilien. A New Voyage to Italy: with Curious Observations on Several Other Countries, as, Germany, Switzerland, Savoy, Geneva, Flanders, and Holland. 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Creator Rodgers, Joseph James, Jr. (author)

Core Title Father Jean-Baptiste Labat And French Travel Literature

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program French

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Knodel, Arthur J. (committee chair), Belle, Rene F. (committee member), Curtis, Robert E. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-706738

Unique identifier UC11361211

Identifier 6917887.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-706738 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6917887.pdf

Dmrecord 706738

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rodgers, Joseph James, Jr.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA