The Architecture of Empire: France in India and Southeast Asia, 1664–1962 9780228012443

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The ArchiTecTure of empire

the architecture of empire France in India and Southeast Asia, 1664–1962 Gauvin alexander Bailey

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston | London | Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022

iSBN 978-0-2280-1142-2 (cloth) iSBN 978-0-2280-1244-3 (epDf) Legal deposit third quarter 2022 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

LiBrAry AND ArchiveS cANADA cATALoguiNg iN puBLicATioN Title: The architecture of empire : France in India and Southeast Asia, 1664–1962 / Gauvin Alexander Bailey. Names: Bailey, Gauvin A., author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220142041 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220142076 | iSBN 9780228011422 (cloth) | iSBN 9780228012443 (epDf ) Subjects: LcSh : Public architecture—India—History—17th century. | LcSh: Public architecture—India—History—18th century. | LcSh: Architecture, French colonial—India—History—17th century. | LcSh : Architecture, French colonial—India—History—18th century. | LcSh : Public architecture—Indochina—History—19th century. | LcSh : Public architecture—Indochina—History—20th century. | LcSh : Architecture, French colonial—Indochina—History—19th century. | LcSh : Architecture, French colonial—Indochina—History—20th century. | LcSh : India— Buildings, structures, etc. | LcSh : Indochina—Buildings, structures, etc. Classification: Lcc NA 9050.5 .B 35 2022 | DDc 725.0959—dc23

Unless otherwise noted, photos are by the author. Set in 11.5/14.5 Garamond Premier Pro with Trajana Sans and Source Sans Pro Book design & typesetting by Garet Markvoort, zijn digital

for peTA

contents

Acknowledgments

ix

1 iNTroDucTioN

Architecture, Empire, and Hubris

3

2 origiNS

Fort Dauphin, Surat, Pondicherry ca 1672 41

3 DipLomAcy

Ayutthaya ca 1688

89

4 grANDeur

Pondicherry ca 1752 129

5 iNTerregNum

Diên Khánh ca 1793 179

6 SemBLANce

Saigon and Hanoi ca 1900

212

7 AppropriATioN

Phnom Penh ca 1917 262

8 ASSociATioN

Saigon and Hanoi ca 1925

9 hyBriDiTy

295

India and Southeast Asia 1738–1962 324 Notes 379 Bibliography 437 Index 461

acknowledgments

As always, this book would not have been possible without the support and companionship of Peta Gillyatt Bailey, particularly on the long, often strenuous, but always fascinating research expeditions that we made together – fortunately all completed by March 2020. I also wish to thank the following people for their assistance, conversation, and generosity: Gabrielle Abbe, Aliki-Anastasia Arkomani (British Library), Leïla Audouy (Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, Paris), Trần Quốc Bảo, Leslie Barnes, Lt Governor Kiran Bedi of Puducherry, Pius Bieri, Pierre Brocheux, Claire Brossard, Jonas Burvall (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), Hélène Cainaud (Archives municipales de Cannes), Bernard Camier, Erica Chan, Chacorn Charoensin, Hubert Delcroix, Jean Deloche, Brigitte Denis, Tim Doling, Nguyễn Thế Dương, Dung Cu Thi (Vietnam National Archives Centre Number 2, Ho Chi Minh City), Edmond Fernandez (Archives nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence), Dhivya (The Promenade, Puducherry), Michael Falser, Christophe Feuillerat (Département des estampes et de la photographie, bnf ), Bénédicte Gady, Dominic Goodall (École française d’Extrême Orient, Puducherry), Dr Ganesa (Institut français de Pondichéry), Adrien Goetz, François Guillemot, Asha Gupta (Raj Niwas, Puducherry), Caroline Herbelin, Denise Heywood, Amélie Hurel (anom ), Fabienne Jolly (CentraleSupélec – Bibliothèque), Heng Kimsoun, Tim Klähn (Canadian Centre for Architecture), John Kleinen, Ramesh Kumar, Arnauld Le Brusq, Le Huu Phuoc, Le Minh Son, William S. Logan, Pierre-Yves Manguin (efeo ), Linda Mazur, Christine Minjollet (Musée de la Légion d’Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie), Shri M. Murugesan (National Archives of India Record Centre, Puducherry), Anurupa Naik (ifp ), Raghul M. (Art and Culture Department, Puducherry), Raphaël Malangin (Lycée

AckNowLeDgmeNTS

français de Pondichéry), Virginie Malherbe, Sakekasitd Muang thong, Khieu Anh Nguyen, Nghia Nguyen, Ngoc Phong Nguyen, Ashok Panda (intach , Puducherry), Olivia Pelletier (anom ), Lisette Pereyra Ducastaing, Srey Pov (Indochina Tour), Christian Preverot, Alexandre Ragois (Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Paris), Shanty Rayapoullé (efeo ), Lesly Rivera Tremolada, Philippe Rochefort (Archives de l’École centrale de Lyon), Bruno Sagna (bnf ), Guillaume Saquet (École nationale des ponts et chaussées), Jean-Claude Sauvage (Archives de l’École centrale de Paris), Léonard de Selva, N.P. Suresh, Saravut Thinpathom, Sathaporn Thittham (Fine Arts Department of Thailand), Trần Thị Mai Hương (Vietnam National Archives Centre Number 1, Hanoi), Margherita Trento, Eric Vigneron (bnf ), and Zo from Malagasy Tours.

x

I am frankly humbled by the generosity of colleagues during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic when I was unable to return to archives or revisit libraries. I am especially grateful to Gabrielle Abbe, Trần Quốc Bảo, Khamvone Boulyaphonh and the rest of the staff at the Buddhist Archive of Photography in Luang Prabang, Tim Doling, Michael Falser, Volker Grabowski, Caroline Herbelin, Arnauld Le Brusq, R. Sathyanarayanan, Le Minh Son, Khieu Anh Nguyen, Pierre-Yves Manguin, Margherita Trento, and Ines Županov for their kindness and assistance. I also would like to make a special acknowledgment of the help of Leslie Barnes, who shared her contacts with me via her listserv and first put me in touch with many of her colleagues. Indeed, it was Leslie who inspired me to write this book when I attended a conference that she organized in Canberra in 2016, and I am very grateful for the suggestion. I hope I can thank her again soon in person. Once I was able to travel again, in 2021, I visited the Royal Archives (Rigsarkivet) and Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen and the

Institut de recherche France-Asie in Paris. I am particularly grateful for the warm reception I received in Copenhagen from Esther Fihl, Bente Wolff, Simon Rastén, and Asger Svane-Knudsen, and the kind assistance in Paris of Marie-Alpais Dumoulin and Brigitte Appavou. I also acknowledge the generous hospitality on that visit of Hélie de Noailles, who graciously welcomed me to the Château de Champlâtreux, the near twin of the Pondicherry Gouvernement and Palais du Gouvernement Général in Saigon. This book would not have been finished in such a timely fashion without the assistance of a graduate student and former graduate student who have made vital contributions to this book: Sophia Erdmann, who bravely undertook the formidable job of compiling the index, and Anna-Maria Moubayed for her magnificent maps, which combine accuracy with creative flair. I am also indebted to my editors at McGill-Queen’s University Press, especially Jonathan Crago, James Leahy, and Kathleen Fraser, for their invaluable support and guidance and to my three reviewers for their insightful and detailed reports. They, and book designer Garet Markvoort of zijn digital, have all helped make this a better book. Financial support for this project was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the National Endowment for the Humanities, for which I am extremely thankful. I am also particularly indebted to the continuing support of my Alfred and Isabel Bader research fund at Queen’s University. I am also grateful for all the scholarly and logistical support I have received from my confrères at the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres at the Institut de France, especially Michel Zink. This book is dedicated in part to the memory of my friend and fellow académicien Marc Fumaroli (1932–2020), whose lively conversations on all manner of subjects demonstrated that the reports of the death

of la langue française are greatly exaggerated. We had many discussions about this book in its early phase; I only wish I could have let him see the finished version.

Finally, on a personal note, I would like to thank Kendra Brennan and Alexandra Gajewski for their friendship, near and far, during the pandemic.

China India

Tonkin

Pagan

Chu Quyến

Burma Luang Prabang

Hanoi/Thăng Long

Phát Diệm Thanh Hóa

Laos

Gulf of Tonkin

e

an

Bay of Bengal

ti ien

Haiphong

V

Hai Nan

South China Sea

Rangoon Huế

Siam Quảng Ngãi Ang Thong

Thonburi Bangkok Samut Prakan Mergui

Tourane (Đà Nẵng) Nước Mặn Thanh Chiêm Faifo (Hội An)

Lopburi Ayutthaya Qui Nhơn

Annam

Angkor Wat Siem Reap Battambang

Cambodge

Phnom Penh

Gulf of Thailand

Bình Định Province

Diên Khánh

Tây Ninh

ne

i Kampot ch Hà Tiên hin Saigon Phú Quốc (Ho Chi Minh City) oc Hòn C Mỹ Tho Đất

South China Sea

Indian Ocean

Indochina

Mughal India China

Lahore

Persia

Delhi Agra

Chandernagore Calcutta

Gujarat

Surat

Bombay AHMADNAGAR

Arabian Sea

Hyderabad Golconda Fort

G

C OL

ON

DA

Yanaon

BIJAPUR

Goa Vijayanagara

Bangalore

Maldives

Mahé Calicut

Coromandel Coast Chandragiri Gingee

NAYAK KINGDOMS

Thanjavut

Cochin

Madras Pondicherry Tranquebar Karikal

Madurai

Ceylon Indian Ocean

Colombo

Bay of Bengal

The ArchiTecTure of empire

1 introduction Architecture, Empire, and Hubris

Two Buildings, Two Empires In the early 1750s Jean-Louis Champia de Fonbrun (fl.1745–after 1773), a newly promoted royal engineer from Piedmont, and Gabriel-Pierre-Martin Dumont (1720–1791), a young professor at the Académie royale d’architecture in Paris, each made a set of presentation drawings of the Palais du Gouvernement, the resplendent new administrative headquarters of the French Indian colony of Pondicherry, 150 kilometres south of Madras (1738–52) (figs. 1.1–2; 4.14–17).1 Overlooking the Bay of Bengal from within the walls of the colossal citadel of Fort Louis, a stronghold a 1746 visitor called “one of the finest that the Europeans ever built in India,” the palace was handily the most opulent structure in France’s global empire (figs. 4.1–2).2 However Dumont and Fonbrun were not the architects of this monumental folly. Dumont never even visited India. When the building was under construction he was in Rome, first as a pensionnaire at the French Academy (1742–46) and then (in 1749–50) on a study tour with the men who would found the neoclassicist movement: Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713–1780), later architect of the Paris Panthéon; engraver and critic Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715–1790); and Abel Poisson (1721–1781), the brother of Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764) and (from 1751) director-general of the King’s Buildings.3 Although Fonbrun did go to India, following seven years’

the architecture of empire 4

1.1 (Top ) Jean-Louis Champia de Fonbrun, Facade of the Government House of Pondicherry, ca 1752. Signed “fait Champia de Fonbrun sous-lieutenant d’infant.” Wash and ink on paper, 73 × 26.5 cm. Archives Nationales d’OutreMer (ANom ). The building was designed by EmmanuelJulien Gerbaud and the executing architect was Jean Le Bosecq. 1.2 (BoTTom ) Here attributed to Gabriel-PierreMartin Dumont, sectional view and rear facade of the Gouvernement of Pondicherry, ca 1755. Watercolour, wash, and ink on paper, 94 × 58 cm (detail). ANom . For the complete drawing, see figure 4.17.

service with the Piedmont Artillery Regiment, he arrived only the year the building was completed. Dumont and Fonbrun were only commissioned to produce high-quality drawings of the palace, possibly as prototypes for engravings, Fonbrun on site in India around 1752 and Dumont executing the finished sheets in Paris based on Fonbrun’s models in 1755 (perhaps at the behest of Poisson, now the Marquis de Marigny). The engravings do not seem to have materialized, but had they been published the Palais du Gouvernement would

Governor Joseph-François Dupleix (1697–1763; in office 1742–54) – was primarily the work of a half-Tamil architect who never set foot in France. It boasted an 80-metre-long facade with a thirteen-bay loggia supported by sixty-six stone columns, three pediments bristling with relief carvings of military trophées and the French royal arms, and Versailles-style roof balustrades festooned with urn finials. Inside, a vestibule adorned with life-sized allegorical statues and fountains led to a two-storey stairhall decorated with Ionic pilasters and stucco trophée panels, which in turn led to the highest room in the building: a sunbathed two-storey salon with rococo mirrors and console tables and a coved cupola encircled by a gilt bronze railing. The palace wings accommodated seven spacious public halls on the ground floor and another pair of staircases, and the first floor, or “étage,” would have included other reception rooms and offices, although its plan does not survive. The palace’s centrepiece was a sumptuous, bejewelled clock personally commissioned for the building by Madame de Pompadour, demonstrating that the court was directly invested in the palace and making Poisson’s involvement all the more likely (see chapter 4). Even in France there was nothing quite like the Palais du Gouvernement. While it resembles noble country seats such as Jean-Michel Chevotet’s Chateau at Champlâtreux (1751–57) (fig. 1.3), which has a similar arrangement of porticoes with round and triangular pediments, only royal commissions make comparable use of freestanding columns, beginning with the eastern facade of the Louvre (1667–70) (fig. 1.4), considered by many to be the epitome of France’s architectural “Grand Siècle” under Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715). The Palais du Gouvernement went to unprecedented lengths to impress Indian potentates used to the splendour of the Mughal emperors, but

introduction

have been the only building in the French colonial empire to have been so honoured by the state.4 The real designers and builders of the palace were not academicians or court architects but royal engineers and humble contractors and artisans who fell under the official radar, as was so often the case in the early modern French empire, where state architecture was a military secret and even the foremost members of the Génie militaire (Army Corps of Engineers) were known by surnames alone – if identified at all.5 The building’s mastermind, who nearly saw it through to completion, was Pondicherry native Emmanuel-Julien Gerbaud (ca 1703–1746), son of a Nantes sea captain and an Indian convert from Manappattu (south of Pondicherry), who prepared two preliminary plans in 1738 (figs. 4.14–15).6 His executing architect was maître constructeur and lieutenant de port Jean Le Bozecq (1694–after 1742) from Lorient (Brittany), who reached Pondicherry before 1723.7 Gerbaud was sufficiently important that he travelled with a crew of fifteen Indian masons in 1731–32 when he served as inspecteur des travaux in Île-de-France (now Mauritius). Le Bozecq’s daughter Marie Madelaine’s wedding in 1737 was attended by the cream of Pondicherry society, including Governor Pierre-Benoît Dumas (1668–1745). The palace’s finishing details were supervised by royal engineer Jean-Joseph Abeille (1721–1771) from Toulouse, son of an ingénieur du Roi and future member of Pondicherry’s Conseil Supérieure, who arrived in 1742.8 These fittings included the lavish interior decorations by “master carpenter of the Company” Jean Roze dit Du Frêne (d. 1760) from La Manche, probably assisted by his acquaintance, the mixed-race cabinetmaker Jacques Hernault (b. 1712).9 Thus, this extravagant testament to French hubris in the East – also known as the Palais Dupleix after its flamboyant first incumbent

5

1.3 (oppoSiTe Top ) Jean-Michel Chevotet, Château de Champlâtreux, 1751–57. 1.4 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Louis Le Vau, Claude Perrault, and Charles Le Brun, east facade of the Louvre, Paris, 1667–70. 1.5 (ABove ) Jan Van Ryne, Fort St George on the Coromandel Coast belonging to the East India Company of England. 1754. Fort St George in Madras (Chennai) was begun in 1695 and the main Fort House (on the right) was rebuilt in 1714. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

introduction

it was more specifically designed to outshine Britain’s more modest Fort St George in Madras (1714) (fig. 1.5).10 Unsurprisingly, the building drew the ire of France’s traditional enemy: a mere nine years after completion, in 1761, the Palais du

Gouvernement was detonated by British troops following the siege of Pondicherry during the Seven Years War (known in India as the Third Carnatic War, 1756–63), and British royal engineers eradicated the ruins in 1761–62 with the painstaking thoroughness Allied forces used to obliterate Nazi monuments after the Second World War (figs. 4.24–5). The most surprising thing about the palace is that it was built in a colony over which France had a fragile hold and, while a major textile trading centre and reasonably populous (it had 130,000 inhabitants in 1741, the vast majority of them Indian), it was considerably smaller in area and had far fewer European colonists than did France’s Western Hemisphere possessions.11 Pondicherry could fit three times

7

the architecture of empire 8

into the island of Martinique or several thousand times into French North America, depending upon where one drew the borders. The Palais du Gouvernement’s scale was thus inversely proportional to the geographical size of the colony and its patrons’ actual power in the region. In fact, until the eighteenth century no one used the term “colony” to refer to anything in the French East Indies, unlike in France’s American possessions – the vast settler colonies of NouvelleFrance and Louisiana in North America, the mostly uncharted rainforests of Guiana, and the sugar islands of the Lesser and Greater Antilles.12 The sugar islands were also much more profitable than France’s scattering of entrepôts in the Indian Ocean – above all Saint-Domingue (Haiti), the richest colony of any European power in the world thanks to the cane harvested by hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans.13 By contrast, the French paid a high price for the produce of India, spending 30 tons of silver and gold annually to pay for the textiles and other manufactured goods of the subcontinent.14 As traveller François Bernier (1625–1688) put it, India was “an abyss for a large quantity of the world’s gold and silver, which finds many ways to enter and almost no way to leave it.”15 The Atlantic colonies were also conquered territory in which the French could do more or less as they pleased whereas Pondicherry, which was granted to the French by the rulers of the former Vijayanagara stronghold of Gingee, had to be maintained by means of expensive gifts and tactful diplomacy: “the situation of French trading posts was a delicate matter – set up through agreement or by gift, the right to settle permanently was granted to or withheld from Europeans by South Indian princes.”16 The only equivalent in the Atlantic world were France’s West African entrepôts of Saint-Louis, Île Gorée (both Senegal) and Ouidah (Dahomey, now Benin), which were tiny

and limited to mercantile activities.17 Yet with the exception of the 97-metre-long Chateau SaintLouis in Quebec City (begun 1692) – which grew by accretion and was as austere as a monastery – the official French architecture of the Western Hemisphere could not compete with the Pondicherry Gouvernement’s scale and luxuriousness and was usually made of cheaper materials. Significantly, almost no buildings in the Atlantic empire used columns, and those that had them, such as the Intendance of Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans, 1749) or the Hall of the War Council in Port-au-Prince (1774), made them out of wood or brick.18 A century after the Pondicherry Gouvernement’s demise, builders laid the foundations of another palatial French Asian government house, the Palais du Gouvernement Général in Saigon (1868–73), renamed Palais Norodom in the early twentieth century after the Cambodian King Norodom (r. 1860–1904) who had requested a French protectorate over his kingdom in 1863 (figs. 1.6–7). Emperor Napoleon III (r. 1852–70) and his ministers were driven to found a new colonial empire in what they would call Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) by nostalgia for the era of Louis XIV and XV, when France’s empire was at its height before the Seven Years War brought it to its knees – precisely the era epitomized by the Pondicherry Gouvernement, which became, in absentia, a shrine to perceived French glory. To justify the conquest, they seized upon a tenuous foundation story of French seventeenth- and eighteenth-century missionary and military adventurers in Đại Việt (Vietnam), and more recent persecutions of French priests there. But in reality, the French empire in Asia was discontinuous, unlike those of the British or Dutch (or even the Spanish and Portuguese). France had little left in Asia after 1760 and had sat on the sidelines during the century when

1.6 Palais du Gouvernement Général, or Palais Norodom, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City, 1868–73), ca 1875–79. Photograph by Émile Gsell. Université Côte d’Azur, Bibliothèque.

introduction

Britain and the Netherlands made their major inland conquests and, enjoying the benefits of the industrial revolution, gained the kind of decisive military, technological, and mercantile advantage over Asian powers that had never existed when the French were still in the game. Although Britain had returned Pondicherry in 1763 along with a scattering of enclaves and factories across India, France had only a small number of troops there, and its only other Indian Ocean possessions were

the little volcanic islands of Île-de-France (until 1810) and Île Bourbon (Réunion) off the coast of Madagascar, used for plantations, scientific gardens, and victualling ships. France conquered Madagascar itself only in 1895. The Palais du Gouvernement Général was therefore intended as a celebration of the triumphant return to Asia of French grandeur in the ancien régime mould and, like its predecessor in Pondicherry, to provide an “indisputable” example of French superiority.19 Upon the building’s completion in 1884, Le Monde illustré declared: “[i]t is one of the finest specimens of European architecture in these distant parts. In a style that is at once simple and grandiose, surrounded by a beautiful park,

9

it enhances the authority of the representative of France in the eyes of the subject populations.”20 After a local architectural competition in 1865 failed to produce a design of sufficient “distinction,” the colonial government of Cochinchina (France’s first Indochinese possession) handed the commission to Achille-Antoine Hermitte (1840–1870), a Paris-born Beaux-Arts-trained architect who was working on Hong Kong’s City Hall (begun 1866; demolished 1933–47) and the neogothic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

the architecture of empire

1.7 Palais du Gouvernement Général, or Palais Norodom, Saigon (1868–73). Ballroom (Salle des fêtes). Photograph from a glass plate negative, ca 1920. BNf .

10

in Canton (Guangzhou; 1861–88) – the latter for the French missionary group known as the Missions-Étrangères de Paris (mep , founded 1659) who will play a major role in this book.21 The concours insisted that this building was to be as French as possible, stating that “[A]ll work except artistic works would be carried out by the workers of the country, but those such as sculptures, decorative painting, [and] gilding had to be made by the workers and artists whom the contractor would be required to hire in France.”22 Hermitte was made chief of the newly founded Service des bâtiments civils (Civil Buildings Service) at a liberal salary of 36,000 francs a year, and within a few days he drew up a plan in the

1.8 Alfred Foulhoux, Palais de Justice, Saigon, completed 1884.

and order, signalling France’s mission to bring civilization and improvement to the indigenes (fig. 1.8). The building materials were largely imported from France, including 2,600 cubic metres of granite, 151 tons of cement, almost five million bricks, and 581 cubic metres of concrete, and it was built by a small army of masons, carpenters, stonecutters, roofers, and blacksmiths.25 Its symbolic centrepiece was the sculpture group

introduction

shape of an inverted T. The basement level housed the kitchens and utility rooms, the ground floor accommodated the offices of the governor and his subordinates and the reception and dining room, and the first storey was reserved for the private apartments of the governor, his guests, and his staff. The wing perpendicular to the main structure at the back contained the grand ballroom with a vaulted ceiling supported by freestanding Corinthian columns (fig. 1.7), and the palace was approached via a circular driveway leading to a monumental staircase and a double ramp for carriages. If the irony about the Pondicherry palace was that it was built by a mixed-race architect who had never been to France, the irony here was that – despite the stated goals of the 1866 competition – most of the builders were British and Chinese brought in from Hong Kong and Canton. One of them, chief engineer Biddle, even toasted France, the Republic, and France’s mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission) at the opening ceremony in February 1884 – perhaps his generous tribute to French patriotism was inspired by an equally generous salary.23 Like its predecessor in Pondicherry, the twostorey Palais du Gouvernement Général cost a fortune (almost five million francs, or about €15,534,000 in today’s currency) and it was inspired by the same sort of ancien régime models – in fact, it quite closely resembles Champlâtreux (fig. 1.3) – but this time refracted through the eclecticism that had become fashionable in mid-century France, manifested in the Italian Renaissance double loggia arcade on the side wings, inspired by the villa architecture of Andrea Palladio (1508–1580).24 The central portico with columns on both storeys is a near exact match with the Pondicherry Gouvernement (fig. 1.1), and similar porticoes reappeared in colonial buildings such as the Saigon Palais de Justice (1884) to project an image of French classicisme

11

the architecture of empire 12

in its reception room: not allegories this time but nine marble busts (costing 50,000 francs, €155,340 today) of members of the imperial family and “the three men who contributed the most to endowing the homeland with this beautiful colony of Cochinchina”: Admiral Rigault de Genouilly (1807–1873), Admiral Léonard Charner (1797– 1869), and the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat (1805–1873).26 Later a tenth was added of Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine (1741–1799), the mep missionary whose meddling in Cochinchina sixty years earlier gave Napoleon III one of his excuses to claim the colony for France (see chapter 5).27 The statues did not survive the transition to the Third Republic in 1870 and the building was downgraded to a ceremonial venue in 1887 when the governor-general of the newly minted Indochinese Union moved to Hanoi and the governor of Cochinchina was relocated to a more modest building two blocks to the southeast. Nevertheless, the Palais du Gouvernement Général survived Vietnamese Independence in 1954 and served as the presidential palace for the South Vietnamese government until it was bombed and demolished during the failed 1962 assassination attempt on president Ngô Đình Diệm (in office 1955–63) – as it happens, almost exactly two centuries after the systematic obliteration of its predecessor in Pondicherry. As with the Pondicherry Gouvernement, the bombast projected by the Palais du Gouvernement Général was an overcompensation for France’s precarious authority in the region. As I will explore in chapter 5, France’s control over the Indochinese Union during its near-century of rule was unstable and unevenly distributed between the cities, where colonizers had greater authority, and the countryside, where they had little. Only one (Cochinchina) was an actual colony: the rest (Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos) were protectorates in which an indigenous

ruler wielded token authority, and China was a restraining presence on the northern border. The French adventure in Indochina was wracked by decades of bloody warfare – guerrilla and conventional – with independence fighters who, although possessing divergent political, religious, and regional affinities, were united in their efforts to expel the colonizers. The French military and colonial government responded with vicious reprisals and arrests that did nothing to win over the hearts and minds of the population, despite patronizing efforts to improve education (on French terms) and the so-called policy of association, or engagement with local cultures – a token gesture that could never compensate for systemic political and social injustices. Associationism had a profound effect on architecture, as we will see in the last three chapters of this book. The fall of French Indochina was not an event of the last few decades of the patchwork colony’s existence: its seeds were sown just after the Conquest of Saigon in 1859 when freedom fighters were already striking back from the marshlands of the Mekong Delta and sporadic but entrenched opposition to French rule wracked Indochina until the final French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954. There is a whiff of desperation in the jingoistic introduction to the Indochinese section of the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition, which celebrates a colonial unity that did not exist in reality: If there are subdivisions in our possessions in the Far East: Cochinchina, Cambodia, Laos, Annam and Tonkin, there should no longer be any real difference between our possessions proper and the protectorate countries; in the above-mentioned subdivisions only geographical and non-administrative expressions should be seen. Informed people will no doubt recall that there is an old ruler in Phnom-Penh who still bears the title of

king, having long since lost his prerogatives. They will also be able to remember that in Hue there is a young man adorned with the title of emperor, and who, in his palace, remains completely free to enjoy any distractions he wishes; but it remains nonetheless demonstrated, by the very organization of the Indo-Chinese Exhibition, that the achievement of this unity of which we speak above is a fait accompli. Strictly speaking there is no exhibition or building specially assigned to Cochinchina, Cambodia, Tonkin, etc. There is only one indochinese exhibition.28 Although this propagandistic text was meant for a European audience and did not represent the views of all colonial officials, many of whom in fact defended the idea of a specific identity for each territory of the colony (as evidenced in the regional pavilions I will discuss in chapters 7 and 8), it projects a popular if fictitious image of French power that would have well pleased the patrons of the Palais du Gouverneur-Général sixteen years earlier and the more hawkish politicians in the French Parliament. About This Book

introduction

This book considers the large-scale military, civic, and religious buildings associated with French colonialism in Asia: in seventeenthcentury Madagascar, France’s foothold in the Indian Ocean and staging point for India, in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century India and Siam (never a colony but a place of intensive French missionary activity and diplomacy), and nineteenth- and twentieth-century Indochina, the largest colony France ever administered on the continent. It is the first to include the Siamese episode and the first to encompass both the “old”

and “new” empires: the early modern empire of the ancien régime (1643–1761), and the modern empire established by the Second Empire and Third Republic (1852–1940), which ended two centuries after its predecessor in 1962, having been shattered by the Second World War. This book will also look at French architectural activity during the century-long interregnum between them, when Pondicherry and France’s other Indian factories lingered on as minor trading posts and French missionaries and engineers operated in the two independent kingdoms of Đại Việt: Tonkin and Cochinchina. This interval is particularly significant as the activities that took place then were used as political propaganda, as just noted, to justify the French invasion of Indochina. It is therefore crucial that the historian examine what happened during those years with particular care and detachment. When I began writing this book I envisioned it as a more or less straightforward companion to my last one (2018), since the two regions interconnected in many ways and reflected the same general colonial objectives and ideologies, and because the style of their buildings, approach to architecture, and the training of their engineers and civic architects seemed at first to be quite similar.29 However as I delved deeper into the history of French colonialism in India and Southeast Asia, I realized that this would have to be a very different book. First, given the scarcity of extant early modern buildings and relevant primary source documents compared with those of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century empire, I have extended it to embrace 298 years of history (the last one covered 226 years, ending in 1830 with the July Monarchy). By adopting a longue durée approach I could now choose from hundreds of buildings, but this embarrassment of riches created its own challenge: difficult decisions had to be made about which of them to include and

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the architecture of empire 14

which had to be left out. In the case of Indochina, the riches extended to primary sources: complete construction records survive for many buildings in French and Vietnamese archives of the sort that are piecemeal at best for the early modern period, as well as published government reports and a flourishing media (both metropolitan and colonial newspapers) – not to mention documents about the personal lives of the architects and contractors, whether baptism, marriage and death records, military service files, notarial documents, school attendance records, or Légion d’honneur dossiers. Since the human factor is a major preoccupation of this book (as it was in my last) these latter are especially important. Nevertheless, I was astonished by how little has been published about the architects, builders, and decorators of the structures in this book. Except for figures such as Ernest Hébrard (1875–1933), whose history has been well chronicled because he enjoyed a high profile in Europe and was a savvy self-promoter, the scholarship provides few clues about most of these people, whether their place of origin, how they trained, their fate, or even their first names. The impression one gets is of a monolithic army of state functionaries imposing a triumphalist architectural vision onto the colonies. The reality was very different. Architects and builders came from every walk of life, and those who left France – many did not – fetched up in India or Indochina for any number of reasons. Some enjoyed success and prominence in colonial society while others vanished into obscurity. Some championed colonialism while others fought against its institutions or were simply indifferent to it. Some fell in love with Asia while others could not wait to go home or to try their luck in another French colony. Many of them – more than has been acknowledged before – were Eurasian or indigenous, whether Tamil, Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Lao. Indeed, I hope that this

book will show that, despite the dearth of references to them in the official literature and a persistent discrimination that kept them in subordinate positions (particularly in Indochina), mixed-race and Asian architects, contractors, sculptors, and painters made decisive contributions to the design and execution of some of the most important monuments in this book, as we have already seen with Gerbaud’s Pondicherry Gouvernement. Although compelled to work under European superiors, Vietnamese architects, engineers, and contractors are responsible for many of the government and municipal buildings in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and for the many Frenchstyle villas that line the streets of Hanoi, Saigon, Vientiane, or Luang Prabang (after the mid-1930s Vietnamese architects could form independent practices but only for private commissions). Asians most certainly did not just provide brute labour, and this book will argue that the most successful example of associationist architecture, the Musée Albert-Sarraut, was primarily designed by an uncredited Cambodian architect and a Cambodian-Vietnamese engineer (figs. 7.13–15). The French architects include a Provençal nobleman who abandoned ship in Poulo Condore (Côn Sơn Island) to work for the king of Cochinchina; a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War and business partner of Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893); the leading opera set designer of Belle Époque Paris; a seamstress’s son who attained the heights of Hanoi high society and received the largest state funeral in the colony’s history; a child of the dreaded Salpêtrière Hospital for mentally ill women who struggled with depression and eventually died by a self-inflicted gun wound; a fabulist self-promoter and amateur archaeologist who served in France’s embryonic air corps in the First World War before becoming the self-professed saviour of Cambodian art; a prosperous contractor and Hanoi society

However, this omission is not an impediment: in fact, so much has been written about urbanism in French India and Indochina (whether about Pondicherry, Saigon, Hanoi, or Dalat) that most of the actual buildings in these cities have been neglected. Scholars have long focused on the ways in which the Compagnie des Indes (cio ; about which more below), French officials, and individual municipalities used city design to impose order on the colonized. Such were the urbanistic schemes aimed at improving health and sanitation but also at dividing the cities into indigenous and white quarters: the infamous “cordons sanitaires,” carved like fireguards between neighbourhoods, like the canal dividing “black town” and “white town” in Pondicherry.30 By contrast, except in the work of Arnauld Le Brusq and Caroline Herbelin on Vietnam (Herbelin deals primarily with domestic architecture) – and in studies of Hébrard – the buildings that populate these cities and towns have been treated superficially if at all: studied not as works of architecture but in the aggregate through the lens of such disciplines as social and political history, post-colonial theory, and anthropology.31 Others have been examined from the viewpoint of heritage preservation – organizations such as intach (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) have measured and surveyed historic buildings and executed excellent plans and elevations with an eye to conservation, but they are not concerned with historical or stylistic analysis.32 The most famous buildings of all, such as the Belle Époque monuments of Saigon that were extolled and lambasted by the likes of Osbert Sitwell, Norman Lewis, and Graham Greene, are barely understood. A concentrated study of the public buildings of French Asia is long overdue. Paradigmatic structures such as the Saigon Opera House (Théâtre de Saigon, 1898–1900) (fig. 6.2) are dutifully mentioned in passing to

introduction

figure with a taste for auto racing; a victim of a gas attack in the First World War who went on to become a leading member of Saigon’s powerful Corsican community; and a temperamental Beaux-arts graduate who had a higher opinion of his work than did his employers and spent much of his life filing lawsuits accusing his rivals of plagiarism and demanding compensation from his superiors for perceived wrongs. The Asian architects include the chief palace architect at the Cambodian royal court, considered to be the greatest Cambodian painter of the twentieth century but who was also known for ruthless attacks on his rivals; a gregarious Vietnamese contractor with a taste for expensive restaurants and charities who had a shrewd ability to win remunerative contracts even when up against European competitors; a VietnameseCambodian Christian engineer, brother of a high-ranking mandarin at the Phnom Penh court, who trained at the best schools in France and parlayed that expertise into prestigious commissions and business ventures; a charismatic Vietnamese Christian priest who sided with the French during the conquest of Tonkin but also worked his whole life to rid Christianity of any associations with French culture; an equally charismatic Pope of the Caodaist sect and amateur architect who designed one of Vietnam’s most famous monuments based on instructions he received in spirit séances from the sixth-century Daoist poet Li Bái; and a Lao Buddhist monk who trained in the Fine Arts school Saraphatchang in Bangkok but who made it his life’s work to promote a unique Franco-Lao style for monasteries in Luang Prabang and the surrounding countryside. The second departure from Architecture and Urbanism is that this book does not consider urbanism except where it directly relates to individual buildings. The sheer number of monuments under consideration leaves no room for it.

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the architecture of empire 16

make the same points about hubris or folly, with perhaps an illustration but little else, frequently repeating factual inaccuracies about chronology, size, and architects.33 Few have made serious efforts to study their building histories or such fundamental issues as style and the models they used (whether actual buildings or engravings), analyses of their plans and elevations, patronage (state, civic, private, or religious), and – especially – the identities and careers of their architects and builders. Early modern French India has fared even worse in the scholarship, partly because, as Marie Ménard-Jacob comments, it lay “in the shadow of the West Indies,” with its “great maritime operations, profitable profits and victorious squadrons.”34 This is why a building like the Palais du Gouvernement in Pondicherry has never been examined in any depth, even though it was the most important architectural commission of the old empire and one that was approved at the highest levels of the court, probably by Louis XV himself. The sheer number of potential buildings to consider has necessitated another change in this book’s approach. My last book was not exhaustive, but it could be more inclusive, discussing not only the main extant structures but also those that were destroyed or never built, and it included a chapter on vernacular architecture. The present book must be more selective, examining just over fifty buildings in detail to explore key trends and moments in French colonial architecture. However, I have also chosen them because they provide an opportunity to investigate the lives and attitudes of the widely diverse people who commissioned, built, used, and wrote about them. John Darwin, writing about Britain’s global empire, comments that “‘Empire’ is a grand word. But behind its façade … stood a mass of individuals, a network of lobbies, a mountain of hopes … Empires were not made by faceless committees

making grand calculations ... they had to be made by men (and women) whose actions were shaped by motives and morals no less confused and demanding than those that govern us now … The result was an empire of hybrid components, conflicting traditions, and unsettled boundaries.”35 Herbelin makes a similar comment about the architecture of French Indochina: “these structures cannot be reduced to an instrument of power … it is essential to note that while the different actors, including owners, architects, and inhabitants, were in some way constrained by politics, they also retained an independent ability to manoeuvre.”36 It is important to be clear at the outset that the monuments I have chosen are exceptional. They are unusually large and ornate, predominantly public, and have a more markedly symbolic function than other public buildings or private villas in the colonies. Most of the latter reflect a pared-down, functional style such as the bland Louis XV classicism of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Pondicherry or the so-called “travaux publics” style (named after the colonial Direction des Travaux publics and also popularly known as “style comprador”) that was ubiquitous across Indochina, a generic but eclectic blend of neo-renaissance and neoclassical features using manufactured materials.37 Made of brick or reinforced concrete instead of stone, “travaux publics” structures sometimes feature true or false half-timbering (in Vientiane and Luang Prabang using real wood, elsewhere mostly concrete), and they typically use mass-produced decorative elements such as Alpine-style roof brackets (in concrete or wood), friezes of coloured tiles or bricks or relief panels, terracotta or false terracotta roofs, and metal or concrete roof finials, sometimes shaped like lotuses or nagas (figs. 1.9, 7.2). Focused studies of “travaux publics” architecture, as well as vernacular architectures such as nineteenth-

1.9 “Travaux publics” style villa on rue Setthathirath, Vientiane (Laos), first quarter twentieth century.

introduction

and twentieth-century Tamil houses in Pondicherry, twentieth-century shophouses in Hội An (Vietnam) and Battambang (Cambodia) (figs. 9.25–6), or domestic architecture in Luang Prabang (fig. 9.24), are much needed and will considerably deepen our understanding of the architecture of the French colonies – but they are not the subject of this book. The case studies in this book include seventeenth-century Fort Dauphin (Madagascar), France’s first but short-lived Indian Ocean colony, and the early Indian factories (comptoirs)

at Surat, and Pondicherry (chapter 2); the FrancoSiamese architecture of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Thonburi, and Samut Prakan (now Thailand), generated by encounters with French missionaries and envoys (chapter 3); Pondicherry at its apogee in the 1730s–50s and during its more modest reconstruction after 1763 (chapter 4); missionary buildings mostly in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Đại Việt and the Cochinchinese citadels of Gia Định (Saigon) and Diên Khánh, a collaboration between French engineers and king Nguyễn Ánh in the 1790s (all in chapter 5); the Belle Époque opera houses of Saigon and Hanoi at the turn of the twentieth century

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the architecture of empire 18

when each city vied to become the “Paris of the East” (chapter 6); and the introduction of associationist architecture by colonial architects in Indochina’s three most important museums: the Musée Albert-Sarraut in Phnom Penh in 1917 (chapter 7), the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse in Saigon (1929), and the Musée Louis-Finot in Hanoi (1925–32; both in chapter 8). All three museum projects were built under the auspices of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (efeo ), an institution that plays a leading role in the last third of this book. Chapter 9 moves to the hybrid architectures of Asians living in the colonies, investigating seven buildings from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries that were commissioned in response to French (and in one case British) colonial architecture, either turning associationism on its head to critique or challenge colonial authority or simply adopting aspects of neoclassicism, baroque, or art deco as a sign of modernity, in some cases without even acknowledging them as European styles. These case studies are arranged in chapters that are both chronological and thematic, not merely charting the passing of time, changes in government, and shifts in colonial policy, but also identifying how the nature of French colonialism and its buildings differed in specific eras and locations and evolved over time. This thematic approach and the selected buildings aim to reveal that far from being a uniform means of imposing control, architecture generated by French colonialism in both colonial or para-colonial settings (by which I mean Siam and pre-French Indochina) varied profoundly. Although striking similarities existed between buildings in certain eras (notably between mid-eighteenth-century Pondicherry and fin-desiècle Saigon and Hanoi) there were also significant departures from the architecture-as-control paradigm. In fact, it would be a mistake to use an umbrella term like “colonial architecture” to

define the buildings in this book, which is why it is called The Architecture of Empire and not something like French Imperial Architecture. One of the reasons – it cannot be sufficiently stressed – is that buildings’ patrons differed widely. They included the French state (variously a monarchy, an empire, and a republic); the cio and its predecessor; various rival Catholic missionaries with different degrees of loyalty to France; individuals for whom self-aggrandizement was more important than service to their nation and who occasionally went rogue; colonial municipalities that were as much in competition with each other (and with the colonial Bâtiments civils, a subsection of the Travaux publics) as they were with non-French entities; and learned societies who used scholarship as a tool for empire building. The public architecture of French colonialism in Asia was vastly more heterogeneous than its equivalent in the Western Hemisphere. The buildings in each chapter have been chosen to highlight a theme. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the incompetence and failure of France’s early efforts at colonization or diplomacy (diplomacy as a thinly veiled attempt at conquest) compared with their Dutch or British predecessors. They are also concerned with the contradictions and disagreements that led to disaster: between the lofty aims and lowly realities of the cio (a contradiction in itself as a joint-stock company under monarchical control); between merchants and missionaries with diametrically opposed goals; between Huguenots and Catholics who hated – and frequently killed – each other; between loyalists and renegades; and between Louis XIV’s genuine admiration for the court culture of King Narai of Siam and his plot to capture his kingdom. Chapter 4 is about hubris: the gargantuan effort and cost of financing buildings meant to reflect the gloire du roi and the superiority of French architecture in an unstable colony that

amused the British, who wrote generally scathing descriptions of these replicas in miniature. However, these buildings also reflected a motivation that was not a factor in mid-eighteenth-century Pondicherry: nostalgia. Many of the colonists in Indochina suffered from acute homesickness, and even if they spent a long time in the colony, they wanted cities where they could walk down a miniature Champs-Élysées, attend Massenet’s Thaïs at the Opera House, or enjoy a pastis on the balcony of the Hôtel Métropolitain. An important difference between the buildings examined in chapter 4 and those in chapters 6 to 8 is that the latter were not commissioned by the Ministry of the Marine or the cio (which no longer existed) but primarily by the municipalities, the local Bâtiments civils, or in the case of the museums in chapters 7 and 8, learned societies (in co-operation with municipal or regional governments). The modern empire may have shared some of the ideals of the early modern one, but patronage operated very differently. The last three chapters are about buildings that combine French (or at least European) styles with those of various Asian cultures, a process some scholars (such as myself ) call “hybridity,” a term I will discuss below. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with hybridity that is imposed from above, related to the government policy of “association.” They also consider, particularly chapter 7, the rapine and cultural theft that characterized French activities in (particularly) Cambodia, and how the French seized Angkor Wat from the Siamese and then championed its style and those of Vietnam as French patrimony, creating Franco-Khmer or Franco-Vietnamese buildings like the three museums to send the message that France was an indigenous power. Associationist architecture also reflected a French attitude about the “Other” that was first tested out in the Maghreb: that presentday indigenous cultures were corrupt and that

introduction

was little more than a glorified comptoir (factory). Among their intended audiences were the British, to whom a grand neoclassical building would have sent a clear message. However, the chapter also shows how the colony’s governors were obliged to emulate Mughal court ceremonial (and possibly to paint their fort red in imitation of the red forts at Delhi and Agra) to try to impress Indian potentates with a kind of visual display that they understood and emulated. The buildings in chapter 5 are among the least French-looking in this book, and this indigenization makes them particularly fascinating as case studies of hybridity. However, their heterogeneity and distinctness from the architecture in the rest of this book is also meant to make another point: to demonstrate the tenuousness of France’s later claim that French activities in this period were sufficiently developed to justify the nineteenth-century conquest of Indochina. In fact, the buildings reveal a deep acquiescence to indigenous culture among the French missionaries and builders (in one case a missionary and his engineers were more loyal to an Asian ruler than they were to France) and should put paid to any notion that France had any authority over the region or a coherent plan for colonizing Southeast Asia in this period. With chapter 6 we move to the modern empire and to French Indochina. As the title suggests, the theme of this chapter is semblance, by which I mean an obsessive desire to replicate the buildings of the metropole, right down to their glass ceilings and mural paintings. The (scaled-down) copies of buildings like the Paris Hôtel de Ville or the Grand and Petit Palais (not to mention the Cathedral of Notre-Dame) were generated by the same boosterism that created the Palais du Gouvernement in Pondicherry: a stubborn belief that the latest French architecture will impress the indigenes – not to mention the British, Dutch, and Spanish. Ironically, cities like Saigon merely

19

buildings must emulate models from the distant past to elevate indigenous minds. A major player in these chapters is the efeo , an archaeological foundation that enthusiastically embraced this kind of architecture and projected a patronizing attitude toward contemporary Cambodians and Vietnamese. The final chapter looks at the opposite side of the coin: various kinds of architectural blending created by and for indigenous people, some taking their cue from associationism, and others merging styles and plans as it pleased them – and the dramatically different motivations that drove them to do so. Few encounters between Europeans and non-Europeans in the global history of colonialism boasted such a fascinating array of hybridities.

the architecture of empire

France’s Eastern and Western Hemisphere Empires

20

One of the greatest surprises when writing this book was the disparity between building procedures and architectural training in the Asian colonies and protectorates compared with those of the Atlantic world. By the late seventeenth century official architecture of the Atlantic empire was almost exclusively designed by royal engineers under the Ministry of the Marine and executed by white civilian contractors (often using slave labour), while other large-scale structures (including private mansions and nearly all the churches) were designed solely by civilian architects or members of religious orders (also frequently built by enslaved Africans or free people of colour). Engineer architects were less prominent in India and (especially) Indochina, and several of them (as in seventeenth-century Siam and eighteenth-century Cochinchina) were “engineers” in name alone, likely having received little or no formal training in military colleges such as the École Royale du Génie de Mézières in the Ardennes (founded

1748) and its predecessors. In the Americas white and free Black or mixed-race architects and builders trained in a much looser version of the European guild system, but one in which apprenticeships and architectural workshops like those of medieval France persisted into the early nineteenth century. In early modern India and Southeast Asia no such tradition seems to have existed among French builders, although the Tamil, Siamese, Cambodian, and early modern Viet architects and builders who contributed to the buildings in this book trained in traditional ways, for instance through apprenticeships in palace ateliers and Buddhist monastic schools (see chapters 5 and 7). In the modern Eastern Hemisphere colonies several of the European architects and at least one Asian architect trained at civilian architecture and engineering schools in Paris. The most exalted trained at the École des Beaux-Arts (which taught architecture from 1819 to 1968), the descendent of Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Académie Royale d’Architecture (1671), one of them, Hébrard, a laureate of the prestigious Prix de Rome (like Dumont before him).38 Others trained at the so-called “Grandes Écoles” of Paris, such as the École Polytechnique (founded 1794) or École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers (founded 1780), both favoured by military engineers; the École des Ponts-etChaussées (founded 1747), the main school for civilian engineers; and the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (founded 1820), another civilian engineering and science school with a large contingent of foreign students.39 They were joined, in 1898, by the École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, which, in addition to European students, trained hundreds of non-Europeans and made a major impact on French colonies and other parts of the non-European world in the 1920s and ’30s.40 In Indochina Vietnamese architects usually received professional training on the job at the Bâtiments

Pondicherry and other French Indian comptoirs, and enslaved domestics worked in Pondicherry (France abolished slavery in 1848).43 Furthermore, the use of “coolies” and other indentured labour in Vietnamese plantations, mines, and railway projects was slavery in all but name. However, there is no evidence that enslaved people built any of the structures in this book. Perhaps the greatest difference from French architecture in the Americas has to do with the degree to which buildings adapted to indigenous structures, materials, decoration, iconography, and plans – namely, their hybridity. One of the salient features of the official and large-scale buildings and urban projects of French America was their stubborn adherence to French metropolitan models, whether palaces, chateaux, townhouses, or churches, unlike in Iberian America, where often profound architectural hybridization was common and where many of the European models were not Spanish or Portuguese but Italian or Flemish. The British and Dutch American colonies also built houses and churches in a style reminiscent of Britain or the Netherlands, but they were more modest and there was no attempt to create replicas of London or Amsterdam: indeed, many people in the Thirteen Colonies were there precisely because they had fled the strictures of church and state at home. The French possessions were unique in the degree to which they tried to recreate the architecture and urbanism of the métropole – complete with promenades, parks, formal gardens, and fountains. Some of the architecture in this book reflects that same desire – the two palaces with which I began this chapter and in Belle-Époque Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong – but most of it does not. This tendency toward hybridity, the focus of the last five chapters in this book, was the result of three situations that did not obtain in the Americas. The first, highlighted in

introduction

civils, but after the First World War they could earn a diploma at the École des travaux publics in Hanoi (founded 1918) or the Hanoi École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (ebai , founded 1924), the latter resulting in a reinvigorated Vietnamese architectural movement fuelled by nationalist sentiments in the 1930s and ’40s.41 French architects also had different motivations for working in Indochina: some simply sought adventure, while others, escaping mediocre careers or social barriers at home, hoped that overseas projects would bring them prestige upon their return to France. As the architects of France’s Atlantic realms well knew, it was much easier to reinvent yourself in the colonies than it was in Paris. In some cases, the architect and even the sculptors, painters, and interior decorators of Asian projects never left France, shipping their plans, paintings, sculptures, and fittings to Indochina to be realized by executing architects on the spot. This kind of partnership between local and metropolitan architects and builders almost never happened in the Western Hemisphere, at least before 1830.42 However, the biggest difference in Asia was the absence of enslaved builders. In the Americas (particularly, but not exclusively, the Circum-Caribbean and Louisiana) state buildings made extensive use of uncredited skilled and unskilled labour from enslaved Africans, who trained in their own workshops. By contrast, although most of the monuments in this book were built both by European and non-European builders, and although the Indian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian ones were sidelined and denied credit for their work (and paid less than their European counterparts; see, in particular, chapter 7) none of them were enslaved. This is not to say that slavery did not exist in the French colonies in the Eastern Hemisphere – enslaved people laboured on the plantations on Île de France and Île Bourbon, including people captured from villages outside

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1.10 School principal’s residence, Luang Prabang (Laos), 1922.

chapters 3 and 5, was the construction of buildings in countries that did not belong to France: seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Siam and Đại Việt. Whether built by French architects or 22

by indigenous architects for French patrons (or indigenous patrons attracted to French style) these buildings were true Asian-European blends, whether the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette at Lopburi (1687) (figs. 3.11–12) or the Citadel at Diên Khánh (1793) (figs. 5.12–14), which combine Siamese and Sino-Vietnamese palace architecture respectively with that of the French baroque. The second, highlighted in chapters 7 and 8, was the invention of an architecture of “association,” hybridization imposed from above as colonial policy. Such was Hébrard’s Lycée Petrus Ky in Saigon (1925–28) with its pagodalike entryway (fig. 8.2) or the school principal’s residence in Luang Prabang (1922), designed to resemble a Lao Buddhist monastic building, complete with naga (serpent) banisters and a richly carved temple pediment (fig. 1.10). Here France was taking its cue from earlier experiments in the British Raj and contemporary ones in the Dutch East Indies (figs. 7.9–10). The third was the reassertion of Asian architectural styles by Asians onto those of the colonizer: buildings such as the Ananda Ranga Pillai House in Pondicherry (1738) (figs. 9.2–6) or the Cathedral at Phát Diệm, Tonkin (1876–92) (figs. 9.7–10), combining French forms or styles with indigenous ones in radically different ways, not out of admiration for France but from a desire to proclaim the legitimacy of their own personalities or culture – even, as in the second example, when the building is a Christian church. These buildings are the subject of the last chapter in this book. Another institution that I did not discuss in the last book – for the simple reason that it had not been conceived before 1830 – is the international exhibition, which had a huge impact on the buildings in the last four chapters of this one. These events began with London’s 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations at the Crystal Palace, and they were held

pavilions and performed dances and rituals or pretended to go about their daily life.47 International expositions are intimately related to colonial architecture in Indochina from its earliest years, enjoying a symbiotic relationship with the buildings of Saigon, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Luang Prabang, and elsewhere. Most of the architects and contractors responsible for the nineteenth- and twentieth-century buildings in this book – Europeans and non-Europeans alike – designed or constructed pavilions in the major French fairs in Paris and Marseille, including the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition, the 1906 and 1922 Marseille colonial expositions, the 1931 Colonial Exposition, and the 1937 Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne in Paris. Some colonial buildings directly copied exposition pavilions, such as the Saigon Post Office (1891), an adaptation of the Palais de l’Industrie at the 1955 Paris Exposition universelle (figs. 6.6–7), or the Théâtre de Saigon, which quotes the central part of the facade of the Petit Palais (figs. 6.2, 6.11). At least one, the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse in Saigon, was a repurposed exposition pavilion for a fair that never took place (in this case in Indochina) (figs. 8.3–4). The pavilions also served as a testing ground for forms of hybridity that would be used in the colonies, whether by French architects devising an architecture of association to broadcast French legitimacy or by colonized peoples trying out métissages that they felt were more appropriate for their customs and climate and that could be used to challenge French dominance. Expositions were also held in Hanoi and Saigon, most notably the 1902 Exposition de Hanoi, of which the Grand Palais, a near replica of its Paris namesake, remained afterward as one of the first museums in the colony, the Musée Maurice-Long, destroyed in an aerial bombardment during the Second World War (fig. 1.11).

introduction

regularly in Europe and the United States until the Second World War. A combined trade fair, theme park, department store, museum, and secular pilgrimage site, the exposition allowed the host and participating countries to demonstrate their progress and prosperity in purportedly friendly rivalry, with a focus on manufactured goods, technological advances, natural resources, and colonial possessions in an atmosphere of patriotism. Walter Benjamin famously wrote that “world exhibitions are the sites of pilgrimages to the commodity fetish … They open up a phantasmagoria that people enter to be amused.”44 Not surprisingly, they have been the subject since the 1980s of extensive scholarship that has concentrated on their association with the rise of mass consumerism and their relationship to colonialism and the cultural appropriation (and commodification) of subject peoples.45 The main vehicle for these exercises in self-promotion was the pavilion, an architectural structure that was usually temporary but could be reused from fair to fair, some of them living on as permanent structures, as with the Grand and Petit Palais in Paris (fig. 6.11). These pavilions either showcased the latest metropolitan architectural trends and technological advances or they recreated buildings in historical, regional, or “exotic” style, the latter primarily deriving from the colonies or non-European nations in which Europe had economic interests. France’s colonial possessions were represented by replicas of historical monuments such as Angkor Wat (figs. 7.6–7) or hybrid structures that combined the latest styles with indigenous forms (figs. 7.8, 7.16). Often the colonial and other non-European pavilions were located in separate areas of the fair to allow visitors to enjoy a “tour of the world in one day,” as the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Vincennes put it.46 More notoriously, they were populated with what scholars call “human zoos,” indigenous peoples from the colonies who “inhabited” the

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One unusual feature of French colonialism common to the Eastern and Western hemispheres that I will explore in this book is its use of grand opera and classical theatre as an expression of national identity – a form of Gallic self-representation that already distinguished some of France’s more prosperous eighteenthcentury Caribbean colonies (see chapter 6) (fig. 1.12).48 From the mid-nineteenth century until the First World War outsized opera houses were built in places like Algeria and Indochina (they were usually called “théâtres” to distinguish them from Charles Garnier’s Paris Opéra) which had no equivalent in the Dutch or British colonies. Built to boost French prestige, cure homesickness and idleness, and impress the colonized peoples, they largely failed on all three counts: the excessive costliness of these structures made the French colonies the laughingstock of their European rivals; grand opera was of little interest to the workaday colon, who preferred vaudeville and opéra bouffe over Charles Gounod or Camille Saint-Saëns; and the Vietnamese and Chinese residents of Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong barely noticed these temples of culture as they made their way to the perennially popular Chinese operas and Vietnamese puppet theatres. In the early modern period, the French also practised what I call “opera diplomacy.” As we will see in chapter 3, Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683) went to great lengths in the 1680s to expose Siamese diplomats and the Siamese

1.12 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) The Salle des Spectacles Theatre (or Comédie) in Cap-François (Cap-Haitien), Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Built 1764. From a 1790 watercolour by Chevalier de Largues, 26.67 × 42.54 cm. Private collection.

Post-Colonialism and Intercultural Blending: “Hybridity” and “Métissage” Many of the buildings in this book combine European and non-European forms, motifs, and styles in myriad and complex ways. For a century, beginning in Latin America, scholars of European colonial art and architecture have struggled to find an adequate term for such intercultural blending, including “mestizaje/métissage” (literally, “mixedrace”) and, more recently, “hybridity.” As none of these words has satisfied everyone – some of them for very good reasons – a partisan, often rancorous debate has ensued about their validity. The dispute over “hybridity” began outside art and architectural history – in fields such as sociology, literary criticism, anthropology, and cultural studies – and it has tended to operate at such an abstract, decontextualized level that many scholars have simply ignored it and use the term as a neutral interpretive descriptor. Although this is not the place to enter into a prolonged examination of the dispute over hybridity theory, I will give a brief synopsis of how it has played out within post-colonial scholarship in general followed by a more focused look at how all three

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1.11 (oppoSiTe Top ) Grand Palais, Exposition de Hanoi, 1902. Photograph by Joachim Antonio, 16 × 21 cm. The building was destroyed during the Second World War. Université Côte d’Azur, Bibliothèque.

royal court to French opera: ambassadors were introduced to leading composers like Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) and taken to premieres, and Lully’s melodies were played for the Siamese King Narai. The culmination of the embassies was the 1686 royal reception in the Hall of Mirrors – the first embassy hosted in that space – in which musicians from the Grandes Écuries played Siamese-inspired music with trumpets and drums composed by musicians who had been sent to Siam (fig. 2.18).49 Nevertheless, as we will see, while King Narai was enthusiastic about French mirrors and other luxury goods, French music seems to have made no impression on him.

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terms have been applied in the history of colonial Latin American and French art and architecture. I will conclude with a brief statement about the ways I will use the terms “hybridity” and “métissage” in this book. Hybridity theory began with critical theorist Homi Bhabha’s Location of Culture (1994).50 It quickly generated as many detractors as supporters. However, the resulting debate is more complicated than it first seems, as it is not so much about the term “hybridity” as it is about hybridity theory – indeed many of Bhabha’s detractors use the former unapologetically in the very books in which they condemn the latter. Bhabha maintains that cultural hybridity allows the colonized to break free of the binary relationship of colonist/ colonized and centre/periphery through a “third space” that generates “colonial anxiety” and “terrorizes authority” by appropriating, mimicking, mocking, and subverting the hegemonic essentialist ideology of Empire: “an uncertainty that estranges the familiar symbol of … ‘national’ authority and emerges from its colonial appropriation as the sign of its difference.”51 However Bhabha has been widely criticized by scholars such as Jonathan Friedman, Ajjaz Ahmad, and Arif Dirlik for taking an elitist approach that is detached from historical realities, for focusing on too narrow a time period (on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), for creating his own hegemonies and artificial binaries, and for ignoring questions of class or race.52 The terms of the debate have been discussed most helpfully by sociologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse and literary critic Amar Acheraïou.53 Although they fall into opposite camps (Pieterse supports Bhabhan hybridity theory whereas Acheraïou does not) they both promote the term “hybridity” and have similar ideas about how to reform the way we use it, calling for greater contextualization and for a more diachronic

approach, and urging scholars to use “hybridity” to interrogate contemporary globalism, Pieterse’s “global mélange.”54 Pieterse appeals for more specificity: “Hybridity is entirely contextual, relational. What is strikingly hybrid in one setting may not even be noticeable in another.”55 Acheraïou agrees, using “métissage” and “hybridity” interchangeably: “This contextualized, historicized perspective on métissage … should enlighten us about the multifaceted character of hybridity as a historical fact, a discursive practice, and as a political as well as an ideological construction.”56 Pieterse also maintains that hybridity is too widespread for the term to be discarded: “the thrust and appeal of everyday and experiential hybridity is unstoppable and outflanks the criticisms. The point of most discussions now is not to argue for or against hybridity but to explore finer points and meanings of hybridity,” adding later that hybridity “has been taking place all along but has been concealed by religious, national, imperial, and civilizational chauvinisms.”57 Acheraïou agrees that “[h]ybridity or métissage in its various shades (biological, cultural, religious, political, technological) has been a feature of all societies, from the Sumerians and Egyptians through to the Greeks and Romans down to modern times.”58 He also believes that it is critical “to resituate the power dynamics and multirooted nature of hybridity as both a practice and a discourse overlooked in postcolonial studies” and, echoing Pieterse, that “notwithstanding my various reservations about hybridity’s potential for subversion and emancipation, I consider hybridity, as a practice, too fundamental a feature of our civilizations to be undermined or devalued.”59 Pieterse’s principal reason for supporting Bhabhan hybridity theory is that it is a necessary challenge to essentialism: “[h]ybridity unsettles the introverted concept of culture that underlies romantic nationalism, racism, ethnicism …

create it: “[h]ybridity only exists as a social phenomenon when it is identified as such by those involved in social interaction … were people to not so identify, the fact of cultural mixture is without social significance … Hybridity is in the eyes of the beholder, or more precisely in the practice of the beholder.”66 Pieterse counters Friedman, first by noting that since archival sources are overwhelmingly written by colonizers, it is difficult, especially in earlier periods, to find out whether the colonized thought of their cultures as hybrid, and that we cannot equate a lack of sources with a lack of awareness. He also makes the point that in the contemporary world, where we have access to a wide range of indigenous voices, self-identifying as hybrid is common among the peoples of the global South. But his main objection to Friedman’s idea is that it is methodologically unsound: “Only the eye of the beholder counts? Going native as epistemological principle? Because most people in the Middle Ages thought the earth was flat, it was flat? … Vox populi, vox dei – since when? This is unacceptable in principle and untenable in practice.”67 Acheraïou condemns Bhabhan hybridity theory for being too divorced from actuality and “riddled with opaque jargon randomly and indiscriminately applied to all types of situations and issues” (elsewhere he refers to “characteristic fuzziness and hegemonic culturalist and linguistic abstractions”); he also repeatedly asserts that it ignores “race politics,” class, and “global neocolonialism.”68 He asks: “why is a complex, multifarious, and elusive phenomenon such as hybridity flattened out into an idealized, reductive monolith?”69 Although his study reaches back to antiquity, Acheraïou’s main concern is how a contextualized and historicized theory of hybridity, which acknowledges class and race struggle, can be a “genuinely counter-hegemonic force” to fight neoliberal global capitalism today: “a critical,

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civilizational chauvinism, and cultural essentialism … [it is] meaningful as a counterweight to introverted notions of culture.”60 It also is important because it “problematizes” the “fetishism of boundaries … Hybridity is to culture what deconstruction is to discourse: transcending binary categories … Recognizing the in-between and the interstices means going beyond dualism, binary thinking, Aristotelian logic.”61 As an analytical tool, hybridity theory can create “a new awareness of and new take on dynamics of group formation and social inequality. This critical awareness is furthered by acknowledging rather than by suppressing hybridity.”62 Pieterse dismisses Friedman’s, Ahmad’s, and Dirlik’s charges of Bhabhan elitism as ad hominem attacks: “casting aspersion on the motives of the advocates of an idea, rather than debating the idea.”63 Nevertheless, Pieterse wants to refine the Bhabhan discourse. He admits that hybridity theory can itself be essentialist because it insists on cultural difference, “the very process of hybridization shows the difference to be relative and, with a slight shift of perspective, the relationship can also be described in terms of an affirmation of similarity,” and that one needs instead to recognize the fluidity of cultural mixture.64 He asks for a less monolithic (or binary) approach to hybridity that examines the intricacies within any single episode of hybridity (the “terms of mixture”): “we can construct a continuum of hybridities: on one end, an assimilationist hybridity that leans over towards the center, adopts the canon and mimics hegemony and, at the other end, a destabilizing hybridity that blurs the canon, reverses the current, subverts the center. Hybridities, then, may be differentiated according to the components in the mélange.”65 Among other things, relationships of power, race, and class are at stake. Friedman had warned that hybridity is only a valid concept if it is recognized by those who

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contextualized, and balanced view on hybridity and the third space; a view that shies away from both modern colonial castigation of métissage and postmodern celebration of hybridity or in-betweenness … [and] embrace[s] a materialist conceptualization of hybridity … [that] is intended to show how far the discourse of hybridity has always been, and still is, closely connected to social prestige as well as to hegemonic structures of power with which it maintains complex, symbiotic relationships.”70 Acheraïou calls Bhabha’s third space utopian: far from being a balanced site of resistance or “neutral ideological site of exemplary congruity between cultures,” it is “profoundly conditioned by cultural, ideological, and political cartographies in which power operates in the guise of a universal ethics of cultural exchange and solidarity”; the third space “merely reshapes the terms of the binary same-Other and, in so doing, it masks the will-to-power and hegemonic impulse inherent in cultural translations.”71 Rather than being some sort of safe space, the third space can be used for nefarious purposes: “hybridity discourse has been manipulated across history by hegemonic, coercive, political, ideological, and economic forces presiding over the practice of métissage … Nor can I … sanction the assumption that the sphere of in-betweenness in which hybridity presumably operates is completely free of binary thinking and essentialism.”72 Elsewhere he writes: “no cultural representations of difference, even the most dialogical or inclusive, can be completely independent of the economy of power, prejudice, and essentialism,” and that hybridity “allocate[s] equal discursive space for reactionary and progressive politics.”73 The term “hybridity” (as opposed to hybridity theory) has also been condemned, this time for being indelibly racialized, most notably in a 1995 book by literary critic Robert Young, who

maintains that there is no way of “mov[ing] from biologism and scientism to the safety of culturalism.”74 No one denies that in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe “hybridity” was used in racist pseudo-science to describe and disparage human miscegenation.75 However, unlike “mestizo” in Spanish, “hybridity” in common English parlance today has lost its racial associations and refers instead to botanical, agricultural, and linguistic blending, which is precisely why post-colonial scholarship has adopted it to discuss culture. Even Young concedes that the past meaning of this term has been “forgotten.”76 Avtar Brah and Annie E. Coombs support “hybridity” as a cultural marker precisely because “the genealogy of the term is, of course, more accurately associated with the development of the natural sciences, and in particular botany and zoology.”77 Acheraïou chastises Young’s castigation of the word for being too “reductively synchronic, set in a time-span that does not extend beyond the nineteenth century,” and I agree.78 Only a narrowly focused academic would consider “hybrid” to be racist today: ask anyone else and they would think of hybrid cattle, crops, music – or, indeed, vehicles. For better or worse the term has been rehabilitated, and while it is important to acknowledge its disreputable erstwhile meaning, that meaning is no longer part of our collective consciousness. Roger Benjamin puts it simply: the term once had “a derogatory sense no longer current in today’s debates on globalized art.”79 One kind of hybridity discussed by Acheraïou is of great importance for the present study: hybridity that is imposed upon the colonized by the colonizer as a means of control. He calls it a “willed, strategic imperial hybridism, one that rests on a two-tiered structure: it is based on the rejection of some putatively dubious mixing … as well as on the integration into the imperial same of those native components considered

emerged” – one of the main reasons class inequality and race politics are left out of the discussion.85 Ziauddin Sardar is rather more pointed, declaring that “postmodernity is nothing more than the continuation of Western cultural imperialism by other means” and that “Postmodernism appears, in short, as a self-centred, proliferating consciousness that hegemonically projects as universal Western notions of culture, identity, and humanity, while ostensibly celebrating cultural multiplicity and anti-essentialism.”86 “Mestizaje,” “Hybridity,” and “Métissage” in the History of Art and Architecture No other field of art and architectural history has been subjected to as long-lasting a debate about what to call cultural mixture than that of colonial Latin America, beginning with Argentine scholar Ángel Guido in the 1920s, and it should be the foundation for any terminological discussion in the French ambit.87 In describing the architectural sculpture of south Andean baroque architecture, Guido first came up with the awkward term “fusión hispano-americana-aborígen” (HispanoAmerican-aboriginal fusion) in 1925 before settling on “estilo mestizo” (“mestizo style”) in 1940, a term which became enormously popular into the 1980s and is still used today, for instance by Serge Gruzinski, who sees it as an unproblematic equivalent to “mélange.”88 Around the same time Mexican scholar José Villa Moreno coined a term specifically for New Spain, tequitqui, referring again to carved decoration that blends preHispanic and Hispanic elements, borrowing the Nahuatl term for “vassal.”89 Neither of these labels is satisfactory, and they have rightly been criticized: in the case of tequitqui, the inequality of the mixture is enshrined in the very name. As for “mestizo,” its primary meaning in Spanish (unlike “hybrid” in English) is explicitly racialized: it

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useful to the colonial project.”80 Acheraïou uses the contemporary example of how neo-liberal capitalism can “monetize hybrid youth culture and other hybrid cultural forms and fit them comfortably into ‘urban consumer capitalism.’”81 There are many historical precedents, such as the hybridity imposed on the sixteenth-century Nahua in New Spain by Spanish missionaries who adapted features from Aztec structures to make Christianity seem familiar, and the associationism promoted by France in twentieth-century Indochina that we will see in this book.82 Marwan M. Kraidy gives an example of strategic hybridization in post-revolutionary Mexico: “mestizaje was an attempt to mitigate tensions between the indigenous populations and the descendants of Spanish colonists by positing the new nations as hybrids of both worlds,” and an “institutionalized cultural mixture [was] a sure way to effect the slow decay of precolonial cultures and integrate them in the dominant society, which welcomed their nonthreatening arts, crafts, and selected rituals, while imposing on them the Spanish and Portuguese language, the Catholic faith, and colonial political and social organization.”83 Although Acheraïou criticizes Ahmad’s and Dirlik’s ad hominem attacks on Bhabha, he agrees that the elite status of hybridity theory’s practitioners is a problem, that many of them are “migrant postcolonial intellectuals” (Dirlik’s words) who enjoy privileged positions at elite US and European universities but who had “to represent themselves as victims of colonialism … to be acknowledged as authentically indigenous and thus a living proof of postcoloniality.”84 As a result of his disconnection from the real conditions of millions of people in the former colonies, Bhabha’s hybridity theory, in Acheraïou’s opinion, “treats culture, identity, and social contingencies as semiotic occurrences scrupulously abstracted from the material conditions from which they

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denotes a person of mixed-race background. I am not saying that scholars who use the term to describe cultural mixtures are racists. My trouble with “mestizo style” is simply that it is confusing: it implies either that it is exclusively the product of two races – reinforcing the binary conceptualization that has been rightly condemned above – or, more literally, that it is the product solely of mixed-race people. As Pablo Macera bluntly puts it, “mestizo culture was not made by mestizos.”90 This is where “hybridity” comes in. As a more neutral alternative to “mestizaje” it is commonly applied to colonial Latin American art (primarily in English-language scholarship), including in my own work and that of Maya Stanfield-Mazzi (2021, 2013), Barbara Mundy (2020), Ananda Cohen Suarez (2016), and Eleanor Wake (2010) to name a few.91 However “hybridity” has been criticized by Latin Americanists. A 2003 article by Carolyn Dean and Dana Liebsohn categorically dismissed it as intolerant and discriminatory.92 There is much in this article that I agree with, particularly that “hybridity” and its sister terms have been misused: like Bhabha’s opponents Dean and Liebsohn rightly disapprove of the way scholars (going back to Guido) have made “mestizaje” a reductive, normative, binary concept, “homogeniz[ing] things European and set[ting] them in opposition to similarly homogenized nonEuropean conventions.”93 They also rightly chide scholars for emphasizing pre-Hispanic elements in hybrid forms over those of contemporary Andean societies, “freez[ing] indigenous people in the past,” a criticism I make myself in my 2010 book, which concentrates on the contributions of early modern Andean culture to Peruvian architectural hybridities.94 Dean and Liebsohn also justly criticize scholars who use “hybridity” exclusively in situations where indigenous people adopt European forms and on visually recognizable hybridity (rather than more “embedded”

forms such as “manufacture, audience, meaning and use”).95 However I disagree with the main thrust of Dean’s and Liebsohn’s argument, which follows Young in insisting that the term cannot be purged of its racist past: “Hybridity … is generated out of intolerance,” they write: “[t]hat we need a term such as ‘hybrid’ for certain things and practices betrays the exercise of discrimination – the creation of what belongs and what doesn’t belong, usually with the implicit devaluation of the latter.”96 They repeat this statement later: “we contend that recognizing hybridity in colonial objects today is inherently an exercise of discrimination – the creation of what fits some cultural norm and what does not fit,” and elsewhere they condemn those who “separate out the misfit, name it, and so dispossess indigenes of the ability to adapt, coopt, and fit European things to non-European (or partially European) ways of creating culture.”97 The authors have set up a straw man: a twenty-first-century scholar who still thinks like a Victorian – terrified by misfits, cultural impurity, and with what does and does not belong. Scholars today use “hybridity” precisely to challenge ideas of purity and to explore departures from those “norms,” and the analysis of indigenous or mixedrace agency within hybridity is exactly the point. The authors’ view is, to quote Acheraïou’s criticism of Young, “reductively synchronic.” Dean and Liebsohn also echo Friedman’s claim that hybridity existed only when it was identified as such by its creators: “cultural mixing, even if recognized as such, apparently did not prompt comment from indigenous people.”98 The “apparently” is significant as they do not give the reader any proof. Their example is Doña Isabel Uypa Cuca, an elite Andean of the mid-seventeenth century who did not remark upon her mixed marriage or that her household items included objects from around the world.99 However they never

proposition that the hybrid is not just the product of postcolonial migrations and diasporas, but is integral to colonial contact and is, in fact, the result of colonialism’s institutions and systems … The hybrid pavilions of the Exposition, neither French nor native to the colonies, reflect specific shifts in French colonial policy and science in the early twentieth century.”102 The hybridity she discusses relates to associationism and the present book will consider such pavilions at length in chapters 7 and 8. Their designers used hybridity to represent French superiority over their colonized peoples through a dichotomy between exterior and interior. The exterior of, for instance, the Somalia or Cameroon and Togo pavilions (and the various Indochinese ones discussed in this book) aimed to be “authentic” renditions of indigenous architecture to represent the colonized as primitive and frozen in time. By contrast, the interiors, which contained the exhibitions of products and industries of the colonies, were executed in contemporary style to demonstrate French progress and justify the nation’s mission civilisatrice.103 “Métissage” has never acquired the bad reputation of its Spanish counterpart, possibly because its application in French today is as much about animals and plants as it is about human interbreeding, and it even serves as a generic term for a mixture – a bit like “hybridity” in English. In fact a very helpful 2010 conference, resulting in a 2015 book by Silva Capanema et al., brought together some forty scholars from fields as varied as geography and Latin American modernism to determine how different disciplines used “métissage” and whether the term should be discarded or nuanced.104 The conference was inspired by the increasingly widespread neutral use of “métissage” globally, whether in the language of politics and the media or in the social sciences, and the organizers wanted to investigate how “to make it an operational concept in human and

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quote her: all the reader is given (in an endnote) are the shelfmarks of two notarized wills with inventories of her possessions (not the sort of document that generally includes much reflective commentary). If Doña Isabel indeed had nothing to say about her possessions, the authors never show us. In the end, the most telling inconsistency about an article the main point of which is to taint the term “hybridity” is that it actually uses “hybridity” unapologetically four times.100 The literature on French colonialism, particularly French-language scholarship, most commonly applies the term “métissage” to hybridization, or, in the specific case of twentiethcentury French architecture in the Maghreb and Indochina, the “architecture of association” (which I call “associationism” for reasons I will explain in chapter 7). Associationism is a selective, artificial blend of modernism (art deco) and indigenous styles that grew out of a new French policy of rapprochement with the culture of the colonized, beginning in the 1910s and 1920s, in order better to control colonists by making the French régime seem more indigenous. As “association” is a very specific historical and political term with a narrow application, it has never figured in the terminological debates (scholars characterize it more generically as a form of “métissage”). “Hybridity” has been used to discuss French colonial architecture, but primarily in Englishlanguage studies of the Universal Exposition, such as Patricia Morton’s Hybrid Modernities (2000), a study of the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris, the title of which is strikingly close to Penelope Harvey’s Hybrids of Modernity (1996), an anthropological study of the Seville Universal Exhibition.101 Morton’s focus is not on hybrid architecture in French colonies but instead on how hybridity was strategically implemented in the design of the Exposition’s pavilions: “It is my

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social sciences,” despite its racial associations.105 As with Pieterse and Acheraïou’s comments about “hybridity,” the volume advocates greater contextualization: instances of “métissage” depend upon a certain time, peoples, balances of power, and the nature of the exchange: “the fruit of these ‘mélanges’ is never fixed.”106 The editors played with the idea of replacing “métissage” with “hybridity,” which they note is more prevalent in English-language studies, but (perhaps because of the Bhabhan baggage) they felt that it (like “acculturation,” “creolization,” etc.) was “either implicitly thought of as positive” or was too one-sided, masking the complexity of individual situations.107 They conclude that while no word is perfect, “métissage” has precisely the “advantages of its shortcomings: because it is old and because it has been so thoroughly criticized, the term forbids – or should forbid – overconfident use,” and also that its “catch-all aspect is also its strength” because it embraces heterogeneous situations and can facilitate discussions across periods and disciplines: “this vagueness is precisely a frontier space,” a space for discussion.108 Herbelin, one of the authors of this volume, provides a particularly subtle reflection on architectural “métissages” (the plural helps her avoid a monolithic conceptualization) in a 2016 book on French Vietnam.109 She uses both “métissage” and “hybridity” (hybridation) throughout the book, although predominantly the former, and, like the editors of the Capanema volume, she contends that the main problem is not these terms’ racialized past, but the fact “that their application varies according to the authors and the fields concerned.”110 She values the term precisely for “its generic character” and urges greater specificity, using “métissage” to examine the “colonial encounter in the architectural field empirically, without presupposing its meaning or modes of expression … to consider all the processes at work

in cultural contact.”111 “A too narrow definition of métissage,” she adds, would mean “having the answer to our problem before asking the question … the polysemy of the terms of the encounter poses an epistemological problem that can only be resolved by studying concrete processes in specific situations.”112 Herbelin remarks that colonists at the time could not even agree about what to call it (although they rarely used the term “métis”). Terms ranged from “in the style of the land” and “in the local style,” or adapted “to our climate” (note the possessive), to “Modern Khmer style,” “Contemporary Annamite,” or, less often, “Franco-Indochinese style” or “FrancoNative” (the latter denoting the architecture of the colonized).113 Herbelin is also interested less in the traditional tracing of origins than in the dynamics of métissage on the ground, particularly in the human actors and the interactions between material culture and society. Various social groups were involved in métissage in Indochina, “in an evolving and relational way, depending upon the elements that were at stake” and different actors, while “constrained by politics … retained an independent ability to manoeuvre.”114 There was no dividing line between a Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Lao “‘colonial’ imagination,” but “multiple, entangled imaginaries that followed different trajectories, both divergent and convergent.”115 We will see these processes in action in chapter 9. I have studied artistic and architectural blending for thirty-five years. I have looked at hybridity in which the colonizers held most of the power (colonial southern Peru); in which the colonized, for a variety of reasons, had greater agency within the colonial system (Guaraní Paraguay); and in which the colonizers were completely at the mercy of neighbouring non-European powers (the French in Senegal or the British slave castles of the West African Gold Coast).116 I have also looked at hybridity outside a direct colonial

fascinates me is precisely what these mixtures say about human interaction in a given place and time. This being academia, my use of these words will not please everyone. But this book fits into a growing literature in which “hybrid” has been rehabilitated, a literature that has chosen to leave behind the abstract, ad hominem battles of the 1990s and early 2000s in favour of focused, contextualized empirical observation that negotiates the possibilities and problematics of the term with great care and specificity. The Origins of France’s Empire in Asia As in the Atlantic world, the French were latecomers to Asian colonialism. Unlike rivals such as Britain or Portugal, France was traditionally more concerned with expansion within Europe than outside it – it is significant that the term “empire” within France refers to the two continental Napoleonic empires and not, as in Britain, to their overseas empire. France was a prosperous, primarily agricultural nation and its people and rulers were, for the most part, unenthusiastic about overseas adventures – as colonialism’s promoters from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries would frequently lament. Other contemporary critics bewailed French adventurers’ violent nature – although that was hardly a characteristic unique to the French. An anonymous seventeenth-century manuscript account, probably written by Abbé Barthélemy Carré (b. 1636), the Crown’s envoy to India in 1668–71, considers violence to be the main obstacle to French expansion in Asia: “Oh fate of our nation! No sooner did we French come close to making some progress than the usual curse of the French nature began to appear: I mean, discord, quarrel, disobedience, and violence against one other … Oh woe! Oh violent nature of the French! Oh strange nation, you who cannot toil nor establish your

introduction

relationship, for instance the Qianlong emperor’s enthusiasm for European “exotica” in the European-style buildings (Xiyanglou) in the Yuanmingyuan garden outside Beijing (1759–83), or in the taste in the Safavid Persian court for European painting.117 Finally, I have examined hybridity that was a product of trade: Fujianese ivory sculptors making Chinese-style or hybrid renditions of Christian saints for European markets, Timurid and Safavid ceramicists who incorporated and transformed Chinese style in their wares as cheaper alternatives to the original porcelains, or Swahili elites who mortared Chinese ceramics into their tombs and mosques to celebrate their international mercantile reach (the last two examples do not involve Europeans).118 Although I have not always employed the word “hybrid” to describe these exchanges, I have done so more consistently recently. I am convinced that “hybridity” is a valuable interpretive tool for understanding cultural blending. Like Capanema and Herbelin, I employ the term throughout this book because it is conveniently elastic and can encompass a wide range of political, class, and ethnic interactions – Acheraïou’s “complex, multifarious, and elusive phenomenon.” As this book is in English – and perhaps because my work in Latin America has made me wary of a word so similar to “mestizo” – I use “métissage” less readily, although I have no objection to its use, particularly in French literature. I take heed of the urgings of Pieterse, Acheraïou, Capanema, and Herbelin, and use these terms empirically and contextually – based on the primary source record and examinations of the buildings – and not overconfidently. I acknowledge that Empire is not simply a binary of colonizer/colonized but involves many actors not represented by those labels, and that hybridity can be visible or invisible (in fact, this book includes two prominent examples of the latter). What

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splendour and your glory in foreign lands!”119 In the early modern and modern eras alike, French colonialism had as many enemies within the French government as among foreign rivals or Asian peoples. The main motivation at first was a fierce economic rivalry with the Dutch Republic rather than a pressing need for Asian trade goods or – even less – a desire to expand French territories outre-mer.120 Although French ventures used chartered companies at first, from the 1660s they came increasingly under direct Crown rule, stifling their freedom to do business. Philippe Haudrère remarks that this unwieldy hybrid was “mediocre and far removed” from the ventures of their Dutch and English competition, and Glenn Ames concludes that for the most part “the French were simply less successful in the Indian Ocean trade than their European rivals.”121 The earliest European empires in Asia, the Portuguese (Goa, 1510) and Spanish (Philippines, 1565), had the backing of the papacy and were driven not merely by a desire for profit but, more significantly, by a militant anti-Islamic crusader spirit linked to the reconquest of the Iberian continent from Muslim rule with expulsion of the last Muslim stronghold, Nasrid Granada, in 1492. The Portuguese promoted a particularly vicious means of conquest – Roger Crowley calls it a “berserker fighting style” – an almost suicidal quest for heroism fuelled by a culture of knightly chivalry.122 Britain and the Dutch Republic, which operated through chartered companies rather than as royal enterprises – the East India Company (eic , founded 1600), and the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (voc , founded 1602) – were interested neither in spreading the gospel nor (very much) in national glory but in stealing Portugal’s trading posts, and they were better than the Iberian powers at bribing Asian rulers and playing the diplomatic game.123 But they were hardly peaceful negotiators: the voc pursued a specifically

“warlike policy” that was “coordinated, wellfinanced, and forceful,” lending their ships to the Dutch Republic in times of need in return for state support for aggression in Asia, particularly against the Portuguese.124 England (Great Britain after the 1707 Treaty of Union) had the backing of the Crown but the monarch always kept the eic at arm’s length – letting them pay for their mistakes and sending them a bill if the Royal Navy had to be called in to help.125 France’s entrée into Asian trade was slow and hesitant. Before the early sixteenth century the French had only a “vague and distorted” knowledge of the continent, although products from the Spice Islands (Moluccas) had made it into Parisian cuisine as early as the fourteenth.126 In 1517, soon after the Portuguese made direct contact with India (1510) and the Moluccas (1513) by rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the businessmen of Rouen petitioned King François I (r. 1515–47) to challenge Portugal’s monopoly.127 François supported several initiatives by the Dieppe shipowner Jean Ango (1480–1551). The first, formed of three ships under the Florentine brother navigators Giovanni and Girolamo Verrazano and financed by Italian bankers in Lyon, departed Honfleur for the Indian Ocean in June 1526 via the less closely guarded Straits of Magellan, but a storm prevented two ships from rounding Cape Horn and they returned.128 The third ship rode the prevailing westerly winds to Sumatra with the help of “a very fine and very well made map.”129 But they had little luck bargaining for spices and the islanders ambushed and killed some of the sailors and the pilot. The ship retreated toward France via the Maldives but was wrecked off the coast of Madagascar and the sailors barely made it to Mozambique alive. The Portuguese swiftly shipped them home. In 1527 a fourth ship, the Marie-de-BonSecours, ironically under the guidance of a

wealth than a few sacks of low-grade pepper. Throughout the early modern period the American colonies had the advantage of proximity: it took much less time and expense to get there than to Asia and promised quicker returns on investments. France also began to make serious efforts to colonize North America, founding the earliest settlements between 1603 and 1608 and increasing commercial activity through chartered companies (1608–63) of merchants such as Cardinal Richelieu’s Compagnie des CentAssociés (founded 1627).136 But after the Dutch penetrated the Indian Ocean in 1594 and attacked Portuguese strongholds – and especially with the foundation of the English and Dutch East India Companies – the French Crown and merchants once again eyed out Asia.137 They were further encouraged by the first round-the-world voyage by a Frenchman, Pierre-Olivier Malherbe (1569–1616), who returned in 1609 after twenty-seven years at sea with tales of wonders and riches.138 Fellow Breton François Pyrard (1578–1623) made the first outward voyage of the new century in one of two ships sailing from Saint-Malo in 1601 belonging to the newly formed Compagnie des Mers Orientales and led by Dutch pilots. Hoping to reach the Moluccas, he lost forty crew to disease while trying to build a fort in Madagascar, was shipwrecked in the Maldives, was held prisoner by a governor in Bengal, and was indentured to the Portuguese for two years before returning in 1610.139 Like Jean Parmentier before him, he celebrated his fruitless voyage with a vainglorious text: this time a bestselling book (1619) exhorting his countrymen to break the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly, “to seek the route to the Indies, to show it to the French people; in short to draw from the source.”140 Interestingly he also gets to the heart of why France was such a late starter in colonial expansion: “The abundance of all sorts of goods which France produces, & the

introduction

Portuguese pilot, departed Honfleur for the same destination and reached Diu on the northwest coast of India in 1529, whereupon it was seized by the Sultan of Gujarat. The incarcerated crew were reduced to begging the Portuguese government in Goa for their freedom.130 Undeterred, Ango tried again in 1529 with two ships, the Sacré and Pensée, which left Dieppe under the command of the brothers Jean and Raoul Parmentier and with the guidance of another Portuguese pilot, naming islands after France along the way.131 Starved and scorbutic by the time they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, they made an emergency stop at Madagascar on 26 July 1529 to purchase live animals and food with rosaries and bonnets.132 Two days later however the islanders speared three sailors to death and the ship fled. This short but violent visit marked the beginning of France’s long and unhappy relationship with the Malagasy people: Madagascar soon became the first place in the Indian Ocean claimed by France, and it used that claim to justify making it a protectorate three and a half centuries later in 1895. The rest of the Parmentier voyage was equally hapless: the ships reached the south of Sumatra but found no spices there, and both brothers perished at sea on their return to France.133 The expedition may have been a disaster but it lived on in literature and in the French national narrative: a celebrated poet, Jean Parmentier wrote a meditation during the voyage about God’s glory as reflected in travel, the seas, and natural phenomena, which encouraged further explorations.134 Published posthumously, it was also the first work to associate royal glory (gloire du roi) with overseas adventures, a specifically French trope that Louis XIV and Colbert would seize upon 134 years later.135 But, with the death of both King François and Ango, interest waned in Asian travel and Henri IV turned his attention to the Americas, beaver pelts and cod producing more tangible

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great number of graces with which divine goodness so liberally enriches the land, may have been the reason why the French have neglected the sea for so long.”141 As noted above, this lack of enthusiasm for colonialism among ordinary French people – France’s “traditional preference for dynastic gains on the continent” – would plague its overseas empire throughout its history.142 The second ship did better, reaching Sumatra and bringing home two million livres worth of goods.143 Henri IV invited its surgeon, François Martin de Vitré (1575–1631), to court to inform him about the possibilities of Asian commerce and in 1604 the king granted a fifteen-year charter to a “Société … pour le Voyage des Indes Orientales” financed by the merchants of Dieppe, Rouen, and Saint-Malo to trade in the East Indies, although thanks to a combination of infighting and politics the first ship did not depart until 1613.144 In an echo of Pyrard’s comment the king’s minister Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully (1559–1641) remarked that Asian adventures ran “contrary to the nature and mind of the French.” Nevertheless, the voyage was a success, and the Company was reorganized in 1615 in Rouen as the “Compagnie des Moluques [Moluccas].”145 The next year, with the backing of Flemish merchants it sent three ships to the Indian Ocean, landing in Pondicherry, but they did not stay long even though a local ruler invited them to build a factory there. They returned to France with a cargo of pepper, indigo, diamonds, and other goods – and a letter saying that the Dutch would no longer permit French ships to enter the ports of the Indonesian archipelago. Undiscouraged, three more left Saint-Malo and reached Sumatra in 1619; the Dutch promptly seized two of them and the third escaped, arriving in Le Havre in 1622. At the Treaty of Compiègne (1624) Sully’s successor Richelieu (1585–1642) finally obtained a concession from the Dutch not to harass French

ships in the East Indies, and after 1630 a steady stream of vessels from a new “Société dieppoise” sailed from northern ports to the Indian Ocean, making temporary bases in Madagascar and reconnaissance trips to the Indian coast, the Persian Gulf, and the Spice Islands.146 In 1642 the “Compagnie française d’Orient” (or “de Madagascar”) was formed with nine associates, including Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602–1661) and finance minister Nicolas Fouquet (1615–1680), and it was granted a twenty-year monopoly on visiting “the Island of Madagascar and other adjacent islands to found commerce and industry there.” 147 It sent five fleets over the next seven years, settling at first near Sainte-Luce Bay (Manafiafy), a place where the Dutch had recently purchased fruit, rice, and boiled milk from a king who spoke Portuguese. In contrast to earlier enterprises they also sought to settle French colonists in Madagascar and Île Mascareigne (renamed Île Bourbon); however only 300 made the journey: to put this in context the French had already settled about 2,500 colonists in North America and 7,000 colonists and enslaved Africans in the Caribbean by this time.148 Company agent Jacques Pronis (d. 1655), a Protestant from La Rochelle, was put in charge of the Sainte-Luce colony, which was also the first to include missionaries, Lazarist priests with grand plans to convert the islanders but who had their hands full with the mostly Huguenot settlers (as an incentive to French settlers the king guaranteed them freedom of religion).149 Two hundred additional colonists followed as French fleets rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the rate of about one a year, bringing home spices, leather, aloe, sandalwood, and rubber. But only about forty people stayed in Madagascar and the settlement was short-lived, tropical disease reducing the population to fourteen.150 In 1643 Pronis fled 40 kilometres south to Taolagnaro, which he christened Fort Dauphin in honour

of the man who became Louis XIV that very year and supervised the construction of a new fort and settlement. I will take up the disastrous history and fate of that fort – meant to be France’s equivalent of Dutch Cape Town – in the next chapter. The Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio )

introduction

Fort Dauphin was the first project of France’s answer to England’s eic and the Dutch Republic’s voc : the Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio ), founded by Colbert in 1664. Created by royal edict and headquartered on rue SaintMartin in Paris, the Company directly represented the nation in a way its rivals did not: its mission was to extend “the power of the King” beyond the Cape of Good Hope, to acquire and manage territories, and to negotiate agreements with local rulers. But it also had a commercial purpose, aiming to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on foreign middlemen in obtaining spices, pepper, cotton fabrics, and silks from Asia, and to keep the English and the Dutch from gaining all the profits.151 It was therefore a joint-stock company under government control, modelled directly on the voc but run by the state. Colbert originally sought the participation of Antwerp traders with knowledge of the Asia trade, but the latter wisely declined, “apprehensive that the management would be taken away from the interested merchants and monopolized by the king.”152 The new Company was run by a board of known as directeurs généraux (in imitation of the voc ’s Heeren XVII, or “Seventeen Gentlemen,” but only twelve in number at first), and it was operated in India by agents. Although the project had Louis XIV’s backing, he “remained a king of war and land” and was content to leave such maritime projects to his minister.153 Dirk van der Cruysse commented on the failure of French expeditions

to the East Indies in the seventeenth century: “Poorly led and poorly organized, unfamiliar with the local cultures and little inclined to understand them, they considered the flexibility of the Dutch and the English as perhaps suitable for a race of heretics, but incompatible with French grandeur.”154 The main problem with the cio was its hybrid nature. Like its Atlantic counterpart, the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales (founded in the same year and in charge not only of American trade and exploration but also of the African slave trade), it was founded not by merchant shareholders (as in London or Amsterdam) but by the government, which, however, underplayed the state’s role so as not to scare off investors. It was thus a share capitalist company in name alone: it was shunned by mercantile circles and Colbert had total control over shareholders’ meetings, using a management style that was more like that of a government bureau than a commercial venture.155 The directeurs généraux were named by the king, who also ordered mayors and magistrates of the principal cities of France to obtain subscriptions.156 Colbert raised funds “by fair means and foul,” in Paris, the major provincial cities, and even in The Hague and Antwerp, matching the king’s three million livres with two more from the court, two from the financial sector, and 1.2 million from the sovereign courts, 1 million from Lyon, 550,000 from Rouen, 400,000 from Bordeaux, 200,000 from Nantes, 150,000 from Tours, 100,000 from Saint-Malo, and, proportionately, from almost all the cities of France.157 The idea was to build a body representative of the country, again on the model of the Heeren XVII, who represented the major cities of the Dutch Republic: Amsterdam, Middelburg, Rotterdam, Delft, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, and Zeeland. The French merchant class never generated sufficient capital, and the cio ended up relying

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on the nobility and the monarchy: although it was “camouflaged as issued shares, it was a kind of obligatory loan, destined to provide funds to a royal enterprise.”158 Yet even state patronage was uneven. As Philippe Haudrère explains, it is impossible to raise a large amount of capital “in a kingdom divided between numerous fiscal and para-fiscal regimes, with internal customs forming barriers between foreign commercial markets” – whereas the Netherlands and England each had a single national market at the end of the sixteenth century.159 Paris simply did not have the economic muscle of the City of London or the Amsterdam Exchange.160 The cio ’s first subscription raised a mere 8,179,885 livres, just over half of Colbert’s goal of 15 million, and merchants were a “feeble minority” among the subscribers: “one sees here the difference between this royal enterprise and the Dutch or English companies, created spontaneously by associations of merchants, administered by elected committees, and independent of the government.”161 Another impediment to the cio ’s success – which resulted from French ignorance of Asian trade – was Colbert’s insistence that France trade only French manufactured goods for Asian products, because the minister was determined not to allow precious metals out of the country. Yet in India specie were essential in making transactions and French products such as woollen blankets were useless in a tropical climate: this was no news to France’s Asian comptoirs, but they were unable to communicate these realities to Paris quickly enough. Soon the cio gained a reputation across India for being unreliable and short of money.162 The Company was also so poorly supplied with transportation that it relied on British ships – even at a time of war.163 Marie Ménard-Jacob concludes that “Colbert’s Compagnie was an undeniable financial and economic

failure … the Company was, well before the end of its monopoly, totally ruined.”164 A further conflict of interest was caused by the missionaries who inevitably accompanied the cio on their journeys and settled in their factories, even those run by Protestants, as in Jacques Pronis’s comptoirs at Sainte-Luce and Fort-Dauphin. As the next three chapters attest, missionaries’ goals – to win the souls of non-Christians – ran contrary to the interests of the merchants and placed the two groups at loggerheads. Even in Third Republic Indochina, long after the cio ’s demise in 1790, French missionaries constantly quarrelled with the secularist state, even though the missionaries’ presence in Indochina had been France’s main excuse for invading the region in the first place (see chapter 5). By contrast the Dutch and English/British were all business. Although Company chaplains lived among them and modest churches were built to satisfy the European community (figs. 1.13–14), pastors merely served as chaplains to the Europeans: “men who carried out the duties of an eighteenth-century parson to British congregations without excessive energy or zeal … The East India Company had no desire to anglicize India or convert it to Christianity, and it was determined to avoid alarming Hindus and Muslims by giving them the impression that it did.”165 In fact there were no missionaries in British India before 1813 when Parliament forced the eic to accept them. Upon Colbert’s death in 1683, the marquis de Seignelay (1651–1690) restructured the Company with an infusion of 700,000 livres, and in

1.13 (oppoSiTe Top ) St Mary’s (Fort) Church, Fort St George, Madras, 1680, exterior of nave. 1.14 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Colombo (Sri Lanka), Wolvendaal Dutch Christian Reform Church, 1749.

the architecture of empire 40

1687 he raised the number of directors-general to twenty, each with a subscription of 60,000 livres. Nevertheless, this attempt to raise funds by making more positions was inefficient – not to mention that merchants and financiers did not get along. His successor Louis II Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain (1643–1727) was more interested in the Americas than with Asia and placed the cio in the hands of his son Jérôme (1674–1747), by which time it was “a debt-ridden company.”166 By the turn of the eighteenth century the directors showed so little enthusiasm that barely half of them attended the four weekly meetings, even after an attendance bonus was offered beginning in 1702.167 In 1715 the Company was renamed the Compagnie des Indes de Saint-Malo when the rich trading families of the Breton port became majority shareholders.168 In 1719 France’s Scottishborn charlatan banker John Law gained control of the cio as part of a super-company called the “Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes,” incorporating the Compagnie du Sénégal, the Compagnie de Chine, the Compagnie du Mississippi, and the Compagnie de la Louisiane.169 Law’s Company was aimed primarily at supplying enslaved Africans to the plantations of North America and the Circum-Caribbean – the role of its Asian wing was to provide textiles for African rulers as payment for slaves. A pared-down cio regained its independence in 1720 and kept its name until 1769 (after its fortunes were devastated by the Seven Years War), was briefly revived in 1770 as the Compagnie des Indes orientales et de la Chine and, from 1785, as the Nouvelle Compagnie des Indes, and met its final demise during the French Revolution.170 The next chapter looks at the early

years of the Company, its mistakes and contradictions, but also the ability of its more talented agents to found the first outposts of France’s empire in India. French colonialism in Asia was hampered not merely by a lack or misuse of funds or by widespread indifference or hostility to overseas expansion from within France, but by fundamental, systemic contradictions within both the ancien régime cio and the nineteenth- and twentieth-century French governments: between promoters and enemies of colonialism at home; between a state interested in promoting its “glory” and merchants trying to make a profit; between both of those groups and Catholic missionaries, who engaged with and antagonized indigenous populations in a way that was counterproductive to French diplomacy or trade; and between the promotion of prestige architectural projects – an extension of the desire for gloire related to a peculiarly French desire to advertise itself as a place of high culture – and the more practical needs of the people in the colonies, colonists and colonized alike. France’s colonies in Asia never stood on a sure footing: whether in India or Indochina (or in Siam, where their colonial project was stillborn) they were founded on the flimsiest of pretences, dependent upon unstable relationships with neighbouring states, and constantly threatened internally by dissent and violence. France’s two colonial Asian empires may have been separated by nearly a hundred years, but among the commonalities they shared over the centuries, this fragility and tendency toward failure were arguably the most salient.

2 origins Fort Dauphin, Surat, Pondicherry ca 1672

The next two chapters focus on the seventeenth century and on France’s first attempts to found colonies and factories in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia: a catastrophic bid to create a Gallic Cape Town at Fort Dauphin in Madagascar (1643–74); a trading factory in Surat (founded 1668) that was never more than modestly remunerative; the short-lived first comptoir at Pondicherry (1674–93); and the spectacularly high-profile but ultimately disastrous venture to convert, win over, and conquer the Kingdom of Siam between 1662 and 1688. The latter escapade forever changed Louis XIV’s court ceremonial at Versailles, and, in Siam, it resulted in a rich and long-lasting legacy of Franco-Siamese architecture, which will form the subject of chapter 3. The first half of this chapter will consider the architecture of Fort Dauphin, France’s first settlement in the Indian Ocean, of which we can gain a detailed picture thanks to a contemporary drawing and several descriptions; it will end with a brief consideration of the little we know about the architecture of the comptoirs in Surat, Pondicherry, and Chandernagore (founded 1690). Then, as background to the analysis of Franco-Siamese architecture in chapter 3, the second half of this chapter will consider the complicated history of the Franco-Siamese exchange, with an emphasis on the six embassies and the activities of the two main missionary groups, the Jesuits and the Missions-Étrangères de Paris (mep ). This interaction between two great powers – the first between

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France and an East Asian nation – is an episode of extraordinary complexity, driven by outsized personalities with entangled loyalties, and its history has been so coloured by glittering events (opulent court ceremonies, exorbitantly expensive gift exchanges) and by tragedy (shipwrecks, betrayals, insults, executions, and torture) that it reads like fiction. Although there is an immense literature on these events – indeed no other part of this book can count on such a volume of primary and secondary literature – so much attention has been paid to the temperaments and actions of the dramatis personae and to the swashbuckling adventure stories that punctuate the encounter that the details of what really happened, and particularly the chronology of the events, are frustratingly hard to follow. I have therefore taken great care to piece together the sequence of episodes in as objective a manner possible so that I can get the stories out of the way and use chapter 3 to focus on the architecture, which is more fascinating than has ever been acknowledged and deserves a chapter of its own. The buildings in chapter 3 include, in my opinion, some of the most extraordinary examples of architectural hybridity of any early modern European/non-European cultural exchange, ranking with the Andean-Spanish baroque churches of seventeenth-century Peru and the Qianlong emperor’s Xiyanglou pavilions at Yuanmingyuan. In this period of awkward first contacts, France’s neophyte chartered companies – the Compagnie française d’Orient (cfo ) and (from 1664) the Compagnie des Indes (cio ) – struggled to gain traction, never approaching the profitability of the more seasoned English East India Company (eic ) and Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (voc ). The cio was badly organized and underfunded, the navigators and merchants were inexperienced, and France had neither the ships nor the manpower to carve

out a successful trading empire in Asia. They were also oblivious to the trade networks and alliances that had existed in the Indian Ocean and Siam for centuries before the arrival of Western Europeans and the delicate diplomacy that was required to operate within them: trade in these ports “depended on trust, familiarity, and reputation,” and French agents in the seventeenth century had a difficult time gaining any of them.1 They also suffered directly from Louis XIV’s bellicosity in Europe: whenever France was at war the activities of the cio suffered in Asia, as the trading posts were cut off from Europe by the superior navies of their adversaries.2 And far from being a fifth column in the service of French colonialism, French missionaries fought so virulently with each other that they were more hindrance than help and gave Frenchmen a bad reputation across Asia, most calamitously in Siam. As M.N. Pearson puts it, “[t]he French seem never to have quite got it right.”3 These two chapters are about contradictions and conflicts: between merchants and missionaries, would-be colonizers and indigenous powers, Catholics and Protestants, and the wildly utopian expectations of the French court and the paltry and futile consequences of those expectations. The architecture of French foundations in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century directly reflects the haphazard, unplanned trajectory of France’s colonial enterprise in the region under Louis XIV and the degree of interest the king showed in it. French agents (the Crown, cio , and missionaries) did not pursue the kind of homogeneous architectural program that developed in France beginning in the 1660s, a style meant to represent visually both what Louis referred to as “la gloire du roi,” the kingdom’s self-proclaimed status as the capital of avant-garde architecture, and France’s belief in the universality of its taste.4 The classical baroque “grand goût”

of Louis Le Vau (1612–1670), Claude Perrault (1613–1688), and Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708), along with interiors by Charles Le Brun (1619–1690) and vast perspective gardens by André Le Nôtre (1613–1700), projected the king’s image as both a divinely guided ruler and a valiant warrior, and the monumental fortress-cities of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707), forming France’s celebrated ceinture de fer (“iron belt”), quite literally secured Louis’s aggressive expansion of French borders (figs. 1.4, 2.1). Architecture was standardized across France

to proclaim unity, stability, and legitimacy in a kingdom that had just emerged from the Fronde civil war (1648–53). Jean-Baptiste Colbert, superintendent of the King’s Buildings from 1664 and head of the Academy of Architecture from 1671, was the main proponent of French architectural style, but the king also supervised royal building projects personally – indeed maniacally – out of his belief that monumental architecture creates, in his words, “a highly advantageous impression of splendour, power, wealth, and grandeur.”5 A fusion of classical rationalism with baroque material opulence, the “grand goût” is characterized by rectilinear geometry and a preference for balance and elegance over dynamism and whimsy.

forT DAuphiN, SurAT, poNDicherry cA 1672

2.1 Louis Le Vau and others, south facade of the Louvre, Paris, begun 1668.

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Its trademark was a kind of uniform facade, based ultimately on Louis Le Vau’s south facade of the Louvre (begun 1668) (fig. 2.1), with plain or rusticated ground floors with arched windows or blind arcades, first and second storeys united by giant-order pilasters and high rectangular windows and a flat balustrade or mansard roof with dormers. Louis XIV, like Napoleon I after him, was a continental empire builder, ruthlessly invading Dutch and Germanic territories to expand his realm and securing alliances through royal marriages.6 He was less concerned with overseas expansion, although he recognized the importance of settling and exploiting the Western Hemisphere colonies. By contrast, his interests in the Asian exploits of the chartered companies, although genuine, were mercantile and diplomatic. The monarch’s attitudes toward his empires are directly reflected in their architecture. France’s Western Hemisphere colonies were already starting to replicate French metropolitan forms, including late Renaissance- and baroque-style government buildings and plantation houses, classicizing churches, and Vaubanian bastioned stone citadels (the 1696 citadel at Cayenne was actually designed by Vauban), as well as gridplan urbanistic schemes with “places royales” (Parisian-inspired city squares built in honour of the king).7 Although these were not all government commissions they do demonstrate a higher degree of engagement with the Western colonies as investors, wealthy settlers, and religious orders contributed significantly to the built environment. Some early commissions were quite spectacular, like the opulent three-storey Château de la Montagne on Saint-Christophe (Saint Kitts, 1639–40), begun by builders sent from France, in the style of a country seat by François Mansart (1598–1666).8 Architecture in the Western colonies became more standardized over the

course of the seventeenth century as royal engineer architects increasingly dominated the colonial built environment. By contrast, the buildings examined in these two chapters were not designed or built by royal engineers but by amateurs (whether Company men or missionaries) and small-time French craftsmen – or, in the case of India or Siam, by skilled Indian or Siamese architects and masons. Except for the boisterous little Jesuit church of Notre-Dame (or La-bienheureuse-Vierge-Marie) in Chandernagore (figs. 2.13–14) and the cio headquarters there with its eleven-bay Doric arcade and baroque belfry festooned with finials (fig. 2.23), most were too rudimentary to project much of an image of the French presence beyond a few flagpoles and small ornamental gates. They run the gamut from basic palisaded forts of the sort that was pioneered in the early years of American colonization, structures made with pieces of wrecked ships, borrowed buildings (from the Danish and Mughals), rapidly and poorly built earthwork forts – one was aptly named Fort Barlong, or “Lopsided Rectangle” (1689) – and, in Siam and perhaps India, hybrid structures. This latter was the most radical departure from French architecture in the Americas after the era of first contact. Only in Louis XV’s Pondicherry and in Belle Époque Indochina does the “grand goût” approach to architecture appear – and reappear – in the Eastern Hemisphere. Fort Dauphin’s Turbulent History Fort Dauphin in Madagascar (1643–74), the first long-term French colony in the Indian Ocean and a settlement the cfo and cio had hoped to populate with French colonists, plant with cash crops, and use as a springboard for Asian trade, was such an unmitigated disaster that it is surprising that it did not convince the cio to give up on

surrounding kingdoms: considering all islanders to be basically the same, they were blind to the diversity of Madagascar’s indigenous population and the enmities that existed between groups. Fort Dauphin was in the territory of the Antanosy, a fragmented group with multiple raoandriana claiming dominance, who in turn were opposed to the neighbouring Antemoro people.13 Although the French learned to manipulate these rivalries for their own benefit, on the whole they evinced an astonishing ignorance of island culture – Philippe Bonnichon calls the relationship a “drama of misunderstanding” – that led to Malagasy hostility and the paradox that French settlers were starving in an island of victualling and were forced to plant crops adjacent the fort on a piece of land so large that it dwarfed the village.14 First governor Jacques Pronis, a Huguenot who enslaved Malagasy people to sell to the Dutch despite being married to a well-connected local woman named Andrianramarivelle and having forged alliances with indigenous kings, ran the colony like a personal fief between 1643 and 1648.15 His men were forced to labour in the fields – Pronis referred to them as his “slaves” to his Malagasy in-laws – and they were furious that their leader did not employ the local “blacks” to do the work. They were even more incensed that he lavished food upon his island family while habitants starved.16 Unsurprisingly, many of them revolted, including twelve mutineers who were exiled to Île Bourbon (Réunion) in 1646.17 Arthur Malotet puts it politely: “Pronis does not seem … to have brought together the qualities necessary for a director and a colony founder.”18 By the time he was replaced in 1648 only twenty-eight French people were living on the coast, the rest inland with their island wives. He returned to France in 1650. Pronis’s successor, cfo general-director Étienne de Flacourt (1607–1660), arrived in 1648

forT DAuphiN, SurAT, poNDicherry cA 1672

Asia trade altogether (fig. 2.2). The colony’s catastrophic failure was not merely the result of the contradictions noted above but also of reckless insensitivity and violence toward the indigenous Malagasy, who wielded the real power and could expel the French at will – precisely the violence Abbé Carré considered to be a fundamental part of the French character. The Abbé went so far as to call Fort Dauphin “the cause of the ruin of the French projects in the Orient.”9 It was a place of famine and violence and ended in a bloodbath. Built on a rocky promontory on the southeast corner of the island, Fort Dauphin’s initial draw was its location as a stopover on the way to India and Southeast Asia to obtain fresh food with cheap barter goods, including, according to a contemporary source: “painted Callicoes, and Linen Cloaths, Cornelians, Bracelets, and Necklaces of Silver, Copper, and Tin; Iron is of great esteem among them, because they have none in the whole Island; But above all the rest, Aqua vitae, which they call Chi-caf, and signifies as much as burning Wine; these they truck for Wine, Beef, Fruits, Honey, (of which they have great store,) and sometimes for Gold.”10 But the first French settlers under the auspices of the cfo had vastly different ideas about what they were doing there: some sought imperial grandeur, Christian conversion, and adventure; others looked for easy sex and escape into the interior; while yet others tried to get rich enslaving islanders and selling them to the Dutch on Mauritius. This latter enterprise unsurprisingly earned them the hostility of indigenous rulers (raoandriana, or kings) who had tolerated the French precisely as a defence against Dutch slavers.11 Another utopian scheme was to found tobacco plantations on the Martinique model using Malagasy slaves, as ninety colonists sent in 1644 were tasked with doing, but it never got off the ground.12 French colonists had little knowledge of the political environment of the

45

2.2 Étienne de Flacourt, FortDauphin Drawn on the Spot by Sieur de Flacourt, 1650–59. Ink on paper, 20 × 29 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNf ), Département cartes et plans. The drawing depicts the fort, housing for the colons, the house and garden of Sieur de Flacourt, and the cemetery and chapel. The fort is entirely of palisades except for the wall facing the sea. The crops being grown to feed the colonists dwarf the small settlement and fort.

the architecture of empire 48

with eighty colonists and the Lazarist priests Charles Nacquard and Nicolas Gondrée (both of whom died shortly after their arrival), and he was no more effective in spite of his lofty ambitions and a serious interest in the island’s geography, naturalia, and ethnography – in fact he wrote a book about it in 1658 for which he is understandably better regarded than for his record as a governor.19 A poet and man of (Catholic) faith, Flacourt was concerned about the lax state of religion in the settlement: in the preface to his book, dedicated to the soon-to-be deposed finance minister Nicolas Fouquet, he exhorted the latter to send more “Ecclesiastics, Priests, and Preachers to convert her Peoples, & teach them the Mysteries of the true Religion.”20 However his fervour was precisely the problem: his priests’ “untimely zeal for the forcible conversion of the natives” served only to further antagonize the islanders, who were hostile to the alien religion.21 The Compagnie française d’Orient promised regular support and provisions, but as France was then embroiled in the Fronde they were not forthcoming. After seven years, only about 50 out of 180 colonists were still alive and they were starving.22 Flacourt became so desperate that he attempted to escape to Île Bourbon in a boat.23 When two ships finally did arrive in 1654, sent by Richelieu’s cousin the maréchal de La Meilleraye (1632–1713), it was to relieve Flacourt of his office and – incredibly – to reinstate Pronis. Flacourt departed for France on 12 February 1655, shortly before a rifle shot hit the guardhouse roof and ignited a three-day fire that consumed the fort.24 Pronis died in May of that year, while directing Fort Dauphin’s reconstruction. In 1660 Flacourt was ordered back to Madagascar as governor on a ship with further colonists and six Recollect priests, but all hands perished when the ship was attacked by Barbary pirates off Lisbon in 1660.25 Luc de Champmargou was appointed the new governor in his stead in 1656.26

The foundation of the cio in 1664 did nothing to improve the situation in Madagascar, even though Colbert envisioned building a “French Batavia” at Fort Dauphin to rival the Dutch colonial headquarters in Java (quite an upgrade from a French Cape Town), and the articles of the charter specifically made the conversion of the islanders to Catholicism a priority.27 But Madagascar was hardly an ideal base for colonial or mercantile expansion in Asia as it took two months to get from there to India and four to reach East Asia.28 In 1665 four company ships departing Brest for Fort Dauphin carried the new governor Pierre de Beausse (d. 1665) and his successor M. de Montaubon, 212 crew members, and 279 merchants, clerks, and colonists, four more Lazarist missionaries, builders, craftsmen, and gardeners, and, for the first time, thirty-two women and some children. In order to further expand the population, sexual unions between Frenchmen and Malagasy women were encouraged by a decree that the offspring of a European and non-European union, providing they were Catholic, would automatically gain French citizenship.29 Although received with a Te Deum, a firing of cannons, and an inspection of musketeers, the colonists were “rapidly exterminated” by disease and in-fighting: eleven priests alone died, including one axed by a local king.30 In 1666 a squadron of ten ships left La Rochelle for Madagascar under François de Lopis, marquis de Mondevergue, with the grand title of “lieutenant général du Roi dans l’île Dauphine” (Île Dauphine was Madagascar’s new name), with 1,688 crew, officers, and soldiers, and 1,055 merchants and settlers, many of them debtors recruited by broadsides on the streets of French cities that promised to cancel their arrears.31 Owing to an emergency which required them to berth at Pernambuco (Brazil), they took a year to get to Fort Dauphin, by which time the famished passengers had consumed all the food meant to relieve the colonists.

and cio agent François Martin (1634–1706), who reached Surat in 1669, was sent that year to the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, where he founded another comptoir at Pondicherry in 1674.36 The remainder of the fleet departed Madagascar in 1671: “His Majesty’s Fleet, after having remained nine months at Fort Dauphin without having accomplished anything of note, resolved in the end to depart for the East Indies; and they set sail on the end of the month of July 1671.”37 The colony at Fort Dauphin limped along for another three years until a 1674 massacre killed more than half of the survivors and sent the remaining sixtythree fleeing for Surat and Île Bourbon, where (in the latter) they would contribute to a stable European population of a colony that remains French to this day.38 The Architecture of Fort Dauphin Fort Dauphin may have failed as a colony, but since the settlement included the first relatively long-lasting French buildings in the Indian Ocean it deserves our attention (fig. 2.2). The most surprising thing about the settlement, given all the energy and money invested in it and the happy picture its promoters painted of it in Paris and Versailles, is what a poor specimen it really was. In a pattern seen throughout France’s first overseas empire, whether in Cayenne (1652–53) (fig. 2.3), Île de Gorée (Senegal, 1677), Ouidah (Benin, 1672), Nouvelle-Orléans (1721), or at Kourou (Guiana, 1764) (fig. 2.4) – a devastatingly shortlived colony in which seven thousand were felled in a few months by infectious disease and scurvy – the French government and investors were fooled into thinking that they had founded a thriving settlement with a promising future. Reports reached Versailles and Paris of miniature metropolises in the bush, with civic buildings, regular streets, and ample housing, when in fact the colonies were minuscule, unhealthy, and bleak.

forT DAuphiN, SurAT, poNDicherry cA 1672

The cio failed at Fort Dauphin for the same reason as the cfo : the French did not know what to do with the colony. If the fort were meant simply as a stopover on the way to India or a comptoir for trade, it made no sense to recruit settlers or get involved in disruptive missionary work – it would have been far more practical to leave the religion of the raoandriana alone and stick to business as the Dutch would have done.32 A colony also required massive financial backing to allow habitants to grow enough food to feed themselves – never mind plant cash crops. Colbert insisted on making Fort Dauphin a colony while company merchants wanted to focus on the India trade and use Madagascar only as a victualling stop. The French also made no sustained effort to appease the Antanosy, treating them as objects of ridicule and disgust. Gabriel Dellon’s attitude in 1685 sums it up: “[T]he inhabitants of this Island are for the generality Black, Treacherous, Savage and Cruel … they Anoint their Bodies with a certain stinking Grease, which together with their Natural Ugliness, renders them the nastiest People in the Universe.”33 Even Pronis had more respect for them than that. Admitting defeat, the cio ceded Madagascar to the royal domain in 1669 and abolished the island’s supreme council: Louis XIV was furious about the fortune squandered on the useless colony, writing in 1669: “the company is compromised in the opinion of the whole of my kingdom.”34 Carré dismissed the whole Madagascar enterprise as being “founded on chimerical tales which merit punishment rather than praise.”35 But the cio held onto their monopoly on the East Indies trade, and that is where they now directed their attention. In fact part of the 1665–66 fleet, under renegade voc old-Asia-hand François Caron (1600–1673), had already sailed onward to the Mughal city of Surat in northwest India, where the cio established its first base in 1668 (a “loge” for dwelling and a “comptoir” for trading),

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They were hurriedly constructed by people with little or no building experience – ship’s carpenters at best – few were sufficiently fortified, and contemporary descriptions make them sound, as I wrote about Cayenne, “more like a ship or even a child’s make-believe fortress than a town.”39 Fort Dauphin was not built by trained royal engineer architects – far from it. Its first iteration was the work of sailors and people whose main qualification was that they shared their governor’s Protestantism.40 At the time of the 1655 fire the fort’s stores included only the most rudimentary tools: forging utensils, carpentry tools, lock-making equipment, caulking, and casts for making nails.41 In fact it was only with the arrival of the cio in 1667 that the company became more serious about skilled builders: its foundation document (1664) declared that “all French craftsmen and tradesmen who would like to go and live in the Island of Madagascar and in the Indies … will be provided with the means to earn their living in a quite decent way, as well as reasonable wages and salaries; and that, if there are any of them who will stay there for eight years, His Majesty is quite willing to allow them to act as foremen in their crafts in whatever towns of the realm of France where they would like to settle, with no exception whatsoever and without paying anything.”42 Colbert made a similar offer to settlers in French North America, where builders and craftsmen were also offered a fast track to “master” status as a motivation to settle: in the hierarchical and highly competitive world of the French guild system, where most craftsmen never advanced past the rank of journeyman, this was an appealing offer, and many took the Crown up on it.43 Although far fewer came to Madagascar than to Quebec, the first cio ships carried twenty-eight masons and stonecutters, twelve carpenters, and seventeen joiners.44 As the fort had already been rebuilt after the 1655 fire, these men were occupied mostly

with the village and in improving the administrative buildings. The only surviving illustration of Fort Dauphin, Flacourt’s pre-1655 drawing, shows a roughly rectangular compound with three bastions on the land side and two facing the bay, perched on the end of the peninsula (fig. 2.2). Only the sea wall and its two bastions were of solid materials, built of brick atop a four- or five-foot-high stone foundation that rested on a stone outcropping.45 The other three sides were vertical log palisades with sharpened ends, a cost-cutting measure and very similar to those the French had used in their Atlantic fortresses and citadels from around 1600. Although varieties of palisades existed in Europe and among the Antanosy, Fort Dauphin’s stockade may have been inspired by Amerindian prototypes colonists encountered among the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) and Montagnais (Innu) in Canada. Many of the men who built Fort Dauphin came from the same Atlantic ports that serviced the American colonies, and it is likely that some of them had been to both places (figs. 2.3–4).46 Flacourt wrote that the fort “consisted of the Chapel, the Governor’s House, consisting of a hall, bedroom, office & a main building next to it, a stone kitchen, two stone pavilions which served as prisons, five Warehouses, a guardhouse, a blacksmith shop & another small forge, a slaughterhouse & sixteen private houses, built mostly of wood & quite comfortable for the country.”47 The Governor’s House was of stone as was the vaulted cellar under the chapel for storing brandy, wine, 2.3 (oppoSiTe Top ) Cayenne (“Bourg Louis”), town and fort, 1652–53, from a map of 1677. Ink and watercolour on paper, 49.5 × 34 cm. ANom . 2.4 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Louis-Pierre Desmon, Place Royale, Kourou, Guyane, 1764. Ink and watercolour on paper, 59 × 41 cm (detail). ANom .

the architecture of empire 52

and other goods. Flacourt’s map shows that the buildings had high-pitched, gable-end roofs and that the chapel was on the southeast corner of the parade ground. The parade ground, accessed by a ceremonial gate to the west, measured 20 by 25 toises (127 by 160 feet) with a 50-foot-high “large flagstaff ” in the centre and a 30-foothigh secondary flagstaff on high ground with the weathervane and white royal flag. Flacourt’s drawing shows that most of the settlers lived outside the fort, where fifty-two private homes with kitchen gardens were grouped mostly in sixes within their own stockades. There was also a walled cemetery and guardhouse and the giant “Garden of Sieur de Flacourt” incorporating his country retreat. The garden was many times the size of the fort and spread like a carpet down the peninsula and beyond the frame of the drawing. Foreign visitors were not impressed with the rebuilt fort. Dutch merchant Frederick Verburg remarked in 1657 that it was “poorly defended by paltry palisades.”48 In 1661 Flemish travellers Jacques de Bollan (1619–1684) and Michael Jordis were nevertheless surprised by the building’s size – “it covers a vast area; its flanks are large and on the side facing the sea it has two little bastions” – but dismissed the palisade as being “formed of old posts which you could easily push over by hand to get in.”49 They also had a low opinion of the settlement south of the fort and its inhabitants: “outside the fort, there are other houses overlooking the sea and inhabited by some French and a Malagasy who until now have remained faithful … the French who occupy this fort number about 25; they are, for the most part, useless sailors, incapable of making the slightest effort, people with neither faith nor law who have no respect whatever for the governor and who do not obey him.”50 Company chronicler Urbain Souchu de Rennefort (ca 1630–ca 1690) gave a more detailed

description of the 1655 fort in 1668: “Fort Dauphin has been designed as a square by its founder; it has two half-high bastions of rubble, which command the north side … the enclosure of the rest was nothing but posts the width of your arm when we occupied it, & the symmetry is constrained to 150 paces long & 120 wide: the main gate looks West, & looks out toward a little field (prairie) & an agreeable landscape: the other, opposite, looks East and & to the sea.”51 But he was “astonished to see this famous Fort Dauphin, held by the French for near-on twenty-five years, in such poor condition that there were scarcely any huts to shelter the directors. There appeared to be only two little bastions of rubble, ruined on the side of the sea, and some palisades, which lacked symmetry.”52 He was more optimistic about the settlement to the south, confirming that there were about fifty houses to the north of the governor’s garden and that “each house was accompanied by a garden as pleasant as it was useful.”53 His words and those of his contemporaries were paraphrased a century later by Abbé Antoine-François Prévost (1697–1763): “great was their astonishment to see this famous Fort, which their Nation had established twenty-five years ago, in such poor condition that it barely offered a few huts to lodge the principal officers. It had nothing on the ocean side but two little ruined bastions, & some sporadic palisades, with nine pieces of iron cannon, without lookouts and without any height … the troops camped in a little plain, where the Officers built huts & shacks. This place was properly the seat of the Government, for the interior of the Fort was inhabited by Merchants, Commissaries, and Heads of Colony.”54 Bollan and Jordis note that although some buildings surrounding the parade ground were of stone the roofs were formed of thatching or even cow skins and that some buildings were made with materials salvaged from shipwrecks:

The powder magazine is located inside the fort, on the bay side; it is stone and rises to a height of nine to ten feet above the ground; it is thatched and, in the few places where there was no more thatching, they had covered it with the skin of a cow to protect the building against rain … The warehouse for merchandise is, like the powder magazine, of brick [sic], with a ceiling and roof of thatching … The governor’s house is built with the debris from the ship Duchess, which was wrecked in the bay of Tholanhara [Taolankarana]. It rises above the others, which are twelve in number, and which are built lightly and are in danger of collapse. The gate of this fort, surmounted by the arms of the king of France, was mended with the sterns of wrecked ships. The cattle enclosure is next to it, which one of the Frenchmen guards at night so that the blacks who are their enemies do not come to take them away. A musket shot away is a large warehouse built with old boards, in which are deposited the cow skins belonging to the governor.55

The Governor’s House, which the Blacks call Donac, like the houses of their grandees, was an elevated wooden building, [there was also] a warehouse & a kitchen of stone, twelve square houses and a guardhouse, the empty spaces between the posts which support them filled with eight-foot-long rushes. All these dwellings were covered with leaves [that were] two & a half feet long, half a foot wide, and as thick as an écu d’argent,

Although the governor’s house was made from a shipwreck it did not necessarily lack architectural finesse. French ships were equipped with stern facades, quarter galleries, and beakheads derived directly from royal architecture, particularly under Louis XIV and Colbert when mammoth battleships like Royal Louis (1668), L’Ambitieux (1691) (fig. 2.5), and Le Terrible (1692) were designed or supervised by the likes of Charles Le Brun, sculptor Pierre Puget (1620–1694), and designer Jean Bérain (1640–1711).57 In fact Colbert specifically wanted ship design to reflect the work of France’s greatest architects, and his own treatise, the Atlas de Colbert, became the shipbuilder’s bible. It is quite possible that the facade of the governor’s house was a transplanted stern, complete with pilasters, entablatures, and bas relief carving, and that builders were able to salvage wainscotting, mouldings, and windows from the captain’s cabin. The arms over the gate were almost certainly taken from the Duchess. Fort Dauphin had two chapels, a spacious older one in the fort (fig. 2.2) and a newer one in the village to the east. The earliest description is by the Lazarist Father Toussaint Bourdaise ( January 1656), who describes some renovations and how he placed a clock in the fort church to astonish the indigenous people as a prompt for proselytization, a trick the Jesuits had already tried in the 1640s in Huronia (Nouvelle-France).58 In fact his description sounds very much like reports

forT DAuphiN, SurAT, poNDicherry cA 1672

Rennefort confirms that the powder magazine and kitchen were of stone, but that the rest were half-timbered and thatched and built in a manner he describes in some detail:

fastened onto poles which formed the plan. Straight long sticks crossed the inside of the huts, pressed onto other sticks, two feet apart by two feet, to which they were bound with a grass as thin and as strong as a silk thread, and they made very clean floors. At the end, the Governor had laid a foundation and something more, for a house which he claimed to be making as his retreat (azile).56

53

2.5 (oppoSiTe ) Jean Bérain, The Rear of the Vessel L’Ambitieux, 1691. Ink on paper, 55.5 × 41 cm. Service historique de la défense (ShD ), Paris.

Sovereign Council chamber, and Caron directed construction of a new warehouse during his six months on the island.64 An anonymous letter dated 20 February 1667 noted that immediately upon landing “all the passengers worked to build themselves huts in the style of the country to give themselves shelter because there were not enough for all the people … the colonists began working according to their métier but principally in clearing land and making a road to unload merchandise, cutting stone, making brick and lime, turning the earth to build with, and many other things.”65 The only other stone building was the hospital – a building that saw a lot of use. Probably located outside the fort to avoid spreading infectious diseases, it served all Europeans on the island as was bleakly described by Dellon: “most Foreigners are subject to most dangerous Diseases; those that are Sick are carried to Fort Dauphine [sic], where there is a Hospital Erected for that purpose; but the Fevers which reign here are so Malignant and Contagious, that a great many of them Die daily, notwithstanding which, the Hospital is generally fill’d up with sick persons.”66 Like the palisade fort itself, the buildings at Fort Dauphin had much in common with the early architecture of the French in the Americas and little to do with the indigenous architecture of southeast Madagascar – as some of the reports would have it – except in materials.67 Basic rectangular cabins with pitched thatched roofs, they recall a kind of house built in early Canada, the Caribbean, and Guiana that was made of posts planted directly in the ground (pieux en terre or poteaux en terre), as in the communal houses and other buildings constructed in 1764 in the Guiana colony of Kourou (fig. 2.4). A type of poteaux en terre house in seventeenth-century Newfoundland, called a piquet hut, used moss to fill the spaces between the studs much as rushes were used in the Fort Dauphin houses.68 According to a late seventeenth-century description

forT DAuphiN, SurAT, poNDicherry cA 1672

from the Jesuits of Georgian Bay (now Ontario). Toussaint writes: “We ourselves … have lengthened [the chapel], placing a balustrade around it except for the choir, and a portico (portique) in front of it, so that passers-by, for it ends on a great road, at least come to see the ceremonies … and as one should profit by a visit, I decorate it as nicely as I can; I adorn it with saplings (tiges) and pictures … and seeing that they were very curious to see my clock, I place it in a prominent place in our chapel. It always gives me an opportunity to tell them about our mysteries.”59 Elsewhere he notes that the chapel was so “plain” that it appealed to visiting Catholic Dutchmen.60 In 1664 he wrote that only the chapel in the fort had a tabernacle and that the company had provided church ornaments such as ecclesiastical garments, altar cloths, roods, chalices, censers, a ciborium, more tabernacles, and also altarpieces, as well as “all sorts of furniture for the use of the priests.”61 The church was quite immense if we are to believe Rennefort: “in the fort there was a high wooden Chapel, capable of containing five hundred people, it was served by a Secular Priest [i.e., not a member of a religious order],” and he added that in the middle of the village “the house of the Missionaries, a Chapel & a Seminary [i.e., school] for the young Blacks captured in war or indeed voluntarily enrolled by the parents.”62 The house had a library with a “fine collection of books,” according to Father Navarrette, and housed three other missionaries and two lay brothers who cared for the little garden nearby. The missionaries claimed to have baptized over a thousand people – but admitted that no more than fifty lived as Christians.63 cio governor Mondevergue oversaw new fortifications and buildings, including the new

55

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of one in Plaisance, “they are built of fir poles, joined together, between which they insert moss to seal the space.”69 As was the case in Madagascar, an abundance of palm leaves, tall grass, and lianas made such construction practical in the Circum-Caribbean: as the Dominican missionary Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre (1610–1687) commented about dwellings in Guadeloupe in 1667, “The poorest dwellings are covered with cane, reed, Latan palm or palm leaves.”70 Deserted in 1674, Fort Dauphin remained a popular stopover for ships passing to or from the Mascarenes, primarily as a curiosity. Many French were embarrassed by this reminder of their first failed enterprise: the Abbé Carré remarked in 1671 that “during the little time that I spent at Fort Dauphin [I recognized] that it is not without reason that the first Europeans who have visited never wanted to leave traces of their homes.”71 It also served as a landmark for passing ships. One English commentator wrote in 1703 that: “the French Fort is easy to recognize by its white colour,” by which he presumably meant the whitewashed sea wall.72 However, just as the Gouvernement in Pondicherry (figs. 1.1–2) and French exploits in Đại Việt fuelled nationalist sentiments in the late nineteenth century, the memory of the long-ruined fort was revived by the Third Republic during their conquest of Madagascar in 1895, when a rebuilt stone fort, rechristened “Fort Flacourt,” rose on Fort Dauphin’s foundations, where it still stands. Fort Dauphin may have been large, but it was no reflection of the metropole. Although some French building techniques appeared with the arrival of the cio ’s civilian craftsmen and repurposed shipwrecks may have given some structures a Gallic air, the colony was essentially a transplanted version of somewhere like contemporary Trois-Rivières in Nouvelle-France (founded 1634), a settlement that spent most of its early existence

defending itself against the Mohawks and was surrounded by palisades copied from those of their adversaries. French colonial agents may not have had a unified approach to architecture in the Eastern Hemisphere in the seventeenth century, but Fort Dauphin’s use of these pancolonial structural techniques and forms meant that it participated in a global French solution to building pioneer settlements, allowing for cheap and rapid construction using local materials and requiring little skill. Fort Dauphin was the last instance of this style in France’s Indian Ocean settlements; in the last decades of the century architecture adapted primarily to Asian forms or to those of rival European powers, not out of any preordained plan to do so but because there was no alternative. A Tale of Two Comptoirs: Surat and Pondicherry The cio ’s first headquarters in Asia, the relatively short-lived factory in the Mughal city of Surat in northwest India (1668–1720), was on foreign soil in an empire that forbade foreigners from building fortifications, and it was never more than a “choice by default,” although because of the port’s importance as a trading centre it was an obvious first choice (fig. 2.6).73 By contrast, Pondicherry, on the Coromandel Coast to the southeast and granted to the French in 1672, was a settlement and fort under French administration, which – excepting brief seizures by the Dutch (1693–99) and British (1761–65; 1778–82; 1793–1814) – was to remain under French administration until 1962. The founder of the Surat factory, Brussels-born director-general François Caron, had three decades of experience in the east Indies working for the voc in Japan, Batavia, and Ceylon and was even made director-general of the Dutch Company (until 1651).74 The voc was the most

fact, European export trade in piece goods in the 1650–1700 period was only a tenth of the total production.77 Mainland powers and their agents had full control over the manufacture and extraction of goods, to which European merchants could gain access only through middlemen such as brokers and customs officials and by means of careful diplomacy with local governors or, in the case of the Mughals, the imperial court.78 Some Indian traders, like Abdul Ghafur Bohra, possessed a merchant fleet as large as that of the eic as well as several offices abroad.79 Old trade networks with their multiple contact points and “intersections of different merchants, nobles and governmental systems” continued much as they had done before, products remained the same, and most of the Indian trade was still focused on small port markets on both coasts.80 The multiplicity and diversity of the various Indian ports also meant that European traders had to negotiate on significantly different terms according to where they were located and to which official they were beholden for access to goods, often (as in the case of the eic ) choosing to work with a single local merchant.81 Even entities as violent as the sixteenth-century Portuguese could not rely upon sheer belligerence to gain access to trade: they had to fit into long-established trade networks and among powerful merchant communities or lose their market sustainability. Furthermore, the seventeenth century was hardly a time of waning indigenous power in India, except in parts of the south where political entities fragmented in the wake of the collapse of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire (1336–1646), particularly by the 1670s. The Mughals, who ruled the northern part of the subcontinent, were at their height and were aggressively expanding their borders southward; the Bijapur and Golconda sultanates had a firm grip on the west and east coasts of the Deccan plateau; and former Vijayanagara

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important European player in the Indian Ocean trade, largely because of its extensive net-works in the Spice Islands and East Asia, and as we have seen in chapter 1 the cio was founded in direct emulation of it. Nevertheless, Caron was a Japan expert and his unfamiliarity with India seriously hampered the cio ’s efforts there. He compensated for his ignorance by making increasingly exorbitant bribes to the governor, shāhbandar (port master), and minor Mughal officials.75 This prodigality, combined with his vainglorious leadership style, enmities with his French compatriots because of his Protestant faith – the curse of Fort Dauphin – and his ruinous attempt to found a colony in Ceylon, led to his recall in 1672. He died en route to Marseille in 1673. Nevertheless, the French base at Surat survived, and a variety of regional Muslim and Hindu potentates allowed the cio to found a network of comptoirs along the Indian coast over the next sixty-five years, many of them shortlived: in Balasore (1684) and Chandernagore (1690) in the Bay of Bengal (figs. 2.13–14, 2.23); Rajapur (1669) Masulipatam (1669), Tellicherry (1669), Calicut (1701), and Mahé (1721) on the southwest (Malabar) coast; and Pondicherry (1672), Yanaon (1731), and Karikal (1738) on the southeast (Coromandel) coast.76 Most were in the southern tip of the subcontinent, also known as the Carnatic, and today comprising the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and southern Andhra Pradesh. Contrary to popular belief, the European presence in seventeenth-century India was much less significant than it was in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: in particular, Europeans were far from being masters of the sea. The Portuguese, English, and Dutch were fairly marginal players within a complex network of Indian Ocean trade in which Asian and African entities had been operating for centuries – in

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2.6 Plan of the City of Surat and the French Garden, Drawn Up in 1758 under the Inspection of Sieur Anquetil Briancourt, then Head of the French Nation in Surat, 1758. Ink and watercolour on paper, 65 × 47 cm. ANom . The French comptoir is labelled “M,” the Capuchin church and monastery “N.” “L” is the Portuguese factory. The “French Garden” is on the far left of the city.

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lands were controlled by three principal Nayaka kingdoms: Madurai, Gingee (which fell under the control of Bijapur and then the nascent Maratha Kingdom), and Tanjore (Thanjavur), all of which however slowly disintegrated between 1670 and 1750.82 On the Coromandel coast, the site of British Madras and French Pondicherry (among other European fortified factories) the founding of European bases in the late seventeenth and especially eighteenth centuries occurred “at approximately the same pace as the decline of the Indian states,” and merchants were content to collaborate with Europeans because the political instability on the mainland limited their operations.83 The Gujarat port of Surat was the most prosperous and cosmopolitan in India, the greatest market in the Indian Ocean – and quite possibly the world – and Mughal emperors occasionally met personally with European delegations there, as Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) had done with the Portuguese in 1573 (fig. 2.6).84 It sat at the juncture of an inter-oceanic trade network that extended from Europe to Japan and of coastal and interior trade links within the Indian subcontinent.85 Cotton cloth (known as “piece goods”) was the dominant product, along with indigo, saltpetre, and Malabar pepper, and Gujarat was home to India’s most important mercantile communities, particularly Hindus and Jains, who were also a vital source of credit for European merchants through what were called “respondentia loans.”86 Foreign traders from many parts of the world lived in Surat: the English eic and Dutch voc had already built factories there and the city played host to communities of Armenians, Jews, Persians, Ottoman Turks, and Arabs, all of whom were closely monitored and taxed by Mughal governors, and “were often at the receiving end of a variety of extortionate measures.”87 Even the

French already had a presence in Surat, but not a mercantile one: French Capuchin friars set up a residence and chapel in 1639 in the vain hope of converting a town boasting at least five major religions but dedicated to Mammon.88 However things were not peaceful among these various groups: European agents squabbled and stole from one another and the governors frequently resorted to “humiliation, pillage, or forced bribes, and blockades,” to add to their personal fortunes – to the extent that the Mughal court occasionally felt obliged to remove them.89 Emperor Aurangzeb (1658–1707) granted the cio permission to build their comptoir in 1668. A rented wooden building (“loge”), which French traders patriotically called “one of the most beautiful houses in Surat,” the cio comptoir stood in the northeastern sector of the inner walled city adjacent the Capuchin church (the Capuchins had already created Surat’s “French sector”), and it had offices for the director and the council members, apartments, warehouses, a kitchen, a stable, a place to store palanquins, and likely a well and dovecote (fig. 2.6).90 In 1682 the Company paid to have their own chapel erected, in which they celebrated a Te Deum in honour of Louis XIV’s victory against the Dutch at the Siege of Mons in 1691.91 The chapel would have been built by local architects and therefore in a Mughal hybrid style, as was the case with the earliest surviving Jesuit chapel in Agra, the Padres Santos Chapel of 1611, which combines a Roman baroque-style dome with an octagonal Mughal plan with traditional jalis (grilles) for windows (fig. 2.7).92 The cio also occupied a 10.2 hectare garden on the river outside the outer ramparts to the southwest (“Le Jardin Français”) that the emperor had granted them as a place for leisure, and by the late eighteenth century it included a number of buildings of brick and wood such as a

2.7 Padres Santos Chapel, Agra, 1611.

in layout – as the Jawaharlal Nehru Garden, a welcome green space in a congested city with few parks. François Martin was the first successful colony builder in the French Asian empire. More diplomatic than Caron, he transformed Pondicherry into what would become France’s largest early modern colony in Asia and at times the only place in India were French ships were welcome (fig. 2.8).98 Originally a fishing and weaving village, Puducherry had also been a prosperous port decades before the French arrived, enjoying direct trade with Southeast Asia.99 The town had been ceded in 1672 to Benoît Bellanger de Lespinay, Martin’s predecessor as director, by Sher Khan Lodi, governor of Valikondapuram and deputy

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“Maison du Consul” (Consul’s house), a “Maison du Chancelier” (Chancellor’s house), a hospital, and a “salle octagonal” for events, as well as formal French-style symmetrical gardens with flowerbeds and crops, possibly an acclimatization garden for plants from other tropical regions, and a grand allée and gate. 93 I have written elsewhere about the importance given to formal gardens in French settlements in the Atlantic world as a manifestation of Gallic culture and order – particularly in places where the French lacked actual influence – and we will see another French garden in Pondicherry in chapter 4 (fig. 4.23).94 In addition to these two properties, the cio had an anchorage at Suvali Beach and a cemetery near Katargam Gate, the northern gate to the outer ramparts (fig. 2.6). Nevertheless, Surat was not the cio headquarters for very long as the comptoir failed to make a profit: not only did extravagant gifts to Mughal officials deplete their resources, but as French company men were less familiar with regional customs than were the English, Dutch, or Portuguese, they frequently overpaid for goods, much to the amusement of their competitors. They also did not engage in lucrative “company trade,” regional trade between Asian ports as opposed to between Asia and Europe, until John Law’s takeover of the cio in 1719.95 In an echo of the Abbé Carré, Aurangzeb was also rightly concerned with what he considered to be a “Warlike and Imperious Nation.”96 The Surat comptoir was further downgraded in 1701 and the loge was officially abandoned nineteen years later, but French trading lingered on there through most of the century – a time when political instability in the hinterlands reduced Surat’s prosperity – until the British finally seized their property in 1778.97 Although the garden was officially restored to France in 1783 the French never reoccupied the site. It survives remarkably intact today – at least

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2.8 Nicolas de Fer, Map of Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast Occupied by the Royal Company of the East Indies. Paris, 1704. Engraving, 29 × 40 cm. BNf . This map shows Fort Barlong and the gridiron plan introduced by the Dutch in 1693–94.

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of the khan of Gingee (in turn answerable to the sultan of Bijapur), in return for French financial and military support against the Dutch and their allies, the sultan of Golconda (fig. 2.9).100 The Indian village of Puducherry was unusual among Tamil towns in that it was built on the shore rather than inland, which suited the French for their seaborne trade.101 In 1674 the cio set up their factory in an abandoned brick and stone building erected by the Danes in the first half of the century, a spacious if dilapidated structure with two courtyards, a loggia, and a tower. This structure likely resembled the Dansborg fort at Danish Tranquebar (1620), unique among seventeenth-century European forts in Asia to have survived intact from its time of construction, which also has a lookout tower, balustraded viewing platforms, and a courtyard (fig. 2.10).102 Sher Khan however was defeated in 1677 by the Hindu Maratha leader Shivaji (1627/30–1680), placing the Pondicherry comptoir in immediate danger.103 Through sensitive diplomacy Martin, director since 1675 except for a stint at Surat as director-general between 1681 and 1686, obtained the permission of Harji Mahadik (d. 1689), the new Maratha ruler of Gingee, to construct the first fort there in 1688. It was a rudimentary, lozenge-shaped structure of brick and lime northwest of the Danish building surrounded by an earthen embankment (1689) with the unpromising name, as noted earlier, of Fort Lopsided Rectangle.104 The French now enjoyed the same administrative, judicial, and customs rights in Pondicherry as did the English at Madras. However Robert Challes (1690) dismissed the fort as being “very irregular, with three shabby round towers, and protected only on the park side, where there is a normal bastion.”105 It certainly proved no impediment to the Dutch in 1693, and its flimsiness hastened the French construction of the gargantuan Fort Louis (1702–33) after the

colony was returned to France in 1697 and the French reoccupied it in 1699 (figs 4.1–2).106 During the seventeenth century the French part of the town was little more than a loge and comptoir, with company officials living north of the fort in small brick houses. It did not even have a proper harbour, as ships had to anchor offshore and transport goods to the settlement via flatbottomed boats called chelingues. Throughout Pondicherry’s history the French population was far outnumbered by Indians, both Hindus and Muslims: in Martin’s time there were about 200 Europeans compared with over 10,000 Tamils, whom the French called “blacks,” with the French living in and around the fort in what would later be called “white town” and the indigenous people residing in the vast western suburbs in “black town,” the original settlement, where there were at least five Hindu temples.107 European and Malabar Catholics built churches, including the Capuchins’ Saint-Lazare (1684), southeast of the fort and commissioned by Malabar Christian and chief Indian CIO agent Lazare de Mota (Tanappa Mudali) to serve Tamil Christians (active until 1739), and the chapel of SaintLouis inside the fort (1674), where the Capuchins served as the company’s chaplains.108 Saint-Lazare was a “a vaulted church, small, but well built, surrounded by a nice piece of land enclosed in a good wall.”109 In 1689 the Jesuits and missionaries 2.9 (oppoSiTe Top ) A French gate in Gingee Fort, ca 1750. Gingee Fort was begun in AD 1190 and enlarged by the Chola dynasty in the thirteenth century. Most of it dates from the sixteenth century when it was part of the Vijayanagara Empire. In 1677 it was seized by the Maratha king Shivaji; in 1690, it was captured by Mughal forces. The French took over in 1750 and built new gates and sentry boxes; it was ceded to the British in 1762. 2.10 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Fort Dansborg, Tranquebar, 1620. This is the oldest European fort in India that retains its original appearance.

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of the Missions-Étrangères de Paris (mep ) established themselves in the city after their expulsion from Siam (see chapter 3), although the mep did not build a permanent church and seminary until after Dutch occupation. The Jesuits constructed their church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Conception (or Saint-Paul) to the west in the Tamil zone in 1691–92, about which Martin wrote “there is none in the Indies more competent or better constructed.”110 The architect was a Jesuit coadjutor named Brother André.111 The Jesuit church and Capuchin fort chapel were destroyed during the Dutch occupation, although Saint-Lazare was still used by the Tamil community during those years. The Capuchins built a new church, now dedicated to Notre-Dame-des-Anges and serving the European and Tamil community, in 1707, and then in a new location in 1739 (figs. 2.11–12). The

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mep seminary and church of the Présentation-dela-Sainte-Vierge, built on land donated in 1699 by Tamil Christian Maria Dias in the grand bazaar, was begun in 1723, and the new Jesuit church was erected north of their earlier one in 1728 (the Jesuits also built a church in Ariyankuppam in 1714.112 We have no idea what these churches looked like, but the first Jesuit church was unlikely to have resembled its fanciful baroque counterpart at Chandernagore, completed in 1698 with generous financial assistance from the cio governor André-François Boureau-Deslandes (in office 1691–1701), who wanted it for his family mausoleum.113 Three paintings survive (ca 1696), executed by or for the Jesuit Guy Tachard (1651–1712), one a general view, the second a facade elevation, and the third a sectional view

2.11 (oppoSiTe ) Former Capuchin church of NotreDame-des-Anges, Pondicherry, built in 1739 to replace the 1683 church of Saint-Lazare, mostly rebuilt 1770.

2.13 (overLeAf , LefT ) It Is the Facade of the Church of the Jesuits of Bengal on the Ganges Built of Brick with All the Ornaments We See. From Anonymous, Usages de Siam, ca 1696. Watercolour and ink on paper, 40 × 29 cm. BNf . This drawing, made by or for Guy Tachard, shows the facade of the Jesuit church of Notre-Dame (completed 1698) in Chandernagore. 2.14 (overLeAf , righT ) It Is the Plan and Interior of the Church. From Usages de Siam. Watercolour and ink on paper, 40 × 29 cm. BNf . This drawing, made by or for Guy Tachard, shows the plan and interior elevation of the Jesuit church of Notre-Dame in Chandernagore.

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2.12 (ABove ) Former Capuchin church of Notre-Damedes-Anges, Pondicherry, interior.

(figs. 2.13–14).114 Tachard describes the building as “a small church, but very pretty, a dome in the middle & three altars within,” that was “built of Brick with all the ornaments we see.”115 What is remarkable is that the little church was so heavily decorated – with pot à feu finials, miniature turrets, and acanthus motifs – and especially that it had a dome, the only one in the French colonial empire in either hemisphere. The building is a reduction of Jacques Le Mercier’s Church of the Sorbonne (begun 1634), based on an elevation of the street facade on page 93 of the “Grand Marot,” Jean Marot’s Architecture française (Paris, 1670) (fig. 2.15). For all its compactness it retains the paired giant-order pilasters, the vase finials, the pilasters and massive arched window in the dome, and the lantern, and it even imitates the slant of Le Mercier’s roof. The portico introduces a model

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2.15 The Church of the Sorbonne Built by the Magnificence and Piety of the Grand and Incomparable Armand Cardinal duc de Richelieu. From Jean Marot, Architecture française, Paris, 1670, also known as the Grand Marot. BNf .

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from another popular architectural treatise of the day, the first portal design, marked “A,” in Pierre Le Muet’s Augmentations de nouveaux bastimens faits en France (Paris, 1663). Illustrations from both books were used as models for buildings in Siam (see chapter 3). There is no way of knowing whether it was built by French or Indian masons. This building is the one outlier in this chapter: built by a private donor for the purposes of self-aggrandizement and exhibiting a pride in

French contemporary architectural style that was more typical of the following century. Most likely the Pondicherry churches were much simpler, like Notre-Dame-des-Anges, which is largely the original 1739 structure but heavily restored in 1770 after the bombardment (it is now an orphanage) (figs. 2.11–12). The church (now the schoolroom) is plain with a nave and side aisles divided by bulky arcades and a flat roof on wooden beams. It has large rectangular windows on the side walls and a tripartite, generically classical facade articulated by plain pilasters and crowned with a triangular pediment. Behind the building is a tall square tower, also allegedly from the eighteenth century. Basilican plans were standard for missionary churches worldwide because they were easy to build (particularly when they had a flat roof like this one) and they could hold large congregations with a view of the altar. In fact, in its simple but practical classicism Notre-Dame-des-Anges resembles the eighteenth-century church of L’ImmaculéeConception-de-la-Sainte-Vierge in Bangkok, built by the mep on land originally granted by King Narai and known as “wat noi,” or small temple, which however has a broken-pitched roof (fig. 2.16).116 There is nothing particularly French about either church, except perhaps for the desire for classical refinement in the facades. By 1690 Pondicherry’s population had swelled to 60,000 people, many of them refugees from the wars in the Gingee region that pitted forces loyal to the Mughals against the encroaching Maratha forces. As local rulers fought for supremacy, they played the European powers off against each other. France’s situation remained precarious and the colony was perilously close to the warring nations of South India, from Golconda in the north to Tanjore and Madurai to the south and southwest, which had to be placated through careful diplomacy: “an intricate network of dangerous

alliances developed around the European settlements, which themselves became drawn into local Indian politics.”117 Shifting alliances spelled the end of France’s first phase at Pondicherry: in 1693 the city was sold to the Dutch by Harji Mahadik’s successor, Shivaji’s son Raja Ram (1670–1700), who since 1689 effectively controlled the Tamil region from Gingee (he was in turn overthrown by the Mughals in 1698 and replaced by Gussafar Khan, himself ousted by Sarup Singh in 1700) (fig. 2.9).118 In August 1693 a flotilla of

forty Dutch ships from Ceylon and Batavia took possession of Pondicherry and sent Martin and his family to Batavia, although they allowed him to proceed to Chandernagore the following year. During their occupation of Pondicherry the Dutch reorganized the urban design of the city, creating in 1693–94 an ambitious gridiron plan of the western (Tamil) district in hopes of attracting Indian merchants and artisans – a kind of utopian weaving town – which the French expanded in the eighteenth century and survives to this day (fig. 2.8).119 Thus the urban planning of present-day Pondicherry has much more to do with the Dutch than with the French: it was in fact the Dutch who created the division between the Tamil quarter and French quarter, which the French would later separate by a canal as a cordon sanitaire.120 Only the French quarter along the

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2.16 L’Immaculée-Conception-de-la-Sainte-Vierge, Bangkok, 1790. The first church was built in 1674–75 on land granted by King Narai. The present church is known as “wat noi,” or small church, to distinguish it from the nearby Church of the Conception (1834). This is Bangkok’s oldest surviving church.

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littoral retained the slightly uneven streetscape of the pre-1693 settlement. The subsequent history of Pondicherry and its architecture will form the subject of chapter 4. The French in Siam (1662–1688) The acquisition of Pondicherry may have been the most significant early development in France’s nascent Asian empire, but it was overshadowed

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2.17 Solemn Audience Given by the King of Siam to the Chevalier de Chaumont, Paris, 1685, engraving published by Jean-Baptiste Nolin, 38.5 × 24.8 cm. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

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by a higher-profile colonial adventure that was meant to turn one of Southeast Asia’s most powerful nations and richest trading entrepôts into a Catholic satellite of France protected by French forts – a project doomed from the start but which Romain Bertrand still calls “a missed opportunity.”121 The eight-year diplomatic exchange between Louis XIV and King (Phra) Narai of Siam (Ramathibodi III, r. 1656–88) involved six cripplingly expensive embassies. The first, sent from Siam to France in 1680, sank off Madagascar in 1681 with a loss of all hands, untold riches in gifts for Louis XIV, and two prize elephants. In the second (1684–85), Siamese envoys (khunnang) bearing further gifts were hosted lavishly in Paris and Versailles, the first diplomats from eastern Asia to meet a French king. In 1685 the envoys returned on French ships with the first French embassy to Siam, an astonishingly expensive public relations stunt featuring the finest products of the French manufactories and culminating in the French ambassador’s delivery of a royal letter to King Narai in his audience hall in Ayutthaya, the Siamese capital (fig 2.17). The French ships returned with the first official Siamese embassy to France (1686), in which three ambassadors led by Ok-phra Wisut Sunthorn (better known as Kosa Pan) were fêted across northern France and received by Louis XIV in the Hall of Mirrors, an event commemorated in music, medals, sculptures, engravings (including six large almanac prints), paintings, and a relief by the likes of Charles Le Brun, Sébastien Le Clerc, the elder (1637–1714), Nicolas de Larmessin II (1638–1694), and Antoine Coysevox (1640–1720) (fig. 2.18).122 The fifth embassy, a thinly veiled attempt by France to seize Siam’s main fortresses and impose French control on the kingdom, arrived with troops and trunkloads of materiel in 1687 and proceeded to occupy the forts of Bangkok and

Mergui (now Myeik, Myanmar) (figs. 3.16–17). Nevertheless, when Narai was overthrown in 1688 in a palace coup, the French were definitively expelled from the country (although missionaries were later allowed to return). Paradoxically, a sixth embassy had already departed that year for Paris and Rome comprising three Siamese diplomats led by Ok-khun Chamnan with letters for Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI

(r. 1676–89), and they had an audience with the pope in 1688 and with the king in 1689, ratifying a commercial and military treaty with a regime that no longer existed. The most interesting thing to come out of this last embassy was a series of striking portraits of the envoys and three Tonkinese catechumens by Carlo Maratta (1625–1713). In the end Siam was the only Southeast Asian nation never to be conquered by a European power. Although King Narai had genuinely been interested in a potential alliance with France, these embassies, orchestrated by French missionaries, officials, and their allies at the Siamese court, had always meant more for France than they did for

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2.18 Charles Le Brun. Louis 14 Giving Audience to the Ambassadors of Siam, 1686. École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Black chalk and India ink wash, 53.6 × 80.7 cm. Art Resource, New York.

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2.19 Attributed to Johannes Vinckboons, Judea [Ayutthaya], ca 1662–63. Oil on canvas, 97 × 140 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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Siam. Indeed, only the demolition of Pondicherry in 1762 (see chapter 3) captured the imaginations of ordinary French people to a comparable degree (fig. 4.24–5). Siam was important to Europe not for its own products, of which Europeans were primarily interested in tin and pepper, but for its central location within a trade network extending westward to the Ottoman Empire and Persia, southward

to the Indonesian archipelago, and eastward to China and Japan: of particular interest were the products of Japan and China, including porcelains, lacquers, and Japanese silver.123 Japanese and Persian merchants had played a critical role in Siamese commercial life since the sixteenth century, and had established their own neighbourhoods in Ayutthaya (fig. 2.19) by the early seventeenth, as had Indian and Chinese traders. Siam’s importance grew in the second quarter of the seventeenth century after China became embroiled in the 1618–1683 civil war that marked the Ming–Qing Interregnum, and after Japan

of the second French embassy who later (1691) wrote a celebrated book on Siam; the outwardly fawning yet steely observant Kosa Pan; the guileful mep translator and interpreter Bénigne Vachet (1641–1720); various French engineers of dubious background working as military spies; and three ambitious and untrustworthy men working behind the scenes: Phaulkon, the French Jesuit Guy Tachard, and mep bishop François Pallu (1626–1684). Small wonder that this event has captured the imaginations of literary and scholarly figures from the seventeenth century to the present day: indeed, no other moment in early modern French colonial history has received so much attention. Catholic missionaries were key to the Siam debacle. Unlike France’s forays into Madagascar and India, which were attended by a handful of lacklustre and mostly ineffectual Lazarists, Capuchins, or Jesuits, Catholic missionaries dominated French political interests in Siam, as they would do in eighteenth-century China and during France’s slow encroachment upon Đại Việt in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries (see chapter 5). The two leading religious orders, the Jesuits and the mep , fought viciously for primacy in Siam and scrambled to win the ear of the French and Siamese kings. Nevertheless, both orders suffered from internal dissent. The first Jesuits to reach Siam (1606; mission founded 1655) fell under the authority of the Portuguese Padroado (Patronage), a fifteenth-century papal dispensation by which Portugal administered church and missionary activity in Africa, Brazil, and Asia (except for the Spanish Philippines), with its Asian headquarters in Goa and Macau (for the history of these and other missionaries in Siam see chapter 3).126 Their most important privilege was the right to elect bishops. Portuguese Jesuits were therefore deeply suspicious of the French Jesuits who arrived with the 1685 embassy and

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expelled all Westerners from its empire in 1635 except the Dutch, who were closely guarded on the artificial island of Deshima (Dejima), south of Nagasaki. Yet Siam enjoyed a healthy trade with Japanese and Chinese merchants, particularly after it achieved its own peace after nearly two centuries of regional war in 1605.124 Ayutthaya was a safe location for trade – particularly for Asians – as it was inland and accessible by the Chao Phraya River and two canals, meaning that merchants could avoid pirates and Dutch harassment in the Straits of Malacca, and they were also safe from interference from European oceangoing vessels, which had difficulty navigating the river. Nevertheless, European merchants and missionaries did establish themselves early on in Ayutthaya, first the Portuguese in 1549, followed by the Dutch in 1608 and English in 1612 (see chapter 3). By the 1620s Ayutthaya was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth, not just culturally, as reflected in everything from royal costume to architecture, but also politically, as Japanese, Persian, and European groups jostled for influence. This period also witnessed the remarkable rise in 1683 of the Greek adventurer and unofficial first minister Constantine Phaulkon (ca 1647– 1688) who threw in his lot with the French. France’s interaction with King Narai’s court was convoluted and driven by a cast of charismatic personalities whose antics have overshadowed the actual significance of the encounter: many histories of this episode revel in meandering anecdotal material, making this already complicated history even more difficult to follow.125 The dramatis personae included Louis XIV and King Narai; Pope Innocent XI; Louis’s Jesuit confessor François de la Chaise (1624–1709); the Abbé FrançoisTimoléon de Choisy (1644–1724), the libertine intimate of Louis’s brother who was co-adjutant ambassador on the first French embassy; Simon de La Loubère (1642–1729), the ruthless leader

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whose first loyalty was to the Gallican church and the French imperial project – and they had no misconceptions about the latter’s political agenda. Although there was no such mixture of nationalist loyalties among the mep , many priests, including Bishop Louis Laneau (1637–1696), were critical of the scheming of their confreres, which distracted the mep from proselytization and from their main goal of preparing an Asian priesthood. The mep , an association of diocesan priests founded in 1659 by Dom Bernard de SainteThérèse (1597–1669) and based on the rue du Bac in Paris since 1663, was established precisely to override Portugal’s authority and give France the right to appoint bishops, train clergy, and control missionary activity in areas of strategic interest not under direct Portuguese military control.127 Although their ultimate goal was Đại Việt and China, Siam became their first headquarters by default when hostility from Chinese, Tonkinese, and Cochinchinese officials made it impossible to establish themselves farther east. Ironically, the mep owes its existence to a Jesuit: Avignon-born Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), most famous for developing quốc ngữ, the Latin alphabet of modern Vietnamese (although he did not invent it). After working in Tonkin and Cochinchina for two decades Rhodes gained Pope Alexander VII’s permission to allow French secular priests to travel to Asia as apostolic vicars (pseudo-bishops), bypassing the Padroado. The pope achieved this sleight of hand by granting them extinct bishoprics in the Ottoman Empire, in partibus infidelium (in the land of the unbelievers) so that they could establish de facto bishoprics in places claimed by the Padroado (or the Spanish equivalent in the Western Hemisphere and Philippines, the Patronato). In fact, the earliest of these pseudo-bishoprics was in France’s Western Hemisphere colonies, in Quebec City, which was an apostolic vicariate from 1658 until it was raised to a true bishopric

(the only one in France’s Atlantic empire) in 1674 (fig. 3.3).128 Its first incumbent, François-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval (1623–1708) was officially bishop of Petrea, near Ottoman Thessalonica, before being named bishop of Quebec. Pierre Lambert de La Motte (1624–79), the first mep missionary to travel to Siam, was titled bishop of Beirut and vicar apostolic of Cochinchina whereas François Pallu, the third to leave, was called bishop of Heliopolis (in Egypt) and vicar apostolic of Tonkin, Laos, and southwest China.129 The second to depart, Ignace Cotolendi (1630–1662), was made bishop of Metellopolis (now Yeşiloba, Turkey) and vicar apostolic of Nanjing, but he died en route at Masulipatam (India). The mep apostolic vicars also employed subterfuge in travelling to Siam (1660–62): each separately took the long and perilous overland route via Persia and India as no Portuguese ship would carry them; nor could they, as Catholic missionaries, gain passage on English or Dutch vessels.130 Lambert and Cotolendi were each accompanied by a pair of priests but Pallu had a larger retinue of nine missionaries, of whom only three survived, including Laneau, who would replace Cotolendi as bishop of Metellopolis and vicar apostolic of Nanjing. Another survivor was the celebrated Flemish painter Michael Sweerts (1618–1664), who painted a portrait of Pallu in 1662 (now lost) and whom the mep intended to paint altarpieces for them in Siam; however they parted ways in Persia and Sweerts proceeded to Goa, where he soon died.131 Scholars have identified only one painting from the time of his travels through Persia, a small double portrait of two men in generically Persian costume, one of whom holds a note in Italian with a pious message “Sig:r mio videte la strada di salute per la mano di Sweerts” (My Lord, see the way to salvation by the hand of Sweerts).132 Scholars have not been able to identify the two men, whose complexions and

interests that outweighed their religious objectives.137 A series of papal orders followed including one from Pope Clement IX in 1673 ordering the Jesuits to recognize the mep ’s episcopal authority.138 For their part the mep tried to have the Jesuits expelled from Siam, which was impossible as it was a sovereign Buddhist state, and they began a campaign of slander against them. The Jesuits retaliated by singing death threats loudly from a riverboat outside Lambert’s bedroom; the bishop was reduced to hiring Cochinchinese bodyguards.139 The problem was, as Stefan Halikowski Smith remarks, that “the battle lines between the two competing orders were not clearly drawn out and separated.”140 Even the French Jesuits were at odds with the mep. Nevertheless, the mep had the upper hand in the early phases of Siam’s diplomacy with France; it was the mep who painted a picture of Siam as a place of mercantile riches ruled by a king on the verge of conversion to Christianity. Bhawan Ruangslip writes: “[t]he members of the Missions Étrangères not only offered themselves as intermediaries between the French East India Company, the French Crown, and the Siamese court but also between King Narai and the material and spiritual world of Europe.”141 The man who facilitated all but the first of the French-Siamese embassies was the mysterious Phaulkon, a Greek opportunist born on the Aegean island of Cephalonia in the Republic of Venice, who grew up in England, served a lowly position on the ships of the eic, and probably reached Siam in 1678 on one of their ships as an interpreter.142 During his years with the eic he developed a prodigious linguistic ability, and once in Siam he mastered vernacular and court Siamese in two years.143 Phaulkon switched alliances and rapidly insinuated himself into the royal court: first through profitable contraband deals, then working for the Phra Khlang (treasury minister) Kosathibodi, and finally, in 1683, as

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hair colour are northern European, although they are unlikely to be members of the mep . The mep missionaries reached Siam between 1662 and 1664 and, recognizing the advantages of its central location and religious tolerance, chose it to be their temporary base while they determined how to reach their “bishoprics” farther east. Nevertheless, in 1666 they decided to found their main seminary and cathedral in Ayutthaya. This institution lasted against all odds – except during the mep exile in Pondicherry in 1688–95 when it was boarded up – until the Burmese invasion of 1767, when the mep moved first to Hà Tiên on the Cochinchina-Cambodian border and then again to Pondicherry (1770–74) (figs. 5.6–7) before relocating to Đại Việt with Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine (see chapters 3 and 5).133 In 1665 King Narai allowed the mep to proselytize in Siam except in the royal palaces, and the mep further solidified their position in Siam by elevating Laneau to vicar apostolic of Siam in 1674.134 However they had a spectacularly poor record of conversions among the Siamese and worked mostly among the Cochinchinese Christian refugee community.135 Throughout this period (from 1666) mep missionaries also worked in Tonkin, Cochinchina, and Cambodia, as I will explore in chapter 5, but their missions there were unstable, perilous, and peripatetic given the political and religious climate, especially in Tonkin and Cochinchina.136 The struggle between the religious orders damaged Christianity’s reputation at the Siamese court. The Jesuits rejected the mep and tried to have them arrested, refusing to accept the papal letters brought at Lambert’s request in 1663 that ordered the Jesuits to submit to their authority. That same year the archbishop of Goa forbade compliance with the mep and even ordered the Jesuits to prevent them from missionary work, accusing them (not without reason) of being a branch of the cio with patriotic and mercantile

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King Narai’s favourite and de facto first minister (French officials referred to him as the “premier ministre du roi” and as “Monsieur Constance”).144 To maintain the independence and flexibility of his position at court he never accepted the official rank of Phra Khlang, although the French referred to him as “Barcalon,” their corruption of the term (his official title was Chao Phraya Wichayen, roughly the superintendent of foreign trade). Phaulkon was a generous patron both of the mep and the Jesuits and allowed the Jesuits to convert him to Catholicism in 1682 to marry a Japanese-Portuguese woman named Maria Guyomar de Pinha.145 Phaulkon’s sudden allegiance to the French cause was opportunistic: a man who had never set foot in France curried favour with Europe’s most powerful kingdom to advance his own cause at court. Tachard became his greatest propagandist, lauding Phaulkon’s beneficence toward the French Jesuits and France in his letters and publications, and the Jesuits supplanted the mep as chief intermediaries between the Siamese and French monarchies. Nevertheless, as Dirk van der Cruysse aptly remarks about Phaulkon: “French Jesuits … wanted to make use of him, without realizing he intended to make use of them.”146 If many saw him as a saint many others knew him to be a charlatan: one Dutch source (1692) summed up the most common opinion of him as “a crafty, cunning character, a liar and deceiver, artful and always capable of landing on his feet, with a slick, enchanting and ever-ready tongue.”147 The Six Franco-Siamese Embassies, 1680–1688 The Franco-Siamese embassies were the brainchild of both the Missions Étrangères de Paris and the Compagnie des Indes Orientales. They had their origin in a public audience of 1673, when Pallu and Lambert presented King Narai with

letters from Pope Clement IX and Louis XIV as a “quasi-ambassador,” cajoling the king to counter the growing power of the Dutch by doing business with France.148 In 1680 Laneau then convinced cio director-general François Baron (d. 1683) to send the merchant André-François Boureau-Deslandes (future son-in-law of François Martin and de facto founder of the Chandernagore comptoir) to Siam to greet the king on the Company’s behalf and organize the logistics of a Siamese embassy to France.149 The Vautour, which picked up merchandise and gifts en route in Pondicherry and Tenasserim (Tanintharyi, now Myanmar), was the first cio ship to enter the Chao Phraya River, sailing past Bangkok fort to Ayutthaya, and that year the cio founded their first factory in the capital.150 The resulting Siamese embassy, led by Phraya Phiphat Kosa and with mep missionary Claude Gayme as interpreter, embarked in December 1680 on the Soleil d’Orient with letters to King Louis and the pope on gold sheets, fifty cases of presents, and the two elephants, and after a long stay in Bantam weighed anchor in August and sailed to their deaths.151 Hearing nothing more from the doomed embassy Phaulkon encouraged the king to send another one, this time staffed by envoys rather than ambassadors in case Phraya Phiphat Kosa’s embassy had made it to France.152 This 1684–85 mission was the first officially to introduce Louis XIV to the fiction, which the mep had promoted since 1667, that Narai was ready to convert to Catholicism and order his people to do the same, making Siam not merely a trading partner but a religious ally and potential client state.153 As Ruangslip remarks, the mep : failed completely to see that the Siamese King identified with Buddhism on cultural and constitutional grounds as closely as the French Crown did with Roman

Catholicism. From a misunderstanding born of their own religious conviction and fond hopes, the French priests also mistook Narai’s openness to foreign culture as a sign of spiritual longing. This misperception was responsible for the subsequent French political and military policies towards Siam.154

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In fact the impossibility of Narai’s conversion to Christianity went further, as the Siamese monarchy was also founded on an earlier Hindu tradition of rulership (Hinduism preceded Buddhism in what is today Thailand) whereby the king was divine: “[r]evered as a reincarnated deity of chakravartin (universal emperor) … the king of Siam was far more than the fount of justice: he was the fountainhead of society itself … his own person regarded as both sacred and unapproachable by his subjects on account of his identity with the godhead; and his divinity expressed in his roles as defender of the Buddhist faith.”155 To put it bluntly, if Narai were to abandon Theravada Buddhism he would no longer be owed the obedience of his subjects. Nevertheless, Narai’s supposed willingness to convert became the primary incentive behind Louis XIV’s two embassies, and the news was delivered by mep missionaries Vachet and Antoine Pascot (ca 1646–1689), the embassy’s translators. In fact Narai’s interests had nothing to do with religion: he wanted French products and to learn about French technologies: he placed a large order for mirrors to adorn his audience hall at Ayutthaya (fig. 2.20) and sent four Siamese youths to observe French engineering and craftsmanship, specifically hydraulics, architecture, and metalworking.156 As Siam had no ocean-going ships this mission travelled on an English vessel and was first received by Louis XIV’s cousin Charles II (r. 1660–85) in London in September 1684. Although it was the first Siamese mission to France,

it did not stir up the enthusiasm that would greet the 1686 embassy, since the envoys Khun Phichai Walit and Khun Phichit Maitri expressed little interest in French culture despite being taken to the Île de France’s most celebrated monuments and sitting through the opera Roland (1685) by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) and Philippe Quinault (1635–1688) – an orientalist fantasy that included a representation of Cathay (China) which the French thought would appeal to the envoys as well as new Asian characters specially introduced for this occasion – but the two men were “ill at ease” during the performance.157 The most significant thing about this mission was that it inspired the first French embassy to Siam in 1685.158 The mep gained a powerful ally in Choisy, who fortuitously was taking a retreat at the mep seminary on rue du Bac after a brush with death had convinced him to abandon his libertinage and take minor orders.159 Choisy and Vachet bombarded the king with tales about Narai’s desire to convert: the campaign was welltimed as Louis happened to be reinventing himself as the defender of Catholicism on the eve of revoking the Edict of Nantes (1685), his grandfather’s guarantee of freedom of religion for Protestants. Meanwhile La Chaise became involved with a scheme to have six Jesuit astronomermathematicians from the Jesuit college of Louisle-Grand accompany the embassy and continue onward to China.160 Louis’s confessor was keen for French Jesuits to share the glory currently enjoyed by the Portuguese Padroado in the Middle Kingdom: Jesuit astronomers Adam Schall von Bell (1591–1666) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) – as it happens a German and Fleming, but under Goa’s authority – had helped reorganize the Beijing observatory. But La Chaise also wanted the Jesuits to undermine the mep ’s influence on the Siamese embassies.161 Writing ninety-one years later, the ex-Jesuit superior in

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2.20 Franz Ertinger, View of the Back of the Audience Hall of the Palace of Siam [Ayutthaya], from Simon de La Loubère, Du Royaume de Siam, Paris, 1691, vol. 1. Etching and engraving, 16 × 18 cm. BNf .

Pondicherry, Abbé Vernet, had no misconceptions of the purpose of sending the mathematicians to Siam: “Louis XIV sent the King of Siam a celebrated embassy: on his orders four [sic] Jesuits accompanied the ambassador: they were

given the title of mathematicians, but the principal object of the embassy was the conversion of the King and of the kingdom of Siam.”162 Under the leadership of Jean de Fontaney (1643–1710) the six Jesuits were hurriedly inducted into the Académie Royale des Sciences and grandly named “King’s Mathematicians in the Indies and China.”163 Fontaney reached China in 1687 with four others, including Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) and Jean-Francois Gerbillon

(1654–1707), but they made the most of their brief stay in Siam by demonstrating their ability to predict a lunar eclipse in the king’s presence (see chapter 3).164 By contrast their companion Guy Tachard stayed in Siam and would return to France with the second Siamese embassy. Tachard was more interested in personal glory than with proselytization – or mathematics. By orchestrating France’s spiritual and military conquest of the kingdom, “Tachard was to … play a significant and wholly deleterious role in Franco-Siamese affairs.”165 In addition to his work behind the scenes as Phaulkon’s co-conspirator, he was the project’s chief promoter, publishing two Voyages to Siam in 2.21 Music. Savonnerie Manufactory, Paris, ca 1685–97. Wool, 482.6 × 904.2 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This is a version of a rug sent to King Narai by Louis XIV.

1686 and 1689 that extolled King Narai’s generosity toward Christianity and praised Phaulkon. The embassy also included three mep missionaries (including Vachet), Chaumont’s personal almoner the Abbé de Jully, the ship’s chaplain M. Le Dot, as well as Abbé François de Langlade du Chaila, an unaffiliated priest Michael Smithies calls a “tourist.”166 The 1685 French embassy, under Chaumont’s leadership with Choisy as embassy coadjutor (coadjuteur d’ambassade) in charge of Narai’s conversion, may have had religious and strategic aims, but it was also a full-blown promotion of French manufacturing. The 300,000 écus worth of gifts sent with the embassy would have bankrupted a smaller kingdom: it included scientific instruments and clocks (including one that supposedly struck the hours “à la manière de Siam”), an order of framed mirrors worth 18,000 livres, silverware,

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2.22 Androuet du Cerceau, Silversmith designs for mirror cases given as gifts to the Siamese ambassadors to the French court, from Ornements d’orfèvrerie propres pour flenquer et émailler: Cinq desseins de boestes de miroirs faits pour les Ambassadeurs de Siam (Paris, ca 1687). Institut nationale d’histoire de l’art (iNhA ), Paris.

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chandeliers, gold brocade embroideries and other textiles, including French couture, pistols and muskets, medals and coins, an equestrian portrait of the king, and two diamond-studded enamel plaques (one of the royal family on horseback and the other with a view of Notre-Dame from the Pont-Royal), marquetry writing desks, tables and pedestal tables, rock crystal and gold bowls, and – most significantly for the history of architecture in Siam – two monumental Savonnerie carpets worth 4,000 livres, of which a contemporary copy survives (figs 2.21–22).167 Chaumont’s embassy was France’s first to an east Asian nation, and although Chaumont was

extremely arrogant in his audience with Narai – refusing to make the ritual protestation and triple salutation (krāp and wai), insisting on an armchair and on wearing his sword, and obliging Narai to bend down to accept Louis XIV’s letter which was proffered on a plate attached to a rod (figs 2.17) – Narai maintained exceptional tolerance toward his strange visitors. The king even provided them with well-appointed purpose-built lodgings in Ayutthaya and Lopburi, in the latter city right next to Phaulkon’s house (figs. 3.8–9).168 Phaulkon and Tachard also campaigned – against the better instincts of the ambassadors – for France to be given Bangkok as a base, allegedly to protect Siam against the Dutch but effectively giving France control of the kingdom and ensuring Phaulkon’s protection in case of a palace coup. Narai allowed an engineer named La Mare to fortify Bangkok in readiness for the arrival of the next French embassy.169 The king also granted France some trade concessions, including a French monopoly on the tin trade in Phuket, a town that had been governed by mep missionary René Charbonneau since 1682, and promised to protect Siamese converts to Catholicism.170 Even though it was clear from the start that the embassy’s primary goal – King Narai’s supposed conversion to Catholicism – was not to be realized, Chaumont portrayed Narai as a kind of ideal Bourbon monarch and natural ally, a strategy the French would later apply to the Chinese Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–96).171 Chaumont even claimed that missionaries had profoundly altered the Siamese idea of kingship. Instead of shrouding himself in secrecy and ruling from behind closed doors Narai became visible and gregarious, showing himself to his people and to strangers, allegedly in emulation of Louis XIV, for whom it was a foundation of his ideology that his subjects should be able to view the person of the monarch.172 This claim was nonsense but, as a ploy to

the manufactories of Saint-Gobain and Gobelins (accompanied by Le Brun), were shown the Maintenon aqueduct works (ironically, the project went so over budget that it was never completed), and even toured the forts of the ceinture de fer in a demonstration of France’s military might.178 The audience in the newly completed Hall of Mirrors (1678–84) on 1 September 1686, “the most spectacular reception the Sun King ever granted to an embassy during his long reign,” was meant to send two messages: one, that Louis XIV was treating Narai as an equal; and two, that France was Europe’s leading manufacturer of mirrors and other luxury items.179 In this eyewitness drawing by Le Brun, possibly a preliminary study for a tapestry or wall painting, we see the ambassadors and their retinue, who have entered the hall from the northern end via the king’s apartments (on the left), wearing their conical lompok hats and making the krāp and wai in front of the king in the company of their interpreter, the mep missionary Artus de Lionne (1655–1713). Louis sits on a silver-plated wooden throne on a raised platform flanked by silver candelabra, vases, and torches, which his courtiers (1,500 were present at the event) ostentatiously admire – it is noteworthy that none of the Siamese gifts are depicted here, although they appear in engraved representations of the embassy.180 The platform, on the south end of the gallery near the queen’s apartments, was specially built for the occasion so that the king would sit at precisely the same height as did King Narai in his own audience chamber. Thus the monarchs were presented as equals, a kind of reciprocity very different from France’s attitude toward non-European cultures in the mid-nineteenth century, with its “clear hierarchical distinction between a ‘civilized’ West and an inferior East” (fig. 2.18).181 The king’s appropriation of Siamese culture extended to music: he commanded palace musicians from

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maintain Louis’s interest in Siam when faced with the 1685 embassy’s other failures, it was the best they could do. Another aspect of the Narai-asBourbon-monarch trope was the way Europeans declared Narai’s second palace at Lopburi, north of Ayutthaya, as his Versailles.173 Beginning in the early 1670s Narai took the unusual step of residing for long periods at Lopburi and conducting court business there. Few European commentators at the time (or even today) refer to Lopburi without drawing this parallel with Louis XIV’s chateau. Although the embassy was “little more than a triumphal promenade in the kingdom of Siam,” its failures did not diminish Narai’s enthusiasm for sending a new official embassy in 1685–87, that of ratchathut (first ambassador) Kosa Pan, which was shepherded this time by both the mep and the Jesuits in the persons of Vachet and Tachard.174 The embassy included two lesser ambassadors, eight khunnang (titled nobility), some lower-ranking aristocrats (khunmun), a dozen youths sent to learn about French arts and crafts, and numerous servants.175 Much has been written about this embassy, particularly its impact on the arts and on French culture in general – it created a kind of Siam-mania like the fads for Turkish and Persian styles inspired by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century embassies from those nations.176 The travels of the Siamese ambassadors were minutely reported in the court gazette, the Mercure galant (which published four special issues on the embassy) and also – uniquely – recorded in a fragmentary Siamese diary kept by Kosa Pan (nearly all early modern Siamese archival sources were destroyed in the Burmese sack of Ayutthaya in 1767).177 Louis again ensured that the ambassadors were shown France’s finest products, architecture, music, engineering, and culture, and they attended plays by Molière, Corneille, and Racine, Lully’s operas Armide and Acis et Galatée (accompanied by the composer), visited

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the Grandes Écuries to study the Siamese instruments, including trumpets and conch shells, which had been brought to France, probably by a Siamese band that accompanied the embassy. Louis knew from his sources that the Siamese king was accompanied by festive wind and percussion music whenever he travelled and ordered his musicians to emulate this tradition when the ambassadors entered the Hall of Mirrors. The resulting Franco-Siamese processional music played that day survives in the two Siamese airs in Michel-Richard Delalande’s ninth Symphonie pour les soupers du Roy (1686–87).182 Even though this Siamese-style music was far from being authentic, it again demonstrated that the young king was interested in emulating the regal culture of his Asian counterpart. To add to the visual splendour Louis and his close family members, who are standing around the throne, debuted what must have been the most expensive French haute couture in history, including a heavy justaucorps (knee-length coat) of silk and gold thread encrusted (in the king’s case) with several million livres worth of diamonds. The sparkle of silver, gold, and jewels, enhanced by natural light, was not just designed to glorify the monarch but was also a deliberate ploy to maximize the reflective capacity of the room’s mirrors. In fact it was quite unusual for Louis to have chosen that location as foreign embassies were usually received in the Salon d’Apollon in the king’s apartments.183 Scholars have demonstrated that Louis XIV significantly altered his court ceremonial during this event, as he appropriated what he believed to be Asian expressions of divine rulership and material splendour into royal spectacles to present himself “not as a European prince … but as an omnipotent Asian despot,” and that these changes had a lasting effect on his public persona.184 Louis’s propaganda machine used Narai’s divine status and France’s

perception of Asian magnificence to reinforce his own claim to divine rulership – a Buddhist king authenticating a Catholic one the year after the latter crushed French Protestantism through the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Despite the bombast, Louis showed more respect for the Siamese than had Chaumont: he stood up, bowed, and doffed his hat when receiving King Narai’s golden letter and he had ordered Chaumont to record the niceties of Siamese protocol during his stay in Siam precisely so that Louis could receive the ambassadors at Versailles in a culturally appropriate manner.185 It was also important to Louis’s self-image as a visible monarch to appear in person rather than hidden, as was Narai during his receptions.186 Nevertheless cultural sensitivity did not extend to the court’s appreciation of King Narai’s gifts, which disappointed officials because of a dearth of gold objects: they were mostly Chinese and Japanese porcelains and lacquer furniture, as well as Persian carpets and a few Siamese items, notably two cast-iron cannons embellished with silver foil.187 However, Louis did not stint in his return gifts, which were worth 175,531 livres and included seven more Savonnerie carpets, Gobelins tapestries, 4,264 mirrors, two organs and two harpsichords, mathematical and astronomical instruments, jewellery and couture, a wine cellar (cave à vin), and a small equestrian portrait by Pierre Mignard (1612–1695) as a personal gift from La Chaise.188 As for the Jesuits, they supplied King Narai with twelve of his own Jesuit astronomers to compensate for those who had left for China; they would be put in charge of the two observatories the king was planning to construct in Ayutthaya and Lopburi (fig. 3.15).189 On 1 March 1687 the returning embassy, led by La Loubère and Claude Céberet du Boullay (1647–1702), one of the twelve directors of the cio , left Brest with 1,361 people

securing of that town and was joined in February 1688 by Du Briant and his troops.195 In the midst of all this turmoil the final embassy from King Narai’s Siam left in January 1688 with Tachard as the king’s ambassador, La Loubère, the three Siamese envoys (of whom Okkhun Chamnan Chaichong spoke Portuguese), three Tonkinese converts, five Siamese schoolboys to attend the College of Louis-le-Grand, three elephants and a rhinoceros (the animals all died en route), and royal letters for Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI.196 Narai placed orders for 4,000 more mirrors for his palace at Lopburi. Tachard chaperoned the envoys to audiences with Innocent XI and Louis XIV in late 1688 and early 1689, but Louis was by now occupied with the outbreak of the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97). They were too late anyway: Narai died the same month that the embassy arrived in Brest ( July), two months after his successor, Phra Phetracha (r. 1688–1703), had overthrown him in a palace coup in Lopburi and one month after Phaulkon’s gruesome execution.197 When they returned to Asia in 1690 the embassy could not proceed beyond India, and the two surviving Siamese envoys disembarked in Balasore in West Bengal to make their own way back to Ayutthaya.198 Besieged by Siamese troops led by Kosa Pan, erstwhile ambassador and now the minister of foreign affairs, the French abandoned Bangkok in November and the fleet retreated to Pondicherry. Although they attempted to retake Siam again in 1690 and even landed troops at Phuket, the French fleet abandoned the Siamese campaign to join the war in Europe – a war in which Louis XIV’s star would begin to wane.199 Phetracha released the mep missionaries from prison in April 1691 and they continued to work in Siam for the next seventy-six years, but purely in a pastoral role without diplomatic status. Tachard made one last-ditch attempt to sway the

forT DAuphiN, SurAT, poNDicherry cA 1672

and six ships (the 1685 embassy had two), including 636 troops commanded by Marshall Desfargues (d. 1690), military engineers, and plans for fortifications (figs 3.16–17), guns, munitions, and artillery.190 There was no doubting the true intention of this fleet, which had secret orders to seize Bangkok and Mergui if the towns were not handed over willingly, even though Narai had offered them Songkhla instead: to “give all the posts requested in the name of the king, to establish Frenchmen to govern in the strongholds belonging to the king of Siam, and to permit complete freedom of trade for His Majesty’s subjects.”191 La Loubère was commanded to remain in Siam as a spy, to learn all he could about the military and political situation, all the while mounting a charm offensive of opera diplomacy by having his violinist play airs by Lully for King Narai (by coincidence this embassy was accompanied by André Cardinal Destouches, 1672–1749, who later became France’s most celebrated opera-ballet composer, although he had not yet begun his musical training).192 But Narai was already dying, which did not augur well for the embassy or for Phaulkon. When the ships landed at the Bar of Siam in the autumn the troops disembarked and La Loubère and Céberet – “envoys extraordinary” this time rather than ambassadors – continued on to Ayutthaya, where they were received in an audience in November and succeeded in obtaining a commercial treaty from the king.193 Phaulkon was terrified that the militant attitude of the French would ruin the alliance and put his life in jeopardy – the number of troops was much greater than he had recommended – and La Loubère left Siam “on worst of terms” with the Greek.194 The French intended to intimidate Narai into opening his three most important ports to France: Ayutthaya, Bangkok, and Mergui. Céberet wasted no time departing for Mergui to supervise the

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2.23 It Is the Plan of the Lodge or Comptoir of the French Messieurs in Bengal on the Ganges. This Place Is Called Chandernagor, the Complex is Magnificent, There is a Main Building with Two Wings, and a Terrace between Two Large Magazines. From Usages de Siam. Watercolour and ink on paper, 40 × 29 cm. BNf . This drawing, made by or for Guy Tachard, shows the cio headquarters in Chandernagore, begun in 1690. In the upper right corner is the chapel of SaintLouis with its bell tower and dovecote.

new regime, received in what Smithies calls “a purely formal audience” by Phetracha in 1699, but achieved nothing and returned to France, then Pondicherry and later Chandernagore, where he died in 1712 (fig. 2.23).200 Thus ended France’s costly and ignominious eight-year adventure in Siam: France would have to wait 150 years before re-establishing diplomatic relations with the kingdom, which by then was ruled by a new dynasty and from a new capital.

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The French missionaries and embassies may have failed in their goals of converting the Siamese people to Catholicism, creating a meaningful relationship between two nations on opposite sides of the globe, or initiating a French conquest of Siam. But they did generate some of the world’s most fascinating and sophisticated architectural hybridities: sacred and secular buildings for French and Siamese patrons alike but built mainly by Siamese architects and which combined not only French and Siamese forms and motifs, but also elements

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derived from Persian architecture and Chinese and Japanese porcelain revetments. These buildings reflected both the cosmopolitan culture of Ayutthaya and Lopburi and the different, sometimes conflicting aspirations and loyalties of their patrons. They included a palatine chapel, possibly the largest cathedral and seminary in Southeast Asia outside the Philippines, palace buildings in which either French or Siamese elements dominated, and spectacular ornamental pediments incorporated into Buddhist temple structures, and they date from the arrival of the first mep missionaries in the 1660s until the 1760s, the very eve of the Burmese invasion, eighty years after the era of embassies was over. Although most of these structures are in ruins and some have disappeared, the lost ones have been described meticulously enough to allow a detailed reconstruction, which I will attempt here for the first time. These extraordinary buildings – among the few surviving testaments to the Franco-Siamese cultural exchange – are the subject of the following chapter.

3 diplomacy Ayutthaya ca 1688

Although a tragedy of misunderstandings and confusion, the Franco-Siamese exchange generated different varieties of profoundly hybrid structures in Siam between the 1660s, with the arrival of the first French missionaries, and the Burmese sack of Ayutthaya in 1767. It included the largest and most opulent structures commissioned by or for French agents in Asia in the seventeenth century. In France’s global colonial enterprise at the time this stylistic and structural hybridity was highly unusual, and it went against France’s campaign to advertise itself as the epicentre of contemporary architecture and universal good taste – a movement, as we have seen, that was at the very heart of the missionary and diplomatic activities in Siam. The reason for this departure from the norm is very simple: most of these buildings were not constructed by Frenchmen but by Siamese architects and engineers, primarily those attached to the royal court. They were also built in sovereign territory that did not belong to France and in which the French could only reside on Siamese terms. Furthermore, except for works commissioned by missionaries – and even they had to submit to a Siamese court that had different design priorities – the patrons of these buildings were not French. Only the structures planned for the Bangkok citadel reflect the baroque classicism of Colbert and Vauban, but they were never built. I have included Siam in this book because the Franco-Siamese exchange was an important component of France’s imperial project – French

missionaries and Louis XIV hoped to convert the kingdom to Catholicism and the French government and military officials tried to conquer it – but it is better described as para-colonial (like the episodes discussed in chapter 5), since the French never achieved suzerainty over Siam. It is perhaps the most striking example in this book of how the architecture of French imperialism could not simply be imposed from above but was the result

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3.1 Shīsh-mahāl in the Shah Burj at the Lahore Fort, Pakistan, 1631–32.

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of delicate, often contentious negotiations and accommodations on the ground. What makes the buildings in this chapter so fascinating is the variety and complexity of their stylistic and structural mixtures, and here is where the flexibility of the term “hybridity” – or in this case “hybridities” – is so useful, and why we need to use it on a case-by-case basis rather than in the abstract. In fact, the Siamese have a long history of harmoniously incorporating forms and styles from other cultures into their architecture, a reflection of the kingdom’s location at a cultural crossroads and its openness to foreign cultures. Siamese temple and palace architecture, profoundly indebted to classical Khmer, Mon, and Ceylonese forms even before the foundation of Ayutthaya in the fourteenth century, incorporated Japanese and Safavid Persian structures into its admixture in the seventeenth century as trade and diplomacy with those nations thrived.1 Indeed France was far from being the only nation involved diplomatically with Siam, which sent five missions to Japan between 1616 and 1629 and three to Isfahan in 1669, 1681–82, and 1684; the return embassy from Persia arrived in 1685, the same year as the first French mission.2 Persian architectural features were particularly prominent, including chīnī-khāna (literally “porcelainhall”) style ogival wall niches (originally meant to display ceramics but by now likely ornamental), ogival windows, and especially a kind of decor that scholars have long mistaken as a sign of French influence: mirror revetments inside royal audience halls in Ayutthaya and Lopburi (fig. 2.20).3 Although King Narai ordered thousands of mirrors from France (see chapter 2; he also purchased 400 from the Dutch), the manner in which they covered the entire wall is consistent with the Persian and Mughal shīsh-mahal (“glass hall”) and have nothing to do with the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles as is so often claimed

patterns and East Asian ceramics, and also perhaps a desire to project an impression of worldly sophistication. Except for the temples, all that is left of these buildings are a few charred ruins in Lopburi. However enough descriptions survive that it is possible to reconstruct the appearance of the destroyed structures, including the most fascinating one of all, the church and seminary of Saint-Joseph in Ayutthaya (ca 1682–ca 1714). What makes the buildings in this chapter so interesting is their sophistication: the juxtapositions and transformations of forms they entail were done with skill, finesse, and even levity. They are a testament to the creativity and originality of the architects of early modern Siam and their capacity for experimentation, harmonious assimilation, and what can only be called visual delight. Early French Missionaries in Siam Unlike the buildings in chapters 2 and 4, none of the Franco-Siamese monuments were built for the cio , who maintained a low profile compared with French missionaries and diplomats, although they built a small comptoir there in 1680 and cio merchant André-François Boureau-Deslandes was instrumental in organizing the first, ill-fated, Siamese embassy to France that same year on the cio ship Soleil d’Orient. French missionaries were the main protagonists of the Franco-Siamese exchange, and although they were in the country almost two decades earlier than the cio or the ambassadors, they were relative latecomers to Siam, arriving long after the Portuguese missionaries and the Dutch and English traders had set up shop in Ayutthaya in “camps” – the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century and the Protestant companies in the early seventeenth – alongside their Persian, non-Christian Japanese, and Chinese counterparts, as well as Christian refugees from Japan and Cochinchina (figs. 2.16, 3.2).6

AyuTThAyA cA 1688

(fig. 3.1).4 As Meredith Martin has noted, mirrors were remarkably multivalent in their associations: recalling the tradition of “mirrors for princes” (manuals for good rulership) in both Islamic and European cultures, Buddhist expressions of enlightenment, and even world capitalism through their role in the Franco-Siamese exchange.5 The buildings’ hybridities reflect the different terms of patronage and contrasting functions of Franco-Siamese buildings. First, French missionaries commissioned (or had commissioned for them) several churches, a seminary, a college, and two observatories with varying degrees of interference from King Narai and Constantine Phaulkon. It is clear, as I will argue below, that the missionaries wanted something that looked French, but what they got were buildings that combined French classicism with Siamese features. Second, Phaulkon commissioned buildings for the French ambassadors in a classical French style that was meant to make them feel welcome: ironically, they are more French-looking than those commissioned by French missionaries. However, even they, because they were built by Siamese court architects, reveal subtle and inventive variations on European classical forms, particularly pediments and pilasters. And indeed, the same patron also commissioned a chapel that, while partly based on a French engraving, made such extensive use of Siamese motifs such as lotus arches and capitals and Persian ogival niches that its French sources are difficult to discern. Third, a group of Buddhist temples and a palace pavilion erected between the 1680s and 1760s combine European classical motifs derived from French tapestries and other diplomatic gifts with Siamese figural imagery and patterns, as well as Japanese and Chinese porcelains. No Europeans were involved with this last variant, which reflects a curiosity for Western forms and a keen eye for how they can be combined with indigenous

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3.2 Siam or Iudia. Capital of the Kingdom of Siam, Drawn on the Spot by Mr Courtaulin, Apostolic Missionary of China, 1686. Engraving (detail), 41 × 56 cm. BNf . This detail shows the foreign camps south of the city. The mep church is labelled “I” on the left; the “M” is the Dominican church of São Pedro; the “N” is the Jesuit church of São Paulo; the “P” is the Dutch house and garden.

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Simon de La Loubère commented that “It was … the freedom of commerce which had formerly attracted a great multitude of foreigners of different nations to Siam; who established themselves there with the liberty to live according to their customs, and to publicly exercise their various faiths there. Each nation occupies a different quarter.”7 mep missionary Nicolas Gervaise noted that before their arrival rival Christian missionaries had already “built several churches” in their camps.8

The first missionaries to arrive were Portuguese Dominicans (1555, 1593), Franciscans (1582), and Jesuits (1606, ca 1626–30, 1655), the Dominicans definitively settled in 1639 and the Jesuits in 1655, both in the Portuguese camp (established 1549) on the west bank of the Chao Phraya river across from those of the Japanese and Dutch (fig. 3.2).9 As we have seen, the first French Jesuits arrived only in 1685 with the Chevalier de Chaumont’s embassy.10 The Portuguese Jesuits possessed, according to a typically vague Guy Tachard, “a very pretty house with a church” (built 1606 or 1609; rebuilt 1655–56) and the Dominicans had “a very beautiful church” (begun 1555 or 1567) north of the Jesuit church.11 According to Pierre Lambert de La Motte these were the only two “public” churches in the city before the arrival of the mep .12 The Dominican church of São

in 1581 to commission buildings in the Japanese style from Japanese architects so as to make the Jesuits fit more seamlessly into Japanese society (see chapter 5), but also in colonies such as Goa, Daman, Diu, and Macau.18 The first mep church (1662–63) was as unimpressive as those of the Dominicans and Franciscans. Also initially built in the Portuguese camp and dedicated to Saint Joseph, Lambert described it in 1663 as “a cheaply built little chapel” and in 1664 simply as “small” (1664), and that it was based on “a plan (dessin) which had been made” and “built by these good people [i.e., the Cochinchinese Christians] themselves and with … diligence.”19 But its humble dimensions did not prevent the seminarians from mounting baroque ephemeral events there, notably the Forty Hours Devotion during Lent in which the Eucharist “was exposed day and night with just as much freedom as in a Christian country.”20 The Jesuits and Dominicans also hosted such activities: two decades later Guy Tachard relates that the Jesuit church was the setting for the obsequies of Queen Maria Francisca of Portugal (d. 1683) and King Alfonso VI (d. 1683) and the celebration of the coronation of King Pedro II took place in the Dominican chapel of São Pedro, with its patron Constantine Phaulkon in attendance, culminating in an elaborate fireworks presentation commemorating the deathbed conversion of the English king Charles II (d. 1685) to Catholicism – the same king who had received the 1684–85 embassy – and the crowning of James II in April of the same year.21 Notwithstanding Valguarnera’s pretentions to architectural skill, all three of these churches would have been very basic, built in the typical manner of the camps with whitewashed brick and tile roofs – or even bamboo covered with palm leaves – by local contractors: more like a godown than a place of worship.22 The rest of the

AyuTThAyA cA 1688

Domingos (also known as São Pedro after one of its side chapels) has been excavated and partially reconstructed; substantial brick foundations in a distinctly Siamese style survive.13 There was also a small Spanish Franciscan community with a brick chapel dedicated to the Virgin (1581 or 1583) one kilometre north of the Dominican complex, and from 1667 a few Augustinian priests operated out of one of São Domingos’s chapels.14 The Franciscans and Augustinians kept to themselves and were not active proselytizers. The Jesuit church of São Paulo and their residence and College of São Salvador were underwritten in 1655 by the Siamese convert Isabel Rajiota. Construction was directed by the Sicilian superior and engineer Tommaso Valguarnera (1609–1677), whom King Narai hired in 1663 as “Engineer to the King” to rebuild the defences and canals (khlong) of the capital as well as forts at Nonthaburi and elsewhere, and who also constructed a stone public fountain covered with tiles.15 The largest of the Ayutthaya churches at the time, it was destroyed by a fire in 1658 and rebuilt in 1661 along with the adjacent college in 1671. The new church, the first recorded example of architectural métissage, was made of stone imported from Macau and was painted in bright colours and gold to compete with Ayutthaya’s gilded temples: Jesuit Giovanni Filippo de Marini (1608–1682) wrote that “thanks to the local customs of colourfully painting and gilding, the façade’s architecture is so graceful that even the Gentiles are enchanted by it.”16 Nevertheless the college was modest and was staffed by only four priests and one brother in its opening year; it probably never had more than about sixty students at once.17 Unlike the French, the Jesuits of the Portuguese Padroado had a long history of encouraging hybrid architectural forms, most notably in Japan, where Jesuit visitor Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606) instructed missionaries

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buildings in the Portuguese camp were wooden structures on stilts.23 The 1661 reconstruction of São Paulo was the only one to use stone, and that was only because the Jesuits were able to import it from Macau. The Dominican church would have been typical: a rectangular brick hall with pilasters on the exterior, it measured 50 metres by 40 metres.24 The sources do not identify the builders, who were not all Siamese as most of the Christians were Cochinchinese. The name of one French craftsman survives: among the prisoners incarcerated in the aftermath of the 1688 Court Revolution was a “joiner to the Jesuits” (ménuisier des Jésuites) named Lapie, possibly a temporal coadjutor or more likely a lay worker or donné, one who by civil contract and solemn vow gave his labour as a gift to God, an essentially medieval institution used elsewhere, notably in NouvelleFrance.25 These men were meant to settle and raise Catholic families. Louis Laneau hints that the seminarians also employed such workers in a passage (quoted at greater length below) in which he asks his superiors to send a painter to adorn the new cathedral, and that “after he had finished this work … if he would like he could get married like the others.”26 Lapie may have contributed to the interior woodwork of the Jesuit House and Observatory at Lopburi, which will be discussed below.

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The Cathedral and Seminary of Saint-Joseph

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The mep ’s new wooden church and seminary (begun 1666) – both dedicated to Saint Joseph and located far to the west on the south bank of the river (fig. 3.2, “I”) – were replaced with much larger brick and mortar structures beginning in the 1670s under royal patronage and the close supervision of the king and Phaulkon. Indeed, before 1685, when Phaulkon switched allegiance to the newly arrived French Jesuits, he was quite

generous toward the mep .27 The buildings’ dimensions also reflected Saint-Joseph’s elevation to a cathedral and its new role as the mep ’s headquarters in Asia with the establishment of the Vicariate Apostolic of Siam under Laneau (1674).28 The most imposing structure of all the European camps, the Cathedral of Saint-Joseph was one of only four French episcopal sees outside France (as noted in chapter 2, the only one in the empire itself was the Bishopric of Quebec; the other two, in Đại Việt and China, had no permanent bases).29 The mep realized that a seminary in peaceful and cosmopolitan Siam would be an ideal base to train missionaries for and from China, Tonkin, Cochinchina, and elsewhere, particularly in language study, and to serve as a communications centre with Europe.30 It was the first French seminary in Asia and as important a base for the mep – both spiritually and politically – as the College of São Paulo in Goa (ca 1542) was for the Portuguese Jesuits. In a 1666 letter to François Pallu, Lambert related that the king has promised “to send us the materials to build our church” and that he had given the mep the quarter occupied by the Cochinchinese refugees: “the place is beautiful, we have accommodated ourselves in two wooden rooms roofed with tiles to try to protect our books and church furnishings.”31 In 1666 they replaced these temporary quarters with a “fairly large building” with a brick ground floor and a first floor of wood which included a spacious chapel and rooms for the missionaries and dormitories.32 The next year Lambert added that the main building had six rooms and a hall for the clerics and “a large chapel.”33 They named the settlement Camp Saint-Joseph. At this stage, the buildings were little more than rudimentary camp dwellings. Nearly a decade passed before the new structure promised by the king was begun. In 1674, the

of the church. It was presented to him, and this prince ordered that it be built according to this model [modèle], which is beautiful, great and magnificent.”40 All the evidence points toward a fluid collaboration: the missionaries had no architects among them and at best drafted what we might call a “back of the napkin” plan and elevations (a basically French-looking church) while Siamese court architects did the rest, using traditional structural and stylistic features. The plan went back and forth between the king and the missionaries, each making corrections and annotations, as would happen almost eighty years later when Jesuit artists and the Qianlong Emperor and his court architects designed the Sinobaroque Xiyanglou pavilions at the Yuanming Yuan summer palace (1747–83) in China.41 In 1682 Duchesne described the projected cathedral for the first time in a letter to the directors of the mep in Paris that was detailed enough that he must have had drawings of the plan, elevation, and interior at hand: “The church has three naves and two big square towers in front; its length, with the sacristy, which is the same height and built like the church, is 22 fathoms [40 metres]; it is built in a cross shape and the crossing is four fathoms wide [just over 7 metres] and 12½ long [about 23 metres], the body of the building is 10 fathoms [18 metres] wide and the height of the walls is six and a half fathoms [12 metres]. It has brick piers [piliers] in the church, octagonal, two fathoms [3.7 metres] apart from each other, which separate the naves, which are half a fathom [90 centimetres] in diameter. All around the roof there is a balustrade and lead eavestroughs … the inside is nicely panelled [lambrissé] and well gilded, as are the piers.”42 The cathedral was quite large – comparable to a parish church in a French market town – and it was essentially European in style, with classical balustrades. Nevertheless, this description

AyuTThAyA cA 1688

year Laneau became bishop, Narai encouraged him to begin working on a “really beautiful” new church “that he wants to build” and ordered the bishop to “prepare a plan [plan] of the most beautiful [buildings?], without regard for its potential cost” for his approval.34 Lambert claimed that it was to be “a magnificent church, one day the first cathedral in his realm.”35 The royal court and the seminarians were so closely involved with the project that it is difficult to tell which party was more responsible for the church’s extraordinary design – even the basic chronology and authorship remain unclear. A 1673 reference to the “plan” suggests a collaboration: the king approved a pencil drawing [tracé en crayon] made by the fathers but his changes reflected “the way he [i.e., the king] wanted to do it.”36 Yet in 1682 PierreJoseph Duchesne remarks that “at the beginning of December the King ordered a mandarin to build the church for the French bishops, according to the model that had been given to him [selon le modèle qu’on luy en avait donné],” implying that the mep were the authors.37 In a letter to Colbert (1682) Pallu claims that the mep retained control over the design and that Phaulkon offered to pay for the church regardless of size, “and in whatever manner I would like it: it must be three naves, eighteen or twenty toises in length, and of a proportionate width and height with two windows [croisées] and two towers at the sides of the façade [ frontispiece]. The King received the plan [plan] and ordered that it be followed.”38 Yet two 1684 sources say the opposite: that the church was built “according to the model [modèle] which [the king] himself had sent [Bishop Pallu]” and following “the plan [plan] which [the king] provided himself,” although the second source never visited Siam so he is less reliable.39 Nevertheless, in a letter of 1682, Boureau-Deslandes unequivocally attributed the plan to the missionaries: “the king sent [Phaulkon] to ask for the drawing [dessin]

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already reveals elements adopted from a Buddhist temple (wat). Such are the octagonal piers with gilded decoration, which are found, for example, in the assembly hall in the nearby Wat Na Phra Men (1503), and the gilded panels, which frequently adorn Buddhist ordination or assembly halls.43 The latter often include panelled “star ceilings” (dao phedan), featuring five to nine gilded stars formed of stylized lotus patterns on a blue or red background, which represent the cosmic order imposed by Buddhist law (dhamma). A star ceiling would be fitting in a cathedral as many medieval church ceilings in Europe were painted with golden stars – most famously, Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1242–48). It is possible that Phaulkon encouraged the mep to introduce Siamese forms into the church (as he did in his own chapel) to make the building fit better into its cultural environment: in the 1680s he advised the Jesuits to dress like Buddhist monks for that very reason, and although they refused the mep did not, donning Buddhist-style robes briefly between ca 1677 and 1686.44 Conversely, Siamese elements may have been introduced simply because professional Siamese architects and builders worked on the church: the workers would have laboured on conscription rolls performing their obligatory six-month corvée labour rotation, the same system used to build the king’s palaces and other public works projects.45 However there is no evidence in any of the letters written by mep missionaries that the group was interested in a hybrid structure: they wanted it to look like a French cathedral. Construction finally began on 15 March 1683. Pallu laid the cathedral’s first stone in full episcopal habit on 15 April in the presence of a court construction supervisor who returned incessantly to keep an eye on the building site and demonstrate the king’s personal interest in the project.46 The bishops were adamant that the interior

decoration, which was to include biblical figural scenes to assist in preaching, should adhere to European standards. On 15 January 1684 Laneau wrote to the mep directors in Paris asking for paintings and art supplies to decorate the interior: As our church built by the king advances day by day, it occurred to me that if you could send us, I do not dare say a painter, but a good dauber [barbouilleur] to paint all the mysteries of religion inside it would be a great advantage to our mission, because it would be better than ten preachers; and [the church] will be large enough to contain all the stories from both the Old and New Testaments … But it is said that the paintbrushes [pinceaux] here are worthless; there are enough colours; but, either the painters of these countries do not know how to use them, or they are hardly any good. There is a quantity of cinnabar [and] red lead, rather expensive Verdigris, not very handsome blue, a lot of Cambodian yellow, and indigo [and] ceruse, also expensive: this, it seems to me, is about all there is. The ones we lack should be procured, provided they do not cost much; for as long as it has a little brilliancy, and the colours are lively, it is more satisfactory than the beautiful pictures of Michelangelo and Poussin. Thus, parenthetically, if it were possible for the pictures [images] you send to be done in colours [enluminées], they would be much more esteemed than any of the most beautiful prints [tailles-douces, literally “intaglios”]. […] It would be fitting to gild the leather pieces [cuirs], as they do in Italy, and our missionaries would also very much like to have some windows for the choir.47 Laneau no doubt regretted the loss of Michael Sweerts, his companion on his overland journey

with the pre-eminence of Western art.51 Similarly, Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, founder of the China mission in 1583 and a scholar deeply versed in the Chinese literary classics, despised Chinese literati painting and begged his superiors in Rome for Italian paintings (he asked specifically for capolavori, or “masterpieces”) which he believed would astonish the Chinese literati and emperor.52 Nearly a century later, in 1766, French finance minister Henri Bertin (1720–1792) sent a set of Beauvais rococo-Chinoiserie tapestries designed by Francois Boucher (1703–1770), the so-called “Tenture chinoise” (1740), to the Qianlong emperor in Beijing in 1766 in hopes of demonstrating the superiority of the French tapestry manufactories.53 The most complete description of the cathedral and seminary of Saint-Joseph appears in a memoir by mep missionary Paul Aumont (1692–1773), who was in Siam between 1721 and 1724, long after the court revolution and during the reign of King Thaisa (r. 1709–33). Although most of the building would have looked as it had before 1688, other parts, notably the steeples, were added during a 1724 restoration. The description has never been translated except for a few short and partly inaccurate excerpts in a paraphrase, and it deserves to be quoted in full: The seminary of Siam is built in the middle of a large terrace raised about six feet above the level of the river, and only about thirty feet from its shore. The gate to the enclosure is in the middle of the front of this terrace which faces the river. Along the left side, upon entering, is the church, which is very big, and which has a quite beautiful portal [portail] overlooking the river, supported [soutenu] by four brick pilasters [or piers: “pilastres”].54 On each side of the portal there is a square tower crowned by a quite

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and a very good painter indeed. For his part Phaulkon supplied the seminarians with all of the interior furnishings “without overlooking a single thing,” but his munificence did not extend to altarpieces, which never seem to have materialized.48 Pallu wrote in December 1682 that the high altar would be dedicated to the Holy Trinity with an altarpiece of the Trinity and Holy Family; a “second large altar” (presumably in a transept) was to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary with Saints Francis and Dominic; the third altar (across from it) was to be dedicated to Saints Charles and Francis of Sales; a fourth, smaller, altar was assigned to Saints Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier; and the baptistery altarpiece of St John the Baptist would have a painting of the Baptism of Christ.49 The second altar sounds like a tribute to the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the fourth altar, although smaller, an unexpected concession to the Jesuits. But in the end the altars were dedicated to Saint Joseph (the high altar), Our Lady of the Rosary, and Saint Peter, and, thanks to the deprivations of the post-Revolution period, none of them had altarpieces.50 Laneau’s 1684 letter demonstrates once again that the bishop was not interested in promoting artistic hybridity but maintained a chauvinistic belief in the superiority of European arts – his heroes were Poussin and Michelangelo, the classical tradition – and that only European paintings and pigments would impress the Siamese and other Asians in Ayutthaya (in chapter 6 we will see a similar decision, regarding the Saigon Théâtre municipal, 1898–1900, to hire only French architects and designers). Such attitudes were common among missionaries and colonial officials in early modern Asia. A century earlier Jesuits under the Portuguese Padroado brought European prints, illustrated books, and a few original paintings to the courts of Mughal emperors Akbar and Jahangir in hopes of impressing them

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lofty steeple [pointe] surmounted by a ball [boule]. The church is all of whitewashed brick, solidly built, with two aisles flanking the choir door [i.e., nave entrance]; two transepts form a cross; the aisles curve around the choir and the sanctuary; behind the high altar is the sacristy, which is very large, forming a large square, two-storey building, not counting the sacristy, which is on the ground floor of the church [i.e., the building has three storeys with the sacristy at the bottom], so that it forms a large square tower [which is] behind the church and just as tall. The church is very well lit by large windows, the frames of which enclose canvas sheets, windows being unknown in this country; the roof is shaped like those of the idol temples of the country; inside it does not rise upward [montée] but has a [flat] ceiling of boards. Above the main entrance there is a very large loft, in which there is a fine organ, which the secretary of Monseigneur played quite well. It is reached by the tower on the right upon entering, and in which are also the bell and a big parish clock which works well; the other tower is empty. The high altar is located in the vault [cintre] at the end of the sanctuary. On the Gospel [left] side is Monseigneur’s throne, with a gilt wooden armchair that was earlier presented by the King of Siam, for the bishop to sit at church; a standard balustrade separates the sanctuary from the choir, where the clerics sit as in all the churches in France: at the foot of the choir, in the place of honour, there is an armchair and a prie-Dieu for the bishop when he does not officiate. In the left aisle, opposite the door on the side of the choir, a church door leads to the seminary; it is from there that Monseigneur and all the clerics enter.

It is about thirty feet from this door to the seminary building.55 The church and seminary were separate buildings, the latter behind the church and sacristy tower. About the seminary Aumont continues: The seminary is a large rectangular building, with two storeys and a ground floor, solidly built of bricks and whitewash. At the end closest to the church there is a tower as high as the seminary, which contains the staircase; the top forms a dovecote, always well supplied with pigeons. On each floor is a dormitory that goes from one end of the building to the other. The ground floor is divided into four parts by the corridor which goes from one end to the other and crosses the passage that runs through the middle of the house, from the front door to the back door. One of these four parts is the refectory, the other is the dispensary and the warehouse, the part to the right upon entering contains a hall with a room at the end for the prosecutor; it is there that he must listen to the affairs of Christians and judge them; but when matters are of importance, the parties are brought up to the first floor, where in the middle of the building is a great hall, in which Monseigneur listens to cases and receives his visits. The fourth part below is occupied by a staircase which only rises to the first floor, and behind this staircase there are three different storerooms for provisions. On the first floor, aside from that great hall which takes up the whole middle of the building, there are two large rooms for Monseigneur and four rooms for the European missionaries. On the second floor there are twelve rooms, of which two form the library; the others are for the Indian

[sic] missionaries and even the Europeans when there are many of them. The four main walls of this building are very solid; but the others, being of wood and brick, are not as much because the white ants eat this wood, and will one day cause a great expense; they have begun to sink, without making the main walls of the house unsteady; all the floorboards are mere planks, which makes it uncomfortable because of the noise which you hear above you … [the seminary is] placed in the middle of this great elevated terrace, as I have said, about six large feet above the river level. The wall surrounding this terrace surpasses the latter only as a support foundation [bord d’appui] on which are planted poles two and three inches apart from each other to a height of three to four feet, which surround the enclosure and prevent thieves from entering at night. From the end of the seminary to the enclosure on the right side, is a fairly wide space planted with a row of mango trees that look good; in front of and behind the seminary, are plots surrounded by small palisades containing flowers, salads and greenery. Behind the sacristy is a small cemetery where only children who die after baptism are buried; in this cemetery there are several trees.56

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Phaulkon enthused in a 1682 letter to Pope Innocent XI, in which he noted that the king had spent 800,000 pieces of eight on the cathedral, that it would be so vast that “when it is finished, I know not where the Christians will be found to use it.”57 Phaulkon also claimed, as relayed by Bénigne Vachet in 1685, that King Narai intended that his beneficence would be recorded for posterity in golden letters over the church’s facade, in the entablature or pediment, with the words “This is the reward that one such, a king of Siam, gave

to another such [Louis XIV] and to his successors.”58 The complex was so impressive that it won the praise even of the mep ’s enemies. Tachard wrote that “this house is the most beautiful in the City & in the Countryside around Siam [i.e., Ayutthaya].” More interestingly, he specifically comments on the seminary’s French style: “It consists of a large double building [corps de logis double] with two storeys built “à la Françoise,” where twenty people can comfortably be accommodated. He describes the rooms as “large and high, some giving onto the garden and the others onto the Church which the King of Siam had built earlier.” 59 Although the church was still incomplete in 1686, he praised its orderly design [dessin régulier] and declared that “it would pass for beautiful, even in the Cities of Europe.” Charles-François Dollu, a Jesuit scientist who arrived with the second French embassy, wrote in 1687 about the “beautiful and magnificent seminaries which are being built here by the goodness of a very great King [i.e., Narai] who esteems us beyond what we can imagine as well as his illustrious minister [i.e., Phaulkon] who cares for us.”60 Even company men shared in the enthusiasm: Bourreau-Deslandes noted in November 1683 that “the favours that this prince makes to Messeigneurs the French Bishops of the Holy See in these countries are very special, he built them a large Church near the beautiful seminary which he built for them a few years back.”61 This remark suggests that most of the building was finished in a mere nine months. Even the Protestant traveller Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) praised it as “a fine Church” but, since he was writing in 1690 during its temporary closure, he also notes that it was “now lock’d up.”62 As it happens the church was not finished until after the court revolution – in time for Christmas 1695 and – ironically, given that he had banned proselytization – thanks to “a considerable

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amount of money” provided by Narai’s successor Phra Phetracha (r. 1688–1703); this detail is usually left out of histories of the Franco-Siamese exchange and demonstrates that Phetracha was a more tolerant ruler than he is given credit for.63 Nevertheless the church still lacked altarpieces and the tile roof suffered from the rains almost immediately. The Monday before Pentecost the very next year (1696) half of it collapsed and had to be repaired with thatching; the other half followed suit in October 1713 and was still “in tatters” in 1718 when part of the east doorway collapsed; and the church still “leaked everywhere” in 1721.64 The building described by Aubert had been restored in 1724 by Monsignor Jean de Lolière-Puycontat (1685–1755). In a letter dated 1724 Bishop Louis Champion de Cicé (in office 1700–27) wrote: “The new form and decoration which it has been given have been extremely pleasing to the Siamese and to all the foreign nations who are in this kingdom, and the King [Pumintharacha] has not complained, as one had reason to fear, of two steeples [donjons] that were made to complete the two towers, which makes the whole church very agreeable.”65 The last we hear of the church before its 1767 destruction is a 1741 report that the roof was leaking once more and that water had damaged the floor. The seminary, like the sacristy tower behind the church, was a three-storey building with its own staircase, tower, and dovecote. It was completed in 1680, long before the church.66 Seminaries were particularly critical to the mep ’s objectives because, unlike the regular orders, their remit was to train a secular, parochial clergy, and they needed permanent buildings devoted to advanced study in theology and final formation for the priesthood.67 However in Ayutthaya the centre served a variety of functions: it was a seminary, a school of moral theology for aspiring clerics and upper-level students, a school for Siamese pupils sent by the king, a school for Christian children,

and a lodging for catechumens, all the while serving as the parish office.68 It combined public and private zones: the ground floor housed the court of the Christian community but the building also contained a refectory, dispensary, and dormitories – it is typical of the racism even of the missionaries that white seminarians enjoyed better lodgings on the first floor along with the bishop while “Indian” missionaries (a catch-all term for non-Europeans) lived on the top floor, sharing their quarters with Europeans only when they ran out of room. Tachard called the building a “double corps de logis,” which means a building containing two rooms or two suites of rooms along its width; in this case it was actually divided into four.69 During the 1688 court revolution most of its furniture was looted. The mep also ran a Latin preparatory school for Asian youth founded in 1680 at Mahapram (the name for the Cochinchinese quarter in the Saint-Joseph camp), which was relocated in 1686 on Phaulkon’s initiative to a new building and chapel on the main island.70 It was a feeder institution for the seminary and was mostly made up of Cochinchinese boys. It bore a Latin inscription over the entrance portal in “large characters” identifying it as the “Collegium Constantinianum” – proof again that Phaulkon did not stop supporting the mep after he had become Tachard’s co-conspirator.71 Unlike the seminary though, this building was built of wood or even bamboo.72 Confusingly, early sources often refer to the “college” and “seminary” interchangeably when there were really two institutions: the college for boys (or minor seminary) and the seminary proper (major seminary).73 As Adrien Launay remarks: “for a long time the missionaries of Siam have given many meanings to the term seminary: it is sometimes the bishopric, the rectory, the church, the college, in a word the whole of their first complex at Juthia [sic]: sometimes the bishopric and the rectory which

were a single dwelling; sometimes the general college.”74 The Collegium Constantinianum was destroyed on royal orders after the court revolution, and although the institution moved back to Mahapram in 1714 the new building was completed only in 1740 and was a modest structure, although one would never guess so reading reports by the likes of mep missionary Louis-Armand Champion de Cicé (1648–1727), who wrote in 1723 that it was as fine as anything built by “the most capable architects of France” in a style that was “partie européenne, partie indienne.”75 Less than thirty years after its completion it, too, was torched by the Burmese. Saint-Joseph Cathedral and Franco-Siamese Architecture

3.3 (Top ) Claude Baillif, first project for the facade of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Quebec City, ink on paper, 1683. Musée de la Civilisation, Archives du Séminaire du Québec.

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The Cathedral of Saint-Joseph was an outstanding building: a French ground plan with an elevation combining a Siamese temple roof with French belltowers and possibly a Graeco-Roman portico. On a rudimentary level the cathedral emulates French gothic cathedrals with their paired towers, high steeples, Latin cross plan with a nave and side aisles, organ loft above the entrance, and round apse and ambulatory. It may even have been meant to evoke the cathedral of NotreDame in Paris, which had all of the features save the steeples and would have been a natural model for France’s first cathedral in Asia – as it was for the only other cathedral in the French colonial empire, the exactly contemporary Notre-Dame de Québec (1684–97) (fig. 3.3), and, much later, Notre-Dame in Saigon (1877–80) (fig. 9.14).

3.4 (BoTTom ) Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas in Faubourg Saint-Jacques, Paris, 1675–84. 101

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However in this period medieval forms were usually hidden behind a veil of classicism.76 Seventeenth-century ambulatories, for instance, were formed of smooth columns, classical pilasters, and entablatures, as in the contemporary church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas in Faubourg Saint-Jacques (1675–84) (fig. 3.4).77 French architectural books, which must have circulated at court or at the seminary library, were likely also used for the church of Saint-Joseph. For example, one readily available model for a twin-towered church was Jacques Lemercier’s facade for the church in Cardinal Richelieu’s utopian town of Richelieu (begun 1631), which has a pair of stalwart towers with high steeples shaped like obelisks (although they are at the back of the church the engraving collapses the perspective so they seem further forward).78 This engraving appears in the “Petit Marot” (1659), one of the most popular and widely circulated illustrated architectural manuals of its day (it does not appear in the “Grand Marot,” used, as we have seen, by the Jesuits at Chandernagore) (figs. 2.13–15).79 Paired towers were likely a proclamation of the building’s cathedral status, as was the case in the Quebec cathedral, which was meant to have flanking towers with high belfries (although only the right one was ever built) (fig. 3.3).80 Indeed Claude Baillif ’s project for Notre-Dame may well be the kind of church the mep was aiming for in Ayutthaya. However, that was not the church they got: the Cathedral of Saint-Joseph was deeply indebted to contemporary Buddhist temple architecture, as we have already seen in the interior. Although intact Ayutthaya-period buildings are rare, the ordination hall (ubosot) at Wat Luang in Ang Thong, southwest of Lopburi (first quarter eighteenth century), gives a good idea of some of the features that might have been present in the cathedral (figs. 3.5–6). In a Siamese Buddhist temple compound the ubosot or bot is where the

monks take their vows, and it usually has an altar with one or more Buddha images. It is usually rectangular, east-facing, and capable of accommodating large groups.81 It is therefore ideal for transformation into a church. Typical of the Ayutthaya period is the building’s side profile: a gently curving roofline dips in the middle and rises to meet the pediments at each end and is echoed in the cornice at the base of the roof and in the bowed, raised plinth that resembles the profile of a boat. So are the large windows on the sides, recalling Aumont’s remark that Saint-Joseph was “well-lit.” The facade of each end of the ubosot is crowned by a high, curvilinear, lotus-shaped pediment bookending a high-pitched tile roof that slopes outward at the base where it meets the cornice. This is likely the type of roof Aumont was referring to when he said that the cathedral’s roof, which however had a flat ceiling on the inside, was “shaped like those of the idol temples of the country.” In 1687 Claude Céberet simply wrote that the church was “made in the form of a pagoda (en forme de pagode).”82 Another feature of the Wat Luang ubosot that may have been present at Saint-Joseph is the porch, which sits on four piers (sao) and extends the full width of the facade. If Saint-Joseph’s portico was not classical (i.e., if Aumont means “pier” instead of “pilaster”) this is most likely what it looked like. The cathedral’s spires may also have indigenous origins. Since Aumont and Champion de Cicé both emphasize their height – to the extent that the latter was worried that they would offend the monarch – they may derive from the upper parts of one of three temple and palace structures found all over Ayutthaya: the prang, chedi, or mondop, all of them symbolizing the 3.5 (oppoSiTe Top ) Wat Luang, ubosot, Ang Thong (Thailand), first quarter eighteenth century, side view. 3.6 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Wat Luang, ubosot, Ang Thong (Thailand), facade.

tiered heavenly abodes of Mount Meru (fig. 3.7). Originating in Khmer architecture, a prang is a richly carved and elongated corncob-shaped Buddhist memorial tower.83 A chedi is a stupa, or an enclosed, elongated bell-shaped tower for Buddha relics, which in Thailand is surmounted by a narrow spire of circular tiers. A mondop is a square or cruciform pavilion used for temple and palace buildings alike with a pyramidal roof crowned by multiple tiers with saw-tooth edges and miniature gables diminishing in size and ending in an often dramatically high and narrow needle-like spire. Of the three the mondop is the most likely candidate for the cathedral spires as it has a square base and was not specifically religious – a Buddhist structure on a Christian church would not only have seemed inappropriate to the missionaries but, more importantly, the Siamese would have considered it sacrilegious. If the cathedral’s steeples took the form of a mondop – not to mention if they were gilded as was customary – the church would have looked something like the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings we will look at in chapters 7 to 9 (e.g., figs. 7.3, 9.30): indigenous roofs and spires taken from temple and palace architecture on top of hybrid EuropeanAsian structures. The Ambassadors’ Residence/Palace of Phaulkon, Lopburi The most important surviving Franco-Siamese buildings from the Ayutthaya period are the

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3.7 (oppoSiTe ) A prang, mondop, and chedi spire in the Ayutthaya style at the Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok. The Prasat Phra Dhepbidorn or Royal Pavilion (left) is from 1856; the Phra Mondop (centre) is a library and dates from 1789; and the Phra Siratana Chedi or Golden Stupa (right) is from 1855.

eastern and central sectors of the Ban Luang Rap Ratcha Tut (“House Where the King Receives the Ambassadors of Foreign Kings”), popularly known as Ban Wichayen, or Phaulkon’s Palace, in Lopburi.84 Probably first built as a residence for Chaumont’s embassy in 1685 on King Narai’s orders, they were also used as a reception hall for La Loubère and Céberet two years later (figs. 3.8–9). Michel Jacq-Hergoualc’h calls them “the only vestiges of any importance that attest to the influence of European taste on the architecture of Siam in the seventeenth century,” but curiously no contemporary descriptions survive.85 Not that they would necessarily have been very enlightening: in 1683 an mep report referred to its sister structure in Ayutthaya as having been built “in the French manner” [à la manière de France], which could refer to anything from architectural style or distribution of rooms to decor and furnishings.86 The same year BoureauDeslandes wrote about the same building that it had “all the requisites [ustancilles] in the manner of Europe [à la manière d’Europe] necessary to furnish it.”87 All that the Abbé de Choisy tells us about the Lopburi complex is (in 1685) that it was furnished “in the usual manner” [meublée à l’ordinaire] – whether usual for Siam or for France we will never know – and that it had “a perfectly beautiful salon with a large portrait of the king [i.e., Louis XIV],” while Tachard wrote (in 1687) that it was “superbly furnished [superbement meublée] and had very commodious apartments, quite comfortable and very appropriate for over thirty officers,” although in this case he may have been referring to the western sector.88 Since Phaulkon knew he had to impress people who knew Versailles and Paris personally it is not surprising that the building evokes French grand siècle residential architecture, the eastern palace taking the form of a U-shaped, two-storey corps de logis surrounding a courtyard and accessed by

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3.8 Ban Chao Wichayen, Lopburi (Thailand), central sector and forecourt with chapel at the back and left wing of the ambassadors’ residence on the right, 1685.

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a curvilinear staircase (fig. 3.8). Anuvit Charoensuphakul comments that it was built “to please the Europeans.”89 However, there is little consensus about the original function of the complex or even about which building was the ambassadors’ residence. E.W. Hutchinson believes that the eastern sector and chapel, with their regular layout and thicker walls, were built expressly for the 1685 embassy and that after its departure Phaulkon occupied them and added the western section, which he calls “hasty” and “of flimsy construction.”90

Jacq-Hergoualc’h concurs that the chapel and eastern building were the first to be built, between 1684 and 1685, but maintains that they were intended as Phaulkon’s house even if the ambassadors were the first to occupy them.91 Lamare’s 1687 manuscript plan of Lopburi is explicit that the property is the “house of Monsieur de Phaulkon with an opulent (riche) chapel,” and that it was in that house that he hosted Chaumont and his embassy officials. John Listopad disagrees with Hutchinson and ignores Jacq-Hergoualc’h, conjecturing that the western sector was built first, perhaps as a house for a Persian merchant who then fell out of favour, and that it was later handed over to the embassies.92 He concludes that the eastern sector palace and

chapel were built later (without suggesting a date), the eastern palace partly as a “monk’s quarters” and “monk’s reception hall” (by which I assume he means the Jesuit mathematicians and not Buddhist monks) and “secular offices,” and that they were all built “under the supervision of European architects.”93 The eastern palace’s technical and stylistic discrepancies with European architectural

3.9 (LefT ) Ban Chao Wichayen. Doorway into the east wing of the ambassadors’ residence, 1685. 3.10 (righT ) Elevation of the Facade Facing the Court of the Main Building […]. From Pierre Le Muet, Manière de bien bastir pour toutes sortes de personnes (Paris, 1681; first edition 1623). Getty Research Institute.

practice, which Jacq-Hergoualc’h discusses in some detail and which I will summarize below, indicate, on the contrary, that it was constructed by Siamese builders. Listopad’s claim that Europeans built the chapel – which is profoundly un-European – is even less convincing. The complex was built in two phases, the first completed in 1685 and the second begun that same year and finished sometime before the 1687 embassy: as Tachard notes in his Second Voyage: “[Phaulkon] had prepared for [the ambassadors] a very beautiful house, which he had begun two years ago right next to (tout auprès de) the one he had already built for the previous mission in which the ambassador was lodged.”94 In his journal Céberet also confirms that Phaulkon had moved into the

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earlier part of the palace by 1687, “[his] mansion was adjacent to that destined to receive us.”95 All three sectors are accessed from the street on the south through individual arched entrances, the central one surmounted by a triangular pediment and the flanking ones with arched pediments. In the case of the eastern gate, visitors then crossed an outer courtyard flanked by sunken water tanks before reaching the staircase to the palace. Hutchinson surmises that the main wing of the eastern palace, now in ruins, was a “great Hall of Ceremony.”96 French classicism is most obviously reflected in the buildings’ many doorways and windows, especially in the eastern palace, where they are arranged in two storeys divided by a string course, a scheme probably adopted from the Petit Marot and Le Muet, the latter of which included several idealized townhouse facades with classically dressed windows (figs. 3.9–10). But the details, especially the doorways, are sufficiently unorthodox to make the participation of European architects unlikely. They are crowned by two entablatures rather than one, the lower one invaded by the arch, which is segmented rather than round. The twin entablature is supported by Doric pilasters, two stocky layered ones whose capitals appear at the springing of the arch but then extend upward, on the outsides only, to meet the uppermost cornice, and a slender one attached to them that – interrupted nine-tenths of the way up by a fragmentary string course – does reach the entablature, like a truncated giant order (fig. 3.9).97 The pediment perched atop this outsized substructure seems like an afterthought. The motif of the slender pilaster superimposed on wide layered ones appears throughout the complex, including at the entrance portals. By contrast, the chapel (1685), dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and consecrated in 1687 with a spectacular fireworks ceremony, has few

recognizably European features but significant Siamese and Persian elements (figs. 3.11–12).98 Chaumont wrote that it was “built after the Moorish [sic] fashion.”99 Most noteworthy is the blind lotus arch that appears over the windows and doorways on the north and south facades (only the northern ones survive), as well as high pilasters crowned with lotus capitals, some of which also once adorned the pilasters on the main 3.11 Ban Chao Wichayen, Chapel of Notre-Dame-deLorette. 1687. Western (main) facade. 3.12 (oppoSiTe ) Ban Chao Wichayen, Chapel of NotreDame-de-Lorette. 1687. North entrance with blind lotus arch.

be an adaptation of the lantern in the engraving. Hutchinson calls the Loreto chapel “probably the only Christian Church in the world decorated in Buddhist style,” but he neglects Saint-Joseph Cathedral in Ayutthaya.101 Although an empty shell today, the interior was an even more radical hybrid, designed by Phaulkon and painted by an unnamed Japanese Christian artist.102 Tachard admired its opulence and size, but criticized its irregularity and asymmetry because Phaulkon “built it according to his fantasy” and allegedly did not employ a professional architect (however the building is too sophisticated to be the work of amateurs; palace architects must have been involved): But it is difficult to find fault with it. Marble – so precious, so little known, and so

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(west) facade. As Listopad notes, the building has five interior bays with windows on each side like a wihan (assembly hall, also spelled viharn) and square brick foundations between the stairs and chapel belonging to a Buddhist-style ho rakhang belltower.100 By contrast I have traced the main (west) facade – lotus capitals aside – to an engraved model: the Petit Marot’s illustration of the facade of the Chapel of Saint-Joseph or the Visitation (ca 1650) in Moulins (Auvergne) (fig. 3.13). The architect of the Loreto chapel has extracted the central part of the Auvergne church with its paired pilasters, rectangular doorway, circular staircase, and – unusual for Lopburi architecture – the prominent oculus window over the door. However, instead of ending with a triangular pediment, the pilasters extend to the top, where an arched Persian window may

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3.13 The Facade of the Chapel of Monsieur de Montmorency Made at Molins [sic] in Bourbonnois. From Jean Marot, Recueil des plans, profils, et eleuations … par les meilleurs architectes du royaume (Paris, 1659), also known as the Petit Marot. Getty Research Institute.

esteemed in the Indies – is not spared. On whatever side we cast our eyes, from the top of this chapel to its foundation, we can see nothing but gold and paint. The paintings in which the principal Mysteries of the Old and New Testaments are represented in

sequence are not exquisite, but the colours are surprising; and the painter, who is of the Japanese nation, has shown that if the fine arts were as well esteemed and cultivated in the Indies as they are in Europe, the Indian and Chinese Painters might not be outdone by the more skilful European Masters. The tabernacle on which they are working quickly will be very large and all of solid silver … the roof of this chapel is triple, in the manner of the temples [triple à la manière des Pagodes], and it is covered with Calin, which is a kind of white metal, between tin and lead, and much lighter than either. A Balustrade the height of a railing surrounds the building and separates it from the two Houses which Mr. Constance had built at Louvo [Lopburi] because the Siamese take this precaution, and try to mark their veneration for sacred places, separating them from all the other Edifices which serve the needs of men. In front of the gate facing the street there is a quite large courtyard in the shape of an Amphitheatre, which one ascends by twelve or fifteen steps, in the middle of which stands a giant stone Cross, which will be gilded, placed on a large pedestal, whose ornaments & structure are of an Architectural style very different from ours [une Architecture bien differente de le nostre]. All around this court runs a kind of gallery three feet high, where there are small recesses spaced apart, to place lamps, which are kept lit from the first Vespers of the great Festivals until the next day.103 By “triple” Tachard presumably means the spectacular “telescopic” type, with three superimposed sloping wooden roofs, that derives from Khmer culture and was used on the most important Siamese temple and palace buildings (fig. 3.14).104

Kaempher referred to them as “many bended roofs.”105 The recesses in the courtyard were likely chīnī-khāna wall-niches like the ones in the Lopburi royal palace, and the low wall surrounding the church recalls the kamphaeng kaeo or “jewel wall” placed around wats to protect sacred ground.106 The Japanese painter, possibly from 3.14 Wat Phra Kaew, Grand Palace, Bangkok, Phra Ubosot with its triple roof, completed 1783.

the Jesuit-run Seminary of Painters, first active in Nagasaki from ca 1590 to 1614 but by that time based in Macau, would have been trained to copy European models but, as extant works by members of that workshop demonstrate, they blended Western perspective, shading, and subject matter with brilliant Japanese colours (hence Tachard’s reference to “surprising” colours) and the calligraphic line common to Chinese and Japanese painting.107 It is also noteworthy that the painter

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executed narrative biblical scenes of the sort Laneau wanted for the cathedral as an aid to preaching: although a standard Christian tradition, narratives were also deeply engrained in Siamese Buddhist mural painting, where episodes from the Ramakien (the Siamese version of the Ramayana), the life of the historical Buddha and other themes were used by the monks to explain doctrine to laypeople in the temples and were also a meditative tool.108 Phaulkon’s ambassadors’ residence and Loreto chapel show that radically different hybridities can be commissioned by the same patron, possibly the same architects, and at roughly the same time – demonstrating once again the importance of contextualization when using the term. The question remains as to why Phaulkon designed such a profoundly hybrid church, in which Ayutthaya courtly style was so dominant, next to his more outwardly French ambassadors’ residence (now his home) with its classical entablatures and pediments and its portrait of Louis XIV. Was it meant to be a symbol of the commensurability of French and Siamese culture – a celebration of his role as the linchpin of the Franco-Siamese exchange? Was it an attempt to make the building seem less alien to Siamese people for the purposes of conversion? Or did he simply give the builders leeway to build as they wanted, aside from the French facade model that presumably he supplied? The sources provide no clues, but by reading the building I have no doubt that Notre-Dame-de-Lorette was one of Phaulkon’s greatest works of self-propaganda – a symbol of what he saw as his political victory and projecting a vision of royal splendour appropriate to his position at court. He was far too savvy to let his architects have the run of the place (Tachard, for what it is worth, attributes its design to him) and he had no personal interest in converting people to Christianity – his own conversion after

all was one of convenience. In fact, Phaulkon was meticulous in his use of and manipulation of style, altering it to suit the function and politics of whatever building he commissioned, just as seamlessly as he switched between languages, faiths, and dress. Let us also remember the not insignificant motivation that his life quite literally depended upon maintaining the delicate balance between France and Siam. The Jesuit House and Observatory at Lopburi and Smaller Religious Establishments Although the Loreto Chapel was the most impressive, there were other court-sponsored projects for churches and Catholic residences in Lopburi, which had a population of 190 Christians by the 1680s.109 Although it was never built, King Narai was keen to commission a church there for the mep : Boureau-Deslandes noted in 1683 that, “after a few days [the king] ordered a model [modèle] for another church, which he wanted to build them at Louvo.”110 The Jesuits had better luck, mostly because of the Jesuit astronomers who came with the second French embassy. In 1686 they announced that they were building their own “house & observatory” in the city which, together with a college chartered by the king, would be “ready to receive” new recruits from France at the end of the following year. Drawing a parallel between royal patronage in France and Siam, Tachard wrote: “come … my Fathers, and leave a Royal College of France to come here to another Royal College to teach your sciences.”111 By this time the Jesuits were regularly using observatories to impress Asian rulers with the perceived superiority of Western science: most famously in Beijing (1673) and also in Tonkin and Cochinchina.112 The Jesuits would stage circus-like contests between their scientists and those of the court to predict the arrival of a

wanted something that looked French and not a converted temple or Buddhist-inflected structure. Maldonado’s unusual attitude is consistent with his Iberian background and affiliations – of Spanish parentage and born in the Spanish Netherlands, he answered to the Portuguese Jesuits of Goa and Macao when in Asia. As noted, the Portuguese Jesuits had long accommodated to indigenous forms in their foundations in Asia, and Maldonado may have been sympathetic with their approach.118 An anonymous watercolour from Tachard’s cahier shows how the residence and observatory were meant to look when completed (fig. 3.15), although only the foundations of the Latincross church are shown, separated from the residence by an open lawn.119 The caption notes that “there was a large building on two storeys with two wings and a big octagonal tower of 60 feet in diameter and three floors, all with leadcoloured terraces.”120 The rectangular complex was arranged around a courtyard, with three wings and a stone (?) wall and gate at the far end. The side wings and main building have regularly spaced rectangular windows as at the Ban Chao Wichayen (fig. 3.8), and although Céberet referred to it as being built “in the Doric order” in 1687 there is no hint of any of the classical architectural features of the earlier building.121 The observatory is reminiscent of those attached to Jesuit religious institutions in Europe such as the Clementinum in Prague (1722) and Collegio Romano (1797). The college and church allegedly survived the court revolution; Tachard notes that it was “re-established” (rétabli) in 1696 when the church was finally “completed.” Nevertheless, the painting is suspect because it precisely follows the plan and exaggerated angle of a “Greek Temple” illustrated in the “Grand Marot,” the book used as the model for the Chandernagore church (fig. 2.15).122

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lunar eclipse. When they were particularly lucky the monarch, whether the Kangxi Emperor of China or the chúa of Cochinchina Nguyễn Phúc Chu (r. 1691–1725), would respond by inviting Jesuit astronomers to reside at court. In Siam French Jesuits made enough of an impression on King Narai in 1685 that he built them observatories in Lopburi and Ayutthaya. The mep were rightly suspicious of this kind of showmanship, which they considered to be “a burden and hindrance rather than a real help” to missionary work.113 Tachard boasted that the king gave the Jesuits 100 slaves – they were not slaves but corvée labourers – to build their establishment at Lopburi as well as a new house in Ayutthaya and land for Jesuit residences in Ayutthaya and Mergui “in the most beautiful place in these two cities.”114 In 1686 he claimed that the Jesuits already possessed in Lopburi “an observatory, house and church as fine as at Siam [i.e., Ayutthaya].”115 The next year Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Maldonado wrote to Louis XIV’s Jesuit confessor François de la Chaise that “we fathers ourselves have drawn” the plan for the buildings at Lopburi with Phaulkon’s blessing; however Maldonado criticized them for being too small and uncomfortable. Maldonado preferred simply to repurpose Buddhist monasteries, which he naively believed would help entice Buddhists to convert (he was also naive to believe that the Siamese authorities would so desecrate a temple).116 Before departing with the final Siamese embassy in 1688 Tachard noted that the observatory/college was “quite advanced” [“assez avancé ”] and “a lovely structure” that would one day be “the most beautiful house & the best known in the Indies”– although its brick walls were still only eight feet high and the church had yet to be started. The Jesuits were still seeking “a good Architect” in France to draw the plans.117 It seems therefore that most French Jesuits still

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3.15 House Which the King of Siam Has Ordered Built for the Jesuit Mathematicians of the King. From Usages de Siam. Watercolour and ink on paper, 40 × 29 cm. BNf . The unfinished Latin-cross church is shown on the left.

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The missionary establishments in Ayutthaya and Lopburi were possible only because of a brief moment of royal favour driven by diplomacy and not because of any Siamese enthusiasm for Christianity. In fact the irony was that the Jesuits and mep were both much more successful as proselytizers in places of persecution and warfare; in Siam, the much vaunted cathedral and colleges served a small Christian population who were mostly non-Siamese, many of them to be deployed elsewhere as catechists.123 Jacques de Bourges estimated during his visit in 1662–63 that there were 2,000 Christians, mostly refugees,

in the entire kingdom; by contrast missionaries had converted 300,000 Christians in China by 1700.124 The Jesuits and mep built several small churches elsewhere in Siam (the mep ran six parishes), but they were quite basic like those we will see in Tonkin or Cochinchina (see chapter 5). In fact their simplicity may have helped their image: as Bernard Wirth points out, humility had its propagandistic advantages as a reminder of the simple poverty of the new Christians.125 Typical was the little chapel built in 1667 in the Lao quarter of Ayutthaya built “à la façon du pays,” a shed of wood or bamboo.126 No one bothered to describe the mep churches of L’Immaculée-Conception-de-la-Sainte-Vierge in Bangkok (built 1674–75) or the Église des Trois-Rois-Mages and another chapel in Phitsanulok – both made of planks (planches) – or their churches in Sangeoc,

Jaane, Macaam, Bengarin (1671), Jonsalam (1671), and Tenasserim (1674), all destroyed in the court revolution.127 The Bangkok church was rebuilt in 1790 (fig. 2.16), and a larger version was built next to it in 1836 in neo-Romanesque style. All that Choisy could say about the fifteen or sixteen churches in the realm in 1685 is that they were “larger or smaller … according to the quantity of new Christians.”128 In the 1720s and ’30s the mep maintained a “poor” little church at Mergui dedicated to the L’Immaculée-Conception, which occupied a commanding position over the port and even had a tower with a cupola but was built of “planches,” stone being forbidden by the court, who reasonably feared the French would use their churches as fortresses.129 For the most part these buildings were literally nothing to write home about. French-Designed Fortifications and Conflicting Loyalties

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Another kind of architectural collaboration, this time between Siamese and European patrons and European designers, were the fortifications and canals designed by French engineers in the 1680s, projects commissioned simultaneously by the Siamese court and the French military and therefore reflecting conflicting loyalties. Architects include a “self-taught” engineer named La Mare who accompanied the 1685 embassy with “six workers for the king of Siam” and who left autograph plans of forts for Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Bangkok, Mergui, and elsewhere; the irascible Lille architect Jean Vollant des Verquains (1658– 1729), who came with the second embassy in 1687 and later published Histoire de la révolution de Siam, arrivée en l’année 1688 (1691); a certain Sieur de Brissay who worked on the French comptoir in Mergui; and Sieur de Langres, who also arrived in 1687 and about whom little is known

(a further engineer, Sieur Plantier, died en route or soon after arrival).130 These are likely the “artists” mentioned by Kaempfer in 1690 as having been sought in France.131 Some completed Valguarnera’s work for King Narai at Lopburi palace as Gervaise remarks: “[In the first court] is a large tank, which supplies the whole place with water. It is the work of a Frenchman and an Italian, who were more fortunate and more skilled in hydraulics than the numerous other foreigners who have worked there with the ablest Siamese engineers for ten entire years without having been able to bring to work to a conclusion.”132 A higher-ranking official serving the Siamese king in this capacity was Claude de Forbin (1656–1733), a French naval officer who “modernised the fortifications at Bangkok and mounted the best European artillery on them.”133 La Mare was the first Frenchman hired by King Narai, in 1685, to improve his kingdom’s fortifications.134 Judging by surviving plans, all dating from 1687, most of his work was very basic, involving the repair or replacement of ramparts, and the construction of dams and modest bastions.135 There are a few exceptions as in an urban development project for Mergui with a grid of streets, Place d’Armes, commander’s mansion, and church.136 The most ambitious project, for Lopburi, would have involved superimposing a massive circular ramparts with twelve bastions and seven demi-lunes directly on top of the existing city, which would have meant destroying much of the western sector, including temples (which would never have been permitted) and half the royal palace – a kind of obliviousness to the existing urban fabric that was more characteristic of French projects in the Americas.137 Mostly, La Mare was too overwhelmed to move beyond stopgap measures and he was further pressured by his disinclination to build anything without the approval of Louis XIV.

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As it was the intended French base of operations, Bangkok fort was critical, and it is the only project in Siam planned according to Vaubanian principles. La Mare’s 1687 scheme included a pair of brick fortifications straddling the Chao Phraya river, on the east side a square citadel or cavalier (a small raised fort within a larger fort) surrounded by an uneven hexagonal curtain wall and five massive bastions on the land side, and on the west (Thonburi) a walled city, this time a regular hexagon with six evenly spaced bastions and a pair of demi-lunes on the north and south.138 The latter includes a spacious central Place d’Armes surrounded by a “maison de ville,” lodgings for officials and officers, and a church, and the rest of the citadel is given over to barracks, storerooms, powder magazines, and artisanal ateliers modelled on those at Brest. The enlisted men of the “two nations” (French and Siamese) were to be kept separate in their own “quarters,” in barracks on opposite sides of town, a precursor to Pondicherry’s “black” and “white” towns and to nineteenth-century French colonial cities with their racial segregation. Although still officially working for the king of Siam, La Mare reveals France’s true intentions in his plan for Bangkok. The western garrison town was a French colony in miniature, complete with a house for a governor and intendant, as if it were in the Caribbean or Nouvelle-France rather than a sovereign state belonging to a foreign monarch. French colonies were first staffed with governors and intendants under Colbert in the 1660s and were modelled upon the governmental structure of French provinces. The two officials represented a balance of power. The governor, who usually came from the old nobility (noblesse d’épée, or of the sword) and who represented the Crown and commanded the militia, was counteracted by the intendant, a position drawn mostly from the lesser nobility (noblesse de robe, or of the robe), who

was in charge of finances and civilian and commercial affairs.139 This reciprocity was sometimes expressed by the location of the governor’s and intendant’s house on the same square, as in this case. The ideology of conquest and French superiority is also echoed in the closeness of La Mare’s plan to Vauban’s fortified border cities in France’s ceinture de fer, or iron belt, such as Neuf-Brisach in Alsace (begun 1698), which has a square Place d’Armes and a similarly off-centre church, or Lille (1667– 72), although most of Vauban’s garrison towns were not completed until more than a decade later.140 La Mare’s garrison town was never built: in 1687 Vollant rejected it for its “considerable faults” and drew up his own design.141 Vollant, who may actually have trained with the Génie given the quality of his draughtsmanship, considered himself to be the only true engineer in Siam and particularly despised La Mare, whom he maintained “had no knowledge of the science of an engineer in France.”142 Vollant was so sure of his abilities that he encouraged the Ministry of the Marine to share his project with Vauban.143 He was also explicit about the colonial role of the new garrison town, which would put France “in possession of the most important post of all the Indies.”144 The French were not merely to stay but to settle: Vollant believed that French families would “be delighted” to move to the town and find “asylum” among those of their own nation. Nevertheless Phaulkon, and not the king of France, called the shots: as La Loubère bluntly put it in 1687, the Greek’s aims were “all contrary to the intentions of his Majesty [i.e., Louis XIV].”145 Particularly vexing was Phaulkon’s insistence that no wat or house be demolished if it happened to fall within the alignment of the fort. However, in the end Versailles fired Vollant: the final project for the eastern citadel was prepared in France by an engineer named de Houillères, a modest and economical bastioned square

structure measuring only 85 metres per side.146 Built in 1688, it was destroyed by King Phetracha the same year – a short and ignominious fate for a structure over which so many had argued for so long.147 Several of Vollant’s projects survive for buildings inside the Bangkok fort.148 A series of unsigned watercolours show the ground floor of the 3.16 Attributed to Jean Vollant des Verquains, project for an arsenal in the fort at Bangkok. Ink and watercolour on paper, 1687. ShD .

governor’s and other officials’ houses and a project for a barracks, which bear French and Siamese inscriptions describing their basic components and which are based loosely on the kind of hôtels particuliers published in treatises like Le Muet (fig. 3.10).149 The governor’s house is a rectangular corps de logis fronting a walled garden flanked by wings containing nine rooms, one of them a salon facing the entrance. More generic are two designs for a powder magazine, which are identical to those designed across the French colonial empire.150 In fact it is very close to a design by

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3.17 Attributed to Jean Vollant des Verquains, project for a chapel in the fort at Bangkok. Ink and watercolour on paper, 1687. ShD .

Vauban that was illustrated much later in Bernard Forest de Bélidor’s La science des ingénieurs (1729).151 The same goes for a two-storey, arcaded arsenal, which reflected the lean classical style of the architects working for Vauban, simple and economical but sharing a keen sense of proportion and uniformity with academic architects in Paris and Versailles (fig. 3.16).152 In Vauban’s

projects few buildings used classical orders and they tended to favour long horizontal facades with high roofs, with quoining and plain arcades. This structure is quite typical, with a broken-pitch roof (toit à deux pentes), plain rectangular windows on the first storey, an arcade on piers below, and a lack of surface ornament. The plan consists of two adjacent courtyards joined by a portal with two exterior gates. The outer courtyard, of one storey with an arcade on narrow piers, was meant to accommodate the smiths, wheelwrights, cannons, and munitions. The main courtyard,

with a double staircase flanking the entrance from the outer courtyard, was for storage of spare carts and ammunition barrels, and the first storey included storage for firearms but may also have included offices. More interesting is a project for the fort chapel (fig. 3.17).153 Its two-storey exterior facade with Ionic and possibly Corinthian pilasters lacks a door. Jacq-Hergoualc’h believes that the draughtsman may simply have forgotten to include it, but it seems more likely to be a false facade, perhaps located somewhere where it had to serve a defensive purpose and needed to be solid (the actual entrance to the church was from the back to the left of the apse). Similarly, the nave has architectural decoration only on the inside: five bays of Ionic pilasters supporting an entablature with five arched windows and two doorways with triangular pediments for the entrance and sacristy. The double roof is quite sophisticated: the lower vault rests on coffered transverse arches decorated with rosettes rising from each pilaster and the upper roof is of wooden truss work. In its understated classicism it recalls the Church of Saint-Louis in Pondicherry (1722) (figs. 4.4–6). Perhaps the most interesting thing about it, considering the discussion above of the churches and chapels in Ayutthaya and Lopburi, is that the Siamese inscription calls it a “wihan.”154 Baroque and Rococo Forms in AyutthayaPeriod Temple Architecture

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A fascinating epilogue to the Franco-Siamese exchange played out in stucco carving on the pediments (naa ban) of a handful of Buddhist ubosots and wihans and a palace structure in Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Ang Thong, Thonburi, Nonburi, and Samut Prakan, beginning under King Narai but mostly during the seventy years after his death, in a style Charoensuphakul calls

“L’École de Phra Narai.”155 The mostly triangular pediments of Siamese gable ends are the most highly decorated part of these buildings and usually occupy an imposing position high above the main entrance.156 The tightly wound arabesques of the Franco-Siamese stuccoes, which Charoensuphakul characterizes as being “almost entirely in the European style,” usually take the form of acanthus scrolls like those of the Ara Pacis in Rome (13 bc ) but are enlivened with naturalistic carvings of squirrels, monkeys, owls, and other animals and incorporate brightly coloured mosaics of (mostly) Chinese and Japanese porcelain shards or unbroken dishes, cups, and even teapots.157 In one case, at the Wat Luang at Ang Thong, we see three trees with large, dahlia-like flowers containing dishes, the peeling bark of the tree rendered with striking realism (fig. 3.6). These stuccoes are splendidly rich, particularly when the morning or afternoon light casts shadows over their surfaces. The use of stucco was also new: previously, pediments were decorated with stylized vegetal patterns in lacquered and gilded wood.158 However I am more skeptical about the degree of European influence present in many of these pediments – particularly since scrolling vines were already present in the pediments of sixteenth-century Ayutthaya and many of the scrolls combine acanthus with flame-like kranok leaf motifs, an indigenous form that also came into its own in the Ayutthaya period (fig. 3.18).159 Nevertheless there is no doubt that artists sought a creative and at times playful combination of indigenous and Western forms. The first temple pediment to exhibit Europeanstyle vegetal and figural images is the southern facade of a royal residence at the Wat Ta Wed in southern Ayutthaya (before 1688), roughly halfway between the Portuguese camp and the Cathedral of Saint-Joseph in the southern outskirts of the city (figs. 3.19–20). Scholars

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3.18 Wat Thammaram, Ayutthaya (Thailand), detail of front pediment on the wihan, mid-sixteenth century.

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3.19 (oppoSiTe Top ) Wat Ta Wed, Ayutthaya, wihan or palace, south facade, detail of pediment, before 1688.

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3.20 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Wat Ta Wed, Ayutthaya, wihan or palace, south facade, detail of pediment showing a volute ending in a finial in the form of a European in a lace collar and periwig, before 1688.

disagree about its function: Jacq-Hergoualc’h calls it a wihan but Listopad identifies it as a tamnak (residence), which agrees with later work (2015) by archaeologists from the Fine Arts Department, who call it a palace and the possible residence of King Narai’s daughter Chaofah

Kromluangyothathip.160 Although Listopad calls the facade “Dutch Baroque” and claims that it was carved by Dutch sculptors, Jacq-Hergoualc’h has convincingly traced the foliate scrolls on the pediment to Savonnerie tapestries given by Louis XIV to King Narai and which once adorned the palace at Ayutthaya (fig. 2.18).161 They might also have been inspired by silver gilt acanthus scrolls on the backs of hand mirrors sent as part of the first embassy: these patterns were published in a small pamphlet by Paul Androuet du Cerceau entitled Ornements d’orfèvrerie propres pour flenquer et émailler: Cinq desseins de boestes de miroirs faits pour les Ambassadeurs de Siam (Paris, ca 1685) (fig. 2.22).162 We know that Siamese mural painters and woodcarvers used pattern books with

standardized motifs which they would punch along the pattern and transfer to the surface to be painted or carved with chalk or charcoal dust.163 It is likely that stucco workers had similar albums of designs to which they added European prints, interpretations of French decorative arts, and

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3.21 Wat Yang Suthavat, Thonburi (Thailand), detail of rear pediment on the ubosot, last quarter seventeenth century.

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even depictions of Westerners. The facade has too many subtle Siamese features for European sculptors to have worked on it. Although highly damaged today the Wat Ta Wed pediment was once filled with rich, highrelief stucco scrolls, braided mouldings, and classical balusters. The patterns were first drawn in red pigment onto a skim coat of plaster and then flat sheets of wet stucco were twisted and pressed on top of them, in places incised with bamboo

3.22 Frenchmen on horseback with attendants, from a Ramakien (Ramayana) scene, lacquer with gilding, before 1688. Suan Pakkad Palace, Bangkok.

Although a wide spectrum of colours were used there they particularly favoured blue and white colour schemes, reflecting a fashion for Jingdezhen porcelain vessels from China. Persian kilns soon produced their own blue and white vessels as well as tiles or tile mosaics, formats not exported from China.169 Chinese and Persian blue and white vessels were also displayed on interior

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styluses.164 Heavy caterpillar-like volutes still hug the pediment’s profile and old photographs show that it was surmounted by a carving of a deva (tevada), a deity who occupies one of the six lower Buddhist heavens, with European features.165 A surviving finial (hang hong) on the upper left also takes the form of a Westerner with a periwig and a shirt with a lace collar (fig. 3.20), but there are also a Siamese coiled serpent (perhaps a naga, or snake deity) and kranok bird motifs in the scrolls. Particularly interesting is the triple-lobed blind arch in the middle – it once contained an image of a divinity – that uses French Regency–style trelliswork in the side panels and is depicted using one-point perspective as if the sides were open shutters. It resembles the engraved grotesques made popular by Jean Berain père (1640–1711).166 Only the upper third of the facade is decorated because the building once had a raised front porch supported by piers, now missing.167 This Franco-Siamese style matured during the reigns of Phetracha and Phra Chao Sua (1688–1709). The pair of pediments on the ubosot at Wat Yang Suthavat in Thonburi (last quarter seventeenth century) feature a particularly disciplined and symmetrical scroll pattern incorporating blue and white porcelain dishes in the middle of large blossoms, and it is the only one in which the arabesques are (re)painted gold like the ones on the Savonnerie carpet (figs. 2.21, 3.21).168 Nevertheless, the scrolls still maintain their Siamese appearance: instead of the thick branches with clearly delineated acanthus leaves the vines are covered with pointier kranok leaves with bevelled and incised edges. The crockery – in some cases shards as well as complete vessels – in my opinion relates to the aesthetics of Persia and Central Asia, where brightly coloured tiles proliferated on the exteriors of mosques, palaces, tombs, and other structures, particularly in the Timurid (1370–1507) and Safavid periods.

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walls in Persia, in the very chīnī-khāna niches that became fashionable in King Narai’s Siam. It is possible that the incorporation of porcelains into Thai pediments compensated for a lack of ceramic

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3.23 Wat Thammaram, Ayutthaya, detail of front pediment on the ubosot, first half eighteenth century.

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tiles, since, unlike in Persia, there was no local tile production, only tiny glass mosaic tesserae. One feature of the Thonburi pediments is unmistakably European: the deva in the centre of each pediment. Dressed in a long periwig, a cocked hat (the one on the front pediment is broad-rimmed), a buttoned justaucorps with lace cuffs and collars and ornamental lace and/or regimental embroidery down the front, the deity adopts the Anjali Mudra, the Buddhist “hands cupped in offering” gesture used as a sign of reverence.170 The reliefs recall depictions of Frenchmen in Thai murals of the period, as in the famous series of gilded lacquer panels at the Suan Pakkad palace in Bangkok (third quarter eighteenth century) that depict the life of the Buddha above and the Ramakien below (fig. 3.22).171 To my mind the reliefs’ costume is more specifically military, recalling the cut and decoration of French uniforms of the era and perhaps taken from an engraving. If so, the transformation of a Western soldier into a Buddhist deity making a peaceful gesture of reverence has a certain irony. Even more complex stuccoes with tightly woven, high-relief foliage, blossoms, and animals adorn the pediments in the ubosot at the Wat Thammaram to the west of Ayutthaya island (first half of the eighteenth century), a rare survivor of the Burmese sack as Burmese forces used it as their base (fig. 3.23). But the sinewy leaves are kranok motifs and not acanthus, and instead of being arranged as a scrolling vine they are organized along a diamond grid or trellis, with a vertical stem in the middle. There is nothing left of the Savonnerie decor here. The Chinese or Chinese-style dishes are enclosed not only in dahlia-like blossoms but also in ones shaped like a phum, or floral and foliate arrangement shaped like a lotus bud.172 Pheasants and monkeys enliven the scene, the former encrusted with broken crockery. A menacing kala face chewing

3.24 Wat Klang Worawihan, Samut Prakan (Thailand), ubosot, rear pediment, ca 1750s–60s.

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on a dinner plate occupies the middle of the field. Charoensuphakul maintains that this period witnessed the most profound convergence of styles, when “the two streams, European and traditional Thai, reasserted their amalgamation.”173 It seems, rather, that in this particular case the Siamese style was simply reasserting itself over foreign imports. Arguably the finest stucco pediments in this style – and the highest concentration of them in a single temple – are the six pediments at the

ubosot and wihan at the Wat Klang Worawihan in Samut Prakan, south of Bangkok on the east side of the Chao Phraya River (ca 1750s–60s) (figs. 3.24–25). Although possibly the latest of the series, the European source of their scrolls has never been less ambiguous, with richly carved and naturalistic French acanthus leaves and blossoms in high relief and nary a kranok to be seen. The double-end pediments of the wihan (it also has pediments over the side doors) are even more opulent thanks to gilded details such as the petals around the dishes. This is not to say that all non-European elements have vanished:

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3.25 Wat Klang Worawihan, Samut Prakan, wihan, rear pediment, ca 1750s–60s.

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3.26 (oppoSiTe ) Jean Le Pautre, acanthus frieze designs, ca 1680. Etching. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

the flowers enclosing the Chinese and Japanese dinner plates have standard Chinese-style lotus petals of a sort that was widespread throughout Southeast Asia. What stands out in the scrolls of these six pediments is the closeness of their arrangement and individual motifs to French

models. In this case I believe that, rather than relying on a distant memory of Savonnerie carpets in far-off Ayutthaya, artists had access to new visual material: decorative prints. The Samut Prakan stuccoes are so close to their models that they can be identified quite precisely as a set of etchings of the work of Jean Le Pautre (1618–1682) and/or Androuet Du Cerceau, first published in Paris by the Mariette publishing house and François de Poilly (1622–1693) respectively (fig. 3.26). These need not even have been provided by the French as Dutch and English editions of these patterns

were published in the last decades of the seventeenth century and the artists could have obtained them from the many traders of those nations who travelled up the Chao Phraya – indeed some scholars believe that the Dutch imported more European luxury goods than did the French during King Narai’s reign and they continued to do so long after his death.174 Trademark motifs of both artists include bouquets of foliage emerging from other bouquets of foliage; fruit nestled in leaves that leave the sides visible; a pomegranate fruit (which the Siamese artists transformed into little ceramic pots with stucco leaves); the way in which rodents, birds, and other animals play in the scrolls and nip at the fruit; and (on the wihan) pairs of dragon heads whose maws open to generate further scrolls. Even the dragons are European

in style and not the Chinese dragons one would expect in a Siamese temple. Overall, it is the originality of the combination of forms and the rich polychromy of the gilding and ceramic vessels – as well as their liveliness and occasional sense of humour – that make these temple and palace pediments such striking works of art. In the bright sunlight they dazzle our eyes with their blinding white stucco and shimmering colours. Of all the legacies of France’s Siamese adventure they are the freshest and most unique – precisely because they were not executed under royal orders or by missionary or diplomatic groups hoping to force French style and authority onto Siam, but spontaneously by artists who evinced a genuine curiosity for the

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potential of blending styles from different cultures and who did so with consummate skill. But surely these pediments did not only reflect a love for visual delight. Were they meant to project a specific message? To answer this question, it is instructive to look at a strikingly similar aesthetic in the early modern port towns of the Swahili Coast of East Africa. Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries mosques and tombs were decorated with porcelain dishes (especially blue and white wares) mortared into the exterior walls, as with the spandrels of the mihrab of the Friday mosque (1450–1550) in Gedi (Kenya) or the frieze on the tomb at Mambrui (sixteenth century).175 Jingdezhen porcelains began to reach East Africa via Muslim seafarers in the mid-fourteenth century – I identified examples from as early as the late Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) during a field survey of Swahili archaeological sites in Kenya and Tanzania in 1989 – and likely also with the Chinese “treasure ships” led by Ming admiral Zheng He between 1417 and 1433 when he visited ports from Somalia to Mozambique.176 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the ceramics moved indoors: large assemblages of Chinese, Japanese, and now European dishes were hung inside elite Swahili homes, covering most of the walls like tiles and also resembling the effect of a chīnī-khāna. Like the crockery in the Siamese pediments these collections may be an attempt to recreate in dishes and bowls the tile revetments of the Islamic centres with whom the Swahili traded. Prita Meier has suggested that the Swahili domestic assemblages were meant to demonstrate the owners’ sophistication and cosmopolitanism through “material plenitude” and that they were used in earlier mosque and tomb decoration because of their durability and especially the almost magical way they shone in the light of the sun.177 I think that it was precisely the materiality of

porcelain – the way the underglaze colours seem to glow from within – that provided the impetus for its display on Thai temple pediments, a miraculous effect quite fitting in a religious setting – and on a part of a temple in which the degree of adornment traditionally corresponds to the status of the building’s patrons.178 Their combination with Western motifs may also represent local pride in Siam’s cosmopolitanism much as it did for the Swahili, a visual manifestation of Siam as the crossroads of a global trade network reaching from the Chao Phraya River, three kilometres away, to Europe, Persia, and China. However, it is also possible that little thought was given to the foreign origins of the European patterns or East Asian ceramics. Perhaps they celebrate material plenitude for its own sake and have been co-opted as an aspect of Siamese identity. I will return to this theme in chapter 9 when we will examine some hybrid European-Asian buildings in which the European elements are no longer registered as European but became reflections of Asian, particularly Chinese or SinoVietnamese, self-identity. Hybridity allowed architects to create something new with these borrowed forms that tells a story far removed from their original context, a deep interiorization of cultural fusion that Jacques Lafaye, writing about colonial New Spain, calls “the birth certificate of a new culture.”179 And indeed, although the scrolls disappear after the middle of the eighteenth century, the tradition of crockery and broken crockery mosaics, now including domestically made tiles, Chinese pieces made especially for Siamese architectural use, and glass tesserae, remained an essential feature of Siamese temple architecture for over a century, culminating in the reign of Rama III (1824–1852), not only on pediments but also on columns, plinths, door and window frames, gates, chedis, and prangs.

4 grandeur Pondicherry ca 1752

The architecture we have looked at in the last two chapters, while produced by French colonizers or generated by a cultural exchange with France, contrasted profoundly with most French colonial architecture in the Western Hemisphere (at least beyond the pioneer phase). The cio in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia had not yet developed an explicit architectural policy and neither had the missionaries, except for a desire that their buildings should look as French as possible. Yet, except for the Jesuit church and comptoir at Chandernagore (figs. 2.13–14, 2.23), they did not. It is only with Pondicherry on the eve of the Seven Years War, when France increased its military and naval presence there, that architectural design fell into line with that of the metropole and France’s American colonies. Although Colbert was long dead when these structures were built, the classical baroque style of Louis XIV’s Grand Siècle – considered the golden era of French architecture – was revived by royal engineer architects in mid-eighteenth-century Pondicherry to project an image of perceived French cultural superiority. It was also the first colonial architecture in Asia, other than the unexecuted Bangkok fort projects, to be designed by royal engineer architects who had the training to bring a unified metropolitan style to the colony, even if some of them had never been to France. Pondicherry’s planners may have been partly motivated by an increasingly vocal sentiment of nostalgia in France itself for the

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Grand Siècle generated by a lull in large-scale architectural commissions under Louis XV and a fear that French architecture was in decline, the criticism focusing in particular on what commentators saw as the “deplorable” state of the unfinished Louvre, “its superb Façade dishonoured by a multitude of ignoble and indecent Buildings which prevent residents & the whole nation from seeing it.”1 This quotation comes from Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne’s L’Ombre du Grand Colbert (1741), an allegorical dialogue between the Louvre, the City of Paris, and the ghost of Colbert, the latter of whom the author calls “the most zealous Minister that France has had for the glory of her Country & of her King, & in whose care this incomparable monument was erected.”2 The book even commends the cio and Colbert’s efforts in India, with Colbert’s ghost proclaiming “I have always considered [it] to be the Peru of France.”3 It is not a stretch to see the Pondicherry Gouvernement, with its similarities to Grand Siècle architecture in general and the Louvre in particular as an embodiment of France’s desire to revive Colbert’s plans for the cio and a response to the kinds of pleas being made in the metropole at the time. Indeed, L’Ombre du Grand Colbert was written in the very years that the palace was being constructed. Nevertheless, the cio knew that Colbertian grandeur would not impress Indian potentates on its own, and the French in Pondicherry were obliged to combine it with the pomp of the Mughals, specifically with Mughal court ceremonial, a visible expression of sovereignty and legitimacy that all Indians understood. Potentates from the Maharaja of Jodhpur to the Nizam of Hyderabad adopted Mughal court culture because it proclaimed a connection with the highest authority in the subcontinent, as did even the Mughals’ most powerful enemy, the Hindu Marathas, who pretended to operate under the symbolic (indeed

ironic) authority of the Mughals, recognizing “the semiotic relevance of Mughal sovereignty in generating political and military unity.”4 In fact the Maratha general Mahadji Scindia (1730–1794), upon defeating the Afghans and Jats at Delhi in 1771–72, reinstated the now powerless Mughal emperor Shah Alam II (1728–1806) on the throne (and again in 1784), for which Scindia was made vakīl al-mut�alaq (Mughal regent), which not only was a coveted honorific but also gave him the rights to collect tribute.5 Mughal-style tents and permanent architecture such as tombs or palaces were also commissioned by rival Indian groups, such as the Maharaja of Jodhpur or Nawab of Awadh.6 Even European agents did so, including Dutch mercenary John Hessing (1739–1803), who worked for the Marathas and is buried in Agra in a red sandstone replica of the Taj Mahal.7 In the mid- to late eighteenth century, adopting Mughal material culture was no longer a sign of supplication to the emperor but a convenient use of Mughal display to advertise personal power. The French governors and other company officials may have eschewed Mughal architecture, although they likely painted their fort red to recall the red forts of Agra and Delhi as Pierre Bourdat suggests.8 However they wholeheartedly embraced the dress, manners, and types of spectacle and entertainments employed by the Mughals and their subordinates. In fact, Dupleix, like Dumas before him, owed his very legitimacy to the Mughal emperor, at that time Muhammad Shah (r. 1719–48). In 1742 the emperor bestowed on Governor Dupleix the titles of Nawab (viceroy) and Mansabdār (military officer) in an ostentatious ceremony in Chandernagore, with the result that Dupleix enjoyed a dual – one might even say hybrid – identity as a representative both of the king of France and of the Mughal emperor. It suited both parties as it affirmed the

after his arrival from Chandernagore, and it was of a striking character. The palanquin of the Governor went first. It was followed by a body of fifty soldiers, by … palanquins, and four or five horses, and by Muttaiya Pillai and me, and dancing women, tom-toms, horns, drums, pipes, clarionets, and flags were in his train.”13 Ananda records his detailed advice to Governor Georges Duval de Leyrit (in office 1755–58) about correct protocol for receiving a dress of honour at the Madras Gate on 4 August 1755 from Salābat Jang, the Nizam of Hyderabad (r. 1751–62): A tent must be pitched outside the north gate. All the sepoys and soldiers should be drawn up in a line from [the governor’s] house to the Madras gate. You should set out in a palankin accompanied by the naubat, the Fish standard, and the other marks of honour, music, etc., followed by the councillor and others in their vehicles, and preceded by dancers, stage-people and musicians, with peacock-feather fans, chowries, and cloth spread on the ground. In this splendid manner you should go to the tent pitched outside the town-gate and sit down … On his arrival at the tent with the presents, you should rise and embrace him and receive the dress of honour and parwâna, a salute of 21 guns being fired from the surrounding walls … Then the turra and sarpêch should be tied on to the hat, the pendant be hung from your neck, and the cummerband tied round your waist.14 The objects all underscored the governor’s Mughal-granted authority: the imperial fish insignia (māhī-marātib) was one of the highest honours and was carried before the palanquin; the chauri flywhisk was an emblem of royalty (made of yak hair, it is usually whisked back and

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authority of the Mughals at a time when they were in decline but also gave Dupleix the prestige he needed to outrank his rivals. Muhammad Shah had even granted Dumas permission in 1736 to mint rupees: as Dumas put it in a letter to Louis XV, “it is one of the greatest advantages that could ever be accorded to the Nation in India.”9 This acquiescence to Mughal court culture mitigated the French chauvinism of the architecture. French openness to Mughal culture even appears to have been reciprocated. Chanchal B. Dadlani has convincingly suggested that the elevation and plan of the Gouvernement led to an adaptation of French manners of correlating plans and elevations in Mughal architectural workshops in the third quarter of the eighteenth century.10 French governors were so concerned with getting it right that they sought precise instructions from their Indian agents about correct procedure, dress, and accoutrements. Dupleix needed his Mughal patronage to impress local rulers and receive their homage, and “would not permit a single sign or symbol which rightfully belonged to his rank to be omitted or neglected.”11 In the invaluable and voluminous Tamil diaries of the governor’s powerful broker, Ananda Ranga Pillai (1709–1761), there are repeated references to the way the governors adopted Mughal signs of rulership. When local potentates presented gifts and robes of honour, the objects would be placed in the governor’s palanquin and accompanied by musicians, drummers (on the Mughal-style naubat), female nautch dancers, standard bearers, mace holders (chūbdār), and a salute of five to twenty-one guns.12 When the governor travelled in his state palanquin, he was fanned with peacock feathers and wore turban ornaments and other marks of prestige. On 20 February 1742 Ananda wrote: “The Governor, M. Dupleix, started this morning at half-past 4, on a visit to Kâlâpêttai. This was his first outing

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forth on either side of a ruler by officials called chamardār); a parwāna is an imperial order, the cummerbund (kamarband, literally “waistband”) was a sash worn at the waist with the ends hanging in the front, and the turra and sarpīch are both turban ornaments, the first worn on the side and the second on the front (which also means that the governor would have been wearing a turban). This panoply transformed the French governor into a Mughal viceroy: “[a]ccording to Mughal sumptuary laws, these ornaments could only be worn by royalty, blood relatives of a chief, and honored individuals, the latter generally being nobility or high officials. They acquired special importance as symbols of hierarchical power.”15 Thus, if we look only at the plans and elevations of the architecture in this chapter, we will get the impression that France simply replicated metropolitan structures on Indian soil as they would later do in Saigon – and this was the impression that the Crown and most cio authorities would have had in France – but when we look at how the buildings were used, we recognize a much more complex reality. As Alessandra Russo writes about the way the arts were transformed in early colonial New Spain, “European expansion was in effect constructed by a double dynamic: an imaginary duplication of worlds and an awareness of a new reality.”16 In a similar vein, Danna Agmon writes about French India: “Where French officials imagined a spectrum of similarity, made coherent and cohesive by virtue of French governance, the reality of Indian Ocean dissimilarities provided an unwelcome reminder of the fragility of this imperial imaginary.”17 In this particular case the hybridity of these buildings is invisible unless we have knowledge about the buildings’ context and the ways the people behaved and dressed in and around them – a caveat for interpreting colonial buildings based on plans alone.

However, despite all the pomp and circumstance – French and Mughal – the cio ’s position in Pondicherry was precarious, and the architectural and ceremonial bombast evinced a palpable sense of anxiety. In fact, the prosperity and security of the cio ’s enterprise were threatened by the same conflicts of interest that plagued French colonial and diplomatic efforts in Fort Dauphin and Siam. It was the same story of internecine battles: missionaries undermined the cio and its merchants by antagonizing the indigenous community; Jesuits (the mission was founded by Tachard no less) fought against the mep and (in this case) the Capuchins; traders in France competed with traders in India; and Indian trading families fought one another within the community, sometimes on religious grounds. It was imperative that the colonial administration maintain good relations with the Tamils and other Indians, without whom there would be no trade, and Indian intermediaries were vital to keeping the peace and promoting prosperity through “cultural mediation” between the French and Indians.18 One kind of Indian collaborator was the sepoy, or Indian soldier in the service of the Company, introduced by Governor Martin.19 However the highestranking mediator was the so-called courtier or chef des malabars, a rich and influential Indian merchant and community leader selected by the cio who was also known as a modeliar (“first”) and dubash (“man of two languages”). The chef des malabars served as the chief commercial broker and leader of the Indian quarter, which was many times more populous than the French one – already in the 1690s there were already between 10,000 and 60,000 Indians compared with a few hundred Frenchmen, and a quarter-century later, when the population had grown dramatically, there were still only about 2,000 Europeans in the colony.20 As chief merchant for the cio , the

appointed courtier in 1746. Although Ananda is principally known to historians as the chief broker of the Company, recent studies have emphasized his authority within the Indian community and the cult of personality he constructed around himself through architecture and literary and artistic patronage, especially the Sanskrit biography of himself he commissioned from the Brahmin poet Śrinivasa, entitled Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū (1752).25 David Shulman gives us a sense of the complexities of Ananda’s relationships: he was “deeply enmeshed in the confused intrigues of the French, British, Mughal-Hyderabadi, Maratha, and various other local contestants.”26 It was essential that Ananda possess the subtlest of diplomatic skills to address so many interests. He was also very rich: in addition to his diplomatic and trading activities, he operated his own textile factory in Lalipat.27 Ananda came from one of the two leading dynasties of brokers in the city, the other of which, the Mudali, were Christians and supported by the Jesuits, who remained antagonistic to the Pillai and to Hinduism. They even resorted to boorish vandalism, repeatedly desecrating the city’s temples: in 1746 the Jesuits hired thugs to pour human excrement on the heads of the gods of the Ishwaran and Vedapuri Ishwaran Kōvils, the latter the main temple in Pondicherry and adjacent to the Jesuit church of Notre-Damede-la-Conception.28 We will return to Ananda, his magnificent house – the only one to survive the 1761 demolition of Pondicherry – and the Sanskrit epic in chapter 9. Fort Louis (1702–1733) Although built on shaky foundations, Pondicherry was nevertheless the jewel in France’s Asian crown, together with Chandernagore the only one they called a “colonie” (as opposed to

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courtier had a formidable remit: he was in charge of overseeing diplomacy with neighbouring states, obtaining contracts with local textile manufacturers, monitoring their production and inventory, and supervising textile exports.21 Yet French administrators and Jesuit missionaries nearly ruined the colony at an early stage by antagonizing a chef des malabars in what became known as l’affaire Naniapa.22 Nayiniyappa (d. 1717), appointed courtier in 1708 by Governor Guillaume-André Hébert (1653–1725), enjoyed an excellent and prosperous relationship with the governor before the latter was suddenly recalled to Paris in 1713. Nayiniyappa also happened to be a Hindu and the Jesuits fought to replace him with a Christian chef des malabars (Hébert’s predecessors as governor had only employed Christian courtiers).23 Hébert wanted badly to return to what was clearly a remunerative position and allegedly made a deal with the Jesuits to oust Nayiniyappa upon his return. After arriving in 1715 he had Nayiniyappa arrested on trumped-up charges and the former courtier was publicly flogged and imprisoned in Fort Louis, where he died under suspicious circumstances. After rival missionaries and an influential group of merchants in Saint-Malo protested Hébert’s actions – for very different reasons – Nayiniyappa was exonerated, and his fortune returned to his relations. Nayaniyappa’s son Guruvappa was allowed to replace him in 1722, but only after a highly orchestrated visit to Paris, where he converted to Christianity (with the duc d’Orléans as his godfather) and was made Chevalier Charles-Philippe Guruvappa.24 Thus the Jesuits briefly got their wish – a Christian chef des malabars – before he died of dropsy two years later. However, more Hindus would follow, most famously Ananda, Nayiniyappa’s nephew and close confidant of Governor Dupleix, who was

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4.1 (oppoSiTe Top ) Map of Pondicherry, 1747 (detail). This map shows Fort Louis with the Church of Saint-Louis (top), the Gouvernment under construction (right), and the Porte Royale (bottom). At the right of the fort is the Hôtel de la Compagnie and the governor’s garden. At lower left is the Capuchin church. Ink and watercolour on paper, 76 × 55 cm. BNf . 4.2 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) After an anonymous watercolour entitled View of Pondicherry, ca 1750. Oil on canvas, twentieth century. Private collection. Photograph by Shashwat Parhi, courtesy Raphaël Malangin. 4.3 (ABove ) Denis de Nyon, Elevation of the Royal Gate (Porte Royale) of Fort Louis of Pondicherry, 1705. Signed “Nyon, Pondicherry, 15 February 1709.” Ink and wash on paper, 34 × 49.5 cm. ANom .

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“comptoir”) and the only one with an architectural program that rivalled – in fact exceeded – those of its prosperous American colonies.29 Its centrepiece, the spectacular Palais du Gouvernement with which this book began (figs. 1.1–2; 4.14–17), was only the culmination of a city-wide architectural campaign designed to make Pondicherry, and particularly its waterfront, into a showcase for Grand Siècle classicism. Although depicted in isolation in Dumont’s and Fonbrun’s drawings, the Palais du Gouvernement was in fact part of a cluster of monumental buildings nestled inside the fort, mostly exhibiting a uniform style. No rival Indian colony, including neighbouring Danish Tranquebar (fig. 2.10) or British Madras (figs. 1.5, 1.13), shared this French concern with ostentation – indeed they would have found it superfluous. Their forts, government buildings, and chapels were a hodgepodge of utilitarian and retardataire medieval, Palladian, and Indian forms and styles. If the Pondicherry Gouvernement was the Louvre of the Carnatic, Fort Saint George in Madras (begun 1695) was a transplanted country house in Sussex. After the Dutch returned Pondicherry to France in 1699 at the end of the Nine Years’ War – the same war that thwarted France’s final attempt to take Siam – the now sexagenarian governor François Martin prioritized the construction of a defensible fortification to replace the ineffectual “Fort Lopsided Rectangle” (see chapter 2). The resulting pentagonal Fort Louis (1702–33), built mostly under Governor Pierre-Benoît Dumas in the 1720s and modelled after Vauban’s Citadel at Tournai (1674), was an imposing stronghold comprising five inner bastions named after French provinces, the royal family, and the Company (figs. 4.1–2).30 Its towering Port Royale gate (1705) faced the beach and harbour (fig. 4.3) and it contained barracks, a covered market, and a church (at the far end of the entrance for maximum effect), with the Gouvernement on the

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right side.31 In the centre was a place lined with trees and bisected by a colonnade of richly carved spolia columns allegedly looted by Dupleix from the fort of Gingee (fourteenth century) (fig. 2.9) but which may also have been excavated on site (they are now located along Pondicherry’s promenade). The fort was designed by another person about whom little is known – as with so many engineers only his surname appears in the literature. An engineer with the Swiss Guards, Denis de Nyon (ca 1670–1742) was born in Paris of a family of artisans (his father was a bookbinder and gilder and his second wife, Catherine Bain, was the daughter of a jeweller).32 He rose quickly through the ranks: in 1700 he was made chief engineer in Pondicherry, “where he built a Citadel and the fortifications of which the plans were sent to France and found to be quite perfect”; in 1714 he was made a chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis, the honour most coveted by royal engineers; and in 1721 he was appointed governor and commandant-in-chief of Île-de-France, where he designed fortifications for Port Louis and Port Bourbon.33 Nyon moved back to France in 1726 (he married Catherine in 1728) and is buried in the Paris church of Saint-Roch. Port Royale closely emulates the imposing gates of Vauban’s citadels on France’s borders, the ceinture de fer (fig. 4.3).34 Vauban believed that as city gates made the first impression on visitors they needed to project royal grandeur: as he put it, they would have a chance to “judge the magnificence of the King and of the excellence (bonté) of the fortification through the beauty of its gates.”35 Gates at places like Lille or Longwy – some designed by Simon Vollant (1622–1694) but under Vauban’s close supervision – adopted a variety of forms from civic and garden architecture and even a church facade. De Nyon’s Port Royale could have stood up to any of them. A tripartite structure recalling a Roman triumphal arch, its central

bay rose high above the lateral ones, each crowned with a pediment adorned with carved decoration. The two on the sides bore the arms of the Compagnie and its device Florebo quocumque ferar (“I will flourish wherever I go”) and that of the governor and the central one with a blazing sun representing Louis XIV as the Sun King accompanied by his motto Nec pluribus impar (“Not unequal to many”).36 Below this, beneath a giant clock, was the royal arms with the triple fleurde-lys. The central portal was two storeys high and crowned with a cupola, while the two side portals were surmounted by pedestals with fiery cannonballs. As was traditional with city gates it was heavily rusticated to project solidity, and it was raised on a high plinth for visibility from the sea. It is noticeably more elaborate than any of the multitude of portals erected in the French Atlantic Empire, even in such strategically important locations as Louisbourg (1729) in Canada or Fort Saint-Charles in Guadeloupe (ca 1780).37 The citadel church of Saint-Louis (1722), served by two Capuchin priests, was also a plain, classical structure like the churches in Vauban’s citadels in eastern and northeastern France – again, just what one would expect in a garrison town (figs. 4.4–6).38 Like the contemporary church of Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Nicolas at Briançon (1718–26) it had a tripartite facade with a prominent central section framed by plain pilasters and crowned by an unadorned round 4.4 (oppoSiTe Top ) Here attributed to Denis de Nyon, Profile of the Elevation of the Facade, or Portal, of the Church of Fort Louis of Pondicherry Made in the Year 1722. Ink on paper, 69.5 × 52 cm. ANom . 4.5 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Here attributed to Denis de Nyon, Profile of the Elevation and the Sectional View of the Whole Interior Length of the Church of Fort Louis of Pondicherry Built in the Year 1722. Ink on paper, 69 × 52 cm. ANom .

pediment, and it sported large medallions on the side bays, although as with Port Royale it does not exactly match any French structure. Saint-Louis would have been the first building a visitor would have seen when passing through Port Royale, its east-facing facade dramatically catching the

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4.6 Here attributed to Denis de Nyon, Plan of the Church of Fort Louis of Pondicherry Built in the Year 1722. Ink on paper, 68 × 52 cm. ANom .

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morning light. The facade had a higher central door and two lower lateral doors enclosed in high blind arches, and it used Ionic pilasters, layered ones at the ends and paired ones in the central bay.39 The balustrade with urn finials along the top gives the building a festive air lacking in French citadel churches. The classical orders continue on the interior, which has some affinities with the Bangkok citadel church project (fig. 3.17). The sectional view

but here with a separate apse, a bowed altar rail, rectangular chambers (“chambres”) that may have been chapels, a vestry, and a revolving staircase to reach the belfry. During Dupleix’s tenure (1742– 54) an opulent clock tower was added to the top of the facade that was taller than the flagstaff, and its collapse in 1754 was widely seen as presaging Dupleix’s own fall from grace that same year.40 Given its sophisticated use of the Vaubanian idiom, I see no reason not to ascribe Saint-Louis also to Nyon: after all, the church was completed in 1722 and Nyon had left for Île-de-France only the previous year when construction would certainly have been well underway. The Hôtel de la Compagnie or Vieux Gouvernement (ca 1733; after 1747)

4.7 Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, Paris. Tower fifteenth and seventeenth century (upper section).

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shows a four-bay nave separated by the same Ionic pilasters and surmounted by a plain entablature. As was also common in churches in Paris, the pilasters connect with transverse arches in the barrel vault above. High, arched windows adorn either side. For all its classicism, the stout tower in the southwest corner recalls late medieval models such as that of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs (fifteenth and seventeenth century) in Paris, although in classical garb (fig. 4.7). Saint-Louis was a wide basilican church with a nave and side aisles like the main Capuchin church (figs. 2.11–12),

The chief building in the colony before the Palais du Gouvernement was erected was located outside the citadel, to the north across a sandy expanse of flat land and three streets in from the beach. The Hôtel de la Compagnie and its famous gardens – the building’s architecture is overlooked in the secondary literature – were executed ca 1733 to replace its cramped predecessor that was (in 1731) “entirely ruined by the recent rains and incapable of functioning.”41 It first appeared on a 1733 map as a corps de logis, gardens, and semicircular gate on the site of the former chief engineer’s residence, and looked exactly the same 33 years later (fig. 4.1).42 Plans of three projects for the building survive, by two different hands and none of them dated, although one is identified as the “1er Projet” (figs. 4.8–9; see also 4.11–12).43 They depict a main corps de logis and all but one of them include two long wings flanking a forecourt. As none of the maps depict the wings, we can assume that the corps de logis was the only part of these projects to be built by 1747. Only the left wing was built, but after 1747, long after the

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4.8 (oppoSiTe ) Plan of the Ground Floor of the Building of Messieurs the Directors of Sales [Hôtel de la Compagnie or “Old Government House”], before 1733. Ink and watercolour on paper, 75.5 × 79 cm. ANom . This is the first project. None of these three projects may ever have been executed, at least in their entirety, as only the main corps de logis appears on maps from 1733 to 1747, with a garden in front rather than a courtyard. At some point between 1747 and 1760 a left wing was built, possibly following one of these schemes.

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4.9 (ABove ) First Floor, 1st Project [Hôtel de la Compagnie or Old Government House], before 1733. Ink and watercolour on paper, 44 × 28 cm. ANom . This is the first floor of the first project.

corps de logis and while the new Gouvernement was being completed, as surviving foundations discovered in 1765 during the building of the new Gouvernement demonstrate (fig. 4.28; see below). Furthermore, the maps depict a formal garden with French-style parterres and broderies instead of the “cour” described on the plans. Whether or not any part of them was executed, the plans are worth examining as they demonstrate what the CIO had hoped to build there and the kind of image they wanted to project to customers and rivals. As befitted the cio headquarters and governor’s residence, the Hôtel de la Compagnie was to be a self-consciously elegant structure, reflecting the metropolitan classicism of the other cio buildings in Pondicherry but this time discarding the Vaubanian mode in favour of

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4.10 (oppoSiTe ) Hôtel Desmarets in Paris (1704), by Pierre Lassurance, from Mariette, L’Architecture françois. Getty Research Institute.

front. Both the salesroom and block of offices across from it are accessed directly from the street instead of through the cour d’honneur, as the dayto-day business of merchants was a quite different matter from the high-level diplomacy that took place in the main court. In the first version this block includes the offices of the bookkeeper and treasury, with their own larder and kitchen at the back (fig. 4.8). The spacious carriage house, on the left side immediately adjacent the corps de logis, comprises an enclosed forecourt and six stalls, as well as a small stables at the north end. Its pendant across the courtyard houses the main kitchens and has a matching forecourt. The first version of the second project (fig. 4.11) has narrowed the salesroom to accommodate an enclosed “gallerie” to protect people from the monsoon rains. The architect has also changed the office block across from it, replacing a small square vestibule followed by an open-well staircase with a long corridor leading to a U-shaped staircase. There are now four rooms per side instead of three and they include two offices, a “petit cabinet,” a treasury, two larders, and, at the back, a pair of kitchens flanking a court. Although maintaining the same footprint, the architect has also altered the carriage house and main kitchens by moving the enclosed courtyards to the back, with more room for stables (accommodating twenty horses instead of six). The second version of the second project (fig. 4.12) has adjusted the office block again, now with a “passage” running laterally across the building’s width, followed by a U-shaped staircase with a curving banister. There are now three rooms per side, which are more spacious than the four in the other project, with two offices, the “petit cabinet,” treasury, two kitchens, and a court at the back. Like the first project, this version of the second project keeps the forecourts of the carriage house/stables and kitchens at the front

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the aristocratic architecture of Grand Siècle and Regency France. As the governor’s house and the setting for the elaborate Mughal-inspired ceremonial discussed above it needed to look suitably noble. But as it was also the main place of business it needed to project prosperity to visiting merchants, like a nineteenth-century bank: as A.W. Lawrence remarked about the palatial slave castles of the eighteenth-century Gold Coast (Ghana), designed so that their expansive neoclassical facades could be best seen by traders from the sea, “a smart appearance attracted customers.”44 The three projects for the Hôtel de la Compagnie do not seem to be by Gerbaud given their stylistic discrepancies with his project for the Palais du Gouvernement: perhaps they are by Louis Didier (the godfather of Jean Le Bozecq’s daughter in 1737) or Jean Henry [sic] De Larche (in Pondicherry from 1719), the only other royal engineers I have been able to identify by name in Pondicherry around that time – or they may have been executed in France.45 If part of any of these projects was indeed built, the latter two are the most likely to have been executed as they both end in a pair of convex gates that consistently appear on the maps (in the first project they are concave) (figs. 4.11–12). The three projects are generically similar but the latter two are more sophisticated, in the style of Germain Boffrand (1667–1754) with prominent octagonal rooms, while the first, with its rectilinear rooms, reflected the more common Regency style of hôtel particulier in Paris. All feature a main corps de logis at the end of a long cour d’honneur flanked by offices, warehouses, lodgings for the gardener, and a theatre-like salesroom for the textile market, with tiers of curving benches and a stage in the

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4.11 Building of Messieurs the Directors of Sales [Hôtel de la Compagnie or “Old Government House”], before 1733. Ink and wash on paper, 59 × 70 cm. ANom . This is the first version of the second project.

4.12 Untitled second version of second project for the Hôtel de la Compagnie or “Old Government House,” before 1733. Ink and wash on paper, 59 × 70 cm. ANom .

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4.13 Jean-Baptiste Bullet de Chamblain, Plan of the Ground Floor [Château de Champs], ca 1703. Graphite, pencil, and black ink on paper, pricked for transfer, 50 × 67.7 cm. National Museum, Stockholm. Photograph by Cecilia Heisser/Nationalmuseum 2012.

but adds a stall and includes a stable for nineteen horses in the middle. The tack room/greenhouse has been removed to accommodate three of the stalls at the north end of the left wing and a “salle de commun” occupies the same position in the

right wing. This version also adds grandiose portals to the side wings flanked by paired pilasters and incorporating small cubicles that appear to be latrines as they resemble the “lieux” on either end of the main corps de logis. The corps de logis most closely emulates metropolitan models. Both projects reproduce the tripartite, two-storey Parisian entre cour et jardin townhouse with a central ressaut (an advancing wall section, also called an avant-corps) in the court and garden facades. In the first project

arranged lengthwise. The octagon determines the shape of the ressaut of the garden facade, which ends in two canted windows and a doorway, and its profile is echoed in the hexagonal staircase down to the garden. The effect of these two end-to-end octagons, which increase in size as the visitor proceeds through them, would have been more dramatic than the simple repetition of squares of the first project. As in the first project a second enfilade aligns the rooms at the rear, parallel to the facade. This project allows for more room to circulate, with two service staircases instead of one and an additional corridor in the apartment on the left, which adjoins the vestibule on a diagonal. One major difference is that there are now two apartments on the ground floor, the one with the corridor on the left and a more spacious one on the right (the only differences are in the size of the wardrobes). The dining room is on the right side and the open-well staircase on the left but there is no longer any grand antechamber. Both apartments have private toilets that project outside the building rather than being inside it. This project is more interesting than the first, but it is less practical as it has reduced the size of the rooms. The second version of the second project (fig. 4.12) improves the symmetry of the building’s layout. The “corridor de degagement” of the left apartment is now replicated on the right and both corridors reach the vestibule on a diagonal. The two service staircases are also better balanced, each near the far end of the corridors. The dining room has suffered the most from this second corridor and is now smaller than either of the bedrooms. The main stylistic departure in this version is an oval vestibule with two niches at the end facing the court, and a slightly more dramatic entrance to the staircase in which the steps spill into the vestibule. The garden steps are also more monumental, leading to a short terrace before descending into the garden itself.

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(fig. 4.8) it forms a rectangular block with (on the ground floor) twelve symmetrically arranged rooms along an axis. The axis is a north-south enfilade with a vestibule facing the cour d’honneur and a “Sallon ou salle de Compagnie” facing the garden at the rear (this garden was never planted; instead, a small courtyard was constructed). The floor is divided into the governor’s private zone on the left (“le grand apartement”) and a public one on the right. The former includes a state bedroom (“grande chambre a coucher”), an office with a day bed (“lit en niche”), latrine, private antechamber, and wardrobe; this half of the building also includes an open-well staircase (“grand escalier”). The public zone includes a dining room and a “grand entichambre [sic] ou salle du Bufet” as well as a service staircase, a room for preparing dessert (“office pour dresser le Dessert”), and another for reheating the food prepared in the great kitchens in the courtyard. Clearly the top merchants and diplomats were generously entertained. In its use of enfilades (another one connects the rooms along the rear of the building) and in its juxtaposition of private and public rooms it adheres to the standard distribution of rooms in French townhouses. The étage (fig. 4.9) similarly balanced private with public, with the central pair of rooms devoted to the council chamber and archives and its “grande antichambre” and the flanking rooms forming three apartments for company directors with wardrobes, offices, and private “English” (flushing) lavatories (“comodités a l’Angloise”). The second project, for which we have only two versions of the ground floor, is more sophisticated, with coved corners, octagons, and in one case an oval vestibule. Like the first project both versions of the second are centred on the vestibule and salon arranged as an enfilade. The first version (fig. 4.11) comprises two octagons: a smaller one for the vestibule and a larger one for the salon,

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Perhaps the architect was trying to make the structure more appropriate for ceremonial events. The architects relied on illustrated architectural manuals of the sort that was standard in any royal engineer’s toolkit.46 Not the lavishly illustrated, multi-volume L’Architecture françois of Jacques-François Blondel, which I have shown elsewhere to be a critical model for French architecture in the Atlantic Empire, because it was not published until 1752–56, but instead Jean Mariette’s less copious L’Architecture françois (Paris, 1727), the most important illustrated guide to the architecture of contemporary France of its day.47 The first Pondicherry project has much in common with townhouse designs such as the Hôtel Desmarets in Paris (1704), by Pierre Lassurance (1655–1724), one of Paris’s most popular architects (fig. 4.10).48 Like the Pondicherry project Lassurance creates harmony by balancing the three largest rooms in the garden enfilade, here a bedroom, salon, and “grand cabinet,” with those of the court side, a dining room, vestibule, and open-well staircase. Both layouts have five rooms on the garden side that diminish in size from the salon outward, clearly demonstrating their relative importance and creating a sense of progression as one approaches the salon. The principal staircase or “grand escalier” of the Hôtel Desmarets is on the opposite side of the vestibule from that of the Pondicherry project, but like it the rooms on the court side end in a series of smaller chambers including wardrobes, service staircases, and latrines. The main difference is that Lassurance uses columns for the garden and court portals whereas the Pondicherry project is content with the cheaper alternative of pilasters. Both versions of the second project (figs. 4.11– 12), in their use of curves, octagons, and an oval, echo the bolder, more baroque style of Boffrand or Bullet de Chamblain (1665–1726) – ultimately

the oval goes back to Louis Le Vau’s Château Vaux-le-Vicomte (1657–61), a reference to the early reign of Louis XIV. The lengthwise positioning of the vestibule and salon, the salon’s octagonal shape, and the vestibule’s curving walls and niches all relate to Boffrand’s work, as with his Hôtel Amelot de Gournay (1712), which however uses an oval courtyard, giving it a concave court facade.49 However the closest match is Jean-Baptiste Bullet de Chamblain’s Château de Champs, southeast of Paris (1701–07) (fig. 4.13).50 Champs centres on an elongated oval salon: although oval it looks almost like an octagon: a rectangle with rounded corners. As at the Pondicherry project the salon is placed lengthwise to form a curved projection into the garden framed by hexagonal steps. The garden enfilade is formed of five principal rooms: the salon, a dining room, parade bedroom, “grand cabinet” or assembly hall on the right end, and a bedroom apartment on the left. Like the Pondicherry designs the court enfilade is less balanced, with a large main staircase on the left and a small service one on the right, a wardrobe, bedroom, office, antechamber, and a narrow corridor on the right and an office and concierge’s lodge on the left. Again, Bullet de Chamblain has incorporated columns, although only on the court facade, which the Pondicherry design replaces with pilasters. Although no elevations survive for the Hôtel de la Compagnie, the facades likely would have emulated those of the building’s models, perhaps with rusticated quoins on the ends and, flanking the portal, simply framed windows, a string course dividing the storeys, and a triangular pediment on the court side supported by pilasters, projecting an elegant, restrained classicism. The Hôtel de la Compagnie was certainly meant to look imposing; however, the lack of columns suggests that it did not have the generous budget of the Palais du Gouvernement.

The Palais du Gouvernement (1738–1752)

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The Palais du Gouvernement, inside Fort Louis, was striking precisely because of the degree to which it stood out against the less ostentatious buildings around it. In fact, this palace performed a similar function to that of the Hall of Mirrors in Louis XIV’s reception of the Siamese embassy in 1686. There, the Sun King presented himself as the equivalent of an Asian ruler through the lavishness of his clothing, surroundings, and Siameseinflected ceremonial, but he did so in a setting that showcased French styles and products. Likewise, the Palais du Gouvernement was built on a scale appropriate for a Mughal Nawab and was the setting for equally sumptuous Mughal-inspired ceremonies, but it was quintessentially French in appearance. The building embodied what ClaudeThérèse de Chastenay de Lanty (1738–1799), Joseph-François Dupleix’s widow, called the “Edifice of French Grandeur in Asia.”51 As discussed in chapter 1, its sixty-six stone columns (engaged and in the round) in an 80-metre-long, thirteen-bay facade was unparalleled in any of the French overseas colonies and it openly emulated metropolitan royal architecture (figs. 1.1–2, 4.14–17). Despite its popular association with Dupleix, who oversaw its completion and was its most famous incumbent, the “Palais de Dupleix” was in fact begun by his less flamboyant predecessor Dumas, the mastermind of Fort Louis (figs. 4.1–2). There is astonishingly little in the archival record about the building or the people who constructed it: in fact, other than Emmanuel-Julien Gerbaud and Le Bozecq, I have only been able to determine the identity of the architects and builders by first consulting the Pondicherry parish registers and then cross-referencing them with the Ministry of the Marine ancien régime colonial personnel dossiers. The work crew must have been enormous, and soldiers (French and

Indian Company sepoys) would have provided the brute labour as was the case in the Americas, except that here, as noted in chapter 1, there is no evidence that enslaved labourers were involved. They were accompanied by indentured workers or “coulis” (coolies), and there are fleeting references in the documentation to “les maîtres maçons de la Compagnie,” but few other clues as to how the building was constructed.52 It was likely that most of the skilled builders were non-Christian Indians as they would otherwise have left a trace in the parish records. It is also likely that there was a workshop to train masons and carpenters in Pondicherry, but so far I have found no record of it. As for the French builders I have discovered nothing more about Jean Roze dit Du Frêne, “maitre charpentier de la Compagnie,” or Jacques Hernault, “menuisier,” than the brief references cited in chapter 1, and there is also a record of a Louis le Dure, a mixed-race “charpentier” from Pondicherry, who witnessed a marriage in 1738.53 Bernard Du Passage was “ingénieur-en-chef ” in Pondicherry between 1736 and 1754, and contributed to the “ouvrage de fortification,” but he seems to have spent most of his time in battles – and also in gambling dens, running up a debt of 12,000 francs in India and in Britain after the siege.54 Ingénieur-en-chef Louis Paradis de La Roche (ca 1701–1748) was also working in Pondicherry at the time but there is no evidence that he was involved with the Gouvernement, although he knew Gerbaud.55 His main project was the hospital (1738–42), built on the east side of the Jardin de la Compagnie, as well as forts in Mahé and Karikal (1737–44), and he was in Karikal between 1744 and 1748, only returning to Pondicherry that year to die in his own hospital.56 Another mystery is the degree of influence “ingénieur du Roi” Jean-Joseph Abeille had on the final design of the building, however construction was too advanced by the time he arrived in 1742

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for him to have done much more than complete Gerbaud’s building. Even though no elevations by Gerbaud survive, the columns and avant-corps of the main facade figure on Gerbaud’s plan, so it must have adhered closely to his intentions. The decision to build a monumental new Gouvernement in the fort dates at least to 1733, when a map of the city indicated the location of the “Gouvernem.t projetté” in yellow pigment, which means that it had not yet been begun, but it already depicted a facade colonnade and exterior and interior staircases, suggesting that Gerbaud’s project had already been sketched out (the architect had returned from Île-de-France the previous year).57 Gerbaud’s plans (figs. 4.14–15) are first mentioned in a letter of 24 January 1738 from the Superior Council to the Syndics and General Directors of the Compagnie des Indes, which notes that they had demolished the old Gouvernement in the fort, that the foundations of the new one were already being laid, and that they were building it as quickly as possible:

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By deliberation of 29 October [1737], we have decided to demolish the Gouvernement, which was about to collapse on all sides and to rent the house of Mr Febvrier for 240 Pagodas a year until the new Gouvernement, of which we present herewith the plan to the Company, be built. We are currently having the foundations laid and will expedite the work because Mr Febvrier is due back in 18 months and there is no suitable apartment in the fort for the Council Chamber and for the registry office and secretariat.58 The plan of the Gouvernement and hospital were sent to France on the cio ship Le Chaurelin in January 1738, but no elevations were included in the ship’s manifest, even though the Compagnie

had demanded them.59 Jean Le Bozecq is specifically linked to the building in a letter by Dumont dated 21 April 1738 as a “maître constructeur” in charge of purchasing “a quantity of teak wood both for the framing and joinery work of the new hospital, which will consume a lot of it, and for the Gouvernement and other works of the Company,” specifically 895 pieces of “wood, beams and planks” costing 3,000 pagodas.60 On 17 October 1738 a letter from the Superior Council of Pondicherry remarks that “work continues on the new Gouvernement and the completion of the hospital begun in 1734.”61 The walls, trusswork, and presumably ceiling of the building must have been completed over the next two years but construction was halted between 1740 and 1742 after monsoon rains destroyed most of the houses of the city and the builders needed to turn their attention to reconstructing them.62 The Conseil Supérieur promised the cio on 24 January 1742 that: “We will also complete the Gouvernement started in the fort a few years ago, the work of which had been interrupted, because there was something more urgent to do” and vowed that they would not undertake any other work until it was completed.63 There is no record of what happened to the building in the following four years, but with the outbreak of the First Carnatic War (1746–48) the cio likely devoted all of its attention to the ramparts and gates.64 Nevertheless the building must have been substantially finished by that time as an anonymous visitor could appreciate enough of it to say on 14 January 1746 that it “will be very beautiful if it is finished.”65 A map dated 1747 already depicts the entire ground floor plan painted red, which means that the rez-de-chaussée at least had been completed (fig. 4.1). On 31 January 1747 during a lull in the fighting the Superior Council announced the arrival of seventy 29-foot-long logs of wood from Mahé to repair ships and “complete

4.14 Emmanuel-Julien Gerbaud, Plan of the Ground Floor of the Proposed Government House, 15 January 1738. Signed “Gerbaud.” Ink and wash on paper, 80 × 55 cm. ANom .

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the Gouvernement.”66 There is then a three-year hiatus when the building was mostly finished but awaiting furnishings: in April 1750 Ananda obtained permission to bring some visitors inside “the Gouvernement that is being built in the fort”; in July 1752 he was shown the sculptures to go in the vestibule; on 22 August of that year Ananda took more visitors to the building; and on 20 December 1752 he was given a personal tour of the completed structure by Dupleix, at

which point all of its décor was in place; nevertheless, Dupleix noted in a letter that the window glass did not arrive until September 1753.67 The last reference to the building’s construction is a 1772 missive by Abeille’s brother that, while not mentioning the Gouvernement specifically, notes the architect’s important role in building the old city: “he applied himself from his childhood to the study of civil & military architecture, in India he was occupied with various projects & the care [he put into them] was of great benefit to the public buildings of the old city of Pondicherry, & in their reconstruction.”68 Gerbaud’s design is sophisticated, original, and academic, a remarkable feat for an engineer

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4.15 Emmanuel-Julien Gerbaud, Plan of the First Storey, or bel étage, of the Proposed Government House, 15 January 1738. Signed “Gerbaud.” Ink and wash on paper, 80 × 54.5 cm. ANom .

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who trained in the colonies. On the ground floor arcade Doric engaged columns are accompanied by an entablature of triglyphs and metopes, here with fleurs-de-lys and flowers in the metopes and human mascarons over the arches. The Ionic upper colonnade also adhered to classical tradition, with an unbroken frieze adorned with an elegant floral garland. Three pediments, two semicircular and one triangular, crowned the colonnade at each ressaut, richly carved with military trophées and

the arms of the Compagnie des Indes, France, and Pondicherry. A giant attic rises above the centre of the building like a raised cage de scène in an opera house – it is also surmounted with balustrades and vases – with windows to illuminate its central hall, and two smaller skylights are located behind the side pediments on top of the rear staircases. A decorative iron railing runs nearly the entire length of the building on the upper storey, from the left ressaut to the terrace on the far right. The Gouvernement’s solid rear facade (fig. 4.17), which abutted the ramparts and therefore was not as visible, is consequently plainer, with undressed windows, and it is divided into three solid wings bookending two-storey triple-arched loggias and

interior staircases. The loggias recede to accommodate two “cours de derrière” at the back of the building – presumably for employees to get some fresh air – and they compensate for the proximity of the curtain wall.69 Prominent quoins adorn the corners of the building, enhancing the visual richness of its surfaces. A two-storey terrace with arcades below and a colonnade above is located on 4.16 Gabriel-Pierre-Martin Dumont, Plan and Elevation of the Gouvernement of Pondicherry, 1755. Signed “Dumont 1755.” Wash and ink on paper, 93.5 × 59.5 cm. ANom .

the east end, facing the sea, so that people could watch ships approaching the city. The building’s roof, floors, panelling, and framework were of solid teak from the Burma shipment noted above, and allegedly the building also used local wood, which, however, was in short supply.70 The interior is an innovative solution to a tropical climate. Its plan adheres to the standard layout (distribution) of contemporary French chateaux in which enfilades had mostly been replaced by central corridors running parallel to the facade. However in a radical departure from

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4.17 Here attributed to Gabriel-Pierre-Martin Dumont, Sectional View and Rear Facade of the Gouvernement of Pondicherry, ca 1755. Watercolour, wash, and ink on paper, 96 × 61 cm. ANom .

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that tradition the ends of the corridors on the upper storey (bel étage) open onto balconies that allow refreshing breezes to penetrate the furthest reaches of the building.71 Much of Gerbaud’s original project was preserved in the final layout of this building, the majority of the changes resulting from a desire to even out the placement of windows and doors, but the open corridor, or “galerie,” only appears on Dumont’s 1755 sectional view, so it is impossible to say whether it was Gerbaud’s idea (figs. 4.15, 4.17).72 Because the upper corridor is open, the bel étage is arranged

along what are essentially parallel colonnades, one on the facade with fifty-six columns and a parallel one down the length of the building with eight columns/engaged columns of its own, although the latter is speculation as no final plan survives of this storey, only a sectional view. Two flank the balconies and the rest stand at the entry to the staircase and salon (a matching pair of engaged columns also appear at the far end of the salon). The facade galleries, more spacious than the central corridors because of the three ressauts advancing from the main wall, allowed ample room for the kind of ceremonial processions and other events that punctuated the short life of this building. The palace was clearly designed specifically for processions: it provided a progressive experience

architect Jacques-François Blondel’s call that a vestibule should “convey the idea of the grandeur of the rooms which follow it.”77 Moving forward, visitors moved from darkness to light, quickly crossing the central corridor and climbing the first flight of the grand staircase (“grand escalier”), which spilled out into the corridor to greet them. They would have been astonished by the two-storey stairhall, designed as a counterpart to the two-storey salon that they would encounter after climbing the steps and crossing the open corridor upstairs. The room is both imposing and an extravagant waste of space: based on palatial models such as Louis Le Vau’s Escalier des Ambassadeurs at Versailles (built in 1680 and paradoxically demolished the same year the Gouvernement was completed), it encloses a divided staircase in which a central flight rises to a half-landing and then bisects and continues to ascend the perimeter of the hall on both sides in six- or ten-step segments to three further landings (fig. 4.18).78 The Escalier des Ambassadeurs was an appropriate prototype given the building’s ceremonial function as a place to welcome local potentates and their agents. In Gerbaud’s first project (fig. 4.14–15) the hall was an enclosed oval, but it was transformed in the final design (fig. 4.16) into a rectangular space lit by high arched windows on three sides. The tropical sun pouring into the room would have been dazzling as it hit the rich, probably gilt or silvered, rococo trophées on the panels flanking the windows and in the entablatures. The upper part of the stairhall echoes the facade with tall Ionic pilasters on the sides and back and a pair of free-standing columns flanking the entrance onto the open corridor. The culmination was the salon, quickly reached by crossing the well-lit corridor and giving onto the colonnaded loggia at the far end. In France the salon was traditionally the most

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meant to awe visitors, proceeding from low, darker rooms into bright, open spaces, first with the theatrical staircase, which would have come as a surprise and allowed for expansive views of its decor, and then the upper salon, an echo of the staircase but with a higher ceiling, and finally the balcony with its view of the square below. Entering the palace through the centre of the arcade, visitors first walked across the lower gallery, which was lined with pilasters, panels, and a classical entablature like an extension of the exterior (figs. 1.2, 4.16–17). This was a common conceit in French palaces and hôtels particuliers as it was meant to serve as a transition between the outside and inside.73 Although it lacked windows, the vestibule was more ornate, each side wall featuring three deep niches containing life-sized allegorical statues and a fountain in the centre. The statues, which Ananda described before their installation, included figures of Justice, Commerce, Truth, and Prudence, and there was another statue in the main stairhall carrying a staff (perhaps Neptune), which he does not identify.74 The fountains had bulky frames supporting recumbent figures, perhaps sea gods, and what looks like the stern of a ship in the middle, while in the centre shellshaped basins received jets of water from a trio of stone dolphins, a common symbol of royalty that also graced public monuments in the French Caribbean.75 The nautical theme and allegorical figures over the fountain recall François-Antoine Vassé’s luxurious mantelpiece at the Galerie Dorée at the Hôtel de Toulouse in Paris (1718–19), which scholars have recently shown to be influenced by the sculptural decoration of ships, and the general arrangement of the statues and statue niches recalls Pierre Bullet’s vestibule at the Château D’Issy (completed 1709).76 Such decoration would have been appropriate in a building devoted to marine commerce, and it answered

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heavily ornamented in the house, although in this building it was rivalled by the stairhall (fig. 1.2). However, whereas the stairhall was only one storey high the salon had an attic high enough to serve as a second storey, with a coved cupola encircled by an iron or bronze railing with generously proportioned windows alternating with giant cartouches. It was equipped with paired doorways twice the visitors’ height flanking costly silvered mirrors from France and richly carved rococo console tables, probably gessoed and gilt or silvered oak with marble tops.79 The decoration on the walls was also silvered and the windows had luxurious green velvet curtains. The

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4.18 Interior View of the Grand Staircase [Louis Le Vau’s Escalier des Ambassadeurs at Versailles (1680; demolished 1752)], 1725. Engraving, 53.5 × 40.7 × 2.3 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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arrangement of doors, overdoors, and wall panels with their carved boiseries (wooden decoration) is metropolitan and resembles that of the Hôtel de Roquelaure in Paris by Nicolas Pineau (1733) (fig. 4.19), to give just one example, although the use of the orders (Corinthian pilasters in this case) was unusual, reserved for royal interiors such as the Galerie d’Enée in the Palais Royal by Gilles-Marie Oppenord (1717) or the sumptuously adorned interior of the Galerie Dorée at the Hôtel de Toulouse.80 The progression from Ionic in the stairhall to Corinthian in the salon was meant to suggest a progression from (relative) simplicity to opulence: the Corinthian order, in Sir John Summerson’s immortal words, was typically “chosen because the architect wants to lay it on thick.”81 They are also more closely associated with imperial as opposed to republican Rome and are therefore appropriate for the palace’s role as

4.19 Nicolas Pineau, Salon Blanc, Hôtel de Roquelaure, Paris, 1733. I am grateful to the Ministère de la Transition écologique et solidaire for permission to photograph this house.

greater is my wonder. Howbeit such a palace is but worthy of you.’ Hearing my words with great joy, he continued to speak about it.”82 Even the governors could not stop staring at the decoration: Leyrit, who succeeded Dupleix in 1755, was famous for ignoring his visitors while revelling in the opulence of his setting: as Ananda put it, he kept “examining and admiring the manner of the building, decorations and structure, for he had no eyes for anything else.”83 The longest description of the palace interior, overlooked by the scholarship, comes from Canto (Stabaka) VIII of Śrinivasa’s Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū. Although written in a language full of metaphor and references to ancient Sanskrit epic literature (such as the Mahābhārata), it provides a glimpse inside the building in an account that was inaccessible not only to European colonists (including missionaries, who struggled even with Tamil), but also

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headquarters of France’s possessions in the Indian Ocean. The Palais du Gouvernement was engineered to impress. No European descriptions of the palace survive but we are extremely fortunate to have two indigenous responses to the building that were neither meant for a European audience nor filtered through a European intermediary (for instance a scribe or translator) – such voices are extremely rare in the history of early modern European colonial architecture. The first witness is Ananda, who described it in his private diary in December 1752: “Afterwards, taking me up to the first story of the Gouvernement, [Dupleix] showed the hall plated with silver, containing the great mirror that has come from Europe and with the windows hung with green velvet curtains fringed with lace. ‘Is not this fine?’ he exclaimed. I replied, ‘Sir, the longer I behold the Gouvernement, the

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to the Tamil merchant community, who did not understand Sanskrit (Ananda did not understand it either, but as he was the poet’s patron he helped provide its content as we will see in chapter 9).84 The passage, which describes Ananda’s arrival at the palace, again demonstrates the importance of Indian ceremonial to the daily life of the building:

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Ānandaran˙ga [Ananda] having entered that palace that amused all in the three worlds in beauty, descending from his vehicle [palanquin] walked after wearing the sandals, fitting well on his feet that were brought by the servants getting closer to the Hūn.a King [French governor] who was informed by the door keepers about the arrival, hearing which the king swiftly stood from his throne, amidst the court that was decorated by a large piece of cloth that was shining with golden flowers embedded upon it, putting the autumn moon to shame, wherein large group [sic] of attractive tall golden pillars were seen, as if trying to outshine the celestial court Sudharma, it seemed to be made on earth, wherein numerous seats in various colours were arranged, which (court) resembled the bed of the ocean, on all sides of the court golden walls were seen decorated with groups of precious stones reflecting the forms of great men seated therein on high raised thrones, and decorated with spotless silk cloths, whose wealth was self respect, seeing Ānandaran˙ga they stood from their seats with great respect and the Hūn.a King was served by wise swift ministers who were close to him, ascending on a golden throne decorated with colourful precious stones, who received the services of men who stood near by with all humility fanning him with cāmara (the tail of camarī deer, a hairy animal) and palm leaves, with

great affection and respect Ānandaran˙ga sat on a high raised throne that defeated the brilliance of sun rays being decorated with numerous gems.85 Śrinivasa is particularly struck with the textiles – on the furniture, perhaps the curtains, and apparently the walls, which suggests that the salon had silk or velvet wall coverings – as well as the floral motifs, the columns, and the raised golden thrones studded with precious stones. In contrast with Ananda’s description the decor is described as gilt, not silvered. The discrepancy may simply be a mistake, or the building may have had a combination of silver and gold boiseries and furnishings. Śrinivasa also claims that semi-precious stones were embedded into the walls, although perhaps the reference is to ornaments such as the bejewelled enamel timepiece presented to the palace by Madame de Pompadour.86 However the text represents the way Ananda wanted the palace to be remembered – and, more importantly, his own exalted position within it. The scene immediately recalls Louis XIV’s reception of the Siamese ambassadors (fig. 2.18), with its silver thrones and court costumes festooned with jewels. The most surprising thing about this building is that it is not the governor’s residence, although many scholars identify it as such.87 Unlike a typical château or hôtel particulier in France – or the Hôtel de la Compagnie – there are no appartements, or clusters of private living quarters with bedrooms, smaller reception rooms, antechambers, wardrobes and en-suite lavatories.88 As noted above, the governors lived in the Hôtel de la Compagnie (figs. 4.8–9, 4.11–12), which Dupleix in particular spent a great deal of money redecorating, and the Compagnie garden (about which more below) was the setting of many a festivity.89 The Gouvernement, by contrast, was all business: a combination of a grand setting for

Ananda describes the procession to and from church on 4 November 1754: the European gentlemen and ladies came, and all went to church. Before mass ended, three volleys and three salutes of 21 guns were fired. When the Governor left the church, and approached the parade, the men saluted him with their lances and colours, the captain of the European troopers with drawn sword, according to custom, and the trumpeters, drummer and fifers playing until he had entered the Gouvernement. He sat down to table with all the Europeans on the ground floor. A salute of 21 guns was fired for the King’s health.92 Curiously, this procession appears exclusively to have followed European ceremonial rules; presumably since the guests were Europeans they did not require nautch women and fly whiskers. The more spacious public rooms were on the bel étage on either side of the salon (fig. 4.15), including the council chamber, “salle de parade” (a room for public functions), “salle d’armes” (for military ceremonies), and the governor’s office, a room nearly as large as the “salle d’armes.” On this floor the rooms on the west end accommodated the offices of the secretary (one of which must have been sacrificed to make way for the open corridor) and the guest bedroom, while the east end contained the governor’s chamber and office (the office must also have been relocated), as well as the office of the governor’s secretary and the dormitory for the domestic staff. Finally, tucked into the corners of the “cours de derrière,” are internal staircases providing access to the rooftop terrace: the terrace was an important place for relaxation and viewing the sea and city and also for public events such as the watching of fireworks.

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ceremonial events designed to impress Indian and other European officials and a suite of offices and storage areas for the needs of the Compagnie.90 There was a small bedroom to lodge official guests (“une petite chambre pour loger quelque ami”) on the west end of the first storey and a room called the “chambre pour le gouverneur” on the east end; however this was not a bedroom but a grand receiving room. Most significantly, there was no apartment for the governor’s wife or family. The building may have emulated the palaces of France, but it was unlike them in their principal function as a residence, unless we count the Louvre, which the kings had abandoned since Louis XIV moved the court to Versailles. The Gouvernement’s official rooms were lined up between the facade gallery and the interior gallery as well as at the two ends of the building, forming a west and east wing with the vestibule and salon in the middle. Their exact locations are only recorded in Gerbaud’s 1738 plan, and some of them may have changed or been moved around to accommodate the open ends of the upper-storey galerie. On the ground floor the vestibule was flanked by the archives and bookkeepers’ offices on the left and those of the storekeeper and cashier on the right. The west end of the building contained the notary’s offices and the east end held those of the “écrivains noirs” (Indian secretaries), the courtier (Ananda’s office), and the Malabar merchants, while the back of the building on each end accommodated storage for the palanquins that, as we have seen, were so important to Company ceremonial (see fig. 1.2). But we also know from Ananda’s diary that there was “a great dining hall … on the ground floor, where a table was placed” and where the Governor and his family dined Sundays after attending church, which does not appear in the 1738 plan.91 The Sunday lunch was not an intimate family affair but a matter of great pomp befitting this ceremonial space.

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4.20 Ange-Jacques Gabriel, western palace in Place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde), Paris, 1757–65.

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Like the Hôtel de la Compagnie, the Palais du Gouvernement is based on a close study of engravings of French buildings, although it does not replicate any model completely and in some respects it is strikingly contemporary.93 The unusual arrangement of porticoes with round and triangular pediments at the Gouvernement recalls Champlâtreux (fig. 1.3), but that building has only (engaged) columns in the central pavilion and is crowned by a massive mansard roof and toit à l’impériale.94 Most French architecture at this time shied away from columns and were sparing even with pilasters. As noted above, the Gouvernement’s colonnade most closely evokes princely or royal commissions, particularly the Louvre’s east facade (although there the columns are paired) and the two palaces facing the Place Louis XV by Ange-Jacques Gabriel (1757–66), which are, however, later than the Gouvernement

(figs. 1.4, 4.20).95 In contrast with the Grand Siècle exterior, the Gouvernement’s rococo interiors are decidedly avant-garde, which is not surprising since the mirrors and other furnishings came directly from France. Instead of evoking a golden age that was out of date, it instead advertised contemporary French styles and French products for the benefit of visiting dignitaries and merchants, an approach that Colbert would certainly have condoned, even if the style was no longer the one he championed.96 The final testament to this project’s importance was the Ministry of the Marine’s decision to hire an academician to make the presentation drawings – something unprecedented in the colonies – and likely with the aim of producing engravings, another first. Scholars have assumed that Dumont was another royal engineer posted in India; however, I have found no evidence for a Dumont in

Pondicherry at the time except for a CIO merchant and a family of smugglers – or indeed any royal engineer named Dumont in all of France’s colonies.97 I attribute these drawings to GabrielPierre-Martin Dumont as he was in the right place at the right time. He had just returned from a trip to Italy with Pompadour’s brother Abel Poisson – since 1751 the superintendent of the 4.21 Gabriel-Pierre-Martin Dumont, perspective view of the mechanical works and construction of a theatre. Pen and black ink, with grey wash, over graphite, on paper, 31 × 36.9 cm. Morgan Library, New York.

King’s Buildings – and, given his sister’s interest in the project, Poisson most likely commissioned Dumont to make the drawings. The sheets also have distinct stylistic similarities with Dumont’s known work. Particularly noteworthy is the way Dumont draws the stairs edged with a dotted line and how he tucks the lower steps tightly into the main staircase.98 The treatment is identical in a study for two staircases he executed while at the Académie entitled [Deux desseins d’escaliers] l’un pour un hôtel ordinaire et l’autre pour un palais magnifique (1737). His lively staffage figures in figure 1.2 are also very close to those in the

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preparatory drawings for his Parallèles des plans des plus belles salles de spectacle d’Italie et de France avec des détails de machines théâtrales (Paris, 1774) (fig. 4.21), particularly in their animated poses and attention to costume and hats. A pupil of Jean Aubert (ca 1680–1741), Dumont won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1737, as we have seen, spent 1742–46 in Italy, where he was inducted into the Accademia di S Luca (in 1746), and he returned to Italy in 1749–50 in the entourage of Abel-François Poisson, who was being groomed for his future role as superintendent of the King’s Buildings, along with Jacques-Germain Soufflot and Charles-Nicolas Cochin.99 After returning to Paris Dumont took up a position at the Royal Academy of Architecture, probably in 1755, the very year of the Pondicherry drawing. He would become famous later for his publications on Italian and French architecture beginning in the 1760s, one of which was dedicated to Poisson, by then the duc de Marigny.100 By contrast Champia de Fonbrun was a royal engineer architect. He was appointed to the cio on 24 October 1752 “pour la garde de ville et fort de Pondichéry” after seven years in Piedmont. He was back in Paris by May 1772, living at the house of a cabinetmaker named Clavelle on rue Montorgueil, and shortly afterward he relocated to Grand-Bourg (Guadeloupe), where he married a mixed-race woman named Elisabeth on 22 February 1773.101 The marriage record claimed that Fonbrun was a “native of Pondicherry”; however I have not found any reference to him in the baptismal records and the priest may simply have mistaken his previous place of residence for his birthplace. In 1777 this “ancien Ingénieur de Pondichéry” published a table of the parallax of the sun and moon.102 Fonbrun would have made his set of drawings of the Gouvernement in Pondicherry around 1752, the year he arrived, and then sent them to Paris to be copied in 1755 by Dumont, who added

features such as elegant rococo cartouches in the manner of Pierre Ranson (1736–1786) and the staffage figures.103 Engravings of the Gouvernement and the Governor’s Garden As it happens the building was engraved, as was the governor’s garden to the north of the fort – the only monuments in the early modern French colonial empire to be so commemorated – and the prints remained popular among what we might call European “armchair travellers” through the second half of the eighteenth century (figs. 4.22–3). Nevertheless the history of the engravings and even the authenticity of the views remain obscure. The prints are entitled View of Pondicherry in the East Indies and Perspective View of the Marvellous Bower in the Gardens of the Governor of Pondicherry, City in the East Indies on the Coromandel Coast, and they were executed by at least three of the leading printing houses in Paris including those of Jacques-Gabriel Huquier (1730–1805), Jacques-François Daumont (1740–1775), and Marguerite Caillou “La veuve” Chéreau (fl. 1729–55).104 A third one in the series, entitled View of the Storehouses of the Company of the Indies in Pondicherry, of the Admiralty, and of the Governor’s House, is misidentified as it clearly shows some other port, possibly in British India or even in Europe.105 The prints were included in various series of coloured vues d’optique (perspective views) of buildings and cities around the world and were meant to be viewed through a zograscope (a device containing a magnifying glass and sometimes a mirror) to create a threedimensional effect.106 It is unclear who first executed the view of the Gouvernement, which gives a reasonably accurate if generic view of its rear facade overlooking the ramparts but takes some artistic

4.22 Gabriel Huquier fils after Jan van Ryne, View of Pondicherry in the East Indies, Paris, ca 1763. Handcoloured engraving, Paris, 27 × 41 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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licence by aligning it with the beach when it was in fact roughly perpendicular to the sea. As it happens, the earliest datable print is British, by the Anglo-Dutch printmaker Jan van Ryne (1712–1760), part of a series published by Robert Sayer (London, 1754) of East Indies ports such as Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, Batavia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Saint Helena Island.107 In that series, however, the print was misidentified as Fort William in the Kingdom of Bengal belonging to the East India Company of England, and the fort

flies the Union Jack and the ships are festooned with the flags of the British eic .108 Since Van Ryne never left Europe (he lived in the Netherlands and then in London between 1750 and his death), he cannot have made the original drawing of the building; the author was most likely a naval draughtsman, probably British. The caption is either an honest mistake or his image is a creative pastiche of the Gouvernement and certain buildings from English ports, since there is a church with a steeple in the background that looks like St Anne’s Church (1709) in Calcutta (fig. 4.22). The identification as Calcutta is accepted at face value to this day by the British Library and scholarly publications on the British Empire.109 To complicate matters, British maritime painter

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Francis Swaine (1730–1782) executed an oil painting of the scene as part of series he made of British ports around the world which some have taken to be the original; however he also never visited Pondicherry and the series was produced at the time of the Treaty of Paris (1763), later than the Van Ryne picture – in fact Swaine’s is a reasonably faithful copy of Van Ryne’s in reverse.110 It is interesting that the French presses knew all along that the engraving depicted Pondicherry, and even 4.23 Jean-François Daumont, Perspective View of the Marvellous Bower in the Gardens of the Governor of Pondicherry, City in the East Indies on the Coromandel Coast, third quarter eighteenth century. Hand-coloured engraving, 26.8 cm × 41.2 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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more fascinating that they left the Union Jacks in the picture. As this was a conscious choice the Gouvernement (and its conspicuous absence in France’s rebuilt colony) seems by then already to have become a nostalgic symbol of lost French grandeur. The potency of this symbol would have repercussions. The garden (fig. 4.23) is more mysterious still as it has nothing to do with the Van Ryne/Swaine series. The actual garden of the governor was also an object of French patriotism, almost as much as the Gouvernement – dutiful references to Versailles were made at the time – but the gigantic size suggested by the engraving is the product of the exaggerated perspective required for a vue d’optique and hardly an accurate representation, as

is generally believed.111 As I have explored in my study of the French empire in the Atlantic, formal gardens were an important manifestation of supposed French superiority over other cultures, European or non-European, and they made larger and more expensive gardens than any other colonial power – often in the places where they had the least influence such as in West Africa.112 They also served as ideal places for ephemeral events, as during the Dauphin’s birthday festivities in Pondicherry in 1730, when the women of the colony performed a pastorale and a grand illumination was mounted using cloth lanterns distributed throughout the gardens.113 However, contemporary maps demonstrate that the governor’s garden was a relatively modest affair adjacent to the Hôtel de la Compagnie (fig. 4.1).114 In fact I believe that the vue d’optique image depicts a garden in France, particularly given the arcaded building with a mansard roof and chimneys in the background and the somewhat retardataire appearance of the staffage figures, who look as if they were attending a fancy-dress ball in the era of Louis XIV. They are certainly not dressed for the tropics. Ostentation and Destruction

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Although the Gouvernement was really Governor Dumas’s building and the gardens long predated the arrival of French India’s most flamboyant administrator, both were forever linked with Dupleix in the French imagination. Dupleix was notorious for enjoying the finer things in life: when he was the mere director of the Chandernagore trading post in the 1730s he was eager to keep up with the latest amenities, asking his brother to send him Jean de Julienne’s four-volume complete works of Antoine Watteau (1726), a costly collection of 600 engravings published five years after the artist’s death, as well as other prints and books, the latest issues of the Mercure de France,

crates of Champagne, Burgundy wine, Parfait d’Amour liqueur, tobacco, and two new scientific books on insects and machines.115 His adoption of Mughal ceremonial demonstrates the importance he placed on opulent display, something that riled his British rivals, who condemned it as “arrogant ostentation.”116 Even Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859), Queen Victoria’s secretary at war and author of a eulogy to Dupleix’s enemy Robert Clive (1725–1774), reluctantly had to grant him respect as “the man who first saw that it was possible to found a European empire on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy … at a time when the ablest servants of the English Company were busied only about invoices and bills of lading.”117 An anonymous French manuscript history of the fall of Pondicherry (1761) declared that Dupleix “had the qualities of soul and spirit which can put him in the rank of great men, a noble ambition, sentiments of honour, an extreme desire to uphold the glory of the French name,” and that he turned Pondicherry into “a flourishing city.”118 The chronicle specifically contrasts Dupleix with the comte de Lally-Tollendal (1702–1766), the defeated supreme commander of French forces (later executed as a traitor), who hid in the Gouvernement during the five-month Siege of Pondicherry (1760–61), emptying its wine cellar of fine champagne while his officers ate camel and horse in the dining room and the rest of the army and populace hunted dogs and rats on the streets: “it is now known all over the universe how the city of Pondicherry was reduced to rubble and how it has become the refuge of wild animals.”119 The British well understood the symbolic power of Pondicherry’s architecture. After the siege, Madras governor George Pigot (1719–1777) commanded troops to loot every French building in Pondicherry (Tamil ones were spared) and then systematically to blast them into oblivion. However, Pigot’s rampage of destruction was

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4.24 John McLean, Ruins of the citadel in Pondicherry after the attack by the British. Pen and ink and wash, 40 × 56.5 cm. Inscribed on front in ink: “To the Honble George Pigot Esqr. President of the Council & Governor of Fort St George, this View of the Ruins of the Citadel in Pondichery is respectfully presented by John McLean, Practitioner Engr. Sept 8th 1762.” British Library.

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a kind of begrudging admiration: the British learned their lesson from Dupleix and the Pondicherry Gouvernement. Between 1798 and 1805 Richard Colley, 1st Marquess Wellesley (1760–1842), rebuilt Calcutta as what French observers recognized to be a “secure power base as a modernized form of despotism,” and its monumental government structures, like those of Pondicherry, were “partly motivated by the desire to assert British power on an imperial scale.”120 A member of the Madras engineers

named John McLean was commissioned to memorialize Pondicherry’s destruction eighteen months after the siege (8 September 1762) with a drawing dedicated to Pigot and entitled View of the Ruins of the Citadel in Pondichery with the devastated shell of the Gouvernement taking pride of place, its two hollowed-out side pavilions teetering over the rubble and conspicuous piles of Composite capitals and columns strewn across the foreground as if French classicism itself had been destroyed and not just a single citadel (fig. 4.24).121 A decade later printmaker Yves-Marie Le Gouaz (1742–1816) published a French view of the same ruins, drawn by Louis-Denis Fossier (1744–1781) after the French had returned to the city (in 1763) following the Treaty of Paris – although it is probably more a capriccio than an accurate rendition, given such anomalies as the windows composed of small diamond-shaped

leaded glass and the lack of specific features, other than the quoining, present in the original building (fig. 4.25). It is interesting to compare the two images: both are romanticized views like one of the vedute or capricci of Roman ruins by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) that were so popular among British and French collectors alike, complete with depictions of artists (a portrait of McLean), peasant staffage figures, and (in Fossier’s version) two men who look like gentlemen on the Grand Tour.122 Both engravings also participate in the midcentury enthusiasm in France for the picturesque and for “catastrophe as sublime subject,” in which ruins of a once-glorious past serve as objects of 4.25 Yves-Marie Le Gouaz after Fossier, View of Part of the Ruins of Pondicherry Where My Observatory Was Located. Engraving. From Le Gentil, Voyage dans les mers de l’Inde (Paris, 1773). Getty Research Institute.

contemplation, some pleasurably sensual, others melancholy, as well as for a fascination with the world’s precariousness, fuelled by financial collapse in France, the crumbling of state institutions, and nostalgia for the Grand Siècle – most notably expressed by La Font de Saint-Yenne, noted above.123 However artists and critics also saw a positive side to meditating on ruins: writers from Denis Diderot to Roger de Piles celebrated depictions of unfinished things like ruins for their ability to prompt imaginative contemplation, to “allow more liberty to our imagination” (Diderot).124 The growth of ruinisme, or Piranesiinspired ruins of French buildings, is an outcome of this enthusiasm. Baron de Montesquieu (1689– 1755) almost seems to have had Pondicherry in mind when he famously remarked in 1748: “[w]e are poor with the riches and commerce of the whole world; and soon … we shall all be … reduced to the very same situation as the Tartars.”125

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The New Gouvernement (1765–68) and the Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières (1774) The new Gouvernement was built on the foundations of the more modest Hôtel de la Compagnie, replanting its gardens and parterres and rebuilding the corps de logis and much of the left wing.126 The architect, Jean-Claude de Bourcet (1733–1776), remarked that “all the buildings constructed are on their old foundations, which have been found to be very solid.”127 The returning French may have chosen this site out of respect for the memory of the demolished Palais du Gouvernement or because they wanted to send a less bellicose signal to Britain. Like the building it replaced – and as I have observed about French colonial architecture globally after the Seven Years War, particularly in the Antilles – the new Gouvernement (1765–68) reflected a more reticent classicism, eschewing the bombast of its predecessor and projecting stylishness rather than power (figs. 4.26; 4.29–30).128 Although modified

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4.26 Jean-Claude de Bourcet, Facade of the Gouvernement. Signed and dated 28 February 1768. Ink and wash on paper, 54 × 34 cm. ANom .

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in 1817–20 and several times between 1850 and 1905, much of the new Gouvernement survives in today’s Raj Niwas (fig. 4.31). The building is also significant for the later history of the colony as its colonnaded balconies and porticoes and balustrade parapet became signature features of Pondicherry architecture for the next 150 years: consequently, the French quarter admired by tourists today looks like an eighteenth-century town even though most buildings date from the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nowhere in the French colonies did the style of Louis XV prevail for so long. Born in Grenoble in 1733, Jean-Claude de Bourcet was a lieutenant-colonel in the infantry and the engineer in chief of Pondicherry who had come to India in 1757 just in time to witness the colony’s collapse. He served in “all the campaigns, and … all the sieges,” received a serious head wound at Madras, was captured by the British, and was shipped back to Europe with the rest of the besieged.129 After returning to Pondicherry Bourcet married a naval lieutenant’s daughter named Thérèse-Jeanne Deveaux in 1773 in the Capuchin church, and in 1775 they had a son who died the next year.130 During his time in

4.27 Elevation of the facade of the house of Monsieur le Prince de Rohan at Saint Ouën, from Jean Mariette, Architecture françoise (Paris, 1727–38). Engraving. Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. © Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. rmN Grand Palais / Art Resource, Ny .

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Pondicherry he was served by engineers Gilbert de Ranger (d. after 1791) and Claude Dulac (d. before 1788) and an architect named Cordé.131 Ranger was a fellow veteran of the Third Carnatic War, and upon his return he worked first in Karaikal and Mahé, before entering Bourcet’s service in 1765. Dulac served first in Île de France, fought in the siege of Madras (1746) in the First Carnatic War, and with the end of hostilities he was sent to Pondicherry in September 1769. It was Bourcet’s country house in Virampatnam, south of the city, that was purchased by the mep as their seminary after they were expelled from Siam (see chapter 5) (figs. 5.6–7). In designing the new Gouvernement Bourcet consulted the same books as did his predecessors although now he could also have used Blondel’s volumes or Boffrand’s Livre d’architecture (1745). In fact the model was Boffrand’s maison de plaisance for the Prince de Rohan at Saint-Ouen

(1714–17), a one-storey pleasure villa outside of Paris of a sort that would especially proliferate after the 1750s as a type called a “petite maison” (fig. 4.27).132 Boffrand’s house was a simple, flatroofed rectangular structure raised on a terrace and open on all four sides with nothing inside but a veranda, salon, two small bedrooms, and a pair of staircases, designed as a retreat but not a residence. The court facade is tripartite with a six-column Ionic colonnade in the centre flanked by enclosed wings each with two plain segmental arched windows. The central section of the roof was adorned with a balustrade and urns. The villa was a far cry from the palatial prototypes that inspired Gerbaud’s Gouvernement. The new Gouvernement began as a singlestorey structure, completed between 1765 and 1766 (figs. 4.26, 4.28–30). A second storey was added in 1767–68, for which Bourcet simply doubled his model, creating an elegant facade of superimposed colonnades, the lower one corrected to Doric (complete with triglyphs and metopes) and the upper one Ionic as in Boffrand’s model (fig. 4.26).133 Like its prototype, the new Gouvernement has six columns and uses quoining

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4.28 (oppoSiTe ) Jean-Claude de Bourcet, The Old Gouvernement. October 1765. Ink and watercolour on paper, 44 × 57.5 cm. ANom . Yellow sections are built; red ones are the foundations of the old structure. At the lower left are the treasury and offices [17] and upper right a pandal, or pavilion [16]. 4.29 (ABove ) Jean-Claude de Bourcet, Profile and Elevation of the Facade of the Gouvernement. Signed and dated 15 October 1766. Ink and watercolour on paper, 57.5 × 23 cm. ANom .

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to frame the wings. The balustrade appears only on the ground floor entablature and not on the roof, and a stone balustrade at the base of the lower-storey colonnade depicted in an earlier project was replaced with a metal grille. The windows on the side wings are like those at Saint-Ouen and those in the vestibule maintain the high arched profile of the model but without its glass doors. The architecture was stylish but modest. The plan of the new Gouvernement was also more utilitarian: gone is the central axis of the lengthwise vestibule and salon, and in its place is

a largely symmetrical warren of small rooms and a corridor with a rectangular dining room at the centre (figs. 4.28, 4.30). There are two vestibules, the former garden facade now faces a “cour principale,” and the rest of the rooms are given over to staff quarters.134 Two short wings extend to the north to accommodate the staircase and an additional lodging. Upstairs there is a “Salle ou salon,” surrounded by small rooms, a narrow “verande,” and a terrace at the back, the veranda preceded by the colonnaded “terrasse” at the front. The progressive arrangement of rooms that was so crucial to the older building’s design is gone (figs. 4.8–9, 4.11–12). As on the ground floor the wings contain lodgings but also two “petit salons” flanking the loggia. The interior, as revealed in front and side sectional views, was plainly decorated with wooden panelling instead of the silvered rococo boiseries of its predecessor. The outbuildings were rebuilt, including the left wing of the cour d’honneur with its office block on the south end, but in a more rudimentary manner with a few offices for the treasury and

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4.30 Jean-Claude de Bourcet, Plan of the Gouvernement. October 1765. Ink and watercolour on paper, 58 × 46 cm. ANom. The parts painted red are already built, those painted yellow have yet to be built.

claims office lined up along the south and west sides, some service rooms and the latrine on the north side, and the rest taken up by an uneven, open courtyard (compare figs 4.11, 4.28, 4.30). The north end of the wing accommodated the

kitchens, and behind the house was a courtyard and godown. Bourcet constructed a new building which he called a “Pandal” (a Hindu term for a pavilion) to the left of the corps de logis with a central salon, vestibule, and ring of rooms, which served as a temporary structure “built in haste” as a dwelling for Governor Jean Law de Lauriston (in office 1765–77) that later served as a textile market building (fig. 4.28).135 In 1821 a pair of vegetable gardens were planted where the

the highly decorated but elderly comte de Saussay, who had left his wife to live the last nine years of his life in France.137 Lagrenée was born in SaintPaul on Île Bourbon and died in Pondicherry, where he is buried with his wife at the Capuchin cemetery adjacent the church in which they were married.138 The date of the construction of the house, in brick and lime mortar, is preserved on a gilded cartouche at the foot of the farthest to the right of four relief carvings on the facade, with the inscription “Pondichéry 1774” (since changed to “Pondicherry 1774”), in the middle of a representation of the city’s outer ramparts. As at the new Gouvernement, an iron grille acts as a balustrade at the foot of the colonnade and five tall segmental arched doorways lead into the formal part of the building. However here they are surmounted by delicate rococo relief stuccoes combining shellwork at the centre with floral sprays at the sides. The most prominent decorations are the four teardrop-shaped allegorical relief stuccoes of trophées representing Agriculture, Music, Theatre, and Geometry, which are formed of symbolic objects woven into an elaborate festoon of flowers hanging from a bow (fig. 4.33). These stuccoes contrast with the plain Gouvernement and reflect the latest Parisian fashions. When this house was being built, the presses of rue Saint-Jacques in Paris published multiple sets of trophées representing themes like the liberal arts or the four seasons that were more light-hearted than earlier trophées. Artists such as Pierre Ranson (1736–1786) and Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728–1808) reduced the number of motifs and incorporated them into delicate, lace-like bouquets tied with ribbons at the top.139 Although the sculptors of the Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières facade took liberties with their models, particularly by reducing the number of symbols, they can be traced to certain prints such as Pillement’s Trophy with Agricultural Implements from his Recueil des trophées chinoises (Paris,

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stables and warehouses once stood and Bourcet’s office block was demolished. Most importantly the double loggia was altered, turning the lower colonnade into an arcade and replacing the single columns above with pairs; the long side wings were added later in the century (fig. 4.31). This chapter concludes with a remarkable building that, although not built by the state like the others, remains the most important and complete eighteenth-century French house in Pondicherry and would not look the way it does without the examples of the old and new Gouvernements with their classical colonnades, flat roofs, balustrades, and wide verandas. A rectangular, single-storey structure like Boffrand’s Saint-Ouen but with a more spacious projecting portico in the Doric order, the Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières (1774) is positioned at the far end of a courtyard accessed by a grand Ionic portal crowned by vases of carved fruit, flowers, and foliage (figs. 4.27, 4.32).136 In fact, with its six columns, balustrade with urn finials, and narrow wings, the house may well have been directly based on the Boffrand print. However, like the new Gouvernement, it faced a narrow courtyard at the back (this part of the house has since been modified) instead of a garden, and the distribution of its rooms is much simplified, with four chambers of unequal size forming an enfilade at the front and then (originally) a corridor and corner rooms at the back. As the governor’s commandant-en-second, Lagrenée may have specifically designed his house to evoke the Gouvernement and underscore the prestige of his office (figs. 4.26, 4.31). Simon Lagrenée de Mézières (1730–1800) was one of the town’s most prominent citizens and also a councillor in the Conseil Supérieur; however he received his wealth from his expedient marriage in December 1772 to Adélaide Le Faucheur (b. 1726) from Mazulipatam, the daughter of an under merchant in the cio and widow of

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4.31 (oppoSiTe Top ) Jean-Claude de Bourcet, Spinasse, and others. The former Gouvernement, now Raj Niwas, Pondicherry, 1765–68, restored 1820 and later. 4.32 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières, Pondicherry, 1774. Main facade and portico. 4.33 (LefT ) Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières, Pondicherry, 1774. Detail of facade showing the relief Agriculture (after Jean-Baptiste Pillement). 4.34 (ABove ) Jean-Baptiste Pillement, trophy with agricultural implements from Recueil des trophées chinoises (Paris, Johann Heinrich Hess, 1770). Engraving. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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4.35 Cemetery colonnade, Armenian Church, Madras, 1772. A typical “Madras Terrace.”

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1770) – published just four years before the house was decorated – which has the watering can, rake, and hoe of the Agriculture trophée, with the bow at the top and delicate floral sprays (fig. 4.34). Nevertheless, the building also includes regional details, such as the underside of the colonnade roof, which is made with wooden beams and rafters in a method known as the “Madras Terrace.” This technique demonstrates that builders travelled between Madras and Pondicherry and brought their own technologies with them, and that many of the people responsible for the reconstruction of Pondicherry were likely hired from a British colony, as would happen almost a century later with the Palais du Gouverneur-Général in Saigon (see chapter 1).140 The appearance of builders familiar with Madras also raises an interesting point as buildings in that city in the 1770s to 1790s were beginning to reflect Britain’s own brand of neoclassicism,

with similar classical colonnades in one or two stories. Noteworthy are the cemetery colonnade at the Armenian Church, built just before 1772 (fig. 4.35); the Madras Club, once a private garden house (1780s), Doveton House (before 1798); and Brodie Castle (1798).141 While the British examples lack the French balustrades with urns and the rococo details, they demonstrate that neoclassicism was just as fashionable in the British colonies as it was in those belonging to France. I will return to the role of neoclassicism in chapter 9, looking at how this style became the preferred style of European colonial powers across Asia but also how it was appropriated by the colonized and by independent Asian nations to counter European hegemony. Two remarkable stone plaques (1745, 1862) on the fountain of Pondicherry’s Place du Gouvernement and a statue once in the same square (1870)

demonstrate that nostalgia for the ruined Fort Louis, the Gouvernement, and Dupleix as an architectural patron had a direct role in motivating Napoleon III’s government to authorize the conquest of Saigon and build a second French empire in Asia. The later plaque is meticulously designed to resemble the first. Both use the same stone, are the same size, and are written in identical Latin script. They also have a similar motif at the top: a banderole bearing the first line of text on top of a symbol. In the earlier plaque it is a sunburst emerging from the all-seeing eye of God and in the later one it is a pair of cornucopia and three laurel leaves. The first, commissioned in 1745 to honour Dupleix and once affixed to the city’s Marine Gate, reads: Under the Protection of the All Powerful. It is vain to attempt to besiege it [i.e., the Citadel]. In response to the petition of the inhabitants of Pondicherry in the year 1745, for the security as well as for the improvement [of the town], this citadel and its maritime ramparts were founded, constructed and completed in the name and under the reign of the King of France Louis XV, and in the name of the Compagnie des Indes, by the ever vigilant governor Joseph François Dupleix.142 The second plaque, commissioned by the city in 1862 to commemorate Napoleon III and the construction of the fountain, reads:

Even the phrasing of the second plaque recalls the first: whole sections of text and phrases such as “ever vigilant” are taken verbatim from its counterpart. Napoleon was presented as Louis XV’s equivalent – although now an emperor rather than a king – and Governor Durand (in office 1857–63) as the equal of Dupleix and Martin. In contrast to the bellicose tone of the first text, it stressed the peaceful nature of the colony, how it no longer suffered from enemy attacks, and how the new fountain would improve the health of the city. However, the 1862 plaque was no mere celebration of peace and urban renewal: its parallelism with the earlier plaque hinted that France had returned to Asia as an imperial power. It is no coincidence that it was commissioned on the centenary of the fall of Pondicherry, and it resonates with the longing for the “mighty castle” that had animated France since 1761 and now served as a call for action. It was also not coincidental that 1862 was the year the French completed their capture of Saigon, the first conquest of their new Asian empire. France’s new imperial expansion would not take place in India, because in the intervening years Britain had achieved supremacy over the subcontinent, but Pondicherry would remain an important maritime link between France and Indochina. It is almost as if Napoleon had taken to heart the call to vengeance made in the 1761 manuscript history of Pondicherry’s demise, mentioned earlier in this chapter, which declared: “May it please divine providence that the restoration of this nation in India should be as favourable to it as its downfall has been fatal and appalling.”144

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For the utility and health of the people. Enemies do not try to overthrow it [i.e., the colony]. In response to the petition of the inhabitants of Pondicherry in the year 1862, in the middle of the spot where earlier the mighty castle stood, built by Governor Martin, in honour of Napoleon III,

Emperor of the French, in whose empire the Indies are part, the ever vigilant governor Alexandre Durand d’Ubraye gave salubrious waters to the city for [its] well-being.143

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The statue, a monumental bronze portrait of Dupleix standing on a stone plinth faced with speckled blue marble and with a bronze dedicatory plaque, celebrates the colony’s most revered governor. He wears a voluminous justaucorps, high riding boots, and a luxurious periwig – curiously, it is in the style of Louis XIV, not the shorter one he actually wore, suggesting that the artist wanted simultaneously to evoke the era of Colbert. Dupleix holds a map of Pondicherry in his right hand while his left hand rests on the hilt of his sword. The sculpture was cast in Paris in 1869 by Charles-Stanislas Matifat (1820–after 1875), who had contributed several bronze works to the 1851 Crystal Palace Exposition in London, and the plaque was made by local sculptor A.S. Vasan.145 The inscription, dated July 1870 (presumably Bastille Day), reads: “In the reign of Napoleon III Emperor of the French, Admiral Rigault de Genouilly, being Minister of the Marine and of the Colonies, has erected this statue at Pondicherry in the memory of the Marquis Dupleix,” with the signatures of Governor Bontemps, the director of the interior, Lacoutre, and the director of bridges and roads, Rouyer.146 The implicit, although unsubtle, message projected by this statue was that Rigault, who happened to be Saigon’s conqueror and France’s greatest contemporary military hero, had avenged the loss of the city so closely associated with the man he set up as his counterpart, Dupleix. The French were once again a military power in Asia and the interregnum was over. The new empire was France’s way of compensating for past humiliations by reoccupying lands that it considered to be French by right or moral obligation. The long presence of French missionaries in Siam and Đại Việt, combined with contemporary persecutions of European and indigenous Christians in the latter, provided what the French believed to be sufficient justification

to conquer what they would call Indochina. The next chapter, devoted to French-related buildings in the region before the conquest (and to an eighteenth-century institution in India built to train missionaries for Siam and Đại Việt), looks at what really happened architecturally during the early years of missionary work and other French activities in Viet lands during the century-long interregnum between the old and new empires, from the fall of Pondicherry in 1761 to the fall of Saigon in 1862. With one exception, all the monuments are either deeply transcultural or completely Asian in style. The exception is the mep’s new seminary at Virampatnam, south of Pondicherry, founded after the missionaries were expelled from their Seminary of Saint-Joseph in Ayutthaya following the Burmese sack of 1767, which was built by local architects in the prevailing style of the colony. As it happens, the Virampatnam seminary, devoted exclusively to Southeast Asian students and built with an emphasis on surveillance and control, became a shrine to the modern colonialist cause on a par with the Gouvernement: in the late nineteenth century a scheme was even proposed to transport it block by block to a museum in Saigon (to which all the building’s exterior decorations had already been removed). As noted in chapter 1, I have devoted a chapter to these buildings because – aside from being fascinating works of architecture – they reveal the precariousness of the nexus between France’s old and new empires that was exaggerated by Napoleon’s propagandists to justify their actions. French actors had little control over their design, there was no stylistic unity between them, and the ephemerality of most of the buildings exposes the failure of their efforts – it is a story like that of chapter 3, but less familiar, and it unfolded over a much larger territory.

5 interregnum Diên Khánh ca 1793

The architecture of empire reflects that empire’s strengths and weaknesses, its aspirations and strategies, and the ways it changes over time and across distances. In Madagascar it revealed conflict and disarray, in Siam misunderstanding and betrayal, and in Pondicherry arrogance and nostalgia. However, no buildings are more reflective of the fragility of France’s Asian project than those associated with French missionaries in ancient Cochinchina and Tonkin, the lands that made up modern-day Vietnam, which would form part of the entity France would call “Indochina.” They serve as material evidence that France’s later claim on the region was unsubstantiated: the assertion that early French activities were sufficiently unified in their pursuit of national interests to serve as a precedent for conquest. The architecture is of great interest, but not because it was built in a monolithic metropolitan style meant to champion Gallic culture as in mid-eighteenth-century Pondicherry. With one exception, it is profoundly hybrid or entirely Asian in style, constructed primarily by Asian architects and builders – even more than the Franco-Siamese architecture in chapter 3. Although missionaries can legitimately be considered agents of colonialism and in some cases the advance guard of territorial expansion, they did not in this case pursue such expansion exclusively on behalf of France. The missionaries in Đại Việt came from different countries with conflicting agendas, most of them under the Portuguese Padroado and Spanish Patronato,

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and the non-French missionaries came first. The highest-profile French agent in what would become Indochina, Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine (1741–1799) of the mep who contributed with his French engineer architects to the largest monuments in this chapter, in fact worked for the Cochinchinese and not for France. Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes was the first French precedent the modern empire would press into service in their claim to legitimacy. Rhodes was indeed the first Frenchman to reach Cochinchina, in 1624, but he served under the Portuguese Padroado. The Portuguese had been in the region since the 1590s, when Augustinian

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friars made their first inroads into Tonkin, and Portuguese Jesuits established a base there in 1615 after being expelled from Japan by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Cochinchina and Tonkin were a consolation prize for the Portuguese Jesuits, for whom the Japan mission had been their showpiece and source of celebrity in Europe, and at first they administered primarily to Japanese Christian exiles.1 As we have seen in chapter 2, Rhodes’s campaign for papal and French support for missionary work in Cochinchina and Tonkin resulted in the foundation of the mep and the campaigns of Pierre Lambert de La Motte, Vicar Apostolic of Cochinchina, and François Pallu,

5.1 (oppoSiTe ) Tomb of Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine (Lăng Cha Cả), Saigon, 1799. Demolished 1983. Photograph by Émile Gsell, ca 1875–79. Albumen print on paper mounted on cardboard, 17 × 23 cm. Université Côte d’Azur, Bibliothèque. 5.2 (ABove ) Tomb of Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine, interior panel showing the bishop’s coat of arms. Photograph by Frederick P. Fellers, 1970. Courtesy of Tim Doling. The decoration combines Chinese and European forms.

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Vicar Apostolic of Tonkin, Laos, and southwest China – and, by default, the establishment of their seminary in Ayutthaya in 1666, the mep ’s own consolation prize. While the mep and the Portuguese Jesuits and Portuguese and Spanish mendicant orders achieved a significant number of conversions among the peoples of Cochinchina and Tonkin they were frequently persecuted and expelled – and they made matters worse by fighting among themselves as we saw in Siam and Pondicherry. The Jesuit and mep mission bases rested on extremely fragile foundations throughout the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were perpetually on the move. It was not a situation that allowed for much of an architectural policy. No missionary was more hailed by the colonialist propaganda machine than was Pigneaux.2 Bishop in partibus infidelium of Adran (Syria) from 1771 and founder of the mep ’s college for Southeast Asian and Chinese students at Virampatnam (1770), he was above all celebrated as the kingmaker to Nguyễn Ánh (1762–1820), Lord of Cochinchina, who, as Emperor Gia Long (r. 1802–20), united Vietnam under the Nguyễn Dynasty. Louis XVI’s 1787 reception at Versailles of Nguyễn Ánh’s son, the seven-year-old Prince Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh (1780–1801), which was orchestrated by Pigneaux, was later cited as proof of France’s long-term commitment to Vietnam. But nothing came of the meeting, the primary goal of which was to secure commercial and military aid for Nguyễn Ánh’s cause, and Pigneaux was left raising a ragtag army of French officers and soldiers on his own.3 Pigneaux’s temple-like tomb in Saigon, commissioned in 1799 by Nguyễn Ánh and destroyed in 1983 to make way for a roundabout, became a shrine for the colonialist lobby during the Second Empire’s conquest of Cochinchina (figs. 5.1–2). It was a traditional Vietnamese tomb (lăng) enclosed by walls with a formal entry and inscription stele (bia) at the centre bookended by two arched screens supported on either end by Chinese temple lions, one bearing reliefs of mythical Chinese animals on either side while the other took the form of an altarpiece with Pigneaux’s coat of arms flanked by relief carvings of vases of incense and flowers and surrounded by rococo floral and foliate scrolls. In 1902 the municipality of Saigon (then under the Third Republic) erected a bronze sculpture in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame representing Prince Cảnh with Pigneaux towering patronizingly above him and holding aloft Louis XVI’s

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5.3 Édouard Lormier, statue of Monsignor Pigneaux de Béhaine, former Place Pigneau de Béhaine (now Công Trường Pari), Saigon, 1901. Removed 1949. Undated Photograph, irfA .

unfulfilled Treaty of Versailles (fig. 5.3).4 Thus, ironically, the activities of two early modern Catholic missionaries became the main justification for France’s right to build a modern secular colony in Indochina founded on the principles of an anti-clerical civilizing mission, or mission civilisatrice. Different camps celebrated Pigneaux for different reasons: for some he was a Christian

soldier (which was only partly true) while for others he was a French patriot (which he was not), an uneasy combination that was reflected in the makeup and policies of French Indochina. There is less architecture in this chapter than in others, because while hundreds of churches and chapels were likely built in Đại Việt in the early modern period, none survive, and many were simply refitted rooms in private homes. I will look briefly at these humble structures, evidence not only of a growing Christian community and of aristocratic patronage but also of a strategy – pursued out of necessity – of accommodating to the architectural style of the region, one that the Jesuits had made official policy in 1580 when still based in Japan (see below).5 Constructed by Vietnamese Christians or sympathetic regional rulers and using Vietnamese builders and architects, these monuments made no attempt to import European structural or decorative forms, except for the arrangement of their altars and sacred imagery. The chapter will then consider the mep seminary in Virampatnam, built to prepare missionaries for Southeast and East Asia. Unlike its predecessor in Ayutthaya it was constructed in the Louis XV style characteristic of Pondicherry in the early years of its reconstruction, less a conscious choice to project French identity than an acquiescence to the style builders were using at the time. Finally we will look at the architectural products of Pigneaux’s alliance with Nguyễn Ánh, the monumental Vauban-style fortresses designed for him by engineers such as Olivier de Puymanel (1768–1799) in places like Saigon (1790) and Diên Khánh (1793) and emulated at the imperial capital of Huế (1805) and elsewhere, in which French bastioned fortress architecture was combined with Chinese imperial forms to project a Confucianist image of power and authority founded on modern European technology. By ingratiating themselves with Nguyễn Ánh through military architecture Pigneaux and his

army would seem to be returning to the strategy the French had used unsuccessfully over a century earlier with King Narai in Siam (see chapter 3). It is true that in both cases – whether the king of Siam or the lord of Cochinchina – the patron was interested primarily or solely in the technical aspects of French architecture as a means of gaining a military advantage over his enemies and had no interest in Christianity. However, the main difference between the two episodes is that Pigneaux was not in fact serving the cause of the French, as were La Loubère and Céberet in Siam, but that of Nguyễn Ánh, and the latter did not share Narai’s interest in adopting Western stylistic features.6 Pigneaux’s loyalties had more in common with those of Phaulkon. In fact, Gia Long’s successors and their mandarinate soon turned against France and its missionaries, adopting a policy of xenophobic Confucianism. They also sporadically mounted vicious persecutions of Vietnamese Catholics – a community that numbered 360,000 by 1888 and was actually well integrated into Vietnamese society – because the Nguyễn emperors considered Catholics to be a fifth column that was hostile to the state. Although they were not justified in their concerns about Vietnamese Catholics, they had every reason to suspect European missionaries. By the 1840s mep missionaries were actively lobbying France to invade and save the Catholic community.7 Early Missionary Activities in Đại Việt, 1615–1770

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Early modern Vietnamese called the lands that make up present-day Vietnam “Đại Việt” (“Great Viet”) before 1802, and then “Đại Nam” (“Great State of the South”). The Chinese name “An Nam” (“Pacified South”), was most commonly used by foreigners, including the French colonial administration, who referred to the people as “Annamese.”8 The territory was divided between

what foreigners called Tonkin (from Đông Kinh, “The Eastern Capital,” present-day Hanoi) in the north and Cochinchina (from Malay “Kuchi”) in the south, two principalities (or kingdoms) at war between 1627 and 1673. Tonkin, called Đàng Ngoài by the Tonkinese, was ruled by the Trịnh clans, and Cochinchina, called Đàng Trong by the Cochinchinese, by the Nguyễn.9 The border was the Gianh River in Quang Binh Province in north-central Vietnam. Both regimes paid nominal homage to the powerless emperor of the Lê Dynasty (1428–1788), imprisoned in the Thăng Long Citadel in present-day Hanoi. The people of Đại Việt followed Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist beliefs leavened with indigenous spirit veneration, particularly in the south, a “spiritual landscape already teeming with competing spirit potencies and supernatural brokers.”10 While this natural inclination toward syncretism created opportunities for Catholic missionaries, the latter also operated in a climate of extreme instability: not just from the war between Trịnh and Nguyễn but, in Cochinchina, because of the precariousness of the Nguyễn’s own authority. The dynasty was an interloper in much of the south, where it was busy constructing a fragile colony of its own. Missionaries also suffered from official government attempts to regularize religion by the ministry of rites (lễ bộ) in Tonkin or Buddhist revival movements promoted by the Nguyễn in Cochinchina, who were suspicious that missionaries were inciting insurrection.11 The Augustinian friars who came to Cochinchina on Portuguese ships in the last decade of the sixteenth century built only temporary chapels, sometimes with a hospital or residence attached, and “a gun-shot’s length distant from the pagodas.”12 Two decades later the first Jesuits came to Đại Việt to administer to exiled Japanese Christians. Francesco Buzomi (1575–1639), Diogo Carvalho (1578–1624), and two Japanese lay brothers reached Cửa Hàn (Tourane, now

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Đà Nẵng) in northern Cochinchina and the nearby trading port of Faifo (Hội An), home to a prominent Japanese merchant community.13 Only later did they begin proselytizing among the Vietnamese. Establishing a pattern that would characterize Jesuit and mep missions in Tonkin and Cochinchina alike, they convinced a wealthy Vietnamese convert to commission a chapel and residence in Faifo, which would be the Jesuit headquarters, and invited the Padroado to send twenty-five Jesuits between 1615 and 1627, some of whom remained for only a few months and others for years at a time. Francisco da Pina (1585–1625), who arrived in 1617, trained young Vietnamese catechists to help him as interpreters and to assist with community relations, and he soon mastered the language sufficiently to try to spell the Vietnamese language using Latin letters for the first time (the origins of today’s quốc ngữ), writing a catechism and grammar.14 As in Japan and Pondicherry, indigenous lay religious leaders (in Japanese, dōjuku) were critical in maintaining Christian communities in Đại Việt and for preparing catechumens for baptism in the absence of priests.15 As we have seen in Siam – and as they most famously did in China – the early Jesuits tried to astonish regional rulers with their ability to predict lunar and solar eclipses, and they soon used their astronomical knowledge to ingratiate themselves with the Nguyễn lords (chúa) of Cochinchina. At the other end of the spectrum, on the local village level, missionaries battled the supernatural world through exorcisms and healing rituals: Nola Cooke credits their skill at faith healing, combined with the missionaries’ own belief (within a Judeo-Christian context) in demons and malign spirts, with Christianity’s success at the grassroots level.16 The Jesuits were allowed to open two new missions at Nước Mặn (1618) and Thanh Chiêm (1623), both between

Faifo and Tourane. Nevertheless, things soon soured when the Jesuits started to challenge Confucianist practices and the Nguyễn expelled them in 1629 and once again, after having allowed them back, in 1639. This was the Cochinchina visited by Rhodes, who was there between 1624 and 1626 and then four times between 1640 and 1645, facing “fierce” opposition before being expelled following the beheading of catechist Andrew of Phú Yên (ca 1625–1644), the Vietnamese proto-martyr and an inspiration for future French missionaries.17 For over two decades fewer than ten Jesuits visited Cochinchina but the lay catechists, celibate men from the community, spread Christianity in their absence.18 Rhodes also helped found the first mission to Tonkin, again with the original aim of administering to Japanese exiles. In 1626 Jesuit Giuliano Baldinotti (1591–1631) and a Japanese lay brother were welcomed by Trịnh Tráng (r. 1623– 57), the lord of Tonkin, and Rhodes and Pero Marques (ca 1576–1657), a Portuguese Jesuit who had worked in Cochinchina, arrived the following year at Thăng Long.19 Trịnh Tráng was keen to gain access to Portuguese goods, notably firearms to support his struggle with Cochinchina. Moving quickly beyond the refugee community, Rhodes evangelized at court and won converts among the aristocracy, and by the end of the first year the two Jesuits had converted over 1,200 Tonkinese, including Trịnh Tráng’s mother and sister. Nevertheless, Portuguese trade never materialized, and the Jesuits (by now four in number) were expelled in 1630. Jesuits continued to reach Tonkin sporadically over the decades on Portuguese ships, each time amazed at the number of conversions made by the catechists (there were about 82,500 Christians there by 1640), but persecutions became more systematic under Trịnh Tac (r. 1657–85) and by 1663 there were no Jesuits left. The Society of Jesus made exaggerated claims

(1691) and Tonkin (1696) on the understanding that they would not interfere with the mep ; nevertheless, in Cochinchina they remained hostile. But things did not go well for the mep either: they were almost driven out of Cochinchina in the early eighteenth century and by the 1740s they were restricted to a loosely populated 450-kilometre-long stretch of coastline north of present-day Phan Rang-Tháp Chàm.27 Lord Võ Vương (r. 1738–1765) finally expelled all missionaries from Cochinchina in 1750.28 The only part of the Cochinchina vicariate where the mep was able to maintain a toehold was in Prambey Chhaom, on the Tonlé Sap Lake in Cambodia, and in Hòn Đất, a village belonging to the free port of Hà Tiên on the Cochinchina-Cambodian border, where what was left of the Ayutthaya seminary later fled after the Burmese invasion of 1767, settling in a ramshackle wooden building with few facilities. The mep was welcomed by the city’s Sino-Vietnamese ruler Mạc Thiên Tứ (1700–1780), but vandals burned the seminary to the ground in 1769, precipitating the move to Pondicherry in 1770.29 In Tonkin the mep enjoyed better luck for a while. With the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Portuguese territories in 1759 their traditional enemy was gone: the plantations in Goa that funded their missions were seized by the Portuguese state and any Jesuits left in Đại Việt were ordered to submit to mep authority.30 Nevertheless, as had their brethren in Cochinchina fifteen years earlier, the mep had to flee Tonkin in the mid-1770s with the onset of the Tây Sơn rebellion (1771–1802), about which more below.31 Early Missionary Architecture The architecture of the early missionaries was entirely indigenous in style and structure, primarily because they did not have the influence, means,

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that they had left behind 350,000 Christians, 300 churches, and 30 catechists.20 François Deydier (1634–1693), apostolic vicar of Tonkin, founded the first mep mission in Đại Việt at Thăng Long (south of Hanoi) in 1666, and during his first visit there (1669–70) Lambert de La Motte ordained seven of Deydier’s Tonkinese seminarians as priests before moving on to Cochinchina (1671–72) in the name of François Pallu, who, although apostolic vicar of Cochinchina, never reached his destination (see chapter 3).21 These were not the first Tonkinese priests, as two had been ordained in Siam in 1668 and returned the same year.22 In 1667 Deydier divided Christians in Thăng Long among three churches, each cared for by six “churchwardens,” possibly, as Tara Alberts contends, to take authority away from lay religious leaders in favour of indigenous parish priests, and in 1670 the seven new priests were each put in charge of a district.23 The mep held synods and reformed religious practices, and from the 1670s they even obtained help from Spanish Dominicans to administer East Tonkin, one of the two Tonkinese vicariates.24 By contrast they struggled with Portuguese opposition to mep jurisdiction – as in Siam – particularly upon the return of the Jesuits in 1669, and they also faced competition from other religious orders, including the Discalced Augustinians. In Cochinchina, where a battle with Spanish Franciscans from the Philippines threatened to destroy Christianity’s reputation altogether, the mep also had to contend with a vicious persecution of Vietnamese Christians by the Nguyễn state between 1643 and the 1670s.25 By 1682 the mep ’s Tonkin mission consisted of two apostolic vicars (Deydier and Jacques de Bourges), three French missionaries, two Dominicans, and eleven Tonkinese preachers.26 The Jesuits, who had been expelled in 1680, were only permitted to return to Cochinchina

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or architects to build churches and residences in European styles. However, it also reflected what had by then become official policy, at least among the Jesuits of the former Japan mission. Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606), the Jesuit visitor (inspector) to the Indies, reformed the Japan mission in a series of regulations in a 1581 handbook entitled Advertimentos e avisos acerca dos costumes e catangues de Jappão, which sought to ingratiate Christianity with the Japanese by accommodating to their customs.32 Although the recommendations mainly concerned behaviour such as eating habits, diet, etiquette, and costume, chapter 7 was devoted to architecture, laying out

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5.4 Kanō Sōshū, Church of the Assumption, Kyoto (built 1576), late sixteenth century. Pigments and gold on paper, 50.6 × 21.9 cm. Kobe City Museum.

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ten principles for the design of Jesuit churches, colleges, and residences. Valignano decreed that henceforth all Jesuit buildings in Japan should be built in the Japanese style by Japanese architects, and that the arrangement of their rooms and furnishings accommodate to Japanese conventions of rank and gender: “since their manner of construction is so different from that which we use in Europe […] we are unable to design them well ourselves.”33 A few paintings survive of these buildings, including the 1576 Church of the Assumption at Kyoto, the imperial capital, which resembles a Buddhist temple with hip gable roofs with upturned corners, eave brackets, and a network of courtyards entered by low gates (fig. 5.4). Unlike the early mission churches in Siam, which combined Eastern and Western styles and where prints of European plans and elevations were still

employed (see chapter 3), in Japan accommodationist architecture was the rule and European forms were suppressed except where they were necessary for liturgy. Not a single depiction survives of the early missionary churches and chapels in Đại Việt, so we must rely upon contemporary descriptions – often not very detailed ones – by Jesuit and mep priests. Places of worship came in two varieties: freestanding churches, often quite spacious, and shrines formed of devotional objects and pictures located in the houses of Vietnamese Christian community leaders as a substitute for animist spirit houses and household altars and acquiring the powers of those traditional shrines.34 Masses were celebrated in these oratories on portable altars. The earliest was “a most beautiful chapel” in the palace of the queen consort, Minh Đức vương Thái Phi (1568–1649), baptized as Mary Magdalene, in Phú Xuân (Huế) in the 1620s.35 Rhodes mentions another shrine in the house of a Christian named François in Quân Bình in the early 1640s:

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This good man had started to honour the Blessed Virgin, even before he was a Christian; he found a beautiful image of Our Lady of the Rosary in the hands of a few Pagans, he accepted it with much affection, and therefore he put it in a Chapel [perhaps a spirit house] within the confines of his house, where he honoured it day and night […]. My God, I found many already ready to receive Baptism, and assembled them all in the house of Francis, which was changed into a Church: but the Chapel where he kept the image of his good Patroness, was very well decorated, he had such great respect for her, that he never dared to set foot there beforehand.36

Similarly, a Tonkinese aristocrat named Paulo “Senhor de Duagbuxa” built a church where he performed baptisms and faith healings with holy water, and a certain Doctor Thadeo built a shrine in another Tonkinese village.37 Rhodes discusses a venerable couple in the village of Quảng Ngãi in Cochinchina, baptized as Paul and Monique. About Paul he writes: “He was the soul & the spirit of all this Church, every Sunday, & the Holidays, he assembled the Christians in a beautiful Chapel which he had in the enclosure of his house, there he instructed them, preached, & took care to assist them with all that was necessary to maintain them in the faith which they had received.”38 In the early 1680s the mep apostolic vicar of Cochinchina, Guillaume Mahot (1630– 1684), visited a chapel in the house of a noblewoman named Madame Lucie in the province of Quảng Ngãi: “this good Christian … had a very beautiful church at home and she trained eleven girls who lived in a community called the Lovers of the Cross.”39 The “Amantes de la Croix” was one of the consororities, or female lay religious sodalities, that the mep founded upon their arrival in Đại Việt.40 Aristocratic women were particularly active patrons of house chapels and churches as they were also for Buddhist temples.41 The first purpose-built Jesuit chapel was commissioned by Buzomi in Tourane in 1615 and he soon enlarged it to accommodate the growing congregation, which now numbered 300 Christians.42 The church was still standing in 1747 when it was visited by cio agent and former mep seminarian Pierre Poivre (1719–1786).43 Rhodes mentions another church built in 1618 in Quy Nhơn, and in 1620–22 he claims that missionaries “founded many churches.”44 The Christian community was actively involved in the construction of these churches, building them at their own expense, as in Thanh Hóa province, where men

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and women commissioned wooden churches, the men using them to prepare people for baptism.45 In 1631 Jesuit Christoforo Borri (1583–1632) describes a “very large church” at Điện Bàn (near Tourane) that was built in a “very short time,” including a residence for the priests, “all of which was done with the assistance of a most noble lady,” who was baptized as Joanna and “not only undertook the foundation of the house and church, but erected several altars and places of prayer in her own house.”46 The Buddhist temple wardens set fire to the building but it was quickly rebuilt. These passing descriptions of often equally ephemeral buildings – a “very beautiful and large church” is a typical account – are all we know about most of these structures.47 One description by Borri stands out for its detail, and it portrays a structure built – as so many of them were – in very short order (in fact twice). The description of the large church and residence commissioned for the Jesuits in 1631 by the governor of Pulucambi (the present-day province of Bình Định), is fascinating because it relates in detail how the building was erected by palace builders under the governor’s command over the course of a single day and also how the palace architect worked, laying out the measurements with something like a chalk line:

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Then turning to us, he again desired we would appoint the place for the church, that he might give orders for its speedy fitting up. We shew’d him a place that seem’d convenient enough, and he approving of it, went away to his palace. Before three days were over, news was brought us, that the church was coming […] which tho’ we knew was to be made of timber, as had been agreed, yet it could not chuse [choose] but be a great pile, according to the space it must fill, standing upon great pillars. On a sudden, in

the field, we spied above a thousand men, all loaded with materials for this fabrick. Every pillar was carried by thirty lusty men; others carried the beams, others the planks, others the capitals, others the bases; some one thing, some another, and so all of them went in order to our house, filling all the court, which was very large, to our unspeakable joy and satisfaction […] When they had eaten, the architect came, and taking out a line, view’d the ground, mark’d out the distances, and calling those that carried the pillars, fixed them in their places; this done, he called for the other parts, one after another, that every man might give an account of what he brought, and go his way: and thus all things proceeding very regularly, and every man labouring his best, all that great pile was set up in one day; yet either through over-much haste, or the negligence of the architect, it proved somewhat awry, and leaning to one side; which being made known to the governor, he presently commanded the architect, upon pain of cutting off his legs, to call all the workman he had need of, and mend it. The architect obey’d and taking the church to pieces with a number of workmen, rebuilt it in a very short time very completely.48 A similar incident happened in 1627, when the lord of Tonkin built a church for Rhodes and Marques in Thăng Long, ordering his palace builders and architect to construct it outside the palace walls after he realized that the lodgings he had provided the Jesuits in his palace were too inconvenient for proselytization. Rhodes writes: “in a few days we had a house erected by the King’s command in the place that we had chosen, with all the advantages that we could have desired. The building was only of wood in the style of the

country, but functional, and of a structure similar to that of the houses which are inhabited by the Nobles. It was therefore at the end of November, four months after our entry into the Royal City, that we moved to our new home, part of which was dedicated to serving as a Church.”49 Borri’s description makes it clear that the Pulucambi church was a timber-framed trabeated structure on rows of high, stout posts and likely a massive roof supported by trusses (Borri’s “capitals” are probably eave brackets) that differed little from a typical Vietnamese village hall (đình), particularly as the architect and builders were able to build (and rebuild) it with such alacrity. 5.5 Village hall (đình) in Chu Quyến, late seventeenth century. Photograph courtesy Le Huu Phuoc.

In traditional Vietnamese wooden buildings the individual components of the frame, whether columns, tie beams, or purlins, are executed in advance by specialist artisans and assembled under a master architect using mortice and tenon joints, which can be done easily and quickly (as in the description), and in fact they were designed to be moved if the original location turned out to be disadvantageous for reasons of geomancy.50 The plan was drawn on the ground with plumb lines according to a standard rectangular pattern with an odd number of rectilinear compartments delineated by the posts, and the structure was built according to a ritualized procedure, just as Borri records. Such halls were an appropriate choice for a church as they were used for both administrative and spiritual functions and were common in small

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towns or villages but – importantly – they were not Buddhist sacred structures.51 It would have been considered blasphemous to use Buddhist religious architecture for a Christian church. More importantly, they were associated with imperial authority: communities were granted the right to build a đình by the emperor, who presented them with a charter and a guardian spirit patron, both of which were placed in the building. The Chu Quyến Village Hall (late seventeenth century) is a rare survivor from this period and has the mammoth posts, bracketing, and sweeping hip gable roof that is suggested by Borri’s description (although the architecture of a đình has strong affinities with Chinese architecture, its giant roof is unique to Vietnam) (fig. 5.5). Thus, by using a form associated with imperial privilege, these two Jesuit churches communicated legitimacy in much the same way as the cio ’s adoption of Mughal ceremonial in Pondicherry. Like the Cathedral of Saint-Joseph in Ayutthaya, these massive đình-churches were commissioned by local potentates for French missionaries, but unlike in Siam, where the mep and Jesuits were actively involved in their design and Siamese royal architects drew upon French engravings for design ideas, these buildings were indistinguishable from traditional Sino-Vietnamese structures. They were built according to time-honoured traditions of craft specialization and regimented construction by family ateliers at the village level, not using plans or elevations as in Europe. As with the Pondicherry Gouvernement, their hybridity was invisible because it related to function rather than appearance, but in this case the relationship was reversed. The Gouvernement was outwardly French but the Mughal-inspired court ceremonial that animated its daily life was of Asian origin; by contrast, the Pulucambi and Thăng Long churches were outwardly Asian but the main ceremony they were built for was the Roman Catholic

liturgy. Perhaps Rhodes and his colleagues were satisfied with the arrangement, following Valignano’s lead of missionizing in indigenous-style buildings familiar to the congregations, but there is no evidence that they had any say about what their churches looked like. What is certain, however, is that they were never part of a campaign to spread Gallic culture. Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine and the Collège des Saints Anges in Pondicherry, 1770–1774 After fleeing Hòn Đất in 1769, the mep moved its Asian headquarters to Pondicherry, the closest place where they could safely operate but also, as a French territory, an entirely novel environment for an organization accustomed to working in foreign lands. Pigneaux had joined the seminary at Hòn Đất in 1767 and served as director of the Collège général, called Collège des Saints Anges, under the leadership of Guillaume Piguel (1722– 1771), Apostolic Vicar of Cochinchina.52 In Pondicherry, where he stayed for only four years and succeeded Piguel as Apostolic Vicar of Cochinchina (in 1771), Pigneaux continued to direct the relocated college with its small cohort (thirtynine in 1771) of Chinese, Cochinchinese, Cambodian, Siamese, and Malay students (figs. 5.6–7).53 Pondicherry at the time was in the midst of a vigorous reconstruction campaign that brought in legions of builders from places like Madras and Tranquebar – “a veritable fever of reconstruction of their city” – and, as we have seen in chapter 3, the city soon boasted a new Gouvernement and gracious mansions in the neoclassical style such as the Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières (fig. 4.32).54 The mep chose this same style for their new college, complete with classical orders and Greco-Roman decorative motifs, at a time when they were financially strapped and could not afford the 40,000 livres it cost to build – even with the monetary

5.6 Collège des Saints Anges, Virampatnam, 1770–71, interior of college from the dormitory.

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assistance of Louis Mathon (1743–1778), the procureur général des missions. The sovereign council of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales finalized the purchase and exempted the missionaries from all royalties and other charges until 1776, “as the Compagnie des Indes Orientales has previously granted to the Jesuit and Capuchin Reverend Fathers for the land it granted them near this aforementioned city in the villages of

Oulgaret and Ariyankuppam, and as are also all maniams [endowments] dependent on Chauderies [chatrams, Hindu charitable hostels] and [Hindu] temples.”55 The mep was anxious about keeping its students away from the Europeans and Indians and sought to create a retreat where they could be trained specifically for work in Southeast Asia and China and study East Asian languages. It was for this reason that they chose an isolated location for their college, four kilometres south of the city and across the Ariyankuppam River, a place

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5.7 Collège des Saints Anges, Virampatnam, main facade.

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of once-rich agricultural land which even today is remote and hard to get to.56 The small plot of land included a country house and garden and belonged to a Tamil named Arlanda from Karikal (Karaikal) who had acquired it in turn from Jean-Claude de Bourcet, former chief engineer of the city and architect of the new Gouvernement (1766–68) (fig. 4.26). The Sovereign Council of Pondicherry described it as a “house and garden of about nine canis, half of which is arid sand,” which needed repairs and “renovations which the said missionaries are obliged to make […] to make

them suitable for their needs.”57 The 1771 purchase and sale agreement, which said that the property was only seven and a half canis in size, made it clear that the missionaries were building an entirely new structure on the lot, “on which are the beginnings of a godown building, [illegible] and a dovecote.”58 The understanding was always that the mep would be in Pondicherry only temporarily until they could move back to Southeast Asia and that the exemptions would apply only “as long as the said college will remain in the said place of Virampatnam,” after which the property would be resold, “so that the public does not imagine that the said Seminary wants to make acquisitions in this colony which could be disadvantageous to

it.”59 Nevertheless the directors of the mep in Paris wrote in 1771 that they hoped to see the college “in a flourishing state.”60 The mep was obsessively concerned with monitoring their charges and protecting them from influences from other people in the colony. This anxiety is reflected in the panopticon-like plan that made the Virampatnam College more like a prison than a seminary. Pigneaux wrote in a letter of 23 January 1773 to the directors of the mep in Paris: “[t]he spiritual dangers will increase. The length of the voyages, the presence of Europeans, the familiarity with all the heretics endangers the faith of our children, who are forced to put into port at Malacca among the Dutch, to arrive in Madras with the English, and who often hear about Protestants who live near here; moreover, they cannot be edified by the French of Pondicherry, who for the most part have neither faith nor law; they will sometimes be tempted to believe that we are also a sect of heretics ourselves.”61 Paul de Saint-Barthélemy’s description of the building, published in 1796, describes in minute detail how it maximized the potential for surveillance:

The complex once included a spacious rectangular main corps de logis with three bedrooms and a dormitory surrounding a veranda on the south side accessed by a triple arch (figs. 5.6–7). The veranda likely served as the refectory. The building’s

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The Virampatnam Seminary was located in the middle of a field planted with mango and coconut palms. […] The building is constructed in the form of European cloisters, but much better distributed than these, and better suited to the studies, exercises and works carried out by these oriental seminarians. At the centre of three rooms occupied by the teachers, there was, on the ground floor, a large room with small cells distributed in two rows and adjacent each other. These were formed by simple planked partitions of three or four palms [1 metre] approximately in height, so that each small cell could contain a pupil, and

that these young people could all be seen by the professor. He had a chair from which he taught and could observe at the same time what was happening in each cell. Students studied and slept in the same place. A wooden table, covered with a mat, served as their bed; and at the feet as at the head, there was a board which was raised and lowered at will. This board served as a table for study. There was no need to leave the cell to write; it was enough to place yourself at the foot of the bed; then they lowered the board when they wanted to go out. The other shelf, placed at the head of the bed, was used for textbooks, ink, long clothes for seminarians, and small toiletries. The doors to the large room were located across from each other. In this way, the air played freely throughout the room, which one could not leave without being seen by one of the teachers placed in the side rooms. The refectory was separate and reading took place during meals. Outside were the tailors’, carpenters’, shoemakers’, printers’, gardeners’ and bakers’ workshops where the students worked, all required to learn a manual art. The same students walked barefoot and had to water all the trees in the orchard. Four hours were spent each day studying and one hour doing manual labour. The rest of the time was spent in pious exercises, meditations and ecclesiastical chanting. Two days each week were set aside to speak the mother tongue; all the rest of the time, it had to be done in Latin.62

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5.8 Elevation of the House of Mr Marihaure, Servant of the Palace of Justice (Maison de Marihaure), signed by Cordé, Pondicherry (1 October 1777). Ink on paper, 60 × 30 cm. ANom .

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tripartite facade is elegant and proportional, the central open arcade balanced by enclosed flanking wings with smaller arched doorways. The wings are delineated by wide quoined pilasters, and giant-order pilasters, possibly Corinthian given the remnants of acanthus capitals that survive from the church (see below), were superimposed on the two supporting piers of the arcade. The house was once crowned with a heavy entablature with a plain frieze and prominent dentils which now only survives in the interior. Its basic arrangement and arcade resemble that of the Maison de Marihaure (1777–78) in Pondicherry (fig. 5.8) and it also recalls more generically the old and new Gouvernements with their flat roofs and open verandas flanked by enclosed wings.

(figs. 1.1, 4.26).63 Most of the south and east walls of this building, including the archway and several windows and doorways, survive, as does the front gate, although most of the original plaster is now missing. The brickwork is of excellent quality with thick walls and piers and raised door frames. Only the foundations survive of the ateliers mentioned in Saint-Barthélemy’s description and of the chapel, to the southwest of the building, a single nave structure with a round apse, small transepts, and an east and south entrance. Although small, the chapel was richly decorated with moulded terracotta classical motifs such as pilasters, entablatures, friezes, capitals, volutes, acanthus leaves, medallions, pearl rosaries, an olive-and-rhombus band, rosettes and other florets, and foliate bands that incorporated some Indian plants.64 Other symbols were specifically French, including a crest containing three fleursde-lys and a fleur-de-lys band. Such mouldings were used in various of the grander houses in

Pondicherry, notably the Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières (fig. 4.32). About one hundred of these reliefs were sent to the Musée Blanchardde-la-Brosse in Saigon by archaeologist Gabriel Jouveaux-Dubreuil (1885–1945) in 1939, demonstrating how important this seminary and the legends surrounding Pigneaux were to the colonial foundation myth in Indochina even in its twilight years – it was he who proposed dismantling the ruins and shipping the whole thing to be reassembled in Saigon as a second shrine to the missionary. The current whereabouts of the reliefs is unknown, but engravings of some of them were published by Louis Malleret in 1943.65 If Napoleon III had never invaded Indochina this building would have been a mouldering historical footnote. After Pigneaux left for Cochinchina in 1774 Mathon kept the seminary running and in 1777 he even tried to admit Malabar students; however caste prejudice prevented them from living with the Chinese and Southeast Asian students and a separate Malabar college was built in 1791 in Pondicherry (the mep had taken over the Jesuit Malabar mission after the expulsion of the Society from French territory in 1764).66 The seminary was briefly abandoned during the Siege of Pondicherry in 1778, but it continued to operate and was in fact visited twice again by Pigneaux during his outward and return voyages to Versailles with Prince Cảnh in 1785–86 and 1788–89. In June 1779 superior Magny painted a sad picture of the institution in a letter to Jean Davoust, apostolic vicar of West Tonkin:

The building was occupied by British troops between 1793 and 1795, but was returned to the mep, and in 1806 François-Claude Letondal, the mep procurator general, instructed Magny and another missionary named Hébert to repair it “so as not to allow this property to deteriorate” because some intended to re-establish the college, although Letondal was not particularly enthusiastic.68 The buildings were taken over by the Malabar college in 1852 as a country retreat, and it was already in a semi-ruinous state in 1898 when it was visited by Adrien Launay and illustrated in his history of the French missions to India.69 Pigneaux left no clue about why he commissioned the Virampatnam college in the style in which it was built. Given his future behaviour at the court of Nguyễn Ánh I doubt he was trying to project French gloire through classicism and the royal fleurs-de-lys like a latter-day Dupleix. Likely he settled for the Louis XV style that was current in Pondicherry at the time because that was the style builders worked in. Perhaps some of it was even adapted from Bourcet’s earlier house on the project – after all, the former chief engineer architect was one of the style’s greatest promoters. Either way it is remarkable that Pigneaux

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I do not think we will get much benefit from the college as long as it stays in Pondicherry. The excessive heat of this country is a great obstacle to study, as we experience ourselves. Consequently, students must spend considerable time in college to learn what they need to know, and this long time

usually puts them in a state of weakness, which makes them incapable of rendering any service for a long time, and sometimes forever. In addition […] the college will necessarily disappear of its own accord. Of the 18 [students] that we have, several would probably leave this year if we found opportunities. Bishop Pottier asked for two more. A third, who has almost finished his studies and who is also weak, will be among them. There are still at least 2 or 3 who are hopeless, and who should have been dismissed some time ago. […] The college cannot therefore last long.67

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approved such an expensive project when he could ill afford it: indeed he complained in 1773 to his superiors that “we owe almost the entire price of the house for which we pay interest at eight percent” and worried that the debts would harm the missionary effort.70 The seminary certainly contrasted stylistically with the hybridor indigenous-style buildings the mep had used for their seminary in Ayutthaya and Hòn Đất, or their many mission churches in Siam, Cochinchina, and Tonkin. I think it is important that we not read too much into the Frenchness of this building. Propagandists of the Second Empire and Third Republic were only too happy to suggest that the spirit of Dupleix had rubbed off on Pigneaux during his stays at Pondicherry and that he championed French culture at the court of Nguyễn Ánh.71 As we shall next see, his use of French architecture in Cochinchina had more to do with bolstering the reign of the young king than it did with pursuing French interests overseas.

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Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine, Nguyễn Ánh, and French Engineers in Đại Việt, 1775–1799

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The fabled Vauban-style fortresses designed by Pigneaux’s French engineers Victor Olivier de Puymanel and Théodore Le Brun in late eighteenth-century Đại Việt were another precedent used by the Second Empire and Third Republic to justify French involvement in Vietnam, and therefore must also be approached with caution. While there is no doubt that Vauban-style bastioned fortifications were constructed under Nguyễn Ánh/Gia Long and his successors, and while two of them, Gia Định (Saigon) (fig. 5.9) and Diên Khánh (figs. 5.10, 5.12–14), were undeniably built with the collaboration of French engineer architects in Pigneaux’s entourage (the first by Olivier and Le Brun and the second by

Olivier alone), only a handful of contemporary European sources refer to the engineers and they are not mentioned in any early modern Vietnamese literature.72 Even today, the historical plaque on the east gate at Diên Khánh is silent about Olivier, although it acknowledges that the citadel employs the architectural innovations of Vauban. Let us start with a brief summary of the convoluted and confusing historical background to Pigneaux’s collaboration with Nguyễn Ánh. After the uneasy peace between Tonkin and Cochinchina that ended Đại Việt’s decades-long intermittent civil war, the Tây Sơn Rebellion, named after three brothers from a village of that name in the region of Bình Định, broke out in 1771 and lasted until the rebels were overthrown upon the establishment of the Nguyễn imperial dynasty in 1802.73 From their base in Quy Nhơn these warlords unseated the Lê/Trịnh and Nguyễn rulers in Tonkin and Cochinchina with massive armies – some say they numbered more than 200,000 – and controlled most of modern-day Vietnam, although their hold on the region was never completely secure, especially in Cochinchina.74 Unlike the previous regimes, who had merely been interested in European firearms, the Tây Sơn and their Cochinchinese adversaries for the first time strove to learn about European technologies in shipbuilding and fortification architecture and made overtures to various European powers with bases in Asia, not only French but also Portuguese, Dutch, English, and Spanish. One of the reasons the Tây Sơn lost in the end was that the Cochinchinese had much better luck in gaining such expertise. After a major Tây Sơn victory in 1773, the year they took Quy Nhơn, the regime assassinated every member of the Nguyễn family except for the fifteen-year-old king Nguyễn Ánh. He fled in 1776 or 1777 into the marshlands of the Mekong Delta and then near Hà Tiên, where he may first have

also contained secret instructions that allowed Thomas Conway (1735–ca 1800), the Irish-born governor of Pondicherry, to revoke it if he saw that the situation on the ground was not advantageous for France, which is precisely what he did.79 Despite this setback Pigneaux obtained funding, significant amounts of firearms and ammunition, and ships from Île de France and Pondicherry upon his return in 1788–89. Many of the ships remained in Cochinchina where Nguyễn Ánh chartered them and their crews, and also hired the modest number of French officers whom Pigneaux had convinced to enlist, including Olivier and Le Brun. Colonial-era propaganda placed the number of Frenchmen in Nguyễn Ánh’s employ in the hundreds, but Mantienne has shown that fewer than 100 of them were in Cochinchina after 1792, including only twelve officers, and that only about five officers remained during the fiercest fighting with the Tây Sơn between 1799 and 1802.80 Thus, just as the promoters of colonization during the Second Empire and Third Republic exaggerated the importance of the failed Treaty of Versailles (and they ignored a successful treaty Nguyễn Ánh had signed with Portugal in 1786), so did they overstate the contribution of French officers and Pigneaux in helping Nguyễn Ánh found the Nguyễn Dynasty: “it is […] impossible to say that they personally altered the course of events.”81 However the fortifications, like the shipbuilding expertise, were effective. The Gia Định and Diên Khánh citadels allowed Nguyễn Anh to secure two military bases: the first in the Mekong Delta, from which he could send raids every year against the Tây Sơn, and the second in the heart of enemy territory. Neither was successfully taken during Nguyễn Anh’s climb to power, and they irritated the Tây Sơn and heartened the Cochinchinese.82 The two French engineer architects reached Cochinchina the year before and after Pigneaux

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encountered Pigneaux, who had arrived in 1775 and whose attempts to missionize in Cochinchina and Cambodia were also thwarted by the advancing Tây Sơn armies.75 The two became close allies, not because Pigneaux saw the young king as a means for promoting French interests in Indochina, as has so often been claimed, but, as Frédéric Mantienne argues, because Pigneaux was useful to Nguyễn Ánh (among his many skills was making grenades) and had fallen under the latter’s spell.76 Throughout their long relationship Pigneaux served Nguyễn Ánh first, placing his interests before those of France or even the mep. The young king made several bold attempts to push back the Tây Sơn forces, but every year the latter’s armies and navies (assisted by Chinese pirates) pushed him farther back across the delta. With each defeat he escaped to islands in the Gulf of Siam, as in 1783 when he and Pigneaux relocated to Phú Quốc and were provisioned by Christians from Hà Tiên. Desperate, Nguyễn Ánh finally took refuge in 1784 at the Siamese court in Bangkok. Nguyễn Ánh turned to Pigneaux to obtain military assistance from European powers, including equipment and materiel and guidance on the latest military tactics and fortification architecture. Pigneaux embarked in 1785 on his famous visit to Versailles on Nguyễn Ánh’s behalf with Prince Cảnh, a more subdued event than the receptions for the Siamese embassies of a century earlier, primarily because the reception with Louis XVI took place in 1787, when the ancien régime was in its death throes.77 The meeting resulted in the Treaty of Versailles of that year, which offered military assistance to Nguyễn Ánh, but also revealed that Louis XVI – in an echo of his great-great-great-grandfather’s actions in Siam – intended to conquer Tourane and Poulo Condor island and demand free and exclusive trading rights in Cochinchina.78 The treaty

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returned from Versailles in 1789. Joseph-VictorCyriaque-Alexis Olivier de Puymanel was a second-class volunteer on the Dryade, which he deserted at Poulo-Condor (Côn Đảo Island) in September 1788, at the age of twenty.83 He immediately joined the Cochinchinese cause and was soon appointed chef d’état-major of the assorted French soldiers serving Nguyễn Ánh and was known by the French as “Colonel Olivier” and by the Cochinchinese as “Ô Ly Vi.” He has always been treated as a man of mystery. Learning from an eighteenth-century source (see below) that Olivier was born in Carpentras (Provence), historian Alexis Faure in 1891 discovered his parents’ names, Augustin-Raymond Olivier and Françoise-Louise Vitalis, presumably in his birth records, but claims that “we have no other information about his civil status, nor about his family’s position.”84 Faure must not have been looking too carefully as his Latin parochial birth register is in fact quite revealing and demonstrates that he was no mere soldier of fortune but an aristocrat born into one of the grand families of Provence, which would explain not only why he was educated but also why Pigneaux held him in such high esteem despite his youth and low military rank:

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Joseph Victor Alexis Cyriaque Olivier. In the above year [1768] on the eighth of August, Reverend Audin, curate, baptised Joseph Victor Alexis Cyriaque, natural and legitimate son of Noble Lord Augustin Raymond, Chancellor of the Supreme Court of the Comtat Venaissin, Lawyer in the Supreme Senate of Aix-en-Provence, also Secretary of the Holy Order of the Jerusalemites, and of Lady FrançoiseLouise Vitalis, spouse: born today at five in the morning: Godparents were Lords Hyacinthe-Joseph-Ignatius-Martinus

Olivier brother of the baptized, and Lady Thérèse-Joseph-Gabrielle Vitalis.85 The Olivier family, also spelled Olivari, were noblesse de la robe ennobled in 1668, a family of lawmakers that included a grand prior of Toulouse, several knights of the Order of Malta (which had a base in Aix), and a counsellor of the Provence Parliament.86 The Olivari had married into the Vitalis family, that of Victor’s mother, as early as 1568, acquiring land in Campredon, southeast of Carpentras, by inheritance. Victor’s father Augustin-Raymond (1731–1804) was chancellor of the Supreme Court of the papal enclave of Venaissin, near Avignon, sat in the Supreme Senate of Aix-en-Provence, and was secretary to the Jerusalemite confraternity to which his ancestors had long belonged.87 Victor’s birth record makes no mention of the nobiliary particle “de Puymanel,” and it appears in only one contemporary letter, an autograph missive written in 1789.88 The next mention of “de Puymanel” I have found is in a royal decree of 1818 bestowing the particle on a distant relative with a similar name, Pierre-Charles-NicolasVictor d’Olivier (1750–68).89 The same source also makes another key revelation regarding a much closer relative, Albert-Joseph-Augustin d’Olivier (1792–1867), who was given the appellative “de Petzet” on the same occasion. Albert was Victor’s nephew, the son of Victor’s eldest brother Gabriel-Raymond-Jean de Dieu-François d’Olivier (1755–1823), a judge at Court of Appeals at Nîmes and later counsellor at Imperial court.90 The source notes that he was a military engineer, a captain in the Corps royal du genie, which makes it very likely that he studied at the École royale du génie de Mézières. It is not unreasonable to conclude that Albert was following in Uncle Victor’s footsteps, and that the Cochinchina Olivier had studied at the same institution. Such an education

terse references in four contemporary letters and a printed map.94 In 1791 Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes (1759–1845), an agent with the French consulate in Guangdong, wrote to the minister of foreign affairs about the Gia Định citadel (fig. 5.9): In 1789 and 1790, if the King of Cochinchina had wanted it, he could have immediately reclaimed his kingdom. The arrival of the frigates (the Dryade, the Pandour and the Méduse), as well the ships from Pondicherry, Ile de France and Macao, had raised the alarm among the enemies. Tonkin was waiting for the moment to shake off the yoke and recognize its real king. […] MM. Olivier and Le Brun, French officers, gave [the king] a plan of a fortified city. The King wanted to build one immediately, although this required more favourable weather. It was then necessary to inconvenience the people, to destroy the houses and to occupy 30,000 men in fortifying a citadel [place] to which the King hoped to retreat in the event of a setback. The people and several mandarins rebelled. MM. Olivier and Le Brun were in danger since they were the authors of the project. The Bishop of Adran, by sheltering them in his home, delivered them from any accident. However, calm returned, the king having dismissed his troops and allowed everyone to sow rice.95 Apostolic Vicar of Cochinchina Barthélémy Boisserand (d. 1797) informed fellow missionary Mercier in 1792 that “[t]he King […] learns European ideas quite well. Mr. Olivier […] formed a body of fusiliers, closed the ranks, and exercised them in our way. The same Mr. Olivier, and Mr. Lebrun, who has just returned to Ile de France, built a good fort for the king, with bastions, ditches,

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would explain his precocious expertise in fortifications, weaponry, and military manoeuvres. But Olivier did not last long in Cochinchina. He appears in a handful of letters, including one from 1789 that noted that his back and arms had been badly injured, and died in 1799, only eleven years after his arrival in Đại Việt, while refitting a ship for the Cochinchinese fleet at Dutch Malacca, bequeathing all his possessions to Pigneaux.91 Alexis Faure, writing at the height of the colonial era, wrote proudly that “[t]his officer, dead at 31, had accomplished a considerable amount of work in Cochinchina, that those familiar with the numerous fortifications in the Vauban style that he constructed over ten years could appreciate and admire.”92 Note the exaggeration about the number of fortresses he built, which is a standard part of this patriotic myth. Unfortunately, Théodore Le Brun remains an enigma. A first-class volunteer on the frigate Méduse, he reached Macau at the end of December 1790 and quickly joined the Cochinchinese army.93 But he spent a mere fifteen months in Cochinchina: working under Olivier irritated him as he outranked the “Colonel,” and he demanded a pay increase in line with his position in the French military. When his request was denied he promptly left Nguyễn Ánh’s service, departing for good to Île de France in 1791. He was never heard from again. It is hopeless to try to search for his birth records or any other documents relating to his early life in France as we have no idea where he came from and he has such an ordinary surname (I did look in the marriage and death records for Île de France for the decade after 1791, but to no avail). In fact, his surname suggests that he was a commoner, which may have been another reason he did not get along with his noble colleague. Everything we know about Olivier’s and Le Brun’s architectural contributions comes from

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5.9 (oppoSiTe ) Plan of the City of Saigon Fortified in 1790 by Colonel Victor Olivier Reduced from the Large Plan commissioned by Order of the King, in 1795 by Mr Brun, Engineer of his Majesty by Engineer Mr Dayot, from M. d’Ayot, Le Pilote de Cochinchine (Paris, 1791– 1807). Ink on paper, 60 × 45 cm. BNf , Département cartes et plans. 5.10 (Top ) Victor Olivier, Plan of the citadel at Dien Khánh, from the Lefebvre de Béhaine family collection. After Paul Boudet, Iconographie historique de l’Indochine française (Paris, 1931): plate XXi , 41. In this plan north is at the bottom. BNf . 5.11 (BoTTom ) Julien-Marie Solain-Baron, Plan of a New City to Build at Cayenne Designed by Le Sieur Baron, the King’s Engineer at Cayenne, 1750. Ink and watercolour on paper, 80.5 × 64.5 cm. ANom .

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drawbridges, covered paths, glacis, demilunes; all in European style. This fort gives them confidence, but maybe a little too much.”96 Although Mantienne claims that Boisserand mentioned the two men’s contribution to the citadel in a letter written in 1790, it does not mention either of them, only noting that Nguyễn Ánh “had a fairly strong town built here in the European style [à l’européenne].”97 On 13 May 1795, missionary Pierre Lavoué wrote from Tân Triều to mep missionaries Denis Boiret and Jean-Joseph Descourvières in Paris about the new citadel at Diên Khánh (figs. 5.10, 5.12–14), near Nha Trang in enemy territory:

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The King returned to Gia-định [sic] which he had first captured. He fortified it as best he could, built galleys [galères], etc., and hired Mr. Olivier, a French officer, to make him a European city in one of the newly conquered provinces. It was barely finished when the rebels rushed to it, numbering forty thousand men, resolved to climb it; but all their efforts were useless, and they were forced to lift the siege and to withdraw to Quy-nhơn, where the King went to attack them by land and by sea. But having set out in campaign, they forced the prince to withdraw in turn; and two months later they again came to lay siege to the city which mocked them. They have been besieging it for four months; but we hope that the King, who has just set out on the campaign, will be able to rescue it in time and force them to withdraw again.98 This report is confirmed by Le Labousse, writing to Boiret on the same day: “The king, after having lifted the siege from the capital of his enemy, came to entrench himself in a neighbouring province. Mr. Olivier of Carpentras, an officer

in his service, made him a European-style fort [à l’européenne].”99 The final reference to the engineers is in the caption of the only contemporary plan of the Saigon citadel, by Jean-Marie Dayot (1754–1808?) in his manuscript folio of maps entitled “Le Pilote de Cochinchine” (co-authored with François Etienne de Mesros, 1748–1832): “Plan of the City of Saigon, fortified in 1790 by Colonel Olivier, reduced from the grand plan drawn by order of the King in 1795. By M. Brun, engineer to His Majesty” (fig. 5.9).100 This was later published as an engraving in Dayot’s Atlas de la Cochinchine (Paris, 1818) with the caption “Plan of Gia-dinh and its surroundings, drawn by Trân Van Hoc, the 4th day of the 12th moon of the 14th year of Gia Long (1815).”101 Trần Văn Học was a Vietnamese cartographer who collaborated with Dayot on his project to map the Cochinchinese coast. Although Olivier and Le Brun would have been familiar with French fortification architecture they almost certainly worked from the many books that disseminated Vauban’s designs and defensive philosophy, particularly Bernard Forest de Bélidor’s La science des ingénieurs (Paris, 1729), which had ample plans and elevations of fortresses and the buildings in them.102 We know that the engineers had a map dated 1773 entitled “A Military Map [containing] all the main parts [for defensive and offensive attacks] of a site built based on the memoirs of Marshall de Vauban by J. E. Duhamel, royal engineer,” which was still in

5.12 (oppoSiTe Top ) Victor Olivier and others, Citadel, Diên Khánh (Vietnam), 1793, west gate. 5.13 (oppoSiTe miDDLe ) Victor Olivier and others, Citadel, Diên Khánh, south gate. 5.14 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Victor Olivier and others, Citadel, Diên Khánh, east gate.

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5.15 East gate (Donghuamen), Forbidden City, Beijing, 1420.

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Vietnam in 1921 and which included Vietnamese translations of fortification terminology.103 Few have considered the role of Cochinchinese architect engineers in the design and construction of these citadels, and most studies ignore the predominantly Sino-Vietnamese style of their elevations. Diên Khánh, the only surviving one, has Chinese-style pavilions crowned with double tiled roofs with overhanging eaves, upturned corners and eave brackets, and cloud motif finials (fig. 5.13). The way the double-roofed pavilions rest directly on the massive gatehouse and the red colour scheme evokes the gates of the Forbidden City, Beijing (1420), if on a miniature scale; Chinese imperial fortification architecture would later serve as a model for Gia Long’s great citadel

at Huế (fig. 5.15).104 French features are much subtler: the pilaster-like vertical frames for the arch and, on the south and east gates, the balustrades with piers. By contrast, the gate houses in Beijing are plain with unadorned openings, in some cases arched and elsewhere rectangular with prominent lintels. The Gia Định citadel, destroyed in 1835 by Minh Mạng (r. 1820–41) following a rebellion there by Lê Văn Khôi (d. 1834), also was predominantly Chinese in style judging by the comments of European visitors, such as the Scots John Crawfurd (1783–1868) and George Finlayson (1790–1823), who visited the site in the 1820s, and the American John White, who went there in 1819. Finlayson described it as “handsome and ornamented in the Chinese style”; Crawfurd noted that “the large gateways are built of stone and lime, and are very substantially constructed, although a Chinese tower with a double-canopied

Nam nhất thống chí (Đại Nam Comprehensive Encyclopaedia), a gazetteer written under Emperor Tự Đức (r. 1847–83) – long after the citadel had been demolished – mistakenly describes it as being “octagonal, lotus-shaped with eight gates,” although it correctly acknowledges the “Chinese” elements.107 The citadel did have eight gates but was in fact built on a square plan, with four main projecting bastions at the corners and four shallower ones between them containing powder magazines and a flagstaff house at the front.108 The ramparts sat on two additional layers of radiating bastions and ravelins. Inside was a miniature grid plan city that combines royal residences with military buildings.109 The oblong king’s palace, “of about one hundred and sixty feet square, constructed principally of brick, with verandas enclosed with screens of matting,” was at the centre fronting a Place d’Armes and arms depot, with the queen’s palace behind it, and it was flanked by the prince’s palace to the right and the cartwright shop on the left.110 Between these buildings and the ramparts were the hospital, barracks for 50,000 troops, arsenal, and forge. The citadel and its gridiron arrangement are of a standard design used in particular in the Atlantic colonies, or on a grander scale at Vauban’s own citadel at Lille (1667–72); however, these citadels usually located the place d’armes in the centre fronted by government buildings and usually a church. The citadels also tend to be pentagonal, hexagonal, and occasionally octagonal (unless the territory necessitated an uneven design), whereas the Gia Định citadel is based on a square, which Vauban and his followers executed infrequently, for instance at the Citadel of Saint-Martin at the Île de Ré near La Rochelle, as Mantienne has noted.111 White, Crawfurd, and Finlayson wrote that the citadel was a square structure with four main gates and four smaller ones, emphasized the plan’s

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roof gives them a grotesque and unmilitary appearance”; and White commented that “over the gates, are square buildings with tiled roofs,” and that the palace had “roofs covered with glazed tile, and ornamented with dragons, and other monsters, in the Chinese Style,” and that a cemetery in the western sector “contain[ed] several barbarously splendid mausoleums of mandarins in the Chinese style.”105 The gates would have resembled those of Diên Khánh, with the massive gatehouses below and delicate, double-roofed Sino-Vietnamese pavilions above. We do not know which Cochinchinese architect engineers were working for Nguyễn Ánh in the 1790s; however, we do know the names of those working for him as Emperor Gia Long in Huế after 1802, where he and his successor Minh Mạng had a corps of engineers dedicated to fortress architecture under a Giám thành (“director of fortifications”). The directors included Nguyễn Văn Yên and Đỗ-Phúc-Thạnh, and they were served by deputy (Phó-Đội) Nguyễn-Học, captain (Đội-Trưởng) Nguyễn-Thông, and chief (Trưởng) Viết-Súy, all in charge of studying and establishing plans and budgets for citadels such as Thuận Hòa citadel (1804), the first one built after Diên Khánh.106 There can be no doubt that some of these engineers, or others like them, were involved in the construction of Saigon and Diên Khánh citadels and that they probably contributed at least as much, if not more, to the projects as did Olivier or Le Brun. The plans of the two citadels are more clearly based on Vauban-style schemes than are the elevations, although early modern Vietnamese sources and some scholars have also drawn attention to Chinese models (figs. 5.9, 5.10). The Gia Định citadel was a stone structure with a perimeter of 4,126 metres, “built on a typical Vauban model” although it has also been described in the Vietnamese literature as Chinese-inspired: the Đại

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European design, and also noted that that it used iron reinforcements in the gates. Crawfurd commented: “the original plan appears to have been European, but left incomplete. It has a regular glacis, an esplanade, a dry ditch of considerable breadth, and regular ramparts and bastion […] The interior is neatly laid out and clean, and presents an appearance of European order and arrangement.”112 Finlayson remarked that the “fortress […] has been constructed of late years, on the principles of European fortification. It is furnished with a regular glacis, wet ditch, and a high rampart, and commands the surrounding country.”113 White, likewise, wrote that the gates are “very strong, and studded with iron, in the European style” (he also saw 250 cannons “of various calibres and fashions,” about a dozen of them bearing inscriptions from the time of Louis XIV, which suggests that Pigneaux’s ragtag army enlisted any weapon they could get their hands on in Pondicherry or Île de France.114 The hybrid nature of the structures went beyond the contrast between a European plan and a Sino-Vietnamese elevation. Mantienne suggests that the unusual (for Vauban) square plan was chosen to resonate with Chinese square or rectangular fortress architecture – as happened also at Huế and Thăng Long (Hanoi) – because Saigon was the temporary capital and therefore the employment of such imperial references was an important way of projecting legitimacy.115 Diên Khánh, although irregular due to the particularities of the terrain it was built on, is hexagonal and therefore more typical of Vauban-style citadels, such as Vauban and Paquine’s citadel at Cayenne (1696) or Julien-Marie Solain-Baron’s project for its replacement in 1750, which, like its Vietnamese counterpart, is irregular and incorporates a rectangular extension on one end (fig. 5.11).116 Both citadels have bold, arrowshaped bastions, and triangular ravelins, and both

quadrilateral extensions (on the west at Diên Khánh) are slightly askew from the axis of the main citadel, in Diên Khánh’s case to follow the course of the Cái River, which today has advanced considerably to the north. Diên Khánh is unlike Solain-Baron’s plan (and nearly all the Atlantic citadels, not to mention Gia Định) in that it does not have a regular grid of streets, despite having a place d’armes at the centre. The main citadel has five bastions and two demi-bastions and the lower quadrilateral forecourt has two more and a ravelin. According to the Hoàng Việt nhất thống dư địa chí (Royal Viet Geographical Gazetteer), compiled in 1806 by Lê Quang Định for Gia Long, the Diên Khánh citadel had a circumference is 1,019 tầm (1,825 metres), with six gates, two on the west and north side, and one each on the south and east, all surrounded by a moat with a suspension bridge at the front.117 Today only three gatehouses survive, to the west, south, and east, and there is no trace of the western quadrilateral forecourt (partly destroyed by the shifting course of the Suối Đầo River) or place d’armes, and much of the interior of the citadel is now occupied by empty lots. Unlike the Gia Định citadel it is built of stuccoed brick. However, the earthworks survive: 3.5 metres high, they are paved on the top with red terracotta tiles, and the outline and remains of the moat (once 3 to 5 metres wide) are clearly visible from the air. After Olivier’s and Le Brun’s departure, and after Pigneaux’s death in 1799, the newly styled Emperor Gia Long continued to build citadels that blended French technology with SinoVietnamese aesthetics and geomancy. He and his successors Minh Mạng and Thiệu Trị (r. 1841–47) built thirty-two such forts along an 1,800-kilometre stretch from Cao Bằng to Hà Tiên between 1802 and 1844.118 Whereas Gia Long’s citadels were mostly hexagonal or pentagonal in the Vauban mode with a few square plans,

beginning with Minh Mạng rectangular forts with four bastions at the corners began to predominate. Mantienne argues that this change reflected not a return to Chinese models but in fact an understanding of the latest French designs used in Napoleon I’s First Empire (1804–14), such as Fort Liédot (1811) on an island on the Atlantic coast between La Rochelle and Rochefort.119 He traces this change to Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau (1769–1832), one of the two naval officers to stay in Huế after the war, who went to France in 1819 to purchase books for Gia Long, including, according to Chaigneau’s account, “the principal books related to the manufacturing and arts” and “the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia.”120 However if updated French square plans were indeed employed – and the evidence is frankly scanty – they were chosen precisely because they echoed Chinese imperial structures. Significantly, unlike in the 1790s, French specialists no longer assisted the emperor’s own highly organized and skilled corps of engineers. The fleeting French episode in Cochinchina may have provided new technologies but the increasingly orthodox and xenophobic Confucianist Nguyễn government was ultimately more concerned with adopting the Chinese visual language of sovereignty, one that emphasized the antiquity of their regime and Đại Nam’s long-standing ties to Chinese civilization. For them, as for the Qing Chinese, France was considered a peripheral barbarian nation of little importance beyond certain technological achievements.

The French presence in Southeast Asia used as justification for the French conquest of Cochinchina (1858–62) was thus a chimera, and colonialism’s supporters had trouble convincing anyone but themselves (including vocally anti-colonial

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The French Conquest of Indochina, 1858–1907

French politicians) of France’s right to take the region – not to mention, as they expanded their empire, the Protectorates of Cambodia (1863), Annam (1883), Tonkin (1884), and Laos (1893), the latter three under the Third Republic. Meredith Martin has written insightfully about the ways in which the Second Empire harnessed nostalgia for the supposed glory years of French dominance in Asia to prop up their ambitions for a modern colonial empire: “channel[ing] and rewrit[ing] the past so as to advance France’s imperialist ambitions in Southeast Asia and legitimize the Second Empire government at home and abroad.”121 She refers specifically to the era of the Siamese Embassies, but her comment is just as appropriate for Dupleix’s India, Alexandre de Rhodes, and the partnership between Pigneaux and Gia Long. Another tactic was to emphasize the French identity of the missionaries in Đại Việt from Rhodes’s day – conveniently ignoring the substantial role played by Portuguese Jesuits and Spanish Franciscans and Dominicans, among others – and to use the recurring persecutions of Christians there as a justification for France to safeguard “its” flock. Early nineteenth-century Đại Nam had the largest Catholic community in Southeast Asia outside the Philippines.122 Although Gia Long tolerated Catholicism, missionaries slowly lost their privileged position during the reigns of his successors, who considered Christianity to be a heterodox faith that conflicted with indigenous religious practices and Confucianism.123 Minh Mạng instituted the first persecutions (1832–40), which resulted in the deaths of nine French and three Spanish missionaries as well as thousands of Vietnamese Christians, and they continued under Tự Đức.124 Although these persecutions served as a rallying cry for the Second Empire’s colonialist camp, France’s true interests in Đại Nam were geopolitical and economic. The government

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wanted a military and economic base in Southeast Asia to rival the regional European ports of Singapore, Batavia, Manila, and especially Hong Kong (ceded in 1842); they hoped to halt Britain’s encroachment into Burma (1852, 1862, 1885); and they sought to compensate for the Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1855, which allowed Britain free trade in Bangkok, a diplomatic mission, and the right to own property there. Britain was simply becoming too influential in Southeast and East Asia. In fact, in an echo of the missionary–cio conflicts in Madagascar and Siam, the religious motivation for French conquest became something of an embarrassment for the secularist Third Republic (1870–1940), which had an ambivalent and often contentious relationship with the colonial church and with missionaries after the colony’s foundation.125 France’s tenuous rationalization for conquering Indochina is best characterized by that 1902 statue in Saigon’s Cathedral Square (fig. 5.3). Meant to be a symbol of France’s abiding commitment to protect Indochina, it in fact showed a French priest serving Cochinchinese interests by protecting a prince who would never rule and holding a treaty that was not worth the paper it was written on. Responding to an intensifying missionary campaign to redress the persecutions, to growing capitalist demands at home for overseas markets and products, and to a desire to promote France’s might in Asia, Napoleon III agreed in July 1857 to invade southern Đại Nam.126 The invasion and colonization of Cochinchina and annexation of Cambodia as a protectorate was a naval project, and the first twenty years of the colony (1859–79) were known as the Era of the Admirals, an age in which the propaganda of French heroism was deftly manipulated by the Second Empire for consumption at home. Key figures included Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat (1805–1873), Napoleon III’s minister of the navy from 1860 to 1867,

and his successor Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly (1807–1873), the conqueror of Saigon (both of whom would be immortalized in the statue group in the Palais du Gouverneur-Général in Saigon; see chapter 1). In 1858 Rigault de Genouilly and 2,300 Franco-Spanish troops captured Tourane, where he had hoped to establish a military base; however he was unable to reach the imperial capital of Huế and proceeded southward to Saigon, leaving a small garrison behind.127 Saigon fell in February 1859 and its surrounding villages were destroyed, but it took four more years for the French to conquer the seven neighbouring provinces that would form French Cochinchina, the only actual colony (as opposed to protectorate) in French Indochina. In 1866–68 naval officers Ernest Doudart de Lagrée (1823–1868) and François Garnier (1839–1873) led an expedition up the Mekong River to find a trade route to Yunnan (China), but as the river was unnavigable for commercial traffic France turned its attention to the Red River in Tonkin and became intent upon its acquisition as a strategic base even though it, too, was impractical for trade.128 The era of the admirals ended in 1879 with the imposition of civilian government by the Third Republic.129 The Indochinese Union took decades to build, first with an unsuccessful attempt to secure the Red River for France in 1873 (the “Tonkin Crisis”), followed by a more concerted effort to take northern Đại Nam in 1882, when the Saigon government sent 250 troops to Hanoi. Although its commander, Captain Henri Rivière (1827– 1883), was killed, France was able to force the Huế court in 1883 to cede central and northern Đại Nam to France as the protectorates of Tonkin and Annam (Annam, as we have seen, was an artificial entity, a Chinese name imposed onto what had originally been the heartland of historic Cochinchina).130 Only pressure from China forced the

to the governor-general in Hanoi after it became the capital in 1902; the governor-general was also the administrator of Annam and Tonkin (although each of them also had a résidentsupérieur); furthermore, every Annamese and Tonkinese province also had both a French and an indigenous chief.133 Meanwhile, the monarchy and mandarin bureaucracy at Huế still officially ruled, but in a very circumscribed and formalistic way, with the imperial privy council subject to the résident supérieur (see chapter 7). Cambodia and Laos both had kings, again mere figureheads, the real power resting with each protectorate’s résident-supérieur. Turnover was also so rapid it verged on anarchy: during the forty years between 1886 and 1926 Indochina had fifty-two different governors-general; Cochinchina thirty-eight governors; and Tonkin, Annam, and Cambodia had thirty-one, thirty-two, and twenty-two résidents supérieurs each; while Laos, in thirty years, had seventeen.134 Even French colonists argued among themselves: Cochinchina, as the richest and oldest entity and only colony, resented the Indochinese Union and the move of the capital to Hanoi and they were constantly at loggerheads with the governors-general.135 Such an administrative system and so much staff renewal did not bode well for long-term infrastructure projects or efficient rule. As Gwendolyn Wright remarks: “by the 1890s […] Indochina was widely considered the greatest failure in the French empire.”136 Nevertheless, with the arrival in 1897 of Governor-General Paul Doumer (1857–1932) Indochina’s colonial administration was strengthened through a reorganization of its finances, bureaucracy, and cadastral system, taking away the authority of the Vietnamese mandarinate and reducing the emperor to a puppet figure who could be (and was) removed and replaced as it pleased the French.137 By 1900 the ratio of French officials to indigenous persons in Indochina significantly

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French to settle for protectorates as opposed to outright colonies. The Indochinese Union was declared in 1887 and Laos, the last of the protectorates, was annexed six years later. But in an early sign of the continued fragility of the union, the French immediately suffered a violent setback from a national insurgency called Cần Vương (“Save the King”), which broke out across Vietnam and Cambodia between 1885 and 1897 to place the child emperor Hàm Nghi (1872–1943) on the throne of an independent Đại Nam. The rebellion was a protracted but incohesive guerrilla war that was only defeated when France dispatched a massive expeditionary corps of colonial troops and exiled the emperor to Algeria (where, ironically, he married a Frenchwoman).131 The final land grab took place in 1907, when a large part of southeastern Siam was “retroceded” to French Cambodia, including the greatest ideological trophy of French Indochina, the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat (see chapter 7). Throughout its history, France’s colonial empire in Indochina was also deeply unpopular with many Frenchmen who saw it as an unnecessary expense and potentially dangerous – in fact the main promoter of the capture of Hanoi, Prime Minister Jules Ferry (1832–1893), who was known derisively as “Ferry le tonkinois,” was ousted in 1885 for his expansionist views.132 Administering these conquests also proved difficult. At no time in French Indochina’s ninetyfive-year history did France have a truly secure hold on this patchwork of states, and the degree of French influence differed dramatically between regions. Only in the large cities such as Saigon (the much-vaunted “Paris of the East”) and Hanoi was the French presence dominant. The colonial regime also suffered from the complexity of the system of governance, which varied between the different parts of the union. Cochinchina was ruled by a governor but he was subservient

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outstripped that of British India and the Dutch East Indies.138 Colonial officials applied a set of policies of mise en valeur, of what they considered to be “ethical intervention” that would develop the colony and “bring it into the era of progress,” often using architectural metaphors to describe them.139 Beginning in 1906 serious attention was paid to educational reform, with the opening of franco-indigenous schools at multiple levels. However, the curriculum was designed to legitimize colonialism and depict France as a civilizing benefactor (the mission civilisatrice), and indigenous youth were trained to take on poorly paid secondary positions within the colonial system rather than to join the establishment.140 One of the educational system’s most insidious goals in Vietnam was to root out the use of traditional Chinese ideograms (chữ nôm), used by the mandarin elite, and use only Latinized quốc ngữ and French. It is symptomatic that the colony’s only university, in Hanoi (1907), closed after only a year for fear that educated “Annamites” would become ambitious and critical of colonialism (it reopened in 1917). Some Indochinese students pursued higher education in Paris, but authorities were afraid that they would learn the “wrong things” and they were closely watched by the sûreté – the French were quite right to worry as many independence activists, including Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), studied in Paris.141 As late as the 1930s, even after a policy of association or rapprochement was adopted with the Vietnamese and their cultural and social institutions (see chapter 7), indigenous officials could still not rise as far as Europeans in the civil service. This discrimination also underlay architectural projects, as we will see in the next two chapters: architects were mostly European – often they were hired in France and sometimes they never even left France – as were most contractors. However, as we will see in the next two chapters Cambodian

and Vietnamese architects, contractors, and artists were involved, sometimes decisively, in major construction projects – it was just that their involvement was not discussed openly by French officials. French economic interests also sidelined efforts at social reform, and indigenous peasants and workers suffered as their land and labour were appropriated, particularly after the early 1920s. Indochina had been largely an agricultural society focused on village communities that combined secular and spiritual functions (in Vietnam the làng or làng xã), and the imposition of large, European-style cities was detrimental to their way of life.142 Indigenous people, as well as Chinese and Indian “coolies,” were also ruthlessly exploited for labour in building projects, mines, rubber plantations, rice fields, and other extractive ventures that brought a quick profit to their owners but destroyed the traditional agricultural economy and ignored the long-term development of the country or the betterment of its people. One of the most successful exports was cheap rice grown in Cochinchina, refined in Saigon and Cholon, and sold on the Asian market. This industry directed the regions’ historic staple away from the peasantry and toward large Chinese- and European-owned companies, and its mills drew migrant workers from across the region, many of whom did not find employment and joined the growing ranks of disaffected urban poor.143 The authorities responded by creating institutions to house or regulate them, whether prisons, police posts, orphanages, clinics, or hospitals. Doumer also imposed a costly infrastructure on Indochina, especially roads, railways, bridges, canals, and ports, which were meant to make it easier to exploit the colony’s natural resources but which were inefficient: the staggeringly expensive 1,000-mile-long Trans-Indochinese railway was an unnecessary addition to a network of cheap water and land trade routes, and his giant Pont Doumer

in Hanoi (1902) was over a mile long but too narrow to accommodate more than a single lane of traffic.144 We will see in the next chapter how the French administration’s focus on prestige projects like opera houses at the expense of drainage and other essential services was characteristic of colonial decision making at the time and reflective of colonists’ priorities. More so than any other European colonial power at the time, France attempted to recreate the homeland in their colonial cities, with its cafés, opera houses, grand boulevards, and cathedrals, acting as if Saigon or Hanoi were clean slates instead of settlements that had been around for centuries. American traveller Jasper Whiting, whom we will meet again in the next chapter, put it most succinctly in 1902: “When the French start to colonize in a country they do not proceed like the English to apply to the development of the new land only such of their home customs as seem suited to the new conditions, but they transplant in toto the ways and means and manners of

the Mother Country to the new locality, rip up everything native by the roots, and begin immediately to make a Colonial France, with a capital laid out on the lines of what is in their eyes the only perfect city: Paris.”145 The approach of the French colonial government to its cities at the turn of the century echoes some French colonies of the ancien régime, particularly Antillean cities such as Cap-François, with its grand theatre (fig. 1.12), grid plan of streets, place royale, fountains, obelisks, and Mansart-inspired church.146 It also has much in common with the outward appearance of the buildings of eighteenth-century Pondicherry before the fall – although in that case, as we have seen, they were animated by Mughal court ceremonial that is invisible to those who peruse their plans and elevations. But as was so often the case when French colonialists tried so hard to project the perceived superiority of French culture through architecture, the buildings of Belle Époque Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong compensated for a growing sense of uneasiness about France’s position there.

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6 semblance Saigon and Hanoi ca 1900

When it had the opportunity to do so, France promoted its elite culture with greater fervour than did any other colonial power: indeed, since the seventeenth century the French state considered culture to be an essential instrument of power. Nowhere was this zeal more evident than in its sponsorship of French opera and theatre and the monuments built to host them. Opera had been a centrepiece of French colonialism since the 1680s, when it featured in the Franco-Siamese embassies (see chapter 2). Monumental theatres – financed by private and state funds alike – were also the showpiece of prosperous colonies in French West Indies in the eighteenth century, the largest of them the 1,200-seat Spectacle or Comédie in Cap-François (1764) (fig. 1.12), which had a greater capacity than the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux (1780), and the stately neoclassical Salle des Spectacles in Saint-Pierre, Martinique (1786), which was so prominent atop its sweeping double staircase – before its obliteration by an eruption in 1902 – that sailors used it as a landmark. The former opened with Molière’s The Misanthrope and mounted operas and plays shortly after their premieres in Paris, and it boasted celebrity visitors of the calibre of Prince William Henry, the future British king William IV (r. 1830–37).1 The Salle des Spectacles, which closely resembled its near contemporary, the Opéra de Marseille (1787), was the largest theatre in the Lesser Antilles and it combined opera with more patriotic fare, as in its 1788 season, which included Nicolas

6.1 Jean Bourduaud, Théâtre municipal, Haiphong (Vietnam), ca 1896–1900.

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Dalayrac’s swashbuckling Le corsaire (1783) – appropriate for its Caribbean setting – and Mathieu Blanc-Gilli’s La bienfaisance de Louis XVI (1783), a stalwart celebration of the king’s clemency.2 In fact, the privileging of opera and classical theatre, and their function as a way to entertain and maintain order among colonists on one hand and to impress European rivals and colonized peoples with the supposed superiority of French culture on the other, is one of the most significant continuities between the old and new colonial empires in Asia, another ancien régime ideology that was reinvented for modern times. Two of France’s most famous opera composers bookended this era of opera diplomacy and opera colonialism. The first is Jean-Baptiste Lully, the

inventor of French opera, who personally escorted Kosa Pan and the other Siamese envoys to his operas Armide and Acis et Galatée during their 1687 visit to Paris and whose airs were played to King Narai by a French violinist. Just over two centuries later Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921), at the height of his career and a seasoned traveller fascinated by Asia, visited Saigon in 1894–95 as a guest of the colonial government. His personal preference for Chinese opera performances in the neighbourhood of Cholon did not dissuade his patriotic devotees from mounting his Samson and Delilah (1877) during the Saigon opera house’s triumphant opening season in 1900–01 (see below).3 Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century the construction of municipal theatres – they were opera houses in all but name since the term “opéra” usually referred exclusively to the Paris Opéra – became a standard feature of France’s

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6.2 (oppoSiTe Top ) Eugène Ferret, Félix-Louis-JeanMarie Ollivier, Ernest-Amédé Guichard, and others, Théâtre de Saigon, Saigon, 1898–1900. 6.3 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Victorin Harlay, Jean Bossard, and François Lagisquet, Théâtre municipal, Hanoi, 1901–14.

churches built by early modern French religious orders in Siam and Saint-Domingue and by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries across the globe; France’s program of promoting secular civilization was as ardent as any evangelist’s propagation of the faith.8 In fact the urge to replicate metropolitan secular buildings epitomized by the opera houses was uncannily similar to the medieval and early modern practice of building simulacra of Christian pilgrimage shrines across Europe and Latin America, whether the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Holy House of Loreto, or the Gnadenkapelle at Altötting.9 These replicas of paradigmatic Parisian monuments in Indochina were uniquely characteristic of the decades before the First World War, during the so-called Belle Époque (1890–1914), and they included much more than opera houses. Such were the Saigon Hôtel de Ville (1907, by Paul Gardès; fig. 6.4), based on its Parisian prototype by Théodore Ballu and Édouard Deperthes (1873– 92; fig. 6.5), or the Hôtel des Postes in the same city (1891, by Alfred Foulhoux and Henri Vildieu; fig. 6.6), which I have traced to Jean-Marie-Victor Viel’s Palais de l’Industrie, the centrepiece of Paris’s first Exposition universelle in 1855 (fig. 6.7). This desire to make Saigon into “la métropole sous les tropiques” reflects the racist sentiments of French scholar Jean Bouchet, who wrote in 1904 that “It is desirable […] that the European city should be as homogeneous as possible to avoid these constructions in a style that we call métis.”10 Nevertheless, like the Pondicherry Gouvernement, these vainglorious buildings were more a sign of vulnerability than one of strength, their grandeur inversely proportional to France’s authority in Indochina. One significant difference between the opera houses in this chapter and the buildings discussed in previous chapters is that the former were commissioned by municipalities and not by the government or the cio (which was liquidated in 1794), although the government

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mission civilisatrice, particularly in Algeria and Indochina. They first appeared under Napoleon III and reached their apogee in the Third Republic, first with the lavishly appointed Beaux-Arts style theatres in Algiers (1850–53), Constantine (1861–83), and Oran (1906–07), and then with the Indochinese theatres of Haiphong (ca 1896–1900) (fig. 6.1), Saigon (1898–1900) (fig. 6.2), and Hanoi (1901–14) (fig. 6.3) – the latter three too large for the European population and given priority over more desperately needed public works projects such as drainage, sanitation, and public transportation.4 Albert Camus (1913– 1960) highlights the frivolity of these buildings by setting one of the most consequential scenes in The Plague (1947) in the Municipal Opera House in Oran: the lead singer falls dead in the middle of Gluck’s Orpheus, serving as a metaphor for the pointlessness of social pretense and the “toys of luxury” in a time of pestilence.5 Playwright Eugène Brieux (1858–1932) characterized this era of hubris in Indochina as one suffering from a “folly of grandeur,” and few commentators have failed to ask why such ostentatious buildings were built in such a young and unstable colony.6 There was certainly no equivalent in the Dutch, British, or Spanish colonies – the Dutch and Spanish expected ticket sales to pay for theatre buildings in Java and the Philippines, and the British in India and Burma were decidedly lukewarm about opera or elite theatre, proud as they were of being philistine and suspicious of something that was too intellectual or “clever.”7 In Indochina opera houses were the secular Third Republic’s equivalent to the monumental

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6.4 (oppoSiTe Top ) Paul Gardès, Hôtel de Ville, Saigon, 1907. 6.5 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Théodore Ballu and Édouard Deperthes, Hôtel de Ville, Paris, 1873–92. 6.6 (Top righT ) Alfred Foulhoux and Henri Vildieu, Hôtel des Postes, Saigon, 1891. 6.7 (BoTTom righT ) Jean-Marie-Victor Viel, Palais de l’Industrie, Paris, 1855. Demolished 1897. Photograph ca 1860 by Édouard Baldus. Albumen silver print, 21.6 × 27.9 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

helped finance them. This is not to say that the government did not enthusiastically participate in the campaign to project French grandeur through metropolitan styles, most notably in the neo-Renaissance Palais du Gouverneur Général in Hanoi (1900–06) by Beaux-Arts laureate Charles Lichtenfelder (1857–1938), a locksmith’s son from Strasbourg (figs. 6.8–9).11 Situated dramatically on the edge of the city in a park next to the 6.8 Charles Lichtenfelder, Palais du Gouverneur Général, Hanoi, 1900–06.

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6.9 (oppoSiTe ) Charles Lichtenfelder, Palace of the Governor General at Hanoi: Plan of the Ground Floor, ca 1895. Ink and wash on paper. 34 × 45 cm. ANom .

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botanic garden in what was to be the nucleus of the administrative centre of Hanoi, this gargantuan four-storey block, the successor to the Palais du Gouvernement Général in Saigon (fig. 1.6), recalls the larger French Renaissance palaces such as the Château Ancy-le-Franc (Yonne, ca 1544–50) with its severe massing and tower-like projections at the ends.12 Like the Pondicherry Gouvernement and Palais du Gouvernement Général in Saigon, although more modest than both, the Hanoi palace was designed for maximum display and lavish events, with sweeping staircases, grand vestibules with mosaic star patterns on the floor, a 205-square-metre oval ballroom at the centre, and an opulent 282-square-metre dining

room that took up the entire right wing on the ground floor.13 These projects were criticized even before they were built, particularly as they were overloaded with ornament in a style that was already going out of fashion by the time they were completed and because architects made few concessions to the local climate. Such concerns were raised early on by the Colonial Public Works Committee of the Ministry of Colonies, for example when examining plans for the Saigon Hôtel de Ville (fig. 6.4) in 1899:

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The overall architectural and detailed arrangements of the town hall give rise to criticism from the Commission, which considers that the decoration is too concerned with effect and creates complications of questionable taste that are not consistent with the materials used, bricks & plaster […] If we were to adhere to the planned budget, we would have to design a much more sober monument; this could moreover be obtained without harming the appearance of the monument to which the chosen architectural character is not suitable.14

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The committee was similarly frustrated with Lichtenfelder’s larger and more ostentatious earlier project (1895) for the Palais du Gouverneur Général in Hanoi, which would have cost about 78 per cent of that of its predecessor in Saigon. Henri Deglane (1855–1931), architect of the Grand Palais in Paris, commented: “From an artistic point of view, the proposed constructions generally seem to have been designed to be built in any city in the Métropole, with an excessive overload of mouldings and ornamentation; it is regrettable that the climatic and technical conditions particular to the region did not inspire the creation of a kind of local style less like that of equivalent buildings in our countries.”15

Colonial administrators in Third Republic Indochina attributed almost thaumaturgic powers to Indochina’s theatres: they were meant to confirm the colony’s allegiance to France, provide a prestige activity for white elites, improve morals and morale (especially homesickness), cure the rampant boredom that plagued colonial society, and demonstrate French cultural hegemony over the Vietnamese elites, whom they hoped would mingle with the colonists and learn to appreciate European opera and theatre.16 In 1873 the commission for the Saigon theatre noted that in France “the theatre was not only one of the most useful distractions offered to the population of a city but also a powerful remedy to habits and unhealthy practices.”17 It was also seen as a means for “improving” the bourgeoisie. Architect Charles Garnier himself had written about his Paris Opéra (1861–75) (fig. 6.10) that “the spectators who enter into it undergo a sort of moral impression from which they cannot distance themselves completely. They feel themselves surrounded, encompassed, by a sort of elegant atmosphere that influences their thoughts, their character, even their speech and their bearing; they sense instinctively that a certain dignity is appropriate, and that to let themselves go too much would be unsuitable.”18 Had Garnier been asked his opinion about the Saigon project he certainly would have been concerned only with its impact on the colons: Garnier had only contempt for the “yellow” races of East Asia, and believed that of the races of the world “only the white family had worked on the historic development of civilisation.”19 The Saigon commission maintained that the need for a theatre was even more urgent in the colonies: “if the municipalities of France consider it a duty to include a similar expense in their budget, how should we consider it here, gentlemen, where the lack of distractions, idleness and boredom that result end up inevitably driving people around the gaming tables which seem

6.10 Charles Garnier, Opéra, Paris, 1861–75.

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to have multiplied for some time in Saigon?”20 However, as studies of colonial opera and theatre demonstrate, these buildings impressed only the French (and by no means all of them): the Vietnamese and Chinese were largely oblivious to these imported art forms – significantly they referred to the Hanoi building as the “Western Theatre” rather than the “Municipal Theatre” – persisting, like Saint-Saëns, in visiting Chinese operas and traditional puppet shows.21 As meLê yamono comments: “[o]pera in French Vietnam strengthened the imperial ambitions of the colonisers, while alienating the indigenous community from its cultural practice.”22

French municipalities also failed to impress rival Europeans with these buildings. Such visitors, particularly anglophones, were decidedly unenthusiastic about the pretensions of Indochina’s French architecture, even if most were astonished by its physical resemblance to that of France. Writing in 1902, American journalist Jasper Whiting compared Saigon to “one of the smaller provincial capitals of La Belle France” and “Paris on a small scale,” with “a miniature Champs Élysées, a miniature Bois de Boulogne, and a miniature Avenue de l’Opéra […] a twinspired cathedral, the Notre Dame of the city, and a beautiful Opera House, of which every resident is justly proud.”23 William Somerset Maugham (1922) also likened the city to “a little provincial town in the South of France,” with “an opera

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house white and shining, built in the flamboyant style of the Third Republic, which faces a broad avenue, and […] a Hotel de Ville which is very grand, new and ornate.”24 Norman Lewis (1951) was less complimentary: “It is as sensible to call it – as is usually done – the Paris of the Far East as it would be to call Kingston, Jamaica, the Oxford of the West Indies,” and likened Saigon instead to “a pleasant, colourless and characterless French provincial city, squeezed on to a strip of delta-land in the South China Seas … The better part of the city contains many shops, cafés and cinemas, and one small, plain cathedral in red brick. Twenty thousand Europeans keep as much as possible to themselves in a few tamarind-shaded central streets and they are surrounded by about a million Vietnamese and Chinese.”25 Graham Greene, writing four years later, was even more dismissive of the city’s architecture, singling out its “hideous pink cathedral” (fig. 9.14).26 However Osbert Sitwell (1939) best captured the theme-park atmosphere of the place: “[i]n Paris, the Colonial Exhibition had but recently finished, and the general effect of Saigon was that it had been constructed as its antithesis; a French Imperial Exhibition arranged for the Colonies, or, even, something larger and more important, a Western Exhibition organized for the benefit of the peoples of the Extreme East.”27 He went on, with great perspicacity, to describe the buildings as representing two styles which “plainly derive from those that had dominated the two great Paris Exhibitions of 1900 and 1925.” He continued: To the first period belong, as a rule, the public buildings, ticketed all over in gold letters with the three world-famous tags of the Third Republic. Such, for instance, is the Post Office […] Again, such an important Art-Nouveau item as the Hôtel-de-Ville belongs to it;

an edifice boasting balconies which curve backward and forward into the tropical air in a most coquettish way, supported by enormous plaster caryatides, a hundred times the size of human beings, smiling very roguishly but looking singularly out of place in an atmosphere that bathes every vast cheek and nostril in a harsh and mocking light. The second period, on the other hand, Les Arts Décoratifs of 1925, claims the streets of low, marble-fronted shops, with their curved plateglass windows, fashioned so as to look invisible, and their slick, chic, simple interiors.28 He continued, “the theatre, the Palace, the streets of shops, the Post Office – might disappear in an instant; an order might come at any minute, it seemed, for the Exhibition (which could not now be counted as altogether a financial success) to be wound up, and for the gay, exotic exhibits – and those responsible for them – to be packed immediately and sent home.”29 Indeed, as already noted, the Saigon post office was directly derived from a building at the 1855 exposition, and the Saigon opera house was modelled after the Petit Palais (1897–1900, by Charles Girault) (fig. 6.11) at the 1900 exposition, the fair specifically mentioned by Sitwell. Saigon’s Belle Époque buildings were the mirror equivalent to the miniature replicas of Indochinese gates, temples, and shophouses in the Marseille Exposition Coloniale of 1906 or the Angkor Wat replica in the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris.30 In fact the link goes deeper, as Foulhoux and Vildieu designed, respectively, the Pavilion of Cochinchina and the Pavilion of Annam and Tonkin at the 1889 Universal Exposition, and Vildieu was the architect of the Indochinese pavilion in the 1906 Exposition.31 An extraordinary number of the architects in French Indochina designed or executed pavilions at universal expositions in

6.11 Charles Girault, Petit Palais, Paris, 1897–1900.

seemingly superfluous monuments.32 Ironically, by the time the Saigon and Hanoi opera houses were built French grand opera had been in decline for nearly three decades, having lost ground to Germany and Italy, particularly to Richard Wagner (1813–1883), Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), and Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), and the reputation of their greatest living practitioners, Saint-Saëns or Jules Massenet (1842–1912), was on the wane. French opera no longer had the reputation it enjoyed in its heyday between 1830 and 1870 – not to mention in the age of Lully and André Cardinal Destouches, when France was at the cutting edge of the art form. Even in France, opera had lost its political edge as a “tool of the state.”33 Louis XIV had used opera as a “political occasion to display himself to his subjects and to receive their homage both through prologues in the works and by the audience’s applause,” but in

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Europe, and the pavilions, in turn, had a profound effect on architecture in Indochina, a theme that will be taken up in greater detail in the following two chapters. This chapter will consider the two most emblematic of these Belle Époque monuments in Indochina: the opera houses or “théâtres municipaux” of Saigon (fig. 6.2) and Hanoi (fig. 6.3), the latter a scaled-down replica of Garnier’s Paris Opéra (1861–75) (fig. 6.10). Although they are the most famous colonial buildings in Indochina very little has been written about them as works of architecture, particularly their construction history, and most of their architects are known by surname only. By contrast, opera in Third Republic Indochina has garnered considerable attention from musicologists, who provide insight into the motives and ideologies that drove the young colony to invest so much money into these

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nineteenth-century France opera engaged equally with national political culture and those who opposed it. Buildings to accommodate opera were not the only drain on colonial finances: organizing opera and theatre seasons and importing troupes from France were so expensive that municipalities such as Hanoi and Haiphong kept trying (unsuccessfully) to get the Tonkin Protectorate to pay for them.34 One problem was that colonial cities insisted on bringing opera companies from France and refused to hire singers and musicians from Indochina – even French ones – not to mention the many itinerant troupes who toured the rest of Southeast Asia, serving theatres in the Dutch, Spanish, and American colonies (the Philippines after 1898). Although the troupes were small compared with their metropolitan equivalents – in 1900 the average company had about thirty performers and a chamber “orchestra” of five to twelve musicians – the travel costs for the musicians and their instruments were formidable, and theatres also had to pay for set designers, costume makers, and publicity departments.35 Most troupes were formed of second-tier performers from places like Lyon or Marseille as the monthlong voyage did not appeal to artistes who could make a living in Paris. French Indochina created “Commissions théâtrales” to oversee programming during the typically six-month season.36 Although the Saigon, Haiphong, and Hanoi opera houses were built as temples to high culture, the performances that they hosted were mostly the kind of lighter fare that appealed to colonists, most of whom were from the lower bourgeoisie or the military: works such as operettas, opéra-bouffes, opéra-comiques (all with speaking parts), vaudeville comedies, and popular theatre. The opening season at the Saigon opera house (1900–01) highlighted La navarraise (1894) and Werther (1892) by Massenet, who

was not only considered one of France’s most important opera composers but also one whose frequent use of “exotic” subjects was paradigmatic of France’s romantic interest in non-European peoples fuelled by colonialism – such a work by Saint-Saëns (Samson and Delilah) was also on the program as I have just noted.37 The opening season, most of which featured operas that were decades out of date, also included Gounod’s Faust (1859), Léo Delibes’s Indian fantasy Lakmé (1883), and George Bizet’s Carmen (1875), as well as Wagner’s Lohengrin (1850) and Franco Faccio’s Hamlet (1865).38 The second season (1901–02) reprised Lakmé, gave the Saigon premieres of Massenet’s Thaïs (1894) and Sapho (1896) as well as opéra-bouffes (including another Orientalist piece, Le Grand Mogol, 1877, by Edmond Audran), opéra-comiques, vaudeville comedies, and plays.39 Theatregoers could replicate an evening out in Paris, complete with dinner at the restaurant “de tout premier ordre” at the Grand Café Hôtel Catinat with its “chef cuisinier français” and its “soupers de nuit” in the four private pavilions in the hotel garden.40 The social life revolving around opera performances served to “celebrate French aesthetic refinement and taste, representing Gallic culture as the ideal to which other societies aspired. In this way, the physical presence of theatre buildings in combination with the less tangible performances of opera within embodied the glorious past of the metropole and the triumphant future of the empire.”41 Writing in 1906, Joseph Ferrière boasted that the Saigon opera house’s performances “rank it at the level of the best provincial stages in France.”42 Théâtre de Saigon (1898–1900) The Théâtre de Saigon (fig. 6.2) was the most celebrated of the colony’s three theatres, contemporary with that of Haiphong (fig. 6.1) and followed

6.12 Léon Feuchéres and others, Théâtre municipal, Toulon, 1860–62.

it, nor does she identify any of its architects.44 Arnaud Le Brusq, who has written most perceptively about these buildings, nevertheless writes that Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie Ollivier (1863–1947), Guichard, and Eugène-Alexandre-Nicolas Ferret (1851–1936) won the competition jointly, when in fact only Ferret was given the commission and then subcontracted the decorative sculpture to Ollivier; Guichard joined the project only in 1899 and only as a replacement for Ferret.45 I have had to seek their histories in numerous Parisian and provincial archives from Orléans to Cambrai. Although operas had been performed in different venues beginning in the 1860s, the decision to build a permanent theatre in Saigon dates from a 1873 meeting of the city’s Commission du Théâtre, which declared that “in France no city of

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by the larger theatre at Hanoi (fig. 6.3). Paradoxically for such a famous building, the scholarship has largely ignored it as a work of architecture and cannot even agree about its size or the names of its architects. Although the building is a central part of her thesis that the “Folly of Grandeur” characterized the first generation of architectural commissions in Indochina, Wright devotes two sentences to it and attributes it to “Joseph-Victor Guichard” (his name was Ernest-Amédeé Guichard, 1869–1953), whom she calls a “resident architect,” whereas in reality he was the third architect to work on the project and was brought in from Paris.43 Nicola Cooper similarly illustrates the building as the quintessential symbol of France’s early policy of “hegemonic and universalizing policy of assimilation,” but does not discuss

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the importance of Saigon does not have a theatre subsidized by its municipality; even many who are far from having a budget like ours make sacrifices to support their theatrical troupe.”46 Indeed at this very moment provincial cities across France were madly commissioning Beaux-Arts style opera houses inspired by Garnier’s Opéra: “any city worthy of the name dreams of building a replica, even a miniature, of the Opéra.”47 Such were the theatres at Toulon (1860–62) (fig. 6.12), Lyon (1873–77), and Montpellier (1882–89). Although no one denied that it would be ideal for Saigon to have its own theatre, the city still lacked the funds to build one (estimated at over one million francs) and they housed the theatre in the existing École municipal instead. By 1879, when the city was renting a theatre for 150 piastres a month, they set up a lottery to pay for a new building that would host not only performances but committee meetings and other public events.48 In 1884 Henri Crapoix, inspector of municipal buildings, submitted a proposal for a new theatre but the commission could not agree about its location.49 The city managed to build something in time for the 1889 Exposition Internationale in Paris, for which the commemorative volume, published as part of Les colonies françaises, described it as being “lightly constructed” but “quite elegant; it is built in such a way as to allow as much air as possible to circulate around the spectators, which is essential in a country where, even in winter, the temperature is very high,” and in a remark tinged with homesickness that “the productions represented are, in general mounted with care and it is difficult to believe oneself to be so far away when one attends the performance of pieces which have been most successful in France.”50 However even this optimistic report could not avoid mentioning the reality that made the opera project in Indochina so marginally important: “the natives, even those who understand French, have little taste for

our theatre; they prefer the Chinese theatre to it, or, better still, the traveling Annamese theatres which circulate in the country and delight the inhabitants.” As Michael McClellan notes, “the theatre offered a constant reminder of the shortcomings of colonial life and cast doubts on official justifications for the French presence in Vietnam. The size, location, function, and opulence of the building heralded the power of empire, but its irregular use and mediocre performances in combination with a lack of Vietnamese interest discredited it as an emblem of authority.”51 In December 1893 the municipality settled upon the location for the present theatre, on boulevard Bonard between rue Catinat and rue Nationale (later rue Paul Blanchy), and on 20 November 1894 the Commission des Grands Travaux approved the preliminary program for the architectural competition, agreeing to pay the winner 6 per cent of the expenses of the theatre or a fee of 5,000 francs.52 Urban planner Ernest Hébrard later expressed his disapproval with the site because it blocked off the widest boulevard in the city, although planners placed it there precisely to give the facade a dramatic approach similar to that of the Avenue de l’Opéra in Paris, enriching its mimetic impact (in fact the square in front was named Place Garnier and its centrepiece was a sculpture of the architect) (fig. 6.13). The boulevard was also built over a filled-in canal, which meant that the theatre required six-metrehigh piles around the perimeter of the walls to support its foundation.53 On 29 July 1895 a jury chaired by the mayor and formed of members of the city, military, and chamber of commerce met to vote on four pseudonymous projects that had been submitted for the concours: the winner, “Parisaï,” designed by Ferret; “Soeur Anne,” second place, by Antoine Genet (1867–1943), a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; “Age quod Agis” (“come as you are”), third

6.13 Map of Saigon from 1943 showing location of Théâtre de Saigon (92). The post office is “33,” the Cathedral is “35,” the Palais du Gouverneur-Général is “44,” and the Hôtel de Ville is “52.” From André Baudrit, Guide historique des rues de Saigon (Saigon, 1943). Collection of the author.

place, by Louis-Constantin Bergé (1850–1929), a municipal architect; and “Suum cuique” (“to each his own”), which did not place and was not attributed.54 The fourth architect may have been Georges-André Audouin (1860–1920), a Frenchtrained, Algeria-based architect, who submitted a 227

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portfolio of “Plans et vues du théâtre de Saïgon” to an exhibit of “Architecture, Matériel et Accessoires du Théâtre” in the 1896 Exposition théâtre et de la musique in Paris, which has since vanished.55 At the end of August Ferret was asked to make amendments to his plans. The theatre was to be enlarged by 10 per cent, and changes were to be made in the materials of the floors, seats, and lavatories, as well as the dimensions of the seats.56 Wooden floors were to be replaced with mosaics or cement tiles, the balcony and orchestra seating was to be made partly or completely of walnut and the seats and backrests of cane with a tilting mechanism. Later it was decided to use imported teak and a native wood called bois de Sao instead to ensure durability in the climate.57 The balcony seating was to be increased by a row. The materials in the lavatories ranged from marble in the loges to ceramic tiles in the principals’ dressing rooms and enamelled cast iron in the room for extra cast members. Racial purity lay at the very foundation of the Saigon opera house project, which expressly forbade the use of “entrepreneurs asiatiques” in its construction: nothing more clearly signalled that this was to be a French building, a transplant from Paris, and a monument to cultural hegemony.58 Even Saigon’s Palais du Gouvernement Général (see chapter 1) had not been as strict: although it imported its decor from France, it enlisted local and foreign builders such as Chinese work crews from Hong Kong (fig. 1.6). The contracts of the Saigon theatre were given to companies run by French colons in four lots: (1) earthworks, piles, masonry, wood, and iron work; (2) carpentry, locksmithing; (3) roofing and plumbing; and (4) painting and glazing. Ferret hired the chief sculptor and ornamental sculptor directly although his choices were vetted by the municipality because, despite the interest “the City may have in entrusting the execution of works of art to

artists of great talent,” great talent came at a cost.59 On 5 November 1895 Ferret announced the selection of Paris-based Ollivier, an architecte diplômé du Gouvernement and a former member of the service of the Bâtiments civils de l’État, as his “collaborator and […] correspondent in Paris.”60 Some newspaper reports and unpublished documents from the 1920s and ’30s claim that Ollivier had been the chief architect of the Théâtre de Saigon, implying that Ferret was simply the executing architect. An article in the Parisian paper L’Évènement (16 November 1895) writes that “the architect, M. Félix Ollivier, has as his collaborator M. Eugène Ferret, engineer in Saigon: the sculptural part is due to the sculptor Dolivet.”61 Ollivier was a more established architect and graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts (unlike Ferret, see below) and he had friends in high places. A 1937 typewritten document in his dossier at the Legion of Honour claims that the Théâtre municipal of Saigon was “built according to his plans.”62 A letter by Ollivier in the same dossier (4 May 1927) maintains that “I was in 1897–1898 the corresponding Architect of the City of Saigon (French Cochinchina) for the works of the new Municipal Theatre which were executed according to my plans and under my direction as: ornamental sculpture and statuary, decorative painting, machinery, decor, while Mr. Paul doumer was Governor of Indochina.”63 Here the meaning is more ambiguous, as he suggests that the plans were all his own but then only specifically mentions the sculpture, decoration, and machinery for which he was hired by Ferret. The unambiguous references to Ferret’s role in the municipal minutes leave no doubt that he was in charge and the building his invention. Ferret assembled the construction team in 1897, beginning in January with Graf de Lailhacar & Cie., specialists in iron trusswork with offices on 65 rue Catinat in Saigon, as well as Paris and

6.14 Théâtre de Saigon with its original relief carvings and sculpture, 1910. Postcard, collotype, 9 × 14 cm. New York Public Library.

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Phnom Penh.64 In February the Parisian artists were chosen, most of whom would never visit Saigon.65 Emmanuel Dolivet (1854–1910), a “sculpteur-statuaire” living on 115 rue de Vaugirard was placed in charge of “[sculptural] groups for the principal façade, caryatids” for 11,720 francs, with a price for packing and transportation estimated at 2,500 francs and for the maquette at 300 francs (fig. 6.14). Another team of “sculpteurs-ornemanistes,” Messieurs Roy-Renaud & Cie. of 10 rue de la Quintinie, was hired for an advance of 20,000 francs, presumably under Dolivet’s or Ollivier’s supervision, and three sculptors from that firm were to visit Saigon to

direct works on site. Eugène Carpezat (1833– 1912), resident at 50 boulevard de la Villette, was hired as “peintre-décorateur” to execute paintings for the decoration of the auditorium, foyer, and the elite boxes. These included tempera paintings for the lambrequin (a fixed decorative frieze in front of the proscenium), the stage curtain, mobile draperies, and the canvas paintings to be affixed to the interior by a painter to be sent from Paris, all for just over 38,931 francs. Like Dolivet, Carpezat prepared presentation maquettes for the committee’s approval. Delphin Amable (b. 1846), residing at 9 rue Lauzin, was responsible for the set designs, for which he was paid 103,924 francs. In August 1898 Carpezat, Amable, and the Opéra’s chief machinist, M. Bruder, refused to continue working except under direct supervision from an employee of the Saigon municipality who

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could forward the required technical and site information, and this role was given to Ollivier, who thus acquired more prominence in the project as “architecte représentant la ville de Saigon à Paris” and a salary increase of 2½ per cent.66 When the Paris team was hired the Saigon mayor believed that the work could be completed within 16 or 18 months. However, during a meeting in Paris in June 1899, officials complained that they could not judge the progress of the building (which was supposed to open in October) and whether the 1,019,700-franc price tag was sufficient. Civil engineer Ernest Pontzen (b. 1838), member of the Comité de l’exploitation technique des chemins de fer, complained that the cost was exorbitant given how few Europeans lived in Saigon. Nevertheless Deglane, who, as well as being the architect of the Grand Palais in Paris, was a member of the Conseil des bâtiments civils, and Ernest Roume (1858–1941), director of political and commercial affairs in the Department of the Colonies and later governorgeneral of Senegal, both urged that the opera go ahead as planned because Saigon’s prestige demanded a showpiece building and that it was well adapted to the climate.67 The minutes record the discussion:

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As far as [Mr Ponzen] is concerned, he maintains that the theatre, which will not be frequented by the natives, is far too large in view of the European population of Saigon. The budget for the whole & in detail, which would be very suitable in a large provincial theatre, takes no account of the climatic & local conditions of the Colony. Mr. Roume pointed out that Saigon is a big & beautiful city & that the number of Europeans who live there or are passing through justifies the construction of a large European theatre. Mr. Deglane indicates that the amount of air

per spectator is about twice that of theatres in France; ventilation is well ensured: we have therefore considered the special conditions of the Saigon climate. The Chairman, summing up the discussion, proposed that the Committee state the opinion that the budget attached to the file does not make it possible to determine whether the sum provided will be sufficient to complete a monument of which its progress is not even indicated. The Committee adopted this resolution.68 By the time this meeting was held Ferret had already returned to Paris, perhaps because he was tired of the budgetary squabbling or the Sisyphean task of coordinating the Paris designers and Saigon work crew. Guichard took over as the project’s new chief architect in Saigon the same year. However, Guichard was far from satisfied with the arrangements. He did not believe that the October 1899 deadline was feasible given the delays in the arrival of the machinery and decorations from Paris, and he negotiated an extension of his contract to 1 April 1900. He also complained that he was not being paid enough, and among his many requests was first-class travel back to Paris (he had travelled to Saigon in second class): “according to the established practices in all nations the architect earns a salary relative to the importance of the building being constructed. In the present instance, Mr. ferret had been granted fees of 6% on the amount of the work, which would have made a sum of 132,000 francs in fees while the total salary I have received since the day you appointed me to supervise the work amounts to 27,400 francs, that is to say a difference of 104,000 francs. Believing that I have deserved your trust through my work and my zeal, I hope that this will be favourably received.”69 The Commission granted Guichard’s request for the

extension until April and his higher salary, as well as his first-class passage to Paris because he “has without a doubt directed the works of the new theatre well,” but he was only given a 15,000-franc indemnity to make up the difference with Ferret’s percentage (architects were customarily paid a percentage of the cost of the project).70 City officials were pleased with Guichet’s gifts as a supervisor because, as Monsieur Rivière noted, “there has not been a single accident on the work site of much importance.” Nevertheless, four months later the project was in trouble again, and on 22 February 1900 all work was suspended because of a delayed loan.71 At long last the Saigon Theatre opened its doors on 14 December 1900, one year and two months late but to the general acclamation of the local and international press. Le Figaro exclaimed:

One wonders what these battle-weary soldiers really thought about sitting through a grand opera in the stifling heat. Writing six years later another commentator declared: “the monument is very beautiful, indeed almost sumptuous, and skilfully fitted out for the needs of the theatre art in climatic conditions which are hardly compatible at

These white men from a democratic France become aristocrats in a colony, a striking phenomenon: they all consider themselves equal among themselves, as belonging to the superior race. In Europe there were class divisions among them. In the colony, there are none. And even the simple white linen suit that they all wear, and that the climate imposes on them, symbolizes this levelling. Go in the evening to the Saigon theatre. This ingenuous brilliance of white canvas extends from the orchestra seats to the second balcony, and the lieutenant-governor is dressed no differently than the most modest of his subordinates […] The spectacle takes its beauty not only from the light which plays in the folds of these uniform clothes and the rather proud faces of all these men, but

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A première in Saigon! At the new Saigon Theatre, a marvel of architecture inaugurated this year, the first performance of la Navarraise, the poignant lyric drama of Massenet, was given some days ago. Enormous success. Our brave soldiers, returning from the campaign in China, thus contacted a little of France by enthusiastically applauding the master’s work. Everyone in Saigon warmly congratulates the directors of the new theatre, MM. Aristide Boyer and Baroche, who were able to make the capital of Cochinchina a true centre of art [...] 4,000 leagues from Paris.72

this latitude close to the equator.”73 The opening was attended by mayor Paul Blanchy (1837–1901) and Prince Valdemar of Denmark (1858–1939), who had been doing business in Siam and Indochina on behalf of the newly founded Danish East Asiatic Company.74 However, not everyone was in a celebratory mood and a chorus of criticism was not long in coming. French politician Joseph Chailley-Bert (1854–1928), founder of the French Colonial Union, complained about the expense of maintaining the opera seasons: “It may be worth looking, after the revenue budgets, at the expense budgets. Some of these expenses can hardly be approved: for example, in the budget of Cochinchina, an annual subsidy of 83,333 piastres for the theatre of Saigon, (after one has already spent a huge sum, more than a million, on the construction of the theatre itself ). This is inexcusable, when one thinks that this same Saigon lacks essential equipment in the large ports.”75 Writing in December 1902 Le Temps aimed its barbs at the pretentiousness of the theatre’s audiences:

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especially from this deep feeling of egalitarian pride which reigns. Only it is an equality between members of the same caste, and not that which is written in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.76

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In a similar vein, the Colonial Council’s special meeting of 10 December 1903 acknowledged the beauty of the public building projects but questioned the municipality’s priorities: “the municipality has done a lot so far for the beautification of the city of Saigon, for its streets, its boulevards, its gardens and its monuments. The Saigon Theatre is a building renowned throughout the Far East. Now we are building a town hall which would not disgrace a large city in Europe. Finally, the Municipality is concerned with the reconstruction of its halls and markets. On the other hand, hygiene issues were neglected, and we did not start with the most urgent works.”77 The French Colonial Union criticized the municipality’s “lavish spending of which the Saigon theatre is the most characteristic example,” observing that colonial councillors placed these “assaults of prodigality […] onto the back of the indigenous taxpayer, for the benefit of the civil servants who made up the great majority of the electoral body,” and that in “these campaigns of generosity […] the colonial councillors did not always forget [to benefit] themselves.”78 As noted, the Saigon theatre’s design does not derive from an opera house but from Girault’s Petit Palais for the 1900 Exposition, of which it is an exact contemporary (fig. 6.11).79 The Petit Palais was more fashionable than the by now elderly Opéra and the Saigon theatre opened a mere month after the Exposition’s closing in Paris. Ferret would go on to build one of the pavilions at the Exposition after leaving the Saigon project (see below), and perhaps he saw Girault’s preliminary designs before leaving for Saigon.

Nevertheless, the Saigon theatre is smaller than its model and only quotes its two-storey proscenium arch entrance (although with a single rather than triple arch), replacing the colonnades and end pavilions with short receding wings on rusticated basements with pilasters, arched windows, an entablature, and a balustrade. He substitutes the Petit Palais’s central dome and toits à l’impériale with a mansard roof with oculus windows in cartouche frames. The building is thus more a metonym than a simulacrum. Unlike the Opéra Garnier (fig. 6.10) or the Hanoi theatre (fig. 6.3), the roof is uniform along most of its length rather than rising to correspond to the different heights of the foyer, auditorium, and stage.80 The sides are formed of a central ressaut with a rounded pediment, two five-bay wings, and two end pavilions, all on the same rusticated basement and each crowned by an extension of the main roof with the oculus windows but without the balustrade (fig. 6.15). The sides are dominated by giant-order Doric pilasters flanking arches that, except in the end pavilions, are bisected by curvilinear balconies resting on decorative corbels. An attic level, surmounted by a projecting cornice and parapet rather than a balustrade, contains single or paired rectangular windows. The central ressaut is dominated by giant order Ionic columns and a Palladian window with Corinthian columns and it is crowned by an escutcheon, and its pediment contains a cartouche and garland relief with a female mascaron. The Saigon theatre’s entrance portal substitutes tile revetments for the Petit Palais’s high-relief stone carving. Nevertheless both portals are flanked by Ionic engaged columns (paired in the Saigon theatre and triple in the Petit Palais) and both are crowned with sculptural groups, in Saigon’s case a pair of angels flanking a cartouche with a lyre above it (these, the caryatids, and the other facade reliefs are crude modern

6.15 Théâtre de Saigon, side view (south facade).

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replacements) (figs. 6.2, 6.14).81 Ferret responds to the social needs of the building by adding a loggia-like viewing gallery, which allowed Saigon’s elites to put themselves on display for the people walking by on rue Catinat, and the projecting portal also emphasizes the importance of the foyer and vestibules: “spaces of sociability where a representation complementary to that played on the stage is performed.”82 The interior is relatively plain, although it has undergone many vicissitudes (fig. 6.16). While the scale of the foyer is modest, the auditorium is gracious, with curving,

bow-shaped, garlanded balconies, boxes framed by classical aedicules and separated in the upper level by engaged Ionic columns, a prominent Corinthian proscenium arch with a coffered soffit, and a ceiling vault supported on paired columns. Paradoxically, this great temple to French culture was not really that big. The rectangular structure measures a mere 62 by 35 metres compared with the Palais Garnier, which had a footprint of 154.9 by 70.2 metres, not even including the lateral pavilions (fig. 6.10).83 Scholars have tended to exaggerate the capacity of the 468-seat building: Wright and Cooper claim that it has 800 seats while Le Huu Phuoc goes as high as 1,800,

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which would make it larger than the theatre at Hanoi (870–1,200 seats) and closer to Charles Garnier’s Opéra (2,156 seats).84 It is worth putting this building into context internationally, not merely with the Palais Garnier, which had nearly five times the capacity of the Saigon theatre, and the great opera houses of other European capitals, but with other non-European opera houses such as the giants being constructed by the prosperous republics of South and North America. The Theatro da Paz in Belem (1869–75, enlarged 1904), flush with money from the Brazilian rubber boom, boasted 1,101 seats; the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile (1857, rebuilt 1873) (fig. 6.17), had 1,800 seats; the Teatro Colón in beef-rich Buenos Aires (1889–1908) had 2,367 seats, larger than the Garnier; and, topping them all, the Metropolitan Opera House on Broadway in New York (1892–1903) accommodated 3,849 seats.85 France was not the only nation using monumental opera houses as a sign of prestige; they were merely the only one to do so in their colonies. Whereas France built them to project a sense of cultural superiority over indigenes and European colonial rivals, young republics poured money into these commissions to signal that they could stand up to Paris or Berlin and to announce their arrival on the world stage. Théâtre municipal de Hanoi (1899–1901)

6.16 (oppoSiTe Top ) Théâtre de Saigon, interior. Photograph courtesy Nguyen The Duong (AAPhoto.vn). 6.17 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Lucien-Ambroise Henault, Teatro Municipal, Santiago (Chile), 1873.

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The Théâtre municipal de Hanoi (fig. 6.3) is the largest in Indochina and the only literal copy of Garnier’s Opéra (fig. 6.10), although on a smaller scale and with significant modifications.86

Unsurprisingly, given its size (it measures 87 by 30 metres), it was also more controversial and had an even more protracted and difficult building history, with three main phases of construction: an initial one between 1901 and 1902 when most of the outer walls were built and work was halted by a fire; a period from 1906 to 1908 when mounting criticism of the project’s extravagance nearly led to its abandonment; and a final phase between 1909 and its opening in 1911 – although work on interior decorations and furnishings lingered on until 1914.87 As in Saigon, three principal architects were involved, but unlike Guichard and Ollivier they were architect-engineers already employed by the Bâtiments civils: VictorinAnatole-Albéric Harlay (b. 1865), Jean-Isidore Bossard (1875–1940), and François-Charles Lagisquet (1864–1936). Only Bossard was a BeauxArts graduate. The Hanoi Opera House is by any yardstick one of the most important buildings in the French colonial empire, a monument on the scale of the Pondicherry Gouvernement (fig. 1.1) or Château Saint-Louis in Quebec. Nevertheless, as with its Saigon counterpart, sources contradict each other about its size, authorship, and chronology: a recent publication claims that it was built between 1908 and 1916 and that it had 900 seats; another gives the number as 870 seats, still another at 600 seats; and one source states that the architect is “unknown,” while another one invents an architect, “Broyer,” who never existed.88 And like their Saigon counterparts, the theatre’s architects have vanished into obscurity. From the very beginning the project was hampered by indecision, mismanagement, and disagreement about location and budget. In May 1895 the municipality elected to move the theatre from its temporary location on rue Takou to the iron hall of the market at the corner of the boulevards Dong-khanh and Carrau, a modest refitting to be finished in time for the next

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theatrical season at a cost of 4,000–5,000 piastres (about 9,200–11,500 francs).89 A concours was held that year, and although Belgian-born architect, civil engineer, pianist, and plantation owner Henri Knosp (b. 1840) won first prize, the jury eventually rejected his proposal because it would cost 6,000 piastres even before “the purchase of the seats or the fitting out of the exterior of the auditorium.”90 The council then voted seven to six to build an 800-seat 40,000-piastre (92,000 franc) “théâtre définitif ” and announced a second competition with a first-place prize of 500 piastres and a second-place prize of 300 piastres.91 Knosp and two others resubmitted in November but were again rejected because of budgetary discrepancies. Just over a year later, on 31 December 1896, they tendered updated proposals and Knosp won again with a scheme bearing the pseudonym “xyz ,” with Henri Berruer, a local contractor, winning second place for “Quand Même,” and Félix Dessoliers (1870–1927), a civil engineer, coming in third with “X.” Yet architecte-voyer Victor-Anatole Leclanger (b. 1861) now insisted that the budget had to be more generous “to deal with the unexpected” and raised it to 52,000 piastres (119,000 francs), directing Knosp to adjust his budget, which he resubmitted on 25 February 1896. By this time, some councillors were complaining that the building was taking precedence over more important structures and wanted the price capped at 40,000 piastres, but they agreed to 60,000 piastres (138,000 francs) when the Protectorate government promised to pay a third. Again, Knosp drew up plans, now under the supervision of the roads department at a fee of 5 per cent of the total executed.92 On 10 December 1897 the city voted to move the building to the adjacent rue de France, but now at more than twice the cost – 350,000 francs, which had to be obtained through loans. Almost two years later, on 29 September 1899, the municipal council asked Knosp yet again to revise his plan

and budget, but on 30 March 1900, “while recognizing the artistic taste of Mr. Knosp, and the attractive appearance his plans had at first glance,” they declared them “incomplete and unbuildable” and definitively fired the architect on 25 May 1900.93 Small wonder Knosp tried to sue the city. Harlay, clerk of the Bâtiments civils in the Public Works Department, was invited to take over the project and “revise the plans,” and his employment was confirmed on 7 June 1900 by Resident Mayor Frédéric Baille (1848–1910) under the supervision of Louis-Pierre-August Babonneau, the architecte-voyer of Hanoi.94 But within a few months, in October, the city considered replacing him with the architect of the Haiphong opera house (fig. 6.1) and chef de la voirie of that city, Jean Bourdeaud (1838–1910).95 L’Avenir du Tonkin reported: One of our colleagues announced yesterday [31 October], a little prematurely, we hope, that M. Bourdaud [sic], chief of roads at Haiphong, was soon to come to Hanoi to “be more particularly responsible for overseeing the construction of the future theatre, the plans for which are currently being reworked by Mr. Harley [sic].” If the news thus launched is not a simple test balloon, we wonder in which brain this absurd idea could well have germinated. […] You have the plans made by a man in whom all his comrades and his leaders do not hesitate to recognize this essence that makes the artist, and when it comes to monitoring the execution of these plans you will borrow another man from the next town? Why do you suppose him, at first sight, to be less talented in supervising the execution than you thought he was in working out the final plans? But some might say Mr. Bourdaud has proven himself; he has to his credit the Haiphong theatre which everyone agrees to

be “perfect.” […] It is very good that we are envious of our sister city’s theatre, since we do not have one. But that we should sequester its chief of roads, no and a hundred times no. […] Could it be because Mr. Harley is a modest man, who hates intrigue and fame? We do not think so, but if it is believed that the entire Hanoi press will welcome the news, we are sure that those who announced it will be disappointed. The whole public would protest, not against Mr. Bourdaud, but against the unwitting insult – because we want to believe it is unwitting – that one would demonstrate by inflicting on a modest person and a hard worker an affront that anyone would feel.96

The Municipal Council has just approved the first vote already issued, last June 26 [1900], by its works and budget committee. It fully approved the plans for the theatre project now executed that this committee had adopted in principle and voted for their

Once again, a major colonial building was linked to a world exposition, this time in Hanoi (fig. 1.11). The contract for this “theatre worthy of the Capital of the Indo-Chinese Union” was issued on 25 April 1901 to the local firm of “Charavy & Savelon, Entrepreneurs, Constructeurs,” on the boulevard Carreau, who offered a 25 per cent discount on the price of drainage and excavations, and the start date was fixed at 7 June.100 As it happens Harley was in France at the time, this “modest and hardworking civil

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The municipality must have backed down as we hear nothing more about Bourdaud’s participation in this project. Harlay submitted new plans, now with a budget of 230,000 piastres (529,000 francs), but not including painting, decoration, interior fittings, and incidental expenses (his facade and plans were published in L’Avenir du Tonkin in March 1905) (fig. 6.18).97 However on 10 January 1901 the council voted unanimously to increase Harlay’s budget to an incredible 800,000 francs, and to finance it with a 500,000-franc loan from the Protectorate government payable over ten years. In fact, the first field surveys had already been executed as they were under pressure from Governor-General Paul Doumer (1897–1902) to get the theatre done in time for the 1902 Exposition d’Hanoï.98 The minutes read:

immediate implementation. The greatest efforts will be made so that, according to the desire of the Governor General, the construction is, if possible, completed for the Exposition of 1902. The total expenditure […] is estimated […] at 800,000 francs. The Municipal Council expressed the wish that the Government of the Colony [sic] wanted, for a work which truly is of a generally useful nature, especially on the eve of the Exhibition, to lend its benevolent assistance to the city by advancing it, in addition to the sum indicated above, that of 500,000 francs that [the Council] would reimburse in 10 years, for example by regular annuities automatically registered in his budgets. […] The Governor General was kind enough to give his personal approval to these plans for the new theatre and to be very satisfied with the method according to which they were designed. He himself, with great benevolence, spontaneously expressed the idea of a financial combination which would facilitate its execution for the city. I would be very grateful to the Superior Resident, if he would be willing, on behalf of the considerations I have just outlined and municipal interests, to support the wish expressed by the Municipal Council to Mr. Governor General.99

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6.18 Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, Harlay’s original concours design, from L’Avenir du Tonkin (6–7 March 1905). BNf . Photograph courtesy Khieu Anh Nguyen. 6.19 (oppoSiTe ) Théâtre municipal de Hanoi. Side view (1905 project), signed by Harlay. Vietnam National Archives Number 1, Hanoi.

servant” having gone on leave on 22 March 1901 with his wife and young son only to return on the Marseille steamer on 15 December.101 On 30 July 1902 he was promoted to the rank of “first class clerk (commis)” in the Travaux publics de l’Indochine.102 The Théâtre municipal as it stands today is principally Harlay’s design, as indicated by a side and rear elevation (both 1905) that are signed by the architect (figs 6.19–20) and an updated facade (1909) signed by Harlay and Lagisquet to which Bossard made significant contributions (fig. 6.21).103 I cannot agree with architect Hoàng Đạo Kính, leader of the theatre’s restoration in the 1990s, who maintains that the building’s architect is a mystery – nor his claim that the Garnier is not the model for the building – since the names of Harlay and his successors are confirmed as the building’s architect in the archives and newspapers alike and the building is unambiguously

based on the Parisian model.104 Writing in 1911, E. Bourrin confirmed that the essential appearance of the building is due to Harlay: “Mr. Harlay will claim the long preliminary studies for the structural work, the intelligent distribution, the harmonious proportions, and all that concerns the layout of the stage, in accordance with the most modern requirements of theatrical art.”105 Like its equivalent in Saigon, the Hanoi opera house was located on a former swamp that formed the end of a boulevard (rue Paul Bert), blocking a major artery but affording an impressive view of the facade from a distance that was again meant to recall the approach to the Palais Garnier.106 As McClellan has noted, the site also mattered because it was near the old French concession along the river and at the hub of a rapidly developing residential neighbourhood of large European-style villas.107 Two days before the contract was signed, on 22 April 1901, Augustin-Julien Fourès

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6.20 Théâtre municipal de Hanoi. Rear facade (1905 project) signed by Harlay. Vietnam National Archives Number 1, Hanoi. 6.21 City of Hanoi – Théâtre municipal. Main Facade (1909 facade project) signed by Harlay and Lagisquet. Vietnam National Archives Number 1, Hanoi.

(1897–1904), director general of public works, released the land: Five plots of land with a total area of 235 acres 55 centiares […] belonging to the Colonial Estate are transferred free of charge to the City of Hanoi, for the construction of a theatre and for the opening of roads near the theatre. The said plots appear tinted in pink on the attached plan, drawn up on March 11, 1901 by the Architect-Surveyor Chief of the Hanoi Highways Department. […] The transfer is made, at the expense of the City of Hanoi, to proceed with the construction of the planned theatre and the opening of the roads in the vicinity.108

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As in Saigon special care had to be taken with the building’s foundations: 35,000 piles were driven into the ground before the pouring of an almost metre-thick concrete foundation, and the monument consumed 12,000,000 bricks and about 570,000 kilograms of cast iron or iron.109 But unlike at Saigon most materials were sourced locally, including bricks, lime, cement, wood, terracotta, enamels, and marble: only the iron was imported and worked and forged on the site, as was the slate roofing, which was chased with zinc patterns and gilding.110 An enormous bamboo scaffolding was erected around the worksite and the contractors won “unanimous praise” because “in this worksite where three hundred coolies swarmed daily, they finished this job without any fatalities or even serious accidents having been reported.”111 Indeed all of the labour was provided by indigenous and Chinese workers under the “constant supervision” of municipal surveyor Jean-Aimé Morin and a Monsieur Croci employed by Charavy & Savelon, entrepreneurs.112 Municipal officials may have wanted Frenchmen to design the buildings but they had no qualms

about hiring colonized peoples or Chinese to build them. We get a closer picture of a single day’s work crew from a book of wages from toward the end of the construction period (1911), which shows that three carpenters, two masons, one engineer, one machinist, fifteen “coolies,” and one woman (congaie), likely a cook, were employed on the worksite.113 Tenders went out to contractors and craftsmen: in April 1902 painter George Fraipoint submitted a budget of 100,000 francs to travel to France to prepare decorative work but it was rejected, even after it was lowered to 74,100 francs, in favour of a project by painters Henri Émile Vollet (1861–1945) and Charles-Jules Duvent (1867–1940), who proposed a fee of only 50,000 francs to supply 28 ornamental panels for the walls and ceiling (presumably without having to go to France).114 In July, the public works department halted construction and the next year and a half were spent negotiating with angry contractors.115 By January 1904 the finance committee recommended abandoning the project altogether and settling with the contractors, but the residentmayor demurred: “the big question, the one that especially necessitated this special meeting, is the continuation of the works of the theatre. The Protectorate recognizes the obvious embarrassment that the city is currently experiencing in the continuation of the theatre construction, but it fears that the remedy is worse than the disease.”116 He cited the city’s commitment to the contractors, noted that resuming the works later might be more expensive than proceeding now, ensured his nervous colleagues that the Protectorate “will do everything possible to help the municipality,” and proposed funding it with a complicated arrangement of loans, taxes, deferred annuities, and reshuffled budgets. Although civic officials remained discontented, they admitted that “too much money had been spent to allow the theatre

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to fall into ruins.”117 At last the mayor and council agreed to proceed with construction. One of the first expenses was 92,000 piastres spent on fireproofing the building after a blaze had revealed weaknesses in Harlay’s design: contractors replaced the wooden floor with sandstone tiles, lined the stage basements with refractory bricks, replaced lime mortar coatings with cement, increased the weight of the ironwork supporting the galleries, and replaced wooden trusswork in the roof with iron.118 The roofing was subcontracted to Paul-Louis Delarouzée and the stairs were placed under the supervision of entrepreneur Louis Vola.119 As the public became increasingly vocal in their condemnation of a prestige project that took precedence over roads, sewers, and water pipes, the theatre’s promoters became even more zealous in promoting it:

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To those who criticize the monument on rue Paul Bert for its excessive dimensions, it is easy to respond that tomorrow it will hardly be large enough. To think big is often to think accurately. And besides the theatre is not intended only for inhabitants of Hanoi but also for all the colonists and civil servants of the country whose interests or obligations call them to the capital: in sum, one can therefore only applaud the guiding idea behind the design of this monument and hope from a general point of view, that the necessary funds be allocated to its completion.120 Nevertheless by late summer 1906 only the exterior walls had been finished and the municipality brought in government architect Bossard, not to replace Harlay as is often claimed – and even less to completely redesign the theatre – but to

make modifications alongside the architect.121 It is telling that in November the newspapers still described Harlay unequivocally as “L’architecte du théâtre de Hanoi.”122 Critics praised Bossard for simplifying Harlay’s project without compromising its grandeur, although some remarks could be read as faint praise: “whatever one may say, write or think, there is no one who can reasonably maintain that our new theatre is not – I will not say a masterpiece – but a simple design in which aesthetics, not to mention elementary rules of architecture, have been respected. […] I was pleased to see it and I must say – bluntly – that Mr. Bossard, its author, deserves all the congratulations.”123 Bossard’s changes mainly involved simplifying the facade: “without changing anything in the structure of the building and simply by changing the exterior decoration, the main facade takes on a completely different character. Heavy, packed, crushed as it was, with its two rows of superimposed columns, it acquires a slender, elegant, unobstructed appearance. Badly styled – badly hatted, if I dare say it – as it was on its two side pavilions, it becomes soberly but nobly monumental. Finally, the two entrances for carriages, heavy, narrow and inconvenient, are replaced by two large and very pretty marquees.”124 The reference to two rows of superimposed columns (“deux rangées de colonnes superposées”), which is borne out in the double arcade in his concours design, confirms that Harlay’s original conception was even closer to the Opéra Garnier than the structure eventually built, a simulacrum that became too bulky when its dimensions were reduced to satisfy the budget of a colonial outpost (compare figs. 6.10, 6.18). In December 1906, the municipal council approved the amendments and new budget.125 It agreed to allow construction to resume and

literally a “modification des façades” that were “inspired both by the projects of MM Harlay and Bossard” (fig. 6.21).132 According to a report filed by Lagisquet on 30 April, the funds needed to complete the building would amount to 1,100,000 francs.133 By 20 July 1910 the first 15,185 francs had been spent.134 Bourrin praised Lagisquet for coordinating such a monumental job: “Finally, Mr. Lagisquet, who accepted with perfect good grace the thankless task of economically and practically adjusting the works and plans carried out and drawn up before his intervention, will have earned not only the merit of completing the monument, but also of bringing it the felicitous changes in detail which contributed to make it one of the beautiful theatres of France, Navarre, and their faraway dependencies.”135 Impatient to open the long-awaited theatre, the city ordered Lagisquet to postpone less vital parts of the buildings, including the grand staircase (escalier d’honneur), the grand public foyer, the fire curtain, and the stage scenery, which they would borrow from the provisional theatre.136 On 24 October 2010 Lagisquet submitted his report for the “provisional opening of the Municipal Theatre,” which included significant omissions from the entry vestibule, the first story foyer and other parts of the building: 1. entry vestibule . – The vestibule on the ground floor will be arranged to allow access to the stairs leading to the orchestra seats and those of the 2nd Galleries also serving the boxes of the 1st Galleries. The central staircase called the main staircase will not be executed. 2. first floor foyer. – The construction of the first-floor foyer will be postponed. The public will have at their disposal the two lounges to the right and to the left of the Foyer, the two

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estimated that it would take two years.126 It was to be financed by a loan of 50,000 piastres per annum of which 40,000 were supplied by the Protectorate and 10,000 by the city. As one reporter put it: “The theatre must be completed. All these delays end up costing more than hard work.”127 But more criticism of the building followed, this time about its decoration. In July a reporter ridiculed the architects’ ignorance in their placement of plaques bearing the names of great composers and writers, listing Alexandre Dumas, Victorien Sardou, and Émile Augier under the rubric “Operetta” and Bizet, Massenet, and Victor Massé under the title “Comedy,” quipping that “we had yesterday – perhaps for the hundredth time – the opportunity to note that the architect responsible for the construction of the theatre knew his job as a builder much better than the works in the French theatrical repertoire and their authors.”128 These plaques – a prominent feature of the Saigon post office (fig. 6.6) – were removed. The city agreed to Bossard’s economies, and at a special meeting of 11 January 1907 they praised him and his “assistant” (adjoint) Harlay – note Harlay’s subtle demotion – for making it possible to cancel the debt in ten years; three days later the municipal council and mayor Albert Logerot conferred about how to proceed with the theatre’s execution.129 However that same year the municipal committee rejected the use of further taxation to support the theatre and construction stopped again in 1908 – by this time the building was beginning to deteriorate and people started calling it a ruin.130 On 30 September the protectorate architect Lagisquet was called in and submitted a twenty-two-folio report on the state of the building and what was needed to “complete what is not finished and to simplify it if possible.”131 The new plans he submitted on 15 April 1909 were merely reductions of Harlay’s project,

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terraces of the side façades and the loggia on the 1st floor giving onto the main façade.137

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In 1910 Brieux was appalled to note about the theatre that “when we come up close, we see that it is not finished, and when we walk around it, we rub our eyes when we realize that they are starting to demolish it.”138 The next year tenders were granted to subcontractors for stage machinery (unlike at Saigon they could now rely upon a local firm, the Hanoi-based Alfred Gaussin & Cie.), electric lighting, masonry, carpentry, metal trusswork, hardware, and cabinetry, with “Monsieur Lagisquet, auxiliary architect of the Bâtiments civils” presiding over the bids.139 The theatre finally had its opening night in November 1911, with a less patriotic selection than its sister theatre in Saigon – notably there was nothing by Massenet – including Puccini’s La Bohème and Tosca, and Franz Léhar’s The Merry Widow as well as French operas by Gustave Charpentier (Louise) and Gounod (Roméo et Juliette), a season they shared with the theatre in Haiphong (fig. 6.1).140 More revealing was a work performed the following year: entitled Hanoi-sur-Scène (an obvious pun for Hanoi-sur-Seine), this comedy gently parodied local figures but also reflected colonial vanity in celebrating Hanoi’s role as a miniature Paris: “the anonymous authors repeatedly expressed parochial pride in the city itself and enthusiastically acclaimed the city’s public structures […] the authors constructed parallels between Hanoi and cities in France, Paris in particular.”141 Only the final decoration and furnishing of the building remained, but they took three years to finish. In 1912 local furniture maker Vuong Vinh Tuy supplied coat racks, hangers, and umbrella stands – another sign that the municipality was becoming less rigid in excluding Asians from its prestige projects – and in 1913–14 the final

painting, glazing, and furnishings were fitted, as well as mosaics for the stairwells, hardware and decorative ironwork, this time under architecte auxiliaire Adolphe-Louis Bussy (b. 1865), who had designed the Grand Palais for the 1902 Hanoi Exposition (fig. 1.11) and would later be responsible for the Résidence supérieure (1917–19) in the same city, a work with a sophisticated iron and glass marquee over its entrance (fig. 6.22).142 The Théâtre municipal de Hanoï was finished in 1914, after almost twenty years of planning, fourteen years of construction, and 2,250,000 francs – just in time for the outbreak of the First World War and the beginning of a new, less triumphant development in Indochina’s French architecture, as I will explore in the next two chapters.143 Despite all its modifications, the Hanoi Théâtre municipal still looked enough like the Palais Garnier to satisfy homesick colons, particularly because of its location at the end of a boulevard and it produced a “strange sensation of reminiscence” (figs. 6.3, 6.10).144 Like the Paris Opéra, its roof was pitched at different heights to accommodate the foyer, auditorium, and stage, respectively. Viewed at the front, the building is dominated by a lofty triangular gable over the stage fronted by the crown-like, ribbed halfcupola of the auditorium. However, the building was smaller than the Garnier and less opulent than Harlay’s original vision. Garnier’s facade featured a colonnade on top of an arcade, the first floor loggia formed of paired giant-order Corinthian columns like the east front of the Louvre (fig. 1.4) combined with a secondary Corinthian order of free-standing columns like the Ionic ones on the ground floor of Michelangelo’s Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome (1447–55). Harlay had tried to fit a similar two-storey arrangement into his diminutive building, which the above critic called “heavy, packed, crushed” (fig. 6.18). A description of the project from 1905 confirms that

6.22 Adolphe Bussy, Hôtel de la résidence supérieure du Tonkin, Hanoi, 1917–19. Detail of marquee.

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Harlay’s original design included “a Corinthian entablature adorned with a frieze of enamelled terracotta rinceaux and supported across its avantcorps by columns in the same style” with a second Ionic colonnade underneath, which reminded the author of “the gallery of the old palace of the Tuileries.”145 Harlay’s design in fact was formed of two superimposed arcades rather than a colonnade on an arcade; however it shared the sharp divisions between the two storeys that characterizes Garnier’s facade as well as the balustrades between the upper-storey column plinths, which

were supported by capsule-like balconies in the executed version (figs. 6.18, 6.21). Bossard and Lagisquet simplified the facade using a single row of giant-order Ionic columns on high rusticated plinths which unite both storeys and form a five-bay arcade under the loggia – arguably a more satisfactory solution than Garnier’s, as it creates a vertical thrust that balances the long horizontal facade – and it is raised over a sweeping staircase at the front for greater visibility from afar. There is still a secondary (Ionic) order in the Hanoi theatre, now rusticated, at the rear of the loggia between the doorways. The higharched doorways resting on lower paired Ionic columns recall the arches supporting the roof of

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the Grand Staircase at the Opéra Garnier, as Le Brusq has noted.146 Harlay chose toits à l’impériale for the end pavilions rather than flat roofs with sculptural groups as in Paris – Bossard and Lagisquet lowered them slightly – and the pavilions are closed rather than forming part of the ground floor arcade. Harlay also placed a low hip roof over the arcades to mark it as a separate pavilion in the late Renaissance style of François Mansart (1598–1666) or Jean-Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau (1544/47–1590) (fig. 6.22). As occurred at the Saigon theatre, the Hanoi building replaces its

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6.23 Victorin Harlay, Jean Bossard, François Lagisquet, Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, side view (south facade), 1901–11. Hemis / Alamy Stock Photo.

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model’s heavy stone relief carving with economical glazed tiles, here showing rinceaux in relief. On the pavilion side entrances (and at the staircase pavilions on the sides of the building) Harlay has introduced expansive wrought iron marquees to accommodate theatregoers arriving by carriage (fig. 6.3).147 To ensure that the building was fire-proof, there was an “almost total exclusion of wood whenever there was metal to replace it.”148 The dominant feature of the long sides of the Théâtre municipal is the pair of emergency staircase pavilions protruding from the centre of each wall and crowned with wider versions of the facade pavilion cupolas (fig. 6.19, 6.23). Although these are positioned similarly to Garnier’s Pavillon des Abonnés and Pavillon de l’Empereur, they

stair hall, loggia, and salons) occupies less space than the auditorium or stage whereas at the Opéra they are larger than the auditorium.150 In both buildings the rear wing comprises the director’s office, meeting room, library, artistes’ apartments, makeup rooms, storage areas for sets and musical instruments, a guardhouse, and caretaker’s room, all of which were serviced by a pair of interior iron staircases. The Hanoi theatre’s emergency stairwells, with iron steps adorned with decorative tiles are positioned at the juncture between auditorium and stage.151 Pedestrians climb the front steps and enter the grand foyer through the porch, while those in carriages arrive at the side marquees, which give direct access to the foyer at each end. Garnier placed great importance on the porch as a place for the visitor “to allow for [a] useful and desirable pause” between the bustle of the streets and the foyer.152 In the Hanoi theatre box offices are placed at each end. The grand foyer (measuring 30 by 15 metres) stretches the full width of the building, unlike the foyer publique upstairs, which is only as wide as the loggia.153 The main difference from the Opéra is that in the latter building those coming by carriage alight at the lateral porte cochère and assemble in the basement rotunda (grand salon), under the auditorium, before mounting the stairs to mingle with the pedestrians in the stair hall. In the more democratic Hanoi version, everyone gathers in the grand foyer.154 Leaving this foyer, which is quite low, visitors then enter the stair hall in which a central, open T-shaped staircase leads to the first-storey foyer public; a flanking pair of enclosed U-shaped staircases lead to the first and second storeys; and two single-flight staircases access the orchestra and parterres. The stair hall is a reduction of Garnier’s Grand escalier d’honneur in which a central staircase of five flights is enclosed in a six-storey-high stair hall with balustrades or grilles on the upper three balconies

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are merely stairwells leading to the top of the building from lateral entrances. Like the Garnier the sides of the Hanoi theatre feature high rectangular windows with alternating arched and triangular pediments in the rear section, but in the central section they lack pediments and are fitted together more closely, the two lower rows of windows opening onto balconies. This is the section of Harlay’s original design that Bossard and Lagisquet changed most radically: they removed the double staircase at the centre and although the central bay is still wider and framed by giant-order pilasters it is now more prominent, advancing slightly from the wall and superimposed with a grand arch in the manner of the Saigon theatre (fig. 6.15). Like the facade, the sides of the Hanoi theatre sit on a rusticated basement. The rear elevation is more faithful to Harlay’s original conception (fig. 6.20). Tripartite, it encompasses a lofty central bay en ressaut flanked by wings with two bays of two-storey rectangular windows and an extremely narrow third bay at the ends formed of giant-order Doric pilasters framing much narrower rectangular openings. The same terracotta tiles that adorn the other three sides of the building run along the frieze of the wings but stop at the ressaut. The ressaut, crowned by a slate hip roof and formed of two storeys and an attic, has a prominent central pair of superimposed windows over a small arched doorway that is flanked by two more modest superimposed windows, and oculus windows adorn the attic on each side. In Harlay’s original elevation the ressaut was to be rusticated right to the top; however, the rustication was never executed, and the oculi were replaced with blind bas-relief cartouches. The Hanoi theatre measures 2,500 square metres.149 Its plan also preserves the basic arrangement of Garnier’s Opéra, although the cluster of public social rooms at the front (porch, foyer,

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6.24 Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, project for the ground floor, first galleries, and second galleries. Anonymous, ca 1910. Ink and wash on paper. ANom .

to allow guests from the cheaper seats to watch les grands enter the boxes and the premières loges. At Hanoi, grilles and balustrades also surround the staircase and serve the same function, but only on two levels. Nevertheless the main staircase retains the curving profiles of Garnier’s creation.155 The foyer public is lined with mirrors (it is popularly known as the “mirror room,” phòng gương) and

opens directly onto the loggia on one side and the stair hall on the other.156 It is flanked by two other mirrored rooms the same width as the pavilions that served as a smoking room and ice-cream stand on the left and a salon on the right, probably for the buffet. Hanoi’s opera house may have been smaller than Garnier’s, but it devoted nearly as much attention to social rank and display as did its model. In the auditorium the number of seats could be increased or decreased by adjusting interior partitions, the source of the scholarly confusion over

The pendentives of its vault (fig. 6.25) are supported, like Garnier’s, by paired giant-order Corinthian columns surmounted by high plinths and a small arch, but otherwise it is simpler, without the gilding and with only two balconies instead of four. There are three levels in the auditorium: the lower one with boxes and orchestra seats; the premières galeries, with boxes, a single row of seats on the sides and a double row at the rear; and the deuxièmes galeries, with three levels of seats on the sides and five at the rear. All levels also have loges avant-scène, or stage boxes. These have their own

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the theatre’s capacity (figs. 6.24–5). McClellan, for instance, claims that Bossard reduced the number of seats from 1,200 to 754 and E. Bourrin maintains that he reduced them to 680, yet those numbers reflected the maximum and minimum number of seats that could be accommodated depending upon the expected audience.157 The numbers are admittedly confusing and seem to fluctuate: a 1911 plan gives the minimum at 737 seats (fig. 6.24) whereas the current occupancy is 870 seats.158 If anything, these numbers show that the seating was adjustable and flexible.

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6.25 Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, interior of auditorium. Photograph copyright Quenhitran (Wikimedia Commons).

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vestibules, as do the grander boxes at the back of the first and second levels. The stage is 17.5 metres long, 20 wide, and 30 high at the proscenium arch. In contrast to the resolutely Parisian building that housed it, the stage curtain reflected local pride, painted with a “splendid panorama” of Hanoi offering views of the Ninh Bình and Ba Vi mountains and the pine forests of Tam Đảo.159 The Hanoi opera house drew the same criticism as its counterpart in Saigon. Brieux wrote in 1910, when the unfinished building was being reduced in size to cut costs, that it bore “a certain resemblance to the Opéra of Paris” but that

it was “a pretentious caricature which would be ignored.”160 He went on: This theatre has not been finished because now, retreating from the era of the folly of grandeur, we know that whatever we can do, if we finish it, could only underscore the first mistake. To fill its stage, it would take a throng of choristers and extras; to paint all its décor, hundreds of square meters of canvas; to listen to a score, a large orchestra. And if we managed to ensure all of this, we would still be lacking spectators because the whole European population of Hanoi would not fill the auditorium. We demolish the two wings that we just found to be decidedly too ugly. We need even more courage

than that. What should the Annamites think about this enormous construction, raised with their money, in which they would never have entered, and which is useless even to us? It is, moreover, a symbol made sad by its reality, this Temple of Pleasure, this monument to semblance, to fiction, to theatrical lies, erected in the most beautiful place in the city, disproportionate and abandoned before being completed. All our shortcomings can be summed up here: love of pleasure, artifice, artificiality, thoughtless enthusiasm, lack of foresight and superficiality.161

Architects of the Théâtre de Saigon and Théâtre municipal de Hanoï It is baffling that so little is known today about the architects of two of the most emblematic monuments of French Indochina. EugèneAlexandre-Nicolas Ferret, the architect of the

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Allegedly he recommended turning it into a school for Vietnamese children.162 And indeed the building never lived up to its promise. Like its Saigon equivalent, and in spite of all the grand rhetoric of its boosters, grand operas were produced with much less frequency (one or two a year) than more popular and sentimental works such as operettas and comédie-opérettes by Audran, Hervé (Louis-Auguste-Florimond Ronger, 1825– 1892), and Alexandre-Charles Lecocq (1832– 1918). As McClellan remarks, “this predominance of lighter genres countered the lofty images with which the theatre had been promoted,” and “the Municipal Theater’s status as a symbol of European high culture was compromised,” particularly as popular musical theatre – just as popular in the métropole as in the colony – would never have been performed at the Paris Opéra.163

Saigon opera house, is a case in point. Although he built ostentatious buildings on two continents, contributed to the 1900 and 1931 international exhibitions in Paris, and was made chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1933, his full name and life dates do not appear in any of the secondary literature.164 Part of the problem is that, although he was an enthusiastic proponent of the Beaux-Arts style, he did not study at the École des BeauxArts as did his colleagues Ollivier and Guichard, who have left traces of their careers in the École’s archives and publications. Instead, Ferret trained as an engineer architect (his Legion of Honour file called him an “Ingénieur architecte diplômé ”), specializing in railway engineering, probably at the École des Mines (founded 1783), which offered courses in the subject under Charles-HenriFrançois Couche (1815–1879).165 Learning about Ferret’s life and career – as with those of the other architects in this chapter – has involved concentrated work in archives and searching through newspapers and journals: the picture that emerges is of a public figure as typical of the global Belle Époque as was the Théâtre de Saigon itself. Born in Paris’s first arrondissement in 1851, Ferret volunteered for the army at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and served for six months with distinction, winning the Médaille et Croix de Guerre de 1870–1871.166 He witnessed first-hand France’s humiliating defeat, Emile Zola’s “débâcle,” that would directly fuel France’s aggressiveness overseas. While working on the railways at Perpignan–Le Barcarès and Marseille Ferret also maintained a successful sideline designing and building private and public buildings, including his first theatre design (for the Hippodrome Théâtre at Roubaix, 1882), for which he won first prize but which was never built.167 In January 1884, when he was described as an “engineer-architect living in Paris, rue du Rocher, No 49,” Ferret founded a company with

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three other investors to build a “grand hotel” in the Norman seaside resort of Étretat.168 One of the other investors was the writer Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893), a year older than Ferret and possibly a comrade from the war, as he was a fellow veteran – indeed his stories published in Boule de suif et autres contes de la guerre (1880) are some of the most vivid depictions of the horrors of that battle – and he lived a fifteen-minute walk away from Ferret in the Eighth Arrondissement.169 Maupassant’s mother owned a villa in the Étretat and one of his stories, “The Englishman of Étretat” (1882) is set there. Whether or not this Norman hotel was ever built remains a mystery, but Ferret was already in Cochinchina in 1886, first as the commissioner of tramways and railways and then (in 1890) as founder of the Compagnie française des Tramways de l’Indochine, responsible for a tram line between Saigon and the neighbourhoods of Cholon and Gò Vấp.170 He may have applied to obtain this commission after a business associate gained a concession, as concessions for railway projects were advertised in the Paris architectural journal La Construction moderne.171 This was a very good time to be an expert in railways in Indochina as municipalities were stepping up their efforts to modernize, and he rose quickly through the ranks of the city’s public works department. While working on the Théâtre de Saigon he was also elected as Concessionaire of the Saigon Electric Company and as commercial agent for the coal mines at Kebao (Cái Bầu Island); he built several bridges including the metal bridge over the Arroyo Chinois, made famous in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955); and he undertook studies of the sewage, drainage, and drinking water facilities in Saigon and Cholon. Clearly he came to the Saigon theatre project with the highest of recommendations – during his employment on that project

he was variously described as an “Architect of the City of Saigon” and as an “engineer in this city,” and he became increasingly involved with the Cochinchinese government, as expert adviser to the Civil Tribunal and the Saigon Appellate Court.172 When he left Indochina for good in 1899 he was showered with accolades by a grateful colonial government: he was made an officer of the Royal Order of Cambodia, the Imperial Order of the Dragon of Annam, and he received the Star of Anjouan, and the Grande Sapèque and Kim Khánh of Tonkin, and even the Médaille de Sauvetage for acts of bravery.173 Either before or after his return to France, Ferret was elected as a jury member for the 1900 Exposition universelle, which suggests that he was involved earlier with the project and explains why he had exposure to the elevations of the Petit Palais, which served as the main model for the Saigon opera house (figs. 6.2, 6.11).174 His reputation and experience working in Asia won him the commission by the Korean government to design their national pavilion for that exposition, with the financial backing of a French count with dealings in the Congo.175 The structure was a departure from his work in Saigon as it was not his own invention but a meticulous replica of the Royal Audience Hall of Kyongbok (Gyeongbokgung) Palace. Although newspapers credited Ferret with the design – Le Figaro attributed the “pretty multicoloured pavilion” to the architect and credited his familiarity with Asiatic styles to the “many years” he had spent in the “Far East” – Ferret had nothing to do with the design and was merely the executing architect, collaborating with two Korean artisans sent to Paris with the vice-president of the Korean commission.176 Ferret briefly hit his stride designing luxury buildings on the Riviera, although by this time the Garnier idiom he preferred was going out of style and only one of them was built. In March

6.26 Eugène Ferret, Project for the Casino municipal, Cannes, 30 January 1899. © Archives municipales de Cannes.

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1899 he won first prize in the concours to design the Casino municipal in Cannes (fig. 6.26).177 The main facade returns to the still uncompleted Petit Palais for inspiration in its long horizontal profile, pavilions crowned with toits à l’impérial, and a high central section dominated by a giant arch (fig. 6.11), although he frames it with a pair of towers like those flanking Garnier’s facade at the Casino de Monte Carlo (1881–82) or perhaps the Paris Hôtel de Ville (fig. 6.5). The lateral facades also resemble the Monte Carlo Casino, particularly the profile of the central section, which is capped with a dome and flanked by pavilions, although the pavilions are closer to those of the Petit Palais and the dome has been lifted straight

from Garnier’s Opéra (fig. 6.10).178 After an acrimonious dispute that lasted until 1923 the city rejected Ferret’s project, which was to have been built by executing architects Victor Fournier and Armand de Fallois, by reneging on the contract the city had signed with the latter on 24 March 1899. The casino that was built (opened 1907; demolished 1979) was more modest and economical than Ferret’s invention, the impractical extravagance of which was reminiscent of a Beaux-Arts student exercise.179 Ferret had better luck with his commission for the Sanremo Casinò Municipale on the Italian Riviera (fig. 6.27). One of eight French competitors for the 1901 concours, Ferret signed a contract of eighteen articles with the Consiglio Comunale di Sanremo on 25 May 1903 and seems to have directed the entire project from Paris with local architect Franco Tornatore serving as site

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6.27 Eugène Ferret, Casinò Municipale, San Remo, 1905. Simona Abbondio / Alamy Stock Photo.

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supervisor.180 His first progetto, dated 10 October, was accepted in January, and the Casinò was built swiftly, opening a year later, on 14 January 1905. Not surprisingly, it was another homage to Beaux-Arts eclecticism, fusing an Italian Renaissance revival structure with baroque decorative details such as the heavy cartouches that adorn the twin towers, and it was also monumentally expensive at 1,076,960 lire. Criticized for being retardataire and ill-conceived, it went so far over budget that one official proposed taking 7,250 lire out of the architect’s fee. Duetto Conti dismisses the building as “inspired by models of the worst and most antiquated eclecticism, weighing down the façade with heavy motifs from the Neo-Baroque repertoire, with an awkward resumption of the theme of the towers of Charles Garnier.”181 In

1906 Ferret formed a company with the Marquis de Rabar called the “Société du Casino Municipale de San-Remo” to recoup the financial losses he incurred while building the casino.182 The critical reception of the Sanremo casino was a harbinger of things to come. Ferret’s next submission, for the Kursaal in Lugano (1906), was rejected, as were his projects for the presidential palace in Havana (1906) and the Théâtre municipal in Annaba, Algeria (after 1918), although he still had ready customers for private residences in Paris and Provence.183 Ferret also worked on industrial projects, including an electric train from Verona to Riva San Vitale (1908) and mechanized slaughterhouses in Warsaw (1913–14). He was also active on the lecture circuit, giving presentations across Europe on theatre building and agriculture,

technology behind ostentatious decoration.187 A tripartite stone or marble portal with two iron doors and an openwork niche, Ollivier’s invention 6.28 Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie Ollivier, project for a gate for a hall in a museum of decorative arts, winner of the Prix Godeboeuf in 1889. Watercolour and ink on paper. École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. © Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. rmN -Grand Palais/Art Resource, Ny .

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and serving as an adviser to the French government after the Great War. He last served the cause of colonialism as a member of the admissions committee for the Indochinese section of the 1931 Exposition coloniale internationale. In his Legion of Honour citation, the minister of colonies wrote that Ferret “has played a very important and efficacious role in the economic development of the Colony.”184 Ferret had two Paris residences upon his return from Indochina: 35 rue Notre-Damede-Lorette and 54 rue Taitbout, both of them a short walk from Garnier’s Opéra and the former, appropriately, now housing a Vietnamese restaurant. Ferret died in bed at 6:15 in the morning on 14 November 1936, discovered by his young servant Roger Barbudaux.185 His death register revealed that he had married twice, his first wife a divorce and his second one apparently predeceasing him. No mention is made of either woman in any of the many newspaper articles about the architect and there is no mention of children. Astonishingly, for such a highly decorated and respected public figure, no obituary of Ferret seems ever to have been published; I was obliged to find his death date by looking through an entire decade of ninth arrondissement état civil records. Ferret’s collaborator and rival Ollivier and his successor Guichard enjoyed a higher profile because they were both educated at the École des Beaux-Arts – and they likely thought of Ferret as a parvenu. A lawyer’s son from Guingamp (Brittany), Ollivier entered the École’s first class in 1887 and received his architect’s diploma in 1891.186 He won the prestigious Prix Godeboeuf in 1889 for which he executed a design for a neo-baroque gate (Clôture à jour) for a museum of decorative arts (fig. 6.28). The Godeboeuf was a contest for students of the first class that emphasized modern engineering technologies “such as locksmithing, plumbing, working with marble, etc.,” although they generally disguised

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is particularly saturated with ornament, including Roman sarcophagus style bas-reliefs, garlands, rocailles, and acanthus scrolls, and it also features prominent female caryatid figures (fig. 6.14).188 The inscription at the foot of the sheet notes that Ollivier was the student of Julien Guadet (1834– 1908), one of the Beaux-Arts’ most important theorists of the turn of the century, who worked at Charles Garnier’s agence for the Paris Opéra.189 Like so many architects in the later chapters of this book Ollivier contributed to a universal exposition, in this case the design for the Breton pavilion at the Exhibition universelle of 1900, for which he won a gold medal.190 The Saigon project was the high point of his career: as the president of the Société Central des Architectes wrote in 1934, “his project for the theatre of Saigon, rapidly executed, captured everyone’s attention.”191 Afterward Ollivier was modestly successful, with a practice at the quai du Louvre, and he was an accomplished watercolourist.192 He won gold medals at the Salons des Architectes Français in 1902 and 1905 and he built various houses and villas as well as the Institut Notre-Dame and collège de Guingamp in his hometown.193 He was architecte honoraire de la ville de Paris from 1897 to 1927, working on improving the city’s parks and gardens including the parc du Champ de Mars, and he was elected chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1937.194 His school dossier reveals that he died in February 1947.195 No obituary was ever published. Guichard was born to a wealthy French family of agriculturalists in Callao (Lima, Peru) who operated a rubber plantation, a cattle station, and finally a coffee farm in the jungle across the Andes from Lima, in Villa Rica, Puerto Bermudez, and La Merced Chanchamayo.196 He left for Paris around 1890 and studied at the Beaux-Arts under Deglane, Charles-Alphonse Thierry (1830–1907), and Paul Blondel (1847–1897), and he returned

to Paris after the Saigon commission to open a private practice on 93 rue de Rennes.197 Three studies are recorded from his days at the École, the first of them a “fragment d’architecture” (now missing) executed in 1890 for the second-class Concours d’histoire de l’architecture, probably an esquisse (rough sketch), the usual first part of a concours that culminated in a rendu, or largescale finished drawing of the same project.198 In 1896, for his concours d’émulation, the final contest before graduating to the première classe, Guichard executed an esquisse in twelve hours on the theme of “Un petit hospice de ménages,” or small domestic clinic, which also does not survive.199 His only extant school study is his projet rendu for a chamber of notaries building (1895), a plain but elegant neo-Renaissance design centring upon a three-arched loggia (fig. 6.29).200 The structure is formed of a central corps de logis and receding wings like the Saigon Théâtre and monumental arches are the main motif of both buildings (fig. 6.2), but it is otherwise a standard student exercise in Italian Renaissance style such as Emile Bérnard’s fantasy restoration of Raphael’s Villa Madama in Rome (1871).201 The next year, three years before taking over the Saigon project, Guichard is mentioned in the journal La Construction moderne as working in partnership with Garnier, which suggests that he worked in Garnier’s agence and was therefore the closest link among the architects of the Saigon Théâtre with the creator of the Paris Opéra.202 Guichard married Madeleine Marc at the church of Saint-Sulpice in 1904 and died on 1 October 1953.203 He is buried at Montparnasse Cemetery. Sculptor Dolivet, from Rennes, was also a student at the École.204 Three drawings survive in the Beaux-Arts archives, two of them studies of plaster casts after antique vases in the style of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1874, 1876) for the Concours du dessin d’ornement and Concours

6.29 Ernest-Amédé Guichard, study for a chamber of notaries (1895). Ink and wash on paper. eNSBA . © BeauxArts de Paris, Dist. rmN -Grand Palais/Art Resource, Ny .

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d’emulation (which both won the third-place medal) and one a candlestick design (1876).205 The vases demonstrate expertise in reproducing classical bas-relief carving. A familiarity with classical sculpture would serve him in Saigon, where he executed the exterior decorative sculptural reliefs (fig. 6.14). By contrast, the candlestick, for which he also won a third-place medal in the Concours du dessin d’ornement, is a gilt wooden torchère in the style of Louis XIV.206 Dolivet debuted at the Paris Salon of 1877 with a plaster bust portrait, which also received a third-class medal, and he executed plaster busts, silver medals, and marble sculptures, of which his erotic Madeleine (1886) is in the Musée des BeauxArts in Rennes.207 Dolivet was therefore a provincial sculptor of modest success, receiving mostly third-class medals for his work, and little known outside his hometown of Rennes.

The municipality of Saigon may have chosen lesser-known architects and artists for the theatre itself, but they insisted on the best when it came to interior decor and scenography, going straight to specialist set designers from the closed world of the Paris Opéra. Hired to execute permanent paintings for the Saigon Theatre’s interior, Paris-born Carpezat was in fact one of most important scenographers of the Belle Époque, about whom Germain Bapst wrote in 1893: “the scenery of almost all the grand operas mounted or remounted for thirty years came from his studio,” including such famous premieres as Massenet’s Thaïs (1894).208 It is thus odd that he was chosen to paint permanent decoration rather than stage sets, which were his real métier. Trained in the atelier of the famous set maker Philippe-Marie Chaperon (1823–1906), Carpezat contributed to set designs for major premieres in the 1870s and 1880s by Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, Wagner, and Verdi at the Opéra, Opéra Comique, and Comédie Française, often in collaboration with Joseph-Antoine Lavastre (1834–1891).209

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Carpezat also had a connection with a universal exposition: he was awarded a grand prix and made chevalier of the Legion of Honour at the Exposition universelle of 1878 after contributing to the interior paintings of the exposition’s Dôme Centrale, Dôme des Beaux-Arts, and Dôme des Arts Libéraux, and more significantly, he became the Opéra’s chef du service des decorations in 1891. Many of his maquettes survive in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris: those in the late 1880s and ’90s by his hand alone and the earlier ones in collaboration with Lavastre.210 Saigon was not his only overseas commission: in 1889 he painted the stage curtain for the Theatro da Paz in Belém, which is closer to the kind of decorative paintings he was hired to do for the Saigon theatre.211 Carpezat’s collaborator on the Saigon theatre project was Amable, who also worked at the Paris Opéra, between 1885 and 1909, and who also remained in Paris.212 Carpezat sent Victor Lamorte (1874–1929) to Saigon in 1899 to supervise the installation of his decoration for the theatre and stage sets. Lamorte was a decorative painter from Marseille trained at the École des Beaux-Arts d’Avignon, who was described in 1894 as a “young artist full of promise.” He enlisted in the Avignon reserve infantry in 1898, and ended up moving permanently to Indochina, working on the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh (see chapter 7), for which he was made an Officer of the Royal Order of Cambodia. He also contributed to the interior decoration of the Saigon Hôtel de Ville (fig. 6.4) and the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse in 1924 (figs. 8.3–4).213 The Hanoi Théâtre municipal was built almost entirely by local architect-engineers. In fact, Jean-Isidore Bossard was the only one to have been educated at the École des Beaux-Arts, and even he enjoyed only a modest career. Born in Paris in 1875 to a bronze fitter from the ninth

arrondissement named Jean-Baptiste Bossard, Jean-Isidore entered the Beaux-Arts in 1893, studied with Léon-Paul-René Ginain (1825–1898) and Louis Henri Georges Scellier de Gisors (1844–1905), won the 1897 Prix Deschaumes (for “domestic virtue” and “artistic talent”), and received his diploma in 1903, two years before his arrival in Hanoi sometime in 1905.214 A first-class projet rendu for a concours d’émulation survives in the archives of the École, a study of a French embassy in a foreign nation that is (probably incorrectly) dated to 1904.215 He left Paris shortly after his marriage to Marianne Israël on 6 July 1905, and appears to have been something of a philanderer, divorcing her on 8 July 1910 because of “the husband’s misdeeds and subjects of complaint” (she retained custody of the children).216 Bossard was in Paris again at 203 boulevard Raspail at least by 1922, when he married his second wife, Marie Armande-Clémentine Rongier, whom he divorced four years later, on 13 July 1926.217 By that time he was living in the small town of Jaulgonne (Aisne), from where he submitted an unsuccessful project for a concours for a new suburb in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1925.218 Bossard seems to have been drawn to the colonies, and he and his son Georges moved permanently to Algeria, where he served as the architect of the municipality of Algiers, dying there on 7 June 1940.219 The other two of the Hanoi opera house’s masterminds were engineer-architects from the Travaux publics who rose through the ranks on the job in Indochina. The theatre’s principal designer Harlay, characterized, as we have seen, as a “modest and hardworking civil servant,” was a case in point. Born on 17 January 1865 to a schoolteacher in the village of Floyon in the département du Nord, Harlay left for Indochina as a young man, perhaps in the military, and was already a “commis des Travaux publics” in Hanoi

Beaux-Arts or any of the Grandes Écoles. He was born on 18 January 1864 in Villefranche-surMer (Nice), the son of a telegraph operator and a seamstress.226 Enlisting as a “simple soldier” he arrived in Tonkin in 1885 as a staff secretary with the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps under General Henri Roussel de Courcy (1827–1887), quitting the army in 1887 to assume a post in the Protectorate administration.227 He married Léonie Blanche Bouderghem (b. 1870), daughter of a machinist and milliner, while on furlough in Paris in 1890, when he was titled “Ingénieur civil” (one of the witnesses was Achille Aumoitte, “vice-résident au Tonkin à Paris”), and the birth certificate of their daughter Suzanne Pauline (15 May 1899) described him as “Inspecteur des Bâtiments Civils.”228 Lagisquet served as an architect for the Travaux publics for twenty-six years, retiring in 1912 or 1913, before the opera house was complete.229 Like Ferret before him, he leveraged his expertise in Indochina into an exposition commission, as assistant to the architect of the pavillon du Cambodge in the 1906 Exposition Coloniale de Marseille, a heavy-handed pastiche of the Angkor Wat and Bayon temples designed by Vildieu (fig. 6.30).230 In an electoral register from 1909, the same one that listed Harlay and Bossard as mere “inspectors,” Lagisquet was styled “architecte des Bâtiments civils.”231 Lagisquet’s meteoric rise from the lower bourgeoisie to the top echelons of colonial high society is impressive, although as a veteran of the Tonkin campaign he belonged to an elite group, the Association des Anciens Tonkinois veterans’ fraternity. Lagisquet was given a full state funeral at Hanoi cathedral on 25 April 1936, attended by Governor-General René Robin, the chief of the Sûreté, the resident superior, the secretary general, the resident mayor, and many other city notables. L’Avenir de Tonkin, which devoted three columns to his exequies, declared that “never before, as far

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by the time he married Berthe-Marie-Henriette Flanneau on furlough in Cambrai on 29 November 1897 – as noted above the couple had a son, Jacques-Sydney-Émile, who was born in Hanoi in September 1898, with the architect Bussy serving as witness.220 Harlay joined Hanoi’s municipal administration on 10 December 1899.221 No clue survives about his training as an engineer – let alone as an architect – but his designs for the Théâtre municipal are quite accomplished, suggesting that he had some early exposure to the Beaux-Arts idiom, although apparently not in the Beaux-Arts or École des Ponts-etChaussées.222 He may in fact have been selftaught, relying on architectural treatises published by professors from the École Polytechnique or the Beaux-Arts, such as Léonce Reynaud’s Traité d’architecture (Paris, 1850–58), which in fact illustrates a plan and elevation of Garnier’s Opéra.223 At any rate, the commission resulted in a modest promotion within the Travaux publics: by 1905 he was titled “Inspecteur des bâtiments civils, chargé de la surveillance du théâtre en construction”; in 1909 an electoral register listed him (and Bossard) each as an “inspecteur des Bâtiments civils,” and in 1910 and 1911 he was called “Inspecteur de 2e classe des bâtiments civils, mairie Hanoi.”224 The 1911 reference is the last we hear of him, probably because he soon returned to Cambrai: records show that his son Jacques was mobilized in that city in 1918.225 If he died in Cambrai, he died after 1942, the latest date in the publicly accessible death records in the Cambrai archives, but he was never mentioned again. Thus, the principal architects of two of the most famous colonial buildings in present-day Vietnam, Ferret and Harlay, never even merited an obituary in the newspaper. Lagisquet was another matter entirely, even though he, too, came from a humble background and like Harlay never seems to have received formal training as an architect, either at the

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6.30 Henri Vildieu and François-Charles Lagisquet, Cambodian Pavilion, Exposition Coloniale de Marseille, 1906. Coloured postcard. Private collection.

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as we can remember, was there a more crowded, more imposing procession,” and it emphasized that “Annamites” and Frenchmen paid him equal honour.232 The same obituary portrayed him as the saviour of Hanoi architecture, stepping in to rescue a project that was “poorly conceived” and that had become “a giant hovel [une immense masure], on which scaffolding hung in ruins,” and it credited him with the “felicitous changes to the appearance of this beautiful monument.” Two months before his death Lagisquet was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the only architect associated with the Hanoi theatre to be so honoured. All these accolades happened long after the Beaux-Arts style he championed had gone out of fashion in the colonies. One more figure deserves mention: Jean Bourdeaud, the author of Haiphong’s neoclassical theatre (fig. 6.1) and the man who allegedly was to replace Harlay in October 1900. None of the secondary literature mentions this architect and head of the Haiphong voirie, and his few appearances in the contemporary press spelled his name

in so many ways that it is difficult to trace his career. Once again much about him can be found in the provincial archives in France. Bourdeaud, like Harlay, came from a humble background. Born in the small town of Linard (Creuse) to a single mother and unknown father (he took her surname), he trained as a mason in Orléans and founded a profitable public works contracting firm in Ivry-sur-Seine (a southern suburb of Paris) together with his son Pierre-Jean, who took over after his father’s death in 1910.233 Bourdeaud had three wives, whom he married in 1865, 1876, and 1884 respectively.234 He arrived, alone, in Saigon on the ship Colombo on 8 April 1896, and the next we hear about him is at the theatre’s inauguration in November 1900, when L’Avenir du Tonkin praised his building, which had been constructed with imported materials from France: Mr. Bourdeand [sic] has endowed our city with a monument truly worthy of it. Our new theatre will make Hanoi jealous, which is still in its little Chinese hall. The

exterior of the monument has a very pleasing architectural effect. The very well-ordered interior layout includes a large hall at the entrance where there is the box office and the ground floor corridors giving access to the orchestra seats and the lavatories. At the ends, two very beautiful staircases, with imitation bronze banisters lead to the loges and the foyer. Two beautiful floor lamps are mounted at the entrance of each staircase. The room and the ceiling are decorated with paintings in warm and light tones with the most beautiful effect. The electric light, very well placed on the ceiling, illuminates the room without disturbing the spectators. Artists who have already tried the room find the acoustics excellent.235 Indeed, alone among the opera houses in Indochina, the Théâtre de Haiphong received nothing but praise from the press, probably because it was suitably modest and built in a restrained and elegant classical mode and did not attempt to recreate a paradigmatic building from the metropole. Shortly after 1900 Bourdeaud returned to Orléans, where he died a decade later, still running the family firm.

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For all the aspirations of grandeur and metropolitan ambition of their patrons, the buildings treated in this chapter were constructed by men of mostly modest backgrounds who, with one exception, vanished into partial or complete obscurity – and that exception, Lagisquet, was celebrated more because of his association with powerful colonial factions than for his work as an

architect. Like the troupes who came to perform in them, the theatres did not attract Paris’s top talent but instead drew the second- and thirdtier engineers who were already in Indochina or willing to undertake the long voyage east to make their fortunes. The scaled-down buildings were also less impressive than first appearances might suggest, and the operatic season in those three Indochinese cities, with its vaudeville and opéra-bouffes, had more in common with that of a minor French provincial city than with anything in the capital. As Sitwell noted, these monuments are like pavilions in an exposition, and it is fitting that they are now popular with Asian tourists keen to visit a romanticized “little Europe,” providing a theme park atmosphere ready-made as backdrops for “selfies.” The Great War changed everything, and as we will see in the next two chapters the colony’s planners changed tack in the 1920s and 1930s, abandoning the retardataire opulence of the Beaux-Arts tradition and its obsession with mimesis in favour of equally wrong-headed attempts at associationism: a drive to assimilate to local styles to entice the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao people to see France as their natural ruler. The leading architects of those buildings were also a different breed from their Belle Époque predecessors. Self-promoters who lectured and published articles about their work, they operated with the backing of academic and governmental institutions and brought a nefarious pseudoscientific approach to the architecture and arts of the colonized, not just by appropriating indigenous forms but also by championing ancient indigenous models to denigrate contemporary indigenous culture.

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7 appropriation Phnom Penh ca 1917

The last chapter considered two archetypal buildings of the era before the Great War, when prestige architecture was commissioned to advertise French power and cultural superiority and colonial municipalities meticulously imitated metropolitan models for the benefit of homesick colons. In these respects, the buildings of early twentieth-century Saigon and Hanoi were like their predecessors in ancien régime Saint-Domingue or Pondicherry – except that, unlike in Pondicherry, the people who used the buildings did not employ Asian ceremonial to legitimize their presence there but acted as much as possible as they would have done in Paris or Marseille. But things changed dramatically after the war as colonial administrators, urban planners, archaeologists, and architects encouraged a new syncretic approach to building in Indochina that was part of a premeditated campaign to assert French control by making colonial institutions look like they belonged. We have seen several phases in French colonialism in Asia when buildings constructed by and for French agents were culturally convergent, ranging from invisible hybridities such as the Jesuit church in seventeenth-century Pulucambi, which looked Sino-Vietnamese but functioned as a Catholic church, to structural and stylistic hybridities in the Franco-Siamese Cathedral of Saint-Joseph in Ayutthaya or the Sino-Vaubanian citadels of eighteenth-century Saigon and Diên Khánh. In the

ornamental forms of colonized peoples with essentially European structures to assert the colonizers’ indigeneity and their technological superiority and universalism. Associationism was developed by a new kind of architect, unlike any who were involved with French colonial architecture previously. Those whom we considered in the last chapter were mostly modestly successful professionals who struck out for the colonies to boost their careers because they needed the money, were in the military, or were not getting very far in France. The architects who dreamed up associationism had more iniquitous intentions. They, too, sought to make a name for themselves through their work in the colonies. But this time they did so by usurping and manipulating the culture of the colonized, electing themselves as the guardians of Khmer or Sino-Vietnamese artistic traditions and claiming credit for buildings designed and executed by indigenous people – all the while treating the latter like simpletons unable to appreciate their own past. During the decades when the architects of the opera houses were vanishing into obscurity the associationists were ensuring lasting fame by promoting their quasi-scientific theories and accomplishments through academic journals (some of them self-published) and in international expositions, using pavilions to champion their design principles or to recreate structures they had built in Indochina. Hébrard was particularly successful in this regard, and he has consequently received the lion’s share of scholarly attention (see chapter 8).2 The architects in the previous chapter were not necessarily more personally racist than the average Frenchman, although they certainly shared in the era’s systemic racism and worked for racist municipalities and governments. But those in the following two chapters, particularly Hébrard and George Groslier (1887–1945),

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next two chapters we will look for the first time at engineered hybridity, a selective, top-down, pseudo-scientific métissage, grafting forms taken from indigenous architecture (primarily roofs and decontextualized surface decoration) onto essentially European (in this case art deco) substructures. Its promoters, who publicized this assertion of power through cultural appropriation as a friendly accommodation to indigenous traditions, called it an architecture of “association” (as opposed to “assimilation” to French styles). There was no equivalent in France’s early modern empire. A word of explanation is needed here about the term “associationism.” In the scholarship on Indochina, “architecture of association” has been focused quite narrowly on the work of Ernest Hébrard, whose impact, as we will see in the next chapter, was limited to a handful of buildings in the 1920s and early 1930s. However, Hébrard’s experiment in architectural métissage – which, incidentally, he called “style indochinois,” not “architecture of association” – was not particularly original. Not only did his brand of associationist architecture derive directly from precedents in the French Maghreb, but it was not significantly different from strategies employed by rival colonial powers, such as the “Indo-Saracenic” architecture of later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British India or especially the “Indies Architecture” in the Dutch East Indies (1920s–30s), which I will discuss below. Associationism as an administrative policy in French colonies was itself based on the British precedent of indirect rule, used so successfully in parts of India, in which local elites and the existing class and power structure were left in place in the service of Empire.1 In this book I use “associationism” to refer more broadly to any calculated architectural hybridity in which a European power combines architectural and

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espoused an intellectual, clinical racism that was backed by sympathetic academic institutions in Europe and its colonies. Architectural associationism in French Indochina emerged at the intersection of four specific historical phenomena: the plundering and seizure by French archaeologists of Angkor Wat and other ancient Khmer and Cham sites beginning in the 1860s, culminating in the work of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (efeo , founded 1898); the international exhibitions of Paris and Marseille (1878–1937), where copies of Indochinese monuments were reproduced as well as pavilions that anticipated or imitated associationist styles in Indochina; the great modernizing urbanistic and architectural projects of French Morocco in the 1910s and ’20s, the immediate inspiration for Indochinese associationism; and the first Indochinese museums and art schools: the museums in Phnom Penh (1909, 1917), Tourane (1916), Vientiane (1925), Huế (1927), Saigon (1929), and Hanoi (1932), and the École des arts cambodgiens (1917) in Phnom Penh and the École des beaux-arts de l’Indochine (1924) in Hanoi. The next two chapters examine the three most important museums in Indochina: the Musée Khmer (later Albert-Sarraut) in Phnom Penh (figs. 7.13–15); the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse in Saigon (figs. 8.3–4), and the Musée LouisFinot in Hanoi (figs. 8.10–13), all built under the auspices of the efeo . These monuments also offer three different takes on associationism. The first, the most sophisticated and satisfactory of the buildings, makes extensive use of authentic Khmer-Siamese forms, grafted onto an essentially European substructure, but one that is reticent enough that the Asian forms are allowed to take centre stage. The second, although not lacking a certain inventiveness, literally emerged from an (aborted) international exposition pavilion and

has the superficial pastiching and festival atmosphere common to such ephemeral structures. The third, designed by Hébrard but significantly altered, is a less appetizing building: possessing a sterile, impersonal monumentality, it focuses on climatic solutions at the expense of ornament, and the “vernacular” forms with which it dresses up an essentially modern building are pan-Asian rather than regional. It is the kind of structure Nicola Cooper refers to when she comments that “[t]his rationalising, universalist and essentially modernist vision sat uncomfortably alongside the imperatives of association.”3 Museums are particularly appropriate subjects for two chapters on appropriation and associationism. Arnaud Le Brusq was the first to note that “it is precisely in these museum projects, in the milieu of the exposition pavilions, that this architecture peculiar to Indochina […] takes place. […] it is the opportunity offered by the construction of museums that allows it to achieve its full artistic claim.”4 He argues that unlike several of the museums in the French Maghreb, which were installed in pre-existing palaces (as was also the Khải Định museum in Huế, installed in a royal pavilion), the Indochinese museums treated here rank among the most dedicated experiments in associationism. They contrast particularly with the stripped neoclassicism of the museums built in Algeria in 1930 to celebrate the centenary of the French occupation, especially the National Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers (1930), which – in a settler colony that was considered an extension of French soil – made no attempt at associationism: “on the contrary, it privileged European vision in the forum of elite French culture.”5 The Indochinese museums are even unusual when compared with museums in other colonies, such as the Royal Asiatic Society in Bombay (1830), the Batavia Museum (1862) in Jakarta, or the Colombo Museum in Ceylon

7.1 James G. Smither, Colombo Museum (Sri Lanka), 1872–76.

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(1872–76), which are all neoclassical or Palladian (fig. 7.1), although other British museums in India such as the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay (1908–14) were built in Indo-Saracenic style (about which more below).6 It is important to note here that, like the opera houses in the last chapter, these are exceptional buildings. Indeed, associationism was never the predominant style of public architecture as most French colonists and officials feared that it would dilute their cultural hegemony over Indochina. Instead, they favoured the more utilitarian “travaux publics” or “compradoric” style of public architecture produced by the Service des Bâtiments civils discussed in chapter 1: simple but eclectic combinations of neo-Renaissance and

late medieval genre normand or Alsatian forms often adorned with Alpine-style roof brackets and friezes of coloured tiles, like the Chemins de fer de l’Indochine building in Saigon (1914) (figs. 1.9, 7.2). By the end of the nineteenth century they included locally produced materials such as concrete (manufactured in Haiphong from 1899) and factory-made tiles and bricks (made in Hanoi from 1896), but they were primarily built of imported French bricks, tiles, and window glass (never produced in Indochina) or Chinese tiles.7 Their designs are reminiscent of those published in the popular and practical architectural journal La Construction moderne in the 1880s and 1890s, which featured, among other things, new buildings of various purposes to fit different budgets, whether schools and hospitals, or villas or chalets, and they were likely adapted directly from that publication. Such were the

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The facades, although very simple, are pleasant and cheerful in appearance, thanks to the use of ordinary two-tone brick in bands and friezes. The front of the main building is enhanced by a few enamelled bricks (golden yellow, brown and emerald-green tones) discreetly used in the bands, by natural terracotta spandrel panels on a gold background, [an] enamelled central rosette, with brown frame with golden yellow lines and blue beads at the corners; finally by a motif of the initials RF in antique blue on a pale gold yellow background with antique green palms, all made by the house of Parvillée.9

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7.2 Chemins de fer de l’Indochine building, Saigon, 1914. A typical building of the “travaux publics” style.

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Hospital-Hospice at Aurillac by M.L. Magne (1897); M. Mongeaud’s École primaire supérieure de filles at Saint-Maixent (Pays de la Loire); a Norman-style villa by M.L. Rigoni at Clermont (Oise); and a Maison de campagne at Fontenayaux-Roses (south of Paris) by M. Mériot (all from 1898).8 The journal’s description of the school’s facade could describe any number of buildings of that era in Indochina:

Such buildings can be found across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, whether schools, post offices, private houses, or country villas, and they are strikingly uniform in style (figs. 1.9, 9.24). In the same breath contemporary critics derided their lack of originality but praised their practicality, cheapness, and permanence. In 1920 Henri Coucherousset, who considered the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (ebai) to be elitist, wrote that although the “Service des Bâtiments Civils [is] the most perfect school of bad taste,” and that “[t]he native architects, trained by practice alone, by working for the Bâtiments Civils, are responsible, we are told, for the comprador style,” yet “better a comprador style house that does not collapse, costs a reasonable price and is habitable, than a wonder of the imagination, overpriced, not solid and uninhabitable.”10 The scholarship treats these museums as if they were solely the invention of European architects; consequently, I will highlight the indigenous contributions to their design and construction. The first one, the Musée Khmer/ Musée Albert Sarraut, owes a profound debt to Vietnamese and Cambodian builders and designers – architects such as François Khuôn Nguyen

Van (ca 1860–after 1931), a graduate of the École centrale in Paris, or palace architect Oknha Tep Nimit Mak (1856–after 1924), well known for his work in the Royal Palace and as indigenous director of the École des arts cambodgiens. I will argue that these two architects and their Cambodian colleagues were more responsible for the museum’s design than was Groslier. Vietnamese architects, designers, and craftsmen made contributions to the construction and possibly design of the two museums in the next chapter too, including the entrepreneur Trinh-Quy-Khang (fl. 1926–36), who took over the construction of the Hanoi museum in 1929 and helped bring it to 7.3 John Clunish, Phra Thinang Chakri Maha Prasat, Grand Palace, Bangkok, 1876.

completion. Frustratingly, our understanding of these architects and contractors is handicapped by French sources that rarely mention their names and usually ignore them altogether. We must read carefully between the lines in government reports, newspaper articles, letters, contracts, and other documents to recreate, as best we can, the role these Indochinese architects had in the development of this style. Another non-European contribution to the design of these museums – and, I will argue, for associationist architecture in general – has never been acknowledged despite being literally right next door. During the second half of the nineteenth century European and Siamese-European hybrid architecture flourished in Siam, a nation that maintained great cultural and religious

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authority over French Cambodia and Laos as “the great regional centre of Buddhist spirituality.”11 Eager to present itself as a world power in the face of British and French encroachment, the Siamese government participated in the Paris Exposition of 1867 and Kings Rama IV (Mongkut, r. 1851–68) and Rama V (Chulalongkorn, r. 1868–1910), hired British and Italian architects to build Beaux-Arts neoclassical/Renaissance palace and public buildings in Siam.12 Some buildings, like the neoclassical Bangkok Ministry of Defence (1891) by Gerolamo Emilio Gerini

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7.4 Throne Hall, Royal Palace, Phnom Penh, 1917.

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(1860–1913), looked entirely Western.13 But others, notably the monumental Phra Thinang Chakri Maha Prasat (Throne Hall) at the Grand Palace, built by John Clunish in 1876, combined European-style lower sections with Siamese traditional roof forms and spires (fig. 7.3).14 Clunish’s original French Renaissance design featured a domed roof, but Rama V insisted on a Siamese triple roof with spires to blend in with existing throne halls on the same alignment. In the first three decades of the twentieth century architects increasingly combined Siamese ornamentation with neoclassicism in public architecture such as schools or museums.15 This combination of

7.5 Royal Palace, Luang Prabang, 1904–09; 1922–24.

Angkor Wat, the EFEO, and the Universal Exposition French cultural appropriation in Indochina has a long history, beginning at Angkor Wat, the twelfth-century Hindu-Buddhist temple complex

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indigenous roofs, spires, and other forms with European substructures is a clear prototype for the hybridizations employed by the architects of association in Indochina or their contemporaries in the Dutch East Indies, but it was also a great inspiration for non-European patrons who were seeking styles that could reflect their own traditions in an essentially modern building. Such are the royal palaces of Phnom Penh (1860s–1960s) (fig. 7.4) and Luang Prabang (1904–09; 1922– 24) (fig. 7.5), both directly inspired by the Bangkok Grand Palace, and many of the buildings we will encounter in chapter 9. The Phnom Penh palace is particularly relevant here as it was the

immediate precedent for the design of the Musée Albert-Sarraut, which was mostly built and designed by the same palace architects. Paradoxically therefore, French associationist architecture in Indochina derived in part from an experiment by an Asian rival to indigenize European architecture as part of a program “to assert its sovereignty on a global stage … presenting itself as a modern, civilized nation.”16

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that is also the world’s largest stone religious structure (fig. 7.6). As Michael Falser has recently shown, French archaeologists used Angkor as a pretext to advance colonialism, particularly as it stood on territory that belonged to Siam before its “retrocession” to French Cambodia in 1907.17 The alleged French “discovery” of the site by Henri Mouhot (1826–1861) in 1860 coincided with the first era of conquest in French Cochinchina (1858–62) and the foundation of the Protectorate of Cambodia (1863). A wave of archaeologists soon followed, notably Louis Delaporte (1842–1925) and Lucien Fournereau (1846–1906) in the 1870s and 1880s, who plundered the temples, drove an active Buddhist monastery from the site, stole oxcarts of sculptures for Khmer art collections at Compiègne and later the

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7.6 Angkor Wat, detail of main building. Twelfth century.

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Trocadéro and Musée Guimet, and damaged its buildings through the incessant making of plaster casts, some with caustic cement.18 The site was cleared, structures were “corrected” or rebuilt, and the archaeological park was landscaped according to Beaux-Arts principles of harmony and balance. Beaux-Arts-trained architects executed the first comprehensive drawings of Angkor in 1889 and its axial symmetry and its pars pro toto composition in which a central motif, its main tower, formed the basis of its whole design made it look like an entry for a Prix de Rome competition, a comparison made explicit in a remark by conservator Henri Marchal (1876–1970) of the efeo in 1925.19 In the twentieth century the École Française d’Extrême-Orient took responsibility for all Khmer, Cham, and other Indochinese antiquities, presented them at expositions in France and

7.7 Charles Blanche and Gabriel Blanche, Angkor Wat replica at the Exposition coloniale internationale in Paris. Photograph, ca 1931. Private collection.

promoting the Angkor park as French property and calling for the Siamese retrocession, which “demonstrates the complicity of science and scholarship in the colonial project.”22 As had French archaeologists in previous decades, the efeo represented Angkor as an example of ageless “classicism,” a loaded term meant to equate the site with the Greco-Roman tradition and evoking the classicisme that had characterized French architecture since the time of Louis XIV. This was why archaeologists removed present-day Buddhist structures from the site and retrograded the monument itself – which was first Hindu and then Buddhist – into a neutrally Hindu monument. Hinduism was no longer an active religion in Cambodia, although aspects of Hinduism had been incorporated into contemporary Buddhism, as was also the case in Siam as we have seen in chapter 2. Its scholars also denigrated present-day Cambodian artists and architects. Ingrid Muan remarks: “[s]o strong is the lure of

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Indochina, and operated all Indochinese museums. Founded in Saigon by Governor-General Paul Doumer (first as the “Mission archéologique d’Indo-Chine”) and transferred to Hanoi when it became the capital in 1902, the efeo was itself under the aegis of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, founded in 1663 by Colbert to celebrate the gloire of the monarchy by providing Latin inscriptions for medals and monuments.20 Contrary to popular perception the efeo was not a teaching institution but a scholarly body devoted to research, monument preservation, linguistics, and “public service,” as Doumer wrote, “such that the members are integrated to the governmental system of the colony.”21 Their Bulletin, founded in 1901, was not only a critical scholarly journal but also a mouthpiece for the school’s vision for archaeology in Indochina and its opinions about contemporary Indochinese culture. An important facet of their “public service” was to advance the cause of colonialism, primarily by

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7.8 Henri Vildieu and François Lagisquet, Palais de la Cochinchine from the 1906 Exposition coloniale in Marseille. Coloured postcard, ca 1906. Private collection.

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the famous temples of Angkor […] that art history seemingly cannot admit a more contemporary Cambodian art. […] With their eventual clearing and literal reconstruction, the temples of Angkor became the magnificent example against which the present fell short.”23 This bias toward Angkor and other Khmer and Cham monuments to the detriment of contemporary Indochinese architecture – characterized as decadent and infected by foreign influences – had a huge impact on museum design and arts training within the colony, as we shall see. French archaeologists worked just as zealously on the home front. Through its global replication in carton paté, wood, metal, and glass in universal and colonial expositions in Paris and Marseille between 1878 and 1937 – including a life-sized model of the central section in 1931 (figs. 6.30, 7.7) – Angkor was portrayed as a French possession that had been rescued from an ignorant

and degenerate Cambodian people. Novelist Claude Farrère declared in 1931 that the French were the “legitimate inheritors of this antique Khmer civilisation.”24 But even these models were pastiches: the replicas were arranged differently from the original, omissions and additions were made (most of them incorporated the face towers from the nearby Bayon Temple), the grade of the staircases was lowered, and in the case of the 1931 replica it was given a modernist interior – all glass bricks, smooth lines, and grey tones like an ocean liner dining room. Léon Blum, moderate socialist politician and later prime minister (from 1939), made the most eloquent critique of French exposition- and Angkor-mania in 1931: “we must not forget what reality hides behind this décor of art and joy […] At the exhibition, we reconstitute the marvellous stairway of Angkor […] but in Indochina we shoot, or deport, or imprison.”25 Blum was likely referring to the Yên Bái uprising

of February 1930, the most powerful anti-French rebellion to date: as Cooper remarks, while the exposition was going on “the Indochinese were being submitted to probably the most severe repression the territory had yet seen under French rule.”26 I will return to these expositions throughout these two chapters: their pavilions were important auditions for pastiche Franco-Asian styles in Indochina (or representations of them); the architects of all three of the museums in these chapters built exposition pavilions, from Angkor Wat reproductions to miniature replicas of more contemporary Cambodian, Lao, Cochinchinese, Annamese, and Tonkinese monuments; and in one case a pavilion was even a reproduction in miniature of an Indochinese museum (fig. 7.16). Typical is the Palais de la Cochinchine from the 1906 Exposition Coloniale in Marseille (fig. 7.8), by Henri Vildieu and François-Charles Lagisquet, architects who contributed to the Hanoi opera house (fig. 6.3) and Hôtel des Postes in Saigon (fig. 6.6) respectively, a fantasy juxtaposition of Sino-Vietnamese forms taken from temples and houses that was unconcerned with accuracy.27 The museums in these two chapters have more in common with exposition pavilions than with genuine Indochinese architecture: as Caroline Herbelin notes, “vernacular art did not directly influence the colonizers. Instead, an imagined ‘Asia,’ constructed in France, conditioned the first responses of the colonizers regarding local art and, consequently, local architecture.”28

The doctrine of association began as a political policy designed to stabilize government authority. One of its earliest theorists, former governorgeneral Jean Marie Antoine de Lanessan (1843– 1919), called for a departure from the violent

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Associationism and Métissages

assimilationism of the early period of colonization toward “a ‘directed’ complementarity” between Frenchmen and indigenes, in Pierre Brocheux’s and Daniel Hémery’s words: “to define the terms of a compromise with the political structures of Dai Nam [Vietnam] and mobilize what it preserved of its social legitimacy.”29 Jules Harmond (1845–1921) defined associationism in 1910 as the “scrupulous respect for the manners, customs, and religion of the natives,” and Raymond Betts defines it as “a more flexible policy which would emphasize retention of local institutions and which would make the native an associate in the colonial enterprise.”30 Associationism had been officially endorsed in 1905 by Étienne Clémentel (1864–1936), at the time the minister for colonies, and it was approved in a resolution by the Chamber of Deputies in 1917.31 It was implemented at the turn of the century by Joseph-Simon Gallieni, governor of Madagascar (1896–1905), and Louis-Hubert Lyautey, the first French resident-general in Morocco (1912–25) – both of whom had previously served in Indochina.32 It was related to the concept of “mise en valeur,” not just economic development but also “moral and cultural improvement,” a program that fit colonial France’s self-image as a regime of compassion, munificence, and custodianship.33 Albert Sarraut (1872–1962), French radical politician and governor-general of Indochina in 1911–13 and 1917–19, was the first to call for associationism in Indochinese architecture, referring to the “absolute necessity of ending the painful fantasies through which public edifices … have highlighted a bad taste, a love of the disparate, a lack of understanding about aesthetics that has often characterized administrative constructions.”34 Nevertheless, there was never anything like a government strategy for architecture, much less a series of specific stylistic directives for architects to follow. Only in Cambodia did Resident-Superior François

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7.9 Robert Chisholm, the great tower at Chepauk Palace, Madras, begun 1871.

Baudoin (b. 1867) instruct his residents and chief engineer to work toward a hybrid style (in 1917), although here it was specifically Khmer and not merely a matter of aesthetics but of adapting to Cambodians’ lifestyles and concept of space.35 Associationist architecture was nothing new. The conscious use of indigenous styles to insinuate a colonial power into the hearts and minds of

its subjects began in British India following the “Mutiny” of 1857, when sepoys of the East India Company army revolted across northern and central India under the Mughal flag and sparked a nationalist rebellion that nearly toppled the colonial regime.36 After crushing the rebellion, Britain sought to legitimize its rule by associating the Raj with the Mughal Empire, just as the French had done a century earlier at Pondicherry, but this time through architecture. Although the British seized actual Mughal monuments, notably the Red Fort in Delhi, transformed recklessly into a barracks, they also began in the 1870s consciously to adopt Mughal forms into their architecture, echoing the Mughals’ own tactic of co-opting earlier Indo-Islamic architectural forms after invading India from Central Asia in the sixteenth century. Architect William Emerson (1843–1924) famously remarked in 1873 that “[i]t was impossible for the architecture of the west to be suited to the natives of the east.”37 As in Indochina archaeology played a major role, as British organizations like the Archaeological Survey of India (founded 1861) strove to survey, enumerate, and possess the antiquities of the subcontinent, and archaeologists made similar claims about protecting a classical past from contemporary people who had fallen into ignorance.38 Where French archaeologists cleansed Angkor of its Buddhism, British ones de-emphasized Hinduism, which the British disdained, in favour of Buddhism and, especially, Islam. The pioneer of the style that became known as “Indo-Saracenic,” a pastiche of Mughal and other Indo-Islamic forms, was Robert Fellowes Chisholm (1840–1915), an architect based in Madras.39 Chisholm added Islamic-style domes and arches to railway stations, assembly halls, theatres, and colleges. His first work in the style was an 1871 adaptation into government buildings of the Chepauk Palace (1768), former residence

to appropriate structural forms from indigenous architecture that harmonize with modernist principles. Pont wrote that he wanted to bring “west and east together without suppressing either” and his colleague H.P. Berlage (1856–1934) saw “Indies architecture” (elsewhere called “Indo Europeeschen architectuur stijl”) as “a synthesis of two elements: the modern constructive spirit, born of a rationalistic and intellectual knowledge that is universal and therefore eternal, and the spiritual aesthetic elements that are particularistic and therefore everywhere different.”42 Notice the characterization of modernism as eternal, the same term French architects were using to describe ancient Khmer architecture: for associationist architects the ancient and the modern were a marriage made in heaven. Pont’s greatest work is his 1919–20 Indische Technische Hoogeschool (Indies Technical College) in Bandoeng (Bandung, Java) (fig. 7.10). Pont focused on the style and structure but also the mathematics and physics of Javanese and Sumatran monumental vernacular architecture to find commonalities with Western “rational” architecture. He achieved striking results but was highly selective, and the Indonesian elements were divorced from their socio-cultural context. Like Groslier (see below), he believed that he was saving the Indonesians from themselves, raising their vernacular traditions to the level of scientific rationalism, and as a proponent of the arts and crafts movement he also promoted indigenous artisanry, a major concern for Groslier.43 The Indische Technische Hoogeschool was typical: it employed a multi-level roof shape covered with wooden slates (sirap) that was derived from large family houses of the Minangkabau people of Western Sumatra, and the interior furnishings and ornament employed local crafts traditions.44 The European elements were mostly structural: the building was supported by a (paradoxically)

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of the nawab of the Carnatic, including a striking red-and-white-striped tower with domed corner finials, a huge parapet, and a giant onion dome at the top (fig. 7.9). It won Chisholm further commissions and guaranteed the style a lasting place in Raj architecture, until Edwin Lutyens (who considered all Indian architecture to be “childish”) radically reduced the Indian content in official Raj architecture, combining stripped-down Indic forms with European classical modernism in a way that recalled fascist architecture in Europe, most monumentally at the Viceroy’s House in New Delhi (1912–29), which, like Hébrard’s buildings, placed Asian roof and dome structures on top of an essentially European building.40 No one has ever said it, but Hébrard, who went in for massiveness and restrained art deco aesthetics and who also eschewed decoration, surely knew what Lutyens was up to. As in French Indochina, where associationism was widely criticized, British officials and colonists were far from unanimous in their acceptance of Indo-Saracenic style, most preferring to emphasize their Britishness through gothic and neoclassical styles (see chapter 9). However, if some feared that it was “too Indian” for the British, Indo-Saracenic architecture was hardly authentic – there was more than a whiff of the Brighton Pavilion (1787–1823) about it and Chisholm even incorporated elements of Byzantine architecture into his work. The Netherlands developed its own brand of associationism around the same time as did France. The Dutch had introduced what they called an “ethical policy” at the turn of the twentieth century, again using outward benevolence to mask a strategy for tightening their hold on the colony.41 Its architectural manifestation was called “Indies Architecture,” a syncretic modernism that thrived in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly in the work of Thomas Karsten (1884–1945) and Henri Maclaine Pont (1884–1971), that aimed

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7.10 Henri Maclaine Pont, Indische Technische Hoogeschool, Bandung (Indonesia), 1919–20.

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French framework of posts and roof trusses, and the floors and foundations were of concrete. As an educational institution it demonstrated the other side of the “Ethical Policy”: the school trained indigenous engineers, but the buildings and canals they were taught to execute served the plantations, factories, and government institutions of the colonists, not Indonesian communities. The first Dutch pavilion at the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition (by P.A.J. Moojen and W.J.G Zweedijk), built in a similar style but more of a pastiche from different parts of Indonesia, was one of the most praised at the fair before it burned down in June and had to be replaced by a more modest one based on Balian themes alone.45 Associationism’s strategy of pasting indigenous roofs and motifs onto modernist or neoclassical

substructures also has a precedent in one of the first civic structures in French Indochina, the first to be constructed in permanent materials rather than wood and straw.46 The massive terminal of the Compagnie des messageries impériales (later Messageries maritimes) in Saigon harbour (1862– 63), designed by an architect named Laborde in La Ciotat and executed by engineers Palicot and Maucher, is the earliest example of such a combination in Indochina (fig. 7.11).47 The lower part of the structure is surrounded by an arcade on the ground floor and a colonnade of piers above and recalls the functional neoclassicism of the British colonies, such as the officer’s quarters at Murray Barracks (1844) or Flagstaff House (1846), both in Hong Kong. The lower section was also a building type favoured by wealthy Chinese merchants in Saigon: such was the Maison Wang Tai (1867), a building so large that it later served as the Saigon Customs House.48 The Messageries

building crowns this substructure with a fanciful hip-gable temple roof of red tiles surmounted by two undulating dragons riding on Chinese clouds, earning it the popular epithet “Dragon House” (Nhà rồng).49 However, despite the terminal’s apparent similarities to Hébrard’s designs this was no associationist building: in fact, the “exotic” roof was nothing more than a corporate gimmick of the Compagnie des messageries: the company built indigenous-style roofs to match the styles of many of its overseas terminals to please European lovers of exotica, whether in Louisiana, Senegal, or Brazil. 7.11 Engineer Laborde, former Compagnie des Messageries impériales building, Saigon, 1862–63.

The Musée Khmer in Phnom Penh, George Groslier, and François Khuôn Nguyen Van The earliest associationist museum in fact comprised two consecutive buildings: the Musée Khmer (1907–09) (fig. 7.12) and its larger successor, the Musée Albert-Sarraut (1917–20) (figs. 7.13–15). Stylistically they are the most authentically indigenous of the museums in this book, although the Khmer forms were applied to buildings of a type and layout that were alien to Cambodia. Scholars attribute the hybridity of the Musée Albert-Sarraut – as they did in his day – to the painter and amateur archaeologist George Groslier.50 However I contend that Groslier took full credit for a building to which Khmer

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7.12 François Khuôn Nguyen Van after Henri Parmentier, Project for the Musée Khmer, Phnom Penh, ca 1905. École française d’Extrême-Orient (efeo ), Paris.

architects and craftsmen trained in the Royal Palace at Phnom Penh were the main contributors, but who were sidelined or ignored in accounts of these buildings’ history. Such behaviour is entirely in keeping with Groslier’s paternalistic approach to indigenous artists, as was particularly

manifested in his École des arts cambodgiens, a sister institution to the second museum and located directly behind it, which has been analyzed in pioneering works by Ingrid Muan and Gabrielle Abbe.51 Unfortunately for the historian, written records represent the bias of the colonists and Khmer architects are rarely mentioned by name: nevertheless, it is possible to find out important details about them from archival and published sources.

painter Albert Maignan (1845–1908), associated with the École.56 On 8 October 1908, one month after Maignan’s death, Groslier was conscripted into the First Regiment of Engineers at Versailles as a sapper (Sapeur du Génie).57 In June of 1909 he even participated in a charity salon by soldier artists in the Petites-Écuries of “painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, and engraving” attended by the Under-Secretary of State for War, to which Groslier contributed a sentimental painting of a Breton girl praying before a statue of the Virgin executed in Maignan’s studio a few days before the latter’s death.58 Although Groslier claims already to have been in Cambodia that year, his military records demonstrate that he returned to Indochina (to Saigon) only at the very end of 1910, on 12 December.59 In the meantime he shed the “s” from his first name and adopted the English spelling “George,” although it is still spelled “Georges” in official documents. Groslier spent 1911–12 travelling throughout Annam and Cambodia sketching and painting, including six months at Angkor.60 Groslier worked quickly. In 1912–13 he was already back in Europe, organizing a series of conferences based on his field research and publishing his best-known work, on Cambodian dance, Danseuses cambodgiennes anciennes et modernes (Paris 1913). This book became controversial because of its erroneous claim that the female apsara figures in Angkorian temples were representations of dancers, a fabrication that his own son, archaeologist Bernard-Philippe Groslier (1926–86), constantly had to dispel, much to his own embarrassment.61 George was eager to establish a reputation as a native-born expert on Cambodia but in fact had spent less than four years of his life there by that time, only two of them as an adult. In 1913 he was back in Indochina, placed in charge of “archaeological and artistic study” in Cambodia by the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts

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Groslier was a born self-promoter and fabulist. In fact, his birth – he claimed to be the first Frenchman born in Cambodia – was something he frequently cited as proof that he was a true son of Cambodia, and which the secondary literature has accepted at face value. However, a look through the births in the état civil documents from the Protectorate of Cambodia between 1874 and 1886 reveals that Groslier was in fact the forty-fifth child of a French father registered by the Protectorate. Although most children were of mixed race (the mothers were usually Cambodian or Vietnamese) they were recognized by the state as French citizens, as were the “French from India,” or Pondychériens, including the baby born immediately before Groslier (on 11 January 1887), Michel Singararayan, son of a trader from Pondicherry and specifically identified as a “sujet français.”52 Racial bias likely prevented Groslier from recognizing these children as truly French; however even he could not deny the legitimacy of a French child of French Caucasian parents: PaulHenri Saëton (born 7 October 1886), whose marseillais father, Honoré-Généreux-Marie Saëton, was an agent with the Messageries fluviales de Cochinchine and whose mother was Marie-Anne Néaves.53 Groslier’s claims about his birth are characteristic of a man who would frequently stretch the truth to advance his reputation. Groslier’s father was a civil servant and came to the Protectorate in 1885 with his wife AngélineSidonie Legrand. Groslier spent only the first two years of his life in Cambodia, returning in 1889 with his mother to France, where he would spend the next twenty-one years.54 What happened next is unclear. Scholars unanimously say that he was “Beaux-Arts trained” and even that he won a Second Prix de Rome, an impression he did nothing to dispel.55 However I have been unable to find any trace of him in the Beaux-Arts archives and neither was his teacher, the academic

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and the Société Asiatique, but barely a year later he returned to France (on 3 August 1914) when he was mobilized.62 One month later he was assigned as a flyer to the First Aviation Group, 19th Squadron, trained for two years in Aerodrome Five at Ippécourt (Meuse), and saw active combat in Romania in 1916, becoming a corporal on 16 February 1917.63 On the occasion of his wedding to Suzanne-Cécile Poulade in Paris on 27 May 1916 he identified himself as an “artiste, peintre.”64 By this time his father had retired and was living in Nice and his mother in Marseille. The wedding was witnessed by Maignan’s widow Louise. Groslier settled permanently in Indochina only on 17 September 1917, joining the Fifth Colonial Artillery Regiment with the Cambodian Flying Corps.65 That year, with the blessing of Governor-General Albert Sarraut (1872–1962), he took the helm of the Musée Khmer, established a Service des arts cambodgiens, and founded the institution that was closest to his heart, the École des arts cambodgiens.66 He also contributed to the two colonial expositions in Marseille (1922) and Paris (1931), producing sketches for the main doors in the Cambodian pavilion at the former and making a miniature version of the Musée Albert-Sarraut for the latter (fig. 7.16).67 Groslier is best remembered, as highlighted by Muan and Abbe, for his condescending opinions about Cambodian artists and architects and his agenda – a kind of artistic mission civilisatrice – to rescue and “safeguard” them from “decadence,” using his own journal, Arts et archéologie khmers (founded 1921), as the main forum for his views.68 In his opinion, buildings such as the Royal Palace (fig. 7.4) were contaminated by influences from Europe, Siam, China, or Vietnam, and his goal was to restore true Khmer art by controlling Cambodian artistic production in the École des arts cambodgiens and commodifying it in his museum shop.69 Groslier’s was not the first such school in the French empire: in Algeria the Office

of Indigenous Arts (founded in 1908) included a “Cabinet de dessin” to document indigenous arts, the motifs of which were then copied by Algerian copyists under French supervision as models for workshops that would produce works for sale.70 Lyautey founded a similar bureau in Morocco called the “Office of Indigenous Arts Industries” in 1916, although it gave artists more creative leeway than did Groslier’s school, allowing them to work unsupervised in traditional Islamic guilds, including, in the case of carpet manufacturing, women-only ateliers. By contrast, Groslier’s École was artificial and micromanaged. Muan comments: “at this institution, existing forms of practice were ‘corrected’ and students were trained to mass produce handmade ‘authentic’ Cambodian art objects” for tourists using “many of the methods associated with modern forms of product development and industrial manufacturing,” and that Groslier’s claim that he was preserving traditional Cambodian arts was “largely fictional.”71 Indeed, as a showman with essentially commercial goals Groslier was more like P.T. Barnum than he was a serious archaeologist or teacher (significantly, the efeo never admitted him as a full member), and his writings were “carefully placed publicity pieces whose … aim was to convince colonial authorities and the French public at large of the merits of Groslier’s project.”72 Even his promotion of Khmer arts and the associationist architecture of the museum derive from an attitude best described as cultural apartheid, as he meant them only for indigenes and tourists, not for white colonists, whom he encouraged to eschew ornament and decorative objects altogether in their own houses because they were unsuitable for the climate and even harmful to the health (concerns he did not extend to Cambodians, as Herbelin demonstrates).73 Groslier enjoyed a long career in Cambodia, was lauded by Hébrard, and to this day he is credited with “restor[ing] an original

exposition, personally executing plans and drawings of Cham and Angkor buildings to adorn the building’s walls and vitrines (fig. 7.8).80 As Muan points out, the so-called “Palais du Cambodge” at the exposition, to which Vildieu and Lagisquet also contributed, made no claims to authenticity but was “ironically a melange of foreign elements just as ‘hybrid’ and ‘decadent’ as the contemporary ‘failures’ being condemned in Cambodia.”81 It was certainly a far cry from the more authentic Khmer palace style used in the Musée Khmer. Back in Indochina, Parmentier spent 1906 restoring the Po Nagar Temple in faraway Nha Trang. Illness compelled him to return to France again between 1907 and 1908, the first years of the museum’s construction. No preliminary sketch of the sort I believe Parmentier would have made has survived. Instead, there is a formal presentation drawing in the efeo ’s archives in Paris depicting a plan, front and side elevations, and a sectional view which is the exact likeness of the building executed, minus some decorative details (fig. 7.12).82 I attribute this drawing to Khuôn, who would have been eminently qualified to make such a work: the one time the efeo mentions him (spelling his name “Khoun”) they note that he had studied at the prestigious École centrale des arts et manufactures (founded 1820), one of the Grandes Écoles of Paris, from which we can already surmise that he was a skilled draughtsman and engineer.83 I have been able to piece together a fuller picture of the life of the architect in the archives, contemporary newspapers and government documents, and from a PhD dissertation by Marie Aberdam on Cambodian elites in the colonial era (2019).84 Khuôn (also spelled Khoun, Khuan, and Khun) Nguyen Van was the younger brother of Alexis-Louis Chhun (b. 1853), an influential figure in the Protectorate government and Royal Palace alike between the 1880s and early 1900s.85 They were Vietnamese-Cambodian Christians

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Cambodian artistic patrimony that was in danger of disappearing completely.”74 But his luck ran out with the Japanese occupation of Cambodia and he died under torture during an interrogation by the Japanese police in Phnom Penh in 1945.75 The 1908–09 Musée Khmer, the miniature prototype for the Musée Albert-Sarraut, was designed in 1905 by François Khuôn Nguyen Van on preliminary drawings by efeo head Parmentier and constructed on a plot north of the city on the campus of the Phnom Penh Lycée (fig. 7.12).76 The building was the first purpose-built home for the royal collection of Khmer sculpture, which had earlier been stored in the palace and a building in the Silver Pagoda, and it was part of an Indochina-wide initiative to create regional museums.77 It was also designed to be a critical base for efeo activities in Angkor Wat, which was still in Siamese territory until 1907, under the auspices of the archaeological section of Khmer antiquities and the Résident supérieur.78 I maintain that although the preliminary project was by Parmentier, it was likely perfunctory, concerned more with the arrangement of the galleries and the floor plan than with aesthetics, which he left to Khuôn. Parmentier was a BeauxArts–trained architect, but his business in Indochina was archaeology, making lists, drawings, plans, and elevations of ancient buildings in Cambodia and Vietnam.79 His only other museum, the Musée Cham in Tourane, is essentially European, a stripped-down neoclassical structure with some token Sino-Vietnamese details. Parmentier was also very busy: in 1904 he assumed the directorship of the efeo ; the same year he made an extended journey to Java to study antiquities with his Dutch counterparts; immediately upon his appointment as head conservator of the Musée Khmer in 1905 he spent a year in France to receive his diploma and get married; and while in France he also directed the efeo wing in the Palais de l’Indo-Chine at the 1906 Marseille colonial

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from Oudong (north of Phnom Penh), born to Paul Yang and Catherina Ep, who lived in Phnom Penh’s deuxième quartier, the neighbourhood for foreign Asians.86 Yang was the construction manager at the Royal Palace and built the first residence of Admiral Doudart de Lagrée (1823–68) in Phnom Penh, around 1864. Chhun was chief interpreter of the Résident-Supérieure, “Intendant de la liste civile,” member of the municipal council of Phnom Penh, and Akharac Chenda (Secretary of the Royal Treasury). The French press described him as “a person from Phnom Penh who exercises serious influence over the indigenous population of Cambodia.”87 He also was known for being pro-French – as a young man he was Doudart de Lagrée’s interpreter during his 1866–68 voyage with the French Mekong Expedition – and in 1900 he was awarded a medal of honour for a lifetime of service to the Protectorate.88 In 1897 Chhun served on the executive sub-committee of the Cambodian section of the Paris 1900 Exposition, charged with putting into place the decisions of the organizational committee.89 Most of what can be gleaned about Khuôn comes from references to Chhun. Khuôn first appears in Lagrée’s letter from 8 July 1865, which refers to a small child named “A-Kuong,” who was Chhun’s brother.90 Given that he was young enough to run around naked, we can assume that Khuôn was born around 1860. The most detailed mention is a request Chhun made in December 1885 to the governor of Cochinchina to reimburse him for half of the 2,400 francs he had to pay for his brother’s education at the École centrale (the Cambodian Protectorate had paid the other half ).91 Although Chhun was unsuccessful (the Cochinchinese government thought it would make a bad precedent to support non-Cochinchinese subjects), the reference is important as it gives us more precise details and dates concerning Khuôn’s education in France. It notes that Khuôn

studied first at the Collège (Lycée) of Marseille, this time on a scholarship paid by the Cochinchinese government. The Lycée de Marseille (now Thiers) had a five-year program, and the school was proud about the cosmopolitanism of its student body, with students from around the world and several French colonies by the 1890s.92 Khuôn then studied at the École centrale in Paris for three years, graduating in 1886 according to the school archives.93 Khuôn was therefore in France between 1878 and 1886, beginning when he was in his late teens. Interestingly, his Paris residence was at 2 rue Bailly, in the heart of the city’s oldest Asian neighbourhood, still renowned for its Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants.94 Khuôn reappears in February 1893, when travel writer Alfred Coussot (1869–1914), himself an alumnus of the École centrale, was surprised to discover that the brother of his Cambodian host in Phnom Penh (Chhun, although he was not named) was “a former student of the École centrale des arts et manufactures” and moreover that he owned a mechanical sawmill (a profitable machine that would also have been useful for a builder).95 Chhun valued French education highly: his young son impressed a reporter in 1905 with the eloquence of his French and the journalist noted that his older brother had gone to the colonial school (presumably the Lycée where the Musée Khmer was about to be built) and that this child would follow suit.96 When Khuôn returned to Cambodia he took up his father’s profession and in 1897 was reported to have carried out the earthworks at the rue de la Douane.97 In 1900 Khuôn returned to Paris as part of the retinue of two Cambodian princes, including the heir apparent Prince Norodom Yukanthor (1860– 1934), to attend the 1900 Exposition universelle.98 More significantly, Khuôn belonged to the “Service d’Architecture” in the Indochinese section of that same exposition, presumably because his

brother was on the executive committee.99 The Indochinese section, supervised by Scellier de Gisors (teacher of Hébrard and Auguste Delaval) and built by architects Alexandre-Auguste-Louis Marcel (1860–1928), du Houx de Brossard, and Decron, included five replicas of buildings in the colony and protectorates. These pavilions included Marcel’s 47-metre-high reconstruction of Wat Phnom (early 1880s, commissioned by King Sisowath), the great pagoda of Cholon, the Cổ Loa Citadel north of Hanoi, a house of a rich Vietnamese person, as well as the “Théâtre Cambodgien,” which combined Cambodian building styles more generically.100 Khuôn was therefore intimately familiar with exposition pavilions, perhaps explaining in part the pavilion-like appearance of his museum building. Sisowath chose the location of the Musée Khmer and directly funded it, demonstrating its importance to the monarch and making it likely that Khuôn was taking orders directly from the palace. In fact, the king introduced decorative details that had not been part of the original project, as the efeo noted in 1907:

Khuôn would have had a small army of elite artisans and technicians at his disposal in the palace arts ateliers, who had been responsible for the construction and decoration of palace buildings

Oknha Tep Nimit Mak and the Royal Atelier in Phnom Penh In 1907 the palace ateliers were reformed and placed under royal patronage as the “Manufacture Royale,” based on the model of the Sèvres Manufactory, which the king had visited in Paris in 1906, with two sections: one for jewellery and works of art and the other for costume, embroidery, and textiles.102 In 1912 Sisowath created the École royale des arts décoratifs cambodgiens to execute works of art for sale outside the palace, changing the name of the Manufacture Royale to the “Magasin central,” although neither was a school. Like palace architects, they learned their rudiments traditionally in temple schools and the palace workshops. Architects made plans and line drawings of the houses they proposed to build, but not formal presentation drawings, nor did they relate them to a scale.103 However, palace artists also worked with Siamese and European artists and architects whom the kings had introduced to create a hybrid Khmer/SiameseEuropean style inspired by the Grand Palace in Bangkok (eighteenth to twentieth centuries) (figs. 7.3–4), which Sisowath knew personally, having spent several years there.104 Among the palace artists were Méas, the “head of the painters” who had worked as a painter in the Royal Palace for thirty-eight years and studied European style under a British artist named Mr Holland in the first years of the twentieth century; Bibhakti Cakravit, executing architect of the Silver Pagoda (1903–04); Oknha Reachna Prasor Mao (b. 1871), assistant palace architect since 1914; and especially Oknha Tep Nimit Mak,

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His Majesty Sisovat [sic] has agreed to have erected at his expense, on the ground where the Phnom Penh school complex is built, a special pavilion intended to receive this small Museum. The project was built by Mr. Khoun [sic], Cambodian, former student of the École Central, in the Khmer style, on a preliminary drawing executed earlier by Mr. Parmentier: because of the liberality of the king, the decor will be richer than we first expected. It is hoped that the construction of the Museum will be completed in 1909.101

since they were begun under King Norodom in 1866–70 and who would provide most of the work on King Sisowath’s major reconstruction and expansion of the complex between 1910 and 1927.

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principal palace architect since 1897, who had worked there since 1875 and whom Groslier later hired as the “Cambodian director” of his school of the arts and disparagingly called an “old and faithful native collaborator.”105 Oknha is a title denoting that Mak was in the second rank of court mandarins and Tep Nimit is an honorific bestowed by Sisowath upon three successive Oknha who were both painters and decorators: Mak, Has, and Khiev.106 Mak was born in Phnom Penh to a mandarin father and his grandfather was a sculptor.107 He studied drawing with architect-monk Yuos at the city’s Vat Botum Vadei between 1868 and 1874 and went on to build large royal pagodas of Chruy Tà Keo, Phnom Dél, Phnom Kruong (Longvek), and Samrèt Thichei. He was also an accomplished sculptor and painter. His best-known work, executed with Oknha Mao and some forty apprentices between 1903 and 1904, was the series of murals in the Golden Pagoda depicting scenes from the Reamker (the Khmer version of the Ramayana).108 But he also executed murals in Vat Sisowath Ratanaram, on the left bank of the Bassak River, the sanctuary of the Vat Preah Kèo Morokot in Phnom Penh, and the pagoda and monastery of the village of Vat Phnom Del, to the south of the province of Kampong Cham, north of Tonlé Sap Lake (all destroyed).109 Madeleine Giteau calls Mak “the greatest Khmer painter of the beginning of the twentieth century.”110 Mak would soon oversee the construction of the Musée Albert-Sarraut, the building for which Groslier would take full credit (figs. 7.13–15). In 1912 the colonial government honoured Mak, a “mandarin from the palace of Cambodia,” with the title of “Officier d’académie,” a title given primarily to European colonial functionaries.111 He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour on 17 October 1915 as “architecte de sa majesté le roi du Cambodge” and was awarded the Gold Medal of the

Minister of Colonies along with several Cambodian honours, colonial and royal.112 Mao was born at Vihear Tuontin in Kandal Province, the son of a farmer, but like Mak his grandfather was an artisan, this time an architect-carpenter.113 Mao also trained in a monastery for thirteen years between 1877 and 1890 and went on to apprentice with five different masters, among them architects, sculptors, and designers. Once he finished his training he worked closely with Mak on various projects, both in the palace and at Groslier’s school, although the two had a falling-out – Mak was famously dictatorial in his direction of the school – and Mao was transferred shortly after 1918.114 It is very likely that Mao also contributed to the Musée Louis Finot. European sources make it difficult to determine how much of the Royal Palace was built and decorated by the palace ateliers, since they only mention the European contributors by name and give them inflated titles (fig. 7.4). A commemorative postcard of 1915 for instance names Pierre-Jean-Corneille Vila (b. 1879) as the “architect” and it calls the Saigon-Based Cochinchinese Concrete Society (Société Cochinchinoise de Béton Armé, run by Démétrius Papa and André Richaud), along with Victor Lamorte, as contractors.115 Lamorte was not even an architect: he was the decorative painter and opera set designer whom Eugène Carpezat had sent to Saigon in 1899 to install his designs in the Théâtre municipal (see chapter 6), and Eugène Cazenave (1872– 1935) and François Xavier Tessarech (b. 1866), described as “engineer” and “engineer in chief,” were mere Protectorate government functionaries, the former a naval officer and the latter serving in 1914 as interim Resident Superior. Elsewhere, the “Salle des Fêtes” (Phochani Pavilion, 1912) and the “Salle des Danses” (Chanchhaya Pavilion, 1913–14) were credited to Papa and Richaud

Nguyễn Cao Luyện (1907–1987), did so as late as 1935.120 Résident-Supérieur of Cambodia Ernest Outrey (1863–1941) praised Lamorte by name in his inauguration speech at the opening of the Salle des Fêtes but referred to Mak simply as: “the Cambodian architect of your Palace who has been the drafter and executor of all the sculpted motifs which ornament so elegantly the exterior facades of this pleasing building.”121 Groslier is particularly guilty of such hyperbole, as when he made the blatantly false declaration that: “Not a single sculptor, not a single carpenter, in short not a single Cambodian artisan” had contributed to the construction of the Palace buildings but that “all had been confided to European architects and entrepreneurs.”122 This statement was probably made to signal the superiority of his museum and school, where the architects and designers worked in what he considered to be a “pure” Khmer style.123 That such a motley crew, including two concrete engineers, two government officers, an opera set designer, and a Beaux-Arts architect and former co-inspector at the Tunis Casino, could have produced a predominantly Siamese-Cambodian style Royal Palace in such short order is absurd. A 1954 treatise on architecture by Mak’s pupil court architect Ien˙ Sioen˙, translated by Giteau in 1971, is unequivocal about Mak’s dominant role: “It was Mr. Deb Nimitt Mak who built the Bhojanī [Phocani] Hall and the Cand Chāyā Hall and the Dīnām.n˙ Devavinicchay [Throne Hall] in the magnificent Royal Palace Catumukh in the city of Bhnam. Beñ [Phnom Penh].”124 The picture that emerges is that Sisowath went to the Europeans for the concrete technology (as the older buildings had deteriorated because of their wood construction) and for some high-profile European-style interior sections to keep up with the Siamese, but that what he really wanted was a Khmer-style palace complex built in materials

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but the “Cambodian workers” or “workers of Cambodian art from the Royal Palace” were never identified by name.116 European sources claim that Cambodians simply executed projects planned by Europeans, as at the Salle des Fêtes, where they allegedly worked after maquettes provided by the contractors, and that even Mak merely produced details in projects directed by Westerners. In some cases Cambodians were completely sidelined: Sisowath’s new throne hall, also built by Papa and Richaud, included murals by French artist François de Marliave (1874–1953), and the large-scale canvas ceiling paintings of Cambodian dancers and scenes from the Reamker in the Moonlight Pavilion were executed by Franco-Spanish painter Augustin Carrera (1878– 1952) in 1913 in Paris and only retouched on site.117 As Muan puts it, “the palace ‘masters’ were systematically excluded from public commissions and Palace projects.”118 However, I think it is more complicated than that: it is not that they were excluded from commissions but that they were excluded from reports about the commissions, written by and for Europeans and biased against indigenous artisans whom they (like Groslier) saw as inferior and decadent. Such attitudes were prevalent throughout Indochina: in a 1929 article in L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine, Henri Coucherousset went so far as to claim that Vietnamese builders had the wrong physique to use superior European tools and because of a poor work ethic they needed to work under the constant supervision of French foremen.119 Throughout the colonial period, Vietnamese architects in the Service des Bâtiments civils were subordinated to European overseers and could only practise as architects if they went private, as happened in the mid1930s. In fact, the first Vietnamese architects to win an international concours (for a church at Haiphong), Hoàng Như Tiếp (1910–1982) and

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that would last longer. He left the design and execution of traditional forms to professionals who had trained for generations in that style: his own palace staff. François Khuôn’s Musée Khmer, a modest and delicately proportioned gazebo-like structure in the traditional Khmer-Siamese style, was more traditional, as it was a wood-frame building (fig. 7.12). Measuring 23 by 27 metres, it featured an elaborate three-tiered roof with a spire, triangular pediments on all four sides richly carved with kranok leaves with bevelled and incised edges (the decoration does not appear in the elevations) and prominent finials at the gable ends of each roof and smaller ones at the lower corners of the pediments. This structure rested on another pair of superimposed roofs, each with smaller finials at the four corners and four decorative eave brackets below. The entire roof system was supported by a peristyle colonnade on square plinths connected by a low dado except at the four entrances, one in the middle of each side. The plain, seven-step staircases were flanked by pairs of seated lion sculptures. There were also two parallel colonnades running down the middle of the building as in a Buddha hall (e.g., at the Wat Phnom) flanked by a pair of narrow, rectangular chambers, positioned between the outer peristyle and the closest of the inner colonnades. These cella-like rooms were accessed by doors on each side and had windows at the ends, all crowned with Siamese-style ban talaeng pediments. The entire structure sits on a Khmer-style redented base, with curved mouldings representing lotus buds.125 The stylistic trademarks of this little pavilion will reappear in the Musée Albert-Sarraut, particularly its superimposed roofs, spire, and finials. It is worth reminding ourselves that when this building was designed Groslier was still an art student painting canvases of Breton peasant girls in Maignan’s studio in Paris and had yet to spend a single adult year of his life in Cambodia.

Phnom Penh, Musée Albert-Sarraut Groslier, Mak, and likely Mao entered the scene in 1917 with the Musée Khmer’s next incarnation, the monumental Musée Albert-Sarraut, built just north of the Palace grounds on a square used for royal cremations and religious festivals (figs. 7.13–15). It is a hybrid, but the divisions between East and West are clearly demarcated: the ground plan, front colonnade, and ventilation system derive from European models but the rest of it, like Khuôn’s earlier version, was inspired by Khmer palace architecture. Sisowath was closely involved with the development of this museum and art school as he had been with the Musée Khmer. Oknha Veang Thiounn (1864–1946), his minister of the palace, finances, and fine arts between 1902 and 1941, who had accompanied the king to France in 1906 and was a key mediator between the crown and the Protectorate, was in Abbe’s opinion “without a doubt one of those who facilitated Groslier’s enterprise.”126 Thiounn considered the Museum–school complex to be in line with royal initiatives and emphasized the importance of French patronage. Furthermore, the artists and architects of the palace ateliers “formed the core personnel” of Groslier’s school: at least five of the original six ateliers at the school were run by palace artists.127 In 1917 Groslier wrote to the Gouvernement général that the Musée Khmer was a mere “dépôtmusée,” that it was overcrowded, and that it was in a dilapidated state.128 It first held the Khmer sculptures returned from Saigon in 1905 (see chapter 8), and Sisowath donated a substantial collection of his own jewellery; there were also gifts of plundered sculptures from the various provincial residents. Groslier was also unhappy that it was on a schoolground and hard to get to. François-Marius Baudoin (b. 1867), résident supérieur of Cambodia, responded with enthusiasm, writing to all his résidents: “You know the

7.13 Oknha Tep Nimit Mak and George Groslier, Musée Albert-Sarraut, Phnom Penh, 1917–20. Main (west) facade.

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importance I attach to the conservation and the renovation of Khmer art, which I consider [as] being the only means of preserving for Cambodia a personality of its own.”129 For Groslier this project would not just protect Khmer patrimony – more precisely, “French” patrimony in Cambodia – but rescue living Khmer art traditions from the pastiche-like decadence of the palace school: “In Groslier’s system the museum guaranteed the authenticity on which the

teachers, who were responsible for the education of the new artisans, must rely.”130 The building was meant above all to respond to the canons of “traditional” Khmer architecture, and his project faced stiff criticism from Cazenave, the chief engineer of the Travaux publics de Cochinchine, who did not want Groslier to rely upon Cambodian builders. In a letter dated 19 September 1917 he wrote: “these men, not very numerous and lacking authority over the Chinese and Annamese workers, have the worst way of working with wood and carpentry. The conservative taste of the local colour will lead to

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difficulties in execution.”131 This letter reveals that the government intended to employ Chinese and Vietnamese workers to do the job (as the French did in both Cambodia and Laos: see chapter 9). Groslier responded on the same day: “Yes! I insist with all my strength because I am ashamed of what has been done so far, too often, by the 7.14 (oppoSiTe ) Oknha Tep Nimit Mak and George Groslier, Musée Albert-Sarraut, Phnom Penh, 1917–20. Detail of steeple. 7.15 (BeLow ) Oknha Tep Nimit Mak and George Groslier, Musée Albert-Sarraut, Phnom Penh, 1917–20. Courtyard.

French, people of taste who ridicule foreign travellers, because you need consistency, logic in art, especially in architecture,” comparing the pastiche style as resembling the architecture of the Huns or a music hall. He also insisted that only Cambodian workers would do the job. Although Groslier must have made some sort of plans himself it is significant that none have turned up either in the archives in Cambodia or at the efeo in Paris, and they may well have amounted to a basic avant-projet like Parmentier’s that was concerned primarily with the plan and arrangement of the galleries, leaving the superstructure to Mak and his crew.132

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After all, Groslier the “artiste, peintre” was not trained as an architect or engineer. Even some official correspondence suggests that Groslier’s role was primarily to supervise the translation of the objects from the new museum and to provide the best conditions for their display, as in improving the lighting conditions and ensuring that the pieces were exhibited in spacious galleries.133 At times Groslier made comments that suggested he was oblivious to the style of the building’s Khmer component. He claimed that “his” design was a “slightly modified” version of the Temple of Preah Vihear (eleventh to twelfth centuries) and Angkor Wat (fig. 7.6) – both made of stone but also quite unlike the museum, which is in the Khmer-Siamese style of the palace and Musée Khmer with a few details from Angkor such as the baluster columns used in the rectangular openings above several of the doorways (fig. 7.13).134 Yet, conversely, in his description of the building for the 1931 Exposition coloniale, Groslier writes that the building exhibits the “main characteristics of contemporary Cambodian architecture in which the proportions have been scrupulously respected.”135 The building is remarkably inventive, one of the most successful hybridities of Asian and European forms in Indochina. It consists of an interconnecting series of palace or pagoda-like pavilions arranged like railway cars around a rectangular cloister. These linked segments present a rich interplay of superimposed rooflines, complex multilobed spires (in the east wing), richly carved lotus pediments, and spiny gable-end naga finials. Their complexity is balanced by the almost monochromatic oxblood colour scheme in the walls and roof tiles, offset only by dark brown carving in the interior pediments and those of a pavilion in the middle of the courtyard (fig. 7.15). On the entrance facade and in the courtyard high piers support the massive superstructure with its overhanging eaves to form

open galleries, and the gallery walls are pierced with high rectangular doorways with transoms containing the Angkor-style baluster columns to encourage free air circulation. Similarities with the Royal Palace abound (fig. 7.4). The individual cruciform sections over the three entrances of the main (east) gallery, with triple roofs, spires, and finials – and the way that the higher central prang spire is flanked by lower subsidiary ones – recall the arrangement of the throne hall. Both buildings also use colonnades to support the roof (in the palace they are columns, in the museum, piers). The main facade of the museum faces east as do all the pavilions in the palace and Silver Pagoda. However, whereas the throne hall and silver pagoda are oriented east to west with the entrance at the narrow end of the rectangular hall, the museum’s east gallery is oriented north to south, with the entrance in the middle, so that the roof behind the main pediment, which is long and prominent in the throne hall, is truncated, like a closed telescope (compare figs. 7.4, 7.13). Instead of having the colonnade surround the hall, as in the throne hall and Silver Pagoda, the piers of the museum’s east gallery are arranged along the exterior and interior flanks only, forming a series of terraces: these latter advance forward three times toward the centre to form an avant-corps to emphasize the entrance. The pediments of the throne room and museum are very similar: they have a lotus profile formed by elongated naga serpents ridged with spines, and both have richly carved pediment decoration with rinceaux, other foliate designs, and naga forms. Similar pediment designs, executed by Mak and Mao, appear among a series of templates published by Groslier in 1923.136 In the museum an enthroned Vishnu-like allegorical figure at the centre of the entrance pediment holds the tools of the sculptor’s and architect’s

pediments, and its placement in the courtyard has more to do with the European tradition of garden pergolas.137 Particularly foreign to Khmer tradition are the high triple doors that lead into the galleries from the courtyard. The museum was also larger than most temple or palace pavilions, originally occupying 550 square metres with 60-metre-long north and south galleries with a width ranging from 7 to 8 metres and designed to be expanded.138 When it was expanded, in 1924, a new wing was added to each end of the east facade giving it a total length today of 97 metres. Finally, its placement at the centre of a city block facing a spacious square that once offered a direct view of the river recalls the location of a government building or church in a French provincial or colonial town: as Helen Grant Ross and Darryl Collins note, “the way it was set into the urban plan reflects the grand perspective element of French town planning that evolved from the 17th century onwards.”139 Inaugurated in February 1920 the museum combined antiquity with contemporary traditional arts and included spaces related to the adjacent school. After the 1924 enlargement the east gallery contained the royal treasury and silks in the centre, ancient Hindu and Buddhist bronzes in the south end, as well as ceramics and a library of scholarly books and photography. In the north end were the contemporary bronzes, weapons, coins, paintings, the royal litter, and other objects, as well as the conservation and arts department offices and a bookshop and crafts shop where objects made in the school were sold.140 The south wing housed the sculpture gallery with each sculpture on a plinth and lit by indirect light. The west gallery accommodated a records office and casting workshop, and the north wing had a gallery of contemporary arts and ethnography. Since this museum did not contain Sino-Vietnamese antiquities it was not divided, as were those of

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trade in his hands, and there is a traditional rahu face below it, as in Siamese, Lao, and Cambodian temples (figs. 3.21, 7.13). The museum also reproduced elements of Khuôn’s pavilion (fig. 7.12): the triple-roof and spire superstructures over the lateral entrances on the east facade are almost identical, as are the naga finials, and both structures have a similar decorative band separating the upper roofs from the lower one. Both buildings rest on a lotus plinth and are accessed by simple staircases flanked by pairs of Singha lions in the style of the Bayon era, although the low dado of Khuôn’s pavilion has been replaced in the larger building by a European-style balustrade. Whereas the component structures and decorative motifs are authentically Khmer the overall layout of the building is fundamentally alien to indigenous tradition. In Khmer, Lao, and Thai temples and palaces pavilions are in the courtyards, which are usually formed by modest boundary walls or sometimes low cloisters (as at the Silver Pagoda), while in the museum the conjoined pavilions themselves form the courtyard. Temple and palace courtyards are traditionally entered via small, ornate gates, but in the museum the courtyard is accessed by means of high pedimented entrances, which would only appear on the main facades of temple or palace halls. The museum piers support the roof directly with Doric style-capitals rather than Siamese/Khmer eave brackets so that the facade recalls a GrecoRoman temple front and colonnade. It is possible that Groslier intended to recall the east colonnade of the Louvre, which would have been an appropriate reference for a French-run museum, although, if so, the reference is subtle (fig. 1.4). The pavilion in the centre of the courtyard containing an antique statue of a seated Buddha is also deceptive (fig. 7.15). Although meant to look like a shrine, it more closely resembles a drum or bell tower with its miniature spire roof and four

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Saigon and Hanoi, between the Indian and Chinese cultural “families” (see chapter 8). As we can already see with the inclusion of a crafts shop, casting workshop, and library, the museum cannot be considered separately from the École des arts cambodgiens, housed in a modest building painted in the same oxblood tones just west of the museum and forming part of what was essentially an arts campus for visitors, researchers, and art students in which, as Muan and Abbe have demonstrated, the boundaries between ancient art, art making, and art selling were blurred.141 As Groslier wrote in 1917, “to ensure the autonomy of the organization and for a maximum economy in expenses, everything will have to be centralized: workshops, school, museum, shops, directions and offices as well as accommodations for the director.”142 In fact the idea of the school predated the new building. Organized at the instigation of Governor-General Sarraut in 1916 and opened three years later, the school, also known as the Direction des arts cambodgiens, quickly became a model institution and one that was widely celebrated for preserving traditional arts and saving them from the corruption of foreign influences. Its various intertwining roles included:

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The implementation and propagation of Native Arts. The protection and control [my italics] of Cambodian artists and art workers. The study and conservation of local objects and works of art relating to the processes, traditions, and evolution of the country’s arts and to promote their dissemination through photography, casting, copying, publication and, if necessary, through local exhibitions or by participating in exhibitions in and outside the Colony. The Cambodian Arts Department ensures the conservation of the Cambodia Museum

under the scientific control of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient.143 Together with Resident-Superior Baudoin, Groslier instructed résidents supérieurs in Cambodia to draw up a census of artisans in July 1917 as a way of creating what Penny Edwards calls a “new artisanate,” from which he could draw members to staff his new school (130 were found, many of them retired).144 Groslier made much of the fact that the school was not run by foreign teachers but by Cambodians under Mak (retired 1923); however as Muan and Abbe have shown, the reality was much different: Muan aptly calls the school’s programming “cultural engineering.”145 The artists were constantly supervised by Groslier and they submitted to a strict curriculum of his devising, which Groslier justified by saying that they were corrupted by their training in the palace and needed “scholars” like him to correct them.146 Groslier also believed that they were incapable of innovation and could only be trained to imitate, which on one hand allowed them to execute excellent copies of antiquities but on the other made them susceptible to deleterious influences.147 They were even prevented from working directly with patrons, who had to buy works from the museum shop – much like an early Renaissance atelier in Italy. As Abbe points out, the students and teachers also provided a cheap workforce to build and decorate the museum and other efeo projects, restore objects, and make casts and stamps, and could even be hired out to work for the Protectorate, the king, or religious foundations. Students entered the school at the age of fourteen or fifteen and were required to be literate in Khmer, although Groslier preferred it if they had studied first at a monastery and it was advantageous if they spoke some French.148 The aim was to have thirty boarders at any one time representing all regions of Cambodia; by 1922 the

school had 150 students in total.149 The school included ateliers devoted to drawing (compulsory for all students except single women, who worked the looms), architecture, metalwork and sculpture, and weaving, all focused on the study of traditional Khmer forms and subjects taken from models, drawings, or directly from objects in the museum. Although the focus on drawing comes directly from the European art academy, life drawing was conspicuously absent. For example, the architectural section taught: Study of Khmer architecture; Traditional elements of architecture; Compositions (ensembles); Construction materials; Indigenous architectural decoration; Cambodian civil and religious buildings; Execution of copied sectional views, plans and elevations, and at a given scale. Survey plans of ancient and contemporary Khmer buildings. Architectural composition.150

Groslier was more successful within the colonial system than was Hébrard, whom we will consider in the following chapter. Groslier’s brand of associationism, which focused on preserving antiquity in aspic – although as we have seen, it included unacknowledged Siamese and other more contemporary influences – and which only employed the style in buildings for Cambodians or dedicated to conserving historical Cambodian objects, appealed to the kind of conservatives who opposed Hébrard’s attempts to integrate Asian elements into French colonial governmental buildings. Groslier’s architectural apartheid designated Cambodian architecture for the Cambodians and French modernism for the French, a tactic that echoed colonial policies that prevented Cambodians from being assimilated

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The instructors and students were specifically warned that “the techniques will only be executed as long as they do not change the appearance of Cambodian art. These studies will always be approved by the Director and no model will be used without the Director’s opinion.”151 George Groslier’s greatest act of showmanship on behalf of the museum and the school was his contribution to the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris, the same exposition that had the largest copy of Angkor Wat ever constructed in Europe (fig. 7.7). Groslier’s pavilion (fig. 7.16) was a miniature replica of the museum as a representation of, in the words of the Administrator of Civil Services, “the best specimen of a modern and strictly Cambodian architecture.”152 It seems ironic that a school and building that insisted on the utmost historical accuracy should be presented as something avant-garde. An elevation by Charles

Blanche of the main facade survives after “original plans drafted by Groslier, Directeur des arts cambodgiens,” which shows the building’s signature trio of spires and pediments, although, curiously, without the European elements: the Doric piers are gone (they are only at the back of the pavilion) and in their place are traditional columns with eave brackets and Siamese-style ban talaeng pediments over the three doors and four windows. Groslier once again took the credit, but Mao and his assistants were in fact responsible for the plans of the pavilions under Groslier’s supervision.153 In photographs the structure is top-heavy and overcrowded, the pediments and rooftops too close together and lacking the airiness of the original. To add to the circus-like atmosphere, Groslier introduced tableaux vivants of life-sized costumed puppets inside, in one set Buddhist monks at prayer and in another peasants in a house on stilts, and he offered products of his school for sale.154 Groslier, who had contributed to the 1922 and 1925 expositions as well, including a “rue Annamite” in Marseille, was in his element.155

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7.16 George Groslier and Charles Blanche, Elevation of the main facade of the Cambodian Pavilion, Exposition Coloniale Internationale, Paris, 1931. ANom .

equitably into the colonial government. As Herbelin remarks: “By supporting Groslier and his architecture, the politicians seemingly chose, at least symbolically, to promote the protection of native culture over the integration of local elites into the political system: paternalism over a more

open system.”156 Groslier was able so blatantly to claim authorship for monuments and styles that were created by Cambodians because he could rely on a sympathetic colonial government and an archaeological community – not to mention the phenomenon of the international exposition for which Asians were an exotic, eternal “other” – to back him up, sidelining his indigenous collaborators and relegating them to obscurity.

8 association Saigon and Hanoi ca 1925

Ernest Hébrard (1875–1933) Most scholars have credited Ernest Hébrard, a Beaux-Arts-trained urbanist and architect responsible for several buildings in Hanoi, Saigon, and Phnom Penh in the 1920s, with the introduction of associationist architecture, his so-called “style indochinois,” which Michael Falser aptly calls a “regionalist neo-style.”1 However, as we have seen in the last chapter, when Hébrard came onto the scene Franco-Indochinese architectural hybridities such as the Compagnie des messageries building, not to mention the two museums in Phnom Penh, had existed in Indochina for the better part of sixty years, and similar British and Dutch experiments were built in their colonies, in Britain’s case as early as the 1870s. Additionally, Caroline Herbelin reveals that French architects designed fantasy Sino-Tonkinese pastiche buildings for the 1887 Exposition de Hanoi that, although never executed, received a wide audience through publication, and that several private villas of government functionaries also incorporated indigenous elements – notably roof types – into their architecture in the first decade of the twentieth century.2 The reason Hébrard has received the most attention, despite his spending only five years in the colony and being stymied by conservative colonists during his stay, is that he was the highest-profile architect – the only Prix de Rome laureate – to work in Indochina. For three years he also held the

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highest architectural office as chief of the Service central des bâtiments civils (founded in 1923 and not to be confused with the Service des bâtiments civils), a centralized architectural body responsible for all town planning and building projects entrusted to it by the general government or local administrations. Like Groslier, Hébrard was also a self-promoter, broadcasting his ideas in short, highly quotable articles in the 1920s and ’30s that, while hardly constituting an architectural manifesto, at least gave his visions a wide audience.3 He criticized the Belle Époque style of his immediate predecessors:

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The traveller […] is amazed when arriving at Saigon to see the city dominated by a Romano-Gothic cathedral, stones and bricks, crowned with two pointed spires. 350 meters from there, he encounters the Governor General’s Palace with arcades, covered with a Mansard slate roof. Further on, the Palace of Justice, in the Corinthian order, reveals its colonnades. The Post Office, more modernized, has a vulgar marquee of iron and glass at the entrance. A museum that has been transformed into a palace for the Governor of Cochinchina also does not add a well-considered local note. […] From a decorative point of view, it seems absolutely useless to have the Hindu or Indochinese craftsmen copy Corinthian capitals, garlands, crockets, balusters and other motifs, of classical or Gothic origin.4 He famously quipped about the taste for neogothic churches in the colony that “it makes you believe that for French priests Gothic architecture is the only one pleasing to the Lord,” and he lambasted the “horror” of the buildings produced by the Direction des Travaux publics (the “travaux publics” or “compradoric” style discussed

in chapters 1 and 7).5 Hébrard was particularly critical of the buildings’ inappropriateness to the climate, noting that “At the Saigon post office, a glazed skylight caused fatalities” (fig. 6.6).6 Hébrard was born in 1875 in modest circumstances at his family home in the 11th Arrondissement (his father was a concierge), and his brother Jean (1878–1960) also became an architect.7 Ernest was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1892, and into the première classe in 1895, where he studied with Léon Ginain (1825–1898) and Louis-Henri-Georges Scellier de Gisors, winning (among other prizes) the Prix Godeboeuf (1895), the Prix Rougevin (1901), and the Grand Prix de Rome with residency at the Villa Medici (1904–08).8 While in Rome Hébrard made the most important friendship of his career. Fellow laureate Henri Prost (1874–1959) was an urbanist and architect who would go on to execute major urban redevelopment schemes and associationist buildings in French Morocco, including Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakesh, and he subsequently worked for the Turkish government on modernization projects in Istanbul.9 Hébrard accompanied Prost to Istanbul and visited Diocletian’s Palace at Split (Croatia), which became the main project of his residency and which he reconstructed in two lavish published volumes in 1912. His visit to the Ottoman Empire was his first foray into the vast world Western Europeans called the “Orient,” although I would not go as far as Gwendolyn Wright in claiming that the Split project foreshadows his associationist style because “in an effort to represent the unity of an empire on the verge of collapse, Diocletian had freely intermingled Western and Eastern precedents.”10 Hébrard’s next important career move took place during the Great War, when the Armée d’Orient sent him in 1916 to Thessalonica as the head of the archaeological service, and he stayed

leaving indigenous neighbourhoods to fend for themselves and building fashionable modernist villes nouvelles for the Europeans.16 Others have suggested, less convincingly, that the urbanistic program was a “recognition of Moroccan cultural integrity,” although it did have the positive effect of preserving historic quarters from French encroachment.17 Arnaud Le Brusq comments about Hébrard’s brand of urbanism: “his reflection on the separation of the European and indigenous populations is similar to a solution in mainland France of dividing the bourgeois zones of residence from the poor quarters.”18 Hébrard’s approach to individual buildings was profoundly influenced by the architects working in Prost’s Morocco: men such as Adrien Laforgue (1871–1952), Joseph Marrast (1881–1971), and Albert Laprade (1883–1978) in the 1910s and 1920s. Morocco was a protectorate (from 1912), in which France officially shared power with the sultan, a stark contrast to neighbouring Algeria, which, because it had been a French settler colony for almost eighty years and was considered to be an extension of France, had long followed a policy of assimilation.19 The houses, post offices, and other government buildings designed by these and similarly minded architects grafted decontextualized features from Islamic buildings onto monumental but austere art deco structures that, minus the decorative details, could have been in Lyon or Lille. The pastiche of “vernacular” elements, which they called “arabisances,” included horseshoe arches, tiles, mashrabiyyas (wooden grilles), muqarnas (honeycomb vaults) and even mihrabs – the latter deeply offensive to Muslims – arranged decoratively and without concern for their original function. Wright comments about these buildings that they were “at once functional and romantic, contemporary and responsive to local history,” but the decorative pastiches were not exclusively local and they included features

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on as architect to the Greek government (1917– 21). He directed the reconstruction of the city’s historic district after its destruction by fire and earthquake, and as professor of the Athens School of Architecture he headed efforts to preserve the Parthenon district. His Legion of Honour dossier comments in 1932 about his work in Thessalonica that he “rendered a very great service to French influence in Macedonia. This considerable work (101 hectares destroyed by the fire to reconstruct, the whole city to rebuild following a modern plan that fully respected its character and its ancient monuments) made great honour to French sciences and arts.”11 On Prost’s recommendation Maurice Long (1866–1923), the ministre du ravitaillement général, invited Hébrard to Indochina in 1919 (he arrived in 1921 and left for good in 1926).12 Hébrard was hired as an urbanist to satisfy the Cornudet Law of 1919, by which all French communes of 10,000 inhabitants or more had to have a development, extension, and beautification strategy provided by the state, a decree that revealed the wretched state of sanitation and living conditions in Indochinese cities, for which master plans had only haphazardly been applied.13 Hébrard was influenced by Prost’s work in Morocco as well as that of utopian urbanists (and fellow Rome Prize laureates) Tony Garnier (1869–1948) and Léon Jaussely (1875–1932), working in France and Barcelona respectively.14 These men looked to redesign entire cities, not mere neighbourhoods or building clusters, separating them into administrative, residential, cultural, and industrial sectors, a reorganization that in the colonies invariably translated into racial zoning.15 Hubert Lyautey (1854–1934), the governor of French Morocco between 1912 and 1925 and the man who had invited Prost to redesign its cities in 1913, developed the idea of what Janet Abu Lughod calls “urban apartheid,”

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from Islamic architecture in Spain, Egypt, and even Syria.20 The results are stale, impersonal, and oblivious to the true meaning or function of the “Arabian” motifs the buildings appropriate. Hébrard worked in Hanoi and Saigon until 1926, designing urban schemes for Hanoi, Saigon, Phnom Penh, and the summer capital of Dalat (none of them fully executed), as well as seven buildings in the new style (mostly in partnership with other architects and all completed after his departure).21 They included the Université Indochinoise (with Paul Sabrié, 1924–27), the Musée Louis-Finot (with Charles Batteur, 1925–32) (figs. 8.10–13), the Ministry of Finances building (1927–31) (fig. 8.1), the Institut Pasteur (with

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8.1 Ernest Hébrard, Ministry of Finances building, Hanoi, 1927–31.

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Gaston Roger, 1930), and the Church of the Holy Martyrs (1925, built 1931–32), all in Hanoi, the Lycée Petrus Ky in Saigon (1925–28) (fig. 8.2), and the Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh (with Jean Desbois, 1927–29).22 Nevertheless Hébrard’s work in Indochina was not particularly well received: colonial authorities did not comment on his “style indochinois,” and although it enjoyed some attention in the press the Public Works Department did not adopt it: “Hébrard seems to have progressively become persona non grata in the eyes of the political authorities. He insinuated that one of the causes of the conflict lay in his architectural designs, bitterly complaining upon his return to France in 1926: ‘I often heard repeated in high places that I should construct French Architecture in Indochina.’”23 His Indochinese projects enjoyed some international attention in the wake

8.2 Ernest Hébrard, Lycée Petrus Ky, Saigon, 1925–28.

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of the 1931 Colonial Exposition, and in 1932, the year of his death, Hébrard was made chevalier of the Legion of Honour.24 His obituary in L’Avenir du Tonkin highlighted his project for Dalat, his museum in Hanoi, and his city plan for Thessalonica, all of which the reporter indiscriminately located in the “Orient.”25 Two government buildings can serve as examples of Hébrard’s “style indochinois.” The first, the Ministry of Finances, was the only one completed of a cluster of government buildings he planned in a park-like setting along an axis emanating from the Governor-General’s Palace (figs. 6.8–9; 8.1).26 It was also the only associationist administrative building erected in Hanoi.27

The long, rectangular, three-storey building with three avant-corps and high chimneys follows the familiar lines of a French office building (as Trần Quốc Bảo notes), to which Hébrard adds a Chinese hip gable tiled roof and lower awning with overhanging eaves supported by brackets.28 The projecting gable atop the central ressaut takes the form of a temple pavilion resting incongruously on four piers. The guardhouses that flank the entrance with their double roofs are like miniature pagodas, and the gate has lotus finials and Chinese-style green ceramic grilles. But most innovations are concerned not with vernacular architecture but with ventilation and shade, as with the tiled awnings over the windows and the vents under them, flanked by Western-style corbels. Decoration is kept to a minimum: just

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some ceramic grilles under the balconies, decorative eave bracketing supporting the main entrance porch, and panels with swastika patterns between the windows in the attic. The Asian-inspired forms, which are pan-Asian rather than Tonkinese, are divorced from their original context and would have been meaningless to an indigenous viewer. The building, painted with the yellow whitewash typical of government buildings, is strangely sterile despite these “exotic” elements. Hébrard wrote much about vernacular architecture but, as Herbelin remarks, “his fear of the picturesque overshadowed his willingness to use local motifs. […] If one can compare architecture to a language, Hébrard did not use the vocabulary of vernacular architecture but its syntax.”29 The same goes for the Lycée Pétrus Ky in Saigon, a generic, arcaded cloister around a courtyard in a style very close to that of the Travaux publics that Hébrard derided: the only “Asian” element is a token pagoda-like clocktower at its entrance with two Chinese temple roofs supported on little brackets that look out of place in the otherwise Western-style building, like the gateway to an outdoor food court in present-day Singapore (fig. 8.2).

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Auguste-Émile-Joseph Delaval (1875–1962)

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The Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse, the first permanent museum in Saigon and the headquarters of the Société des Études Indochinoises (Society for Indochinese Studies, founded 1883), was the second large-scale museum to be opened in Indochina, and it also involved Groslier in its developing stages (figs. 8.3–4). However its history is the reverse of its sister institution in Phnom Penh: whereas the Cambodian building was a purpose-built museum that was later copied at an exposition, the Saigon monument began as an exposition pavilion – two, in fact. It is one of the few architectural legacies of

Auguste-Émile-Joseph Delaval (1875–1962), like Hébrard a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts, although he was not a Prix de Rome laureate and had not established a career in France before leaving for Indochina.30 This building is a particularly clear rebuke to the claim that Hébrard was solely responsible for the “style indochinois.” One could argue that the Musée Albert-Sarraut was an exception, as it was Franco-Khmer, but the Blanchard-de-la-Brosse, the design of which dates to 1924, was as associationist as its successor in Hanoi – and just as much of a pastiche. Born in Nevers, Delaval was the son of a grocer and a homemaker from Hennebont (Morbihan), where Delaval lived before his departure for Indochina and where he returned upon his retirement. Delaval joined the military in 1895 and served until 1921, including as a sergeant in the 88th Infantry Regiment (Lorient) during and after the Great War (1914–19), but he first came to Indochina much earlier, in 1905, as a “sous-inspecteur de 2e classe” with the Service des bâtiments civils, only returning to France briefly in 1908–09 to marry Alice Lambert, also from Nevers.31 Delaval had entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1895, where he studied with Paul Blondel (1847–1897), Scellier de Gisors, and Alphonse Defrasse (1860–1939), and he was admitted into the first class in 1899 and graduated in 1909.32 Delaval participated in the usual round of competitions between 1899 and 1909, including the Godeboeuf (three times) and the Rangevin (twice), although was only modestly successful. Among his entries (none of which survive) were a decoration of the rear of a ship, a foyer in a grand theatre, a bell tower, an episcopal throne, a staircase for a 8.3 (oppoSiTe Top ) Auguste Delaval, Musée Blanchardde-la-Brosse, Saigon, 1929. Facade. 8.4 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Auguste Delaval, Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse, Saigon, 1929. Detail of cupola.

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palace, and a railway station. He participated in the architecture section of the Salon des artistes français in Paris (1903), where he contributed two watercolours depicting the gate of the Hôtel du Gouvernement and the Basilica of Saint-Martin d’Ainay, both in Lyon. Throughout his career he produced watercolours and drawings, mostly pedestrian landscapes and architectural studies, including of buildings in Huế and Tonkin; these have recently been acquired by the Archives communales at Hennebont.33 Upon his arrival in Hanoi in 1905 Delaval ran into a problem. The Ministry of the Colonies had told him that he did not need his Beaux-Arts diploma in Indochina, so he left off obtaining it until his first leave. However, it turned out that without it he would have to sit an examination that would require two years of preparation just to be promoted to third- or second-class inspector. He wrote an impassioned letter to the secretary of the Beaux-Arts from Saigon in 1905:

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Currently I am in Indo-China, incorporated into the Civil Buildings Service as a SubInspector. This Civil Buildings Service is divided into 3 categories: 1st Part – 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Class Architects. 2nd – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th class Inspectors. The position of Sub-Inspector does not correspond to the capabilities of any pupil who has completed studies at the Ecole des Bx [sic] Arts and, to be appointed Inspector, I will be forced to pass an examination equivalent to those passed in the course of my studies at the School, given that I have finished all my requirements. This exam can make me lose a year or two to my greatest detriment, since I am currently 30 years old. In France, at the Ministry of the Colonies, where I was wrongly informed, I was told that the Diploma of the School was unnecessary; this is

why I put off obtaining my diploma, the curriculum of which has been completed for a long time, for my next leave, that is to say in 3 years. Here, I learn that this diploma could have earned me the rank of 2nd or 3rd class Inspector at the time of my arrival. Management does not know how we study at the Ecole des Bx Arts and requires an exam to become an Inspector. I will therefore be very grateful to you, Mr. Secretary, if you would send to Mr. Guillemoto, Director General of Public Works in Indo-China, a note concerning me and indicating the precise details of the examinations which I have passed as well as the marks obtained by me, insisting on this matter that I can graduate and that there is no point in wasting time that is too precious for me in preparing for these exams again. A letter couched in these terms and coming from you will have more value than a list of marks to which the Director will not attach enough importance.34 The Beaux-Arts administration must have complied with his request as Delaval rose relatively quickly through the ranks: he was promoted to third-class inspector with the Travaux publics in October 1905, second-class inspector in 1907, first-class inspector with the Bâtiments civils in 1909, and during his second tour in Indochina (1909–13), he had risen to “Inspecteur principal des Bâtiments civils” in 1911 and then Architecte auxiliaire des Bâtiments civils in 1913.35 In 1928, during his fourth and final tour in Indochina (1927–31; his third tour was in 1923–26) he was finally appointed architecte principal des Bâtiments civils (on 21 April 1930). During his fourth tour he also taught at the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi (ebai , founded 1924), where, unlike Groslier in Phnom Penh, he taught indigenous students architectural theory as well as

to execute the temple of Angkor in Cambodia” but on the other hand they concluded that “he borrowed from this ancient temple only the elements of his building which constitute a real original creation protected by the laws of July 17, 1793 and March 11, 1902.”41 Because his replica took many liberties with the original, selecting particular features and aligning them according to Beaux-Arts principles of axial symmetry, he was legally the author of the work.42 Pastiching made it his cultural property. Also at stake in the case was the nature of Delaval’s employment: he had never signed a contract and worked directly under the Indochinese colonial government to reproduce a work of “French” patrimony to the public for educational purposes. There was no stipulation about the rights of the author, who was paid by an allowance rather than on the percentage of expenses as was customary, and the exposition management explicitly retained the right to authorize general views of its pavilions. In the end the newspaper L’Illustration won the suit, because they had in fact published Delaval’s name (albeit in small print), but the postcard manufacturers and Pathé had to pay damages amounting to 9,000 francs. Delaval continued to have a fraught relationship with the French expositions (as he did with the Travaux publics). In 1925 he sued Charles Blanche, who went on to design the most complete full-scale reproduction of Angkor Wat for the 1931 Colonial Exposition (fig. 7.7), alleging that Blanche stole his idea (the planning was already well underway as the exposition was originally scheduled for 1925).43 Jean Locquin, the deputy from Lièvre in the Chamber of Deputies, wrote to the governor-general in Hanoi in 1931 that Delaval considered Blanche’s work to be “nothing more than a knock-off, not to say a copy” of Delaval’s pavilion and that the architect had been “cruelly wronged,” and deserved compensation.44 The two may have had a

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practice, in addition to architectural and garden decoration, with a focus on Cham and Sino-Vietnamese art.36 On 2 August 1923, by which time he was living in Saigon, Delaval was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour.37 However Delaval was unsatisfied with his pay grade and left the colony in a huff, even before he had reached retirement age with its benefits.38 As chief architect of the Bâtiments civils he did not enjoy the higher salary and benefits of the chief engineer of the Travaux publics, which he would have received had he been allowed to join efeo (as he had been invited to do) as architect of the school. Delaval left Indochina for good in 1931, continuing, unsuccessfully, to demand promotion in arrears. Delaval’s induction into the Legion of Honour was a direct outcome of his participation in the 1922 Colonial Exposition at Marseille, where he was the chief architect of the Indochinese section and was responsible for the first near full-scale replica of Angkor Wat, the exposition’s undisputed highlight.39 In fact he had already designed the pavilion for the aborted 1916 Colonial Exposition, which had to be abandoned when he was mobilized, and during the war he continued to draught plans and finalize the bidding documents. The 1922 replica was reproduced in newspapers and postcards and was a backdrop in the film Tâo (1923) released by Pathé, prompting Delaval to file copyright suits in 1924 and 1927 because these reproductions were done without his permission, and, in the case of the film and the postcards, without citing his name as the author of the project.40 The case is interesting because it brings up contemporary issues about authorship in a case of cultural appropriation: was Delaval in fact the author of the monument or was it merely a replica of a building constructed in antiquity by someone else? On one hand the tribunal noted that Delaval “chose for the model of his pavilion that he was

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8.5 Auguste Delaval, Temple du Souvenir Annamite (Hùng King Temple), Saigon, 1927–29.

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falling out before: Blanche had been the executing architect for Delaval’s Indochinese Pavilion for the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition, a SinoVietnamese fantasy that was similar in spirit to his project for the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse and the adjacent Temple du Souvenir Annamite (1929) (fig. 8.5). The Indochinese pavilion was reused in the 1931 exposition as an administrative building and was, ironically, placed right next to Blanche’s Angkor Wat replica. That year Delaval once again tried – unsuccessfully – to claim compensation from the Indochinese government for the theft of his design.45 Indeed, Delaval appears to have been a litigious personality whose constant complaints about alleged wrongs did

not gain him much sympathy from within the colonial administration. Except for the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse, Delaval made few architectural contributions to Indochina.46 He oversaw the expansion of the Lycée d’Hanoi (1914; 1928–30) and was one of the executing architects of the Museum of Cham Arts in Tourane, working under Parmentier in partnership with Claudius Auclair (1876–1940). Although the design, approved in 1915, was Parmentier’s own, it anticipated the Saigon museum in its emulation of indigenous styles, in this case classical Cham architecture, although it only amounted to a few lotus finials in a building that otherwise reflected a kind of denuded neoclassicism. As Parmentier’s successor as head, Henri Marchal (1876–1970), modestly put it in 1936, “his building scheme was sufficiently inspired by

Cham architecture that the sculptures do not seem out of place.”47 As we will see in the next chapter, Delaval was also approached in 1929 by the founders of Caodaism, a syncretic religion that includes elements of Catholicism and French culture, to design their temple at Tây Ninh (figs. 9.12–13), but he was forbidden from doing so by a jittery colonial government. Although Royaume, the inspector-general of the Travaux publics, did not object if he worked “outside office hours,” governor of Cochinchina Jean-Félix Krautheimer (1874–1943) responded:

The commission is interesting, however, since it suggests that the group was attracted to Delaval because of his reputation for architectural

The Campaign to Build a Permanent Museum in Saigon Although it was not opened to the public until the first day of 1929, the Saigon museum was long in coming – in fact the idea of having a museum in the city goes back to the days of the admirals – and throughout the history of its development it faced significant opposition from more business-oriented colons.50 In 1865, Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze (1812–1883) established a Comité agricole et industriel, which, from 1883, grew into the Société des études indochinoises, the remit of which was to promote knowledge of

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it does not seem advisable, at the very moment when the Administration is taking various measures with regard to Caodaism in order to hinder its influence, to authorize the representatives of this sect to openly use the services of an official for the construction of a “great temple” intended, by its monumental character, to impress the crowds. Such an authorization would be misinterpreted by public opinion, which would see it on the Government’s part as at least a tacit recognition of the new sect. There is also every reason to believe that the so-called leaders of Caodaism [...] would take advantage of this circumstance to intensify their propaganda and collect large subscriptions whose use could not be controlled. Under these circumstances, if we want to prevent the leaders of the Caodaist sect from this new attempt to exploit public credulity, I believe that it is not appropriate to authorize Mr. delaval , architect of the Government, to carry out the projects which are requested of him.48

hybridity, about which more in the following chapter. The only building Delaval constructed in Indochina as chief architect, aside from the museum, was the Temple du Souvenir Annamite (Hùng Vương Temple), built in 1927–29 in the botanic gardens adjacent the museum in memory of the Vietnamese soldiers who died for France during the Great War (fig. 8.5). The 14-metre-high, cubeshaped Sino-Vietnamese monument has a sloping Chinese roof and two awnings over a gallery, and it is raised on a platform accessed by a staircase with dragon balustrades. It has intricately carved wooden panelling on the interior with gilded decoration lit by a row of oculus windows containing openwork wooden screens, and includes a memorial stele.49 Delaval’s attention to ornamental detail, especially in the doors, the lively undulating dragon finials, and the ornamental bracketing of the roof, echoes the adjacent museum, which was built at the same time. The building was dedicated to the ancestor kings of all Vietnamese people and was likely commissioned by a committee of Vietnamese veterans led by newspaper owner Nguyen Vàn Cua and approved (and possibly financed) by the General Government.

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the region and to encourage public authorities to found a Museum in Cochinchina. Around the same time, probably soon after Lagrée’s voyage up the Mekong River (1866), Admiral Pierre-Paul de La Grandière (1807–76) had formed a small collection of Khmer sculptures in Saigon that he hoped would form the basis of an archaeological museum, but he departed before it could be begun. Instead, these sculptures were arranged as decorative accents in the botanic garden by botanist Jean-Baptiste Louis Pierre (1833–1905) in 1868.51 In 1871 a physician named Dr Pichon asked the Municipal Council to finance an excavation of Angkor Wat for the purpose of creating a museum in Saigon. Fortunately, this project never saw the light of day as it would have caused even more losses for the beleaguered temple. In 1880 the municipal government recommended the creation of “a public library as well as museum,” which came to naught.52 Two years later zoologist Henri Milne-Edwards (1800–1885) petitioned the Colonial Council to found a Cochinchinese study museum in the old courthouse building, but the minister of the marine chose to found a commercial museum instead, essentially a trade fair. Nevertheless the Société des études indochinoises had not given up, and in 1897 it elected to build its own museum in Saigon, a project given further impetus the next year when explorer Charles Lemire (1839–1912) donated a series of Cham sculptures taken from sites in Annam and stored in a garden in Tourane.53 Looted and purchased objects from far and wide (including works of Japanese art) continued to find their way to Saigon, where they were moved about, broken, and partially lost until being stored in a warehouse in 1925. The project for a permanent museum in Saigon gained traction in 1898 when Governor-General Doumer created the “Mission archéologique permanente” that would become the efeo . The efeo opened a small museum in 1900 on the

ground floor of a building located on 140 rue Pellerin; however with the transfer of the administrative capital to Hanoi in 1902 the efeo decamped for Tonkin. 54 The Society of Indochinese Studies still held onto their museum in Saigon, and by 1904 they operated two facilities in the city, the one on rue Pellerin, which was devoted to original sculptures, and a museum of casts on rue Lagrandière, while other objects were kept at the police station. In a letter to the lieutenantgovernor of Cochinchina (15 March 1904) Governor-General Paul Beau (1857–1926) urged that “it is necessary to plan the construction of a dedicated building,” but that any relocation of the objects and casts must be done with extreme prudence to avoid damaging them. He continued: But, as I do not forget that if this Museum, conceived as an instrument of study and conservation, is first of all a work of general interest, it holds nonetheless a particular interest for the Colony of Cochinchina and for the city of Saigon. I would therefore agree to the best solution, that which, associating the Colony and the City with the costs of building and maintaining this Museum, would at the same time assure them a corresponding share in the management of the establishment and the guarantee that the collections would not be moved against their advice. I hope that this plan will meet with your full assent and that the elected bodies of Cochinchina will be unanimous in supporting the execution of a project which promises to make the first capital of Indochina the guardian of the monuments of its history.55 But not everyone was enthusiastic about a civic museum run by an academic organization: that same year Brigadier General Léon de Beylié (1849–1910), an avid art collector

what would become the Musée Blanchard-dela-Brosse was the death in 1927 of naval pharmacist Victor-Thomas Holbé (1859–1927), who had assembled a massive collection of artworks obtained over his forty-year career in Asia which he hoped would remain in Saigon but which municipal authorities feared would be sold at auction.59 After an emergency meeting in June of 1927 the Society of Indochinese Studies agreed unanimously to acquire Holbé’s entire collection and the amount was raised by October through public subscription. On 28 November Paul Blanchard de la Brosse (1872–after 1944), governor of Cochinchina, signed a decree officially creating the Musée de la Cochinchine, a museum of “art, history, archaeology, and ethnography” that would exist under the auspices of the efeo but under his direct authority.60 Jean Bouchot (1886–1932), a government archivist, was made curator in June 1928. The Rice Palace and Cochinchinese Economic Museums (1918–1926) The new museum, duly named after the governor on 6 August, was to occupy a building already under construction in the botanic gardens that was sometimes called a “Rice and Cochinchina Palace” (“Palais du riz et de la Cochinchine”) and elsewhere an “Economic Museum of Cochinchina” (“Musee économique de la Cochinchine”). The choice was practical, as it repurposed a structure that was already partly built, but it was also symbolic as the location was near where Pigneaux de Béhaine had lived under Gia Long’s protection and therefore could serve as a reminder of the legitimacy of French rule. The building (of which Delaval was the architect) was in fact a pavilion for an aborted Saigon Exposition planned initially for 1926 and then for 1927–28. Directly inspired by the Marseille Colonial Exposition of 1922 and popularly known as the

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himself, explained to the mayor that it would be better for the “Musée de la Ville” not to have a “special attachment to the Société des Etudes Indochinoises.”56 In a meeting of April 1904, the commission rejected the idea of an archaeological museum because they believed that it would bore the average visitor. Commissioner Bonade, himself a prosperous trader, was quite blunt about it: “the very project of installing an Archaeological Museum will be of very vague interest to travellers visiting Saigon, […] an archaeological exhibition will hardly interest anyone. We will encounter archaeologists from time to time who will be interested in an exhibition of old stones […] It would have been possible first to create a more useful and interesting Museum in Saigon, such as that which exists in Hanoi, […] a commercial, industrial and artistic Museum. […] If it were a question of providing the City with a more complete and more inclusive Museum, we would have serious reasons to accept the proposals which have been made to us […] But for the organization of the project which is under discussion, I do not believe that it is necessary to commit ourselves to considerable further expenses.”57 Saigon was a business town, and its citizens wanted a museum devoted to business. In the meantime, in 1905, the collection experienced another setback when most of the Khmer antiquities were returned to Phnom Penh to be placed in the newly begun Musée Khmer (fig. 7.12). In 1917 the remaining collections were shifted again, to a building on boulevard Norodom across from the Cercle Militaire, but by 1925 rental costs forced them to move the objects back into a warehouse.58 In 1918 the collections were further depleted when 17 Cham pieces were returned to the new Musée Cham, but the collection grew in other areas, notably in pre-Angkor sculptures excavated in Cochinchina. The event that would finally precipitate the decision to build

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“Foire-Exposition de Saïgon,” it was meant to be, after the 1902 Hanoi Exposition, “the largest and most complete exposition of Indochinese and French products ever mounted,” with “hundreds of pavilions and stalls,” and it would also provide permanent space for exhibitions for tourists after it closed (an official tourist office opened in 1926).61 In 1923 Governor-General Martial Henri Merlin (1860–1935) advanced a sum of 150,000 piastres (1,200,000 francs) to purchase land and advertising, among other things.62 Still, the exposition was not all business. Not unjustly, Saigon suffered from a reputation as being a city of capitalists and vice, and the fair’s promoters hoped to incorporate something more cultural, or, more specifically, ethnographic.63 Governor-General Sarraut had remarked as early as 1917 that what Saigon needed was “something analogous to what we see in Paris, at the Trocadéro, an ethnographic museum, where, in vast galleries, we can find, in the gestures of their daily life, the various races which inhabit Indochina, with their habitat, their surroundings, their costumes, their furniture, all the historical documentation which concerns them, the collections of local fauna and flora and the collections of our economic wealth. This is an institution that would be perfectly appropriate in Saigon.”64 The Foire-Exposition, which was widely discussed in French newspapers, was officially approved by minister of the colonies (and future prime minister) Édouard Daladier (1884–1970) during a brief visit to Paris of Cochinchinese governor Maurice Cognacq (1870–1949) in the autumn of 1924.65 However, even before the Foire-Exposition project got off the ground, Sarraut organized a separate concours in 1918 to fulfill the goals he stated the year earlier for a Saigon equivalent to the Trocadéro, and he placed George Groslier in charge. The competition was for an economic, ethnographic, and historic museum

“with exhibition rooms,” which he hoped would “give traders and travellers all the facilities to study Indochina.”66 The Economic Museum, as it was usually called, was inspired by precedents in Hong Kong and Singapore.67 Here Groslier departed from the métissage of his Phnom Penh museum, seeking a modernist aesthetic: “[t]he architects remain entirely free in the design of the monument [...] Finally, it is recommended that the architects be inspired by very simple conceptions, in the French taste, to seek the purity of line which harmonizes with the beautiful light of tropical countries.”68 As the building was meant primarily for a European audience, Groslier’s decision was in keeping with his belief that associationist buildings were only for the Indochinese (see chapter 7). The budget was not to exceed 200,000 piastres, but 55,000 had already been spent by October.69 The concours was open to architects and engineers from the public works departments in Saigon, Hanoi, Huế, and Phnom Penh, and five candidates participated: the contractor Lamorte and architects Vila and Kropff (the first two had worked on the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh), Auclair (Delaval’s partner at Tourane), and Jules Josse (1877–1950). 70 On 28 June 1919 Josse, architect with the Bâtiments civils who later designed the Pavillon de l’art colonial française at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition with Charles Blanche, was declared the winner of the commission.71 But Josse’s project was shelved, probably because of the economic difficulties at the end of the Great War as Le Brusq suggests, and when Groslier was asked in 1923 to proceed with the Saigon museum he rejected Josse’s project because his T-shaped plan “has the drawback of constantly forcing visitors to retrace their steps in each gallery.”72 In 1924, Ernest Hébrard was put in charge of a new concours, this time for the Foire-Exposition project.73 Originally, the “Musée économique”

(sometimes called the “Palais de l’Indochine” and incorporating the ethnographic museum) and the “Palais du riz et des produits de la Cochinchine” were to be separate buildings, along with a “Pavillon artistique” that showcased local art schools. The Palais de l’Indochine, probably inspired by the Hanoi pavilion (fig. 1.11), was to have 8.6 Auguste Delaval, Government of Cochinchina. Economic Museum of Cochinchina, Main Facade, ink, graphite, coloured pencil, and ink wash on paper, March 1926, 74.5 × 111.3 cm. The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr Collection of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Promised Gift, wc 2008.08.11.2. Photograph: Lynton Gardiner.

economic exhibitions on the ground floor and an ethnographic diorama and library upstairs.74 The displays were to be similar to those recommended by Groslier in August 1923 for the aborted earlier project. He had called for photographs, small dioramas of agriculture and extraction, samples of agricultural or mining produce, specimens of local fauna (such as models, taxidermies, skins, and hunting trophies), manufactured goods (vegetal and animal oils, grains and shell products, flour, and conserves), and finally models of European and indigenous production, whether agricultural, mineral, or industrial.75 The Foire-exhibition’s economic and ethnographic museum was to be supported by the General Government while

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8.7 Ten Thousand Springs (Wanchun ting) Pavilion at the Forbidden City in Beijing (sixteenth century).

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the rice museum and the arts pavilion were to be financed directly by Cochinchina. They would be accompanied by temporary pavilions displaying the products of France (automobiles, silks, farm implements), model Moi and Lao villages, and pavilions from different countries, including Great Britain, the United States, Honolulu, Siam, the Philippines, China (including the French concession in Shanghai), Japan, the Straits Settlements, and the Netherlands East Indies.76 In his unsuccessful design for the economic and ethnographic museum Jean-Yves Claeys chose the French style of the 1918 concours and produced a two-storey art deco building featuring a colourful mural depicting Indochinese ethnicities.77 By contrast, Delaval’s avant-projets for the rice, ethnographic, and economic palaces, which

won the commission on 31 January 1924 and were fully developed between March of that year and September 1928, were in his Sino-Vietnamese style (fig. 8.6). Delaval developed his project for all three museums simultaneously – in fact in some drawings the Musée économique and Palais du riz are the same building (e.g., one dated 8 September 1925). The avant-projet for the Musée ethnographique is the earliest (7 March 1924) and those for the Palais du riz date exclusively from 1925. Projects for the Musée économique, by far the most numerous, date from 2 April 1924 to 27 September 1928 (although this must be a mistake), but mostly from 1926. They are essentially the same building except for some minor decorative discrepancies in the latticework, panelling, and revetments and the use of an arched main entrance with an oeil-de-boeuf motif above it for the rice palace instead of the rectangular doorway surmounted by three narrow rectangular panels

From Exposition Pavilion to the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse (1929) The efeo accommodated their galleries to Delaval’s existing scheme. When visitors entered

the building they passed directly through a vestibule with a wardrobe, proceeded into the rotunda, where outstanding works representing the whole of Asia were displayed, and then circulated around the galleries in each wing, seven on the left and six on the right.81 The curator’s office was in an apse-like extension in the far right (its pendant on the left was a gallery) and the library of the Society of Indochinese Studies was directly off the rotunda, opposite the entrance. The efeo divided the exhibition space according to their theory that Asian art fell into two “families,” Indian (Khmer and Cham) and Chinese (Annamese and Tonkinese): the left wing housed the collections of the Indian “family” and the right wing the Chinese.82 However, since the space was not designed for a permanent museum it did not have sufficient offices and it also lacked storerooms and workshops; a major renovation was undertaken in the 1950s to make amends and also to improve visitor circulation.83 The Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse retains the spirit of an exposition pavilion: it is notably more light-hearted and delicate than its industriallooking successor in Hanoi (fig. 8.10), even though it has reconstructed timber structures from traditional Sino-Vietnamese architecture in concrete. Its elements of polychromy – red corbels, green moulded roof tiles, and yellow walls – give the museum a festive appearance, as do the phoenix finials on the rotunda’s pagoda roof (fig. 8.4), the delicate balustrade around the rotunda windows, the refreshingly open patios with their pools of water, the relatively plain walls adorned with simple rectangular panels, and especially the post-and-lintel garden pergola facing the garden and the Temple du Souvenir Annamite (fig. 8.5), which marks a natural progression from the museum to the botanic garden. At the entrance to the porch two parallel sentences in Chinese on either side of the entrance promise to show the curious visitor a large

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containing Chinese characters and six windows for the economic museum. Two sets of plans and elevations were made, one for the Travaux publics of the Central Government in Hanoi and the others for the Government of Cochinchina; some of the latter are now in the Wolfsonian Museum at Florida International University, and I have also examined photographs of further drawings the whereabouts of which are unknown.78 The design for the economic museum is the one executed (figs. 8.3–4, 8.6). It is a rectangular structure with a giant pagoda-like octagonal rotunda in the middle with a double roof and prominent finial. The rotunda resembles Chinese prototypes such as the Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion (Wanchun ting) at the Forbidden City in Beijing (sixteenth century) (fig. 8.7). The central pavilion is flanked by low wings and a pair of low cupolas near each end, rectangular this time and crowned with Chinese-style hip gable roofs. Each wing also contains a patio with a pool like the interior courtyard of a mandarin’s house (ya-men) or temple. The arrangement of galleries around the rotunda and courtyards allows for the free flow of visitors that was lacking in Josse’s project. On 31 January 1924, Governor-General Merlin wrote that “the general project of M. Delaval, which corresponds entirely to the needs of the aforementioned program, would be followed and developed, under his direction if it is possible because Mr. Delaval, sequestered by the Exhibition of Decorative Arts of 1925 in Paris, will undoubtedly be called to leave the colony soon.”79 Years later, a sympathetic Hébrard would also praise “my colleague Delaval” for his “beautiful” building.80

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collection of rare objects from Indochina and the Far East.84 The bronze doors, cast in Hué in 1925, are richly adorned with sapèque coin motifs (a remnant of the decor of the economic museum?), symbols of longevity, and Chinese-style floral arrangements. Inside, the rotunda and galleries are well lit with clerestory windows (fig. 8.4), which are nevertheless protected from direct sunlight by Sino-Vietnamese–style sloped awnings, and the galleries are separated by panels resembling folding screens. The pergola walls (fig. 8.3) are divided into plain panels and bare pilasters in a hint of art deco. The carved woodwork of the vestibule is decorated with a double series of allegorical motifs made up of four precious objects: the brushes of the scholar, the ruan (a stringed musical instrument), the book, and the fan. The large courtyard at the rear of the building was added only in the 1970s.85 Delaval’s Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse makes no pretensions toward authenticity – there is, for example, limited bracketing under the eaves of the “pagoda” and hip gable roof pavilions (compare figs. 8.4, 8.7) – and its Asian structures and motifs do not compensate for the essentially alien form of the building, a basic rectangular block with a central portico which, minus the decorative details, might just as well have been designed for a French railway station. The museum is a permanent exposition pavilion, a playful but meaningless pastiche of forms designed to delight the eye. But at least Delaval, as argumentative and litigious as he was, was not part of the Groslier-Hébrard club, masterminding an associationist style to control indigenous arts production and legitimize French rule. He was more like the architects in chapter 6, an academically trained architect of modest talent who made a name for himself in Indochina and then returned to France after his retirement to the provincial town of his mother’s family.

Charles-Louis-Joseph Batteur (1880–1932) and the Other Builders of the Musée de l’École Française (Musée Louis-Finot) in Hanoi The last of the three Indochinese museums featured in this book, the one acclaimed as the paragon of Hébrard’s “style indochinois” was in fact the last to be completed, begun in 1926 and inaugurated only in 1932.86 The official museum of the École française d’Extrême-Orient, the building has a long and protracted history, and Hébrard’s role in its final appearance has been exaggerated: as France Mangin first noted, the architect who oversaw its construction from beginning to end, making significant changes to Hébrard’s design, was the efeo ’s scholar-architect Charles-LouisJoseph Batteur (1880–1932), who must at least be acknowledged as the building’s co-author and who chose many of its signature structural and decorative forms, drawing upon his own knowledge of Asian arts.87 In fact Hébrard left the project (and Indochina) a few weeks after the museum was begun, in early 1926, and it was Batteur who developed his avant-projet and budget over the next several months so that it could be put out to tender in November of that year.88 Henri Parmentier was quite clear about the scale of Batteur’s changes to Hébrard’s project, writing that, although it was “very beautifully conceived by Master Hébrard,” Batteur had made [it] his own through a meticulous study of the smallest details, with extraordinary care, patience, and pleasure. And if this Museum looks today, with its finesse of presentation and lighting, like one of the best works produced in this manner in the Far East, it is almost entirely due to his continuous study and was never put off by all vicissitudes suffered by this unfortunate building, for which we are grateful: it is this

museum, where he has put all his soul, that will best preserve, with the memory of his affectionate companionship, his perpetual memory in our midst.89

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Batteur did not change Hébrard’s plan much, but he profoundly altered the elevations. He was responsible for the grid of decorative awnings and verandas on a double colonnade that stands forward from the walls and prevents direct sunlight from entering the building, and the architect improved the air intake and exhaust vents and other openings distributed on all the floors, allowing air to be heated in winter by radiators in the basement.90 Batteur’s pan-Asian vision – in which he wanted the building to reflect the efeo ’s work across the continent and not just in Indochina – also led to the transformation of the style of Hébrard’s project into one that was much more of a pastiche, or what Wright (although attributing it entirely to Hébrard) justly calls a “hodgepodge.”91 In particular, the Sino-Vietnamese roofs were transformed using features taken from Siamese, Cambodian, or Lao buildings. As a contemporary commentator wrote, “the enamelled awnings can make one think of certain Indian structures; while the totality of the polychrome facades evokes a little of the art of Japan, however not so that these coordinated elements make us forget the French inspiration of the whole.”92 Le Brusq adroitly suggests that what the source meant by “French inspiration” is the building’s very eclecticism, the spirit of the Beaux-Arts.93 Herbelin comments that this “perfect mastery of Asian architectural systems” allowed Batteur to “apply Hébrard’s scheme more faithfully than Hébrard could have done himself.”94 The works were contracted out to three different engineers: Albert Aviat (1869–ca 1947), Trịnh Quý Khang, and Max-Robert Papi (b. 1890s), the latter two

joining the project in 1929 (Aviat had quit the previous year) as part of a push to complete the building.95 While these men merely executed Batteur’s project and were not in a position to make stylistic decisions, their role was essential, particularly as Batteur appears not to have been a trained engineer. In fact, as an architect and archaeologist Batteur was an amateur in the mould of George Groslier. Unlike Hébrard, Batteur did not discuss his architectural training, although his elevations of the Musée Louis-Finot demonstrate that he was an accomplished draughtsman (fig. 8.12). He was also born in the humblest of circumstances, to parents who were both employees of the dismal La Salpêtrière Hospital for mentally ill women, something which he kept to himself and which I only learned from his birth records.96 The Salpêtrière, which began as a hospice for prostitutes and by the late nineteenth century housed desperately poor young women who were frequently victims of sexual assault, was a place of Dickensian horrors. As Olivier Walusinski puts it: “Imagine rows of several dozen beds, some closed off with curtains to hide the ‘reposantes,’ prostrate patients who were often incurable. Heating during the winter was inadequate, provided by only a few stoves. Visitors were suffocated by pestilential odors.”97 It was also a centre for the study of epileptics and “hysterics,” particularly during the tenure of neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), who would have still been there when Batteur was born. It is possible that his mother, Rosalie Mathurine Rabineaux, had been a patient before marrying Pierre-Joseph Batteur, and that therefore mental health issues ran in the family, which might explain Batteur’s own depression and suicide (he died by shooting himself in the head with a revolver while on furlough in his brother’s house in Paris’s Ninth Arrondissement, which newspapers attributed to

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8.8 Charles Batteur, Laos Pavilion in the 1931 International Colonial Exposition. From a postcard by Braun & Cie., ca 1931. Private collection.

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8.9 (oppoSiTe ) Wat Xiang Thong, Luang Prabang, Laos, 1560.

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a “crisis of neurasthenia”).98 Batteur also remained single his whole life: his death certificate, which calls him an “architect, living in Hanoi,” notes that he was a bachelor.99 Parmentier characterized Batteur as a self-made man who had escaped bad circumstances: “wonderfully gifted in study and drawing, he did it himself through hard work, and the circumstances of life made it particularly painful; then, tired of a thankless and hopeless job, he came to ask the colony for a freer existence and a more interesting employment.100 Like Groslier, Batteur was involved in restoration, archaeology, and architecture during his time in Indochina, in Batteur’s case primarily in Laos, and he also shared Groslier’s passion for training indigenous artists to reproduce the art of their past, teaching architecture classes at the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine and instructing his students to make reliefs.101 In 1905 he began working in the Circonscription Territoriale du Laos for the Service des Bâtiments civils under Henri Parmentier and rose through the ranks from an auxiliary inspector (4th class)

to an inspector (1st class) in 1915, and from 1910 he worked at the Royal Palace at Luang Prabang (fig. 7.5).102 On 24 March 1919 Batteur was seconded to the Service archéologique and was made a permanent member of the efeo on 29 June 1921 – an honour that had evaded Groslier – and he was the interim director of archaeology at Angkor during Henri Marchal’s furlough (August 1920 – January 1922), supervising the clearing of Prasat Ta Keo and Bantay Srei, as well as the reconstruction of the Balustrade of the Giants at Angkor Thom’s Southern gate.103 By January 1925, a year after he returned from a furlough in Calvados and Paris, he was earning 12,000– 14,000 francs a year as inspector of the Service archéologique.104 In Vientiane he was responsible for the 1922–23 restoration of Wat Si Saket (1818), where he installed a museum of Lao art, returning there in 1929 to supervise when he was already involved with the Musée Louis-Finot in Hanoi, and he restored the Wat Tham Chom Si (1804) in Luang Prabang.105 He also advocated for the protection of monuments in Tonkin, particularly

after 1930, including the famed One Pillar Pagoda (Chùa Một Cột, 1028–1054) in Hanoi. Batteur began teaching architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in 1926, where, in the words of N. Tô, “he put his taste for artistry into his courses, while giving his students the example of the most scrupulous scientific analyses. His teaching could not be said to have been brilliant, because Mr. Batteur never sought out brilliance; but he carried there, as in all things, the conscience of an honest scientist and the method of a well-balanced mind.”106 One of the main functions of the school, founded by Victor Tardieu (1870–1937) in 1924, was to train artists to produce decorative artworks such as reliefs and other architectural details, although, as Herbelin notes, Tardieu, unlike Groslier, sought to engage students’ creativity rather than turn them into

copyist automata.107 Nevertheless one of Batteur’s major projects at the school was mechanical in nature: he directed his students to make a series of reliefs from various Tonkinese monuments, such as the Temple of Literature (Văn Miếu, ad 1070) and other sites in and around Hanoi such as the Bút Tháp Temple in Bắc Ninh Province (thirteenth century). These he published (posthumously) in a catalogue entitled Relevés de monuments annamites anciens établis par les élèves de l’École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (Paris, 1933).108 Like Groslier, Batteur designed a pavilion for one of the expositions, this time the Laos Pavilion in the 1931 Colonial Exposition, a replica of the Wat Xiang Thong at Luang-Prabang (1560), one of the efeo ’s main restoration projects in Laos, which was executed by Blanche (figs. 8.8–9).109

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Principal contractor Albert Aviat was a prominent and well-off Hanoi society figure with decades of experience in the region.110 He first came to Vietnam in 1899 with the Tonkin Naval Artillery and later joined the 9th Colonial Infantry Regiment, returning to fight in France in 1915. By the time he was back in 1922, as an “Entrepreneur à Hanoi,” he was already a chevalier of the Legion of Honour and member of the Hanoi Chamber of Commerce, of which he later became president. Aviat contributed to many public works projects, including the river port and pavilions for the 1924 Foire-Exposition de Hanoi (of which he was the president), the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building in Haiphong (1924; under Charles Lagisquet), the Institut Curie (1925), and the Hanoi University building (1925; under Hébrard), for which commission he was described as “conscientious and capable.”111 In 1936 he founded Garage Aviat, one of the first Citroen dealerships in Indochina. Max-Robert Papi was born into a family of Corsican engineers resident in Algeria, served with the rank of captain as a sapper in the First World War, where he suffered a gas attack, and went on to graduate as an engineer from the École des Arts et Métiers.112 Papi arrived in Hanoi in January 1924 and served there and in Annam with the Public Works Department, becoming ingénieur du 1ère classe des Travaux publics and chief of section in February 1936. Papi also travelled in high social circles: he belonged to the Philharmonic Society, the Corsican Association, and the Commission locale de colonisation; he raced his own Citroen in rallies; and he attended masquerade balls at the Hôtel Métropolitain.113 Papi and Aviat were evidently close as Papi attended Aviat’s daughter’s opulent wedding at Hanoi Cathedral in 1927 and in 1938 he participated in a poker run hosted by Aviat’s Citroen dealership in Haiphong.114

Although Trịnh Quý Khang’s name is conspicuously absent in the official museum literature he was also a successful engineer and society figure who bid for more practical kinds of projects in Hanoi and Haiphong such as officers’ living quarters, lepers’ pavilions, and a cement reservoir in the Hôpital indigène, permanent anti-malarial sanitation works, a canal lock, and canal earthworks and irrigation.115 These may not have had the high status of a museum but they were arguably more important to the city’s infrastructure and provided him with a ready source of income. Trịnh occasionally worked in partnership with entrepreneur Dinh-van Tê, served as a municipal counsellor in Haiphong, was invited to society dinners, and donated generously to the Red Cross. Both Batteur and Papi were awarded honours for their contributions to the museum, Batteur made officer of the Royal Order of Cambodia and Papi chevalier of the Dragon of Annam, but Trịnh received nothing.116 However, this slight was not necessarily racially motivated as two Vietnamese “designers at the efeo ” (presumably Batteur’s students) were honoured: Nguyèn-tiên-Loi was also made a chevalier of the Dragon of Annam and Tran-huy-Ba was given the Order of Kim-tiên, Third Class. It is most likely that Trịnh had been fired before the building’s completion, which would explain why he, like Aviat, did not share in the accolades. The Construction of the Musée Louis-Finot As had been the case with the Society of Indochinese Studies in Saigon, the efeo shuttled its Hanoi collection between various locations: from 1898 it was in the school’s headquarters and in 1902 it was relocated to the palace of the Exposition de Hanoi, which became known as the Musée Maurice Long (fig. 1.11).117 The following

8.10 (Top ) Ernest Hébrard and Charles Batteur, Musée Louis-Finot, Hanoi, 1925–32. Entrance and main rotunda. 8.11 (BoTTom ) Ernest Hébrard and Charles Batteur, Musée Louis-Finot, Hanoi, 1925–32. Detail of main rotunda.

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year a typhoon damaged the palace and destroyed part of the collection, which was evacuated to the school library in boulevard Carreau and, in November 1910, to a historic building in a spacious garden on rue Maréchal-Galliéni which had been the French Consul’s residence (1874–83) before the Protectorate and then the seat of the résident général (1884–87) and governor-general (1888–1907).118 After the opening of the palace of the Gouvernement général (fig. 6.8) the house on rue Maréchal-Galliéni served briefly as the site of the first Indochinese University.119 However the collections grew steadily over the next fifteen years and the building could barely house them, resulting in cluttered, cramped installations in poorly lit rooms with many works in storage. The collections were moved back to the efeo building, and with reluctance the efeo demolished the former residence between May and July 1925 to make way for a larger structure. Governor-General Merlin released funds for the efeo to begin the new construction project as a “collaboration” between Hébrard, of the Service central des bâtiments civils and Batteur, inspector of the efeo ’s Archaeological Service and their de facto in-house architect (figs. 8.10– 11).120 The report of the inspector general of public works (24 February 1925), which again states that Hébrard worked “in collaboration” with Batteur, noted that the building “consists of a rotunda and main building connected by the stairwell of the grand staircase, an avant-corps and two wings,” with two storeys devoted to exhibitions and a basement to accommodate storage,

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8.12 Ernest Hébrard and Charles Batteur, Musée Louis-Finot, front elevation, 1925. Ink on paper. Private collection.

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8.13 (oppoSiTe ) Ernest Hébrard and Charles Batteur, Musée Louis-Finot, general view, 1925. Lithograph. efeo, Paris.

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collection management, and offices, and that it would occupy a total of 1,835 square metres and cost 100,000 piastres.121 Merlin approved their project on 28 February. Hébrard’s “avant-project” was “taken over and completed” by Batteur in advance of the award of the commission on 7 November.122 Elsewhere Batteur is named as the sole architect and Papi as his executing architect.123 Batteur’s original drawings – all of which are signed by Batteur as “Architecte membre de l’école française d’Extrême-Orient” and dated 8 October

1925 – survive in the National Archives Centre 1 in Hanoi and a second set in a private collection in Da Nang; they include a north and west facade, a ground-floor plan, and a longitudinal sectional view (fig. 8.12).124 The tenders for the building’s contractor were put out on 6 October 1925, and on 7 November Aviat was provisionally approved by a committee headed by Albert Normandin, chief engineer of the public works of Tonkin, the decision made official on 12 November.125 He won out over three other contenders, two European firms and Dô huu Thuc dit Cai Ba, a Vietnamese entrepreneur who had prevailed over Aviat for a 1923 commission for work on the Hanoi Post Office and would try to win the museum contract again when Aviat left the project.126 The clearing of the work site and the ancillary preliminary works were executed immediately and construction proper began in mid-February

1926, following Tet, the lunar New Year.127 Work was interrupted between 17 March and 2 May when the pilings supporting the foundations of the rotunda and wing had to be rebuilt and the mortar coating on the concrete replaced; toward the end of July rains flooded the site and caused further delays. By January 1927 they had completed the concrete foundations, the reinforced concrete supports of the main floor, and the exterior wall of the basement with its brick revetments and concrete lintels (except in parts of the stairwell and rotunda wings). The second-floor framing in the main gallery, rotunda, and rotunda wing was also well underway. Nevertheless construction stalled again, this time for a year and a half, when Aviat went on a ten-month furlough to France (April 1927–31 January 1928), shortly after which, on 1 March 1928, he wrote his letter of resignation.128 Aviat submitted a claim for compensation on 6 January 1929 and on 4 April was granted an indemnity of 20,923.14 piastres

for the “extensive prolongation of the work” and “insufficient payment for work performed,” which Governor-General Pierre-Marie-Antoine Pasquier (in office 1928–34) approved on 15 May.129 As Herbelin has noted, Aviat’s resignation was the direct result of Batteur’s micromanagement of the project: the “scholarly architect” was constantly amending and perfecting the design, causing considerable delays and exasperating Aviat with the multiple changes to the design.130 As early as 1926 the anonymous report in the efeo Bulletin already noted that there were a “lot of studies because of the many and necessary drawings of details, of architecture proper, and of construction” and that this will “require a long delay, owing to the necessary slowness of very delicate work in all of it.”131 Aviat’s departure did not slow Batteur down: a government report from 1929 noted that he had “prepared numerous [new] working drawings for the Public Works Department with a view to

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the tender for completing the museum,” and on 21 February that year a thief broke into his home and stole seven paintings and ten studies that he had been working on for the same tender.132 Another bid for tenders went out “for the completion of construction works” as approved on 30 May 1929, and Trịnh Quý Khang was hired on 11 June 1929 (again beating out Dô huu Thuc dit Cai-Ba), with the total budget for the museum now calculated at $199,542.53 over three years.133 I have not found any record about when Papi was brought on board, but all of the references to his contributions say that he was the man who made the building’s completion possible and, as I suggest above, Trịnh must have been terminated before it was finished.134 On 11 March 1931 Governor-General Pierre Pasquier officially named the efeo ’s new museum after Louis Finot (1864–1935), the school’s former director.135 One year later, on 19 March 1932, George Coedès (1886–1969), director of the efeo , wrote to the mayor of the city of Hanoi, “I have the honour of informing you that the Musée Louis Finot will be open to the public starting next Sunday 20 March, every Thursday and Sunday from 8:00 to 11:00 in the morning and 2:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon,” taking the opportunity to request four policemen to guard the museum during opening hours at the museum’s expense.136 Like the nearby opera house (fig. 6.3), the Musée Louis-Finot, on a north-south axis, was positioned for maximum impact on the viewer, with the entrance opening onto a small square on the north and giving onto the rue de France, the road passing to the left of the Théâtre de Hanoi when approaching the latter from rue Paul Bert (figs. 8.10, 8.12–13). The building’s plan is reminiscent of that of a church, with a long, nave-like main hall with an apse-like conference room at the end and, via a narrow stair hall, an octagonal rotunda with transept-like single-storey

extensions to the east and west, the west one longer to accommodate a gallery for inscriptions (fig. 8.13). The entrance facade features a low triple-arched pavilion-like porch accessed at the ends via a pair of gently curving ramps (fig. 8.10). The park was carefully cultivated, with a steep decline from east to west – the museum prominently located on the eastern height – and a series of curving pathways meeting at ronds-points and surrounded by trees. The efeo was concerned not to use up all the land as it hoped to expand the building as the collections grew.137 The flanks of the main building were easily visible from the park and avenue Clémenceau and the Red River to the east (fig. 8.13). The entire structure is built of reinforced concrete with a tiled roof. The entry ramps and porch lead to a vestibule containing the cloakroom and bookshop, which gives onto the main rotunda hall, allowing visitors a view of its entire 30-metre height, as we have seen in Saigon. The museum has a total exhibition area of 1,835 square metres and its cross-like plan measures about 100 by 50 metres.138 Surrounding the visitor are the rotating galleries for the most important objects, accessed via five separate short staircases. The rotunda design is practical as people can either circulate around the rotating galleries or proceed directly to the main stair hall and principal gallery. It is also bathed with light from windows in the walls on both levels and in the lantern. To the left and right of the rotunda are the small, transept-like exhibition halls for recently excavated works, the right gallery leading to the larger hall of the inscriptions. The main gallery, with its own transept-like paired exhibition halls at the north end, opens into the “grandes galeries d’exposition” with a colonnade down the middle and amply lit by generously proportioned windows. The apse-like projection opens onto a little veranda with a view of the southern part of the garden, and a second pair

stylized fret capitals along the flanks are “modern abstractions” of the dragons found in Vietnamese or Chinese architecture.141 To my mind there is very little that is Lao about this building (compare fig. 8.9), which is remarkable given Batteur’s interest in that region and the considerable work he did restoring buildings in Luang Prabang and Vientiane. More convincingly, Trần Quốc Bảo believes that the rooflines resemble those of the Keo Pagoda in Thái Bình (begun 1061).142 However these Asian references cannot conceal the museum’s European scale: like Hébrard’s Finance Ministry (fig. 8.1) its borrowings from the timber-framed trabeated architecture of East Asia are out of proportion with all but the largest imperial structures like the Grand Ancestral Shrine in Beijing (fifteenth century) or the Great Buddha Hall at Tōdai-ji in Japan (present building ca 1700).143 Although less severe than Hébrard’s other buildings the museum is still an unmistakably European invention that translates Asian forms into modernist ones – or, more properly, what Herbelin aptly calls “Art déco modéré” – and its translation of timber architecture into concrete is mechanical and sterile (fig. 8.11).144 Governor-General Pierre-Marie-Antoine Pasquier (1877–1934) made no secret of the building’s French identity at its inauguration: “Without France, this Museum would not be possible. It represents one of the centres of this consciousness which it has given to the various countries of Indochina, a consciousness which is unique for all although separately perceived.”145 The building was much praised in its day, not only by members of the efeo but also by local reporters. “H.C.,” writing for L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine on 14 March 1926, applauded its use of ancient Asian elements instead of returning to neoclassicism, comparing it favourably with earlier French architecture in Indochina and Western style architecture in Siam:

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of transept-like chambers contain the service staircase and freight elevator. The layout of the first storey is the same as the ground floor except that the rotunda cannot be accessed from this level. The basement, reached by service entrances, was for museum staff, with the section under the main gallery devoted to storage and exhibition preparation, while the rotunda and front section of the building contained offices for the administration, rooms for drawing, lavatories, a photography studio, a storage area for teaching materials, and a general storeroom. As with the Saigon museum the collections were divided into Chinese or Indian “families,” with Vietnamese and Japanese art falling into the former and Khmer, Siamese, and Lao into the latter.139 The ground floor of the main gallery was assigned to the Chinese “family” and the first floor to the Indian “family.” Ironically, given Hébrard’s dislike of gothic, there is more than a hint of the cathedral to the elevation as well, with its high-pitched roof, prominent windows arranged vertically, and an octagonal cupola like that of the thirteenthcentury Coutances Cathedral in Normandy (fig. 8.13). However, as Christian Pédelahore and Le Brusq have demonstrated, the museum borrowed structural forms from Asian building types, such as the đình (fig. 5.5); the pagoda-like rotunda with its pointed roof and complex bracketed overhang (figs. 8.10–11); and the eave bracketing of the roof and square module of columns and horizontal elements on the flanks, both from Chinese architecture, although the pairing of the columns is French (fig. 8.13).140 The triple roof and prominent finial atop the rotunda hint at imperial religious structures such as the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (1406–20, with later additions), which, however, is circular. Le Huu Phoc sees the influence of Lao-Thai and Khmer double roofs in the side wings, although he notes that the bracketing is closer to Sino-Vietnamese models, and the

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With this new building, as already with the Finance Department building […] we depart from the banality of French and Italian architecture and of Greek and Roman architectural motifs whose beauty is certainly indisputable, in Europe, but which are out of place in the Far East, as we can see in Bangkok. After some trial and error, Mr. Hébrard discovered how to give his projects something quite local in the appearance of the exterior, without losing anything of the amenities that the most modern European architecture offers in interior design, nor of the nobility of the ensemble, the legacy of Mediterranean antiquity and the Renaissance. Regarding the Museum, Mr. Hébrard’s plans were completed in the same spirit by Mr. Batteur, the distinguished architect of the Far Eastern School, who is responsible for supervising its execution. This collaboration between two first-rate artists, nourished by the best architectural traditions of the West, combining the most classic taste of Rome, Athens and Paris with the most practical American designs and a rare knowledge, in a European architect, of the art of the Far East and local conditions, will leave a building quite remarkable and of which Indochina will be proud.146

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Interestingly, despite his respect for the “originality and local colour” of the building H.C. in the end attributes the building’s overall superiority to its use of such a melange of sources as Mediterranean antiquity, the Renaissance, and the architecture of Paris and the United States – quite a pastiche indeed.147 I will let N. Tô, a Vietnamese critic writing for L’Avenir du Tonkin on 8 March 1932, have the last word on this building. This erudite writer, who quoted a constellation of architecture critics from

François Fénelon (1651–1715), Eugène Viollet-leDuc (1814–1879), John Ruskin (1819–1900), and William Morris (1834–1896) to Otto Wagner (1841–1918) and Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert (1870–1926), was indeed impressed with the building’s combination of modernity and tradition. But he was also a bit daunted by all that concrete and by the uneasy balance between the delicacy of Asian forms and the impersonality of an alien, uncompromising building: “the work designed by Messieurs Hébrard and Batteur manifests something that is at once powerful, determined, and strained. It disparages harmonic refinements and formal perfection but achieves a severe majesty and strong oppositions. […] all the classic elegances have not disappeared from the new Museum of the École française d’Extrême-Orient to make room only for this cold and methodical equilibrium introduced by concrete.”148 Nevertheless, the associationist architecture of buildings like the Hanoi museum was well received by a new generation of elite Indochinese critics and architects between the 1920s and 1940s as Herbelin has explored in detail, people who sought an architecture that was at once modern, comfortable, and genuinely Vietnamese. The movement began in 1919, with the foundation in Hanoi of the group known as the Association pour la formation intellectuelle et morale des Annamites (afima ), whose members included Vietnamese politicians and a judge. afima sought cultural links with France to ease their country’s move toward independence, “a controlled modernization that respected certain traditional norms and for progress within continuity without wrenching cultural breaks.”149 Like Hébrard, who presided over the jury of their 1924 concours for a model house and shop, they blended European and Sino-Vietnamese styles; however they were more specific in their use of localized forms than was Hébrard: they had to be Tonkinese (“our way,”

projects as being aimed solely at rich patrons. Journalist Tha Sơn criticized an ebai exhibition of house designs in November 1933 in the newspaper Ngọ-Báo because they amounted to “an expensive hobby for the rich” affordable only by “a millionaire like Trần Trinh Trạch” (1872–1942), buildings “as spacious as a palace” with “little impact” on ordinary people like the “husband and wife with three children” living on a small plot in the country.154 His ideal for a new “Vietnamese architecture” (“kiến-trúc Việt Nam”) was to create more practical and affordable designs using traditional materials such as bamboo and to focus on sanitation – but also to seek beauty in simplicity and balance. If there was any hybridity in his vision, it was merely to employ modern standards of cleanliness and his interest in raising the living conditions of the poor was something notably lacking in even the most utopian projects of Vietnamese architects. Thus, on the eve of the Second World War, in parallel with similar developments in independent Asian nations, some academic Vietnamese architects sought to upend the top-down architecture of association: a hybridity engineered to control the colonized became a means for some Vietnamese at once to reclaim their identity and enter the modern world. However, they were not the first indigenous agents to attempt do so in French Asian colonies: they were merely the first to theorize about it. As we will see in the next chapter, grassroots architectural hybridization thrived in the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries in India and Indochina, buildings commissioned by and for Asians that combined indigenous and European styles variously to assert their own agency and identity within the colonial system, to subvert the values of colonialism, to claim European styles as their own, or to make the final push for independence.

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lối ta). As with associationist architecture they focused in particular on indigenous roof forms, which were more richly decorated than those of the Hanoi and Saigon museums and which used specific quotations of structures and motifs from local architecture. Like Hébrard afima also stressed the importance of comfort in response to climate, but they did not look at modern conveniences as something uniquely European: they claimed them for their own and adapted them to meet Vietnamese needs. The more overtly nationalistic architecture students and alumni of the ebai in Hanoi in the 1930s and ’40s also aimed to bring Vietnamese architecture into the modern world, combining vernacular and Asian historical architecture with Western modernism.150 Their efforts echoed analogous attempts in free Asian nations, notably the Bunriha Kenchikukai (Secessionist Architectural Group) in 1920s Japan, which sought “an architecture firmly situated in the present yet resonant with their own conception of a more vital and authentic ‘tradition.’” I suspect that the Vietnamese architects were aware of the earlier movement, particularly as Bunriha designs similarly combined traditional roofs with modern substructures.151 The output of the ebai graduates was surprisingly eclectic, from modernist villas to houses that blend East with West and vernacular with antiquity, but the concern of greatest importance to them was that “local architecture had to be adapted to contemporary living and to social concerns,” notably by preserving traditional ground plans that reflected Vietnamese lifestyles.152 Herbelin considers the school to be the most fruitful outcome of Hébrard’s “style indochinois,” one that was more faithful to his theories than he was himself.153 Nevertheless, there was no unified vision for a Vietnamese style; others decried these highbrow

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9 hybridity India and Southeast Asia 1738–1962

In the last two chapters we looked at French, Dutch, and British attempts to appropriate structural and decorative features of the architecture and arts of the colonized for the architecture of the colonial state. These powers did so to consolidate their authority, curate the culture of the colonized, denigrate indigenous creativity of expression, and promote the modernizing mission civilisatrice in the name of progress and health. However, as we have already seen throughout this book, hybridity was not a monolithic process and it could not be regulated: it took many forms depending upon the needs and desires of the patrons, the ingenuity of the builders, the degree of freedom they enjoyed within the colony, the era in which it occurred, and the specific regional, religious, and political realities that motivated it. In this final chapter we will look at six examples of architectural hybridity commissioned by Asians living in French colonies or former colonies that challenged, each in its own way, French rule and Gallic perceived superiority. These buildings were constructed variously to assert a patron’s prominence within the colonial government; to manipulate European structures, images, and motifs for purposes specific to four quite different Asian religious institutions; and to combine modernist principles with Asian motifs as a visualization of independence – precisely the reverse of Hébrard’s top-down “style indochinois,” and similar to the goals of afima and the graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi discussed in the last

modern substructure recalled the replicas made at the French expositions in the earlier part of the century, but this time in a permanent building. Van Molyvann’s brand of modernism became known as “New Khmer Architecture,” but it had opposite goals to that of Groslier – indeed Van Molyvann, a Cambodian architect who studied at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, received precisely the kind of architectural training Groslier tried to deny to Cambodians. All these monuments demonstrate a desire for regionally inflected European forms, whether neoclassicism or art deco modernism, forms that had become by then a global rather than European language of architecture. Nevertheless, the modernism with which they engaged was not modernism as it was understood in Europe. None of the buildings in this book (unlike some of Vann Molyvann’s larger projects in the 1960s) used Bauhaus- or Le Corbusier–inspired architecture, with its unadorned reinforced concrete, steel, and expanses of glass. Such forms were not yet familiar in Asia because the colonizers themselves never built true modernist buildings there (although they did turn up at the later international expositions in Europe). Mercedes Vollait, writing about Egypt, explains it well: “The contemporary architectural critic may see the bulk of Egyptian Europeanized architecture as second-rate, if not third-rate. But this would be to miss the fact that societies around the Mediterranean, and probably in other parts of the world too, shared, in the wake of imperialism, a middling modernism of European origin, after having experienced a middling Beaux-Arts that was characterized by compromises and negotiations resulting from varied exposure to the diverse architectural culture of Europe.”2 The chapter also includes an episode in which a Southeast Asian nationalist politician fought with colonial authorities in the courts in the 1930s to

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chapter. As Caroline Herbelin notes specifically about Vietnam: “The colonizers were not the only ones trying to develop a local style; the colonized were addressing this question as well.”1 In the case of Ananda Ranga Pillai’s House in Pondicherry (1738) (figs. 9.2–6), the building represented the owner’s dual role as an employee of the French and the leader of the Tamil community, as well as his self-association with an ancient South Indian royal lineage and Hindu philanthropy. By contrast, the patrons of Phát Diệm Cathedral (1892) (figs. 9.7–10) and the Caodaist Holy See (1933–55) (figs. 9.12–13) were driven by a desire (in the first case) to indigenize Christianity by cleansing it of all foreign stylistic features, and (in the second) to incorporate Franco-Christian structural forms – but, again, not styles – into the headquarters of a syncretic faith with sporadic anti-colonial sympathies. The métissage of the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda in Mỹ Tho (1907–33) (figs. 9.16–19) was motivated by an enthusiasm for eclecticism and material splendour, much as we have seen in seventeenthand early eighteenth-century Siam, but one in which the elements we recognize as being of European origin were not considered to be European at all. The Buddhist Wat Khili Temple in Luang Prabang (1930–45) (figs. 9.20–2), by a Bangkok-trained abbot architect, reasserted Lao architectural identity within the framework of the city’s dominant Franco-Vietnamese neoclassicism, possibly motivated by his exposure to modern Siam’s own fusion of European and regional forms (fig. 7.3). Modernist architect Van Molyvann’s gargantuan independence monument in Phnom Penh (1962) announced that the days in which France could claim Angkor Wat as French patrimoine were over and directly linked the new government to Khmer antiquity (fig. 9.32). Its combination of a superstructure composed of forms adapted from Angkor with a

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indigenize drastically a neoclassical government building. The politician’s insistence upon adding a regional roof and encasing the building in an art deco envelope festooned with indigenous motifs was a proclamation of national identity and an open challenge to colonial authority, using the tools of associationism precisely to overturn the colonial order. This building happens to be in British Rangoon, which might seem out of place in a book on the architecture of French colonialism. However, I have chosen Rangoon City Hall (1925–40) (figs. 9.28–29), because no French examples were as openly politicized, nor is the discussion about an Asian roof as a rejection of colonialism so well documented. The Rangoon City Hall is also not isolated from French currents. The importance of the roof in this struggle suggests that Burman intellectuals were aware of Hébrard and other associationist experiments in French Southeast Asia, not to mention the Japanese Bunriha Kenchikukai, which, as I have suggested, may have inspired the graduates of the ebai. Furthermore, it also plays into one of this book’s major themes, that of the international exposition, as its architect had tested out hybrid styles in an exhibition pavilion before beginning City Hall. The main protagonist of the campaign, politician U Ba Pe (b. 1883), leader of the radical Twenty-One Party, was well known in France and its colonies, and delivered lectures in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille in 1932 on his way home from participating in the 1931 Burma Round Table Conference in London, where he demanded a new constitution separate from that of India, as was reported widely in the French and French Indochinese press.3 Colonized subjects of French colonies were not isolated in their attempts to create regional architectural modernisms but were in fact part of a wide network of ideas and architectural movements spreading across South, Southeast, and East Asia in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is important to bear this in mind, lest, because of the nature of area studies, we think that France’s colonies were an isolated case. Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry (1738) Ananda Ranga Pillai’s Franco-Tamil mansion in the heart of Pondicherry’s Indian Quarter is the oldest building in the city and the only one to survive the British sack of 1761 (figs. 9.2–6).4 Although it was built almost two centuries before Hébrard, its designer – likely its patron – likewise made a conscious decision to juxtapose French and Asian architectural structures. However, unlike associationist architecture, which tends to relegate the indigenous features to the roof 9.1 Portrait of Ananda Ranga Pillai, Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry, mid-eighteenth century. Pigment, gold leaf, and gemstones on gesso. © efeo .

9.2 Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry, begun 1738. Garden facade.

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and surface decoration, Ananda’s house contrasts the two cultures in equal measures and in intersecting ways: interior vs exterior, back vs front, plan vs elevation, and upstairs vs downstairs. And unlike the palaces of the south Indian nawabs with whom he did business, few of the Indian elements in Ananda’s house are Mughal: overall it is resolutely South Indian, derived from domestic and religious architecture alike, even though as we shall see he employed Mughal ceremonial and interior decorations during special events.5 This dual nature of the house was appropriate to a place where Ananda received both Indian and French guests. However, the building is also a visualization of Ananda’s bi-cultural role in the colony

and of his wealth, prestige, faith, and (falsified) royal lineage. In addition to his position as courtier to the cio, Ananda was the leader of the Indian community. As Liza Oliver has recently shown in an analysis of the portrait commissioned by him in his house (fig. 9.1), he drew upon northern and southern Indian ideologies of authority and kingship when constructing his public persona.6 His portrait combines imagery associated with the Rajput chūbdār (“mace-holder” in Persian), an elite soldier class under the Mughals, symbolized by the white robe tied at the left and the staff in his right hand, and the “chief of peons,” a South Indian honorific denoting the leader of an assembly, signalled by his large hoop earrings and moustache (the dagger was common to both). He also adopted the identity of the Nayaks, governors

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in charge of principalities of the Vijayanagara Empire (1336–1646) who became regional “kings” after the empire’s fall, one of them in Gingee (fig. 2.9).7 Nayaks were also mythic heroes, and it was this identity that Ananda sought, inventing a royal lineage for himself when in actual fact he belonged to the itaiyar cowherd caste and was from a Telugu family originating in Madras.8 Ananda enshrined his public persona more thoroughly in his self-commissioned Sanskrit biography, Śrinivasa’s Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū, a work in a language he did not understand but which enhanced his prestige, as Sanskrit was the liturgical language of Hinduism and classical Hindu philosophy and history.9 Members of Ananda’s family were “staunch Hindus” and had been active for generations in founding and maintaining Hindu charitable endowments, and the Campū celebrates the charitable acts of his ancestors and Ananda’s own religious obligations.10 David Shulman aptly characterizes it as “biography as driven by autobiographical impulse.”11 The text would have been read aloud in a public performance (aran˙kerram) ¯¯ in the house to an audience including Brahmins, who would have been the only people to have understood it.12 As both governor and king the Nayak was a perfect avatar for a cio courtier who served the French governor but was indispensable to him. Indeed, the Campū goes further, depicting Ananda and his father as equals of the governor, giving the title of “king” to courtier and governor

9.3 (Top ) Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry. Street facade. 9.4 (miDDLe ) Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry. Mutram (central courtyard). © efeo . 9.5 (BoTTom ) Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry, interior. Row of South Indian temple-style mahogany columns. © efeo .

alike. Here is Śrinivasa’s description of a meeting between Tiruvangadan (Tiruven˙kat.a), Ananda’s father, and Governor Pierre Dulivier (in office 1712–17) in Canto III (the French are referred to as Hūn.as): “Then, king Tiruven˙kat.a who was resplendent like the Sun god (mitra) set out along

with his ministers and saw the lord of Hūn.as (Dulivier) who already knew the incessant acts of charity of king Tiruven˙kat.a. The king of Hūn.as knowing him (Tiruven˙kat.a) as very opulent greeted him with all respect, understanding that he (Tiruven˙kat.a) is very competent in planning, policy and decision making the king gladly appointed Tiruven˙kat.a as his saciva (counsel).”13 His description of Ananda’s appointment as dubash by Dupleix after Tiruvangadan’s death in

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9.6 Ananda Ranga Pillai House, Pondicherry, ground floor. © efeo . Main house is at the bottom of the plan, with the entrance marked “A.”

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1746 (Canto IV) makes Ananda sound almost like a god: “Lord Ānandaranga shone in the earth with his great genius and oratorical powers. He went beyond all by qualities like humility, purity, straightforwardness, tolerance, charity, power, truthful words, policy, learning, soberness, courage, compassion, valour, enthusiasm and secrecy.”14 The Campū provides a detailed description of Ananda’s house, the only contemporary one in existence, as Ananda never described it in his diary. The reference is in Canto IV, and describes a palatial interior with silver and jewelled ornaments and an elaborate clock; it also notes that Ananda provided musical entertainment to his guests:

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He built a new mansion with several rooms that was befitting the kings and which was equal in beauty and opulence to the abodes of Indra and Kubera where in Mukunda and other gods dwelt and were worshipped. In that superior mansion of Ānandaranga embedded with shining silver and decorated with vanishing precious stones, the interiors of which smelt with the fragrance of divine flowers. Guru – the preceptor of Gods is capable of describing the greatness of the mansion of Lord Ānandaranga. It is indeed served constantly by the pious due to its opulence. Women like the celestial nymphs indulge in the praises of their lord (Indra). And the gods who shine with righteousness constantly wish to dwell therein. There the clock resounds wonderfully informing the time, causing happiness to astrologers who wish to know the time constantly. It shines uniquely and suggests fulfilment to the twice born who come to accept various objects from Lord Ānandaranga. This lord Ānandaranga shone in that wonderful

mansion being generously praised by all the twice born, like the Lord of gods (Indra) is a divine form. While Ānandaranga indulged in playing lute (inside the mansion) the goddess of opulence Laksmi and the goddess of learning Saraswati. The music consoled everyone’s mind that is like a deer.15 The passage’s mention of “shining silver” is corroborated in Ananda’s Tamil diary when, on 29 May 1760, just before the Siege of Pondicherry, he was ordered to melt down the silver and gold furnishings of his house.16 The Campū may be the only description of the house, but it and Ananda’s diary provide insight into how it was used and even decorated. The house had many roles: it was a place for banquets with music and nautch dancers, a warehouse for goods, a location for giving and receiving diplomatic gifts, a venue for religious ceremonial, an office for business meetings with company officials and merchants, a nexus for regional and international intelligence, and even a place for dispensing justice.17 In other words, the Hindu ceremonial aside, it was the counterpart to the Gouvernement, or more precisely, it combined cio activities with those of a community leader. A description of Ananda’s daughter’s wedding at the house in Canto V of the Campū hints at the lavishness of the ceremonies hosted there: “He (Ānandaranga) entered the famous residence along with his happy wife, royal men, other joyous folks following him, group of ministers sent by the king, men adorning various garlands and decorations on their bodies and ascending palanquins, horses, chariots and tall haughty elephants. Having entered his own residence and receiving auspicious blessings along with his wife from learned twice born, later he with a generous mind gave befitting presents to all who came.”18 Indeed this wedding, in June 1747, was the most

and carts are decorated and venerated in honour of Lord Krishna), Ananda described the way he decorated his house: “The central hall of my house was adorned after the manner of the Court of S’aadat-ul-lah Khân. The floor was spread with carpets of wool and cotton. In the midst were large pillows of velvet brocade. I sat in the centre, and there received all the principal people and merchants of the town, distributing gifts according to the rank of each – broad-cloths, shawls, women’s cloths, upper cloths, and other things. Then at midnight pân supârî [betel leaf and areca nut] was given and all withdrew.”23 Sa’adatullāh Khān I was the Nawab of Carnatic (r. 1710–32), and by consciously emulating the Nawab’s lavish Mughal-style courtly interior Ananda was making a personal statement of power and influence no different from that made by the governor, although in this case, paradoxically, using the style of a Muslim potentate to adorn a Hindu religious event. The date of construction of Ananda’s house, which was directly across the street from the mep church, is usually given as 1738, which is the first time he mentions it in his diary, on 6 May.24 However he continued to decorate it for the next two decades including, importantly, the teak wood ornamentation of the interior, as he notes in his entry for 10 September 1758 where he initially refuses to part with his supply of teak at the request of a European: “I told him that I could spare none, as I wanted it for my house. He replied ‘I have all the timber and stone at Devanâmpattanam, and I will let you have them cheap or exchange timber for timber.’ – ‘Very well,’ I replied.”25 A two-storey, flat-roofed, rectangular building of brick and stucco arranged around a central courtyard, it has a street facade on the north facing the central Tamil market, and a garden facade to the south, giving onto a rectangular garden slightly longer than the house

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extravagant event that took place there, lasting for days, allegedly involving 10,000 guests (including the governor and cio merchants), and using up so much food that the governor was concerned that it would cause a rice shortage.19 The house was particularly important as a place of diplomatic gift exchange. On 6 August 1743 historian Mīr Ghulām H.usayn T.abāt.abā’ī (b. 1727/8) paid his respects to Ananda at his house, whereupon Ananda “went as far as the front door to meet him, conducted him within, and presented him with two rolls of broadcloth, and four bottles of rose-water.”20 On 11 June 1744 dubash Ôrkan.d.i Rangappa Nâyakkan of British Fort Saint David in nearby Cuddalore paid Ananda a visit following his wedding in Madras and stayed the day and night at his house, where “I entertained him with a banquet, and presented him with a dress of honour.”21 The house hosted events of a more religious nature, as on 18 May 1746 when the Raja of Karvetinagar (west of Madras and home to an important temple) sent Ananda various gifts, including an Arab horse, a dagger inlaid with gold, and various costly textiles. The presents were transported by a Brahmin who was the son-inlaw of Ananda’s priest, four temple priests from Tirupati (northwest of Madras) who had brought sacred offerings from the god Venkateswara, the main deity of Tirupati’s Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, and a few other people: “at about four Indian hours before sunrise, the Brâhmans, the others who came from the Râjâ, and I, set out for Pondichery, and reached my house at about fifteen minutes after sunrise, when the rising sign of the zodiac was Taurus. We went upstairs, where we all sat down. Betel and nut were distributed to us there, after which the men sent by the Râjâ repaired to my indigo storehouse, where accommodation was provided for them.”22 On 12 January 1748 during the Gopās.t.amī feast (at which cattle

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(fig. 9.6). The garden facade is indistinguishable from that of a French hôtel particulier in the style of Louis XV, with a ground-floor arcade and a first-storey seven-bay Doric colonnade with a balustrade crowned with a plain entablature and attic featuring panelled decoration (fig. 9.2). It likely was adapted from one of the architectural books used by the French engineers as models for cio buildings (see chapter 4). A pair of staircases at either end of the arcade provide access to the first storey, and the garden is entered through a classical portal like those in French houses in the city. Thus, it blends seamlessly with the architecture of French officialdom in the colony. By contrast, the street facade, while crowned with a classical balustrade with piers and finials, uses narrow Tamil-style wooden columns in its nine-bay first-floor colonnade with brackets and corbels, a feature that has gone unnoticed in the literature, but which makes sense since it lets onto the city’s main Tamil commercial street (fig. 9.3). It would be fascinating to know whom he received at each end: were Indians welcomed on the Tamil side and French on the French side, or was the Tamil side reserved for business and the French one for ceremonial? Wooden panelling encloses the colonnade, with only small windows at each end, and it has a decorative iron railing at the base. The building’s hybridity is more striking on the interior (figs. 9.4–5). The plan is that of a typical Tamil house, with a series of semi-covered, open, and covered spaces on a single axis, beginning with a thalvaram vestibule (veranda resting on wooden posts, now spoiled by contemporary shops), the lavishly carved wooden main doorway leading to the thinnai (transition space), the mutram (central courtyard which gives access to private spaces in the house), and a yard at the back (fig. 9.6). Ananda mentioned the thalvaram in his diary when, on 23 December 1756, an elephant in rut “made a rush towards my house, and struck a

pillar of the verandah, breaking many tiles.”26 As with much of the surviving French architecture of late eighteenth-century Pondicherry the roof is a “Madras terrace” roofing system with parallel beams supporting brickwork and carved wooden beams supporting the ground floor ceiling (see fig. 4.35). Traditionally, the mutram, also known as the brahmāsthanam � (“vital space” in Sanskrit), was an auspicious structure, meant to align with the five elements, earth (siting), fire (sun), water (rain), air, and space, as instructed by the vāstu śāstra (the ancient Indian science of architecture and geomancy), and it was often used for family meetings.27 More private zones include the prayer room (pooja room, or sami arai), bedroom, storeroom, and kitchen, which opens onto the rear courtyard. As was traditional, the yard at the back had a well and was used to store livestock (in this case horses and elephants), and there was once a simpler building on the south side for domestic functions. The juxtaposition of India and France is most obvious in the courtyard and the semi-public halls to the north and south of it. On the ground floor Ananda commissioned numerous Dravidian-style teak columns. Most of them have smooth shafts and modest corbelled capitals with foliate reliefs (fig. 9.4), however the transitions between the courtyard and, respectively, the north vestibule and south hall are each demarcated by four outsized, profusely carved corbelled columns, the northern ones attached to the wall and octagonal and the southern ones freestanding and doubled. These latter feature segmented shafts adorned with fluting and lozenge patterns, and they have textile-like arabesque patterns in the interstices, perhaps reflecting Ananda’s role in the textile trade (fig. 9.5). They also recall Vijayanagara temple architecture, as in nearby Gingee. The inner perimeter of the courtyard on the ground floor also features a chhajjā (a projecting eave

important settings for mercantile and diplomatic exchange. But the South Indian aspects of the house also sent a distinctively religious message, that Ananda was a key patron of Hindu charitable foundations and himself a devout Hindu, and the references to the architecture of Vijayanagara underscored his self-made persona as a Nayak. More than any other building in this chapter, Ananda’s house is a personal expression of identity: rather than representing a people, religion, or culture, it was architectural autobiography, precisely the built equivalent of his portrait and the Campū. Cathedral Complex, Phát Diệm (1876–1892) The next building was completed 154 years later in Tonkin, and for very different reasons. The Phát Diệm Cathedral complex (1876–92), in the Kim Sơn District of Ninh Bình Province, is the first known example since the early modern missionary era of a Catholic church built in Sino-Vietnamese style, an approach commonly seen today in contemporary Vietnamese churches (figs. 9.7–10).29 Built by Vietnamese diocesan priest Père Six (Trần Lục, 1825–1899) for a Vietnamese congregation, it was begun while Tonkin was still independent and completed six years after the foundation of the French Protectorate. One of the largest Catholic architectural campuses in Asia at 22 hectares, it includes the cathedral (74 metres long by 21 wide) with three towers at the entrance, five freestanding chapels, four gates, the founder’s tomb, and a monumental bell tower and gatehouse preceding the cathedral (25 metres high by 24 long and 17 wide). It is bounded on the north by a trio of artificial mountains, two of them containing grottoes (representing Lourdes and Bethlehem), and the third a Golgotha (fig. 9.10). The placement of the ecclesiastical buildings between a triple mountain

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resting on a row of mixtilinear wooden brackets), a form typically found in Mughal and Rajput architecture. The south hall (fig. 9.5), demarcated by the doubled columns, is the ceremonial centre of the house. It houses the patron’s portrait (fig. 9.1) above an eighteenth-century French rococo console table, and it also has the richest sculpted teak ceiling in Pondicherry. I believe that the rows of temple-style columns in the vestibule and hall are meant to recall the pillared halls (Chaultris or Chawadis) in South Indian temples, which is appropriate given their function as demarcations of a ceremonial place where Ananda would receive Brahmins, important merchants, and other officials, and where his Sanskrit biography was likely read aloud.28 By contrast, the first storey is in the style of Louis XV, with Ionic columns and classical entablatures, as seen in the central courtyard, where there is also a balustrade above the entablature with wrought iron railings like those of the street facade between the columns, but here with four escutcheons with Ananda’s coat of arms and titles (fig. 9.4). The walls with their simple decorative panels and the doorways with segmental arches also follow French models. Ananda used architectural hybridity not to challenge or overthrow French authority; indeed, it advertises that he was an essential part of the colonial apparatus. However, the building also demonstrates that he was the governor’s equal, a figure without whom France could not do business with the Indian community. The classical baroque parts of the house recalled the buildings of the cio and it was a more modest counterpart to the Gouvernement, participating in the same ceremonial, receiving the governor and cio officials, as well as those of South Indian potentates and merchants and dubashes from rival colonies. It was, along with the Gouvernement and Hôtel de la Compagnie, one of Pondicherry’s most

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9.7 Cathedral, Phát Diệm (Vietnam), 1876–92. Photograph courtesy Le Huu Phuoc. 9.8 (oppoSiTe ) Cathedral, Phát Diệm. Interior of nave. Photograph courtesy Le Huu Phuoc.

and a body of water is in keeping with feng shui geomancy, as is the south-north orientation, which contrasts with the usual west-east orientation of French colonial churches; as Laurent

Burel has noted, the layout of the complex closely recalls that of the Văn Miếu Temple in Hanoi (1070), which similarly faces south and is preceded by a reflecting pool and monumental gate and tower.30 The buildings at Phát Diệm are all of stone (granite and marble) with columns, trusswork, and panelling of lim wood (Erythrophleum fordii, also known as limewood), and the roofs are tiled. The spacious rectangular reflecting pool

to the south has an artificial island in the centre bearing a statue of Jesus. Unfortunately, we do not have an unfiltered non-European description of the complex and its use as we do with Ananda’s house in Pondicherry. Everything we know about its construction comes from the hagiographic 1941 biography of Père Six by Armand Olichon (1878–1936), the head of the Union missionnaire du clergé de France. Since Olichon’s aim is to demonstrate the miraculous nature of the building we must take what he says

with a grain of salt; however, there is no denying that it was a gargantuan undertaking. None of the building materials except bamboo were local and ten-ton limewood trunks and 30-cubicmetre pieces of stone were hauled over a distance of 150 and 30 kilometres respectively by a small army of “coolies,” with the help of water buffalo and Chinese junks.31 Six- to seven-ton blocks of marble were hoisted up to a height of 12 metres by hand, and since they lacked scaffolding, builders buried the walls of the buildings in earth during

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construction so that they could work on top of them. All that Olichon tells us about the builders is that Six’s Christians travelled “to the four corners of Tonkin” to recruit “hundreds” of pit sawyers and carpenters, and that ten teams worked on the cathedral, one on each bay.32 Of the sculptors he says nothing, except that the sculptor of the main portal of the wooden chapel of the Sacred Heart would not let the Résident-supérieur of Huế send it to Paris for the 1889 world exposition. The complex made a deep impression on many visitors, including an unnamed early twentiethcentury tourist who remarked that Père Six “knew how to combine the style of his country with the space and elevation requirements of Christian worship,” and that “the sculptures offered the most curious example of this communion of two styles.”33 Olichon commented that Six “wanted nothing less for his house of God than to rival the royal palaces that he had earlier admired at Hué,” and that “[t]he style is that of Roman basilicas or rather of Chinese palaces” – the latter a rather curious remark, given that they have nothing in common other than perhaps their size.34 Phát Diệm Cathedral made a deep impression on Hébrard during his time in Indochina and was one of the inspirations for his style indochinois, prompting his famous remark deriding French priests for building only gothic-style churches (see chapter 8) (fig. 9.11). He wrote: “The cathedral of this important Catholic centre was built by native craftsmen: it is an innovative, well-arranged building adorned with elements taken from Sino-Annamese architecture.”35 The blending of styles is indeed subtle and sophisticated – more so than the pastiches we have seen in the last chapter where Sino-Vietnamese features were simply grafted onto an essentially European structure. Except for the compound’s neoclassical gates, the buildings are constructed and decorated entirely in the

9.9 (oppoSiTe Top ) Cathedral, Phát Diệm, relief carving of an angel in granite. Photograph courtesy Renaud d’Avout d’Auerstaedt. 9.10 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Cathedral, Phát Diệm. Plan by Le Huu Phuoc. 9.11 (ABove ) Cathedral of Saint Joseph, Diên Khánh, Vietnam, 1917.

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manner of Buddhist temple architecture – only the basilican plan and position of the towers recall European churches. The earliest structure is the so-called “stone church” of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (1888), a little three-aisled building to the northwest of the cathedral with a pair of steeples modelled on the five-storey Tháp Bút tower in Hanoi (1865).36 All of the columns, carving, and roof brackets (which in this case are stone) are adopted from Sino-Vietnamese architecture, an experiment that encouraged Père Six to employ it on a grand scale with the cathedral. The gate tower, which contains a bronze drum on the lower level and a bell on the upper level, has a high central tower and four towers on the corners, each surmounted by a pavilion with two superimposed roofs with upturned corners. The gate has three entrances to match those of the cathedral and smaller chapels. It combines two structures found in Buddhist temples: a phương đình (square pavilion between the principal entrance and main prayer hall) and a gác chuông (belltower).37 The cathedral, completed in 1891 (figs. 9.7–8), is nine bays long, with a nave flanked by pairs of aisles, its roof supported by six rows of lim wood columns (forty-eight in total) in three different heights, and the sides composed of wooden panels that open to the outside and can be removed for overflow congregations.38 The columns range from 90 centimetres to one metre in diameter and the ones in the nave are 10 metres high.39 The sweeping two-tiered roof, with sloping roofs over the aisles and a pitched roof over the nave, also follow the precepts of Buddhist temple architecture, specifically the mái kép (a multi-tiered receding roof ) as Le Huu Phuoc notes, except that a low clerestory with windows has been inserted between the two roof levels.40 The massive eave brackets above the nave and side aisles are richly carved with Sino-Vietnamese floral and foliate motifs. The high altar, while maintaining the

red-and-gold colour scheme of Buddhist temples, also appears to be adapted from the Portuguese carved wooden altarpiece, or retábulo, which is not surprising given the centuries-long presence of Portuguese merchants and missionaries in Đại Việt (in fact early modern đình churches like the one at Pulucambi probably had similar altars). It is certainly not French: a central niche contains a sculpture of the Virgin Mary while thirty-two panels around the niche, containing paintings of saints, form a receding proscenium, with seven larger paintings of Christ and six Vietnamese martyrs above it and a painting of the Virgin and child in the pediment held by sculpted angels. The whole structure is richly carved and gilded with Chinese cloud motifs, blossoms, and foliage. Graham Greene, who set part of The Quiet American in the cathedral, remarked that “the scarlet lacquer work of the altar” was “more Buddhist than Christian.”41 One of the most striking things about the complex is the exquisite stone carving that covers nearly all the facades, and the stone and wood carving on the interiors: on the bracketing, panelling, doorways, and grilles (fig. 9.8). The figural imagery, both relief and in the round, includes scenes of Christ’s Passion, saints, and angels, many of which likely derive from European engravings, particularly the narrative scenes. However, the figures and costume are rendered in a purely Chinese style, with bevelled edges to the drapery, which is often gathered at the waist as in Buddhist sculpture, and they display East Asian physiognomy, some of them with long mandarin moustaches. The angels (fig. 9.9) float in Chinese-style clouds with cloud wings and crowns more suitable to a Bodhisattva, and the lavish ornamentation in the central part of the facade is full of smaller cherubs who look more like Buddhist apsaras figures than anything Christian. Most figures wear Chinese costume – indeed they look so Chinese that the

biographers, and the young priest Hoàng Quỳnh, either could not explain his assistance to France and its Vietnamese supporters or believed that he did not have a choice and therefore acted with diplomacy to protect Vietnamese Catholicism – which in the end was more important to Quỳnh than was Vietnamese nationalism.45 Whether one considers him to be a traitor or hero to the Tonkinese cause, Père Six firmly believed that a Tonkinese Catholic Church must draw upon Tonkinese traditions. In fact the style and layout of the cathedral complex amount to a rejection of European style: not simply an “attempt to assimilate foreign architecture” and “lessen the Christians’ alienation among the Vietnamese population,” but, in its profound integration with Buddhist temple architecture, an affirmation of the indigeneity of Vietnamese Catholicism, a religion that had flourished in Đại Việt/Đại Nam since 1615 – only seventeen years after Roman Catholicism became the state religion of France.46 If Ananda Ranga Pillai’s Franco-Dravidian house was a symbol of its owner’s dual role as French courtier and Tamil community leader, Father Six’s complex abandoned any association with France, maintaining only what the liturgy required in the basic shape of the cathedral and chapels, and in the concentration of imagery in the high altar retable. If the earlier structure was an expression of one person’s ego, this later complex was as anonymous as a monastic community. Six may have been a friend to the French, but he was no puppet of the colonial regime: his community came first, and he did what he needed to do to protect them. Caodaist Cathedral (Holy See), Tây Ninh Province (1933–1955) The Cathedral, or Holy See, of the syncretic monotheistic Caodaist faith (Cao Đài),

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Latin inscriptions seem jarringly out of place. The rest of the surface ornament is densely carved with Chinese cloud motifs, phoenixes, chrysanthemums, lotuses, prunus, and other blossoms. The sculpture recalls the more famous granite facade of Saint Paul’s in Macau (also known as Madre de Deus, 1601–44, and carved by Chinese sculptors), both in the drapery and vegetal decoration, and in the apsaras-like angels.42 There can be no doubt, given the style and level of skill of both the architecture and the carving, that the team responsible for this monument comprised professional temple architects and sculptors of the highest quality. There is no reason to suppose that they were even Christian, but they were quite flexible in adapting to the spatial and iconographic needs of their patron. The patron remains a controversial figure. Père Six was sympathetic with the French cause during the conquest of Tonkin – he maintained close ties with Captain Joseph Joffre (1852–1931) and Commander Hubert Lyautey (1854–1934) in the 1870s and 1880s – and he was celebrated in his lifetime and throughout the colonial period as a symbol of Franco-Vietnamese co-operation and of the success of the politics of association.43 He was even made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1884, at the height of the Tonkin Campaign, and the Huế court made him Baron of Phát Diệm (posthumously), honorary minister of rites of the Court of Annam, and viceroy of Annam.44 Olichon wrote in 1941 that he was the ideal “collaborator” and a model for steering Indochina out of its current crisis, and Vietnamese Catholic writers in the 1930s were sympathetic with him and tried to rehabilitate his memory. Nguyễn Văn Thích (1891–1978) wrote in 1937 that the Phát Diệm Cathedral demonstrated that “the people of the invaded nation could show that they lacked nothing that Western Catholics had,” while others such as Joseph Trần, one of his first Vietnamese

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9.12 Phạm Công Tắc and others, Caodaist Cathedral, or Holy See, Tây Ninh Province (Vietnam). 1933–55. Photograph courtesy Le Huu Phuoc. 9.13 (oppoSiTe ) Caodaist Cathedral, or Holy See, Tây Ninh Province, interior. Photograph courtesy Le Huu Phuoc.

completed half a century later in Tây Ninh Province northwest of Saigon (1933–55), was also made famous by Graham Greene (figs. 9.12–13).

Caodaism was founded in the 1920s by a civil servant named Ngô Văn Chiêu (1878–1932), who witnessed revelations from the Highest Lord (Cao Đài, literally “High Palace”) instructing him to unite Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and other faiths into a single religion of peace.47 The Caodaist pantheon includes religious leaders such as Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad, but also historical figures like Victor Hugo, Joan of Arc,

Louis Pasteur, and Sun Yat-sen, and its hierarchy is modelled after that of the Catholic church, with a pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests – although men and women can both assume these positions. The faith is based on yin-yang duality, particularly the division between the male and female principles, which has an immediate impact on architecture, with the left side of the temple dedicated to the female principle and the right the male principle: women and men enter from opposite sides of the building and worship on the left and right respectively, and both sides have their own gendered subsidiary altar.48

The first pope of Caodaism was Lê Văn Trung (1875–1934), a former civil servant who signed its manifesto on 29 September 1926, and on 7 October he sent a petition to the governor of Cochinchina to recognize the new religion.49 French authorities would not accept the petition until “Caodaism proved to be a genuine religion” and province chiefs were ordered to “keep an eye on the Caodaist activists and their action.”50 Their temple in Tây Ninh was built with funds estimated at 30,000 piastres donated by Madame Lâm Thị Thanh, a businesswoman from Mỹ Tho who was elected as the first woman to hold high

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office in the Caodaist hierarchy (figs. 9.12–13). Workers cleared 96 mẫu (477,120 square metres) of forest for the Holy See complex and a temporary wooden temple was erected in three months. Three years later they sought an architect to build a larger, permanent temple. The fascinating thing is that they did not go to a Vietnamese architect but to Auguste Delaval, author of the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse (fig. 8.3) and Temple du Souvenir Annamite (fig. 8.5). Lê Văn Trung presumably chose Delaval because he believed that the latter’s version of the “style indochinois” was a satisfactory reflection of the group’s need to combine European and Vietnamese forms to express the syncretic nature of their religion, and of their desire to have a modern building. Lê Văn Trung’s letter written at Tây Ninh to the directeur général des Travaux Publics de l’Indochine in Saigon asking for permission to hire Delaval (19 September 1929) has never been published. It is a fascinating document for what it says about the specific style they wanted and the way in which it reflected their goals:

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Mr Director General, As a result of the interview I had with you on Saturday September 14, I have the honour to inform you that an Annamite Committee, set up for the construction of a temple of Religion known as Dai-Dao-Tam-Ky-Phô-Dô or renovated Buddhism in Tâyninh (Cochinchina), asked Mr. delaval , Architect in Hanoi, to provide this committee with: 1. – architectural studies necessary for the construction of this Temple following the general directives given by the representatives of the Religion and in an Far Eastern style where the Sino-Annamite note should dominate. This construction will have both a monumental and religious character. 2. – studies of a complete avant-projet and the supply of an

overall plan to the scale of 0m01 to a metre, including all the drawings necessary to comprehend the monument both from the point of view of layout and from the point of view of decoration and mode of construction, structure, etc ... 3. – the supply of a general plan at 0m005 to a metre indicating the general layout of the Temple with its annexes and the landscaping of the surrounding land, for the enhancement of the projected Temple. 4. – detailed execution plans, calculations of strength. 5. – the construction of a model and the parts necessary for the drafting of a lump sum contract with the contractor appointed to do all this work. etc ... etc ... Allow me to open a parenthesis here to explain to you why the Committee, of which I am the Chairman, and I designed this vast construction project. Since October 6, 1926 we have propagated in Cochinchina the renovated Indochinese Buddhism called Caodaism. We send you in this envelope: 1. – our declaration to the Government of Cochinchina, declaration signed by officials, notabilities and native owners (Exhibit N. 1). 2. – copy of the authorization to open the Caodaist oratories, including that of Tâyninh (exhibit No. 2) where the future Great Temple will be built. Renovated Indochinese Buddhism or Caodaism is also indicated in the Green Book of the Colonial Council of Cochinchina, of 1928–1929 and 1929–1939. In less than 3 years we now have over a million enthusiastic adherents. You can thus realize that the Annamites thirst for a renewed religion unifying the existing religions. This religion will bring together all beliefs and will help us, from a spiritual point of view, to have a sincere FrancoAnnamese harmony. Our elder brothers, the French who have been in this country for a

long time, who have a deep understanding of the Annamese religious soul as well as the habits and customs of the natives, will certainly help us realize this noble ideal. The future great Caodaist Temple will manifest our religious feelings. It should combine both a religious style according to our indications and modern French comfort; its construction of a new genre will require long and serious studies. We were advised to submit the project plan to a competition, but we want the credit for these studies to go to a French architect, which is why we chose Mr. delaval . We ask you, therefore, to follow up our proposal and authorize Mr. delaval as soon as possible to work, during the hours he is not working for the Administration, to provide us with studies, plans, estimates, details, etc. … necessary for the construction of this great religious building. Please accept, Mr. Director General, the assurance of our respectful and devoted sentiments. signed: le-van-trung (le-van-trung at the Caodaist Temple of tayninh ).51

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Although, as noted in the last chapter, Delaval was not allowed to accept this commission, the letter is very revealing about what the group wanted in a building and why. Like Père Six they wanted something predominantly in the Sino-Vietnamese style but unlike their Catholic predecessor they wanted it to be designed by a Frenchman and to be built to contemporary European standards of comfort. Such concerns resemble those of Hébrard’s style indochinois, but they may have preferred Delaval because his buildings were more decorative, which, judging by the interior of the executed temple (fig. 9.13), was more to their taste. If Phát Diệm Cathedral was a demonstration of the essentially

Vietnamese nature of Catholicism, the Caodaist Holy See was an outward declaration of alliance and harmony with the French aimed at gaining the colony’s recognition, which the government grudgingly granted in 1936.52 Nevertheless their apparent sympathy with France was an alliance of convenience. The movement was fundamentally anti-colonial and the Caodaists (who had their own army) joined the cause of the Viet Minh Independence movement in 1945, siding with the French only two years later after suffering persecution from the communists. But even then, they only did so on the condition of a “‘peaceful decolonization’ under French leadership within a “French Union,” and not a return to the colonial status quo.53 Not successful with their overture to Delaval, the Caodaists turned to their own faithful to build the cathedral, which was constructed over a twenty-two-year, devastatingly disruptive period that witnessed the Japanese invasion, the Franco–Viet Minh war, and, finally, Independence.54 The architect was Pope Phạm Công Tắc (1890–1959), who received instructions in spirit séances from the “Invisible Pope” Lý Thái Bạch, the sixth-century Daoist poet Li Bái, and builders and workers contributed their labour as “religious service” (công quả), using materials donated by Vietnamese rubber plantation owners.55 It was as anonymous a procedure as that which built the Cathedral of Phát Diệm. Commentators frequently say that the exterior of this 22 metre by 97.5 metre cathedral is Gothic, and indeed, as Le Huu Phuoc suggests, it was likely designed as a Vietnamese response to the Cathedral of NotreDame in Saigon (1877–80) by Jules Bourard (fig. 9.14).56 However, gothic it is not: as at Phát Diệm it merely echoes the shape of a French cathedral, with the 36-metre-high twin towers at the facade (the left one containing a bell, the right one a Buddhist-style drum); the long nave

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9.14 Jules Bourard, Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Saigon, 1877–80, steeples 1895.

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and side aisles; a hexagonal apse; groin vaults in the interior (figs. 9.12, 9.13); and the tower over the crossing, which replaces the flèche in a French gothic church. Scholars have maintained that the tower over the apse is an Asian feature, but it is only Asian in its design, not its location: such towers are commonly found in Vietnamese churches, such as the Tân Định church in Saigon (1896–98; 1928–29).57 The Caodaist Holy See is also oriented to the East like a Catholic church, unlike the Phát Diệm Cathedral, which, as we have seen, follows traditional Chinese geomancy.

Although a highly eclectic structure, the building exclusively uses Asian forms and motifs, even if they come from a variety of sources. The dragon columns of the rounded porch and nave interior (they represent Judgment Day, or the “Dragon Flower Assembly”) are a SinoVietnamese feature that appear for example at the Palace of Supreme Harmony at Huế (1833 and later), the throne hall of the Nguyễn dynasty. The scalloped arches resemble Indo-Islamic architecture, a source never used by any European architects of association in Indochina. The towers take the form of Chinese pagodas, with multiple roofs with upturned corners and finials, and the central pavilion over the main entrance also recalls Buddhist temple architecture. The building features dramatically sloping Sino-Vietnamese temple roofs on three tiers with prominent extending eaves and concrete imitation terracotta tiles. The tower in the middle is plain and essentially modernist, with porthole windows and a half-globeshaped cupola (it is not an Islamic “onion dome,” as Janet Hoskins proposes), and the octagonal tower at the back (adorned with sculptures of the Hindu deities Brahma, Krishna, Vishnu, and Shiva) is like a Chinese pagoda – in fact it is a taller and narrower version of Delaval’s octagonal dome over the Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse and may well have been inspired by it (fig. 8.4).58 The globe is a symbol of the religion’s global reach (a globe is the centrepiece of the interior as well, surrounded by columns). Instead of windows, the side walls have open latticework screens bearing the Left Eye of God motif surrounded by lotus flowers. The abundantly decorated interior (fig. 9.13) is dominated by the dragon columns, the groin vaults painted like the sky with naturalistic clouds and stars, and fanciful ceiling bosses. It also includes a traditional bao lam, an intricately carved polychrome screen between two columns

that appears in Buddhist temples (although here it is made of concrete instead of wood) over the entrance to the main altar, carved with reliefs of Laozi, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus. The floor level rises progressively from the entrance to the altar to represent the rank and level of spiritual attainment of the Caodaist followers who worship in those sections of the temple.59 Although it has gone unremarked in the literature, the most immediately striking feature about this building – its

lively colour scheme – also echoes Asian religious architecture, particularly southern Chinese-style temple architecture, as in the polychrome gates and roof ornaments of Buddhist temples in Hôi An (fig. 9.15) or the entrance to the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda (fig. 9.16). Norman Lewis and Graham Greene ridiculed the Tây Ninh Cathedral for what they considered to be the poor taste of its decoration and the amateurish and artificial nature of its design, adhering to a colonialist view that the appropriation of European religious figures or architectural styles by non-Europeans amounted to what Janet

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9.15 Chinese temple on Nguyễn Thái Học Street, Hội An (Vietnam), late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

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Hoskins has perceptively called “visual blasphemy.”60 Lewis wrote in 1951:

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From a distance this structure could have been dismissed as the monstrous result of a marriage between a pagoda and a Southern baroque church, but at close range the vulgarity of the building was so impressive that mild antipathy gave way to fascinated horror. This cathedral must be the most outrageously vulgar building ever to have been erected with serious intent. It was a palace in candy from a coloured fantasy by Disney; an example of funfair architecture in extreme form. […] But the question was, what had been Pham-Cong-Tac’s intention in producing a house for this petrified forest of pink dragons, this huggermugger of symbolism, this pawnbroker’s collection of cult objects? Was he consciously catering to the debased and credulous tastes of his flock? Or could it be that visible manifestations of religious energy on the part of men who have lived lives entirely divorced from art must always assume these grotesque forms?61

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Lewis supported the latter theory, that the Caodaist founders were mostly low-level civil servants who had no time to appreciate fine art. Greene, who was inspired to visit Vietnam after editing Lewis’s text, revived the Disney topos (which neither of them had invented; it had been circulating among French colonists well before Lewis arrived), deriding the sculptures of: “Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in technicolour,” and mocked the building’s “play-acting” and “trickery.”62 Hoskins has argued that these disparaging comments were provoked by the way Caodaism

and its architecture presented themselves “as an inversion of European ways of looking.”63 Whereas it was acceptable for Europeans like Hébrard or Groslier to appropriate and make pastiches of Asian styles, it was not suitable to writers like Lewis and Greene – indeed it was subversive – for Asians to interpret European practices and styles. Furthermore, by incorporating Christian and European figures ( Jesus, Victor Hugo) and architectural forms (the twin-tower cathedral) into a primarily Asian pantheon, the Caodaists went against the ingrained prejudice, which we have witnessed for instance in Groslier’s writings, that Asian culture was tradition-bound and moribund: Caodai teachings challenged Orientalist ideas of Asian passivity by asserting that Eastern philosophies were dynamic, progressive and positive. […] the teachings of Asian sages were presented as encompassing and preceding Christian teachings, but also fundamentally compatible with them. It combined a move to reconcile opposing sides by healing the wounds of colonialism and an assertion that Asian peoples deserved the right of self-determination.64 Ridiculing the Tây Ninh Cathedral and the faith itself was a way of neutralizing what was in fact a challenge to colonialism. The use of European forms and figures was not meant to glorify them, but to place them in a subsidiary position within a larger Asian world of past and present “while sounding the death knells for Western imperial rule.”65 The French (and other uneasy European visitors) were all too aware of the movement’s ties with the independence movement and their formidable armies, and the Caodaists built a following in the same places as did the Communist Party.

Interestingly, the pastiche design of the Caodaist Cathedral derives directly from the same culture of international expositions that generated the hybridities of Groslier, Hébrard, and Delaval. The future Caodaist political leader and army commander Trần Quang Vinh (1897–1975) served as the “secrétaire indigène” for the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris and spent more than nine months in the city, where he participated in mounting the Indochinese pavilion (including the life-sized Angkor Wat replica) (fig. 7.7) and took the opportunity to meet with French spiritualists, Freemasons, and other intellectuals. As Hoskins comments: “Vinh’s trip to Paris and his participation in mounting the 1931 Exposition had important consequences not only for the political future of Caodaism, but also for its visual presentation.”66 The cathedral also stayed true to Lê Văn Trung’s original intentions. Everyone who ridiculed it missed the essential point about the building, that it was modern. The use of grates instead of glass windows demonstrates a concern for comfort in a tropical climate, and the interior is spacious, cool, and – despite the prolific decor – remarkably unobstructed. It was also one of the first religious buildings to make full use of reinforced concrete, although the column cores were reinforced by bamboo poles rather than steel rods.67

The next two buildings, both in Buddhist monasteries, paradoxically adopt European architectural features much more obviously than do the Catholic and Caodaist cathedrals we have just looked at: in fact, they could both be mistaken for French colonial villas. The Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda (1907–33), near Mỹ Tho in the Mekong Delta

9.16 (overLeAf ) Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, Mỹ Tho (Vietnam), 1907–33. Entrance gate.

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Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, Mỹ Tho (1907–1933) and Sala Thammavihan, Wat Khili Monastery, Luang Prabang (1935–1945)

south of Saigon, is built in a Beaux-Arts baroque eclectic style that is both profusely decorated and polychromatic (figs. 9.16–19), whereas the Wat Khili monastic residence in Luang Prabang, Laos (1930–45), is constructed in an austere, whitewashed neoclassical style that only reveals its Buddhist identity in the roof and the statues on the porch (figs. 9.20–2). There is no scholarly literature on either of these buildings although both are on the tourist circuit and the latter is listed as part of a unesco World Heritage Site (inscribed 1995). The Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda is a long, rectangular structure oriented north-south and consisting of four consecutive pavilions (entry hall, main hall, ancestral hall, and back house), measuring 70 by 20 metres. It contains two courtyards, a plainer neoclassical northern courtyard at the rear and a copiously decorated southern one adjoining the main hall (fig. 9.18). It is one of several monasteries built during French rule that incorporate European architectural motifs into the exterior but remain determinedly Sino-Vietnamese on the interiors (except, in this case the courtyards, which can be construed as exterior space).68 The first monastery at Vĩnh Tràng was a humble, thatched wooden structure built in the early nineteenth century by the layman Bùi Công Đạt, which was replaced by a larger structure with the present name in 1849 by the abbot Huệ Đăng (r. 1849– 64) from the Giác Lâm temple in Saigon. The new monastery was heavily damaged during the French conquest and later abandoned. In the 1890s abbot Chánh Hậu (r. 1890–1923) rebuilt the monastery only to have it destroyed in a tropical storm in 1904; in 1907 he began the present structure, which was completed by his successor Minh Đàn (r. 1923–39), who was also responsible

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9.17 (previouS pAge Top ) Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, facade. 9.18 (previouS pAge BoTTom ) Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, front (south) courtyard.

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9.19 (ABove ) Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, interior.

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for the main triple gate of 1933 (fig. 9.16). Minh Đàn brought in builders and craftsmen from Huế to work on the gate, which has the typical broken crockery mosaics of the Huế Citadel and also buildings in Hội An (fig. 9.15). The gate is a traditional southern Vietnamese Buddhist temple gate (tam quan) but built of reinforced concrete. It is decorated with subjects such as the Four Gratifying Pastimes (tứ lạc) and Four Sacred Animals (tứ linh), and with prominent dragon and qilin finials, but it also has four European pilasters in

the aedicule containing the Buddha statue which demarcate a triple arch motif that will reappear on the temple facade.69 The main temple building, when viewed from the south (main) entrance, appears at first glance to be entirely European in style but the Asian features become apparent upon closer inspection (fig. 9.17). The principal motif of the facade is a modified Palladian motif with a wide, central, segmented arch flanked by two narrower arches, resting on Ionic columns. However, the columns are dragon columns, like those of the Tây Ninh Holy See (fig. 9.13), and the metal grilles enclosing the arches on the main facade are ornamented with lotuses and other Buddhist motifs. These triple arches are joined together to form a continuous five-bay arcade across the facade and also appear

The upper balustrade is crowned by broken cornices containing single urns, cartouches, and urns on plinths. This courtyard could be in a baroque monastery in Latin America if it were not for the prominent Hòn Non Bộ, or island-mountain landscape, in the centre: an artificial concrete mountain with its Buddha cave, pagoda, sacred animals (such as the phoenix), Confucianist and Daoist figurines, temple, and bridge. However, it is in the interior of the temple that we find the greatest contrast with the baroque exterior (fig. 9.19). Once visitors pass through the archways of the courtyard into the two parallel halls that make up the main sanctuary, the entire atmosphere changes: in place of brightly coloured concrete, stucco, and tiles they are presented with dark wooden walls with smooth engaged Sino-Vietnamese wooden columns, a pitched roof on triangular trusses in the Huế style, and a series of lavishly carved gilt wood altar recesses flanked by dragon columns and surrounded with high reliefs of figures and animals (such as the Eight Immortals, phoenixes, and dragons) suspended in Chinese cloud motifs.70 Most of the colour is provided by gilding, whether on the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats, and other statues and spirit tablets, or the Chinese characters on the horizontal and wooden placards over the altars and on the columns. The smooth lines and whitewashed walls of the Sala Thammavihan (1930–45), a kuti (monks’ residence) at the Wat (Vat) Khili (Suvannakhili) monastery in Luang Prabang, are a world apart from the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda with its polychromy and baroque details (figs. 9.20–2). The “Monastery of the Mountain of Gold” is located on rue Sakhaline, a street of whitewashed neoclassical buildings in the northeastern part of the city (fig. 9.23). It was founded in ca 1775, allegedly by people from the Phouane Plateau in the former kingdom of Xieng Khouang in memory of the

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on the fronts and sides of the two projecting end pavilions. Superimposed onto this lower order is a giant order of Ionic pilasters that divide each bay and articulate the corners of the wings. On top of these pilasters is a bulky projecting cornice, which in turn supports an attic with a balustrade of latticework panels and finial piers. A second attic rests on the pavilions and central bay, which are surmounted by latticework Chinese characters within baroque broken pediments with volute cornices, the two on the pavilions flanked by a pair of urns on plinths. Broken pediments enclosing urns also rest on the balustrade on the outer two bays of the central section of the facade. The facade is enlivened by polychrome Japanese tiles, especially on the architrave and pilasters. In front is a narrow forecourt containing a double staircase at the centre with banisters and newel posts and surmounted by fleur-de-lys finials; a balustrade with baluster columns and latticework grilles runs along the bottom of the arcade. Two smaller staircases at the ends of the forecourt give access to the projecting pavilions. The tile roofs are accented with prefabricated ridges and crowned by finials of the sort commonly found in domestic architecture in Saigon, most prominently in the central cupola and its lower flanking gable-end roof extensions. Except for the accretion of ornamentation above the roof, the structure has the basic profile and ground plan of a French chateau of the early Louis XV period, with a cour d’honneur, a long-low facade, projecting end wings, a cupola at the centre and cornices over the pavilions, and either a flat or mansard roof (fig. 1.3). Although the side walls are much simpler, repeating only the giant-order pilasters and the upper balustrade with cartouche finials and urns, the courtyard reprises the scheme of the facade, with the triple-arch motif, giant-order pilasters, and the upper and lower balustrades (fig. 9.18).

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9.20 (oppoSiTe Top ) Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro, Sala Thammavihan (kuti), Wat Khili monastery, Luang Prabang (Laos), 1935–45. 9.21 (oppoSiTe BoTTom LefT ) Sala Thammavihan, detail of porch. 9.22 (oppoSiTe BoTTom righT ) Sala Thammavihan, detail of eave brackets. 9.23 (ABove ) Wat Khili monastery, Luang Prabang, ca 1775. Detail of sim roof.

to make the plaster and cement decorations for his buildings, which survive in the monastery collections.74 His architectural campaign in the province prioritized simple elegance and unity of

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soldiers who fell during the battle with the Burmese, and also to commemorate the alliance with the kingdom of Luang Prabang.71 The ordination hall (sim) is typical of Luang Prabang’s traditional religious architecture, with its layered, telescope roof, prominent naga finials, and eave brackets (kaen nang), as at the sim at the Wat Xieng Thong (fig. 8.9), and also of traditional Siamese temple architecture (fig. 3.14), to which the temples of Laos have a close affinity, notably in the ground plan and peacock motif, which derive from the Chiang Mai region. The brick and stucco kuti, directly aligned with the sim to the east so that the two roof lines are on the same axis, was designed by Abbot-architect Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro (1901–87; ordained 1921) (figs. 9.20–2). Silasangvaro was educated in Bangkok (1920–21; 1923–30), where in addition to studying the Dhamma he graduated from the Fine Arts school Saraphatchang before accepting the position of abbot at Wat Khili in 1931, when he was also elevated to Chao Khana (chief monk) of the Northern Group of Monasteries of Luang Prabang and then Chao Khana Khoueng (chief monk of the Buddhist Sangha) of Luang Prabang Province by King Sisavang Vong in 1936.72 Silasangvaro was an accomplished photographer, painter, draftsman, sculptor, and carpenter who travelled widely to Buddhist conferences in Rangoon, Sri Lanka, and India. However, his main architectural agenda was to create regionally inflected contemporary monastic architecture in Luang Prabang and villages in the surrounding countryside, resulting in the construction under his direction of ordination halls in ten rural temples.73 In 1943 he prepared a book of his plans for monastic buildings in Luang Prabang province for its Department of Religious Affairs, presumably to serve as models for future projects. Silasangvaro also made at least twenty-nine concrete moulds for floral motifs

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9.24 Crown Prince Vong Savang Residence, Luang Prabang, 1930–35.

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design, and his preference for modern buildings with traditional features, particularly the way he placed a regional roof on a European substructure at the Sala Thammavihan, was in line with French associationism and Vietnamese experiments with hybridity. Indeed, his use of moulds recalls Groslier’s and Batteur’s methods of reproducing architectural motifs in their ateliers in Phnom Penh and Hanoi. Silasangvaro also wanted prototypes that could be easily reproduced: he lent his plans for the Sala Thammavihan to two other monasteries, Wat Pha Nom and Wat Xiang Ngoen.75 There was a clear pedagogical component to Silasvangaro’s arts and architectural program: he taught

students painting and sculpture at the Wat Khili and he advised other Buddhist leaders in their own building or reconstruction efforts, as when he guided fellow abbot Sathu Nyai Khamchan (1920–2007) in the use of decorative details in his reconstruction of the sim at Vat Saen Sukharam in Luang Prabang in the late 1950s.76 The lower part of the Sala Thammavihan is a two-storey rectangular structure with a prominent porch on the street (north) facade. Below the roofline there is little indication that this is not just another of the French-style villas or neoclassical Chinese shophouses that are characteristic of rue Sakhaline, such as the Crown Prince Vong Savang Residence (1930–35), begun the same year, which has a similar arrangement of main building, porch, and arcade, but with

unadorned but the ones facing the street and the sim feature rich kranok scrolls with deva figures on two tiers, all gilded on a red background in a manner like the main facade of the sim. Again, the architect may have chosen to decorate only the north and east pediments because they are the ones most likely to be seen. Although the roof is Lao rather than Siamese, it is possible that Silasangvaro was inspired to juxtapose East and West this way by the Phra Thiang Chakri Maha Prasat at the Grand Palace in Bangkok, which as we have seen was given a Siamese roof for the same reason, to align with other buildings with traditional roofs (fig. 7.3). He also would have been familiar with Siamese Buddhist monastic buildings built entirely in Western styles, such as those of the Wat Bowonniwet Vihara in Bangkok (ca 1870s) or Wat Niwet Thammaprawat in Ayutthaya (1876, by Trieste architect Gioachino Grassi), both of which had gothic- or Beaux-Arts-style buildings.77 In fact, between 1919 and 1930 Silasangvaro lived at the Wat Pho on Rattanakosin Island, directly south of the Grand Palace and across the street from the European-style Maha Rat Road Market (1865–1910).78 Although the Sala Thammavihan’s features are predominantly French, Siamese, and Lao, it is very likely that this building was constructed at least partly by Vietnamese builders (although under French supervisors), as the Saigon Bâtiments civils built colonial Luang Prabang and established its unique styles.79 Urbanization began relatively late in Luang Prabang, after the king asked the French to develop the royal city on a grid plan of streets, and it was executed mostly between 1909 and 1925 with some buildings looking identical to the “travaux publics” style of civic architecture seen in Vietnam and Cambodia (for instance the Customs Office, 1932) while others adopted the whitewashed brick neoclassicism that is unique to Luang Prabang and not found even in the

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less refined decorative details (fig. 9.24). The tripartite street facade of the Sala Thammavihan is six bays wide, the bays equally divided among the porch and two wings (fig. 9.20). The porch takes the form of a double loggia with paired arches on both storeys of the north side resting on plain Tuscan piers and adorned at the top with a blossom on the upper storey and a blossom and inverted fleur-de-lys motif on the ground floor. Narrow pilasters in the same order are surmounted onto the inner piers, rising to a cornice at the arch jambs and then proceeding upward to join the cornice atop the upper arches and entablature. On both storeys the pilasters rest on plinths and larger rectangular panels are set between the plinths to form a dado. The east and west sides of the porch are identical except that instead of a double arch they use a modified Palladian motif with a wider central arch flanked by two narrower arches (fig. 9.21). The receding wings are simpler, with only the pilasters and cornice separating the storeys, and with plain rectangular windows over sunken rectangular panels, the windows on the ground floor decorated with cursory cornices and the blossom and fleur-de-lys motifs. This scheme continues for only the northern bay of the side walls of the building, which also contain doors, while the wider southern bay lacks pilasters, as if the architect cared only about decorating the side that faced the street. The building expresses its Lao identity in the roof, which, while not dramatically telescoping like the triple roof of the sim (fig. 9.23), has two tiers and similar attenuated naga finials on the gables and lower corners of the pediments, and sharp naga spines on the gable profiles (fig. 9.20). It also uses delicate, gold-painted eave brackets shaped like abstracted naga figures of a type commonly seen both in Siamese and Lao religious architecture (fig. 9.22). The western pediment is

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Protectorate capital of Vientiane. The building campaign was led by the Bâtiments civils office in Saigon, and many of the Vietnamese builders who were sent to the city remained in Luang Prabang and made a tidy profit building villas and shophouses for Lao and Chinese families, as well as monastic buildings, in the 1930s and 1940s.80 When Silasangvaro returned from Bangkok, rue Sakhaline and many other parts of the city were bustling construction sites, with armies of masons and carpenters at work. Silasangvaro would have designed the roof himself and the bas relief decorative details of the walls – which is why his building is more refined than the others on the street – but he likely hired Vietnamese builders to design and build the main structure as it is so like others in the city. The building has a distinctly Vietnamese accent: the central porch with a double loggia and the modified Palladian motif appears in some domestic architecture in Vietnam, such as the Hoàng Yến Chao Palace in Tonkin (1914–21), and we have seen a similar Palladian motif at the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda (figs. 9.17–18).81 Unfortunately, Silasangvaro did not leave a written record of his architectural philosophy; however he was clearly proud of his building. Among his over 900 surviving photographs, many depict the Sala Thammavihan (including views of the Wat from the residence and vice versa). He regularly took portraits of visitors with the building in the background, and he had himself photographed sitting on its porch.82 Europeans are conspicuously absent in his hundreds of photographs of Buddhist figures and ceremonies. He was an ardent defender of international Buddhism, making pilgrimages to Sri Lanka and India and, in the 1960s, photographing temples in Laos destroyed by US bombs. There is no evidence that Silasangvaro’s decision to use Western elements in his building derived from an interest in Western culture.

The main question about both the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda and the Sala Thammavihan is: what motivated Buddhist communities under French rule to construct their monastic buildings in a style that would seem to borrow so much from that of the colonizer? Was it because they wanted to keep a low profile? Was it – as it was for the Caodaists – an attempt to syncretize European Christian features into Buddhist ones, since Buddhism in Southeast Asia was already syncretic, embracing Confucianist and Daoist beliefs, as in China (the so-called “Three Teachings,” san jiao in Chinese and cộng đồng tam giáo in Vietnamese), but also incorporating indigenous spirit veneration?83 I do not believe that these monasteries were concerned about persecutions from the French, who were in fact tolerant of Buddhism by this time and (under the efeo ’s leadership) were even restoring Buddhist temples in Laos and Vietnam, as we have seen in chapter 7. I also do not think that it is an attempt to syncretize Christian beliefs as there is not a single Christian image or symbol in either building. I believe that the principal motivation behind these hybridities was a straightforward desire to unite regional forms with materials and styles deemed modern and progressive. As Khamvone Boulyaphonh writes about Sathu Nyai Khamchan’s renovation (with Silasangvaro’s help) of the sim at the Wat Saen Sukhakham, “he used both traditional and modern materials, as it was his goal to find combinations of materials that would be elegant, stable and long-lasting.”84 We should not fool ourselves that their love for eclectic forms of neoclassicism and baroque amounts to an admiration for the French or for European culture. Although Silasangvaro trained in Bangkok surrounded by palace and temple buildings in Euro-Siamese or Western styles, there is no reason to suppose that he thought of the Western element as particularly Western; to his mind they more likely reflected contemporary trends in

Chinese mansion, complete with a triple loggia: two storeys of arcades, and an upper-storey colonnade of piers.87 The earliest shophouse designs were whitewashed neoclassical structures that were not very different from that of the Sala Thammavihan. During the late nineteenth and especially the first half of the twentieth century, like their counterparts in Singapore and Malaya, shophouse designs in Hanoi, Saigon, and especially Hội An (fig. 9.25), Battambang (fig. 9.26), Savannakhet, and Kampot became increasingly ornamental, acquiring baroque scrolls and volutes, rococo cartouches, and polychrome tiles.88 Even today many contemporary mansions and condominium developments in Southeast Asia are built in a Chinese neo-baroque style, sometimes even in the ochre-on-white colonial colour scheme of French Indochina. The Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, Macau, and Hong Kong appropriated European styles – including, in the 1930s, art deco – to such a degree that their European associations had long ago been forgotten (or at least had become irrelevant). By the 1920s and ’30s, when the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda was being built, many luxury villas were being constructed for Chinese and Vietnamese landowners in Cochinchina in the same style, complete with the tile polychromy and the modified Palladian motif (fig. 9.27).89 As with the temple these exteriors contrasted with interiors and plans that reflected Sino-Vietnamese traditions. Europeans derided these hybrid Eurasian villas in much the same way that Greene and Lewis would attack the Caodaist Holy See, and likely for the same reason: because they found them to be subversive and believed, to paraphrase Homi Bhabha, that they were using mimicry to mock European culture (see chapter 1). Typical is the geographer Pierre Gourou (1900–1999), who in 1936 criticized the villas of Cochinchina for “lacking style and originality,” and for being

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Siamese architecture. When he returned to Laos, he subtly adjusted Siamese taste to that of Luang Prabang, with a traditional Lao roof and a building in the prevailing whitewashed neoclassicism of that city. It was the same for abbots Chánh Hậu and Minh Đàn; however, in the case of the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, far away from Siamese influence, the Western elements were likely registered as Chinese. European forms had been associated with Chinese architecture in Southeast Asia since the early nineteenth century, particularly neoclassicism and, at the turn of the twentieth century, polychrome baroque facades like that of the Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda.85 European styles were first employed in Chinese shophouses, merchants’ offices, and warehouses in early nineteenthcentury Singapore and Guangzhou, and with the subsequent dissemination of these forms throughout Southeast Asia these styles became associated not with Europe but with the so-called “sojourning Chinese,” mostly Southern Chinese merchant families who settled across Southeast Asia and were the economic engine of many communities. Shophouses were combination retail businesses and private dwellings with narrow shop fronts facing the street and long narrow lots juxtaposing interior space with courtyards, with the living quarters in the rear or over the shop, all arranged according to feng shui geomancy. They shared their sparse, whitewashed classicism with larger-scale Chinese mercantile architecture in what is now referred to as the “compradoric” style, in Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia, a “free classic” neoclassical style characterized by multi-storey arcades to provide shelter from the sun (in French Indochina, as we have seen, the term “style comprador” did not refer to what we mean as “compradoric” today, but to the Indochinese “travaux publics” style).86 In chapter 7 I have already discussed an important example in Indochina: the Maison Wang Tai, a compradoric

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9.25 (oppoSiTe Top ) Hội An, shophouse, first quarter twentieth century. 9.26 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) Battambang (Cambodia), Shophouse, first quarter twentieth century. 9.27 (ABove ) House of Lê Công Phước (1901–1950), Mỹ Tho, 1925–26.

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“bastardized” and too open to European forms.90 Travel writer Hilda Arnhold (1904–1988), writing about similar buildings in Tonkin in 1944, was even more acerbic: “It is also to be regretted that most of the wealthy Annamese who are building these days have found nothing better to replace the prescriptions or the fantasies of the geomancer with than to seek inspiration in the most unsightly buildings in the Côte d’Azur style, baroque inventions of a deplorable taste, without any originality except extravagance. And while contemplating certain modern residences where pergolas, portholes, glass windows and stoops are mixed

up in the most annoying way in the world, one is entitled to wonder if the superstitions which preside over the arrangement of some beautiful old residences were not preferable to these monstrosities whose countryside they dishonour.”91 In fact neoclassicism and neo-baroque had been claimed by several Asian countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – as Siam had done – as the style of resistance to Western imperialism and as a signal that these nations had entered the global stage and were opening up to modern ideas.92 Independent Asian nations that adopted those styles included Republican China and Korea, but especially Meiji Japan (1868–1912), whose program of modernization through Westernization, beginning in the 1880s, involved inviting around 3,000 European specialists (otayoi) to the country, of whom the largest majority by far were engineers and architects working under the Ministry of Construction.93 Monumental stone buildings such as the

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spare neoclassical Hall for Instrumental Music (Sōgakudō, 1889–90), the neo-baroque Akasaka Detached Palace (1898–1909), and the art deco– inflected neoclassical Imperial Diet (1920–36), all in Tokyo, are typical of the Westernized buildings of this period.94 However, just as in Siam, Japan was not adopting Western styles out of a feeling of cultural inferiority but as a way of declaring that they could stand up to the West: “The Meiji leaders also embraced Western architectural styles, not to deny their Japanese cultural identity but, rather, to assert that their identity now needed to be firmly rooted in modernity. Western styles projected a contemporary yet dignified image and were tangible expressions of these aspirations.”95 The stripped-down classicism of the late Meiji and early Shōwa (1926–89) periods, unspecific enough that it was no longer explicitly European but transnational, and which used the latest construction methods such as steel and reinforced concrete, became the trademark of the resurgent Japanese empire – the very one that, with its motto of “Asia for the Asians,” would help motivate Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and the British and Dutch colonies in Asia finally to throw off the colonial yoke after the Second World War.

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Rangoon City Hall (Municipal Offices, 1925–1935)

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This book has examined several instances in which the idea of placing an indigenous roof on a generically neoclassical or art deco substructure – an idea developed by French associationists and their counterparts in the Netherlands East Indies but with older Siamese precedents – was employed by various Asian groups to create regional modernist styles. Although the young Vietnamese architects of ebai in the 1930s and 1940s were increasingly nationalistic in their assertion of Tonkinese style, there is no example

in France’s former colonies where the decision to combine forms in this way was as explicitly political – and publicized – as with Rangoon City Hall, in the British colony of Burma. The British were in Burma from 1824 to 1948, encroaching upon Burmese territory from south to north during the three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–26; 1852–53; 1885), and finally making it a province of British India in 1886, with its capital at Rangoon (Yangon).96 Burma was thus not only brutally colonized but also stripped of its cultural identity, a mere subsidiary of the British Raj, with an influx of Indian immigrants dominating the commercial life of the city and forming the majority of the skilled builders, carvers, and stucco workers who worked under British architects and engineers (the Burmans provided the labour). The British annexation of Burma was a major incentive for the French to take Indochina, with Siam in the middle as a buffer state. As in the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina, the occupation of Burma by the Japanese during the Second World War inspired a swift struggle for independence, which was achieved on 4 January 1948.97 Architecturally Burma stood apart from British India in that no attempt was made stylistically to indigenize buildings as had happened with the Indo-Saracenic style of the late nineteenth century (fig. 7.9); and in contrast with French associationism in Indochina, Burmese style was simply ignored in the public and mercantile architecture of the colony. Even today, the impression one has walking through the streets of Yangon is of a transported, if dilapidated, Strand in London (in fact one of the streets is still called the Strand) with government buildings, banks, and department 9.28 (oppoSiTe Top ) Sithu U Tin and A.G. Bray, City Hall, Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar), 1925–35. 9.29 (oppoSiTe BoTTom ) City Hall, Rangoon, detail.

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stores in the style of Regent Street, or generic late Victorian brick structures that could just as easily be in Colombo or Madras. When William Somerset Maugham visited in 1922, he was astonished at the city’s lack of Asian features: “a drive in an American car through busy streets of business houses, concrete and iron like the streets, good heavens! of Honolulu, Shanghai, Singapore or Alexandria.”98 Writing in 1951 Norman Lewis astutely remarked that Rangoon had been “built by people who refused to compromise with the East.”99 The most important exception, which Maugham would not have known because it was later, is City Hall (then called the Municipal Offices), built in an art deco style underneath with Burmese (and other Asian) surface ornamentation and crowned with roofs and turrets in a sumptuously indigenous style derived from pagoda and palace architecture (figs. 9.28–9). The building has a long and protracted history and was never intended to reflect a hybrid style. The municipality purchased the property in 1886, turning the stalwart neoclassical Ripon Dance Hall into the headquarters of the Municipal Corporation of Rangoon. The “Corporation,” as it was called, quickly outgrew its new home, and was compelled to rent space in a nearby department store. After acquiring a loan in 1912 for 1,247,000 rupees for thirty years, the Municipal Corporation held a competition for the design of a new building the following year, “for which,” as Sara Rooney puts it, “it set the oddly humble mandate of a building with ‘some pretentions to architectural beauty.’”100 The jury, which was chaired by the then consulting architect to the government of Burma, Henry Seton-Morris (1869–1915), selected L.A. McClumpha’s design, about which he wrote, “I have no hesitation in awarding this design the first place. It stands alone in its grasp of the ventilation problem which

has baffled the authors of so many fine designs. In proportion, in restraint, in dignity, the Municipal Offices and Public Hall when built will be the finest group of architectural buildings in Burma.”101 The Great War and financial challenges put a stop to the project, which was not resumed until 1925, by which time the project was awarded to Arthur G. Bray, who completed the building to his own design in December 1928, when it was inaugurated by Governor Sir Harcourt Butler (1869–1938).102 His monumental three-storey structure on a rusticated basement and featuring long colonnades was a near twin of the War Office (1906) or Treasury Buildings (1898–1917) in Whitehall, although adjusted to the climate: The Architect and Building News (28 June 1929) noted that “in the plan here reproduced the offices are necessarily arranged in very large compartments so that the very maximum of ventilation may be secured. […] All the offices, with the exception of those facing north, have verandahs on both sides.”103 However the article proudly goes on to note that the building made no compromises with indigenous style and was resolutely British and classical: While the plan itself is extraordinarily well adapted both to its purpose and to the climactic conditions of the locality, the elevations are also distinguished. No concessions whatsoever appear to have been made to the native style of architecture, for this is the Classic style of the type which has been developed in England. The composition of the main front containing the entrance portico is admirable, and it is no exaggeration to say that it would bear comparison with that of any English public building erected during the last fifty years […] Moreover, the terrace over the portico is well suited for

the making of public pronouncements. The columnar style, which originally developed in the south, has proved itself on this occasion to be quite capable of being adapted for the architecture of a tropical climate.

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For British commentators, classicism was considered significantly “southern” for a tropical climate – no further lessons needed to be learned from the local built environment. Criticism came swiftly, first from New Zealand architect Basil Ward (1902–1976), an early proponent of British modernism, who delivered a scathing indictment of Rangoon’s architecture at the Rotary Club in January 1930, echoing the derisive remarks about Belle Époque Saigon Hébrard would make five years later. Ward referred to the European style buildings in the city as “amazing encrustations of Architectural motifs of a dozen dead styles,” and as being completely unsuitable for the climate.104 His speech appeared in the nationalist newspaper New Burma on 19 January 1930, where it caught the attention of politician and legislative council member U Ba Pe, an “ardent national spirit” who aimed to “fight out the country’s freedom” according to one contemporary, and who had helped found (in 1906) the “Young Men’s Buddhist Association,” the only Burmese political association allowed in the colony at the time (later the General Council of Burmese Association), as well as Thuriya, the first unambiguously political newspaper.105 Responding to British efforts to slow down the process of granting Burma self-government Ba Pe declared at the London Round Table: “Fitness for self-government … is a matter of opinion … Burma was a great power in the East until 50 years ago when it was conquered by Britain. Why, then, he inquired, should not Burma be able to run its own affairs again?”106

Exactly what happened next with the Municipal Offices has been obscured by the secondary literature, mostly out of imprecision in its use of primary sources (the same goes for the chronology of the building, as all scholars claim that it was still unfinished in 1930). In a speech to the Legislative Council of Burma on 18 February 1930 Ba Pe asked that government make a policy of incorporating features from Burmese structures such as the temples of the ancient city of Pagan into future large-scale government projects, noting that he had already prevailed over opposition at the Municipal Council to have Bray’s building radically amended by Burmese architect Sithu U Tin (1882–1972). I will discuss this speech shortly. Except for a recent article by Pedro Guedes (2020) which has referred back to the original speech, all of the sources repeat the version of events published by Sarah Rooney (2012), who was the first to quote Ba Pe’s rejoinder to the criticism that incorporating features from Burmese temple architecture was inappropriate: “No civic architecture in the world can be found that is not founded on either ecclesiastical, monumental or other religious architecture in other countries from religious, monumental or royal edifices.”107 This quotation, which she misdates to 1925, is repeated by Su Lin Lewis (2012, 2016), who corrects the year (but gives the date as 20 January), as well as Jayde Lin Roberts (2017, 2017), and Guedes (2020), and all of them state that it was during this meeting that U Tin convinced the municipality to transform the building.108 However, as just noted, Ba Pe’s speech was made after he had already won the concession from the Municipal Council to hire U Tin to redesign the Municipal Offices, and its main thrust was therefore not to persuade the council to agree to the change but to encourage it to incorporate Burmese features into major government

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buildings and to protect heritage structures. Also, significantly, he received more criticism from other Burman council members than he did from Europeans – something never discussed in the literature, which exclusively blames Europeans for opposing the politician’s plans. The speech is indeed fascinating and deserves to be quoted at length. He begins by criticizing the Western-style architecture of his city: “Everyone knows that in every country which has architecture of its own, the Government of that country tries to preserve it and to improve it to its utmost ability. But here in Burma, looking round, take for instance, Rangoon town itself, the Government House, the Secretariat buildings, the Port Commissioners’ buildings, the Municipal building, Law Courts, the High Court, in fact, everywhere you go, all the important buildings do not incorporate any features of Burmese architecture.”109 He mentions that he consulted with Ward directly (although not giving his name) and that Ward pointed out that Western neoclassical architecture was based on the religious architecture of Greece, whereupon he made his famous quote cited above, going on to remark, “So if it is possible to develop civic architecture in other countries from religious, monumental, or royal foundations, why should it not be possible in Burma also?”110 In justifying his program of architectural indigenization he referred specifically to the Indo-Saracenic architecture of India, noting that Burma had no such thing: I want it to be the policy of Government to incorporate Burmese architecture in all important public buildings. […] I do not see why there should be any objection to it. They have the museum buildings in Bombay with features of Indian architecture, and the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Offices. There is also a School of Art with a

Department for Architecture in Bombay. Then, again, the great architect, Sir Edward Luteyns [sic], has incorporated features of Indian architecture into the Viceregal Lodge and other buildings that are springing up in New Delhi. That is the accepted policy of the Government of Bombay and of India. I want the Government of Burma to have the same policy to incorporate Burmese architecture in all important Government buildings in the future. […] such a policy will come into line with national sentiment.111 He allays any financial concerns by reporting that the Burma Society of Architects was willing to assist in this scheme gratis, and that they even offered to host architectural competitions: “when a building is to be erected by the Government – I mean an important building, I am not concerned with minor buildings – Government should issue an advertisement calling for competitive designs from architects, either in Burma or outside Burma, stating very carefully and specifically that the building should contain important features of Burmese architecture. That will cause a large number of architects all the world over to come or to send in their designs, and the Society of Architecture in Burma will be very glad to co-operate with Government free of charge to secure that end. […] It is up to the Government now to formulate a policy that will admit of gradual development of Burmese architecture on lines suitable for modern requirements.”112 Perhaps the most interesting part of this idea is that Ba Pe had no issue with non-Burmans taking part in the concours; indeed, he hoped that by bringing in foreigners he would introduce the wonders of Burmese architecture to the wider world. U Tin, who had apprenticed to a Bombay engineering firm and worked in the Rangoon Public Works Department, was an ideal choice

At the Wembley Exhibition, Burmese architecture was admired and commented on very favourably. That was the feeling I had when I moved the Rangoon Corporation to incorporate features of Burmese architecture into the new extension. The Corporation accepted my motion by a very substantial

majority, and they have asked a Burman Engineer, by name U Tin, to produce suitable designs to meet modern requirements, at the same time incorporating features of Burmese architecture. It took him three months to produce a design; I don’t say it is the best in the world, yet it shows that, given opportunity and encouragement, Burmese architecture can be adapted to modern requirements without in the least lessening the beautiful effect of Burmese architecture. This is the design (holds the design in his hand), the perspective view of the design produced by U Tin. At first sight, it looks as if we are following the classical style: but if hon’ble members will examine it carefully, they will find that what are known as pylons are not the reproduction of classical style, but are copied from Pagan architecture. Similarly, other features here in the design, at first sight, resemble classical architecture, but in effect it is pure and simple Burmese and found in architecture which existed in Pagan, Prome or Mandalay at present. Sir, here in effect a Burman Engineer has produced what is possible with Burmese architecture. So the objection that it is not possible to adapt Burmese architecture to suit modern requirements is not well founded. Architecture, as is well known, is a science which is found only with people when they have made certain advances in civilization. […] Burma has, peculiar to itself, special architecture; and it would be a very sad thing to see that beautiful architecture disappear from this country.116 His remark about modern requirements echoes the concerns of many of the patrons and architects in this and the previous two chapters. It is remarkable that the Municipal Council so readily

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for the overhaul of Bray’s structure. He was widely praised for his design for the Burma Pavilion at the 1921 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, London, significantly its “superstructure of high and distinctive character.”113 One local newspaper wrote at the time of the exhibition: “It is safe to say that Burma will be one of the greatest favourites among all the Overseas Pavilions. With its wealth of brown teak-wood carving straight from Burma and its delicate gilded pinnacles hung with bells, which tinkle perpetually in the wind, it is full of the enchantment of the East.”114 By the time Ba Pe was extolling U Tin’s architecture in Rangoon this “real thing in Burmese architecture, having been sent all the way from Rangoon to Wembley at a cost of £80,000,” was shipped to Sydney in 1927, where it had a strange afterlife as a Schweppes soda stand at the Sydney Agricultural Showground.115 Despite all of the praise won by this extraordinary pavilion, none of the British or Australian newspapers – like their counterparts in French Cambodia – mentioned the architect by name. Ba Pe spoke about U Tin and his design at the February meeting, noting his success at the British Empire Exhibition and stressing the subtle ways in which his design linked the general structure of a neoclassical building with Burmese architecture. Perhaps to appease his opponents he spoke modestly of U Tin’s design, but he held the plan in his hands while he spoke (it had been published in the Rangoon Times) and was clearly proud of it:

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9.30 (oppoSiTe ) Detail of a pyatthat roof, Sule Pagoda, Rangoon, probably nineteenth century.

as peacocks and nagas, were added to the lower part of the building as decorative accents. The Rangoon Municipal Commission reported in 1935 that “The New City Hall is the first public building of importance in which features of Burmese architecture have been incorporated with striking success. The building is worthy of the metropolis and inaugurates a new era in secular Burmese Architecture.”118 City Hall is built on a rectangular plan with a spacious central courtyard and three pavilions on the south wing. The central one, the main entrance, is crowned with the largest of the triple pyatthat roofs flanked by four smaller pyatthat turrets (figs. 9.28–9). The two pavilions at the corners, canted at a 45-degree angle, are flanked by a pair of the same turrets, and there are two more at the corners of the north wing. The principal motif of the lower part of the building is a tall lancet arch, which may have been inspired by multifoil arches of ancient Pagan (e.g., on the Dhammayangyi Temple, late twelfth century) but their subtler points suggest instead a Mughal source (U Tin did work in India, after all).119 Three of these stand over the main entrance marquee (they are the grandest, with coved frames to give an exaggerated sensation of depth), and three more adorn the pavilion facing the Sula Pagoda to the southwest, but the other corners have only a single arch. Nine additional arches appear on the sides of the building, and there are five more on either side of the south portal, all crowned with attic windows (not part of Bray’s design) flanked by lotus panels and surmounted with a stylized lotus band. High and narrow latticework panels with scrolling foliate bands provide ventilation to the main entrance, and similar latticework appears in the spandrels of all but the three main arches. As Roberts has pointed out, there is nothing about the building below the roof to ameliorate the “foreign quality” of this building.120 However the

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agreed to the change since Bray’s building had already been completed and was the object of such patriotic praise in the British press. U Tin’s formidable challenge was to transform an existing structure into one with an entirely different appearance. Judging by the plans and photographs of the 1928 building, U Tin appears to have encased the classical structure in an envelope of new revetments, preserving the massing (central portico, wings, plan) and even the spacing of the columns, but meticulously concealing all traces of European classicism except for the north (rear) facade, which preserves Bray’s design. The lower part of the building was now in a generic art deco style with some Burmese and pan-Asian elements, but it is dominated by smooth lines and wide expanses of wall to offset the ornateness of the roof. The primary innovation was the massive new central roof structure over the main entrance and turrets over the wings, which were placed directly on top of Bray’s raised attics. They take the form of a three-tier pyatthat, a form used in Burmese temple and palace architecture comprising a multi-storey wooden roof of pyramidal shape but rectangular plan with box-like sections between the roofs and crowned with a spire.117 As it happens, a pyatthat roof was also the most prominent feature of U Tin’s Wembley pavilion: yet again the design for a hybrid building was first tested out in an international exposition. Although Ba Pe had wanted references to the buildings of Pagan, such roofs could be found directly across the street from City Hall, at the ancient Sule Pagoda (begun fifth century bc , but mostly nineteenth–twentieth century), which the first British city planners had turned into a roundabout and the focus of the Rangoon’s grid of streets (fig. 9.30). Other Burmese features, such

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9.31 Sithu U Tin, Central Railway Station, Rangoon, 1947–54.

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pyatthat roof and turrets over the entrance pavilions are striking in their complexity, their eaves and gables shimmering with tiny tongues of flame and their sinewy naga finials hearkening back to a centuries-old tradition of decorating Buddhist buildings in Southeast Asia. They also respond very effectively to those in the Sula Pagoda opposite – in gilded wood instead of concrete – gracefully drawing together the sacred and secular hubs of the city (fig. 9.30). U Tin’s roof is a dramatic

and original use of an ancient Burmese symbol both of sanctity and of monarchical power, and it demonstrates how well hybridity can function for the colonized. The proof of the effectiveness of U Tin’s achievement was that his style survived independence and was used in the first buildings commissioned by the new Burmese government. U Tin was chosen to build the new Central Railway Station (1947–54), independent Burma’s transport hub which replaced its British antecedent (1877), destroyed by retreating British troops in 1942.121 The largest building project in independent Burma at the time, and one of great strategic importance, the Central Railway Station features four lofty towers crowned with concrete pyatthat turrets inspired by those at City Hall, but this time brilliantly gilded like those at the Sula Pagoda (fig. 9.31).122 Alfred Birnbaum, of the Myanmar Historical Trust, describes the two buildings as “the most inspired examples of a syncretic Myanmar style.”123 With its multiple towers, higher turrets, and festive atmosphere (although lacking the rich wood carving), the railway station more faithfully resembles the Wembley pavilion than did City Hall, which was, after all, a refit of an earlier project. U Tin went on to design the independence obelisk (1948) in the former Fytche Square (now Mahabandula Garden), replacing a statue of Queen Victoria, which was returned to Britain. While the soaring, sword-like modernist structure makes no reference to traditional Burmese architecture it does demonstrate that the architect had come to embody the spirit of independent Burma. Ba Pe’s success in radically changing the outward appearance of the Rangoon City Hall is the most pronounced example in Southeast Asia of an indigenous community using associationism to demand recognition of their cultural identity: like a weapon developed by one country only to be seized by its rival, the architec-

tural hybridity of newly independent Burma was the fruit of nearly a century of attempts by colonial powers to repress Asian peoples by dressing up colonialism in indigenous forms. The End of an Empire

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The French colonial empire dissolved quickly, as did those of its European rivals, with the conclusion of the Second World War. French Indochina, which never lived to see its centenary, broke apart in September 1945 after the unconditional surrender of the Japanese forces who had occupied Vietnam since 1940. Although the Japanese had initially left the French administration in place as Vichy France was an Axis power, they were the de facto rulers and finally overthrew the Indochinese colonial administration in April 1945, granting a token “independence” to Annam-Tonkin, Cambodia, and Laos.124 The Free French forces had declared in 1944 that they would reinstate their empire in Asia, that “without an empire, France was only a liberated country, but with its empire, it would once again be a great power,” even though France no longer had the means to do so and Indochina’s economy had collapsed.125 Within hours of the Japanese surrender, the communist leader Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) declared independence in North Vietnam, now the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, leading to the First Indochina War (1946–54). At first, French officials convinced Ho to sign an agreement (1946) to allow Vietnam to become a “Free State” within an Indochinese Federation integrated into the French Union, and they granted the Lao and Cambodian monarchies, who were antagonistic toward Vietnam, autonomy within the Federation with the French as their protectors.126 However after a shooting incident in Haiphong the French bombed and then occupied the city as a prelude to conquering Tonkin in

December 1946 and war with the Viet Minh, the army of North Vietnam, commenced. Although France gained some territory in Tonkin and Annam and won the alliance of the Caodaists and of Phát Diệm and other Christian enclaves as defence units, they failed to divide the Viet Minh, who fought an increasingly effective guerrilla war, particularly with the help of Communist China after 1949. In 1950 the United States became involved as part of their global campaign against communism, granting France military aid in their fight against the Viet Minh (by 1953 they were supplying 40 per cent of all military expenses), thus beginning their own long involvement in Vietnam.127 But the Vietnamese were moving beyond guerrilla warfare: the reorganized People’s Army of Vietnam was now able to fight a conventional war against outnumbered and insufficiently armed French expeditionary corps who were neglected by successive French governments between 1950 and 1954 who only helped them in a “piecemeal” fashion.128 French forces suffered a disastrous retreat from Cao Bằng in 1950 and then a devastating defeat at Điện Biên Phủ, near the Lao border, in 1954. The latter ended the French colony of Indochina: the Geneva Conference that same year divided Vietnam into two zones along the seventeenth parallel, the southern one now an independent South Vietnam. Laos was divided in half between the royal government and the Pathet Lao, who were allied with Vietnam, and Cambodia alone maintained its territorial integrity (including the slice of Siam retroceded in 1907). Half a million people died in the First Indochina War, but worse was yet to come as the United States’ military assistance to the South Vietnamese government led to the Second Indochina War, better known as the Vietnam War (1955–75).129 France lost its Indian possessions at Pondicherry, Karikal, Mahé, Yanaon, and

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Chandernagore the same year. Pondicherry was a shadow of its former self, and its main contribution to empire was as a stop for the liners that passed between Saigon and Marseille, the Messageries Maritimes. Still, Pondicherry was prosperous, owing to its textile mills, lax laws, and flourishing smuggling trade in gold and precious gems. However, the political situation became “explosive” at the dawn of the Great War.130 Following the Third Republic’s reforms, inspired by abolitionist Victor Schoelcher (1804–1893), the “old” French territories, including India, were given the right to vote as French citizens but within the colonial government. Although French India now had universal male suffrage, the decades that followed were characterized by massive electoral fraud and violence between the two electoral colleges, the “French” party and “Indian” party. The seeming impossibility of applying universal suffrage onto the caste system led France just before the war to consider handing over its Indian possessions to the British in exchange for The Gambia or Nigeria. France’s Indian colonies were also politically active. French authorities granted refuge to Indian independence fighters, particularly in Chandernagore, which became a base for “terrorist” activities within British Calcutta beginning in 1907.131 Many of these freedom fighters were inspired by Calcutta-born intellectual and nationalist Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950), who fled to Chandernagore in 1910 and then, in 1914, to Pondicherry, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1918 the French governor refused to hand him over to Britain, largely because the government had no control over their Indian fellow citizens. Other revolutionaries and nationalists, such as the poet Bharathidasan (1891–1964), took refuge in Pondicherry, and Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) visited in 1934. When in 1936 a strike at Savana Mills was savagely suppressed by the French

regime, resulting in twelve deaths and dozens of wounded, what had been a struggle for reforms within the French system became an independence movement.132 After the Second World War, during which French India remained, uniquely, in the hands of the Free French, authorities began reforms and even planned to hand the colonies over to India. However, the First Indochinese War changed everything as Pondicherry suddenly became strategically vital to the campaign. The government tried to assuage their Indian citizens with electoral reforms, by making French India part of the French Union, by creating a French Indian Representative Assembly, and by renaming the Governor as the Commissioner of the Republic.133 As a ploy to stay in power France tried to hold a referendum on independence, but Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), who wanted “integration pure and simple,” responded with a total blockade of Pondicherry between 1949 and 1954, surrounding the enclave with two rows of barbed wire and machine gun emplacements, blocking bridges, and rendering the postal service useless.134 Chandernagore had already been handed back in 1951 and Yanaon and Mahé were seized by Indian troops in 1954. France relinquished its Indian colonies at the same 1954 Geneva Conference that ended French Indochina, with a de facto transfer of control that year and a de jure prolongation of French administration until 1962.135 Monument to Cambodian Independence, Phnom Penh (1962) The same year that France relinquished its de jure administration over its last Asian colony, the Cambodian government inaugurated with great fanfare a monument to Cambodian independence in a roundabout at the crossing of two main thoroughfares in central Phnom Penh. Although built

declared: “It is not the question here to be satisfied with the imitation of existing forms through their progressively rough stylization. And should the Khmer continue to live its proper life by voluntarily ignoring all the conditions of progress and modern civilisation? A non-adaptation signifies, on the contrary, a certain death of culture. We need a will for adaptation and predominantly for creation … Khmer culture can reform itself by combining existing with Occidental culture in all its vitality.”136 His approach to Khmer antiquity, which impacted so many of his buildings, was not to preserve it in aspic as did Groslier and his ilk but to seek a fusion between it and vernacular wooden pagoda and domestic architecture (precisely the sort of structures Groslier despised) on one hand, and Western architectural and technological advances on the other, “a modern interpretation of Angkor’s built legacy.”137 His most celebrated works did just that: using clean lines, expanses of glass, and unadorned reinforced concrete walls, commissions such as the Chaktomuk Conference Hall (1961) and National Sports Complex (1963) in Phnom Penh drew upon Angkor’s juxtaposition of negative (water) and positive (earthen) volumes and between larger well-lit halls and smaller, darker rooms, and they made subtle references to earlier structures such as the staircases of Pre Rup and the spires of the Royal Palace.138 Although his most famous work, the Independence Monument (1957–62), is in fact the least characteristic of his New Khmer style because it does not engage with international modernism but instead with the generic art deco of his predecessors. Vann had to follow the directives of prime minister and former king Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012), for whom the monument was the most important expression of his propaganda campaign – he presented himself as a present-day Suryavarman II (ad 1113–1150),

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by an independent nation that had just thrown off the colonial yoke, the structure bore striking similarities to the buildings we have examined in the last three chapters and bore Groslier’s imprint. It also recalls the Rangoon City Hall and Railway Station in its combination of an indigenous-style superstructure with a modernist substructure and as a symbol of decolonization. And once again, the monument owes a profound debt to the pavilions made to represent the former protectorate at European international expositions, not only stylistically and structurally, but – more important still – ideologically. Its main architect, Kampot-born Beaux-Arts graduate Vann Molyvann (1926–2017), like U Tin, was committed to a regionally inflected modernism for Cambodia, which he called “New Khmer Architecture” (La nouvelle architecture khmère), although instead of the by now outdated art deco forms of his Burman colleague he championed international modernism. Whereas U Tin had emulated the pagodas of Pagan, Vann returned to the temples in the Angkor Wat archaeological park – the very monuments that had motivated France’s mania for appropriating historic monuments in Indochina; the focus of the restoration activities of efeo; the justification used for France’s land grab of Siamese territory in 1907; the model for the “pure” Khmer style taught in Groslier’s school; and the most repeatedly replicated structures in the Paris and Marseille expositions (fig. 7.6). No complex of ancient monuments in French Asian territories carried such an entangled web of ideological baggage. Vann wrote his architectural manifesto early on, while studying in Paris and living with the radical Khmer Student Association in Paris (later called the Khmer Rouge) – and while the French were still in his country. In an Essai sur la culture Khmère (1949), making a clear criticism of Groslier’s reign over Cambodian arts production, he

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9.32 (oppoSiTe ) Tan Veut, Vann Molyvann, and others, Monument to Cambodian Independence, Phnom Penh, completed 1962. Photograph courtesy Michael Falser.

Roads, Seng Suntheng, and U Som Ol, the latter a palace architect. Tan Veut worked in the official capacity of a decorative sculptor, together with Chieng Suon. Vann took over the project early in 1959. Although the monument had been begun four years after independence, construction was delayed because of unstable soil on the work site. The Independence Monument immediately recalls the French Angkor Wat replicas at the colonial expositions, and although it is not an ephemeral structure it is not as solid as it appears. Like the Angkor replicas it is built over an inner structural skeleton (of reinforced concrete instead of the wood framework of the French pavilions) and is faced with Chinese marble revetments (as opposed to the pavilions’ lightweight fibre mouldings).143 The tower looks like it is made of stone, but the illusion was achieved by adhering crushed blood-red marble to the exterior (to give it the same colour as its classical models), a decision explicitly requested by Sihanouk, who paid close personal attention to this commission. In another similarity to the exposition facsimiles, it combines elements from different structures in a pastiche. The stepped platform and entablatures dividing the tiers of the tower are richly carved with Khmer decorative motifs from Banteay Srei (like their French predecessors Veut and his team took moulds on site), and the five stepped levels of the tower are decorated each with twenty naga snake figures divided into groups of five. The main tower emulates another ancient Khmer model, the ninth-century Bakong Temple in Rolous near Angkor. It adheres quite closely to Veut’s project, although the lotus finial at the top has been altered and the European-style balustrade has been removed. The four piers are superimposed by plain pilasters that project forward to meet the rectangular openings at each side, and in fact the way the heavily decorated superstructure contrasts with clean lines below – not to mention

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the mastermind of Angkor Wat – and the design was a group effort among different architects and craftsmen. Soon after Vann’s return to Cambodia in 1956 (when he married the daughter of Henri Marchal, the efeo conservator of Angkor Wat), Vann was anointed as Sihanouk’s “state and star architect,” with the rank of Grand croix de l’ordre royal du Cambodge. In keeping with his government’s program of linking itself to ancient Angkor, Sihanouk declared that Vann was “as worthy a builder as our Angkorian ancestors.”139 As Michael Falser has shown, Vann’s use of Angkorian motifs and structures in his work turns the “classic ‘salvage paradigm’” of the French upside down, reclaiming Angkor as Cambodian patrimony.140 Located at the crossing of Norodom and Sihanouk boulevards, the monument was one of Vann’s earliest commissions upon returning to Cambodia (fig. 9.32). Although the building is usually attributed to him alone and he was the chief architect during most of its construction, the monument involved many different designers, sculptors, engineers, and builders, reflecting a kind of collaborative approach akin to that of the colonial pavilions at French international expositions.141 In fact the basic outlines of the project were first developed by Tan Veut, the Battambang-born architect of the Khmer-style funerary stupas in the Royal Palace (1961), whose plans and elevations from January 1957, discovered by Michael Falser, show a classical Khmerstyle tower (prasat) on a square base supported by four massive piers on a stepped platform.142 Other builders included the Vietnamese Du Ngoc Anh from Saigon and Ing Kieth, both of them engineers working for the Department of Bridges and

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the colour of the walls – recalls the Musée Albert-Sarraut, which is only 1.5 kilometres away. Norodom Boulevard, running north from the Independence Monument, ends at Wat Phnom, allowing for a direct juxtaposition of Cambodia’s ancient past with its future. In what is perhaps the greatest irony of all, this statement of Cambodian identity was also inspired – as Vann openly admitted in an interview – by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris (begun 1806), another monumental arch-like structure in a roundabout with radiating boulevards, but, as a manifestation of France’s imperial ambitions, an odd choice indeed for a structure specifically built to celebrate Cambodia’s freedom from French imperialism.144 The Independence Monument was Sihanouk’s showcase. It became the focus of the ceremonial life of his regime, especially his spectacular annual processions on Independence Day, it was regularly featured on the covers of propagandistic publications, and foreign dignitaries of all stripes were inevitably taken there for photographic opportunities, from Charles de Gaulle to Marshal Tito.145 The monument survived the coup d’état of 1970 and the devastation of the Khmer Rouge and continues to be a required tourist stop and favourite location for photo portraits today – although instead of world leaders it mainly attracts Cambodian graduation parties or Chinese visitors taking “selfies” – but the once-dominant structure, once the highest structure in the neighbourhood, is now dwarfed by twenty-first-century high-rise buildings displaying distracting led displays day and night in this rapidly expanding city that seems determined to forget its past. If there is one thing the heterogeneous buildings surveyed in this book demonstrate, it is the inadequacy of the term “colonial architecture” in the context of French activities in India and

Southeast Asia in the early modern and modern eras. This is true even in a study such as this one that focuses primarily on large-scale public architecture, precisely the buildings that we would expect to represent most unequivocally the goals of French overseas imperialism. In my book on French architecture in the Atlantic empire – which admittedly encompassed seventytwo fewer years – there was a remarkable unity in the projects designed and built in the colonies: a persistently stubborn refusal to adapt to indigenous forms and a consistently ancien-régime classical baroque style that characterized most public architecture, gardens, and urban schemes in North America, the Circum-Caribbean, and West Africa. This unity was possible mostly – although not completely – because, unlike in most Asian colonies, French military engineers designed most of the buildings. In Asia, while French colonial agents attempted the same thing at certain times – as in seventeenth-century Chandernagore, eighteenth-century Pondicherry, and Belle Époque Indochina – they did not have the same capacity overall to impose French forms onto their colonies and protectorates, not to mention the diplomatic and Catholic missions that operated outside French zones in Siam, Surat, and Đại Việt. Architectural hybridity, whether generated by non-Europeans or engineered by colonial architects, was far more prevalent than in France’s Western Hemisphere colonies. Indeed, the architecture in this book represents a veritable hothouse of hybridities, arguably an even wider variety than I have encountered in decades of work on colonial Latin America and Portuguese Asia. In fact in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries French colonies in Asia were less successful in promoting a unified French architectural style – or in replicating the experience of being in Paris – than were independent nations

in other parts of the non-European world. It is instructive to compare even the most overtly French architecture in Asia, such as that of turn-of-thecentury Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong, with that of the wealthy young republics of South America, the opera houses of which I have already discussed in chapter 6. Countries such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Peru all championed a French BeauxArts style, and hired French Beaux-Arts graduates straight out of school, the same sort of architect who might have chosen instead to work in a French colony and for similar reasons: a lack of opportunity at home, a personal need to depart France, or simply a taste for adventure. Indeed, France’s Asian colonies and Latin America were already entangled in a network of globe-trotting Beaux-Arts graduates – one might even characterize these men as being among France’s most successful export commodities. Some we have met in this book, such as Eugène Carpezat or Eugène Ferret, both of whom gained or sought contracts in French colonies and Latin America alike (in Brazil and Cuba, respectively). Others, like Ernest-Amédeé Guichard of the Théâtre de Saigon, belonged to prominent French immigrant communities in Latin America who considered it the greatest privilege to send one of their own to study at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. Fifteen years after Guichard left Peru, another French Beaux-Arts graduate, Claude-Antoine Sahut (1883–1932), from Montpellier, travelled in the opposite direction. Arriving in Lima in 1905, he helped transform new suburbs such as La Colmena into a network of wide Parisian boulevards lined with Second Empire–style mansions.146 However, Argentina and Chile took gallicization to a new level, commissioning gargantuan private residences (appropriately called “palacios”) like the Palacio Pareda (1917–24) (fig. 9.33) by Parisian architect Léonard-Louis Martin (1867–1941) and his Belgian Beaux-Arts colleague

9.33 (Top ) Louis Martin and Jules Dormal, Palacio Pareda, Buenos Aires (Argentina), 1917–24. 9.34 (BoTTom ) Miguel Angel de la Cruz Labarca, Palacio Subercaseaux, Santiago (Chile), 1901.

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Jules Dormal (1846–1924) and the Palacio Ortiz Basualdo (1912–18) by Dijon architect Paul Pater (1879–1966), both in Buenos Aires. The latter is now, appropriately, the French embassy.147 Santiago’s signature example of Beaux-Arts opulence is Henault’s Teatro Municipal (fig. 6.17), and such buildings proliferated at the turn of the century with the grand French-style railway station, the Estación Mapocho (1905), and the Museo de Bellas Artes (begun 1901), both by FrancoChilean architect and Beaux-Arts graduate Émile Jéquier (1866–1949) – another scion of a French immigrant family. The greatest of all is the Palacio Subercaseaux (1901), a fifteen-bay behemoth across the square from the theatre, built in an eclectic Louis XV style, with a lofty mansard roof and rococo ornament by Miguel Ángel de la Cruz Labarca, a Chilean Beaux-Arts graduate (fig. 9.34).148 Chile also boasted several metal frame buildings that had been manufactured entirely in France, including the Edificio Edwards (1892) in Santiago by Eugène Joannon (1860– 1938) and the Cathedral of San Marcos (1875) and Customs House in Arica (1871–74), both prefabricated in Paris by Eiffel & Company.149 Like the Beaux-Arts graduates, Gustave Eiffel’s prefabricated structures enjoyed a global impact, and were found in Latin America and French Indochina alike (for instance, Eiffel & Company designed the grand Pont des Messageries Maritimes in Saigon in 1882 and restored the Trường Tiền Bridge in Huế in 1939).150 In Buenos Aires and its Argentine rival Rosario, these buildings were incorporated into Parisian-inspired streetscapes, with grand boulevards such as Buenos Aires’s Avenida de Mayo or 9 de Julio (at 140 metres the widest avenue in the world) or Rosario’s five-kilometre-long Bulevar Oroño, as well as ronds-points with diagonally radiating streets, and obelisks. Owing to the scale and sheer abundance of such buildings, these

South American cities did a better job of emulating the grandeur of Belle-Époque Paris and promoting the French “brand” than did Saigon or Hanoi, which retained a provincial air despite all the bluster of the municipal councils. Saigon may have amused anglophone critics with its similarity to a small French seaside city – or indeed to a group of exposition pavilions – but Buenos Aires continues to astonish visitors with the degree to which certain neighbourhoods replicate the experience of being in Paris, its broad avenues lined with five- to nine-storey Haussmann-style buildings (although more recent demolition and new construction have radically changed the appearance of some areas). Even the French were impressed: a patriotic article from 1920 in the architectural journal La Construction moderne had nothing but praise for Gallic Buenos Aires, It is a beautiful city, of which the streets are drawn in a straight line, paved and bordered by wide sidewalks. Without counting the gardens and the promenades planted with trees, the city has a magnificent park, Palermo, by the sea, on the road that leads to the rich villas of the buenos-airienne suburb. The Argentine [...] is [...] very sensitive to all manifestations of art, particularly French art. We have the good fortune to reproduce […] buildings recently built in Buenos-Aires. The author, Mr. Luis Martin [sic], a talented architect, was inspired by our great styles of the 18th century and knew how to make excellent use of them.151 Walking the streets of Buenos Aires, one might even conclude that France was doing a better job colonizing the built environment of independent nations through its architectural school, architects, and prefabricated structures than it was doing in its own colonies, further complicating

requirements of late Ottoman domesticity.”153 The architecture of the French empire in Asia when viewed on the ground was a world apart from the impression colonial authorities projected in the metropole and that was entertained by the French public – the universal expositions are a sharp reminder of this difference, all patriotic boosterism and unity in France, but papering over a fractured, violent reality, as embodied by the quotation from the Indochinese section of the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition in chapter 1. Nevertheless, as we have seen repeatedly in the second half of this book, modern indigenous architectural hybridities developed precisely in the celebratory environment of the international expositions and their pavilions, where they were paradoxically embraced by Asian groups and individuals (some of whom had been employed to design and build those very pavilions) as an assertion of self-identity and anti-colonialism. In particular the juxtaposition of an Asian roof with modern substructures became, in Southeast and East Asia, a prototypical challenge to European perceived superiority and exceptionalism, whether in late nineteenth-century Siam (which had participated in international expositions since the 1870s), or through the designs of the graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts de Hanoi, U Tin’s transformation of City Hall in Burma, Vann Molyvann’s New Khmer Architecture, or the Bunriha Kenchikukai, all of whom claimed universal contemporary architecture – variously neoclassicism and baroque revival, art deco, or modernism – for themselves. The architecture of the French empire in Asia has as much to do with the colonized as the colonizer: as Roger Benjamin writes about North African painters who participated in the twentieth-century Orientalist movement, “A visual technology like painting, implanted in a colonial situation, becomes available to users other than those who imported it. Like

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our definition of “colonial architecture.”152 Colbert’s ghost – the former minister was always more interested in exporting French products and style than in colonization – would have been very pleased indeed. As we have seen throughout this book, the buildings of the French colonies in Asia also differed dramatically according to the era and place in which they were constructed. There were commonalities between certain episodes in the old and new empires (and, at times, between the ancien régime Western and Eastern hemisphere empires), but they are outnumbered by differences – not simply distinctions between the early modern and modern period but even within each epoch. The divergences do not just relate to whatever style happened to be in fashion in Paris and Versailles at the time the monuments were built but, more importantly, to the kind and degree of hybridity that so many of them manifested, from invisible hybridities in which a completely French-looking building hosted Asian ceremonial and court culture or vice versa to the strategic hybridities of associationism and the extraordinary variety of Asian-driven hybridities, from the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Siamese temple pediments of chapter 3 to the multiple cultural fusions surveyed in this chapter – including ones in which the “French” elements were read as being Siamese, Chinese, or simply modern. European neoclassicism siphoned through Siam became Siamese and the neoclassicism and art deco of the domestic architecture of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia were claimed as Chinese. Vollait has remarked about a similar interaction of forms in Belle Epoque and modernist architecture in Egypt: “Something simultaneously familiar but alien to European architecture and familiar but alien to traditional architecture, had been born at the intersection of local aspirations to European modernity and the social

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language, it can talk back to the colonizer.”154 The same is true of architecture. Above all, the monuments in this book are the product of individuals, of the people who commissioned, designed, built, and used them. I have focused on the lives of the architects and builders because we cannot fully appreciate the buildings without getting to know them. This field has been particularly hampered by anonymity: with few exceptions these buildings have been treated as if they were simply a product of monolithic institutions, whether the cio or the Indochinese municipalities – and of faceless surnames. But, as we have seen, knowing the architect can be very revealing. The Beaux-Arts opulence of the Théâtre de Saigon certainly reflects the taste of the city government, but it is also quite personal: Eugène Ferret favoured an overblown “Côte d’Azur” style (to borrow Arnhold’s term) and may even have taken the commission in the hope that the Indochinese building could serve as a calling card for what he really wanted to do, which was to build casinos in the Riviera. Auguste Delaval’s Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse in Saigon would not have looked the way it did if he did not have a sincere, if romanticized, appreciation for Vietnamese architecture, as demonstrated by the playfulness of the building’s ornamentation and his substantial legacy of watercolours of Vietnamese scenes and buildings now at Hennebont – and perhaps even by sympathies for Caodaism, which might be another reason Lê Văn Trung contacted him. Phaulkon’s ambassadors’ residence and Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in Lopburi were an

expression of his place at the axis of FrancoSiamese diplomacy and of his hope that France would protect him, and Ananda’s autobiographical house in Pondicherry similarly proclaimed the indispensability of his position within the colonial system. Khuôn Nguyen Van – Frenchtrained, half-Vietnamese, and Catholic but steeped in Cambodian palace culture – created a building that combined modern engineering with local identity. The list goes on: King Narai, Nguyễn Ánh, Charles Batteur, Père Six, Phạm Công Tắc, Chánh Hậu, Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro, and Oknha Tep Nimit Mak all imposed their personalities on their buildings, whether as patron, designer, or executing architect. Just as empires involved people from every walk of life – colonizers and colonized, elites and workers, metropolitans and settlers, missionaries and merchants, loyalists and rebels – the architecture they commissioned, created, or used reflected the multiplicity of goals and aspirations of these actors even within one time and place (think of N. Tô’s call for a less alienating hybridization than Hébrard’s or Tha Sơn’s alternative vision for Vietnamese architecture from that of the ebai ). It is precisely their uses of style, including a wide spectrum of intersecting, at time conflicting, but – in the case of so many of the buildings in this book – extraordinarily original and creative hybridities, that make these structures such fascinating examples of cross-cultural dialogue that deserve to be acknowledged alongside their better-known counterparts in Latin America and elsewhere in Asia.

notes

c hA pTer o N e 1 Only one is dated, by Dumont, and only two are signed, one by Dumont and the other by Fonbrun. The seven presentation drawings are: Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence (hereafter anom ), 26dfc 78c , “Façades du gouvernement de Pondichery du côté de l’entrée” (signed “fait Champia de Fonbrun sous-lieutenant d’infant”); its companion 26dfc 79b , “Plan du gouvernement de Pondichery”; 26dfc 80a (here attributed to Fonbrun); “Plan et élévation du gouvernement de Pondichéry” (inscribed “1755”; here attributed to Dumont); 26dfc 81a , “Plan et élévation du gouvernement de Pondichéry” (signed “Dumont 1755”); 26dfc 84a , “Arrière façade du gouvernement de Pondichéry” (here attributed to Fonbrun); 26dfc 85a , “Coupe et arrière-façade du gouvernement de Pondichéry” (here attributed to Dumont); and 26dfc 87a , “Coupe et arrière façade du gouvernement de Pondichéry” (here attributed to Dumont). 2 “Une des plus belles que les Européens ayent jamais bâti dans l’Inde … [le] gouvernement … sera très beau si on l’achève.” Anonymous mémoire in Société de l’histoire de l’Inde française, Publications de la Société, 2–3. On the Gouvernement see: Steiner, Building the French Empire, 55–7; Malangin, Pondicherry That Was Once French India, 42; Deloche, “Pondichéry, un urbanisme raisonné,” 168–70; Luengo, “Arquitecturas para un poder lejano,” 479–94; Deloche, introduction to Pondicherry Past and Present, 4; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 70–6; Lafont, Chitra, 80–3; Baig et al., Reminiscences, 31; Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 25–36; Ramaswami, History of Pondicherry, 68; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry 1673–1815, 196–200; Alfred Martineau, Dupleix et l’Inde française, 1722–1749 II (Paris 1920), 84–6. 3 For full biographies of these men, see chapter 4. 4 No projects by the royal engineers working for the French government had their work immortalized in engravings, unlike civic architects. See Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 148. 5 Ibid., 162–72. On French Royal Engineers see Blanchard, Les ingénieurs du “Roy,” 181–213; Robinet, “L’École royale du Génie de Mézières,” 267–70.

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6 The two plans by Gerbaud are inscribed “fait à Pondichery le 15. Janvier 1738. Pour copie Gerbaud.” anom, 26dfc21b , “Plan au rez-de-chaussée du gouvernement projetté”; and 26dfc 22b , “Plan du premier, ou bel étage, du gouvernement projetté.” Gerbaud was born and died in Pondicherry but served in Île de France (Mauritius) in 1731–32 as “inspecteur des travaux de l’Isle de France,” marrying second wife Marie Magdelaine Martin on 11 June 1732. anom , Île de France, Saint-Louis, “Extraits du regître des baptêmes, mariages et sépultures (1732),” f.6b (second marriage). His first wife, Françoise Elizabeth Severin, died sometime before that date, probably in Île de France since their daughter Elizabeth remained on the island, marrying in 1743. anom , Île de France, Saint-Louis, “Extraits du regître des baptêmes, mariages et sépultures” (1743), 29b (14 November 1743). Gerbaud married his third wife, the fourteen-year-old Louise Bressy from Quimper in 1744, two years before his death. anom, “Doubles des registres des Mariages faits dans l’Eglise paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges de Pondichéry de l’année 1719 jusqu’à 1748,” f.127. Gerbaud’s father was in the service of the Compagnie des Indes and his mother an Indian convert from Hinduism “fille de père et mères gentils” who was “fille de chambre de Mad. la généralle” (a domestic in the household of the wife of Governor François Martin). I have been unable to find Gerbaud’s birth record, only that of his sister Marianne, born 28 October 1710. anom , “Double du Registre des Mariages de la Chapelle et de l’Eglise de St Lasare et de Notre Dame des Anges des R. P. Capucins de Pondichéry depuis l’an 1687: Jusqu’au 1719,” f.2 (parents’ marriage); anom , “Double du Registre de Baptême de la chapelle et de l’Eglise de St. Lasare des R.P. Capucins de Pondichery depus l’an 1676 jusqu’en 1718,” f.27 (sister’s birth). Gerbaud fils witnessed marriages in Pondicherry in 1723, 1725, and 1736. anom , “Doubles des registres des Mariages faits dans l’Eglise paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges de Pondichéry de l’année 1719 jusqu’à 1748,” ff.8, 11, 62; anom , “Double du registre des enterrements de l’église paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges de Pondicherry de l’année 1746 jusqu’à 1748, f.26 (death notice). On Gerbaud’s time in Île de

France see also Bechet, Les défricheurs de l’Île de France, 89. 7 Le Bozecq (also Boisecq, Boizec, Bozec) does not appear in the secondary literature. He was born in Saint-Armel, near the naval port of Lorient (Brittany), on 15 August 1694 and reached Pondicherry sometime before 11 January 1723, when he married Marie Royer (d. 1731), at which time he was described as “charpentier du Fort Louis.” In the birth certificate of their daughter Marie Madelaine (9 November 1723) he is called a “maître charpentier”; at the birth of his daughter Louise (9 September 1728) he is titled “charpentier de la Compagnie”; and by the time Marie Madelaine was married (18 November 1737) he had been promoted to a “Lieutenant de port,” the same title he held at the time of his daughter Françoise’s marriage on 17 May 1742, the last time his name appears in the archives. Archives de Morbihan, Ploemeur baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1690–1697, 28b; anom , “Double de registre des enterrements de l’Eglise paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges de Pondichéry de l’année 1719 jusqu’à 1748,” 7, 27, 73, 108. 8 Neither Abeille nor Jean Roze dit Du Frêne (see next note) appears in the secondary literature. JeanJoseph Abeille was the second son of Joseph Abeille (b. 1703), author of a plan for the Canal de Bourgogne and nominated ingénieur en chef in the reconstruction of Rennes following a fire that devastated the city. His older brother Louis-Paul (b. 1717) was a member of the parliament and inspector-general of commerce and manufactures; he was ennobled in 1787. Jean-Joseph arrived in Pondicherry in 1742, and in 1750 he married Pondicherry native Brigitte Lerride, who was fifteen at the time. After the restoration he became a counsellor in the Superior Council but was made redundant in 1772 because of budget cuts. His brother, writing to the Ministry of the Marine to have him reinstated (unsuccessfully), wrote this about him: “Il connait très-bien le Commerce & l’administration de l’Inde. Fils d’un ingénieur du Roi, l’architecture civile, les fortifications, l’art de l’attaque & de la défense des places ne soit point pur lui des matières étrangères.” anom , col e1, “Abeille, Jean-Joseph, Conseilleur au Conseil supérieure de Pondichéry 1769/72,” letter written

9

11 12 13 14 15

16 Malangin, Pondicherry That Was Once French India, 22. 17 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 287–97 18 Ibid., 346, 375, 465. 19 Le Brusq, Vietnam à travers de l’architecture coloniale, 49. 20 Le Monde illustré, 23 February 1884, 118. 21 Davies, “Achille-Antoine Hermitte,” 201–16; Le Brusq, Vietnam, 49; Delaire, Les architectes élèves de l’Ecole des beaux-arts, 293. 22 “Tous les travaux autres que les ouvrages artistiques seraient exécutes par les ouvriers du pays, mais ceux tels que sculptures, peinture de décors, dorures devaient faits par les ouvriers et artistes que l’entrepreneur serait tenu de prendre en France.” Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam National Archives Centre Number 2 (hereafter vnac 2), 3510, Governor’s Palace of Cochinhina, “Étude pour la construction du Palais du Gouvernement a Saigon, Mémoire” (25 February 1866), 2a. 23 Le Monde illustré, 23 February 1884, 118. 24 I arrived at this calculation by converting the amount in francs to pounds sterling according to its rate in 1880, when the franc was pegged at 25 to the pound, which came to £200,000 pounds (Irene Finel-Honigman, Cultural History of Finance [Milton Park, 2010], 115). Then, using the National Archives’ historic currency converter website (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currencyconverter), which only calculates sterling, I converted £200,000 in 1880s currency to its value today (actually, 2017, the most recent year of the site). It came to £13,236,940. Then I used Oanda’s currency converter (https://www1.oanda.com/ currency/converter/) to translate that amount into euros, which gave me the figure of €15,534,000 for 5 August 2021. All websites were accessed 5 August 2021. 25 Davies, “Achille-Antoine Hermitte,” 210. 26 The first nine sculptures are explained in this letter dated 15 June 1869 from Minister of the Interior Jean-Michel Siquet: “Monsieur le Gouverneur, Monsieur le Chef du Service des Bâtiments civils vient de m’accuser un projet de construction pour le grand Salon de Réception du nouveau palais du Gouvernement. Cet Architecte pense que le seul

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from Paris on 2 February 1772. Abeille’s marriage register, from 21 August 1750 is in anom , “Doubles du registre des mariages de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges de Pondichéry des rr.pp . Capucins pour l’année 1750,” f.2b. For more on Abeille’s and his brother’s background see d’Est-Ange, Dictionnaire des familles françaises, 2. On Jean Roze dit Du Frêne, from La Haye-d’Ectot (Manche), see the same document, f.90 (his marriage of 21 September 1740, when he was styled “maitre menuisier de la Compagnie”); and f.162 (when he was a witness at a marriage of 10 June 1748 and called “maitre charpentier de la Compagnie”). On 20 February 1753, his daughter Michelle married, at which time Roze was again called “maitre charpentier de la Compagnie.” His last appearance in the archives before the completion of the palace was on 6 May 1754, when he was a witness at a wedding. anom, “Doubles du registre des mariages de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges de Pondichéry des rr.pp. Capucins pour l’année 1753,” f.1b; “Doubles du registre des mariages de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges de Pondichéry des rr.pp . Capucins pour l’année 1754,” f.3a. See also anom , col e 359, “Roze, Jean, maître charpentier à Pondichéry, sa succession (1760/1777).” Jacques Hernault was born 2 July 1712 in Pondicherry to a French father and Indian Christian mother and married a woman from Madras on 17 July 1742, when he was described as a “menuisier.” The wedding was witnessed by Jean Roze. anom , “Doubles du registre des baptêmes de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges de Pondichéry des rr.pp . Capucins pour l’année 1712,” f.35; anom, “Doubles du registre des mariages de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges de Pondichéry des rr.pp. Capucins pour l’année 1719 jusqu’à l’année 1748,” f.109. On Fort St George, which was founded in 1695, see Kalpana and Schiffer, Madras, 25–35. Deloche, “Pondichéry, un urbanisme raisonné,” 169. Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 33. In 1720 there were 117,411 enslaved people in SaintDomingue, a number that rose to 709,642 in 1791. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 96. Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 238. Beasley, Versailles Meets the Taj Mahal, 32.

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32

moyen d’orner convenablement cette immense salle en lui donnant toute la grandeur que comporte l’ensemble de l’édifice, est d’y placer des bustes en marbre blanc. La disposition de la Salle permettait d’en orner neuf. Les six places du fond servent naturellement retrouvés ces membres de la famille Impériale, et les autres devenait je crois de occupées par les trois hommes qui ont le plus contribués à doter la patrie de cette belle colonie de Cochinchine: je veux parler de Son Excellence l’Amiral Régault, qui a la gloire de l’avoir découverte et d’y avoir planté le premier, le pavillon de la France; de l’Amiral Charner qui l’a ouverte à notre civilisation après une série d’actions d’éclat; enfin, de S. Excellence le Marquis de Chasseloup Laubat, qui, dans les conseils du Gouvernement, la soutienne avec une énergie et un dénouement dont elle lui garde une profonde reconnaissance. […] M. l’Architecte estime la dépense a environ 50000 francs. Je suis avec profond respect Monsieur le Gouverneur, votre très-obéissant serviteur: le Ministre de l’Intérieur.” (signed Jean-Michel Siquet). vnac 2, 3510, Governor’s Palace of Cochinhina. Taboulet, “Les bustes en marbre,” 26–9. Paris Exposition, 1900, 328–9. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism. On these “zone[s] of non aedificandi,” pioneered in Morocco and not only separating “old” and “new” parts of town and different races but also serving a military function to allow rapid mobilization of French troops, see Wright, “Tradition in the Service of Modernity,” 301. For the literature on urbanism in French Asia see, in particular: Bảo, Kiến trúc, 7–36; Herbelin, Architectures; Drummond, “Colonial Hanoi”; Labbé et al., “Domesticating the Suburbs”; Jennings, Imperial Heights; Askew et al., Vientiane; Manguin, Le patrimoine indochinois; Deloche, Origins of the Urban Development; Deloche, Le papier terrier; Van Ky, “The French Model”; Cooper, “Urban Planning and Architecture”; Le Brusq, Vietnam à travers l’architecture colonial; Logan, Hanoi; Wright, The Politics of Design. To give just two examples, both by intach : Architectural Heritage of Pondicherry and the as-yet-unpublished “Pondicherry Listing Book,”

33 34 35 36 37

38 39

40 41

42

43

44 45

2 vols. Similar in nature is Hervé Desbenoit’s survey of heritage architecture in Ho Chi Minh City: Patrimoine architectural d’Ho Chi Minh Ville. Herbelin, Architectures; Herbelin, “Construire”; Le Brusq, Vietnam à travers l’architecture colonial. Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 7. See also Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 5. Darwin, Unfinished Empire, xi–xii. Herbelin, “Construire,” 173. Comprador, or compradoric style, derived from Chinese mercantile architecture and was plain, practical, and predominantly neoclassical in style. See chapter 9. However, when Henri Coucherousset uses the term “style comprador” he refers to the work of the Indochinese Service des bâtiments civils. Coucherousset, “L’École des Beaux Arts.” Chafee, “The Teaching of Architecture,” 61. On the École des Ponts-et-Chausées see Day, Schools and Work, 8, 23, 34, 160–5; Sutcliffe, Paris, 103. For a discussion of foreign students who studied at the École Centrale, see Martykánová, “Global Engineers.” Vollait, “Provincializing Colonial Architecture.” On the Service des bâtiments civils and the ebai , see Coucherousset, “L’École des Beaux Arts,” 6. On the École des travaux publics, see Herbelin, Architectures, 243. On ebai see Herbelin, Architectures, 85–106, and chapters 8 and 9 of the present book. For a notable exception, an eighteenth-century marble tomb built in Marseille by the sculptor Dominique Fossati and erected in Port-au-Prince, see Bailey, “The Tomb of the Marquis d’Ennery.” Jürgen Osterhammel’s claim that “[t]here was no such thing as plantation slavery in Asia” is simply not true (Osterhammel, Unfabling the East, 401–2). On domestic slavery and slave raiders targeting low-caste South Indians from villages in the interior to work the plantations in Île de France and Île Bourbon, shipping them out of Pondicherry, see More, Pondicherry, 143; Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 177n51. Benjamin, “Grandville, or the World Exhibitions.” For the most thorough and up-to-date bibliography of French world expositions and their relationship to colonialism in Southeast Asia see Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:577–621. See also Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 105–27; Morton: Hybrid Modernities; Norindr,

46 47 48

49

50 51 52 53

67 68 69 70

71 72 73 74 75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86

87 88

89 90 91

Ibid., 92–3. Ibid., 104. Ibid., 93, 155. Young, Colonial Desire, 5. For a good discussion of the use of “hybridity” in scientific racism see Kraidy, Hybridity, 48–9; and Young, Colonial Desire, 5–18. See also Pieterse, Globalization, 88–91; Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 88. Young, Colonial Desire, 5, 25. Brah and Coombes, “Introduction: The Conundrum of ‘Mixing,’” in Hybridity and Its Discontents, 3. Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 102. Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 21. Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 88. Ibid., 179. On the adoption of certain Aztec forms in early missionary churches of New Spain see Edgerton, Theatres of Conversion; McAndrew, Open-Air Churches; Baird, The Churches of Mexico. Kraidy, Hybridity, 53–4. Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 110. Ibid., 117. Quoted in ibid., 146. In the same book Sardar comments: “Thus postmodernism takes the civilising mission of the west to render the Other in its own image, into new arenas of oppression and subjugation … the west continues the proceedings of colonialism and modernity, pushing the project to ‘humanise’ the Other towards its postmodern endgame: to absorb and consume the Other.” Sardar, Postmodernism and the Other, 15–16. See my extended discussion of this debate in The Andean Hybrid Baroque, 15–44. Guido, Fusión hispano-indígena, 33, 57; Guido, “El estilo mestizo”; and Guido, Redescubrimiento de América, esp. 91–6. For Gruzinski’s definition, see The Mestizo Mind, 31. The term was first used in this context in Moreno, La escultura colonial mexicana, 16. See also Vargas Lugo, “Sobre el concepto tequitqui.” Macera, La pintura mural andina, 59. For a notable critique of “mestizaje” see Stutzmann, “El Mestizaje.” Stanfield-Mazzi, Clothing the New World Church, e.g., p. 3; Mundy, “The Emergence of Alphabetic

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54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Phantasmatic Indochina, esp. 14–33; Williams, Dream Worlds; and, more generally, Rydell, World of Fairs; Benedict, The Anthropology of World’s Fairs. Morton, Hybrid Modernities, 17. See Boetsch et al., Human Zoos; Deroo et al., Human Zoos. Eight towns in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) alone had theatres and the main one, the Comédie or Salle des Spectacles at Cap-François (Cap-Haitien), opened in 1764 with a performance of a play by Molière. See McClellan, Colonialism and Science, 94–5. The theatre in Saint-Pierre, Martinique (1786; destroyed in the 1902 volcanic eruption), was the grandest structure in town, in the neoclassical style with a sweeping double staircase (which survives today). See Fondation Clément, Le patrimoine des communes, 334. Some of this “Siamese” music has been preserved in the two Siamese airs in Michel-Richard Delalande’s ninth Symphonie pour les soupers du Roy (1686–87). Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 161–5. Ibid., 162, 165. Friedman, “The Hybridization of Roots,” esp. 230–7; Ahmad, In Theory; Dirlik, “The Postcolonial Aura.” Acharaïou, Questioning Hybridity; Pieterse, Globalization. Pieterse, Globalization, 81. Ibid., 106. Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 1. Pieterse, Globalization, x, 82. Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 1. Ibid., 1, 104. Pieterse, Globalization, 82. Ibid., 86, 88, 110. Ibid., 111. Ibid., 96. Ibid., 77. Ibid., 73–4; see also 80. Friedman, “Hybridization,” 249–51, quoted in Pieterse, Globalization, 95. Pieterse, Globalization, 96. Acheraïou, Questioning Hybridity, 106 (first quotation), 117 (second quotation), 7 (last quotation). Ibid., 157. Ibid., 7. First quote is from 10.

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102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

Writing,” 365–6, 378, 398, 400–1; Suarez, Heaven, Hell, 10, 114; Stanfield-Mazzi, Object and Apparition, 54, 97; Wake, Framing the Sacred, 190, 207. Dean and Liebsohn, “Hybridity and Its Discontents.” Although unacknowledged, the article seems to have borrowed its title from Brah and Coombes, Hybridity and Its Discontents, although the book is not mentioned in their notes or bibliography. Dean and Liebsohn, “Hybridity and Its Discontents,” 6. Bailey, Andean Hybrid Baroque, 17–25; Dean and Liebsohn, “Hybridity and Its Discontents,” 10. Dean and Liebsohn, “Hybridity and Its Discontents,” 21, 24. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 26–7. Ibid., 12. Ibid., 5. The examples are as follows (the emphases are my own), “Yet this bipartite characterization of the hybrid ignores and sometimes disguises the multiple hybridities of many colonial creations” (13); “Cultural hybridity … should be understood as a perhaps obvious subaltern strategy for coping with dominant and dominating cultures. It should also be understood as a perhaps obvious strategy utilized by dominant cultures to incorporate subalterns” (24); “In this essay it has been our contention that the hybridity of colonial culture is far more profound and difficult than appearances might suggest” (28); “It has been our claim that, in focusing on the visible mix – in making that the problem – we cause other hybridities to be ignored and reveal a need to erase or at least deny colonialism’s force and legacy” (28). Morton, Hybrid Modernities; Harvey, Hybrids of Modernity. Morton, Hybrid Modernities, 13. Ibid., 195. Capanema et al., Du transfert culturel au métissage. Silvia Capanema et al., “Introduction. Oscillations,” in ibid., 13–15. Ibid., 53. Ibid., 55. Ibid., 56. Herbelin, Architectures. Her article in the Capanema volume is “Architecture et métissages dans le

110 111 112 113 114 115 116

117 118

119

120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

Vietnam colonial.” See also her “Construire le style indochinois.” Herbelin, Architectures, 18. Ibid. Ibid., 19. Herbelin, “Construire,” 188. Ibid., 171, 173. Ibid., 188. Bailey, The Andean Hybrid Baroque; Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 144–82; Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 287–97, 471–80; Bailey, “Style in the Slave Castles.” Bailey, “Rococo in Eighteenth-Century Beijing”; Bailey, “In the Manner.” Bailey, “The Dynamics of Chinoiserie”; Bailey, “The Stimulus” and “The Response II ”; Bailey, “Incarnate Images.” On Chinese ceramics on the Swahili coast, see chapter 3. “O fatalitté de nostre nation! A peinne nous françois se tirent vers un estat de pouvoir faire quelque progres que les Commencerent a ressentir le malheur ordinaire du natturel françois: je veux dire, les discordes, les brouilles, la disobeissance, et des violences les uns contre les autres […] Mais ! O malheur ! O nature violent du françois ! O nation etrange qui ne puis souffrir ni commencer ta splendeur et ta gloire dans le pays etranges ! Ah point dhonneur !” Bibliothèque Nationale de France (hereafter bnf ), Français 13981, “Progrez des François en Orient” (ca 1672), 5, 27. Ames, Colbert, 17. Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 24; Ames, Colbert, xii. Crowley, Conquerors, 14. Sharman, Empires of the Weak, 72–87. Ames, Colbert, 9. Sharman, Empires of the Weak, 82–94. Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 225. Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 21. See Michel Mollat and Jacques Habert, Giovanni et Girolamo Verrazano, navigateurs de François Ier: dossiers de voyages (Paris, 1982). Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 21; Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 226. Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 21; Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 226.

153 Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 25; Ames, Colbert, 13. 154 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 113. 155 Lespagnol, “La Compagnie,” 46. 156 Ibid., 42; Ames, Colbert, 19–27. 157 Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 4–5; Boulle, “French Mercantilism,” 106. 158 Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 5. 159 Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 24; Lespagnol, “La Compagnie,” 42–3. 160 For a detailed account of the Amsterdam Exchange, or Beurs, see Swan, Rarities, 74–81. 161 Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 6. 162 Bouëdec, “Préface,” iii; Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 53–6; 70–1, 76, 217–18. 163 Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 53–6. 164 Ibid., 15–16. 165 Gilmour, The British in India, 222–3. 166 Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 30. 167 Ames, Colbert, 11; Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 30–1. 168 Mallory, Fortunes à faire, 22. 169 Desbarats, “Revisiting John Law,” 593–4. 170 Bourdat, Les grandes pages, 25. ch A pT e r T wo Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 8. Manning, Fortunes à faire, 21. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 152. The term gloire, one to which Louis openly aspired as the true sign of divinely appointed kingship, was used specifically by Colbert to denote architecture’s role in representing royal authority in 1663. Sabatier, “La gloire du roi,” 527–60; Berger, A Royal Passion, 5. On Colbert and the construction of French culture, see also Mukerji, Territorial Ambitions, 98–106, 115–24. 5 Quoted in Chaline, “A King and His Gardens,” 30. See also Berger, A Royal Passion, 20–3; Blunt, Art and Architecture in France, 215–18; Lefaivre and Tzonis, The Emergence of Modern Architecture, 18–21. 6 For two excellent recent studies of Louis XIV see Mansel, King of the World, and Wilkinson, Louis XIV.

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131 See Schefer, ed., Le discours de la navigation. 132 Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 41; Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 21; Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 226; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 97; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 35. 133 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 97. 134 Schefer, Le discours, 117–38. 135 Ibid., 118. 136 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 25–6. 137 Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 226–7; Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 23. 138 Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 393. 139 Ames, Colbert, 7; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 36. 140 Pyrard, Voyage, 2–3. 141 Ibid., 1. 142 Ames, Colbert, 6; Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 27. 143 Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 23. 144 Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 191, 226–7; Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 23; Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 82; Ames, Colbert, 7; Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 2; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 38–9. 145 Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 227; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 98; Piat, Mauritius on the Spice Route, 49; Ames, Colbert, 7. 146 Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 227; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 98; Ames, Colbert, 7. 147 Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 41; Haudrère, “Premiers pas français,” 23–4; Piat, Mauritius, 49; Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 83; Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 2–3; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 40–1. The Dutch thought the king spoke Spanish but Hooper believes it was more likely Portuguese, given their presence in East Africa. 148 Boucher, France and the American Tropics, 89; Eccles, The French in North America, 36. 149 Galibert, À l’angle de la grande maison, 32; Ames, Colbert, 21. 150 Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 41; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 44–5. 151 Lespagnol, “La Compagnie des Indes Orientales,” 42; Ames, Colbert, 21. 152 Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 4. See also Cruysse, Siam and the West, 101; Howard, War in European History, 52; Boulle, “French Mercantilism,” 100–1.

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7 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 171–203, 327–9, 413–16. 8 Ibid., 334–5. 9 “L’Ille de Madagascard est cause de la ruine des projets des françoises en orient.” bnf , Français 13981, 679. The comment was made in 1671. 10 Dellon, A Voyage to the East-Indies, 17, 19. The French first edition was published in 1685. See also Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 41. 11 Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 42; Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 32. 12 Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 7–8, 13; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 47. 13 Sobocinski, “The Travails of Madagascar,” 101–2. 14 Bonnichon, “Étienne de Flacourt,” 228; Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 86. 15 On Jacques Pronis, see Froidevaux, “Jacques Pronis.” 16 Cohen, The French Encounter, 46; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 48–9; Froidevaux, “Jacques Pronis,” 272–3. 17 Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 83. The Catholics were particularly hostile to Pronis as he was a Protestant. 18 Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 42. 19 Flacourt, Histoire. See Kay, “Etienne de Flacourt”; Bonnichon, “Les Français et la connaissance de Madagascar,” 367; Bonnichon, “Étienne de Flacourt,” 228; Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 23; Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 100–1. 20 Flacourt, Histoire, ii. See also Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 107–11. 21 Pasfield Oliver, “Introduction,” in Du Bois, The Voyages Made, xx. 22 Bonnichon, “Étienne de Flacourt,” 228; Bonnichon, “Les Français,” 371. 23 Bonnichon, “Les Français,” 372. 24 Froidevaux, “Pronis,” 285; Flacourt, Histoire, 410. 25 Bonnichon, “Etienne de Flacourt,” 229; Bonnichon, “Les Français,” 373; Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 84. 26 Sobocinski, “The Travails of Madagascar,” 100. 27 Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 230; Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 43; Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 7; Pasfield Oliver, “Introduction,” xix. 28 Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 33, 79.

29 Ames, Colbert, 22; Sobocinski, “The Travails of Madagascar,” 97. 30 Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 23; Sobocinski, “The Travails of Madagascar,” 103. See also Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 85–6, 90; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 104–5; Ames, Colbert, 13, Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 10; Rennefort, Relation du premier voyage, 66–7, 90. 31 Ames, Colbert, 34–5; Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 12; Pasfield Oliver, “Introduction,” xx. 32 Sobocinski, “The Travails of Madagascar,” 105. 33 Dellon, A Voyage to the East-Indies, 17, 19. 34 Kaeppelin, La Compagnie, 25; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 108 (source of quote). 35 “Mr. Le Mareschal de La Meilleraye poucé d’un noble dessin d’ouvrir le chemin de ces grandes negoces encore incognues de France. Fut un des premiers qui envoya des navires et du monde a l’Isle de Madagascar dans l’esperance d’y faire des merveilles; fondé sur des relations chymeriques qui meritteroint plustost chastiment que des louanges … En suitte sur ces mesmes fondements s’est formeé nostre Royalle Compagnie de France qui envoya au dit Madagascar une flotte considerable sous le commandement de Mr. Demont vergue de qualitté de Viceroy.” bnf , Français 13981, f.3–4. 36 Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 81–2; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 108; Ames, Colbert, 28; Malleson, History, 15. 37 ‘La flotte de Sa Majesté après avoir demeuré noeuf mois au fort Dauphin sans y avoir rien faict de considerable se resolut en fin de partir pour les Indes orientalles; et s’estant mis a la toille vers la fin du mois de juillet 1671.’ bnf , Français 13981, f.20. 38 Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 229–31; Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 22–3; Ray, “French Colonial Policy,” 97. The Abbé Carré called Surat “la premiere fondement de la Royalle Compagnie dans ces pays d’orient; oi il establit le premier comptoir.” bnf , Français 13981, 4. 39 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 188. See also 38–42, 86–92, 218–21, 287–97. 40 Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 123. 41 Flacourt, Histoire, 413. 42 Charpentier, Wealthward Ho!, 55. 43 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 120–6.

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leur mestier mais principalement a defricher et faire un chemin pour monter les marchandises, travailler a la pierre, faire de la brique et la chaux, charroyer de la Terre a fin de bastir et plusieurs autres choses. bnf , Moreau 841 (LVII , 1–34), Collection de Fevret de Fontette, Relations de voyages, “Un Vaisseau la Mazarinne en Rade du fort Dauphin de L’isle Dauphinne ditte de Madagascar le 27. fevrier 1668,” ff.188b–189a. Dellon, Voyage, 15. See also Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 154. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 55–66, 86–7. Moogk, Building a House in New France, 21–2. “Elles sont basties de perches de sapins, jointes les unes contre les autres entre les quelles ils mettent de la mousse pour en boucher le vide.” anom , 3dfc 80, 6, “Mémoire sur l’Ile de Terre Neuve, Description de Plaisance” (after 1696), f.12a. Quoted in Berthelot and Gaumé, Kaz Antiyé, 50. “dans le peu de temps que je demeure au dit fort Dauphin [j’ai reconnu] que ce n’estoit pas sans raison que les premiers Européens qui y avoient passez, n’ont jamais voulu laisser des marques de leurs demeures.” bnf , Français 13981, f.14. “Description des Côtes … de Tout l’Océan Oriental, à Partir du Cap de Bonne-Esperance,” by Thornton, 1703, in Grandidier, Collection, 3:441. Bouëdec, “Préface,” i. See also Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 7–8; Keller, “Surat,” 8–9. Ames, Colbert, 28–9. On Caron see Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 34–8. Ames, Colbert, 40. Agmon, Colonial Affair, 8; Bouëdec, “Préface,” iii; Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 269; Lafont, “Politics and Architecture.” Arasaratnam, Merchants, 96. Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 113–14. The literature on the Indian Ocean trade networks, particularly between South Asian merchant communities, and European agents, is extensive. Classic works include Furber, John Company at Work; Gupta, Malabar in Asian Trade; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia; and Arasaratnam, Merchants. Chandra, “Social and Attitudinal Change,” 33. Seshan, “Intersections,” 113. Ibid., 114.

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44 Charpentier, Relation de l’établissement, 80–1. 45 “Du côté de la mer, il est naturellement fortifié, car il est bâti sur un rocher, couvert de sable et de broussailles, dont la base est soutenue par un mur en pierres, haut de quatre à cinq pieds, afin d’empêcher le glissement du sable et son ravinement par la pluie; de ce côté, il est tout en briques.” “Rapport de Jacques de Bollan et de Michael Jordis dur Madagascar, en 1661,” in Grandidier et al., Collection, 3:290. 46 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 68–70, 214–15; Hooper, Feeding Globalization, 42–3. 47 Flacourt, Histoire, 413. 48 “Second voyage de Frédéric Verburg du Cap de Bonne-Esperance à Antongil, en 1655–1657,” in Grandidier et al., Collection, 3:283–4. 49 Ibid., 3:290–1. 50 Ibid., 3:290–2. 51 Rennefort, Relation, 73. 52 Ibid., 220–1. 53 Ibid., 76. 54 Abbé Antoine-François Prévost, Histoire générale des voyages (The Hague, 1755): 11:217–18. Glenn Ames bluntly refers to the “overgrown, decaying remains of Fort Dauphin.” Ames, Colbert, 33. 55 Grandidier, Collection, 3:291–2. 56 Rennefort, Relation, 75. 57 Pieper, “The Iconography of the Royal Baroque Stern Façade.” 58 Bailey, “The Jesuits in North America,” 367. 59 Toussaint Bourdaise writing to Vincent de Paul, 10 January 1656. Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 313–14; see also 175. On the chapel see also Malotet, Étienne de Flacourt, 236. 60 “toute la chapelle était pleine.” Galibert, Les Lazaristes, 433. 61 Charpentier, Wealthward Ho!, 75, 97. 62 Rennefort, Relation, 74, 76. 63 “Relâche du R. P. Navarrette à L’Île Mascarene [Bourbon] et à Madagascar [Fort Dauphin], en 1671,” in Grandidier, Collection, 3:352–3. 64 Ames, Colbert, 36. 65 “Tous les passagers travaillerent a se bastir des cases a la mode du pais pour se mettre a couvert … L’on commenca a faire travaille les collones chargez selon

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82 Ibid., 113–14; Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 118; Manning, Fortunes à faire, 6. 83 Seshan, Trade and Politics, 85. See also Seshan, “Intersections,” 114. 84 On Akbar’s visit see: Abu’l-Fazl ‘Allami, Akbarnāma, 3:37, 207; Judice Biker, Colleccão de Tratatos, 25–6; Du Jarric, Akbar and the Jesuits, 219n12. 85 Arasaratnam, “India and the Indian Ocean,” 99. 86 Pearson, The Indian Ocean, 133; Manning, Fortunes à faire, 13. 87 Seshan, “Intersections,” 114. See also Ames, Colbert, 39. 88 Gressieux, “Les établissements français,” 268. 89 Bouëdec, “Préface,” iv. See also Johnson, Enemy of All Mankind, 45–8. 90 Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 111. 91 Ibid., 169. 92 Bailey, “Architectural Relics”; Bailey, “The Catholic Shrines of Agra.” 93 Keller, “Surat,” 8–9. 94 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 279–322. 95 Manning, Fortunes à faire, x. 96 Ames, Colbert, 43. 97 Keller, “Surat,” 8; Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 111; Ramaswamy, History of Pondicherry, 63; Manning, Fortunes à faire, 9. 98 More, Pondicherry, 31–48; Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 38–42, 97–8. 99 Arasaratnam, Merchants, 24. 100 Malangin, Pondicherry, 22; Haudrère, “Présences françaises,” 231; Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 269; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 11–13; Duval, Pondichéry, 30; Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 1–5; Ramaswami, History of Pondicherry, 59; Arasaratnam, Merchants, 92; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 1–4; Froidevaux, “François Martin.” 101 Muthu, “Urbanisation of Pondicherry,” 304. 102 The earliest depiction of the building’s elevation, a painting from ca 1650 and now in Skokloster Palace in Sweden, demonstrates that the building has hardly changed at all since that time. See Brimmes, Indien, 95. I was shown two other paintings of the Dansborg in the Danish Royal Archives, executed from the ship Grev Laurvig in August and September 1726, which also show the fort much as it looks today.

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106 107 108 109 110 111

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Rigsarkivet, 5402, “Skibsjournal for Grev Laurig” (1726). Ramaswami, History of Pondicherry, 60; Malleson, History, 26–7. Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 121; Arasaratnam, Merchants, 92; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 39. Malangan, Pondicherry, 29. See also Muthu, “Urbanisation,” 308–9. There is some disagreement among the sources about the date of the firman allowing the French to fortify the site, some saying 1688 and others, like Muthu, 1689 (9 January). Deloche, Origins of the Urban Development, 25; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 23; Duval, Pondichéry, 52; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 39–40. Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 18; Duval, Pondichéry, 52. More, Pondicherry, 35; Weber, Les relations, 5; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 43–4. Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 43. Ibid., 44. See also More, Pondicherry, 41; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 21–2; Bourdat, EighteenthCentury Pondicherry, 1–5. Writing during the Dutch Siege of Pondicherry, Superior Guy Tachard remarks about the architect that “le F. André habile architecte seroit extremement utile pendant tout le siege.” bnf , Français 19030, “Relation de voyages dans les Indes, par un Père de la Compagnie de Jésus (1690–1699),” ff.85–6. More, Pondicherry, 43–4. The Capuchins’ 1707 church was too small and in poor condition, so on 7 August 1739 the Conseil Supérieur agreed to contribute to the construction of a larger one and to move the site 100 toises further from the fort for reasons of security: “L’Eglise des Révérends Pères Capucins, qui sert de Paroisse dans la ville, étant trop petite et menaçant ruine de tous les costés, ces Révérends Pères se sont détermines a en rebâtir une autre et même à appliquer à sa construction les deux mille pagodes que la Compagnie leur a fait payer pour le rétablissement de leur hospice, qui tombe pareillement en ruine, se confiant, pour le restant des fonds qui leur sont nécessaires tant pour l’édification de leur Eglise que pour celle de leur maison, dans les libéralités de la Compagnie et autres charités des

116

117 118 119 120

121 122

123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

beaucoup de fruit qu’on doit attribuer aprez la grace de Dieu aux bons exemples des chefs de la nation et à la sage conduite des francois qui demuroient dans ce comptoir.” bnf , Français 19030, “Relation de voyages dans les Indes, par un Père de la Compagnie de Jésus. (1690–1699),” 34. Missionary Jacques Liot wrote in a letter to fellow MEP Claude-François Letondal on 8 January 1791 about the new church in Bangkok: “Nous avons bâti a Bangkok dans la nouvelle ville une maison ou petite église parmi les Tonquinois et les Cochin[chinois] dont je vous ai parlé l’an passé.” Institut de recherche France-Asie (hereafter IRFA ), 801, 337. Malangin, Pondicherry, 25. Ibid.; Ramaswamy, History of Pondicherry, 61–3; Haig and Burn, The Cambridge History of India, 290; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 28, 49–50. Deloche, Origins, 36–41. More disagrees with Deloche and believes that the French created the grid pattern; however he does not provide convincing evidence and the maps demonstrate that the grid was not there prior to the Dutch takeover in 1693. More, Pondicherry, 47. Bertrand, “1686 Siam.” See Kisluk-Grosheide and Rondot, Visitors to Versailles, 152–4; Martin, “History Repeats Itself ”; Bruckbauer, “Ambassadors and Missionaries,” 22; Zorach, “An Idolatry of the Letter,” 148. Cruysse, Siam and the West, 219. Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 123. See, in particular, Dirk van der Cruysse’s entertaining but frustrating Siam and the West. Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 14. Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 278; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 4–5; Lanier, Étude historique, 11. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 47–9. Wirth, “La stratégie d’Evangélisation,” 2:4–5. Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 282; Lanier, Étude historique, 11–12. See Bikker, “Sweerts’s Life and Career,” 32–3. Jansen, Michael Sweerts, 158–60. Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 123; Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:39–40; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 6.

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paroissiens, qui doivent contribuer autant qu’il est en leur pouvoir a la bâtisse de l’Eglise paroissiale, qui leur est absolument nécessaire, mais ne convenant point que cet édifice soit aussi près du fort que l’ancienne Eglise qui n’est distante de l’angle du bastion appelé de Bretagne au côté H. que de quatre-vingt toises.” Gaudart, Procès-verbaux, 3:230–1. 113 An anonymous mémoire from around 1731 notes that Deslandes funded it “dans le dessein d’en faire uniquement un lieu de sépulture pour sa famille.” [ANOM , COL F 5 A 49/1, “Mémoire au sujet de l’aumônerie de Chandernagor” (ca 1732), f.29b]. For more on the church see also Launay, Histoire des missions de l’Inde, Pondichéry, Maïssour, Coïmbatour, 1:462–3. 114 “Usages de Siam.” bnf , département Estampes et photographie, pet fol-od -59. The cahier is dated 1688 on the frontispiece; however since dates in the 1690s are mentioned in the captions either it is incorrect or the ms was added to over time. These paintings may have been executed by the “domestics we had brought from France and who were necessary to us to draw and paint from nature the plants and strange animals” who came with Tachard with the 1687 embassy. Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 35. 115 “Maison des Jesuites a Chandernagor sur le Gange. Cette Maison est celle des Jesuites François dans le Royaume de Bengale qui est proche du Gange, ils sont curez des François a Chandernagor ou est leur comptoir … Les Jesuites ont la une petite Eglise, mais fort jolie, un dome dans le milieu & trois Autels entresle, leur Jardin est aussi tres beau ; ce qu’on voit au au dessus sont nuées de sauterelles qui passerent sur le Bengale en 1696 ce qui dura plus de huit jours … C’est le frontispiece de l’Eglise des Jesuites de Bengale sur le Gange bastie de Brique avec tous les ornemens qu’on voit.” bnf , pet fol-od -59, 24–5. Elsewhere, in an entry for the year 1696 Tachard writes about the Jesuit establishment in Chandernagore “Nous avions etabli dans nostre maison un petit seminaire ou nous elevions à la pieté et aux belles lettres plusieurs enfans des francois et des Portuguais qui y demuroient auxquels on apprenoit encore a lire, à ecrire et à chifrer. D’ailleurs comme nous etions chargez de l’Eglise de Chandenagor, on y faisoit le Service et on y preschoit aux francois avec

389

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134 Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 37; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 172; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 7. 135 Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:22–3. 136 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 259. 137 Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:24–5. 138 Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 278–80; Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 124. 139 Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 286; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 5–6. 140 Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 279. 141 Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 123–4. 142 Ibid., 125; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 220–1; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 62–3; Lanier, Étude historique, 33–6. 143 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 197. 144 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 260; Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 123–4; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 193–204. 145 Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 127. 146 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 194. 147 Ibid., 197. 148 Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 136. See also: Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 10–18; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 32–48; Lanier, Étude historique, 15–17. 149 Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 182; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 207; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 21–2. On Boureau-Deslandes and Baron, see Ménard-Jacob, La première Compagnie, 42–8. 150 Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 394; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 61–2; Lanier, Étude historique, 24–5. 151 Bertrand, “Siam, A Missed Opportunity,” 372; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 210–15; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 22; Lanier, Étude historique, 25–6. 152 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 238–9; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 68–71; Lanier, Étude historique, 40–4. 153 Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 136; Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 183; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 179; Lanier, Étude historique, 42–3. 154 Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 123.

155 Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 12–13. 156 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 238–42; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 176; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 68–9. Laneau placed particular emphasis on the importance of the order for mirrors in a letter of 7 January 1684. 157 Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 396. See also: Cruysse, Siam and the West, 251–2; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 176. This was actually the second time they were invited to attend Roland: the first time, they were so insulted by being seated in the lower part of the theatre that they walked out. 158 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 71; Lanier, Étude historique, 42–5. 159 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 245. Choisy was ordained as a priest in the mep seminary in Ayutthaya in 1685. Cruysse, Siam and the West, 343. 160 Finlay, Henri Bertin, 8–9; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 251–2, 257–8. 161 Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 24–5. 162 “Louis XIV envoya au roy de Siam une célèbre ambassade: par son ordre 4 jésuites accompagnèrent l’ambassadeur: ils étoient recommandés a titre de mathématicien, mais l’objet principal de l’ambassade étoit la conversion du roy, et du royaume de Siam.” anom, col f5a45, “Memoire sur la mission de l’Inde,” f.2a. Abbé Vernet’s letter, written in Pondicherry, is dated 28 June 1776. 163 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 260–4. 164 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 81–2; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 61. 165 Smithies, “The Abbé de Chaila,” 211. 166 Ibid. 167 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 265; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 73–4; Lanier, Étude historique, 51–2. Of these sources Jacq-Hergoualc’h is the most precise. On this embassy, see also Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 136; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 180–1. 168 Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 659; Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 398; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 175, 182–7; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 76–7; Lanier, Étude historique, 61.

182 Recent scholarship by Jittapim Yamprai suggests that Lalande’s first Siamese air is a transcription of the piece played at the 1686 reception. See Yamprai, “Michel-Richard de Lalande”; Irving, “Lully in Siam”; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 174. 183 Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 400; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 194. 184 Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 171, 173. See also, Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 660; Zorach, “An Idolatry of the Letter,” 148. 185 Love, “The Making of an Oriental Despot”; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 174. 186 It was a key element of Louis XIV’s concept of kingship that he was a visible monarch, what Norman Bryson calls the “legible body.” See Bryson, Word and Image. 187 Martin, “Special Embassies,” 111; Kisluk-Grosheide, Visitors to Versailles, cat. no. 65; Lanier, Étude historique, 82–3. 188 Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 406; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 381–2. The complete itemized list of the gifts is published in Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 87–101. 189 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 345; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 67–8. 190 Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 405; Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 261; Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 128; Van der Cruysse, Siam and the West, 386–7; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 25–6; Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 255; Lanier, Étude historique, 87–98. 191 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 387. See also Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 183. 192 Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 393, 405. Destouches returned with the 1688 mission. Cruysse, Siam and the West, 421. See also Auclair, L’Opéra de Paris, 26–7. 193 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 105–6. 194 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 261. Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 183. 195 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 107. 196 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 419–20; Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 183; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 83–100; Lanier, Étude historique, 138–43.

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169 Cruysse, Siam and the West, 343, 350; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 78–9; Lanier, Étude historique, 72. 170 Bertrand, “Siam: A Missed Opportunity,” 373; Philippe Bonnichon, “Les Français au Siam au XVII e Siècle,” in Bonnichon, Présences françaises, 282; Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 663–4; Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 187–8. 171 See Thomas, “Yuanming Yuan/Versailles.” 172 Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 136. 173 Correspondingly, as early as 1665 Laneau referred to the royal palace at Ayutthaya as a “Louvre.” Love, “Monarchs, Merchants, and Missionaries,” 15. On Lopburi as “Versailles” see also Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 655. 174 Lanier, Étude historique, 85. 175 Bertrand, “Siam: A Missed Opportunity,” 370. 176 The literature is immense: see in particular Bruckbauer, “Ambassadors and Missionaries”; Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 656–62; Thépaut-Cabasset, “Fashion Encounters”; Zorach, “An Idolatry of the Letter,” 447–79; Benson, “European Wonders”; Castelluccio, “La Galerie des Glaces”; Love, “Rituals of Majesty”; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 238–70; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 84–6; Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 3:3, 1189; Lanier, Étude historique, 76–86. For a recent synopsis see Martin, “Special Embassies,” 110–11. 177 Cruysse et al., The Diary of Kosa Pan. See also Pooput, “Le premier ambassadeur.” 178 Martin, “Special Embassies,” 117; Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 403; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 369–76; Lanier, Étude historique, 79–80. Saint-Gobain was especially important as it was the mirror manufactory. 179 Love, “Rituals of Majesty,” 173. 180 On the Le Brun drawing see Prat, Le dessin en France au XVIIe siècle, 315. An engraving entitled La royalle reception des ambassadeurs du Roy de Siam par sa maieste a Versailles le 1er Septembre 1686 was published by François Jollain (Paris, 1687). It is reproduced in Zorach, “An Idolatry,” 464. 181 Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 662. See also Martin, “History Repeats Itself ”; Martin, “Staging China.” See also Kisluk-Gorsheide, Visitors to Versailles, 152.

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197 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 261; Cruysse, Siam and the West, 444–50; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 108. 198 Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 120–5. 199 Bertrand, “Siam: A Missed Opportunity,” 375; Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 185. 200 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 262; Smithies, “Tachard’s Last Appearance,” 67–78; Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 185; see also Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 124. Tachard’s peripatetic life was complicated: he was in Pondicherry from 1690–94; Europe from 1694–96; back in India (Surat, Chandernagore, Pondicherry) and Siam in 1696–1700; back to France 1700–01; and finally India (Surat, Calicut 1701; Pondicherry 1702–10; and Chandernagore 1710–12). While in Pondicherry he was superior of the Jesuits and involved in L’Affaire Nayiniyappa (see chapter 4).

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1 Kerlogue, Arts of Southeast Asia, 118; Chularatana, “Indo-Persian Influence.” 2 Baker and Phongpaichit, A History of Ayutthaya, 123, 162–3; Satow, “Notes on the Intercourse.” 3 Chularatana, “Indo-Persian Influence,” 46–7; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 234–6; Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 9, 94–5. For Tachard’ description of the mirrors at Lopburi see Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 35. For more on the Persian embassies see Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 134–5; and especially Cruysse, Siam and the West, 271–86. The ogival window was also previously misidentified as a European (gothic)–inspired motif. 4 Martin, “Mirror Reflections,” 662–3; Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 141; Koch, Mughal Architecture, 114–15; Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 77. 5 Martin, “Louis XIV,” 663. Mirrors have much wider associations in Islamic tradition than this, particularly in Sufism, and mirrors – real or in poetical inscriptions – were used in Mughal palaces as a symbol of the heavenly realm. See Bailey, “Counter Reformation Symbolism,” 224–5. 6 Baker and Phongpaichit, A History of Ayutthaya, 133–4; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants,” 6. On the

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10 11

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14

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Dutch factory see: Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 41–9; Pombeijra, Court, Company, 44–59. La Loubère, Du royaume de Siam, 1:337. Gervaise, The Natural and Political History, 179. Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 129; Carvalho, “La présence Portugaise,” 91; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 24; Forest, Les missionnaires français, 1:167; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 42; Listopad, “The Art and Architecture,” 10. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 148. Tara Alberts has the Dominicans arriving in Siam in 1567. Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 25. Tachard, Second voyage, 240. On the early history of the Portuguese Jesuits in Siam, see Cerutti and O’Brien, “Tailandia”; Wirth, “La stratégie,” 1:61–2; Hutchinson, Adventurers, 23. Bourges mentions the two churches but gives no other information (1665). Smithies, “Jacques de Bourges,” 121. On the Dominicans see also Smith, Creolization, 161–4. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 42. Smith, Creolization, 161; Mattoso, Portuguese Heritage, 426–7; Kasetsiri and Wright, Discovering Ayutthaya, 164–5; Kaempfer, Description, 52; Pumpongphaet, “Les fouilles.” Smith, Creolization, 164–5; Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:18; Pumpongphaet, “Les fouilles,” 25; there were only two Franciscans there when the seminarians arrived in 1662. See also Carvalho, “Présence portugaise,” 93. Smith, Creolization, 134–5, 158; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 25; Cerutti and O’Brien, “Tailandia,” 3877; Ruiz-de-Medina, “Valguarnera, Tommaso”; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 45–6. He is most likely the Italian mentioned by Gervaise who worked with a Frenchman on the king’s palace in Lop Buri (see below). Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 44. See also Forest, Missionnaires, 1:168; Wood, A History of Siam, 190. In French documents Valguarnera is called “Valgrenier.” Smith, Creolization, 129–30. See also Wirth, “La stratégie,” 1:63; Carvalho, “Présence portugaise,” 92; Ayutthaya – The Former Thai Capital, 6. Dutch traveller Jeremias van Vliet wrote in 1638 that there were around 400 to 450 temples in the city “which are very well built with many towers and pyramids,

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32 33

34 The exact wording is unclear but given the gender it would seem to be referring to buildings (bâtiments) rather than churches (églises), “il a ordonné qu’on lui traçât un plan des plus beaux, sans avoir égard à la dépense qu’il y faudra faire.” Quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:51. See also Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 51. 35 The words are Lambert’s in a letter addressed to the Missions-Étrangères in Paris dated 3 December 1673 and quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:51. 36 The letter adds that the missionaries even sent it to Paris to be engraved, satisfying “the curiosity and devoutness of the public,” although there is no evidence that it ever was and no plan survives in Paris. From the same letter, quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:52. 37 Duchesne’s letter is quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:118 and Pallu’s in Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 380. 38 ANOM , COL C 1 22, “Lettre à Colbert écrite de Siam par l’évêque d’Héliopolis” (29 December 1682). The letter is published in Pallu, Lettres, 699. See also Launay, Histoire, 1:116; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 130. 39 First quote is in Launay, Histoire, 1:129; second quote by Claude de L’Isle, who never visited Siam himself, is cited in Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 47. 40 Quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:75. 41 Bailey, “Rococo in Eighteenth-Century Beijing.” 42 “Contient une Eglise des plus belles qu’on fasse communément en Europe, L’Eglise a trois nefs et deux grosses tours quarrées au devant, sa longueur, avec la sacristie, qui est de mesme hauteur et structure que l’Eglise, est de 22 brasses, elle est faitte en croix, et la croisée a quatre brasses de large et douze et demy de long, le corps de l’Eglise a dix brasses de large en œuvre et la hauteur des murs est de six brasses et demye, il y a des piliers de brique dans l’Eglise octogones, de deux en deux brasses, qui séparent les nefs qui ont une demy brasse de diametre, tout autour du toict regne un balustre et des goutieres de plomb pour recevoir l’eau du toict, qui se dechargent au dehors par des canaux de plomb qui avancent, le dedans sera bien lambrissé et bien doré ainsy que les piliers.” irfa , 878, 201 (13 November 1682). See also Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 130.

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of which almost every one is gilded.” Baker et al., Van Vliet’s Siam, 13. Smith, Creolization, 153. Valguarnera himself admitted that the College of São Salvador was “a very modest school.” Wirth, “La stratégie,” 1:62. Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 63–4. Quoted, variously, in Wirth, “La stratégie, 2:23; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 44; Launay, Histoire de la Mission, 1:12. Quoted in Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:23; and Launay, Histoire, 1:12. The last two quotations are from 1663. Tachard, Voyage de Siam, 256–7. On ephemeral events at the Dominican church see also Smith, Creolization, 162–3; Ruangslip, Dutch East India Company, 127. See Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 45, 126. Carvalho, “Présence portugaise,” 93. Ibid.; Pumpongphaet, “Les fouilles,” 25–6. From a “Catalogue des prisonniers ecclésiastiques et laïques (1690) quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:248. Cruysse mentions Lepie; however his translator translates “ménuisier” as “carpenter” whereas it is more correctly translated as a “joiner,” one responsible for finer carpentry and furniture making. Cruysse, Siam and the West, 461. On the donné in Canada see: Moogk, “The Craftsmen of New France,” 215; Moogk, La Nouvelle France, 28–9. “Après qu’il aurait fait cet ouvrage pendant sa premiere ferveur, s’il voulait il pourroit se marier comme les autres; on ne l’en empêcheroit pas.” irfa , 859, 201 (16 January 1684). Quoted (with errors) in Launay, Histoire, 1:75. On his anti-mep remarks in a letter to Pope Innocent XI, see Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 101–7. Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 37; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants,” 7. Cruysse, Siam and the West, 125–6. Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:40. Quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:17. See Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:54; Forest, Missionnaires, 1:186; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 47, 48. Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:54; Forest, Missionnaires, 1:186; Love, “Monarchs, Merchants,” 8. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 48.

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43 See Sthapitanonda and Merten, Architecture of Thailand, 164–5, fig. E. 44 Alberts, Conversion and Conflict, 96; Forest, Missionnaires, 1:210–11. The Jesuits did not take his advice and dressed as they would in Europe. 45 On the corvée labour system, see Baker and Phongpaichit, Ayutthaya, 190–1. 46 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 131. 47 “Comme nostre eglise que le roy fait bastir s’avance de jour en jour, il m’est venue en penser que si vous pouviez nous envoyer, je n’ose pas dire un peintre, mas un bon barbouilleur pour y peindre en dedans tous les mysteres de la religion, ce serait un grand avantage pour notre mission, parce que cela vaudroit mieux que dix prédicateurs, et elle sera assé grande pour y contenir toutes les histoires tant de l’ancien que du nouveau testament. […] Mais, on dit que les pinceaux d’icy ne valent rien, pour les couleurs il y en a assé mais ou les peintres de ces pays icy ne scavent pas s’en servir, ou elles ne sont guère bonnes. Il y a du cinnabar en quantité, du minium, du verd de gris assé cher, du bleu point trop beau, de la gomme gutte en quantité, et de l’indigo, de la ceruse assé chère, voilà, ce me semble, à peu près qu’il y a; celles qui manqueroient, il faudrait les apporter, pourvu qu’elles ne coutassent pas beaucoup, car pourvu que cela ayt un peu d’éclat et que les couleurs soient bien vivres, cela content plus que les beaux portraits de Michel lange et du Poussin: Ainsy, par parenthèse, s’il se pouvait faire que les images que vous envoyez fussent enluminées, cela serait beaucoup plus estimé que toutes les plus belles tailles douces. […] Il serait à propos qu’il sût dorer les cuirs, comme on fait en Italie, et nos missionnaires souhaiteroient aussi extrêmement que l’on pût avoir quelques vitres pour le choeur.” irfa , 859, 284–5 (16 January 1684). Quoted (with errors) in Launay, Histoire, 1:75. See also Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 131–2. 48 Tachard, Second voyage, 240. 49 “le 2e gr[an]d autel.” irfa , 106, 147 (December 1682). Transcribed differently in Pallu, Lettres, 380; quoted in Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 131. 50 This is according to a 1696 report. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 134. 51 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 114–18, 122–7.

52 Ibid., 89–91, 114–18, 122–7. 53 Finlay, Henri Bertin, 19–21; Smentek, “Chinoiseries.” 54 In early modern French “pilastre” could refer either to a pier or to an engaged pilaster, the only correct definition in English. Chamfort et al., Le grand vocabulaire, 153. 55 Aumont’s original text appears in Launay, Histoire, 1:76. Dirk van der Cruysse’s English paraphrase translates windows as “crossings,” which makes no sense. Cruysse, Siam and the West, 178. 56 Launay, Histoire, 1:76–7. 57 Quoted in Cruysse, Siam and the West, 178; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 106; Chappoulie, Aux origines d’une Église, 1:318. 58 “C’est ici la récompense qu’un tel, roi de Siam, a donnée à un tel et à ses successeurs.” Launay, Histoire, 1:159. 59 Tachard, Voyage de Siam, 181. 60 “Ces beaux et magnifiques séminaires que l’on nous bastit ici par les bontez d’un très grand Roy qui nous considère au-delà de ce l’on peut s’imaginer aussi bien que son illustre ministre qui a pour nous des soins.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” letter by Henri Dollu from Siam, 31 December 1687, entitled “besoins des missions de Siam,” f.1a–b. The next day he urged his superior to send missionaries to fill the seminaries: “Il faut que V.R. achève ce qu’elle a commencé et qu’elle second les bonnes intentions du Roy de Siam et de son ministre en nous envoyant de fervents missionnaires pour remplir les séminaires qu’il nous fait bastir V.R.” bnf , Français 15476, letter from Siam, 1 January 1688, f.35a. 61 “Les faveurs que ce prince fait a Mgres les Evesques françois vicaires du St. Siege en ces pays sont tres particulieres, il leur fait batir une grande Eglize proche le beau seminaire que leur fit contruire il y a quelques années.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” by BoureauDeslandes, 8 Nov 1683, to his brother-in-law Collinet, f.85a. 62 Kaempfer, Description, 52. 63 From a letter from M. Pinto to M. L’Abbé de Cabanès (15 Jan. 1696), “même le roy depuis peu gratifia Mgr l’évêque d’une somme considérable d’argent, qu’on employa à réparer l’église bâtie par le

64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76 77

80

81 Kerlogue, Arts of Southeast Asia, 116; Punjabhan and Nakhonphanom, The Art of Thai Wood Carving, 31. 82 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 133. 83 For all of these terms, see: Lall, The Golden Lands, 216–20, 271–6; Sthapitanond and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 92–5, 102–03, 250–1; Punjabhan and Nakhonphanom, The Art of Thai Wood Carving, 29. See also Kerlogue, Arts of Southeast Asia, 115–18; Matics, Thai Mural, 91–8. 84 Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 100–13. 85 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, “L’influence occidentale”; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 166; Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai,” 60; Hutchinson, “Phaulkon’s House.” 86 Quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:118. On this building see also Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 162–3. 87 “Le Roi de Siam s’attend que sa Majesté lui envoyera des ambassadeurs, quand les sien de reviendront, il fait batir une maison, que l’on peut nommer manifique pour le pais pour les recevoir, et defrayer, et fait faire toutes les ustancilles à la manière d’Europe, necessaires pour la meubler.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” letter of André Boureau-Deslandes to his brother-inlaw Collinet (8 November 1683), f.85a. 88 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 33; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 169; Tachard, Second Voyage, 204; Choisy, Journal du voyage, 262–3. 89 Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai,” 60; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 233–41. 90 Hutchinson, “Phaulkon’s House,” 6. 91 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 33; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 168. 92 Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 105. His evidence is based largely on a reading of printed historical and contemporary maps (he is unaware of Lamare’s 1687 manuscript). However his readings are unreliable as he even confuses the cardinal directions when referring to buildings’ relationships to each other. For example, in his discussion of his Map 3 (p. 105) he writes at one point that the Wat Pun temple is to the east of the ambassadors’ residence (it is to the west), and that the Phra Klang residence is to the south of it (it is to the east). 93 Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 112.

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défunt roy, et qui est un des plus beaux édifices de Siam, quoique encore imparfait. On y a commencé à célébrer publiquement le service divin le jour de Noel.” Launay, Histoire, 1:289. See also JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 128–34. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 130–40. On Petracha’s policy toward the mep see Smith, Creolization, 287. Quoted in Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 136. Ibid., 126. Alberts, Conflict and Conversions, 45. Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:46. See also Wood, A History of Siam, 197. The seminary also supervised a female lay religious community called the Votaries of the Cross. Institut de France, Dictionnaire, 1:407. Smith, Creolization, 153; Smithies and Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 108; Forest, Missionnaires, 1:230–2; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 140–1. Tachard, Second voyage, 240; Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:90. In a letter Tachard remarked: “Ce fut lui qui fonda a Messieurs des Missions etrangeres un College dans la ville de Siam, ou l’on voit voyait sur la porte ecrit en gros caracteres Collegium Constantinianum auquel il donnoit revenu trez considerable en ce pays la et qui fut payé jusqu’à sa mort.” bnf , Français 19030, “Relation de voyages dans les Indes, par un Père de la Compagnie de Jésus (1690–1699),” f.23. Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:90; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 142. Forest, Missionnaires, 1:189. Launay, Histoire, 1:75n1. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 142, 145. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 161–2. The important seventeenth-century Paris churches of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, Saint-Sulpice, and Saint-Roch also had ambulatories, a nave and side aisles, and a Latin cross plan. Hautecœur, Histoire, 2:724–5. Ibid., 1:650–1. Deutsch, Jean Marot, 117–23. On Tachard’s sojourns in Chandernagore, see Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 2–3. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 399.

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94 Tachard, Second Voyage, 203–4. My translation differs slightly from that of Smithies, who translates “auprès de” as “just after” rather than “next to”: “He had prepared for them a very fine house which he had built two years previously just after that he had built for the previous mission in which the ambassador was housed.” Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 33. 95 Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 148. 96 Hutchinson, “Phaulkon’s House,” 5. 97 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 175–6. 98 Tachard, Second voyage, 213. 99 Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 100. 100 Ibid., 109–10. On belltowers, see Sthapitanonda and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 100–1. 101 Hutchinson, “Phaulkon’s House,” 3, 6. See also Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 178–90. 102 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 60–72. 103 Tachard, Second Voyage, 210–11. 104 On “telescopic” roofs see Lall, The Golden Lands, 198, 221; Sthapitanond and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 136–9. 105 Kaempfer, Description, 47. 106 Such wall niches can be found at the Wat Phra Si Rattanamahathat in Lopburi (17th century). See Chularatana, “Indo-Persian Influence,” fig. 4. 107 See Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 81. 108 Sthapitanonda and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 162–9; Matics, Introduction, 2. 109 Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:131. 110 “Et depuis peu de jours, il leur a fait demander le modele d’une autre eglize, qu’il leur veut faire batir a Lavau, qui est une ville ou il fait son sejour pendant sept a huit mois de l’année, et qui est eloignée de Siam de 15 a 16 lieues.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” letter by André Boureau-Deslandes to his brother-inlaw Collinet (Ayutthaya, 8 Nov 1683), f.85a. 111 “La maison and l’observatoire qu’il fait préparer à Levan seront prettes pour les recevoir à la fin de l’année prochaine. Venez donc, mes Pères, et quittez un College Royal de la France pour venir ici dans un autre Collège Royal enseigner vos sciences.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” Father Colusson to the Rector of

112 113

114

115 116

117 118 119

the Paris College of the Society of Jesus (1 November 1686), f.62a. Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 106–7. Letter of Pallu and Lambert quoted in Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 108. On Jesuit scientists at the Cochinchinese court, see Li, Nguyễn Cochinchina, 72–3. “C’est passer notre établissement à Louvo, cette fondation est jointe à cent esclaves que le Roy attache à nôtre service avec tous leurs descendants, et il promet au Roy par la lettre qu’on va bâtir une autre nouvelle maison à Siam pour les jésuites, et il a déjà marqué à Siam et à Merguy dans le plus bel endroit de ces deux villes un fort grande emplacement pour nous y loger.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” letter by Tachard, written at Brest (26 July 1687), f.75b. Tachard, Voyage de Siam, 247–8. “Et je trouve mesme qu’il [Constance] a mieux valu de n’avoir pas elevé d’abord ces bastimens, parce que le College que nos peres mesmes ont tracé a Louvo, s’il eut esté achevé selon le dessin commencé, il eut esté tres incommode et peu capable, et maintenant on y a apporté le remede necessaire, et les autres edifices qui se feront dans en l’avant seront encore plus commodes et plus ajuster aux desires des Missionnaires. Quant a moi je souhaiterois qu’on ne fit pas tant de maisons, mais que les couvents des Talapois nous pourroient aussi moyennant leur conversion, nous servir de demeure et d’Eglise, et c’est ce qu’il faut entreprendre avec l’aide de Dieu. Si on ne converti les Talapois, la conversion du peuple sera fort difficile, mais l’une et l’autre se peut esperer avec la conversion du Roy.” bnf , Français 15476, “Relations de la France avec le Siam, sous Louis XIV,” letter by J.B. Maldonade to R.P. La Chaise, Ayutthaya, 17 December 1687. Tachard, Second voyage, 240–1. See also JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 151. On Maldonado’s divided loyalties, see: Smith, Creolization, 297–8; Ruiz-de-Medina, “Jean-Baptiste Maldonado.” bnf, département Estampes et photographie, pet fol-od -59, “Usages de Siam” (undated), plate 13. See Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 151, fig. 10.

139 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 11. 140 Barros et al., Vaubin, 87; Parent and Verroust, Vauban, 15. 141 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 202. 142 Archives Nationales de France, Paris (hereafter anf ) 3 jj 368, carton 97, no. 8 (13 December 1687). Cited in Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 87. 143 Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 87–8; anf 3 jj 368, carton 97, no. 8. 144 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 205–6. 145 Ibid., 241. 146 Ibid., 208, 213–14. 147 Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 138, fig. 9; Smithies, “A Stormy Relationship,” 151. 148 Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 130–1; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, figs 30–2, 47. 149 Service Historique de la Défense (hereafter shd ), Recueils 62, nos. 59–64. 150 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, figs. 47–9. 151 Book IV , plate 26, On Bélidor, see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 158–62; Langins, Conserving the Enlightenment, 224–34. 152 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, fig. 50; Langins, Conserving the Enlightenment, 65. 153 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 153–5, fig. 12. It is attributable to Vollant on stylistic grounds. 154 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 154. 155 Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai.” 156 Sthapitanond and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 146; Punjabhan and Nakhonphanom, The Art of Thai Wood Carving, 32–3. 157 Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai,” 59. 158 Sthapitanond and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 202–4; Punjabhan and Nakhonphanom, The Art of Thai Wood Carving, 32–3. 159 Kranok (sometimes spelled Kranock or Kanok) are usually formed of three flame-like leaf scrolls that curl backward from a serpentine stem. Some scholars have in fact traced them back to ancient acanthus forms. Taylor, Beasts, Birds, 106–7. See also Sthapitanond and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 52, 142, 146, 188, and 189; Punjabhan and Nakhonphanom, The Art of Thai Wood Carving, 12–15. 160 The signs on the site, by the 3rd Regional Office of the Fine Arts Department, call it a “palace” because of its similarity to palace architecture, but the

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120 “Maison que le Roy de Siam avoit fait bastir aux Jesuites mathematiciens du Roy, il y avoit un grand corps de logis à deux estages avec deux aisles et une grosse tour octogone de 60 pieds de diametre et à trois estages le tout en terrasses plombées … Le croix que l’on voit est l’Eglise commencé qui est six pieds hors de terre.” 121 Smith, Creolization, 132–3; Smithies, Mission Made Impossible, 164; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 151. 122 “Le Seminaire des Messieurs des Missions etrangeres est retabli et l’Eglise est achevée.” bnf , Français 19030, “Relation de voyages dans les Indes, par un Père de la Compagnie de Jésus (1690–1699),” f.37. See also Cruysse, Siam and the West, 474; Vongsuravatana, “New Investigations,” 99. The Greek Temple appears in a “Veüe en perspective dudit Temple, où les Colonnes et les Voutes sont ôtées pour faire voir les dedans.” Daniel and Jean Marot, Architecture Français, pl. 11. 123 Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:133. 124 Smithies, “Jacques de Bourges,” 121; Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 100. 125 Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:126. 126 Ibid., 2:117. 127 Tachard, Second voyage, 126; Launay, Histoire, 1:56, 237; Wirth, “La stratégie,” 2:68, 123, 136, 129; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 56; Smithies, “Jacques de Bourges,” 128; Forest, Missionnaires, 1:209. 128 Quoted in Launay, Histoire, 1:176. 129 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 147–9. 130 Smithies, Three Military Accounts, 87; JacqHergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 181, 199–200. 131 Kaempfer, A Description, 31. 132 Gervaise, Natural and Political History, 44. 133 Hutchinson, Adventurers in Siam, 8. 134 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 182. 135 See ibid., 182–9, figs. 24–6. 136 Ibid., fig. 54. 137 The project is published in ibid., fig. 51. On similar projects for Cayenne from 1696 and the 1750s and 1760s see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 200, 225, 226–7. 138 Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 190–9, figs. 41, 44.

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163 164 165

166 167 168 169 170 171

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172 173 174

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precise function of the building remains in doubt. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 242. Kisluk-Grosheide and Rondot, Visitors to Versailles, 158–9; Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 231; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 242; Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai,” 63. There is a copy of this rare book in the Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, collections Jacques Doucet, shelf number num 4 res 78. See Guilmard, Les maîtres ornemanistes, 1:89. Matics, Thai Mural, 3; Punjabhan and Nakhonphanom, The Art of Thai Wood Carving, 22. Listopad, “Art and Architecture,” 236–7. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 242. The author claims that the tevada was still there some fifteen years before the book was published, which would be around 1978. Guilmard, Les maîtres ornemanistes, 89–92. Listopad, Art and Architecture, 234. Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam, 242; Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai,” 61. Bailey, “The Stimulus” and “The Response II”; Bailey, “The Dynamics of Chinoiserie”; Golombek and Wilber, The Timurid Architecture. Phillips, Yoga, Karma, 254. Diskul, The Lacquer Pavilion; Taylor, Beasts, Birds, 40n13. Scholars disagree about the date of the pavilion, but it is likely during the late Ayutthaya–early Ratanakosin era. Taylor, Beasts, Birds, 46. Charoensuphakul, “L’architecture Thai,” 62. Ornament prints by Paul Androuet Du Cerceau and Jean Le Pautre were widely copied in Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands by the likes of John Overton (Victoria and Albert Museum [VandA], 19340), Susanna Maria von Sandrart (VandA, E.248–1950). The title of the Overton series is A New Book of Fries Work Invt. by J. Le Pautre (London, 1676). On Dutch trade with Ayutthaya in the 1750s, see: Brummelhuis, Merchant, Courtier, 40–1, 49–50; Smith, The Dutch, 41. On British trade see Baker and Phongpaichit, History, 160–1. Baumanova, “Pillar Tombs”; Kirkman, Men and Monuments, 34; Kirkman, The Arab City. Meier, “Chinese Porcelain”; Meier, “Hybrid Heritage”; Horton and Middleton, The Swahili; Bailey,

“The Stimulus,” 10–11; Kirkman, Gedi, 4–11; Allen, “Swahili Ornament”; Duyvendak, “The True Dates.” My research in Kenya and Tanzania was under the auspices of the Royal Ontario Museum and I worked at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (Nairobi), the National Museum of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam), and on-site at excavated medieval Swahili towns in Kenya and Tanzania. I identified significant numbers of porcelain remains from the late Yuan and Early Ming period of surprisingly high quality. I am particularly grateful to Dr Fidelis Masao for his invaluable assistance while I was working in Tanzania. 177 Meier, “Chinese Porcelain,” 715. 178 Sthapitanonda and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 146. 179 Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe, 301. c h A pTe r f o ur 1 La Font de Saint-Yenne, L’Ombre du grand Colbert, iv. 2 Ibid., iv. On this book and the nostalgia for the era of Colbert see also Wittman, Architecture, 86–7. 3 La Font de Saint-Yenne, L’Ombre du grand Colbert, 107. 4 Chowdhury, “An Imperial Mughal Tent,” 670, 677. See also Chandra, Parties and Politics, 273. In the mid-eighteenth century the Maratha peshwa’s Brahmin minister Nana Fadnavis travelled to Delhi, where he purchased Mughal miniature paintings, which he pasted into an album, including an image of Emperor Muhammad Shah on a palanquin. See Shaffer, “Take All of Them,” 64. 5 Schaffer, Eclecticism, 65–6. 6 Dadlani, From Stone to Paper, 115; Chawdhury, “An Imperial Mughal Tent,” 670–2. 7 Bailey, “Architectural Relics,” 145; Bailey, “The Catholic Shrines of Agra,” 136–7; Sharma, “European Sepulchral Architecture”; Nath, “Hessing’s Tomb.” 8 Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 28. Red was a colour associated with Mughal rulership, for instance in the Imperial Lal dera, or “red tent” used when the court was on the move. Chowdhury, “An Imperial Mughal Tent,” 670. 9 “J’ai obtenu la permission de fraper des Roupies a Pondichery au coin de l’Empereur Mogol, c’est un

10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

31 32

33

34 35

36

37 38

commented “en 1700 il passa a Pondichery ou il a fait batir une Citadelle et les fortifications dont les plans ont été envoyés en France et trouvés tres parfaits” (5 February 1714). anom , col e 324, “Nyon, Denis de, chevalier de Saint-Louis, gouverneur et ingénieur en chef à l’île de France (1700/1726),” n.f. I found the reference to his wedding to Catherine Bain (his first wife was Anne-Louis Hiron of SaintRoch parish) in the entry for Pierre Bain in the so-called “Fichier Laborde” manuscript in the bnf : Léon de Laborde, “Répertoire alphabétique de noms d’artistes et artisans.” bnf , Département des manuscrits, naf 12042, f.1819. On Nyon see also MénardJacob, La première Compagnie, 123. There are also five maps of Île-de-France and Île-Bourbon with plans of fortifications by Nyon (signed “Le Chev. Denyon”) in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans: ge sh 18 pf 218 div 2p13 (1723); ge sh 18 pf 219 div 2p7 (1722) and div 2p7/1 (1722) and div 2 p 8 (1725); ge sh 18 pf 221 div 1 p 10d (1725). Nyon is also mentioned as being in Île-de-France in a letter of M. Le Noir, Director General of the Compagnie des Indes to M. L’Abbé Raguet (Pondicherry, 2 October 1726). col f 5a 39/4, “Correspondance avec le gouverneur de Pondichéry, Pierre-Christophe Lenoir” (1726/1730), f.349. “Elevation de la porte royalle du fort Louis de Pondichéry.” Signed “A Pondichery le 15. fevrier 1709. De Nyon.” anom , 26dfc 10terc . Quoted in Gady, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, 546; and Mignot, “Vauban,” 257. For illustrations of the portals see Berger, A Royal Passion, 170–3; Hautecœur, Histoire de l’architecture, 2:505–10. Glenn Ames describes the arms of the cio as “set in a round shield with a golden fleur-de-lys on an azure background enclosed by two branches, one an olive branch, the other a palm frond, meeting at the top and supporting another golden fleur-de-lys with the motto Florebo quocumque ferar, ‘I will blossom withersoever I am carried.’ The supporting figures on the shield were Peace on one side and Plenty on the other.” Ames, Colbert, 22. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 266–7. The three views are in the Aix archives: “Profil d’élévation du frontispice ou portail de l’église du

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des plus Grandes avantages qui ait jamais été accordé a la Nation dans l’Inde, ce privilege donnera cent mil Piastres de Benefice annuel a la Compagnie.” anom , col e 153, “Dumas, Pierre Benoît, dit BenoîtDumas, commandant général des établissements français aux Indes et gouverneur de Pondichéry (1724/1742),” f.94a] Dadlani, From Stone to Paper, 128–9. It could not have been Dumont’s plan, as she proposes, as it was in Paris, but it could have been one by Champia de Fonbrun. Malleson, History of the French in India, 97. Ananda Ranga Pillai, Diary, 9:3, 123, 323, 317. Ibid., 1:187. Ibid., 9:338–9. Untracht, Traditional Jewelry of India, 381. Russo, The Untranslatable Image, 248. Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 127. The term is Agmon’s. See Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 4. More, Pondicherry, 45. Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 18–19. More, Pondicherry, 34. Ibid., 74–92; Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 52–6, 93–120; Olagnier, Les Jésuites à Pondichéry, 42–65. More, Pondicherry, 64. Ibid., 85. Oliver, Art, Trade, 161–84; Shulman, “Cowherd or King?”; Sathyanarayanan, “Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū”; Raghavan, Ānanda Ran˙ga Vijaya Campū. Shulman, “Cowherd or King?,” 175. Oliver, Art, Trade, and Imperialism, 162. Ibid., 194–5. A similar incident took place in 1705. More, Pondicherry, 54. Martineau, Correspondence, 1:10, 30. Pondicherry was called “la colonie” but Chandernagore was also referred to as the “colonie de Chandernagor.” See Deloche, Pondichéry, 36, 41–6, 58, 61, fig. 7; Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 25–7. On Vauban see Barros et al., Vauban; Parent and Verroust, Vauban. On Vauban and the colonies see also Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 148–62. There is an excellent reconstruction of the fort in Malangin, Pondicherry, 28–9. A letter from the court of Louis XV upon the occasion of his 1714 elevation to the Order of Saint-Louis

399

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41

400

42

fort Louïs de Pondichéry faite dans l’an 1722” (note on left side notes: “modules de l’Ordre Ionique”), anom, 26dfc18b; “Plan de l’Eglise du fort Louïs de Pondichery bâtie dans l’an 1722,” anom , 26dfc 16b ; ‘Profil d’élévation et de coupe de toute la longueur intérieure de l’église du fort Louis de Pondichéry bâtie dans l’an 1722” (again with a note referring to “modules de l’Ordre Ionique”), anom , 26dfc 17b . The two Capuchin chaplains (aumôniers) are briefly mentioned in a note of 1725 on the state of missionaries in the colony. anom , col f 5a 37/3, “État des missionnaires” (1725), f.1a. For a brief description of the church see Deloche, Pondichéry, 49. “Il n’y a pas longtems que le clocher que M. Dupleix avoit fait élever sur le portail de la Chapelle du fort est tombé un beau matin, faute de précaution on devoit y placer un très grand horloge qu’il avoit ordonné au Sr. Mouginot, et pour lequel il a reçu des avances” (19 November 1754), bnf , Français 383, “Journal du voyage de M. [Charles] Godeheu, fait en 1754,” f.271a; “La Chapelle du Fort, dont les murs se séparent par l’effort d’un édifice qu’on avoit élevé sur son extrémité, pour y mettre une horloge, & qui tomba il y a deux mois. C’est le sieur Mougenot qui a fait cette horloge; il n’en est pas payé.” Letter by Charles Godeheu, Feb 1755, in Lesueur de Petiville, “Réfutation des faits imputés au sieur Godeheu par le sieur Dupleix” (Paris, 1765), “pièces justificatifs,” p. 18. On 17 October 1738 a letter from the Superior Council of Pondicherry notes: “l’hôtel commencé en 1734,” but it may simply be an error. Gaudart, Procès-verbaux, 3:121. The description of its decrepit predecessor is dated 19 April 1731 [Procès-verbaux des délibérations du Conseil souverain de la Compagnie des Indes (Pondichéry 1913–14), 2:296]. The earliest map calls the earlier building the “Maison et jardin de l’ingenieur.” anom , 26dfc 15b , “Plan du projet des fortifications proposées des villes hautes et basses de Pontichéry” (1721). The maps showing the completed structure are as follows: anom , 26dfc 20bisb , “Plan des ville et citadelle (le fort Louis) de Pondichéry” (1733); anom , 26dfc 29a , “Plan de Pondichéry”, ca 1743); and an engraving entitled “Plan de la ville de Pondichéry

43

44 45

46 47 48

dedié à la memoire de Mr Dupleix,” 1748 (anom , 26dfc 32a ). The building does not appear on maps from 1721 (anom , 26dfc 15b , “ Plan du projet des fortifications proposées des villes hautes et basses de Pontichery [sic]”) or ca after 1724 (anom , 26dfc 13a , “Plan de Pondichéry” [after 1724]). intach has dated the building precisely to 1733, presumably on the evidence of the map of that date. intach, “Pondicherry Listing Book: Volume 1 French Town” (second draft, 2019), 6–7. The first project, inked in red, includes a full ground floor plan and a fragmentary first floor plan, showing only the corps de logis. “Plan of the Ground Floor of the Building of Messieurs the Directors of Sales,” anom, 26dfc633a; “First Floor, 1st Project,” anom, 26dfc634c. The second project, in pen and ink only, includes two versions of a ground floor but no first floor has survived. “Building of Messieurs the Directors of Sales,” anom , 26dfc 635b ; and an untitled second version: anom , 26dfc 635b . Lawrence, Trade Castles, 95. Louis Didier, “ingénieur du Roy,” was godfather of the daughter of carpenter Jean Le Bozecq. anom , Doubles des registres de Baptême de l’Eglise Paroissiale de notre dame des Anges de Pondichery depuis l’an 1719 jusqu’à 1729 et 1729 jusqu’à 1745, f.63. Jean Henry de Larche is described as “capitaine d’infanterie de cette garnison” when he married his first wife, a creole from Pondicherry on 12 February 1719, and as an “ingénieur et capitaine de cette garnison” when he married his second wife, a woman from “Meguy” (Mergui?) on 30 June 1723. anom , Doubles des registres de Baptême de l’Eglise Paroissiale de notre dame des Anges de Pondichery depuis l’an 1719 jusqu’à 1729 et 1729 jusqu’à 1745, ff.8, 38. A Sieur de Larche also served as a councillor in the Conseil Supérieur de Pondichéry from 1752 to 1769. anom , col e 255, “Larche, de, conseiller au Conseil supérieur de Pondichéry (1752/1769).” Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 156–7. Luengo, Arquitecturas, 488; Sundararajan, Pondicherry, 151–2. On Blondel in the Atlantic Empire, see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 358–65. The plan is illustrated in Mariette, L’architecture françoise, vol. 3 (unpaginated). On the Hôtel Desmarets, see Kalnein, Architecture in France, 36.

57 anom , 26dfc 20B , “Plan des ville et citadelle de Pondichéry” (1733). 58 “Par délibération du 29 Octobre, nous avons arrêté de faire démolir le gouvernement, qui menaçoit ruine de tout costé et de louer la maison de M. Febvrier pour 240 Pagodes par an jusqu’à ce que le nouveau gouvernement, dont nous remettons ci-joint le plan a la Compagnie, soit bâti. Nous en faisons actuellement jeter les fondements et en presserons l’ouvrage parce que M. Febvrier doit revenir dans 18 mois et qu’il n’y a dans le fort aucun appartement convenable pour la Chambre du Conseil et pour le bureau du greffe et secrétariat.” Martineau, Correspondance du Conseil Supérieur et de la Compagnie, 2:96–7; see also 11, 115–16. 59 The inventory includes: “41. Plan du nouveau Gouvernement de Pondichéry; 42. Plan de l’hôpital de Pondichéry.” Gaudart, Procès-verbaux, 3:121. See also Martineau, Correspondence du Conseil Supérieur et de la Compagnie, 3:147–8; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 70. 60 Gaudart, Procès-verbaux des délibérations du Conseil supérieur, 3:137. 61 “Il convient absolument d’achever quand on pourra l’enceinte de la ville du costé de la mer; on continue à travailler au nouveau gouvernement et à achever l’hôpital commencé en 1734.” Gaudart, Procèsverbaux, 3:121. 62 Martineau, Correspondence, 3:340, 397. 63 Ibid., 3:397. 64 The building reports of 18 October 1744, 11 February 1745, and 11 January 1746, make no mention of the Gouvernement. Martineau, Correspondence, 4:21, 89, 136. 65 Société de l’histoire de l’Inde française, Pondichéry en 1747, 3. 66 Martineau, Correspondence, 4:280. 67 “carreaux de verre nécessaires pour le nouveau gouvernement.” Martineau, Correspondence du Conseil Supérieure avec le Conseil, 218. Ananda’s diary entry for 23 April 1750 appears in The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, Dubash to Joseph François Dupleix, Knight of the Order of St. Michael, and Governor of Pondichery, ed. and trans. J. Frederick Price and K. Rangachari (Madras, 1904), 7:69. His diary entries for 11 July, 22 August, and 20 December

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49 Boffrand, Book of Architecture, plates XXVII and XXVIII; Kalnein, Architecture in France, 40–1; Hautecœur, Architecture classique, 3:127–8. 50 Kalnein, Architecture in France, 45; Hautecœur, Architecture classique, 3:i, 149; Lance, Encyclopédie d’architecture, pl. 570. 51 “en travaillant à Élever l’Édifice de la Grandeur françoise en Asie.” anom , col e 159, “Précis des services du Sieur Dupleix,” 1775, f.11b. 52 Gaudart, Procès-verbaux, 3:177. The reference is in a letter of 15 December 1738. On the use of “coolies” in building and demolition projects under Gerbaud’s direction in Dupleix’s time, see Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 180. See also Steiner, Building the French Empire, 60. 53 anom , “Doubles du registre des mariages de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges de Pondichéry des RR.PP. Capucins pour l’année 1719 jusqu’à l’année 1748,” f.79 (21 July 1738). 54 anom , col e 158, “Du Passage, Bernard, chevalier, capitaine et ingénieur en chef à Pondichéry (1736/1762).” 55 He was a witness at Gerbaud’s third marriage in 1744, anom , “Doubles des registres des Mariages faits dans l’Eglise paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges de Pondichéry de l’année 1719 jusqu’à 1748,” f.127. 56 Paradis, who had served in Île-Bourbon and Île-deFrance before coming to India, wrote a summary of his achievements in his petition to be granted the Military Order of Saint-Louis (which took place in 1747). anom , col e 328, “Paradis, ingénieur aux îles de France et de Bourbon, ingénieur en chef à Mahé, Karikal et Pondichéry, commandant à Karikal (1740/1747),” letter of 20 October 1747. His death record calls him the “Commandant de Karikal” and says that he was “âgé d’environ quarante sept ans.” anom, “Double du Régistre des Enterrements de l’Eglise paroissiale notre dame des anges des RR . PP. Capucins de Pondichery pour l’année 1748,” 91. See also Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 66–70; Gabriel Duval, Pondichéry, 63; Martineau, Dupleix et l’Inde française, 2:84–6. A 1742 plan of the hospital signed by Paradis exists but no elevation. anom , 26dfc 24b , “Plan de l’hôpital de Pondichéry” (30 January 1742).

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69 70 71

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1752 are in ibid., 8:137, 178, 264. On the delays in construction, see also Martineau, Dupleix et l’Inde française, 86. “appliqué dès son enfance à l’étude de l’architecture civile & militaire il s’en occupé dans l’Inde de l’un & de l’autre objet, & les soins ont été d’une utilité marquée dans les bâtiments publics de l’ancienne ville de Pondichéry, & dans leur reconstruction.” anom, col e1, “Abeille, Jean-Joseph, Conseilleur au Conseil supérieure de Pondichéry 1769/72,” letter from Paris, dated 9 February 1772. The term is Gerbaud’s. anom , 26dfc 21b . Martineau, Dupleix et l’Inde française, 2:84–6. On the scarcity of wood in the region, see Gaudart, Procès-verbaux, 3:31. The pioneer of the ground plan in which rooms flank a central corridor, which became the norm in the first half of the eighteenth century, was Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s Chateau at Meudon (1698– 1704). Gady, Jules Hardouin Mansart, 369–73; Hautecœur, Architecture classique, 2:624–8. Generally the positioning of doors and windows is more even in the Fonbrun/Dumont plans; also small staircases have been added to access the back courtyards; the stairs leading to the stair hall are narrower so as not to impede movement in the corridor; two extra enclosed staircases have been added to the rear; the terrace has been added to the right end; and two massive, thick-walled caves have been added at the back, presumably for storage, since their original role was to have been parking for palanquins. The changes were already in place in 1747 as they appear in a detailed map of that year. bnf , département Cartes et plans, ge c -3485, Plan de Pondichéry (1747). On the conceit of exterior decoration on the interior, see Whitehead, French Interiors, 81; and Hautecœur, Architecture classique, 3:276–7. Dupleix showed Pillai the Sculptures on 11 July 1752: “He then pointed out four figures for which places are being made ready in the new Gouvernement in the Fort, – one holding scales in its hand, another looking into a mirror, the third reading a book, and the fourth caressing a serpent in its hand. He asked if I knew what they were. I replied, ‘No’; so he explained that the figure with the scales was Justitia;

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76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85

86

that with a book was Commercium; that holding a mirror was Veritas and the last with a serpent was Prudentia. There is another figure with a staff on the steps leading upstairs; this is called [ ].” Pillai, The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, 8:137. He later calls this last sculpture “a figure with a staff in its hand like a watchman” but never gets around to identifying it. On this quotation see also Bourdat, Les grandes pages, 87–9. On Ananda Ranga Pillai, see Oliver, Art, Trade, 153–84. Labernadie calls one of them a triton but does not give her source. Labernadie, Pondichéry, 198–9. On dolphins as royal symbols in public architecture in France and the Atlantic colonies see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 179, 270, 275. Fissabre, “From Ship to Land.” The Vestibule of the Château D’Issy is illustrated in Jean Mariette, Nouveaux bâtimens (Paris, 1740), pl. 6. Quoted in Whitehead, French Interiors, 81. The quote is from his 1737–38 Traité de l’architecture dans le goût moderne. Hautecœur, Architecture classique, 2:292–3. Such tables were typical of salons and larger reception rooms. See Wilson and Hess, Summary Catalogue, 43–5. Kalnein, Architecture in France, 64–5. Both were illustrated in Mariette’s Architecture françoise. Summerson, The Classical Language, 15. Pillai, Private Diary, 18:264–5. Allegedly Dupleix and his wife Jeanne spent much time supervising decorators personally during the last years of construction. Deloche, Pondichéry, 70; Duval, Pondichéry, Histoire d’un comptoir, 63; Labernadie, Pondichéry, 196–200. Pillai, Private Diary, 9:217–18. The entry is dated 27 March 1755. Oliver, Art, Trade, and Imperialism, 176–8; Shulman, “Cowherd or King?,” 178; Raghavan, Ananda, 48–9. The translation is by Dr Sathyanarayanan, “Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū,” 184–5. I am extremely grateful for permission to excerpt his translation, which has not yet been published, and to Margherita Trento, for obtaining this text and permission on my behalf. Ananda wrote on 29 June 1752 that “The Europeans said tonight that Madame Pompadour, the concubine of the French king, had sent by this ship

87 88 89 90

91 92 93

94 95 96 97

99 On Dumont, see: Dubin, Futures and Ruins, 30–1; Gordon, “Subverting the Secret,” 45; Barrier, Les architectes européens, 112; Garric, Recueils d’Italie, 78–9; Gallet, Les architectes parisiens, 202–3; Hautecoeur, Architecture classique, 3:594–5. 100 Dumont, Détails des plus intéressantes. 101 anom , col e 69, “Champia de Fonbrun, lieutenant d’artillerie au service de la Compagnie des Indes (1772),” ff.2a–5a; anom , Guadeloupe, Grand-Bourg (Marie-Galante), tous actes (1773), 248b. 102 Jeaurat, Connoissance des temps, 241–53. 103 Fonbrun was an excellent draughtsman as well. The only differences between the two artists’ copies is the degree of shading (sometimes Dumont uses deeper shading, sometimes Fonbrun) and in Fonbrun’s use of straightforward print-like titles in capital letters (unlike Dumont’s more artistic fonts). Dumont has also left out a staircase on the side terrace leading to the garden, which appears in Fonbrun’s 26dfc 84a and in McClean’s drawing after the demolition (fig. 20) but not in Dumont’s versions. 104 (1) Vüe de Pondichéry dans les Indes Orientales by Huquier (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, ge d -17254 and département Estampes et photographie, reserve qb- 370 7-ft 4); by Daumont (bnf , département Estampes et photographie, li -72 (8)-fol ; Rijksmuseum rpp -1921-724); by Chéreau (private collection; the caption includes identification as “No. 257” in the series). (2) Vüe Perspective du Berceau merveilleux qui est dans le Jardins du Gouverneur a Pondichery Ville des Indes Orientales sur la côte de Coromandel by Huquier (Rijksmuseum, rp-p -1925-1372.2); by Daumont (Rijksmuseum, rp-p -1921-724). 105 Vüe des Magasins de la Compagnie des Indes à Pondichéry, de l’Amirauté et de la maison du Gouverneur by Chéreau (British Library, p 282; Musée du Quai Branly, 88-001179-02.2). 106 One of the most complete sets is in the Rijksmuseum: rp-p -1921-727, 728, 735, 743, 747, 749, 759, 772, 789, 791, 792, 795; rp-p -1925-1163, 1166, 1167, 1170, 1175, 1177, 1197, 1204, 1239, 1243, 1248, 1255, 1259, 1260, 1276, 1278, 1284, 1293, 1294, 1297, 1300, 1301, 1305, 1306, 1307, 1316, 1318, 1324, 1327, 1333, 1372, 1375, 1378, rp-p -1960-571. On the vue d’optique, see Stafford, Devices of Wonder, 193.

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an enamelled gold watch set with brilliants and of wonderful workmanship, together with a finelyworked golden case for scissors, a knife, etc. – two articles in all – worth 1,000 pagodas.” Pillai, Diary, 8:124. See also Labernadie, Pondichéry, 200. Lafont, for example, calls it the “Governor’s Palace” and claims that it was where the governor lived. Lafont, Chitra, 82. Whitehead, French Interiors, 90–1; Kalnein, Architecture in France, 4. Deloche, Pondichéry, 77; Bourdat, Pondicherry, 3; Martineau, Dupleix et l’Inde française, 2:84–6. Gerbaud identified the functions of the rooms on both storeys, and although we have no plan of the final bel étage we can assume that the layout was similar to that of the original plan (fig. 4.15). Pillai, Private Diary, 18:352. The entry is from 6 June 1753. Ananda, Diary, 9:87. Most have suggested that he consulted Blondel’s L’Architecture françois, but it was published too late for this building. I believe he turned again to Mariette’s Architecture françoise. Pérouse de Montclos, L’Art de France, 419–20; Kalnein, Architecture, 138; Chevallier, “Jean-Michel Chevotet,” 56–63. Kalnein, Architecture, 147–9; Petzet, Claude Perrault, 304, 329; Hautecœur, Architecture classique, 3:570–1. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 355–7. Company merchant Jean Dumont (d. 1767) was appointed to the Conseil supérieur in 1752 and moved to Negapatnam in 1761, where he spent the remainder of his life. anom , col e 155, “Dumont, conseiller au Conseil supérieur de Pondichéry (1752),” f.1a. See also Gaudart, Catalogue, 51, 62, 68, 71. Jean Dumont the “merchant” (he was really a bootlegger, doing business on the sly with the Dutch) was buried in the church of Notre-Dame-des-Anges in Pondicherrry in 1767. Inde, Pondichéry, ‘Double du régistre des enterments de l’eglise paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges (1767), 7a. The staircase study is in the Archives of the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (ensba ), pra-15. The Morgan Library drawing shelf number is 1986.21.

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107 On Van Ryne see McAleer, Picturing India, 17; Lowe, Vestiges of Old Madras, 2:95. The British Library holds an entire set: Maps K. Top.115.46.g; 115.58.c; 115.79.a; 116.48.c; 117.116.b; 117.131.b. 108 There are several copies in the British Library, for example p 462:1754. 109 For instance: “In spite of the fact that Jan van Ryne (c. 1712 – c. 1760), who settled in London about 1750, had not visited any of the places in his series, his view of Fort William appears to be largely accurate.” India Office Library & Records, 10. 110 Francis Swaine, Fort William, Calcutta, oil on canvas, ca 1763 (British Library f 318). On Swaine, one of Britain’s leading marine draughtsmen and painters during the time of the Seven Years War and immediately after, see: Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 298–9; Parent, Entre empire et nation, 67; Radford, Island to Empire, 122; Joël, Charles Brooking, 72; Cordingly, Marine Painting, 85–6. 111 Baig, Reminiscences, 29, 33. 112 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 279–322. 113 Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 33. 114 bnf , Département cartes et plans, ge c -3485, “Plan de Pondichéry” (1747). 115 “Je suis très curieux de belles Estamples l’on dit qu’il s’en trouve un beau Recueil chez Mr. de Julienne aux Gobelins en quatre Volumes contenant plus de six cens estamples tu me serois plaissir de faire en sorte de les avoir, les quatre volumes qui ne doivent pas être de pareilles coutent 800 L. Donnes ordre aux Cousens que tu as chez toi de faire Recherche d’autres Belles Estamples différentes de celle que j’ay déjà reçu et des Livres nouveaux qui passent pour bons. J’en vois les Mercures remplis tous les mois n’oubliez pas les vins de Champagne, de Bourgogne, et de Cotte notre que je te Demande non plus que les Liqueurs surtout le parfait amour et du tabac, enfin tout ce que je te Demande … Je serois Curieux d’avoir les oeuvres de M. de Réaumur sur les Insectes, ainsi que le Recueil des Machines approuvez de l’accademie des Sciences et sont dit–on des oeuvres très fascinants.” bnf , Français 8982, “Registre de lettres écrites de Chandernagor, par Dupleix (1731–1740). Tome IV . Années 1739–1740,” Chandernagore, to his brother 15 Jan 1739, f.16b. On the four-volume set of

116

117 118

119

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Watteau engravings, known as the Recueil Jullienne, see Salut and Raymond, Antoine Watteau, 35–9. The scientific works were René-Antoine Réaumur’s Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes (Paris, 1734) and Machines et inventions approuvées par l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris 1732). Macaulay, Macaulay’s Essay on Clive, 22. Among Dupleix’s many honours was the marquisate he received from Madame de Pompadour in 1753. See ANOM, COL E159, Letter from Dupleix to the syndics of the CIO , Pondicherry, 16 October 1753. Ibid., 17, 22. “Il avoit les qualités d’âme, et d’esprit, qui peuvent le mettre au Rang des grands hommes, une ambition noble, des sentiments d’honneur, un désir extrême soutenir la gloire du nom françois, et une passion de faire respecter les armes du Roy, et de la Compagnie … il porte aussitôt services à l’agrandissement des Possessions de la Compagnie … Pondichery … devint bientôt une ville florissante.” bnf , Français 12088, “Histoire des révolutions des Indes orientales, depuis l’arrivée de M. le comte Lally jusqu’à la reddition de Pondichéry, de la perte de toutes les concessions de la Compagnie et la ruine universelle de toute la nation françoise dans les dittes Indes (1761),” f.3a. “On sait maintenant par tout l’univers, comment la ville de Pondichéry a été renversée de fond en comble, et qu’elle est devenue le repair des animaux sauvages,” bnf , Français 12088, f.144. Osterhammel, Unfabling the East, 369–70. British Library, wd 1293. For a recent work on Piranesi and his reception in Britain and (to a lesser degree) France, see Miller, Marblemania, esp. 93–136. Dubin, Futures and Ruins, 6. Quoted in ibid., 5–6. Quoted in ibid., 5. “Pondicherry Listing Book: Volume 1 French Town” (second draft, 2019), 6–7; Deloche, Vieux Pondichéry, 91–2. Maps that clearly depict the new building include: “Carte particulière de la ville de Pondichéry et de ses environs, ou est marqués [sic] les attaques des Anglais du mois d’aoust de 1778 et l’état où était la ville lorsqu’elle [sic] a été assiégée” (ca 1788), anom , 26dfc 557A ; “Plan de Pondichéry

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129 130

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135 “Pendal qui a été bâti a la hate pour loger M. Larr a son arrivé, servant aujourd’hui de hale pour la visite des toiles.” anom , 26dfc 152b. 136 For basic descriptions of this house see; intach , “Pondicherry Listing Book” 1, 82; Deloche, introduction to Pondicherry Past and Present, 8; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 110–11; Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 108–10. A plan of the house appears in Deloche, Le papier terrier, 56. 137 Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 108–9. Bourdat gives the incorrect date of the marriage as 1773 and mistakenly calls her father a surgeon. The wedding record is preserved in the Aix archives: anom, Double du register des actes de mariages des rrpp Capucins de l’Eglise paroissiale de notre dame des anges de Pondichery pour l’année 1772, “Mariage de Mr Simon Lagrenée et de Mad. La veuve du Saussay,” f.9. On Lagrenée, see also Deloche, Le papier terrier, 36. 138 His birth register is in anom , Extrait des registres de batemes mariages et sepultures de la paroisse de Saint Paul Isle de Bourbon [1730], f.74. His death register is in anom , Double du register des actes de mariages des rrpp Capucins de l’Eglise paroissiale de Notre Dame des Anges de Pondichery pour l’année 1800, “Enterrement du Sieur Simon Lagrene,” n.f. 139 Guilmard, Les maîtres ornemanistes, 188–91, 248–9. 140 Madras and Pondicherry were intimately entwined. Indian traders in Pondicherry also maintained close ties with Madras throughout the colonial era, and Pondicherry owed much of its prosperity to this connection. In fact, Nayiniyappa came from Madras, and Ananda retained close ties with merchants and manufacturers in that city. See Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 128–9. 141 Kalpana and Schiffer, Madras, 61, 198–9, 323, 326–7. 142 omnipotentis sub tutela /Frustra laborabunt qui oppugnabunt eadem/ pondichereos supplices colonos/ benignè exaudiens/millesimi septingentesimi quadragesimi quinti/ anni salutis spatio/ad securitatem nec non ad decorem/maritimas has-ce [sic] arces, moeniaque fundavit, curavit, perfecit; pro francorum rege ludovico xv/et eiusdem regni pro indiarum

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tel qu’il est en octobre 1774” (1774), 26dfc 413a ; “Plan de Pondichéry” (1774), 26dfc 488a . “Tous les Batiments qui ont été relevés, l’ont été sur leurs anciens fondements que l’on a trouvé très sains les murs ayant été sappés par le bas lorsqu’on les a détruits.” anom , 26dfc 152b. The plans and elevations signed by Bourcet include: “Vieux Gouvernement” (October 1765), signed “Bourcet,” anom , 26dfc 121b ; “Plan du gouvernement” (15 October 1766), signed “Bourcet,” 26dfc 152b ; “Profil et élévation de la façade du Gouvernement pris sur la ligne a.b.c.” (15 October 1766), signed “Bourcet,” 26dfc 153c ; “Gouvernement” (28 February 1768), signed “Bourcet,” 26dfc 213a ; “Façade du Gouvernement” (28 February 1768), signed “Bourcet,” 26dfc 214c . For more on Bourcet and this building see: Deloche, “Introduction,” 5; Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 326–7. anom, Mémoires 102, vol. 421, “Memoire a Monseigneur de Sartine Ministre et Secrétaire d’Etat au département de la Marine,” f.52. anom, Double du Régistre des Mariages de l’Eglise Paroissiale Notre Dame des Anges des R.P. Capucins de Pondichéry pour l’année 1773, “Mariage de S Bourcet et Dlle. Deveaux” (10 January 1773), no folio number; Double du Registre des Baptêmes de l’Eglise Paroissialle Notre Dame des Anges des RR .PP . Capucins de Pondichery pour l’année 1775, “Suplément des cérémonies de baptême Pierre Jean Bourcet” (6 November 1775), ff.13–14. anom, col e 345, “Ranger, Gilbert de, capitaine à la suite des troupes de l’Inde, ingénieur à Pondichéry (1769/1791),” document d ; anom , col e 151, “Dulac, Claude, ancien commandant du Génie à Pondichéry, retiré lieutenant-colonel d’infanterie (1758/1780).” See also Labernadie, Le vieux Pondichéry, 327. See Ollagnier, Petites maisons. Although the presentation drawing of the facade is dated 1768, a map dated 17 November 1767 already notes that the Gouvernement was “rebati à l’Etage.” anom, 26dfc231c, “Projet de distribution pour l’emplacement du fort de Pondichéry” (17 November 1767). “Le bas de ce batiment est destine pour les bureaux.” anom, 26dfc213a.

405

143

144

145 146

societate gubernator vigilantissimus/ josephus franciscus dupleix. The translation is from Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 22. ad utilitatem populi salutemque/ Non laborabunt hostes ad evertendum eadem/ pondichereos supplices colonos/ benigne exaudiens/millesimo octocentesimo seagesimo segundo/ anno salutis in medio spatio/ ubi prius steterunt fortiora castella/a martino guberatore erecta/salubres aquas urbi dedit/pro francorum imperatore napoleone iii/ in eiusdem imperii indiarum partibus/gubernator vigilantissimus/alexander durand d’ubraye. The translation is my own. “Plaise à la divine providence que le rétablissement de cette nation dans l’inde lui soit aussi favorable, que sa chute lui a été funeste et épouvantable.” bnf , Français 12088, f.144. Metman, Documents sur la sculpture, 202; The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue, lviii, lv, 48, 172, 324. “Sous le règne de Napoléon III Empereur des Français/L’Amiral Rigault de Genouilly/étant ministre de la marine et des colonies/Cette Statue a été érigée à Pondichéry a la mémoire du/Marquis Dupleix.” With the conquest of Saigon Marine Minister Chasseloup-Laubat declared in 1861: “Vous mettez ici vos pieds dans ceux de Dupleix.” Bertrand, Indochine, 186.

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1 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 52–81. 2 His name is also spelled Pigneau; however Frédéric Mantienne has demonstrated that Pigneaux spelled his name with an “x” in his signatures. See Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 14. 3 Daughton, An Empire Divided, 62. 4 Ibid., 99–104. On the inauguration of the statue see Annales 27, 1–7. 5 Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 62–3. 6 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 11. 7 Daughton, An Empire Divided, 61; Ramsay, Mandarins and Martyrs, 68–91.

8 Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 23; Tran, “The Historiography of the Jesuits”; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 4, 404n4; Alberts, “Missions to Vietnam”; Forest, Missionnaires, 2:7–12. 9 To avoid confusion this book will use the terms “Tonkin” to refer to the north and “Cochinchina” to refer to the south; after the French conquest a third entity was carved out in the middle, with its capital at Hué, which the French called “Annam.” This book will also use quốc ngữ orthography with all Vietnamese proper names (unless they are taken from early sources, in which case I use the spelling and accents in the source), all place names (except ones familiar to English readers such as Vietnam, Hanoi, Saigon, Da Nang), and all Vietnamese terms. 10 Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 33. 11 Alberts, “Missions to Vietnam,” 271; Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 30–1. 12 Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 77. 13 Tran, “Historiography,” n.p.; Alberts, “Missions to Vietnam,” 272; Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 78; Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 40. 14 Tran, “Historiography,” n.p. 15 Alberts, “Priests of a Foreign God,” 87. On the importance of indigenous lay catechists for missions in the Pondicherry area see Agmon, A Colonial Affair, 76–9. 16 Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 37. 17 Tran, “Historiography,” n.p.; Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 23. 18 Alberts, “Priests of a Foreign God,” 86–7. 19 Ibid., 89; Forest, Missionnaires, 2:125. 20 Forest, Missionnaires, 2:126. 21 Tran, “Historiography,” n.p.; Forest, Missionnaires, 2:145. 22 Alberts, “Missions in Vietnam,” 274; Alberts, “Priests of a Foreign God,” 85, 109; Forest, Missionnaires, 2:154–5. 23 Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 45, 46; Alberts, “Priests of a Foreign God,” 106. 24 Ramsay, Mandarins and Martyrs, 19. 25 Ibid., 44; Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 49; Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 58. 26 Forest, Missionnaires, 2:156. 27 Ramsey, Mandarins and Martyrs, 19. 28 Ibid., 20; Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 46.

48 Borri and Baron, Views, 150. 49 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume, 172–4. See also Rhodes, Divers voyages, 95. 50 Vinh, “Frame Structure,” 372–3. 51 Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 62–3, 67; Kerlogue, Arts of Southeast Asia, 167. 52 Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 53–5. 53 Launay, Histoire de la mission, 2:285. 54 Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 87. 55 “Comme la Compagnie des Indes l’a ci-devant accordée aux Révérends pères jésuites et capucins pour les terreins qu’elle leur a concédé près cette dite ville dans les Aldées d’Oulgaret et d’Ariancoupan et comme le sont même tous les maniams dépendant des chauderies et des pagodes.” irfa , 994, 633 (24 November 1770); ANOM , COL F 5 A 52/1, “Extrait des registres du Conseil Souverain de Pondichéry,” f.1b. See also Launay, Histoire, 2:281–2; Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 208–14. 56 Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 53; Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 82. On Chaudries, see Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 72–80. 57 “les réparations et les augmentations que les dits missionnaires sont obligés de faire à la dite maison et au dit jardin pour les rendre propres a leurs exercices [...] La permission d’acquérir en forme la maison et le jardin susdits comportants environ neuf canis, dont la moitié n’est qu’un sable aride.” irfa , 994, 633; ANOM, COL F5 A 52/1, “Extrait des registres du Conseil Souverain de Pondichéry,” f.1b. See also Launay, Histoire, 2:281–2. 58 “sept canis et demi sur lequel est un commencement de bâtiment godon, [illegible] et colombier.” irfa , 994, 647 (16 March 1771). Signed by Denoual, notary public, Pondicherry, 16 March 1771. See also Launay, Histoire, 2:283. 59 “S’obligeant le suppliant du dit nom, comme l’intention des dites missions n’est de se prévaloir de ces bienfaits qu’autant que le dit collège restera au dit lieu de Virampatnam, de revendre le dit terrain, afin que le public ne s’imagine pas que le dit Séminaire veuille faire des acquisitions dans cette colonie qui pourroient tourner au désavantage d’icelle.” irfa , 994, 633; ANOM , COL F 5 A 52/1, ff.1b–2a. See also Launay, Histoire, 2:282. 60 Ibid., 2:281.

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29 Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 82. 30 The Jesuit mission in Vietnam was funded by the defunct Japan mission through agricultural properties such as (among many others) a coconut plantation in Candolim, which was itemized in 1772. Goa State Archives, Panjim (hereafter gsa ), 4514, “Contas dos Devedores, Administradores e outros Depositarios a quem foi engregue o dinhero que deveriam o sequestro dos Bens da Provincia de Japão da Companhia de Jesus (1772), f.17b. See also gsa , 859, “Bens dos Padres Jesuitas, Procuratura & Casa de Japão.” 31 Tran, “Historiography,” n.p. 32 Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 19–20; Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 63; Ross, A Vision Betrayed, 64; Moran, The Japanese and the Jesuits, 56. The original Portuguese text, with an Italian translation, can be found in Valignano, Il ceremoniale. 33 Valignano, Il ceremoniale, 270. 34 Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 44, 138, 152; Alberts, “Priests of a Foreign God,” 97. 35 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 70. On Minh Đức, see Nguyễn, Asian Catholic Women, 119–20. 36 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 178. 37 Alberts, “Priests of a Foreign God,” 97. 38 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 134–5. 39 “L’en a desja parlé de Madame Lucie … cette bonne Chrestienne … avoit chez elle une fort belle esglise et elle entrenoit onze filles qui viverient en communauté sous le titre des amantes de la Croix.” bnf , Français 15466, “Remarques sur la vie de Mr Mahot Evesque de Bide & Vicaire Apostolique de Cochinchine,” f.64. 40 Forest, Missionnaires, 147. 41 Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 43; Lall, The Golden Lands, 102. 42 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 68 43 bnf , naf 9377, “Journal de l’expédition commerciale de Pierre Poivre, agent de la Compagnie des Indes, à la Cochinchine et aux Moluques (1748–1755),” f.25a. 44 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 70. 45 Alberts, Conflict and Conversion, 81–2. 46 Borri and Baron, Views, 140, 179. 47 Here is what Rhodes has to say about one church: “Ie m’en allay donc à Basbam … J’y trouvay une fort belle & grande Eglise.” Rhodes, Divers voyages, 136.

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61 Ibid., 2:286. 62 Quoted in Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 83, and in Launay, Histoire des missions, 1:10. 63 On the Maison de Marihaure, see Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 107–8. 64 Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 89. 65 Ibid., plates XIII –XVII . See also Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, pl. 6. 66 Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 88. 67 Launay, Histoire, 2:304–05. 68 M. Letondal to M. Chaumont (Macao, 17 December 1806). Launay, Histoire, 2:377–8. 69 Malleret, “Le Séminaire de Virampatnam,” 88; Launay, Histoire, 1:10; Launay, Histoire, 5: pl. XV . 70 Letter by Pigneau to the directors of the mep in Paris (Virampatnam, 23 January 1773) Launay, Histoire, 2:286. 71 Mantienne, Pigneaux, 87. 72 Khuê, Vua Gia Long Và Người Pháp, 269–86; Mantienne, “Transfer,” 523. 73 Ramsay, Mandarins and Martyrs, 47. 74 Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 72–4; Mantienne, “Transfer,” 520–1. 75 Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 74–9; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 17; Mantienne, “Transfer,” 520. 76 See especially Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 103–7. 77 Kisluk-Grosheide and Rondot, Visitors to Versailles, 172. 78 irfa , 801, 155–9, “Traité entre le Roi et le Roi de la Cochinchine” (Versailles, 28 November 1787). 79 “La Cour de France, après de belles promesses à contremandé l’expédition de Cochinchine, mais nous croyons qu’elle a été trompée. Au reste quelques particuliers de Pondichery et de l’Isle de France se sont ouverts à donner quelques vaisseaux armés et on les attend sans peu de semaines.” irfa , 801, 275, letter from Port Saint-Jacques by Boisserand. For Conway’s decision, see Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 87–110. 80 Mantienne, “Transfer,” 521. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., 525. 83 Bertrand, Indochine, 36–7, 176; Malleret, Éléments, 35–6; Cosserat, “Notes biographiques,” 174–6; Faure, Les Français, 193, 199–200, 242.

84 Faure, Les Français, 200. 85 “Joseph Victor Alexius Cyriacus Olivier. Anno quo supra, et die octava Augusti, praesente Rd. Dno. Audin Parocho, baptisavi Joseph Victorem Alexium Cyriacum, filium naturalem, et legitimum Nob. Dni. Augustini Raymundi Olivier Cancellarii suprema Curia Comitatus Venaissini, Advocati in Supremo Senatu aquarum sextiarum, nec non S. Ordinis Jerosolimitani Secretarii, et Dna. Francisca Ludovica Vitalis Conuugum: natum hodië hora quinta matutinam: Patrini fuere Dnus. Hyacinthus Joseph Ignatius Martinus Olivier frater baptisati, et Dna. Theresia Josepha Gabriella Vitalis.” Archives de Vaucluse (hereafter av ), gg 20 Baptêmes (1761– 1770), 158. 86 Borricand, Les hôtels particuliers, 233. 87 Augustin-Raymond’s birth record is in av , gg 17 Baptêmes 1720–1733, No. 119, f.236. His marriage record (29 October 1752) calls him a “notary.” av , gg29 “Mariages 1738–66,” 139a, 153b. His death record describes the 73-year-old former noble simply as “M. Augustin Raymond Olivier propriétaire” (landowner). av , Etat Civil, Décès an XIII , no. 62 (24 frimière XIII , 13 December 1804). 88 irfa , 801, 271–3, letter signed by Olivier, Saigon, 13 May 1795. 89 Bulletin des lois, 570. 90 Albert Joseph Augustin d’Olivier de Petzet’s birth record appears in av , cc 23, Baptêmes et naissances 1790–93, 61a. For more on his father’s career see Feller, Biographie universelle, 6:319. His birth certificate is hv , gg 22, Baptêmes 1775–89, f.246a. For more about their request for a nobilary particle, see Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel (24 June 1818), 1. See also Buffin, Dictionnaire des familles, 90. 91 irfa , 801, 261, letter from Le Labrousse to Létondal, Saigon, 15 June 1789. 92 Faure, Les Français, 200–1. 93 Cosserat, “Notes biographiques,” 173–4; Malleret, Éléments, 36; Schreiner, Abrégé, 104; Faure, Les Français, 206. 94 Thụy Khuê, Vua Gia Long, 269–70. 95 Faure, Les Français, 214–15. See also Mantienne, “The Transfer,” 522; Malleret, Éléments, 35. The letter is dated 29 December 1791.

112 113 114 115 116 117

118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

al., Vauban, 87. See also: Sanger, “La ville ex nihilo,” 37–41; Berger, A Royal Passion, 169. Mantienne, “Transfer,” 524; Malleret, Éléments, 63–5. Mantienne, “Transfer,” 524. White, A Voyage to Cochin China, 224–5. Mantienne, “Transfer,” 528. See also Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 88–9. Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 200–1, 224–5; Bùi, Old Citadels, 98–9. Bùi, Old Citadels, 98–9; Nguyễn Lục Gia, “Cuộc công thủ thành Diên Khánh trong chiến tranh Nguyễn,” 2; Lê Quang Định, Hoàng Việt nhất thống dư địa chí, 52–3. Mantienne, “Transfer,” 525–6. Ibid., 527. Công, “Hệ thống phòng thủ Vauban ở Việt Nam trường hợp thành Hà Nội,” 37–41. Salles, “J-B Chaigneau,” 77–8. Martin, “History Repeats Itself,” 101. In Cochinchina alone there were 80,000 Christians by the late 1820s. Ramsay, Mandarins and Martyrs, 28. Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 18–20; Cooper, France in Indochina, 12–13. Ramsay, Mandarins and Martyrs, 45–51, 137–8. Daughton, An Empire Divided, 59–69. Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 20–4; Cooper, France in Indochina, 13. Bertrand, Indochine, 186; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 25; Cooper, France in Indochina, 13–14. Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 28; Thompson, French Indo-China, 265–6. Thompson, French Indo-China, 59. Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 40–8; Cooper, France in Indochina, 16–17; Thompson, French Indo-China, 62–9. Cadeau and Klein, “Conquêtes et résistances,” 28–34; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 48–64. Cooper, France in Indochina, 16. Ibid., 25. Thompson, French Indo-China, 425. Ibid., 62. Wright, The Politics of Design, 181. Bertrand, Indochine, 211; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 80–97. Jennings, Imperial Heights, 19.

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96 Letter of 20 February 1792 reproduced in Nouvelles lettres édifiantes, 7:170–1. 97 “et même il n’ira pas à la guerre cette année, il a fait construire ici une ville assez forte à l’européenne.” irfa, 801, 306, letter from Boisserand to mep procurator general Létondal, 27 May, 1790. See Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 128. 98 Cadière, “Documents relatifs,” 33. 99 “Le Roy, après avoir levé le siège de devant la capitale de son ennemi, vint se retrancher dans une province voisine. M. Olivier de Carpentras officier à son service, lui fit un fort a l’européenne.” irfa , 746, 473–4, letter from Labrousse to Boiret, 13 May 1795. The passage is also quoted in Nouvelles lettres édifiantes, 7:285. See also Mantienne, Pierre Pigneaux, 128, who gives the incorrect folio number. Missionary Pierre Lavoué (d. 1796) referred to Diên Khánh citadel as “une ville que le Roi a fait batir à l’Européene.” irfa , 746, 525 (Saigon, 6 August 1796). 100 bnf , département Cartes et plans, ge sh 18 pf 180 div 2 p 7 d, n.f. 101 Mantienne, “Transfer,” 523. 102 On Bélidor see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 158–63. 103 Mantienne, “Transfer,” 528; Võ Liêm, “La capitale,” 279. 104 Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 92–3. 105 White, A Voyage to Cochin China, 225, 220; Mantienne, “Transfer,” 524; Malleret, Éléments, 68–71. 106 Mantienne, “Transfer,” 528; Võ Liêm, “La capitale,” 279. 107 Mantienne, “Transfer,” 523–24; Malleret, Éléments, 56. See also Công, “Hệ thống phòng thủ Vauban ở Việt Nam trường hợp thành Hà Nội,” 38. 108 White wrote of the walls that they were “of brick and earth, about twenty feet high, and of immense thickness enclos[ing] a quadrilateral area, of nearly three quarters of a mile in extent, on each side.” White, A Voyage to Cochin China, 220. 109 Malleret, “Éléments,” 45–6. 110 White, A Voyage to Cochin China, 220. 111 Mantienne, “Transfer,” 524. For seventeenth- and eighteenth-century citadel plans in the CircumCaribbean and Guiana see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 205–6. For the Lille plan see Barros et

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139 Cooper, France in Indochina, 29–30. 140 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 219–29; Cooper, France in Indochina, 21–3. 141 Cooper, France in Indochina, 39. 142 On the Vietnamese village community see: Trần and Nguyễn, “Reframing the ‘Traditional,’” 61–88. 143 Cherry, Down and Out, 4–5. 144 Wright, Politics of Design, 182–3. 145 Edwards, Saigon, 91. 146 See Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 241–78.

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1 Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 276; Fondation Clément, Le patrimoine, 334; McClellan, Colonialism and Science, 95; Médéric-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue (Philadelphia, 1797), 1:360–4. William Henry attended a performance in 1783. 2 Camier, “Les spectacles musicaux,” 10. 3 Macdonald, Saint-Saëns and the Stage, 250; Irving, “Lully in Siam,” 407. 4 On the Oran opera house, see Wylie, “The Importance,” 172, 174; on the Constantine opera house see Hautecœur, Histoire de l’architecture, 7:195–6. See also Lepagnot, “Les théâtres.” 5 Camus, The Plague, 201. 6 Wright, The Politics of Design, 161. See also Cooper, “Urban Planning and Architecture.” 7 yamono, “Global Currents,” 60; Gilmour, The British in India, 448. 8 On the struggle between Catholic missionaries and the secularist colonial government in French Indochina and elsewhere, see Daughton, An Empire Divided, 6–13. On the secularist missionary program of the French Republic, particularly under Jules Ferry, see Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:190–1; Bancel et al., La République coloniale, 34–45. 9 Krautheimer, “Introduction.” On the Altötting and Loreto shrines see Bailey, “A Bavarian Pilgrimage Shrine”; Vélez, The Miraculous Flying House. 10 Quoted by Nicola Cooper (who mistakenly identifies him as “J. Brébion”), in her France in Indochina, 45 (translation from the French is my own). The quotation appears in Bouchet, “La naissance,” 100.

11 His birth certificate is included in his Beaux-Arts dossier: inha , École Nationale et Spéciale des BeauxArts, No 1162 de Registre Matricule (28 January 1897), document 166. 12 Bảo et al., Kiến trúc và Quy hoạch Hà Nội thời kỳ Pháp thuộc, 41–3; Herbelin, Architectures, 284–91; Le Brusq, Vietnam, 163–5. Herbelin aptly compares it to the city hall of a large provincial city in France. 13 The street and garden facade and plans of the ground and first floors were published in La construction moderne 25 (1920): 410 (plates 205–8), which also notes that Lichtenfelder won a bronze medal for this building in the last salon. 14 “Les dispositions architecturales d’ensemble & de détail de l’hôtel de ville donnent lieu à des critiques de la part de la Commission qui estime que la décoration vise trop à l’effet & présente des complications d’un goût douteux que ne comportent nullement les matériaux employés, briques & enduits. […] Si l’on devait se maintenir dans le chiffre prévu, il conviendrait de concevoir un monument beaucoup plus sobre; cela pourrait d’ailleurs être obtenu sans nuire à l’aspect du monument auquel le caractère architectural adopte ne convient pas.” anom, 94 col 4tp7, “Examen de travaux de bâtiments et de voirie pour les villes de Hanoï et Saïgon.” (Séance du 10 juin 1899), ff.191a–192a. 15 “Au point de vue artistique, les constructions projetés semblent, en général, avoir été conçues pour être édifiées dans une ville quelconque de la Métropole avec une surcharge excessive de moulures et d’ornementation; on peut regretter que les conditions climatériques et techniques spéciales a la région n’aient pas provoqué la création d’une sorte de style local plus diffèrent de celui des édifices similaires de nos pays.” anom , 4tp 1, Registre no 4. Séances du 30 novembre 1895 au 5 septembre 1896, “Examen des dossiers des bâtiments civils à réaliser au Tonkin. Séance du 2 décembre 1895,” ff.42b–43a. For the first project, which would have cost almost 1,600,000 piastres (16,000,000 francs), see anom , 1tp 578, “Hôtel du gouvernement général: Plans, élévations, coupes (1/200). Devis descriptif. Estimation sommaire des dépenses” (1895). I am basing my calculation on the piastre to franc rate of 2.45 (1898). Bulletin économique de l’Indochine, 1 July 1898, 46.

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

45 46

47

Baudrit, Extraits, 1:343. Ibid., 344. Les colonies françaises, 3:52–3. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 166. Baudrit, Extraits, 1:345, 347. Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 77. Baudrit, Extraits, 1:348. First names are not given in the Extraits; however, Antoine Genet was the inspector general of the Bâtiments civils de la Cochinchine in 1900 and Louis-Constantin Bergé was listed as an “architecte-voyer” in 1893 and “architecte à Saigon” and member of the Société des Études Indo-Chinoises in 1899. Delaire, Les architects élèves, 273; Roux, Les colonies françaises, 136; Annuaire de l’Indo-Chine, 131. In 1898 Genet also designed the “Villa Blanche,” the residence of Governor-General Paul Doumer at Cap Saint-Jacques (Vung Tàu). Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 223. Bergé’s life dates and other information about his career are in his 1925 file as a chevalier in the Legion of Honour. Archives nationales de France; site de Fontainebleau (hereafter anff), 19800035/195/25398 (38ff ). The life dates for both architects are given here for the first time. 55 Exposition théâtre et de la musique, Palais de l’industrie, 2:175. Audouin was the “architecte de la commune d’Azeffoun (Algérie)” and designed the hôtel de ville in Aumale (now Sour El-Ghozlane) in 1895. La construction moderne (Paris), 11 January 1895, 180. His 1903 marriage certificate to Josephine Vanhandenhoven shows that both his parents had lived and died in Algeria (in 1890 and 1895 respectively) although Georges was born in Caillebourg (Charente-Inférieure) on 17 March 1860. Dainville, Archives de Pas-de-Calais (hereafter ap dc ), Etat civil, Mariages (1903), 3e 193a /221, no 513. According to a newspaper report of 1903 Ardouin took a public course in pattern-making organized by the city of Paris, winning a prize that year in a design competition. Le XIX e siècle: journal quotidien politique et littéraire (17 February, 1903). Ardouin’s obituary appeared in L’Echo d’Alger: journal républicain du matin, 16 August 1920. Ardouin’s full name life dates are given here for the first time. I am grateful to Mme Brigitte Denis for Genet’s burial record, which appears in her family’s private archives in Var. 56 Baudrit, Extraits, 1:349.

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Kleinen, “Théâtre et Empire,” 438–40. Baudrit, Extraits des registres, 1:47. Spies, Opera, State and Society, 175. Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:194. Baudrit, Extraits, 1:47. Kleinen, “Théâtre et Empire,” 435, 437; McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 136–7, 165. yamono, “Global Currents,” 70. Quoted in Cherry, Down and Out, 130. Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour, 172. Lewis, A Dragon Apparent, 21. Greene, The Quiet American, 155. Sitwell, Escape with Me!, 51. See also Cherry, Down and Out, 156. Sitwell, Escape with Me!, 51–2. On the 1925 Exposition des arts décoratifs in Paris, see Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:281–3. Sitwell, Escape with Me!, 52. Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:238, 281–323. Ibid., 201–2, 238. yamono, “Global Currents,” 54–74; Kleinen, “Théâtre et Empire,” 435–42; McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 135–66. Fulcher, The Nation’s Image, 49, 202–3. McLellan, “Performing Empire,” 144–6; yamono, “Global Currents,” 61–5. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 161; yamono, “Global Currents,” 60. Kleinen, “Théâtre et Empire,” 442. Grey, “Opera and Music Drama,” 1:393. See also Locke, “Cutthroats and Casbah Dancers,” 124. Cherry, Down and Out, 19. “Recueil factice progr. extr. de presse et doc. sur le Théâtre à Saigon (1901–1902).” bnf , 8-rf -81053. bnf, 8-rf-81053, f.1b. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 142. Ferrière, L’Indo-Chine, 13. Wright, The Politics of Design, 185. Cooper, “Urban Planning,” 77. See also Cooper, France in Indochina, 46. Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 77, 235. Baudrit, Extraits, 1:46. For instance the work of Jacques Offenbach was performed in the ballroom of the governor’s mansion. Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 77. Cussinet, “Influence de l’architecture,” 40.

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57 On 18 March 1896, there was discussion about which wood to use. Teak was the better wood (and preferred by the military) but was imported (presumably from British Burma) and more expensive, whereas “bois de Sao” was almost as good and local, Baudrit, Extraits, 1:353. 58 Ibid., 349. 59 Ibid., 352. 60 Ibid. 61 L’Évènement (16 November 1895). The same story appears in Le Gaulois, 17 October 1895, 3. 62 “En 1897–1898 – Architecte correspondant de la Ville de saïgon pour les travaux du nouveau Théâtre municipal édifié sur ses plans.” anff , 19800035/751/85208, “Légion d’honneur: Ollivier, Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie.” 63 “J’ai été en 1897–1898 l’Architecte correspondant de la Ville de Saïgon (Cochinchine Française) pour les travaux du nouveau Théâtre Municipal qui ont été exécutés d’après mes plans et sous ma direction en tant que : sculpture ornementale et statuaire, peinture décorative, machinerie, décors, alors que Monsieur Paul doumer était Gouverneur de l’Indochine.” Letter to General Dubail, Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, Paris, 4 May 1927, anff , 19800035/751/85208. 64 The tender was awarded on 15 January 1897. Baudrit, Extraits, 1:356. The firm and its offices were listed in The Chronicle & Directory, 362. 65 Baudrit, Extraits, 1:357. 66 Ibid., 1:358. This source does not identify Bruder; however he is mentioned in a book on theatrical special effects as the chief machinist at the Opéra. Moynet, Trucs et décors, 42. 67 On Deglane, see Epron, Comprendre l’éclectisme, 326; Drexler, Architecture, 457. On Roume see Olivier, “Nécrologie,” 253–8. 68 “Ville de Saigon: Le programme des travaux projetés comprend l’achèvement du théâtre, la construction de magasins & ateliers pour la voirie & d’un hôtel de ville, et l’agrandissement de l’abattoir. Aucune justification n’est donnée à l’appui des propositions faites. En ce qui concerne le théâtre, M. Deglane fait observer que le dossier n’indique pas l’état d’avancement de ce monument; il est donc impossible de

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

se rendre compte si la somme de 1.019.700 fr sera suffisante pour son achèvement. M. Pontzen est d’avis que le projet de théâtre, sur lequel il n’y a plus à revenir puisqu’il est en cours de construction, donne lieu à des observations qu’il lui parait néanmoins utile d’indiquer afin que l’on ne puisse considérer l’avis émis par le Comité comme impliquant une approbation des dispositions projetées. En ce qui le concerne, il estime que le théâtre, qui ne sera pas fréquenté par les indigènes, est beaucoup trop grand, en égard à la population européenne de Saigon. Les dispositions d’ensemble & de détail, qui seraient très convenables dans un grand théâtre de province, ne tiennent aucun compte des conditions climatériques & locales de la Colonie. M. Roume fait observer que Saigon est une grande & belle ville & que le nombre des européens qui y résident ou y sont de passage justifie la construction d’un grand théâtre européen. M. Deglane indique que le cube d’air par spectateur est environ le double de celui que comportent les théâtres de France; la ventilation est bien assurée: on a donc à ce point de vue tenu compte des conditions spéciales du climat de Saigon. Le Président résumant la discussion, propose au Comité d’émettre l’avis que les justifications jointes au dossier ne permettent pas de se rendre compte si la somme prévue sera suffisante pour achever un monument, dont l’état d’avancement n’est même pas indiqué. Le Comité adopte cette conclusion.” anom , 94 col 4tp 7, “Examen de travaux de bâtiments et de voirie pour les villes de Hanoï et Saïgon” (Séance du 10 juin 1899): ff.188b–189b. Letter of 2 October 1899. Baudrit, Extraits, 1:360. Ibid., 361–2. Ibid., 358. Le Figaro, 24 December 1900, 5. The same article appeared in Le Ménestrel: journal de musique (Paris, 30 December 1900): 415. Ferrière et al., L’Indo-Chine, 13. Cherry, Down and Out in Saigon, 18; Ferrière, L’Indo-Chine, 13. Bert, “Nos colonies,” 578. Le Temps, 15 December 1902. Cochinchine française: session extraordinaire de 1903, 42.

91 92 93 94 95

96 97

98

99

Pasler, “Music Criticism,” 203; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 29 January 1887, 6; and Bulletin officiel de l’Indochine française (1891), 412. In the marriage certificate of his son Gaston-Henri-Raoul, a composer, Knosp père’s profession is given as a “pianiste.” anom , Gouvernement Général de L’Indo-Chine, Résidence-Mairie de Hanoi (Tonkin), Registre des Actes de l’État Civil, Mariages 1903, No 3. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 May 1906, 1. The Parisian music magazine Le Ménestral quoted the total price as $80,000, or 200,000 francs, Le Ménestral, 26 November 1899, 383. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 May 1906, 2. Knosp tried unsuccessfully to sue the city. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 May 1906, 2. E. Bourrin claims that Harlay was hired on 30 March 1901. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. Bourdeaud’s first name, life dates, and biographical material are published here for the first time (see below: “Architects of the Théâtre de Saigon and Théâtre municipale de Hanoi”). His name is often spelled incorrectly in the press, especially as “Bourdeand” and “Bourdaud.” L’Avenir du Tonkin, 1 November 1900, 1. Bourrin gives the amount as 240,000 piastres. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. I am grateful to Khieu Anh Nguyen for drawing these plans to my attention and for providing me with an HD scan. The 1902–03 Exposition d’Hanoï, also known as the Exposition des produits agricoles et industriels et des oeuvres d’art de la France, des colonies françaises et de pays de l’Extrême-Orient, included representations from all the French colonies as well as the British and Dutch East Indies, China, Japan, Siam, and the Philippines. Falser, Angkor Wat, 239n18. “Avis du Résident Maire: Le Conseil Municipal vient de consacrer 1e vote émis déjà, le 26 Juin dernier, par sa commission des travaux et du budget. Il a approuvé pleinement les plans aujourd’hui réalisés du projet de théâtre que cette commission avait adopté en principe et voté leur mise à exécution immédiate. Les efforts les plus grands vont être tentés pour que selon le désir de M. le Gouverneur Général, la construction soit, si possible, achevée pour l’Exposition de 1902. La dépense totale y

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78 Le Quinzaine Coloniale, 25 April 1907, 300. See also Wright, Politics of Design, 185. 79 Drexler, Architecture, 455–7. 80 Girveau, Charles Garnier, 246–7; Drexler, Architecture, 432–41. 81 For its appearance when the facade had been stripped of all its relief sculpture see Desbenoit, Patrimoine architectural, 87. 82 Le Brusque and Selva, Vietnam, 77. 83 For the dimensions of the Saigon theatre, see Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 146. For the dimensions of the Palais Garnier, see Nuitter, Le nouvel opéra, 249–50. 84 Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 146; Cooper, France in Indochina, 46; Wright, Politics of Design, 185. On the capacity of the Garnier Opéra see Nuitter, Le nouvel opéra, 248. 85 Bassalo, Art Nouveau em Belém, 89–96; Duarte, Manaus, 1:66–69. Hoos, El Teatro Colón; Álvarez Hernández, Ópera en Chile; Affron and Affron, Grand Opera, 24–75, 231; Beauvert, Opera Houses of the World, 132, 192. The Santiago theatre is a near twin of that of Hanoi, perhaps because it was also built by a Frenchman: Beaux-Arts graduate LucienAmbroise Henault (1823–1908). On Henault see Delaire, Les architectes, 291. 86 “Hanoi Opera House,” http://luutruquocgia1.org. vn/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/1-a-ggg.jpg (accessed 27 January 2020). 87 McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 149–51. 88 Bảo, Kiến trúc, 48; Lê et al., Traits d’architecture, 104; “Hanoi Opera House,” http://luutruquocgia1.org. vn/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/1-a-ggg.jpg (accessed 27 January 2020); Logan, Hanoi, 93; Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 147. 89 L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 May 1906, 1. I have determined the exchange rate based on reports in news stories of the time: it was approximately 2.30 francs to the piastre. 90 Ibid. See also Gouvernement général, 71, which places the concours in 1899. Knosp had lived in Hanoi since 1890, became a French citizen in 1891, wrote for the L’Indépendance tonkinoise, and was editor of Le Tonkin before winning the Hanoi theatre competition. For more on Knosp see

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compris la somme à valoir, est estimée après sérieux établissement des devis a 800.000 francs. Le Conseil Municipal a émis le vœu que le Gouvernement de la Colonie voulut bien pour une œuvre qui a vraiment un caractère d’utilité générale, surtout à la veille de l’Exposition, prêter son bienveillant concours à la ville en lui en avançant sur la somme ci-dessus indiquée celle de 500.000 francs que celle-ci lui rembourserait en 10 ans par exemple par des annuités régulières inscrites d’office a ses budgets. Cette combinaison, en substituant le Gouvernement de la Colonie aux entrepreneurs comme créancier de la ville aurait l’avantage très appréciable de permettre à la Municipalité de ne pas contracter avec ces derniers des engagements à long terme et naturellement très onéreux, étant donné le taux de l’intérêt dans ce pays. Il y a quelques années déjà, le Protectorat a, par une combinaison analogue, permis à a ville d’opérer le rachat des marchés qui constituent aujourd’hui un des meilleurs et plus riches éléments de son budget. La Municipalité avec une régularité absolue, a achevé aujourd’hui de rembourser la somme prêtée et cette régularité même, jointe au développement régulier et incessant de ses ressources doit sembler au Gouvernement la plus sûre garantie pour l’avenir. M. le Gouverneur Général a bien voulu donner son approbation personnelle a ces plans du nouveau théâtre et se montrer très satisfait de la méthode d’après laquelle ils ont été conçue Lui-même, avec beaucoup de bienveillance, a spontanément émis l’idée d’une combination financière qui en faciliterait pour la ville l’exécution. Je serais infiniment reconnaissant à Monsieur le Résident Supérieur, s’il voulait bien, au nom des considérations que je viens d’exposer et des intérêts municipaux, appuyer auprès de M. le Gouverneur Général le vœu émis par le Conseil Municipal et que je recommande à toute sa bienveillance personnelle./. Le Résident-Maire. Signé: Baille” (Hanoi, 10 January 1901). Hanoi, Vietnam National Archives Centre Number 1 (hereafter vnac 1), r.s.t. r 62 21 571, “Ville de Hanoi, Conseil Municipal, Extrait du Procès-Verbal de la séance extraordinaire du 7 Janvier 1901,” f.85. 100 “Construction d’un théâtre municipal à Hanoï” (25 April 1901), vnac 1, r 62 127, ff.34–5, 62. See

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also Annuaire général (1905), 694; Gouvernement général de l’Indochine, Ville de Hanoï, 71; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 May 1906, 2. On Charavy and Savalon, see The Directory & Chronicle, 513. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 18/19 March 1901, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 15 December 1901, 2. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 30 July 1902, 2. “Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, élévation latérale” (1 December 1905) and “Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, élévation postérieure,” vnac 1, kt 567-3. “Nhà hát Lớn Hà Nội, chuyện bây giờ mới kể” (“Hanoi Opera House, the Story Is Now Told”) (22 December 2017) https://www.nguoiduatin.vn/ nha-hat-lon-ha-noi-chuyen-bay-gio-moi-kea352389.html (accessed 1 February 2020). Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6–7 March 1905. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 148. “arrêté : Art. Ier. – Il est fait cession à titre gratuit à la Ville de Hanoi, pour la construction d’un théâtre et pour l’ouverture de voies aux abords de théâtre, de cinq parcelles de terrain d’une superficie totale de 235 arcs 55 (deux cent trente-cinq acres cinquante-cinq centiares) appartenant au Domaine Colonial. Lesdites parcelles figurent teintées en rose sur le plan ciannexé, dressé le 11 Mars 1901 par l’Architecte-Voyer Chef du Service de la Voirie de Hanoi. Art 2. – La Ville de Hanoi entrera en possession et jouissance de ces terrains, à compter du jour de la notification qui lui sera faite du présent arrêté, sans recours possible pour cause de troubles évictions, revendications de toute nature qui pourraient survenir à leur sujet. Art 3. – La cession est faite, a la charge pour la Ville de Hanoi, de faire procéder à l’édification du théâtre projeté et à l’ouverture des voies aux abords. […] signé: J. Fourès Directeur général des Travaux Publics” (Hanoi, 22 April 1901), vnac 1, r.s.t. r 62 21 571, ff.89a–89b. Gouvernement général de l’Indochine, 71; Annuaire général, 694. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6–7 March 1905, gives the number of posts as 32,000. “Cahier des charges pour les travaux de couverture, fermes métalliques, plomberie, ringage, menuiseries, serrurerie et vitrerie” (29 March 1901), vnac 1, r62 127, ff.49–60; “Travaux de construction 1er

111 112 113

114

115 116 117 118 119

126 127 128 129

130 131

132

133 134

135 136 137

auxquels il serait le plus économique d’avoir recours.” L’Avenir du Tonkin, 28 December 1906, 2. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 29 December 1906, 2. Ibid. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 28 July 1906, 2. “Extrait du Procès-Verbal de la séance extraordinaire du 14 Janvier 1907,” vnac 1, Archives 3e Bureau, 44, ff.83–6. See also L’Avenir du Tonkin, 1 January 1907, 2. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 153. “Achever ceux qui ne sont pas complets et les simplifier si possible,” vnac 1, h 565, h 51, 1t 1, b 1, “Ville de Hanoï. Achèvement du Theatre Municipal. Rapport de l’Architecte des Bâtiments civils” (30 September 1908), f.1. “Ville de Hanoi – Théâtre Municipal, façade principale” (15 April 1909). The cover letter, entitled “Achèvement du Théâtre Municipal: travaux extérieurs. Modification des façades,” bears Lagisquet’s signature. vnac 1, kt 566-2. Bourrin made the remarks about the inspiration behind Lagisquet’s project. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. vanc1, “Ville de Hanoi. Achèvement du Théâtre Municipal. Récapitulation des détails estimatifs des travaux” (30 April 1909). vanc1, “Ville de Hanoï, Achèvement du Théâtre Municipal 2e Lot. Décompte provisoire N. 5 des ouvrages exécutés et des dépenses faites à la date de 20 juillet 1910 par M. Labaye Entrepreneur” (20 July 1910), f.1a. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. Ibid. “Hanoi, le 24 Octobre 1910. Installation provisoire du Théâtre Municipal. Rapport de l’Architecte Auxiliaire des Bâtiments Civils chargé des Travaux. Conformément aux instructions de M. L’Administrateur Maire de la Ville de Hanoi, nous avons dressé le projet adjoint pour l’Exploitation provisoire du nouveau Théâtre. Nous exposons succinctement les conditions dans lesquelles pourra se faire cette installation: 1o vestibule d ’entree . – Le vestibule du rez-de-chaussée sera ménagé pour permettre l’accès aux escaliers conduisant aux fauteuils d’orchestre et à ceux des 2èmes Galeries desservant également les loges des 1ères Galeries. L’escalier

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120 121 122 123 124 125

lot. Cahier des charges pour travaux de terrassements, maçonneries et charpente métallique ou bois pour plancher” (29 March 1901), vnac 1, R 62 127, ff.35–45. Gouvernement général, 71. vnac1, r62 127, ff.34–5. See also Gouvernement général, 74. For Morin’s full name and title, see Annuaire général de l’Indochine (1909), 527. “Rôle des journées des ouvriers employés du 1er au 30e Novembre 1911,” vnac 1, rst r 62 21 571, f.18. In nineteenth- and twentieth-century Indochina many women made an independent living as head of their households making soup and selling it in mobile stands on the street. See Cherry, Down and Out, 30. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 18 May 1902, 3. For Fraipoint’s full name and profession see L’Avenir du Tonkin, 1 November 1906. On Vollet, see Lobstein, Défense et illustration, 80. On Duvent, see Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 124. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 May 1906, 2; Gouvernement général, 73–4. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 May 1906, 2. Ibid. Ibid. “Marché passé entre la ville de Hanoï et M. Vola pour la fourniture et pose de marches d’escaliers et dalles en pierre nécessaires au nouveau théâtre de Hanoï” (1904), vnac 1, r.s.t. r 62 21 574. I am grateful to Arnauld Le Brusq for pointing me toward this document. For the reference to Delarouzée see Gouvernement général, 73; for Delarouzée’s full name see Annuaire général de l’Indochine (1909), 522. For Vola’s full name see ibid., 530. Gouvernement général, 74–5. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 153. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 4 November 1906, 3. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 21 November 1906, 2. Ibid., 2–3. “Les membres du Conseil municipal se sont réunis en commission hier, dans l’après-midi pour entendre le rapport de M. Bossard, architecte diplômé du Gouvernement, sur les travaux projetés en vue de l’achèvement du théâtre et examiner les desseins des projets. – Les conseillers municipaux ont eu également à se prononcer sur les moyens financiers

415

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NoTeS To pAgeS 244–51

140 141 142

416

central dit escalier d’honneur ne sera pas exécuté. 2o foyer de l ’etage . – La construction du Foyer de l’étage sera réservée. Le public aura la disposition des deux salons à droite et à gauche du Foyer, des deux terrasses sur façades latérales et de la loggia du 1er étage donnant sur la façade principale.” vanc 1, 4 2/3, “Rapport du 24 Octobre 1910 de l’Architecte auxiliaire des Bâtiments civils chargé des Travaux sur l’achevement proviso ire du Théâtre municipal de la ville de Hanoï.” See also Rapports au Conseil de gouvernement, 32. Brieux, Voyage aux Indes, 37–8. Among the many volumes of such tenders in the Vietnam National Archives Number 1 are “Ville de Hanoi, Achèvement du Théâtre Municipal. Construction de la Machinerie de Scène 2e Lot. Cahier des Charges” (22 November 1910); “Eclairage électrique du Nouveau Théâtre Cahier des Charges” (19 February 1911); and “Ville de Hanoi. Service de Travaux. Objet : Travaux d’aménagement du Théâtre municipal (près à la rue Paul Bert) 1er lot: Maçonnerie, charpente en fer et en bois, quincaillerie et menuiserie. […] Procès-verbal d’adjudication” (28 février 1911), which notes that “Monsieur Lagisquet architecte auxiliaire des Bâtiments civils chargé des travaux assiste à la séance.” vanc 1, 17 53, 66. Tarling, Orientalism, 37. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 156. “Ville de Hanoï. Travaux par Régie. Achèvement du Theatre Municipal. Mémoire de fournitures faites par M. Vuong-vinh Tuy commercant demeurant a Hanoï” (7 October 1912), vanc 1, 25, f.1a; “Procès-verbal de réception définitive du 17 Janvier 1913 sur l’achèvement du Théâtre municipal, 3e lot: travaux de peinture, vitrerie et ameublement,” vanc1, rs h7 79.203; “Ville de Hanoï. Théâtre Municipal, détail de l’escalier coupes A, B, et C, D” (20 December 1913), vanc 1, h 566, 30 (3); “Ville de Hanoï. Théâtre Municipal. Détail des mosaïques des paliers d’escalier,” signed Adolphe Bussy (1914), vanc1, h565, 13 (22). On Bussy and the Grand Palais in Hanoi, see LeBrusq, Vietnam, 196, 233. The palace had a 100-metre-long facade featuring a monumental colonnade and false dome at the centre. It was destroyed by a US aerial bombardment during the Second World War. On the Résidence

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152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

supérieure, see Bảo, Kiến trúc, 43–6; Le Brusq, Vietnam, 165–6. Vương Vĩnh Tuy also provided furnishings for the Tonkinese section of the Indochina pavilion in the 1925 decorative arts exhibition in Paris. See L’Art et les Artistes 11 (March–July 1925): 360–1; L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine (11 October 1925): 11. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. Le Brusq, Vietnam à travers l’architecture coloniale, 193. Gouvernement général de l’Indochine, Ville de Hanoï, 72. Le Brusq, Vietnam, 193. These were already described in the 1905 account. Gouvernment général de l’Indochine, 72. Ibid. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. vanc1, rst r62 44772, “Ville de Hanoï – Théâtre Municipal. Plan du 1er Etage” (1911). vanc1, h 566 b32, “Ville de Hanoï – Achèvement du Theatre municipal – Portes d’entree escaliers latéraux de dégagement” (10 March 1910, signed Lagisquet). Quoted in Zanten, “Architectural Composition,” 261. Gouvernment général de l’Indochine, 72. vanc1, h566 30 (3) 49, “Ville de Hanoï – Théâtre municipal – Détail achèvement du Foyer” (1913). vanc1, h566 30 (3) 49, “Ville de Hanoï – Théâtre municipal – Détail de l’escalier coupes AB et CD ” (1913). Bảo, Kiến trúc, 48. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 154; Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. I am grateful to Khieu Anh Nguyen for drawing this plan to my attention. Gouvernment général de l’Indochine, 72. Brieux, Voyage, 38. See also Tarling, Orientalism, 37; Wright, The Politics of Design, 162. Brieux, Voyage, 38; italics in original. Bourrin, “Un monument Garnier,” 1. McClellan, “Performing Empire,” 159. His full name appears in Cote de la Bourse et de la banque, 15 November 1906, 4. For the announcement of his election to the Legion of Honour, see L’Écho de Paris, 22 January 1933, 2.

178 Drexler, Architecture, 442–3; Hautecoeur, Histoire, 196–7. 179 amvc , 4f i31, “Ville de Cannes – Projet de casino municipal. Elévation principale” (1904–05), signed A. Capron, de Ruhl, C. Mari, approved by the Prefect, Nice, 7 November 1905. 180 Conti et al., Sanremo tra due secoli, 227–8. 181 Ibid., 188. 182 Cote de la Bourse et de la banque, 15 November 1906, 4 183 anff , 19800035/146/18647, f.3. 184 “Motifs de la Proposition: m. ferret , Ingénieur Architecte Diplômé, âgé de 80 ans est arrivé en Cochinchine en 1886. Il a pris une part très importante et très efficace au développement économique de la Colonie comme Concessionnaire des Tramways et Chemins de fer sur route de Saigon à Cholon, et de Saigon a Govap; fondateur de a Cie française des Tramways de l’Indochine; Concessionnaire par voie de concours, de l’éclairage électrique de la ville de Saigon; constructeur du Théâtre municipal de Saigon et nombre d’autres entreprises d’intérêt public. A participé à l’Exposition coloniale internationale de 1931 comme Membre du Comité d’Admission de la Section de l’Indochine.” anff , 19800035/146/18647, f.3. 185 “1121 Ferret. Le quatorze Novembre mil neuf cent trente-six, six heures quinze, est décédé en son domicile, 35 rue Notre Dame de Lorette, Eugène Alexandre Nicolas ferret , né à Paris, le vingt-six avril mil huit cent cinquante-un, architecte, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, fils de Eugène Alexis ** ferret, et de Marie Jeanne flety, époux décédés. Divorcé en premières noces de Mathilde denuelle . Epoux en secondes noces de Marie Désirée Joseph becaert . Dressé le quatorze Novembre écurant, * quatorze heures dix, sur la déclaration de Roger barbudaux , vingt-deux ans, employé, 7, rue Drouot qui, lecture faite, a signé avec Nous, Georges Hector bihourd , Adjoint au Maire du IXe Arrondissement de Paris.” Archives de Paris (hereafter ap ), 9d 154, État civile, 9ème arrondissement (1936), Décès No 1121. 186 Delaire, Les architects, 362. His birth certificate is included in his dossier when he was made

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165 École Polytechnique: Livre du centenaire, 1794–1894 (Paris, 1894), 3:226. 166 anff , 19800035/146/18647, “Légion d’honneur: Ferret, Eugène Alexandre Nicolas” (21 May 1933). There is no evidence to suggest that he was related to Pierre-Raphaël Ferret, a student at the Beaux-Arts from Bordeaux who was born in 1877 and contributed a pavilion to the Exposition universelle of 1900. Delaire, Les architects. 259. 167 Although he won first prize in the concours and his Legion of Honour dossier claims that he built it, the neo-Renaissance structure that was constructed (demolished in 1964), is attributed to Auguste Depire (1845–1916). See Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, 31:48–50; Delattre et al., Roubaix, 107. 168 Cote de la Bourse et de la banque, 10 January 1884, 4. See also La Loi, 7 January 1884, 3. The other two investors were the local painter Paul-Félix Vallois (1845–1906), and the hotel proprietor GustaveThomas Aroux from nearby Froberville. 169 Dubosc, Trois Normands, 241. 170 anff , 19800035/146/18647, “Légion d’honneur: Ferret, Eugène Alexandre Nicolas” (21 May 1933); Cote de la Bourse et de la banque, 12 March 1890, 3. 171 That very year, on 12 June 1886, a sixty-five-year concession was announced for a railway line between Hanoi and Bac-Ninh. La construction moderne, 12 June 1886, 432. 172 anff , 19800035/146/18647, 3; Le Gaulois: “littéraire et politique,” 17 October 1895, 1. 173 For more on these orders, see Gillingham, Notes on the Decorations. 174 anff , 19800035/146/18647, f.3. 175 Park, “The Chosŏn Industrial Exposition,” 68; Kim, 20th Century Korean Art, 52–5; Kim, “The Appearance of Korean Architecture,” 352–4; Kane, “Display at Empire’s End,” 57. 176 Le Figaro, 26 June 1900, 2–3. For descriptions of the pavilion see: Paris Exposition, 1900, 313; Guide illustré du Bon Marché, 108. 177 Archives Municipales de la Ville de Cannes (hereafter amvc ), 4d 10, “Contentieux Ville c/De Fallois – Fournier – Ferret pour inexécution d’un traité passé pour la concession du casino municipal” (1899–1923).

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189 190 191

192 193 194 195 196 197

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198

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199 200 201 202

chevalier of the Legion of Honour. anff , 19800035/751/85208, “Légion d’honneur: Ollivier, Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie.” Lucan, Composition, non-composition, 118. See also Sutcliffe, Paris, 107; Zanten, “Architectural Composition,” 306–7. Ollivier, Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie, Clôture à jour pour une salle dans un musée des arts décoratifs. Elève de l’Ecole. Dessin scolaire d’architecture. ensba , god 48. On Guadet see Zanten, “Architectural Composition,” 254–5. Delaire, Les architects, 362. “Son projet pour le théâtre de Saïgon, aussitôt exécuté, avait attiré sur lui l’attention de tous.” anff , 19800035/751/85208, letter of 27 June 1934 written in Paris by A. Tournaire, president, to the minister of the interior. Indeed Bénézit lists him only as a painter. Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique, 3:389. Delaire, Les architects, 362. anff, 19800035/751/85208, “Légion d’honneur: Ollivier, Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie.” anf, aj/52/377, dossier d’élève, “Ollivier, Felix, Louis, Jean, Marie.” Personal communication from Lesly Rivera Tremolada, Guichard’s great-niece, on 27 August 2021. Delaire, Les architects, 285; La construction moderne (Paris), 28 March 1896, 312. His name is consistently given as Ernest-André in the literature when his marriage and death certificate show it was ErnestAmédée (see below). His address is given in his voter registration card of 1920. ap , Ville de Paris Liste de 1921 d 4 m 2 409 (1921). Guichard, Ernest-André, Fragment d’architecture (1890). ensba , C Hist arch 2ocl 26. On the difference between an esquisse and rendu see Arthur Drexler, “Preface and Acknowledgments,” in Drexler, Architecture, 8. La construction moderne (Paris), 28 March 1896, 312. Ernest-André Guichard, “Projet rendu concours d’émulation de 1ère Classe” (1895). ensba , pj 2381. Zanten, “Architectural Composition,” 290–1. In 1896 the partnership “Garnier-Guichard” received honourable mention for a contest for the Caserne de

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209

210

211 212 213

214

215

Sapeurs-Pompiers. La construction moderne, 6 June 1896, 432. ap, 6m 184, mariages, No 431, “Guichard et Marc” (11 June 1904); ap , Préfecture de la eine, Mairie du 6 Arrondissement, Extrait des Minutes des Actes de Décès, année 1953 265/763, No 380268, “Guichard, Ernest, 1 – 10 – 58.” Bénézit, Dictionnaire, 2:122. ensba, orn 81, “Vase à l’antique” (1874 or 1876); ensba, orn 75, “Cratere a Campagna” (1876). See Schwartz, ed., Gods and Heroes, cat. 116, p. 145. ensba, orn 99, “Torchère” (1876). Kerviler, Répertoire général, 1:218. Bapst, Essai sur l’histoire, 617–18. The maquettes of his designs for acts I and II of Thaïs (1894) are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which also has many other maquettes by the artist. Département Bibliothèque-musée de l’opéra, maq -263-64. John-Diéterle, “Les décorateurs,” 50; Girard, “L’évolution stylistique”; Wild, Décors et costumes, 2:291; D’Amico et al., Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, 3:94. For his dossier at the Legion of Honour, which includes his birth certificate and list of major works, see anf , lh /432/76, “Carpezat, Eugène-Louis” (1889). Those designed solely by Carpezat include: BNF , département Bibliothèque-musée de l’opéra, maq 181, 182, 201, 208, 235, 256, 263, 264, 272, 280, 401, 404. Bassalo, Art Nouveau em Belém, 93–5. John-Diéterle, “L’Opéra,” 50. Le Petit Marseillais (14 July 1984), 2; Annuaire général de l’Indochine (1909), 1001; L’Echo annamite, 3 January 1929, 6. See his obituary in Les Annales coloniales, 3 August 1929, 3. His military records are in the Archives départementales du Vaucluse in Avignon, av , ad 84 r 1223, Matricules, No 661. Archives de Paris (hereafter ap ), État civile, 9ème arrondissement, Naissances, v 4e 3517 7/136, No 695, 765 (15 April 1875). On his professional life, see Delaire, Les architectes, 188–9. On the Prix Deschaumes, see ibid., 146. Bossard, Jean-Isidore, Hôtel d’ambassade française à l’étranger, “1904” (Dessin scolaire d’architecture, Projet rendu concours d’émulation de 1ère Classe. ensba, PJ 2497.

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de la signification du dit jugement. Avons entrait du dit jugement et transcrit littéralement ce qui suit: Le Tribunal … par ces motifs, donne défaut faute de comparaitre contre Bossard. Déclare les époux Bossard divorcés aux torts et griefs du mari; confie les enfants issus de leur union a la garde de la dame Bossard … ainsi fait jugé et prononcé … En conséquence (suit la formule exécutoire) L’officier de l’état civil. (signed Edgard Berthemet)” ap , 16m 179, État civile, 16ème arrondissement, Mariages (31 October–18 November 1911), No 1408. The marriage took place on 18 May 1922: “Le dixhuit mai mil neuf cent vingt-deux, a onze heurs vingt devant nous, ont comparais publiquement en la maison commune Jean Isidore Bossard, architecte, né à Paris, neuvième arrondissement le onze avril mil huit cent soixante-quinze, quarante-sept ans, domicilié à Paris, 203 Boulevard Raspail; fils de Jean-Baptiste Bossard et de Zénobie Mechineau […] décédés; divorcé de Marianne Israël depuis le dix novembre mil neuf cent onze […] et Marie Armande Clémentine Rongier, sans profession, née a Blaye, Gironde, le trente janvier mil huit cent soixantedix-neuf, quarante-trois ans, domiciliée a Paris.” ap , 14m 276, État civil, 14ème arrondissement, Mariages (4 May – 23 May 1922), no 912. The divorce, finalized in Orléans on 13 July 1926, is noted in the margin. Pallini, “The Draining and the Competition,” 60–1. L’Écho d’Alger, 7 June 1940, 2. Most of the documents are in the Archives départementales du Nord in Lille (hereafter ADN ). His parents’ wedding took place on 25 November 1897 in Cantaing-sur-Escaut, where his father FrançoisHermand-Victor Harlay was described as an “instituteur public.” ADN , ec 464 ad 4, “Canton de Marcoing, Cantaing, Naissances, Mariages, Decès,” no 51. His birth certificate calls his father an “instituteur communal” and his mother Laure Desirée (née Taloppe) a “menagère.” ADN , 5mi 002 r 016, Floyon/ nmd, “An. 1865, Département du nord, Arrondissement d’Avesnes,” no 6. His marriage was celebrated in his wife’s birthplace of Cambrai on 17 January 1897 when Harlay was described as “domicilé à Hanoï (Tonkin)” but “resident à Lille.” ADN , 3e 6499, “L’état civil du Nord Cambrai, 1897–98,” no 155. The birth certificate of his son, Jacques Sydney Emile,

NoTeS To pAgeS 258–9

216 The marriage took place on 6 July 1905: “L’an mil neuf cent cinq le six juillet a onze heures et un quart du matin, acte de mariage de Jean Isidore Bossard né à Paris le onze avril mil huit-cent soixante-quinze, architecte, domicilié à Paris rue Mérimée 11, fils majeur de Jean Baptiste Bossard, monteur en bronze, domicilié à Paris rue des Pyrénées 229, consentant aux termes d’un acte reçue le vingt-six Juin dernier par l’officier de l’Etat civil du vingtième arrondissement de Paris et de Zénobie Mechineau son épouse décédée, d’une part. Et de Marianne Israël née à Paris le deux avril mil huit cent quatrevingt-un, sans profession, domicilié à Paris Rue Mérimée 11, fille majeure de Hirsch Israël orfèvre et de Henriette Simon son épouse, sans profession, domiciliés à Paris, rue Château Landon 8.” ap , 16m 141, État civile, 16ème arrondissement, Mariages, No 696 (6 July 1905)]. The spouse’s brother was a publicist named Simon Israel who was also a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The divorce was finalized on 10 November 1911: “L’an mil neuf cent onze, le dix novembre, à dix heures du matin. Nous, Edgard Berthemet, adjoint au maire, officier de l’état civil du seizième arrondissement de Paris, vu: 1. La signification a nous faite le six novembre courant de la grosse d’un jugement du Tribunal civil de Hanoï (Tonkin) en date du dix-huit juin, mil neuf cent dix rendu par défaut entre Marianne Bossard, d’une part. Et Jean Bossard, d’autre part. 2. La grosse du dit jugement. 3. Le certificat de maitre Dubreuilh, avocat défenseur à Hanoï, constatant que le dit jugement a été signifié le huit juillet mil neuf cent dix au sieur Bossard. 4. D’une ordonnance du Président du Tribunal civil de Hanoï ordonnant l’insertion du dit jugement dans le journal officiel de l’Indo Chine et le journal d’Indo-Chinois, la signification n’ayant pu être faite à la personne même du défaillant de deux exemplaires des journaux précisés portant la date du quatorze juillet, mil neuf cent dix et contenant insertion du jugement dont il s’agit. 6. Du certificat de non-opposition ni appel délivré le quatorze mai dernier par le Greffier du Tribunal civil de Hanoï, les dites pièces par nous paraphées et annexées, a l’exception de l’ordonnance et des exemplaires des journaux sus misés, donnés en communication et par Nous rendus a Maitre Arnoul huissier à Paris chargé

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from 26 September 1898, is in anom , “Registre des Actes de l’État Civil, Naissance” (1897–98), No 48. Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine française (1906), 385. His name does not appear in Delair, Les architectes élèves de l’École des beaux-arts, nor in Anne Lacourte, “Liste générale des élèves du corps et des élèves civils de l’École des ponts et chaussées 1744–1930” (2020), http://www.enpc.fr/sites/ enpc.fr/files/documents/eleves_corps_civils_ libres_courspreparatoires_1744_1930_fusionnee_ maj16.01.2020.pdf (accessed 15 March 2020). Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory, 281. Hautecoeur, Histoire, 7:417–19. The Opéra Garnier is illustrated in Reynaud, Traité d’architecture, 2:64–5. Gouvernement général de l’Indo-Chine, Ville de Hanoï, 50; Annuaire général de l’Indochine (1909), 524 (the reference to Bossard is on page 520); Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine (1910), 58; Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine (1911), 59. and, 1r3397, “Classe 1918: Cambrai, repertoire,” no 812. Himself a draughtsman and painter, Jacques exhibited at a 1928 salon and died in the city in 1961. Jacques Harlay produced posters for exhibitions and advertised in the Second Annual Exposition of the Amis des arts in Cambrai in 1928, a retrospective of the work of the sculptor E. Jh. Charlier. Amis des Arts, 67. That same year he exhibited some posters and paintings of women called Lisière de Forêt and Baigneuses in Septentrion: revue des marches du Nord (March 1928): 56. His father Alphè was “employé au télégraphe” and his mother Pauline Massa was a “couturière.” Nice, Archives départementales des Alpes-Maritimes (hereafter adam ), État civil, “Commune de Villefranche, Année 1864, Naissances,” no 5. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 25 April 1936, 6. ap, v4e 5480, État civile, 2ème arrondissement, Mariages, No 674 (29 October 1890); anom , “Registre des Actes de l’État Civil, Naissance” (1898– 99), No 26. Suzanne died in Nice in 1991. Léonie Blanche Bouderghem was born on 10 March 1870, in the 20th Arrondissement, daughter of a mechanic and a milliner. ap , v 4e 2473, État civile, 20ème arrondissement, Naissances, No 628 (10 March 1870).

229 The obituary claims that he retired in 1913 but his file with the Legion of Honour gives the date of his retirement as 8 July 1912. anf , lh /1441/46, “Légion d’honneur: Lagisquet, François Charles.” 230 Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:243. 231 Annuaire général de l’Indochine (1909), 525. 232 L’Avenir du Tonkin, 25 April 1936, 6. 233 Most of this information derives from his death record. Orléans, Archives municipales et communautaires (hereafter oamc ), 2e 385, Décès (1910), no 1112 (12 October 1910), f.371b. The reference to his business in Ivry-sur-Seine is in the Annuairealmanach du commerce, 3124. The announcement that it passed onto his son was made in the Journal du Loiret, 18 January 1911. 234 oamc , 2e 234, Décès (1868), no 334 (27 March 1868), f.112b; 2e 259, Mariages (1876), no 216 (20 July 1876), f.219b. The funeral of his first wife, Marie Catherine Incoul, in 1876 was attended by the widower’s uncle, also called Jean Bourdeaud, who was a paver. 235 Revue indochinoise illustrée (26 November 1900), 24. The announcement of his arrival on the ship Colombo was made in L’Avenir du Tonkin, 8 April 1896. c hA pT e r S e v eN 1 Wright, The Politics of Design, 76. 2 Lê, “Une architecture métissée”; Herbelin, Architectures du Vietnam, 61–110; Herbelin, “Construire le style,” 178; Cooper, France in Indochina, 47–52; Wright, The Politics of Design, 60–6, 202–33; Yiakoumis et al., Ernest Hébrard; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 42–6, 154–9, 180–99; Rabinow, “Savoir et pouvoir,” 26–43. 3 Cooper, France in Indochina, 48. 4 Le Brusq, “Les musées de l’Indochine,” 107–8. 5 Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 249. 6 Metcalf, An Imperial Vision, 96–7. 7 Herbelin, Architectures, 245. 8 La construction moderne, 15 January 1898, 188; 12 March 1898, 280; 25 June 1898, 462; 13 November 1897, 77–8, pl. 15. 9 La construction moderne, 15 January 1898, 188.

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53

54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61

Metcalf, Imperial Vision, 57–62. Ibid., 228–39. Kusno, Behind the Postcolonial, 28. Ibid., 34. See also Falser, Angkor, 2:71. Kusno, Behind the Postcolonial, 39. See also Passchier, Bowen in Indonesië, 109–11. Passchier, Bowen, 111; Kusno, Behind the Postcolonial, 43–5. Kusno, Behind the Postcolonial, 25–6; Morton, Hybrid Modernities, 60–2. Herbelin, Architectures; Herbelin, “Construire,” 171–88; Abbe, “Decadence and Revival”; Abbe, “Le Développement”; Le Brusq, Vietnam. Lê, “Une architecture métissée,” 252; Herbelin, Architectures, 43; Le Brusq, Vietnam, 83–4. Herbelin, Architectures, 27, fig. 2. Doling, Exploring, 104. See, for example, Clémentin-Ojha and Manguin, Un siècle pour l’Asie, 222. Muan, “Citing Angkor”; Abbe, “Decadence and Revival”; Abbe, “Développement.” anom, Protectorat Français au Cambodge: registre des actes de l’état civil, 1874–1887. Singararayan is in the volume for 1887, number 1. On the French citizenship enjoyed by Franco-Indochinese Eurasians and the “French from India,” see Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 190–1. anom, Protectorat Français au Cambodge: registre des actes de l’état civil, 1886, No 6. The family moved back to Marseille, where Paul got married in 1913 and he died there in 1966. ap, d4r 1 1412, “Groslier, Georges, Matricule 3792.” Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:384; Abbe, “Decadence,” 124; Herbelin, “Construire,” 176. Abbe mentions the Second Prix de Rome but does not give a source. Maignan’s obituary does not mention the École des Beaux-Arts. La République française (30 September 1908), 1. See also Alémany et al., Albert Maignan; Mallet, “Albert Maignan.” ap, d4r 1 1412. Anonymous, “Le ‘Salon.’” ap, d4r 1 1412. Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 230. See Abbe, “Decadence and Revival,” 124. Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:224.

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10 Coucherousset, “L’École des Beaux Arts,” 6. For the use of the term “style comprador” by a Vietnamese critic of the period, see Tha Sơn, “Đi tìm một lối kiến trúc ‘Annam,’” 1. 11 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 286. 12 Martin, “Staging China,” 137–43; Piazzardi, Italians at the Court of Siam; Noonbanjong, “Power, Identity,” 106–16. 13 Piazzardi, Italians at the Court of Siam, 16–22. 14 Suksri, The Grand Palace, 108–9. 15 Lewis, Cities in Motion, 91. 16 Martin, “Staging China,” 137. Martin is referring here specifically to Siam’s decision to participate in the Paris Exposition of 1867; however the quotation is appropriate for their adoption of European architectural styles. 17 Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:57–124. 18 Ibid., 1:95. 19 Ibid., 1:22–3. 20 Le Brusq, “Musées,” 101. 21 Falser, Angkor, 1:241; Wright, Politics of Design, 193–4. 22 Cooper, France in Indochina, 70. 23 Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 1–2. 24 Falser, Angkor, 1:337. See also Le Brusq, “Musées,” 100; Morton, Hybrid Modernities, 35–9. 25 Falser, Angkor, 1:332. 26 Cooper, France in Indochina, 93. On the uprising, see Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 315–16. 27 Falser, Angkor, 1:201–2, 238–9. 28 Herbelin, “Construire,” 172. 29 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 62. 30 Wright, Politics of Design, 75; Betts, Assimilation and Association, vii. 31 Cooper, France in Indochina, 19. 32 Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 191–219. 33 Cooper, France in Indochina, 29, 31–2. 34 Herbelin, “Construire,” 175–6. See also Lê, “Une architecture métissée,” 253; Herbelin, Architectures, 48–9; “Association” in Dulucq, Klein, and Stora, Les mots, 25; Morlat, “Projets coloniaux.” 35 Herbelin, Architectures, 49–52. 36 Metcalf, Imperial Vision, 55–7. 37 Ibid., 56. 38 Falser, Angkor, 1:52, 152–3.

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62 ap , d 4r 1 1412. 63 On the history of the flying corps in France in the First World War, see Auer-Véran, Archives de l’Aéronautique militaire, 9–44; on the 19th Squadron and Fifth Aerodrome see also 116, 219. 64 anom , Protectorat Français au Cambodge: registre des actes de l’état civil, 1887, No 2; ap , 2m 190 b , 1916 Mariages, 02, No 169. 65 ap , d 4r 1 1412. 66 Abbe, “Decadence and Revival,” 124–5; Abbe, “Développement,” 11–12. 67 Falser, Angkor, 2:104 68 Abbe, “Decadence,” 128. 69 Falser, Angkor, 2:384; Abbe, “Decadence,” 125–6. 70 Benjamin, Oriental Aesthetics, 198–210. 71 Muan, “Citing Angkor,” i, 10. 72 He was only a corresponding member and never had an official role in the General Government. See Le Brusq, “Les musées,” 101. The quotation is from Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 18–19. 73 Herbelin, “Construire,” 178. 74 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 213. See also Henning and Koditek, Architectural Guide, 203–4. 75 Foucher, “Appendice.” See also Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:104. 76 Abbe, “Decadence,” 133; Le Brusq, “Les musées de l’Indochine,” 101; Anonymous, “Documents administratifs: 17 août 1905,” 509. His birth date has never been published and is approximate; I explain below how I arrived at it. 77 Abbe, “Decadence,” 132; Abbe, “Développement,” 11. 78 Falser, Angkor, 2:15. 79 Clémentin-Ojha and Manguin, Un siècle, 101; Delaire, Les architectes, 365. 80 Falser, Angkor, 1:241; Falser, Angkor, 2:16. 81 Muan, “Cambodian Art,” 51. 82 Pierre-Yves Manguin kindly drew my attention to this unpublished drawing. 83 Anonymous, “Chronique de l’année 1907,” 422. For a discussion of the École and its foreign students (although none of them from Cambodia), see Martykánová, “Global Engineers.” 84 Aberdam, “Élites cambodgiennes.” 85 This is the first time that the life dates and full name of Khuôn have been published. The surname Nguyen Van comes from his entries in the archives

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of the École Centrale de Paris in Châtenay-Malabry (hereafter aecp ), 2154 f 4, Annuaires de l’Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves de l’École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Annuaires de 1887, 1889, 1906, 1931, 1954. I am extremely grateful to archivist Fabienne Jolly for locating these dossiers for me. The 1931 annuaire is the last time he is listed as being alive (resident in Phnom Penh), and he is deceased by 1954. In colonial documents Cambodians and other Asians are referred to by their first name (Khuôn) rather than their surnames; see Aberdam, “Élites cambodgiennes,” 561. The surname Nguyen Van appears only in the annuaires. Aberdam, “Élites cambodgiennes,” 281, 448, 462. Répertoire alphabétique, 2:99; Bulletin officiel de l’Indochine française (1898), 1365; Le Matin, 2 October 1900, 1; Bulletin officiel de l’Indochine française (1905), 280. Julien, Lettres d’un précurseur, 66–7, 79–81, 90–3, 95, 141; Le Matin, 12 October 1900, 1; Le Pays, 14 October 1900, 1. Bulletin officiel de l’Annam et du Tonkin, 404. Julien, Lettres d’un précurseur, 91. The case was reviewed on 23–4 December 1885. Cochinchine Française: Procès-Verbaux (Session Ordinaire 1886–86), 108. Delmas, Histoire du Lycée de Marseille, 46, 87–8. aecp, 2154 f4, Annuaires de l’Association Amicale des Anciens Élèves de l’École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Annuaire de 1887. Ibid. On the history of the rue Volta neighbourhood, see Hemmler, Énigmes, légendes, 48. Penny Edwards writes that “Khun” studied at the Lycée St Louis beginning in 1883, but this must be a mistake. Edwards, Cambodge, 275n55. Coussot and Ruel, Douze mois, 33. Sawmills were prized possessions, not only as a primary business but because they allowed plantation owners to supplement their income by selling lumber when their land could not produce enough cash crops to keep them solvent. See Forest, Le Cambodge, 260–2. Le Rappel, 4 September 1905, 1. Aberdam, “Élites cambodgiennes,” 463. Le Matin, 2 October 1900, 1. Nicolas, Notices sur l’Indo-Chine, 19. Falser, Angkor, 1:221; Hale, Races on Display, 76–7.

120 121 122

123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134

135 136 137 138 139

140 141

observations pour server de base à une enquête,” L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine 636 (25 August 1929), 4. Herbelin, Architectures, 115–16. Ibid., 61. Ibid., 68. As Muan remarks: “This statement is curious since Groslier came to work closely with Oknha Tep Nimit Mak from 1918–24 at the School. Either Mak himself considered his input into the buildings as less than ‘involvement,’ or Groslier simply wrote out the anonymous Cambodian workers who labored to actually make the planned structures.” See his remarks, for instance, about Mak and Mao: Groslier, “Soixante-seize dessins,” 332. Giteau, “Un court traité,” 27. See Sthapitanonda and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 158–9. Abbe, “Développement,” 8–9. Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 48, 73. Abbe, “Decadence,” 133. Ibid., 131. Ibid., 124. Quoted in Abbe, “Développement,” 24. Ibid., 24–5. Anonymous, “Documents administratifs” (1920), 242. Groslier’s letter to the résident supérieur (19 December 1917) is quoted in Abbe, “Decadence,” 135. On the conscious campaign to rid Angkor of its associations with Buddhism, see Falser, Angkor, 1:337. Groslier, “Le Musée Albert Sarraut”; see also Groslier, “Les collections khmères,” 13. Groslier, “Soixante-seize dessins,” fig. 90. See Sthapitandonda and Mertens, Architecture of Thailand, 100–1. Henning and Koditek, Architectural Guide, 204–5; Abbe, “Decadence,” 137; Groslier, “Le Musée Albert Sarraut,” 39; Groslier, “Les collections khmères,” 13. Quoted in Henning and Koditek, Architectural Guide, 206. For multiple examples in the Atlantic empire see Bailey, Architecture and Urbanism, 204–64. Groslier, “Le Musée Albert Sarraut,” 39; Groslier, “Les collections khmères,” 13; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 August 1922, 2. Groslier, “L’enseignement,” 11.

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101 Anonymous, “Chronique de l’année 1907,” 422. See also Le Brusq, “Les musées,” 101; Lévi, Indochine, 192–3. 102 Abbe, “Développement,” 8–9; Abbe, “Decadence,” 142. 103 Moura, “Etat actuel,” 2:407. 104 Gamonet, “Le Ramayana,” 111. 105 Ibid., 114–16; Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 49–51, 73; Groslier, “Soixante-seize dessins,” 332. 106 Giteau, “Un court traité,” 126. 107 Groslier, “Soixante-seize dessins,” 332. 108 Gamonet, “Le Ramayana,” 114–15. 109 Giteau, “Note sur les peintures,” 28. 110 Ibid., 30. 111 The orthography is “M. Mak (Oknha-Tép-Nimit).” L’Avenir du Tonkin, 22 May 1912, 3. 112 Gamonet, “Le Ramayana,” 117. The date of Mak’s induction into the Legion of Honour has never been published before. Although as a foreigner he did not have a dossier as such, there is a record of his admittance as chevalier in an alphabetical file kept at the Grand Chancellery of the Legion of Honour. I am very grateful to Christine Minjollet, curatorial assistant at the Musée de la Légion d’honneur et des ordres de chevalerie in Paris, for looking up Mak’s name at my request. 113 Groslier, “Soixante-seize dessins,” 332. 114 Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 148. 115 These names appear on a 1915 postcard of the throne room celebrating its completion that was auctioned at Morand & Morand (Paris), Numismatique, philatélie & cartes postales anciennes (22 May 2013), lot 130. 116 Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 56–8. For more on Papa and Richaud see Martykánová, “Global Engineers,” 96. On Vila, see Delaire, Les architectes, 425. 117 Henning and Koditek, Architectural Guide, 171–7; Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 19. 118 Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 62. 119 “Until recently, the Annamite knew only a tiny number of tools. Our European tools are made for men of a given size, musculature, strength, size, [and] span and the Annamite does not find them convenient as Europeans do. […] The Annamite does not know how to use our machines.” Henri Coucherousset, “La main d’œuvre en Indochine: quelques

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Abbe, “Développement,” 16–17. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 August 1922, 2. Edwards, Cambodge, 149. Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 3. Abbe, “Decadence,” 129, 140–2; Muan, “Citing Angkor,” 48. See also Gamonet, “Le Ramayana,” 115–16. Edwards, Cambodge, 150. Abbe, “Développement,” 18. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 29 December 1922, 3. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 August 1922, 2. Ibid. Falser, Angkor, 1:307–13. See also Morton, Hybrid Identities, 38–9. Abbe, “Développement,” 25. Falser, Angkor, 1:313, figs. FII .24a, b. See also Cooper, France in Indochina, 75. Le Brusq, “Les musées,” 101. Herbelin, “Construire,” 180.

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chA pTer e ig hT

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1 Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:373–4. See Njoh, French Urbanism, 106–7; Wright, The Politics of Design, 188–233. 2 Herbelin, Architectures, 44–7; Herbelin, “Construire,” 174, 186–7; Boca, “Constructions civiles.” 3 Herbelin, Architectures, 68–71. 4 Hébrard, “L’architecture locale,” 100–1; see also Hébrard, “L’urbanisme,” 72. 5 Hébrard, “L’architecture locale,” 101. 6 Ibid., 100. 7 ap , v 4e 3925, État civile, 11ème arrondissement (1875), Naissances No 4123. His dossier from the Beaux-Arts is in the Archives nationales de France, aj/52/406, “École nationale et spéciale des beauxarts 7231 du registre matricule, Hébrard, Ernest Michel; as is his dossier with the Legion of Honour: anf, lh/1275/64, “Hébrard, Ernest Michel.” 8 Delaire, Les architects élèves, 290. An extensive dossier on Hébrard by Marie-Laure Crosnier Leconte is available on the website of the Institut national de l’histoire de l’art: https://agorha.inha.fr/inhaprod/ ark:/54721/00278037 (accessed 20 April 2020). 9 Wright, Politics of Design, 85–160; Wright, “Tradition.”

10 Wright, Politics of Design, 60. The design was published: Hébrard and Zeiler, Spalato. 11 anf , lh /1275/64, f.12. 12 Wright, Politics of Design, 202; Hébrard, “L’urbanisme,” 72. 13 Herbelin, Architectures, 69. 14 Ibid., 74; Wright, Politics of Design, 108. 15 Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 42. 16 Wright, Politics of Design, 79; Abu-Lughod, Rabat, 131–49. 17 Benjamin’s quote refers not to his own opinion but to that of Wright, who dismisses the idea of racial segregation. Benjamin, Oriental Aesthetics, 201; Wright, Politics of Design, 147–9. 18 Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 44. 19 Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 192–3. 20 Wright, Politics of Design, 108. 21 Bảo, Kiến trúc, 22–4; Logan, Hanoi, 99–100. 22 Henning and Koditek, Architectural Guide, 68–9; Herbelin, Architectures, 73; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 69–71, 154–7, 168–70, 187–91, 195–200. 23 Herbelin, “Construire,” 180. 24 ap , v 4e 3925, État civile, 11ème arrondissement (1875), Naissances No 4123; anf , lh /1275/64, “Hébrard, Ernest Michel”; ap , 6d 234, État civile, 6ème arrondissement (1933), Décès No 444. 25 L’Avenir du Tonkin, 4 April 1933, 2. 26 Lê, “Une architecture métissée,” 261–2; Herbelin, Architectures, 76; Bảo, Kiến trúc, 93–4; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 168–9; Wright, Politics of Design, 228–9. 27 Bảo, Kiến trúc, 93–4. 28 Ibid., 93. 29 Herbelin, Architectures, 78; Herbelin, “Construire,” 179. 30 Archives départementales de la Nièvre (hereafter adn), 2 Mi ec358 Nevers (1874–1870), No 111. The most thorough work on Delaval is Jacques Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 1875–1962 (Hennebont, 2011). I am very grateful to Michael Falser for drawing my attention to this source. See also Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 233. 31 adn , r 236 Bureau de Nevers, classe 1895, fiche matricule No 889 (14 April 1922). See also Boissy, Le 81e régiment, 99; L’Ouest-Éclair, 6 December 1909, 4.

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de vous aura plus de frais que feuille de valeurs à laquelle le Directeur n’attachera pas assez d’importance. En vous remerciant d’avance veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Secrétaire, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus dévoltées et les plus respectueux. Aug. Delaval.” an , aj /52/403, École nationale et spéciale des beaux-arts 4695 du registre matricule, Delaval, Auguste, Emile, Joseph. anom, ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval, “État général des services de M. Delaval, August, Emile, Joseph” (31 July 1931). I am extremely grateful to Caroline Herbelin for sharing her scans of this document with me. See also Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 33, 87; Delaire, Les architectes, 235; Touring Club de France, Revue mensuelle, January 1908, 48; Les Annales colonials, 14 October 1909, n.p.; Sous-secrétariat des colonies, Bulletin officiel, 555; L’Echo annamite, 1 October 1928, 2. Direction générale de l’instruction publique, Trois écoles, 22; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 November 1928, 2. On the École building, designed by Charles Lacollonge, see Hà Vă Huề, Traits d’architecture, 98–9. Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 76–8; La Revue de l’art ancien et moderne, June 1923, 112. anom, ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval, letter from Royaume, Inspector-General of the Travaux Publics to the Governor General, Hanoi, 31 January 1931. His official title was “Chef du Service d’architecture du Commissariat Général de l’Indochine à l’Exposition Coloniale de Marseille.” anom , ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval, Letter of 5 October 1922 by the Commissariat Général de L’Indochine to the Résident Supérieur, Commissaire Général de L’Indochine. See also Falser, Angkor, 1:23, 255–79; Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 59–60; Congrès de l’outillage colonial, 67. His military records note that he was “actuellement détaché à l’exposition coloniale de Marseille pour une durée indéterminée.” and , r 236 “Bureau de Nevers, classe 1895, fiche matricule No 889” (14 April 1922). Le Journal, 7 May 1925, 2; Le Droit d’auteur, 15 August 1925, 95–6; Le Droit d’auteur, 15 March 1926, 32; Le Matin, 18 January 1927, 4; Candide, 30 August 1931, 1. Le Droit d’auteur, 15 August 1925, 95.

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32 an , aj /52/403, École nationale et spéciale des beauxarts 4695 du registre matricule, Delaval, Auguste, Emile, Joseph. See also Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:22–3; Delaire, Les architectes, 235. 33 Guilchet, Auguste Delaval. In 1909 he was awarded a third-class medal from the Salon of that year by the Société des artistes françaises. See also Société académique du Nivernais, Mémoires, 83. 34 “Saïgon, le 6 Mars 1905. Monsieur le Secrétaire de l’Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts – Paris. Monsieur, J’ai l’honneur de vous demander un petit service qui aura pour moi une importance considérable. Je suis élève de l’Ecole des Bx Arts Lecture d’Architecture, atelier Blondel, Scellier de Gisors, Defrasse. Actuellement je suis en Indo-Chine, incorporé dans le Service des Bâtiments Civils au titre de SousInspecteur. Ce service des Bâtiments Civils est reparti en 3 catégories: 1e Parti – Architectes de 1e, 2e et 3e Classe. 2e – Inspecteurs de 1e, 2e, 3e et 4e classe. Le poste de Sous-Inspecteur ne correspond pas aux aptitudes de tout élève ayant terminé les études à l’Ecole des Bx Arts et, pour être nommé Inspecteur, je serai forcé de passer un examen correspondant à ceux passés dans le cours de mes études à l’Ecole étant donné que j’ai terminé toutes mes valeurs. Cet examen peut me faire perdre un an ou deux à mon plus grand préjudice, car j’ai actuellement 30 ans. En France, au Ministère des Colonies, où j’ai mal été renseigné on m’affirmait que le Diplôme de l’Ecole ne donnait aucun droit, c’est pourquoi j’avais remis la présentation de mon diplôme, dont le programme est déposé depuis longtemps, à mon prochain congé c’est-à-dire dans 3 ans. Ici, j’apprends que ce diplôme pouvait me faire nommer Inspecteur de 2e ou 3e classe dès mon arrivée. La Direction ignore de quelle façon se font des études à l’Ecole des Bx Arts et exige un examen pour passer Inspecteurs. Je vous serai donc très reconnaissant, Monsieur le Secrétaire, de faire adresser à Monsieur Guillemoto, Directeur général des travaux Publics en Indo-Chine, une note me concernant et indiquant le détail précis des examens auxquels j’ai satisfait ainsi que les valeurs obtenues par moi en insistant sur ce point que je suis diplômable et qu’il est inutile de me faire perdre un temps trop précieux pour moi à préparer à nouveau ces examens. Une lettre faite dans ce sens et venant

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42 Falser, Angkor, 1:257–9. 43 Ibid., 283. 44 “le Palais de l’Indo-Chine édifié à l’Exposition Coloniale de 1931 n’était qu’un démarquage, pour ne pas dire une copie, du Palais édifié sur ses plans à Marseille. Il [i.e., Delaval] a été très froissé de ne pas être désigné pour la construction du bâtiment qui devait figurer à l’Exposition Coloniale de Paris et a le sentiment très net d’avoir été cruellement lésé Pendant les huit années consécutives qu’il a consacrées à préparer l’Exposition de Marseille et l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925.” anom , ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval, letter by Jean Locquin to the Governor-General of Indochina from Paris, 29 December 1931. 45 anom , ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval, letter of Governor-General P Pasquier to M. Locquin Deputy of the Lièvre Chamber of Deputies (Hanoi, 14 March 1932); and letter of M. Locquin to Pasquier (Paris, 29 December 1931). 46 anom , ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval. For a discussion of Delaval’s other building projects see Herbelin, Architectures, 84; Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 88–9; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 119. 47 Quoted in Anonymous, “Chronique de l’année 1936,” 592. See also Le Brusq, “Les musées de l’Indochine,” 103. 48 “Il ne semble pas opportun, au moment même où l’Administration prend à l’égard du Caodaïsme diverses mesures en vue d’entraver son influence, d’autoriser les représentants de cette secte à utiliser ouvertement les services d’un fonctionnaire pour l’édification d’un ‘grand temple’ destiné, par son caractère monumental, a impressionner les foules.” anom, ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval, letter from the Governor of Cochinchina to the Governor-General (Saigon, 1 December 1929). See also Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 97–8. The letter from Royaume, also in the Dossier Auguste Delaval, is dated Hanoi, 29 October 1929. 49 Guilchet, Auguste Delaval, 91–3; Doling, Exploring Ho Chi Minh City, 140–1; Le Conseil des recherches scientifiques de l’Indochine, Indochine française, 31. 50 Le Brusq, “Les musées de l’Indochine,” 110; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 78; Le Brusq, “Échange d’art,” 114–16; Malleret, Musée, 13.

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

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63 64

65

Malleret, Musée, 15. Baudrit, Extraits, 2:45. Malleret, Musée, 15–16. Ibid., 17. Baudrit, Extraits, 2:47–9. Ibid., 45–6. Ibid., 51–2. Malleret, Musée, 19; Lévi, Indochine, 194. Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 78–9; Malleret, Musée, 20. Malleret, Musée, 21. The full decree is published in Anonymous, “Documents administratifs” (1927), 529–31. Procès-verbaux du Conseil colonial (1924), 120; La Tribune de Marseille et la Provence, September 1927, 3. See also Tan-Dan, “Au Gouvernement de la Cochinchine,” 2; Le Temps, 18 August 1927, 2. République française, 20 December 1923, 4; Bulletin de l’Agence générale, 418. One hundred thousand piastres had already been spent on the Musée économique by November 1925. Procès-verbaux du Conseil colonial (1925), 302. Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 77–8. “Il manque à l’Indochine quelque chose d’analogue à ce qu’on voit à Paris, au Trocadéro, un Musée ethnographique, où, dans de vastes salles, on puisse retrouver, dans les gestes de leur vie quotidienne, les diverses races qui peuplent l’Indochine, avec leur habitat, leur ambiance, leurs costumes, leurs mobiliers, toute la documentation historique qui les concerne, les collections des faunes et des flores locales et les collections de nos richesses économiques. Voilà une institution qui serait tout à fait à sa place à Saigon.” vnac 1, igtp (Inspection générale des travaux publics) h 7 r 61 815, “Session du Conseil supérieur de la Cochinchine” (16 November 1917). Excerpted in Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 78; Le Brusq, “Échanges,” 115. I am extremely grateful to Arnauld Le Brusq for informing me about this dossier and for kindly sharing his archival notes with me. His notes, some of them unpublished, are a critical source for the first competition for the building and Groslier’s and the municipality’s goals. L’Homme libre, 27 June 1924, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 21 November 1924, 1; L’Echo annamite, 17 December 1924, 1.

main and lateral facades, and a sectional view. He also examined a project of 7 March 1924 executed in Hanoi and signed by Delaval. vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815, “Exposition de Saigon en 1926. Construction d’un musée ethnographique à Saigon. Avant-projet.” 1924. He published the sectional view in his book Vietnam, 77. I am grateful to Arnauld Le Brusq for sharing his notes from this dossier. There are also additional drawings of the Musée économique, all signed by Delaval, in the Wolfsonian Museum at Florida International University: “Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Façade latérale” (Saigon, 2 April 1924); “5. Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Façade principale” (Saigon, 1 March 1925); “Aménagement de la Salle du Musée Economique à la Chambre de Commerce de Saigon” (Saigon, 26 September 1925); “Coupe gh ” (Saigon, 18 January 1926); “Coupe sur la Ferme du Hall Central” (Saigon, 18 March 1926); “Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Coupe cd-e , Coupe ab ” (Saigon, 6 April 1926); “16. Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Coupe ce , op , mn ” (Saigon, 10 April 1926); “Façade postérieure” (Saigon, 31 May 1926); “23. Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Plan du Carrelage” (Saigon, August 1926); “Gouvernement de la Cochinchine, Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Coupe Transversale” (date missing); “Hall Central: Plan du Plafond (gh ), Plan du Lanterneau (ij ), Plan du Niveau du Balcon (gh ), Plan du Rez-de-chaussée (bf )” (Saigon, 4 May 1926); “Musée Economique de la Cochinchine, Coupe gh (Saigon, 18 June 1926); “8. Continuation des travaux de construction du Musée Economique de la Cochinchine à Saigon (15 October 1926); “Aménagement de la Salle du Musée Economique a la Chambre de Commerce de Saigon: Armoire Vitrine” (Saigon, 27 September 1928). There is also an elevation of the Palais du Riz entitled “Palais du Riz et des Produits de la Cochinchine (Projet A), Façade principale (Saigon, 8 April 1925),” that is also signed by Delaval and the present whereabouts of which is unknown. 79 “Le plan général de M. Delaval, qui correspond entièrement aux desiderata du programme précité serait suivi et mis au point, sous sa direction s’il est possible car M. Delaval, pris par l’Exposition

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66 “Avec les salles d’exposition, à donner aux commerçants et aux voyageurs toutes les facilités pour étudier l’Indochine.” vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815, “Programme de concours et cahier des charges pour un musée indochinois à Saigon” (signed Groslier). 67 Procès-verbaux du Conseil colonial (1920), 84. 68 “Les architectes demeurent entièrement libres dans la conception du monument [...] On recommande enfin aux architectes de s’inspirer de vues très simples, de goût français, de rechercher la pureté de lignes qui s’harmonise avec la belle lumière des pays tropicaux.” vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815, “Programme de concours et cahier des charges pour un musée indochinois à Saigon” (signed Groslier). Mostly quoted in Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 78. 69 Procès-verbaux du Conseil colonial (1918), 131, 164. Of this sum, 50,000 went to the construction of the museum, and the rest to the acquisition, maintenance, and renewal of collections, furniture, equipment, and various supplies and the price of sending samples of Cochinchina products to France and participating in exhibitions and the Lyon fair. 70 vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815. See Le Brusq, Vietnam, 78–9. 71 For a postcard of the 1925 pavilion, naming the architects, see: https://www.worldfairs.info/ expopavillondetails.php?expo_id=33&pavillon_ id=3278 (accessed 13 October 2021). 72 Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 78. 73 Procès-verbaux du Conseil colonial (1924), 99. See also Le Brusq, “Échanges,” 115–16; Le Brusq, Vietnam, 78–9. 74 vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815, “Exposition de Saigon en 1926. Construction d’un musée ethnographique à Saigon. Avant-projet.” 1924. I am grateful to Arnauld Le Brusq for sharing his notes from this dossier. 75 vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815, Letter from Groslier to the Gouverneur Général (27 August 1923). 76 L’Action française, 5 October 1924, 4; Le petit provençal, 4 December 1928, 2. 77 Le Brusq, Vietnam, 79. 78 Delaval prepared a set of plans of the “Musée économique de la Cochinchine à Saigon. Palais du riz” on 8 September 1925 which were examined by Arnauld Le Brusq in the Hanoi archives: a ground floor plan; a project for the ceilings; elevations of the

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des Arts Décoratifs de 1925 à Paris, est sans doute appelé à quitter prochainement la colonie” (Hanoi, 31 January 1924). vnac 1, igtp h 7 r 61 815, Letter from Governor-General Merlin to the Governor of Cochinchina (27 August 1923). Hébrard, “L’Urbanisme,” 72. Blanchard de la Brosse’s decree of 18 November 1927 in “Chronique,” Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient 27 (1927): 529–31. For a discussion of the common view at the time that Indochina did not exist as its own entity but under the shadow of India and China, see Herbelin, “Construire,” 171–2. Groslier, “The Saigon Museum Remodelled,” 232. Malleret, Musée, 22. Doling, Exploring Ho Chi Minh City, 143. See Bảo, Kiến trúc, 90–2; Wright, Politics of Design, 208; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 196; Le Brusq, “Les musées,” 104; Le Brusq, “Échange,” 116–19; Pédelahore, “Hanoi,” 302–3. For a critique of this viewpoint, see Herbelin, Architectures, 82. Manguin, Le Patrimoine indochinois, 264–8; see also Herbelin, Architectures du Vietnam, 80; Anonymous, “Musée,” 444. See Hébrard, Architectures, 80. Hébrard notes that he left the project “très rapidement” after providing the first drawings. Parmentier, “Charles Batteur.” See also Cros, “Georges Coedès,” 73. Manguin, Patrimoine, 265. Wright, Politics of Design, 208. See also Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 199. Anonymous, “Musée,” 445. Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 199. See also Herbelin, Architectures, 179–80. Herbelin, Architectures, 82. Aviat’s first name and life dates do not appear in the secondary literature, but he is listed as “officier d’administration principal d’artillerie colonial en retraite, en résidence à Hanoi (mis à la disposition du général commandant supérieur des troupes de l’Indo-Chine a Hanoi)” in the Journal officiel de la République française. Lois et décrets (Paris, 14 March 1920), 4124. His birth date appears in his 22 December 1914 marriage certificate when he married Nguyễn Thị Tiên. It was witnessed by François Emile Lefèvre, engineer

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97 98 99 100 101 102

103 104 105 106 107

in the Ponts et Chaussées of Hanoi. anom , “Résidence-Mairie de Hanoi (Tonkin), Registre des Actes de l’État-civil (1913–14),” No 36. The marriage certificate claims that he was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, as does the Journal officiel de la République française. Lois et décrets (Paris, 16 August 1911), 6868. Nevertheless I have been unable to find his dossier in the Legion of Honour archives in Paris or Fontainebleau. Aviat left his position with the army corps of engineers (Génie) in Brest for Tonkin in 1902. Journal officiel de la République française. Lois et décrets (Paris, 25 September 1902), 6378. Aviat’s wife died in 1935. Ville de Hanoï: bulletin municipal (November 1935), 1583. Aviat last appears in a court case from 1941 L’Avenir du Tonkin, 2 March 1941. ap, v4e 3925, État civile, 13ème arrondissement (1880), Naissances No 1126. He was born on the morning of 14 May 1880, not 14 March 1880, as Henri Parmentier had it. See Parmentier, “Charles Batteur,” 552. Walusinski, “The Girls,” 65–6. L’Oeuvre, 18 September 1932, 5; Tô, “Mort de M. Charles Batteur,” 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 25 October 1932, 2. His death certificate does not mention his ailment or his suicide: ap , 9d 150, État civile, 9ème arrondissement (1932), Décès 09 No 923. Parmentier, “Charles Batteur,” 552. Gouvernement général de l’Indo-Chine, Rapports au Conseil (1928), 67. Parmentier, “Charles Batteur,” 552; Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine française (1907), 60; Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine française (1910), 63; Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine française (1914), 72; Annuaire général de l’Indo-Chine française (1915), 54. Parmentier, “Charles Batteur,” 552; Gouvernement général de l’Indo-Chine, Rapports (1921), 71. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 9 July 1923, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 7 January 1925, 2. Tô, “Mort de M. Charles Batteur,” 2. Gouvernement général de l’Indo-Chine, Rapports au Conseil de Gouvernement (1929), 34. Tô, “Mort de M. Charles Batteur,” 2. Phan, “L’enseignement,” 210–11, 218; Herbelin, Architectures, 85–99; Gouvernement Général de l’Indochine, Les écoles, 10, 16.

113 114 115

116 117

16 October 1933, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 17 May 1935, 8; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 June 1935, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 23 July 1935, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 13 January 1936, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 January 1936, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 20 February, 1936, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 February 1936, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 2 September 1936, 5; Journal officiel de la République française. Lois et décrets, 25 December 1936, 11378; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 9 March 1937, 6; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 11 March 1937, 5; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 30 March 1937, 12; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 7 May 1937, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 2 April 1938, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 21 April 1938, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 17 August 1938, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 May 1939, 11; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 13 June 1939, 7; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 February 1940, 5; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 15 January 1941. Although his birth certificate does not survive, I have found his parents’ marriage certificate (29 November 1875), when they were living in Barral and his father Antoine was working for the Ponts-et-Chaussées. His brother Valentin was born in 1882, Jacques in 1889, and Georges in 1893. anom , État civile, marriages Barral 1875; État civile, naissances Alger 1882, 1889, 1893. Max was the youngest of the brothers and therefore must have been born in the 1890s. The Corsicans were particularly numerous and active in the colony. See Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 187–8. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 4 April 1927, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 20 April 1938, 5. Again, this biography is based on newspaper reports: L’Avenir du Tonkin, 4 April 1926, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 10 February 1927, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 18 July 1927, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 November 1930, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6 May 1932, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 16 June 1932, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 28 June 1932, 3; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 20 July 1932, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 21 September 1932, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 12 August 1933, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 21 November 1934, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 11 January 1936, 1. L’Avenir du Tonkin, 29 March 1932, 2. Tô, “Inauguration,” 1; Lévi, Indochine, 191. See also Wright, Politics of Design, 208; Le Brusq and Selva, Vietnam, 196; Le Brusq, “Musées,” 104.

NoTeS To pAgeS 315–16

108 Gaspardone, “Ecole des Beaux-Arts,” 518. 109 Falser, Angkor Wat, 1:290; Demay, Tourism and Colonization, 191; Morton, Hybrid Modernities, 39. 110 Most of what I have been able to reconstruct of Aviat’s life I have found in the local newspaper. See L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 January 1899, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 8 February 1899, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 26 July 1899, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 30 September 1899, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 10 December 1902, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 24 December 1905, 5; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 21 April 1912, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 25 April 1912, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 19 May 1913, 4; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6 April, 1914, 3; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 22 August 1914, 4; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 1 August 1915, 4; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6 February 1922, 4; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 8 February 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 26 February 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 February 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 4 March 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6 March 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 18 March 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 27 April 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6 May 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 26 November 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 31 December 1922, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 5 February 1923, 3; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 22 October 1923, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 12 December 1923, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 16 December 1923, 2. 111 L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine, 3 February 1924, 7–8; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 11 November 1925, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 10 April 1926, 2; and L’Information d’Indochine économique et financière (Saigon), 16 November 1940, 1. The quotation is from L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine, 25 January 1925, 8. 112 Most of what I have been able to reconstruct of Papi’s life I have also found in newspapers. See L’Echo d’Alger, 20 November 1917, 1; L’Echo d’Alger, 9 August 1922, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 13 January 1924, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 14 February 1924, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 8 March 1924, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 14 May 1924, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 7 July 1924, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 7 December 1925); L’Avenir du Tonkin, 26 December 1925, 5; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 5 February 1927, 6; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 15 December 1927, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 6 January 1928, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 30 November 1931, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 16 December 1931, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 18 March 1932, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin,

429

NoTeS To pAgeS 317–19 430

118 Anonymous, “Chronique de l’année 1925,” 570–1. See also L’Éveil économique de l’Indochine, 14 March 1926, 10. 119 Tô, “Inauguration,” 1. 120 Ibid.; Anonymous, “Chronique de l’année 1925,” 571. Both sources call the relationship a “collaboration.” 121 “Le projet de cette reconstruction vient d’être établi par le directeur général des Bâtiments civils avec la collaboration d’un Architecte membre de l’Ecole Français d’Extrême-Orient. Il comprend une rotonde et un corps principal reliés par la cage du grand escalier, un avant corps et deux ailes.” vnac 1, kt h544, 1142, “Rapport de l’Inspecteur Général des Travaux Publics” (Hanoi, 24 February 1925). 122 Anonymous, “Chronique,” 571. 123 L’Avenir du Tonkin, 17 March 1932, “se sont poursuivi […] suivant les dessins d’exécution de Charles Batteur et sous sa direction, puis sous celle de Max Papi, Ingénieur des Travaux Publics de l’Indochine.” 124 vnac 1, kt 544-3, 1, 6b, “Construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, Façade Ouest, dessin complémentaire du projet approuvé au date du 28 février 1926” (signed Batteur, 8 October 1925); vnac1, kt544-3, 1, 7a, “Construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, Façade Nord, dessin complémentaire du projet approuvé au date du 28 février 1926” (signed Batteur, 8 October 1925); vnac 1, kt 544-3, 1, 4, “Construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, Plan du Rez-de-Chaussée, dessin complémentaire du projet approuvé au date du 28 février 1926” (signed Batteur, 8 October 1925); vnac 1, kt 544-3, 1, 9, “Construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, Coupe longitudinale, dessin complémentaire du projet approuvé au date du 28 février 1926” (signed Batteur, 8 October 1925). The West facade drawing was published in Hà Vă Huề et al., eds, Traits d’architecture, Hanoi à l’heure française (Hanoi, 2009), 103. 125 vnac 1, kt h 545, hs 5, t 1, 7, No. 4331, “Construction du Musée de l’École Française d’ExtrêmeOrient à Hanoi: Procès-Verbal d’Adjudication” (7 November 1925), cahier includes the governorgeneral’s approval letter of 12 November 1925. 126 L’Avenir du Tonkin, 3 June 1923, 2.

127 Anonymous, “Musée,” 447. 128 “Vu la lettre de m. aviat en date du 1er Mars 1928 demandant la résiliation de son marché par application de l’article 30 du cahier des clauses et conditions générales imposées aux entrepreneurs. […] Le marché passé avec m. aviat , entrepreneur, le 8 Octobre 1926 et approuvé le 21 Octobre suivant pour l’exécution des travaux de construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient à Hanoi, est résilié à application de l’article 30 du cahier des clauses et conditions générales imposées aux entrepreneurs.” vnac1, kt h545, h55, t1, “Le Gouverneur Général P.I. de l’Indochine, arrêté No 2197 (15 May 1928).” For the reference to the imminent departure of this “sympathetic and so active man of industry” for France, see L’Avenir du Tonkin, 23 March 1927, 2; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 15 June 1927, 1; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 22 December 1927; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 30 January 1928, 2. 129 “Le Gouverneur Général de L’Indochine, Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur, […] Vu le marché passé le 7 novembre 1925 entre m. aviat et approuvé le 12 Novembre 1925 pour la construction du Musée de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient à Hanoi; Vu le réclamation en date de 6 Janvier 1929 présentée par m. aviat, Entrepreneur […] ARRÊTÉ: article premier: Il est alloué à m. aviat, Entrepreneur de travaux de construction du Musée de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient à Hanoi, une indemnité transactionnelle de vingt mille neuf cent vingt-trois piastres quatorze cents (20,923$14) détaillée comme suit: 1er chef – Prolongation excessive des travaux. Insuffisance du montant des travaux exécutés: 8.003$54. 2e chef – Indemnité sur les aciers. Application de l’article 32 des clauses et conditions générales: 7.402$02. 3e chef – Application de l’article 32 pour d’autres ouvrages: 428$16. 4e chef – Travaux exécutés après le 1er janvier 1928: 5.069$42 [total] 20.923$14. article 2. – Le surplus des réclamations de m. aviat est rejeté. article 3. – Le Résident supérieur du Tonkin, le Directeur des Finances et l’Inspecteur général des Travaux Publics sont chargés, chacun on en qui le concerne, de l’exécution du présent arrêté.” Hanoi, 4 April 1929. vnac1, kt h545, hs5, t1, “Gouvernement Général

130 131 132 133

134

135

136

137 138

De 40%; Do Loi, augmentation de 35%; Trinh quy Khang, aug. De 26. Ce dernier a été declaré adjudicataire provisoire.” Tô, “Inauguration,” 1; Coedès, “Inauguration,” 472. A copy of the minutes of the inauguration in the efeo archives in Paris, of which the original in Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao were enclosed in the foundation stone, is typical in praising Papi exclusively for the completion of the building: “se sont poursuivis jusqu’en 1931 suivant les dessins d’exécution de Charles Batteur et sous sa direction, puis sous celle de Max Papi, Ingénieur des Travaux Publics de l’Indochine.” Archives of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (hereafter aefeo ), Fonds Vietnam, vie 08969, “Procès-Verbal d’inauguration du musée, texte en français” (17 March 1932). “Sur la proposition du Directeur de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Arrêté: Article premier. – Le musée de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient sis à Hanoi, sera désigné à l’avenir sous le nom de ‘Musée Louis–Finot .’ Art. 2 – Le Directeur de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient est chargé de l’exécution du présent arrêté.” (Hanoi, 11 March 1931, signed P. Pasquier) [vnac 1, h 544, “Arrêté du 11 mars 1932.”] “Le Directeur de l’Ecole Française d’ExtrêmeOrient à Monsieur l’Administrateur – Maire de la Ville de hanoi . J’ai l’honneur de vous informer que le Musée Louis Finot sera ouvert au public, à partir de dimanche prochain 20 mars, tous les jeudis et dimanches, de 8 heures à 11 heures et de 14 heures à 17 heures. Je vous serais très reconnaissant si vous vouliez bien, comme par le passé, y faire détacher régulièrement un certain nombre d’agents de la Police municipale pour y assurer un service d’ordre aux jours et heures d’ouverture. Etant donnée la disposition du nouveau Musée, quatre agents seraient, à mon avis, nécessaires pour assumer la responsabilité d’une surveillance réellement efficace. Les frais qu’entrainera l’affectation de ces quatre agents seront à la charge de notre institution.” (Hanoi, 19 March 1932, signed Coedès). vnac 1, h544, 312, 1, “Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient. urgent No 814.” Anonymous, “Musée,” 444; Lévi, Indochine, 191. Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 157.

NoTeS To pAgeS 319–20

de l’Indochine, Inspection Générale des Travaux Publics, arrêté No 1670 (4 April 1928).” Herbelin, Architectures, 80–1. Anonymous, “Musée,” 445. Gouvernement général de l’Indo-Chine, Rapports (1929), 34; L’Avenir du Tonkin, 22 February 1929, 2. “Approbation de l’adjudication. rapport de l’Architecte Principal Chef du Service des Bâtiments Civils. Il a été précédé le 11 Juin 1929 à une adjudication pour achèvement des travaux de construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient à Hanoi dont le projet a été approuvé le 30 Mai 1929. Suivant le Procès-Verbal d’adjudication ci-joint, M. Trinh-Quy-Khang a fait les propositions les plus avantageuses en demandant toutefois 25% d’augmentation. Nous avions prévu que ces travaux ne seraient adjugés que dans ces conditions. Nous proposons donc d’accepter les offres de M. TrinhQuy-Khang. En cas d’acceptation, le montant des dépenses autorisées, évalué à 165.000$00 dans le projet, sera fixé à 199.542$53. […] En conséquence, nous avons l’honneur de demander: 1e – l’approbation de la commission de m. trinh-qui-khan . 2e – l’ouverture pour l’exercice en cours, d’un crédit de 30.000$00 à imputer sur l’inscription indiqué ci-dessus.” (signed) L’architecte Principal Chef du Service des Bâtiments Civils. “Adopté et transmis à Monsieur le Résident Supérieur du Tonkin, en le priant de bien vouloir faire parvenir, avec son avis, s’il y a lieu, à Monsieur l’Inspecteur général des Travaux Publics” (Hanoi, 20 June 1929), signed by the L’Ingénieur en Chef. vnac 1, 20 f 291 4301 No. 1508a, “Budget Général. Achèvement des travaux de construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient à Hanoi” (12 June 1929). This tender was also announced in the newspaper L’Avenir du Tonkin, 12 June 1929, 2), “Adjudication – Mardi 11 Juin 1929, à 16 heures a eu lieu à la Circonscription Territoriale du Tonkin à Hanoi une adjudication pour les travaux d’achèvement de la construction du Musée de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient à Hanoi. Travaux à l’entreprise. 132.855p.90. resultats. mm Gilles, augmentation de: 39%; Société française d’entreprise de dragages et de T. P. aug. de 23%; Do huu Thuc dit Cai Ba aug.

431

139 Le Brusq, Vietnam, 196; Le Brusq, “Musées,” 104; Anonymous, “Musée,” 445. 140 Le Brusq, Vietnam, 199; Le Brusq, “Échange,” 117; Pédelahore, “Hanoi,” 304. For a precise definition of a dình, which serves civil and religious functions alike, see Herbelin, Architectures, 46. 141 Le, Vietnamese Architecture, 157. 142 Bảo, Kiến trúc, 91. 143 Sickman and Soper, Art and Architecture, 464; Paine and Soper, Art and Architecture, 305. 144 Herbelin, Architectures, 98; Malherbe and Herbelin, Hanoï, 32–3; Pédelahore, “Hanoi,” 302. 145 Tó, “Inauguration,” 1. 146 C., “Le Musée de l’École,” 10. 147 C., “Toujours les plans,” 9. 148 Tô, “Inauguration,” 1. 149 Herbelin, “Construire,” 183. See also Herbelin, Architectures du Vietnam, 62–8. 150 Herbelin, “Construire,” 184. 151 Reynolds, “The Bunriha,” 228. 152 Herbelin, “Construire,” 186. See also Herbelin, Architectures, 85–106. 153 Herbelin, Architectures, 85. 154 Tha, “Đi Tìm Một Lối Kiến-Trúc ‘Annam,’” 1.

NoTeS To pAgeS 321–38

c hApT er NiNe

432

1 Herbelin, Architectures du Vietnam, 183. 2 Vollait, “Provincializing Colonial Architecture,” n.p. 3 L’Alliance franco-annamite. Organe de collaboration, 23 April 1932, 2. See also Le Petit Marseillais, 31 January 1931, 3. For French coverage of the Burma Round Table Conference, see Le Temps, 4 December 1931, 1; La quinzaine colonial, 21 July 1931, 354. 4 intach , “Pondicherry Listing Book II : Tamil Precinct,” second draft of an as yet unpublished book (Pondicherry, 2019), 19–20; Malangin, Pondicherry, 35; Deloche, Le vieux Pondichéry, 87; Bourdat, Eighteenth-Century Pondicherry, 57–9. 5 On the universality of Mughal architectural style in the eighteenth century as a symbol of authority see Dadlani, From Stone to Paper, 114–47. 6 Oliver, Art, Trade, and Imperialism, 172–3. 7 Shulman, “Cowherd or King,” 178. 8 More, Pondicherry, 88.

9 Oliver, Art, Trade, and Imperialism, 176–8; Sathyanarayanan, “Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū,” 14–15; Raghavan, Ananda, 48–9. 10 Sathyanarayanan, “Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū,” 20–1. 11 Shulman, “Cowherd or King,” 177. 12 Oliver, Art, Trade, 180. 13 Sathyanarayanan, “Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū,” 112. 14 Ibid., 117. 15 Ibid., 118–19. 16 Ananda, Private Diary, 12:122. 17 On 31 October 1743 at his house Ananda negotiated the settlement of a monetary disagreement between two merchants, Gôpâla Nâran�a Aiyan and Sêshâchala Chet��t i: “In my presence, each of them executed a bond of general release testifying to the settlement of their dispute. In accordance with the instructions of the Governor, I effected a reconciliation between them, by making them exchange betel and nut.” Ananda, Private Diary, 1:239. 18 Sathyanarayanan, “Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū,” 133. 19 Ananda, Private Diary, 4:113. 20 Ibid., 1:234. 21 Ibid., 1:254. 22 Ibid., 2:24, 26–7. 23 Ibid., 4:314–15. 24 Ibid., 1:37. 25 Ibid., 11:276–7. 26 Ibid., 10:283. 27 intach , Architectural Heritage, 60. 28 Fergusson, History, 1:386–7. 29 This complex has received little attention from architectural historians. See Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 121–2; Nguyễn et al., Traditional Vietnamese Architecture, 100; Keith, Catholic Vietnam, 181; Burel, “La paroisse,” 46; Olichon, Le Père Six; Guides Madrolle, Indochine du Nord, 195. 30 Burel, “La paroisse vietnamienne,” 46. See also Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 121. 31 Olichon, Le Père Six, 91–2. 32 Ibid., 95. 33 Ibid., 97. 34 Ibid., 92–3. 35 Hébrard, “L’architecture locale,” 101. 36 Burel, “La paroisse vietnamienne,” 46; Olichon, Le Père Six, 95.

2. – des études d’un avant-projet complet et de la fourniture d’un plan d’ensemble à l’échelle de 0m01 pour mètre, comprenant tous les dessins nécessaires à la compréhension du monument tant au point de vue distribution qu’au point de vue décoration et mode de construction, structure, etc… 3.– de la fourniture d’un plan général a 0m005 pour mètre indiquant les dispositions générales d’ensemble du Temple avec ses annexes et l’aménagement du terrain aux abords, pour la mise en valeur du Temple projeté. 4. – des plans de détail d’exécution, des calculs de résistance. 5. – de la construction d’une maquette et des pièces nécessaires pour la rédaction d’un marché forfaitaire avec l’entrepreneur désigné pour faire tous ces travaux. etc…etc… Permettez-moi d’ouvrir ici une parenthèse pour vous expliquer pourquoi le Comité dont je suis le Président et moi, nous avois conçu ce vaste projet de construction. Depuis le 6 Octobre 1926 nous avons propagé en Cochinchine le Bouddhisme Indochinois rénové appelé Caodaisme. Nous vous envoyons sous ce pli: 1. – notre déclaration au Gouvernement de la Cochinchine, déclaration signée par des fonctionnaires, notabilités et propriétaires indigènes (pièce N. 1). 2. – copie d’autorisation d’ouverture des oratoires Caodaistes, y compris celui de Tâyninh (pièce N. 2) ou sera construit le futur Grand Temple. Le Bouddhisme Indochinois rénové ou Caodaisme est aussi indiqué dans le Livre Vert du Conseil Colonial de Cochinchine, de 1928–1929 et de 1929–1939. En moins de 3 ans nous avons maintenant plus d’un million d’adoptes fervents. Vous pouvez ainsi vous rendre compte que les Annamites ont soif d’une religion rénovée unifiant les religions existantes. Cette religion réunira toutes les croyances et nous aidera, au point de vue spiritual, à avoir une entente sincère franco-annamite. Nos frères ainés, les Français qui sont depuis longtemps dans ce pays, qui connaissent à fond l’âme religieuse Annamite ainsi que les us et coutumes des indigènes, nous aideront certainement à réaliser ce noble idéal. Le futur grand Temple Caodaiste marquera nos sentiments religieux. Il devra réunir à la fois un style religieux suivant nos indications et un confort français moderne ; sa construction d’un genre nouveau exigera des études longues

NoTeS To pAgeS 338–43

37 Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 121; Burel, “La paroisse vietnamienne,” 46. 38 Butler, Christianity in Asia and America, 38; Olichon, Le Père Six, 92. 39 Guides Madrolle, Indochine du Nord, 195. 40 Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 121. 41 Greene, The Quiet American, 54. 42 See Guillén Núñez, Macao’s Church of Saint Paul, 86–103; Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions, 85–6. 43 Keith, Catholic Vietnam, 67–8; Jarrett-Kerr, Patterns of Christian Acceptance, 192. 44 His spare dossier reads: “Prêtre tonkinois, curé de Fat-Diem (province de Ninh-Binh). Né le 1821 à MyQuan-huyên de Tong Son (Phu de Ha-Trung) Province de Thanh Hoa (Annam) a été nommé Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur par décret du 28 Décembre 1884 rendu sur le rapport du Ministre de la Marine pour prendre rang du même jour. […] Date du décès 6 juillet 1899 à Phat-Diem.” an , l 2624050, “Légion d’Honneur, numéro d’ordre des matricules 31639,” 1a. 45 Keith, Vietnamese Catholicism, 181. 46 The quotations are from Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 121. 47 Blagov, Caodaism, 17–27; Oliver, Caodai Spiritism, 7–40. 48 Oliver, Caodai Spiritism, 18. 49 Blagov, Caodaism, 21–2; Oliver, Caodai Spiritism, 36–40. 50 Blagov, Caodaism, 24–5. 51 “Tay-Ninh, le 19 Septembre 1929. A Monsieur le Directeur Général des Travaux Publics de l’Indochine à saigon . Monsieur le Directeur Général, Comme suite à l’entretien que j’ai eu avec vous le Samedi 14 Septembre courant, j’ai l’honneur de vous faire connaître qu’un Comité Annamite, constitué pour la construction d’un temple de la Religion dite Dai-Dao-Tam-Ky-Phô-Dô ou Bouddhisme rénové à Tâyninh (Cochinchine, a chargé m. delaval , Architecte à Hanoi, de fournir ce comité: 1. – des études architecturales nécessaires pour la construction de ce Temple d’après les directives générales données par les représentants de la Religion et dans un style Extrême Oriental ou la note SinoAnnamite devra dominer. Cette construction aura un caractère à la fois monumental et religieux.

433

52 53 54 55 56

NoTeS To pAgeS 343–60

57 58 59

434

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

et sérieuses. On nous a conseillé de mettre en concours le plan projet, mais nous voulons que le mérite de ces études revienne à un architecte français, c’est pourquoi nous avons choisi m . delaval . Nous vous prions, en conséquence, de vouloir bien donner suite à notre proposition et autoriser le plus tôt possible m. delaval à travailler, pendant ses heures non dues à l’Administration, pour nous fournir les études, plans, devis, détails, etc … nécessaires à la construction de ce grand bâtiment religieux. Nous vous prions d’agréer, Monsieur le Directeur Général, l’assurance de nos sentiments respectueux et dévoués. Signé: le-van-trung (le-van-trung au Temple Caodaiste de tayninh ).” anom , ggi 36/673, Dossier Auguste Delaval. Once again, I am very grateful to Caroline Herbelin for sending me her scans of this very large dossier on Delaval. Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 38. Ibid., 48. See also Blagov, Caodaism, 93–4. Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 127. Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 32, 36, 48–9. Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 126. See also Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 33. Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 36. Ibid. Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 126; Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 37. Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 32. Lewis, A Dragon Apparent, 44. Greene, Quiet American, 103, 110. Hoskins, “Seeing Syncretism,” 32. Ibid., 33. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 48. Le Huu Phuoc, Vietnamese Architecture, 127. Ibid., 124. Ibid., 125. Ibid. Englemann and Ménoni, A Walk, 66–71; Haywood, Ancient Luang Prabang, 76–9. Sitthivong and Khamvone, Great Monks, 67; Khamvone, “The Life, Work,” 131–2, 197; “Memorial to Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro Abbot of Vat Suvannakhili,” unpublished document in the Buddhist Archive of Photography, Luang Prabang (hereafter baplp ).

73 Khamvone, “The Life, Work,” 131–2; Sitthivong and Khamvone, Great Monks, 67–9. 74 BAPLP , vsk _004180 to vsk _004209. Source: Khamvone, “The Life,” 132. 75 Sitthivong and Khamvone, Great Monks of Luang Prabang, 64. 76 Khamvone, “The Life,” 138. 77 On Grassi see Piazzardi, Italians at the Court of Siam, 246–9. 78 Notes in the Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro photography collection baplp , ea p 326/21/1/14. 79 Greck, Luang Prabang, 36–7. 80 Ibid., 36–7, 49. 81 The palace is illustrated in Herbelin, Architectures, 295. 82 These are all in the Pha Khamfan Silasangvaro photography collection, baplp , ea p 326/21/1/14. 83 Cooke, “Early Christian Conversion,” 33; Hoskins, “Visual Blasphemy,” 34; Oliver, Caodai Spiritism, 24. 84 Khamvone, “The Life,” 134. 85 Davison, Singapore Shophouses; Knapp, Chinese Houses; Yin, “The Singapore Shophouse”; Lim, “The Shophouse Rafflesia.” 86 Bremner, “Fabricating Justice,” 162–3. In 1933 the ebai hosted an exhibition of house designs by its students aiming to develop a national style specifically to replace the “style comprador.” Tha, “Di Tìm Một Lối Kiến-Trúc ‘Annam.’” 87 The building is illustrated in Herbelin, Architectures, 26. 88 Koditek, Battambang Heritage. 89 Herbelin, Architectures, 313–15. See also the book of photographs of old houses in Cochinchina: Ngô, Nhà Xưa Nam Bộ. 90 Quoted in Herbelin, Architectures, 314. 91 The passage is from Tonkin: paysages et impressions (1944) and is quoted in Herbelin, Architectures, 314. 92 Ibid., 291–3. 93 Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority, 216–17. 94 Reynolds, “Japan’s Imperial Diet”; Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority, 212–13, 239–43. See also Reynolds, “The Bunriha.” 95 Reynolds, “Japan’s Imperial Diet,” 256. See also Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority, 250. 96 Topich and Leitich, The History of Myanmar, 41–50.

114 baw , acc 586, clipping from Western Morning News, 23 April 1924, 7. 115 “Now Being Erected at Sydney Agricultural Showground,” Construction and Local Government Journal, 20 July 1927, 12. 116 “Incorporation of Features,” 171. 117 Moore, “Religious Architecture,” 21; U Kan Hla, “Pagan,” 20. 118 Lewis, Cities in Motion, 91; Rooney, 30 Heritage Buildings, 42. 119 Moore, “Religious Architecture,” 31. 120 Roberts, “Tradition,” 47–8; Bansal, Architectural Guide, 83. 121 World Monuments Fund, Building the Future, 26. 122 Bansal, Architectural Guide, 264–5. 123 Birnbaum, “Early Modern Architecture,” 78. 124 Anderson, Columbia Guide, 22. 125 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 337. 126 Anderson, Columbia Guide, 23–4; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 357. 127 Bertrand, Indochine, 106–7; Anderson, Columbia Guide, 26–7; Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 370. 128 Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 367. 129 Ibid., 372. 130 Malangin, Pondicherry, 112–15; Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 653. 131 Malangin, Pondicherry, 127; Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 653–6. 132 Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 757. 133 Malangin, Pondicherry, 138; Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 659–60. 134 Gressieux, “Les établissements,” 661. 135 Ibid., 663. 136 Quoted in Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:181. 137 Ibid., 182. 138 Ibid., 198. 139 The first quotation is by Falser, ibid., 182; the second is reproduced in Ross, “The Civilizing Vision,” 168. 140 Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:183; Falser, “Cultural Heritage,” 127. 141 Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:194. 142 Ibid., 195. 143 Falser, “à l’école ,” 8; Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:195; Falser, “Cultural Heritage as Performance,” 134. 144 Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:195–6; Falser, “Cultural Heritage as Performance,” 134.

NoTeS To pAgeS 360–74

97 Ibid., 61–70. 98 Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour, 5. 99 Quoted in Eimer, A Savage Dreamland, 5. See also Birnbaum, “Early Modern Architecture,” 76. 100 Rooney, 30 Heritage Buildings, 40. The amount of the loan is reported in Englishman’s Overland Mail (14 March 1912), 5. 101 Rooney, 30 Heritage Buildings, 41. See also Bansal et al., Architectural Guide, 81. 102 “Municipal Offices, Rangoon,” Architects’ Journal 68 (26 December 1928): 919. 103 “New Municipal Offices at Rangoon,” Architect and Building News 121 (28 June 1929): 864. 104 Ward, “Architecture in Burma.” Quoted in Guedes, “Behind the Veils,” 7–8; and Lewis, Cities in Motion, 89–90; and Lewis, “Rotary International,” 316. 105 Nair, Some Political Problems, 5. See also: Toe Toe Kyaw, “A Study,” 105; Lewis, “Print Culture,” 148; Taylor, The State in Myanmar, 173, 186. 106 Chicago Daily Tribune, Paris edition, 13 January 1932, 3. 107 The quotation first appears in “Incorporation of Features,” 171. Rooney does not provide the source and Lewis cites only its appearance in the newspaper New Burma, 9 March 1930 (Rooney, 30 Heritage Buildings, 41; Lewis, Cities in Motion, 91). I have been unable to obtain a copy of New Burma. It is not in the British Library, nor the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and the coup d’état of 1 February 2021 has made it impossible to return to Myanmar libraries. 108 Lewis, Cities in Motion, 90–1; Lewis, “Rotary International,” 317; Guedes, “Behind the Veils,” 7–8; Roberts, “Tradition,” 47; Roberts, “HeritageMaking,” 47. Bansal et al. do not quote the speech but follow Rooney in dating the debate to 1925. Bansal, Architectural Guide: Yangon, 81. 109 “Incorporation of Features,” 170. 110 Ibid., 171. 111 Ibid., 177. 112 Ibid., 172. 113 Brent Archives, Willesden (UK) (hereafter baw ), W.H.S. Collection, acc 586, “British Empire Exhibition: Burma at Wembley, 1924 (Scrapbook of Violet Rose James)” undated clipping from unidentified newspaper, ca 1924.

435

NoTeS To pAgeS 374–8

145 Falser, Angkor Wat, 2:197. 146 Tolla et al., Lima y el Callao, 294–315. 147 Petrina and López Martínez, Patrimonio arquitectónico argentino, vol. 2, pt. 1, 112; Petrina and López Martínez, Patrimonio arquitectónico argentino, 3:64–66. 148 Born in the Barrio Yungay district of Santiago, Jéquier moved to France before 1928 and died in Asnières-sur-Seine (Hauts de Seine). Archivo de la Parroquia de San Saturnino (Chile), Libro de Bautismos 1866, f.946; AP , “Liste de 1928,” d 4m 2 459; Archives départementales des Hauts-de-Seine, “Table alphabétique des successions et des absences 1947–49, ” q/asn /920, f.107 n.3.

436

149 Rodríguez-Cano et al., La Belle epoque, 188; CáceresGonzález, La arquitectura, 69–70; Riquelme Sepúlveda, 50 años. 150 Doling, Exploring, 106–7; Weill, “Travaux publics et colonisation,” 287–300. Tim Doling, personal communication, 21 August 2021. 151 La construction moderne 25 (2 May 1920): 244. 152 The impact of the Beaux-Arts on the United States was extensive as well and has been long recognized in the scholarship: see, for instance, Drexler, Architecture, 417–94. 153 Volait, “Provincializing Colonial Architecture.” 154 Benjamin, Oriental Aesthetics, 4.

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index

Page numbers in bold indicate illustrations. Abeille, Jean-Joseph, 5, 149, 151 Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 10, 271 Académie royale d’architecture, 3, 20, 80 Académie royale des sciences, 80 Accademia di S. Luca, 162 Acheraïou, Amar, 26–9, 30, 32–3 Adran (Syria), 181, 199 Africa, 8, 20–1, 32, 36–7, 40, 44–56, 57, 75, 128, 165, 374, 377 Agra (India), 19, 60–1, 130; Padres Santos Chapel, 61 Aix-en-Provence, 9, 198, 201, 326 Akbar, Mughal Emperor, 60, 97 Alam II, Shah, Mughal Emperor, 130 Alfonso VI, King of Portugal, 93 Algeria, 25, 209, 215, 254, 258, 264, 280, 297, 316; Office of Indigenous Arts, 280 Algiers, 215, 258; National Museum of Fine Arts, 264; Opera House, 215 Alsace, 116 Amable, Delphin, 229, 258 Ananda. See Pillai, Ananda Ranga Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū. See Śrinivasa

ancien régime, 9, 11, 13, 40, 149, 197, 209, 211, 231, 262, 374, 377 Ancy-le-Franc (France), Château, 218 Andhra Pradesh (India), 57 Andrianramarivelle, 45 Androuet du Cerceau, Paul, 120, 126, 246; Ornements d’orfèvrerie propres pour flenquer et émailler (ca 1687), 82 Angkor Wat, 19, 23, 209, 222, 259, 264, 269, 270, 272–4, 279, 281, 290, 293, 303–4, 306–7, 314, 325, 347, 371, 373 Anglo-Burmese Wars, 360 Ango, Jean, 34–5 Ang Thong (Thailand), Wat Luang, 102, 103, 119 Annam, French protectorate, 12, 183, 207–10, 222, 252, 279, 293, 306, 311, 315–16, 339, 369 Antilles, 8, 168, 212 apprenticeship. See training, architectural arabisances, 297 Archaeological Survey of India (1861), 274 architects, 3, 5, 13–16, 18, 20–3, 44, 50, 53, 60, 88–9, 91, 93, 95–7, 101, 107–9, 112, 128–9, 148–9, 178–80, 186, 190, 196–7, 210, 220, 222–3, 225, 231, 235, 243, 251, 253, 256–9, 261–3, 266–71, 273, 275,

278, 280, 283–6, 295, 297–8, 302, 304, 308, 312, 322–3, 339, 360, 364, 373–4, 378–9; Cambodian, 267, 283–4, 289, 378; civilian, 10, 20, 44, 56; Lao, 353–6; mixedrace, 11, 14; royal engineers, 3, 5, 20, 44, 50, 53, 101, 149, 190; Vietnamese, 14–15, 20, 182, 210, 266–7, 285, 289, 316, 323, 342, 356, 360, 373. See also architecture; carpenters; masons architecture: decoration, 5, 21, 29, 96, 100, 119, 124, 128, 136, 155–7, 173, 178, 181, 220, 237, 229, 235, 242–4, 255, 257–8, 263, 275, 283, 286, 290, 293, 299–300, 303, 305, 327, 330, 332, 339, 342, 345; domestic, 16–17, 21, 128, 159, 256, 258, 327, 332, 351, 356, 371, 377; and health, 15, 49, 177, 220, 280, 313, 324; and nostalgia, 8, 19, 129, 167, 176, 179, 207; pastiche, 163, 259, 272, 276, 273–4, 287, 289, 295, 297, 300, 312–13, 322, 337, 346–7, 373; vernacular, 16, 77, 264, 273, 275, 297, 299–300, 323. See also associationism; baroque; Beaux-arts style; compradoric style; hybridity; “Indies Architecture”; Indo-Saracenic style; modernism; neoclassicism, and architecture; Travaux publics style

index 462

Argentina, 235, 375–6. See also Buenos Aires; Rosario Arica (Chile): Cathedral of San Marcos, 376; Customs House, 376 Ariyankuppam (India), 66, 191 Armée d’Orient, 296 Arnhold, Hilda, 359, 378 art deco, 18, 31, 263, 275, 310, 312, 321, 325, 326, 357, 360, 362, 367, 371, 377 associationism, 12, 18, 20, 31, 261, 263–5, 273, 275–6, 293, 326, 354, 360, 368, 377 Association pour la formation intellectuelle et morale des Annamites (afima ), 322–4 Atlas de Colbert, 53 Aubert, Jean, 100, 162 Auclair, Claudius, 304, 308 Audouin, Georges-André, 227–8; “Plans et vues du théâtre de Saïgon,” 228 Augier, Émile, 243 Aumont, Paul, 97–8, 102 Aurangzeb, Mughal Emperor, 60–1 Aurillac (France), HospitalHospice, 266 Aurobindo, Sri, 370 Aviat, Albert, 313, 316, 319 Avignon, 76, 198, 258; École des Beaux-Arts d’Avignon, 258 Ayutthaya (Thailand), 17, 72, 74, 75, 77–8, 80–5, 88–91, 92, 93, 95, 97, 99–102, 105, 107, 109, 111–15, 117, 119–20, 123–7, 181–2, 185, 196, 262, 355; Cathedral and Seminary of Saint-Joseph, 94, 97–9, 101–2, 109, 119, 178, 190, 224, 257, 262, 337, 339; College of São Salvador, 93; Portuguese camp, 92–4; Royal Palace, 72, 80; São Domingos Church, 93; São Paulo Church, 93; Wat Niwet Thammaprawat, 355; Wat Ta Wed, 121, 122–3; Wat Thammaram, 124

Babonneau, Louis-Pierre-August, 236 Bắc Hà (Vietnam): Hoàng Yến Chao Palace, 356 Baille, Mayor Frédéric, 236 Baillif, Claude, 101–2; project for the facade of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Quebec City), 101 Baldinotti, Giuliano, 184 Ballu, Théodore, 215, 217 Bandoeng (Bandung, Java), 275–6; Indische Technische Hoogeschool, 275, 276 Bangkok, 15, 70–2, 78, 82, 85, 89, 105, 111, 114–18, 123–5, 129, 138, 197, 208, 267–8, 283, 322, 325, 353, 355–6; Bangkok Fort, 72, 78, 116, 117–18, 129; Grand Palace, 104, 111, 267, 268–9, 283, 355; L’Immaculée-Conception-de-laSainte-Vierge (wat noi), 71, 114; Ministry of Defence, 268; Suan Pakkad palace, 123, 124; Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, 355 Bangkok, Phra Thinang Chakri Maha Prasat. See Bangkok, Grand Palace ban talaeng pediments, 286, 293 Bantam, 78 Ba Pe, U, 326, 363–5, 367–8 Barbudaux, Roger, 255 Baron, François, 78 Baron de Montesquieu, 167 baroque, 18, 22, 29, 42–4, 60, 66, 89, 93, 95, 119–20, 129, 148, 254–5, 333, 346–7, 351, 356–60, 374, 377; and classicism, 89; and “Côte d’Azur style,” 359, 378. See also grand goût; Grand Siècle Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe): Fort Saint-Charles, 136 Batavia, 48, 56, 71, 163, 208, 264 Bâtiments civils (Indochina), 10, 18, 19, 20, 235–6, 244, 259, 265–6, 285, 296, 300, 302–3, 308, 314, 355; and Travaux publics, 18

Bâtiments civils, Service central de (Indochina), 296, 317 Bâtiments civils de l’État (Paris), 228 Battambang (Cambodia), 17, 357, 359, 373; shophouse, 358 Batteur, Charles-Louis-Joseph, 298, 312–19, 321–2, 354, 378 Batteur, Pierre-Joseph, 313 Baudoin, François-Marius, 274, 292, 286 Beau, Paul, Governor-General of Indochina, 306 Beausse, Pierre de, Governor of Fort Dauphin, 48 Beaux-Arts style, 15, 20–1, 215, 218, 226, 251, 256–7, 259–61, 264, 266, 268, 281, 285, 295–6, 300, 313, 324–5, 347, 355, 371, 375–8 Béhaine, Pierre Pigneaux de, 12, 77, 180–3, 190, 193, 195–9, 207, 307 Beijing, 97, 112, 202; Observatory, 79; Temple of Heaven, 321; Yuanmingyuan, 33, 42. See also Forbidden City, Beijing Belem (Brazil), Theatro da Paz, 235 Bélidor, Bernard Forest de, 118, 202; La science des ingénieurs (1729), 118 Bell, Adam Schall von, 79 Belle Époque, 14–15, 17, 21, 44, 211, 215, 222–3, 251, 257, 261, 296, 363, 374, 376 Bérain, Jean, 53, 55, 123; The Rear of the Vessel L’Ambitieux (1691), 54 Berlage, H.P., 275 Bérnard, Emile, 256 Bernier, François, 8 Berruer, Henri, 236 Bertin, Henri, 97 Bertrand, Romain, 72 Béthune, Maximilen de (duc de Sully), 36 Betts, Raymond, 273 Beylié, Briagadier General Léon de, 306

Bourdeaud, Jean, 236–7, 260–1. See also Haiphong: Théâtre municipal Boureau-Deslandes, AndréFrançois, 66, 78, 91, 95 bourgeoisie, 220, 224, 259 Bourges, Jacques de, 114, 185 Bouvet, Joachim, 80 Bray, Arthur, 360, 362–3, 365, 367 Briançon, 136; Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Nicolas,136 Briant, Sieur du, 85 Brieux, Eugène, 215, 244, 250 Brighton, Brighton Pavilion, 275 Brissay, Sieur de, 115 British Empire, 8, 163, 165–6, 263, 274, 360, 365; and architecture, 25 British Empire Exhibition, Wembley (1921), 365 Brittany, 5, 255, 380 Buenos Aires, 375–6; Palacio Oritz Basualdo, 376; Palacio Pareda, 375; Teatro Colón, 235 Bunriha Kenchikukai, 323, 326, 377 Burma, 153, 208, 215, 326, 360, 362–5, 368–9, 371. See also Rangoon (Yangon, Burma) Bussy, Adolphe-Louis, 244–5, 259 Buzomi, Francesco, 183, 187 Cai Ba, Dô huu Thuc dit, 318, 320 Cakravit, Bibhakti, 283 Calcutta, 12, 163, 166, 370 Callao (Lima, Peru), 256 Cambodia, 8, 12–17, 19–21, 32, 77, 96, 185, 197, 207–10, 252, 258, 260–1, 266, 268, 270–4, 277, 279–87, 289, 291–4, 300, 303, 313, 316, 325, 355, 359, 360, 365, 370–8. See also Battambang; Kampot; Phnom Penh; Savannakhet Cambrai, 225, 259 Camus, Albert: The Plague, 215 Cannes, 253

Cao Bằng, 206 Caodaism, 305, 340–2, 346–8 Cape of Good Hope, 34–7, 163 Cap-François (Cap-Haitien, Haiti), 25, 211–12; Salle des Spectacles, 24, 25, 212 Capuchins, 60, 64, 66, 132 Caron, François, 49, 56, 61 carpenters, 11, 50, 149, 193, 241, 337, 356. See also architects Carpezat, Eugène, 229, 257–8, 284, 375 Carré, Abbé Barthélemy, 33, 45, 49, 56, 61 Carrera, Augustin, 285 carton paté, 272 Carvalho, Diogo, 183 Cayenne (French Guiana), 44, 49–50, 201, 206; citadel, 51, 201 Cazenave, Eugène, 284 ceinture de fer, 43. See also Vauban, Sébastien le Prestre de Ceylon, 12, 56–7, 71, 90, 264. See also Colombo (Sri Lanka) Chaigneau, Jean-Baptiste, 207 Chaila, Abbé François de Langlade du, 81 Chailley-Bert, Joseph, 231 Chaise, François de la, 75, 79, 84, 113 Challes, Robert, 64 Chamblain, Jean-Baptiste Bullet de, 146, 148; project for Château de Champs, 146 Cham Kingdom: and architecture, 303–7, 311; and sculpture, 306 Chamnan, Ok-khun, 73 Champlâtreux (France), Château, 5, 6, 7, 10 Champmargou, Luc de, 48 Champs (France), Château. See Chamblain, Jean-Baptiste Bullet de Chandernagore (India), 12, 41, 44, 57, 66–7, 71, 87–8, 102, 113, 129,

index

Bhabha, Homi, 26–7, 29–30, 32, 357 Bijapur (India), 57, 60, 64 bishops, 75–6, 95–6, 99, 341; in partibus infidelium, 76 Bizet, George, 224, 243; Carmen (1875), 224 Blanc-Gilli, Mathieu: La bienfaisance de Louis XIV (1783), 213 Blanchard-de-la-Brosse, Paul, Governor of Cochinchina, 307 Blanche, Charles, 259, 271, 293–4, 303–4, 308, 315; Angkor Wat replica, 271; Elevation of the Main Facade of the Cambodian Pavilion, 294 Blanchy, Paul, 226, 231 Blondel, Jacques-François, 148, 155, 169 Blondel, Paul, 256, 300 Blum, Léon, 272 Boffrand, Germain, 143, 148, 169, 173 Bohra, Abdul Ghafer, 57 Boiret, Denis, 202 Bollan, Jacques de, 52 Bombay, 12, 163, 264–5, 364; Prince of Wales Museum, 264; Royal Asiatic Society, 264 Bordeaux, 37; Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, 212 Borri, Cristoforo, 188–9 Bossard, Jacques-Sydney-Émile, 259 Bossard, Jean-Baptiste, 258 Bossard, Jean-Isidore, 215, 235, 239, 242–7, 249, 258–9. See also Hanoi: Théâtre municipale de Hanoi Boucher, Francois, 97. See also rococo Bouderghem, Léonie Blanche, 259 Boullay, Claude Céberet du, 84 Bourcet, Jean-Claude de, 168–9, 171–2, 173, 175, 192, 195 Bourdaise, Toussaint, 53 Bourdat, Pierre, 130

463

index 464

130–1, 133, 370, 374; comptoir (Lodge), 86–7; Notre-Dame, 68–9 Chánh Hậu, Abbot, 347, 357, 378 Chao Phraya River (Thailand), 75, 78, 92, 116, 125, 128 Chao Phraya Wichayen (superintendent of foreign trade), 78. See also embassies, FrancoSiamese; Phaulkon, Constantine Chao Sua, King of Siam, 123 Chaperon, Philippe-Marie, 257 Charavy & Savelon, Entrepreneurs et Constructeurs, 237, 241 Charbonneau, René, 82 Charcot, Jean-Martin, 313 Charles II, King of Britain, 79 Charner, Admiral Léonard, 12 Charpentier, Gustave: Louise (1900), 244 Chasseloup-Laubat, Prosper de, 12, 208 chauderie (chatram, choultry), 191 Chaumont, Chevalier de, 72, 92. See also embassies, Franco-Siamese chauri (Mughal emblem of royalty), 131 chauvinism, French empire, 10, 26–7, 131, 228, 263–4, 280–1, 284–6, 289, 292–4. See also racism chelingues, 64 Chéreau, Marguerite Caillou, 162 Chevotet, Jean-Michel. See Champlâtreux (France), Château chhajjā, 332 Chhun, Alexis-Louis, 281–2 Chile, 235, 375–6. See also Santiago (Chile) China, 74–6, 80, 84, 92, 94–5, 97, 113–14, 123, 128, 191, 208, 222, 231, 280, 310, 356, 359; and porcelain, 33, 84, 88, 90–1, 123–4, 128 Chisholm, Robert Fellowes, 274 Choisy, Abbé Timoléon de, 75, 79, 81, 105, 115

Cholon (Vietnam), 210, 213, 252, 283 Chruy Tà Keo (Cambodia), Pagoda, 284 chữ nôm (Vietnamese ideographic writing), 210 Chu Quyến Village Hall (Vietnam), 189, 190 Cicé, Bishop Louis-Armand Champion de, 100–2 Circonscription Territoriale du Laos, 314 Claeys, Jean-Yves, 310 classicisme, 11, 271. See also grand goût; neoclassicism, and architecture Clement IX, Pope, 77–8 Clémentel, Étienne, 273 Clive, Robert, 165 Clunish, John, 267. See also Bangkok: Grand Palace coadjuteur d’ambassade, 81 Coadjutor, Jesuit, 66, 94 Cochin, Charles-Nicolas, 3, 162 Cochinchina, French colony, 10, 12–14, 20, 76–7, 91, 94, 112–14, 179–81, 183–5, 187, 190, 196–9, 207–20, 228, 231, 252, 270, 282, 296, 305–7, 309–11, 341–2, 357. See also Indochina; Saigon Coedès, George, 320 Cognacq, Maurice, GovernorGeneral of Indochina, 308 Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 20, 25, 35, 37–8, 43, 48, 50, 53, 89, 95, 116, 129–30, 160, 178, 271, 377. See also Atlas de Colbert Colombo (Sri Lanka): Colombo Museum, 264, 265; Wolvendaal Church, 39 colonial administration, 56, 132, 183, 209, 211, 259, 304–5, 343, 369, 370 colonies françaises, Les (1889), 226 Comité agricole et industriel (Société des études Indochinoises), 305

Comité de l’exploitation technique des chemins de fer (Saigon), 230 Commission des Grands Travaux, 226 Compagnie de Chine, 40 Compagnie de la Louisiane, 40 Compagnie des Cent-Associés, 35 Compagnie des Indes de SaintMalo. See Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio ) Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio ), 15, 18–19, 37–8, 40, 42, 44, 48–50, 55–7, 60–1, 64, 66, 70, 77–8, 84, 87, 91, 129–30, 132, 141, 150, 152, 162, 173, 177, 187, 190–1, 208, 215, 327–8, 330–3 Compagnie des Indes Orientales et de la Chine. See Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio ) Compagnie des Mers Orientales, 35 Compagnie des messageries impériales, 276 Compagnie des Moluques, 36 Compagnie du Mississippi, 40 Compagnie du Sénégal, 40 Compagnie française d’Orient (cfo ), 36, 42, 48 Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes. See Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio ) Compradoric style, 265, 296, 357 comptoirs, 17, 21, 38, 41, 56–7 Congo, 252 Conseil des bâtiments civils (Paris), 230 Consiglio Comunale di Sanremo, 253 Constantine (Algeria), Opera House, 215 Construction moderne, La, 265 Conti, Duetto, 254 contractors, 5, 14, 20, 23, 93, 210, 241–2, 244, 267, 285. See also architects Conway, Thomas, 197 “coolies,” 21, 149, 210, 241, 335

Cordé, 169, 194 cordon sanitaire, 15 Cornudet Law of 1919, 297 Corps of Engineers. See Génie militaire Cotolendi, Ignace, 76 Couche, Charles-Henri-François, 251 Coucherousset, Henri, 266, 285 Courcy, General Henri Roussel de, 259 cour d’honneur, 143, 147, 171, 351 courtier (chef des malabars), 132–3, 159, 327–8, 339 Coussot, Alfred, 282 Coysevox, Antoine, 72 Crapoix, Henri, 226 Crawfurd, John, 204 Crystal Palace Exposition, London (1851), 22, 178 Cửa Hàn (Vietnam), 183

Duchesne, Pierre-Joseph, 95, 112 Dulac, Claude, 169 Dumas, Alexandre, 243 Dumas, Pierre-Benoît, Governor of Pondicherry, 5, 130–1, 135, 149, 165 Dumont, Gabriel-Pierre Martin, 3–4, 20, 135, 150, 153–4, 160–2; drawings of the Pondicherry Gouvernement, 4, 153–4; perspective view of the mechanical works and construction of a theatre, 161 Dupleix, Joseph-François, Governor of Pondicherry, 5, 130–1, 133, 136, 139, 149, 151, 157–8, 165–6, 176–8, 195–6, 207, 329 Dutch Empire, 8, 18–19, 34, 36, 38, 42, 44, 48–9, 52, 56–7, 60–1, 64, 66, 75–6, 78, 82, 90, 92, 120, 130, 163, 196, 210, 224, 263, 276, 360. See also Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (voc ) Duvent, Charles-Jules, 241 East India Company (eic ), 34, 37–8, 42, 56–7, 60–1, 64, 77, 163, 165 École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, 20, 281–2 École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 9, 20–1, 226, 228, 251, 255, 256, 258–9, 264, 266, 270, 281, 296, 300, 302, 314–15, 324, 377 École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (ebai ), Hanoi, 21, 255, 264, 266, 302, 314–15, 323–4, 324, 326, 360, 377–8 École des Mines, Paris, 251 École des Ponts-et-Chaussées, Paris, 20, 259 École Française d’Extrême-Orient (efeo ), 9, 18, 20, 264, 269–71, 278, 280–1, 283, 289, 292, 303,

index

Đại Nam (historical name for Vietnam), 183, 205, 207–9, 339 Đại Nam nhất thống chí (Đại Nam Comprehensive Encyclopaedia), 205 Đại Việt (historical name for Vietnam), 8, 13, 17, 22, 56, 75–7, 178–9, 182–5, 187, 196, 199, 205, 207, 209, 338–9, 374 Daladier, Édouard, 308 Dalat (Vietnam), 15, 298–9 Dalayrac, Nicolas: Le corsaire (1783), 213 Daman (India), 93, 96 Da Nang (Vietnam), 197; Musée Cham, 281 Danish East Asiatic Company, 231 Danish Empire, 44, 64, 135, 231 dao phedan (“star ceilings”), 96 Daumont, Jacques-François, 162 Davoust, Jean, 195 Deglane, Henri-Adolphe-August, 220, 230, 256

Delalande, Michel-Richard, 84 Delaporte, Louis, 270 Delarouzée, Paul-Louis, 242 Delaval, Auguste-Émile-Joseph, 283, 300, 302–5, 309–12, 342, 343, 347, 378. See also Saigon, Musée Blanchard-de-la-Brosse Delhi, 12, 19, 130, 274–5, 364 Delibes, Léo: Lakmé (1883), 224 Dellon, Gabriel, 49, 55 Deperthes, Édouard, 215, 217 Desbois, Jean, 298 Descourvières, Jean-Joseph, 202 Desfargues, Marshall, 85 Deshima (Dejima, Japan), 75 Dessolier, Félix, 236 Destouches, André Cardinal, 85, 223 Deveaux, Thérèse-Jeanne, 168 Deydier, François, 185 Dias, Maria, 66 Diderot, Denis, 167 Didier, Louis, 143 Điện Biên Phủ, Battle of, 12, 369 Diên Khánh: Cathedral of SaintJoseph, 337; Citadel, 7, 11, 17, 22, 179, 181–3, 185, 187, 189, 191, 193, 195–7, 199, 201, 203, 204–7, 209, 211, 252, 262, 337 đình, 321. See also Chu Quyến Village Hall (Vietnam) Diu (India), 93 Dolivet, Emmanuel, 228–9 Dollu, Charles-François, 99 Dominicans, 92–3, 97, 185, 207 Đỗ-Phúc-Thạnh, 205 Dormal, Jules, 376 Doumer, Paul, Governor-General of Indochina, 209–10, 228, 237, 271, 306 dubash (“man of two languages”), 132, 329, 331, 333 Du Cerceau, Paul Androuet de, 82, 120, 126, 246; Ornements d’orfèvrerie propres pour flanquer et émailler, 82

465

index 466

306–7, 311–12, 314, 316–22, 371, 373 École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers, Paris, 20 École Polytechnique, Paris, 20, 259 École Royale des Arts Décoratifs Cambodgiens, Phnom Penh, 264, 267, 278, 280, 283, 292 École Royale du Génie de Mézières, Ardennes, 20, 198 École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, Paris, 20 Edict of Nantes (1685), 79 Eiffel, Gustav, 376 embassies, Franco-Siamese, 72–85, 88, 90–3, 99, 105–7, 112–13, 115, 120, 149, 197, 207, 212 Emerson, William, 274 engineering, 20, 79, 83, 251, 255, 292, 364, 378. See also Génie militaire ephemera, 93, 165, 178, 188, 264, 373 Ertinger, Franz: View of the Back of the Audience Hall of the Palace of Siam (1691), 80 escalier d’honneur, 147, 243, 247 Exposition coloniale de Marseille (1906), 23, 222, 259, 260, 272, 273, 307 Exposition coloniale de Marseille (1922), 23, 307 Exposition coloniale internationale, Vincennes (1931), 23, 31, 222, 251, 255, 271, 276, 280, 290, 293, 294, 299, 303, 314, 315, 347 Exposition de Hanoï (1902), 23, 24, 237, 244, 295, 308–9, 316. See also Hanoi, Grand Palais de l’Exposition Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, Paris (1925), 304, 308–9 Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne, Paris (1937), 23, 222, 226, 255 exposition pavilions, 13, 23, 31, 42, 50, 95, 166, 204–5, 222–4, 232–3,

242–6, 253, 261, 263–4, 273, 283, 290–1, 293, 303, 308, 310, 312, 316, 347, 351, 365, 367, 373, 376, 377 expositions, 23, 222, 263, 270, 272–3, 280, 293, 303, 315, 325, 347, 371, 373, 377; and pavilions, 23, 31, 222, 232–3, 261, 263–4, 272, 283, 290, 293, 303, 308, 312, 316, 347, 371, 373; and performance, 23. See also British Empire Exhibition, Wembley (1921); Crystal Palace Exposition, London (1851); Exposition coloniale de Marseille (1906); Exposition coloniale de Marseille (1922); Exposition coloniale internationale, Vincennes (1931); Exposition de Hanoï (1902); Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, Paris (1925); Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne, Paris (1937); exposition pavilions; Exposition théâtre et de la musique, Paris (1896); Exposition Universelle, Paris (1855); Exposition Universelle, Paris (1900); Foire-Exposition de Saïgon Exposition théâtre et de la musique, Paris (1896), 228. See also Audouin, Georges-André Exposition universelle, Paris (1855), 13, 215, 217 Exposition universelle, Paris (1900), 12, 23, 222, 251–2, 256, 282, 377. See also Paris: Grand Palais; Paris: Petit Palais Faccio, Franco: Hamlet (1865), 224 Faifo. See Hội An Fallois, Armand de, 253 Farrère, Claude, 272 Faucheur, Adélaide le, 173 Fénelon, François, 322

Fer, Nicolas de: Map of Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast (1704), 62–3 Ferret, Eugène-Alexandre-Nicolas, 215, 225–6, 228, 230–3, 251–5, 259, 375, 378; Cannes, Project for the Casino municipal, 253; and the Compagnie française des Tramways de l’Indochine, 252; and the Exposition coloniale internationale (1931), 255; and Guy de Maupassant, 252; Hippodrome Théâtre at Roubaix, 251; Korean Pavilion at the 1900 Exposition universelle, 252; and the Médaille et Croix de Guerre de 1870–71, 251; and the “Société du Casino Municipale de San-Remo,” 254. See also Saigon: Théâtre de Saigon (Opera House); Sanremo, Casinò Municipale Ferrière, Joseph, 224 Ferry, Jules, Prime Minister of France, 209 Fierens-Gevaert, Hippolyte, 322 Finlayson, George, 204–6 First Carnatic War (1746–48), 150, 169 First Indochina War (1946–54), 369 First World War, 14–15, 25, 215, 244, 255, 261–2, 296, 300, 305, 308, 316, 362, 370 Flacourt, Étienne de, 45–7, 50, 52, 56 Flanneau, Berthe-Marie-Henriette, 259 fleur-de-lys, 136, 194, 351, 355 Floyon (France), 258 Foire-Exposition de Saïgon, 308, 309, 310–11, 316 Fonbrun, Jean-Louis Champia de, 3–4, 135, 162; drawings of the Pondicherry Gouvernement, 4 Fontaney, Jean de, 80 Fontenay-aux-Roses (France), Maison de campagne, 266

Forbidden City, Beijing: East gate (Donghuamen), 204; Grand Ancestral Shrine, 321; Ten Thousand Springs (Wanchun ting) Pavilion, 310 Forbin, Claude de, 115 Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, 17, 36–8, 41, 43–6, 46–7, 48–50, 52–3, 55–7, 61, 67, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 83, 85, 132 Fossier, Louis-Denis, 166–7 Foulhoux, Alfred, 11, 215, 217, 222 fountains, 5, 21, 79, 93, 155, 176–7, 211 Fouquet, Nicolas, 36, 48 Fourès, Augustin-Julien, 239 Fournereau, Lucien, 270 Fournier, Victor, 253 Fraipoint, George, 241 Franciscans, 92–3, 97, 185, 207 François I, King of France, 34–5 Franco-Prussian War, 14, 251 Franco-Viet Minh War, 343. See also First Indochina War French Academy in Rome, 3, 20, 295 French Colonial Union, 231–2 French Indian Representative Assembly, 370 Frêne, Jean Roze dit du, 5, 149 Fronde civil war, 43

Grand Prix de Rome, 20, 162, 279, 296, 300. See also French Academy in Rome Grand Siècle, 5, 18, 105, 129–30, 135, 143, 160, 167. See also Colbert, Jean-Baptiste; Louis XIV Greene, Graham, 222; The Quiet American (1955), 15, 99, 222, 252, 338, 340, 345–7 Groslier, Bernard-Philippe, 279 Groslier, George, 263, 267, 275, 277–80, 284–6, 287, 289, 290–4, 296, 300, 302, 308–9, 312–15, 325, 346–7, 371; Arts et archéologie khmers, 280; Danseuses cambodgiennes anciennes et modernes, 279 Guadet, Julien, 256 Guangzhou, Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, 10 Guiana, 8, 49, 55, 408. See also Cayenne (French Guiana) Guichard, Ernest-Amédeé, 215, 225, 230, 235, 251, 255–7, 375; projet rendu for a chamber of notaries building (1895), 257. See also Saigon: Théâtre de Saigon (Opera House) Guignes, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de, 199 Guruvappa, Chevalier Charles-Philippe, 133 Haiphong, 21, 25, 211, 213, 215, 236–7, 244, 260–1, 265, 285, 316, 369, 375; Théâtre municipal, 213 Hàm Nghi, Emperor of Đại Nam, 209 Hanoi, 12, 14–15, 17–18, 21, 23, 25, 183, 185, 206, 208–13, 215, 218, 220–5, 229, 231–3, 235–53, 255, 258–65, 267, 271, 273, 283, 292, 295, 297–300, 303–9, 311–24, 334, 338, 342, 354, 357, 375–7; Church of the Holy Martyrs, 298; Cổ Loa Citadel, 283;

index

Gabriel, Ange-Jacques, 160 gác chuông, 338 Gallieni, Joseph-Simon, Governor of Madagascar, 273 gallic culture, 25, 61, 179, 190, 224, 324 gardens, 9, 21, 43, 52, 61, 139, 162, 164–5, 168, 172, 232, 256, 305, 307, 374, 376; of Fort-Dauphin, 46–7, 52 Garnier, Charles, 25, 208, 220–1, 223, 235, 254, 256. See also Monte Carlo, Casino; Paris: Opéra Garnier Garnier, Tony, 297

Gaussin, Albert, 244 Gayme, Claude, 78 Gedi (Kenya), 128 Genet, Antoine, 226 Génie militaire, 5, 205, 207. See also engineering Genouilly, Charles Rigault de, Admiral, 12, 178, 208 Georgian Bay (Canada), 55 Gerbaud, Emmanuel-Julien, 4–5, 14, 143, 149–52, 154–5, 159, 169; plans for the Pondicherry Gouvernement, 151–2 Gerbillon, Jean-François, 80 Gerini, Gerolamo Emilio, 268 Gervaise, Nicolas, 92, 115 Gia Long, Emperor of Đại Việt. See Nguyễn Ánh, King of Cochinchina Giám thành (director of fortifications), 205 Ginain, Léon-Paul-René, 258, 296 Gingee, 8, 60, 64, 65, 70–1, 136 Girault, Charles, 222–3, 232 Gisors, Louis Henri Georges Scellier de, 258, 283, 296 gloire (idea of French glory), 8, 18, 34–5, 40, 42, 79, 81, 130, 165, 195, 271, 207 Goa, 75–7, 79, 93–4, 113, 185; College of São Paulo, 93–4 Golconda, 12, 57, 64, 70 Gold Coast (Ghana), 32, 45, 143 Gondrée, Nicolas, 48 gothic style, 10, 101, 275, 296, 321, 337, 343–4, 355 Gounod, Charles, 25, 224, 244, 257; Faust (1859), 224 Gourou, Pierre, 357 Gò Vấp (Vietnam), 252 Graf de Lailhacar & Cie, 228 grandeur (French idea of ), 9, 37, 43, 45, 129–30, 136, 149, 155, 164, 215, 218, 225, 242, 250, 261 grand goût, 42–4. See also baroque; classicisme; Grand Siècle

467

index 468

Grand Palais de l’Exposition, 23, 24, 25, 215, 222, 244, 252, 281, 309; Hôtel de la residence supérieure du Tonkin, 244; and indigenous production, 309; Institut Pasteur, 298; Lycée d’Hanoi, 304; Ministry of Finances building, Hanoi, 298, 299; Musée Louis-Finot, 18, 264, 284, 298, 312–14, 316, 317–19, 320; Musée Maurice Long, 25, 316–17; Palais du Gouverneur Général, 13, 176, 208, 218, 218–19, 220; Pont Doumer, 210; Théâtre municipal de Hanoi, 216, 223, 235–7, 238–40, 246, 248, 250, 251, 258–61, 284, 320; Université Indochinoise, Hanoi, 298; Văn Miếu Temple, 334 Hardouin-Mansart, Jules, 43 Harlay, Victorin-Anatole, Albéric, 215, 235, 236–40, 242–7, 258–60. See also Hanoi: Théâtre municipal de Hanoi Harmond, Jules, 273 Hà Tiên (Vietnam), 185, 77, 185, 196–7, 205–6, 316 Hébert, Guillaume-André, Governor of Pondicherry, 133, 195 Hébrard, Ernest, 14–15, 20, 22, 226, 263–4, 275, 277, 280, 283, 293, 295–300, 308, 311–13, 316–18, 321–4, 337, 343, 346–7, 363; and “style indochinois,” 263, 295, 298–300, 312, 324, 337, 342–3. See also Hanoi: Church of the Holy Martyrs; Hanoi: Ministry of Finances building, Hanoi; Hanoi: Musée Louis-Finot; Hanoi: Université Indochinoise, Hanoi Heeren XVII. See Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (voc ) Henault, Lucien-Ambroise, 235, 376 Henry IV, King of France, 35–6

Herbelin, Caroline, 15–16, 32–3, 273, 280, 295, 300, 313, 315, 319, 321–3, 325 Hermitte, Achille-Antoine, 10. See also Guangzhou, Cathedral of the Sacred Heart; Hong Kong: City Hall; Saigon: Palais du Gouvernement Général Hernault, Jacques, 5, 149 Hervé, Louis-Auguste-Florimond Ronger, 251 Hessing, John, 130 Hoàng Như Tiếp, 285 Hoàng Quỳnh, 339 Ho Chi Minh, 210, 369 Hội An, 184, 350; Chinese temple on Nguyễn Thái Học Street, 345 Holbé, Victor-Thomas, 307 homesickness, 19, 220, 226, 244, 262 Hòn Đất (Vietnam), 185, 190, 196 Hong Kong, 10–11, 208, 228, 276, 308, 316, 357; City Hall, 10; Flagstaff House, 276; Murray Barracks, 276 hôtel particulier, 117, 158, 332 Houillères, de, engineer, 116 Huế (Vietnam), 13, 182, 189, 203, 205–9, 264, 302, 307, 312, 336, 339, 344, 350, 351; Citadel, 204; Trường Tiền Bridge, 376 Huệ Đăng, Abbot, 347 Huquier, Jacques-Gabriel, 162–4; Perspective View of the Marvellous Bower, 164; View of Pondicherry in the East Indies, 163 Huronia (Nouvelle-France), 53 Hutchinson, E.W., 106, 108–9 hybridity, 15, 18–19, 21, 23, 25–33, 42, 89–90, 97, 128, 132, 190, 263, 277, 305, 323–4, 333, 354, 368, 374, 377; in architecture, 18–21, 23, 25–6, 28–34, 42, 44, 60, 88–90, 93, 96, 109, 112, 128, 130, 132, 179, 190, 196, 206, 262–3, 267, 269, 274, 286, 290, 305, 323,

324, 326, 332–3, 354, 356–7, 362, 367–8, 374, 377–8; and mestizaje/ métissage, 23–6, 28–9, 31–3, 93, 262–3, 273, 295, 308, 325 Hyderabad (India), 131 Île Bourbon (Réunion), 9, 21, 36, 45, 48–9, 173 Île Dauphine (Madagascar), 48 Île de France (Mauritius), 5, 9, 14, 20, 21, 136, 139, 150, 169, 206 Île de Gorée (Senegal), 8, 49 Île de Ré (France), Citadel of Saint-Martin, 205 Île Mascareigne. See Île Bourbon (Réunion) independence movements: Burma, 360, 368; Cambodia, 370–4; India, 370; Vietnam, 12, 210, 322, 324–5, 343, 346, 360, 369, 373 India, 3–9, 13–17, 19–21, 33–8, 40–5, 48–50, 56–7, 60–1, 64, 70–1, 74–7, 85, 98, 100, 110, 129, 130–3, 135, 149, 151, 157–60, 162–3, 165, 168, 177–8, 195, 207, 210, 215, 263, 265, 274–5, 279, 323–7, 329, 331, 333, 353, 356, 360, 364, 367, 370, 374 “Indies Architecture,” 275 indigenous peoples, 23, 27, 31, 50 Indochina, 8, 12–16, 18–23, 25, 31–2, 38, 40, 44, 94, 177–80, 182, 195, 197, 207–10, 215, 220, 222–5, 235, 244, 251–2, 255, 258–9, 261–6, 269, 271–6, 279–81, 285, 290, 295, 297–8, 300, 302–4, 306, 308–9, 312–14, 316, 321, 322–3, 337, 339, 344, 357, 360, 369–70, 374, 376; and pavilions, 23, 31, 222–4, 263–4, 273, 290, 300, 303–4, 308, 312, 314, 316, 344; and theatre, 215, 220, 224–5, 235, 244, 251–2, 258 Indo-Saracenic style, 263, 265, 274–5, 360

Innocent XI, Pope, 73, 75, 85, 99 Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) peoples, 50 Isfahan, 90 Israël, Marianne, 258 Issy-les-Moulineaux (France), Château, 155 Istanbul, 296 Ivry-sur-Seine, 260 Jahangir, Mughal Emperor, 97 Jakarta, Batavia Museum (1862), 264. See also Batavia jali (grille), 60 James II, King of Britain, 93 Jang, Salābat, 131 Japan, 56–7, 60, 74–5, 78, 84, 88, 90–3, 109–11, 119, 126, 128, 180, 182–4, 186–7, 281, 306, 310, 313, 321, 323, 326, 343, 351, 359, 360, 369 Jaussely, Léon, 297 Jéquier, Émile, 376 Jesuits, 41, 44, 53, 55, 60, 66–7, 75– 80, 83–4, 92–7, 99, 102, 107, 111– 14, 129, 132–3, 180–91, 195, 207, 262; and l’affaire Naniapa, 133 Joffre, Captain Joseph, 339 Jordis, Michael, 52 Josse, Jules, 308, 311 Jouveaux-Dubreuil, Gabriel, 195 Julienne, Jean de, 165 Jully, Abbé de, 81

Labarca, Miguel Angel de la Cruz, 375 Laborde, Engineer, 276–7 La Chaise, Abbé François de, 75, 79, 84, 113 La Cruz Labarca, Miguel Ángel, 376 La Font de Saint-Yenne, Étienne: L’Ombre du Grand Colbert (1741), 130 Laforgue, Adrien, 297 Lagisquet, François-Charles, 215–16, 239–40, 243–6, 259–61, 272–3, 281, 316. See also Hanoi: Théâtre municipal de Hanoi Lagisquet, Suzanne Pauline, 259 La Grandière, Admiral Pierre-Paul de, 306 Lagrée, Ernest Doudart de, 208, 282, 306

Lahore (Pakistan), Fort, 90 La Loubère, Simon, 75, 80, 84–5, 92, 105, 116, 183 Lamorte, Victor, 258, 284–5 La Motte, Bishop Pierre Lambert de, 76, 92, 180, 185 Laneau, Bishop Louis, 76–8, 94–7 Lanessan, Jean Marie Antione de, 273 Langres, Sieur de, 115 Lanty, Claude-Thérèse de Chastenay de, 149 Laos, 8, 12, 14, 17, 22, 76, 181, 207, 209, 266, 268, 289, 314–15, 347, 353, 356–7, 360, 369. See also Luang Prabang; Vientiane Lapie, 94 Larche, Jean Henry de, 143 Larmessin II, Nicolas de, 72 Laprade, Albert, 297 La Roche, Louis Paradis de, 149 La Rochelle, 36, 48, 205, 207; Fort Liédot, 207 Lassurance, Pierre, 143, 148. See also Paris: Hôtel Desmarets Lauriston, Jean Law de, 172 Lavastre, Joseph-Antoine, 257–8 Lavoué, Pierre, 202 Law, John, 40, 61 Lazarists, 48, 53, 75 League of Augsburg, War of the (1688–97), 85 Le Bozecq, Jean, 5, 143, 149, 150 Le Brun, Charles, 43, 53, 72–3; Louis 14 Giving Audience to the Ambassadors of Siam, 73. See also Paris: Louvre Le Brun, Théodore, 196, 199 Le Brusq, Arnauld, 15, 225, 246, 264, 297, 208, 313, 321 Leclanger, Victor-Anatole, 236 Le Clerc, Sébastien (the elder), 72 Lecocq, Alexandre-Charles, 251 Le Dure, Louis, 149 Le Dot, M., 81

index

Kaempfer, Engelbert, 99, 115 Kâlâpêttai, 131 Kampong Cham (Cambodia): Vat Phnom Del, 284 Kampot (Cambodia), 357, 371 Kangxi, Emperor of China, 113 Kanō Sōshū, painting of the Church of the Assumption, Kyoto, 186 Karikal (Karaikal, India), 57, 149, 192, 369

Karnataka (India), 57 Karsten, Thomas, 275 Khamchan, Abbot Sathu Nyai, 354 Khan, Gussafar, 71 Khān I, Nawab Sa’adatullāh, 331 Khang, Trinh-Quy, 267, 313, 316, 320 khunmun, 83 khunnang, 83 Khun Phichit Maitri, 79 Khun Phichai Walit, 79 Khuôn Nguyễn Van, François, 266, 277–8, 281–3, 286, 291, 378 Knosp, Henri, 236 Kosa, Phraya Phiphat, 78 Kosa Pan, 72, 75, 83, 85, 213 Kosathibodi, 77 Kourou (French Guiana), 49–50, 51, 55 Krautheimer, Jean-Félix, Governor of Cochinchina, 305 Kromluangyothathip, Chhaofah, 120

469

index 470

Le Gouaz, Yves-Marie: View of Part of the Ruins of Pondicherry (1773), 167 Léhar, Franz: The Merry Widow (1905), 244 Le Mercier, Jacques, 67, 102 Lemire, Charles, 306 Le Muet, Pierre, 70, 107–8, 117; Augmentations de nouveaux bastimens faits en France (1663), 70; Manière de bien bastir pour toutes sortes de personnes (1681), 107 Le Nôtre, André, 43 Le Pautre, Jean, 126, 246; acanthus frieze design, 127 Lê Quang Định, Hoàng Việt nhất thống dư địa chí (1806), 206 Lespinay, Benoît Bellander de, 61 Letondal, François-Claude, 195 Lê Văn Khôi, 204 Lê Văn Trung, Caodaist Pope, 341 Le Vau, Louis, 43–4. See also Paris: Louvre; Vaux-le-Vicomte, Château; Versailles, Château de: Escalier des Ambassadeurs Lewis, Norman, 15, 222, 345–6, 357, 362 Leyrit, Georges Duval de, Governor of Pondicherry, 131, 157 Lichtenfelder, Charles, 218, 220. See also Hanoi: Palais du Gouverneur Général Lille, 115–16, 136, 205, 297 Lima: La Colmena neighbourhood, 375 Lionne, Artus de, 83 Locquin, Jean, 303 Lodi, Sher Khan, governor of Valikondapuram, 61 Logerot, Albert, 243 Lolière-Puycontat, Monsignor Jean de, 100 Long, Maurice, 297 Longvek (Cambodia), Phnom Kruong, 284

Lopburi, 17, 22, 79, 82–5, 88, 91, 94, 102, 105–15, 119, 378; Ambassadors’ Residence and Phaulkon’s Palace (Ban Chao Wichayen), 106–7, 113; Chapel of NotreDame-de-Lorette, 22, 108–9, 109, 112, 215, 378; Jesuit observatory, 114; Royal Palace, 83, 85, 90, 111, 115 Lormier, Édouard, 182 Louis XIV, King of France, 5, 8, 18, 25, 35, 37, 41–2, 44, 49, 53, 60, 72–3, 75, 78–85, 90, 99, 105, 112, 115–16, 120, 129, 136, 148–9, 158–9, 165, 178, 206, 223, 257, 271 Louis XV, King of France, 8, 16, 37, 44, 130–1, 160, 168, 177, 181–2, 195, 197, 213, 323–3, 351, 376; classicism, 15. See also rococo Louisbourg (Canada), 136 Louisiana, 8 Luang Prabang (Laos), 14–17, 22–3, 269, 314–15, 321, 325, 347, 351, 353, 356–7; Prince Vong Savang Residence, 354; Royal Palace, 269; Sala Thammavihan, 347, 351, 352, 356–7; school principal’s residence, 22; urbanization, 355; Vat Saen Sukhharam, 354; Wat Khili Temple, 323; Wat Tham Chor Si, 314; Wat Xiang Thong, 315, 353 Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 25, 79, 83, 85, 213, 223; Acis et Galatée (1686), 213; Armide (1686), 213 Lutyens, Sir Edwin, 275 Lyautey, Louis Hubert, 273, 280, 297, 339 Lyon, 34, 37, 224, 226, 297, 302; Basilica of Saint-Martin d’Ainay, 302 Macau, 75, 93–4, 111, 199, 339, 357 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 165 Mạc Thiên Tứ, 185

Madagascar, 9, 34–6, 41, 44–5, 48–50, 55–6, 72, 75, 179, 208, 273. See also Fort Dauphin, Madagascar; Île Dauphines Madras, 3, 7, 38–9, 60, 64, 131, 135, 163, 165–6, 168–9, 176, 190, 193, 274, 328, 331–2, 362; Armenian Church, 176; Chepauk Palace, 274; Doveton House, 176; Fort St George, 7; St Mary’s (Fort) Church, 39. See also Madras Terrace Madras Terrace, 176, 332 Madurai (India), 60, 70 Mahadik, Harji, 64, 71 Maharaja of Jodhpur, 130 Mahé (India), 57, 149–50, 169, 369, 370 māhi-marātib (Mughal fish insignia), 131 Mahot, Guillaume, 187 Maignan, Albert, 279–80, 286 mái kép, 338 Maitri, Khun Phichit, 79 Mak, Oknha Tep Nimit, 267, 283–4, 289, 378. See also Phnom Penh: École des arts cambodgiens (1917); Phnom Penh: Musée Albert-Sarraut; Phnom Penh: Royal Palace Malabar, 57, 60, 64, 132–3, 159, 195 Malacca, 75, 193, 199 Maldonado, Jean-Baptiste, 113 Malherbe, Pierre-Oliver, 35 Malleret, Louis, 195 mansard roof, 44, 160, 165, 232, 296 Mansart, François, 44, 211, 246 Mao, Oknha Reachna Prasor, 283. See also Phnom Penh: École des arts cambodgiens (1917) Marathas, 130 Maratta, Carlo, 73 Marcel, Alexandre-Auguste-Louis: Théâtre Cambodgien, 283; Wat Phnom reconstruction, 283

McLean, John, 166–7; Ruins of the Citadel in Pondicherry (1762), 166 Mekong River, 12, 196–7, 306 Mergui (Myeik, Myanmar), 73, 85, 113, 115 Mériot, M., 266 Merlin, Martial Henri, Governor General of Indochina, 308, 311, 317 metropolitan style, 21, 23, 44, 129, 141, 146, 149, 179, 218, 224, 262, 378 Mézières, Simon Lagrenée de, 173 Michelangelo, 97. See also Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori military trophée, 5, 152 Milne-Edwards, Henri, 306 Minangkabau peoples, 275 Minh Đàn, Abbot, 347, 350, 357 Minh Đức vương Thái Phi, 187 Ministry of the Marine, 19, 20, 116, 149, 160 mirrors, 5, 25, 72, 79, 81, 84–5, 90–1, 120, 149, 156, 160, 248 mise en valeur, 210, 273 missionaries, 13, 18–19, 29, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 48, 55, 66, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81–2, 85, 88–94, 96–100, 105, 114, 129, 132–3, 178–80, 182–5, 190–2, 202, 207–8, 215, 338, 378. See also Dominicans; Franciscans; Jesuits; Lazarists; MissionsÉtrangères de Paris (mep ) mission civilisatrice, 11, 31, 182, 210, 215, 280, 324 Missions-Étrangères de Paris (mep ), 10, 12, 41, 66, 70, 75–9, 81–3, 85, 88, 92–7, 100–2, 105, 112–15, 132, 169, 180–7, 190–7, 202, 331 modernism, 5, 13–14, 16, 18–20, 23, 25, 26, 28–32, 34–5, 41, 61, 75–6, 83, 91, 97, 115, 128, 157, 162, 166, 178–80, 182–3, 196, 205, 207, 213, 215, 232, 239, 252, 255–6,

263–5, 269, 272, 275, 279–80, 293, 296–7, 308, 321–5, 333, 338, 342, 347, 354, 356, 359–60, 363–5, 371, 374, 376–8. See also art deco modernism, and architecture, 31, 275, 323, 325–6, 363, 371 Molière, 83, 212; The Misanthrope, 212 Moluccas, 34, 36 Molyvann, Van, 325, 372–3. See also Phnom Penh: Monument to Cambodian Independence Montagnais (Innu) peoples, 50 Montaubon, M. De, 48 Monte Carlo, Casino, 253 Montesquieu, Baron de, 167 Montmorency-Laval, FrançoisXavier de, 76 Montpellier, 226, 375 Morin, Jean-Aimé, 241 Morocco, 264, 273, 280, 296–7; associationist architecture and, 296 Morris, William, 322 Motta, Lazare de, 64 Mouhot, Henri, 270 Mughal Empire, 5, 19, 44, 49, 56–7, 60–1, 64, 70–1, 90, 97, 130–3, 149, 165, 190, 211, 274, 327, 331, 333, 367 Muhammad Shah, Mughal Emperor, 130 muqarnas (honeycomb vault), 297 mutram, 332 Mỹ Tho, House of Lê Công Phước, 359; Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, 325, 347, 348–50, 351 Nacquard, Charles, 48 Nagasaki, 75 Napoleon I, Emperor of France, 44 Napoleon III, Emperor of France, 8, 12, 177–8, 195, 208 Narai, King of Siam, 8, 25, 70–5, 77–9, 81–5, 90–1, 93, 95, 99–100,

index

Marchal, Henri, 270, 304, 314, 373 Maria Francisca, Queen of Portugal, 93 Mariette, Jean, 126, 143, 148; L’Architecture françois (Paris, 1727), 142, 169 Marini, Giovanni Filippo de, 93 Marliave, François de, 285 Marot, Jean, 67–70, 102, 108–10, 113; Architecture française, 67, 70; Recueil des plans, profils, et eleuations, 110 Marquis de Marigny. See Poisson, Abel-François Marrast, Joseph, 297 Marseille, 23, 57, 212, 222, 224, 239, 251, 258–60, 262, 264, 272–3, 280–2, 293, 303, 307, 326, 370, 371; Collège (Lycée), 282; Opéra de Marseille, 212. See also Exposition coloniale de Marseille (1906); Exposition coloniale de Marseille (1922) Martin, François, 49, 61, 78, 135 Martin, Léonard-Louis, 375 mashrabiyya (wooden grille), 297 masons, 5, 11, 44, 50, 70, 149, 241, 347, 356. See also architects Massé, Victor, 243 Massenet, Jules, 223–4, 231, 243–4, 257; La navarraise (1894), 224; Sapho (1896), 224; Thaïs (1894), 19, 224; Werther (1892), 224 Masulipatam (India), 57 Mathon, Louis, 191, 195 Matifat, Charles-Stanislas, 178 Maucher, Engineer, 276 Maugham, William Somerset, 221, 362 Maupassant, Guy de, 252; Boule de suif et autres contes de la guerre (1880), 252 Mauritius, 5, 45. See also Île de France Mazarin, Cardinal Jules, 36

471

index 472

105, 122–3, 115, 119–20, 124, 127, 183, 213, 378 Navarre, 243 nawab (viceroy), 130, 149, 275, 327, 331 Nawab of Awadh, 130 Nâyakkan, dubash Ôrkan.d.i Rangappa, 331 Nayiniyappa, dubash, 133 neoclassicism, and architecture, 16, 19, 143, 190, 212, 260, 265, 268, 275–6, 281, 326, 337, 347, 351, 354, 357, 360, 362, 364 Neuf-Brisach (France), 116 Nevers, 300 Ngô Đình Diệm, President of South Vietnam, 12 Ngô Văn Chiêu, 340 Nguyễn Ánh, King of Cochinchina, 17, 181–5, 195–9, 202, 205, 207, 235, 378 Nguyễn Cao Luyện, 285 Nguyễn-Học, 205 Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh, Prince, 181, 195, 197 Nguyễn Phúc Chu, chúa of Cochinchina, 113 Nguyễn-Thông, 205 Nguyễn Văn Thích, 339 Nguyễn Văn Yên, 205 Nîmes, 198 Nine Years War, 135 Ninh Bình (Vietnam), 250, 333 Nolan, Jean-Baptiste, Solemn Audience Given by the King of Siam (1685), 72 Nonburi (Thailand), 119 Nonthaburi (Thailand), 93 Norodom, King of Cambodia, 8 nostalgia, 8, 19, 129, 167, 176, 179, 207. See also architecture, and nostalgia Nouvelle Compagnie des Indes. See Compagnie des Indes Orientales (cio ) Nouvelle-France, 8, 53, 56, 116

Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans), 8, 49 Nước Mặn, 184 Nyon, Denis de, 135–6, 138–9; elevation of the Royal Gate of Pondicherry, 135; project for the church of Saint-Louis, Pondicherry, 137–8 Olichon, Armand, 335, 337, 339 Olivier de Puymanel, Joseph-VictorCyriaque-Alexis, 182, 196–8 Ollivier, Félix-Louis-Jean-Marie, 225, 255; and the Exhibition Universelle (1900), 256; and the Prix Godeboeuf (1889), 255; project for a gate for a hall in a museum of decorative arts (1889), 255; and the Salons des Architectes Français (1902, 1905), 256. See also Saigon: Théâtre de Saigon (Opera House) opera, 13–17, 19, 25, 28, 31, 34, 42, 57, 60, 79, 83, 85, 93, 130, 133, 152, 183, 190, 195, 211–15, 220–6, 228, 230–2, 235–6, 239, 244, 248, 250–2, 257–9, 261, 263, 265, 273, 284–5, 320, 375; and classical theatre, 23; and the Grandes Écuries, 25, 83; grand opera, 23; opéra-bouffe, 224; “opera colonialism,” 213; opéra-comique, 224; “opera diplomacy,” 23; musicians, 25, 83–4, 131, 224. See also Algiers: Opera House; Constantine (Algeria), Opera House; Haiphong: Théâtre municipal; Hanoi: Théâtre municipal de Hanoi; Marseille: Opéra de Marseille; Oran, Municipal Opera House; Paris: Opéra Garnier; Saigon: Théâtre de Saigon (Opera House); Toulon: Théâtre municipal Oppenord, Gilles-Marie, Galerie d’Enée, 156

Oran, Municipal Opera House, 215 Ottoman Empire, 60, 74, 76, 296 Oudong (Cambodia), 282 Ouidah (Benin), 8, 49 Outrey, Ernest, Résident-Supérieur of Cambodia, 285 palace ateliers, 20, 194, 280, 283–4, 286. See also training, architectural Palicot, Engineer, 276 Palladio, Andrea, 11 Pallu, Bishop François, 75–6, 78, 94–7, 180, 185 Pan, Kosa. See Kosa Pan Papa, Démétrius, 284 Papi, Max-Robert, 313, 316, 318, 320 Paris, 3–4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 18–21, 23, 25, 31, 34, 37–8, 41, 43–4, 49, 55, 62, 66–7, 70, 72–3, 76, 78, 80–2, 95–6, 98, 101, 105, 107, 110, 114, 118, 120, 126, 130, 133, 136, 139, 143, 146, 148–9, 155–7, 160, 162–4, 166–7, 169, 173, 175, 178, 185, 193, 201–2, 209–13, 215, 217, 220–4, 226, 228–32, 235, 239, 244, 246, 250–62, 264, 266–8, 270–2, 276, 278–83, 285–6, 289, 293–4, 302, 308, 311, 313–15, 318, 322, 325, 337, 347, 362, 371, 374–7; Avenue de l’Opéra, 221; Bois de Boulogne, 221; Cathedral of Notre Dame, 18; ChampsElysées, 19, 221; College of Louis-le-Grand, 79, 85; Grand Palais, 23, 220; Hôtel Amelot de Gournay, 148; Hôtel de Roquelaure, 156, 157; Hôtel Desmarets, 142, 143, 148; Hôtel de Toulouse, 155–6; Hôtel de Ville, 18–19, 216, 253; Louvre, 5, 6, 43, 44; Musée du Trocadéro, 270; Opéra Garnier, 220, 221, 232–3, 235, 242, 244, 253; Palais de l’Industrie, 215, 217; Petit Palais, 18, 23, 222, 223, 232, 252–3; Place Louis XV

266, 277, 278, 280–3, 286, 290, 307; Royal Palace, 10, 258, 268, 284–5; Silver Pagoda, 283; Vat Botum Vadei, 284; Vat Preah Kèo Morokot, 284; Wat Phnom, 283, 286, 374 Phra Khlang (Siamese treasury minister), 77–8 phương đình, 338 Phú Quốc (Vietnam), 197 Phú Xuân (Huế), 187 Pierre, Jean-Baptiste Louis, 306 Pieterse, Jan Nederveen, 26–7, 32–3 Piguel, Guillaume, 190 pilgrimage, 23, 215, 356; Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 215; Gnadenkapelle, Altötting, 215; Holy House of Loreto, 215 Pillai, Ananda Ranga, 22, 131, 133, 325, 326, 327–9, 339 Pillement, Jean-Baptiste, 173; Trophy with Agricultural Implements (1770), 175 Pina, Francisco da, 184 Pineau, Nicolas, 156–7 Pinha, Maria Guyomar de, 78 piquet hut, 55 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 167 place d’armes, 115–16, 159, 205–6 place royale, 44 plantations, 9, 21, 40, 45, 185, 210; and slave builders, 8, 20–1, 149. See also slavery Plantier, Sieur, 115 Poilly, François de, 126 Poisson, Abel-François, marquis de Marigny, 3–5, 161–2 Poivre, Pierre, 187 Pompadour, Madame de, 3, 5, 158, 161 Pondicherry, 3–5, 7–9, 11–19, 21–2, 36, 41, 43–5, 49, 53, 55–7, 60–2, 64, 67, 70–5, 77–80, 83, 85, 88, 116, 119, 129–33, 135–6, 138–9, 141, 143, 147, 149, 151–5, 157, 159–69, 171, 173, 175–9, 182, 184–5, 190,

192–7, 199, 206, 211, 215, 218, 235, 262, 274, 279, 325–30, 232–3, 335, 369–70, 374, 378; Ananda Ranga Pillai House, 22, 325–6, 327–9, 331, 339; Conseil Supérieure, 5; Fort Barlong, 44, 62–3; Fort Louis, 3, 64, 133, 134–5, 136, 138, 149, 176; and French citizenship, 279; Governor’s Garden, 134, 135, 139, 141, 158, 164, 165; Hôtel de la Compagnie, 135, 139, 140–1, 144–5, 148, 158, 160, 165, 252, 333; Hôtel Lagrenée de Mézières, 168, 173, 174–5, 190, 195 198; Maison de Marihaure, 194; New Gouvernement (Raj Niwas), 168, 169, 170–2, 174, 190, 192, 199; Notre-Dame-de-la-Conception (Saint-Paul), 66; Notre-Damedes-Anges (original church), 66–7; Palais du Gouvernement, 3, 4, 6–8, 12, 14, 16, 19, 56, 130, 135, 139, 143, 148, 149–50, 151–4, 155–62, 163, 165, 166–7, 176, 178, 190, 199, 215, 218, 235, 330; Port Royale, 135, 136, 138; Présentation-de-la-Sainte-Vierge, 66; Raj Niwas, 168, 174, 175; Saint-Lazare, 64; Saint-Louis, 64, 137–38; siege of (1760–61), 7, 149, 165–6, 168, 342; siege of (1778), 195 Pont, Henri Maclaine, 275–6 Pontchartrain, Louis II Phélypeaux de, 40 Pontzen, Ernest, 230 Port-au-Prince (Haiti): Hall of the War Council, 8 Portuguese Empire, 34, 36, 57, 60, 75–6, 78, 92, 94, 179–81, 184, 207, 338; and the Padroado, 93 Poulo Condor Island (Vietnam), 14, 197–8 Poussin, Nicolas, 97 Prague, Clementinum, 113 Prévost, Abbé Antoine-François, 52

index

(Place de la Concorde), Western Palace, 160; Sainte-Chapelle, 96; Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, 101, 102; Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs, 139; Salon des artistes français, 302; Sèvres Manufactory, 283 Parmentier, Henri, 278, 312, 314 Parmentier, Jean, 35, 281, 283, 289, 304 Parmentier, Raoul, 35 parwāna (imperial order), 132 Pascot, Antoine, 79 Pasquier, Governor-General PierreMarie-Antoine, 319–21 Passage, Bernard du, 149 Pater, Paul, 376 pavilions. See exposition pavilions Pernambuco (Brazil), 7, 48 Perrault, Claude, 43 Persia, 33, 36, 60, 74–6, 83–4, 88, 90–1, 106, 108–9, 123–4, 128, 327 Phạm Công Tắc, Caodaist Pope, 343 Phát Diệm (Vietnam), Cathedral or Caodaist Holy See, 22, 325, 333–7, 339, 340–1, 343–4 Phaulkon, Constantine, 75, 77–8, 81–2, 85, 91, 93–7, 99, 100, 105–7, 109, 112–13, 116, 183 Phetracha, King of Siam, 85, 100, 117, 123 Philippines, 34, 75–6, 88, 185, 207, 215, 224, 310 Phitsanulok (Thailand), Église des Trois-Rois-Mages, 114 Phnom Penh, 12, 15, 18, 23, 229, 258, 262–5, 267–9, 277–8, 285, 287, 289, 295, 298, 300, 302, 307–8, 325, 354, 370, 371–3; École des arts cambodgiens (1917), 264; Hôtel le Royal, 298; Monument to Cambodian Independence, 370–1, 372, 373–4; Musée Albert-Sarraut, 14, 18, 264, 266, 270, 277–8, 280–4, 286, 287–9, 290, 307; Musée Khmer, 264,

473

Prince Cảnh. See Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh, Prince Pronis, Jacques, 36, 38, 45, 48–9 propaganda, 13, 84, 112, 181, 197, 208, 305, 309, 371 Prost, Henri, 296–7 protectorate, 8, 12, 35, 207–9, 224, 236–7, 241, 243, 259, 270, 279, 281–4, 286, 297, 317, 333, 356, 374 Puccini, Giacomo, 223, 244; La Bohème (1896), 244; Tosca (1900), 244 Puerto Bermudez (Peru), 256 Puget, Pierre, 53 Pulucambi (Đại Việt), 188–90, 262 pyatthat, 361, 366, 367, 368

index

Quân Bình (Vietnam), 187 Quảng Ngãi (Vietnam), 187 Quebec, 50, 76, 94, 102, 235 Quebec City, 8, 101; Château Saint Louis, 8, 235; Notre-Dame de Québec, 101 quốc ngữ (Vietnamese alphabet), 76 Quy Nhơn (Vietnam), 187, 196

474

racism, 26, 28, 30, 100, 215, 263–4 Rajiota, Isabel, 93 Rama IV, King of Siam, 268 Rama V, King of Siam, 268 Ramathibodi III. See Narai, King of Siam Ranger, Gilbert de, 169 Rangoon (Yangon, Burma): Central Railway Station, 368; City Hall (Municipal Offices), 326, 360, 361, 362, 367–8, 371; Sula Pagoda, 366, 367–8 Ranson, Pierre, 162, 173 raoandriana, 45, 49 Raphael, 256 ratchathut (Siamese first ambassador), 83 Red River (Vietnam), 208, 320 renaissance architecture, 11, 16, 44, 218, 246, 254, 256, 265, 292, 322

Rennefort, Urbain Souchu de, 52–3, 55 résident supérieur, 209, 281–2, 285–6, 292, 337 respondentia loans, 60 Reynaud, Leonce: Traité d’architecture (1850–58), 259 Ricci, Matteo, 97 Richaud, André, 284 Richelieu, Cardinal, 35–6, 48, 70, 102 Rigoni, M.L., 266 Rivière, Captian Henri, 208 Rhodes, Alexandre de, 76, 108, 184, 187–8, 190, 207 Robin, René, Governor-General of Indochina, 259 rococo, 5, 97, 119, 155–6, 160, 162, 171, 173, 176, 181, 333, 357, 376 romanesque, 115 Rome: Ara Pacis, 119; Collegio Romano, 113; Palazzo dei Conservatori, 244; Villa Madama, 256 Rosario (Argentina), 376; Bulevar Oroño, 376 Roume, Ernest, 230 Roy-Renaud & Cie, 229 Roze, Admiral Pierre-Gustave, 305 Ruskin, John, 322 Ryne, Jan van, 7, 163, 164 Sabrié, Paul, 298 Saëton, Honoré-Généreux-Marie, 279 Saëton, Paul-Henri, 279 Safavid Persia. See Persia Sahut, Claude-Antoine, 375 Saigon, 8–12, 14–15, 17–19, 21–3, 25, 97, 101, 132, 176–8, 181–2, 195–6, 201–2, 205–6, 208–13, 215, 217–18, 220–33, 235, 237, 239, 241, 243–7, 249–53, 255–62, 264–6, 271, 273, 276–7, 284, 286, 292, 295–300, 302, 303–8,

311, 313, 315–17, 319–21, 323, 340, 342–4, 347, 351, 355–7, 363, 370, 373, 375–6, 378; Chemins de fer de l’Indochine building, 28, 265, 266; Compagnie des Messageries impériales Building, 276, 277; Gia Định citadel, 17, 196–7, 199, 200, 202, 204–6; Grand Café Hôtel Catinat, 224; Hôtel des Postes, 23, 217, 222, 243, 296–7; Hôtel de Ville, 215, 216, 217, 220, 222, 227, 258; Hôtel Métropolitain, 19; Lycée Petrus Ky, 298, 299; Maison Wang Tai, 276, 357; Ministry of Colonies, 220; Musée Blanchard-de-laBrosse, 18, 23, 195, 258, 264, 300, 301, 304, 307–8, 311–12, 342, 344; Musée économique de la Cochinchine (Palais de l’Indochine), 307–8, 309; Notre-Dame, 101, 221–22, 343, 344; Palais du Gouvernement Général (Palais Norodom), 3–5, 7–8, 9–10, 12–13, 176, 208, 218; Palais du Justice, 11; Palais du Riz, 307, 309; Statue of Monsignor Pigneaux de Béhaine, 182; Temple du Souvenir Annamite (1929), 304, 305, 311, 342; Théâtre de Saigon (Opera House), 15, 22, 25, 97, 211–13, 214, 215, 220–8, 229, 230–2, 233–4, 235, 239, 246–7, 251–61, 284, 375, 378; Tomb of Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine, 180–1 Saint-Barthélemy, Paul de, 193–4 Saint-Christophe (Saint Kitts): Château de la Montagne, 44 Saint-Domingue (Haiti), 8, 25, 215, 262 Sainte-Luce Bay (Manafiafy, Madagascar), 36 Sainte-Thérèse, Dom Bernard de, 76 Saint Helena Island, 163

212–13, 215, 231, 262, 264, 267–8, 270–1, 280–1, 283, 285–6, 290–1, 293, 310, 313, 321, 325, 353, 355–7, 359–60, 371, 374, 377–8; apostolic vicariate of, 76, 94, 185; commercial life, 74; faith, 78–9, 92, 112, 184, 207, 215, 313, 325. See also Ayutthaya (Thailand); Lopburi Siege of Mons (1691), 60 Sihanouk, Norodom, 373, 374 Silasangvaro, Abbot Pha Khamfan, 353–6 Singararayan, Michel, 279 Singh, Sarup, 71 Sino-Vietnamese style, 204 Sioen˙, Ien˙, 285 Sisavang Vong, King of Laos, 353–4 Sisowath, King of Cambodia, 283–6 Sitwell, Osbert, 15, 222, 261 Six, Père (Trần Lục), 333, 335, 337–9, 343, 378 slavery, 8, 20–1, 32, 36–7, 40, 45, 113, 143, 149; slave castles, 32, 143; and sugar, 8; and tobacco, 45 Société Cochinchinoise de Béton Armé, 284 Solain-Baron, Julien-Marie, 201, 206 Songkhla, 85 Soufflot, Jacques-Germain, 3, 162 Spanish Empire, 8, 19, 28, 34, 42, 75–6, 179, 181, 196, 207–8, 224 Śrinivasa, 133; Ānantaran˙gavijaya Campū (1752), 133, 157, 328, 330, 333 Straits settlements, 310 style comprador, 16, 265–6, 296, 357 Sunthorn, Ok-Phra Wisut. See Kosa Pan Surat (India), 17, 35, 41, 49, 56–7, 58–9, 60–1, 64, 374; Jardin Française ( Jawaharlal Nehru Garden), 60–1; Maison du Chancelier, 61 Swahili, 33, 128

Swaine, Francis, 164 Sweerts, Michael, 76, 96 H.usayn T.abāt.abā’i, Mīr Ghulām H.usayn, 331 Tachard, Guy, 66–7, 75, 78, 81–3, 85, 87, 92–3, 99–100, 105, 107, 109–13, 132 Tamil people, 5, 14, 17, 20, 57, 64, 66, 71, 131–2, 157–8, 165, 192, 325–6, 328, 330–2, 339 tamnak (Siamese residence), 120 Tanjore (Thanjavur, India), 60, 70 Tardieu, Victor, 315 Tây Ninh, 305, 339–43, 345–6, 350; Caodaist Cathedral (Holy See), 25, 339, 340–1, 342–4, 357 Tây Sơn Rebellion (1771–1802), 185, 196 Te Deum mass, 48, 60 Tenasserim (Myanmar), 78, 115 Tertre, Jean-Baptiste du, 56 Tessarech, François-Xavier, 284 textiles, 7–8, 40, 82, 283, 331 Thaisa, King of Siam, 97 thalvaram, 332 Thăng Long (Hanoi), 184–5, 188, 190, 206 Thanh, Madame Lâm Thị, 341 Thanh Chiêm (Đại Việt), 184 Thanh Hóa Province (Đại Việt), 187 Thessalonica, 296 Thierry, Charles-Alphonse, 256 Thiệu Trị, Emperor of Đại Nam, 206 Tholanhara (Taolankarana, Madagascar), 53 Thonburi (Thailand), 17; Wat Yang Suthavat, 122 Thuận Hòa. See Huế (Vietnam) Timurids, 123 Tirupati (India): Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, 331 Tiruvangadan, 329 Tô, N., 322

index

Saint-Maixent (France): École primaire supérieure de filles, 266 Saint-Malo, 35–7, 40, 133 Saint-Ouen (France), Maison de Rohan. See Boffrand, Germain Saint-Pierre (Martinique), 8, 45; Salle des Spectacles, 25, 212 Saint-Saëns, Camille, 25, 213, 221, 223–4, 257; Samson and Delilah (1877), 213, 223 Savonnerie Manufactory, Music (ca 1685–7), 81 Samrèt Thichei (Cambodia), 284 Samut Prakan (Thailand), Wat Klang Worawihan, 17, 119, 125–6 Sangha, 96 Sanremo, Casinò Municipale, 253, 254 Santiago (Chile): Edificio Edwards, 376; Estación Mapocho, 376; Museo de Bellas Artes, 376; Palacio Subercaseaux, 375; Teatro Municipal, 234 Sardou, Victorien, 243 Sarraut, Albert, Governor General of Indochina, 273, 280, 292, 308 Savannakhet (Cambodia), 357 Sayer, Robert, 163 Schoelcher, Victor, 370 Scindia, Mahadji, 130 Second World War, 7, 13 Seoul, Kyongbok (Gyeongbokgung) Palace, Royal Audience Hall, 252 Seton-Morris, Henry, 362 Seven Years War, 7, 8, 40, 129, 168; Third Carnatic War, 7, 169 shāhbandar (postmaster), 57 shish-mahal (glass hall), 90 Shivaji, Maratha leader, 64, 71 shophouse, 222, 354, 356, 357, 358 Siam, 13, 17–20, 22, 25, 40–2, 44, 66–7, 72–85, 87–102, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112–20, 122–5, 127–8, 132, 135, 149, 158, 169, 178–9, 181, 183–6, 190, 196–7, 207–9,

475

index

Tokugawa Shogunate, 180 Tonkin (Đại Việt), 13, 73, 76–7, 85, 94, 112, 114, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184–5, 187–8, 195–6, 199, 315 Tonkin, French protectorate, 12, 13, 15, 22, 207, 208, 209, 224, 245, 252, 259, 302, 306, 314, 316, 318, 323, 333, 337, 339, 359, 360, 369 Tonlé Sap Lake (Cambodia), 185, 284 Tornatore, Franco, 253 Toulon: Théâtre municipal, 225, 226 Tourane. See Da Nang (Vietnam) Trạch, Trần Trinh, 323 training, architectural, 20–1, 111, 131, 149, 193, 280, 283, 291–2, 311; apprenticeships, 20, 284, 364; craftsmen, 44, 48, 50, 56, 94, 241, 267, 278, 296, 337, 350, 373; guilds, 50; journeymen, 50 Trần, Joseph, 339 Trần Quang Vinh, 347 Tranquebar, 190; Dansborg Fort, 64, 65 Travaux publics, 15–16, 18, 220, 239, 258–9, 287, 296, 300, 302–3, 305, 311, 316, 342; École des, 20–1. See also Bâtiments civils (Indochina) Travaux publics style, 16–18, 20–1, 239, 266, 258–9, 265–6, 287, 296, 300, 302–3, 305, 311, 316, 342, 355–7 Treaty of Compiègne, 36 Treaty of Paris, 163 Trinh Tac, Lord of Tonkin, 184, 323 Trinh Tráng, Lord of Tonkin, 184 triumphal arch, 14, 83, 136 Trois-Rivières (Canada), 56 Tự Đức, Emperor of Đại Nam, 205 Tunis, Casino, 285

476

United States, 22, 310, 322, 369; Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 235

U Tin, Sithu, 363, 364, 365, 367, 368, 371, 377. See also Rangoon (Yangon, Burma): Central Railway Station; Rangoon (Yangon, Burma): City Hall (Municipal Offices) Vachet, Bénigne, 75, 79, 81, 83, 99 Valdemar, Prince of Denmark, 231 Valguarnera, Tommaso, 93, 115 Valignano, Alessandro, 93, 186 Vassé, François-Antione, 155–6 Vat Sisowath Ratanaram (Cambodia), 284 Vaux-le-Vicomte, Château, 148 Vauban, Sébastien le Prestre de, 43, 196 Verbiest, Ferdinand, 79 Verburg, Frederick, 52 Verdi, Giuseppe, 223 Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (voc ), 34, 36–7, 42, 56, 60 Vernet, Abbé, 80 Verrazano, Giovanni, 34 Verrazano, Girolamo, 34 Versailles, Château de, 5, 41, 49, 72–3, 83–4, 90, 105, 116, 118, 155–6, 181–2, 195, 197–8, 279, 377; Escalier des Ambassadeurs, 155, 156; Hall of Mirrors, 25, 72, 73, 83–4, 90, 149; Salon d’Apollon, 84 Viel, Jean-Marie-Victor, 215 Vientiane (Laos), 14, 16–17, 164, 314, 321, 356; house on rue Setthathirath, 17 Vietnam, 8, 12–15, 17, 20–2, 25, 32, 76, 128, 179, 181–5, 187, 189, 190, 196, 202, 204–7, 209–10, 213, 220–2, 226, 238, 240, 251, 255, 259, 261–3, 267, 273, 279–83, 289, 291, 304–5, 310–13, 316, 318, 321–3, 325, 333–4, 337–40, 344–7, 350–1, 354–7, 359–60, 369, 373,

378. See also Đại Nam; Đại Việt (historical name for Vietnam); Indochina Vietnam War, 369 Viết-Súy, Trưởng, 205 Vijayanagara Empire, 8, 57, 64, 328, 332–3 Vila, Pierre-Jean-Corneille, 284 Vildieu, Henri, 215, 217, 222, 259–60, 272–3, 281 Vinckboons, Johannes: Judea (ca 1662–3), 74 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène, 322 Virampatnam (India): Collège des Saints Anges, 190, 191–2, 193, 195 Vitalis, Françoise-Louise, 198 Vitre, François Martin de, 36 Vola, Louis, 242 Vollant, Simon, 136 Vollant des Verquains, Jean, 115, 117–18; Histoire de la révolution de Siam (1691), 115; project for a chapel in the fort at Bangkok, 118; project for an arsenal in the fort at Bangkok (1687), 117 Vollet, Henri Émile, 241 Võ Vương, Lord of Cochinchina, 185 Vương Vĩnh Tuy, 244 Wagner, Otto, 322 Wagner, Richard, 223–4, 257; Lohengrin (1850), 224 Ward, Basil, 363 Wat Pha Nom (Laos), 354 Watteau, Antoine, 165 White, John, 204 Whiting, Jasper, 211, 221 William IV, King of Britain, 212 Yên Bái Uprising (1930), 272 Yuan Dynasty, 128 Yukanthor, Prince Norodom, 282 Yunnan (China), 208 Yuos, architect-monk, 284