A Livelier Function Was A Banquet Given To Baudin At The Hotel De La
Rochefoucauld, In Paris, On The 7th Fructidor, By The Societe De
L'Afrique Interieure.
It was attended by several leading members of the
Institute, and an account of it was accorded over a column of space in
the Moniteur.* (* 22nd Fructidor.) Baudin was seated between Bougainville
and Vaillant, an African traveller.
There was music, and song, and a long
toast list, with many eloquent speeches. Baudin submitted the toast of
Bonaparte, "First Consul of the French Republic and protector of the
expedition"; Jussieu proposed the progress of the sciences; the company
drank to the "amelioration of the lot of savage races, and may their
civilisation result from the visit which the French are about to pay to
them"; and the immortal memory of La Perouse was honoured in silence. The
last toast appropriately expressed the wish that the whole company might
reassemble in the same place on the return of the expedition, "inspired
by the purest zeal for the progress of the sciences and of
enlightenment." A short poem was also recited, which it is worth while to
rescue from the inaccessibility of the Moniteur file: -
"Vous quittez aujourd'hui la France
Mais vous emportez tous nos voeux,
Et deja vos succes heureux
Partout sont applaudis d'avance.
Sur le coeur de tous les mortels
Votre gloire a jamais se fonde,
Il n'est pas de pays au monde
Ou le savoir n'ait des autels."
The poet who thus applauded success in advance, probably lived long
enough to realise that it is much easier to make fair verses than a true
prediction.
There was another banquet at Havre while the ships were awaiting a fair
wind, when again high hopes were expressed concerning the results to be
achieved by the expedition, and where one of the toasts was proposed by a
Chinese, Ah Sam, who had been found on board a captured English frigate,
and was, by Bonaparte's orders, being taken by Baudin to Mauritius,
whence he was to be shipped to his own country. Ah Sam's toast descended
from ethereal altitudes and took a purely personal view of the situation.
He drank "Aux Francais, bons amis d'A Sam."* (* Moniteur, 21st
Vendemiaire.) The Chinaman had reason to be grateful, for the First
Consul had, by an order over his own signature, directed that he should
be placed under Baudin's charge, and conveyed to his own country at the
expense of the Government, and that there should be shown to him that
consideration which he merited, both because he was a stranger and
because of his good conduct while residing within the territories of the
Republic.* (* Correspondence of Napoleon, 1861 collection Volume 6,
letter dated 7th Vendemiaire, Revolutionary Year 9 (September 29, 1800).)
The treatment of Ah Sam was an example of that kindness which Napoleon,
ruthless in war, so often displayed towards those who touched his
sympathies.* (* Peron mentioned Ah Sam's case (1 11), but Freycinet, in
his second edition, cut out the paragraph, in pursuance of his policy of
suppressing references to Napoleon; Peron having written that the
Chinaman had reason to bless the generosity and goodness of the First
Consul.
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