Eugène-Emmanuel Mermet-Cachon (10 September 1828 – 14 March 1889), was a French

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

and

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

missionary in

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

Japan, who served as interpreter for and advisor to French diplomatic missions, playing crucial role in the development of a special relationship between the French government and the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

Biography

Mermet-Cachon was born in

La Pesse La Pesse () is a commune in the Jura department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Climate Population See also *Communes of the Jura department The following is a list of the 494 communes of the Jura department of France. ...

, in the Jura

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Franche-Comté Franche-Comté (, ; ; Frainc-Comtou: ''Fraintche-Comtè''; frp, Franche-Comtât; also german: Freigrafschaft; es, Franco Condado; all ) is a cultural and historical region of eastern France. It is composed of the modern departments of Doubs, ...

in eastern France. He entered the seminary of the

Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (french: Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, short M.E.P.) is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons ...

in July 1952 and was ordained on 11 June 1854. On 25 August 1854, less than two months after his ordination, he was sent to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. Together with Father Prudence Seraphin-Barthelemy Girard and Father Louis-Theodore Furet, he arrived at

Naha is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area i ...

, the capital of the

Kingdom of Ryukyu The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' was a kingdom in the ...

on 6 May 1855. During his two years in Okinawa, he was unable to win a single convert; however, during this time he developed a working knowledge of the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

. On his return to Hong Kong, he was recruited by

Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gros (1793–1870), also known as Baron Gros, was a French diplomat and later senator, as well as a notable pioneer of photography. Life and career He entered the French diplomatic service in 1823 and was given the title of ...

, whom he assisted at

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with the negotiations cumulating in the

Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and Japan The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between France and Japan (Japanese: 日仏修好通商条約) (1858) opened diplomatic relations and trade between the two counties. Description The treaty was signed in Edo on October 9, 1858, by Jean-Baptist ...

which was signed on 9 October 1858. On November 1859 he returned to Japan, this time to

Hakodate is a city and port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital city of Oshima Subprefecture. As of July 31, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 279,851 with 143,221 households, and a population density of 412.8 ...

, the main town on the island of

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

where he opened a French-language school of French in April 1860; however, he efforts to open a hospital were frustrated as

Russian Orthodox Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...

missionaries had arrived first, and had received official blessing to establish a clinic. His efforts as a missionary also met with no success, and disappointed and humiliated, and suffering from ill health, he left Hakodate in 1863. Mermet-Cachon returned to Edo and served as an interpreter for Prince

Gustave Duchesne de Bellecourt Gustave Duchesne, Prince de Bellecourt (1817 – 1881) was a French diplomat who was active in Asia, and especially in Japan. He was the first French official representative in Japan from 1859 to 1864, following the signature of the Treaty of Am ...

, who was a strong advocate of the use of force to govern relations with Japan and who supported the French intervention in the 20 July 1863

Bombardment of Shimonoseki The refers to a series of military engagements in 1863 and 1864, fought to control the Shimonoseki Straits of Japan by joint naval forces from Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States, against the Japanese feudal domain of ...

.Medzini, Meron. (1971), After returning to France in July 1863, Mermet-Cachon abandoned the Paris Foreign Missions Society, and after renouncing his vows as a Catholic priest, returned to Japan in a private capacity as interpreter to the French diplomat

Léon Roches Léon Roches (September 27, 1809, Grenoble – 1901) was a representative of the French government in Japan from 1864 to 1868. Léon Roches was a student at the Lycée de Tournon in Grenoble, and followed an education in Law. After only 6 mo ...

in April 1864. On 1 April 1865, he established a French language school in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

and took a former prostitute as his common-law wife. He returned to France again on 27 October 1866, apparently with the intention of making only a short stay; however, in 1867, he was requested to serve as an assistant to

Tokugawa Akitake was a younger half-brother of the Japanese Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu and final daimyō of Mito Domain. He represented the Tokugawa shogunate at the courts of several European powers during the final days of Bakumatsu period Japan. Biography ...

, the 14-year-old son of

Tokugawa Nariaki Tokugawa Nariaki (徳川斉昭, April 4, 1800 – September 29, 1860) was a prominent Japanese ''daimyō'' who ruled the Mito Domain (now Ibaraki Prefecture) and contributed to the rise of nationalism and the Meiji Restoration. Biography C ...

, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' of

Mito Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

for the 1867 World Fair in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where Japan had a pavilion. He also acted as interpreter for Tokugawa Akitake's audience with

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

, which subsequently resulted in strong French support for the Tokugawa shogunate. Mermet-Cachon never returned to Japan, but died in

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...

on 14 March 1889. His grave is at the

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figures ...

References

* * Numa Broc, ''Dictionnaire des explorateurs français du XIXe siècle'', T.2, Asie, CTHS, 1992, * E-E. Mermet-Cachon, ''Chez les Aïnos du fleuve Amour'', in Gilles van Grasdorff, ''À la découverte de l'Asie avec les Missions étrangères'', Omnibus, 2008 ,

External links

澤護「メルメ・カションに関する若干の資料」、Keiai University staff papers 56, 177-198, 1999
{{Authority control People from Jura (department) French expatriates in Japan People of the Second French Empire French lexicographers Roman Catholic missionaries in Japan French Roman Catholic missionaries Paris Foreign Missions Society missionaries French Japanologists 1828 births 1889 deaths Missionary linguists 19th-century lexicographers