François Pouqueville

François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (; 4 November 1770 – 20 December 1838) was a French diplomat, writer, explorer, physician and historian, member of the Institut de France.

First as the Turkish Sultan's hostage, then as Napoleon Bonaparte's general consul at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, he travelled extensively throughout Ottoman occupied Greece from 1798 to 1820.

With his far reaching diplomacy and with his writings, he became a prominent architect of the Philhellenism movement throughout Europe, and contributed eminently to the liberation of the Greeks, and to the rebirth of the Greek Nation.

Youth: Minister and revolutionary

From a young age, his uncommon talent as a writer reveals itself. He began a lifelong correspondence with his younger brother, Hugues, and their dear sister, Adèle, the three remaining very close throughout their lives.

His innumerable detailed letters to his siblings are still today an exceptional source of knowledge on every aspect of the life of a world traveller, explorer, and diplomat, during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, and the Restoration of the French Monarchy, at the turn of the 19th century.

François Pouqueville studied at the college of Caen seminary. He became deacon and was ordained at 21. He then was vicar in his native county of Montmarcé.

Initially known for his convictions as young Royalist minister, he was protected and saved by his own congregation from the ''cleansing'' massacres orchestrated against the aristocrats by some uncontrolled revolutionary mobs during the ''Reign of Terror'' period.

However, in these exalting times, like many of the young French aristocrats, he started supporting the rising democratic movement and, when on 14 July 1793 (year 2 of the French Republic) the primary Assembly of Le Merlerault adopted the new Constitution, François Pouqueville was its Secretary.

He was assistant to the mayor (1793), then 23 years old and finding his vocation with the events of the French Revolution, he finally resigned from the clergy to become a teacher (1794), and a municipal assistant at Le Merlereault (1795). He remained a fervent Christian during all his life.

However, his renunciation of the cloth, his strong Republican speeches, and his open criticisms of the Papacy, made him the target this time of the resurgent royalists in Normandy, and he had again to seek refuge in hiding – probably in Caen – until the defeat in Quiberon of the royalist forces joined by the bands of Charette's chouans, destroyed by the Republican army led by Hoche, as it was done by Bonaparte – nicknamed Captain Canon – at the siege of Toulon and later in Paris.

When François Pouqueville returned to Le Merlerault, the town's physician, Dr Cochin, who had been his colleague at the college of Caen, took him as student-surgeon. He then introduced him to his friend the professor Antoine Dubois of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris and who was later the Empress Marie-Louise's doctor when she gave birth to Napoleon's only son, Napoleon II in 1811.

François Pouqueville left Le Merlerault for Paris (1797). He was 27.
Under Professor Dubois, he made rapid progress in medicine and surgery, and the following year, when then general Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt was decided upon, Pouqueville was one of the surgeons of its accompanying ''commission of sciences and arts of Egypt''. This turned to be a crucial decision which to considerable degree affected the rest of his life

With dreams of glory and fortune, François Pouqueville embarked in Toulon with the ill-fated French Fleet under the command of Général Bonaparte as it sailed towards Egypt. On the way, he witnessed the taking of Malta, and he spent the days of the crossing to Alexandria teaching the French soldiers and sailors the vibrant lyrics of '' La Marseillaise'', the new French national anthem.

Egypt: Bonaparte, Nelson and pirates

In Egypt, after the first battle of Aboukir (1798), general Kleber entrusted François Pouqueville to negotiate the exchange of prisoners with admiral Nelson.

While meeting with the main figures of the British Admiralty, he would quickly develop a great respect for William Sidney Smith who spoke perfect French and proved to be courteous, human, and a man of honor. Conversely, his encounters with Nelson filled him with repugnance, so brutal and cruel the Admiral proved to be towards the French officers, and from then on, Pouqueville would only mention him under the epithet of "blood-thirsty cyclops".

His mission accomplished, and having caught a bad fever that restrained him from continuing his scientific researches, François Pouqueville was advised by Kleber to return to France to receive better medical attention.

He boarded the Italian merchant ship ''La madonna di Montenegro'' in Alexandria. She was sailing to Italy and approaching Calabria when being attacked by Barbary Coast pirates. François Pouqueville was among those taken prisoner.

Prisoner of the Turkish Sultan

Peloponnese: Pasha and physician

Brought to Navarino, and then to Tripolitza, capital of Peloponnese, he was remanded to the custody of the pacha of Morea, Moustapha, the Ottoman Empire being at war with France.

Moustapha Pacha received him with some indifference, but he still protected him against the brutalities of the Albanian soldiers who were guarding him since his capture, and he gave him a decent lodging.

Soon after, the pacha was deposed and replaced by Achmet Pacha.

Having learned that François Pouqueville practiced medicine, the new pacha treated him well and, after seeing how successful Pouqueville was when healing some members of his entourage, he named him official physician of his '' pashalic''.

Pouqueville took advantage of his new situation by exploring the surrounding regions and by researching the sites of ancient Greece.

He remained in Tripolitza through the harsh 1798 winter.

Constantinople: prisons and harems

In the spring, the Sultan ordered that he be transferred over land and sea with his co-prisoners to Constantinople where they were incarcerated for two years in the Fortress of Seven Towers, ''Yedikule''.

François Pouqueville wrote that they found there, living in abject conditions, the members of the French embassy to whom the Sultan had refused, under insistent demands from the British, the usual diplomatic treatment of being kept on parole at the French embassy palace, which had been appropriated by the same British.

Pouqueville tried saving the life the dying Adjutant-general Rose, but it was too late. Rose had been France's representative in Epirus and had fallen victim of Ali Pasha of Ioannina's cruel perfidy. A few years later, he would be replaced in Ioannina by Pouqueville himself.

François Pouqueville became friend with the French diplomat Ruffin, held prisoner since the expedition of Egypt, whose health he attended to, whom he nicknamed the '' Nestor of the Orient'' and with whom he perfected his knowledge of '' orientalist''. Later, the two men continued their correspondence long after their release from prison, until Ruffin's death.

Soon after arriving in Constantinople, François Pouqueville gained some liberty of movement, as his jailers had learned about his medical skills.

He succeeded in exploring the surroundings of the fortress, notably the Sultan's private gardens at the Topkapi palace, and even the garden of his harem, with the complicity of the Sultan's gardener whom he had befriended.

On occasions, he convinced his guards to let him travel through the City of Constantinople and along the Bosphorus, all the way to the Black Sea, to attend to other French prisoners who were gravely ill and held in a distant jail.

At the time, the plague was still active in the eastern parts of the Mediterranean regions. Pouqueville was determined in his researches of the proper medical methods to fight the terrible disease. His observations in the form of a thesis were highly regarded, when published in Paris upon his return.

His written accounts of such excursions were the first detailed descriptions by a westerner of the Turkish megalopolis and its diverse inhabitants, their way of life, customs and habits. These were received in Europe with great astonishment and curiosity, for 'The Gate of Asia' had previously remained practically unexplored by westerners since the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

While jailed, Pouqueville studied modern Greek. He translated Anacreon, wrote several oriental pieces like ''The Pariah'', a short humoristic poem, ''La Gueuseade'', in four chants and in sestets, and a few lighter poems dedicated to Rose Ruffin.

Throughout his captivity, Pouqueville kept a journal written in a secret code that he had devised and that he managed to hide from his guards, leading them instead in their occasional searches of his cell to other unimportant writings which he let them find and confiscate.

It is from this occult journal that he was able to write, a few years after his release, the 600 pages of the first two parts of the important book he published in 1805 and that brought him fame and fortune, the 300 pages of part three being devoted to the astonishing adventures that his friends and brothers in arms ''(future Baron, General)'' Poitevin, ''(future General)'' Charbonnel and ''(future Consul General)'' Bessières encountered before and after their release from the fortress of seven towers.

Taking part in the emergence of Philhellenism

In 1798, as a hostage of the Turks in Ottoman Greece, François Pouqueville had an uneasy view of the Greeks he encountered in the close entourage of his Ottoman guards. Not unlike Lord Byron who later, at his death in 1824, also became a symbol of philhellenism, Pouqueville felt at first unsure of the Greeks' sincerity.

However, his work as the pashalic's physician in Tripolitza caused his Turkish escort to become gradually sparser and his frequent contacts with authentic Greeks made him appreciate their rich cultural background under a new light. Even though it was being suppressed by the seven generations long occupation of Greece by their Ottoman rulers, the Greek social identity appeared very much alive to Pouqueville and, as a fervent believer of the French revolution's humanism, he soon developed a growing sympathy for the budding Greek resurgence.

His condition as a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan prevented him at the time to do more than bringing medical attention and treatment to the oppressed population, but his writings already showed a strong new current of intellectual and emotional support.

His humane survey of Greece as early as 1798 is the 19th century's earliest manifestation of the philhellene movement. His impulse soon spread throughout Europe with the wide publication of his books setting in motion a constant trend amongst the greatest minds of the time to follow his steps across the newly revealed land of Greece.

The antique nation's rebirth ensued over the next decades with its war of independence and its liberation, with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1801, twenty five months after being jailed in Constantinople, under the insistence of the French government and with the help from the Russian diplomats in Turkey, François Pouqueville was set free and returned to Paris.

Diplomat and archaeologist

Upon his return to Paris, he submitted his doctorate thesis ''De febre adeno-nevrosa seu de peste orientali'' a work on the oriental plague that caused him to be nominated for the awards for the prizes of the decade.

However, his interests for literature and archaeology were now for Pouqueville as strong as his passion for medicine.

The publication of his first book ''"Travel to Epirus, to Constantinople, to Albania and to several other parts of the Ottoman Empire"'', dedicated to the Emperor Napoleon I and published in 1805, was a huge literary success internationally and had also for consequence his nomination as Napoleon's consul general to the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina.

His knowledge of the region and of the local languages made him the ideal diplomatic agent for Napoleon and his foreign minister Talleyrand.

Pouqueville accepted the post that would also enable him to pursue his studies about Greece.

Increasing conflict with Ali Pasha of Ioannina

At first, he was welcomed by the famous pasha whom he accompanied to several of his excursions and who made him discover his native Albania.

For a time he also took with him the British agent Leake in several travels of archaeological surveys across Greece. Together they reported many forgotten or previously unknown antique sites.

His diplomatic status also enabled Pouqueville to explore Greece in its entirety as far as Macedonia and Thrace.

He maintained his journal containing the details of the observations and discoveries he made in the course of a great number of explorations covering all of Greece and the Balkans during his 15 years of diplomatic tenure in Ioannina and in Patras.

In 1811, joined by his brother Hugues who had also been named consul in Greece, they researched and recorded the remains of no less than sixty five antique cities in Epirus alone.

In 1813, he discovered in Actium a stone slab with Acarnanian inscriptions which he deciphered. It pertained to the time when the Roman armies appeared in Greece (c. 197 BC) and was a decree of the Senate and of the people of Acarnania proclaiming the brothers Publius and Lucius Acilius as their friends and benefactors.

In Ioannina, the court of Ali Pasha was increasingly the seat of many political intrigues between the European powers encouraged by the pasha himself, and Pouqueville was for years the target of disparaging and acrimonious critics from some English visitors to Ioannina such as Lord Byron with Hobhouse, and Cockerell, as they allowed themselves to be corrupted by the depraved lifestyle of the Court of Ioannina when Pouqueville instead demonstrated rectitude and firmness against Ali Pasha's criminal abuses of power.

Moreover, the literary and political notoriety he had acquired with the international success of his first book, dedicated to Emperor Napoléon, and singling him out as the precursor, as early as 1805, of the Greek revival movement emerging in Europe, was evidently a cause for resentment on the part of the English.

However, after his visit to Ioannina, the distinguished Reverend T.S. Hugues wrote that he (unlike Byron and Hobhouse) "found him very polite, generous and humane, and thought him a scholar and man of the world, nor did that contest in which our respective countries were engaged, in the slightest degree repress his hospitality and attentions – an instance of good manners which would be surprising in the hate-ridden world of today."

However, after Napoleon's 1807 treaty of Tilsitt which forewarned of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, Ali Pasha renounced his alliance with France and yielded to Britain's complaisance.

Pouqueville's frequent Philhellene positions and his constant opposition to Ali's devilish rule made Pouqueville's situation progressively more and more dangerous; and, after Pouqueville had ordered French troops to join the Greeks of Parga in their successful defence against Ali's murderous hordes, he often had to remain in his house lest Ali Pasha would have him assassinated too.

Thereafter, whenever he had an official communication for Ali, his brother Hugues, himself French consul in nearby Art

had to bring it for him to the pasha whose atrocities he also witnessed throughout Epiru

In his memoirs, François Pouqueville concluded: "It was in this manner that the Turks, through their own excesses, prepared and fomented the Greek insurrection."

Finally, against Britain's continuous attempts to maintain and reinforce the Turks' brutal oppression of the Greeks, the brothers Pouqueville's consistent diplomatic skills succeeded in achieving the desired chasm between the Sultan and Ali Pacha, thus provoking the beginning of the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire that would enable the regeneration of free Greek nationalism.
Soon, Ali Pacha would be disposed of by the Turkish emissaries from Constantinople and his severed head brought back to the Sultan.

With remarkable foresight due to his perfect knowledge of the region and its people, François Pouqueville already predicted the recurrent troubles that will henceforth divide the Balkans during the course of modern History: "I will tell how Ali Tebelen Veli Zade – Ali Pasha – after having created for himself one of these horrible reputations that will resound in the future, fell from power leaving to Epirus, his homeland, the fateful inheritance of anarchy, unfathomable damages to the dynasty of Ottman, the hope of freedom for the Greeks, and perhaps extended causes of conflict for Europe." ''(Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce, tome I, chap 1er)''

Patras and the Greek War of Independence

After Napoleon's abdication in 1815, François Pouqueville left Ioannina and was sent as French consul to Patras until 1816, soon followed by his brother Hugues Pouqueville who replaced him as Consul.

They pursued their increasing contacts with the growing movement of the Greek rebellion which culminated with the declaration of the Greek War of Independence proclaimed on 25 March 1821 in the Agios Georgios chapel in Patras.

Unlike the British consul Green who refused to help the Greeks and collaborated with the Turks, the French consul Hugues Pouqueville gave shelter to many refugees of any side in the French consulate while the Turkish repression was raging.

His reports described later these events and the extent of the destructions which he qualified as horrible.(In his memoirs, Duke Pasquier, Chancellor of France, (1767–1862) wrote: "All the Greeks who were unable to escape from Patras were mercilessly slaughtered, regardless of sex or age. Only a few of the unfortunate victims could find refuge in the house of the consul of France, Mr Pouqueville. He saved them at the peril of his own life. This was the first example of the courageous self-sacrifice with which the French consuls fulfilled their duties.")

In the end, the foreign legations who had been supportive of the Greeks had to leave the country, and Pouqueville returned to France.

While enjoying a well-deserved retirement from international diplomacy, François Pouqueville saw his support to the Greek war of independence resulting in the French navy taking part in the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827, a naval victory which sealed the end of the 360 years of Turkish occupation of Greece, and in 1828, in the expulsion by the French troops of the Turkish garrison that had been holding on to the Patras citadel.

It was on these shores of Navarino where, 30 years before, François Pouqueville had been put in chains to be imprisoned by the Turks and where he took his very first steps on Greek land.

As to the pirate Orouchs who had seized him and sold him as a slave, his own fate was that he later went boasting about his capture to Ali Pasha when Pouqueville was still in residence in Ioanina.

First, he had been well rewarded with one of Ali's ship command, but later, and although Pouqueville had granted him his pardon, the pasha found an excuse to have the pirate impaled.

Return to Parisian life

Honors

Upon his return to France, François Pouqueville was awarded his seat at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

He was elected member of the Institut d'Égypte, honorary member of the Paris' Academy of Medicine, associate member of the Royal Academy of Marseille, member of the Ionian Academy of Corcyr

member of the Society of Sciences of Bonn, and Knight of the Legion of Honor.

Writer of the regeneration of Greece

While writing about antique Greece in the numerous major works and articles he published from this moment, François Pouqueville mostly applied himself in denouncing the state of oppression crushing the Greeks under Turkish domination, and more specifically stood as witness of "the crimes and abominations perpetrated by Ali Pacha and his bands of assassins with the complicity of the Turkish Sultan and his allies".

All along, he described the daily life, the usages and customs, and the traditions of the Greeks of the Peloponnese surviving under their appalling economic and political conditions.

His observations became a powerful support for the cause of the Greek rebellion and its dramatic events which he reported faithfully in substantial books that were quickly published and translated in several languages.

They had a considerable influence throughout Europe as it was gained by the ideas of the French Revolution.

His books also gave a precise and detailed description of the geography, archaeology, topography, and geology of the areas he traveled through and visited, and his observations were highly regarded by later explorers and by the geographer Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage, author of a fine atlas attached to Barthelemy's''Voyage du jeune Anarcharsis en Grèce dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l'ère vulgaire'', and who was a founder of the Societe de geographie in 1821.

The maps of Greece that were established through their collaboration, and that of topographer Pierre Lapie with the publication of Pouqueville's "Voyage de la Grèce" (1824), were so detailed and complete that they remained in use in Greece until the advent of aerial photography, and even to this day

For his services to their Country the Greeks honored him with the award of the '' Order of the Savior''.

''"To M. Pouqueville"'' were the dedications by prominent French poet Casimir Delavigne of two of his ''Messeiennes'', odes to the combats for freedom.

The epitaph engraved in the marble of François Pouqueville's grave proclaims, in French and in Greek:

''"With his writings he contributed powerfully to the return of their antique nationality to the oppressed Greeks"''

Intellectual and artistic social life

He became part of the Parisian gentry and was a regular at many ''salons'' such as Countess of Ségur's who portrayed him under the affectionate humoristic character of ''Monsieur Tocambel'' in one of her best sellers ''Quel amour d'enfant!''.
He befriended many of the time's artists and intellectuals such as Chateaubriand whom he inspired and guided, as early as 1805, in visiting Greece and Egypt, and physicists Arago and Ampère, and also Alexandre Dumas who paid him homage in the book he wrote about Ali Pasha.

The chapter he wrote about the massacre of the Souliots perpetrated by Ali Pacha in 1804 and published in his book ''History of Greece's regeneration'' (1824) inspired playwright Népomucène Lemercier to write ''"The martyrs of Souli or the modern Epirus"'' a tragedy in five acts (Paris, 1825), and romantic painter Ary Scheffer to paint ''"The Souliot women"'' (1827).
His writings on the outrages inflicted upon the inhabitants of Parga when the city was abandoned by the British to Ali Pacha's cruelty in 1818 also inspired a major painting by Italian romantic painter Francesco Hayez (1791–1882).

François Pouqueville's life companion was the popular painter- portraitist Henriette Lorimier.
Master painter Ingres who was one of their friends also made his portrait in 1834.
Having saved so many human lives, François Pouqueville, aged 68, died peacefully at their residence of 3, rue de l'Abbaye in Paris.
His grave at the Montparnasse cemetery is ornamented with his effigy by one of his closest friends, the sculptor David d'Angers.

Works

* ''Voyage en Morée, à Constantinople, en Albanie, et dans plusieurs autres parties de l'Empire Ottoman'' (Paris, 1805, 3 vol. in-8°), translated in English, German, Greek, Italian, Swedish, etc. availabl
on line
at Gallica
* ''Travels in Epirus, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly'' (London: Printed for Sir Richard Phillips and Co, 1820), an English denatured and truncated edition availabl
on line
* ''Prisonnier ches les Turcs & Le Tigre de Janina'' Romans et Aventures Célèbres – Edition Illustrée – La Librairie Illustrée, Paris 8 c. 1820
* ''Voyage de la Grèce'' (Paris, 1820–1822, 5 vol. in-8° ; deuxième édit., 1826–1827, 6 vol. in-8°),Voyage de la Grèce, fourth volume
/ref> his capital work
* ''Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce'' (Paris, 1824, 4 vol. in-8°), translated in many languages. French original edition available on Google book

* ''Mémoire historique et diplomatique sur le commerce et les établissements français au Levant, depuis l'an 500 jusqu’à la fin du XVII siècle'', (Paris, 1833, in-8°)
* ''La Grèce, dans l'Univers pittoresque'' (1835, in-8°) availabl
on line
at Gallica
* ''Trois Mémoires sur l' Illyria, Illyrie''
* ''Mémoire sur les colonies valaques établies dans les montagnes de la Grèce, depuis Fienne jusque dans la Morée''
* ''Notice sur la fin tragique d'Ali-Tébélen'' (1822, in-8°)

Notes and references

Sources

* Monmerqué, ''Biographie universelle Michaud''
* Jules Auguste Lair, La Captivité de François Pouqueville en Morée, Recueil des publications diverses de l'Institut de France, Paris, 1902
* Jules Auguste Lair, La Captivité de François Pouqueville à Constantinople, 1800–1801 : (9 prairial, an VII −16 ventôse, an IX), H. Delesques, Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, Caen, 1904 ;
* Tobias George Smollett, The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature ~ online

* J. Rombault, François Pouqueville, membre de l'Institut, Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique de l'Orne, 1887
* Auguste Boppe, L'Albanie et Napoléon, 1914
* Henri Dehérain, Revue de l'histoire des colonies françaises, une correspondence inédite de François Pouqueville, Edouard Champion Publisher, Paris 1921
* New York Graphic Society, INGRES Centennial Exhibition 1867–1967, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1967

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pouqueville, Francois
1770 births
1838 deaths
19th-century French writers
French diplomats
French philhellenes
French explorers
19th-century French physicians
18th-century French physicians
French archaeologists
Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
People from Argentan
Members of the Académie Française
Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
Commission des Sciences et des Arts members
Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery
French male non-fiction writers
19th-century French male writers
18th-century French male writers