Victor Jacquemont

In 1991 the European Council launched the European Heritage Days. Throughout Europe, thousands of sites, normally closed to public, open their doors for a few days in September, normally during a weekend. In France, these days took place this weekend.

I could have gone to the Elysée Palace (and have greeted Nicolas and Carla) or to the Paris Town Hall (and have greeted Bertrand), but the queues are enormous. I made the National Assembly two years ago, but this year I chose some more local and modest sites.

Different associations take the opportunity to create some local events. I went to one organised in the area where I live, Batignolles, Paris 17. My friend and historian Rodolphe Trouilleux, author of the bestseller Paris Insolite et Secret (just appearing in a new edition) had, together with actor and director Jean Grimaud, written a play about Victor Jacquemont, botanist, geologist and writer, who travelled to India in 1828 and died there of a disease at the age of 31, in 1832.

Many of us have regularly passed on the small rue Jacquemont, but hardly anybody of us would know anything about the person behind the name. We now know that it was worth learning something about him. His life was told in a number of scenes, played by some professional but mostly by amateur actors along the street and in the courtyards.

In a few words, what we learned about Victor Jacquemont: Excellent student of medicine, geology, botany, he was also highly interested in music and literature. He established friendship with Stendahl, Alexandre Dumas, Prosper Merimée (who wrote “Carmen”, which later gave the opera)... and got into an obviously too one-sided love with an Italian female singer. He was advised that the best way to forget was to travel. He travelled first to the U.S. (recommended by La Fayette, friend of the family) and Haïti. There he got a proposition to travel to India on a mission for the Jardin des Plantes (the Paris Botanical Gardens) - see previous post.

In India he visited Pondichéry, Calcutta, Lahore (met the emperor), Ladakh, Bardhaman... During the three and a half year he spent in India, he collected thousands of plants, stones, naturalized animals... all shipped back to France. His friends, especially Prosper Mérimée, saw to it that his work became known. The collection is today still preserved at the Jardin des Plantes and his wide and well written correspondence with family and friends has been published and the originals can be found at our National Library. A small temporary exhibition with samples had been organised – unfortunately I was not allowed to make any close-ups (copyright issues). There was also a small exhibition of especially embroidered art made by an Indian community.

Here you can get an idea of what Victor Jacquemont looked like, one portrait made by the wife of Propser Mérimée and another one by Claude Monet.

PS, added: It seems that Prosper never married (although he liked women). So, the portraitiste can not be his wife, which my source indicated. ? As Adam remarked, the portrait made by Monet must be made after the death of Victor; he started painiting some 30 years later.

Added: September 28: There is an error: The Monet paininig is well of a Victor Jacquemont, but another one!