Florimond de Basterot
Florimond Jacques, comte de Basterot (15 September 1836 – 15 September 1904) was a French memoirist and travel writer.
Biography
Florimond was born in Paris, the son of Barthélémy, comte de Basterot (1800–1887), a Franco-Italian lawyer, paleontologist and malacologist, and Pauline Marie Florimonde de Faÿ de la Tour-Maubourg (1816–1839), daughter of Florimond de Faÿ de La Tour-Maubourg (1781–1837)
As a child, he travelled to England and Ireland and in 1856 he visited the Netherlands and Italy. In 1857, he visited Scotland and in 1858 he left for America.
Speaking perfect English and provided with numerous letters of introduction, he left Liverpool on August 6, 1858 and arrived in New York on August 22. He visited Coney Island where he took advantage of the sea baths, then went up the Hudson River and stopped at Saratoga. By stagecoach, he followed the shores of Lake Champlain and reached Quebec on August 28. He then visited the Lorette Indian Reserve and the Saguenay River.
After Toronto, he observed the Niagara Falls and then left for Collingwood where he ventured onto Lake Huron. By boat, he went along Manitoulin Island and then St. Joseph Island to the Sault Sainte-Marie. He passed through Marquette and, on September 15, La Pointe on Madeline Island. On September 28, he left by wagon across the Prairies and arrived in Saint Paul, Minnesota on October 9. He then took the boat again and, at Hannibal, left Mississippi to go to Saint Joseph.
He then visited Lawrence on the Kansas River and, in Kansas City, traveled again by boat to Jefferson City. He then took the train to St. Louis, which he reached on October 24.
On November 1, he was in Chicago. He then visited Cleveland and Cincinnati and returned east. He went to Baltimore, Philadelphia, stayed in Gorham and then went to Boston (November 20).
At Harvard, he met with William H. Prescott and then passed through New York again before reaching Washington D.C. for the opening of Congress (December 5). He also visited Richmond, Wilmington, Charleston and Mobile before reaching New Orleans on December 24.
Reaching Cuba, he spent the winter of 1858 there. On December 28, he was in Havana and on January 3, 1859, he visited Matanzas. On January 9, he left Havana and went to Panama. He passed through Aspinwall, which he considered "infamous", and reached Guayaquil on January 18, then Callao on the 28th.
Installed in Lima, he visited the ruins of Pachacamac then returned to Panama from where he went to England which he reached on March 4 after stopovers in Cartagena and Saint Thomas.
Basterot leaveed in his Journal important descriptions of the cities and regions he travelled through, but he also strongly criticized the American democracy. He considered the inhabitants of South America of inferior stock but also strongly condemned slavery.
In 1860, he travelled again to Spain and then to Algeria and in 1861 he visited Egypt, Lebanon, Asia Minor, Greece and Austria. In 1867-1868, he visited Israel and Italy. His last trip, in 1888-1889, took him to India.
In addition, Florimond de Basterot was a friend of writers such as Paul Bourget,[1] Edward Martyn, Lady Gregory,[2][3][4] William Butler Yeats[5] and Arthur de Gobineau,[6] whose Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races his father once prefaced.[7] It was at his property that Yeats and Lady Gregory first conceived the idea of an Irish Literary Theatre.
He died in Ireland at his property of Duras House in Kinvara, on his 68th birthday.
Works
- De Québec à Lima, journal d'un voyage dans les deux Amériques en 1858 et 1859 (1860)
- Le Liban, la Galilée et Rome, journal d'un voyage en Orient et en Italie (1867-1868) (1869)
- Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse (1896)
Notes
- ↑ Mansuy, Michel (1955). "Bourget en Irlande d'après le journal de son hôte (1881)," Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, 55e Année, No. 1, pp. 42–50.
- ↑ He was at one time Lady Gregory's Galway neighbor.
- ↑ Hill, Judith (2011). Lady Gregory: An Irish Life. Wilton: Collins Press.
- ↑ Ryan, Mary Stratton (2016). "Lady Gregory's Galway Sketchbook," Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. LXVIII, pp. 147–59.
- ↑ Killanin, Michael Morris & Michael V. Duignan (1989). The Shell Guide to Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, p. 229.
- ↑ Basterot was a member of the Gobineau Society.
- ↑ Études Gobiniennes (1971), p. 139.
References
- Broc, Numa (1999). Dictionnaire Illustré des Explorateurs et Grands Voyageurs Français du XIXe Siècle, Vol. 3. Paris: Éd. du CTHS.
- Courtney, Marie Thérèse (1956). Edward Martyn and the Irish Theatre. New York: Vantage Press.
- Harp, Richard (1999). "Count Florimond de Basterot and the Founding of the Irish National Theatre," Notes on Modern Irish Literature, Vol. XI, pp. 26–30.
- Mansouy, Michel (1960). Un Moderne: Paul Bourget de l'Enfance au Disciple. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
- Mansouy, Michel (1961). La Maturité de Paul Bourget: d'après le "Journal" de F. de Bastrerot (1890-1904). Thèse de doctorat: Lettres: Paris.
