An important and moving letter in which the voyager and scientist François Péron (1775-1810) approaches his political masters, anxious for the fate of the official account of the Baudin voyage, on the writing and publication of which he has been working, and supplicating to be released from his involvement as his illness worsens and death approaches. He is so ill with tuberculosis, he tells the Minister of the Interior, that he is coughing up blood and forced to live in self-imposed isolation.

An important and moving letter in which the voyager and scientist François Péron (1775-1810) approaches his political masters, anxious for the fate of the official account of the Baudin voyage, on the writing and publication of which he has been working, and supplicating to be released from his involvement as his illness worsens and death approaches. He is so ill with tuberculosis, he tells the Minister of the Interior, that he is coughing up blood and forced to live in self-imposed isolation.

The minister is Jean-Pierre Bachasson, Comte de Montalivet (1766-1823), for whom Baudin named the Montalivet Islands off the northwest coast of Australia. One of Napoleon's most trusted statesmen, he was appointed in October 1809, just before Péron wrote the present letter; it was his ministry that had the ultimate say over the fate of the work.

During 1808 and 1809 Péron had spent much of his time in the Mediterranean, partly for his health and partly to continue his work on marine natural history. Late in 1809 he returned to Paris, remaining there working on the Baudin account until his ruined health forced him to leave for his hometown Cérilly in the autumn of 1810, where he died in December. The letter must have been written in November 1809, the dateline giving his address as 15 rue Copeau (now rue Lacépède, between the Pantheon and the Jardin des Plantes in Paris). Even this is of some moment since, as his biographer Duyker has commented, for this period "fragmentary surviving letters and the addresses they bear offer the only real clues to his movements" (François Péron: An Impetuous Life, pp. 221-222).

The first text volume of the Baudin account had appeared more than two years earlier and Péron knew that the fate of the second volume was looking shaky. The letter therefore stands as a heart-breaking epitaph to his efforts, detailing how sick he is, enduring a strict health regimen and living in isolation as he works. It is well known that his efforts almost came to nought, everything being left in abeyance after his death, and proposed volumes on ethnography and natural history completely abandoned. His greatest friend Charles-Alexandre Lesueur harboured ambitions of taking over the work, but he would be progressively shut out after Péron died (this official reluctance to involve the man best placed to continue the work has never been fully explained).

Only in 1816 would the second volume appear, seven years after Péron wrote this desperate letter in which he comments – incredibly given this long delay – that the sections up to the end of signature "R" (that is, p. 136) were already printed. In fact, Péron would complete a further 100 pages before his death, all of which would lay idle until his papers were finally given to his old colleague Louis de Freycinet to complete. Recent research has shown how Péron and Freycinet struggled their whole life not only with bouts of political indifference to their writing, but often with something closer to active sabotage. Certainly, their magnificent books were written at great personal cost: Freycinet would remember the sacrifices of Péron, which is why he petitioned with such determination to be allowed to finish the publication.

Letters by Péron are famous for two things, the rarity with which they are offered for sale and his poor handwriting: we have handled just three other letters by him, interestingly one of them written from this same address. It is not only a fascinating insight into his work with Baudin, but an important glimpse of a little-known time of his life. Duyker's biography "François Péron: an impetuous life" (Melbourne, 2006) is the standard work on the subject, and his bibliography lists several original manuscripts by Péron consulted by him for the writing of the work, notably the splendid series held in the Muséum d'histoire naturelle du Le Havre. Péron manuscripts are however almost unheard of on the market.

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Transcript

Monseigneur

Conformément à l'usage établi par nos prédécesseurs pour la publication du Voïage aux Terres Australes, j'ai l'honneur d'adresser à VE. les feuilles N O P Q R du 2ème volume de ce voïage afin qu'elle puisse en prendre connaissance, et mettre le bon à tirer pour l'imprimerie impériale.

Permettez-moi de saisir cette occasion pour rappeler à votre Excellence, le demande que j'eus l'honneur de lui soumettre il y a quelque temps; cette demande est juste, Monseigneur, et ma position me rend chaque jour votre décision plus instante. Depuis l'époque, en effet, où V.E daigne me faire appeler auprès d'elle je n'ai presque pas cessé de cracher le sang, malgré le régime sévère que je suis, et la retraite absolue dans laquelle je vis.

Agréez, Monseigneur, l'assurance du respect profond et de la haute considération avec laquelle j'ai l'honneur d'être, Votre Excellence, le très humble et très-obéissant serviteur F Péron, correspondent de l'institut de France rue Copeau no 15

(verso:) 16 novembre

TRANSLATION

Monseigneur,

In accordance with the practice established by our predecessors for the publication of the "Voyage aux Terres Australes", I have the honour to send Your Excellency sheets N O P Q R of the 2nd volume of this voyage so that he can read it and sign off the proofs for the imperial printing press.

Allow me to take this opportunity to remind Your Excellency of the request that I had the honour to submit to him some time ago; this is a fair, Monsigneur, and my position makes your decision more urgent every day. Since the time, in fact, when Your Excellency deigned to summon me, I have hardly stopped coughing up blood, despite the severe regime that I follow, and the absolute retirement in which I live.

Accept, Monsigneur, the assurance of the deep respect and consideration with which I have the honour to be Your Excellency's very humble and very obedient servant

F Péron, correspondent of the Institut de France rue Copeau no 15

16 November

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