Colonial Identities and Saint-Simonian Influences in the Writings of Thomas Ismaÿl Urbain (1812-1884) and Henri Duveyrier (1840-1892)
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Provided by the author(s) and NUI Galway in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite the published version when available. Pragmatic utopia and Romantic science: Colonial identities and Title Saint-Simonian influences in the writings of Thomas Ismaÿl Urbain (1812-1884) and Henri Duveyrier (1840-1892) Author(s) Walsh, Sheila Publication Date 2013-12-18 Item record http://hdl.handle.net/10379/4272 Downloaded 2021-09-29T20:48:40Z Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. Pragmatic utopia and Romantic science: Colonial identities and Saint-Simonian influences in the writings of Thomas Ismaÿl Urbain (1812-1884) and Henri Duveyrier (1840-1892) Sheila Walsh Submitted for the Degree of PhD To the National University of Ireland, Galway College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Discipline of French Head of School: Dr Lillis Ó Laoire Research Supervisor: Dr Philip Dine September 2013 Table of Contents Page Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Surrogate families and father-figures: le fils mal aimé and the reluctant disciple 1.1 Introduction 29 1.2 Some relevant aspects of the Saint-Simonian movement 29 1.2.1 Algeria via Egypt 33 1.3 Exploration and the construction of identity 36 1.3.1 Urbain’s Saint-Simonian surrogate family 36 1.3.2 Biological versus surrogate fathers 38 1.3.3 A reluctant Saint-Simonian disciple 44 1.3.4 Scientific innovation and technology 49 1.3.5 Strained filial loyalties 50 1.4 Conclusion 52 Chapter 2: Romantic tendencies, evasion and exile: Apprentissage and l’homme nouveau 2.1 Introduction 54 2.2 Expectations and early encounters 54 2.2.1 Urbain’s first encounters with the Orient 54 2.2.2 Duveyrier’s first impressions of Algiers 56 2.3 Significant influences on early style 61 Page 2.3.1 Egypt: land of opportunity 61 2.3.2 A mother’s love: the Dussap family 62 2.3.3 The fils mal-aimé: a Romantic exile 64 2.4 Nostalgia and the condition of exile 70 2.5 Apprentissage and Boy’s Own adventure 74 2.5.1 Maintaining European conventions 76 2.5.2 Depictions of the Indigènes 77 2.5.3 Romantic aesthetics and colonialist representation 81 2.6 Conclusion 88 Chapter 3: The passeur and the explorer: Vocation and la mission civilisatrice 3.1 Introduction 91 3.2 Vocation and personal identity 92 3.2.1 From apostle to pragmatist: Urbain and the vocation of cultural intermediary in colonial Algeria 92 3.2.2 The Romantic explorer’s mission: Duveyrier and vocation 98 3.3 La mission civilisatrice 105 3.3.1 Urbain: foregrounding the responsibilites of la mission civilisatrice in Algeria 105 3.3.2 Duveyrier: the Tuareg as allies of la mission civilisatrice 108 3.4 Conclusion 114 Chapter 4: Relating to the colonial other: Ambiguity, myths and utopias 4.1 Introduction 116 4.2 Ambiguity and internal tensions 117 Page 4.2.1 Urbain: Paternalism, practical measures and internal paradox 117 4.2.2 Duveyrier: fieldwork and local informants 121 4.3 Islam: construction and destruction of binary oppositions 125 4.3.1 Urbain’s critique of the colonial preoccupation with Islamic fanaticism 125 4.3.2 Depictions of Islam in Les Touareg du Nord 127 4.3.3 Urbain’s tolerant Islam 131 4.4 Theories of race and Duveyrier’s portrait of the Tuareg 134 4.4.1 Early ethnography and racial Darwinism 134 4.4.2 An exceptional Tuareg 137 4.4.3 A mythic portrait 139 4.5 Urbain’s L’Algérie pour les Algériens: Polemical analysis and proto-sociological thinking 142 4.5.1 Cantonnement 148 4.6 Conclusion 151 Chapter 5: Troubled times 5.1 Introduction 152 5.1.1 War with Prussia and the transition from Empire to Republic 152 5.1.2 The turning point of 1870 for French rule in Algeria 153 5.2 A Romantic explorer in a post-Romantic age 155 5.2.1 Crisis of vocation 159 5.3 Colonisation and immigration 161 5.3.1 The legal status of the Indigènes and the desirability of European immigrants 161 Page 5.3.2 Anticolonist or anticolonialist? Urbain and settler colonisation 170 5.3.3 Urbain’s conclusions on the way forward for a French-ruled Algeria 172 5.4 Duveyrier’s Voyage au Sahara par Norbert Dournaux-Dupéré (1874) 180 5.5 Correspondence with Urbain: Duveyrier’s interest in Islamic religious hierarchies and confréries 184 5.6 Conclusion 187 Chapter 6: Crisis 6.1 Introduction 190 6.2 Urbain’s autobiographical writings 190 6.2.1 Reflection on a controversial career 191 6.2.2 Coloniser and colonised: Urbain as a marginal and subversive figure 193 6.3 From arborescent to fortress identity 194 6.3.1 Duveyrier’s last major publication 194 6.3.2 La Confrérie as a text of crisis 198 6.4 A prophetic voice? Urbain’s final articles for Le Journal des débats 207 6.4.1 Disputed legacies: Colonial modernity and fractured identity 212 6.5 Colonial echoes and postcolonial resonances 215 6.6 Conclusion 221 Conclusion 223 Glossary 228 Bibliography 229 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that I have not received a degree based on its contents from NUI, Galway, or any other university. ____________________ Sheila Walsh i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Philip Dine for his unfailing enthusiasm and support and his invaluable advice, patience and guidance. I also thank my parents for their constant support, love and faith in me. I could never have done this without you in more ways than you will ever know. Thank you for being your wonderful selves and for always believing in me. Similarly, thanks to my sisters Sinéad, and in particular Maeve, who further implicated herself as my flatmate. Thanks also to Professor Jane Conroy, Professor Dan Carey, Dr Gabór Gelleri and Dr Tania Manca, who worked with me as part of the Texts, Transmissions and Cultural Exchange project of the larger Texts, Contexts and Cultures postgraduate scheme, and provided much helpful advice and support for my research. On a related note, my thanks to the Higher Education Authority and to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funding my research under the auspices of the above project. I would also like to thank the Graduate Studies Office of the National University of Ireland, Galway, for awarding me one of their write-up bursaries. Thanks to Martha Shaughnessy, Kate Thornton and Marie Kennedy, currently and formerly of the Moore Institute, NUI, Galway, for their assistance and patience with my requests and when technology or bureaucracy rendered me helpless. Thanks also to the staff of the James Hardiman Library NUI, Galway and special thanks to those working in Inter-Library Loans. Thanks similarly to the staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and in particular to the staff of the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal for generously guiding and informing my research with their formidable specialist knowledge and furthermore introducing me to one of the foremost experts in my chosen field during one research trip to Paris. Many thanks to those fellow postgraduate students who worked alongside me at the Moore Institute during what sometimes felt like a never-ending process. Special thanks in particular to Laura Vickers and Seán Smith, two of the best and most supportive friends I shall ever know. Thanks also to Dr Maria Scott, Éamon Ó Cofaigh and the numerous members and former members of staff at NUI, Galway, who kindly put up with my questions and various forms of pestering. Thanks also to Dr Greg Kerr and to Dr Michel Levallois, who kindly shared with me their expertise on Saint-Simonians, Nineteenth-Century French poetry and Thomas Ismaÿl Urbain ii and were kind enough to make reading suggestions and to listen to my thoughts on various figures during academic conferences and research trips to Paris. iii Introduction Introduction [L]’identité est d’abord un être-dans-le-monde, ainsi que disent les philosophes, un risque avant tout, qu’il faut courir, et qu’elle fournit ainsi au rapport avec l’autre et avec ce monde, en même temps qu’elle résulte de ce rapport. Une telle ambivalence nourrit à la fois la liberté d’entreprendre et, plus avant, l’audace de changer.1 This study stems from the intersection of a number of interests, but, as the above quotation from Patrick Chamoiseau and Édouard Glissant indicates, chief among such interests was a desire to explore some of the paradoxical and conflicting elements which give rise to concepts of identity, in this case French colonial identity, together with the attendant risks and benefits of an individual’s negotiation of destabilising forces and their frequently ambivalent impact upon the relationship to others which ultimately gives meaning to any personal concept of identity. It is also rooted in the desire to explore a region, namely the Southern Mediterranean, a period, the nineteenth century, and the cultural engagements of figures who represented France there either as travellers, explorers or colonial officials, as contained in the writings which recount their experiences of, and opinions regarding, the region, and more specifically the role which France played, or should have played, there as an aspiring colonial power in the burgeoning era of European imperialism. For many years, much scholarly attention has been devoted to the accounts of famous French literary figures who travelled in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Chateaubriand, Nerval, Flaubert, Gautier, Gide and many more, and to questions of identity therein.