EXHIBITION BOOKLET Voyages Extraordinaires De Femmes Pas Si Ordinaires the WOMEN in VERNE’S LIFE

HÉROÏNES DE LA MODERNITÉ

EXHIBITION BOOKLET Voyages extraordinaires de femmes pas si ordinaires THE WOMEN IN VERNE’S LIFE

HEROINES OF “You are becoming

e é regulars in the salons of g â , s le the Prefecture. I am certain Ju MODERNITY e d ère that this amuses Papa as e, m Women in the works Sophie Vern of Jules Verne much as his daughters, and

that Mother would almost Jules Verne is alleged to have had several be prepared to dance there romances in his youth, but he dedicated Jules Verne claimed in 1890 to “have lack the emotional dimension which some thirty poems to the beauty Rose no talent for female characters” yet he humanises the mechanical element if someone were needed to Herminie Arnault-Grossetière. He was created a surprising and diverse gallery and spirit of geographical and scientific not considered to be a good catch and of feminine portraits. conquest of male-centric journeys. make up a quadrille.” was sidelined using the stratagems at Letter from Jules Verne to his mother, which middle-class families excelled. Romantic young women in love, Women are invited to take pride of 21 June 1855. This thwarted love affair cause him patriotic heroines, resourceful place at the Musée Jules Verne for this to leave Nantes. Jules was resentful adventuresses, dominant wives, exhibition. The women who played of these intrigues and exploited them devoted mothers, cunning and ruthless a major role in the writer’s life – his Jules Verne was born on 8 February 1828 in his boulevard theatre plays, later spies, fantasy ghost-women – his mother Sophie, his sisters, and his wife in Nantes. His mother, Sophie Allotte de la returning to the theme in several heroines often succeed in escaping Honorine – and the many women who Fuÿe, was 27 years old. His father, Pierre- Extraordinary Journeys. the confines of the rigid, hierarchical inject modernity and great diversity Gabriel Verne, had a solicitor’s practice. and hypocritical society described in into the Extraordinary Journeys all The couple set up home in the Île Feydeau Marriage, which is given a humorous nineteenth century novels. reveal another largely overlooked district and Jules would watch the boats treatment, becomes a recurring topic for facet of Jules Verne through their sail past from their country house in discussion in his correspondence with Bold, determined, and possessed adventures and the engravings Chantenay. Pierre and Sophie had five his mother. In 1850, Jules Verne and a of a surprising thirst for knowledge, which illustrate them. children: Jules had a younger brother Paul few friends set up a bachelor club in Paris several dozen intelligent, intuitive and and three younger sisters Anne, Mathilde dubbed “Eleven-men without women”. selfless women challenge the prevailing and Marie. Marie, nicknamed le chou, was They would gather to laugh, drink and middle-class mentality. They embark Jules’s goddaughter. sing, but the bachelors got married one by on adventures and play an active role, one. His friend Auguste Lelarge invited him displaying physical, romantic, social, Their family life, in the company of many to Amiens to be a witness at his wedding. ethical and political commitment, and relatives and friends, was happy. There, Jules met a young 26-year old countering reason and duty with the widow with two small daughters called power of feelings. Without their rich Honorine Deviane. He married her on and subtly differentiated personalities, 10 January 1857 in Paris. the Extraordinary Journeys would THE SEA GHOST WOMEN AND TRAVEL FROM FANTASY TO MADNESS

“Yes! The Ocean is the “The young girl was

t s n e infinite, the infinite we a fifteen or sixteen years ir r o G n e s in e cannot see, but which we ta old at most. Her distant, nd pi I ca es u – L ts d ell can feel […] infinite like Les Enfan surprised expression, thin N space which is reflected face drawn by suffering, in its waters!” pallid complexion untinged Other heroines undertake perilous Ellen Hodges, a mysterious and The Green Ray journeys on terra firma. The motto by sunlight, and her fragile, fascinating “Black Lady” who walks of explorer Paulina Barnett, who the deck of the Great Eastern by night accompanies an expedition to the slender figure all gave her and sings in a spellbinding voice, lost In the collective imagination, Jules Verne frozen north of Canada, is “you have her mind after entering into a forced is a writer seeking new horizons. His to see everything or at least try to the appearance of a singular marriage (A Floating City). Laurence dreams of sailing became a reality when see everything.” (The Fur Country). yet attractive being, […] Munro wanders across northern India he bought a series of three boats named Marfa Strogoff and Nadia Fedor for ten years, having gone mad after “Saint-Michel” in which he travelled to face the freezing climate of Siberia like a slightly supernatural- witnessing the Indian Mutiny in 1857 England, Scotland and Scandinavia. In with stoic indifference to suffering (The Steam House). Nell, a wild-eyed 1867, he also boarded the liner SS Great (Michel Strogoff). Jeanne de Kermor looking elf.” creature, “who only appears to be half- human”, protects the other characters at Eastern to cross the Atlantic. embarks on a journey to Venezuela and The Child of the Cavern endures trials and tribulations in her the pit like a benevolent spirit (The Child The Extraordinary Journeys feature a single-minded quest to find her father of the Cavern). number of intrepid women sailors. Marie (The Mighty Orinoco). Five inaccessible dreamlike ghost- Using a hologram and voice recordings, sets off to find her fiancé who is lost women, who have a seductive at sea (A Winter Amid the Ice), Helena Baron de Gortz can resurrect the famous Hoffmanesque peculiarity, haunt the opera singer La Stilla, who died onstage Glenarvan is delighted to take over the Extraordinary Voyages. They inspire helm of the Duncan, and Mary Grant, after deciding to put an end her career overwhelming love and deep despair in order to escape him (The Carpathian who works alongside her, has bona in men, and remind us that although fide navigation skills (In Search of the Castle). Myra Roderich, by contrast, is Jules Verne was keen to provide an made invisible by her spurned admirer, Castaways). Miss Herbey experiences encyclopaedic vision of the world, a fire on board, a shipwreck and Wilhelm Storitz, but will remain “the he also embraced passion, poetry and soul of the house – invisible like a soul”, countless days at sea on a makeshift imagination. raft (The Survivors of the Chancellor). eternally beautiful and young in the Dolly Branican, for her part, sets out idealised portrait painted by her husband to sea in search of her husband and (The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz). embodies a quality which fascinates Jules Verne: intuition (Mistress Branican). MARRIAGE AND LOVE FROM A DIVORCE FEMALE PERSPECTIVE

“A few problems, “I pity you […] Mr Fogg,

e r d awkwardness and worries o for solitude is a sad state u S té é u m d le are not untoward before a au of affairs. What! Have you i e to ss l’É ha s - a C kin marriage! When unions L not one heart into which Alice Wat are forged too easily, there to pour your troubles? is a risk they will unravel (The Fur Country), while Yaquita Garral They say that with two The first such woman, Sarah, runs away in exactly the same way!” supports her husband through trials and people, misery itself is with the young Indian man she loves, but tribulations after he is unjustly arrested dies in the waterfalls on a river and this The Chase of the Golden Meteor. (Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon). bearable! […] Do you wish tragic end highlights the impossibility of a perfect love which crosses the In Kéraban the Inflexible, Jules Verne for both a relative and a boundaries of culture and social status Marriage is a recurring theme in the work explores the difficulties of married life in (Martin Paz). Subsequent Verne heroines of Jules Verne. His own marriage was a humorous vein. Van Mitten bemoans friend? Will you have me are more fortunate. not always happy and he was appalled by the fact that “life had become unbearable as your wife?” marriages in which love was not present between Madame Van Mitten and me. Modern, free-spirited Aouda proposes and reciprocal. He believed that arranged Endless discussions about everything, Around the World in to Phileas when he believes that he marriages were doomed to failure, as is on what time to get up, what time to go Eighty Days is ruined (Around the World in Eighty demonstrated in his youthful plays such to bed, when to eat, what to eat…”. By Days). Romantic Helena Campbell sets as Mr Chimp. contrast, The Chase of the Meteor offers off in search of the “Green Ray” in order a portrait of a model wife in the shape of In 1866, Jules Verne wrote to his to escape a marriage arranged by her Verne’s married women are often Flora Hudelson. publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel that he felt uncles (The Green Ray). Alice Watkins, modern and dynamic. Mrs Melvil assists “very clumsy about expressing feelings who is fascinated by science and culture, her husband in his business dealings (The Jules Verne also depicts whirlwind of love”. However, his work is dotted fights to marry Cyprien against the Humbug), Mrs Joliffe runs the household marriages such as that of Cornélia with women in love who have no qualms will of her diamond-obsessed father and helps her spouse in every respect Vadarasse, who gets married during the about articulating their feelings and (The Vanished Diamond). Sava Sandorf interval to a circus performer whom fighting to make their dreams a reality in endures captivity and bullying and is she has only met that evening (César the face of danger and trials. These brave prepared to lose her life rather than Cascabel). However, when Horatia and determined women often manage marry anyone other than her beloved Bluett weds Fulk Ephrinell on the Trans- to avoid arranged marriages and earn (Mathias Sandorf). Louise Elissane Asian train, the marriage ends in divorce their freedom. braves her middle-class mother to as soon as they get to Peking (Claudius avoid marrying apathetic Agathocle, Bombarnac). Arcadia Walker marries and even shoots a lion with a revolver Seth Stanfort without even dismounting (Clovis Dardentor). from her horse and divorces him two months later (The Chase of the Meteor). MORAL AND THE SKIES POLITICAL COMMITMENT AND SPACE

“It was to the very heart “Out of the whole Gallican

s c n a of Barbary, to these pirate- a colony, it was little Nina d e a z rv in e u S infested ports […] that q who was best able to resist. or e ct e d e in - H ita na the courageous young Un Cap […] She spoke to all and Ni woman […] came, without sundry, and her sweet hesitation, to fulfil her in short, for freedom’ (North Against voice charmed the gloomy Murillo transformed into angels in his mission. Thus, she risked South). Mrs Weldon and her African- depths like birdsong. Assumptions’. Exuberant and carefree American servant Nan are, for their Nina endears herself to her companions life and liberty, and braved part, confronted with the horror of the […] There was such a and over two years of adventures, triangular slave trade in Africa (Dick Sand, becomes the mascot of this new planet every danger to which her A Captain at Fifteen). superabundance of life in named Gallia. beauty and youth exposed In The Archipelago on Fire, Andronika this small creature that In sharp contrast to this radiant girl, her. Nothing stopped her. Starkos throws herself into the Greek everyone was affected by but still appealing in her own way, is struggle for independence from the the character Evangelina Scorbitt in She just set off.” Turks in order to atone for the crimes it, as it were” the satirical novel The Purchase of of her son – a traitor to his country – the North Pole. Out of love for the The Archipelago on Fire and Hadjine Elizundo, a true symbol Off on a Comet mathematician J. T. Maston, Evangelina, of female liberation, uses her father’s a wealthy and generous widow, funds ill-gotten wealth to buy back thousands his project to adjust the Earth’s axis in Demonstrating a keen sense of duty, of Greek prisoners sold into slavery. Jules Verne’s novels devoted to the skies order to exploit the mineral wealth of the several heroines of the Extraordinary Finally, in Family Without a Name, and space display a predominantly male Arctic territories. Even when the whole Journeys willingly risk their lives to Bridget Morgaz devotes her life and cast of characters, particularly in the case world takes fright at this project, which defend ideals they believe to be right. the lives of her sons to the struggle of the diptychs From the Earth to the threatens to submerge entire countries, They are committed to two major for independence in French-speaking Moon / Around the Moon and Robur the the enthusiastic and resourceful political causes in particular: the fight Canada, and the militant Clary de Conqueror / Master of the World. Evangelina remains Maston’s steadfast against slavery, and the patriotic struggle Vaudreuil, who corresponds with admirer. After springing him from prison to free their homeland from tyranny. the country’s Reform committees, Nevertheless, the writer created the before he is lynched by a mob, she enthusiastically participates in the ethereal and radiant character of a young ultimately convinces this confirmed A passionate opponent of slavery, Jenny uprising. girl in the fantastic tale Off on a Comet. bachelor to marry her! Halliburt roundly criticises the captain Orphan Nina is herding goats in Sardinia of a vessel carrying arms to Confederate when a section of the Earth is torn from forces at the height of the American Civil the planet following a collision with a War (The Blockade Runners). For her comet. Picked up by Count Timascheff part, Alice Stannard deems that fighting and Captain Servadac, Nina is ‘as pretty in this war is a duty because ‘it is to fight as those charming creatures whom for the liberation of a human race and, OUTSTANDING CHILD-LIKE INDIGENOUS WOMEN GRACE

“Kalumah went ahead of “With her precocious

e e u the small group. Like a q intelligence, already m o m n o é h r n chamois amid alpine rocks, O rendered keener by o be t B er ’ti up P the sprightly little woman Le S misfortune since the was sure-footed on the horrific scenes on ice. It was wondrous to The inhabitants of Patagonia (In Search the plantation, Dy swamps of Florida, taking illness, cruel see her run in this way, of the Castaways), the Aboriginal people understood that she had treatment, and a crocodile-infested river of Australia (Mistress Branican), Pacific in her stride (North Against South). without hesitation or error, Islanders (Propeller Island), Native been wrenched from her American and Inuit communities (The In Foundling Mick, penned in tribute as she picked the best Fur Country, César Cascabel, Family mother’s hearth, that she to Dickens, Sissy has ‘skinny limbs, a Without a Name, The Mighty Orinoco), hollow chest, and ribs protruding from path through the maze of inhabitants of Africa (The Adventures of had fallen into the hands beneath her rags like someone who has icebergs – instinctively, as Three Englishmen and Three Russians of a wicked man, and been flayed alive’. Placed in the care in South Africa; Dick Sand, A Captain at of a loathsome shrew and then in the it were.” Fifteen; The Village in the Treetops, The that if no one came to her workhouse, she toils in a Belfast textile Vanished Diamond) and many other mill before rising out of poverty. Jenny The Fur Country peoples were extensively described rescue, she would never see Mac Carthy finds herself on the street and became main characters in the with her family and spends five wretched Extraordinary Journeys. Camdless Bay again.” years in Australia before being rescued by As anthropology in the nineteenth North Against South her godfather, Little Fellow. century evolved to reflect the physical Among these ‘indigenous’ figures, and cultural diversity of humanity, and Jules Verne gives pride of place to Doll Wolston (The Castaways of the Flag) artefacts from non-western cultures several remarkable women. Although Joining little Nina from Off on a Comet, and Loo Hudelson (The Chase of the moved from cabinets of curiosities they are not immune from some a dozen girls light up the pages of Golden Meteor) are two mischievous and into museums, Jules Verne became of the clichés and prejudices of the Extraordinary Journeys with their spirited fourteen-year-old girls. Doll has fascinated by human diversity. His early the day, their exceptional qualities exuberance. Little Betty Clères sings in adventures in South Africa and the Pacific writings feature numerous clichés demonstrate the writer’s surprising a children’s church choir with her friend Ocean, while Loo must try to convince (Martin Paz, Five Weeks in a Balloon), open-mindedness. These portraits offer Joseph, their two voices separated by an her father, an amateur astronomer, to but his work swiftly became more the key to understanding these women’s interval of only an eighth of a tone (Mr. forget the meteor made of pure gold nuanced, in the wake of ethnological and communities and environments, thereby Re Sharp and Miss Mi Flat). Napoléonne which he has spotted in the heavens. anthropological discoveries and thinking. building a bridge between them and Cascabel joins the epic journey which the European protagonists of the takes her family from California to Extraordinary Journeys. Normandy, via the frozen Bering Straits, and fearlessly faces herds of seals, attacks from packs of wolves, and hurricanes (César Cascabel). Dy Burbank bravely endures her imprisonment in the NE PAS JETER SUR LA VOIE PUBLIQUE VOIE LA SUR JETER NE PAS

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