Letters From India (1829-1832)

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In September 1843 a collection of letters was published in London under the title Letters from India, describing a journey in the British Dominions of India, Tibet, Lahore and Cashmere during the years 1828-1829-1831, undertaken by order of the French Government by Victor Jacquemont, travelling naturalist to the Museum of Natural History, Paris. This translation was published as a tribute to this remarkable personality whose contribution to natural science was enormous. His pioneer work was in classifying the Himalayan flora and fauna. Several Himalayan species of plants have been named after him. He was also an acute observer of Indian conditions at an interesting period of Indian history.

Victor Jacquemont (1801-32) was a French botanist and geologist.

IN September 1834 a collection of letters was published in London under the title of Letters from India, describing a journey in the British Dominions of India, Tibet, Lahore and Cashmere during the years z 1828—1829-1831, undertaken by order of the French Government by Victor Jacquemont, travelling naturalist to the Museum of Natural History, Paris. . . . Translated from the French, and met with success enough to justify the publication of a second and enlarged edition in May 1835.

The centenary of Victor Jacquemont's untimely death, which took place in Bombay on December 7, 1832, when he was only thirty-one years of age, has recently been celebrated at the Museun of Natural History, Paris, where a commemorative exhibition was held on May 27, 1933, under the auspices of the Academie des Sciences coloniales and the Societe de l'Histoire des Colonies francaises. Speeches were made by a number of distinguished persons, including Sir Francis Younghusband as the representative of England, and a "Societe des Amis de Jacquemont" was founded. The year 1934 saw the publication of a biography of Jacquemont by Monsieur Pierre Maes (who has also edited two volumes of his early correspondence and has others in preparation) and the issue of two volumes of extracts from his diary, with Introductions by M. Alfred Martineau of the College de France, ex-governor of French India; while a permanent exhibition in commemoration of Jacquemont is contemplated at the Colonial Museum, Vincennes.

VICTOR JACQUEMONT was born in 18oI of an ancient family of Artois whose name occurs in the local records as far back as the thirteenth century, his ancestors, who belonged to the "noblesse of the sword", having held a number of small fiefs in the neigh-bourhood of Hesdin, and distinguished themselves in the Church, the law and public affairs' He was reared in honourable traditions by a father,Venceslas Jacquemont, who was an idealist republican, a man of high character and an able public servant, and had suffered persecution for his opinions under the Consulate and Empire.

"When I was eight years of age," writes Victor to a friend, "some police, armed with an order from Fouche, came one Sunday and invaded our house; they carried off books and papers, searched everywhere for traces of a conspiracy, and then led my father away. For eleven months he remained shut up in a cramped, dark room which I shall remember all my life, having gone there twice a week during those months—that is, as often as was allowed. It was there that I learnt to read and write. .. . At last he came out, only to endure an exile which lasted as long as the Empire." It is hardly surprising that as long as he lived Victor remained a strong anti-Bonapartist.

But these dark days came to an end, and Venceslas Jacquemont returned from exile to devote himself to the education of his younger sons and the composition of a metaphysical treatise, Les essences 'idles, which was, however, never to see the light. He belonged to the "ideologue" school of philosophy, of which Destutt de Tracy was the leading representative; and Victor and his elder brothers, Porphyre and Frederic, were brought up in a rationalist and secularist atmosphere resembling that of the late eighteenth century. As with the later positivists, an active social conscience and humanitarian views took the place of belief in religious dogma and revelation. These were combined with a belief in progress, "reason" and human perfectibility and with radical tendencies in politics. Victor Jacquemont grew up a sceptic with a tender heart, a sensitive conscience and a passion for philosophizing and psychological analysis.