Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué

Conrad Gustave Godefroy Oelsner-Monmerqué (30 June 1814 – 29 April 1854) was a Franco-German journalist, writer and diplomatic agent.

Biography

Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué was born in Paris, the son of the German publicist and diplomat Konrad Engelbert Oelsner (1764–1828) and the Frenchwoman Josèphe Sophie de Monmerqué. He moved to Breslau after the death of his parents to join the family of his uncle and guardian, the royal trade advisor, philologist and pedagogue, Johann Wilhelm Oelsner. In 1837 he received his doctorate in literature from the University of Jena. From then on, his life was spent between his two homelands, France and Germany, interspersed with two stays overseas.

After having worked as a history professor at the Royal Athenaeum in Paris and as a student-dragoman at the French Embassy in Constantinople, Oelsner-Monmerqué embarked in 1842, on his own initiative, for the Bourbon Island. There, he was editor-in-chief of the Feuille hebdomadaire de l'île Bourbon, professor of history and philosophy at the Royal College and secretary-editor of the Colonial Council. He also created the Colonial Institute whose aim was to educate the children of the underprivileged class. He was actively involved in the progressive abolition of slavery (in 1843, Bourbon Island had 43,000 whites and free people of color and 65,000 slaves) and fought against the prejudices of color of that time. In this context, he courageously defended the Creole poet Auguste Lacaussade, a mulatto, esteemed in literary circles in Paris, but rejected by his compatriots in his native island. The multiple initiatives of Oelsner-Monmerqué meet however the hostility, even the rejection of a part of the colonial slave society. His marriage to a Creole woman, who also owned 18 slaves, was completely contrary to his liberal and progressive ideas. He left Bourbon and the professorship to "settle personal affairs in France" three months after his marriage.

Returning to France in 1845, he once again offered his services to the Royal Athenaeum of Paris and taught courses in colonial history, drawing on his experience in the field. In 1846, the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies, Baron de Mackau, appointed the former professor of the Royal College of Bourbon to the position of principal. After writing a report on the present state and future of the college and recruiting metropolitan professors, Oelsner-Monmerqué decided, however, to resign to avoid an inevitable defeat, "given the impossibility of supporting with dignity the Royal College of Bourbon Island under the present auspices".

Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué's commitment to Bourbon did not stop. He moved to Prussia, worked as an editor at the Directorate of Maritime Relations, and began to write. His period in Berlin was very productive and testified to an intense and feverish activity: he wrote articles for the press, scientific papers, conferences and books followed one another at a steady pace to make known the conditions of life in the French colony and the neighboring islands, Madagascar and the Comoros. His novel Schwarze und Weiße. Skizzen aus Bourbon (Blacks and Whites. Sketches from Bourbon), which appeared in 1847 in a literary magazine and was then published in book form in 1848 in Bremen, is the highlight of his political commitment. The first part of the novel is devoted to the crossing of the slaves between Zanzibar and Bourbon in 1829 and the second to the colonial life of Bourbon in 1843. In order to make his message accessible to the greatest number of people, the author gives his observations a "novelistic dressing".

Following the revolutions in Germany and France in the spring of 1848, Oelsner-Monmerqué was called for diplomatic missions in France. In May/June 1848, he was the Prussian envoy and had the honor of reporting on the events in Paris to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV at the castle of Sanssouci. Between August 1848 and June 1849, he held the position of editor of the Foreign Affairs of the Empire and during this period carried out two other missions to Paris as special envoy of the Provisional Central Power in Frankfurt. In his book Drei Missionen. Politische Skizzen aus Paris (Three Missions. Political Sketches from Paris), he reports on his diplomatic interventions and the political events he witnessed. These events also gave rise to a second novel, Die Rothen und die Blauen. Pariser Corruptions-Skizzen (The Reds and the Blues. Sketches of Parisian Corruptions), which can be seen as a sequel to Schwarze und Weiße. In 1850, as a correspondent for the Journal des débats, he attended the Parliament in Erfurt and the Congress of Princes in Berlin. These debates were also the subject of a book written in collaboration with the journalist August Ludwig von Rochau.

After a short stay in Brazil as vice-consul of France in São Paulo and Santos, Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué died in Montpellier at the age of 39.

The Franco-German humanist tried to fight against the injustices of the colonial system and to accompany the process of emancipation through the education of all classes of society. Thanks to his double culture, his bilingualism and his versatility, he participated in the transfer of liberal ideas between his two countries. In 1849, the Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes (Magazine for Foreign Literature) wrote: "Mr. Oelsner-Monmerqué, long known to our readers, is by birth, training and personality able, like few others, to establish diplomatic contacts between Germany and France".

Works

• "Auguste Lacaussade," Journal français de Berlin (1847)
• Schwarze und Weiße. Skizzen aus Bourbon (1848)
• St. Helena. Eine Vorlesung gehalten in dem Verein für Erdkunde am 4. März 1848 (1848)
• Der Kreole. Eine Vorlesung gehalten im wissenschaftlichen Verein zu Berlin am 11. März 1848 (1848)
• Politische Denkwürdigkeiten aus Oelsner’s Schriften (1848; editor)
• Die Rothen und die Blauen. Pariser Corruptions-Skizzen (1850; novel)
• Drei Missionen. Politische Skizzen aus Paris (1850)
• Das Erfurter Parlament und der Berliner Fürsten-Congreß. Politische Skizzen aus der deutschen Gegenwart (1850; with A. L. von Rochau)

References

• Tolède, Marlène (2006). "Auguste Lacaussade – L’hommage d’un Allemand au XIXe siècle." In: Prosper Ève, ed., Auguste Lacaussade (1815-1897): Un humaniste réunionnais en France au XIXe siècle. Saint-André: Océan, pp. 325–32.
• Tolède, Marlène (2009). "Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué. Un Franco-Allemand à Bourbon (1842-1845)." In: Norbert Dodille, ed., Idées et représentations coloniales dans l’océan Indien. Paris: Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, pp. 569–82.
• Tolède, Marlène (2010). "Un martyr du préjugé: Auguste Lacaussade vu par Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué." In: Prosper Ève, ed., Frère de cœur, frère de plume: Auguste Lacaussade à Maurice. Saint-André: Océan, pp. 241–52.
• Tolède, Marlène (2011). "Réception et réécriture de Paul et Virginie dans l’espace germanophone au XIXe siècle." In: J.-M. Racault, Ch. Meure, A. Gigan, eds., Bernardin de Saint-Pierre et l’océan Indien. Paris: Garnier, pp. 453–68.
• Tolède, Marlène (2011). "Le Satan – un naufrage diabolique." In: Journée de recherche du CRLHOI "Tempêtes, naufrages et pirates dans l’océan Indien: accidents réels ou péripéties fictives?" Université de la Réunion, Saint-Denis, pp. 87–97.
• Tolède, Marlène (2015). "Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué: un écrivain franco-allemand face à l’esclavage," Recherches germaniques, No. 45,‎ pp. 25–47.

External links

• Works by Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué at Gallica
• Gustave Oelsner-Monmerqué: Un Franco-Allemand à Bourbon (1842–1845)