Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix
| Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 29 October 1682 Saint-Quentin, Aisne |
| Died | 1 February 1761 (aged 78) La Flèche, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Ethnicity | French |
| Occupation | Catholic clergy, professor, historian, author, explorer |
| Known for | Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France |
| Religion | Catholic (Society of Jesus) |
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (24 October 1682 – 1 February 1761)[1] was a French Jesuit traveller and historian, often distinguished as the first historian of [New France].[2]
He was born at Saint-Quentin in the province of Picardy. A descendant from a line of lesser [nobility], Charlevoix’s father held the post of deputy attorney general, and ancestors had served in positions in “great trust and high responsibility”[3] such as legal officers, aldermen, and mayors.[4] In 1698 at age 16 he entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Paris before ordination as a priest in 1713.[5] Between 1705 and 1709 Charlevoix was sent for a regency period in his training at the Jesuit College in Quebec.[6] Upon completion, he would return to France to study under the College Louis-le-Grand before becoming a professor of belles lettres, teaching students such as a young Voltaire.[7] According to Louis Phelps Kellog, “Charlevoix was not of the temper of the earlier Jesuits of New France. He was by no means a zealot, and had no vocation to deliver himself to a life of suffering and deprivation for the conversion of Indian souls. Rather, he was a man of scholarly temper, interested as an observer in world affairs. […] His was an eager curiosity concerning life, rather than a burning ambition to be himself a moulder of destiny.”[8]
Charlevoix’s work would be halted by a royal commission requesting a survey of the historic boundaries of Acadia, recently lost to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713).[9] However, his knowledge of colonial North America would lead to an extension of his assignment, now to find a rout to the Pacific Ocean. Having recently lost control of the Hudson Bay and lacking funds for a major expedition, the French Crown equipped Charlevoix with two canoes, eight companions, and basic merchandise.[10] After departing from France in 1720, Charlevoix would make records of local geography which would be used to later improve regional maps. Ultimately unsuccessful in reaching the Pacific, he reported upon return in 1722 of two possible routs: by the Missouri River “…whose source is certainly not far from the sea” and by the establishment of a mission in Sioux territory, from which contact with tribes further West may have been possible.[11] The purpose of the voyage, according to Charlevoix, was to “inquire about the Western Sea, but [to] still give the impression of being no more than a traveler or missionary.”[12] Charlevoix also kept record of the entire voyage, written in the “Journal d’un voyage fait par l’ordre du Roi dans l’Amérique Septentrionale de la Nouvelle France”[13] In later years (1733–1755) he was one of the directors of the Journal de Trewux. He died at La Flèche on 1 February 1761.
His works, enumerated in the Bibliographie des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus (by Carlos Sommervogel), fall into two groups. Several of his works have maps by the French philosophe and engineer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, which represent the most accurate material of the time.[14]
The first contains works on Japan:
- Histoire de l'établissement, du progrès et de la décadence du Christianisme dans I'empire des japons (Rouen, 1715; English trans.History of the Church of Japan, 1715)
- Histoire et description générale du Japon (1736), an expansion of prior work by Engelbert Kaempfer.[15]
The second group includes his historical work on America:
- Histoire de I'Isle Espagnole ou de Saint-Domingue (1730), a two volume treatment of the island of Hispaniola based on manuscript memoirs of P. Jean-Baptiste Le Pers and original sources.[16]
- Histoire de Paraguay (1756) an agglomeration of texts originally intended for a proposed “History of the New World.”[17]
- Vie de la Mère Marie de I'Incarnation, institutrice et première supérieure des Ursulines de la Nouvelle-France (1724), a biography of a nun who aided the shipwrecked Charlevoix off of the coast of Florida.[18]
- Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France (1744; in English 1769; tr. J. G. Shea, 1866–1872), a three volume work of capital importance for Canadian history.
[edit] References
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-Francois-Xavier De. Journal of a Voyage to North America. London: Dodsley., 1761. XV.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 1.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 1.
- ^ "Pierre François Xavier De Charlevoix." Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. 2000. Accessed February 19, 2012. http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=35371.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 1.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 2.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 2.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-Francois-Xavier De. Journal of a Voyage to North America. London: Dodsley., 1761. XV.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 2.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 3.
- ^ "Pierre François Xavier De Charlevoix." Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. 2000. Accessed February 19, 2012. http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=35371
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 4.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 4.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 6.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-Francois-Xavier De. Journal of a Voyage to North America. London: Dodsley., 1761. XXIII
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 5.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 5.
- ^ Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 4.
