Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 35. (1982)

LY-TIO-FANE, Madeleine: Contacts between Schönbrunn and the Jardin du Roi at Isle de France (Mauritius) in the 18th Century. An Episode in the Career of Nicolas Thomas Baudin

Contacts between Schönbrunn and the Jardin du Roi

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II

With the restoration of peace in which he had taken an active part, Emperor Joseph II was able to give greater attention to the embellishment of the Gardens of Schönbrunn. In the autumn of 1785, the chief gardener Franz Boos received orders to start on a journey to Africa, accompanied by his assistant Georg Scholl. This was the second long journey of Boos; the first had been effected at the close of the war in South Carolina and the West Indies. On the 7th November, Count Philipp Cobenzl wrote to Céré to convey the Emperor’s thanks for the first consignment of plants and to give him particulars of the mission entrusted to Boos. Requesting his help, Cobenzl declared at the same time his interest in natural history, and especially in botany. He would be flattered if Cáré corresponded with him on these matters; the exercise would provide him with both pleasure and instruction, and enable him to organize with greater efficiency the expeditions directed to this part of the world for the collection of curiosities which the Emperor might fancy6).

Boos set out from Vienna in October and journeyed via Brussels to Amsterdam where he was to wait for almost a year in expectation of a passage. Finally he and Scholl embarked on the ‘Holland’ belonging to the East India Company. They reached the Cape of Good Hope in May and were fortunate in the relations which they established in the colony6“). Boos especially enjoyed the hospitality of Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon, the military commander. A Dutchman of Scottish extraction, Gordon had other qualities besides his military ability; a geographer and a gifted draughtsman, he had in the earlier part of his career in South Africa, explored in the company of William Patterson, a protégé of Lady Strathmore, who had travelled thither to collect exotic plants. Accompanied by Jacob van Reenen, they had in the years 1777 to 1779 penetrated as far as Namaqualand in the west and the Great Fish River on the south-east. Boos was privileged to make short excursions in Gordon’s company; Francis Masson, botanical collector from Kew, who had reached the Cape in January 1786, was often in their party. Boos awaited for a passage to Isle de France and Scholl was instructed to care for the collections of birds, mammals, plants and seeds and to enlarge them7).

6) Lettres V fol. 123, printed in Journal des Isles de France et de Bourbon 22 (avril 1787).

6a) Vide the manuscript biography of Franz Boos by his son Joseph: Institut für Botanik der Universität Wien Ms. C 38/29 Biographische Notizen über Franz Boos, Pflanzensammler auf den Antillen und am Cap. b. Sp. nachmahligen Hofgartendirector in Schönbrunn, zusammengestellt von dessen Sohn Joseph Boos, pensionirter Hofgärtner (zweite oder afrikanische Reise).

7) Biographical notes on Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon (1743-1795) in A. Gor- don-Brown Pictorial Africana (Cape Town 1975) 166 and R. Desmond Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists (London 1977) 259. Biographical notes on William Patterson (1755-1810) in Australian Dictionary of Biography 2 (Melbourne 1966) 317-318. Biographical notes on Francis Masson (1741-1805) in Desmond Dictionary 427 and in Warren R. Dawson (ed.) The Banks letters, a Calen-