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
86 Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane Quartier des Pamplemousses on the north-west side of the island which he named ‘Mon Plaisir’. He tried to naturalize there plants which he ordered to be collected from China, South-East Asia, the East Indies, Madagascar. In attempting to develop this garden on the lines of the Jardin du Roi in Paris, his intention was to prepare it as a model nursery for the precious spice plants, the clove and nutmeg, which he strove to obtain for France in an effort to break the Dutch monopoly of the spice trade, an enterprise to which he had dedicated a lifetime of effort. In 1770 and 1772 he finally obtained seeds and seedlings of the two precious spices from the natives of the island of Gebe in the East Indian Archipelago. As soon as this was effected, he asked for his recall to France and sold the estate of Mon Plaisir to the King, recommending that the Direction of the Garden should be entrusted to the knowledgeable Jean Nicolas Céré, who lived in the neighbouring estate of Belle Eau. Having weathered the initial intrigues directed against his appointment, Céré established his control over the Garden, multiplied the introductions, developed his research which was stimulated by a constant exchange of information with the staff at the Jardin du Roi in Paris, and with the members of the Académie des Sciences. His great hospitality, his contacts with visitors, travellers and explorers, his extensive correspondence with scientific circles in Europe and in Asia, contributed to make the Jardin du Roi at Isle de France a pole of attraction, a feat which did not escape the vigilance of Sir Joseph Banks who cited it as a model to West Indian planters1). Céré’s greatest achievement was the establishment and multiplication of the clove and nutmeg plants, followed by their dispersal, first to other French territories, and finally to other countries in the tropics. Within a decade, Poivre’s original views on the role of the Garden had been realised and Céré was able to express them in forceful terms in the report which he presented to Commissioner Le Brasseur in June 1785. Since its establishment, the Jardin du Roi had received in its nurseries plants from Pondicherry, Goa, Seychelles, Bourbon, Madagascar, the Cape of Good Hope. It had provided Cayenne and French Guiana with seedlings of the two precious spices; *) *) This study is based on primary sources. The publications on Schönbrunn are well-known and those which have been used are the following: Franz Graf Folliot de Crenneville Monographie des kaiserlichen Lustschlosses Schönbrunn (Wien 1875) in which occurs H. W. Reichardt’s essay Der K. k. Hof-Pflanzengarten zu Schönbrunn; and Ernst M. Kronfeld Park und Garten von Schönbrunn (Wien 1923). - On Pierre Poivre, vide the biography by Louis Malieret (Ecole Frangaise d’Extreme Orient, Paris 1974) and his article Pierre Poivre, l’Abbé Galloys, et l’introduc- tion d’espéces botaniques et d’oiseaux de Chine ä l’He Maurice in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius 3/1 (1968) 117-130. - On the introduction of the spice plants in the Mascarenes, vide the three volumes by Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane Mauritius and the Spice Trade 1: The Odyssey of Pierre Poivre (Mauritius Archives Publication Fund 4, Port Louis 1958); Mauritius and the Spice Trade 2: The Triumph of Jean-Nicolas Céré and his Isle Bourbon Collaborators (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes VT Section, Paris and the Hague 1970); Pierre Sonnerat, 1748-1814. An account of his life and work (Port Louis 1976).
