The French Colonial Imagination: Writing the Indian Uprisings, 1857-1858, from Second Empire to Third Republic 0739180002, 9780739180006, 9780739180013

Table of contents :
THE FRENCH COLONIAL IMAGINATION
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Beyond the Binary―Triangulating Colonial Discourse
2 A War of Words: The Politics of Nomenclature
3 Villains and Heroes: Ventriloquizing the "Revolutionary"
4 Massacring the Myth: Telling Tales of Revenge
5 Compensating for l'Inde perdue: France's "Civilizing Mission"
Conclusion: The French Colonial Imagination
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

The French Colonial Imagination

After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France SERIES EDITOR VALÉRIE ORLANDO, UNIVERSITY OF M ARYLAND

Advisory Board Robert Bernasconi, Memphis University; Claire H. Griffiths, University of Chester, UK; Alec Hargreaves, Florida State University; Chima Korieh, Rowan University; Mildred Mortimer, University of Colorado, Boulder; Obioma Nnaemeka, Indiana University; Kamal Salhi, University of Leeds; Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting, Vanderbilt University; Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, Tulane University

Recent Titles The French Colonial Imagination: Writing the Indian Uprisings, 1857–1858, from Second Empire to Third Republic by Nicola Frith Narratives of the French Empire: Fiction, Nostalgia, and Imperial Rivalries, 1784 to the Present by Kate Marsh African Pasts, Presents, and Futures: Generational Shifts in African Women's Literature, Film, and Internet Discourse by Touria Khannous Writing the Nomadic Experience in Contemporary Francophone Literature by Katharine N. Harrington The Body Besieged: The Embodiment of Historical Memory in Nina Bouraoui and Leïla Sebbar by Helen Vassallo Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond by Laura Reeck France’s Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia, and la fracture coloniale edited by Kate Marsh and Nicola Frith Globalizing the Postcolony: Contesting Discourses of Gender and Development in Francophone Africa by Claire H. Griffiths Writing and Filming the Genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda: Dismembering and Remembering Traumatic History by Alexandre Dauge-Roth The Star, the Cross, and the Crescent: Religions and Conflicts in Francophone Literature from the Arab World, by Carine Bourget

The French Colonial Imagination Writing the Indian Uprisings, 1857–1858, from Second Empire to Third Republic Nicola Frith

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Lexington Books A wholly owned subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2014 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Frith, Nicola, 1974- author. The French Colonial Imagination : Writing the Indian Uprisings, 1857-1858, from second Empire to third Republic / Nicola Frith. pages cm. -- (After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-8000-6 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7391-8001-3 (electronic) 1. French prose literature--19th century--History and criticism. 2. Colonialism in literature. 3. Imperialism--Social aspects--France. 4. India--History--Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858. I. Title. PQ290.F75 2014 840.9'3358--dc23 2014000846 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents Acknowledgments

vii

1

Beyond the Binary—Triangulating Colonial Discourse

1

2

A War of Words: The Politics of Nomenclature

27

3

Villains and Heroes: Ventriloquizing the “Revolutionary”

61

4

Massacring the Myth: Telling Tales of Revenge

99

5

Compensating for l’Inde perdue: France’s “Civilizing Mission”

145

Conclusion: The French Colonial Imagination

189

Glossary Bibliography Index About the Author

197 199 213 219

v

Acknowledgments This monograph has been adapted from my thesis, which was completed at the University of Liverpool, UK, in November 2009. There are many people to thank for their positive input into this project, including the University of Liverpool for giving me the opportunity to return to academia through a funded studentship and to all the staff and my fellow Ph.D. students at Liverpool’s School of Histories, Languages and Cultures. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to my primary supervisor, Kate Marsh, for her unstinting commitment to my research and for acting as a constant source of inspiration. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Ian Magedera, who persuaded me to apply for a Ph.D. in the first place. In addition, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Professors Charles Forsdick, Tim Unwin, and Srilata Ravi for their sound advice, enthusiasm, and encouragement. The project also owes much to the support of my fellow academics and colleagues at Bangor University, and notably to the School of Modern Languages who generously gave me the research time I needed to complete the monograph. Many thanks to all the staff at Lexington Books for their patient assistance, and notably my editor, Lindsey Porambo. Last, but by no means least, my thanks goes to all my friends and family, especially my parents for their unwavering support, to my son Dexter for putting everything back into perspective, and to my longsuffering husband for all his patience and love.

vii

CHAPTER ONE

Beyond the Binary— Triangulating Colonial Discourse

“Quand l’Angleterre descend, la France monte et, avec elle, les libertés du monde.”1 “When England falls, France rises and with her the world’s freedom.”

The Indian uprisings of 1857–58 against British rule occurred at the height of British colonial power, only six years after the ostentatious celebrations of empire at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Initially considered by many Britons as little more than a “military mutiny,” the revolts quickly transcended their military base to incorporate a broad cross-section of Indian society, from peasants to land-owning zemindars, and from minor rajahs to the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II.2 Although they were eventually and brutally suppressed by the British military, the uprisings would continue to represent one of the most significant challenges that Britain had ever faced from a “subject race,” marking a major turning point in British colonialism that would bring the East India Company to an end. Today, they remain an important landmark within colonial history, not only celebrated by Indian nationalist historians as India’s first “War of Independence,”3 but also viewed within postcolonial studies as a pivotal moment in which to counter-narrate and challenge the myths of British imperial hegemony. 4 Yet other perspectives exist to the much studied British and Indian narratives of the Indian uprisings. These alternative perspectives offer the possibility of re-viewing nineteenth-century colonial activity, not as a series of discrete country-specific ventures between colonizer and colonized “other,” but as part of an intricate network of intra-European competition shaped by competing colonial and political discourses. The French Colonial Imagination re-visits the Indian uprisings through the eyes of an “other” European power on the subcontinent,

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The French Colonial Imagination

the French, and in doing so considers how a key British colonial crisis was mobilized as an instance in which French writing could imagine India beyond British control, and thus envisage France’s own, late-nineteenth-century imperial revival after a long period of stagnation. Despite the recent revival of academic interest in France’s involvement in India, the importance of India as both a figure of “loss” and an incentive for colonial expansion in the late nineteenth century is an area that has been largely overlooked. Instead, it is exoticism that has come to be seen as a defining characteristic of nineteenth-century French representations of India. It should be remembered, however, that France’s colonial links with India only officially ended in 1962, having begun some three hundred years earlier with the establishment of Colbert’s Compagnie française des Indes orientales (French East India Company) in 1664. France’s political involvement in India thus extends beyond that of its British rival, without France having ever become the dominant colonizer on the subcontinent. This fate was sealed by the Treaties of Paris of 1814 and 1815 that ended the Napoleonic Wars and left France with only a marginal foothold on the subcontinent. These treaties reconfirmed the already peripheral nature of France’s territories in India following the Treaty of Paris of 1763 that had ended the Seven Years War.5 Henceforth, the dislocated remains of the Ancien Régime were subsumed under the authority of British rule, France’s presence being represented by five enclaves scattered around the fringes of British Indian territory, including Pondichéry, Chandernagor, Karikal, Yanaon, and Mahé. Historical works that consider the longstanding relationship between French and India have been less interested in examining the complex afterlife of this “lost” empire, preferring to focus instead on what Weber terms “l’âge d’or” (“the golden age”) of overseas expansion, or “l’épopée glorieuse de Dupleix et Bussy” (“Dupleix and Bussy’s glorious adventure”).6 In contrast, studies on French representations of India, particularly after 1815, have been more inclined to emphasize the exoticist discourses that shaped French visions of Inde as a land of literary fantasy.7 The result is that few have recognized the political capital played by the memory of India’s “loss” as France began, once again, to cast its “imperial eyes” out towards Africa and Asia during the Second Empire and early Third Republic.8 Indeed, this tends to be a period that is often neglected by historians and postcolonialists who see it as a lapse in activity between two more significant waves of colonial expansion, the first under the Ancien Régime and the second under the Third Republic and its “civilizing mission” (from 1880 onwards), and therefore as a less coherent field for discourse analysis. By concentrating here on the recurrence of the Indian uprisings in French writings of the mid to late nineteenth century, new insights are provided into the development of a “civilizing” mission during the transition from Empire to Republic. Notably, this study highlights the role played by the idea of India’s “loss” in sustaining a desire for revival and, therefore, in shaping French colonial thought of this period. Just as Hazareesingh reconnects the Third Republic’s “democratic, republican, individualist, and secular notion of citizenship” back to

Beyond the Binary

3

the Second Empire, in order to “explode what might be called the myth of republican agency: the notion that the modern paradigm of citizenship was the creation of republicans alone [sic],” so this work shows that the Second Republic played an essential role in creating what has more commonly been associated with the Third Republic’s mission civilistrice.9 In other words, the study of the Second Empire and its metamorphosis into a Third Republic provides an important context for understanding all the paradoxes of France’s République coloniale, which desired to construct “un empire colonial où s’épanouiraient les idéaux de la République” (“a colonial empire throughout which republican ideals would spread”).10 It argues that the colonial expansion of the late imperial period must be reconnected to the legacies of previous regimes and their histories of loss in order to understand the extent to which imperial nostalgia lies at the heart of France’s republican civilizing mission. If figures of loss and desire can be seen circulating in French-language representations of India during the mid nineteenth century, it must first be acknowledged that any hopes of actually ousting the British from India had long since been relinquished by the time of the uprisings in 1857.11 In contrast to the increasingly dominant image of British India that loomed large on the international scale, the memory of Inde française had all but faded from public consciousness by 1857. This process of forgetting can be seen in the French-language press of the time. Just a few months after news of the Indian uprisings had reached France, Louis Bellet writing for the imperialist newspaper La Patrie would ask, “Quelles sont d’abord,—tristes et insignifians débris de la puissance française dans l’Indoustan,—les possessions que nous avons dans l’Inde?” (“Let’s begin by asking, what are these miserable and insignificant leftovers of French power that we possess in Hindustan?”).12 He listed their names, their locations, and their demographic details, which amounted to “188 milles carrés” (“188 square miles”) and “une population de 200,000 habitans” (“a population of 200,000 inhabitants”), concluding that “Tel est le bilan exact de nos possessions dans l’Inde” (“That is precisely what remains of our Indian possessions”). 13 For Bellet, there was something shameful about the comptoirs—those “tristes et insignifians débris de la puissance française” (“miserable and insignificant leftovers of French power”)—since they served to recall French losses, while their marginalized presence evoked nostalgia for an era in which France’s influence had once presided over much of Europe. Echoing their largely forgotten status, the trading posts did not feature heavily in French reporting on the uprisings, which focused instead on British India and derived much its news directly from the British press. The only brief flurry of journalistic activity over the French comptoirs concerned the question of permitting troops to be stationed in FrenchIndian territory, an action that would have contravened the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1814.14 But although the French were never really under any serious threat from the revolts in 1857, the press’s focus on India during this period was enough to remind the French public of the presence of their own Indian

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The French Colonial Imagination

comptoirs and of a long history of loss and colonial subordination to their British rivals. As will be shown, the year 1857, which followed shortly after Louis Napoleon’s accession to the imperial throne, came to mark a point of rupture in this nostalgic discourse. With the French media’s attention riveted upon the uprisings and the uncertainty of British rule over the subcontinent, 1857 became a moment in which both to recall and work through France’s memories of loss by generating enthusiasm for a renewed colonizing mission elsewhere. This rhetoric was perfectly in tune with the goals of a new imperialist empire, announced by Louis Napoleon in his “Discours de Bordeaux” (October 9, 1852), which envisaged not war, but the peacefulness of a world governed by, and assimilated to, France: Nous avons d’immenses territoires incultes à défricher, des routes à ouvrir, des ports à creuser, des rivières à rendre navigables, des canaux à terminer, notre réseau de chemins de fer à compléter. Nous avons, en face de Marseille, un vaste royaume à assimilier à la France. Nous avons tous nos grands ports de l’Ouest à rapprocher du continent américain par la rapidité de ces communications qui nous manquent encore. Nous avons partout enfin des ruines à relever, de faux dieux à abattre, des vérités à faire triompher (emphasis added).15 We have great tracts of uncultivated land to clear, roads to open, ports to create, rivers to transform into waterways, canals to complete, and our railway network to finalize. Facing Marseille, we have a vast kingdom to assimilate to France. We have all our great ports in the West that will bring us closer to the American continent by rapid communication links that are, as yet, lacking. Everywhere we turn, there are ruins to rebuild, false gods to cut down, and truths that we must see triumph.

Although superficially the events of 1857 therefore had little to do with France, they nonetheless formed a specific source of inspiration for French writing on India from 1857 onwards. Indeed, news that Britain’s greatest overseas possession was under threat and, more importantly, was being threatened by its own colonized people, presented itself as an expedient opportunity for French writers to redress a century of French decline under British ascendancy (implicit in Louis Napoleon’s reference to “des ruines à relever” [“ruins to rebuild”]) and to imagine France’s rise in the wake of Britain’s failure. That rise would begin with Algeria, the “pièce maîtresse” (“centerpiece”) in Louis Napoleon’s “grande politique méditerranéenne” (“great Mediterranean policy”).16 But even after 1858, when the uprisings had been definitively quashed by the British military, the revolts would remain a leitmotif in French writing on India, used politically to challenge British dominance by reminding them of the perils of hubris and of the fragility lying behind their imperial image. Using a range of texts from literary, historical, political, journalistic, and autobiographical sources, this discrete subject matter thus offers a broader case study into French attitudes towards their foremost colonial rival, while simultaneously revealing the extent to which France’s own imperial image was con-

Beyond the Binary

5

structed in relation both to the British and to its troubled histories of colonial violence, defeat, and loss under former political regimes. In doing so, it proposes three key developments within, and challenges to, current approaches in Francophone postcolonial studies. First, unlike the majority of contemporary studies into French colonialism that engage methodologically with colonial discourse analysis developed through Anglophone postcolonial studies, this monograph examines the extent to which the French colonial imagination was not simply structured upon a binary between the colonizer and colonized “other,” but was shaped equally by an entrenched colonial rivalry with Britain. 17 In line with the work of Teltscher (1995), Jasanoff (2006), and Marsh (2007), it engages directly with the inherent limitations of reading French colonialism through Anglophone models, problems that have justified the emergence of a Francophone branch of postcolonial studies, but that have yet to be fully explored.18 Secondly, it serves to counterbalance the prevalent idea that the afterlife of French India (and indeed the first empire of the Ancien Régime) can only be read through models of (post-)colonial nostalgia or melancholy for what could have been, but never was. As such, it moves beyond the propensity to read French representations of India through exoticist and nostalgic paradigms by repositioning nineteenth-century French writings on India within the properly political context of French imperial expansion. Thirdly and finally, its focus on the journalistic and literary writings of the Second Empire and early Third Republic provides an important context to the prevailing focus on late nineteenth-century colonial expansion. It shows the extent to which France’s republican mission civilisatrice was rooted in, and shaped by, the losses of previous political regimes and its desire to both forget and differentiate itself from what had gone before. To expand upon these key ideas, it should be noted from the outset that although Anglophone postcolonial models may be usefully applied successfully to an examination of French colonial discourse, it is also important to acknowledge the restrictions of such an approach, especially where the French in India are concerned. First and most obviously, key differences existed between French and British colonial practices and ideologies, which (irrespective of their mutually exploitative natures) were often positioned in opposition to each other discursively. Whereas French colonialism (particularly under the Third Republic) was based, rhetorically at least, on Enlightenment egalitarianism and a policy of assimilation, British colonialism was based alternatively “on an assumption of difference and of inequality.”19 The result, as Young states, is a need to question the extent to which “we [can] assume that colonial discourse acts identically not only across all space but also throughout time.”20 Given that the focus here is on texts produced in the French métropole, there is a need to bear in mind these differences and, following Forsdick and Murphy, to acknowledge that France and its colonies have a very specific colonial history, one that does not “seem to correspond directly to any equivalent history in the Anglophone world, and which must consequently be more carefully analyzed in order to escape the worst generalizing tendencies of postcolonial theory.”21

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The French Colonial Imagination

Secondly, although recent years have seen a rapid growth of interest in, and research into, the complex and long-standing relationship between France and India, it is only latterly that scholars have begun to recognize the specificity of France’s involvement in India when compared with other French colonial histories. As Weber notes, “Les comptoirs sont certes des débris, insignifiants en comparaison de ce que fut l’Inde française et de ce qu’est devenue l’Inde britannique. Mais, précisément, leur intérêt est qu’ils sont français dans un monde anglais” (“The trading posts were undoubtedly leftovers, insignificant when compared with what French India had once been and what British India would become. But their interest lies precisely in the detail that they remained French in a British world”).22 There has perhaps been less inclination to engage with this particular colonial past because, unlike the better-studied examples of North Africa and the French Antilles, memories of the French in India are not circumscribed by the same calls to acknowledge exploitative colonial practices and their trace effects in the present day.23 This is not to suggest that human rights abuses did not occur in the Indian comptoirs—indeed, the exportation of indentured laborers through Pondichéry and Karikal began under British legislation in 1853 and was terminated in 1888 as a direct result of the mistreatment of Indian laborers by French handlers. 24 Rather, it is to point out that this oversight may stem from the unique position of the French on the subcontinent, being a de facto colonial authority, yet one that was subsumed under British rule. Because of this unique position, depictions of India stand at a crossroads between reality and fantasy. On the one hand, they refer to, and are underpinned by, a real colonial presence, which engaged in all the material practices associated with colonial exploitation, such as the supply of indentured laborers to the French sugar colonies. On the other hand, they function within a fantastical discourse that eschews colonial materiality and idealizes French colonialism by imagining what an Inde française might have been, but never was.25 The specific study of the French in India thus presents an interesting anomaly within postcolonial studies and, as Marsh so clearly explores in her monograph on French representations of Indian decolonization, can be used to question the use of the binary that has become the hallmark of postcolonial thinking.26 Yet the majority of contemporary studies have understood Eurocentric depictions of India through an East–West structure gleaned from Said’s identification of a Foucauldian discursive field through which “European culture was able to manage—and even produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the postEnlightenment period.”27 Although Said’s argumentation, along with his overprivileging of western hegemony over the “East,” has been the subject of extensive criticism and debate, it is not to be rejected entirely.28 Indeed, what remains useful is the way in which, to quote from Clifford, Said permits us to see the functioning of a more complex dialectic by means of which a modern [European] culture continuously constitutes itself through its ideological constructs of the exotic. Seen in this way “the West” itself becomes

Beyond the Binary

7

a play of projections, doublings, idealizations, and rejections of a complex, shifting otherness. “The Orient” always plays the role of origin or alter ego. 29

Through such a model, “India” is commonly identified as an exoticized and “othered” space created for a Western audience and populated by a cast of familiar Indian stereotypes and figures, such as the Brahman, the sati, the bayadère, and the Thug. But although the binary can be usefully adopted to examine such narratives, it remains restrictive in exploring representations of France’s engagement with India for two specific reasons. First, a binary approach overlooks, or does not sufficiently address, the ongoing material presence of the French in India and, most importantly, their marginalized status under British rule post-1815. This historical point has significant repercussions for French-language representations of India. As Marsh has argued, after the Treaties of Paris of 1814 and 1815, the French became a “subaltern” colonizer, meaning that they were both subordinate to the British, while acting as the “dominant” colonizer within their own Indian enclaves (and within other colonies outside of India).30 To engage “methodologically with France’s politically subordinate status in India”31 is thus to open up the potential of rereading nineteenth-century French writings on India, and especially the Indian uprisings, as highly politicized documents that attest to the development of a new French colonial vision haunted by the vestiges of the Ancien Régime. Second, a binary ignores the presence of an embedded Anglo-French rivalry within French colonial discourses. More than identifying the presence of exoticist and nostalgic discourses marked by a Manichean division between the French colonizer and its eastern “other,” French writing on India needs to be analyzed for its representations of that “other” colonizer, the British, in order to draw out the importance of intra-European competition in shaping colonial thought during the Second Empire and Third Republic, and indeed throughout colonial history. The importance of rival discourses between European powers, and the analysis of competing accounts of India produced in predominantly French-language texts, thus works against the creation of a hegemonic transEuropean identity that is constructed via the “Orient” or exoticized “other.” A clear example of the limitations of binary analysis becomes immediately obvious when dealing with terms such as “subaltern” within the context of the French in India. Taken from Gramsci in reference to a European proletariat, “subaltern” is a term that has been adopted into postcolonial theory, most notably by Spivak who uses it to refer to subordinate and/or marginalized groups in Indian society.32 However, an important schism arises between Spivak’s use of this term and its usage here. Spivak’s conclusion that there is “no space from which the sexed subaltern subject can speak” means that she converges with Said’s problematic conception of the colonized as the “silent interlocutor” of the dominant order.33 Although Bhabha challenges this idea by foregrounding the ability of marginalized or silenced voices to challenge the dominant narrative from within, or what he terms the “‘right’ to signify from the periphery of au-

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The French Colonial Imagination

thorized power,” neither his nor Spivak’s arguments are appropriate for examining French-language representations of India since the French “subaltern” colonizer, although marginalized, is neither silent nor silenced and remains part of that “authorized power.”34 The shift of focus away from analyzing the dominant colonial power, the British, and towards the rival and subordinated colonizer, the French, demonstrates the extent to which the politically marginalized French “self” is reactive and shifting, defining itself opportunistically and inconsistently in opposition to both the British and Indian “other.” These multifarious “counter-hegemonic voices,” to borrow Porter’s phrase,35 demonstrate that the idea that India, far from being a stable entity within a pan-European discourse, is a malleable trope that is open to appropriation by French writers and in which competing French colonial identities can be constructed despite territorial loss. 36 What follows is concerned, therefore, with a Franco-British rivalry that is conducted not on the physical landscape of the subcontinent, but within the French colonial imagination and its narratives of empire. Centrally, it argues that the permanently reduced presence of the French in India post-1815 did not simply inspire nostalgic and exoticist images, but rather that marginalization was repeatedly mobilized as a position from which to speak out against the dominant and rival British colonizer. Despite French losses, the idea of Inde could be made to function as a useful political and polemical tool, enabling French writers to create an idealized vision of French colonialism in contrast with the rapaciousness of the British, while galvanizing French imperial expansion into other overseas territories, notably North Africa and Indochina, and eschewing their own histories of violence and loss.37

Imagining India: Loss, Nostalgia, and Fragmentation French colonialism would remain overshadowed by the triumphant narrative of their British rivals throughout the nineteenth century, with India standing as a clear and painful reminder of France’s political marginalization. Yet it should be recalled that France’s involvement in India endured for some three hundred years. After establishing a foothold at Surat in 1666, the French maintained a physical presence in India until 1962, when the Assemblée nationale formally validated the Treaty of Cession. What became an important rivalry between France and Britain for India began even earlier, in 1664, when Colbert established the Compagnie française des Indes orientales under Louis XIV, envisaging that the Compagnie would open up a “route glorieuse” (“glorious route”) for French trade to match, if not surpass, the existing Dutch and British East India Companies.38 For nearly one hundred years, Colbert’s plans to produce a competitive trading company appeared to be coming to fruition. With settlement rights granted in Pondichéry (1673) and the subsequent establishment of four other trading posts

Beyond the Binary

9

at Chandernagor (1688), Mahé (1721), Yanaon (1731), and Karikal (1739), France’s political influence gradually extended along the Coromandel coast and into the Carnatic and Deccan regions, reaching its zenith under Dupleix’s governorship of Pondichéry (1742–54).39 By offering military protection to Indian princes in exchange for land and taxation rights, Dupleix became the effective power behind several important thrones in southern India. 40 These actions were not, however, endorsed by the Versailles court (then under Louis XV) and Dupleix was recalled to France in 1754 for having squandered the court’s financial investment on what it considered to be a worthless enterprise. 41 This repudiation contrasted directly with the support given to Robert Clive, Dupleix’s main adversary, and would consequently have the opposite effect in terms of growth, with Clive’s victory over Shuja-ud-Daula (in the Battle of Plassey, 1757) effectively marking the beginning of British rule in India. 42 That India fell under British rather than French rule is connected, therefore, with domestic politics. Dupleix’s potential to have become “de facto emperor of India” was curtailed by a monarch who lacked any interest in “Eastern politics.”43 In retrospect, Dupleix’s impeachment can be seen as sounding the death knell for French expansion on the subcontinent, a blow that was sealed by the Treaty of Paris of 1763 that ended the Seven Years War and saw Canada being ceded to the British, and France’s presence in India reduced to a handful of trading posts.44 Despite these losses, Franco-British rivalry in India would continue long into the eighteenth century. Battles were waged over Pondichéry, which was retaken by the British in 1778 and 1793, before the Treaties of Paris of 1814 and 1815 definitively restored it back to France. 45 Beyond the comptoirs, France was also able to impact on Indian affairs by providing military support to dissident Indian rulers, notably the Mysorean leaders, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan. These rulers would present the last major check to the growing influence of British rule, the Mughal empire having been dismantled after a century of internal politicking, and the Marathans having been defeated by the Afghan invader, Shah Abdali.46 Their alliance with France manifested itself on two notable occasions: first, during the Second Mysore War (1780–84), with the defeat of the British at Pollilur (1780) and Bednur (1783); and second, after a letter had been sent from Bonaparte to Tipu Sultan and which promised French troops (following France’s invasion of Egypt) was intercepted, resulting in Britain’s preemptive storming of Seringapatam and the much-celebrated fall of Tipu Sultan in 1799.47 With Tipu Sultan’s demise, French hopes in India can truly be said to have ended, a conclusion that was consolidated fifteen years later under the treaties of Paris that terminated the Napoleonic Wars. In those treaties, the five comptoirs might have been definitively returned to France, but their power was henceforth subsumed under a British authority that forbade the retention of military troops and demanded an annuity of 1 million francs.48 Their persistent yet peripheral presence after 1815 can thus be seen as a synecdoche that stands for an entire period of relative decline for France, one that begun with the loss of significant

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territorial gains in India and Canada in 1763, and would be exacerbated by both the political turmoil of the French Revolution of 1789 and the independence of France’s most profitable Caribbean island, Saint-Domingue, in 1804. As such, the year 1815 marks a shift away from a Franco-British territorial rivalry, towards a discursive rivalry that was played out, not on Indian soil, but within a culture of French writing on India fuelled by the memories of warfare. 49 Despite French losses, as Assayag, Champion, Ravi, and Marsh have all noted, the idea of India continued to function as an important point de repère in the French colonial imagination, acting as a source of inspiration for romantic, historical, fantastical, and exoticist literary creation throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, it was precisely through such artistic forms that the French public (particularly during the nineteenth century) received a certain idea of India, one that rendered it synonymous with an exotic and fantastical “elsewhere.”50 In contrast, there was a comparative lack of accepted “knowledge,” or interest in, the geopolitical reality of the French comptoirs, at least until the Third Republic.51 That the French press, for example, felt the need to remind their readership of the existence of the comptoirs during the 1857–58 uprisings suggests the extent to which they had been publicly forgotten, eclipsed by that all-consuming idea of British India so triumphantly displayed in the Great Exhibition of 1851. The forgetting of French India worked to obscure the continuation of France’s political presence on the subcontinent. As Weber has pointed out, despite the losses incurred, the comptoirs continued playing an important role, one that was “hors de proportion avec leurs dimensions ‘lilliputiennes’” (“out of proportion with their ‘Lilliputian’ size”).52 Weber’s reference here is to their economic significance during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a transformation that occurred under the Second Empire and in the aftermath of abolitionism in 1848. It was in this period that the comptoirs were reorganized as industrial and commercial centers that exported indigo-dyed cotton to West Africa, sesame and indigo to France, and some thirty thousand Indian coolies to Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Guiana.53 This same discrepancy between size and role can also be detected in representations of the trading posts in French culture, which post-1815 ascribed to them a disproportionate sense of loss, melancholy, and nostalgia. Pierre Loti’s L’Inde (sans les Anglais) (1903) is one well-known example in which the narrator describes Pondichéry as “notre vieille petite colonie languissante” (“our withered, little old colony”), a place that is connected with feelings of sorrow and regret: “Oh! la mélancolie d’arriver là, dans cette vieille ville lointaine et charmante, où sommeille [ . . . ] tout un passé français!” (“O, How melancholic it is to arrive at that charming old, faraway town, where an entire French history still sleeps!”).54 Pondichéry is depicted as marooned within the surrounding seas of a hostile British India: “Vieille petite ville qui dure par tradition, qui vit parce qu’elle a vécu, systématiquement isolée du reste de l’Inde par nos hostiles voisins, et n’ayant [ . . . ] ni port, ni rade où nos bateaux puissent s’abriter”

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(“That little old town that lives on through tradition, still alive because it had once lived, systematically isolated from the rest of India by our hostile neighbors, and having neither port nor harbor where our boats might shelter”).55 When “remembered” then, the comptoirs tended to be overdetermined, being burdened with the memories of a colonial rivalry that resulted in France ceding its primary position to the frère ennemi and suggestive of a loss much greater than their sum parts. They functioned not only as repositories for the nostalgic memories of France’s former greatness, but also as counterpoints to the bloated presence of a British India that might have belonged to the French. As the lawyer and archAnglophobe Frédéric Billot wrote in 1857 in a praise of Dupleix, “Il se promit de donner l’Inde à la France” (“He vowed to give India to France”), before lamenting the failure of the Louis XV to assist Dupleix by negotiating instead with the British: “Les Anglais, par ce traité, cédaient quelques bourgades, la France cédait un empire” (“Through this treaty, the British gave up a few villages, whereas French gave up an empire”).56 The dispossession of those scattered French trading posts is thus eclipsed by the fantasy that it was an entire empire, akin to the geopolitical reality of British India, that was lost at that moment, a loss that is felt all the more keenly because of the ongoing existence of those comparatively diminutive comptoirs. As will be argued throughout this study, however, representations of India are not simply to be read through narratives of loss and nostalgia. The continued existence of the trading posts, and notably their administrative capital, Pondichéry, could also inspire a deeply felt sense of French pride. “Elle est unique parmi les villes de l’Inde, par son heureuse union de l’Europe et de l’Asie” (“It is unique among the towns of India in its successful unification of Europe and Asia”), wrote the former French army officer, Édouard de Warren, in his travelogue, L’Inde anglaise: Avant et après l’insurrection de 1857 (1857): C’est une ville de France enchâssée dans les couleurs magiques, la riche végétation de l’Orient. [ . . . ] Nulle part le cocotier n’est si beau, le palmier éventail ne se penche avec plus de grâce; nulle part les rizières ne sont si fraîches, la population indigène plus dense, plus active, plus heureuse.57 This French town is set among the magical colors and the rich vegetation of the Orient. There is no other place where the coconut tree is so beautiful, or where the palm tree leans over with such grace; nowhere else where the rivers are so refreshing, or the Indian populace so plentiful, active, and happy.

The tendency to valorize the “image ‘française’ de Pondichéry” (“‘French’ image of Pondichéry”) has been noted as a trait of Gallo-centric writing,58 but equally important are the ways in which Pondichéry was positioned as contradistinct to British India. For Warren, Pondichéry, or that “petit paradis” (“little paradise”), “petit Eldorado” (“little Eldorado”), or “petit coin du monde” (“little corner of the world”), remained “une oasis dans le desert” (“an oasis in

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the desert”), one that contrasted implicitly with that other India lying outside its paradisiacal boundaries.59 This is reflected in the reporting on the Indian uprisings whenever the French press broached the subject of the comptoirs. Although actual references to the French trading posts were sparse (mostly because they lay at some distance from the hotbeds of insurgent action), when mentioned they were mobilized as peace havens that contrasted with the surrounding chaos of revolt. 60 The Calcutta-based French correspondent for the imperialist press, La Patrie, for example, considered that there was little chance of insurgency in Pondichéry, not just because the residents were far from the centers of the rebellion, but also because “ils n’ont aucune raison de se plaindre” (“they have no reason to complain”).61 Le Moniteur officiel des établissements français de l’Inde, a newspaper published in Pondichéry, boasted of the peaceful way in which “moharrem”—a period usually noted for its “surexcitation” (“overexcitement”) and “troubles” (“disturbances”)—had been celebrated there, speaking of the “excellent esprit qui anime notre population” (“excellent attitude that exists among our population”).62 Similarly, the bonapartist newspaper, La Presse, insisted that the French enclaves “jouissaient de la plus profonde tranquillité” (“were enjoying the greatest tranquility”) and wrote that “la population indigène continuait à montrer des dispositions favorables pour l’administration française, et un grand nombre de familles indiennes avaient signé des adresses aux autorités pour protester de leur dévoûment” (“the indigenous population was continuing to behave favorably towards the French administration and a large number of Indian families had signed addresses to the authorities professing their loyalty”).63 Collectively, these examples introduce an idea that will be contextualized in what follows: despite and because of their marginalized status, the comptoirs could be employed as effective rhetorical instruments within a competing French colonial discourse. Presented as sanctuaries from the storm of revolt, they could be used to showcase French colonialism as a preferable alternative to that of the British. An important caveat must, however, be inserted that posits from the outset an alternative vision to the rhetoric produced by French colonial discourses. By 1857, France was neither innocent of committing its own atrocities (notably in the French Antilles and Algeria), nor free from experiencing its own anticolonial revolts as a result. The most memorable was, of course, the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, but it should be noted that that uprisings also occurred in the comptoirs from the 1830s onwards. 64 Like all colonial or imperial discourses, the moralizing tone adopted by many French texts towards the British is, therefore, double-tongued. “To speak of modern imperialism is, from the outset, to speak in oxymorons,” writes Bongie, since imperialism was “incompatible with the process of democratization that took hold of most of Europe during the nineteenth century.”65 In other words, despite the revolutionary developments in political democracy and liberalism in the metropolitan centers, European countries simultaneously practiced a form of “enlightened despotism” abroad among what they considered to be the “unenlightened” masses.66

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While an understanding of the long history of crimes committed under monarchic, imperial, and republican regimes underpins this investigation, its purpose lies not in exposing these acts, but rather in exploring the creation of a French colonial identity that will always be at variance with its material practices. It argues that the nostalgia and exoticism traditionally associated with France’s representations of India need to be re-viewed for the significant and unacknowledged part that the idea of loss had to play in France’s desire for colonial expansion elsewhere, notably into North Africa and Indochina. By placing the subject of India under the spotlight of the media for a prolonged period, the revolts not only offered a conduit for recalling those histories of French loss, but also a moment in which to reflect upon and envisage the shape of France’s colonial future. French-language representations of the Indian uprisings are thus to be located at the point where nostalgia intersects with a desire to compensate for having lost India to the British, and where the retrospection of imperial decline interconnects with a renewed drive for overseas expansion.

The Indian Uprisings: A Historical Overview Whereas the nostalgic and exoticist idea of a lost India, or what Claude Farrère would later term l’Inde perdue (1935), distanced it from the everyday realities of nineteenth-century French culture and politics, the opposite trajectory can be seen in Britain.67 By the mid-nineteenth century, the subcontinent had become a very real and significant political possession for the British. Domesticated by its official “unveiling” during the Great Exhibition of 1851, the idea of India gave few Britons reason to suspect that, six years later, those “docile” Indians that had formed the mainstay of the Crystal Palace displays would now be leading a campaign against the British. 68 The rebellion of Indian “subjects” was shocking because, within the metanarrative of colonial domination, previous acts of resistance had been forgotten.69 This ignorance was not, however, shared by all, and particularly not by those with a more concrete experience of India. Sir Charles Napier, a British general and commander-in-chief, had warned that a “mutiny” among Indian sepoys was impending.70 Missionaries based in Bengal had been similarly concerned, reporting on the increasingly impoverished condition of the Bengali people (following the implementation of the Perpetual Settlement and Zemindari System in 1792) and the need for immediate governmental reform.71 But irrespective of whether or not these events were viewed as extraordinary or predictable, the uprisings propelled India into the heart of public life, making what had once seemed an abstract and peripheral concern “both grimly real and relevant.”72 The official date given to their commencement is May 10, 1857, which marks the moment when three hundred Indian soldiers decided to leave for Delhi to request that the puppet emperor, Bahadur Shah II, reclaim the Mughal throne and join their fight against the British colonizer. 73 The catalyst for this event oc-

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curred several days earlier and fifty miles outside of Delhi in the cantonment of Meerut, where eighty-five sowars refused to use the newly issued rifle cartridges. For several months, rumors had been spreading throughout the Indian army that these cartridges were encased in a fat made from beef and pork tallow, a concoction abhorrent to both Hindu and Muslim soldiers. The sowars were just one of many regiments that had already refused to use the cartridges. Unlike the others, however, the British authorities at Meerut did not stop at having the soldiers stripped of their uniforms, but additionally had them publicly shackled and sentenced to life-imprisonment.74 An otherwise discrete act of insubordination quickly came to represent an important moment of rupture. As a public display of resistance against the British, it was met with an excessive punitive response delivered by a ruling power that clearly felt itself threatened and wished to reassert its authority. But shackling and imprisonment did not have the desired effect. Rather than acting as a deterrent, “that dull dead beat of iron upon the fetters of others” became, as Flora Annie Steel later depicted in her novel, On the Face of the Waters (1897), “the surest call to battle.”75 The following day, the remaining sepoys stationed at Meerut mutinied, before freeing their comrades and heading to Delhi to demand the assistance of Bahadur Shah II. 76 It was under this reluctant figurehead of a past Mughal glory that the Indian people would unite in direct contravention of the divide and rule policies of the British.77 In taking this step, a military mutiny was transformed into a popular revolt against British rule, which, at its peak, extended across the Presidency of Bengal, from the Punjab in the west to Calcutta in the east, and south into the Deccan peninsula. More than just a “military mutiny,” as many Anglo-centric narratives have mistakenly named it, but less than a national revolution, the uprisings included peasant uprisings, regional and national coups d’états, as well as a protracted guerrilla campaign that lasted well into 1859. To focus restrictively on Meerut and the cartridges as the root cause of these events is, however, to ignore the broader context in which the uprisings arose. The greased cartridges were only the last in a long line of grievances held by the military against British rule (such as the General Service Enlistment Act), which were rumored to be part of an evangelical drive to convert the troops through enforced defilement.78 In an atmosphere of increasing distrust and burgeoning unrest, rumors were quickly disseminated, fuelled by suggestions that the British had mixed bone meal into the army’s flour supplies and by the mysterious circulation of chapatis from one village to the next, acting as indecipherable messages that were interpreted by the British as evidence of a widespread conspiracy. 79 That the unsubstantiated reports of British underhandedness were so readily absorbed and repeated suggests much about the mood of many Indians who were justifiably suspicious of their British rulers, especially since the introduction of the “Doctrine of Lapse.” Invoked under Dalhousie governorship (1848–56), this law enabled the British to renege on treaties established since Warren Hastings’s time (1772–85) and to annex land that legally belonged to India’s ruling elite.80 Not only had this stripped the Indian people of their rulers, but, once under Brit-

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ish rule, it had subjected them to the injustices of the British taxation system and its fixed price revenue demands.81 This was most keenly felt in the region of Oudh (in modern-day Uttar Pradesh), where the uprisings would become almost universal in scale. 82 Despite having remained loyal to British rule since Hastings’s governorship,83 Oudh had just been annexed to the Presidency of Bengal, Dalhousie having described it covetously as “a cherry which will drop into our mouths some day.”84 Its annexation was permitted thanks to a legal clause that allowed the British to occupy any lands whose rulers had died without a genetic heir. In eight short years, this precedent permitted the East India Company to acquire direct control of Satara (1848), Jaitpur (1849), Sambalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1853), Nagpur (1854), Poona (1854), and finally Oudh (1856). It is no coincidence that some of the fiercest sites of popular resistance and warfare also occurred in these same provinces, notably in Oudh where the infamous sieges of Lucknow and Cawnpore took place. From May to November 1857, it was the battles waged at Delhi, Lucknow, and Cawnpore that would form the focal points of interest for the British and French presses. Noteworthy for their violence and heroism on both sides, it was also these three sites of conflict that would provide the setting for the numerous “mutiny” narratives produced after the uprisings. 85 Delhi remained, nominally at least, in the hands of the emperor until September 20, 1857 when the British retook the Red Fort under Nicholson’s command, a victory that, as Marx and Engels noted in a series of articles published in the New York Daily Tribune, was significant more for its rhetorical than strategic importance. 86 At Lucknow, the Residency was transformed into a British fort, housing over 1,700 European and Indian soldiers and 1,300 civilians (including women and children). The siege that begun on September 30, 1857 with the arrival of 7,000 Indian soldiers was ended on November 19, 1857 with the arrival of a Highland rescue force led by Colin Campbell. Yet among all these interconnected sites of confrontation, it was the events at Cawnpore on July 15, 1857 that would be remembered as the “crowning atrocity” of the uprisings. It was here that the dispossessed Rajah of Bithur, Nana Sahib, was implicated and disgraced in what the British would see as the unforgettable and unforgiveable massacre of a group of captive European women and children.87 By July, Nana Sahib’s name had already been connected with two other incidents involving the killing of European civilians. 88 First, on June 12, 1857, his men were reported as having executed a group of European fugitives fleeing from the revolts at Fatehgarh. 89 Second, on June 27, 1857, Nana Sahib was thought to have reneged on a written agreement promising Major General Hugh Wheeler’s besieged garrison at Cawnpore a safe passage to Allahabad, his troops accused by the British of having opened fire on the unarmed evacuees as they were boarding their boats at the Satichaura ghat.90 The survivors were returned to Nana Sahib’s headquarters, including some one-hundred-and-eighty women and children who were later transferred to a bibighar.91 With news that a

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detachment of General Havelock’s force was fast approaching to attack Cawnpore, a group of sepoys and local residents, supposedly acting under Nana Sahib’s orders, entered the bibighar and killed the prisoners, before discarding their bodies into a well.92 Just a few days later, Havelock’s Highlanders discovered the aftermath of the massacre and the disposed bodies of the victims, commencing a period of unbridled revenge against the Indian populace. It was this event more than any other that inspired and was used as the rationale behind the excessively violent backlash of the British military, becoming a trope that, among British writers, came to stand for the Indian uprisings as a whole. The retaking of Cawnpore (July 17, 1857), Delhi (September 20, 1857), and finally Lucknow (March 21, 1858) did not, however, bring the uprisings to an end. Neither did the wholesale punishment of Indian villages, whose corpses lined the road between Allahabad and Cawnpore, nor the arrest and execution of key figures, such as Tatya Tope and Bahadur Shah II.93 Instead, the revolts continued throughout 1858, gaining new leaders, such as the Rani of Jhansi, Lakshmi Bai, who fought against Hugh Rose in the battle for Gwalior in June 1858. 94 Despite bringing the uprisings officially to a close, with the Queen’s Proclamation of November 1, 1858, the fighting continued, now transformed into guerrilla warfare that persisted well into 1859. Even once the fighting itself had stopped, the effect of these events would continue to be felt at a material, ideological, and psychological level. Materially, the uprisings brought an end to the East India Company, hereafter subsumed under the Crown, meaning that India, once the preserve of an elite few, was now a more integral part of the British nation. 95 Ideologically, they put a stop to the reformist zeal of British colonial policies, which (in opposition to France’s policy of non-interference96) had attempted to stamp out certain practices, such as sati, child marriage, and Thugi, and heralded the beginning of a more “conservative” era.97 Psychologically, they were an unsettling reminder of the ease with which Britain could lose India and of the fragility of its ruling position, resulting in a government that was “dominated by a fear that the Mutiny should ever happen again.”98 Henceforth, as MacMillan notes, the “Mutiny was always close to the surface in the consciousness of the British in India,” and it was precisely this weakness that French writers would exploit in their representations of 1857– 58.99

France Writes the Indian “Mutiny” French public interest in the uprisings peaked during the latter half of 1857 with the national press issuing daily front-page coverage of the events unfolding 4000 miles away.100 In addition to the profusion of press reports, 1857 saw four key works being published in France on the uprisings, including: an eye-witness account of a female bibighar survivor produced as a roman-feuilleton by Maynard; a piece of anti-British political propaganda by Billot; a revised military trave-

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logue by Warren, a French officer who had served in the British Indian army; and the third edition of Valbezen’s Les Anglais et l’Inde.101 In the immediate aftermath, and then throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Indian uprisings were used as a key point of reference and/or a useful plot device in a number of historical and literary works. The Second Empire saw the publication of three histories by Nicaise (1859), Martin (1859), and Forgues (1861), one song by Billot (1860), and one adventure novel by Assolant (1867). The early years of the Third Republic produced five more adventure novels for which the uprisings provided a narrative structure, including novels by Verne (1870, 1874, and 1880), Darville (1874), and Rousselet (1875), as well as a travelogue by Rousselet (1875) and a revised history by Valbezen (1875). Under the more established Third Republic in the final decades of the nineteenth century, two works were produced, including a drame en vers by Richepin (1883) and a romance fiction by Bernard (1895).102 By the twentieth century, interest had waned significantly. Only the occasional literary work dedicated specifically to the uprisings was produced, their sporadic appearances traversing the colonial and post-colonial periods, and including Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s erotic fiction based on Nana Sahib’s female victims (1909), Marenis’s romance fiction set in Cawnpore (published in 1946 during the last days of the Raj), Grèce’s historical novel about the female rebel leader, the Rani of Jhansi (1984), and most recently Ridel and Arleston’s bande dessinée, Tandori: Le réveil de l’éléphant bleu (1993).103 The main corpus of this study is thus based on those texts produced both contemporaneously to the uprisings, when France was under the French Second Empire, and during the first half of the Third Republic at a time when France was once again looking to expand its colonial territories overseas. Collectively, these narratives have remained an entirely unexplored field of analysis until now. Only Verne’s La Maison à vapeur has attracted any significant attention, while Assollant’s Capitaine Corcoran and Grèce’s La Femme sacrée have formed minor points of interest within a select number of academic texts. 104 In contrast, the volume of texts on the uprisings written from British and Indian perspectives is vast. The number of fictional works alone runs well into the hundreds and the wealth of scholarship across historical, cultural, and postcolonial fields attests to the importance of 1857 in the histories of British India, Indian independence, and European colonialism more generally. 105 It is notable, however, that even the most well known of these texts have not been translated into French. Significant histories, such as Malleson’s The Mutiny of the Bengal Army: An Historical Narrative (1857) and The Indian Mutiny of 1857 (1878– 80), Russell’s My Diary in India, in the Year 1858–59 (1860), and Kaye’s A History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857–58 (1877), as well as fictional works by prominent nineteenth-century British authors, such as Charles Dickens and Meadows Taylor, whose other works had been converted into French, did not find their way into the French market in translation. The only author of note to have been translated was Mary Elizabeth Braddon and her fictional work Lady Audley’s Secret (1862).106 This key “mutiny fiction” was translated as Le Secret

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de Lady Audley (1863) not because of its subject matter, but rather because nearly all of Braddon’s were translated by the dedicated Bernard-Derosne team. Of course, the absence of translations does not mean that French readers did not have access to the English-language originals, as the references to Englishlanguage texts by a few of the authors in question suggests.107 Where translation was most prominent, and thus where it was most likely that French writers gleaned the vast majority of their information, was in the French-language presses. On a daily basis, French newspapers published texts in translation, including précis of British reports on India and British parliamentary discussions. The French editorials and opinion pieces that discussed the British Indian crisis in 1857–58 can therefore be seen as a direct response to British journalism, as opposed to examples of original news items. Exceptions include the occasional article sent from India-based French correspondents (official or otherwise), but even these lone voices were largely responding the British Indian press, as opposed to producing copy based on first-hand experience and/or investigative journalism. What France’s responses to the uprisings serve to demonstrate is not the accuracy or extent of France’s knowledge of British India, but rather the significance of the idea of India in reshaping the ways in which we can understand the diversity of French attitudes towards their British rivals, as well as attitudes towards the loss of Ancien Régime’s empire, and the development of France’s colonizing mission during the mid to late nineteenth century. These multiple responses are explored throughout the following four chapters, which consider the myriad ways in which the Indian uprisings were coopted into French imperial discourses of the mid to late nineteenth century. “A War of Words: The Politics of Nomenclature” (chapter 2) introduces the concept of the Indian uprisings, and India more broadly, as sites of epistemological and memorial rivalry between two competing colonial powers. It analyzes the politics underpinning the terms used to label the uprisings in French and British texts. In particular, it considers how France rewrote the uprisings as a “révolution” in direct contravention of Britain’s emphasis on the term “mutiny.” Not only are these terminological choices embedded in the different political tensions and competing imperial visions within France during the Second Empire and Third Republic, they also demonstrate a clear desire to substitute French memories of defeat with the more pressing example of British India. “Villains and Heroes: Ventriloquizing the ‘Revolutionary’” (chapter 3) moves away from the subject of revolution and towards that of the revolutionary by comparing French and British representations of the insurgent Indian “other” as a troubling figure of anti-colonial violence and self-emancipation. Focusing on the infamous figure of Nana Sahib, or the “Demon of Cawnpore,” who reputedly ordered the massacre of British women and children, it examines French attempts to recuperate the insurgent as a revolutionary hero who could be utilized to denounce British colonial hegemony, while revealing trace elements of the memory of France’s own historical losses not only in India, but also Haiti.

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Shifting away from the revolutionary and towards the figure of revenge, “Massacring the Myth: Telling Tales of Revenge” (chapter 4) examines French representations of the British colonial “other” as they were redefined through the violence of British military responses to Indian insurgency, and particularly Cawnpore. In opposition to the image of the “heroic” British soldier, Frenchlanguage narratives created an irrational, hysterical, and excessively violent figure of colonial domination. The uprisings thus mark an important turning point in France’s former admiration for British colonial methods, the physical violence of their vengeance now serving as a metonym for the brutality of British colonialism that is judged and condemned by France. Finally, “Compensating for l’Inde perdue: France’s ‘Civilizing Mission’” (chapter 5) examines France’s moralizing colonial discourse (versus its material praxis) by foregrounding the rhetorical possibilities that an anti-colonial revolt opened up for French writing not only to discredit British colonialism, but also to compensate for loss through a late imperial revival in North Africa and later Indochina. This chapter shows how French texts constructed a new colonial identity against the negative images of both their British rivals and France’s former political regimes, which would form the basis of the Third Republic’s “civilizing mission.” Of course, France’s supposedly superior colonial ideology is challenged by its material realities (notably its illegal involvement in slavery, as well as atrocities in Algeria). But this chapter reveals the ability of French texts to eschew their own “colonial guilt” by creating an alternative colonial ideology that remains rooted in a desire to transcend the past defeats of the Ancien Régime and First Empire. This study therefore argues for the importance of “India” in studying and exploring the French colonial imagination, particularly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. It shows how the subcontinent remained a contested “site,” used in metropolitan writing post-1815 to sanitize and reinvigorate the French imperial project beyond Indian borders. It demonstrates that French marginalization, represented by the politically insignificant comptoirs, is precisely what enables French writing to see itself as speaking from a privileged position and to graft metropolitan interests onto those of a colonized people in their fight against the dominant colonizer. The multiple images of French colonialism, which emerge through representations of British revenge and the Indian insurgent, as well as in the very nomenclature adopted to name the uprisings, are used collectively to reveal the extent to which an anti-British revolt could be deployed to promote French colonialism over that of its foremost rival. The uprisings thus offer a discrete moment in which to explore the complex development of French colonial identity and its construction in relation not only to the colonized Indian, but also to the British colonizer during the transition from Empire to Republic.

Notes

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1. This is an anonymous quotation that appears as an epigraph to Frédéric Billot’s L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France (Dentu: Paris, 1857), 1. Note that all translations are mine unless otherwise stated. 2. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Awadh in Revolt, 1857–1858: A Study of Popular Resistance (London: Anthem, 2002), passim. 3. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence, 1857 (Bombay: Phoenix, 1947; first publ. London: n. p., 1909). 4. See, for example, Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 198–211; Sara Suleri, The Rhetoric of English India (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Robert J.C. Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London: Routledge, 2000; first publ. New York: Routledge, 1995), 92 and 119. For an alternative view of the uprisings that challenges the assumptions of postcolonial theorization, see Christopher Herbert, War of No Pity: The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). 5. Jacques Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde après Dupleix: La démocratie au pays des castes (Paris: Denoël, 1996), 14. 6. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 9 and 10. From a historical perspective, Weber’s study of the French Indian comptoirs addresses this lacuna despite its somewhat idealized vision of French colonization. 7. See, in particular, Catherine Weinberger-Thomas, ed., L’Inde et l’imaginaire (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales, 1988); Denys Lombard, Catherine Champion, and Henri Chambert-Loir, eds., Rêver l’Asie: Exotisme et littérature coloniale aux Indes, en Indochine et en Insulinde (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1993); Christian Petr, L’Inde des romans (Paris: Kailash, 1995); Srilata Ravi, L’Inde romancée: L’Inde dans le genre romanesque français depuis 1947 (New York: Lang, 1997); Jackie Assayag, L’Inde fabuleuse: Le charme discret de l’exotisme français (XVIIe–XXe siècles) (Paris: Kimé, 1999). 8. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992). 9. Sudhir Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 7 and 11. Key works that focus specifically on French republican colonialism (but not the Second Empire) include: C. M. Andrew, “The French Colonialist Movement during the Third Republic: The Unofficial Mind of Imperialism,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 26 (1976): 143–66; Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Françoise Vergès, La République coloniale (Paris: Albin Michel, 2003); J. P. Daughton, An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism, and the Making of French Colonialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997). 10. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 11. 11. This did not stop ardent imperialists from wishing it were otherwise. For example, Frédéric Billot lobbied Louis Napoleon via a series of letters exhorting him to overturn the indignities incurred under the Treaty of Paris of 1815 and thereby to avenge the his father’s losses; Frédéric Billot, Lettres franques à Napoléon III, Empereur des Français (Paris: Dentu, 1853). 12. Louis Bellet, “Les Comptoirs français de l’Inde,” La Patrie, September 30, 1857, 1. 13. Bellet, “Les Comptoirs français de l’Inde,” 1.

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14. Bellet, “Les Comptoirs français de l’Inde,” 1; V. Paulin, “Histoire de la semaine,” L’Illustration, journal universel, 30 (October 1857), 226. 15. As the soon-to-be emperor stated, “l’Empire, c’est la paix. C’est la paix, car la France le désire, et lorsque la France est satisfaite, le monde est traquille” (“The Empire means peace. It means peace because this is what France desires, and when France is satisfied, the world is at peace”); Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, “Discours de Bordeaux,” October 9, 1852. 16. Éric Anceau, Napoléon III: Un Saint-Simon à cheval (Paris: Tallandier, 2008), 369. For more on Louis Napoleon and Algeria, see Anceau, 367–73. 17. For an extensive study on this triangular relationship within the context of Indian decolonization, see Kate Marsh, Fictions of 1947: Representations of Indian Decolonization 1919–1962 (Oxford: Lang, 2007). 18. Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European and British Writing on India, 1600– 1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East, 1750–1850 (London: Harper Perennial, 2006); Marsh, Fictions of 1947. For more on the development of Francophone Postcolonial Studies, see Charles Forsdick and David Murphy, “Introduction: The Case for Francophone Postcolonial Studies,” in Francophone Postcolonial Studies: A Critical Introduction (London: Arnold, 2003), 1–14 (6). 19. Young, 164. For more on colonialism under the Third Republic, see footnote 9. 20. Young, 164. 21. Forsdick and Murphy, “Introduction: The Case for Francophone Postcolonial Studies,” 6. 22. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 11. 23. See, in the first instance, Bancel, Blanchard, and Lemaire’s co-edited collection of essays, which engages directly with the need to acknowledge France’s colonial past within the context of current immigration concerns; Pascal Blanchard, Nicholas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire, eds., La Fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial (Paris: La Découverte, 2006; first publ. 2005). 24. David Northrup, “Indentured Indians in the French Antilles. Les immigrants indiens engagés aux Antilles Françaises,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 326– 327 (2000): 245–71 (247 and 259). For more on the system of Indian indentured labor, see Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1920, 2nd ed. (London: Hansib, 1993; first publ. London: Oxford University Press, 1974); Marina Carter and Khal Torabully, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora (London: Anthem, 2002); Véronique Bragard, Transoceanic Dialogues: Coolitude in Caribbean and Indian Ocean Literatures (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008). 25. Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 213. 26. Marsh, Fictions of 1947, passim. 27. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003; first publ. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 3. 28. See, for example, John McLeod, “Contesting Contexts: Francophone Thought and Anglophone Postcolonialism,” in Francophone Postcolonial Studies: A Critical Introduction, ed. Charles Forsdick and David Murphy (London: Arnold, 2003), 192–201; Dennis Porter, “Orientalism and its Problems,” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 150–61 (153); Aijaz Ahmad, “Orientalism and After,” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 162–71.

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29. James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 272. 30. Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 13. 31. Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 13. 32. Bart Moore-Gilbert, Gareth Stanton, and Willy Maley, “Introduction,” in Postcolonial Criticism, ed. Bart Moore-Gilbert, Gareth Stanton, and Willy Maley (Essex: Longman, 1997), 1–72 (28). 33. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 66–111 (103); Moore-Gilbert, Stanton, and Maley, 29. 34. Bhabha, 2. 35. A “counter-hegemonic voice” refers to a voice that emerges “within the dominant hegemonic formation” as an alternative and competing narrative, and thereby offers a direct challenge to what Prendergast terms “master representations”; Porter, 13. 36. As such, this study follows Teltscher who, in contrast with Said, posits a “much more conflictual model, one constructed from contending discourses” in order to chart “the emergence of a much less stable sense of European self; an identity that is shifting, various, and responsive to the demands of domestic politics and religious affiliation”; Teltscher, India Inscribed, 6. 37. For more on the beginnings of French interest in North Africa and Indochina, see Marc Ferro, Histoire des colonisations: Des conquêtes aux indépendances, XIIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1994), 96; Nicola Cooper, France in Indochina: Colonial Encounters (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 12. 38. Colbert is cited in Assayag, 9–10 and 17. 39. Ferro, 89. 40. Stanley A. Wolpert, A New History of India, 7th edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; first publ. 1977), 177. 41. Ferro, 89. 42. Jasanoff, 27; Wolpert, 178. 43. Wolpert, 177. 44. Ferro, 89; Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 13. 45. Jasanoff, 27; Pondichéry was lost to the British in 1778 and 1793; Jacques Weber, “Avant-propos,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 290 (1991): 5–8 (6). 46. Wolpert, 184; Teltscher, India Inscribed, 229–58. 47. Jasanoff, 163–65. 48. Weber, “Avant-propos,” 6–7. 49. Ferro, 95. 50. This is Pasolini’s phrase and is quoted in Chris Bongie, Exotic Memories: Literature, Colonialism and the Fin de Siècle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 3. Jean Biès’s Littérature française et pensée hindoue: Des origines à 1950 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1992; first publ. 1974) provides extensive analysis on the influence of India on French literature. See also Catherine Champion, “L’image de l’Inde dans la fiction populaire française aux XIXe et XXe siècles,” in Rêver l’Asie: Exotisme et littérature coloniale aux Indes, en Indochine et en Insulinde, ed. Denys Lombard, Catherine Champion, and Henri Chambert-Loir (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1993), 43–68. 51. For more on the comptoirs under the Third Republic, see Jacques Weber, “1816– 1914: One Century of Colonization,” in The French in India: From Diamond Traders to

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Sanskrit Scholars, ed. Rose Vincent, trans. Latika Padgaonkar (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1990), 141–45. 52. Weber, “Avant-propos,” 6. 53. Weber, “Avant-propos,” 7. “Il faut attendre le Second Empire, l’affirmation d’une véritable ambition coloniale et le triomphe du libéralisme, en Angleterre et en France, pour que les avantages commerciaux qu’offrent les Établissements de l’Inde soient enfin exploités pour le plus grand profit de la métropole et du domaine colonial français” (“It meant waiting until the Second Empire, the proclamation of a real colonial ambition, and the triumph of liberalism in both Britain and France for the commercial advantages offered by the Indian trading posts to be finally and fully exploited to the advantage of the French metropole and its colonial domain”); Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 16. 54. Pierre Loti, L’Inde (sans les Anglais) (Paris: Kailash, 1998; first publ. 1903), 136. 55. Loti, 137. 56. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 27 and 39. 57. Édouard de Warren, L’Inde anglaise: Avant et après l’insurrection de 1857, 2 vols (Paris: Kailash, 1994; first publ. 1857), 1:35. 58. Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 43. 59. Warren, I, 35–36. 60. Only six newspaper articles were found that, between 1857 and 1858, discussed the comptoirs within the context of the uprisings. In addition to the four articles cited in this section, these include: “Télégraphe privée,” Le Constitutionnel, September 4, 1857, 1; Jules Duval, Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, March 9, 1858, 1. 61. J. March, “Nouvelles des Indes: Correspondance particulière de la Patrie (Calcutta, 8 août),” La Patrie, September 22, 1857, 1. 62. Le Moniteur officiel des établissements français de l’Inde is cited in “Faits divers,” Moniteur universel: Journal officiel de l’Empire français, October 17, 1857, 1139– 40 (1139). 63. Alfred Darimon, “Bulletin du Jour,” La Presse, September 18, 1857, 1. 64. For more on the Haitian Revolution, see Charles Forsdick, “Situating Haiti: On Some Early Nineteenth-Century Representations of Toussaint Louverture,” International Journal of Francophone Studies 10 (2007): 17–34; Nick Nesbitt, “The Idea of 1804,” Yale French Studies 107 (2005): 6–38; Marcel Dorigny, “Aux origines: L’indépendance d’Haïti et son occultation,” in La Fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial, ed. Pascal Blanchard, Nicholas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire (Paris: La Découverte, 2006), 47–57. For a summary of the growth of anti-French nationalism in the French comptoirs from the 1830s onwards, see Jacques Weber, “Chanemougam, le roi de l’Inde française: Les fondements sociaux et politiques d’un pouvoir absolu sous la IIIe République,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 290 (1991): 59–87; Weber, “1816– 1914: One Century of Colonization,” 143–44. 65. Bongie, 33. 66. For an example of this dual discourse, see Richter’s and Welch’s comments on Alexis de Tocqueville’s uncompromising attitude towards Algeria, expressed in his “Travail sur l’Algérie, octobre 1841,” in Tocqueville: Œuvres, ed. André Jardin ([Paris]: Gallimard, 1991), 689–759, contrary to his domestic liberalism; Melvin Richter, “Tocqueville on Algeria,” The Review of Politics 25 (1963): 362–98; Cheryl B. Welch, “Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion: Tocqueville on Algeria,” Political Theo-

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ry 31 (2003): 235–64; Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser. Exterminer. Sur la guerre et l’État colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2005), 137–99. 67. Claude Farrère, L’Inde perdue (Paris: Kailash, 1998; first publ. Flammarion, 1935). As Marsh points out, the term “l’Inde perdue” (“lost India”) was popularized in 1935 by Claude Farrère; however, the idea of a “lost” empire can be found “as early as 1766 in the debates surrounding the culpability of Thomas Arthur de Lally for the defeat of the French in India”; Kate Marsh, “Territorial Loss and the Construction of French Colonial Identities, 1763–1962,” in France’s Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia, and la fracture coloniale (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 1–13 (4). 68. For more on the Great Exhibition and its domestication of India, see Grace Moore, Dickens and Empire: Discourses of Class, Race and Colonialism in the Works of Charles Dickens (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 4–5 and 96–103. 69. The Swatantrata Sangram Sanghralaya Museum (New Delhi) lists a series of pre1857 rebellions stretching from 1763 to 1849, from the “Sanyasi revolution” (1763–1800) to the “Second Punjab War” (1848–49). 70. Napier’s calls for military reform, published on November 27, 1849, were frequently cited as having presaged the revolts. See, for example, Disraeli’s speech delivered to Parliament on July 27, 1857; Benjamin Disraeli, “Parliamentary Intelligence, House of Commons, July 27: ‘The State of India,’” The Times, July 28, 1857, 5–8 (5). 71. “Parliamentary Report: ‘Administration of Bengal,’” The Times, June 12, 1857, 7–8. 72. Francis G. Hutchins, The Illusion of Permanence: British Imperialism in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 85. 73. This date was celebrated in 2007 as marking the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the uprisings in India; “Indians Mark Revolt Anniversary,” May 11, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6645457.stm (accessed May 11, 2007). 74. Andrew Ward, Our Bones are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 (London: Murray, 2004; first publ. London: Murray, 1996), 106. 75. Flora Annie Steel, On the Face of the Waters (London: Heinemann, 1897), 158. 76. Wolpert, 232. 77. Mukherjee writes of the desire of the insurgents to legitimize their actions by “appealing to a leader, a king,” the natural choice for which was the “familiar” figure of the Mughal emperor; Rudrangshu Mukherjee, “Satan Let Loose upon Earth: The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857,” Past and Present 128 (1990): 92–116 (104). 78. The General Service Enlistment Act stipulated that all military personnel were liable to travel overseas, meaning permanent pollution and caste exile for Hindu soldiers; Wolpert, 230–31. 79. Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 239–42. For more on the chapattis, see Bhabha, 198–211; Kim Wagner, The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprisings (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010). 80. Wolpert, 224–25. 81. Mukherjee, Awadh in Revolt, 59–63. 82. The majority of Indian soldiers in the Bengal Army were recruited from Oudh and came from the small landowner class, meaning that they were affected directly by the sudden imposition of British taxation systems following Oudh’s annexation; Irfan Habib, “The Coming of 1857,” Social Scientist 26 (1998): 6–15 (7). 83. In 1774, Hastings assisted the nawab-vazir of Oudh, Shuja-ud-Daula, in defeating the Rohilla Afghans, a policy that simultaneously allowed the East India Company to

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fortify its most important buffer state and commenced a long period of mutual respect between Oudh and Company rule; Wolpert, 190–91. 84. Dalhousie is quoted in Mukherjee, Awadh in Revolt, 32. He desired Oudh for its lucrative cotton and indigo plantations. 85. See, for example, Guatam Chakravarty, The Indian Mutiny in the British Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Herbert, 205–88. 86. K. Marx and F. Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, 1857–1859 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960), 63, 65, and 101. See also Pranav Jani, “Karl Marx, Eurocentrism, and the 1857 Revolt in British India,” in Marxism, Modernity, and Postcolonial Studies, ed. Crystal Bartolovich and Neil Lazarus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 81–97. 87. The Times, September 17, 1857, 8. 88. Nana Sahib was held responsible for all three massacres, although this has since been questioned by Pratul Chandra Gupta, Nana Sahib and the Rising at Cawnpore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 69–72 and 116–18, and Mukherjee, “Satan Let Loose upon Earth,” 103 and 114–15. 89. Ward, 207–27. 90. Ward, 311–32. 91. The word bibighar, meaning the living quarters where British officers would house their concubines, becomes overdetermined through its adoption as a name for massacre. Departing from its original sense (concubinage), it was translated as the “Slaughter in the House of the Ladies,” despite the fact that almost twice as many children as women died there; Stephen Heathorn, “Angel of Empire: The Cawnpore Memorial Well as a British Site of Imperial Remembrance,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 8 (2007): 1–33 (8). 92. Ward, 404–30. 93. Wolpert, 235–36; Ward, 433–57. 94. Christopher Hibbert, The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (London: Allen Lane, 1978), 377–88. 95. Hutchins, 86. 96. As Weber notes, somewhat idealistically, “L’introduction des principes républicains en 1871 rompt avec la politique indigène suivie depuis le XVIII e siècle. Les Français avaient réussi, mieux que toute autre nation, à s’attacher les Indiens en se conformant à leur Mamoul [traditions]” (“The introduction of republican principles in 1871 broke with the indigenous policy that had been in place since the eighteenth century. More than any other nation, the French had succeeded in engaging the Indians by conforming to their Mamoul [traditions]”); Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 223. 97. Hutchins, 83. 98. Hugh Tinker, “1857 and 1957: The Mutiny and Modern India,” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1944–) 34 (1958): 57–65. 99. Margaret MacMillan, Women of the Raj (London: Thames & Hudson, 1988), 11. 100. All the most widely circulated national newspapers were consulted for this project, including Le Siècle (moderate republican), Le Constitutionnel (Bonapartist/imperialist), La Patrie (imperialist), La Presse (Bonapartist/progressive), Le Moniteur universel: Journal officiel de l’Empire français (imperialist), La Revue des deux mondes (Orleanist), Le Journal des débats politiques et littéraires (Orleanist), L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français (Bonapartist/legitimist), L’Univers: Union catholique (Catholic), Le Charivari (satirical), and L’Illustration: Journal universel (illustrated

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press). The newspapers are listed here in order of their circulation figures in July 1858, with Le Siècle having the highest number of subscribers at 36,886 and Le Charivari having the lowest number at 2,090. No statistics for L’Illustration: Journal universel are listed. Claude Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire générale de la presse française, 5 vols (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969–75), 2:259. 101. Félix Maynard, De Delhi à Cawnpore: Journal d’une dame anglaise, pages de l’insurrection hindoue (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1858; reprint. N.p.: Elibron Classics, 2005); Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France; Warren, L’Inde anglaise: Avant et après l’insurrection de 1857; E. de Valbezen, Les Anglais et l’Inde, 3rd ed. (Paris: M. Lévy Frères, 1857). 102. In chronological order: August Nicaise, L’Inde et l’Angleterre en 1857−1858, épisode de l’histoire du XIXe siècle (Châlons-sur-Marne: T. Martin, 1859); CharlesLouis-Auguste Martin, La Puissance militaire des Anglais dans l’Inde et l’insurrection des cipayes, résumé historique et critique des campagnes de l’armée anglaise en 1857 et 1858 (Paris: Hachette, 1859); Frédéric Billot, Étrennes aux braves Bretons. Le Réveil de l’Inde ou chant du Mharatte, dédié à Nana-Saïb. Scène lyrico-dramatique (Arles-surRhône: Dumas et Dayre, 1860); Émile Daurand Forgues, La Révolte des cipayes, épisodes et récits de la vie anglo-indienne (Paris: Hachette, 1861); Alfred Assollant, Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du Capitaine Corcoran (Paris: Union Générale d’Éditions, 1975; first publ. 1867); Jules Verne, Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Paris: Hachette, 1977; first publ. 1870); Jules Verne, L’Ile mystérieuse (Paris: Hachette, 1977; first publ. 1874); W. Darville, L’Inde contemporaine: Chasses aux tigres. L’Indoustan. Nuits de Delhi et révolte de cipayes (Limoges: Ardant, [1874]); Louis Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents (Paris: Hachette, 1925; first publ. 1875); Eugène-Anatole de Valbezen (pseudo. Major Fridolin), Les Anglais et l’Inde (nouvelles études), 2 vols (Paris: Plon, 1875); Jules Verne, La Maison à vapeur: Voyage à travers l’Inde septentrionale (Paris: Hachette, 1979; first publ. 1880); Jean Richepin, “Nana-Sahib: Drame en vers, en sept tableaux,” in Théâtre en vers, 4 vols (Paris: Flammarion, 1919–1924), 1:27–129; Marius Bernard, “Nana-Sahib: Histoire de la Révolte de l’Inde (1857),” in Au delà de l’Atlantique, 2 vols (Paris: Boulanger, 1895), 2:1–87. 103. H. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, Nana-Sahib: Épisodes sanglants de l’insurrection des cipayes en 1857 (Paris: Librarie du Temple, 1909); Jacqueline Marenis, La Révolte sans âme (Paris: Grasset, 1946); Michel de Grèce, La Femme sacrée (Paris: Orban, 1984); Curd Ridel and Scotch Arleston, Tandori: Le réveil de l’éléphant bleu (Brussels: Lombard, 1993). Tandori is not based directly on the uprisings, but is worth listing since it refers to Verne’s fictional account of Nana Sahib in La Maison à vapeur. 104. Petr, 13–26; Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 89–90; Srilata Ravi, “Marketing Devi: Indian Women in French Imagination,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 19 (1999): 131–50 (140); Martyn Cornick, “Distorting Mirrors: Problems of French–British Perception in the Fin-de-siècle,” in Problems in French History, ed. Martyn Cornick and Ceri Crossley (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), 125–48 (133). 105. Moore, 141. 106. For an analysis of this text, see Herbert, 239–72. 107. For example, Jules Verne mentions in La Maison à vapeur references to Valbezen’s history, Les Anglais et l’Inde (1857), as well as an English translation of Rousselet’s L’Inde des Rajahs: Voyage dans l’Inde centrale et dans les présidences de Bombay et du Bengale (1875). Jacqueline Marenis also lists a number of sources in the bibliography of her fiction, La Révolte sans âme (1946), including Russell’s My Diary in

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India, in the Year 1858–59 (1860) and Kaye’s A History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857– 58 (1877).

CHAPTER TWO

A War of Words: The Politics of Nomenclature

Managing Crisis: An Indian “Mutiny” News took between one and two months to travel from India to Britain. Towards the end of June 1857, Britain was beginning to come to terms with the idea that its colonial rule over India was under serious threat from Indian insurgents, especially after the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II took the reluctant decision to act as the figurehead for the rebel movement on May 12, 1857. The Times reflected on the events up until that point and noted that: Had this revolt [ . . . ] sprung from the people [ . . . ] there would have been [ . . . ] a strong primâ facie ground that we had been maltreating them [ . . . ]. But the motive of a military mutiny is ambition. [ . . . ] [I]t is also satisfactory to find this out, because a military mutiny is a decidedly manageable thing [ . . . ] a thing we can put down.1

This excerpt displays a clear attempt to limit the psychological impact of a general uprising specifically by using the word “mutiny.” The process of naming the events in India is conducted here with almost explicit self-consciousness, since a “mutiny” (rather than a revolt of the people) would be “a decidedly manageable thing.”2 Over the next two years, British reporting on the uprisings would demonstrate a persistent desire to narrativize the uprisings in a particular way in order to limit and manage the concept of a “subject” revolt by framing it within a particular nomenclature, namely a “mutiny.” This desire would be subsequently reflected in many Anglo-centric narrations produced after 1857, from those texts

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“unmediated by the consciously aesthetic requirements of imaginative literature”, such as journalism and historiography, to those shaped by fictional constructs.3 Indeed, as the historian Andrew Ward notes in a recent contribution to the voluminous historical works dedicated to the uprisings, Our Bones are Scattered (2004), the effect of labeling anti-colonial resistance as a “mutiny” continues to have a compelling potency that holds sway over even the most assiduous historian: Though the Mutiny, even the Great Mutiny, is an inadequate name for what transpired in the Upper Provinces of India in 1857–58, it seems to have outlasted everything else that has been applied to it. […] But whether in India, the United Kingdom, or the United States, whenever I sit down with historians to talk about 1857, no matter how fastidious we try to be, by the end of the evening we are all talking about the Mutiny.4

Ward thus points to the impossibility of using this term neutrally or objectively since it is underpinned both by nation-centered preoccupations and colonial discourses, a point that has now been generally recognized, at least within academic circles.5 Thus, for Ward among others, it is the paratext (in this case the preface) that provides the textual space in which to rationalize personal choices, while simultaneously granting oneself permission to use this contentious appellation. 6 Yet in his reluctant decision to opt for this term, Ward overlooks the various alternatives put forward by both Indian and British scholars, all of which are listed in his extensive bibliography, including: the “Indian war of independence,” the “great revolution,” the “great rebellion,” and “Indian freedom struggle” from Indian historians; and “sepoy revolt,” “sepoy war,” “Indian rebellion,” and the “great revolt” from British historians. 7 As this list implies, there exists a perhaps unsurprising political schism between Indian historians, whose choice reflects their intention to view 1857–58 as a prelude to national independence in 1947,8 and British historians, who prefer to remember the “mutiny” as a militarybased disturbance that, to quote from Tinker, represented nothing more than “a temporary setback to the process of building up British rule in India.”9 While the Indian titles might suggest an overtly nationalistic reading of history that views the uprisings teleologically as the first step on the path to independence, the preference for the word “mutiny” among British scholars is equally questionable since its etymological meaning steadfastly refuses to reflect the idea that this was a real and widespread challenge to the British empire and/or to connect it with a more general desire for independence from colonial rule. Even as late as 2007, when India was celebrating the 150th anniversary of its “First War of Indian Independence,” the British press still insisted on describing these events as a “mutiny.” While the broadsheet headlines looked at the “Causes of the Indian Mutiny” (The Telegraph) and “Recollections of the Indian Mutiny” (The Times), the tabloid press stirred fears over “Death Threats and a Hotel Siege for the Britons Trapped in the Indian Mutiny 2007” (Daily Mail).10 Irrespective of the validity of the term, it is noteworthy that the media’s hold over the popular imagina-

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tion has had a surprisingly long afterlife that has persisted from its daily responses to events as they unfolded on the subcontinent in 1857 right up to the present day. While the choice of “mutiny” has consistently been challenged by British nineteenth-century “dissenters,” Indian historians, and more recently postcolonial theorists, it is arguably also because of its ability to contain 1857–58 within a restricted linguistic framework that the term “mutiny” has become a key figure for thinking these events.11 To return to the quotation from The Times that opened this chapter, the term “mutiny” is used to anticipate the quick reestablishment of the legal status quo following a period of unwanted disruption. Its use with regards to the Indian uprisings in 1857 made the assumption that the “legitimate” authority, Britain, would eventually and inevitably triumph over the “unlawful” insurgents whose “military mutiny” was considered to be motivated by nothing more than “ambition.”12 The way in which The Times labeled the uprisings served to delegitimize its impetus by reducing it to self-serving agenda that categorically denied any populist base and, hence, any revolutionary potential. Consequently, it not only defined the act of revolt as illegitimate, but also forced the reader to imagine the uprisings within a specifically military frame of reference, thereby writing out the involvement of other social groups in these events. Hence, The Times’s insistence on the term “military mutiny” (which has been repeated throughout history) can be seen as a kind of Barthesian mythe that ushered in or signified a particular message: that the disturbances would be, or had been, quickly brought to a close and that Britain’s “rightful” dominance would be, or had been, unquestionably re-established. By insistently placing the uprisings within this taxonomy, The Times sketched out a heroic victory narrative from which few nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century British writers would deviate. As one editorialist mused in 1857, Who shall say whether, before we are much older, we shall not be looking back with wonder at the coolness and confidence with which the nation received the news of the great Indian Mutiny of 1857? [ . . . ] We will not talk of the loss of Empire, because the power of this country to reconquer any tract from Asiatic soldiery is incontestable.13

The (false) confidence of this kind of journalistic rhetoric was, of course, constantly undermined by the escalation of the revolts across India and the continuing difficulties of quashing sedition well into 1859. The prevalent use of this kind of victory rhetoric served to mitigate the idea of the uprisings as a protracted and widespread campaign, which not only represented one the greatest challenges to the British empire, but also ended the East India Company’s rule. In this way, the potentially censorious impact that these events could have on a reading of British colonial history and its discourses, and on the memory of the British in India, is thus diminished, while the trauma and “shock of finding that they [the British] were despised by their supposedly grateful imperial subjects in

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India” was partially tamed. 14 In short, the strategic use of the reductive phrase, “military mutiny,” has played a key role in a polemical word game that endeavors to manage colonial crisis and anxiety through language.

The “Mutiny” Viewed from France If the semantic field in which nineteenth-century British writers placed the uprisings attests to their desire to forget the fragility of their empire, the opposite was true for French writers responding critically to these events across the Channel. From 1857 onwards, metropolitan writing engaged in the process of (re)naming what the British had termed a “mutiny” by employing what can be seen as counter-descriptive terms, such as “insurrection,” “révolte nationale” (“national revolt”), and most notably “révolution” (“revolution”). As a caveat, it is worth noting that it was not just the French who chose to use these more expansive terms. The uprisings were widely reported on throughout Europe and attracted attention from well-known public figures, such as Karl Marx, who in 1857 was the European correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune.15 Marx famously wrote that what “John Bull [ . . . ] considers a military mutiny is in truth a national revolt.”16 But as Jani has pointed out, caution needs to be taken in “reading too much into Marx’s phrase.” She writes that “ultimate defense of the Indian’s right to revolt should neither be misconstrued as a theoretical perspective on anticolonial nationalism nor as a political stance for the rebels’ victory,” a view that counters that of the Institute of Marxism–Leninism, who see Marx and Engels as having viewed the uprisings as “part and parcel of the general anticolonial liberation struggle of oppressed nations unfolding in the eighteen-fifties nearly in all Asia.”17 But it was not just non-Britons who viewed the uprisings as potentially “national” in nature. Most controversially, the Tory minister, Benjamin Disraeli, in a long and polemical address to Parliament on July 28, 1857, concluded that this was a “national revolt.” This was not because he harbored any pro-Indian sentiments, but rather because this was an expedient way of criticizing the inadequacy of his political rival Lord Palmerston’s response to the uprisings and regaining popularity within his own party. 18 As these different uses of the same term show, nomenclature is overlaid with political and ideological viewpoints. Caution therefore needs to be taken when considering these terms in retrospect today by paying attention to their political affect and weight within a particular historical context. The following examination of the different ways that two colonial rivals, France and Britain, chose to name the same series of events thus enables us to map an ongoing “guerre de mémoire” (“war of memory”), waged throughout the nineteenth century, not with arms, but with words. The purpose of this chapter is thus to set out the linguistic battlefield in which to position the remainder of a study that seeks to expose the extent to which the French colonial imagination was structured discursively in response to British colonialism and

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was imbued with a desire to excise from that vision France’s own historical losses in India. Throughout the uprisings, the dissimulative language used by the British press to describe this major colonial crisis did not go unnoticed in France— indeed, this was a subject that warranted the full attention of a French press that reported on India with the same feverish excitement as their British peers. In order to contextualize the impassioned response of France’s journalistic community, it is first important recall the oppressive socio-political context within which French newspaper production was operating in the mid-nineteenth century. In the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution and Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état (1851), the left-wing press had all but disappeared and what political diversity remained was obliged to follow the dictates of the empire. As noted in Histoire générale de la presse française, “La période de 1852 à 1860 est celle durant laquelle la presse a été, depuis le premier Empire, la plus asservie au pouvoir” (“The period between 1852 and 1860 represents the greatest period of oppression for the press since the First Empire”).19 The very existence of an opposition press was itself a politically controlled act, designed “to maintain an illusion of free discussion.”20 Newspapers of differing ideological standpoints nonetheless continued to exist by ostensibly adhering to the system, while subtly voicing their opinions either in supposedly apolitical columns or in sections devoted to the overseas news.21 Thus, for a national press whose freedom had been severely hampered, the uprisings offered an opportunity to air political beliefs, safe in the knowledge that their subject matter did not pertain directly to France and was less likely to come under the scrutiny of censorship.22 Although France and Britain were informally allied at this time, notably following the Crimean War (1853–56) that had seen France, for the first time since the Dutch wars of 1674, fighting alongside the British, only a minority of papers rallied to Britain’s side one year later in 1857.23 When journals did support Britain, it was largely because they were viewing the uprisings within a strictly Manichean framework that pitted the “enlightened” European against Indian “barbarism.” Age-old rivalries and memories of the losses incurred by the Treaty of Paris that had ended the First Empire and its Napoleonic Wars far outweighed any more recent alliances in a period of Napoleonic nostalgia and revivalism. 24 In this political climate, support for the British could come under severe attack. In the midst of the uprisings, the political commentator and lawyer, Frédéric Billot, wrote a virulent critique of British colonialism in which he listed, with undisguised disgust, those supposedly Anglophile sections of the French press, citing the bonapartist Le Constitutionnel, the moderate republican Le Siècle, and the Orleanist Journal des débats as the main voices for what he pejoratively named those “Anglais de l’intérieur” (“British insiders”).25 But as the uprisings progressed and the violence escalated, so Britain’s minority support in France gradually dwindled until the French press had largely become an organ of outspoken anti-British sentiment.

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Arguably the most outspoken and condemnatory of the newspapers was the daily catholic journal, L’Univers, then operating under the well-known polemicist and staunch supporter of the papal ultramontane movement, Louis Veuillot.26 Indeed, it was this catholic legitimist that begun the practice of using other sections of a newspaper (notably the “chronique littéraire” [“literary column”] as a way of airing “ce qui ne pourrait pas passer dans leurs articles politiques” (“whatever could not be published in political articles”).27 Where L’Univers’s Protestant enemies were concerned, it liked nothing better than to highlight the evasive and ambiguous nature of English-language reports that were downplaying the threat of revolt in 1857: “Les événements de l’Inde produisent en Angleterre une sensation plus grande que les journaux ne veulent l’avouer” (“The events in India have aroused a far stronger feeling in Britain than its newspapers would like to admit”).28 This opinion was shared by L’Univers’s political and ideological rival, Le Siècle, another daily press that had begun as a supporter of the July Monarchy, before shifting Left in the 1848 Revolution and establishing itself, in the Second Empire, as the voice of moderate republicanism and anti-clericism. Its editor, Emile de la Bédollière, highlighted the overly optimistic representations of anti-colonial rebellion being generated by the London press: les journaux de Londres font de patriotiques efforts pour soutenir l’esprit public; cependant le commentaire dont ils accompagnent les nouvelles laisse percer une légitime inquiétude, non pas sur l’issue définitive de cette lutte, mais sur les épreuves qui peuvent être encore réservées à l’Angleterre avant d’en voir la fin (emphasis added).29 the London presses are doing their patriotic best to keep public spirits up; however, the remarks accompanying the news reveal legitimate concerns, not over the final outcome of this battle, but over the hardships that may still be in store for Britain before the end is over.

The vaguely admiring and sympathetic tone of this second quotation, indicated by the approving phrase “patriotiques efforts” (“patriotic best”), can perhaps be accounted for by the fact that Le Siècle was more pro-British than many of its contemporaries, such as L’Univers. Irrespective of their political affiliations, however, these examples point to a trend that would become far more generalized among French journalists in questioning and challenging the rhetoric of their British counterparts. It was not simply a matter of exposing the anxiety underpinning British reports towards the outcome of the revolts, however. More significant was the readiness of the French press to adopt a more expansive language when compared with the British. Whereas The Times persistently used the term “military mutiny” to manage and contain the way that the uprisings were represented to their readers, from the outset many French-language newspapers stressed the possibility that the revolts could become a more universal phenomenon and

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could even kindle a spirit of nationalism among India’s disparate populations. In other words, if the British press produced what might be called “closed narratives,” meaning narratives that attempted to negate the impact of “subject” revolt, the French press displayed a clear and opposite proclivity towards what might be called “open-ended narratives,” meaning narratives that either exacerbated the threat of the uprisings or refused to subscribe to the idea that the uprisings could be, or (after 1858) had been, definitively quashed by the British. Even those newspapers that initially supported the British—at least within the broad parameters of aligning themselves with the “civilized” European over the “barbaric” eastern “other”—could not resist the temptation of speculating over the possibility of the revolts becoming national in nature. Boniface, writing for the bonapartist and liberal newspaper, Le Constitutionnel, supported a positive result for the British in India: “[L’insurrection] sera réprimée, nous l’espérons sincèrement pour l’honneur et le triomphe de notre civilisation que la Grande-Bretagne représente contre le fanatisme hindou” (“It is to be sincerely hoped that [the insurrection] will be suppressed, for Great Britain represents the honorable and triumphant name of our civilization against Hindu fanaticism”).30 However, this encouragement was tempered by the pessimism of the preceding comments that cast doubt over the possibility of achieving this outcome: “D’un moment à l’autre, l’insurrection pouvait devenir générale, gagner les garnisons demeurées fidèles, se communiquer aux populations” (“The insurrection could become general at any moment, spreading to garrisons who have remained faithful and out to the people”); “Aujourd’hui l’insurrection est presque générale, et le prestige anglais se trouve gravement atteint” (“Today the insurrection is almost general, and Britain find its prestige severely undermined”); “Grave péril dans le présent, embarras presque insurmontable pour l’avenir, voilà ce qui résulte de l’insurrection” (“What has resulted from the insurrection is great danger in the present and an almost insurmountable problem going forward”); and: l’insurrection est dans toute sa force, et l’Angleterre n’a qu’une poignée d’hommes pour y tenir tête. [ . . . ] Voilà le faible rempart [40,000 European soldiers versus 150 “millions d’âmes”] que l’Angleterre doit opposer à toute une armée en révolte, et bientôt peut-être à toute une population que le moindre accident peut d’un jour à l’autre entraîner dans les rangs des insurgés.31 the insurrection is in full force and Britain has only a handful of men to resist it. [Forty thousand European soldiers against 150 “million individuals”] is all the protection that Britain has at its disposal to combat an entire army in revolt, and perhaps even an entire population who might under the slightest provocation be encouraged to join the insurgent ranks any day now.

This kind of pessimism, laced with a good dose of Schadenfreude, is perhaps unsurprising in a country that had, by 1857, endured three domestic revolutions and the loss of the vast majority of its former colonial empire accrued during the Ancien Régime, and most notably that of Haiti in 1804. Yet the gloomy outlook

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presented by Boniface contrasts directly with the more upbeat editorial line taken by The Times only three days earlier, in which the “natives” were depicted as “indisposed to any sympathy with the mutineers” and the “mutiny” was presented as having resulted in “discomfiture and defeat already” and “likely to reestablish British power on a new basis.”32 By considering the uprisings as far more serious than the British wanted to admit and imagining scenarios that would greatly challenge, if not overturn, British Indian rule, the French press refused to accept the version of events being narrated by their neighbors. In this counter-discourse, nomenclature played a fundamental role that was evident not only in the way that Parisian newspapers presented the uprisings, but also in the terms that they chose to use and avoid. For example, Wailly, writing for L’Illustration—a weekly, international review inspired by The London Illustrated News—rejected the term “rébellion,” being a word associated with civil disobedience against a legitimate authority. 33 This was, he claimed, too reductive: “Il importe de ne pas rapetisser la question. Ce n’est pas une rébellion, c’est une guerre de race à race, ou tout au moins de nationalité à civilisation” (emphasis added) (“It is important not to reduce the question. It is not a rebellion; it is a war of one race against another, or at the very least of nationality against civilization”).34 Having explicitly denied that the events in India could be termed a rebellion, Wailly inserts his own term, “une guerre” (“a war”) between a burgeoning nation and a western civilization, this being a more apt reflection of what was happening on the subcontinent, as opposed to one that reduced (“rapetisser” [“to reduce”]) its significance. Wailly’s decision to select an alternative descriptor reflects a broader trend in French writing of 1857–58 that undermined the desire of Anglo-centric texts to restrict the socio-political impact of the uprisings, and to do so through the deployment of terms such as “insurrection” and “révolution.” Unlike “mutinerie,” the label “insurrection” was a particularly popular choice among French journalists and perhaps accounts for its appearance in the titles of contemporaneous books, such as Édouard de Warren’s travelogue, L’Inde anglaise: Avant et après l’insurrection de 1857 (1857), and Félix Maynard’s narration of an eye-witness account of the Cawnpore massacre, De Delhi à Cawnpore: Journal d’une dame anglaise, pages de l’insurrection hindoue (1857). In contrast, The Times categorically denied this appellation. In July 1857, it stated that, “It is not an insurrection; it is a mutiny. It is a rising not of people, but of soldiers.”35 Similarly, in August 1857, it claimed that Had this been the case of a popular insurrection—had it been the rising of a people maddened by centuries of oppression, as in the days of the first French Revolution—there would have been less to be said. Nothing of the sort, however, was the case here.36

This quip at the French Revolution has a historical precedent, which could explain The Times’s reluctance to use this nomenclature. Stemming from the verb “s’insurger” (“to rise up”), the Dictionnaire historique de la langue française

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states that the word “insurgent” (as the agent of insurrection) came from English and was originally employed to refer to “colons américains qui ont pris parti contre l’Angleterre pendant la guerre de l’Indépendance” (“American settlers who had sided against Britain during the War of Independence”).37 It subsequently gained popularity in France during the Revolution of 1789. Arguably, its usage with reference to the crisis in India may have triggered unwanted connections with those other major historical events that had brought an end to both Britain’s rule over its thirteen American colonies (a serious blow to British pride and national identity38) and the French monarchy. In addition, the noun “insurrection” in both English and French has many positive connotations that the British press was undoubtedly keen to downplay. In contrast with the restrictive and negative connotations associated with “mutiny,” Webster’s and the OED emphasize the breadth of the term “insurrection,” being an “open and active opposition of a number of persons to the execution of the law in a city or state” and “The action of rising in arms or open resistance against established authority or governmental restraint” (OED).39 The Dictionnaire historique de la langue française equates it to the idea of “‘se dresser,’ spécialement pour attaquer, et figurément ‘monter, devenir plus puissant’” (“‘to rise up’, notably to attack and figuratively ‘to become more powerful’”).40 As such, it carries the idea of accruing power by engaging physically in active protest against an authority: “S’insurger contre les abus de l’Administration” (“To rise up against the injustices of the Government”).41 Unlike “mutiny”, therefore, an insurrection is specifically directed against a country’s ruling authority—“Soulèvement contre le gouvernement” (“Uprising against the government”)—and contains within it (especially in the nineteenth century) a sense of popular injustice: “Ceux qui emploient ce mot y attachent ordinairement une idée de droit et de justice” (“Those who use this word normally equate it with the idea of rights and justice”).42 Broadly speaking, the discernible opposition between keywords, such as “mutiny” and “insurrection,” can be seen as analogous to the particular attitudes of British and French newspapers towards these events. 43 Journals such as The Times constantly attempted to reduce the events in India to a manageable problem contrary to many French-language newspapers that emphasized instead their expanding and potentially national nature. “Il ne s’agissait d’abord que d’une mutinerie” (“At first, it was only thought to be a mutiny”), wrote the former editor-in-chief for Le Constitutionnel, Cucheval-Clarigny, for one of the Second Empire’s most faithful allies, the imperialist La Patrie: “ce n’était qu’un mouvement local sans ramifications étendues dans le reste de l’armée. Puis on a confessé que ce mouvement avait les proportions d’une insurrection militaire” (“it was nothing more than a localized protest with no serious effect on the rest of the army. Then it was admitted that its effects were more widespread, that it was a military insurrection”).44 Cucheval-Clarigny concluded that the revolts were far more pervasive than the British wished to believe: “De toutes les forces indigènes qui combattaient sous les drapeaux de la Compagnie [ . . . ], il n’y a

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plus à faire cause commune avec les Anglais qu’un régiment de cavalerie recruté parmi les Goorkas [ . . . ], c’est-à-dire en dehors de l’Inde” (“Out of all the indigenous troops that once fought under the Company’s flag, there remains only one Gurkha cavalry regiment allied with the British [ . . . ], in other words, a regiment recruited from outside of India”).45 By mocking the reluctance of the British press to acknowledge the ambivalent character of the uprisings, La Patrie presented a picture of a friendless and depleted British army battling against, or so it intimated, a national Indian effort. Whereas the language of the British press was often emphatic in its repeated assertions that victory would soon belong to Britain, the language of the French press was far more ambivalent, allowing the reader, not without some relish, to imagine the difficulties that Britain would face and the possibility that it could lose its most important colonial possession. This is particularly evident in the numerous articles and texts that employed the term “révolution.” Arguably, this complex and historically weighty locution is more capable than any other of signifying an important political, social, and historical event that threatens to overturn the established regime. Its use rebounded between French journalists and metropolitan-based writers, and even across the Indian Ocean from a French resident living in Calcutta who insisted that the term “révolution” portrayed the situation with far more accuracy than the reductive and deceptive nomenclatures used by British journalists and politicians: Le gouvernement [Britannique] a voulu d’abord se persuader que ce n’était là qu’une rébellion accidentelle, qui se bornerait aux deux ou trois régimens où elle avait éclaté. [ . . . ] La prétendue mutinerie, pour parler le langage adopté par la presse anglaise [en Inde], est, en réalité, une révolution fomentée dans toute l’Inde par les rois détrônés et par les princes musulmans dépossédés.46 At first, the [British] government wanted to convince itself that it was nothing more than a chance rebellion, limited to the two or three regiments where it had broken out. [ . . . ] The so-called mutiny, to borrow the language adopted by the British press [in India], is, in reality, a revolution brought about by India’s dethroned kings and its dispossessed Muslim princes.

In the eyes of this unofficial correspondent and privileged eye-witness, the term “révolution” should be employed not only to correct the self-deception and fabrications of the British press and government, but also to foreground the authoritarian abuses that had incited the wrath of its expropriated kings. By questioning the provenance of “cette révolution” (“this revolution”), the letter writer categorically denies that it could be attributed, as many British newspapers had claimed, “aux cartouches graissées” (“to the greased cartridges”), and lists instead multiple grievances (not unlike the Cahier des doléances), including annexation, the treatment of women, the dismissal of princely inheritance rights, the falling prestige of European settlers, the favoring of certain Hindu elites, the wanton absorp-

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tion of money by the Company, and “une fausse application de ce que le gouvernement se complaît à appeler philantropie [sic]” (“a false application of what the government delights in calling philanthropy”).47 Likewise, La Patrie, writing 5000 miles away from Calcutta, demarcated British governance as the main source of Indian frustration in an article provocatively entitled “La Révolution dans l’Inde” (“The Revolution in India”), which read these events through a revolutionary narrative that had its source in the abuse of absolute power, again recalling the origins of the French Revolution. 48 This same questioning of British labeling was repeated in Frédéric Billot’s forthright political tract produced in 1857 as a direct response to the events in India. The uprisings offered this outspoken Anglophobe the perfect opportunity and rationale to denounce the British empire, while implicitly attacking France’s foreign policy under Louis Napoleon. In L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France (1857), he emphatically names the uprisings “une révolution nationale” (“a national revolution”) as a way of negating the British term “mutinerie militaire” (“military mutiny”): L’intérêt britannique pouvait, dans les premiers jours, chercher à donner le change sur le caractère des événements accomplis dans son empire indien, pour en amoindrir l’effet aux yeux de l’Europe et présenter comme une mutinerie militaire le mouvement opéré par la race hindoue; mais il n’est plus permis de s’y méprendre. L’insurrection est nationale! c’est une révolution: c’est un peuple humilié qui se réveille; c’est le plus écrasant des jougs qu’on secoue; c’est la tyrannie la plus immorale et la plus honteuse, qu’on veut renverser; c’est un peuple qui revendique son autonomie, son indépendance et sa liberté! Qui oserait y trouver à redire?49 Initially, Britain’s self-interest enabled it to disguise the true nature of the events occurring in its Indian empire, and thereby to lessen their significance in the eyes of Europe by presenting this mass movement led by the Hindu race as a military mutiny. But it may no longer continue this farce. The insurrection is national! It is a revolution led by an oppressed people. They are throwing off the most burdensome of yokes. They wish to overturn the most immoral and shameful tyranny. This is a people that demand autonomy, independence, and freedom! Who would dare to say otherwise?

The term “révolution” is used here to transform Britain into the foremost enemy of the world, while the insurgents become the agents of a revolution against the global tyranny of British hegemony. They are to be lauded as a symbol of hope for the oppressed nations of the world. Since this is a group in which Billot also includes France, his alliance with the Indian “revolutionaries” also operates as a call to arms for his own nation, usurped by a bonapartist empire, whose foreign policies Billot considered to be deeply ineffective.50 Not only is this term politically expedient, enabling the text to denounce British colonialism as an enslaving regime (and urge the Second Empire to begin colonizing in earnest), but like

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the French resident in Calcutta it could also be used to highlight the limitations of the word “mutiny.” To understand why these texts employed the term “révolution” with respect to the actions of a “subject” race is, in part, to understand the significance that had been attached to this word by 1857 following three consecutive revolutions in France. Writing under the Second Empire, Tocqueville argued in L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856) that the French Revolution had ultimately failed to bring about true political freedom to France. Instead, it had revolved back to a former order that had opened France up to the autocracy of bonapartism and the continuities of centralism. 51 Despite this, the Revolution remained a powerful symbol of a (predominantly) republican ideology. That power was captured within that infamous axiom, liberté, égalité, fraternité, whose memory, he wrote, “les hommes conserveront éternellement” (“man will preserve for eternity”).52 As such, 1789 had acquired a particular historical significance that, while specific to the history of the French nation, was also extolled as a universal phenomenon, rendering France “une patrie intellectuelle commune dont les hommes de toutes les nations ont pu devenir citoyens” (“an intellectual and common homeland where men of all nations can become citizens”).53 For Tocqueville, these late eighteenth-century events constituted a defining moment that had laid the basis for the development of national consciousness in other nations, the French Revolution imagined as a touchstone against which all future “revolutions” (for better or worse) were to be judged. 54 It is perhaps not surprising then to find French writers in 1857 using this term to describe the uprisings, occurring as they did midway through a century of revolutions of which France offered the primary example. What is more unexpected is that these same writers were able to conceive of these events as a revolution at all. By using this term, they subscribe, intentionally or not, to a narrative plot in which the figure of the once “passive” Indian, as stereotyped by Euro-centric representations such as the Crystal Palace displays, had not only become politicized and ready to act against British oppression, but was also looking to build a nation in the post-revolutionary European mold. Moreover, the mentioning of revolution within an anti-colonial context risked reviving the specter of the Haitian Revolution and unwanted reminders of France’s own (and very recent) involvement in slavery, a practice reinstated by Bonaparte in 1802 and only just abolished under the Second Republic. 55 Despite these potential connections, the idea that the stereotypically passive Indian was moving towards political activity can still be found in contemporaneous French writing. For example, an article by L’Univers’s Barrier states, “On peut juger, par ce qui se passe aujourd’hui, du changement qui s’est opéré dans les esprits, et combien les cipayes sont éloignés de cette soumission et de cette résignation passive qui les caractérisait autrefois” (“These recent occurrences allow us to evaluate the extent to which the attitude of the sepoys has changed and the extent to which they have distanced themselves from the kind of passive submission and resignation that once characterized them”).56 But this is not to say that the

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idea of a politically active Indian nation would not have been highly problematic for a mid-nineteenth-century French audience. The mere suggestion that India was capable of revolution, or that its insurgents were able to form an organized and unified front, invited mockery by the Left-leaning satirical press, Le Charivari: “Ce sont eux [les journaux] qui commencent à vous parler très sérieusement du patriotisme indien, de la nationalité indienne, des droits politiques et sociaux que ces populations opprimées ont cru devoir revendiquer les armes à la main” (“There are those [the newspapers] who are beginning to talk very seriously about Indian patriotism, Indian nationality, and political and social rights, which they believe to have been necessarily demanded by the oppressed at the point of a bayonet”).57 The article continued by satirizing the language of such newspapers, which are caricatured as crying with revolutionary gusto, “Vivent ces braves, ces dignes Indiens! A bas ces traîtres d’Anglais! Puissent les Anglais être exterminés dans l’Inde jusqu’aux derniers, puisse la révolte des cipayes triompher sur tous les points!” (“Long live those courageous and worthy Indians! Down with those treacherous English! May every last Englishman be exterminated in India and may the sepoys’ revolt be utterly triumphant”).58 Of course, this mockery works because the idea of India having the capacity to overthrow European rule and create a country governed by Indians was laughable to the French readership of this period. Rarely, if at all, did these texts suggest that the subcontinent could, or even should, be independent from some form of external leadership. In order to comprehend why terms such as “révolution” and “national” were used therefore requires an understanding of the extent to which French and British national and colonial discourses operated in competition with each other. Rather than taking these terms at face value, it is more likely that they were employed because, at a rhetorical and historical level, they were powerful signs capable, at one and the same time, of connoting the idea that Indian solidarity would bring about an end to British global hegemony. For example, although Laurentie (writing for legitimist and bonapartist press, L’Union) framed the events in India as a revolution—“Il n’y a plus guère à raisonner sur les événemens de l’Inde; il faut se borner à les suivre comme on suit une révolution dont la marche est formidable, et dont le terme est inconnu” (“There is barely any sense of logic to the events in India. All that can be done is to follow them as you might a full blown revolution whose end is yet unknown”)—he was, as an anti-republican, in no way complimentary about the idea of revolution, particularly where Indians (or what Laurentie termed that “amas de bêtes fauves” [“pack of wild beasts”]) were concerned.59 Nevertheless, the term “révolution” served to accentuate the ease with which the British empire was dissolving (“se dissout”), just as the association of Indians with “bêtes fauves” (“wild beasts”) supported Laurentie’s argument that Britain had failed to civilize its colonial “subjects.” Hence, “La révolution indienne” (“The Indian revolution”) could be presented as “la plus effrayante leçon qui pût être donnée à la politique de l’Angleterre” (“the most terrifying lesson that British policy could be given”),

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while phrases, such as “dont le terme est inconnu” (“whose end is yet unknown”), refused to subscribe to British narratives of closure. 60 The propensity of the French press to interpret the uprisings as expanding in nature in opposition to the foreclosure of The Times is especially noticeable in the way that key British victories were reported on opposite sides of the Channel. Two “endpoints,” in particular, were celebrated in the British press as marking significant victories over the Indian rebellion and signifying its imminent conclusion: the recapture of Bahadur Shah II’s imperial residence at the Red Fort in Delhi under the celebrated command of Brigadier-General John Nicholas on September 20, 1857; and Queen Victoria’s Proclamation delivered on November 1, 1858 in which the official transferal of power from the East India Company to the Crown was announced. In the first instance, the recapture of Delhi was celebrated in the British press as a great national victory and a triumph of bravery against all numerical odds, a plotline that would be echoed in many subsequent historical and fictional accounts.61 Naturally, the newspapers hailed their overseas protagonists, with The Times, for example, marking this as an occasion in which to celebrate the end of the disturbances: “The first act of the great Drama of Retribution [ . . . ] has therefore closed, and before the second begins the spectators have time to meditate on the plot of the piece and the actors who have assisted in its development.”62 In this quotation, the uprisings become part of a theatrical performance—the allegory being “the great Drama of Retribution”—in which national heroes play the role of historical characters performing an inevitable and rightful (“retributive”) victory in the name of the empire. On this metaphorical “stage,” India is reduced to an entertaining spectacle for the readers of The Times in which good predictably triumphs over evil, and in which the mass executions of Indian insurgents and civilians are glossed over and presented as a necessary step that will reaffirm Britain’s position and herald a bright future for Indo-British relations: We conclude therefore that the neck of the mutiny is now broken, its head crushed, and that nothing remains but feeble, dislocated, writhing fragments. In the end what escapes our arms will be absorbed into the mass of the people, and, befriended by time and returning prosperity, may so escape the retribution due to its crimes.63

As the image of the headless or leaderless rebels suggests, the fall of Delhi was celebrated as “a deathblow,” with Bahadur Shah II condemned as “the mock King who had ruled in trembling state.”64 This symbolic triumph of military strength over the former Mughal empire gave rise to a renewed confidence in British authority—“we may hear with indifference of the sporadic outbreaks of the mutineers.”65 It was seen to reaffirm the future of the British empire in India, which, following the “necessary” bloodshed, would herald a time of peace and friendship.

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The self-assurance of these reports was troubled, however, by the reaction of the press across Europe: Since the tide of success in India has been turned against the mutineers, notwithstanding their numbers, by the unconquerable fortitude of our isolated countrymen, the journals of certain European States have exchanged their forebodings of disaster for deprecations of vengeance, and, instead of forecasting the ruin of England, have employed themselves in denouncing the spirit of revenge which they assume to be rampant in British hearts.66

The “European States” to which this article refers are not explicitly named, but, given the rivalry between the French and British presses throughout the uprisings, it would be difficult to imagine that France was not included within this grouping. With the exception of the Journal des débats, which considered the recapture of Delhi to be a victory for European “civilization,” the French press highlighted the violence and dishonor of Britain’s revenge missions, as well as the ongoing presence of sedition outside the walls of Delhi and the enormous effort still required to bring India back under British control. 67 Moreover, for many Parisian newspapers, the celebratory proclamations being issued across the Channel were entirely overshadowed by the atrocities committed by the military at the time of Delhi’s recapture, which were encouraged and endorsed by the British national press. La Patrie described the bloody aftermath in the following terms: Les Anglais se répandirent alors dans la ville [de Delhi] pour la piller. Des quartiers entiers avaient été détruits par le bombardement et n’offraient qu’un amas de ruines. La population avait fui: un petit nombre d’habitans s’étaient hasardés à demeurer dans leurs maisons: mal leur en prit, car tous ceux dans l’habitation desquels fut trouvé le moindre objet de provenance européenne, furent considérés comme les complices des cipayes, et passés au fil de l’épée. Il paraît que des exécutions sanglantes furent commises de sangfroid, et que le sang coula à flots. Nous ne voulons pas insister sur ces détails, espérant encore qu’ils seront démentis. Il est à souhaiter, pour l’honneur du nom anglais, pour l’honneur de la civilisation toute entière, qu’une si belle victoire n’aura pas été souillée par d’inutiles cruautés; et que si des excès ont été commis, ils sont uniquement imputables aux auxiliaires indigènes des Anglais, aux Afghans et aux Ghoorkas.68 The British have taken over the city [of Delhi] in order to pillage it. Whole areas have been destroyed by the bombardment and reduced to little more than a pile of ruins. The population has fled. Only a few of the residents took the risk of remaining in their homes, but more fool them. Any inhabitants found in possession of the slightest object with European provenance was viewed as an accomplice of the sepoy and slain on the spot. It would appear that these brutal executions were committed in cold blood and that the city flowed with their blood. We do not wish to overemphasize these details in the hope that they may yet be denied. It is to be hoped that, for the honor of the British name, and the

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There is clear concern expressed that Britain’s military response was damaging the image of the “civilized” European. La Patrie, however, is prepared to make a concession in its disapproval of this kind of wanton violence. The words of caution directed at the frère colonial and detected in phrases, such as “pour l’honneur du nom anglais, pour l’honneur de la civilisation toute entière” (“for the honor of the British name, and the honor of civilization as a whole”), are softened by its willingness to speculate as to whether these acts of revenge could be transferred onto the Afghan and Ghurkha soldiers, and thereby save the image of the British colonizer. Other newspapers were far less willing to excuse British behavior and expressed their objections with far more potency. As Le Constitutionnel’s Martin claimed: Nos voisins se plaignaient dernièrement de n’être pas aimés en Europe. Nous croyons devoir leur déclarer en toute franchise que des actes comme ceux dont nous venons de parler, ne sont point de nature à leur concilier en France de nouvelles sympathies. Nous ne sommes disposés à nous réjouir de leurs succès dans l’Inde [Delhi] qu’autant qu’ils y observeront les lois de l’humanité et y soutiendront l’honneur de la civilisation européenne.69 Our neighbors have recently bemoaned the fact that they are not loved in Europe. It seems that we must declare in all frankness that the kind of acts of which we have just spoken are not likely to win Britain any sympathy in France. We would only be inclined to rejoice at their success in India [Delhi] if they were to observe the laws of humanity and uphold the honor of European civilization.

This liberal and bonapartist newspaper maintains a human rights discourse and denounces the kind of violence that would threaten to ostracize Britain from the privileged commune of European “civilization.” The French voice speaks a quasi-parental warning and places itself as the watchdog over this European family, rejecting Britain as a wayward child whose acts of atrocity are lamentable. The violent victory of Delhi could be used, therefore, as a reference point for French newspapers in 1857–58 to position themselves as a voice of morality, employing a universal language of humanitarianism (“les lois de l’humanité”) to speak on behalf of Europe, and thereby reclaim France’s “natural” position as Europe’s arbiter. More than simply finding fault with these acts of revenge, French newspapers additionally challenged the idea that the so-called mutinies could really be considered as over simply because Delhi had been recaptured. The aggressive behavior of the British military, epitomized by high-profile acts of violence, such

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as Captain Hodson’s controversial decision to execute the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II’s two sons and grandson, was considered by some to have commenced a cycle of revenge that would forestall the end of the uprisings and encourage further anti-colonial action. As Le Siècle warned, Il nous semble donc que le Times s’aventure en disant que la grande insurrection de l’Inde est terminée [ . . . ]. [L]es dépêches signalent de nouveaux troubles dans la partie méridionale du Mahratta, le royaume d’Oude est loin d’être pacifié, et l’exécution de plusieurs membres de la famille royale de Delhi va probablement ranimer l’irritation des insurgés.70 It would therefore appear to us that the Times has been rather bold in stating that the great insurrection in India is over [ . . . ]. [The] dispatches indicate that there are new problems in the southern area of the Marathan kingdom, that Oudh is far from being pacified, and that the execution of several members of the Delhi royal family will, in all likelihood, further aggravate the insurgents.

Whereas The Times commended Captain Hodson’s behavior as a reasonable part of the victory celebrations—they were “very properly shot at once” stated the editorial71—the editor of Le Siècle, Bédollière, considered that the spirit of revolt in India would be kept alive by the memory of just such an irrational and brutal act. The bonapartist and progressive La Presse similarly challenged the conclusiveness of Britain’s victory by suggesting that it had been eclipsed by the escape of Bahadur Shah II, who was likely to go on to organize future revolts under his imperial banner: La prise de Delhi [ . . . ] pourrait donc n’avoir pas, à beaucoup près, toute la portée qu’on se plaisait à lui attribuer. On peut se réjouir sans doute, d’avoir enlevé au Grand-Mogol sa capitale; mais l’effet moral de ce succès se trouve considérablement amoindri par la fuite de l’empereur, qui portera partout où il voudra organiser une nouvelle résistance, le principe religieux et monarchique, autour duquel sont groupés ouvertement ou en secret vingt-trois millions de musulmans répandus dans l’Inde.72 It is thought that the capture of Delhi [ . . . ] might not have had anywhere near the impact that they [the British] have delighted in attributing to it. Doubtless, the seizure of the Great Moghul’s capital is a matter for rejoicing; however, the moral impact of this success has been considerably lessened by the emperor’s escape. For wherever he wishes to organize a new resistance, he will carry with him the religious and monarchic law to which the twenty-three million Muslims spread throughout India adhere either openly or in secret.

In contrast with The Times’s depiction of Bahadur Shah II as that “unhappy old man” or earlier as that “wretched old puppet at Delhi,” Bonneau, presented the Mughal emperor as a powerful figure capable of operating beyond the physical walls of Delhi (thus, rendering their destruction inconsequential) and able to

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rally some twenty three million Indian Muslims to his cause. 73 Moreover, Bonneau considered that those sepoys who had escaped from Delhi were likely to join one of the other major campaigns being fought against the British under equally powerful figures of Indian resistance, like Nana Sahib (the Rajah of Bithur), who was then fighting in Lucknow: “ils pourraient contribuer puissamment à assurer le succès de l’insurrection en se joignant à l’armée de Nana Sahib, et la possession de Lacknau [ . . . ], foyer principal de la révolte, ne leur permettrait guère de regretter Delhi” (“by joining forces with Nana Sahib’s army, they could contribute very effectively to assuring the success of the insurrection, and the possession of Lucknow [ . . . ], as the center of the revolt, would mean that they would barely even regret losing Delhi”).74 Thus, for Bonneau, the capital of India had mistakenly become the focal point of the uprisings for the British, a narrative that he challenged by the widening the focus to the ongoing siege at Lucknow and by drawing attention to other areas that were still in revolt against British colonialism, even beyond Indian borders: “Aujourd’hui, l’insurrection règne [ . . . ] depuis l’Indus jusqu’à la Chine, et il est fort à craindre que, par le Sindh, elle ne réagisse sur les tribus barbares des Beloutchis et sur les Afghans” (“The insurrection still reigns today [ . . . ] from the Indus to China. If it crosses over into the Sindh, it is strongly feared that it will exert its influence over the barbarian Balochi tribes and the Afghans”).75 At a time when the British were celebrating their single victory in Delhi as marking a significant turning point in bringing the disturbances to an end, Bonneau recalled that “c’est précisément au mois d’octobre que les armées hindoues commencent à entrer campagne” (“it is precisely in the month of October that the Hindu armies will enter into action”).76 The pessimism of these articles would, to some extent, be born out by the subsequent delays and setbacks in bringing a decisive end to the uprisings. It would be another year before the British could officially ratify their continuing rule over India, an occasion that was marked by Queen Victoria’s Proclamation that declared that the East India Company’s rule was to be substituted by that of the Crown.77 This “shuffling of titles and faces—and more often titles than faces,” as Hutchins describes it, was packaged as a fresh start for Indo–British relations that aimed to assign the uprisings to a forgotten past by celebrating the beginning of a new monarchic rule.78 The Bombay correspondent for The Times eulogized the Proclamation as, one of the greatest documents, the weightiest instruments that has ever appeared in this country […]. It conveys, with a solemnity worthy the greatness of the occasion, the principles on which the future policy of England in India is based. […] It declares, once for all, that England is sovereign mistress throughout the length and breadth of these lands.79

The correspondent confidently depicted the scenes of delight with which the news was greeted by India: “Queen Victoria’s name was everywhere—as ‘Queen of India, Empress of Hindustan.’ There were ‘Farewells to the East India

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Company,’ new hopes for the future of India emblazoned on more than one edifice.”80 The only detraction from this self-congratulatory ceremony was “that the emblem of English sovereignty was found to have been hung upside down,” which caused “a pang in the breast of the superstitious.”81 This anecdote, quickly dismissed as an insignificant detail, nonetheless implies the substantial psychological damage that had been caused by having lived through an uprising at the hands of their colonial “subjects.” When news of the Proclamation reached France, many branches of the Parisian press refused to accept that it had so thoroughly convinced the Indian population of the righteousness of British rule. Playing on the concern of British officials to mark a definitive end to the revolts, Le Constitutionnel suggested instead that the instatement of Crown rule was not enough to quell future rebellions and that, in contrast with British reports, the Proclamation had not been well received on the subcontinent: L’honorable Compagnie n’a point emporté avec elle toutes les antipathies, toutes les haines soulevées pendant son règne contre la domination anglaise. Enfin l’amnistie par laquelle le nouveau régime a été inauguré n’a pas produit des effets tellement prompts que l’on puisse regarder comme terminée cette guerre qui dure depuis près de deux ans.82 The removal of the honorable Company has not eliminated all the antipathy and hatred for British domination roused during its reign. Ultimately, we cannot consider that the effects of a war, which lasted nearly two years, have been brought to such an abrupt end by the amnesty under which the new regime has been inaugurated.

This change of titles was not enough to erase the memory of years of oppression that had led to anti-colonial warfare (“guerre”) in the first place. Far from signaling its end, the Proclamation had been greeted with “des rires d’incrédulité dans les rangs des rebelles” (“incredulous mirth among the rebel ranks”).83 The only way that Britain could hope to prevent further insurgencies (a threat that is represented by laughter among the rebel ranks) was to win the hearts and the minds of their colonial “subjects” through the kind of “conquête morale” (“moral conquest”) practiced (it is implied) by France.84 Likewise Le Siècle moralized, “Alors commencera une œuvre grande et laborieuse: celle de réaliser les promesses contenues dans la proclamation royale,” “Puisse-t-elle [l’Inde] n’être pas déçue!” (“Thus begins a vastly difficult task: that of realizing the promises contained within the royal proclamation,” “May India not be disappointed!”), the implication being that should Britain fail to uphold its promises, then further revolts were likely to ensue. 85 This judgment can be found even in one of Britain’s staunchest supporters throughout the crisis, Journal des débats. Traditionally in favor of British politics, particularly the idea of a constitutional monarchy, the Journal des débats nonetheless questioned just how efficacious Britain’s new policies (“la substitution du gouvernement direct

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de la reine à celui de la Compagnie” [“the substitution of Company rule with the Queen’s direct governance”]) would be in quelling India’s desire for independence: La crise militaire a passé, voilà tout; maintenant les difficultés du gouvernement commencent, et ce sont peut-être les plus considérables. Quoique vaincue, l’insurrection des cipayes n’aura pas moins produit une révolution dont les conséquences sont presque impossible à estimer et se feront sentir non seulement dans l’Inde, mais dans tout le système du gouvernement anglais (emphasis added).86 The military crisis is over, but that is all. Now begin the difficulties of government, which are likely to be far more considerable. Although defeated, the sepoy insurrection has nonetheless produced a revolution, the consequences of which are almost impossible to judge and will make themselves felt, not only in India, but across Britain’s entire system of government.

Rather than bringing these events to a neat closure, the journalist Raymond leaves a question mark hanging over the future of the British in India by implying that “la crise militaire” (“the military crisis”) was just the beginning of something much bigger, “une révolution,” whose end, like all revolutions, was not yet in sight. The possibility that the uprisings represented the beginning of a national revolution was not an idea that was limited to the national presses. Count Édouard de Warren, who had first-hand experience of British India having worked as a lieutenant in the Indian Army from 1844–45, suggested just such a possibility in his travelogue entitled L’Inde anglaise: Avant et après l’insurrection de 1857. This two-volume work, mostly devoted to Warren’s military life, was revised, renamed, and republished to include a section dedicated to the uprisings, before being translated into English, Italian, and German.87 The revised version gave weight to many of Warren’s sympathetic, but often critical observations concerning Indian colonization, the British colonial character, and the organization of its Indian army. The conclusion that he appended in light of the revolts demonstrates a refusal to subscribe to the idea that a British victory would categorically mark the end of the uprisings. Instead, the text highlights the ongoing effects of the memory of revenge post-defeat: Elle [l’insurrection] laissera d’abord les ruines faites, moins par elle-même que par la vengeance anglaise, et puis des haines impérissables qui seront le premier germe d’un sentiment public, le premier ciment d’une nationalité commune; nationalité qui n’existait point encore, mais qui commencera à se former du jour où [ . . . ] l’Inde [ . . . sera courbée] sous le même joug impitoyable [les Anglais]. Chaque État subsidiaire ou protégé qui disparaîtra fournira une pierre dans la construction du nouvel édifice; mais, avant que cet édifice soit assez grand pour écraser les Anglais, il faudra des années, peut-être un siècle, peutêtre plus encore.88

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Initially, it [the insurrection] will leave in its wake ruins made less by itself than by British vengeance, and then will follow an enduring hatred which will sow the first seeds of a communal feeling and the first bonds of a common nationality. This national feeling is not yet in existence, but it will begin to form when all of India [ . . . is bowed] under the same pitiless yoke [the British]. Each subsidiary or protected State that disappears will add yet another stone to the construction of this new belief system. But many more years are yet required, perhaps even a century or more before it will be great enough to crush the British.

Warren’s prognosis for British rule was bleak and, not unlike that of Karl Marx, uncannily accurate. It was precisely the abject wretchedness of complete dispossession under colonization that would finally engender a spirit of communality and a common desire for liberation within an increasingly politicized country. 89 As such, even if the idea in 1857 had no immediate tangibility, the events in India could be used to imply that Indian liberation from colonial rule and its emergence into nationhood were future probabilities. 90 The uprisings therefore represented a founding event; a deus ex machina that would eventually free India. As such, French writing on 1857 refused to allow the final page of the uprisings to be written and refused to endorse Britain’s rhetoric of colonial renewal and the sense of closure with which their British counterparts had endowed these key moments during the uprisings.

Vive la Révolution! 1857 and Beyond While the examples listed above could only speculate on the outcome of uprisings at the time of their writing, the expansive ideas that they contained did not expire once “peace” had ostensibly been restored to India in 1858. French writing after this time continued to use the uprisings as an important example of anticolonial revolution and a reminder of the enduring desire of Britain’s colonized populations for independence from British rule. French texts have continued, therefore, to produce open-ended counter-narratives to the foreclosure and reductionism of Anglo-centric accounts, the most recent example being Grèce’s historical novel, La Femme sacrée (1984), which offers a biographical account of a revolutionary female leader, Lakshmi Bai. Since Grèce’s fiction lies well outside the temporal scope of this work, the final part of this chapter will focus on an example taken from a text produced shortly after the uprisings: William Darville’s fictional travelogue, L’Inde contemporaine, published in 1874 at the beginning of the Third Republic.91 Darville was writing in a difficult period for French politics when France was slowly coming to terms with the two major political events that had brought about an end to Louis Napoleon’s Second Empire and the beginning of the Third Republic: first, the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) that led to the humiliating loss of Alsace and Lorraine to the German Empire; and second, the violent op-

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pression of the Paris Commune under the newly established and highly conservative Third Republic of Adolphe Thiers (1871–73) and then Patrice de MacMahon (1873–79). The loss of Alsace and Lorraine was a serious blow to French pride, its repossession forming something of a political obsession throughout the late nineteenth century. As Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, among others, have noted, colonial expansion at this time was justified for its potential to provide a much needed boost to French prestige following yet another loss, this time to the Germans. It was thought that, “La colonie va revigorer les corps meurtris par la défaite de 1870. Elle va restituer une virilité à des hommes émasculés, épuisés” (“The colony will reinvigorate those wounded by the defeat of 1870. It will give back to those emasculated and exhausted men a sense of virility”).92 It would eventually be Indochina, under Jules Ferry (1880– 85), that would become “key to the republican opportunists’ colonial agenda,” a land that was “seen by many to be France’s India, as well as a stepping-stone to China.”93 In the same year that L’Inde contemporaine was published, a new treaty has just been signed with the emperor of Annam confirming France’s sovereignty over the southern-based provinces of Cochinchina. It is perhaps not surprising then that memories of loss and a desire for regain also underpin Darville’s text, which opens with a lament to French India: “En songeant que ces magnifiques contrées [Inde] pouvaient devenir possessions françaises, si un homme de génie comme Dupleix n’avait pas trouvé des jaloux et des ennemis à la cour de Louis XV” (“Imagine if these magnificent lands [India] had been allowed to become French possessions, if a genius such as Dupleix had not found jealousy and antagonism in Louis XV’s court”).94 It is in memory of this missed opportunity, when France could have become the dominant colonizer in India had Dupleix not been recalled to France in 1754, that Darville’s text explores the idea of Indian independence. Republished six times by Ardant between 1880 and 1885, this three-part adventure fiction dedicates the final section to the “Révolte des Cipayes” (“Sepoys’ Revolt”). This concluding part features a first-person narrative delivered by a revolutionary leader named Thimour, who is made to speak out against British colonialism on behalf of a tacit French colonial voice. In this way, he can be viewed as a figure that is ventriloquized by the implied narrator. Thimour tells his tale of failed revolution to the protagonist who narrates parts one and two, and also acts as a mouthpiece for the text’s overt Anglophobia. The narrator is none other than a Scottish catholic of noble Jacobite heritage named Lord Churchill, who desires (not unlike Pierre Loti in 1903) to write L’Inde (sans les Anglais), “pour lesquels il éprouvait une antipathie croissant de plus en plus, à mesure qu’il connaissant la tyrannie qui pesait sur ces populations” (“for whom his dislike increased with his knowledge of the tyranny imposed upon those populations”).95 Thimour’s account is prefaced by Churchill, who begins by pointing out the perpetual fragility of British Indian rule:

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La domination anglaise ne peut pas être enracinée dans le sol: jetons un coup d’œil sur ce vaste pays que les Anglais nomment leur empire de l’Inde. Nous voyons partout le sol assujetti au gouvernement anglais, mais aussi partout les restes des familles princières des anciens possesseurs.96 British dominance cannot be deep-rooted: cast an eye over this vast country that the British name their Indian empire. Wherever we look, there are lands subjugated to the British government, but there are also the remnants of the princely families that once possessed them.

The permanence of British colonial rule is thereby destabilized from the outset by referring to the persistent presence of those “anciens possesseurs” (“former landowners”), who carry with them the memory of a time when India governed itself (or, in fact, was governed by the Mughals). It is within the memories of this former glory that the narrative locates India’s hopes for independence: peuvent-elles [les familles princières des anciens possesseurs] avoir oublié le passé, et si elles ont courbé la tête sous la force, la corruption et des ruses infâmes, se peut-il qu’elles n’accepteraient pas un appui qui leur laisserait espérer le retour à leur puissance première? Non; plusieurs révoltes ont prouvé que le gros de la nation n’accepte point les Anglais. Notre récit (Nuits de Delhi) prouvera que la révolte avait pénétré dans toutes les couches de la population, qu’elle était assez formidable pour se défaire entièrement des Anglais, mais qu’il n’y eut point d’accord, et qu’un chef capable manqua au soulèvement. 97 Can they [the former landowning families] have forgotten the past? Even if they have bowed their heads under the pressure of corruption and other dishonorable tricks, can it be possible that they would not accept any help to bring them hope for a return to their former power? Nay, the revolts have shown that the majority of the nation does not accept the British. Our account (Delhi Nights) offers proof that the uprisings penetrated every layer of the population and would have been strong enough to undo British power in its entirety, but for the want of common accord and a capable insurgent leader.

The memories of this lost “freedom,” combined with a history of anti-British revolt, hold out the promise of India’s independence from British colonialism, but only if a true leader (such as Thimour) can be found. In this way, the uprisings are endowed with the same kind of historical significance as 1789. Just as the French Revolution forms a founding myth for republicanism in its conceptualization of the nation, being, to quote from Hazareesingh, “the source of promises that were yet to be fulfilled,” so 1857–58 forms a point of reference that will eventually inspire India’s liberation.98 By writing the uprisings as a revolution, Darville’s narrative is thus open-ended, since revolution is, by its very nature, a progressive process, which reaches out towards a future perfection that is perpetually held in abeyance. The promise of Indian liberation weaves throughout Thimour’s narrative, which recounts his heroic attempts to organize mass insurgency against a British

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government that has reduced his country to “un bazar où se vendent des esclaves” (“a bazar where slaves are sold”).99 To combat this oppressive colonizer that has enslaved its colonies (an idea that directly counters the rhetoric of British abolitionism), Thimour must use his dual ancestry and unite India’s diverse populations. Genealogically, he is connected to both the Mughal emperor (and is therefore of Islamic decent) and to the Hindu cult of Thugi from whom he has inherited his current position as their leader. The Thugs (as well as the Dacoits) were considered in European literature as notoriously violent religious sects that befriended travellers before strangling them as a sacrifice to the goddess Kâli, “une déesse ‘ivre de sacrifices’” (“a goddess ‘drunk with sacrificial blood’”).100 Both the British and French (reading) public were well acquainted with the cult of Thugi, not only because of the public campaign for their eradication led by the former Governor-General of India, William Bentinck, and his chief officer, William Henry Sleeman, but also because of their appearance as tropes that stood for Indian “barbarism” in many popular nineteenth-century fictions.101 In Darville’s L’Inde contemporaine, this connection places Thimour within a specific literary tradition, found in both French and British representations of the uprisings, of pairing Indian rebels with societies that had been outlawed in British law under the “Thugee and Dacoity Suppression Acts, 1836–48.”102 It was the British press that first created this connection. By associating the sepoys and this supposedly demonic underworld, the authenticity of Indian grievances could be undermined by imagining the colonized “other” as a criminal. 103 As an editorialist for The Times wrote in 1857: For all this century we have been engaged in the most incessant and laborious attempts to extinguish Dacoitee, Thuggee [sic], professional poisoning, and other systems and classes of crime. The mutiny has of course released all these mischievous elements, which have immediately, and by a species of necessity, followed their natural instinct. [ . . . ] All this has broken out, and the saying of “Hell let loose” does not mean more.104

The alliance made between the uprisings and these notorious criminal groups permits the editorialist, at one and the same time, to demonize the revolts as a whole and to justify an immediate suppression of the Indian populace. Implicitly, it mobilizes the memory of “successful” previous campaigns that had been carried out by the British government against those undesirable elements of Indian society in order to reassert the surety of victory in 1857. 105 If British writing revived the figure of the “Dacoitee, Thuggee” as a shorthand for criminalizing the insurgents and justifying the severest kind of colonial policing, Darville’s text was able to subvert this idée reçue and use it instead to counter the discourse of British dominance and its violent policies. In this case, Thimour’s Thugi heritage gains him the respect of his fellow Indians and allows him to travel unhindered across India preaching the inherently French republican message of emancipation.106 Yet the connection between Darville’s Indian hero

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and Thugi evidently remained problematic at a moral and civilizational level since Thimour is repeatedly compelled to mitigate this heritage and present it as a necessary, if unwanted, evil in his fight for freedom. Thugism might be part of his cultural heritage, but it order to become the voice of national revolution the text must force him to negate this part of his identity, reject his barbarism, and align himself with French revolutionary ideals. In these moments, the moralizing tone of the French colonial voice can be clearly heard speaking through this Indian revolutionary: Ainsi, me dis-je à moi-même, cette riche terre de l’Inde est livrée à des sociétés de brigands, et à des oppresseurs qui ne savent pas les détruire. J’éprouvai un sentiment de honte, en songeant que je me trouvais le chef peut-être de la plus puissante de ces associations [Thugs], mais il fallait atteindre à un but; il fallait de toutes ces mauvaises passions faire un faisceau, et l’employer à la libération de l’Inde.107 Thus, I said to myself, this rich land of India has been given over to criminal societies and oppressors who do not know how to destroy them. I felt a pang of shame at the thought that I had perhaps found myself the leader of the most powerful of these societies [Thugs], but it was a means to an end: from all of that wickedness, it was necessary to create a powerful weapon and to use it in the name of Indian freedom.

By invoking this traditionally negative stereotype, the reader is presented with a deplorable picture of a land that is divided between the ignorance and fanaticism of criminal cults and the ineffectuality of an oppressive British government that is unable to quash criminality or “civilize” its “subjects.” In response, Thimour’s aims to unite India’s chiefs and princes in order to deliver (“délivrer”) “l’Inde de l’oppression des étrangers” (“India from external oppression”).108 If this can be achieved through “une révolte sérieuse” (“a proper revolt”), Thimour will be able to glimpse at a future, one that “permettrait d’espérer la réhabilitation de l’Inde” (“would allow hope for India’s revival”).109 Echoing Lord Churchill’s preface to Thimour’s tale, the motivation for this freedom is based on the memory of past glory that Thimour attempts to reawaken in those that he meets, such as the emperor’s sons (who would shortly afterwards be executed by Captain Hodson): Tous n’ont pas oublié les grandeurs de leurs pères; tous ne sont pas tombés dans une mollesse énervante; et vienne le jour de la lutte, ils se réveilleront au souvenir du passé. Vous, [ . . . ] vous trouveriez-vous incapables de résister aux cris de la patrie renaissante?110 Not all have forgotten the greatness of their forefathers; not all have fallen prey to debilitating weaknesses. And when the hour for fighting sounds, they will reawaken to the memories of the past. [ . . . ] Would you be capable of resisting the cries of a country reborn?

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Terms like “la patrie renaissante” (“country reborn”) and references to an almost forgotten historical past feed into the seductive idea of revolution and of a cohesive nation. These concepts are of intrinsic importance to a French republican identity that at the time was being threatened by a legitimist takeover under President MacMahon, but are also ideals that France wanted to export to the colonial world that had yet to understand the European concept of nationhood.111 As Thimour leaves this meeting with the princes, he comments, “Nous nous séparâmes, eux [les princes] rêvant un passé évanoui, et moi persuadé que j’avais fait un grand pas en faveur de la révolution que je voyais sur le point d’éclater” (“We went our separate ways, with them [the princes] dreaming of a past that had gone, while I was convinced that an important step had been taken towards the revolution that I could see on the brink of explosion”) (emphasis added).112 Within this vision is contained both the seventeenth-century concept of revolution, as a “revolving back to some pre-established point” or “preordained order,” and its more modern permutation, as a radical change in human politics that breaks with the past.113 In the first instance, the appeal to the Mughal Empire’s former glory can be seen as a return to the familiarity of the past. But in the second instance, the union of Hindu and Muslim peoples—a union that is also encapsulated within Thimour’s dual heritage—implies something much more revolutionary than a nostalgic return to this nebulous past. Thimour calls for a common movement against oppression that is underpinned by the distinctly French republican-sounding ideologies of liberation and secularism. 114 Ultimately, Thimour fails to inspire India’s freedom because he is unable to channel the inherent “savagery” of his compatriots, especially the Thugs, towards these “nobler” revolutionary goals. Instead, the Thugs remain guided by the desire “de détruire et de piller” (“to destroy and pillage”), which Thimour finally chooses to reject in return for a solitary existence. 115 Yet, in the final analysis, the behavior of the Indian insurgents is excused as justifiable because it was performed in the name of freedom, while that of the British is condemned as deplorable: Certes, les révoltés avaient commis des cruautés épouvantables: mais ils combattaient pour la liberté de leur pays [ . . . ]. Les Anglais n’avaient à défendre que leur oppression, et, nation civilisée, ils ne devaient pas se comporter en barbares avec la férocité qu’ils montrèrent (emphasis added).116 Certainly, the rebels committed terrible acts of cruelty: but they were fighting for the freedom of their country [ . . . ]. The British had nothing to defend but their system of oppression and, as a civilized nation, they ought not to have displayed such ferocious and barbaric behavior.

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Thus, while ostensibly promoting the idea of liberation, Darville’s text ventriloquizes the figure of the Indian revolutionary in order to voice the impossibility of Indian self-rule at that time and, in doing so, suggests the need for intervention and governance from an alternative (European) source burgeoning at that time in France and its newly established Republic. Tacitly, this ushers in the nostalgic fantasy of France’s lost empire outlined in the text’s introduction: Les années se sont écoulées, et cependant les Indiens n’ont oublié ni le nom de l’héroïque Dupleix, ni celui de son lieutenant de Bussy [ . . . ] et ces souvenirs prouvent que si la France eût soutenu Dupleix et son lieutenant, l’Inde, au lieu d’être aujourd’hui anglaise, serait française, et plus florissante, plus heureuse que sous le gouvernement plus qu’oppressif de la Compagnie anglaise. L’Anglais ne peut s’assimiler aucune nation; il faut qu’il domine brutalement, qu’il tire jusqu’à la dernière goutte de sang des veines de l’opprimé, sans souci de l’humanité, écrasant et avilissant des populations soumises, et d’un peuple que la France eût appelé à la résurrection, en faire non des esclaves, mais des brutes à figure humaine et tremblant devant la cravache d’un Anglais.117 Years have gone by and yet the Indians have neither forgotten the name of the heroic Dupleix nor that of his lieutenant de Bussy [ . . . ] and these memories prove that, had France supported Dupleix and his lieutenant, India would have been French rather than British, and would today be more prosperous and content than it is under the excessive oppression of Company rule. The British are unable to assimilate any nation. They can only dominate with brutality and without any concern for humanity, squeezing every last drop of blood from the veins of the oppressed as they crush and degrade their subjects. Where France would have resurrected these peoples, Britain has reduced them to less than slaves, to beasts with human faces, who tremble before the British whip.

Churchill’s voice is rather lost beneath the Gallo-centrism of this passage. Speaking on behalf of the Indian populace that has been dominated “brutalement” (“with brutality”) and its people dehumanized, the clear implication is that, had France ruled over India, no need for revolt would ever have arisen, and it is this fantasy that is tacitly expressed within Thimour’s narrative of a failed Indian revolution. This establishes a direct opposition between French and British colonialist policies expressed above through the oblique reference to French assimilationist models, which are presented, by proxy, as a more morally grounded form of colonial practice. 118 Thus, Darville’s text achieves several outcomes at once. First, it counter-narrates the closure of Anglo-centric narratives by relaying through its Indian protagonist an unquenchable desire for liberation against the British oppressor. Secondly, it upholds the stereotype of Indian fanaticism symbolized by the figure of the depraved Thugi devotee, through which the possibility of Indian self-rule is denied. Finally, it ushers in the fantasy that a French India, while no longer a real possibility,

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would never have roused a desire for revolution and liberation since it would always already have been “free.” This comparison of the names used for 1857–58 thus reveals a clear schism between English- and French-language texts. It highlights the desire, inherent within many nineteenth-century British texts, to contain and manage these events through key terms and qualifiers that expunge any positive connotations from the act of anti-colonial rising, reframing them as a negative moment to be quashed, assigned to the past, and remembered as a British victory. Simultaneously, it shows how competing French voices have challenged such foreclosure by utilizing contrasting terms, such as “insurrection” and “révolution,” that refuse to subscribe to Anglo-centric accounts and, in doing so, usher in the Gallo-centric fantasy of Britain’s collapse and therefore France’s long-awaited revenge and/or revival. In this discursive battle between colonial competitors, India’s “révolution nationale” is co-opted into French writing as a platform from which to voice a rival discourse and speak tacitly of France’s own history filled with stories of loss and failure, and its desire for revenge. Ultimately then the French texts examined here are less concerned with India’s independence than with destabilizing British hegemony during a moment of weakness by implicitly and explicitly envisaging a time beyond British governance.

Notes 1. The Times, August 3, 1857, 8. Parts of this chapter have been published with kind permission from Routledge (Taylor & Francis). The original text can be found in Nicola Frith, “French Counter-Narratives: Nationalisme, Patriotisme and Révolution,” in Insurgent Sepoys: Europe Views the Revolt of 1857, ed. Shaswati Mazumdar (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011), 47–62. 2. The Times, August 3, 1857, 8. 3. David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 2. 4. Ward, xvii. 5. Herbert, 6–7. 6. Although Ward states that he “would prefer to call it the 1857 Uprising,” ultimately his book was entitled the “Indian Mutiny of 1857”; Ward, xvii. 7. Ward, 555–70. 8. A notable exception is Sen’s government-sponsored history, Eighteen Fifty-Seven (1957), that draws uncritically from British sources and produces a distinctly pro-British account; Surendra Nath Sen, Eighteen Fifty-Seven, 3rd ed. (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1995; first publ. 1957). See also Rudrangshu Mukherjee’s “Introduction” to this text, iii–xi. 9. Tinker, “1857 and 1957,” 57. An online search of English-language book titles in the British Library catalogue supports this nationalist split: 131 books use the term “mutiny” (mostly written by British scholars); forty use “revolt” (both British and Indian scholars); thirty one use “rebellion” (mostly British scholars); thirty one use “war” (mostly

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Indian scholars); nine use “uprising” (mostly Indian scholars); one uses “insurgency” (a British scholar); and one uses “revolution” (an Indian scholar). 10. “Causes of the Indian Mutiny,” The Telegraph, May 8, 2007; “Recollections of the Indian Mutiny,” The Times, August 18, 2007; Beth Hale and Amrit Dhillon, “Death Threats and a Hotel Siege for the Britons Trapped in the Indian Mutiny 2007,” Daily Mail, September 26, 2007. 11. Webster’s mid-nineteenth-century dictionary (1864) defines a “mutiny” as an “Insurrection against constituted authority, particularly military or naval authority; open and violent resistance to the authority of officers; concerted revolt against the rules of discipline; hence, generally, forcible resistance to rightful authority on the part of subordinates”; Noah Webster, Dr. Webster’s Complete Dictionary of the English Language, rev. Chauncey A. Goodrich and Noah Porter (London: Bell & Daldy, 1864), 871. The OED today provides a similar description as “Open revolt against constituted authority” or “behaviour which flouts or shows disregard for discipline.” Both definitions therefore assign a negative role to the mutineers, whose actions are considered to be enacted against a rightfully constituted authority and are deemed, as such, to be unlawful. As Herbert notes, the prolific use of the term “mutiny” does not mean that all British texts should be read as conforming to the standard version. In a counter-response to “the postcolonialist assault on ‘the Victorians,’” Herbert correctly reminds the reader that there were plenty of “dissenters,” or rather critics among the British public, including the prominent journalist and diarist, William Howard Russell; Herbert, 17. 12. The Times, August 3, 1857, 8. 13. The Times, July 21, 1857, 9. 14. Herbert, 17. 15. For an exploration of other European responses, see Shaswati Mazumdar, ed., Insurgent Sepoys: Europe Views the Revolt of 1857 (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011), which looks at the mutiny from the perspective of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. Karl Marx’s and Frederick Engels’s series of articles published in the New York Daily Tribune offers a notable example of the interest that these events generated in America; Marx and Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, 1857–1859. 16. K. Marx, “Dispatches from India,” New York Daily Tribune, July 31, 1857, in K. Marx and F. Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, 1857–59 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959), 54–57 (56). 17. Jani, 88. Institute of Marxism–Leninism of the C. C., C. P. S. U., “Introduction,” in K. Marx and F. Engels, The First Indian War of Independence, 1857–1859 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960), 8. 18. “Looking upon this as a national revolt, I cannot arrive at the belief that the measures announced by the Government, merely military measures, are adequate to the occasion”; Benjamin Disraeli, “Parliamentary Intelligence, House of Commons, 27 July: ‘The State of India,’” The Times, July 28, 1857, 5–8 (6). See also Christopher Hibbert, Disraeli and his World (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978), 79. 19. Bellanger, 2:249. For more information on the restrictions placed on the French press under the Second Empire and its gradual depoliticization, see Histoire générale de la presse française, 2:249–58; Clyde Thogmartin, The National Daily Press of France (Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1998), 59–64. 20. Thogmartin, 60–61. 21. As Renan noted in Feuilles détachées, this practice was particularly prevalent in the “Variétés” section of the press, which was less immediately concerned with French

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politics and, therefore, more open to subversive commentary: “Sous apparence de littérature, on parla de bien des choses alors défendues; on insinua les plus hauts principes de la politique libérale” (“under the guise of speaking about literature, they spoke of many things that were forbidden at that time and slipped in their ideas concerning the greatest principles of political liberalism”); Renan is cited in Histoire générale de la presse française, 2:264. 22. For example, Le Charivari interpreted the support of the legitimist newspaper, La Gazette de France, for the King of Oudh’s desire to reclaim his throne (after his capture by the British) as a thinly veiled reference to Charles X; Clément Caraguel, “La légitimité du roi d’Oude,” Le Charivari, November 23, 1857, 2. 23. For more information on this period, including alliances and hostilities between Britain, France, and Russia, see Robert and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present (London: Pimlico, 2007; first publ. Heinemann, 2006), 356–65. See also J. P. Parry, “The Impact of Napoleon III on British Politics, 1851–1880,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (2001): 147–75. 24. As Hazareesingh notes, “The common ideological core of Second Empire Bonapartism was based almost exclusively of an interpretation of the achievements of the emperor Napoleon”; Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen, 35. 25. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, iv, 15, and 102. This idea is echoed in a series of letters that Billot sent to Napoleon III, warning him against those “anglais du dedans [sic]” (“British insiders”); Billot, Lettres franques, 197. Bellanger et al. also point out that, although the majority of the French press in 1857 “condamna la cruauté des méthodes anglaises dans l’Inde” (“condemned the cruelty of British methods in India”), Britain did have a few “défenseurs” (“defenders”), including Le Siècle, Le Journal des débats, and La Revue des Deux Mondes; Histoire générale de la presse française, 2:276. 26. Veuillot belonged to the legitimist and “ultramontane” branch of Catholicism, which differed from its Gallican rival. The cleavage between these two groups “bore on whether the Vatican should constitute the primary source of spiritual leadership for French Catholicism”; Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen, 110. 27. Histoire générale de la presse française, 2:244. 28. Barrier, L’Univers: Union Catholique, July 2, 1857, 1–2 (1). 29. Emile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique: Courrier,” Le Siècle, September 21, 1857, 1. 30. L. Boniface, “Paris, 23 juillet,” Le Constitutionnel, July 24, 1857, 1. 31. Boniface, July 24, 1857, 1. 32. The Times, July 20, 1857, 8. 33. Académie Française, Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 6th and 7th eds. (Paris: Firman Didot, 1835 and 1878) [on CD-ROM]; Dictionnaire historique de la langue française (Paris: Dictionnaire le Robert, 1992), 1727. 34. Léon de Wailly, “L’Inde: La Carte,” L’Illustration, journal universel, 30 (October 17, 1857), 263 and 266 (263). 35. The Times, July 3, 1857, 9. 36. The Times, August 3, 1857, 8. 37. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, 1036. 38. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London: Pimlico, 1994; first publ. Yale University Press, 1992), 141; Eliga H. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 181–214.

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39. Webster, 702. 40. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, 1036. 41. Jean Dubois, ed., Larousse de la langue française (Paris: Larousse, 2002; first publ. Paris: Larousse, 1979), 968. 42. Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 1036. 43. As mentioned earlier, there were, of course, plenty of exceptions. The British historian, Kaye, for example, saw the raising of the “rebel standard” in Delhi retrospectively as an important turning point in which “the mutiny of a few regiments [ . . . ] was beginning to stimulate a national rebellion”; John William Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857–1858, 2 vols (N.p.: Elibron Classics, 2005–06; first publ. London: Allen, 1874–75), 1:596. See also Disraeli’s comments; chapter 2, 30 and note 18. 44. Cucheval-Clarigny, “L’insurrection de l’Inde,” La Patrie, September 15, 1857, 1. 45. Cucheval-Clarigny, September 15, 1857, 1. 46. H.-Marie Martin, “Paris, 11 septembre,” Le Constitutionnel, September 12, 1857, 1–2 (1). 47. H.-Marie Martin, September 12, 1857, 1. 48. “Les causes premières des révolutions sont toujours obscures parce qu’elles sont multiples comme les souffrances, les besoins et les tendances des populations. [ . . . ] Le secret [des événemens qui se passent dans l’Inde] en est caché dans chacune des années d’un passé qui date déjà de plus d’un siècle” (“The triggers for revolutions are difficult to locate because they are as manifold as the sufferings, the needs, and the particular leanings of the people. [ . . . ] The secret [of the events that are unfolding in India] is hidden in each year of a past that is already over a century old”); Alexandre Bonneau, “La Révolution dans l’Inde,” La Presse, August 31, 1857, 1. 49. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 1. 50. See in particular “Lettre II” from Billot’s Lettres Franques, 13–19. 51. Alexis de Tocqueville, L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution, ed. J.-P. Mayer ([Paris]: Gallimard, 1952; first publ. 1856), 43–44. See also Larry Siedentop, Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 113–37; Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen. 52. Tocqueville, L’Ancien Régime, 48. 53. Tocqueville, L’Ancien Régime, 68. 54. This grand récit of the French Revolution was also a reference point for Indian historians and politicians, such as Savarkar who drew parallels between the Indian uprisings and the French Revolution, and Nehru who viewed 1789 as a source of inspiration while writing from his prison cell in 1932; Sarvarkar, 2 and 7; Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History: Being Further Letters to his Daughter, Written in Prison, and Containing a Rambling Account of History for Young People, 4th ed. (London: Drummond, 1949; first publ. 1934), 377–78. 55. In Pluviose An II, the First Republic’s Convention had decreed that “l’esclavage des Nègres dans les colonies est aboli; en conséquence, elle décrète que tous les hommes, sans distinction de couleur, domiciliés dans les colonies, sont citoyens français et jouiront de tous les droits assurés par la Constitution” (“the enslavement of the Negroes in the colonies is abolished. It is therefore decreed that all men who live in the colonies, without distinction of color, are French citizens who benefit from all the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution”), cited in Henri Bangou, A propos du cent cinquantenaire de l’abolition de l’esclavage (Kourou, French Guiana: Ibis Rouge, 1998), 81. Bonaparte’s decision in 1802 to reinstate slavery and renege on the abolition law of 1794 was only rectified, however, on April 27, 1848 under the hastily established Second Republic. 56. Barrier, L’Univers: Union Catholique, July 2, 1857, 1–2 (1).

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57. Arnould Fremy, “Les journaux indiens,” Le Charivari, August 6, 1857, 1. 58. Fremy, August 6, 1857, 1. 59. Laurentie, “France, Paris, 7 septembre,” L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, September 8, 1857, 1. 60. Laurentie, September 8, 1857, 1. 61. Even Flora Annie Steel’s On the Face of the Waters (1897), which presents a more nuanced view of the uprisings by criticizing British racism and attempting to acknowledge Indian perspectives, celebrates the siege of Delhi as a great British victory led by General Nicholson. See in particular the fifth book entitled “There Arose a Man.” 62. “The Fall of Delhi,” The Times, October 27, 1857, 8. 63. “The Fall of Delhi,” The Times, October 27, 1857, 8. In 1857, this narrative ending was also played out on the real stages of London’s theatres that dramatized the battle of Delhi and acted as live newsreels performed for a domestic audience. For more on the “mutiny plays,” see Marty Russell Gould, “Role Britannia: Theatricality and Empire in the Victorian Period” (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Iowa, 2005), 192–266. 64. The Times, October 28, 1857, 6. 65. The Times, October 28, 1857, 6. 66. The Times, October 26, 1857, 6. 67. Xavier Raymond, Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, November 1, 1857, 1. 68. Cucheval-Clarigny, “Les derniers événemens de l’Inde,” La Patrie, November 20, 1857, 1–2 (1). 69. H.-Marie Martin, “Paris, 16 novembre,” Le Constitutionnel, November 17, 1857, 1. 70. Emile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique: Courrier,” Le Siècle, December 27, 1857, 1. 71. The Times, November 12, 1857, 6. 72. Alexandre Bonneau, La Presse, October 30, 1857, 1. 73. The Times, November 12, 1857, 6; The Times, September 1, 1857, 6. 74. Alexandre Bonneau, La Presse, October 30, 1857, 1. 75. Bonneau, October 30, 1857, 1. 76. Bonneau, October 30, 1857, 1. An earlier article by Bonneau explains this reference to October where he speaks of the Hindu festivals of Kali Puja and Durga Puja that celebrate the mother goddess Durga and her powerful destructive form as Kali. Commonly evoked in Euro-centric literature for her barbaric nature and her links with the Thugi cult, but equally connected with the idea of destroying evil, Bonneau reads these religious ceremonies as part of an antebellum build-up that will see the Hindus entering the war en masse; Alexandre Bonneau, “[ . . . ] Mahrattes,” October 8, 1857, 1–2. 77. “India: The Proclamation of the Queen,” The Times, December 6, 1858, 7. 78. Hutchins, 87. Hutchins states that “The abolition of the East India Company and the establishment of the Crown rule were the assurance the nation required that India did indeed now ‘belong’ to the nation, and not just to a handful of Englishmen”; Hutchins, 86. Hence, “the Mutiny’s greatest direct effect was in rousing popular support in England for British rule of India, which was expressed in the demand for Crown rule”; Hutchins, 86. 79. “India: The Proclamation of the Queen,” The Times, December 6, 1858, 7. 80. “India: The Proclamation of the Queen,” The Times, December 6, 1858, 7. 81. “India: The Proclamation of the Queen,” The Times, December 6, 1858, 7. 82. H.-Marie Martin, “Paris, 29 décembre,” Le Constitutionnel, December 30, 1858, 1.

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83. H.-Marie Martin, December 30, 1858, 1. 84. H.-Marie Martin, December 30, 1858, 1. 85. Emile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique,” Le Siècle, December 7, 1858, 1; Emile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique,” Le Siècle, December 8, 1858, 1. 86. Xavier Raymond, Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, November 6, 1858, 1–2 (2). 87. Françoise de Valence, “Note de lecture,” in Edouard de Warren, L’Inde anglaise: Avant et après l’insurrection de 1857, 2 vols (Paris: Kailash, 1994; first publ. 1857). This text was first published with the Comptoires des imprimeries-unis in 1844 under the title, L’Inde anglaise en 1843, and again in 1845 under the new title, L’Inde anglaise en 1843– 1844. The third edition with Hachette altered the title to give the two volumes a suitable chronological framework. These two volumes were republished with Kailash in 1994. 88. Warren, 2:274. 89. Wolpert, 247–48. 90. Warren, 2:271. See also Xavier Raymond, Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, August 26, 1857, 1. 91. For more information on Grèce’s La Femme sacrée, see Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 89–92; Nicola Frith, “Compensating for l’Inde perdue: Narrating a ‘Special Relationship’ between France and India in Romanticized Tales of the Indian Uprisings (1857−58),” in France’s Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia and la fracture coloniale, ed. by Kate Marsh and Nicola Frith (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 83−95. 92. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 87 93. Daughton, 22. 94. Darville, vi. 95. Darville, ix. 96. Darville, 219. 97. Darville, 219–20. 98. Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen, 243. 99. Darville, 238. 100. Martine van Woerkens-Todorov, “Trois barbares en Asie: Une énième histoire de Thugs,” in L’Inde et l’imaginaire, ed. Catherine Weinberger-Thomas (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1988), 257–79 (263). 101. Well-known examples include Meadows Taylor’s Confessions of a Thug (1839) and later René de Pont-Jest’s Le Procès des Thugs (1877). For more on “le thème de la monstruosité” in French writing on India, see Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 8. 102. For example, both Meadows Taylor and Jules Verne aligned their Indian insurgents with the Thugi and Dacoity “cults.” Taylor’s “merciless” Azráel Pandé is described as “the prince of Dacoity leaders” and Verne’s Nana Sahib is presented as working in collaboration with the Dacoits; Meadows Taylor, Seeta (London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1880), 5; Verne, La Maison, 204. 103. As van Woerkens-Todorov points out (although not with reference to Verne’s text), the Thugs and Dacoits were perceived by European writers as the antithesis of the Christian faith, their historical encounter with the west being “la preuve d’une indéniable victoire des forces du bien contre les forces du mal, du droit contre l’iniquité” (“the surest proof of the victory of the forces of good against the forces of evil, of law against iniquity”); van Woerkens-Todorov, 263. 104. The Times, September 24, 1857, 6.

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105. Under Lord William Bentinck’s drive to eradicate “uncivilized” Hindu customs, Colonel Sleeman headed a campaign to eliminate the cult of Thugi from India, which he claimed had been successfully completed in 1841; van Woerkens-Todorov, 259. 106. For example, Thimour is able to save himself during a confrontation with British officers because of his connection with the Thugs: “Le mouvement que j’avais fait pour dégager mon poignard avait écarté l’écharpe qui me tombait des épaules, et mis en évidence le signe de chef des Thugs. Les cipayes déposèrent leurs armes [ . . . ], croisèrent les mains au-dessus de la tête, et la baissèrent respectueusement” (“In moving to free my dagger, I had caused my scarf to drop down my shoulders and had revealed the mark of the Thugee leader. The sepoys put down their arms [ . . . ], crossed their hands above their heads, and knelt down respectfully”); Darville, 257. Subsequently, the sepoys refuse to obey the orders of their British officers, preferring instead to heed Thimour’s words: “Pas de violences, m’écriai-je; mettons les insolents envahisseurs à la raison, mais ne les maltraitons pas” (“No violence, I cried, make these insolent invaders see reason, but do not treat them badly”); Darville, 257. 107. Darville, 261. 108. Darville, 263. 109. Darville, 265. 110. Darville, 266. 111. As Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès note, the colonized “other” was not considered to belong “à aucune nation” (“any nation”), this being the “première étape vers la civilisation” (“first step towards civilization”); 52. 112. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 52. 113. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin, 1990; first publ. Viking, 1963), 42–43. 114. Hazareesingh lists five key points that make up the French “republican tradition,” including democracy, secular education, social homogeneity (represented by the bourgeoisie), citizenship (as opposed to race or ethnicity), and social justice; Sudhir Hazareesingh, Political Traditions in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 81–89. 115. Darville, 301. 116. Darville, 303. 117. Darville, vii. 118. For more on assimilationist policies, see Martin Deming Lewis, “One Hundred Million Frenchmen: The ‘Assimilation’ Theory in French Colonial Policy,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 4 (1962): 129–53.

CHAPTER THREE

Villains and Heroes: Ventriloquizing the “Revolutionary”

The Agent of Revolution According to Said, the west’s colonial discourse, or what he terms “Orientalism,” functions by imaginatively constructing the idea of the colonial “other” as an infinitely colonizable figure or space, meaning one that can be occupied and exploited, as well as governed and “civilized.” To function, it relies on the sustenance and repetition of certain binaries that ensure that the colonial “self” is always imagined to be in a position of authority, particularly in terms of its supposed cultural and racial superiority. 1 As he writes in his preface to Culture and Imperialism, Above all, your [the west’s] sense of power scarcely imagined that those “natives” who appeared either as subservient or sullenly uncooperative were ever going to be capable of finally making you give up India or Algeria. Or of saying anything that might perhaps contradict, challenge, or otherwise disrupt the prevailing discourse.2

So how then does the colonial imagination respond when the colonized “other” defies the western occupier during periods of active revolt? What does it do when this imagined figure of passivity acts in a way that opposes the kind of narratives created by events such as the Great Exhibition of 1851, which had communicated an image of Indians “as languid and inert” and ignored “nearly a hundred years of resistance to British rule”? 3 These next two chapters will consider the different ways in which French and British colonial discourses encounter anti-colonial resistance, first by look-

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ing at the troubling concept of anti-colonial rebellion (chapter 3) and then by looking at the colonizers’ counter-insurgency and narratives of revenge (chapter 4). It questions how the language of these competing colonial powers responds imaginatively to the issue of “subject” revolt, and what these different responses reveal about the anxieties of their respective empires. The focus here is on Nana Sahib, a rebel leader who represented “the greatest enemy of the human race” for the British, and could therefore be used by the French as an important symbol against British rule.4 This is not to suggest that there were no other rebel leaders of equal, if not greater importance (including the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah and the Rani of Jhansi), but rather to highlight that Nana Sahib was portrayed, rightly or wrongly, as the ringleader of a great Indian conspiracy. It is worth noting that this was entirely in keeping with Victorian culture. As Wagner notes, the idea of conspiracy was a peculiarly nineteenth-century phenomenon and was frequently suspected as circulating behind political events. 5 The uprisings were no exception. But the “mutiny” of 1857–58 amounted to more than simply a conspiracy: it was viewed as “a conspiracy of ‘Orientals’ and thus doubly sinister and, to the European mind, mysterious.”6 It was Nana Sahib who was viewed as standing at the center of this narrative and who, as a result, attracted the most amount of media coverage.7 So regardless of whether such a conspiracy existed or not, it is undeniable that it was Nana Sahib who formed a key component in how the uprisings were imagined in Britain and France.8 The interest in studying how he was represented across English- and French-language texts thus lies in exploring how the colonial imaginations of these two rival nations wrote the “eastern” agent of colonial revolt. Just as the term “révolution” was used in Frenchlanguage texts to redefine the “mutiny,” this next chapter considers the ways in which French writers appropriated the Indian “revolutionary” for their own narrative ends, namely to undermine British colonialism. Thus, although Said claims that the idea of an “eastern” threat to “western” colonialism was beyond the imaginative scope of any nineteenth-century British or French national, when it came to presenting the colonial crises of the frère ennemi, the situation was altogether different.9 Nana Sahib was, in fact, the claimant to the Peshwa throne who had been dispossessed of his inheritance rights to Bithur, a town located in the former district of Cawnpore where his father had been exiled at the end of the third AngloMaratha War (1817–18). Nana Sahib was one of many Indian rulers who, by 1857, had had their hereditary rights abrogated by a new British administrative policy, entitled the “Doctrine of Lapse.” This policy permitted the British to seize lands belonging to any Indian ruler without a genetic heir. As the adopted son of the former Peshwa (Baji Rao II), Nana Sahib’s estate had been directly affected by the imposition of this new legal mandate. 10 After the Peshwa’s death in 1851, the British administration had refused to recognize Nana Sahib’s succession, neither acknowledging his title nor honoring his pension claims. Undefeated, he appealed first to the British Commissioner in India and then sent his

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official confident, Azimullah, to London to petition the Court of Directors, British Parliament, and Queen Victoria.11 Although Nana Sahib and Azimullah successfully canvassed support among the elite societies of Oudh and London’s Belgravia, respectively, their pleas failed to find any truly influential sympathizers.12 Were it not for the interest generated in Nana Sahib by the series of massacres that became connected with his name, undoubtedly, his particular history of dispossession would have been forgotten, like so many other similar cases. On September 16, 1857, reports began to circulate in the British press that two hundred European men, women, and children being held captive at a bibighar in Cawnpore had been executed on July 15. 13 The belief that it was Nana Sahib who had ordered this execution would go on to inspire a more impassioned reaction among the British populace than any other event during and after the Indian uprisings, ensuring Nana Sahib’s rise from obscurity to infamy not only in Britain, but across the western world. This news followed two other reported atrocities that had been linked to Nana Sahib in British reports: the execution of the Fatehgarh fugitives (June 12, 1857) and the betrayal of Wheeler’s garrison at the Satichaura ghat (June 27, 1857). However, it was this third and final massacre of the female and child prisoners that British writers would remember as the “crowning atrocity” of the uprisings. As The Times wrote in September 1857, We cannot help giving it precedence, for, whatever the issue of this Rebellion, [ . . . ] the Massacre of Cawnpore [referring to July 15, 1857] and the name of NENA SAHIB [sic] will hold rank among the foulest crimes and the greatest enemies of the human race to the end of the world. It is the crowning atrocity—for it can hardly be surpassed—of native India.14

Just as this quotation anticipated, the story of the bibighar would quickly acquire a privileged place within the archives of British colonialism, analogous in its horror to that other “founding myth of empire,” the Black Hole of Calcutta.15 From news of these events, reported in the British press emerged the “myth” of Nana Sahib, who would become as one of the most memorable symbols of the Indian revolts. He subsequently appeared in numerous French and British narratives throughout the nineteenth century and was frequently employed as a representative type that could be made to stand for the Indian uprisings as a whole. The following exploration of how this “myth” was constructed in English- and French-language texts has much to tell us about the ways in which colonial discourse manages the idea of anti-colonial rebellion. 16 The rebel figure disrupts all hegemonic preconceptions about the colonized “other” and is an object of fear that must be controlled; yet the inconsistencies that traverse his multiple forms cannot help but reveal the inherent ambivalence of colonial discourse. Aside from factual discrepancies (he was thought to be Hindu by some, and Muslim by others), Nana Sahib is marked by authoritarian anxiety, his image standing at a crossroads between the horrifying facts of history and the mythical horror of fairy-tale. Defined as a national traitor and a focal point for British revenge, he

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also reveals “the dynamic of powerlessness at the heart of the imperial configuration” since he ultimately succeeded in evading capture and punishment. 17 As a figure of colonial resistance, he could also, therefore, be used by French authors to speak out against the British and as a foil against which to define the newly emerging voice of French colonialism.

Nana Sahib, “that unhung miscreant” Nana Sahib acted as a synecdoche for Indian insurgency, just as, to quote from Jenny Sharpe, “the brutalized bodies of defenseless English women” killed in Cawnpore served as “a metonym for a government that [saw] itself as the violated object of rebellion.”18 In other words, British writing often employed Nana Sahib as a signifier for all Indian rebels, who, by racial and religious association, were deemed capable of committing equivalent acts of violence. As such, Nana Sahib’s name became a byword for mass insurgency, his demonic characterization often serving as justification for the suppression of the Indian populace and for the need for continued colonial rule at a time when the authority of the British was under threat. “The type of the revolt is Nena Sahib [sic],” wrote an editorialist in The Times: He is the true barbaric ideal. It is he and his predecessors in the line of treachery who have kept Asia down since the beginning of the world, and made her the property and prey of any stronger race. Yet in a sense this man is Young Asia, and we see what we are to expect from communicating European arts and accomplishments to Hindoos without our religion and manly character. [ . . . ] This is the sort of man, not the wretched old puppet at Delhi [Bahadur Shah II], not the imbecile King of Oude [sic], who would step into the place of Queen Victoria, should the Mutiny ever come to anything.19

In this quotation, widespread rebellion against British rule is reduced to one man, Nana Sahib. He is used as a trope that stands for all the negative aspects of being Asian and particularly Hindu, while the figure of the effeminate Hindu is typecast as a prototype for the Indian populace as a whole. 20 Required to embody multiple and incongruous ideas at once, Nana Sahib is thereby overdetermined. He is representative of an older, despotic order that is responsible for stifling Indian development, and of a “Young Asia” that is congenitally unable to develop and be “civilized” due to its inherent socio-racial defects (notably, a lack of Christian morality and masculine strength). “Civilization,” it is suggested, will ultimately prevail over this weaker representative type, who serves as a warning sign for what India would become without British guidance (“should the Mutiny ever come to anything”): “India has learnt something from us; it knows the blessings of peace, order, and law; and it knows what it would be to fall into the hands of such men as Nena Sahib [sic].”21 Thus, while mobilizing Nana Sahib as a fearful trope that rationalizes British-led colonial violence, The Times simulta-

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neously manages that fear rhetorically by reducing the uprisings to the efforts of one Hindu man against an unstoppable European power. This difficult balancing act between instrumentalizing a symbol of terror to justify Britain’s revenge and ensuring that the terror it inspires can be controlled renders the “myth” of Nana Sahib fundamentally ambivalent. This is most obvious where confusions over Nana Sahib’s cultural heritage are concerned. Labeled both as Hindu and Muslim, he is marked by the colonizer’s fear of being overturned by the colonized “other.” Undoubtedly, the confusion over this cultural ancestry extends from the difficulty that some nineteenth-century writers would have had in conceptualizing Hindus as aggressive challengers to colonial power.22 In nineteenth-century Indological discourse, Hindus and Hinduism were typically equated with stereotypes of femininity (disorder, irrationality, seductiveness, amorphousness, and extremeness) in contrast with European masculinity (order, rationality, dispassion, positivism, and equanimity).23 Indeed, the uprisings were not even considered to be a serious threat until the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II, reclaimed his title and officially appended Muslim to Hindu interests. The tone of reports in The Times shifted in response from being broadly dismissive—“The affair will blow over,” wrote a British officer, “It is the opinion of the ablest officers in the service that the Sepoy army [referring specifically to the Hindus] is hopelessly effete” 24—to one of sudden concern— “This mutiny has assumed a very serious character,” wrote an editorialist, “The moment has arrived for action—sharp, stern, and decisive. An Imperial interest is at stake—nothing less than our dominion in British India.” 25 This change in tone as a result of Muslim involvement can be understood by recalling that the Mughal Empire, like the British, was a conquering and colonizing force, and therefore represented a far greater threat than the colonized Hindus.26 However, Nana Sahib was not just a Hindu, but a Marathan Hindu, meaning that his ancestors, like the Islamic Mughals, had a history of defying the British and the Mughals.27 Consequently, he automatically represented a more immediate risk to colonial authority. As Sharpe points out, “In the absence of a stereotype for the ‘savage Hindoo,’” what emerged was a confused conflation between the image of the effete Hindu Rajah (“cruel, yet physically weak, duplicitous rather than savage”) and the aggressive and despotic Islamic leader, “the ‘bloodthirsty Musselman’ [who] was often identified as the perpetrator of the worst crimes.”28 This confusion in the press was echoed in popular culture. For example, in Boucicault’s melodrama, Jessie Brown; or, the Relief of Lucknow, first performed at Wallack’s Theatre in New York in 1858, before being brought to Britain in 1862, Nana Sahib is associated with a specifically Islamic culture. 29 This is indicated by his use of Turkish words, such as giaours, and his celebration of “the feast of Mohammedah.”30 Inevitably, these same ambiguities were not limited to Britain, but were echoed across the Channel in France, for example, in an article that appeared in Le Siècle by Bernard:

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In both cases, Nana Sahib is clearly defined as a potential threat to British rule (and by proxy to a European “civilizing mission”) by imagining him not as a Hindu but as Muslim, a confusion that stems from the conceptualization of India as a land of passive Hindus ruled by a succession of stronger external powers, such as the Mughals.32 The desire to Islamicize the uprisings still continues today. During 150-year anniversary of the uprisings in May 2007, The Guardian printed an article by William Dalrymple (author of the populist history, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, 2006), entitled, “Delhi, 1857: A Bloody Warning to Today’s Imperial Occupiers.” 33 In this abridged version of The Last Mughal, Dalrymple drew parallels between the uprisings and “the Islamic insurgencies the US fights today in Iraq and Afghanistan.”34 This leads to a distorted repackaging of 1857–58 as a memorable example of the ways in which “western intrusion in the east” fanaticizes the colonized “other” and perpetuates radical Islamic violence: “In Delhi a flag of jihad was raised in the principal mosque, and many of the resistance fighters described themselves as mujahideen or jihadis. There was even a regiment of ‘suicide ghazis’ who vowed to fight until they met death.” 35 Although Dalrymple is not wrong to highlight the participation of Islamic insurgents, his excessive focus on these rebels, along with his emphasis on jihad, seem to be dictated by current media obsessions with Islamic “extremism.”36 Dalrymple’s selective vision leaves little room either for Indian insurgents from other social and religious cultures, or for perceiving anti-colonial (or anti-neoimperial) action as being motivated by anything other than religious fanaticism, and thus feeds into a pre-existing discourse that, as Wagner states, the “Uprising happened because the sepoys and Indian population had been misled by ‘designing [religious] men’ and not because they harbored any real grievances against British rule.”37 This also gives “the erroneous impression that the Uprising of 1857 began and ended in Delhi.”38 In 1857, it was precisely because Nana Sahib was able to bridge two religious cultures, which had not only been imagined by the British as discordant, but upon whose continuing disunion the future of British rule was constructed, that the Rajah of Bithur represented such a threat. As Disraeli commented in the Houses of Parliament,

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Our empire in India was, indeed, founded upon the old principle of divide et impera, but that principle was put into action by us not with any Machiavellian devices, but by merely taking advantage of the natural and [ . . . ] spontaneous circumstances of the country in which we were acting a part. 39

According to Disraeli’s polemic against the Whig opposition, the current crisis in India had been caused by Palmerston’s government acting in the same way as former “Mahommedan” and “Mahratta” powers, leading to a dangerous union of common causes between otherwise antagonistic socio-religious groups.40 In Nana Sahib’s case, his ability to straddle and even transcend these traditionally opposed cultural divisions was seen, therefore, as a genuine menace to British hegemony, and was precisely the kind of revolutionary threat that French authors, such as Darville, used to destabilize Britain’s victory tales. Nana Sahib himself manipulated this idea to ample effect in his official proclamations that spoke across religious divides, extolling India as a whole “to rejoice at the thought that the Christians have been sent to hell, and both the Hindoo and Mahomedan religions have been confirmed.”41 This union was symbolized by the dual flags reported as standing outside his tent at Cawnpore (one bearing the sign of Islam and the other bearing the Hindu sign of Hanuman), as well as his well-publicized collaboration with high-profile Muslims, such as the Bahadur Shah II and his confident, Azimullah.42 Indeed, the newly appointed Mughal emperor publicly acknowledged Nana Sahib’s decisive role in the uprisings in one of the first proclamations to be issued from Delhi, which claimed that “it is the intention of Cawnpore to root out this seed of the Devil,” the “Devil” being, of course, the British.43 Nana Sahib’s concern was even reported to have extended beyond India’s plight and out to other nations that were similarly suffering under British oppression, such as Catholic Ireland, to whom he wrote with words of encouragement: “a portion of the English empire [ . . . ] has risen against her, and is avenging [ . . . ] the slaughtered millions of her children, whose blood has been poured out as a river since England first set foot on her soil.”44 Using the example of Indian resistance, Nana Sahib encouraged the Irish similarly to “keep alive the faith in God’s justice! the faith in Ireland’s liberty! and England’s downfall!”45 This was not just about religion, but rather about oppression against colonial occupation, one that linked “that Ireland in the East,” as Marx named India during the uprisings, to the plight of the colonized world as a whole.46 Thus, unlike other prominent Indian leaders, labeled by The Times as “the wretched old puppet at Delhi” or “the imbecile King of Oude [sic],” Nana Sahib was considered an important and real challenge to Britain’s supposedly unshakable authority over (Hindu) India. 47 Since Nana Sahib constituted a serious threat to British rule, he also presented a prime target on which the metropolitan press could concentrate their vitriol and justify Britain’s military revenge. He could be used to manage the broader question of colonial crisis by effectively reducing the threat to one man. In the dispatches posted in the British and British Indian presses, which detailed reports of his involvement in the deaths of European colonizers, his image was con-

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structed by associating his name with a variety of derogatory epithets. He was known as that “arch fiend,” “that treacherous and cowardly assassin,” “that unhung miscreant,” and as “that now famous monster.”48 Circumscribed by such terms, Nana Sahib was transformed into the number one enemy and traitor of the state, as well as a fairytale monster, akin in horror to those other demonic tropes that had come to stand for (Hindu) India, such as the goddess Kâli and/or criminal groups, such as the Thugs and the Dacoits.49 The idea of Nana Sahib as a conspirator and traitor stemmed from the common belief (among Britons) that he had styled himself falsely as their ally and an ardent Anglophile. As an editorialist for The Times wrote, “this miscreant, [ . . . ] lived in the most friendly intimacy with the British officers who were soon to become his victims” during “the hour of treason.”50 Narratives produced after 1858 further corroborated the link between Nana Sahib and treachery. In Boucicault’s play Jessie Brown, for example, the themes of treachery, conspiracy, and criminality are underscored by associating Nana Sahib’s plot with the notorious historical conspirator, Guy Fawkes. Nana Sahib is described as a “Traitor!” who has betrayed the “flag of truce” and his spy, Achmet, is labeled as “a Hindoo Guy Fawkes, matches and lanterns, all complete.”51 Similarly, the British statesman and author, George Trevelyan, wrote a historical account of Cawnpore in which the court of Bithur is described as a “nest” of anti-British intrigue, carefully hidden behind an Anglophile façade.52 In this text, Nana Sahib’s collection of European objects and his habit of inviting Europeans to his palace for dinner were seen as part of his conspiratorial and criminal intent to dupe the British in order to regain possession of Bithur—“never for an instant [did he] forget the grudge which he bore our nation. While his face was all smiles, in his heart of hearts he brooded over the judgment of the Company, and the wrong of his despised claim.”53 Not only does the narrator deny Nana Sahib’s “despised” claim any rightful basis, but the dispossessed Rajah is also linked into a network of conspiracy plots rumored to have been hatched between Indian rulers and external powers to overturn British rule.54 The narrator imagines him “discussing with a circle of comrades the probability of the Emperor of the Russians joining with Brigadier Napoleon and the King of Roum [sic] in a scheme for destroying the power of the East Indian Company.” 55 Irrespective of the shifting alliances between these different countries prior to and during the uprisings, Trevelyan allies Nana Sahib to Britain’s traditional rivals, notably France and Russia, as well as with that supposed hotbed of criminality and terrorism, Italy. 56 Thus, Nana Sahib is inscribed into a complex and international web of intrigue and colonial rivalry, which concomitantly reveals an underlying fear that the colonized “other” could collaborate with external powers and overturn British rule. To manage this fear, Nana Sahib was often characterized as a fairytale monster, which had the additional effect of mythologizing per contra British colonialism as the heroic avenger of British women and children, and as the rightful ruler of India. In several Christmas pantomimes performed in December 1857, this fantasy was played out by staging Nana Sahib as the quintessential villain

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who needed to be dispatched with accordingly. His caricatural appearance in the pantomime, William II and ye Fayre Maid of Harrow; or Harlequin Fiction, Fact and Fancy by Nelson Lee, performed at the City of London Theatre, elicited the following response from one reporter: Passing events in India received their share of notice, and the bitterest enemy of the veritable Nana Sahib need wish him no more terrible end than that which subjects his representative at the City of London Theatre to the punishment of being shot from the cannon’s mouth and blown into a thousand pieces, to the great satisfaction of the delighted spectators.57

The story of Nana Sahib was also depicted at Madame Tussaud’s, officializing his admittance into Britain’s hall of fame. In 1857, a new waxwork display was opened, which placed him in opposition to that “avenger of blood,” Sir Henry Havelock, the first to have arrived at Cawnpore. The new attraction was reported to have drawn great crowds, Nana Sahib being “the only man perhaps for whose death the whole mass of Englishmen throughout the world thirst with a deadly longing.”58 These theatrical and imaginative stages thus provided Britons with a cathartic space in which to purge their feelings of anger towards the Indian populace by imagining the demise of Nana Sahib and, through this, the victory of the British. Yet, the fictional world of burlesque theatre and Madame Tussaud’s could only hold out the promise of such a conclusion eventually coming to fruition, without actually confirming its occurrence. Although the act of capturing and executing well-known leaders was a way for British authorities (and authoritarian texts) to display control over the rebellion and imagine an end to organized revolt, in reality, this desire would be perpetually held in abeyance by the ongoing failure of the British military to capture their foremost villain. Following the recapture of Delhi and Lucknow, the importance of capturing the remaining rebels, notably Nana Sahib, but also other leaders such as Lakshmi Bai and Tatya Tope, became intrinsically linked with a desire to tie up all the loose ends, thereby quashing fears of further disturbances.59 But instead of capture, decoy Nana Sahibs were tried and hung numerous times before another potential candidate would be found in either India or Nepal. The last sighting occurred forty-two years after Nana Sahib had escaped from the British in 1858. This was reported in a letter sent to The Times, which claimed that Nana Sahib had “by chance, [been] discovered by an old loyal pensioned subahdar of our former Indian army.”60 In lieu of this definitive end, writers at the time offered alternative conclusions to their “mutiny” narratives. In Boucicault’s play, a victorious ending is narrated by having Nana Sahib’s plot to kill the British prisoners fail. This is signaled by Achmet’s demise at the end of Act II, which is then followed by the arrival of the heroic Highlanders in Act III. True to its historical context, however, the Rajah himself remains alive, his “ending” coinciding with that of Achmet’s as he slips silently and inexplicably out of the play. In his unexplained disappearance there is a tacit acknowledgement that the British military has been

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unable to capture its most formidable enemy and, thereby, to bring a satisfactory end to insurgency. Thus, the mythologization of Nana Sahib as a fairytale monster resides partly in the fact that he was never captured, despite huge efforts by the British army to bring him to trial. Unlike fairytales, however, the story of Nana Sahib is not abstracted from “reality,” but refers directly to a key historical event. As such, reality intersects with fantasy so that events that appear to belong to the non-real are made all the more horrifying by being grounded in the “real.” The narrator in Trevelyan’s historical account of Cawnpore alludes to this when he writes, “Those fictitious tales of vice and atrocity [ . . . ] too often find a parallel in the realities of a great oriental household,” and that Nana Sahib’s story would more fitly be told in the wild and mysterious rhythms of the old Greek drama than in sober English prose; for in truth that story finds no parallel, save in the ghastly tales which hang like a mist of blood round the accursed house of Pelops.61

Trevelyan’s choice of Pelops—killed by his father, Tantalus, and fed to the gods for dinner—echoes rhetorically with the kind of horror stories being reported in the British and British Indian presses during the uprisings. 62 Just as the gods took their revenge against Tantalus in that mythical tale, so the British “gods” must take theirs against Nana Sahib and the Indian insurgents in a reality that all too often seemed tinged by the fantastic. Creating the myth of Nana Sahib was thus a powerful rhetorical tool that justified and gave direction to British violence. Yet the need to reshape the unfamiliar (“passive” Indians revolting against “powerful” Britons) into a more recognizable scenario also suggests the extent to which the uprisings disrupted the British colonial imagination. English-language texts tamed their fear of defeat by framing “reality” within a Manichean structure in which “good” would triumph over “evil.”63 Despite these attempts to circumscribe Nana Sahib within this limited representational framework, he remained an inherently ambivalent and troubling figure, whose legendary status would always reside in the detail that he was never captured, thus denying the British press and public their symbolic finale.

“The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend” In 1857, a cartoon of Nana Sahib scrutinizing his varying portrayals in the Parisian and London newspapers appeared in the satirical press, Le Charivari. The caption read “Nena-Saeb [sic] lisant les journaux de Paris et de Londres afin de savoir ce qu’on pense de lui en Europe” (“Nana Sahib reading the Parisian and London newspapers to find out what they think of him in Europe”). 64 This caricature not only highlights the extent to which Nana Sahib had become a subject of great interest in Europe (and particularly Britain and France), but also the va-

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riety of character portraits being generated on opposite sides of the Channel. 65 The French press often distanced itself from the excessive images of this violent rebel leader recycled tirelessly in British journals. “Nana-Sâhib [sic], ce génie de l’enfer, cet abominable mécréant, cette furie incarnée, comme on le nomme de l’autre côté de la Manche, est lui-même un chef maharatte, le dernier héritier des peychouas” (“Nana Sahib, that infernal genius, that abominable miscreant, that fury incarnate, as he is know on the other side of the channel, is in fact a Marathan leader: the current heir to the Peshwa”), wrote the journalist Bonneau in an article published in the progressive and bonapartist, La Presse (emphasis added).66 In contrast, Bonneau re-humanized the man whom the British had named “ce génie de l’enfer” (“that infernal genius”). He reminded his French readers that Nana Sahib was, after all, a Marathan leader and heir to the Peshwa throne whose right to inherit this title had been quashed “sous la main brutale de lord Dalhousie” (“under the brutal hand of Lord Dalhousie”), a historical point that went some way to explaining his hostility towards his colonial oppressors.67 Defined as the number one enemy of the British, Nana Sahib became a provocative and highly malleable political tool in the hands of many French writers, who were in part motivated by a sense of Schadenfreude. As the ensuing examples demonstrate, his demonic image was either held up as an unflattering example of the failure of British colonialism to “civilize” their “subjects,” or rehabilitated as a romantic and/or revolutionary hero who courageously fought against the unreasoned tyranny of British colonial oppression. This exploration of how France retold the story of Nana Sahib will therefore demonstrate, on the one hand, the construction of the Indian “other” as a foil to the western “self,” and on the other the ventriloquial use of a figure of anti-colonial rebellion to speak out against British colonialism and act as an agent of revenge for French colonial losses. As mentioned earlier, with the exception of a few French correspondents based in India, it was predominantly from the coverage provided in the British and British Indian presses that French newspapers drew their knowledge of events in India. Inevitably, British reports influenced those that appeared in France and, as such, perceptions of Nana Sahib as a “fiend,” “traitor,” “miscreant,” and “monster” travelled across the Channel, pitting the “civilized” European against the “savage” Indian, at least superficially. This trend would continue in later nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts. Rousselet’s Le Charmeur de serpents (1875), Verne’s La Maison à vapeur (1880), Bernard’s “Nana-Sahib: Histoire de la Révolte de l’Inde (1857)” (1895), Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s Nana-Sahib: Épisodes sanglants de l’Insurrection des cipayes en 1857 (1909), and Marenis’s La Révolte sans âme (1946) all present the Rajah of Bithur in a negative light, either by associating him directly with the massacres at Cawnpore (and, therefore, with barbaric acts against white Europeans) and/or by affiliating him with the criminal underworld of the Thugs and the Dacoits.68 But while such depictions of the Indian “other” can be analyzed using an East–West Saidian binary, such a method remains overly simplistic and, hence, problematic where

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French-language representations of India are concerned. When considering how French-language texts imagined Nana Sahib, there is an additional need to take into account the histories of colonial rivalry that underpin such representations and the extent to which they reveal a competing colonial discourse. Consequently, even though the images produced of Nana Sahib may not leave the confines of an Orientalist discourse, each of the French-language texts discussed here manipulate that binary to their own advantage. In other words, they place themselves within a “flexible positional superiority” that puts them in a “whole series of possible relationships,” but not just with the colonized “other” (or the “Orient”), as Said claims, but also with the “other” colonizer “without ever losing [ . . . ] the relative upper hand.”69 In order to challenge the British, the French press subverted many of the tropes that emerged in British writing as ways of imagining and limiting the events in India. Where its arch-enemy Nana Sahib was concerned, the subject of treachery provided a rich ground for exploitation. French writing could both (re-)assert and invert the idea of Nana Sahib’s duplicity by implying that it was the British, not this Indian “subject,” who had betrayed Europe’s “civilizing mission.” Of course, as Schmidt has argued, the concept of treachery and, specifically, perfidiousness in relation to the British was already well ingrained into the French national psyche, particularly after 1789, when the term “perfidious Albion” was used “to condemn England as the enemy of Europe who stirred up wars and revolutions, and made profit out of her trade in human blood.”70 Thus, although journalists on both sides of the Channel structured Nana Sahib within the same broad Manichean framework and believed that he had deceived the British by convincingly mimicking an “English gentleman,” this idea could also be turned on its head and used to critique British colonialism. To this end, several French newspapers implied that the superficiality of Nana Sahib’s European appearance additionally signified the failure of the British to “civilize” the Indian in a profound and lasting way. The “gentleman” who was able to change his “peau” (“skin”) at will and reveal, as the columnist Texier wrote for Le Siècle, “l’Hindou [ . . . ] dans toute sa férocité” (“the Hindu [ . . . ] in all his ferocity”) was, therefore, a powerful rhetorical device in the hands of many French writers.71 Texier emptied out the rhetoric of Britain’s duty to “civilize” its Indian “subjects” by stating, Elle [Angleterre] en a fait des gentlemen à l’extérieur, mais elle n’a pas encore traversé leur épiderme. Les Nana-Saïbs [sic] se ganteront juste; chausseront des bottes vernies et porteront même au besoin des pantalons à sous-pieds; mais s’ils se font Européens par la forme, il est à craindre qu’ils ne restent encore longtemps Hindous par le fond.72 If [Britain] has transformed them into gentlemen on the outside, it has yet to penetrate the skin. These Nana Sahibs know how to wear gloves and shiny boots and even, when necessary, trousers with gaiters. But even if they can ap-

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pear to be Europeans on the outside, they will remain, we fear, Hindus on the inside for many years yet.

These comments were undoubtedly influenced by the extensive notes that Texier had previously made on the British character that appeared in his published correspondence of the Great Exhibition of 1851, entitled Lettres sur l’Angleterre (souvenir de l’Exposition Universelle) (1851). These included comments on the Britons’ tendency towards intransigence and resistance against external cultural influences, which had resulted from their geographical dislocation from Europe.73 These character traits are reflected in Britain’s colonial practices. Inherent within the excerpt from Le Siècle is a dual criticism that was repeated in many French newspapers of that time: the first being that the British character was incapable of genuinely “civilizing” its colonized “subjects” (as signified here by Nana Sahib’s exterior appearance); and, the second being that the “Hindou” was congenitally uncivilizable (at least under British governance). The article concluded by advising that Britain ought “s’efforcer de gouverner avec plus de justice et de modération que par le passé” (“to try harder to govern with more justice and moderation than in the past”).74 Chantrel, the author of numerous religious works on the history of Catholicism and a journalist for the Catholic L’Univers, provided a similar illustration of the inability of British colonialism to reach the heart of the Indian: Voilà un Hindou dont on a fait un parfait gentleman; il est instruit, poli, élégant; il parle l’anglais avec la plus grande pureté, il adopte les usages européens, et voici qu’il est l’un des chefs les plus féroces et les plus dangereux de l’insurrection.75 Here is an example of a Hindu who has been turned into a perfect gentleman: he is educated, polite, and elegant; he speaks English with great fluency and he has adopted European habits; but it turns out that he is one the most ferocious and dangerous leaders of the insurrection.

This vision of the “savage” Indian playing at western “civilization,” as a kind of Aesopian wolf in sheep’s clothing, was so common in French-language newspapers that Le Charivari used it as the basis of a caricature to poke fun at its ridiculousness: “Avant l’insurrection Nena-Sahib vivait dans la société anglaise de l’Inde où il tenait naturellement le haut du pavé, grâce à ses talens extraordinaires” (“Before the insurrection, Nana Sahib lived amongst the elite of British Indian society thanks to his extraordinary talents”). 76 He is described as “le dandy séduisant et irrésistible des salons. Patience; attendez un instant et prenez la peine d’écouter. Entendez-vous ce piano aux accens suaves et magiques? Vous croyez peut-être que c’est Listz ou Thalberg [ . . . ]; c’est NenaSahib” (“the seductive and irresistible dandy of the salons. Be patient, wait a minute and take the trouble to listen. Can you hear the charming and magical notes of that piano? Perhaps, you think, it is Listz or Thalberg [ . . . ]: it’s Nana

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Sahib”).77 While this article parodies the Anglophobic Parisian press for reconfiguring Nana Sahib as a hero who warrants their support, the parody works precisely because Le Charivari is employing a satirical norm that assumes its reader will imagine Nana Sahib to be “uncivilized” and incapable of effectively mimicking the west.78 Conversely, Le Charivari could also use a more stereotypical image of Nana Sahib as a “savage” to draw a deliberately insulting parallel between his reportedly barbaric acts and the bellicose language of the Morning Post: “on ne sait pas qui est plus sauvage de Nena-Sahib [sic] ou du [Morning] Post” (“it is impossible to tell who is the more savage, Nana Sahib or the [Morning] Post”).79 In drawing what would have been uncomplimentary equivalences between the British and their colonial “subjects,” the French-language press highlighted, not the duplicitous nature of Nana Sahib, but rather the duplicitous nature of British colonial discourse. The uprisings signaled the collapse of this ruse. Grantpré in Le Constitutionnel described British colonialism in India as a “mirage, qui dans les affaires humaines prend le nom de prestige” (“mirage, which in human affairs goes by the name of prestige”).80 Although this “mirage” had once allowed control over India to be maintained by a “petit nombre d’Européens placés en face de ces multitudes” (“small number of Europeans positioned before the multitudes”), the Indian people had finally perceived its illusionary quality. Grantpré utilized the image of Hindu idolatry to depict this shift in Indian consciousness: “aux coups terribles qu’elles [la population indienne] s’efforcent de porter à l’idole devant laquelle, il y a quelques mois encore, elles se courbaient si humblement, l’Angleterrre peut mesurer l’étendue du péril et la grandeur de l’effort nécessaire pour le conjurer” (“judging by their [the Indian populace’s] attempts to destroy the very idol before which they were humbly bowed just a few months hence, Britain can judge the extent of the peril and the effort still required to avert its destruction”).81 Writing from a JudeoChristian point of view, British colonialism is the false god who has kept the Indian populace in a state of fanaticism from which (implicitly) they must be liberated. In terms of an Orientalist discourse, if the Indians are envisaged as a progressive force that is conspiring to dismantle this “heathen” deity, the British are thus characterized by their backwardness. Likewise the historian and editor of L’Union, Laurentie, remarked on “la facilité avec laquelle se dissout cet empire de la force” (“the ease with which that mighty empire crumbled”), concluding that, “Elle n’était donc qu’une apparence, cette organisation si glorieuse et si vantée!” (“That glorious and celebrated organization was thus nothing more than a sham”).82 The mutinies are used here to signal an end to what had been nothing more than a confidence trick: On disait que l’Angleterre possédait le génie de la colonisation à un degré inconnu des autres peuples, surtout de la France; et il nous fallait croire que sa présence chez les nations barbares était le commencement et la condition de la civilisation universelle. D’où vient donc qu’au signal d’indépendance et de révolte, les peuples régis et maîtrisés [ . . . ] par cette puissance de génie,

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n’offrent que des amas de bêtes fauves qu’aucune discipline morale n’aurait effleurés, dont aucun exemple d’humanité n’aurait pénétré la conscience et le cœur? (emphasis added).83 It used to be said that Britain possessed a genius for colonization that was unrivaled by any other nation, and especially the French. It was generally accepted that its presence among the barbaric nations was the beginning of, and the very condition for, the spread of civilization. So when the signal for independence and revolt was sounded, where were those who had supposedly been molded and mastered [ . . . ] by this powerful genius, and who showed themselves instead to be no better than pack wild beasts whose hearts and minds had been untouched by any form of moral discipline and humanity.

In this quotation, the Indian revolts become a point of reference through which to rebuke the often scathing attitude of the British press towards France’s lack of colonial ambition and its comparatively few colonial possessions; an attitude that recent events, such as the Exposition Universelle of 1855 had attempted to correct in response to Britain’s Great Exhibition of 1851. Britain is castigated for its persistent inability to transform the “bêtes fauves” (“wild beasts”) that (for Laurentie) still represent the Indian populace into dutiful, mastered “subjects” governed by the universal laws of humanity. As such, “India” and the uprisings are co-opted into a war of words between French and British colonialisms, providing Laurentie with the space to argue against his British rivals and in the name of “discipline morale,” “humanité,” and a European civilizing force based on Christian morality, as opposed to Britain’s “système d’avarice” (“system of greed”).84 The kind of moralizing tone adopted by Le Constitutionnel’s Grantpré and L’Union’s Laurentie when discussing the faults of the British can be discerned in many French-language newspapers that, while still defining the Indian as “barbaric” did not blame them—this being their nature—but rather blamed the British. “Si les Hindous sont restés barbares et se conduisent en barbares” (“If the Hindus are still barbaric and behave like barbarians”), wrote Veuillot for L’Univers, “à qui la faute?” (“whose fault is it?”).85 The answer is, of course, “l’Angleterre”: “Ces flèches qui la percent aujourd’hui, voilà plus d’un siècle qu’elle les aiguise; ces trahisons dont elle se plaint, elle en a donné l’exemple” (“These arrows that pierce Britain today are arrows that Britain has sharpened; these acts of treachery of which it complains were inspired by Britain’s own example”), specifically through the exploitation of “tous les princes et tous les peuples de l’Inde” (“all the princes and the peoples of India”).86 This was not, according to Veuillot, what a (Catholic) God had intended when he placed India under British tutelage. The result, as another journalist from L’Univers wrote, was that “Le système suivi par l’Angleterre peut produire des Nana-Sahib, pas autre chose [ . . . ]. Ce n’est pas ce qu’on entend aujourd’hui par la civilisation qui civilise véritablement” (“The system followed by Britain can only create Nana Sahibs and nothing more [ . . . ]. This is not what we understand today by

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the kind of civilization that truly civilizes”) (emphasis added).87 Rather, “la civilisation qui civilise véritablement” (“the kind of civilization that truly civilizes”) is (Catholic) France since only Catholicism, according to Chantrel, “pourra changer le cœur de ces populations ulcérées, et les attacher à la nation” (“will be able to change the ulcerated heart of these populations and attach them to the nation”).88 Thus, Chantrel’s polemic directly inverts British discourse by suggesting that it is no longer Nana Sahib who is to blame, but rather the colonial system that has produced him.89 Although these examples of French journalism clearly operate within a racial discourse that views the colonized “other” as in need of civilizing by the west, as this analysis shows, they were also able to nuance its dichotomies in order to incriminate British colonialism for having placed capitalist concerns above those of Enlightenment-based humanitarianism and Christianity. In this criticism lies a counter-narrative that implicitly promotes French over British colonial practices at a time when France was once again looking to expand its colonial territories under Louis Napoleon. 90 This can be seen most obviously in those texts that produced contrary and heroic images of the Rajah of Bithur that directly opposed the monstrous and demonic representations formed in Anglo-centric texts. As Le Charivari noted, with some degree of perspicacity, “le mot d’ordre de l’Anglophobie est de vanter beaucoup Nena-Sahib, d’en faire peu à peu une grande figure de patriote cuivré, un homme supérieur” (“the watchword of Anglophobia is to give high praise to Nana Sahib and little by little to transform him into a great, swarthy, and patriotic figure, a superior man”), a comment that alluded to the process by which Nana Sahib was reconfigured among the more Anglophobic branches of the metropolitan press as a character worthy of France’s support. 91 This same strategy can be seen not only in French newspapers produced during the uprisings, but also in literary texts that were published both during and long after 1858. For example, Félix Maynard’s De Delhi à Cawnpore: Journal d’une dame anglaise (1858) claims to be a testimony by a survivor of the bibighar massacre, Mme Hornsteet, in which Nana Sahib is presented as the savior of the Cawnpore victim. The story of Mme Hornsteet’s flight from Cawnpore was first mentioned by Texier in the “Chronique hebdomadaire” (“Daily column”) section of Le Siècle and was presented as a genuine eye-witness account of the massacre.92 A full account was initially published in seven installments in La Presse (between November 22 and December 3, 1857), before being produced as a book in 1858 (and republished in 1888).93 According to its author, Maynard, the narrative was transcribed from a verbal dictation given by a Mme Hornsteet, “une victime des révolutions du Bengale” (“a victim of the Bengali revolutions”).94 Maynard thus operates as the extradiegetic narrator who remains external to the main story, listening, evaluating, recording, and transcribing Hornsteet’s journey “pour ainsi dire sous sa dictée” (“under her dictation, as it were”).95 The tale recounts her fatal decision to flee Delhi with her husband, son, and daughter in order to seek refuge with the British at Cawnpore. En route, her husband is killed and, once at Cawnpore, the family is embroiled in the bibighar massacre, where Hornsteet is raped and her

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son and daughter are subsequently killed before her eyes. Only she manages to escape, before returning to Southampton in Britain and immediately moving to France to stay with her husband’s relatives. 96 When news of this story first came to light, Le Siècle’s Texier, author of the Lettres sur l’Angleterre (souvenirs de l’Exposition Universelle), noted that Mme Hornsteet’s narrative was a significant departure from the “official” versions published in the British press.97 Importantly, her report suggested that the stories of Nana Sahib had been severely exaggerated: S’il faut s’en rapporter à l’opinion de cette dame, qui a été, malheureusement pour elle, trop bien placée pour n’avoir pas vu comment les choses se sont passées, Nena-Saïb [sic] ne serait pas la bête féroce qui nous a été dépeinte par les journaux anglais. [ . . . D]ébordé par des soldats altérés de vengeance, il aurait subi le sort de presque tous les chefs placés à la tête de barbares; il aurait vu ses ordres méprisés par une soldatesque en délire, et lui-même, à l’heure qu’il est, ne serait plus que l’esclave de ses propres troupes.98 If we rely upon the opinion of this woman, who had the misfortune to be too well positioned not to have seen how the events unfurled, it would appear that Nana Sahib is not the ferocious beast that the British newspapers have depicted. [ . . . O]verrun by soldiers thirsting for vengeance, it seems that he has suffered the fate reserved for nearly all leaders positioned at the head of barbarians: it is thought that his orders were defied by a delirious army rabble while he remained nothing more than a slave to his own troops.

By referring to this supposedly factual account, Nana Sahib is transformed into a victim of sepoy provocation and aggression, rather than being seen as the main culprit of the massacres.99 The mentioning of Hornsteet’s narrative in the “Chronique hebdomadaire” section of Le Siècle implies either that Texier believed that this story was real, irrespective of the problematic logistics of Hornsteet’s voyage taking place within the given timeframe, or was willing to support his friend and colleague, with whom he had published a collection of poems in 1835, in crediting a counter-myth of Cawnpore.100 Either way, Texier privileges Hornsteet’s narrative as a genuine corrective to the hysterical Anglocentric representations of the massacre: “les mémoires de cette dame [ . . . ] montrèront sous son vrai jour cette effroyable catastrophe, dont on n’a eu jusqu’à ce jour que des récits tronqués ou exagérés” (“up until now, we have had nothing but incomplete and exaggerated accounts, whereas the memories of this woman [ . . . ] will show this terrible catastrophe in its true light”) (emphasis added).101 Imbued with a special status, Maynard’s “eye witness” is in an unassailable position that can be exploited rhetorically. Thus, Hornsteet, as literary creation, is a highly provocative character—despite and because of being a “Cawnpore victim,” she is a powerful figure through which to challenge the official versions of Nana Sahib. Notably, the name of this survivor does not appear in any contemporaneous or later British accounts of these events, unlike, for example, Lieutenant Mow-

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bray Thomson, a commissioned officer of the British Indian Army, and W. J. Shepherd whose survival tales are repeatedly cited in the bibliographies of “mutiny” histories.102 Hornsteet’s story was not translated into English and has since been ignored by British histories, not because of its lack of verisimilitude—the merest rumors were given the status of fact throughout the uprisings 103—, but rather because it did not correspond with the fixed idea of Nana Sahib, nor was it, strictly speaking, an account produced by a British woman. Despite its deceptive subtitle, Journal d’une dame anglaise, the main protagonist explicitly states that English is not her national designation, but provides no further elucidation. This biographical detail is shown to mitigate her response to the uprisings: Je ne suis pas Anglaise de naissance, je ne le suis devenue que par mariage, aussi aurais-je sacrifié volontiers tous les drapeaux et toutes les gloires de ma patrie adoptive, [ . . . ] tous les trésors de la compagnie des Indes, pour sauver la vie de mon mari et celle de mes enfants! Les femmes comprendront mon égoïsme d’épouse et de mère! Peter, lui, au contraire, mon mari [ . . . ] ne pensait encore qu’à sauvegarder le prestige de la puissance anglaise.104 I am not British by birth. I only became British through marriage. As such, I would have willingly sacrificed all the flags and glories of my adoptive country, [ . . . ] and all the treasures of the East India Company to save the lives of my husband and children! Women will understand the selfishness of a wife and a mother! As for Peter, my husband, on the contrary [ . . . ] he thought only of safeguarding the prestige of British power.

Although the idea of a woman who places familial duty (a traditionally feminized domain) above that of patriotism (a traditionally masculinized domain) is entrenched within a phallo-centric discourse, within the context of the uprisings her priorities can be seen as an inversion of contemporaneous English-language narratives, which celebrated a more masculinized form of female heroism in response to national danger.105 Boucicault’s play Jessie Brown, for example, celebrates the heroic patriotism of its eponymous heroine, who appeals to her male compatriots to show courage by “bleed[ing] for the auld braes [hills] of Scotland” rather than submitting to Nana Sahib.106 Quite apart from Mme Hornsteet’s stock femininity, it is her explicitly stated non-Britishness that interrupts the potential for her to subscribe to British nationalistic rhetoric. 107 Notably, the only time that she employs a national determinant is when she is seeking her own death—“Tuez-moi, je suis Anglaise! Tuez-moi comme vous avez tué mes enfants!” (“Kill me, I am British! Kill me just as you killed my children!”)108—and thereby clearly identifies the British, rather than the European, as the target of sepoy aggression. By speaking from the alternative viewpoint offered by this eye witness, Maynard’s text is able both to criticize British colonialism and challenge its imperial myths. In the first instance, Mme Hornsteet’s integrity is placed in direct contrast with that of her English husband, Peter, an indigo farmer. Whereas he wishes to shake “une fois encore et rudement le golden-tree (l’arbre aux

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roupies)” (“one last time and with vigor the golden tree [the tree of rupees]”) before leaving India, she is attuned to the detrimental effects that this kind of capitalist enterprise has on colonizer–colonized relations: “je lui faisais remarquer que nous avions beaucoup d’ennemis parmi les ryots [ . . . ] les ennemis naturels du planteur d’indigo” (“I would often comment to him that we had many enemies among the ryots [ . . . ], who are the natural enemies of the indigo planter”).109 In the second instance, Mme Hornsteet’s account was employed to contradict the version of events being published in contemporaneous British newspapers. For example, reports in The Times pertaining to the massacre at the Satichaura ghat (June 27, 1857) claimed that Nana Sahib had ordered his sepoys to open fire on Wheeler’s evacuees just as they reached their boats: “No sooner had they [the “famished garrison”] got into their boats [ . . . ] than Nena Sahib opened a fire upon them from the banks, and shot down every man, woman, and child within his reach.”110 In contrast, Mme Hornsteet describes this event as an unfortunate misunderstanding with dire consequences: pendant que nos bateaux quittaient le rivage du Gange, un petit dépôt de poudre [ . . . ] prit feu on ne sait comment, et quelques fusils chargés qui se trouvaient là éclatèrent dans l’incendie. Les Hindous, terrifiés par cette explosion, s’imaginèrent entendre la canonnade d’Havelock, et supposèrent que quelques soldats de Weheler [sic], restés exprès en arrière dans les retranchements, profitaient du voisinage de l’armée anglaise pour violer la capitulation. De là l’ordre envoyé aux batteries de la rive gauche de foudroyer la flotille partant pour Allahabad; de là l’exaspération des cipayes et de la populace, de là le massacre que le Nana fit cesser dès qu’il eut reconnu la nature de cette fausse alerte.111 as our boats were leaving the banks of the Ganges, a small store of powder [ . . . ] somehow caught fire and a few of the loaded rifles contained within exploded in the blaze. Terrified by the noise, the Hindus thought they had heard the sound of Havelock’s cannons. They assumed that some of Wheeler’s soldiers had deliberately hidden themselves behind the entrenchments and were taking advantage of the proximity of the British army to violate the capitulation. Hence, the orders were given to send the batteries to the left bank and to fire upon the flotilla leaving for Allahabad; hence, the exasperation of the sepoys and the general populace; and hence the massacre that was brought to a halt by the Nana as soon as he realized the mistake that lay behind this false alarm.

She summarizes, “nous avons été victimes d’une méprise et non d’un parjure” (“we have been victims of a mistake and not a betrayal”); a phrase that could, in many ways, underwrite this entire narrative with its implicit suggestion that Anglo-centric depictions of the uprisings, and of Nana Sahib’s pivotal and treacherous role within them, were both biased and erroneous. 112 The third and most controversial point is that this alternative account of the bibighar massacre not only vindicates Nana Sahib from any direct involvement

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in the proceedings, but additionally implies that the captives themselves were partially to blame for their demise. Mme Hornsteet describes how the captured women, especially “des veuves d’officiers ou d’employés supérieurs” (the widows of the officers and more senior employees”), insisted on maintaining contact with the outside world despite warnings to desist. She speaks of her feelings of mistrust and foreboding as the exchanges continued: “Le manège de ces dames m’inquiétait. Je révoquais en doute l’exactitude des rapports et de leurs espions, d’après lesquels l’armée anglaise ne cessait de remporter des victoires” (“I was concerned by the women’s little games. I questioned the accuracy of their spies’ reports which recounted an endless list of British army victories”).113 In contrast, her credulous British compatriots eagerly digest the propaganda and (like Jessie Brown) await for “le chant des cornemuses highlandaises” (“the song of the Highland bagpipes”) that would signify their salvation.114 Importantly, it is the discovery of this illegal correspondence, which is directly attributed to the defeat of the rebels at Kullempore, that incites the Indian soldiers and civilians to take action against the prisoners. While Nana Sahib holds a council of war to decide their fate, the people take the decision into their own hands and enter the bibighar: On délibérait encore sur notre sort au conseil de guerre, et la populace, impatientée, prononçait déjà notre arrêt de mort! Les correspondances de nos compagnes avaient été interceptées; on [la populace] leur attribuait les causes du désastre de Kullempore; nous devions donc être sacrifiées; nous le comprenions; nous regardions avec terreur la porte qui cédait peu à peu sous les efforts de la multitude.115 They were still deliberating our fate in the war council when the increasingly restless population announced our death warrant! The women’s communications had been intercepted. They [the population] blamed these letters for the disaster at Kullempore. We therefore had to be sacrificed and we knew it only too well. We watched with terror as the door gradually gave way under the strain of the multitude.

In this paragraph, the persistence of the captives in seeking external intelligence is explicitly linked to their ensuing deaths; a suggestion that would have been highly contentious given the quasi-religious regard with which the figure of the Cawnpore victim was held by many Britons at that time. Finally, Mme Hornsteet’s account provides a significantly different “Nana Sahib” from the monster created by the British press and consolidated in subsequent British texts. In De Delhi à Cawnpore, Nana Sahib is projected as a gallant hero who saves Mme Hornsteet and her children during the massacre at the Satichaura ghat: Oui, je l’affirme, pas un être n’aurait échappé à la mort, sans l’intervention du plus puissant des chefs de la révolte, de Nana-Saïb. Suivi d’un brillant étatmajor, il arriva au galop au milieu de l’arène, et un signe de sa main suffit pour

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faire rentrer les sabres dans leur fourreau et les poignards dans leur gaîne. [ . . . P]resque aussitôt je me relevai en bénissant la Providence.116 Yes, I can confirm that not a single person would have escaped death without the intervention of the most powerful leader of the revolt, Nana Sahib. Followed by his brilliant advisor, he galloped into the middle of the fray. A single movement with his hand was enough to see the swords placed back in their sheaths and the daggers put back in their scabbards. [ . . . A]lmost immediately, I got up and began giving thanks to the Lord.

This heroic and commanding savior is entirely incongruent with the image created by British newspapers at the time of writing. Rather than repulsion, Hornsteet feels indebted to the benevolent Rajah: “j’avouerai que j’éprouve pour lui un sentiment de reconnaissance plutôt que de le mépriser, de le haïr et de le maudire; n’est-ce pas à lui seul que nous avons dû la vie ce jour-là, ma fille, mon fils, et moi?” (“I will admit that I feel grateful towards him rather than any sense of contemptuousness, hatefulness, or malediction. Was it not to him that my daughter, my son, and I owed our lives on that day?”).117 The phrase “plutôt que de le mépriser” (“rather than any sense of contemptuousness”) is clearly directed against those, particularly the British, who had perceived Nana Sahib in a negative light. Speaking through this female eye witness and, as such, from a position of authority, Maynard’s text is therefore able to counter the fixity of Englishlanguage representations by exculpating Nana Sahib from any active involvement in the massacres and by rehabilitating him as the savior of the Cawnpore victim.

Remembering Nana Sahib after 1858 The Anti-Colonial Hero These counter-narratives of Nana Sahib would survive long after the uprisings. Twenty-six years later, the playwright and poet Jean Richepin would write and perform in a drame en vers, entitled Nana-Sahib (1883), which echoed Maynard in its glorification of its eponymous protagonist. A few years prior to the first performance of Nana-Sahib (September 20, 1883 at the Porte Saint-Martin Theatre in Paris), Richepin had been imprisoned, fined, and naturally catapulted to fame for the publication of a collection of supposedly immoral poems, La Chanson des Gueux (1876). Although by the time of this first performance a quarter of a century had passed since the bibighar massacre, the subject of Nana Sahib still had the potential to rouse strong feelings in Britain. For Richepin had created in the character of Nana Sahib a “conventional Romantic hero [ . . . ] motivated solely by patriotic considerations” whose primary role was to act as the honorable lover of Djamma, the daughter of the Rajah of Bithur, Tippo-Raï.118 The British press responded to Richepin’s portrayal unenthusiastically by accusing the playwright of having endowed his hero with “patriotic virtues, intended to

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captivate the sympathies of the [French] audience” and by protesting that “the hideous instigator of the Cawnpore massacres” had been invested “with the slightest touch of romance which could mark him out as being anything better than a ruffian.”119 It criticized the dramatization of this recent history for its potential to humanize Nana Sahib and destabilize the stock image of Nana Sahib as a demonic and treacherous villain (created by “authentic history”): “the ignorant among the spectators are more likely to have formed their opinions from a stirring play than from scraps of authentic history coming to them at second hand.”120 Of course, no such censure was leveled against those dramatists, such as Boucicault, who had staged the uprisings as a celebration of British heroism.121 The Times need not have worried about the ability of Richepin’s play to politicize its audience. It was not received well by its critics in France, less due to its subject matter than its artistic poverty. Writing for Les Annales politiques et littéraires, Brisson was scathing in his criticism, describing Nana-Sahib as having “aucun art, nulle gradation, nulle succession de sentiment” (“artless, without the slightest nuancing or emotional development”) and leading him to question whether the author was “mal disposé” (“in poor health’) when he wrote it.122 It was also slated by Ganderax in the Revue des deux mondes and Bornier in La Nouvelle Revue for having conflated several genres: “une pantomime militaire, et puis un opéra, et puis une féerie” (“a military pantomine and then an opera and then a fairytale”), wrote Ganderax; whereas Bornier stated “S’il veut continuer à écrire pour le théâtre, qu’il considère avant tout ceci: c’est que le théâtre et la poésie sont des choses absolument différentes et presque contraires” (“If he wants to continue writing for the theatre, then he should bear in mind that theatre and poetry are utterly different and nearly entirely contrary”).123 Bornier predicted that its limited popularity (it ran for thirty five performances and closed on January 26, 1884, only one month after its opening night) was likely to be fuelled only by rumors of “La magnificence des décors, des costumes, de la mise en scène, et surtout le nom de Mme Sarah Bernhardt” (“The splendor of the set, the costumes, the production, but most of all the name of Madame Sarah Bernhardt”), not to mention the titillation generated by seeing the celebrity couple, Richepin and Bernhardt, playing the role of lovers on stage as Nana Sahib and Djamma.124 More interesting than the artistic merit of this piece is, however, Richepin’s romantic portrayal of Nana Sahib and his use of the genre of the drame en vers as a vehicle for presenting a struggle against colonial dominance. As Sutton posits, Richepin’s choice of Nana Sahib may well have had its roots in his broader interests in anti-western movements and proletarian struggles, an interest that he had first expressed in his controversial collection of poems dedicated to those who had been rejected from, and were living on the margins of, society. La Chanson des Gueux (1876) had been criticized by newspapers, such as the Catholic L’Univers and its editor, Louis Veuillot, for its “revolutionary aspect,” which led to its condemnation on the charge of having offended public morals. 125

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Richepin had responded by protesting in a Socialist newspaper, La Tribune, where he demanded the right to “la liberté d’écrire et la liberté de penser” (“the freedom to write and the freedom to think”): Malgré la Révolution, en dépit de l’esprit moderne, nous n’avons encore ni la liberté de la plume, ni la liberté de la parole . . . J’ai peint les petits, les va-nu-pieds, les meurt-de-faim. J’ai tenté de montrer la boue dans laquelle la société les force à vivre; j’ai remué cette boue d’une main cynique, mais pitoyable. J’ai voulu y faire descendre un rayon de soleil; et on a trouvé cela malsain, immoral, monstrueux . . . En un mot, j’ai voulu faire chanter les Gueux, et les honnêtes gens viennent de me clore la bouche brutalement, avec l’éternel cri de guerre des heureux: “Les Gueux n’ont pas la droit de parler. Silence aux pauvres!”126 Despite the Revolution and the spirit of modernity, we still have neither the freedom to write nor the freedom to speak . . . I have depicted young children, deprived of shoes and starving with hunger. I have tried to show the muck in which they are forced to live by society. I have stirred this muck with a cynical, but not unsympathetic hand. I wanted to bring a ray of sunshine upon that muck, but they found it noxious, immoral, and monstrous . . . All I wanted was to sing the song of the Beggars, but those honorable men have come and forced me to close my mouth with the eternal war cry of those who are more fortunate: “The Beggars have no right to speak and the poor must speak not!”

These references to a disappointed revolution that had resulted in little change for the proletariat, to whom Richepin gives poetic voice, are transposed in NanaSahib to a subject matter dealing with colonialism. When transferred, these Socialist, indeed Marxist, sympathies can be seen as potentially anti-colonial in an age when New Imperialism was nearing its height. 127 He presented himself as a voice of the oppressed (“j’ai voulu faire chanter les Gueux” [“I wanted to sing the song of the Beggars”]) and an anti-imperialist, not in the sense of the liberal economists and capitalists who were against colonialism because it got in the way of free trade, but in the sense of a Marxist who perhaps saw Europe’s, and eventually the world’s, liberation from capitalist exploitation coming from the rising of the colonized peoples against their oppressors. 128 Perhaps anxious not to incite further condemnation from the French authorities, Richepin’s criticism in Nana-Sahib focuses not on French politics or republican colonial policies, but rather on that of the British. 129 As a politically engaged form of theatre, the drame en vers offered a suitable framework for repackaging Nana Sahib as a historical, anti-colonial hero who had attempted by all means necessary to emancipate his kingdom from the oppression of British colonial rule. 130 The uprisings form the politico-historical backdrop to the play’s central drama: the romantic liaison between Djamma (played by Sarah Bernhardt) and Nana Sahib (played by Jean Richepin). This relationship is threatened by

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Çimrou, a half-Brahman half-pariah, who bribes Djamma’s father, Tippo-Raï, by offering him the key to Shiva’s treasure in exchange for her hand in marriage. The first four acts follow the transformation of Nana Sahib from being an unpopular Indian ruler who is considered (erroneously) to be in league with the British, to his apotheosis as a figure of Indian liberation who is worshipped by his “subjects” as the Hindu deity, Shiva. In a speech delivered to his people, Nana Sahib aligns himself with the crowd by describing the pain caused by their mutual subjugation under British rule: “Je baisais cette main qui nous fourgeait des chaînes” (“I have kissed the hand of those who forged these chains”).131 Employing the rhetoric of slavery and emancipation, while recalling Marx’s quotation that “Any nation that oppresses another forges its own chain,” Nana Sahib implores his subjects to find the strength to break their chains by drawing on their hatred for the colonizers.132 This is depicted metaphorically as “Ce palais de ma haine” (“This palace of my hatred”) built from the blood of his “subjects”: “vos deuils en ont sculpté la porte” (“your grief has sculpted the door”).133 Through this oration, Nana Sahib intends to inspire an uprising that will destroy the colonizer, “Comme un dieu réveillé qui marche dans son temple” (“Like a god awoken who walks in his temple”), and will offer his people the chance to exact a necessary revenge:134 Ils ont soif de vengeance, et j’aurais des remords De ne point leur verser cette ivresse sauvage Pour y cuver l’oubli de leur long esclavage. 135 They thirst for vengeance and I would regret Refusing their lust for a savage avengement By forgetting instead their long enslavement.

Thus, rather than telling the story of a brutal massacre of British colonizers, Richepin’s play speaks of the revenge of the Indian people for their enslavement at the hands of the British. The climatic scene at the end of Act III, halfway through the play, depicts this moment as Nana Sahib gives the people (“la foule” [“the crowd”]) what they desire and allows them to enter the citadel where the colonizers are being held. The stage directions read, “Fusillade par les soldats et la foule. Les Anglais, femmes, enfants, blessés, tombent en poussant des cris. Une jeune fille debout, et fière, et quelques hommes, entonnent l’air du ‘God save the Queen’” (“Gunfire from the soldiers and the crowd. The British women and children, and the wounded fall to the ground crying. A young girl remains standing and proud, while a few men burst into a chorus of ‘God save the Queen’”).136 While this violence does not endear Nana Sahib or the baying Indian crowd to the spectator, the spectacle is softened by the lack of empathy generated by the script towards the British captives who collectively represent the pitiless rulers of India, while the bloodshed recalls obliquely some of the darkest days from France’s own revolutionary history.

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The last three acts are set in the post-mutiny period, during which time a less bellicose and more romantic side of Nana Sahib’s character is developed. Returning from exile and marked as a wanted man following the invasion of British troops, he re-enters Cawnpore in disguise as a “pariah,” an untouchable, in order to rescue Djamma. In his absence, Djamma’s father, Tippo-Raï, has not only agreed to trade her virginity to Çimrou for Shiva’s treasure, but has also treacherously sold his people to the British in order to assure the continuation of his pension.137 It is possible that Çimrou’s betrayal represents an elliptical reference to the Third Republic’s first two presidents: Thiers who had so brutally crushed the Paris Commune in 1871; and Patrice de MacMahon whose election nearly led to a monarchist revival. In contrast to this avaricious character, who is in cahoots with the greedy British capitalist, stands the exiled Nana Sahib who is remembered in Djamma’s lament as a courageous leader who, she predicts, will return to fight once more: Tu n’es pas mort! Parmi les chants de la trompette, Les cris, les coups de feu, le galop des chevaux, Tu reviendras encor [sic] pour des combats nouveaux; Et l’on verra du bout de ta lame brandie Le sang pleuvoir, ainsi que dans un incendie Des flammèches de feu s’éparpillent au vent. Je le sens, je le sais, tu dois être vivant.138 You are not dead! Amid the trumpet calls, The horses’ charge, the gunshot and the cris de cœur, You will yet return to fight once more; From the tip of your brandished sword ablaze, Blood will rain down like burning blades Of fire scattering like the wind through the trees. I know it, I feel it. Alive, you must be.

The play reaches its dramatic denouement in the caves where Shiva’s treasure is buried and, like Aladdin’s cave, is protected from entrance and exit by a password that only Çimrou knows. The final act opens with an outraged Djamma being led by her father into the caves to be handed over to Çimrou. 139 The timely arrival of Nana Sahib prevents the exchange (and the implied rape) from taking place, leading to a duel between the two rivals. 140 Çimrou is mortally wounded and refuses to relinquish the password, entrapping all three protagonists underground. Unlike the traitor, Tippo-Raï, and in opposition to Anglo-centric accounts, Nana Sahib’s character is shown to be irreproachable in his refusal to trade Djamma for his freedom. Instead, the couple decide to sacrifice themselves through the honorable act of self-immolation that serves ultimately to protect Djamma’s virginity. But more than just presenting Nana Sahib as a romantic hero, this final act of devotion celebrates him as a symbol of anti-colonial resistance in opposition to those less scrupulous Indian rulers (such as Tippo-Raï) who had collaborated with the British colonizer. By inverting Anglo-centric de-

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pictions of Nana Sahib as a traitor and a monster, and by recasting him as a figure of integrity and chivalry who contrasts with the treachery of the British, Nana-Sahib is able to gain a moral victory not only over the frère ennemi, which undoubtedly explains the outraged response of The Times in 1884, but also over the capitalist drive for colonial expansion and Richepin’s conservative political rivals.

The Eternal Rebel While this example from Richepin’s play shows how Nana Sahib, as a figure of colonial resistance, could be used to speak out against British colonialism, he could just as easily be manipulated to justify the need for an alternative colonizing mission. This usage can be seen in Verne’s twenty-third novel, La Maison à vapeur, published in 1880. By 1880, the Third Republic had begun to stabilize, the threat of a monarchist revival under Thiers and MacMahon having been quelled by the election of moderate republicans and the establishment of a formal constitution in 1875. Two years before the publication of La Maison, France had celebrated its third Exposition Universelle in Paris (1878). This event was designed to celebrate the newly constituted Republic by demarcating it from the Second Empire, marking France’s recovery from the Franco-Prussian War and displaying to the world France’s intellectual, economic, and industrial vitality. Allegorized in the bronze “Statues de Continents” that lined the façade of the Trocadéro Palace, France’s colonial efforts were increasingly concentrated on what was termed “la conquête pacifique” (“the gentle conquest”), meaning the development of infrastructure, particularly railways, a topic close to Verne’s heart.141 It is not surprising then, in this era of industrial and colonial expansion, that railways and transportation feature heavily in Verne’s La Maison. In a narrative detour led by the French narrator, Maucler, the subject of railways in broached with respect to the French Indian comptoirs. Arriving at Chandernagor, Maucler criticizes the French government for its lack of foresight in India having failed to bring a railway to this enclave just outside of Calcutta: Cette ville, abritée par le drapeau tricolore et qui n’a pas le droit d’entretenir plus de quinze soldats pour sa garde personnelle, cette ancienne rivale de Calcutta pendant les luttes du XVIIIe siècle, est aujourd’hui bien déchue, sans industrie, sans commerce, ses bazars abandonnés, son fort vide. Peut-être Chandernagor aurait-elle repris quelque vitalité, si le railway d’Allahabad eût traversé ou tout au moins longé ses murs; mais, devant les exigences du gouvernement français, la compagnie anglaise a dû faire obliquer sa voie, de manière à contourner notre territoire, et Chandernagor a perdu là l’unique occasion de retrouver quelque importance commerciale.142 Chandernagor, Calcutta’s former rival during the eighteenth-century wars, sheltered by the Tricolor flag but without the right to keep more than fifteen soldiers for its personal guard, is today defeated, deprived of industry and commerce, its bazars abandoned and its fort empty. Perhaps it might have renewed itself had the railway from Allahabad passed through, or at least somewhere along its

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walls. Alas, the British company was confronted with the demands of the French government and had to divert its route to go around our territory. In that instant, Chandernagor lost the only opportunity it has had to revitalize its commercial significance.

Viewing the comptoirs from the perspective of British India, Maucler expresses his regret for the missed opportunity to revive French power on the subcontinent, a mistake that echoes that made by the Versailles court under Louis XV when Dupleix was recalled at the height of his power and India was effectively lost to the British.143 In this period of late imperialism, Chandernagor no longer symbolizes competitive colonial progress, but rather France’s loss and subordination to the British government who had placed strict restrictions on France’s military capacity following the Treaty of Paris in 1814.144 While these subtle criticisms offer a glimpse into Verne’s attitude towards France’s failed colonial policies, the main narrative does not take place in the French enclaves, but in British India. It recounts a voyage aboard a géant d’acier, a mechanized steam elephant, designed by the British engineer, Banks. This is a novel about revenge between the rebel leader Nana Sahib and an old British soldier, Colonel Edward Munro, in a journey across northern India that will eventually lead to the climatic meeting of these two sworn enemies. Aside from the stereotypical images of Indian fanaticism that are liberally scattered throughout the text to color its scenes, it is Verne’s subtle representation of Nana Sahib that is of specific interest here. It is this that reveals an embedded desire to undermine the confidence of British colonial rhetoric in an era of ever-increasing colonial competition for new territories and particularly those located on the African continent. Quite unlike Richepin’s characterization, Verne’s Nana Sahib is more typical in its representational strategy: the protagonist is presented as a leader of a band of Dacoits, this being (as discussed earlier) an established stereotype in French and British writing for savagery and treachery. Beneath this stereotypical characterization, however, lies a desire to destabilize and write against the myth of British victory and dominance. Echoing many other western-centric narratives, Nana Sahib is positioned within a network of exoticist and monstrous conventions that inform how a nineteenth-century western audience might have imagined “India.” He is depicted as plotting a new uprising from his headquarters in the mountainous caves that were once home to the notorious Thugs: Dans ce pays [ . . . ] vit un peuple de Boundélas, fourbe et cruel, chez lequel tous les criminels, politiques ou autres, cherchent volontiers et trouvent facilement refuge; [ . . . ] là, sont nés les célèbres étrangleurs Thugs, si longtemps l’épouvante de l’Inde, fanatiques assassins [ . . . ]; là, pullulent encore ces terribles Dacoits, secte d’empoisonneurs qui marchent sur les traces des Thugs; là, enfin, s’était déjà réfugié Nana Sahib lui-même.145 In that land [ . . . ] there lives the Bundela, a deceitful and cruel people among whom all kinds of criminals, political or otherwise, voluntarily seek and easily

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That Verne sought to connect his Nana Sahib with these supposedly depraved “cults” is unsurprising given that they offered an expedient way of characterizing him accorded to the expected norms. Verne, however, was writing forty years after the Thugs had supposedly been eradicated from India (in 1841) and his novel is set ten years after the uprisings, in 1867. More than simply narrating the Indian uprisings through the eyes of an Indian insurgent (as Darville’s travelogue had done), Verne’s fiction focuses on how the memory of colonial violence (epitomized by 1857–58) continues to fan the flames of revolt among Indian people post-1858. A decade later, it revives the figure of the vengeful Indian revolutionary leader, Nana Sahib, who now wishes to avenge himself against the British by organizing a second Indian uprising. What is significant about La Maison is not then the somewhat predictable links between the outlawed practice of Thugi and Nana Sahib. Rather, it is Verne’s use of a ten-year time interval during which Nana Sahib (whose death remained unconfirmed) has become once more politically active, while the Thugs, who had supposedly been dispersed, have metamorphosed into a new criminal group, now called the Dacoits. These outlaws operate under Nana Sahib’s control—“Les Thugs, de sanglante mémoire, dont l’Indoustan semble délivré, ont laissé cependant des successeurs dignes d’eux. Ce sont les Dacoits, sortes de Thugs transformés” (“It seemed that India had been delivered from the grisly memory of the Thugs, but they have been replaced by worthy successors. These are the Dacoits who are Thugs reincarnate”) (emphasis added).146 The doubt suggested by the speculative phrase “semble délivré” (“seemed to have been delivered”) is a subtle insinuation that the British had not eliminated these criminal circles, but had merely caused them to retreat and regroup. Hence, Nana Sahib and the Dacoits, standing for the broader threat of Indian unrest, reside in an area that lies persistently outside the reaches of the authoritative arm of British colonialism. This unknown (and unknowable) threat, along with the implicit suggestion that the colonizers had failed to quash seditious and lawless elements of society, undermines the control that Britain was supposed to have over pre- and post-mutiny India, and thereby challenges their victory narratives. So in addition to subscribing to Euro-centric Indian stereotypes, Verne’s text plays on the colonizers’ fear of another revolt and carefully destabilizes the image of a pacified India post-1858. The inability of the British army to capture key figures such as Nana Sahib is used to great narrative effect by Verne. The very idea of Nana Sahib’s continued existence carried with it both the memory of (unpunished) past revolts and the potential for future uprisings. Reiterating the fact that Nana Sahib remained a specter of revolt in the post-“mutiny” years, his demise at the end of Verne’s fiction remains suitably vague. The British characters are denied a “satisfactory”

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conclusion since the end of La Maison hints that the uprisings have signaled the end of British colonialism in India, not the end of revolt. Indeed, Nana Sahib’s death is seen to be is irrelevant since the ideology that he embodied as an anticolonial force supersedes his earthly existence. In the words of the omniscient narrator, who replaces the voice of Maucler as the narrative reaches its end, puisqu’il n’y avait aucune preuve certaine de la mort de Nana Sahib, la légende allait reprendre ses droits; c’est que, dans l’esprit des populations de l’Inde centrale, l’insaisissable nabab passerait toujours pour vivant, en attendant que l’on fît un dieu immortel de l’ancien chef des Cipayes.147 There being no certain proof of the death of Nana Sahib, a legend sprung up amongst the population of Central India. To them their unseen Nabob was still living: they regarded him as an immortal being.148

This translation by I. O. Evans for Arco Publications overlooks the subtlety of Verne’s suggestion. In a more obvious way, the Samson Low English-language translation simply renamed La Maison as The End of Nana Sahib: The Steam House.149 The Arco translation represents a symbolic and narrative distortion of the more explicit French version by altering the significance of Verne’s story. It dismisses Nana Sahib’s legacy as little more than Indian totemism (another god in the Hindu pantheon) and expunges the reference to his skills as a military leader. In the original French, it is clear that the legend of Nana Sahib already existed prior to his now uncertain death. Since there is no physical proof to confirm this conclusion, the French text suggests that this myth will live on indefinitely among the population of central India to inspire further uprisings. 150 Thus, what appears to be a victory for the British rings hollow in the original French version since the uncertainty that surrounds Nana Sahib allows legend, and with it the hope of independence, to continue flourishing. What this suggests is that the legacy of Nana Sahib, set to become a “dieu immortel” (“immortal being”) who symbolizes the sepoys’ revolt, could not simply be erased (anymore than the underlying threat of further revolt) by narrating the uprisings as a British victory.151 In La Maison, the British community’s return to Calcutta, to the place where the journey started, is nothing more than a continuation of their sequestered post-“mutiny” life. They remain surrounded by a hostile and burgeoning Indian nation that anticipates the reincarnation of another “Nana Sahib” to lead a (this time) national revolution against this fragile group of colonizers. Colonial discourse thus comes to terms with the idea of the colonized “other”-turned-rebel by employing multiple strategies that differ depending on the text’s perspective. These include a reductive focalization on a central target (in this case Nana Sahib), metonymy (an individual is made to stand for the uprisings as a whole), demonization (the insurgent “other” is constructed as the antithesis of the British soldier or western colonizer), and amnesia (the rationale driving the insurgency and its multiple agents are forgotten). By foregrounding these strategies, this analysis reveals the traces left by colonial discourse as it

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struggles to understand and control the meaning of insurgency both at the time of its occurrence and in retrospect. The multiple and incongruous representations of Nana Sahib reveal all the ambiguities of an imperial narrative that must anxiously assert and reassert, but which always fails to define or fix the “other.” The many-faced “myths” of Nana Sahib could both justify British aggression against the Indian populace and be used by French writers to denounce the corruption of the British colonial system that had created him. Ultimately, the mythologization of Nana Sahib reveals a desire to regain and retain control over (the memory of) insurgency, while its counter-narration in French texts discloses a contrary desire to disrupt and challenge British colonial discourse by speaking through a controversial figure of colonial resistance. But in counter-narrating and ventroloquizing the rebellious Indian “other”, French representations cannot help speaking of loss, nostalgia, and the absence of an adequate response to British hegemony, and thus communicating a specifically Gallo-centric fantasy: India’s “freedom” from British rule and with it Britain’s demise.

Notes 1. Said, Orientalism, 7. Parts of this chapter have been published with kind permission from Routledge (Taylor & Francis). The original text can be found in Nicola Frith, “Rebels or Revolutionaries: Representing the 1857 Kanpur Massacres in English- and French-Language Texts and Images,” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 12 (2010): 368–82. The article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com. 2. Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1994; first publ. Chatto & Windus, 1993), xxiv. 3. Moore, 99. 4. The Times, September 17, 1857, 8. 5. Wagner, 6. 6. Wagner, 7. 7. In the French press, Bahadur Shah attracted more newspaper coverage than the Rani of Jhansi. By March 1858, when Sir Hugh Rose attacked Jhansi, interest in the uprisings had somewhat waned in France and typically included transcripts and summaries of British newspapers, as opposed to full editorials and opinion pieces. For example, in France’s two most popular newspapers, Le Siècle and Le Constitutionnel, it was only the latter that mentioned in passing the death of the Rani of Jhansi, despite the significant role that she played in the Indian uprisings; Le Constitutionnel, July 25, 1858, 1. 8. Wagner notes that “a number of noted historians of 1857, such as Majumdar, Sen, and Stokes, have rejected or strongly modified the notion of widespread conspiracy,” yet it “remains the standard explanation”; 19. As for Nana Sahib and other important figures within the uprisings, Wagner concludes that their involvement “was hesitant and responsive rather than callous and manipulative”; 26. 9. Said, Culture and Imperialism, xxiv. 10. In 1818, Baji Rao II was exiled to Bithur on the outskirts of Cawnpore after resisting Mountstuart Elphinstone’s attempts to reduce his power as the Peshwa in Poona; Wolpert, 203.

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11. For further information on Azimullah’s trip to London, see Hibbert, The Great Mutiny, 173; Ward, 40–48. 12. Ward, 46 and 52. Azimullah was reputed to have charmed a number of women during his sojourn in London (1854). Following the occupation of Nana Sahib’s palace at Bithur by British troops, General Fred Roberts discovered love letters from British women to Azimullah, which he later published as Letters written during the Indian Mutiny (1923); Roberts is cited in Gupta, 26; Sen, 122. 13. “The Mutinies in India,” The Times, September 16, 1857, 6. Of these prisoners, three were grown men, seventy-three were women, and one-hundred-and-twenty-four were children; Ward, 408. 14. The Times, September 17, 1857, 8. 15. Kate Teltscher, “The Fearful Name of the Black Hole: Fashioning an Imperial Myth,” in Writing India, 1757–1990: The Literature of British India, ed. Bart MooreGilbert (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 30–51. 16. The term “myth” is used here in the same way as Teltscher, who uses it to refer to the way that the Black Hole of Calcutta was narrated by men such as Holwell and Macaulay, and not to suggest that its occurrence was fictional; Teltscher, “The Fearful Name of the Black Hole,” 31. 17. Suleri, 3. 18. Jenny Sharpe, Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 7. 19. The Times, September 1, 1857, 6. 20. In nineteenth-century Indologist discourse, Hinduism was often seen as equivalent to India as a whole or, as Inden explains, as symbolic of the Indian mind; Ronald Inden, Imagining India (London: Hurst, 2000; first publ. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 85– 130. The ease with which India could be conquered (evoked in the quotation that appeared in The Times) is directly related to the essentializing of the subcontinent as a feminized Hindu space; Inden, 88. 21. The Times, September 1, 1857, 6. 22. Sharpe, 59. 23. Inden, 85–130. 24. “India and China: Calcutta, 21 April,” The Times, June 1, 1857, 7. 25. The Times, June 27, 1857, 9. 26. India was viewed among many nineteenth-century European Indologists as having been continually conquered by “outsiders beginning with Aryans and ending with the British”, while “its ancient civilization had survived into the present more or less unchanged”; Inden, 55. 27. For more information on the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century wars between the Marathas and the British, see Wolpert, 183–84, 191–93, and 200–04; Ward, 27–33. 28. Sharpe, 59. 29. Dion Boucicault, “Jessie Brown; or, The Relief at Lucknow,” in Plays by Dion Boucicault, ed. Peter Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 101–32. The first performance of Boucicault’s play in Britain was not until September 16, 1862 at the Drury Lane Theatre. It was promoted in The Times as “Mr Boucicault’s longpromised military spectacle” and was lauded for being a “most distinguished success,” attracting “an audience that crammed the house to the ceiling vociferating applause”; “Drury-Lane Theatre,” The Times, September 16, 1862, 10. For more information on the staging of the uprisings in London’s theatres during 1857–58, see Heidi J. Holder, “Melo-

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drama, Realism and Empire on the British stage,” in Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930, ed. J. S. Bratton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 129–49 (137). 30. As Thomson comments, “there is room for doubt about whether Nana Sahib would have used this Turkish term of abuse for non-Moslems in general, and for Christians in particular. Boucicault was clearly not sure that Nana Sahib was a Hindu”; Jessie Brown, I. 1. 108. 31. T.-N. Bernard, “L’Inde et les partis du passé,” Le Siècle, October 3, 1857, 2. 32. See chapter 3, note 26. 33. William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 (London: Bloomsbury, 2006); William Dalrymple, “Delhi, 1857: A Bloody Warning to Today’s Imperial Occupiers,” The Guardian, May 10, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2076320,00.html (accessed May 10, 2007). 34. Dalrymple, “Delhi, 1857.” 35. Dalrymple, “Delhi, 1857.” A recent BBC1 documentary, entitled Clash of Worlds (2007), similarly presented this viewpoint by linking the mutinies with current concerns on fundamentalist terrorism associated with Islam; Clash of Worlds, October 28, 2007, BBC2, 7pm (1 hour). In making this connection, Dalrymple and the BBC leave themselves open to projecting, to quote from Gilroy, “contemporary dynamics backward into circumstances with which they cannot possibly be congruent”; Paul Gilroy, Postcolonial Melancholia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 31–32. 36. Although contemporary newspapers might abundantly use this term in connection with Islam, it was an uncommon locution during the uprisings, used only once in The Times between the first mutiny in Meerut (May 10, 1857) and the Queen’s Proclamation (November 1, 1858), with reference to the call for “jehad” at the Meena Musjid; “The Indian Mutinies: Peshawur,” The Times, December 3, 1857, 7. 37. Wagner, 10. As Dalrymple explicitly states in The Last Mughal, his aim is to argue against those “Marxist historians of the 1960s and 1970s” that have viewed 1857–58 “as a rising against British social and economic policies”; Darymple, The Last Mughal, 22. 38. Wagner, 21. 39. “House of Commons (Monday, 27 July): The State of India,” The Times, July 28, 1857, 5–9 (6). 40. “House of Commons (Monday, 27 July): The State of India,” The Times, July 28, 1857, 5–9 (6). 41. “Nana Sahib’s Proclamations,” The Times, October 29, 1857, 12. 42. Hibbert, The Great Mutiny, 186; Gupta, 81. As Ward notes, however, Nana Sahib’s relationship with the Muslim community was fraught with problems, many of which were mitigated through his Muslim confident, Azimullah; Ward, 246–50. 43. “The Mutinies in India,” The Times, August 31, 1857, 5–6 (5). 44. “Ireland: From our own correspondent (Dublin),” The Times, September 30, 1857, 9. 45. “Ireland: From our own correspondent (Dublin),” The Times, September 30, 1857, 9. Other examples of Nana Sahib’s proclamations can be found in: “The Indian Mutinies,” The Times, September 22, 1857, 10; The Times, October 29, 1857, 8. 46. Young points out that Marx’s response to the uprisings was more ambivalent since he did not consider that “the material and social preconditions for independence, let alone socialism, had [ . . . ] yet fully come into existence in India”; Young, 106.

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47. The Times, September 1, 1857, 6. 48. “The Mutinies in India (From the Bombay Telegraph),” The Times, September 17, 1857, 9; The Times, September 3, 1857, 6; “The Sufferers by the Mutiny in India: Meeting at Bath,” The Times, September 11, 1857, 10; The Times, December 19, 1857, 5. 49. As Guha’s work on peasant insurgencies in India observes, British officials often conflated the act of rebellion (being open and public) with criminality and conspiracy (being closed and secret), despite their derivation from “two very different codes of violence”; Guha, 79. 50. The Times, August 31, 1857, 7. 51. Jessie Brown, II. 123–24. 52. George Otto Trevelyan, Cawnpore (London: Macmillan & Co., 1886), 29. 53. Trevelyan, 33. 54. For more on the threat of external powers to British India and particularly France and Russia, see chapter 4, note 128. 55. Trevelyan, 8. 56. The Crimean war (1854–55) lends credence to Trevelyan’s suspicion of Russian intrigue, although it also saw France fighting alongside the British; Tombs and Tombs, 356–65. The discovery of a plot led by the Italian, Mazzini, to assassinate Louis Napoleon during the uprisings undoubtedly lent more credence to the stereotype of Italy as a breeding ground for terrorists; The Times, September 11, 1857, 6. 57. “The Christmas Pantomimes and Entertainments: City of London Theatre,” The Times, December 28, 1857, 10. Similarly, during the performance of a pantomime, entitled Harlequin Prince Love-the-Day and Queen Busy Bec, or Little Red Riding Hood and the Elfin Wolf (at the Victoria Theatre), it was reported that “One incident remains to be noticed, and that was the shout of execration which a passing allusion to the name of Nana Sahib produced from the audience. So spontaneous and characteristic was this ebullition of popular feeling that one could have wished no higher retribution for this arch ruffian than that he should have been given over, had the thing been possible, to the fury of the crowd from whom it emanated”; “The Christmas Pantomimes and Entertainments: The Victoria,” The Times, December 28, 1857, 10. 58. “The Christmas Pantomimes and Entertainments: Madame Tussaud’s,” The Times, December 28, 1857, 10–11 (10). 59. “All that remains is a set of isolated bands, ravaging the country without purpose, system, or hope of success,” declared an editorialist for The Times, “To rout and exterminate this ruffian rabble must be the work of the troops who have by this time poured into the country, but who will have found the main strength of the mutineers destroyed before they arrived”; The Times, November 12, 1857, 6. 60. A. Vickers, “The Nana Sahib,” The Times, September 9, 1955, 3. 61. Trevelyan, 29 and 33. “India” as a site of fantasy is, of course, an idée réçue of colonial discourse analysis, which shows how this geographical space is used as a backdrop to Euro-centric tales of adventure and romance. For more information, see Martin Green, Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980); Nigel Leask, British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Said, Orientalism; Said, Culture and Imperialism; Ravi, L’Inde romancée; Assayag, L’Inde fabuleuse; Lombard, Champion, and ChambertLoir, Rêver l’asie; Weinberger-Thomas, L’Inde et l’imaginaire. 62. For example, an article appeared in the Bombay Telegraph in which it was reported that, “Children have been compelled to eat the quivering flesh of their murdered parents, after which they were literally torn asunder by the laughing fiends who sur-

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rounded them.” It concluded, “If ever a nation was made the instrument of vengeance of an insulted Deity, that nation is England; and we trust that she will strike and spare not”; “The Mutinies in India (from the Bombay Telegraph),” The Times, September 17, 1857, 9. 63. As Brantlinger writes, “At Cawnpore the world splits apart: the well becomes a widening chasm dividing the forces of absolute righteousness from the demonic armies of the night”; Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 204. 64. Le Charivari, November 23, 1857, 3. 65. Indian authors have also provided contrasting images of Nana Sahib to those found in British narratives. The national historian, Savarkar, for example, lauds him as a great national hero, “who fought for liberty and for his country,” and describes him and the Rani of Jhansi as “two bright pearls in the necklace of Mother India”; Savarkar, 25– 26. Similarly, Malgonkar’s fiction, The Devil’s Wind: Nana Saheb’s Story, A Novel (1972), presents Nana Sahib in a sympathetic light and engages directly with his transformation into a “monster of ferocity” within British historiography and fiction; Manohar Malgonkar, The Devil’s Wind: Nana Saheb’s Story, A Novel (New Delhi: Penguin, 1988; first publ. Hamilton, 1972), 253. As Nana Sahib states, the British “needed villainy of the requisite magnitude to serve as a backdrop for heroism. How hollow would Havelock’s victories have seemed if I, Nana Saheb [sic], had not been their principal objective!”; Malgonkar, 253. 66. Alexandre Bonneau, “[ . . . ] Mahrattes,” La Presse, October 8, 1857, 1–2 (1). 67. Bonneau, La Presse, October 8, 1857, 1. 68. As Wagner notes, “the fears associated with the Thugs [during 1857] were merely a distillate of common fears of the indigenous population more generally. [ . . . ] The Thugs and the Uprising of 1857 embroiled all that the British feared from their Indian subjects: when combined they constituted the ultimate scenario of colonial paranoia”; 9. 69. Said, Orientalism, 7. 70. H. D. Schmidt, “The Idea and Slogan of ‘Perfidious Albion,’” Journal of the History of Ideas 14 (1953): 604–16 (610). 71. “L’insurrection éclate, le gentleman change de peau et l’Hindou reparait dans toute sa férocité. Il viole les femmes auprès desquelles il se montrait galant la veille; il éventre les enfans, les coupe en morceaux, et égorge froidement ses amis les officiers britanniques, après leur avoir les promis la vie sauve” (“The insurrection breaks out, the gentleman changes his appearance, and the Hindu reappears in all his ferocity. He rapes the same women to whom, only the day before, he had appeared so gallant; he disembowels the children, cuts them into pieces, and, having promised to save their lives, stabs his friends, the British officers, in cold blood”); Edmond Texier, “Chronique hebdomadaire,” Le Siècle, September 13, 1857, 2. 72. Texier, Le Siècle, September 13, 1857, 2. 73. “L’insulaire, en effet, résiste de toutes des forces à l’influence des usages qui lui viennent de l’autre côté du détroit, et si commercialement il est pour la pratique du libre échange, au point de vue moral, il est entièrement opposé à l’exportation continentale. Ce qui explique la physionomie propre et originale du peuple anglais, dans ce XIX e siècle où la plupart des autres nations ont un certain air de parenté” (“In fact, the islander uses all of his strength to resist the influences that come from the other side of the channel. If he is in favor of free exchange at a commercial level, he is entirely against exportation on the continent at a moral level, all of which explains the unique physiognomy of the British people in a century where the majority of other nations have come to resemble each other

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to some extent”); Edmond Texier, Lettres sur l’angleterre (souvenirs de l’Exposition Universelle) (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1851), 100–101. 74. Texier, Lettres sur l’angleterre, 100–101. 75. J. Chantrel, L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 6, 1857, 1. 76. Clément Caraguel, “Un gentleman accompli,” Le Charivari, October 9, 1857, 1– 2 (1–2). 77. Caraguel, Le Charivari, October 9, 1857, 2. 78. For more on mimicry, see Bhabha, “Of mimicry and man: The ambivalence of colonial discourse,” in The Location of Culture, 121–31. 79. Clément Caraguel, “La cage de fer du Morning-Post,” Le Charivari, October 3, 1857, 1. 80. L. de Grantpré, “Paris, 30 septembre,” Le Constitutionnel, October 1, 1857, 1. 81. Grantpré, Le Constitutionnel, October 1, 1857, 1. 82. Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, September 8, 1857, 1. 83. Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, September 8, 1857, 1. 84. Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, September 8, 1857, 1. 85. Louis Veuillot, “France: De la révolution des Indes (1e article),” L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 9, 1857, 1. 86. Veuillot, L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 9, 1857, 1. 87. J. Chantrel, L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 6, 1857, 1. 88. J. Chantrel, L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 6, 1857, 1. 89. Marx made a similar point in an article written for the New York Daily Tribune on 4 September 1857: “However infamous the conduct of the sepoys, it is only the reflex, in a concentrated form, of England’s own conduct in India”; Marx and Engels, 91. 90. Anceau, 367. 91. Clément Caraguel, “La proclamation de Nena-Sahib,” Le Charivari, September 26, 1857, 1–2 (1). 92. Edmond Texier, “Chronique hebdomadaire,” Le Siècle, November 1, 1857, 2. 93. Félix Maynard, “Variétés: De Delhi à Cawnpore: Journal d’une dame anglaise,” La Presse, November 22, 1857, 2–3; November 23, 1857, 2–3; November 24, 1857, 2–3; November 30, 1857, 3; December 1, 1857, 2–3; December 2, 1857, 2–3; December 3, 1857, 2–3. 94. Maynard, 5. 95. Maynard, 2. 96. Maynard, 1. 97. “[L]e récit qu’elle fait de toutes les scènes auxquelles elle a été mêlée diffère un peu des relations du Times, du Morning Chronicle et des autres feuilles anglaises” (“The account that she relayed of all the scenes in which she had been caught up differs somewhat from those recounted in the Times, the Morning Chronicle, and other British papers”); Edmond Texier, “Chronique hebdomadaire,” Le Siècle, November 1, 1857, 2. 98. Edmond Texier, “Chronique hebdomadaire,” Le Siècle, November 1, 1857, 2. 99. For alternative accounts of Nana Sahib’s alleged part in the Cawnpore massacres, see Gupta, 69–72 and 116–18; Mukherjee, “Satan Let Loose upon Earth,” 103 and 114– 15; Sen, 132–34, 144–46, and 155–56. 100. A similar journey was made during the uprisings by Reverend Hay, an American missionary stationed in Allahabad, who took eighty six days to travel from Allahabad to Calcutta (by steamboat), and from Calcutta to Southampton via Egypt; “A Missionary’s account of the Indian Outbreak,” The Times, September 16, 1857, 4. A period of one hundred and five days elapses between Mme Hornsteet’s approximate date of departure

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from Cawnpore (sometime after July 15, 1857) to the printing of her story in Le Siècle (November 1, 1857). Moreover, her journey started nearly two hundred kilometers further away than Reverend Hay’s, necessitating an additional overland journey from Cawnpore to Allahabad (after which she, like Hay, took the steamboat from Calcutta to Southampton via Suez), and from Southampton to Paris. 101. Edmond Texier, “Chronique hebdomadaire,” Le Siècle, November 1, 1857, 2. 102. Both W. J. Shepherd and Mowbray Thomson escaped from the second massacre at the Satichaura ghat (June 27, 1857) and subsequently published their stories as A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore during the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 (1857) and The Story of Cawnpore (1859). During the uprisings, The Times made no reference to Mme Hornsteet despite high levels of interest in locating possible survivors. Moreover, one of the most extensive recent accounts of the Cawnpore massacres, Ward’s Our Bones are Scattered (1996), makes no mention of a Mrs Hornsteet. 103. Guha, 251–77; Sharpe, 61–69; Bhabha, 198–211; Wagner, passim. 104. Maynard, 35–36. 105. Another example can be found in a letter to Henry Morley, written by Charles Dickens, who said that his novella dedicated to the Indian uprisings and entitled The Perils of Certain English Passengers (1857) was inspired by a desire “to shadow out [ . . . ] the bravery of our ladies in India”; Charles Dickens, “To Henry Morley (18 October 1857),” in The Letters of Charles Dickens, ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson, 8 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965–2002), 8:468–469. 106. Jessie Brown, I. 3. 115. 107. As Gould has argued, the uprisings provided “an opportunity for metropolitan consolidation” by forging “a greater British identity in the face of an imperial crisis, uniting the people of England and Scotland against the mutinous hordes of India”; Gould, “Role Britannia,” 196. 108. Maynard, 250. 109. Maynard, 6–7. 110. The Times, August 31, 1857, 7. See also, “The Massacre at Cawnpore,” The Times, August 31, 1857, 5. Trevelyan would later describe this moment as “the memorable treachery of Cawnpore”; Trevelyan, 108–09. 111. Maynard, 291. 112. Maynard, 290. 113. Maynard, 292–93. 114. Maynard, 293. Jessie Brown, III. 131. 115. Maynard, 296. 116. Maynard, 289. The Indian national historian, Sen, would later write a similar account of the Satichaura ghat: “It cannot be gainsaid that the lives of the women and children, who escaped sepoy bullets and sabres that morning, were saved by Nana, and it was due to his orders that the massacre was stopped”; Sen, 145. 117. Maynard, 290. 118. Howard Sutton, The Life and Work of Jean Richepin (Geneva: Droz, 1961), 165. 119. The Times, December 28, 1883, 7. 120. The Times, December 28, 1883, 7. 121. The reviewer commented, “It is not too much to say that the good fortune of this piece is fully deserved. [ . . . ] The picture of extreme distress [inside the Lucknow residency] is so well composed [ . . . ] that the sympathies of the audience are secured for the whole mass of sufferers, and they are relieved as well as Lucknow when an overpow-

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ering force drives the rebels from the stage. The final struggle is capitally managed, and the curtain descends on a most impressive tableau, while the orchestra plays ‘God save the Queen’”; “Drury-Lane Theatre,” The Times, September 16, 1862, 10. 122. Adolphe Brisson, “Causerie théatrale,” Les Annales politiques et littéraires, December 30, 1883, 422–23 (422). 123. Louis Ganderax, “Revue dramatique,” Revue des deux mondes, January 15, 1884, 453–64 (463); Henri de Bornier, “Revue du theatre: Drame et comédies,” La Nouvelle Revue, January 1, 1884, 187–99 (198). 124. Henri de Bornier, “Revue du theatre: Drame et comédies,” La Nouvelle Revue, January 1, 1884, 187–99 (198). Jean Marais, who was supposed to play the lead role of Nana Sahib, pulled out at the last minute and was replaced by Richepin; Sutton, 65. 125. Sutton, 15–16. 126. Sutton, 17. 127. See previous comments on Marx in chapter 2, 30. 128. Young, 89. “Instead of waiting for liberation from the working class of the imperial power, colonized peoples should now play a key, active role in initiating European and world revolution from the colonies”; Young, 107. 129. Sutton argues that Richepin saw in Nana Sahib the same “incarnation of the fierce independence and the hatred of Occidental civilization which he admired in the Turanians, so often celebrated in his early writings”; Sutton, 163. 130. The drame en vers was produced under the Third Republic and was used to treat “exalted themes in rhetorical verses against a pseudo-historical background”; Sutton, 152. It had evolved from the eighteenth century drame created by Diderot, which was used by the philosophes as a vehicle for “social and moral progress”; Peter France, ed., The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 256. 131. Nana-Sahib, II. 3. 57. 132. Young, 106. 133. Nana-Sahib, II. 3. 57. 134. Nana-Sahib, II. 3. 57. 135. Nana-Sahib, II. 3. 59. 136. Nana-Sahib, III. 11. 75. 137. Nana-Sahib, V. 5. 101–02. 138. Nana-Sahib, V. 5. 102. 139. “Ainsi deux trafiquants disputant d’un marché” (“There they are, two traffickers arguing over their deal”), Djamma cries, “Et l’objet du trafic, c’est mon cœur arraché!” (“But it is my heart, ripped apart, that is the object of their sale”); Nana-Sahib, VII. 1. 121. 140. In response to Djamma’s protestations, Çimrou states, “Ah! ce farouche orgueil comme un fard te décore. Vivante ou morte, soit! Je t’aurai” (“Ah! You adorn yourself with that ferocious egoism. But dead or alive, I will have you!”), and the stage directions read that “Il se rue sur elle” (“He rushes towards her”); Nana-Sahib, VII. 1. 122. 141. Conklin, 6. For example, in the same year that La Maison was published, a contract with the Senegalese king, Lat Dyor Dio, had just been signed to construct “la ligne de chemin-de-fer Dakar-Saint-Louis du Sénégal” (“the Senegalese Dakar-Saint-Louis railway line”), effectively ending the king’s authority there. 142. Verne, La Maison, 81. 143. As Ferro notes, “Dupleix devint un héros lorsque la France voulut se redonner un Empire, après 1870, et que son souvenir [ . . . ] ressuscita la haine des Anglais: entre 1881 et 1913 furent publiés quinze ouvrages sur Dupleix et la Compagnie française des

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Indes” (“Dupleix became a hero when, after 1870, France wanted to acquire an Empire for itself and his memory [ . . . ] revived hatred for the British. Between 1881 and 1913, fifteen works on Dupleix and the French East India Company were published”); Ferro, 91. 144. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 21. 145. Verne, La Maison, 203–04. 146. Verne, La Maison, 395. 147. Verne, La Maison, 437. 148. Jules Verne, The Steam House (Part II): Tigers and Traitors, trans. I. O. Evans (London: Arco Publications, 1959), 175. 149. Alternative titles given to the English-language editions of La Maison can be seen by accessing the following URL: [accessed March 1, 2007]. 150. As Herrenschmidt has argued, “ce qui capte la prodigieuse imagination de Jules Verne, c’est l’avenir politique de la péninsule. La Maison à Vapeur donne à voir l’Inde en marche dans l’Histoire” (“It is the political future of the peninsula that captivates the prodigious imagination of Jules Verne. La Maison à Vapeur shows India moving forward through History”); Clarisse Herrenschmidt, “La forêt d’acclimatation. Inde et imaginaire chez Jules Verne,” in L’Inde et l’imaginaire, ed. Catherine Weinberger-Thomas (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1988), 125–132 (132). 151. Verne, La Maison, 437.

CHAPTER FOUR

Massacring the Myth: Telling Tales of Revenge

The Writing on the Wall If Nana Sahib became the most notorious of all the Indian insurgents, it was only because his name was inexorably connected to one of the most memorable episodes of the uprisings: the Cawnpore massacres. These events, and particularly the final massacre of the prisoners held in the bibighar (July 15, 1857), created the idea of the white female victim whose cruel fate needed to be avenged at the hands of the British colonizer. The “myth” of Cawnpore emerged from a sensationalist British press that, from September 1857 onwards, immersed itself in the gory details of “unspeakable” atrocities committed by Indian insurgents against innocent white prisoners.1 Reported rumors, pictures, and written narratives further consolidated the memory of Cawnpore through repeated tropes, such as the images of the blood-soaked prison walls and the well filled with discarded white bodies that came to stand for Indian “savagery.”2 The walls themselves were transformed into a memorial site that was made to speak for the deceased, as the war correspondent, William Howard Russell, noted in My Diary in India, in the Year 1858–9 (1860): the writing [ . . . ] on the walls of the slaughter-house [the bibighar] [ . . . ] did not exist when Havelock entered the place, and therefore was not the work of any of the poor victims. It has excited many men to fury—the cry has gone all over India. [ . . . ] God knows the horrors and atrocity of the pitiless slaughter needed no aggravation.3

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As this excerpt suggests, it was not those who died there that had inscribed the words on the walls, but rather others (possibly Havelock’s men) who had added these messages retrospectively. Those who visited the site imagined this false evidence to be the last words of the victims, and they can thus be seen metaphorically as the mythical language on which the narrative of Britain’s revenge was constructed. The imagined scenes of the bibighar massacre operated as a synecdoche for the revolts as a whole by epitomizing the horror of Indian rebellion for a Victorian public versed in the discourse of British colonial dominance. The imagined “cry” of the “poor victims” as they breathed their last became, as Russell noted, the battle cry for revenge that would go “all over India.” As such, it was also these images that became the major discursive strategy to justify the bloody retribution demanded by the press and carried out by British (and Britishled) soldiers, and to exculpate the memory of British colonial violence long after the event.4 However, if British representations of Cawnpore constructed an idiom of revenge around the overdetermined site of the bibighar, the idea of the female victim operates, to borrow Suleri’s phrasing, as a basic figure “for the anxiety of empire” by concomitantly revealing the “psychic disempowerment” lying at the heart of Britain’s tales of overseas heroism. 5 As this chapter will explore, these narratives remain troubled by both the fear of the colonized “other” and the unavoidable conspicuousness of the brutality that they wished to obscure. It was precisely this fear underpinning the colonizers’ uncompromising revenge that French-language texts would exploit in their retelling of Cawnpore. In doing so, they constructed an image of the British colonial “other” that was a direct counter-narration of the confident rhetoric displayed in the Great Exhibition of 1851 and projected through Britain’s victory narratives. As the final chapter will subsequently show, it was this debilitated image that could be used as a foil to the creation of France’s emerging “mission civilisatrice,” one that could be used to justify its own colonial expansion and rationalize its own acts of violence throughout the nineteenth century.

Displacements of Fear: The “Myth” of Cawnpore In 1857, the “traumatic scene”, to borrow Freud’s phrasing, imagined to have taken place in the bibighar provided the violence and the “hysteria” of the campaigns being carried out against the Indian populace—by men such as Sir Henry Havelock and his movable column of 78th Highlanders, and Colonel James Neill’s “execution parties”6—with a rational justification.7 Within the context of Cawnpore, Neill’s merciless declarations, exhorting his troops to punish the Indian insurgents, could be made to seem reasonable rather than excessive, at least to a mid-nineteenth-century British audience caught in the middle of a colonial war:

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Whenever a rebel is caught he is immediately tried, and unless he can prove a defence he is sentenced to be hanged at once; but the chief rebels or ring leaders I make first clean up a certain portion of the pool of blood, still two inches deep, in the shed where the fearful murder and mutilation of women and children took place.8

By connecting these punitive rituals to the emotive site of the bibighar, Neill was able to justify and even legalize his actions through an exceptional “strange law” invoked ten days after the Cawnpore massacre (July 25, 1857).9 Through this law, Neill legalized his punitive actions, his defense composed within a logic of revenge where punishment and death were supposed to compensate for the suffering that had been experienced by British women and children. The kind of violent action carried out by British officers, such as Neill, was endorsed and encouraged by the domestic press, which celebrated such “heroic” avenging expeditions and objected when the Government attempted to curtail martial law. The bloody images that had become associated with the name of Cawnpore were petitioned as a reason against any form of merciful behavior. So while the government clearly felt that some sort of control needed to be reinstated in India by sending non-military personnel into the affected regions to curb the wrath of the Generals, The Times responded to this idea with indignation: “And what was the place chosen for the first display of imbecile mercy? It was Cawnpore, where the streets are still red with the blood of our slaughtered women and children.”10 Neill was celebrated as the people’s hero who was carrying out their desire for vengeance: “General Neill had taken 150 prisoners from among the fiends who a few weeks before had tied English women down in the public ways to violate them, and had chopped little children into bits in an orgie [sic] of bloodthirstiness.”11 The horror of these images, shaped by the editorialist’s hyperbole, demanded that others follow Neill’s example: “Every tree and gable-end in the place should have its burden in the shape of a mutineer’s carcass.”12 As Russell would later bear witness, while travelling along the same trunk road on which Neill and Renaud had previously marched, this call to arms had repeatedly found willing agents. The trees, Russell reported, “had been hung with natives’ bodies,” a sight that led him to conclude that “I fear our claws were indiscriminating.”13 As these quotations imply, an idiom of revenge quickly coalesced around the bibighar and Cawnpore, giving free reign to the expression of physical and verbal aggression performed arbitrarily against Indian peoples, which was only rarely challenged by British writers such as Russell. What continued to reinvigorate and sensationalize the story of the bibighar was the inference that its female victims had been physically humiliated and most likely raped prior to their execution. 14 Numerous texts, from military “eyewitness” accounts to popular theatrical productions, helped to formulate this version, or “collective memory,” of Cawnpore, each of which further imbued the female victim with a fetishistic quality. 15 According to William Pietz,

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The French Colonial Imagination fetishism often arises from a crisis that “brings together and fixes into a singularly resonant, unified intensity an unrepeatable event (permanent in memory), a particular object and a localized space.” Paradoxically, this crisis moment, because of its “degradation from any recognizable value code,” becomes “a moment of infinite value.”16

Within this theoretical framework, the rape and massacre of women and children by Indian men equates to the unrepeatable event; the “localized space” is the bibighar; and the “particular object” is the fragmented figure or body of the “raped” woman.17 It is precisely this process of fetishization that can be seen in the letter written in 1857 by a soldier from Havelock’s movable columns: Portions of their dresses, collars, children’s socks, and ladies’ round hats lay about, saturated with their blood; and in the sword-cuts on the wooden pillars […] long dark hair was carried by the edge of the weapon, and there hung their tresses—a most painful sight!18

In this account, the scattered objects are associated with the female body—torn dresses, fallen hats, pieces of hair—and are permeated with the suggestion of violation. These fragments form the fetishistic objects that acted (literally) as talismans for revenge during the uprisings, with soldiers reportedly searching for “relics” among the bloody refuse of the bibighar and taking mementos with them to remind them of their vow to avenge the massacre. 19 They have since served metaphorically to sanitize the memory of British violence through a displacement of reference. Indeed, as Sharpe notes, it was the very suggestiveness of accounts such as this that appealed to the imagination of British readers, inviting them “to visualize the unspeakable acts that could only be disclosed in fragments.”20 The effect of this ellipsis was to enable nineteenth-century texts to retain their sense of Victorian propriety towards the female body, whilst simultaneously shrouding the female figure in a seductive mysticism. As the soldier’s letter demonstrates, rape was spoken of allegorically through the everyday objects that he found in the bibighar, which were then transformed into signifiers: “I picked up a mutilated Prayer Book. It has lost the cover, but on the flyleaf is written, ‘For dearest Mama, from her affectionate Tom.’”21 The description of this coverless and disfigured prayer book echoes the descriptions of the naked and violated women whose bodies bore “upon them marks of the most indecent and inhuman treatment it is possible to conceive.”22 The result of articulating the uprisings through such images of violence against women is, as Sharpe argues, to make resistance to British rule look like “an uncivilized eruption that must be contained,” with “the brutalized bodies of defenseless English women serv[ing] as a metonym for a government that sees itself as the violated object of rebellion.”23 In other words, the allegory of rape and the figure of the raped female “other” were used to manage the trauma caused by the uprisings, while justifying

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the excessive physical response of the British military and transforming retaliatory violence into an act of heroism. The violence directed against the British empire, as a result of colonial abuses committed against the Indian populace, is thus displaced and forgotten by concentrating on the vulnerability of its female subjects who must be protected and avenged. This narrative can be seen not only in journalistic writing, but also in other fictional genres. Boucicault’s melodrama, Jessie Brown; or, the Relief at Lucknow (1858), for example, celebrates the Highlanders as heroes by remembering their timely arrival at Lucknow as having prevented the women inside the residency from being raped and then killed by sepoy aggressors; in other words, by imagining them as having saved the female captives from suffering the same fate as the women at Cawnpore. In the final climatic act, as the exhausted and outnumbered Britons prepare for an imminent invasion of sepoys, one of the women exhorts her fellow countrymen to “recollect Cawnpore! These children will be hacked to pieces before our eyes—ourselves [the women] reserved for worse than death, and then mutilated, tortured, butchered in cold blood.”24 Rather than suffering this unmentionable fate, she demands that Randal, a Scottish soldier, kill the women and “preserve us.”25 Just as the soldiers are preparing to carry out this request—“to free your countrywomen from the clutches of the demons”26—Jessie Brown, the eponymous heroine, hears the distant sound of the Highlanders’ bagpipes: “Hark—hark—dinna ye hear it? […] Ay! I’m no dreamin’, it’s the slogan of the Highlanders! We’re saved—we’re saved!”27 In such fictional accounts, the Highlanders symbolize the positive masculinity and heroism of British colonialism; a symbol that is reinforced by the oppositional role of the female “other” as a threatened object of sexual assault that needs rescuing from Indian aggression.28 Boucicault’s staging of the victory of a few British soldiers over a large scale Indian attack at Lucknow thus offers a way, as Bratton points out, “for the anti-militarist British to repudiate all the guilt and opprobrium of war,” thereby countering “the obvious [ . . . ] fact that the British were the interlopers and therefore naturally the aggressors” by “reversing the roles in dramatic terms.”29 Unable to engage with the possibility that the uprisings resulted from the act of colonialism itself (or to put it another way, Britain’s rape of India30), British texts thus shifted the blame onto the Indian “other” through the reductive narrative of Cawnpore (or the Indian insurgents’ rape of the British female). Inevitably, however, such a displacement inadvertently reveals the very thought process or idea that it wishes to disguise. Arguably, it is both “the dynamic of powerlessness at the heart of the imperial configuration,” identified by Suleri, and the inherent barbarism of colonialism itself that these narratives desire (explicitly or implicitly) to circumnavigate, but only do so with limited effect.31 By focusing on this sublevel of “psychic disempowerment” embedded within Anglo-centered representations of colonialism, the very narratives that aim to uphold “the master-myth” demarcating “imperial power and disempow-

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ered culture” come undone, revealing instead “narratives of anxiety […] in which aggression functions as a symptom of terror rather than of possession.”32 Terror is an underlying narrative that can be read not only in representations of the uprisings, but throughout British colonialism in India. In this sense, Cawnpore can be positioned within a series of traumatic scenes running throughout colonial history, such as the “Black Hole of Calcutta” infamously narrated by J. Z. Holwell (and often recalled in tales about the “mutiny”). 33 As Teltscher’s analysis of Holwell’s letter reveals, the horror of this account “resides in the sense of British helplessness” represented by the British prisoners who, in contrast to the rational narrator, became “Unreasonable, hysterical, responding only to the demands of their bodies, […] reduced to a state of feminised powerlessness […] amoral, anarchic, uncivilised.”34 What mitigates this hysteria is the way in which Holwell presents himself through “signs of civility, combined with the self-mocking tone and wry perspectival distance, [which] indicate that the narrator will emerge unscathed and uncontaminated from his ordeal.”35 In addition, it is the revenge, which is subsequently enacted against Shuja-ud-Daula’s army in the Battle of Plassey (1757) leading to the establishment of the British empire, that adequately compensates for the loss of these British lives.36 The same desire to reassert rationalism and display fortitude exists in narratives of 1857–58, which can also be seen as a response to an embedded fear of colonial powerlessness; one that existed, as the tale of the Black Hole implies, “at the very start of the narrative of colonial power in India.”37 This same narrative of fear underpins “mutiny” texts, such as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins’s co-authored adventure novella, The Perils of Certain English Passengers, written specifically for the 1857 Christmas edition of Dickens’s weekly journal, Household Words.38 Dickens transported the uprisings temporally and spatially to an imaginary British colonial island in the West Indies in 1744. As he outlined in his personal correspondence, his intention in writing Perils was to “commemorate the foremost of the great English qualities shewn in India, without laying the scene there, or making any vulgar association with real events or calamities”; in other words, to memorialize the heroism of the British in the face of adversity without referring directly to those recent sites of trauma (particularly Cawnpore), which were perhaps too fresh in British minds to be trivialized by adventure fiction.39 However, the choice of 1744 reveals all the ambiguity of a text written by a man known for both his abolitionist sympathies and his desire to champion the causes of the working classes.40 In 1744, a new law was introduced in the West Indies (specifically Jamaica) legalizing, and retrospectively condoning, the mass execution of any slave or groups of slaves discovered “compassing and imagining the death of white persons” (emphasis added).41 That such a law was needed suggests the prevalence of slave insurgencies against the plantation owners and therefore a fear of uprisings that extends all the way to the masters’ desire to control even the slaves’ imaginations.

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This then provides the partially disguised historical context in which Dickens sets his geographically displaced allegory of British revenge against the designs of the servant–slave, Christian George King, who betrays the colonizers living on the island to a group of “pirates.” Against this deceitful and demonic character is set the working class English hero, Gill Davis. From their first meeting, Davis reacts to King with an instinctive prejudice, expressed by his desire to “kick” King “without exactly knowing why, except that it was the right thing to do.”42 This reaction may, in part, have been inspired by Davis’s jealousy of King who is privileged and trusted as a favored “subject” among the middle- and upper-class colonial community.43 Davis’s instinctive suspicion turns out to be well-founded since King’s apparent loyalty to the colonizers is, like Nana Sahib, entirely false. There can be no doubt, however, that King troubles Davis. Later that night, he appears in one of Davis’s dreams: “He stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn’t get him out. He was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times.”44 This dream not only acts as a presage to King’s imminent betrayal, but also reveals an embedded fear of the “native” who is momentarily empowered during the dream sequence.45 His waking response to King’s actual betrayal is a desire to kill King and, in doing so, to re-establish his dominant position by negating his subconscious sense of powerlessness. Following King’s duplicitous actions, Davis’s latent prejudice becomes manifest as he recommends that King be put “out of the world.”46 This desire is played out as the text moves inexorably towards its denouement with the triumphant lynching of King, supposedly denoting the victory of the colonizers over its colonized people. In spite of its attempt to celebrate British (or English) heroism and victory, what underpins this narrative is therefore a fear of the insurgent colonized “other.” King is first shot by Davis’s superior, Captain Carton, and is then lynched in order to be “left hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red sun making a kind of a dead sunset on his black face.”47 As this quotation suggests, King’s double execution is used symbolically to denote the victory of the colonizers and to warn against any future attempts to betray British rule. 48 Yet, for all its “heroic” rhetoric, the image of a post-mortem hanging shifts the site of intended savagery from King and onto the British colonizer. Dickens’s narrative both echoes the horrifying acts of racial revenge being written about and enacted by Britons in India, and recalls the 1744 law that retrospectively legalized the mass execution of seditious slaves. In this way, the narrative not only endorses the kind of extreme colonial violence that had been abolished and was illegal at the time that Dickens was writing, but it is also entirely out of keeping with Dickens’s previous outrage at the lynching of slaves in America following his visit to the “New World” in 1842.49 This argument therefore nuances that of Herbert, who wishes to reclaim Dickens as an ardent abolitionist with a “violent, uncontrollable loathing of slavery,” and thereby presents Perils as nothing more than a blip that represents what Oddie calls “the pathological hatred of ‘natives’ that swept over England during the mutiny.”50 The choice of the year 1744 reveals a central am-

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biguity at the heart of Dickens’s attitude towards slavery that cannot be ignored, even if it can be understood as part of wider culture of violent hatred towards the colonized “other” that made itself felt at this time. King’s death scene thus exposes its own anxiety, marked as it is by the fear of the colonizer towards the Indian “other”; a fear that lends itself to the desire to destroy, rather than to “civilize” the colonized “subject.” After 1858, many British narratives anxiously distanced themselves from the kind of disproportionate violence found in texts such as Perils. In this sense, post-“mutiny” texts represent a discursive break, although they remain characterized by the will to memorialize British revenge as heroic. As mentioned earlier, Russell’s Diary is something of an anomaly among nineteenth-century accounts with its criticism of the British response and frank admission that “the peculiar aggravation of the Cawnpore massacres was this, that the deed was done by a subject race—by black men who dared to shed the blood of their masters, and that of poor helpless ladies and children.”51 In order to negotiate the inescapable violence committed by British officers and soldiers, it was easier for most writers to remember British fury as an instinctual, but temporary madness brought about by the horror of Cawnpore or, to quote from Sharpe, as “a lapse in British authority that permitted the abuse of power.”52 Both G. O. Trevelyan’s history, Cawnpore (1865) and Flora Annie Steel’s fiction, On the Face of the Waters (1897) rationalize the fleeting state of insanity experienced by British soldiers as an irrepressible response to the killing of British women. Trevelyan’s narrator speaks of “the blindness of terror and rage, and vengeance seeking in the dark for a victim and a pretext,” one that was provided by Cawnpore.53 Likewise, Steel’s narrative depicts the enragement of Mainwaring, a subaltern soldier, who strikes out at an Indian crowd following the news of the death of Alice Gissing, a woman with whom he has become infatuated: “The yell that he was mad, possessed, rang hideously as men tumbled over each other in their hurry to escape, in their hurry to have at this wild beast, this devil, this horror! And they were right. He was possessed.”54 Although Mainwaring’s derangement is presented as transient, and therefore both excusable and finite, a further act of displacement occurs by writing the subaltern soldier as the victim of a moment of hysteria, thereby shifting the blame away from his more “civilized” superior officers. 55 In both Trevelyan’s and Steel’s texts, military excess is excused in the end by the memory of Cawnpore. Trevelyan writes that “there was a spectacle to be witnessed which might excuse much”; a statement that refers euphemistically to the bibighar massacre.56 Steel’s fiction privileges the massacre as being the root of British strength and its “final” victory and, in doing so, transforms the temporary state of hysteria experienced by the soldiers into a heroic “survival narrative,” much like Holwell’s account of the Black Hole written a century and a half earlier. While the memory of Cawnpore is depicted as causing the men “to think with a sort of mad fury”, it is also this event that provides the flagging soldiers stationed on the ridge at Delhi with a sense of determination. 57 As one of the British generals states, it is because of Cawnpore that “the force will die at its

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post”, before the narrator adds, “There was no talk of retirement now! [ . . . ] The fight would go on. The fight for law and order.”58 The subsequent triumph of the British over the insurgents at Delhi transforms the “transgressive plot” of Cawnpore, that is a plot that has the potential to overturn the hegemony of colonial discourse, into a victory narrative and comes to represent “The strength of the real Master!”59 The mythologization of Cawnpore in nineteenth-century literature was complemented by the creation of a memorial site in the newly founded Cawnpore Memorial Gardens that opened in 1863.60 This commemorative space featured Carlo Marochetti’s “Angel of the Resurrection,” which overlooked a well representing the graves of those who died. The gardens and their statue became, as Heathorn and Ward write, “the [sic] iconic site of imperial remembrance in the British raj,” one that “was visited more frequently than the Taj Mahal.”61 This key “lieu de mémoire” (“site of memory”), to borrow Nora’s term, is mentioned in Trevelyan’s history, which describes Marochetti’s “Angel” as a place where emotions continue to run high: “it is beside that little shrine […] that none […] can speak with unaltered voice, and gaze with undimmed eye. For that is the very place itself where the act was accomplished, not yet transformed by votive stone and marble.”62 But so embedded is the idea of Cawnpore in the British psyche that Trevelyan questions even the need for such a memorial: the dire agony of Cawnpore needs not to be figured in marble, or cut into granite, or cast of bronze. There is no fear lest we should forget the story of our people. The whole place is their tomb, and the name thereof is their epitaph.63

Like the memorial to which it refers, Trevelyan’s history offers itself as another repository for memory that will ensure this past is never forgotten. Of course, these Anglo-centric memories of Cawnpore suffer from multiple layers of amnesia that willfully forget and choose to exclude alternative, and particularly Indian, perspectives. As with all “lieux de mémoire,” their desire to fix memory, “to stop time, to block the work of forgetting, to establish a state of things, to immortalize death,” is thwarted by the metamorphosis of time. 64 In an ideal world, a site of memory would only exist because of its capacity for metamorphosis, being “a site of excess closed upon itself [ . . . ], but also forever open to the full range of its possible significations.”65 But however much it tries, a memorial site cannot control how history will read its signs. The Indian author Manohar Malgonkar provides just such a challenge to the metamorphic capacity of the Cawnpore memorial in his fiction The Devil’s Wind: Nana Saheb’s Story, A Novel (1972). This is a story that retells the history of its eponymous hero from a specifically Indian viewpoint that foregrounds the forgetfulness of British historiography and specifically at Cawnpore: The memorial was for the British dead, the garden for the British living. The Indian dead had no memorial, nor the living Indians a garden; in fact, they were

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This British site is transformed through the gaze of Malgonkar’s protagonist into a commemoration of the prejudices that continue to exist in the colonial present, the gardeners perversely tending the very gardens that attest to an annulment of their place in history. It is worth noting that, following independence in 1947, the local British community decided to efface the entire monument, an act that Heathorn interprets as “an attempt to control the site’s meaning in perpetuity: to prevent any reinscription of this material site of remembrance with any other meaning.”67 What connects these Anglo-centric narratives is therefore a common desire to restrict the meanings ascribed to Cawnpore and by proxy to its colonial history. By reading, representing, and remembering colonial trauma through a select group of overdetermined events or myths, they short-circuit the underlying complexity of Indian insurgency, while simultaneously revealing a desire to sanitize the memory of British revenge and overwrite the history of colonial atrocity.

De-civilizing Britain’s Revenge Like all news concerning the Indian uprisings, reports about the Cawnpore massacres in 1857 quickly poured into the Parisian press rooms from British- and India-based correspondents and from the daily reviews of British journals. Initially, at least, there were a number of newspapers that displayed sympathy for the frère colonial as it confronted this new and traumatic turn of events: “Il est impossible, en effet” (“It is, in fact, impossible”), wrote Cauvain for Le Constitutionnel, “de lire le récit des scènes épouvantables qui désolent les possessions britanniques de l’Inde, sans éprouver pour la nation anglaise […] une compassion mêlée de sympathie et d’estime” (“to read accounts of the terrible scenes that are devastating Britain’s Indian possessions without feeling for the British nation [ . . . ] a sense of compassion, mixed with sympathy and respect”).68 This sentiment was echoed by Alloury writing for the Journal des débats: “Devant le spectacle de l’horreur et de barbarie […] le seul sentiment qui nous domine est celui de la sympathie pour les victimes de ces sanglans désordres” (“Faced with these horrifying and barbaric spectacles [ . . . ] our overriding feeling is one of sympathy for the victims of these bloody disturbances”).69 Lifted from the British press, many of these reports can be seen as operating within the same dichotomy as the Anglo-centric accounts to which they refer in their mutual criminalization and demonization of the actions of the sepoys. La Patrie’s Bombay-based French correspondent (who used an Anglicized nom de plume, “Clayton”70), for example, repeated almost word-for-word an article published the same day in the Bombay Gazette:

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Les femmes avaient été entièrement déshabillées, puis décapitées, et jetées dans des puits, où les enfans avaient été précipités vivans. Ces atroces massacres ont eu lieu dans la cour, [et] cette cour était inondée de sang, ainsi que les robes et autres vêtemens de femmes qui s’y trouvaient encore.71 The woman had been fully undressed, beheaded, and then thrown down the same wells in which the children had been thrown alive. These atrocious massacres took place in the courtyard, [and] this courtyard was swimming with the blood, skirts, and all the other female vestments that were found lying there.

While this is a clear copy from a report found in a British Indian newspaper, there remains a subtle, but important difference. Although willing to show compassion towards “nos malheureux concitoyens” (“our unfortunate fellow citizens”) faced with “de nouvelles atrocités commis par ces démons de cipayes” (“new atrocities committed by these demons of sepoys”), Clayton’s article reduces much of the vengeful hyperbole that had become the staple of British journalism. Notably, the suggestion of rape in the British report is not included in Clayton’s summary when referring to the women who, the Bombay Gazette reported euphemistically, had been “cruelly spared after the capitulation for a worse fate than instant death.”72 Likewise, the emotive language of the British report—“the children having been hurled down alive upon their butchered mothers, whose blood yet reeked on their mangled bodies” 73—is reproduced more factually under the Frenchman’s pen. Where French newspapers differed, therefore, was that their expressions of sympathy did not extend to the same demands for vengeance against the Indian populace, even if the idea of colonial revolt was anathema to the imperial mindset. The spectatorial position taken by these French reports alters the emotive and sensationalist effects that characterized British journalism at that time and allowed the French press to intervene critically into the bias of British reporting. This is apparent in the different ways that The Times and Le Constitutionnel framed the same letter by a man who would become known for being one of the only survivors of Cawnpore, W. J. Shepherd. So keen was the British market for first-hand accounts of the “mutiny” that Shepherd’s story was published in book form in 1857 and was entitled A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore: During the Sepoy Revolt of 1857. This text would subsequently provide the primary material for many English-language accounts of 1857–58, although much of its content is based on hearsay rather than first-hand experience.74 In the initial version printed in The Times, the publication of Shepherd’s letter was introduced with the emotional words of his brother: As the accompanying is the first authentic account that I have read of the horrible tragedy at Cawnpore, I send it to you for publication if you think fit, and I hope that the horrors it depicts will awaken the minds of the most mawkish to the necessity and justice of deep vengeance.75

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Alternatively, the prologue printed by Le Constitutionnel omitted this preamble and replaced it with its own, which had the effect of nuancing the emotional impact of the ensuing letter: “Les lettres particulières adressées à leurs familles par des Anglais dans l’Inde et publiées en si grand nombre […], ne présentent souvent qu’un exposé incomplet et une vue partielle des principaux événemens de l’insurrection” (“The private letters addressed to their families by the British in India and published in such great numbers [ . . . ] often present only a partial and biased report of the key events of the insurrection”). 76 That which The Times framed as a harrowing and “authentic” account to inspire revenge, Le Constitutionnel denounced as biased and erroneous reporting that should be viewed as little more than fictional titillation: Mais si ces correspondances privées ajoutent peu à la connaissance générale des faits, en revanche elles offrent pour la plupart un vif intérêt par le récit d’aventures personnelles, par la familiarité des détails, par l’émotion qu’elles trahissent chez leurs auteurs tous frais témoins de scènes horribles.77 But even if these private exchanges add little to our general knowledge of the facts, they nonetheless offer, for the most part, fascinating accounts of individual adventures, the authors recounting in detail their experiences and betraying their emotions fresh from witnessing these terrible scenes.

Having been staged in this way, Shepherd’s traumatic outpourings—“Je suis au comble de la douleur. […] O ma pauvre chère Polly! comment ont-ils pu te tuer? [ . . . ] Les visages de tous ceux que j’ai perdus sont devant moi” (“I am in the depths of suffering. [ . . . ] O, my poor dear Polly! How can they have killed you? [ . . . ] The faces of all those who I have lost are before me”) 78—lose much of their immediacy and could be criticized as an illustration of “Cette idée de vengeance [qui] se retrouve au fond de toutes les lettres particulières envoyées de l’Inde” (“This idea of vengeance [which] can be found at the heart of all the personal letters sent from India”).79 The rationale for British revenge was presented as being based on fictional constructs, such as hearsay and/or hyperbole, as opposed to hard facts. The individuality and sincerity that The Times privileged in its presentation of this “survival narrative” were thus effaced by Le Constitutionnel due to its wider concerns with the sensationalist function of the letter. By engaging critically with Britain’s mythologization and sensationalization of Cawnpore and its self-justifying narratives of revenge, French-language texts from 1857 onwards were able to produce not just a counter-narrative that undermined British tales, but also a negative image of their main colonial rival. If Britain’s revenge had been narrated across the Channel as the re-establishment of its power over India, these acts of colonial violence were viewed in France in a rather less flattering light. Through its vengeful acts, the British colonial “other,” and hence its colonial mission, were re-defined as excessively violent, irra-

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tional, and hysterical, and therefore as the opposite of any kind of “civilizing” ideology. In this way, French narratives worked to debilitate British hegemony and expose Britain’s deepest fears and anxieties, all of which underpinned its anxious accounts of Cawnpore. To this end, the “traumatic scene” of Cawnpore was repeatedly turned upside down to display, not the savagery of the insurgent (the definitive act being the rape and murder of the British women), but rather the savagery of British colonialism and its defilement of India, which had led, and would inevitable reproduce, the colonized “other’s” revenge against their oppressor. Irrespective of their attitude towards Britain under normal circumstances, the primary criticism of the French-language press concerned the brutality of the revenge both in terms of the language used and the physical acts carried out by British soldiers and encouraged by the British newspapers. “[N]’y a-t-il pas quelque chose d’excessif dans le langage que tiennent les journaux anglais?” (“Is there not something rather excessive about the language used in the British presses?”) asked Cauvain for Le Constitutionnel, a newspaper that had initially conveyed a degree of compassion towards its European neighbors, “Ignorent-ils donc qu’en pareil cas le devoir de la presse consiste bien plus à refréner les entraînemens de l’opinion publique qu’à les précipiter dans la voie de l’exagération?” (“Do they not realize that under such circumstances the duty of the press is to curb the excesses of public opinion rather than encouraging their exaggeration?”).80 As the uprisings progressed and the bellicosity of the British press increased, the first wave of sympathy in France gave way to a more modulated response whereby French newspapers began playing the regulatory and moralizing role outlined by Cauvain. The breadth of this negative and critical reaction was such that the habitual antagonisms between opposing newspapers were momentarily put aside to berate the British press. For example, the progressive and republican Le Siècle and the unapologetically Catholic L’Univers joined forces to lambast the Standard’s endorsement of the massacre of eight hundred Indians, who were reported to have been killed in quick succession by hanging, shooting squad, or death by cannon: La presse [française] entière […] s’accorde à flétrir ces lignes du Standard: “La terrible boucherie de 800 hommes d’un coup par le 10 e d’infanterie de sa Majesté doit produire un grand effet dans les Indes. C’est clair et net, et cela n’a pas besoin de commentaires. L’officier qui a ordonné cette exécution mérite les actions de grâce de toute la nation […].” L’Univers s’associe à la réprobation unanime: “Cette tuerie prouve que le gouvernement de l’Inde n’avait pas besoin des conseils furieux de la presse de Londres pour se livrer aux plus atroces exécutions. […] Dans tous les cas elles ôtent à l’Angleterre le droit d’accuser les indigènes de férocité—Barrier.”81 The [French] press as a whole [ . . . ] speaks with one voice in condemning the following lines that appeared in the Standard: “The tremendous butchery of 800 men, slain in one fell swoop by her Majesty’s 10th infantry, will undoubtedly have a profound effect in India. It is a clear message and needs no further com-

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As this excerpt suggests, the uprisings offered a rare moment in which oppositional newspapers could unite in their mutual distaste for the irrationality of the British and their “conseils furieux” (“raging advice”). The physical violence being enacted in India, and its reciprocal endorsement and celebration by British journalists, repeatedly provoked indignation in France: “Les feuilles et correspondances anglaises poursuivent leur prédictions sanguinaires” (“The papers and the British correspondence continue to churn out their bloody predictions”), stated Le Siècle, before quoting from the Morning Post, “‘On a massacré quelques femmes,’ dit négligemment un officier de l’armée de Delhi. ‘Nous avons déjà tué une masse de ces monstres, écrit un autre, et, avec la grâce de Dieu, nous massacrerons encore des milliers’” (“‘We have killed a number of women,’ casually states an officer from the Delhi army. ‘We have already killed masses of these monsters,’ writes another, ‘and by the grace of God, will kill thousands more yet’”).82 The British officer’s willful disregard for Indian life, especially for Indian women, inspired disapproval because it was considered to be the kind of uncivilized behavior associated with “barbarous” Indian insurgents, not “rational” Europeans. Le Charivari raised similar concerns in a series of satirical articles headlined with deliberately histrionic titles, such as “Faut-il manger du cipaye?” (“Should we eat the sepoy?”) and “Pas de quartier” (“No quarter”).83 In an article by Le Charivari’s Caraguel, the Morning Advertiser, Morning Post, and The Times were collectively criticized for using incendiary language that went as far as endorsing the reintroduction of slavery as a punishment for insurgents in this post-abolitionist period. Caraguel criticized British journalists for suggesting that the sepoys should be disciplined by forced labor (such as laying railway tracks), execution by conflagration, or transportation to Britain to be sold as slaves. 84 In response, he wrote derisively, Qu’est-ce qui empêcherait de les réduire en esclavage? A la vérite la traite des noirs est défendue, mais les hindous ne sont pas noirs, ils sont jaunes [ . . . ]. Nous aurions ainsi en Angleterre une population d’ilotes, à l’example de ce qui existait dans l’ancienne Sparte, et ce serait une institution toute à fait neuve et inattendue qui donnerait à l’Europe la plus haute idée de la civilisation anglaise.85 What would prevent them [the British] from reducing them [the sepoys] to slavery? If truth be told, the selling of blacks is forbidden, but Hindus are not black; they are yellow [ . . . ]. Just like ancient Sparta, there would be a population of slaves in Britain, and this completely new and surprising move would give Europe the greatest impression of British civilization.

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The sardonic equivalence drawn between Sparta, as an empire built upon slavery, and the modern-day British empire enabled Caraguel to position Britain as a backwards and obsolete “civilization” whose colonial policies had not (unlike France) succeeded in moving beyond slavery. Likewise, Veuillot, the editor of the Catholic newspaper, L’Univers, equated British colonialism to the slavebased society of the Roman Empire. Such tyranny in modern-day empire building was, he stated, no longer viable since, “cette condition [d’esclavage] n’est plus celle des nations chrétiennes” (“this condition [slavery] is no longer part of Christian nations”).86 Of course, by focusing on the ancient civilizations of Sparta and the Roman Empire, as opposed to the more recent transatlantic slave trade, Caraguel and Veuillot carefully avoid recalling the fact that France had not only abolished slavery later than Britain in 1848, but had also previously reinstated slavery under Bonaparte’s First Empire in 1802.87 Caraguel’s accusations that Britain was willing to return to an era of slavery demonstrates the extent to which this colonial system had, by 1857, been rejected and separated from an emerging colonial discourse that defined itself rhetorically as contradistinct to that of the Ancien Régime and its slave-based economy (although “indentured labor” was much more widely and unproblematically accepted 88). Its appearance in the English-language press as a suggested punishment for Indian insurgents thereby presented an easy target for derision and criticism in France, while usefully writing over the memory of France’s much more recent exit from this immoral practice. It is worth noting, however, that the use of terms, such as “slavery,” is rendered highly specious when it is recalled that, prior to and throughout the uprisings, cross-Channel debates were ongoing over what Britain saw as France’s persistent involvement in the African “slave trade,” despite the 1848 Abolition Act. Trading had continued because abolition had led to a sudden shortage in manpower and a sharp decline in sugar production.89 During the uprisings, the difficulties in sourcing a competitive labor force were frequently discussed in the French press. Le rachat (or the repurchasing of slaves as hired labor) was proffered as a viable solution that could capitalize on Africa’s slave industry, but was a practice viewed negatively by British officials, despite evidence of their own human rights abuses under the indentured system. 90 In July 1857, Palmerston reported that a French company had been involved in the sale of 1200 “freed” Africans to Martinique, which, despite being called “le rachat,” and hence being legal, equated in all-but-name to “la traite.”91 The British Foreign secretary considered that it was, beyond doubt [ . . . ] that the Slave Trade is now practically carried on under the French flag” and that “in reality these emigrants are slaves bought at so much per head, and brought by violence of every kind to the coast to be sold to the French purchaser”, who could not be considered “as free labourers in the just sense of that term.92

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It was difficult, as Northrup notes, for the French government to “disspell [sic] the impression, in the eyes of contemporary British officials […] that they were in fact continuing the banned Atlantic slave trade in a new guise.”93 What now defined “slavery” had become open to interpretation, “the distinction between “licit” and “illicit” […being] as difficult to make as ever.”94 The ambivalence of these terms runs throughout newspaper articles published in this period. On the one hand, newspapers such as the bonapartist Le Constitutionnel could accuse Britain of treating its Indian “subjects” as slaves: “Nul ne [ . . . ] connaissait [les Anglais] que par ses rigueurs, ses punitions, et ses impôts. Il avait été maître; il n’avait eu que des esclaves. Il ne trouve plus que des révoltés” (“No one knows [the British] by anything other than their severity, their punishments and their taxes. They were the masters; they had only slaves; and thus they find they have nothing but rebels”).95 On the other hand, the same newspaper, only one month later, could harangue those “philantropes anglais” (“British philanthropists”), meaning the British government, for criticizing France’s continuing involvement in the “slave trade,” or what the newspaper preferred to call “le rachat” (“repurchasing”), “l’émigration” (“emigration”), or “la libération” (“the liberation”) of Africans.96 In response, Le Constitutionnel presented the repurchasing of slaves as an act of humanity performed in the name of liberty. The argument was structured in terms of France’s moral and national imperatives towards the enslaved “other” by instrumentalizing neologisms, such as “le rachat” and redefining old terms, such as “l’émigration”: [L’émigration], telle que nous la pratiquons, est basée sur l’affranchissement immédiat de l’Africain racheté, et, à la suite de cette libération, le noir émancipé est transporté dans des pays délivrés depuis long-temps de l’esclavage, où il prend place au sein d’une société libre. Ainsi, d’un misérable Africain l’émigration fait un citoyen libre, un ouvrier indépendant.97 [Emigration], such as we practice it, is based on the immediate liberation of the repurchased African. As soon as he is liberated, the emancipated Negro is transported to countries that have long been delivered from slavery and finds himself living in the midst of a free society. Thus, emigration transforms the miserable African into a free citizen and an independent worker.

Clear distinctions between French and British colonial systems, as the phrase “telle que nous la pratiquons” (“such as we practice it”) suggests, were made by drawing on a discourse of freedom that is not normally associated with a bonapartist empire, but with the Third Republic’s mission civilisatrice. The flexibility of this colonial rhetoric meant that a newspaper could simultaneously support Indian liberation from what it termed British slavery while extolling the virtues of French companies in supplying repurchased slaves to French-owned West Indian plantations. Le Constitutionnel’s rhetoric becomes even more problematic in the light of its unequivocal support for an amendment to Article 8 proposed ten years after

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the 1848 Abolition Act. The amendment proposed that French citizens living abroad and in possession of slaves be permitted to retain their ownership in perpetuity without forfeiting their status as French citizens. 98 The passing of this amendment on May 12, 1858 thus lifted this penalty, effectively endorsing the prolongation of slavery until such time as their country of residence imposed abolition. The much lauded work of the Second Republic’s abolition decree, and the humanitarian discourse that runs throughout French newspapers in 1857–58, is thus entirely undermined by the legally permitted continuation of slavery among some twenty thousand French citizens living in Louisiana, Brazil, SaintDomingue, Cuba, and Puerto Rico; while all legal responsibility for these actions was deferred to those countries in which slavery was still in effect. Of course the amendment did not go unnoticed in Britain who accused France of having “l’intention de rétablir indirectement l’esclavage” (“the intention of reintroducing slavery through the back door”).99 But as Dréolle had pointed out in an earlier article in Le Constitutionnel, this accusation was somewhat hypocritical since the amendment itself was based on a similar change made to Britain’s abolition decree in 1843.100 What this legal example shows is the extent to which France and Britain were locked into a battle of one-upmanship and used each other to excuse, palliate, and rationalize their colonial policies. In spite of the obvious hypocrisy that lies at the heart of the axiomatic statements of a newspaper such as Le Constitutionnel, the French press rarely missed an opportunity to upend Britain’s vision of itself and persisted in maintaining the higher moral ground. Everything could be subverted, even when the British press displayed a less belligerent and more contrite attitude towards their colonial actions. On October 7, 1857, a “Day of Humiliation” took place in Britain, summoned by Queen Victoria as a “Day of Solemn Fast, Humiliation, and Prayer” in the hope that God would “graciously bless our efforts for the restoration of lawful authority” in India. 101 Many of the speeches initially repented for the brutality of Britain’s military response. Reverend B. M. Cowie, in a sermon delivered at St Paul’s Cathedral, warned British soldiers not to “stain their noble crusade against vice and cruelty” by returning one form atrocity with another. 102 However, the tone of his address soon transmuted from one of penitence into one of belligerence as his oratory built towards the unavoidable subject of Cawnpore. At the mention of this emotive site, Reverend Cowie summoned forth the image of “the heart-torture of a mother who had lost a daughter in that chamber of blood,” with Cawnpore serving as the rhetorical justification for his cries for vengeance. “The voice of the country, of their own blood, the voice of the Sovereign of these realms, the voice of religion, the voice of Christianity, the voice of God” are rallied by the clergyman to call upon the British male “to rise as one man to the rescue, and to stem the flood of wickedness, cruelty, rebellion, and treason.”103 In the French press, this discourse was reversed. The “Day of Humiliation” did not represent a day of humility before God in order to sanction acts of revenge, but rather a day in which to reflect upon the unprincipled actions of Brit-

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ish colonial rule. Both Emile de la Bédollière of Le Siècle and Alloury of Journal des débats wrote with undisguised joy of Britain’s collective “examen de conscience” (“self-examination”) through which Britain (or “les fiers dominateurs de l’Inde”104 [“the proud conquerors of India”]) “a reconnu que les populations de l’Hindoustan n’avaient pas toujours été gouvernées conformément aux éternelles lois de la justice” (“recognized that the populations of Hindustan had not always been governed according to the universal laws of justice”).105 Along with “L’Europe entière” (“The whole of Europe”), Martin of Le Constitutionnel celebrated “le spectacle que l’Angleterre offrait […], lorsque, réunie dans ses temples, humiliée et repentante, elle s’est accusée publiquement d’avoir, par ses propres fautes, attiré sur elle la colère divine” (“the spectacle of Britain […] congregated in its houses of worship, humble and repentant, as it publically admitted that its actions had brought God’s divine anger down upon the nation”).106 Whereas The Times repeatedly rehearsed the idea that Britain was the “instrument of vengeance of an insulted Deity,” Jourdan of Le Siècle wrote instead that “[L’Angleterre] est châtiée, et quelles que soient nos sympathies pour cette grande nation, nous n’hésitons pas à dire qu’elle est châtiée justement” (“[Britain] has been punished, and whatever our sympathies for that great nation, we have no hesitation in saying it has been punished justly”).107 Thus, the “Day of Humiliation” was used to upturn the Anglo-centric narrative of a God-sanctioned revenge, or what Reverend Cowie called its “just retribution,” and to imply that it was the Indian insurgent who was the divine tool of vengeance against the British. 108 Britain’s justification for its retaliation in India was thus undermined in the French press, which, writing from a moral vantage point, focused instead on the “uncivilized” behavior of the British colonizer. Not only did French newspapers succeed in “decivilizing” Britain’s idiom of revenge by undoing its reliance on a binary opposition between the barbaric Indian “other” and the righteous Christian soldier, but they also debilitated Anglocentric writing by foregrounding its underlying fear, irrationality, and hysteria. Usually associated negatively with both femaleness and the effeminate Indian or oriental “other,” these terms were applied in French texts to the behavior of the British male avenger. Le Charivari, for example, printed a cartoon of a British soldier that ridiculed the extent to which English-language reporting had exaggerated Indian ferocity in order to enhance its own masculinity. 109 The soldier is forced to choose between death by a Bengal tiger or by a sepoy. He opts for the tiger and rationalizes his choice by stating that: “Entre deux maux, mieux vaut choisir le moindre” (“Between two evils, it would be better to choose the lesser”).110 This satire operates on the risible concept that British colonizers were living in fear of their own colonial “subjects” and, hence, on what, to a midnineteenth-century French audience, was the unimaginable idea of Indian aggressiveness. That Indians were being depicted across the Channel as a serious threat at all suggested the extent to which the British were in a weakened state. Similarly, the kilted Highlanders, who acted as the iconic image of British masculinity in contrast with the Indian sepoy, were held up for ridicule in the

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French press.111 The same uniforms that stood for military masculinity in Britain, despite being an “inversion of normative British dress codes,” were seen as a source of derision in France.112 J. March, the India-based French correspondent for La Patrie, translated a proclamation supposedly issued by Nana Sahib that warned his men “de ne pas se laisser approcher par ‘les hommes en jupons’ [les Highlanders], car, dit-il, il est facile à voir, d’après leur costume, qu’ils ont été envoyés spécialement pour venger les assassinats des femmes et des enfans à Cawnpore” (“not to allow the ‘men in petticoats’ [the Highlanders] to approach them, because, he said, their outfits clearly suggest that they have been sent specially to avenge the assassination of their women and children at Cawnpore”).113 The word “jupons” associates the Highland kilt with a woman’s petticoat and is both a derogatory term for “femmes” and a satirical norm in French writing. Only two years earlier during the Crimean War, Eugène Jouve had described the kilt in his Guerre d’Orient (1855) as an object that “frise souvent le ridicule” (“often incites ridicule”), leading him to conclude that, “Jamais je n’ai mieux compris la profonde sagesse masculine du pantalon, qu’en voyant tant de genoux cagneux, poilus, et circonflexes” (“At the sight of all those flexed and hairy knock-knees, never have I better understood the profound wisdom of male trousers”).114 The use of the term “jupon” in La Patrie in 1857 has several effects. In the first instance, the idée reçue of Indian effeminateness is turned upside down and transferred onto General Havelock’s famously ferocious Highlanders, who are now presented as cross-dressing soldiers. In the second instance, the Indian “other” remains essentially feminized by Nana Sahib’s advice to flee rather than confront this feminized, and hence weakened, band of men. The phrase, “ne pas se laisser approcher” (“not to allow them to be approached”), suggests that the men need to defend their chastity against the rapaciousness of the Highlanders, whose garments denote their intention to act on behalf of, and avenge, the violated and murdered women.115 Thus, by appropriating Nana Sahib’s words and mobilizing the satirical norm of the petticoated Highlanders, this Frenchlanguage account manages simultaneously to denigrate British heroism and maintain the stereotype of Indian effeteness, while speaking from a rational and detached vantage point. Other French-language newspapers devoted their attention to the irrational nature of the British military response that again departed from the idea of British masculinity and colonial dominance. Le Consitutionnel’s Cauvain, for example, wrote: des massacres en masse, qui métamorphoseraient de vaillans soldats en bourreaux, ne sont pas dignes d’un peuple civilisé. Un grand pays, quand il a l’épée à la main, doit ressembler à un brave qui affronte le péril et qui le surmonte à force d’énergie, et non à un poltron qui est cruel parce qu’il déraisonne.116 mass executions, which transform valiant soldiers into hangmen, are not worthy of a civilized nation. When a great country is at war, it must behave like a brave

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The verb “déraisonner” (“to rave”) implies a loss of control, which, along with “poltron” (“coward”), employs the kind of vocabulary typically used to describe the figure of the effeminate Indian despot.117 La Presse made this pairing explicit. As Bonneau wrote, “Des actes d’atroce vengeance ont été commis par les insurgés; les Anglais ont usé de représailles; ils n’écorchent pas leurs prisonniers, comme font les cipayes, mais ils les entassent devant la gueule des canons et tirent sur eux à mitraille” (“Atrocious acts of revenge have been committed by the insurgents, and the British have taken retaliatory measures. They do not flay their prisoners like the sepoys, but stack them instead at the mouths of cannons before shooting them with cannon fire”).118 By comparing the behavior of British and Indian soldiers, this article collapses the traditional binaries between the rational British colonizer and the irrational Indian colonized “other.” Both are defined as excessive through a counterbalancing French perspective that posits itself as the voice of morality and reason. Of course, the opposite trend can be found in Bonneau’s account of France’s confrontation with the rebellion, notably the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) that resulted in the loss of its foremost sugar colony and the creation of the first post-colonial republic. As Dorigny notes, Haiti is something of a “trou de mémoire” (“memory hole”) in French colonial historiography, first and foremost because, unlike the earlier loss of Canada in 1763, “la perte de Saint-Domingue par une défaite face à une insurrection d’esclaves transformée en guerre de libération était inacceptable, car elle transgressait un dogme jusqu’alors unanimement admis, celui de la supériorité des Blancs sur les autres peuples” (“the loss of Saint-Domingue was unacceptable. This defeat, resulting from a slave insurrection that had become a war for freedom, transgressed what had universally been held as dogma: that the White race was superior to all other peoples”).119 Like many other French texts, this history is remembered in Bonneau’s Haïti, ses progrès, son avenir (1862) by forgetting the fact that it represented a defeat at the hands of slaves. Instead, Bonneau remembers it as a moment that distinguished France from other nations (“distinguent la France entre toutes les nations”): Elle a regretté, sans doute, la perte d’une colonie qu’elle avait élevée au faîte de la prospérité et qui lui assurait un rôle prééminent dans les Antilles; mais elle a pris son parti de cette séparation violente; elle a reconnu franchement l’indépendance d’Haïti, et aujourd’hui elle regarde comme un fait providentiel l’émancipation de la race noire de Saint-Domingue, qu’elle avait préparée en infusant au milieu d’elle son sang généreux et les idées fécondes qui lui ont permis, à elle-même, de se régénérer dans la glorieuse révolution de 1789.120 Doubtless, France regretted the loss of a colony that it had brought to the pinnacle of prosperity and had assured its dominance in the Antilles. But it acted decisively during the violent separation. It clearly recognized the independence of

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Haiti and today it views the emancipation of the black race of Saint-Domingue as providential, as a history that France itself had set in motion by having generously infused the population with its own blood and instilled in it the fruitfulness of the ideas generated during the glorious revolution of 1789.

The difference that Bonneau expresses between the Haitian Revolution and his reporting on Britain’s war in 1857 lies in his belief that that the former was influenced and inspired by the universalist ideologies of the French Revolution, or at least this is the gift that Bonneau considers France to have bestowed upon the Haitians, where the latter reacted with unaccepted violence to its “Révolution dans l’Inde” (“the Revolution in India”). Unlike the Indian uprisings, the example of Haiti could be held up retrospectively as an example to emulate in an area of the world where there still remained eight million slaves existing under other European colonial powers. As these examples begin to suggest, the Indian-led uprisings against British rule, combined with the high-minded rhetoric of France’s 1848 abolition, allowed French journalists to put forward a particular image of French colonialism that contrasted with that of the British. This image functions by setting up a whole series of binary oppositions, all of which can be seen at work in French representations of the Indian uprisings and contemporaneous debates over the meaning of slavery after its abolition. Despite the fact that French colonialism continued to be involved in the same kinds of labor exploitation that created the transatlantic slave trade, by the mid-nineteenth century a new “brand” was emerging. This supposedly contrasted not only with the enslavement of the monarchic Ancien Régime who had endorsed slavery in the colonies, but also with France’s foremost colonial rival, the British, whose colonial policies had resulted in little more that the enslavement of an entire subcontinent. The context of British colonial crisis enabled a morally-grounded French colonial identity to be constructed in contrast with the emasculated, irrational, and barbaric image of British colonialism and its revenge.

Fear and Loathing after 1857 The traces of this image of British colonialism in its weakest and most vulnerable state can be seen running throughout late-nineteenth-century French representations of India at a time when France was making further inroads into Africa and Asia.121 One notable example is Verne’s adventure novel, La Maison à vapeur (1880). As mentioned in chapter 2, this fiction is set ten years after the commencement of the uprisings, in 1867, and was written just after the third Exposition Universelle in 1878. The narrative itself is set in the same year that France held its second Paris-based Exposition Universelle (after 1855), which was also the first time that the colonies were given significant exhibition space.122 Pavillions were dedicated notably to the North African colonies (Mo-

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rocco, Tunisia, and Algeria), but France had also just annexed the western part of Cochinchina in South East Asia. For the British, however, 1867 marked a decade since the beginning of the uprisings. In La Maison à vapeur, this time lapse is used to show how the British colonizers’ post-traumatic fear of further uprisings, and, hence, their fear of the Indian “other,” has become deep-rooted, as has a reciprocal hatred between the colonizers and colonized peoples. The antithetical characters of Colonel Edward Munro and Nana Sahib personify this state of mutual loathing and suspicion, with each character despising the other for personal reasons that stand for the anathemas of their respective nations—whereas Munro holds Nana Sahib responsible for the death of his wife as one of the victims of the bibighar massacre, Nana Sahib blames Munro for the death of his good friend and insurgent leader, the Rani of Jhansi, and despises Munro as a representative of the colonizing race: Nana Sahib sur le cadavre de lady Munro, à Cawnpore, le colonel sur le cadavre de la Rani, à Gwalior, c’étaient là deux hommes en qui se résumaient la révolte et la répression, deux ennemis dont la haine aurait des effets terribles, s’ils se retrouvaient jamais face à face!123 The death of Lady Munro at Cawnpore was on the hands of Nana Sahib, and that of the Rani at Gwalior on the hands of the Colonel. In these two men was captured the revolt and its repression, two enemies whose mutual hatred would have terrible repercussions if they were ever to find themselves face to face!

As opposed to British narratives, which tended to privilege the heroism of the Briton over the barbarism of the Indian, La Maison places Munro and Nana Sahib on an equal footing by legitimizing their mutual hatred. This equivalence is evident in their comparably gruesome back histories, with Munro’s ancestral past being almost as unsavory as that of Nana Sahib. The Colonel is said to be the grandson of Hector Munro, a historical character who is accredited in La Maison with having invented the practice of executing sepoys by tying them to the end of cannons. Although the real Hector Munro did not in fact invent this method of execution, he was nonetheless famous for having utilized it to kill twenty-four sepoys who had mutinied under his command.124 If this form of execution was practiced on insurgents in 1857 and was intended as a memorable act of colonial punishment and defilement, La Maison reverses this power binary by having Nana Sahib tie Munro to the end of the “célèbre canon de bronze de Bhilsa” (“infamous bronze cannon of Bhilsa”) as a way of reminding the Colonel of his cruel colonial heritage.125 With Munro tethered, Nana Sahib provides the following lecture: “c’est un de tes ancêtres, c’est Hector Munro, qui a osé appliquer pour la première fois cet épouvantable supplice, dont les tiens ont fait un si terrible usage pendant la guerre de 1857! C’est lui qui a donné l’ordre d’attacher vivants, à la bouche de ses canons, des Indous, nos parents, nos frères...” [ . . . ].

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“Représailles pour représailles! [ . . . ] Munro, tu périras comme tant des nôtres ont péri!”126 “it was one your ancestors, Hector Munro, who had the audacity to begin practicing this dreadful torture, such terrible use of which was made by your kind during the war of 1857! It was he who gave the order to tie to the mouths of cannons our Hindu families and our brethren while they were still alive. [ . . . ] An eye for an eye! [ . . . ] Munro, you will perish as so many of ours have perished!”

This scene has important implications at both a symbolic and a historical level. Symbolically, it inverts the Anglo-centric discourse of a justified revenge by establishing an equivocal relationship between the Indian and the Englishman— just as Nana Sahib is the epitome of evil for the British, so Munro represents the cruelty of the British colonizers for the Indians. Historically, the references to Major Hector Munro bring to mind a period of prolonged warfare in India between the French, the British, and the Mysore kingdom under the rulers of Haider Ali and his son, Tipu Sultan. Hector took part in both the first (1767–69) and the second (1780–84) of the Mysore Wars, and is famous for having defeated Shuja-ud-Daula of Oudh in 1763 and the French at Pondichéry in 1778. The Second Mysore War, however, saw an alliance being formed between the French and the leaders of Mysore. This resulted in Tipu Sultan defeating Hector Munro after the British had attempted to dismantle Haider Ali’s kingdom and had murdered four hundred Indian women in the process, forming a kind of inverted precursor to the narrative of Cawnpore some seventy years earlier.127 Thus, lying beneath the surface of La Maison’s narrative are connections that recall the viciousness of the British retaliations to the uprisings in 1857–58, as well as a catalogue of other atrocities committed against the Indian populace throughout their colonial reign. Moreover, the association made between the fictional protagonist, Colonel Munro, and his historical ancestor bring to mind, albeit indirectly, Tipu Sultan’s French-assisted victory over the British. As such, it plays subtly on the fear of the colonizers towards a repeated Indian military victory aided by an external and rival colonial power (and particularly the Russians) following the Crimean War of 1855.128 Such allusions to the anxiety of the British run throughout Verne’s fiction. This is depicted allegorically by the mode of transportation used by the colonizers. Le géant d’acier is a mechanized steam elephant, designed by Banks the engineer to tow exact replicas their British-built Calcutta bungalows. While it can be seen as another example of what Roland Barthes views as Verne’s predilection for enclosure, le géant also emphasizes the desire of the British for protection and separation from an India that, post-1858, threatens their security and stability.129 The opulent exterior of this “grand objet fantasme” (“great object of fantasy”), as Tadié names Verne’s extraordinary vehicles, highlights Britain’s desire to project a certain image of its mechanical prowess, while fulfilling “le vieux rêve d’emporter avec soi sa maison” (“the old dream of taking your home

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with you”).130 It simultaneously reveals the inescapable fact that the British were a minority in India. 131 In a rather typical display of Indian fanaticism and gullibility, le géant finds itself surrounded by a throng of Indian pilgrims who have mistaken the vehicle for a god. The engineer Banks and Colonel Munro—those otherwise highly masculine typologies132—respond with distinct caution: “notre Géant d’Acier a produit son effet habituel! s’écria le capitaine Hod. [ . . . Les Hindus] sont venus l’admirer! Pourvu qu’ils s’en tiennent à l’admiration! répondit l’ingénieur, en secouant la tête. Que crains-tu donc, Banks? demanda le colonel Munro. Eh! je crains . . . que ces fanatiques ne barrent le passage et ne gênent notre marche! En tout cas, sois prudent! Avec de tels dévots, on ne saurait trop prendre de précautions. En effet,” répondit Banks.133 “our Steel Giant has had its usual effect!” cried Captain Hod. “[ . . . The Hindus] have come to admire it!” “As long as all they do is to admire it!” responded the Engineer shaking his head. “What are you frightened of Banks?” asked Colonel Munro. “Eh! I fear . . . that these fanatics will block the route and will get in the way of our progress! In any case, we need to be careful! With devotees like these, you can never take enough precautions.” “Yes, indeed,” answered Banks.

Beneath the elliptical pause after “je crains . . . ” (“I fear . . . ”) and Banks’s unconvincing self-correction, which is then reciprocated by Munro’s words of warning (“sois prudent!”), lies a tacit fear of being embroiled in the same kind of Indian-led attacks on Europeans that had occurred in 1857–58. Even though Munro’s team manage to avert physical contact with the “fanatiques” on this occasion (by scalding the Indians with jets of steam134), the protection offered by le géant, like the image of British power, is revealed as nothing more than superficial. As the narrative progresses towards the inexorable meeting between Munro and Nana Sahib, so le géant’s defensive outer layers are gradually broken down until, finally, its human passengers are moving unprotected and on foot towards their enemy. While the inevitability of this meeting drives the plot, which is itself propelled by Munro’s and Nana Sahib’s mutual avenging missions, it is clear that, in the case of Munro, the desire for revenge has become pathological. From the outset, Munro is presented as neurotic and agoraphobic: “Munro, désespéré, n’eut alors qu’une pensée, une seule, retrouver Nana Sahib [ . . . ] et assouvir, avec sa vengeance, une sorte de soif de justicier qui le dévorait” (“In despair, Munro had only one thought in mind: to rediscover the whereabouts of Nana

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Sahib [ . . . ] and through revenge quench a kind of thirst for justice that was devouring him”).135 Unable to find Nana Sahib following the massacre in 1857, Munro is depicted as having retreated into his isolated Calcutta bungalow for ten years: “Là, ne lisant ni livres ni journaux, qui auraient pu lui rappeler la sanglante époque de l’insurrection, ne quittant jamais sa demeure, le colonel vécut en homme dont la vie est sans but. Cependant, la pensée de sa femme ne le quittait pas” (“The Colonel lived as if bound to his home, like a man without a goal, reading neither books, journals, nor anything that could possibly remind him of that bloody period of insurrection”).136 The memory that he retains of the kind of death his wife must have suffered is constructed from the eye-witness accounts of the British officers who first entered the bibighar after the killings had taken place.137 These visions sustain the purpose of his life, which manifests itself in an obsessive reclusiveness and an unrelenting desire for revenge. It is only because le géant provides an exact replica of his bungalow, enabling him to take with him (“emporter”) “son chez-soi et tous les souvenirs qui le composent” (“his house and all the memories that it contained”), and because the voyage around the Northern Provinces of India offers him the chance to find and kill Nana Sahib that Munro agrees to accompany the others. 138 Ironically, Munro’s wife is not dead, but continues to exist physically, as well as metaphysically and metaphorically. Physically and metaphysically, she has become known as “la flamme errante” (“the Wandering Flame”) who roves the mountains, fed, respected, and worshipped by the same “savages” or “Gounds” who are once again conspiring, along with Nana Sahib, to overthrow British rule.139 She is considered to be suffering from amnesia, as one of the “Gounds” explains to Balao Rao, Nana Sahib’s brother: Cette femme n’a pas sa raison. Sa tête ne lui appartient plus; ses yeux ne regardent pas ce qu’ils voient; ses oreilles n’écoutent pas ce qu’elles entendent; sa langue ne sait plus prononcer une parole! Elle est ce que serait une aveugle, une sourde, une muette, pour toutes les choses du dehors. C’est une folle, et, une folle, c’est une morte qui continue à vivre! [ . . . ] Ce n’est qu’une statue vivante.140 She is a woman who has lost her mind: her head is no longer her own; her eyes do not see what they see; her ears do not hear what they hear; and her tongue is utterly silent! She is, as it were, a woman who is blind, deaf, and dumb to the exterior world, a cadaver who continues to live! [ . . . ] She is nothing more than a living statue.

Alongside the more common uses, here combined, of a female figure as a repository for madness and the Indian “other” as a site of irrationality—“Les fous, pour ces Gounds, comme pour toutes les populations sauvages, sont des êtres sacrés que protège un superstitieux respect” (“For these Gounds, as for all savages peoples, the insane are sacred beings who command the respect of the superstitious”)141—hides a more subtle and metaphorical use of “la flamme er-

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rante.” She also functions figuratively as a monument to the white British male’s obsession with revenge, represented through the character of a British military leader, Munro.142 Although, as an individual character, there is nothing unusual in the Colonel’s desire to avenge his wife’s death, he must also be viewed as representative of Britain’s widespread and unhealthy preoccupation with avenging their dead. This is suggested in the parallels between his wife (“une statue vivante” [“a living statue”]) and that other statue, the incongruously named “l’Ange de la Pitié” (referring to Carlo Marochetti’s “Angel of the Resurrection”).143 Just like the silent statue that presides over the Cawnpore well, “la flamme errante” is not a symbol of grief or pity, but has unwittingly become a fetishistic and destructive emblem that symbolizes a relentless desire for retribution. Thus, while Munro’s wife is described by the “Gound” as “une morte” (“a cadaver”), she nonetheless continues to live through the ongoing racial hatred that men, such as the Colonel, have for the Indian populace. 144 The synonymy between “la flamme errante” and “l’Ange de la Pitié” is made explicit during a detour to Cawnpore, where Munro is seen to prostrate himself before the Angel.145 It is not compassion, consolation, or catharsis that he feels, but rather a feeling of hatred, which demonstrates that, as signifiers, “la flamme errante” and “l’Ange de la Pitié” are at odds with what they signify. This scene does not celebrate the memory of his love for his wife, but rather his desire for revenge. There is a deliberate echo between the Gounds’ worship of “la flamme errante” as a site of insanity and the insanity of Munro’s (and hence the Britons’) worship of this “lieu de mémoire” (“place of memory”). Yet, if she is presented as an amnesiac or blank page on which a narrative of revenge is written, “la flamme errante” is not without agency; her silent actions remain capable of communicating disapproval for a life spent in pursuit of vengeance. As she looks over the dead body of Nana Sahib’s brother and coconspirator, Balao Rao, the narrative reads: On eût dit qu’après n’avoir vécu que pour la vengeance, la haine survivait en lui. La folle s’agenouilla, posa ses deux mains sur ce corps [ . . . ]. Elle le regarda longuement, puis, se relevant et secouant la tête, elle descendit lentement le lit du Nazzur.146 It might be said that having lived for nothing but revenge, the hatred continued to live within him. The madwoman knelt down and placed both of her hands upon his body [ . . . ]. She looked at him for a long time and then, getting up and shaking her head, she walked slowly away along the riverbed of the Nazzur.

The caring, almost healing touch, the prolonged look, followed by the negative movement of her head all suggest her despair at a life wasted on vengeance. A similar judgment of Munro can be read in one of the final scenes of the novel when “la Flamme Errante” appears before her husband as he awaits his death at

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the hands of Nana Sahib. Tied to the end of a cannon, he calls out to her, but she does not recognize him: “II se crut fou à son tour! […] Lady Munro ne répondit rien. Elle ne le reconnaissait pas. Elle ne semblait même pas l’entendre” (“He thought it was his turn to go mad! […] Lady Munro said nothing. She did not recognize him. She did not even seem to hear him”), and instead “elle recula d’un pas” (“she took a step back”).147 Although Lady Munro’s mental state clearly indicates the trauma she has undergone at the hands of Nana Sahib, significantly Munro is incapable of reviving his wife from her amnesia. Rather than being instinctively drawn towards him, she recoils (“recula”) and tries to flee, before nearly killing him by lighting the cannon with her flame. Combined, these two scenes suggest the narrative’s implicit disapproval of, and repulsion for, British colonialism’s hatred of the Indian “other,” captured in the silent and backwards movements of Munro’s wife. Her gradual reversion to sanity and her reunification with Munro might eventually provide the British with a “happy ending,” but La Maison remains a fiction that clearly inverts the “heroism” of British narratives. 148 Reading between the lines, it recalls that the Indian uprisings in 1857–58, as well as future insurrections, are a response to the existence of British colonialism, whose rapaciousness is epitomized by the acts of vengeance that were carried out in the name of Cawnpore. It offers a subtle, but nonetheless unmistakable, criticism of the denaturing effects of hatred and revenge, written as a form of neurosis afflicting the British colonizer. The most extreme example of the tendency for French writing to subvert British colonial “myths” and produce an emasculated and/or barbarous vision its the rival colonizers can be found in Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s erotic fiction Nana-Sahib: Épisodes sanglants de l’insurrection des cipayes en 1857, published in 1909. This was one of Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s first erotic novels and was followed in quick succession by eight others, all of which use a colonial or “oriental” setting for their tales of debauchery and enslavement.149 In this way, Nana-Sahib: Épisodes sanglants can be seen as part of a tradition, to borrow Ravi’s phrase, of “exotic consumer erotica” that utilizes an Oriental backdrop— in this case the harem—as its stage setting.150 While this text was published later in the Third Republic than those studied thus far, its importance lies, not in the typicality of its exoticist discourse, but in its demythologization of the trope of the female bibighar victim and its reversal the story of rape told by British narratives. On the surface, this text functions within the confines of an East–West binarism in its characterization of the villainous central protagonist, Nana Sahib. As such, it can be placed alongside other French-language texts, including Jules Verne’s La Maison (1880) and also Marius Bernard’s Nana Sahib (1895) in their graphic demonization of this Indian rebel leader.151 Like Bernard, who was writing towards the end of the nineteenth century, Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s motivation for this text in 1909 arose from recent troubles in British India that had revived memories of that previous anti-colonial uprising in 1857: “Les agitations

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qui, ces temps derniers, ont ébranlé et ébranlent encore l’Inde anglaise, ont donné une nouvelle actualité à la grande insurrection de 1857” (“The recent troubles that have shaken, and still shake, British India have given the great insurrection of 1857 a new relevance”).152 Although the text is not explicit, it is likely that Gaultier de Saint-Amand was thinking of the problems in Bengal following the British government’s controversial decision in 1905 to partition the region. Yet it was not simply Britain’s colonial problems that had inspired the author’s desire to write this text, but additionally the recent wave of anti-colonial movements across Asia more broadly, which included the French colonies. In order to understand these present concerns, Gaultier de Saint-Amand looks to the past, for which there he can find no greater example than 1857: “pour apprécier l’état des colonies européennes en Asie, il est nécessaire de remonter à cette période [1857], dont les souvenirs sont encore très vivaces dans l’esprit des indigènes, et qui pourrait se renouveler sans nulle invraisemblance” (“to understand the state of Europe’s colonies in Asia, we need to go back to a period [1857], which remains very much alive in the minds and memories of the indigenous populations and which could quite easily return again”).153 Like Verne’s La Maison, Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s Nana-Sahib: Épisodes sanglantes reminds its readers of the important role that the memory of previous uprisings plays in inspiring new insurgencies among colonized peoples. The decision to focus on British India and its history of anti-colonial rebellion perhaps suggests an unwillingness to confront the long history of anti-colonial rebellion in France’s own colonies, which includes, of course, the historical example of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) that had led to independence, as well as the far more pressing example of the growth of anti-French nationalism in Vietnam, particularly following Japan’s defeat of Russia in 1905.154 Instead of Frenchcolonized Vietnam, it is British India and the story of Nana Sahib that operate as the focal point for this fictional exploration into the “oriental” character, broadly covering all people located in “des colonies européennes en Asie” (“Europe’s colonies in Asia”). This is, therefore, a text that is underpinned by its own fears of colonial uprisings, which are projected onto the British, but remain present in Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s perverse detailing of “la mentalité asiatique” (“Asiatic mind”) captured in that representative type (“comme type de notre étude historique”155), Nana Sahib: “Il a synthétisé en lui au plus haut degree les qualités et les défauts du musulman de l’Inde, le véritable adversaire des conquérants étrangers” (“He perfectly synthesizes all the qualities and failings of the Indian Muslim, who is the real adversary of the foreign conqueror”) (emphasis added).156 Echoing those earlier texts studied in chapter 3, Nana Sahib is once again held up as an example of the “oriental” type in its worst possible form. Notably, this “musulman de l’Inde” (“Indian Muslim”) is governed by “le régime de compression employé par l’administration britannique dans l’Inde” (“the oppressive regime used by the British to rule India”), which has produced nothing more

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than “une guerre de races, un heurt de deux civilisations, avec, de part et d’autre, un acharnement et une haine inexprimable” (“a racial war, a relentless clash between two civilizations which, on both sides, is beyond hatred”).157 In contrast, Gaultier de Saint-Amand was writing in the late imperial period when the discourse of France’s “mission civilisatrice” was reaching its height. As Blanchard, Bancel, and Vergès note, France, particularly under the Third Republic and Jules Ferry, intended to project the idea that its colonialism was based on “la puissance maternelle, bonne et charitable, désintéressée et magnanime” (“a good, charitable and maternal power that is selfless and magnanimous”) and not “la domination et la rapine” (“domination and rapacity”) that defined their British rivals.158 To admit that French colonialism was also capable of producing violent anti-colonial rebellions would be to admit that France’s civilizing discourse was at odds with its material practices. It is clear, however, that Gaultier de SaintAmand had in mind the contemporaneous problems with French colonialism in Vietnam, recently exacerbated by events in Japan, through his oblique references to the “Extreme Orient” in the preface: “Nous l’avons donc pris [Nana Sahib] comme type de notre étude historique et nous avons essayé de montrer la cruauté voulue de ces peoples de l’Extrême-Orient dont l’histoire politique s’est brusquement rouvert aux bruits des victories japonaises” (“We have therefore taken [Nana Sahib] as our historical subject of study and we have attempted to demonstrate the willful cruelty of these people from the Far East whose political history has suddenly re-emerged with the news of the Japanese victories”).159 Thus Nana Sahib is once again mobilized, this time in order to produce, the author deceptively claims, “une étude de haute portée philosophique et morale, montrant toute la différence de la mentalité asiatique avec celle des peuples de l’Europe” (“a study of important philosophical and moral significance that shows all the differences between the Asiatic and the European mind”).160 Predictably, this Asiatic mentality is typecast as depraved and lascivious—he is “sensuel et voluptueux au suprême degré [ . . . s’adonnant] à tous les raffinements de la débauche orientale et de la luxure hindoue” (“extremely sensual and decadent [ . . . giving himself over] to ever last refinement in oriental debauchery and Hindu luxury”), such as the “danses des bayadères qui servaient de prétexte à des orgies sans nom” (“the danses of bayaderes which serve as pretexts for indescribable orgies”).161 Beyond the eroticism of the text, what Gaultier de Saint-Amand actually produced was a study into French views of the British colonial “other” at the very height of imperialism. Set in 1857, the plot pivots around Nana Sahib’s dual plan (not unlike Richepin’s protagonist) to reclaim the Peshwa throne and exact a fitting revenge against his British oppressors. Rather than directly attacking the male colonizer, Nana Sahib intends to enact his vengeance indirectly through a group of British female captives: Combinant ses passions sensuelles avec sa haine de l’Angleterre, Nana-Sahib en était arrivé à formuler un double souhait que le soulèvement des cipayes allait lui permettre d’espérer réaliser: d’une part, la restauration à son profit du trône

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As this suggests, this is a novel that represents a controversial departure from the legendary tale of the Cawnpore massacre. The female “other” is not, in this case, the exoticized Indian bayadère or concubine, but rather a group of “chaste” British women. Although the idea of creating an erotic fiction, featuring British females from the bibighar massacre, must have been considered somewhat distasteful, this text is not simply about titillation. As the above quotation demonstrates, Nana Sahib plans to repay the rapaciousness of the British empire by raping its female “subjects” who stand in lieu of that oppressive force. Thus, this narrative reconnects the figure of the raped woman, represented most memorably by the bibighar victim, to British atrocity. In other words, it cuts through the rhetorical layering and processes of displacement found within those British narratives that prefer to represent the uprisings “as a barbaric attack on innocent white women” and reminds its readers that this uprising occurred because of Britain’s rapacious exploitation of India. 163 So graphic are these fictional scenes of violence that they border on being a parody of the sensationalist English-language narratives to which they refer. In one of the opening scenes, for example, a British woman is not only dragged into a mosque and burnt alive, but her Indian torturers “arrachaient la peau du visage, en formaient une sorte de masque hideux et l’un d’eux avait l’effroyable courage de s’affubler de la dépouille sanglante” (“were ripping the skin from her face and creating a hideous kind of mask, the bloody remains of which one of them had the audacity to disguise himself with”).164 Apart from upholding traditional concepts of female weakness, the abundance of such grotesque depictions of physical and sexual violence work to demythologize and (literally) disfigure the saintly image of the female victim that formed the staple of British “mutiny” texts. As suggested throughout this chapter, this “myth” depends on certain prerequisites, such as femaleness, whiteness, purity, physical attractiveness, and passivity, as well as rape and the ultimate demise of the victim, which served collectively to justify retaliatory violence. The following analysis shows that it is by methodically counteracting the various ingredients that construct this unassailable image

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of the female victim that Nana Sahib’s revenge functions in Gaultier de SaintAmand’s fiction. From the outset, Nana Sahib warns against the dangers of making martyrs out of British women. He objects, for example, to a decision made by a group of sepoys to burn their captives alive on the grounds that the women would be perceived to have died honorably, like Hindu “suttys.”165 His warnings are ignored and the women die with dignity: “La mère eut une malédiction tragique, les bras levés comme pour appeler sur ces tourmenteurs la colère divine, puis son visage redevint impassible et […] les lèvres murmurant une dernière prière, elle regarda fixement les insurgés” (“The mother cried out a tragic malediction, her arms were raised as if she were calling God’s fury down upon her tormentors. Then her face became impassive and […], murmuring a final prayer, she stared directly at the insurgents”).166 The stoic and defiant posture assumed by the British sati “exaspéra la foule” (“exasperated the crowd”), instead of quenching its thirst for revenge.167 Alternatively, in his own acts of punishment, performed upon a group of handpicked female captives, Nana Sahib is careful to ensure that his victims are thoroughly humiliated, dehumanized, and, most importantly, that they remain alive to tell the tale. This result is achieved through the technique of flagellation depicted in a series of graphic sadomasochistic scenes involving partial or full nudity, provocative posturing, whips, and restraints, each of which culminates in the selected virgin being raped by either Nana Sahib or one of his cohort. The aim of this repetitive ritual is summarized by Nana Sahib as follows: “Les fouets […] laisseront aux femmes la marque ineffaçable de la domination hindoue, et, lorsqu’elles seront revenues dans leurs îles brumeuses, les étrangères resteront un témoignage vivant de la victoire de l’Inde opprimée” (“The whips […] will leave the indelible mark of Hindu dominance upon these women. And when they have been returned to their misty isles, these outsiders will remain as living testaments to India’s victory over oppression”).168 Thus, unlike the sepoys in the episode mentioned above, Nana Sahib pre-empts the creation of the mythological female victim by using the female captive literally as the whipping boy for colonial oppression. The result, as will be shown, is the deformation of the sacrosanct bibighar victim, who is now inscribed with the memory of British weakness and the marks of its own atrocities. The processes of disfigurement and demythologization occur in several interconnected ways. First, the graphic scenes of sexual violence voice that which was “unspeakable” in British narratives of Cawnpore. As argued earlier, the fragments, such as the tresses of hair carried about by soldiers as talismans, were meant to symbolize synecdochically a (beautiful) female worth avenging and sacrificing one’s life for, and were fetishistic precisely because their incompleteness and suggestiveness allowed the beholder to indulge in fantasy. Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s Nana-Sahib, in a departure from the dictates of Victorian propriety, uses explicit sexual descriptions and, in doing so, removes the mythical

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qualities of the Cawnpore figure in order to arrive at a new meaning—British colonial atrocity. Secondly, in contrast to the myth of innocence and chastity, Nana Sahib equates the British female victim with prostitution since it is her image that is used to solicit revenge. He warns his men that “au jour où les colonnes de secours apparaîtront, les perfides Anglaises exciteront de leurs charmes leurs compatriotes à vous massacrer jusqu’au dernier. Il faut, au contraire, écraser l’orgueil de l’étranger” (“the day when the rescue troops appear, these perfidious British women will use their charms to entice their countrymen to massacre ever last one of you. Instead, we much crush the pride of the foreigner”). 169 Notably, the Indian leader is ventriloquized to voice a specifically French sounding stereotype for the British, “les perfides Anglaises” (“perfidious British women”), immediately reminding the reader that this is a text written by a French author. 170 Nana Sahib’s predications later come to fruition as the British soldiers who arrive in Cawnpore on an avenging mission are said to be driven by a desire to rescue three sisters, Florence, May, and Irène, who have, unknowingly, become part of their military fantasy of revenge. As Nana Sahib states, “Il paraît que leurs charmes [the sisters] avaient enflammé d’amour nombre de jeunes officiers, et depuis que l’on sait que je les tiens en mon pouvoir, chaque Anglais brûle de venir à leur secours” (“It would appear that their charms [the sisters] have ignited the flames of love in many of the young officers, and since they know that I have these women in my possession, all of them will be burning with the desire to come to their rescue”). 171 These “charmes,” he suggests, only exist as figments of the imagination for the British avengers, just as the Cawnpore victim only existed as a fantastical trope within British narratives of revenge. 172 Thirdly, it is Nana Sahib’s task to accentuate the disparity between this fantastical image and its disfigured reality. Hence, each of his female captives undergoes a systematic process of violation in which her position shifts from one of defending her chastity (her “pudeur”) to total compliance. The character of Ellen, for example, initially attempts to protect herself from being raped: “Tout son être se révoltait dans une suprême défense contre l’ignominie dont on la menaçait” (“Her whole being rose up in supreme defense against the ignominious act that they were threatening her with”).173 As time progresses, however, she becomes so submissive that she gives her body over to “trois amants à la fois” (“three lovers at once”) rather than suffering the pain of being whipped.174 Such a systematic denaturing of the female body through corporal punishment is a way of castigating the British for their own rapaciousness. What makes this meaning incontrovertibly clear is that Nana Sahib first learned the art of flagellation from a British officer: Un soir donc, un jeune officier [ . . . ] raconta à ses camarades amusés qu’il fréquentait à Londres une maison suspecte où il s’adonnait à la flagellation. Il raconta, avec force détails, les scènes dont il avait été témoin ou acteur, et souleva un tonnerre d’applaudissements en narrant comment il avait, à l’aide d’une cravache, littéralement mis en sang une malheureuse négresse.175

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So one evening, a young officer [ . . . ] entertained his friends with a story about his former visits to a house of ill-repute where he would give himself over to acts of flagellation. Without sparing the least detail, he recounted scenes in which he had been either a witness or an actor, and prompted thunderous applause with his tale of an unfortunate Negro woman, whom he had literally covered with blood with the help of a horsewhip.

It is the power relation within this sadomasochistic master–slave scene that Nana Sahib wishes to reverse. He disingenuously befriends the officer who informs him of all the secrets of “la flagellation féminine” (“female flagellation”), while Nana Sahib “suivait ses leçons avec des frémissements de colère sourde” (“followed his instructions shuddering with silent anger”).176 His suppressed fury at this brutality is later assuaged by performing this same scene in his own harem, but this time with white women (rather than “une malheureuse négresse” [“an unfortunate Negro woman”]). Having reduced the captives to the status of prostitutes, Nana Sahib thanks the British officer for his insight: “Il me faut rendre justice à l’officier anglais qui m’a enseigné les mystères de la flagellation […]. Sans ses conseils précieux, je n’aurais jamais songé à obtenir pareille obéissance de mes fières captives” (“I must give credit to the young British officer who revealed the secrets of flagellation to me […]. Without his precious advice, I would never have dreamt that I could achieve such obedience from my proud captives”).177 Nana Sahib’s decision to employ the same weapons of torture used by the British against disobedient sepoys further turns British atrocity against itself: “les Anglaises seront flagellées avec l’instrument terrible dont leurs compatriotes se servent pour punir les désertions” (“the British women will be whipped with the terrible instrument that their countrymen use to punish deserters”), that being the “chat à neuf queues” (“cat o’ nine tails”).178 In his adoption of British methods and tools, Nana Sahib quite literally inscribes colonial atrocity into the flesh of the female captives. 179 Finally, having vividly described the sexual degradation of the captives and their enforced but ultimate compliance, the last process of deformation begins with the destruction of aesthetic appeal. In contrast to British narratives, the end result of this punitive ritual is not to produce a female martyr, but rather a living reminder of British wrongs, one that has been so humiliated that it can no longer function as a mythical figure to justify revenge. The disfigurement of the women once Nana Sahib’s sadistic ritual is complete removes all their feminine allure, their ugliness, in turn, mirroring that of British colonialism. Before returning the women to their countrymen, who have imagined them as beautiful victims in order to fetishize their own avenging mission, Nana Sahib plans his final revenge in which the remaining three sisters are to be taught “l’art des soixante-quatre voluptés” (“the art of sixty-four sensual pleasures”).180 Following this final exhibition of torture and rape, the closing words of the novel, uttered by Nana Sahib, entirely reverse the idea of the heroic narrative:

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The French Colonial Imagination Que ces filles aillent maintenant vivre au milieu des leurs, impures, souillées, traînant jusqu’au tombeau la honte d’avoir été fouettées comme les plus viles esclaves. Et quand nos descendants libéreront l’Inde du joug de l’étranger, ils sauront, comme leur ancêtre Nana-Sahib, humilier dans la pudeur de ses femmes, l’orgueilleuse et perfide Albion!181 May these girls now go and live among their own kind, impure, dirtied, and dragging all the way to their graves the shame of having been whipped like the lowliest of slaves. And when our descendants free India from the foreigner’s yoke, they will know that their ancestor, Nana Sahib, debased the innocence of those women from that proud and perfidious Albion!

Beyond its verbalization of the “unspeakable” and its tendency to transform the sacramental into sexual titillation, this conclusion denies its British characters any kind of satisfactory end (through, for example, a compensatory vengeance carried out by British soldiers). As such, it not only inverts Anglo-centric accounts, but survival narratives more generally, which, as Pratt postulates, are premised on the “imperially correct outcome,” meaning that the survivor has both survived and has “sought reintegration into the home society.”182 Notably, where the raped female is concerned, the only possible outcome in British narratives is death because their defilement means that they cannot be reintegrated. In contrast, French-language narratives, from Maynard (1857) to Marenis (1946), have repeatedly revived the ghosts of Cawnpore with female captives that live to tell the tale. In the case of Nana-Sahib: Épisodes sanglants, these survivors are so physically disfigured and psychologically damaged that not only is reintegration impossible, but they are also incapable of being used to glorify and “civilize” British revenge.183 In the end, this is not a narrative about India’s revenge against the colonial oppressor. Rather, by ending with the words, “perfide Albion!” (“perfidious Albion!”), Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s fiction mobilizes a well-established French stereotype of British rapacity and reveals the real avenger to be that “other” colonizer: France. Nana Sahib, or the Indian “other,” has simply been employed as a figure through which to act out a fantastical punishment against the British in lieu of the French, while playing on British anxiety by anticipating a future time “quand nos descendants libéreront l’Inde” (“when our descendants free India”) from the oppression of British rule.184 By decivilizing the rhetoric of revenge and inverting the myths that worked to justify British violence, the French counternarratives studied here are able to focus on the less palatable material that such figures attempt to disguise. What is significant about French-language texts, from the reports in the French newspapers written under the Second Empire to texts produced in the late imperial period of the Third Republic, is their deliberate emphasis on the fantastical, irrational, and fearful structures underpinning British journalism, historiography, and fictional writing as they attempt to justify their acts of violence. While producing a damning criticism of the British in India, however, this critique is less about anti-colonialism per se, than a question

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of being against British colonialism. Ultimately, these texts are driven by a desire to rewrite British colonialism as a history of exploitation and predation, and to write this counter-narration within the universalist rhetoric of the Enlightenment that aims to present the French voice as a moral, rational, and distinctly more “civilized” corrective to British wrongs.

Notes 1. Following Spurr’s work into non-fictional writing, this analysis maintains that “journalism and other forms of nonfiction, despite conventional expectation, depend on the use of myth, symbol, metaphor, and other rhetorical procedures more often associated with fiction and poetry” and that these procedures form part of “a mythic imagination, [that] the nineteenth century elevated [ . . . ] to the level of scientific truth”; Spurr, 2–3 and 80–81. Parts of this chapter have been published with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. The original text can be found in Nicola Frith, “‘Imagining Freedom’: The Rhetoric of Slavery in French-Language Writing about the Indian ‘Mutinies’”, in Postcolonial Slavery: An Overview of Colonialism’s Legacy, ed. Charlotte Baker (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 23–41. 2. Sharpe, 62. For more information on the emotive effects of the well, see Brantlinger, 199–224. For an examination of the propaganda surrounding the bibighar walls, the well, and the permanent memorial placed at the wellhead in 1863, see Heathorn, 1–33. 3. William Howard Russell, My Diary in India, in the year 1858–9 (London: Routledge, 1860), 35. See also Hibbert, The Great Mutiny, 211–12. 4. Sharpe, 77–79. 5. Suleri, 4–5. 6. Ward, 343 and 386–404. 7. The term “scene,” with reference to the bibighar massacre, is adapted from Freud’s conception of a primary traumatic “scene” in patients suffering from hysteria. However, this is not to suggest, to borrow Vrettos’s phrasing, that British Victorian culture can be “diagnosed as collectively hysterical”; Athena Vrettos, Somatic Fictions: Imagining Illness in Victorian Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 11. Rather, it is to posit that, as a narrative within colonial history, the bibighar massacre possessed “the necessary traumatic force” or was a suitable “determinant” to produce an excessive response among Britons because it “justifiably produced a high amount of disgust”; Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1893–1899): Early Psycho-Analytic Publications, trans. James Strachey et al., 24 vols (London: Vintage, 2001; first publ. London: Hogarth Press, 1962), 3:193– 94. 8. “The Indian Mutinies,” The Times, September 28, 1857, 8. 9. The symbolic act of cleaning the bibighar floor was made obligatory prior to an insurgent’s execution; Ward, 456. 10. The Times, October 29, 1857, 8. 11. The Times, October 29, 1857, 8. 12. The Times, October 29, 1857, 8. 13. Russell, 28.

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14. Although Blunt writes that contemporaneous investigations into the violation of British women disproved these allegations, rape (as Sharpe and Macmillan also note) remained an idée reçue of British representations of 1857–58; Alison Blunt, “Embodying War: British Women and Domestic Defilement in the Indian ‘Mutiny,’ 1857–58,” Journal of Historical Geography 26 (2000): 403–28 (413); Sharpe, 2; MacMillan, 102–03. The figure of the raped female is not, however, confined solely to British imperial narratives, but is a trope that also occurs in reverse in Indian literature, with reference to the violation of Indian women by British men; Pamela Lothspeich, “Unspeakable Outrages and Unbearable Defilements: Rape Narratives in the Literature of Colonial India,” Postcolonial Text 3 (2007): 1–19 (5–6). 15. For more in the idea of collective memory, see Maurice Halbwachs, La Mémoire collective (Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1950). For information on collective memory with specific reference to the Indian uprisings, see Astrid Erll, “Remembering Across Time, Space and Culture,” in Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory, ed. Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 109–38. 16. Pietz is cited in Anne McClintock, “Imperial Leather: Race, Cross-Dressing and the Cult of Domesticity,” in Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), 635–66 (646). See also Emily Apter, “Introduction,” in Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, ed. Emily Apter and William Pietz (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 1–9 (3). 17. Paul Scott’s The Jewel in the Crown also implies the fetishistic function of the name bibighar, with the rape of Daphne Manners taking place at a bibighar to which “The Europeans seldom went, except to look and sneer and be reminded of that other Bibighar in Cawnpore”; Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown (London: Panther, 1980; first publ. Heinemann, 1966), 146. 18. “The Indian Mutinies: The Cawnpore Massacres,” The Times, September 30, 1857, 6. 19. These details can be found in Major Charles North’s Journal of an English Officer in India; Ward, 436–39. 20. Sharpe, 62. 21. “The Indian Mutinies: The Cawnpore Massacres,” The Times, September 30, 1857, 6. 22. “The Indian Mutinies: The Cawnpore Massacres,” The Times, September 30, 1857, 6. 23. Sharpe, 7. 24. Jessie Brown, III. 130. 25. Jessie Brown, III. 130. 26. Jessie Brown, III. 130. 27. Jessie Brown, III. 131. 28. The story of Wheeler’s daughter can be seen as a counter-narrative to these tales of female victimhood, since she was rumored to have killed her attacker before throwing herself into a well. As Sharpe argues, however, even in this account “what is at stake is a woman’s moral strength. […] Miss Wheeler is remembered for her courage and patriotism, but above all else her chastity. […] Miss Wheeler has no option other than to take her own life, even though she has already assumed the masculine role of punishing the sepoys”; Sharpe, 71.

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29. J. S. Bratton, “British Heroism and the Structure of Melodrama,” in Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930, ed. J. S. Bratton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 18–61 (26). 30. Lothspeich, 5–6. 31. Suleri, 3. 32. Suleri, 3 and 6. 33. J. Z. Holwell, “A genuine narrative of the deplorable deaths of the English gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal, in the night succeeding 20 June, 1756, in a letter to a friend by J. Z. Holwell, Esq.,” in Indian Record Series: Bengal in 1756–1757. A Selection of Public and Private Papers Dealing with the Affairs of the British in Bengal during the Reign of Siraj-Uddaula, ed. S. C. Hill, 3 vols (New York: AMS Press, 1968; first publ. London: Murray, 1905), 3:131–54. The Black Hole was often recalled in representations of the uprisings. For example, in Tytler’s eye-witness account, a Mr Wagentreiber (the editor of the Delhi Sketch Book) describes a group of British refugees who have taken shelter in the Flag Staff Tower as “a Black Hole in miniature”; Harriet Tytler, An Englishwoman in India: The Memoirs of Harriet Tytler, 1828–1858, ed. Anthony Sattin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 208. Trevelyan also wrote that Nana Sahib and Azimullah planned to “renew the Black Hole of Calcutta” at Cawnpore; Trevelyan, 50. 34. Teltscher, “Black Hole,” 35. 35. Teltscher, “Black Hole,” 36. For more on “survival literature,” see Pratt, 87. Pratt notes that, although this genre often involved “taboo configurations of intercultural contact,” such as “Europeans enslaved by non-Europeans,” the “context of survival literature was ‘safe’ for transgressive plots, since the very existence of a text presupposed the imperially correct outcome: the survivor survived, and sought reintegration into the home society”; Pratt, 87. 36. Teltscher, “Black Hole,” 38. 37. Teltscher, “Black Hole,” 41. 38. Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, “The Perils of Certain English Passengers,” Household Words 16 (12 December 1857): 1–36. For more on the adventure novel and colonial discourse, see Green, Dreams of Adventure, 3. 39. Charles Dickens, “To the hon. Mrs Richard Watson (December 7, 1857),” in The Letters of Charles Dickens, 8:487. 40. For more on the complexity of Dickens’s relationship to issues such as race and imperialism, see Moore, Dickens and Empire. 41. “Act of 1744, Section 3,” Captain Thomas Southey, Chronological History of the West Indies, 3 vols (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827), 2:299– 300. 42. Dickens, “Perils”, 2. 43. Davis laments, “If ever a man, Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely […] it was […] Christian George King”; Dickens, “Perils,” 6. 44. Dickens, “Perils,” 6. 45. As Peters (1998) and Nayder (1992) both point out, there are troubling similarities between King and Davis. Both characters are victims of British society—King is oppressed by colonialism and Davis is excluded from the middle and upper classes of British society by his orphan upbringing and his illiteracy, which make both a threat to the established order as either anti-colonial or antiestablishment rebels, respectively. Since “Gill shares the marginal status, albeit unequally and with some discomfort, with Chris-

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tian George King,” the dream could also represent his acknowledgement of this disavowed social equivalence, which “manifests itself in his haunting by Christian George King”; Laura Peters, “Perilous Adventures: Dickens and Popular Orphan Adventure Narratives,” The Dickensian 94 (1998): 172–83 (178). According to Nayder, Davis’s anger towards British institutions is eventually transferred onto the “savage” King, enabling Davis “to abandon his feelings of class hatred and to recognize his ‘real’ enemy—his racial ‘inferiors’ rather than his social superiors”; Lillian Nayder, “Class Consciousness and the Indian Mutiny in Dickens’s ‘The Perils of Certain English Passengers,’” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 32 (1992): 689–705 (697). 46. Dickens, “Perils,” 10. 47. Dickens, “Perils,” 35. 48. As JanMohamed writes, colonial literature often pits “civilized societies against the barbaric aberrations of an Other, and they always end with the elimination of the threat posed by the Other and the legitimation of the values of the good, civilized society”; Abdul R. JanMohamed, “The Economy of Manichean Allegory: The Function of Racial Difference in Colonialist Literature,” in “Race,” Writing, and Difference, ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 78–106 (91). 49. Slavery was abolished by Britain with the Slave Trade Act of March 25, 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of August 28, 1833. For a discussion on Dickens’s visit to the “New World,” see Arthur A. Adrian, “Dickens on American Slavery: A Carlylean Slant,” PMLA 67 (1952): 315–29 (318). While Perils may be an explicitly racist text, Moore suggests that Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859) “constituted a revision of the overt racism of the 1857 allegory […] by sympathetically aligning [… the Indian rebels] with both the French third estate of 1789, and the English working classes”; Moore, 5. 50. Herbert, 212. Note that Herbert offers no explanation as to why Dickens uses the year 1744 as the backdrop to Perils. See also chapter 1, note 4. 51. Russell, 29. Russell’s disapproval of British violence did not result in sympathy for the colonized Indians. Rather, he criticized the British who (unlike the Indians) should have behaved with more circumspection. Interestingly, Herbert notes that Russell’s diary attests strong disapproval to the linguistic violence of the colonizers, epitomized by the prolific use of the highly offensive epithet “nigger” to refer to Indians; Herbert, 64–86. 52. Sharpe, 79. 53. Trevelyan, 54. 54. Steel, 233. 55. Harriet Tytler’s eyewitness account similarly blames “Tommie Aitkins,” or the foot soldier, for the excessive acts of colonial violence committed during the uprisings, such as the lynching of “a poor little man (a Mohammedan baker)”, who was killed for having committed no greater crime than being late “with his bread for the men’s breakfast”; Tytler, 144. Clearly distressed by the unreasonableness of this violence—“I can’t understand how such a cruel deed was allowed, for they in turn should have been hanged”—, Tytler willingly lays the responsibility on a less “civilized” class than her own, thereby distancing herself and her class from such events; Tytler, 144. 56. Trevelyan, 171. 57. Steel, 287. 58. Steel, 306–07. 59. Pratt, 87; Steel, 263. 60. For a detailed discussion of the memorials to the uprisings, see Llewellyn, 180– 206. 61. Heathorn, 2; Ward, 551.

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62. Trevelyan, 109. Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26 (1989): 7–24. 63. Trevelyan, 174. 64. Nora, 19. 65. Nora, 24. 66. Malgonkar, 297. 67. Heathorn, 33. 68. Henry Cauvain, Le Constitutionnel, August 31, 1857, 1. 69. Louis Alloury, “France, Paris, 31 août,” Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, September 1, 1857, 1. 70. Despite his Anglicized name, “Clayton” was clearly not British. He reports on the events from a spectatorial position, rather than a participatory one, expressed, for example, through the constant references to “les Anglais,” rather than through the collective subject pronoun “nous.” 71. Clayton, “Nouvelles des Indes: Correspondance particulière de la Patrie (Bombay, 15 août),” La Patrie, September 17, 1857, 1. 72. “The Mutinies in India (from the Bombay Gazette),” The Times, September 17, 1857, 9. 73. “The Mutinies in India (from the Bombay Gazette),” The Times, September 17, 1857, 9. 74. A detailed analysis of Shepherd’s A Personal Narrative of the Outbreak and Massacre at Cawnpore during the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 can be found in Ward’s Our Bones are Scattered (1996). For more information on its reliability, see Erll, 115. 75. L., “The Indian Mutinies: The Massacre at Cawnpore,” The Times, September 19, 1857, 8. 76. H.-Marie Martin, “Télégraphie privée,” Le Constitutionnel, September 22, 1857, 1. 77. Marie Martin, Le Constitutionnel, September 22, 1857, 1. 78. Marie Martin, Le Constitutionnel, September 22, 1857, 1. 79. Marie Martin, Le Constitutionnel, September 22, 1857, 1. 80. Henry Cauvain, Le Constitutionnel, August 31, 1857, 1. 81. Emile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique: Courrier,” Le Siècle, September 17, 1857, 1. Mass executions during the uprisings were not uncommon and were usually celebrated in the British press. The Times was happy to endorse the words of a British officer stationed in India, who wrote of “the deservedness of the punishments we are inflicting and shall inflict. [ . . . N]early 80 men have been hung, and nearly 1,000 killed in the district”; “The Indian Mutinies,” The Times, October 5, 1857, 9. 82. Émile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique: Courrier,” Le Siècle, November 19, 1857, 1. 83. Arnould Fremy, “Faut-il manger du cipaye?” Le Charivari, October 27, 1857, 2; Arnould Fremy, “Pas de quartier,” Le Charivari, November 8, 1857, 1. 84. Clément Caraguel, “Du châtiment à infliger aux cipayes,” Le Charivari, October 21, 1857, 1. 85. Caraguel, Le Charivari, October 21, 1857, 1. 86. Louis Veuillot, “France: De la révolution des Indes (1 e article),” L’Univers: Union Catholique, 9 September 1857, 1. 87. In 1802, Bonaparte reneged on the abolition law decreed under the First Republic’s Convention in Pluviose An II (1794) and reinstated slavery, a decision that was not reversed until April 27, 1848 under the hastily established Second Republic. More infor-

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mation can be found in Bangou, 81; Seymour Drescher, “British Way, French Way: Opinion Building and Revolution in the Second French Slave Emancipation,” The American Historical Review 96 (1991): 709–34; Lawrence C. Jennings, “French Policy towards Trading with African and Brazilian Slave Merchants, 1840–1853,” The Journal of African History 17 (1976): 515–28 (525 and 527); Bangou, 39 and 46; Catherine A. Reinhardt, Claims to Memory: Beyond Slavery and Emancipation in the French Caribbean (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 1–2. 88. See chapter 1, note 24. 89. Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 95. 90. For example, Tinker writes of “the shameful neglect of ship-loads of Indians abandoned to their fate on Gabriel Island off the north coast of Mauritius”, leading to the suspension of emigration to Mauritius between October 24, 1856 and April 27, 1857; Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 90–91. 91. “Parlement d’Angleterre: Chambre des Communes,” Le Siècle, July 13, 1857, 1. For alternative views on the equation of indentured labor to slavery, see Pieter C. Emmer, “Mythe et réalité: La migration des Indiens dans la Caraïbe de 1839 à 1917,” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 336–337 (2002): 111–29; Northrup, 247. Ravi foregrounds yet another viewpoint by showing how Mauritian national literature celebrates the figure of the Indian “coolie” (or indentured laborer), not as a slave, but as an important agent in Mauritian national history; Srilata Ravi, Rainbow Colors: Literary Ethnotopographies of Mauritius (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 19. 92. The British Foreign Secretary is cited in Northrup, 248. After 1808, Britain insisted repeatedly that both France and Holland halt all involvement in slavery; an insistence that, as both Bangou, and Tombs and Tombs have argued, was not motivated by any concern for migrating slaves, but extended from a desire to quash its rival competitors by limiting the size of their workforces; Bangou, 53; Tombs and Tombs, 269. 93. Northrup, 248. 94. Jennings, 526. 95. Aylic Langlé, “L’Inde et les Cadets d’Angleterre,” Le Constitutionnel, November 26, 1857, 1–2 (1). 96. P. Dubois, “Paris, 26 décembre,” Le Constitutionnel, December 29, 1857, 1. 97. P. Dubois, December 29, 1857, 1. 98. Ernest Dréolle, Le Constitutionnel, April 23, 1858. Note that this was the second such amendment to be made to Article 8, the first having extended the period in which slaves owners living abroad were to free their slaves from three to ten years: “Le délai que l’article 8 du décret du 27 avril 1848, accorde aux Français établis à l’étranger, pour affranchir ou aliéner les esclaves dont ils sont possesseurs, est fixé à 10 ans” (“The delay set by Article 8 of the 27th April 1848 decree grants to all French persons residing in foreign lands a fixed period of 10 years in which to free or confiscate the slaves in their possession”); Bulletin des lois de la République française, January 1–June 30, 1851, 10th series, 220. 99. Ernest Dréolle, Le Constitutionnel, May 13, 1858, 1. 100. Ernest Dréolle, Le Constitutionnel, April 23, 1858. See “Slave Trade Act,” August 24, 1843, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/6-7/98 (accessed July 19, 2013) 101. “Day of Humiliation,” The Times, September 28, 1857, 4. 102. “The Day of Humiliation,” The Times, October 8, 1857, 5. 103. “The Day of Humiliation,” The Times, October 8, 1857, 5. 104. L. Alloury, “France, Paris, 8 octobre,” Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, October 9, 1857, 1.

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105. Emile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique: Courrier,” Le Siècle, October 10, 1857, 1. 106. H.-Marie Martin, Le Constitutionnel, October 13, 1857, 1. 107. “The Mutinies in India,” The Times, September 17, 1857, 9; Louis Jourdan, “L’insurrection de l’Inde,” Le Siècle, September 11, 1857, 1–2 (2). 108. “The Day of Humiliation,” The Times, October 8, 1857, 5. 109. Cham., “Croquis par Cham,” Le Charivari, November 29, 1857, 3. 110. Cham., Le Charivari, November 29, 1857, 3. 111. McNeil’s article considers the dual function of representations of the Highlanders in British accounts of 1857–58. On the one hand, the Highlanders “functioned as a metonymic sign of British fighting prowess” in “opposition to the inhuman values embodied in figures of Indian ‘mutineers’”; Kenneth McNeil, “‘Petticoated Devils’: Scottish Highland Soldiers in British Accounts of the Indian Rebellion,” Prose Studies 23 (2000): 77–94 (78). On the other hand, because of their “wild masculinity,” they were “portrayed as avengers not because their character is sharply antithetical to that of the barbaric native, but because it in fact replicates [sic] native character”; McNeil, 86. 112. McNeil, 80. 113. March, “Nouvelles des Indes: Correspondance particulière de la Patrie,” La Patrie, December 10, 1857, 1–2 (2). 114. Eugène Jouve, Guerre d’Orient: Voyage à la suite des armées alliées en Turquie, en Valachie et en Crimée (Paris: Delhomme, 1855), 10. 115. Trevelyan also recalled the mistake made by Nana Sahib and his troops with regards to the Highlanders’ gender: “When the mutineers first caught sight of the Highland costume, they cried with joy that the men of England had been exhausted, and that the Company had been reduced to call out the women”; Trevelyan, 14. This idea appeared in several other accounts, such as the Narrative of the Indian Revolt from its Outbreak to the Capture of Lucknow by Sir Colin Campbell (1858) and James Cromb’s The Highland Brigade (1896); McNeil, 82. However, the potentially damaging association with femininity was immediately adjusted by reasserting the masculinity of the soldiers—the mutineers, wrote Trevelyan, “soon had reason to repent their mistake, and thenceforward adopted a theory more consistent with the fact, for they held that the petticoats were designed to remind their wearers that they had been sent to India to exact vengeance for the murder of the English ladies”; Trevelyan, 14. 116. Henry Cauvain, “Paris, 24 octobre,” Le Constitutionnel, October 25, 1857, 1. 117. For more on oriental despotism, see Inden, 51–54. 118. Alexandre Bonneau, “La Révolution dans l’Inde,” La Presse, August 31, 1857, 1. 119. Dorigny, 49. For more information on the occultation of the Haitian Revolution, see Forsdick, “Situating Haiti,” 20–22. 120. Alexandre Bonneau, Haïti, ses progrès, son avenir (Paris: Dentu, 1862), 6. Bonneau was also the author of several other works, including a collection of odes and poems (1842), and a text on Les Turcs et les nationalités (1860). 121. In 1867, France annexed the western part of Cochinchine in modern-day Vietnam, laying the foundation for the Treaty of Saigon in 1874 that granted France sovereignty over the whole of southern Vietnam. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869 and the 1870s saw the beginning of the first “exhibitions ethnographiques” in the Jardin d’a Acclimatation in Paris; Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch et al., Zoo humains: Au temps des exhibitions humaines (Paris: La Découverte, 2004). The first Congress of Berlin was held in 1878 to decide the fate of the Balkans, and in 1879 Joseph

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Gallieni began an expedition in West Africa to conquer parts of Sudan in modern-day Mali; Ferro, 110–11. 122. Anne Green, Changing France: Literature and Material Culture in the Second Empire (London: Anthem Press, 2011), 3–33. 123. Verne, La Maison, 46. 124. Hermione de Almeida and George H. Gilpin, Indian Renaissance: British Romantic Art and the Prospect of India (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 36. This event is recalled in Verne’s fiction: “Le major Munro réprima la révolte avec une impitoyable énergie,—et n’hésita pas à faire attacher, le même jour, vingt-huit rebelles à la bouche des canons,—supplice épouvantable, souvent renouvelé pendant l’insurrection de 1857, et dont l’aïeul du colonel fut peut-être le terrible inventeur” (“Major Munro showed no mercy in gaining control of the revolt—the very same day, he had no hesitation in having twenty-eight rebels attached to the mouths of the cannons—a terrible punishment, often used during the insurrection of 1857, that was perhaps invented by the Colonel’s grandfather”); Verne, La Maison, 21 125. Verne, La Maison, 403. This same form of execution was widely practiced on insurgents during the uprisings and was intended to act as a memorable exhibition of colonial power. For example, Dickens’s weekly journal, Household Words, printed an eyewitness account that defended the practice of these executions as a suitably horrifying punishment for those men who “had planned the destruction of every European—man, woman, and child”; “Blown Away!” Household Words 17 (March 27, 1858): 348–50 (350). La Maison also mentions these executions, but notably the entire chapter detailing these and other acts of British-led revenge was removed from the English-language translation by Arco Publications (1959); Verne, La Maison, 39. 126. Verne, La Maison, 410. 127. An eyewitness account by John Charles Sheen described “the slaughter” of the Indian populace as “indiscriminate and wanton . . . all the inhabitants were put to death and their bodies thrown into tanks in the fort. Even the women were not spared . . . Four hundred beautiful women, all bleeding with wounds, from the bayonet, and either dead or expiring in each other’s arms, while the common soldiers, casting off all obedience to their officers, were stripping them of their jewels and committing every outrage on their bodies”; Sheen’s letter is cited in de Almeida and Gilpin, 36–37. 128. British fears of a French invasion into India via the gateway of Afghanistan can be dated from the Napoleonic Wars; Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600–1850 (London: Pimlico, 2003; first publ. London: Cape, 2002), 348. As well as the French, the British were also concerned about Russian invaders using Afghanistan as a staging post to enter India. Subsequent attempts to protect this region between 1828 and 1907 became known as the “Great Game”; Edward Ingram, The Beginning of the Great Game in Asia, 1828–1834 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 13. During the uprisings, both the French and the Russians were suspected of intrigue; Ward, 48–49; Sen, 123. 129. “Verne ne cherchait nullement à élargir le monde selon des voies romantiques d’évasion ou des plans mystiques d’infini: il cherchait sans cesse à le rétracter, à le peupler, à le réduire à un espace connu et clos” (“In no way did Verne seek to broaden his [fictional] world by exploring the romanticism of evasion or along planes of infinite mysticism. He never stopped searching for ways to shrink, to occupy, and to reduce the world by creating to a known and enclosed space”); Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1957), 80–81.

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130. Jean-Yves Tadié, Le Roman d’aventures (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982), 94. 131. Colley provides a useful investigation into Britain’s self-conscious smallness and its resultant desire to project and maintain the illusion of greatness; Colley, Captives, 4–12 and 367–79. 132. Sarah Capitanio, “‘L’Ici-bas’ and ‘l’Au-delà’… but Not as they Knew it. Realism, Utopianism and Science Fiction in the Novels of Jules Verne,” in Jules Verne: Narratives of Modernity, ed. Edmund J. Smyth (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 60–77 (64). 133. Verne, La Maison, 99. 134. “Il ouvrit aussitôt le robinet des purgeurs des cylindres, et d’intenses jets de vapeur fusèrent au ras du sol [ . . . ]. ‘Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! s’écria le capitaine Hod! Cinglez-les, ami Banks, cinglez-les!’” (“He immediately opened the valves for the draincocks and boiling jets of steam burst out from the cylinders and onto the ground [ . . . ]. ‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’ cried Captain Hod, ‘Burn them, Banks my friend, burn them!’”); Verne, La Maison, 102 135. Verne, La Maison, 22. 136. Verne, La Maison, 22–24. 137. Verne, La Maison, 136–38. 138. Verne, La Maison, 27. 139. Verne, La Maison, 209. It is these same cultural groups that support Nana Sahib in his plans for a new uprising: “Ces Bhîls barbares, ces Kounds nomades, ces Gounds, aussi peu civilisés que les naturels des îles du Pacifique, le Nana les trouva prêts à se lever, prêts à le suivre” (“All these barbarous Bhils, nomadic Kounds, and Gounds, who were as backwards as the natives of the Pacific islands, the Nana found ready to revolt and follow him”); Verne, La Maison, 212. 140. Verne, La Maison, 209–10. 141. Verne, La Maison, 209. 142. For more information on the feminization of hysteria, see Vrettos, 92; Spivak, 92. 143. Verne, La Maison, 136. 144. Verne, La Maison, 209. 145. Verne, La Maison, 136–38. 146. Verne, La Maison, 222. 147. Verne, La Maison, 420 and 422. 148. This victory is delayed, rather than immediate—it takes a month for Lady Munro to recover: “Peu à peu lady Munro revint à la raison. Ce charmant esprit se reprit à penser. De ce qu’avait été la Flamme Errante, il ne resta plus rien, pas même le souvenir” (“Little by little, Lady Munro regained her right mind. Once more, this charming woman was able to think. There was nothing left of what had been the Wandering Flame, not even a memory”); Verne, La Maison, 438. 149. The titles of Gaultier de Saint-Amand’s other fictions are as follows: Au service du sultan rouge, épisodes des massacres d’Arménie (1894-1896) (1909); Plaisirs de Tibère, mœurs flagellants de la décadence romaine and Les mystères du harem (1910); La Caverne des supplices, Les Droits de seigneur and Débauches impériales . . . (Néron s’amuse) (1911); Chair servile (l’esclavage à Saint-Domingue en 1789) and Terre d’esclavage (la vie des femmes indiennes au Pérou) (1913). 150. Ravi, “Marketing Devi,” 140.

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151. Marius Bernard, “Nana-Sahib: Histoire de la Révolte de l’Inde (1857),” in Au delà de l’Atlantique, 2 vols (Paris: Boulanger, 1895), 2:1–87. 152. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, v. Likewise, Bernard’s text was written in response to a recent massacre, this time in Manipur “[qui] donnent à ce récit un intérêt d’actualité qui n’échappera pas à nos lecteurs” (“which gives to this account a contemporary interest that will not escape our readers”); Bernard, 1. Recalling Lucknow in 1857, Britons were held captive at the Residency in Manipur following a dispute over the legitimacy of Manipuri Regent, Jebraj. The Manipuri Army’s Commander in Chief, Senaputty, had driven the former Rajah (also his older brother) into exile and replaced him with Jebraj, whom the British authorities refused to recognize. In exchange for recognition, the British government insisted that Jebraj hand over Senaputty, who was accused of having instigated the murder of the British Chief Commissioner Quinton, the political agent Grimwood, and several others. Since Jubraj refused to comply, the British and their troops attempted to seize the Senaputty and fighting broke out immediately; “The Disaster at Manipur (Calcutta, April 3),” The Times, April 4, 1891, 5. Reports that the British prisoners had been “massacred” began to filter into Britain from Calcutta on April 6 and their deaths were confirmed in Parliament on April 9 following a telegram from the Viceroy; “Latest Intelligence: The Disaster in Manipur (Calcutta, April 5),” The Times, April 6, 1891, 5; “Parliament: House of Commons (Thursday, April 9): The Disaster in Manipur,” The Times, April 10, 1891, 4. Manipur and its Regent were captured on May 8, 1891 and replaced with the young Nar Singh (a 5-year old), and Manipur was reduced to a vassal state. 153. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, v. 154. It is thought that Japan’s defeat of Russia inspired numerous anti-colonial movements across Asia. For more information on the rise of Vietnamese nationalism under French colonial rule, see J. Chesneaux, “Stages in the Development of the Vietnam National Movement 1862–1940,” Past and Present 7 (1955): 63–75; J. Kim Munholland, “The French Response to the Vietnamese Nationalist Movement, 1905–14,” The Journal of Modern History 47 (1975): 655–75. 155. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, viii 156. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, vi–vii 157. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, vi 158. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 69. 159. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, viii 160. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, vi. 161. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 45. 162. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 46. 163. Sharpe, 2. 164. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 30. 165. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 55. 166. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 55–56. 167. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 56. 168. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 242. 169. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 87. 170. Cornick writes that “the myth of ‘Perfidious Albion’ accumulated a large corpus of stock phrases and historical parallels, including that of likening republican France to early Rome in its struggle with treacherous Carthage”; Cornick, 127. 171. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 276–77. 172. Likewise, Jacqueline Marenis’s La Révolte sans âme (1946) reflects upon the effect that the “myth” of the Cawnpore victim had on the British military and public. It

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narrates the process by which the female victim achieves this mythological status, showing her to be a case of mistaken identity. The woman who comes to symbolize the Cawnpore victim is a provocative character named Inès who is the antithesis of British images of the female martyr. She is an Indian-born Portuguese-Welsh woman, who is described as being “férocement égoïste” (“unbelievably self-centered”) and is neither killed nor discarded into the Cawnpore well following the bibighar massacre, but remains as the only surviving witness; Marenis, 108. She deliberately creates her own myth following this massacre and this image is the exact opposite of her true diabolic nature. Not only does she betray her husband (the hero of the story, Michael Fabert O’Linden) by having an affair with one of Nana Sahib’s men (“un trafiquant qui fait le commerce clandestin de l’opium” [“a trafficker involved in the clandestine opium trade”]; Marenis, 124), but also the European community by deciding to defect to Nana Sahib’s camp at the onset of the uprisings. Despite these unattractive characteristics, it is Inès’s narrative that the British troops mistakenly adopt as their motive for their bloody revenge, which is carried out by crazed young soldiers who “ne discutaient pas, ne pardonnaient pas; tous, avant d’être juges, se faisaient exécuteurs” (“neither debated nor forgave. All of them, before judging, made themselves executioners”); Marenis, 275. 173. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 97. 174. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 236. 175. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 47. 176. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 48. 177. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 236 and 237. 178. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 129. One of Nana Sahib’s friends, Hurry-Sing, reports that the British use this weapon to punish their sepoys: “J’ai eu un de mes cipayes qui a subi cette flagellation. Il me disait que le chat à neuf queues produisait des souffrances intolérables” (“One of my sepoys had experience the pain of this form of flagellation. He told me that the cat o’ nine tails caused terrible suffering”); Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 129. 179. As Mukherjee notes with regards to the physical punishments enacted by the British upon Indian insurgents during the uprisings, British rule “visibly manifested itself by marking the body of the Indian”; Mukherjee, “Satan Let Loose upon Earth,” 94. 180. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 280. 181. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 299. 182. Pratt, 87. 183. See also the earlier comments on Marenis’s Inès in chapter 4, note 172. 184. Gaultier de Saint-Amand, 299

CHAPTER FIVE

Compensating for l’Inde perdue: France’s “Civilizing Mission”

The Paradox of Republican Colonialism As has been shown throughout this study, France’s (re)writing of the Indian uprisings persistently challenged the “myths” of British colonialism, from renaming the uprisings as “une révolution” to recasting the Indian “other” as a tireless revolutionary who threatened the future of British rule. More than anything, the uprisings were used as an opportunity to create a pessimistic image of the British colonial “other” against which the optimistic future of French colonialism could be reimagined. To this end, timeworn stereotypes of, and prejudices against, the British were recycled across a wide variety of political texts produced under the Second Empire and Third Republic.1 The British were seen as enslavers and usurpers who had seized the Mughal Empire, but without reforming any of its corrupt systems: “les Anglais n’eurent qu’à se substituer aux Musulmans, et l’oppression, devenue plus savante et mieux régularisée, n’en fut que plus onéreuse et plus funeste pour les populations” (“the British have done nothing more than replace the Muslims, but their system of oppression, being better informed and regulated, is all the more onerous and unpleasant for the populace”), wrote Barrier for the Catholic press L’Univers.2 They lacked any sense of a moral, ideological, and/or Christian agenda, being driven instead by a selfish and retrograde desire for economic gain: “C’est dans le mercantilisme pur que se résume toute la politique de l’Angleterre” (“All of Britain’s policies can be summarized as pure mercantilism”), wrote the political commentator and lawyer, Frédéric Billot, in his Anglophobic pamphlet, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France (1857).3 This avaricious desire for economic exploitation was linked directly to

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their Protestant faith, which was viewed by many French writers at this time as a corrupt deviation from the altruism of Catholicism: “Le missionaire Anglican” (“The Anglican missionary”), wrote Laurentie (an editor for the bonapartist L’Union and author of a work on Algerian colonization published the year before the uprisings), was nothing more than “un officier de la Compagnie des Indes [ . . . ] qui a pour l’objet unique l’asservissement des populations et plus particulièrement la levée des tributs” (“an officer of the East India Company [ . . . ] whose sole objective is to enslave the people and notably to raise taxes”). In contrast, the goals of “le missionnaire catholique” (“the Catholic missionary”) were oriented towards more spiritual ends, to enlighten (éclairer) “des âmes déchues, et en les arrachant à la barbarie de les rattacher au ciel” (“the fallen souls by wresting them from their barbarism and reconnecting them with God”).4 The result was that British colonialism was seen as lacking in a genuine and moral ideology, and was therefore at odds with the idea of a French-led “civilizing mission” grounded in Christian proselytism. Under the Third Republic, the overtly Catholic and evangelical nature of this colonial discourse would become increasingly laïcisé, although this gradual process of laïcisation can already be seen at work in 1857.5 As Bédollière, editor of the anti-clerical Le Siècle posited, the British had forgotten “la mission morale qu’elle avait à remplir à l’égard de la population Hindoue” (“the moral mission that it had a duty to respect with regards to the Hindu populace”) (emphasis added), being “plus occupée d’exploiter l’Inde que de la civiliser, plus sensible au plaisir de régner sur les deux tiers de l’espèce humaine [ . . . ] qu’à l’honneur de les initier aux lumières et aux bienfaits de la civilisation européenne” (“more concerned with Indian exploitation than with its civilization, and more attuned to the pleasures of ruling over two thirds of the human race [ . . . ] than honoring the duty to initiate them into the ways of the Enlightenment and the benefits of European civilization”).6 In their anxiety to seek financial rewards, the British were considered to have abused their role as tutelle over their colonized peoples, a privilege that France would have respected (Bédollière implies) had it been in Britain’s position. Thus, although colonization was generally viewed as an imperative act to be conducted by European countries—“L’Angleterre a eu raison de conquérir l’Inde; la civilisation a toujours raison de mettre en demeure la barbarie” (“Britain was right to conquer India; civilization is always right to rule over barbarism”), stated C. H. Edmond for the bonapartist La Presse7—, this was only the case if the colonial power in question adhered to the moral agenda set by France, this being the modern (as opposed to the old mercantile) way. Anyone who fell short of these standards was considered to be threatening the wider rhetoric of European colonialism: “prenons garde de ne jamais déroger à la sainteté de notre drapeau” (“take care to ensure that the sanctity of our flag is never desecrated”), warned La Presse, “Une vaste action expansive et civilisatrice ne peut procéder que d’un principe supérieur qui la vivifie et la domine” (“A widespread and ex-

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pansive civilizing mission can only proceed by adhering to a higher order of principles that are its lifeblood and master”). 8 In these examples, it is the French voice that sets the moral guidelines for this “vaste action” and claims to ensure that such standards are maintained on behalf of Europe, meaning a Europe controlled by a Napoleonic-style empire and existing under “notre drapeau” (“our flag”). Thus, what unites these polyphonic voices speaking from legitimist, bonapartist, catholic, and/or republican perspectives, and therefore across political regimes and traditional schisms, is a shared belief in core values, namely France’s right to speak and act on behalf of Europe, the moral and cultural foundations of France’s civilizing mission (be it secular or Catholic), and the distinctive modernity of this mission when compared with the mercantilism of British alternatives. As the previous chapters have demonstrated, the uprisings offer an important case study that reveals the extent to which French colonial discourse defined itself against the negative image not only of the colonized Indian “other,” but also the British colonial “other.” As such, these events also helped to drive and shape the emergence of a new colonial language that, in the wake of abolitionism, differentiated itself from the Ancien Régime and the First Empire, both of whom had been involved in slavery and had suffered extensive territorial losses to the British. In this way, the abolition of slavery under the short-lived Second Republic can be seen as marking the beginning of an alternative colonial discourse that was rooted in the “mythical” idea of freedom. 9 It was this postabolitionist concept of liberation that would form the bedrock of the Third Republic’s mission civilisatrice, but it is also a language that emerged from, and is implicitly connected to, the Second Empire and its nostalgic imperialism. Looking back at the French colonial past, notably under the Third Republic, means confronting the central paradox of the République coloniale; the Republic being led by the will of people, while the Republican colony is led by the will of the oppressor. As Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès state, it is only by recognizing and probing the distance between republican discourse and its colonial practices that the founding “myths” of the Republic’s civilizing mission can be challenged: Le travail sur la République coloniale est [ . . . ] un travail de déconstruction des mécanismes d’autojustification et de rationalisation pour permettre le dépassement de l’impasse où nous mène une République toujours habitée par son rêve d’empire, par le fantôme d’une utopie qui lui apporta sa “grandeur” mais lui fit justifier des actes criminels.10 To work on the colonial Republic [ . . . ] requires deconstructing its mechanisms of self-justification and rationalization. This will enable us to move beyond the impasse brought about by a Republic that remains invested in its dream of empire and haunted by the traces of a utopian “grandeur” that served to justify its criminal acts.

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According to this argument, there is a need to deconstruct the oxymoronic nature of republican colonialism by questioning the persistent presence in the French post-colonial imagination of an imperial dream. 11 This process of deconstruction not only requires us to understand how the colonial imagination was formed in relation to the colonized “other” and rival colonial discourses, but also how it attempted to define itself against previous colonial empires and political regimes. Before examining this final question, it is worth remembering just how pervasive the myth of France’s republican civilizing mission remains in French society today. One recent example is a speech delivered by the former president of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, during the 1998 anniversary to celebrate 150 years since the abolition of slavery under the Second Republic (Paris, April 23, 1998). Chirac carefully positioned the commemorations within a celebratory and nonrepentant framework, focusing almost exclusively on France’s laudable role in abolition.12 He referred euphemistically to that “page peu glorieuse de l’histoire de notre pays” (“inglorious chapter from the history of our country”), which, he asserted, was counteracted by the Republic’s triumphant writing of its end: “Commémorer l’abolition de l’esclavage par la France, c’est parler de l’homme et c’est parler des valeurs de la République” (“To commemorate the abolition of slavery by France is to speak of humanity and of the values of the Republic”).13 By parceling out history into a shameful pre-Republican period that had been corrected by the Republic, Chirac was able to use French abolitionism to reframe the history of nineteenth-century French colonization as a transfer from enslavement (under the monarchy or Ancien Régime) to freedom (under a Republic led by France’s foremost abolitionist, Victor Schœlcher): “Les anciens esclaves deviennent, dès qu’ils sont affranchis, des citoyens à part entière. Ils jouissent de tous les droits civils et politiques. [ . . . ] Ce que notre pays refuse, alors, c’est l’apparition d’une catégorie de citoyens de seconde zone” (“As soon as they were freed, the former slaves became citizens in their own right. They benefitted from full access to political and civil rights. […] What our country avoided therefore was the emergence of second-class citizens”).14 The year 1848 is thus offered as a defining moment for egalitarian integration, a “myth” that is belied by the continuation of a plantation economy that created (and remains at the root of) widespread economic disparity in France’s overseas departments. Such fantasies are haunted by nostalgia for lost colonial grandeur that simultaneously attempts to rework or erase memories of colonial atrocity committed specifically under a republican government. In other words, saving the Republic from the potential blight of its colonial past means unhinging it from any unwanted associations with human rights abuses by focusing exclusively on the merits of republican-led colonial rule and largely privileging the rhetoric of the mission civilisatrice of the Third Republic. Necessarily, then, it also means finding non-republican “others” to blame for those unfortunate crimes so that the memories of colonialism become historically compartmentalized into the exploi-

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tation of non-republican regimes, namely the Ancien Régime and the bonapartist empires on the one hand, and the altruistic nature of republican colonialism (associated with abolitionism and a “civilizing mission”) on the other. As such, nostalgia is not simply “le regret d’une grandeur perdue” (“regret for a lost grandeur”), but continues to operate in France today, informing, for example, attitudes towards the outre-mer, the role that France sees itself playing in North– South relations, and “la conviction que la République n’a pas commis de crimes, que ces derniers sont dus à des individus (anti-républicains)” (“the conviction that the Republic has not committed any crimes, which can be imputed to [antirepublican] individuals”).15 Chirac’s nostalgic version of abolition serves as a useful reminder of the importance of forgetting in the construction of a Republican identity each time it intersects with the French colonial imagination. Not only did he fail to remember that abolitionism was as much about acts of resistance and self-liberation performed by slaves as it was about celebrated abolitionists, such as Victor Schœlcher, but he also disguised the fact that the process of abolition was a rather piecemeal affair. Beyond the legal amendments (1851 and 1858), this fact becomes immediately obvious if the uneven application of universal rights between the metropolitan center and its colonies, and again between the different policies governing individual colonies is recalled. France’s colonial policies in India serve as a particularly good example of this process, which, once recalled, provide a rather less salutary version of abolitionism than that produced by the French president 150 years after the event. In the French comptoir of Karikal, slavery continued under a different name, the panéal system. A panéal (writes Weber) was a “‘homme de culture’; coolie qui travaille la terre du mîrâsdâr [propriétaire foncier à Karikal]” (“‘farmer’; a coolie who works the land of a mîrâsdâr [a landowner in Karikal]”) under conditions that approximated to those of servitude or serfdom. 16 This system continued to function unchecked despite abolition, an exception to the April 27, 1848 abolition decree that was justified by the Procurer Ristelhueber as being well within the bounds of republican legislation: “Dans toutes les anciennes colonies à esclaves une législation spéciale est suivie à l’égard des affranchis. Pourquoi, dès lors, n’adopterait-on pas des règles particulières pour les panéals?” (“All the former slave colonies adhere to special legislation with regards to the freed slaves. Following this example, why would we not adopt special rules for the paneals?”).17 So while the abolitionist, Victor Schœlcher’s successful defence of “le principe de la liberté du travail” (“the principle of the freedom to work”) against the Conseil colonial’s wishes to force freed slaves to work were heard in relation to the Antillean sugar colonies, this guiding principle would remain “étranger à Karikal” (“foreign to Karikal”).18 Likewise, if the Constitution of November 4, 1848 decreed that all French colonies were to have parliamentary representation and all representatives were to be elected by the people,19 a special law was created only six days after the

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election of the pro-assimilationist and former Nantes merchant, Lecour, that erased French India’s right to parliamentary representation (March 15, 1849). 20 Schœlcher would argue, once again, against this betrayal of republican universalism, calling for the rights of all (including Indians) to defend “leurs droits, leurs intérêts, leurs mœurs et leur réligion” (“the rights, their interests, their customs, and their religion”).21As with Ristelhueber’s justification of the panéal system, this exceptionalism at the heart of republican universalism could no doubt be justified under the careful wording of Article 109 of the Constitution in which the colonies were already subject to “des lois particulières” (“special laws”).22 These episodes serve to highlight not only the inconsistent meanings of republicanism as it travelled from the metropolitan centre to its colonies (forgetting “ses idées fondatrices dès que le bateau s’éloignait du port de Marseille” [“its founding principles as soon as the boat left the port at Marseille”]23), but also the uneven application of “universalism” in-between each of France’s colonies. Such inconsistencies and exceptions are occluded by state-led memories of the past, such as Chirac’s 1998 speech, which create a “mutilated history,” to borrow Vergès’s term, of French colonialism. This works by drawing clear lines between political regimes that create a binary division between the stagnation and corruption of both the Ancien Régime and bonapartist empires, and the moral hauteur of the Third Republic’s mission civilisatrice. To blur the boundaries between these historical partitions and their attempt to demarcate republican colonialism as ethically opposed to its political “others” is thus one of the key aims of this chapter. As such, a second aim is to provide a better understanding of the emergence of France’s mission civilisatrice by grounding it within the patterns of colonial discourse extant during the Second Empire and early Third Republic (long before Jules Ferry would pronounce his discours of July 28, 1885 on “Les fondements de la politique coloniale” [“The founding principles of colonial policy”]24). A third and final aim is to examine the primary importance of the legacies of loss associated with the Ancien Régime and the First Empire for French colonial identity formation in the mid to late nineteenth century. By providing a close analysis of the different ways in which loss, along with the nostalgia that it inspires, function in French-language narratives of the Indian uprisings produced both during and after 1857, it reveals that India was not simply an abstract figure of regret, but operated as a key motivator for overseas expansion during the transition from Empire to Republic.

From Loss to Liberté While these introductory examples relate to some of the clear incongruities between metropolitan republican discourse and material praxis in the colonies, it should be remembered that the French Indian comptoirs were largely constructed in the public imaginary through the concepts of loss and the exotic “else-

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where,”25 and not through ontological constructs such as economics and labor. As Weber explains, depuis les échecs et les abandons du XVIIIe siècle, depuis que l’Inde est anglaise, les comptoirs ne sont plus que des noms. On ne sait plus en France quelles réalités se cachent derrière ces syllables tropicales qui inspirent les voyageurs et les poètes.26 ever since the failures and losses of the eighteenth century, and ever since India became British, the trading posts have existed in nothing more than name. In France, we have no idea what realities hide behind these exotic syllables which inspire travelers and poets.

Loss and exoticism occlude the significant role played by India in, for example, the French Atlantic Triangle and the production of guinées (cotton clothes sold on the African continent in exchange for slaves), the supply of Indian indentured laborers to the French sugar colonies pre- and post-abolition, and the important role of the Second Empire in reviving the French enclaves from their former economic stagnation.27 These historical realities thus counteract the widely held vision of India as “lost” by recalling the fact that the comptoirs continued to exist and function economically within French colonial politics until their decolonization in 1962. Yet the concept of “l’Inde perdue” held significant cultural capital and has remained a longstanding trope within the French colonial imagination. Writing during the first half of the twentieth century, Claude Farrère would use precisely this term as the title for his historical work, L’Inde perdue (1935), and in doing so would neatly summarize an idea that had been extant in French writing since the eighteenth century.28 As shown in the previous chapters, the subject of one of the largest anti-colonial uprisings in the colonized world, this time against the dominant British colonizer, propelled the subject of India back into the French public consciousness, providing writers with an opportunity to assess critically the effects of British colonialism on France’s global position and to imagine what an India, or even a world, freed from British domination could be like. The idea of a British “Inde perdue” inspired writers such as Frédéric Billot who would ponder this possibility at length in his political text, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France (1857). Writing in the midst of the revolts and under the Second Empire, he outlined his vision of a “post-colonial” Britain in a chapter entitled, “L’Inde perdue, quel sera l’avenir politique et social de l’Angleterre?” (“India Lost: The Political and Social Future of Britain”), in which he imagined Britain retreating into itself post-1857.29 He considered that Britain’s necessary withdrawal following its prospective loss of India (or “L’Inde perdue”) would encourage that once-great colonial power to begin cultivating a degree of circumspection that it had hitherto lacked. The result, he pre-

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dicted, would encourage Britain to ally itself with its European neighbors, rather than seeing them as the collective enemy: Dès ce moment, l’Angleterre rentre en elle-même, vit de sa vie propre [ . . . ]. Moins arrogante [ . . . ], on ne la verrait plus provoquer, bouleverser, jeter à tout propos l’insulte et l’outrage au front de l’Europe; elle sentirait que, pour qu’on soit juste envers elle, il faudrait qu’elle le fût envers les autres.30 From this moment onwards, Britain begins to withdraw into itself and to live its own life [ . . . ]. Being less arrogant [ . . . ], it will no longer provoke and upset Europe by throwing insult and injury with every word that it utters. It will understand that in order for Europe to act justly towards Britain, Britain will have to act justly towards Europe.

Once reduced to its natural geographical size and having lost the privileges that global hegemony had permitted thus far, Britain would be forced to share its power equally with France: “Les villes de Londres et de Paris seront sœurs; et l’Angleterre et la France suffiront au maintien de l’équilibre du monde” (“The cities of London and Paris will be sisters, and Britain and France will be all that is needed to maintain global equilibrium”).31 The perceived inevitability of this new “egalitarian” era, ushered in by the common people (in this case India), is presented as a warning sign that cannot be ignored by Britain: “L’ère du droit commun s’est levée. Que l’Angleterre s’incline devant lui, ou le droit commun la tuera!” (“The era of common law is upon us. May Britain submit to it or risk its own death by the common law!”). 32 Thus, for this writer, the uprisings marked a potentially vital shift in the balance of global power, which France could use to its political and economic advantage to reposition itself as a more significant global leader and redress a period of relative decline. Beneath Billot’s optimistic vision of a British “Inde perdue” lies an indirect reference to that other history that relates to the military and territorial losses suffered by France in the second half of the eighteenth-century, which Farrère would go on to explore nearly eighty years after the revolts. Farrère’s retrospective reading of 1857−58 does not examine the possibilities of a British loss, but takes a rather more nostalgic tone typical of French writing on India. It considers whether an India under French leadership could have ever produced such a violent popular backlash. The answer, inevitably, is no: “Je mets en fait que jamais l’insurrection de 1857 ne se fût déployée comme elle fit, si l’Inde eût alors été française: nous avons vécu toujours plus près de nos sujets, soit Africains, soit Asiatiques, que les Anglais des leurs” (“I put it to you that the insurrection of 1857 would never have played out as it did if India had been French. We have always lived closer to our subjects, be they African or Asian, than the British have to theirs”).33 By holding the Indian revolts up as an example of flawed colonial management that stems from the lack of a shared fraternity between Brit-

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ain and its colonial “subjects,” Farrère was able to promote instead the comparative greatness of France’s republican-led imperial expansion. These two texts, one produced in 1857 under the Second Empire and the other in 1909 under the Third Republic, share a common and longstanding belief in the comparative justice of France’s alternative colonizing mission, and a common regret for the loss of India to the British enemy. It was at the intersection between these two perspectives—nostalgia for India’s “loss” and the potential for Britain to lose India during the uprisings—that a certain fantasy emerged within French journalistic writing of 1857, which imagined that India could be liberated from the tyranny of British rule and governed under a more equitable order, France. Writing during the second Napoleonic empire, this idea provided French journalists and subsequent writers with a pretext to hark back to the eighteenth century and to recall past occasions when France had purportedly tried to “liberate” India from the British. “Si quelques régiments de cette armée [de Napoleon] avaient pu pénétrer auprès de Tipo-Saëb […] jamais la puissance anglaise n’aurait pu acquérir la prépondérance dont elle est si fière” (“If just a few regiments from this army [Napoleon’s] had been able to get through to Tipu Sultan […] never would British power have acquired the primacy of which it is so proud”), wrote Barrier for L’Univers in reference to Napoleon Bonaparte’s promise to “deliver” the Mysore Kingdom and its leader, Tipu Sultan, from the “Iron yoke of England” following the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. 34 Beyond the nostalgic and romanticized recollections of supposed missed opportunities, the subject of an Indian-led uprising also summoned forth the idea that France under Bonaparte’s nephew could, once again, attempt to play the role of the heroic libérateur. Prior to 1857, this was an idea that had been expressed by a few lone voices. Over the course of 1853, Billot, for example, had written some twenty-two letters to the recently enthroned emperor urging him to avenge the Treaty of 1815 (that “page de boue” [“indecent document”]) by engaging in an active colonial mission to colonize, or what he termed a “mission providentielle” (“mission of God”).35 With the support of Europe and in the name of global liberty, this mission would punish Britain’s rapacity: Vous [Louis Napoléon] détruirez le principe du mal, c’est-à-dire l’oligarchie anglaise; [ . . . ] vous placerez le Royaume-Uni dans l’impossibilité de nuire à jamais, en posant le principe du droit des gens maritime pour toute la terre; et la terre saluera avec ivresse l’ère nouvelle que vous aurez ouverte pour elle. Et quoi qu’il vous arrive, citoyen ou César, vous resterez grand dans tous les siècles, plus grand que celui que vous avez pris pour modèle.36 You [Louis Napoleon] will destroy the rule of evil, meaning the British oligarchy; [ . . . ] you will make it impossible for the United Kingdom to ever destroy again by implementing the rule of law for all maritime people across the world; that the world will salute you euphorically for the new era that you have opened for them. Whatever happens to you, citizen or Caesar, your name will remain

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Billot’s double-tongued discourse flatters the emperor by appealing to his desire for glory and posthumous fame, while criticizing his foreign policy and its tendency towards British alliance, which Billot clearly saw as flawed. The onset of the Indian uprisings provided such opinions with a more tangible context since they forced imperial France to focus its attention on the subject of British colonialism and provided political commentators and journalists with an opportunity to shape their visions of this colonial future in the wake of Britain’s potential loss. As the uprisings blossomed into a full-scale colonial war, the seductive (and typically bonapartist) notion of “liberating” India was considered by some writers to be a possibility worth exploring. The vague threat of a French-led intervention can be felt in the calls issued for something substantive to be done about the situation. Britain, wrote Girard for Le Siècle (moderate republican), needed to change “sa politique et sa manière d’agir à l’égard de ses sujets de l’Inde” (“its policies and its approach with regard to its Indian subjects”) or it would risk inviting others to “liberate” India instead: Si ce n’est pas de l’intérieur que lui viendra le danger, il lui viendra du dehors; déjà elle croit apercevoir la main d’un peuple d’Europe dans cette grave insurrection. Si jamais ce peuple parvenait dans l’Inde par la haute Asie, ainsi que l’avait fait Alexandre, la domination anglaise courrait de grands risques, car il serait reçu comme un libérateur par ces populations opprimées.37 If it is not from the interior that danger will come to Britain, then it will come from the outside. Already Britain believes that it can see the hand of Europe operating in this grave insurrection. If ever Europe was to reach India through northern Asia, as Alexander once did, Britain’s rule would be in grave danger because this people would be received as liberators by the oppressed populations.

Girard’s mentioning of “la haute Asie” (“northern Asia”) and his reference to Alexander the Great play on the historical volatility of India to invasion via Afghanistan, a fear that had often resurfaced among Britons, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars with the threat of French invasion, and then throughout the nineteenth century towards Russia. 38 Billot’s views were more extreme and direct, but followed along similar lines: “Par les excès sans nom qui viennent, à jamais, de déshonorer [ . . . ] le nom anglais, l’Europe chrétienne et civilisée ne peut pas ne pas intervenir. Le droit, la justice, la morale, l’humanité lui en font le plus sacré des devoirs” (“As a result of the indescribable excesses that have permanently dishonored [ . . . ] Britain’s name, our civilized and Christian Europe cannot not intervene. Law, justice, morality, and humanity make this the most

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sacred of duties”).39 Billot called for a worldwide coalition to be mobilized against this common enemy: Ce n’est pas la France seule qui doit intervenir, c’est l’Europe et l’Asie tout entière, non pour donner à l’Inde des maîtres nouveaux et une couleur nouvelle à l’oppression, mais pour secourir et affranchir. [ . . . ] C’est la croisade la plus solennelle et la plus sainte.40 It is not just France that must intervene, but all of Europe and Asia. It must do so not in order to provide India with new masters and a new variety of oppression, but to save it and free it. [ . . . ] This is a most solemn and saintly crusade.

The use of the term “croisade” (“crusade”) assigns Britain to the role of the heathen or infidel that needs to be crushed or converted, not by Christian crusaders, but by their modern equivalents—“la fédération des peuples” (“the people’s federation”), an imagined community of enlightened French-led nations assigned with the task of spreading the message of French universalism to the world. 41 As the ultramontain newspaper L’Univers recognized, however, the possibility of France liberating India from the yoke of the British was not a realistic one: “la France n’est pas assez ambitieuse pour tenter une semblable aventure” (“France is not ambitious enough to attempt such a venture”), wrote Barrier.42 Yet, that did not stop such newspapers, or political writers like Billot, from wishing it were otherwise or from encouraging other countries to invade on France’s behalf. This desire captured the imagination of the metropolitan press to such an extent that the satirical and oppositional journal, Le Charivari, exploited it as a source of satire by mocking, in particular, the bellicose desires of the legitimist newspaper, La Gazette de France.43 In one such article, it envisaged La Gazette’s editor, M. Lourdoueix, mobilizing Britain’s traditional enemy, the Russians, in an attack that would (once again) take advantage of the unstable frontier between Afghanistan and the Punjab.44 Should the Russians refuse, then M. Lourdoueix was depicted as volunteering himself for a military mission to save India: Si personne ne veut faire le bon coup en question, La Gazette est bien décidée à risquer elle-même l’aventure. [ . . . ] M. Lourdoueix, le dernier des paladins de notre âge, se mettrait à leur tête pour aller rejoindre Nena-Sahib, cet autre paladin, et conquérir l’Inde. [ . . . ] Car ce qu’il importe au fond, c’est d’écraser l’Angleterre, de la ruiner, de la pulvériser, de l’anéantir, parce qu’elle est hérétique quoique chrétienne.45 If no one wants to take up the challenge in question, La Gazette is ready to risk the adventure itself. [ . . . ] M. Lourdoueix, the last knight of our age, will lead the charge and go and join that other knight, Nana Sahib, and conquer India. [ . . .] After all, what really matters is crushing, ruining, pulverizing, and eradicating Britain, because Britain is heretic, albeit Christian.

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The word “paladin” (“knight”) is apt, demonstrating how the uprisings were used to wage an anti-British crusade that, in the case of La Gazette, was against colonialism based on Protestantism rather than Catholicism. In this case, Le Charivari’s parody is constructed from the paradox that La Gazette would even go as far as to support the “infidel” Nana Sahib, or France’s own enemy following the Crimean War, the Russians, in its desire to destroy Protestant Britain. 46 In 1857, however, a surrogate triumph was perhaps all that France could hope for. In the unlikely event that Louis Napoleon would decide to assist India should its leaders request French aid, the only remaining possibility for French intervention would be if Britain were to appeal to the French emperor for military reinforcements. L’Univers momentarily allowed itself to indulge in the fantasy of this alternative scenario: “Si l’Angleterre demandait recours à la France, nous imaginerions difficilement que la France refusât. Cependant, quel peut être le prix d’un tel secours?” (“If Britain were to come to France for help, we cannot imagine that France would refuse. Yet what would be the cost of this help?”), asked Veuillot.47 Rejecting the idea of a pecuniary reward, he imagined that, la France se réserve quelques stations, quelques avantages pour son commerce et pour sa marine; qu’elle reprenne même l’Île Maurice, qui est française et où la domination [anglaise] est haïe, cela va tout seul; mais ce sont comparativement au service à rendre, d’insignifiantes indemnités!48 France would keep some strategic outposts for its commerce and its navy. It goes without saying that it would take back Mauritius, which is French and where [British] domination is reviled. But these are comparatively insignificant damages for the services that will be rendered!

Veuillot’s reference to Mauritius reveals his underlying economic motivations. At the time of writing, Mauritius was in the midst of a major economic boom based on its sugar production, necessitating the importation of many thousands of Indian “coolies” contracted under the post-abolition indentured labor system.49 Although these “human resources” were open to British planters, the Indian government had restricted French plantation owners in Réunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana from accessing this same labor pool, an embargo that was not lifted until 1860.50 For Veuillot, the uprisings were viewed, therefore, as an opportunity in which to compensate for France’s past losses (including Haiti in 1804) and renegotiate its ongoing subordination to British law at a political, territorial, and ideological level. As such, even if France had no direct involvement in India’s “liberation,” writers of that period and from all political standpoints could still delight in imagining the collateral advantages that might be accrued to France from Britain’s potential downfall. For the most part, Britain’s loss was equated to France’s economic gain through the promise of increased trading opportunities with India:

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“Si le monopole britannique […] trouvait son terme dans ce vaste marché de 300 millions d’âmes, ce serait au profit de l’industrie et du commerce de toutes les nations [sic], qui entreraient en concurrence dans les conditions d’une parfaite égalité” (“If the British monopoly over this vast market of 300 million people were to end, it would be to the industrial and commercial advantage of all nations who would enter the market on an equal basis”), wrote Coquille for the legitimist newspaper La Gazette.51 Its political opponent, Le Siècle, however, denied this vision as little more than quixotic daydreaming by reminding its readers that the East India Company had lost its trade monopoly on May 4, 1848, which had already led to significant increases in trade between France and India.52 But irrespective of whether France could have profited in terms of trade, territorial acquisition, or political influence, there remained much to be gained at a rhetorical level. The idea of Britain’s downfall was compelling since it provided a good example to support an existing discourse that celebrated France as the vanguard of political liberté by positing France as a source of inspiration for the oppressed masses to rise up against tyranny. Billot espoused such a postulate when he wrote, Nous n’avons oublié que “TOUS LES PEUPLES QUI SOUFFRENT ONT LES REGARDS TOURNES VERS L’OCCIDENT!” [sic] et que la France, dans le sublime rôle que la Providence lui a donné, ne se montre que pour affranchir et assurer, dans la grande fédération humaine qui se prépare, leur vie propre aux nations qu’on opprime; à elle d’ouvrir les voies qui doivent conduire à cette universelle fraternité des peuples dont Dieu lui a donné la mission de préparer les véritables liens.53 We have not forgotten that “ALL THOSE WHO SUFFER LOOK TOWARDS THE WEST!” and that France, thanks to the sublime role that God has bestowed upon us, is there to free and assure the lives of the oppressed nations who will form part of the great human federation to come. It is up to France to open the roads that must surely lead to this universal fraternity of people that God has given us the mission to unite.

Constructed out of the ashes of the Indian revolts, Billot’s future vision, inspired by a mixture of republicanism and imperialism, saw France leading the world into freedom; an ambitious picture that he framed within the universalist language of the Enlightenment. As he developed his putatively egalitarian thesis, however, his argument became increasingly Franco-centric: Je veux que le souffle chrétien pénètre l’Orient, que les vraies lumières de la civilisation l’éclaire, et que ces immenses contrées, abruties par l’esclavage, soient rendues à leur autonomie pour former, dans la chaîne des peuples, l’anneau qui doit les unir à la grande fédération dont les éléments, sous l’influence de la France, s’élaborent au sein de l’humanité.54

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According to Billot’s pamphleteering, this radical socio-political transformation must operate under the aegis of the French nation in a kind of protoassociationist model (that he unwittingly promotes using images associated with slavery).55 Bypassing France’s recent, and arguably ongoing, involvement in the slave trade, countries under British control are viewed as “abruties par l’esclavage” (“worn down by slavery”) and therefore in need of liberation by a bonapartist army. France is thus put forward as the guiding light under which the colonized world would be led to freedom; an idea that could be argued potently within the context of an Indian-led rebellion against British tyranny. The conceptualization of French colonialism as a potentially emancipating force in India was not limited to the impulsive reactions of writers responding to events as they unfurled on the subcontinent in 1857, but held enough cultural capital to provide a stimulus for fictional writing even once the uprisings had ended.56 Long after the uprisings had reached their conclusion, the same discursive pattern can be seen recurring in texts such as Assolant’s adventure novel, Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du Capitaine Corcoran (1867). Through the fantastical adventures of the eponymous hero, this novel celebrates French imperial conquest against the mise-en-scène of Indian rebellion, with Capitaine Corcoran assigned to play the role of India’s republican savior, rescuing the land and its people from Britain’s enslavement. But as will be shown, the euphemistic layering of this text is undone by its exegesis, which reveals an underlying will to dominate and speak for the colonized “other,” and thereby triumph over the frère ennemi. It should be recalled, however, that Assolant (like the journalists cited above) was writing under the Second Empire and its stringent publication laws. As noted in chapter 2, while internal politics divided the opinion press on domestic issues, their freedom to express these political differences remained highly limited. Yet where international affaires were concerned, a far greater degree of liberty was permitted since the subject under interrogation was not France and its regime, but rather the politics of other nations. Just as the Second Empire gave rise to “un véritable pullulement de journaux non politiques” (“a veritable proliferation of non-political newspapers”),57 that could sufficiently mask the political opinions of their authors, so the international news could serve the same function, opinion politics taking place in the safety of an off-shore haven. This duality is clearly at work in Assolant’s Aventures that can be read on one level as a critique of the tyranny of British colonialism in India, but on another as a trenchant criticism of Louis Napoleon’s Empire. Indeed, Assolant’s anti-bonapartist and pro-republican political views were often aired in his work

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as a journalist for the republican press during the Second Empire. While at the Courrier de dimanche, his “prises de position Républicaines attirent sur le [ . . . ] journal, en août 1864, les foudres de l’Empire” (“republican posturing brought the wrath of the Empire upon the [ . . . ] newspaper, in August 1864”), for which he was suspended for two months. 58 Yet imprisonment did not prevent Assolant from producing the highly popular, but distinctly republican fiction, Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du Capitaine Corcoran.59 The story begins with Corcoran, a Breton captain, being commissioned by the Académie des Sciences de Lyon to travel to India and find the Gouroukaramtâ, a fictional theological text that is described as the “premier livre sacré des Indous, antérieur même aux Védas” (“first sacred book of Hinduism, earlier even older than the Vedas”).60 Corcoran’s mission, as Petr points out, echoes that of Anquetil-Duperron’s real expedition to find the sacred Veda and Zoroastre scriptures.61 The search for the Gouroukaramtâ is only a subplot that complements the territorial battle waged between Corcoran’s Indian army and the British over the fictional land of Bhagavapour. Rather than a territorial battle, it represents a more abstract form of intra-European rivalry, this time for the possession of “oriental” knowledge.62 Once Corcoran has located and forcibly taken the Gouroukaramtâ, this non-territorial form of rivalry is displayed through the different responses of European newspapers to France’s victory. Whereas the French newspapers celebrate Corcoran’s success as “cette glorieuse expédition” (“this glorious expedition”), their British counterparts respond by declaring “unanimement que ce Corcoran était un misérable aventurier, bandit de profession, qu’il avait dérobé le précieux manuscrit du Gouroukaramtâ à un voyageur anglais [ . . . ] et qu’il avait fait alliance avec Nana-Sahib pour assassiner tous les Anglais de l’Inde” (“unanimously that this Corcoran was a wretched aventurist, a professional crook who had stolen the precious Gouroukaramtâ manuscript from a British traveler [ . . . ] and had entered into an alliance with Nana Sahib to assassinate all the British in India”).63 While this is a comical depiction of Franco-British animosity, the Gouroukaramtâ, as a fiction within a fiction, also demonstrates France’s ongoing desire to occupy India epistemologically in lieu of having any kind of political influence over the subcontinent. 64 Of course, it was not always the case that France lacked political power, as the allusion to an imagined alliance between Nana Sahib and Corcoran in the above quotation suggests. The alliance recalls, albeit indirectly, the historical coalitions between France and India against the British, evoking a past time when France had had the opportunity to occupy India, not just through knowledge, but through political and territorial colonization. This link is further substantiated by connecting the Breton capitaine ancestrally to one of the greatest heroes of France’s eighteenth-century overseas conquests, the Breton corsaire who fought against the British in India, Robert Surcouf.65 Corcoran’s ancestry is used to justify his Anglophobia, explaining, as Cornick postulates, “his atavistic outlook towards the British and his willingness to help the Indian

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rebels.”66 Indeed, the historical animosity towards the British among the corsaires, and notably Surcouf, was such that running illegal slave ships was seen as a way of defying the British who were enforcing the 1815 slave trade ban on the high seas.67 Capitaine Corcoran is not simply a text that invokes nostalgia for past “greatness” (as well as a link to illicit slave trading) through its central protagonist. Rather, the uprisings perform an instrumental role in furnishing this narrative with a plausible historical context in which to promote the seductive image of the republican colonizer as a libérateur. In other words, although nostalgia and loss underpin Capitaine Corcoran, this is counterbalanced by mythologizing the French as better rulers than the British (and the Republic and better colonizers than the Empire) through a contemporary tale of French-led Indian emancipation. The imagining of a successful victory over the frère ennemi during a moment of British colonial instability thus assuages, in part, the memories of French defeat inevitably recalled by the historical references that lie within Corcoran’s characterization. In the true adventure mode, as defined by Tadié, history is not then the subject of this text, but rather “un décor […] toujours à l’arrière-plan, [reproduit] par quelques détails suggérés” (“scenery […] always in the background, [reproduced] in a few suggestive details”).68 Factual details, such as the first mutiny in Meerut (May 10, 1857), simply provide a tenable setting for Corcoran’s arrival in the imaginary Marathan kingdom of Bhagavapour flying “le drapeau tricolore” (“the tricolor flag”) that comes to signify his message of freedom. 69 The setting of this narrative in the fictional state of Bhagavapour implicitly suggests that a French victory can only take place is an explicitly imaginary space. Thus, while narrating a story of French victory, the text attests to the impossibility of France ever again becoming a significant colonial power in India. Within this realm of fantasy, the memory of France’s exit from India can be partly reversed, with Corcoran’s timely landing and subsequent actions preventing a British victory and ending their designs to annex the kingly state of Bhagavapour. As a result, the Breton captain is greeted with an outpouring of gratitude from the Maharajah of Bhagavapour, Holkar, and his “subjects,” who collectively eulogize Corcoran as their saviour—“vous venez de sauver ma vie et mon trône” (“you have just saved my life and my throne”), cries Holkar, while his daughter, Sita, immediately pledges her life to Corcoran, “je vous dois la vie et l’honneur. Je ne l’oublierai jamais” (“I owe you my life and my honor, and I will never forget it”).70 In return for his help, the dying Rajah entrusts Corcoran with his land and people, and willingly agrees to the marriage between the Capitaine and Sita. Their union celebrates France as a heroic masculine colonizer, while anthropomorphizing India as a voiceless woman in need of rescuing from the iniquitous British colonizer who, in turn, serves as the antithesis of the philanthropic French liberator.71

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Under Corcoran’s new leadership, Bhagavapour begins its revolutionary trajectory towards the birth of a new Marathan “nation.” In his coronation speech, Corcoran celebrates his accession to the Peshwa throne, somewhat paradoxically, with an outpouring of republican rhetoric. He addresses his “subjects” as “Représentants de la glorieuse nation Mahratte” (“Representatives of the glorious Marathan nation”) and preaches that “Tous les hommes naissent égaux et libres” (“All men are born equal and free”), before ordering them “[faire] les lois suivant la justice, et [respecter] la liberté” (“create just laws and respect freedom”), all of which need to be defended “contre les Anglais” (“against the British”).72 By placing Corcoran as the leader of this new nation, in other words, by making him the new Peshwa, he succeeds where Nana Sahib, the de facto dispossessed ruler of the Marathan people, was seen to have failed. Hence, Indian history is appropriated and transformed into a tale about a victory for French republicanism. Echoing the newspaper articles produced during the uprisings, what Capitaine Corcoran overtly suggests is that India needs to be rescued from British enslavement by an external, rather than internal, leader, just as France needs to free itself from its tyrannical Empire. In this post-abolitionist era, it is through a discourse of slavery and emancipation that the republican message of liberté is preached explicitly in opposition to British and Indian forms of government, and implicitly as contradistinct to Louis Napoleon’s oppressive political regime. Echoing the abolition of slavery act under the newly established Second Republic (1848), the slaves that had formed part of the despotic social landscape of Holkar’s kingdom are transformed into “Citoyens libres du pays mahratte” (“Free citizens of the Marathan nation”), while additionally being liberated from the threat of British annexation.73 The figure of the previously enslaved Indian “other” is ventriloquized to denounce the policies of Holkar and the British and promote, in contrast, French republicanism. In an exchange with Corcoran, the slave-turned-servant, Sougriva, condemns the late Holkar as a stereotypical Indian despot: “il faisait venir des esclaves des cinq parties du monde […] et il faisait empaler quiconque avait essayé de lui dire la vérité” (“slaves were forced to come from all four corners of the world […] and anyone who tried to tell him the truth was impaled at his command”).74 “Parbleu!” (“Goodness!”) responds Corcoran, “il faut avouer que si tous les princes de ton pays ressemblaient au pauvre Holkar [. . .], vous avez bien tort de les regretter et de combattre les Anglais qui vous en débarrassent” (“you must admit that if all the princes of your country are like that no good Holkar [ . . . ], then you are very much mistaken to want them back and to fight against the British who are getting rid of them for you”).75 This coercive statement prompts Sougriva to reply, “Je ne suis pas de votre avis […] car les Anglais, mentent, trompent, trahissent, oppriment, pillent et tuent aussi bien que nos propres princes” (“I cannot agree with you […] because the British are as good at lying, cheating, betraying, oppressing, pillaging, and killing as our own princes”).76 Voiced through Sougriva, the impotence of ordinary Indian people is

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implied, ushering in a need for French-led intervention and political reform, which is fulfilled by Corcoran’s leadership. It is the “liberated” Sougriva who speaks on behalf of the Indian people when he deifies Corcoran as their saviour: “Plus je vous entends, dit Sougriva, plus je crois que vous êtes la onzième incarnation de Wichnou, tant vos discours sont pleins de sens et de raison” (“Your words are so full of sense and reason, said Sougriva, that the more I listen to you the more I believe you to be the eleventh incarnation of Vishnu”).77 France, as represented by Corcoran, thus becomes the altar at which the oppressed come to pray for assistance against tyranny, just as Billot, writing ten years earlier, had put France forward as the country to which “tous les peuples qui souffrent” (“all those who suffer”) turn for inspiration against British dominance.78 These ideologically infused aphorisms are constantly debilitated, however, by the imperialist agenda that is woven into Corcoran’s plans. Despite the republican rhetoric that runs throughout the text, Corcoran wishes to realize Napoleon Bonaparte’s original plans to conquer India. Corcoran intends to execute these plans, which he has inherited from his predecessor, Holkar (the plans having previously been passed along an illustrious line from Tipu Sultan, to “père Holkar,” to Holkar, before reaching Corcoran), but in order to do so he requires an army equivalent in size to that of Napoleon. 79 Although Assolant was an ardent supporter of republicanism, the promotion of the Napoleonic legend alongside republican values in Capitaine Corcoran is not perhaps as incongruous as it might first appear to be. As Hazareesingh notes (although not with reference to Assolant), relationships between Bonapartists and republicans may well have been “marked by a profoundly adversarial relationship” during the second half of the nineteenth century, but that did not mean that their views and ideas could not converge, for example, where “the pursuit of “grandeur” abroad” was concerned.”80 What it also reveals, therefore, is the impossibility of republican-led colonialism behaving as anything other than imperialist. In order to achieve his republican dreams of colonial expansion, Corcoran must first use a Napoleonic design. He decides to manipulate the religious beliefs of his “subjects”—those stereotypically gullible Hindus who willingly worship him as a Hindu deity—in order to recruit his own Grande Armée: J’ai l’Inde [ . . . ]. Songe que je suis aux yeux de ces pauvres gens, la onzième incarnation de Vichnou. Depuis deux ans, des milliers de brahmines et de fakirs de toute espèce annoncent sous main aux Indous que Vichnou lui-même s’est incarné pour les délivrer. On fait sur moi des légendes.81 I have India [ . . . ]. To think that, in the eyes of these poor people, I am the eleventh incarnation of Vishnu. For two years now, thousands of Brahmins and fakirs of all kinds have been letting slip to the Hindus that Vishnu himself has returned to deliver them. They are transforming me into a legend.

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Rather than being the republican hero that the text clearly sets out to create as a preferable alternative to both France’s Louis Napoleon and British overseas governance, Corcoran is revealed to be no better than what Indologists, such as James Mill, had defined as oriental despots, being rulers that employed a degenerate form of classical Hinduism as a tool with which to fanaticize and instil fear into their “subjects” as a mechanism for control.82 The act of rewriting the revolts as a Gallo-centric narrative that celebrates French liberté is thus performed to the detriment of Indian freedom and agency. By appropriating and ventriloquizing what was, in reality, an Indian-led war against the British, Assolant’s text simultaneously enslaves Indian voices by silencing their histories under the rhetoric of French national and colonial propaganda. Moreover, by marketing French overseas expansion as an emancipatory force contrary to the British enslavers, this fiction glosses over France’s contemporaneous involvement in slavery under its new guise, indentured labor, with tens of thousands of Indians being moved through Pondichéry, Karikal, and Calcutta, and shipped to the French Antilles precisely at the time that Assolant was writing.83 Once political assimilation and enlightenment has been achieved, Corcoran abdicates after signing a peace treaty with the British ensuring Bhagavapour’s independence.84 Along with his Indian wife and son, Rama, he moves to a utopian island, leaving behind a “nation” based on republican ideals. “Vous avez conquis la liberté” (“You have conquered freedom”), preaches Corcoran in his farewell speech to his “subjects,” “apprenez à la défendre. J’abdique en vos mains, et, dès aujourd’hui, je proclame la République fédérale des Etats-Unis mahrattes” (“learn to protect it. I leave it in your hands. Hence forth, I proclaim this the Federal Republic of the United States of Mahratta”). 85 This independence does not mean that Corcoran cuts all ties with his former kingdom or that the idea of Inde française is forgotten. Indeed, the last paragraph of the novel reads: P.S. On prétend […] que Corcoran n’a pas perdu de vue son ancien projet de délivrer l’Hindoustan de la domination anglaise. On m’a même communiqué tout récemment de nombreux détails sur les intelligences qu’il entretient avec les brahmines des diverses parties de la Péninsule, depuis l’Himalaya jusqu’au cap Comorin […]. Au reste, qui vivra verra.86 P.S. It is claimed […] that Corcoran has not forgotten his former plan to deliver Hindustan from British domination. Just recently, I was even told of the numerous intelligence links that he has maintained with Brahmins from all over the Peninsula, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin […]. As for the rest, it remains to be seen.

As this quotation indicates, the dream of French involvement in India has a future life, albeit one that is presented as an afterthought (a “P.S.”), that is continually nourished by remembering instances of British colonial crisis, such as the

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uprisings, and underpinned by the dream of creating a French-led revolution to overthrow the British. The utopian republic of Bhagavapour might only be a fantasy, but it functions as an important counter-factual memorial to an Indo–French alliance that contrasts with the antagonisms between the British and their colonized “subjects.”87 Ironically, however, Corcoran’s republic (as well as his secret island 88) also recalls those scattered French trading posts marooned in, or positioned on the outskirts of, British India. But likewise, it is from those tenuous footholds that the ongoing fantasy of a French-colonized India “liberated” from the British is sustained. Although this image is “short-circuited” because, to borrow Bongie’s phrasing, it is underpinned by an “always already” fantastical image of the past that remains eternally beyond reach, it is also because of the “promise that it holds out” that it is able to reinvigorate the desire for future colonial expansion through which previous losses will be compensated. 89 Thus, even if the idea of French rule in India was unrealizable, it still remained useful since it enabled an idealized future vision of French colonialism to be created within the exotic imaginary of India. The uprisings, therefore, offered a context in which Britain’s subjugation of India could be pitted against the imagined philanthropy of French colonialism based on a republican discourse of emancipation and liberté, but framed by a bonapartist imperial mission.

Idealizing the Republican Colonizer When juxtaposed with the negative example of the British in India, Frenchlanguage texts could not only promote the French as libérateurs, but could also suggest that there existed among Indian people a distinct preference for French over British rulers by narrating a “special” relationship between the métropole and the subcontinent. This recurring trope in French writing on India can be clearly identified in the adventure novel, Le Charmeur de serpents (1875), written by the nineteenth-century traveller, photographer, and author, Louis Rousselet. This Indian-based fiction was published alongside his illustrated travelogue, L’Inde des rajahs: Voyage dans l’Inde centrale et dans les présidences de Bombay et du Bengale (1875), an autobiographical text that details his sixyear voyage across India (1863–68) and serves as the experiential background for his fictional work, Le Charmeur de serpents.90 These texts were also published in the same year that the Third Republic was formally stabilized with the approval of a new Constitution in 1875. Rousslet’s travelogue and fiction are not inspired by the same acute sense of Anglophobia that underpins the imperialist drive of Assolant’s Capitaine Corcoran, but are largely admiring of British colonial systems. As such, they offer a subtler example of intra-European colonial rivalry that anticipates Jules Ferry’s discourse on France’s mission civilisatrice

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by using the uprisings as a context in which to advocate the benevolence of the French Republic’s colonial ideologies. Unlike the hostile relationship between Britons and their “subjects” in post1857 India that had been fictionalized by authors such as Verne, Assolant, and Gaultier de Saint-Amand, Le Charmeur de serpents sets out to create a central protagonist (André Bourquien) who is able to “go-between” or bridge the worlds of the colonizer and colonized “other,” forging positive relationships with the Indian community.91 Like all colonial discourses, this rhetoric is destabilized by a latent desire to “colonize” India and thereby silence the Indian voice beneath a specifically French agenda. But for French authors writing in this later imperial period, the difference lay in their belief that they were narrating a conquest of the heart rather than of the mind. As Assayag has noted, the claims to a gentler form of overseas conquest espoused by French colonial discourse is what supposedly marked it out from the British: Alors que les instruments de Sa Très gracieuse Majesté étaient principalement concernés par les exigences matérielles de l’hégémonie impériale—les Britanniques cherchaient d’abord à se faire respecter—, la vision politique de la France consista essentiellement à développer une stratégie d’influence culturelle—les Français sous les tropiques voulaient en plus être aimés! Ils voulaient faire La conquête des cœurs.92 Whereas the systems of Her Gracious Majesty were concerned primarily with the material demands of imperial hegemony—the British sought first and foremost to be respected—, France’s political vision consisted essentially in developing a strategy of cultural influence—the French in the Tropics also wanted to be loved! What they wanted was a Conquest of hearts.

This rhetorical demarcation can be seen clearly in Rousselet’s travelogue, L’Inde des Rajahs, which concludes in Pondichéry from where the narrator sets sail to return to France. His brief account of “la capitale des possessions françaises dans l’Inde” (“the center of French possessions in India”) begins with the exhalation, “Hélas!” (“Alas!”), which sets the tone for his nostalgic and regretful account of French “loss” that has been inspired by this site of “tristes souvenirs” (“sad memories”).93 But what compensates for these memories is Rousselet’s interpretation of the Pondichériens’ contemporaneous relationship with their adoptive mère patrie: Les indigènes semblent attachés à la domination française; beaucoup parlent notre langue et tous paraissent avoir emprunté par des rapports plus intimes et plus cordiaux avec nos colons que ceux qui règnent entre Anglais et Indiens, quelque chose de l’avenante amabilité qui reste encore un des plus nobles caractères de notre race (emphasis added).94

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Given that Rousselet only spent one day in Pondichéry, his judgment is sweeping at best and entirely fictional at worst. More importantly, it attests to an indefatigable will to identify the superior nature of France’s “conquête des cœurs” (“conquest of hearts”) and its ability to “civilize” through cultural assimilation, as well as a discourse of fraternité that is entirely at odds, and might even threaten, as Vergès notes, a “colonial order” that must necessarily be “founded on feudal inequality, subjugation, and racism.”95 The same desire to project a positive image of French colonialism underpins Rousslet’s fictional account of the uprisings, which depicts the mutual affection that arises between the colonizer (represented by the métis, André) and the colonized “other” (represented by his faithful companion, the snake charmer Mali).96 Set in 1857, Le Charmeur de serpents tells the story of André Bourquien’s journey to rescue his sister from the evil rajah, Nana Sahib assisted by Mali (a character undoubtedly based on his “brave et fidèle compagnon” [“brave and loyal companion”] and “loyal serviteur” [“faithful servant”], Dêvi, in L’Inde des Rajahs97). Although on the surface the text supports the continuation of British colonial power, preferring some form of European rule over Indian independence, beneath this united European front lies an alternative perspective that mobilizes French marginalization as a position from which to criticize the divisive impact of British hegemony in India. As such, the narrative concludes with André pledging his allegiance to the British Army to avenge his sister’s kidnapping; just as the conclusion to L’Inde des Rajahs celebrates the joint colonizing mission of France and Britain by remembering a time when “Anglais and Français combattaient côte à côte et où les deux drapeaux couvraient fièrement le monde de leurs plis” (“the British and the French fought side-by-side and their two flags proudly covered the world”). 98 But in the end, this shared vision of global domination remains driven by a desire to promote an alternative form of colonialism to British authoritarianism and to demarcate the Republic from the patriarchy of the Ancien Régime, one that positions France as la mère patrie, or surrogate mother to its colonized “children,” within, what Vergès terms, the “colonial family romance.”99 According to Vergès, the “Colonial family romance [ . . . ] filled the tie between France and its colony with intimate meaning, creating what Freud has called a ‘family romance,’ the fiction developed by children about imagined parents.”100 Within the context of French colonialism, however, those imaginary parents were reduced to one parent, la mère patrie, or republican France who was the opposite of the monarchy’s “patriarchal tyranny” and whose “members are united not by blood but by a political choice: to reject the tyranny of an all-

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powerful father.”101 But fraternity did not mean that the colonized were placed on an equal footing with their “benevolent” colonizers. Rather they were viewed as “perennial children” or (in keeping with the kind of “familial metaphors” that populated French republican colonial discourse) as “little brothers and sisters.”102 As such, France might have been envisaged as a mother operating “under the sign of Marianne,” but “it was still a ‘masculine mother’ (Mère-Patrie)” under whose protection “brothers were not equal [ . . . ] because colonized brothers were not sovereign subjects.”103 In Rousselet’s overtly republican text, André is a métis and, as such, represents a potential site of rupture within Vergès’s “colonial family romance.”104 As she notes, “Thinking métissage [ . . . ] requires accepting a genealogy and a heritage. In other words, the recognition of a past of rape, violence, slavery, and the recognition of your own complicity.”105 It also means acknowledging “the primal scene”; that being “that one was born of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman and in the colony between black and white parents.”106 For Vergès, therefore, the figure of the métis represents “the rejection of the colonial family romance” since métissage may also be read as “a response from the colonial world [sic] against European racism, eugenics, and mono-ethnicism” creating “a space [ . . . ] that was not entirely dominated or contaminated by colonialism” and that is “informed by resistance to incorporation.”107 For Rousselet to have created a fiction whose central protagonist is a métis—that is a figure who has the potential to undo the founding myths upon which French colonialism was constructed—requires significant negotiation. Any potentially seditious characteristics are thus channeled away from France and towards that “other” colonizer, the British; while André’s Indian heritage is significantly mitigated and, indeed, negated by his thorough assimilation into France’s “colonial family romance.” As will be shown, this process renders him the ideal colonial subject precisely because of his ability to sublimate his métissage; that is, his capacity to celebrate both his Indian and French roots while subsuming the former under the supposedly higher ideals of the latter. André, and his extended family thus personify a republican colonial fantasy. They are held up as an exemplar of an integrationist–assimilationist model that, in direct contrast with the idea of the disloyal Indian sepoy (foot soldier) or rebellious colonial “subject,” inspires loyalty and cohesion between the colonizer and colonized “other.” It should also be noted that, at the time that Rousselet was writing, the French government of the Third Republic was in the process of implementing assimilationist policies in its Indian comptoirs, notably Pondichéry.108 However, a wide chasm exists between the idealized vision expressed in Rousselet’s fiction and the reality of the republican assimilation in India. Its failure is most clearly represented by the election of the arch-antiassimilationist and reactionary Indian politician, Chanemougam (also known as “Louis XI noir”), who would reign over Pondichéry from 1881 to 1906; that is, just after the publication of Le Charmeur de serpents.109

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That André is a descendent of three generations of Indian and French intermarriage is not just a superfluous detail. Rather, his métissage is presented as a colonial paradigm that unites, through miscegenation, the best of France and India, and, in doing so, idealizes Indo-French unification: “Sa figure bronzée, au profil d’aigle, éclairée par de superbes yeux bleus, semblait réunir toutes les beautés des deux types hindou et français” (“His tanned face and aquiline profile, lit up by two magnificent blue eyes, seemed to reunite all the beauty of Hindu and French features”).110 While both cultures appear to be given equal weight, beneath this egalitarian veneer runs a discourse of sexual possession and, hence, colonization of the female “other” standing in lieu of India as a territorial site. 111 As such, André and Berthe’s French ancestry comes from the male line. Their great-grandfather, général Bourquien, was “un Parisien” (“a Parisian man”) who “faisait partie de cette brillante pléiade d’aventuriers français qui […] voyant la France abandonner le bel empire indien conquis par Dupleix, entrèrent au service des princes hindous pour continuer la lutte contre les Anglais” (“participated in that brilliant group of French explorers who […] saw that France had abandoned the beautiful Indian empire that Dupleix had conquered and so entered the service of the Hindu princes to continue the fight against the British”).112 Général Bourquien and his son were both married to Indian women, the first selected from the royal family of Holkar and second from a family of Brahmans; in other words, from only the most elite and white sectors of India’s caste-based society. Général Bourquien’s grandson and André’s father Armand are, therefore, seen as “plus Hindou qu’Européen” (“more Hindu than European”); yet interestingly Andre’s mother is French. 113 This ancestry, along with André’s Parisian education, serves to reinstate the French side of the family line and prevents André and his sister, Berthe, from becoming too “Indianized” and, thus, racially distinct from the French audience for whom the book was written. While the unusual inclusion of a French mother represents something of a counter-narrative to the discourse of sexual domination by the white male colonizer, she could equally be read as a sign for republican France (“Marianne”) and the beginning of a new, softer colonial discourse structured around the figure of la mère patrie, of whom André and Berthe represent her progeny. The desire to dominate India through this new brand of colonialism can only be brought to fruition by devaluing André’s Indian heritage when compared with his “superior” French characteristics. The reader is thus reassured that their specifically French-named hero has previously spent a period in Paris learning how to be “un homme civilisé” (“a civilized man”), who considers France as “la première civilisation du monde” (“the greatest civilization in the world”), thus preventing him from being “un sauvage” (“a savage”).114 Educated in Paris and thoroughly Frenchified, André is both a site of colonial fantasy and a repository for nostalgia. His idealized métissage, which paradoxically works to negate his Indian roots, operates as an allegory of what a Frenchdominated India could have been, but never was. Yet, more than just nostalgia, it

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is precisely because he is marginalized racially that he possesses the power to move between the schismatic worlds of the colonizer and colonized “other” (a kind of precursor to Rudyard Kipling’s Kim 115) in direct contrast with the separatism that characterizes British–Indian relations. For example, with his father presumed dead and his sister missing, André disguises himself as a snake charmer: “Bien complet était en effet le déguisement d’André; nul n’aurait reconnu dans le sauvage demi-nu, à la peau hâlée par le soleil, l’élégant lycéen de Paris” (“André’s disguise was quite complete in fact. No one would have been able to recognize the elegant Parisian student hiding beneath the half-naked savage whose skin was burnt brown by the sun”).116 This costume enables him to travel unhindered across a country that is in the midst of a colonial war, before reverting seamlessly back to his European form. 117 His performance as a snake charmer is so convincing that he is venerated by the Indian audience as a reincarnation of the Hindu god, Krishna: “l’enthousiasme de la foule fut indescriptible; de tous côtés retentirent les cris de ‘ouah! ouah! chavach! chavach! C’est un avatar! c’est Krichna lui-même!’” (“the crowd’s enthusiasm was indescribable. From all sides could be heard the resounding cries of ‘hooray! hooray! chavach! chavach! He’s a reincarnation! It’s Krishna himself!”).118 Thus, André does not simply move between two putatively oppositional worlds, but is transformed into a site of worship for the colonized “other,” just like Capitaine Corcoran, who is worshipped by his “subjects” as “la onzième incarnation de Wichnou” (“the eleventh incarnation of Vishnu”).119 Since André functions as an ambassador for France’s “civilizing mission”, the adulating audience is seen to prostrate themselves before la mère patrie, thereby fetishizing France as an object of the colonized “other’s” desire. While this connection between India and France is circuitous, a more obvious link can be found in the pivotal friendship that develops between André and the elderly Indian snake charmer, Mali. Their union is cemented at the beginning of the tale when André and his sister, Berthe, rescue “le vieux Mali” (“old Mali”) from being attacked by a crocodile, an event that is used to open up the theme of the French protagonist’s ability to bridge the socio-racial schisms of colonized society. The narrator states, C’était certes un spectacle touchant de voir ce mendiant misérable escorté ainsi par ces deux enfants; mais pour qui connaît les mœurs de l’Inde et qui sait quel immense abîme sépare les diverses castes de ce pays, ce spectacle était sublime, car ceux qui entouraient ainsi de soins le vieux charmeur, représentant d’une tribu méprisée, étaient des Sahibs, c’est-à-dire des seigneurs, les maîtres toutpuissants du pays.120 It was certainly a touching scene to see that miserable beggar being thus escorted by the two children. For anyone who knows the customs of India and understands the immense chasm that separates all the castes of this country, it was a sublime spectacle. For those who were carefully wrapping their arms around the

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In this scene, the figure of the French colonizer, here represented by André and Berthe, is presented as being exceptional compared with other European “Sahibs.” Indeed, the uniqueness of the French protagonist, or the “Je-personnage français” (“French I-character”), to borrow Ravi’s term, that stands in opposition to the British crowd is a common feature of French-language representations of India.121 But more than their individualism, it is their exceptional ability to transcend cultural divisions that characterizes them within the colonial imagination as a preferable colonizer who is able to build a “special” relationship with the colonized “other.” André and Berthe reach out to the abandoned Mali and in doing so heal, both metaphorically and physically, the “immense abîme” (“immense chasm”) between two culturally disparate worlds. In contrast, “les Anglais” (“the British”), states André, “nous aliènent les indigènes. Au lieu de fraterniser avec eux comme faisaient les anciens conquérants français de l’Inde, ils élèvent barrière sur barrière pour s’en séparer, sans réfléchir qu’au premier danger la barrière ne les garantira pas et ne fera que les gêner” (“alienate us from the indigenous people. Instead of mixing with them, as the former French conquerors of India had done, they raise one barrier upon another to separate themselves and do not realize that, at the first sign of danger, the barrier will not guarantee their safety, but will only get in their way”).122 It is the segregationist attitude of the British colonizer that has caused their “subjects” to rise up against them, an event that would not have occurred, André implies, had the French been in power. This idea is made explicit in an orchestrated conversation between André and Mali in which French colonialism emerges as superior to British leadership. Their exchange considers the violence of the uprisings and questions where the blame for this can be placed. “Quels sont les coupables? [ . . . Ces] malheureux [Indiens] ne sont-ils pas excusables?” (“Who is the guilty party? [ . . . Are] these unfortunate [Indians] not to be excused?”), asks Mali. He vindicates the behavior of his Indian compatriots as the understandable result of colonial domination under rulers who “nous ont tout enlevé [ . . . ]; ils ont considéré notre bien comme à eux” (“have taken everything from us [ . . . ]; they considered that what was ours belonged to them”).123 André counters by exempting France from Mali’s broad condemnation of European-led colonization: il faut avouer que c’est à nous autres Européens que remonte la source de tous ces épouvantables malheurs. Une chose pourtant me console, c’est que les Français, mes ancêtres, un moment les maîtres de l’Inde, avaient su adoucir leur conquête au point de se faire aimer de leurs sujets.124 it must be admitted that the source of all these dreadful tragedies can be traced back to we Europeans. One thing does console me, however, and that is that my

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French ancestors, briefly the rulers of India, knew how to soften their conquest to the extent that they made their subjects love them.

The ever-loyal Mali immediately acquiesces: “C’est vrai, [ . . . ] les Français ont été pour nous non pas des maîtres, mais des frères, et leur souvenir nous est toujours resté cher. L’Inde entière pleure encore leur départ” (“It is true, [ . . . ] for us, the French were not masters, but rather brothers and their memory is still cherished by us. All over India, we still mourn their departure”).125 As such, Mali is charged with voicing the fantasy that India and its peoples would have preferred to have been governed by republican France; a nostalgic vision that, at one and the same time, mitigates France’s history of colonial loss and is fuelled by the emerging rhetoric of the mission civilisatrice. Writing under different political regimes, Rousselet’s and Assolant’s both texts attest to a desire that exists in French writing on India to distinguish their colonizers from the rest of colonial society by presenting characters who speak for a particular brand of French colonialism that works in opposition to the hegemony of British rule. The potentially negative undertones associated with French marginalization on the subcontinent and the memories of loss that are associated with the Ancien Régime are thereby assuaged by rendering marginalization a privileged position from which to speak. André and Capitaine Corcoran are endowed with an outsider’s perspective that permits them to engage critically with British rule at a time when that rule was being challenged by Indian people. Against this historical backdrop, their ability to remain within, yet operate outside, of colonizer−colonized paradigm (exemplified by the idea of métissage) is rendered all the more effective by allowing them to forge a “special” relationship with the colonized “other,” one based on mutual respect (in the case of André’s overtly republican message) and enlightened leadership (in the case of Corcoran’s imperialist republicanism). What connects these two texts is their common belief in the superiority of the French colonizer who brings freedom from oppression in narratives that construct a rhetorical triumph over the British colonial “other” and a discursive break from the Ancien Régime.

Forging a New Imperial Vision: Beyond India Collectively, the examples cited throughout this chapter reveal the processes by which the memory of Inde perdue is offset by the potential for Britain to lose India. But more than this, they also demonstrate the extent to which French India as a site of imagined loss could be recuperated and co-opted as a site of an imperial and a republican colonial fantasy. The question of India in the French imagination cannot, therefore, be viewed hermetically, but needs to be placed within the wider context of the French empire in the late-nineteenth century, including its past losses, its contemporaneous possessions, and its prospective visions. In-

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deed, the positive image of French colonialism that emerges from representations of this British colonial crisis is not simply underpinned by nostalgia and loss, just as nostalgia does not simply move in a retrospective direction. Rather, nostalgia also attests to a will to move away from the mistakes of the past (epitomized by the Ancien Régime) and colonize beyond the exotic, fantastical, and nostalgic limits of “India.” In 1857, it was Algeria and its promise of an Afrique française, as well as the trading possibilities opened up by the idea of Lesseps’s Suez Canal, which formed the focus of imperialist visions, particularly in the wake of abolition; whereas the late-nineteenth century saw France’s imperial gaze returning to Asia and fixing upon Indochina. 126 This final section analyzes the practice of viewing these other colonial possessions, particularly Algeria, through the optic of the Indian uprisings, before considering how 1857–58 was made to function as both an analeptic tool that revived a positive vision of French colonialism and as a filter through which the atrocities and controversies of France’s expansionist drive could be sanitized. The historian and politician, Alexis de Tocqueville, offers a historical precedent in his uncompleted essay, “Dans l’Inde,” which employed British India as a lens through which to (re)view France’s colonial situation.127 In a letter to Buloz (October 2, 1840), he wrote that, Ce sujet [la grandeur des Anglais dans l’Inde], qui a été intéressant dans tous les temps, l’est prodigieusement maintenant que toutes les grandes affaires européennes ont leur nœud en Afrique. Il l’est particulièrement pour nous depuis que nous avons la colonie d’Alger.128 This subject [the grandeur of the British in India], which has always been of interest, is all the more so now that all of Europe’s main interests are bound up in Africa. It is of particular interest to us since we possess the colony of Algeria.

Tocqueville’s interest in the links between Britain’s global ascension and its colonization of India stemmed from a fundamental preoccupation with France’s related decline.129 He believed that this situation could be rectified through a competitive colonial operation, particularly in North Africa. Hence, in his dissertation, “Travail sur l’Algérie,” he promoted overseas expansion as an essential ingredient in rebuilding France’s lost national prestige.130 For this reason, he wrote, “Je ne crois pas que la France puisse songer sérieusement à quitter l’Algérie. L’abandon qu’elle en ferait serait aux yeux du monde l’annonce certaine de sa décadence” (“In all seriousness, I do not believe that France could possibly think about leaving Algeria. Its abandonment would be interpreted in the eyes of the world as a sure sign of France’s decline”), fearing that if France were to withdraw, it “paraîtrait aux yeux du monde plier sous sa propre impuissance” (“would appear in the eyes of the world to have collapsed under its own powerlessness”).131 The omnipotent “yeux du monde” (“eyes of the world”) was

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a reference to Europe within whose imagined hierarchical structure of power France had slipped to “second rang” (“second rank”).132 Algeria presented itself as an opportunity for France to reconstruct its depleted identity and to bolster its influence among the European ranks. 133 In other words, France needed its own version of Inde anglaise, but not one that had been plundered by “la soif des richesses menant à la tyrannie ou à des entreprises iniques” (“the thirst for riches leading to tyranny or unfair business”),134 but rather one that was built upon more philanthropic ideals, such as the spreading of “nos arts” (“our arts”) and “nos idées” (“our ideas”); in other words, a “mission civilisatrice.”135 The same ambition to rebuild French prestige through colonial expansion based on a model of cultural assimilation pervades representations of 1857–58, particularly in the French-language press of that time. The suggestion that Britain would sacrifice some its paramountcy, having been publicly humiliated by its own colonial “subjects,” went hand-in-hand with the alluring promise that the moment had arrived for a French revival, not in India, but elsewhere in other existing or potential colonies. By defining British colonialism as an obsolete institution, the ground on which to erect a future for France was prepared. For example, Girard writing for the moderate republican press, Le Siècle, stated that “on voit qu’à la longue toute domination qui n’est pas fondée sur la justice et qui s’exerce sur des pays éloignés de la mère-patrie est sujette à être renversée” (“we can see that, in the end, all forms of rule that are not founded upon justice and that are exercised over lands far removed from the mother country are subject to being overturned”).136 Girard’s words concern Britain, but they also tacitly echo France’s own experience of loss that resulted from both the Ancien Régime’s system of colonization founded on the injustices of slavery, and the loss of Saint Domingue in 1804 under an Empire that had reinstated slavery just two years earlier. Gerard’s article pre-empts Indian independence by ninety years and consigns Britain’s era of unjust domination to the past where it is to be remembered as nothing more than a cautionary tale for future colonial powers (not unlike the Ancien Régime), whose negative example “pourra servir d’enseignement aux peuples et aux gouvernemens qui font des conquêtes ou des établissemens du même genre” (“will serve to educate peoples and governments who are involved in conquests or similar acts”).137 The Indian uprisings, therefore, allowed contemporaneous French writing to imagine that Britain’s hubris, like the former French monarchy (and implicitly Bonaparte’s Empire), would lead to its inevitable fall and that the uprisings would eventually sound Britain’s long-awaited death knell. Against the seductive image of British collapse, Parisian journalists could imagine that now was the time to exact (Bonaparte’s) revenge for the “loss” of India: “ce nom seul de l’Inde fait vibrer notre patriotisme” (“the name of India makes us tingle with patriotic feeling”), wrote Henry de Riancey for the imperialist L’Union, “Il nous rappelle tant de gloire si cruellement expiée, tant de génie et de bravoure si peu récompensés, tant de malheurs et d’injures non encore

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vengés!” (“It reminds us of all that glory so cruelly spent, all that genius and bravery repaid with so little, all that insult and injury that has yet to be avenged!”).138 What would emerge was a new world order, initiated by France, which would succeed where Britain had failed: “que la civilisation et le christianisme aient leur œuvre à accomplir là où le protestantisme et la force ont échoué” (“where Protestantism and aggression have failed, may civilization and Christianity accomplish their work”).139 For the more liberal Billot, who had long been calling for France to avenge the Treaty of 1815, France’s emerging system of power would be the inverse of the old and quintessentially British regime. It would be based, not on “l’inégalité” (“inequality”), “la restriction” (“restriction”), “la conquête” (“conquest”), or “la suprématie des mers” (“command of the seas”), but rather on “l’égalité” (“equality”), “la liberté” (“freedom”), “l’universel affranchissement” (“universal emancipation”), and “les libres et volontaires relations du commerce” (“free market economy”).140 Where the legitimist Laurentie (L’Union) was concerned, these important shifts in global hierarchy demanded an immediate response, which he framed as a moral imperative: La domination matérielle finit dans l’Inde; une puissance morale doit se montrer; et si par malheur l’Europe moderne ne comprenait pas qu’elle a une mission très haute à remplir à la place de cette mission des marchands anglais, [ . . . ] c’est que cette civilisation dont nous sommes fiers n’est qu’un vain mot, expression d’un égoïsme ingénieux à se satisfaire par le raffinement de tous les arts, mais incapable de sauver le monde par de grands élans, ou de le dominer par de grands exemples.141 If material domination ends in India, a moral force must show itself. If by some misfortune our modern Europe does not understand that it has a mission of the utmost important to accomplish in place of Britain’s mercantilism, [ . . . ] then this civilization of which we are so proud is just a worthless word, cleverly refined to satisfy our egotistical genius, but incapable of either saving the world by its oratory or dominating it by its good example.

Laurentie called for action, not words, for imperial France to stand up and lead Europe in its dutiful mission to civilize the world, thereby remedying the ills of British domination with a fresh moral agenda. As the earlier examples taken from Tocqueville demonstrate, it was often Algeria that was demarcated as the location in which to pursue this venture. The idea of Algeria as a colonial utopia went hand in hand with the belief that France could revolutionize the colonized “other” while simultaneously reviving itself. 142 “[L’]Algérie,” wrote Pasquet for Le Siècle (moderate republican) in 1857, “peut devenir le canal par lequel la révolution française s’infiltrera dans la société musulmane pour la dissoudre et la reconstituer. [ . . . R]évolutionner, régénérer l’Algérie, c’est révolutionner, c’est régénérer l’Orient” (“Algeria can become the channel through which the French revolution will infiltrate Muslim society in

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order to destroy and then rebuild it. [ . . . To] revolutionize and regenerate Algeria is to revolutionize and regenerate the Orient”).143 Pasquet’s vision did not stop at Algeria, however, but extended towards the “Orient” as a whole, absorbing in its path Turkey, Asia, Morocco, and Tunisia. Algeria was merely the first step in this master plan, “une machine de guerre” (“machine of war”) for France’s imagined global revolution propelled by its own “immortels cahiers de 1789” (“immortal texts of 1789”).144 Under French guidance, he anticipated that Algeria would become “comme autrefois Alexandrie, le centre de la civilisation et des lumières de l’Orient fécondées par le génie occidental” (“like Alexandria in the past: the center of civilization, oriental enlightenment fertilized by occidental genius”) and, in particular, by revolutionary France. 145 Acting as a cynosure, Pasquet imagined that it would be capable of turning, les regards des musulmans [ . . . ] de Constantinople pour se fixer sur les libres rivages de l’Algérie;—que si la Mecque continue à être pour le mahométisme la capitale religieuse, Alger devienne la capitale de l’intelligence, c’est-à-dire le foyer de la rédemption par la science, la liberté et la justice!146 Muslim focus [ . . . ] away from Constantinople to fix upon the free shores of Algeria, so that if Mecca continues to be the religious capital for Mohammedism, Algiers will become the capital of rational thought; that is, the homeland of redemption through science, freedom, and justice!

Algeria is thus transformed into a modern Mecca, displacing Islam with a redemptive European rationalism and converting the Islamic world to the “religion” of French republicanism. The metaphorical use of the word “canal” in Pasquet’s rhetoric also recalls another site of Anglo-French colonial rivalry that was ongoing at the time of writing: the debates over the construction of the Suez Canal. As Anceau notes, “L’idée d’un canal reliant la Méditerranée à la mer Rouge venait de l’Antiquité” (“The idea of a canal linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea comes from Antiquity”); however, it was the Second Empire that “donna vie à ce projet” (“gave life to this project”).147 The British, “inquiets de voir les Français s’implanter dans la région et menacer la route des Indes” (“concerned about seeing the French establishing themselves in the region and jeopardizing the route to India”), attempted to forestall its progression, notably by pressuring the Ottoman Sultan to refuse to subscribe to the project.148 Palmerston’s decision to block Ferdinand de Lesseps’s project was widely criticized in the French press and was viewed as evidence of British parochialism, bigotry, paranoia, greed, and hypocrisy.149 The short-sightedness of the British premier was underlined by linking the canal to the war in India, noting that this waterway would have provided a more strategic route for transporting British troops to India (rather than Cape Horn).150 Underlying these recriminations were questions concerning not only who would ultimately prevail in Egypt, but also who, by proxy, would control

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the African market, thus paving the way for what would become known as the “Scramble for Africa.” Already in 1857, the canal did not simply represent a method of transportation, but a route to new economic opportunities for European exploitation. “L’Angleterre possède les Indes; elle est prépondérante en Chine” (“Britain owns the Indies and it is the dominant force in China”), wrote Dubois for imperialist newspaper, Le Constitutionnel, son commerce y prendra, par l’ouverture de l’isthme, une extension plus grande. À nous, l’Afrique surtout offre un vaste champ d’exploitation. Maîtres de l’Algérie et du Sénégal, nous étendrons notre influence, déjà dominante au nord et à l’ouest, sur les marchés de la côte orientale.151 via the isthmus gap, its commercial interests will expand there. But for us it is Africa that presents a vast area for exploitation. Since we are already masters over Algeria and Senegal, we will extend our existing dominance in the north and the west to cover the markets of the oriental coast.

Others were less willing to share the financial rewards with their European rivals, such as Bonneau (La Presse), who spoke eagerly of the potential damage that the Suez Canal could do to British interests in Cape Horn, before noting that “La cause qui ferait déchoir les colonies africaines de l’Angleterre hâterait au contraire la prospérité de notre Algérie” (“The very cause of decline in Britain’s African colonies would, in contrast, only hasten the prosperity of our Algeria”).152 The idea that France could realize its goal of usurping British dominance through its possession of Algeria and the Suez Canal and, from there, Africa could be further substantiated by juxtaposing the vision of Algérie française with the negative example of Inde anglaise. “Que l’on compare ses travaux dans l’Inde, depuis un siècle, à ceux que nous avons accomplis depuis vingt ans en Algérie” (“We have only to compare the work undertaken in India over the past century to what we have accomplished in twenty years in Algeria”), wrote the Catholic polemicist, Veuillot (L’Univers). This statement was supported with a list of optimistic and industrious-sounding projects: “La Mitidja assainie, le Sahara fertilisé, des villes, des villages, des ports créés là où nous avions trouvé le désert” (“the sanitization of the Mitidja, the fertilization of the Sahara, towns, villages, and ports created there where we had found nothing but desert”) that were explored in the national presses throughout 1857–57.153 Conversely, Britain was seen to have done little to improve the lives of its Indian peoples, a point that was proven by the onset of “subject” revolt. By referring to the events in India, France could set itself up as a counter-example to emulate: “L’Angleterre peut voir aujourd’hui, par le bon exemple que nous lui donnons en Algérie, combien elle a fait fausse route” (“Through the shining example of Algeria, Britain can today measure the extent to which it has been following the wrong path”), wrote Le Siècle’s Jordan.

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As such, the uprisings could be used to answer back to the accusations of the British media that France was “inhabile à la colonisation” (“inept at colonization”).154 In response, Jordan claimed that France has “une habileté que nous estimons plus haut” (“an aptitude that we value more highly”), meaning that its colonial mission was founded upon “les notions de justice et de droit parmi les peuples soumis à sa domination” (“notions of law and justice for those peoples who are submitted to its rule”) and a sense of respect for religious difference, coupled with a gentle paternalism that, without undue imposition, familiarized the colonized “other” with “nos idées et nos mœurs” (“our ideas and our customs”).155 It was because the British administration had not adhered to such standards and had remained insensitive to cultural alterity (exemplified by the enforced use of the greased cartridges) that it was now being punished. Likewise, the memory of the negative press that Algeria’s acquisition had attracted in Britain (“On se rappelle les violentes attaques dont notre système gouvernemental en Algérie a été l’objet de la part de la presse anglaise” [“We recall the violent attacks to which our system of governance in Algeria was subjected by the British press”], wrote Cohen in the imperialist newspaper, La Patrie156) could also be turned on its head. Britain’s own crisis had meant that it had been forced to put in place precisely those French Algerian policies that they had so vocally criticized previously, notably “la centralisation du pouvoir entre les mains du gouvernement britannique; l’établissement d’une armée permanente, composée exclusivement de soldats anglais” (“the centralization of power in the hands of the British government and the establishment of a permanent army composed exclusively of British soldiers”).157 Taken from a full range of political viewpoints, what these examples suggest is that by viewing French colonialism through the optic of British India, and particularly through Indian-led anti-colonial action, the contemporaneous reality and the unsettling memories of French colonialism, including its histories of violence and/or loss under the former monarchy and First Empire, could be occluded and/or retrospectively revised. This is particularly evident in a polemical song written by Frédéric Billot, entitled Le Réveil de l’Inde ou chant du Mharatte (1860), in which the memory of maréchal Bugeaud’s involvement in numerous atrocities against Algerian tribes (during the 1840s) was eschewed and reworked by placing Algeria within the context of the Indian uprisings. Set in the midst of the uprisings, the eponymous hero, Nana Sahib, is made to cry out to France for succor against the British aggressor: France amie, ô terre adorée! Ouvre ton âme à nos douleurs! Et que ta redoutable épée change en paix toutes les fureurs. Que ton génie en tout sublime, qui jamais ne fut arrêté, Nous aide à sortir de l’abîme en nous donnant la liberté!158 Beloved France, oh wondrous land! Open your heart to our agony!

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The French Colonial Imagination By your fearsome sword, may you create peace from all the fury. May your sublime genius, whose end shall never come, Help raise us from the depths by giving us freedom!

Significantly, Nana Sahib’s calls are answered by the arrival of a battalion of French-colonized Algerians, or “Zouaves,” whose appearance on stage is prefigured by their singing of a military song dedicated to maréchal Bugeaud, entitled “Casquette à Bugeaud” (“Hats off to Bugeaud”).159 In this act of ventriloquism, both Nana Sahib and the Algerian soldiers function as Billot’s marionettes, who are used to act out his longstanding fantasy of a French-led mission to “liberate” India. The celebration of the bellicose Bugeaud shows how the uprisings were appropriated as a narrative setting in which to suggest that, for France, the very act of colonization was one that paradoxically liberated the non-European “other.” In this case, the example is the “Zouaves,” who, having been “liberated” by Bugeaud, could now free their Indian brothers. The less palatable memories of France’s Algerian invasion are thereby circumnavigated when placed beside British India in 1857–58. Even where the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was concerned, the uprisings could be made to serve a revisionist function. Since France too had undergone a popular revolt led by non-European (and specifically non-white) people, which had resulted in it losing its most lucrative sugar colony, explicit parallels were occasionally drawn between these two critical moments in the histories of French and British colonialisms. 160 For example, while writing in 1857, Billot’s political discussion on the uprisings turned to France’s equivalent experience in the French Antilles. Although he blamed “des orgies politiques du gouvernement de l’époque” (“political orgies of the government of that period”) for the loss of Saint Domingue,161 by placing it side-by-side with the violent events unfolding in India, Billot could palliate France’s defeat, re-envisaging it as a triumph for metropolitan republicanism: La France était assez forte pour reconquérir cette colonie importante; elle ne l’a pas fait. Conséquente dans sa conduite politique, elle a subi l’indépendance qu’elle avait elle-même proclamée en respectant la liberté d’autrui dans ses plus barbares manifestations.—A notre place, il est probable que l’Angleterre aurait dit de Saint-Domingue ce qu’elle a publié de Delhi, où, si elle le peut [sic], elle n’entend pas laisser pierre sur pierre. Mais nous ne sommes pas Anglais.162 France was strong enough to reconquer that important colony, but we chose not to do so. As a result of our political conduct, France has had to endure the independence that we ourselves proclaimed by respecting the freedom of others even in its most barbaric manifestation. In our place, it is likely that Britain would have responded to Saint Domingue in the same way as it has to Delhi, by publishing its intention not to leave a single stone standing, if at all possible [sic]. But then again we are not the British.

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What is immediately striking is Billot’s amnesia concerning French military action in Haiti, notably the failure of Leclerc’s expedition to recapture Saint Domingue under the First Empire.163 Instead, the reader is left with the impression that France simply ceded its “perle des Antilles” (“pearl of the Antilles”) in the spirit of republican-inspired, imperialist philanthropy. The contemporary example of India serves as a more pressing case of impotence and atrocity enabling Billot to mitigate the shameful memories of Haitian independence. When compared with British India, the loss of Saint Domingue could thus be repackaged as an act of benevolence inspired by France’s own revolutionary doctrines. Unable to expunge this past completely, however—“Laissons de côté ce souvenir passé, époque de vertige et d’erreur” (“Let us leave to one side the memory of that period of vertiginous error”)—Billot moves swiftly on to the colonial present: “Arrivons à des temps nouveaux, où l’esprit français sera mieux jugé sous le rapport de ses vues civilisatrices, comme sous le rapport de ses vues de colonisation. Parlons de l’Afrique” (“Let us consider more recent times when the spirit of France will be better judged in the light of its civilizing agenda. Let us speak of Africa”).164 This shift to Africa represented a turning away from the disappointments of the past and towards the promise of France’s colonial future. Under Billot’s pan-African gaze, Algeria is projected unproblematically onto the larger geographical space of Africa. In the wake of the uprisings, an entire continent could now be envisaged under French rule as a counterpoint to British India: “N’est-ce pas pitoyable, quand on songe que, dans moins de dix ans, en Afrique nous en avons fait trois fois autant [que l’Angleterre]! L’Afrique française n’a que 7 ou 8 millions d’habitants, et l’Inde anglaise en possède 200 millions!” (“Is it not pitiable to think that in less than ten years, we have done three times more in Africa [than Britain]! French Africa has only 7 or 8 million inhabitants, whereas British India possesses 200 million of them!”).165 In a reversal of roles, it was now Britain that ought to envy France and its colonial systems. As Cohen argued for La Patrie, Les hommes d’Etat de l’Angleterre feront bien de consulter cette œuvre remarquable [in Algeria] à plus d’un titre; ils y apprendront comment on maintient l’ordre et l’autorité dans une grande colonie, comment on rend impuissantes les haines nationales, en aimant, en protégeant les races vaincues, en étant pour elles juste, tolérant, sympathique, mais toujours ferme et prêt à la répression.166 In many respects, the statesmen of Britain would do well to consider our remarkable work [in Algeria]. They would learn how to maintain law and order over a large colony, and how to undermine national hatreds by caring for and protecting the vanquished races, and by being just, tolerant, and kind, while remaining determined and always ready to take repressive action.

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Cohen’s vision for colonialism is clearly bonapartist. It is based on the idea of order and authority, governed by a strong and paternalistic state that aims to depoliticize national tensions. 167 Thus, what the uprisings signified, not just for imperialists like Cohen and to a lesser extent Billot, but French journalists and writers from multiple political backgrounds, was that this was a potential turning point for France. No longer would France look to Britain as an admirable example of colonial success, but Britain would henceforth refer to France as the leading light of a fresh and morally grounded colonial mission exemplified by its administration of Algeria.168 This dream encapsulates a wider design: the desire to possess an entire continent that would be called “Afrique française” (“French Africa”).169 The promise that the French press held out to their public suggested that France was truly on the threshold of a new era, leading writers, such as Billot, to assert that “La France peut se passer de l’Inde et grandir sans elle” (“France does not need India and it can grow without her”) since “Les portes de l’Indo-Chine [ . . . ] viennent, par des accords récents, de s’ouvrir à notre commerce, qui y trouvera [ . . . ] tout ce que l’on rencontre dans les colonies anglaises” (“Thanks to recent agreements, the doors to Indo-China [ . . . ] have just opened to our trade and we will find there [ . . . ] all that can be found in the British colonies”).170 These alternative continental-sized colonies were seen as compensation for the loss of the subcontinent and were forecast to become competitive equivalents to l’Inde anglaise. In short, the idea that Britain’s hegemony had momentarily floundered formed an important point de repère in French colonial discourse both during and after the uprisings, serving to keep alive the fantasy that, had India been under French rule, the uprisings would never have occurred. Across the multiple political perspectives shown here, a common pattern emerges. Collectively, they viewed the uprisings as a real moment in which France could both to revive its animosity for the frère ennemi and revise its nostalgia for French colonial losses under the Ancien Régime and the First Empire by producing positive images of France’s “civilizing mission.” Beyond India, the subject of a British colonial crisis was therefore a moment in which to imagine a French revival that would be played out, not in the nostalgic imaginary of India, but in the colonial “reality” of “Afrique française” or later “Indochine.”171 It was the summoning of these quasi-continental territories that compensated for, and erased, the memories of colonial loss exemplified by the Treaties of Paris in 1763 and 1815.172 When visualized through, or juxtaposed with, the events of 1857–58, the French colonialist project could be justified as a panacea for the problems of British India and used to promote the dissemination of French (republican) imperialism.

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Notes 1. Many of these stereotypes can be traced back to the French Revolution of 1789 and the Napoleonic Wars; Tombs and Tombs, 227 and 268–74. Parts of this chapter have been published with kind permission from Lexington Books (Roman & Littlefield Publishing Group). The original text can be found in Nicola Frith, “Compensating for L’Inde perdue: Narrating a ‘Special Relationship’ between France and India in Romanticized Tales of the Indian Uprisings (1857–58)’, in France’s Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia and la fracture coloniale (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 87–100. 2. Barrier, “France, Paris, 8 juillet,” L’Univers: Union Catholique, July 9, 1857, 1. This opinion was echoed by Warren, 2:143 and Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 18–19. For more on the long genealogy of this argument, see Teltscher, India Inscribed, 164–65; Kate Marsh, India in the French Imagination: Peripheral Voices, 1754–1815 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009), 121–22 and 132. 3. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 78. Mercantilism might be a term traditionally associated with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European expeditions, but it was also an enduring stereotype used by French writers to define the British character during the Indian uprisings. See, for example, Warren, 1:244; Warren, 2:141 and 137. 4. Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, October 29, 1857, 1–2 (1). Pierre-Sébastien Laurentie, Colonisation algérienne (Paris: Tinterlin, 1856). 5. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 44. For more on the work of missionaries in the colonies under the Third Republic, see Daughton, An Empire Divided. 6. Émile de la Bédollière, “Partie politique,” Le Siècle, October 3, 1857, 1. See also Louis Jourdan, “L’esclavage,” Le Siècle, August 16 and 17, 1857, 1. 7. C. H. Edmond, “Variétés: Les Anglais et l’Inde, par M. Valbezen (2e article),” La Presse, September 1, 1857, 3. 8. Edmond, La Presse, September 1, 1857, 3. 9. As Miller affirms, “slave-trade abolitionism and the colonization of Africa were twins born from the same egg”; Christopher L. Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 201. 10. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 27. 11. Post-colonial is used here “to refer to that which comes chronologically after colonialism,” as opposed to “postcolonial” which is used “to refer to a contemporary assessment of the culture and history of empire from the moment of conquest”; Forsdick and Murphy, “Introduction,” 5. 12. Nicola Frith, “Crime and Penitence in Slavery Commemoration: From Political Controversy to the Politics of Performance,” in Memory and Commemoration in Contemporary France, ed. Fiona Barclay (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), 227–48. 13. Jacques Chirac, “Discours de M. Jacques Chirac, Président de la République, sur l’histoire de l’abolition de l’esclavage, le rôle de Victor Schœlcher et contre les formes modernes de l’asservissement,” April 23, 1998, Paris, http://discours.viepublique.fr/notices/987000146.html (accessed July 31, 2011). 14. Chirac, April 23, 1998. 15. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 39. 16. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 434. 17. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 128. 18. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 129.

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19. “Chapitre 4: Du pouvoir législatif,” in “Deuxième République: Constitution du 4 novembre 1848,” http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/constitutions/constitutiondeuxieme-republique.asp (accessed October 5, 2010). 20. The metropolitan authorities considered that “le suffrage universel égalitaire n’est pas compatible avec les institutions traditionnelles de l’Inde, et notamment la hiérachie des castes” (“egalitarian and universal suffrage is not compatible with the traditional hierarchies of India, and notably that of its caste system”); Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 105. 21. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 105. 22. Article 109 reads “Le territoire de l’Algérie et des colonies est déclaré territoire français, et sera régi par des lois particulières jusqu’à ce qu’une loi spéciale les place sous le régime de la présente Constitution” (“The territory of Algeria and the colonies are declared French territories and will be governed by special laws until such time as a law is created to place them under the jurisdiction of the current Constitution”); “Chapitre X: Dispositions particulières,” in “Deuxième République: Constitution du 4 novembre 1848,” http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/constitutions/constitution-deuxiemerepublique.asp (accessed October 5, 2010). 23. Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 25. 24. Jules Ferry, “Les fondements de la politique coloniale,” Assemblée Nationale, July 28, 1885, http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/ferry1885.asp (accessed January 10, 2009). 25. Bongie, 3. 26. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 10. 27. Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 15–16 and 109–211. 28. Marsh, “Introduction,” 4. 29. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 111–20. 30. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 117. 31. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 119. 32. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 120. 33. Farrère, 208–09. 34. Barrier, “France, Paris, 8 juillet,” L’Univers: Union Catholique, July 9, 1857, 1. Jasanoff, 163. More information Bonaparte’s relationship with Tipu and France’s collaboration with Indian rulers during the eighteenth-century Mysore Wars can be found in Jasanoff, 149–76; Colley, Captives, 297. 35. Billot, Lettres franques, 157. 36. Billot, Lettres franques, 157. 37. J. Girard, “L’Inde ancienne et l’Inde actuelle: Comparées sous leurs rapports les plus importans,” Le Siècle, August 24, 1857, 2. 38. See chapter 4, note 128. 39. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 130. 40. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 130–31. 41. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 132. 42. Barrier, “France, Paris, 8 juillet,” L’Univers: Union Catholique, July 9, 1857, 1. 43. Examples include: Clément Caraguel, “Un bon coup à faire,” Le Charivari, September 22, 1857, 1; Arnould Fremy, “Les missionnaires et la question de l’Inde,” Le Charivari, October 11, 1857, 1; Taxile Delord, “Lettres indiennes,” Le Charivari, November 15, 1857, 1–2; Clément Caraguel, “La légitimité du roi d’Oude,” Le Charivari, November

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23, 1857, 2; Clément Caraguel, “Les jupons des Highlanders,” Le Charivari, December 16, 1857, 1. 44. Clément Caraguel, “Un bon coup à faire,” Le Charivari, September 22, 1857, 1. This is an oblique reference to the “Great Game”; see chapter 4, note 128. 45. Caraguel, Le Charivari, September 22, 1857, 1. 46. This idea can be found in later examples of French writing on India, for example, in Paul d’Ivoi’s Docteur Mystère (1899); Champion, 232. 47. Louis Veuillot, L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 14, 1857, 1. 48. Louis Veuillot, L’Univers: Union Catholique, September 14, 1857, 1. 49. Despite emigration to Mauritius being suspended by the British government of India between October 24, 1856 and April 27, 1857 due to reports of human rights abuses, the island received 12,635 and 12,725 indentured laborers in 1856 and 1857, respectively. This figure more than doubled in 1858, with the arrival of 29,946 Indians; Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 95. As Tinker notes, the uprisings may well have boosted the number of Indian workers that were willing to emigrate due to the sudden loss of land and livelihood resulting from the political upheaval; Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 97. 50. Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 99. The result of this embargo was that an illegal system of emigration to supply labor to the French sugar colonies was run through Pondichéry and Karaikal, with as many as 37,694 Indian laborers reported to be residing in Réunion by 1856; Tinker, A New System of Slavery, 95. 51. Coquille is cited in T.-N. Bernard, “L’Inde et les partis du passé,” Le Siècle, October 3, 1857, 2. See also Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, August 12, 1857, 1. 52. T.-N. Bernard, “L’Inde et les partis du passé,” Le Siècle, October 3, 1857, 2. 53. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 14. 54. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 102. 55. For more information on the concept of “association” (as opposed to “assimilation”), see Deming Lewis, 147. 56. A recent example is Curd Ridel’s bande-dessinée adaptation of Verne’s La Maison à vapeur, entitled Tandori: Le réveil de l’éléphant bleu, in which “Monsieur Vernes” is assisted by his “bon Surcouf” in rescuing the fictional Indian state of “Shasheshuur” from a British attack. 57. Histoire générale de la presse française, 2:283. 58. Francis Lacassin, “Alfred Assolant,” in Alfred Assolant, Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du Capitaine Corcoran (Paris: Union Générale d’Éditions, 1975; first publ. 1867), 7–8 (7). 59. First published in 1867 by Hachette, it reached its 12th edition in 1909. Since then new editions have been issued by the following Parisian publishers: Nathan (1950, 1958, 1978), Compagnie des libraires et des éditeurs associés (1959), Union générale d’éditions (1975), Éditions G. P. (1979), and most recently Losfeld (2001). It was also adapted for radio in 1944 by Brohan Françoise. 60. Assolant, 13. 61. Petr, 16. 62. Said, Orientalism, 41. 63. Assolant, 236–37. 64. Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 215. 65. Assolant, 29. For more information on the history of Breton corsaires and India, see Annette Frémont, “Adventures of some Frenchmen in India in the XVIIth Century,”

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in The French in India: From Diamond Traders to Sanskrit Scholars, ed. Rose Vincent, trans. Latika Padgaonkar (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1990), 1–21 (1–3). 66. Cornick, 133. 67. As Miller notes, “slave trading, for many in France, appeared as a form of insurgency and resistance to the hegemony of perfidious Albion”; Miller, 199. 68. Tadié, 18. 69. The choice of the Marathas as the ethnic group with which to link Corcoran may be rooted in the fact that, historically, they represented one of the greatest threats to British rule in India (at least until 1818) and that the French had, at various points, been their allies against the British. For more on the Marathas, see Wolpert, 183–84, 191–93, and 200–04. 70. Assolant, 66 and 67. 71. For more information on the use of “le personnage féminin indien” (“the character of the female Indian”) in French-language narratives, see Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 84. 72. Assolant, 222–23. 73. Assolant, 419 and 420. 74. Assolant, 204. 75. Assolant, 205. 76. Assolant, 205. 77. Assolant, 210. 78. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 14. 79. Assolant, 325–32. 80. Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (London: Granta, 2004), 13. 81. Assolant, 332. 82. For more on Mill and despotism, see Inden, 166–67. For more on despotism in general, see Franco Venturi, “Oriental Despotism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 24 (1963): 133–42. 83. Northrup writes that 78,483 indentured Indian laborers left for the French Caribbean between 1853 and 1888; Northrup, 267. 84. It is worth noting that several attempts were made to introduce a republican voting system in the Indian comptoirs; see Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 101–08 and 217–26. 85. Assolant, 447. 86. Assolant, 448. 87. Bhagavapour also operates politically as an ideal republican state that runs counter to the autocracy of the Second Empire under which Assolant was writing. 88. Assolant, 297. 89. As Bongie argues with regards to the “exoticist project,” “exoticism necessarily presumes that, at some point in the future, what has been lost will be attained ‘elsewhere’ in a realm of ad-venture [sic] that bypasses the [ . . . ] contemporary present”; Bongie, 15. Because the past cannot be recovered, a vicious cycle emerges from the attempts to structure the future through constant references to the past. The effect of drawing together “the future and the past” means that “the exoticist project is, from its very beginnings, shortcircuited: it can never keep its promise. And therein [ . . . ] lies the promise that it holds out to us”; Bongie, 15. 90. Louis Rousselet, L’Inde des rajahs: Voyage dans l’Inde centrale et dans les présidences de Bombay et du Bengale (Paris: Hachette, 1875).

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91. Other examples include Jacqueline Marenis’s La Révolte sans âme (1946) and Michel de Grèce’s La Femme sacrée (1984), both of which are analyzed in comparison with Rousselet’s Le Charmeur de serpents in Frith, “Compensating for l’Inde perdue,” 83−95. 92. Assayag, 27. 93. Rousselet, L’Inde des rajahs, 770 and 771. 94. Rousselet, L’Inde des rajahs, 772. 95. Françoise Vergès, Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 23. 96. Jules Ferry, “Discours prononcé à la Chambre des députés: Les fondements de la politique coloniale,” July 28, 1885, http://www.assembleenationale.fr/histoire/ferry1885.asp (accessed September 1, 2009). 97. Rousselet, L’Inde des Rajahs, 767. 98. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 310; Rousselet, L’Inde des Rajahs, 776. 99. Vergès, 3–8. See also Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 46. 100. Vergès, 3. 101. Vergès, 4 and 27. 102. Vergès, 27. 103. Vergès, 25. 104. As Vergès notes, “To retrace the history of the terms métis and métissage is to retrace the history of a debate in philosophy and sciences in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around the unity of the human species, race, and degeneration”; Vergès, 29. This led to a division between theories of monogenism and polygenism, which resulted in the figure of the métis being viewed as “a political and ideological problem” that troubled the European colonial imagination; Vergès, 29. 105. Vergès, 11. 106. Vergès, 11. 107. Vergès, 11–12. 108. Weber, “1816–1914: One Century of Colonization,” 143–44. 109. See Weber, Pondichéry et les comptoirs de l’Inde, 237–96. 110. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 16. 111. For more information on the Indian female “other,” see Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 84; Spivak, 90–104. 112. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 14. 113. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 14. 114. “Rappelle-toi, mon bel André” (“Remember, my dear André”) says his French mother, “que tu es un sauvage, et que, pour être digne du nom que tu portes, il faut que tu deviennes un homme civilisé” (“that you are a savage and that to be worthy of the name that you carry, you must become a civilized man”); Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 17. 115. Rudyard Kipling, Kim (London: Penguin, 1994; first publ. 1901). For more on Kim’s racial ambiguity and chameleonic qualities, see JanMohamed, 96–100. 116. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 153–54. 117. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 192–93. 118. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 113. 119. Assolant, 210, 211, 236, 306, 332, 337, 351, and 442. 120. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 26. 121. Ravi, L’Inde romancée, 70–71.

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122. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 40. 123. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 288. 124. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 289. 125. Rousselet, Le Charmeur de serpents, 289. 126. As has been argued by various academics, France lacked a coherent colonial policy until around 1880 and, even then, it was not driven by the French government, but rather by le parti colonial, which garnered support for an overseas empire by appealing to French nationalism through public and governmental Anglophobia; Andrew, 152. For Algeria, see Yves Bénot, “Une préhistoire de l’expédition d’Alger,” in Rétablissement de l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises 1802: Ruptures et continuités de la politique française (1800–1830) aux origines d’Haïti, ed. Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2003), 537–45 (544). For Indochina, see Cooper, 11–12. 127. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Dans l’Inde: Ébauches d’un ouvrage sur l’Inde,” in Tocqueville: Œuvres, ed. André Jardin ([Paris]: Gallimard, 1991), 955–1080. 128. Voltaire’s letter is cited in André Jardin, “Dans l’Inde: Notice,” in Tocqueville: Œuvres, ed. André Jardin ([Paris]: Gallimard, 1991), 1555–62 (1555). 129. For more information on the rationale and aims underpinning Tocqueville’s analysis of British India, see Jardin, 1555–62. 130. This same argument would be echoed by Prévost-Paradol in 1865, who wrote with envy of Britain’s Indian (and global) empire in contrast to France’s meager overseas possessions and urged France to expand into Algeria; A. Prévost-Paradol, La France nouvelle et pages choisies (Paris: Garnier, 1981; first publ. 1868), 127 and 153. 131. Tocqueville, “Travail sur l’Algérie,” 691. 132. Tocqueville, “Travail sur l’Algérie,” 691. 133. The idea that Algeria could help to revive French prestige in Europe was already well established by 1857; Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser. Exterminer., 11–12. Throughout the nineteenth century, the acquisition of overseas territories was often considered as a way to recover national prestige, particularly following moments of defeat, such as France’s defeat in Prussia (1870); Andrew, 148. 134. Tocqueville, “Dans l’Inde,” 1005. 135. Tocqueville, “Travail sur l’Algérie,” 693. It should be noted that the idea of a cultural colonization is as old as the Roman Empire, which formed the model for colonialism whether under the Ancien Régime, where Colbert promoted the importance of creating “une culture commune pour unifier l’empire” (“a common culture to unite the empire”), or under the Third Republic and its policy of assimilation; Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès, 44–45. 136. J. Girard, “L’Inde ancienne et l’Inde actuelle: Comparées sous leurs rapports les plus importans,” Le Siècle, August 24, 1857, 2. 137. Le Siècle, August 24, 1857, 2. See also Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, October 29, 1857, 1–2 (1). 138. Henry de Riancey, “France, Paris, 23 octobre,” L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, October 24, 1857, 1. 139. Riancey, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, October 24, 1857, 1. 140. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 119–20. 141. Laurentie, L’Union: Quotidienne, France, écho français, August 25, 1857, 1. 142. The idea of Algeria as a utopia was repeatedly invoked. For example, the politician, Léonce de Lavigny, saw this North African country as a place in which to export political and social reform, producing, to quote from Amoss, “a prototype of the perfect

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society that would nourish France’s own utopian dreams”; Benjamin McRae Amoss, “The Revolution of 1848 and Algeria,” The French Review 75 (2002): 744–54 (745). 143. E. André Pasquet, “Les conseils généraux de l’Algérie: Session de 1858,” Le Siècle, December 2, 1858, 2. 144. Pasquet, Le Siècle, December 2, 1858, 2. 145. Pasquet, Le Siècle, December 2, 1858, 2. 146. Pasquet, Le Siècle, December 2, 1858, 2. 147. Anceau, 369–70. 148. Anceau, 370. 149. A. Husson, “Percement de l’isthme de Suez: Rapport de la Commission Internationale,” Le Siècle, July 3, 1857, 2; P. Dubois, “Paris, 30 juin,” Le Constitutionnel, July 1, 1857, 1; Alexandre Bonneau, “Le Canal de Suez et l’Angleterre,” La Presse, August 3, 1857, 3; J. Burat, “Paris, 30 juillet,” Le Constitutionnel, July 31, 1857, 1. 150. Dubois postulated that the Suez Canal would halve the journey of troops travelling from Britain to India and would significantly reduce the overall costs; Paul Dubois, “Paris, 7 août,” Le Constitutionnel, August 8, 1857, 1. Similar arguments can also be found in P. Dubois, “Paris, 14 décembre,” Le Constitutionnel, December 15, 1857, 1; Cucheval-Clarigny, “L’Isthme de Suez et l’insurrection des Indes,” La Patrie, December 14, 1857, 1–2. 151. P. Dubois, “Paris, 22 septembre,” Le Constitutionnel, September 23, 1857, 1. 152. Alexandre Bonneau, “Le Canal de Suez et l’Angleterre,” La Presse, August 3, 1857, 3. 153. Eugène Veuillot, “France, Paris, 4 novembre,” L’Univers: Union Catholique, November 5, 1857, 1. Other examples include: cotton growing in Henri Cauvain, “Paris, 2 avril,” Le Constitutionnel, April 3, 1858, 1; and the development of a railway network in Henri Cauvain, Le Constitutionnel, April 16, 1858, 1. 154. Louis Jourdan, “L’insurrection de l’Inde,” Le Siècle, September 11, 1857, 1–2 (1). 155. Jourdan, Le Siècle, September 11, 1857, 1. 156. J. Cohen, “L’Inde et l’Algérie,” La Patrie, August 12, 1857, 1. 157. Cohen, La Patrie, 12 August 1857, 1. 158. Billot, Le Réveil de l’Inde ou chante du Mharatte, 7. 159. Billot, Le Réveil de l’Inde ou chante du Mharatte, 7. 160. For more on the importance of Saint Domingue, see David Aliano, “Revisiting Saint Domingue: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution in the French Colonial Debates of the Late Nineteenth Century (1870–1900),” French Colonial History 9 (2008): 15–36 (15). 161. Billot did not state explicitly whether the “orgies politiques” referred to the First Republic or to Napoleon Bonaparte’s Consulate, although his political leanings towards a republican–federalist view suggest that it was the latter; Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 58. 162. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 58. 163. The amnesia of Billot’s text is typical of French representations of Haiti. Dorigny writes that the news of Leclerc’s unsuccessful expedition was kept deliberately quiet back in the métropole where the Consulate was busy concerning itself with creating “l’image d’un Bonaparte invaincu et pacificateur de l’Europe ralliée aux idéaux de la Révolution”; Dorigny, 50. 164. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 58.

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165. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 60–61. 166. J. Cohen, “L’Inde et l’Algérie,” La Patrie, August 12, 1857, 1. 167. For more on the tenets of bonapartism, see Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen, 35–42. 168. Le Constitutionnel similarly claimed that this shift in power could already be discerned. Preoccupied with their fear of losing India, “les journaux de Londres” (“the London presses”) had begun, it claimed, “naturellement à jeter sur les colonies des autres puissances européennes un regard d’envie” (“naturally, to cast their eyes enviously towards the colonies of other European powers”), in particular, Algeria: “et voici dans quels termes élogieux le Morning-Post s’exprime sur l’Algérie, qu’il essaie de comparer aux Indes” (“and here are the words of praise used by the Morning Post to talk about Algeria, which it attempts to compare to the Indies”); Le Constitutionnel, August 31, 1857, 1. In fact, this preamble was somewhat misleading—the subsequent translation of the Morning Post’s article on Algeria was rather less of a eulogy to France’s colonizing prowess than Le Constitutionnel allowed itself to imagine, the Post having disdainfully described Algeria as a colony that “les Français regardent comme leur empire des Indes en miniature” (“the French see as their Indian empire in miniature”). 169. This term was frequently used in the French-language press at this time. See for example, Henri Cauvain, “Paris, 2 avril,” Le Constitutionnel, April 3, 1858, 1; Henri Cauvain, Le Constitutionnel, April 16, 1858, 1; H. Lamarché, “Des races humaines: A propos de conquêtes et de colonisation,” Le Siècle, May 8, 1858, 2–3. 170. Billot, L’Inde, l’Angleterre et la France, 105. See also Farrère, 53. 171. For more on these histories, Bénot, 545; Cooper, 43. 172. As Bénot and Le Cour Grandmaison note, the conquest of Algeria was motivated by a desire to avenge 1763, that “date maudite” (“cursed date”) that had begun “une longue période de décadence” (“a long period of decadence”); Bénot, 540; Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser. Exterminer., 10–11. Similarly, Edwards “locates France’s fascination for Angkor in another, more nebulous detritus: the ruins of French rule in India. […] Angkor is both a site of memory and a staging ground for fantasies of what l’Inde could have become under French rule”; Penny Edwards, “Taj Angkor: Enshrining l’Inde in le Cambodge,” in France and “Indochina”: Cultural Representations, ed. Kathryn Robson and Jennifer Yee (Lanham, MD; Oxford: Lexington Books, 2005), 13–27 (13).

CONCLUSION

The French Colonial Imagination

The interjection of a competing French discourse on India within the history of the Indian uprisings signals a return to the starting point of this study, namely a departure from viewing 1857–58 within an East–West dichotomy. As Marsh notes (in reference to Indian decolonization), the analysis of French-language narratives on India requires, not a binary model in which the west is pitted against the east, but a triangular model in which France (“the ‘subaltern’ colonizer”) is placed in a complex and shifting relationship with both the dominant colonizer, Britain, and the colonized “other,” India.1 The special case of the French in India not only challenges the grand narrative of Britain’s colonial dominance over the subcontinent by recalling the presence of an “other” colonizer, but also issues a broader warning against analyzing colonial discourse indiscriminately through a binary model. 2 However, unlike the history of Indian colonization and decolonization more generally, the uprisings of 1857–58 cannot be considered as anything other than a British and Indian narrative. After all, the French comptoirs remained entirely external to the crisis and French politics played no role in the outcome of the revolts. Centrally, therefore, this study has asked why the subject of an Indianled revolt against the dominant colonizer should have generated such a strong journalistic and literary response in an otherwise politically disinterested France. It finds that the texts dedicated to this period have far less to say about this particular moment, or about the British or Indian “other” per se, than about the troubled image of French colonialism within the French colonial imagination, particularly during the mid nineteenth century, as “a political second-best to Britain’s presence.”3 Four interconnected patterns emerge from this exploration, each of which reveals how “India” (and particularly a British India caught in the midst of a

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colonial crisis) is used as a narrative space in which to create an idealized vision of French colonialism that additionally works to negate its memory and history of political marginalization and colonial violence. These include: the importance of reading French representations of the subcontinent through a triangular model in which France is placed in a dialectical relationship with both the Indian and the British “other”; the practice of utilizing the figure of the Indian “other” as a space through which to voice and explore Gallo-centric concerns and fantasies; the articulation of a new colonizing mission and rhetoric that is founded upon a negative juxtaposition of French and British colonialisms, and that promotes France as a preferable colonial ruler that (in a post-abolitionist era) offers a more morally-grounded colonial philosophy; and finally, the importance of India within the French imagination as a fictionalized locus in which to sanitize and galvanize the idea of French colonial exploitation during the transition from Empire to Republic. In the first instance, although the French texts examined here have been interpreted using a triangular (rather than a binary) methodology, this interpretation does not yield a simplistic reading of three stable and contrary identities. It shows, on the one hand, the prevalence of key stereotypes operating across time and genre; and, on the other hand, the political and historical contingency underpinning the idea of France, India, and Britain within any given text. The figure of the British colonizer is viewed either a much-needed agent of control over an “uncivilized” subcontinent, or as a despotic and self-serving tyrant. Likewise, the image of the Indian “other,” while often placed in cultural opposition to the French “self,” oscillates between its presentation as the justified, if flawed agent of anti-colonial action (particularly in Anglophobic writing) that is as yet unable to achieve liberation; and its denigration as a member of a “barbaric” and “uncivilized” race that is incapable of self-rule. Whether British or Indian “others” are presented in a positive or negative light, as a stereotype or as a counter-stereotype, they inevitably function as a foil to the more positive and diverse images of the French “self.” What is important is not whether a French text supports the continuation of British rule, but rather how the uprisings were used in almost all cases to highlight Britain’s unjust exploitation of its colonized “subjects,” allowing an alternative vision of a peaceful India under French republican or imperial rule to be worked, implicitly or explicitly, into these narratives. The ambiguities and inconsistencies found across these multiples representations not only suggest the absence of a monolithic idea of India and the uprisings, but also the extent to which the subcontinent was a contested space within French colonial discourses. More often than not, the figures of the British colonizer and colonized Indian simply operate as malleable tropes in which France’s own preoccupations and political ideals could be explored, while its histories of loss and violence could be revised and/or forgotten. Thus, if consistency is to be found at all, it is in the privileged position ascribed to the French voice as it comments upon British Indian society at a moment of crisis. It was the special status of the French in India, being at once “insiders”

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and “outsiders,” colonizers and the “colonized,” that allowed the texts examined here to endow this voice with the ability to speak on behalf of both the European colonizer and the colonized “other,” and in each case to position itself as morally superior. In the second instance, the texts studied here have shown how the figure of the Indian “other” as an agent of anti-colonial revolt is adopted into French writing as a trope for expressing Gallo-centric views and fantasies. The act of speaking through, or ventriloquizing, the Indian “other” occurs most obviously in those texts that use this figure as a mouthpiece through which to channel their anti-British views, or simply to challenge the confident rhetoric of British colonial victory and domination. Through this process of displacement, negative comments on the British Indian administration, or French counter-narratives of Anglo-centric accounts, are issued through a seemingly Indian source, while the author of the criticism or subversion remains hidden. These Indian protagonists are useful since they can be made to endorse and suggest a preference for French over British colonialism, a literary device that is perhaps most obvious in those fictional accounts where France is imagined as India’s liberator. As well as mobilizing the figure of the Indian insurgent, the uprisings as a whole could also be employed as propaganda for French colonialism, irrespective of the genre and political ideology of a given text. This can clearly be seen in the volume and diversity of newspaper reporting produced in 1857–58. During 1857, when the potential for an Indian victory was still held in abeyance, it was repeatedly suggested that the uprisings had revolutionary potential, this being a provocative equation that exploited Britain’s anxiety for the future of its most important colonial possession. Post-1858, the suggestion that India had attempted a European-style revolution, albeit one that had “failed” to overturn the ruling power, could still be used to celebrate the universality of those core French values, liberté, égalité, fraternité.4 As such, the uprisings worked to destabilize the grand narrative of British dominance by highlighting an underlying fear among Britons towards their colonial “subjects” based on the threat of future sedition. Of course, the effect of using an anti-colonial movement in this opportunistic way is to silence the voice of the colonized “other” beneath a selfinterested agenda that is geared towards triumphing rhetorically over the frère ennemi. In the third instance, French-language representations of the Indian uprisings reveal a desire to create a competing colonial discourse that opposes that of its British rival and writes over France’s history of loss under former regimes. The revolts provided the perfect subject matter, being a historical instance in which the British had been challenged at their very core by a “subject” race (just as France had lost its former plantation colony of Saint Domingue). As such, they also presented an opportunity for many French writers to criticize British colonialism and to graft longstanding grievances against the frère ennemi onto those of the Indian populace. The violent response of the British military and English-language press provided the perfect stratagem for showcasing British

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colonialism at its very worst. For these combined reasons, the revolts could be exploited as a fictionalized space in which to imagine counter-narratives to the grand récit of British dominance. Prior to their official conclusion in 1858, they allowed writers to envisage India freed from British rule and Britain reduced to a secondary colonial power. Long after 1858, they permitted French writing to suggest that had India been under French rule, the revolts would never have occurred. Arguably, it was the incomplete nature of France’s “loss” of India (or rather “l’empire de Dupleix” [“Dupleix’s empire”]) that allowed this fantasy of French colonial freedom to emerge. The remaining comptoirs, despite their political debilitation, and because of their juxtaposition with British India, could be made to function as colonial utopias in which to suggest what an India under French rule might have been like. These imaginings could be all the more potently expressed when placed within the context of India’s revolt against the British. The figure of the French colonizer scattered throughout the texts analyzed here reflects the marginalized status of the comptoirs. Like the trading posts, the French protagonist is often placed on the periphery of British Indian society, yet it is this positioning that enables them to promote French colonialism as a sociocultural ideal. Privileged with an outsider’s perspective, while retaining a degree of insider knowledge, they are depicted as being able to transcend the worlds of the dominant colonizer and colonized “other,” forging “special” relationships with the Indian “other” in direct opposition to the antipathy that defined British– Indian relations. The uprisings were thus instrumentalized as a polemical tool within the long history of Franco-British rivalry, in this case to compensate, at least rhetorically, for past losses on the subcontinent. As Said, Assayag, and Marsh have all concluded, this suggests that, although the battle for territorial control of India ended definitely with the Treaty of Paris of 1814, France continued to compete with Britain, seeking to occupy “India” epistemologically, in this case through a rival colonial discourse. 5 India, as “a space in the imagination to be occupied,” to borrow Marsh’s phrasing, has been explored here not simply as a setting in which to stage exoticist adventures or to rehearse nostalgic memories of France’s glorious past, but as a site in which a superior image of the métropole and its colonial mission could be created under the Second Empire and the Third Republic.6 Finally then, these texts suggest the importance of India as a transformative space in which to renegotiate the memories of France’s past territorial defeats overseas, not just in India, but also in Canada and Haiti, and to sanitize the violence of French colonialism in, for example, Algeria. India should not, therefore, be studied in isolation, but should be placed within the wider context of France’s losses under the Ancien Régime, as well as its desire to compete with British India through the acquisition of Africa and Indochina. The narratives that have formed the primary material of this analysis are less concerned with the Indian uprisings, than with the use that could be made of “India” as a literary space in which to promote a sanitized image of France and its colonial exploits. 7 No

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longer encumbered by its own histories of atrocity, controversy, and defeat, French colonialism could be presented as a paradigm of success, which operated not only within the exotic imaginary of fictional writing on India, but also extended beyond nostalgic representations and out into the burgeoning colonial reality of the French empire. The vision of the métropole as the exporter and disseminator of a colonial ideology based on the revolutionary precepts of liberté, égalité, fraternité is, of course, France’s own grand récit and one that has been tirelessly linked to the Third Republic. Indeed, this metanarrative survives today in the desire to save the Republic from its colonial past by remembering only the “positive” aspects of colonialism (namely the construction of infrastructure, as well as education and political systems) or by associating la République coloniale with the discourse of abolitionism and emancipation. 8 The celebration of France that prevails throughout this reading of the Indian uprisings is, however, beset by two destabilizing counter-narratives. The first concerns amnesia, or the will to conceal the incongruence between colonial discourse and the material practices of colonial occupation; and the second concerns French colonial marginalization, or a preoccupation with being placed in an inferior position to the frère ennemi, not only in India but also globally, as a result of past territorial losses. To begin with, the belief in France’s “civilizing mission” leads to a refusal to acknowledge France’s own acts of colonial violence. The inability to engage critically with the exploitative nature of colonial occupation negates the often trenchant criticism of the British and uncovers the same patterns of hypocrisy that unhinge “heroic” Anglo-centric accounts of the uprisings. As a result, far from producing a hegemonic and stable image of France’s “civilizing mission,” French colonial discourse is underpinned by a fixation with marginalization and defeat. The anxiety that French writing observes in Anglo-centric accounts of 1857–58, with regards to its self-image and future stability, is thus inadvertently reflected back to France. In the very act of projecting France as a desirable alternative to the British lies the suggestion that French writing on India is deeply concerned with the image of France as a less powerful colonizer. The Indian uprisings, being one of the most significant events in the history of British colonialism, continue therefore to offer a compelling topic in which to theorize colonial history and develop postcolonial thinking. They have been used here to examine the will to create a particular vision of French colonialism at time of political transition, against which the figures of the Indian “other” and British colonizer are mobilized as complex and shifting markers of difference. As a discrete event, the uprisings provide insight not only into French attitudes towards its foremost colonial enemy during the Second Empire and early Third Republic, but also into France’s imagined colonial self. French representations of these events demonstrate the extent to which this image was structured around concepts of loss, nostalgia, and the persistent desire to differentiate France’s new imperial vision from the mistakes of the past. This emerging and idealized vision of French colonialism is not only incompatible with France’s actual history of

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colonial violence, but also reveals that France’s mission civilisatrice was, and would remain, troubled by the ongoing reality of France’s subaltern status to the British. France’s marginalized position could be used, however, to fuel the “myth” of the French libérateur, while the idea of “freedom,” in this postabolitionist period, formed the glue that bound the political diversity of the republican and imperialist regimes that spanned the mid-nineteenth century. This discourse, which would form the cornerstone of the Third Republic’s mission civilistrice, can therefore only be fully understood if it is placed within the larger context of France’s diminished political presence within European and global communities, and its desire to compensate for this reduced status through colonial expansion. The nostalgia of the Second Empire, which looked back to Napoleon I and forward to the imperial future, went hand-in-glove the desire to avenge the losses suffered in 1815. This then was the legacy left to the Third Republic and its République coloniale, a legacy that has been subsumed under the grand narrative of the mission civilistrice that the Republic would formalize from 1880 onwards, but which must always be reconnected back to its nostalgic and imperialist origins. As such, The French Colonial Imagination foregrounds the importance of questioning the metanarratives that shape the colonial past, a questioning that needs to be applied equally to France and Britain as they now come to terms with their imperial histories and acknowledge the ongoing effects of colonialism in today’s “post”-colonial society.

Notes 1. As Marsh points out throughout her monograph, Fictions of 1947, Frenchlanguage representations of India need to be examined within the context of “France’s politically subordinate status in India”; Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 13. 2. Forsdick and Murphy, “Introduction: The Case for Francophone Postcolonial Studies,” 6. 3. Said, Orientalism, 169. 4. Interestingly, Marsh also notes that Indian decolonization was presented in French writing “as a retarded French Revolution”; Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 210. 5. Said, Orientalism, 41; Assayag, 10–13; Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 215. 6. Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 212. 7. Marsh similarly concludes that “the trope of “India” is employed not as a means of imposing and maintaining colonial power, but rhetorically to challenge another colonizer: the frère ennemi, Britain”; Marsh, Fictions of 1947, 213. 8. Bancel, Blanchard, and Lemaire’s co-edited collection of essays engages directly with the need to acknowledge France’s colonial past, particularly within the context of current integration and immigration concerns, and in response to the attempted implementation of the 2005 law that called for schools syllabuses to recognize “le rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer, notamment en Afrique du Nord” (“the positive role played by the French presence overseas, notably in North Africa”). The proposed 2005 law is quoted in Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, “Sur la réhabilitation du passé colonial de la France,” in La Fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial,

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ed. Pascal Blanchard, Nicholas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire (Paris: La Découverte, 2006; first publ. 2005), 125–32 (125). For an introduction to the widespread refusal within French culture to engage with its colonial past (a refusal that continued under Sarkozy’s government and his “campaign promise to end the era of ‘repentance’”; Miller, 390), see Nicholas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Sandrine Lemaire, “Introduction: La fracture coloniale: Une crise française,” in La Fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial, ed. Pascal Blanchard, Nicholas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire (Paris: La Découverte, 2006; first publ. 2005), 9–31.

Glossary Agha: A title of respect used in Muslim countries (especially under the Ottoman Empire) to refer to a person in a senior military position, such as a commander or chief officer, or as a title of distinction. Bayadère: A dancing girl, especially one serving in a Hindu temple, linked in colonial discourse to the idea of sexual freedom. Bibighar: The living quarters where British officers housed their concubines; the name of the location in which a group of Europeans were massacred on 15 July 1857 at Cawnpore. Brahman or Brahmin: A member of the highest or priestly caste in the Hindu caste system. Chapati: A small cake of unleavened bread, generally made of coarse wheaten meal, flattened with the hand, and baked on a griddle. Dacoit: A member of a gang of armed robbers in India considered (along with the Thugs) as part of a religious sect that murdered their victims and offered them as sacrifices to the Hindu goddess, Kâli. Muharram or moharrem: The first month of the year in the Muslim calendar; an annual festival in the month of Muharram, commemorating the deaths of the grandsons of Muhammad. Nawab-vazir: In South Asia, a Muslim official who acted as a deputy ruler or viceroy of a province or district under the Mughal empire, such as governor of Oudh during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; any governor of a town or district, or person of high status. Peshwa: A chief minister of the Marathan princes (based in Poona) from circa 1600– 1818. In 1818, the title was annulled by British authorities after the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, was dethroned and exiled to Bithur.

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Razzia: A hostile or aggressive incursion, foray or raid, usually for the purposes of conquest, plunder and the capture of slaves, especially in North Africa. Ryot: A peasant or tenant farmer in India. Sati or suttee: A Hindu widow who immolates herself on the funeral pile with her husband’s body. Sepoy: An Indian soldier in the service of the British army. Sowar: A native horseman or mounted orderly, policeman, etc.; a native trooper, especially one belonging to the irregular cavalry. Thug (‘cult’ of Thugi or Thuggee): A member of an organization of robbers and assassins in India who typically strangled their victims and offered them as a sacrifice to the Hindu goddess, Kâli. Zemindar: Formerly, a collector of the revenue from land held by a number of cultivators; subsequently, an Indian who held land for which he paid revenue direct to the British government. Zouave: An Algerian soldier predominantly from the Kabyle tribe who formed part of a light infantry corps within the French army.

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Index Abolitionism: Act of 1794, 57n55; Act of 1848, 10, 112–13, 115, 119, 137n87, 138n98, 147–49, 151, 156, 161, 172, 181n9, 181n13; British and, 49, 115, 136n49; Charles Dickens and, 104–105 Afghanistan, 24n83, 41–42, 44, 66, 140n128, 154, 155 Alexander the Great, 154 Algeria, 4, 12, 19, 23n66, 61, 120, 146, 172–80, 182n22, 186n130, 186n133, 186n142, 188n168, 188n172, 192 Ancien Régime, 2, 5, 7, 18–19, 33, 38, 147–50, 163, 166, 171–73, 180, 186n35 Anglophobia, 31–32, 76, 186n126, 191 Anti-colonialism, 12, 18–19, 28, 30, 32, 38, 42, 45, 47, 53, 61–63, 66, 71, 81, 83, 85–86, 89–90, 126–27, 135n45, 142n154 Assimilation, 4, 5, 25n96, 53, 60n118, 150, 163, 166–67, 173, 183n55, 186n135 Assolant, Alfred, 17, 158, 159, 162–65, 171, 184n87. See also Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du Capitaine Corcoran Aventures merveilleuses mais authentiques du Capitaine Corcoran, 158–64 Bahadur Shah II, 1, 13–14, 16, 27, 40, 41, 43, 62, 64–65, 67, 90n7 Battle of Plassey (1757), 9, 104

Bayadère, 7, 127–28 Bentinck, William, 50, 59n105 Billot, Frédéric, 1, 11, 16–17, 20n11, 31, 37, 47, 56n25, 145, 151–55, 157–58, 162, 174, 177–80, 181n2, 187n161, 187n163 Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, 4, 20n11, 21n15, 31, 37, 47, 76, 93n56, 153, 156, 158, 161. See also Second Empire Bonaparte, Napoleon, 9, 38, 57n55, 113, 137n87, 153, 162, 173, 182n34, 187n161, 187n163 Bonapartism, 38, 56n24, 188n167 Boucicault, Dion, 65, 68–69, 78, 82, 91n29, 92n30, 103 Brahman, 7, 83, 162, 163, 168 British East India Company, 1, 8, 15– 16, 24n83, 29, 40, 44, 58n78, 68, 146, 157. See also Queen’s Proclamation Catholicism, 73, 76, 146–47, 156 Cawnpore, 15–16, 18–19, 34, 42, 62– 64, 67–71, 76–77, 80–81, 84, 90n10, 94n63, 95n99, 95n100, 95n102, 96n110, 99–101, 103– 104, 106–11, 115, 117, 120–21, 124–25, 128–30, 132, 134n17, 135n33, 137n74, 142n172 Chandernagor, 2, 9, 86, 87 China, 44, 48, 176 Civilizing mission, 2–5, 18–19, 71, 100, 114, 127, 145-150, 164, 169, 171, 173, 180, 193–94

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Clive, Robert, 9 Cochinchine. See Vietnam Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 2, 8, 186n135 Colonial atrocity: French in Algeria and, 12, 19, 177–78; British in India and, 15–16, 41–43, 63, 70, 99– 101, 106, 108–109, 111–12, 118, 120–21, 131, 140nn124–25, 140n127, 143n179. See also Cawnpore and Highlanders; Labor exploitation and, 12, 19, 113–15. See also Indentured labor and Slavery Colonial discourse, 5, 7, 12, 19, 28, 39, 61, 63, 72, 74, 89–90, 93n61, 107, 113, 146–50, 165, 167–68, 180, 189–93; Ambivalence and, 63, 65, 70. See also Civilizing mission Colonial fear and anxiety, 27, 29–30, 32, 45, 63–67, 94n68, 100, 103– 106, 111, 120, 122, 132 Colonial rivalry, 1–2, 5, 7, 11–12, 18– 19, 30, 39–41, 53–54, 72, 75–76, 119, 121, 145–46, 159–65, 170– 71, 175–77, 179–80, 189, 191–92 Colonialism: British systems of, 5, 13– 16, 36–37, 46–47, 49, 51–53, 62, 71–76, 79, 110–11, 113–14, 132– 33, 145–46, 161, 173, 190; French systems of, 3, 5, 8–12, 45, 48, 53, 75–76, 87, 100, 114–15, 119, 127, 145–50, 152–53, 160–77, 179–80, 182n22, 186n126, 192–94. See also Civilizing mission and Assimiliation Compagnie française des Indes orientales, 2, 8, 78, 98n143 Comptoirs, 2–3, 6, 8–12, 19, 20n6, 23n53, 23n60, 86, 87, 149–51, 164, 167, 184n84, 192 Conspiracy: chapatis, 14, 24n79; Nana Sahib and, 68, 72; rumors and, 24n79, 68, 78, 99; theory, 62, 93n49 Coolie, 10, 138n91, 149, 156. See also Indentured labor Crimean War (1853–1856), 31, 93n56, 117, 121, 156

Dacoit (inc. Dacoitee), 50, 68, 71, 87, 88 Dalhousie, James Andrew BrounRamsey, 14–15, 71 Darville, W., 17, 47–50, 52–53, 67, 88 Decolonization (of India), 6, 21n17, 151, 189, 194n4 Delhi, 13–16, 43–44, 56n43, 57n61, 64, 66–67, 69, 76, 80, 106, 107, 112, 135n33, 178 Dickens, Charles, 17, 96n105, 104– 106, 135n40, 135n45, 136n49, 140n125. See also Abolitionism Disraeli, Benjamin, 30, 55n18, 56n43, 66, 67 Dupleix, Joseph François, 2, 9, 11, 48, 53, 87, 97n143, 168, 192 Egypt, Napoleonic campaign, 153, 175 Engels, Friedrich, 15, 30, 55n15 Enlightenment, 5, 76, 133, 146, 157, 163, 175 Exoticism, 1–2, 5–8, 10, 13, 87, 125, 128, 150–51, 164, 184n89, 192 Exposition Universelle, of 1855, 75, 119; of 1878, 86, 119 Fanaticism: Hindu, 33, 74, 122. See also Thugs; Indian, 53, 87, 122, 163; Muslim, 66, 92n35 Farrère, Claude, 13, 24n67, 151–53 Fetishism, 101–102, 129, 131Ferry, Jules, 48, 127, 150, 164 First Empire (1804–1815), 31, 113, 147, 150, 177, 179–80 Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), 47, 86 French Antilles, 6, 12, 113, 163, 178 French East India Company. See Compagnie française des Indes orientales French India, 3, 5–10, 48, 53, 86, 150, 163, 171, 189–90 French Revolution (1789), 10, 34–35, 37–38, 49, 57n54, 72, 118–19, 136n49, 174, 181n1 French Revolution (1848), 31–32, 161, 175, 181n1

Index Gaultier de Saint-Amand, H.,17, 71, 125–29, 132, 141n149, 143n178, 165 Great Exhibition (1851), 1, 10, 13, 38, 61, 73, 75, 100 Grèce, Michel de, 47, 185n91 Haider Ali, 9, 121 Haiti, 10, 12, 18, 33, 115, 118–19, 156, 179, 187n163, 191–92 Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), 12, 38, 118–19, 126, 139n119, 178, 187n160 Hastings, Warren, 14–15, 24n83 Havelock, Henry, 15–16, 69, 79, 94n65, 99, 100, 102, 117 Highlanders, 16, 69, 100, 103, 116, 117, 139n111, 139n115 Indentured labor, 6, 113–14, 138nn90– 92, 151, 156, 163, 183nn49–50, 184n83 Independence: American War of, 35; Indian, 28, 37–39, 46–47, 49–51, 54, 56n43, 57n54, 173 Indochina, 8, 13, 19, 48, 172, 180, 186n126, 192 Identity: British colonial, 13–14, 16, 19, 68, 190; British national, 73, 78, 94n73, 140n131; French colonial, 13, 19, 64, 145–80, 190–92, French national. See Republicanism Karikal, 2, 6, 9, 149, 163 Kaye, John William, 17, 56n43 Lakshmi Bai. See Rani of Jhansi Le Charmeur de serpents, 71, 164–71. See also Rousselet, Louis Loss: India as a figure of, 2–8, 10–11, 13, 48, 52–53, 151–52, 165, 171, 173–74, 192; of Alsace and Lorraine, 47–48; of French Empire under the Ancien Régime, 8–10, 18, 31, 33, 87, 90, 152, 180. See also Treaties of Paris Loti, Pierre, 10, 48 Louis XIV, 8

215 Louis XV, 9, 11, 48, 87 Lucknow, 15–16, 44, 65, 69, 91n29, 96n121, 103, 139n115, 141n152 MacMahon, Patrice de, 47, 51, 85–86 Mahé, 2, 9 Maison à vapeur, 17, 26n107, 86–89, 120–26. See also Verne, Jules Malgonkar, Manohar, 94n65, 107, 108 Marenis, Jacqueline, 17, 71, 132, 142n172, 143n183, 185n91 Marx, Karl, 15, 30, 47, 55n15, 67, 83– 84,92n46, 95n89 Maynard, Félix, 16, 34, 76–78, 81, 96n116, 132 Métissage, 166–69, 171, 185n104 Mission civilisatrice. See Civilizing mission Mughal Empire, 9, 14, 27, 40, 42–43, 49, 52, 65, 145 Munro, Hector, 120–21, 140n124, 141n148 Mutiny (nomenclature), 27–30, 32, 34– 37, 54–55n11 Mythology: British colonial myths, 1, 78, 87, 90, 99–100, 103–104, 107– 108, 110, 128, 142–43n172, 145; counter-myth, 77, 87, 108, 110, 125, 128, 131–32, 145; French colonial myths, 147–48; Nana Sahib and, 63–70 Neill, James, 100–101 Nicholson, John, 15 Nana Sahib, 15, 17–18, 25n88, 43, 44, 59n102, 62–90, 90n8, 91n12, 92n30, 92n42, 92n45, 93n57, 94n65, 95n99, 97n124, 97n129, 99, 105, 107, 117, 120–32, 135n33, 139n115, 141n139, 143n172, 143n178, 155–56, 159, 161, 166, 177, 178 Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), 2, 9, 31, 140n128 North Africa, 6, 8, 12, 13, 19, 119, 172, 194n8 Napier, Charles, 13, 24n70

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Nostalgia, 3–5, 7–8, 10–11, 13, 31, 90, 147–50, 152–53, 160, 165, 168, 171–72, 180, 192–94 Nicaise, August, 17 Oudh, 15, 24nn82–83, 43, 55n22, 63, 121 Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 30, 67, 113, 175 Paris Commune (1871), 85 Perfidious Albion, 72, 130, 132, 142n170 Pondichéry, 2, 6, 8–12, 121, 163, 165– 67, 183n50 Postcolonialism, 1–2, 5–7, 17, 21n18, 29, 193, Protestantism, 146, 156, 174 Queen’s Proclamation, 16, 40, 44–45 Rani of Jhansi, 16, 47, 62, 69, 90n7, 94n65, 120 Rape: of British women, 76, 89, 94n71, 101–103, 109, 111, 125, 128–32, 134n14, 134n17; of Indian women, 85, 134n14 Republican colonialism, 3, 20n9, 48, 50, 83, 86, 145, 147–50, 160, 164, 167, 171. See also Civilizing mission Republicanism, 38, 47–48, 52, 60n114, 86, 147–50, 155, 157–67 Richepin, Jean, 17, 81–84, 86–87, 97n124, 97n129, 127 Rousselet, Louis, 17, 71, 164–67, 171, 185n91, 185n114. See also Le Charmeur de serpents Russell, William Howard, 17, 55, 99– 101, 106, 136n51 Said, Edward, 6–7, 62, 71–72 Saint-Domingue. See Haiti Sati, 7, 16, 129 Scramble for Africa, 176 Second Empire (1852–1870), 2–3, 7, 10, 23n53, 32, 35, 37–38, 47, 55n19, 56n24, 86, 132, 145, 147, 150–51, 153, 158–59, 175,

184n87, 192–93; Newspaper and censorship under, 31, 55n19, 55n21, 158–59. See also Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon Seven Years War (1754–1763), 2 Shah Abdali, 9 Shuja-ud-Daula, 9, 24n83, 104, 121 Slavery, 10, 38, 57n55, 84, 104–106, 112–15, 119, 128, 131–32, 136n49, 137n87, 138nn90-92, 138n98, 147–49, 151, 158, 161, 163, 167, 173 Sleeman, William Henry, 50 Steel, Flora Annie, 14, 57n61, 106 Stereotype: of British, 145–46, 181n1, 181b3; of Hindu (Indological discourse), 64–66, 68, 72–75, 91n26, 116–18, 127; of Muslim, 65–66, 126 Suez Canal, 139n121, 172, 175–76 Surcouf, Robert, 159–60 Taylor, Meadows, 17, 59n101-102 Thiers, Adolphe, 47, 86 Third Republic (1870–1840), 2–3, 7, 10, 19, 20n9, 47, 85–86, 97n130, 114, 125, 127, 132, 145–48, 150, 153, 164, 167, 186n135, 192–94 Thug (including Thugi and Thugism), 7, 16, 49–53, 58n76, 59nn101–103, 59–60nn105–106, 71, 87–88, 94n68 Tipu Sultan, 9, 121, 153, 162, 182n34 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 23n66, 38, 172, 174, 186nn128–29 Trading posts. See Comptoirs Treaties of Paris (1814 and 1815), 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 20n11, 153, 180, 192 Treaty of Paris (1763), 2, 10, 31, 87, 174 Trevelyan, George Otto, 68, 70, 93n56, 96n110 Valbezen, E. de, 16 Verne, Jules, 17, 59n102, 71, 86–89, 98n150, 119, 121, 125, 126, 140n124, 140n129, 141n132, 165, 183n56. See also Maison à vapeur

Index Vietnam, 126–27, 139n121, 142n154; Cochinchine and, 48, 120, 139n121 Warren, Edouard de, 11, 34, 46–47, 58n87, 181n2, 181n3 Wheeler, Hugh, 15, 63, 79, 134n28 Yanaon, 2, 9

217

About the Author Dr. Nicola Frith is a Lecturer in French at Bangor University, UK, and is a specialist in Francophone Postcolonial Studies. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool in 2009, where she investigated the development of rival colonial discourses between France and Britain, with particular reference to India and the Indian “Mutiny” of 1857–58. While colonial and postcolonial discourse analysis remains a primary field of interest, her research is now additionally focused on the socio-political culture underpinning collective memories of slavery in contemporary France. Her current research thus crosses between postcolonial studies and memory studies, and she is currently working on a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council entitled ‘Mapping Memories of Slavery: Commemoration, Community and Identity in Contemporary France’.