Rascals in Paradise Page 6

  He loved to wear rich black suits, spotless linen and full bow ties. On public occasions he decorated his chest with a broad silk sash of many colors and wore a gigantic bejeweled star of some noble order, its gold and silver rays making an ornament about the size of an hors d’oeuvre saucer pinned over his heart He was consul for Bolivia at the Breton port of Brest.

  When at the height of his depredations, he solemnly proclaimed himself King Charles I of Nouvelle France and began handing out dukedoms, earldoms and baronetcies, as well as ordinary consular posts around the world, nobody was surprised, for the Marquis de Rays looked and acted much more like a king than any of his European fellow monarchs.

  There was, it seemed, nothing spurious about his patent of nobility as a marquis. The de Rays family came of Celtic blood more ancient than that of the French royal family. The ancestors of Charles, forced to flee during the French Revolution, were afterward restored to their lands. His proud coat of arms showed a crowned lion with the Vergilian device: “Spare the conquered, conquer the haughty.”

  Until the time of the Revolution, the family had lived in one of the most romantic chateaux of northwestern France. Quimerc’h, with its masonry towers, staunch battlements, arched and recessed doorways and stone keep, looked down upon an artificial lake, which reflected the pinnacle glory of the ancient building. It was an aloof retreat for noble dreamers, and its tradition definitely affected young Charles du Breil, born in 1832, only four years after the seigneural chateau had been razed because of the depredations of the Revolutionists.

  The future Marquis de Rays actually lived in a much different kind of home, erected on the same site as the old one. It was a solid, ugly, three-storied provincial stone dwelling with dormer windows, six chimneys and a wing aft that looked like a squashed warehouse. Even as a young man, he found this utilitarian substitute for a noble chateau distasteful, and pounded off to remote parts of the world, seeking fulfillment of a prophecy by a Breton fortuneteller, made when he was a child, that he was destined to be a king.

  Charles first went to the Far West of the United States and tried to succeed as a rancher. Then he went to Senegal in Africa, and since one must live, he held the lowly post of a peanut broker. Not in Madagascar, nor even Indo-China, did he find the kingdom he sought. It is strange that he did not win for himself a large territory in the jungles of Indo-China, for others did, and without the backing of a noble name. But his failure in Saigon accomplished one thing. It inflamed his mind with visions of an island empire, and thereafter he read widely, tormenting himself with accounts of others who had succeeded where he had failed.

  One book that struck his imagination was the account of a French exploring voyage around the world made by Captain Louis Isadore Duperrey in the corvette Coquile. A particular section of this book was destined to live in the Marquis’ agile brain for years. It told how, on August 12, 1823, the French expedition had stumbled upon a veritable paradise. It bordered a bay at the extreme southern tip of the long and narrow island of New Ireland, northeast of New Guinea, and combined both heavenly beauty and possibilities of wealth beyond description. “We were singularly favored by the weather,” wrote Duperrey in his official report. “It rained seldom and we heard thunder only once. The winds came mainly from the east, but only penetrated into the bay as soft breezes. The nights were usually beautiful and calm.”

  More than half a century had passed since Duperrey wrote that description of New Ireland, but the memory of this gentle paradise continued to haunt the Marquis. He was getting toward middle age, and still the fortuneteller’s augury had not been realized. Where should he found his kingdom, and when?

  Then, at the end of a sequence of horrible disasters that befell France, the Marquis decided that the time had come for a bold stroke.

  In the decade preceding 1877 the French people had been shaken deeply by one crisis after another, and security seemed to have vanished. The tawdry empire of “Napoleon the Little” had suffered fiasco. His troops had been withdrawn from Mexico after the United States ultimatum of 1867. French pride had been humiliated by the disasters of the Franco-Prussian War, the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and the payment of a crushing indemnity. The radical Communards had taken over during the civil war following the defeat of Napoleon III, and had burned much of Paris. When they were finally overcome, thousands of them were sent to the convict colony of New Caledonia in the Pacific.

  The upheavals surrounding the beginning of the Third Republic brought great suffering. Three claimants fought for the nonexistent French throne. After the election of Marshal MacMahon, an old soldier, to the presidency, the Church party began a campaign which resulted in the failure of the coup d’état of May 16, 1877. The complicity of the Church in this affair provoked reprisals by the anti-clericals when they came to power. Many people in France and elsewhere in Europe felt that they would do anything to escape the turmoil and suspicion of the times.

  Two months after the crisis of May 16, the following modest advertisement appeared in a Paris newspaper: “Free Colony of Port Breton. Land two francs an acre. Fortune rapid and assured without leaving one’s country. For all information apply to M. du Breil de Rays, Château de Qui-merc’h, Bannalec, Finistère.” Port Breton was the name that the noble promoter had invented for the remote bay in New Ireland that Duperrey had described. The Marquis then began serious propagandizing for a colony of French people who would occupy this region, which he would organize under the name of Nouvelle France, with himself as King Charles I.

  As a result of the catastrophes in Europe, many people in France and elsewhere were apparently waiting for some handsome messiah, with an ancient name, who showed an inclination to lead them to a rich and simple life in a more hospitable climate, even though he had never been there himself.

  According to one of his propagandists, the Marquis de Rays was just the man for this role. Dr. P. de Groote explained the great man’s competence and devotion in these restrained terms: “Possessed of an ample fortune, what would hinder the Marquis from enjoying in peace his vast domain in Brittany? He has preferred to use his position and his administrative talent to promote the founding in Oceania, in the islands of Malaysia, of a free and independent colony. Hardened by numerous travels, the Marquis de Rays is unmoved in the face of danger; calmness and firmness are stamped upon his character. An outward coolness hides a good and compassionate heart which reveals a benevolent simplicity. He is liberally endowed with physical gifts; his manly and serene features, illumined with rays of intelligence, express the frankness, the energy of his character, joined with a fine firmness; these harmonize with a tall stature, sustained by the vigor of an athlete. His outward manner, reflecting a feeling of power, his calm courage, his exquisite kindness, all arouse respect and confidence. The Marquis de Rays was certainly born to command; he has the assurance, the spontaneity, the resolution, the precision of a glance; he has at once in high degree the Christian virtues, the military instinct, the mariner’s genius, the forethought of the administrator, and the impartial clarity of the judge. Vigorous in body and mind, arrived at maturity while still young, he has reached by study and reflection that period of life when one enjoys all the fulfillment of physical and moral forces; he has experience behind him and the future before him, in order to achieve, with the aid of God, a great work which has been the preoccupation of his entire life.”

  Encouraged by such a factual account of his capacities, the Marquis started dreaming on a vast scale and began speaking of his extensive lands, of the Chinese coolies who were going to work like slaves for the enrichment of French proprietors, and especially of the ranks of nobility that he was about to create. All who bought twelve square miles in the new settlement would be issued patents of nobility as dukes or marquises. Those who acquired six square miles, if along the water front, would be honored as earls, viscounts and barons, depending upon the cost of the land. Those who could afford no more than six square miles inland would have to be content with barone
tcies.

  What made the proposal doubly alluring to people with accumulated money but no sense of adventure was the plan whereby one could purchase land in Nouvelle France, stay safely at home, and have the overseas acres tilled by patient, industrious, and honest Chinese, who would send all the profits back to France by regular steamers. In a few months, the Marquis de Rays picked up for himself well over a million dollars in subscriptions.

  But the real glory of the enterprise was to be reserved for Frenchmen with smaller funds who would actually go out to the new kingdom, for theirs was to be a life of sun-swept ease under tall coconut palms, with the simple black children of New Ireland hurrying cool drinks to them and fanning them while devout priests and nuns saved savage souls for Jesus and the warm waters of the Pacific hummed a lullaby.

  Food? Nouvelle France was composed of land that ached from its burden of succulent riches. A man had merely to call and the natives would rush the produce of the fields to him. The ugly days of buying things from mean shop attendants were ended. Food was everywhere.

  Money? The seas abounded in trepang, a crawling slug which could be gathered even by children and which sold in China for $750 a ton. The softly rolling land in from the beach was crowded with mahogany and teak. Copra could be made with almost no effort, since Chinese would do all the work. Vessels of all nations would put into port, hotels would flourish and the citizens of Nouvelle France would reap an enormous profit.

  Amenities? When the adventurous colonists reached this paradise they would find schools, churches, stores, factories, a railway, docks, and a lighthouse which would aid large European vessels putting into the colony for trade. There would also be fine roads not less than fifteen feet wide between properties.

  Spiritual life? Throughout the fanfare which was built up in Europe for Nouvelle France, the role of God was kept uppermost in everyone’s mind. The Marquis humbly announced that he was but a tool in the Lord’s hands, destined to create in the savage wilderness a holy settlement which would reflect the glory of Heaven. Each prospectus showed, in moving detail, docile native children gathered together for instruction by priests whose gaze was ever upward. The cross and the church dominated all engraved views of the new kingdom. Rarely has God more certainly supported any adventure; never have the backers of an enterprise been more securely allied with religion.

  The grandiose plans of the Marquis de Rays were warmly received, even though they were only on paper. Imagine, therefore, the furor these ideas caused when the nobleman appeared in person at Marseilles on April 4, 1879, his handsome frame decorated with medals, and propounded his project as follows:

  “The expansion throughout the world of a nation’s ideas has always shown the greatness of a country; it is through colonization that a people becomes great.…

  “My first concern was to raise the capital necessary for the enterprise. One difficulty arose, insurmountable, it seemed; it lay solely in the need for guarantees. Everywhere arose this cry, unanimous, intense, ironic: ‘What sureties can you give us?’ And, in fact, what surety could I give for the success of this enterprise except the carrying out of the enterprise? A vicious circle, an insoluble problem.

  “The special nature of our enterprise obliged me, in order to ensure its future, to retain within my own hands the supreme direction, in order to keep it from being strangled by industrial and commercial interests whose jealous fetters would soon have destroyed the sacred character of its religious and social baptism.

  “I became from then on, by the force of circumstances, the sole representative of my own idea, without sharing control or power.… But I am nothing. God alone is powerful—it is by His grace that my voice will be heard. A current of sympathy establishes itself among men united by the same thought; the apostles reveal themselves; one person reflects, the idea takes form, and behold, we become a living unity represented today by the unanimous will of almost three thousand hearts united toward the same goal.…

  “Gentlemen, I never dared to expect such rapid success in my undertaking; but now that a first step has been made, now that the seed has germinated here in the fertile soil of France, what horizons can we not see for a French idea already supported on its native soil by more than three thousand apostles? God wills it, gentlemen—our enterprise will be great!…

  “We offer, then, by lot, lands to colonize, to anyone who wishes to associate himself with our enterprise, and we issue bonds for this land, the holders of which pay two francs an acre. The value of these bonds, arbitrarily fixed today, will be created only after colonization.…

  “No holder of bonds will actually have to go out and settle in the colony.… But often the poorest colonist in tropical climes can subsist on one hectare of land cultivated in sugar or in coffee and realize an income of several thousand francs a year.… The income will be payable each year on demand at one of the leading banks of Paris, or, for a slight service charge, it will be sent directly to your home.…

  “The spot is already found; it lies in the southeast part of New Ireland, near New Britain, on the St. George Channel, and on the great maritime route between Australia and China.… From Port Breton—at present Port Praslin—our influence can extend over to New Britain, to the Louisiades, discovered by our navigators, to the Solomon Islands, to New Guinea, of which the western part is already occupied by the Dutch, our masters in this new kind of colonizing. Vast spaces will open themselves to us.

  “We have, then, a port The temperature is very moderate, in spite of its proximity to the Equator, and varies only two to three degrees. The country is well wooded, very fertile, admirably watered; it rises rapidly from the sea, which permits everyone to choose the elevation, and consequently the temperature, which agrees best with his own temperament. The abundance of springs and watercourses allows there the economical erection of all industries needing a source of power, and the natural irrigation of the country facilitates, under its exceptionally fertile conditions, all the colonial products which can be sold in Australia much more advantageously than in Europe. Food, provisions abound there, as well as fish.…

  “We shall blaze the way, be assured, and our country will once again find glory. We shall renew on other shores, by means of our free colonies, the broken chain of our colonial traditions; we shall be great again, and without new burdens on our own country we shall, to the great profit of all, revive our beloved merchant marine, so that the remembrance of a great past will become a source of new glory.

  “To work, then, friends, and may God aid us!”

  The response to all this propaganda was overwhelming. Within a few months a shipload of volunteers had paid the Marquis all their savings and were ready to embark upon the great adventure. In the meantime, he had picked up, as his aide, an unemployed rogue, one Paul Titeu de la Croix, whom he immediately created Baron de Villeblanche. The name sounded imposing and gave immense support to the fraud that was about to be perpetrated.

  In mid-1879 the Marquis had actually spent some subscription money in the purchase of a three-masted ship, the Chandernagore, and piled aboard some ninety settlers, including wives and children. There was great excitement as the families assembled for the first time on deck to meet their fellow passengers on this voyage to certain riches. There was more excitement, however, when the sensible French government washed its hands of the whole crack-brained affair and refused permission for the ship to sail from any French port.

  The Marquis spirited his vessel up the coast of Europe to Antwerp, where equally sensible government officials termed the adventure suicidal and forced the resignation of the entire crew. Thereupon the Marquis dispatched the ship to Holland, where it recruited a third crew, now under the command of a Captain MacLaughlin of Alabama, who had been a lieutenant in the American Navy. Thus entitled to fly the American flag, the Chandernagore none the less sneaked out to sea under cover of darkness. The Marquis, showing the good sense which characterized him throughout the operation, stayed on shore.

  At Ma
deira more trouble developed, for the American consul insisted that his flag be taken off the disreputable ship; whereupon the Chandernagore broke out four flags at the same time: American, British, French, Belgian. Under these varied colors the doomed ship started its four-month journey to paradise.

  The voyage was not many days old when the passengers began to realize that there were many irregularities about this ship. The food was abominable, so foul and greasy that sometimes diners would get sick merely from looking at it. There was only one officer aboard who could navigate, and he was so permanently drunk that he had to be tied to the mast when taking shots so that he would not pitch overboard. Mutiny developed, and the purser was about to be shot, when the coast of Australia was sighted, and the men of many nationalities aboard forgot their quarrels at a Christmas celebration.

  Then, on January 16, 1880, the first settlers of Nouvelle France reached New Ireland, and for the first time saw where they were supposed to build an empire. The contrast between what existed ashore and what the propaganda in France had described was so vast that many never recovered from the shock and lived the next months in a dull stupor.

  Here is the way the Marquis de Rays’s domain actually looked in 1880.

  There was not a single building, no roads, not a footpath, no wharf, not a single sign of habitation. The jungle as it crept down to the foreshore was horribly dense, composed of grubby trees whose prolific branches scraped the earth, from which sprang noisome vines edged with piercing thorns. This mass of vegetation formed a solid wall which no man could penetrate unless he hacked out each foot of his way with a jungle knife. Hemmed in by decayed wood, swamped by interminable rain, this was one of the world’s most inhospitable spots.