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MARIE ANTOINETTE I PRESUME?

Sir, What a pity if Julien Durup has succeeded in undermining the historical connection between the Marie Antoinette Restaurant and “Livingstone Cottage”, the house where the explorer H.M. Stanley stayed in 1872 (Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly, 24 November). I may have been partly responsible for spreading this legend as in the Air Seychelles in-flight magazine Silhouette of 2001, while writing about the late Mrs Kathleen Fonseka and her famous restaurant, I noted: “It is said that the American adventurer and journalist H.M. Stanley and his party stayed here while they waited for the French mail steamer to take them back to Europe. Stanley was impatient to announce to the world that he had found in Africa, alive and well, the explorer David Livingstone, but he had to wait a month in Seychelles. Among his party was Livingstone’s son Oswald, and they named the house where they stayed Livingstone Cottage.” Marie-Antoinette Restaurant

Mr Durup may well be right in asserting that “Livingstone Cottage” was in fact the old Valabhji house, near the police station. Indeed, Stanley referred to Livingstone Cottage as “a nice little wooden house” which is not an apt description for the present Marie Antoinette building. But is there any evidence to connect the Cottage with the Valabhji house, or is this just supposition? In any case, does it really matter?

History is full of myths, and there is no reason why Seychelles should not have its share. I still like to believe that the missing Louis XVII once lived here (despite the DNA tests in Paris a few years ago), and as we cannot restore the Valabjhi house let us celebrate the opening of the “Livingstone Art Gallery” to remind us of Seychelles’ connection with two famous explorers, Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone.

I find it regrettable, however, that Mr Durup should see this as an opportunity to belittle the stature of a man like David Livingstone. A medical doctor and a Christian missionary, Livingstone is best known as an explorer who did much to map the African interior. Of course, as Mr Durup points out, he discovered nothing “new”; other people, the Africans, had always lived there. And Arab slavers were there before him. Livingstone’s achievement is having made the rest of the world not only aware of Central Africa but also of the dreadful scourge of slavery that was scarring its people. He was not a colonialist. He took nothing from Africa, and it was his own African servants, who in an unprecedented act of devotion, brought his body back to the Coast for eventual return to England. Livingstone believed that only by opening the continent to Christianity and commerce would slavery – he called it “the open sore of the world” – be abolished. He cannot be held responsible for the unseemly Scramble for Africa by the European Powers that occurred after his death in 1873.

I was interested to read in Mr Durup’s article about “the adventures” of Lieutenant Julien Emard Durup. Although the circumstances are hardly similar, it reminded me of one particular night in 1947 in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, when I was serving with the 2nd Bn Highland Light Infantry. Like Lieutenant Durup, I had to go round that night to check various strategic points in the city where our troops provided guards. At one I found all the sentries fast asleep. A very serious offence, of course, particularly for the corporal of the guard. At the time, removing one or more of the sleeping guard’s firearms and delivering them to the adjutant the next morning as evidence seemed a good idea.

But that obviously was not Lt Durup’s intention. He certainly demonstrated the sentries’ lack of vigilance and he disarmed a sleeping officer who probably should have been awake. But afterwards he and his batman seem to have been guilty of theft and destruction of army property. Mr Durup informs us that the sentries were court-martialled. But what happened to the sleeping officer, who lost his pistol, and more importantly to Lieutenant Durup?

On 26 April 1944 a Lieutenant J.E. Durup was sentenced by field general court-marital to be cashiered from the Army (Seychelles Government Gazette, 24 June 1944). Could this be the same officer? But that, presumably, is another story.

* Livingstone’s son was named William Oswell Livingstone (although he was known as Oswell), and I am indebted to Mr Durup’s article for drawing my attention to an error I made when transcribing the name from Stanley’s Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa. It is perhaps of interest to record that Stanley described his visit to Mahé as “among the most agreeable things connected with my return to Africa”. He added that “when at last the French steamer came from Mauritius, there was not one of our party who did not regret leaving the beautiful island”.

William McAteer, PO Box 158, Victoria