L’Écho annamite
- A NECESSARY FOUNDATION
- MURDER of a French consul by Yunnanese pirates
- “L'Impartial” Lied
The 4 November 1926 front page of L'Écho annamite combined an appeal, a crime report and a press quarrel. An editorial signed E. A. praised a friend of the paper who, citing the proverb “Heaven helps those who help themselves” and a Vietnamese equivalent, turned an estate and villa on the Côte d'Azur into an Institut Franco-Annamite de Toulon for young Annamites. A news report described how French consul Robert and administrator Cadet, driving from Longzhou toward Hanoi, were ambushed by pirates 23 km out of town, and how an armed party sent by the Chinese authorities found Robert shot dead beside the road. In a signed column, Paul Marchet denied L'Impartial's story that a woman had beaten him in Mytho, and hit back with stories of fistfights involving the rival paper's own staff.
Translation
A NECESSARY FOUNDATION
This friend understood that it was necessary — and urgently — to remedy the ill we have pointed out; and, as a believer in the French proverb “Heaven helps those who help themselves” (we also say: “Co troi mà cung tai ta”), he decided to place a vast estate and a villa that he owns on the Côte d'Azur at the disposal of Annamite youth, setting up there an establishment to which he gave the name Institut Franco-Annamite de Toulon (I.F.A.T.).
MURDER of a French consul by Yunnanese pirates
Mr. Robert, French Consul at Long-Tcheou, and Civil Services Administrator Cadet, who had left Long-Tchéou for Hanoi at 6 o'clock on Sunday morning in an automobile driven by an Annamite chauffeur, were attacked near Kiang-Hang Ngao, 23 kilometres from Long-Tchéou, by a band of pirates that had been in the area since the previous day. Alerted by the escort of a public transport company from Maocanh, on the regular Long-Tchéou–Langson service, that a wrecked automobile had been found on the road at the spot mentioned, the Chinese authorities of Long-Tchéou immediately sent to the scene, by automobile, an armed advance guard accompanying the doctor and a Chinese clerk of the Consulate. The body of Consul Robert, killed by 2 bullets, one in the head and the other in the stomach, was found on a path in front of a ravine, close to the road.
“L'Impartial” Lied
In its issue of yesterday, L'Impartial claims that I was given a first-class thrashing in Mytho, that a woman administered to me a great many blows with a broom, her fists and her feet, to take revenge on L'Écho Annamite, which had exposed the misdeeds of her husband, a rather disreputable agent of the Sûreté. One must believe that these blows, which I am supposed to have taken with a smile, without any reply of any kind, had a marvellously curative and fortifying effect on me, for I am in better health than ever, and sceptics may see this for themselves at their leisure at the offices of this newspaper. The truth is that the incident to which L'Impartial alludes happened just as I related it yesterday in these columns. By the way, since our colleague on the rue Catinat shows itself so scrupulous in its reporting, why has it not mentioned its administrator, whom my comrade Trinh-hung-Ngâu knocked out in the editorial room of L'Écho Annamite? Why has it passed over in silence the boxing match that Mr. Frasseto junior inflicted on Mr. M....., in the very workshops of L'Impartial? These events, after all, had their moment of fame.
Context
Why France kept a consul at Longzhou
Longzhou, a Guangxi town close to the Vietnamese border, had a French consulate as a consequence of the Sino-French war over Tonkin: after that conflict the Qing government agreed to make Longzhou a trading port and to let the French government open a consulate there. The town lies on the age-old corridor along the Zuo River, which remains the main line of contact between southern China and Hanoi. That geography explains the setting of the report: Consul Robert and administrator Cadet set out by car from Longzhou for Hanoi, and a regular Longzhou–Langson transport service ran past the spot where their wrecked car was found. The description of the attackers as “Yunnanese pirates”, and the account of the Chinese authorities sending an armed party with the consulate's staff to recover the body, are the paper's own report of the day's events.
The politics of the paper that promoted the Toulon institute
L'Écho annamite was founded in 1920 by Nguyễn Phan Long, a Saigon journalist who worked there with the Eurasian nationalist writer Eugène Dejean de la Bâtie and who became deputy leader of the Constitutionalist Party led by Bùi Quang Chiêu. The paper styled itself an organ for the defence of Franco-Annamite interests, and the historian Philippe Peycam's account, as summarised in a review of his book, places it among papers that opposed various government policies while adopting a conciliatory rather than confrontational stance. The E. A. editorial fits that line closely. It presents a privately founded “Franco-Annamite” institute in France as a self-help remedy for the problems of Vietnamese youth, pairing a French proverb with a Vietnamese one, and frames the initiative as cooperation between the two peoples rather than as a demand on the colonial government.
Why Saigon journalists were trading blows in 1926
Paul Marchet's list of fistfights reflects a Saigon press that had become markedly more combative. A review of Peycam's history notes that after the upheavals of spring 1926 Vietnamese journalism became more dramatic and confrontational. Personal confrontations between rival editors had precedents: André Malraux, co-founder of L'Indochine, once called with Eugène Dejean de La Bâtie on Le Quang Trinh, director of the government-supported Le Progrès annamite, and by Trinh's own account threatened “the worst retaliations” over an article, an episode that Nguyễn Phan Long wrote up facetiously. Dejean himself kept writing for L'Écho annamite while supplying copy to the radical La Cloche fêlée, which shows how closely the paper's circle was tied to the wider polemics of the city. The specific incidents Marchet cites, namely the Mytho beating, Trinh-hung-Ngâu's knock-out of L'Impartial's administrator and the Frasseto boxing match, are known here only from his column.
Original
UNE FONDATION NÉCESSAIRE
Cet ami a compris qu'il fallait - et d'urgence - remédier au mal que nous avons signalé; et, partisan du proverbe français «Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera» (nous disons aussi: «Co troi mà cung tai ta», il a décidé de mettre une vaste propriété et une villa qu'il possède sur la Côte d'Azur à la disposition de la jeunesse annamite en y installant un établissement auquel il a donné le nom d'Institut Franco-Annamite de Toulon (I. F. A. T.).
ASSASSINAT d'un consul de France par des pirates yunnanais
M. Robert, Consul de France à Long-Tcheou. et l'Administrateur des Services Civils Cadet. qui étaient partis de Long-Tchéou Dimanche matin à 6 heures pour Hanoi, dans une automobile conduite par un chauffeur annamite. ont été attaqués. à hauteur de Kiang-Hang Ngao, à 23 kilomètres de Long-Tchéou. par une bande de pirates qui était dans la région depuis la veille. Avertis par le convoyeur d'une entreprise de transport en commun de Maocanh, du service régulier LongTchéou-Langson, qu'une automobile brisée avait été rencontrée sur la route aux lieux susvisés, les autorités chinoises de Long-Tchéou ont envoyé aussitôt sur place, par automobile, une avant-garde armée qui accompagnait le médecin et un commis chinois du Consulat. Le corps du Consul Robert, tué par 2 balles l'une dans la tête. et l'autre au ventre, a été retrouvé dans un sen tier devant un ravin, à proximité de la route.
« L'Impartial » a menti
Dans son numéro d'hier, l'Impartial prétend qu'on m'a flanqué une raclée majuscule à Mytho, qu'une femme m'a administré force coups de balai, de poing et de pied, pour se venger de l'Echo Annamite, qui avait dévoilé les méfaits de son mari, un agent de la Sûreté peu recommandable. Il faut croire que ces coups, que j'aurais encaissés avec le sourire, sans réplique d'aucune sorte, ont produit sur moi un effet curatif et fortifiant merveilleux, car je me porte mieux que jamais, et les sceptiques pourront le constater à leur aise aux bureaux de ce journal. La vérité est que l'incident auquel l'Impartial fait allusion s'est passé comme je l'ai relaté hier dans ces colonnes. Au fait, puisque notre confrère de la rue Catinatse montre si scrupuleux dans ses informations, pourquoi n'a-til pas parlé de son administrateur que mon camarade Trinh-hung-Ngâu a mis K. - O. dans la salle de rédaction de l'Echo Annamite? pourquoi a-t-il passé sous silence le match de boxe que M. Frasseto fils a infligé à M. M....., dans les ateliers mêmes de l'Impartial? Ces faits ont eu, pourtant, leur moment de célébrité.