L’Écho annamite
- Mutual Education Societies
- The Funeral of Consul Robert
- On the Mytho Assault
This issue of L'Écho annamite set civic commentary beside colonial news and a sharp press quarrel. A signed column by L. K. Van surveyed the three main mutual education societies of Indochina, in Hanoi, Saigon and Huế, noting their ages and branches, and praised the aims set out in the Saigon statutes: helping members study French, the sciences, the arts and French law through libraries, lectures, competitions and exhibitions. A dispatch from Hanoi described the solemn funeral of Consul Robert, killed on 31 October on the road from Long-Tchéou to Langson, with the Governor General leading the mourners and the procession passing through the Cathedral to the cemetery. A third column, by Vuong-Quan-Nguou, attacked the rival L'Impartial for applauding an assault at Mytho and accused its director of leading armed toughs at Bui Quang Chiêu's reception and of slapping a woman on the rue Catinat.
Translation
Mutual Education Societies
There are at present three important ones: the eldest, 34 years old, is in Hanoi; the Saigon society is 14 years younger; old Huế, traditionalist and conservative, saw the birth of the last one, in all likelihood the youngest of the sisters. We do not know whether the Societies of Tonkin and Annam have branches in the provinces. That of Cochinchina has several sections outside the capital. These associations pursue eminently praiseworthy aims, notably that, as the statutes of the Saigon society put it (and they are surely identical to those of the others), of making it easier for their members to study French, the sciences, the arts, and the laws and customs of France, by the most fruitful means (libraries, study rooms, instructive meetings, competitions, exhibitions, lectures, etc.)
The Funeral of Consul Robert
Hanoi. – The solemn funeral of Consul Robert, murdered on the road from Long-Tchéou to Langson, in China, on Sunday, October 31, took place in the presence of a considerable crowd of Europeans and natives. The Governor General led the mourners. The body was taken up at 8 o'clock from the chapel of rest set up in the railway station, where the coffin had been placed on its arrival and then watched over by officers of the garrison and a detachment of the Garde Indigène. Preceded by the band of the Garde Indigène and by bearers of numerous wreaths, offered notably by the Governor General, the Résident Supérieur of Tonkin and the foreign consuls, the imposing procession made its way, amid the moved crowd, to the Cathedral and then, after the funeral service, to the cemetery.
On the Mytho Assault
L'Impartial approves of the violence and shows its satisfaction. This does not surprise us, since its Director is a partisan of the strong-arm approach. The proof is that he went down into the street, at the head of a gang of hooligans armed with cowhide bludgeons and revolvers, to jeer and to fight with fists and feet at the reception of M. Bui-quang-Chiêu. A newspaper has informed us, moreover, that he slapped, in the middle of the rue Catinat, a woman whom he ought to have loved and respected.
Context
Hanoi's mutual instruction society, founded in 1892
The columnist's arithmetic, with the eldest society 34 years old in 1926, points to 1892, the founding year of the Société d'Enseignement Mutuel du Tonkin, known in Vietnamese as Hội Trí Tri. The historian David Marr describes it as founded in 1892 by interpreters and teachers of French, offering regular public lectures in French and private courses, publishing a Bulletin three times a year and running sixteen affiliated committees in the north. That detail answers a question the columnist left open: he did not know whether the Tonkin society had provincial branches, yet by Marr's account it did. The Hanoi society also stood behind the short-lived Tonkin Free School of 1907–1908 at 59 Hàng Đàn, which shows that a mutual education society could become a base for new kinds of schooling beyond the French-language study programme the Saigon statutes describe.
The French consulate at Longzhou and the road to Lang Son
Consul Robert's death on the road from Long-Tchéou to Langson makes sense once one knows that France kept a consulate at Long-Tchéou, today's Longzhou in Guangxi. After the Sino-French War the Qing government agreed that Longzhou would become a trade port and that France could open a consulate there. The town was tied to Tonkin by rail as well as by road: the line from Longzhou joined the Vietnamese network and led on to Lang Son and then Hanoi. The road on which Robert was killed thus lay on the main route between the consular post and Tonkin. The honours paid in Hanoi, with the Governor General leading the mourners and the Résident Supérieur and foreign consuls sending wreaths, show that the colonial government treated the killing as a public matter. The dispatch records only the date and place of the killing; it does not say who carried it out or why.
Bui Quang Chiêu's return to Saigon in March 1926
The reception the columnist cites was a politically charged event. Bui Quang Chiêu, leader of the moderate-nationalist Constitutionalist Party, returned from France on 21 March 1926, the same day Nguyễn An Ninh was arrested, and the crowds that accompanied Chiêu through the streets of Saigon chanted "Free Nguyễn An Ninh". Against that background, the column's charge that L'Impartial's director led a gang armed with bludgeons and revolvers to jeer and brawl at the reception places the press quarrel inside the street politics of 1926 Saigon. The accusations are the columnist's own, and the story of the woman slapped on the rue Catinat is relayed second-hand from another newspaper. The excerpt does not describe the Mytho assault itself, only L'Impartial's approval of it.
L'Écho annamite and the Constitutionalists
The paper's anger on Chiêu's behalf follows from its own politics. Nguyễn Phan Long, who had earlier worked for La Tribune Indigène, founded L'Écho annamite in 1920, and he served as deputy leader of the Parti Constitutionnaliste Indochinois, the nationalist party founded in 1923 and led by Bui Quang Chiêu. For this newspaper, disruption of Chiêu's reception was an attack on its own political camp. The Mytho column is best read as a partisan reply in a running press war between L'Écho annamite and L'Impartial, written by one side of that quarrel.
Original
Les Sociétés d'Enseignement Mutuel
Il en existe, à l'heure actuelle, trois importantes: l'ainée, âgée de 34 ans, est à Hanoi; celle de Saigon est de 14 ans plus jeune; le vieux Huê, traditionnaliste et conservateur, a vu naître la dernière, selon toute apparence, la cadette de ses sœurs. Nous ignorons si les Sociétés du Tonkin et de l'Annam ont des filiales en province. Celle de Cochinchine possède plusieurs sections en dehors de la capitale. Ces associations poursuivent des buts éminemment louables, notamment celui, disent les statuts de celle de Saigon, assurément identiques avec ceux des autres, de faciliter à leurs membres l'étude du français, des sciences, des arts, des lois et coutumes de la France, par les moyens les plus fructueux, (bibliothèques, salles d'étude, réunions instructives, concours, expositions, conférences, etc.)
Les obsèques du Consul Robert
Hanoi. - Les obsèques solennelles du Consul Robert, assassiné sur la route de Long-Tchéou à Langson, en Chine, le dimanche 31 Octobre, ont eu lieu en présence d'une foule considérable d'européens et d'indigènes. Le Gouverneur Général conduisait le deuil. La levée du corps a eu lieu à 8 heures dans la chapelle ardente aménagée dans la gare, où le cercueil avait été déposé dès l'arrivée, puis veillé par des Officiers de la Garnison et un détachement de la Garde Indigène. Précédé par la musique de la Garde Indigène et par des porteurs de nombreuses couronnes offertes notamment par le Gouverneur Général, le Résident Supérieur du Tonkin, les Consuls Etrangers, l'imposant cortège a gagné, au milieu de la foule émue, la Cathédrale, puis après le service funèbre, le cimetière.
Autour de l'agression de Mytho
L'Impartial approuve la violence et manifeste sa satisfaction. Cela ne nous étonne pas, puisque son Directeur est partisan de la manière forte. La preuve en est qu'il est descendu dans la rue, à la tête d'une bande de voyous, armés de nerfs de bœuf et de révolvers, pour siffler et se battre à coups de poing et de pied, lors de la réception de M. Bui-quang-Chiêu. Un journal nous a appris, en outre, qu'il avait giffé, en pleine rue Catinat, une femme qu'il devait aimer et respecter.