Au Japon. Amedee Baillot de Guerville

1. Milwaukee Women’s College at the time of de Guerville’s employment there (1890).

       Figure 2. A. B. de Guerville and his students at Milwaukee Women’s College (1890).

       Figure 3. A flyer announcing a public performance by de Guerville’s “Cercle Français” in Milwaukee (1890).

       Figure 4. A. B. de Guerville Covering the Sino-Japanese War in China (1894). Munsey’s Magazine (1895).

       Figure 5. An artist’s rendition of the fall of P’yŏngyang that accompanied de Guerville’s newspaper account. San Francisco Chronicle (19 December 1894).

       Figure 6. De Guerville’s headlining account of the fall of Port Arthur in the San Francisco Chronicle. 1894.

       Figure 7. A Japanese rickshaw in the 1890s. Munsey’s Magazine (1895).

       Figure 8. A street scene in Yokohama in the period of de Guerville’s visit. Frank Brinkley, ed. Japan (section 6, p. 128) Tokyo: J.B. Millet, Co., 1897.

       Figure 9. Japanese firefighters in the late 19th century. Private Collection of Mr. Christophe Schwarzenbach, Switzerland.

       Figure 10. “Two Japanese Belles,” an illustration from Frank Brinkley’s guidebook. Frank Brinkley, ed. Japan. Tokyo: J.B. Millet, Co., 1897.

       Figure 11. Japanese children in the 1890s. Private Collection of Mr. Christophe Schwarzenbach, Switzerland.

       Figure 12. Mutsuhito, the Emperor Meiji, around 1895. L’Illustration (29 December 1894).

       Figure 13. Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo’s Uyeno Park (1890s). Private Collection of Mr. Christophe Schwarzenbach, Switzerland.

       Figure 14. Japanese women enjoying a traditional bath, late 19th century. La Revue Hébdomadaire (1902).

       Figure 15. An issue of Toki no koe (The War Cry), the Salvation Army’s newspaper in Japan (1897). The Salvation Army.

       Figure 16. A view of Seoul at the time of de Guerville’s visit. L’Illustration (4 August 1894).

      Figure 17. Korea’s fainthearted King Kojong. L’Illustration (2 November 1894).

      Figure 18. King Kojong’s strong-willed wife Queen Min. There is doubt concerning the authenticity of the Queen Min image. L’Illustration (2 November 1894).

      Figure 19. King Kojong’s father, the headstrong and wily Taewŏngun (Tai-Wan-Kun). L’Illustration (2 November 189).

      Figure 20. Main gate of one of the Korean royal palaces in Seoul (1894). L’Illustration (4 August 1894).

       Figure 21. A depiction of Li Hongzhang (Li Hung-chang), his son, and grandsons. L’Illustration (6 October 1894).

       Figure 22. Japanese in western dress (late 19th century). Société Géographique de Paris. Used with permission.

       Figure 23. Marshal Yamagata Aritomo at the time of the Sino-Japanese War. L’Illustration (29 September 1894).

       Figure 24. Japanese and Chinese wounded being nursed at the Red Cross Hospital at Hiroshima (1894). Munsey’s Magazine (1895).

       Figure 25. Count Oyama Iwao, Minister of War and Commander of the Japanese Second Army. Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly (1894).

       Figure 26. The one-eyed General Yamaji Motoharu, Commander of the First Division. Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly (1894).

       Figure 27. Japanese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese War. L’Illustration (18 August 1894).

       Figure 28. A. B. de Guerville and Chiu-ji (1894). Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly (1895).

      Introduction: Amédée Baillot de Guerville and Au Japon

      “Nowadays our countrymen are exploring every quarter of the globe; we find them not only on established routes of travel and in familiar Old-World haunts, but in out-of-the-way nooks and corners where tourists of other countries seldom if ever penetrate. They make pilgrimages to the farthest East; they scour all seas; they throng the sites of buried empires and dig for relics of civilizations which perished in the dawn of time; they study the monuments on which is writ the history of the primeval man and his struggles; there is no obstacle that can arrest, and no peril that can appall them, in their search for new fields of conquest. 1

      —“The American as a Tourist,” Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly

      I am of the opinion that the civilized nations ought to organize an academy whose mission it would be to regulate books of travel impressions, and in general all publications that deal with the customs, politics, and laws of nations . . . there should be an index to indicate whether such and such a book is sincere or specious. . . . Why not establish a cordon sanitaire against contumely? 2

      —Colonel Tcheng Ki-Tong (Chen Jitong), Les Chinois Peints par Eux-Mêmes [The Chinese painted by themselves], ghost-written by Adalbert-Henri Foucault de Mondion

      I. Amédée Baillot de Guerville (1869—?)

      Beginnings

      It has been a century since A. B. de Guerville’s Au Japon first rolled off the Paris presses of Alphonse Lemerre. Written a decade after the last of the book’s events takes place, it details the author’s travels and experiences in Japan, Korea, and China (but primarily Japan, as the title indicates), first as an Honorary Commissioner for the World’s Columbian Exposition and later as a newspaper correspondent covering the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). Though the book has long since been relegated to the purgatorio of used booksellers, it had its day in the sun. Au Japon went through seven printings, indicative of respectable sales.

      Even more so than Au Japon itself, its author has since retreated into anonymity, his experiences and observations largely forgotten.3 Who was A. B. de Guerville, this obscure French-American journalist and travel writer? And perhaps more importantly, why should we care about him today? The second, and more easily answered, question shall be addressed later. Tracing the life of de Guerville himself poses more of a challenge. On this question, secondary sources are of practically no use, for there are hardly any to speak of. The biography of de Guerville has never been written, even in the most abbreviated sense. What can be woven together of de Guerville’s life today must remain an insufficient patchwork, one stitched together solely from primary sources, often from the pen of the man himself. Yet it reveals a man and a voice worth hearing again, if for the first time.

      We know from his own writings and a surviving New York marriage certificate that Amédée Baillot de Guerville was born in Paris in 1869, son of another Amédée Baillot de Guerville and Antoinette Luce. Though the de Guerville name boasted a prominent pedigree going back to its ennoblement in the fifteenth century, by all appearances Amédée’s upbringing was on a more modest scale than that of his forebears. His namesake (Amadeus in English, a popular name of the period and a reflection of more middle-class taste in Mozart) suggests this, as do the circumstances of his young life, as we shall see. Though his teaching, writing and editing income must have often been rather modest, A. B. de Guerville never seemed to lack funds, whether for establishing a small French newspaper in Milwaukee or for his extensive travels. Indeed, he later gained entrance into the highly exclusive and expensive Nordach Clinic for consumptives, all of which seem to indicate the possession of at least a modest personal fortune.

      A. B. de Guerville, who was always reticent concerning his own background, rarely mentioned his family, though on a few occasions he wrote of his mother and a younger brother with