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Aubaret and the Treaty of July 15, 1867 Between France and Siam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Lawrence Palmer Briggs
Affiliation:
Washington, D. C.
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Extract

Gialong (1802–20) owed his throne and the establishment of the Empire of Annam to the assistance of the French, particularly that of the missionary, Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine, Bishop of Adran. At this time the French undoubtedly could have had a protectorate over Annam for the asking, Gialong protected the French and Spanish missionaries during his reign and tried to give the French some trade advantages; but his successors, Ming Mang (1820–41), Thieu-Tri (1841–47), and Tuduc (1847–83), persecuted the missionaries and closed the country to European trade. In 1856, Charles de Montigny, a French diplomat, returning to his post in China, was ordered to make treaties of commerce with Siam and Annam and to secure the protection of the French missionaries in Annam. At Singapore, he received orders to stop at Cambodia, in response to overtures which Ang Duong, king of that country (1842–59), had made. toward a French protectorate. In 1856 Montigny made a treaty with Mong kut, king of Siam (1851–68), and although he stopped at the Cambodian seaport of Kampot, he did not visit the capital or make an alliance with Ang Duong, much to that monarch's chagrin. He was badly received at Tourane and Hué and did not succeed in making a treaty of any kind with Annam.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1947

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References

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7 The dollar was to be represented by 72 centimes of taël (Art. 8).

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14 Vial, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 291–94; Le courrier de Saigon of June 10, 1864 gave a long account of this reception.

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21 Villemereuil, , op. cit., pp. 112–14.Google ScholarThomson, (op. cit., p. 340)Google Scholar says, without giving authority for his statement, that “the address of the Siamese envoy [he read a memorandum] was very acceptable to France because it raised no inconvenient counterclaims.” Doudart de Lagrée, who was present, says it took the French by surprise, and it being in Siamese, they did not understand it. Later, Lagrée wrote a memorandum (apparently a report to his superiors) under date of Jan. 8, 1866 (see p. 135 below). Both memoranda are given in detail in Villemereuil (pp. 112–14, 443–49). Certainly Lagrée's long memorandum (see note 20), which is an express and categorical denial of almost every point of the long memorandum of Montrey Sorivong, is a complete refutation of Thomson's statement. Froidevaux, Henri, “Les origines du protectorat français du Cambodge,” Bulletin mensuel du comité de l'Asie française (1906), 109 quoting Vial (vol. 1, 273–74)Google Scholar and the June 25, 1864 number of Courrier de Saigon, whose reporter was there, says the address was wholly unexpected, and that none of the French present understood either the language or the import of it.

22 Bernard, Fernan, A l'école des diplomates: la perte et le retour d'Angkor (Paris, 1933), pp. 4445Google Scholar; Thomson, , Far Eastern quarterly, 5 (Nov. 1945), 2831.Google Scholar The treaty is given in Villemereuil, , op. cit., pp. 95101.Google Scholar

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24 Aubaret's treaty of 1865 with Siam meant practically a joint protectorate. According to Cultru (p. 110), Lagrandière practically accuses Aubaret of abandoning Battambang and Angkor to Siam at Paris, which he later did in his treaty.

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26 As indicated in Thomson, (op. cit., pp. 2829Google Scholar, footnotes) the correspondence at Bangkok between Aubaret and the Kralahom ended with Aubaret's dispatch to Paris on October 5, 1864. It was not resumed until April 10, 1865 (Thomson, , op. cit., p. 31Google Scholar, note 20), the day after the Mitraille arrived in Bangkok. (According to Dr. Bradley the boat arrived on April 9. See Feltus, G. H., ed. Abstract of the journal of Dr. Dan Beach Bradley [Cleveland, 1936], p. 244.)Google Scholar This little gunboat was apparently put at Aubaret's disposition for these calls; for it came up again from Saigon, with the packet boat Entrecasleaux, when Aubaret decorated the Kings of Siam with the brevet of the Legion of Honor, June 29, 1865, and on that occasion took Norodom's brother, Sisowath, to Saigon (Septans, , op. cit., p. 189Google Scholar; Vial, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 18–20). It returned and took Aubaret to Saigon on September 10, 1865, when he left for Europe (Vial, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 29).

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30 See note 22 anil text material relating to it.

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32 Landon, , op. cit., p. 31.Google Scholar

33 Ibid.; and Landon, , “Thailand's struggle for national security,“Far Eastern quarterly, 4 (Nov. 1944), 13.Google Scholar

34 As noted on p. 127 above, Aubaret had arrived in Bangkok on the dispatch boat Entre-casteaux, sometimes called a gunboat (Septans, , op. cit., p. 189Google Scholar), on April 14, 1864. According to Capt. Sauve, Montigny complained that the French suffered in prestige by sending his treaty to Bangkok for ratification on an ordinary merchant vessel, while the British and American treaties of 1855 and 1856, respectively, had arrived in state on war vessels (Capt. Sauve, , Les relations de la France el du Siain, 16801907 [Paris, n.d.], p. 37).Google Scholar

35 Vial, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 183, who was serving in Cochin China at the time, says that in 1862 the French Consul at Bangkok felt himself so effaced by the importance of the British Consul that he habitually lived at Singapore or in Europe. Aubaret seems to have used Saigon as a central point, while dividing most of his attention between Hué and Bangkok.

36 Bradley's, Journal, p. 244Google Scholar; Thomson, , op. cit., p. 31Google Scholar, note 22, quotes British Consul Knox as making a similar report to London. In 1941, on no other quoted authority than the above entry, Landon repeats: “On April 9, 1865, the French man-of-war Mistraille [sic] appeared in Bangkok and forced the Siamese government to renounce its treaty with Cambodia on April 14“(italics mine; Landon, Far Eastern quarterly, Nov. 1941, p. 31).

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44 Lagrée called attention Lo this and made a strong representation against it in his memorandum (Villemereuil, , op. cit., pp. 443–49Google Scholar); see also Bernard, , op. cit., pp. 4452.Google Scholar

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48 The settlement of the peninsula of Indo China by the various members of the Tai family has never been extensively or well treated. The author expects to devote an article to this subject in the near future.

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