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Massimiliano Vaghi, Claude-François-Parfait Boutin en Inde et aux Mascareignes (1782-1786). La France en Asie à l’époque de la révolution américaine, Sesto San Giovanni, Mimésis, 2024, 220 pp. (ISBN: 978-8869764196).

Massimiliano Vaghi is currently one of the leading specialists on French policy and presence in India in the eighteenth century, a subject to which he has devoted several studies, including La France et l’Inde: commerces et politique impériale au XVIIIe siècle (Mimésis, 2016). In his new book, he offers an edition of the journals of Claude-François-Parfait Boutin, who travelled in the Indian Ocean between 1782 and 1786. This source shows that, despite the reduction of the French presence in India to five trading posts after 1763, the French continued to take an interest in India, even though the British had clearly become the leading European power in the region.

There was at this time, however, no question of reviving a colonial war on the subcontinent; rather, the aim was to rethink France’s role on the scale of the wider Indian Ocean region. It is precisely within this perspective that the ideas of Claude-François-Parfait Boutin should be understood. He advocated relying on the Mascarene Islands (Bourbon and Île de France, now Réunion and Mauritius) to develop an economic system that would serve as a foundation for restoring the French presence in India. This outlook must be seen in the broader context of the American War of Independence and Great Britain’s loss of its thirteen North American colonies. Boutin clearly perceived that this major shift within the British Empire would lead the London government to refocus its attention on the Indian Ocean.

Massimiliano Vaghi’s book opens with a lengthy contextualisation of the situation in India and the Mascarene Islands in the mid-eighteenth century. The author first provides a very thorough historiographical overview, effectively tracing the evolution of research in this field in recent years. He shows clearly how the final decades of the eighteenth century were long neglected by French historiography, as they were marked by a sense of decline following the defeat in the Seven Years’ War. However, he also notes that recent studies have reassessed the French presence and its role in the Indian Ocean in a more positive light. It is within this renewed historiographical context that the edition of Boutin’s journals takes its place.

Claude-François-Parfait Boutin, born in 1759 into a family of the robe nobility, embarked at Cádiz in 1782 to join the French troops in the East Indies under the command of the Marquis de Bussy. At that time, the Mascarene Islands were closely linked to the French establishments in India, and much thought was given to how these bases might develop synergies and help strengthen the French presence in the Indian Ocean. When the American War of Independence broke out, the government at Versailles decided to send an expedition to India, thereby helping to extend the conflict on a global scale. The explanation provided for the motivations behind this expedition, however, leaves the reader somewhat unsatisfied, especially when compared to the level of detail offered elsewhere on points of lesser importance for understanding Boutin’s writings. Nevertheless, it is clear that, in French thinking, the Indian theatre formed part of the vast stage of the war against Great Britain that had begun in America. Readers unfamiliar with French policy in India will no doubt find of interest the pages that Massimiliano Vaghi devotes to Bussy’s diplomacy in India and to the military events. The lengthy contextual section (pp. 17-101) includes passages that are highly useful for understanding Boutin’s travel journals, while the contribution of other sections – such as the one on contemporaries’ perceptions of the Franco-Anglo-Indian wars (La perception des guerres franco-anglo-indiennes par les contemporains (and not « contemporaines »). – appears less evident.

Boutin’s journals are preserved at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris. They consist of four sections: “Voyage from France to the Indies” (1782-1783), “Voyage from the Isle de France to Pondicherry” (1785), “Voyage from the Isle de France to Bourbon” (1785), and “Tour of the Interior of the Isle de France” (1786). Boutin’s adventure began on 11 May 1782 with his departure from Paris for Spain by land. He embarked at Cádiz as part of a convoy that left Spain on 16 July. After a month-long stop at the Cape of Good Hope, Boutin set sail again and arrived at Porto Novo on 17 March 1783. He then provides a detailed description of the Battle of Cuddalore and the subsequent engagements in June 1783.

Thereafter, Boutin travelled throughout the Indian Ocean, spending a year and a half on the Isle de France before moving on to Bourbon, which he describes in detail, including its different regions, its agriculture, and its inhabitants, whom he observes – regretfully – to be of mixed descent, born of unions between white settlers from France and Black populations. His final journal is a description of the Isle de France, in which Boutin once again displays his curiosity, particularly in his observations of nature. He notes above all that the island was insufficiently exploited due to a lack of enslaved labour. Boutin’s observations clearly show him to be a man of the Enlightenment, endowed with wide-ranging curiosity. This aspect might perhaps have deserved further development. The journal ends somewhat abruptly, prompting questions about its original intended purpose.

Boutin’s journals are of interest in three main respects: first, for the information they provide on navigation; second, for their account of military episodes in India during the final year of the American War of Independence; and third, as travel narratives offering descriptions of the Mascarene Islands. Boutin does not, however, address broader political considerations, leading Massimiliano Vaghi to wonder to what extent he was aware of the major international issues at stake. The principal contribution of Boutin’s writings lies in his observations and reflections on the economic potential of the Mascarene Islands, which could have made possible the reconstitution of a French empire in the Indian Ocean that would be more economic than political in nature.

Although the source itself is undeniably valuable, the volume as a whole suffers from a general weakness in its use of the French language. One notes linguistic errors, confusion between masculine and feminine forms for certain words, misspelled proper names (Rousselot de Surgy, not de Sourgy, p. 85), and above all inconsistent capitalization – for example, the systematic use of “Océan indien” instead of the correct form “océan Indien.” One may also point to some surprising assertions, such as: «[Au XVIIIe siècle] l’Européen…conquiert l’espace asiatique et le rend sujet aux lois et aux canons occidentaux»? (p. 103). Despite these reservations, Massimiliano Vaghi’s book remains a valuable contribution to our knowledge of French policy in the Indian Ocean in general and, more specifically, in the late eighteenth century – a period largely neglected by French historiography.