BOUGAINVILLE Baron H.Y. Ph. de Voyage autour du monde, par la frégate du Roi La Boudeuse, et la flûte l’Etoile, en 1766, 1767, 1768 & 1769.

Sabin, 6864; O’Reilly & Reitman, 283; En français dans le texte, 167; Hill, 163.

First edition of the first French circumnavigation voyage, undertaken on the orders of Louis XV, during which Bougainville discovered various Polynesian archipelagos and took possession of Tahiti.

The publication of Bougainville’s narrative did a great deal to build the notion of a romantic paradise in the South Seas. Bougainville showed the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in naming Tahiti “Nouvelle Cythère” after the small island off the coast of southern Greece which, in Greek mythology, provided a sanctuary for Aphrodite, goddess of love. The reality was less sublime: he took Aoutourou back with him from Tahiti to Paris, giving him lessons in French for the remainder of the voyage. He was allowed to go home on a subsequent voyage but died of smallpox on the way.

Bougainville sailed from Nantes in November 1766 to the Falkland Islands. They picked up a supply ship, the Etoile, and both ships passed through the Strait of Magellan in January 1768, spent time looking for the mythical “Davis Land”, said to be off the Chilean coast, and then started on a direct route across the Pacific. Bougainville discovered the Tuamotus, and in April sighted and claimed possession of Tahiti, unaware of Wallis’s visit less than a year before. He continued on, finally reaching the New Hebrides and ‘La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo’, discovered by Quirós in 1606 and believed to be part of the supposed Southern Continent. The only way to determine this, Bougainville resolved, was to head further to the west in the hope of sighting the eastern coast of New Holland. ‘This he did, only to be impeded by the Great Barrier Reef and, although several of his crew claimed to have sighted land, this was not confirmed and the ships were headed to the N. Nevertheless, Bougainville concluded that he was close to some extensive land and, in running westwards from Espíritu Santo, he had dared to face the risk of the legendary lee-shore of New Holland and New Guinea, even though prudence, shortage of food and the condition of his vessels would have justified his heading northwards at an earlier date’ (Colin Jack-Hinton, The Search for the Islands of Solomon, p. 256).

G. A. Wood (The Discovery of Australia, pp. 369-79), observes that had Bougainville persevered ‘he would have come to the Australian coast near Cooktown, and would, likely enough, have been wrecked where Cook was wrecked two years later’.

“L’enthousiasme lyrique avec lequel il narrait son séjour à Tahiti ébranla les imaginations européennes et acclimata dans notre littérature, déjà ouverte au thème du “bon sauvage”, l’idée de “l’île heureuse”, celle d’une vie de bonheur, toute proche de la nature, dans l’idyllique décor d’une plage tropicale: le mythe tahitien était né, et le mirage des mers du Sud allait commencer d’exercer son charme” (O’Reilly & Reitman).

“The voyage of the Boudeuse and the Etoile under Bougainville became the first official French circumnavigation” (Hill).

The volume, illustrated with 20 maps, ends with a Tahitian-French vocabulary. A fine copy, light old restorations to the binding. From the library of the marquise de Chauvelin (book plate).