BIET Antoine Voyage de la France équinoxiale en L’Isle de Cayenne, entrepris par les François en l’année 1652. Divisé en trois livres.

Alden-Landis, 664/15; JCB, III, 106-107; Sabin, 5269; Leclerc, 1516; Maggs, IV, 115; Boucher de La Richarderie, VI, 253.

First edition.

Antoine Biet, parish priest of Sainte Geneviève de Senlis, was chaplain to the 500 or 600 colonists and adventurers that Royville took with him to French Guiana. Along with Abbé Marivault, a theologian at the Sorbonne, Sieur de Royville was one of the founders of the Compagnie de l’Amérique. It was as captain that he set out to sea under bad auspices: Abbé Marivault drowned while boarding at Honfleur. De Royville was killed in a revolt during the crossing and his body was thrown into the sea.

“The colony began to disintegrate even prior to landing at Cayenne. During the crossing from France, Le Roux de Royville was murdered and his body thrown overboard. Unfortunately, that episode was just the beginning of the tensions and conflict that become rife within the colony, as well as between the settlers and the native Galibí. When it became known that the Compagnie de l’Amerique did not, in fact, have royal backing, the Compagnie went bankrupt and the colony disintegrated. Two lawsuits were filed: one by Royville’s family and the other by Nicolas Papin, one of the investors” (Taylor & Francis online sur l’article de Gayle K. Brunelle : The Assassination of the Sieur de Royville and the debacle of the Compagnie de l’Amérique Équinoxial, 1651-1654).

No other report than Biet’s gives so many details about the natives of this country. He depicts them in all their primitive simplicity. The work is divided into three parts, the first dealing with the establishment of the colony and the journey to Cayenne, the second with the stay of the colonists, and the third “dealing with the temperament of the country, the fertility of its soil, and the customs and ways of the savages of this region”. This is followed by a dictionary of their language on pages 399 to 432. Carefully written, it is preceded by useful remarks on the language common to the Galibis and all the inhabitants of the coast. This is the very first known lexicon of the Galibi language.

“This is the narrative of Father Biet, one of the priests who accompanied the Royville expedition for the settlement of Guiana in 1652” (JCB).

“Aucune relation ne donne autant de lumières que celle de Biet sur les naturels de la Guyane ; il les a dépeints dans toute leur simplicité primitive. Le vocabulaire de leur langue est fait avec soin, et est précédé de remarques utiles sur la langue commune aux Galibis et à leurs habitans de la côte” (Boucher).

This rare and sought-after volume was reprinted in 1836. Two or three leaves with paperflaw  without affecting the reading.