Au Japon. Amedee Baillot de Guerville

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СКАЧАТЬ of the Japanese July sent him and his fragile lungs off to summer in Vancouver. He returned to Japan, again on World’s Fair business, in October, this time visiting Korea and China to elicit support there.

      As is so often the case with new visitors to the Far East, de Guerville’s experiences in 1892 comprised an almost overwhelming flood of original sensations that proved personally transforming. Though his initial sojourn in Japan, Korea, and China was rather brief, the events that filled it provided sufficient grist for de Guerville’s writings and other activities for years to come. What’s more, it made of him an ardent admirer and friend of Japan, willing to support and defend it in word and print.

      Nevertheless, it is fair to ask just how successful de Guerville’s mission was on behalf of the Chicago Fair. The answer depends greatly on the exact nature of the Honorary Commissioner’s charge, specifically in the case of de Guerville. At first it would seem his role was in the same vein as that of previous fair commissioners mentioned in the semi-official Book of the Fair, who “visited all the northern countries of Europe . . .and making it a point everywhere to approach the highest authorities, the Prime Ministers or Ministers of Foreign Affairs . . .” in order to obtain assurances of participation.12 Yet Horace Allen, the chargé of the American legation in Seoul at the time of de Guerville’s visit, remarked that despite the appeal of his magic lantern display, he seemed remarkably ignorant on the particulars of the fair itself.13 The American delegation in Japan was actually under the impression that de Guerville, rather than a representative of the Chicago World’s Fair, represented a consortium of Chicago newspapers, while the Japan Weekly Mail, the primary English newspaper in Japan, described de Guerville’s mission as being “uniquely to spread information.”14

      The Japan Weekly Mail’s assessment seems most accurate. From the standpoint of securing foreign participation, de Guerville’s success was minimal, as it would have to be. Though the Japanese emperor pronounced the presentation at the palace, “one of the most enjoyable evenings he had ever passed,” and de Guerville’s magic lantern show with a view of the planned Women’s Building briefly inspired Korea’s Queen Min to put together a Korean women’s contribution for that display (which in the end did not materialize), the fact is both Japan and Korea were already committed, light and picture show or not.15 Elements of what would be the Japanese delegation to the World’s Fair had arrived in Chicago months before de Guerville first arrived in Japan. Indeed, as is revealed in the opening chapter of Au Japon, de Guerville’s first voyage to Japan was shared with Teshima Seiichi, the Commissioner General of the Imperial Japanese Government to the World’s Columbian Exposition, then returning home from Chicago on World’s Fair business. The most that can be said is that de Guerville’s visit kept the momentum going, which in the case of Korea and its vacillating King Kojong may have proved one crucial factor in that country’s participation.

      One of de Guerville’s greatest successes in Japan had little in fact to do with the fair. Following his laudatory presentation at the imperial residence, the Japanese Red Cross Society requested that de Guerville repeat his magic lantern show for a public, paying audience, to raise funds for that organization. It seems that like his other performances on behalf of Japanese charities, this one met with great success. It was also a service that would not be forgotten by Japanese officials when de Guerville returned two years later as a war correspondent.

      As for China, which de Guerville visited soon after his brief sojourn in Korea, the Honorary Commissioner’s presentation before Li Hongzhang (Li Hung-chang) and his colorful guests in Tianjin (Tientsin) entertained but did not convince. In Au Japon de Guerville briefly discusses his presentation at Tianjin, though he seems concerned in his recollection more with comic effect than concrete results. But de Guerville would describe in more serious tones elsewhere his experience in China before Li Hongzhang. The fact was that in 1892 China was still smarting from the American passage of the Geary Act, which extended curbs on Chinese immigration, as well as by stories of escalating anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States.16

      As a final note, regarding de Guerville’s mission as Honorary Commissioner, not everyone commended the young American’s visit. The Japan Gazette—one of the three English papers serving the foreign enclave at Yokohama—was disparaging of de Guerville’s efforts. It was this same paper that would attack de Guerville even more vituperatively during his tenure in Japan covering the Sino-Japanese War, and was no doubt related to the fact that not all foreign papers in Japan, indeed the majority, looked kindly on those that emphasized Japan’s capabilities and potential. Regarding his efforts on behalf of the fair, the Japan Gazette openly rejected the notion de Guerville ever called upon the imperial household while belittling his role in general:

      We distinctly remember Mr. de Guerville being on one of the Yokohama Hotel lists, but to our knowledge he never did anything more than other “World’s Fair” Commissioners have done, who have drifted this way under the influences of an all round trip, paid for by someone else. He did not even preach a sermon, as some have done as a sort of conscience vent, and we need hardly say that no one has given any illustrated lectures before their Imperial Majesties.17

      It was not the last time de Guerville’s prominent praise of Japan would bring him into conflict with the English press of Japan. In the Japan Weekly Mail, however—whose owner Frank Brinkley was also a fervent admirer of Japan—de Guerville found a welcome ally. That paper defended de Guerville’s reputation in 1892, as it would again in 1895 when de Guerville’s denial of a massacre by Japanese troops at Port Arthur stirred up controversy over matters more serious than palace soirees.

      War Correspondent

      There is no direct evidence one way or the other concerning assertions by the American legation in Japan as well as the Japan Weekly Mail that de Guerville represented a “consortium of Chicago newspapers” during his visit to the Far East on behalf of the World’s Fair. However, one thing is clear: de Guerville’s journeys in Northeast Asia during the spring and summer of 1892 launched his all too brief career as a foreign correspondent and travel writer.

      Besides his more provincial writing for his Courrier Français in Milwaukee, de Guerville’s first known publication is a story concerning his experiences as Honorary Commissioner. “Japan at the World’s Fair” appeared in Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly in September 1892 and was followed soon thereafter, and in the same publication, by “Humor in Japanese Politics” in October 1892. From this time de Guerville would continue to write for Leslie’s—either the Weekly or the more lavishly illustrated Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly—through 1897, when he became managing editor of The Illustrated American.After his brief stint as an Honorary Commissioner, de Guerville also found a niche for himself as a lecturer, perhaps a calling he had developed a taste for as a university instructor and during his evenings treading the boards for le Cercle Français, but certainly strengthened by his experiences lecturing to audiences—royal and otherwise—in Asia.

      Using the same magic lantern he had employed with such effectiveness during his presentations in the Far East, de Guerville began to give public lectures in New York City on a variety of topics, from “Interesting and Amusing Experiences of an American World’s Fair Commissioner” to “Noted Women of France” and “Josephine, Wife of Napoleon.” He was by all accounts a gifted, captivating, and humorous speaker. One newspaper compared him to George Grossmith, a period actor and impersonator famed for his satirical monologues done to piano accompaniment.18 Leslie’s Weekly gloated like a proud parent over its random reporter:

      Mr. de Guerville is able to speak of people and things never before made public in a lecture—but they are also extremely amusing and full of wit and sparkle. Ready in delivery, Mr. de Guerville is easily seen to be possessed of the enthusiasm of his subjects; and his clear and penetrating voice, which is both magnetic and pleasing, and the slight foreign accent which pervades his speech, serve to lend piquancy to his witty descriptions.19

      From this time as well, travel writing became a staple of de Guerville’s pen, with his numerous СКАЧАТЬ