THE ODYSSEY OF RENÉ DU CHASTELET DES BOYS – PART 1

This week’s post contains excerpts from yet another first-person captivity narrative, this one written in the seventeenth century.

Our author for this series of excerpts is René du Chastelet des Boys, a French nobleman born in 1619. Sometime around 1641 (the date is not exact), when he was in his very early twenties, Chastelet des Boys was taken captive when Algiers corsairs attacked a ship he was traveling on as it drew near the Cabo da Roc, off the Portuguese coast just north of Lisbon. He subsequently spent two years as a slave in Algiers.

Years later, he published an account of his travels titled L’Odyssée ou diversité d’aventures, rencontres et voyages en Europe, Asie et Affrique, divisée en quatre parties (The Odyssey, or a Diversity of Adventures, Meetings and Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, Divided into Four Parts). As you can tell from the title, Chastelet des Boys’ time in Algiers constituted only part of his adventures.

L’Odyssée is a fairly obscure book, and it’s difficult to find even digital images of the original. Way back in 1866, a French academic named Louis Piesse arranged for the text of the book to be published serially in the Revue Africaine, a scholarly journal. Chastelet des Boys’ original text was, apparently, quite eccentric, and one of the editors of the Revue Africaine who was involved in producing a more readable version of the original noted that “the pretentious and convoluted style of this author was complicated by spelling as wild as his imagination.”

A more recent French scholar has this to say: “By the date of publication of L’Odyssey, grammarians and people around the world had already undertaken the enormous task of purifying the French language. Chastelet des Boys does not seem to have followed this path. Everything that the theorists of good use disapprove of, archaisms, palace jargon, technical terms, finds a place in his book.”

As a result, even the ‘cleaned up’ version of Chastelet des Boys’ French text is still pretty eccentric. He’s also painfully long winded by modern standards. So the translation that follows isn’t anything like a word-for-word rendering. I’ve abridged the original and trimmed things down in order to achieve the most straightforward narrative I could.

As far as I know, L’Odyssée has never been systematically translated into English before, so the text below is the first ever English rendering of the story.

Here, then, is the first part of René du Chastelet des Boys’ tale, as told in his own (abridged) words.

The wind grew more and more favorable and soon carried our ship to within the sight of Cape de la Roque [Cabo da Roc]. At this point, one of the sailors on lookout announced that a ship was approaching us, propelled by both sails and oars. We at first mistook it for a Biscayne frigate, but when we saw its flag, which bore crescents, suns and stars, we knew it for a Barbary corsair.

Previous meetings and false alarms had hardened us and considerably decreased our fear of these pirates, and so the resolution was taken to run out the cannons, distribute muskets to the passengers and daggers and pocket pistols to the sailors, and to unfurl the sails to catch as much wind as possible.

Some of those aboard advised that we gain the coast as quickly as we could. Others, young and impatient, argued we should stay and defend ourselves, for the corsair ship was no larger than ours, and it could not have carried more than six cannons. It was finally agreed that we would make as much sail as possible and flee into the night in hopes of escaping our enemy. And so we sailed on through the darkness until daybreak. In the light of day, however, we saw the same corsair ship still in pursuit.

Then six large vessels suddenly appeared, Dutch flags raised on their masts. The corsair ship that had been pursuing us backed away, and we began to think ourselves saved. But when they came close enough to be within a musket shot’s distance, the newly arrived ships abruptly lowered their Dutch flags and raised new ones: multicolored, enriched and embroidered with stars, crescents, suns, crossed swords, and unknown scriptures.

This unhappy revelation, taking us by completely surprise as it did, caused panic and horror. People ran everywhere, up into the rigging, down among the cannon, into the bottom of the hold.

The lead ship of this corsair armada fired at us and smashed our bowsprit with a broom [an iron bar linked to two balls fired out of a cannon]. We were so close that they could shoot at us with their muskets, and they wounded one of our sailors and killed one of the passengers. All hope of organized resistance died. The ship’s the crew, terrified, lowered the sails and waved handkerchiefs as a sign of surrender. The corsairs then put their ships’ boats into the water and rushed to board our sorry vessel.

Onboard our ship, the passengers attempted to hide what riches they possessed. Some hid bracelets up their shirt sleeves. Some stuffed jewelry into their socks. Others tucked their valuables inside their belts or under their hair. The Sieur de Cahaignes hid some gold coins in the back of an old book, which he resolved to keep carefully in his hands, or at least to give into the hands of some French renegade or Christian slave among those who first came aboard from whom he could later arrange to get it back.

People tossed into the sea most of their money, their flashy clothes, golden swords, embroidered harnesses, boots, precious letters, and other signs of wealth and quality, for spite—so that the corsairs could not have it—and so as to disguise their position in hopes of avoiding having to pay a large ransom. I myself threw away the best part of my clothing and all my letters.

The corsairs clambering up our hull without encountering any resistance, poured over the gunwale, and immediately began searching the ship for valuables, shouting excitedly, poking into every corner and smashing apart chests with their axes.

Amid their dreadful, exalted cries, we kept a dreadful silence.

__________

For the next installment of René du Chastelet des Boys’ adventures, see The Odyssey of René du Chastelet des Boys – Part 2

For those who may be interested…

The above (abridged) excerpt comes from des Boys’ L’Odyssée ou diversité d’aventures, rencontres et voyages en Europe, Asie et Affrique. La Flèche: Gervais Laboë (a publication consisting of the sections of L’Odysseé that recount Chastelet des Boys’ adventures in Algiers, taken from the serialized version of L’Odyssée that appeared in the Revue Africaine in the 1860s), pp. 6 – 10.