MODAVE, Louis Laurent de Féderbe, Count de (Fayd’herbe de Maudave). Château du Fayet, Barraux (Isère) 22.6.1725 — Masulipatam 22.12.1777. French Nobleman, Officer and Traveller. Son of colonel Jean Charles Nicolas F., C. de M. and Marie Thérèse Maniquet du Fayet. As young officer participated in many European wars. Came to India as…
MARTINI, François. Can Tho, Vietnam 20.5.1895 — 18.6.1965. French Indologist and South-East Asian Scholar. Son of Corsican father and Cambodian mother. Studied law and philosophy, participated in the WW I (wounded) and after war studied languages in Paris, soon Sanskrit under S. Lévi. Diplom of Thai at É.L.O.V. 1922, from…
MARTIN, Claude. Lyon 5.1.1735 — Lucknow 13.9.1800. French Officer in India. Born in a modest middle class family, son of Fleury Martin (1708–1735), a casket maker, and Anne Vaginay (1702–1735). After school in Lyon apprenticed to a local silk weaver, but in 1751 he enlisted as a soldier in French…
LONGPÉRIER, Henri Adrien Prévost de. Paris 21.9.1816 — Paris 14.1.1882. French Numismatist and Archaeologist. Son of Henri Simon Prévost L., a commander of National Guard, grew up in Meaux. From 1836 Assistant at Cabinet de Médailles 1847-70 Curator of Antiquities in Louvre. Member of A.I.B.L. 1854. Beside numismatics, his interests included cuneiform and…
LE GOUZ DE LA BOULLAYE, François. Baugé, Anjou 1623 (or 1610?) — Isfahan 1668. French Traveller. Born in a family of English origin, he served in the French troops of Charles I. Back in France in 1644 he soon left via Constantinople to Persia, posing himself as Ibrāhīm Bey. He continued…
LA FUENTE, Marguerite. 18?? — 1958?. Mme. French Bauddha. Founder-member of Les amis de bouddhisme in Paris from 1927. Visited Ceylon and other Buddhist countries and learned much from bhikkhus. In 1960 Lu K’uan Yu dedicated his Ch’an and Zen Teaching to the memory of Upāsikā MLF who had encouraged him…
KRICK, Nicolas Michel. Lixheim en Meurthe, Lorraine 1.3.1819 — 1.9.1854. Father. French Missionary in North-East India. Son of tailor Michel Krick and Élisabeth Dubourg (d. 1826). From 1839 studies at the seminary of Nancy, ordained priest 1844 and began work as vicar in Lorraine. In 1848 joined Missions étrangères de Paris…
JOINVILLE, Joseph Endelin de (rarely as de Jonville). 17?? — 18??. French Naturalist. Came to Ceylon in 1798 with Governor North, worked as surveyor, left the island in 1805 and disappears. A linguist, cartographer, botanist and artist. One Joseph de Joinville lived in 1753–1821, but no details about him are…
JACOLLIOT, Louis. Charolles (Saône-et-Loire) 31.10.1837 — Saint-Thibaut-des-Vignes (Seine-et-Maine) 30.10.1890. French Colonial Lawyer and Enthusiast of Indian Thought. Advocate, in 1865-69 judge in Tahiti and India (Chandernagar). He claimed that the Bible and Christianity originated in India and that missionaries and Indologists had concealed this “fact”. Christ he simply derived from…
HOMBURGER, Lilias. U.K. 1880 — 1969. Mlle. French Linguist, with mixed German-English-French background. Began her career as missionary. Studied linguistics (Meillet), Dravidian and African languages. As directeur d’études taught African linguistics at É.P.H.É. L. S. Senghor was among her students there. She proposed wide-reaching theories about the unity of African…