'Au Siam', the fascinating travelogue of the Jottrands

Regular readers of Thailandblog know that I occasionally reflect on a striking publication from my well-stocked Asian work library. Today I would like to reflect on a booklet that rolled off the presses in Paris in 1905: 'Au Siam' that was written by the Walloon couple Jottrand.

Emile Jottrand was born on February 9, 1870 in Fontaine-l'Evêque as the second son in the family of Achille Jottrand and Laure Sainclette. His brother Ernest, two years his senior, would become a coal merchant and died quite young, barely 45 years old in March 1914. Emile opted for a legal career and graduated in 1896 with distinction as a doctor in law from the Free University of Brussels. He married Denise Weiler (23-1898) on July 1872, 1973. This marriage took place barely a few weeks before the lovebirds moved to the other side of the globe. Because from October 1898 to the end of 1902, the couple stayed in Bangkok, which for many Westerners is extremely exotic.

After all, Emile Jottrand was one of the fourteen Belgian lawyers who belonged to the so-called 'Mission Rolin-Jaequemyns'. This group of legal experts led by the former Belgian interior minister Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns and his son-in-law Robert John Kirckpatrick, had been invited by the influential Siamese prince Damrong on behalf of King Chulalongkorn to bring the Siamese legal system to Western standards. This was necessary if Siam was to gain the respect of the international community, read the Western colonial powers.

Jottrand became a member of the International Court of Justice in Korat as part of this assignment. This title is more impressive than reality. In fact, this Court was a court that decided disputes between nationals of various Western countries who resided in Siam and over which the Siamese judicial system had no jurisdiction at the time, in application of the extraterritoriality principle. Much more important was Jottrands' seat in the Borisapha or the Court of Appeal in Bangkok. Here he undeniably contributed to the radical reform and rewriting of Siamese legislation. While Jottrand had his nose in the law books, his graceful wife became a welcome guest at the society parties of the expat community in the Siamese capital.

After returning to Europe, Jottrand was one of the few former members of the Rolin-Jaequemyns mission who did not choose a diplomatic or legal career. He became director of it Institute Superior de Commerce, the Higher Commercial Institute in Mons. This college was originally founded as it Institut commercial des Industriels du Hainaut and had to deliver academics who had to propagate Belgian commercial and industrial expertise abroad and more specifically in the overseas territories.

In belle époque the country had a huge one belle époque the metropolis, like the rest of the country, had made an enormous economic catch-up. They drew unscrupulously from the unimaginable riches of the colony in Africa and apparently effortlessly worked their way to the head of the modern industrial pack. Belgium not only had the first continental railway line and was the most densely populated country in Europe, but had also in a very short period of time become the fifth largest economy in the world and number four among the exporting countries. Jottrand was one of the men who, because of his international experience, was chosen to help steer this process in the right direction.

In 1905 the couple published with a publishing house Plon-Nourrit et cie. in Paris their book 'Au Siam – Journal de Voyage de M. et Mme. Jottrand'. This book, which is still easy to read and interesting to this day, contained the accounts of the travels and adventures that the young couple had experienced in the wider region. Not only the history and culture of Siam was extensively discussed, but also the folklore, fauna and flora, with a remarkable neutrality and even understanding for a Westerner of those days. It was clear that land and people had made an indelible impression on the Jottrands. A statement that in fact also applied to almost all of Southeast Asia, because Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, among others, also undeniably inspired the Jottrands.

The Jottrand family

At 'Au Siam' Jottrand clearly had a taste for it. He became a real globetrotter who visited China and the United States extensively. Emile Jottrand would regularly write books and publish articles about Southeast Asia. In 1938 appeared at the Librairie Vanderlinden his last book Promenades geographiqueswith a foreword by Liberal minister and prominent townsman Fulgence Masson.

Emile Jottrand was one of the guests of honor that King Bhumibol met during his state visit to Belgium in 1960. In 1964, the now 93-year-old Jottrand was interviewed by Christian de Saint-Hubert for his article about the Belgian advisers in Siam, which was published shortly afterwards in The Journal of Siam Society. Emile Jottrand's last journey began when he overran Brussels on March 24, 1966.

To my knowledge, the most recent edition of In Siam, the diary of a legal advisor of King Chulalongkorn's government, appeared in 1996 by White Lotus Press. An edition is said to have even been published by Kessinger Publishing in 2010, but I haven't gotten my hands on it yet. In 2011 appeared 'Belgian tourists in Burma, Siam, Vietnam and Cambodia (1897 & 1900)' a work Emile Jottrand had co-written with Puc Chaudoir in a translation by Walter EJ Tips, again at White Lotus Press.