French-language Newspapers and Journals in Indochina

While strolling through L'Indo-Chine (1906) edited by Ferrière, Garros, Meynard and Raquez, I found adverts of L'Avenir du Tonkin and Le Courrier saigonnai. They are quite interesting as reflecting the colonial-lobby objectives of these French language newspapers.

I recall having read that Jules Boissière was collaborator of L'Avenir du Tonkin, although when I went through the newspaper in the beautiful but not practical Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève in Paris, I couldn't find his columns.

I think about Boissière because I am now reading his L'Indo-chine avec les Français, a collection of unpublished essays posthumously published probably by the effort of the circle of the Français d'Asie, spearheaded  by Albert de Pouvourville (whose name is mentioned in the advert of L'Avenir du Tonkin above) and Jean Ajalbert.

Photogravure and photomontage

While I was reading a guide of Indochina published by the Touring Club of France (this one is the 1910 version hold by the Library of Congress while the one I read is a longer version -published in 1911? - from the Bibliothèque nationale de France), I was struck by the photos used to illustrate the text in photomontage style. Some looks really uncanny, with a collage of a French woman on the photo of exotic site. Like this one,

There is mention of F. Bouché as the 'photograveur'. I then wrote to my colleague in the States who is specialist of artistic techniques in the 19th century, Rachel Skokowski.

She explained that 'photogravure' is a 19th-century photography technique that combines photography with etching (you basically transfer a photograph onto a metal plate that is then printed). The photograveur would be the person who made the prints, and is probably a different person from the one who took the original photos.

She also gives me useful links to read further: 

On photo gravure 
What is photogravure?
On photomontage and collage in the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography

I then discovered André Disdéri's 'carte mosaïque'. They are quite charming, and the Commune's one intrigues me. It is really upsetting to think about how many young people were killed during this event.

Guide aux ruines d'Angkor by J. Commaille

Published in 1912 by Gallimard  (but it might have been published earlier and the Gallica copy could be a re-editio). One of the early guidebooks for tourists of Angkor.

This guide is quoted with photos by another guidebook 'L'Indo-chine' published by the Touring-Club de France, comité de tourisme colonial in 1911 (date given in Gallica). This edition is bilingual and is part of the development of tourism in the region [to be linked with the establishment of the 'Angkor Park' by the EFEO in the same period]. This guide gives practical information as well as description of sites and monuments tourists could visit (transport, accommodation, travel time).

These guides are to be put in contrast with the exotic novel by Pierre Loti, Le Pèlerin d'Angkor published in 1912. This travelogue gives a different image of a trip to Angkor: mysterious, dangerous, difficult to accessible, in contrast to a well-organised trip by tourist companies.

Another guide which seems to be well known is Guides Madrolle. This advert I found at the end of La Dépêche coloniale illustrée, a special edition of 1918 on the Travailleurs indochinois.
N.B. In this volume, there is an excerpt of J. Boissière about the character of the Annamites (To read).