In 2010 Crown (New York) published The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley. The next year there was a paperback edition published by Broadway Paperbacks incorporating a few minor changes. In this review I give page numbers from the 2011 paperback and, for brevity, refer to the book as Discovery.

Soon after publication three reviews appeared—as far as I know the only reviews published in respected journals. Each reviewer brought considerable relevant knowledge to the task.

Botanist Sandra Knapp, a member of the Royal Society, published a review in Nature (3/2/2011). Here are some extracts: “Sadly, the author does not convincingly deploy the few facts available, so the book feels more like fiction than non-fiction…” “I feel that Ridley misrepresents what must have been a truly collaborative partnership…” “Ridley maintains that Commerson was an arrogant man who named things for himself. Yet the International Plant Names Index shows 119 species of flowering plants named in his honour—by others.” “Baret and other neglected contributors deserve recognition, but she does not need to be cast as a victim to be seen as a success, or her undoubted accomplishments overinflated. She, and women scientists in general, deserve better.”

Award-winning historian Gerard Helferich, the author of several biographies, reviewed Discovery in the Wall Street Journal (24/1/2011). Here are some extracts: “Confronted with a dearth of sources, Ms. Ridley chose a provocative, speculative course… driven by leaps of imagination more common to movies “based on a true story” than to books of nonfiction.” “Throughout the book, actions, thoughts and moods of which no record survives are reported with authority… And once such suppositions are planted, they have a habit of emerging later as demonstrated fact.” “Unfortunately, the author’s imaginings serve to diminish, rather than enhance, her heroine’s accomplishments.”

Harvard professor Janet Beizer published a review in the Women’s Review of Books (May-June 2012). She wrote that Ridley “brings to Baret’s story brilliant interpretive skills that would light up the text of a novel but give pause when they’re applied to a text presented as history” and concludes “the narrative is an impressively told tale, one that could less problematically have been presented as a well-researched historical fiction.” 

Although it is not a book review H. Walter Lack, an eminent professor and historian of botany, followed up some of Sandra Knapp’s comments about Discovery. In his article The discovery, naming and typification of Bougainvillea spectabilis (Willdenowia 42, June 2012) he examined Ridley’s assertion that “the coloured bracts of the bougainvillea signalled to Baret their ability to calm and restore angry skin… Commerson’s suppurating leg was going to require daily dressing with a fresh poultice (made from both bracts and seeds)”. But Professor Lack points out that “no seeds or fruits are found in the specimens and there is no reference to a medicinal use in the text of the labels” and describes Ridley’s account of the collection of bougainvillea specimens near Rio de Janeiro as “highly speculative”.

There are strong similarities in the three reviews—even though the reviewers brought different expertise to the task. All made clear that they knew little about Jeanne before they read the book; but they had serious doubts about the methodology and approach. Sandra Knapp wrote in her review: “I would be more inclined to take the history seriously if Ridley had not got the scientific aspects so wrong.” It is sad to report that Ms. Knapp’s instincts were right.

I read Discovery a few months after it was published. After a few pages I read something that appeared incorrect so I looked for the source in a footnote or endnote. The book has no such notes! As one reads further the reason for this becomes apparent—numerous ‘events’ and ‘facts’ are pure invention so how could the author give sources for them? Let’s look at some of these that can easily be shown to be false.

We know from several French and a few Spanish sources that part of the agreement about the transfer of the Malouines was that Spain would transport back to France any French settlers who did not want to stay. The Spanish authorities did what they had promised and returned them to France in Spanish ships. We read in Discovery (p.70) that “Bougainville was already en route to ferry French colonists from the Iles Malouines to Rio de Janeiro, from where they would have to find their own passage back to France.” Bougainville did not “ferry French colonists” anywhere. If any of them had landed in Rio de Janeiro, which they did not, they would not have been received well since at that time Portugal had very strained relationships with both France and Spain. This fictional account is revisited on page 108 of Discovery: “Bougainville contemplated the fate of the women and children who crowded the Rio dockside begging for French assistance…”

About a year after arriving in Mauritius (during the last months of 1769 or at the beginning of 1770) Jeanne acquired a modest property in the capital of the island, Port Louis. She ran it as a bar and billiard room and developed it. Four and a half years later she sold it for 7,530 livres—in terms of purchasing power roughly equivalent to 65,000 Euros today. Two months before this she signed a marriage contract (similar to a pre-nuptial agreement today) with her fiancé which showed her assets, 19,500 livres, to be about double those of her future husband. Unusually Jeanne included a clause that stipulated what would happen if the marriage was dissolved. Meanwhile readers of Discovery are told (pp.230-231) that in 1773: “Somehow, Baret had to find either a way of earning enough money to buy passage on a ship bound for France or another way of making the journey… Bougainville had spared Baret from a fate of prostitution in Rio de Janeiro [this is also not true], and Baret was not about to succumb to it herself… Baret was able to scrape a living of sorts—begging scraps from stallholders she knew in town and picking greens from the surrounding countryside.” There is a continuation of this fictitious scenario in subsequent paragraphs.

The astronomer Véron sailed from France on board the Etoile. In the first half of July 1767 he transferred to the Boudeuse as recorded in Bougainville’s captain’s journal (volume 1, p.17 of the 1977 edition). On 25 July the two ships were at sea and Bougainville, a keen amateur astronomer, assisted Véron to observe and record an eclipse of the sun. Readers of Discovery are told (pp.114-115) that “there is no reason why Véron (lacking an assistant of his own) should not have showed his unaffected good nature by engaging Baret… Now, from the deck of the Etoile, Véron could show her wholly new southern constellations…” In fact there is a very simple reason—the two were on different ships.

Véron is also the victim of other errors. We are told (p.223) that in 1772 the astronomer had “started on his way to India”. But Véron had died in 1770 and Ridley reports this later in the book (p.245). It is claimed in Discovery (p.207) that the probable ‘reason’ why he disembarked at Mauritius at the end of 1768 was that “Véron probably wished to avoid returning to France because he had failed to find a reliable astronomical method for determining longitude at sea.” This is not exactly nonsense that can be definitively disproved, but it is an absurd insult nevertheless. Véron stayed in the Indian Ocean for the reason given by the astronomer Rochon and by Bougainville, who wrote that it was “so that he could be in place to visit India and observe the transit of Venus there” (Voyage Autour du Monde. v.II. ch.9). A transit of Venus was predicted for 3-4 June 1769 and there were extensive international scientific preparations for this important astronomical event. Moreover Véron’s achievements during the circumnavigation are well-known; for example J. C. Beaglehole wrote “Véron was the first man to arrive at a scientific estimate of the width of the Pacific Ocean by observing lunar distances” (New Zealand Journal of History, Vol.3, No.2. October 1969).

Gerard Helferich wrote that “there is no real evidence that the book’s horrifying climactic scene, involving rape, took place at all.” Actually this part of Discovery is even worse than Mr Helferich knew. Two ‘events’ that are said to be “compelling evidence” (p.212) that Barret was gang raped and then gave birth to a son in Mauritius are not difficult to disprove. One concerns the detention on Mauritius from 1803 to 1810 of Matthew Flinders.This British explorer was imprisoned when he landed at Port Louis because France was at war with Britain. He was held for three months in the centre of the town and then for a year and a half in the Garden Prison which was up a hill behind Port Louis. The rest of his stay on the island (almost five years) was house arrest in a rural mansion in the centre of Mauritius. When he arrived he did not speak French and, while imprisoned in Port Louis, most of his contact was with the Official Interpreter for the English Language (Employé du roi, interprète pour la langue anglaise). This was M.Bonnefoy, born in France, who had done much of his schooling at the English College in Douai, northern France. We know this from a letter of recommendation for the desirable post in Port Louis (held at cote FR ANOM COL E39 of the archives at the Secrétariat d’Etat à la Marine). Numerous times in his private journal, published in Australia in 1986, Flinders laments that he was never allowed by the authorities to visit Flacq, a settlement in the north-east of the island.

Discovery p.213: “The interpreter provided to [Flinders] in 1803 at the home of M.Bézac in Flacq was a man with the surname “Bonnefoy”—the very alias that Baret had been known to use.” Ridley claims on the basis of this false account that M.Bonnefoy was the son of Jeanne Barret—conceived, according to her, at a gang rape in July 1768.

Ridley concocts an April 1769 prequel to this. On the 7^th of that month Commerson wrote to a friend in France (M.Crassous) “I have gone to the house of a friend (M.Poivre)…” He promised Crassous a longer letter in due course and he completed and dated this on 17^th April.

Discovery p.212: “In that month [April], neither Baret nor Commerson were to be found at Poivre’s home in Port Louis. Instead, they had left temporarily for a settlement called Flacq… [Baret] gave birth to a son in Flacq—a son whom she left to the willing care of M.Bézac.” In fact the only known connection between Commerson and Bézac is that the naturalist died in Bézac’s house four years later. Commerson wrote forty letters in that period that have survived and he never mentions Bézac—therefore Ridley’s claim that they were new friends soon after Commerson’s arrival in Mauritius is very unlikely.

These then are the two items of “compelling evidence that she gave birth to a son in Flacq…”. At the beginning of Discovery (p.5) we are told, correctly, that “Vivès is careful to describe the incident [in July 1768] as an examination rather than a gang rape…”. But later in Discovery (p.189) this has changed to “historians of the expedition who argue that these passages [by Vivès] imply only an inspection and not a rape are projecting onto Baret’s story what they wish had happened, as opposed to what so clearly did happen.” One of these mistaken historians seems to be Ridley herself on page 5! Several experts on Barret have investigated this gang rape version of events and they are unanimous that it is a fiction. For example Christel Mouchard (p.30 of the book we are about to look at) has no time for Ridley’s claim that when “Vivès says that he should start calling Baret “Jeanneton,” it is a winking, leering admission that Baret was gang-raped…” And later in her book (p.233) Mouchard points out that “The words visite and inspection… suggest molestation rather than penetration.” Ridley appears to have misunderstood these two French words.

In Discovery there is one ‘revelation’ that appears to be the result of original research by the author. Among Commerson’s archived papers Ridley found, in a folder dated 1840, a Table of Medicinal Plants. She claims that since the handwriting is clearly not Commerson’s it must have been written by Jeanne Barret. Christel Mouchard writes (p.80): “However, it is impossible to deduce that the shepherdess from La Comelle [Jeanne] could write botanical documents—as certain authors have claimed.” An endnote clarifies: “Notably Glynis Ridley”. Gerard Helferich made clear in his review that he was also not impressed: “Ms. Ridley supposes that the notebook was penned by Baret and presented to the naturalist as a lover’s gift. The proof that Baret, the daughter of impoverished peasants, was even capable of writing? Her maternal grandparents’ surnames were Hugenot, and French Protestants of the era ‘generally had higher levels of literacy than their Catholic counterparts.’”And one of the surnames given by Ridley is wrong anyway (Jeannin not Grandjean).

In places there is so much invented material in Discovery that the author loses track. An example of this is the question of when Bougainville discovered that Commerson’s valet was a woman. Over several pages (pp.159-167) Ridley argues that he did not discover Barret’s real gender at Tahiti as his Captain’s Log states. The theory is that he wrote the entry for May 28-29 in July and falsified the Log by inserting his account of an interview with her: “…Bougainville needed to spring his notebook from its cover in order to insert at least one leaf.” The commander had been a military man for more than a quarter of a century—it is highly improbable that he would do this with an official document. It is also incorrectly claimed that this part of the Log “is the only source for the prevalent belief, still repeated today, that Baret’s true identity was first revealed on Tahiti.” I know of two other such sources. But the author seems to have forgotten that she wrote (p.105) that a year earlier “the evidence that Bougainville saw through Baret’s disguise… is overwhelming.”

This is just a small selection of the nonsense published in Discovery. Some good news is that there has been no published translation of the book into French, Spanish or other relevant languages. It has however deceived and confused a considerable number of people in English-speaking countries.

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It is a relief to turn from Discovery to L’Aventurière de L’Etoile by Christel Mouchard—published by Tallendier in 2020. Pocket brought out a new edition in 2022 with no changes except an improved front cover. The author has written many books and articles about women explorers and travellers. Like almost everyone who has published about Jeanne during the last dozen years Mouchard spells her surname Barret; this is because Jeanne herself used this spelling when signing documents (at least fifteen have been found so far).

Mouchard constructs a fluent and coherent biography which, for brevity, I will refer to as L’Aventurière. In the first 130 pages the author successfully recounts Jeanne’s childhood and life until her departure on the circumnavigation when she was about 27 years old. In this section there is just one serious mistake—I will detail this later. Otherwise the narrative is accurate and well-written.

The last 43 pages of L’Aventurière cover the second half of Jeanne’s life. I would have liked a more thorough account although, in fairness to Mouchard, much of the information about this period has been published since she completed the book. Accurately Jeanne is portrayed as the resilient and determined woman she had been all her life.

The circumnavigation is described in the central section of L’Aventurière, 130 pages long, and it is disappointing—below the standard of the other parts of the book. Mouchard skips past many important episodes and, in some cases, does not mention them at all. I could find no mention of the major damage the Etoile sustained in Montevideo Bay at the end of August 1767; this accident delayed the whole expedition by many weeks. She states that, during the Etoile’s first visit to the River Plate, the ship anchored “between the Spanish cities Montevideo and Buenos Aires” (p.154). This is wrong; the whole time it was in Montevideo Bay. This and other passages suggest that Mouchard may not understand the geography of that area—the two cities are 215 kilometres apart as the crow flies. Mouchard mentions the possibility that at Buenos Aires Jeanne might have “stayed on board” (p.156) but this is impossible because neither ship ever visited that town. She hardly mentions the second half of the voyage (from Tahiti to Mauritius); the inventory of Commerson’s properties prepared six years later included “a large box containing various plants from the island of Bouro” (now spelt Buru, it is mentioned only very briefly). And I could find no reference at all to the two weeks Jeanne spent at Batavia, now Jacarta, which yielded “a large box of herbaria containing plants, with the title ‘Plants from Java and remnants from Batavia’”.

I have some criticisms of the rest of the book.

1. There is no index and no bibliography.

2. Mouchard reports (p.313) that in November 2019 she consulted Jeanne’s May 1774 marriage contract. But she misinterprets Jeanne’s reference to Aimé Bonnefoy (everyone assumes that this boy was Jeanne’s son). In an earlier part of the same document Jeanne stated “…Aimé Prosper Eugène Bonnefoy born at the Hotel Dieu in Paris on 15 May 1766…”; Mouchard does not quote this passage and presumably did not read it. (The whole contract was transcribed by researchers Sophie Miquel and Nicole Maguet and reproduced in Du nouveau sur Jeanne Barret aux Archives nationals de l’île Maurice. In Bulletin de la Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord. Volume CXLVII. 2020.)

3. Chattel slavery in Mauritius is mentioned briefly, but the topic deserves much more thorough treatment and discussion.

4. Some references to other female adventurers are too long. For example two pages (pp.261-262) are devoted to Mary Seacole, a Jamaican/British owner of a bar in the Crimea 80 years after Jeanne ran her establishment in Port Louis. Mouchard writes “it is possible to imagine [Jeanne’s inn] thanks to Mary Seacole’s Memoires…” I do not find that possible.

Looking at the book as a whole L’Aventurière is well-worth reading—a contrast to Discovery which contains so much false material that time spent looking at it is wasted.