Lectures péruviennes du Voyage autour du monde, entrepris par ordre du gouvernement sur la Corvette La Coquille (1829), du scientifique français René Primevère Lesson.

Abstract

Born in Rochefort, René Primevère Lesson first studied at the famous Rochefort Naval Naval School where he received a solid training, and then became a surgeon and pharmacist. Between 1822 and 1825, he went around the world aboard the warship La Coquille, which was under the command of Louis-Isidore Duperrey. This trip offers you the possibility to carry out numerous geographical and scientific explorations between the islands of Cape Verde, Polynesia, New Guinea, Chile and Peru, before returning to Marseille. The health officer Lesson is going to distinguish himself repeatedly as a botanist and ornithologist because what guides him is knowledge and the scientific duty to fulfill, one of his many obsessions. Beyond the professional study of that journey, Lesson records in his Voyage autour du monde of 1839 the scenes of daily life, the traditions of the territories visited, details about the fauna and flora but also his vision and his personal conclusions about the Independent Peru in which he landed in 1823. It will then be tried to analyze the story of this little-known traveler through his original experience in Peruvian lands whose story deserves to be presented. The article will insist on the essential characteristics of a Peru recently liberated from Spanish tutelage with an economic, "ethnological" and medical approach.