Antoine de Tounens

Antoine de Tounens , born the May 12th 1825 with Chèze, common of Chourgnac (the Dordogne), dead the September 17th 1878 with Tourtoirac (the Dordogne), adventurous French.

The solicitor of Périgueux

Antoine Thounem is the last wire and the eighth of the nine children (five boys and four girls) whom had Jean Tounens (1781 - 1862) and Catherine Jardon (- 1873) his wife, family of peasants thus relative ease (the good of this family is estimated at 70.000 or 80.000 francs) allows him to make some study (Baccalauréat…) and to buy a load of Acknowledged with Périgueux. It obtains, in call, a judgment dated July 27th 1857 of the imperial court of Bordeaux authorizing its family to add a particle to its Patronyme which becomes of Tounens then. Antoine de Tounens sells his load of solicitor in this same year 1857 and its family negociates a loan of 25.000 francs near the Building and loan association of France for a forwarding which it projects. It is also affiliated with the Franc-maçonnerie.

Orélie-Antoine Ier

It unloads with the Chile the August 28th 1858 with Coquimbo, with 400 kilometers of Santiago. It gains the province of Arauco in 1860, where it promulgates a constitution the November 17th. Having taken the name of Orllie-Antoine Ier (or Orélie-Antoine Ier), it is proclaimed king of Araucanie and Patagonie on November 20th 1860, thus asserting the extension of its kingdom beyond the the Andes, to the Atlantic and with the Magellan Strait. It is pressed on the tribes Puelches and Tehuelches, which remains to him faithful thereafter, but is made prisoner by the Chilean troops on January 5th 1862, then condemned to the internment in an asylum the insane ones. The intervention of the general consul of France enables him to regain France and it embarks on October 28th 1862 with Valparaiso on board the Duguay-Trouin . During the period 1860-1862, the Kingdom of Araucanie and Patagonie had, to a certain extent, an effective existence. But the ministers Lachaise and Desfontaines of which have sees the signatures with the bottom of royal acts do not exist: the name of the first corresponds to Chèze (or the Chair) where was born Antoine de Tounens and that from second with the Fountains, a Hameau near to the precedent…

The National library preserves the trace of a subscription organized in its favor, in particular in Bordeaux, as from the summer 1866; it finds a support thus, and assembles the one second forwarding in 1869. Of return in France, it launches a new forwarding in 1874. It immediately is stopped, imprisoned then released on intervention of the embassy of France. Its last attempt fails in 1876.

Succession

(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Grab_de_Tounens.JPG: The tomb of Antoine de Tounens.)
Sick income of its last expéditon it is withdrawn at its Jean nephew says Adrien (1844 - 1889), established with Tourtoirac like stopping; it dies there, after hard sufferings, very close to its birthplace.

He died without alliance nor descent. Were its last wills to indicate Achille Laviarde to succeed to him on the throne? In any case its close relations by blood preferred to work with the re-establishment of a compromised financial position. The helpful nephew, Monseigneur Adrien-Jean de Tounens (1844 - 1889), had become the heir with died to his father Jean (1805-1881), the elder one of the nine Tounems-Jardon children; he will give up in 1882 in favor of Achilles Ier and his/her children will be called simply Thounens .

All this constitutes an occasion lost by France - which did not grant any government aid to Antoine de Tounens - to be established in this area of the world who did not belong then to any State, the fault while being allocated to the emperor Napoleon III which personally decided whole but which was then it is true volunteer in the Expédition of Mexico (1861 - 1867) to support the emperor Maximilien Ier of Mexico. Antoine de Tounens had only financial means limited and its social origin made of it an easy target for the press.

The literary character

This character remains known in France because its life was the object in particular work of Saint-Wolf, the white King of Patagons (1950) and a novel of Jean Raspail, Me, Antoine de Tounens, king de Patagonie (1981).

It is in 1950, at the end three years of voyages in South America, that Saint-Wolf discovers, via the historian Armando Braun Menéndez, the existence of Antoine de Tounens. It then decides “to make known the life of this junior by Gascogne, this Cyrano of Tourtoirac which has, like the other its neighbor of Bergerac, given his life for dreams”. The novel which it devotes to this “true saint of the adventure” wants faithful to historical reality.

Catalog of films

Película LED rey (Argentinian, 1986) of Carlos Sorín: a director tries to make a film recalling the epopee of Antoine de Tounens
the King de Patagonie (France, 1990), realized for television by Georges Campana and Stephan Kurc; adaptation of the novel of Jean Raspail Me, Antoine de Tounens, king de Patagonie (1981); Antoine de Tounens is incarnated by Frederic van den Driessche.

Bonds

Internal bonds

Bibliography on the Kingdom of Araucanie and Patagonie

External bonds

Website of the Kingdom of Araucanie and Patagonie

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