Elisee Recluse

Elisee Recluse , of his true name Jean Jacques Elisee Recluse , born with Holy-Foy-the-Large (the Gironde) the March 15th 1830 and died with Torhout in Belgium the July 4th 1905, is a geographer, militant and thinker of the Anarchisme French.

Biography

His/her father Jacques Recluse, born in 1796, was Pasteur (first of all remunerated by the State, then independent) and was also a few years professor with the college protesting of Holy-Foy. Pasteur had, with his wife Zéline Trigant (born in 1805), seventeen children (of which three did not survive the birth). Among the brothers of Elisee: Élie Recluse very related to Elisee, Onésime Recluse (1837-1916), Armand Reclus (1843-1927) and Paul Recluse (1847-1914).

Fourth child of Pasteur Jacques Recluse, Elisee is high until worms age the 13 years by his maternal grandparents, with the Rock-Chalais close to Holy-Foy, following the decision taken by his father not to more be remunerated Pasteur. In 1838 it regains the parental hearth, with Orthez, after the death of his/her grandfather. In 1843 his/her father, who wishes to intend it for a load of Pasteur, sends it to join his Élie brother with Neuwied, in Prussia on the edges of the the Rhine, in a college held by the Moravian Frères. But Elisee badly supports the surface character of the religious teaching of this school: he returns in 1844 in Orthez while passing by the Belgium. Its stay with Neuwied was however not entirely negative: it had the occasion there to learn from the living languages (German, English, Dutch), and Latin, as to meet there personalities which it will re-examine later.

Raised during a few years by a sister of its mother to Holy-Foy, it is registered with the protesting college of this city to prepare the baccalaureat there. It probably meets at this period a former Parisian workman what enables him to read Saint-Simon, Auguste Count, Fourier and Lamennais.

In 1848 Elisee and Élie are registered with the faculty of Protestant theology of Montauban. They are excluded from it in 1849 following a running away which they made in June towards the the Mediterranean. It is undoubtedly during these years that it took taste with what was to become its design of the social geography. Elisee then decides to give up the theological studies definitively. He goes however to the college of Neuwied where he is engaged as Master repeater. Very quickly it is again disappointed by the atmosphere of the college which it leaves to go to Berlin (1851). Living rather chichement of French lessons, it is registered at the university to follow the courses of the German geographer there Carl Ritter.

Elisee in September 1851 finds his Élie brother with Strasbourg and together they decide to return in Orthez to foot while crossing deep France, which contributed certainly to form its character. It is at that time that it writes its first text anarchizing which will be published only well later, in 1925 ( Développement of freedom in the world ).

Learning the coup d'etat of December 2nd, 1851, the two brothers publicly express their hostility with the new course of the things. Threatened to be stopped, they embark for London where they know the miséreuse existence of exiled.

After having remained in England and Ireland (where he is farm laborer), Elisee leaves Liverpool for the the United States at the end of 1852 and unloads with the New-Orleans, in Louisiana, beginning 1853. He exerts there various small trades (of which that of unskilled laborer), then he is engaged like tutor of the three children of a family of growers of French origin (Fortier) of the area of New-Orleans. It is during this period, where it observed closely the slave system that it acquired its hatred of the exploitation of the man by the man. During its holidays, he visits the the Mississippi and goes even until Chicago. Although its employer was not among wildest slave, Elisee does not support this environment and leaves the Fortier family to go in News-Grenade (currently the Colombia) in order to carry out there a project of farm to Rio-chopped, in the Sierra Nevada de Sainte Marthe. In spite of the financial aid authorized by the Fortier family for her project, of the difficulties of all kinds (in particular the disease), accumulate in front of him, preventing it from concluding its project to create a coffee plantation.

In July 1857, Elisee embarks to return to France and it is fixed from now on in his Élie brother in Paris. While giving language classes foreign, Elisee engages in what was going thereafter to become his principal occupation: it enters the Company of Geography. End 1858, it turns over to Orthez in company of his/her father who returned from England where it had gone to seek financial aids for an old people's home that it had created in his village. December 14th of the same year Elisee Marie civilly with Clarisse Brian and it goes back to Paris at Élie.

In 1860, in company of Élie, Elisee is allowed in a maconnic cabin (Followers of Hiram). It was never active there and at the end of one year, it leaves the Franc-maçonnerie, not supporting the spirit which reigned there. The house Hachette decides to employ Elisee to write guides for travellers (Joanne guides), which will lead it to traverse many European countries (Germany, Suisse, Italy, England, Sicily, Spain…).

In 1862 Elisee goes to London at the time of the World Fair.

In the current of the year 1863 the two brothers will settle with Vascœuil (the Eure, Upper Normandy) in their friend Alfred Dumesnil, son-in-law of Jules Michelet. Adele Dumesnil, the girl of the historian having died in 1855, Dumesnil, widower, will marry in 1871 Louise Reclus, sister of Elisee and Élie.

October 1st 1863, in collaboration with several people (whose his/her Elisee brother), Élie founds a bank (the company of the Crédit to Work ) of which the goal was to help with the creation of working companies. In same Élie time deals with the publication of newspaper (the Association ) of which he is at the same time the director and the principal writer; during its absences, it is replaced by Elisee. But the experiment of the Crédit to Work will be completed on an acknowledgment of failure in 1868.

In September 1864 the two brothers Élie and Elisee adhere to the section Batignolles of the HAS (International association of the Workers, founded on September 28th in London). In November of the same year Élie and Elisee meet Bakounine (in Paris) with which they will maintain the friendly and political bonds strong. They militate together with International Fraternity, secret society founded by Bakounine. In 1865 Elisee goes to Florence, where it re-examines Bakounine and becomes acquainted with Italian revolutionists.

In 1867 Elisee Reclus takes part in two international meetings: from September 2nd to 7th, second Congress of HAS with Lausanne; from September 9th to 12th, first Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom with Geneva. From September 21st to 25th 1868 it takes an active part in the 2nd Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom, with Bern. It made there an intervention which one generally regards as his first public adhesion with the Anarchisme. Elisee, Bakounine and some others oppose in the majority of the congressmen on the question of decentralization. They drew the conclusions from them by leaving the League.

February 22nd 1869 the woman of Elisee, Clarisse, dies, which passably will disturb it and move away it temporarily from the political action. From July 6th to August 17th, 1869, Elisee is invited to a meeting of the General advice of the Internationale in London. He writes this same year his Histoire of a brook .

Anxious to give a hearth to his daughters (to died of their mother, they were entrusted to two sisters of Elisee living the South of France), it is linked freely in Fanny Lherminez, at a meeting of family in May 1870. The same Elisee year begins like volunteer in the mobile Guard, then in the battalion of the Aérostiers, at the sides of his/her friend Nadar.

With the war free-Prussian of 1870, then the Common of Paris, Elisee engages actively in the political action. It starts by being presented to the legislative elections February 1871, then after the proclamation of the Commune (March 28th, 1871), Elisee takes part, as a volunteer in the National guard, at an exit with Châtillon during which it is made prisoner by the Of Versailles ones (April 4th, 1871). He is imprisoned in Quélern, then in the island of Trébéron (close to Brest), finally with Saint-Germain and Versailles. November 15th, 1871, the Council of war condemns it to the simple deportation (transportation) in New Caledonia. An international petition gathering English and American scientists primarily and joining together a hundred names (of which probably Darwin), obtains that the sorrow is commuted to ten years of banishment. For all this period of imprisonment, and in spite of unfavorable conditions, Elisee starts to write some of its large geographical texts: History of a mountain , as well as the first elements of its New Universal Geography , whose publication will be continued very regularly until 1894.

Following the decision of banishment pronounced by the Council of war, Elisee and his family go in Suisse, with Lugano then with Vevey where they will remain some time. It attends the congress of the Peace of Lugano (September 1872).

In February 1874 his/her Fanny partner dies in layers. October 10th 1875, it marries Ermance Trigant-Beaumont and the couple is fixed at Clarens, on the edges of the Léman, where it will remain until in 1891. For all this period it receives many revolutionists (of which Kropotkine). It also continues to travel (Algérie, the United States, Canada, then Brésil, Uruguay, Argentine and Chile); in February 1886, it goes to Naples and meets the Hungarian revolutionist there Kossuth. At the beginning of 1891, Elisee and his family fix themselves at Sevres. In 1892, it receives the gold medal of the Company of geography of Paris. This same year, following the judgment of Ravachol, the situation becoming dangerous for him, it decides to accept a proposal of the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles which offers a pulpit of geography compared to him by decreeing the title of aggregate to him. This course will be in fact cancelled at the beginning of 1894, in spite of protests of part of the teaching body. It is only the following year, following new consecutive police concern with the business Auguste Vaillant that Elisee decides to flee France and to fix himself at Brussels, where a new university (the New Université, inaugurated on October 25th, 1894) enables him to give courses of geography. His/her Élie brother joined it to give courses of mythology to it.

After 1892, it occupied the pulpit of geography compared of the university of Brussels and provides several memories important to the French, German and English newspapers scientific. Among those, can be mentioned:

“The Progress off Mankind” ( Contemp. Rev. , 1896)
“Attila de Gerando” ( rev. Géograph. , 1898)
“has Great Globe” ( Geograph. Journ. , 1898)
“the Far East” ( Bull. Antwerp Geo. Plowshare , 1898), a suggestive study of political geography concerning the the Far East and the changes which could occur there.
“the Persian ” ( Bull. Plowshare Neuchâtel oise , 1899)
“the Phénicie and Phéniciens” ( ibid , 1900)
“the China and the European diplomacy” (series new Humanity , 1900)
“the Teaching of the geography” ( Instit. Géograph. of Brussels , No 5, 1901)

In 1893 Elisee goes to Florence to testify in a lawsuit to Italian anarchists, who are released. In 1898, it with the pain to lose his/her daughter junior. It founds the geographical Institut , which depends on the new University. This same year, it also created a company of edition of geographical maps which will go bankrupt in 1904.

During the last years of his life, Elisee Reclus who suffers from angina pectoris, will still travel (France, England, Scotland, Berlin). At the end of June 1905 it learns the revolt from the sailors of the battleship Potemkine, which constitutes one of its last joys. He dies on July 4th, 1905 with Torhout, close to Bruges. In accordance with its last wills, no ceremony took place and it was buried with the cemetery of Ixelles, (commune belonging to the agglomeration of Brussels), in the same tomb as his brother Élie (Holy-Foy-the-Large 1827 - Brussels 1904), writer and member of the Commune.

In addition to being a large traveller (what was not the case of all the geographers of its time), he was also a large walker. He accomplished several long voyages to foot in company of his Elie brother, of which one was worth to them into 1849 their exclusion of the faculty of theology of Montauban.

He is related with Franz Schrader (1844-1924), geographer, mountaineer, cartographer and landscape painter, wire of his German cousin Marie-Louise Ducos, like with Élie Faure (1873-1937), critical of Article.

Ideas of Elisee Recluse

The political banishment of Elisee Reclus for his anarchistic ideas was certainly at the origin of the relative lapse of memory in which one sees it today. What is however remarkable, it is that, although Elisee Reclus refused always to be taken for a “Master”, one often presents it like the founder of certain movements, which it would never have accepted. He wrote much, in particular of the articles, in which he developed his ideas; on any moment it did not impose those. Minority, he preferred to withdraw debate; one can thus quote at least three examples of this attitude. First of all by leaving freemasonry where it did not feel at ease. Then with the congress of the League of Peace in Bern in 1868. Finally when the Hachette house forced to him to put its social ideas in withdrawal during the drafting of the Nouvelle Universal Geography . With regard to the religious ideas, it is remarkable to note that Elisee Reclus, although trained in his youth to become Pasteur, was completely detached from the religion and each act of its life was the clearest demonstration.

He believed firmly in the value of the progress which only, thought he, could make a improvement of the living conditions and relations between the men.

For certain thinkers, whose Yves Lacoste, he would be the father of the reflection French Géopolitique (even if Recluse never employs this word in his work).

The anarchist

It undoubtedly acts of what defines it initially. Elisee Reclus wrote very many articles, pronounced many conferences on the topic of anarchy. He also took part in congresses of organized labor (HAS in particular, league of Peace and Freedom) in which he found himself with other libertarian revolutionists (Bakounine, Kropotkine, Dumartheray, Jean Grave, James Guillaume, max Nettlau). He developed his ideas in several booklets ( the development of freedom in the world , Évolution and revolution , the capital punishment ). Nowadays the anarchistic and libertarian movements still claim him.

Freemasonry

Elisee Recluse and his Élie brother made a short incursion into the world of the Franc-maçonnerie. Very quickly they were detached some (Elisee more quickly than Élie) and none did not give the feet in a meeting, except at the time of their last exile with Brussels, but to make conferences there. The thirst for freedom and independence of two brothers could not be satisfied rites governing the meetings of the cabins.

Free union

Elisee Reclus had three wives, with each one from which the social contract was different. A constant however was very marked: he always refused the church wedding.

the first, Clarisse, that he civilly married in Orthez on December 14th 1858, and of which he had two girls, was of origin Peul (his/her mother was Peul of Senegal which had married a ship-owner of Bordeaux). Elisee and Clarisse lived ten years together; it is the death of his wife who separated them in February 1869. This marriage had a very particular significance for the abolitionist of return of Louisiana.
It is linked with the second, Fanny, in free union (marriage “ under the sun ”) in May 1870, with Vascœuil. A very great unity of views between the two husbands appeared throughout their short common life. Fanny died by putting at the world a child who did not live, in February 1874.
It is with the last wife (Ermance, who survived to him) that it spent the thirty last years of its life. They civilly married with Zurich in October 1875. They did not have any descent.

At the time of the free unions of his two daughters celebrated simultaneously, he made an address in which its principal ideas were detailed on the marriage and the education of the children.

The geographer

It is certainly about the most known definition of Elisee Reclus of the general public. According to ideas (the naturalism), already developed by Carl Ritter, the German geographer of the 19th century, Elisee Reclus observed nature and deduced from it from many works of Géographie (the Nouvelle Universal Geography , in 19 volumes, and the Man and the Earth is undoubtedly most known) that one can regard as a first attempt to make social geography: for Recluse, it was a question of including the Man in the geographical process. It thinks also intensely of the teaching of the geography and wished to put at the range of each original tool for comprehension ( Projet of Globe with the 10.000e ). Elisee Reclus qualified readily “ geographer, but anarchistic ”.

Esperanto

In the foreword with the work which can be regarded as that where it on the occasion most completely to develop its ideas ( the Man and the Earth ), but which appeared only after its death, Elisee Reclus evokes the international languages which were developing, and it quotes the the most succeeded Esperanto like one of. The convinced internationalist that it was could only applaud the emergence of tools having to facilitate the exchanges between human.

Naturism

Elisee Reclus thought that the Nudité was one of the means of developing the Socialisation between individuals, it praised of them the hygienic benefits morally like physiologically, and it put it in prospect in vast including sights on the history and the geography of the culture S. Some regard it as the founder of the Naturisme.

The vegetarian

Very early rejected by the meat, Elisee Reclus was a “ convinced Légumiste ”, as he liked to say it. He shared this design with his Élie brother.

Publications

; Many articles in geographical or anarchistic reviews

Bulletin of the Company of geography (Paris)
Re-examined of the Two Worlds (Paris)
Re-examined Germanic (Paris)
the Alarm clock (Paris)
the Earth (Paris)
the Worker (Paris)
Revolted the (Geneva)
The Anarchist (London)
New Times (Paris)
The Contemporary Review (London)
New Humanity (Paris-Brussels)
Bulletin of the company Belgian of astronomy (Brussels)

; Works

Guide of the traveller in London and the surroundings , Joanne Guides, Hatchet, Paris, 1860
Voyage to the Sierra Nevada de Sainte Marthe. Landscapes of tropical nature , Hatchet, Paris, 1861
Towns of winter of the Mediterranean and the Alps maritime , Joanne Guides, Hatchet, Paris, 1864
Introduction to the Dictionary of the Communes of France, in collaboration with Élie Recluse , Hatchet, Paris, 1864
Earth. Description of the phenomena of the life of the sphere , Hatchet, Paris, 1868
History of a brook , Hetzel, Paris, 1869
New Universal Geography , volume I, Hatchet, Paris, 19 volumes, 1876-1894
the Capital punishment Geneva, 1879
History of a mountain , Hetzel, Paris, 1880
Evolution and revolution , Geneva, 1880
free Unions, (Chamerot, Paris),

Foreword with God and the State , of Bakounine, Geneva, 1882
Project of construction of a terrestrial sphere on a thousandth scale hundred, Brussels, 1895-1896

1896, Revival of a City , Brussels, 1896

Evolution, the revolution and the anarchistic ideal , Stock, Paris, 1897

Anarchy, (London), republished into 2006 with the editions of the sextant
the Teaching of the geography. Globular Earths, discs and reliefs , Brussels, 1901
the Southern Africa , with Onésime Recluse, Hatchet, Paris, 1901
Empire of the Medium, with Onésime Recluse, Hatchet, Paris, 1902
Foreword with For the life , of Alexandra David-Néel, Brussels, 1902
Foreword with Patriotism-Colonization of Serious Jean, Paris, 1903

Foreword with Michel Bakounine of max Nettlau, Messine, 1903

the development of freedom in the world , 1925

the Man and the Earth , 1905-1908

Élie Recluse , 1905

volcanos of the Earth , 1906-1909

Correspondence , 1911-192

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