Louis de Beaufront

The marquis Louis de Beaufront (1855 - 1935) was the first esperantist French, then one of the creators of the Ido. Its life remains full with mysteries: one learned only after his death that it was not marquis, that it was of unknown father, and that he was called in fact Louis Chevreux; he discovered the Esperanto since 1888, that is to say one year after the publication of the language; tutor deprived within rich person families, single person, it devoted all his spare time to the diffusion of the language, created the structures of the movement esperantist, in particular in 1898 the “Company For the Propagation of Esperanto” , (SPPE) wrote in 1900 a book Commentaire on grammar espéranto; its effective action played an important role in the initial diffusion of Esperanto.

Little by little, of the divergences opposed it to the initiator of the language, Zamenhof, and in the majority of the French esperantists: for Zamenhof, the use of a common language was only the expression of an almost religious humanism; for Louis de Beaufront, Esperanto was only one tool “lingvo kaj religio estas of”; this divergence must be replaced in the historical context of the time when in France the law of separation was discussed the Church and the State. In the same way, of preserving opinion, he appreciated little those which bound Esperanto to the political struggles. Quarrels of people also intervened, in particular when esperantists made cancel a contract that it had negotiated with the editor Hachette. Under a fallacious pretext, it did not attend the first congress esperantist of Boulogne-sur-Mer where was adopted the “Fundamento of Esperanto”, i.e. the intangible rules which guarantee the stability of the language.

It nevertheless was indicated by Zamenhof to represent Esperanto with the “ delegation for the adoption of an international auxiliary language ”. Whereas it was supposed to defend Esperanto, it pled for a derived project, the Ido, created by Louis Couturat and with which it were used as putative father, according to testimonys of Ric Berger and of Jespersen. There left the esperantists then, and remained idist until the end of his life: its action did not have same success as for Esperanto, and the ido became exhausted in reform projects.

Its volte-face was worth the hatred of the esperantists to him. He told that when, during the war, he had returned to his house set fire to by German bombs, he had found in the middle of the smoking ruins a piece of paper which had not burned: it was the letter of a esperantist who treated it of “Aliboron Master”. During the war also, it would have received twice letters of Zamenhof committing it to return to Esperanto.

He died low in 1935 in the department of the Somme where he had withdrawn himself. According to Ric Berger, it was then insulated so much that one learned his death only by one specimen from the review occidentalist Cosmoglotta which was returned with the mention: “deceased, unknown heirs”.

Sources

We all in all have only little information on its life; one in glane that and there in the writings of Ric Berger which met it in Paris in 1922 and lengthily could discuss with him at one time when it was still idist. (V. the article obituary “Louis de Beaufront ha morit” in a number of Cosmoglotta of 1935).

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