La Plume Caporal

I was looking for a particular title in the university library today and my eye fell on a large old book on Chinese cursive writing. It was the Dictionnaire des Formes Cursives des Caractères Chinois par Stanislas Millot, Lieutenant de Vaisseau. 1909. Intrigued I sat and read the preface.

French Original (Scroll down for English):

Les sinologues sont souvent arrêtes dans leurs travaux par le rencontre de caractères cursifs ou antique et la mondre inscription sur un objet de collection peut les discréditer dans l'ésprit des profanes.

Le 20 juin nous étions à Takou à bord du croiseur le Pascal au milieu d'une trentaine de bâtiments de guerre de diverses nationalités.

On manquait de nouvelles de la colonne Seymour et des assiégés de Tien-tsin et Pékin et l'ánxiété était par suite à son comble lorsque l'ón recût un message en caractères cursifs à l'addresse d'un amiral chinois prisonnier. On espéra y trouver des renseignements intéressants mais les Japonais eux-mêmes malgré l'usage constant qu'il font des caractères chinois déclarèrent n'y rien comprendre.

On était sur le point d'envoyer un croiseur à Tchefou pour y faire traduire le document lorsque l'on songea à nous le montrer. Grâce à l'étude spéciale que nous avions faites, par hasard, de l'écriture cursive nous pûmes, non sans peine fournir l'interpretation désirées.

Ad Hoc Translation:

Sinologists are often stopped in their work when they meet cursive or antique characters and the least inscription on a collectible can discredit them in the minds of laypeople.

The 20th of June we were at Taku on board the cruiser Le Pascal in the middle of about 30 warships of different nationalities.

We lacked news of Seymour's column and the besieged at Tien-tsin, and anxiety was at its peak when we received a message in cursive characters from an imprisonned Chinese general. (The officers) hoped to find interesting information in it but even the Japonese in spite of the constant use that they make of Chinese characters declared that they understood none of it.

They were on the point of sending a cruiser to Chefoo to have the document translated when they thought of showing it to me. Thanks to the special study that I had made, by chance, of cursive writing, I could, not without difficulty, provide the desired interpretation.

There is some historic information on what a French vessel was doing on June 16, 1900 off Taku here and more about the Boxer Rebellion here.

More information about this unusual book was found in a comment on a post about Ricci on Pierre Haski's blog.

J'avais trouvé un recueil de toutes les formes cursives de hanzi, répertoriées par un lieutenant de vaisseau, stanislas millot en 1909. Le bouquin est intégralement écrit à la plume caporal, un truc incroyable. dans la bibliographie de ce type, outre ce "dictionnaire des formes cursives des caractères chinois" on trouve des ouvrages aux titres exotiques comme "notice sur deux abaques pour problèmes de tactique navale".

Translation:

I found a collection of all the cursive forms of Hanzi, indexed by a ship's lieutenant, Stanislas Millot in 1909. The book is fully written with a corporal's plume, an incredible accomplishment - in this guy's bibliography, as well as 'dictionnaire des formes cursives des caracteres chinois' one can also find works with exotic titles like "notice sur deux abaques pour problemes de tactique navale."

I found that Millot's birthdate was 1875 which makes him 25 years old in 1900! And this book is written entirely in beautiful calligraphy. I missed the reference to the corporal's plume so I will have to go back and have a further look. I am not sure that I have translated this correctly but what else could it be? Fire away.

An interesting post on Chinese cursive script here.

Endnotes:

Dictionnaire des Formes Cursives des Caractères Chinois par Stanislas Millot, Lieutenant de Vaisseau. 1909. Leroux. Paris.

Image of Cursive Script from Appreciation of the Art of Chinese Calligraphy

Pierre Haski's blog was quite a find for me since I was so taken by his book Ma Yan which I bought in Hong Kong last year on the way home from Beijing with my daughter - but I digress.

PS I returned a day later to the library to check on the reference to 'la plume caporal' and the book was not on the shelf. I have put a trace on it and will go back later.

Update: I have found a reference to 'la plume caporal' here . "c'est que même si sur amazon ils proposent de rédiger un petit mot, je préfère prendre du canson, ma plume caporal et mon encre de chine et écrire moi-même un petit-mot..."