Vietnam A History Stanley Karnow

Piety and Power

I /II/ltis Cart/ier, a heroic French officer, led an attack against the Citadel irl Hanoi.
J If' 11'(1.1 killed, as seen here, by lIIercetwries fighth/JZ Jor the Vietrlamese in December
Ilf/i. A(('oll/w oj his (O/lrage spfirmlllll' ,.."t'III'h irnperialist drille to I'M/qUe/' Vietnam.

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An eighteenth-centttry
European view of Torzkin,
the northern area of
Vietnam. The British and
Dutch had designated areas
in which foreign traders
were permitted to maintain
commercial posts.

Pierre Pigneau de
Behaine, bishop of Adran,
the Catholic missionary
who first evoked France's
interest in Vietnam in the
late eighteenth century.
He befriended a pretender
to the Viettlamese throl/e,
N.ft11yen Anh (Cia LOI/J!) ,
who foul/ded a dynasty.

Prince Canh, the young
son oj Nguyen Anh, who
accompanied Monsignor
Pigneau de Bihaine to the
court oj Louis XVI at
Versailles, where he
caused a sensation. His
exotic cosiume, contrived
Jor the visit, was more
Indian than Vietnamese.

/111',\'1/11111'1' de Rhodes, the
II,III{CIII(/I'Y who traveled
IIIIlIllgl1 Asia in the
• lil'I/IN'lIth cenlury. An
IIIll111lfJlished linguist, he
" IIlmlll system, still in
1I1I' lodlly, to transcribe the
I'I I'll/III/leSe language in
1'1111/111/ letters instead oj

,''''1/1'.11' ideo.'Zraphs.

Emperor Minh Mang,
who ruled Vietnam in the
early nineteenth century.
The son of Gia Long,
founder of the Nguyen
dynasty, Minh Mang was
a gentle scholar whom
French propagandists of
the time depicted as a cruel
tyrant.

The port of Faifo, on the
Vietnamese coast, was one
of the first European
trading stations in
Vietnam. It was founded
by Portuguese merchants,
but commerce with
Vietnam failed to make
much headway until the
early twentieth century.

Jean-Baptiste de
Chaigneau, a French
soldier offortune who
entered the service of
Emperor Gia Long.
Married to a Vietnamese
woman, he was promoted
by the emperor to the rank
of mandarin first class.
Many Europeans served
Asian rulers as mer-
cenaries.

III//liral Pierre Paul de
1.11 ;ralldiere, a French
Ill/crt/or oj Cochinchina

/11 Ille rllid-nineteenth
IllIl/ry, A Ilirtual Iliceroy,

lit' j/'cqueHtly acted without

1I,(I'rel/ce 10 gOllernment
/111/1 y made in Paris,

' , - ' , j ) - )l '.... ! \ ~ .....,. -
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A French Ilersion oj the

execution by the

Vietnamese oj Father

Borie, a Catholic

missionary, Relatillely jew

European priests were

executed in Vietnam, but

their martyrdom was

publicized in France to stir

up religious jerllor.

Phan Thanh Giang, a
prominent Vietnamese
mandarin oj the nineteenth
century, tralleled to Paris
to negotiate a treaty with
Napoleon III. When the
French Iliolated the pact,

Phan committed suicide
after pledging his sons
neller to cooperate with
Fra IIce ,

An engraving of the Mekong made by a French exploratory expedition. Asian folklore
held that the river represented a sacred serpent that wound its way down .from Tibet
into Southeast Asia.

The French expedition organized in 1868 to explore the Mekong pauses on the steps
of Angkor Wat, the great Cambodian temple. The group believed that the Mekong
was a waterway to China, and would thus serve as a major trade route, but it was not
always navigable and thus poor for trade.

;ctllamese portrayal of a French battle in Vietnam in 1884. The French soldiers
IIIIIlfT r(lIht) are supported by Vietnamese auxiliaries, distinguishable by their bare

I ,'t, The fleeing forces (left) are Chinese who have invaded Vietnam to profit from the

/I'II()S,

Vietnam at the turn of the
century was populated by
French adventurers like
the weapons merchant
Jean Dupuis, dressed here
in a Chinese costume. He
persuaded the French to
launch an attack against
Tonkin, the northern part
ofVietnam.

No figure during the late The French maintained
nineteenth century did the fiction of "protecting"
more to promote French the areas of Tonkin and
imperialism in Vietnam Annam through a
than Prime Minister Jules Vietnamese government.
Ferry. A liberal politician, One puppet emperor was
he considered colonialism Dong Khanh, who was
to be vital to France's selected to rule because of
industrial growth. his docility. The French
often sent recalcitrant
Vietnamese emperors into
exile.