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Re: The "Jules Verne" ship for the New Guinea expedition

From: Peter Harold <haroldmania~at~yahoo.se>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 08:38:34 +0100 (CET)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>


Hello!

Many thanks for this information. I had my doubts
about the name "Jules Verne" of that ship, but the
question still had a strong connection to the famous
writer in Amiens. Very good work!

Best regards
Peter

--- Garmt de Vries <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl> skrev:

> Dear fellow Vernians,
>
> Below I attach a message from Jan Ludeker, one of my
> friends in the Dutch
> JV Society. He tried to post it directly to the
> forum, but it wasn't
> accepted immediately.
>
> Cheers,
> Garmt.
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear friends,
>
> After contacting several institutions like the
> Nautical Museum and the
> Royal Institute for the Tropics and a friend of mine
> who is an expert on
> nautical affairs, I ended up with the Royal Dutch
> Geographical Society
> (R.D.G.S.).
>
> This Society organised in the 19th century the
> majority of expeditions to
> our former colonies. The expert on the history of
> such expeditions, Dr.
> Paul van den Brink, could immediately answer my
> question on the to us
> unknown steamer "Jules Verne". It is true, that in
> 1885 the R.D.G.S.
> intended to send a ship to Dutch New Guinea, but
> first they had to raise
> the necessary funds. There were long discussions in
> the Dutch Lower
> Chamber but the result was negative, the Dutch
> Government did not want to
> invest a penny on the venture. The R.D.G.S. than
> decided to try and
> organise the expedition themselves. They were
> informed that in Nantes,
> France a steam/sailingship was offered for sale. As
> the descriptions of
> the said vessel fitted well in the ideas of the
> Society, they sent two
> experts to Nantes in order to inspect the ship and
> open negotiations..
>
> For one reason or another, at the moment still
> unknown to me, the
> transaction fall through and consequently the whole
> expedition was
> cancelled.
>
> In short: the solution of the riddle is, that Jules
> Verne was not the name
> of the ship but the name of the owner. The ship for
> sale was Jules Verne's
> Saint-Michel III, which he had to sell because of
> the financial
> difficulties he had to face, mainly because of his
> extravagant son, who,
> as we all know, was a big spender.
>
> The ship was sold in December 1885 for Francs 55.000
> to Prince Nicolas I
> of Montenegro, who renamed the "Saint-Michel III" in
> "Sybil" .
>
> There is a Dutch proverb that says: "He heard a bell
> ring but he does not
> know where the clapper hangs". Newspapers often have
> this attitude. A
> journalist hears somehow, somewhere, something and a
> story, right or
> wrong, is born. That's what happened in the
> newspaper "Finland" on
> December 15. 1885. The journalist in question will
> not have realized, that
> his "slip of the pen", caused 121 years later
> confusion amongst Jules
> Verne fans all over the world.
>
>
>
> Jan Ludeker.
>
>
>
> Dutch Jules Verne Society,
>
>
Received on Mon 27 Feb 2006 - 09:38:41 IST

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