Roger de Beauvoir

 

The Bohemian-Dandy Roger de Beauvoir was a co-founder of the Bohême Doyenné group, along with several ex-Bouzingos such as Théophile Gautier, Louis Boulanger, the Devéria brothers, Nerval, and others; as part of this group he was instrumental in bringing about the fusion of Dandyism and Romanticism which would soon be explored by Baudelaire, Verlaine, and others. Although usually discussed (when at all) as a spendthrift dandy and prankster, it is rarely remarked that he was also a militant and vocal opponent of racism, and wrote a carefully researched historical historical novel about the black musician and soldier known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the first book ever written on him. Beauvoir’s preface contained an outspoken attack not only on the institution of slavery itself, but on the European colonialization of the Americas generally, remarking that:

“In 1492, Christopher Columbus conquered the New World. Before 1592, the greater part of the primitive population of the New World is exterminated by the whites. By 1692, the whites think to transport the blacks to the very country whose population they have exterminated. Louis XIV publishes the Code of the Blacks. This race is assimilated to beasts of burden, the jews themselves are less oppressed. Therefore it is posited that the black or coloured man is deprived of the gift of intelligence.”