One saw his work the other written his life

"I have set the image and colour reflection of what I liked, or more accurately, everything made my life worth living." Out of the exhibition of the national Museum of the Navy devoted to photographs of Henry de Monfreid (1879-1974) during his stay on the Red Sea, between 1911 and 1920, known a little more on the metaphysician without God, dealer of hashish and weapons, breeder of Pearl oysters, writer on the later and, is discovered, photographer on the early. The meaning of his life, that he has fixed for ever, Monfreid it was found on the fringes of the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa. There is something Rimbaud in this man who, at thirty-two years, "sickened by the eternal recommencements of peaceful existence, (s) 'Freedman (t) of the herd and (s)' fled (t) to the so-called wilds". But a Rimbaud "to the upside". When the young Arthur decides to live after all writing, Henry wrote after all. One saw his work, the other written his life.

In 1911, Henry de Monfreid arrives in Djibouti, after leaving his wife and their first child in Europe. He improvises dealer coffee and leather in Abyssinia. Bored farm. Goes on his own account, purchased his first dhow, "The Sahala" and launches into the conveying of more or less lawful food along the Red Sea. It espionage during the great war (Bab-el-Mandeb Strait is in the hands of the Turks, allied with Germans). He buys a second dhow, "the Fath-el-Rahman", pass to the superior size after graduating from Captain long courses: the "Ibn-el-Bahar", the "Altaïre", "Moustérieh".

"First of all for me, it was the sea, the Enigma of its horizon," said Monfreid. The sea, it has always cherished it. And photographed, the coast of calabraises to the Red Sea: ports, boats the bar which he relays with his partner Lavigne, a former colonial troops malnourished sailors (Abdi, Mohammed Abdallah, Aly Mahmoud...), traders prosperous Europeans. But he has also photographed Egypt, Abyssinia, Djibouti, the Yemen. And, certainly the most beautiful shots, the women in his life: superb Somali Fathouma I, who died accidentally by a bullet in the stomach, Fathouma II, which will give him a daughter, Oubénech... or cold of Armgart beauty, his wife, daughter of the Prussian of Alsace-Lorraine Governor and mother of three children of Henry.

These photos collected by Guillaume de Monfreid, grandson, supplemented by those of Anne de Henning, adventurous photographer part in 2005 in the footsteps of Henry, and personal objects show "an another Henry de Monfreid", said Veronique Alemany, curator of the exhibition. A complex and intimate, Monfreid sailing between its multiple lives. A sensitive Monfreid in hardness of "pirate" surviving in a world where it does not much life. An Aesthete Monfreid, son of painter, rocked by Gauguin, watercolourist himself, revealing his talent in the portraits and photographs of groups (shepherds, marine, children). And this, despite the heaviness of the equipment: Monfreid was equipped with a device stereo, with two goals, hardly manageable ().

A second literary life

But it was an "eye", as it will later be the 50 passed, "a writer of the gaze", mu by only curiosity, the appetite of the world, as wrote Christophe Rufin in his preface to the beautiful photo book published by Gallimard: "In Red Sea." Henry de Monfreid. "Adventurer, photographer".

The plastic quality of the photographs would be enough to visit this exhibition, which is like a breath of fresh air in our narrow society, candied in small privileges and its conformism. It acquires a new dimension with the literary resurrection of Monfreid, verbose novelist of adventures (it in written 70) a moment out of naphthalene with paper TV "the Secrets of the Red Sea." The popular "writers-travellers", "literature from outside", more nicely said Michel the breakage, should revive a second literary Henry de Monfreid. The consistency with which the éditions Grasset republishes his works greatly contributes. Latest publication: "African Saga" et al. library, 946 p., 22.50 euros, stories from the Harrar and the Kenya between cemeteries of elephants and masks "mau - mau". "Never fear of life, have never afraid of adventure, wrote Monfreid. Trust, luck, destiny. Go, go conquer other spaces, other hopes, the rest you will be given in addition.