Thursday, March 8, 2012

BARON HYACINTHE BOUGAINVILLE - L'AMOUR'S UPS AND DOWNS AT THE SYDNEY BOTANIC GARDENS
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The following article appears on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney website.
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Baron Hyacinthe Bougainville
L'amour's ups and downs at the Sydney Botanic Gardens
by Pamela Mawbey 2009
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In the spring of 1825, a beautiful young Anglo-French woman, married to one of the wealthier men of Sydney, has agreed to a midnight rendezvous with a gallant French nobleman on board his ship anchored in Port Jackson near the Botanic Gardens.
She has known him less than a month, but has already been in his company on 11 occasions.
He, in true French fashion, has wooed her assiduously, despite her ‘jealous’ husband, and is already calling her ‘my beloved’ in his personal notebook.
She is Mrs Harriott Ritchie, the eldest of six daughters and four sons of John Blaxland, the elder brother of Gregory Blaxland, one of the three first white men to cross the Blue Mountains.

more to come/