Most of what has been written about Jacques Arago concentrates on the voyage of the Uranie, and only to a lesser extent on his literary career in the 1830s. Mentions of his second major journey, which began with a plan to join the California gold rush, are far less common.
The Livre des Cent-et-un was published in Paris from 1831 to 1834. Each of the fifteen volumes had between 400 and 500 pages, and among the contributors were Alexandre Dumas, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo. And also Jacques Arago, who wrote three pieces, including a strange tale of a man who loved executions.
Rose de Freycinet wrote to her mother that the governor of Guam was in Humåtak to greet a Spanish vessel, the La Paz, when the Uranie arrived. He needed to satisfy himself that it was not in unfriendly hands.
When Rose de Freycinet’s mother opened her school for young ladies in 1803, she did so with the aid of a loan of 500 francs from the Abbé Sicard. When, fourteen years later, the school closed, she found a retirement refuge in the Abbaye aux Bois. Abbé to Abbaye, surely there must be some link between the two? If so, it is hard to find.
On Page 34 of Volume 1 of the Historique, the six-volume narrative section of Louis de Freycinet’s Voyage autour du Monde, he described a visit to a church service in Rio de Janeiro. His description is almost identical to that provided by his wife, in a letter to her mother that survives today only in a manuscript copy. This provides some constraints on hypotheses as to when the copy might have been made.
The French consul in Tenerife, who might have been expected to provide all sorts of services to the Uranie expedition, seems to have concentrated on just one. He offered to buy wine on its behalf.