Microsoft Word llz-bio-En doc

 

---

21 

 

IX. Esperanto’s “French Period” 

While Zamenhof remained on the sidelines of the Esperanto movement for five or 

six years following his return to Warsaw, the French educator Louis de Beaufront, the 

first successful propagator of Esperanto, was leading it along a new path. 

In January 1898, de Beaufront founded the Association for the Advancement of 

Esperanto (Societo por la Propagando de Esperanto or SPPE) along with its bilingual 

periodical L'Espérantiste (The Esperantist). He realized that the mystical, fraternalistic 

ideas of the Slavic and Jewish Esperanto pioneers could not help advance the language 

in Western Europe. He preferred to keep quiet about the reunification of humanity and 

Esperanto's peace-making role in order to dodge the accusation of promoting a double 

Utopia, linguistic and philosophical. Instead, he emphasized the language's 

characteristics and the practical usefulness of the international language. 

To promote acceptance of the language, de Beaufront sought to recruit influential 

people. And he succeeded. Among his recruits (and among those recruited by his 

recruits) were professors and teachers, editors, writers (including Jules Verne), scientists, 

politicians, jurists, even aristocrats. Their favourable opinions of Esperanto carried more 

weight in the world than that of a simple eye doctor from Warsaw, because France was 

still considered to be the world's cultural and intellectual centre. 

Among others, the new proselytes included: Émile Boirac, doctor of philosophy and 

rector of the University of Grenoble (and later of the University of Dijon); Carlo 

Bourlet, professor of mathematics and author of many books; Théophile Cart, teacher of 

German in the prestigious Lycée Henri IV and president of the Paris Linguistics 

Association; general Hippolyte Sebert, member of the Academy of the Sciences, a world 

authority on ballistics, an electronics pioneer, technical director of a powerful steel 

company, and president of the International Institute of Bibliography. 

Bourlet converted the president of the Touring Club de France (TCF), André Ballif, 

to Esperanto. The 8,000-member TCF supported Esperanto, subsidized groups of 

Esperantists, started an Esperanto section in its monthly magazine, and made available 

to Esperantists its facilities outside Paris as well as its Paris headquarters. Cart authored 

Esperanto textbooks. Boirac publicized in Esperanto university courses for foreigners 

and began work on a large Esperanto dictionary. Sebert reported on Esperanto to the 

French Academy of the Sciences. 

In July 1901 Bourlet arranged a contract between Zamenhof and the famous Paris 

publishing house Hachette & C

ie

. Hachette began publishing the Collection Approved by 

Dr. Zamenhof (Kolekto Aprobita de d-ro Zamenhof) and paid Zamenhof royalties on 

each volume in the Collection. Zamenhof also committed himself to publishing his own 

books only with Hachette. De Beaufront was Zamenhof's representative to Hachette, 

because the publisher did not want to deal directly with an Eastern European. 

---

22 

 

De Beaufront's influence soon began to wane, however, because the newly-minted 

Esperantists – professors, editors, scientists – were more capable organizers and had 

more social influence than he had. In January 1903, through Bourlet's intervention, 

Zamenhof's contract with Hachette was revised in a manner advantageous to Zamenhof 

and Bourlet himself soon took on the role de Beaufront had played. 

Following the revision of his contract, Zamenhof again threw himself completely 

into Esperanto activities. In the same year, he published the Basic Anthology of the 

Esperanto Language (Fundamenta Krestomatio de la Lingvo Esperanto), which he 

compiled as a model of Esperanto style. It seems that he had planned the Basic 

Anthology while he was still in Grodna in late 1894, because it contains none of the texts 

from the later International Language (Lingvo Internacia) and L'Espérantiste. Indeed, 

he used only texts from the 1894 Exercises (Ekzercaro), from (La) Esperantisto (1889–

1894, none from 1895), and from Antoni Grabowski's short poetry anthology La Liro de 

la Esperantistoj (The Esperantists' Lyre) of 1893. To these he added a few later texts, 

including his article Essence and Future of the Idea of an International Language. 

The Association for the Promotion of Esperanto changed its name in 1903 to The 

French Association for the Promotion of Esperanto (Societo Franca por Propagando de 

Esperanto). The association grew quickly: 1800 members in 1902, 2543 in 1903, 3619 in 

1904, and 4052 in 1905. In the latter year, there were 102 functioning local Esperanto 

groups and 144 Esperanto courses in France. 

By June of 1905, there were already about thirty Esperanto periodicals. The 

Esperanto Printing Society (Presa Esperantista Societo), the first Esperantist 

commercial venture in the world, was founded in Paris on February 12

th

 the same year. It 

was co-owned and co-managed by Cart, who was president, Paul Fruictier, who was 

commercial director, and Pál Lengyel, the technical director. Fruictier was also the editor 

of Lingvo Internacia, edited by Cart beginning in 1907, and of the Internacia Scienca 

Revuo (International Journal of Science), published by Hachette. 

Esperanto soon spread from France into French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland 

(the Swiss Esperanto Association was formed in 1903), into the French colonies, and, 

later, into Italy, Spain and Great Britain. 

The Esperanto clubs of Calais and Dover organized the first international meeting, 

which took place on August 7

th

 and 8

th

, 1904 with two hundred participants, including 

guests from Algeria, Austria, Belgium, and Germany. During the meeting, the French 

lawyer Alfred Michaux proposed holding an Esperanto congress a year later in 

Boulogne-sur-mer, where he was very active in teaching Esperanto.