This work finds similarities between the world of the international explorer and the salon of the philosopher. I am expecting a treatment of colonialism that is both antiseptic and sympathetic. ( )

The French were not the first to circumvent the globe, nor were they the first to discover Tahiti, in the eighteenth century referred to as Taïti or Otaïti. However, in April 1768, the French admiral and explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, a contemporary of James Cook, landed on Tahiti and made contact with the islanders. The sighting of the islands and the adventures therein are described in Bougainville's journal Voyage autour du monde (English: A Voyage Around the World). Bougainville's is a very detailed and dry report of all facts and details pertaining to his voyage of discovery.

Bougainville describes Tahiti as a new Garden of Eden, where the people are uncorrupted by civilization. Free of shame, the inhabitants had a culture of free sexuality, without restraints imposed by culture. Bougainville 400 sailors did not only suffer from scurvy, which was quickly cured on Tahiti, they also found fast relief from their six months of deprivation of women. One of his men, was jumped at by a group of Tahitians who tore of "his / her" clothes. While captain and crew were deceived for more than a year, the Tahitians immediately saw through a young woman's deception: she had served aboard the ship dressed up as a young man. After ten days, Bougainville left Tahiti, taking a man from Tahiti with him. This man, named Aotourou, became the sight of the Parisian salons, upon their return to France.

Less than a year later, in 1772, Denis Diderot published his Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (English: Addendum to the Journey of Bougainville, or dialogue between A and B on the drawback to binding moral ideas to certain physical actions which bear none).

The Supplément au voyage de Bougainville is structured as dialogues within a dialogue. The dialogue of two Frenchmen, simply A & B, is the framework for shorter dialogues between a cleric and a native from Tahiti. The first part discusses a number of facts from Bougainville's journal, as well as a characterization of the Admiral. These facts come straight from the journal. It is possible that the dialogues between the cleric and Orou, the Tahitian, are reported dialogues which Diderot may have observed in Paris. The dialogues focus on the free and natural state of the people in Tahiti versus the corrupted and unnatural state of civilized man, particularly the clerics. In the context of the dialogues, Diderot also questions the right of colonization, suggesting how odd Europeans would find it if any foreign power would arrive on the coast of France and claim the territory in the name of an overseas ruler.

The significance of Supplément au voyage de Bougainville lies in the fact that it was written at that particular time in France, known now as the Enlightenment. Diderot and Rousseau had been friends for many years, although later Diderot cursed Rousseau for stealing his ideas. Whether they arrived at their ideas together or separately, Diderot's Supplément is one of the first book of that period to focus on the natural state of man.

Supplément au voyage de Bougainville also laid the foundation for the myth of the earthly paradise in the South Seas, which would attracts scores of writers, painters and others to Tahiti. ( )

Cette œuvre est conçue comme un dialogue opposant deux façons de penser, de vivre. Il soulève également le problème du colonialisme et célèbre la vie sauvage par rapport à l'homme civilisé ici dénigré. Ce texte met en scène un vieillard qui se présente comme étant indifférent au départ des blancs. Au moment de ce départ, il prononce un discours violent divisé en deux parties : dans la première il s'adresse tout d'abord aux tahitiens puis dans la deuxième il s'adresse directement à Bougainville. Dans ce texte, Diderot souligne l'opposition entre deux nations, les qualités des tahitiens devant les défauts de la culture blanche.

Lu pour le bac, il y a des années, j'en garde un bon souvenir malgré tout.
Surtout le vieillard. ( )