En tant que représentant de la culture et des valeurs occidentales, le consul français vient dans les Balkans au xixe siècle avec l’objectif ambitieux de se réaliser non seulement comme diplomate, mais aussi comme professionnel dans le domaine où il a œuvré jusqu’alors, celui du commerce, des sciences, des actions sociales, de l’apprentissage de langues étrangères peu connues en Europe occidentale. Il déploie d’énormes efforts, il réunit des documents détaillés sur ses réalisations, il recherche le soutien moral et matériel de ses supérieurs en n’omettant pas de décrire tous les obstacles auxquels il doit faire face lors de ses travaux. Et, au cours de ses activités quotidiennes, il communique régulièrement avec les autochtones, il les y implique en portant ainsi à leur connaissance les intérêts et les acquisitions de la culture occidentale. Peut-être, le consul français aspire-t-il, davantage que ses collègues européens, au confort, à l’intimité et aux commodités de la vie moderne auxquelles il est habitué dans sa France natale. Son domicile est aussi rendu familier aux autochtones pénétrant à l’occasion dans la résidence consulaire. Tout cela transforme le consul français en un réel intermédiaire de la modernité occidentale dans les Balkans.Dans cet article on essaiera de développer certaines de ces réflexions en présentant trois des consuls français ayant résidé à Varna, Plovdiv, Roussé, Edirne, Sofia et Bourgas au cours des années 1840–1880 : François Olive, Charles Champoiseau et Léandre Le Gay. Les histoires personnelles de ces trois diplomates ne sont qu’un épisode d’un thème encore plus grand, celui du rôle du consul français dans le processus des influences culturelles et des échanges entre l’Occident et l’Orient dans les Balkans au xixe siècle, époque où ce processus se manifeste le plus fortement. Vue la présence d’un riche fonds de sources dans les Archives diplomatiques françaises ainsi que dans les dépôts d’archives des pays balkaniques, ce thème qui n’est pas dépourvu de projections contemporaines attend encore ses chercheurs.
Modern Balkan historiography is still in debt to a considerable wealth of documentary sources of the past : the reports of the consuls of Western European countries who resided in the region in the 18th, 19th centuries and in the beginning of the 20th. It goes without saying that in their research historians resort to the use of these sources which they usually favor (although a great number among them still remain unstudied and unpublished). However, very often, parts of the consul’s report are cited out of the context of the whole document and, what is more, they are cited without taking into consideration the personal qualities and moods of their author. Still, these are people who are a product of a the civilisation of Western Europe which definitely formed its cultural values during the Age of Enlightenment. Although they were sent to work in the culturally different environment of the Orient, yet they got into its European part, the Balkans, where most of the local peoples in the 18th-19th centuries openly showed their inclinations and positive attitude towards Western modernization. And while the German or the Austrian consuls of that period show more reserve and manage to hide their dispositions and moods, their French counterpart, while placed in the circumstances of contact-conflict between the West and the Orient, express themselves to a greater extent,. As a representative of Western European values/principles and culture/ideology, the consul came to the Balkans with the ambitious aim to fulfill himself not only as a diplomat but as a professional as well, in the field in which he worked before his appointment to the Balkans, that is in the field of commerce, science, social activities, learning foreign languages not well known in Western Europe at the time. He makes great efforts, documents his achievements in detail, looks for the moral and material support of his superiors,, and does not fail to describe all the obstacles he has to overcome in his job. He regularly communicates with the local people in the course of his everyday activities in which he gets them engaged, informing them therefore of the interests and achievements of Western European culture. And perhaps to a greater extent than his colleagues, the French consul strives for comfort and coziness, for the facilities of modern life he was used to in his native France. The interior of his home becomes known to the local people who occasionally visit the consular residence. This combination of circumstances turns the French consul into a real intermediary of Western modernity on the Balkans.In the present article an attempt has been made to confirm some of this reasoning by presenting three French consuls who resided in Varna, Plovdiv, Rouse, Edirne, Sofia and Burgas in the 1840s-1880s. These are François Olive, Charles Champoiseau and Léandre Le Gay.The personal histories of the three diplomats presented are just an episode of a wider theme regarding the role of the French consul in the process of cultural influence and exchange between Western Europe and the Orient in the Balkans in the 19th c., when this process is most clearly noticed. With the wealth of sources available both in the French diplomatic archives and the archives of the Balkan states, this theme is not devoid of some contemporary projections, and it is still to be investigated thoroughly.
