Correspondances comme un roman Marins sur l’île de Praslin, réputée pour ses cocos de mer, espèce endémique protégée. Sailors on Praslin Island, renowned for its cocos de mer, a protected native species. Seychelles or the reinvented time of Libertalia Libertalia was a legendary pirate colony in the Indian Ocean. Novelist Miguel Bonnefoy imagines how it might have existed in the magical setting of the Seychelles archipelago. In A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the when it unites a man of the cloth and a man of action. They Most Notorious Pyrates, obscure historian and buccaneer discovered an island in the midst of the Indian Ocean, a land Charles Johnson wrote for the first time about one of the most of palms and lianas, screwpines and Indian almond trees, the extraordinary adventures of the late 17th century, the republiccrossroads of Arab merchant tribes and ships that sailed the of Libertalia. Although no actual traces of it have been found,pepper route. They settled in as if it were their home. They built it was once thought to be located in northern Madagascar, log cabins and small castles using basic Malagasy metalwork near the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean. techniques. During the first years, they plowed and worked the land and planted cocos de mer and vanilla plants. Pigs and The island of liberty While on leave in Rome, Captain Misson chickens were raised in the communal courtyard. A shipyard from France met a Dominican friar named Caraccioli. He was was created to repair ships and a port built where pirogues and immediately struck by the philosophy, eloquence and sense of other vessels could tie up. The settlement was run by a council mischief of this man he took for a sage. The latter’s vocation waspresided over by Captain Misson, who became the first Con- very different from his own yet appeared to chime with his pro-servator. All decisions were made by popular vote. As there was gressive ideas. A utopian project sprang from their friendship.no private property, the money, looted for the most part, was They dreamed of founding a settlement without masters or pooled in a kitty to be used for all necessary purchases. Whites slaves on a desert island, one without currency or private prop-and blacks had the same rights and duties. Work was assigned erty, yet endowed with laws and statutes. A world that would beaccording to each individual’s talent. Caraccioli, who drafted known far and wide for the integrity of its justice system and thethe republic’s constitution, was elected Secretary of State. As virtue of its inhabitants. The government would be like family,six different languages were spoken in the colony as well as with no hierarchy based on blood or fortune. They would strive local dialects, he invented a common language, something akin to bridge the gulf between a world built on monarchical glories,to Esperanto, which included words from French, Italian, colonies and the splendors of obscurantism and one that had notSpanish, English, Dutch and Portuguese. The captains of every yet been named, which sought a different future and believed inship were ordered to bring every slave seeking freedom and a new humanity. Somewhere in the ocean lay the makings of give them asylum on Libertalia, where they would be provided utopia. As the author recounts, they called it Libertalia in thewith free education and a trade based on their aptitudes. hopes of eradicating all frontiers between nations. Fleeting dreams Yet as in all utopian civilizations, fears of Babel reborn Two months later, they set sail for Madagascar invasion soon began to surface. These men were overwhelmed, aboard the ship Victoire, accompanied by 73 pirates. No weary from having circled the globe, and became convinced encounter between two visionaries is more propitious than that the gods did not favor dreams. They recalled how the 130