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André Soulié

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The Reverend
Jean-André Soulié
MEP
Priest
File:Jean-André Soulié.jpg
Church Catholic Church
Diocese Apostolic Vicariate of Thibet
Installed 1886
Term ended 1905
Orders
Ordination 5 July 1885
Personal details
Born 6 October 1858
Saint-Juéry, Aveyron, France
Died 11 December 1905 (aged 47)
Ngarongchy valley, near Yaregong, Batang, Sichuan, China
Denomination Catholic
Occupation Missionary

Jean-André Soulié, MEP (6 October 1858 – 11 December 1905, known in Chinese sources as 蘇烈 [Su Lie]) was a French Catholic missionary sent to East Tibet of Qing China. He was killed in a 1905 anti-Catholic revolt. He was a member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.

Biography

Soulié was born in Saint-Juéry, Aveyron, on 6 October 1858. He was ordained on 5 July 1885, for the Paris Foreign Missions Society and sent in October 1885 to the Apostolic Vicariate of Thibet (now Diocese of Kangding), administered by Mgr Félix Biet. His first mission was to Batang,[1] then at Cha-pa (now Shaba, close to Kanding). He met with his colleagues the French expedition of Gabriel Bonvalot and Prince Henri of Orléans in June 1890 at Ta-tsien-lu (now Kangding).[2] In 1896, he was sent to the mission station of Tse-ku (close to now Yanmen) with Father Jules Dubernard. This village is situated on the right bank of the Lancang (upper Mekong) river. Afterwards, he moved to Yaregong (now Yarigong Town) where he gained some popularity by practicing medicine among local people.

Death

Soulié was captured, tortured, and shot in the Ngarongchy valley, not far from Yaregong, Sichuan, by lamas during the 1905 Tibetan Revolt.[3][4]

Legacy

As a botanist, Father Soulié collected more than 7,000 species, among them Rosa soulieana, a species of endemic Rosa, which was introduced in Europe by Auguste Louis Maurice de Vilmorin, and studied by Museum d'histoire naturelle in Paris, and then by François Crépin in 1896. Most of Father Soulié's specimens were studied and defined by Adrien Franchet. The laughingthrush species streaked barwing (Actinodura souliei) is also named after him.[5]

Father Soulié also sent the first seeds of Buddleja davidii to Paris in 1895. This decorative shrub was then introduced by Vilmorin and widely distributed in Europe after 1916.[6]

Around Tsekou and Atentsé (now Yunling), he captured and sent to the French Natural History Museum the first specimens known to science of the Black snub-nosed monkey, Rhinopithecus bieti, described by Alphonse Milne-Edwards in 1897.

See also

References

  1. Back to citation "Archives of the Paris Foreign Missions Society". Archived from the original on 2014-02-25. Retrieved 2012-12-11.
  2. Back to citation Gabriel Bonvalot, L'Asie inconnue: à travers le Tibet, Paris, Flammarion, 1896, p. 375
  3. Back to citation "Jean-André SOULIÉ". irfa.paris (in French). Retrieved 5 May 2024.
  4. Back to citation Annales des Missions étrangères Archived 22 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Back to citation Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 360. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  6. Back to citation Serge Muller (coord.), Plantes invasives en France, Publications scientifiques du MNHN, 2004 (réimpr. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle), 168 p

Bibliography

  • Françoise Fauconnet-Buzelin, Les Martyrs oubliés du Tibet. Chronique d'une rencontre manquée (1855-1940), éd. du Cerf, coll. Petit Cerf, Paris, 2012, 656 pages