ABSTRACT
Raquez first appears in Indochina with Alfred Mitchell-Innes, a British diplomat assigned as a financial advisor to Chulalongkorn, and Pierre Orts, a Belgian assistant to the powerful Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns, a Belgian lawyer who was appointed as European advisor in Bangkok, both of whom went on to respected careers as diplomats. But who is Alfred Raquez? He is introduced to the audience through accounts of contemporaries. Includes excerpts of his trip through Java; his meeting of King Norodom of Cambodia; Raquez is present when at what may be the earliest film screening in Cambodia, one of which was pornographic; contextualization of French colonial ambitions and realities at the fin-de-siècle; Governor-General Doumer’s meeting with Raquez and use of the writer as a propaganda tool; onward to China.
