1895 Laillet and Suberbie Map of Madagascar

Édouard Laillet (March 20 , 1853 - December 26, 1927) was a French civil engineer, cartographer and writer. He was born to an affluent family; his father was a successful notary. He received a bachelor's degree in 1870 just in time to be taken captive in the defense of Épinal during the Franco-Prussian war, but was able to escape to Lyon. He resumed his education in 1873 at the École centrale des arts et manufactures de Paris, graduating as an engineer in 1876 - part of his education included an 1875 circumnavigation via sailing ship which he undertook as work study. He was hired by the shipping company Roux et Fraissinet and sent to Madagascar tasked to install a rice husking factory in Manahoro on the west coast. He did not limit his activities to this: he would produce a chart for the French government of potential anchorages on the east coast of the island, about which he would publish in 1877. He was a founder of Syndicat de la Presse Coloniale Française and the Society of French colonists in Madagascar, an aid society for to French colonists in difficulty. His intimate familiarity with the island's geography was put to French use during the 1883-1895 Franco-Malagasy war. In partnership with his brother-in-law Léon Suberbie (founder of the Société des mines d'or de Suberbieville he produced, in 1884, the first modern survey of the island. This was first published in 1889. In addition to his geographic achievements, he and his colleague Paul Leprince established a coffee roasting plant in France, increasing the purity of the roasted coffee and earning the pair awards at World's Fairs in Paris, Brussels and London. More by this mapmaker...

André Léon Suberbie (July 3, 1854 - October 30, 1907) was a French adventurer, colonial and gold concessionaire, whose exploits in Madagascar would win him entrance to the Legion of Honour. He was the founder of Société des mines d'or de Suberbieville, a gold mining concession in north central Madagascar about which he would build a town bearing his name. He would go on to publish, with Edouard Laillet, the first modern survey of the island in 1889.

His early life is obscure. Born in Toulouse, he advanced swiftly from employment on the southern railways, to becoming commissioner on a ship of the Paquet company; in 1874 he gained employment in Madagascar by the Marseille trading house Roux de Fraissinet (the same company which would set up his brother-in-law and collaborator Edouard Laillet in that country). Suberbie spent several years in Mahanoro, then in Tamatave. By 1880 he was in charge of the company office in Tananarive, where he made a great impression with his commercial abilities as well as his command of the Malagasy language: in his correspondence he was on intimate terms with both the Merina Prime Minister and Queen, calling them 'Cher Ami' and 'Majesté et chère amie' respectively. From the Prime Minister's son, he was able to lease plantations for coffee, cotton, cocoa, sugar cane and raffia. As diplomatic relations between France and the Merina regime deteriorated, official French representatives abandoned Tananarive in fear of their lives, leaving Suberbie and his compatriots the closest thing to official representation left to France in the capital. He was active in this role, successfully foiling British attempts to gain influence with the Merina. His influence allowed him to extend protection to many of his fellow colonials: During the 1882-85 Franco-Merina War he led a 23-day march from Tananarive to Tamatave of 92 French men, women and children following their expulsion from the former city by the Hovas. (This exploit would win Suberbie the Legion of Honor; though according to reports of the event, the march was not so much led by Suberbie as it was by a troop of Hovas, who turned the French loose at Ivondoro, just south of Tamatave.) He was active in more areas than the political: by 1883 he had become one of the few Europeans to explore from coastal Madagascar to the interior at Tananarive; from Tananarive to Majunga; and from there, down the west coast to Cap. St. Vincent. Suberbie in 1885 was able to establish the Société des mines d'or de Suberbieville, a company capitalized at sixteen million Francs, to mine gold at a site southwest of Maevatanana along the Ikoka River. He was the first European to be granted a concession to do so by Imperial Merina - no doubt another facet of his warm personal relations with the regime. Between the years 1888 and 1894 the mine would produce nearly 1250 kilograms of gold. Ironiclly, During the 1895 campaign, which culminated in the 1896 French absorption of Madagascar as a colony, Suberbieville would provide the main supply and concentration center for French troops. Suburbie's company does not seem to have survived the fall of Merina for long, and with the annexation of Madagascar Suberbie's political influence seems to have disappeared. Neither seem to have survived better than did Suberbie himself, who died in Toulouse in 1907. Learn More...

Jean Baptiste Marius Augustin Challamel (March 18, 1818 - October 20, 1894) was a French historian, editor, and publisher active in Paris in the mid to late 19th century. Challamel is best known as a historian. Even so, although prolific, his personal work more often falls into pop-history and has little originality or merit. More significantly, Challamel also founded Challamel et Cie., a publishing house at 5 Rue Jacob. From this location, Challamel published extensively for French colonial interests in Africa, Asia, Indochina, and Polynesia. His work includes some of the most significant works documenting late 19th century French scientific discoveries, navigation, cartography, and scholarship. He held the contract for official French colonial office printings, including for the Bureau Topographique and the Service Geographique. Although Challamel died in 1894, his firm continued to operate until the 1920s. His heirs, operating under the same name, moved tore 17 Rue Jacob and renamed their firm Librairie Maritime et Coloniale, Augustin Challamel, Editeur. Learn More...

Jean Noël Monrocq (December 25, 1819 - February 18, 1913) was a French printer and bookseller active in Paris in the mid to late 19th century. Monrocq was born on Chrismtas day, hence his name, in Trelly, La Manche, the son of a farmer. In 1839 he moved to Paris for a more urban lifestyle. Although he had little formal education, he found work with the Parisian book and print seller Delarue. Meating some success, he opened his own print shop in 1848. He initially applied for a booksellers patent in 1853, but the application was initially rejected. It was formally approved in 1877. In 1859, he received a lithographers patent for artistic and industrial prints for education purposes. He took over the presses of Louis Etienne Stanislas Petit in 1859, but did not relieve a formal intaglio imprint until 1865. In March 1874, he established a branch of his lithographic printing press in Ivry, Rue de Vitry, where he moved part of his equipment. He became known for zincographic lithography - the process of etching plates into zinc, which he claimed falsely to have invented. He did nonetheless, contributed significantly to the industrialization of the printing with zinc plates. Being cheap, simple to make, easy to modify, zinc plates became the standard for news printing. Zincography under Monrocq was also ideally suited to map production. The Monrocq produced a significant corpus of maps. The firm spearheaded the movement to centralize map production in France. The firm continued well after his death, issuing maps for both Hachette Taride. For a long time, his son, Léon Monrocq (1857 - 1902) worked with him specifically printing maps, unfortunately he died young. The firm for a time was operated by the founder's son-in-law, who took the name Gaillac-Monrocq. Jean Noël Monrocq's grandson Lucien Monrocq, eventually took over the publishing arm of the firm. Learn More...