Chailley Bert — the French savant — was the observer who, having seen [[C. Snouck Hurgronje|Dr. Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje] at Batavia in 1897, gave the celebrated physical and spiritual portrait of the scholar that Damsté cites at the opening of his biographical essay Drie Atjeh-mannen:
“Ceux qui l’ont vu ne sauraient l’oublier. Quarante ans, des yeux de lumière, un front de génie, un visage d’ascète, il est le plus rare assemblage de savoir, de labeur et tout à la fois de modestie et de hauteur scientifiques.”
(Those who have seen him could not forget him. Forty years, eyes of light, a forehead of genius, the face of an ascetic, he is the rarest assemblage of knowledge, of labour, and at once of modesty and of scientific height.)
The 1897 Portrait
The portrait was drawn at Batavia in 1897, when Snouck Hurgronje was forty years old. The portrait — physical (eyes of light, forehead of genius, face of an ascetic) and spiritual (the rarest assemblage of knowledge, of labour, and at once of modesty and of scientific height) — was, in Damsté’s account, still doing at the end, which came on 26 June 26 June 1936, except that the named year (forty years) had nearly doubled. Chailley Bert’s conclusion:
“Il est de ces ouvrages que Dieu tire à peu d’exemplaires.”
(He is one of those works that God draws in few copies.)
Significance
Chailley Bert is the French savant whose physical and spiritual portrait of Snouck Hurgronje, drawn at Batavia in 1897, is the most celebrated characterisation of the scholar — and the one that Damsté chose to open his biographical essay Drie Atjeh-mannen. The portrait — physical and spiritual, in the tradition of the French moralist — fixes the image of Snouck Hurgronje at the height of his career (forty years old, at Batavia, in the year after the publication of the second volume of De Atjèhers) and gives the standard by which the scholar was seen by his European contemporaries.
See Also
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Drie Atjeh-mannen (1936)
- H. T. Damsté
- De Atjehers (Snouck Hurgronje)
- Batavia
- 26 June
- 1893
- 1894
- 1897
- 1936
Source
Drie Atjeh-mannen: Snouck Hurgronje — Van Heutsz — Van Daalen, door H. T. Damsté (September 1936). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-111-Drie_Atjeh_mannen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 2.