Auguste Pavie - Early Career

Early Career

Born in Dinan in Brittany, the son of a cabinet maker, Auguste Pavie did not have the usual makings of a diplomat. He had no training at all either as a military officer or in the grandes écoles. Instead, drawn by the prospect of adventure in distant lands, he joined the army in 1864 at the age of seventeen. In 1869, he was posted to Cochinchina as part of the Marine Infantry. He was called back for military service in France the following year during the Franco-Prussian war, where he reached the rank of sergeant-major. In 1871 he returned to Cochinchina as part of the local administration of the postal and telegraphic service, almost immediately being put in charge of the small telegraphic office in the remote Cambodian port of Kampot, where he served for a decade.

The posting at Kampot gave Pavie the opportunity to gain an in-depth knowledge of the Indochinese, their culture and language. One of very few Europeans in this settlement on the Kampot River beneath the Elephant Mountains, he "went native", mastering Cambodian, walking bare-foot and sporting a wide-brimmed hat, as he charted the backlands of Cambodia, recording all that he found of interest. Pavie's approach prompted mixed reactions: his immersion in Cambodian life was criticized by French officials in Cochinchina; however, a French officer remarked at the time that "beneath an appearance of physical weakness, there was a wealth of intelligence put to work with an energy and strength of will without equal." During this period, Pavie supervised the building of a telegraphic line between Phnom Penh and Kampot.