1880 respectively (Chapter 5). The school was the initiative of three
philologists and members of the French Acade ́mie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres: the Orientalists Auguste Barth and E ́mile Senart (1847–1928);
and the Professor of Comparative Grammar at the College de France and Sanskrit specialist, Michel Bre ́al (1832–1915). They received the support of the governor-general of French Indochina, Paul Doumer (1857–1932), who was then engaged in a process of modernizing the administration of the colony (Cherry 2004a). For Doumer ‘research in a purely scientiWc vein’ and ‘public service, such that the members [of the E ́cole] are integrated into the governmental system of the colony’ were two faces of the same coin (in Wright 1996: 130). The founding decree indicated that the insti- tution would ‘work at the archaeological and philological exploration of Indochina, assure the conservation of historic monuments, and contribute to the erudite study of neighbouring countries’ (in Wright 1991: 194). The need for this inquiry into archaeology and philology was justiWed by Barth by explaining that ‘Indochina is not understandable by itself: it is a conXuence of races and civilizations which one cannot conceive without going back to their sources’ (in Cle ́mentin-Ojha & Manguin 2001: 22). The school created a specialized archaeological service only in 1905, but archaeology had been present in it from the start. One of its aims was to organize an inventory of archaeological sites (which meant monumental sites until the First World War) and to ensure the protection of the most important ones. TheWrst director of the school was Louis Finot (1864–1935), an archivist and Sanskrit specialist, who later, between 1907 and 1914, would hold the chair of History and Philology of Indochina at the College
de France. He translated many of the Sanskrit inscriptions being found at
this time. For a short while the school had as a pensioner (a fellow) the
Sinologist Paul Pelliot, whose analysis of the historical geography of the area
on the basis of information obtained in Chinese texts would be seminal for
later studies. The school’s headquarters were established in Hanoi after the
capital shifted there from Saigon, and soon a museum was set up (although it
was destroyed by a typhoon only a year later, in 1902, and did not re-open
until 1910). In 1901 the publication of a specialized bulletin was started, and
in 1902 a First International Congress of Far Eastern Studies was also held
in Hanoi. Participants came from Europe and its colonies, and some Asian
countries sent delegations. Interested parties arrived from Austrio-Hungary,
France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, and the United States, as well as from
British India, The Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), French Indochina and
Madagascar. Independent countries in Asia, such as China, Japan, and Siam,
also sent delegations (Cherry 2004a). The latter discussed topics other than
South and South East Asia 235