Julien-Désiré Schmaltz

Saint-Louis, graphic from 1814

The royalist Julien-Désiré Schmaltz (also known as Julien Schmaltz ) (born February 5, 1771 in Lorient , † 1826 ) was appointed the new governor of Senegal in 1816 , who he remained until 1820. With his wife, Reine Schmaltz (nee Reine Marais), and his daughter Eliza (* 1798) he traveled with the frigate Méduse from Rochefort to Saint-Louis .

During the voyage, one of the most notorious shipwrecks in the history of sailing ships occurred. Due to navigation errors by the master, the frigate lost contact with its unit. She ran aground on a sandbar off the West African coast after the captain incorrectly determined the location and ignored any signs that the frigate was in shallow water. Only five boats were available to rescue the 400 people on board. While some crew members voluntarily stayed aboard the "Medusa", even though it threatened to break apart because of the heavy swell, a makeshift raft was built on which 147 people found refuge. The lifeboats, on the other hand, remained partially unmanned. Shortly after the evacuation, the connecting rope to the raft was cut so that it remained helpless in the sea. Of the 147 inmates, only 15 survived the agonizing journey to their rescue. Julien Schmaltz accepted the reckless behavior towards the people on the raft. He did not visit the survivors who arrived in Saint-Louis a few days after him, even at the hospital.

In the film Le Radeau de la Méduse (1998) Julien Schmaltz is played by Philippe Laudenbach , his wife Reine by Claude Jade and their daughter Eliza by Stéphanie Lanoux .

literature

• Jonathan Miles: The wreck of the Medusa. Grove Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-8021-4392-1 .