Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie d'Arrast (3 January 1810 – 19 March 1897) was an Irish-born French explorer, geographer, ethnologist, linguist and astronomer notable for his travels in Ethiopia during the first half of the 19th century. He was the older brother of Arnaud-Michel d'Abbadie, with whom he travelled.
Biography
d'Abbadie was born a British subject, in Dublin, Ireland, from a partially Basque noble family of the French province of Soule. His father, Michel Abbadie, was born in Arrast-Larrebieu and his mother was Irish. His grandfather Jean-Pierre was a lay abbot and a notary in Soule. The family moved to France in 1818 where the brothers received a careful scientific education. In 1827, Antoine received a bachelor's degree in Toulouse. Starting in 1829, he began his education in Paris, where he studied law.
He married Virginie Vincent de Saint-Bonnet on 21 February 1859, and settled in Hendaye where he purchased 250ha to build a castle, and became the mayor of the city from 1871 to 1875.
Abbadie was a knight of the Legion of Honour, which he received on 27 September 1850, and the president of the French Academy of Sciences. He died in 1897, and bequeathed the Abbadi domain and castle in Hendaye, yielding 40,000 francs a year, to the Academy of Sciences, on the condition that they produce a catalogue of half a million stars within fifty years.
Education
Michel d'Abbadie returned to France with his family around 1820. He first settled in Toulouse, where he saw to the education of his children. All were entrusted to the care of a governess: "I was brought up," says d'Abbadie, "with my sisters, in the English way, all day, all night in a dormitory, with a servant who watched scrupulously over us; and scarcely, every evening, did we have an hour, a single hour, not to converse with our parents by a familiar tutoiement, but, hearing at most some little tale of Daddy, to be relegated to our games in a corner of the room, and to answer any question by You, yes Sir, yes Madam. »
Antoine stayed three or four years at home, "Far from the martinet of a master of boarding school studies". But at the age of 13, he was sent to college, where he displayed exceptional ardor. Still a child, he shows an unusual curiosity for the unknown that surrounds him: "What is at the end of the road? he asked his governess. "A river, my friend. "And after the river?" — A mountain. "And after the mountain?" "I don't know, I've never been there. "Well, I'll go and see," replied the child. (Antoine d'Abbadie kept this insatiable curiosity all his life. He assimilates languages very quickly and speaks English, Italian, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Berber and at least five Ethiopian languages.)
In August 1827, he obtained his baccalaureate and returned to Toulouse to become a law student. His closest friends at this time were Pierre Étienne Simon Duchartre, Bernard-Adolphe Granier de Cassagnac and Léonce Guilhaud de Lavergne. These young people often talk about their plans for the future. Antoine d'Abbadie knows exactly what he wants to become: explorer in Africa! His project is to study the Christian civilizations of Abyssinia, to help them survive in the face of a conquering Islam and, incidentally, to look for the sources of the Nile.
In 1828, his family moved to Paris, rue Saint-Dominique, and Antoine devoted the next six years to the preparation of his project, reading travellers' accounts and studying languages, religions, and literature. He also took courses in Law, Geology, Mineralogy, Astronomy and Natural History at the Faculty.
Its preparation is not only intellectual; He also prepared physically for the fatigues and privations that awaited the explorers: he was very skilled in fencing, gymnastics and running. He is an exceptional swimmer. He also practices food deprivation.
He went to Ireland, his native country, in 1835, at the end of these years of apprenticeship.