Le récit d’une diaspora réussie. Antoine-Jean Solier, négociant marseillais (1760-1836)

• Main Authors: Sylvie Mouysset, Danielle Rives
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Universitaires du Midi 2013-09-01
• Series: Diasporas: Circulations, Migrations, Histoire
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/219

The writings of Antoine-Jean Solier, a Marseillais trader at the end of the 18th century, shape the contours of Rougier de Camarès’s Huguenot community in Rouergue which emigrated on the aftermath of the rescinding of the edict of Nantes. To what extent can these memoirs offer understanding about cultural transfers within an enlarged European space, and what strategies do they unveil? Between Cadix, Marseille, Geneva and the Rouergue region, the Solier clan gradually created a solid network turning individual exile, initially forced and painful, into a successful emigration. Once established, these ties united the members of the diaspora, whose success is mainly due to a faultless solidarity. While preserving its principles and its values, the community opened itself to the culture of Others, and according to the beautiful formula of Yves Beaurepaire, formed a new sphere of dissemination and sociability.