Henry Dunant

The Man of the Red Cross

Corinne Chaponnière, Michelle Bailat-Jones

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781350253438
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350253445
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

"Timely and significant." Church Times

A pioneer of humanitarianism and founder of the International Red Cross, Henry Dunant was many things over his lifetime. A devout Christian and social activist, an ambitious but failed businessman, a humanitarian genius, and a bankrupt recluse.

In this biography, Corinne Chaponnière reveals the tumultuous trajectory of Henry's life. From his idyllic childhood in Geneva, she follows Henry through the horrors of the Battle of Solferino, his creation of the Red Cross and role in the Geneva Conventions, the disgrace of his bankruptcy and his resurrection as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. It shows how this champion of wounded soldiers and prisoners of war was not an unblemished picture of piety and goodness, but that his empathy and good works played out in tandem with his social ambition and personal drive. It shows how even the best of us fall on hard times, and that the Red Cross was born out of humanitarian ideals coupled with a desire for personal success.

This book reveals the story of Henry Dunant, blemishes and all, against the backdrop of the horrors of war, the weight of religion and the birth of humanitarianism in the 19th century.

1

The Happy Eldest (1828–47)

The hillside

In 1828, the small city of Geneva had only been part of Switzerland for thirteen years. Like most feudal cities, its hierarchy was visible in its topography. Instead of a fortress, however, the cathedral stood at the city’s highest point. Clustered closely around it were a series of upper-class family homes – dynasties of bankers, lawyers, doctors, pastors and professors. Two centuries on, the ‘Rome of the Reformation’ still prized the Church that had endowed it with the talent and knowledge of waves of Protestants escaping persecution elsewhere. Owing their Church a fair measure of their prosperity, Genevans of the period would never have been so ungrateful as to temper the fervour of their faith.

The small hilltop haute ville (upper city) housed an aristocracy of only a few dozen families, descendants of the city’s burghers who had ruled uncontested up until the eighteenth century. The steep flanks of the hill accommodated a series of tiered neighbourhoods that mirrored the descending steps of the social ladder all the way down to the basse ville (lower city) with its minor bourgeoisie, merchants, artisans and day labourers.

It was on one of these hillsides, exactly halfway between the upper and the lower city, that Jean-Henri Dunant¹ was born on 8th May 1828. His parents were thrilled: less than a year of marriage and already the gift of a son. Exactly what was needed to bring them closer, something that their hurried engagement had not been able to do.

Like most marriages of the time, theirs was arranged. Poor academic results had sent Jean-Jacques Dunant out of Geneva as soon as the first bristles of a beard had sprouted on his chin, and he’d been travelling the world ever since. Initially hired by an uncle in Marseilles with a merchant company for colonial goods, he’d visited many countries, crossed many seas, suffered through hurricanes and storms before setting up his own business in Marseilles where he’d remained for the next ten years.²

Until, one day, it struck him that he might end up living out his final years alone. His business was stagnating, his income less certain, his future growing dim on its Mediterranean horizon. The associate with whom he’d founded his company had returned home. ‘I’m a bachelor,’ he finally admitted to one of his uncles, ‘maybe I was wrong not to think earlier about marriage; I would have more confidence and ambition, yet now it seems unlikely.’³

This admission made its way to his two sisters in Geneva who’d been waiting just for this. Behind the closed doors of the Dunant family home, they had begun to worry about the future of their family name. Their older brother had married a Catholic, a heresy in Geneva at that time, so nothing could be left to chance now that the younger brother was finally thinking about settling down.

The younger sister, Anne-Jeanne Dunant, struck first: ‘You must absolutely come home and choose a wife,’ she wrote to him in 1823, ‘but she must have property so that you can set yourself up here […] What could be more natural than to live and die in one’s own country?’⁴ From letter to letter, the sisters’ intentions became increasingly clear – not only did they want their brother to marry, they wanted him home, something which entailed finding him a Genevan woman with enough of a fortune so that he could close up shop in Marseilles. Six months later the same sister sent a list of names, with supporting files. Among three possible candidates was a young lady from the Colladon family: 24-year-old Anne-Antoinette, although not a beauty, had several solid qualities in her favour. She could run a household with just one servant, play the piano, even speak a little English. She was small but had quite abundant hair, good teeth, good health, black eyes. What else could he want?

But Jean-Jacques kept dithering. It was not an easy decision to abandon the city he’d chosen to make his fortune and where he’d hung all his hopes. Older sister Sophie thus took up her pen to urge him to select a young woman from Marseilles if he could not choose a Genevan. But as nothing seemed to turn up in that direction either, Sophie returned to the question in 1825: ‘If you want to marry a Genevan,’ she scolded, ‘you must not let all the pretty ones get away, there are a lot of marriages right now!’⁵

The death of their mother in early 1826 finally nudged Jean-Jacques to give in to his sisters’ entreaties. ‘The modest Nancy,’⁶ as he’d already dubbed Miss Colladon with no obvious enthusiasm, was still free. Things moved quickly from that moment on until the last spring day of 1827 when the Dunant and Colladon families celebrated the marriage of Jean-Jacques to Anne-Antoinette.

Both families seemed delighted. Admittedly, in Geneva’s social geography of the time, the Colladons would have placed themselves higher up the hillside than the Dunants. The father of the bride was a regent at the high-school, had a seat on both the city and the cantonal council, and was also mayor of Avully, a village in the Genevan countryside. Anne-Antoinette’s younger brother, Daniel Colladon, was one of the most promising members of Geneva’s scientific community. It was logical that the Colladon family would have expected a smart match for each child.

But good alliances don’t always make happy marriages. ‘You can be sure our first feeling was surprise,’ the fiancée’s own brother admitted to one of his uncles, yet ‘surprise’ was quickly followed by relief: ‘I was extremely worried that Nancy would end up alone,’ he continued. ‘Her loving and sensitive heart requires the affections of family and the tenderness of a spouse. Depriving her of these joys would have altered her nature over time.’⁷ The truth is that at that time, when a woman reached or surpassed the age of 25, both the woman and her family were generally more flexible in their choice. Having previously dreamt of an ideal husband, the ageing young woman became more ready to settle for the dream of any husband. The Colladon family was no exception.

Young Nancy’s dowry granted the couple a house on one of the steep streets of what is still called the Old Town in Geneva. The newly-wed bride was radiant. She’d had her sights set on Jean-Jacques from the very first time her future sisters-in-law had suggested him, and had waited patiently for two long years until he decided in her favour. And now, after barely a year of marriage, the birth of their first son fulfilled all her hopes. They named him Jean-Henri.

Happy times

Henri was not yet walking when the young couple moved from the Old Town to a beautiful country home called La Monnaie, coming this time from the Dunants. The large property included a variety of fruit trees and enjoyed a broad view of the lake and the Alps. The Jura mountain side of the estate boasted several mossy and sheltered spaces, perfect for taking refuge from the goings on of the house. Jean-Jacques had returned from his travels with a love of beautiful trees and several rare species had been planted on the grounds, giving the garden a touch of the exotic.

If you stood at one end of the gardens you could see the Lausanne coach, and from the other, the Paris mail-coach. When the weather was fine, Nancy would sit out on the terrace with her baby to wait with childish delight for her brother Daniel, the family genius making his career in Paris. Her letters to him gushed with all the fresh pride of a newly married mother of a sweet chubby boy. ‘I must tell you about your fat little nephew: he is delicious. I lose myself entirely when he sets his big black eyes on me.’⁸ In page after page, Nancy recorded Henri’s slightest utterings for her very learned brother, but also for her schoolmasterish father, and especially for her great traveller of a husband whom she would have liked home with her more often. Yes, Mr Dunant had surrendered to his sisters and put roots down in Geneva, but he hadn’t given up his Mediterranean business. He was often in France, leaving his young wife to her melancholy. Not too often, though – the family grew at a steady pace, unseating Henri from his infant-king status as five brothers and sisters arrived in rapid succession over the next six years.

While La Monnaie had ample room for the family to grow, Jean-Jacques’s income wasn’t growing in the same proportion. Butcher’s bills competed with doctor’s bills; Nancy was physically and psychologically frail and sent away for her devoted Dr Senn at the drop of a hat. Balancing the budget was delicate: it relied on rental income from various apartments in Geneva as well as on the highly random success of Jean-Jacques’s commercial affairs in Marseilles.

But what are monetary concerns to a boy? A happy childhood is more truly remembered through the flavours and fragrances of a man’s nostalgia. Henri’s memories of La Monnaie were of ‘delicious, juicy and sweet, greengage plums’.⁹ As well as the scented violets covering the moss, the sound of the mail-coach ‘muted in the distance’, and of the pristine Mont Blanc, which could easily be seen on clear days from their lawn.

On his mother’s side, the harvest at his grandparents’ home in Avully was even more voluptuous: lush tarts, holiday cakes and other treats, massive strawberry patches, bushes of red- and blackcurrants, raspberries and blackberries all within reach of his greedy little hands. And more than anything, the attentive love of his grandparents for their daughter Nancy, an affection which stretched naturally to her multiplying brood.

Henri’s grandfather, Henri Colladon, had acquired the vast estate in Avully sometime around 1815; it included a manor house and small farm. Henri’s mother had lived there as a teenager and young woman, well cared for by her parents and a brother she adored. Despite a nearly hour-long trip between La Monnaie and Avully, she returned as often as she could. As a young mother who was frequently home alone with her children, she sought the comfort of her childhood family cocoon.

In Henri’s youthful universe, Avully was a distillation of the noblest elements of his maternal line. This wasn’t about wealth, this was a thousand times better – this was productive land, the harmony of a large family, the elevation of a thoughtful elite, the philanthropy of a social caste who believed themselves obligated to give back what they had received. In the purest Protestant tradition, it was most likely at Avully that Henri experienced how charity might be combined with interest – with the young orphans his grandfather took as pensioners in exchange for a daily per capita from the city’s Charity Office, but whom he also took care of with great attention to their education and well-being. There is no doubt that Henri Colladon, Nancy’s father, had a real social consciousness; it is equally true he had some financial worries that worsened after a few tricky investments made around 1830, only two years after Henri’s bir...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Acknowledgement to The Red Cross
• Note to the Reader
• Introduction
• 1 The Happy Eldest (1828–47)
• 2 The Birth of an Association (1847–54)
• 3 Windmills on the Sand (1854–9)
• 4 A Battle for Glory (1859–62)
• 5 Europe Around One Table (1862–3)
• 6 A Question of Honour (1863–7)
• 7 The Fall (1867–9)
• 8 Paris at War (1870–1)
• 9 The Philanthropist’s Revival (1871–4)
• 10 Last Attempts (1874–6)
• 11 The Miseries of Wandering (1876–87)
• 12 The Last Station (1887–92)
• 13 Stepping Out into the World (1893–6)
• 14 Rewriting History (1895–6)
• 15 A Laurel-Crowned Finish (1897–1910)
• Conclusion
• References
• Index
• Plates
• Copyright