François Pyrard de Laval

François Pyrard de Laval (c. 1578 – c. 1623) was a French navigator who is remembered for a personal written account of his adventures in the Maldives from 1602 to 1607, which was part of a ten-year journey (1601–1611) in South Asia. Quotes Voyage de François Pyrard de Laval contenant sa navigation aux Indes orientales, Maldives, Moluques, et au Brésil (1611, '15–'16, '19, '79) Translated by Albert Gray and H. C. P. Bell, The Voyages of François Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas and Brazil, 2 vols. (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1887) The king of the Maldives...became enamoured of a married woman, the fairest in complexion and beauty in all the land, and abandoned his first wife, whom his father had made him espouse, in order to get this woman, who had three daughters as fair as herself, all married to princes and great lords. I have often seen her arm, as she showed it to us out of coquetry, and it was as white as that of the fairest in our country here...So...she got the king to marry her, but, after living together for a while, he fell in love with her who was the chief queen while we were there, and so got tired of the other, — who, in truth, was the lewdest woman in the world, abandoning herself indifierently to all sorts of men, slaves, as well as others. The King Takes a Pilot's Wife [vol. 1, pp. 262–3] His other wife...would not by any means consent to quit him, for a separation must needs be by the free will and consent of both parties, otherwise the man restores her dowry to the woman, and then quits her whether she will or no; but it is dishonourable and scandalous for a woman to take it. This the king did in the case of this first queen, for he gave her her dowry and rank, and left her, and then married the other. The King Takes His Own Nephew's Wife [vol. 1, pp. 263–4] The king being now well on in years, and having reared no children while he was young, saw that those he might now have would be still young when he came to die, and would be liable to be set aside and bereft of their inheritance; he therefore resolved to have no more: and accordingly, while I was there I heard that for four or five years he had no intercourse with this chief queen, because she was very prolific, and had already by him a son and a daughter, both of whom died at six or seven years of age. And yet these people have no scruples in killing the child in its mother’s womb, deeming it better for them so to die than come into the world. But the queens had no great concern that the king went not to see them, for they were never in want of male friends, who used to visit them when they pleased. The King and His Wives [vol. 1, pp. 264] External links