WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.360 --> 00:00:05.400 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today 2 00:00:05.559 --> 00:00:09.039 I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May 3 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:13.480 twenty twenty six. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading 4 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:16.480 service intended for people who are blind or have other 5 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:21.359 disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Please 6 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:24.480 join me now for the first part of the article 7 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:29.039 titled to Finance their Lifestyle. A young French couple went 8 00:00:29.079 --> 00:00:33.920 to Cambodia to steal antiquities. They did almost everything wrong. 9 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.560 Clara and Andre Malrou conspired to loot the pink Temple 10 00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:43.280 of Bante Sree, but their failure started a battle of 11 00:00:43.399 --> 00:00:49.880 reclamation by Joshua Hammer. One morning in November nineteen twenty three, 12 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:53.119 a young French couple stopped by the headquarters of the 13 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:59.200 Eco Francaise dextrem orient E FEO, the French School for 14 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:03.479 the Far East, a stuccoed ochre painted villa shaded by 15 00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:08.040 phrongipani and banyan trees in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. 16 00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:11.799 The pair had just arrived by boat and were soaking 17 00:01:11.879 --> 00:01:16.239 up the atmosphere of Southeast Asia. The soup cellar at 18 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.560 the corner of the street. Squatting beside his little bamboo stove, 19 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:23.040 bussing over the embers on which the fish soup will simmer. 20 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:27.680 Clara Mairou, the wife, would write later recalling the sights 21 00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:32.439 of the city, the rickshaw driver running barefoot, panting between 22 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:37.040 the wooden shafts of his car. Passing through a stately portico, 23 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:41.040 the couple entered a reception room where they introduced themselves 24 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:46.799 to the school's acting director, Leonard Russo. They had come 25 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:51.519 to Indochina, they explained, on a research trip. They planned 26 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:55.879 to trek into the Cambodian jungle to explore remnants of 27 00:01:55.959 --> 00:01:59.480 the Royal Road, the main highway of the Khmer Empire, 28 00:01:59.719 --> 00:02:03.040 which had ruled much of the Southeast Asia for six 29 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:07.159 hundred years until its collapse in the fifteenth century. Further, 30 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:10.840 they had already obtained the endorsement of the Colonial Office 31 00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:14.639 in Paris for their research, which would include making drawings 32 00:02:14.680 --> 00:02:19.560 of Khmer antiquities, but before venturing into the wilderness, they 33 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:23.800 needed to have their lass passe validated by the e FEO. 34 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:30.159 Examining their credentials, Oroso warned them that the region where 35 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:34.960 they were heading was dangerous. Two e f EO scholars 36 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.879 had recently been killed there by local armed groups they 37 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:42.800 brushed off the admonition. He also told them that any 38 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:46.919 objects they found must be left in situ or excavated 39 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:50.240 solely on behalf of the school. Too many had been 40 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:55.039 appropriated by archaeologists and others who had flocked to Cambodia 41 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:59.879 in recent decades since the French naturalist Henri Muho brought 42 00:02:59.879 --> 00:03:04.280 the ruins of Ancor, the ancient Khmer capital, to the 43 00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:09.479 attention of Europeans in eighteen sixty. Having received their passes, 44 00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:13.800 they met Henri Parmentier, the e f EO's Paris born 45 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:18.240 head of archaeology, who was tasked with documenting, safeguarding, and 46 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:24.759 restoring the monuments of Cambodia and southern Vietnam. Parmentier, whom 47 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:29.719 the frenchwoman later described as a somewhat stramping old Bohemian, 48 00:03:30.319 --> 00:03:34.120 was charmed by the couple's evident interest in Khmer art 49 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:36.800 and culture, and he offered to meet them in Pennan 50 00:03:36.919 --> 00:03:40.800 Penn and escort them upriver to Siam rep the gateway 51 00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:44.800 to Ancor. But the couple were not researchers and the 52 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:48.960 field work they described was a ruse. The Frenchman Andre 53 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:53.439 Malrou would become one of the twentieth century's cultural giants. 54 00:03:54.039 --> 00:03:56.960 He later fought with the Republican Army in the Spanish 55 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:00.439 Civil War, joined the French Resistance during World War War II. 56 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:05.080 Wrote such celebrated novels as Man's Fate, a sweeping tale 57 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:08.759 of self sacrifice and betrayal set during the Chinese Revolution. 58 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:12.639 Received close to one hundred nominations for the Nobel Prize 59 00:04:12.639 --> 00:04:16.560 for Literature, became a confidant of John and Jacqueline Kennedy, 60 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:21.240 Joan Lai, and Richard Nixon, and served as France's influential 61 00:04:21.319 --> 00:04:25.519 Minister of Cultural Affairs under President Charles de gaul. But 62 00:04:25.639 --> 00:04:30.720 even today, Moulreux remains an ambiguous figure, heroic, an duplicitus, 63 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:34.680 a genius and a rogue, and a foe of colonialism, 64 00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:39.279 whose legacy remains tarnished by one impetuous act deep in 65 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:44.360 the Cambodian jungle. That episode not only altered his life 66 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:48.480 and that of his wife, it was an early flashpoint 67 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:53.000 in coming disputes over Asia's ownership of its cultural heritage 68 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:58.120 and the legitimacy of colonial authority. The French had dreamed 69 00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:02.639 of carving a colonial empire out of Indochina for generations. 70 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:06.800 French missionaries arrived in Vietnam in the seventeenth century and 71 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:11.839 began converting much of the population to Catholicism. In eighteen 72 00:05:11.879 --> 00:05:15.519 fifty eight, the French government, joined by its Spanish allies, 73 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:21.000 used the pretexts of protecting Catholics to dispatch warships and 74 00:05:21.079 --> 00:05:24.759 three thousand troops to Southeast Asia, and within months they 75 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:30.759 had captured Saigon. The French were also eyeing Cambodia. Muho, 76 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.959 with the backing of Great Britain's Royal Geographic Society and 77 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.360 the Zoological Society of London, sailed for Indochina in eighteen 78 00:05:39.399 --> 00:05:42.959 fifty eight on an expedition to collect flora and fauna. 79 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:47.000 Two years later, he followed the tributaries of the Meikang, 80 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:51.480 and deep in the jungle came upon Encor. Other westerners 81 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:54.839 had seen the ancient capital, but none had described or 82 00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:58.720 drawn it as vividly as Muho. There are ruins of 83 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:01.879 such grandeur. He wrote that at the first view, one 84 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:05.759 is filled with profounded admiration, and cannot but ask what 85 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:10.160 has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened. 86 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:15.600 The authors of these gigantic works He rhapsodized about the 87 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.360 largest temple, angkar Watt, a rival to that of Solomon 88 00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:25.160 and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, and the Bayone, a 89 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:29.639 Buddhist temple with stone towers adorned with two hundred enigmatically 90 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:35.600 smiling faces. In eighteen sixty three, the French, citing threats 91 00:06:35.639 --> 00:06:39.639 from the king of neighboring Siam, pressured the Cambodian ruler, 92 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.480 King Norodome into a treaty of protection, which allowed troops 93 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:48.240 to enter the country. Ten years after that, the French 94 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:52.680 governor General marched into the royal palace and forced Norodome 95 00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:57.279 to seede control of his country. French administrators quickly set 96 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:00.959 up sugar plantations and put the peasantry to work at 97 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:06.680 low pay under harsh conditions. Soldiers and government officials grabbed 98 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:12.600 whatever chimer antiquities they could. One naval officer, Louis Delaport, 99 00:07:13.079 --> 00:07:18.319 removed seventy sculptures, lentils, and bas reliefs from Angcor and 100 00:07:18.439 --> 00:07:22.560 other sites and shipped them to the Guimeis Museum in Paris. 101 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:28.319 He argued that he was saving them from destruction. Khmer Art, 102 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:33.160 Delaport wrote, has remained the most beautiful expression of human 103 00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:36.879 genius in this vast part of Asia. In the wake 104 00:07:36.920 --> 00:07:41.920 of Delaporte's looting spree, colonial authorities declared all relics state 105 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:48.079 property and forbade their export, but many temples remained unguarded. Malroe, 106 00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:51.480 born in nineteen o one in Paris, fell under the 107 00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:55.639 spell of Indochina as a young man, the son of 108 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:59.439 a swaggering but failing stockbroker who would die by suicide 109 00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:03.120 in nineteen He grew up after his parents divorce, with 110 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:07.399 his mother aunt and Italian grandmother, a small time grocer 111 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:11.560 and a Paris excerb dropping out of school at seventeen, 112 00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:15.959 he dreamed of literary fame. Malroux liked to think of 113 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:20.759 himself as an accursed poet of genius, wrote his biographer 114 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:24.839 Olive Todd in two thousand two. He could see himself 115 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:29.199 not only in Hugo, but in Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud. 116 00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:33.879 For a while, malrou scratched out a living buying and 117 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:39.200 selling antiquarian books, including pornography, while writing essays on Cubist 118 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:44.039 and Dadaist art for avant garde magazines. In the evenings, 119 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:48.720 he frequented the bohemian cafes of montmart sporting a fedora, 120 00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:52.600 a cane, a silk poplin's shirt and a fake pearl pin, 121 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:57.480 a cigarette cocked between his lips. He had a dark 122 00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:01.399 beauty and a magnetism. Todd, who met him in the 123 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:06.080 nineteen forties, wrote about the young dandy. Malroe's friend, the 124 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:10.000 writer Pascalpia, observed that a love of art and a 125 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.639 taste for travel tormented him from his youth. In nineteen 126 00:09:14.679 --> 00:09:18.879 twenty one, another friend introduced Malroe to Clara Goldschmidt, a 127 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:23.679 writer editor for the influential modernist Paris magazine Action and 128 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:28.399 the daughter of prosperous German Jews. Four years older than Malrou, 129 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:34.000 Goldschmidt wrote Todd was effervescent and cosmopolitan, five foot nothing, 130 00:09:34.159 --> 00:09:37.440 gray eyes, dark brown hair, a rather long nose, and 131 00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:42.000 a determined chin. After a whirlwind courtship of tango dancing 132 00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:46.919 and gabaret go going, they married that October. Shortly afterward, 133 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:51.799 the couple hatched a plot modest collectors of Asian art. 134 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:55.799 They had visited Parisian auction houses and become aware of 135 00:09:55.840 --> 00:10:01.000 the soaring prices being paid for Cambodian's statuary. Nineteen twenty three, 136 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:04.720 after reversals in the Paris stock Exchange wiped out much 137 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.600 of their savings, Malro proposed that they had for Indo China, 138 00:10:09.480 --> 00:10:13.279 from Siam to Cambodia along the Royal Route. There are 139 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:16.960 large temples, those that were identified and described in the 140 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:21.200 government inventory, but there are certainly others, smaller ones still 141 00:10:21.279 --> 00:10:25.039 unknown today. Malro told his wife, according to her memoir 142 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:29.679 Our twenty years, he said that they should go to 143 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:33.399 some small temple, take a few statues, sell them in America, 144 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:37.639 and live comfortably for two or three years. To prepare 145 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:40.799 for the journey, the couple spent hours in the National 146 00:10:40.840 --> 00:10:46.559 Library and at the Guimei Museum studying Parmentier's surveys. According 147 00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:50.639 to Walter Langlois, who wrote a nineteen sixty six study 148 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:53.919 of the couple's time in Indochina, they were also careful 149 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:57.200 to read up on the laws of Cambodian archaeological sites, 150 00:10:57.639 --> 00:11:01.000 and they believed that they had discovered a loop. Some 151 00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:04.559 newfound temples might not yet have fallen under government protection. 152 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.600 The most prominent was a Hindu temple complex in the 153 00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:13.120 Greater Ankar region called Bante Sri, built in a d 154 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:17.559 nine sixty seven by a reverend guru to two Khaimer kings. 155 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:22.840 It was adorned with friezes depicting scenes from the Ramayana 156 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:28.200 and the Mahabrata, the sacred texts of Hinduism. The site 157 00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:32.559 fell into disuse in the twelfth century after Jayavarman the 158 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:38.159 seventh declared Buddhism the state religion. Gradually consumed by jungle, 159 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:42.840 It was uncovered again only in nineteen fourteen. Surveying it 160 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:46.399 two years later, Parmentier wrote that it was a marvel 161 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:51.720 without equal in Cambodia. The high quality pink sandstone quarried 162 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:55.000 a few miles from the site made its friezes almost 163 00:11:55.039 --> 00:12:00.480 impervious to decay, preserving the artworks in remarkable condition, its 164 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:06.080 decoration and its refinement. Parmentier went on give it incomparable beauty. 165 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:12.039 In her memoir, Clara Malrou described the plan we decided 166 00:12:12.039 --> 00:12:15.279 to head toward Bante Sri, then lost in the bush. 167 00:12:15.879 --> 00:12:19.240 Since Parmentier's visit, she wrote, no one had gone there 168 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:21.799 to see what had happened to it. Perhaps it had 169 00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:26.039 collapsed under the vines. Perhaps it had transformed into heartstones, 170 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:30.799 because stone is rare in this region. Lea Genoviz an 171 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:35.039 expert in French Indochina and a biographer of the Malrose, 172 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:38.519 believes that Clara may have been the real instigator of 173 00:12:38.559 --> 00:12:42.679 the scheme. In her view, the couple was driven by 174 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:46.759 both a thirst for adventure and a smug sense of superiority. 175 00:12:47.679 --> 00:12:51.320 This was an escapade done almost on a dare, and 176 00:12:51.399 --> 00:12:54.080 they never thought they would get caught. Geneviz told me. 177 00:12:54.759 --> 00:12:58.320 Their attitude was, people are so dim witted, we'll get 178 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:03.200 away with it. In November nineteen twenty three, Andre and 179 00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:08.559 Clara malrou rendezvous and Saigon with Louis Chevesson, an amiable 180 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:13.559 bookseller whom Malroux had known since grammar school. Malroux needed 181 00:13:13.639 --> 00:13:17.600 Chevesson to do the dirty work, Genevese says, including cutting 182 00:13:17.639 --> 00:13:21.759 stones and hauling crates. Then they traveled by boat up 183 00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:25.399 the Mekong River to Pinon Penn, the pearl of the Orient, 184 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:29.559 dominated by the pagodas and spires of the nineteenth century 185 00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:33.720 royal Palace. One of their first encounters in the capital 186 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:38.120 was fateful at the Albert serrou Museum, to day the 187 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:43.320 National Museum of Cambodia, a stylized Khmer temple with serpent 188 00:13:43.480 --> 00:13:49.000 like ruthinials they met the institutions founding director and principal architect, 189 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:54.720 Georges Groliers, The son of colonial civil servants. Groliers had 190 00:13:54.759 --> 00:13:58.600 been conceived, born and nurtured in Cambodia, and its essence 191 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:02.480 infused his soul, his biographer Kent Davis told me recently. 192 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:06.639 Grolier was a painter, the founder of a local art school, 193 00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:12.039 an expert in Cambodian dance, and a conservator. He believed 194 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:15.960 in restoring Khmier art to the Khmer people. He saw 195 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:22.159 their artistic past, their greatness, and thought it belonged to Cambodia. Malroe, 196 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:25.879 hoping to line up additional support for the Royal Road project, 197 00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:29.960 tried to charm him. Malroux was a young kid, smart 198 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.120 and reckless, who used the people he needed, Davis says. 199 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:36.519 But as Grolier led the couple through the exhibit halls, 200 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:40.639 Malroux kept asking him what certain artworks might fetch in 201 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:44.840 Paris galleries, and Grolier sensed that he was up to something. 202 00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:48.799 The impression that mister Malroux had left on me, Grolier 203 00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:54.679 would recall bluntly, was unfavorable. On December seventh, Malroux, Clara 204 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:59.159 and Chevasson with Parmentier. As their escort arrived in seam 205 00:14:59.399 --> 00:15:04.320 Reap and checked into the town's sole tourist bungalow. Promentier 206 00:15:04.559 --> 00:15:10.080 went off to survey a local temple, leaving the trio unsupervised. Meanwhile, 207 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:15.600 Francois Cremisie, a local French administrator, helps the group recruit 208 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:19.159 a dozen guides and porters, along with six ox cart 209 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:23.120 drivers and their two wheeled carts. They then set out 210 00:15:23.399 --> 00:15:26.919 down a muddy path, the local workers hacking the underbrush 211 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:31.200 with knives and sweeping away stinging insects and venomous snakes. 212 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:34.840 Something is rotting around us. There is no longer just 213 00:15:34.919 --> 00:15:38.080 the danger of the vines. There is that of this thick, 214 00:15:38.200 --> 00:15:41.320 reddish earth, which the horses have trouble getting rid of. 215 00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:45.440 Clara wrote, There are also the mosquitoes, a curtain of 216 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:49.399 angry insects that accompanies us, that we cross, that reforms 217 00:15:49.440 --> 00:15:53.279 around us, in front of us, behind us. The jungle 218 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:56.960 slog lasted two days, with an overnight stop at a 219 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:02.000 crude traveler's hut. Meals consist of pork, bread and yams 220 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:06.679 cooked inside a large earthen termite mound. Finally, they crossed 221 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:11.000 the Siem reap river here a narrow stream, and arrived 222 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.279 at an ancient paved promenade. The guides led them through 223 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:19.200 a broken gate, then down a stone corridor choked with vegetation. 224 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:23.799 In his nineteen thirty novel The Royal Way, about two 225 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:29.320 French adventurers seeking treasures in Cambodia, Malroe presented a version 226 00:16:29.399 --> 00:16:33.240 of the scene. Before one character lay a chaos of 227 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:36.480 fallen stones, some of them lying flat, but most of 228 00:16:36.519 --> 00:16:40.279 them upended. It looked like a mason's yard invaded by 229 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:44.639 the jungle. The novel's larger story was fictional, but the 230 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:49.039 description of the heist, according to Malroe's biographers and witnesses 231 00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:53.519 to the crime, was largely accurate. One of the fortune 232 00:16:53.559 --> 00:16:56.840 seekers straddled a stone block that had tumbled from a 233 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:00.759 wall and began to cut away a bas relief. The 234 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:04.039 tool bit into the sandstone with the shrill, rasping sound, 235 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:07.920 Moulroe wrote, at his fifth stroke, it skidded. When he 236 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.599 drew it from the fissure, he found that all its 237 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:16.359 teeth were gone. Undeterred, the accomplices clambered over banyan tree 238 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:20.279 roots and broken stones, and approached three miniature temples or 239 00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:25.640 pressat standing side by side. The upper parts had collapsed, 240 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:30.640 but several perfectly preserved friezes of buxom scantily clad deities 241 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:35.480 known as devatas, framed by geometric and floral patterns, covered 242 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:39.599 the six foot high stumps. Surmising that the dancing girls 243 00:17:39.720 --> 00:17:42.720 might together fetch them five hundred thousand francs or more 244 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:45.920 tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to day, 245 00:17:46.519 --> 00:17:50.519 the men attacked the stones with chisels and hammers. Suddenly 246 00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:54.559 the blows were sounding differently. Molroe wrote the stone had 247 00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:59.200 split sunlike sparkled on the break. The sculptured frontage had 248 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:02.279 split off clean and was lying on the ground like 249 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:08.039 a newly severed head. In real life, Malreux, Chevalsson and 250 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:12.799 Clara placed their stolen prizes into seven grates marked chemical products, 251 00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:17.519 a bounty including five goddesses and two votive tablets featuring 252 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:21.400 a male guardian and a bearded acetic, plus four friezes 253 00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:26.079 carved with elaborate head dresses. Then they turned around and 254 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:30.319 plodded back through the jungle to avoid Siam reap. They 255 00:18:30.359 --> 00:18:34.680 carted the load toward the tonlay Sap Lake, sixteen miles 256 00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:37.880 south of the town, where they boarded a steamboat and 257 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:42.119 stashed the crates in the hold. Malroux intended to transport 258 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:45.240 the friezes across the lake to the tone Lay Sap River, 259 00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:49.039 a tributary of the Mekang, and then sailed down stream 260 00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:52.759 two hundred and seventy miles to Saigon. There they would 261 00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:56.680 put the precious cargo on a ship to Europe. But 262 00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:00.880 things did not go according to plan. Kram Rasi, the 263 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:04.519 French administrator, had been suspicious of malrou from the start, 264 00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:09.880 and he planted spies among the porterors and guides. Tipped off. 265 00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:15.079 He telegraphed Grolier, who his own suspicions confirmed, obtained a 266 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:19.279 search warrant from the state prosecutor. Then Grolier raced up 267 00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:22.519 the road to the port of Campong Chenang, near where 268 00:19:22.559 --> 00:19:25.079 the lake meets the river, to stop the thieves before 269 00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:29.880 they could abscond to Saigon. Grolier arrived while the ship 270 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:33.960 was still moored at the dock. The museum director boarded 271 00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:36.920 the vessel, opened the crates and directed the captain to 272 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:41.200 keep Malroux and his accomplices on board. Then he telegraphed 273 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:44.400 ahead to the police and Pennam Penn fifty five miles 274 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:47.319 down river, through which the boat would pass on its 275 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:51.319 way to Saigon. Late on Christmas Eve nineteen twenty three, 276 00:19:51.799 --> 00:19:56.119 as church bells tooled across penom Pen, the ship arrived 277 00:19:56.119 --> 00:20:00.680 at the port. Two inspectors from the Surati French law 278 00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:05.359 enforcement boarded the steamer. A local journalist reported and after 279 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:10.160 indicating to two passengers Malroux and Chevasson, that they had 280 00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:13.359 been ordered to search their baggage, had the latter opened 281 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:17.480 and found some pieces of statuary from the anchor ruins. 282 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:22.519 Police detained the trio at the Grand Manolie, a comfortable 283 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:27.640 hotel opposite the police headquarters. On January fifth, nineteen twenty four, 284 00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:33.559 Lecau du Comboge, the country's largest newspaper, reported that Malraux 285 00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:37.559 and his accomplices had been arrested for committing an act 286 00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:42.240 of pillage, which bespeaks an unbelievable audacity and special knowledge 287 00:20:42.279 --> 00:20:45.920 of the value of the sculptures that were stolen. In 288 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:50.400 her memoir, Clara tried to minimize the crime. I was 289 00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:52.720 not going to be upset because they had found in 290 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:56.480 our crates fragments of a nearly collapsed temple, she wrote, 291 00:20:56.759 --> 00:20:59.759 to which for years so little attention had been paid 292 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:02.559 that it could have collapsed, torn apart by the roots 293 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:06.519 of the Banyan trees, or demolished by a peasant's tools. 294 00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:11.880 Clara's illusions melted away three months later when the prosecutor 295 00:21:11.960 --> 00:21:15.480 handed down a felony indictment and set a trial date 296 00:21:15.640 --> 00:21:19.880 in July. Clara, still in custody at the Grand Man Ali, 297 00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:24.160 had a nervous breakdown That evening. Malroux wrote to the 298 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:28.559 High Commissioner from the hotel, my wife poisoned herself with verinal, 299 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.839 a barbituate used to treat insomnia. She recovered at a 300 00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:38.079 local hospital. Malroe, in a less than heroic fashion, persuaded 301 00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:42.359 Chavassan to take the rap, arguing that if Malreaux were acquitted, 302 00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:45.119 he could travel to France to file an appeal on 303 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:50.000 his friend's behalf. He has admitted acting entirely alone. Malrou 304 00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:53.039 wrote in the same letter, while I await judgment with 305 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:58.200 some impatience, I do so without any anxiety. Weeks later, 306 00:21:58.319 --> 00:22:01.119 deciding that she was too fragile to withstand a trial, 307 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:06.480 authorities released Clara Melroe from custody and she returned to France. 308 00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:12.279 The proceedings against Andre Malroux and Chevasson opened on July 309 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:16.160 sixteenth at the criminal court of Pennon, Penn, a neoclassical 310 00:22:16.279 --> 00:22:19.119 villa with the red tile roof across the road from 311 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:23.240 the Royal Palace. For two days, the judge took testimony 312 00:22:23.279 --> 00:22:28.599 from Cremazie, the Cambodian guides and ox drivers, Malroux and Chevasson, 313 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:32.680 and Parmentier in hot water with his E F E 314 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:36.839 O bosses for failing to protect Bantier Sree. The French 315 00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:40.880 archaeologists downplayed the crime, even praising the care the thieves 316 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:44.839 had taken with their chisels. The defense attorney argued that 317 00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:49.680 Bante Srix had not been under official protection and denounced 318 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:53.480 what he called the state's desire to mercilessly punish two 319 00:22:53.559 --> 00:22:56.880 young people guilty of removing a few stones from a 320 00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:03.559 virtually abandoned monument. Malrou's strategy to blame Chevasson crumbled. The 321 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:07.440 proceedings show that Chevalsson did not have the intelligence to 322 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:12.119 engineer an elaborate plan genevise, the Malroux biographer told me 323 00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:16.400 on Monday, July twenty first, the judge found both men 324 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:19.839 guilty of theft and sentenced them to among the harshest 325 00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:24.799 penalties allowed by BAW for Malroux three years in prison 326 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:29.319 and a five year prohibition of residence Indochina for Chevasson 327 00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:33.480 eighteen months. Both petitioned for a hearing before the Court 328 00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:36.640 of Appeals in Saigon and were released until the court 329 00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:41.640 could weigh in. In France, the press was divided. Gentlemen 330 00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:45.359 Fop sentenced to three years in prison, declared Le Mattie 331 00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:50.279 with derision. Le Journal reported that Malau had not hesitated 332 00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:53.160 to completely sack a temple and make off with the 333 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:58.160 ton of booty, but other newspapers, praising Malrou's literary promise, 334 00:23:58.519 --> 00:24:03.640 called the sentence a travesty. In Paris, meanwhile, Clara Malroe 335 00:24:03.720 --> 00:24:08.640 rallied some of France's most influential letterati behind her husband, 336 00:24:09.079 --> 00:24:12.400 repeating the argument that the temple had been abandoned and 337 00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:17.839 the objects were largely worthless. Andrea Guide, Andre Breton and 338 00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:22.359 other French authors petitioned France's Ministry of Justice to suspend 339 00:24:22.519 --> 00:24:27.440 the sentences. In October nineteen twenty four, the Saigon Court 340 00:24:27.480 --> 00:24:30.880 of Appeal, while striking down the verdict, still found the 341 00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:34.759 men guilty of damaging a protected site, but it reduced 342 00:24:34.920 --> 00:24:38.160 the sentences to a year for Malrou and six months 343 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:44.839 for Chevassan. Nevertheless, the French government immediately suspended the sentences 344 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:47.960 for those close to the crime. The absence of a 345 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.599 punishment did not go down well. Jean Le Luba, a 346 00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:57.079 writer and the wife of Parmentier, described Malrou and Clara 347 00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:01.759 in a letter as two unpleasant pretensions and ill mannered scoundrels. 348 00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:07.240 Groliers would dismiss Malroe as le petit voulieur, the little thief, 349 00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:10.599 and remained furious that he had stayed out of prison. 350 00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.039 The secretive little so and so, he wrote to a friend, 351 00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:16.880 had hidden from us that he was a decadent man 352 00:25:16.920 --> 00:25:19.759 of letters in order to pass himself off in our 353 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:24.920 eyes as a well informed archaeologist. In nineteen twenty six, 354 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.240 the appeals court issued its final judgment, reaffirming the men's guilt, 355 00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:33.720 but by then the matter was moot. Malrou would never 356 00:25:33.799 --> 00:25:37.759 apologize for what he had done, yet the enforced sojourn 357 00:25:37.839 --> 00:25:41.680 in Panampen and later in Saigon while awaiting his appeal 358 00:25:42.160 --> 00:25:45.160 seemed to shake him out of his apolitical self absorption. 359 00:25:45.319 --> 00:25:50.119 Genovise says Malaux had spent months observing the French colonial 360 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:54.359 systems under belly, the theft of antiquities by corrupt officials, 361 00:25:54.759 --> 00:25:59.079 the casual racism and cruelty, heavy handed attempts to stifle 362 00:25:59.119 --> 00:26:03.400 anti French pro tests and the press. Only months after 363 00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:06.720 his return to France in late nineteen twenty four, he 364 00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:10.079 and Clara traveled back to Saigon, where he founded a 365 00:26:10.119 --> 00:26:16.160 pro independence newspaper called Lindushin and joined the Young Annam movement, 366 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:20.839 which opposed the French presence in the region. Malrou moved 367 00:26:20.839 --> 00:26:24.880 from political indifference to political commitment, wrote the French scholar 368 00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:30.039 Raoul Jennaar in How Malroux Became Malrou published in twenty fifteen, 369 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:35.119 The Looter of Cambodia's patrimony had morphed into an agitator 370 00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:39.960 for the anti colonial cause. Vietnam also served as a 371 00:26:40.039 --> 00:26:44.640 jumping off point for Malrou's next adventures. In nineteen twenty five, 372 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:47.559 on a trip to Hong Kong to buy linotype for 373 00:26:47.640 --> 00:26:50.880 his newspaper, which was later squeezed out of business by 374 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:54.680 French authorities, he took an excursion up the Pearl River 375 00:26:54.759 --> 00:26:59.359 to Canton. Clashes were breaking out between communist workers and 376 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:03.680 the right wing Kuomintang government led by Shang Kai Shehek. 377 00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:08.519 In nineteen twenty eight, Malro published The Conquerors, a novel 378 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:12.119 about the Canton uprising, and it gave the author what 379 00:27:12.240 --> 00:27:16.359 he had long craved, recognition as a major literary voice 380 00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:21.759 in man's fate. His masterpiece, published five years later, Malro 381 00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:26.759 chronicled the heroics of a failed communist uprising in Shanghai 382 00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:32.000 and a massacre of sympathizers by the Kiomintang. All that 383 00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:35.640 men are willing to die for beyond self interest tends 384 00:27:35.720 --> 00:27:39.599 to justify that fate by giving it a foundation in dignity, 385 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:45.920 he wrote. Malrou regarded communism as a powerful force against injustice, 386 00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:51.519 and he romanticized armed struggle. It was some observed as 387 00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:55.400 if he needed to redeem himself after the courts had 388 00:27:55.400 --> 00:28:03.480 branded him a criminal. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian 389 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:07.799 Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank 390 00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:10.000 you for listening, and have a great day.