Edmond...

Like Félix Guyon (the doctor who initiated modern­day urology) or the poet Leconte Delisle, Edmond Albius is now a household name on Reunion Island. Albius « invented” a practical method for fertilising vanilla and it was thanks to him that the crop developed as an economic activity, contributing in the same way as coffee, to the reputation of the island and demonstrating that ‘good things can come from Bourbon’.

His fame has not gone hand-in-hand with a precise and sensiitive knowledge of who he was, despite his being the object of several publications.

Indeed, there are no documents in existence written directly by Edmond Albius. The majority of the original documents about him at our disposal are extracts of the correspondence of Auguste Mézières-Lepervanche and Féréol Bellier.

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