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Félix Dubois

Albert Félix Dubois
Felix Dubois in Timbuktu.png
Félix Dubois in Timbuktu in 1907
Born (1862-09-16)16 September 1862
Dresden, Saxony
Died 1 June 1945(1945-06-01) (aged 82)
Nationality French
Occupation Journalist, Explorer
Known for Timbuctoo: the mysterious

Albert Félix Dubois (16 September 1862 – 1 June 1945) was a French journalist, explorer and speculator who is best known for his books about his travels in French West Africa.

Dubois was the son of a well-known chef who had written a number of popular cookery books. He began his career as the European correspondent in Berlin and Vienna for several French newspapers. In 1890 he went to Guinea to report on an exploratory expedition. He later wrote reports on Palestine and on anarchism. In 1894 he was one of the reporters sent to the newly occupied city of Timbuktu. His experiences were described in a popular book in 1896. He was sent to report on another expedition in West Africa in 1897, but left in disgust due to the brutality of the commander, who was killed shortly after. In 1898 Dubois conceived the idea of launching the first general freight company to use trucks, avoiding the need for porters in the French Sudan and also turning a profit. The venture ran into many difficulties and collapsed in 1900.

Dubois spent several years in Paris before embarking on another expedition in 1907, this time crossing the Sahara from north to south. He found relics of ancient civilizations in the Hoggar Mountains of southern Algeria, but was unable to take the time to explore them properly. After marrying an heiress with whom he had five children, he embarked on unsuccessful business ventures in Siberia, the Altai and Alberta, Canada. He wrote several books about his travels.

Dubois was born on 16 September 1862 in Dresden, Saxony. His father, Urbain Dubois, was a famous chef from Provence. His mother, Marie Virginie Boder, was from Neuchâtel in Switzerland. His father returned to France when the Franco-Prussian War started in 1870. Felix and his younger brother Ernest studied at the college of Melun from 1873 to 1880, and then at the School of Commerce in Paris from 1880 to 1882. Felix then spent one year of military service at Dreux before becoming a journalist.

His father's connections made him welcome in Berlin and Vienna, where he became correspondent for several French journals, including Le Soleil, La France, Le Gaulois and Le Petit Marseillais. In 1890 L'Illustration asked him to accompany and report on the expedition led by Henri Brosselard-Faidherbe to explore Guinea and the sources of the Niger River. The expedition established the route of a railway line from the Mellacorée River to Kankan, and defined the border between the new colony of French Guinea and the British colony of Sierra Leone. Dubois's report appeared in L'Illustration in 1892. He then undertook a journey to Palestine for Le Figaro, which he described in an article on Nöel en Bethléem (Christmas in Bethlehem). In 1894 he published Le péril anarchiste (The Anarchist Peril), a work that was not entirely serious.


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