The detailed descriptions of Jules Verne on Mallorca are thanks to the readings he made of the Die Balearen by Archduke Ludwig Salvator.
If there is a place one can know intimately without ever having been there, it is the magnificent archipelago of the Balearics. [...] Yes! If what has been done for this oasis of the Mediterranean had been done for any other country of the two continents, it would be pointless to leave one's home and undertake a voyage to admire with one's own eyes the marvels of nature recommended to visitors. It would be enough to lock oneself up in a library, providing said library contained the work of His Highness the Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria on the Balearics, and read such a complete and precise text, gazing upon the colour engravings, the views, the drawings, the sketches, the plans, the maps, which make this publication a peerless work. It is indeed an incomparable work owing to the beauty of its execution, and its geographical, ethnic, statistical and artistic worth, and more besides.
Clovis Dardentor, 1896
Translated by Richard Mansell.
(Nantes, 1828 – Amiens, 1905). Jules Verne was born into a bourgeois family in 1828 in Nantes. Seaside and harbour life played an important role in his childhood and they were places that he would never forget. He travelled unenthusiastically to Paris to study law, obliged to do so by his father, but was instead attracted by the cultural life of the Latin Quarter. Verne was a keen reader of Balzac, Stendhal, George Sand and Flaubert, and he took part in literary get-togethers where he met Alexandre Dumas, a friend and fellow comrade in his literary fantasies. Wishing to live by the sea and own a boat, Verne settled with his family in Le Crotoy. Years later, one of his childhood dreams came true when crossed the Atlantic to the United States, where he was already a well-known writer. He died in 1905 in Amiens.
Verne was a superlative fantasy adventure writer, bringing children’s wildest dreams to life as they descend to the bottom of the sea, travel to the moon, or journey to the centre of the earth. His fertile imagination, always several steps ahead of science, took him on Extraordinary Journeys: a collection of novels that includes Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea or Around the World in Eighty Days. Clovis Dardentor, which recounts a Mediterranean trip from France to Algeria, also forms part of this first collection of adventure stories. Due to an interest in the Balearic Islands and friendship with Archduke Ludwig Salvator, in the novel a stop-off is made in Mallorca where a precise description is given of the city of Palma and the Archduke’s writings are praised.
In the 19th century many distinguished travellers came to Majorca. Their books bear witness to this, mostly with exotic and idyllic visions of the island. This is not the case with Archduke Ludwig Salvator: his description of the islands is so accurate that it becomes a key reference work, both then and now, to understand many aspects of Balearic life at the end of the 19th century.
The Archduke and Verne shared many passions, amongst them the passion for sailing and travelling. The Archduke’s boat, the Nixe, and Verne’s, the Saint Michel, took each of them on many journeys, which were the origin of a good part of their writing. It is also known that Verne greatly admired the Archduke’s work, something in great evidence in Clovis Dardentor.
Today Son Marroig is a private museum that aims to preserve and promote the Archduke's figure and work. As well as pictures and documents in the museum, the small Ionic temple is particularly beautiful, made of Carrara marble and offering a perfect spot to contemplate the immensity of the mountains and the Mediterranean.
