Un tableau commémorant le martyre de Pierre Berthelot « à Achem», dans l'église Sainte-Catherine de Honfleur (Calvados)

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Abstract
Anne Lombard-Jourdan et Denys Lombard The small port of Honfleur (situated to the southwest of the Seine estuary in Normandy) was in times past a point of departure for numerous expeditions going to Canada and the East Indies. The ancient, wooden church of Sainte- Catherine in Honfleur contains a stone inscription commemorating the beatification in 1900 (by His Holiness Leo the 13th) of Pierre Berthelot, a native of the region. The inscription reads : «Born and baptised at Saint- Catherine on 12 December 1600... Cosmograph of the King of Portugal... Carmelite, martyr for the faith at Achem in Sumatra... in 1638 ». There is also a painting representing the martyrdom of Pierre Berthelot. A famous regional artist, A. Voisard-Margerie, painted it in 1926 (and not without some imagination). These sources provide us with a fascinating personality, Pierre Berthelot (about whom we still know very little), who left for the East Indies with Augustin de Beaulieu (1619). Berthelot travelled to Goa (where he became a Carmelite under the name of Denis de la Nativité and where he also became a friend of the Portugese Governor). The Governor sent Berthelot on a mission to the Sultan Iskandar Thani in Aceh. There he died 1638 in circumstances which have yet to be adequately explained.Lombard-Jourdan Anne, Lombard Denys. Un tableau commémorant le martyre de Pierre Berthelot « à Achem», dans l'église Sainte-Catherine de Honfleur (Calvados). In: Archipel, volume 54, 1997. Destins croisés entre l'Insulinde et la France. pp. 27-33

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