Huc, Evariste RégIs

Huc, Evariste Régis a French Roman Catholic missionary, was born at Toulouse Aug. 1, 1813. He was educated in his native city, and entered the order of St. Lazarus, and in 1839 was sent as missionary to China. After about three years of missionary labor in the northern districts of China, he started with father Gabet, in the fall of 1844, to explore the wilds of Tartary and Christianize Tibet, according to the directions of the apostolic vicar of Mongolia. Accompanied by a single Chinese convert, a young lama, they reached the lama convent of Kounboun, where they acquired the dialect of Tibet. Towards the end of September 1845, they joined a caravan from China, with which they went to Lhassa, the capital of Tibet. Here they were permitted to remain on their declaration that they had come only for the purpose of preaching the religion of Christ. But they had barely settled when the Chinese ambassador commanded them to leave the country. They were put in charge of a Chinese escort. and carried back a journey of nearly 2000 miles to the extreme south, and arrived in October, 1846, at Macao. Here they were subjected to a trial by the Chinese tribunals, and were finally permitted to return to the station from which they had originally started on this journey. Hue, whose health completely failed him, returned to Toulouse in 1849, and gave an account of this journey in his Souvenirs d'un Voyage dens la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine, pendant les annees 1844, 1845, et 1846 (Paris 1850, 2 vols. 8vo). This book met with great success, and was translated into various languages (English by Hazlitt, London 1851, 2 vols. and New York, 1853). It owed its great success partly to its description of a country heretofore unknown, and also to its lively style. In this work the abbé also pointed out the similarities between the Buddhist and Roman Catholic ceremonials and for it was punished by seeing his book placed on the "Index" (comp. Miller, Chips from a German Workshop, 1, 187, note). By order of the emperor, he then published L'Empire Chinois, felisant suite a l'ouvrage intitule "Souvenir d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet" (Par. 1854, 2 vols. 8vo). This work was crowned by the Academy. There are several editions of it and it was also translated into English (N. York, 1855, 2 vols. 12mo). His last work, Le Christianisme en Chine. en Tartarie, et au Thibet (Paris, 1857, 3 vols. 8vo, with map), contains a vast amount of historical information; but its chief topic is the propagation of Romanism in China. Hue thinks that "the Gospel will soon take in Asia the place now occupied by the philosophy of Confucius, the traditions of the Buddhists, and the endless legends of the Vedas; finally, that Brahma, Buddha, and Mohammed will disappear to make room for the true God," etc. Hue died in Paris March 31, 1860. See Chambers, Cyclopaedia, 5, 445; Hoefer, Nouv. Bio. Gen. 25, 361; Methodist Quarterly Review, Oct. 1855; Christian Examiner, January to May, 1858. (J. H. W.)