Louis De Rougemont

The Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (Dodo Press)

Louis de Rougemont (1847-1921) was a would-be explorer who claimed to have had adventures in Australasia. "de Rougemont" was born Henri Louis Grin in 1847 in Suchy, Switzerland. In 1898 he began to write about his invented adventures in the British periodical The Wide World Magazine under the name Louis de Rougemont. He described his alleged exploits in search of pearls and gold in New Guinea and claimed to have spent thirty years living with Indigenous Australians in the Australian outback. He claimed that the tribe with whom he had lived had worshipped him as a god. He also claimed to have encountered the Gibson expedition of 1874. Various readers expressed disbelief in his tales from the start, for example, claiming that no one can actually ride a turtle. He had also claimed to have seen flying wombats. The fact that he could not place his travels on the map aroused suspicion. Readers' arguments in the pages of London newspaper, the Daily Chronicle, continued for months.