At the dawn of the 20th century, as the great colonial currents were redrawing new horizons, a Breton painter with a keen eye and a seafaring soul ventured to the mysterious heart of Cambodia. Maurice Menardeau, naval officer and official artist, was not content to simply travel through these distant lands: he scrutinized them, felt them, and transposed them with rare sensitivity.

In the XIXᵉ century, when Europe was still vibrating to the rhythm of the great explorations and dreams of the Orient, one name resonated in scholarly and adventurous circles: that of Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias.

In French colonial history, some names resonate more loudly than others: Jules Ferry, Albert Sarraut and Lyautey. But one of the most striking figures, although less mentioned today, remains Paul Doumer. Governor General of Indochina from 1897 to 1902, and future President of the French Republic, he was above all a rigorous, pragmatic and authoritarian administrator, whose actions had a profound impact on Vietnam, Laos and above all Cambodia.

At the heart of the 19th century, as the European powers sought to extend their influence in Asia, an exemplary figure stood out for his courage, his erudition and his decisive role in colonial and scientific history: Ernest Marie Louis de Gonzague Doudart de Lagrée.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, amid the turmoil of colonial conquests and the exploration of distant lands, a remarkable figure emerged, who was in turn a soldier, linguist, explorer and scholar: Étienne François Aymonier (1844-1929). A man of many talents, he was the first scientist to methodically survey the ruins and decipher the inscriptions of the ancient Khmer kingdom—now Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam—and to study the little-known Cham civil

Born in 1859 in the hamlet of Arbarella, on the rugged and proud island of Corsica, Jules Agostini grew up in fin-de-siècle France, with a vivid imagination for distant lands and the strangeness of other places.