Il n'est pas douteux qu'on trouvera des mines de toutes espèces, au moins du cuivre, du fer et du plomb… la France australe procurera des bois de construction et des mâtures, des goudrons, des chanvres…

“There is no doubt that mines of every kind will be found there, at least copper, iron, and lead… Southern France will supply timber for construction and masts, tar, and hemp.”

Kerguelen's optimistic 1772 report to King Louis XV, describing the newly sighted southern land as rich in resources — a claim later exposed as wild exaggeration once the barren, wind-scoured islands were properly explored.

J'envoyai aussitôt un de nos matelots déployer un drapeau sur ces terres qu'aucune créature humaine n'avait ni vues ni foulées avant nous.

“I immediately sent one of our sailors to unfurl a flag on these lands which no human being had ever seen or set foot upon before us.”

Dumont d'Urville's own account of claiming Adélie Land for France on 21 January 1840 — the first confirmed landing on the Antarctic mainland by a French expedition.

Pourquoi pas ?

“Why not?”

As a boy, Charcot answered every doubter of his ambition to become a sailor and polar explorer with this reply — he later named all four of his expedition ships Pourquoi-Pas?, including the one that carried French science into the southern and Antarctic seas.

Vent du nord dans la matinée, entraînant avec lui brume et pluie fine, toujours la fameuse boucaille.

“North wind in the morning, bringing with it mist and fine rain — always the notorious boucaille.”

A logbook entry from Charcot's first French Antarctic expedition, capturing the harsh, unpredictable weather ("boucaille" — a sailors' term for thick fog and drizzle) that defines the southern seas around territories such as Kerguelen and Crozet.

Le bruit d'échappement de vapeur ou de formidable scie circulaire que fait quelque baleinoptère ou quelque mégaptère en venant respirer à la surface de l'eau.

“The sound of escaping steam, or of some great circular saw, made by a whale or a humpback as it comes up to breathe at the surface of the water.”

Charcot's field description of whales surfacing near his ship, part of the scientific observations gathered during France's early Antarctic and sub-Antarctic expeditions.

La seule chose qu'on est sûr de ne pas réussir est celle qu'on ne tente pas.

“The only thing you are sure not to achieve is the one you never attempt.”

Victor's lifelong motto as founder of the French Polar Expeditions, the organization that built and ran France's scientific bases across the sub-Antarctic islands and Adélie Land.