Louis Mizon
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
explorer
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
and colonial
French colonial empires
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
administrator.
Born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1853, Mizon entered in the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
in 1869. Between 1880 and 1883 he was at Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza
Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza
Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazzà, best known as Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza , was a Franco-Italian explorer, born in Italy and later naturalized Frenchman...
's orders, with whom he had difficulties working. In 1890 he was given the command of an expedition meant to find a viable route between the Niger
Niger River
The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...
and the Congo
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
rivers by passing by the Benue and Sangha River
Sangha River
The Sangha River, a river in central Africa, is a tributary of the Congo River, which it joins at . Formed by the merging of the Mambéré River into the Kadéï River at Nola , the Sangha flows through the Central African Republic, along the border of Cameroon, and through the Republic of Congo.Its...
. He also led a second mission in 1892 in the same places, meant in particular to establish French control over the Adamawa
Adamawa Plateau
The Adamawa Plateau is a plateau region in west-central Africa stretching from south-eastern Nigeria through north-central Cameroon to the Central African Republic. The plateau was named after Fulani Muslim leader Modibo Adama. The part of the plateau that lies in Nigeria is more popularly known...
(in modern Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
), from which the Benue, the major tributary of the Niger, rises. The plan failed, for the English protested that the claimed territory had been assigned to Britain.
In 1895 Mizon was nominated Resident
Resident (title)
A Resident, or in full Resident Minister, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indirect rule....
of Majunga
Mahajanga
Mahajanga is a city and a district on the north-west coast of Madagascar.- City :The City of Mahajanga is the capital of the Boeny region. Population: 135,660 ....
, in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
. He was promoted to administrateur-superieur of Mayotte
Mayotte
Mayotte is an overseas department and region of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre , a smaller island, Petite-Terre , and several islets around these two. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, namely between northwestern Madagascar and...
, at the orders of the governor-general of Madagascar, a position he held between August 5, 1897 and March 11, 1899. Nominated governor of Djibouti
Djibouti
Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti , is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east...
on March 7, 1899, he died, probably through suicide, on March 23, before reaching his post.