Former Site of the French Consulate in Longzhou

Former Site of the French Consulate in Longzhou

The former site of the French Consulate in Longzhou is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The former site of the French Consulate in Longzhou was designated as a county-level cultural relics protection unit in 1996 and as an autonomous region-level cultural relics protection unit in 2000. The French Consulate in Longzhou consists of two identical two-story French-style buildings. Each building has a floor height of 5 meters, is 25.66 meters long, 15.2 meters wide, and covers an area of 780 square meters, with the total area of both buildings being 1,560 square meters. The floors are paved with stone slabs, and the roofs are covered with metal tiles. The central two spiral staircases and floorboards are all made of fine nanmu wood. There are 20 large archways around the building, with 2-meter-wide corridors inside the arches. The entire structure is sturdy and uniquely designed. When the French Consulate in Longzhou was first established, it had one consul, one clerk, and one doctor. In 1898, the position of full consul was abolished, leaving only a vice-consul who was also the consulate’s doctor, and the clerk-translator role was taken over by a Chinese. In the 9th year of the Republic of China (1920), the vice-consul in Longzhou was reinstated as a full consul. In November of the 11th year of the Republic of China (1922), the Governor-General of French Indochina appointed a Chinese graduate of the Hanoi Medical School to serve at the French Consulate and established a consulate hospital to provide medical treatment and medicine. In the 28th year of the Republic of China (1939), two Vietnamese staff members were added to the consulate. During the period of the French Consulate, a total of 28 consuls and vice-consuls were dispatched to serve in Longzhou.

In 1898, the French Consulate moved out of Louyuanjiao and relocated to the then-unused Longzhou Railway Station, using it as the new consulate site.

On February 1, 1930, the Communist Party of China led the Longzhou Uprising, and Consul Gade was expelled. For some time afterward, the French side no longer sent consuls to Longzhou. In 1933, Li Pingxian, the Border Defense Commissioner of Guangxi and also the Commissioner for Flood Control, renovated the consulate, after which the French side resumed sending consuls and reopened the consulate, which remained in operation until August 1949.

On October 7, 2019, the former site of the French Consulate in Longzhou was included in the eighth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Address: Limin Street, Longchuan County

Phone: 0771-8812446

Admission: Free

Getting There: Take a tricycle within the county town directly to the site; fare is 3–5 yuan

Further Reading:

· Eighth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units