Beylié, Léon Marie Eugène de (1849 - 1910)

Léon Marie Eugène de Beylié (1849-1910) was a French colonial military officer, archaeologist, and art collector. He graduated from Saint-Cyr Military Academy, and subsequently served in military campaigns in North Africa, Central Asia, Madagascar, and Cochinchina. During the course of his military travels, he sent back to France some two thousand pieces of furniture, weapons, statues, and works of art, all donated to the Museum-Library of Grenoble. To his credit, he took extensive notes during these archeological acquisitions. To his military postings, he added on his own account journeys to Burma, China, Japan, and Java. His travels took him as far as the ruins at Angkor, which few Europeans at that point had laid eyes on. Near the end of his life he published a study of Hindu architecture in the Far East. When he died by drowning in the Mekong in 1910, he had reached the rank of General.