Who is Monsieur Jean Dutourd from The Wine-dark Sea and what is their importance? The_Wine-Dark_Sea English & Literature Monsieur Jean Dutourd | The Wine-dark Sea

Dutourd is described by Maturin as a "Frenchman with enthusiastic visionary notions about an ideal community...[with] no Church, no King, no laws, no money, everything held in common, perfect peace and justice" (p. 195), all unfortunately established by the wholesale slaughter of the natives living on the island of Moahu, the presumed location of Dutourd's ideal society. Dutourd's philosophy is backed up by considerable wealth and, as detailed in a previous novel of the series, he has hired an American privateer, the Franklin, to convey him and his followers to Moahu. There, his attempts at conquest were stymied by Aubrey's intervention. Franklin fled the island, pursued by Surprise, and is captured during the volcanic disturbance described in the early novel.