Paul Soleillet  Paul Soleillet (29 April 1842 – 10 September 1886) was a French explorer in West Africa and Ethiopia. He was a strong believer in opening up Africa to trade through peaceful means, and thus bringing the benefits of French civilization to the natives while gaining commercial profits for France. Although Soleillet had no scientific training and did not speak the local languages, he was willing to travel on foot with little baggage and few companions, and thus generally avoided being robbed. After a short private expedition into the interior of Algeria he managed to raise support for a more ambitious expedition to In-Salah in 1874 to open a commercial center in the central Sahara. The expedition was a flop, since the coastal merchants had little to offer the interior tribes, who had little to offer in return. Despite this, Soleillet found himself the spokesman for groups interested in a Trans-Saharan railway, and was subsidized to make an expedition from Senegal into the Western Sudan in 1878. This achieved little, but he was treated as a hero on his return. He made an unsuccessful attempt to travel from Senegal to Algeria in 1880. Two French expeditions into the Sahara in 1881 were disastrous, and Soleillet's reputation collapsed. He spent his last years in East Africa tying to develop trade between the French enclave of Djibouti and Ethiopia. Just before he died he was in partnership with Arthur Rimbaud in an attempt to ship arms to the future Emperor of Ethiopia. Jean-Joseph-Marie-Michel-Paul Soleillet was born in Nîmes on 29 April 1842. His family originated in Marseille but was long settled in Nîmes. His father retired as Director of Direct Contributions in Montpellier. His mother, a Boyer, came from a family with a mid-sized shop that sold furniture and jewelry. His cousin, Ferdinand Boyer, was a barrister in Nîmes who became a deputy in 1871. He was also related to the Chabaud-Latours, a prominent local family with national connections. Soleillet attended secondary school at Avignon. He was a day student at the college of Saint-Joseph. His father gave him a job in his office, and was grooming him to succeed him. He had been pushed into marrying a girl from a good family. When she died in childbirth he fell into a depressed state and wanted to escape to a new environment. He became partner of a small manufacturer of gold and silver lamé fabrics designed for the North African market, travelled to Algeria and fell in love with the country.