made their fortunes in the east, rather than as a romantic oriental town. He was unimpressed by the Suez Canal, which he found monotonous despite the impressive statistics. He also asserted that the British preferred to travel by French ships to avoid the "barbaric cooking of their compatriots." Many of his articles from these journeys were published in Le Temps. The 6 August 1885 issue of Le Temps carried a Bourde column, in which Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine were labeled "decadent" poets. He said there was nothing new in their movement, which was simply an exaggerated form of Romanticism. The poet Ernest Raynaud said that Bourde was the first to use the appellation "décadent", meaning it as a slur, but the term was readily accepted by its targets, who became known as the decadent movement. Colonial administrator In 1890, after another visit to Tunisia, Bourde launched a campaign accusing the French government of neglecting its duties in Tunisia, where the local people were living in misery. He said that French colonists could show them good farming methods and the route to prosperity, progress and happiness. The government responded by appointing him to an administrative position in Tunisia, and made him Director of Agriculture when he arrived in Tunis. He became an effective administrator of both colonization and agriculture. Bourde learned from ancient accounts of the country and showed that fruit trees, particularly olives, could be grown in the semi-arid region south of Kairouan. He argued that central Tunisia had been a desert before the Roman invasion, and the Romans had introduced olive tree cultivation. In the 11th century the Arabs destroyed the trees in an attempt to convert the area to pasturage for a nomadic population, causing great damage. He found that, contrary to the opinions of archaeologists, milled stones found in many ruins were not steles commemorating local deities but were olive presses. Bourde revived agriculture in the neglected areas, by working with associations of European settlers and local people. He was a prolific author of reports on cultivation of cereals and fruit trees, sheep raising, locust invasions, cactus plantations and vineyards. Due to his success in Tunisia, Bourde was appointed Secretary General of Madagascar in 1895. He traveled to Madagascar in January 1896, but soon fell out with that island's Resident General, Hippolyte Laroche, who accused Bourde of trying to usurp his position. He left when the