102
MICHAEL SMITHIES
French, advancing up the Mekong from Saigon, over-anticipating its value as a trade route to China and claiming suzerainty over Annamese vassals, slowly filled.
The explorer Mouhot was at Luang Prabang in 1861 and Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier shortly thereafter. The Kha rebellion of 1885 gave the French an excuse for intervention and stopping further extension of Siamese power in Laos; in 1886 a provisional Franco-Siamese convention was signed giving the French the right to establish a vice-consulate at Luang Prabang. The first mission by Pavie to Luang Prabang took place early in 1887, but French expansionism was effectively held in check for three years by the devastation caused by Deo Van Tri and the Black Flags (the Ho 'pirates' operating from Yunnan and Tonkin). Incidents increased between Siam and France and culminated with the French naval demonstration at Bangkok in 1893; the Siamese gave way and ceded the left bank of the Mekong to France. The Franco-Siamese treaty of 1907 gave the right-bank province of Sayaboury and those right bank parts of Champassak to France, but recognised Siamese authority over the rest of the right bank. The present frontiers of Laos were effectively decided by the French, from whom the Lao gained independence in 1949 under King Sisavong Vong. Prince Boun Oum of Champassak having in a secret protocol of 1946 renounced his right to the kingdom. More recent events have been well chronicled and the agreement of the three major political princes of left, right and centre in 1974 to form a joint government offers hope that the troubled post-war history of Laos might enter a more peaceful phase.
The buildings in Vientiane then are either restorations or totally modern and, as always in mainland southeast Asia, the monuments of note are almost exclusively religious. The most attractive shrine is the That Luang slightly outside the city. This solid tapering square tower was built in the 16th century by King Settathirat and is said to contain Buddhist relics. It was badly destroyed by the Red Flags in 1873 and its reconstruction was completed in 1929. It is an impressive pile set in a large open square fringed with trees. A vast fair takes place here every November and assumes a national importance.
Vat Pra Keo was also built originally by King Settathirat to house the Emerald Buddha on its arrival from Chiengmai; the statue