This gallery presents six facets of Herménégilde Tell in chronological order: from his legal training to his death in this house in 1931. Each panel comes from the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Guianese Cultures.

1. The Lawyer – Parisian training

Tell studied law in Paris. He returned to Guiana, becoming a lawyer and then a teacher. A typical upward trajectory of the Creole colonial elite.

2. Penitentiary administration


Tell joined the penitentiary administration – the penal colony, then central to Guianese economy. A sensitive role, a place of power and tensions. He built his professional stability there.

3. General Councillor


Tell was elected General Councillor. He took part in Guianese territorial governance and defended local interests against the Parisian colonial administration.

4. Municipal Councillor


Tell was also a Municipal Councillor of Cayenne. He invested himself in the urban life of his native city and contributed to its planning, at a time when Cayenne was modernizing.

5. The Freemason


Initiated in 1893 at the La France Équinoxiale lodge in Cayenne, Tell founded in 1913 the L'Union Guyanaise lodge in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. Elite sociability typical of the era, where networks and alliances were formed.

6. Family and death in this house


Tell married Joséphine HALMUS in 1887. The couple had four children. Eugénie, their daughter, became a teacher before marrying Félix Éboué in 1922. Tell died in this house on March 5, 1931. He was the grandfather of the Éboué destiny.

📷 Photographies des panneaux d'exposition : Jean-Marie Kameni – © Musée des Cultures Guyanaises