The first person to drive an automobile in Persia, in 1906 he wrote a book about his adventures, "La Perse en automobile" (aka "Through Persia in a Motor Car by Russia and the Caucasus"). He later lived three years in Russia, witnessing the Bolshevik Revolution. He reported on it as "civil war correspondent", which brought him imprisonment, loss of all his goods (including a fine painting by Ingrès now in the Hermitage) and escape. The outcome was a four-volume account of it, "Le Révolution russe de mars 1917 à juin 1918" (1917-19).
