People · French consul-general, French minister to China
Pierre René Dubail
吕班Lǚbān · 1845–1931
French consul-general in Shanghai in 1893–96, later minister in Beijing; a road in the French Concession bore his name.
Pierre René Dubail (吕班, Lǚbān) was French consul-general in Shanghai from May 1893 to 1896 and later France’s minister in Beijing. He began in the French legation in Chile in 1874 and came to China in 1876.
In Shanghai he was briefly called to Beijing in October 1893 to act as chargé d’affaires. During his term the consulate was being refitted, and he moved the French Concession’s Mixed Court to the Baxianqiao police station. After leaving Shanghai in 1896 he served in Uruguay and Japan, returned to Beijing in 1902, and became plenipotentiary minister in 1905, taking part in negotiations on the railway from Tonkin to Yunnan and on the lease of Guangzhouwan. In 1907 he founded a Franco-Chinese friendship association in Paris. The French Concession named a road after him.