ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Marquis de Rays

Okay kiddo, so the Marquis de Rays was a French dude who wanted to start a fancy new colony in the late 1800s. He thought it would be super cool to have a big piece of land in the Pacific where French people could come and live and be all fancy. So he came up with an idea to start a colony in what is now Papua New Guinea.

But here's the thing: the Marquis de Rays was maybe not the best at planning things. His colonists had a really rough time when they got there. They didn't have enough food to eat, and they got really sick from all the tropical diseases. Plus, the Marquis de Rays didn't really give them enough supplies to build houses or anything, so they were living in tents and stuff.

Eventually, the colonists figured out that the Marquis de Rays was maybe not such a great leader, and they started to get pretty unhappy. They tried to leave and go back to France, but they couldn't because they were stuck on this big island in the middle of nowhere. Eventually, a rescue ship came and saved the colonists, but the whole thing was a big mess.

So basically, the Marquis de Rays was a guy who had a big dream of starting a fancy new colony, but he didn't really plan things out very well and it ended up being a big disaster for everyone involved.