IRAN AND THE WORLD IN THE SAFAVID AGE
Abstracts 

Calmard, Dr. Jean, Independent Scholar, Paris, The French Presence in Safavid Persia

French presence in Persia was marked from the very beginning, i.e. from the time of Ilkhanid Mongol rule in the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, by the constant interference of Christian missionaries and missions in diplomatic and commercial relations.  Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Franco-Persian relations were hampered by the long lasting policy of a Franco-Ottoman alliance pursued in particular by Francis I (1515-47) with the aim of counteracting Charles V's hegemony over Europe.  Whereas Italian cities and Spain entertained intermittent diplomatic relations with Persia, these could be started by France only in 1628, through two French Capuchins, fathers Gabriel de Paris and Pacifique de Provins.  They were thus placed under the aegis of French Catholic missionaries who kept interfering with the activities of variously commissioned merchants and diplomats.  Religious and political problems in Europe and Persia also remained a major drawback for the establishment of Franco-Persian relations on a firm setting. French presence in Persia however fostered mutual cultural knowledge.  French travelogues and other writings on Persia, notwithstanding the religious affiliations of their authors, remain the most valuable contribution to European knowledge of Persia and Persian culture in the Safavid period. This is clearly illustrated by two prominent observers of Safavid Persia: the Capuchin father Raphael du Mans, who died at Isfahan, and the Protestant, or Huguenot, Jean Chardin who eventually made his home in England.

In sharp contrast with the commercial achievements of the Portuguese, Dutch, and English in Persia, the French failed to establish there a company with a firm foothold.  A commercial treaty, proposed in 1708, modified in 1715, was ratified by Shah Soltan Hosain, through the French consul Padery's efforts, only in 1721, i.e. on the eve of the Afghan invasion and the fall of the Safavids.  Despite this lack of diplomatic and commercial results, there was an increasing interest in France for geographical and archaeological descriptions of Persia, and a curiosity for Persian customs, manners, religion, etc.  French travellers, essentially monks, missionaries and merchants, regularly came, stayed, and (some of them) died in Persia, from quite early in the seventeenth century to the 1720s and after.  Within the complicated development of Franco-Persian relations, this paper is intended to summarize the different phases of the presence of these travellers and to retrace their social status, professions, final destinations (some being bound for the Far East), itineraries, travelling conditions, as well as their perception of Persia and, whenever possible, the way they were perceived by the Persians.  An appreciation of the real influence of French missionary and commercial activities will be attempted. Although it remained somewhat limited, this influence was to take another aspect when, under the early Qajars, it began to attract a part of the Persian elite within the renewed set of French cultural values.

  
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