The Persian embassy to Louis XIV caused a dramatic flurry at the court of Louis XIV in 1715, the year of the Sun King's death.Padery and Gaudereau, La Perse et la France, documents nos. 89–100 describe the envoy's journey and reception; M. Herbette, Une Ambassade persane sous Louis XIV d'après des documents inédits, Paris, 1907; J. C. Hurewitz, ed. and tr., The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record, New Haven, Conn., 1956; On-line overview of French-Persian relations. Mohammad Reza Beg (; in French sources ) was a high-ranking official to the Persian governor of the Iravan (Erivan) province. He had been chosen by the Safavid Persian emperor Soltan Hoseyn for the mission and travelled with a grand entourage, as suitable to the diplomat of a mighty empire.
The embassy The scene of the Persian ambassador's entry into Paris, 7 February 1715, was described by François Pidou de Saint-Olon (1646–1720), a nobleman who was delegated the diplomatic position of liaison officer to the Persian delegation:He had been the French ambassador in Morocco, of which he published a description, Relation de l'empire de Maroc. Oú l'on voit la situation du pays, les moeurs, les coûtumes, gouvernement...; his brother, Louis-Marie Pidou de Saint-Olon (1637–1717), became French consul in Ispahan under the terms of the commercial treaty.
During several months that he spent at Versailles, Mohammad Reza Beg conducted negotiations towards establishing trade treaties between Persia and France, as well as on specific agreements concerning the installation of consulates. He conferred with the French on possible joint military operations against the Ottoman Empire. But negotiations were impeded by Louis XIV's bad state of health. Nevertheless, Mohammad Reza Beg returned to Persia in autumn 1715 bearing treaties on commerce and friendship between France and Persia that had been signed in Versailles on 13 August. As another result of the diplomatic mission, a permanent Persian consulate was established in Marseille, the main French Mediterranean port for the trade with the East, soon staffed by Hagopdjan de Deritchan. Hagopdjan de Deritchan, Consul de Perse en France.
Influences in literature
During the time he spent in Paris, however, feverish speculation ran rife about this exotic personage, his unpaid bills, his lavish but exotic lifestyle, the possibilities of amours, all concentrated in a pot-boiler romance of the beautiful but repeatedly kidnapped Georgian, Amanzolide, by M. d'Hostelfort, Amanzolide, nouvelle historique et galante, qui contient les aventures secrètes de Mehemed-Riza-Beg, ambassadeur du Sophi de Perse à la cour de Louis le Grand en 1715. (Paris: P. Huet, 1716).Bibliographic details, summary. It was quickly translated into English, as Amanzolide, story of the life, the amours and the secret adventures of Mehemed-Riza-Beg, Persian ambassador to the court of Louis the Great in 1715In German, Amanzolide oder des vor zwey Jahren in Franckreich gewesenen Persianischen Ambassadeurs Mehemed-Riza-Beg Liebes und Lebens-Geschichte (Leipzig: M. Georg Weidmann, 1717). a true turquerie, or fanciful Eastern imagining, which did not discriminate too finely between Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia.For the cultural context, see B. Naderzad, "Louis XIV, La Boullaye et l'exotisme Persan", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, L89 (January I972).
More permanent literary results were embodied in Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes (1725), in which a satiric critique of French society was placed in the pen of an imagined Persian homme de bonne volonté, a "man of good will".
The Memoirs of Saint-Simon for the year record contemporary court gossip that the ambassador was in fact an ordinary merchant from Persian lands, perhaps sent by "the governor of his province with business to transact in France" and put up as an ambassador by Pontchartrain, minister for trade and much else, essentially in a successful attempt to cheer up the aged king.Duc de Saint-Simon, ed. & trans Lucy Norton; Historical Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, Vol. 2, pp. 403-406, p. 403 quoted, 1968, Hamish Hamilton, London. He says of the ambassador "there seemed to be nothing genuine about him, and his behaviour was as disgraceful as his wretched suite and miserable presents. Moreover he produced neither credentials nor instructions from the King of Persia or his ministers".Norton, Vol II, 403
See also Persian embassy to Europe (1599–1602) Persian embassy to Europe (1609–1615) Franco-Persian alliance France-Iran relations Franco-Ottoman alliance
Notes
External links 1715 Reception of the Persian embassy (official website of Château de Versailles