In early modern France, Orientalism refers to the interaction of pre-modern France with the Orient, and especially the cultural, scientific, artistic and intellectual impact of these interactions, ranging from the academic field of Oriental studies to Orientalism in fashions in the decorative arts.McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz 2008 Orientalism in Early Modern France, , Berg Publishing, Oxford
Early study of Oriental languages
The first attempts to study oriental languages were made by the Church in Rome, with the establishment of the Studia Linguarum in order to help the Dominicans liberate Christians enslaved by Barbary pirates. The first school was established in Tunis by Raymond of Penyafort in the 12th and early 13th century.McCabe, p.29 In 1311, the Council of Vienne decided to create schools for the study of oriental languages in the universities of Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca and Rome.
The first Orientalist, Guillaume Postel (1536)
From the 16th century, the study of oriental languages and cultures was progressively transferred from religious to royal patronage, as Francis I sought an alliance with the Ottoman Empire.McCabe, p.37 Ottoman embassies soon visited France, one in 1533, and another the following year.
Guillaume Postel became the first French Orientalist after 1536, when he went to Constantinople as a member of the 12-strong French embassy of Jean de La Forêt to the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Postel brought back numerous books in Arabic, either religious or scientific in content (mainly mathematics and medicine), to France.McCabe, p.44
Scientific exchange is thought to have occurred, as numerous works in Arabic, especially pertaining to astronomy were brought back, annotated and studied by Postel. Transmission of scientific knowledge, such as the Tusi-couple, may have occurred on such occasions, at the time when Copernicus was establishing his own astronomical theories.Whose Science is Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe? by George Saliba Columbia University
Guillaume Postel envisioned a world where Muslims, Christians and Jews would be united in harmony under one rule, a message he developed two decades before the Universalist Jean Bodin.McCabe, p.15 He claimed that Islam was only a branch of Christianity, a simple heresy that could be reintegrated into Christianity, in his book Alcorani seu legis Mahometi et evangelistarum concordiae liber (1543).McCabe, p.40-41
Postel also studied languages and sought to identify the common origin of all languages, before Babel. He became Professor of Mathematics and Oriental Languages, as well as the first professor of Arabic, at the Collège royal.
Second embassy to the Ottoman Empire (1547)
Scientific research In 1547, a second embassy was sent by the French king to the Ottoman Empire, led by Gabriel de Luetz. The embassy included numerous scientists, such as the botanist Pierre Belon, naturalist Pierre Gilles d'Albi, the future cosmographer André Thévet, philosopher Guillaume Postel, traveller Nicolas de Nicolay, or the cleric and diplomat Jean de Monluc, who would publish their findings upon their return to France and contribute greatly to the early development of science in France.McCabe, p.48
Political studies Knowledge of the Ottoman Empire allowed French philosophers to make comparative studies between the political systems of different nations. Jean Bodin, one of the first such theorists, declared his admiration for the power and administrative system of the Ottoman Empire.McCabe, p.61 He presented as a model Turkish frugality, the Ottoman system of punishments for looting, and promotion on merit in the Janissaries. Such views would be echoed by 18th century comparative works such as L'Espion Turc or the Lettres persanes.
The arts French novels and tragedies were written with the Ottoman Empire as a theme or background.Ecouen Museum exhibit In 1561, Gabriel Bounin published La Soltane, a tragedy highlighting the role of Roxelane in the 1553 execution of Mustapha, the elder son of Suleiman.The Literature of the French Renaissance by Arthur Augustus Tilley, p.87 This tragedy marks the first time the Ottomans were introduced on stage in France.The Penny cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge p.418 Turquerie and chinoiserie were notable fashions that affected a wide range of the decorative arts.
Oriental studies
Oriental studies continued to take place towards the end of the 16th century, especially with the work of Savary de Brèves, also former French ambassador in Constantinople. Brèves spoke Turkish and Arabic and was famed for his knowledge of Ottoman culture.Marbled paper: its history, techniques, and patterns by Richard J. Wolfe p.35 Through his efforts, Capitulations were signed between Henry IV of France and Sultan Ahmed I on 20 May 1604, giving a marked advantage for French trade, against that of the English and the Venetians. In these capitulations, the protection of the French king over Jerusalem and the Holy Land is also recognized. Brèves was interested in establishing an Arabic printing press under his own account in order to introduce Oriental studies in France. He had Arabic, Turk, Persian and Syriac types cast while in Istanbul. He also brought to France a large collection of Oriental manuscripts. These excellent types, followed those of Guillaume Le Bé at the end of the 16th century.
While in Rome he set up a publishing house, the Typographia Savariana, through which he printed a Latin-Arab bilingual edition of a catechism of Cardinal Bellarmino in 1613, as well as in 1614 an Arabic version of the Book of Psalms.The Encyclopaedia of Islam: Fascicules 111–112 : Masrah Mawlid by Clifford Edmund Bosworth p.799Eastern wisedome and learning: the study of Arabic in seventeenth-century... G. J. Toomer p.30ff For the editorial work and the translations, Brèves used the services of two Lebanese Maronite priests, former students of the Maronite College, Gabriel Sionita (Jibrā'īl aṣ-Ṣahyūnī) and Victor Scialac (Naṣrallāh Shalaq al-'Āqūrī).
In 1610–11, Al-Hajari, a Moroccan envoy to France, met with the Orientalist Thomas Erpenius in September 1611 in Paris, and taught him some Classical Arabic.Eastern wisedome and learning: the study of Arabic in seventeenth-century Europe by G. J. Toomer p.43ff Through the introduction of Erpenius, Al-Hajari also met with the French Arabist Étienne Hubert d'Orléans, who had been a court physician for Moroccan ruler Ahmad al-Mansur in Marrakesh from 1598 to 1601.Romania Arabica by Gerard Wiegers p.410
A protégé of Savary de Brèves, André du Ryer published the first ever translation of the Qur'an in a vernacular language, L'Alcoran de Mahomet (1647), and published in the West the first piece of Persian literature Gulistan (1634).McCabe, p.97
According to McCabe, Orientalism played a key role "in the birth of science and in the creation of the French Academy of Sciences".McCabe, p.3
Development of trade
France started to set up numerous consulates throughout the Ottoman realm, in Tripoli, Beirut, Alexandria, and Chios. Intense trade also started to develop, centered on the city of Marseille, called "the door of the Orient". In Egypt, French trade was paramount, and Marseille was importing in large quantities linens, carpets, dyes, hides, leather, or waxes.McCabe, p.98 In 1682, the Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Ismail, following the embassy of Mohammed Tenim, allowed consular and commercial establishments,Bluche, François. "Louis XIV", p. 439, Hachette Litteratures, Paris (1986). and again in 1699 ambassador Abdallah bin Aisha was sent to Louis XIV.
Coffee drinking An Ottoman embassy was sent to Louis XIII in 1607, and from Mehmed IV to Louis XIV in 1669 in the person of ambassador Müteferrika Süleyman Ağa, who created a sensation at the French court and triggered a fashion for things Turkish.Göçek, p.8 The Orient came to have a strong influence in French literature, as about 50% of French travel guides in the 16th century were dedicated to the Ottoman Empire.Goody, p.73
In Paris, Suleiman set up a house where he offered coffee to Parisian society, with waiters dressed in Ottoman style, triggering enthusiastic responses, and starting the fashion for coffee-drinking.Bernstein, p.247New York Times Starbucked, 16 December 2007 Fashionable coffee-shops emerged such as the famous Café Procope, the first coffee-shop of Paris, in 1689.Bound together by Nayan Chanda p.88 In the French high society wearing turbans and caftans became fashionable, as well as lying on rugs and cushions.Bound together by Nayan Chanda p.87
Manufacture of "Oriental" luxury goods in France
The establishment of strong diplomatic and commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire through the Capitulations led to French money being drained to the Levant and Persia for the purchase of luxury goods such as knotted-pile carpets. Due to these concerns, and also because French luxury arts had collapsed in the disorders of civil violence in the Wars of Religion, Henri IV attempted to develop French luxury industries that could replace imports. The king provided craftsmen with studios and workshops. These efforts to develop an industry for luxury goods was continued by Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Silk manufacturing Henry IV made the earliest attempt at producing substitutes for luxury goods from the Orient. He experimented with planting mulberry trees in the garden of the Palais des Tuileries.McCabe, p.8 Ultimately, silk manufacturing would become one of the major industries of France into the 19th century, and one of the major reasons for the development of France-Japan relations in the 19th century.
During the 17th century, from being an importer, France became a net exporter of silk, for example shipping 30,000 pounds sterling worth of silk to England in 1674 alone.McCabe, p.6
Turkish carpet-making The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period circa 1650–1685. The manufactory had its immediate origins in a carpet manufactory established in a former soap factory (French: savon) on the Quai de Chaillot downstream of Paris in 1615 by Pierre DuPont, who was returning from the Levant and wrote La Stromatourgie, ou Traité de la Fabrication des tapis de Turquie ("Treaty on the manufacture of Turkish carpets", Paris 1632).Paris as it was and as it is, or, A sketch of the French capital by Francis William Blagdon p.512 Under a patent (privilège) of eighteen years, a monopoly was granted by Louis XIII in 1627 to Pierre Dupont and his former apprentice Simon Lourdet, makers of carpets façon de Turquie ("in the manner of Turkey"). Until 1768, the products of the manufactory remained exclusively the property of the Crown, and "Savonnerie carpets" were among the grandest of French diplomatic gifts.
Chinese porcelain
Chinese porcelain had long been imported from China, and was a very expensive and desired luxury. Huge amounts of gold were sent from Europe to China to pay for the desired Chinese porcelain wares, and numerous attempts were made to duplicate the material.Chinese glazes: their origins, chemistry, and recreation Nigel Wood p.240 It is at the Nevers manufactory that Chinese-style blue and white wares were produced for the first time in France, using the faience technique, with production running between 1650 and 1680.The Grove encyclopedia of materials and techniques in art Gerald W. R. Ward p.38
Chinese porcelain was collected at the French court from the time of Francis I. Colbert set up the Royal Factory of Saint-Cloud in 1664 in order to make copies (In the original "Contre-façons", i.e. "Fakes") of "Indian-style" porcelain.