1

Dear workshop participants,

This paper represents a first attempt at examining what are for me a set of rather new research questions. It is also an initial stab at a methodology or theoretical position that could help develop a future project, about which I will be happy to speculate more during the workshop itself.

As such, I ask your indulgence for its many flaws, as well as for my poor English. I thank you in advance for your feedback and look forward to your help in developing it further.

MG

  2

Their Masters' Voices? Muslim envoys and interpreters of "Oriental languages"

(France, c.1610-c.1780)

“The other project was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health, as well as brevity. For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our lunge by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, "that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express a particular business they are to discourse on." […] Another great advantage proposed by this invention was that it would serve as a universal language, to be understood in all civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part III, Chap. 5 Writing from his retreat in the Swiss village of Môtiers to his patron Madame de

Luze in 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau asked her to order for him five ells of Indienne cloth. Displaying an uncharacteristically cheerful mood throughout his letter, Rousseau planned to have the lilac cloth tailored into a kaftan, adding:

“in a nice lilac kaftan, I will look like a handsome boy from Tiflis or Erevan, and

I guess that shall suit me very well. It is a pity that I am in no capacity to dazzle you with my Armenian splendor (ma magnificence arménienne), and to pay you the homage of my finery. It is also a shame that with such a beautiful display, I am not one of those who can offer you – nor you one of those who can receive – the Salamalec from Lyons (le Salamalec lyonnais).”1 Rousseau’s taste for “Oriental” costume has received attention from both

literary scholars and historians.2 Yet, no mention is ever made of the last, odd and obscure, reference to the Salamalec lyonnais. Chances are, however, that both this mention and Rousseau’s cheerful tone resulted from one of the author’s recent reads: Le Salamalec lyonnais is indeed the title of a small tale in verse, published in the very same year 1762 in a collection of short stories attributed to the great French fabulist

                                                                                                               1 Rousseau to Madame de Luze, 25 September 1762, in Correspondance complète de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, edited by R.A. Leigh, Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1969, 13: 111. 2 See for instance Yolande CROWE, “Le manteau arménien de J.-J. Rousseau,” in Between Paris and Fresno: Armenian Studies in Honor of Dickran Kouymjian, ed. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Costa Mesa (Cal.): Mazda Publishers, 2008, p. 155-76. On May 2 to 4, 2012, an International Conference on Rousseau et la Turquie / Rousseau ve Türkiye will be held at the French school “Notre Dame de Sion”, in Istanbul. One of the six panels of this event will be dedicated to “Le manteau dit ‘arménien’ de Jean-Jacques Rousseau: turquerie vestimentaire ou posture intellectuelle ?,” featuring two papers by the curator of the Rousseau Museum of Môtiers (Roland Kaehr), and a professor of French at Boston College (Ourida Mostefai), as well as the screening of a 52’ documentary titled “Le manteau arménien de Jean-Jacques Rousseau” (director Patrick Cazals, Les Films du Horla, 2012).

  3

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695).3 La Fontaine’s authorship of many of these (mostly erotic or licentious) stories however remains highly dubious, and the tale itself has followed its own trajectory, as it was added to the collected works of a host of 17th and 18th centuries minor French authors – Gilles Ménage (1613-1692), Bernard de La Monnoye (1641-1728), Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1670-1741), Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Willart de Grécourt (1683-1743), and Alexis Piron (1689-1773).4

Le Salamalec lyonnais (see Annex 1) recounts an event that supposedly took place in the city of Lyons, in east-central France, in the year 1660. As the Ottoman envoy to the French king stopped in Lyons on his way to Paris, local officials looked for the most appropriate way to honor their guest. The choice was made to present the envoy with a reception discourse (un compliment) “in Ottoman language” or “in the Muslim tongue” [sic]. As they looked for someone who could carry out a task that required a rare knowledge of Turkish, a man came forward, introducing himself under the hybrid name of “François Sélim”, and claiming to be a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity. Boasting a thorough knowledge of Ottoman mores and customs, the man gave the city officials one order only: however “burlesque” or “mysterious” his postures and gestures might have looked, they were to imitate him scrupulously in everything he would do. Of course, the commandment was to be followed well beyond its author’s intention. François Sélim was no charlatan, and the Ottoman envoy expressed his amazement at seeing “a Christian [who] spoke Turkish like a book”. Informed of the interpreter’s conversion, the envoy refused to believe that anyone could possibly turn his back to the True Faith. Declaring Sélim a liar, he challenged him to display the “very precise sign” of his circumcision. But as Sélim complied with the injunction, the city officials, “following their guide, imitating his posture / Promptly gathered to pay their homage / Each one of them according to the talent, small or large / that Nature had bestowed upon him.” For good measure, the tale ends with the Ottoman ambassador fleeing “in fear of worse”, and the ladies of Lyons expressing their satisfaction at the ceremony,

“so that today none of them cares to see an ambassador, if he’s not coming from

Turkey” (Et telle fut leur jubilation, / Que maintenant nulle ne se soucie / De voir, après

cette réception, / Ambassadeur, s’il ne vient de Turquie). Despite its grotesque and satirical overtone (and, in retrospect, the racy nature

of Rousseau’s allusion!), the tale points to three directions along which I would like to articulate my study of interpreters of “Oriental languages” at the service of Muslim ambassadors to 17th- and 18th-century France. A first theme is the circulation of “Oriental” envoys and diplomats in early modern Europe, and especially in inland

                                                                                                               3 Jean de LA FONTAINE, Contes et nouvelles en vers, Amsterdam: “aux dépens de la Compagnie”, 1762, 3: 261-4. 4 Ménagiana, Ou les bons mots et remarques critiques, historiques, morales et d’érudition, de Monsieur Ménage, recueillies par ses amis, Paris: “chez la Veuve Delaulne”, 1729, 3: 254-6 (the volume was edited by La Monnoye…); Œuvres choisies de Monsieur de La Monnoye, Dijon: François Des Ventes, 1769, 1: 429-31; Contes inédits de J.-B. Rousseau, Brussels: Gay et Doucé, 1881, p. 32-5; Œuvres diverses de Monsieur de Grécourt, Amsterdam: Arkstéee & Merkus, 1772, 1: 258-9; Recueil de poésies ou œuvres diverses de M. Piron, Lausanne: s.n., 1773, p. 160-2. On the problem of authorship and authenticity of these compilations, see Gustave L. VAN ROOSBROECK, “Poems erroneously attributed to Chapelain, Corneille, J.-B. Rousseau, La Fontaine, etc.,” Neophilologus 11, 1 (1926): 8-15, who briefly mentions (p. 13) the Salamalec lyonnais, only to cast doubt on its attribution to either La Monnoye and J.-B. Rousseau.

  4

regions distant from both royal courts and port-cities – namely the two zones that have so far drawn most of the scholarly attention devoted to Christian/Muslim encounters. Lyons is a case in point: midway from the port of Toulon and the French capital, it stood as one of the main stages of the long and exhausting trip to Paris across Provence, the Rhone Valley, and the Burgundy region.5 For instance, we know that the Ottoman envoy Müteferrika Suleiman Aga and his retinue were received in Lyons in 1669 – an episode that might have inspired the tale of the Salamalec lyonnais, just as the whole embassy inspired a much finer piece of literature, namely Molière’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670).6 While these literary offspring testify for the growing “domestication” of foreign and exotic cultures in early modern Europe,7 they also mirror a world of social interactions that have so far remained largely underexplored. Taking on this observation, I intend to focus here on the social dimension of diplomacy as “an experience of the other”.8 As we know, the reception of foreign ambassadors and representatives followed strict codes, while leaving space for all forms of social interactions – from casual encounters to informal talks, and even romance. By charting some of those daily interactions in the context of 17th- and 18th-century Muslim missions to France, I intend to challenge the monolithic picture of “cross-cultural” exchanges as happening between two discrete cultural entities. Finally, the third theme of this paper is the question of linguistic interactions, and of both the practices at work, and the strategies at stake, in bridging the linguistic divide.

While in the 17th and 18th centuries, several memorialists, diarists, and occasional witnesses recorded the flying visit or the lengthy stay of “Oriental” envoys in cities allover France, evidence is often too fragmentary to offer an in-depth view on many of the practical aspects of these encounters. I have therefore chosen to focus on a limited number of cases, that are more substantially documented, thanks to the existence of specific accounts, correspondence, and other reports. The five cases that shall form the bulk of the material analyzed here, span over a little more than one century and half, from 1611 to 1777:

- the 1611 Moroccan mission lead by Ahmad ben Qasim al-Hajari. - the 1669 Ottoman embassy lead by Müteferrika Suleiman Aga. - the 1699 Moroccan embassy lead by Abdallah bin Aisha. - the 1743 Tunisian embassy lead by Ali Aga and Mehmet Hoja. - the 1777 Tunisian embassy lead by Suleiman Aga.

                                                                                                               5 Time estimates of this trip range from a couple of weeks to several months, as each embassy followed its own pace: calling at Toulon in mid-August 1669, the Ottoman envoy Müteferrika Suleiman Aga arrived in Paris by the end of October; the 1743 Tunisian mission left Toulon on April 15, to reach Paris on May 4; in 1777, Suleiman Aga and his retinue covered the same distance in exactly two weeks, from February 15 to 18. 6 On the Ottoman envoy’s stay in Lyon, see Jean ROUSSET DE MISSY, Le Cérémonial diplomatique des cours de l’Europe, Amsterdam and The Hague: Janssons et alii, 1739, p. 100. On the many cultural and literary outcomes of the 1669 embassy to Paris, see Mary HOSSAIN, “The Employment and Training of Interpreters in Arabic and Turkish under Louis XIV: France,” Seventeenth-Century French Studies 14 (1992): 235-46, here p. 236-7; Clarence Dana ROUILLARD, “The Background of the Turkish Ceremony in Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” University of Toronto Quarterly 39 (1969-70): 35-52; Adile AYDA, “Molière et l’envoyé de la Sublime Porte,” Cahiers de l’Association internationale des études françaises 9 (1957): 103-16. 7 For valuable insights on this issue, see Michèle LONGINO, Orientalism in French Classical Drama, Cambridge (Mass.): Cambridge U.P., 2002; Karla MALLETTE, European Modernity and the Arab Mediterranean: Toward a New Philology and a Counter-Orientalism, Philadelphia (Penn.): University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. 8 I borrow this expression from the title of Christian WINDLER’s seminal study, La diplomatie comme expérience de l’autre: Consuls français au Maghreb (1700-1840), Geneva: Droz, 2002.

  5

Unsurprisingly, the material documenting this selection varies greatly, both in nature, content, and size, from one case to the other. While the 1611 mission is mostly known thanks to the report written by al-Hajari himself,9 Müteferrika Suleiman Aga’s embassy attracted enough attention to find a broad echo in the French Gazette.10 In turn, the edition by historian Nabil Matar of a small portion of bin Aisha’s private correspondence allows us to catch an insider’s glimpse of the Moroccan ambassador’s sociability.11 Finally, the two Tunisian missions of 1743 and 1777 are documented through the accounts of the two French royal interpreters of “Oriental languages” who were taken into the ambassador’s service – namely respectively Jean-Baptiste Hélin de Fiennes, Jr., and Pierre-Jean-Marie Ruffin.12

Of course, this selection in turn leaves open a number of questions – first among them that of “Muslim embassies” as an historiographical construct, possibly devoid of any specific feature that would allow us to distinguish between those missions and, say, English, Russian or Siamese ones.13 Due to the impossibility of managing such a wealth of information, I have chosen to focus on the 1668 Russian embassy lead by Petr Ivanovic Potemkin: first, because this mission is well-documented thanks to the journal of Nicolas François Parisot de Saint-Laurent, a tutor of the scions of the French royal family.14 Second, because of the mission’s chronological proximity to the Ottoman embassy on the following year, a proximity which already at the time drew comments and comparisons that testify for what we might call an un-exceptional-ness of Muslim embassies in the eye of early modern French commentators.

Muslim embassies in early modern Europe: a bird-eye’s view To be sure, the still recent shift from an (almost) exclusively political to a

mostly cultural history of early modern diplomacy has opened new and fertile venues of investigation.15 This is even more so in the case of Muslim missions to Europe,

                                                                                                               9 Ahmad ibn Qasim AL-HAJARI, Kitâb nâsir al-dîn alâ l-qawm al-kâfirîn / The Supporter of Religion against the Infidels, edited by Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld, Qâsim al-Sammarai, and Gerard A. Wiegers, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1997. 10 The Gazette issues dealing with the 1669 embassy have been compiled by historian David Chataignier, and published on the website of the research team “Molière 21” of the University Paris 4: http://moliere.paris-sorbonne.fr/base.php?L%27ambassade_de_S%C3%BCleyman_A%C4%9Fa_%28 Soliman_Aga%29_dans_la_Gazette_de_l%27ann%C3%A9e_1669 11 Nabil MATAR, In the Lands of the Christians: Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century, New York and London: Routledge, 2003, p. 197-214. 12 Jean-Baptiste Hélin de FIENNES (fils), Une mission tunisienne à Paris en 1743, edited by Pierre Grandchamp, Tunis: J. Aloccio, 1931; Pierre-Jean-Marie RUFFIN, Journal de l’ambassade de Suleiman Aga à la cour de France (janvier-mai 1777), edited by Marthe Conor and Pierre Grandchamp, Tunis: Imprimerie Rapide, 1917. On Fiennes and Ruffin, see the biographical notes by Frédéric HITZEL in the authoritative Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française, ed. François Pouillon, Paris: Karthala, 2008, p. 388 and 850. 13 It should indeed be recalled here that two Siamese embassies reached Paris, in 1684 and 1686, drawing considerable public attention, and leading Louis XIV to reciprocate with two embassies to Siam, in 1685 and 1687. See Ina BAGHDIANTZ MCCABE, Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime, Oxford and New York: Berg, 2008, p. 125-8 and 257-9. 14 Nicolas François Parisot de SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit de l’ambassade de Pierre Potemkin en France pendant l’année 1668, Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1872. 15 See for instance Christian WINDLER, “Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis: Muslim-Christian Relations in Tunis, 1700-1840,” The Historical Journal 44, 1 (2001): 79-106.

  6

which historical importance has been consistently overlooked by Western historians – just as practically all evidences of a Muslim presence in early modern Europe have long been deemed negligible.16 The reasons for such neglect are many, and possibly run deep into the collective psyche of both scholars and their readers. In an effort to think through this silence, historian Nabil Matar famously claimed that traditional representations of “the Muslim world” in terms of backwardness and inwardness have long made Western historians blind to even the most blatant historical evidence of the contrary. 17 In turn, the interest paid to diplomacy by a certain “colonialist” historiography in the first half of the 20th century, might account for the discomfort felt by many of today’s historians while facing this complex legacy.18 In the absence of systematic and comprehensive studies of Muslim/Christian diplomacy in the early modern period, one can justly regret the fragmentary nature of the field.

Quite tellingly, however, the interest for the history of Christian/Muslim diplomatic exchanges is not new. In the personal papers of the French 19th-century writer and historian Edouard Fournier (1819-1880), we find a list of some 29 “Oriental princes and ambassadors” who came to France from the 9th to the 19th century.19 Spanning over the course of a millennium, the list records a wide range of visitors, from the half-mythical embassy sent by Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans, until the more recent Persian embassies to Napoléon (1808) and Louis XVIII (1819). Yet, and despite this long-standing interest in the issue, today’s historians still lack basic information. For instance, and aside from a handful of well-documented cases, most of them from the 18th and 19th centuries, we do not have a comprehensive and precise chronology of the different missions sent by the Ottoman Empire, the so-called “Barbary States” (Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli), Morocco, and Persia, to Europe in the early modern period. To be sure, this is partly due to the very elusiveness of the object itself (cf. infra). But even a rapid attempt to collate the scattered and fragmented evidence at our disposal, indicates that Muslim missions to early modern France were a common and fairly regular phenomenon, which both testified and accounted for the vitality of exchanges and contacts across the Mediterranean.

A first – and most likely incomplete – count of the Muslim missions that were received at the French court between 1581 to 1825, leads to an estimate of 29. I shall insist here that this is only a rough estimate, based on my compilation of scattered evidence, and likely to be increased by as much as 50 %. Similarly, my choice to consider only those embassies that were granted an audience with the king has lead me to leave out a number of missions that either never reached the French capital,20 went past it on their way to another destination, 21 or were eventually denied

                                                                                                               16 Jocelyne Dakhlia and Bernard Vincent (eds.), Les Musulmans en Europe au Moyen Age et à l’époque moderne, vol. 1, Une intégration invisible, Paris: Albin Michel, 2011, especially p. 7-29. 17 MATAR, In the Lands of the Christians…, op. cit., p. xiii-xiv. 18 See for instance Salvatore BONO, Un altro Mediterraneo: Una storia comune tra scontri e integrazioni, Rome: Salerno Editrice, 2008. 19 Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal (Paris), Mss. 7124, Notes et papiers d'Edouard Fournier (1819-1880), tome XXI, f. 22v, “Princes et ambassadeurs orientaux à Paris”. This list mainly consists of a collection of quotes and references that Fournier gathered from his readings. 20 The most famous of such cases may be that of the 1620 Algerian mission to France, whose 46 members were slaughtered in Marseilles. On this episode, see MATAR, In the Lands of the Christians…, op. cit., p. xxviii; Henri-Delmas DE GRAMMONT, Histoire du massacre des Turcs à Marseille en 1620, Paris and Bordeaux: Honoré Champion and Charles Lefevbre, 1879. 21 This is for instance the case of the Ottoman embassy to The Hague that stayed in Paris for a week in the summer of 1788. See Archives du Ministère français des Affaires Etrangères [A.M.A.E.], Contrôle

  7

permission to present themselves to the royal court.22 In any case, and while raw numbers may well be of little help to comprehend such a complex and plural phenomenon, they indicate an “order of magnitude”, which in turn points to two basic observations: first, their very frequency makes Muslim embassies a reality that can hardly be dismissed as “unimportant” or “marginal”. Second, these figures are only indicative of a broader set of exchanges involving French embassies to the Ottoman Empire, the “Barbary States”, Morocco, and Persia. In this perspective, Muslim missions to France might usefully be described as a number of links in a larger chain of virtually never-ending mechanisms of reciprocity and obligation.23 Yet, one also needs to account for patterns of asymmetry behind this somewhat homogenous picture of Christian/Muslim relations. For instance, all Muslim polities did not contribute to the same extent to this diplomatic activity: out of my sample of 29 missions, 10 came from the Ottoman Empire, 6 from Morocco, 6 from Tunis, 3 from Persia, 2 from Algiers, and 2 from Tripoli (see Annex 2). Although significant, the share of the Ottoman Empire in the Muslim diplomatic activity to France was therefore proportionally less important than in the case of its direct neighbor the Habsburg Empire.24 Likewise, the geographic distribution of embassies across Europe also shows large discrepancies among “receiving countries”: while France remained by far the most common destination, Italy, England, Spain, the Netherlands and the Habsburg Empire also welcomed a significant number of embassies. Somewhat more surprisingly, smaller and more remote European countries like such as Sweden and Denmark also received embassies – most often jointly, as in the case of the two missions sent to both countries by Tripoli in 1772 and 1779-80.

Many different motives prompted Muslim rulers to send embassies to Europe, ranging from the enforcement of bilateral peace treatises and trade agreements, to the voicing of complaints over piracy or arbitrary sequestration. More original purposes included al-Hajari’s 1611 mission in favor of Morisco refugees in Southwestern France, as well as some occasional intelligence – a theme that met popularized across Europe by the so-called memoirs of a “Turkish spy” in Paris.25 Finally, a number of embassies were sent under the pretext of princely events, such as a coronation, a birth, and even a circumcision.26 In 1825, the two satirists Auguste Barthélemy (1796-1867) and Joseph Méry (1798-1866) would wryly note:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             des étrangers au XVIIIe siècle, 1771-1791, vol. 69, Surveillance des étrangers et du corps diplomatique: enquêtes nominatives, janvier-mars 1788, f. 2, 4 July 1788. 22 See for instance the Algerian embassy of 1690, which waited in Paris for 6 month before the envoy’s request to be received at Versailles was refused. In 1781, the Moroccan embassy led by Ali Peres in turn failed to be recognized by Louis XVI, because it had not been properly accredited by the French Consul in Morocco, and that the title of the French king had not been properly rendered. 23 This suggestion of course owes a lot to Bourdieu’s seminal observations on the binding nature of reciprocation; Pierre BOURDIEU, Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, Geneva: Droz, 1972 (Engl. trans., Cambridge and New York: Cambridge U.P., 1977) 24 See for instance David DO PAÇO, “Invisibles dans la banalité et le mépris. Les Musulmans à Vienne des années 1660 à la fin du XVIIIe siècle,” in Les Musulmans en Europe au Moyen Age et à l’époque moderne, vol. 1, Une intégration invisible, eds. Jocelyne Dakhlia and Bernard Vincent, Paris: Albin Michel, 2011, p. 56-80, here p. 70: “Les ambassades musulmanes à Vienne sont avant tout des ambassades ottomanes”. 25 Guy LE THIEC, “L’Œil des Infidèles: Marana et la fiction de l’espion ottoman,” in Ambassadeurs, apprentis espions et maîtres comploteurs: Les systèmes de renseignement en Espagne à l’époque moderne, ed. Béatrice Perez, Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2010, p. 417-35. 26 For instance, one of the two Ottoman embassies that reached Paris in 1581 was in charge of inviting king Henri III to the circumcision of sultan Murad’s son Mehmed; Frédéric HITZEL, “Réflexions juridiques et historiques sur le voyage des Ottomans en terre infidèle,” in Le Voyage dans le monde

  8

“a coronation is not complete in the absence of a Turkish ambassador” (Un Sacre n’est pas complet sans ambassadeur turc).27

The variety of motives behind these missions invites for a further questioning of

the very notions of “embassy” and “ambassador”. To be sure, this is an endless question, which already kept busy those in charge of the diplomatic protocol in 17th and 18th century France. For instance, Müteferrika Suleiman Aga’s quality became a topic of heated discussion and zealous inquiries from the very day he called at Toulon. As he welcomed him in Paris, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugues de Lionne (1611-1671) declared:

“The king summoned me to treat with you, whether you are an ambassador, or

only an envoy, in the same way the principal ministers of your Emperor use with our ambassadors and envoys. […] I must also declare that I do not know if, while your letters of introduction will bear the word “Elchi” [Elči], meaning ambassador, my master the emperor will receive you as such, unless you bring to him presents, as he has sent to your master through his ambassadors.”28 The reluctance shown by French officials to treat Müteferrika Suleiman Aga

according to his supposed status provoked both anxiety and resentment among the envoy’s retinue, and loomed large on the eventual failure of the whole mission.

Finally, a last problem that emerges while trying to address from a general perspective the question of Christian/Muslim diplomacy has to do with the terminology involved, and more specifically with the use of the label “Muslim” applying to missions from both the Ottoman Empire, the Barbary States, and Persia. While these powers all recognized Islam as their religion, it might be useful to recall not only the differences between Ottoman, Persian, and Arab forms of Islam, but also the diverse social and religious outlook of “Islamicate” societies in the early modern period.29 While the participation of Muslims to the diplomatic missions should not be overlooked, we know that a number of those missions were also entrusted to Christian or Jewish subjects – suffice it to recall the role played by the Jew Samuel Pallache and the Morisco Ahmad ben Qasim al-Hajari as Moroccan envoys to France and the Netherlands in the early 16th century.30 Finally, we should also be reminded of the role played by conversion to Islam in the (often rapid) integration of the non-Muslim subjects to the higher echelons of Muslim states. Heading the Algerian embassy to                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              arabo-musulman: échange et modernité, eds. Abderrahmane El Moudden and Abd al-Rahim Benhadda, Rabat: Faculté des Lettres, 2003, p. 13-34, here p. 22. 27 Auguste BARTHÉLEMY and Joseph MÉRY, Sidiennes: Epîtres-satires sur le dix-neuvième siècle, Paris: “chez les Marchands de Nouveautés”, 1825; republished in Œuvres de Barthélemy et Méry, 3rd ed., Paris: A.-J. Denain and Perrotin, 1831, 1: 1-65, here p. 3. 28 La Gazette, n. 139, 23 November 1669, p. 1125-8, “Relation de l’audience donnée par le Sieur de Lyonne, à Soliman Musta-Féraga [Müteferrika Suleiman Aga], Envoyé au Roi, par l’Empereur des Turcs, le Mardi 19 Novembre 1669, à Suresnes”. On the question of terminology, see Bernard LEWIS, “Elči”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, 1991, Leiden: Brill, 2: 694, col. 1. 29 I follow here the definition of “Islamicate” coined by Marshall HODGSON, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974, 1: 59: “"Islamicate" would refer not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-Muslims.” 30 On Pallache, see Mercedes GARCÍA-ARENAL and WIEGERS Gerard, A Man of Three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant Europe, trans. Martin Beagles, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U.P., 2003.

  9

Vienna in 1758, Hagi Demetrio Marcacchi was a Greek who had converted to Islam, and had just been appointed as the representative (whether “consul” or “agent”, depending on the sources) of Algiers to Livorno.31

Strangers in the city? Muslim envoys and the logics of “otherness” The recent emphasis on diplomacy as both a locus and a vector of cross-cultural

exchanges has allowed for a better and finer understanding of how concepts of “otherness” were articulated and negotiated in the early modern period.32 While taking on board these valuable insights, I would like to offer a rather different view on Muslim missions to Europe, by focusing on some practical aspects of diplomatic contacts. I should start here with a very basic observation: Christian/Muslim diplomatic exchanges did not happen in a social vacuum, but rather formed an important part of an ongoing process of cross-cultural interactions that both elaborated on past experiences, and laid the ground for future contacts. The lavish receptions thrown in honor of some Muslim envoys certainly captured the attention of all viewers, commoners and courtiers alike; yet, those manifestations should also be recast against the backdrop of a more common, everyday presence and circulation of “Orientals” in most of the major European metropolises.

For all its satire and mockery, Le Salamalec lyonnais did not ridicule the very possibility of finding a Muslim convert in a far inland and rather provincial city like 17th-century Lyons. Indeed, the mention of the year 1660 might itself indicate that the story originally conflated references to two different, actual historical anecdotes. As mentioned earlier, the first reference is most likely to the stay, in 1669, of the Ottoman ambassador Müteferrika Suleiman Aga, then on his way to Paris. But the story of the Muslim convert might in turn refer to an earlier anecdote, which took place precisely in 1660: namely, the official permission granted by the local authorities to the famous Jesuit heraldist Claude-François Ménestrier, to become the godfather of “a Turk from Algiers named Aly”, whom he had converted to Catholicism two years earlier.33 Heavily publicized by both the municipality and the Society of Jesus, the case had drawn public attention on the presence, in Lyons, of a number of foreigners of all origins and walks of life. By staging François Sélim as a simple innkeeper (Notez qu’alors tenait auberge illec), the tale therefore offers a fairly credible picture of this modest “Oriental” presence – one almost invisible for today’s historians, yet in plain sight for most of the city-dwellers at the time.

                                                                                                               31 On the 1758 embassy to Vienna, see DO PAÇO, “Invisibles dans la banalité et le mépris,” op. cit., p. 71. On Marcacchi’s career in Livorno, see Calogero PIAZZA, “L'agente di Algeri a Livorno (1758-1765),” Annali della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell'Università di Cagliari 9 (1983): 475-512. 32 To remain within the realm of Muslim diplomacy in Europe, see Stéphane YERASIMOS, “Explorateurs de la modernité. Les ambassadeurs ottomans en Europe,” Genèses. Sciences sociales et histoire 35 (1999): 65-82; David DO PAÇO, “Un Orient négocié. L’ambassade marocaine de Mohamed Ben Abdel Malek à Vienne en 1783, dans les grandes gazettes européennes de langue française,” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 76 (2008): 229-61. 33 Archives Municipales de Lyon, BB 215, Délibérations municipales, 1660, f. 97, 2 March 1660: “Le consulat ayant esté prié par le père Menestrier religieux de la Compagnie de Jésus de voulloir aggréer d’estre parrain d’un Turc par luy cathéchisé et converty en la foy catholique apostolique et romayne. Lesdits sieurs en considération de ce que ledit père Menestrier a bien mérité du général de la dite ville on a accepté sa proposition et arresté d’estre parrain du dit Turc.” On Ali’s baptism, see idem, BB 213, Délibérations municipales, 1658, f. 75, 29 January 1658.

  10

In turn, the apparent banality of this presence leads us to question the notions of “otherness” and “exoticism” that have long been shaping our understanding of Christian/Muslim encounters. A thousand miles away from “home”, Muslim diplomats were indeed still likely to encounter people who spoke Arabic or Turkish, or who had spent years in either the Levant or the Barbary Coast. Al-Hajari’s account of his 1611 mission to France offers plenty of such examples. In the Norman town of Rouen, the Moroccan envoy came across “a merchant whom [he] had known in Marrakesh”, and who “because of the length of his stay in the land of the Muslims knew Arabic very well”.34 The man he called “Qart” was probably Jacques Jancart, a French trader who had spent some time in Morocco, and would later become close to ruler Moulay Zaydan, to the point of acting as his commissioner to the Dutch Republic.35 At the other end of the period under consideration, we are told of the unlikely encounter, in the small village of Fromenteau, between the Ottoman envoy Suleiman Aga and a man who claimed to hail from Algiers.36 Similar examples also abound in the case of other, non-Muslim missions. For instance in 1668, the Russian ambassador Potemkin stopped in the small city of Blois on his way from Madrid to Paris. There, he met “by chance” (par hazard) with “a Muscovite Dominican friar (un Jacobin moscovite37) who spoke French, and whose life he had saved, then a general in the army, during the storming a Polish city.” As a token of his gratitude, the Muscovite offered to serve as the ambassador’s interpreter during the time of his mission in France.38 The proposal was accepted: Potemkin had gone all the way from Russia to Spain and France, to realize that his interpreter “spoke only the Muscovite and German tongues”, while another person of his retinue – a “translator” (translateur) from Courland, today Latvia – could get them by with some Latin.39

These examples of casual encounters seem to point to a pattern of “fortuitous familiarity” between foreigners and certain types of local population – more-or-less recent immigrants, nationals who have travelled or lived abroad, etc. On the other hand, the existence of structures of hospitality in some of the major European metropolises also testifies for both the intensity of transnational mobility, and the banality of the foreigners’ presence.40 In the case of 18th-century Paris, historian Daniel Roche has attempted to sketch a map of the distribution of foreign residence in the city, first in neighborhoods located on the West bank of the Seine river (Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Luxembourg, Saint-André-des-Arts), and then increasingly on the Right bank (Palais-Royal) by the time of the French Revolution. 41 Quite unsurprisingly, most of the Muslim ambassadors residing in the French capital in the                                                                                                                34 AL-HAJARÎ, Kitâb nâsir al-dîn…, op. cit., p. 103. 35 On Jancart’s 1616-17 mission to The Hague, see GARCÍA-ARENAL and WIEGERS, A Man of Three Worlds…, op. cit., p. 102-6. 36 RUFFIN, Journal de l’ambassade …, op. cit., p. 20. 37 It should be recalled here that the Dominican order was known in France as the “Jacobin Order”, after the foundation, in 1218, of its Parisian monastery in the rue Saint-Jacques. 38 SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit…, op. cit., p. 24. 39 Ibid., p. 17. 40 On the question of reception and accommodation of the foreign presence in early modern Europe, see for instance Olivia Remie CONSTABLE, Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Cambridge (Mass.): Cambridge U.P., 2003; Daniel ROCHE (ed.), La Ville promise. Mobilité et accueil à Paris (fin XVIIe-début XIXe siècle), Paris: Fayard, 2000; Claudia MOATTI and Wolfgang KAISER (eds.), Gens de passage en Méditerranée de l’Antiquité à l’époque moderne. Procédures de contrôle et d’identification, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2007. 41 Daniel ROCHE, Humeurs vagabondes: De la circulation des hommes et de l’utilité des voyages, Paris: Fayard, 2003, p. 460-5.

  11

18th century stayed in the same neighborhoods. In 1669, Müteferrika Suleiman Aga stayed at the Hôtel de Venise, in the St Germain des Prés neighborhood,42 while in 1743 the two Tunisian envoys were sent to the neighboring Hôtel de Transylvanie.43 Interestingly enough, a similar pattern could then be observed in other cities: this was for instance the case of 18th-century Vienna, as most Muslim ambassadors (a large majority of them Ottoman) resided in the Leopoldstadt faubourg.44 Finally, and accounting for the change underlined by Roche, a shift in the residential pattern of Muslim envoys in Paris likely occurred around the 1780s: in January 1788, the Moroccan envoy Mahomet Benal stayed at the Hôtel d’Orléans, in the Palais-Royal Galeries, a stone’s throw away from the Hôtel de France, were Mahomet Berabinabinan, a Tripolitan envoy to the Hague, would reside six month later.45 Arguably, this capacity to imitate the residential patterns of a larger body of foreigners may have lead (on some occasions at least) to a “dilution” of the presence of Muslim diplomats within the urban and social fabric of the European capitals they visited. In his introduction to de Fiennes’ account of the 1743 Tunisian embassy, historian Pierre Grandchamp indeed recalled that the stay in Paris of the two envoys and their retinue of seven persons went almost unobserved (“leur passage à Paris fut très peu remarqué”).46

The politics of reception: etiquette, protocol and practices While recasting “Muslim” missions against the backdrop of an already familiar

“Oriental” presence in early modern Europe, it is important to account also for the specificities of diplomatic exchanges. For instance, we know how carefully most European states devised structures and protocols aimed at monitoring the presence on their soil of foreign diplomats.47 In the case of early modern France, this resulted in the fostering of increasingly codified operations, relying on the intervention of a series of intermediaries. Considering the royal audience as the climax of any diplomatic mission, most of the scholarship has been so far focusing on the handful of actors directly involved in this event. In this paper, I would like to adopt a broader perspective, and consider the presence and reception of foreign envoys in their longer chronology – namely from the moment they set foot in France until the moment they departed

The geographic location of Paris implied that most envoys from the Ottoman Empire, the “Barbary States” or Persia had to call first in one of the ports of the Southern Coast of France (generally Toulon), before continuing their journey to Paris. Only on rare occasions did the ambassadors enter France through its Eastern, inland border, or its Atlantic ports. An exception in this respect are the Moroccan envoys, as

                                                                                                               42 La Gazette, n. 148, 19 December 1779, p. 1193-1200, “L’Audience donnée par Sa Majesté, à Soliman Mouta-Faraca, Envoyé du Grand Seigneur : avec ce qui s’est passé en son Voyage”. The Hôtel de Venise was located in the Rue Saint Benoît. 43 FIENNES, Une mission tunisienne…, op. cit., p. 15-6. The Hôtel de Transylvanie was located in the Rue de l’Odéon. 44 DO PAÇO, “Invisibles dans la banalité et le mépris,” op. cit., p. 72. 45 A.M.A.E., Contrôle des étrangers au XVIIIe siècle, 1771-1791, vol. 67, Surveillance …, janvier-mars 1788, f. 43, 25 January 1788; Idem, vol. 69, f. 2, 4 July 1788. The Hôtel de France was located in the Rue Neuve Saint Marc. 46 FIENNES, Une mission tunisienne…, op. cit., p. 6. 47 See for instance Donald QUELLER, “Early Venetian Legislation Concerning Foreign Ambassadors,” Studies in the Renaissance 12 (1965): 7-17.

  12

a number of them appear to have been sailing from Salee around Spain, and to have entered France through the Norman port of Le Havre.48 Another one was the Russian ambassador Potemkin, who, by the time he entered France through the Pyrenees, had already been staying in Spain for more than 6 months.49 In general, however, Toulon stood as the starting point of what appeared to be the second leg of the envoys’ journey to the French court. An officer was usually sent by the king to meet the envoys: with the only exception of the introducteur des ambassadeurs in charge of introducing foreign ambassadors at their royal audience, envoys and their retinue were to remain at all times with this officer, whose mission was to facilitate in every possible way their journey to Paris. To be sure, the often late notice of the envoy’s arrival as well as the daunting nature of the task required a devoted personnel, and the mission was generally entrusted to aristocrats in the king’s service. In early August 1669, upon hearing that Müteferrika Suleiman Aga had arrived in Toulon, “His Majesty chose the Sieur de Lagébértie [La Gibertie], Gentleman in Ordinary of his House, to go receive him, accommodate him, pay for his expenses on the way [to Paris], and to honor him according to his function.”50 A year earlier, Louis XIV had ordered another of his “Gentlemen in Ordinary”, the Sieur de Calva, to head to the South West of France and receive the Russian ambassador Potemkine; for some unknown reason, Calva was eventually replaced off the cuff by yet another Gentleman, Monsieur de Catheux.51

Rather than a discretionary measure of courtesy, this mission formed part of a broader set of practices aimed at fostering diplomatic contacts. Yet, it was also strictly subjected to the (unwritten) rule of reciprocity: not all foreign envoys were granted this reception, but those sent by powers that provided the same courtesy to French ambassadors abroad. For instance, we know that in 1668, the decision was made to sent Monsieur de Catheux to meet the Russian embassy “because the Grand duke of Moscovia does the same toward the French ambassadors who reaching his estate.”52 The same rule applied to France’s “Muslim” partners, and both parties seemed keen to have it respected, reporting any of the other’s failure as a potential affront. Yet, by sending one of his personal officers to receive the newly arrived ambassador, the French king did not only comply with this demand for reciprocity: he asserted his control (both material and symbolic) over the mission for the time it was to remain within the frontiers of his realm.

Most diplomatic missions consisted in a circular trip from Toulon to Paris and back, and the king’s officer was to monitor the envoy’s presence until he left the kingdom – accompanying him back to Toulon, and arranging for his crossing to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli or the Levant. In this context, the notion of border appears of crucial importance: sent to meet a Guinean ambassador in 1670, the “gentleman in ordinary” Monsieur des Planes reportedly “went on the border” (alla sur la frontière)

                                                                                                               48 Such is for instance the case of al-Hajari in 1611, and of Abdallah bin Aicha in 1699. 49 SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit…, op. cit., p. 16. 50 La Gazette, n. 148, “L’Audience donnée…”, doc. cit. 51 ROUSSET DE MISSY, Le Cérémonial diplomatique…, op. cit., p. 94; “Ordonnance du Roy sur la façon de recevoir les ambassadeurs du Grand Duc de Moscovie,” 5 August 1668, quoted in Marianne SEYDOUX, “Les ambassades russes à la cour de Louis XIV,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 9, 2 (1968): 235-44, here p. 239. 52 ROUSSET DE MISSY, Le Cérémonial diplomatique…, op. cit., p. 93-4. French ambassadors in Russia were indeed received on the border by an emissary of the czar, or pristaf; see Marie-Karine SCHAUB, “Comment régler des incidents protocolaires ? Diplomates russes et français au XVIIe siècle,” in L'incident diplomatique (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle), eds. Lucien Bély and Géraud Poumarède, Paris: A. Pedone, 2010, p. 323-36, here p. 331.

  13

to greet him, before he accompanied him back “on the border” (jusques sur la frontière) about month later.53 As for the journey from Toulon to Paris, it is described in most accounts as a long series of receptions, visits and ceremonies.54 French authorities, however, often expressed their reluctance to have foreign diplomats crisscross its territory: if not for fear of them carrying on intelligence activities, at least because the French treasury had to cover all the expenses of the journey. On several occasions, the king officer would therefore be summoned to speed up the travelers’ pace, sometimes at the annoyance of the envoys and their retinue.55

But more than a mere escort, the king’s officer was in charge of establishing a sustained contact with the foreign ambassador. Much relied therefore on the quality of this initial encounter: for instance, La Gibertie’s overzealous commitment to check Müteferrika Suleiman Aga’s official status (he went so far as to question members of his retinue, and to send letters to Istanbul), probably loomed large on the tensions that later became apparent, and made the Ottoman mission a diplomatic fiasco.56 In this delicate context, it is however surprising that until the early eighteenth century, the king’s officer did not benefit from the help of an appointed interpreter, but rather had to rely on his own linguistic skills, as well as on the occasional help of some of the ambassador’s retinue.57 While receiving the Russian embassy in 1668, Monsieur de Catheux had to greet the envoy in Latin, as it appeared that neither Potemkin nor his retinue (among whom an interpreter and a “translator”, cf. supra) spoke French.58 The following year, La Gilbertie resorted to the services of Müteferrika Suleiman Aga’s interpreter, a Greek from Naxos named La Fontaine (!), until they reached Paris. Only in the capital did royal interpreters take over the translation process – albeit partially (cf. infra). Some 50 to 70 years later, royal interpreters would not only assist, but replace the king’s officer in their mission to receive Muslim envoys upon their arrival in France, and to accompany them in their journey to the court.

                                                                                                               53 ROUSSET DE MISSY, Le Cérémonial diplomatique…, op. cit., p. 101-2. On Dom Mattheo Lopes’ mission to France for the king of Arda, see Henri LABOURET and Paul RIVET, Le Royaume d’Arda et son évangélisation au XVIIe siècle, Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie, 1929. 54 See for instance La Gazette, n. 148, “L’Audience donnée…”, doc. cit.: “Il [Müteferrika Suleiman Aga] reçut audit Lieu de Toulon, les Compliments, et tous les bons traitements possibles en la Maison de Ville : et, pendant le séjour qu’il y fit, visita le Port, et les Vaisseaux du Roi, dont il admira la beauté, et le grand nombre. […] Il en partit le 21 Septembre, pour se rendre à Marseille : où les Échevins l’ayant complimenté, et régalé des Présents ordinaires, le traitèrent deux jours en public, avec beaucoup de magnificence. Ils lui donnèrent, même, le Divertissement du Bal, auquel grand nombre de Personnes de qualité, de l’un, et l’autre Sexe, se trouvèrent en un ajustement des plus lestes. Pendant son séjour, il visita, aussi, le Port de ladite ville, et l’Arsenal, […]. Le 24, il vint coucher à Aix, et continua sa route jusqu’à Lyon : où il arriva le 1er Octobre, et y demeura trois jours, pendant lesquels on lui fit voir ce qu’il y avait de plus remarquable. Le 5, il en partit, et ayant, partout, reçu les Compliments, et les honneurs qu’on lui avait faits dans les autres Lieux, il arriva le 16, à Orléans, et le 20, à Fontainebleau : où il ne manqua pas de sujet d’admiration, dans la beauté des Bâtiments, et des Jardins de cette Maison Royale. Il en partit le 31, et arriva le 1 Novembre, à Issy : d’où, après y avoir été traité, comme vous avez su, il fit son Entrée en cette ville, le 3 de ce mois.” 55 See for instance ??? 56 ROUSSET DE MISSY, Le cérémonial diplomatique…, op. cit., p. 99. 57 It is unclear whether Alexandre-Louis-Marie Pétis de la Croix (1698-1751), then a royal interpreter of Oriental languages, was sent to meet the Tunisian embassy of 1727-8, which was later retained in the town of Chalon-sur-Saône, following an incident between France and Tunis. On this episode, see WINDLER, La diplomatie comme expérience de l’autre…, op. cit., p. 261-2. 58 SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit…, op. cit., p. 17.

  14

The trials of brokerage: royal interpreters and Muslim envoys The gradual shift, at the turn of the 18th century, from “gentlemen ordinary” to

“royal interpreters of Oriental languages” in the operation set to welcome Muslim envoys, might seem an insignificant detail, when cast against the backdrop of French diplomatic activity. It might also be interpreted, in a somewhat Weberian fashion, as testifying for the growing professionalization of (yet another) modern state institution. Finally, it might be taken as evidence of the French authorities’ genuine interest in asserting their control over the process and operations of cross-cultural brokerage. My assumption here is that, to a varying extent, all three hypotheses hold true. First, it is a fact that the very operation of reception remained substantially unchanged, with royal interpreters simply “replacing” the former royal officers in their duty. Then, a body of evidence testifies for the institutionalization and professionalization, in the second half of the 17th century, of the function of interpreter – and particularly that of the so-called “Oriental languages”. The year 1669 might be taken here as a turning point, as it witnessed both Müteferrika Suleiman Aga’s most eventful embassy to Versailles, and the foundation of the Ecole des jeunes de langues, in charge of training interpreters for the service of French interests (both commercial and diplomatic) in the Levant. 59 This process of institutionalization traditionally constitutes the background of a number of “utilitarian” approaches to the question of translation, which have consistently viewed the control exerted over linguistic brokerage in terms of political domination.60 To be sure, royal interpreters appointed to receive foreign envoys in the 18th century, were instructed to both monitor them and report on their actions. In a 1743 letter to Jean-Baptiste-Hélin de Fiennes, the French minister of Foreign affairs ordered the royal interpreter to keep watch on (as well as to give a regular account of) the behavior of the Tunisian ambassador and his retinue.61

It would however be misleading to take too literally this new centrality of the figure of the royal interpreter. While a number of archival records (not to mention fictional texts such as the Salamalec lyonnais) refer to a number of awkward situations, there is ample evidence that even in the absence of an appointed royal interpreter by their side, Muslim envoys were in capacity to understand and be understood. First, the choice of diplomats among political and administrative elites often lead to the envoys speaking at least some words of Italian, French, or another European language. For instance, al-Hajari recalled meeting in Rouen with “the chief judge, who knew the Spanish Andalusian language” – a language the envoy spoke thanks to his Morisco origins. The two men were therefore able to engage in a complex debate on religion and politics, with al-Hajari modestly admitting that the judge “was very helpful to [him] in pronouncing sentences.”62 A century-and-half later, upon the departure of the ambassador Suleyman Aga on his trip back to Tunis, the “royal secretary-interpreter for Oriental languages” who had been accompanying him for nearly five months (Ruffin) eventually addressed him for the first time “in Italian, so as to be understood by the personnel”.63

                                                                                                               59 Frédéric HITZEL, “Ecole des jeunes de langues,” in Dictionnaire des orientalistes…, op. cit., p. 348-9. 60 The most emblematic piece of this line of scholarship is probably Bernard LEWIS’ “From Babel to Dragomans,” Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1999): 37-54. 61 FIENNES, Une mission tunisienne…, op. cit., p. 50. 62 AL-HAJARÎ, Kitâb nâsir al-dîn…, op. cit., p. 106-7. 63 RUFFIN, Journal de l’ambassade…, op. cit., p. 62.

  15

The retinue of Muslim ambassadors could also include an interpreter, or at least one or more bilingual individual(s) who acted in this capacity, and were recognized as such by the French monarchy through the payment of a stipend. By the end of the Russian mission of 1668, the French royal treasury would distribute no less than 2600 pounds to the “secretaries interpreters of the ambassador” (les secrétaires interprètes du sieur ambassadeur) – namely the Russian- and German-speaking interpreter, the Latin-speaking “translator” from Courland, and the French-speaking Muscovite Dominican friar who had joined the embassy in Blois.64 Finally, casual encounters could also play a significant role in bridging the linguistic divide. Suffice it to mention here the case of the Muscovite Dominican friar who the 1688 Russian embassy met in Blois, and who immediately offered to serve as an interpreter. Yet, the basic assumption that the bridging of the linguistic divide automatically made all communication more direct and fluid needs to be tested against actual practices of cross-cultural communication. For instance, while the presence of the Dominican friar certainly allowed for a better communication between the Russian embassy and Monsieur de Catheux, Potemkin’s audience with Louis XIV (September 4, 1668), was organized around a rather complex operation: rather than having the friar do all the translation, an agreement was reached whereby Potemkin’s words were translated simultaneously both in Latin and French, while the king’s answer was directly translated by the friar.65

Once again, it is important to note that even the presence of royal interpreters did not guarantee a more simple and straightforward communication between the different parties. On the day of his audience with Louis XIV, Müteferrika Suleiman Aga was assisted by “his Dragoman” La Fontaine, while the king had called the famous traveller (and later diplomat) Laurent d’Arvieux to act as his interpreter.66 Yet, it is not d’Arvieux but the royal interpreter François Pétis de la Croix who was entrusted with the translation of the letter from sultan Mehmed IV that the Ottoman envoy had brought to the French king.67 Rather than a mere “division of labor”

                                                                                                               64 A.M.A.E., Mémoires et documents sur la Russie, vol. 3, f. 118-9, “Sur la dépense faite de la part du Roy Louis XIV pour faire défrayer et traiter le Sieur Poterskine [sic], ambassadeur du Czar Alexis près Sa Majesté en 1668”, 31 December 1668; quoted in SEYDOUX, “Les ambassades russes…”, op. cit., p. 239-40. dépense totale de 34347 livres. Autre version : « Le Roy fit donner cinq cent écus aux interprettes dont on donna 400 livres au père Jacobin, pareille somme à l’interprette de l'ambassade, et sept cent livres au translateur, qui fut enfermé et gardé deux jours par l’ordre de l’Ambassadeur qui le soupçonnait de trahison. » (SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit…, op. cit., p. 42) 65 SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit…, op. cit., p. 32: “L’Ambassadeur […] présenta à Sa Majesté la lettre du Grand Duc de Moscovie, et fit son compliment, qui fut expliqué en latin par le translateur et en françois par le Jacobin, qui expliqua aussy à l’Ambassadeur la réponse du Roy.” 66 La Gazette, n. 144 and 148, doc. cit.; Mémoires du Chevalier d’Arvieux, envoyé extraordinaire du Roy à la Porte, consul d’Alep, d’Alger, de Tripoli, & autres Echelles du Levant…, Paris: Delespine, 1735, 4: 133-95. 67 La Gazette, n, 144, 7 December 1669, p. 1165-8: “Il [Müteferrika Suleiman Aga] commença sa Harangue, qui fut interprétée par le Sieur de la Fontaine, son Drogman : et Sa Majesté y répondit par la bouche du Sr d’Arvieu, qui lui servait d’Interprète en cette Audience, et lui expliqua l’Inscription de la Lettre du Grand Seigneur. Ensuite, le Roi la remit au Sieur de Lyonne, Secrétaire d’État, qui la donna en même temps, au Sr de la Croix, Secrétaire Interprète de Sa Majesté, pour la traduire, ainsi qu’il a traduit celle que le Caimacan a écrite audit Sieur de Lyonne.” See also Idem, n. 148, doc. cit.: “Ensuite de ce Discours, auquel le Roi répondit par la Bouche du Chevalier d’Ervieu, l’Envoyé monta sur l’Estrade, et présenta cette Lettre à Sa Majesté : qui la remit, aussitôt, entre les mains du Sieur de Lyonne, Secrétaire d’État, lequel la donna au Sieur de la Croix, Secrétaire Interprète de Sa Majesté, pour la traduire. Celui-ci, en présence du Roi, décacheta cette Lettre, qui était sur un Papier de soie, de près d’une aune de longueur : et suivant l’ordre qu’il avait reçu de Sa Majesté, lui en expliqua une partie, comme ledit Chevalier d’Ervieu en avait, aussi, expliqué la Suscription, qui était en ces termes”.

  16

between oral and written translations, this choice reflected internal struggles in the king’s service. In 1669, Louis XIV was indeed employing two royal interpreters of “Oriental languages”: the Alepine Pierre Dippy (Boutros al-Halabi, 1622-1709), a specialist of Arabic, and François Pétis de la Croix (the Elder, 1622-1695), “pour les langues Turquesques et Arabesques”.68 As for the choice to appoint d’Arvieux, it was made in an attempt to control the work of the royal interpreters. Testifying for this is a letter to d’Arvieux sent by the ministry of Foreign affairs (de Lionnes), a few days before the preliminary audience he was to give to the Ottoman ambassador:

“Sir, the king wants you to attend the audience he shall give to the Sultan’s

envoy, so as to observe if the interpreters faithfully repeat everything that is said on both sides”69. Unsurprisingly, the decision stirred a fierce competition between d’Arvieux and

Pétis de la Croix,70 which may in turn have added to the tension that surrounded the whole embassy of 1669. Yet, it is revealing that the complex operation did not come as a result of the challenges in cross-cultural communication per se, but rather of the very strategy that was adopted in order to overcome it.

Of course, such disputes and rivalries toned down with the appointment of royal interpreters at the service of foreign officials. For instance, the long journey to Paris, they undertook together allowed for the establishment of more trusting relationship between interpreters and ambassadors. Yet, one should also beware not to idealize those bonds: upon the departure of the Tunisan ambassador Suleyman Aga from Toulon in 1777, the royal interpreter Pierre Ruffin clearly expresses his relief at being rid of “Suleiman and his fecklessness” (Suleiman et ses inconséquences).71 Evidence also suggests that Ruffin had a similarly frustrating experience some years earlier, while serving the Tripolitan envoy. In a similar fashion, the “proximity” between Muslim officials and royal interpreters did not automatically provide the French monarchy with information of better quality better than the one they previously retrieved. Indeed, patterns of dissent among the personnel of 17th-century foreign missions were many: for instance in 1600, three Moroccan envoys to London were accused of having poisoned their interpreter.72 Occasionally, such tensions could also result in “leaks”, providing the French with unfiltered information. The account of the visit of the Louvre Palace by the Russian embassy in 1668 offers a telling example:

“After they [Potemkin and his retinue] were shown the Crown’s most precious

pieces of furniture, the ambassador was ask whether those of the czar were as beautiful; to which he answered that yes. But the translator [from Courland], who has seen them,

                                                                                                               68 On d’Arvieux, see the biographical note by Sylvette LARZUL in the Dictionnaire des orientalistes…, op. cit., p. 24-5. On al-Halabi/Dippy’s early career as an interpreter for North African envoys and visitors, see MATAR, In the Lands of the Christians…, op. cit., p. xvii. 69 Quoted in Mémoires du Chevalier d’Arvieux…, op. cit., 4: 131. 70 The feud went on for some time, prompting a descendant of Pétis de la Croix to publish in the early 18th century (and under the pseudonym of “Hadgi Mehemmed Efendy”!), a bitter refutation of d’Arvieux’ memoirs: Lettres critiques de Hadgi Mehemmed Efendy à Mme la Marquise de G*** au sujet des Mémoires de M. le Chevalier d’Arvieux…, traduites de Turc en François par Ahmed Frengui, Renégat Flamand, Paris: Quillau, 1735. 71 RUFFIN, Journal de l’ambassade…, op. cit., p. 62. 72 On this episode, see Alastair HAMILTON, William Baldwell the Arabist, 1563-1632, Leiden: Brill, 1985, p. 15-8.

  17

said aloud in Latin, a language that neither the ambassador nor his retinue know a word of, that he was shamelessly lying.”73 In many ways, the intervention of royal interpreters appears to have resulted not

so much in a better bridging of the linguistic divide, than in a monopoly exerted by these actors over the production of speech itself. Testifying for this are the accounts of the embassies written by the interpreters themselves for the French administration, and which are characterized by the quasi-systematic suppression of any dissonant, “other”, voices. Of course, this might have been prompted by their authors’ mere eagerness to emphasize their own importance in the service of the king. Yet, de Fiennes, Ruffin and others did not content themselves with staging their own centrality in the process of cross-cultural mediation: they also replicated older beliefs and perceptions, as well as shaped the very content of cross-culturalness. This is for instance the case when de Fiennes and Ruffin seemed to make a point of “decoding” for their readers some specific Arabic words, which they tried to render through some rough “equivalents” in French.74 It was also the case when they tried to explain certain situations by resorting to a rather prescriptive explanation of “cultural differences”. A remarkable example of this may be found in Ruffin’s account of an evening spent by the 1777 Tunisian embassy at the theater. Praising “the genre of the mime show [le genre pantomime]” for its capacity to challenge linguistic boundaries and to depict “scenes that are familiar to all the countries in the world”, Ruffin suggested by contrast that:

“a Turk is deprived of this double charm with the opera, and the only pleasure he

takes then being that of his eyes. The music is too complicated [savant] and loud for his natural melancholy, and the action is almost incomprehensible for a Mahometan, even with the help of the most skillful translator, for it is most of the times based on our mythology, of which he has, nor wants to have, any knowledge.”75 While Ruffin admitted making this observation “to account for the boredom that

Suleiman and all the Tunisians clearly manifested at the Opera”,76 one cannot but wonder to what extent it was also informed by age-old stereotypes about the “Mahometans”. In turn, Ruffin’s words certainly conferred to these stereotypes a legitimacy that accounted for their long persistence in defining European perceptions of “Muslim culture”.

This paper constitutes a first (and incomplete) attempt at challenging the

traditional picture of interpreters as omnipotent and ubiquitous brokers. By insisting                                                                                                                73 SAINT-LAURENT, Journal inédit…, op. cit., p. 36-7 : “Après leur avoir montré les plus précieux meubles de la couronne, on fit demander à l’Ambassadeur si Sa Zare Majesté en avoit d'aussy beaux : à quoy il répondit qu'ouy. Mais le translateur, qui les a veus, dit tout haut en latin, dont l'Ambassadeur ny pas un de sa suitte ne scayt pas un mot, qu'il mentoit impudemment.”. Potemkin 1668 : « Le Roy fit donner cinq cent écus aux interprettes dont on donna 400 livres au père Jacobin, pareille somme à l'interprette de l'ambassade, et sept cent livres au translateur, qui fut enfermé et gardé deux jours par l'ordre de l'Ambassadeur qui le soupçonnait de trahison. » (p. 42) 74 For instance de Fiennes calls the imam who accompanies the ambassador “the chaplain” (l’aumônier); FIENNES, Une mission tunisienne…, op. cit., p. 12. 75 RUFFIN, Journal de l’ambassade…, p. 29. 76 Ibidem: “C’est une observation qu’on s’est permise ici pour expliquer l’ennui que Suleiman et tous les Tunisiens exprimèrent sensiblement à l’Opéra.”

  18

on the rather banal character of an “Oriental” presence in early modern Europe, and by charting the codes and protocols that surrounded the reception of Muslim diplomats, I have tried to debunk the old model of a “communication crisis” happening between two discrete cultures, and advocated for a more fluid approach to intercultural contacts and relations. Hence my emphasis on the study of actual practices rather than representations alone. Although I am aware that this task requires a thorough reconsideration of the archival material at the historians’ disposal, I am confident that this is a necessary step to take toward a deeper and more balanced understanding of cross-cultural relations. Eventually, it should also allow historians to combine the traditional, social-cultural approach to Muslim/Christian encounters in the early modern period, with a number of exciting new perspectives for historical enquiry – for instance the question of cross-cultural legal practices, or the anthropology of contact and brokerage.

Mathieu Grenet Washington University in St. Louis

Annex 1 Le Salamalec lyonnais, conte

Jamais ne fut nation plus civile

Que la française, il le faut avouer : L’envoyé turc bien pourrait s’en louer,

Après l’honneur qu’à Lyon la grand’ville, Des magistrats en passant il reçut.77

Ces magistrats crurent frapper au but, S’ils régalaient l’excellence ottomane

D’un compliment en langage ottoman : Car, disaient-ils, parler par truchement, C'est une mort : en langue Musulmane

Un musulman il nous faut saluer. L’invention leur semblait mémorable, Le point était comment l’effectuer ?

Où rencontrer un harangueur capable, Un homme expert dans le salamalec ?

Notez qu’alors tenait auberge illec, Certain quidam, déserteur de mosquée, De mauvais turc devenu bon chrétien : C’est notre fait, dirent ces gens de bien.

La chose au sire étant communiquée, il l’approuva : laissez faire, dit-il,

François Sélim, c’est ainsi qu’on me nomme,

                                                                                                               77 Original footnote: « On prétend que cette cérémonie se fit en 1660. »

  19

Nul mieux que moi, Dieu merci, ne sait comme La tête on doit courber jusqu’au nombril, Rabattre en arc les mains sur la poitrine,

Se reculer, s’avancer à propos, Et cetera ; suffit de ma doctrine

Tenez-vous sûrs et soyez en repos. Vous me verrez à la mode turquesque

Faire cent tours, qui surprendront vos yeux. Telle action vous paraîtra burlesque,

Qui cache au fond sens très mystérieux. Or en ceci la grande politique

C’est de me suivre en tout d'un pas égal : Souvenez-vous de cet avis unique.

Vous ne sauriez, me suivant, faire mal. De point en point on promit de le suivre :

On le suivit jusqu’au moindre iota. L’ambassadeur fort bien s’en contenta ; Mais ce qui plus que tout le transporta,

Fut qu’un chrétien parlât turc comme un livre. Il n’est, dit-il, assesseur du divan

Qui mieux que vous entende notre langue. Pas ne vous doit surprendre ma harangue,

Répond Sélim, je suis né musulman. Né musulman ! Vous l’êtes donc encore ? Moi ? point du tout ; je me suis converti Et c’est le dieu des chrétiens que j’adore.

Ah ! par Mahom, vous en avez menti, Et musulman jamais vous ne naquîtes, Ou vous n’avez pas changé de parti.

Je ne puis croire au moins ce que vous dites, Si je n’en vois un signe fort précis.

A moi ne tienne ; êtes-vous circoncis ? Vous allez voir : lors sa misère nue Le compagnon étale à découvert : Les magistrats, à cette étrange vue,

Quoiqu’étonnés pour n’être pris sans vert, Suivant leur guide, imitant sa posture,

Firent leur cour en forme et sans tarder, Chacun selon le talent que nature, Petit ou grand lui voulut accorder.

L’ordre fut rare, et l’histoire rapporte Que l’ottoman salué de la sorte,

Crainte de pis, s’enfuit sans dire adieu. Tout au rebours les donzelles du lieutenant

Prirent grand goût à la cérémonie : Et telle fut leur jubilation,

Que maintenant nulle ne se soucie De voir, après cette réception,

Ambassadeur, s’il ne vient de Turquie.

  20

Annex 2 Muslim missions to France, 1581-1825

Date Sender Leader Purpose 1581 Ottoman Empire - Invitation extended to Henri III to attend

the circumcision of Murad IV’s son, Mehmed

1581 Ottoman Empire Ali Tchelebi Renewal of Capitulations between France and the Ottoman Empire

1601 Ottoman Empire - - 1607 Ottoman Empire - -

1611-2 Morocco Ahmad bin Qasim al-Hajari

Negotiation in view of the release of some Moriscos captured by privateers

1612-3 Morocco Ahmed el-Guezouli Restitution of the library of Moulay Zidane, taken at sea by a French captain.

1618 Ottoman Empire - - 1640 Ottoman Empire - - 1669 Ottoman Empire Soliman Aga - 1682 Morocco Hajj Mohammed

Temim Authorization granted to the French to open a consulate in Morocco

1684 Algiers Hadgi Jaffer Aga - 1685 Algiers Hadji Mehemet - 1687 Tripoli Khalil Aga

Heiser Aga -

1699 Morocco Abdallah bin Aisha Negotiation of an agreement to prevent the capture of Muslims by French ships, and to obtain the return of captured Muslim slaves employed on French galleys

1714-5 Persia Mohammad Reza Bey

-

1720-1 Ottoman Empire Yirmisekiz Mehmed Efendi

-

1727-8 Tunis Yusuf Khudjah Hadj Hasan

-

1741 Ottoman Empire Mehmed Said Efendi - 1743 Tunis Ali Aga - 1770 Tunis Ibrahim Hoja - 1775 Tripoli Adraman Bediri Aga Louis XVI’s accession 1777 Tunis Suleiman Aga -

1777-8 Morocco Tahar Fennich Haj Andallah

-

1788 Morocco Mahomet Benal Complaints against the capture of Moroccan ships by French privateers

1796 Tunis Mohamed Goga - 1796-7 Ottoman Empire Esseid Ali Effendi - 1808-10 Persia Asker Khan Afshar -

1819 Persia - 1825 Tunis Sidi Mahmoud Request for the opening of a Tunisian

  21

consulate in Marseilles, and the release of a Tunisian subject accused of piracy.