Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/162

 a second home of French literature and spirit, Henry VI of England and France, being the son of Catherine, a French king’s daughter. Charles VII and Louis XI were enabled, thanks to their policy of caution, to attain this supreme goal. At the beginning of the 16th century the King was master of his subjects and could employ them for his adventures in foreign countries. In this way, the poor young prince Charles VIII was able to dream the crown of Constantinople, the inheritance of the old Latin emperors of new Rome.

With the accession of Francis I, the king of all illusions, began another era of French influence in SouthEastern Europe. The belief that he was the sincere associate of the great Turkish sultan Suleiman against the imperialistic intentions of the Spanish-Germanic Charles V is deep-rooted. In a chapter of mine Points de vue sur l'Histoire du Commerce de l'Orient a I’Epoque Moderne, I have endeavoured to show that no political treaty was ever concluded between the Turkish and French rulers, and that the French only obtained the right to trade which was identical with the older agreements with the mediaeval Catalans. In reality it was only a cooperation of the two fleets (the Turks having an opportunity of seeing Toulon), but not of two armies. Notwithstanding this, such support from a civilised state greatly impressed the Turks with the belief that the western world of the Christians, of the «Franks», had a single chief, and that chief not the invisible Pope, who possessed no troops capable of armed conflict, but the French « padishah », whose ambassadors were treated with respect and satisfied in any requests couched in the name of their master.

The era of the French representatives at the Ottoman Court had begun, and was much more important before the