Soliman Aga

Soliman (or Suleyman) Aga Mustapha Raca was an emissary of Mehmed {{IV}}, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, sent in embassy near the king Louis {{XIV}} in November 1669. This visit, intended to restore the diplomatic bonds between the France and the Turkey, will be a complete failure. It will be however at the origin of two significant events: the introduction of the Coffee in France and the creation of the Middle-class gentleman of Molière and Lully. The detail of its voyage is known for us thanks to the testimony delivered by the knight Laurent d' Arvieux in his Mémoires .

Historical context

Since the signature of the treated known as " capitulations" by François {{Ier}} and Soliman the Magnificent the, France and Turkey agreed to hold in failure the house of Austria, forming a new alliance at the time between a Christian nation and a Muslim nation. Since 1661, the new king, Louis {{XIV}} had ensured its capacity, reorganized the economy, the administration, justice, the religious and cultural life of the kingdom and makes some conquests with the detriment of Spain. The peace of Aachen, in 1668, was only one truce in its great intention of European hegemony. During this time, the diplomacy was active and did not confine itself with the European businesses; Louis also had a diplomacy turned towards the East.

The Turks for their part had started again the war against Austria in 1660. In 1663, they threatened Vienna. Eager not to be made an enemy of the Sultan, who could support the trade French in Raising, but obliged to listen to the calls of the pope with a league against the Infidel, which moreover threatened to invade the Empire, Louis sent a quota integrated in the German league. This quota behaved valiantly with the battle of Saint-Gothard, in 1664. Louis could however put forward with the Sultan that it was not the king of France as such which had fought against him, and worked to restore regular relationships to the Ottoman Empire.

In 1669, these reports/ratios passed through a crisis: the Large Turk, Mehmed {{IV}}, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, had imprisoned and returned the French ambassador, thus breaking the diplomatic relations. It is thus with relief that the king learns in 1669 the nearest arrival from Soliman Aga, that ambassador of the sultan is thought. The event is of size, since it is the first time that an ambassador of the Sublime Door goes to Europe to return visit to a sovereign. The king of France intends well to benefit from it to make the indisputable and final demonstration of the richness and the power of his kingdom.

Fascination for the Eastern habits

Soliman Aga arrives at Paris in July 1669. After being itself given of his tour, the diplomat shows hospitality quickly. He organizes sumptuous receptions in his residence in order to promote a drink that the French, contrary to the Italians, hardly appreciate: the Coffee. Parisian the, avid ones of exoticism and dazzled by all that milked with the East is had a presentiment of with its door, no one not wanting to miss these go with refinement. Soliman Aga stinginess not and accommodates his hosts in a setting in scene worthy of the Thousand and One Nights: its servants, capped of a turban, bring the famous beverage been useful with sugar, in delicate china cups of China…

During this time, Louis, who reside at Versailles, listening accounts filled with wonder at its subjects. After delayhaving a long time delayed to receive the Turkish emissary, it is solved, thorough by curiosity, to accommodate it.

Reception at the court

Soliman Aga makes his entry at the court on November 1st, 1669. Believer to deal with the ambassador of the Large Turk in person, Louis organizes a sumptuous festival in the gardens of the castle and makes any possible sound to impress his host: he comes to his meeting sitting on a throne from money so covered from diamonds " that it seemed surrounded of lumière" , and the covered head of a hat decorated with a " bouquet of feathers magnifiques" The gentlemen of the court make in the same way, adorning their more sumptuous clothes.

But the ostentation of this reception does not produce the discounted effect: Soliman Aga is surprised to see the French sovereign doing as much ceremony for a simple ambassador, and he completely forgets to express admiration due to a king. Worse: taking that not for an honor that one made him but for a provocation, he pretends not to notice the splendor of the reception which is made to him.

All that one had prepared to strike the eyes of the Ambassador did not strike them. It was noticed that it left with an air sorrow what one had not granted to him all that it had asked. He had put himself at the head that all this superb apparatus had been spread out only to some extent to face Othoman ostentation, and he believed to be avenged some by not throwing the eyes above. One had even observed the same thing in his servants, with which one claimed that it had defended anything to look at

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