FERRIERES-SAUVEBOEUF (Louis Francois, Comte de).
Memoires historiques, politiques et geographiques, des voyages fair en Turqie, en Perse et en Arabie depuis 1782 jusqu'en 1789
A secret agent in the Near East
Ferrières-Sauveboeuf (1762-1814) started his career as an Officer before working as a diplomat in the service of the Comte Vergennes. It was supposedly on Vergennes’ order that he undertook a number of secret missions while in the Near East, which led to his first disagreements with the French Ambassador at Constantinople, Choiseul-Gouffier. Choiseul-Gouffier later dismissed Ferrières-Sauveboeuf for interfering in Franco-Turkish diplomacy; an action that no doubt accounts for the zealous rebuke of his character in the present text.
The first volume covers years 1788-89 of the Russo-Turkish war. The second concerns the author’s travels in Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Syria, Persia and Cyprus. While in Persia “he represented himself to the Shah as a precursor of the French envoy” (Blackmer).
Atabey, 418 (second edition); Blackmer, 590; Weber, 598.
