Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Encyclopedia
Quarto
Quarto could refer to:* Quarto, a size or format of a book in which four leaves of a book are created from a standard size sheet of paper* For specific information about quarto texts of William Shakespeare's works, see:...
volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (Six Voyages, 1676) and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century. He was born in Paris, where his father Gabriel and uncle Melchior, Protestants from Antwerp, pursued the profession of cartographers and engravers. Tavernier was one of the most remarkable men of a most remarkable century, the 17th century, known as the Age of Exploration. Tavernier, a private individual, a merchant traveling at his own expense, covered by his own account, 180000 miles (289,681.2 km) over the course of forty years and six voyages. Though he is best known for the discovery and sale of the 118 carats (23.6 g) blue diamond that he subsequently sold to Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
in 1668, (it was stolen in 1792 and re-emerged in London as The Hope Diamond), his writings show that he was a keen observer of his time as well as a remarkable cultural anthropologist. He was the owner of the seigneurery of Aubonne
Aubonne
Aubonne is a municipality in the district of Morges in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-History:The municipality was settled very early. The oldest remains are from the Bronze Age. From Roman times, there remain foundations of villas, and from early medieval times, graves.The first documentation...
in Switzerland from 1670 to 1685.
Early life
The conversations he heard in his father's house inspired Tavernier with an early desire to travel, and in his sixteenth year he had already visited England, the Low CountriesLow Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
and Germany, and seen something of war with Hans Brenner, a colonel of cavalry in the Imperial service during the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, whom he met at Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. Four and a half years in the household of Brenner's uncle, the viceroy of Hungary (1624–29), and a briefer connection in 1629 with the Duke of Rethel
Counts and dukes of Rethel
This is a list of counts and dukes of Rethel. The first counts of Rethel ruled independently, before the county passed first to the Counts of Nevers, then to the Counts of Flanders, and finally to the Dukes of Burgundy. In 1405 the County became part of the Peerage of France, and in 1581 it was...
and his father the duke of Nevers, prince of Mantua
Duchy of Mantua
The Duchy of Mantua was a duchy in Lombardy, Northern Italy, subject to the Holy Roman Empire.-History:After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Mantua was invaded by Byzantines, Longobards and Franks. In the 11th century it became a possession of Boniface of Canossa, marquis of Toscana...
, gave him the habit of courts, which was invaluable to him in later years; and at the defense of Mantua in 1629, and in Germany in the following year with Colonel Walter Butler
Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormonde
Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormonde and 4th Earl of Ossory , was an Irish peer, the son of John Butler of Kilcash and of Lady Katherine MacCarthy, herself the daughter of Cormac na Haoine MacCarthy Reagh, 10th Prince of Carbery...
(afterwards notorious by having killed Wallenstein
Albrecht von Wallenstein
Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein , actually von Waldstein, was a Bohemian soldier and politician, who offered his services, and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men during the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War , to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II...
), he gained some military experience.
In the Six Voyages Tavernier states that he departed from Butler's company (1630) with the intention to travel to Ratisbon (Regensburg) to attend Ferdinand III's investiture as King of Romans. However, as the actual investiture did not take place until 1636, it is probable that he actually attended the ceremony between his first and second voyages. By his own account he had seen Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Poland and Hungary, as well as France, England and the Low Countries, and spoke the principal languages of these countries. He was now eager to visit the East; and at Ratisbon he, with the help of Pere Joseph, Cardinal Richelieu's agent and Eminence grise he was able to join the retinue of a pair of French travelers, M. de Chapes and M. de St Liebau, who had received a mission to the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
. In their company he reached Constantinople early in 1631, where he spent eleven months, and then proceeded by Tokat
Tokat
Tokat is the capital city of Tokat Province of Turkey, at the mid Black Sea region of Anatolia. According to the 2009 census, the city of Tokat has a population of 129,879.-History:Tokat was established in the Hittite era....
, Erzerum and Erivan to Persia. His farthest point in this first journey was Isfahan
Isfahan (city)
Isfahan , historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609, Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad...
; he returned by Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
, Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
, Alexandretta, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
and Italy, and was again in Paris in 1633.
Of the next five years of his life nothing is known with certainty, but Joret, his French biographer claims that during this period that he may have become controller of the household of Gaston, duke of Orléans. We do know that twice during his Six Voyages he claimed the Duke's patronage.
Second journey
In September 1638 he began a second journey (1638–43) traveling via Aleppo to Persia, and thence to India as far as AgraAgra
Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...
and from there to The Kingdom of Golkonda. His visit to the court of the Great Mogul - Emperor Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan
Shah Jahan Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) Shah Jahan (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan, , Persian: شاه جهان) (January 5, 1592 – January 22, 1666) (Full title: His Imperial Majesty Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan...
at the time - and to the diamond mines was connected with the plans realized more fully in his later voyages, in which Tavernier traveled as a merchant of the highest rank, trading in costly jewels and other precious wares, and finding his chief customers among the greatest princes of the East.
Later voyages
The second journey was followed by four others. In his third (1643–49) he went as far as Java, and returned by the CapeCape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
; but his relations with the Dutch proved not wholly satisfactory, and a long lawsuit on his return yielded but imperfect redress.
During his last two voyages (1657–1662, 1664–1668) he did not proceed beyond India. The details of these voyages are often obscure; but they completed an extraordinary knowledge of the routes of overland Eastern trade, and brought the now famous merchant into close and friendly communication with the greatest Oriental potentates. They also secured for him a large fortune and great reputation at home. He was presented to Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, in whose service he had travelled sixty thousand leagues by land, received letters of nobility (on 16 February 1669), and in the following year purchased the barony of Aubonne
Aubonne
Aubonne is a municipality in the district of Morges in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.-History:The municipality was settled very early. The oldest remains are from the Bronze Age. From Roman times, there remain foundations of villas, and from early medieval times, graves.The first documentation...
, near Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
. In 1662 he had married Madeleine Goisse, daughter of a Parisian jeweller.
The Voyages
Thus settled in ease and affluence, Tavernier occupied himself, as it would seem at the desire of the king, in publishing the account of his journeys. He had neither the equipment nor the tastes of a scientific traveller, but in all that referred to commerce his knowledge was vast and could not fail to be of much public service. He set to work therefore with the aid of Samuel ChappuzeauSamuel Chappuzeau
Samuel Chappuzeau was a French scholar, author, poet and playwright whose best-known work today is Le Théâtre François, a description of French Theatre in the 17th century....
, a French Protestant littérateur, and produced a Nouvelle Relation de l'Intérieur du Sérail du Grand Seigneur (4to, Paris, 1675), based on two visits to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
in his first and sixth journeys.
This was followed by Les Six Voyages de J. B. Tavernier (2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1676) and by a supplementary Recueil de Plusieurs Relations (4to, Paris, 1679), in which he was assisted by a certain La Chapelle. This last contains an account of Japan, gathered from merchants and others, and one of Tongking, derived from the observations of his brother Daniel, who had shared his second voyage and settled at Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
; it contained also a violent attack on the agents of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
, at whose hands Tavernier had suffered more than one wrong. This attack was elaborately answered in Dutch by H. van Quellenburgh (Vindictie Batavicae, Amsterdam, 1684), but made more noise because Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld — le Grand as contemporaries called him, to distinguish him from his father — was a French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and mathematician...
drew from it some material unfavorable to Protestantism for his Apologie pour les Catholiques (1681), and so brought on the traveler a ferocious onslaught in Pierre Jurieu
Pierre Jurieu
Pierre Jurieu was a French Protestant leader.-Life:He was born at Mer, in Orléanais, where his father was a Protestant pastor. He studied at the Academy of Saumur and the Academy of Sedan under his grandfather, Pierre Du Moulin, and under Leblanc de Beaulieu...
's Esprit de M. Arnauld (1684). Tavernier made no reply to Jurieu.
The Later Years
The closing years of Tavernier's life are not well documented; the times were not favorable for a Protestant in France. In 1684 Tavernier traveled to Brandenburg at the request of the Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg, to discuss the Elector's scheme to charter his own East India Company. The Elector wished Tavernier to become his ambassador to India. He awarded Tavernier the honorary posts of Chamberlain and Counselor of Marine. The scheme, unfortunately, came to nothing.In 1679 Louis XIV began to seriously undermine his Protestant subjects. He established the Bureau of Conversion to reward Catholic converts. In January 1685, Tavernier managed to sell his Château Aubonne to marquis Henri du Quesne for 138,000 livres plus 3,000 livres for horses and carriages. His timing was good,: in October of the same year, Louis XIV repealed the Edict of Nantes. Louis then instituted the Verification of Nobility which deprived those Protestant nobleman who refused to convert to Catholicism, of their titles.
In 1687, despite an edict prohibiting Protestants from leaving France, he left Paris and traveled to Switzerland. In 1689 he passed through Berlin and Copenhagen and entered Russia on a passport from the King of Sweden, perhaps with the intent of traveling overland to India. It is not known if he met with Czar Peter who was just 17 years old at that time. What is known is that Tavernier, as with all foreigners resident in Moscow, would have been required, by imperial decree, to take up residence in the foreign quarter, known as the German Suburb (Nemetskaya Sloboda). Peter was very interested in all things foreign and had many friends in the suburb and spent a great deal of time there beginning in mid March 1689. Tavernier arrived in Moscow in late February or early March of that year. Tavernier was a famous man. Given Peter's curious nature, it would be surprising if they did not meet. Tavernier's biographer Charles Joret, produced a fragment of an article published in a Danish journal by Frederick Rostgaard who states that he interviewed the aging adventurer who told him of his intention to travel to Persia via Moscow. He was, not however able to complete this last journey. Tavernier died in Moscow in 1689, after an attack by wild dogs, at the age of 84.
Legacy
John Brahm
John Brahm was a film and television director possibly best known today for directing a dozen of the original Twilight Zone episodes including the now classic "Time Enough at Last"...
Using Tavernier's Les Six Voyages as a template, gemologist/historian Richard W. Wise has written a historical novel, The French Blue, that dramatizes Tavernier's voyages up until the sale of The Great Blue Diamond
Hope Diamond
The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, , deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, but exhibits red...
to Louis XIV. The book's website includes a detailed timeline of Tavernier's life and voyages. http://thefrenchblue.com/timeline.htm
For the 400th anniversary of Tavernier's birth in 2005, the Swiss filmmaker Philippe Nicolet
Philippe Nicolet
Philippe Nicolet, born January 4, 1953 in Lausanne, is a Swiss film director of both documentaries and fiction. Journalist and scriptwriter, he was the first editor-in-chief of the Lausanne television station before embarking on a project tracing the history of relations between Switzerland and the...
made a full-length film about him called Les voyages en Orient du Baron d'Aubonne. Another Swiss, the sculptor Jacques Basler, has made a life-sized bronze effigy of the great 17th-century traveller which looks out over Lake Geneva at the Hotel Baron Tavernier where there is also a permanent exhibition of all his drawings and archives in Chexbres.
Works
- The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier: Baron of Aubonne, by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, tr. John Phillips. William Godbid, for Robert Littlebury at the King's Arms in Little Britain, and Moses Pitt at the Angel in St Paul's Church-yard., 1677
- Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, Travels in India translated V. Ball, second ed. edited William Crooke, in 2 vols. (bound in 1). Low Price Publications, Delhi 110052. 2000. ISBN 81 7536 206 5.
Further reading
- The French Blue: A Novel of the 17th Century. Richard W. Wise. Brunswick House Press, 2010. ISBN 0972822364.
- Tavernier, Later Travels and Peter the Great. Richard W. Wise. http://www.thefrenchblue.com/article2.htm.
External links
- Describing Tavernier's travels in India, including his trade in gems, diamonds and visits to Maharadja's Tavernier: Travels in India (English Translation), Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, Translated by Ball, London 1925.
- Tavernier part II + appendices on Koh-I-Noor, diamonds and diamond and gold mining. Both Volumes translated from Le Six Voyages de J. B. Tavernier (2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1676)
- http://www.thefrenchblue.com . Website: Novel describing Tavernier's Six Voyages with article on history of the Great Blue diamond and timeline of Tavernier's life