The Chevalier de Chaumont was the devout and unbending ambassador of Louis XIV to King Narai of Siam in 1685, and the Abb? de Choisy, famous for his gambling debts and transvestite exploits, was his unlikely coadjutant. This is the first complete English translation of Chamont's account of his embassy, along with three texts by Choisy and drawings by Jacques Dumar?ay.

Initially seeking converts and trade, the French presence in 17th-century Siam turned into a classic colonial adventure, with troops sent to occupy, by force if necessary, the most important ports of Bangkok and Mergui. Fran?ois Martin, from his unique viewpoint as director of the French trading outpost at Pondich?ry on the coast of India, provides a careful analysis of the motives of the persons involved in the French colonizing venture. Michael Smithies has skillfully translated and assembled all the references to Siam from Martin's M?moirs, linking the segments with his own...

The French travel writer and exotic novelist Pierre Loti (1850?1923), in his day the youngest member elected to the Academie Francaise, had dreamt of visiting the ruins of Angkor when, as a child, he came across illustrations of them among some papers belonging to his elder brother, who had served in Indochina in the navy. Loti, whose real name was Julien Viaud, was a full-time professional naval officer and was able to realize his childhood dream of going to Angkor in 1901 when his ship stayed some time in Indochinese waters.

Though the time he spent at Angkor was brief, he writes...

This long-forgotten tale of the shipwreck off the coast of Africa of a Siamese embassy to Lisbon in 1686 lay buried in the text of a French book printed 300 years ago. The author of the text was the intrepid and intriguing Jesuit Tachard, who published accounts of his first two journeys to Siam. In his second book, written when he was King Narai's personal envoy to Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI, Tachard relates the account of the shipwreck as told by one of its survivors, Ok-khun Chamnan Chaicong, who was accompanying Tachard on his return to France.

Ok-khun Chamnan, during his...

Two years after the 1685 French embassy to Siam led by Chaumont and Choisy, King Louis XIV sent a second embassy to Phra Narai led by the two envoys La Loub?re and C?beret, and a third unofficial emissary, Father Tachard, who was working behind the scenes and often against his colleagues. Accompanying them were expeditionary troops to be installed in Bangkok and Mergui once a Franco-Siamese treaty could be negotiated.

This volume conveniently presents, in English translation, three important accounts of that second French embassy to Siam in 1687: Tachard's Second Voyage, published in...