title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: France had signed a first treaty or "Capitulation" with the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in 1500, during the reigns of Louis XII and Sultan Bayezid II, in which the Sultan of Egypt had made concessions to the French and the Catalans, and which would be later extended by Suleiman.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: France had already been looking for allies in Central Europe. The ambassador of France Antonio Rincon was employed by Francis I on several missions to Poland and Hungary between 1522 and 1525. At that time, following the 1522 Battle of Bicoque, Francis I was attempting to ally with king Sigismund I the Old of Poland. Finally, in 1524, a Franco-Polish alliance was signed between Francis I and the king of Poland Sigismund I.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: A momentous intensification of the search for allies in Central Europe occurred when the French ruler Francis I was defeated at the Battle of Pavia on February 24, 1525, by the troops of Emperor Charles V. After several months in prison, Francis I was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Madrid, through which he had to relinquish the Duchy of Burgundy and the Charolais to the Empire, renounce his Italian ambitions, and return his belongings and honours to the traitor Constable de Bourbon. This situation forced Francis I to find an ally against the powerful Habsburg Emperor, in the person of Suleiman the Magnificent.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The alliance was an opportunity for both rulers to fight against the hegemony of the House of Habsburg. The objective for Francis I was to find an ally against the Habsburgs, although the policy of courting a Muslim power was in reversal of that of his predecessors. The pretext used by Francis I was the protection of the Christians in Ottoman lands, through agreements called "Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire".


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: King Francis was imprisoned in Madrid when the first efforts at establishing an alliance were made. A first French mission to Suleiman seems to have been sent right after the Battle of Pavia by the mother of Francis I, Louise de Savoie, but the mission was lost on its way in Bosnia. In December 1525 a second mission was sent, led by John Frangipani, which managed to reach Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, with secret letters asking for the deliverance of king Francis I and an attack on the Habsburg. Frangipani returned with an answer from Suleiman, on 6 February 1526:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The plea of the French king nicely corresponded to the ambitions of Suleiman in Europe, and gave him an incentive to attack Hungary in 1526, leading to the Battle of Mohács. The Ottomans were also greatly attracted by the prestige of being in alliance with such a country as France, which would give them better legitimacy in their European dominions.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Meanwhile, Charles V was manoeuvring to form a Habsburg-Persian alliance with Persia, so that the Ottoman Empire would be attacked on its rear. Envoys were sent to Shah Tahmasp I in 1525, and again in 1529, pleading for an attack on the Ottoman Empire.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: With the War of the League of Cognac (1526–1530) going on, Francis I continued to look for allies in Central Europe and formed a Franco-Hungarian alliance in 1528 with the Hungarian king Zapolya, who himself had just become a vassal of the Ottoman Empire that same year. In 1528 also, Francis used the pretext of the protection of Christians in the Ottoman Empire to again enter into contact with Suleiman, asking for the return of a mosque to a Christian Church. In his 1528 letter to Francis I Suleiman politely refused, but guaranteed the protection of Christians in his states. He also renewed the privileges of French merchants which had been obtained in 1517 in Egypt.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Francis I lost in his European campaigns, and had to sign the "Paix des Dames" in August 1529. He was even forced to supply some galleys to Charles V in his fight against the Ottomans. However, the Ottomans would continue their campaigns in Central Europe, and besiege the Habsburg capital in the 1529 siege of Vienna, and again in 1532.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In early July 1532, Suleiman was joined by the French ambassador Antonio Rincon in Belgrade. Antonio Rincon presented Suleiman with a magnificent four-tiered tiara, made in Venice for 115,000 ducats. Rincon also described the Ottoman camp:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Francis I explained to the Venetian ambassador Giorgio Gritti in March 1531 his strategy regarding the Turks:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Ottoman embassies were sent to France, with the Ottoman embassy to France (1533) led by Hayreddin Barbarossa, and the Ottoman embassy to France (1534) led by representatives of Suleiman.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Suleiman ordered Barbarossa to put his fleet at the disposition of Francis I to attack Genoa and the Milanese. In July 1533 Francis received Ottoman representatives at Le Puy, and he would dispatch in return Antonio Rincon to Barbarossa in North Africa and then to the Asia Minor. Suleiman explained that "he could not possibly abandon the King of France, who was his brother". The Franco-Ottoman alliance was by then effectively made.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1534 a Turkish fleet sailed against the Habsburg Empire at the request of Francis I, raiding the Italian coast and finally meeting with representatives of Francis in southern France. The fleet went on to capture Tunis in the Conquest of Tunis (1534) on 16 August 1534 and continued raiding the Italian coast with the support of Francis I. In a counter-attack however, Charles V dislodged them in the Conquest of Tunis (1535).


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Treaties, or capitulations, were passed between the two countries starting in 1528 and 1536. The defeat in the Conquest of Tunis (1535) at the hands of Andrea Doria motivated the Ottoman Empire to enter into a formal alliance with France. Ambassador Jean de La Forêt was sent to Istanbul, and for the first time was able to become permanent ambassador at the Ottoman court and to negotiate treaties.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Jean de La Forêt negotiated the capitulations on 18 February 1536, on the model of previous Ottoman commercial treaties with Venice and Genoa, although they only seem to have been ratified by the Ottomans later, in 1569, with ambassador Claude Du Bourg. These capitulations allowed the French to obtain important privileges, such as the security of the people and goods, extraterritoriality, freedom to transport and sell goods in exchange for the payment of the selamlik and customs fees. These capitulations would in effect give the French a near trade monopoly in seaport-towns that would be known as "les Echelles du Levant". Foreign vessels had to trade with Turkey under the French banner, after the payment of a percentage of their trade.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: A French embassy and a Christian chapel were established in the town of Galata across the Golden horn from Constantinople, and commercial privileges were also given to French merchants in the Turkish Empire. Through the capitulations of 1535, the French received the privilege to trade freely in all Ottoman ports. A formal alliance was signed in 1536. The French were free to practice their religion in the Ottoman Empire, and French Catholics were given custody of holy places. The capitulations were again renewed in 1604, and lasted up until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Jean de la Forêt also had secret military instructions to organize a combined offensive on Italy in 1535: Through the negotiations of de La Forêt with the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha it was agreed that combined military operations against Italy would take place, in which France would attack Lombardy while the Ottoman Empire would attack from Naples. The Ottoman Empire also provided considerable financial support to Francis I. In 1533, Suleiman sent Francis I 100,000 gold pieces, so that he could form a coalition with England and German states against Charles V. In 1535, Francis asked for another 1 million ducats. The military instructions of Jean de la Forêt were highly specific:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Finally, Suleiman intervened diplomatically in favour of Francis on the European scene. He is known to have sent at least one letter to the Protestant princes of Germany to encourage them to ally with Francis I against Charles V. Francis I effectively allied with the Schmalkaldic League against Charles V in 1535.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Franco-Ottoman military collaboration took place during the Italian War of 1536–1538 following the 1536 Treaty negotiated by Jean de La Forêt.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Francis I invaded Savoy in 1536, starting the war. A Franco-Turkish fleet was stationed in Marseille by the end of 1536, threatening Genoa. While Francis I was attacking Milan and Genoa in April 1536, Barbarossa was raiding the Habsburg possessions in the Mediterranean.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1536 the French Admiral Baron de Saint-Blancard combined his twelve French galleys with a small Ottoman fleet belonging to Barbarossa in Algiers (an Ottoman galley and 6 galiotes), to attack the island of Ibiza in the Balearic Islands. After failing to capture the tower of Salé, the fleet raided the Spanish coast from Tortosa to Collioure, finally wintering in Marseilles with 30 galleys from 15 October 1536 (the first time a Turkish fleet laid up for the winter in Marseilles).


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: For 1537 important combined operations were agreed upon, in which the Ottomans would attack southern Italy and Naples under Barbarossa, and Francis I would attack northern Italy with 50,000 men. Suleiman led an army of 300,000 from Constantinople to Albania, with the objective of transporting them to Italy with the fleet. The Ottoman fleet gathered in Avlona with 100 galleys, accompanied by the French ambassador Jean de La Forêt. They landed in Castro, Apulia by the end of July 1537, and departed two weeks later with many prisoners. Barbarossa had laid waste to the region around Otranto, carrying about 10,000 people into slavery. Francis however failed to meet his commitment, and instead attacked the Netherlands.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The Ottomans departed from Southern Italy, and instead mounted the siege of Corfu in August 1537. where they were met by the French Admiral Baron de Saint-Blancard with 12 galleys in early September 1537. Saint-Blancard in vain attempted to convince the Ottomans to again raid the coasts of Apulia, Sicily and the March of Ancona, and Suleiman returned with his fleet to Constantinople by mid-September without having captured Corfu. French ambassador Jean de La Forêt became seriously ill and died around that time. Francis I finally penetrated into Italy, and reached Rivoli on 31 October 1537.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: For two years, until 1538, Saint-Blancard would accompany the fleet of Barbarossa, and between 1537 and 1538, Saint-Blancard would winter with his galleys in Constantinople and meet with Suleiman. During that time, Saint-Blancard was funded by Barbarossa. The campaign of Saint-Blancard with the Ottomans was written down in "Le Voyage du Baron de Saint Blancard en Turquie", by Jean de la Vega, who had accompanied Saint-Blancard in his mission. Although the French accompanied most of the campaigns of Barbarossa, they sometimes refrained from participating in Turkish assaults, and their accounts express horror at the violence of these encounters, in which Christians were slaughtered or taken as captives.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: With Charles V unsuccessful in battle and squeezed between the French invasion and the Ottomans, he and Francis I ultimately made peace with the Truce of Nice on 18 June 1538. In the truce, Charles and Francis made an agreement to ally against the Ottomans to expel them from Hungary. Charles V turned his attention to fighting the Ottomans, but could not launch large forces in Hungary due to a raging conflict with the German princes of the Schmalkaldic League. On 28 September 1538 Barbarosa won the major Battle of Preveza against the Imperial fleet. At the end of the conflict, Suleiman set as a condition for peace with Charles V that the latter returns to Francis I the lands that were his by right.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The Franco-Ottoman alliance was crippled for a while however, due to Francis' official change of alliance at Nice in 1538. Open conflict between Charles and Francis would resume in 1542, as well as Franco-Ottoman collaboration, with the 4 July 1541 assassination by Imperial troops of the French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Antonio Rincon, as he was travelling through Italy near Pavia.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: During the Italian War of 1542–46 Francis I and Suleiman I were again pitted against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Henry VIII of England. The course of the war saw extensive fighting in Italy, France, and the Low Countries, as well as attempted invasions of Spain and England; but, although the conflict was ruinously expensive for the major participants, its outcome was inconclusive. In the Mediterranean, active naval collaboration took place between the two powers to fight against Spanish forces, following a request by Francis I, conveyed by Antoine Escalin des Aimars, also known as Captain Polin.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In early 1542, Polin successfully negotiated the details of the alliance, with the Ottoman Empire promising to send 60,000 troops against the territories of the German king Ferdinand, as well as 150 galleys against Charles, while France promised to attack Flanders, harass the coasts of Spain with a naval force, and send 40 galleys to assist the Turks for operations in the Levant.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: A landing harbour in the north of the Adriatic was prepared for Barberousse, at Marano. The port was seized in the name of France by Piero Strozzi on 2 January 1542.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Polin left Constantinople on 15 February 1542 with a contract from Suleiman outlining the details of the Ottoman commitment for 1542. He arrived in Blois on 8 March 1542 to obtain a ratification of the agreement by Francis I. Accordingly, Francis I designated the city of Perpignan as the objective for the Ottoman expedition, in order to obtain a seaway to Genoa. Polin, after some delays in Venice, finally managed to take a galley to Constantinople on 9 May 1542, but he arrived too late for the Ottomans to launch a sea campaign.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Meanwhile, Francis I initiated the hostilities with Charles V on 20 July 1542, and kept with his part of the agreement by laying siege at Perpignan and attacking Flanders. André de Montalembert was sent to Constantinople to ascertain the Ottoman offensive, but it turned out that Suleiman, partly under the anti-alliance influence of Suleyman Pasha, was unwilling to send an army that year, and promised to send an army twice as strong the following year, in 1543.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: When Francis I learnt from André de Montalembert that the Ottomans were not coming, he raised the siege of Perpignan.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Most notably, the French forces, led by François de Bourbon and the Ottoman forces, led by Barbarossa, joined at Marseille in August 1543, and collaborated to bombard the city of Nice in the siege of Nice. In this action 110 Ottoman galleys, amounting to 30,000 men, combined with 50 French galleys. The Franco-Ottomans laid waste to the city of Nice, but were confronted by a stiff resistance which gave rise to the story of Catherine Ségurane. They had to raise the siege of the citadel upon the arrival of enemy troops.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: After the siege of Nice, the Ottomans were offered by Francis to winter at Toulon, so that they could continue to harass the Holy Roman Empire, and especially the coast of Spain and Italy, as well the communications between the two countries:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: During the wintering of Barbarossa, the Toulon Cathedral was transformed into a mosque, the call to prayer occurred five times a day, and Ottoman coinage was the currency of choice. According to an observer: "To see Toulon, one might imagine oneself at Constantinople".


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Throughout the winter, the Ottomans were able to use Toulon as a base to attack the Spanish and Italian coasts, raiding Sanremo, Borghetto Santo Spirito, Ceriale and defeating Italo-Spanish naval attacks. Sailing with his whole fleet to Genoa, Barbarossa negotiated with Andrea Doria the release of Turgut Reis. The Ottomans departed from their Toulon base in May 1544 after Francis I had paid 800,000 ecus to Barbarossa.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Five French galleys under Captain Polin, including the superb "Réale", accompanied Barbarossa's fleet, on a diplomatic mission to Suleiman. The French fleet accompanied Barbarossa during his attacks on the west coast of Italy on the way to Constantinople, as he laid waste to the cities of Porto Ercole, Giglio, Talamona, Lipari and took about 6,000 captives, but separated in Sicily from Barbarossa's fleet to continue alone to the Ottoman capital. Jerôme Maurand, a priest of Antibes who accompanied Polin and the Ottoman fleet in 1544, wrote a detailed account in "Itinéraire d'Antibes à Constantinonple". They arrived in Constantinople on 10 August 1544 to meet with Suleiman and give him an account of the campaign. Polin was back to Toulon on 2 October 1544.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: On land Suleiman was concomitantly fighting for the conquest of Hungary in 1543, as a part of the Little War. French troops were supplied to the Ottomans on the Central European front: in Hungary, a French artillery unit was dispatched in 1543–1544 and attached to the Ottoman Army. Following major sieges such as the siege of Esztergom (1543), Suleiman took a commanding position in Hungary, obtaining the signature of the Truce of Adrianople with the Habsburg in 1547.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Besides the powerful effect of a strategic alliance encircling the Habsburg Empire, combined tactical operations were significantly hampered by the distances involved, the difficulties in communication, and the unpredictable changes of plans on one side or the other. From a financial standpoint, fiscal revenues were also generated for both powers through the ransoming of enemy ships in the Mediterranean. The French Royal House also borrowed large amounts of gold from the Ottoman banker Joseph Nasi and the Ottoman Empire, amounting to around 150,000 écus as of 1565, the repayment of which became contentious in the following years.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1547, when Sultan Suleiman I attacked Persia in his second campaign of the Ottoman-Safavid War (1532–1555), France sent him the ambassador Gabriel de Luetz to accompany him in his campaign. Gabriel de Luetz was able to give decisive military advice to Suleiman, as when he advised on artillery placement during the Siege of Van.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The alliance provided strategic support to, and effectively protected, the kingdom of France from the ambitions of Charles V. It also gave the opportunity for the Ottoman Empire to become involved in European diplomacy and gain prestige in its European dominions. According to historian Arthur Hassall the consequences of the Franco-Ottoman alliance were far-reaching: ""The Ottoman alliance had powerfully contributed to save France from the grasp of Charles V, it had certainly aided Protestantism in Germany, and from a French point of view, it had rescued the North German allies of Francis I."'


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Side effects included a lot of negative propaganda against the actions of France and its "unholy" alliance with a Muslim power. Charles V strongly appealed to the rest of Europe against the alliance of Francis I, and caricatures were made showing the collusion between France and the Ottoman Empire. In the late sixteenth century, Italian political philosopher Giovanni Botero referred to the alliance as "a vile, infamous, diabolical treaty" and blamed it for the extinction of the Valois dynasty. Even the French Huguenot Francois de La Noue denounced the alliance in a 1587 work, claiming that "this confederation has been the occasion to diminish the glory and power of such a flourishing kingdom as France."


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Numerous authors intervened to take the defense of the French king for his alliance. Authors wrote about the Ottoman civilization, such as Guillaume Postel or Christophe Richer, in sometimes extremely positive ways. In the 1543 work "Les Gestes de Francoys de Valois", Etienne Dolet justified the alliance by comparing it to Charles V's relations with Persia and Tunis. Dolet also claimed that it should not be "forbidden for a prince to make alliance and seek intelligence of another, whatever creed or law he may be." The author François de Sagon wrote in 1544 "Apologye en défense pour le Roy", a text defending the actions of Francis I by drawing parallels with the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Bible, in which Francis is compared to the wounded man, the Emperor to the thieves, and Suleiman to the Good Samaritan providing help to Francis. Guillaume du Bellay and his brother Jean du Bellay wrote in defense of the alliance, at the same time minimizing it and legitimizing on the ground that Francis I was defending himself against an aggression. Jean de Montluc used examples from Christian history to justify the endeavour to obtain Ottoman support. Jean de Montluc's brother Blaise de Montluc argued in 1540 that the alliance was permissible because "against one's enemies one can make arrows of any kind of wood." In 1551, wrote "Apologie, faicte par un serviteur du Roy, contre les calomnies des Impériaulx: sur la descente du Turc".


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Cultural and scientific exchanges between France and the Ottoman Empire flourished. French scholars such as Guillaume Postel or Pierre Belon were able to travel to Asia Minor and the Middle East to collect information.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Scientific exchange is thought to have occurred, as numerous works in Arabic, especially pertaining to astronomy were brought back, annotated and studied by scholars such as Guillaume Postel. Transmission of scientific knowledge, such as the Tusi-couple, may have occurred on such occasions, at the time when Copernicus was establishing his own astronomical theories.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Books, such as the Muslim holy text, the Quran, were brought back to be integrated in Royal libraries, such as the "Bibliothèque Royale de Fontainebleau", to create a foundation for the "Collège des lecteurs royaux", future Collège de France. French novels and tragedies were written with the Ottoman Empire as a theme or background. In 1561, Gabriel Bounin published "La Soltane", a tragedy highlighting the role of Roxelane in the 1553 execution of Mustapha, the elder son of Suleiman. This tragedy marks the first time the Ottomans were introduced on stage in France.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Strategically, the alliance with the Ottoman Empire also allowed France to offset to some extent the Habsburg Empire's advantage in the New World trade, and French trade with the eastern Mediterranean through Marseille indeed increased considerably after 1535. After the Capitulations of 1569, France also gained precedence over all other Christian states, and her authorization was required for when another state wished to trade with the Ottoman Empire.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The son of Francis I, Henry II, also sealed a treaty with Suleyman in order to cooperate against the Austrian Navy. This was triggered by the 8 September 1550 conquest of Mahdiya by the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria on behalf of Charles V. The alliance allowed Henry II to push for French conquests towards the Rhine, while a Franco-Ottoman fleet defended southern France.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Various military actions were coordinated during the Italian War of 1551–1559. In 1551, the Ottomans, accompanied by the French ambassador Gabriel de Luez d'Aramon, succeeded in the siege of Tripoli.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1552, when Henry II attacked Charles V, the Ottomans sent 100 galleys to the Western Mediterranean. The Ottoman fleet was accompanied by three French galleys under Gabriel de Luez d'Aramon, who accompanied the Ottoman fleet from Istanbul in its raids along the coast of Calabria in Southern Italy, capturing the city of Reggio. The plan was to join with the French fleet of Baron de la Garde and the troops of the Prince of Salerno, but both were delayed and could not join the Ottomans in time. In the Battle of Ponza in front of the island of Ponza with 40 galleys of Andrea Doria, the Franco-Ottoman fleet managed to vanquish them and capture 7 galleys on 5 August 1552. The Franco-Ottoman fleet left Naples to go back to the east on 10 August, missing the Baron de la Garde who reached Naples a week later with 25 galleys and troops. The Ottoman fleet then wintered in Chios, where it was joined by the fleet of Baron de la Garde, ready for naval operations the following year.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: On 1 February 1553, a new treaty of alliance, involving naval collaboration against the Habsburg was signed between France and the Ottoman Empire. In 1553, the Ottoman admirals Dragut and Koca Sinan together with the French squadron raided the coasts of Naples, Sicily, Elba and Corsica. A Franco-Ottoman fleet accomplished an Invasion of Corsica for the benefit of France. The military alliance is said to have reached its peak in 1553.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1555, the French ambassador Michel de Codignac, successor to Gabriel de Luetz d'Aramon, is known to have participated to Suleiman's Persian campaign, and to have sailed with the Ottoman fleet in its campaign against Piombino, Elba and Corsica. The Ottoman admiral Turgut Reis was one of the key Ottoman protagonists in these actions.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: On 30 December 1557, Henry II wrote a letter to Suleiman, asking him for money, saltpeter, and 150 galleys to be stationed in the West. Through the services of his ambassador Jean Cavenac de la Vigne, Henry II obtained the dispatch of an Ottoman fleet to Italy in 1558, with little effect however apart from the sack of Sorrento. The Ottomans also contributed by the Ottoman invasion of the Balearic islands in 1558. The conflict would finally come to an end with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) and the accidental death of Henry II that same year. The newfound peace between the European powers however created long-lasting disillusionment on the Ottoman side.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Ottoman power was also used by the French in the religious conflicts on the European scene. In 1566, under Charles IX, the French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire intervened in favour of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Empire, after a request for Ottoman help by William I of Orange, so that a Dutch-Ottoman alliance was considered and a letter was sent from Suleiman the Magnificent to the "Lutherans" in Flanders, offering troops at the time they would request, and claiming that he felt close to them, "since they did not worship idols, believed in one God and fought against the Pope and Emperor". The Ottoman Empire was indeed known at that time for its religious tolerance. Various religious refugees, such as the Huguenots, some Anglicans, Quakers, Anabaptists or even Jesuits or Capuchins and Jews (Marranos) were able to find refuge at Constantinople and in the Ottoman Empire, where they were given right of residence and worship. Further, the Ottomans supported the Calvinists in Transylvania and Hungary but also in France. The contemporary French thinker Jean Bodin wrote:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The Ottoman Empire was at the height of its power, but for the forty years after these events, France would become embroiled in the bitter French Wars of Religion, and Ottoman power would start to slowly weaken after the 1571 Battle of Lepanto.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1572, after the death of the Polish king Sigismund Augustus, who had been under a Polish-Ottoman alliance of his own, Poland elected the French Henri de Valois, rather than Habsburg candidates, partly in order to be more agreeable to the Ottoman Empire. The choice of Henri de Valois had apparently been proposed by the Ottoman Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasha. When Henri left to return to France in 1575, he was succeeded by Stephen Báthory of Poland, who also had been supported by the Ottomans in obtaining the Transylvanian throne in 1571.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1574, William of Orange and Charles IX of France, through his pro-Huguenot ambassador François de Noailles, Bishop of Dax, tried to obtain the support of the Ottoman Sultan Selim II in order to open a new front against the Spanish King Philip II. Selim II sent his support through a messenger, who endeavoured to put the Dutch in contact with the rebellious Moriscos of Spain and the pirates of Algiers. Selim also sent a great fleet in the Capture of Tunis in October 1574, thus succeeding in reducing Spanish pressure on the Dutch.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: French Huguenots were in contact with the Moriscos in plans against Spain in the 1570s. Around 1575, plans were made for a combined attack of Aragonese Moriscos and Huguenots from Béarn under Henri de Navarre against Spanish Aragon, in agreement with the king of Algiers and the Ottoman Empire, but these projects foundered with the arrival of John of Austria in Aragon and the disarmament of the Moriscos. In 1576, a three-pronged fleet from Constantinople was planned to disembark between Murcia and Valencia while the French Huguenots would invade from the north and the Moriscos accomplish their uprising, but the Ottoman fleet failed to arrive.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Ottoman support for France would continue, as well as support for the Dutch and the English after 1580, and support for Protestants and Calvinists, as a way to counter Habsburg attempts at supremacy in Europe. For a time though, the Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–1590) turned the Ottomans' attention away from Europe.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The conflict between the Ottomans and the Persians led the latter to try to forge a counter-acting Habsburg-Persian alliance with other European powers against the Ottoman Empire, particularly with the Habsburg Empire, some of the Italian states and Habsburg Spain. This plan was formalized by two major diplomatic endeavours: the Persian embassy to Europe (1599–1602), and the Persian embassy to Europe (1609–1615). The results however seem to have been limited.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: For the three centuries following the beginning of the alliance, the Ottoman effectively continued to respect their commitment to protect Christian communities in their realm. The French kings succeeding to Francis I also generally maintained their pro-Ottoman policy. Numerous Ottoman embassies were received at the French court: from Suleiman I to Francis I in 1533, from Suleiman I to Charles IX in 1565 (embassy of Hajji Murad), from Selim II to Charles IX in 1571, from Murad III to Henry III in 1581.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Even before Henry IV's accession to the throne, the French Huguenots were in contact with the Moriscos in plans against Habsburg Spain in the 1570s. Around 1575, plans were made for a combined attack of Aragonese Moriscos and Huguenots from Béarn under Henri de Navarre against Spanish Aragon, in agreement with the Bey of Algiers and the Ottoman Empire, but these projects foundered with the arrival of John of Austria in Aragon and the disarmament of the Moriscos. In 1576, a three-pronged fleet from Constantinople was planned to disembark between Murcia and Valencia while the French Huguenots would invade from the north and the Moriscos accomplish their uprising, but the Ottoman fleet failed to arrive.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Henry IV continued the policy of Franco-Ottoman alliance and received an embassy from Mehmed III in 1601. In 1604, a "Peace Treaty and Capitulation" was signed between Henry IV and the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I, giving numerous advantages to France in the Ottoman Empire. An embassy was sent to Tunisia in 1608, led by François Savary de Brèves.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: An embassy was again sent to Louis XIII in 1607, and from Mehmed IV to Louis XIV in 1669 in the person of ambassador Müteferrika Süleyman Ağa, who created a sensation at the French court and even triggered a Turkish fashion. The Orient came to have a strong influence in French literature, as about 50% of French travel guides in the 16th century were dedicated to the Ottoman Empire.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: French influence remained paramount at Constantinople, and the Capitulations were renewed in 1604, forcing all nations to trade under the protection and flag of France, except for England and Venice which were competing, with the Dutch Republic, for influence in the Levant. In the context of competition for influence between Western powers, relations between France and the Ottoman Empire started to cool significantly. In 1643, the French lost the custody of the Holy Places to the Greeks.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Initially, the sentiment of Louis towards the Ottoman Empire seems to have been quite negative, and French troops assisted the Austrians against the Turks at the 1664 Battle of Saint-Gothard, and the Venetians against the Turks at the siege of Candia in 1669 under François de Beaufort. One of the reasons was that Louis XIV was in a shifting alliance with the Habsburgs, especially through his marriage with Marie-Thérèse of Spain in 1660. Louis's mother, Anne of Austria, was a Habsburg too.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The Barbary slave trade and Ottoman corsairs originating from Ottoman Algeria were a major problem throughout the centuries, leading to regular punitive expeditions by France (1661, 1665, 1682, 1683, 1688). French admiral Abraham Duquesne fought the Barbary corsairs in 1681 and bombarded Algiers between 1682 and 1683, to help Christian captives.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1673, Louis sent a fleet to the Dardanelles and obtained new capitulations recognizing him as sole protector of the Catholics. Soon Louis revived the alliance to facilitate his expansionist policies. Louis refrained from entering into a formal alliance with the Ottoman Empire, but maintained a cautious neutrality favourable to the Turks, encouraged them to open a new front against the Habsburgs, and effectively took advantage of their conflict with the Holy Roman Empire to further the territorial interests of France. In 1679 and 1680, Louis through his envoy Guilleragues encouraged the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa to intervene in the Magyar Rebellion against the Habsburg, but without success. Louis communicated to the Turks that he would never fight on the side of the Austrian Emperor Leopold I, and he instead massed troops at the eastern frontier of France. These reassurances encouraged the Turks not to renew the 20-year 1664 Vasvar truce with Austria and to move to the offensive. From 1683 and for a period of sixteen years, the Holy Roman Empire would be occupied in fighting the Ottoman Empire in the Great Turkish War. Louis refused to participate in the Holy League, a coalition of European powers against the Ottomans, adopting a position of neutrality, and encouraged Mehmed IV to persevere in his fight against the Habsburgs. Pamphleters and poets would criticize the position of Louis, and reinforce the unity of the League, by describing a battle between European "Liberty" on the one hand and "Eastern despotism" associated with "French absolutism" on the other.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa almost captured Vienna, but was finally repulsed at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. On that occasion, Louis not only declined to help the Austrians, but on the contrary tried to prevent John III Sobieski from saving the city of Vienna, and he used the opportunity to attack cities in Alsace and parts of southern Germany. He was able to sign the Truce of Ratisbon on 15 August 1684, giving him several territories which covered the frontier and protected France from foreign invasion.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1688, Louis again attacked the Habsburg Empire, in effect relieving pressure from the Ottomans. Louis was reviled for this action, and was called:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: The Ottomans were able to stage a counter-attack and succeeded in the siege of Belgrade (1690), but they were finally defeated however in 1699 with the Treaty of Carlowitz.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: By the end of the 17th century, the first major defeats of the Ottoman Empire reduced the perceived threat in European minds, which led to an artistic craze for Turkish things. There was a fashion for Turkish things with "Turquerie", just as there was a fashion for Chinese things with "Chinoiserie", both of which became constitutive components of the Rococo style. Orientalism started to become hugely popular, first with the works of Jean-Baptiste van Mour, who had accompanied the embassy of Charles de Ferriol to Constantinople 1699 and stayed there until the end of his life in 1737, and later with the works of Boucher or Fragonard.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: French literature also was greatly influenced. In 1704 was published the first French version of "One Thousand and One Nights". French authors used the East as a way to enrich their philosophical work and a pretext to write comments on the West: Montesquieu wrote the "Lettres Persannes" in 1721, a satirical essay on the West, Voltaire used the Oriental appeal to write "Zaïre" (1732) and "Candide" (1759). French travelers of the 17th century, such as Jean de Thévenot or Jean-Baptiste Tavernier routinely visited the Ottoman Empire.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: There were also numerous culinary influences. Coffee was introduced to Marseille by Pierre de La Roque in 1664, but the fashion for coffee in Paris was triggered by the Ottoman ambassador to Louis XIV, Suleiman Aga, in 1669. Fashionable coffee-shops emerged such as the famous "Café Procope", the first coffee-shop of Paris, in 1689. In the French high society wearing turbans and caftans became fashionable, as well as lying on rugs and cushions.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: A carpet industry "façon de Turquie" ("in the manner of Turkey") was developed in France in the reign of Henry IV by Pierre Dupont, who was returning from the Levant, and especially rose to prominence during the reign of Louis XIV. The Tapis de Savonnerie especially exemplify this tradition ("the superb carpets of the Savonnerie, which long rivalled the carpets of Turkey, and latterly have far surpassed them") which was further adapted to local taste and developed with the Gobelins carpets. This tradition also spread to England where it revived the English carpet industry in the 18th century.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In the early 18th century, the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III (1703–1730) endeavoured to send an embassy to France in order to formally establish France as a strategic ally against the common Russian and Austrian enemy. In 1720, Mehmed Efendi was assigned as Ottoman ambassador to Louis XV and sent to Paris. His embassy of eleven months was notable for being the first ever foreign representation of a permanent nature for the Ottoman Empire. During 1721–22, he visited France on an extensive fact-finding mission, with the objective of gathering information for the modernization of the Ottoman Empire. On his return to the Ottoman capital, Mehmed Çelebi presented his contacts, experiences and observations to the Sultan in the form of a book, a "Sefâretnâme". Another embassy, led by Mehmed Said Efendi would visit France in 1742.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Throughout the period, contacts were varied and multiple. France was willing to help in order to maintain strategic balance in Europe. Through its intervention and that of Ambassador Louis de Villenneuve in negotiating the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade, France effectively supported the Ottoman Empire into maintaining a strong presence in Europe against Austria for several more decades, and "re-emerged in its traditional role as the Ottomans' best friend in Christendom".


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Also, as the Ottoman Empire was losing ground militarily during the 18th century, it made numerous efforts to recruit French experts for its modernization. The French officer and adventurer Claude-Alexandre de Bonneval (1675–1747) went in the service of Sultan Mahmud I, converted to Islam, and endeavoured to modernize the Ottoman Army, creating cannon foundries, powder and musket factories and a military engineering school. Another officer François Baron de Tott was involved in the reform efforts for the Ottoman military. He succeeded in having a new foundry built to make howitzers, and was instrumental in the creation of mobile artillery units. He built fortifications on the Bosphorus and started a naval science course that laid the foundation stone for the later Turkish Naval Academy.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Under Louis XVI from 1783, a French Military Mission was sent to the Ottoman Empire to train the Turks in naval warfare and fortification building. Up to the French revolution in 1789, about 300 French artillery officers and engineers were active in the Ottoman Empire to modernize and train artillery units. From 1784, reached Constantinople with 12 experts. The same year, French engineering officers André-Joseph Lafitte-Clavé and Joseph-Monnier de Courtois arrived to instruct engineering drawings and techniques in the new Turkish engineering school "Mühendishâne-i Hümâyûn" established by the Grand Vizier Halil Hamid Pasha. Mostly French textbooks were used on mathematics, astronomy, engineering, weapons, war techniques and navigation. However, all instructors had to leave with the end of the Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1798.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: This policy initially continued during the French Revolution, as France was clearly in need of an eastern diversion against its continental enemies. For the Ottoman Empire, the French Revolution was a godsend, since conflict between European powers could only weaken the states that were its traditional enemies. For Sultan Selim III, this was a golden opportunity to modernize, and achieve the "New Order" (Nizam-i Jedid). He established permanent embassies in several European countries, and turned to France for help. Various experts were sent, and in 1795, French envoy extraordinaire attempted to establish a Treaty of Alliance. A young artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte was also to be sent to Constantinople in 1795 to help organize Ottoman artillery. He did not go, for just days before he was to embark for the Near East he proved himself useful to the Directory by putting down a Parisian mob in the "whiff of grapeshot" and was kept in France.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In 1796, General Aubert-Dubayet was sent to the Ottoman court with artillery equipment, and French artillerymen and engineers to help with the development of the Ottoman arsenals and foundries. Infantry and cavalry officers were also to train the Spahis and Janissaries, but they were frustrated by the opposition of the Janissaries. This relationship would sour with the ascent of Napoleon I.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: With the advent of Napoleon I, France adopted a strongly expansionist policy which put it in direct contact with the Ottoman Empire. Following the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, France acquired possessions in the Mediterranean such as the Ionian islands as well as former Venetian bases on the coast of Albania and Greece. Relations with the Ottoman Empire became all of a sudden strained. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798 and fought against the Ottomans to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with Tippoo Sahib in India. Although the long period of Franco-Ottoman friendship was now over, Napoleon I still claimed great respect for Islam, and appealed to the long history of friendly relations between the Ottoman Empire and France:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Napoleon had toppled the Mamluk beys, the effective rulers of Egypt under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, but still raised the French flag side by side with the Ottoman banner throughout the Egyptian territory, claiming his love for Islam, and saying that they were saving the Ottomans from the Mamluks. Selim III however immediately declared a Jihad and sought the help of Britain and Russia, who both felt both threatened by Napoleon's conquests. On January 3, 1799, the Ottoman Empire allied with Russia, and two days later with Great Britain.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Britain took the opportunity to ally with the Ottoman Empire in order to repel Napoleon's invasion, intervening militarily during the siege of Acre with Admiral William Sidney Smith in 1799, and under Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Abukir in 1801. By 1802, the French were completely vanquished in the Middle East.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Soon however, in 1803, France and Great Britain were again at war, and Napoleon went to great lengths to try to convince the Ottoman Empire to fight against Russia in the Balkans and join his anti-Russian coalition. On its side, Russia vied for Ottoman favour, and succeeded in signing a Treaty of Defensive Alliance in 1805.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: Napoleon continued his efforts to win the Ottoman Empire to his cause. He sent General Horace Sebastiani as envoy extraordinary. Napoleon promised to help the Ottoman Empire recover lost territories. He wrote to the Sultan:


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In February 1806, following Napoleon's remarkable victory in the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 and the ensuing dismemberment of the Holy Roman Empire, Selim III finally refused to ratify the Russian and British alliances, and recognized Napoleon as Emperor, formally opting for an alliance with France ""our sincere and natural ally"", and war with Russia and Britain. He also sent Muhib Efendi to Paris as ambassador (1806–1811). Selim III's decisions in favour of France triggered the 1806 Russo-Turkish War and the 1807 Anglo-Turkish War. Selim III repelled the British fleet of John Thomas Duckworth with the help of Sebastiani, but lost several major encounters against Russia, and he was finally toppled by his Janissaries as he was trying to reform his army, and replaced by Sultan Mustafa IV. Mustafa IV however, persisted with the Franco-Ottoman alliance, and sent ambassador Halet Efendi to Paris to work out the details. Concurrently, Napoleon also formed a Franco-Persian alliance in 1807, through the signature of the Treaty of Finkenstein.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In a final reversal however, Napoleon I finally vanquished Russia at the Battle of Friedland in July 1807. The alliance between France and the Ottoman Empire was maintained, and a peace settlement was brokered between Russia and the Ottomans, but the territories the Ottomans had been promised (Moldavia and Wallachia) through the Treaty of Tilsit were never returned, although the Ottomans themselves had complied with their part of the agreement by moving their troops south of the Danube. Faced with betrayal by Russia, and the failure of France to have the agreement enforced, the Ottoman Empire, now ruled by Sultan Mahmud II, finally signed on 5 January 1809 a Treaty of Peace, Commerce and Secret Alliance with Great Britain, which was now at war with both France and Russia. In 1812, through the Treaty of Bucharest, the Ottoman Empire and Russia agreed to make peace, just as Russia was anxious to liberate this southern front in anticipation of Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, with Russia keeping Bessarabia and the Ottomans regaining Wallachia and Moldavia. In the post-Napoleonic world, at the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Ottoman Empire was still recognized as an essential part of the European status quo.


title: Franco-Ottoman alliance

text: In another example of cooperation, in 1860, France later intervened in the Ottoman territory of Syria, with the agreement of the Ottoman Empire, with the objective to fulfill its mission to protect Christians in the Middle East, following massacres of Maronite Christians. At that time, France, led by Emperor Napoleon III, claimed to continue its ancient role as protector of Christians in the Ottoman Empire.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Tyler Cowen (; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. He hosts the economics blog "Marginal Revolution", together with co-author Alex Tabarrok. Cowen and Tabarrok also maintain the website Marginal Revolution University, a venture in online education.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Cowen writes the "Economic Scene" column for "The New York Times" and since July 2016 has been a regular opinion columnist at "Bloomberg Opinion". He also writes for such publications as "The New Republic", "The Wall Street Journal", "Forbes", "Newsweek" and the "Wilson Quarterly". He serves as general director of George Mason's Mercatus Center, a university research center that focuses on the market economy. Since 2015, he has hosted the podcast "Conversations with Tyler". In September, 2018, Tyler and his team at George Mason University launched Emergent Ventures, a grant and fellowship focused on "moon-shot" ideas.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: He was ranked at number 72 among the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" in 2011 by "Foreign Policy Magazine" "for finding markets in everything". In a 2011 poll of experts by "The Economist", Cowen was included in the top 36 nominations of "which economists were most influential over the past decade".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Cowen was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey and attended Pascack Valley High School. At 15, he became the youngest ever New Jersey state chess champion. Cowen is of Irish ancestry.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: He graduated from George Mason University with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics in 1983 and received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1987 with his thesis titled "Essays in the theory of welfare economics". At Harvard, he was mentored by game theorist Thomas Schelling, the 2005 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He is married to Natasha Cowen, a lawyer.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: The "Los Angeles Times" has described Cowen as "a man who can talk about Haitian voodoo flags, Iranian cinema, Hong Kong cuisine, Abstract Expressionism, Zairian music and Mexican folk art with seemingly equal facility". One of Cowen's primary research interests is the economics of culture. He has written books on fame ("What Price Fame?"), art ("In Praise of Commercial Culture") and cultural trade ("Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures"). In "Markets and Cultural Voices", he relays how globalization is changing the world of three Mexican amate painters. Cowen argues that free markets change culture for the better, allowing them to evolve into something more people want. Other books include "Public Goods and Market Failures", "The Theory of Market Failure", "Explorations in the New Monetary Economics", "Risk and Business Cycles", "Economic Welfare" and "New Theories of Market Failure".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: His dining guide for the D.C. area, "Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide", has been written about by "The Washington Post" and "Washington City Paper".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Cowen has written papers on political philosophy and ethics. He co-wrote a paper with philosopher Derek Parfit arguing against the social discount rate. In a 2006 paper, he argued that the epistemic problem fails to refute consequentialism.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Cowen has been described as a "libertarian bargainer" who can influence practical policy making, yet he endorsed bank bailouts in his March 2, 2009 column in "The New York Times". In a 2007 article entitled "The Paradox of Libertarianism", Cowen argued that libertarians "should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government. We don't have to favor the growth in government "per se", but we do need to recognize that sometimes it is a package deal".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: In 2012, David Brooks called Cowen "one of the most influential bloggers on the right", writing that he is among those who "start from broadly libertarian premises but do not apply them in a doctrinaire way".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: In an August, 2014 blog post, Cowen wrote: "Just to summarize, I generally favor much more immigration but not open borders, I am a liberal on most but not all social issues, and I am market-oriented on economic issues. On most current foreign policy issues I am genuinely agnostic as to what exactly we should do but skeptical that we are doing the right thing at the moment. I don't like voting for either party or for third parties".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: In a 2020 New Year's Day Marginal Revolution post, Cowen outlined a philosophical framework he dubbed "State Capacity Libertarianism". State Capacity Libertarianism differs from classical liberalism in that it acknowledges the State's role in funding and executing megaprojects and a non-isolationist foreign policy.


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Cowen has described himself as a liberal on most social issues and supports same-sex marriage. After the Supreme Court issued its holding regarding same-sex marriage, Cowen said that "this is exciting and very positive news. Most of all, it is a breakthrough for those people who can now marry, or exercise the choice not to marry".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: Cowen is a teetotaler, stating he is "with the Mormons" on alcohol, later stating: "I encourage people to just completely, voluntarily abstain from alcohol and make it a social norm".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: In July 2019, Cowen co-authored an essay in "The Atlantic" with Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison calling for a "new science of progress".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: "Conversations with Tyler" is Cowen's podcast produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason. Unlike Marginal Revolution, "Conversations" is hosted by Cowen exclusively. Guests are usually authors and academics, but have also included athletes (Martina Navratilova, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), military personnel (Stanley A. McChrystal), entrepreneurs (Mark Zuckerberg, Bryan Armstrong), novelists (Emily St. John Mandel) and a homeless person from Washington, D.C. named "Alexander the Grate".


title: Tyler Cowen

text: In describing the podcast, Cowen repeatedly characterises it as "...the conversation "I" want to have".


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings (not counting drawings and etchings), of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: Jean-Honoré Fragonard was born at Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes, the son of François Fragonard, a glover, and Françoise Petit.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: Fragonard was articled to a Paris notary when his father's circumstances became strained through unsuccessful speculations, but showed such talent and inclination for art that he was taken at the age of eighteen to François Boucher. Boucher recognized the youth's rare gifts but, disinclined to waste his time with one so inexperienced, sent him to Chardin's atelier. Fragonard studied for six months under the great luminist, then returned more fully equipped to Boucher, whose style he soon acquired so completely that the master entrusted him with the execution of replicas of his paintings.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: Though not yet a student of the Academy, Fragonard gained the Prix de Rome in 1752 with a painting of "Jeroboam Sacrificing to Idols", but before proceeding to Rome he continued to study for three years under Charles-André van Loo. In the year preceding his departure he painted the "Christ washing the Feet of the Apostles" now at Grasse Cathedral. On 17 September 1756, he took up his abode at the French Academy in Rome, then presided over by Charles-Joseph Natoire.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: While at Rome, Fragonard contracted a friendship with a fellow painter, Hubert Robert. In 1760, they toured Italy together, executing numerous sketches of local scenery. It was in these romantic gardens, with their fountains, grottos, temples and terraces, that Fragonard conceived the dreams which he was subsequently to render in his art. He also learned to admire the masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools (Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael), imitating their loose and vigorous brushstrokes. Added to this influence was the deep impression made upon his mind by the florid sumptuousness of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose works he had an opportunity to study in Venice before he returned to Paris in 1761.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: In 1765 his "Coresus et Callirhoe" secured his admission to the Academy. It was made the subject of a pompous (though not wholly serious) eulogy by Denis Diderot, and was bought by the king, who had it reproduced at the Gobelins factory. Hitherto Fragonard had hesitated between religious, classic and other subjects; but now the demand of the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV's pleasure-loving and licentious court turned him definitely towards those scenes of love and voluptuousness with which his name will ever be associated, and which are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork; such works include the "Blind Man's Bluff" ("Le collin maillard"), "Serment d'amour" (Love Vow), "Le Verrou" (The Bolt), "La Culbute" (The Tumble), "La Chemise enlevée" (The Raised Chemise), and "L'escarpolette" (The Swing, Wallace Collection), and his decorations for the apartments of Mme du Barry and the dancer Madeleine Guimard. The portrait of Diderot (1769) has recently had its attribution to Fragonard called into question.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: A lukewarm response to these series of ambitious works induced Fragonard to abandon Rococo and to experiment with Neoclassicism. He married Marie-Anne Gérard, herself a painter of miniatures, (1745–1823) on 17 June 1769 and had a daughter, Rosalie Fragonard (1769–1788), who became one of his favourite models. In October 1773, he again went to Italy with Pierre-Jacques Onézyme Bergeret de Grancourt and his son, Pierre-Jacques Bergeret de Grancourt. In September 1774, he returned through Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Frankfurt and Strasbourg.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: Back in Paris Marguerite Gérard, his wife's 14-year-old sister, became his student and assistant in 1778. In 1780, he had a son, Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard (1780–1850), who eventually became a talented painter and sculptor. The French Revolution deprived Fragonard of his private patrons: they were either guillotined or exiled. The neglected painter deemed it prudent to leave Paris in 1790 and found shelter in the house of his cousin Alexandre Maubert at Grasse, which he decorated with the series of decorative panels known as the "Les progrès de l'amour dans le cœur d'une jeune fille", originally painted for Château du Barry.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: Fragonard returned to Paris early in the nineteenth century, where he died in 1806, almost completely forgotten.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: For half a century or more Fragonard was so completely ignored that Wilhelm Lübke's 1873 art history volume omits mention of his name. Later re-evaluations have re-identified his position among the all-time masters of French painting. The influence of his handling of local colour and expressive, confident brushstroke on the Impressionists (particularly his grand niece, Berthe Morisot, and Renoir) is undoubtable. Fragonard's paintings, alongside those of François Boucher, seem to sum up an era.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: One of Fragonard's most renowned paintings is "The Swing", also known as "The Happy Accidents of the Swing" (its original title), an oil painting in the Wallace Collection in London. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the rococo era, and is Fragonard's best known work. The painting portrays a young gentleman concealed in the bushes, observing a lady on swing being pushed by her spouse, who is standing in the background, hidden in the shadows, as he is unaware of the affair. As the lady swings forward, the young man gets a glimpse under her dress.


title: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

text: According to Charles Collé's memoirs a young nobleman had requested this portrait of his mistress seated on a swing. He asked first Gabriel François Doyen to make this painting of him and his mistress. Not comfortable with this frivolous work, Doyen refused and passed on the commission to Fragonard.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: The ATS had its roots in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), which was formed in 1917 as a voluntary service. During the First World War its members served in a number of jobs including clerks, cooks, telephonists and waitresses. The WAAC was disbanded after four years in 1921.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: Prior to the Second World War, the government decided to establish a new Corps for women, and an advisory council, which included members of the Territorial Army (TA), a section of the Women's Transport Service (FANY) and the Women's Legion, was set up. The council decided that the ATS would be attached to the Territorial Army, and the women serving would receive two thirds the pay of male soldiers.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: All women in the army joined the ATS except for nurses, who joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS), medical and dental officers, who were commissioned directly into the Army and held army ranks, and those remaining in the FANY, known as Free FANYs.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: The first recruits to the ATS were employed as cooks, clerks and storekeepers. At the outbreak of the Second World War, 300 ATS members were billeted to France. As the German Army advanced through France, the British Expeditionary Force was driven back towards the English Channel. This led to the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk in May 1940, and some ATS telephonists were among the last British personnel to leave the country.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: As more men joined the war effort, it was decided to increase the size of the ATS, with numbers reaching 65,000 by September 1941. Women between the ages of 17 and 43 were allowed to join, although these rules were relaxed in order to allow WAAC veterans to join up to the age of 50. The duties of members were also expanded, seeing ATS orderlies, drivers, postal workers and ammunition inspectors.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: Over the six-year period of the War, about 500 ATS personnel were trained to operate the Cinetheodolite, with the highest number being in 1943–44, when 305 ATS were in active service using this equipment.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: One application of this specialist camera was in gunnery practice, where a pair of Cinetheodolites a known distance apart filmed the shell bursts from anti-aircraft artillery against target drones towed by an aircraft. By comparing the filmed location of the shells' detonation and the target, accurate calculations of their relative position could be made that would reveal any systematic error in the gunsights.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: In December 1941, Parliament passed the National Service Act, which called up unmarried women between 20 and 30 years old to join one of the auxiliary services. These were the ATS, the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Women's Transport Service. Married women were also later called up, although pregnant women and those with young children were exempt. Other options under the Act included joining the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS), which supplemented the emergency services at home, or the Women's Land Army, helping on farms.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: There was also provision made in the act for objection to service on moral grounds, as about a third of those on the conscientious objectors list were women. A number of women were prosecuted as a result of the act, some even being imprisoned. Despite this, by 1943 about nine out of ten women were taking an active part in the war effort.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: Women were barred from serving in battle, but due to shortages of men, ATS members, as well as members of the other women's voluntary services, took over many support tasks, such as radar operators, forming part of the crews of anti-aircraft guns and military police. However, these roles were not without risk, and there were, according to the Imperial War Museum, 717 casualties during World War II.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: The first 'Mixed' Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) battery of the Royal Artillery (435 (Mixed) HAA Battery) was formed on 25 June 1941, and took over an operational gun site in Richmond Park, south-west London, in August. It was the forerunner of hundreds of similar units with the ATS supplying two-thirds of the personnel: at its height in 1943 three-quarters of Anti-Aircraft Command's HAA batteries were mixed. Several Heavy Anti-Aircraft regiments deployed to North West Europe with 21st Army Group in 1944–45 were 'Mixed' regiments.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: A secret trial (the 'Newark Experiment' in April 1941) having shown that women were capable of operating heavy searchlight equipment and coping with conditions on the often desolate searchlight sites, members of the ATS began training at Rhyl to replace male personnel in searchlight regiments. At first they were employed in searchlight Troop headquarters, but in July 1942 the 26th (London Electrical Engineers) Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery became the first 'Mixed' regiment, with seven Troops of ATS women posted to it, forming the whole of 301 Battery and half of 339 Battery. In October that year the all-women 301 Battery was transferred to the new 93rd (Mixed) Searchlight Regiment, the last searchlight regiment formed during World War II, which by August 1943 comprised about 1500 women out of an establishment of 1674. Many other searchlight and anti-aircraft regiments on Home Defence followed, freeing men aged under 30 of medical category A1 for transfer to the infantry.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: Similarly, by 1943 the ATS represented 10 per cent of the Royal Corps of Signals, having taken over the major part of the signal office and operating duties in the War Office and Home Commands, and ATS companies were sent to work on the lines of communications of active overseas theatres.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: By VE Day and before demobilization of the British armed forces, there were over 190,000 members of the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: Famous members of the ATS included Mary Churchill, youngest daughter of the prime minister, Winston Churchill, and Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, eldest daughter of the King, who trained as a lorry driver, ambulance driver and mechanic.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: After the cessation of hostilities women continued to serve in the ATS, as well as in the WRNS and WAAF. It was succeeded by the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC), which formed on 1 February 1949 under Army Order 6.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: Initially ranks were completely different from those of the army, but used the same rank insignia, although the crown was replaced by a laurel wreath. Members were required to salute their own superior officers, but not other organisations' officers, although it was considered courteous to do so.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: On 9 May 1941, the ATS rank structure was reorganised, and as of July 1941 the ATS was given full military status and members were no longer volunteers. The other ranks now held almost identical ranks to army personnel, but officers continued to have a separate rank system, that was somewhat modified. All uniforms and badges of rank remained the same, although crowns replaced laurel wreaths in the rank insignia. Members were now required to salute all superior officers.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: The only holders of the rank of chief controller were the first three directors, promoted to the rank on their appointment, and Princess Mary, who held it from 1939 and was appointed the ATS's honorary controller-commandant in August 1941.


title: Auxiliary Territorial Service

text: When other ranks were assigned to mixed-sex Royal Artillery batteries of Anti-Aircraft Command starting in 1941, they were accorded the Royal Artillery ranks of gunner, lance-bombardier, and bombardier (instead of private, lance-corporal, and corporal), and wore the RA's braided white lanyard on the right shoulder and the 'grenade' collar badge above the left breast pocket of their uniform tunic.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishan (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Toishan or Toisan, in local dialect as Hoisan, and formerly known as Xinning or Sunning (), is a county-level city in the southwest of Guangdong province, China. It is administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. During the 2020 census, there were 907,354 inhabitants (941,095 in 2010), but only 433,266 were considered urban. Taishan calls itself the "First Home of the Overseas Chinese". An estimated half a million Chinese Americans are of Taishanese descent.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishan is located in the Pearl River Delta in southwestern Jiangmen Prefecture. It includes 95 islands and islets, including Shangchuan Island, the largest island in Guangdong now that Hainan has become a separate province. Taishan is one of Guangdong's "Four Counties" ("Sze Yup"), which excluded Heshan and is now part of the Greater Taishan Region.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: During the Ming dynasty, the area of present-day Taishan was carved out of Xinhui County on 12 February 1499 as "Xinning County." By the 19th century, Xinning was already a source of migrant and emigrant workers, but a series of subsequent natural and political disasters in the area exacerbated the situation. Aside from the disruption of the Sea Ban regulations ("Haijin") themselves, their revocation led to an influx of northern settlers who began long-running feuds with the returning locals; this erupted into full-scale war in the 1850s and '60s. The 1842 Treaty of Nanking that ended the First Opium War opened China to greater foreign trade just before the California Gold Rush made the prospect of emigration to the United States appealing. Many also served as contract workers abroad, as in Hawaii and Cuba and—most famously—for the Central Pacific half of America's Transcontinental Railroad, where the Chinese made up 80% of the company's workforce as they laid track over the mountains and deserts of the west. By 1870, there were 63,000 Chinese in the United States, almost all in California.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Chin Gee Hee's Sun Ning Railway Company connected Sun Ning (Xinning) with its hinterland in 1908 and reached Jiangmen (Kongmoon) in 1913. It was notable as one of only three railways financed, built, owned, and run by the Chinese themselves before the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: In 1914, the new Republican government renamed the area Taishan County to avoid confusion with other places named Xinning. (It is now, however, frequently confused in foreign sources with Mount Tai in Shandong.) During the Second World War, the Sun Ning Railway was destroyed to prevent its use by the Japanese. Japanese soldiers entered Taicheng, the county seat, in March 1941 and killed nearly 280 people. One quarter of the "Flying Tigers", a joint American and Chinese group of airmen who fought the Japanese before the United States entered the Second World War, hailed from Taishan.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishan was promoted to county-level city status on 17 April 1992, reflecting its increasing level of urbanization.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishan administers 1 subdistrict and 16 towns, which in turn are subdivided into 313 administrative villages (), and residential communities (). The city has 3,655 natural villages, although they do not function as administrative divisions ().


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: If considering the total Greater Taishan Region or Sze Yap Region, which includes Kaiping, Xinhui, Enping and Taishan, there are about 8 to 9 million Taishanese people worldwide. According to American historian Him Mark Lai, approximately 430,000 or 70% of Chinese Americans in the 1980s were Taishanese according to 1988 data. Currently some 500,000 Chinese Americans claim Taishanese origins.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: While Taishan itself has a population of about 1 million, there are around 1.3 million Taishanese people overseas, distributed in 91 countries and regions. It is estimated that, up to the mid- to late-20th century, over 75% of all overseas Chinese in North America claimed origin in Taishan, so Taishan has been named the "Home of Overseas Chinese."


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: The main dialect of Taishan is Taishanese (). While most Taishanese today use Mandarin in school or formal occasions, Taishanese is the "de facto" language. Schools require their students to speak Mandarin in the classroom, and teachers are required to lecture in Mandarin.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishanese is a language of the Yue Chinese, a large group which includes, but is broader than, the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Thus Cantonese and Taishanese are related but distinct. Cantonese is also widely known in Taishan, as it serves as the lingua franca of Guangdong Province.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Before the 1980s, Taishanese was the predominant Chinese language spoken throughout North America's Chinatowns.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: In 2018, the city's GDP reached 43.25 billion Yuan, government revenue was 2.92 billion Yuan, fixed-asset investment was 27.33 billion Yuan, retail sales totaled 25.52 billion Yuan, and foreign trade totaled 13.76 billion Yuan.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: The city is home to two major power plants: the Guohua Taishan Power Station and the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishan is nicknamed the "hometown of volleyball", after the game was introduced to the city in 1915 by Lingnan University student Wu Xiumin (). Many prominent Chinese volleyball players have subsequently hailed from Taishan. In recent years, local governments in the city have invested in the area's volleyball programs, and the city hosted a number of Volleyball Women's Nations League matches in 2018. 9-man is a form of volleyball from Taishan brought to American Chinatowns by Taishanese immigrants.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Education enjoys significant support from Overseas Chinese professionals and businessmen. Many secondary schools were built and financed by Chinese living in China's Special Administrative Regions, as well as various foreign countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Brazil. To honor their benefactors, these schools often bear either their names or the names of said donor's parents.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: For example, the Peng Quan School () is a prime example, which was constructed during 1999–2001, and is now integrated into Taishan's public school system. It is situated on the west side of Taicheng, and was built by a Hong Kong businessman.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: There are many middle schools and high schools in Taishan, but no academic universities. Students must study rigorously in order to be accepted at universities located in other cities.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Taishan is accessible by bus with a long-distance bus station in Taicheng, and through a port at GongYi on the Tan River which flows into the Pearl River Delta. The ferry service between GongYi and Hong Kong has been discontinued.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: Ferry services connect the island of Shangchuan with the mainland, sailing between the Sanzhou Harbor () on Shangchuan, and Shanzui Harbor () in the town of Chuandao. There are also daily ferry services between Sanzhou Harbor and the nearby island of Xiachuan.


title: Taishan, Guangdong

text: In 2018, the Taishan railway station () opened in Taicheng Subdistrict, connecting the city via rail. The station, located north of the city center, is a stop on the Shenzhen–Zhanjiang high-speed railway, and has a couple dozen trains a day running to Guangzhou South railway station.


title: Vampire in the Garden

text: The series was first announced back in March 2019 by Netflix, with Wit Studio handling the series' production. Ryōtarō Makihara served as director with assistance from Hiroyuki Tanaka. Tetsuyo Nishio designed the characters and Shunichiro Yoshihara served as art director for the series. Yoshihiro Ike served as the series' composer. "Vampire in the Garden" was released worldwide on May 16, 2022, on Netflix.


title: Cameron Archer

text: Cameron Desmond Archer (born 9 December 2001) is an English professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Aston Villa. Archer is a product of the Aston Villa Academy. He joined Aston Villa academy aged eight from local side Walsall and has progressed through all age groups to the first team, making his senior debut in August 2019. Internationally, Archer has represented England at both U20 and U21 levels.


title: Cameron Archer

text: Living nearby in Walsall, Archer started training with Aston Villa at the age of eight after a spell with Walsall, and progressed through their academy sides, regularly playing in higher year groups for his age. He broke into the U23 side at the age of 16 and has been a regular ever since.


title: Cameron Archer

text: Archer came off the bench to make his senior debut for Villa at the age of 17 years 262 days in an EFL Cup tie against Crewe Alexandra on 27 August 2019. Villa were an invited side for 2019-20 EFL Trophy, fielding an under-21 side in the competition, Archer started in both of Villa's group matches against Salford City and Tranmere Rovers, scoring from 18 yards early in the game against Tranmere in a 2–1 defeat.


title: Cameron Archer

text: On 2 October 2020, Archer signed for Solihull Moors in the National League on loan until January 2021. He made his debut from the subs bench the following day, in a 2–1 away defeat to Woking. On 10 October 2020, Archer got his first two goals in senior league football in a 5–0 victory over King's Lynn Town. On 4 January 2021, the loan was extended until the end of the season with no option to recall.


title: Cameron Archer

text: On 24 August 2021, Archer scored a hat-trick, his first senior goals for the club, in his first senior start, a 6–0 victory against Barrow in the second round of the EFL Cup. On 22 September, Archer scored against Chelsea in the third round of the EFL Cup in a 1–1 draw that Chelsea won on penalties 4–3. Three days later, Archer made his Premier League debut, coming on as an 86th-minute substitute in a 1–0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford.


title: Cameron Archer

text: On 24 January 2022, Archer joined Preston North End on loan until the end of the season. Two days later, on 26 January, Archer scored on his debut in the Championship, a 2–0 away victory at West Bromwich Albion.


title: Cameron Archer

text: In the build-up to the 2022–23 season, there was much debate about Archer's future, with a number of Championship teams linked with loan moves for the player. On 1 August 2022, Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard announced that after impressing on a pre-season tour of Australia, Archer would remain with the club and be a part of the Premier League squad. On 5 August, Archer signed a new 5-year contract with "The Villans."


title: Cameron Archer

text: Born in England, Archer is eligible to represent the England national football team, as well as Jamaica, through his mother. On 11 November 2021, Archer made his debut for England under-20s, in a 2–0 defeat to Portugal.


title: Cameron Archer

text: On 25 May 2022, Archer received his first call up to the England U21 squad ahead of the final round of 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification matches. He made his debut as a 68th-minute substitute during a 2–1 victory away to Czech Republic on 3 June 2022. On 7 June 2022, Archer scored his first goal for the England U21s in a 3–0 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification win against Albania.


title: Cameron Archer

text: Archer is the younger brother of Jordan McFarlane-Archer, a professional footballer currently signed for Southport. Archer is known as 'Cam' and attended Christ Church CE Primary and Walsall Academy secondary school.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Faro ( ), Pharaoh, Pharao, or Farobank is a late 17th-century French gambling game using cards. It is descended from Basset, and belongs to the Lansquenet and Monte Bank family of games due to the use of a banker and several players. Winning or losing occurs when cards turned up by the banker match those already exposed.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: It is not a direct relative of poker, but Faro was often just as popular due to its fast action, easy-to-learn rules, and better odds than most games of chance. The game of Faro is played with only one deck of cards and admits any number of players.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Popular in North America during the 1800s, Faro was eventually overtaken by poker as the preferred card game of gamblers in the early 1900s.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: The earliest references to a card game named "Pharaon" (French for "Pharaoh") are found in Southwestern France during the reign of Louis XIV. Basset was outlawed in 1691, and Pharaoh emerged several years later as a derivative of Basset, before it too was outlawed.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Despite the French ban, Pharaoh and Basset continued to be widely played in England during the 18th century, where it was known as "Pharo", an English alternate spelling of "Pharaoh". The game was easy to learn, quick, and when played honestly, the odds for a player were considered by some to be the best of all gambling games, as Gilly Williams records in a letter to George Selwyn in 1752.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: With its name shortened to "Faro", it spread to the United States in the 19th century to become the most widespread and popularly favored gambling game. It was played in almost every gambling hall in the Old West from 1825 to 1915. Faro could be played in over 150 places in Washington, D.C. alone during the Civil War. An 1882 study considered faro to be the most popular form of gambling, surpassing all others forms combined in terms of money wagered each year.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: It was also widespread in the German states during the 19th century, where it was known as "Pharao" or "Pharo". A simplified version played with 32 German-suited cards was known as "Deutsches Pharao" ("German Pharo") or "Süßmilch" (Sweet Milk). It is recorded in card game compendia from at least 1810 to 1975.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: In the US, Faro was also called "bucking the tiger" or "twisting the tiger's tail", a reference to early card backs that featured a drawing of a Bengal tiger. By the mid 19th century, the tiger was so commonly associated with the game that gambling districts where faro was popular became known as "tiger town", or in the case of smaller venues, "tiger alley". Some gambling houses would simply hang a picture of a tiger in their windows to advertise that a game could be played there.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Faro's detractors regarded it as a dangerous scam that destroyed families and reduced men to poverty because of rampant rigging of the dealing box. Crooked faro equipment was so popular that many sporting-house companies began to supply "gaffed" dealing boxes specially designed so that the bankers could cheat their players. (See section of cheating by dealers below.) Cheating was so prevalent that editions of "Hoyle’s Rules of Games" began their faro section by warning readers that not a single honest faro bank could be found in the United States. Criminal prosecutions of faro were involved in the Supreme Court cases of "United States v. Simms", 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 252 (1803), and "Ex parte Milburn", 34 U.S. (9 Pet.) 704 (1835).


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Although the game became scarce after World War II, it continued to be played at a few Las Vegas and Reno casinos through 1985.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Historians have suggested that the name "Pharaon" comes from Louis XIV's royal gamblers, who chose the name from the motif that commonly adorned one of the French-made court cards.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: A game of faro was often called a "faro bank". It was played with an entire deck of playing cards. One person was designated the "banker" and an indeterminate number of players, known as "punters", could be admitted. Chips (called "checks") were purchased by the punter from the banker (or house) from which the game originated. Bet values and limits were set by the house. Usual check values in the US were 50 cents to $10 each.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: The faro table was typically oval, covered with green baize, and had a cutout for the banker. A board was placed on top of the table with one suit of cards (traditionally spades) pasted to it in numerical order, representing a standardized betting "layout". Each player laid his stake on one of the 13 cards on the layout. Players could place multiple bets and could bet on multiple cards simultaneously by placing their bet between cards or on specific card edges. A player could reverse the intent of his bet by placing a hexagonal (6-sided) token called a "copper" on it. Some histories said a penny was sometimes used in place of a copper. This was known as "coppering" the bet, and reversed the meaning of the win/loss piles for that particular bet. Players also had the choice of betting on the "high card" bar located at the top of the layout.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Certain advantages were reserved to the banker: if he drew a doublet, that is, two equal cards, he won half of the stakes upon the card which equaled the doublet. In a fair game, this provided the only "house edge". If the banker drew the last card of the pack, he was exempt from doubling the stakes deposited on that card. These and the advantage from the odds on the turn bet provided a slight financial advantage to the dealer or house. To give themselves more of an advantage, and to counter the losses from players cheating, the dealers would also often cheat as well.


title: Faro (banking game)

text: A device, called a "casekeep" was employed to assist the players and prevent dealer cheating by counting cards. The casekeep resembled an abacus, with one spindle for each card denomination, with four counters on each spindle. As a card was played, either winning or losing, one of four counters would be moved to indicate that a card of that denomination had been played. This allowed players to plan their bets by keeping track of what cards remained available in the dealing box. The operator of the case keep is called the "casekeeper" or, colloquially in the American West, the "coffin driver".


title: Faro (banking game)

text: In a fair game the house's edge was low, so bankers increasingly resorted to cheating the players to increase the profitability of the game for the house. This, too, was acknowledged by Hoyle editors when describing how faro banks were opened and operated: "To justify the initial expenditure, a dealer must have some permanent advantage."


title: Faro (banking game)

text: Players would routinely cheat as well. Their techniques employed distraction and sleight-of-hand, and usually involved moving their stake to a winning card, or at the very least off the losing card, without being detected. Their methods ranged from crude to creative, and worked best at a busy, fast-paced table:


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The Tay Bridge disaster occurred during a violent storm on Sunday 28 December 1879, when the first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed as a North British Railway (NBR) passenger train on the Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line from Burntisland bound for its final destination of Dundee passed over it, killing all aboard. The bridge—designed by Sir Thomas Bouch—used lattice girders supported by iron piers, with cast iron columns and wrought iron cross-bracing. The piers were narrower and their cross-bracing was less extensive and robust than on previous similar designs by Bouch.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: Bouch had sought expert advice on wind loading when designing a proposed rail bridge over the Firth of Forth; as a result of that advice he had made no explicit allowance for wind loading in the design of the Tay Bridge. There were other flaws in detailed design, in maintenance, and in quality control of castings, all of which were, at least in part, Bouch's responsibility.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: Bouch died less than a year after the disaster, his reputation ruined. Future British bridge designs had to allow for wind loadings of up to . Bouch's design for the Forth Bridge was not used.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: Construction of the original Tay Rail Bridge began in 1871. In its initial design, the bridge was to be supported by brick piers resting on bedrock. Trial borings had shown the bedrock to lie at no great depth under the river. At either end of the bridge, the bridge girders were deck trusses, the tops of which were level with the pier tops, with the single-track railway running on top. However, in the centre section of the bridge (the "high girders") the bridge girders ran as through trusses above the pier tops (with the railway inside them) in order to give the required clearance to allow passage of sailing ships to Perth.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The bedrock lay much deeper than the trial borings had shown, and the bridge's designer, Sir Thomas Bouch, redesigned the span with fewer piers and correspondingly longer girders. The pier foundations were now constructed by sinking brick-lined wrought iron caissons onto the riverbed, and filling these with concrete. To reduce the weight these had to support, Bouch used open-lattice iron skeleton piers; each pier had multiple cast-iron columns taking the weight of the bridging girders. Wrought iron horizontal braces and diagonal tiebars linked the columns in each pier to provide rigidity and stability.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The basic concept was well known, but for the Tay Rail Bridge, the pier dimensions were constrained by the caisson. For the higher portion of the bridge, there were thirteen girder spans. In order to accommodate thermal expansion, at only three of their fourteen piers was there a fixed connection from the pier to the girders. There were therefore three divisions of linked high girder spans, the spans in each division being structurally connected to each other, but not to neighbouring spans in other divisions. The southern and central divisions were nearly level, but the northern division descended towards Dundee at gradients of up to 1 in 73.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The bridge was built by Hopkin Gilkes and Company (Gilkes), a Middlesbrough company which had worked previously with Bouch on iron viaducts. Gilkes, having first intended to produce all ironwork on Teesside, used a foundry at Wormit to produce the cast iron components, and to carry out limited post-casting machining. Gilkes were in some financial difficulty; they ceased trading in 1880, but had begun liquidation in May 1879, before the disaster. Bouch's brother had been a director of Gilkes, and all three had been colleagues on the Stockton and Darlington thirty years previously; on Edgar Gilkes's death in January 1876, Bouch had inherited shares valued at £35,000, but also owed for a guarantee of £100,000 of Gilkes borrowings and had been unable to extricate himself.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The change in design increased cost and necessitated delay, intensified after two of the high girders fell when being lifted into place in February 1877. The first engine crossed the bridge seven months later. A Board of Trade inspection was conducted over three days of good weather in February 1878; the bridge was passed for use by passenger traffic, subject to a speed limit. The inspection report noted:


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: When again visiting the spot I should wish, if possible, to have an opportunity of observing the effects of high wind when a train of carriages is running over the bridge.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The bridge was opened for passenger services on 1 June 1878. Bouch was knighted in June 1879 soon after Queen Victoria had used the bridge.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: On the evening of Sunday 28 December 1879, a violent storm (10 to 11 on the Beaufort scale) was blowing virtually at right angles to the bridge. Witnesses said the storm was as bad as any they had seen in the 20–30 years they had lived in the area; one called it a 'hurricane', as bad as a typhoon he had experienced in the China Sea. The wind speed was measured at Glasgow – (averaged over an hour) – and Aberdeen, but not at Dundee.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: Higher windspeeds were recorded over shorter intervals, but at the inquiry an expert witness warned of their unreliability and declined to estimate conditions at Dundee from readings taken elsewhere. One modern interpretation of available information suggests winds were gusting to .


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: Use of the Tay Rail Bridge was restricted to one train at a time by a signalling block system using a baton as a token. At 7:13 p.m. a North British Railway (NBR) passenger train from Burntisland (consisting of a 4-4-0 locomotive, its tender, five passenger carriages, and a luggage van) slowed to pick up the baton from the signal cabin at the south end of the bridge, then headed out onto the bridge, picking up speed.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The signalman turned away to log this and then tended a stove, but a friend present in the signal cabin watched the train: when it got about from the cabin he saw sparks flying from the wheels on the east side. He had also seen this on the previous train. During the inquiry, testimony was heard that the wind was pushing the wheel flanges into contact with the running rail. John Black, a passenger on the previous train that crossed the bridge, explained that the guard rails protecting against derailment were slightly higher than and inboard of the running rails. This arrangement would catch the good wheel where derailment was by disintegration of a wheel, which was a real risk before steel wheels, and had occurred in the Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash on Christmas Eve 1874.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: The sparks continued for no more than three minutes, by which time the train was in the high girders. At that point "there was a sudden bright flash of light, and in an instant there was total darkness, the tail lamps of the train, the sparks and the flash of light all ... disappearing at the same instant." The signalman saw none of this and did not believe it when told. When the train failed to appear on the line off the bridge into Dundee he tried to talk to the signal cabin at the north end of the bridge, but found that all communication with it had been lost.


title: Tay Bridge disaster

text: Not only was the train in the river, but so were the high girders and much of the ironwork of their supporting piers. Divers exploring the wreckage later found the train still within the girders, with the engine in the fifth span of the southern 5-span division. There were no survivors; only 46 bodies were recovered out of 59 known victims. Fifty-six tickets for Dundee had been collected from passengers on the train before crossing the bridge; allowing for season ticket holders, tickets for other destinations, and for railway employees, 74 or 75 people were believed to have been on the train. It has been suggested that there were no unknown victims and that the higher figure of 75 arises from double-counting in an early newspaper report in the "Dundee Courier", but the inquiry did not take its casualty figures from the press; it took sworn evidence and did its own sums.