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This article traces the evolution of French cultural diplomacy in Britain from the early twentieth century to the end of the inter-war period; it argues that this field of international relations could not have developed at this time without the intervention of a handful of determined women who undertook activities outside official diplomatic circles. In the first decades of the twentieth century, these women designed cultural strategies and ran institutions that aimed to promote positive images of France in Britain at a time when strong Franco-British relations formed a cornerstone of French diplomatic strategies against mounting German geopolitical ambitions. However, none of these women enjoyed diplomatic status and many were subject to gender-based criticism on the part of official male diplomats. After the First World War, processes of professionalisation made it extremely difficult for the women who had shaped cultural diplomacy in an unofficial capacity to continue acting at the fore of this field, all the more so as they were forbidden at the time to take the entrance exam of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The inter-war professionalisation of diplomacy, however, did not lead to the complete exclusion of women. This article argues that, on the one hand, professionalisation carved out official spaces for women who abided by the criteria outlined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; on the other hand, the non-state nature of much of inter-war cultural diplomacy meant that some women could continue to pursue cultural diplomatic strategies as part of unofficial networks of diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music, and especially popular music, plays a prominent role in the race for international soft power, and is now recognised as an important factor for the study of international relations. This paper endeavours to present and examine contemporary French music diplomacy, that is the ways in which French institutions abroad use and diffuse music in general, and specifically popular music, to gain international influence, and which is still an unexplored area of research. In this context, it will identify the shift from a focus on elite culture towards an economic, neoliberal approach designed not only to export music 'made in France', but also to convey a new image of France on the international stage, a modernised 'nation brand' based, among other things, on its 'trendy' music. To this end, the paper first introduces the role of music in general and of popular music in particular in diplomatic contexts. Then, it provides a brief survey of the public agencies involved in the promotion of French music abroad and their different actions and strategies. Finally, it discusses the diplomatic, commercial and symbolic issues at stake in these policies and how they interplay with one another, especially in relation to nation branding and French soft power priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The article examines the traces of documentation of the possible invitation of France to the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama in 1826. This invitation is unknown to most historians due to the scarce documentary evidence. To carry out our inquiry, we consulted the set of available clues: diplomatic correspondence; primary sources; documents from the period; types of diplomatic operations; the identity of the Colombian agent likely to have sent the invitation and the profile of the person supposedly proposed to represent the French government. Originality: Most of the studies available ignore this episode in the relations between France and Latin America during the first years of Independence. Even some of the most influential historians deny its possibility. To our knowledge, this article is the first in systematically analyze the invitation to France while considering a variety of documents and records from Europe and America. Methodology: The research was guided by a historiographical approach, which was based on an exhaustive search of the sources. Conclusions: The article argues that the invitation did indeed take place as an offer, and that the rejection of the French prime minister was motivated by his alliance with the Government of Spain. Likewise, the way the invitation was handled drove the French Government to seek neutrality in the War of Independence. This attitude was indirectly shown by the fact that Franch approached Great Britain to mediate the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a biography of French Catholic poet and diplomat Paul Claudel. He was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fère, France, on August 6, 1868, and began publishing his poems in the early 1870s in such journals as "La Vogue." He appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine in 1927 in recognition of his literary and political work.

This article analyses the creation of the Diplomatic and Consular Institute by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and conceptualises this new professional school of diplomacy as an “identity workspace” following the analysis of a cohort’s learning experience. This article aims to spark a debate from a practice perspective on diplomatic training as offered by Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On 13 November 1934, the French military attaché to Berlin, General Renondeau, sent a dramatic report to the Head of the Army General Staff. This note compared the military ability of France to Germany. Renondeau violently attacked French conscripts, arguing teachers and the international had corrupted them. This article analyses this report, arguing that the internal political context of France was generally responsible for the alarmist tone. Domestic political turmoil led him to exaggerate the unreliability of French conscripts and underestimate the difficulties of the German army. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 1680s, the kingdoms of France and Siam (the name for Thailand before 1939) sent several embassies to each other. Louis XIV admired the political and social authority of his Siamese counterpart Phra Narai; the two rulers engaged in detailed diplomacy through their intermediaries, and the cross-cultural exchanges that ensued were filled with music for entertainment and ritual. When three Siamese ambassadors visited France in 1686, theymet Jean-Baptiste Lully and invited him to dine with them before attending one of his operas. French envoys subsequently carried the music of French operas to Siam, where extracts were performed before Phra Narai. This article examines documentary evidence of European musical commodities and musicians travelling to Siam, considers the role of Jesuits and other missionaries in cultivating and disseminating European music, critiques French ethnographic observations of Siamese music (and vice versa), analyses the role of musical performance in diplomatic ceremonial at the courts of Siam and France, and assesses cross-cultural reactions to musical performances. Finally, it evaluates forms of cultural reflexivity found in writings by Dufresny and Voltaire (with the latter ventriloquizing composer André-Cardinal Destouches, who as a youth travelled to Siam as part of the 1687 French embassy), in which fictional Siamese characters comment on French music and society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Giovanni Gioachino da Passano (1465–1551) was a Genoese-born French ambassador who served on three diplomatic missions to the court of Henry VIII between 1524 and 1532. Gioachino worked closely with the king and court, and was successful in his task in gaining French support for Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The Genoese Passano line flourished well into the 20th century, and the last marquis, Marcello da Passano, died in 1960 (although several branches of the family survive today). His father, Manfredo da Passano (d.1922), still possessed many treasures from his family’s history including, among other things, supposed items from Giovanni Gioachino’s time in England. These included a silver-gilt chalice (which, reputedly, Gioachino won in a chess match with Henry VIII), an eagle lectern and no fewer than ten ‘choir books’ (now known to be a luxury set of liturgical chant books), described in English and Italian sources as being superbly bound in silver and illuminated in the most elaborate fashion; one source claims that one of the books had the ‘arms of the Abbey of Westminster ... in the frontispiece’, while another describes them as the ‘Arms of England’ and a third simply states that the books are from London. The family tradition is that all were given by Henry VIII to Gioachino for his good works in diplomatic matters. The chalice survives in Liguria and is famously known as ‘Henry VIII’s chalice’; a photograph of the eagle lectern has been found in the archives of Westminster Abbey. A full, detailed description of the choirbooks was made in 1866 by the noted Italian historian Luigi Tommaso Belgrano. It is hoped that the publication of the article, along with Belgrano’s list, might facilitate the rediscovery of some or all of the lost Passano volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Among the many problems posed by colonial citizenship laws regulating Algerians was the special case of people born within the confines of Algeria and their descendants who had emigrated outside of the country. Algerians in Algeria already inhabited an imprecise place of incomplete French citizenship. And those living abroad, the ‘Originaires d'Algérie’, had to contend with the decisions of French consular authorities, who laboured to interpret and implement the rules established by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice to define the legal status of Algerians living abroad. The French state claimed this category of people as « French » according to the legal theory of State succession. Then, the Indigenat served as an Algerian nationality. This paper argues that this Algerian nationality was an imperial nationality for internal use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the role of the French embassy in London during the pivotal period between the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and Germany's occupation of the rump Czechoslovakian state in March 1939. In particular, it focuses on the reports sent to the French foreign ministry by the ambassador, Charles Corbin, and his colleagues on the subject of British public, press and political opinion vis-a-vis appeasement. The aim of this article is threefold. First, it illustrates how French embassy staff perceived British public opinion, the sources from which such perceptions were derived, and the extent to which their reading of opinion was accurate. Second, it reveals how the apparent evolution of British public opinion, from support for appeasement at Munich to support for resistance after the Prague coup, was interpreted by French embassy officials and subsequently conveyed to Paris. Finally, it assesses the impact of French embassy reports on the wider foreign policy-making process, suggesting tentatively that indications of a British public tiring of appeasement encouraged Paris to pursue a politique de fermete independently of Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delving into a study of about fifty French embassies that were established under Louis XIV, the author demonstrates that the criteria of selection of the diplomatic personnel by the Sun King was directly related to the degree of confidence the King had in these officials. However, this degree of confidence was usually determined by a list of requirements reflecting those listed by numerous authors of works on the concept of the "perfect ambassador." Therefore this selection process reflects the progression of the thought of these authors, developing from a vision marked in humanism to a more rational understanding of the diplomatic culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People and institutions that the author would like to thank for their assistance in the creation of the publication are mentioned including the French Cultural Services in New York, dean Jeremy Teitelbaum and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S.

During the 1680s, France and Siam (Thailand) exchanged spectacular embassies that were designed to increase commerce between the two kingdoms and elevate their status on the global stage. In France, scores of prints depicting the Siamese ambassadors and the lavish diplomatic receptions at Versailles and Ayutthaya were produced and circulated, while thousands of art objects – among them mirrors, porcelain, textiles, and metalwork – travelled back and forth. This essay explores how images and objects shaped the Franco- Siamese encounter and communicated the aims of its royal sponsors, Phra Narai and Louis XIV. It also emphasizes the mutual respect and understanding that characterized relations between France and Siam, values that were conveyed by these seventeenth-century artworks but were later suppressed during the mid-nineteenth century, when the two powers resumed relations as a result of France’s colonial intervention in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]