Tachard's last appearance in Ayutthaya, 1699

Abstract

The Jesuit Guy Tachard (1648–1712) first came to Siam with the Chaumont-Choisy embassy of 1685 as one of six Jesuits destined for missionary work in China. The group was headed by Fr de Fontaney (1643–1710). The decision of the Abbé de Choisy (1644–1724), who held the post of coadjutant ambassador, to withdraw from the diplomatic scene and effect a retreat prior to his ordination as a priest in Lopburi on 10 December 1685 enabled Tachard to replace him as interpreter of Phaulkon (c.1647–1688), the influential Levantine adventurer then holding the functions, though not the title, of minister of trade and foreign affairs (phra khlang) for King Narai (r.1656–1688). Tachard was then charged with secret negotiations with the court of Louis XIV, most particularly with Fr de La Chaize, the king's Jesuit confessor, and the Marquis de Seignelay, the secretary of state for the navy, to negotiate the lease of a port and the dispatch of persons of rank to occupy key posts in the Siamese kingdom. In Paris, he lost no time in publishing his account of the first French embassy to Siam, padding it with unacknowledged extracts from one of the other Jesuits in his party, Fr de Bouvet.