Callières

Abstract

François de Callières (1645–1717) was a diplomatic envoy and man of letters who in 1716 published De la Manière de négocier avec les souverains. ¹ A Normand of literate and noble, but modest ancestry, he lived for many years in various parts of Europe before securing somewhat late in life a position in the service of Louis XIV. ² Although he won admission to the French Academy for a panegyric on the King and published several other books including a notable contribution to the ‘Battle of the Ancients and Moderns’, the high point in his sombre but determined life came during the Nine Years War (1688–97) when as a secret envoy he negotiated the crucial terms with the Dutch which led to the Congress of Ryswick and a short-lived peace. Callières was one of the three French ambassadors at Ryswick. Thereafter he held the sensitive position of secrétaire du cabinet at Versailles and supplied the secretary of state for foreign affairs with a flow of memoranda on the conditions of peace. Callières left only a pale mark on the history and letters of his country. Since the publication of The Art of Diplomacy his name has however been secure in the history of European foreign affairs, considered less as the succession of events than as the elaboration of a diplomatic system of states articulated and mediated by the activities of resident envoys.³