France The Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ‘something new, but which is the legitimate continuation of our past …’ (Paul Claudel — Le soulier de satin)

Abstract

In France, Foreign Affairs is one of the state’s oldest departments. The first body to deal specifically with external relations emerged during the Renaissance. Heirs to the royal notaries of the Middle Ages, from 1557 Secretaries of State shared the responsibility of French diplomatic activity on a territorial basis. However, with a view to obtaining a coordinated and unified policy, King Henry III, as early as 1589, decided that only one Secretary of State should be in charge of Foreign Affairs. The latter presided over clerks who, over a period of time, were organized into bureaus and finally, during the seventeenth century, became a veritable ministry. Simultaneously, to fulfil the requirements of royal policy, a network of permanent diplomatic missions was developed. As early as the sixteenth century, envoys had been sent to the Pope, the Emperor, Venice and Great Britain and also to the Swiss Cantons and Turkey. Other missions of the same type developed later, in Madrid, Moscow and subsequently Philadelphia. At the close of the Ancien Régime, France had 11 embassies, 20 legations and four residencies, and also a large number of consulates throughout Europe and the Ottoman Empire.