Japan and the Japanese

82 APPENDIX.
make him more worthy to approach your high and sovereign majesty with
all due respect. An additional motive for selecting him was the fear lest
another person, from ignorance of the wise ordinances and customs estab-
lished by your majesty, might do something in contravention of them, and
so might fall under your majesty's displeasure ; whence I have judged the
said Francis Caron the most capable to present my letter and my requests,
with such solemnities as might secure for them the best reception on the part
of your majesty, and to make known my good affection and my frank desire
to grant to your sovereign majesty whatever you may ask of me, in return
for the grant of what I ask : which is, that the merchants ef my kingdoms,
who have united themselves into a company, may have free commerce
throughout your majesty's empire, without trouble or hindrance. I send
you the present of trifling value here noted.
* * * *
I hope it may be
agreeable to your majesty, and that some things useful to your majesty may
be found in my country, of which I voluntarily leave open and free all the
ports.
" At Paris, the twenty-fourth year of my reign. " TUB KING Louis."
NOTE. \Vhat is said above of Caron's good extraction, of his having lost liis fortune by
the chances of war, and of his reCstablishment in his former position by the favor of the
king, was, it is probable, merely intended to reconcile the Japanese to receiving as an envoy
from the king of France a man whom they had known only in the according to their
ideas low character of a Dutch merchant.
In the instructions drawn up for the bearer of this letter, the following curious directions
were given as to the answer to be made to the inquiries of the Japanese on the topic of religion
:
" As to the article of religion you will say, that the religion of the French is of two
kinds one the same with that of the Spaniards, the other the same with that of the Dutch; *
and that hia
rmijesty, knowing that the religion of the Spaniards is disliked in Japan, ha*
given orders that those of his subjects who go thither shall be of the Dutch religion ; that
this distinction will be carefully attended to ; and that no Frenchman will ever be found
wishing to contravene the imperial orders. t Should they advance as an objection, that the
king of France depends upon the l'o|)C, like the king of Spain, you will answer, that lie doe*
not depend upon him ; that the king of France acknowledges no superior, and that the
nature of his dependence upon the Pope may easily be seen in what has happened within
two years, in consequence of an outrage at Home upon the person of his majesty's ambassa-
dor. The Pope not making a sufficiently speedy reparation, his majesty had sent an army
into Italy, to the great terror of all the Italian princes, and of the Pope himself, who
tent a legate to him charged with the most humble and pressing supplications, whereby his
majesty was induced to recall his troops, which already had encamped in the Pope's territo*
ries. So that the king is not only sovereign and absolute in his own domain, but also gives
the law to many other potentates ; being a young prince, twenty-five years of age, valiant,
wise, and more powerful than any of his ancestors ; and, withal, so curious that, besides a
particular knowledge of all Europe, he eagerly seeks to know the constitution of the other
countries of the world."
* This was before the revocation of the edict of Xantz.
t Tills reads very much like the third clause in the American letter