The Education of an Ambassador: The Marquis d’Effiat in England (1624–25)

Abstract

When he left France in July 1624 to go to England, on young Louis XIII’s order, Antoine Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis d’Effiat, began his very first diplomatic trip. Despite his functions, the Marquis d’Effiat never accomplished any diplomatic mission of any kind. However, a few years earlier, he negotiated the marriage of Honoré d’Albert, a Duke of Luynes’s brother. Thus, in 1624, he was entrusted with the delicate mission to bring England and France together through the marriage of Henrietta-Maria of France, the King’s sister, to Charles, Prince of Wales.

This is an extraordinary embassy and the dispatches of the ambassador have been preserved as well as the replies of Louis XIII and the Secretary of State, Antoine de Lomenie. This allows us to observe an evolution both in Effiat’s account of his actions and the content of the points negotiated, and the way his work was staged. Despite his age, the Marquis d’Effiat was new to diplomacy. He was familiar with the royal French court but his ignorance about England and diplomatic practices raises questions about the King’s choice of sending him across the Channel. This ignorance of diplomatic customs includes negotiation strategies, but also the body language that an ambassador must adopt to serve the interests of his master and extensively described in 16th century treatises on ambassadors. This article aims to compare the ambassador’s discourse with the diplomatic accomplishment. The interest of this embassy, besides its political and religious stakes, is that it makes it possible to observe its fears of error and procrastination through the correspondence of the marquis.