FRENCH RESIDENTS IN OTTOMAN CRETE: TRADE, DIPLOMACY AND DAILY LIFE IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The paper tackles the diverse, and sometimes contradictory, facets of French presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. It takes eighteenth-century Ottoman Candia – nowadays Iraklion / Heraklion – as a case study. This choice has been driven by the opportunity of analyzing – on a small scale – different aspects of living and trading in a “secondary” Levantine échelle during the eighteenth century. It also provides an opportunity to unveil interactions, contacts and transfers between the different communities living on the island. The “low status” of Crete within the overall French trade network notwithstanding, the échelle produced six sizeable files (AN, AE, B I 341–347) preserved at the Archives Nationales de France and devoted entirely to the lives of French residents in Crete.