Second voyage du pere Tachard et des jesuïtes envoyés par le roy, au royaume de Siam. - [THE SECOND EMBASSY TO SIAM]

1689. Amsterdam, Pierre Mortier, 1689. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raised bands and richly gilt spine. Small paper-label pasted on to top of spine. Boards with stains. Edges of bookblock with stains which has also miscoloured upper and outer margins of leaves. (6), 168, 183-254, 241-351, 360-369, (7) p., + 6 folded plates. Second edition of Tachard’s account of the second embassy to Siam in which the commercial treaty from 1685 (the first Embassy) was reaffirmed. Despite its primary goal of reinforcing the 1685 commercial treaty, the mission was not a success. The embassy consisted of five warships The arrival of French troops in Bangkok and Mergui incited intense nationalist movements in Siam which eventually resuted in a bloody revolution: “Exactly six months later, on 1 March, the three mandarins and their suite sailed back to Siam, taking with them Louis XIV's second French embassy to Phra Narai, headed this time by Simon de La Loubere and Claude Ceberet de Boullay.211 Ostensibly, its mission was to strengthen the diplomatic and commercial ties already established between the two kingdoms by concluding a firm alliance. But the real goal probably was to establish a protectorate over Siam, using the 636 soldiers sent out with the new envoys as an initial holding force-hardly the small bodyguard requested originally by the Asian monarch. But this embassy, too, failed to achieve its objectives. A fresh trade treaty was negotiated, to be sure, though under very trying conditions; meanwhile, the steady growth of strong xenophobic sentiment at the Siamese court over the foreign military occupation of Bangkok and the port of Mergui on the Bay of Bengal did not bode well for the future. In fact, just six months after the ambassadors had left for France in January 1688, Siam exploded in a bloody revolution that toppled Phra Narai's dynasty from the throne, overthrew the French garrison and closed the kingdom to Europeans except for a single Dutch trading post.213 By the time news of the disaster had reached Europe, Louis XIV was engaged heavily in a new war with his continental enemies and was in no position to respond. French contact with Siam thus ended abruptly for the next 150 years.” (Love, The Making of an Oriental Despot: Louis XIV and the Siamese Embassy of 1686). Guy Tachard (1651 – 1712), also known as Père Tachard, was a French Jesuit missionary and mathematician who participated in both the first and second Embassy to Siam. A 4to-edition was published the same year. Graesse VII, 7 Nissen 4067