Order signed ("Henry"), to the treasurer of the exchequer M. Estienne, in French, paying Seigneur de la Fontaine "...resident for our service in England the sum of one thousand ecus..." both for his services and his travel expenses whilst in the country, countersigned by the foreign minister ("Neufville"), incomplete docket on verso, on vellum, cut diagonally lower right with some loss to docket, staining, some discolouration to verso, two small holes, vertical fold, folio (222 x 315mm. at widest point), Fontainebleau, 2 June 1601

Footnotes

PAYMENT IS MADE TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN LONDON.

Robert de Maçon, Seigneur de la Fontaine (1534/5-1611), a prominent Huguenot, had fled to London after the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. He became the French King's unofficial ambassador to England and a key diplomat in the coordination of the Anglo-French alliance against Spain in the 1590's. That Henri kept no official resident ambassador in London was a matter of great annoyance to the Queen: on 11 October 1597 he attended an audience with Elizabeth at Richmond, prompting Cobham to write the following day to Sir Robert Cecil: 'La Fontaine came yesterday from the Queen greatly discontented, as he conceives the Queen disdaineth his employment to her from the King; and he assureth me oftentimes she did repeat unto him the scorn that the King offered unto her in not having an ambassador resident here. The poor man is much perplexed and will procure his discharge with as much speed as he may' (The Elizabethan Court Day by Day, folgerpedia website). He cultivated a wide circle of trust and influence on all sides and was one of the few French negotiators who took part in drawing up the treaty of Greenwich in 1596. After the peace with Spain in 1598, he retired from active diplomacy but remained an important link between the French Huguenots and the English church. He was a minister of the French church in London's Threadneedle Street and the author of several books of instruction (Charles C.D. Littleton, ODNB). Nicolas de Neufville (1543-1617), the countersignatory of our document, held the powerful position of Secretary of State under four French Kings from Charles IX to Louis XIII and has been called 'the most distinguished of all sixteenth-century French secretaries'.

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HENRI IV OF FRANCE Order signed ("Henry"), to the treasurer of the exchequer M. Estienne, Fontainebleau, 2 June 1601 - PAYMENT IS MADE TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN LONDON

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