Jean de La Forest

Jean de La Forêt, also Jean de La Forest or Jehan de la Forest (died 1537) was the first official French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, serving from 1534 to 1537.Antonio Rincon had preceded him as an envoy to the Ottoman Empire from 1530 to 1533. When Jean de La Forêt died in Constantinople in 1537, he was succeeded by Antonio Rincon as official Ambassador.

Jean de La Forêt departed together with the returning Ottoman embassy to France. On his way to Constantinople, Jean de La Forêt first landed in north Africa, where he offered Hayreddin Barbarossa fifty ships and supplies in exchange for help against Genoa. He also asked Hayreddin to raid the coasts of Spain "with all manner of war".

Jean de La Forêt arrived in the Ottoman capital in May 1534, accompanied by his cousin Charles de Marillac and the scholar Guillaume Postel, and endeavored to exert French influence on Ottoman affairs. He accompanied Suleiman to Azerbaijan in the Ottoman–Safavid War against Persia, until they finally returned together to Constantinople in early 1536.

Jean de La Forêt was directed to seek trading privileges, as well as religious arrangements and military agreements between France and the Ottoman Empire. De La Forêt had also been instructed by Francis I to obtain "a million of gold, which will be no inconvenience to the Grand Signior". In exchange, Francis I proposed in his instructions to La Forêt: an ambassador, a perpetual treaty of alliance, trade and a promise "to hold all Christianity quiet, without war undertaken against him... in a universal peace", by weakening Charles V "until he can no more resist".

Jean de la Foret also had secret military instructions to organize a combined offensive on Italy in 1535:

Through the negotiations of de La Forêt with the vizir Ibrahim Pasha it was agreed that combined military operations against Italy would take place, in which France would attack Lombardy while the Ottoman Empire would attack from Naples.

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