ally onerous for the Venetians, who had long maintained an active trade with Turkey and possessed an imposing mercantile marine. The French monopoly could not survive the political association with Turkey; and in 1581 the Venetians were specifically exempted from its observance. The Levant Company was founded in 1581; and, despite French protests, British vessels were allowed to trade under their own flag. A third breach in the monopoly occurred soon after, when the Dutch obtained a similar privilege; and in the eighteenth century Austria, Russia, Sweden and Spain concluded commercial treaties on the same lines. Thus, despite a good deal of trade between Marseilles and the Syrian coast, above all with Sidon, the port of Damascus, the French monopoly gradually crumbled to pieces, leaving France little but a titular primacy in the commerce of the Eastern Mediterranean.
While the military and commercial fruits of the cynical pact of Francis and Suleiman proved disappointing, the privileges secured in the domain of law and religion were more enduring. The Letters Patent granted to France in 1536, confirmed in 1569, 1581, 1597, 1604, 1607 and 1673, and commonly known as the Capitulations, secured to France a position of uncontested influence throughout the Turkish Empire. The right to appoint resident consuls who should be the sole judges in commercial and criminal proceedings between French subjects; the right to demand the assistance of Turkish officials in the execution of the consuls' decrees; the right of French subjects to have their dragoman present at the hearing of any charge against them; the right of appeal to the Sultan or the Grand Vizier against the decision of any subordinate official; the freedom of French subjects from responsibility to the Turkish Government for any but personal debts; immunity from slavery; freedom from compulsory service, civil or military; the right of French subjects dying in Turkey to devise their property by will—such was the charter granted to France and enjoyed by her exclusively for half a century. The Capitulations were renewed by
