THE ORIGIN AND DUTIES OF CONSULS. 275 



A traveller in the fourteenth century found at 

 Alexandria a French consul whose mission it was to 

 protect the foreigners who had no consul of their own 

 nationality.* This honourable privilege of protecting 

 the foreigners who had no consul of their own has 

 been confirmed by the treaties styled capitulations, 

 concluded between France and the Ottoman Porte, 

 as far back as the reign of Francois I., treaties by 

 which the protection of the Catholics is accorded to 

 France. 



Jacques Cur took advantage of his position at the 

 court of Charles VII. to give a sort of official charac- 

 ter to the relations which he had for some time estab- 

 lished in Egypt. The Sultan, flattered by his presents, 

 wrote in 1447 a letter the king, in which he pro- 

 mised his protection to French traders, and authorised 

 the appointment of a consul, whom he agreed to treat 

 upon the footing of the most favoured nation. f 



Barcelona, the neighbour and rival of Marseilles, 

 soon entered into competition with her for European 

 trade. Gradually delivered from the yoke of the 

 Sarrazins, from the end of the ninth century, by the 

 assistance of France, she commenced, under Eaimond 

 Beranger, towards the close of the eleventh century 

 an era of great prosperity. Her maritime trade had 

 then acquired sufficient importance to elicit the en- 



* Extract from Fuscobuldi, quoted by Pardessus in his Intro- 

 duction aux Lois Maritimes. 



t Memoires de Mathieu de Coussi, quoted by Pardessus. 



