François Pidou de Saint Olon (1640, Touraine - 1720, Paris) was a French diplomat under Louis XIV.
Embassy to Genoa and Spain In 1682, he was nominated as the first French resident envoy to the Republic of Genoa.Europa triumphans: court and civic festivals in early modern Europe J. R. Mulryne p.240 Note 14 He was then sent as an envoy to Madrid.
Embassy to Morocco
in 1689, Pidou de Saint Olon was then nominated as ambassador to the court of the Moroccan ruler Mulay Ismail, in view of the signature of a commercial treaty.The Works of John Dryden, Volume XV H.T. Swedenberg Jr. p.390 Note 27A second catalogue of manuscripts, in different languages John Cochran p.111 This responded to the Embassy of Mohammad Temim to Louis XIV in 1682. In 1690, Pidou de Saint Olon was in the city of Salé, where he visited the French Consul Jean-Baptiste Estelle.A History of the Jews in North Africa Haim Zeev Hirschberg, Eliezer Bashan, Robert Attal p.267
His mission did not succeed however, and he only remained 2–3 weeks in Morocco. He wrote an account of his visit to Morocco, Relation de l'empire de Maroc ("The present state of the Empire of Morocco").New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature by George Watson p.1969
Another Moroccan ambassador Abdallah bin Aisha would visit France in 1699-1700.In the lands of the Christians: Arabic travel writing in the seventeenth century by Nabil I. Matar p.197
François Pidou de Saint Olon died in Paris on 27 September 1720.
See also France-Morocco relations
Works Estat présent de l'empire de Maroc, 1694 Relation de l'empire de Maroc, 1695
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