Letter 1445

De Fontaney asks two favours. Firstly, he hopes Sloane can help his three friends who are traveling to China. They are currently in Amsterdam and the authorities are making it difficult for them to leave on account of their being French. De Fontaney asks Sloane to compile some recommendations from a number of people to prove they are decent people. Secondly, he asks if Sloane will meet with three missionaries recently returned from China. Two are French and one is Portuguese. He mentions that he has recommended Sloane to a number of other friends. De Fontaney thinks such meetings will be mutually beneficial as his friends have many stories to recount about their travels. Jean de Fontaney (1643-1710) was a Jesuit priest who led Louis XIV’s mission to China in 1685. He and his team were admitted to the Academie des Sciences and equipped with astronomical and geological instruments to collect information on their trip. Fontaney was also a distinguished teacher of mathematics and astronomy at the College de Louis le Grand. His work was published in the Journal des Scavans and Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences (David E. Mungello, Curious land: Jesuit accommodation and the origins of Sinology, University of Hawaii Press, 1989: pp. 329-330).