Correspondance consulaire

Country

FR

Name of institution (English)

The National Archives (Paris site)

Name of institution (official language of the state)

Archives nationales - Site de Paris

Language of name of institution

fra

Contact information: postal address

11 rue des Quatre-Fils, 75003 Paris

Contact information: phone number

0033 (0)140276420

Contact information: web address

https://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/pt_PT/web/guest/home

Contact information: email

contact.archives-nationales@culture.gouv.fr

Reference number

AE/B/I

Type of reference number

Archival reference number

Title (English)

Consular correspondence

Title (official language of the state)

Correspondance consulaire

Language of title

fra

Creator / accumulator

Secrétariat d’État aux Affaires étrangères

Date(s)

1601/1800

Language(s)

fra

Extent

1188 storage units

Type of material

Textual Material

Scope and content

This fonds comprises incoming and outgoing letters from consular services of the French Crown, and it is divided according to consular posts. It includes some documents related to Sephardic Jews in North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and Italian states. The following are some examples:
AE, B/I, Alep. 1630-1791, 76, July 10, 1699, and April 15, 1700: the French consul in Aleppo, Jean-Pierre Blanc, sent a series of reports to the Secretary of State stating that, for at least 15 years, there were roughly 25 Italian and Spanish Jews trading in Aleppo under French protection.
AE, B/I, Alep. 1630-1791, 77 and 84: documents on Elijah Silvera in Aleppo.
AE/B/I/427, Ambassade de Roland Puchot, comte des Alleurs, Correspondance consulaire de l'ambassadeur de France à Constantinople. Tome 52, fols. 148-153v, June 24, 1748: contains information about the French protection granted to several Jews of different origins, one of them was a merchant with the surname Fernandez Dias, identified as a Portuguese Jew.
AE/B/I/445, Ambassade de François Emmanuel Guignard. Correspondance consulaire de l'ambassadeur de France à Constantinople. Tome 70, fols. 204-205v, September 25, 1782: contains a reference to a letter sent to the ambassador in Constantinople, on August 11, with information about the research carried out in Jerusalem by Isaac Tamar, a Portuguese Jew, concerning the "archiconfrérie du Saint-Sépulcre" (Archconfraternity of the Holy Sepulchre).
AE, B/I, Livourne. 1668-1792, 719, fol. 83 v; 720, fol. 59; 728, 99-104, 733, fol. 59: correspondence of the French consul in Livorno in the 1720s-1750s, containing references to Sephardic merchants, including Samuel and Michel Calvo da Silva.

Archival history

Following an order issued on March 7, 1669, the archives of the consulates were included in Archives de la Marine (Navy Archives). Later, a decree of February 14, 1793, attached the Bureau des consulats (Consulates Office) to the Ministère des Relations Extérieures (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), dividing the Bureau's archives between this ministry and the Ministère de la Marine (Ministry of the Navy). The registers of orders and dispatches were divided into two groups: those prior to 1756 were kept at the Ministry of the Navy, while those dating from 1756 to 1793 were transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and formed the beginning of the sub-series AE/B/I.
The incoming letters from consular agents before 1793 were almost all filed in this sub-series AE/B/I and in AE/B/III. The only documents that remained at the Navy, along with a few letters, were memoirs and other documents.

(source: Archives Nationales: Salle des inventaires virtuelles)

Administrative / Biographical history

The Secrétariat d’État aux Affaires étrangères (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) was created in 1589. Louis de Revol (1531–94) was the first Secretary of State.
In 1680, Charles Colbert de Croissy (1625-96), Secretary of State from 1680 to 1696, collected his papers, as well as those of his predecessors, Hugues de Lionne (1611-71) and Arnaud de Pomponne (1669-1756), and bound them. By royal order, the collection was enriched during the 18th century with the inclusion of the state papers of Richelieu, Mazarin, Saint-Simon, and numerous ambassadors' letters.
In 1761, Choiseul (1719-85) was responsible for the construction of an archive in Versailles, where the documentation from the Foreign Affairs Office was deposited. Even after the establishment of the National Archives in 1790, the Foreign Affairs archives continued to be managed independently. In 1830, they opened up to historical research. When the Palais des Affaires étrangères was built in 1845, the archives were removed to this new building.
The Foreign Affairs archives were seriously damaged during World War II. The current political and economic archives and the files on foreigners in France were destroyed on May 16, 1940, as the Germans approached. Some documents were sent to Germany and were not recovered. During the liberation of Paris, the fire in the wing of the Ministry where the archives were placed led to significant losses.
After the war, the archives were reconstructed and refurbished according to the conservation standards of the time. Two other locations were built to accommodate the documentation, namely in Nante and Colmar. In 2009, the Archives Department transferred the Paris collections and those of Colmar to a new building in La Courneuve.

(source: Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires Étrangères website)

Access points: locations

Aleppo (Syria)

Istanbul, former Constantinople (Turkey)

Jerusalem (Israel)

Livorno (Italy)

Access points: persons, families

Calvo da Silva, Michel

Calvo da Silva, Samuel

Fernandez Dias

Access points: subject terms

Italian Jewish communities