Background
Jean Chardin was born in Paris, son of a wealthy merchant, jeweller of the Place Dauphine, and followed his father's business.
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First inexpensive edition of great travel classic offers detailed, sharply observed portrait of 17th-century Persia. Vivid record of life at court of Shah: lavish banquets and entertainments, diplomatic negotiations, intrigues and cruelty, more. Also, soil and climate, flora and fauna, manners and customs, trade and manufacture, and many other aspects. 9 illustrations.
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Jean Chardin was born in Paris, son of a wealthy merchant, jeweller of the Place Dauphine, and followed his father's business.
His father, a wealthy jeweller, gave Jean Chardin an excellent education, and trained him in his own art; but instead of settling down in the ordinary routine of the craft, he set out in company with a Lyons merchant named Raisin in 1665 for Persia and India, partly on business and partly to gratify his own inclination.
After a highly successful journey, during which Jean Chardin had received the patronage of Shah Abbas II of Persia, he returned to France in 1670, and there published in the following year ЛёсИ du Cowonnement du roi de Perse Soliman III. Finding, however, that his Protestant profession cut him off from all hope of honours or advancement in his native country, he set out again for Persia in August 1671. This second journey was much more adventurous than the first, as instead of going directly to his destination, he passed by Smyrna, Constantinople, the Crimea, Caucasia, Mingrelia and Georgia, and did not reach Ispahan till June 1673. After four years spent in researches throughout Persia, he again visited India, and returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope in 1677. The persecution of Protestants in France led him, in 1681, to settle in London, where he was appointed jeweller to the court, and received from Charles II the honour of knighthood. In 1683 he was sent to Holland as representative of the English East India Company.
( First inexpensive edition of great travel classic offer...)
(Travels in Persia.)
John Chardin married a Protestant lady, Esther, daughter of M. de Lardinière Peigné, councillor in the Parliament of Rouen, then a refugee in London.
He had three sons and two daughters.
