_ 238 _ In the same year (1547) The description of the French Voyages in the Indian Ocean in the Era of Francois I, by Michel Mollat, is an important historical material:(62) It is well known that the earliest French ocean voyages in the period of the Discoveries were made by Normans(A). It may seem a paradox that this achievement was the work of people who inhabited the most northerly coastline of France, but there is no need to have recourse to legend by way of explanation. There are many problems with the doubtful allusions and events which historians claim to have detected here and there. (A) This is the view of the most recent historians of the Indian Ocean, for instance E. Axelson, South East Africa 1488-1530 (ed. 2, London 1957) and A. Toussaint, Histoire de l'Océan Indien (Paris,1960). (62) Document no. and reference.
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