50 the following year. Eastern literature became well known in Europe thanks to Victor Hugo and his ‘Oriental’ works (1829), illustrated beauti- fully with drawings by Delacroix. Finally, it is important to note how in the nineteenth century so many intellectuals were interested in and concerned with Eastern literature. Most prominent in this trend was Ernest Renan (1823– 1892), who wrote extensively on Islam and on Ibn Rushd. What is more important than all of this was the fact that French thought made a significant contribution to the Reform Movement that spread throughout the Ottoman Empire. Noteworthy in this regard was the French Ambassador ChoiseulGouffier, who succeeded Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert in theAcadémie française and later became France’s Ambassador to Istanbul from 1784 to 1792. Choiseul-Gouffier arrived in Istanbul accompanied by a large mission (reminiscent of that of Napoleon) comprising experts, officers, painters, topographers, poets and technical staff. French revolutionary ideas began to spread quickly through numerous channels. Here, we would only mention travel books, ambassadors’ reports, and reports and statements by Ottoman writers addressed to the Sultan. But perhaps the most influential source was the appearance in Istanbul of publications written at the end of the eighteenth century by Muslim writers such as Mahmoud Ra’if and Sayyid Mustafa. Writing in French was often resorted to by some of the more enthusiastic for ideas of reform, influenced by the new liberal
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