51 values. The School of Translator Training (the language of the youth), based in the French Embassy in Istanbul, also played an important role in the spreading of Arabic, Farsi and Turkish among French speakers, a development that resulted in the translation of a great deal of Oriental literary works into French. In the seventeenth century French writers Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and Jean Chardin described their travels in Persia. These were the first attempts at travel literature. Here, we came to know that the description of the Persian coast of the Gulf (1660–1670) was to be attributed to French travellers Jean Thévenot and Barthélemy d’Herbelot de Molainville, who in 1670 gave the Arabs the first description ever of that part of the world. The French aristocrat and intellectual Joseph-Arthur Gobineau wrote the most beautiful short stories about the East and included a description of a trip to Muscat in his Trois ans en Asie (1855). Gobineau was Secretary to a Diplomatic Mission sent to Persia (1855–58) and was also French Envoy to Persia (1862–63). Archeologist Jane Dieulafoy began her career working with the French mission in Persia in 1888. Her work, which saw several reprints, is a brilliant example of this kind of writing. This is due not only to the illustrations, which she herself provided, but also to her exceptional skill and ability in describing the Arab and Persian communities living along the coast of the Gulf. In the nineteenth century, French revolutionary concepts
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