Guillaume Bérard – Wikipedia
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Guillaume Bérard was a French doctor and diplomat, born in the middle of XVI It is century, died in 1590/91.
He was a native of Saorge, “in Newfoundland” (that is to say in the county of Nice, which belonged at the time to the States of Savoy). He first practiced the profession of surgeon-barbier in Nice, then came to live Marseille, from where he embarked on the East. He was in Constantinople in 1574, when the Moroccan pretender Moulay Abd al-Malik arrived there from Algiers to ask the Ottoman Sultan Sélim II to support his rights against his nephew Muhammad al-Mutawakkil. This prince having contracted the plague, Bérard was called to his bedside, carried out an incision of the Bobons and was awarded the healing that followed. Abd al-Malik kept him great recognition, and when he managed to win in Morocco in 1576, he sent to King Henri III an ambassador carrying a letter asking him to accredit Bérard as consul of France “ès Royaulmes de Marroc and Fez”. As Bérard was subject to the States of Savoy, he was first naturalized French ( ), then appointed “French nation consul” in Morocco ( ), with the same status as the French consuls in the Levant.
Bérard, who had returned to France, embarked in Marseille at the beginning of 1578, accompanied by Vincent Le Blanc, son of a shipowner in the city. Their ship was captured near Gibraltar in February by the Spanish, but they were released on the order of King Philippe II. They landed in Larache, and the consul won the Abd Al-Malik camp, which was near Salé. He managed there . The sultan, very sick, could no longer ride a horse, but he was heading for Ksar El-Kébir, where the His army faced that of King Sébastien of Portugal and his Moroccan ally Muhammad al-Mutawakkil (Battle of the Three Kings). The three sovereigns died on the spot, but the Abd al-Malik camp was winner. The French consul accompanied the mahalla victorious in Fez where he attended the beyia (Indronization) of Ahmed Al-Mansour, brother of Abd Al-Malik. In 1579, Bérard left for France, charged by the Sultan to announce his advent to Henri III.
The consul complained to the king of great difficulties which he had experienced in having the rights of his office acquitted by the French merchants established in Morocco. By a mandate of , Henri III decided that in the future the French who would refuse to acquit in Morocco the rights of consulate would be forced there by way of justice on their return to France. In addition, by instructions written the , the king charged Bérard to compliment the sultan, to obtain from him the release of French captives, the free access of the ports of Morocco, the purchase of 40,000 quintals of “rosette” (pure red copper) and 25 000 quintals of saltpeter, and to negotiate a loan of 150,000 ECU. Nothing is known about the result of this mission, except that the consul obtained in the following years the release of several captured French crews.
Bérard was back in Morocco in 1580. He was exposed in the accomplishment of his office to the hostility of French merchants, who went so far as to challenge the authenticity of his letters on the pretext that they were not signed by the King himself, but only sealed with the great seal of the Chancellery. THE , having the purpose of returning to France, he wrote to Minister Villeroy that the Sultan kept him to make him accompany an ambassador that he intended to send to Henri III. In 1589, the Spanish ambassador at the Court of France, Bernardino de Mendoza, pointed out the arrival of Bérard du Maroc, the court then being in Blois. It is mentioned the as having died “these past months”.
- Henry de Castries, French agents and travelers in Morocco (1530-1660) , Ed. Ernest Leroux, Paris 1911.
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