ABSTRACT
THE VISIT of the Iwakura mission to France has not generally been regarded as of great significance, and it has certainly attracted much less attention from historians than the immediately preceding stays in America and Britain. This neglect is understandable. The mission spent only two months-from 16 December 1872 to 17 February 1873-in France, and apart from its journeys from Calais and to Marseille (via Lyon) and a brief excursion by one of the four vice-ambassadors, Ito Hirobumi, to the textile centre of Elbeuf, its activities were confined to Paris or to the environs of the French capital. By the time the embassy reached Europe, its members had already spent a year abroad and were less likely to be impressed by what they saw and heard. The fact that some of the ambassadors opted out of a number of trips to places of interest in France suggests that they did not always make the fullest possible use of their time there.1
