ABSTRACT
Two hundred and fifty years ago, an African lived at the Court of King Louis XIV. His name was Anabia 1 and he was the son of the king of Issiny. The kingdom of Issiny has left no great memories in Africa; to-day all that remains of it is the small maritime town of Assinie in the Ivory Coast. But European travellers in those days naturally gave royal honours to any African ruler; when a Frenchman, the Chevalier d’Amon, crossed the bar and landed in Issiny, he paid his respects to the ruler of the country as he would have done to a king, and when he returned to France he took Anabia, the king’s young son, with him. He found a lodging for him at first in the house of a dealer in pearls in the Rue Tiquetonne, who no doubt financed trading companies on the Slave Coast. The Chevalier introduced his protégé to Madame de Maintenon. Louis saw Anabia and put him under the care of Bossuet to be instructed in the Christian faith; the king stood godfather to him at his baptism, gave him the rank of an officer and settled on him an income sufficient for him to live like a gentleman of fashion. Meanwhile, back in Africa the king of Issiny died and Anabia was at once treated as the heir to that faraway throne. He immediately founded an Order of Chivalry, The Star of Notre Dame, for which he secured the blessing of the Cardinal de Noailles, and straightway went off to occupy his throne, leaving the Ministry of Marine to pay his debts. It is recorded that when he took leave of the king, Louis said to him: ‘Prince Anabia, the only difference between us now is the difference between black and white.’
