ABSTRACT
Frenchmen wandering outside the treaty ports were to be taken to their consul, and not mistreated. The religious motive and agency of expansion had been incompletely protected in this treaty, the French, following the analogy of their protection of the Holy Places in the Ottoman Empire, worked toward official recognition by decrees of a similar function in this other non-Christian empire. Not until the second treaty of settlement and later agreement was legal entry into the provinces conceded and a Protectorate of Missions granted. Such were the antecedents upon which the claim of France to protect Christians in China was based. The authorities in India, Ile de France, and Bourbon all refused, but in Paris his proposal was welcomed, for a post at Tourane would make it possible to prey on English commerce, that port lying in strategic command of the ocean route to the Far East.
