Abstract

Due to the specific concept of representation in early modern diplomacy, the death of an ambassador often caused major problems. Ambassadors were no state servants, they were personally authorised by their monarchs, bore some of their royal power, and functioned as their images in all courtly ceremonials. When the ambassador therefore died, the office could not just be passed on to someone else. However, at the same time diplomatic life had to go on somehow. This article compares two cases of ambassadors’ deaths in Istanbul at the end of the seventeenth century and asks how in each of them the problem was dealt with. While, as it turns out, a huge conflict for power occurred in the French case between the ambassadress and the embassy’s chancelier, in the English case the embassy secretary just took over the affairs as a matter of course. But, as this article argues, this was not due to different stages of development, with a pre-modern patrimonial system of proxy representation facing a modern bureaucratic one. Instead, in both cases the same cultural logics were working, and it was only organisational differences that led to a different outcome.

摘要

由于近代早期外交中特定的代表概念，大使之死往往会引发重大问题。大使不是国家公务员，他们由君主亲自授权，拥有部分王权，并在所有宫廷礼仪中扮演君主的形象。所以大使死了，官职就不能随便传给别人了。然而，与此同时，外交生活不得不以某种方式继续下去。本文比较了 17 世纪末在伊斯坦布尔发生的两起大使死亡事件，并探讨了这两起事件是如何处理的。而事实证明，在法国案件中，大使馆长和大使馆大臣之间发生了巨大的权力冲突, 在英国的情况下，大使馆秘书理所当然地接管了事务。但是，正如本文所论证的那样，这并不是因为发展阶段不同，前现代的世袭制代理代表制度面临着现代官僚制。相反，在这两种情况下，相同的文化逻辑都在起作用，只是组织差异导致了不同的结果。