Siamese embassy to Louis XIV in 1686, by Nicolas Larmessin.
The most remarkable aspect of King Narai's reign were the diplomatic missions that he sent and received during his reign. Missions were sent as far afield as France, England, and the Vatican, although at least two missions were lost at sea. Ties with states closer to Ayutthaya were not neglected as missions were also sent to Persia, Golconda (India), China, as well as other neighbouring states.
Undoubtedly, the most celebrated of these missions were those to Europe, in particular France. In 1673, a French ecclesiastical mission arrived at the Siamese court with letters from Pope Clement IX and King Louis XIV of France. King Narai reciprocated by sending a mission to France in 1680 led by Phya Pipatkosa.[7] Although the mission was lost at sea near Madagascar,[8] the French responded positively by sending a commercial mission to Ayutthaya headed by Monsignor Pallu in 1682.
Kosa Pan presents King Narai's letter to Louis XIV at Versailles, 1 September 1686
In 1684, another mission was sent to France. However, they made little impact as according to their missionary interpreter, Benigne Vachet, they were ill-informed and uncouth. The same year also saw the wreck of another Siamese embassy to Portugal near the Cape of Good Hope, under Ok-khun Chamnan who survived. After a series of adventures, Chamnan made his way to the Dutch outpost on the Cape and managed to return via a roundabout route to Siam in 1687, in the process acquiring the Portuguese language, then the lingua franca of Southeast Asia.
Despite the disappointment of the 1684 mission, the French court sent another mission under the Chevalier de Chaumont to Ayutthaya ostensibly to convert King Narai to Catholicism. However at the same time the Persian shah, Suleiman I, had also despatched a mission of his own with the intention of converting Narai to Islam. Ultimately, the result of the de Chaumont mission was some commercial concessions that were equal to those that had been given to the Dutch.
Siamese embassy to Louis XIV in 1686, by Nicolas Larmessin.
A further mission headed by Kosa Pan, a foster brother of King Narai, was sent to France in 1686. However, unlike the first embassy, the second was met with a rapturous reception and caused a sensation in the courts and society of Europe. The mission landed at the French port of Brest before continuing its journey to Versailles, constantly surrounded by crowds of curious onlookers. The "exotic" clothes as well as manners of the envoys (including their kowtowing to Louis XIV), together with a special "machine" that was used to carry King Narai's missive to the French monarch caused much comment in French high society. A fragmentary Siamese account of the mission compiled by Kosa Pan was re-discovered in Paris in the 1980s.[9]
In September 1687, another French mission arrived under Claude Cébéret du Boullay, director of the French East India Company. However, apart from the reaffirmation of the 1685 commercial treaty, the mission achieved little else.
Pope Innocent XI receives the Siamese envoys, led by Father Tachard who reads the translation of the message from King Narai, December 1688
A final mission under Fr. Guy Tachard and Ok-khun Chamnan was dispatched to France and the Vatican in January 1688. However, by the time it returned to Thailand, King Narai was already dead and a new king was on the throne.
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