Surgeons, physicians, astronomers and mathematicians, they beheld men of all stations in life coming to ask their advice and to follow their teaching.
But while making converts, they multiplied enemies. The more they displayed the superiority of their talents the more were they suspected of dangerous designs. It was incredible that such learned men should expose themselves to such fatigue and danger for the mere purpose of dressing wounds free of charge, and to teach how to calculate eclipses or the periodicity of comets. They were both admired and hated, and the Siamese were told that it was merely by this display of secular learning that they had succeeded in having a powerful following in Japan. In such manner they decried the zeal of these religious persons pure in their motives, but perhaps too ostentatious in their methods.
Many of the Siamese, attached to their own habits and customs were alarmed at seeing so many foreign priests and soldiers introduced into the Kingdom. They could not but perceive that this policy was a forecast of an approaching change in the laws and religion of the country. Faulcon, the author of these innovations, became the object of public execration. A zealous, but indiscreet Malay informed the King that the minister, the accomplice of the French, had conspired against him and the state. The Monarch having been forewarned of this tale would not deign to listen to the proofs he had to offer and instead of receiving the rewards that he thought would be his due, was condemned to be devoured by tigers.
The Prince of Johore, a vassal of the King of Siam, wrote to the King to induce him to expel these foreigners from his Kingdom; alleging that the French after having been received as allies would soon attempt to become masters. This prince with the connivance of the Dutch, offered his troops to help in the liberation of the Kingdom from these new oppressors. His advice was rejected in anger, and the envoys would have been beheaded had not Faulcon been wise enough to check an act of violence which might have led to disastrous results.
A few remarks should be made here on this embassy which was a brilliant, rather than a useful achievement.
The French clergy who had been the primary occasion of the embassy had only the interests of Christianity at stake, but the political party regarded it as an advancement of the prestige of the King of France, who, in his turn, surrounded by flatterers, was misled by their counsels.
Father Tachard, ready to grasp anything that would advance the interests of either his master or his sect, thought that the conquest of Siam was reserved for his own society. He was seconded by Pere de la Chaise, who removed all the opposition on the part of the ministers to this expensive and useless alliance.
The Chevalier de Chaumont and the Abbé de Choisy had had but a very superficial idea of the Siamese nation. They had been present at banquets and hunting parties and the Royal Treasures had been displayed to their view. They had been conducted round the temples where they had been told that the colossal images therein were of solid gold, whereas in reality they were only of plaster skilfully gilt. The ambassadors, dazzled by what they saw, deceived the Court of France in their turn.
Count Forbin, the head of the navy and a thorough Spartan, had observed all this parade in a philosophic spirit. This brave soldier who preferred the roar of cannon, to any more sensuous form of music, perceived that the French were being blinded by a bogus magnificence. The simple account he has given of this journey is a complete refutation of the meretricious lies of Tachard and Choisy.
His insight into the wretched state of the country was keen, and Faulcon, fearing lest he should discredit the reports that the ambassadors were about to carry to the French Court, asked the Chevalier de Chaumont that Forbin should be appointed Admiral of the fleet. The Count was obliged to obey the orders of the ambassador and was duly appointed Admiral and Commander-in-chief of the land and sea forces of the Kingdom of Siam. This grandiloquent title gave him opportunities of investigating the true state of the country the misery and weakness of which he soon discovered. Some days after he had an audience with the King whom he found surrounded by officials seated on wicker-work mats. A single lamp illuminated the hall and whoever wished to read, pulled out a yellow wax taper from his pocket, lit it, and then extinguished it with great economy when he had finished with it.