JOUANNIN, JOSEPH-MARIE (b. Saint – Brieuc, 6 September 1783; d. Paris, 31 January 1844), French Orientalist, member of the Société Asiatique of Paris and the first dragoman of the Gardane Mission (q.v., 1807-9).

Joseph-Marie Jouannin first studied Oriental languages at the age of 13 at the prestigious Collège Louis-Le-Grand in Paris (27 January 1797), and later in 1803, at the École des Jeunes de Langues in Constantinople under the supervision of General Guillaume Brune, Napoleon’s ambassador to Constantinople (1802-4). Jouannin’s studies in Turkish and Persian, in addition to his responsibilities at the French embassy in Constantinople, prepared him for a career in French foreign affairs. From September 1803 to February 1804, Brune sent Jouannin on an intelligence mission to the shores of the Black Sea to collect geographical and strategic information (Levot, I, p. 967).

In July 1806, at the request of the ailing Amédée Jaubert (q.v., 1779-1847), Napoleon’s envoy to Persia, Pierre Ruffin, French chargé d’affaires at Constantinople (1805‑6), sent Jouannin to replace Jaubert and become the French chargé d’affaires in Tehran. Jouannin visited Jaubert in Așkale near Erzurum, during which time Jaubert gave him advice and informed him of everything that Jaubert believed was necessary for Jouannin regarding Persia and its state of affairs (Jaubert, pp. 372-75). In October that year, Jouannin was warmly received by the crown prince, ʿAbbās Mirzā Qajar (q.v., 1789-1833), in Tabriz, who a month later sent him with ʿAskar Khan Afšār (later ambassador of Persia in France, 1808-10) to Tehran, to visit Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar (q.v., r. 1797-1834; Levot, I, pp. 967-68).

Jouannin’s transitory role ended with the arrival of the envoy Xavier de La Blanche and then General Claude Mathieu de Gardane, whom he welcomed in December 1807 in Tehran (Amini, p. 120). Under the Gardane mission (q.v.; 1807-9), Jouannin was the first dragoman of the French legation, who performed the translations of the most of the correspondence between Napoleon’s court and the Qajar court (Hellot-Bellier, p. 105). He was the last member of the French mission to remain in Persia following Gardane’s departure in February 1809, and he was in charge of the affairs of the legation with his secretary Auguste Andrea de Nerciat. Residing most of the time with ʿAbbās Mirzā in Tabriz, Jouannin was finally dismissed in December 1809, despite the fact that he had earlier left Persia for Turkey in September but, on instructions from Napoleon, returned to Tabriz in early December to save the French mission (Amini, p. 188). However, Harford Jones Brydges (q.v., 1764-1847), the British ambassador, had concluded the Preliminary Treaty with Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah, and British influence at the Qajar Court overshadowed all the French promises.

After the fall of Napoleon, the Duke of Richelieu, the French minister of foreign affairs (24 September 1816 to 28 December 1818), entrusted Jouannin in 1816 with the task of welcoming the Persian envoy Mir Davoud Zadour (Dāwud Khan Malekšāh Naẓar) who had been provided with congratulatory letters from Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah and ʿAbbās Mirzā to Louis XVIII (Cordier, p. 342). In 1817, Richelieu appointed Jouannin as secretary to the French embassy at Constantinople. During his term of service (1817-26), Jouannin conducted several surveys and geographic excursions in Turkey, which later contributed to the writing of his Turquie, published in 1840. He also prepared two accounts on conditions in Iran, in 1824 and 1826, mostly concerning the country’s relationship with the Ottoman, British, and Russian powers. Derived from eyewitness accounts, Jouannin described a peaceful situation in Iran “despite arbitrariness and vexations” during the years preceding the Second Russo-Persian War (Jouannin, fol. 803; see also FRANCE iii. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA 1789-1918).

Jouannin’s final mission in relation to Persia was dealing with Ḥosayn Khan Ājudān-Bāši (q.v.; d. ca. 1866-67), the ājudān-bāši (q.v., adjudant-en-chef) to France in 1838. Louis-Philippe assigned Jouannin the task of hosting the Qajar ambassador during his stay in Paris. Jouannin was also interpreter-negotiator during the envoy’s negotiations to restore Franco-Iranian relations. ʿAbd–al–Fattāḥ Garmrudi (q.v.; 1786-1848), who was secretary of the legation, in his travel account, accuses Jouannin of having taken a large sum of money from Lord Palmerston’s ambassador in Paris to prevent the Franco-Persian relationship being established. However, the French government at that point tried not to raise Britain’s suspicion and was reluctant to establish a relationship with Persia (Ādamiyat, p. 560; Nāteq, p. 110). Garmrudi (p. 884) claims that Jouannin, as interpreter and negotiator, attempted to disrupt the negotiations between the king of France and the Persian minister, to the extent that Ḥosayn Khan Ājudān-Bāši was so angry with Jouannin that he accused him of deciding “to betray both the French government and the Persian government (dawlat‑e ʿaliya)” .

Nevertheless, Jouannin’s political career had assured him a good reputation with the Persians. He knew the Persian language and culture as if he were born there (Levot, I, p. 970). Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah decorated Jouannin with the Order of the Sun Second Class (nešān-e ḵoršid) , and the title of mirzā in 1807 (Cordier, p. 340; Levot, I, p. 968). Along with Gardane and Jaubert, Jouannin was also commemorated through the life-size depiction of him on one of the well-known murals at the reception hall of the Negārestān (q.v.) palace in Tehran (Sohayli Ḵ^vānsāri, p. 36).

With several years of service in Persia and the Ottoman Empire, Jouannin advised and commended French individuals seeking a career in the East, including Théodore Hettier, who sought his advice in Constantinople in 1819 prior to traveling to Iran. Hettier, who served for two years (1819-21) as the instructor of the army of ʿAbbās Mirzā, later suggested to the French government that Jouannin was the best-suited person to serve as a French envoy in Iran, because, in addition to Jouannin’s knowledge of the country and the language, he had the advantage of being respected by Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah and particularly by ʿAbbās Mirzā, who did not conceal his affection for him (Hettier, fols. 258-59; Bélanger, II, p. 353). Jouannin himself was anxious to be assigned to this job and requested that the French government appoint him to this position during his residence in Constantinople in the 1820s. However, the French government ruled out this appointment at that time, despite the favorable opinion toward Jouannin of the Count Guilleminot, French ambassador to the Porte (Levot, I, p. 970).

Although Jouannin never returned to Persia following his three years’ residence, he experienced nostalgia for it his entire life (Hellot-Bellier, pp. 99-100). This sense of nostalgia is evident in a short letter that Jouannin wrote in his later years to his old Persian friend, Mirzā Masʿud Anṣāri, in which he recalls his “good memory of Persia, though thirty years have passed since our farewell at Tabriz” (Markaz – e asnād – e wezārat – e omur – e ḵāreja/1254 Q./K4/P22/001).