Autograph letter of Louis-Antoine Artois ...

Gabriel-Jacques Laisné de Villevêque (1766-1851), deputy from Loiret to the French National Assembly from 1817 to 1823 and from 1827 to 1831, had brought to the Dauphin’s notice several Greek-Cypriots. This letter from the Dauphin informs him that a sum of 500 francs was given to these men.

Villevêque was a liberal in politics and most likely supported the Greek Revolution. This letter comes from the archive of the philhellene François Pouqueville.

Theodoros Theodorou, cataloguer for the Vergos auction house in Athens, suggested that these Cypriots were connected with General de Wuitz’s expedition for the release of Cyprus from the Ottoman yoke. He also suggested that the fact that this letter was found among Pouqueville’s papers indicates that it was the French consul who brought the Cypriots to Villevêque’s notice. Pouqueville returned to France from Patras in 1817. An annotation, in the hand of d’Acher de Montgascon, mentions that 200 francs were given to a Greek colonel in Marseille to aid him in returning to Greece.