Guillaume Postel is perhaps the broadest-minded of the sixteenth-century observers. He gives evidence of having had a legal training, and of having reflected along political and constitutional lines. Nicolay, in his preface, informs us that Postel knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, and Arabic, as well as the principal Western languages. He was sent by Francis I with the momentous embassy of La Forêt, and was therefore in Constantinople about the year 1535. He seems to have made a later visit for the purpose of acquiring manuscripts; but the substance of his book, as appears from numerous references, dates from the first visit. The volume was printed at Poitiers in 1560, but was not published till 1570. It contains three parts, separately paged:— I. _De la République des Turcs_; II. _Histoire et Considération de l’Origine, Loy, et Coustume des Tartares ... Turcs_, etc.; III. _La Tierce Partie des Orientales Histoires, où est exposée la Condition, Puissance, & Revenue de l’Empire Turquesque_, etc. The first part gives, among other things, an excellent account of the page system and of Ottoman law and justice. The third part is built upon the information in Ramberti and Junis Bey; it describes the page system further, and adds a good account of the _Ajem-oghlans_ and the Janissaries. By a reference it shows acquaintance with Giovio. Antoine Geuffroy, knight of St. John, issued in 1542 his _Briefve Description de la Court du Grand Turc_. Four years later this was published in English by R. Grafton under the title _The Order of the Great Turcks Court of Hye Menne of War_; and from thirty to fifty years later it appeared, combined with other material, in large volumes in the Latin and German tongues under the name of N. Honigerus or Haeniger, with a Latin translation by G. Godelevæus, entitled _Aulae Turcicae, Othomannicique Imperii Descriptio_, etc. The work of Geuffroy thus had a great vogue. It was a sound, intelligent description of the empire, built upon the information in Ramberti and Junis Bey. By references and allusions it shows acquaintance with Froissart, Spandugino, and Giovio. The references to Geuffroy in the foregoing pages are to the reprint in Schéfer’s edition of Jean Chesneau, described below.