At the close of the seventeenth century an agent of the then ruler of Abyssinia was suffering from stone, and stood in urgent need of a good surgeon. His agent in Egypt (Haji Ali) was instructed to inquire for the services of a European who could operate, and at first endeavoured to find one amongst the Franciscan missionaries, who were Italians. But the Consul of France at Alexandria, hearing of this, resolved to obtain the post for a French physician, and eventually Jacques Charles Poncet, a surgeon from the Franche Comté, was engaged, and it was decided that he should journey to Abyssinia accompanied by Father Brèvedent, a French Jesuit. They reached the country of Sennar in 1699. Soon afterwards Father Brèvedent died, but Poncet succeeded in reaching Abyssinia, and afforded medical assistance to the Emperor. But his arrival in the country, together with the rumour that he was being followed by French Jesuit priests (who as a matter of fact were massacred in Egypt), so aroused the animosities of the Abyssinian clerics that he was hurried out of the country, and returned to Europe (Rome) in 1700. Notwithstanding his experiences, he mixed himself up with the intrigues of an Abyssinian agent and a priest at Rome for the despatch of French missionaries to Abyssinia. The Pope was prudent in the matter, and determined to find out the truth by a Maronite priest, Gabriel, whom he despatched from Cairo. Poncet, however, returned to Egypt in 1703, was joined by a Jesuit, and set out for Jidda in Arabia, but the mission came to grief. He quarrelled with the Abyssinian envoy, Murat, whose pretensions to represent the Abyssinian government were probably mythical, but who had accompanied Poncet to Italy. Poncet never succeeded in returning to Abyssinia, but instead drifted away to Persia and died at Ispahan. Louis XIV. now took the matter up, urged to interference in the affairs of Abyssinia by the French Consul at Alexandria. He decided to despatch a mission to Ethiopia to open up diplomatic relations with the Christian Emperor. Janus de Noir, le Sieur du Roule, was appointed envoy and placed at the head of this mission. The consent of the Turkish government was given to the passage through Egypt. The expedition left France at the end of 1703, and after a stormy voyage of four months (!) landed at Alexandria. Thence it pursued its way to Cairo, and so on up the Nile and the Blue Nile to the country of Sennar, a region at that time to a great extent under Abyssinian political influence. Here the cupidity and suspicion of the local chieftain were aroused. The mission was attacked, and M. du Roule was massacred. The Emperor of Abyssinia expressed perfunctory regrets, and then, to use a modern phrase, “the incident was closed,” Abyssinia being in such an unattackable position as to make any French reprisals impossible.