Note 70 — Chapter XIII · Life

The native name for this staple of trade was "ibirapitanga," and with it they shipped across monkeys and parroquets for the ladies of the French Court. That there was a considerable rivalry with Portugal in these matters may be gathered from the remark in Marino Cavalli (Venetian Ambassador to the Court of France) that a Portuguese vessel was burnt off Brazil in 1546. But the first document on Brazil ever published in France was the account of the savages exhibited before Henri II. in 1550. It is probably written by Maurice Sève and Claude de Tillemont and was published in 1551. Before that year it will be remembered that the only works about America known were the book of Fernandez in Spanish, Ramusio's account in Italian, and the letters of Cortes in German. After it, Thevet's "France Antarticque" appeared in 1558, and Nicolas Barré's letters in 1557. So that the book of the entry of Henri II. has the importance of filling a gap in "American Literature."