1739, PARIS, FRANCE: The french writer and explorer Chevalier JEAN CHARDIN (1643-1713). Portrat frontespice of book" Sur les routes d'Europe et d'Asie" (1739).Born Jean-Baptiste Chardin and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveler whose ten-volume book" The Travels of Sir John Chardin" is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Persia and the Near East in general