Abstract: After the Amiens Truce (1802, March 25 and 27), France was seeking a way to split the alliance between the Ottomanic Porte and Great Britain, to find means for improving his commercial interests in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea and in the Black Sea. In this regard, First-Consul Napoléon Bonaparte sent in the spring of 1802 his comrade in arms and countryman form Corsica, Colonel Horace Sébastiani, in an exploratory mission to Constantinople. During his journey form Paris to the main city of the Ottoman Empire, passing through Vienna and Buda, Colonel Sébastiani (later on General and 1840 promoted to the rank of Fieldmarshall of France), took short notes on his travel. On his way to Constantinople, Sébastiani passed from Hungary to Banat and its main city of Timișoara, then stopped at Sibiu in Transylvani and, across the Carpathian Mountains, spent thereafter several days in Bucharest, the capital-city of Wallachia. Therefrom he reached finally, travelling through Bulgaria, his goal. In his short notes, Colonel Sébastiani is emphasizing on different military matters, but at the same time he is interested in the human and material environement. It is to be pointed out, that during his stay in Bucharest, Sébastiani met with the Reigning-Prince Michael Suțu and with Alexander Moruzi, the former one, as well as with several members of the high local nobility (boyards), imbued to his surprise by the French culture. As a perspicuous observer of men and facts, Colonel Sébastiani summarizes in a surprisingly accurate way the pith of the Fanariotic regime in Wallachia and Moldavia.
