name designated the commercial agreement conceded by the Sublime Porte to Latin merchants (first to Italians, starting with Genoese in 1453), and arose from the fact that the articles of these agreements were called capitoli ('chapters' in the Italian redaction). Francis I was the first king of France who sought an alliance with the Ottomans. The pretext used by Francis was the protection of the Christians in Ottoman lands. The objective was to find an ally against the House of Habsburg. By compelling Austria to spend its forces in defense against the Ottomans in the East, he hoped to weaken it and render it unable to maintain its power in the West. As early as 1528, Francis I had appealed to Suleiman the Magnificent to restore to the Christians of Jerusalem a church which the Ottomans had converted into a mosque. The Sultan refused on the plea that his religion would not permit alteration of the purpose of a mosque, but he promised to maintain the Christians in possession of all the other places occupied by them and to defend them against all oppression. The Franco-Ottoman alliance caused quite a scandal in the Christian world, but endured for many years, since it served the objective interests of both parties. Henry IV continued the policy of a Franco-Ottoman alliance and received an embassy from Sultan Mehmed III in 1601. In 1604, a "Peace Treaty and Capitulation" was signed between Henry IV and the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I. It granted numerous advantages to France in the Ottoman Empire. The capitulations were made to entice and encourage commercial exchange with Western merchants. According to their terms traders entering the Ottoman Empire were exempt from local prosecution, local taxation, local conscription, and the searching of their domicile. Ahmed expanded the capitulations given to France, specifying that merchants from Spain, Ragusa, Genoa, Ancona and Florence could trade under the French flag.In the capitulations of 20 May 1604 appear two clauses relative to the protection of pilgrims and of the religious in charge of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in consideration of and for the honor and friendship of the French king. The result of this friendship was the development of the Catholic missions, which began to flourish through the assistance of Henry IV and his son Louis XIII, who introduced the system of capitulations to Moroco. The Franco-Moroccan Treaty (1631) gave France preferential tariffs,