The 1717 Convention of Amsterdam, a treaty marking the alliance and reciprocal guarantees between France, Russia and Prussia (Amsterdam, 15 August 1717)
Negotiated during a voyage of Peter the Great to France but signed on 15 August 1717 when he was travelling in Amsterdam, the treaty was the start of a “close union” between France and Russia and included Prussia.
The text was written in French, the diplomatic language since the reign of Louis XIV, and was of a quite limited scope: it was not allowed to challenge the English alliance (Article 4) and France only committed to acting as a mediator for re-establishing peace in the North (secret articles).
However, it did create the conditions that were conducive to opening permanent embassies in the two countries and would be celebrated in France in the centuries that followed as the diplomatic act that founded the relationship between France and Russia, the first stone of a lasting alliance which would withstand the vicissitudes of the revolutionary and imperial periods.
Signatories: On the left, for France: Pierre-Antoine de Chasteauneuf [Châteauneuf], Marquis de Castagnère, Ambassador of France to the United Provinces; On the right: The Russian Plenipotentiaries: Count Gavrila Golovkin