In 1895 the Secretary of the Geographical Section of the Committee for Historical Works, Dr. Ernest-Theodore Hamy, published a detailed description of a highly unusual naval chart, undated but probably drawn around A.D. 1630. This valuable document, the property of a British collector, showed "without question, Spitsbergen, the name places being partly in French while, in the middle of the chart, is a coat of arms showing the fleur-de-lys in the style of Louis XIII. The map is entitled La France Artique (sic)!" . To try to establish the exact date or provenance of this chart is beyond the scope of this paper. . The essential importance of this chart is its spectacular proof of a continuous French presence in the waters and along the coasts of Spitsbergen, throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century.