He traveled extensively throughout Ottoman-occupied Greece from 1798 to 1820; first as the Turkish sultan's hostage, then as Napoleon Bonaparte's general consul at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina.

When Le Merlerault adopted the new Constitution on 14 July 1793 (year 2 of the French Republic), Pouqueville was secretary of the assemblée primaire that approved it.

He went into hiding (probably in Caen[2]) until the defeat in Quiberon by the army of the Republic led by Lazare Hoche of the royalist forces joined by Charette's chouans), as Bonaparte (nicknamed Captain Cannon) did at the Siege of Toulon, and later in Paris.

[citation needed] When Pouqueville returned to Le Merlerault, the town's physician, Dr. Cochin, who had been his colleague at the college of Caen, took him on as student-surgeon.

While meeting with leaders of the British Admiralty, he quickly developed a great respect for William Sidney Smith who spoke perfect French and proved to be courteous, human, and a man of honor.

Having caught a bad fever that prevented him from continuing his scientific researches, Pouqueville was advised by Kleber to return to France to receive better medical attention.

Pouqueville's written accounts of his time abroad were the first detailed description by a westerner of the Turkish megalopolis, its diverse inhabitants, and way of life, customs, and habits.

These were received in Europe with great astonishment and curiosity because "The Gate of Asia" had previously remained practically unexplored by westerners since the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Part three of his book (about 300 pages) was devoted to the astonishing adventures that his friends and brothers in arms encountered before and after their release from the fortress of seven towers.

His condition as a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan prevented him from doing more than providing medical attention to the oppressed population, but his writings already showed both intellectual and emotional support.

This impulse soon spread throughout Europe with the broad publication of his books, motivating the greatest minds of the time to follow his steps across the newly revealed land of Greece.

As part of the broader break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the ancient nation's rebirth followed over subsequent decades with its war of independence and its liberation.

[13] In 1801, twenty five months after being jailed in Constantinople, at the insistence of the French government and with the help from the Russian diplomats in Turkey, François Pouqueville was set free.

[18] He kept a detailed journal describing his observations and discoveries made in the course his numerous explorations of Greece and the Balkans during his 15 years of diplomatic service in Ioannina and in Patras.

In 1811, joined by his brother Hugues who had also been named consul in Greece, they researched and recorded the remains of no fewer than 65 antique cities in Epirus alone.

It pertained to the time when the Roman armies appeared in Greece (c. 197 BC) and was a decree of the Senate and of the people of Acarnania proclaiming the brothers Publius and Lucius Acilius as their friends and benefactors.

These included Lord Byron[24] with Hobhouse,[25] and Cockerell,[26] as they allowed themselves to be corrupted by the depraved lifestyle of the Court of Ioannina[27] when Pouqueville instead demonstrated rectitude and firmness against Ali Pasha's criminal abuses of power.

[28] Moreover, the literary and political fame he had acquired with the international success of his first book — dedicated to the Emperor Napoléon and positioning him, as early as 1805, as the spearhead of the emerging Greek revival movement — was evidently a cause for resentment on the part of the English.

"[29][30] However, after Napoleon's 1807 treaty of Tilsitt, which foreshadowed of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, Ali Pasha renounced his alliance with France and yielded to British pressures.

Thereafter, whenever he had an official communication for Ali, his brother Hugues[34] (himself French consul in nearby Arta [3]), had to bring it for him to the pasha whose atrocities he also witnessed throughout Epirus [4].

"[citation needed]Finally, against Britain's continuous attempts to maintain and reinforce the Turks' brutal oppression of the Greeks, the brothers Pouqueville's consistent diplomatic skills succeeded in achieving the desired chasm between the Sultan and Ali Pacha, thus provoking the beginning of the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire that would enable the regeneration of free Greek nationalism.

[35] With remarkable foresight due to his in-depth knowledge of the region,[36] François Pouqueville already predicted the recurrent troubles that would subsequently divide the Balkans: "I will tell how Ali Tebelen Zade – Ali Pasha – after having created for himself one of these horrible reputations that will resound in the future, fell from power leaving to Epirus, his homeland, the fateful inheritance of anarchy, unfathomable damages to the Ottoman dynasty, the hope of freedom for the Greeks, and perhaps extended causes of conflict for Europe.

(In his memoirs, Duke Pasquier, Chancellor of France, (1767–1862) wrote: "All the Greeks who were unable to escape from Patras were mercilessly slaughtered, regardless of sex or age.

[45] While enjoying his retirement from international diplomacy,[46] François Pouqueville saw his support for the Greek war of independence provide some of the impetus for the French navy taking part in the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827.

As to the fate of the pirate Orouchs — who had seized Poqueville and sold him as a slave — he later boasted about his capture to Ali Pasha when Pouqueville was still in residence in Ioanina.

While writing about antique Greece in the numerous major works and articles he published from this moment, François Pouqueville mostly applied himself in denouncing the state of oppression crushing the Greeks under Turkish domination, and more specifically stood as witness of "the crimes and abominations perpetrated by Ali Pacha and his bands of assassins with the complicity of the Turkish Sultan and his allies.

[49] His observations became a powerful support for the cause of the Greek rebellion and its dramatic events, which he reported faithfully in substantial books that were quickly published and translated in several languages.

[60] His writings on the outrages inflicted upon the inhabitants of Parga when the city was abandoned by the British to Ali Pacha's cruelty in 1818[61] also inspired a major painting by Italian romantic painter Francesco Hayez (1791–1882).