The French Revolution caught the Ottoman Empire entangled in a war against the Russian-Habsburg alliance. The developments in revolutionary France allowed the Empire an “honorable” exit from the war. Taking advantage of this, the Empire stayed neutral in the War of the First Coalition. Pascal Firges recently demonstrated in his book that even in their neutrality the Ottomans were willing to listen to the revolutionaries and entertained an alliance. The concept of liberté (translated as serbestiyet) found its way into Ottoman documents within this framework. The concept came to be perceived as dangerous when Napoleon embarked on his Italian adventure. While in Italy, Napoleon sent two agents to Mani in Morea, the Ottomans intercepted them and together with the Maniotes drew up a response to the General. In the same year, the Patriarch of Jerusalem who was in Istanbul published a pamphlet against the idea of liberté/eleftheria which was disseminated by the Ottomans. By 1797, the concept of liberté/serbestiyet became equated with sedition among the Orthodox populations of the Empire. This paper will focus on the concept of liberté using Ottoman and Greek documents mostly from the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. I will explore the Ottoman perception of sedition and the alliance this perception of threat created between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ottoman government. I will first discuss the parallel histories of liberté and serbestiyet before the Revolution. Then I will give examples of the uses of the concept in two languages focusing on Ottoman measures to counter French propaganda and agents in the Morea.