But what persuaded him that this would be a good idea?

I have been looking into a visit he paid to the genteel town on the Thames in 1893, just a year before the IOC itself was formed.

A racing incident involving some of the French rowers he travelled with left them with first-hand experience of the Stewards' modus operandi.

To begin at the beginning, three French rowing clubs had joined de Coubertin's Union of French Sports Societies (USFSA) in 1891 partly - as explained in the Frenchman's A 21-Year Campaign, published in 1909 - in the hope of gaining access to English regattas.

This was, the future IOC President wrote, "very difficult", likening the clubs' aims to gaining entry to a "cross-Channel Bastille".

In April 1892, however, an agreement with the Amateur Rowing Association was signed, with the French body undertaking to send no rower to England who did not comply with the strict English definition of amateurism, which excluded manual workers.

"Would this open up Henley to us?" de Coubertin asked rhetorically, concluding that "nothing was less certain" because Henley was "very independent and very autonomous".

Events took an unexpected turn in October when a London Rowing Club (LRC) eight travelled to Andrésy on the Seine to race against a French boat, and was beaten.

Rowing historian Christopher Dodd cites London's account of the race in his book The Story of World Rowing. This stated that the LRC boat was damaged during practice and "not fully waterproofed"; the crew, moreover, was "still suffering the effects of seasickness".

Dodd also makes mention of innovative swivel rowlocks used by the French, which were a subject of much debate in rowing circles at the time.

In the wake of this, an accord was reached in March 1893 paving the way for French crews to compete at the Henley Royal Regatta that summer.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News observed that the number of foreigners competing would create "additional interest" in the event, while asserting that the result at Andrésy had placed the USFSA "at once in a position that otherwise it might have been years in attaining".

The same publication disclosed on July 1 that a total of 56 regatta entries had been received - "the largest ever known".

It covered in detail the French party's arrival in the leafy English home counties on the Sunday before regatta week, reporting that the "London Rowing Club members who were in Paris last autumn, accompanied by a few other prominent rowing men, journeyed to Twyford [some five miles away] to meet them".

The "engine of the branch line to Henley was decorated with the tricolour".

On disembarking, the "visitors were conducted to their quarters followed by a friendly multitude, the Dublin University men welcoming them with The Marseillaise".

The operation did not go without the occasional hitch.

A "training supper at the Red Lion" had been laid on for the voyagers.

However, as the "telegraph office had been closed most of the day", there had been no way to notify them of this and they had "dined at Paddington on their way".

Nevertheless "a few of the rowing men and all the friends who had crossed the Channel with them joined the representative English company that gathered together, and the greatest good friendship prevailed".

The image of de Coubertin ensconced in this quintessentially English hostelry with the notion of reviving the ancient Olympic Games fermenting away in his mind is an irresistible one.

The French assault on the Grand Challenge Cup ended on the regatta's opening day when their boat went down to a Thames Rowing Club eight after what the Reading Mercury described as "one of the most stubbornly contested races ever seen".

It was the next day - in front of a huge crowd attracted by fine weather and a holiday in honour of the wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, the future George V, and Princess Mary of Teck - that the racing incident occurred.

A Stewards' Cup contest between the French four and another Thames Rowing Club crew was in its early stages when, as reported in the Mercury, the English boat "came right across the river and the French crew were driven almost into the boats and the piles.

"Thames, who straightened their boat before a foul occurred, which must have happened had the visitors not given way, at once gained a length’s lead and the Basse-Seine were disorganised and never recovered from the effects of the manoeuvre."

Taking up the story, the Evening Standard wrote that it appeared that "on landing the French made a claim for a foul, but this was at once withdrawn at the wish of Baron de Coubertin…

"The Stewards of the Regatta, however, called upon the Thames crew yesterday morning to explain their conduct."

It went on: "Thames explained, through C.W.Hughes, the bow and steersman of the Four, that, as the French were going ahead, he called on his men for a spurt, and stroke side pulled him round.

"He tried to get back, and never thought of such a thing as attempting to drive the French crew over.

"After considerable discussion, the Committee of Stewards resolved 'that having heard the explanation given by Mr Hughes and the Thames crew, they accepted their assurances that the deviation of their boat from its proper course was not intentional.'"

According to the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, there was a reference to the matter when the prizes were presented, where an official "expressed to Baron de Coubertin… and the other visitors from France, the extreme regret of the Stewards that anything had occurred to prevent their Four from having a fair chance of success".

The affair persisted as a talking-point, prompting Hughes to correspond with a journal called The Sportsman.

As relayed by the Henley and South Oxford Standard, this letter from the Thames oarsman asserted that "to the best of my belief, I put on no steerage until finding myself in their water.

"I immediately put on the rudder against the stroke side and did my utmost to regain my course.

"The whole episode was the work of a moment and the deviation from my course absolutely unintentional.

"The Regatta Committee having acquitted me of all intentional unfairness, I think it most unjust that my conduct should be criticised in the way it has been and still is."

Recalling the episode in his book, de Coubertin acknowledged that he was indeed against claiming a foul.

"I therefore declared that we did not want on our first visit to Henley, where we had been so well received, to level an accusation of unfairness against an English crew, and that… we preferred to make no claim at all."

He continued: "The articles published the next day by the British newspapers and the ovations we received at the distribution of prizes proved that we had done well to act in this way and to give our adversaries, as the President of the meeting dared to say, 'not only a lesson of excellent sport but also a lesson of perfect courtesy'."

De Coubertin concluded that the affair "affirmed our positions better than a victory", while acknowledging that the French oarsmen returned from Henley "unhappy and hostile, not because of their defeat but because the general tone of things had displeased them".