The birthplace of the revolution: Public space and political community in the palais-royal of Louis-Philippe-Joseph D'Orléans, 1781-1789

French History

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 1-29

  Mcmahon, Darrin M ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0008423085     PISSN: 02691191     EISSN: 14774542     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/fh/10.1.1     Document Type: Article

References (86)

1. Edward Rigby, Dr. Rigby's Letters from France &c. in 1789, ed. Lady Eastlake (1880), p. 36
2. Arthur Young, Travels in France in the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789, ed. C. Maxwell (Cambridge, 1929), p. 154
3. Cited in B. Saint-Marc and the marquis de Bourbonne, Les chroniques du Palais-Royal (n.d.), p. 172
4. Cited in H. La Marle, Philippe Égalité 'Grand Maître' de la Révolution (1989), p. 248
5. Given the importance of the Palais-Royal as a political centre in both the 1780s and the period of the Revolution itself, it is surprising that this 'lieu de mémoire' has not received more contemporary scholarly treatment. Robert Isherwood's chapter on 'The convergence of popular and elite culture: the Palais-Royal', in his Farce and fantasy: popular entertainment in eighteenth century Paris (Oxford, 1986), pp. 217-49
6. General narratives of the Palais's history from its inception onward are well provided in several nineteenth-century studies, most notably V. Champier and R. G. Sandoz, Le Palais-Royal d'après des documents inédits (2 vols., 1900)
7. G. Brice, Description de la ville de Paris et tout ce qu'elle contient de plus remarquable, 7th edn (4 vols., 1717), i. 194-212
8. Brice, Description, pp. 195-6
9. William Cole, Journal of my journey to Paris (1765), p. 268
10. A five week's tour to Paris, Versailles, Marli, &c. (1750), p. 17
11. The American wanderer through various parts of Europe, in a series of letters to a lady by a Virginian (Dublin, 1783), p. 97
12. Tobias George Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, intro. James Morris (Fontwell, Sussex, 1969), pp. 60-1
13. D. Garrioch, Neighborhood and community in Paris, 1740-1790 (Cambridge, 1986), p. 192
14. The American wanderer, pp. 89-90
15. See, also, Dictionnaire historique de la ville de Paris, (1779), iii. 751
16. Discussions of the 'public' and 'public opinion' have spawned a massive literature in recent years. For essential introductions: K. M. Baker, 'Public opinion as political invention', Inventing the French Revolution: essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century (New York, 1990)
17. R. Chartier, 'The public sphere and public opinion', The cultural origins of the French Revolution, trans. L. G. Cochrane (Durham, N.C. and London, 1991), pp. 20-37
18. M. Ozouf, 'L'opinion publique', The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture. I. The political culture of the Old Regime, ed. K. M. Baker (Oxford and New York, 1987), pp. 167-99
19. This was also the case with other 'semi-private', 'public' gardens such as the Tuileries and Luxembourg. See Garrioch, Neighborhood, p. 192
20. e siècle (1991), p. 189
21. A five week's tour, p. 17
22. Saint-Marc and Bourbonne, Les chroniques, p. 120.
23. Isherwood, Farce and fantasy, p. 219
24. The epithet is the title of W. H. Lewis's biography, The scandalous Regent: a life of Philippe, duc d'Orléans 1674-1723 and of his family (New York, 1961)
25. J. H. Shennan, Philippe, duke of Orleans: Regent of France 1715-1723 (1979), p. 15
26. Paris as it was and as it is; or a sketch of the French capital illustrative of the effects of the Revolution (1803), pp. 186-7. The unidentified author of this work had undoubtedly cribbed this passage from Louis Sébastien Mercier. See note 101 below
27. René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, Mémoires et journal inédit du marquis d'Argenson (5 vols., 1857-8), ii. 205 (7 Jan. 1741)
28. Édmond-Jean-François Barbier, Chronique de la régence et du règne de Louis XV (1718-1763), ou Journal de Barbier (8 vols., 1866), viii. 143 (August 1742)
29. The Englishman's fortnight in Paris; or the art of ruining himself there in a few days (1777)
30. D'Argenson, Mémoires, iv. 26 (29 Apr. 1751)
31. Champier and Sandoz, Le Palais-Royal, ii. 116
32. As the marquise de Genlis, governess of the children of the young duc de Chartres, commented in reference to the Palais of the 1770s: 'à cette epoque, la société du Palais-Royal étoit la plus brillante et la plus spirituelle de Paris'. Quoted in Champier and Sandoz, Le Palais-Royal, i. 403
33. For a discussion of Chartres's financial situation and the economic motives behind the Palais-Royal undertaking: Britsch, La maison d'Orléans, pp. 311ff
34. as well as N. Nichols Barker, 'A bourgeois or a reactionary prince? The case of Louis-Philippe-Joseph, duke of Orléans', Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History (Lawrence, Kans, 1982), pp. 148-60
35. Siméon-Prosper Hardy, Mes loisirs, ou journal d'évé nemens tels qu'ils parviennent à ma connoissance, B[ibliothèque] N[ationale,] MS Fr. 6683 p. 391 (4 Jan. 1781)
36. Louis Petit de Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la république des lettres en France depuis 1762 jusqu'à nos jours, ou journal d'un observateur (36 vols., London, 1784-9), xvii. 116-17 (8 Apr. 1781)
37. Also, Hardy, Mes loisirs, BN MS Fr. 6683 p. 391 (4 Jan. 1781)
38. Mémoire à consulter pour les propriétaires du Palais-Royal situés autour du jardin du Palais-Royal, Opposants & Demandeurs (1781), pp. 2-10
39. Mémoire à consulter, p. 11
40. Bachaumont, Mémoires, xvii. 259 (3 July 1781)
41. Hardy, Mes loisirs, BN MS Fr. 6684 p. 8 (7 Aug. 1781). One such scandal sheet, nailed to the door of Chartres's palace, commented in reference to the destruction of the garden's trees, 'Le premier arbre coupé servira à vous brouler vif' (ibid.). Another ephemeral engraving portrayed the duke with a long hook, rummaging amidst piles of garbage in search of 'loques à terre' (locataires). 'Nothing', exclaimed the Mémoires secrets on 14 August, 'could be more cruel than all the gibes imagined by the enemies of the Duke of Chartres to render him ridiculous and his project hateful': xvii. 330
42. On these issues, see S. Maza, 'Le Tribunal de la nation: mémoires judiciaires et l'opinion publique à la fin de l'ancien régime', Annales ESC, 42 (1987), 73-90
43. S. Maza, Private lives and public affairs: the causes célèbres of Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley, Calif., 1993)
44. and D. A. Bell, Lawyers and citizens: the making of a political elite in Old Regime France (Oxford, 1994)
45. Referring to both the proprietors' Mémoire and Chartres's response, the Mémoires secrets commented on 9 September 1781, 'Le public s'empresse d'avoir ces factums, dans une querelle où il prend tant de part': xviii. 32
46. A summary of the Précis sur le provisoire is provided in the Mémoires secrets, xviii. 42-4 (15 Sept. 1781)
47. See also Britsch, La jeunesse, pp. 323-4
48. Bachaumont, Mémoires, xviii. 72 (2 Oct. 1781)
49. Observations sur la destruction de la promenade du jardin du Palais-Royal. Lettre d'un Anglois établi à Paris, à Milord P à Londres (Amsterdam, 1781), pp. 5-6. Published in mock epistolary form sometime shortly after Chartres's withdrawal of the lettres patentes, the pamphlet carried as its epigraph a citation from Horace: 'Les peuples sont les victimes des folies des princes.'
50. Cited in L. S. Mercier, Tableau de Paris, in Paris le nuit, Paris le jour, ed. M. Delon (1990), p. 316
51. Hardy, Mes loisirs, BN MS Fr. 6684 p. 152 (2 May 1782)
52. F. M. Grimm, Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique (17 vols., 1813-14), xiii. 532
53. As a popular couplet of the epoch proclaimed, 'Dans [Chartres's] palais, dira l'histoire, "Il eut la foire, il eut la foire'": Bachaumont, Mémoires, xxviii. 30
54. and Mercier, Tableau, p. 315
55. N. M. Karamzin, Letters of a Russian traveller, 1789-1790, trans. F. Jonas (New York, 1957), p. 181. Although this letter was written in March 1790, the description is accurate for the Palais of the mid-1780s on
56. F. Mayeur de Saint-Paul, Tableau de nouveau Palais-Royal (2 vols., 1788) provides colourful descriptions of the palace's principal cafés and restaurants
57. Bachaumont, Mémoires, xxviii. 11 (4 Jan. 1785)
58. François Furet remarks that 'the only persons not allowed into the gardens were soldiers, servants in livery, and women in a bonnet or apron.' See Furet and D. Richet, French Revolution, trans. S. Hardman (1970), p. 62, as well as Isherwood's comments in Farce and fantasy, pp. 248-9
59. Mayeur de Saint-Paul, Tableau, ii. 113
60. Lettre écrite du Palais-Royal aux quatre parties du Monde (1785), p. 5
61. Isherwood comments that 'the society of the Palais-Royal was a genuine mixture of rank though probably dominated by the highborn': Farce and fantasy, p. 249
62. A. Williams, The police of Paris (Baton Rouge, La, 1979), p. 163
63. As a group of embittered competitors complained, reversing the metaphor, the Palais's illegal booksellers 'consum[ed] business in the capitol' 'like a sun sucking up water, leaving the plains desiccated': Remerciement des libraires de la rue S. Jacques à M. Necker, suivi de quelques autres pièces relatives aux circonstance (1789)
64. cited in C. Hesse, Publishing and cultural politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1810 (Berkeley, Calif., 1991), p. 37
65. G. A. Kelly, 'The machine of the duc d'Orléans and the new politics', J Mod Hist, 51 (1979), 667-84. Armstrong's article concentrates on the way in which Orléans employed 'massive wealth, research, and propaganda for the purpose of forming public opinion and swaying public policy' (p. 670)
66. Mayeur de Saint-Paul, Tableau, i. 193
67. G. Rudé, The crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford, 1959), p. 14
68. Lettre écrite du Palais-Royal, p. 10
69. Observations, p. 4
70. As Mona Ozouf notes, the entire eighteenth century was 'concerned with showing the influence of spatial configuration on public happiness', generating a mass of writings from reformists, urbanists, hygienists and architects. She adds that the 'belief in the educative potential of space . . . was so unquestioned that very little attempt was made to reveal the connections by which space might exert its educative influence over people's minds: it seemed to impose its power in a direct, unmediated way', quoting the abbé Brotier to the effect that when Julius Caesar wanted to change the form of government, he 'began with changes in the circus'. M. Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, trans. A. Sheridan (Cambridge, 1988), p. 126
71. e siècle (1981), pp. 46-7
72. Restif de la Bretonne, Le Palais-Royal (3 vols., 1790), I. Les filles de l'allée des soupirs, pp. 7-8. The allée des soupirs was an alleyway in the Palais-Royal frequented by prostitutes and patrons
73. Restif de la Bretonne, Le Palais-Royal, II. Les Sunamites, pp. 9-10 (emphasis added)
74. Restif de la Bretonne, Le Palais-Royal, i. 8
75. See Darnton's Édition et sédition, ch. 8, pp. 199-215 for a discussion of the underground literature linking the ancien régime elites to sexual transgression, cruelty, dissipation and corruption
76. Reflecting back on the Palais-Royal of the ancien régime. Mercier would later write in the Nouveau Paris (1798): 'Ainsi que la corruption du plus beau fruit commence par une pourriture légère, de même le Palais-Royal est la tache qui a corrumpu nos moeurs modernes et propagé la gangrène.' This extensive, vitriolic chapter links the Palais to the worst aspects of the Terror, calling it 'le fondateur réel des échafauds de Robespierre et du régime sanguinaire qui a tout à la fois opprimé et avili la nation': Mercier, Le Nouveau Paris, in Paris le jour, Paris la nuit, p. 425
77. Mercier, Tableau de Paris, p. 321
78. Lettres édifiantes du Palais-Royal par un Missionaire du camp des Tartares (1788), pp. 11-12
79. Young, Travels, p. 134
80. J. Egret, The French Prerevolution, 1787-1788, trans. W. D. Camp (Chicago, 1977), pp. 111-12
81. La Marie, Philippe Égalité, ch. 3, 'Le chef des enragés' (pp. 70-99), and pp. 121-2
82. Marie, Philippe Égalité, pp. 140-1
83. S. Schama, Citizens: a chronicle of the French Revolution (New York, 1989), pp. 370-2
84. Rudé, The crowd, p. 49
85. Le Palais-Royal érigé en temple du patriotisme et de la sagesse (Paris, 6 July 1789), pp. 1, 5
86. Ozouf, Festivals, p. 126