Favier's heirs: The French revolution and the secret du roi

Historical Journal

Volumn 41, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 225-258

  Savage, Gary ^a  

^a Eton House   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 33750248219     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X97007711     Document Type: Article

References (256)

1. Albert Sorel, L'Europe et la Révolution Française (8 vols., Paris, 1885-1904).
2. Sorel's emphasis on the supposedly determinant influence of' national traditions' in history - notably the French drive for the 'natural frontiers' of the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrenees - was summarily criticized by Gaston Zeller in his essay 'Histoire d'une idee fausse', in idem, Aspects de la politique française sous l'ancien régime (Paris, 1964).
3. For the most recent study of the 'idée fausse' in question see Peter Sahlins, 'Natural frontiers revisited: France's boundaries since the seventeenth century', American Historical Review, 95 (1990).
4. Paul W. Schroeder, The transformation of European politics, 1763-1848 (Oxford, 1994), p.67.
5. Francois Furet, Revolutionary France, 1770-1880, trans. Antonia Nevill (Oxford, 1992), p. 101.
6. It is a position which Furet maintains in his article on 'Les Girondins et la guerre: les débuts de l'assemblée législative', in idem and Mona Ozouf, eds., La Gironde et les girondins (Paris, 1991).
7. The connection between Favier and the foreign policy of the French Revolution was originally adumbrated by Albert Sorel in the first, more speculative, part of his chef-d'auvre. This is the only volume to have been translated.
8. see idem, Europe and the French Revolution: the political traditions of the old regime, trans./ed. Alfred Cobban and J. W. Hunt (London, 1969), esp. pp. 336-43.
9. However, whilst Sorel was right to suggest that Favier's ideas helped to shape revolutionary foreign policy, he regarded them as a locus of continuity, when in fact they were quite as much the reverse. It is one of the central contentions of this essay that the ideas behind the secret du roi - like all the old regime ideas inherited by the Revolution - were not simply transplanted into the new political environment of the 1790s; they were transformed by it.
10. Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (10 vols., Geneva, 1781), x, pp. 108-9, 140.
11. Unless otherwise stated all translations are my own.
12. For two recent studies see Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and Manfred Tietz, eds., Lectures de Raynal: L'histoire des deux Indes en Europe et en Amérique au XVIIIe siècle (Oxford, 1991);.
13. Anthony Pagden, European encounters with the new world: from Renaissance to Romanticism (New Haven and London, 1993).
14. Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, x, p. 140.
15. See Theda Skocpol, States and social revolutions: a comparative analysis of France, Russia and China (Cambridge, 1979).
16. Her structuralist thesis is synthesized and developed in Bailey Stone, The genesis of the French Revolution: a global-historical interpretation (Cambridge, 1994).
17. The important notion that France's international decline after 1763 was in large measure responsible for giving the pre-revolutionary crisis its 'national-moralistic dimension' is developed in Theda Skocpol and Meyer Kestubaum, ' Mars unshackled: the French Revolution in the world-historical perspective', in Ferenc Feyèr, ed., The French Revolution and the birth of modernity (Berkeley, 1990).
18. I am grateful to Michael Sonenscher for helping to shed light on the économiste project. Nonetheless, the purview of this essay precludes anything more than a brief examination of their ideas; the best published account remains Georges Weulersse, Le mouvement physiocratique en France de 1756 à 1770 (2 vols., Paris, 1910).
19. For a satisfying study of Enlightenment responses to the problems of the states system see Felix Gilbert, To the farewell address: ideas of early American foreign policy (Princeton, 1961).
20. As David Hume declaimed in his essay Of public credit (1752):' Either the Nation must destroy Public Credit, or Public Credit will destroy the Nation.' This maxim is discussed in a recent article by Istvan Hont: 'The rhapsody of public debt: David Hume and voluntary state bankruptcy', in Nicholas Phillipson and Quentin Skinner, eds., Political discourse in early modern Britain (Cambridge, 1993).
21. The idea of the king of France as the universal monarch who could guide the other states of Europe towards this system of universal economic order was presented in Mirabeau's celebrated treatise, L'ami des hommes, ou traité de la population (Avignon, 1757).
22. In the event it was never published;.
23. the article 'Hommes' in François Quesnay et la physiocratie (2 vols., Paris, 1958), 11, pp. 511-73.
24. François Quesnay et la physiocratie , 2, 1958, Ibid. p. 521.
25. François Quesnay et la physiocratie , 2, 1958, Ibid. p. 522.
26. See D. B. Horn, 'The diplomatic revolution', in J. O. Lindsay, ed., New Cambridge modern history, vii (Cambridge, 1957).
27. See Derek McKay and H. M. Scott, The rise of the great powers, 1648-1815 (London, 1983), p. 105.
28. Stone, The genesis of the French Revolution, p. 31.
29. On the duc de Choiseul's ambitious plans for the navy see H. M. Scott, 'The importance of Bourbon naval reconstruction to the strategy of Choiseul after the Seven Years War', International History Review, 1 (1979).
30. Mémoire de M. de Vergennes à Louis XVI sur la situation politique de la France relativement à differentes Puissances. 1774', Archives Nationales (AN), Série K, vol. 164, no. 2.2, fo. 4.
31. Mémoire de M. de Vergennes à Louis XVI sur la situation politique de la France relativement à differentes Puissances. 1774, Série , 164, 2, Ibid. fo. 3.
32. Mémoire de M. de Vergennes à Louis XVI sur la situation politique de la France relativement à differentes Puissances. 1774, Série , 164, 2, Ibid.
33. For a concise summary of Vergennes's political principles - which goes so far as to suggest that his only aggressive ambition for France was sustained commercial expansion - see J.-F. Labourdette, Vergennes: ministreprincipal de Louis XVI (Paris, 1990), p. 268.
34. See also O. T., Murphy, Charles Grader, comte de Vergennes: French diplomacy in the age of revolution, 1719-1787 (Albany, 1982).
35. France's paltry gains from the war were secured at a frightful financial cost - a cost which the British seemed more than able to bear. Her rapid recovery after 1783 highlighted both France's domestic and international weakness, the first predicated on an outmoded constitution, the second on a detestable alliance.
36. See McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers, p. 265.
37. This separation between colonies and continent - and thereby between western and eastern Europe - has been emphasized in McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers , ibid. p. 215.
38. The best general account remains the due de Broglie, Le secret da roi: correspondance secrète de Louis XV avec ses agents diplomatiques, 1752-1774 (2 vols., Paris, 1878);.
39. see also the more recent if popularist Gilles Perrault, Le secret du roi (2 vols., Paris, 1992-3).
40. At Versailles the Revolution was orchestrated by the king's mistress Mme de Pompadour through her intermediary the abbe de Bernis, partly because of her distaste for Frederick the Great, but also in order to undermine the secret du roi into which she had never been fully admitted. Conti claimed that as a consequence of the Austrian alliance his work of a dozen years spent in cultivating the Poles and the Turks had been lost in a single day.
41. See Didier Ozanam and Michel Antoine, Correspondence secrète du comte de Broglie avec Louis XV (1756-1774) (2 vols., Paris, 1956-61), 1, pp. xxxix-xl.
42. McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers, p. 182.
43. Ozanam and Antoine, Correspondance secrete du comte de Broglie, 1, pp. li-lvi.
44. Ozanam and Antoine, Correspondance secrète du comte de Broglie, 1 Ibid. pp. lxi-lxii.
45. For the preliminary ideas of Broglie's new system see the ' Mémoire du comte de Broglie, sur la Paix du Nord, le Démembrement de la Pologne, et les suites que ces événements peuvent et doivent avoir sur le système politique de la France', reprinted in Louis-Philippe, comte de Ségur, ed., Politique de tous les cabinets de l'Europe pendant les règnes de Louis XV et de Louis XVI (3rd edn, 3 vols., Paris, 1802), 1, pp. 183-202.
46. The first edition of this collection of diplomatic pieces, originally edited by P.J. A. Roussel, was published in 1793.
47. Ibid. p. 196.
48. For a detailed account of Favier's life - though with little analysis of his ideas - see Jules Flammermont, 'J.-L. Favier: sa vie et ses écrits', La Révolution Française, 36 (1899).
49. Dictionnaire de biographic française, xiii, pp. 844-6.
50. Jean-Louis Favier, Doutes et questions sur le traité de Versailles du ier mai 1756 enlre le roi it I'imperalrice-reine de Hongrie, reprinted in Ségur, ed., Politique de tons les cabinets de I'Europe, 111, p. 252.
51. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tons les cabinets de I'Europe, 111, Ibid. p. 255.
52. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tons les cabinets de I'Europe, 111, Ibid. p. 256.
53. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tons les cabinets de I'Europe, 111. Ibid. p. 357.
54. Jean-Louis Favier, Conjectures raisonnées sur la situation actuelle de la France dans le système politique de l'Europe; et réciproquement sur la position respective de I'Europe à l'égard de la France; enfin, sur les nouvelles combinaisons qui doivent ou peuvent résulter de ces diffeŕrens rapports, aussi dans le système politique de l'Europe (16avril). Ouvrage dirigé par le comte de Broglie, executé par M. Favier, et remis à Louis XV dans les derniers mois de son règne, reprinted in Ségur, ed., Politique de tous les cabinets de I'Europe, 1-111.
55. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tous les cabinets de I'Europe, 1773, Ibid. 1, p. 216.
56. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tous les cabinets de I'Europe, 1773, Ibid, 11, pp. 63-4.
57. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tous les cabinets de I'Europe, 1773, Ibid. 1, p. 225.
58. Jean-Louis Favier , Politique de tous les cabinets de I'Europe, 1773, Ibid.
59. Despite the admonishments of the philosophes, foreign policy was retaining its traditional position of primacy in the hierarchy of eighteenth-century assumptions.
60. Ibid. p. 295.
61. For a. précis of Mably's life and ideas in English, see E. A. Whitfield, Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (London, 1930).
62. See also Keith Baker, 'A script for a French Revolution: the political consciousness of the abbé Mably', in idem, Inventing the French Revolution: essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century (Cambridge, 1990).
63. Gabriel Bonnot, de Mably, Principes des négotiations, pour sevir d'introduction au droit public de l'Europe, fondé sur les traités, reprinted in idem, Collection complète des æuvres, ed. Guillaume Arnoux and Peter Friedemann (15 vols., Aalen, 1977), v, p. 19.
64. Gabriel Bonnot, de Mably , Collection complète des æuvres, 15 vols, v, Ibid. pp. 19-20.
65. Gabriel Bonnot, de Mably , Collection complète des æuvres, 15 vols, v, Ibid. pp. 93-4.
66. Gabriel Bonnot, de Mably , Collection complète des æuvres, 15 vols, v, Ibid. p. 107.
67. Gabriel Bonnot, de Mably , Collection complète des æuvres, 15 vols, v, Ibid. pp. 37-46.
68. Favier, Conjectures raisonnées, in Ségur, ed., Politique de tous les cabinets de l'Europe, 111, pp. 24, 98.
69. Mably in fact would have agreed with this: 'It is ambition, greed, fear which have obliged all nations to seek out one another, and to request, refuse or grant one another assistance.' See Collection complète des æuvres, v, p. 11.
70. But while Mably aspired to transform this world, Favier sought only to triumph within it.
71. Ibid, 11, p. 369.
72. Ibid. p. 234.
73. See Flammermont, 'J.-L. Favier', p. 322.
74. Indeed, between 1774 and Favier's death ten years later he and Vergennes maintained a correspondence which is preserved in the Archives du minister̀re des affaires étrangères (AAE), Mémoires et documents (MD), série France, vol. 410. Part of this correspondence, which concerns Favier's difficulties with regard to the recognition of American independence, is reprinted as 'Polémique entre Favier et M. de Vergennes sur la légitimité de l'intervention françhise en Amérique, et la propagande à faire contre l'Angleterre', in Bernard Faÿ, V esprit révolutionnairc en France et aux Etats-Unis à la fin du XVllle siècle (Paris, 1925), pp. 333-44.
75. Rayneval was one of two premier commis at the department of foreign affairs; the other was Pierre-Michel Hennin. For the most recent treatment of the department's organization, see Jean Baillou, Les affaires étrangères et le corps diplomatique français (2 vols., Paris, 1984).
76. Gérard de Rayneval, ' Résumé de l'état actuel, relativement à la France, des cours et des pays qui sont dans mon département', AAE MD France 587, fo. 244.
77. The two imperial powers had signed a secret treaty of alliance in 1781 in order to further their mutual - and ultimately conflicting - desires for expansion. See McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers, pp. 232, 236.
78. See A. P. Stockley, 'Britain, France and the peace negotiations of 1782-83' (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, 1994).
79. See J. R. Dull, The French navy and American Independence: a study of arms and diplomacy, 1774-1787 (Princeton, 1975).
80. Although he was prepared to countenance closer commercial links, Vergennes was under no illusions as to the deep-seated hostility and the conflict of both political interests and national culture which underlay Anglo-French international relations.
81. See Jeremy Black, Natural and necessary enemies: Anglo-French relations in the eighteenth century (London, 1986);.
82. Frances Acomb, Anglophobia in France, 1763-1789: an essay in the history of constitutionalism and nationalism (Durham, N.C., 1950).
83. This was the celebrated ' Eden treaty' named after the British negotiator William Eden. See two articles by Marie Donaghay: 'Calonne and the Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1786', Journal of Modern History, 50 (1978);.
84. 'The marechal de Castries and the Anglo-French commercial negotiations of 1786-87', Historical Journal, 22 (1979).
85. Dupont's lengthy memoirs can be found in AAE MD Angleterre 65, 'Mémoires sur le projet du traité de commerce'.
86. Pierre-Samuel Dupont, de Nemours, 'Réflexions sur le bien que peuvent se faire réciproquement la France et l'Angleterre', AAE MD Angleterre 65, fo. 6.
87. These were ideas likely to appeal to Louis XVI who was convinced - following the strictures of Fénélon's Aventures de Télémaque - that justice and morality were the watchwords of political behaviour, and that France should be the just arbiter of Europe. It was these views which had led him to dismantle the secret du roi in 1774 and to accept the moderate Vergennes as his foreign minister.
88. See R. R. Crout, 'In search of a "just and lasting peace": the treaty of 1783, Louis XVI, Vergennes and the regeneration of the realm', International History Review, 5 (1983).
89. By this celebrated Fürstenbund Prussia became an effective guarantor of the 1648 settlement in Germany - a role traditionally played by France alone. Taken alongside Russia's adoption of that role by the treaty of Teschen in 1779 which ended the War of the Bavarian Succession, this represented a substantial blow to France's continental prestige.
90. See McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers, pp. 229-34.
91. Anon., 'Réflexions sur le traité de commerce à faire avec l'Angleterre', AAE MD Angleterre 65. fo. 337.
92. See Darline Gay Levy, The ideas and careers of Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet: a study in eighteenth-century French politics (Chicago, 1980), pp. 225-36.
93. Annates politiques, civiles et littéraires du dix-huitième siecle (19 vols., London etc., 1777-92), XI, p. 46 (London, 1784).
94. For the best available treatment of the crucial eighteenth-century background to this issue see K. A. Roider, jr, Austria's eastern question, 1700-1790 (Princeton, 1982), which focuses on Vienna's response to the dual problems of Ottoman decline and Russian growth in the states system.
95. Gérard de Rayneval, 'Motifs qui doivent déterminer le roi à s'opposer à la destruction de l'empire Ottoman; et indication des moïens à emploÿer pour rendre l'opposition de Sa Majesté efficace', AAE MD Turquie 15, fo. 32.
96. Gérard de Rayneval, 'Motifs qui doivent déterminer le roi à s'opposer à la destruction de l'empire Ottoman; et indication des moïens à emploÿer pour rendre l'opposition de Sa Majesté efficace'Ibid. fo. 37.
97. In this sense the argument presented here runs counter to Jeremy Black's recent caveat that one should not place undue emphasis on the attempts of governments to foster trade, something which' played only a minor role in French foreign policy'. Although traditional notions of military strength and territorial security were extremely important in contemporary assessments of political priority and the balance of power - especially after 1789 -to suggest that 'economic advantage played only a modest role in the competing currents of alliance diplomacy' is itself an exaggeration.
98. See idem, The rise of the European powers, 1679-1793 (London, 1990), p. 182.
99. The Encyclopedic méthodique was a best-selling enterprise undertaken by the publishing entrepreneur Charles-Joseph Panckoucke in the 1780s. Each volume was composed - with the help of unknown sub-contractors - by eminent contemporary experts. In this sense it was largely written by and for the middle and upper professional elites of late old regime France and tended to reflect their more mainstream opinions.
100. See Robert Damton, The business of enlightenment: a publishing history of the Encyclopédie, 1775-1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), ch. 8, 'The ultimate Encyclopédie'. I am grateful to Keith Baker for bringing this source to my attention.
101. Encyclopédic me´thodique: économic politique et diplomatique (4 vols., Paris and Liege, 1784-8), iv, p. 315.
102. Annates politiques, civiles et littéraires, xi, p. 53 (London, 1784).
103. Armand-Marc, conte de Montmorin de Saint-Hérem had been a menin in the royal household and Louis XVI's childhood companion. His devotion was rewarded with the French embassy in Madrid during the American war.
104. See Frédéric Masson, Le département des affaires étrangères pendant la Révolution (Paris, 1877).
105. Frédéric Masson, Le département des affaires étrangères pendant la Révolution, Masson described him as more like an intelligent premier commis than a minister - an opinion shared by many contemporaries in both politics and the press. See ibid, pp. 63-4.
106. See Simon Schama, Patriots and liberators: revolution in the Netherlands, 1780-1813 (2nd edn, London, 1992).
107. Alfred Cobban, Ambassadors and secret agents: the diplomacy of the first earl of Malmesbury at The Hague (London, 1954).
108. The French perspective has been recently treated by Munro Price in 'The Dutch affair and the fall of the ancien régime, 1784-1787', Historical Journal, 38 (1995).
109. For a recent study of the interplay between personal and political differences in the factional politics of the court - which reflected and intensified disagreements about foreign policy - see Munro Price, Preserving the monarchy: the comte de Vergennes, 1774-1787 (Cambridge, 1995).
110. See also idem, ' The comte de Vergennes and the baron de Breteuil: French politics and reform in the reign of Louis XVI' (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, 1989).
111. Vauguyon to Montmorin, 24 Sept. 1787, AAE CP Espagne 623, fo. 225.
112. Vauguyon to Montmorin 7 Oct. 1787, AAE CP Espagne 623, fo. 292.
113. 1787, AAE CP Espagne 623, Ibid. fos. 293-4.
114. In fact the result of three separate treaties between Britain and the Dutch; Prussia and the Dutch (both April).
115. Britain and Prussia (13 Aug. 1788).
116. See Black, The rise of the European powers, p. 145.
117. Annates politiques, civiles et littéraires, XIV, p. 30 (Brussels, 1788).
118. In reality, France's problems had begun with the death of Frederick the Great in August 1786. His successor, Frederick William II, was eager to emulate his illustrious predecessor, and abandoned the cautious policy of his final years in favour of a restless drive for acquisition and influence. At last the British were presented with something which the Franco-Austrian alliance and Prussian moderation had denied them since the end of the Seven Years War - a significant continental ally. The marriage was made in the Dutch republic - so recently wooed from its usual British partner - leaving France with nothing but an unpopular alliance which could no longer fulfil its intended purpose.
119. See also McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers, p. 269.
120. Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Point di banqueroute, ou letters à un créancier de Pétat, sur l'impossibilité de la banqueroute nationale, & sur les moyens de ramener le crédit et la paix (3rd edn, London, 1787), pp. 71-2.
121. The pamphlet was largely an attempt to warn against a state bankruptey on behalf of the due d'Orle´ans for whom Brissot was working and whose personal fortune would be blighted by the renunciation of the public debt.
122. See Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Mémoires (1754-1793), ed. Claude Perroud (2 vols., Paris, n.d.), 1, pp. 64, 69.
123. Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Mémoires (1754-1793), ed. Claude Perroud, 2 vols., Ibid. p. 102.
124. Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Mémoires (1754-1793), ed. Claude Perroud, 2 vols., Ibid. p. 136.
125. On the revolutionary rejection of traditional diplomatic methods and goals see Linda and Marsha Frey
126. , '"The reign of the charlatans is over. "The French revolutionary attack on diplomatic practice', Journal of Modern History, 65 (1993).
127. See Anon., Lettres d'un militaire, sur les changemens qui s'annoncent dans le système politique de l'Europe (Bouillon, 1787).
128. This pamphlet, consumed above all else by hatred for Britain, has been attributed to the French general E. P. S. Ricard. See A. A. Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, 2nd edn, II, p. 283. As Ricard was only born in 1771, however, this seems highly unlikely.
129. See M. Michaud, ed., Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne (45 vols., Paris, 1843-65), XXXV, p. 548.
130. Anon., 'Systeme politique de la France au-dehors', AAE MD France 587, fo. 231.
131. For a brief account of the queen's various attempts to influence French foreign policy in favour of Austrian initiatives - as well as the king's efforts to resist her.
132. see John Hardman, Louis XVI (New Haven and London, 1993), pp. 95-9.
133. For the wider context see the article by Lynn Hunt, 'Pornography and the French Revolution', in idem, ed., The invention of pornography: obscenity and the origins of modernity, 1500-1800 (New York, 1993).
134. See also her article 'The bad mother', in idem, The family romance of the French Revolution (London, 1992).
135. On the origins of the Austrian committee see the chapter 'Comite Autrichicn' in Augustin Challamel, Les clubs contrerevolutionnaires (Paris, 1895), pp. 524-5.
136. See for example Jean-Louis Carra, L'orateur des états généraux pour 1789 (3rd edn, Paris, 1789), pp. 28-9.
137. In fact, Peyssonnel's name was spelt in a variety of ways by contemporaries. For reasons of justice as well as clarity I have adopted a single spelling - the double 's' and double 'n' version he himself used in his letters and manuscripts. For those extant see Bibliothéque de l'lnstitut de France (BI), fonds Hennin, MS 1271, fos. 392-439.
138. Jean-Paul Marat, Le Junius François, 6, du mercredi 9 juin 1790, printed in idem.
139. æuvres politique 1789-1793, ed. Jacques de Cock et Charlotte Goëtz (10 vols., Bruxelles, 1991), II, pp. 850-1.
140. Michaud, Biographic universelle, XXXII, pp. 659-60.
141. Notably a lengthy commentary on a book by one of his former colleagues in the Levant, entitled Lettre de M. Peyssonnel, ancien consul géneral à Smyrne, ci-devant consul de S.M. auprès du khan des Tartares, à M.le marquis de N., contenant quelques observations relatives aux mémoires qui ont paru sous le nom de M. le baron de Tott (Amsterdam, 1785). On the roles of Tott and Peyssonnel in the French diplomatic corps.
142. see Murphy, Charles Gravier, pp. 78-80.
143. C. F. C. Volney, 'Considérations sur la guerre actuelle des Turcs (1788)', in idem, æuvres, deuxième édition complète (8 vols., Paris, 1825-6), 11.
144. Peyssonnel's response was entitled Examen du livre intitulé Considérations sur la guerre actuelle des Turcs, par M. Volney (Amsterdam, 1788).
145. The most impassioned defence of the Turks and attack on the Russians that Peyssonnel ever wrote appeared anonymously the following year, as Du péril de la balance politique de I'Europe, ou exposé des causes qui I'ont altérée dans le nord, depuis I'avénement de Catherine II au trône de Russie (London, 1789).
146. This pamphlet has also been attributed to Jacques Mallet du Pan, though his biographer believes it is in fact by Peyssonnel.
147. See Frances Acomb, Mallet du Pan (1749-1800): a career in political journalism (Durham, N.C., 1973), pp. 179-88.
148. In 1788-9 Mallet was being paid by the Swedish government to give Gustavus III a good press at Catherine II's expense in the Mercure de France; Acomb suggests that Peyssonnel was commissioned by Mallet to write the accompanying polemic, knowing his Russophobe reputation.
149. In the course of a lengthy correspondence with the premier commis Hennin which lasted many years, and which was rooted in their mutual passion for antiquities and membership of the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Peyssonnel wrote as follows: 'I owe you, Monsieur, the most humble and the most sincere thanks for the details which you have been able to give me on the current state of our negotiations for the opening of the Black Sea. I desire most ardently to be able to take up the position there that the maréchal de Castries has permitted me to hope for.'.
150. See Peyssonnel to Hennin, 25 May 1785, BI, fonds Hennin, MS 1271, fos. 407-8.
151. Although this ambition was never realized, the same motivation was doubtless behind the publication of his Traité sur le commerce de la Mer Noire (2 vols., Paris, 1787).
152. Claude-Charles de Peyssonnel, Situation politique de la France, el ses rapports actuels avec toutes les puissances de I'Europe: outrage dont l'objit est de démontrer, par les fairs historiques et les principes de la saine politique, tous les maux qu'à causés à la France l'alliance autrichienne, et toutes les fautes que le minister̀re françois a commises depuis l'époque des traités de Versailles de 1756, 57 et 58, jusqu'à nos jours (2 vols., Neufchâtel and Paris, 1789).
153. Ibid, II, pp. 191-2.
154. Ibid. I, pp. 15-16.
155. Ibid. pp. 79-80.
156. Ibid. p. 76.
157. Favier, Doutes el questions sur le traité de Versailles du ter Mai 1756 (new edn, 1789).
158. Favier, Doutes et questions sur le traité de Versailles du ter Mai 1756, Ibid. pp. 125-6.
159. See W. H. Sewell, Jr., A rhetoric of bourgeois revolution: the abbé Sieyes and What Is The Third Estate? (Durham and London, 1994), esp. pp. 67-72.
160. On Barnave's political economy, see Jaikumar Ramaswamy, 'Reconstituting the "liberty of the ancients": public credit, popular sovereignty, and the political theory of Terror during the French Revolution, 1789-1794' (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, 1995).
161. See also Emanuel Chill, ed., Power, property and history: Joseph Barnave's Introduction to the French Revolution and other writings (New York, 1971).
162. Antoine Barnave, De la Révolution et de la constitution, ed. Patrice Gueniffey (Grenoble, 1988), p. 180.
163. This is the title Barnave intended for that collection of notes and observations written in his prison cell in 1793, and more commonly known as the Introduction à la Révolution Française, a title invented by Bamave's first editor, Bérenger de la Drôme, in his æuvres de Barnave (4 vols., Paris, 1843).
164. Bérenger de la Drôme, in his æuvres de Barnave 4 vols., Ibid. pp. 177-8.
165. In particular the sections, the clubs, and the newspaper press. Amongst the most useful recent monographs are Jeremy Popkin, Revolutionary news: the press in France, 1789-1799 (Durham, N.C., 1990).
166. Carla Hesse, Publishing and cultural politics in revolutionary France, 1789-1810 (Berkeley, 1991).
167. above all Gary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins, and the French Revolution (Princeton, 1985).
168. Peyssonnel was one of the most strident early opponents of these claims, insisting that they had no basis either in natural or positive law. See his Mémoire sur les demandes et prétentions des divers princes d'Allemagne, qui ont des propriétés dans les provinces d'Alsace et de Franche-Comté. Adressé par M. de Peyssonnel à l'assemblée nationale, le 20 avril 1790 (Paris, 1790).
169. See also Pierre Muret, 'L'affaire des princes possessionnées d'Alsace et les origines du conflit entre la Révolution et l'Empire', Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 1 (1899-1900).
170. Whilst the Austrian committee certainly existed, centred around Marie-Antoinette, the baron de Besenval, the Austrian ambassador the comte de Merey-Argenteau, and numerous other adherents, the coalition of princes did not. The powers of Europe - not least the Austrians - held the émigrés in contempt, and had at this stage no intention of joining any hare-brained invasion.
171. See Challamel, 'Comité autrichien', p. 527.
172. Claude-Charles de Peyssonnel, Discours prononcé à l'assemblée de la société des amis de la constitution par M. Peyssonnel, le mercredi 10 mars 1790 (Paris, 1790).
173. printed in F.-A. Aulard, ed., La société des Jacobins: recueil de documents pour l'histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris (6 vols., Paris, 1889-97), 1, 17-28.
174. La société des Jacobins: recueil de documents pour l'histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris, 6 vols., 1889-97, Ibid. p. 26.
175. See for example Peyssonnel to Hennin, 28 July 1788, BI, fonds Hennin, MS 1271, fo. 427.
176. J.-A.-N., de Caritat, marquis, de Condorcet, Bibliothéque de l'homme public; ou analyse raisonnée des principaux ouvrages francois et étrangirès, sur la polique en général, la législation, les finances, la police, l'agriculture, & le commerce en particulière, & sur le droit natural & public. Par M. le marquis de Condorcet, M. de Peysonnel, M. le Chapelier, et autres gens de lettres (28 vols., Paris, 1790-2), iv, pp. 195.
177. In 1789 a Spanish fleet, determined to secure Spain's territorial monopoly in north-west America, seized four British ships and destroyed a British trading post established at Nootka Sound. The prime minister William Pitt demanded satisfaction from Madrid; and the Spanish foreign minister Floridablanca responded by invoking the third pacte de famille signed with France in 1761.
178. See H. V. Evans, 'The Nootka Sound controversy in Anglo-French diplomacy, 1790', Journal of Modern History, 46 (1974).
179. M.J. Mavidal and M. E. Laurent, eds., Archives parlementaires de 1787 à i860: recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des chambres francaises (127 vols., Paris, 1879-1913).
180. première série (1787 à 1799), xv, p. 662.
181. For the constitutional questions with which these debates were largely concerned see Barry Rothaus, 'The war and peace prerogative as a constitutional issue during the first two years of the Revolution, 1789-1791', 1st annual meeting of the Western Society for French History, 1974 (1974).
182. In this respect they were for once supported by Mirabeau. See Sorel, L'Europe et la Revolution Française, II, p. 94.
183. Pierre-Samuel Dupont, de Nemours, Le pacte de famille et les conventions subséquent, entre la France et l'Espagne, avec des observations sur chaque article (Paris, 1790).
184. The treaty was duly renounced and replaced by a. pacte nationals in August, with forty-five ships of the line armed in a show of strength. But it was too late; by the convention of San Lorenzo in October 1790 an embittered Spain was compelled to concede access to the north-west coastline and whaling rights in the Pacific to Britain.
185. See McKay and Scott, The rise of the great powers, pp. 270-1.
186. The Prussian King Frederick William II had wanted to dismember the Austrian monarchy, but his British allies were determined to maintain the new Emperor Leopold II in his possessions and keep the peace in Europe. Above all else they did not want an independent Belgium to fall into French hands. It was at this point that Prussia, infuriated by Britain, began to look to a rapproachement with Austria as a means to acquire territories at the expense of the Poles, or perhaps the French. The history of this rapproachement has been described as constituting in part the history of the war of 1792.
187. See T. C. W. Blanning, The origins of the French revolutionary wars (London, 1986), pp. 53-4, 81.
188. on the wider European context see idem, 'The French Revolution and Europe', in Colin Lucas, ed., Rewriting the French Revolution (Oxford, 1991).
189. Sorel, L'Europe et la Revolution Française, II, pp. 91-2.
190. Révolutions de Paris, p. 55, 24-31 July 1790, p. 105. The Austrian request excited a good deal of anger and xenophobia inside the assembly as well.
191. see AP, XVII, pp. 379-99. Moreover, the assembly's suspicion of the executive over this affair led to the creation on 29 July of a diplomatic committee to oversee the government's diplomacy and mediate between the foreign minister and the deputies. The first six members of this committee - dominated by Brissot in the legislative-were Mirabeau, Fréteau, Menou, Châtelet, d'André, and Barnave.
192. See Masson, Ledépartement des affaires étrangères, pp. 80-114.
193. Masson, Le département des affaires étrangères, p. 112.
194. Masson, Le département des affaires étrangères, Ibid. p. 116.
195. Dumouriez can be regarded as another of Favier's heirs. In the 1770s he had been caught up in the scandal known as I'affaire de la Bastille by which the due d'Aiguillon had sought to discredit his rival for the post of foreign minister, the comte de Broglie. Both Dumouriez and Favier were arrested in the course of this affair for their alleged role in secret negotiations with Prussia, and imprisoned together in the Bastille.
196. See Ozanum et Antoine, eds., Correspondance secrète du comte de Broglie, 1, pp. c-cv. Sorel went so far as to describe Dumouriez as Favier's pupil and his ministry in 1792 as an attempt to implement the ideas of the Conjectures raisonnées.
197. see L'Europe et la Révolution Francaise, II, pp. 404, 409.
198. Charles-François Dumouriez, 'Situation politique et militaire de la Confédération Belgique', AN F7 4691, plaq. 6, piéce 10.
199. Charles-François Dumouriez, 'Situation politique et militaire de la Confédération Belgique', Ibid. It has in fact been suggested that revolutionary foreign policy was entirely dictated by Dumouriez and his ambitious plan to create a democratic republic in Belgium.
200. see Patricia Howe, ' Charles-François Dumouriez and the revolutionising of French foreign affairs in 1792', French Historical Studies, 14 (1986).
201. Whilst Howe certainly exaggerates the importance of the 'Belgian plan' she is right to emphasize Dumouriez's influence on Brissotin foreign policy, especially in terms of his virulent hatred of Austria.
202. Annales politiques, civiles et littéraires, xvi, p. 354 n. 1 (Paris, 1790).
203. Je suis le véritable Père Duchesne, foutre!', [9], 1790: 'Great anger of Père Duchesne, against the former Prince de Condé who is preparing to enter France at the head of a foreign army and all the aristocrats.'.
204. See Franc7cedil;ois Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge, 1981).
205. Charles-Pinot Duclos, Mémoires secrets sur les règnes de Louis XIV et de Louis XV.
206. par feu M. Duclos, de l'Académic Francoise, Historiographe de France, & c (2 vols., Paris and Maastricht, 1791), II, pp. 299-305. In recognizing Duclos's importance Sorel overstated the role of the mémoires secrets in the spread of Austrophobia; although he had little time for the Habsburgs, Duclos - who had died in 1772 - reserved his real scorn for the rivalries within the French ministry which ruined what had been in his view a theoretically workable alliance.
207. See Sorel, The political traditions of the old regime, P-338.
208. Société des amis de la Constitution établie à Strasbourg le 13 janvier 1790 to Montmorin, 9 Feb. 1791, AAE MD France 648, fos. 5-6.
209. Le patriate françois, p. 683, 22 June 1791. On Brissot's early career as a revolutionary journalist.
210. see Kates, The Cercle Social; and Eloise Ellery, Brissot de Warville: a study in the history of the French Revolution (Boston and New York, 1915).
211. See Barnave to Marie-Antoinette, 25 July 1791, in Alma Söderhjelm, ed., Marie-Antoinette el Barnave. Correspondence secrète (Juillet 1791-Janvier 1792) (Paris, 1934), pp. 57-8. This was of course a role the queen was less than eager to play.
212. Marie-Antoinette el Barnave. Correspondence secrète (Juillet 1791-Janvier 1792) 1934, see Barnave's evident sense of frustration and helplessness in his letter of 14 Dec. 1991, in ibid. pp. 210-13.
213. The conflict between Brissot and Barnave and their respective conceptions of political economy and the constitution is one of the central themes in Ramaswamy, 'Reconstituting the "liberty of the ancients"', esp. pp. 127-35.
214. See also Anthony Pagden, Lord of all the world: ideologies of empire in Spain, Britain and France c. 1500-c. 1800 (New Haven and London, 1995). The whole gamut of Brissot's ideas may be found in his pamphlet, Leltre de J.-P. Brissot à M. Barnave, sur ses rapports concemant les colonies, les décrels qui les ont suivis, leurs consequences fatales; sur sa conduite dans le cours de la révolution; sur le caractère des vrais démocrates; sur les bases de la constitution, les obstacles qui s'opposent à son achèvement, la néeessité de la terminer promptement, etc (Paris, 1790).
215. On Brissotin motives see Blanning, The origins of the French revolutionary wars.
216. its sequel, The French revolutionary wars (London, 1996). For the most recent French treatment - which owes much to Blanning's work.
217. see Frank Attar, La Résolution Française déclare la guerre à l'Europe (Brussels, 1992).
218. Both subscribe to the view of Jean Jaurès that the Brissotins saw the war as 'a formidable manæuvre of domestic politics'.
219. See Jaurès, Histoire socialiste de la Révolution Française, II: La législative (1791-1792), ed. Albert Soboul (Paris, 1968), p.111. However, if the growing ideological division in Europe between old regime and Revolution was by no means a sufficient cause of war in 1792- Blanning's essential point-it was unquestionably a necessary one, as traditional interests were at once befogged and idealized by the development of revolutionary politics and ideas.
220. See Philip Schofield, 'British politicians and French arms: the ideological war of 1793-95', History, 77 (1992).
221. J. M. Welsh, Edmund Burke and international relations: the commonwealth of Europe and the crusade against the French Revolution (London, 1995).
222. See also Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Sur la néeessité d'exiger une satisfaction de l'empereur, et de rompre le traité du premier Mai 1756 (Paris, 1792).
223. Blanning, The origins of the French revolutionary wars, pp. 109-10.
224. Peyssonnel, Stituaiion politique de l'Europe, II, pp. 145-6.
225. Anon., Le secret de la coalition des ennemis de la Revolution Française (Paris, 1791).
226. Brun, de la Font, Lettre à M. Hérault, député à la prémière législative françoise, sur l'état et l'union politiques où la France et l'Europe doivent se placer et se maintenir, d'après la question que M. Isnard a proposée au corps législalif de faire au ministre des affaires étrangères: "La France a-t-elle toujours les me7circ;mes alliés, ou quels sont les nouveaux alliés que le roi s'occupe de lui procurer; si les françois ne peuvent compter sur ceux qu'ils avoient depuis long-temps (Paris, 1792), p. 17.
227. Ibid. pp. 29-31.
228. Although he did not cite Favier directly, when describing the ambitious character of Austria Brun de la Font did remark 'that the treaty of 1756, between France and Austria, according to the knowledge and analysis of it given by M. Peyssonnel, should be a modern proof of this fact'.
229. See p. 35 n. 2. Favier's most consistent publicist was also cited as an expert on international affairs in E. Daudibert Caille, ' Notes relatives aux intérets politiques et commerciaux de la nation francaise avec la nation espagnole', AAE MD Espagne 210, fo. 35.
230. AP, xxxvii, p. 492.
231. Ibid..
232. This crucial speech is also paraphrased in Blanning, The origins of the revolutionary wars, p. 107.
233. Procés-verbaux du comité diplomatique, 14 Mar. 1792, AN F7 4395, fo. 17.
234. Procès-verbaux du comité diplomatique, 17 Mar. to 30 Mar. 1792, AN F7 4395, fos. 19-21.
235. For several months Brissot had been getting increasingly frustrated with concilatory members of the committee like Koch, a sense compounded by the loss of his only ally in the ministry with the king's dismissal of Narbonne as war minister at the beginning of March; the impeachment of Delessart and the appointment of Dumouriez as foreign minister was intended to invigorate both the ministry and the committee in time for the final push towards war.
236. See Ellery, Brissot de Warville, pp. 244-5.
237. 'Mémoire sur la conduite de la maison d'Autriche à l'égard de la France', AN DXXIII/1, dossier 4, correspondance politique Vienne, pièce 11, fos. 1-14. These papers are mostly copies of the foreign minister's correspondence which were passed to the diplomatic committee. This piece, though unautographed, bears all the marks of Dumouriez's ideas and idiom.
238. 'Mémoire sur la conduite de la maison d'Autriche à l'égard de la France, Ibid. fo. 15.
239. See Kates, The Cercle Social, pp. 223-47.
240. Jean-Louis Favier, Observations de Favier sur la maison d'Autriche et particulièrement sur le traité de Versailles du Ier mai 1756 entre le roi et I'impératrice-reine de Hongrie (Paris, new edn, 1792).
241. Jean-Louis Favier, Observations de Favier sur la maison d'Autriche et particulièrement sur le traité de Versailles du Ier mai 1756 entre le roi et I'impératrice-reine de Hongrie, 1792, Ibid. pp. 3-4.
242. Jean-Louis Favier, Observations de Favier sur la maison d'Autriche et particulièrement sur le traité de Versailles du Ier mai 1756 entre le roi et I'impératrice-reine de Hongrie , 1792, Ibid. p. 4.
243. This fragment is in BI, papiers Condorcet, MS 863, fo. 12. Like many similar contemporary memoirs, it emphasized the need for more open government in view of the intrigues of the émigrés and the powers, and above all the need to weed out any old regime lackeys from the diplomatic corps who might seek to compromise the French nation in the service of the French court. For the dating of this piece.
244. see Léon Cahen, Condorcet et la Révolution Française (Paris, 1904), p. 298. For his conversion.
245. see Janine Bouissounouse, 'Condorcet, un pacifiste se jette dans la guerre', Guerres et paix, 2 (1966).
246. AP, xx, p. 83.
247. Indeed, publicists like G. J. A. Ducher called for an entirely commercial diplomacy.
248. See F. L. Nussbaum, Commercial policy in the French Revolution: a study of the career of G. J. A. Ducher (Washington, DC, 1923). On the various tensions in economic thinking in the period.
249. see William Scott, 'Commerce, capitalism and the political culture of the French Revolution', History of European Ideas, 11 (1989).
250. These are ideas developed in Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution.
251. See also Lynn Hunt, Politics, culture and class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1984).
252. Colin Lucas, ed., The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture, II: The political culture ofthe French Revolution (Oxford, 1988). For the most effective and balanced corrective to the equal excesses of this school and its detractors.
253. see Gwynne Lewis, The French Revolution: rethinking the debate (London, 1993).
254. The importance of Favier and the secret du roi to the foreign policy of the Revolution was recognized outside France.
255. see Edmund Burke, Letters on the proposals for peace with the regicide directory of France, esp. letter II, 'On the genius and character of the French Revolution as it regards other nations, 1796', in The works and correspondence of the right honourable Edmund Burke (8 vols., London, 1852), v, pp. 320-45, esp. 335 n. 5. This letter provides an impressively perceptive - if irredeemably prejudiced - analysis of French foreign policy in the eighteenth century.
256. AP, xxxiv, p. 316.