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ARISTOCRACY AND ITS ENEMIES IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION This page intentionally left blank ARISTOCRACY AND ITS ENEMIES IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION WILLIAM DOYLE 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © William Doyle 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Doyle, William, 1942– Aristocracy and its enemies in the age of revolution / by William Doyle. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–955985–5 (alk. paper) 1. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Social aspects. 2. Aristocracy (Political science)—France—History—18th century. 3. Nobility—France—History—18th century. 4. Aristocracy (Political science)—France—Public opinion—History—18th century. 5. Nobility—France—Public opinion—History—18th century. 6.France—Social conditions—18th century. 7. France—Intellectual life—18th century. 8.Public opinion—France—History—18th century. I. Title. DC158.8.D69 2009 944.04—dc22 2008053060 Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd., St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–955985–5 13579108642 Contents Preface vii List of abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1. Aristocracy Ascendant: The World of Eighteenth-Century Nobility 9 2. Ideologies of Inequality 37 3. Ageless Antagonisms: The Limits of Discontent 58 4. Aristocracy Avoided: America and the Cincinnati 86 5. Straws in the Wind: The Breakdown of the Old Order 138 6. Aristocracy Attacked: The Rise and Fall of the Noble Order 168 7. Aristocracy Abolished: The Destruction of Noble Power 204 8. Ci-devants, 1790–1792 239 9. Persecution, 1792–1799 274 10. Ambiguous Aftermaths 311 Select Bibliography 341 Index 357 This page intentionally left blank Preface The longest chapter in this book is about the Society of the Cincinnati. As originally conceived, nearly forty years ago, it was to have been a book in itself. But there was always something else to do, and as the years slipped by it came to seem like a project that would have to wait until retirement. Then, with retirement still some way off, I was unexpectedly invited to write my ‘dream book’, and realized that this was the moment. Sabbatical leave was due, and I was fortunate enough to spend some of it at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. There I researched the Cincinnati in depth, and wrote that chapter. I also came to recognize that there was not enough new material to merit a whole book. The controversy over the Cincinnati, however, was always chiefly significant as an episode in a much bigger story. The challenge to aristocratic rule in the world of Europe and its colonies was a development of world- historical significance, and one seldom seriously studied for its own sake. I decided, therefore, to embed my findings on the Cincinnati in a wider study of the most fundamental part of that challenge. Thus it grew into a book about the attempt of the French revolutionaries to abolish nobility entirely, comprising both its background and its consequences. What happened in America and France does not of course exhaust the subject. The challenge transcended frontiers and resonated in every corner of the European world. But the initial example came from the revolutionaries of America and France, and that is where the main focus of the book lies. Innumerable friends and colleagues have helped me throughout its long and unpredictable evolution. Initial interest in the Cincinnati was encouraged by the late George C. Rogers, Jr, pre-eminent historian in his day of South Carolina. The suggestion of writing the dream book came from Tony Morris, whose repeated involvement over the years in the history I have written has marked its whole course. The crucial sabbatical was engineered by Ian Wei; and Jonathan Israel and the Institute viii preface Members at Princeton in 2004 proved a rare stimulus. The staff of the Institute Library worked wonders in procuring rare books and documents. Nor could the Cincinnati chapter have been written so easily without access to the magnificent resources of the Firestone Library at Princeton University. Earlier versions of parts of the book were tested by debate in the seminars of David Bell at Johns Hopkins, Don Sutherland at the University of Maryland, Jean-Pierre Poussou at the Sorbonne (Paris IV), the Early Modern seminars at Oxford and at the Institute of Historical Research, London, and the history research seminars at the universities of Bristol and Sussex. Ploughing a parallel furrow, Hamish Scott has also been a never-failing source of ideas, suggestions, and opportunities. Another project, still hopefully far from completion, passes its fortieth anniversary this year. Over that time, Christine has been my frankest critic and my most unfailing support. Nothing can rob her of the most affectionate dedication yet. WD June 2008 Abbreviations AAE Archives des Affaires etrang´ eres` AmHR American Historical Review AP Archives parlementaires de 1787 a` 1860:Serie´ I, ed. J. Madival and E. Laurent, 90 vols. (Paris 1879-) Bachaumont [L.Petit de Bachaumont], Memoires´ secrets` pour servir a` l’histoire de la republique´ des lettres en France depuis MDCCLXII jusqu’anosjours` , 36 vols. (London 1780–9) Best. T. Besterman (ed.), Voltaire’s Correspondence and Related Documents, Definitive Edition, 50 vols., being vols. 85–135 of Complete Works of Voltaire (Geneva, Banbury, and Oxford, 1968-) BL British Library, London BN Bibliotheque` Nationale, Paris GWC Edgar Ansell Hume (ed.), General Washington’s Correspondence concerning the Society of the Cincinnati (Baltimore, 1941) Jefferson Papers Julian P. Boyd (ed.), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton, 1950-) JMH Journal of Modern History Moniteur L. Gallois (ed.), Reimpression´ de l’Ancien Moniteur, 29 vols. (Paris, 1840–5) SVEC Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century This page intentionally left blank Introduction ean-Baptiste Cloots was a Baron. He liked to call himself Baron of J Gnadenthal, or Val-de-Graceˆ in his preferred language, French. His family had been noble, he claimed, for more than 450 years, and had produced barons for five generations. Most of this was untrue.¹ Gnadenthal was in Cleves, a tiny German principality bordering on the Dutch Republic. Since 1666 Cleves had been ruled from Berlin by the Hohenzollerns. Cloots’s birth there made him a subject of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; but his family was of Flemish extraction and, until his father bought Gnadenthal in 1748, they had all been merchants in Amsterdam. The richest of them had died unmarried in 1747, leaving his fortune to Jean-Baptiste’s father, a great-nephew. He also bequeathed social ambitions. Although, and perhaps because, the King of Spain no longer ruled Flanders, he had been prepared in 1718 to recognize the Cloots family’s claims to old nobility. Five years later, Emperor Charles VI, who also had little to lose from the gesture, and plenty to gain from a new schedule of fees for the grant of titles,² awarded one of the family an imperial barony. When the new Baron died childless, the Emperor agreed (doubtless after the payment of further fees) to transfer the title to his elder brother, the benefactor of 1747. But that title died with him, and the acquirer of Gnadenthal had to solicit yet another from Empress Maria Theresia. It was only granted in 1756, a year before the birth of Jean-Baptiste. 1. Much of what follows comes from Roland Mortier, Anacharsis Cloots, ou l’Utopie foudroyee´ (Paris, 1995). 2. See Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780 (Cambridge, 2003), 280. 2 aristocracy and its enemies in the age of revolution The education of Jean-Baptiste was chosen to match the status to which his family aspired. Born a Catholic, he was sent first to a Jesuit college in Mons, and subsequently to the College` du Plessis in the heart of academic Paris. Here he rubbed shoulders with scholarship boys, but also with nobles of authentically ancient lineage, such as Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. He fell in love with Paris, but as a good Prussian subject completed his education from the age of fifteen with three years at the Military Academy in Berlin, recently founded by Frederick to turn young noblemen into officers. It did not work for Jean-Baptiste. He enjoyed the academic subjects (taught mostly in French) but he hated the military discipline.