A Transatlantic Friendship: the Close Relationship Between the Historians Georges Lefebvre and Robert R

••• ••• A Transatlantic Friendship: The Close Relationship between the Historians Georges Lefebvre and Robert R. Palmer

James Friguglietti

Professor of History Emeritus, Montana State University–Billings

Abstract • For some twenty years the historians Georges Lefebvre and Robert R. Palmer maintained a “transatlantic friendship.” Beginning with his translation of Lefebvre’s Coming of the French Revolution, Palmer became a close friend of his French colleague, providing him with much-needed food, books, and information. In return Lefebvre published articles written by his American friend in his journal Annales historiques de la Révolution française as well as off ered advice about his research. Thanks to their intellectual cooperation, the two advanced the study of the Revolution in their respective countries. Despite the considerable diff erences between their political outlooks—Lefebvre was a committed Marxist and Palmer was a liberal Democrat—the two men remained close friends until Lefebvre’s death in 1959. Much of this article is based on the recently published correspondence of Lefebvre with Palmer. Keywords • democratic revolution, French Revolution, historiography, Georges Lefebvre, Robert R. Palmer, transatlantic exchange

or nearly twenty years, two of the most prominent historians of the FFrench Revolution maintained what might be called a “transatlantic friendship.” The Frenchman Georges Lefebvre (1874–1959) and the Ameri- can Robert R. Palmer (1909–2002) devoted much of their careers to promot- ing the work of the other, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the period to which they devoted the greater part of their lives. Although they met only twice, the two historians exchanged a lengthy correspondence that reveals much about their scholarly activities as well as their personal lives. Reading what Lefebvre wrote to his American colleague offers insights about his thinking as well as personal information unavailable else- where. These twenty-three letters dating from 1948 to 1959—unfortunately those written between 1940 and 1948 are lost—have been published in the

Historical Refl ections Volume 37, Issue 3, Winter 2011 © Berghahn Journals doi: 10.3167/hrrh.2011.370305 ISSN 0315-7997 (Print), ISSN 1939-2419 (Online) Annales historiques de la Révolution française, now making them accessible to scholars.1 The infl uence of Lefebvre on Palmer’s own work predates their friendship. While teaching history at Princeton University, Palmer had already become familiar with Lefebvre’s work, having read La Révolution française, co-written with Philippe Sagnac and Raymond Guyot, fi rst published in 1930 and reissued in 1938, as well as Napoléon, published in 1935. The two volumes formed part of the “Peuples et Civilisations” collection issued by the Presses Universitaires de France.2 Thus infl uenced by Lefebvre’s earlier work on the Revolution, Palmer completed one of his major historical studies on the period. Published in 1941 and based on previously published documents and secondary sources held by the Princeton library, Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution remains a classic account of the Revo- lution at its apogee. Palmer later recalled that “around 1938 when he read certain pages written by Lefebvre,” he developed the idea of writing his own account of the Terror.3 The long and cordial friendship between the two men began in 1940. A few months after the outbreak of World War II, Palmer learned from his good friend and fellow historian of the Revolution, Leo Gershoy, that another volume produced by Lefebvre had appeared in 1939. “This book on 1789 [Quatre-vingt-neuf] was written by him for general readers in commemora- tion of the 150th anniversary of the French Revolution,” Palmer informed his good friend and publisher Alfred A. Knopf in May 1940. “I have not yet seen the book itself, but from talking with Mr. Gershoy about it I am persuaded that it would be well worth translating into English, more so, in fact, than his bigger book on the French Revolution.” To buttress his argument, Palmer declared that “Professor Lefebvre is the greatest living authority on the French Revolution … I should think it would be highly desirable to have some of his work available in English.” He concluded by remarking, “I can think of nothing more suitable than this sesquicentennial volume.”4 Early in June Palmer again wrote to Knopf, informing him that he had acquired an autographed copy of Quatre-vingt-neuf from Lefebvre himself. He lauded it as “an excellent account of the origins and beginning of the Revolu- tion.” Palmer declared it to be “better than anything I know in English on the causes of the Revolution.” He offered to send the publisher a copy of the translation of the introduction and conclusion that he had already completed.5 Soon thereafter, the German invasion, conquest, and occupation interrupted contact between Palmer and Lefebvre. In a letter that he wrote to Knopf on 19 June, Palmer spoke gloomily of the “impending destruction of France,” but added optimistically that, “we are undoubtedly on an upswing of emphasis on the foundations, historical and ideological, of democracy.”6 Whatever plans he had for completing a translation of Quatre-vingt-neuf were put aside, leaving Palmer to return to his own scholarship. Only after the Liberation did the collaboration of Palmer and Lefebvre resume. The fact that Quatre-vingt-neuf was never copyrighted in France

Friguglietti • A Transatlantic Friendship 57 helped to make a translation much easier, because no fees needed to be paid to the publisher, La Maison du livre français. Lefebvre himself remarked to Palmer that he had no fi nancial interest in the matter and had made a gift of the completed manuscript to the French government in memory of the men of 1789. Whatever proceeds might accumulate from the sale of the original version or from the translation would go to the Société des études robespierristes.7 With Lefebvre’s “cordial cooperation,” Palmer completed the translation by September 1947.8 Princeton University Press issued the translation, published under the title The Coming of the French Revolution, but without the eight black-and- white plates that had appeared in the French version, which had included a portrait of King Louis XVI and Jacques-Louis David’s sketch for the “The Tennis Court Oath.” Alternatively, Palmer’s volume provided a detailed index of people, places, and topics absent from Lefebvre’s original. He also added the complete text of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 in order to complement Lefebvre’s detailed analysis of that fundamental document. One feature of Palmer’s translation must not be overlooked. As early as June 1940, just as he was preparing a preliminary translation, Palmer de- cided to eliminate the fi nal two paragraphs of Lefebvre’s text.9 The precise reasons for this omission remain unclear. Perhaps he considered the prose far too nationalistic and emotional. Curiously Palmer never mentions this fact in his translation. Almost no one at the time seems to have realized this silent purge.10 Fortunately, more than a half-century since The Coming of the French Revolution fi rst appeared, Timothy Tackett, in his reissue of the volume, conscientiously restored them to their rightful place. They fully refl ect the intensity of Lefebvre’s Jacobin patriotism on the eve of World War II. Here are the fi nal paragraphs of Tackett’s 2005 version:

It is thus through a gross misunderstanding that the Declaration [of the Rights of Man and Citizen] has been portrayed as an invitation to a dull and mediocre life of material well-being; and that in order to strike it from the face of the earth, some people have tried to appeal to our youth and to their penchant for danger and action. Youth of 1939! The Declaration is also a tradition, a glorious tradition. Listen, as you read it, to the voice of your forefathers, to those who shouted “Long Live the Nation!” as they fought at Valmy, at Jemappes, and at Fleurus. They gave you freedom, a noble right that, in all the universe, only mankind can enjoy. They remind you that your fate is in your hands, and that the fu- ture of society depends on you alone. Be conscious of the danger. But since danger appeals to you, it should not make you shrink back. Consider the grandeur of your task, but also the dignity that this task bestows upon you. Would you renounce such responsibilities? Your ancestors have conﬁ dence in you. It is you who will soon be the Nation. Long Live the Nation!11 In the lengthy preface to his translation, Palmer introduced Lefebvre to his American audience. He presented a few biographical details concern-

58 Historical Refl ections • Winter 2011 ing the French historian and stressed his republican credentials. However, Palmer also emphasized his balanced approach to the study of the Revolu- tion, remarking that the volume “probably gives the best rounded picture of the Old Regime available in English since Tocqueville.”12 He praised Lefebvre for his deep understanding of French society, what Palmer styled his “exact perception of social classes,” particularly the peasantry.”13 When it appeared, The Coming of the French Revolution received near unanimous praise from American scholars. Reviewing it in The Nation, Crane Brinton observed that, “M. Lefebvre’s book is simply the best introduction to the study of the French Revolution available in English.”14 Leo Gershoy praised the work with similar enthusiasm. Writing in the New York Herald Tribune Book Review, he commented that, “in all respects this relatively brief study is a work of extraordinary merit and admirably presents the author to the American reading public.” Gershoy went on to say that Lefebvre dis- played “the virtues of great learning gracefully worn; psychological fi nesse; keen appreciation of the role of personality and of the infl uence of chance; … compassion for the unfortunate, and a magnifi cent talent for lucid and vigorous expression of balanced judgments.”15 Not all reviewers of Palmer’s translation were as ecstatic, however. Writ- ing in the Journal of Modern History in May 1949, John Hall Stewart damned it with faint praise. Stewart lauded Lefebvre as the “most distinguished living authority on the French Revolution” and observed that he “tells a good story” in recounting the events of 1789. He then observed that the French historian “tells little that has not already been told.” Stewart also remarked that Lefebvre pays “too much attention to detail in so small a book,” adding that Lefebvre “has never gained fame for brilliant writing” and that “any one of a half-dozen young American scholars could have written the volume more brilliantly.” Concerning Palmer’s translation, Stewart noted that it was “sound and provocative, but seldom inspired.” He did praise Lefeb- vre’s conclusion concerning the Declaration of the Rights of Man as “really inspired.”16 When he read Stewart’s review Lefebvre became quite irritated. In a letter to his friend Palmer written in June 1949, the French historian remarked sarcastically that, “I have seen in the Journal of Modern History that all your colleagues are not happy that you have translated me. The critic considers that I have said nothing that has not been known before and, moreover, that America does not lack historians who would have done at least as well as I, and who are far more brilliant writers in English than I, a Frenchman.” He concluded the letter coldly by saying that he would not reply, relying on Palmer to judge Stewart’s views.17 In addition to personal pique, Lefebvre sensed a more sinister side to Stewart’s review. “Obviously,” he declared, “the author sensed Marxism [in the book] and I would be very angry—not to be listed on the roster of those people who would be denied entry into the United States, for I am too elderly to undertake the trip—but to learn that you are being made

Friguglietti • A Transatlantic Friendship 59 responsible for my opinions.”18 No doubt to the surprise and pleasure of Lefebvre, Palmer, and the Princeton University Press, The Coming of the French Revolution became something of a best seller. Princeton University Press’s sale of the paperback rights to the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, a good friend of Palmer, who issued it in 1957 under the Vintage imprint, guaranteed its wider readership and availability. Its cover bore a striking illustration drawn by the radical artist Ben Shahn depicting a prisoner breaking the bars of his prison cell. In his obituary of Lefebvre, written in collaboration with Leo Gershoy and Beatrice Hyslop, Palmer revealed that since 1947 some 40,000 copies of the English translation had been published, in both hard cover and paperback editions.19 Between 1967, when Princeton fi rst produced its own paperback edition, and 1971, an additional four printings occurred.20 A new edition, prepared by Timothy Tackett, appeared in 2005, further demon- strating its staying power. What made this small volume so successful in America? First, it became a frequently assigned textbook in numerous college and university courses throughout the country. Lefebvre’s straightforward style, brevity, and care- ful organization made it easily readable. In addition, a scholarly apparatus was absent. Lefebvre inserted only one footnote in his text and this to ex- plain that the National Assembly in 1789 had no stenographers to record the exact words spoken by the deputies.21 Nor was a scholarly bibliography added that would have made the book seem too forbidding. It should not be forgotten that the original French version, Quatre-vingt-neuf, had been written for the general French public to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Revolution, and not for a narrow academic one.22 Equally important, Palmer’s smooth translation made it quite accessible to a wide undergraduate audience. Lefebvre was particularly gratifi ed that his volume had done so well in America. As he wrote to Palmer on 5 July 1948, “I have been quite pleased with the welcome that your translation has received.” But he then added “Much less has been spoken about my book in France than in the United States. One is never a prophet in one’s own country!”23 Only in 1970, long after Lefebvre’s death, did his student Albert Soboul reissue the book in France, using a photo offset process to reprint the original text. He added a preface and a postlude, written by himself, which discussed Lefebvre and his work and described the place of the Revolution in world history. In effect Soboul sandwiched his mentor’s prose between two slices of his own. The success of Lefebvre’s volume in the United States stands in marked contrast to its fate in France itself. According to Palmer, after the fall of France in 1940, the reactionary Vichy regime destroyed some 8,000 copies of the original French edition.24 For her part Beatrice Hyslop, writing in an obituary of Lefebvre, repeated this fi gure, but blamed the destruction on the German occupier. She declared that, “about 200 copies were preserved from Nazi destruction.”25 However, Quatre-vingt-neuf does not appear on the

60 Historical Reﬂ ections • Winter 2011 Liste Otto issued by the Germans in 1940, forbidding the sale of undesirable volumes by French publishers and booksellers.26 Both Palmer and Hyslop also overlooked the fact that in 1949 and again in 1957, advertisements for Quatre-vingt-neuf appeared on the back cover of Lefebvre’s journal Annales historiques de la Révolution française, indicating that many copies must have survived the war. The success of The Coming of the French Revolution cemented the friendship between the two scholars. Palmer, who had joined Lefebvre’s Société des études robespierristes in 1945, frequently submitted articles and copies of his writings to Lefebvre’s journal. In 1946 Lefebvre reviewed, some- what critically, Palmer’s study Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France, originally published in 1939.27 In subsequent issues of his journal, Lefebvre frequently cited Palmer’s articles that appeared in various Ameri- can journals. For his part, Lefebvre repeatedly asked Palmer questions about English- language sources that he needed to update his volume on Napoleon, which eventually appeared in 1953. For example, he inquired about citing a volume written by Thurman W. Van Metre, Economic History of the United States, and another by Chester W. Wright bearing the same title.28 Lefebvre regularly asked about books that he had seen mentioned in American journals but was unable to locate in France.29 During the 1950s Palmer commenced work on his examination of what he styled “The Age of the Democratic Revolution.” This study emerged from his and Jacques Godechot’s exposition of the “Atlantic Revolution,” a wide- ranging thesis they had expounded at the 1955 meeting of the International Congress of Historical Sciences held in Rome. Palmer wrote a lengthy letter to Lefebvre outlining his arguments and outlook for what would become the ﬁ rst volume of this two-volume work. In reply, the Frenchman produced a lengthy discussion of the Atlantic revolution thesis, of which he seems to have approved. Lefebvre discussed at length the meaning of the word “democracy” and outlined its development in France since the Revolution.30 Since 1789, he explained to his American colleague, French politics had been dominated largely by the bourgeoisie. This class had employed elec- tions in two or more stages to guarantee that the “notables” rather than the people controlled the government. Although the Third Republic was supposedly founded on universal suffrage, the Senate remained conservative because it continued to be elected in stages, a guarantee that the notables rather than the people dominated the government of the Republic. Though supposedly based on universal suffrage, he continued, the Senate remained in conservative hands because it was elected in stages.31 Lefebvre then went on to assure Palmer that his article dealing with the social composition of the Left during the Constituent Assembly in 1791 would appear in the Annales historiques de la Révolution française, which it did in 1959.32 Besides contributing to Lefebvre’s journal, Palmer also sent his French colleague packages of food when many commodities were scarce and ex-

Friguglietti • A Transatlantic Friendship 61 pensive in his country. “I don’t know how to thank you properly for your concern in supplying me with food,” Lefebvre wrote in April 1948. “Please accept my gratitude.”33 Palmer also arranged to have the Princeton Univer- sity Press forward copies of its publications to him, so that he could keep up with the literature on the Revolution at a time when most French libraries did not have these on their shelves.34 In return Lefebvre would personally review them in his journal. The close friendship and collaboration between the two scholars seems all the more remarkable because of the considerable differences in their political outlooks. Palmer, for his part, never seems to have openly discussed his political views. Virtually the only mention of his party affi liation appears in the entry he contributed to Contemporary Authors in 1965. In a paragraph dealing with his education and family, he simply indicated “Democrat.”35 Palmer’s student Isser Woloch, in an obituary that reviewed Palmer’s long, productive career, declared that throughout his writings “all his own char- acter was refracted—his independence of mind, his American style pragma- tism, and his abiding respect for liberal-democratic values.”36 For his part, Lefebvre, who sympathized with the Revolution and held Robespierre in the highest esteem, remained far to the left politically. Ac- cording to his student Albert Soboul, Lefebvre had been a socialist ever since the Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (French Socialist Party) had been established. His loyalty to the moderate socialism of Jean Jaurès led him to examine the works of Karl Marx. “Without adopting all of Marx’s views,” Soboul continued, Lefebvre stressed the richness of Marxist thought as a method of research.”37 Moreover, thanks to the four volumes on the Revolution that Jaurès contributed to the Histoire socialiste, Lefebvre could envisage the Revolution as a series of class confl icts that originated in economic and social conditions. But unlike his famous predecessors, Alphonse Aulard and Albert Mathiez, he preferred to examine agrarian problems, most notably in his doctoral dissertation Les Paysans du Nord (1924) and his Questions agraires au temps de la Terreur (1932). During the 1930s, when the world economic crisis began to affect France, Lefebvre became increasingly interested in the problem of social classes and class confl ict. His Quatre-vingt-neuf clearly demonstrates this. Following World War II, no doubt infl uenced by the role communists had played in the French Resistance and the decisive victories that the Red Army had won over Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe, Lefebvre moved closer to the Com- munist Party, although he never formally joined it. According to Richard Cobb, “Lefebvre said he would never become a member of the Communist Party because he did not want some semi-educated, semi-illiterate militant … coming to tell him what to do.”38 However, Lefebvre did serve on the editorial board of La Pensée, a monthly journal to which prominent Party intellectuals in all fi elds contributed. And when Lefebvre died, the Party newspaper L’Humanité published his photo on its front page, as well as a detailed account of his life written by Jean Mas-

62 Historical Reﬂ ections • Winter 2011 sin, a Party-line historian. Lefebvre, he declared, “was perhaps the greatest French historian of our day.”39 In the same memorial issue of the Annales historiques de la Révolution française to which Gershoy, Hyslop, and Palmer contributed, a student of Lefebvre, René Garmy, commented that he “had never made any secret of his admiration for Lenin nor his sympathy for the international communist movement.” Garmy quickly added, however, that Lefebvre’s “intelligence was too subtle, too demanding for him to yield to dogmatism, to fanaticism, to accept without reservations a doctrine no matter how seductive it was.” Garmy declared that Lefebvre found Marxism a useful doctrine for analyzing social and economic questions, and that his Marxist outlook convinced him that Western capitalism was “irrevocably doomed.”40 This assertion is conﬁ rmed by Lefebvre’s occasional references to economic crises taking place in the West in his letters to Palmer. Writing to his American friend in January 1949, for example, he commented that, “it’s being said here … that the economic crisis is beginning to develop in Amer- ica. By the decline in the stock market most notably. As I’ve told you, it’s this crisis that I fear principally because the unemployed can easily be persuaded that a war would provide them with work. We too are beginning to see the number of unemployed increase and this does nothing to improve our outlook.”41 As late as May 1958 Lefebvre could write that, “we are also greatly preoccupied with your ‘recession,’ for a crisis in the United States would impact us and the entire world.”42 It should be noted that in everything that Palmer wrote about Lefebvre’s life and work, he never mentioned the elderly historian’s gloomy prognostications about the impending decline of the West. Perhaps he never took them seriously, because the non-communist world continued to thrive after brief economic downturns. Besides their ideological differences, which did not interfere with their friendship and admiration, their family life and health also deserve to be ad- dressed. Palmer wed Esther Howard in 1942 and they enjoyed a long, happy marriage. The couple, who remained together until Palmer’s death sixty years later, produced three children: Stanley, Richard, and Emily. Palmer regularly kept his French colleague informed concerning his children’s prog- ress. In June 1949, Lefebvre concluded a letter by sending his greetings to Mrs. Palmer, adding, “I’m sure that your children continue to grow to your satisfaction.”43 Lefebvre seemed quite impressed by his American friend’s domestic happiness, especially when a daughter was born to the couple in 1951. “I hope that she is growing up peacefully,” he wrote. “Your sons should begin to interest a teacher considerably. But what a task for their mom and dad! I raised only two daughters,” he recalled. “So I know your concerns.”44 At Christmas of that year, when Palmer sent him a photograph of his three offspring, Lefebvre cooed, “They seem prosperous to me. Harmony visibly reigns among them, and the youngest happily completes the trinity.”45 The French historian might well have envied Palmer’s bliss because his own family life proved far from joyous. Richard Cobb remarked that, “Lefeb-

Friguglietti • A Transatlantic Friendship 63 vre had married twice, both times disastrously.”46 His fi rst wife was a Belgian woman, whom he wed in 1899 and by whom he fathered two daughters during the years he taught at Cherbourg. He later wrote to Palmer that family responsibilities had caused him “many torments.”47 He divorced her in 1919 because, while he was away from his home in Lille doing his military service and then teaching in various provincial lycées, his wife had remained in the Nord under German occupation. Lefebvre believed that during that time she had consorted with the occupier. He remarried in 1920, but had no more children. His second wife, an invalid, died in December 1941.48 During the late 1940s and 1950s Lefebvre’s letters to Palmer are fi lled with references to his elder daughter Marie-Louise-Victorine and her declin- ing health. She suffered from a heart ailment that eventually took her life on 14 June 1953.49 According to Richard Cobb, Lefebvre deeply lamented her loss, which “removed the last vestige he ever had of a family life. … I have no more friends, only my papers remain to me.” “He was a very lonely old man,” Cobb recalled.50 Thereafter, Lefebvre lived alone in his home in sub- urban Boulogne-Billancourt, with only his elderly housekeeper Jeanne to tend to his needs. However, a steady stream of visitors, such as his students Soboul and Cobb as well as American scholars such as Palmer, came to visit him and discuss their work. As Beatrice Hyslop observed, “A generation of American historians of the French Revolution … went to see him and have sent their students.”51 During these same years Lefebvre’s health remained rather precarious. Regularly his letters to Palmer described his various illnesses and suffering. In January 1949, for example, he spoke of his lung congestion. “Fever and sul- familimides have plunged me into a stupor for a rather long time. I am beginning to recover my senses, but I still lack strength.”52 Later that same year he informed his American friend of a case of bronchitis and his doctor’s orders to remain indoors. “The worst is the depression that has halted my work for two months.”53 At the end of 1951 he lamented to Palmer that he had suffered from a depression “that interrupted [his] work for several weeks.”54 In the spring of 1954 the depression that followed his daughter’s death and his own overwork led his physician to confi ne him to bed and “absolute rest.” This meant no visitors, no letter writing, and (perhaps worst for the scholar) no reading. Lefebvre was required to take drugs and injections. This restric- tive treatment lasted some three months. As part of his cure, Lefebvre spent several days in a nursing home located near Nîmes in southern France.55 In early 1956 the elderly scholar fell down the staircase in his home, which had recently been polished, forcing him to suspend his work completely.56 The fi nal and saddest letter that Lefebvre sent to Palmer was posted in July 1959, about a month before the historian died. It was written in reply to Palmer’s request for details concerning Lefebvre’s career, providing information that the American scholar needed for an article he was preparing. Suffering from a variety of ailments, Lefebvre complained that it had taken him two days to write the two-page missive. “[My] energy has disappeared and work is im-

64 Historical Refl ections • Winter 2011 possible for me.” The eighty-fi ve-year-old concluded by saying that he could not continue because he lacked the physical strength.57 Most of the detailed material that Lefebvre transmitted to Palmer in his fi nal letter appeared in an article entitled “Georges Lefebvre: The Peasants and the French Revolution,” published in the Journal of Modern History in December 1959.58 This article represents the longest and most insightful examination of the French scholar’s life and work. Originally intended as a discussion of Lefebvre’s study of the peasantry, it became an extended obituary. Palmer reviewed Lefebvre’s academic career and his long, slow rise to preeminence as an historian of the Revolution. He then summarized his French colleague’s publications in agrarian history, providing a lengthy, detailed analysis of Les Paysans du Nord, Lefebvre’s massive doctoral dissertation originally published in 1924 and reissued in 1959 in a new edition without the notes and bibliography.59 Palmer warmly praised him for his extensive and meticulous research in the archives, as well as for his extensive insights into the class structure of northern France and the peasants’ outlook on the land and attitudes toward the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. As Palmer concluded, Lefebvre “idealizes neither the peasantry nor the Revolution, nor does he suppose that the Rev- olution was altogether successful.”60 According to Palmer, Lefebvre fi rmly believed that the Revolution “did destroy the seigneurial and aristocratic order” and “introduced a more liberal and modern form of society.”61 The American historian, no specialist in such questions, seemed genuinely awed by Lefebvre’s considerable achievements as a specialist in agrarian history. As Palmer explained, his article served not only as a “tribute to [Lefebvre’s] career and work,” but also as a memorial to the man.62 The following year, along with his colleagues Gershoy and Hyslop, Palmer contributed a highly reverent obituary of Lefebvre to the memorial issue of Lefebvre’s Annales historiques de la Révolution française. The three historians recalled their various contacts with the French scholar and summarized his extensive infl uence on numerous other American specialists. “Many Americans knew [him] and had great affection for him,” they declared. “Still more numerous are those who read his work with admiration and were infl uenced by it.” The trio listed the many scholars from all over the United States who had fallen under his infl uence, directly or indirectly. “For Americans,” they continued, “the revolutionary era of the eighteenth century has a special signifi cance, and with the death of Lefebvre, we rec- ognize that a great period in the study of this period has reached its end.” They recalled how, on his eighty-fi fth birthday, American historians had for- warded the expression of their esteem and admiration, and had received a moving reply of thanks. Lefebvre, they concluded, had retained the attention and won the affection of American historians. “The scholarly world has lost a master, and many among us a beloved friend.”63 Certainly the long and close friendship between Palmer and Lefebvre proved mutually benefi cial. Lefebvre’s works inspired Palmer’s own produc-

Friguglietti • A Transatlantic Friendship 65 tion, notably Twelve Who Ruled, while as editor of Annales historiques de la Révolution française he helped to bring the American’s writings to the attention of an international audience. For his part, Palmer’s translation of Qua- tre-vingt-neuf after World War II helped to introduce the then little-known French scholar to a wide Anglo-American readership. It certainly made him a familiar name among American undergraduates, to whom the book was frequently assigned in classes dealing with the Revolution. Lefebvre, it should be noted, never sought personal gain from the royalties that the translation generated.64 On a more personal level, Palmer generously provided valued food, books, and information to the elderly historian, in addition to sympathy at a time when his physical decline and family problems were increasing. Whatever the personal political differences that may have existed between them, they remained good friends. Although the two historians met only twice during their lengthy careers, thanks to their regular correspondence and the close collaboration that it chronicles, their scholarly lives become permanently and productively intertwined. The Frenchman and the American truly enjoyed a transatlantic friendship.

Appendix: The Publishing History of Quatre-vingt-neuf and The Coming of the French Revolution

1. Georges Lefebvre’s Lectures at the Sorbonne: a. La Révolution française (i): La Révolution aristocratique (Paris: Centre de documentation universitaire, n. d. [1938]). [Les Cours de Sorbonne], 176 pp. b. La Révolution française (ii): La Révolution de 1789 (Paris: Centre de documentation universitaire, n. d. [1939]). [Les Cours de Sorbonne], 143 pp. 2. Quatre-vingt-neuf (Paris: Maison du livre français, 1939), 252 pp., 8 plates. 3. The Coming of the French Revolution, trans. R. R. Palmer (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1947), 233 pp. Preface by Palmer, pp. vi–xvii. Index, pp. 225–233. 4. The Coming of the French Revolution, trans. R. R. Palmer. Paperback edition (New York: Vintage Books, 1957), 191 pp. Index, pp. i–x. Cover art by Ben Shahn. 5. Quatre-vingt-neuf (Paris: Éditions sociales, 1970), 307 pp., 8 plates. Pref- ace, pp. vii–xxviii (“Georges Lefebvre: historien de la Révolution française, 1874–1959”) and Postlude pp. 249–303 (“La Révolution française dans l’histoire du monde contemporain”) by Albert Soboul. 6. The Coming of the French Revolution, Bicentennial edition (Princeton: Prince- ton University Press, 1989), 235 pp. Translator’s preface by R. R. Palmer, pp. vii–xix. New appendix, “Other Books by Georges Lefebvre,” p. 223. Index, pp. 227–235. 7. Quatre-vingt-neuf (Paris: Messidor/Éditions sociales, 1989), 307 pp. Avant- propos, pp. vii–xix by Claude Mazauric. New Preface, pp. vii–xxviii (“Georges

66 Historical Reﬂ ections • Winter 2011 Lefebvre: Historien de la Révolution française, 1874–1959”) by Albert So- boul. 8 plates [Collection du bicentenaire de la Révolution française]. 8. The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), 235 pp. Revised edition with new introduction by Timothy Tackett, pp. vii–xxx. Translator’s 1988 Preface, pp. xxxiv–xxxix. Appendix, “Other Books by Georges Lefebvre,” p. 223. [First Princeton Clas- sic Edition.] Tackett’s introduction provides an excellent study of Lefebvre as an historian of the French Revolution as well as a discussion of recent trends in revolutionary historiography.

Notes

1. The letters from Lefebvre to Palmer have been published by James Friguglietti, “Georges Lefebvre: Pour le cinquantième anniversaire de sa mort. La Corre- spondance de Georges Lefebvre avec Robert R. Palmer (1948–1959),” Annales historiques de la Révolution française [AHRF] 81 (2009): 93–132 (hereafter “La Correspondance”). 2. Austin, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Re- cords, Correspondence, ﬁ le 12.15, R. R. Palmer to Alfred A. Knopf, 4 March 1940. Hereafter referred to by letter. 3. Leo Gershoy, Beatrice F. Hyslop, and Robert R. Palmer, “Georges Lefebvre vu par les historiens des États-Unis,” AHRF 32 (1960): 105. 4. Palmer to Knopf, 22 April 1940. 5. Palmer to Knopf, 6 June 1940. 6. Palmer to Knopf, 19 June 1940. 7. Lefebvre to Palmer, 20 October 1948 and 30 October 1949 in “La Correspon- dance,” 102, 106. 8. Georges Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution, trans. R. R. Palmer (Prince- ton, NJ, 1947), xvii. 9. Palmer to Knopf, 19 June 1940: “The last two paragraphs of the book, it seemed to me, might well be omitted from an English version, though possibly, in view of the present catastrophe, they might be put in.” 10. Beatrice Hyslop noted this omission in her article “Georges Lefebvre Historian,” French Historical Studies 1, no. 3 (1960): 279. 11. Georges Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolution, ed. Timothy Tackett (Prince- ton, NJ, 2005), 218. In his introduction to the text, Tackett provides an excellent study of Lefebvre as an historian of the Revolution as well as a discussion of recent trends in Revolutionary historiography. 12. Lefebvre, Coming, 1947, xiii. 13. Ibid., xiv. 14. Crane Brinton, The Nation, 20 March 1948, 328. 15. Leo Gershoy, New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, 7 March 1948, 6. 16. John Hall Stewart, Journal of Modern History 21 (1949): 60–62. 17. Lefebvre to Palmer, 18 June 1949 in “La Correspondance,” 104–105. 18. Ibid., 105. 19. Gershoy et al., “Georges Lefebvre,” 106. 20. Lefebvre, Coming, 1947, ﬁ fth hard cover printing, xiv.

Friguglietti • A Transatlantic Friendship 67 21. Ibid., 88n. 22. Quatre-vingt-neuf (Paris, 1939) was based largely on two series of lectures that Lefebvre presented at the Sorbonne in 1938 and 1939: La Révolution aristocratique and La Révolution de 1789, both published for students by the Centre de documentation universitaire. These two publications, poorly printed on cheap paper, contained neither footnotes nor bibliography. This explains why the volume issued to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Revolution lacks both. Palmer seems to have been unaware of these antecedents of Quatre-vingt-neuf. 23. Lefebvre to Palmer, 5 July 1948, in “La Correspondance,” 99. 24. Lefebvre, Coming, 1947, vi. 25. Hyslop, “Georges Lefebvre,” 279. She speaks of the “Nazi order to destroy the volume.” 26. For a list of more than a thousand publications written by German émigrés, Jews, and opponents of the Third Reich, which were forbidden to be sold by French publishers and bookshops during the Occupation, see Liste Otto: The Ofﬁ - cial List of French Books Banned under the German Occupation, 1940, a facsimile of the Harvard copy, with a preface by Natalie Zemon Davis (Cambridge, MA, 1992). 27. See, for example, Lefebvre’s review of Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth- Century France, in AHRF 18 (1946): 170–171. 28. Lefebvre to Palmer, 4 November 1950, in “La Correspondance,” 111. 29. See, for example, Lefebvre to Palmer, 2 September 1950, in “La Correspon- dance,” 109–112, in which he inquires about two volumes published in America during World War II. 30. Lefebvre to Palmer, 4 May 1955, in “La Correspondance,” 124–26. For Gode- chot’s description of the presentations on the “Atlantic Revolution” that he and Palmer gave in Rome, see his “Le Xe Congrès international des sciences historiques,” AHRF 28 (1956): 104–105. 31. Lefebvre to Palmer, 27 July 1958, in “La Correspondance,” 127. 32. R. R. Palmer, “La Composition de la Gauche sous la Constituante,” AHRF 32 (1959): 154–156. 33. Lefebvre to Palmer, 29 April 1948, in “La Correspondance,” 97. 34. Lefebvre to Palmer, 5 September 1948, in ibid., 100. 35. See his autobiographical entry in Contemporary Authors, 13–14 (Detroit, 1965), 333. 36. Isser Woloch, “Robert R. Palmer,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 148, no. 3 (2004): 398. 37. Albert Soboul, “Georges Lefebvre, historien de la Révolution française, 1874– 1959,” AHRF 32 (1960): 3. 38. Richard Cobb, “Georges Lefebvre Jacobin,” Listener, 18 July 1974, 90. Cobb adds that “But as far as I know, he always voted PCF.” 39. “Le Professeur Georges Lefebvre n’est plus,” L’Humanité, 29 August 1959, 1–2. 40. René Garmy, “Georges Lefebvre et l’homme (Souvenirs),” AHRF 32 (1960): 83. 41. Lefebvre to Palmer, 18 June 1949, in “La Correspondance,” 105. 42. Lefebvre to Palmer, 4 May 1958, in ibid., 126. 43. Lefebvre to Palmer, 18 June 1949, in ibid., 105. 44. Lefebvre to Palmer, 3 September 1951, in ibid., 115. 45. Lefebvre to Palmer, 26 December 1951, in ibid., 116. 46. Richard Cobb, “Georges Lefebvre,” in A Second Identity: Essays on France and French History (London, New York, and Toronto, 1969), 86.

68 Historical Reﬂ ections • Winter 2011 47. Lefebvre to Palmer, 3 September 1951, in “La Correspondance,” 113. 48. For details of Lefebvre’s personal life, see Christophe Charle, ed., Les Professeurs de la Faculté des lettres de Paris, vol. 2, Dictionnaire biographique, 1909–1939 (Paris, 1986), 130. 49. Lefebvre to Palmer, 22 June 1953, in “La Correspondance,” 118. 50. Cobb, “Georges Lefebvre,” 86. 51. Gershoy et al.,“Georges Lefebvre,” 106–107. 52. Lefebvre to Palmer, 23 January 1949, in “La Correspondance,” 103. 53. Lefebvre to Palmer, 30 October 1949, in ibid., 106. 54. Lefebvre to Palmer, 26 December 1951, in ibid., 116. 55. Lefebvre to Palmer, 1 June 1954, in ibid., 119–120. 56. Lefebvre to Palmer, 6 February 1956, in ibid., 121. 57. Lefebvre to Palmer, 1 July 1959, in ibid., 130. 58. R. R. Palmer, “Georges Lefebvre and the Peasants ,” Journal of Modern History 31 (1959): 329–342. 59. Ibid., 334–342. 60. Ibid., 339. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid., 329. 63. Gershoy et al., “Georges Lefebvre,” 107–108. 64. Lefebvre to Palmer, 20 October 1948, 18 June 1949, 30 October 1949, in “La Correspondance,” 102, 105, and 106.

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