Philip Mazzei, the Pragmatic Propagandist Francesca Genesio Aix Marseille Université, LERMA, Aix-En-Provence, France When I

Philip Mazzei, the Pragmatic Propagandist Francesca Genesio Aix Marseille Université, LERMA, Aix-en-Provence, France When I embarked on the fascinating project of discovering Philip Mazzei, I was presented with the four volumes of his Recherches Historiques et Politiques sur les Etats-Unis de l’Amérique Septentrionale, which constitute his most ambitious work. Written in Italian between 1785 and 1787 during Mazzei’s second stay in Paris and translated into French for publication in 17881, the Recherches were originally intended as a refutation of Mably’s Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des Etats-Unis d’Amérique (1784) which Mazzei had already attacked in an earlier essay criticizing the Abbé’s lack of familiarity with all things American2. Mably had never been to America but was writing about the nascent republic’s history and constitutional laws with an air of authority that Mazzei had trouble accepting. His similar criticism of Raynal’s analysis of American history and institutions in his Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes brought Mazzei to extend his refutation to the work of the second Abbot as well. The necessity of ‘setting the record straight’ so as to provide European readers with what he believed to be an accurate account of America’s call for freedom expanded the work to include another two volumes dedicated to retracing the history of colonial America from its establishment to independence, and to discussing the state of affairs in contemporary American society by addressing a number of key issues such as paper money, national debt, commerce, immigration, slavery, the new Federal Constitution etc3. As I tried to define my approach towards the study of Mazzei’s work and influence, it appeared natural for me to begin with the Recherches, looking at how they relate to Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia; at how they fit in with the issue of the “Dispute of the New World” theorized by Gerbi4; at how they may have contributed to explain Mazzei’s vision of “republicanism”, seemingly close to the spirit of “1776”; and finally at how, through them, Mazzei may have played a role in the flow of revolutionary ideas across the “Atlantic Space” as theorized by scholars like Godechot, Palmer, Bailyn, Wood and Polasky5. 1 Filippo Mazzei, Recherches Historiques et Politiques sur les Etats-Unis de l’Amérique septentrionale (Paris : Froullé, 1788). Mazzei entrusted the translation of his Recherches to Louis Joseph Faure, a lawyer from Normandy. In his Memorie della vita e delle peregrinazioni del Fiorentino Filippo Mazzei, ed. Alberto Aquarone (Milano: Marzorati, 1970) 307, he recalls that Sophie Condorcet was not satisfied with the translation and asked Mazzei to allow her to rework on some chapters with her husband. The original Italian manuscript was never published and has been lost. 2 In a letter to James Madison, Mazzei mentions having written a confutation of Mably’s thinking for the press, but the document is not available. Filippo Mazzei, “To James Madison,” 14 August 1786, document 264 of Philip Mazzei: Selected Writings and Correspondence, ed. Margherita Marchione, vol.1 (Prato: Edizioni del Palazzo, 1983) 530. Mazzei retraces the genesis of his refutations of Mably in his Memorie as well. Mazzei, Memorie 302-305. 3 Mazzei, Recherches, vol. 4. 4 Antonello Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World: The History of a Polemic, 1750-1900, trans. Jeremy Moyle (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973). 5 Jacques Léon Godechot, Les révolutions (1770-1799). (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963) ; Robert R. Palmer and David Armitage, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 (Princeton, N.J.; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014); Bernard Bailyn. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005); Janet Polasky, Revolutions without Borders:The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015). Francesca Genesio Having advanced in my research, I find that my approach has shifted, mostly owing to the realization that while the Recherches remain Mazzei’s most important work, the essence of the man and his contribution to the spread of ideas to and from America or Europe cannot be understood by focusing on the Recherches alone. This is because, more than a theorist, Mazzei was actually a propagandist, which means that the intrinsic value of any one of his writings is inferior to the cumulative worth of his lifelong undertakings to defend and promote both the American cause and his own. To say it differently, there is both more and less to Mazzei than one might initially suspect. He is at once less of an original thinker and philosopher, and more of an impressively dedicated communicator; a worker ant or spider, tirelessly spinning a web of international connections across the Atlantic and using those ties in a very practical way both to advocate the political cause he had embraced upon settling in Virginia and to further his own position as a credible businessman, revolutionary patriot, intellectual, political analyst and diplomat. Using the prism of Mazzei as a “pragmatic propagandist”, I therefore plan to widen the scope of my research to Mazzei’s other writings, consisting of numerous gazette articles (often translated in different languages), of pamphlets and essays on different topics, as well as of his massive correspondence with notables on both sides of the Atlantic. In his later years, Mazzei also wrote his memoires (in Italian), providing us with an autobiographical restaging of his life that can be confronted and compared with the more immediate and piecemeal staging of his correspondence, conveniently collected and published chronologically by Margherita Marchione in the 3 volumes of her Philip Mazzei: Selected Writings and Correspondence6. Looking at these document, what I propose to do is offer three layers of analysis and interpretation. The first layer focuses on Mazzei’s contribution to the spread of enlightenment ideas as a “pragmatic propagandist”. In this section, I will argue that Mazzei was more of an Americanist than a universalist, meaning that his efforts at propaganda were aimed at upholding the American cause at different stages of its development rather than supporting revolutionary ideology at large. This will call attention to Mazzei’s preference for constitutional monarchy in Europe at the same time as he embraced a zealously republican stance in America. It will also lead me to draw a parallel with the other great “citizen of the world” of his time, Thomas Paine, whose attachment to the values advocated in his Rights of Man knew no borders or frontiers. A second level of analysis calls attention to Mazzei’s pragmatic furthering of his own position in the world. Associated with propaganda for the American cause is Mazzei’s propaganda of “self”, dictated by the necessity of establishing his credibility in the intellectual and diplomatic circles that his modest birth had not intended he should ever evolve in. Mazzei’s daily struggle for recognition on the revolutionary stage of the Atlantic world is also a daily struggle for economic and social survival, which gives the observer a precious insight into the experience of lived modernity from the point of view of an XVIIIth century ‘self-made’ diplomat. A third more tentative reading will try to look at the limits of Mazzei’s successful integration into the young republic’s political élite, underscoring his inability to move beyond the status of propagandist. While Mazzei’s own abilities could be partly at stake, it appears from several elements of his correspondence that the Florentine may have hit a sort of nativist glass ceiling, preventing him from occupying any position of diplomatic significance because of his foreign birth and status. One could then be tempted to question the extent of the United States’ commitment to the very principles of 6 Marchione’s collection, cited above, is non-exhaustive, but she also compiled a more exhaustive microform edition of Mazzei’s writings Margherita Marchione and Barbara Oberg, Philip Mazzei: The Comprehensive Microform Edition of His Papers, 1730-1816: Guide and Index (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus International Publications, 1982). 2 Francesca Genesio equality, inclusion and social mobility which people like Mazzei had ironically voiced their admiration for. For the purpose of today’s paper, I will focus on the first level of analysis, trying to define the notion of “pragmatic propagandist” and illustrate its relevance as a central narrative thread in Mazzei’s life and works. I will then present my preliminary ideas for the second and third levels of analysis, for which my research is still work in progress. The idea of presenting Mazzei as a propagandist is not new, and I certainly cannot claim ownership of it. Most scholars having dedicated some time to Mazzei have come to similar conclusions, expressed in different ways. In his book Les Révolutions, Godechot refers to Mazzei as one of the important European propagandists who, like La Fayette and Kosciusko, participated in the War of Independence, later returning to Europe to advocate the American cause7. In her 1965 publication Tra Riformismo Illuminato e Dispotismo Napoleonico, Sara Tognetti Burigana described Mazzei as a “knowledgeable organizer of an intense propaganda campaign in favor of the United States of America8.” Similarly, in the introduction to her monumental edition of Mazzei’s selected writings, Margherita Marchione writes, “Propaganda written from different points of view was an important part of the prerevolutionary debate, and Mazzei’s participation cannot be ignored.” She later adds, “Throughout the war and the peace negotiations Mazzei was a propagandist and a pamphleteer, and his exposition and translation of American ideals for a wide European readership was a contributing factor to the success of the American cause”.

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