The French Emigres in Europe and the Struggle Against Revolution, 1789-1814

The French Émigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814 Edited by

Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel

THE FRENCH ÉMIGRÉS IN EUROPE AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST REVOLUTION, 1789–1814

Also by Kirsty Carpenter * REFUGEES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: Émigrés in London 1789–1802

Also by Philip Mansel LOUIS XVIII PILLARS OF MONARCHY: Royal Guards in History, 1400–1984 SULTANS IN SPLENDOUR: The Last Years of the Ottoman World THE COURT OF FRANCE, 1789–1830 LE CHARMEUR DE L’EUROPE: Charles-Joseph de Ligne CONSTANTINOPLE: City of the World’s Desire, 1453–1924

* from the same publishers

The French Émigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814 Edited by

Kirsty Carpenter School of History, Philosophy and Politics College of Humanities and Social Sciences Massey University Palmerston North New Zealand

and

Philip Mansel The Society for Court Studies London

First published in Great Britain 1999 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0–333–74436–5 First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0–312–22381–1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The French émigrés in Europe and the struggle against revolution, 1789–1814 / edited by Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–312–22381–1 (cloth) 1. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Refugees. 2. Political refugees—Europe—Conduct of life. I. Carpenter, Kirsty, 1962– . II. Mansel, Philip. DC158.F74 1999 944.04'086'91—dc21 99–20923 CIP Selection and editorial matter © Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel 1999 Chapter 1 © Philip Mansel 1999 Chapter 3 © Kirsty Carpenter 1999 Chapter 7 © Lord Mackenzie-Stuart 1999 Chapters 2, 4–6, 8–14 © Macmillan Press Ltd 1999 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 08

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Contents vii ix x xv

List of Plates Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction by William Doyle 1

2

3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11

From Coblenz to Hartwell: the Émigré Government and the European Powers, 1791–1814 Philip Mansel

1

A European Destiny: the Armée de Condé, 1792–1801 Frédéric d’Agay

28

London: Capital of the Emigration Kirsty Carpenter

43

French Émigrés in Hungary Ferenc Tóth

68

Portugal and the Émigrés David Higgs

83

French Émigrés in Prussia Thomas Höpel

101

French Émigrés in Edinburgh Lord Mackenzie-Stuart

108

Le milliard des émigrés: the Impact of the Indemnity Bill of 1825 on French Society Almut Franke

124

French Émigrés in the United States Thomas C. Sosnowski

138

The Émigré Novel Malcolm Cook

151

Danloux in England (1792–1802): an Émigré Artist Angelica Goodden

165

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13

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Index

Contents The Image of the Republic in the Press of the London Émigrés, 1792–1802 Simon Burrows

184

Burke, Boisgelin and the Politics of the Émigré Bishops Nigel Aston

197

‘Fearless resting place’: the Exiled French Clergy in Great Britain, 1789–1815 Dominic Aidan Bellenger

214 230

List of Plates 1

2

3

4

5

Henri-Pierre Danloux, Monsieur, Comte d’Artois. (Private collection) Painted at Holyroodhouse in 1796, this portrait was engraved for distribution as propaganda. Monsieur was leader of the extremist wing of the émigrés until his return to France in 1814. His residence in Edinburgh was described as ‘the honour of the nobility’. Henri-Pierre Danloux, Mgr de la Marche, Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon, 1797. (Private collection) The Bishop was the leading figure in French émigré charities, as the letters and lists of subscribers scattered on and around his desk suggest. Danloux was a royalist who emigrated in 1792 to London, where he lived until his return to Paris in 1802. His diary is a valuable account of émigré life in London. Henri-Pierre Danloux, Lady Jane Dalrymple Hamilton as Britannia. (Private collection) As this picture suggests, French émigré artists were not ashamed to commemorate victories over the French republic. At the sitter’s feet a British lion is pawing the flag of the French ally, the Batavian republic, in celebration of the British victory, under the command of the sitter’s father, Admiral Duncan, over the Dutch fleet at Camperdown in 1797. Mme. Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of Count Stroganov as a child. (Collection Tatiana Zoubov) Mme. Vigée Le Brun, a favourite artist of Marie Antoinette, emigrated in 1791 and earned large sums painting portraits of members of royal and noble families in Vienna, Naples, Saint Petersburg and London until her eventual return to France in 1804. Sophie de Tott, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. (Private collection) Although this print shows Condé as an émigré leader fighting on the continent, it was engraved (by F. Bartolozzi RA) and published by the artist herself in London in October 1802, a year after the final disbandment of the armée de vii

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6

7

8

List of Plates Condé, and Condé’s arrival in England. The inscription below the portrait gives all the prince’s Ancien Régime titles: ‘Prince de Condé, Prince du Sang, Pair et Grand Maître de France, Colonel Général de l’infanterie Française et étrangère, Gouverneur et Lieutenant-Général pour le Roi dans la province de Bourgogne, etc. etc. etc.’ François Huet Villiers, Louis Antoine Henry de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien, 1804. (Private collection) As the funeral urn above the prince’s head indicates, this print was published in London in 1804 to mourn the Duc d’Enghien’s kidnapping and execution on the orders of Napoleon I. Enghien was Condé’s grandson and had fought in the armée de Condé. François Huet Villiers, Louis XVIII, 1810. (Private collection) Huet Villiers, who lived in London from the beginning of the revolution until his death there in 1813, painted this portrait of Louis XVIII, at Hartwell in 1810. This engraving, published by Colnaghi of Bond Street, was distributed from 1812 for purposes of propaganda. Mlle de Noireterre, The Comte de Langeron, 1814. (Private collection) Born in Paris in 1763, a colonel in the French army by 1788, Langeron had joined the Russian service in 1790, fought in the armée des Princes in 1792 and subsequently served in the Austrian army before rejoining the Russian service. He rose to be a Count and a general and fought against the French Empire at Austerlitz and in the campaigns of 1812–14. For his successful command of the allied assault on Montmartre on 30 March 1814, he was made a Knight of the Order of Saint Andrew. Instead of staying in France, he remained in Russian service as Military Governor of south Russia and the commander and chief of the Don Cossacks.

Acknowledgements The editors would like to acknowledge the very generous support they have received from the Institut Français in London, which provided a venue for the 1997 conference ‘Les Émigrés Français en Europe 1789–1814’, where all the contributions in this volume originated. A second conference on 2–4 July 1999 will also take place there continuing the work begun in 1997 towards a wider picture of Emigration in Europe during the French Revolution. A further conference is planned, for Paris in the year 2002, to mark the anniversary of the return of the vast majority of émigrés from exile. Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel would particularly like to thank all the participants at the first conference for their interest and enthusiasm, which made the event a memorable experience for all involved. A special thanks also goes to Kimberly Chrisman for her behindthe-scenes work. Finally, we would like to thank Tim Farmiloe and Macmillan Press for their support and recognition of the importance of the Emigration in its European context.

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Notes on the Contributors Frédéric d’Agay is an independent historian. Born in 1956, he is the author of Les grands notables du Premier Empire, Var (1987) and Cháteaux et Bastides de Provence (1991), and a specialist on the history of the French nobility in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He has published editions of the Lettres d’Italie of the Président de Brosses (1986) and the Mémoires of the Baron de Frenilly. He collaborated in the Dictionnaire Napoléon (1988) and the Dictionnaire du Grand Siècle (1990). He received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1996 for his thesis ‘Les officiers de marine provençaux au XVIIIième siècle’. Nigel Aston is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Luton. His first book, French Revolution and Religion in France, 1780–1804 will appear in 1999. He is the editor of Religious Change in Europe, 1650–1914 (1997) and he works on Church– state relations at the end of the Ancien Régime. Simon Burrows is Lecturer in History at Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand. He has published several articles on the press of the London émigrés and his first book, Princes, Press and Propaganda: French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792–1814, is due to appear in 1999. He is currently working on the Ancien Régime journalist, Charles Theveneau de Morande. Dominic Aidan Bellenger is a member of the community at Downside Abbey in Bath. He has published widely on the subject of the French émigré priests and their leaders La Marche and Carron who came to Britain during the Revolution. He is the author of The French Exiled Clergy in the British Isles after 1789 (1986). He is an Associate Lecturer of the Open University and regularly teaches at Bath Spa University College and at the University of Bristol. Kirsty Carpenter is Lecturer in European History in the School of History, Philosophy and Politics at Massey University, x

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New Zealand. Her first book was Refugees of the French Revolution: Emigrés in London, 1792–1802 (1999). Her specialist interests focus on the political literature of the French Revolution. She is currently working on Marie-Joseph Chénier, a member of the Convention and the Revolution’s official poet. Malcolm Cook is Professor of Eighteenth-Century French Studies in the School of Modern Languages at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Fictional France: Social Reality in the French Novel, 1775–1800 (1993) and he is co-editor of Modern France: Society in Transition (1998). He is currently working on a critical edition of the correspondence of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. He is the General Editor of the Modern Languages Review and serves on the editorial teams of many other scholarly reviews. William Doyle has been Professor of History at the University of Bristol since 1986. A Fellow of the British Academy, he has also taught at the Universities of York and Nottingham. He is the author of The Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989). Among his other publications are Origins of the French Revolution (1980, 3rd edition, 1999), and most recently, Venality: the Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-Century France (1996). He is currently working on a volume on France 1763–1848 in the Oxford History of Modern Europe series. Almut Franke is Assistant Lecturer at the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität in Munich. Her Doctorate on the subject of ‘Le Millard des Emigrés’ entitled Die Entschädigung der Emigration im Frankreich der Restauration (1814–1830) will be published in 1999. She has written on the subject of the 1825 indemnity law in the area of Bordeaux and has contributed to two major publications on relations between France and Germany during the Revolution. Angelica Goodden is a Fellow and Tutor in French at St Hilda’s College Oxford. Her most recent book is a biographical study of Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun, The Sweetness of Life. Other publications include Action and Persuasion: Dramatic Performance in Eighteenth-Century France and The Complete Lover: Eros, Nature and Artifice in the Eighteenth-Century French Novel.

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Thomas Höpel is Lecturer in the Centre of French Studies at Leipzig University. He works on Franco-German relations in the eighteenth century and has published on refugees and exiles during different waves of emigration between the two countries in the modern period. He was the co-organiser of a conference, ‘Emigrés and Refugies. Migration zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland in der frühen Neuzeit’, which took place on 13–15 June 1997. David Higgs is Professor of History and Fellow of University College at the University of Toronto. His books include Ultraroyalism in Toulouse from its Origins to the Revolution of 1830 (1973), A Future to Inherit: the Portuguese Communities of Canada (1976), an edited book, Church and Society in Catholic Europe of the Eighteenth Century (1979) and Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France: the Practice of Inegalitarianism (1987). His work combines French and Portuguese interests. His latest book, a volume of gay history entitled Queer Sites, will appear in 1999. Lord Mackenzie-Stuart practised at the Scots bar until 1792 when he was appointed judge of the Court of Session, Scotland’s supreme court. He was the first British judge at the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Luxembourg in 1973 and its President 1984–88. On retirement he lectured widely and acted as arbitrator in international commercial disputes. He was awarded the Prix Bech for services to Europe, 1989, and is the author of A French King at Holyrood. He shares his time between his native Scotland and his home in France. Philip Mansel is an historian of courts and royal dynasties and editor of The Court Historian, newsletter of the Society for Court Studies. He is the author of biographies of Louis XVIII and the Prince de Ligne and his other published works include Sultans in Splendour: the Last Years of the Ottoman World and Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, 1453–1924. He is currently working on a history of Paris from 1814 to 1848. Thomas Sosnowski is Associate Professor of History at Kent State University, Stark Campus in Canton, Ohio. He has published articles on revolutionary Europe, émigrés and exiles and has given papers regularly at the conferences run by the

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Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, the Society for French Historical Studies and the Western Society for French History. As well as his European interests he is actively involved in local American history. Ferenc Tóth is Lecturer in History and Head of the French Department at Berzsenyi Daniel College in Szombathely (West Hungary). He completed his Doctorate at the Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne in 1996. His research interests focus on Hungarian immigration to France and Turkey in the eighteenth century and the interplay of the themes of oriental despotism, Enlightenment and nationalism in Hungarian history.

Voyager est, quoi qu’on puisse dire, un des plus tristes plaisirs de la vie. (Mme de Staël, Corinne, 1807) . . . la grande figure de l’Emigré, l’un des types les plus imposants de notre époque. Il était en apparence faible et cassé, mais la vie semblait devoir persister en lui, précisément à cause de ses mœurs sobres et ses occupations champêtres. (Balzac, Le Lys dans la Vallée, 1835)

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Introduction William Doyle Political exile is as old as history; but the émigré was a creation of the French Revolution. Unlike the British Jacobite exiles, who offered a recent parallel, those who left France during the Revolution were not simply motivated by loyalty to a deposed dynasty. Almost a third of those who left France went before the fall of the monarchy.1 Nor were they ‘constructively’ expelled for one overwhelming reason, like the Huguenots, who had outnumbered them a century previously. The Emigration began as a voluntary exodus, and until late in 1791 official policy was to urge the exiles to return. Later, indeed, their numbers were swelled by deportees and fugitives from revolutionary laws, who had little or no alternative to leaving. The causes of emigration evolved and expanded with the course of the Revolution itself. But, at whatever point they chose, or were compelled, to leave the land of their birth, émigrés were people unable to live with the France the Revolution had made. Emigration reflected the comprehensiveness of this revolution of a new type, that left no aspect of life, and no area of society, untouched. In so far as subsequent revolutions have measured their ambitions by this one, émigrés have become a recognised feature of modern political life. The word had entered the English language by 1792.2 By the end of that year the French Revolution, anti-noble almost from the start, had also turned anti-clerical, anti-monarchical and (with the September massacres) terroristic. It was therefore scarcely surprising that at least two-thirds of those who had left the country by the time of the king’s death were either nobles or clerics. It seems likely that many of the rest were dependent in some way on these two categories. These were the émigrés of legend. As with the noble victims of the Terror, the sight of the formerly mighty brought low has marked the conventional picture of the emigration ever since. But in 1951 the legend was challenged by Donald Greer, with statistics which showed incontestably that most emigration took place after 1792, and that the vast majority of those leaving were not xv

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members of the former privileged orders. Most were ordinary people fleeing from the consequences of civil war. The official lists which were Greer’s main source made no distinctions as to their motivation. All had emigrated, all were subject to the same penalties. But it is perfectly clear that the faceless majority were not exiles in the same way as the nobles and clerics. They would be much more accurately described in recent terms as refugees or displaced persons. True émigrés had acted on principle – however self-interested. Most had been persons of authority before 1789, and had turned their backs on a revolution which had diminished or dispossessed them. Whatever the intrinsic human importance of the humble, unsung majority officially categorised as émigrés, those who gave the word its distinctive subsequent meaning would have acknowledged little in common with them. Legend still comes closer to defining the essence of emigration than the administrative categories of revolutionary officials. Yet legends also distort; and the main purpose of the pages that follow is to shed a less partial light on the lives and behaviour of a group too often reviled or admired uncritically. Some of this new light, it is true, tends to confirm old stereotypes. Little in these essays offers us a prospect of émigrés less snobbish, quarrelsome or Francocentric in their attitudes than has always been perceived. Nor is their melancholy stoicism in adversity, endless capacity for hoping against hope, and dogged loyalty to ideals in any way diminished. The geography and chronology of emigration is not much modified either. Great Britain, so close and yet so impregnable beyond the sea, was ultimately the most favoured destination [Carpenter]. Of more distant refuges, only the United States, Sweden and Denmark were not reached sooner or later by the armies of the republic or the usurper; so continental émigrés were almost always having to move out of danger. And while émigré numbers, even among nobles and clergy, continued to expand down to 1794, by the time the official list of émigrés was closed in 1799, thousands had already returned, and thousands more would do so as it became clear that Bonaparte had restored a world of stability, hierarchy and religious observance, even if there was not a Bourbon to preside over it. Louis XVIII and his family, in fact, were the only émigrés for whom returning to France was not an option between 1799 and 1814. Ironically that strengthened

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his diplomatic position. From 1807 he was an honoured and subsidised (if none-too-hopeful) guest in Great Britain rather than the helpless fugitive, not just from France, but sooner or later from other states too, that he had been for most of the time since 1791. In this, Louis XVIII had shared the fate of most of those who did not cross the Channel to cluster in genteel penury in Soho or Marylebone. For governments generally found in the presence of émigrés grounds for suspicion, irritation or embarrassment. After all, they were the original casus belli in 1791–2. Any ruler who lent them too visible hospitality risked antagonising a republic that by 1794 had marshalled unprecedented military power. Besides, it took a long time for populations and even officials with a long-standing suspicion of things French to learn that not all Frenchmen abroad were agents of their country’s new ideology. The Prussians were notoriously stingy with their residence permits [Höpel]; the Habsburg authorities in Hungary suspected even Hungarians returning from France when foreign regiments were disbanded [Tóth]. Never punctilious debtors, the émigrés were increasingly cavalier towards their creditors because of dwindling resources; the only refuge of the Count d’Artois from British bailiffs in the late 1790s was the grace-and-favour sanctuary of Holyrood. Foreign generals, meanwhile, found the posturings of regiments composed entirely of nobles regarding themselves as naturalborn officers a liability. They were either kept prudently under foreign control, like Condé’s legions [d’Agay], or allowed to take the lead only on reckless ventures of their own dubious devising, like the catastrophic Quiberon expedition of 1795. Nor could the most patent martyrs to conviction, the non-juror clergy, necessarily expect a less guarded welcome. Priests who had given up all to obey the Pope were objects of suspicion for Erastian princes hostile to the pretensions of Rome [Höpel]. Orthodox hierarchies feared the contagion of Jansenism, improbable through this was among French non-juring priests. Only in the Protestant confessional kingdom of Great Britain, ironically enough, was the impact more benign. Here the pious resignation and biblical poverty of the expatriate clergy helped to soften the visceral anti-Catholicism of their hosts, and so benefited their British co-religionists [Bellenger].

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As Kirsty Carpenter stresses (pp. 59–60), there was a moral force in the sight of exiles prepared to suffer rather than live in a homeland where they thought they had no place. Their presence lent sober reality to a revolution that could otherwise only be experienced through the newspapers. Accordingly they were able to influence their hosts’ picture of conditions in France. This was particularly so in the United States, where French visitors had been a rarity since independence [Sosnowski]. The move towards Jay’s Treaty must have owed a good deal to the prospect and everyday propaganda of French exiles, even if these same exiles mostly found the atmosphere of the first modern republic crude and rebarbative, and a brutal corrective to the romantic illusions so widespread in the 1780s of life on the sylvan frontier. The ancestral enemy across the Channel, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. Most of the British proved welcoming and sympathetic; the Treasury authorised funds for the relief of the Godless revolution’s indigent victims; and tales of Jacobin horrors were eagerly absorbed in a political culture more anxious than it might like to admit for reassurance about the superiority and durability of its own ways. Despite the struggles of Louis XVIII (shown here to be more successful than previously thought) [Mansel] to maintain the trappings of a court and government wherever his exile took him, London was the true capital of the emigration, if not from the start, then certainly once war broke out in February 1793 [Carpenter]. The émigrés concentrated there, so sympathetically received in good society, were all the more shocked to learn from the disaster of Quiberon how cynically they were regarded by George III and his ministers. Yet Quiberon was the result of wishful thinking among all concerned, and in its aftermath a greater realism set in. While the British government never again gave credence to émigré analyses of the situation in France, by grudgingly patronising efforts to relieve the plight of the more indigent exiles on its territory, it acknowledged a certain responsibility towards them. The émigrés, for their part, as an analysis of their press shows [Burrows], now made greater efforts to understand what had happened, and was still happening, across the Channel; and the tissue of fantasies that had made up so much of émigré journalism was increasingly cut through by commentaries of real, if unreassuring, insight.

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Although many émigrés, particularly the clergy, kept to themselves, and many more were culturally ghettoised by their inability or unwillingness to learn languages other than their own, in general their capacity to adapt to their circumstances is striking. For some, indeed, emigration was a positive opportunity. Condé saw it as the chance to build a military career worthy of his illustrious ancestor [d’Agay]; Danloux found a captive market for his paintings secure from the jealous machinations of David [Goodden]. And whereas merchants and craftsmen could practise their skills in exile much as before, distressed gentlefolk survived by teaching French as a foreign language, or making straw hats. The ex-monk Dulau opened a bookshop and a publishing business in Soho. Nobody, of course, adapted more consistently to the vagaries and vicissitudes of changing circumstances than Louis XVIII himself and his entourage, clinging doggedly to the métier du roi even when there was scarcely any to perform [Mansel]. Enforced adaptation to the world outside France, however, was no indication of a willingness to change if ever these nightmare days should end. As the old order grew more remote, memory overlaid its more dynamic and nuanced features, and minds set against anything deemed in retrospect to have precipitated the great cataclysm. The Declaration of Verona, which Louis XVIII spent two decades living down, was only the most notorious example of this growing rigidity. Condé’s determination to exclude all but scions of the oldest noble stock from his exile army (which he called simply La Noblesse) was another [d’Agay]. At Toulon in 1793, the only place where émigrés were able to establish more than a fleeting bridgehead in France, those who had invited them and their British protectors were dismayed at the time they devoted, in a city besieged, to re-establishing noble and clerical precedence and prerogatives. 3 Emigration seemed to amplify the ‘cascade of disdain’ that had marked old-regime social relations, as the political as well as the social credentials of each new arrival were exhaustively scrutinised. And these attitudes were passed on to a younger generation which could recall little of pre-revolutionary life at first hand, through an education narrowed by the limited means or censorious ambitions of their parents. Yet by the time Napoleon fell, nine-tenths of the émigrés had already returned to France. Only those motivated

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overwhelmingly by loyalty to the Bourbon dynasty held aloof from an architect of unprecedented French power and glory who invited them back on the sole condition that they accept the legitimacy of his regime. Their return opened new rifts among those who had taken the ‘honourable road’ in grimmer times. What continued to unite them was the cost of choosing to leave France and not return when summoned to do so. In 1792 the goods of all declared émigrés were confiscated and added to the stock of biens nationaux. It is true that much was repurchased by relations left behind, or by émigrés themselves on their return. Land still unsold was returned to its former owners or their heirs at, or before, the restoration. Nevertheless the cost of repurchase was substantial, and hardly any émigrés recovered all their former property. The compensation accorded in the milliard des émigrés of 1825 never reached that fabulous sum, and sometimes took many years to be assessed and awarded [Franke]. Émigrés and their descendants thus continued to suffer for what they had done long after emigration became a myth-laden memory. And despite their implicit recognition of the Revolution’s legitimacy by acceptance of the indemnity, their political enemies often failed to return the compliment. Throughout the nineteenth century calls were periodically heard for the milliard to be repaid. However much, therefore, and at however painful a cost, the émigrés and their families came to accept what the Revolution had done, the custodians of its achievements could never acknowledge the legitimacy of the emigration. As their language made clear, they drew little distinction between emigration and treason. The language of republican intransigence, inherited from the Year II, implied that the émigrés had abandoned their country in its hour of peril to give aid and comfort to its enemies. Émigrés for their part claimed that there was little choice; and for those fleeing from massacre and arrest in 1792–94 that was obviously true. Those who left earlier had less excuse. Alarming though the events of 1789–92 were to nobles and clerics, a large majority of both orders proved able to live through them without leaving the country. The early Revolution was not so much a mortal threat to established élites, as a challenge. The émigrés were the ones who refused it; and in doing so they played a fateful part in driving the Revolution to the very extremes they later deplored and claimed

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to have foreseen. Their departure, and their noisy denunciations from beyond the frontiers, only intensified revolutionary paranoia and suspicion towards all ci-devants. Their attempts to recruit the king to their cause, culminating in his disastrous flight to Varennes in June 1791, fatally undermined the prospect for a constitutional monarchy. Their appeals to foreign powers to intervene in French internal affairs began the movement towards war in the autumn in 1791; and their willingness to serve in arms under enemy command, once hostilities began the following spring, finally marked them out as betrayers of their country. Louis XVI’s attempts, meanwhile, to protect them and their property in France with his veto helped seal the fate of the monarchy itself. All these machinations, it is true, were the work of a small minority. One thing that stands out from the present collection is the political passivity of most émigrés once they had affected their escape. They all lived in hope, but most were more absorbed in the struggle for day-to-day survival than in the struggle against the Godless popular republic. Apart from those who went early, their fortunes as yet unthreatened by overt political dissidence, most émigrés left their sources of income behind, inaccessible even before they were confiscated. They had to find new ways of sustaining themselves. And although they usually found abroad, however grudgingly, the noble and clerical solidarity they obviously expected, they mostly had to find their own resources. As Gibbon remarked, ‘These noble fugitives are entitled to our pity; they may claim our esteem; but they cannot, in the present state of their mind and fortune, much contribute to our amusement.’ 4 There was, indeed, little amusing about the emigration. The French Revolution imposed unenviable choice on all who had to live through it. The émigrés’ choice was to sacrifice everything but their lives (and, if they went to Quiberon, even those) rather than accept a new order of things in the land of their birth. It was a futile sacrifice. None of them ever recovered all they lost, and most would have lost less by staying. Notoriously, even the restored Bourbons inherited Napoleon’s throne, not their brother’s; and Charles X in 1830 threw that away, dying in renewed emigration. But the story is no less tragic for its futility, and no less significant either. Without the better understanding of the émigrés which this collection offers,

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the Revolution they rejected will also be less well understood.

NOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

D. Greer, The Incidence of the Emigration during the French Revolution, Cambridge, Mass., 1951, p. 115. The first use recorded by the OED is by no less a writer than Edward Gibbon, who a year earlier had already noted the presence in Lausanne, of ‘a swarm of emigrants of both sexes who escaped from the public ruin’. Memoirs of My Life, ed. G.A. Bonnard, London, 1966, p. 185. M. Crook, Toulon in War and Revolution: from the Ancien Régime to the Restoration, 1750–1820, Manchester, 1991, p. 142. Memoirs of My Life, p. 185.

1 From Coblenz to Hartwell: the Émigré Government and the European Powers, 1791–1814 Philip Mansel When the Comte de Provence arrived in Brussels on 26 June 1791, after his flight from France, he found himself at the head of what he termed, in the memoir he wrote later that summer, ‘une des plus grandes machines qui aient jamais existé’, namely the émigré government.1 The émigré government was of a different nature to its rival under the Queen’s favourite, the Baron de Breteuil, or to any government in exile maintained by later French pretenders, Bourbon, Orléans or Bonaparte. In its council of Ministers sat such notable former ministers of Louis XVI as Calonne, the Maréchaux de Broglie and de Castries. By early 1792 it had established its own diplomats in twelve capitals, 2 including London, Vienna and Saint Petersburg, where émigré representatives remained until 1814. There was chaos in the émigré government’s finances.3 Nevertheless, by the summer of 1792 it had organised an army of 14 249. One sign of the émigré government’s readiness both to disobey even those acts of Louis XVI dating from before 1789, and to strengthen links between the Crown and the nobility, was the inclusion in its army of the Compagnies Nobles d’Ordonnance. They were a revival, under another name, of the Maison Militaire du roi as it had been before the reforms of 1775.4 The émigré government justified its independence on the grounds that, as Provence wrote to Marie Antoinette, the Princes were the ‘seuls organes légitimes du roi de France, retenu en captivité par ses sujets rebelles’.5 The Comtes de Provence and d’Artois also represented themselves as leaders of a crusade to save Europe. This was in part a result of geography: from 1

2

The French Émigrés in Europe

7 July they established their court and government in the small town of Coblenz at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle. They were there at the invitation, and under the protection, of one of their mother’s brothers, Prince Clemenz of Saxony, Archbishop and Elector of Trier, whose principal residence it was. They had to justify their government’s existence to the Elector and the Holy Roman Empire. However, while alarmed by the progress of what they called le mal français, most foreign governments saw the French revolution as a specifically French phenomenon which did not directly threaten – in some cases could be exploited to strengthen – their authority in their own countries. The Princes failed to persuade European powers to withdraw their ambassadors from Paris in July 1791. 6 The sole result of the Conference held at Pillnitz in August 1791 between the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of Prussia, the Elector of Saxony and the Comte d’Artois was the anodyne declaration that the fate of Louis XVI was ‘un objet d’intérêt commun à tous les souverains de l’Europe’. Only Gustavus III, a personal friend of Provence who had conferred with the Princes at Aix-la-Chapelle in early July, made plans to attack France.7 But Sweden was too distant and impoverished to be an effective ally. The émigré government had more success with Russia. Catherine II had three motives: monarchical outrage at the revolution; geopolitical desire to keep the western European powers occupied while Poland was destroyed; and personal hatred for the Baron de Breteuil, head of the rival government in exile, who as a young French diplomat had opposed her coup d’état in 1762. In the autumn of 1791 the Russian ambassador to the Circles of the Upper and Lower Rhine, Count Romanzov, and the Swedish ambassador to the Imperial Diet, Baron Oxenstierna, were also accredited to the Princes at Coblenz. So important was such foreign recognition that, on each occasion, the émigré nobility at Coblenz en corps was sent to compliment the ambassador. ‘La scene a été des plus brillantes et des plus riches en intérêt . . . ’ wrote the Baron de Bray, the representative of the Grand Master of Malta at Coblenz, of Romanzov’s reception.8 Further proof of the émigré government’s European dimension was the presence of both the Russian and Swedish ambassadors, the Baron de Duminic first minister of the Elector of

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Trier, the Baron de Bray and the Prince of Nassau-Siegen, a German prince in Russian service, in the Princes’ council.9 Thereafter the Princes, always eager to internationalise their situation, addressed frequent confidential letters to Catherine II, requesting both funds and advice.10 Indeed, without the émigré government’s foreign subsidies, it would not have survived. In 1791, for example, Catherine II and Frederick William II of Prussia sent the Princes 1 591 037 livres and 1 888 874 livres respectively.11 The greatest ally of the émigré government, however, was French aggression. The French government declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. Thereafter, the demands of war further Europeanised the émigré government. As the allied armies (which the Princes hoped would include Spain and Sardinia)12 gathered for the invasion of France, the Princes and their ministers had frequent conferences with the allied commanderin-chief, the Duke of Brunswick. They helped to compose the Declaration of Brunswick and followed his military dispositions. The King of Prussia, thanks in part to the persuasion of the Princes’ councillor, the Prince of Nassau-Siegen, gave them a further 800 000 francs to equip their army, reviewed it, and spent an hour discussing policy with the Princes on 21 July.13 Despite the closeness of relations with Austria and Prussia, however, the Allies refused Provence’s request to be recognised as Regent of France in September 1792. During the allied retreat in October and November after the defeat at Valmy, the émigré government remained dependent on Prussia and Austria. Having dissolved their army at the insistence of the King of Prussia on 23 November, the Princes installed themselves, their government and archive on Prussian soil in the small town of Hamm in Westphalia in late December.14 They remained dependent on foreign governments for subsistence as well as asylum. Russia remained generous: the Empress sent 1 144 689 livres in 1793. The Russian ambassador Romanzov, still officially accredited to the Princes, resided at Hamm, determined, as he wrote to the Maréchal de Castries, the leading minister of the émigré government, to serve ‘la cause de la Monarchie française avec zèle’. 15 Russian assistance was so important that in late 1794 the Russian ambassador in Venice, Count Mordvinov, secured

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The French Émigrés in Europe

permission from the Venetian government for Provence to establish himself in Verona. After Provence became King of France as Louis XVIII on his nephew’s death in 1795, Mordvinov was formally accredited to him, followed by Baron Simolin, formerly Russian ambassador in Paris, in 1796–97.16 The years between 1792 and 1798, however, saw a low point in the émigré government’s relations with the European powers, and therefore in its success in France. Artois admitted that the only hope lay in ‘l’appui des grandes puissances’ but that all were hostile. 17 The diplomatic system of the French monarchy had collapsed at the same time as the monarchy itself. Austria, the ally of 1756, possibly out of dynastic hatred of the Bourbons, was actively ill-intentioned and in 1793 wanted territorial gains in northern France. Echoing the views of Louis XVI’s ministers in the 1780s, Castries wrote in 1794: ‘la cour de Vienne considère la France comme une puissance qu’il faut abattre’.18 In 1799 a British diplomat noticed in Baron Thugut, the Austrian chief minister, a stronger inclination to divide France and perpetuate the distractions of that country than to re-establish either Monarchy or any other steady government . . . he has a strong prejudice against the King of France and the French princes whom he considers as personally obnoxious to the French nation. In August 1804 Thugut’s successor, Count Ludwig Cobenzl, burnt Louis XVIII’s protest against the proclamation of the French empire, in the presence of Napoleon’s ambassador.19 Their Bourbon cousins showed little more sympathy for the émigré Princes. Charles IV of Spain sent them a million francs in 1792 and, until 1807, small subsistence pensions to the different members of the French Royal Family. 20 However he gave no political or military support and in 1794 refused Provence asylum, as did the Bourbon Duke of Parma, the recipient of the largest single annual pension awarded by Louis XVI (and the Bourbon King of Naples in 1802). Between 1798 and 1808 the King of Spain was an ally, first of the French Republic, then of the French Empire. 21 Despite the disasters of 1792–98 the émigré government survived. Wherever he happened to be – between August

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1796 and February 1798 in Blankenburg in the Duchy of Brunswick, thereafter moving to Mittau in Russia – Louis XVIII held council two or three times a week. In 1795–96 at Verona, according to the unofficial British ambassador Lord Macartney, ‘ever since the death of Louis 17th the king’s residence here has been assuming more and more the air of a Court’, not through outward splendour, but ‘by the numerous correspondences, the arrival and departure of couriers from time to time’.22 Ministers in attendance included Castries, Flaschlanden, La Vauguyon, Jaucourt and, as representative of the Comte d’Artois, the Bishop of Arras.23 The calibre of the émigré government is shown by its use of a skilled bureaucrat called M. Hermann, to run some of its cyphers from 1793 to 1801. Former Agent général de la Marine de France and Consul-General in London under Louis XVI, he later became a senior financial official of Napoleon I and finally sous-secrétaire d’état aux affaires étrangères in 1822.24 The principal minister in 1798–1800 was the Comte de SaintPriest, a former minister of Louis XVI who advocated a reconciliation with the constitutional monarchists. In exile, some Ministers retained the arrogance of Versailles. When the Duc de Noailles resigned as Capitaine des Gardes in 1795, his cousin the Prince de Poix, himself dismissed as Capitaine des Gardes by Louis XVIII the same year on the suspicion of moderation, wrote to the Maréchal de Castries: M.de Flaschlanden nous a écrit par un Secrétaire, ce que Louis XIV ne se seroit pas permis dans sa toute puissance pour la démission d’une telle charge. 25 Another sign of the calibre of the émigré government is provided by the archives deposited in the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in 1814, some of which had followed the exiled court through every stage of its European odyssey, from Coblenz to Hartwell. It is primarily a political archive, containing constitutional projects, despatches by the King’s agents in Paris, London, Madrid or Saint Petersburg, or bulletins issued by the King’s cabinet for the press.26 However, the Fonds Bourbon is only part of the archives of the émigré government. Much of the personal correspondence of Louis XVIII, and such dynastic relics as the seal of Louis XVI, remain in the archives of the Blacas family, descendants of the last chief minister of

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The French Émigrés in Europe

the émigré government. They provided material for the many books and articles by Ernest Daudet on the Emigration. The voluminous archives of the émigré Ministers, the Maréchal de Castries and the Comte de Saint Priest, can be consulted in the Archives Nationales in Paris (306 AP and 395 AP); those of Calonne in the Public Record Office in London (PC1). Another archive of the émigré government and army, mainly emanating from the Comte d’Artois, with detailed records of pay, ranks and decorations, was removed from the French embassy in London in 1816 and is now in the Archives Nationales (O3 2558–2681).27 In addition to an administration, a diplomatic service and an archive, the émigré government had an army. For although the armée des Princes had been disbanded, the armée de Condé survived as a force of about 5000 men (see Chapter 2). Louis XVIII continued to promote officers and award them honours as if he were an independent sovereign. As late as New Year’s day 1812, Louis XVIII promoted the Marquis d’Autichamp and the Comtes de Coigny and de Cély Lieutenant Generals.28 The émigré government’s Minister of War until 1795 was the Maréchal de Broglie, who was succeeded by the Baron de Flaschlanden, a member of the Princes’ Council since 1791; he in turn was succeeded on his death in 1798 by the Comte de La Chapelle, former Major-Général of l’armée des Princes in 1792; he died at Hartwell in March 1810. 29 In addition to the armée de Condé, émigré or émigrécommanded units, with which the émigré government maintained contact, served in the Austrian, British, Sardinian and Spanish armies. Lieutenant-Colonel de Durler, commander of the Regiment de Roll, which served in the British army from 1794 to 1816, for example, paid court to Louis XVIII at Verona on 25 January 1796. 30 In 1796 the King thought of joining the Loyal Emigrant Regiment, which fought for Britain in the Austrian Netherlands, Brittany and Portugal under his friend the Comte de La Chatre. 31 The émigré government also had its own subjects. Over 129 000 émigrés, perhaps as many as 200 000,32 formed an entire society on the move, with its own public opinion, culture and style, simpler than what Louis XVIII’s favourite the Comte d’Avaray called, in 1804, ‘la dignité crapuleuse et empruntée qui aujourd’hui règne en France’. 33

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For many émigrés, the government of Louis XVIII remained the focus of loyalty and patronage. For the government, the émigrés remained a source of agents – and political pressure: in 1794 Provence wrote to Castries of his fear that a deal with revolutionaries would open ‘une source intarissable de discorde et de guerres civiles’.34 Thus one reason why Bonaparte encouraged émigrés to return to France after 1802, according to Talleyrand, was afin d’isoler davantage Louis XVIII et lui ôter, comme il disait, l’air de roi qu’une nombreuse émigration lui donnait.35 However, many émigrés remained outside France, rising to positions such as Marshal General of Portugal (Comte de Vioménil); military commander of Madrid (the Comte d’Espagne); Commander-in-Chief of the Neapolitan army (Roger de Damas); Austrian general (Comte E. de Pouilly); Governor of Odessa and Minister of the Marine in Russia (the Duc de Richelieu and the Marquis de Traversay). Even if they adopted another nationality, an act for which some first asked the King’s permission,36 in contrast to Jacobite officers in foreign service who rapidly lost their links with the Jacobite government, many such émigrés remained royalist ‘sleepers’, as the events of 1813–14 would show. Thus the Revolution of 1789 had committed two errors, not repeated by those of 1830 or 1848. First, by making France physically dangerous, it encouraged the emigration of royalists who, once they had risen in the service of foreign governments, were likely to be in a position to influence them against the French government. Second, its policy of territorial expansion, more than its revolutionary excesses, obliged the European powers in the end to league against it. Louis XVIII, on the other hand, stuck to the Bourbon policy which had made France, for the first time, renounce European territorial expansion. Established by Louis XV at the peace of Aix-laChapelle (1748), it had been maintained by Louis XVI on the grounds that, as Vergennes wrote to him in 1777, ‘la France constituée comme elle l’est doit craindre les agrandissements bien plus que les ambitionner’. 37 In accordance with this tradition Louis XVIII committed himself not to profit from the ‘conquêtes faites par la prétendue république’. 38 It was the Bourbons’ commitment to the former frontiers of France, not

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The French Émigrés in Europe

their rights to the throne, which won them the support of European governments. The émigré government was at the height of its effectiveness when Louis XVIII took up residence in the former palace of the Dukes of Courland at Mittau, as a guest of Tsar Paul I, from February 1798 to January 1801. The Tsar took the armée de Condé into his service, awarded Louis XVIII a pension of 200 000 roubles a year, paid the salary of the King’s official representative in Saint Petersburg, the Comte de Caraman, and even paid one hundred former gardes du corps du roi to serve as Louis XVIII’s guards – a symbol of sovereignty which had been denied to Louis XVI in the Tuileries after October 1789.39 Within four months the King’s court and guard, at first confined to one floor of the main wing of the palace, had obliged the city’s prison, law-court and archives to move out of the palace and had themselves begun to expand into the town.40 By 1801 the Maison civile du Roi numbered 108 individuals; in all about 300 French émigrés lived in Mittau.41 At one stage Louis XVIII even suggested that his gardes du corps take over the police of Mittau. Although the Pretender was never allowed to see Paul I in Saint Petersburg as he requested, Paul Schroeder’s allegation of the Bourbon court’s ‘pitiful existence’ is clearly not the whole truth.42 At Mittau, Louis XVIII was both figuratively and literally on the main road to Saint Petersburg. ‘Placé sur la route de tous les courriers’,43 he received Russian and British diplomats, General Dumouriez, the Grand Duke Constantine, and Marshal Suvorov himself, who stopped in Mittau in March 1799 to obtain the King’s blessing before the Second Coalition’s attack on France that summer.44 In addition to Louis’ government and court at Mittau, there was a rival court under Artois, whom Provence had appointed Lieutenant Général du Royaume on 8 November 1793. 45 If Russia protected Louis XVIII, Britain supported Artois. In 1793 Lord Grenville had forbidden Provence to land at Toulon – despite its inhabitants’ request for his presence – and Artois to land in England.46 In 1799, in a change of heart probably due to the realisation that the Directory was even more expansionist than the Convention, Grenville wrote: Europe can never be restored to tranquillity but by the restoration of the monarchy in France.

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Despite Austrian hostility, the Prime Minister, William Pitt, declared in Parliament in January 1800: The Restoration of the French monarchy . . . I consider as a most desirable object because I think it would afford the strongest and best security to this country and to Europe.47 In August 1799, at the height of British confidence in the European coalition, Artois accepted an official invitation to leave the palace of Holyrood outside Edinburgh, where he had resided since January 1796, and move to London. Presented to George III at court, often meeting the Prime Minister,48 he became Britain’s protégé, someone whom Britain preferred to Louis XVIII to accompany an invasion of the south or east of France at the head of a Swiss force.49 Louis XVIII, whom Artois had not consulted, was furious but impotent.50 In fact Artois never reached France and for the next 14 years remained in London. The war of the Second Coalition marked the émigré government’s long-anticipated breakthrough with the British and Russian governments or, as Artois wrote, the moment when ‘les souverains commencent à ouvrir les yeux’.51 Thereafter Russia and Britain kept the Bourbons as a reserve card in their European plans. The reconciliation of the Duc d’Orléans with his Bourbon cousins provides proof of the émigré government’s European status. Artois insisted that Orléans’ letter of submission to Louis XVIII of 13 February 1800 be at once shown not only to senior émigré officers in London but also to British ministers and the Russian ambassador. Only after Orléans had made his submission did he receive a British pension, the honour of presentation to George III and the opportunity to meet, at dinner in Artois’ house in 46 Baker Street, the Foreign Secretary and the Austrian, Russian and Neapolitan ambassadors.52 While Britain turned to Artois, the Tsar turned against Louis XVIII. Disabused by the defeats of the Second Coalition, having quarrelled with the Bourbon supporter Gustavus IV of Sweden, and having dismissed the pro-Bourbon ViceChancellor and joint Minister of Foreign Affairs Count N.P. Panin, Paul I established close relations with the First Consul. On 14 January 1801, possibly as a result of reading a despatch from D’Avaray to the Duc d’Havré the émigré representative

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The French Émigrés in Europe

in Madrid, with mocking portraits of himself and his ministers, Paul I ordered the expulsion of Louis XVIII, his family and followers from Mittau.53 Louis XVIII’s agent in Berlin, the great counter-revolutionary writer, Rivarol, helped obtain permission from the King of Prussia for the Bourbons to live in Warsaw. 54 From March 1801 until the summer of 1804, under considerable restrictions, enjoying occasional subsidies from sympathetic Polish nobles, Louis XVIII and his court stayed in rented houses in Warsaw. 55 Soon after the King’s installation in Warsaw, Paul I was murdered (one of the original conspirators had been Count Panin, the former joint Foreign Minister sympathetic to the Bourbons). Although no longer recognising the Pretender officially like his father and grandmother, Alexander I re-established a smaller pension that summer, renewed the offer of asylum in Mittau and assured Louis XVIII: Vos vertus brillent d’un nouveau lustre dans l’adversité et vous assurent des titres imprescriptibles.56 In January 1802 Alexander I addressed a circular to his ambassadors in Madrid, Naples, Paris, London, Berlin and Vienna to ask the governments of Europe, including the French, to provide financial support for the Bourbons. The Tsar claimed that La situation à laquelle se trouve réduit M. le comte de Lille . . . ne peut être indifférente à tous les souverains de l’Europe. Austria, Prussia and Spain refused to provide any more than they were already. Britain sent £5000 at once and thereafter £6000 a year.57 In 1802 Britain and Russia were at peace with the French Republic, and appeared to have abandoned the Bourbon cause. The Pope himself had signed a Concordat with the Republic. Louis XVIII experienced a period of despair (at the same time Artois, possibly intending to leave London, bought an estate at Wittmold in Holstein). Moreover, the dynasty was losing its biological base. The daughter of Louis XVI, who had been married to her cousin the Duc d’Angoulême at Mittau in 1799, showed no sign of bearing an heir. Louis XVIII had failed in his efforts to marry the Duc de Berri either to the widowed Electress of Bavaria, or to Princesses of Savoy, Saxony, Parma or

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Naples. He wrote to Artois that he feared that Berri would not be accepted even by a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar: ‘la terreur est à l’ordre du jour . . . notre temps est passé ou pour mieux dire il dort’.58 Through d’Avaray he spoke of retiring to Naples where he would deposit his crown in the heart of his cousin the King and live as a private person. 59 Having failed in his negotiations for a restoration with Bonaparte, Louis XVIII even considered, to Artois’s horror, accepting a subsidy from the First Consul, provided that it came via the Russian government.60 However in 1803 and 1804, having forgotten his despair, Louis XVIII made two famous protests of his right to the crown of France. In February 1803 in Warsaw, to a Prussian official sent to urge a renunciation of the throne in return for ‘de grands avantages’, he replied with the famous lines: J’ignore les desseins de Dieu sur ma race et sur moi, mais je connais les obligations qu’il m’a imposées par le rang ou il Lui a plu de me faire naître. . . . Successeur de François Ier, je veux au moins pouvoir dire avec lui, ‘Nous avons tout perdu hors l’honneur’. To the rage of Talleyrand, who pursued a personal vendetta against the Bourbons, British boats circulated the King’s reply along the coast of France.61 A year later Louis XVIII called the assumption of the imperial title by Napoleon ‘les circonstances les plus graves et les plus critiques ou je me suis trouvé depuis le commencement de nos infortunes’. 62 After a meeting at Kalmar on the Swedish coast with King Gustavus IV Adolphus and Artois (the only prince who had obtained a British passport) in late September 1804, Louis XVIII moved to the house of sympathetic nobles at Blankenfeld in Courland, having been refused permission to return to Warsaw by the King of Prussia at Napoleon I’s request.63 Thus it was at Blankenfeld that Louis XVIII finished the Declaration to which he gave a fictitious date – 2 December 1804, the day of what he called ‘l’horrible farce’ in Notre Dame de Paris – and address – ‘au sein de la Baltique, en face et sous la protection du ciel’. 64 In its final form the Declaration endorsed a general amnesty and the broad outlines of the post-1789 settlement, including

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The French Émigrés in Europe

careers open to the talents, and the post-1789 administrative revolution. While not explicitly renouncing all conquests, it also criticised France’s expansion in Europe: Un système perfide de violence, d’ambition sans limites, d’arrogance sans frein, vous livre à d’interminables guerres dont la lassitude seule suspendra le fléau. Despite the opposition of Artois, the British government and Alexander I, the King insisted on the Declaration’s publication, writing to Gustavus IV that it was ‘destiné pour la France, fait pour la France’ and should be sent there in as great a quantity as possible. With Swedish help, it was printed in Stockholm and Berlin in 1805, but its circulation in France is doubtful.65 After five months at Blankenfeld, in February 1805, the King was readmitted to Mittau by Alexander I. Alexander remained more sympathetic to the Bourbon cause than is generally believed. His court, like the Swedish court, went into mourning for the Duc d’Enghien in 1804 and refused to recognise Napoleon’s imperial title. Although opposed to fighting a war for the sole object of the restoration of the King of France, Alexander I still favoured putting a Bourbon on the French throne provided he accepted a constitution.66 In 1805 both Russia and Britain considered the restoration of the Bourbon family on the throne . . . highly desirable for the future both of France and Europe.67 In 1806–7 the Russian government planned to help a royalist attack in the west of France. On 31 March 1807 Alexander I came to Mittau and saw Louis XVIII for one and a half hours.68 However later that year Louis XVIII left Russia for England. Again, like his arrival in Russia in 1798 or the Declaration of Calmar in 1804, this move, planned since March 1806, was made on his own initiative. Dislike of the distance of Mittau from France, and jealousy of Artois’s control of what the King called ‘cette multitude d’agens non avoués et d’agences non commandées’, helped determine Louis XVIII. Money may have been the most important factor of all. The Swedish ambassador in Saint Petersburg, Count Stedingk, an old friend from Versailles, claimed to know ‘de science certaine’ that the move was designed to stop Artois monopolising British subsidies.69

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Certainly in April 1807 d’Avaray had written to Orléans (Louis XVIII’s secret intermediary with the British government in order to keep Artois and Alexander I in ignorance), that the Spanish and Portuguese pensions had stopped, that the King had given up his personal table and his carriage, and that, ‘l’heritier de Saint Louis n’a pas de quoi vivre’.70 After a second visit to Gustavus IV, the King travelled across Sweden to Gothenburg, where he embarked on a Swedish ship, at Swedish expense, for England. They arrived off Great Yarmouth on 30 October 1807. D’Avaray announced to Canning, who had replaced Grenville as Foreign Secretary that year, the arrival of, ‘l’ennemi le plus redoutable du perturbateur du monde . . . le pacificateur futur de l’Europe’. The King and d’Avaray had hoped to confer with British ministers in London about the future of Europe, in particular of British relations with Russia and Sweden.71 The British government, however, which was considering peace negotiations with Napoleon I, and the Comte d’Artois and his followers, wanted his boat to leave for Leith and ordered Holyrood to be prepared.72 However, Canning was a life-long ‘anti-Jacobin’, who feared criticism for his treatment of the King of France. Lady Elizabeth Foster, a friend of the French royal family since the 1780s, wrote: never, I think, was the public feeling more strongly expressed than it has been against the incivility and want of respect and attention to Louis XVIII.73 Finally, with the help of Orléans, Louis XVIII received permission to land on the condition that he resided at a distance of fifty miles from London.74 In Britain, although his hopes for formal recognition, residence in London or meetings with ministers were not recognised, the King began to return to official life after the hiatus of 1801–7. His British pension was increased from £6000 a year to £16 000 and he also received the equivalent of £1600 from Portugal (through British intervention) and £4000 from Russia. 75 As a capital reserve he had his aunts’ diamonds and by 1797 the côte de bretagne ruby from the French crown jewels.76 In Verona and Blankenburg he had been forbidden to hold court; in Mittau and Warsaw, despite his local connections through his grandmother Marie Leczinska, daughter of King

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The French Émigrés in Europe

Stanislas Leczynski of Poland, he saw local nobles on great occasions such as the day of Saint Louis, but otherwise received ‘few visits . . . (for they do not make any) and those very short’.77 In England, the centre of the Emigration, both French émigrés and British sympathisers (particularly Roman Catholics) paid him court at Hartwell House, near Aylesbury, to which he moved in 1809. In 1809, on a visit to the Prince de Condé at Wanstead House near London, he received ‘les femmes presentées . . . et tous les émigrés máles sans distinction’. He also revived the Bourbon tradition of dining in public.78 In addition, like Artois and Orléans, he frequently corresponded with both Canning and his successor as Foreign Secretary Lord Wellesley. In 1807, continuing the émigré government’s policy to internationalise its cause, he wrote to Canning that French interests ‘sont inséparables de ceux de l’Angleterre’. In 1809 he told Lord Wellesley that ‘la cause de Ferdinand VII et la mienne sont communes’ and that je considère les intérêts de son pays [Britain] comme inséparables de ceux de la France.79 Indeed one Spanish Junta described itself as fighting for, the Sacred Rights of the Most August House of Bourbon, whereof His Most Christian Majesty is the Worthy and Illustrious Chief.80 The British Government refused to allow any French Bourbon to serve in Spain. However, it was eager to preserve the Bourbons as a political weapon in France. In 1810 it agreed, at the request of the Comte d’Artois (no doubt alarmed by the marriages, that year, of both Napoleon I and the Duc d’Orléans, and by his son’s long liaison with an Englishwoman called Amy Brown), to send a frigate to collect a Sardinian princess for the Duc de Berri, and to provide her with a pension of £3000 per annum.81 Artois, who by 1807 lived in the fashionable address of South Audley Street, held regular levers and often received the Foreign Secretary Canning and his successor the Marquess Wellesley.82 The King of Sardinia, however, reiterated the refusal made in 1805, when he had written: ce serait marier la faim et la soif et faire devenir ma fille une perpétuelle bohémienne sans pain ni gîte. 83

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The British government also paid part of the cost of the state funeral of ‘the Queen of France’, Louis XVIII’s wife Marie Josephine of Savoy, in Westminster Abbey, on 26 November 1810. The funeral was a European occasion, attended by the ambassadors of Sardinia, Sicily, Spain and Portugal, as well as by eleven émigré bishops.84 Another supporter of the Bourbons was the Prince of Wales, who visited Louis XVIII on 20 October 1808 and swore to restore him at a time when nobody else believed it possible.85 On 19 June 1811 the King and his family were the guests of honour at the sumptuous fête for 3000 by which the Prince inaugurated his Regency. The Regent welcomed him, in a room hung with fleurs de lys tapestries and a portrait of Louis XV, with the words: ‘Ici Votre Majesté est Roi de France’.86 The defeat of Napoleon in Russia in 1812 strengthened British enthusiasm for the Bourbons. There were more meetings between the royal families. In London on 19 December, an occasion ignored by British historians like Charles Webster (who do not consult émigré sources), Blacas promised a British minister that the King will support ‘the present order of things’. In accordance with the King’s evolution since before the declaration of 1804, the Declaration of Hartwell of 1 March 1813 promised ’union’, ‘bonheur’, ‘paix’ and ‘repos’; the maintenance of ‘le Code dit Napoléon’ except in matters of religion, and of ‘les corps Administratifs et Judiciaires’ and guaranteed ‘la liberté du peuple.’ Thereafter the British government provided the King with the financial means to print the Declaration and to have it distributed on the Continent by des serviteurs devoués qui puissent faire connaître aux François les intentions du Roi et au Roi les dispositions de l’intérieur.87 After December 1812 the secret British policy to support the Bourbons is revealed by its agents’ acts. In early 1813 the British minister in Stockholm had copies of the Declaration of Hartwell printed, while a British officer, Sir Neil Campbell, had 2000 copies printed at Provins in France in mid-February 1814. 88 Despatches from Hartwell to Vienna were carried by the couriers of the Regent’s Hanoverian Minister in London, Count Munster. 89 Thus the support which Louis XVIII won

16

The French Émigrés in Europe

in France through the Declaration of Hartwell was due in part to the actions of the British government. In his letters to Bonnay in Vienna, Blacas confirmed the émigré policy of renunciation of territorial expansion and of representing Louis XVIII not as a legitimate monarch but as a European necessity (there is no proof, however, that these letters influenced the Austrian Foreign Minister, Metternich). Napoleon himself, whose insistence on retaining the ‘natural frontiers’ convinced the allies not to make peace with him in 1814, felt that a return to the anciennes limites was ‘inséparable du rétablissement des Bourbons’.90 At the same time the King despatched a volley of émigré officers from his reserve of supporters, on missions to the diferent powers of Europe. Alexis de Noailles was sent to Alexander I and Bernadotte in the summer of 1812; the Comte de La Ferronays to Saint Petersburg and allied headquarters in early 1813; the Comte de Bruges to allied headquarters in Silesia in the summer of 1813; Comte Louis de Bouillé to Bernadotte’s headquarters in October 1813; and the Comtes de Narbonne, de Trogoff, Wildermeth and de Chabannes to Spain, Austria and northern France. 91 The powers’ reaction was mixed. However, such missions show that a Bourbon Restoration, far from being a surprise in 1814, had been frequently discussed at government level since early 1813. In April 1813 Count Romanzov, the former Russian ambassador to the Princes in 1791–93, now chancellor of the Empire, who even after the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 had remained sympathetic to the émigré government and its agents, informed Count Lieven, Russian ambassador in London, of the Russian government’s interest in a restoration. Lieven had already visited Hartwell that January.92 However the Tsar provided neither formal recognition, nor support for an invasion in the West, nor permission for Angoulême to serve with the Russian army, as Louis XVIII requested. In July 1813 the Comte d’Artois and the Duc d’Angoulême were forced to return to England from Pomerania where they had hoped to join allied headquarters.93 One explanation for this policy is revealed in the memoirs and letters of La Ferronays and Rochechouart, an émigré who had become one of the Tsar’s aides de camp. When La Ferronays finally obtained two audiences of the Tsar in May 1813,

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the latter, according to La Ferronays, expressed support for royalism, mitigated by fear of alienating Austria which was still neutral: Si nous parvenons à jeter Napoléon de l’autre côté du Rhin et qu’alors, comme je n’en doute pas, il se manifeste en France quelque mouvement en faveur du roi, croyez que je saurai profiter de ce moment pour faire entendre à l’Autriche que, mon seul but ayant été de rendre la liberté aux nations, le voeu du peuple français qui réclame ses anciens maîtres rend nul tout espèce d’engagement pris avec elle . . . je sais mieux qu’un autre, croyez-le, que le rétablissement de la légitimité partout est la seule base sur laquelle on puisse asseoir la paix et la tranquillité de l’Europe.94 In a letter to Louis XVIII Alexander I assured him of the ‘sentiments invariables que je vous conserve’ and promised to act once the armies had crossed the Rhine and royalist movements had shown themselves: ‘il faut de la patience, une grande circonspection et le plus profond secret’.95 The calculated wait for French soil and royalist risings, rather than opposition on principle, explains the allies’ failure openly to support a Restoration before March 1814. In early 1814, once the allies had arrived on French soil after a string of victories over Napoleon I, the Comte de Rochechouart wrote to ask the Tsar to support the Bourbons, not because they were legitimate but because their restoration would guarantee the ‘independance et repos’ of Europe. The Tsar replied cautiously: vous ne pouvez douter des sentiments qui m’animent en faveur de l’auguste famille de vos anciens rois mais je ne puis agir sans mes alliés . . . en attendant, que la France se prononce. In February, while the allies were discussing peace with Napoleon at the Congress of Chatillon (thereby paralysing most French royalist initiatives), Alexander I opposed an armistice.96 The Tsar was undecided. At one time he declared Louis personally incapable; a decision should be postponed until they reached Paris. A week later Nesselrode received royalist agents on the Tsar’s behalf, telling them that he planned to follow ‘le voeu des français’, and requesting the creation of royalist movements.97

18

The French Émigrés in Europe

While it was widely believed at the time that Austria tried to save Napoleon and his empire as a counterbalance to Russia,98 Metternich also considered a Restoration a possibility from January 1814. On 30 January 1814 he wrote to the Austrian commander-in-chief Prince Schwarzenberg: Si un parti se déclare, – si ce parti détrône Napoléon – si Louis XVIII est proclamé par la grande majorité de la nation on traitera avec lui. Nous serons enchantés de l’y voir. Castlereagh thought Metternich had no objection in principle to the Bourbons, whom he regarded as ‘likely to be too weak for years to molest any of them’. 99 Meanwhile, Artois was refused access to allied headquarters, and advised to remain at Vesoul in eastern France and to ‘soutenir l’esprit du parti pour le Roi’.100 Rochechouart continued to work for a restoration, meeting royalists from Paris, sending an agent to Hartwell, distributing copies of Louis XVIII’s Declaration.101 Other royalist ADCs of the Tsar were a former officer of Napoleon’s rival General Moreau, General Rapatel, and the earliest and most implacable enemy of Napoleon, Count Pozzo di Borgo. The latter had been in correspondance with the émigré government since at least 1804, had visited Mittau in 1805 and had met Blacas and Artois in London in 1811 and 1813.102 Émigrés’ role in Napoleon’s downfall shows why, even at the height of his glory, he had been eager to persuade other monarchs to dismiss them from their service and had issued a decree confiscating the goods of émigrés who served against France.103 While the attitude of Alexander I remained ambiguous, the British government was pro-Bourbon, encouraged by a public opinion described as ‘insane’, and ‘nearly unanimous’ in its opposition to peace with Napoleon. Through the Comte de Gramont, a son of the King’s Capitaine des Gardes serving in the Tenth Hussars, Wellington invited a Bourbon prince to his headquarters in South-West France in December 1813. 104 In January 1814 conferences took place between Louis XVIII, Blacas, the Princes, the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and Edward Cook of the Foreign Office. Artois was so confident of public support that, if the government refused him a passport, he threatened to publish the fact ‘to the whole world . . . to France and to Europe’. In fact Liverpool, who had visited

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Coblenz as a young man in 1791, and had many émigré friends, was personally sympathetic to the Bourbon cause.105 On 16 January an intimate of the Prince Regent, Lord Yarmouth, wrote: Bunbury is gone to Lord Wellington . . . to arrange for the appearance of a Bourbon there, and to say much on this subject which Government are too much afraid of Whitbread [a Whig MP] to put on paper.106 On 22 January 1814 Artois, Angoulême and Berri left for the Continent, with British passports. On 25 January, breaking British constitutional proprieties with the knowledge of Lord Liverpool, the Regent summoned the Russian ambassador to Carlton House and informed him that peace with Napoleon would only be a breathing-space. His entire life was ‘une série de mauvaise foi, d’atrocité et d’ambition’: in the interests of Europe, a restoration of the Bourbons, in whom the Regent personally took ‘un vif intérêt’, should be proposed to the French nation.107 What Louis XVIII had called the ‘vicious circle’ of royalist fear and allied inactivity was finally broken. In fact he had underestimated the strength of French royalism. In 1814 it needed only allied victories and sympathy, rather than a public commitment to a restoration, to manifest itself. On 12 March the retreat of Napoleonic forces and the arrival of Wellington’s British and Portuguese troops, gave Bordeaux royalists the courage to declare for Louis XVIII. The Duc d’Angoulême’s triumphant entry into the city was decided in consultation with, and following the orders of, the Duke of Wellington.108 On 17 March 1814 another former émigré, the Baron de Vitrolles, arrived at allied headquarters in eastern France with a secret message from Talleyrand, urging a quick march on Paris.109 By 23 March, Napoleon’s defeats and intransigence (he still demanded that Antwerp remain French), combined with the persistence and moderation of the émigré government, helped the allies decide publicly to support a restoration. On 31 March allied troops entered Paris. As at Bordeaux, their arrival led, in some districts, to cries of ‘Vivent les Bourbons! Vivent nos libérateurs! Vive le Roi!’ 110 One émigré in Russian service, the Comte de Langeron, had led the allied attack on Montmartre. Rochechouart commanded

20

The French Émigrés in Europe

the Russian-occupied zone of the capital, while an émigré in Austrian service, Baron von Herzogenburg, commanded the Austrian zone. The Tsar issued a declaration that he would no longer treat with Napoleon I or any member of his family. On 12 April, Artois, whose movements in eastern France, like Angoulême’s at Bordeaux, had been decided in consultation with allied commanders, re-entered Paris.111 In conclusion, while its policies and actions inside France were generally disastrous, the émigré government succeeded in remaining an active element in European politics between 1791 and 1814. Louis XVIII and Artois saw European rulers such as the King of Sweden (in 1791, 1804 and 1807); the King of Great Britain and the Prince of Wales (after 1800); and the Tsarina and Tsar of Russia (in 1794 and 1807). They were actively, if not always consistently, supported by leading European statesmen such as Grenville, Canning, Romanzov, Panin, Armfeld, de Maistre, Gentz,112 Stein, as well as by émigré officers in foreign service such as Pozzo di Borgo, Rochechouart, Gramont, and by public opinion in London and Saint Petersburg. The émigré government frequently took the initiative, for example, over the Pretender’s movements in 1796, 1798 and 1807 and his Declarations in 1795 and 1804. During the emigration, particularly after 1798, Russia and Britain, enemies of the French Bourbons before 1791, replaced Austria and the Bourbon monarchies as their supporters: in letters and speeches Blacas and Louis XVIII openly attributed the restoration in 1814 to Russia and Britain.113 By consciously Europeanising the Bourbon cause, renouncing French territorial expansion, and taking the advice of the British and Rusian governments, the émigré government helped ensure its survival and the restoration in 1814. It also anticipated the European dimension in French politics and culture in the period 1814–48, and the emergence of Britain as France’s principal ally. It is not surprising that, in his speech of 4 June 1814 to the Chamber of Deputies, Louis XVIII mentioned the reconciliation of France with Europe before the constitutional charter. 114 Nor is it surprising that the Restoration government employed, not the ministers or the generals, but the diplomats, of the émigré government.115 In 1816 the French ambassadors in London, Berlin, Vienna and Naples (La

Philip Mansel

21

Chatre, Bonnay, Caraman, Blacas) were all former diplomats of the émigré government. The Restoration government had little choice, for there were few suitable Napoleonic diplomats in 1814, on account of the French Empire’s policy of war and annexation. This was also the main reason for the return of the Bourbons to France.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

Récit d’un Voyage de Paris à Coblenz, 1822, p. 132. PRO PC 229/558 précis de la situation des affaires des Princes tant au-dehors qu’au dedans February 1792. See, for example, Baron F.S. Feuillet de Conches, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette et Madame Elizabeth, 6 vols. 1864–1873, VI, 239 Prince de Nassau-Siegen to Catherine II, 30 July 1792. AN ABX1X 196 Armée des Princes 1792. Ernest Daudet, Histoire de l’Emigration 3 vols 1904–7, I 172, Provence to Marie Antoinette, 20 February 1792. Archives des Affaires Etrangères Mémoires et Documents France, Fonds Bourbon (Henceforward referred to as AAE Fonds Bourbon) 588 f. 2 Mémoire of the Princes to Gustavus III, early July 1791. R. Nisbet Bain, Gustavus III and his Contemporaries, 2 vols. 1894, II, 122. Comte de Bray, Mémoires, 1911, p. 219 Bray to the Grand Master, 30 September 1791. Daudet, I, 97; AN 306 AP (Castries papers) 1721 f 21vo Calonne to Castries, 6 March 1792. See Baron F.S. Feuillet de Conches Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette et Madame Elizabeth, VI, 82, 241, 398, letters of 8 June, 30 July, 1 August, 31 October 1792. PRO PC (Public Record Office, Calonne papers) 126/45 Bordereau des différentes sommes réçues . . . pour le compte de Leurs Altesses Royales les Princes Frères du Roy. F7 6255 (papers of the Marquis de Lambert) Mémoire of Provence and Artois, 27 August 1792. Feuillet de Conches VI 82 Provence and Artois to Catherine II, 8 June 1792; Duc de La Force Dames d’Autrefois, 1933, p. 207, Provence to Madame de Balbi, 22 July 1792. Feuillet de Conches VI 410 Provence and Artois to Catherine II, 29 November 1792; Comte de Vaudreuil, Correspondance Inédite . . . avec le Comte d’Artois, 2 vols 1896, II 116 Artois to Vaudreuil, 28 December 1792. AN O3 Papers of the Emigration government 2667, Etat au vrai des recettes et dépenses; 306AP 1722 f 88 Romanzov to Castries 1/12 August 1793.

22 16.

17. 18.

19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

The French Émigrés in Europe Gérard Walter, Monsieur Comte de Provence, 1950, p. 226; Correspondance inédite du Baron Grimm au Comte de Findlater 1934, 208, letter of 15 December 1796. In 1795 Russia asked Austria also to recognise Louis XVIII, see Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, Oxford 1995, p. 148n. AN 306 AP 30 Artois to Provence 27 April 1794. AN 306 AP 30 Reflexions sur le parti à prendre par M le Régent, 1794 cf. Comte V. Esterhazy (émigré representative in Saint Petersburg), Mémoires, 1905, 387 referring to Austrian ministers who ‘regardent l’abaissement de la Maison de Bourbon comme le plus sûr moyen d’élèver celle d’Autriche’. Earl of Minto, Life and Letters, 3 vols. 1874, III 92; cf. Karl A. Roider, Baron Thugut and the Austrian Reaction to the French Revolution, Princeton 1987, pp. 88–9; Louis Wittmer, Le Prince de Ligne, Jean de Muller, Friedrich de Gentz et l’Autriche, 1925, p. 117n. L.J.A. de Bouillé, Souvenirs, 3 vols. 1908–11, II, 33, Jaucourt to Bouillé 27 June 1792. Mesdames Victoire and Adélaïde died in the house of the Spanish consul in Trieste in 1799 and 1800 respectively. André Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, 2 vols. 1930, I 70, 145n. In 1806 Louis XVIII returned his insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which he had held in 1767, since Charles IV had appointed Napoleon I a Knight. Philip Mansel, Louis XVIII, 1981, p. 91. André Lebon, L’Angleterre et l’Emigration Française de 1794 à 1801, 1882, p. 337 Lord Macartney to Grenville 27 September 1795. Daudet, I 220. Archives de Mouchy, A4 23, 5 Prince de Poix to Maréchal de Castries 30 August 1795. Robert de Grandsaigne d’Hauterive, Inventaire des Mémoires et Documents France. Fonds “Bourbon”, 1960, passim. It was clearly an actively acquisitive archive, since it contains papers of such enemies of Louis XVIII as Madame Gourbillon, his wife’s friend, and the Comte d’Antraigues, purveyor of inaccurate information to the émigré government, Spain, Austria, Russia, Naples and finally the United Kingdom. The émigré government acquired their papers after their deaths in London. Georges Bourgin, ‘Les Papiers de l’Emigration dans la sous-Série O3 des Archives Nationales’, La Révolution Française 1933, LXXXVI, pp. 311–16. AN O3 2586 f 173 decision of 8 February 1798 re Comte de La Chapelle, ff. 2, 29 decisions of 1 January 1812. In 1813 the Comte de Bruges, a Colonel in the British army, was promoted in the émigré army to be Colonel with rank from 1 January 1797: BM. Add. Mss. 26669 f 15 Blacas to Bruges 25 September 1813. After the restoration, the files of the Émigré army were sent to a commission under Maréchal Pérignon to confirm ranks and pensions. The desire of approximately 6500 former émigré officers for honorary ranks, pensions or active service in the French army in 1814 was one of the factors alienating Napoleonic officers.

Philip Mansel 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

23

AN O3 2586 f 173 decision of 8 February 1798 re Comte de La Chapelle. La Chapelle came from the heart of the royal bureaucracy. He was son of the premier des premiers commis of the reign of Louis XVI, Commissaire Général de la Maison du Roi, guillotined in 1794: Vicomte de La Boulaye, Mémoires, 1975, p. 340. Daudet, I, 223; Vicomte de Grouvel Les Corps de Troupe de l’Emigration Française 1789–1815 3 vols 1947–54, III, 301. AN 197AP Louis XVIII to Duke of York, 11 July 1796. Patrice Higonnet, Class, Ideology and the Rights of Nobles during the French Revolution, Oxford 1981, p. 284. Daudet, III, 338. An 306AP 28 letter of 30 March 1794. Michel Poniatowski Talleyrand et le Consulat, 1986, p. 92. See, for example, BN Dept Mss., Fichier Charavay, 427 the King’s authorisation for the Comte de Vernègues to adopt Russian nationality, 7 December 1803. Gaston Zeller, ‘Les Frontières Naturelles: Histoire d’une Idée Fausse’, in Aspects de la Politique Française sous l’ancién regime, 1964, p. 107. Comte de Barante ed. Lettres et Instructions de Louis XVIII au Comte de Saint-Priest, 1845, p. 145 instructions du Roi, 26 mai 1800. Daudet, II 203. Vicomte de Reiset, Joséphine de Savoie Comtesse de Provence, 1913, p. 343, quoting official correspondance; Daudet II 227. AN 03 2681 Etat de la Maison du roi 1801; Comte d’Avaray, ‘Louis XVIII expulsé de Russie en 1801’, Feuilles d’Histoire, Janvier 1910, p. 34. Paul Schroeder op. cit., 217, 197. Duchesse de Dino, Souvenirs 1909, p. 189. Philip Longworth, The Art of Victory. The Life and Achievements of Generalissimo Suvorov, 1965, p. 236. AN O3 604 décisions du roi. Walter, Monsieur comte de Provence, p. 218 Grenville to Drake 22 October 1793, p. 221; Z. Pons, Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Ville de Toulon en 1793, 1825, p. 340 Admiral Hood and Sir Gilbert Eliot to Conseil General of Toulon, 23 November 1793. Piers Mackesy, Statesmen at War. The strategy of Overthrow 1798–1799, 1974 p. 69; Sir Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 2 vols 1935–50, I 234; cf John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt. The Consuming Struggle, 1996, pp. 344n, 347. Vincent W. Beach, in Charles X of France, Boulder Colorado 1971, p. 102, refers to a meeting between Artois and Pitt on 4 October 1799. Vicomte de Reiset, Louise d’Esparbès, Comtesse de Polastron, 1907, pp. 254–5; Ehrman, p. 237. Barante, pp. 88, 121, Réflexions du roi au sujet de l’Agence de Souabe, June 1799. Barante, p. 213 Artois to Saint-Priest, 3 September 1798. Ernest Daudet, ‘Une Réconciliation de Famille en 1800’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 10 November 1905, p. 294; Marguerite Castillon du Perron, Louis-Philippe et la Révolution Française 1985 edn, p. 491.

24

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67.

68. 69.

70.

The French Émigrés in Europe Artois and Orléans were presented at court in February 1800: Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Mss. of J. B Fortescue esq. preserved at Dropmore, 10 vols. 1892–1927, V 138 Duc d’Harcourt to Lord Grenville, 22 February 1800 K. Waliszewski, Paul Ier. Sa vie, son règne et sa mort 1754–1801, 1912, pp. 499–500; Olivier Blanc, Madame de Bonneuil, Femme Galante et Agente secrète, 1987, pp. 166–8. M.F.A. de Lescure, Rivarol et la Société Française pendant la Révolution et l’Emigration, 1883, p. 477. Daudet, III 245, 250. Ernest Daudet, ‘Louis XVIII et le Comte d’Artois’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 February 1906, p. 843 letter of 26 August 1801. Comte Boulay de la Meurthe, Correspondance du Duc d’Enghien, 4 vols 1904–13, I 223–4 circulaire du gouvernement russe; Daudet, III 247. Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 January 1905 p. 133n Louis XVIIII to Artois, 5 June 1797; Daudet, III, 280, Louis XVIII to Artois 1802. Boulay de La Meurthe, I 225 Avaray to Acton, 15 January 1802; Benedetto Croce; ‘Il Duca di Serra-Capriola et Giuseppe de Maistre’, Archivio Storico Per le Provincie Napoletane, XLVII, 1922, pp. 338–9 Louis XVIII to Duca di Serra-Capriola, 25 January 1802. Daudet III, 251; AN 161 AP (Serent papers) anon to Duc de Serent, 17 March 1801. Boulay de la Meurthe, I 278–9, 291 circular of Talleyrand 23 August 1803. Ernest Daudet ‘Souvenirs de l’Emigration’, Revue Hebdomadaire, July 1906, p. 395, Louis XVIII to Artois, 25 June 1804. Boulay de La Meurthe, III, 494–496 Napoleon I to Talleyrand 2 October 1804, Hardenberg to d’Avaray 9 October 1804, 293 Lombard to Hardenberg 10, 12 September 1804. Boulay de La Meurthe, III, 489–492n; Daudet, ‘Souvenirs de l’Emigration’, Revue Hebdomadaire, August 1906, p. 154. Boulay de La Meurthe, III, 524 -529; AN AE I Louis XVIII to Gustavus IV Adolphus 5, 16 October 1805. The Tsar’s adviser Prince Adam Czartoyski wrote to d’Avaray that he should mention the ‘free will’ of France in the Declaration of 1804: Daudet, ‘Souvenirs de l’Emigration’, Revue Hebdomadaire, August 1906 p. 159 letter of January 1805. Adam Czartoryski, Mémoires et Correspondance avec l’Empereur Alexandre Ier, 2 vols 1887–8, II, 32 instructions to M. Novosiltzov 11 September 1804; Charles Webster, Documents relating to the Second Coalition, p. 394, British government to Russian ambassador, 19 January 1805. W.H. Zawadski, A Man of Honour, Oxford 1993 175; Daudet, III 406; AN 198 AP (La Fare papers) 2, 3 d’Avaray to La Fare, 31 March 1807. Dropmore Papers, IX, 445, La Chapelle to Louis Philippe 22 February 1806; Comte de Stedingk, Mémoires . . . rédigés sur des lettres, dépêches et autres pièces authentiques, 3 vols 1844–7, II 369 Stedingk to Gustavus IV, 5 October 1807. AN 300 AP III Orléans papers 16 d’Avaray to Orléans 6 April 1807; Dropmore Papers, IX 443 La Chapelle to Orléans, 20 February 1806.

Philip Mansel 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84. 85. 86.

87.

25

West Yorkshire Archives, Leeds, Canning Papers HAR/GC/56 Avaray to Canning 1 November 1807, Louis XVIII to Canning 7, December 1807. Daudet III, 412, 438 d’Avaray to Havré, ‘c’est un enfer, l’exil d’Edimbourg serait à la convenance de bien du monde’; Diary of Lady Elizabeth Foster (private archives), 27 October 1807 ‘I think Monsieur and all of them are distressed at Louis XVIII’s coming’; cf. HAR/GC/56 Artois to Canning 31 October 1807. First Earl of Malmesbury, Letters to His Family and Friends from 1745 to 1820, 2 vols. 1870, Mr. Ross to Earl of Malmesbury 4 November 1807; (private archive) diary of Lady Elizabeth Foster, 5 November 1807. AN 300 AP III 16 Orléans to Beaujolais, 4 November 1807. AAE 615f f.254 position annuelle de Mr le comte de Lille, 10 July 1811. AAE 621f. 112 vo Marie Joséphine to Madame Gourbillon 8 March 1809; Bernard Morel, Les Bijoux de la Couronne, 1995, pp. 243, 304. Alessandro Righi, Il Conte di Lilla e l’emigrazione Francese a Verona, Perugia 1909, p. 8; Duc de Castries, Le Maréchal de Castries, 1956, p. 245; Comte Armand de Saint-Priest, ‘Notes sur le séjour du roi Louis XVIII à Mittau’, Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique, XLVIII, January 1934, p. 200; M.V. Woodhead, The Abbé Edgeworth nd, p. 215, letter of 13 March 1804. AAE 621 f. 111 Marie Joséphine to Madame Gourbillon, 5 March 1809. HAR/GC/56 Louis XVIII to Canning 7, December 1807; BM Add. Mss. 37290 f.1 Louis XVIII to Lord Wellesley, 9 May 1809; cf. Daudet, III 478 Louis XVIII to Comte de La Chatre 1 March 1809. HAR/GC/55 Junta of Seville to Louis XVIII 4 October 1808 (copy). BM. Add. Mss. 37290 ff. 117, 191 note of April 1810, Artois to Wellesley 8 August 1810. Canning and Artois sometimes corresponded four or six times a month. On 1 September 1808 for example Canning wrote: ‘I am at Your Royal Highness’s disposal, either tomorrow or Saturday, at any hour tomorrow and at any hour from twelve to five on Saturday which may best suit Your Royal Highness’s Convenience.’ HAR/GC/56; cf AN 224 AP IV journal du Comte de Broval, 2 Novembre 1813, ‘j’ai été ce matin faire ma cour à Monsieur a son lever’. Comte A. de La Ferronays, En Emigration. Souvenirs, 1900, pp. 283, 285 letters of Louis XVIII and the Duc de Berri to King of Sardinia 10 August 1810. AN F7 4336B 5 Etats des Français qui ont assisté au Convoi de la Comtesse de Lille et dont les noms ne sont pas inscrits sur la Liste des Maintenus. Private archive, diary of Lady Elizabeth Foster, 20 October 1808, 5 September 1818. Mansel, Louis XVIII, pp. 168–70; George Jackson The Bath Archive, 1873, p. 271 letter of 22 June 1811 to Mrs Jackson; cf. Ferdinand Baron de Geramb, Lettre à Sophie sur la Fête donnée par le Prince Regent pour célébrer l’anniversaire de la Naissance du Roi, London 1811. The French royal family also attended the ball given by the Regent on 14 May 1813. PR0 FO 27/91 note of 19 December 1812; AN 37 AP 1 (papers of the Marquis de Bonnay) Blacas to Bonnay 10 September 1812, 17 March 1813.

26 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95. 96.

97. 98. 99.

100. 101.

102. 103. 104.

The French Émigrés in Europe La Ferronays, p. 338; Sir Neil Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba, 1869, p. 94. AN 37 AP 1, Blacas to Bonnay, 24 October 1813. AN 37 AP 1, letters of 7 March, 7 April 1813; Comte de Caulaincourt, Mémoires, 3 vols 1933, III, 339. La Ferronays, p 324; Daudet, ‘Les dernières années de l’Emigration’, Revue des Deux Mondes 1 August 1906, pp. 632, 658. AAE 606 f.63 Romanzov to Lieven 3/15 April 1813 (copy); cf AN. 37 AP1 Blacas to Bonnay 7 March 1813: ‘le Roi croit pouvoir compter sur le Cabinet de St. Petersbourg, les assurances que l’Empereur Alexandre a fait donner à notre Maitre et les ordres qu’a reçus Monsieur le Comte de Lieven son ambassadeur à Londres ne permettent pas d’en douter’; Marquis de La Maisonfort, Mémoires d’un Agent Royaliste, 1998, p. 215. In 1811, Romanzov was assuring Louis XVIII’s agent the Comte de Briou of his desire to give him ‘un nouveau témoignage de sa deférence pour tout ce qui peut lui être agréable’: AAE 605 f 254 letter of 15 June 1811. Lt. Gen. Comte de Suremain, Mémoires, 1902, p. 301 diary for 29 June 1813; AAE 606f. 79 Blacas to Briou 19 August 1813. The Comte de Bruges also failed to obtain access to allied headquarters. La Ferronays, pp. 393–7. Daudet, ‘Dernieres Années’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 August 1906, p. 651; cf. Daudet, III 511–5; La Ferronays, pp. 395–6. Comte de Rochechouart, Souvenirs sur la Révolution, l’Empire et la Restauration, 1933 pp. 329, 331, letter of 15/27 January 1814; Daudet, ‘Dernières Années’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 August 1906 p. 661 Alexander I to Rapatel and Rochechouart, 31 January 1814; cf. Schroeder, pp. 498, 500. Charles Webster, British Diplomacy 1813–1815, 1921, p. 149 Castlereagh to Liverpool, 16 February 1814; Rochechouart, p. 335 Rochechouart to Artois, 23 February 1814. Schroeder, p. 465; cf. Rochechouart, p. 336 l’ennemi le plus dangereux que nous ayons est le prince de Metternich. Alfons Freiherr von Klinkowström, Oesterreichs Theilnahme an der Befreiungskriege, Vienna 1887, p. 805 Metternich to Schwarzenberg, 30 January 1814; Webster British Diplomacy, pp. 133, 138, Castlereagh to Liverpool, 22 January 1814. BM. Add. Mss. 38256 f. 284 Artois to Duchesse d’Angoulême, 26 February 1814 (copy). Rochechouart, pp. 347, 357, cf. BM. Add. MSS 47287b Lieven papers f 86 Letter to Louis XVIII signed by the Comtes de Wall, Lambert, Rochechouart, Noailles, Rapatel, Loup de Virieu, asking for a prince to organise ‘la délivrance de notre patrie sur les traces des Alliés’. AAE. Mémoires et Documents France 603 ff. 35–7 Pozzo di Borgo to d’Avaray 30 June 1804; AN 197 AP Blacas to La Fare, 8 October 1811. Ghislain de Diesbach, Histoire de l’Emigration, 1990 ed. p. 591. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 2 vols 1950–1935, I 238n; Philip Mansel, ‘Wellington and the French Restoration’, International History Review , XI, I, February 1989, pp. 76–7.

Philip Mansel 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

111. 112.

113. 114. 115.

27

BM Add. Msss. 38364 f. 216 Most Secret Memorandum by Liverpool 4 January 1814; Dorothy Margaret Stuart, Dearest Bess, 1955, p. 203 diary of 1813. Ernest Taylor ed. The Taylor Papers, 1913, p. 123, Lord Yarmouth to General Taylor, 16 January 1814. Webster, British Diplomacy, p. 145; BM Add. Mss. 47245 f 107 Lieven to Nesselrode 14/26 January 1814 (secret). BM Add. Mss. 38256 f 310 Angoulême to Duchesse d’Angoulême, 7 March 1814 (copy); Duke of Wellington Despatches, 13 vols. 1834–9, XI 558, 562 Wellington to Beresford, to Bathurst, 7 March 1814. Webster, Foreign Policy, I 241. Madame de Marigny, Journal, p. 55 entry for 31 March 1814; Wellington, Supplementary Despatches (15 vols 1858–1872, IX, Sir Charles Stewart to Wellington 1 April 1814; Arthur Chuquet, L’Année 1814, 1914, p. 138 letter from Constantin Bulgakov 31 March 1814. See, for example, BM. Add. Mss 38256 f. 284 Artois to Duchesse d’Angoulême 26 February 1814 (copy). In 1805 Gentz wrote from Vienna to Louis XVIII that a Bourbon restoration was needed to prevent ‘une suite perpetuelle de convulsions, de catastrophes et de bouleversemens’ and assured the King that, whatever happened, he would remain ‘au nombre de ses plus fidèles serviteurs’ AAE 603 f. 235 letter of 10 August 1805. See, for example, BM. Add. Mss. 47287B f 97 Blacas to Lieven 23 March 1814 ‘avec l’appui généreux de la Russie et de l’Angleterre il ne tardera pas à être rétabli sur le trône des ses ayeux’. Moniteur, 5 June 1814, p. 617. See Marquis de Bonnay, representative of Louis XVIII at Vienna 1809–14, Copenhagen 1814–16, Berlin 1816–21; Comte de Caraman, Saint Petersburg 1799–1801, Berlin 1814–16, Vienna 1816–28; Comte de La Chatre, London 1806–1816 (but formally reappointed in April 1814); Comte de La Ferronays envoy to Bernadotte and Alexander I 1813–4, to Copenhagen 1817–19, Saint Petersburg, at the Tsar’s request, 1819–1825, Minister of Foreign Affairs 1828–9; Alexis de Noailles envoy to Bernadotte and Alexander I 1812–14, member of the French delegation at the Congress of Vienna 1814–5; Comte de Narbonne-Pelet, envoy in Spain 1813–4, Naples 1815–21. The Comte de Blacas was the King’s representative in Saint Petersburg 1804–8, the head of his household and his chief adviser in 1809–14, Ministre de la Maison 1814–5, ambassador in Naples 1815–16, Rome 1816–22, Naples 1822–30, and finally the leading official of the Bourbon court in exile from 1830 until his death in 1839. He was the only émigré official to serve before 1814 and after 1830.

2 A European Destiny: the Armée de Condé, 1792–1801 Frédéric d’Agay Je n’ai jamais bien compris comment cet atôme dans l’Europe pouvait occuper à ce point les grandes puissances qui ne cessaient d’en parler. (Prince de Condé, Journal) On the night of 17 July 1789 a few horsemen and three carriages left Versailles and took the road for Chantilly where, after a short rest, they went on to Péronne, Valenciennes, Mons and finally to Brussels. The Prince de Condé, his children the Duc de Bourbon and the Princesse Louise, his grandson the Duc d’Enghien, and his mistress, the Princesse de Monaco, and their servants were escaping from the French Revolution. One of the prince’s followers the Comte d’Espinchal would always remember this image of: ce chef respectable de l’illustre maison de Condé, en redingote bleue l’épée au côté, [ . . . ] Rien ne m’a plus frappé, je l’avoue que cette épée, sur sa redingote. . . . Il semblait que c’était le seul bien qu’il ne voulut point abandonner; elle paraissait lui faire dire: “la marque distinctive d’un gentilhomme est son épée: elle ne doit plus me quitter et mon honneur y est attaché. La monarchie ne peut exister sans cette noblesse dont je suis un des premiers membres et c’est à l’épée d’un Condé que le Roi sera peut-être un jour redevable de sa couronne.” 1 The Marquis d’Ecquevilly described this departure in a different way: Il se tut avec les lois et disparut avec la justice; il partit avec son fils et son-petit f ils: il sembla voir Anchise, conduit par Enée que suit le jeune Jules. 28

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The same day the Comte d’Artois, his sons the Duc d’Angoulême and the Duc de Berri, and the Prince de Conti left Paris. It was the beginning of the Emigration. Whether one calls them the far-sighted or the frightened, they understood that the Ancien Régime was no more, that the feeble King Louis XVI would be unable to resist and that the Revolution would drive everything before it. It was also the first time that the French Princes would leave the Kingdom for reasons other than to wage military campaigns or to do a little sightseeing. Crossing quickly through Germany they toured Switzerland where they met a group of courtiers before settling at the end of September in Turin at the court of the King of Sardinia, who, although father-in-law of the Comte d’ Artois and cousin of the Prince de Condé, was scarcely enamoured of his guests. The arrival of so many young French, exuberant, noisy and conspiring, disturbed the calm of his court. After almost a year of vain attempts at counter-revolutionary projects this little court broke up. The Comte d’Artois left on 4 January 1791 for Milan, Venice and Vienna while, on 6 January 1791, the Prince de Condé with all his family and their households departed for Switzerland. He stayed there for two months, then went to Germany where, after having his expectations of hospitality from the Duke of Württemberg at Stuttgart disappointed, he settled at Worms in a palace belonging to the Elector of Mainz. He and his entourage resided there from March 1791 until January 1792. The Prince de Condé was an honest and chivalrous man. If he was in disagreement with Monsieur, or the Comte d’ Artois, he would not let it show. They were the King’s brothers, to whom he owed obedience. His political opinions were simple, even narrow: restore everything to its former state. If, however, Mirabeau can be believed he possessed intellectual qualities; Je suis frappé de cette netteté de discussion, de cette expression toujours juste, de cette succession de développements, de cette analyse qui, dans sa bouche, réduit les questions à un point, et qui d’une missive laconique, fait un traité. 2 However in the opinion of the Baronne d’Oberkirch,

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M. le prince de Condé a une grande instruction, des connaissances littéraires variées beaucoup plus qu’on ne lui en suppose généralement. Il a énormément lu, le retient, et il sait. 3 He was a prince who believed in the French nobility, of which his political leadership and sense of honour made him the representative. He was a modern knight who broke out of the passivity which had been imposed on the French nobility since the Seven Years War. His Journal d’émigration, written from 1789 to 1795, gives no echo of the material hardships he endured but complains constantly of his family, his relatives and the nobility. He had no regrets, except on one occasion when the landscape of a foreign chateau reminded him of Chantilly and made him melancholy. His sense of duty allowed him to submit to Austrian command, which he despised, and to take whatever measures were necessary to ensure provisions for his army. Yet he would not abase himself. He was a Bourbon at all times, who accepted the honours which were paid to him as his birthright. Like all the princes of his family, he was aware of etiquette and of the need to show the primacy of his race over the other sovereign houses of Europe. In many ways, he was the prototype of the eighteenth-century French courtier, of the prince and of the Bourbon, cordial and gallant, worldly at times, a man who loved writing, conversation, hunting, gambling and theatre-going. The Prince was proud and courageous and despised cowards and schemers. First and foremost he was a military man, loved and respected by his soldiers. ‘Condé’ said William Wickham, ‘in their midst is like our medieval Kings with their barons. The old ones are just as difficult as the young ones.’ His ambition as a soldier had not been satisfied before the Revolution; he considered himself the rightful head of the French army, a function which he had never held except at the camp at St Omer in 1788. This mission to lead the French nobility transformed a life which would doubtless have been rather dull, divided between memories of the Seven Years War, the love of Madame de Monaco and entertainments and hunts at Chantilly.

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THE FORMATION OF THE REGIMENTS Almost before he had had time to settle at Worms, the Prince de Condé found himself surrounded by a demi-court, and confronted with meetings with German princes, ambassadors, ministers as well as giving audiences, reading letters from Calonne, sending dispatches to de Broglie in Trier, to the Comte d’Artois in Mannheim, and receiving spies, couriers, and the news of Paris which was arriving with the émigrés. Many nobles were torn between honour which dictated their presence in Coblenz, Worms or Ath and loyalty to the King, who was powerless and would soon be imprisoned. An officer wrote to his brother M. de Gallifet a raison; en reçevant nos grades nous avons fait serment de vivre et de mourir pour le Roi. Maintenant que Louis XVI est prisonnier dans son château des Tuileries, que des factieux lui imposent leurs néfastes volontés, nous manquons à notre devoir en n’allant pas nous joindre aux fidèles de la monarchie. And his brother replied: Les émigrants seront incapables de battre les troupes que leur opposera l’Assemblée, ils feront appel aux Austrichiens, aux Prussiens: voudrez-vous lutter contre votre pays aux côtés de ces ennemis héréditaires de la France? Vous, Jean, faites ce que vous dictera votre conscience, mais prions Dieu qu’il ne nous mettra jamais en présence sur un champ de bataille, vous du côté des révoltés, moi du côté du Roi.4 From the end of May 1791 the Prince de Condé noted in his diary that the number of émigrés at Worms grew daily and he called it the ‘asylum of honour’. In July 1791 the Comte de Provence, who had escaped from Paris without difficulty via the route to Brussels, arrived in Coblenz where the Comte d’Artois would shortly join him. The arrest of the King and Queen at Varennes contributed to the changed atmosphere in emigration. As the focus of intrigue shifted, political objectives gave way to military ones. On 3 August 1791 the prince notes in his journal,

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La noblesse pressait pour une formation; nous trouvions, d’après nos nouvelles que c’était trop tôt; d’un côté, nous apercevions bien que tous les retards la décourageaient et nous voulions éviter cela; pour lui faire prendre patience, nous avions arrangé que les Princes demanderaient un état des noms, de l’âge, et des services de tous les gentilshommes qui voudraient entrer dans la formation du corps de la noblesse et les princes me chargèrent directement de toute la partie en remontant le Rhin depuis Mayence . . . At Worms members of the nobility enlisted with the Comte de Choiseul, captain of the guards of the prince; in Heidelberg, with M. de Turpin, lieutenant general; and in Mannheim with the Marquis de Vaubécourt, lieutenant general. The Vicomte de Mirabeau, younger brother of the famous deputy, who went by the name of Mirabeau-Tonneau because of his size, had already raised a force which would soon be the famous légion de Mirabeau which he placed at the disposition of the Prince de Condé. The Comte de Neuilly wrote ‘Le vicomte de Mirabeau était une masse de chair animée par un courage admirable’. He was malicious, irritable, boastful, a real Mirabeau, and when reproached for his drinking he replied ‘De tous les vices de la famille, c’est le seul que mon frère m’ait laissé’.5 His legion was well organised and never lacked recruits. They were nicknamed the hussards of death, wore a skull on their shako and they were able to break through enemy lines wherever they charged. After Mirabeau’s premature death in 1792, the Comte de Vioménil took command. Then from 1794 the Comte Roger de Damas, changed its name to the Légion de Damas, but retained its reputation as the elite of the armée de Condé. Other nobles grouped themselves by province (Auvergne, Normandie, Franche-Comté) while the officers reassembled themselves by regiment, like the regiment of Rohan. In addition new corps were created like the chevaliers de la Couronne or the chevaliers nobles. On 18 August 1791 after a council at Coblenz, the Prince de Condé returned to Worms where he officially read out the rules of his corps to 500 noblemen and named the Baron de Fumel maréchal de camp responsible for all the details of

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training. On 9 September the companies began training in the court of the palace at Worms. By the beginning of October around 50 noblemen were arriving daily at Worms. The reputation of the prince sparked the jealousy of the court in Coblenz where there were two Mashals of France, sixteen lieutenant généraux, one hundred and eighteen maréchaux de camp and sixteen admirals. The Duc de Bourbon at Marche-en-Famene in Luxemburg was charged with the organisation of a third corps of émigrés under the command of the Comte d’Egmont-Pignatelli. There were three armies; the princes’ army with a strength of 12 000 men; the army of the Prince de Condé which counted 5000 men and the army of the Duc de Bourbon, 4000 men, thus in total a force of 21–22 000 French gentleman soldiers at the service of their country. During this time, relations with the Elector of Mainz deteriorated. He began to fear the invasion of his own lands by revolutionary armies and obliged the Prince de Condé to leave Worms in January 1792 and to go to Oberkirch in the German lands of the Cardinal de Rohan, Prince Bishop of Strasbourg. After many disputes mainly due to the ill-will of the court at Vienna, the indifference of the Russian Empress and the first financial crises, the corps of the Prince de Condé settled at Bingen on the banks of the Rhine, in the lands of the Elector of Mainz. In July, in Kreutznach in the Palatinate, preparations were made for war against France. The Princes slowly began to understand that there was no question of Revolution or counter-Revolution, rather there was simply a war between the powers of Europe and France. THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1792 On 1 July the armée des Princes left Coblenz for new encampments in the Palatinate before reaching Trier and Luxembourg, with the intention of following the troops of the Duke of Brunswick into France at Thionville. The army of the Prince de Condé attached itself to that of the Prince of Hohenlohe who was preparing to take Landau. In September it pushed further into the Brisgau, where it hoped to find a place to cross the Rhine with the Austrian forces led by Prince Esterhazy.

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But there too, the court of Vienna issued endless orders and counter orders; apart from enraging the prince and the nobility, they made it clear that the Emperor regarded the treaty of Westphalia as null and void. He had designs on Alsace and wished therefore to prevent the émigrés from occupying it. After the defeat at Valmy, the armée des Princes and that of the Duc of Bourbon retreated towards Luxembourg, the Low Countries and Germany and were disbanded in the most miserable conditions. The Duc de Bourbon wrote to his father describing La consternation, le désespoir que cette nouvelle avait répandue dans la noblesse de leur armée où tous les gentilhommes restaient sans ressource d’aucun genre: mais le roi de Prusse l’ayant exigé et les Puissances ayant fait cesser toutes les fournitures de pain et de fourrage à ces armées, la dissolution devenait un parti forcé. THE ARMÉE DE CONDÉ – THE ONLY ONE LEFT The Prince de Condé settled at Willingen and, seeing that he would get nothing from Austria but not wanting to disband his troops, offered leave to all those who asked for it: Attendu que l’ardeur pour défendre le Brisgau était nécessairement beaucoup moindre que dans le temps où l’on pouvait espérer que nous attaquerions la France. In desperation he wrote to the Empress of Russia through the young Duc of Richelieu, who was leaving for Saint Petersburg, that the gentlemen soldiers were without any financial assistance from Vienna. At Christmas 1792 the Duc de Bourbon and the Duc d’Enghien arrived, bringing with them the remnants of the armée des Princes in groups of seven and eight after a winter march of over 160 miles. In January 1793 the Empress of Russia sent 120 000 livres and the offer of a colony on the shores of the Sea of Azov for the nobility. That was declined . . . and on 28 January news arrived of the execution of the King. The Prince of Cobourg came to announce the imminent disbanding of the troops. On 8 March 1793, however, Francis II, the Emperor, announced his intention to keep the army for the next campaign

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under General de Wurmser, the new commander in Brisgau, but limited it to 6000 men and stipulated that they be organised ‘à l’Autrichienne’. The Prince de Condé had to work very hard with his officer corps to meet this condition, ‘qui ne cadrait ni avec nos formes, ni avec nos manières, ni avec nos mœurs’. In the meantime the gentlemen soldiers continued to number well above the 6000 limit set by the Emperor, but the Prince de Condé did not have the heart to dismiss them. There were also French deserters who came to join Condé’s forces. Squabbles and petty f ights broke out almost daily between the ‘patriots’ and the légion de Mirabeau; the Duc d’Enghien distinguished himself at Herheim on 6 May, the day when the troops left Brisgau and set out again up the Rhine, pursued by the French army. They went into battle on 17 May near Landau but due to the negligence of the Austrians who, as usual, multiplied orders and counter-orders, the Prince of Condé became disheartened, mais il fallait s’étourdir là-dessus, soutenir la noblesse, et pourtant ne pas abandonner le champ de l’honneur. In July the troops fought every day against the patriots. They failed to take Lauterbourg at the end of August but entered Alsace in October. They set up camp in the village of Berstheim, where on 26 October the prince held a memorial service for the Queen. In November the republicans redoubled attacks against the army which ended in the 9 December in the glorious combat at Berstheim where the Duc de Bourbon was wounded in the hand. J’ai peu vu à la guerre de quinzaine plus chaude que celle-là; la noblesse française s’y couvrit de gloire et si le ciel la destine à être anéantie [ . . . ] elle aura terminé sa carrière comme elle l’avait parcourue depuis 1400 ans avec la plus brillante valeur et toute l’énergie des sentiments purs qui l’attachent à son Dieu, à son honneur, à son Roi. This brief moment of glory counted for nothing because the Duke of Brunswick gave the order for general retreat. The Prince de Condé established his winter quarters at Rothemburg on the Neckar. There the dull life of the camp recommenced, with disputes with the Austrian military administration, the villages, the principalities and a constant struggle against

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poverty. The Emperess Catherine II sent 100 000 florins and in May the prince settled at Rastadt with the object of watching the Rhine under the orders of the Prince of Colloredo. The prince de Condé received a warm welcome from the Margrave of Baden 6 who offered him the use of his palace at Rastadt and gave protection to the French émigrés. Il n’y eut sortes d’attentions, de politesses, d’égards, j’oserais presque dire de respect, que ce Prince ne me rendit pendant mon séjour. Negotiations with the court of Vienna over a new organisation for the armée de Condé fell through yet again and the hopes of the troops and their leader turned toward England. Pitt sent financial help in November 1794 and made overtures towards formal negotiations. As soon as the court of Vienna became aware of this, the Emperor refused to release the corps to the British and Thugut said to the Duc de Richelieu that he had decided to keep it at the expense of the Empire. 1795 passed for the prince and his army, in interminable disputes with the Bishop of Speyer over negotiations for a military base. POVERTY AND VIRTUES OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY The French nobles who made up the corps of gentlemensoldiers had the valour necessary for officers but also a fatal lack of discipline. The army’s military prestige was thus always negligible. Cette défaveur est due au manque de généraux et de soldats. Le mérite de Condé est incontesté mais Condé était seul. 7 The Baron de Flaschlanden wrote to the Duc d’Harcourt in February 1793, Il ne faut pas nous dissimuler que les émigrés, individuellement fort braves, sont de mauvaise infanterie, et qu’il faudrait que ce corps fût soutenu et guidé par une troupe plus accoutumée à la discipline et à la fatigue. In fact, unaccustomed to exhausting marches, to rudimentary bivouacs, to bad weather and to the cold of the German mountains and plains,

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Tous ceux qui ont échappé à la mort sont revenus dans un état d’épuisement et d’infirmité dont ils se ressentiront toute leur vie. There are numerous accounts in the diaries and memoirs of the emigration of these columns of hungry gentlemen-soldiers, shivering, sweating and suffering without complaints or recriminations, sharing a morsel of bread and a bit of straw. The Prince de Condé lived a spartan existence but refused the personal pension offered by the Emperor. Vous ne sauriez croire l’extrême besoin d’argent où je me trouve; nous périssons dans le besoin. Quand ce serait le diable qui m’offrirait sa bourse, je l’accepterais avec bonheur.8 The armée de Condé was synonymous with the nobility although officially the title was the Corps placed under the orders of ‘S.A.S. le prince de Condé’. Condé wrote in his journal: C’est une furieuse charge que d’avoir à conduire un corps de la noblesse, une petite armée dont il faut écouter jusqu’au dernier des soldats. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 1792–97 The émigrés only real hope was Britain. In a letter Louis XVIII confided in the Prince de Condé, Vous pouvez juger avec quelle impatience j’attends le résultat de votre conférence avec M. Wickham; car il ne faut pas nous faire illusion, l’Angleterre seule est notre ancre de miséricorde et vous êtes sûrement aussi convaincu que moi que ce serait folie d’attendre quelque chose de l’Empereur. 9 On the one hand the Austrians wanted to attach the army to the Austrian army in order to prevent it from either entering France or allying itself with another power. On the other hand Austria wanted to keep it weak. Tous les officiers généraux autrichiens nous détestaient autant par jalousie et par avarice que leur soldats nous aimaient par estime et considération. On n’a pas d’idée de toutes les noirceurs qu’on nous faisait, de toutes les humilitations

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qu’on cherchait à nous faire éprouver; je n’opposais à celà que la patience et les faits. 10 The death of the young Louis XVII in 1795 was followed by the immediate proclamation of the Comte de Provence as Louis XVIII, King of France and Navarre. Exiled in Verona, Louis XVIII threatened to join the armée de Condé in order to die a glorious death at the head of the army returning to France. Lord Grenville, who wanted to see a moderate and legitimate government re-established in France, sent Lord Macartney to him in July 1795 with a mission to negotiate the establishment of a constitutional monarchy which would respect the biens nationaux, pardon the Terror and forget any idea of return to the absolutism of the Ancien Régime. He was otherwise authorised to plan an invasion of France from the Jura by an army made up of the émigrés and of Condé’s troops, combined with a landing of British and émigré forces in the Mediterranean and a royalist uprising in the interior. William Wickham, the British agent in Switzerland, was charged with negotiating the military aspects with the Prince de Condé. Nothing came of this plan and the King left Verona on 21 April 1796 for Riegel, the headquarters of the Prince de Condé in the Brisgau. There the Prince de Condé negotiated with Wickham to transfer his army and himself to the pay of Britain, while Lord Hervey, the ambassador at Vienna was charged with procuring the necessary permission from the Austrian government. The Emperor and Thugut refused, wishing to keep the army for the Austrian invasion of FrancheComté. Nevertheless, the cordial relations between Condé and Wickham produced a situation whereby the armée de Condé received British financial assistance through the intermediary of Colonel Charles Craufurd, the British envoy in the prince’s entourage, with the objective of supporting an operation on the French frontier launched by an Austrian army under the command of the Maréchal de Cleyrfayt. Despite hopes of uprisings in Franche-Comté and Lyon, they did not take place: the émigrés overestimated the strength of the royalist forces in the interior. The interplay of spy networks and information agencies attached to the princes and their entourages made the truth impossible for the Prince de Condé to ascertain. The failure of this plan and the advance of the

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republican army again threatened the armée de Condé, which by then numbered around 8–10 000 men. It withdrew towards the lake of Constance where it fought several battles protecting the retreat of the Austrian army: Ober-Kamlach (13 August 1796), Biberach (2 October 1796), Steinstadt (21 October 1796). In July 1797 the Prince de Condé gave leave to the gentlemen-soldiers who wished to re-enter France where they believed they would be able to regain their properties and return to normal life. The coup d’état of 18 Fructidor was a rude shock and obliged many of them to emigrate a second time. Those who stayed experienced a sad existence of camp life on the edge of Lake Constance. IN THE SERVICE OF RUSSIA: VOLHYNIA, 1797–98 Two propositions arrived simultaneously in July 1797. The Emperor Paul I, through the Comte d’Alopeus and Prince Gortschakov, proposed that the Prince de Condé incorporate his army into the Russian army but with a significant degree of autonomy. Craufurd, on behalf of Britain, offered to employ the armée de Condé in the British colonies. This latter proposition was considered offensive because it made them little more than mercenary soldiers; the offer of Paul I was accepted. Britain, without any resentment, gave a six-months gratuity to each soldier but Craufurd was responsible for selling all the horses of the cavalry. The Prince de Condé took some 4– 5000 men, who set out on 4 October 1797 in the direction of Vladimir, capital of Volhynia, a Russian province sandwiched between Poland and the Ukraine.11 The army reached the Danube where it embarked and went down the river as far as Linz, after a stop at Regensburg where they bought Russian and Polish grammar books and maps. From Austria, the armée de Condé travelled through Bohemia, Galicia and finally arrived at Vladimir on 2 January 1798. Their lodgings were inadequate and badly equipped. The snow was persistant and the cold made the town uninhabitable for the French; the headquarters was transferred to Dubno, a neighbouring town which offered greater comfort. The great surprise for the émigrés was the organisation of the army along Russian lines. Russian uniforms and flags were

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imposed but particularly offensive was the requirement to perform guard duty, a perspective which demoralised everyone who was not a soldier by profession. The result of this severity was a rash of desertions, insubordination, and sedition which were reported to the Tsar and infuriated him. A number of officers were arrested and imprisoned. The only events of note in 1798 were the journey of the Prince de Condé to Saint Petersburg and the arrival of the Duc de Berri to command the cavalry. In the summer Polish nobles in the area opened their homes to the émigrés for hunting parties, theatre and balls. But in spite of these moments of illusory pleasure the nobility did not hesitate to express surprise at the need to stay in ‘this tomb’. In January 1799 the army was destined to follow the troops of Marshal Souvorov towards Switzerland, where the struggle against revolutionary France continued but they did not leave until 2 July, crossing Poland, Bohemia and Austria a second time. There were feasts, musical festivities, and artillery displays to fête the armée de Condé wherever it passed. At Lancut princess Lubomirska herself came to do the honours. On 13 September the troops reached Regensburg where they were reunited with the infirm or sick who had not made the journey to Russia. THE LAST CAMPAIGNS AND THE DISBANDING OF THE ARMÉE DE CONDÉ (1799–1801) On 1 October 1799 the headquarters of the prince were established at Bodman on Lake Constance. On 7 October the troops fought with honour in defence of Constance, which was retaken by the Duc d’Enghien on the 11 October after terrible man-to-man fighting. New recruits arrived daily and limits had to be placed on the number taken. The army then marched in the direction of Linz where the headquarters was established on 1 January 1800. The prince granted leave to all those who did not wish to return to Russia. The end of hostilities was imminent and negotiations were underway with Britain as the army prepared to return to Russia. Then, at the last minute, Wickham arranged for the maintenance of the army at British expense. It was then composed of 1007 officers and 5840 volunteers. The Prince de Condé wrote sadly,

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Nous sommes un faible roseau que les puissances se passent pour ne pas se couvrir de la honte de la détruire. 12 After participating in the disastrous campaign of 1800 under Austrian command, one émigré wrote, Le corps dégénère donc visiblement et finira par n’être qu’un rassemblement politique, car nul espoir de recrutement ne reste aux corps nobles.13 Gentlemen soldiers were daily asking for leave to return to France. The troops settled at Graz where the news of an armistice arrived. The bivouacs of the French republican troops were very close to them and the two armies fraternised and discussed the deplorable state of affairs in France. On 19 April 1800 a letter from George III to the Prince de Condé announced the dissolution of the army. Craufurd broke the news to the nobility that the King no longer had need of their services but was ready to engage those who were willing to enter British service. Of the 6000 men left, 825 set out for London and Malta. To the others, a year’s pension was given. Nearly all returned to France as soon as they had procured their elimination from the émigré list. For a handful of them the European adventure finished in the Tyrol in 1801. The Chevalier de Pradel de Lamase wrote, Sacrifices inutiles! huit années de luttes tenaces et de fatigues surhumaines semblent à jamais perdues. Ma jeunesse s’est envolée, et je n’aperçois devant moi qu’une existence humiliée.14 The Prince de Condé and his entourage arrived in England soon after, where they would live until 1814: the Duc d’Enghien stayed in Germany, whence he was abducted and executed on Bonaparte’s orders in 1804. These ‘Condishers’, as they liked to call themselves in German, met again in Paris in 1814 and 1815 to demand the recognition of their services and their sacrifices. The Prince de Condé helped them as much as he could to obtain certificates, honorary grades, pensions and decorations. Many old soldiers felt bitter about the lack of public recognition of their loyalty, honour and courage. An old soldier had a portrait painted in 1825 in his uniform as lieutenant of the légion of Mirabeau

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which he had been 30 years earlier, and named his country house ‘Bersthein’ in memory of the battle where he had been wounded in 1793 and where his two brothers had also fought. In his journal he described himself as a ‘vieux condisher’, ultraroyalist then legitimist, writing sombre thoughts ‘en son agreste manoir’ because he knew at the end of his life that his commitment had been in vain. On the frontispiece of his livre de raison which was destined for his sons, he wrote in large letters, ‘N’émigré jamais, fais-toi tuer sur le sol natal!’15 Text translation by Kirsty Carpenter

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Comte d’Espinchal, Mémoires, Paris, 1912, p. 21. Letter to the Comte de Guibert at the time of the calling of the Etats Généraux. Baronne Oberkirch de, Mémoires sur la cour de Louis XVI et la société française avant 1789, Mercure de France, Le temps retrouvé, No. 21. July 1791, letters from MM de Fontane in the regiment of NoaillesDragons, quoted by le Comte G. Mareschal de Bièvre, Les ci-devant nobles et la Révolution, Paris, 1914, p. 213. Comte de Neuilly, Dix années d’émigration, Paris, 1865, p. 77. Charles-Frédéric Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1738) and of BadenBaden (1771). H. Forneron, Histoire générale des émigrés pendant la Révolution française, Paris, 3 vols 1884, tome II, p. 25. Letter from the Prince de Condé to Mgr de la Fare, dated 18 October 1794, cited by Forneron, II, p. 13. Letter from Verona dated 15 October 1795, Archives de Chantilly. Prince de Condé in his journal, 15 June 1793, Archives de Chantilly. The prince, taking into account the fact that certain émigrés could not afford to make the journey, offered leave to anyone who wanted it. Letter dated 8 June1800 cited by Forneron, II, p. 374. Jacques de Thiboult du Puisact, Journal d’un fourrier de l’Armée de Condé, 1882, p. 263, 21 June 1800. Notes intimes d’un émigré, Paris, 1913, p. 335. Livre de raison et papiers de Melchoir-Emilien de Firaud d’Agay (1771–1853) Archives d’Agay, Var.

3 London: Capital of the Emigration Kirsty Carpenter London and its suburbs and surrounding villages provide a snapshot of émigré life such as it might have been in any large foreign city during the Revolution. Politically, socially, economically, many of the issues that confronted the émigrés elsewhere in Europe could be found within 50 miles of Cornhill.1 The émigrés started to appear in London as early as the autumn of 1789, only months after the storming of the Bastille. Their numbers swelled during 1790 but the increases were gradual until the King’s attempted flight to Varennes sent a new wave of émigrés on to the London streets in the autumn and winter of 1791–92. The real exodus, which deluged London with penniless refugees (of whom a great many were priests), came in the wake of the September Massacres and spanned the closing months of 1792.2 London, the largest city in Europe, was an obvious choice for many émigrés. Many had been in Britain before and were comfortable in British society. Many of the members of the nobility had connections and friends who welcomed them into their circles. Others, like the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, had relations in Britain. The city provided a forum where émigrés from different regions of France and different socio-economic groups were thrown together. After a short time these differences reasserted themselves and translated into a geographic pattern which saw the wealthy émigrés drawn towards areas like Marylebone and Richmond and the poorer émigrés seek out the more squalid suburbs like St Pancras and Saint George’s Fields. Throughout the period Soho was an important meeting point for émigrés, a place where social status mattered less than the accuracy of the latest news from France. The combination of its location in central London and its traditionally international population set it apart from other London districts. 43

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With the entry of Britain into the war in February 1793 London very quickly became the most important émigré centre in Europe and the political hub of the counter-Revolution. London was a much larger city than Paris and its prosperity was plainly apparent to the newly arrived émigrés. 3 Rien ne sauroit égaler la commodité de ses trottoirs, où l’on marche avec aussi peu de fatigue que sur un plancher; ni la richesse de ses magasins et de ses boutiques; où l’on voit les productions de toutes les parties du monde étalées avec le soin le plus ingénieux. Il n’est pas de ville dont on puisse dire avec plus de verité qu’elle est abrégé de l’univers.4 Few émigrés suspected, particularly in the early stages of the conflict, that the Emigration would last into the next year, let alone into the next century, but when it did become long term, the London émigrés were well placed to maximise their resources. In contrast, in 1792 and again in 1794, émigrés in the Austrian Netherlands had to sustain the cost of expensive and dangerous relocations when the republican army entered Brussels. Before 1792 the Emigration was essentially made up of the nobility. Émigrés who came from the lower echelons of society usually had a direct relationship with their social superiors.5 Greer’s statistics, which are commonly cited to suggest that the Emigration had a far more diverse socio-economic composition, can be misleading. These figures (which show that 25 per cent of émigrés were clergy, 17 per cent were noble, 51 per cent came from the Third Estate with a further 7 per cent inidentifiable but assumed to come from the privileged classes) are collective figures representing the whole of Europe.6 In the London case, a sample of the lay (i.e. non-ecclesiastic) émigrés, taken in 1796 when the British government called for a general re-enrolment of the relief lists in order to limit the number of refugees receiving relief, provides a different picture. In a sample of 812 émigrés, 201 (nearly 25 per cent) listed a noble title.7 This analysis can be further developed by looking at the status description given in this same document. 8 38 per cent (including 11 per cent officers) were either active military personnel waiting to be drafted into the British forces or retired soldiers.9 Of the 35 per cent of women, 18 per cent used the designation Dame and only 5 per cent, the term Bourgeoise or

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Madame to describe themselves. Comparatively, 11 per cent of men used the term Gentilhomme while fewer than 1 per cent were Bourgeois. Domestic servants and artisans account for 10 per cent of the total. What this suggests is that, in London, the emigration was top and bottom heavy. There were very definitely a range of émigrés to whom the designation ‘bourgeois’ applied, but these people invariably had some link with the nobility and had espoused royalist or constitutional royalist politics. Some had links with the luxury trades which had flourished during the Ancien Régime but found themselves struggling to survive under the Republic. For the purposes of this re-inscription émigrés were required to give a description of their ‘status’. Among the more specific vocations were: Avocat, Chirurgien, Conseiller au Parlement, Constituant, Controleur Général des Fermes, Fermier Général, Fermier, Secrétaire d’Intendant, Imprimeur, Instituteur, Magistrat, Maire en Titre, Maître de Poste, Maître Verrier, Marchand, Membre de la Noblesse des Etats d’Artois, Négociant, Page de la Reine, Procureur au Châtelet à Paris, Serurier, Tailleur, Blanchisseuse, Couturière. The range is quite clear. The military descriptions include titles such as Ancien Officier, Garde du Corps du Roi, Officier or Officier de la Marine, then below the officer level, militaire or ancien militaire, or marine (short for membre de la Marine française). Otherwise the designations were limited to Gentilhomme, Dame/demoiselle, Bourgeois, Bourgeoise, Madame/ Mlle, Femme de Chambre, Domestique or Artisan. The strong aristocratic component of the London émigré population is further suggested by the fact that 33 per cent of the émigrés who gave London addresses to the British authorities in 1796 lived in Marylebone. 10 This statistic reveals not only the bon ton of the area for the London émigrés but, because tailors, milliners, locksmiths and washerwomen were among those who lived there, it suggests a special relationship between the ex-noble émigrés and the others. The French residents of lower social status were probably drawn to Marylebone in the hope of finding a market for their skills. The harp-maker Sebastien Erard is a good example of one such émigré who became very wealthy, owning businesses in London and Paris

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at the Restoration. His first business in exile was set up in Marylebone High Street. 11 Information relating to the activity of the lower Third Estate émigrés is difficult to obtain because few of them left any account of their time in London. Few émigrés had any capital and were therefore confined to working from home or for somebody else, which they found difficult due to language problems. Often émigrés did not possess sufficient clothes to be able to work outside their homes. Although they did provide dressmakers and milliners there is little evidence of émigrés being restaurateurs or boarding-house keepers.12 London was a culture shock. The abbé Baston described it as, ‘une ville immense, monstrueuse pour les dimensions’.13 The abbé Tardy was more partial and called it: une des villes les plus imposantes par l’immensité de son étendue et de sa population; la richesse, l’activité et l’industrie de ses habitans; la distribution générale de ses rues et de ses trottoirs; le nombre, la beauté, et la variété de ses places!14 Women in particular, perhaps because they experienced some of the most horrific voyages across the channel in the winter season, were jubilant about their arrival in London. The autumn gales of 1792 were particularly bad and émigrés crossed the channel in a variety of unseaworthy vessels so that many were lucky to arrive safely. 15 Many women’s first memories of emigration were of sickness or sadness or both. 16 The Duchesse de Saulx-Tavannes wrote of being near to death two days after her arrival in Britain.17 Sickness claimed the lives of many small children who were more susceptible than adults to changes in diet and weather conditions. Mme de Ménerville describes how her child died in her arms because she could not find a doctor who would treat the son of an émigré until it was too late.18 The Comtesse de Saisseval remembered the anguish of hours going from door to door in the falling snow in Dover to find shelter for herself and her children, who were close to perishing from cold and hunger.19 As time went on, crossing the channel to get to the safety of London, and British government relief funding, became lifethreateningly perilous. Many émigrés were able to leave France only through the compassion of boatmen who assisted them to

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escape at usurious prices and disguised as members of crew. Mme de Lauzun was among those who crossed to Britain disguised as a fisherman.20 Many were lucky to arrive alive, considering the unseaworthiness of the vessels in which they travelled. Mme de Monregard made the crossing with her servants and a priest in a raft with a makeshift sail.21 The Vicomtesse de Sesmaison, her four children and their tutor, barely escaped with their lives when they struck the autumn storms in a boat which was not sturdy enough for the weather. At Eastbourne, they were rescued from the water by local fishermen.22 It is hardly surprising that émigrés, and women in particular, expressed relief at arriving in Britain. Their enthusiastic descriptions of the countryside almost invariably evoke the happiness they felt to be out of reach of the Republican armies and under the protection of the British government. Il faisait un temps superbe, nous allions bon train et tout en admirant ce beau pays, malgré la vilaine saison la propriété des villages, l’air d’aisance et de richesse du paysan, nous avions toujours l’oeil ouvert sur les gentilhommes de grands chemins et sur notre petite bourse composée chacune d’un demi-guinée et de quelques schellings. . . . Nous arrivâmes aux faubourgs de Londres vers cinq heures (du soir). Les abords gais et vivants d’une grande ville nous rappelèrent le temps heureux où nous arrivions dans notre Paris. 23 The Marquise de Falaiseau was far from the only woman to remember her arrival in London in glowing terms. The Comtesse de Gontaut (who had been reduced to finding a barn with fresh straw a welcoming prospect) and the Duchesse de SaulxTavannes were similarly affected. Once in London, the prospect of a new city to explore was attractive though not all were enthusiastic. The Comtesse de Boigne with characteristic scorn described: Cette grande cité composée de petites maisons pareilles et de larges rues tirées au cordeau, toutes semblables les uns aux autres, cette frappée de monotonie et d’ennui. [ . . . ] Quand on s’est promené cinq minutes, on peut se promener cinq jours dans des quartiers toujours différents et toujours pareils. 24

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If the transition from Paris to London presented few unknowns to émigrés who moved easily between courts and countries in Ancien Régime Europe, the contrast between this and other journeys was nevertheless stark. In 1789 George Selwyn wrote: When I left St James I went in search of Mme de Boufflers and found her at Grenier’s Hotel which looks to me more like an hospital than anything else. Such rooms, such a crowd of miserable wretches, escaped from plunder and massacre and Mme de Boufflers among them, with I do not know how many beggars in her suite, [ . . . ]. When I saw her last, she was in a handsome hôtel dans le quartier du Temple. . . . 25 The forced circumstances made the presence of the French in Britain awkward and embarrassed. They were ill-equipped to cope with living in Britain, rather than just visiting it, and their command of the language was, in the vast majority of cases, inadequate for day-to-day living. In August 1791 Fanny Burney and her friend Mrs Ord met a group of émigrés at Winchester who were on their way to Bath. They took pity on this group of weary travellers who were having great difficulties finding fresh horses, and invited them to drink tea with them. The elder lady was so truly French – so vive and so triste in turn – that she seemed formed from the written character of a Frenchwoman, such, at least, as we English write them. She was very forlorn in her air, and very sorrowful in her countenance; yet all action and gesture, and of an animation when speaking nearly fiery in its vivacity: neither pretty nor young, but neither ugly nor old; and her smile, which was rare, had a finesse very engaging; while her whole deportment announced a person of consequence, and all her discourse told that she was well-informed, well-educated, and well-bred.26 From 1790 to early 1792 the émigrés conformed to the British stereotypes. They spoke English with difficulty but they projected an image of being light-hearted and amiable and little concerned with the political storms at home. This was precisely at a time when the British papers were full of the writings of

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Burke and Paine and most responsible members of society had an opinion on the events in France. There was subsequently a great deal of criticism of the levity of the French in regard to politics and of their readiness to indulge in entertainments which seemed at odds with their circumstances.27 The Marquise de Falaiseau wrote that the British ‘ne concevaient pas comment on pouvait supporter tout cela et conserver de la gaieté’.28 By mid-1790 the emigration was starting to include members of the provincial estates and of the professions who were disillusioned by the Revolution. These men had shared the early enthusiasm for change but were repulsed by its pace and leadership. As time went on political sympathies became even more varied as the émigrés were joined by moderate members of the Constituent Assembly and others whose ideas were insufficiently radical for the Revolution. It was into the inns, hotels and boarding-houses of Soho that the refugees descended in search of food, friends and news from France. The noticeably French character of Soho in the eighteenth century made it a popular choice.29 There were many French lodging-houses kept by descendents of French Huguenots, while Huguenot artisans, watchmakers, jewellers and goldsmiths had businesses in the Soho Square and Soho Fields area.30 Golden Square was another very French address and by the mid-1790s émigrés had swelled the existing French population. 31 Madame de Gontaut remembered: Le quartier dans lequel M. de St Blancard avait pris un logement pour nous était assez triste et situé près de Golden Square, et je compris ce que les Français éprouvent en arrivant un dimanche à Londres. Le silence, le peu de mouvement surprend et l’on risque en y arrivant d’être saisi par une attaque de spleen qui se dissipe le lundi par un beau soleil à Hyde Park. 32 Soho was an important lay émigré centre. Some priests found lodgings there but the expense drove most of them further afield.33 The hotels of Soho provided the French with traditional food and there is evidence to suggest that hotels such as the Hotel de la Sablonnière, No. 13 Leicester Square did well out of their émigré business. This hotel is mentioned in many of the memoirs either as an address or eating place.34 Rivarol stayed there when he came to London in 1794 and many

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counter-revolutionary plots were hatched in its salons, which had formerly belonged to Hogarth.35 This great diversity of people, cultures and customs made the French feel more at home in Soho than anywhere else in London. This is reinforced by the statistics. Next only to Marylebone, Soho had the highest density of émigré settlement in London.36 18 per cent of lay émigré families for whom addresses are available lived in Soho and this does not include the 8 per cent for Tottenham Court Road or the 4 per cent for Bloomsbury and Fitzroy Square.37 Familiar Soho addresses, Old Compton St., New Compton St., Wardour St., Queen St., Greek St., St Anne St., Berwick St., Denmark St., Dean St., and Princess St., appear in the relief lists. One important émigré in the Soho community was the artist, Henri-Pierre Danloux. He made a conscious decision to emigrate in January 1792 because he had no desire to work in a revolutionary state.38 A portrait painter whose clientele was exclusively drawn from the Ancien Régime elite, he was also a royalist. He chose Soho because it was the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and after his arrival he targeted the British gentry and the newly-arrived French. His studio in Leicester Fields, which he set up with meticulous care to appeal to his British clients, in fact became a meeting place where the demi-monde of the emigration could congregate and chat.39 He also kept a journal in which he recorded his appointments, sittings and general comments about life and art among the émigrés. Talking about Mme de Pusigneux the sister of Mme de la Suze, early in 1793, he wrote, Rien en effet trahit chez elle la misère dont on remarque en général l’empreinte chez les émigrés.40 Many lesser artists set themselves up in Soho as interior decorators and became much sought after. Their reputation for exquisite taste even reached Queen Charlotte. She commented to Fanny Burney that: there are no people who understand enjoyable accommodations more than French gentlemen. 41 Another feature was its émigré bookshops. Dulau was situated at 107 Wardour Street near Soho Square. Opened by a former Benedictine monk who had managed to save the contents of

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his library it was, after an initial relocation, a large shop with plenty of room. It soon became one of the favourite meeting places for the émigrés, a centre of gossip and a source of news from France. Dulau edited speeches, pamphlets, poetry and travel diaries which were printed by Cox and Baylis, the only specialist French-language printers in London.42 He was also a major distributor for the French émigré newspaper Le Courier de Londres. Another French bookshop, De Boffe, located at 7 Gerrard St., had a similar role as a popular meeting place for the émigrés. These were not the only French bookshops in London; bookshop owners were among the small number of French émigrés who applied for British naturalisation as a result of the emigration.43 The prosperity of these establishments, of which we know only skeletal details, was due to the intense literary activity among the émigrés and the willingness of the British elite to read what was being written.44 Reading and writing were probably the most popular pastimes for émigré society. Many found writing a relaxing way to forget the pressures and hardships of exile. Those who destined their work for contemporary publication usually had political or pecuniary motives but the émigré memoirs also offer proof of the number of émigrés who sought to justify their own actions to themselves or to others through keeping a journal. Titles published in London during this period were primarily political in nature. They include, among others, Calonnes’s Tableau de l’Europe (1795), Montlosier’s Vues sommaires sur les moyens de Paix (1796), Chateaubriand’s Essai historique (1797), and Lally Tollendal’s Defense des émigrés (1797). Women were not well represented among the professional writers of emigration; the Comtesse de Flahaut was an exception but even she reserved her observations for fictional characters.45 No one expressed as clearly as Chateaubriand the isolation of exile or its effect upon the émigré mentality. 46 He described the survival mechanisms that it inspired in the most delicate women or the elderly priest. This was echoed by one of the characters in Sénac de Meihan’s novel L’Emigré (1797): ‘on voit souvent dans l’Emigré l’homme rendu en quelque sorte à son état primitif ’.47 Chateaubriand is also responsible for one of the most colourful images of émigré poverty in London. He claimed to be

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reduced to sucking sheets and eating grass and paper to stave off hunger pangs.48 This image was undoubtedly embellished but his observations about the émigrés and their society are often very lucid. Chateaubriand brought out the divisions among the émigrés, and was not afraid to air them in a critical way, yet he was also quick to excuse them. The Comtesse de Flahaut offers similar opinions of the émigré mentality from a female point of view. 49 She arrived in London in 1792 with her infant son Charles, very little money and only a few jewels.50 Her novel Adèle de Senange, which was to be the first of a dozen over the next 20 years, enabled her to live comfortably though quietly during her emigration, which was relatively short. 51 In the preface she wrote: Seule dans une terre étrangère, avec un enfant qui a atteint l’âge où il n’est plus permis de retarder l’éducation, j’ai éprouvé une sorte de douceur à penser que ses premières études seraient le fruit de mon travail.52 Flahaut used her creative instincts to combat the long days in exile and she recopied her own manuscripts in order to shut out her worries.53 Yet she was also acutely aware of the suffering of others around her: Avec les habitudes d’une grande fortune, il suffit d’un caractère ferme, pour se soumettre aux privations, mais il faut bien du temps pour apprendre l’économie.54 In contrast to Soho, Marylebone housed wealthy émigrés, many of them nobles who had lived at Versailles. The early years 1789–94 were characterised by conspicuous consumption, the later ones, 1795–1814 by an elegant sufficiency. The politics of this part of town were exclusively royalist and the ultra-royalism of its inhabitants was reinforced by the arrival of the Comte d’Artois in 1799 and the Prince de Condé in 1801. 55 Aspersions were often cast on the political pedigree of other émigrés by those who lived around Portman and Manchester Squares and there can be no doubt that there were some who initially enjoyed a standard of living very little changed from their Parisian one.

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Il se trouvait à Londres quelques personnes à qui des circonstances heureuses avaient conservé une partie de leur fortune, ou du moins des ressources momentanées. C’était la partie élégante de l’emigration; là on montait à cheval, on allait en cariole; là se trouvaient des jeunes femmes suivies, recherchées, comme elles l’eûssent été à Paris, et des jeunes gens aussi occupés de plaire qu’ils avaient pu l’être quand les succès auprès des femmes étaient l’affaire la plus importante de la vie.56 But many émigrés agreed that this was not sensible. Mme Danloux comments on the absurdity of émigrés entertaining lavishly and giving balls: On parla ensuite du luxe des femmes émigrées qui étaient à ce bal; on dit que cela faisait un contraste frappant avec la simplicité des quelques anglaises qui s’y trouvaient. Nous convînmes tous qu’il était bien ridicule que des émigrés donassent des bals. 57 The émigrés themselves were highly critical of each other’s behaviour. Madame de La Tour du Pin wrote in disgust about the pettiness of aristocratic émigré society.58 She described émigré women as pretentious, haughty and intolerant and these reactions were shared by Madame de Gontaut who expressed a similar desire to leave London as soon as possible.59 Whatever the reasons, some émigrés undoubtedly displayed these qualities towards those less fortunate in emigration. William Windham wondered philosophically whether the British might not have behaved in exactly the same way if put in a similiar situation. 60 However, if anger, disappointment and bitterness found expression in personal behaviour, in their writings the émigrés were often more generous.61 Chacun raisonne et s’anime pour ses passions, ses goûts, ses vanités, et les opinions doivent être d’autant plus variées dans un pays où le caractère national présente plus de nuances. L’émigration les rassemblait toutes.62 The special significance of Marylebone for the London émigrés was reinforced by the the Chapel of the Annonciation which was built in King Street (Portman Square) and consecrated in March 1799. It was also known as the Chapelle Royale de

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France because shortly after its consecration the comte d’Artois took up residence nearby in Baker Street and worshipped there regularly. The French community provided the money and most of the labour for its construction.63 It is mentioned in many of the émigré memoirs64 but unfortunately this unimposing little chapel was demolished in 1978.65 Despite its dull appearance it was consecrated by one of the highest representatives of the French Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Aix, and welcomed no less than three Kings of France and many princes to worship or mourn within its walls.66 The list of those who attended the funeral of Louis XVIII’s wife, the comtesse de Lille, in this chapel attests to its historical significance.67 The French chapel was closed in 1911 and the building subsequently served as a furniture warehouse, a day nursery, a mortuary chapel, a prayer-room, a synagogue and a recording studio.68 By 1799, when the Chapel of the Annunciation opened, the lifestyle of the early days of Emigration had disappeared almost completely. Even Monsieur the Comte d’Artois lived quietly, enjoying the companionship of his long-time mistress Louise de Polastron, until she died of consumption in 1804.69 Émigrés who had come to the area wealthy with rents and income from their properties in Saint-Domingue or other French colonies, and who had initially impressed London society with their taste and entertainments, had since been humbled by the events of the war and the disintegration of their fortunes.70 It was not long before they had adapted to the necessity of work and integrated it into the rhythm of their daily life. The sort of work done by the émigrés reflected their aristocratic tastes and employed their existing skills. White muslin embroidered dresses which were easy to make and profitable were much sought after.71 Embroidery was put to many uses as a fashion accessory. 72 Straw hats were the other important fashion accessory which the émigrés turned into a prosperous trade. The hats, which sold for 25 shillings apiece, are probably the best-known product of émigré labours in London.73 Life soon revolved around the morning spent in the ‘atelier’ or workshop. On arrivait vers les onze heures du matin. Là nous faisions des chapeaux de paille, non tressée, comme la paille de

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Livourne, mais entière, blanche et brillante; des fils de laiton liaient ensemble regulièrement tous ces brins de paille, qui s’arrondissaient sur des formes de calotte, en s’aplatissant en passes sur des feuilles de carton. En travaillant sans trop de distraction, on pouvait faire son chapeau en trois jours.74 Walsh describes how the young, because they generally spoke better English than their elders, were given the unenviable task of going and selling the hats to the hat shops in the city.75 He remembered clearly the haughtiness of the shop-keepers which he describes as their ‘sot orgueil’ and for a well-born émigré the experience of finding himself at the mercy of a merchant was a situation of unequalled discomfort. The clergy did not like selling their work either and they persuaded the Wilmot Committee (responsible for the distribution of Government relief) to do it for them. 76 The ‘ateliers’ of Emigration were social institutions. They provided the émigrés with an outlet for shared griefs and aspirations. The company of other émigrés and the cameraderie which lightened the gloom and despair of many émigrés’ personal circumstances played an important role in helping the émigrés both to cope with the strains of prolonged exile and simply to pass the time.77 This need for society and for companionship created a unity and a sense of common destiny which drew the little French community of Marylebone together. Mme de Menerville, describing the dark winters of 1795, 1796 and 1797 in London, commented: Je n’ai jamais retrouvé une société aussi franchement unie (tous les intérêts, toutes les opinions, tous les désirs étaient les mêmes), aussi distinguée par l’esprit, les talents, les bonnes manières, une conversation plus charmante ni des soirées qui valussent celles que nous passions à Londres dans de pauvres salons, mal meublés, auprès d’un feu de charbon, éclairé par une petite lampe ou deux chandelles. Des jeunes et souvent très jolies femmes, vêtues d’une robe indienne, coiffées d’un méchant chapeau de paille, déployait une gaiété, une grace, une amabilité enviées des Anglais.78 Some émigrés turned their hobbies into lucrative occupations with more success than others. The Duc d’Aiguillon found work copying music for the director of the Opera.79 Monsieur

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Brillaud de Lonjac, who lived at 103 Marylebone, High Street was so indebted to his countrymen for their help and contacts in emigration and in British circles that he proposed, free of charge, to offer, three days a week, to a limited number of people, group lessons in singing, the English guitar and accompaniment. 80 This gesture suggests just how much music tuition, which for many émigrés was a part of life in France, was missed. And the ci-devant noble music mistress made a rather comic figure venturing out in all weathers to go to the homes of her pupils, ‘la robe retroussée dans ses poches et un parapluie à la main’.81 Music lessons and tuning pianos were a favourite way to make money but few émigrés made their fortunes out of concert music. Danloux mentions a Mlle Mérelle, a talented young harpist who had made the mistake of trying to make her living. She gave sparsely attended concerts in freezing venues and was thrown into the debtors’ prison for a sum of 15 guineas. Luckily for her, somebody told the Comte d’Artois who paid her debts.82 The Comte de Marin, a talented violin player, was an exception; he had an established reputation before he came to London, where he gave charity concerts to raise money for émigrés who were less fortunate than himself.83 There were a few novel occupations. Jean Gabriel Peltier, an émigré journalist, capitalised on the English fascination for the guillotine. He had a miniature of the guillotine made in walnut and, for the price of a crown for the front seats and a shilling for the rear, he advertised the spectacle ‘Today we guillotine a goose, tomorrow a duck’.84 It seems that this macabre performance appealed to the English because several other émigrés followed his example. For the inhabitants of Marylebone privations were limited and work, to the extent that it was necessary, was integrated into an enjoyable social round. They went to their ateliers in the mornings, entertained each other in the afternoons and managed to survive. Mme de la Tour du Pin, however, knew several émigré women who never appeared in society but dedicated themselves to their work.85 Émigré life in other parts of London was much harsher. As early as 1793 poor areas of London like St Pancras, Somers Town and Saint George’s Fields found their communities swollen

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by newly arrived French refugees. The émigrés who were attracted to these areas were almost invariably those who had managed to save little from the Revolution and what they had brought with them was quickly spent. Prominent in this group was the provincial nobility, women (particularly widows), priests and domestic servants.86 Many women, in particular those waiting for husbands who were serving with the princes, chose Saint George’s Fields which was among the poorest, cheapest and most insanitary areas of late-eighteenth-century London. Most received some assistance from the charitable committees and later from the British Government but in winter and with several children this aid was inadequate. It took the death of a noblewoman from hunger in Saint George’s Fields to bring home to the British just how bad the situation was. A group of British women, horrified that such a thing could happen, discovered that there were many women in need of basic necessities of life. Often the little furniture they possessed had been sold to buy fuel, with the result that clothes and bedding were among their essential needs. There were cases of great distress, women suffering as a result of childbirth without help or support, physical and mental illnesses of differing severity but all aggravated by the stresses of prolonged separation from loved ones, bereavement and harsh living conditions.87 Working for long hours in bad light to supplement what little money they had also took its toll.88 Some coped better than others but the squalor, that was evident in Saint George’s Fields, as in other poor areas of London, was depressing for those accustomed to a completely different standard of living. In July 1795 an expedition to Quiberon Bay was mounted with the French émigré forces in a leading role. Almost all the London families had members in the regiments that went to the Atlantic coast of Brittany. The disastrous events at Quiberon have been the subject of a number of analyses but whatever the verdict on the military mismanagement which produced such a failure, the cost to the émigrés was plain.89 Prisoners taken at Quiberon were subject to the penal laws, which affected any émigré caught on French soil and were shot without trial within days of capture. This news took a little time to filter back to London but its impact was devastating, since many émigrés had counted on Quiberon to release them

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from their refugee existence. Without the support of the family members who had been killed, the future was even more bleak. This grief was compounded by the fact that boys who had not been old enough to serve in the 1792 campaign fought at Quiberon and their young lives were uselessly sacrified.90 Most of the families in Saint George’s Fields were receiving relief payments but these were barely adequate in summer and in winter or at times of personal crisis many families found themselves destitute. The Comtesse de Flahaut wrote: Ceux qui n’ont jamais connu le malheur ignorent combien une seule circonstance imprévue peut jeter dans le désespoir.91 The relocation of the French refugees from Jersey and Guernsey to the British mainland was another occasion when the émigrés found themselves victims of political crises. This was essentially because the émigrés were evacuated for military purposes and the impact of the dislocation on their daily lives was not given serious consideration.92 This new group of refugees went to Somers Town, a newly developed, cheap area not far from the city centre.93 Their presence attracted other émigrés and the outstanding leadership of the Abbé Carron, who became the community’s chief organiser and inspiration, was another incentive for émigrés to settle there.94 As well as being a prolific writer, he opened schools for the children (as he had in Jersey) and he made provision for the sick and the elderly to be taken care of properly.95 His ability to overcome problems, raise money and organise earned him the epithet of the St Vincent de Paul of the Emigration.96 His public farewell to the English people before he returned to France in 1814 illustrates his admiration for the English and their support for the émigré cause but also a personal sentiment which many refugees shared with him, Magnanimes Anglois, vous m’avez fait retrouver comme le doux sol qui me vit naître, sur votre terre hospitalière; mes parens d’adoption, vous m’avez prodigué, durant de longues années, les soins assidus de la mère. Comblé de vos bienfaits, je vais m’arracher de vos bras; la Providence me condamne à ce grand sacrifice, qui me devient comme une émigration nouvelle.97

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The warmth of feeling that the emigration created between British and French people can be gauged from a variety of sources, from the diversity of donors to the relief subscriptions, to the tokens of friendship proudly shown to a travelling Englishman by two priests on their way to Rouen in 1802.98 It is impossible to veil the nostalgic nature of that gratitude. There are many examples like the following; Cette isle est le seul coin de terre Où le malheur soit accueilli. Salut, généreuse Angleterre! Partout nous n’avons recueilli Que les dédains, l’insulte amère D’une tourbe immorale et grossière Et d’un souverain avili. Mais dans ton sein pur et sensible Nous avons trouvé des amis: Ta rive seule est accessible Aux Français loyaux et soumis.99 The émigrés, who had arrived expecting a stay measured in months, returned to France after an average absence of 8–10 years. During this time they had established links which bound them intimately to places and to people and the British too were sad to see them go. 100 For all of this, London provided the backdrop. London was the home of the Wilmot Committee which organised the relief effort.101 It was the theatre in which the main dramas of emigration took place, from the passing of the Aliens Bill to the murder of the Comte d’Antraigues.102 And it was the city from which Louis XVIII set out on his return to Paris cheered on by the crowd and safe in the knowledge of the support of the British government. 103 Historians who consider the émigrés to be politically impotent have overlooked the enormous power of the image created by the émigré population in the London streets. Both in 1793 when the British Government went to war against Republican France, and in 1798 in the wake of Fructidor, the moral force of the emigration was an asset to the British Government in its negotiations with other European powers.

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Nothing cuts so severely into the feelings of the French rebels, as the noble and liberal manner in which the English have relieved those Loyalists whom they have expatriated. It convinces them that their conduct and their new system of Government are detested in this country, as well as in all other civilized parts of the world; and that therefore it is an impossibility ever to maintain a Government to which all nations but that in which it is attempted, are inimical. 104 The historian has only to ask the question why the émigrés received such generous treatment from a Protestant nation upon whom they had no direct claim to begin to understand the power of émigré propaganda. Why was the émigré cause able to command support at such a high level of British society? Why were the members of the Wilmot Committee some of the most eminent people in the realm? Why did the British Government accept responsibility towards the refugees? Because the émigrés had the sympathy of the British élite behind them which, reinforced by their generally honourable behaviour, was sufficient to impress upon the government the need to support them. Arthur Young was not the only British subject who could see through the Jacobin rhetoric.105 He like others questioned the treatment émigrés had received under revolutionary law. The presence of women, children and priests in the London streets emphasised the point which Lally Tolendal had argued so eloquently when he demanded that all those who had not taken arms against the Republic be exempted from the émigré laws: The child, whom a widow, a father or a daughter overwhelmed with despair, has carried away with her at her bloodstained bosom and who has not yet heard of the calamities of its country nor of the massacre of its family, the child conceived in sorrow in exile and who drinks more of the tears than the milk of its wretched mother is already attained by this murderous law.106 Even some who were blatantly critical of French behaviour felt compassion: for the poor women who have been driven to this country from France and I feel inclined to extend that sensation to the clergy, who have come over in vast numbers; 107

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Historians of British radicalism have acknowledged that the most significant impact of the Revolution upon British politics was the boost it gave to political conservatism.108 The émigrés helped bring about the shift from the enthusiasm for Revolution of 1791 to the pro-government stance which characterised early 1793.109 The dignity of the refugees and their willingness to make the most of their situation not only increased British admiration for them, but it encouraged an almost universal rejection of all that had made them suffer.

NOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

5.

One of the clauses in the Aliens Bill (1793) specified that the émigrés must live within 50 miles of Cornhill. Another stated that they must not live within 10 miles of any port. Figures for the number of émigrés who came to Britain in Sept–Dec 1792 are very difficult to ascertain because records were not kept. Estimates range between 10 000 and 40 000 and come from a variety of sources such as the press, the correspondence of members of parliament and the Wilmot Committee records. To complicate matters further the 1786 Trade Treaty between Britain and France had given reciprocal access without the need to carry passports to the merchants of both nations. This was breached by the Aliens Bill ( January 1793) which required all foreigners to carry passports in Britain and the French Government made formal protest. 12 500 annually between 1792 and 1802 is the figure which I have proposed in my thesis but it is almost certain that in the very early stages of the influx, that is, Sept–Dec 1792, there may have been as many as 25 000 émigrés in Britain. See K.A. Carpenter, Les émigrés à Londres 1789–1802, unpublished Doctorat de l’Université thesis, Université de Paris I, 1993. This theory is further developed in my forthcoming book Refugees of Revolution: the French Emigrés in London 1789–1802, London, 1999. J. Dupâquier, La population française au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1979. Abbé Tardy, Manuel du voyageur à Londres: ou recueil de toutes les instructions nécessaires aux étrangers qui arrivent dans cette capitale précédé du grand Plan de Londres, par l’abbé Tardy auteur du Dictionnaire de prononciation française à l’usage des Anglois, Londres, 1800, p. 206. Donald Greer in his study of The Incidence of Emigration during the French Revolution, (Harvard, 1951) found the nobility to be a minority. Clergy 25.2 %, Nobility 16.8 %, Upper Bourgeoisie 11.1 %, Lower Bourgeoisie 6.2 %, Workers 14.3 %, Peasants 19.4 %, Other 7 % (more briefly and often quoted Clergy 25 %, Nobility 17 %, Third Estate 51 % and Other 7 %

62

6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

The French Émigrés in Europe (p. 112, Table I). This revolutionised the way historians approached the Emigration. Yet his assertion that ‘The brilliant company of aristocrats obscures the presence of a dense throng of drab émigrés’ (p. 63) has pushed assumptions too far the other way. Greer collated figures for all émigrés who left France and therefore for all destinations in Europe. He was aware of problems relating to the ‘estates’ terminology. ‘As descriptive of the French social order it had always been somewhat inaccurate; by the end of the eighteenth century it had lost all social validity, and was nothing more than a consecrated anachronism’. (Incidence of Emigration, p. 65). The sample is taken from PRO T. 93–28. Of the 812 sample 701 gave a description of their status while 111 left the column blank. The percentages are taken from the 701 rather than the total 812. Proportionally this is a much higher percentage than the blanket 10% for the military emigration maintained by Donal Greer, Incidence of the Emigration, Harvard, 1952, p. 90. K.A. Carpenter, Les émigrés à Londres 1789–1802, unpublished Doctorat de l’Université thesis, Université de Paris I, 1993. p. 324. This figure represents those who gave an address in Marylebone and Portman or Manchester Squares. A. Grangier, A Genius of France, A short sketch of the Famous French Inventor, Sebastien Erard and the firm he founded in Paris 1780, translated by Jean Fougueville (3rd edn, Paris, 1924) and Pierre Erard, The Harp, In its present improved State compared with the Original Pedal Harp, London, 1821 and F. Fétis, Notice biographique sur Sebastien Erard, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Paris, 1831. Gordon MacKenzie, Marylebone, Great City North of Oxford Street, London 1972, pp. 28–9. There is nothing in PRO T. 93–28 or Add Ms 18, 591–593, to suggest that émigrés kept restaurants, hotels or boarding houses. These were much more likely to be kept by French Huguenots who were confused with French émigrés. M. l’Abbé Julien Loth et M. Ch. Verger, réd., Paris, 1897, p. 125. Abbé Tardy, Manuel d’un voyageur à Londres, op. cit., p. 206. J.D. Parry, An historical and descriptive account of the coast of Sussex, London, 1833, p. 203. Fanny Burney developed this theme in her novel The Wanderer where Gabriella was described as having been, ‘punished for plans in which she had borne no part, and for crimes of which she had not even any knowledge; – not only driven, without offence, or even accusation, from prosperity and honours, to exile, to want, to misery, and to labour, but suffering, at the same time, the heaviest of personal afflictions, in the immediate loss of a darling child’. Burney, The Wanderer, Oxford edition, 1991, p. 390. Marquis de Valous, Sur les routes de l’Emigration, Mémoires de la duchesse de Saulx-Tavannes (1791–1806), Paris, 1934, p. 48. Mme de Ménerville née Fougeret, Souvenirs d’Emigration 1791–1797, Paris, 1934, pp. 66–7.

Kirsty Carpenter 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

63

Henri Forneron, Histoire générale des émigrés pendant la Révolution française, Paris 1884–1890, vol. II, p. 44. R., Baron de Portalis, Henry-Pierre Danloux, peintre de portraits et son journal durant l’émigration, Paris, 1910 p. 155. Jules Bertaut, Les émigrés français à Londres sous la Révolution, Le Nouveau Monde, mars 1923, p. 184. J.D. Parry, Coast of Sussex, op. cit., p. 203. Hervé, Vicomte de Broc, Dix ans de la vie d’une femme pendant l’émigration, Adelaide de Kerjean, Marquise de Falaiseau, Paris, 1893, pp. 140, 141. Comtesse de Boigne, Mémoires, Paris, 1907–8 [reprinted, Mercure de France 1986,] vol. I, p. 373. G. Selwyn to Lady Carlisle, Hist. MSS Comm. XV, Appendix Part VI, Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle, p. 677, letter dated November 1789. Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay edited by her niece, London, 1842, vl 5, pp. 233. Lord Auckland, Journal and Correspondence, London, 1861, vol. II, p. 370, Mr. Storer to Lord Auckland, 6 August 1790, wrote: ‘These people always like a little joke in the midst of their most serious misfortunes’. Vicomte de Broc, op. cit., p. 146. M. Goldsmith, Soho Square, London, 1948, p. 12. There were 612 Huguenots listed in the parish in 1711, ibid. C.L. Kingsford, The Early History of Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Soho, and their Neighbourhood, Cambridge, 1925 p. 116. Duchesse de Gontaut, Mémoires, 1773–1836 et lettres inédites, Paris, 1895, p. 23. See Chapter 13. Courrier de Londres, 16 August 1793. Leigh Hunt, The Town, its memorable characteristics, St Paul’s to St James’s, London, 1906, p. 479. PRO T. 93–28. K.A. Carpenter, Les émigrés à Londres 1789–1802, unpublished Doctorat Nouveau régime, Université de Paris I, 1993. p. 324. Portalis, op. cit., p. 50. ‘Il partit le 11 janvier 1792 seul, ne jugeant pas prudent d’emmener les siens avant de leur avoir assuré des moyens suffisants d’existence’. Portalis, op. cit., pp. 106–7. Ibid., p. 169. The Diary and Letters of Mme d’Arblay edited by her niece, London, 1842, vol. VI, p. 145. 75 Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Archives Nat. ABXIX-3793 lists Pierre Didier, owner of a bookshop at 75 St James Street, and Laurent-Louis Deconchy, ibid., 100 New Bond Street as successful applicants for British naturalisation. A good example of this is the subscription list of Lally Tolendal’s Le comte de Strafford, which was published by De Boffe in 1795 and included the Prince of Wales, William Pitt, Henry Dundas, James Fox and many British peers.

64 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65.

The French Émigrés in Europe She lived at No. 27 Half Moon Street, Mayfair. Chateaubriand, Essai historique, politique et moral sur les Révolutions anciennes et modernes, œuvres Complètes, Bruxelles 1835, vol. I, p. 7. Senac de Meihan, L’Émigré, Brunswick, 1797. Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’Outre Tombe, op. cit., p. 444. Adelaide Marie Emilie Filleuil, Comtesse de Flahaut. See Maricourt, Baron de, Mme de Souza et sa famille, Paris, 1907. Charles de Flahaut developed lasting connections with Britain dating from the Emigration. He later married a British woman and was naturalised (1822). His attachment to Britain can be appreciated in this letter to his mother: ‘cette Angleterre m’est devenue ce qui était la province pour Mme de Sévigné, j’aimais jusqu’à l’accent anglais dans le français’. AN AP 565, 14 February 1816. She returned to France in 1797 and managed to get herself removed from the émigré list. Her husband the Comte de Flahaut had been guillotined in 1794. Œuvres Complètes de Madame de Souza, comtesse puis marquise de Flahaut, Paris 1821. Adèle de Senange. Baldensperger, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 40. Mme de Souza, œuvres Complètes, Paris, 1821, vol. II, p. 302. Apart from summers spent in Scotland between 1801 and 1803 the Comte d’Artois resided in London from his arrival there in 1799 until his return to France in 1814. A. Bardoux, La duchesse de Duras, Paris, 1898, pp. 57–8. Portalis, op. cit., p. 305. Marquise de la Tour du Pin, Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans 1778– 1815, Paris 1920, vol. II, p. 165. Duchesse de Gontaut, op. cit., p. 30. Windham correspondence, quoted by Margery Weiner, The French Exiles, 1789–1815, London, 1960, p. 100. Guilhermy, le colonel de, Papiers d’un émigré, 1789–1826, Paris, 1886, pp. 116–17. Bardoux, op. cit., p. 59. Harting, Catholic London Missions from the Reformation to the year 1850, London, 1903 pp. 231–3, cited by Wilkinson, op. cit., p. 484. ‘Dans une ruelle aboutissant à cette dernière rue, des nobles ouvriers avaient élevé et báti de leurs mains un temple au Dieu qui soutient les exilés; la chapelle de King Street existe encore aujourd’hui et le prince de Polignac, avec grande convenance, en avait fait la chapelle de l’ambassade de Sa Majesté très chrétienne. Après le bannissement les Français dont l’exil avait fini, et qui venaient revoir l’Angleterre, s’empressaient d’aller prier dans cette église de leurs mauvais jours’. Walsh, op. cit., p. 151. Margery Weiner wrote in 1960: ‘The curious can still see the Chapel of the Annunciation although it has long since ceased to be called by that name. From the mews in Carton Street one steps into what is scarcely more than a large room, whitewashed and lit by a skylight in the roof. Above the entrance passage a gallery is supported on slender pillars. On one side of the gallery a corkscrew staircase leads up three

Kirsty Carpenter

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89.

65

flights, each with a small room where lived the ministering clergy.’ The French Exiles 1789–1815, p. 123. Jean-de-Dieu Raymond de Boisgelin. The funeral of the Comtesse de Lille took place on 26 September 1810. Fonds Bourbons, Mémoires et Documents, 620 provides a list of those present at the funeral. Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 231. Louise d’Esparbès de Lussan, Comtesse de Polastron, 1764–1804. The uprisings in Saint-Domingue and other French dependencies like Martinique and Guadeloupe originated with plantation workers demanding their rights as French citizens and freedom from oppression. Minor uprisings began as early as 1790, the British became involved supporting the royalist planters in the spring and summer of 1793 and this involvement forced the French Republicans to ally with the slaves. Fighting in Saint-Domingue went on until 1801 when the slave leader Toussaint l’Ouverture gained control but the economy of the once wealthy colony had been decimated, much property had been destroyed and from mid–late 1794 émigrés with property in Saint-Domingue were cut off from their funds and subsequently denied credit in London. Ménérville, op. cit., p. 169. The Marquess of Buckingham was instrumental in providing a shop where the émigrée ladies could price their work and leave it to be sold in order to spare them the embarrassment of selling their work themselves. Duchesse de Gontaut, op. cit., p. 24. Vicomte Walsh, op. cit., p. 153. Ibid. Vicomte Walsh, op. cit., p. 154. Add Ms 18,591 vol. I, p. 130. Ménérville, op. cit., p. 171. Ibid. M. Kelly, Reminiscences, 2 vols, London, 1826, vol. II, pp. 86–7. Le Courrier de Londres, 17 May 1793, Monsieur Brillaud de Lonjac, 103 High Street Marylebone. Daudet, Histoire de l’émigration, vol. I, p. 131. Baron de Portalis, op. cit., p. 117. Vicomte Walsh, Souvenirs de cinquante ans, Paris, 1862, p. 267. Montlosier, Souvenirs d’un émigré, p. 221 quoted by, H. Maspero-Clerc, Un journaliste Contre-révolutionnaire J-G Peltier, p. 70. Marquise de la Tour du Pin, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 182. Vicomte Walsh, op. cit., p. 170. Lubersac, op. cit., pp. 79–82 mentions specific cases of these circumstances. Eye problems were one of the three main categories of illness (along with faiblesse/grande faiblesse and mauvaise santé) among émigrés according to the medical records of the Wilmot Committee. AN ABXIX-3791, dos 3. See Maurice Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-revolution. Puisaye, the Princes and the British Government in the 1790s, Cambridge, 1983. and Patrick Huchet, Quiberon ou le destin de la France, Rennes, 1995.

66 90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95.

96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101.

102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

The French Émigrés in Europe Lubersac, op. cit., p. 83. ‘Eugénie et Mathilde’, Mme de Souza, Œuvres Complètes, Paris, 1821. This is the subject of sustained correspondence between members of the Wilmot Committee and the Government contained in P.C. 1/118 (particularly no. 73.) which did succeed in facilitating the removal but the speed with which the operation was accomplished meant that the émigrés invariably lost money and possessions which they could not easily transport. PRO T.93–39 contains a list of the names and addresses of the 350 lay émigrés who came from Jersey. Carron was 36 when he came to London. He also founded the St Aloysius chapel in the Polygon in Somers Town in 1808. See Dominic Aidan Bellenger, The French Exiled Clergy, Downside, 1986, pp. 104–9. While in London, he wrote a number of religious works for use by the clergy and the wider Catholic community. Les pensées ecclésiastiques, published by Dulau (1797), were perhaps the most influential in the émigré community at large. They were a series of readings and thoughts for each day of the year. Walsh, op. cit., p. 165. BM Add Ms 9828, f. 200, extract from, Les Adieux de L’abbé Carron de Somerstown à ses bienfaisans amis, les citoyens de la Grande Bretagne, Somers town, le 29 juillet 1814. John Carr, op. cit., p. 34. Verses from a work by M. de Malherbe, (No. 31 Charles St, London) with a long dedication to William Windham AN ABXIX-3790, X/47. See, example, Mary Russell Mitford, Recollections of a Literary Life, London, 1859, pp. 233–6. The Wilmot Committee was set up as a charitable committee to relieve the sufferings of the French clergy in September 1792. Its key members were the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon who was responsible for the distribution of funds within the French community and John Eardley Wilmot, MP for Coventry, who had previously been involved in the settlement of Loyalist claims. In December 1794 the Wilmot Committee assumed responsibility for the distribution of Government relief to all émigrés in Britain and administered payments to the émigrés until 1814. See D.A. Bellenger, Fearless Resting Place p. [ . . . ] and for a fuller explanation of the history of the relief, K. Carpenter, Refugees of Revolution, The French Émigrés in London 1789–1802, Chapters 3 and 4. See Colin Duckworth, The D’Antraigues Phenomenon, London, 1986. The murder of the Comte d’Antraigues and his wife in Barnes in 1812 remains to this day surrounded by mystery. Mansel, P., Louis XVIII, Paris, 1982, p. 182. The Times, 10 October 1792. A. Young, The Example of France a Warning to Britain, London, 1794. Defence of the French Emigrants addressed to the People of France, translated by John Gifford Esq, London, 1797, p. 42. Mr. Burges to Lord Auckland, 21 September 1792, He continues: ‘but I am every day less and less disposed to entertain a similar sentiment

Kirsty Carpenter

108.

109.

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for the rest of the refugees, the higher orders of whom, with very few exceptions have been deeply implicated in the guilt of this Revolution’. Lord Auckland, op. cit., vol. II, p. 445. This was stated by H.T. Dickinson in 1789 (H.T. Dickinson, ed., Britain and the French Revolution 1789–1815, London, 1989, p. 103) and reiterated by David Eastwood in 1991, (Mark Philip, ed., The French Revolution and British Popular Politics, Cambridge, 1991, p. 147.) J.B. Burges writes to Lord Auckland from Whitehall on 7 September 1792 that: ‘The French excesses, I fancy, have made a great impression here’. Lord Auckland, op. cit., vol. II, p. 441.

4 French Émigrés in Hungary Ferenc Tóth The history of Hungary in the eighteenth century was characterised by massive migrations, facilitated by its recent reconquest from the Turks. 1 Germans, Slavs, and even Frenchmen made their homes in the southern part of the country.2 Many Hungarians also left their country for political reasons at this time, following the failure of the War of Independence led by the Prince Rákóczi (1703–11). The prince was an ally of Louis XIV and, by the creation of a Hungarian diversion, had helped France to avoid total defeat in the wars of the Spanish Succession. Rákóczi fled to France in the hope of continuing his war for Hungarian independence and his little court in exile became a meeting place for his former followers. Thus at the beginning of the eighteenth century several thousand Hungarians were incorporated into regiments of hussars in the royal army.3 These regiments, like other foreign regiments, were considered loyal servants of the monarchy and several officers of Hungarian origin succeeded in making brilliant careers. A few were even presented at court: François Antoine Berchény (the son of Maréchal Ladislas de Berchény) and Ladislas Valentin Esterhazy each commanded their own regiments and the famous French diplomat in the Ottoman Empire, and technical advisor of the Ottoman army in the 1770s, François Baron de Tott, also gained this distinction.4 Ladislas Valentin Esterhazy, future ambassador of the Princes, was born in the commune of Vigan in Languedoc in 1740. 5 Count Ladislas de Berchény took charge of his education after the death of his father, and he began his military career during the Seven Years War in the regiment of hussars commanded by Berchény. He fought in the Seven Years War and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1761, aged only twenty-one. He soon won permission to raise a regiment of hussars himself (1764) and his rank and intelligence obtained him many diplomatic missions in central Europe and, 68

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it is probable, in England. It was he who, in 1770, brought the portrait of the future Louis XVI to Marie Antoinette at Vienna. There he gained the favour and the confidence of the future Queen of France who, in spite of his reluctance to receive them, showered him with gifts. During the popular uprising in 1775 and the ‘Flour War’ he distinguished himself at the head of his regiment by re-establishing order in the province of Brie. He was promoted to the rank of General in 1780 and the following year was made Military Governor of Rocroy. It was during this period that he married the daughter of the wealthy Comte d’Hallwyl. At the height of his career the Comte d’Esterhazy was not only a favourite of Queen Marie Antoinette, he was also chosen as one of the eight members of the Council of War created in 1787.6 When the Revolution broke out in France, two senior officers of Hungarian origin were at the head of two garrisons in the north of France. The Comte d’Esterhazy, commander at Valenciennes, played a key role in the escape of the Comte d’Artois, which he described in his memoirs thus: Tout fut calme à Valenciennes pendant la journée du 16. Il ne venait personne de Paris, mais on disait que les issues en seraient libres dès que le roi y serait rentré. Je profitai du départ de la diligence pour écrire à ma femme et lui conseiller de venir me retrouver le plus tôt qu’elle pourrait avec ses enfants. Dans la nuit du 17 au 18 on vint m’éveiller en me disant que le prince de Chimay était aux portes et demandait à me parler. Je donnai l’ordre de lui ouvrir, mais supposant que c’était quelqu’un qui prenait son nom, car je le savais lui-même en Italie, je montai ensuite à cheval et courus à la porte de Notre-Dame. En chemin je croisai une berline qui allait à la poste; je m’y rendis, et quel ne fut pas mon étonnement de me trouver en ouvrant la portière dans les bras de Monsieur le comte d’Artois. 7 Esterhazy then received a letter from the King and another from Marie Antoinette putting the fugitives under his protection.8 He arranged for the King’s brother to cross into Flanders with the help of his hussars. Esterhazy was also a key figure in the escape of the Dukes d’Angoulême and de Berri and the Prince de Condé.9 Rumours about his activity invited accusations against his person in the Assemblée Nationale, which he

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refuted by publishing letters to prove his innocence.10 It was not long, however, before the royalist activity of the Comte d’Esterhazy became self-evident. Probably the Baron de Tott at Douai also facilitated the emigration of aristocrats. In any case, the royalist activities of these two gentlemen of Hungarian extraction were discovered and they were chased from their posts by mutinous soldiers in 1790.11 Esterhazy went to Paris to save his family, while Tott emigrated first to Brussels then to Switzerland.12 He was stopped at the frontier at Cheyres for having forgotten his papers and a fight broke out during which the officer at the post said to him, ‘Si vous aviez fait du bien, vous ne seriez pas ici!’13 In Switzerland the Baron de Tott met the Hungarian noble, Count Theodore Batthyány, who invited him to Hungary and gave him a house at Tarcsa (today Bad Tatzmannsdorf in Austria). Count Batthyány was an inventor and, because he needed foreign expertise, he made the most of the baron’s network of connections. The villagers called his house the ‘Hexenhaus’ or witches-house because of his scientific experiments. The Baron de Tott died there in October 1793.14 A few years ago a tomb was built for him in the village cemetery.15 His second daughter Sophie de Tott, a musician and a painter, was for a long time in the entourage of the Comtesse de Tessé in London, in Bienne in Switzerland and near Hamburg. 16 She painted two portraits whose subjects are key figures of the emigration, the Comte d’Artois in uniform in London in 1802, and the Prince de Condé, a painting which is now held in the collection at Chantilly [see Plate 5]. Another daughter of the Baron, Marie-Françoise, married the Comte François de La Rochefoucauld in 1793 in The Hague.17 The Comte d’Esterhazy, after returning to Paris, set about realising the first political objective of the Princes in exile: the escape of the King. Several projects were discussed. Esterhazy gave his version as follows: Je supposai que tout était concerté, que nous trouverions un bateau pour traverser la Seine, et que des voitures de l’autre côté nous auraient bientôt menés sur la route de Chantilly, où M. le prince de Condé avait tous ses chevaux qui pourraient être distribués sur la route, pour mener le roi au centre de son armée, où il aurait trouvé des fidèles serviteurs.

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La même idée vint en même temps au duc de Brissac et nous l’étant fait soupçonner par un coup d’oeil, nous restâmes un peu arrière pour nous communiquer nos soupçons. Le résultat de notre conversation fut que nous observions chacun un des officiers nationaux, et qu’au moment du passage de la rivière, si l’un d’eux voulait s’y opposer ou ne pas nous suivre, nous lui passerions notre couteau de chasse à travers le corps; c’était la seule arme que nous eussions; ils avaient, eux, leurs sabres et leur pistolets; mais nous espérions ne pas leur donner le temps de s’en servir, lorsque le roi s’arrêta et ordonna à son écuyer de faire venir le relais du Butard au pont du Pecq. Cet ordre détruisait nos espérances, et plus j’y ai réflechi depuis, plus j’ai vu combien la fuite eût été facile.18 Esterhazy sent his wife and children to Britain and prepared for his own imminent emigration but did not finally leave France until the end of September 1790.19 He distinguished himself as the confidant of the Comte d’Artois during the negotiations at Pillnitz whence he was sent to Saint Petersburg to be the Princes’ ambassador at the court of Catherine II.20 He died in Russia in 1805 and his son Valentin became an officer in the Austrian army.21 Another important émigré of Hungarian origin was Comte François de Berchény, the son of Marshal Ladislas de Berchény. Commandant of a regiment of hussars, he too belonged to the circle which surrounded the royal family and he was probably aware of the project to rescue it. At the time the escape took place he was with his hussars at Montmédy awaiting the King. 22 Later, he decided to emigrate and took most of his regiment with him.23 He entered the service of Austria and at the time of his presentation at the Austrian court he described his situation as the following. Mon père a dû quitter la Hongrie parce qu’il n’aimait pas trop le roi. Moi, il m’a fallu quitter ma nouvelle patrie parce que j’aime beaucoup mon roi. Les deux choses nous sont comptées comme fautes.24 Details of how he retained command of his regiment in the Austrian army have not survived but in 1793 he joined the émigrés in London, where he died in 1811. 25

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In some cases connections between French nobles of Hungarian extraction and their Hungarian relatives proved an advantage to the émigrés. For example, General Lancelot Turpin de Crissé, a popular military expert of the time and author of the famous Essai sur l’art de la guerre (1754), was taken in by the Esterhazy family in Vienna until his death at the beginning of August 1793. Prince Esterhazy made all the arrangements for his stay as well as his funeral in order to return the kindnesses which the Comte Turpin de Crissé had shown to the branch of the Esterhazy family which had settled in France. The old strategist continued writing during his stay and when he died all his manuscripts were in the Esterhazys’ possession.26 Emigration and desertion were particularly sensitive issues in the foreign regiments in the French army. The collective emigration of entire regiments made up of foreigners began only in 1792.27 Four foreign regiments (Royal-Allemand, Berchény, Saxe and Berwick) went over to the Austrians.28 The regiment of Royal-Allemand dragoons and the regiments of hussars, Saxe and Berchény were part of the armée des Princes until 1 February 1793 at which date they were incorporated into the Austrian army.29 The Légion de Bourbon, made up two squadrons of light cavalry and one division of hussars, entered the service of the Emperor in autumn 1793. 30 Why were there so many hussars in the émigré cavalry? According to General Wenck, these corps were more mobile and more independent than other units of the French army.31 It is also possible, however, that the royalist activities of the Hungarian and German officers in these regiments lay behind their heavy desertion rate. When Dumouriez crossed over to the enemy in 1793, there were 13 officers in his entourage from the former regiment of Berchény. They rejoined their friends in Austrian service and Comte François-Antoine Berchény began to reorganise his regiment under Austrian command. In fact, the comte had very little room to manœuvre, something that was understood by the Comte de Neuilly, newly arrived from Flanders in this period, who also wished to rejoin this renowned regiment: Ayant su, par un des mes camarades, que l’Autriche allait prendre à sa solde nos régiments de hussards, qui avaient

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émigré avec leurs officiers, armes et bagages, et avaient fait la campagne avec nous, je fis trouver le comte de Berchény, colonel du régiment de ce nom, et je le priai de me recevoir comme simple hussard. Il avait connu mon père; et même il était peiné de ne pouvoir m’accorder ce que je désirais, mais dit que j’étais trop jeune; et que d’ailleurs sa capitulation avec le gouvernement autrichien n’étant pas encore signé, il ne pouvait augmenter sa troupe.32 The annual lists of the imperial and royal army are a rich source of records relating to the composition of these regiments. They contained members drawn from well-known French noble families, for example, Joseph de Broglie, Louis de Pange, Joseph de Neuilly or François de Goguelat who risked his life for the royal family at Varennes.33 One thing seems clear from these registers: the majority of royalist officers were denied important posts. Career soldiers were often given preference, as in the case of the replacement of François Antoine de Berchény by colonel Philippe Görger, a former officer in the Esterhazy regiment of Alsatian extraction.34 Yet while it was normal for the most important posts to be held by men without noble title, nobles were often present in a supernumerary capacity. This ‘social revolution’ devised by the Austrians was in part explained by the mutual distrust and conflicting agendas of the Austrian ministers and of the émigrés, whose intention it was to re-establish the French monarchy in all its former grandeur. The Comte Ladislas Valentin Esterhazy alluded to this: Le prince de Kaunitz, quoique dans de bons principes, paraissait, vu son âge, désirer qu’on n’y prît pas une part active. On ne me laissa pas ignorer à Vienne que les autres ministres, surtout M. de Spielman, regardaient l’affaiblissement de la France comme un grand advantage pour la maison d’Autriche, et que ce serait contraire à la politique de cette maison de contribuer à lui rendre sa splendeur, à moins d’en retirer de grands dédommagements.35 Outside the army, the presence of French émigrés in Hungary made itself felt through the relatively high number of prisoners of war. Around 1000 French officers and more than 10 000 subordinate officers and ordinary soldiers were transported

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into territories under the authority of the Hungarian crown.36 Their treatment by the authorities involved many precautions because they were widely regarded as dangerous revolutionaries who could contaminate the Hungarian population. This was true of the vast majority of the officers but there were nevertheless some who openly declared themselves royalists like colonel d’Argoubet, who when detained at Szeged, shouted, ‘I am a soldier of the King never of the Republic’.37 Conflict between these two factions was a daily occurrence. The émigrés sought recruits among the French prisoners. In 1795 two officers from the armée de Condé, colonel de Vassé and major de Bouan, were, with the authorisation of the Emperor, employed in Hungary in order to gather recruits.38 Their mission had little success. The spiritual needs of such large numbers of French prisoners of war on Hungarian soil required attention. Non-juror priests were authorised by the army at Buda and organised by the archbishops of Esztergom and of Kalocsa. The names of the 21 French priests who worked in the principal areas of detention have survived.39 In spite of almost unanimous rejection by the French officers, the presence of the priests was undoubtedly appreciated by the ordinary soldiers. There is no figure for the exact number of non-juror priests who emigrated to Hungary. There are, however, passing references. In 1795 the question of the arrival of the French priests inspired a heated debate in the government in Vienna.40 The Council finally agreed to authorise the immigration of secular priests and a group of monks. In the majority of cases the Hungarian clergy took financial responsibility for the French priests. At Pécs, relations between the Hungarian clergy and the French ecclesiastics were good and this fact is borne out in their correspondence. 41 At Szombathely, even the municipality contributed to the expenses of the French émigré priests.42 Details have survived of the community of priests in Presburg which existed until 1802 and whose spiritual leader was CamilleLouis de Polignac, former Bishop of Meaux. 43 Others settled in the Hungarian provinces or in chateaux lent by aristocrats. The employment of priests also posed problems. Canon Ladislas Dessoffy, an ecclesiastic of Hungarian origin, was first employed working in a region of French settlement in the Banat. Later he became a librarian to the Archbishop of Esztergom.

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He also distinguished himself as a French poet at the imperial court. His funeral orations, written in the style of Bossuet on the occasion of the death of members of the imperial family, were published and even translated into German and Latin.44 The loss of the young Palatine of Hungary, the Archduke Alexander Leopold, inspired a lengthy diatribe against the Enlightenment. Dans ces tems malheureux où la simplicité des mœurs domestiques s’éteint avec la douce familiarité qui en faisait le charme; où la sainte image de la vertu ne paraît plus qu’un phantôme importun, où l’innocence attaquée tout à la fois par l’audace et par le ridicule, n’ose rougir, et ne peut se défendre; où le luxe monté à son dernier periode, porte avec l’ensemble de tous les vices, la confusion, la disette et la mort dans tous les états qu’il atteint de son souffle contagieux; dans ces tems malheureux, dis-je, la providence nous a donné dans ALEXANDRE LEOPOLD le spectacle d’une âme échappée aux illusions de son siècle: il semble qu’elle ait voulu retracer à nos yeux la mémoire de ces tems fortunés, qui ne sont plus connus que par la foi des saints livres, en nous laissant voir dans sa personne la simplicité, la bonne foi, la tempérance, la modération, la frugalité. 45 With this and other works, long forgotten, Ladislas Dessoffy made his mark in the literature of popular religious romanticism.46 With regard to the political activity of the émigrés in Hungary, there exist only partial accounts. There is evidence of political information on the situation in France being sent back to Hungary. Father Alexovits, chaplain at the University of Pest in an unpublished manuscript quotes passages from a letter which was sent from Lorraine to an émigré. 47 In 1793 another émigré named Pauget presented to the Conseil de Lieutenance de Buda a ‘Lettre ouverte à la Convention’.48 Some émigrés crossed Hungary in their travels. One of the most famous of these was Charles-Marie d’Irumberry, Comte de Salaberry, a future political figure of the Restoration. 49 He left France in October 1790.50 This travelling émigré devoted six letters in his subsequently published work to Hungary and its inhabitants. He made a rather superficial analysis of the political system and from the few contacts he had with the

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inhabitants he penned what was really a stereotype of the Hungarian national character. Il y a des peuples dont le caractère national, s’effaçant de jour en jour par le mélange des races, devient ainsi plus difficile à saisir. Mais les Hongrois prennent en naissant les inclinations et les opinions qui les distinguent au moral, comme leurs traits et leurs habits au physique. [ . . . ] S’il se rencontre des gens qui aient pour leur liberté un amour qui va jusqu’à l’enfance, tenant plus aux mots qu’aux choses, ayant une prévention extrême pour leur pays, qui est, selon eux, le premier pays du monde, et celui qu’ils sont presque tous le plus empressés de quitter, ayant une aptitude unique à s’exprimer en plusieurs langues; parlant avec la gravité la plus importante de leur diète et de leur constitution, qu’on leur laisse, je dirai comme on laisse des joujoux dangereux à des enfants colères, parce que l’un et l’autre sont plus nuisibles qu’utiles au pays et à la pluralité de ceux qui l’habitent; si vous entendez ainsi parler des hommes ou des femmes, des jeunes gens ou des vieillards, ce sont des Hongrois. . . . 51 According to contemporary accounts émigrés were generally welcomed in Hungary with a mixture of generosity and prejudice. All the French and even French-speaking foreigners were suspect in the eyes of the authorities.52 The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars coincided with an abundant and vehemently anti-French pamphlet literature. These works served as ideological arms in the bid to inspire a kind of levée en masse, Hungarian style, that the Emperor could use against the French Republican army. Even the traditionally francophile elite, it was believed, would participate in such a movement. Comte Théodore Batthyány, who had at one time been a secret correspondent of the French consul at Trieste 53 and invited the Baron de Tott to his home at Tarsca, wrote a poem entitled ‘Sentiment d’un patriote hongrois’ (Pressburg, 1796) which contained the lines Comme on est sur le sujet des nations mal informé De croire, que les Hongrois ont besoin d’être sollicités, Lorsqu’il s’agit de quasi voler au secours de la patrie. Telle leur est non seulement l’Hongrie mais toute la Monarchie;

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Puisque nous sommes tous sous FRANÇOIS le même bon Père Entre nous tous pour le salut commun de bons confrères. Les Français ne connoissent pas ce que sont les Hongrois Résolus à terrasser les François comme l’yvraie [ . . . ]54 The following anecdote from the mémoirs of Comte Auguste de Lagarde illustrates the ambiguous attitude of the Hungarians towards the French émigrés: De retour à Pest, je trouvai devant le café qui avoisine le pont, les musiciens d’un regiment, exécutant, avec une admirable précision, l’ouverture du Calife de Bagdad par Boyeldieu. Je m’étais fait servir une glace à la même table qu’un seigneur hongrois, qui paraissait écouter avec ravissement ce chef-d’oeuvre de l’un de nos meilleurs compositeurs. Tout d’un coup, se tournant vers mois; “Vous êtes Français?”, me dit-il, “Oui Monsieur”. “C’est une brave nation que j’estime, car elle se bat bien: voilà de la musique, encore, qui se compare avec avantage à celle de nos plus célèbres maîtres de chapelle; enfin, sous beaucoup de rapports, ce peuple peut se croire supérieur aux autres.” Je m’inclinais en signe de gratitude, lorsqu’il ajouta: “Mais votre révolution, Monsieur, dont le plan sagement conçu pouvait amener des résultats heureux, n’a été qu’une guerre d’intrigans dans laquelle le plus audacieux a triomphé. – Nous n’ignorons pas, lui dis-je, combien ce fléau a été désastreux. – Oui, pour l’Europe. Et pour nous, Monsieur, ses premières victimes. – Ajoutez que vous n’avez été plaints de personne, et que s’il n’y avait même à reprocher aux Français que l’assassinat de la fille de Marie-Thérèse (il tira son sabre à moitié) ce serait assez pour faire jurer une haine à mort à la nation coupable de ce crime.” Il s’éloigna aussitôt, sans attendre ma réponse, ne me laissant pas bien convaincu de l’indulgente urbanité hongroise.55 Hungarian Francophobia reached its peak in 1809 when part of Hungary was occupied by the Napoleonic armies. But even before this period the émigré priests were the focus of undisguised animosity. We can assume that the majority of French émigrés in Hungary went back to France after the amnesty of 1802 or at the

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Restoration. The case of French families of Hungarian origin is an exceptional one. An example can be take from the Dessewffy (Dessoffy in French). The four sons of Jacques Charles Marie de Dessoffy left France as émigrés.56 During their stay in Austria and in Hungary they were supported by their Hungarian relatives.57 Two who were in the army returned to France in 1811, while the remaining two who were both ecclesiastics died in Emigration. 58 Yet it is not certain that their stay in Hungary was dictated by personal choice. The chaplain Ladislas Dessoffy wanted to return to France in 1815. He even said farewell in a poem called ‘Mes adieux à Koromopa’, where he made explicit his French nationality. Je dois donc vous quitter, lieux si chers à mon coeur! Jardin de Koromopa! Séjour du vrai bonheur! A ce joli petit bois, à ces charmants asyles, Vont succéder pour moi le tumulte des villes, Le fracas du grande monde, et ses pompeux ennuis [...] Tu le sais, ô mon cœur! Si dans la solitude Au sein de l’amitié, des arts et de l’étude, Je saurais renoncer aux vœux de la grandeur. – Mais non! Je suis Français, et mon Dieu c’est l’honneur. Je connaîs mes devoirs; je sais y satisfaire. Oublier, s’il faut, jusqu’au nom du plaisir. O mes champs! C’est à vous que j’en veux revenir. [ . . . ]59 In conclusion of this brief study, it can be said that the Emigration during the French Revolution was a phenomenon of minor importance in Hungary. The imperial authorities were not amenable to lasting French settlement. Paradoxically, the hatred for the French generated by the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars turned the local population against the émigrés. Most went back to France in 1802, after which date only the members of a few Franco-Hungarian families and a few priests remained. Yet the contribution of these émigrés to the implantation of French culture and particularly to the use of the French language in the Carpathian basin deserves the attention both of scholars and of posterity. Text translation by Kirsty Carpenter

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NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

See Wellmann, I., Magyarország népességének fejlödése a 18. században (Development of the population of Hungary during the Eighteenth Century) in Pach, Zs. P. ed., Magyarország története 4/1 (History of Hungary), Budapest, 1989 pp. 25–80; Szekfü, Gu., Etat et Nation, Paris, 1945. See Németh, I., Les colonies françaises de Hongrie, Szeged s.d. pp. 57–80. Also Lotz, F., ‘Die französische Kolonisation des Banats (1748–1773)’, in Suddeutsche Forschungen no. 23, 1964, pp. 139–78. See Zachar, J., A Francia Királyság 18. századi magyar huszárai (The Hungarian Hussars in French Royal Service in the eighteenth century), in HK, 1980, pp. 523–58. Tott, F., ‘Ascension sociale et identité nationale, Intégration de l’immigration hongroise dans la société française au cours du XVIIIe siècle 1692–1815’ (thèse de doctorat, Université de Paris VI, Sorbonne, 1995, pp. 206–10). On his missions to the Orient see Mémoires du baron de Tott sur les Turcs et les Tartares, Amsterdam, 1784. His parents were Bálint Jósef Esterhazy and Philippine de Nougarède de La Garde, see Esterhazy (V.) Mémoires, Paris, 1905. See Franjou, E., Le comte de Valentin Esterhazy, seigneur de La Celle-SaintCyr, confident de Marie-Antoinette, Auxerre, 1995. The other members of the Council of War were, MM de Puységur, de Jaucourt, de Guines – Lieutenants-généraux – MM. D’Autichamp, de Lambert, et d’Esterhazy – maréchaux de camp – et M. de Gribeauval, chef de l’Artillerie, Lieutenant général; and M. de Foucroy, lieutenant général à la tête du corps du Génie, see Bombelles, Journal, tome II, Genève, 1982, p. 186. Esterhazy, Mémoires, p. 232. Daudet, E., Histoire de l’émigration pendant la Révolution française, Paris, 1924, tome I, pp. 3–4. Esterhazy, Mémoires, pp. 232–5. BN série Mf. LB 39–7759 lettre de M. Le Comte d’Esterhazy, commandant du Haynault à M. le Marquis de Gouy d’Arsy, Député à l’Assemblée Nationale, Valenciennes, le 27 août 1789. Also, MF. LB 39–7760, Note de M. Esterhazy, commandant en second en Hainaut et Cambrésis, sur la dénonciation portée contre lui, S.l.n.d. On the mutiny at Douai, see Archives municipale de Douai, série H5 1.20. Wagnair, Ch., ‘La garde nationale de Douai sous la Révolution’, Mémoire de D.E.S., Lille, 1966, p. 13. Cited by Diesbach, G. de, Histoire de l’émigration, Paris 1975, p. 388. See Andrewy, G., Les émigrés français dans le canton de Fribourg, 1789–1815, Neuchâtel, 1972, p. 129. Ibid. Magyar Hírmondó (Hungarian Courier) tome IV, Vienne, 1793, p. 499. Németh, A., Burgenland, Budapest, 1990, p. 156. The Comtesse de Tessé was the daughter of the Maréchal de Noailles. See Frêne, T.R., Journal de ma vie (1732–1804), tome IV, Vienne, 1994, pp. 60–75.

80 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

The French Émigrés in Europe Palóczi, E., Báró Tóth Ferenc a Dardanellák megerösitöje (Baron de Tott engineer of the Dardanelles), Budapest, 1916, p. 181. Esterhazy, Mémoires, pp. 301–2. Franjou, E. Le comte . . . op. cit., p. 48. Daudet, p. 92. Zachar, J., Idegen hadakban, Budapest, 1984, p. 444 and OSZK série Ms. Oct. Hung. 325 (Budapest). Fischbach, G., La fuite de Louis XVI, d’après les Archives Municipales de Strasbourg, Paris, 1879, p. 122. Rupelle, J. de la., ‘Le maréchal de Berchény de Szekes’, in Vivat Hussar, n. 12, Tarbes, 1977, p. 131. Ibid, p. 132. and Thaly, K. éd., Székesi gróf Bercsényi Millós levelei Károlyi Sándorhoz (Letters from Millós Bercsényi to Sándor Károli), Pest, 1868, p. XXVIII. Zachar, Idegen . . . , op. cit., p. 407. Magyar Hírmondó (courier Hongrois) tome IV, Vienne, 1793, p. 231. Among the archives held at the War Archives in Vienne (Kriegsarchiv, série Mémoires – Verlassenschalf Turpin) there was a work entitled ‘Instructions [ . . . ] sur le siège de Mayence présentées à S.M. Prussienne le 18 fevrier 1793 à Francfort’, badly damaged but which begins, ‘Le zèle d’un françois qu’anime la gloire des armes de V.M. et la vengeance de son Roy ne sauroit être importun vis-à-vis d’un Monarque qui déploie ses forces pour une aussi noble fin. Dans cette confiance, Sire, j’ai l’honneur de vous présenter un plan d’attaque sur la ville de Mayence. ( . . . ).’ Poulet, H., Les volontaires de la Meurthe aux armées de la révolution (levée de 1791), Paris–Nancy, 1910, pp. 45–6. Kriegsarchiv, (KA), Vienne, Hofkriegsrat Protokoll 1792 série G fol. 7679–7680. Wrede, A.F. von., Geschichte des K. und K. Wehrmacht III/2, Wien, 1901, pp. 807–9. Ibid., p. 810. Wenk, G., ‘Les hussards en émigration’, in Vivat Hussar, no. 1, Tarbes, 1966, pp. 71–2. Neuilly, C. de., Dix années d’émigration, Paris, 1941, p. 60. Later in 1795 the Comte de Neuilly was named colonel du corps émigré of the Légion de Bourbon in the imperial army. Kriegsarchiv (KA) Vienne, série MI RI (Contrôles de troupes) 10800 Légion Bourbon. KA, Musterlisten 4078–4079 Bercseny-Husaren Revisions-Listen (1793–1798) Standes-Tabellen (1795–1798). KA, Musterlisten Bercseny-Husaren Revisions-Listen (1793–1798). Esterhazy, Mémoires, p. 308. See Lenkefi, F., ‘Kakas a kasban. Francia hadifoglyok Magyarországon 1793–1795,’ (The cock in the cage, French prisoners of war in Hungary) Thèse de Doctorat, Budapest, 1994; Lenkefi, F., ‘Francia hadifoglyok Magyarországon 1793–1795, in Levéltári Szemle 1995/2, Budapest, 1995 and Barcsay-Amant, Z., A francia forradalmi háborúk hadifoglyok Magyarországon idetelepitésük elso esztendejében (The French prisoners of the revolutionary wars during the first year of their

Ferenc Tóth

37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

81

internment), Budapest, 1934; Georgescu, I., ‘Les prisonniers français dans les camps du sud-est de l’Europe au temps des guerres de l’Autriche avec la France’, in Revue Roumaine d’Histoire 1976/3, pp. 509–31. Lenkefi, F., Francia hadifoglyok . . . , op. cit., p. 44. Lenkefi, F., Kakas a . . . , op. cit., pp. 216–18. Lenkefi, F., ‘A lelkigondozás problémái a francia hadifoglyok körében Magyarországon 1794–1795’ (The problems of spiritual care of the French prisoners of war in Hungary) in HK 107/3, Budapest, 1994, pp. 3–17. See Hermann, E., ‘Francia emigráns papok Magyarországon a nagy forradalom idején’, (French émigré priests in Hungary during the Great Revolution) in Katholikus Szemle 1933/VII, Budapest, 1933, pp. 36–46. Vassko, I., A pécsi püspöki könyvtár francia nyomtatványai és kéziratai (French books and manuscripts in the diocesan library in Pécs), Pécs, 1934, pp. 99–122. Vas Megyei Levéltár (Departmental archives of the Vas, Szombathely) série V/105/a/aa Protocollum Perceptionis Cassae Domesticae et Erogationis (1787–1797) le 28 mai 1795. Vassko, I., A pécsi püspöki . . . , op. cit., p. 103. Eloge funèbre de très-haut, très puissant, très-excellent Prince, Alexandre Léopold, archiduc d’Autriche, palatin d’Hongrie par le comte de Ladislas Dessöffy de Csernek et de Tarkö, licentié ès loix, chanoine du chapître noble de l’insigne église cathédrale de Toul, examinateur sinodal du diocèse, Vienne, 1795. And the Oraison funèbre de très-haut, très-puissante, très-excellente personne Marie Thérèse Caroline Joséphine, Impératrice d’Autriche, reine de Hongrie et de Bohême par le comte Ladislas Dessöfy de Csernek, licentié ès loix, ancien chanoine de la cathédrale de Toul. Examinateur synodal du diocèse, bibliothècaire de l’Archevêché primatial de Hongrie, Presbourg, 1807. Eloge funèbre de très-haut . . . , op. cit., pp. 25–6. For example, Epithalame par le comte Ladislas Desseoffy de Csernek pour le mariage de Monsieur le comte Hermann de Chotek capitaine de l’état-major de l’armée avec Mademoiselle Henriette de Brunsvik, célébré à Korompa, le ? juin 1813, Bude, 1813; Mes adieux à Korompa en 1815, Bude, 1815; Coelestine. Ein Schauspiel in 1 Akt von Graf Ladislas Desseöffy nach einer wahren Anekdote französische bearbeitet übersetzt von Joh. Gottl., Schildbach, Pesth, 1816. Eckhardt, S., De Sicambria à Sans-souci, Budapest, 1943, p. 228. Ibid., p. 229. Michaud, L-G., Biographie Universelle, T. LXXX, Paris, 1847, pp. 437–9. Salaberry, C de., Voyage à Constantinople, en Italie, et aux îles de l’Archipel, par l’Allemagne et la Hongrie, Paris, L’an VII, p. 1. He wrote: ‘Je suis parti de Paris le 5 octobre 1790. Le premier objet intéressant que j’ai vu, a été la plaine de Rocroi que le Grand Condé traversa en vainqueur en 1643 et que son petit-fils traversoit en proscrit en 1789’. Quoted by Humbert, Jean, ‘La Hongrie du XVIIIe siècle vue par des voyageurs’, in Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie, Budapest, 1938, (Sept), p. 236. Source Birkás, Géza, Francia utazók Magyarországon (French Travellers in Hungary) Szeged, 1948, p. 101.

82 52.

53. 54.

55. 56.

57. 58. 59.

The French Émigrés in Europe This was described by Robert Townson at Löcse (present-day Levoca ) who was summoned before the magistrates of Leutschau whose job it was to ‘surveiller soigneusement la sûreté publique’. ‘Nous vous avons mandé, R.T., qui vous donnez pour voyageur anglais parce que nous vous suspectons très fort d’être un émissaire des jacobins de France. Nous avons examiné votre passeport; il certifie que vous êtes un particulier d’Angleterre, qui fait le tour de la Hongrie; mais nous avons tous jugé que ce n’est autre qu’un faux passeport, et que vous êtes très certainement un agent de la jacobinière; car il serait en effet fort plaisant et tout à fait extraordinaire qu’un ministre anglais expédiát un passeport écrit en langue française’. He was given no time to explain and accused of being French on account of his manner, his speaking and the fact that he was wearing Hungarian style pants – proof of his desire not to disclose his identity. They kept his passport. See, Humbert, Jean, La Hongrie . . . , op. cit., pp. 235–6. Balazs E., ‘A francia-magyar kapcsolatok egy rendhagyó fejezete,’ in Köpeczi, B., and Sziklay, L. eds, A francia felvilágosodas és a magyar kultúra, Budapest, 1975, p. 157. See Leval, A., La révolution française, Napoleon Ier et la Hongrie pendant les guerres révolutionnaires, Budapest, 1921; Leval, A., La révolution française, Napoleon Ier et la Hongrie, Essai de bibliographie, Budapest, 1921; Eckhardt, S., A francia forradalom eszméi Magyarországon, Budapest, 1924. Lagarde, A. de., Voyage de Moscou à Vienne par Kiow, Odessa, Constantinople, Bucharest et Hermanstadt ou lettres adressées à Jules Griffith, Paris, 1824, pp. 430–1. Archives Départementales de Meuse, série 182 J 19; Service historique de l’armée de Terre (Château de Vincennes), Pensions militaires 1ère série 61875 (Louis Dessoffy de Cservek); and Dubois, J., Listes des émigrés, prêtres déportés et des condamnés pour cause révolutionnaire du Département de la Meuse, Bar-le-Duc, 1911, p. 67. See Hungarian National Archives, série P 91 Lettres de Ladislas Dessewffy (1794–1797). Eble, G., A cserneki és tarkôi Dessewffy család, Budapest, 1903, pp. 185–212 and Dessewffy, S.A., The History of the Dessewffy de Csernek and Tarkeô, Perth (Australia) 1979, pp. 42–3. Desseöffy, L., Mes adieux à Korompa en 1815, Bude, 1815. Korompa was a village where Ladislas Dessoffy stayed at the home of Hermann de Chotek, in a superb chateau which had belonged to the Brunswick family but had been bought by Chotek after his marriage to Henriette de Brunswick.

5 Portugal and the Émigrés David Higgs At the end of the eighteenth century, Paris was at least a week’s travel by both land and sea, from Lisbon. The two cities were also distant in their attitudes to governance. Although neither Portugal nor France had convoked an Estates General since the seventeenth century, France, during the 1780s, in its parlements, had institutions which participated in a semi-public debate about royal policy. The parlements found no equivalent in the submissive law courts of Portugal. There were no regional Estates in Portugal to compare with those of Languedoc.1 The French Enlightenment had little resonance in Portuguese-language publications before 1800; printing presses themselves were forbidden in Brazil, the great Portuguesespeaking possession in South America.2 The Catholic Church, seconded by the Inquisition, disapproved of Enlightenment ideas. At the end of the eighteenth century, European Portugal was primarily a peasant society, dotted with small towns. There were only two cities of any size, the capital with about 200 000 inhabitants, and Oporto, with perhaps 44 000. Both cities had a significant number of foreign residents and visitors. Lisbon was the capital of a Thalassic empire of trading stations on the sea routes of the world that linked Salvador da Bahia and Rio de Janeiro; Goa; Macau and others. The Portuguese elite was conscious of the immensity of the territorial claims of a kingdom which, in Europe and the Atlantic islands, did not exceed three million souls. Communication in the Empire was by ship. One vessel carried the 21 February 1792 letter of the Overseas Secretary, Martinho de Melo e Castro (1716–95), to the viceroy in Rio de Janeiro, blaming the French revolutionary clubs for the ‘destructive fire’ against the wise and paternal government of the natural and legitimate rulers of France. He went on to warn against all such means of seduction, and forbade all and any communication between the inhabitants of the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro and the passengers, crew, and anybody else who happened to come on 83

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board French ships.3 The correspondence of the colonial council that was forwarded to the governors throughout the Portuguese world also warned of the threat of French subversion. Foreign visitors like Beckford,4 Southey,5 and ambassador Bombelles6 stressed the backwardness and self-absorbed nature of Portuguese life, which they contrasted unfavourably with the outlook of the North Atlantic world. Beckford was in a special position to hear this foreign disapproval when talking in July 1787 with his agent Thomas Horne (1722–92), 7 who is buried in the English Cemetery in Lisbon: we had a long conversation upon the dirt, dullness and despotism of Portugal, and the little such a government had to offer worth any acceptance.8 Beckford conversed with the Duque de Marialva in the French he had learned in Lausanne as a teenager. The opinions he wrote in his Journal are representative of the condescension by many northern Europeans that can be encountered in eighteenth-century commentaries on Portugal, its grandees and fidalguia, and its clergy. French émigrés often reflected such commonly voiced opinions on Portugal before they even arrived there.9 Doubtless many of them had read Voltaire (who never crossed the Pyrenees) describing Candide, ‘se soutenant à peine, prêché, fessé, absous et béni’ before they reached Rossio Square in central Lisbon where outdoor Autodafés had occasionally been held until the 1760s. Chevalier Blondin d’Abancourt called Lisbon: Cette grande ville, batie en amphithéâtre, et son port incomparable, éclairés tous deux par un radieux soleil. 10 The émigrés also knew that Portugal was a Catholic country where the Inquisition was still in business. How did the Portuguese perceive the French émigrés among them? Portugal, Spain and Italy were rococco Catholic societies with different responses to French émigrés to those of Protestant northern Europe. Like much of the Portuguese elite, the advisors to the pious Queen Maria I, and after 1792 to her son João serving as Regent, were too distant in intellectual attitudes and culture from the French to make the distinction between the ‘good’ émigrés and the ‘bad’ Jacobins. Mallet

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du Pan wrote a political correspondence to D. Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho in which he analysed the émigrés as but one of the components of the unfolding Revolution. His comments were not laudatory. Writing from Berne to Turin on 28 March 1795 he noted: En ce moment, les Royalistes Émigrés sont entièrement effacés, et n’ont pas plus d’influence au dedans qu’au dehors. La nullité profonde des Princes, et la conduite de leurs entours, ont plus avili les Aristocrates, aux yeux même des Royalistes de l’intérieur, que l’acharnement des Républicains. 11 Dom Rodrigo had served as an ambassador to Turin. A noted partisan of the British connection, he was probably a freemason and certainly had a nuanced view of the merits of the political programme of the Emigration. 12 He returned to Lisbon in 1796 to take the place of the deceased Martinho de Melo e Castro as Secretary of State for the Navy and the Colonies. Some courtiers were more or less sympathetic to the aristocratic émigrés. The Portuguese élite, however, was too aware of the potential dangers to its world possessions of larger and more powerful states – starting with Spain, France and Britain – to throw in its lot with any single world view. The Portuguese response to French émigrés was largely one of suspicion. Francophobia was strong at all levels of society. Long before 1789 those surrounding the Portuguese throne and altar expressed revulsion for godless ‘francesia’. With the outbreak of the Revolution the collapse of French royal authority seemed to justify the oft-repeated warnings of the dangers of free thought. 13 Michel Vovelle, the French historian, called for study of the transmission by the émigrés of the negative stereotypes of the French Revolution: ils [les émigrés] ont été considérés depuis l’ouvrage classique de Baldensperger plus pour ce qu’ils ont reçu, au contact des pays qu’ils découvraient, que pour ce qu’ils y ont véhiculé – images et clichés sur la Révolution.14 That transmission of the history of the memory of the French Revolution needs to be written in the light of the way that it was passed on, and elaborated over time.

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The popular assumption that all irreligious foreigners were French extended to the prisoner accused in 1794 of blaspheming and denounced to the Inquisition, although in fact he was from Milan. 15 There were some Portuguese who were sympathetic to, or at least curious about, the principles of the French Revolution as they spread into southern Europe. In 1798 a parody of the Christian creed entitled ‘Creed of the Lombard Republic’ was found in the possession of a lawyer in Barcelos in northern Portugal. It started ‘I believe in the French Republic’ and ended with a reference to émigrés: I believe in French intelligence and generosity, the dignity of the Executive Directory in Paris, the destruction of the émigrés, in the remission of tyranny, in the resurrection of the natural rights of man and in the future peace, liberty and eternal equality.16 New French arrivals in Portugal, either ecclesiastical or secular, were subject more to suspicion than sympathy. The General Intendant of Police, Pina Manique, thought that many French priests were infected with Jansenist ideas and that all Frenchmen were Jacobins. His suspicions were fuelled by the observations of the Comte de Châlons, the ambassador of Louis XVI, who stayed on to represent the Comte de Provence in Lisbon, and of the head of the French Barbanites who divined unorthodoxy among recent clerical arrivals. Some French residents, like the merchant Pascal LeQuem, sent letters of denunciation, all of which fed the paranoia of Pina Manique. After one extensive discussion on the subject of a tavern in rua Formosa owned by Italians where many foreigners, ‘particularly Frenchmen’, gathered to play ball and to sing Portuguese revolutionary songs, Pina Manique called upon the minister to give some ‘lively and severe blows’ (‘dar alguns golpes de severidade mais vivos’) against the songsters. He concluded by saying that his motivation might be his negative outlook (‘melancholia minha’) but that he was animated by the purest of sentiments: his desire to conserve peace and public tranquillity and the safely of the royal family.17 Ten days later he reported sending a French émigré naval officer to arrest the owners of the establishment on rua Formosa, and he ordered the arrest of a former servant of a Frenchman who had a tavern at Rato, and a third man who had been a cook for the Russian minister.

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The latter two were blamed for Sunday gatherings of libertines – of both sexes – and he said that among their possessions were prints showing priests committing obscene actions with women.18 He added that perhaps the ‘plan’ was to attract libertine individuals who could be easily convinced to embrace revolutionary principles. Pina Manique proposed to restrict the émigrés to one of the towns with a garrison in the Alentejo or Trás-os-Montes, or alternatively to forbid any foreigner, ‘qualquer que seja a sua jerarquia’ – whatever his rank – to establish a residence in the countryside.19 Writing to the corregedor of Evora in July 1795, Pina Manique said that it was certain that even before 1789 many regulars were Jansenists and possessed by the evil called ‘Philosophie’ that precipitated the French nation into the ruin of Revolution. He added that many had sworn oaths to the Civil Constitution and embraced the errors ‘which are now spreading in France’. 20 The total population of civilian fugitives from the Revolution who were resident in Portugal in the 1790s never exceeded 500, and it was made up mostly of males. This was very different from the biggest émigré centres, those of London and Hamburg, both numbering up to 40 000.21 The study of émigrés in Portugal thus needs to establish a chronology, to separate the attitudes of those French people who were there as part of the counter-revolution; those who were there as part of the Atlantic economy; or even those who were non-ideological refugees of the anti-revolution. Some Portuguese themselves left their country, possibly for political reasons. Bourdon explained the long exile (until 1821) of Correa da Serra from Portugal by the implausible reason that he was compromis par l’aide qu’il avait apportée au Girondin [Pierre Marie] Auguste Broussonet, alors réfugié au Portugal, il partit subitement en 1795 pour Londres. Carrère had claimed that Broussonet was protected by the Duque de Lafões, himself a member of the royal family (as the son of an illegitimate son of Pedro II, D. Miguel).22 Since Lafões was in favour at court with Dom João, and indeed was entrusted with the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Portuguese forces when war with Spain broke out, this seems hardly likely.

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Luís A. de Oliveira Ramos defined the émigrés as but one of four categories among French residents of Portugal at the end of the eighteenth century: those with entrepreneurial skills and drive like Ratton 23 those who were expelled in the 1790s as suspected partisans of Revolution, those individuals whose ‘ideário’ was unknown, and royalists like de Rosières.24 In Portugal, as elsewhere, the émigrés had financial problems. In this, naturally enough, there were distinctions between those who had private funds which met their needs, those who did not, and those who sought ways to earn a living. Unable to speak Portuguese, they were necessarily dependent on compatriots who did, or those educated Portuguese who could converse in French. (If we exclude Spanish as sufficiently cognate to Portuguese to be mutually intelligible, French was the most widely known foreign language.) The émigrés thus found themselves in contact with economic emigrants from France who ranged from booksellers and merchants to hairdressers and tailors.25 Writing of Lisbon, Carrère noted: Il y a, dans cette ville, un nombre considérable d’artistes et d’artisans étrangers; il y a plus de français que de toutes les autres nations ensemble; tous les parfumeurs, la plupart des horlogers, beaucoup de perruquiers, plusieurs peintres, doreurs, orfèvres, metteurs en œuvre sont français; on en trouve encore parmi les relieurs, les serruriers, les menuisiers et les autres artisans.26 Long-term French residents of Portugal, especially those with wives and children, had scant contact with the diplomats of the French Embassy, although their collective organisation in Lisbon was concerned with trade relations between the two countries.27 Bombelles quoted approvingly a diplomatic colleague who said of such French ‘expatriés’ la plupart étaient les ennemis du gouvernement qui les vit naître et qui n’obligea que des ingrats.28 In January 1788 he was raging against the ‘misérables marchands’ who criticised the abbé Garnier of the Saint Louis Church (p. 246) and by the end of his posting he was calling them ‘insensés’ and ‘mutins’. Perhaps the émigrés made use of the Saint Louis church (São José parish) and turned to the

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abbé Garnier for confession: he had lived in Portugal for decades and had been the tutor of the Duque de Cadaval.29 There were evident differences in social life between France and Portugal. Writers commented on the limited freedom of elite women, as when Dumouriez wrote Les intrigues [amoureuses] sont difficiles et dangereuses en Portugal, et on ne voit les femmes qu’aux spectacles et dans les églises.30 Rochechouart, who arrived in Lisbon in 1800 at the age of twelve to serve in an émigré regiment ‘à cocarde blanche’ commanded by his relative the Marquis de Mortemart, recalled intrigues with Portuguese women that started in church.31 Mme de Lage de Volude said: ‘Il n’y a point de société; les femmes ne vivent qu’avec les commensaux de leur maison’. . . . 32 The French Ambassador, Bombelles, had much more contact with the Portuguese court nobility than the writers mentioned but he also commented on various occasions in the late 1780s on the restrictions on daughters and married women in terms of social life. He also criticised the early marriages and excessive childbearing of Portuguese élite women.33 Since the French émigrés were primarily male, these social customs meant they had little contact with the family life of their Portuguese counterparts. To foreign eyes, the Portuguese nobility seemed to be less polished than that of France. Laure Junot (or perhaps her ghost writer, Balzac), summarised stereotypes found in earlier writers on Portugal when she wrote: The nobility of Portugal resembles no other. It contains none of those elements which may be turned to advantage in stormy times when a country is in danger. . . . In no country, however, is the difference between the upper and lower classes so strongly marked as in Portugal. (Memoirs, III, 140) Direct observations at court and elsewhere must have formed the basis of her remarks, but she spoke no more than a little Portuguese even by the end of her stay. When she used Portuguese expressions and names in her memoirs, they appeared mangled and hispanised. In 1787 Beckford lamented that his patron, the Marquis de Marialva, a perennial favourite of the Queen and a titular of the highest Portuguese nobility, had not seen fit to present him to the French Ambassador, M. de

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Bombelles, ‘the only person in this stagnated capital who has any idea of society.’ Bombelles, in his own diary, made numerous critical asides about the Portuguese nobility. He also appraised his British colleague: M. Walpole, doué de fort peu d’esprit, se permet tant qu’il peut de lourdes plaisanteries sur toute la noblesse du pays et comme il prête fort à la raillerie de son côté et de celui de sa femme, on leur rend à l’usure les sarcasmes qu’ils font.34 Beckford, whom Walpole detested, described the aristocratic Marialva family which extended so generous a welcome to him: ‘Not a book to be seen at the Marialvas. They never read’.35 When the marquis and his son spent a whole day with Beckford in August, 1787, he wrote: Both my dear friend and his son are the greatest loungers in Europe. They absolutely know not what to do with themselves, but gape and tramp about in the most listless uncomfortable manner. . . . They wear me to a mere bone. Such society is enough to impair one’s faculties. I am perfectly sure I sink deeper and deeper in the slough of idleness and stupidity. 36 The Duc de Coigny37 lived in a house on the rua da Quintinha which had been opened in 1764. This was close to the Praça das Flores in the restaurant and entertainment district familiar to modern tourists; the parish was that of N. Senhora das Mercês. The salon of the duchesse was the focus of social life for the refugees. Jeanne Françoise Aglaé d’Andlau was the widow of the Comte Hardouin de Châlons who had first arrived as French ambassador to Portugal in 1790. Châlons resigned as ambassador with the progress of revolutionary politics in Paris but stayed on in Portugal until his death in July 1794. Fourteen months later Châlon’s widow married Coigny, himself a widower. The household was perhaps not overly opulent: an advertisement in the Gazeta de Lisboa of August 1796 advertised two stallions ‘em casa do Excelentíssimo Duque de Cogny [sic] na Quintinha’ and the following year the duke offered four carriages of different specifications for sale. 38 Toustain’s memoirs said that Coigny’s house was the rendezvous of French aristocratic society in Lisbon since they found Portu-

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guese society closed and anti-social.39 Unlike La Ferronays in 1803, who said of London that, ‘Je vais beaucoup plus dans le monde anglais que dans le monde aigri de nos compatriotes’, there seems to have been little social interaction between the émigrés and their equivalents among the aristocrats and fidalgos of the Portuguese capital. In 1803 when General Lannes arrived in Portugal as French ministre plénipotentiaire he demanded the expulsion of Coigny, and with regret the Prince Regent D. João agreed to this. 40 Lord FitzGerald let Coigny take ship to Gibraltar to have more time to arrange a suitable passage to London. His wife followed him from Lisbon six months later. The disruption of that household must have been a major blow to the social life of the émigrés in Lisbon. Lannes attacked the policies of the secretive Pina Manique, Intendente of Police, who was extremely suspicious of the motives of French people. Oliveira Ramos claims that the hostility of Lannes to Pina Manique caused ‘o seu afastamento da cena pública.’41 Another French noble, named Vioménil living on the same rua da Quintinha, came from a Lorraine family claiming nobility since 1341 and was probably Charles-Gabriel, Baron de Vioménil, born on 26 February 1767. He had been a captain of hussars in France in 1786 and had entered Portuguese service as an émigré. Vioménil’s wife was Madeleine-Françoise-Louis Rose de Gemit de Luscan who died in Lisbon in 1804, leaving him a daughter who herself was to die before the age of twelve. He was confirmed in French service by Napoleon on 15 February 1808, and was made a maréchal de camp by the Restoration in November 1814. The baron was almost certainly the reason for the subsequent presence in the Portuguese service of Charles-Joseph-Hyacinthe du Houx, Marquis de Vioménil (1734–1827), who had been an aide-de-camp to Chevert during the Seven Years War and had been commended for action in Corsica under the command of the maréchal de Vaux. In America he served under Rochambeau. He became governor of Martinique in 1789, returned to France and left as an émigré to serve in the Condé army, and then became a lieutenant général in Russia from 1798 to 1809 before becoming a maréchal général in Portugal from 1810 to 1814. When he returned to France, he was named a life peer in June 1814 and a hereditary peer in August 1815. René de la Tour du Pin Montauban, his son-in-law, who had married the marquis’s

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daughter in London in 1807, was also a cavalry officer in Portugal. During the period of the Emigration, Vioménil’s military and family connections stretched from Russia to Portugal to England.42 Émigré circles in Lisbon intersected with the older tradition of foreign officers serving in the Portuguese armed forces. Joseph de Champalimaud de Nussane, a French engineer in the Portuguese service since the 1770s, had married a Portuguese woman. His son José Joaquim’s entire life since childhood was with the Portuguese army and his loyalty was to Portugal. In 1807 he resigned with the arrival of Junot and was active in the revolt against the French in 1808. French officers also entered Portuguese service in the 1790s. Antoine-Hyacinthe-Anne de Chastenet, Comte de Puységur, was a lieutenant de vaisseau in 1790, a rear admiral in Portugal in 1800 and died in Paris in 1807. In his account of French émigrés in Portugal, Chaves listed 136 émigrés, ranging from Beckford’s cook Simon, to the Comte Jean Victor de Novion (1745–1825), who rose to the posts of lieutenant-colonel of Infantry in 1798 and commander of the Royal Police Guard in 1801. Novion had served at Trier as a volunteer in a company of the Vermandois-Infanterie regiment and he was noted for his zealous service.43 He remained in Lisbon at the time of the French invasions and in December was named commandant des armes by Junot, and returned to France with the French forces.44 Chaves also mentioned a few French noblewomen – the Comtesse de Chálons, who subsequently become Duchesse de Coigny, the Marquise de Lage de Volude, the Comtesse de Puységur and Mme de Roquefeuille. Later, as wife of the French ambassador, Laure Junot would know two French noblewomen in Lisbon: the Duquesa de Cadaval, née Marie-Madeleine de MontmorencyLuxembourg, a younger daughter of the Duc de Pinay-Luxembourg-Chátillon, president of the Ordre de la Noblesse in the 1789 Estates General,45 and Mme de Braacamp de Sobral, a daughter of Comte Louis de Narbonne. Laure Junot, in her writings, conveyed that the young French Duquesa de Cadaval had been harshly disciplined if not beaten by her husband: ‘truths such as these caused the Duchesse de Cadaval to shed bitter tears’. (Memoirs, III, 140.)

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There was one final category that Chaves did not, however, investigate in any detail: French priests who reached Portugal and were considered to be émigrés. Baldensperger long ago noted the lack-lustre priestly accounts of the Emigration (I, 224). In 1794, Manique instructed the magistrate (corregedor) of the Braga district (comarca) that he should distinguish between orthodox and exemplary priests from France and those with Jansenist notions who should be expelled from the kingdom.46 The Portuguese clergy were well aware of the menace to their profession of the French Revolution. The crown wrote to the bishops asking for donations to the war effort, one example being that of the Count Bishop of Arganil. 47 On 19 August 1794, Pina Manique informed a courtier of the arrival of ten French priests but noted that he had resisted the disembarkation of many others for fear that they would become too influential in the communities in which they lodged. 48 This suspicion is reminiscent of the difficulties of the French émigré clergy in the Papal States. The Italians were vigilant in watching for ‘democratic’ attitudes among the émigrés and scattered them among different religious houses to avoid dangerous, and possibly subversive, concentrations of French priests. Nine out of ten of the French priests who emigrated to the Pontifical state had departed by the end of the 1790s.49 This was contrasted by the case of the French priest in Portugal who, in September 1800, denounced another French resident of Lisbon to the Inquisition. The denounced man was the son of a man living near the former Treasury and had voiced ‘propositions’ that religions were equal in merit, that Christianity was the most intolerant of beliefs since it denied the validity of other faiths, and that priests were scoundrels who keep people in ignorance. The letter was annotated to the effect that the accused was a Protestant. Called to the Estaus palace of the Inquisition he was solemnly warned, on 5 February 1801, to mind his tongue.50 Another priest who stayed on in Portugal was Monseigneur de Montagnac, the former bishop of Tarbes, who died in Lisbon in 1801.51 Once the eliminations from the émigré lists became numerous, however, many of the band of French exiles in Portugal returned to their homeland. The numbers who stayed on were tiny. In due course they had to deal with the French invasions of their host country.

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In 1807, the entire Braganza court sailed for Rio de Janeiro in a large fleet as French troops entered the suburbs of Lisbon. An 1808 proclamation ‘To the People and Plebians of Coimbra’ went on to characterise recent French history as understood on the banks of the Mondêgo. ‘You know that the nobles and learned men of France having been persecuted, dispersed and exiled when [France] rose against her legitimate king Louis XVI because of the machinations of the perverse and seditious Jacobins’, underwent ‘notable changes’ and experienced democratic, aristocratic and monarchical government before a ‘foreigner of humble condition, revolutionary, ambitious and tyrannical who wanted to dominate the whole world’ sat on the throne.52 In late absolutist Portugal the panegyrics of the dead Louis XVI elaborated the sacrificial imagery of the Christian Good Death (‘boa morte’) in sermons and was part of the on-going hagiographic literature on the executed members of the Bourbon family.53 Once established in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the royal family did not return for 12 years.54 When it returned, Portugal was a country in the grip of liberal revolution. The French émigrés they then encountered were Bonapartists. The Cortes now sat as a representative institution, the Inquisition was abolished in 1821, and the crown began its apprenticeship in parliamentary government under the menace of civil war. In conclusion, there were relatively few émigrés in Portugal and they had scant influence there. Perhaps future research in the Portuguese military archives will reveal some significant linkages: did the return to service in France of Vioménil have a link to the careers of Portuguese military collaborators with the French? Did French-trained officers serving in Portugal transmit knowledge of pre-revolutionary French techniques to their commands? Certainly the police force overseen by Novion in Lisbon made a big contribution to public safety in a city famed for its thieves and cutpurses. There is no conclusive evidence that the French émigré ecclesiastics made any mark on Portuguese culture. Since Pombal and the changes in the Coimbra University curriculum, the Portuguese hierarchy was resolutely regalist. Ultramontanes sometimes declared this regalism to be ‘Jansenist’ but there is no evidence that French refugees participated in Portuguese discussions of theology in the 1790s. Monseigneur de Royère,

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bishop of Castres, the only ecclesiastical deputy from his diocese to the Estates General, crossed Spain on his way to Portugal to find a refuge at the Monastery of Alcobaça, where he died.55 William Beckford described the hospitality of its monks in 1794 but had nothing to say of the refugee bishop resident there. Despite the best efforts of the editor of a manuscript on the French Revolution found in the public library of Oporto, it was impossible to identify the clerical author. It may have been written in Spain, but contained some lines relevant to ecclesiastical émigrés in Portugal: Le Portugal, cette nation qui par sa bravoure et sa loyauté fait revivre la gloire que les hauts faits de ses ancêtres lui ont transmise, exerce également une noble hospitalité envers les prêtres français. Ceux de nos collègues qui s’y sont réfugiés, y reçoivent les marques du plus haut intérêt. L’illustrissime archevêque de Braga les a accueillis avec une bonté aussi touchante que généreuse. Comme monseigneur l’évêque d’Orense, il les a admis dans son palais et dans sa plus intime familiarité.56 Perhaps more important in the long term was the place that Portugal took in the political analyses of the émigrés, and their audiences, after they returned to France. In the 1790s the émigrés pointed critically to the differences between Portuguese and French aristocratic society. They were full of nostalgia for the douceur de vivre of Versailles. In comparison, Queluz and the entourage of Queen Maria seemed too pious and inelegant. Portugal was expensive compared with other parts of Europe. Toustain’s memoirs showed the social distance that existed between the émigrés and the Portuguese. The émigrés were startled by Portuguese suspicion of foreigners: Coigny said ‘L’esprit du Portugal est affreux contre les étrangers.’57 With the French religious revival at the start of the nineteenth century and the re-scripting of French court culture in a Catholic formulation,58 old Portugal might appear, in hindsight and at a distance, to be a good thing. By the 1820s, when constitutionalism had arrived in Portugal, the royalist press in Paris contrasted the superficial urban layer of the Portuguese nation, especially in Lisbon and Oporto – rotted by dangerously liberal ideas of French provenance – with the ignorant but traditional peasantry, submissive to the paternal authority

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of the king, and living in superstitious awe of the Church and her miracles.59 Portugal became part of a French conservative imagery of the Christian Catholic south under attack from freemasons and liberals. Those attitudes would continue up to the time of Doctor Salazar. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Portugal has not excited much interest among historians of the French émigrés. The three volumes by Antoine published in 1828, the three volumes of Forneron in 1884–90, and the work of Ernest Daudet had only a handful of Lusitanian references.60 The same can be said of Jean Vidalenc, Les émigrés français 1789–1825 (1963), the Duc de Castries, La vie quotidienne des émigrés (1966) and Ghislain de Diesbach, Histoire de l’émigration 1789–1814 (1975). Historians of Portugal have omitted to stress this aspect of the revolutionary period. The 1947 biography by Marcus Cheke on Carlota Joaquina, the Spanish wife of the Prince Regent, does not touch on them. There is no modern biography of D. João who acted as Regent during the period the émigrés were arriving. Boyd Alexander, in his book England’s Wealthiest Son: a Study of William Beckford and his edition of The Journal of William Beckford in Portugal and Spain 1787–1788 61 provides excellent information on conditions in Portugal. Published more than a century ago, Luz Soriano and Latino Coelho, in their histories of the period, made only passing references to the émigrés. Latino Coelho put émigrés into his narrative particularly as they affected military matters.62 For the best modern overview, the reader is directed to Castelo Branco Chaves, A emigração francesa em Portugal durante a Revolução, Lisbon, 1984. Professor Oliveira Ramos has written on French influences in late eighteenth-century Portugal.63

NOTES 1.

José Esteves Pereira, O pensamento político em Portugal no século XVIII: António Ribeiro dos Santos, Lisbon, 1983.

David Higgs 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

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João Luís Lisboa, Ciência e Política: ler nos finais do Antigo Regime (Cultura Moderna e Contemporânea – 7), Lisbon, 1991. ANRJ, Codice 67, vol. 18, fol. 150r/v . . . ordena Sua Magestade que V.Ex. tome as mais oportunas e eficazes providencias para acautelar e impedir toda e qualquer comunicação entre os Habitantes desse Governo e os passageiros, equipagem e todas as mais pessoas em geral que vierem a bordo dos navios franceses . . . . Maria Laura Bettencourt Pires, William Beckford e Portugal, Lisbon, 1987. Robert Southey, Journals of a residence in Portugal 1800–1801 . . . edited by Adolfo Cabral, Oxford, 1960. Marc-Marie de Bombelles, Journal d’un ambassadeur de France au Portugal 1786–1788, Paris, 1979. ‘Horne, who was sitting by during the altercation, chuckled heartily; as an honest Englishman he always rejoices when any little event takes place to disgust me with Portugal.’ William Beckford, The Journal of William Beckford in Portugal and Spain 1787–1788, edited with an introduction and notes by Boyd Alexander, London, 1954, p. 139. Journal, p. 136. See Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Images du Portugal dans les Lettres Françaises (1700–1755) (Memórias e documentos para a história Luso-Francesa – VII) Paris, 1971. A partisan and defensive review of writings by foreign travellers in Portugal is given by Castelo Branco Chaves, ‘Os livros de viagens em Portugal no século XVIII e a sua projecção europeia’, Lisbon, 1977. Baldensperger, I, 84. J. de Pins, ‘La correspondance de Mallet du Pan avec la cour de Lisbonne’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 182 (Oct–Dec. 1965), 483. See also 1964. Andrée Mansuy-Diniz Silva, ‘L’Année 1789 vue de Turin par un diplomate portugais’, Dix-huitième siècle, No. 20 (1988) 289–312. Vicente de Sousa Coutinho, Diário da Revolução Francesa edited by Manuel Cadafaz de Matos, Lisbon, 1990. Michel Vovelle, ‘La Révolution française et son echo’, Le Canada et la Révolution française 7. ANTT IL 5526. Oficio of the Intendente de Policia, 3 March 1798, as quoted in José Maria Latino Coelho, História política e militar de Portugal desde os fins do século XVIII até 1814 Lisbon (1874–91), vol. II, 401. ANTT Liv. IV Intendencia Geral, 7 August 1794. Ibid. ‘figurando religiosos em acções torpes com mulheres . . . o plano talvez seria arrastar ai gentes libertinas que fossem faceis abraçarem os principios revolucionarios . . . ’. Book 98 p. 121 of the Intendencia da Polícia quoted by Luís de Oliveira Ramos, ‘Franceses em Portugal nos fins do século XVIII (Subsídios para um estudo)’ Studium Generale, Boletim do Centro de Estudos Humanísticos, vol. XI, Oporto, 1966–67, 9. ANTT Liv. 160 Intendencia Geral da Policia, pp. 180–1, aci Ramos, op. cit. Baldensperger, I, 146.

98 22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

41.

The French Émigrés in Europe Rómulo de Carvalho, D. João Carlos de Bragança 2o duque de Lafões, fundador da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon, 1987. Carrère mistakenly thought he was a bastard of João V, whom he was in fact a nephew, through his father, a half-brother of the king. Nuno Daupias d’Alcochete, ‘Lettres familières de Jacques Ratton (1792–1807)’ in Bulletin des études portugaises de l’Institut Français au Portugal, XXIII, 1961, 119 –00. Luís António de Oliveira Ramos, ‘Franceses em Portugal nos fins do século XVIII (subsídios para um estudo)’ offprint from Studium Generale, Boletim do Centro de Estudos Humanísticos, vol. XI, Porto, 1966–67. There is no Lisbon equivalent to the listing Os franceses residentes no Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1820, (Publicações do arquivo nacional, vol. 45) Rio de Janeiro, 1960. See also Registro de estrangeiros nas capitanias 1777– 1819, (Publicações do Arquivo Nacional vol. 53), Rio de Janeiro, 1963. Carrère, Tableau de Lisbonne, 67. Jean-François Labourdette, La nation française à Lisbonne de 1669 à 1790: entre Colbertisme et Libéralisme, Paris, 1988. Bombelles, 29 December 1787, p. 236. Nuno Daupias d’Alcochete, ‘Inventaire des archives de l’église de St. Louis des Français de Lisbonne’, Bulletin des Études Portugaises, t. xxi, Lisbon, 1958, 201–65. These archives are now housed in the archives of the French foreign ministry, Quai d’Orsay. [Charles François Dumouriez] État présent du royaume de Portugal en l’année MDCCLXVI . . . , Lausanne, 1775, 170. Louis Victor Léon, Comte de Rochechouart (1788–1858), Souvenirs . . . nouv. éd. Paris [1933]. Baldensperger, I, 84. Bombelles, Journal. Bombelles, 14 April 1788, p. 305. Journal, p. 141. Ibid., p. 159. Marie-François-Henri de Franquetot (*Paris 28 March 1737, + Paris 18 May 1821) Marquis then Duc de Coigny, succeeding his father as governor and grand bailli d’épée of the city of Caen, maréchal de camp (1761), lieutenant general (1780), deputy of the nobility of Caen to the Estates General, emigrated to Portugal and served as an officer there; named a peer in 1787 he was recalled to the French pairie in June 1814, and made duc-pair héréditaire by ordonnance of 31 August 1817. He had two sons from his first marriage. Chaves, note 15 page 101 for advertisements from the Gazeta de Lisboa. Chaves, 25, quoting Toustain, Mémoires, 133. A. Debidour in the article on Lannes in the Grande Encyclopédie noted ‘Envoyé . . . en Portugal comme ambassadeur il n’y f it pas long séjour, les qualités nécessaires à un diplomate lui faisant absolument défaut’. Luís de Oliveira Ramos, ‘Os agentes da introdução do ideário da Revolução Francesa em Portugal e as alvancas da repressão’ in Portugal da Revolução Francesa ao Liberalism: actas do colóquio 4 e 5 de Dezembro de 1986 [Braga, 1988], p. 16.

David Higgs 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

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Duc de Castries, Les hommes de l’émigration 1789–1814, Paris, 1979, lists an unpublished manuscript by Viomenil entitled ‘Relation de ma vie militaire’, p. 399. Grouvel, III, p. 367. Nuno Daupias d’Alcochete, ‘Le comte de Novion, commandant général de la garde royale de la police de Lisbonne’, Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, VIII, 1974, 621–25. DP503/C36 By 1805 he commanded 1241 men. Paul Filleul, Le duc de Montmorency–Luxembourg, Paris, 1939. Ramos, op. cit. Circular dated Queluz, 15 October 1796, calling for clerical contributions to the war effort. UofT Fisher Library. Portuguese Mss. collection (Stanton). Latino Coelho, title II, p. 379–00. René Picheloup, Les ecclésiastiques français émigrés ou déportés dans l’État Pontifical, 1792–1800 (Publications de l’Université Toulouse-Le Mirail, sér. A, vol. 15) Toulouse, 1972. ANTT IL Liv. 322, fol. 41r. Ghislain de Diesbach, Histoire de l’émigration 1789–1814, Paris, 1975, p. 453. [Box Coimbra] An 1808 Proclamação do povo de Coimbra. Ao povo e pleve da mesma Cidade e termo, Portuguezes conimbriscences vos sabeis que havendo sido perseguidos, dispersos e exilados os nobres e sabios da França quando esta se soblevou contra o seu legitimo rei Luis 16 por maquinações dos perversos e sediciosos jacobinos a nação errante pela inconstância que Careteriz-a sobre a forma de Governo, que devia prevalecer no pais em breve circulo de anos subiu notaveis mudanças e conheceu governo democratico, aristocratico, e monarchico, e que tendo-se reprovava este na pessoa de Luis 16 seu soberano sintou sobre o elevado trono de seus augustos principes um homem estrangeiro de humilde condição, revolucionário ambiciosa e tirano que pertendendo dominar todo o mundo com estragemas, similações, etc. Fisher Library, University of Toronto, Portuguese Manuscript Collection, sheets dated 14 July 1808, 14 fols r/v. See Granel, Louis XVI et la Famille Royale, Catalogue énonçant les titres de 3000 volumes, Paris, 1905; Pierre Lacoué, Les panégyristes de Louis XVI et de Marie Antoinette depuis 1793 à 1912. Essai de bibliographie raisonnée, Paris, 1912. Luís Norton, A corte de Portugal no Brasil, (Brasiliana, vol. 124) 2nd edn, São Paulo, 1979. Ferreira de Brito, ‘Uma história inédita da ‘Revolução de França’ um manuscrito do exílio e o exílio dum manuscrito’ in A recepção da Revolução francesa em Portugal e no Brasil: Actas do Colóquio, 2 a 9 de Novembro de 1989, Oporto, 1992, p. 22. Ibid., p. 20. Chaves, op. cit., p. 81. Louis XVIII’s 1795 instructions to French bishops: ‘Je désire que les ecclésiastiques soutiennent parmi mes sujets l’esprit monarchique

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59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

The French Émigrés in Europe en même temps que l’esprit religieux, qu’ils les pénètrent de la connexion intime qui existe entre l’autel et le trône et de la nécessité qu’ils ont l’un et l’autre de leur appui mutuel.’ Baldensperger, I, p. 225. Sir Marcus Cheke, Carlota Joaquinas, pp. 90–1). A. Anthoine, Histoire des émigrés français depuis 1789 jusqu’en 1828, Paris, 1828 3 vols; Henri Forneron, Histoire générale des émigrés pendant la révolution française, Paris, 1884–90, 3 vols. B. Alexander, England’s Wealthiest Son: a Study of William Beckford, London 1962; The Journal of William Beckford, op. cit. L. Coelho, op. cit. Ernest Daudet, Histoire de l’Émigration pendant la Révolution française, 3 vols, Paris, 1912, 4th edn.

6 French Émigrés in Prussia Thomas Höpel The French émigrés who came to Prussia during the revolutionary era were watched very closely both by the Prussian government and regional administrations. A vast source of material, primarily administrative correspondence (e.g. that in the secret archives of Prussia in Berlin–Dahlem), exists and as a result provides the basis for this brief study. From these sources it is possible to draw some conclusions relating firstly to the official policy of the Prussian government towards the French émigrés and the reasons behind it and, secondly, to some aspects of the culture which developed in exile and the hopes and fears of the émigrés themselves. They clearly hoped for a show of solidarity from the European nobility and were bitterly disillusioned by the reality which confronted them. Although the Prussian government was fully informed about the problem of Emigration through diplomatic correspondence with its ministre plénipotentiaire in Paris during the early stages of the Revolution, nothing was done until the beginning of the year 1792. The first official reactions of the Prussian authorities coincided with the deterioration of the international situation, in which the warmongering activities of the émigrés in the principalities situated on the Rhine played an important part. The first decree, on 4 February 1792, concerned the treatment of the French émigrés in Prussia and this was closely connected with the defensive Austro-Prussian Alliance signed three days later. The émigré decree was directed to the regional governments of Cleves and Ansbach–Bayreuth. The Prussian government guaranteed the same rights, protection and security to the French émigrés which were granted to other travellers. But at the same time they were forbidden to assemble in large groups, to recruit troups, to carry out military exercises, to buy horses and to build depots (i.e. all military activities were strictly forbidden). The failure of the allied campaign against France in the autumn of 1792 marked a complete change in the treatment of émigrés. From this point a substantial body of legislation 101

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was issued to regulate and to guard against uncontrolled French immigration to Prussia. This legislation was tightened up successively and extended to other groups of émigrés: Brabançois, Dutch and Liègeois. A relaxation of these controls occurred only after the return to France of numerous émigrés after the amnesties between 1800–1804. There were four important motives behind the tightening of the rules regarding émigrés in Prussia. These concerned the reduced credibility of the émigré government; the fact that the émigrés’ goodwill was no longer necessary; fears about the spread of revolutionary propaganda; and worries about possible support for revolutionary principles in Prussian territories. The problem of the émigrés became real for Prussia only when the émigrés were forced by the revolutionary armies to flee to the Holy Roman Empire. By the autumn of 1792 it had become impossible for the Prussian government to influence French politics through connections with the émigré government. In addition, the goodwill of the émigrés was no longer necessary to secure conquests in France. Precautions against revolutionary emissaries who propagated revolutionary ideas or made secret investigations for the enemy were another factor behind this change in attitude. Finally, the Prussian government wanted to prevent possible riots in sympathy with Revolution principles; pillage by bored and frustrated émigré troups; and crises resulting from rises in prices for food stuffs caused by the arrival of émigrés in regions with fragile economies.

Later, two further reasons could be identified. The government feared that penniless refugees would be a charge on the country and, after concluding the Treaty of Bale in 1795, political relations with the French Republic made necessary a policy of prudence towards the émigrés. Pragmatic raison d’état dominated the policy of Prussia during this period, but this policy was not devoid of human considerations. Distinctions were made between desirable and undesirable émigrés. This increasingly restrictive policy was maintained by a large number of decrees and publications. But that policy did not lead to a complete prohibition of French émigrés: many obtained official residence permits because they could

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be supported by social or professional resources, or appealed to the humanity of Prussian leaders (on the grounds of disease, pregnancy or childhood). The émigrés who were accepted were registered on lists and kept under surveillance by the police.1 Many Prussian bureaucrats regarded French émigrés’ rejection of patriotism as dangerous. French clergymen might insist on their royalist loyalties but they were treated with suspicion because they had not only defied the laws of France but they also insisted on the universal claims of the Holy See. The government of Lingen wrote to the War and Domains chamber of Minden: We have already had occasion to learn that these émigré priests have bad convictions, that they encourage defiance of law and authority and that they instill in our Catholic inhabitants notions which are harmful to the King and to the state. . . . 2 Consequently their church services and schools for Prussian subjects were mistrusted and watched. Control and security were essential for Prussian leaders. Émigrés searching for asylum had to adapt themselves to these conditions. The strategies of immigration can be reconstructed from the petitions of the émigrés directed to the Prussian king or to the state ministers. Normally, these requests began with a captatio benevolentiae expressing their royalist attitudes and their veneration for the state ruled by the nephew of Frederick the Great. Sometimes they even added a poem of homage and they invariably described dangerous episodes encountered as a result of their escape from France. After the introduction, individual supplications became more personal but many have common elements. Some of the nobles and clergymen offered letters of recommendation from high-ranking persons: connections with Prussian ministers and generals, with Prussian bishops and foreign envoys to the court of Berlin, recommendations from French princes or German Electors were all used for this purpose. This suggests that the émigrés expected to find solidarity among the European nobility. Such hopes were fulfilled only in certain cases. Other émigrés offered their services or (as is the case for non-noble émigrés) tried to convince the government of their utility for the Prussian state. Those who had only their royalist convictions

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and their distress to offer were in an unfavourable position. The General Directory wrote to the Department of Foreign Affairs on 23 March 1796 that, Practical workers, who could contribute to the improvement and expansion of local industries, would be much more desirable than the counts, knights and clergymen who form the majority of the émigrés seeking asylum. 3 However, émigrés without social or professional resources could still obtain a residence permit on the grounds of bad health or harsh weather. These conditions often led to a temporary residence permit which was more easily prolonged afterwards. Frederick William II was often sympathetic to French émigrés. He elevated two French émigrés to be chamberlains, gave residence permits to a number of descendants of old noble families and also gave various benefits to French émigrés: for example, he supported with subsidies the embroidery project established by the Countess d’Asfeld in Potsdam and he offered a property in South Prussia to the Marquis de Boufflers. These two establishments should have guaranteed the livelihood of a group of émigrés but they both came to nothing. 4 In addition, his Francophile uncle, Prince Henry of Prussia, who knew many French nobles, protected some of them and invited them to his court in Rheinsberg. Prince Henry also obtained a residence permit for the Countess de Genlis to live in Berlin in 1798. However, her literary works were distrusted by the Prussian government and the printers in Berlin received the order not to publish any of her works without special permission from the Department of Foreign Affairs. French nobles had already been established in the Prussian army before the outbreak of the French Revolution. These Frenchmen in Prussian service often wanted to help their relatives but the Prussian bureaucracy discouraged this sort of protection, particularly when the émigrés concerned had insufficient financial support and were not of interest to the country. As well as these legal methods, there were illegal ones: some French émigrés pretended to be Italian or Swiss, because Prussian decrees were not valid for those nationalities. Others

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referred to their properties in the Holy Roman Empire, and in the Austrian Netherlands. Émigrés also tried to obtain residence permits by marrying a Prussian subject but the Prussian administration stopped these attempts very early: Poverty and need on one hand and addiction to titles and rank on the other, will undoubtedly lead to marriages between noble émigrés and bourgeois. If such marriages had as a consequence residence in the country partaking of all the privileges of its noble subjects, the incidence of such immigration would rise substantially. The country would consequently be inundated with émigrés and their descendants to the detriment of native subjects.5 The first stage of the Emigration – up to the battle of Valmy in 1792 – did not cause any change in the way of life of the majority of émigrés. They continued their court life in the friendly courts of the Rhineland and they obtained enough money for their expensive habits from their families still in France. European monarchs also supported émigré princes with considerable financial gifts. The codification of the émigré laws in early 1793 interrupted the transfer of money from France and this coincided with a reduction in support from other European monarchs after the disastrous campaign of 1792. The émigrés had to find other ways to earn their living when their funds were exhausted.6 The majority of the émigré clergymen in Prussia earned their living as preceptors in noble families – in particular in South Prussia. Others were accepted in monasteries, especially in Silesia and South Prussia. In most cases Third Estate émigrés continued their accustomed trades in exile. They did not have many problems in obtaining residence permits if the trade they practised was a serious one. The income of some craftsmen – especially workers in the silk industry – would have been more than adequate. More than once, the Department of Foreign Affairs sent passports to craftsmen because they were in demand. This was rather unusual in a country which was suspicious of the increase of the number of French émigrés. However, as has been said, immigration of people who could not contribute to the economy was restricted and, in particular, the number of

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servants entering Prussia since many noble families brought with them, a swarm of servants who could be dangerous for security and order besides which they only increase the number of idle and unproductive members of society.7 While some émigrés succeeded in integrating themselves into the Prussian court or into the Prussian army, they represented a minority. Others tried to earn their living in different ways: some worked as teachers or as dancing and fencing masters; others were engaged in or founded schools. There were, however, other activities practised in exile which led to derogation, for example, the different forms of retail trade, but also wholesale trades like the wine business and various forms of manual work. Certain nobles did not hesitate to learn a craft. These activities strongly affected their relations with the local ‘Tiers Etat’. There are mentions of marriages between French nobles and daughters of Prussian bourgeois and the women range in background from the daughter of a successful trader to the daughter of a midwife. From the documentation on requests for residence, it is possible to recognise certain ideological trends. Although they are written with a specific intention, all of them contain reflections about personal situations and reasons for emigration. The attitude of the Prussian government contributes to an understanding of the situation the émigrés found themselves in: the forced changes; the financial distress; the need to adapt and to move in social spheres other than their own. While these official records need to be contrasted with other documents – particularly with the émigrés’ memoirs – they present a clear image of French exile life in Prussia.

NOTES 1.

On this policy of supervision in Prussia cf. Thomas Höpel, ‘Emigranten der Französischen Revolution von 1789 im Preußischen Geheimen Staatsarchiv Berlin-Dahlem’, in Michel Espagne, Katharina und Matthias

Thomas Höpel

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

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Middell (édit.), Archiv und Gedächtnis, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 1997. GStA PK, 1. HA, Rep. 11, Nr. 91b, Frankreich-Tecklenburg-Lingen, Spez. Fasz. 4 (M), Government of Lingen to War an Domains Chamber of Minden, Lingen 15th October 1795 (conception). Original quotation: ‘weil wir schon Gelegenheit gehabt haben, zu erfahren, daß diese emigrirte Priester überaus schlechte Gesinnungen hegen, die Unterthanen zur Verweigerung des Gehorsams gegen Gesetze u. Obrigkeit aufwiegeln, u. den Catholischen Eingeseßenen solche Grundsätze beybringen, welche dem König u. dem Staat höchst schäd. sind . . . ’. GStA Merseburg, 1. HA, Rep. 11, Nr.91 b, Französische Emigranten in der Kur- und Neumark, Spez. Fasz. 66 (M), General Directory to the Departement of foreign affairs, 23 March 1796. Original quotation: ‘Es wäre zu wünschen, daß, statt der Grafen, Chevaliers und Geistlichen, aus welchen fast allein die hier Zuf lucht nehmenden Emigrirten bestehen, nützliche Ouvriers zur Vermehrung und Vervollkommnung der hiesigen Fabriquen sich einfänden’. Concerning the embroidery of the Countress d’Asfeld cf. Thomas Höpel, ‘Französische Emigranten in der Kurmark’, in Matthias Middell a.o. (édit.), Widerstände gegen Revolutionen 1789–1989, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 1994, pp. 217–18. GStA PK, 1.HA, Rep. 11, Nr. 91b, Frankreich-Cleve, Moers, Mark, Spez. Fasz. 126 (M), rescript to the government and the War and Domains chamber of Cleve, Berlin 29 June 1797 (conception). Original quotation: ‘Armuth und Hülfsbedürftigkeit auf der einen, und Rangund Titelsucht auf der andern Seite, werden ohne Zweifel zahlreiche Ehen zwischen französischen Emigrirten von Adel und Personen bürgerlichen Standes veranlaßen. Wenn daher solche Ehen die Folge der Aufnahme in das Land, und der Theilnahme der recipirten an allen Vorrechten eingebohrener adelicher Unterthanen hätten; so würde der Fall solcher unfreiwilligen Aufnahmen sehr oft eintreten, und das Land mit Emigrirten und ihren Nachkommen zum Nachtheil Unserer eingebohrnen Unterthanen überladen werden.’ The majority of the émigrés had already run into debt in the hope of a quick victory against revolutionary France in the months which preceded the battle of Valmy. In 1793 only a minority preserved enough money for spending years in exile. GStA PK, I.HA Rep. 11, Nr. 91a, Frankreich, Fasz. 1 vol. 2 (M), rescript to government and war and domains chamber of Cleve, to government of Meurs, to administration justice board of Geldern, to government and war and domains chamber of Aurich, to government and war and domains chamber of Minden and to the government of Lingen, Berlin 24 August 1794 (conception). Original quotation: ‘da viele vornehme Emigrierte [ . . . ] einen ganzen Schwarm von Domestiken mitbringen, die der Sittlichkeit und selbst der Ruhe, Sicherheit, u. Ordnung gefährlich werden können, u. auf alle Fälle, die Zahl der Müssiggänger und unnützen Consumenten vermehren’.

7 French Émigrés in Edinburgh Lord Mackenzie-Stuart Until very recently French historians have created legends about Artois’s arrival in Edinburgh in January 1796. They have an image of Artois arriving secretly at some remote rendezvous on the east coast of Scotland in an enveloping mist and being whisked to some mediaeval ruin, when in fact the arrival at Leith could scarcely have been a more public occasion. They have confused Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse which is, for the most part, an elegant seventeenth-century building rather than a gothic ruin. At the pier to greet him was Lord Adam Gordon, commander-in-chief of the forces of North Britain, and his staff, and half of Edinburgh turned out to witness the spectacle. The journey to Holyrood however was scarcely a festive occasion. Lord Adam’s wife, the Duchess of Athole, had recently died and her husband was in deepest mourning, Lord Adam Gordon’s coach, ‘painted black, with four long-tailed sable horses’ was at the centre of the procession. ‘Nothing could be more lugubrious’, wrote Pryse Lockhart Gordon, who was there as aide-de-camp to general Drummond of Strathallan. Worse was to follow. At the North Bridge in Edinburgh there was a halt and it was found that a horse pulling a coal cart had dropped down and expired. So great was the crowd that it was with difficulty this obstruction could be removed and it was considered a bad omen by the strangers. 1 But on Artois’s arrival at the Palace there were salutes of 21 guns from Leith Fort and from Edinburgh Castle. Artois, later Charles X, the last King of France, occupied the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on two occasions separated by more than 30 years. The first was during his long exile from France during the Revolution; the second took place after his abdication in July 1830. On each occasion he 108

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was accompanied by a group of faithful followers and sought to create the semblance of a court, albeit modest in comparison with Versailles. Artois’s two sons, the Duc d’Angoulême and the Duc de Berri, also spent periods of time at Holyrood with their father. The character and spirit of the two periods of residence were very different. During the first stay, the Bourbon restoration, distant though it may have been, was never in question and its certainty was important for émigré morale. During the second, there was no likelihood that Charles X would again become King of France and, although there was much debate concerning the royal succession, only the most bigoted monarchist, of whom there were always some, failed to see that the day of the Bourbons had gone. Holyrood had become the nécropole écossaise. It inspired a funereal poem by Victor Hugo which contains the lines: . . . sous ton ombre Cette hospitalité mélancolique et sombre Qu’on reçoit et qu’on rend de Stuarts à Bourbons2 The six years between 1789 and 1796 had been difficult ones for Artois. He and his entourage, which included his mistress the Vicomtesse de Polastron, had moved many times. After an initial period in Turin they travelled to Coblenz but the hospitality of his uncle the Elector was extended with no more tolerance than that of his father-in-law the King of Sardinia. The mismanagement of his finances and the expense of his establishment was a focus of attention and criticism all over Europe. 3 By 1795 Artois’s fortunes had reached their nadir and he was living in penury at Hamm in Westphalia. Suddenly he received a summons from the Duke of York’s headquarters at Rotterdam and from there he was ordered to England only to learn that the expedition to Quiberon had ended in disaster. Of the 3600 émigrés who went as part of the British forces only 1800 were evacuated. The rest were executed. Artois uncharacteristically took the initiative and demanded the leadership of a second expedition. In September a rag-bag of English, French and German troops transported by the Royal Navy set sail for the Vendée. They got no further than

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the ile d’Yeu, 30 south-west of Nantes. Lack of any strategic plan, lack of provisions, arms, ammunition and courage all played a part. The chouans were left in the lurch and, at the end of October, Artois sailed for Portsmouth aboard the frigate Jason. At Portsmouth the financial difficulties which characterised Artois’s existence in emigration caught up with him. On the quayside were bailiff’s men seeking to serve him with writs. They represented the creditors or assignees of the creditors to whom Artois owed money as a result of the campaigns in the Low Countries. Equipment and provisions had been bought with borrowed money on the assumption of victory, which was constantly elusive. Artois was advised that should he step ashore he would be liable to imprisonment for debt under British law if he did not meet the sums due. The government provided the solution. Eager to remove the politically naive prince from London and any influence on British policy, it offered him the Palace of Holyroodhouse. By Scots law, provided Artois stayed within the sanctuary provided by the Palace and its extensive grounds, he was safe from arrest. He could however travel abroad on Sunday when arrest for debt was not permitted. As one modern French historian has said, It was by putting him in prison that Artois was protected against the threat of imprisonment. In this one sees the sense of humour with which the English know how to colour their hypocrisy.4 Accordingly, on 6 December 1795, Lord Grenville, in charge of Foreign Affairs, wrote to the Duc d’Harcourt offering Holyroodhouse5. On 22 December 1795, the Duke of Portland, then Secretary of State for the Home Department, gave instructions that Holyrood was to be put in readiness to receive the Comte d’Artois and Jason set sail for the port of Leith.6 On his arrival at the Palace, Artois was led to the apartments of Lord Adam Gordon which seem to have been all that was prepared for his accommodation. Other rooms must have been made available because two days later Artois held the first of the series of levées at which the Lord President, the Lord Advocate, the Lord Provost and Magistrates and several Civil and Military Gentlemen attended.7

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It was originally announced that such levées were to be held every Monday and Thursday but the cost was too much for Artois’s purse and before long they were discontinued. 8 It was not the citizens of Edinburgh who were wholly to blame: There was also a weekly dinner at which I assisted ex-officio. Until I had seen these Frenchmen, I thought that the power of man was limited; one day a salmon three feet long and not less than 25 lbs was put down as the second course and in a trice it disappeared. 9 Other exiles arrived in Edinburgh, some of whom were to be accommodated in the Palace itself, others where lodgings could be found in the Canongate, the principal street adjoining the Palace. When the Duc d’Angoulême arrived overland on 21 January, rooms were found for him in Holyrood. Louise de Polastron ‘lived in a small white-washed house’ which adjoined the Palace.10 Madame de Gontaut’s memoirs reveal important details of the prince’s life in Scotland. Her loyalty to Artois was complete and she was present through both his Edinburgh exiles. In 1796 she, her daughters and their maid came to Edinburgh from London by phaeton – a small open carriage – which was driven by her husband. The journey took fifteen days. I have to admit that our arrival at Edinburgh struck my heart with sadness: Holyroodhouse is situated in the middle of the old town in the poorest and most unhealthy quarter. The chateau itself has a sad and grim appearance. It is protected like a fortress and appeared to me like a prison. She continues: Monsieur was waiting in the courtyard for our equipage to arrive: he came towards us with his accustomed grace, at once so frank and noble, and seemed to be grateful for the journey which we had undertaken for his sake. In the face of this calm and noble fortitude I tried to kneel but I was told, “Your mother awaits you. I am not in my own home; I cannot have any friends to stay with me here but I ask that they settle not far from me; your lodging is over there in the square where we have a small French colony and, God willing, the days will pass.” He said that my husband should

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come to dine with him whenever he wished but, having only a modest establishment, he could only ask the ladies for tea.11 Early arrivals included members of the Polignac family. Yolande, Duchesse de Polignac had died during the Emigration but her husband, the Duc de Polignac and their three children, Agläe, Duchesse de Guiche,12 Armand and Jules, later Prince de Polignac and First Minister during the closing months of the reign of Charles X, were among them. The Duc de Polignac’s sister, the Comtesse Diane de Polignac was also with them. Another important figure was Artois’s close friend, the Comte de Vaudreuil, Joseph-Hyacinthe-François de Rigaud, whose letters provide one of the principal sources of information about this society.13 He had been the lover of Madame de Polignac and therefore remained a friend of the Polignac family.14 The picture of life at Holyrood is one of constant movement. Some, like Vaudreuil, were visitors from London where his parents were established as part of the huge émigré colony. Among the first to leave were the Duc de Polignac and his sister Diane who both found protection and security in Russia. The Duc d’Angoulême remained in Edinburgh only until March 1797 when he left to join Louis XVIII at Blankenburg in the Hartz Mountains but while in Scotland he was the subject of one of Kay’s Portraits entitled The Great and the Small are there. It shows Angoulême’s slight frame accompanying the bulk of Major-General Roger Ayton of Inchdairney at a review of the first regiment of the Edinburgh Volunteers.15 It is said that Monsieur found that their uniform recalled unhappy memories of the National Guard in Paris and refused to watch them drill.16 Angoulême is also recorded as having had an enjoyable day with the Caledonian Hounds near Haddington – a good many gates were left open for him.17 He attended the election of the Scottish peers to choose their number to sit in the House of Lords and was a regular patron of the Theatre Royal, no doubt to the benefit of the management who were in financial difficulties.18 Perhaps his most lasting memorial is the charming series of letters which he wrote to the Duchess of Buccleuch after his departure, in which he makes it clear how much Edinburgh meant to him and how strong was his affection for the Duchess who, in many ways, became for him a second mother.19

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Once attempts at ceremonial had been abandoned, domesticity prevailed.20 Except on Sundays when Artois was free to leave the sanctuary, there was Mass in the private chapel improvised at the end of the long Gallery; daily exercise in the safety of the Abbey sanctuary which included the King’s Park and its mountain, Arthur’s Seat, where snipe could be shot in Hunter’s Bog. There were many visitors to receive and in the evening Artois played whist with Louise de Polastron. In February Vaudreuil wrote to his father; The Scottish nobility is full of kindness, hospitality and good manners, and parties, balls and concerts are not wanting, but it is better to keep a certain distance, following the example of our august Prince. We are in bed every night before midnight and we feel the better for it. 21 Not all visits were social. Artois had been given the office of Lieutenant General of the Kingdom by Louis XVIII, with special responsibility for the west of France. This meant that he was nominally in charge of the insurgents in Brittany and the Vendée. He has been much criticised for his failure to join them. Certainly leaders such as Georges Cadoudal felt that without a royal prince at their head they were doomed. Hindsight suggests that they would have been little better off with Artois but at least one of Artois’s entourage, the Comte de Sérent, left Holyrood to meet his death on the Brittany coast.22 The abbé Latil, the future Archbishop of Reims, Cardinal and Peer of France made his debut in Edinburgh during the Emigration. According to the Comtesse de Boigne, Artois objected to the number of masses he was expected to attend by the Catholic community since this subjected him to long journeys on Sundays and he decided to appoint his own almoner, of a social standing sufficiently low to exclude him from the apartments, the Comte’s intention being that he should take his meals with the valet de chambre. Enquiries were made in London and a friend replied, I have just what you want, a priest who is the son of my concierge. He is young, not bad looking, in no way fastidious and you will have no trouble with him. 23

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The abbé Latil became a very important influence in the life of the Comte d’Artois. The immediate consequence of his arrival was the establishment of a chapel at the end of the long gallery where, as Francis Steuart has observed, a guidebook of 1818 noted that Mass was said without the smallest opposition from either the clergy or the people of Edinburgh. 24 Artois’s other son, the Duc de Berri, who had been serving with the armée de Condé, did not arrive in Edinburgh until March or April 1798 and left in September. 25 He added a little gaiety to the sombre life of the Palace. He ‘loved music and music we had’ recalls Madame de Gontaut.26 Vaudreuil, in a letter to his mother, describes amateur theatricals in an improvised theatre in the Duc de Berri’s bedchamber with the writer’s sister-in-law Pauline at the pianoforte providing the orchestra and the audience composed of ‘valets, chamber-maids and other servants’. Vaudreuil ends his letter; Beyond doubt one can call it an innocent pleasure. Perhaps evil tongues would give it the high-sounding name of a fête; what can one do? It reminds me of all the trouble we had when we wanted the children to act Cinderella and that without costing anything. So keep all this to yourself, I beg of you. Artois was released from the confines of his sanctuary during the summer of 1799. Various accounts suggest an arrangement with his creditors but in fact the true cause was the passing of the Aliens Act of 1798 which gave protection against pursuit for debt contracted abroad. 27 According to one source Artois embarked on a tour to express his thanks to the ‘illustrious chiefs of Scottish clans’ but further details are not recorded. On 5 August 1799 Artois wrote an official letter of farewell to the Lord Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh announcing his departure; I am forced, by circumstances touching the true service of the King my brother, to leave the country where, during the whole time of my residence, I have received unvaryingly the most distinguished marks of attention and respect.28 Artois’s occupancy of the Palace, however, was far from over. The Aliens Act of 1800 which continued the operation of the Act of 1798, only had effect ‘until six months after the conclusion

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of a general peace’ and in the autumn of 1801 such a general peace seemed imminent – the short-lived Treaty of Amiens was signed in March 1802. Artois deemed it prudent to have his refuge at hand and precipitately returned to Edinburgh which remained his base until subsequent legislation and the resumption of hostilities with France removed the pressures in the medium term. This, however, failed to provide total immunity, as events many years later were to show. During this period we catch a glimpse of Artois at large. We have reports of an unidentified spy sent by Talleyrand during the Peace of Amiens.29 From these reports we know that Artois attended the Queen’s Ball at the Assembly Rooms and offended the eccentric Earl of Buchan by undue insistance on protocol. Through the eyes of the brilliant letter-writer, Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Bute, we see him in 1802 at Bothwell Castle for the local races. Monsieur himself is a very handsome healthy-looking man, remarkably well made, above the middle size and stout. He looks much younger than his age (45) and has a splendid open countenance but his mouth does not shut, the upper lip being too short. For his air and manner, it is as I will not say gentlemen-like only, but noble and prince-like, as you can imagine, with that sort of high and dignified good breeding, that gracious civility to everybody (with at the same time the greatest ease), you would expect from a price bred in the politest court of Europe. 30 During that summer also there was a visit from the Duc de Berri who arrived aboard an Excise ship and who was present at the election for the Scottish representative peers. He took part in what was described as ‘an elegant entertainment’ at the Tontine Tavern and a ‘brilliant Assembly at the Rooms in George Street’.31 Artois’s sojourn at Holyrood brought about many necessary improvements to the fabric and furnishings of the Palace. Arnot summarises them by saying: This magnificent palace is no use whatever except the part which is occupied by the Duke of Hamilton; and the whole is falling into decay for want of being possessed and kept in repair. 32

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One improvement was put in hand immediately. On 24 January 1796 Lord Adam Gordon writes to the Duke of Portland, ‘the repairs in the King’s apartment are going better on now that the water-closets are ordered’.33 No less than £2734 was paid to Messrs. Young, Trotter and Hamilton for ‘Furniture of Various kinds Bed and Table Linnen Glassware and others’.34 Much of the admirable furniture which they supplied remains in the Palace. A porter’s lodge and stabling were constructed and the total during the same period for plastering, painting, carpentry, glazing and plumbing exceeded £1500. To put this expenditure in perspective a substantial country house with stabling could be built at this period for £3000. It must not be forgotten that Artois shared the large sanctuary with many less fortunate debtors huddled in a village of mean houses which adjoined the Palace building. Worse, an artifical marsh is created by stopping up the course of the common sewer of the city, which is conducted in this direction to the sea, and by spreading over the surface the contents of the sewer. Most odiferous is the scent of the beauteous meadow in the heats of summer, when its rankness of corrupting animal and vegetable excrementation is steaming from its fetid surface, and sending its grateful perfume to the adjoining Palace ‘a dainty dish to set before the King’.35 After 1803 there is no trace of Artois’s presence in Holyrood although it cannot be excluded that there were visits to his friends in Scotland, in particular the Buccleuchs. Holyroodhouse reverted to a care and maintenance basis. In August 1804, Henry Jardine, the King’s Remembrancer, writes to Artois’s secretary in London: Upon looking thro’ the Royal Apartments last day, I observed that both the carpets and other furniture were spoiling by being exposed to the air, and that it might be advisable to get the furniture washed, and put up till needed – and that the carpets ought to be cleaned and rolled up.36 In 1807 there was a flurry of activity because Holyrood was proposed as a residence for Louis XVIII who had recently been granted asylum in England under the title of the Comte de Lille. Instructions were given to the Lord Provost to make

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all necessary arrangements ‘as the Count of Lille and his family are expected to arrive immediately’. Louis XVIII however settled in Essex against the wishes of the British government and the Palace sank back into its previous torpor. One or two émigrés remained. Monsieur Pelerin, who seems to have been Artois’s general factotum, was in charge. Among them were the Comte de Coigny, a courtier of Madame Elizabeth, scarcely able to move because of obesity, and the chevalier de Rebourguil who at Versailles had been a First Lieutenant in Artois’s bodyguard and was now a regular visitor to the Dundas family at Arniston. Fragmentary records highlight their daily round; the kitchen chimney which smoked, the cloth on the billiard table which needed replacement, and so on. 37 Meanwhile in London, Artois, deeply affected by the death of Louise de Polaston, led a quiet life surrounded by a fraternity of ultra-royalist émigrés and under the strict spiritual supervision of the Abbé Latil. As Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, Artois entered Paris on 12 April 1814 but the Restoration so long awaited was painfully short-lived. The Hundred Days and Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo ushered in a second restoration of Louis XVIII more lasting than the first. Until his death in 1824 he governed France by maintaining a delicate balance between the survivors of the Ancien Régime, the Napoleonic administration and the emergent liberal intelligentsia. Artois became the nucleus of the ultra-right. His short reign from 1824–30 was an unsuccessful attempt to turn back the clock and on 2 August 1830 he abdicated the throne in favour of the Duc d’Angoulême. After a short stay in Dorset under the leaking roof of Lulworth Castle, Charles X sailed to Newhaven, a fishing village close to Edinburgh, where he and the Duc de Bordeaux disembarked on 20 October 1830. The latter leaped ashore with all the agility of youth and the conf idence of innocence. while, Charles was cautious, staid in his gait, walked remarkably erect, but there was a shade of gloom in his countenance. No man cried God save him. No joyful tongue gave him a welcome back and Heaven for some strong purpose, steel’d the heart of the spectators.38

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This time there was no commander-in-chief and no 21 gun salute. Whig attitudes predominated. The Edinburgh press was blatantly hostile until the call for tolerance came from Sir Walter Scott, whose words had long shown his sympathy for unfortunate royalists: the effect of this manly admonition was even more complete than the writer had anticipated. The royal exiles were received with perfect decorum, which their modest bearing to all classes, and unobtrusive, though magnificent benevolence to the poor, ere long converted into a feeling of deep and affectionate repectfulness. 39 The Newhaven crowd, some wearing white cockades, was friendly enough. One fish-wife thrust herself forward and called out, ‘O, Sir I’m Happy to see ye again among decen folk.’ On being asked her name she replied, ‘My name is Kirsty Ramsay, Sir, and many a guid fish I haw gien ye, sir, and many a good shilling I hae got for’t thirty years sin-syne.’ She was duly rewarded with half-a-crown and an order for 400 oysters. The second residence at Holyrood, which lasted from October 1830 until August 1832, was characterised by the absence of any real hope of a Restoration. The bourgeois figure of Louis Philippe, a constitutional monarch on the throne of France, suited the British far better than the absolutism of Charles X. The latter became increasingly aware of the difficulty of his position induced him to seek a more politically appropriate refuge in Austria. The Duke of Wellington wrote to a friend on 28 September 1832: I am inclined to believe that the retreat of Charles X from Edinburgh was a measure of prudential anticiption, on his part, of a course which he conceived was to have been presented to him in a short period of time.40 The politics of the residents of Holyrood were of little interest to those beyond their immediate circle. Issues concerning the Regency led to in-fighting. Charles X, the Dauphin and Marie Caroline, widow of the Duc de Berri described by Walter Scott as ‘that giddy lady’, squabbled over their rights should the occasion of a return ever arise.41 Marie Caroline, dissatisfied with the available rooms in Holyrood, occupied a house in Regent Terrace where the Dauphin and Dauphine were also

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installed. It is an irony that that sedate terrace once housed at the same time l’orpheline du Temple and the mother of l’enfant du miracle. The education of the Duc of Bordeaux and his sister Princess Louise provided a focus of activity for the royal inhabitants of Holyrood. Both celebrated their first communion at St Mary’s in 1831. At the first, abbé Busson off iciated, who for this important act [ . . . ] sacrificed his position with the most noble lack of self-interest.42 For that of the Duc de Bordeaux, the service was presided over by the Cardinal de Latil and the occasion marked by the presentation to the church of a suitably inscribed monstrance [a vessel for venerating the Host]. The governor to the young prince was the Baron de Damas who thought Holyrood ‘good enough for a private citizen’ but insufficient as the residence of a monarch; he was critical of the furnishings; ‘a few old pieces of mahogany covered with printed cotton’. 43 The baron may perhaps be forgiven because his bedroom also served as a public passage, though later he described himself as, ‘more suitably lodged’. There was also an incident where Charles X found himself embroiled in litigation to do with matters which remained unsettled from the first period of residence. The first hint appeared in the Scotsman newspaper: We hear that nine carriages bearing the ex-royal arms of France have been arrested in the hands of an expensive coach-maker in Edinburgh.44 This report proved accurate and a writ from Francis Simon, Comte de Pfaffenhoffen, claiming 446 000 French francs alleged still to be due as a result of guarantees which he had given on behalf of the Princes more than 30 years before, initiated a law-suit which dragged on during the entire royal stay and was not finally resolved until 1839.45 In contrast to the first visit, during the 1830–32 stay, Charles X lived like a private individual. By this time, a Catholic church, St Mary’s, Broughton Street, had been built and a royal pew was duly installed. 46 The ex-King ‘clad in a blue coat and white trousers and wearing a star’ attended mass with the Dauphin and Dauphine and other members of his entourage.47

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Charles X accepted his fate and was reported to have said to the Duc de Brissac: ‘Ah well, we are here for the second time! We must be quite resigned, God has willed it.’ and to the Duchess of Hamilton, ‘I meant well, therefore I lay my head peaceably down to rest’. 48 He was a regular visitor to many of the local gentry. Names such as Hope and Wedderburn crop up in French diaries and memoirs as do those of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton. A particular friend was the Earl of Wemyss whom Charles X had known in Paris and there were many expeditions to Gosford his estate on the coast to the east of the city. According to De Damas, all the family spoke French faultlessly and, for once, he felt at home.49 A carefully vetted selection of children were permitted to play with the Duc de Bordeaux and Princess Louise. Charles X, the Dauphin and the Duc de Bordeaux left Edinburgh on 20 September 1832 with affectionate farewells, both official and unofficial, formal and informal, to the people who had received them in the Palace and the city. At Newhaven there was a bodyguard formed by the Society of Newhaven Fishermen, keeping clear the entrance to the Chain Pier, ‘which was crowded with a large assemblage of respectable persons’.50 Their departure brought to an end a sad episode in the history of the French monarchy but one which had forged lasting links between the city of Edinburgh and the Bourbons. The Scotsman reported: The conduct of the whole party, since their re-appearance in the city, has given satisfaction to those who have interested themselves in their fortunes. The ex-King especially, lives strictly retired. When he walks out, he is always accompanied by one or two, or three gentlemen and appears in the dress of a respectable citizen; he assumes no consequence – he neither courts, fears nor shrinks from the public gaze, but his whole bearing evinces that he is fully conscious of his misfortunes, and the consequent sufferings they have occasioned. Those who have had opportunities of seeing him, assert that his whole deportment demonstrates that he is conscious that he is fallen from the pinnacle of human greatness, ‘never to hope again’.51

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NOTES 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

Pryse Lockhart Gordon, Personal Memories and Reiniscences, Edinburgh,1830, vol. I, p. 388. General Drummond was adjutant and quartermaster-general for Scotland. Victor Hugo, Les Rayons et les Ombres, Paris, 1839. English travellers sent back reports from émigré centres in the Rhineland, detailing the ineffectiveness of the princes, the ‘levity, vanity and presumption’ of their followers, and the miseries of their humbler adherents. Gentlemen’s Magazine, vol. LXII, April 1792, pp. 295–6. Letter from Spa dated 17 April 1792. Jacques Vivent, Charles X, Dernier Roi de France et de Navarre, Paris, 1958, p. 155. Henri Forneron, Histoire générale des émigrés pendant la Révolution française, Paris, 1884–90, 3 vols, vol. I, p. 138. Exchequer Letter Books, Edinburgh, and PRO H.O. 103/2 p. 2. Edinburgh Advertiser, 8 January 1796. Francis Steuart, The Exiled Bourbons in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1908, Chapter II. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, op. cit., p. 390. Robert Chambers, Walks in Edinburgh, 1830, p. 149. For Louise de Polastron see Vicomte de Reiset, Louise d’Esparbes, comtesse de Polastron, Paris, 1907, and Monique de Heurtas, Louise de Polastron, Paris, 1983. Duchesse de Gontaut, Mémoires, Paris, 1891, p. 70. Aglae Duchesse de Guiche [ob.1803] was buried in a vault in the chapel of Holyrood, sharing it with the remains of Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, until her coffin was removed in pomp in the 1820s. Léonce Pingaud, Correspondance intime du Comte de Vaudreuil et du Comte d’Artois, Paris 1889, 2 vols. It is reported that the Duc de Polignac accepted his wife’s death with ‘assez de philosophie’ while Vaudreuil was inconsolable. He later married his young cousin Josephine. Pingaud, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 287–9. John Kay, Edinburgh Portraits, The re-issue of 1877 is the most complete and accessible. Francis Steuart, The Exiled Bourbons in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1908, p. 53. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 391. See, for example, Scots Magazine, April 1796, p. 285. The Edinburgh Advertiser, 4 March 1796, carries a particularly colourful notice of a firework display on behalf of its rival the Royal Circus, ‘By desire of His Royal Highness the Duke of Angouleme’. Buccleugh Archives, Drumlanrig. For a list of those who attended the early levées see F. Steuart. Pingaud, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 247. Pingaud, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 250. A touching letter from Sérent to Artois (presumably intercepted) written in Jersey and dated March 1796 is I the archives of the Quai d’Orsay, Fonds Bourbons, 626.

122 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

The French Émigrés in Europe Comtesse de Boigne, Mémoires, vol. 1, pp. 130–3. Francis Steuart, op. cit., p. 47. These dates are deduced from Angoulême’s letters to the Duchess of Buccleugh. Duchesse de Gontaut, Mémoires, p. 70. See Lord Mackenzie Stuart, A Royal Debtor at Holyrood, Stair Society Miscellany 1, Stair Society publication, 1971, Edinburgh, vol. 26, p. 193. Edinburgh City Archives. Fonds Bourbons. Lady Louisa Stuart, Gleanings from an old Portfolio, 1895, privately printed. Scots Magazine, p. 705. Arnot, History of Edinburgh, 1788, p. 308. Scottish Record Office, Exchequer Letter Books. The Trotter accounts are in the Edinburgh University Library, Laing MS II499/29. For a valuable account of the surviving furniture, see Margaret Swain, The Connoisseur, January 1978, p. 27. An overall picture can be gathered from a synopsis of expenditure, Scottish Record Office, Exchequer, Declared Accounts, 1795–1801. Henry Courtoy, Historical Guide to the Abbey and Palace of Holyrood, 2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1834, p. 204. Scottish Record Office: Exchequer Letter Books. Scottish Record Office: Exchequer Letter Books. Scotsman, 1830, p. 687. See also Annual Register, pp. 172–3; Gentleman’s Magazine, p. 363 and the text of the 1877 edition of Kay’s Portraits. John Gibson Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh edition, 1903, vol. IX, p. 323. Wellington Dispatches, 28 September 1832, New Series, viii, p. 415, quoted by Francis Steuart, p. 126. The Duc de Bordeaux was the son of the Duc de Berri who was assassinated on 13 February 1820. He was born on 28 September 1820 and in monarchist eyes was – l’enfant du miracle because he assured the succession. The Duc and Duchesse, d’Angoulême were childless. When Charles X abdicated therefore it was in favour of the Duc de Bordeaux, Comte de Chambord who was in monarchist eyes Henri V of France and of Navarre. Duchesse de Gontaut, op. cit., p. 377. De Damas, Mémoires, vol. 2, p. 215. Scotsman, 1830, p. 715. The voluminous printed documents associated with the allegations and counter-allegations are in the Session Papers collection, Advocates Library, Edinburgh. Their incumbent was James Gillis, later Bishop Gillis who had attended a Paris seminary from 1818 to 1823. Armed with letters of introduction from Charles X, he made a tour of France, Spain and Italy, to raise funds to build a convent in Edinburgh which became St Mary’s Bruntsfield. F. Steuart, op. cit.

Lord Mackenzie-Stuart 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Francis Steuart, op. cit., p. 106. Duchess of Hamilton, Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 211. De Damas, op. cit., p. 221. Text accompanying Kay’s Portraits, op. cit. Scotsman, 1830, p. 687.

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8 Le milliard des émigrés: the Impact of the Indemnity Bill of 1825 on French Society Almut Franke Cette époque était celle des légendes, créées par malveillance, propagées par crédulité. Une légende demeura, se perpétuant avec toutes sortes de grossissements, celle du milliard des émigrés.1 This was how the historian Pierre de la Gorce saw the Restoration period in France in 1926. The creation of this legend of the milliard des émigrés shows very clearly how the memory of an event is used and manipulated, how time and memory interact with each other, and how collective memory can be influenced in order to establish a view of the past that justifies the present political regime. The question of indemnification during the Restoration was in fact a debate over the legitimacy of the Revolution and the Emigration, and, with the help of the catchphrase milliard des émigrés, this debate can be followed throughout the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century. It is an illustration of how remembering and forgetting are used both by governments and their oppositions to create an image of the past. In 1825 the émigrés were indemnified for the losses they had sustained due to the confiscation of their properties. In the ten years preceding the Indemnity Bill, there had been intense discussion in the press and in the two Chambers about the moral legitimacy of Revolution and Emigration and about the place of these two phenomena in the national past. The money to be allocated for the indemnification was calculated to be about one thousand million francs but it was to be distributed in government bonds bearing an interest of 3 per cent. The émigrés or their heirs had to make a claim proving their 124

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eligibility to the Directeur général des domaines whose job it was to establish lists detailing the size, the situation and the value of the confiscated properties. The Prefect of each Department and his council then passed a judgement on the legitimacy and the accuracy of the claim before a special Commission de liquidation in Paris gave a definite decision.2 The law specified that this process of identification must be completed within five years. Consequently, one could assume that in 1830, when the King and the government were overthrown, the matter was concluded. Indeed, most historians who have treated the Indemnity Bill have not continued their study beyond that point.3 Yet when the July Revolution broke out, more than 30 000 claims had reached the prefectures of the respective Départements and there remained several thousand claims which had not come before the Commission de liquidation due to administrative problems and delays. So, far from being concluded, the question of the indemnity re-entered parliamentary debates and the phrase milliard des émigrés, although convenient and widely used, was incorrect because in reality the sum was significantly less.4 Not only in 1830, but also in 1848 and 1851, the legend of the milliard des émigrés was resurrected. There was a further revival of the issue in the early twentieth century at the time of the separation of Church and State, in relation to the confiscation of the Church assets. Sources are at best scarce because little remains of the official records. The majority of the documents concerning the Direction des Domaines, held in the archives of the Ministry of Finance at Bercy, were burnt during the Commune in 1871. Yet despite the loss of these official sources, there are many references to the indemnity issue in the work of historians of the Restoration period and in the memoirs of the émigrés themselves. In the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, published by Pierre Larousse in the first years of the Third Republic, the article entitled ‘Émigrés’ gives a very severe judgement on the Emigration and also on the indemnity: [. . . ] il est incontestable que, prise dans sa généralité, l’émigration eut tout d’abord le caractère odieux d’appel à l’étranger, de révolte contre la nation. [. . . ] ils arrachèrent à

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la France le trop fameux milliard des émigrés (1825). C’était le salaire de leurs trahisons et de leurs complots. 5 The article ‘Milliard’ contains also a few sentences about the milliard des émigrés and repeats the devastating judgement: Cette libéralité envers des hommes généralement regardés comme justement punis pour avoir porté les armes contre leur patrie, armé l’Europe contre nous et troublé pendant vingt ans la France par leurs intrigues et leurs trahisons, a laissé un long souvenir d’impopularité. A diverses époques, l’opposition a pu agiter les esprits en demandant la restitution de ce fameux milliard. 6 The catchphrase milliard des émigrés was initially used during the Restoration by the liberal opposition in order to slur the advocates of the Indemnity Bill by damning the achievements of the Revolution. Under subsequent regimes, the meaning evolved and the term served to condemn the Emigration and the Restoration together. The Emigration was gradually substituted for the Revolution as the target of universal condemnation in politics and the two above quotations show that every debate over the indemnity issue successfully opposed Revolution and Emigration. This outcome reflected a patriotic judgement condemning the émigrés which prevailed not only during the debate over the Indemnity Bill in 1825, but throughout the whole of the nineteenth century. Yet, because the liquidation of the indemnity was not completed within the prescribed five-year period, the July monarchy had to tackle the problem of the remaining claims. In December 1830 the Minister of Finance and President of the Council of Ministers, Jacques Laffitte, proposed to the Chambers a new law which would abolish the fonds commun de réserve. This was a reserve of about three million francs destined for those émigrés, eligible for indemnification, who had been disadvantaged by various circumstances in the sale of their property during the different revolutionary periods.7 Laffitte stated that the July monarchy agreed to accept the debts of the Restoration but that it was not willing to do more than the Indemnity Bill had itself intended. Laffitte cited the fact that the fonds commun had only been attributed ‘à titre conditionnel’. Its dissolution required a new piece of legislation

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which the Restoration government would not have considered appropriate. This law would have to be promulgated by the July monarchy and it was Laff itte who asked the Chambers: ‘Cette loi, seriez-vous disposés à l’adopter?’8 The deputy, Baudet-Lafargue, employed the image of the ‘splendide festin du milliard des émigrés’ offered by the French nation: ‘C’est notre France qui a donné ce festin, sa desserte peut et doit lui appartenir’. 9 The metaphor of the splendid feast dated from the debate over the indemnity in 1825, where it had been used by General Foy, the most brilliant speaker of the liberal opposition. The debate in December 1830 about the abolition of the reserve fund echoed the speeches of 1825: all the stereotypes, the accusations and the insults re-emerged, but this time the other way round. The revolutionaries were no longer the ‘vaincus’. By 1830 the men of the Restoration had taken their place. Adolphe Thiers showed himself very clearly as a vainqueur, as he declared that the indemnity was ‘un des plus grands dommages qui aient été faits au pays’. 10 In his opinion, the July Revolution proved that the Indemnity Bill had not achieved its goal, the reconciliation between revolutionaries and émigrés. In his eyes, this reconciliation was impossible: ‘Il y a des partis qui ne se pardonnent pas’.11 The men of the Restoration were as much the enemies of France as the indemnity was an injustice. Thus, Thiers considered the abolition of the fonds commun to be a necessary measure. Laffitte called the indemnity, ‘un acte de spoliation envers l’État [. . .] un acte de force en faveur des émigrés’.12 In 1825 the confiscation and the sale of the national goods had been denounced as spoliation. This term spoliation was so frequently used that one could get the impression that the primary objective of the July Revolution was victory over the émigrés. Consequently, nobody was touched by the conciliatory words of the Marquis de Maleville who appealed in the Chambre des Pairs: Pourquoi faut-il que [ . . . ] quelques personnes aient cru devoir remettre en jugement l’émigration, et faire le procès à la loi même de l’indemnité? Ne serait-il pas bien temps de laisser au passé les discordes et les passions qui en ont contristé l’histoire? Les sollicitudes et les périls du présent ne nous suffisent-ils pas?13

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The Comte de Montalembert defended the Indemnity Bill and asked if it was really necessary ‘de mutiler une de nos plus belles lois pour rendre la guerre nationale et populaire?’14 He was referring to Laffitte, who had the foresight to establish a link between the abolition of the fonds commun and events in Belgium which might lead to a war, by suggesting that the three million francs of the fonds commun should be employed to reinforce the army. The financial situation in France was very precarious: the year 1831 began with a deficit of one hundred million francs. 15 The bill abolishing the fonds commun was promulgated in January 1831. The regular liquidations of the indemnity carried on until 1832. At the end of that year, the Commission de liquidation was dissolved. But the catchphrase milliard des émigrés re-emerged throughout the century in times of financial crisis. In addition, there remained dozens of unsolved cases, and the persons still claiming the liquidation of an indemnity turned towards the Commission des pétitions of the Chambers with their complaints. In February 1848, France was in euphoric mood, as it had been in the first months after the July Revolution. But the difference was that, this time, the whole political system had changed. In 1848, as in 1830, disenchantment soon took the place of euphoria. At the beginning of March, the State was on the verge of financial collapse. The stock market panicked, some Parisians sold their luxury goods and fled the capital.16 The first task of the Provisional Government was to put through financial reform. Not only was the Minister of Finance, Louis Antoine Garnier-Pagès, concerned about the financial reform, but the whole of Paris was focused on how to cope with the situation and did not understand the government’s difficulty in finding a solution. Thousands of Parisians met in clubs, discussed various measures and sent delegations to the Hôtel de Ville to present them. Newspapers proposed several projects and every day a barrage of brochures reached the ministry. 17 The walls were covered with posters. One of them claimed: Aux grands maux, les grands remèdes! Le gouvernement de la Restauration a exercé sur la France un vol d’ UN MILLIARD pour indemniser des Émigrés! [ . . . ] Le Milliard volé

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à la France! Un milliard, voilà un chiffre régénérateur. [ . . . ] La réclamation de ce Milliard est le droit du Peuple; le faire restituer, c’est le devoir du Gouvernement. 18 After the restitution of the milliard, attention would then turn to the invasion of 1814 and 1815 and to the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, because the émigrés were also held responsible for the financial burden of these events. But instead, the Provisional Government decided to levy a new tax of 45 centimes on every franc already paid, which would increase revenue by between 160 and 190 million francs. 19 The public’s resistance to this tax increase resulted in riots, payment refusals and the threatening of those who were willing to pay. The Minister of Finance, Garnier-Pagès, complained about the naïvety of most proposals. His own notes, written to justify his actions, show that the poster quoted above was not an isolated case: Des incitations, des sommations pour l’adoption de ce procédé, que les uns appelaient restitution et les autres nécessité politique, couvraient les murailles et surgissaient des Clubs: Les Bourbons, ramenés par l’étranger, avaient forcé la France d’indemniser des gens justement condamnés, d’après les lois et coutumes de l’ancienne monarchie, pour avoir pris les armes contre la patrie. Un milliard, octroyé par le bon plaisir de la royauté, voté par un parti, par une majorité de pairs et de députés la plupart intéressés dans la question, malgré l’énergique opposition de tout le pays, avait été imposé de force. C’était une spoliation, un partage de dépouilles publiques. Ce que la force avait fait, le droit commandait de la défaire. [. . .] La monarchie de Juillet avait annulé les fractions non distribuées de ce milliard: la République devait faire plus, et exercer son droit absolu de révision, d’annulation, de restitution. Ce milliard arracherait la France à ses misères, à ses douleurs. Le Gouvernement provisoire serait coupable s’il ne saisissait ce moyen du salut public.20 Thus, the old reproaches against the émigrés resurfaced. Garnier-Pagès saw in these accusations an attempt to win the people of the cities and the provinces over to the Republic and thereby, to demean the monarchy and the nobility. But in his view, it also damaged the State because it reawakened:

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[. . . ] les anciennes divisions, les haines éteintes, les vengeances assoupies; ressusciter le spectre sanglant du passé, avec toutes ses angoisses et toutes ses terreurs; couper de nouveau le territoire en deux: les biens domaniaux et les biens nationaux; jeter l’inquiétude sur les droits de la propriété, sur l’origine de ces droits; c’était sanctionner et léguer à l’avenir de la France la loi du vainqueur.21 This demand for the restitution of the milliard des émigrés illustrates how selective the memory of this event was and how it was applied to the contemporary political climate. The poster made the solution sound simple: the decree it proposed would put the whole financial situation back on its feet in two paragraphs. The catchphrase milliard des émigrés was engraved in the public memory. One referred simply to le milliard, and gave no consideration to whether the sum was really a milliard or to how the money should be returned.22 And from whom could one take the money? Garnier-Pagès pointed out that in the last 25 years, the recipients had changed several times so that it would be impossible to recover the money. This argument recalls the debates of the Restoration period, when the return of the biens nationaux was considered impossible for the same reason: the diversity of owners and the difficulty in finding the first buyers. Over and over again the financial administration was confronted with the consequences of the Indemnity Bill. When the Commission de liquidation was dissolved at the end of 1832, the remaining claims and the complaints of those who were not satisfied with the indemnity they had received were sent to the Ministry of Finance. But the Ministry of Finance denied responsibility, and the petitioners were forced to turn to the Conseil d’Etat and the two Chambers. A good example is the demand of the Gauthier brothers dating from 1844. In the Year III, the two brothers recovered their land which had been confiscated by mistake: the Gauthier brothers had not emigrated as had been presumed. Three years later, in the Year VI, the land was once more confiscated and sold, but the brothers received a part of the retail price. As a result of this confiscation the brothers obtained an indemnity of approximately 14000 francs in 1825. However, they considered this too low and demanded a supplement. The most interesting

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part of their claim is its reasoning, which was very appropriate for 1844. The brothers differentiated themselves explicitly from the émigrés whom they qualified as des personnes qui ont été dépouillées de leurs biens par une application juste et régulière des lois révolutionnaires. Paradoxically, they were not émigrés, their dispossession was a mistake, and yet they claimed an indemnity which met the real value of the confiscated land.23 Their demand was not granted. The over-riding preoccupation of the government was to bury the sensitive issue of the émigrés and the milliard and to relegate it, and them, to history. [ . . . ] cette loi, consacrée déjà par le temps, a du moins ce mérite: c’est d’être comme la pierre scellée sur un passé où sont ensevelies des passions, des haines, et des guerres déplorables, qui ont trop longtemps déchiré notre patrie.24 With these words the reporter of the Commission des pétitions of the Chambre des députés rejected a proposal concerning the revision of the indemnification of the émigrés. On 12 March 1851, three years after the decree of the tax of 45 centimes, the three deputies, Lagrange, Ducoux et Colfavru, demanded the reimbursement of this tax by the means of the complete repayment of the milliard des émigrés.25 Ducoux proposed an additional tax to apply only to the indemnified persons until such time as the sum of one milliard francs had been recovered. Lagrange claimed that even the interest should be repaid. Colfavru, the most unassuming of the three, demanded only the payment of a sum equivalent to the expense of the 45 centimes tax: a sum of 174,212,404 francs and 26 centimes. He was precise about the figure involved, whereas the indemnity was just called the milliard. The Commission des pétitions accused the three deputies of wishing to return to the tempestuous time of the Restoration, to revive bitter reminiscences and [. . . ] de mettre aux prises de nouveau l’émigration et la France révolutionnaire, de grandes infortunes et des lois terribles; de réviser, enfin, après soixante ans, avec les têtes et les passions d’un autre âge, un grand procès historique dont nos pères ne nous avaient pas légué le fardeau. 26

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The merit of the Indemnity Bill consisted in putting an end to questions of property rights and confiscation. If the indemnity was to be revised, these principles would be attacked. The reproaches made against the speakers of 1825 were now levelled at the petitioners of 1851. The committee decided to prohibit any discussion of the events of 1825, because irrespective of the result, such a discussion would disturb the quiet, the security, and the confidence of many families. André Gain concluded in his study of the indemnification of the émigrés that the three deputies’ proposition of 1851 was the last attempt to have the milliard reimbursed. After that, stated Gain, ‘la question du milliard des émigrés entra définitivement dans l’histoire.’27 But the past and the memory of the past, were they definitely buried? The great historical trials of the Revolution and the Restoration, did they really come to an end at that point? In fact, there were no more parliamentary debates after 1851 on the indemnity issue, although petitions were made in 1885, 1886, 1887 and 1891 by a certain Monsieur Lépine de Ligondès who obstinately claimed the reimbursement of the retail price of his ancestors’ castle without any success.28 The inspector of finance, Geslié, wrote in a report that the number and value of the remaining émigré goods was so modest that it would not be worth bothering the Chambers. And he added: ‘Il semble, d’ailleurs, inopportun de réveiller cette vieille question des émigrés’. 29 But the case was not closed. Until the 1920s there existed a Commission des émigrés at the Ministry of Finance which had to cope with the remaining claims. It was the intention of the Ministry of Finance to appropriate the last of the unclaimed émigré goods. In a circular dating from February 1900, the Directeur général des domaines asked for a list to be established in each Department naming the émigré goods which remained in the possession of the State. 30 Most of the lands which had not been sold during the Revolution and thus remained in the possession of the State had already been returned to the former owners by the Restitution Bill of December 1814. Consequently, in most of the Departments there were no more émigré goods and threequarters of the Departments sent back an empty list. But 23 Departments reported 50 cases. In the majority of cases, the State had come into possession of the goods because the buyer

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had not paid the bill or because the heirs of the émigré could not be found or did not claim anything. In 1920, the operation was repeated, but at this time most of the émigré goods had already been sold.31 Three statements by historians at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century illustrate that the reconciliation between Emigration and Revolution had never been reached. In 1886, Paul Gourmain-Cornille was full of bitterness when he recalled a project voted some weeks before the coup d’état by Bonaparte on the 18th Brumaire, which had attributed an indemnity to the immortels défenseurs de la patrie.32 The fact that, [. . . ] ce milliard promis aux patriotes, à titre de récompense nationale, fût distribué aux émigrés pour les indemniser des ruines qu’ils avaient accumulées sur le sol de la France, proved for Gourmain-Cornille l’énormité du crime des émigrés.33 Gourmain-Cornille reverted to the cliché of the émigrés as degenerate adventurers and accused those who defended them of being royalists. Frédéric Masson, who is known for his studies on Napoleon, declared openly in a collection of conferences published in 1911, that his dislike of the Bourbons dated from his childhood. In a conference of 1909 with the title ‘Les émigrés et leur retour’ he adopted the simplistic notion of the noble émigré who conspired against all those who refused to return to the Ancien Régime and he defended the confiscation of the émigré lands in the Revolution. 34 Some years later, in 1926, Pierre de la Gorce thought that the interval of time would be sufficient to treat the Restoration period with impartiality: On a beaucoup écrit sur la Restauration. Si j’entreprends ici d’en retracer l’histoire, c’est que le recul des temps rend peut-être opportune une révision. Les mêmes querelles de partis, les mêmes événements de la vie parlementaire qui passionnaient encore, il y a cinquante ans, les vieillards ou les hommes d’âge mûr, semblent aujourd’hui surannés. Il convient de les noter comme signes caractéristiques de l’époque; mais s’y appesantir serait se traîner dans un détail

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désormais superf lu. C’est dans cet esprit qu’a été conçu le présent livre, où l’on s’est appliqué moins à accumuler les faits qu’à éliminer tous les incidents peu dignes de mémoire.35 But in this last sentence, de la Gorce destroyed the reader’s hope for an impartial interpretation. Like Gourmain-Cornille and Masson, de la Gorce also wanted to manipulate history in order to create a certain view of the past: there were events which he qualified as ‘unworthy of memory’. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Paul Pradel de Lamase, the descendant of an émigré, published two books about the confiscation and the sale of the émigré goods. He called it vol and pillage and presented the dispossession of his family as a representative example.36 In a preface he explained why the question of the national lands had gained new relevance. If the government thought again about confiscation, this time it would be the ‘razzia du problématique milliard appartenant aux Congrégations religieuses’. 37 This sequestration of church land was used by Pradel de Lamase in order to compare the present government with the governments of the French Revolution who had decreed the confiscation and sale of the national lands. His aim was to set right the wrongs of the French Revolution towards the émigrés. He claimed a restitution, but not only of the indemnity but of the lands themselves – after more than a century! The nineteenth century was the century of confiscation, said Pradel de Lamase, so the twentieth century should become the century of restitution.38 The Indemnity Bill became an expropriation bill in this interpretation. 39 Nothing was solved by the indemnity. The claim by the descendants of the buyers of national lands, that the question of property rights had been solved in 1825, was regarded by Pradel de Lamase as a legend. Only a few of the memoirs written by émigrés contain information about the extent of the émigrés’ financial losses, or about their hopes and expectations concerning a restitution or an indemnity. 40 But the Editors’ prefaces sometimes contain a judgement on the Emigration or give the reason for the new edition. An extraordinary example is the new edition of the memoirs written by the Comte de Neuilly. They were first published by his nephew in 1865 and then republished in 1941 by Louis Thomas, who described himself as a descendant of a legitimist family. The preface to this new edition shows, that even in the

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middle of the twentieth century, the Emigration was used to serve current political debates. Louis Thomas saw in the life of the Comte de Neuilly proof that emigration was always a mistake. He claimed: Lorsqu’un pays subit une transformation profonde, si ses fils ne veulent pas devenir étrangers à sa pensée, à ses sentiments, à sa volonté de reconstruction et de renaissance, ils doivent demeurer avec leurs frères de race, sous le ciel qui les vit naître.41 Then Thomas imagined the life of Neuilly as it would have been if he had not emigrated: If, instead of joining the army of Condé, Neuilly had fought in the French army, he would have become, under Napoleon, a general or even marshal of France, his name would have been engraved on the Arc de Triomphe, and he would have gone down in the annals of history. In Thomas’s eyes, Neuilly had ruined his life by his emigration. That was the lesson to learn from this tragedy, and Thomas recommended it to all those who thought about leaving France in 1941: Sauf pour éviter la mort immédiate, on n’a pas le droit d’émigrer. Et dès qu’on le peut, il faut revenir. On n’a pas deux patries. On n’a même pas le droit de juger la sienne. On sert. Obstinément. Jusqu’au bout.42

NOTES 1. 2.

3. 4.

Pierre de la Gorce, La Restauration, 2 vols, Paris 1926–28, vol. 2, p. 75. For details see the exhaustive work of André Gain, La Restauration et les biens des émigrés. La législation concernant les biens nationaux de seconde origine et son application dans l’Est de la France (1814–1832), 2 vols, Nancy, 1928. Gain (see note 2) gives only a few hints. Victor Pierre, Le milliard des émigrés, Paris 1881, gives some more information about the aftermath of the indemnity, but often his references do not withstand checking. The sum definitely paid is to be found in the Compte général des finances of 1842; in the Grand-livre de la dette publique were recorded about 26 millions francs [25.995.310 francs] in governmental bonds of 3% which corresponded in capital to approximately 870 million francs [866.510.333 francs]. See Marcel Ragon, La législation sur les émigrés,

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

The French Émigrés in Europe 1789–1825, Paris 1904, p. 188, and Marcel Marion, ‘Une légende historique. Le milliard des émigrés’, in Le Correspondant, 10.04.1923, p. 118. Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, vol. VII/1, Paris 1870, Reprinted Geneva 1982, p. 437. Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, vol. XI/1, p. 267. For the legislation on the émigrés see Marc Bouloiseau, Étude de l’émigration et de la vente des biens des émigrés (1792–1830). Instruction, sources, bibliographie, législation, tableaux, Paris, 1963. Laffitte before the Chambre des députés, 10.12.1830, Archives parlementaires, 2e série, vol. 65, p. 438. Baudet-Lafargue before the Chambre des députés, 10.12.1830, Archives parlementaires, 2e série, vol. 65, p. 440. Thiers before the Chambre des députés, 9.12.1830, Archives parlementaires, 2e série, vol. 65, p. 401. Ibid. Laffitte before the Chambre des députés, 1.12.1830, Archives parlementaires, 2e série, vol. 64, p. 700. Marquis de Maleville before the Chambre des pairs, 27.12.1830, Archives parlementaires, 2e série, vol. 65, p. 623. Comte de Montalembert before the Chambre des pairs, 29.12.1830, Archives parlementaires, 2e série, vol. 65, p. 660. Louis Blanc, Révolution française. Histoire de dix ans (1830–1840), Brussels 1847, vol. 1, p. 275. A. Antony, La politique financière du gouvernement provisoire (février–mai 1848), Paris, 1909, p. 52. Some of these brochures are stored in the Bibliothèque nationale, Lb53 – Histoire du gouvernement provisoire. Un milliard! (signé: L’Enfant), Paris s.d. [1848]. République française. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Recueil des décrets et actes financiers du gouvernement provisoire, Paris, 1848, p. 47. Louis Antoine Garnier dit Garnier-Pagès, Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, Paris, 1868, pp. 90–1. Ibid., p. 91. The restitution of the milliard would not have been very profitable: only 273 millions francs, as in 1848 the bonds of 3% – were only at 32,50. See Marcel Marion, Histoire financière de la France 1715–1875, Paris, 1914–1928, vol. 5, p. 86. Petition of Antoine Gauthier towards the Chambre des pairs, 14.04.1844, Archives nationales, CC 470: Chambre des Pairs. Pétitions de la session de 1845, dossier 558. Corne before the Assemblée législative, 31.03.1851, in Compte rendu des séances de l’Assemblée nationale législative, vol. 13:23.03.9.05.1851, Paris 1851, Annex, p. 47. Assemblée nationale législative, 1851. Impressions. Projets de lois. Propositions. Rapports, etc., Paris 1851, vol. 25, No. 1737 (Lagrange), No. 1738 (Ducoux) and vol. 26, No. 1805 (Colfavru). Corne before the Assemblée législative, 31.03.1851 (see note 24), Annex, p. 47. Gain, La Restauration et les biens des émigrés (see note 2), vol. 2, p. 384.

Almut Franke 28.

29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

137

Petitions of 1885, 1886, 1887 et 1891. See the report of M. BabaudLacroze concerning the petition No. 1155 of a M. Lépine de Ligondès. Assemblée nationale. Chambre des députés, séance du 11.05.1891, p. 862. Report of the inspector of finance, de Geslié, 9.04.1885. Archives économiques et financières, B 14534. ‘[ . . . ] l’État se trouve encore détenteur d’immeubles et de rentes foncières, séquestrés sur des émigrés depuis plus d’un siècle et dont la remise aux anciens propriétaires n’a pu être effectuée, conformément à la loi du 5 décembre 1814, soit en raison de leur affectation à des services publics, soit par l’effet de l’inaction prolongée des ayants-droit. Je vous prie de rechercher la consistance exacte et la valeur actuelle des immeubles et des rentes dont il s’agit qui peuvent exister dans votre département et de m’en adresser, avant le 1er avril 1900, ou, à défaut, un certificat négatif.’ Circular of the Direction générale des Domaines, 9.02.1900. Archives économiques et financières, B 14534. Circular of the Direction générale des Domaines, 17.03.1920. Archives économiques et financières, B 14534. Paul Gourmain-Cornille, ‘Le milliard des défenseurs de la patrie et le milliard des émigrés’, in La Révolution française, vol. X, 1886, pp. 592– 607, 678–90, 821–31, 898–917, here p. 916. Ibid., p. 594. Frédéric Masson, ‘Les émigrés et leur retour’, in Au jour le jour, Paris s.d. [1911], pp. 251–86, here p. 277. Gorce, La Restauration (see note 1), vol. 1, preface written the 23.02.1926, p. 1. Paul Pradel de Lamase, Voleurs et volés, coin d’histoire révolutionnaire, Paris 1901; Paul Pradel de Lamase, Le pillage des biens nationaux. Une famille française sous la Révolution, Paris, 1912. Pradel de Lamase, Pillage (see note 36), Preface, p. 1. ‘J’ai la ferme conviction que si le XIXe siècle a été, tout entier, le siècle de la grande spoliation, le XXe sera le siècle de la grande restitution.’ Pradel de Lamase, Voleurs (see note 36), Preface, pp. XIII–XIV. ‘L’indemnité du milliard fut essentiellement une loi générale d’expropriation pour cause d’utilité publique.’ Ibid., p. 400. See Alfred Fierro, Bibliographie critique des mémoires sur la Révolution française écrits ou traduits en français, Paris, 1988; Jean Tulard, Nouvelle bibliographie des mémoires sur l’époque napoléonienne écrits ou traduits en français, Paris, 1991; Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny/Alfred Fierro, Bibliographie critique des mémoires sur la Restauration écrits ou traduits en français, Geneva, 1988. Comte de Neuilly, Dix années d’émigration. Correspondances et souvenirs, publiés par son neveu Maurice de Barberey, Paris, 1865, 2nd edn by Louis Thomas, Paris, 1941, Preface, p. 8. Ibid., p. 13.

9 French Émigrés in the United States Thomas C. Sosnowski ‘Formez vos bataillons!’ encouraged the ‘Marseillaise’, but as we know, not all Frenchmen rose up and joined revolutionary brigades. Many sought asylum in nearby lands like northern Italy, Hamburg, Cologne and London. But more daring were those who chose more distant locations, especially in the United States, involving a journey of more than two months. French assistance during the War for American Independence, as well as the influence of Rousseau’s ideas, made the new transAtlantic republic an obvious choice for many. Already several American cities had noticeable French communities: Boston, Philadelphia, and especially Charleston, South Carolina. Here the émigrés were welcomed, until relations between France and the United States deteriorated into an undeclared maritime war in the late 1790s. But during this decade perhaps as many as 10000 exiles came to the United States, although no research has been done to confirm this figure.1 Most remained as refugees with no desire to assimilate into US society which many considered primitive. Because their primary attention was focused on their homeland, many created French Clubs and patronised French-language newspapers in order to follow developments in France. Neverthless, a galaxy of luminaries endured the trans-Atlantic journey: Moreau de St-Méry, Volney, Brillat-Savarin, the Duc d’Orléans, Chateaubriand, LézayMarnésia, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Mme de La Tour du Pin and even Talleyrand. Finances were, of course, a major concern for these émigrés. Some, like Orléans and La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, depended on money sent by their families in Europe. Talleyrand came with hopes of participating in land speculation.2 Mme de la Tour du Pin and her husband purchased a hundred hectare farm near Troy, New York – perhaps as a way preserving what remained of their fortune. In spite of his own distaste for the business world, Moreau de St-Méry became a bookseller and 138

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publisher. His publications included a first edition of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt’s Prisons de Philadelphie and the émigré newspaper, the Courrier français. His Voyage aux États-Unis de l’Amérique implies that this was a successful operation, but the Chevalier Pontgibaud de Moré gave a different evaluation: Nor was I particularly astonished either to learn, some months later [after visiting the store] that he was bankrupt, but I may remark that he failed for twenty-five thousand francs, and I would not have given a thousand crowns for all the stock in [his] shop.3 For many the aristocratic style to which they were accustomed was impossible to maintain in the New World. Madame de la Tour du Pin, for instance, who was assisted by several servants and slaves, found it necessary to do her own cooking with the aid of a French cookbook, La Cuisine bourgeoise.4 On one occasion while she was attempting to butcher a lamb for dinner, she was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Talleyrand who said: ‘On ne peut embrocher un gigot avec plus de majesté’.5 Surprised, but not upset, she invited him and his companion Beaumetz to partake of the repast. Some of the émigrés wrote about their travels and other experiences in the United States. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who travelled extensively and wrote an 8-volume work as a result, also kept a private journal which was not published until the twentieth century. He became, like some other émigrés, ‘explorateurs malgré eux’.6 Lézay-Marnésia published his curious Lettres écrites des rives de l’Ohio which excoriated the revolutionary governments of France while proposing the establishment of a utopian settlement (for him, that is) Saint Pierre with ‘une monarchie libre et si bien organisée’ – a truly aristocratic milieu.7 Everyone seems to have heard of Châteaubriand and his American voyage in 1791. However, what he did and where he went was greatly distorted by his romantic ruminations and extensive readings over more than 20 years. 8 The émigrés who left some record of their time in the United States were usually exiles who pined for France, and had little or no knowledge of the English language. This proved a major hurdle in the New World. Their reaction was similar to that of other non-English speaking immigrants; they tended to live in one district of a city and frequented establishments which

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catered for their physical and social needs. Apparently Moreau de St-Méry’s bookstore in Philadelphia (then the capital of the United States), like that of Dulau in London (see Chapter 3), acted like a French community clubhouse.9 Some did decide to learn English and even contracted with William Cobbett, the noted polemicist and writer, who had recently moved to the US. In fact, his first published work was Le Tuteur anglais, an English grammar which was addressed to the French reader. 10 Another example of isolation was the creation of the settlement of Azilum in a remote region of north central Pennsylvania. Here the Vicomte de Noailles, Omer-Antoine Talon, and others attempted to restore the France of the past. Their ‘Grande Maison’, unlike the ordinary domicile on the frontier, was a two-storey structure which measured approximately 20 by 26 meters and boasted large fireplaces and large glass windows. 11 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, however, criticised Talon’s ignorance of the English language and although he predicted the success of the venture, he thought one roadblock remained: One of the greatest impediments of this settlement will probably arise from the prejudices of some Frenchmen against the Americans [. . .] Some of them [. . .] declare that they will never learn the language of the country or enter into conversation with an American.12 This isolationism was noticed again by La RochefoucauldLiancourt while travelling through the Finger Lakes district of New York State (a remote region at this time). Here he met a M. Vatines who had recently cleared approximately eight hectares where he lived with his wife and the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu and Corneille which he preserved. While he was delighted to see his countrymen, he [was] prejudiced against Americans, on account of their unfair dealings and especially because they are extremely dull and melancholy. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt concluded that ‘this sort of dislike of Americans is common to all Frenchmen . . . in this part of the globe’. 13

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Although he did not share in this opinion, he easily found fault with Americans, such as those he met in Albany, New York. He described them as ‘people of uncouth manners and without the least education’; but their opinions, in contrast, ‘were just and sensible and their judgments extremely correct’.14 He also claimed that the neighbours of Mme de la Tour du Pin and her husband were indifferent to the cultural jewel in their presence.15 But this judgement can be contrasted in a later tome when he lauds, in general, American hospitality towards strangers.16 Talleyrand also wrote extensively about his experiences in the United States in his Mémoires. There he criticised Americans for over-emphasising ‘the spirit of enterprise’. In fact, he asserted that ‘trop d’activité se tourne vers les affaires et trop peu vers la culture’.17 As a result he found Americans to be coarse nouveaux riches who little understood and appreciated the sophistication accruing from civilised life. He criticised, like La RochefoucauldLiancourt, American admiration for money. He thought the possibilities for luxury had arrived too early in the life of the United States as a nation: ‘when the first needs of a person have been satisfied, luxury becomes shocking’. He described his visit to the log cabin of a Mr Smith on the banks of the Ohio River where ‘there was a piano in the living room ornamented with beautiful bronzes’. However, when Talleyrand’s companion, Beaumetz, opened it, he was admonished not to play for the tuner lived more than a hundred miles away and ‘ had not arrived that year’.18 This statement should be compared to the account of a similar incident by a refugee from Saint Domingue: that is sufficient to have the pretext to ornament their parlors with a fine piece of furniture [piano] though they still try to teach the good people that the fine arts are worthless!19 In other words, Americans had symbols of civilisation like the piano, but neither the ability, nor the desire to use them. Other visitors to the United States were not given to lengthy discussions like Talleyrand and La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. For example, the Duc d’Orléans, who was much impressed with the US, especially its geographical wonders and the Indians, decried American ignorance and laziness on several occasions.

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Once he said the ‘indolence and churlishness of the workingmen [in Tennessee] . . . are unparalleled’. In the same vein he cast aspersions upon the quality and lack of variety in the food in the back country inns. 20 Another, but more careful analyst, Volney, the author of Tableau du climat et du sol des Etats-Unis, which has been acclaimed as one of the best early geographical works on this continent,21 said that Americans referred to themselves as ‘young people’ and this expression only demonstrates their inexperience and the eagerness with which they give themselves to the enjoyment of fortune and flattery. 22 However, he was careful to praise American freedom of the press and of opinion. Yet not all émigrés were critical of the United States. Some were thankful for the asylum provided. One noteworthy example was the great gastronome, Brillat-Savarin, whose Physiologie du goût is a pæan to the culinary arts. He lived for three years in the United States where, for economic survival, he taught the French language and even played in an orchestra. Nowhere does he express that condescension so common in the writings of other émigrés. He tried to speak the language of Americans and to dress like them. He even found reason to praise at least one American food – the turkey – which to his palate was a delicacy. As a result he called himself a ‘dindonophile’!23 Mme de la Tour du Pin, whose memoirs never expressed anger or condescension in her dealings with Americans, also showed none of the bitterness that others expressed – she was thankful for life and refuge and as well as the love of her husband. Her criticism focused on the French, not the Americans; it was La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt who pitied Madame’s ‘plight’ in Troy, New York, but her own account sounds very different.24 The negative attitudes of many émigrés towards Americans were an obstacle to assimilation and the French language newspapers were one proof of this unwillingness to adopt the habits and customs of the local inhabitants. Some lasted only a short time, but the Courrier français survived for four years in Philadelphia until the unfolding of the XYZ affair and its attendant Francophobia. These usually reported almost nothing about the United States, but instead focused on France and

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sometimes other regions of Europe. In its pages one could discover more about events in Warsaw than in Boston or New York!25 Nonetheless, some émigrés maintained contacts with Americans. Mme de la Tour du Pin and her husband were happy to travel to Albany, often weekly, to visit the Schuyler family, where they could temporarily enjoy a more elegant lifestyle and converse in French. In his first five months in Philadelphia in 1794, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt spent much time at the home of Benjamin Chew, a noted lawyer and judge. His private journal relates that almost every day he was a guest at someone’s residence. Among his new acquaintances, the most prominent were Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Henry Knox, Secretary of War (who became a close friend); John Kean, officer at the Bank of the United States; William Bingham, merchant, banker, and legislator.26 Yet his English was not perfect and was heavily laden with gallicisms and ungrammatical structures, as one can easily read in his private letters to Knox. For example, while commenting on the heavy rains he experienced, he wrote: ‘I reached f loods to me only Saturday. . . . ’ Or another time: ‘No distance can me thinking less to your kindness. . . . ’27 He also made the acquaintance of the Francophile Thomas Jefferson and visited him at his western Virginia mansion, Monticello. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Brillat-Savarin, and Mme de la Tour du Pin appear to have been different from many other notables who apparently maintained close contacts only with those in their own ethnic communities. Occasionally Talleyrand met distinguished Americans like Hamilton, but after President Washington refused to meet him because of diplomatic problems, he preferred the company of his compatriots. Also, his liaison with a mulatto woman, who travelled with him publicly, scandalised Philadelphians, especially the Quakers.28 Despite these problems of adjustment, many émigrés contributed to American culture and society. As the Chevalier Pontgibaud de Moré related: But a man must live, and the most curious spectacle was to see these Frenchmen, fallen from their former greatness and now exercising some trade or profession. 29

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A refugee from Saint-Domingue commented about his fellow exiles and émigrés: one is a gardener, another a school teacher; this one makes marionettes, that one gives concerts; some teach dancing, others sell confections; the shrewdest ones go into business, and some have already become well enough known to be considered illustrious personages. For you know that here gold is the first title of nobility. 30 Perhaps the most French city in the United States in the 1790s was Charleston, South Carolina. Originally founded by Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, this town maintained noticeable souvenirs of French culture more than a century later. [Even today the Huguenot church has services in that language once a month.] Also, an aristocracy based on land ownership governed the city and dominated its social life. The citizens welcomed the arrival of the émigrés and later the refugees from Saint-Domingue. A number of them involved themselves with drama and for several years the city supported two active theatres. French names predominated among the lists of actors and actresses. For a while, there was even a French Theatre which performed plays in both French and English and depended heavily on France for its repertoire.31 One noted British actor who participated actively in US theatre in the early nineteenth century, John Bernard, declared: One of the ruling amusements of the Carolinas was dancing, the French having apparently inoculated all classes in this taste in its most confirmed state. 32 In other words, they tutored the American aristocracy in the art of dancing. He also emphasised the importance of the French émigrés in raising the quality of American culture, both in music and drama. A variety of other areas must also be examined – and these cannot be detailed here. Apparently there was some effect on the culinary tastes of Americans – French food was considered prestigious in some circles, although eating French food could be symbolic of one’s politics (whether pro-French or pro-British, i.e. Federalist or Jeffersonian). 33 But there is a problem singling out the émigrés as the exclusive source of dietary changes and even of fashions because of the continuous interchange

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between French and Americans, since late colonial days. For example, one historian ( Jones) claims that the French introduced tomatoes to the Americans who considered it a poisonous fruit and used it only as a garnish.34 Yet, Jefferson’s admirers credit him with popularising their use. Another area of French influence was the Catholic Church. Usually a rather reclusive group in Protestant America, Catholics were scattered in many of the colonies. Their strongest presence was in Maryland which was originally founded as a refuge for them in the 1630s. Yet even there they remained a small minority. After the American Revolution, Fr John Carroll of Maryland petitioned the Pope to establish a US diocese separate from that of Québec. The response was the creation of the diocese of Baltimore with Carroll named as its first bishop. The new bishop quickly turned his attention to strengthening the Catholic presence in the US by supporting the establishment of Georgetown University with the help of ex-Jesuits, including some from France, and then by establishing a seminary in Baltimore. In the latter effort, he made contact with the erudite Sulpician Order, recently suppressed in France, and encouraged some of its members to establish a seminary. Numerous other non-juring clergy were also welcomed by Bishop Carroll. As the number of Catholics increased over the next few decades, many of these émigré priests were appointed bishops of newly created dioceses: Dubourg at New Orleans; Maréchal at Baltimore after Carroll’s death; Flaget at Bardstown, Kentucky; Bruté at Vincennes, Indiana; Gabriel Richard at Detroit (although he died before consecration), and so on. Also, in 1792, some Poor Clares, driven from France, sought refuge in Maryland and founded one of the first cloistered convents in the United States. Indeed the most noticeable and long-lasting inf luence that the émigrés had on the United States was on the Catholic Church, which f lourished under their leadership.35 The emigration in the United States ended almost abruptly in 1798. Some émigrés had already returned to France by the mid-1790s and did not experience the worst of the Francophobia which affected many parts of the States: Talleyrand, who helped cause this episode, Mme de la Tour du Pin, who returned with her family to claim the ancestral lands under the terms of an amnesty, and others.

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Several factors encouraged the rise of Francophobia. First, it must be noted that many Americans welcomed the French Revolution as an advance of liberty and the destruction of monarchical tyranny but as the Revolution became more radical and violent many joined the anti-French movement. The misguided and undiplomatic mission of Edmond Genêt to the United States to undermine US neutrality, as well as the Reign of Terror and its excesses, encouraged the pro-British stance of the Federalist Party whose efforts were crowned with Jay’s Treaty of 1795. The French wanted the United States to keep to the terms of the original Treaty of Alliance of 1778, which were obviated by Jay’s Treaty with the British and Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality. The Directory encouraged attacks on US vessels in the West Indies in reaction both to the AngloAmerican Treaty and the lack of understanding over responsibilities ensuing from the alliance. The attacks of the French corsairs were not the only acts of piracy Americans faced, for the British continued to stop US ships in order to impress sailors. During John Adams’ presidency (1797–1801), the neutral United States chose to maintain British friendship, eventually engaging in an undeclared war against France as a result of the notorious and misguided XYZ Affair. The deterioration of diplomatic relations between the two republics placed the émigrés in an awkward situation at best. From at least 1795 until the summer of 1798, one notices a growth of anti-French sentiment as reported by them in their writings. Moreau de St-Méry emphasised the English proclivities of the Federalists to the detriment of the French. In addition, he stated that, people acted as though a French invasion force might land in America at any moment. Everybody was suspicious of everybody else: everywhere one saw murderous glances. In an entry of 14 July 1798, he stated bluntly: antagonism against the French increased daily. I was the only person in Philadelphia who continued to wear a French cockade. Moreau was also angered by the lack of support from President John Adams who as Vice President (1789–97) had patronised his bookstore. He was placed on the list of French citizens to be

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deported. When queried about the reason for the addition of Moreau’s name to the list, Adams replied to Senator Langdon of New Hampshire: ‘Nothing in particular, but he’s too French’.36 One more example can be seen in Volney’s Tableau where he states bluntly that, ‘an epidemic of animosity against the French [is] breaking out’ with himself as the object of virulent, verbal abuse. He was angered by the suspicion that he worked as a secret agent of a foreign government. Of course, he ridiculed the proposal presented to the Congress that would have declared the United States ‘the most enlightened and wisest nation on the globe’ which he felt emboldened this hysteria ‘by declamations in Congress [. . . ] and even in colleges by prizes for [. . .] defamatory theses against the French’. Volney departed from the United States in the midst of this fury and completed his work overseas. Surprisingly, his anger did not obfuscate his admiration for American liberty.37 Another significant source of information about this gallophobia is the émigré newspaper press. In the Courrier français, editor Pierre Parent often railed against the calumnies and libel that he found in the US press. He denounced John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States for its accusations that the French especially were ‘spreading trouble and disorder in the United States’.38 The horrors of this hysteria can be seen in an attack on patients in a French hospital in Philadelphia by a group of workers in August 1796. The editor called for justice, which apparently was had within a few days with the arrest of the guilty.39 And later that year when fires swept through Charleston, Savannah, Baltimore and Boston, the French were accused of these dastardly acts. Parent this time singled out the noted American lexicographer Noah Webster as one of the perpetrators of these lies and then said: Absurdités, suppositions, interprétations, invectives, injures, outrages, rien n’est négligés pour satisfaire leur haine contre le Peuple Français. 40 Unfortunately, mass hysteria has occasionally occurred in US history and the Francophobia of the 1790s is only one heinous episode. One cannot forget the anti-Catholic riots in Boston in 1830s, the Red Scare of 1919 and McCarthyism of the 1950s. Whereas in the twentieth century Americans inveighed

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against ‘reds’, some of them in the 1790s inveighed against those representing a different revolution. As a result in July 1798 the Courrier français ceased publication. Moreau de St-Méry, Volney and others returned to France. The vibrant émigré communities disappeared, but the United States would only have to wait a few years before a new breed of French émigrés, the Bonapartists, would arrive.

NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Fernand Baldensperger, Le mouvement des idées dans l’émigration française, 1789–1815 (Paris, 1924; reprinted by Burt Franklin, 1968), I, p. 105. For an introduction to the émigrés in America, consult the following works: Frances Sargeant Childs, French Refugee Life in the United States, 1790–1800 (Baltimore, 1940); Durand Echeverrie, Mirage in the West: a History of the French Image of American Society to 1815 (Princeton, 1957); Bernard Faÿ, L’Esprit révolutionnaire en France et aux États-Unis (Paris, 1925); Howard Mumford Jones, American and French Culture, 1750–1848 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1927), Roger Kennedy, Orders from France: the Americans and the French in a Revoluionary World, 1780–1820 (New York, 1989); J.G. Rosengarten, French Colonists and Exiles in the United States (Philadelphia & London, 1907); and ‘Anne Catherine Bieri Hebert’, ‘The Pennsylvania French in the 1790s: the Story of Their Survival’, PhD dissertation (University of Texas at Austin), 1981. It should be noted that the émigrés arrived after the census of 1790 and most departed before that of 1800. Also, at times it is difficult to distinguish in American sources between exiles from France and those from Saint-Domingue. See Talleyrand in America as a Financial Promoter, 1794–96: Unpublished Letters and Memoirs, vol. II, trans. and ed. Hans Huth and Wilma J. Pugh (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1942). Chevalier de Pontgibaud [de Moré], A French Volunteer of the War of Independence, trans. and ed., Robert B. Douglas (New York, 1898), pp. 128–9. Marquise de la Tour du Pin, Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans, 1778– 1815 (Paris: Librairie Chapelot, 1914), II, p. 31. Ibid., II, pp. 31–2. Baldensperger, Le mouvement des idées dans l’émigration, vol. I, Chapter 2. Claude-François Adrien, Marquis de Lézay-Marnézia, Lettres écrites des rives de l’Ohio (Fort Pitt and Paris, An IX [1801] in Nineteenth Century Literature on Microcards (Louisville, KY: Lost Cause Press, 1956). See The Memoirs of Chateaubriand, ed. and trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961) and François-Réné, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, Travels in America and Italy (London: H. Colburn, 1828).

Thomas C. Sosnowski 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

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Moreau de St. Méry, Voyage aux États-Unis de l’Amérique, ed. Stewart L. Mims (New Haven, 1913). This work was been translated and edited by Kenneth Roberts and Anne M. Roberts, Moreau de St. Méry’s American Journey, 1793–1798 (Garden City, NY, 1947). Allen J. Barthold in his ‘French Journalists in the United States, 1780–1800’, The FrancoAmerican Review I (1937) relates a story about Mme. de St-Méry breaking up parties with Talleyrand because of the morning’s work schedule. She said to him: ‘Vous ferez demain le paresseux dans votre lit jusqu’au midi, tandis qu’à sept heures du matin votre ami sera forcé d’aller ouvrir son magasin’. G.D. Cole, The Life of William Cobbett (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company), pp. 52–4. For one of the best works on Azilum, see Louise W. Murray, The Story of Some Refugees and Their ‘Azilum’ (Athens, PA, 1917). La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Voyage dans les États-Unis d’Amérique, 8 vols (Paris [1799]) was translated into English as Travels Through the United States of America (London, 1800). This paper uses the latter edition. For this quotation, see I, pp. 168–9. Ibid., II, pp. 23–7. Ibid., II, p. 53. Ibid., II, pp. 83–4. Ibid., III, pp. 23–4. Talleyrand, Mémoires, ed. Paul-Louis Couchoud and Jean-Paul Couchoud (Paris, 1957), I, p. 227. Ibid., I, p. 228. My own studies of American pioneeer life make me question the validity of this scenario. Also see Talleyrand in America, p. 96 where he emphasises his investments in land in the US and his plans to seek US citizenship if necessary in order to continue with these financial activities. Also see Michel Poniatowski, Talleyrand aux États-Unis, 1794–1796 (Paris, 1967). Althéa de Puech Parham, trans. and ed., My Odyssey: Experiences of a Young Refugee from Two Revolutions, by a Creole of Saint Domingue (Bâton Rouge, 1959), p. 203. Diary of My Travels in America, Louis-Philippe, King of France, 1830–1848 Stephen Becker, trans. and ed. Henry Steele Commager (New York, 1977), pp. 50, 60. See Anne Godlewska, ‘Geography under Napoleon and Napoleonic Geography’, Proceedings, Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (1989) I, pp. 281–302 and also by the same author, ‘Traditions, Crisis, and New Paradigms in the Rise of the Modern French Discipline of Geography, 1760–1850’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers (1989), pp. 191–213. Constantin-F. Volney, Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis (Paris, 1803). Also published in English as View of the Climate and Soil of the United States (London, 1804), pp. xiv, xvii. [Anthelme] Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du goût ou méditations de gastronomie transcendante (Brussels, 1835), pp. 280, 131. Marquise de la Tour du Pin, Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans, 1778– 1815 (Paris, 1914), vol. II, especially Chapters 1 to 3.

150 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

The French Émigrés in Europe For a good introduction to the émigré newspapers, consult Samuel Joseph Marino, ‘The French Refugee Newspapers in the United States, 1789–1825’, PhD dissertation (University of Michigan, 1962). See especially La Rochefoucault-Liancourt, Journal de voyage en Amérique et d’un séjour à Philadelphie, ed. Jean Marchand (Paris, [n.d.]). Also see J.-D. de la Rochefoucauld, C. Wolikow, G. Inki, Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 1747–1827 (Paris, 1980). Henry Knox Papers (microfilm), 31 Oct. 1795; 27 April 1796. Pontgibaud [de Moré], p. 134. Ibid., p. 128. Parham, pp. 180–1. Eola Willis, The Charleston Stage in the XVIII Century: With Social Settings of the Time (New York & London: Benjamin Blom, 1968) pp. 190–425 passim. John Bernard, Retrospections of America, 1797–1811, ed. Mrs. Bayle Bernard (New York & London, 1969 reprint of 1887 edition), pp. 207, 262; also see Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Charleston! Jones, p. 303. Ibid., p. 302. Henry de Courcy, The Catholic Church in the United States: a Sketch of Its Ecclesiastical History, trans. and enlarged by John Gilmary Shea (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1856), especially Chapters 6, 7 and 8. Moreau de St-Méry, pp. 252–3. For more information about FrancoAmerican relations in the 1790s, consult Alexander DeCondé, The Quasi-War: the Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801 (New York, 1966) and James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: the Alien and Sedition Laws (Ithaca, NY, 1956). Volney, pp. xix, xxii, xvii. Courrier français, 13 July 1796. Ibid., 11 August 1796 and 15 August 1796. Ibid., 28, 30, 31 December 1796.

10 The Émigré Novel Malcolm Cook Critics of French literature in the years 1789–1800 are aware of the dramatic changes which the various genres underwent during that period of social turbulence. It has been suggested that the novel went into decline during the Revolution years and there is no doubt that the statistics would support this suggestion, particularly for the years of the Terror. 1 It is also clear that the Revolution had a dramatic effect on the fiction it inspired. Fiction was, throughout the eighteenth century, a form of social history without precise definition and works of fiction therefore reflected social changes as they took place and often contained allusions to political events and their interpretation.2 It is in this context that many of the comments below must be understood. It is difficult to know how to define the émigré novel and yet it is impossible to begin without a definition. It could be argued that émigré novels are those works of fiction which were written by émigrés, authors who left France during the Revolution. Perhaps the best known of such authors is Chateaubriand, who left France for America in 1791, fought with the armée des Princes, was wounded during the siege of Thionville, and escaped to England in 1793. It could therefore be said that Atala and René are novels of Emigration – but, like so many novels written by authors who emigrated, the tales do not really have the sense of contemporary history which the term ‘émigré fiction’ surely implies. It might also be suggested that memoirs, in which characters give a personal account of their lives for the benefit of others, have a particular status. Surely they underline the ambiguity of the fictional work. When authors like Diderot (in the short story, ‘Les Deux amis de Bourbonne’) and Mme de Staël, in her ‘Essai sur les fictions’ talk about the conte historique in the case of Diderot and the roman historique in the case of Mme de Staël, they are in fact referring to two quite different kinds of work. Diderot seeks in his ‘history’ the ability of the author to persuade the reader of the actual truth of the events described. Mme de Staël expects 151

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authors to introduce into their fictions some elements of historical ‘truth’. Where does this lead the authors of memoirs? It has sometimes been suggested that the distinguishing feature is the actual existence of the ‘writer’ of the memoirs. But we know only too well that authors who are real people are quite capable of modifying truth for their own purposes.3 Other authors fall into the same category, for example, Mme de Flahaut who emigrated to Surrey, in England, while her husband, the Comte de Flahaut, was guillotined in 1794. Mme de Genlis, whose husband suffered a similar fate in 1793, emigrated in the same year, living both in England and in Switzerland. However, it could hardly be proposed that she is remembered today for her novels of Emigration, although one, Les Petits Émigrés ou Correspondance de quelques enfants (1798) clearly evokes the reality of life as an émigré. It was translated quickly into English, appearing in 1799 as The Young Exiles or Correspondence of some juvenile emigrants. Edouard d’Armilly is one of the young émigrés of the title who is exiled near Zurich and who writes letters to friends and relations who, in turn, reply to him. There is no doubt about the political allegiance of the author in this account of life outside France. Edouard’s father, at the beginning of the novel, sets the tone for the text and gives an explanation of the accumulated correspondence: Veux-tu vivre pour obtenir une grande réputation et l’amour de tes concitoyens? Réfléchis à l’inconstance de la multitude, porte tes regards vers Paris, vois l’inconséquence et l’absurdité de ce peuple malheureux, et tu sauras apprécier les couronnes qu’il distribue [. . . ]. Profite, mon ami des événements terribles qui se passent sous tes yeux; ce ne sont pas des historiens peut-être infidèles ou mal instruits, qui te parlent; c’est ce tableau frappant de toutes les passions humaines qui se déroule devant toi.4 During the period of Emigration other novels appeared which more clearly highlighted the problems and conditions of existence for those authors who found themselves uprooted and forced to adapt to life in a foreign environment. For the purposes of this chapter I intend to concentrate primarily on those novels written in French which have a political message

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to impart about the process of Emigration and which, naturally, must be seen as novels of propaganda. My first example, perhaps the first example, is Les Emigrantes ou la Folie à la mode, par Mme** (Paris, 1792). The title suggests that this is a novel which should not be taken too seriously. The author writes in the preface: Le but que je me suis proposé en écrivant est manqué, si je suis obligée de le faire apercevoir, but it remains true that the political message of the novel is far from clear. A group of women decide to emigrate for different reasons, mostly for fun. They tell each other stories about their lives which explain why they want to join the party. The stories are not without interest but it would be difficult to give the work a political interpretation. This is unusual for a novel which has such a precise and suggestive title. The novel was reviewed in the Correspondance littéraire of June 1792 in what was a fairly conventional style: the novel is briefly described and the conclusion reads: Voilà le cadre où l’auteur a fait entrer une douzaine de petites historiettes dont le fond, sans être ni très-neuf ni très ingénieux, a pourtant plus ou moins d’agrément et de variété. C’est, dit-on, l’ouvrage d’une femme. 5 The anonymous Délices de Coblentz, ou anecdotes libertines des émigrés français poses similar problems of interpretation. Apparently published in Coblenz in 1792, the anecdotes give details of the life of the émigrés in exile. The Discours préliminaire points out: le préjugé le plus injuste et le plus sot est de croire que ce n’est que dans sa patrie qu’on peut trouver les seules jouissances de la volupté. Mme de Mesgrigny, writing to her friend Mme de Saluces in Paris, points out, provocatively, that life away from home is not without its compensations: Il n’est pas étonnant, ma chère amie, que la vie des émigrés français soit si délicieuse; ils ont avant de quitter la France, accaparé tout l’or de ce pays fortuné, ils en ont fait transporter les provisions les plus précieuses, au point qu’il ne

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vous reste plus à Paris et dans toutes les provinces, que du papier pour toute ressource. Cette contrée de l’Allemagne est le dépôt des richesses de l’Europe, et (comme vous le savez) les plaisirs et les jouissances ne sont réservés qu’aux opulents capitalistes. Jugez donc, ma chère amie, des agrémens que nous goûtons ici, et comparez-les à la vie ennuyeuse et mesquine que vous menez à Paris, où l’on gémit entre l’indigence et le chagrin (pp. 17–18). This is a text which poses particular problems of interpretation. The descriptions of life in Coblenz are pornographic and it would be easy to dismiss the novel as trivial. However, the long preface is full of statements which need to be analysed. Paris, the author says, is known for its wealth and its pleasures. It is a city of opulence and luxury, paradise on earth (pp. 3–4). However, the process of emigration has allowed the transfer of such luxury and pleasure which Paris previously offered: Coblentz est, en effet, devenue en proportion de son étendue, la rivale de Paris. Ses environs sont délicieux, ses maisons de campagne, dans le cœur de l’hyver annoncent les plaisirs du printemps et de l’amour. Il ne faut pas s’imaginer que les Mécontens françois qui se sont réunis ici dans la résolution de porter la guerre dans le sein de leur patrie ne s’occupent sans cesse que de leurs intentions hostiles, que de leurs préparatifs militaires; il est des heures et même des jours consacrés uniquement aux délassemens du cœur. (pp. 9–10) This is a text which is a puzzle. Is it intended to give a critical description of a debauched and decadent aristocracy and clergy (and thereby be a revolutionary novel) or is it written to antagonise the Parisians living lives of hardship while the rich émigrés enjoy themselves in exile? Two other texts which appeared in the same year, 1792, merit our attention. The first is a short account of the return of a servant from Coblenz, published anonymously in Paris and entitled: L’Aristocrate converti ou le retour de Coblentz. He is a converted aristocrat because he has learned to question the opinions of his master with whom he emigrated to Coblenz. He describes his previous condition: Et réellement je la croyois bien malade cette patrie, l’objet de ma sollicitude; je la croyois dans cet état désespéré, qui ne

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laisse de ressource que dans les remèdes violens. A travers le voile fasciné que la séduction tenoit constamment sur mes yeux, je la voyois peuplée de fous, tourmentée par les factieux, dévastée par les brigands, ensanglantée par des troupeaux de tigres, en proie, enfin, à tous les maux que peut entraîner la plus affreuse anarchie; et tant de maux, il est inutile de dire à qui je les attribuois, puisqu’on sait de quelle sorte de gens j’étois innocemment l’écho. (pp. 23–4). He has now learned the errors of his ways and returned to Paris. The description of life in Paris is in stark contrast to that given in the Délices. If this is an accurate account of life in Paris in 1792, the capital must have been a very pleasant place in which to reside. The people have been transformed by the Revolution into a nation of brothers. Paris is a cultural delight: Dans un coin c’est un chanteur de couplets patriotiques; dans un autre, c’est un lecteur qui met à sa portée les leçons les plus sublimes de politique, d’administration et de finance. [ . . . ] Parcourez les promenades, et voyez si elles ne présentent pas l’aspect d’une foire continuelle et brillante. Les plus jolies marchandises provoquent vos désirs, et s’y donnent à si bas prix. (pp. 46–7) This pamphlet, which is long at 61 pages, is worth serious consideration. I have previously suggested that it is by the novelist, Gorjy, about whom very little is known but who wrote one of the most remarkable novels of the French Revolution, Ann’ Quin Bredouille, of 1792.6 The six volumes of the novel represent a severe and ironical attack on the Revolution. However, the sixth volume is completed by this pamphlet, acting as a kind of antidote to the critical account which precedes it. There is textual evidence to suggest that both texts are by the same author, although the ‘libraire’ introducing the Aristocrate converti, does not make any explicit statement about authorship. The novel finishes abruptly and the libraire claims that he has had to seek material to complete the final volume. He writes that he has ‘procuré la bagatelle suivante’: Elle n’est pas du même genre que le reste mais elle nous a paru avoir son mérite. Peut-être même cette diversité aura-t-elle son prix pour le plus grand nombre des lecteurs. (vi, 143–4)7

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It is difficult to understand what is intended by this introduction. Certainly the text of the Aristocrate is different from what precedes but what is the libraire implying? The majority of revolutionary novels pose no problems of interpretation. Yet already we have seen two novels about emigration which are far from clear. Another novel of 1792, Liomin’s, La Bergère d’Aranville ou l’Emigration, presents no such problems.8 This is a novel which, unusually, describes the landscape of south-west France. It is essentially a love story in which a young peasant woman falls in love with a fleeing nobleman. The novel is full of revolutionary discourse, with a series of arguments about the status of the revolution and the relative merits of the various factions. Life will be better if the fugitives can reach Spain. They do and the novel finishes on a note of happiness. It is a little surprising that novels like Liomin’s should be republished as late as 1826. It reads so much like a product of its time that it is difficult to believe that the overt political statements had much resonance for the readers of the next generation. One cannot say the same for Sénac de Meilhan’s major novel, L’Emigré of 1797. This is the best known example of the kind of fiction we are discussing and it is not difficult to understand why it has survived. Sénac left France in 1790 and visited London, Aix-la-Chapelle, Rome, Saint Petersburg and Moscow. He settled in Brunswick, composed his major novel in 1794 and published it in 1797. In other words, it was already a historical novel when he published it. He wrote in the avertissement: On ne doit pas perdre de vue que les lettres qui composent ce recueil ont été écrites en 1793. La plupart des tableaux et des sentiments qu’elles renferment sont relatifs à cette époque affreuse et unique dans l’histoire.9 Sénac’s novel has become reasonably well known in recent times, thanks to Etiemble’s edition of 1965. It is a fine, wellwritten novel, in letter form, and describes the life and loves of the Marquis de St Alban in Prussia. Of particular interest, perhaps, is the third-person account of the life of the hero before and during the revolutionary crisis (pp. 1576–97). The King and Queen are sympathetically portrayed and the revolutionary events are described as ‘une dissipation générale’ (p. 1588). Personal interest is seen as the guiding force (p. 1591) but

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the turning point for the marquis is the treatment by the people of an aristocratic widow for whom he had a romantic interest: elle fut inhumainement traînée dans un cachot, après avoir vu brûler son chateau; [. . . ] elle y expira dans des convulsions affreuses excitées par la terreur (p. 1593). The author was fortunate to escape the same fate and emigrated. The major focus of the novel is on the relationship between the marquis and the Comtesse de Loewenstein, in whose house he is staying. However, throughout the text, we are reminded of the situation in France and certain key events are described and analysed in some detail. Of particular interest, perhaps, is the death of the Queen: La fille de Marie-Thérèse, la descendante de vingt Empereurs, a succombé sous la hache des bourreaux. Un sentiment d’horreur m’empêche de vous tracer les circonstances de sa déplorable fin, qu’on a cherché à rendre plus affreuse que celle du Roi, en y joignant l’ignominie des traitements. (p. 1886–7) The author seeks to make his major characters sympathetic and, through them, to encourage the reader to share their critical view of the revolutionary events. The picture of emigration and the émigrés is a sad one and the author uses his entire palette to paint a picture of devastating sensibility: Si le spectacle de l’émigration déchire le cœur , il est aussi une source de réflexions profondes. On y voit souvent l’homme rendu en quelque sorte à son état primitif, et réduit à vivre de son industrie; on voit développer un grand courage à des gens qu’on croyait faibles et pusillanimes; mais on apprend aussi que les malheurs généraux, loin d’adoucir les hommes et de resserrer les liens de l’humanité, les mettent dans un état de rivalité et qui dégénère bientôt en hostilité. (p. 1816) Sénac’s novel is exceptional and powerful. It survives well and can be read with interest today for the elegance of the prose and the poignant observations it contains. Other novels too are worth reading but, for reasons which would be too long to go into, have not survived.

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A striking example is Hubert de Sevrac, a romance of the eighteenth century by the English novelist, Mary Robinson.10 This was soon translated into French and obviously appealed to the French readership (the first French edition dates from 1796). The mood of the novel is established from the beginning, as the description of the perfect hero is contrasted with the terrible conditions in which he finds himself: But, at that dreadful period, when the tumult of discontent perverted the cause of universal liberty; when the vast multitudes were destined to expiate the crimes of individuals, indiscriminate vengeance swept all before it and, like an overwhelming torrent, engulphed every object that attempted to resist its force. It was at that momentous crisis, that the wise, the virtuous, and the unoffending, were led forth to the scene of slaughter; while in the glorious effort for the emancipation of millions, justice and humanity were for a time unheard or unregarded. (I, 2) The plot is extremely complicated, telling the story of the Sevrac family who are obliged to leave France in the Summer of 1792 to seek refuge in Tuscany. As they cross France they go through a violent thunderstorm, which provokes Sevrac to say: This is but a transient tempest; when will the storm subside that pours its crimson torrents over my distracted country, that strikes her children to the dust or scatters them over the earth to beg for mercy? What is to become of her laws? Who will afford an asylum to her exiled nobles? (I, 6) The novel is full of sub-plots and mystification, and represents a striking example of the way novels about the Revolution move almost imperceptibly to Gothic novels, what the French call ‘le roman noir’. A similar interpretation can be offered for Bourlin’s Les Amours et Aventures d’un Emigré (of An VI, 1797).11 It effectively conveys the sense of horror and panic which was a feature of people’s lives – the plot is a complicated one, taking the reader outside France to see how émigrés lived in Hamburg and, eventually, leading to the hero joining the army of Condé. The picture of France is one of horror and instability – a common perception, naturally, of émigré fiction. Here, uniquely I think in fiction, we are given a glimpse of the inside of the Tuileries

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palace during the events of 10 August 1792. After killing a patriote the hero takes the dead man’s uniform and leads the mob unwittingly to the room in which his loved one and her father are sheltering. They survive, thanks to the intervention of a young man who calms the mob, saying: ‘nous sommes armés pour combattre la tyrannie, nous ne sommes pas des assassins’ (I, 34). Eventually the three survivors leave Paris to go to Hamburg, whence the hero joins the army of Condé. At the end of the story the hero returns to France to explain that he is not against the Republic but that he hopes that, once established, the example of France will serve as a model of freedom for Europe and the world. The novel is lively and well written and offers an exciting picture of the dangerous world inhabited by the individuals of the period. As in a number of émigré novels, there is significant geographical movement and much use of coincidence as characters meet again in the most unlikely of circumstances. The world of the émigré is dangerous and exciting but, on the whole, it remains a relatively small one. It is not surprising that émigré fiction should offer French readers a new kind of novel in which the landscape is more European and less parochial and where the sense of mystery and the fear of the unknown become stock features. Perhaps the finest example of such fiction, for a number of reasons, is Louis de Bruno’s striking novel, Lioncel ou l’Emigré, nouvelle historique of 1800. The nouvelle is interesting not only for the details of émigré life which it contains, but also because it includes a quite remarkable preface which offers an analysis of what is meant by the term ‘nouvelle’. The theme of the novel will remind specialists of Balzac’s story Le Colonel Chabert. The hero, thought dead, seeks to rediscover his past. The novel contains some tragic stories of life in Paris during the Terror, so that the political allegiance of the author is never in doubt. Here the novel of the Revolution and the fashionable Gothic form a perfect union. European in scope, with a sense of the drama of the Revolution and the excitement offered by a wider, European landscape, Lioncel is a novel which can certainly be read with interest and pleasure today. The same cannot be said for all the novels which fall into this category. It is possible in this short study to offer only a quick survey of the kind of fiction which might be described as ‘émigré fiction’.

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Concentrating essentially on texts which appeared during the Revolution, I have necessarily had to give this chapter a certain emphasis: it is important to measure the effectiveness of novels in giving an accurate account of the revolutionary reality and in particular, here, that of the émigré. It is the period 1800–20, so little known to literary critics and yet which saw dramatic developments in French fiction, which needs further analysis. If we take just one example, Corinne (1807) by Mme de Staël, we can see to what extent the whole process of Emigration, and the unsettling and mixing of cultures, had led European literature, art, music and fashion into a new era. In the third chapter of Corinne Oswald, the male hero of the novel, hears the story of a French émigré, called le comte d’Erfeuil. He agrees to offer Erfeuil the chance of accompanying him to Italy, impressed as he is by Erfeuil’s generosity towards an old uncle. Erfeuil has suffered as a consequence of the Revolution, having spent time in Germany, been appreciated, and yet, unable to speak the language, he had felt isolated and outcast. Corinne paints a moving picture of the social disruption of its time and of the suffering experienced by sensitive individuals. Erfeuil’s anguish in exile is typical, it would seem, of that of many of his class who were unprepared for the turmoil which was to face them in France and for whom emigration meant alienation and isolation. What we see in Corinne, perhaps paradoxically, is that it is the Englishman abroad who suffers the greater anguish. Erfeuil, the Frenchman, is able to enjoy the pleasures of civilised society, while Oswald is keen to savour the delights of melancholy which the images of nature present to him: Oswald prêtait l’oreille autant qu’il le pouvait au bruit du vent, au murmure des vagues; car toutes les voix de la nature faisaient plus de bien à son âme que les propos de la société tenus au pied des Alpes, à travers les ruines et sur les bords de la mer. 12 While the incidents of emigration may not be a major feature of many novels which were written in the period immediately succeeding the Revolution, it is clear that many novels allude to emigration and suggest, I think, that images of the new Romantic movement are linked to the process of travel and movement across frontiers.

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As has been said, the concentration here has been on fiction of the revolutionary period but it should be understood that the subject is a much larger one. Many texts which would not be defined purely as fiction have fictional elements which do refer to the process of emigration. To exclude them entirely from this study could be misleading. For example, the anonymous Journal of a French Emigrant of 1795 purports to be a real account of a journey undertaken by a young French boy. Curiously and unusually the text appears in what is now called a bilingual format with the English translation of the French account on the facing page. 13 We are given an insight into the reality of an émigré’s life in what is now northern Belgium: En attendant que notre cantonnement fut fixé, nous prismes la résolution de venir habiter Spa, l’air y étant très sain, et le séjour fort agréable. Un concours immense d’étrangers, de princes, parmi les-quels il se trouve quelque fois des souverains, qui s’y rendent pendant la saison où se prennent les eaux des différentes parties de l’Europe, font de Spa un endroit unique. Les spectacles, le bal, le jeu, de jolies promenades y attirent plus de monde que le besoin de prendre les eaux. (p. 12) However, the threat of revolution is ever present and the young writer of the diary leaves for Holland and then England where, he promises, a second volume of the diary will be written. There is no evidence that it was ever produced and I give this example simply to show the variety of fictional forms which were being produced. If one looks further ahead there is, of course, the immense resource of the memoirs produced during the following decades and which give a lavish and colourful account of life as an émigré. The distinction between truth and fiction is a constant factor to bear in mind as we read these lively accounts which prejudice and distance have coloured and modified. As Bourlin says, at the beginning of his Les Amours et Aventures d’un Emigré: Je ne veux point écrire l’histoire de la révolution, c’est à la postérité à le faire sur les mémoires des contemporains, et à démêler la vérité entre tant de récits contradictoires où l’esprit de parti dénature les faits; où le même homme célébré comme un héros par les uns est traité de brigand par les autres. (I, 29–30)

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There are other texts which a longer study of émigré fiction might include: those novels in other languages in which French characters figure as part of a local landscape and the many French novels by novelists of the generation which succeeded the Revolution, who call on their memories of the process of emigration to give their creations local colour and a truly European dimension. The influence of emigration on fiction is difficult to assess: the travel and upheaval which was part of the process seems to have encouraged novels in which characters seek to achieve happiness (an Enlightenment theme) against the odds, overcoming social and physical obstacles. The cultural mix which emigration naturally brought about is similarly difficult to assess. The enormous success of the Gothic novel in England was quickly imitated in France and one senses that the very events which define the Revolution also had an impact on the murkier aspects of the Gothic, with the emphasis on blood and hiding, ruined castles and darkness. What one can assert with some certainty is that the novel of the eighteenth century was transformed by the Revolution to an extent which, ten years earlier, would have been unimaginable. French fiction took inspiration from England and other neighbours and it also took account of the growing market for travel books as readers looked for spectacles of the unknown in their popular reading. Émigré fiction is, perhaps unavoidably, critical of the Revolution; it offers the reader a picture of France seen from the safety of a neighbouring country which, itself, introduces new landscapes and new ‘romantic’ images. Émigré fiction is perhaps the motor which drives fiction into the new century. Its characters will be disabused and world weary. They will be confronted by exile and foreign landscapes; they will ask questions about the transience of life and the harmony of nature. Is it too much to suggest that the fictional characters in these novels are the Romantics of the next generation?

NOTES 1.

For full details of publication figures and for information concerning reprints of novels, see R. Frautschi, A. Martin and V.G. Mylne, Biblio-

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3.

4.

5. 6.

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graphie du genre romanesque, 1750–1800 (London and Paris, 1977). For a study of the ways in which politics became the subject of fiction during the Revolution, see my ‘Politics in the fiction of the French Revolution, 1789–1794’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 201 (1982), pp. 233–340. As I make clear there, although it has often been said that the novel went into decline during the Revolution, it is necessary to broaden one’s definition of fiction and understand the extent to which the novel was modified by the events which, of course, form it. See my Fictional France: Social Reality in the French Novel, 1775–1800 (Providence and Oxford, Berg, 1993), in which I argue that that historians pay insufficient attention to pictures of social reality contained in different types of fiction. Novelists, on the whole, attempt to provide settings which will be familiar to contemporary readers. It is likely therefore that social conditions, physical conditions of environments and language will bear some resemblance to the prevailing reality. A good example of this kind of literature can be found in Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe in which the author, writing his memoirs some years after the event, gives the reader a picture of emigration which reads like an adventure novel. For example: ‘Nous traversámes des blés parmi lesquels serpentaient des sentiers à peine tracés. Les patrouilles françaises et autrichiennes battaient la campagne; nous pouvions tomber dans les unes et dans les autres, ou nous trouver sous le pistolet d’une vedette. Nous entrevîmes de loin des cavaliers isolés, immobiles et l’arme au poing; nous ouîmes des pas de chevaux dans des chemins creux; en mettant l’oreille à terre, nous entendîmes le bruit régulier d’une marche d’infanterie.’ (Mémoires d’outre-tombe (Paris, Librairie Générale Française, Livre de Poche, 1973, 3 vols), I, p. 363). Mme de Genlis, Les Petits Emigrés ou correspondance de quelques enfans; ouvrage fait pour servir à l’éducation de la jeunesse (Paris, 1928, I, pp. 19–20). The novel first appeared in 1798. Mme de Genlis offers the reader a general picture of the French reality and concentrates on the plight of her young heroes. News from Paris is consistently bad and serves as a backcloth to the fiction. The plot is slight and the characters fail to interest sufficiently to allow the reader any kind of sympathy. According to Feller’s Biographie universelle (Paris, Gauthier, 1834), Mme de Genlis was at first sympathetic to the Revolution: ‘En partant pour l’exil, elle s’était donné le titre d’émigrante jacobine. Mais lorsque la cause du duc d’Orléans fut absolument perdue, et surtout depuis que ce prince eut porté sa tête sur l’échafaud, elle changea de sentiment et de langage, et prit la révolution en horreur. Partout où elle passa les émigrés français la repoussèrent comme une ennemie’. She was eventually allowed to return to France under Bonaparte and was given a state pension and an apartment in the Arsenal. Correspondance littéraire, ed. by M. Tourneux (Paris, Garnier, 1882), XVI, p. 152. A footnote on the same page reads: ‘Nous n’avons pu voir un exemplaire de ce livre dont l’auteur nous est inconnu’. See my ‘Politics in the fiction of the French Revolution’, pp. 287–9 for a discussion of the relationship between the novel by Gorgy and the pamphlet referred to here.

164 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

The French Émigrés in Europe J.-C. Gorgy, ‘Ann’ Quin Bredouille ou le petit cousin de Tristram Shandy (Paris, Louis, 1792), 6 vols. L.-A. Liomin, La Bergère d’Aranville ou l’Emigration, par M.L***. The novel first appeared in 1792 but I have never seen a copy of that date. References here are given for the 1826 Paris edition, (2 vols). All references are taken from the edition prepared by Etiemble for the Gallimard-Pléiade edition of Romanciers du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1965), II, 1541–1912 (p. 1547). While it is true that L’Émigré has been the subject of a good deal of recent criticism (see, for example, F. Laforge, ‘Illusion et désillusion dans L’Émigré de Sénac de Meilhan’, Dixhuitième siècle, 17 (1985), pp. 367–75 and Elizabeth Zawiska, ‘Une vision romanesque de la Révolution: L’Émigré de Sénac de Meilhan’, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 2 (1990), pp. 141–50, the relationship between the novel and other works by Sénac remains to be studied in detail. Of particular interest too is the largely unknown oriental tale by Sénac, Les Deux Cousins, histoire véritable, of 1790. Quotations are taken from the copy in the British Library (CUP 407.f. 39), printed in Dublin (Smith, Browne and Colbert), 2 vols, 1797. The first edition dates from 1796. The author’s name is a pseudonym for A.J. Dumaniant. Mme de Staël, Corinne ou l’Italie (Paris, Gallimard, 1985), p. 37. Anonymous, Journal of a French Emigrant (Londres, Lewis et Fienes, 1795).

11 Danloux in England (1792–1802): an Émigré Artist Angelica Goodden On 4 March 1791 the Public Advertiser announced that, three celebrated French artists, in different ways, have lately come to this kingdom, M. Mesnier [sic] in oil, M. de Creux [sic] in crayon, and M. Gratis [sic] in miniature painting. The little encouragement given to the arts in the present state of their country has made them emigrate. Gratise, or Gratitien, had not in fact come from France, but from Germany, where he was employed as miniature painter and pastellist to the Elector of Cologne. Mosnier was the artist best known to British audiences, and stayed six years: although he was fairly successful, his portraits were often dismissed by English critics as laboured and over-polished, as Danloux’s and Mme Vigée Le Brun’s would be after him.1 He moved to Hamburg and Saint Petersburg, and must have been happy to find himself in countries where high finishing was not regarded as a vice.2 Ducreux, who is probably most familiar for his caricatural self-portraits, 3 stayed only six months before returning to Paris, where his past as Marie-Antoinette’s First Painter seems never to have counted against him; apparently the protection of David, effectively master of the arts under the Revolution and an extremely important political figure, was enough to guarantee his safety. Henri-Pierre Danloux arrived in London a year after these three. He did not enjoy the protection extended to Ducreux, and may have been glad to escape the enmity of David: they had fallen out in the mid-1770s, when David, the winner of the Prix de Rome in 1774, was a pensionnaire at the Académie de France.4 Danloux’s resentment does not seem to have lessened with the passage of time. His journal reveals that he disliked hearing David praised by his fellow-countrymen, objecting 165

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that, ‘lorsqu’un homme a la vogue, ce qu’il ferait serait-il détestable, n’importe, c’est de lui’.5 Sincerely or not, he expressed his preference for Mme Vigée Le Brun, because, ‘pour le portrait elle a une grâce qui convient à ce genre que jamais David ne pourra avoir’. If the royalist convictions he shared with Vigée Le Brun made departure from France advisable in 1792, so too did his family connections. Danloux, a bourgeois, had in 1787 married into the nobility. His wife, Antoinette de Saint-Redan, was the illegitimate child of the Baron d’Etigny, and his widow had brought her up as her own daughter. His marriage, to which the d’Etignys had agreed on condition that he never practise his art professionally in France,6 thus gave Danloux access to an aristocratic and courtly clientele from which he was bound to profit. It was a clientele he must have hoped to be able to rebuild in Britain. True, few of the émigrés came with enough money to pay for luxuries like paintings, though as Danloux would discover to his cost, impecuniousness rarely stopped them commissioning or sitting for portraits they could not afford. During his ten years in Britain Danloux painted about 135 portraits, of which 44 were of British sitters and the majority of the remainder French. On the whole the British preferred native portraitists like Hoppner, Romney and Beechey, whom Danloux was annoyed to find enjoying the kind of voguepatronage for which he envied David: someone told him, for instance, that Lady Massereene had decided to be painted by Beechey instead of Danloux simply because she had recognised the faces of so many friends among the canvases in Beechey’s studio.7 Still, in May 1792, after f ive months in England, he was able to write to his wife in France that, ‘je commenc[e] à avoir du travail, et [ . . . ] l’avenir sembl[e] s’offrir à moi sous un jour meilleur’.8 The ‘best’ light would be the one cast by the nobility, and Danloux was quite unabashed about explaining to influential patrons like the Marquess of Lansdowne that he wanted to paint a well-born lady, ‘à n’importe quel prix’, in order to make his reputation. 9 There were inevitable disappointments. The great beauty Lady Charlotte Campbell, who had seemed a likely client, in the end decided on Hoppner,10 just as Lady Massereene had decided on Beechey, and despite winning

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commissions to paint a few aristocratic Englishwomen during his exile Danloux never attracted any of the iconic females who helped establish the fame of Romney, Lawrence and their like. Mrs. Fitzherbert had seemed a possible sitter at one stage, but eventually declined.11 Grand male sitters proved elusive too. The courtesan Mrs Huntley told Danloux that she would try to procure her occasional lover the Prince of Wales for him,12 but failed to do so (although Danloux did paint his brother Prince Augustus, and exhibited the portrait at the 1795 Royal Academy exhibition).13 The husband of the former courtesan Mrs Boyd, Walter Boyd, offered Danloux an entrée to the society of William Pitt, which Danloux hoped would lead to a commission to paint the Prime Minister himself, but again his hope was vain.14 French contacts could disappoint too. The disgraced contrôleur-général des finances, Calonne, made vague promises to sit, but kept evading actual sittings,15 and the former Grand Fauconnier de France, Vaudreuil, stopped coming when he decided that Danloux’s portrait made him look too old. 16 Still, some promises of patronage did yield results. Another courtesan, Mlle Duthé, took the credit for persuading her former lover the Duc de Bourbon – the father of the murdered Duc d’Enghien – to sit for Danloux,17 though according to Mme Danloux the Marquis de Montazet had also offered to arrange the commission.18 Courtesans in fact provided Danloux with much of his clientele, both as subjects themselves and as intermediaries; and members of the creole community filled some of the gaps. The courtesans had few inhibitions about showing themselves, and the creoles, on the whole, were wealthy. Three portraits Danloux did in London – of Mlle Duthé (1792), of the creole Mrs Boyd (1796) and of the wealthy planter Hosten (1795) – illustrate the theme of absence that def ines the émigré in a particularly effective way, and so turn the commemorative function of portraiture to new account. All do so by way of symbols: the first through the picture the subject is hanging in her boudoir, and the others through letters the sitters are holding in their hands and which convey separation or longing.19 The Duthé portrait had originally been intended to show a ‘sacrifice à l’amitié’,20 and the friendship to which the courtesan was to have been sacrificing was that of her admirer Perregaux, a wealthy Swiss banker (and a future Régent of the

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Banque de France) with numerous English clients. He was also an art-collector of some note, and had expressed a desire for Duthé’s portrait early in 1792. Duthé had herself apparently selected the pose in Danloux’s picture, but it was subsequently decided to show her hanging not a sacrifice to friendship, but an allegorical image of Hope looking out to sea at a departing vessel and presumably longing for its return. The change was no doubt wise: Duthé never sacrificed in the course of her phenomenally successful career as a kept woman, but rather accumulated. Her attitude in Danloux’s portrait bears a distinct resemblance to that of Reynolds’s, Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces, a symbolic image of perfect friendship, yet appears more playful.21 The inventive Duthé tried unsuccessfully to have details of the portrait altered – she did not like the blue taffeta background, for instance 22 – but Danloux’s own instincts for arranging it effectively appear to have prevailed. It is a very French-seeming picture in its innocent gaiety, and sums up both the frivolity and the generosity of the sitter’s character. Danloux had arrived in England with an introduction to Duthé from the actress Mme Dugazon, and she was expansively welcoming. He called her an excellent creature,23 and was grateful to her both for offering to model nude (a favour he was also granted by other courtesans she introduced him to) and for bringing work his way. Well before painting the Duc de Bourbon he did a portrait of her lover Robert Lee (1792), possibly the ‘faithful Englishman’ with whom Vigée Le Brun records seeing her in the early 1770s in the Palais-Royal gardens, and whom she was amused to see still her companion 18 years later in London. 24 She had retained her charms: Mme Danloux remarked in 1795 that even at the age of 50 she was a pretty woman.25 According to Vigée Le Brun she had run through millions, and Danloux too was struck by her extravagance. Slightly guiltily he enjoyed her hospitality until his wife joined him in England in 1793, but managed to avoid a proposed, and perhaps rather compromising, trip to Naples with her late in the previous year.26 She seemed to find English life dull, especially when she accompanied her lover to his country estate,27 and Danloux’s friendship, as well as the hope of re-establishing old friendships which his portrait encapsulated, were apparently welcome supports.

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Danloux clearly felt uneasy in such company and after a walk from Vauxhall with her and another kept woman, Mme Nauzières – whose portrait by Danloux would later be paid for by the generous and prosperous Duthé28 – he reflected that, ‘je n’étais pas à ma place au milieu de ces femmes; elles sont gênées et moi aussi’. 29 Although Mrs Huntley flatteringly told Danloux that he inspired confidence, and although he sometimes allowed himself to become free in his behaviour with them, he was rather priggish when they seemed to forget their position: he disliked the courtesan-harpist Mlle Mérelle’s affectation of familiarity with his wife, for example, telling her to mind her place.30 He found her type amusing, sometimes exciting and certainly useful, but also untrustworthy and irritating. By far the most exasperating was the so-called Mrs Boyd, whom Danloux ended up calling a ‘fille’, but who gave herself the airs of a ‘grande dame’. 31 Portalis’s 1910 monograph on Danloux is altogether too respectful of this creature, and he seems to have been misled by the then owner of the portrait, the Baronne de Férussac, into believing her better than she was. She had not, in fact, married the banker Walter Boyd in Paris in 1790, but had lived with him there until he was obliged to return to England in November 1793 on account of his counter-revolutionary activities, including arranging for Boyd & Ker’s Bank to circulate false assignats in Paris on behalf of the émigré Princes.32 Although the Baronne de Férussac alleged that Mrs Boyd – alias Nicole de Vignier-Montréal – had ‘remarried’ Boyd in London after the loss of the original marriage-certificate, 33 in 1796 she was despairing of ever persuading Boyd to make an honest woman of her and legitimising the baby she was bearing. According to Danloux’s friend and patron Mme Digneron, whose planter husband was related to Nicole’s father, she had herself been born out of wedlock of a negro or mulatto mother in the colonies, shown her waywardness early, been sent to live with a respectable lady in Paris, run off with a young man at the age of 16, and walked the streets of the capital until she had been discovered by Boyd.34 She seems to have stayed in Paris after he returned to London, and had been arrested and jailed during the Terror under the Law of Suspects. She told Danloux that she was already in jail when she received, via a chambermaid, the letter Danloux’s picture shows her clutching, and which she claimed might

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have led to her execution: 35 she was suspected of corresponding with foreigners,36 as emerges from the records of the Comité de sûreté générale. Boyd was said to be delighted with the commemorative image of her languishing in her cell.37 She is depicted in the attitude of a supplicating vestal, perched on her mean pallet, holding the letter to her heart and gazing soulfully towards the light filtering in through the barred window. But however flattering this Greuzian scene may have been to the lovers’ vanity, Mrs Boyd was difficult to please as a sitter. She annoyed Danloux (who was already finding her casual and high-handed) by demanding radical changes to the composition, and more than one angry scene passed between them. 38 And even if she occasionally expressed satisfaction with his work to Danloux’s face,39 she openly declared her reservations to others.40 She was, for instance, explicit about her displeasure to her friend Hosten, who had probably introduced her to Danloux in the first place. He may have known her from his planter days, but – being an acknowledged man of pleasure – he could also have met her in Paris, either before Boyd became her lover or after: Boyd was one of the frequent banker visitors to Hosten’s house in the rue SaintGeorges.41 Whatever the case, he took an almost proprietorial interest in the portrait, and urged Danloux to hurry on when, becoming discouraged, he was predicting that he would never finish it. Partly for this reason, perhaps, Danloux came to dislike Hosten intensely, observing that ‘il n’avait jamais que des choses désagréables à dire’, 42 and that he seemed a parvenu, ‘qui ne manque pas d’esprit mais qui perd la mesure à chaque instant’,43 – an intemperateness which Danloux would successfully capture in his portrait of Hosten. Admittedly, he helped Danloux out of financial difficulties on more than one occasion, and he was flamboyant with money: he boasted that the drawing-room alone of his splendid house – part of a development designed for him by the architect Ledoux – had cost over 60 000 francs.44 But he had a mean streak, and proved unwilling to pay the agreed sum for the magnificent portrait Danloux painted of him in 1795,45 despite criticising Mrs Boyd for employing similarly evasive tactics herself. 46 And he shamelessly had Danloux pursued by his agents over a debt for £200 in 1797.47

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Hosten had moved back to Paris from Saint-Domingue because his wife disliked the climate there,48 but returned to his plantations – a wedding-present from a cousin – after the great slave rebellion of 1791 to try to salvage his fortune. Finding this difficult, he had joined the deputation which Malouet led to England in 1792 to offer the island to the protection of the British Crown. Malouet’s efforts at that time were unsuccessful, and Hosten probably went back to the colonies with him before settling in London in 1794 or 1795. (He appears to have become suspect to the French authorities in the meantime.) Left alone in Paris, his wife had been arrested on charges of being noble, married to an émigré and holding suspicious assemblies in her Paris house (referred to in her denunciation as being in the rue Favart, the other side of the boulevard des Italiens from the rue Saint-Georges)49. Although Mme Hosten’s submissions to the comité de sûreté générale denied that she was guilty of any of these offences, the fact that foreign financiers like Boyd were known to frequent her house cannot have helped her case. Since all her ‘crimes’ were punishable under the Law of Suspects passed in 1793, she was jailed at the prison of Port-Libre in Paris, and it was as a result of events which took place there that Hosten conceived the rage he wished Danloux’s portrait of him to eternalise. Mme Hosten’s daughter Pascalie, a beautiful young woman whose melancholy appearance led the Duchesse de Coigny to remark that ‘elle avait mangé sa soupe trop chaude’, 50 visited her mother daily at Port-Libre, and there met the young aristocrat Gabriel d’Arjuzon, who had been imprisoned under suspicion of assisting the King and Queen’s flight to Varennes in 1791.51 They fell in love and were betrothed with Mme Hosten’s blessing, marrying on 28 April 1795 after both mother and bridegroom had been released.52 It seems scarcely thinkable that they had not tried to obtain Hosten’s permission, but Hosten told Danloux that he had not been consulted over their plans. On 12 June 1795 he asked Danloux to paint him in the state of fury induced in him by letters he had received from his wife and daughter announcing Pascalie’s marriage. (D’Arjuzon, who also emphasised his father-in-law’s virtues, referred to his ‘caractère extrêmement vif’.)53 He informed Danloux that Mme Hosten and Pascalie ‘avaient de grands torts avec lui’,54 and clearly felt that his indignation – which he

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also wished to disseminate among his acquaintances by having the portrait engraved and circulated, though characteristically he thought the engraver Dickinson’s price too high 55 – was justified. In fact his own life had been far from blameless: he had ‘kept’ Mme Nauzières in London,56 and in Paris had a mistress, Marie Collard-Arnould, who during his exile in England embarrassed him by deciding to visit him in his Fitzroy Square house (bringing with her their enchantingly pretty daughter Rose, whom Danloux would also paint).57 Whether or not he had really been inconsiderately treated, in any case, Hosten was secretly thrilled with the drama of his situation. Obviously a narcissist, he prescribed an image that recalls one of Greuze’s scenes of paternal malediction, and gloried in the notion of having been ill used. Portraiture was what the natives wanted, and Danloux had to stick to it. He may have said in a moment of discouragement that he despised English artists for their materialism, and agreed with a visitor to his studio who said that, ‘ils travaillent pour l’argent, et vous pour l’art’;58 but he could never afford to treat art as disinterestedly as his relations by marriage had intended. His development of a virtual engravings industry – from the map of Saint-Domingue he had engraved to sell to creole émigrés,59 through the prints of the picture of the leader of the émigré priests’ cause, the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon,60 and of the portraits done in Edinburgh of the Comte d’Artois and the Duc d’Angoulême, to the huge image of Admiral Duncan victorious at Camperdown61 – showed his keen economic sense; and his close involvement with the actual preparation, as well as the marketing, of the prints reveals the practical nature of his attitude to art. On the other hand, he was never free from financial worries in Britain, and he never earned what he thought was his due. He charged a great deal less than Beechey, Hoppner and Lawrence and infinitely less than Mme Vigée Le Brun (who outcharged everyone) would do when she arrived in England;62 but friends advised him to pitch his prices still lower. Mlle Duthé, whose own portrait was done for 50 guineas, told him that the English disliked spending heavily on paintings, and he asked more or less what his auctioneer friend John Greenwood suggested: 15 guineas for a bust, 25 for a half-length and 50 for a full-length.63 He despairingly responded to Duthé that he must needs observe the

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mercantile conventions of the country he was living in: ‘il me faudra demander combien on veut y mettre, et je les ferai en conséquence’.64 He quoted a prospective client 200 guineas for a life-size family portrait with five figures,65 and charged Lord Petre 80 guineas for painting Lady Petre together with her two children,66 but usually earned considerably less. In mid-1796 he began to do rapid portraits which required only two sittings, and asked six guineas for them;67 but still he could not make ends meet. To an émigré friend he spoke of the, ‘misère qu’on éprouve dans ce pays-ci en travaillant beaucoup’, 68 and complained of being crippled with debt. 69 He even considered emigrating to Russia until the Comte d’Artois signalled his displeasure at the idea: 70 Danloux was too valuable a worker for the counter-Revolutionary cause in London to be let go easily. His work for the French royal family ought to have earned him money as well as prestige, but in fact he was never paid what he thought was due to his efforts. The diaries give a vivid description of Danloux’s employment first as a producer of royalist images to be sent to the commanders of the Princes’ army – essentially adaptations of existing portraits of Louis XVIII and Artois, engraved for the purposes of wide circulation – and then as the preferred portraitist of Artois, his son the Duc d’Angoulême and eventually the latter’s brother the Duc de Berri. Dating the various portraits of Artois, all based on an original done during his exile at Holyroodhouse, has been much complicated by the confused account of the commission in Portalis, but the original itself and at least some of the many replicas were clearly painted in late 1796. (The Angoulême portrait was done immediately after that of Artois, but Berri’s much later – probably after he arrived in Edinburgh in February 1798.) Artois gave copies to friends and supporters, particularly Scottish nobles and officials who helped to ease his time at Holyrood, but the primary purpose of the enterprise seems to have been to disseminate French royalist engravings among the Princes’ allies in Europe: although Danloux himself bought back the plates and began to circulate the prints under his own name from 1799, the project was initially paid for by the French Crown.71 Artois, however, was remarkably reluctant to settle his account with Danloux, whose otherwise surprising unwillingness to travel to Edinburgh to

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paint Monsieur in the first place (amply detailed in the diaries) may have stemmed from an awareness of his poverty.72 The treatment Danloux suffered from Artois was not untypical, and the diaries reveal recurrent worries about money. One problem was that he often had to pay large bills before he himself had earned anything from his work. The fastidious (or over-principled?) Danloux seems not to have adopted the English habit of charging a client half the agreed price of a portrait when the facial likeness had been captured,73 though at least one sitter, Lord Moira, assumed that this would be his practice.74 Danloux used models extensively, especially when painting important (and busy) sitters, and models usually had to be paid on the nail.75 Engravers’ bills, too, generally needed settling before the earnings on their work had begun to accumulate: advance subscriptions could help here, of course, but the money owed might be as difficult to extract as Mme Danloux found it to be when she travelled to Scotland to act as her husband’s agent in connection with the engraving of Lord Duncan.76 Another problem was self-imposed: Danloux was often unwilling to charge enough for his work, 77 or even to charge at all if the client was impoverished or had aroused his sympathy. When a client was both impoverished and associated with royalty, like Artois’s mistress Mme de Polastron, he was even more reluctant to ask for a fee.78 The real difficulty, though, lay in persuading parsimonious, recalcitrant or simply dishonest clients to pay what they owed. Sometimes, it is true, a semi-aristocratic disdain seems to have prevented Danloux from pressing his financial claims. He told the valet of the Duc de Bourbon that he would ask nothing, ‘pour ce moment-ci’ for painting his master, ‘mais qu’il espérait voir ce prince en France’. 79 The picture was done in 1797, but the fee of £25 was paid only in 1802.80 Lord Malden kept him waiting for the best part of two years for 24 guineas, and treated him high-handedly when he eventually requested the money;81 Lord Valentia was four years late in paying the 15 guineas he owed; 82 Artois and his courtiers haggled undignifiedly over the money due for the portraits done during Artois’s exile in Holyroodhouse and other works Danloux had contributed to the Royalist cause; and the Boyds kept ‘forgetting’ to settle.83 Some clients would pay only part of what they owed, like Mme d’ Amécourt 84 and

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Prince von Starhemberg (whose behaviour Danloux called ‘malhonnête’, an abuse of his position and power).85 Others never paid at all. Vaudreuil had originally told Danloux that, being short of money, he would give him what he could in London and leave the rest for Paris,86 but disliked his unflattering portrait so much that he simply left it in the artist’s studio. It is hardly surprising, then, that the tone of the diaries is often one of despair. Danloux was obliged to maintain a smart establishment to impress visitors and sitters, because this was the English way, but could not really afford to do so.87 (He was, incidentally, tricked into taking out a 17-year lease on an expensive house in Charles Street (now Mortimer Street),88 which caused further sleepless nights.) But the Danloux lifestyle was modest, and he and his wife bitterly disapproved of émigré extravagance when they saw it. They refused to economise on a few things, it is true: they carried on wearing hairpowder even after the introduction of the powder-tax in 1795, because they considered it a mark of devotion to Ancien Régime ways, though they much resented having to pay a guinea every year for the privilege;89 but in other respects it seemed impossible for them to live more cheaply than they did. Occasionally Danloux felt that he was prostituting his talent – not, apparently, when he had to do replicas of his work for patrons (as with the various versions of the Artois portraits), and certainly not when he had to spend time supervising the production of engravings, but undoubtedly when he was asked to copy another artist’s work. Mme de Polastron, for instance, wanted him to do another version of Vigée Le Brun’s posthumous portrait of the Duchesse de Polignac, her aunt by marriage, which seemed to Danloux a wretched diversion from more worthwhile activities;90 but he needed the money, and so complied with the request. Nor did he feel that the British always treated him as he deserved. Not only were some well-born patrons insufferably rude, but the Royal Academy, to which he had rather painfully gained access,91 seemed to ignore basic courtesies. Like Mosnier, 92 he was sure that his work was being hung disadvantageously (and probably suspected that anti-French prejudice was the cause), though Benjamin West, the President, assured him that this was not the case.93 Northcote, in any event, told him that xenophobia had nothing to do with it, and that British artists suffered as badly:

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lui-même, quoiqu’académicien, ils l’ont on ne peut plus mal traité en différentes occasions [ . . . ] ils n’ont rien de ce que devraient être les artistes.94 *

*

*

According to Danloux, Northcote congratulated him on the ‘prodigious progress’95 he had made since coming to England. But although he deliberately abandoned much of his French ‘finish’, he never really admired what he thought of as the looseness of the English style: to him it betrayed carelessness (his verdict on Romney) and a reprehensible reliance on inborn aptitude.96 British painters, in his view, had huge talent, but were less well trained than French, and so subordinated everything to easy effect. Plus j’étudie la peinture anglaise, moins je l’aime. Ses maîtres se permettent tout pour parler aux yeux, mais ils n’ont aucune idée des convenances, et ne dessinent pas.97 He did begin to paint more quickly, it is true,98 admitting the justice in Calonne’s criticism of his ‘heaviness’:99 of his works he wrote that, ‘je les travaille trop à force de vouloir bien faire’ (exactly the judgement Vigée Le Brun would pass on her own paintings when her style was attacked in England). 100 He did, too, abandon the kind of detail that characterised his 1791 portrait of the baron de Besenval sitting in his ‘salon de compagnie’ surrounded by all his objets de luxe, where the whole is almost like a Dutch cabinet picture in its minute rendering of individual objects.101 The portrait of Hosten is bare in comparison, reflecting the greater simplicity of English taste and style. And he could say with a degree of truth that he had become ‘very English’. The child-portraits he painted in Scotland for the Buccleuch family, for instance, belong to a tradition made familiar by Reynolds,102 while the Romantic dash of certain pictures draws him close to Romney, Lawrence and even Raeburn. But there was also truth in the verdict which the Portuguese Viería passed on his work in 1800: ‘Ce n’est pas là la manière anglaise’.103 He was referring to the English obsession with money and Danloux’s disinterested pursuit of art, but the remark is apt in another respect. Danloux never did become completely naturalised.

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When he returned to France in 1802, with the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, he belatedly submitted some work to the Salon. One critic, while calling the style of the 1798 picture of Viscount Keith ‘French’, actually mentioned features more usually associated with the English mode of portraiture – incorrect draughtsmanship, a murky tone, and a reliance on crude effects.104 The lack of patriotism implicit in the glorification of British naval victory (Keith had defeated the Dutch, allies of the French, at Muizenberg) was generally noted, and the removal of the portrait of the Bishop of Saint-Paul de Léon from the exhibition because of his counter-Revolutionary activities was applauded.105 In other words, the royalist Danloux had made an unwelcome return. (The equally fervently royalist Vigée Le Brun was treated altogether more gently when she exhibited some work done during her own recent exile at the same Salon.) Most critics either ignored Danloux’s offerings at the Salon of 1806 or gave them very short shrift. This time his ‘artificial’ colour was likened to Boucher’s:106 still French, then, but French in the wrong kind of way, an improper ancien régime rococo in Napoleonic times. Fittingly enough for an artist just returned from England, however, Danloux was considered to paint dogs well. One critic’s conclusion that, ‘le climat nébuleux de l’Angleterre [ . . . ], les brouillards de la Tamise [sont] funestes aux arts d’imitation’107 was both typical and symptomatic. Actually Danloux had found the dank climate trying because – or so he claimed – the light was often too bad to paint by. But French criticism of the émigré’s work owed as much to nationalist rancour as to genuine aesthetic perceptions. The range and quality of the paintings he did during his British exile scarcely supports the contention that his art had ‘suffered’ during the ten years spent away from France, although it had certainly changed. Danloux’s lofty attitude to the money-mindedness of British artists should theoretically have made it hard for him to adapt to the conditions he found prevailing in the country: 108 claiming to paint for art’s sake, he must have found the need to adapt his style for purely material reasons repugnant. In fact, of course, he could not afford to be an aesthete; he had to treat his art as a business enterprise,109 however much the necessity would have shocked the aristocratic d’Etignys. But they had set their conditions before the Revolution, and could

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never have anticipated the poverty that Revolutionary events would create for their kind. And in any case one suspects that Danloux’s adaptation was not quite as unwilling as his diary entries often make it sound. Admiring British painting as he sometimes did, he may have wanted occasionally to emulate its style.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

On Mosnier’s technical inferiority to British artists see Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painters (London, 1808), p. 255. However, on the ‘vice’ of careless finishing in the English school see, for example, Conversations of James Northcote R.A. with James Ward on Art and Artists (London, 1907), p. 67. See Alan Wintermute, The French Portrait 1550–1850 (New York, 1996), p. 59. According to a Danloux family tradition, they quarrelled over an agreement to share the funding of their planned journey around Italy, which ended in Danloux’s subsidising David’s trip and David claiming that he could not support Danloux’s. See Papiers Baron Portalis, MS. ‘Henri-Pierre Danloux’, Bibliothèque d’art et d’archéologie (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris), boîte III. Journal de Pierre Danloux, private collection, 2 August 1792. See Baron Roger Portalis, Henri-Pierre Danloux et son journal durant l’émigration (Paris, 1910), p. 28. Journal de Mme Danloux, private collection, 8 August 1796; also Portalis, op. cit., p. 327. Lady Massereene was the daughter of the governor of the Châtelet, and was known as ‘the beautiful Countess of Massereene’. Journal de Danloux, 8 May 1792. Ibid., 30 January 1793. Journal de Mme Danloux, 19 February 1796. Mme Danloux, who initially expressed great admiration for Lady Charlotte Campbell’s looks, later declared them to be overrated (7 April 1796). See also Portalis, p. 327. Journal de Danloux, 23 June 1792. Ibid., 22 July 1792. The archives of the Royal Collection contain no record of this commission, and the present location of the picture is unknown. Journal de Mme Danloux, 21 February 1796; also Portalis, p. 274. For example, Journal de Danloux, 29 October 1792. Calonne also offered to display Danloux’s paintings of Mlle Duthé and the abbé de Saint-Far, the natural brother of Philippe-Egalité, in his own house (he was a noted collector and connoisseur, and still owned many outstanding pictures). Journal de Mme Danloux, 23 February 1796.

Angelica Goodden 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

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Ibid., 8 September 1795 and 10 September 1795. Ibid., 4 September 1795. Another notable portrait of this kind is the picture of the duc de Choiseul reading a letter from his aunt: see Journal de Danloux, 5 July 1800 et seq., and Portalis, p. 424 ff. Journal de Danloux, 2 July 1792. See Nicholas Penny ed., Reynolds (catalogue to exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1986), p. 224. In fact there is a mock-heroic levity to Reynolds’s image too: according to Mrs. Thrale, Lady Sarah ‘never did sacrifice to the Graces; her face was gloriously handsome, but she used to play cricket and eat beefsteak on the Steyne at Brighton’ (loc. cit.). See Journal de Danloux, 16 July 1792. Danloux had obtained the taffeta – for the curtains and sofa – from his laundrywoman Mme Fichu (see ibid., 6–7 August 1792). Ibid., 25 April 1792. Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Souvernirs, ed. Claudine Herrmann, 2 vols (Paris, 1984), I.40 (see also Portalis, p. 130). Lee may have been too young to fit this rôle, however. Vigée Le Brun’s assertion incidentally supports the notion that she came to England for the first time in the early 1790s, something suggested at the time in French and Italian journals – which alleged that she had crossed the Channel to be with Calonne – but which her own memoirs never mention. Danloux’s journal reports the rumour that Vigée Le Brun has arrived in England (24 December 1792); Mrs. Papendiek’s Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte, ed. Mrs. V. Delves-Broughton, 2 vols (London, 1887), II. 253, reports of the year 1791 that ‘Mme Le Brun had lately come to England’ and painted the Prince of Wales. According to Vigée Le Brun herself, she was in Italy from late 1789 until 1792, when she moved straight on to Vienna. Journal de Mme Danloux, 4 September 1795. Journal de Danloux, 1 August 1792. Ibid., 13 July 1792. Journal de Mme Danloux, 16 September 1795. Journal de Danloux, 1 August 1792. Ibid., 23 May 1792. Journal de Mme Danloux, 22 March 1796. See Arnaud de Lestapis, ‘Emigration et faux assignats’, Revue de Deux Mondes, 1955, pp. 462–3. See Portalis, p. 273 Journal de Mme Danloux, 16 December 1795 and 15 February 1796. Ibid., 23 October 1795. See Portalis, p. 273 Journal de Mme Danloux, 29 March 1796. Ibid., 9 November 1795; 10 December 1795. Ibid., 24 December 1795. Ibid., 26 December 1795. See Oliver Blanc, Madame de Bonneuil (Paris, 1987), p. 93.

180 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61.

62.

The French Émigrés in Europe Journal de Mme Danloux, 11 August 1795. On Hosten’s badgering of Danloux over the portrait see ibid.,7 December 1795 and 31 December 1795: ‘il fallait que le tableau de Mme Boyd fût fini dans dix jours parce qu’elle partait pour la campagne. Cela nous tourmenta d’autant plus qu’ayant toujours les ouvriers dans la maison, il n’y avait aucune chambre où mon mari pût travailler’. Ibid., 16 June 1795. Ibid., 15 June 1795. Ibid., 9 June 1795; 20 July 1795. Ibid., 30 July 1796. Journal de Danloux, 8 July 1797, 11 August 1797. See Portalis, p. 266. She was, however, a native of Saint-Domingue. Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, MS. 766 (Révolution-JusticePolice), document 75. Apparently Mme Hosten had let the rue SaintGeorges house and moved to the rue Favart to save money. Her portrait by Vestier (private collection), done in about 1790 when she was 15, reveals all her beauty (and a slight haughtiness which is perhaps simply a muted version of the arrogance Danloux captures in his picture of her father), but makes her look twice her age. See Jacques d’Arjuzon, Histoire et généalogie de la famille d’Arjuzon (Paris, 1978), p. 110, who quotes from Caroline d’Arjuzon, ‘Fragment du journal d’un prisonnier à Port-Libre en 1793’, Magasin pittoresque, 30 June 1889. D’Arjuzon in fact exchanged Port-Libre for house arrest, and the betrothal took place the day before he left prison. Portalis wrongly states (p. 267) that the letter merely announced the betrothal, and that the marriage itself occurred on 18 April 1796. See Portalis, p. 271. Journal de Mme Danloux, 12 June 1795. Ibid., 28 October 1795; 7 March 1796. Journal de Danloux, 15 June 1795. Journal de Mme Danloux, 6 May 1796; also Portalis, p. 270. Rose Arnould was the great-niece of the famous actress–courtesan Sophie Arnould. Journal de Danloux, 17 July 1800; also Portalis, p. 431. A diary entry of Mme Danloux’s for 10 January 1795 notes that the maps were to sell at 3s. apiece. The picture (at present in the Louvre) was painted in 1793, but the engraving produced only in 1797. On Danloux’s engravings see the unpublished thesis by Susan Adams, ‘Henri-Pierre Danloux: An Emigré Painter’ (University of London, n.d. – c. 1990). Danloux’s diary for 1800 records his wife’s trip to Scotland to collect the subscriptions due on the engraving (for example, 13 June £103, 19 June £32, 24 June, 1 July £11, 17 July). The picture itself was on display in Danloux’s studio. The Telegraph of 29 April 1796 reported Hoppner’s prices for a fulllength as one hundred guineas, Beechey’s as 120, and Lawrence’s as 160. 200 guineas for a full-length was not a remarkable sum for the end of the eighteenth century. In the last decade of his life Reynolds (who died in 1792) had countless commissions for a 200–guinea full-

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63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72.

73. 74. 75.

181

length (see Gerald Reitlinger, The Economics of Taste, 3 vols (London, 1961–70), I. pp. 59–60). By 1806 Lawrence was charging 200 guineas for a full-length, and Hoppner probably the same. But Vigée Le Brun’s Duchess of Dorset, painted in England, sold in 1804 for £525. On this general matter see also David H. Solkin, Painting for Money: the Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London, 1993). See Portalis, p. 80, p. 102. Ibid., p. 136. Journal de Mme Danloux, 21 October 1795. Ibid., 31 March 1796. Ibid., 23 June 1796. To Mme Ferrière, wife of an émigré Swiss miniaturist (Journal de Danloux, 4 July 1797). Ibid., 7 July 1797. He twice mentions going to the pawnbroker’s (ibid., 11 July 1792 and 19 December 1792). See, for example, Journal de Mme Danloux, 25 January 1795 et seq., 31 January 1795, 8 February 1795, 3 April 1795, 2 May 1797; Journal de Danloux, 14 June 1800. See also Portalis, p. 274 f. In vol. I of his manuscript notes on printers Thomas Dodd, the early nineteenth-century dealer, writes that Audinet did plates of portraits of several members of the French royal family, engraved at the expense of Louis XVIII from paintings by Danloux (British Museum, Department of Manuscripts, Add Mss 33394, p. 258). I am most grateful to David Alexander for this information. Danloux was told that he should expect to receive 300 guineas for his royal pictures, and was anyway sure of 250 (Journal de Mme Danloux, 9 November 1796); but Artois, deducting 25 guineas already paid by an agent (Journal de Danloux, 3 September 1796), claimed that he could only pay another 100 guineas at most (Journal de Mme Danloux, 14 November 1796). Apart from the Edinburgh portraits of Artois and the Duc d’Angoulême, Danloux did one of Louis XVIII flanked by Justice and Clemency and of Artois at the head of the royalist troops in the Vendée (Journal de Danloux, 22 June 1795). He also prepared a profile study of Louis XVIII for some counterfeit currency that was to be minted (Journal de Mme Danloux, 14 July 1795). See Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Form in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London, 1993), p. 50. Journal de Danloux, 26 June 1797. Female models were better paid than male, though their social standing was lesser: males earned 5s. per week and 1s. for each two-hour sitting, females half a guinea per sitting in the 1770s in London. See Ilaria Bignamini and Martin Postle, The Artist’s Model (Nottingham, 1991), pp. 17, 19. Danloux occasionally mentions the rates he paid: 4s. 9d. to a female model who posed from 10 am until 4 pm (Journal de Danloux, 1 July 1797), half a guinea to another female for a day (ibid., 27 July 1797), 4s. per day to the daughter of the Marquis de Courtin for modelling hands (ibid., 25 September 1797), but £10 to the marquis himself – possibly for his daughter – for ten days’ modelling

182

76.

77.

78. 79. 80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

The French Émigrés in Europe (ibid., 8 October 1797). The Journal shows that Danloux’s grasp of the complexities of English currency was uncertain, however, and some of these figures may be incorrect. However, Mme Danloux may have had the help of an agent of Danloux’s in Edinburgh, conceivably the Marnoch who framed at least some of Danloux’s Scottish portraits and whose Princes Street shop also dealt in prints and paintings. It seems unlikely that she would have been left entirely to her own devices in Scotland, especially as some of the subscribers she had most difficulty with lived as far afield as Dundee. I owe this suggestion to Helen Smailes. He reduced his fee for Mme Digneron, a popular hostess in the creole émigré circle ( Journal de Mme Danloux, 27 August 1795), who paid 180 guineas rather than 200 for a four-figure portrait, charged only three guineas for a child portrait because he was touched by the mother’s love (Journal de Danloux, 3 October 1792), and otherwise occasionally reduced his rates for the poverty-stricken provided they did not advertise his generosity (ibid., 8 February 1793). He painted both her and her son for nothing (Journal de Mme Danloux, 16 September 1795). Ibid., 22 September 1795; also Portalis, p. 292. A preliminary bust was done in 1795, and served as a model for the 1797 picture, a half-length showing the duke leaning on his sword and holding a plumed hat. Both are in the Musée Condé at Chantilly, but the half-length was originally given by the duke to his friend Mr. Crawfurd, in whose London house he was a frequent guest, and only subsequently purchased from a descendant by the Duc d’Aumale for Chantilly. Danloux’s receipt of £25, apparently for this portrait, is mentioned by Macon in Les Arts dans la maison de Condé (Paris, 1903), p. 144, but cannot be traced in the Musée Condé archives. Journal de Mme Danloux, 1 February 1795. Journal de Danloux, 26 July 1797. Journal de Mme Danloux, 15 May 1796, 24 June 1796, 29 July 1796. Ibid., 3 September 1796. Journal de Danloux, 9 July 1797, 17 July 1797. Journal de Mme Danloux, 25 September 1795. Ibid., 31 December 1795. Journal de Danloux, 3 July 1797, 6 July 1797. Journal de Mme Danloux, 5 May 1795. She wrongly puts the charge at 25s. Journal de Danloux, 10 July 1797. Not being a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (or of any other foreign academy), he had to submit a drawing before being allowed to attend the Royal Academy’s life classes (Portalis, pp. 90–1). See Edwards, p. 255. Journal de Danloux, 17 May 1792. Ibid., 20 July 1800. Ibid., loc. cit. Ibid., loc. cit.

Angelica Goodden 97. 98. 99. 100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

109.

183

Ibid., 1 August 1792; also 24 July 1792, and Portalis, p. 93. Ibid., 20 December 1792. See Portalis, p. 151. Hoppner violently criticised her polish in the preface to the Oriental Tales (London, 1805), p. x, and Sir George Beaumont thought that her paintings resembled waxwork (see Joseph Farington, Diary, ed. James Greig, 8 vols (London, 1922–8), II. 219). Vigée Le Brun herself admitted that ‘je quitte difficilement mes ouvrages. Je ne les crois jamais assez finis’ (Souvenirs, II. 133). See An Aspect of Collecting Taste (Stair Sainty Matthiesen, New York, 1986), pp. 48–9. See Helen Smailes, A French Painter in Exile: Henri-Pierre Danloux (1753–1809), in France in the National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1985), p. 48. Journal de Danloux, 17 July 1800; see also Portalis, p. 431. Revue du Salon de l’an X, ou Examen critique de tous les tableaux qui ont été exposés au Muséum, in Collection Deloynes, 63 vols (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris), XXVIII, no. 769, p. 178. For example, in Dernières Observations sur cette exposition, ibid., vol. XXX, no. 815, p. 77. The portrait was not re-exhibited until 1814. Le Pausanias français: état des arts du dessin en France à l’ouverture du dixneuvième siècle, ibid., vol. XXXIX, p. 270. Ibid., p. 271. On this general point see Martin Warnke, introduction to ‘Künstler der Emigration’, Künstlerischer Austausch (Akten des XXVIII. internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 15–20 July 1992), 3 vols (Berlin, 1993), I. p. 161. See Marcia Pointon, ‘Portrait-Painting as a Business Enterprise in London in the 1780s’, Art History, 7 (1984), and Hanging the Head, op. cit.

12 The Image of the Republic in the Press of the London Émigrés, 1792–1802 Simon Burrows Successive French governments feared the ability of the émigré press to influence ideologies, allied policy and strategy, business confidence and opinion. Above all perhaps they feared its power to shape the image of the Republic in the eyes of their émigré and European elite audience. As a result they watched the content of émigré journals with interest. In late 1795 Charles Alexandre de Calonne’s Tableau de l’Europe raised a storm of controversy in émigré circles.1 The Tableau, which first appeared in the émigré newspaper, Le Courier de Londres, argued that the revolutionary government would invent new financial resources to replace the failing assignats, that royalism had little popular appeal in France, and that the French monarchy had never had a true constitution. To many émigrés these arguments seemed sacrilegious.2 They implied that the old regime was despotic; that the republic was not about to collapse; and internal counter-Revolution was unlikely. But more was at stake than the sensibilities of the émigrés, for each of Calonne’s points had policy implications. If the old regime lacked a constitution, royalists needed to convince France that a restored monarchy would establish safeguards against despotism. If royalism lacked popular appeal inside France, the Bourbons and allied powers had little to hope for from ballot box or insurrection. And, if Calonne’s financial assessment was correct, only a vigorous and successful military offensive could hope to achieve victory. This was the opposite of the policy urged by Francis d’Ivernois, a rival expert on French finances, who, like Calonne, had access to the British government. D’Ivernois contended that France’s resources were exhausted, and hence a mere holding operation would 184

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bring the allies victory through attrition.3 Is it surprising then that one French diplomat blamed d’Ivernois for the breakdown of peace negotiations in July 1796?4 This is a telling, if extreme, example of the power attributed to émigré publications. Indeed, the image of the Republic in the newspapers and periodicals of the London émigrés was highly political and often bitterly contested. Yet although the émigré press was to become a significant propaganda arm of British foreign policy after 1803, the exile journalists of the 1790s wrote with considerable freedom. The British government showed scant interest in what they wrote, and offered the barest of patronage opportunities and, while the émigré journalists aligned themselves with various political camps within the Emigration, financial support from this quarter was meagre.5 Instead, the émigré journalists were supported by subscriptions from the émigré public and British and European élites, on circulations varying from several hundred to several thousand.6 Thus although several political persuasions were represented in the émigré press, most London-based émigré journalists wrote from conviction, rather than as hired hands, and several among them were important political actors in their own right. The moderate monarchiens had two journals, Montlosier’s Journal de France et d’Angleterre (January–June 1797), and Mallet Du Pan’s Mercure britannique (1798–1800). The intransigent purs had their own Mercure de France from April 1800–April 1801. The splenetic, prolific Jean-Gabriel Peltier produced a series of titles: initially relatively moderate in politics if not style, he was recruited by the purs in 1797.7 Finally there was the Courier de Londres (1776–1826).8 In the 1790s it was a mouthpiece for its co-proprietor Calonne under the editorship of Verduisant (April–October 1793) and the abbé Calonne (1793–1799). Over time the Calonne brothers became estranged from the pur camp, and in July 1797 Montlosier was recruited as the abbé’s co-editor. 9 In June 1802 editorship passed to Jacques ( James) Regnier, who turned it into an outspoken and vitriolic pur organ.10 Jeremy Popkin has shown how the revolutionary press scripted the revolution in advance by creating the tensions and expectations which gave rise to the great revolutionary journées and retrospectively by giving or denying symbolic meaning to events.11 The émigré press also defined new realities

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by imposing patterns on events. Thus, in 1792 Peltier insisted that his role was to disabuse Europe of the version of events propagated by the revolutionaries, and to justify the king and his Swiss guards in the face of their calumnies.12 More significantly, he offered the first extensive and detailed eyewitness accounts of the September massacres not to be produced ‘sous l’influence de la faction dominante’.13 In Peltier’s narrative the Republic was born amidst murder and blood. According to most of the émigré journalists, the Republic was not truly ‘popular’ and, despite appearances, the government did not enjoy widespread support. They were basing their argument on the revolutionary principle of popular sovereignty rather than traditional absolutist and legitimist theories. On one level, this was pragmatic – they hoped to undermine the revolution’s main claim to legitimacy and to promote foreign political or military intervention by convincing their readers that support for royalism was widespread. On another level, it indicates the extent to which revolutionary political culture had penetrated. The émigré journalists were suggesting that political power must be based on popular consent. They differed from the revolutionaries only about which side enjoyed that consent. Hence the overthrow of the monarchy was portrayed as neither easy nor popular. Peltier claimed that the 10 August insurrection was the work of a hundred factious individuals. Even though the people were blind instruments, it had required months to gather sufficient force for the coup.14 Moreover, the insurgents had been either fédérés summoned from Marseilles, or members of the urban under-class, seduced by cash and the hope of pillage, and enflamed by alcohol and the prospect of an orgy of destruction.15 Peltier also offered statistical proofs that popular opinion opposed the revolution claiming that in 1789 counter-Revolutionary newspapers outnumbered revolutionary ones by three to one and outsold them by 35:2.16 Likewise, the abbé Calonne argued that the menu peuple had been deceived into supporting the revolution. In a patronising article addressed (somewhat improbably) to the French people, he explained how they had been duped and that their true interest lay in the re-establishment of the monarchy.17 By late 1795, following the débacles of Quiberon and vendémiaire, some émigré journalists were questioning the

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popularity of the Bourbons inside France. Calonne’s Tableau de l’Europe, for example, argued that the émigrés misunderstood the discontent in France. Rather than indicating royalist sympathies it stemmed from fear of arbitrary or anarchic government, concern for property, worries about the nation’s finances and a desire to conserve religion. Mallet Du Pan agreed that Frenchmen did not favour royalism. If offered liberty, property and the exercise of their religion, they would rally to the Directory.18 In 1799 he added that royalists needed to persuade Frenchmen that Louis XVIII’s maxims were not those of some ‘choleric, absurd and vindictive émigré’, and provoked a new storm in the process.19 His remarks indicate a growing belief that the Republican government was not inherently unpopular, weak or short-lived, despite continuing discontent in France. Moreover, the bitter polemical debates sparked by Calonne and Mallet Du Pan’s remarks helped to create and perpetuate the image of an emigration which was simultaneously divided and intransigent. Republican leaders and revolutionaries were portrayed in the émigré press as divided, ambitious, immoral plotters. Their power derived from their ability to dupe the people and from a general confusion in ideas. Peltier remarked that philosophes and revolutionary writers had attached the words ‘liberté’ and ‘patriote’ to men and objects worthy of scorn. 20 He also maintained that the Constitution of the Year I was produced by Necker’s pride and destroyed by Robespierre’s rage.21 The revolutionary leaders were bloodthirsty rogues, or worse, as was proved once and for all by the September massacres and Terror. Thus, when the Girondins were executed, Peltier explained that they died for being ‘un peu moins scélérats’ than their accusers and the Courier de Londres said Brissot’s silence on the scaffold seemed to indicate that he was still plotting.22 Other revolutionaries were more criminal still. When Bentabole attacked Hébert’s patriotism in the Convention, Peltier expressed surprise at the content of his speech. He claimed Bentabole had been expected to reproach Hébert for not denouncing his own brothers, killing his father, poisoning his mother and raping his sisters.23 The abbé Calonne, reviewing the satirical novel Confessions of Jean-Baptiste Couteau,24 found the logic and morality of its absurdly bloodthirsty hero perfectly resembled those of the real Jacobin innovators.25 Such

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stereotypes were reinforced by reports of the excesses of dechristianisation and the revolutionary cults, including Peltier’s gleeful description of the ‘prostitutes’ chosen to represent the new deities Reason and Liberty. 26 Nevertheless, Peltier contradicted those who heralded the advent of a new order after the purges of the Hébertists and Dantonists in March 1794; St Just’s report on the police merely offered further insights into ‘le culte de Moloch’ and its ‘sacrifices humains’.27 Thermidor made little difference to portrayals of revolutionary politicians. The abbé Calonne reminded his readers that Tallien, though in appearance more moderate than Robespierre, was nevertheless a regicide and Peltier argued that the coup was only the replacement of one faction by another.28 The Thermidorians’ apparent honesty was a calculated survival strategy. It was the minimum possible concession to popular outrage.29 Like the republican leadership, Republican culture was portrayed as morally deformed and explicitly and implicitly contrasted with the literature and arts of the old regime. This was intended as a political and moral point as well as a literary one. For just as de Bonald argued ‘la littérature est l’expression de la société’, so Peltier commented ‘le spectacle est le tableau des mœurs d’un peuple’.30 Naturally, his depiction of revolutionary theatre was scathing and the dramatist Marie-Joseph Chénier was described as an ‘insecte de la littérature et de la politique.’31 Republican literature was the product of a process of debasement that began even before the revolution. Hence, as the revolution approached: La langue de Fénelon & de Racine, de Bossuet & de Buffon; cette langue simple sans bassesse, & noble sans enflure, harmonieuse sans fatigue, précise sans obscurité, élégante sans afféterie, la véritable expression d’une nature perfectionée, devenait brusque, dure, courte, sauvage, hyperbolique, parce qu’il fallait, disait-on, que la langue fût pensée, fût sentie, forte, pittoresque comme la nature. 32 The debasement of culture was portrayed as both a cause of revolution and as symptomatic of the republic. Counter-revolutionary writers were among the first to attempt to explain the revolution and the émigré journalists were no exception. In October 1789 Peltier had been among the first to propose that the revolution was the result of an

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Orleanist conspiracy, an idea he repeated in exile.33 Peltier’s journals and the Courier de Londres also endorse Barruel’s conspiracy theories and accuse the philosophes of preparing revolution by undermining religion and morality.34 In contrast, Mallet Du Pan and Montlosier both denied the existence of either a masonic or philosophe conspiracy. Yet even they accepted that the enlightenment had contributed to the outbreak of revolution by breaking down social bonds and the mechanisms of moral control.35 Exile journalists also offered providential interpretations of the Revolution. In late January 1793 the Courier de Londres threatened the regicides with celestial justice and, as the Terror progressed, Peltier, Verduisant and the abbé Calonne expressed awe at the swiftness of divine retribution whenever a revolutionary leader went to the scaffold.36 The Republic was thus the instrument of heaven’s punishment and hence a temporary phenomenon. This rhetoric was less common after Thermidor but providential explanations of the revolution remained implicit in the émigré journals’ vocabulary and presentation. However, in time a new, more pressing question had to be answered: how had the republic survived in the face of massive internal and external opposition? Economic causes seemed to offer the best explanation. The revolution had gained huge resources by seizing Church property and minting countless assignats. Moreover, the Revolution opposed all property and was hence a threat to European society. Thus, the Courier de Londres questioned the wisdom of the supposed predilection of the merchant classes for revolution, citing Danton’s rhetorical question ‘de quel droit voulez-vous qu’on respecte vos propriétés, acquises très souvent par des moyens injustes et vexatoires?’ and in late 1793 Peltier remarked that the merchants of Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseille and bankers of Paris had been executed for being rich.37 The Republican threat to property justified the émigré journalists’ support of war. As early as 1793 they were arguing that the Republic threatened all society, all states, all religion and all property and therefore required a universal response, and a new, more energetic form of warfare. 38 It was impossible to have a just and lasting peace with the revolution. The only answer to the French threat was to extinguish republican government and restore the legitimate Bourbon monarchy.39

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While this argument was ultimately self-interested, the émigré journalists had acknowledged the huge military potential unleashed by the revolution long before allied governments, which persistently under-estimated French strength. By late 1795, although hopes of military victory over the Republic were fading, the Constitution of the year III, which enfranchised only a relatively small propertied elite, provided hope of victory by the ballot box. Thus the decision of the Convention that one third of the new legislature should be elected annually and that in the first instance two thirds of the members of the Convention should remain sitting in the new assembly, came as a rude shock.40 The failure of the vendémiaire coup (3 October 1795) finally dashed remaining royalist hopes. These two events seemed to confirm that the constitution was designed to perpetuate the power of the Convention.41 Since the 1795 elections showed a clear preference for moderates and royalists, the Two Thirds Decree violated the expressed wishes of the political nation. Moreover, it was probable that whenever royalist, moderate, or Jacobin gains threatened the conventionnel hegemony, the constitution would be violated.42 This realisation led to a new interpretation of the revolution’s momentum. An endless procession of factions, each temporarily in control of the government, would be unable to master the revolution because the destruction of legitimacy in turn legitimised successive coups. This view of the revolution was to remain fundamental to Peltier’s conception of its continuing dynamic even after 1814. The argument was self-fulfilling, and allowed no compromise. Only the return of the legitimate monarch could break the cycle. Thus, the 18 Fructidor coup was part of a predictable pattern of violence, as Peltier insinuated ironically: Encore une révolution; encore une fois le régime de la terreur substitué à celui de la constitution! Puis fiez-vous à toutes ces constitutions de 1791, 1793 & 1795! 43 The period between September 1797 and November 1799 was one of disillusionment for the émigré journalists, who renewed their attempts to convince Europe and its sovereigns of the same basic set of propositions they had advanced during the Terror. Mallet Du Pan argued that experience had proven that the French were as oppressive in peace as in war.44 The

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Republic had a huge population in which every man was a soldier and a doctrine to spread worldwide. It was thus on a permanent war footing with the rest of the world. Peace would only be possible ‘when the rights of man shall cease to conspire against the rights of man in society’ or when the Directory had renounced tyranny, disorder, rapine, and set about restoring a balance of power.45 This was unlikely to happen as the republic could only subsist by plunder: She revolutionises Nations that she may plunder them; and she plunders them to enable her to exist. The circle of her philosophy extends no further. She would exchange all the characters of the Rights of Man for a good bag of crown pieces, were not those Republican characters and trappings in her hands what a drowsy potion is in the hands of robbers. . . . 46 The French Republic had become a military oligarchy.47 Tragically, it had ceased to be monarchical without becoming truly republican. It had no fixed laws, religion or institutions, and created a new constitution for every crisis.48 France was ruled by a monstrous hybrid of republicanism, anarchy and despotism and the Revolution had become synonymous with destruction – when it ceased to destroy it would cease to exist.49 Brumaire divided the émigré press along predictable lines. The monarchiens’ judgement was, despite reservations, generally favourable to Bonaparte. Mallet Du Pan believed his was ‘a more tolerable government’, which would rest on the support of ‘moderates’, ‘mild constitutionalists’, and ‘mild royalists’ and secure the middle ground abandoned by the intransigent royalists. 50 Mallet du Pan praised Bonaparte for restoring the Church, releasing political prisoners, improving the treatment of émigrés and securing the rule of law, adding: Surely this enumeration renders it unnecessary to prove that, however there may be a continuance of usurpation, there is certainly no continuation of the former system; and that nothing can differ more than the regulations and policies adopted by Bonaparte and those invariably observed by his predecessors.51 Mallet Du Pan died before he could give a definitive judgement on the new regime, but his friend Montlosier rallied to

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it. 52 Montlosier believed Napoleon had neutralised egalitarian forces, and his genius was thus ‘de conserver les établissemens révolutionnaires en faisant cesser la révolution’.53 He approved of the new regime’s concentration, centralisation and bureaucratisation of power and believed the constitution of year VIII established a monarchie limitée, based on three great political truths: [1] la nécessité d’une intervention aristocratique comme ingrédient nécessaire à la conservation d’un grand état et par conséquence l’absurdité d’une démocratie absolue . . . [2] la nécessité de concentrer l’autorité. . . . il y a dix fois plus de monarchie dans la république actuelle que dans la monarchie constituée de 1791 . . . [3] qu’on ne gouverne point le peuple par le peuple. 54 For the purs however the consulate was just another phase of the revolution: Bonaparte was an usurper and tyrant, and his government revolutionary in both origins and dynamic. It was driven by cupidity and egoism and hence unjust and inherently unstable as well as illegitimate. Napoleonic France would continue to seek internal stability by external pillage and thus represented a permanent threat to Europe. The Mercure de France castigated Napoleon as a military despot surrounded by republican forms, maintaining that the French people rallied to him through desperation. The forms were changed but revolutionaries still held power.55 Peace would therefore only perpetuate a government without regular form ruling over a people without religion or morals.56 The French were still: un peuple révolté, sans religion, sans gouvernement régulier, ivre de sang et plongé dans l’anarchie qui favorise tous ses attentats; . . . un sujet audacieux et rebelle, monté de crime en crime jusque sur le trône de son bienfaiteur.57 Peltier, too, saw Bonaparte as the incarnation of revolutionary principles. Compromise had been forced upon him because his rift with his natural allies, the Jacobins, had become unbridgeable, but his character was base and hideous.58 Moreover, the return to monarchic forms would not restore stability: the ‘charme’ to bind millions to the commands of one man could only stem from legitimacy.59 Without their legitimate monarch, the French were slaves to force.60 Their government

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did not even guarantee fundamental rights such as the integrity of posts, freedom of thought, liberty of the press, and security of the person.61 The same men, armed with the same principles, remained in power. ‘Des philosophes bouchers’ had replaced ‘des bouchers philosophes’. 62 By 1799 émigré journalists had models of revolution against which to interpret Bonapartism. A mixture of political calculation, ideology and genuine perceptions, their images of the Republic offer insights into changing émigré mentalities, and perhaps even into British policy. For some, Bonaparte remained the personification of a revolution driven by cupidity, spoil, usurpation and ambition, with which there could be no compromise. But for others his government combined many positive features of the old regime with popular support. Who can wonder therefore that Montlosier rallied to Bonaparte, and that 90 per cent of all émigrés, weary of exile, had returned to France by May 1803. Moreover, in denying that the republic enjoyed widespread popular support, the émigré journalists had tacitly accepted the principle of popular sovereignty. Despite ridiculing Siéyès’ ‘sublime découverte’ that ‘le [plus] grand nombre est le [plus] grand nombre’,63 they were prepared to invoke the theory of consent and the general will to legitimise their case. Paradoxically, they were embracing the very democratic political culture they sought to anathematise. The highly contested image of the Republic in the émigré press therefore both highlighted, perpetuated and exaggerated political divisions within the ranks of the emigration, and demonstrated the potency of the principle of popular sovereignty from which the Republic drew its strength.

NOTES 1.

2.

Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Le Tableau de l’Europe en novembre 1795; et pensées sur ce qu’on a fait et qu’on n’aurait pas dû faire (London, 1796). The text of the pamphlet first appeared in the Courier de Londres, vol. 38, nos. 33–52 (27 October 1795–29 December 1795). An appendix appeared in Courier de Londres vol. 39, no. 2 (5 January 1796). The most significant reply to Calonne was A.J.B.R. Auget de Montyon’s Rapport fait à sa majesté, Louis XVIII sur le livre intitulé Tableau de

194

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

The French Émigrés in Europe l’Europe (1796). The debate between them was discussed at length in the Parisian press, for example, Les Nouvelles politiques (15 August 1796), and by Peltier in Paris pendant l’année 1796, nos. 64 (23 July 1796) and 70 (27 August 1796). Émigré attacks on Calonne forced him to publish an appendix as early as 5 January 1796. See especially Francis d’Ivernois, Réflexions sur la guerre (1795) and Coup d’oeil sur les assignats (1795). Both works were translated into English. See Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Correspondance politique/Angleterre, 589, fos. 330–1, Nettement to Delacroix de Contaut, Londres, 9 thermidor IV (27 July 1796). S. Burrows, ‘The Exile Press in London, 1789–1814’, (unpublished DPhil thesis, Oxford, 1992) pp. 168–96. Burrows, op. cit., pp. 147–61. Between 1792 and 1818 Peltier published Le Dernier Tableau de Paris (1792–1793); L’Histoire de la restauration de la monarchie française, ou la campagne de 1793 (1793); La Correspondance politique (1793–1794); Le Tableau de l’Europe (1794–1795); Paris pendant l’année (1795–1802); L’Ambigu (1802–1818). On Peltier see H. Maspero-Clerc, Un journaliste Contre-révolutionnaire: Jean-Gabriel Peltier (1760–1825), Paris, Société des Etudes Robespierristes), 1973. The paper is better known under its earlier title, Le Courier de l’Europe. On its early history see Gunnar and Mavis von Proschwitz, Beaumarchais et le Courier de l’Europe, documents inédits ou peu connus, 2 vols. (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1990); H. Maspero-Clerc, ‘Une “Gazette anglo-française” pendant la guerre d’Amérique: le Courier de l’Europe (1776–1788)’, Annales historiques de la révolution française (1976), pp. 572–94. François-Dominique Reynaud, Comte de Montlosier, Souvenirs d’un émigré (1791–1798) publiés par son arrière petit-fils le comte de LarouzièreMontlosier et par Ernest d’Hauterive (Paris, Hachette, 1951), pp. 247–9. Courier de Londres, 42 (9), (1 August 1797). Public Record Office, Kew, FO 27/70 fos. 624–625, ‘Note of Regnier’ (undated); Archives Nationales, Paris, F7 6330 dossier 6959, ‘Rapport de M. Lamberte’. On Regnier: S. Burrows, ‘British Propaganda for Russia in the Napoleonic Wars: the Courier d’Angleterre’, New Zealand Slavonic Journal (1993), pp. 85–100. Jeremy D. Popkin, Revolutionary News: the Press in France, 1789–1799 (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1990), pp. 96–168. Dernier Tableau de Paris, especially I: iv–vi, 66–8, 140–5. Dernier Tableau de Paris, I, avertissement, p. i. Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: p. 81. Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: pp. 143–4. Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: p. 44. A review of titles suggests these numbers are sheer fantasy. However, subscription information for pro-revolutionary titles is hazy, and it is certain that the leading counter-revolutionary papers were among the best supported papers of the period 1789–1792. Courier de Londres, 35 (31, 32 and 37), (18 and 22 April and 9 May 1794).

Simon Burrows 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36.

37. 38.

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British Mercury, no. 11 (30 January 1799), pp. 166–7 [R.G. Dallas authorised English translation which regularly appeared five days after the French edition.]. British Mercury, no. 26 (15 October 1799), p. 88. Paris pendant l’année 1796, no. 62, (9 July 1796), pp. 612–13. The statement is copied from an article by a right-wing Parisian journalist Adrien de Lezay Marnézia which Peltier reprinted with a strong endorsement. Peltier, Correspondance française ou tableau de l’Europe, no. 1 (2 November 1793), thereafter entitled Correspondance politique. Correspondance politique, no. 5 (12 November 1793); Courier de Londres, 34 (39), (12 November 1793). Correspondance politique, no. 23 (24 December 1793). Robert Jephson, Confessions of Jean-Baptiste Couteau, Citizen of France, written by himself: and translated from the French by Robert Jephson, 2 vols. (1794). Courier de Londres, 36 (2), (4 July 1794). Correspondance politique, no. 12 (28 November 1793). Correspondance politique, no. 76 (26 April 1794). Courier de Londres, 36 (16), (22 August 1794) and Tableau de l’Europe, I: 34. Tableau de l’Europe, I: 50. Paris pendant l’année 1798, no. 171 (31 December 1798), p. 149. Paris pendant l’année 1797, no. 100 (18 February 1797) p. 605. Paris pendant l’année 1798, no. 160 (16 July 1798), pp. 37–8. Peltier, Le Coup d’equinoxe d’octobre 1789. Lettre de M. P . . . de Paris à M. M . . . son ami négociant de Nantes (Paris, 1789); Peltier, Domine, salvum fac regem (Paris, 1789); Dernier Tableau de Paris, II: pp. 10–23; 98–9n. Correspondance politique, no. 7 (16 November 1793); Paris pendant l’année 1795, no. 9 (1 August 1795) pp. 3–10n. See also Maspero-Clerc, Peltier, pp. 17–26. Augustin Barruel, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinisme 4 vols., (London: P. Le Boussonier, 1797–1798). See also Courier de Londres, 41 (16), (24 February 1797); Paris pendant l’année 1798, no. 169 (30 November 1798), pp. 594–6, no. 170 (17 December 1798), pp. 114–18. Religion and morality; Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: vii; II: 4, 396n.; Courier de Londres, 34 (9), (30 July 1793); 35 (12), (11 February 1794). British Mercury no. 14, (15 March 1799), pp. 335–63; Journal de France et d’Angleterre, no. 12 (7 April 1797), pp. 161–84 and no. 14 (22 April 1797), p. 290. Courier de Londres, 33 (9), (29 January 1793) and Correspondance politique, nos.5, 7, 68, (12, 16 November 1793, 8 April 1794); Courier de Londres, 34 (8, 40), (26 July, 15 November 1793); Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: appendix, p. 72. Courier de Londres, 34 (25), (24 September 1793). The speech was made on 31 August 1793 and Correspondance politique, no. 12, (28 November 1793). See Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: 149, 179; Tableau de l’Europe, I: iii; Correspondance politique, no. 2 (4 November 1793); Courier de Londres, 33 (10, 12), (1, 8 February 1793).

196 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

The French Émigrés in Europe See Histoire de la restauration, letter 2, (dated 6 April 1793), p. 38; Correspondance politique, no. 27 (2 January 1794); Courier de Londres, 40 (29), (7 October 1796). See, for example, Paris pendant l’année, no. 14 (7 September 1795), pp. 321–36 and no. 15 (12 September 1795), pp. 434–7 et passim. Paris pendant l’année, no, 25 (21 November 1795), pp. 3–11. See, for example, Paris pendant l’année 1797, no. 132 (9 September 1797), p. 57 ff. Paris pendant l’année 1797, no.132 (9 September 1797), p. 61. British Mercury, no. 4 (15 October 1797), pp. 271–98. British Mercury, no. 6 (15 October 1708), p. 449. British Mercury, no. 11 (29 January 1799), p. 130. British Mercury, no. 6 (15 November 1798), p. 413. The same view was expressed by the abbé Calonne, Courier de Londres, 42 (22), (15 September 1797), and Montlosier, Courier de Londres, 42 (52), (29 December 1797). Courier de Londres, 42 (52), (29 December 1797); British Mercury, no. 11 (29 January 1799), p. 131. Courier de Londres, 44 (16), (24 August 1798). Courier de Londres, 44 (25), (25 September 1798). British Mercury, no. 30 (11 December 1799), pp. 340, 346–7 and 372. British Mercury, no. 35, (10 March 1800), p. 170. On Montlosier’s rapprochement with the Consulate: H. de MiramonFitzjames, ‘Le comte de Montlosier pendant la révolution et l’empire’, (unpublished PhD thesis: Aix-en-Provence, 1944); Maspero-Clerc, ‘Montlosier, journaliste de l’émigration’, Bulletin d’Histoire économique et sociale de la révolution française, année 1975 (1977), pp. 81– 103.; Robert Griffiths, Le Centre perdu: Malouet et les ‘monarchiens’ dans la révolution française (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1988). Courier de Londres, 46 (52), (27 December 1799). Courier de Londres, 46, (52), (27 December 1799). Mercure de France, no. 1 (10 April 1800), pp. 35–65. Mercure de France, no. 10 (10 July 1800), pp. 253–4. Mercure de France, no. 4 (10 May 1800), p. 319. Paris pendant l’année 1800, no. 195 (15 January 1800), p. 103. The image is Peltier’s own. See Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: 10. Paris pendant l’année 1799, no. 193 (30 November 1799), p. 479. See Dernier Tableau de Paris, vol. 1, avertissement, p. ii. Paris pendant l’année 1799, no. 194 (24 December 1799), p. 610. Dernier Tableau de Paris, I: 14n.

13 Burke, Boisgelin and the Politics of the Émigré Bishops Nigel Aston We may have some diversity in our opinions, but we have no difference in principles. (Burke to Boisgelin, 1791) Crossing hastily to England during 1791 and 1792, often in disguise, many French bishops found themselves undertaking their first ever maritime journey, to a country none of them had previously visited. What possible cause for hope could England offer these reluctant but steadfast opponents of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, as they came ashore at the channel coast ports of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire and tried to make sense of their fate? Most immediately, there was the consolation of meeting fellow exiles, often clergy from their home dioceses.1 There were also touching displays of active sympathy and charitable relief from most sections of the British propertied élites; these sprang from a sense of pity, shame, and incredulity at the mistreatment of fellow Christians by the Revolutionaries. Finally, there was the comfort of knowing that their cause had been taken up before their arrival by one of the outstanding public figures and political campaigners of the late eighteenth century, Edmund Burke, MP for Malton, and leading Portland Whig, the opposition grouping increasingly, by the early 1790s, working in conjunction with Pitt the Younger’s administration. To the non-juring clergy and the émigrés generally, his name had a resonance and an interest unequalled by any other Briton thanks to his Reflections on the Revolution in France, first published in November 1790. On the basis of this support, it might have been thought that Burke would have the émigré bishops in his pocket, but such a prediction would have been false. Burke’s view of the bishops – and his intended role for them as the spiritual leaders of the 197

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counter-Revolution – generated its own distinctive tensions throughout the next few years, because it conflicted with the more pragmatic reality. They could admire and usually endorse his general case against the Revolution, but that shared sentiment was never translated into effective joint action. Before their arrival in Britain, Burke had praised what he saw as the bishops’ uncompromising attitude to Revolution which he assumed would remain as inflexible in exile as it had been at home. It was a misreading of the situation. In fact many prelates had done their utmost to come to terms with the revolutionary settlement of 1789–91, until the imposition of the Civil Constitution without the Church’s consent made their position intolerable. Burke’s failure to register such tokens of episcopal moderation would persist after the bishops left France. He was reluctant or unable to admit the complexities of the situation confronting the French episcopate, and the result of his wishful thinking would be a turbulent and more distant alliance between the bishops and their parliamentary champion than many commentators could have predicted in 1791. This chapter examines these mutual misunderstandings by focusing on the relationship between Burke and archbishop Boisgelin of Aix, one of the outstanding prelates of the ‘generation of 1789’ and, aged 59 in 1791, only three years younger than Burke. On the face of it, they were natural allies and counter-Revolutionary comrades with shared politico-religious hopes for the future of France and Europe. Yet the association of these two gifted men was destined never to pass beyond the stage of respect into a warmer amity. The advent of the French Revolution when Burke’s career – and his morale – were at their nadir, gave him a completely new cause, and it was one that, together with Ireland, sustained and engaged him for the last seven years of his life.2 Believing, as he did, in the supreme importance of religion as ‘the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and all comfort’ and the Church as consecrating the life of the state, Burke maintained that the Revolution represented a decisive challenge to the Christian basis of European civilisation, and that it could only be successfully counter-acted by imbuing opposition to Revolution with a predominantly Christian character.3 It would be a contest which overrode the traditional confessional divisions. Burke relied on the bishops – Anglican

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as much as Gallican – to concede as much and to act as the keystone in this pan-Christian front he had dedicated himself to proclaiming. In the Reflections, Burke identified the Gallican episcopate as leaders of a Church polity remarkable both for its principles and its purity, but one which faced an impoverished and uncertain future having ‘patriotically’ given up its income and its juridical identity to the demands of the Revolution: Who but a tyrant . . . could think of seizing on the property of men, unaccused, unheard, untried, by whole descriptions, by hundreds and thousands together. He acclaimed the Church’s steadfastness in adversity, its unwillingness to put prosperity before principle, as articulated in the Exposition des principes of October 1790, presented by Boisgelin in the name of all the bishops in the National Assembly (except for Talleyrand and Gobel) only a month before the Reflections was published.4 Burke deplored these revolutionary inflictions, though he was joining a chorus of Anglican laments which dated from the October Days. Events in France confirmed Burke’s recently developed awareness that Church affairs were far less settled than he could have wished and that a very real threat to ecclesiastical establishments was gathering strength on both sides of the Channel. From his point of view, it was no coincidence that English dissenters had made further moves in Parliament towards achieving repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1788–90 just as the French revolutionaries had dispossessed the Gallican Church. 5 The loss of its tithes and landed possessions was a terrible warning of the confiscations that would assuredly happen in England if the Anglican order was not defended from enemies like Priestley, Price and the ‘rational dissenters’.6 Behind these restless men, Burke imagined he detected the hand of malcontent noblemen like the Marquess of Lansdowne or Earl Stanhope, conspiring, like their French equivalents, to overthrow the monarchical state and the religion which validated participation in its life. 7 By 1789, Burke was taking pride in British tenacity in adhering in crisis to ‘the old ecclesiastical modes and fashions of institution’. 8 He insisted that corporate integrity marked any legitimate branch of the Church and that it was the task of the state to uphold that hallmark rather than subvert and

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subordinate it, as he believed the National Assembly was trying to do. He did not deny that there were aspects of Church life in France which needed reform, but he believed that it was for the Gallican Church to address its own problems and not endure solutions foisted on it by the revolutionaries. We have a clue to his approach in an important letter of September 1791 when, at the request of Calonne (then acting as chief minister of the émigré government), Burke had sent his son Richard to Coblenz to consult with the émigrés regarding the promotion of a military alliance with Britain for intervention in France. The letter elaborates at length on possible changes in a restored monarchy which would include a canonical synod of the Gallican Church ‘to reform all abuses’ (left unspecified).9 Such a proposal was broadly in line with the approach articulated in the Exposition of October 1790, but there were differences, especially in attitudes towards any sovereign elected assembly. The irony was that it never seems to have occurred to Burke that much influential opinion among the French bishops was, throughout 1790, keen to reach an accommodation with the politicians in the National Assembly, ready even to adhere to the Civil Constitution so long as the Church was allowed a formal consultative role through the suitably Gallican device of a national council. 10 Such a stance was more flexible than Burke’s insistence that Church reform should procede primarily from a council rather than from the politicians in the Assembly. Yet the opportunity for compromise was lost, the Constitutional Church was created in France, and only three of the existing diocesan prelates felt able to retain office within it. The rest chose – or were impelled into – exile during 1791–92. This early difference of emphasis prefigured future tensions between Burke and the émigré bishops. It suggests, before most of them had even left France, that it was not their policy preferences but what the episcopate symbolised as an essential component of France’s historic identity that most mattered to Burke. For him the bishops were an essential leadership cadre, a rallying point in the crusade that Burke wanted the British government to unleash against the Revolution in conjunction with the other European powers. He found it hard to accept the reality that, for the most part, the bishops were demoralised, impoverished, and only too aware of the limited scope for political initiative in exile. Besides nursing

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resentment at a sudden exclusion from public consequence, they brought to Britain a range of divergent views about the way forward for Church and State in France which Burke was reluctant to register. The destruction of the old ecclesiastical order entailed the abandonment of pre-Revolutionary political ambitions for the overthrown Bishops, unless they were willing to be flexible as, notoriously, Loménie de Brienne and Talleyrand were. Most put principle before further hope of government office. This exclusion was hard for front-rank prélats politiques to accept, men such as archbishops Champion de Cicé of Bordeaux, Keeper of the Seals as recently as 1789–90 and Arthur de Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne and President of the Estates of Languedoc before 1789. But loss of political prospects fell on no one harder than on Jean de Dieu-Raymond de Cucé de Boisgelin (1732–1804), archbishop of Aix since 1770. Here was an immensely able and intelligent prelate, known and respected across Provence for his administrative competence; in the General Assembly of the Clergy of France (which met periodically down to 1788) he had proposed reforms to clerical taxation, increasing the revenues of the lower clergy, and a fairer system of appointments to benefices. None of these achievements satisfied him. He remained a frustrated politician, denied the appointment he coveted at the highest levels of the state. He was elected to the Estates-General in the spring of 1789 and quickly emerged as the de facto leader of the former First Estate deputies once their order had been submerged within the National Assembly. The contrast between the undeviating conduct in difficult circumstances which Burke expected of the Gallican episcopate and the lingering pragmatism displayed by some of the bishops in the National Assembly is nowhere better illustrated than in a brief survey of archbishop Boisgelin’s involvement in its constitutional deliberations between 1789 and 1791. 11 As a prominent member of the centre-right Monarchien grouping, Boisgelin fought hard to give the Gallican Church an independent voice in determining its future and the chance of responding freely to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.12 In his major speech of 29 May 1790, while declaring that kings and civil authorities had to obey the Church in matters of salvation, he conceded:

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It is possible that some retrenchments might be made in the Church; but the Church must be consulted. . . . We think that the ecclesiastical power must do everything possible to conciliate your wishes with the interests of religion. . . . Therefore, we propose that you consult the Gallican Church in a national council. There lies the power which must watch over the trust of the faith; there, instructed in our duties and your wishes, we shall conciliate the interests of the people with those of religion.13 His politics reflected a commitment to reform typical of the great majority of politicians during those two years including, whatever their personal misgivings, a high proportion of fellow members of the centre-right.14 If pressed, Boisgelin like many of the French bishops in 1790, would have found it as hard to subscribe unreservedly to Burke’s full-blown presentation of the destruction of the French polity in the Reflections as his British critics did. From a royalist angle, some of Boisgelin’s actions were embarrassingly open to misconstruction. At one point, the archbishop appeared to be aligning himself with Dr Richard Price, whose sermon Discourse on the Love of our Country was, notoriously, the catalyst for Burke’s Reflections.15 Boisgelin was president of the National Assembly in December 1789 when deputies required that he should, as representative of them all, offer their fraternal thanks for greetings received from the Revolution Society of London. Mirabeau insisted that the archbishop as president could not delegate that duty to another deputy. That was not the last of the matter. In March 1790, the Revolution Society published a summary of its doctrine. It included among the documentation, along with Price’s notorious sermon, a fraternal letter of the Duc de La RochefoucauldLiancourt, and Boisgelin’s reply in the name of the Assembly. As Burke reported, ‘The whole of that publication, . . . gave me a considerable degree of uneasiness’.16 He would have been still more disquieted if he had been aware of the unsollicited advice senior French churchmen were offering the Vatican throughout July and August 1790. They argued that, even without a national council, there was more to be gained by working with the new ecclesiastical order than lost by rebelling against it. Boisgelin felt so strongly on

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this point he was ready to travel personally to Rome to press the case.17 Indeed, in a memorandum of early December 1790, Boisgelin was still pressing Pius VI to accept the reforms or risk schism. Such temporising conduct had no place in any Burkean agenda. Along with the majority of episcopal deputies, Boisgelin retained his membership of the National Assembly until its dissolution in September 1791. He took a leading and constructive part in its proceedings, despite the passage into law of the Civil Constitution. Despite his irregular attendance, the archbishop’s studied moderation and attempts at compromise played their part in achieving some concessions for the refractories, like the law of 7 May allowing them the hire of church buildings for their own ceremonies, and the decision to exclude the Civil Constitution from the overall provisions of the national constitution of September 1791.18 Boisgelin was one of those episcopal deputies who defended their work on the new constitution and the principles of liberty to which they were committed against implied papal criticism in a collective letter of 3 May. They insisted their view of liberty was not incompatible with Pius VI’s recently published Brief Quod aliquantum.19 This oblique proclamation of Gallican independence was a brave gesture that was appreciated more by many lay deputies than by their clerical colleagues, not to mention the Pope, but the majority of prelates in the Assembly were undeterred. They made up an unofficial steering committee that would not accept the preferences of Rome uncritically, by for instance, holding up the publication of Pius’ condemnatory Briefs.20 Nevertheless, those bishops who were not members of the Assembly and who had not taken the oath were leaving for exile from spring 1791 onwards and Burke immediately started to organise help for those who came to Britain. For this work, he received the thanks of Boisgelin speaking for all his fellow episcopal deputies, and there was a heartfelt, public exchange of compliments between Burke and the archbishop in July.21 Other French clergy had their doubts about the principles underlying the archbishop’s conduct. His conspicuous moderation and his suspicion of émigré schemes appeared distasteful set against the suffering of dispossessed non-jurors. Simply by remaining in the Assembly, he and the other

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episcopal deputies were sanctioning the legitimacy of Revolutionary actions whose fury fell on their colleagues. There followed an attempt to reveal to Burke how much he had mistaken his man if he deemed the archbishop principally responsible for preserving the integrity of the Catholic religion. There was, according to Boisgelin’s critics, a much seamier reality, with the archbishop ready to make every sort of concession throughout 1790–91 in his indefatigable search for an eleventh-hour compromise. Boisgelin and Bishop Bonal of Clermont were condemned by Claude-Constant Rougane, a curé from the Auvergne, for taking the civic oath of 4 February 1790 without a murmur – ‘au lieu de rougir, il avait souri’. They and all the prelates had to accept their share of the blame for the constitution, and repent. Criticism was directed in particular towards the archbishop of Aix, whose lifelong endorsement of religious tolerance Rougane execrated – the curé even blamed him for writing to a Protestant and ended his own letter to Burke by abjuring the politician to convert! The resulting mini-controversy has two points we might note. First, Boisgelin’s French critics were anxious to alert Burke directly about episcopal conduct he might find unacceptable. To quote from Rougane’s letter:22 Il faut, Monsieur, que vous n’ayez pas lu en entier les ouvrages de M. d’Aix, ou que vous ne les ayez lus qu’à travers la plus grande prévention pour l’auteur. Secondly, whatever the flexibility shown by the French episcopate either in the National Assembly or in local government, the passing of the Civil Constitution and the oath required to it, was a watershed. It became desirable for the bishops to project back on events since 1789 an image of their uncompromising political rectitude, precisely the version depicted in the Reflections.23 The compromising spirit of a Boisgelin was essentially alien to Burke’s emerging crusading mentality.24 The fact was that Boisgelin’s character and commitment to a moderate reformism – well displayed in his Coronation sermon of 1775 at Reims when he commended a limited monarchy to the young Louis XVI – was, as Rougane had correctly surmised, scarcely known to Burke.25 While there was no taint of theological heterodoxy attached to the archbishop, he had been associated from his student years at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice

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in the early 1750s with kindred spirits like Brienne, JéromeMarie Champion de Cicé, Morellet and Turgot who were by no means unsympathetic to the modernising vision commended in the Encyclopédie.26 Boisgelin was subtle in his diplomacy, capable of dissimulation, with an equal facility for writing funeral orations and licentious verse, alert to the beauties of Ovid as well as Bossuet.27 Burke took cognisance of none of this. Had he been better acquainted with the diversity of character and outlooks among the exiled bishops, Burke’s assessment of their viewpoints both in the Reflections, the subsequent writings, and his day-to-day politics might have been more nuanced. It should not be forgotten that in 1791–92 it was not the bishops who were known to Burke (except in a corporate sense), but Burke who was known to them, through the electrifying impact of the Reflections after translation and publication in France.28 To all his readers of whatever nationality, Burke stood forth as the defender of the historic order in Church and State in France and, indeed, in the whole of Europe. Yet, like the majority of educated Britons, Burke’s first-hand familiarity with religious politics in France during Louis XVI’s reign was restricted. This was predictable if, following scholars like C.P. Courtney, James Boulton and Marilyn Butler, one accepts that Burke knew little in detail about public affairs in France.29 He had not even visited it since his well-known journey of 1773, an occasion which prompted Mme du Deffand to confide in Horace Walpole the halting character of Burke’s spoken French.30 So Yves Chiron’s recent claim that ‘Edmund Burke connaît bien la France’ requires qualification.31 As Burke’s writings show, he was in command of much accurate information about the organisation and working of the First Estate in France, but none of his correspondents from France in 1789 or immediately before – Decrétot, Third Estate deputy for Rouen, Charles Jean-François de Pont, the Paris parlementaire, or Mme Parisot, Richard Burke’s landlady – had access to informed sources inside the Church. 32 There was no one who could pass on rumour and opinion in the manner that the abbé Morellet did for Lord Lansdowne. The one prelate Burke did know at first-hand, Jean-Baptiste-Marie Champion de Cicé, bishop of Auxerre, who had befriended him in 1773 and taught his son Richard the rudiments of French, he took as

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representative of the whole episcopal bench. The fact that Champion de Cicé was regularly absent in Paris, a fiery antiJansenist, and an ambitious politician, either did not impinge or was not taken into account. There was, then, every need for the first of the exiled prelates to arrive in Britain, JeanFrançois de La Marche, bishop of Saint Pol de Léon, to correspond with Burke in 1791, about some of the misconceptions he entertained about the French clergy.33 Once the other episcopal exiles reached Britain, Burke had his first opportunity to meet them personally or offer greetings and messages of support. He quickly, to quote Dominie Aidan Bellenger, ‘became the chief polemicist of the exiles’ principles’, seeing in them exemplars of suffering in ‘the cause of honour, virtue, loyalty and religion’, ‘a key part of that ancient constitutional order he wished to see restored in France’.34 But the immediate priority after the September Massacres and the overthrow of the monarchy was to bring practical assistance and comfort to the exiled clergy gathering in the Channel Islands and the southern ports. Burke did more than merely lend a prestigious name to fund raising. He wrote his Case of the Suffering Clergy of France which first appeared in The Evening Mail (17–19 September 1792), was translated, distributed in pamphlet form, and reprinted in The Annual Register. More than any other publication, it generated public support for French émigrés and facilitated the creation of John Wilmot’s Emigrant Relief Committee to co-ordinate charitable work among them. But Burke’s primary concern was always war on the Republic and its destruction. It was no coincidence that the Case of the Suffering Clergy was published in the same month (September 1792) as Burke drew up a memorandum for ministers, Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs, the nearest he comes to grand strategy, urging the liberation of the European nations from the Jacobins. The French émigrés and royalists still in arms were to be the vanguard of the liberating armies, backed by British might. 35 As for the émigré bishops, they were identified as a cohesive force which could both mobilise counter-Revolutionary opinion and give it the religious rationale appropriate in a battle for the survival of Christendom; he presumed, all too easily, that the notion of a crusade would have an immediate appeal to them.

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It was not the first of Boisgelin’s concerns when he finally reached London in September 1792 to join up again with former Monarchien colleagues, among them Malouet and LallyTollendal. He was one of the last bishops to reach Britain. During the winter of 1791–92 he had briefly visited Brussels and Mainz, before returning to Paris to resume his difficult role as unofficial head of the bishops’ committee in the capital. His arrival in England coincided with the imposition of a new oath on the non-juring clergy (the so-called ‘Liberty–Equality’ oath) which he reluctantly accepted. So did the majority of other London exiles, but their choice conflicted with the preference of French bishops elsewhere in Europe. Once in London, Boisgelin’s restless political drive gave him an involuntary supremacy in the committee of French bishops already in operation. Bishop La Marche’s pre-Revolutionary familiarity with policy-making was minimal by comparison with Boisgelin’s: he had not even been a member of the National Assembly. Yet it was La Marche who was identified as leader of the exiles in the host community. He was an early arrival in Britain, possessing a stability of character and purpose and lack of worldly ambition not to be found in the archbishop of Aix: to the pastoral respect of most exiled priests, including the non-Bretons, he added the confidence of Pitt’s administration. The two prelates actually worked together constructively for the rest of the 1790s. They pursued a moderate policy intended to preserve a spirit of Gallican collegiality among colleagues, putting pastoral care before political militancy. Boisgelin was more anxious than La Marche to influence British policy towards revolutionary France but scope for unilateral initiatives was restricted. Burke had only restricted contact with Boisgelin or, indeed, the other prelates between 1792 and 1797. Disagreements over policy meant that only weeks after he had helped summon it into existence, Burke ceased to attend meetings of the Emigrant Relief Committee regularly. It would be an exaggeration to say that Burke thereafter lost interest in their cause, but he was denying himself an important official forum in which to air his views among the Gallican leaders. He still acted as a fundraiser for the exiles, and entertained them on his estate at Gregories near Beaconsfield in south Buckinghamshire.36 But Gregories was small; the revenue it generated barely enough

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for Burke to maintain his status as a minor country gentleman. Though individual émigrés like the young and then unknown Chateaubriand travelled 30 miles north-west out of London to enjoy Burke’s table, his company and his temporary accommodation, Boisgelin felt no such compulsion.37 He eventually visited in the autumn of 1793 and helped to brief Burke about developments in France, much of it reaching him via clandestine contacts with clergy under persecution in Paris and Provence.38 Whatever their difference of emphasis on policy details, the exiled archbishop could not neglect the influence of Burke and his circle on the government. Burke may have left Parliament in the summer of 1794 just as the Portland Whig allies joined Pitt’s government, but he maintained his international prestige for the last three years of his life, not least by polemical contributions like the Letters . . . on a Regicide Peace. His cordial relationship with the new Secretary-at-War, William Windham, was potentially of vital consequence to the fortunes of the émigré bishops, despite the setback their cause sustained at Quiberon in 1795. 39 Boisgelin was desperate to have influence in these circles. Shortly after Burke had retired from the House of Commons in favour of his son, Richard, Boisgelin drew up a memorandum on the problems of a peace, an unpublished tract written in a relatively informal style, almost certainly sent initially to Richard Burke, to be passed on to the young man’s father. Yet its suggestion that, in the aftermath of the Thermidor coup which had deposed Robespierre, Britain stood to gain little from imposing a severe peace and that ‘l’ Angleterre en relevant la France, relève son commerce’ was hardly the sort of advice likely to win ministerial endorsement, particularly as Boisgelin tactlessly if prophetically argued that the popularity of Pitt was likely to plummet if the war continued.40 The predictably cool official reception of this document did not deter Boisgelin from further efforts.41 Burke’s practical usefulness to Boisgelin and the other émigré bishops in the last three years of his life was limited. He remained well disposed to the émigré cause, though increasingly preoccupied with Ireland, and in deep mourning for the premature death of his son Richard. Burke was respected for such initiatives as the Penn school for the education of émigré children, but he was not loved, and the relationship between himself and the French bishops in London had become

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progressively more distant since 1794. In particular, he had grown to disapprove of the bishop of St Pol de Léon’s influence: his role as trusted go-between for the Wilmot Relief Committee and the cosy relationship he had with some government circles.42 This might, in other circumstances, have represented an opening for Boisgelin, but the archbishop was disinclined to break rank, and spent much of the later 1790s with those members of his family sharing his London exile and taking solace from his literary studies, not Ovid this time but an appropriately penitential translation of the Psalms.43 For Burke, the unpalatable fact was that most bishops were more comfortable with the pragmatic approach of Pitt and Dundas towards the conduct of the war (and the minimal role for the exiled clergy within it) than with his own ideologically driven crusading schemes. The realisation that only a minority of the prelates such as Hercé of Dol (who perished on the sands of Quiberon Bay in 1795) were disposed either to take on the role of latter day knights templar and act as chaplains to the counter-revolutionaries in arms, or lend their skills and polemical talents to furthering the great cause was only slowly admitted by Burke. Burke was unprepared for compromise with any aspect of the French revolutionary state; Boisgelin was much more adaptable, as one might have expected from his reputation as a prélat administrateur before the Revolution.44 After Burke’s death, he would accept the Concordat, and resume his ecclesiastical career during the Consulate as archbishop of Tours (1802), a cardinal, and a Napoleonic senator (1803). Such a move was symptomatic of deep-seated differences towards the conduct of political life held by Burke and Boisgelin. However much mutual respect they entertained for each other, this divergence worked against bringing the two men into a close working alliance in their resistance to Revolution.

NOTES 1.

Dominic Aidan Bellenger, The French exiled clergy in the British Isles after 1789, Bath, 1986, pp. 4–5; ‘The French exiled clergy in England and national identity’, Studies in Church History 18 (1982), pp. 397–407.

210 2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

The French Émigrés in Europe Frank O’Gorman, Edmund Burke. His Political Philosophy, London, 1973, p. 108. Harmondsworth, 1969, 186; C.R. Cragg, Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge, 1964, pp. 273–4; Nigel Aston, ‘A “lay divine”: Burke, Christianity, and the Preservation of the British State, 1790–1797’, in Religious Change in Europe 1650–1914. Essays for John McManners, Oxford, 1997, pp. 185–211. The extent to which Burke drew on the Exposition des principes in Reflections is invariably overlooked. The episcopal declaration masked the extent to which the bishops had in 1789–90 been prepared to accept the end of the ‘old Order’. Significantly, Boisgelin’s final bid to have the Civil Constitution accepted by the papacy occurred a month after Reflections appeared. Albert Goodwin, ‘The Political Genesis of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France’, Bull. of the John Rylands Library, 50 (1968), pp. 336–64. Burke, Reflections, pp. 263–4. He also accepted that ‘The robbery of your church has proved a security to the possessions of ours’, ibid., p. 204. Frederick Dreyer, ‘The Genesis of Burke’s Reflections’, Journal of Modern History 50 (1978), pp. 464–6; cf. O’Gorman, Edmund Burke, pp. 110–11, 136–7. Burke, Reflections, p. 198. Burke to Richard Burke, 26 Sept. 1791, in ed. Thomas W. Copeland et al., Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 10 vols., Cambridge, 1958–78, VI. For the background to Richard Burke’s mission see Jennifer M. Welsh, Edmund Burke and International Relations. The Commonwealth of Europe and the Crusade against the French Revolution, Basingstoke, 1995, pp. 118–19. Nigel Aston, The End of an Elite. The French Bishops and the Coming of the Revolution, 1786–1790, Oxford, 1992, pp. 238, 241–2. See Jacques Le Goff & René Rémond, eds, Histoire de la France religieuse, vol. 3, Du roi Très Chrétien à la laïcité républicaine, Paris, 1991, 90. See generally E. Lavaquery, Le Cardinal de Boisgelin, 1732–1804, 2 vols, Paris, 1921. Boisgelin’s letters of spring 1789–spring 1790 to the Comtesse de Gramont (A.N. M.788) were ed. by A. Cans in La Révolution française 79 (1902), pp. 316–23; 80 (1902), 65–77, 301–17; Robert Griffiths, Le Centre perdu. Malouet et les ‘monarchiens’ dans la Révolution française, Grenoble, 1988. B.-J.-B. Buchez and P.-C. Roux, Histoire parlementaire de la révolution française, ou Journal des assemblés nationales depuis 1789 jusqu’en 1815, Paris, 1834, VI. pp. 11–12; Timothy Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary. The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789–1790), Princeton, NJ, 1996, p. 290. See Boisgelin’s criticism of the far right in a letter of 10 Oct. 1788: ‘You cannot imagine the harm which this group has done and continues to do. . . . Nothing could be more stupid. They understand neither circumstances nor human nature’. A.N. M 788.

Nigel Aston 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

211

Goodwin, ‘The Political Genesis of Edmund Burke’s Reflections’, 348–50. See generally D.O. Thomas, The Honest Mind: the Thought and Work of Richard Price, Oxford, 1977. Burke, Reflections, p. 198; Lavaquery, Boisgelin, II. pp. 50–1. By 1791, Burke gave the archbishop an honourable mention among other predominantly clerical deputies who had resisted the Revolution. See Burke to the Comtesse de Montrond, 25 Jan. 1791, Correspondence, VI. pp. 211–12. Maurice Vaussard, ‘Eclaircissements sur la Constitution civile du clergé’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française 42 (1970), pp. 286– 93, 292. Bernard Cousin, Monique Cubells, René Moulinas, La pique et la croix. Histoire religieuse de la Révolution française, Paris, 1989, pp. 151–2. J. Chaunu, Pie VI et les Evêques français. Droits de l’Eglise et de l’Homme. Le bref Quod aliquantum et autres textes, Limoges, 1989. A. Mathiez, ‘Les Divisions du Clergé Refractaire’, La Révolution française 39 (1900), pp. 44–73. Cf. Charles Ledré, L’abbé de Salamon: Correspondant et Agent du Saint-Siège pendant la Révolution, Paris, 1965, 104 ff. The committee continued to function until August 1792. See Boisgelin to Burke, n.d., Northamptonshire Record Office, Fitzwilliam MSS. A. xviii. 6 enclosing a missing copy of the Exposition des principes, and Burke to Boisgelin 15 July 1791, Correspondence, VI. pp. 293–5 (originally pub. London Chronicle, 30 Aug.–1 Sept. 1791). On 17 Aug., Boisgelin sent Burke a copy of his Considérations sur la Paix publique, adressées aux chefs de la Révolution, Paris, 1791. Burke told Boisgelin: ‘I will not examine scrupulously, by what motives men like you have thought it your duty to support all that you have done’, 15 July 1791, Correspondence, VI. 294. The Reflections contains a single passage (p. 223) criticising Boisgelin for offering (12 Apr. 1790), on behalf of the Clergy, an excessively large loan of 400 million livres to meet the fiscal needs of the state as an alternative to the land appropriation earlier decreed. C. Rougane, ancien curé d’Auvergne, Plaintes à M. Burke sur la lettre de M. l’archevêque d’Aix, Paris, 1791, B.L. F.R. 142 (10). Burke had told Boisgelin: ‘Your Church, the intelligence of which was the ornament of the Christian world in its prosperity, is now more brilliant, in the moment of its misfortunes, to the eyes who are capable of judging it’. 15 July 1791, Correspondence, VI. p. 293. Discussed most recently in Welsh, Edmund Burke and International Relations, pp. 141–66. John McManners, ‘Authority in Church and State. Reflections on the Coronation of Louis XVI’, in Christian Authority. Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, Oxford, 1988; Bernard Plongeron, La Vie quotidienne du clergé français au 18e siècle, Paris, 1974, 228. See also Boisgelin’s pamphlet of 1785 arguing that every political organisation should be founded in reason and the republican ideal of vertù. Lavaquery, Boisgelin, I. pp. 299–304. Edna Hindie Lemay, Dictionaire des Constituants, 2 vols., Oxford, 1991, II. p. 105.

212 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

The French Émigrés in Europe See the lucid contemporary character sketch cited in Louis Guimbaud, Un Grand Bourgeois au dix-huitième siècle. Auget de Montyon (1733– 1820), Paris, 1909, p. 142. The first 2500 copies translated into French sold out in two days. William B. Todd, ‘The Bibliographical History of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France’, The Library, 5th ser., 6 (1951–2), pp. 100–8. C.P. Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke Oxford, 1963, pp. 36–8; James Boulton, The Language of Politics in the Age of Wilkes and Burke, Oxford, 1963, p. 95; ed. Marilyn Butler, Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy. Cambridge, 1984, pp. 32–3. Cf. Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody. Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke, London, 1992, pp. 392–4; J.G.A. Pocock, ‘The political economy of Burke’s analysis of the French Revolution’, Historical Journal, 25 (1982), pp. 331–49. Burke’s library certainly contained an extensive collection of works on France and its history. See the Catalogue of the Library of the Late Right Hon. Edmund Burke (London, 1833). Sir Philip Magnus, Edmund Burke. A Life, London, 1939, speaks more aptly of Burke’s ‘fluent but atrocious French’. The details of the 1773 visit are given in Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke, pp. 32–5. Yves Chiron, ‘Edmund Burke’, pp. 85–97, in Jean Tulard, ed. La ContreRévolution. Origines, Histoire, Postérité, Paris, 1990. See also his Edmund Burke et la Révolution française, Paris, 1987. Jean Dumont, La Révolution française ou les Prodiges du Sacrilège, Paris, 1984, p. 234. Dumont is another who overstates Burke’s ‘connaissance directe du clergé français’. Cf. Burke’s own words in Reflections, pp. 252–3. Burke, Correspondence, VII. pp. 207–10. Bellenger, The French exiled clergy in the British Isles, p. 13. Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke. A Genius Reconsidered, Peru, Illinois, rev. edn, 1988, pp. 186–7. C.P. Ives, ‘The Gregories Today’, The Burke Newsletter, 4 (1962–3), pp. 188–9. There is useful material on Burke’s relations with the émigrés generally in S. Skalweit, E. Burke und Frankreich, Köln and Opladen, 1956. Burke to Richard Burke, 11 Nov. 1793, Correspondence, VII. p. 483. The Burke-Boisgelin tie was held up for censure by one British radical as indicative of ‘the polluted source whence his [Burke’s] intelligence is derived’. Charles Pigott, Strictures on the New Political Tenets of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, London, 1791, p. 59. Jacques Godechot, The Counter-Revolution. Doctrine and Action 1789– 1804, trans. Salvator Attanasio (Princeon, 1971), pp. 254–60. Ar. Aff. Etr. Fr. 623, f. 130. A copy was also sent to the Regent (the future Louis XVIII). In late 1794 he was trying to interest ministers in information about the Midi and Provence based on his own knowledge as well as observations on the émigré cause generally. He had little to show for his efforts. Lavaquery, Boisgelin, II. pp. 200–1. Boisgelin was averse to Fox and his politics. Declaring the leader of the Whig opposition to be a ‘Demagogue and Rebel’, he stated on 29 June 1793 that ‘Fox seems to be in

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42. 43. 44.

213

universal contempt both as a man & a politician all over the Continent’. To Lady Wharncliffe, in ed. C. Grosvenor, The First Lady Wharncliffe and Her Family (London, 1927), I. p. 33. Burke, Correspondence, IX. p. 11. Lavaquery, Boisgelin, II. pp. 203–4.45 and First pub. as Le Psalmiste (London, 1798). For Boisgelin’s politics in the mid-1790s, see his unpublished Projet de déclaration royale intended for Louis XVIII, and recommending that the king should have all power in his hands to ensure public peace and security. He would be ‘ . . . le garant et la sauvegarde de la tranquillité publique. D’immenses ressources seront données au monarque français pour rendre l’état florissant’. The Projet is in Archives des Affaires étrangères, fonds Bourbon, vol. 589, f. 567. It is a very much a product of the royalist high tide of 1795–7.

14 ‘Fearless resting place’: the Exiled French Clergy in Great Britain, 1789–1815 Dominic Aidan Bellenger Great Britain provided a refuge for several thousand exiled French clergy following ‘the moral tempest’ of the French Revolution. 1 Most of these clergy had left France following the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and its attendant and consequent oaths.2 A few clergy, mainly from the aristocratic classes, had made their move to British territory before 1792, but the numbers who came in the latter months of that year were on an unprecedented scale. The refugees of the 1792–93 generation were not the last. There was a continuous trickle throughout the decade, and on two occasions there were further floods. These were in 1794–95, following the successful French invasion of Germany and Holland and the decision to isolate the Channel Islands, and in 1797, when the coup d’état of Fructidor stopped a royalist reaction and drove many clergy who had returned to France, thinking the worst was over, back into exile. The two latter waves were diverted from the South of England to the North: on one day, 5 October 1796, 295 clergy were landed at South Shields as the northern part of the country was placed on a war footing.3 The various dates of arrival, the dispersal of the clergy, and a certain amount of travelling back and forth to and from Europe, make it difficult to asses the numbers of the clergy who found refuge in the British Isles, although the extant records of the Emigrant Relief Committee, founded by voluntary subscription, and later financed by government, to succour and administer the exiles, suggest some estimates.4 By September 1792 there were already 1500 exiled clergy in England and 1000 in Jersey.5 By December, the numbers had increased to 6000 or 7000 in the British Isles – 3000 in England and 3400 214

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in Jersey and the other Channel Islands. 6 Throughout the period 1793–1800 there was a mean figure of some 5000 exiled clergy on the English mainland – 4008 were receiving state aid at the end of 1793, 5621 in 1800. After the Concordat of 1801 between the French government and the Papacy, the numbers began to dwindle. By 1802 there were 800. After the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815, the numbers had fallen still further and of the 450 or so who were still receiving relief, 90 were marked as ‘returned’. Thus by 1815 only 350 remained. 7 By that date as many as 1000 had died in exile, although the obituaries in the English Catholic review, The Laity’s Directory, suggest a figure nearer 700. Few, beside the dead, remained in England after 1815. John McManners, in his study of Angers, has indicated that all the surviving parish clergy exiled from their city on the Loire returned as soon as possible to their native soil. 8 Many had grown old in exile, although the gloomy pages of the Treasury records, with their requests for medicines, hide from view the fact that most of the priests were relatively young on arrival.9 A group of exiles in Alderney, for example, in October 1792, whose ages were recorded, had an average age of 36.9 years, Age indications of émigré priests in Britain

Born before 1730

Born 1760-70 22%

9%

Born 1730-40 16%

28%

25%

Born 1740-50

Born 1750-60

Figure 14.1

Age indications of émigré priests in Britain.

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and only two of this sample of 23 were over 60 years.10 Another group (of 12) resident in 1798 in the vicinity of Hexham in Northumberland, had an average age of 48 – the youngest was 37, the oldest 71.11 Priests too old to be deported were often overlooked, and the really sick were frequently given compassionate dispensation ‘cette mesure est sans doute contraire aux lois; mais l’humanité semble l’exiger’.12 Most of the 30 or so bishops exiled in England chose London as their home. They were accompanied by many other dignitaries of the Church: vicars-general, canons, university professors. This middle rank of clergy was sizeable. The pre-Revolutionary chapter of Bayeux, for example, was a foundation of 62, consisting of a dean, 12 office holders and 49 canons – with a corporate wealth equal to that of the bishop.13 Such men were used to the routine of administration and were prepared to continue such a role in exile, thus retaining their diocesan solidarity, one of the chief marks of the Gallican church.14 At Scarborough in 1796 there was a heavy concentration of Bretons among the clergy (61 as compared to 33 from elsewhere) but what was more striking was that 53 of these came from the diocese of Rennes, one of whose ‘ci-devant’ vicars-general, Fayolle, acted as paymaster and coordinator of relief.15 At nearby York, where all the known exiled clergy were Bretons, a vicar-general for the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon acted as linkman with the London administration whose presiding genius was his ordinary, Mgr de la Marche, Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon.16 The ease with which diocesan uniformity was maintained was facilitated by the predominance of priests from Normandy and Brittany among the exiles. An analysis of the priests remaining in Jersey in March 1797 shows what dioceses they came from: Angers (3), Avranches (19), Bayeux (63), Chartres (1), Coutances (54), Dol (8), Evreux (4), Laon (1), Lisieux (2), Mans (22), Nantes (1), Paris (2), Quimper (1), Rennes (16), Rouen (2), Sens (8), Saint-Brieuc (11), Saint-Malo (35), Tours (1), Treguier (8) and Vannes (6).17 All the dioceses here are no further south than the Loire and mostly on the western seaboard. The Normans and Bretons clung to their identity; when the great hostel for the French priests in the King’s House, Winchester, was dispersed, the clergy there were rehoused according to region – the Normans to Reading, the

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Bretons to Thame.18 The survival not only of ecclesiastical loyalties but also of regional attachments helped to increase the isolation of the exiles from the mainstream of English life. The British administration saw the clergy as sufferers for ‘King and Country’ or more precisely for ‘Throne and altar’. An Emigrant Relief Committee, with special attention to the clergy, was set up in 1792, a quasi political body supported by collections.19 Its chairman was John Wilmot, MP for Coventry, who had previously administered the committee to relieve the plight of the American Loyalists, who had backed Britain during the American War of Independence. 20 Wilmot was to be the dominant influence until his resignation in 1806.21 but, to give the committee’s money-raising activities maximum effect, Wilmot was supported – on the printed appeal and in the early policy meetings – by a formidable panel of celebrated names.22 These included leading figures from political, civic, commercial and church life. The political figures were largely drawn from the Anti-Jacobins, like Burke, the Marquess of Buckingham, Earl Fitzwilliam and the Duke of Portland – men politically associated with the Portland Whig faction. Perhaps the most influential of the group was William Windham, Secretary at War (1794–1801), who was to become the linchpin in the governments’s dealing with the French émigrés, although he was never able to convert Pitt’s administration to the ‘ultra’ cause.23 It was never Wilmot’s intention to give the committee an ‘ultra’ political complexion and Wilmot must have been pleased by William Wilberforce’s membership of the committee, even if the opponent of the slave trade, no lover of Catholics, accepted membership mainly, or at his own understanding ‘partly’, to wipe out the ‘French citizenship’ with which the Republic had honoured him in 1792, and which he thought identified him with supporters of revolution.24 Wilmot must also have been pleased by the presence of the Lord Mayor of London whose own committee he had absorbed.25 The Bishops of Durham and London sat on the committee alongside several of the leading London clergy, including Dr Walker King, Preacher of Gray’s Inn and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, who was later to administer Burke’s school for exiled French children at Penn in Buckinghamshire. 26 Minority interests were not neglected. Charles Butler, a leading Roman Catholic layman and lawyer, was to be among the most

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active of the sponsors and one of the least objectionable representatives of his community. 27 Sir William Pepperell, a dispossessed baronet from New England who had benefited from the American Loyalists’ Commission, added a touch of institutional continuity.28 Thus supported, Wilmot set his appeal under way, and in late September and early October 1792, advertisements asking for support appeared in local and national papers. Newspapers appealed to public pity and charity in the face of the suffering of the clergy who had been ‘deprived of their property, and driven from their habitations, many of them imprisoned without cause, and all of them exposed to every species of insult’. France was presented as a salutary reminder of what civil disorder could bring to any society and as a country ‘where no one is safe, who will not trifle with oaths, and scoff at the Saviour of the World’. England was eulogised as the home of Christians whose national character is generous compassion and they surely have the strongest claims on us who suffer persecution for conscience sake. The clergy of France have been persecuted . . . merely because they were Christians.29 The stirring words of the appeals carefully glossed over the Roman Catholic convictions of the French clergy and made little mention of the complexities of the revolution in France. They called directly on benevolence and charity. They made no overt avowal of political stance, although they implicitly condemned the Republic of ‘pretended philosophy’.30 Such printed notices were highly successful in bringing in cash, collected locally, and sent to the central committee’s office at the residence of Dorothy Silburn, a widow from Durham who dedicated her life to the exiles and gave hospitality to the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon,31 in Little Queen Street, Bloomsbury.32 The formidable French Bishop was to be the leader of the ecclesiastical exiles. 33 The main subscription books survive and the names of donors reveal the wide public sympathy for the victims of revolution.34 The tales of the Terror caught the imagination of the public and loosened its purse-strings. It was not only the rich and influential who contributed. Laurence Neil, ‘a common weaver’, gave 2s 6d as did ‘a protestant servant’: two ‘work

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people’ presented £1.1s a ‘respecter of conscience and an enemy of persecution’ donated £3.3s, the ‘agents of the Leicester and North Canal’ gave £7.7s.35 But, admittedly, it was the more prosperous sections of society, and especially the aristocracy who gave the most. Buckingham, Fitzwilliam, Portland and other noble members of the Committee encouraged their fellows in the House of Lords.36 The Administration was slower in coming forward with donations but Lord Hawkesbury (later created Earl of Liverpool), President of the Board of Trade, gave £50 before the end of 1792 and Henry Dundas, Home Secretary, £100 on March 4 1793.37 Some of the donors were unexpected: Charles James Fox, no hater of revolutions or admirer of priests, gave £10. 38 The monies received were considerable, but outgoings were large. The payment of the clergy was now settling down to a regular system which needed more than a successful appeal to finance it. Before the end of October 1792 the everyday running of the committee was in the hands of the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon.39 who, with his wide personal knowledge of the exiles, along with his trusted ‘Grand Vicars’, provided not only an efficient accounting system but also a reliable agency of scrutiny.40 The bishop relied on his network of local paymasters, many of whom – like Postel, Pénitencier de Séez at Canterbury and Aprix de Bonnière at Winchester, who had been procurator of Evreux Cathedral, had gained their knowledge of practical matters as officials in the diocesan chapters of preRevolutionary France. 41 The income of the committee – apart from the small cost of hiring a room, a clerk of two, and stationery – was spent almost exclusively on the clergy and when, in the later months of 1793, the government began helping ‘the charity’ it had no problems of overbearing bureaucracy or unjust distribution of resources to eliminate.42 The Established Church backed up the state. Bishop Samuel Horsley drew comparisons, on 30 January 1793, in his sermon at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, between the events of 1649 and the ‘foul murder’ and barbarities of the unfolding French Revolution.43 Horsley’s sermon met with a thunderous reception at Westminster and later won him preferment.44 The Critical Review regarded it, not without justification, as an exaggerated case.45 And, like The Analytical Review, compared its lack of moderation

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unfavourably to the pronouncement of the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon.46 The Critical Review further declared that while respecting on the whole the bishop of St David’s talents . . . truth and justice oblige us to confess that his ideas upon politics are neither clear nor distinct, and that in this science at least he is far from being an adept.47 The Critical Review attempted a brief response to what it regarded as ‘new-modelled Jacobitism’ in the bishops’ arguments.48 Criticism notwithstanding, Horsley’s propositions found general acceptance among his colleagues on the episcopal bench who sensed in criticisms of the bishops’ writings a confirmation of the tendencies which Horsley had exposed. Such endorsement was shown in the widely voiced (and frequently printed) pronouncements of the bishops in the months and years following January 1793. Beilby Porteous, Bishop of London, in his 1794 Charge to the clergy of the diocese of London, waxed eloquent on the dangers of infidelity, atheism and dissent. He wrote, Though there is not ground for apprehending the introduction of atheism among us, yet we must not think ourselves secure from the inroad of every species of infidelity. He acknowledged the necessity of ‘some religion, some acknowledgement of a supreme Governor’, some sort of belief necessary for, ‘the security of this and every other government upon earth’.49 Like Horsley, the Bishop of London recognised the necessity of a religious dimension in society – a conscience of the state – like Horsley, he saw the Revolution as creating in France an unacceptable lacuna in this compartment. Like Horsley, too, the Bishop of London gave active support to the French exiles as exemplars of his theories, and became a member of the relief committee. 50 He encouraged the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon in his work for emigrant relief. 51 He supported Hannah More, the educator and popular writer, in her efforts for the ‘émigrés’.52 In the north, the Bishop of Durham, Shute Barrington, normally no supporter of ‘Romanism’, not only encouraged the exiles, but lodged some of them in his palace.53 The eccentric Bishop of Derry, who was also Earl of Bristol, gave practical assistance to ‘two miserable French exiles’ at

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St Austell, Cornwall, and overcame through them some of his prejudice against the French.54 The Bishop of Ely, James Yorke, suggested the setting up of an ‘émigré’ school to the Wilmot Committee for Emigrant Relief, while John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, was forthcoming not only with funds but even with practical advice as to how funds should be collected. 55 The clearest indication of the ‘politick’ charity of the episcopate, and other leading clergy, is provided by the subscription lists for the relief committee. The sums given by the bishops were considerable; few gave less than £50 and many gave more.56 The Cathedral foundations were particularly benevolent. The Dean and Chapter of Durham gave £52.10s on 11 October 1792 and the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury £50 on 10 December 1793. 57 Both universities were more than generous.58 A sum of £500 was received from the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford in November 1792 and considerable sums flowed in from Cambridge.59 The latter is overlooked by most commentators on the exile, perhaps because the Cambridge collection came in gradual instalments, perhaps because Oxford was more openly connected with the exiles not only because its Vice-Chancellor was a founder member of the relief committee but also because its university press was responsible for an edition of the Vulgate (of which two thousand were produced) for distribution to the French priests. 60 As with the bishops, the universities were prepared to give occasional practical assistance to individual exiles. Thomas Ingle, Fellow of Peterhouse, proved an invaluable friend to abbé Martinet, chaplain to the Huddlestons at Sawston, when the abbé was in some difficulties with the local authorities. At Oxford, it seems, many exiled priests were able to make a living from teaching French to undergraduates, and some were patronised by university society. 61 Abbé Thoumin des Valpons, formerly Archdeacon and Vicar General of Dol, was buried in Dorchester Abbey at the expense of the Warden of New College.62 The reception of the ‘émigrés’ by the Church of England reflected Horsley’s analysis of the nature of society and the impact of the French Revolution. The holders of office and influence within the Church appreciated the essential union of the Church and State in the Warburtonian perspective: they realised the use the emigrants could have not only in a demonstration

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of the catastrophic effects of the Revolution but also in the witness of suffering for conscience’s sake. They realised, too, and this should not be overlooked, the imperatives of Christian charity. It was the imperatives of Christian charity which led to the first contacts between the clergy charged with parish duty and the exiled priests of France. The parish clergyman was the established purveyor of charity in the locality and an obvious leader of local community action. The sudden influx of immigrants gave the clergy little time to think out the implications. Theirs was primarily a pastoral duty. What would now be called ecumenical relations were marginal, although a few spectacular defections from Rome to Canterbury were noted. Conversions to Rome were already discouraged and any signs of Catholic proselytism were stamped out.63 The English Roman Catholic community was somewhat ill at ease with the exiled clergy. It had suffered greatly during the French Revolution from the closure of its seminaries, monasteries, convents and schools on the continent. It was an under-resourced body with a network of missions and chaplaincies which depended on its gentry patrons in the same way its houses in Northern France had depended on French charity. Urban Catholicism was strengthening but the administrative structure, based on vicars apostolic rather than diocesan bishops, made the English Catholics the poor relations of the once great Gallican Church.64 London provides an example of the development of a separate French Catholic community in parallel to the English community.65 The Laity’s Directory listed eight French Catholic chapels in London in 1800.66 Abbé Tardy, whose guide for the French in London appeared in the same year, listed nine.67 Most of the priests who came to England through the southern ports drifted towards London. Some came to see the sights, others to find a permanent base. 68 The number of French clergy in London at any one time in the 1790s hovered around 1500; 1719 in November 1795, 1605 in January 1796, not a large number in a city whose population was already not far short of a million. 69 Their numbers seemed exaggerated, however, by their tendency, common for displaced persons, to move around in groups, and by a look of desolation, characteristics captured by a caricaturist in a print of 1792 depicting

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Emigrant Clergy Reading the late Decree, that all who returns (sic) shall be put to Death.70 As early as the end of 1792, they were attracting unfavourable attention. ‘It is impossible to walk a hundred yards in any public street here in the middle of the day without meeting two or three French priests’.71 There seemed no end to their numbers. They ‘swarmed into the streets of London’, where, in great distress, ‘they led some of the population to fear the worst’. 72 The ‘very great number’, in a city full of rumours of war, seemed to confirm threats of imminent invasion.73 Such feelings were largely dispelled when the exiled clergy settled down to become a familiar, selfsufficient, and particularly quiescent section of London’s cosmopolitan population. The newly arrived exiles found temporary accommodation in the ‘emigrant’ hotels which prospered as a result of the Revolution. Tardy recommended ‘Chez Guédon’ in Leicester Square, or ‘Chez Saulieu’, on the corner of Gerrard Street and Nassau Street, Soho, as a cheap and welcoming rendezvous for the newcomer, although English visitors to such places found them sordid.74 Sometimes the clergy found themselves in strange company. Abbé Petel, a curé from the diocese of Lisieux, wrote of the Hôtel du Canon where a motley crew was accommodated, Cette auberge, dont le Maitre parlait Français, était pleine de Liègois, jacobins forcenés et propagandistes, qui nous connurent de prime abord.75 Abbé Jean Baptiste Henry, a Premonstratensian canon, met less threatening company at the ‘Hôtel Suisse’, ‘Chez Danton’, Panton Square, where he paid ‘36 sols’ for each meal and the same for a bed.76 The effect on the prosperity of the hotels caused by such customers was short-lived, however, because the majority of the priests sought more permanent and economical lodgings. Petel, who only stayed in London for four months, found a place in the house of a Mr Adams in Portman Square at a cost of half a guinea a week.77 Some could not afford so much. La Cour, a young Norman priest from Bernay, found lodgings at the house of a ‘marchand épicier’ in Margate Street, where for ‘3 livres 12s’ a week a share in a bed was available.78 Thomas

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Moore, the Irish poet, while studying for the Bar in London, shared his humble digs with an exiled priest, ‘an old curé’, whose bed was placed tête-a-tête with his (a thin partition in between) ensuring that ‘not a snore’ escaped him. 79 Some lived in community, like the seminarists from the Foreign Missions Society, who were able to live on 30 sous a day.80 A few managed to retain something of their accustomed lifestyle. The archbishop of Narbonne, Arthur Dillon, lived in ‘a modest house’, but was none the less able to employ a personal servant, and offer open house to six aged bishops, who included several of his suffragans from Languedoc.81 The exiles gravitated to the areas where cafés and ‘hôtels garnis’ provided suitably ‘French’ material comforts, and encouraged a ‘ghetto’ mentality. An address book preserved in the Treasury records suggests that Somers Town, on the northern fringes of Central London, a speculative building estate with much vacant property in the early 1790s, was the favourite residence for the clergy.82 It had many advantages. It was cheap, but convenient for most of the exiles’ needs; the Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon’s relief office, where the national funds for the French clergy were distributed, was in nearby Bloomsbury as was the Reading Room of the British Museum, much frequented by exiles and Somers Town was well placed, too, for several of the chapels established for the use of the French.83 The principal chapel, the Annunciation, King Street, Portman Square, was opened in 1799. Many celebrations and still more funerals were held there.84 Mrs Larpent commented on the funeral of the Bishop of Montpellier. The whole scene was extremely interesting, the chapel filled with old venerable distinguished clergy and tottering yet fine-looking men with their crosses and stars . . . faded grandeur, such a melancholy remnant of their prosperous days.85 But not all was so poignant. The ‘Annonciation’ was the centre of religious formation for a group of Suplicians who hoped to work in Canada, having been refreshed by the ‘grande tranquillité’ of London. 86 There was catechism for children, religious instruction for adolescents and a variety of ‘self help’ activities, concentrated in the ‘Association de Prières et de Charité’. 87

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Frequently, however, they found themselves reliant on the generosity of their hosts. Talma, cousin of the great actor, who practised as a dentist in London, looked after the émigrés’ teeth for nothing.88 Some doctors offered their services ‘gratis’, they included Mr Ball, a surgeon of Warwick Street, near Charing Cross, who was prepared to give ‘surgical assistance’ to any poor exile in distress.89 Hospitals, too, offered their facilities. The Middlesex Hospital was particularly helpful. Two wards were made available for the French clergy from 1793 to 1814. In the hospital, the French were self-catering, and in this setting, as elsewhere, chose to keep to themselves, living as separately as possible from their English fellow patients.90 In the world of education, into which many of the clergy were drawn, both by economic necessity, and by the desire for French tutors, the exiles also preferred to remain their own masters. Some found jobs as private tutors to English families – like abbé Lainé who taught the children of a Lord Mayor; others, like abbé Voyaux de Franous, who included the future Prime Minister Robert Peel among his pupils – were able to build up a considerable reputation as private teachers. Many other exiles, however, clubbed together and started schools both for the children of lay emigrants and for any English person who might like to make use of them.91 The pages of The Laity’s Directory over the years include numerous notices for schools like those for ‘The French Academy’ in Hammersmith (1793) and ‘The French Charity School’ at 42 North Street, Manchester Square (1812) which provided education for 30 or 40 boys, and for 15 or 20 girls.92 Some of these schools were to have a long life, and to provide a good educational standard, but too many were based on shaky foundations. The isolation of the French clergy in London was encouraged by their environment. Many of the exiles were from the countryside, and found adjustment to urban life difficult, losing something of the status and influence they had held in their village communities. They found the climate – especially the London fog – a constant cause for concern, and unfavourable comparison.93 Others found the fog less disagreeable than the people of the city. Overt dislike was combined with casual misunderstandings, like that which prompted an English woman to ask a priest, ‘What have you done with your wives?’.94 Poverty emphasised isolation and depression. ‘There was no view

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. . . except the Catholic churchyard, the last resting-place of our poor fellow countrymen. The dismal bell and the tears that were shed on these modest tombs, often wrung our hearts’.95 Although, as we have seen, the life of the French émigré clergy in London was largely a life apart, it nevertheless had an influence in the London population, especially on the Catholic minority. The French chapels soon opened their doors to wider congregations. One of those – St Mary’s, Holly Place, Hampstead, opened in 1816 by Abbé Jacques Morel from Normandy – remains in use in a much altered state, but several London Catholic parishes, including St Aloysius, Somers Town and St Mary’s, Cadogan Street, Chelsea, which both retain contemporary monuments to thier respective founders, Carron and Voyaux de Franous, owed their foundation to an emigrant priest.96 One émigré cleric, Charles Adrien Langréney, was among the first to minister (in modern times) to the Catholics in the area now served by Westminster Cathedral.97 The French also assisted the English (and Irish) priests in existing chapels. At St Patrick’s, Soho, Anne René le Sage, who later settled and died in Staffordshire, was a frequent administrator of the sacraments in the 1790s. 98 Abbé Pierre Alexis Massot was priest-sacristan at the Spanish Chapel while abbé Bargelon acted as an assistant-priest at the Bavarian chapel.99 To the wider London community, the French émigré clergy contributed information on France, French lessons and a healthy reminder of the existence of a wider European society during a period when xenophobia was all too obviously the order of the day. Without this forgotten community, London life, as well as the life of the wider nation, would have been very much the poorer. They came; – and, while the moral tempest roars Throughout the Country they have left, our shores Give to their Faith a fearless resting-place William Wordsworth

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NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

The phrase comes from an ecclesiastical sonnet, first published in 1827, by William Wordsworth. See D.A. Bellenger, The French Exiled Clergy in the British Isles after 1789, Bath, 1986, p. 2. J. Sykes, Local Records, Newcastle, 1866, p. 381. PRO T93 1–89; BL addI MSS 18591–18593. BL addl MS 18591, fol 3. Foreign Ministry Archives, Paris. AAE 616 (France et divers stats, 263) 1801–1815. Liste générale des ecclésiastiques existant en Angleterre lors de la rentrée du Roi, fols 230–42. Archives Nationales, Paris. ANF 19 (Cultes) 3219, le clergé Français en Angleterre. J. McManners, French Ecclesiastical Society under the Ancien Regime, Manchester, 1960, p. 298. The following table draws on data complied by Bellenger for The French Exiled Clergy, pp. 142–258. The chart was created for, K. Carpenter, Les émigrés à Londres 1792–1797, Doctoral thesis, Paris I, Sorbonne, 1995, p. 322. PRO T 93, 43, 292–93. Northumberland Record Office, Allendale MSS, Hexham Manor Papers, Box 60. ANF 19 (Cultes) 1006. Département de Cantal. Directoire au Ministre de la Police, unfoliated. O. Hufton, Bayeux in the late eighteenth century, Oxford, 1967, pp. 21–2. B. Plongeron, La vie quotidienne du clergé français au XVIII siècle, Paris, 1974, p. 93. PRO T 93, 44, pp. 254–5. Ibid, pp. 259–60. PRO T 93, 42, pp. 575–80. See Bellenger, op. cit., Chapter 5, pp. 73–9. Ibid, for the Committee, Bellenger, Chapter 2, pp. 11–20. See M.B. Norton, The British-Americans. The Loyalist Exiles in England, London, 1974. PRO T 93, 6, p. 285. BL addl MS 18591, unfoliated; PRO T 93 89 (Printed émigré documents). F. O’Gorman, The Whig Party and the French Revolution, London, 1969, pp. 215–16. R. Furneaux, William Wilberforce, London, 1974, pp. 319 and 107. Margery Weiner, The French Exiles 1789–1815, London,1960, p. 57. BL addl MS 45, 723 (Penn School Papers) La Marche to Walker King, 1798, fol 3. PRO T93, 2, p. 270. J.E. Wilmot, Historical View, London, 1815, p. 18. The Reading Mercury, 15 October 1792. Ibid. PRO T93, 13, Testimonial of Mrs Silburn, pp. 302–4.

228 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

The French Émigrés in Europe PRO T 93, 1, 6 November 1794, unfoliated. See Bellenger, Chapter 7, pp. 99–104. PRO T 93, 8, 24, 25, 50. PRO T 93, 8. Ibid, pp. 3, 25 and 60. Ibid p. 36 and PRO T93 26, Wilmot to Audit Office, January 1807, unfoliated. Ibid, Wilmot and Glyn to Audit Office, 21 February 1807. PRO T 93, 40, Canterbury. Archives départmentales de L’Eure, G 1816. PRO T93, 1, 6 November 1794, and S Horsley, Sermon 44 Sermons III, Dunlee, 1813. A.P. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 2nd edn, London, 1868, p. 535. Ibid, p. 536. The Critical Review VII, p. 215. The Analytical Review XV, p. 232. The Critical Review VII, pp. 219–20. Ibid., p. 473. B. Porteus, Change, London, 1794, pp. 19–31. BL addl MS 18591. Printed list of Committee. Lambeth Palace, London, M S 2102 Diary of Beilby Porteus, 3 April 1791. H. More, Life and Correspondence II, London, 1834, p. 368. G. Townsend, (ed.) The Theological Works of the First Viscount Barrington I, London, 1828, pp. XLVIII–XLIX. W.S. Childe-Pemberton, The Earl Bishop, II, London, 1924, pp. 433–4. BL addl MS 18592, fol 105. PRO T 93, 8, p. 61, and BL addI MS 18591, fol. 87. PRO T 13, 8. Ibid., pp. 33 and 53. L. Stone, ed., The University in Society I, Princeton, 1975, p. 285. PRO T93, 8, pp. 47, 42, 50, 51, 52, 58. 61, 67, 71, 74. B L addI M S 18591. Printed list of Committee and Weiner, op. cit., pp. 65–6. Cambridge Record Office, Sawston Papers, Martinet to Richard Huddleston, 17 October 1798, 488 C.3 M 27 and L. Stone, op. cit., p. 285. B. Stapleton, Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire, 1906, pp. 247–8. See Bellenger, Chapter 3, pp. 31–43. For the British establishments on the European mainland see P. Guilday, The English Catholic Refugees on the Continent, 1558–1795, London, 1914. For the English Catholics see the revisionist account of J. Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570–1850, London, 1975. For the place of London in the clerical emigration see Bellenger, Chapter 5, pp. 67–73. The Laity’s Directory 1800, p. 6. Abbé Tardy, Manuel du voyageur à Londres, London, 1800, p. 221. Abbé Barston, Mémoires, II, Paris, 1898, p. 9. BL addl MS 18592, fol. 66 and 97.

Dominic Aidan Bellenger 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

97. 98. 99.

229

Printed by S.W. Fores of 3 Piccadilly, London. S. Romilly, Memoirs, II, London, 1840, p. 11. Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Memoirs, II, London, 1853–55, p. 215. Earl of Minto, Life and Letters II, London, 1874, p. 91. Abbé Tardy, Manuel du Voyageur à Londres, London, 1800, p. 16 and The European Magazine 39 (1801), pp. 441–3. S.J.H. Petel, Sur les routes de l’exil, Rouen, p. 16. J.B. Henry, ‘Journal d’emigration’, Analectes pour servir à l’histoire ecclésiastique de la Belgique 26 (1896), pp. 207–72. Petel, p. 16. Ibid., p. 24. T. Moore, Memoirs I, London, 1853, p. 73. See E.M. Wilkinson, ‘French Emigres in England’, unpublished Oxford BLitt, Dissertation (1952), pp. 239–40. Marquise de la Tour du Pin, Memoirs, ed. F. Harcourt, London, 1969, pp. 315–16. PRO T 93 (Clergy Payments), D, Ecclesiastics receiving aid, circa 1803, unfoliated. D. Newton, Catholic London, London, 1950, p. 276 and G.F. Barwick, The Reading Room of the British Museum, London, 1929 p. 47. See Bellenger, pp. 68–70. R.M. Bradley, ‘Mrs Larpent and the French Refugees’, The Nineteenth Century, 75 (1914) p. 1329. Archives of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Fonds Canada. Dossier 55. Bourret, Lettre 14, 5 August 1799. J. de Boisgelin, Discours, London, 1799, p. 29. Weiner, p. 128. PRO T93, 52, p. 56. D. Bellenger, Healing and Expiation, London Recusant NSI (1985, pp. 6–12. W.J. Battersby, ‘The Educational work of the French Refugees’, The Dublin Review 223 (1949) p. 108. and BL addI MS 4025 (Peel Papers), ‘Memorial of Abbé Voyaux de Franous’, 1813, fol 259. The Laity’s Directory 1793, p. 11 and ibid., an 1812 advertisement. Petel, p. 23. Ibid., p. 32n. Duchesse de Gontaut, Memoirs I, London, 1894, p. 51. See Bellenger, ‘Hampstead Catholics of the Georgian Age’, Camden History Review 10 (1982) pp. 5–6. Bellenger, Chapter 7, pp. 104–9. W.J. Anderson, A History of the Catholic Parish of St Mary’s, Chelsea, Chelsea, 1938. H. Keldany, ‘In the steps on the Abbe Langreney’, Westminster Cathedral Chronicle (December 1972) p. 12. Baptismal Register of St Patrick’s, Soho Square, London, 1790–1807, especially 1803–1807. Baptismal Register of St James, Spanish Place, London, 1761–1815 and Baptismal Register of the Assumption, Warwick Street, London, 1793–1819 especially 1812.

Index Adams, John 146–7 agents and spy networks 7, 38 Aix-la-Chapelle 7 Alexander, Boyd 96 Alexander I, Tsar 10, 12, 17 Alexander Leopold, Archduke, death 75 Aliens Acts (1798 and 1800) 59, 114 Alsace 35 Angoulême, Duc d’ 19, 29, 109, 117, 118 in Edinburgh 111, 112 portrait by Danloux 172, 173 armée de Condé 6, 34–6, 36–7, 39, 74 British financial assistance 38 dissolution 41 proposed employment in British colonies 39 proposed incorporation into Russian army 39–40 and William Pitt 36 armée des Princes 33, 34 army of the émigré government 1, 6 desertion from 72 Artois, Comte d’ (Charles X) 5, 8–9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19, 29, 54, 109 appearance 115 arrival in Edinburgh 108–9 at Portsmouth 110 escape from Valenciennes 69 estate at Wittmold 10 in Holyrood 110–14, 115–16, 117–20 in London 9, 52, 54, 117 in Paris 117 portrait by Danloux Plate 1, 172, 173–4 Assemblée Nationale 69 ‘ateliers’ 54–5 Austria 3, 4, 18, 34, 37–8 Austro-Prussian Alliance (1792) 101

Azilum, Philadelphia

140

Barruel, Abbé, conspiracy theories of 180 Batthyány, Count Théodore 70 ‘Sentiment d’un patriote hongrois’ 76–7 Beaumetz, M. de 139, 141 Beckford, William 84, 89, 90, 95 Berchény, François Antoine 68, 71, 72, 73 Berchény, Maréchal Ladislas de 68, 71 Berri, Duc de 14, 19, 29, 40, 109 in Edinburgh 114, 115 marriage attempts 10–11 portrait by Danloux 173 Berstheim 35 Besenval, Baron de, portrait by Danloux 176 Biberach, battle 39 Blacas, Comte de 15, 16, 18 Blankenfeld 11 Boigne, Comtesse de 47, 113 Boisgelin, Jean de Dieu-Raymond de Cucé de, Archibishop of Aix 54, 198, 201–2, 203, 204 arrival in London 207 and Burke 206–7 character and reformism 204–5 Exposition des principes 199 Bombelles, Marc-Marie, Marquis de 84, 88, 89, 90 bookshops, in London 50–1 Bordeaux 19 Bordeaux, Duc de 117, 119, 120 Boufflers family 48, 104 Bourbon, Duc de 28, 33, 34 portrait by Danloux 167 wounding at Berstheim 35 Bourlin, Les Amours et Aventures d’un Émigré 158–9, 161 Boyd & Ker’s Bank 169

230

Index Boyd, Mrs 167, 169–70 Boyd, Walter 167, 169, 170 Brabant 33 Braganza court 94 Brazil 83, 94 Brillat-Savarin, Anthelme Physiologie du goût 142 in the United States 138 Brisgau 35, 38 Britain 9, 15–16, 18–19, 37 Brumaire 191 Bruno, Louis de, Lioncel ou l’Émigré, nouvelle historique 159 Brunswick, Duke of 3, 35 Buccleuch family 112, 176 Burke, Edmund 198–9, 205 Case of the Suffering Clergy of France 206 contact with Boisgelin 206–7 and exiled clergy 206–7 Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs 206 Letters . . . 208 Reflections on the Revolution in France 197, 199 Burke, Richard 200, 205, 208 Burney, Fanny 48, 50 Calonne, Charles Alexandre de 167, 176, 185 Tableau de l’Europe 184, 187 Canning, George 13, 14 Carrère 87, 88 Castries, Maréchal de 3, 4, 5, 6 La vie quotidienne des émigrés 96 Catherine II, Empress of Russia 2, 3, 34, 36 Catholic Church, in the United States 145 Châlons, Comte de 86, 90 Champion de Cicé, Jean-BaptisteMarie, Bishop of Auxerre 205–6 Channel Islands, and exiled clergy 206, 214–15 Chantilly 30 Chapel of the Annonciation, King Street (Portman Square), London 53–4, 224

231

Charles X see Artois Charleston, South Carolina 144 Chateaubriand, François René, Vicomte de: Atala 151 and Burke 208 Essai historique sur les révolutions anciennes et modernes 51 René 151 in the United States 138, 139 Chaves, Castelo Branco 92–3 A emigraçao francesa em portugal durante a Revoluçao 96 church property, confiscation 125, 134, 189, 199 Civil Constitution of the Clergy 197, 198, 200, 203, 204, 214 Cobbett, William, le Tuteur anglais 140 Coblenz 2, 31, 33, 153–5, 200 Coigny, Duc de 90–1, 95, 117 Coigny, Duchesse de 92 Condé, Prince de 11, 33, 35, 37, 38, 40–1 at Rastadt 36 at Worms 31 Journal d’émigration 30 journey to Brussels 28 in Marylebone 52 portrait by Sophie de Tott Plate 5 qualities 29–30 Condé, Princess Louise de 119, 120 Confessions of Jean-Baptiste Couteau 187 confiscation, of émigré goods 134 Congress of Chatillon 17 Constance 40 Convention, the 190 Council of War (1787) 69 Courier de Londres, Le 51, 185, 187, 189 Courrier français 139, 142–3, 147, 148 Craufurd, Colonel Charles 38, 39, 41 ‘Creed of the Lombard Republic’ 86 Crissé, General Lancelot Turpin de, Essai sur l’art de la guerre 72

232

Index

Damas, Comte Roger de 32, 120 Danloux, Henri-Pierre 50 life: and Calonne 167; in London 165; marriage 166; and Mme de Polastron 174, 175; money problems 174; return to France 177; and William Pitt 167 work: child-portraits of Buccleuch family 176; engravings 172; for French Royal family 173; portrait of Angoulême 172, 173; portrait of Artois Plate 1, 172, 173–4; portrait of Baron de Besenval 176; portrait of Mgr de la Marche, Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon Plate 2; portrait of Duc d’Bourbon 167; portrait of Duc de Berri 173; portrait of Hosten 167, 176; portrait of Lady Jane Dalrymple Hamilton Plate 3; portrait of Lady Petre 173; portrait of Mlle Duthé 167–8; portrait of Mrs Boyd 167; portrait of Prince Augustus 167; portrait of Robert Lee 168; portrait of Comte de Vaudreuil 167, 175; portrait of Viscount Keith 177; and Royal Academy 175 Danloux, Mme 53 David 165, 166 De Boffe (bookshop) 51 Declaration of Brunswick 3 Declaration of Calmar (1804) 11–12 Declaration of Hartwell (1813) 15–16 Delices de Coblentz, ou anecdotes libertines des émigrés français 153–4 Dessoffy, Canon Ladislas 74–5 ‘Mes adieus à Korompa’ 78 Diesbach, Ghislain de, Histoire de l’émigration 1789–1814 96

Dillon, Arthur, Archbishop of Narbonne 201, 224 Directory 8, 146, 191 D’Ivernois, Francis 184, 185 Dulau 50–1, 140 Dumouriez 72 Duthé, Mlle 167–9, 172 Edinburgh arrival of Artois 108–9 arrival of Polignac family 112 see also Holyrood Emigrant Relief Committee 206, 207, 209, 214, 217–19 Les Emigrantes ou la Folie à la mode 153 Emigration 29, 44, 105, 126 émigré bishops 206 in England 197, 216 and ‘Liberty-Equality’ oath 207 émigré clergy 77, 93, 94–5, 225 in Britain 206, 214; age indications 215–16; from Normandy 216–17; isolation 217; numbers 214 in Hungary 74–5 in London 222–6 and parish clergy, in England 222 in Prussia 103, 105 émigré craftsmen, in Prussia 105 émigré government 1–8 archives 5–6 army 6 calibre 5–6 and European politics 20–1 and Russia 2–4 subjects of 6–7 émigré novel 151–8 émigré press 184–93 émigrés bookshops 50–1 crossing the channel 46–7 financial losses 134 in Hungary 76–8; political activity 75–6; as prisoners of war 73–4

Index indemnification 124–33 in London 43–9, 53; life in poor areas 56–7; literary activity 51–2; music 55–6; poverty 51–2; socioeconomic composition 44–5; Soho 43, 49–51; work 54–6 mémoires 134–5 and Napoleon’s downfall 18 outside France 7 in Portugal 84–6, 87–8, 94–6; financial problems 88 in Prussia 101–5 petitions to king 103–4; and servants 105–6 transfer of money from France 105 in United States 138–9; isolation 140–1; language problem 139–40; trades and professions 143–4 Encyclopédie 205 Enghien, Duc d’ 12, 28, 34, 35, 40 execution 41 Esterhazy family 33, 71, 72 Esterhazy, Ladislas Valentin Comte d’ 68, 73 military career 68–9 plans for King’s escape 70–1 royalist activity 70 Fenno, John, Gazette of the United States 147 fiction, during the eighteenth century 151 financial reform, and the Provisional Government 128–9 Flahaut, Comtesse de 58, 152 Adèle de Senange 51, 52 Flaschlanden, Baron de 5, 6, 36 Fonds Bourbon 5 fonds commun de réserve, abolition 126, 127, 128 food, influence of the French in the United States 144–5 France aristocratic society 95 expansion in Europe 12

233

and Portugal 83–4 religious revival 95 war against 33–4 war against Austria 3 Franche-Comté 38 Francis II, Emperor of Austria 34 Francophobia, in the United States 145–8 Frederick William II 3, 104 French army, emigration and desertion 72 French deserters, and Condé’s forces 35 French nobility, as soldiers 36–7 French Revolution 7–8 émigré press on 188–9 and foreign governments 2 Fructidor 214 Garnier-Pagès, Louis Antoine 128–30 Gauthier brothers 130–1 General Assembly of the Clergy of France 201 Genlis, Comtesse de Les Petits Emigrés ou Correspondance de quelques enfants 152 literary works 104 Gontaut, Madame de 111, 114 Gorce, Pierre de la 124, 133–4 Gordon, Lord Adam 108, 110, 116 Gorjy, Ann’ Quin Bredouille 155–6 Grenville, Lord 8, 38, 110 Hamm 3 Harcourt, Duc d’ 36, 110 Hartwell House, near Aylesbury 14 hat-making, in London 54–5 Henry of Prussia, Prince 104 Herheim 35 Holy See 103 Holyrood 108, 109, 110 Artois at 110–14, 115–16, 118–20 improvements 115–16 proposed as residence for Louis XVIII 116–17 Hosten, M. 170–2 portrait by Danloux 167

234

Index

Huet Villiers, François, portrait of Louis XVIII Plate 7 Hugo, Victor 109 Hungary attitude to French émigrés 76–8 émigré priests 74–5 migrations 68 political activities of émigrés 75–6 prisoners of war 73–4 Indemnity Bill (1825) 124, 125, 127–8, 130, 132, 134 Inquisition 86, 93, 94 international relations 1792–97 37–9 isolation of émigré clergy in Britain 217, 225–6 of émigrés in United States 140–1 Jay’s Treaty (1795) 146 Journal de France et d’Angleterre 185 Journal of a French Emigrant 161 Junot, Laure, Duchesse d’ 92 Memoirs 89 Keith, Viscount, portrait by Danloux 177 Kreutznach 33 La Ferronays, Comte de 16, 91 La Marche, Jean-François de, Bishop of Saint Pol de Léon 172, 206, 207, 209, 216, 218, 224 portrait by Danloux Plate 2 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Duc de 140–1, 142, 143, 202 Prisons de Philadelphie 139 in the United States 138 La Rochefoucauld, Comte François de 70 la Tour du Pin, Marquise de 43 la Tour du Pin, Mme de 56, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 145 la Tour du Pin Montauban, René, Marquis de 91–2 Laffitte, Jacques 126–7

Lagrange 131 Landau 35 Langeron, Comte de 19 portrait by Mlle de Noireterre Plate 8 L’Aristocrate converti ou le retour de Coblentz 154–5 Larousse, Pierre, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle 125–6 Latil, Abbé (later Cardinal) 113–14, 117, 119 Lauterbourg 35 Lee, Robert, portrait by Danloux 168 Lézay-Marnésia, Marquis de Lettres écrites des rives de l’Ohio 139 in the United States 138 ‘Liberty-Equality’ oath, and émigré bishops 207 Liomin, La Bergère d’Aranville ou l’Emigration 156 Lisbon 83–4, 88, 90–1 literary activity, of émigrés in London 51–2 London arrival of émigrés 43–9 development of French Catholic church 222–8 émigré poverty 51–2, 56–7 Marylebone, émigré population 45, 52–6 Saint George’s Fields 57, 58 Soho 43, 49–51, 223 Louis XVIII 4 at Mittau 8, 10, 12 in Britain 13–16 council 4–5 in Essex 117 portrait by François Huet Villiers Plate 7 right to the crown of France 11 in Verona 38 see also Provence, Comte de Loyal Emigrant Regiment 6 Maison Militaire du roi 1 Mallet du Pan, Jacques 85, 185, 187, 190, 191 Manique, Pina 86–7, 91, 93

Index Marialva, Marquis de 84, 89, 90 Meilhan, Senac de, L’Émigré 51 Melo e Castro, Martinho 83, 85 mémoires, of émigrés 134–5, 151–2, 161 Mercure britannique 185 Mercure de France 185 Mesgrigny, Mme de 153–4 milliard des émigrés 124–32 Mirabeau, Comte de 29, 32, 202 Mittau 8, 10, 12 Montlosier, Comte de 185, 191–2 Moreau de St-Méry 146–7 bookstore in Philadelphia 140 in the United States 138–9 Voyage aux États-Unis de l’Amérique 139 Napoleon I 17, 18 defeat at Waterloo 117 defeat in Russia 15 émigré press on 192–3 National Assembly 201, 203 Nauzières, Mme 172 portrait by Danloux 169 Neuilly, Comte de 72–3, 134–5 Noailles, Duc de 5 Noailles, Vicomte de 140 Northcote, Mr 175, 176 Ober-Kamlach, battle 39 Oliveira Ramos, Luís A. de 88, 91, 96 Orléans, Duc d’ 9, 138, 141–2 pamphlet literature, anti-French 76 Paris 19–20, 155 Paul I, Emperor of Russia 8, 9–10, 39 Peltier, Jean-Gabriel 56, 185, 186, 187, 190 Perregaux, M. 167–8 Petre, Lady, portrait by Danloux 173 Pillnitz, conference of 2 Pitt, William 36, 167 Pius VI, Quod aliquantum 203

235

Polastron, Louise d’Espartès Vicomtesse de 54, 109, 111, 113, 117 and Danloux 174, 175 Polignac, Duc de 74, 112 Pomerania 16 Pontgibaud de Moré, Chevalier 139, 143–4 Portland, Duke of 110, 116 Portugal aristocratic society 95 attitudes to governance 83 émigrés 87–8, 94–6; émigré priests 93; financial problems 88; Portugese perception of émigrés 84–6 and France 83–4 French priests in 93, 94–5 nobility 89–90 social life 89–91 women 89 Pradel de Lamase, Paul 41, 134 Pressburg, community of priests at 74 Price, Dr Richard, Discourse on the Love of our Country 202 priests see émigré clergy prisoners of war, in Hungary 73–4 professions, emigration 49 property, Republican threat to 189 Provence, Comte de (Louis XVIII) 1, 2, 3, 31, 38 Provisional Government, and financial reform 128–9 Prussia émigrés: émigré clergymen 103, 105; government policy towards 101–5; servants 106; trades 105–6 legislation to control immigration into 102, 106 secret archives 101 Public Advertiser 165 Quiberon Bay, expedition to 57–8, 109

236

Index

Reflections 204, 205 Republic, image in émigré press 185–8 Revolution Society 202 Rivarol, Antoine 10, 49 Robinson, Mary, Hubert de Sevrac, a romance of the eighteenth century 158 Rochechouart, Comte de 16, 17, 18, 19, 89 Romanzov, Count 2, 16 Rothemburg 35 Russia 2–4, 9, 12, 16–17, 39–40 Saint-Priest, Comte de 5, 6 Saint-Domingue 144, 171 Salaberry, Charles-Marie d’, Comte de 75–6 Sardinia 14, 29 Second Coalition, war of 9 Sénac de Meilhan, L’Émigré 156–7 Staël, Mme de 151–2 Corinne 160 Steinstadt, battle of 39 Sweden 13 Talleyrand, Charles-Maurice de 7, 19, 115 Mémoires 141 in the United States 138, 139, 143, 145 territorial expansion, French 7, 16 The Critical Review 219, 220 Thermidor 188, 189, 208 Third Estate émigrés 44, 45, 105 Thugut, Baron 4, 38 Tott, François Baron de 68, 70, 76 Tott, Sophie de 70 portrait of Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé Plate 5 Toustain, Comte de 90, 95 trades and professions, of émigrés 105–6, 143–4 Treaty of Amiens (1802) 115 Treaty of Bâle (1795) 102 Treaty of Westphalia 34 Turin 29

Two Thirds Decree

190

United States Catholic Church 145 émigrés 138; trades and professions 143–4 Francophobia 145–8 French influence on food 144–5 Vaudreuil, and Danloux 167, 175 Vaudreuil, Joseph-HyacintheFrançois de Rigaud 112, 113, 114 Varennes, flight to 31 vendémiaire coup (1795) 190 Verona 38 Vidalenc, Jean, Les émigrés français 1789–1825 96 Vigée Le Brun, Mme 165, 166, 168, 177 portrait of Count Stroganov Plate 4 Vignier-Montréal, Nicole de see Mrs Boyd Vioménil, Charles-Gabriel Baron de 91–2 Volhynia 39 Volney Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis 142, 147 in the United States 138 Voltaire, Candide 84 Walpole, Horace 90, 205 War of Independence (Hungary) 68 Warsaw 10 Wellington, Duke of 19, 118 Wickham, William 30, 38 Wilmot Committee 55, 59, 60 Wilmot, John 206, 217, 221 Windham, William 208, 217 women experience as émigrés 46, 57 in Portugal 89 Worms 29, 31 XYZ affair

142, 146