The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism

The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism Cyprian Blamires The French Revolution and the Creation of Benth...

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The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism

Cyprian Blamires


Also by Cyprian Blamires: JEREMY BENTHAM, POLITICAL TACTICS (with Michael James and Catherine Pease-Watkin) JEREMY BENTHAM, RIGHTS, REPRESENTATION AND REFORM (with Philip Schofield and Catherine Pease-Watkin) PROTESTANTISM FROM A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE WORLD FASCISM: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism Cyprian Blamires

© Cyprian Blamires 2008 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 W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–55422–1 hardback ISBN-10: 0–230–55422–9 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blamires, Cyprian. The French Revolution and the creation of Benthamism / Cyprian Blamires. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–230–55422–9 (alk. paper) 1. Political science—France—History—18th century. 2. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Influence. 3. Political scientists—France. I. Title. JA84.F8B53 2008 144 .6—dc22 2008016138 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

FOR TRUDI AND ROBERT To whom I owe more than I can ever say

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Contents Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations

xii

Introduction

1

1

Utilitarianism and Panopticism: The Umbilical Cord I Panopticon: The Puzzle II Panopticon: The Reality III Dumont the Mythmaker

16 17 32 43

2

Panopticon Dominates Bentham’s Existence I The origins and ethos of Panopticon II Bentham the entrepreneur III Defeat is in the air

48 48 56 84

3

The Creator of the Bentham Brand: (1) Dumont the Genevan I Eighteenth-century Geneva: Nationalists versus aristocrats II Rousseau: Icon of Genevan nationalism III From Protestantism to ‘virtuism’ IV Dumont’s youth and disillusioned departure from Geneva

95 96 102 115 120

4

The Creator of the Bentham Brand: (2) Dumont in the French Revolution I Mirabeau II The Revolution begins III The Declaration of Rights IV Dumont tires of the Revolution V Dumont and Mirabeau: the last act

132 132 147 160 171 177

The Creator of the Bentham Brand: (3) First Steps in Marketing I Dumont’s early abstracts of Bentham II Panopticon and Political Tactics

181 181 194

5

6

Dumont’s Goodbye to Revolution: 1791–1793 I Genevan interlude II First Parisian interlude III Talleyrand in London IV Second Parisian interlude V The Groenvelt Letters and Dumont’s conversion to utilitarianism vii

200 200 202 203 205 210

viii

Contents

VI The September massacres VII In power in Geneva

219 221

Theory of Legislation (1): The Gestation of the Traités, 1793–1802 I Dumont starts work on Bentham’s manuscripts II 1799: The writing of the Souvenirs III The publication of the Traités

233 233 242 244

8

Theory of Legislation (2): The Message of the Traités I Content of the Traités II Dumont’s agenda in the Traités III The Code Napoléon: A parallel project

254 254 283 288

9

The Impact of the Traités: Benthamism goes Global I The impact of the Traités II Dumont after 1802 III Dumont’s long-term influence in the English-speaking world Conclusion

292 292 300

7

307 313

Notes

315

Bibliography

391

Index

425

Acknowledgements I was first set on the path of the study of the intellectual history of Europe between 1750 and 1850 by the late Malcolm Bowie, of whom I retain the fondest and most grateful memories. But it was my years of supervision by Sir Isaiah Berlin which nurtured and developed my fascination with the antecedents, the impact, and the consequences of the French Revolution for the European mentality. Of all his many outstanding qualities, I think it was the breadth and depth and richness of his intellectual resources that most stimulated and fired me. Those unforgettable cascades of thoughts, ideas, and observations came pouring out with such generosity and passion, and I indeed received a wealth of intellectual gifts from him. The first impulse to the composition of the present work came at a later period from Professor Fred Rosen, formerly head of the Bentham Project at University College, London. It was he who first pointed out to me the importance of the role of Etienne Dumont in the dissemination of Bentham’s ideas. He encouraged me to undertake research for an intellectual biography of Dumont and supported me in applications to grant-giving bodies, and for all this my thanks are due to him. That the projected intellectual biography of Dumont has mutated over the years into something very different is entirely my responsibility. I am also indebted to Stephen Conway for having encouraged me to write the first of a long line of articles and papers on Dumont at a period when both of us were working at the Bentham Project. Philip Schofield’s contribution is important too, especially in that he brought to a successful and impressive conclusion (with the able support of Catherine Pease-Watkin) the editorial work I had begun on two Bentham volumes, and seeing those volumes in print was a huge boost for me. I must finally mention in connection with the Bentham Project how helpful has been the work of all those responsible for the annotations of the volumes of Bentham’s Correspondence. A number of individuals made it possible for me to benefit from three substantial research visits to Geneva between 1990 and 1992. It was Michel Jeanneret who first provided the introductions I needed. Robert Roth and his wife Barbara Roth-Lochner not only gave me every support and encouragement professionally but also welcomed me to their home. André Hurst, formerly Dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Geneva, was the most supportive, as was the then Rector of the University, Jean-Claude Favez. I must also record my thanks to those institutions in Switzerland that funded my research visits – the Fonds Harvey, the University of Geneva, and the Pro Helvetia Foundation. I owe them an apology for the lengthy delay in the completion of this book. As a believer in the Divine Providence, I marvel, ix

x Acknowledgements

however, at the enrichment that has been brought to my project by the very large number of publications in the field that have appeared in the years since I began. Michel Porret of the Département d’Histoire générale at the University of Geneva has been a tower of strength with his repeated invitations to me to give papers at Geneva conferences of which the proceedings have almost invariably been published. Alain Zogmal and Marianne also played a part with both professional support and hospitality. Others whose hospitality was most appreciated during long research stints in Geneva or on the occasion of shorter return visits include Patrick de Laubier and Fr Henry at the Pope John XXIII parish. The reasons for both the delay in the completion of this work and the change in its character since its original conception have to do with career circumstances, and I am deeply grateful to all those whose encouragement prevented me from abandoning it entirely in the face of overwhelming discouragement, especially Byron Kaldis, Herminio Martins (who was kind enough to read a part of this text pre-publication), and Roger Griffin. David d’Avray has been a tower of strength too. But above all, my gratitude is due to Richard Whatmore whose unvarying support and completely spontaneous provision of vital research aids made me feel it would all be worth while in the end. Support was also given by James Crimmins (who read the whole text and provided very valuable feedback) and Graham Gargett – I am especially grateful to Graham for checking Chapter 3 so meticulously for me. At various times and places I benefited from contacts and conversation with John Dinwiddy, Janet Semple, Jefferson Selth, Andrew Lewis, André Gür, Maria-Cristina Pitassi, Randolph Vigne, Anne Allen, William Thomas, Romain Alderweireldt, David Graham, John Tribe, and Benedict Douglas. I acquired some very helpful research resources through the kindness of Charles Blount, Caroline Dinwiddy, and Betty Jarrett. I was much moved by efforts made by Patrick O’Brien and Michihiro Otonashi on my behalf at one stage. My apologies to any others I may be omitting through oversight on account of the sheer length of the gestation of this book. The book could not have been completed without access to the research collections at the Bibliothèque de Genève (formerly known as the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève) and the unfailing courtesy of the late Daniel Ruyser. I am equally indebted to the London Library and its staff and to the respective staffs of the Taylorian Institute Library and the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Cambridge University Library, the British Library, Lausanne University Library, and the Archives Nationales in Geneva; not forgetting the Manuscripts Room at UCL Library and the ever-helpful Gill Furlong. I owe a lifetime debt of gratitude to both of my parents but in particular in the present instance to my father, Harry Blamires, author of over 30 books, who taught me that the starting point for thinking must be the questioning

Acknowledgements xi

of that which is presupposed or taken for granted. The study of his books also sowed in my mind the first seeds of interest in the study of ideas. My greatest debt of all is to my wife, Trudi, who has patiently encouraged me in this research for the past 18 years and who happily consented to my periodic absences in Geneva for research as well as cheerfully accepting to make Switzerland a family holiday destination for three successive summers.

List of Abbreviations Bb BG Bowring, Works CC Correspondence

Courier

Groenvelt

L’Atelier

MS Dumont RRR

Souvenirs TLCP [1802] UC

Bibliothèque britannique Bibliothèque de Genève (formerly Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève) The Works of Jeremy Bentham, John Bowring (ed.), 11 vols, Edinburgh, 1838–1843 The Council of the 200 in pre-Revolutionary Geneva Bentham’s Correspondence, 12 volumes published up to 2007 in ‘The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham’ (sundry editors and publishers) Courier de Provence [journal reporting on the debates in the National Assembly, edited by Etienne Dumont and Jacques Antoine Du Roveray] Letters containing an account of the Late Revolution in France, and Observations on the Constitution, Laws, Manners, and Institutions of the English; written during the author’s residence at Paris, Versailles, and London, in the years 1789 and 1790. Translated from the German of Henry Frederic Groenvelt, London: Johnson, 1792 L’Atelier de Mirabeau. Quatre proscrits genevois dans la tourmente révolutionnaire, by Jean Bénétruy, Geneva: Alex Jullien, 1962 Dumont archive, Bibliothèque de Genève Rights, Representation, and Reform (Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham), Philip Schofield, Catherine PeaseWatkin, Cyprian Blamires (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002 Les Souvenirs de Mirabeau et des deux premières assemblées législatives, Jean Bénétruy (ed.), Paris: PUF, 1950 Traités de législation civile et pénale [1802], 3 vols, Etienne Dumont (ed.), Paris: Bossange et Masson, 1802 Bentham Archive at University College London Library

xii

Introduction

The first years of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of several new ideologies that were to have a tremendous impact on the destinies of Europe and the West. The year 1802 saw the publication of the manifesto of European Romanticism, Chateaubriand’s Génie du Christianisme. Many would want to trace the origins of modern socialism to the work of Claude-Henri Saint-Simon the start of whose career as a propagandist can be dated to 1803, with the publication of his Lettres d’un Habitant de Genève. Saint-Simon was at the same time also a key progenitor of Comtean Positivism, Auguste Comte being his most illustrious disciple. One English thinker who took a keen interest in Saint-Simonianism was John Stuart Mill, and mention of Mill connects us to another hugely important ideology, utilitarianism. Although it is well known that the origins of modern utilitarianism as an idea go back to the eighteenth century, most commentators would credit the English publicist Jeremy Bentham with being the pioneer of the utilitarian creed as a system. The man who really put Bentham on the map, however, was his Genevan disciple Etienne Dumont, and the work which created a global reputation for Bentham was Dumont’s Traités de législation civile et pénale – published in 1802. The coincidence of these dates is not really an accident, because the truth is that Chateaubriand, Saint-Simon, and Dumont were all reacting in different ways to the seminal event of modern times, an event they had themselves witnessed and with which they struggled to come to terms. That event was of course the French Revolution. The real significance of the French Revolution in relation to Bentham is nothing to do with whether it affected or altered Bentham’s own thinking. The point about the French Revolution in the context of Bentham is that it was a watershed in the life of the creator of the global Bentham brand – his most brilliant promoter, the Genevan Etienne Dumont. Bentham set out the foundations of his utilitarian system well before the Revolution, and it was those foundations that came to interest Dumont after the Revolution and largely as a result of the Revolution. Disillusioned by what he saw of revolution in France and Geneva, Dumont turned 1

2


away from his earlier faith in ‘Genevanist’ Rousseauism and spent the rest of his life promoting the ‘science of utilitarianism’ which he saw as Bentham’s greatest claim to fame. Bentham’s own chief interest was, however, not in this science of utilitarianism as such – in essence it was a system he took for granted – but in its applications. His application of his utilitarian system in later years to codification and constitution-making has been thoroughly studied; what has not been studied, however, is the particular application of his system that absorbed his thinking and his activity for a great deal of the 15 years after 1786 (and still intermittently for another decade after that). I am referring to his negotiations with the British government over the Panopticon project, in which a particular architectural technique was combined with a particular management technique to create a model of transparency, economy, and accountability for the public services. One massive result of the extraordinarily successful public relations campaign by Dumont to popularise the aspect of Bentham which really interested him was that Panopticon disappeared from view for many years. When Bentham’s beloved Panopticon did eventually resurface in public consciousness from the 1960s on, owing to the efforts of commentators like Gertrude Himmelfarb and Michel Foucault, it was in the skewed and misleading guise of an Orwellian nightmare. There is then no inconsistency in regard to the title of this book if my starting point is in fact Jeremy Bentham’s celebrated Panopticon architectural technique, the idea originally conceived by his brother Samuel for economising on supervision costs in establishments such as factories, schools, asylums, hospitals, and prisons where such supervision was required. I choose to begin at this point because a careful study of Bentham’s motivation for his 12-year battle with government to establish and operate a Panopticon establishment reveals a different (much more interesting) Bentham from the classic figure and a different (much more interesting) Panopticon from the classic picture. My goal is to retrieve both the ‘lost’ Bentham and the ‘lost’ Panopticon (demonstrating the real connection in Bentham’s mind between Panopticon and utilitarianism) and also to explain how it happened that they disappeared from view in the first place. This will entail a long journey into the mind and thought of Bentham’s greatest promoter and image-maker, Etienne Dumont: it is a journey that will take us back to his origins in eighteenth-century Geneva and then to his traumatic experiences at the heart of the French and Genevan Revolutions in a quest to explain what led him to create the best-selling global manifesto of Benthamism, the Traités de législation civile et pénale, published in 1802 and widely marketed to the English-speaking world several decades later under the title of Theory of Legislation. The Benthamism which Dumont largely created was not disloyal as far as it went, but it was a much narrower thing than its original. Before continuing, it is necessary to pause here and state what I mean by the term ‘Benthamism’. The old OED definition of the term called it ‘the

Introduction

3

philosophical system of Jeremy Bentham . . . who taught that the aim or end of life is happiness, identified by him with pleasure, and that the highest morality is the pursuit of the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Dumont would have accepted this as a starting point, but he would have added that Bentham’s unique merit was to have reduced this principle to a science applicable to a complete renovation of the law. Bentham was in Dumont’s eyes the first to provide a method which had the potential to convert the ‘chaos’ of the law into an ordered, methodical, and easily comprehensible system. This is the view of Bentham that rapidly became standard and this is what I call ‘Benthamism’. I do not say it is incorrect, I do say that it is wholly inadequate. What this book will demonstrate, however, is that the original Bentham, the Bentham who invested so much time, energy, and effort in the Panopticon battle, was a pioneering exponent of the values of economy, transparency, and accountability so crucial to our modern vision of good governance. This will first of all entail an assessment of why the modern world does not like what it sees when it looks at Panopticon. The twentieth-century experience of totalitarian dictatorships was so harrowing that it generated a high level of corresponding anxiety in the western world not simply about potential abuses of authority but often also about the necessity or otherwise of authority itself. Universally accepted down the centuries as a plain fact of life in societies throughout the world, the exercise of power became a constant focus for debate in a whole variety of areas from education and religion to philosophy and politics. It was from this kind of context that the writings of the left-wing French historian Michel Foucault emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Through his best-selling classic Discipline and Punish, Foucault contrived to canonise the perception of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon architectural technique as the symbol of a new and nightmarish form of social control evolving out of the Enlightenment. It is truly amazing how so many interpreters have come to see in Bentham’s ‘visionary’ glass and iron building, forerunner of the Crystal Palace and of today’s glass architecture, a symbol not of visibility and transparency but of the abuse of totalising power – as though the underground dungeons like those of Venice that tourists visit today were safer places for the inmates than a building dedicated to transparency. The word that comes to mind is ‘perverse’. Foucault’s treatment of Panopticon and his theories about social control seem to me to be typical of the ways that an obsessive focus on the issue of power among modern western intellectuals (though perfectly understandable in terms of the historical context) has the potential to blind us to other important issues. Thus the deeply ingrained postwar habit of viewing Bentham’s Panopticon as a tool of oppressive power diverts our attention from the real purpose of Panopticon. Because we fail to see the real purpose of Panopticon, we cannot grasp the connection between Bentham’s Panopticism and his utilitarianism. Scholars hostile to utilitarianism like Himmelfarb consider that utilitarianism essentially leans to totalitarianism, so that the

4


connection with Panopticon is obvious, but this begs the question of whether utilitarianism is any more liable to lead to tyranny than the kind of conservative ideology which Himmelfarb and other like-minded critics espouse. It can never be forgotten that the democracy they so reverence was not without its part in the rise to power of Hitler, who had a very sizable constituency of supporters in Germany and who was indeed hugely appealing to mass audiences. I say this not as a condemnation of democracy, but simply to point out that political systems – however seemingly benign – may still play their part in the production of unforeseen and highly undesirable consequences. Another illustration of this is the case of nationalism. Raised to the status of a sacred cause in nineteenth-century Italy and Germany in association with the unification movements, this cult – still glorified in heroic myth in school textbooks – can now be seen to have fed the flames of Fascism and Nazism, which in essence were both forms of revolutionary hyper nationalism.1 If we read Panopticon as Bentham himself presented it, offering it as a way of trying to model the modern virtues of transparency, accountability, and economy in public establishments, its utilitarian logic becomes much more evident. The fact that it may have had the potential to be a tool of totalitarianism is another matter. To condemn it out of hand for that reason is like condemning the invention of the internal combustion engine because it can be used to power a tank. For those sympathetic to utilitarianism, Panopticon has become an embarrassment. Scholars sympathetic to utilitarianism or specialists in the subject usually ignore the topic: a classic example may be found by consulting Bhikhu Parekh’s massive four-volume collection of critical assessments of Bentham.2 Out of the 143 papers in this work, only one is devoted to Panopticon, and that is purely historical. By demonstrating the real ethos of Panopticism in this book, however, I hope to show both the logic of how it fits into Bentham’s overall thinking and its astounding modernity as a conception. I will also show how incredibly important Panopticon was to Bentham not just as a theory but as a means he wished to use to model his principles of transparency, accountability, and economy personally in practice in a public establishment – an aim he pursued zealously as his main purpose for 12 years of his life and an aim which he continued to cherish sporadically for a further 10 years. I will describe the ‘other’ Bentham of whom Janet Semple spoke at the start of her monograph on Panopticon, Bentham the entrepreneur who believed that like any inventor with his invention, he could and should prove his principles to the world by demonstrating their effectiveness in action. Bentham was not simply a pioneer of scientism – the belief in the applicability of principles from scientists like Newton and Linnaeus and Cullen to the world of morals and law – he drove the logic of this principle all the way to its conclusion: the principles of morals and legislation must indeed be reformulated, but this was only half of the task, the other half was

Introduction

5

to demonstrate this applicability in a working model. He aspired then to perform a twofold service: not simply to provide new and supposedly ‘scientific’ foundations for law and morals but to test them out in practice. We might borrow Marxian terminology and say that he was interested both in laying the foundation and in modelling the superstructure. But what survives today in the public domain is overwhelmingly Bentham the foundation-layer. The other Bentham, the architect or builder who pursued every opportunity he could find for applying his principles, is not taken seriously even when he is remembered. To use the analogy of the famous Dyson vacuum cleaner: Dyson did not merely invent a new method for picking up dust, he then went on to create a company to construct and market a machine that applied this new method. In the case of Bentham, it is as if Dyson were remembered solely for his new way of picking up the dust and not at all for his role in building and marketing a machine in which the principle was applied. Or, to take an example closer to Bentham, it is as if Robert Owen was remembered solely for his book A New View of Society and not at all for his New Lanark model factory. Or as if Joseph Lancaster were to be remembered for his writings about the monitorial system of education and not at all for the actual schools he founded or his pioneering work in teacher training. Of course the rejoinder might be as follows: Owen’s factory was a going concern, it was a highly successful business, its premises have remained in existence down to the present day, likewise Lancaster’s schools were in their day a great – if short-lived – success. Surely Panopticon never actually happened? Surely it remained a mere blueprint in the mind of its promoter? There are two important points to be made in response. First, by most people’s standards the degree of acceptance that Bentham won for his Panopticon did actually amount to a huge success. Not only were the models of Panopticon and the samples of machinery for the prison factory set up by the Bentham brothers visited and admired by all kinds of important people from royalty downwards, not only did his design convince and enthuse a number of contemporary notables as well as reformers like Wilberforce and Patrick Colquhoun, but the government itself was so convinced by the merits of his plan that they actually contracted with him to set one up. The failure of that design to be implemented after a very lengthy campaign was less related to any innate deficiencies in the plan than to factors like nimbyism and personal enmities, together with competition from rival reformers such as is prone to frustrate any new project of the kind. Nor should it be forgotten that official plans were in place to build a Panopticon Penitentiary in France in the turbulent days of the Revolution, only to be swept away by regime change. In Spain the short-lived liberal government of the early 1820s proposed to model all its prisons on the Panopticon plan. The second point is that although Panopticon as promoted personally by Bentham did not come to fruition, Panopticism as the belief in a fundamental connection between ‘inspection’ and efficiency was massively important, and its influence has

6


continued to grow right down to the start of the third millennium. Not only did the development of carceral institutions take ‘inspection’ very seriously, but it became fundamental to the reform of factories, schools, health care, and so on. Other hugely influential aspects of Bentham’s design remain to be investigated. The idea of constructing an institutional building not out of heavy masonry but out of glass and iron, for example, is astonishingly prescient of the development of modern architecture, as is the whole idea of embodying transparency in buildings. Bentham’s problem was that he was too far in advance of his time. The techniques he was testing out were almost exclusively restricted to the construction of glasshouses in his day – and indeed late in life he mentioned a well-known nursery in Hackney as being the nearest he could think of to an embodiment of his design. At mid-century with the Great Exhibition it was a specialist in nursery buildings (Joseph Paxton) who designed the Crystal Palace – a building which would have delighted Bentham. His proposed construction methods were also astonishingly advanced – he had the iron girders for his building ready for work to begin in a yard by the Thames just as the modern builder works with his pre-prepared frames. (Bentham’s investment of his own money in all this was one of the reasons why the government saw the need to compensate him when their contract with him was not honoured from their end.) The type of industrial production which his brother Samuel planned to set up in Bentham’s prison so that it would be a profitable undertaking was itself fascinatingly visionary: machines were to be set up to mass produce carriage wheels, and Bentham foresaw that this would be very useful if rail transport developed nationally. The first beginnings of the national rail system were still 30 years in the future. Much of the technical innovation included in the Panopticon plans came from Samuel’s astonishingly fertile and creative genius – his numerous innovative productions were meticulously chronicled after his death by his widow, herself a highly competent person of exceptional technical literacy (and a former assistant to her father, the celebrated Chemist George Fordyce). Even this much still grossly understates the importance of Panopticism for modernity. To any unprejudiced eye the most striking thing about Bentham’s design is its embodiment of the principle of transparency, and Bentham married up architecture with management in his proposal so as to demonstrate how transparency properly applied, when combined with a system of management geared to the realities of human nature, could model economy and accountability in a public establishment. These three values – transparency, accountability, economy – are fundamental to perceptions of a well-run society in the third millennium. The extreme distaste of Foucault and his followers for Panopticism actually arises from its success: for Foucault set himself against the foundational values of modern society, claiming that ‘visibility is a trap’. As I write these words, mass demonstrations are

Introduction

7

taking place in Burma against the military dictatorship. An activist spoke on television of the importance to the protest of the fact that the dictators can no longer fully control their people’s access to the media because there are expatriate TV stations set up outside the country receiving reports and transmitting images from within. This is a classic case among many where visibility is a blessing, because it brings to the attention of the world the suffering of a people. That is exactly how Bentham envisaged it, for he always considered publicity/transparency to be the chief weapon against institutionalised injustice. It is when we focus on Panopticon as the embodiment of transparency, accountability, and economy that we see how perfectly it accords with Bentham’s foundational greatest-happiness principle and why he fought so long and so hard – like any inventor – to implement his vision in a project that would demonstrate it in practice. Moreover I think there are grounds for including him among the pioneers of environmentalism – at least in the area of recycling, since the maximisation of each object’s potential usefulness was crucial to his thinking. If all that I have said so far is true, the question arises as to how this other Bentham, the architect of modernity, could have disappeared from view for so long. Of course to some extent this is not unconnected with his longevity: he lived a furiously creative life for nearly 20 years after the actual final demise of his Panopticon project as signalled by the awarding of compensation from the government in 1813. Moreover his foremost British disciples – James Mill, Bowring, Place, Chadwick, and others – all appeared on the scene long after the effective end of Bentham’s 12-year Panopticon battle with government 10 years earlier, which they therefore never witnessed. This also meant that they too came to some extent under the spell of Dumont, whose Traités rapidly achieved such an ascendancy that James Mill told his young son John Stuart to read the volumes as the best introduction to Bentham’s thinking. This leads then to the second part of my book: the story of the creation of the ‘Bentham brand’. Bentham was notoriously careless of what people thought of him, he wrote as looking in a mirror, to satisfy himself of the logic of his thinking, with himself as audience. The contrast between the accumulating mass of manuscripts in his attic and the paucity of his actual substantial publications (as opposed to opuscules) became increasingly acute. The classic work associated with his name, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, created not a ripple until its second edition 34 years after its first publication in 1789 and 43 years after its first private printing. In the interval a marketing expert for whom the opinion of the public mattered very much, an erstwhile preacher and journalist attuned to the requirements of an audience, had appeared on the scene, taken hold of Bentham and his ideas, and repackaged them in a series of elegant abstracts of his manuscript writings composed in French. He was a Genevan domiciled in England in the house of a great lord, and his name was Etienne Dumont. The repackaging of

8


Bentham into ‘Benthamism’ was brilliantly done, but it was also inevitably selective, and one of the casualties of that selection was Panopticon. Not that Dumont completely ignored Panopticon: but his presentation of Panopticon tied it uniformly and fatally to the idea of a prison, and its essential nature as a widely applicable architectural technique was forgotten. Because Dumont’s achievement in turning Bentham’s name into a global brand was in the first instance accomplished by translating him into French, little attention has been paid to the impact of his work in the Englishspeaking world, and yet that impact was incalculable. For example, that the second edition of Bentham’s Introduction in 1823 was a much greater success than the first has been attributed to the fame created for Bentham by Dumont in England in the years since the first edition. Rather than attempt to edit the mass of jumbled and unfinished manuscripts that their author refused to prepare for publication himself, sympathisers found it much easier simply to translate Dumont’s compact and elegant abstracts into English, and these versions became embedded in the ‘Bentham’ canon. So much so that even the standard Bowring edition of Bentham’s Works contains a substantial amount of Dumont material translated into English and masquerading as ‘Bentham’ texts. In promoting Bentham, Dumont naturally had his own agenda. He was first a highly talented writer, publicist, journalist, and networker who enjoyed the friendship and respect of a great number of the influential persons of his day. But more than this, when he first came into contact with Bentham’s thought as summarised in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, it was at a moment of crisis in his own life. He had been in the thick of events in Paris throughout 1789, writing speeches for Mirabeau and acting as a political consultant for him, mixing with leading Assembly deputies like Sieyès and reporting on the debates that were changing the world; but then he watched with horror the degeneration of a revolution with which he was broadly in sympathy into a morass of internecine squabbles, anarchy, and bloodshed. It was in reaction to his trauma that he reached out to cling to Benthamism as a drowning man reaches for a plank in a storm. If he picked up on Bentham’s utilitarianism it was because he saw it as a unifying force which would help men of good will regroup on the basis of principles solidly grounded in the hard realities of human nature – by contrast, in his opinion, with the delusive rhetoric of natural rights which had failed hopelessly to provide a common platform for the Revolutionaries. Not that he had needed to learn his hostility to rights talk at the feet of Bentham: for in 1789 he was already 30 years old and had cut his teeth in Genevan politics, a politics which involved a confrontation between a kind of anti-French middle-class Genevan nationalism which he had espoused on the one hand, and an aristocratic governing elite dependent on French support for its political power and for its business and banking outlets on the other. This conflict had deep roots in Genevan history but it was hugely embittered by a middle-class

Introduction

9

coup d’état which led directly to a crushing victory on behalf of the government in 1782 by the neighbouring powers that supported them – and principally the French. This had been made possible because of a mediation system resulting from earlier internecine conflicts in Geneva, the solution of which had authorised the mediating powers or Guarantors (France being the key player) to enforce compliance with the constitutional arrangements in place on any who threatened to overturn them. The trauma of what amounted to a French occupation intensified the desire of the nationalists not only to rid their country of French influence (which was enjoyed and welcomed by an elite dazzled by a ‘superior’ French culture) but to return to an earlier status quo which they felt best represented the true spirit of Geneva. Etienne Dumont, a convinced and committed member of the antigovernment movement who left Geneva rather than make an oath of loyalty to the regime on his 25th birthday, was then attuned from the start to a ‘restorationist’ view of politics rather than to a natural rights view. For him and his young Genevan peers the agenda was to restore something the republic had lost, not to remake it on the basis of a set of natural rights. They were convinced – as Rousseau (their idol) had been earlier – that the ‘true’ Genevan constitution (though not its existing form under a usurped aristocratic/French domination) could provide a model for other nations. Not a model of political republicanism so much as a cultural model, the embodiment of a particular ‘virtuistic’ set of values in a balance of oligarchical with quasi-democratic powers. I say ‘quasi-democratic’ because there was nothing democratic about their ideal in the modern sense of one-man, one vote. Membership of the General Council whose authority they wished to restore was itself restricted to a small proportion of those living in Geneva, and Dumont and his peers did not seriously envisage any extension of that membership until events took over in 1789. Unable to propose Geneva as a model tout court because her ‘true’ constitution had been forced into abeyance by a combination of traitors within and enemies without, the faction to which Dumont belonged held up the political system of her great Protestant ally Britain as an example instead. When the old regime crumbled in 1789, Dumont like many others confidently expected and hoped that the leaders of the incipient revolution would ‘regenerate’ France on the British model. Such an eventuality was a particularly fervent wish among them in that they believed a new regime in France constructed on the British model would abandon the long tradition of French support for an oppressive aristocracy in Geneva. To the horror of Dumont, what he found when he started to mix with the deputies and attend Assembly debates was that the undoubtedly significant measure of support for adopting the British model was outweighed by a vociferous and powerful faction who had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Far from imitating anybody, they had in mind a programme for the regeneration of France so comprehensive

10 The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism

that it would provide an example to the rest of the world – including the British. Dumont became a part of the Revolution because of his association with Mirabeau, who hugely valued not just his talent with his pen but equally his personal experience of political opposition to an aristocratic elite. Although Dumont’s work as a speechwriter for Mirabeau has been the subject of much discussion, the importance of his previous practical experience in the campaign against aristocratic oppression has not been noted. Together with Du Roveray, a much older man who had been deprived of his position as Attorney General in the Republic and banished as a result of the events of 1782 (which he had himself precipitated), Dumont worked tirelessly to support Mirabeau in promoting the pattern of a reformed monarchical system on British lines as a solution to France’s problem. In the pages of the periodical le Courier de Provence which he edited with Du Roveray, Dumont campaigned vigorously in favour of this policy, even sometimes taking it further than Mirabeau (who had founded the paper) would have liked. On every major issue where he promoted the British example – bicameralism (where he went against Mirabeau), the necessity of a royal veto, the necessity for ministers to be chosen from the ranks of MPs and to have to answer to the Assembly, the futility of a Declaration of Rights – Dumont was on the losing side. It is important to understand this as historians still often assume that these Genevans must have been republicans. Dumont was against radical revolution of any kind and in favour of reform on the basis of actually existing practices rather than of ‘abstract’ plans or designs not based on any precedent; consequently the direction the Revolution started to move in deeply saddened and alienated him. Listening to the Assembly debates, Dumont found himself increasingly disgusted by the breathtaking presumption of many deputies that they were called to create the first proper political constitution the world had ever seen. He regarded Sieyès – cool, detached, dismissive of the British system, preferring to make Sibylline pronouncements rather than to debate – as the embodiment of this mindset. He was also dismayed by the fact that the Declaration of Rights (in his eyes an unnecessary and indeed damaging measure) failed to provide a platform for the advancement of actual reform; instead, it seemed to fuel the divisions that pulled the country down into anarchy and chaos. Dumont found himself at one with the deputies of 1789 in believing that a traditional social structure based on a caste system with a corresponding pecking order should be replaced by a structure in which individuals were not defined as members of an order but simply as ‘men’ with equal rights. But the requisite restructuring required the acceptance of guiding principles, and for Dumont such principles needed to be drawn from ‘successful’ examples – the British and the Genevan insofar as the latter had escaped aristocatic corruption. To his dismay he found that Sieyès was not merely disdainful of the British experience, but seemed to be disdainful of any

Introduction

11

past experience, preferring to deduce his proposals from the initial postulates of ‘rationality’. The reluctance of the majority of the deputies to adopt British precedents and their preference for seeing their task to be the creation of an entirely new order based on the precepts of ‘reason’ and ‘nature’ was what Dumont believed destroyed the Revolution. Bentham’s creed – with its basis in the assumption that human beings are universally and exclusively motivated in their behaviour by the allure of pleasure and the fear of pain – offered Dumont what seemed like a highly attractive alternative. For it purported to be based not on deductions from abstract statements about what should be, but on observation of the way that humans actually function. The significance for Dumont of Bentham’s foundational arguments in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, which Dumont first began to study seriously in 1790, was that they offered a route to the improvement of society based on this kind of observation. Benthamite thinking presented itself to Dumont as grounded in a true understanding of human motivation. Its statements could be verified or proved by any observer of normal human behaviour. This was a way of thinking that Dumont tells us was rejected out of hand by Sieyès, but he reached out for it as a lifeline. The abstract reasonings of Sieyès could not, it seemed, be verified in this way, and Dumont identified that as their crucial weakness. Because Benthamite thinking presented as verifiable out of general human experience, Dumont saw it as the ideal antidote for political abstraction. He blamed the presumptuous belief in abstractions for generating a torrent of empty rhetoric involving innumerable statements that could never be checked against anything real in actual human behaviour. In building an entire structure of morals and politics on the application of principles derived from actual observable human behaviour rather than on some invisible unverifiable ‘natural law’, Bentham was offering a way out of the impasse into which the Revolution fell after 1792. This was precisely how Dumont was to slant his first classic presentation of Bentham, from his advance notices in the late 1790s up to his preface to the published work in 1802. Dumont then was a convert to Benthamite utilitarianism from a grounding in pro-British Protestant Genevan nationalism. It is important to remember the Protestant bit because Genevan nationalism was based on Genevan intransigence in the face of Rome. By Dumont’s day this intransigence towards Catholic doctrine had mutated (to use John Gray’s expression) into hostility towards the culture of the Catholic ‘big brother’ nation on the doorstep – France. The idol of the Genevan nationalists was Rousseau. His books had been burned in Geneva at the behest of the governing elite who were seen as aping similar actions by their French masters. Rousseau’s Letter to d’Alembert gave the clarion call for Genevan nationalism, spitting contempt for the fake ‘theatrical’ (Catholic) culture of the French as embodied in the theatre they were trying to impose on Geneva, and lauding the plain,


honest, and truthful values of the (Protestant) Genevans. Dumont’s intellectual journey took him from Rousseau to Bentham. This conversion is not without its oddities. From having been a blanket admirer of things British in his youth, he turned to the philosophy of a man who – whilst being British himself – was an archetypal Enlightenment cosmopolitan and a fierce critic of all sorts of British ways. Despite all Dumont’s talk about the contrast between the ‘abstractions’ and unreality of much Assembly rhetoric on the one hand, and the ‘earthy realism’ of Bentham’s ideology, the truth is that Bentham was also a system-builder extraordinaire and a purveyor of what many of his fellow-countrymen perceived as an abstract systematic way of approaching moral and legal issues. Bentham’s contemporary critics simply could not see the need for such a systematic framework, but it was Dumont’s experience of the National Assembly and its debates and controversies that convinced him that genuine lasting reform required it because of the way that everything they were debating was interlinked. Discussion of so many issues in the Assembly was defective because decisions in one area depended on decisions yet to be taken in others. Promoting Benthamism as the ‘scientific’ foundation for new universal legal frameworks, whereby it fitted perfectly with the rising tide of scientism in the early part of the nineteenth century, Dumont focussed attention in his Traités de législation civile et pénale of 1802 – the work which did more than any other to create Benthamism as a global brand – primarily on how this ideology could renew society by establishing an irrefutable basis for the generation of legal systems by the ‘scientific’ application of the greatest-happiness principle. Dumont believed that Bentham’s greatest achievement had been to transform this principle from an Enlightenment cliché into a tool for the regeneration of society by combining it with quantitative analyses of degrees of pain or pleasure. These analyses made possible the ranking of actions in a hierarchy of relative good or evil on the basis of the amount of pain or pleasure they gave rise to. The area in which the impact of the moral arithmetic promoted so insistently by Dumont was subsequently felt most strongly was, however, not law but economics and moral philosophy. Much of Dumont’s subsequent published work, resulting in a further four abstracts of Bentham’s writings, was based on material written by Bentham before the age of 45 (he went on writing into his eighties). Dumont never paid any attention to the entrepreneurial Bentham, who was committed for much of the 16 years after 1786 to the erection and operation of a panoptical establishment as the very model of economy in governance. It is true that Dumont’s Traités did contain a separate essay on Panopticon, but this actually helped advance the widespread confusion on the subject, cementing firmly in people’s minds that Panopticon was a prison rather than an architectural technique of wide applicability to public establishments (including factories). Moreover, when two-thirds of the Traités was translated into English in America in 1840, the essay on Panopticon was among the

Introduction

13

omitted material. Some years later this translation, entitled Theory of Legislation, became the standard textbook through which undergraduates were introduced to Bentham’s ideas right up to the end of the twentieth century. (Indeed, two further reprints have been produced since the start of the present millennium.) So it was that Bentham as the promulgator of a new science of legislation was the Bentham who became fixed in the public mind and to a great extent in the minds of Bentham scholars. My study is in no way intended to imply that Dumont deliberately chose to distort Bentham’s thinking or mislead people about the Englishman’s message. Rather, he chose quite understandably to market that aspect of Bentham which had the greatest appeal for him, and in doing so he was certainly telling part of the truth. If he failed to grasp the real import of Panopticon or take any great degree of interest in it, he can hardly be blamed for that, since even the government officials who negotiated with Bentham also missed the point – as did even the late Janet Semple in her generally excellent account of the history of the project. Dumont was an extraordinary figure in his own right who shunned the limelight, so the limelight shunned him. Mirabeau relied hugely on him and praised him to the skies, his advice and speechwriting talents were drawn on by other revolutionary leaders, he was a highly successful editor and journalist in Paris in 1789/1790. He was an occasional peacemaker among warring factions in Geneva in the early 1790s and for many years after 1814 a leading politician and reformer in Geneva. His extracts from Bentham were read and appreciated across the world and translated into other languages; right down to today in several European languages Bentham can only be read through Dumont. He was greatly valued among the Whig elite by Lord Lansdowne and his son Lord Henry, by Lord Holland and his wife, and by men like Ricardo, Romilly, Horner, William Wilberforce, and Sir James Mackintosh. He was equally appreciated by Mme de Staël and even more so by Maria Edgeworth and her father Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Maria considered his judgements and assessments of her literary productions beyond appeal. When he returned to Geneva in 1814 he took up a new career in which he made a fundamental contribution to the momentum of reform in that place in areas too numerous to mention. Only now are the extraordinary range and power of his talents beginning to be appreciated. From the time of the anniversary of Bentham’s death in 1932, attempts were made to widen our appreciation of Bentham’s ambitions, and after the Second World War the pace of this began to pick up, particularly with the initiation of the publishing programme of the Bentham manuscripts in the 1960s. The steady stream of editions of Bentham’s works published by the Bentham Project have immeasurably advanced our understanding of his versatility and wide-ranging intelligence. It is this programme – and in particular the publication of most of the Correspondence – that has enabled us to get a fairer picture of what Bentham’s aspirations were. But things take time to sink


in, and the significance of the massive presence of Panopticon in Bentham’s Correspondence over the years between 1786 and 1813 has still not really registered, something this book is an attempt to remedy. It offers a completely fresh view of Bentham, enabling us to complement well-established knowledge about him with a whole new and fascinating dimension. It provides the first in-depth study of Etienne Dumont, the man who marketed the Bentham brand with such astonishing power that the imprint of his work has remained fixed on that brand down to the present day. It gives answers to the question where Dumont came from, what his own philosophy was, and why, despite coming from a very different intellectual tradition of Genevan Protestant nationalism, he chose to devote his life after the French Revolution to marketing Benthamism. It details his numerous talents, achievements, and the networks to which he belonged, and shows how crucial his experience of the Revolution was for him in his adoption of his new creed. Along the way I also propose a new angle on Rousseau as Genevan nationalist and make available for an English readership some of the scholarly conclusions about Mirabeau that have previously been available only to French readers. Nationalism has tended to be seen as a phenomenon that arose out of the French Revolution, but this book shows how an incipient nationalism was already present in late eighteenth-century Geneva, whose political experience has long been considered by some to provide a kind of test run for the French Revolution. It also offers a degree of confirmation to counterrevolutionary complaints by the likes of Joseph de Maistre about Protestant influences on events in France in 1789. In 1985, I completed a doctorate at Oxford which was devoted to reactions to the French revolution, and I have been astonished in the course of many years of research for this book to discover how much more truth there was underlying the seemingly melodramatic rhetoric of a Joseph de Maistre than mainstream historians have traditionally been inclined to allow. Dumont was moulded by his upbringing to be anti-French and pro-British and this stayed with him up to the end of his life. This mentality was not just an ancillary matter, for it conditioned his whole life experience and affected the way he read the events and agendas of 1789 and the solutions he proposed to the dilemmas of the day. So it remains today – the nationalistic prejudices we absorb in the course of our upbringing tend to mould the way we think about the world. This can be seen every day in the pages of British newspapers, where, for example, signs of kneejerk anti-Americanism or prejudices against France constantly surface. The same is true in Paris, where Americans tell me of a kneejerk anti-Americanism. Many years ago at the height of the Cold War, when political dissidents and ‘enemies of the state’ were languishing in Soviet Concentration Camps, I recall vainly trying to persuade two West German students that perhaps, for all the faults of the Americans, life was generally preferable in their American-backed country to what it might be beyond the Iron Curtain. But scholars are not exempt from nationalistic impulses either. Merely to transcend national cultures in the manner of my

Introduction

15

research in the History of Ideas over the past 20 years can be an isolating experience that takes you out of the mainstream. I had the immense good fortune to be supervised in my doctoral thesis in Oxford in the 1980s by the late Sir Isaiah Berlin. I did not agree with him on political philosophy, but I found the sheer breadth and wealth of his intellectual awareness and his ability to understand the appeal of extremisms immensely exhilarating. At the same time I sensed that Berlin, a multi-lingual East European as much at home in his mother Russian and the French, Italian, and Jewish cultures as he was in the British, was somewhat isolated intellectually (though not of course in terms of the huge size of his circle of friends) in an Oxford that focussed all too exclusively on Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Mill. How many of his fellow-Oxonians knew or cared that his hero was the nineteenth-century Russian ideologue Alexander Herzen? There is a strange paradox by which the more insistently a person directs his gaze beyond local and national phenomena in hopes of developing a truly cosmopolitan or universal outlook – which is what I understand by ‘true humanism’3 – the more isolated that person is liable to be because of the small numbers who seem to have this kind of aspiration. For myself, I aspire with Berlin to be as catholic as possible, for the term ‘catholic’ means universal. To study history from this perspective means, as far as I can see, to read it through as many standpoints as possible and to observe nationalistic prejudices and extremes at work without absorbing any of them. Research that transcends single nations and cultures is an excellent and profoundly enriching discipline for the mind: which is one good reason why I have enjoyed working on Bentham and Dumont. This is something that J. S. Mill himself understood: he once wrote, ‘I sometimes think that if there is anything which I am under a special obligation to preach, it is the meaning and necessity of a catholic spirit in philosophy.’4 He frequently berated his fellow-countrymen for their insularity and praised Goethe for his pride in his commitment to ‘many-sidedness’. The material in this book has been worked out not just through study but through the medium of papers given at various conferences over the past 17 years. I will mention only the recent occasions when I have developed some part of my argument. Most recently of all, the Colloquium in memory of Derek Jarrett held at Sherborne School in July 2007, when I spoke in a paper entitled ‘The real Benthams’ both about the collaborative dimension to the Panopticon project and about the hugely entrepreneurial side to Jeremy. In November 2006 at a conference on ‘Bentham et la France’ at Paris X Nanterre, I spoke on the theme of what Dumont did to Bentham, anticipating a part of the thesis of the present book. In January 2006, I gave a paper entitled ‘Le Panoptique n’est pas une prison’ at a Colloquium in Geneva to commemorate the 30th anniversary of publication of Foucault’s Surveiller et Punir, and there I developed the theme of Panopticon as an architectural technique of wide applicability rather than as a prison.

1 Utilitarianism and Panopticism: The Umbilical Cord

Legal philosophers, moral philosophers, historians of political, economic, and social thought are all aware of the importance of Bentham and Benthamism.1 His influence on legal positivism, the development of utilitarian theory, the development of democratic ideas, the development of economic thought, and nineteenth-century legal, administrative, and sanitary reforms have all been acknowledged even if the degree of that influence has sometimes been a matter of debate. It is my contention, however, that there is a whole huge area of major importance today in which Bentham can be regarded as nothing less than an architect of modernity. I am referring to the field of governance – one of today’s major buzz words. In combining his Panopticon architectural style embodying the principle of maximal transparency with his principle of contract management, Bentham succeeded in foregrounding each of the three fundamental values of today’s good governance – transparency, accountability, and economy – and in showing how they hang together and nurture each other. I contend that it was out of a desire to demonstrate all this that he dedicated so much of his time, money, and effort to the project of establishing a model institution in which the efficacy of his thinking about good governance could be demonstrated in practice. At the same time, wrapped in as it were with his immense preoccupation with economy are the seeds of environmentalism, at least in its concern with recycling. Entirely prophetic of this is Bentham’s desire to extract the maximum utility from objects in the interests of economy. In order to justify my claims, I must answer three interlocking questions: First, what was the technique all about? Second, did it really matter all that much to Bentham? Third, if so, why? In all of these areas, great confusion has reigned up till now. This chapter and the next will be devoted to dealing with them, while the rest of the book will consider a further question: how did it come about that Bentham’s role as an architect of modernity in governance and administration became lost from view? The answer to this will entail a study of the activities of his first and greatest promoter, the Genevan Etienne Dumont, himself an exceedingly gifted individual. Up to 16

Utilitarianism and Panopticism: The Umbilical Cord 17

now Dumont’s agenda in promoting ‘Benthamism’ and the massive influence he wielded in moulding the public image of his mentor have never been properly investigated.

I

Panopticon: The Puzzle

In 1877, Henry Sidgwick observed of Bentham that for twenty years (from 1791 to 1811), while his fame as a philosophical jurist was extending through the civilised world, he was probably better known to the government at home as belonging to the rather despised class of beings who were then called ‘projectors’ [i.e. entrepreneurs]; from his favourite plan of a Panopticon Penitentiary, which was continually urged on their notice by himself and his friends.2 Halévy observed that at the age of 60 (1808) Bentham ‘was still very little known by the English public as a theorist and reformer of the science of the law’, for his main claim to fame at that point, the thing for which he was best known, was his Panopticon project.3 Yet the vast majority of scholars have treated Bentham as primarily a jurist or philosopher or theoretician all too readily ‘distracted’ by practical ‘sidelines’. Thus Dinwiddy asked the question, how far Bentham’s middle age could be regarded as ‘an unproductive interlude in which he was diverted from the central tasks he had set himself as a jurist?’4 Dinwiddy notes L. J. Hume’s opinion that these years were ‘far from barren and that the attention he paid to prisons, pauper management, and political economy helped to give an important new dimension to his thinking’.5 But Dinwiddy concludes that some of his practical projects – and especially Panopticon – absorbed a lot of time that ‘might, from the point of view of his long-term vocation, have been more fruitfully used’.6 Halévy’s verdict on this whole episode was memorably summarised by David Lieberman when he said that the French critic saw it as ‘a protracted hitch in the trajectory to philosophic radicalism’.7 A. V. Dicey confidently announced of Bentham ‘that the object of his lifelong labours was to remodel the law of England in accordance with utilitarian principles’ and then went on to refer to Panopticon as ‘a transaction which has perplexed and sometimes amused his admirers’.8 Dicey read Panopticon simply as a symptom of Bentham’s inventiveness.9 Bentham certainly did have an incredibly inventive mind. When the writer Leigh Hunt was in prison, Bentham went to visit him, and a biographer of Hunt describes the visit memorably: When Jeremy Bentham visited the Surrey jail, Hunt was playing battledore (a forerunner of badminton). Upon joining in, the philosopher, ‘with his usual eye towards improvement’, suggested ‘an amendment in the constitution of shuttlecocks’. An elephant’s trunk, he explained to Hunt, could


lift a pin or twelve hundredweight; the same principle should be applied to the handle of shuttlecocks.10 One scholar who certainly does register the importance of the activist element in Bentham’s early character is Mary Peter Mack. First of all she states that he was ‘directly at the hub of events’, that when Benjamin Franklin testified before a Committee of the Whole House on the effects of the Stamp Act in 1766 Bentham was there, that he was present at the second Wilkes trial in 1768, that he was on militia duty on the streets during the Gordon Riots of 1780, and so on, observing that ‘he considered himself a kind of minister without office, informed about every political and social issue and ever ready with plans to promote the public welfare’.11 But when it comes to Panopticon, she bluntly states that he saw the opportunity [my italics] to design, build, and manage a large Panopticon prison – but gives no explanation of why he would have wanted to do this; and that when this came to nothing he ‘turned back to the things he knew and did best – codification and analysis’.12 What we have, then, is a picture of a dedicated thinker or theorist or jurist ‘distracted’ in mid-life by a surge of involvement in ‘practical’ activities. This impression had spread around well before Bentham’s death. In an essay on him published in his lifetime (in 1825), Hazlitt opines that Bentham’s influence has been ‘purely intellectual’, the reason being that he has devoted his life ‘to the pursuit of abstract and general truths, and to those studies – “That waft a thought from Indus to the Pole’’ ’ – and has never mixed himself up with personal intrigues or party politics.13 He goes on to claim that Bentham has lived for 40 years in a house in Westminster ‘like an anchoret in his cell, reducing law to a system, and the mind of man to a machine’.14 Sir James Mackintosh, writing a couple of years before Bentham’s death, reflected in his description of the English jurist what had become the stock image of him in his later years, an image which was to become set in stone: ‘A hermit in the greatest of cities, seeing only his disciples . . . .’15 What I find strange about such accounts is the fact that they do not attempt to make any sense of Bentham’s massive commitment to Panopticon in terms of Bentham’s aspirations, nor do they connect it in any way to his utilitarianism. Panopticon hangs in the air as a strange and inexplicable diversion from a life of study. It ‘was a digression from the consideration and composition of ideas’ or an ‘unproductive interlude’. As David Lieberman wrote, ‘what has remained [a] perplexing aspect of the venture is explaining Bentham’s enthusiasm for becoming a prison manager in the first place. At best, the enterprise has appeared a profound misdirection of talents . . . ’.16 Lieberman concludes from the volumes of correspondence at the height of the Panopticon saga that Panopticon was just one of a whole set of ‘projects and contrivances’ that Bentham was essentially undertaking in order to ‘push himself onto the public stage’. I will argue in this book, however, that instead


of leaving Panopticon aside as ‘a practical interlude’, a diversion from a life devoted to pure theory, we should rather start with Panopticon and make sense of Bentham’s aims and aspirations in terms of it. In her Introduction to Bentham’s Prison, Janet Semple observes how a study of this project shows us Bentham emerging as a personality very different from the reclusive philosopher of popular mythology. Until the age of 64, he was ambitious to become an administrator and to put his own ideas of penal policy and office management into practice himself. He wanted to apply his ‘genius for legislation’ to the day to day running of institutions and to play a major role in penal reform not as a philosopher but as a practitioner. The theoretical speculations that now seem his unique contribution to the history of his country were, during many years of his life, a secondary consideration.17 The present work aims to throw light on the ‘very different’ personality whose outlines are visible in Semple’s work and in the Correspondence. Twelve years before Semple, C. F. Bahmueller had referred to the regular writing habits for which Bentham was famous and the social and legal reforms he urged, but noted that it was ‘less well known how deeply involved he was in the practical campaign for their enactment. These two activities, intellectual creation and political struggle, proceeded simultaneously for long periods of his life, . . . ’.18 Many years before Bahmueller, C. W. Everett noted that Bentham not only worked out plans for pauper communities in infinite detail – ‘garden communities where expense to the government should be minimised by the intelligent application of labour to steam-driven machinery during part of the day, and to growing vegetables and fruits, keeping fowls and bees, and preserving foodstuffs purchased in a glutted market for future consumption’ – but went far beyond merely drawing up plans: ‘Bentham spent hundreds of pounds devising heat treatments and sealing devices for meats, vegetables and fruits; he built in his own back garden a huge frigidarium or insulated ice house, concerning which he kept careful records as to what foods remained edible how long at what temperatures.’19 This was a man of a hugely practical bent. The myth that Bentham was a ‘mere theorist’ was one that the anonymous writer of the General Preface to Bowring’s Works felt he had to explode, writing that ‘there never was a mind less disposed to wander in vague speculation: there never was a more thoroughly and essentially practical mind’.20 Nor was it simply a matter of Bentham being, as J. H. Burns, noted, ‘one who emphatically saw the business of philosophy as being concerned with practical application and who would have agreed with Karl Marx at least in holding that the point of philosophy is to change the world and not simply to interpret it’.21 I aim to show here that Bentham wanted not merely to philosophise the need for change and to incite others to make the changes;


he wanted to be the one who implemented and modelled (and profited from) those changes himself, in person. Bentham was well aware that he had a reputation as a hermit, but revealingly in 1820 he asked Bowring to tell the Conde de Toreno: ‘Should you ever hear him [Bentham] called a recluse understand it with reference to circles of mere amusement, and not with reference to seats of political business.’22 One of the most significant letters in all of Bentham’s correspondence is the one where he replies to a gift of a copy of a book by James Gregory (1753–1821), professor of medicine at Edinburgh University, on the subject of freedom and necessity.23 Bentham writes trenchantly to the friend through whom this book has been sent: I don’t care two straws about liberty and necessity at any time. I do not expect any new truths on the subject: and were I to see any lying at my feet, I should hardly think it worth while to stoop to pick them up . . . I am sure you must have gone before me in regretting that a practical professional man should stand forth as an author upon subjects so purely speculative.24 There is perhaps then some justification in Michael Oakeshott’s forceful judgement on Bentham: ‘He . . . is an example of that not uncommon character in England – a man revolutionary in almost all practical matters, but dependent, unoriginal and cluttered up with prejudice in matters of speculation.’25 Or, as J. S. Mill had written much earlier, ‘His was an essentially practical mind.’26 Even during the last 15 years of his life, the period for which the ‘hermit’ legend is most apt, it must be appreciated that Bentham was not locking himself away to theorise, but to perfect his plans for the renovation of the legal, political, and social order. That he was not some mere dreamy eccentric remote from real life is demonstrated by the calibre of those who sought his advice or argued from influential positions in their country that his principles and proposals should be taken seriously. Leading figures in the Greek War of Independence; leading figures in the Latin American campaigns for independence – not least the celebrated Bolivar; leading figures in the liberal regimes installed in Spain and Portugal in the early 1820s – these were the kind of men looking to Bentham for inspiration as they planned their new constitutional and legal arrangements. From Argentina, Secretary of State Rivadavia wrote to say that the rules of debate for the new Assembly had taken Bentham/Dumont’s Tactique des Assemblées législatives as their model. In Spain, parliamentarians called for the adoption of the Panopticon as the model for their prisons. In Portugal, the government ordered the official printing of the Bentham/Dumont Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses.27 This man was an ‘A-lister’ of the political universe, a man whose practical proposals were taken very seriously and highly regarded in many parts of the world. It is difficult to think of a figure in British history who elicited such


a worldwide response as this in his own lifetime. When in 1822 we hear Bentham telling a former employee off for bothering him with complaints because ‘millions must be neglected, that one may be attended to’, it is easy to smile contemptuously.28 And yet there was truth in what he was saying. Henry Sidgwick observed that Panopticon ‘ . . . fills a much larger space in Bentham’s correspondence than all his codes put together. Indeed, among the numerous wrongs, great and small, on which the philosopher in his old age used to dilate with a kind of cheerful acrimony peculiar to himself, there was none which roused so much resentment as the suppression of Panopticon . . . ’.29 Commentators have long been aware of the impact of the failure of Panopticon on Bentham’s political thinking, a much-discussed topic in the context of the controversial issue of Bentham’s conversion to political radicalism in the early years of the nineteenth century.30 It has been asserted that his personal experience of government dealings in connection with Panopticon was so catastrophic that it precipitated nothing less than a conversion to radicalism.31 Plamenatz stated baldly that Bentham’s experiences with government in the Panopticon negotiations converted him to democracy.32 Dinwiddy (following L. J. Hume) thinks this is an oversimplification but nonetheless accepts that the Panopticon affair did ‘prepare his mind for this reorientation’.33 Philip Schofield notes that ‘The critical development in Bentham’s political thought was not brought about by the French Revolution, but by the emergence of the notion of sinister interest, from which he drew the conclusion that democracy was essential to the achievement of good government.’34 He developed this concept of ‘sinister interest’ as a way of labelling the behind-the-scenes forces that blocked Panopticon. But little attention has been paid to the question why Panopticon mattered so much to Bentham. One entire volume of The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham as published in ‘The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham’ is devoted almost exclusively to the subject of Bentham’s plan to construct and manage a Panopticon prison: it is volume 5, covering the years 1794–1797, and it contains 268 separate letters. A very large proportion of the letters in the following volume, covering the years 1798–1801, is likewise devoted to Panopticon. There are a significant numbers of letters devoted to this subject towards the end of volume 4, covering the years 1788–1793, and in the early part of volume 7 (1802–1808). The topic re-emerges at intervals in the Correspondence up to 1813. These volumes of correspondence show us a man who for 12 years at the height of his powers (1790–1802: from 1802 until 1813 Panopticon remained a possibility, but it played a part in his life only sporadically) threw himself into meetings, negotiations, discussions, arguments, visits, and interviews with the aim of building and operating a public establishment. The people he was dealing with at this point in his life were not philosophers or jurists but architects, engineers, factory owners, estate managers, landowners, Members of Parliament, government officials, and lawyers.35


Apart from anything else, this shows up the absurdity of such broad-brush statements as the one by Shirley Robin Letwin when she claimed that from pre-Revolutionary days ‘the course of his life, even his daily routine, never varied. He rose at six, walked two or three hours . . . After breakfasting, he worked until four, then dined’.36 This may have been true of a later period of Bentham’s life but certainly not of the Panopticon years, years when he was ‘trying to influence actual people, corresponding with, and meeting landowners; walking endlessly round the Treasury corridors trying to catch officials; encouraging people to come and look at the model of the building’.37 The denouement of the whole project – the provision of compensation by the British government in 1817 – provides concrete proof of the extent of Bentham’s personal commitment and the sacrifices made by him in pursuit of his plans.38 Right to the end of his life he continued to be sporadically involved in practical projects – ‘within a year of his death he was working hard at two projects which came to nothing – the project of a daily paper to be called The Universalist and the project of a Parliamentary Candidate Society’.39 Bentham then was a man who wanted to get involved in changing the world. But why through the construction and management of a prison? How on earth was he proposing to use this particular means for improving the social order? And what on earth did it have to do with his utilitarianism? With a few notable exceptions,40 the question of the true significance of Bentham’s visionary Panopticon project was largely ignored by generations of scholars until the bombshell of Michel Foucault’s Surveiller et Punir of 1975,41 translated into English as Discipline and Punish two years later.42 Foucault’s book came out of an environment of French intellectual life not normally known for taking an interest in Benthamism or utilitarianism. Nor has the huge interest generated in the world of history and social sciences by the work of Foucault43 had much effect generally on the world of Bentham scholarship.44 To the extent that Bentham specialists – the anglophone ones at least – are aware of Foucault, it is as a threatening presence, for his emphasis is not on the ‘nice’ Bentham of the ‘greatest-happiness principle’ but on the ‘nasty’ Bentham of ‘social control’. One French scholar has even spoken of a deeply engrained ‘feud between Bentham scholars and Foucault’ and of a ‘discrepancy between an increasingly attractive Bentham (thanks to the new edition and studies of the Bentham Project) and a still repulsive Panopticon’ resulting from the impact of Foucault’s work.45 Foucault promotes the idea that Panopticon somehow perfectly embodies the modern ‘disciplinary’ society which has replaced older methods of social control where power was nakedly and dramatically displayed through violence inflicted publicly on human bodies – as in public executions; whereas modern industrial societies rely by contrast on disciplinary methods imported from the military or from techniques for dealing with epidemics and seek to discipline or eliminate ‘deviant’ behaviours.46 The thesis is set out in Foucault, Discipline and Punish,


Pt III, ch. 3, ‘Panopticism’. Powerful and challenging though Foucault’s treatment of Panopticon may be, it suffers (in common with all modern work on Panopticon) from the general reaction to the interwar dictatorships which has formed the mental environment since the 1930s.47 To the word espionage a stigma is attached: let us substitute the word inspection . . . If this inspection consist in the maintenance of an oppressive system of police, which subjects innocent actions to punishment, which condemns secretly and arbitrarily, it is natural that such a system and its agents should become odious. But if this inspection consist in the maintenance of a system of police, for the preservation of the public tranquillity and the execution of good laws, all its inspectors, and all its guardians, act a useful and salutary part: it is the vicious only who will have reason to complain; it will be formidable to them alone.48 Though taken from a text that is an English translation of one of Etienne Dumont’s French presentations of Bentham, this statement is fairly representative of Bentham’s thought: that you could distinguish between necessary and salutary supervision and a damaging variety. Others seem to have denied this distinction. Writing within the postwar context of anxiety about totalitarian abuse of power as a result of the earlier history of the century, and within a developing anti-Enlightenment trend in Parisian postmodernist circles, Foucault focussed on Panopticon as a prototype Orwellian nightmare of the abuse of power which typified the Enlightenment’s spirit of totalising rationality. What interested him was the rise of a ‘disciplinary’ society in the wake of the Enlightenment. In a world imbued with a generalised fear of authoritarianism, Orwellian mind control,49 bigbrotherism, and manipulation, Panopticon has appeared to many – even, ironically, in this hyper-permissive age – like the very embodiment of everyone’s worst nightmare.50 The term ‘Panopticon’ has become so emblematic of the idea of sinister controlling activities that Cole could entitle his study of such practices in the Baha’i religion in America ‘The Baha’i Faith In America as Panopticon’ without troubling to explain why he had chosen this particular title.51 The huge influence of psychological work on ‘the authoritarian personality’52 and analysis of methods of social control has made it well-nigh impossible to focus on what Panopticon was really about.53 Horror at the idea of the godlike all-seeing eye of the Panopticon inspector has diverted attention from the essential complementarity in Bentham’s thinking between the transparency of the inmates to the inspector and the transparency of the inspector and his institution to the outside world.54 As Christian Laval writes of Bentham’s thinking, ‘If the agent of power must see everything, he himself must be totally seen.’55 Much of the commentary on Panopticon since the War has suffered from a confusion between the idea of visibility and the idea of vulnerability. For


some reason it is assumed that a person who is not able to conceal himself or herself from the gaze of the inspector is intrinsically less vulnerable to the inspector’s will than someone who is. The implication is that someone locked in a dungeon under the earth which has only a slat in the door for observation is more vulnerable to maltreatment than an inmate of a transparent prison in which the doings of the governor take place under the gaze of the outside world. The logic of this escapes me. Some commentators seem to think that because the inspector can see all, he must therefore be able to do all. Thus, for example, Anne Brunon Ernst in the most recent monograph on Panopticon: ‘How is it possible that one and the same man can devise a theory based on the principle of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number’’ and at the same time propose to establish institutions imposing an absolute authority over individuals?’56 But Bentham never thought in terms of absolute authority for the inspector. The same author also states that panoptical architecture looks at first sight like a place of authority.57 But surely the first impression given by panoptical architecture is in fact transparency? As Bentham told David Collins, who was planning to build a Panopticon in Australia in 1803, the two things that mattered were the transparency of the interior to the inspector and the transparency of the whole to the outside world.58 It was not ever thus. One historian of political thought commented in 1915 that Panopticon was ‘a humane contrivance’, ‘a great and noble scheme – worthy of Bentham’s philanthropic nature’.59 One hundred years earlier a Bristolian ‘Miss Morgan’, who produced an anonymous broadside condemning the state of Bristol Gaol and calling for radical improvements in it along the lines proposed by Howard, said of Panopticon that the immense advantages of this plan in every respect, over the system of confinement in the Hulks, or that of transportation to Botany Bay, is so completely proved . . . that it must ever be considered as one of the most profound of the mysteries of government, why Mr Bentham’s plan did not supersede the acknowledged inefficacy of the one punishment and the enormous expence of the other.60 One very intriguing thing about this little book is the context in which it was written: the proposed erection of a new gaol in the city of Bristol involved the imposition of a new tax on the inhabitants. In October 1815, delegates of the several parishes within the city held a meeting at which opposition to this was expressed. A committee of deputies was appointed and this opposition was voiced in their report submitted to a general meeting of delegates in January 1816. The chairman of this committee was incidentally the celebrated John Loudun McAdam of tarmacadam fame.61 The theme of economy evidently had a great relevance for Bristolian taxpayers at this time. Well before Miss Morgan, Brissot had called Panoptique the only book ‘where the secret has been found of reforming men without torturing them,


traumatising them, humiliating them . . . ’. He thought that the idea would give its inventor immortality62 – which in a way it has, but not quite as Brissot hoped. In 1820 the new liberal Cortes in Spain heard a report of a commission which recommended the Panopticon design as ideal for the construction of new Spanish prisons, urging that it would appeal to all ‘wise lovers of humanity’.63 Such was the impact made by Dumont’s abstract in France that although no Panopticon in the strict sense was ever built, Panopticism as the principle of central surveillance became all the rage.64 The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline in London adopted the principle in 1820, and the degree of interest in it was so strong that architects came from abroad to learn more about it.65 Etienne Dumont promoted Panopticon again in 1811 (once more firmly in the prisons context) in his Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, and in 1820 Sir Francis Cunningham wrote guidance for the design of prisons taken textually out of this second work of Dumont’s.66 In France, in 1825, a Memoir honoured by the Lyons Academy proposed the construction of a prison along the lines ‘perfected’ in London, and the same year a commission setting out guidelines for the design of a model prison stated that surveillance of all the parts of the prison either from a central point or from a gallery should be built into it.67 In Philadelphia, John Haviland built a prison in 1836 with central inspection very much in mind, though its radial design would not have pleased Bentham.68 It was the American example that was picked up in France, where the cardinal points of prison architecture from the 1840s became the cellular system and central inspection.69 Foucault could even state of France that ‘in the 1830s, the Panopticon became the architectural programme of most prison projects’.70 He cites an official government recommendation of the design on the grounds both of discipline and of economy dating from 1841. ‘The more accurate and easy the surveillance’, it stated, ‘the less need will there be to seek in the strength of the building guarantees against attempted escapes and against communication between the inmates’.71 With reference to the first decades of the nineteenth century, one historian of prison architecture stated that ‘Constant inspection became the magic formula, the mechanism whereby the prison regimen could be freed of its old abuses, the prisoner protected from corrupting influences, and escapes, riots, and unruly behaviour prevented.’72 In her study of Lancashire prisons, Margaret de Lacy states that ‘most of the new building carried out in Lancashire during the early 1820s followed his plan of a circle of cells arranged around a central inspection station’.73 In 1882, when the Arnhem Koepel prison was built on panoptical lines, the reaction was that it was too comfortable and some even expressed anxiety that people would try to get into it in order to live off the state.74 As late as the early twentieth century, an Illinois state legislative committee sent to Europe to survey prison planning with a view to the replacement of the old Joliet prison of 1860 returned with


the conviction that the Panopticon model was the best.75 A 1948 film entitled Call Northside 777 starring James Stewart was filmed partly on location within the new prison that resulted and gives some notion of what it must have felt like inside a Panopticon-style institution.76 Jefferson Selth pointed out that what he called ‘the direct-supervision prison’ has recently become fashionable in the United States, beginning with the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Facility in 1975. Speaking of the new model prison in San Francisco County, he described ‘a full-circle design’ which ‘permits surveillance of all the inmates from a central podium around the clock’.77 In December 2007 Lord Carter submitted a ‘Review of the Prison System in England and Wales’ to the UK government78 and the BBC news picked up on this, noting the hints of Panopticism in Lord Carter’s proposals.79 An online BBC news article entitled ‘What should prisons look like?’ notes that Lord Carter is proposing ‘Titan super-prisons’ in which ‘a key quality will be “optimal sight lines’’ which would result in better staff utilisation and deliver staff savings’. The writer makes an immediate comparison with Panopticon (complete with an illustration) but classically, he does so through the criticism of Michel Foucault. It is true that there were those even among Bentham’s contemporaries who remained sceptical. His fellow-utilitarian William Godwin complained that in the Christian idea of God there was a tyrant perpetually controlling us, who sits ‘like Jeremy Bentham, perched on top of his Panopticon, to spy into all our weaknesses’.80 Marquet-Vasselot, author of numerous works on prisons, could not see how watching a prisoner perpetually would do anything for his moral improvement, for the inspector could only see the outside.81 This objection had been voiced by Talleyrand in conversation with Dumont.82 However, it was the huge success of Panopticism as a model in nineteenthcentury France for the reorganisation of prisons that inspired Foucault to study it at greater depth.83 If Bentham’s architectural technique has been demonised since the end of the Second World War, this surely has as much to do with the outlook of an age conditioned by the horrors of totalitarian dictatorships and Orwellian nightmares than with the intrinsic merits or demerits of the technique itself. For Panopticon, as we shall see, is about transparency and the virtues of accountability and economy that accompany it, and these qualities are the object of something like idolatry in most spheres of culture today. Panopticon is no more about constant surveillance than are today’s speed cameras: the point of them is not that motorists are in fact being watched all the time but that the motorist should be deterred from breaking the laws of the road by the knowledge that the offence may be captured on film. Bentham was interested not in intensifying surveillance but in producing the same deterrent effect as a speed camera while minimising actual surveillance.84 More recently Panopticon has been taken up in discussion on the Internet, where some even see it as a kind of metaphor for the World Wide


Web itself. For example, David Engberg – openly acknowledging his debt to Foucault’s theories – constructed a ‘virtual panopticon’ on the Net. ‘It still remains to be seen’, he writes, ‘to what extent the new media technologies will in fact increase the centralization of power by facilitating unprecedented monitoring and observation’. And he continues, I have explored this idea through the virtual construction of Bentham’s panopticon as an information space. The user of the space is put in the central place of the information collector and controller, inverting our traditional role as the subject of observation. The faceless prisoners of this space are held in darkness, illuminated only by roving spotlights that prevent them from observing their observers, reinforcing Foucault’s idea of a citizen who ‘is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication’. The spotlights never illuminate the observer, but they probe the darkness to find prisoners who can be examined to divulge their information, in the form of hypertext links.85 Another example is entitled ‘The Panopticon Singularity’, it is anonymous but dated 2002. The author writes, ‘Though originally proposed as a humane experiment in penal reform . . . Bentham’s idea has eerie resonances today. One of the risks of the technologies that may give rise to a singularity is that they may also permit the construction of a Panopticon society – a police state characterised by omniscient surveillance and mechanical law enforcement.’86 Another website ‘against surveillance, transparency and globalized capitalism’ entitled Time in the Shadows of Anonymity – attacking the spread of security cameras and the cult of transparency as just another tool of oppressive capitalism – begins with a quote from Foucault, ‘If Bentham’s project [the Panopticon] aroused interest, this was because it provided a formula applicable to many domains, the formula of “power through transparency’’.’87 However, as far as Bentham’s own intentions are concerned, Nancy Rosenblum’s comment is very pertinent: ‘ . . . Panopticon was a practical design for an institution . . . and no more. It was not a microcosm of a state, and Bentham did not use it to criticize actual states.’88 Nancy L. Rosenblum, Bentham’s Theory of the Modern State, Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1978, p. 19. I would not, however, concur with this author when she goes on to say that Bentham ‘had no intention of providing a site for . . . experimenting with character formation’ (Rosenblum, op. cit., p. 20). Bentham assumed that if an inmate of a panoptical establishment knew that it was secure, he would stop dreaming about escape and apply himself to making the best of his circumstances. In yet another website Richard Barbrook has contrasted the ideal of the Net as a place of free unfettered exchange – in the vision of its founders – with what commercial interests would like it to be, a ‘digital Panopticon’ where the exchanges are monitored and controlled by outside forces.89


The combination of Bentham and Foucault has triggered the creation of a whole new academic discipline known as ‘surveillance theory’.90 ‘It is a profound understatement to say that the panopticon dominates surveillance studies’, writes Kevin Haggerty.91 ‘Originally designed by Bentham, the panopticon is now inextricably linked to Foucault’s work. Reference to Foucault pervades surveillance studies’, says the same author.92 Inevitably in such an atmosphere, Panopticon has looked like a sign that Bentham the philosopher of utilitarianism was but one face of a Jekyll and Hyde personality, that he nurtured a secret lust for power and domination: How else to explain his insistence on being the designated gaoler in his proposed Panopticon? Why else would anyone want to be a gaoler unless he was power-crazy? A typically exasperated comment was written by Bahmueller in his study of Bentham’s plans for the creation of a new system of poor relief. ‘ . . . [Bentham] called Panopticon poorhouse his “Utopia’’ . . . we should ask ourselves why for Bentham is this Utopian? The answer, I think, is that there he could indulge his fantasy of possessing total control: there he could dream his dream of taking complete power over a social system.’93 H. S. Jones concludes an Internet review of Halévy’s La Formation du Radicalisme Philosophique by making a stark contrast between an approach to Enlightenment social thought as being about ‘the intellectual discovery of “society’’ as the product of neither human nor divine will, but a spontaneous order generated from the unintended consequences of innumerable individual human actions’ and an approach that sees it as being ‘about the reshaping of human beings – body, mind, and soul – through conscious and collective human agency’ and continues, ‘In short, which was more typical of the Enlightenment: the invisible hand or the Panopticon?’94 There is an ongoing debate in Bentham scholarship about how ‘liberal’ Bentham was. His attack on natural rights seems to many liberals to make him suspect, while his placing liberty below security in the hierarchy of political values has reinforced such suspicions. Michael James wrote in 1980 that ‘One of the consequences of the revival of liberal political theory in the 1970s has been to identify in utilitarianism, or at least Bentham’s version of it, a doctrine which is not merely distinct from liberalism but which is, on many points, deeply hostile to it.’95 Of Bentham’s proposed Poor Law Reform Bahmueller wrote that it ‘was replete with a repressiveness so pervasive, so soul-destroying, and with so little regard for either the civil liberties or the emotional sensitivities of those whose health (moral as well as physical) and happiness it set out to promote and protect, that its administrative progressiveness pales in comparison’.96 I cannot enter into this debate in the present work, I simply want to observe that to those already inclined to sunder Benthamite utilitarianism from liberalism, Panopticon looks like a clincher in the argument, a concrete proof of Bentham’s hostility to liberalism. Far from being an odd eccentric exception to his otherwise liberal beliefs, it is to be viewed as the epitome of his control-freakery. This argument is close to


that of Michel Foucault, who of course wanted to convict the whole Enlightenment as such of pursuing essentially oppressive policies under the guise of the slogan of reason. On the other hand, perhaps Janet Semple was right to say, ‘We might feel a certain gratitude to Foucault for bringing Bentham’s panopticon to the attention of the modern world. But this gratitude must be strictly limited.’97 It is hardly surprising that with the Panopticon plan viewed in such a light, it has often been hived off from Bentham’s main utilitarian project by scholars sympathetic to him as if it were the dark side of his otherwise benign personality. Well-meaning liberal commentators on Bentham have simply not been able to cope with this ‘dark side’ and deal with it apologetically as a very clever and powerful idea which had most unfortunate implications that its creator never seems to have noticed.98 As William Twining writes, ‘Even the most sympathetic Benthamists tend to be embarrassed by this aspect of his endeavours.’99 Janet Semple in Bentham’s Prison is more sympathetic than most but ultimately cannot hide her anxiety about the concept.100 Others who are not well disposed to Bentham are perfectly happy to hold up Panopticon as a sign that utilitarianism has basically tyrannical implications.101 What has not been properly examined is the nature of the connection between Bentham the utilitarian and Bentham the projector of Panopticon. And yet, given the demonstrable importance of Panopticon in Bentham’s life, the explanation of the connection between utilitarianism and the Panopticon is arguably the most important and most fundamental issue in Bentham studies. The application of utilitarian principles in law reform and in the Panopticon project were surely the two major themes in Bentham’s life. Opponents of Bentham have argued that Panopticon was not simply of itself a monstrosity but one that somehow also demonstrates the evils of Bentham’s greatest-happiness system, which Himmelfarb called ‘as inimical to the idea of liberty as to the idea of rights’.102 She makes this claim in the context of an argument that it was not philosophical radicalism that was the real ‘fount of reform’ nor was Bentham ‘the father of reform’ but rather Tories like Peel. ‘Benthamism, we may find, has as little in common with either our functioning democracies or our democratic ideals as the Panopticon has with our actual, let alone ideal, prisons.’103 L. J. Hume seems to find the connection of Panopticon to Bentham’s thinking in general in the idea of ‘social control’, claiming that ‘Perhaps the fundamental question with which he was grappling in all his legal writings was how law could be made to function in society as an instrument of social control.’104 One scholar who has recently attempted to connect ‘Panopticism’ with utilitarianism is Guillaume Tusseau, but unfortunately like so many others in this field his thinking remains dominated by the Panopticon as the embodiment of power.105 While he shows an awareness of the importance of transparency in Bentham’s conception, he does not acknowledge the concern Bentham has to make that transparency


an instrument for the generation of economies, whereas I will argue that the point of Panopticon can only be seen when we look at it as modelling economy in governance rather than as modelling the totalitarian state. This has become very difficult to do since the rise of Marxism because of the huge influence of the latter’s tendency to slide quickly and effortlessly from the study of financial issues to that of power relations. It may well be true that wealth is power, but that in no way prevents us from studying ‘money’ issues in abstraction from ‘power’ issues, and indeed it is surely necessary for us to do so. More than anybody else, it was Michel Foucault who was responsible for disseminating this power-oriented thinking about Bentham’s architectural technique. The following is a typical (and highly misleading) affirmation: ‘Like his contemporaries, [Bentham] faced the problem of the accumulation of men. But whereas the economists posed the problem in terms of wealth . . . Bentham poses the question in terms of power – population as object of relations of domination.’106 Actually it was Foucault himself who was obsessed with power, particularly in relation to social control of sexuality, to which he refers on the previous page. ‘With these themes of surveillance, and especially in schools, it seems that control over sexuality becomes inscribed in architecture.’ His agenda surely relates to his own struggles as a homosexual107 in the context of the contemporary popularity in the West of writings that attributed the psychology of fascist tyranny to ‘oppressive’ attitudes in the area of the family and sexuality.108 In this he echoed a strong current of liberal and left feeling since 1945. It became almost an orthodoxy in the 1960s, when Wilhelm Reich’s book associating fascism with traditional sexual and family mores was a best-seller. The problem with Foucault is not that he is wary of abuses of power but – as David Garland points out – that he does not offer a critique of just one form of power: rather, he attacks power as such. This points to some kind of anarchistic assumptions on his part. Yet, ‘there is an important sense in which discipline can create freedom as well as control’.109 This echoes the argument of Philip Rieff, of whom it has been said that he was ‘arguably the most important social theorist since . . . Durkheim and Weber’.110 Rieff maintained that every society depends on orders of authority.111 Bentham certainly was interested in the power inherent in the Panopticon plan, but only in the same way as virtually every secularist reformer in the modern world, on the assumption that bad behaviour is the consequence of a ‘bad’ social environment: change the environment therefore and you will change the person. The idea goes back to Rousseau at least and is an attempt to provide an alternative to the classic Christian diagnosis that attributed the ills of society to original sin, a malady that required to be healed by divine grace through the administrations of the clergy rather than through humanistic activism. The real problem with Bentham’s way of dealing with social deviance was that he believed and preached that the certainty of detection


was the supreme principle that needed to be promoted. Not believing in redemption or moral improvement through example or divine grace, he had to fall back on the idea that crimes must be prevented by the creation of the most effective possible degree of security. In this idea lay the germ of the development of modern police forces and forensic techniques well before the spread of surveillance.112 But he held this belief in common with the leading secular Enlightened reformers from Beccaria and Romilly onwards. Although the death knell of the Panopticon project was finally sounded in 1813 with the government’s allocation of compensation to Bentham, the American John Neal (who first met him in 1825) made a point of recording the intensity of Bentham’s bitterness about the failure of his dream, also remarking that the implementation of the plan would surely have made Bentham a rich man. He records how one day Bentham began to talk about ‘his magnificent project with regard to the Panopticon-proprietorship, or contract-management proposed by him, and accepted by the government’.113 Bentham told Neal that he had intended out of the profits of Panopticon to build (among other things) an arcaded street from his home in QueenSquare Place to Westminster Abbey. Neal claims that ‘all this and more might have been accomplished with a part of the probable profits which he would have derived from his scheme, had the British government held faith with him . . . ’.114 Cynics might swoop on this triumphantly as evidence of Bentham’s ‘ulterior motives’. And that certainly is the implication conveyed by Ross Harrison, who states baldly that Panopticon was taken up by Bentham as a money-making project through which he could be ‘working the nation’s convicts for a profit’.115 But this is to miss the point entirely. The idea of the combination of the public interest with the interest of the individual was absolutely fundamental to Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy and he simply did not believe in the possibility of altruism, since according to his philosophy nature had dictated that human beings of necessity followed the pull of pleasure and fled the threat of pain. The ‘interest and duty conjunction principle’ was the foundation of everything in his book. He would have denied any businessman/philanthropist polarity.116 It is perfectly legitimate to reject Bentham’s version of utilitarianism, but in his conception of Panopticon as an enterprise which he wanted to demonstrate could be profitable, he was perfectly consistent. Among many other things, Panopticon was itself intended to model the principle of the reconciliation of private with public interests in action. Some years later he wrote to José Joaquin de Mora about how his Panopticon writings had demonstrated that it was a business that ‘cannot, for any continuance, be well conducted by persons not personally interested in the pecuniary success . . . ’. And he went on to reflect bitterly on the fact that having rejected his proposed commercial system of management, the government went on to build the vastly more expensive trust-governed Millbank penitentiary on the plot of land he had purchased for Panopticon.


When, in my character of accepted Contractor, the Administration here broke the faith of Parliament that had been pledged to me, they substituted, both for the building and the management, to my avowedly interested, uninterested hands. The consequence has been . . . that a building not designed for more than 600 prisoners has already, without being yet finished, cost more than ten times as much as the one I had offered to erect and keep employed in it 1,100 prisoners . . . .117 As L. J. Hume remarked, from a wider perspective, Bentham’s proposed contract reflected his belief that ‘the forces of the market provided a form of discipline that would in some circumstances be as effective as the disciplines of the legal system’.118 But for opponents of the contract system, ‘punishment was too delicate a social function to be left to private entrepreneurs’, as Ignatieff put it, going on to assert that the rejection of Panopticon was ‘a major event in the history of prisons’.119 Bentham’s thinking on this issue was anathema to many of his fellow prison reformers and undoubtedly lost Bentham some support. Ironically of course the private prison has recently returned to favour in some circles. However, the Millbank Penitentiary was indeed excessively costly, George Holford himself observing that it was ‘one of the most costly of all the buildings that the world had then seen since the Pyramids of Egypt, the total expense from first to last amounting to not far short of three-quarters of a million sterling’.120

II

Panopticon: The Reality

If we are to appreciate why Panopticon mattered so much to Bentham, the very first point to grasp about it is that it was not actually a prison but a tool, an instrument, a method. Bentham’s published accounts of Panopticon all stated that it was an architectural technique applicable to any establishment which involved the supervision of numbers of persons – hospital, school, poorhouse, asylum, factory. Typical of many scholars, Gertrude Himmelfarb begins her essay ‘The Haunted House of Jeremy Bentham’ with the statement: ‘The Panopticon that so obsessed Jeremy Bentham was the plan of a model prison.’121 True though this may be in a literal sense, it is also untrue because what really obsessed him was the huge potential for cost reductions inherent in transparency in architecture (visibility or the inspection principle) and transparency in administration (accountability). The title of the first Dublin edition of 1791 ran thus: ‘Panopticon: or, the Inspection-House. Containing the idea of a new principle of construction applicable to any sort of Establishment, in which persons of any description are to be kept under inspection. And in particular to Penitentiary Houses, Poor-Houses, Prisons, Manufactories, Houses of Industry, Mad-Houses, Work-Houses, Hospitals, and schools. With a plan of management adapted to the principle in a series of letters . . . .’122 The point of Panopticon is demonstrated in the name itself. Bentham himself stated that the name


came from ‘the two Greek words, one of which (pan) signified everything, the other a place of sight’.123 Panopticon was about visibility. Bentham himself preferred the term ‘inspection principle’ or ‘inspectability’, but there is a very popular modern term to which it is equivalent, and that term is ‘transparency’. The term ‘transparent’ is used in the summary account of Panopticon found in the Bowring edition ‘Principles of penal law.’124 For some reason, while transparency has come to be regarded as one of the fundamental virtues of modern governance and administration, Bentham’s Panopticon is widely regarded with horror. Foucault snarled that in his case ‘visibility is a trap’.125 This curious statement has been set by Martin Jay against the background of a traditional ‘anti-visual’ discourse in twentieth-century French thought.126 Jay asks why Foucault never saw this tradition as a problem. It seems he was simply unable to question ‘the premises and implications of the anti-visual discourse itself’.127 Panopticon was an architectural technique which allowed for large numbers of persons to be visible/transparent to one person and therefore to be supervisable by one person. As we shall see at greater length in the next chapter, it originated with Bentham’s brother Samuel at the time when the latter was in the employ of Prince Potemkin in Russia in the mid-1780s.128 Potemkin wanted to find a way of ensuring that a number of factory workers could be supervised economically and efficiently, and Samuel hit upon the Panopticon design, which involved a circular or octagonal building with the supervisor in the centre and the workers distributed around him. Panopticon originated then within the movement which was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, the movement to generate higher profits through the reduction of costs. One man could produce only so much per day operating directly on materials with his own hands, but one man operating a machine to work the materials might produce as much per day as 20 men working with their own hands. The reduction of labour costs was the heartbeat of the Industrial Revolution, and Panopticon was to be a classic tool for the reduction of labour costs, the labour in this case being the supervisors rather than the operatives. It was moreover to be a factory that employed prisoners, as the Panopticon Bentham envisaged for paupers was to employ paupers. John Annette pointed out that he was under the influence of his brother Samuel, who was ‘fascinated with the possibility of using unskilled labour in manufacturing with completely standardised parts’.129 Strange that Michael Ignatieff, whose study is so promisingly subtitled ‘The penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution’, should have failed to notice this, summarising Bentham’s major contribution as being ‘to find the architectural form that most fully embodied the reformers’ desire to subject men to the disciplines of surveillance’.130 Panopticon was then fundamentally about economy.131 In 1798 the evangelical MP Henry Thornton referred to Panopticon as Bentham’s plan ‘for a more economical mode of maintaining the convicts’.132 Comparing his own


plan with that of William Blackburn (1750–1790), who won first prize from the Commissioners for Penitentiary Houses with his design for a prison,133 Bentham explained that ‘the expense of [Panopticon] might . . . be brought within half that of the late ingenious Mr Blackburn’s, which was £120 a man’.134 As Rem Koolhaas wrote, ‘The aim of the Panopticon principle was efficient production – of goods in the factory, health in the hospital, or reformed human beings in the prison.’135 One critic who noted the importance of economy to Bentham was Gertrude Himmelfarb, but she seems to regard it as another reason to despise him.136 Bentham believed, as many today believe, that the key to economy was transparency. According to Bentham, in a prison designed according to the panoptical model, one person could supervise 1000 inmates. The gaoler would be placed in a central tower and the inmates would be placed in cells around the circumference.137 Their cells would be constructed with glass on the side facing inwards to the centre so that the gaoler would be able to see them all with one sweep of his eye. The hugely inventive Bentham (or his brother) came up with an extraordinary refinement of this plan which would make possible yet further reductions in labour costs. If blinds were placed on the windows of the central tower, then the supervisor could see without being seen. The inmates would never know if he was there or not. Consequently there would be no need to staff the central tower round the clock. This feature of the panoptical design offered a kind of miracle of economy – the provision of a ‘virtual’ supervision. What counted then was not the supervision as such but the fear in the mind of the supervisee that he or she might be being observed.138 This is the same principle as that of the modern-day security or speed camera. The main purpose of these cameras is not to watch individuals in order to observe what they are doing, but to deter potential speeders or wrongdoers. Although apprehension is frequently expressed in the media about the existence of so many cameras, the authorities are not treated as Frankenstein monsters for installing them, since most citizens do understand and appreciate the rationale for them. It is well known that many speed cameras are not operative at any given time, but their purpose is nonetheless widely served since they are there to deter rather than to observe. The fear of them relates more to their potential use than to their actual operation. There is absolutely no difference between this and Bentham’s panoptical principle, so it is hard to see why his proposal has been treated with such horror by many critics. The fact that he was quite happy to get by with a virtual supervisor rather than a real one makes plain that the purpose of the exercise was never actually to watch people but to maintain discipline as cheaply as possible through people’s awareness that they might be being watched. As the security of Bentham’s proposed prison was based on the idea of the perfection of the supervision technique, he could plan to construct it mainly with iron and glass, thereby doing away with the need for heavy


and expensive masonry work.139 ‘ . . . glass was the sole material of which the boundary all round was composed, with the exception of the aggregate of the iron-bars and leadings necessary for the imbeddings of the panes of glass . . . ’, wrote Bentham at the end of his life.140 Marco Guidi noted that if Bentham’s proposed building had been constructed, it would have been a predecessor of the Crystal Palace.141 Guidi further points out that designs for the new London City Hall and the new Berlin Reichstag allow visitors to watch debates, while in the Dresden Volkswagen car plant clients can oversee their own car’s assembly. Panopticon undoubtedly has a place in the history of the development of glass-based architecture which has become so predominant in the construction of today’s office blocks. One architectural historian wrote, ‘The conceptual basis for much of modern architecture has been generated through using glass to create the minimal building structure, to extol the notion of lightweight construction solutions, as the simple multipurpose envelope, and to permit the maximum penetration of light into the building’s interior.’142 I think Bentham should also be seen as a progenitor of the open plan office, which would surely have delighted him. He was hugely interested in economy. Bahmueller, in his study of Bentham’s poor relief proposals, which themselves involved heavy dependence on the establishment of panoptical institutions, remarked on ‘the incessant striving for orderliness, neatness, discipline, monetary frugality, and saving in every form’ which was to generate ‘an excessively disciplined and fetishistically parsimonious social order . . . ’.143 Michael Quinn observes ‘that when Bentham engages with detail in the plan of the pauper panopticon he displays an almost fanatical enthusiasm for deriving value from every scrap of labour, and for the most obsessional cheese-paring’.144 But in a sense, he was only anticipating today’s concern with the husbanding of resources as typified in the recycling movement. Why this preoccupation with economy, and what is its connection to his utilitarianism? This question is absolutely central to an appreciation of what Bentham was all about. What Bentham aspired to be was the entrepreneur of a new order, and it is the nature of this new order which merits closer examination here. One way of describing this new order of things is to call it a waste-free utopia. The long preoccupation with themes of utility and the greatest-happiness principle in Bentham’s writings has diverted attention from his massive concern with economy. The theme of economy figures large in Bentham’s writings, as a consideration of just a few of his titles illustrates. In the Autumn of 1789, Bentham attempted to draw attention in France to the crucial importance of economy in public administration, in a fascinating manuscript (‘Short views of Economy for the use of the French nation but not unapplicable to the English’) published for the first time only recently.145 It is an ironical proclamation of the only kind of natural right that Bentham recognises, people’s right not to be bled dry to subsidise extravagance in public administration. The opening sentences are clear: ‘If a Declaration of Rights


should be thought proper to be extended to such part of the business of government as respects finance, it might assume as to so much of it some such shape as the following. 1. No man ought to have taken from him without his consent on the score of his contribution to the public expences any thing beyond his equal share in the expence absolutely necessary for the protection of his interest in the general welfare.’146 After offering several guidelines as to how to minimise waste in public expenditure, Bentham wrote, ‘All public expence being an engine of corruption, all waste possesses in that character a malignity over and above what belongs to it in the character of waste. Waste in this manner begets and supports waste. The expence of each useless establishment is employ’d in bribing men to institute and support the others.’147 At the same period Bentham also wrote, ‘Supply – a new species proposed’, in which he anticipated the measure he put forward later in ‘Supply without burthen’ (see below) – government appropriation of collateral successions, which he believed would be a means of generating income for the government more or less painlessly.148 In a brochure of 1793, he called on the French National Convention to abandon their colonies on the grounds that they were expensive to protect and economically worse than useless.149 Other pamphlets he wrote had titles like: Defence of Economy against the Late Mr Burke (1817); Defence of Economy against the Right Hon George Rose (1817); Equity Dispatch Court Proposal; containing a plan for the speedy and unexpensive termination of the Suits now Depending in equity courts . . . (1830); Indications respecting Lord Eldon, including history of the pending judges’ salary-raising measure (1825); Observations on Mr Secretary Peel’s House of Commons Speech, 21st March, 1825, introducing his police magistrates’ salary-raising bill (1825); Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized (1830); A Protest against Law Taxes (1793); Supply without Burthen; or Escheat vice Taxation: being a proposal for a saving in taxes by an extension of the Law of Escheat . . . (1795). This last tract is perhaps the most interesting of all, for it is the text which is in a sense the most illustrative of the idea behind Panopticon. ‘Supply without burthen’ is what Bentham was about – investigating the most painless and least burdensome way of finding the resources needed for public administration. In this pamphlet Bentham thought he had found the alchemist’s solution to the riddle of producing gold for the state painlessly. He proposed to revive the old feudal law of escheat by which property left behind by the dead reverted to the king in the absence of a direct heir. Of the extended Law of Escheat, according to the degree of extension here proposed, the effect would be, the appropriating to the use of the public all vacant successions, property of every denomination included, on the failure of near relatives; will or no will, subject only to the power of


bequest as hereinafter limited. By near relations I mean, for the purpose of the present proposal, such relations as stand within the degrees termed prohibited with reference to marriage.150 Bentham regarded this as a painless way of providing funds for the government on the grounds that where someone died intestate without immediate heirs, there was no expectation on the part of anyone of inheriting, and therefore there would be no disappointment of expectations or threat to people’s security. ‘Under the existing Law of Escheat, real property, on the absolute failure of all heirs, lapses to the crown already. Is there any thing of hardship felt by any body?’151 And he gives an example: On the decease of my uncle, who had children before I was born, the law gives every thing to his children, nothing to me. – What do I suffer from finding myself thus debarred? Just nothing: – no more than at the thoughts of not succeeding to the stranger whose hearse is passing by.152 This was the Holy Grail that Bentham was looking for in Panopticon, painless methods of funding public services. He pursued the same goal in some of his other economic writings; for example, Stark says of ‘A Plan for the Augmentation of the Revenue’ that ‘the salient feature of the whole plan . . . is the fact that it would bring money into the Treasury without any taxation whatsoever’ (the plan had to do with the extension of government activity into new areas of ‘the money traffic’, for example buying life annuities for the lives of sellers and selling life annuities for the lives of purchasers).153 Scotch Reform is another interesting case.154 This contribution to the parliamentary debate on the administrative changes under consideration for the Scottish system of civil procedure begins with a comparative list of existing procedural rules and the ideal list of rules that Bentham would like to propose. Of the 20 different sections of the comparative list, the first eight all contain references to the financial exactions and depredations which the existing procedure encourages.155 When we look at Bentham’s priorities for the reform of the law, we find that he had three enemies in his sight: delay, expense, and vexation. 156 His ideal legal order would minimise delay, expense, and vexation for users of the law at all levels. In other words, he wanted a legal system whose operation did not waste anyone’s time or money or effort unnecessarily. The strategy for social improvement which Bentham based on his greatest-happiness principle was a war on waste – waste of time, waste of money, waste of effort. He had in mind here particularly the user’s experience of the law, but he was equally concerned about the burden which delay, expense, and vexation imposed on the taxpayer. Here it is highly instructive to study Bentham’s advice to the French as to the renewal of their judicial organisation in 1790.157 A committee of the National Assembly had produced proposals for a new system of


judicial organisation, and Bentham wrote a critique of those proposals along with an outline of his own. What is significant about his critique in this connection is his attention to the matter of cost. He was appalled by the expense involved in the operation of the proposed judicial system and his own proposals were characterised by strict economy. For example, he was ruthless about minimising the number of tribunals and the number of judges and the number of courts. Arguing that single-judge tribunals are infinitely preferable to the multi-judge tribunals envisaged by the committee, he observes that ‘if these principles be just, the saving they will produce in the expense of the establishment will be prodigious’.158 Attacking the idea of providing different tribunals for different kinds of cases – which he calls ‘the metaphysical principle of demarcation’ – he complains that it will lead to ‘a superfluous multitude of courts; hence money wasted to pay unnecessary salaries’.159 He lists 17 ways of reducing the costs of court proceedings, ranging from the abolition of all law taxes (which the committee had in fact proposed) to such practical measures as allowing witnesses to be examined locally to their homes (avoiding travel expenses) and ‘transmission of law-papers in general by the post, carriage free, from court to court, through the judge, or one of other of the public advocates, without passing through mercenary hands’.160 In this connection it is worth recalling that Bentham considered that the greatest enemies to justice were lawyers, for the reason that they had a mercenary interest in upholding the principle of complexity and incomprehensibility in the law. The more complex the law, the more the services of the expert were required to unravel it. One of his fundamental goals was to develop a system for the production of laws so simple that the need for lawyers would be virtually eliminated. This would remove the most significant financial burden incurred by individuals involved in court proceedings. The reason why Bentham set such store by economy in the operation of public establishments was simple. He regarded money as the most effective measure of opportunities for pleasure and therefore of happiness. The wealthier a person, the greater the number of pleasures available to him. In one of his French-language manuscripts he states that wealth comprises within itself the largest portion of causes of happiness – and especially those that are at the disposition of the government, so that wealth can be taken as representative of all such causes.161 But a major enemy of the individual’s wealth was the government, through the burden of taxes. A certain number of public establishments were necessary, and these had to be paid through taxation for the sake of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.162 But taxation involved a reduction in the wealth of individuals and therefore a reduction in their happiness, and consequently Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy required that taxation be kept to an absolute minimum. Essential public establishments must therefore be operated as economically as possible. To us this principle might seem innocuous enough, but if nothing else, Bentham learned from his brother Samuel’s experiences of promoting economy measures in the naval service that evident advantages in terms of economies achieved often cut


little ice with those in authority. As he remarked in the second Panopticon Postscript, To say that, of two plans of equal merit, the most economical ought to be preferred, is to advance a proposition which must appear trivial to all those who do not know that the expense of an enterprise is often its secret recommendation, and that economy is a virtue against which there exists a general conspiracy.163 It is here that the architectural design known as the Panopticon comes in. This design was intended by Bentham to provide a blueprint for the most economical possible operation of all public establishments – schools, hospitals, asylums, poor houses, prisons – involving a significant element of supervision. The first words of the preface to the 1791 edition of Panopticon are oft-quoted, but it does not seem to me that their import is really grasped. ‘Morals reformed – health preserved – industry invigorated – instruction diffused – public burthens lightened – Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock – the Gordian knot of the Poor-Laws not cut, but untied – all by a simple idea in Architecture!’164 If these claims were simply intended to be applied to a new type of penitentiary, they would be ludicrously grandiose. But clearly they are meant to give an indication of the huge potential for the ‘simple idea in Architecture’ to transform large swathes of public life. The reformation of morals presumably refers to prisons, the preservation of health to hospitals, the invigoration of industry to factories, the diffusion of instruction to schools, the untying of the Gordian knot of the poor laws to welfare. But the seating of economy ‘upon a rock’ and the lightening of ‘public burthens’ is considered by Bentham to be the general consequence of the widest possible application of the ‘simple idea in Architecture’. His aim was to apply the panoptical technique to supervisory situations in general as a means of eliminating waste in the running of public establishments and hence of reducing the burden of these establishments on the taxpayer. Cutting labour costs to the bone was only one tool for the elimination of waste. Building costs would also be minimised: the construction of panoptical edifices of iron and glass would be hugely less expensive than the construction of huge masonry fortresses where the thickness of the stone was the major barrier to escape. In Panopticon Postscript Part 2 – devoted to details of the construction of the buildings – a whole section is entitled ‘of the economy observed in the construction’ and in it Bentham recommends that cells should be made no larger than necessary, that they accommodate two, three, or four inmates, and that they serve for all of the activities of the inmates – ‘to work, to eat, to sleep, to pray, to be punished, and to be nursed’.165 He complains that the Penitentiary Act prescribed ceilings between 9 and 11 feet high, thereby incorporating a waste of space, whereas less than 7 would be perfectly adequate.166 But Bentham’s Panopticon plan involved much more than


just utilitarian architecture: it came complete with a utilitarian management scheme – utilitarian in the sense that it embodied Bentham’s duty and interest conjunction principle.167 The management of the panoptical institution was to be in the hands of private individuals who would run it as a profitmaking business. What Panopticon would do for the world would be to show in action how the profit of the individual could be made to coincide with the interest of the public at large. In other words, far from being somehow an embarrassment for the utilitarian, Panopticon was to be the very embodiment of utilitarianism in action on a grand scale.168 Bentham was absolutely clear that the achievement of his goal of maximal economy required a combination of the architectural style with the contract management method. ‘To the carrying this design into effect, two requisites were necessary: – The first is an appropriate form of architecture . . . , and an appropriate plan of management, so organized as to draw from that mode of architecture, as far as practicable, all the advantages it was capable of affording.’169 And in the same text: ‘my prison is transparent: my management, no less so’.170 The method by which the contract management would be made profitable to the contractor was that the prison would be run as a factory from which he would extract most of the profit. There was a third component to the plan which Bentham thought would tie in the interest of the manager to the welfare of the inmates. He was bound to insure their lives. A calculation is made of the average number of deaths in the year, among the mixed multitude committed to his care, and a certain sum is allowed to him for each; but at the end of the year, he is required to pay a similar sum for every one lost by death or escape. He is therefore constituted the assurer of the lives and safe custody of his prisoners . . . .171 Although Bentham sometimes looks as though he was an individual at odds with the world he lived in, the fact is that a preoccupation with economy in public administration had been a feature of political life and a focus of public debate in the 1770s and 1780s. It was a particular concern of his patron Lord Lansdowne, who brought forward a motion in parliament for an inquiry into public expenditure in December 1779.172 It included a call for the abolition of sinecures and the reduction of excessive emoluments (though, ironically, he himself was later on to be responsible for furnishing Etienne Dumont with a government sinecure for many years). His motion was supported by the whole Opposition but still failed. Not long afterwards Burke introduced his plan of Economic Reform.173 Lord North then promoted an Act that set up a commission which among other things was to examine and state the public accounts and to report defects in the system of issuing and accounting for public money together with recommendations for improvements.174 North’s actual success in reforming the finances was small, but his policy was groundbreaking, ‘it was he who drew the hatches releasing the current with


which later ministers were to swim’.175 It was in fact the general reluctance of government at this period to accede to even moderate demands for economic reform that stimulated the call for reform of parliamentary representation.176 Much of the impetus for calls for reform of public finances arose, however, from a different motivation from Bentham’s. The issue that agitated many politicians in the 1770s and 1780s was the assumption that the influence of the Crown in Parliament was growing and that the chief instrument of that influence was the amount of patronage which lay in the hands of the Crown.177 However, there was also much concern about sheer waste and extravagance in the public administration.178 Binney concludes that the general principles eventually enunciated by the commissioners ‘all tend towards economy, efficiency, and purity in public life’.179 Lord Lansdowne is incidentally credited with having been particularly strong on ‘the importance of publicity as a weapon against abuses’.180 He saw publicity – at a time when accounts of public finance were difficult to come by – as the great principle of economy and the only means of preventing abuses: a belief that was of course shared by Bentham, and if we render ‘publicity’ as ‘transparency’, we can see how it relates to Panopticon. Pitt, on the other hand, though also interested in economy in public finance (at least before the War with France), took the road of increasing taxation, which was precisely what Bentham’s work was designed to avoid.181 Among the areas where increases in public expenditure was very burdensome at this time was the burgeoning cost of poor relief, which led to a tremendous increase in the poor rate.182 Marco Guidi has been ploughing something of a lone furrow in the last decade to demonstrate that ‘an acknowledged economic dimension did exist in Bentham’s legal and political thought’.183 Guidi speaks in reference to Bentham’s ‘ambitious project of re-examining the whole field of critical legislation with a critical eye’ of Bentham’s ‘analysis of the economic implications of legislation’ which amounted to nothing less than an ‘economics of legislation’.184 Guidi has recently turned his attention to the economics of Panopticon.185 Shrewdly, he comments thus: ‘Foucault was certainly right in highlighting the disciplinary aspect of modern rational routines. From an economic viewpoint, however, it is possible to argue that discipline is an essential requirement of efficiency, and that efficiency is a precondition of welfare.’186 Guidi observes that Bentham’s analysis of the kind of management requisite to make the Panopticon work foreshadows and sometimes even explicitly formulates many modern ideas about the economics of organisations and public economics. Guidi also notes that the words ‘economy’ and ‘economical’ occur 22 times in the 1786 Panopticon text and 74 times in the second Panopticon Postscript which is devoted to the principles of management of the establishment.187 Others have remarked on the parallelism between Panopticism and the management philosophy of F. W. Taylor, proponent of Taylorism.188


In some ways my reading of Bentham’s Panopticon technique parallels the left-wing ‘sociology of law’ school of thought as first applied to punishment by Rusche and Kirchheimer189 and developed with such enthusiasm by Michel Foucault. They hypothesise a connection between ‘carcerality’ and the rise of capitalism within the context of a Marxian view of social history. But where they are preoccupied with the wider context of power relations so beloved of the left (and of many modern liberals), I am interested in the primacy of economy in Bentham’s thought. The emergence of a ‘Thatcherite’ or ‘postmodern’ worldview looks rather like a reversion to Benthamite priorities in areas such as the emphasis on the involvement of private initiative in public works and the stress on accountability, transparency, audit, efficiency, and economy in administration and governance. These highly lauded values are as much part of ‘panoptic culture’190 as is the spread of surveillance. This book puts forward three major claims with regard to Bentham. It argues first that the point of Panopticon – to model a waste-free utopia191 embodying ideals of transparency, economy, and accountability – has never been properly grasped; secondly that the full breadth of Bentham’s general ambitions and aspirations – and specifically to be himself an entrepreneur of improvement – have never been fully appreciated; thirdly that this is to a considerable extent the consequence of the brand image given to him during his own lifetime by the man who was undoubtedly the greatest of his many promoters – Etienne Dumont.192 It is almost impossible to overstate the influence of Dumont’s work in the development of Bentham’s image not just outside the Anglophone world but within it. In 1952, W. S. Holdsworth could write, ‘It is true, even now, that the best known of Bentham’s works – the Theory of Legislation – is an American translation of Dumont’s Traités . . . .’193 Over one hundred years earlier Macaulay had observed that The raw material which Mr Bentham furnished was most precious; but it was unmarketable. . . . in foreign countries, where Mr Bentham’s works are known solely through the medium of the French version, his merit is almost universally acknowledged. . . . In England on the contrary, many persons . . . were long in the habit of mentioning him contemptuously. . . . [his philosophy] was in little repute amongst us, till judgement in its favour came from beyond the sea, and convinced us to our shame, that we had been abusing and laughing at one of the greatest men of the age.194 Plamenatz stated baldly that ‘the publication of [Dumont’s Traités] made Bentham’s reputation on the Continent and in America’.195 Dumont’s presentation of Bentham gave the world a fair enough picture of one aspect of Bentham – his account of the results of taking the greatest happiness principle interpreted ‘scientifically’ as the sole basis for guidance in moral and legal choices, but the Bentham presented in Dumont is more the Bentham


of the foundations than the Bentham of the superstructure. What interested Dumont was the foundations, whereas what Bentham himself aspired to do was to build a superstructure on the foundations, because he aspired to be an entrepreneur of utopia. His utopia was a waste-free society, a society in which the burden of maintaining the social institutions necessary for the well-being of the whole was reduced to a minimum. Regarding his proposals for a National Charity Company to administer welfare provision, Hume observed that the basic points from which he started were the avoidance of waste or idleness in any form, and ‘use multiplying’; ‘take care not to leave in the instance of any individual whatever the smallest fragment of ability unemployed’; ‘take care that not the smallest portion of [animal or vegetable] refuse should ever be thrown away in waste’ and ‘it should be a standing topic of consideration for every . . . article whether it is not susceptible with advantage of more than one use’.196 It is no exaggeration to say that Bentham was one of the foremost prophets of today’s recycling movement. If Bentham the entrepreneur of a waste-free utopia has largely disappeared from view, my contention is that this is largely because another view of Bentham has been promulgated and popularised since the beginning of the nineteenth century, largely on the basis of his foremost disciple Etienne Dumont’s skills as a vulgarisateur.

III

Dumont the Mythmaker

The origins of Dumont’s enterprise lie in Bentham’s own character and temperament. As a writer he was a publisher’s nightmare. He wrote a very great deal but he did not write a great deal that was ready for publication. He was always far more interested in writing where his thoughts took him than in presenting his ideas to a wider public. There is a massive disproportion between the quantity of his ipsissima verba published at his own behest in his lifetime (respectable enough though that is) and the huge bulk of manuscript material to be found in the Bentham archive at University College London today.197 According to John Neal, there was another reason for Bentham’s difficulties. In his earlier years, Bentham often chose to write material in French, and Neal tells us that he had a very particular reason for doing this.198 One of Bentham’s difficulties in writing was apparently to find English terms which he felt expressed his thought with the requisite degree of clarity and unambiguousness. It seemed to him that the problem lay in the blurred contours and uncertain significance of many English terms, and he felt that he really needed an entirely new language to express himself adequately. The escape he


found from his intolerable dilemma was not to use English at all but French. Not being so aware of all the nuances of French terms he found he could write in French without being hamstrung by agonies of hesitation. As Neal put it: He had no time to contrive a new language, and therefore he had recourse to one which, though he was well acquainted with it, he was not so severe a critic of, as to be troubled with metaphysical misgivings in every paragraph he formed, as he was while employed with English. This very reason I give out of his own mouth.199 In addition to failing to complete what he started, Bentham rarely paid any attention to stylistic niceties or to the need to make his writing attractive. The primary thing for him was the logic of his thinking, the development of his conclusions through a chain of consistent reasoning. He was a pioneer of scientism – the notion that the mode of thinking and reasoning employed in the natural sciences was the appropriate one to apply in the social sciences.200 The rise of scientism is usually placed in the early years of the nineteenth century, but Bentham was in at the beginning or indeed before the beginning, since he was thinking in this way as early as the 1770s when his writing career was getting under way. One contemporary of his whom Dumont came to know in Paris during the Revolution was the mathematician marquis de Condorcet, 5 years his elder, who died a victim of the Revolution.201 Condorcet too was extremely interested in the application of mathematics to the moral and social sciences (‘mathématique sociale’). Whereas Bentham’s greatest-happiness principle was of itself very far from being original, his combination of utilitarian thinking with the classificatory methods of the botanist Linnaeus certainly was. When we think of scientism we tend to think of the application of empirical methods within the social sciences, but what it meant for Bentham was the adaptation of the classificatory philosophy of Linnaeus to the study of morals and legislation.202 This is what is truly original in An Introduction to Morals and Legislation. In making a methodological borrowing from biology in this way, Bentham foreshadowed the social scientists like Herbert Spencer and others who later adapted evolutionary Darwinism from biology and applied it to the study of society. This phenomenon of the later nineteenth century (‘social darwinism’) assumed such huge importance that it completely overshadowed Bentham’s pioneer late eighteenth-century borrowings from (pre-evolutionary) biology and medicine. In adapting Linnaeus and embarking scientistically upon a similar journey of classification in the field of morals and the law, Bentham inevitably adopted ‘scientific’-style language and this ensured that his propensity for concentrating exclusively on the strict exposition of his thoughts to the detriment of any literary adornments was accentuated. As a result his writing became increasingly difficult for any but the most dedicated of readers. Early


texts of his like A Fragment on Government203 or polemical texts like Nonsense upon Stilts204 are highly readable and show that he was capable of being an excellent prose stylist. But the problem with his scientistic approach to the study of morals and legislation was that it appealed mainly to a specialist audience, and the type of readers who flocked to buy works of Enlightenment propaganda written by the likes of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Helvétius and their ilk were rather less likely to be attracted to Bentham. For these French writers spiced their studies of serious topics with anecdotes and jokes and maintained a jocular style which made them accessible to unacademic readers. Bentham consciously rejected all recourse to literary adornment and, showing impeccable logic, attempted to make his style fit with his philosophy – as he proclaimed in the very first sentence of the first section of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. . . . But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved.205 Ironically, it was to be the very austerity of Bentham’s style and the scientistic language he used that was to attract the attention of Etienne Dumont, future creator of the global Bentham brand image, citizen of the republic of Geneva (founded by the austere Jean Calvin). As James E. Crimmins put it, speaking of Dumont’s Traités and its English translation (by Richard Hildreth206 ): ‘It was this version of Bentham’s utilitarian moral and legal philosophy that received the widest distribution in nineteenth-century Europe and the Americas.’207 In the words of Holdsworth, Dumont gave Bentham an international reputation as a great jurist long before his merits were recognized by his own countrymen; and though his countrymen were slow to recognize his merits, his international reputation and the merits of Dumont’s interpretation at length led them to recognize that his genius as a jurist was unique, and to accept his guidance in matters or law reform.208 Bentham was quite aware that he had difficulty with turning out completed publishable works; ‘Perhaps nobody in the modern literary world was more careless in his way of communicating his ideas’, said one scholar;209 and it was Dumont who took on the task of making his thought known to a wider public, producing readable popular versions of Bentham’s ideas that were digestible by non-specialists.


The thing that seems a little odd to us today is that Bentham should have entrusted his manuscripts to a French-speaker who proposed not simply to edit them – which they certainly required – but to translate them into French. An English writer today who did not bother to publish in English but who was happy to have a much edited pot-pourri of his unpublished writings brought out in French would be something of a curiosity. However, we must remember that in Bentham’s day French was still the language of international culture, and it remained so throughout the nineteenth century. Not until the twentieth century did English attain to its modern superiority as the global language. A glance at old English country house libraries will frequently reveal a significant quantity of volumes in French – which the educated gentleman of the house was quite capable of reading. So for Bentham to have his thoughts produced in French would have meant something quite different then: he was accessing a global audience, the global audience that today reads English. At the same time, Halévy suggests that Bentham ‘felt he was destined to be misunderstood in his own country’ since ‘at this time there was no demand, in England, for the supply of a systematised and codified law’ whereas there was such a demand on the Continent.210 However, it must be admitted that this story did seem peculiar even to Bentham’s contemporaries. One of his admirers, a philanthropist named Miss Morgan, who wrote a pamphlet about Bristol Gaol with an appendix on Panopticon, commented, The history of these works is perhaps unique in the annals of Literature. Mr Bentham either too fastidious to be satisfied with his own performances, or too impatient to submit to the labour of giving his works that degree of order and arrangement requisite for publication, confided his Manuscript to his friend M. Dumont . . . Thus have these profound reflections on the Philosophy of Jurisprudence been rescued from that oblivion to which the carelessness of the Author had probably doomed them; and the works of a man of whom England may well be proud, are known to his countrymen principally through the medium of a foreign language.211 She herself tells us that she was unable to find the original Panopticon letters (and this as early as 1815!) and had to rely on the abstracts of them in Dumont’s Traités and in the later Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses (published in 1811).212 This is a perfect illustration of how Dumont had become the mouthpiece of Bentham long before the latter’s death. Ironically however, while Dumont was labouring at the task of creating his extraits de Bentham over the period 1793–1802, Bentham himself continued absorbed by Panopticon and reluctant to be distracted. As Lieberman observed, ‘the master appears to have had little time or perhaps even inclination for encouraging his disciple; their brief and infrequent exchanges lie buried . . . beneath the torrent of correspondence directed at prisons and similarly ill-fated schemes’.213 The same scholar sees this as ‘a sobering reminder


of just how absent Bentham was from the process by which Benthamism came to be invented’. This was something that Bentham acknowledged himself much later when he remarked that Dumont supplied all the drive to complete the work because he himself was so taken up with Panopticon.214 An oft-quoted anecdote told by George Borrow215 relates how one day in the late 1830s Borrow came across a mayor of a rural village in Spain who on learning that he was English began to sing the praises of Bentham, of whom he proved to be an assiduous reader. The Spaniard described Bentham as ‘the most universal genius the world has ever produced’. However, what the Spaniard will actually have been reading was a Spanish translation of the French presentation of Bentham’s ideas by Etienne Dumont.216 What matters for our purposes here, however, is not the translation of Dumont’s versions of Bentham into further Continental languages, but the extraordinary fact that many of his versions were rendered back into English and published as ‘Bentham’ texts. Even more extraordinary is the fact that one of the abridged English renderings of Dumont’s Traités – published for the first time in the United States in 1840 under the title The Theory of Legislation – was to become the major source of knowledge of Bentham’s thought for Anglophone readers right down to the closing decades of the twentieth century.217 University students were thus in fact taught ‘Bentham’ through the medium of a text that was an English translation of a French abstract of the English philosopher’s ideas.218 In 1948 the legal historian Holdsworth devoted 41 pages to Bentham in his history of modern English law.219 This is a very wellresearched and -annotated work by a fine scholar. Typically, I find that more than 30 of the references to ‘Bentham’ in these pages are in fact to texts from Dumont. More recently the excellent comparative study by Cheryl Welch of the development of liberal ideas in the revolutionary years in France and England (published in 1984) includes half-a-dozen references to ‘Bentham’ that are in fact to the Theory of Legislation.220 Dumont’s role has always been known about by scholars, but up to now nobody has ever asked just who Dumont was, why he chose to become an advocate of Bentham’s ideas, how his own agenda influenced his presentation of those ideas, and what image of Bentham Dumont’s English readership was exposed to.221 Before pursuing further this question of Etienne Dumont, who he was, and how he came to devote himself to the propagation of Benthamism, it is first necessary to demonstrate what to some may seem entirely paradoxical – the clear and unmistakable centrality of Panopticon in Bentham’s life and thinking for a very significant portion the period extending from 1786 to 1813.

2 Panopticon Dominates Bentham’s Existence

I

The origins and ethos of Panopticon

Only those who have made a study of Bentham’s Correspondence can fully appreciate the intensity of his involvement with the Panopticon scheme and the sheer fervour of his desire personally to establish and operate a Panopticon establishment. In order to convey the power of this here, I will retell the story of this undertaking from its origins in Russia in 1786 over the 27 years that elapsed up to its last gasp in 1813. The origins of the Panopticon architectural technique are to be found in the fertile brain of Bentham’s younger brother Samuel. In the year 1780, Samuel, who had been trained as a shipwright, and of whom Jeremy was immensely fond, set off to make his fortune in Russia – spurred by the known interest of the Russians in technical improvements and their desire to learn from western technological experience.1 From the start it was Jeremy’s thought that they might eventually live a shared adventure there.2 Jeremy was hoping that he might interest the Empress Catherine in his ideas for the creation of new legal systems.3 Oakeshott remarked that Jeremy thought of Russia as ‘virgin soil for the legislator . . . in the condition which the eighteenth century philosophes believed the human mind to be at birth, a tabula rasa’.4 The strong conviction that Samuel’s travels were the beginning of a joint venture pervaded all their correspondence.5 Samuel was as interested in ‘improvement’ as Jeremy was, and a typical reaction of his visit to a Russian estate was to point out that revenues could be greatly increased if a better marketing system was introduced.6 In 1784, Prince Potemkin, favourite of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, took the young Samuel Bentham under his wing and put him in charge of his vast estates at Krichev on the borders of Poland.7 This was a period of Anglomania, and Potemkin told Samuel he wanted to create an English colony.8 Actually there was rather more to it than that, as C. W. Everett explained, 48

Panopticon Dominates Bentham’s Existence

49

Potemkin proposed no less grandiose a scheme than to bridge the gap between feudal Russia and industrial England. This was to be done by the colonization of a great area in the steppes, not as a primitive agricultural community, but as a completely organized industrial unit. By securing from England the technology of modern agriculture and industry, and by applying almost unlimited capital, Potemkin would make the wastes of the steppes into modern farms on the English plan.9 Werret observes that Potemkin wanted to ‘create an idealisation of what Russia might become under the Enlightened Empress’,10 which included the gearing of the whole development to ‘the production of profit, the real fruit of the new Russian Eden’. Samuel set out to recruit tradesmen of every description and Jeremy and his father Jeremiah scoured Britain for them on his behalf.11 In the words of Simon Sebag Montefiore, ‘Jeremy became possessed by a sort of Catherinian graphomania and kept writing to Samuel with interminable superfluous details on a parade of candidates for posts varying from chief of botanical gardens to milkmaid.’12 In August 1785, he set off from Brighton with a group of British emigrants he had recruited to work in Russia.13 When Jeremy reached Krichev, one of Samuel’s ideas in particular attracted his attention: a solution to the problem of supervising factory workers as cheaply as possible. Put a supervisor into the centre of a round (or square or octagonal) workshop and set the workers around him so that he could see all of them. It was the principle of central inspection and it was the seed of Jeremy’s Panopticon.14 He and Samuel planned to construct a Panopticon workshop and even discussed details with a bricklayer, but Potemkin’s sale of the estate in 1787 eventually scuppered this.15 The background to Samuel’s design was the lack of competent supervisors for the factories in his domain, and it was this that spurred him to work out a way of making the small numbers available as effective as possible.16 It had absolutely nothing whatever to do with power-lust. On 18/29 December 1786 (the Russian and English calendars were not in harmony at this time), Jeremy fired the opening rounds in a 27-year campaign: he sent his father a series of letters on the Panopticon design. There were 21 letters in all. Of these only 16 were devoted to the application of the technique to a penitentiary. The first provides an exposition of the plan as generally applicable, the last four deals with other applications – to factories, asylums, hospitals, and schools. In a preface that he wrote for the first published edition of the letters in 1791, Bentham said that the final letter applying the principle to schools was not to be taken seriously, it was only a flight of fancy to offset the earnestness of the rest. This is rather curious because the mutual education system promoted by Joseph Lancaster (along with Andrew Bell) at the start of the nineteenth century has many intriguing parallels with Panopticon. Its whole essence lay in cutting the costs of education for the poor through reduction of the needful number of teachers.


Lancaster’s main idea was to train the older boys to teach the younger, and this greatly reduced the requirement for costly teaching staff. Prints of Lancasterian schools reveal huge classrooms in which one teacher is supervising very large numbers of pupils.17 In Foucault’s Surveiller et Punir there are prints of the interiors of Lancasterian schools in France (like utilitarianism, the Lancasterian system was a global movement), but typically the purpose of these is clearly to demonstrate the high degree of regimentation they involved rather than their cost-saving dimension.18 It is worth pausing a moment here because the parallelism between Bentham’s quest to minimise the cost of supervision in public establishments for the sake of economy is so remarkably similar to Lancaster’s approach that it is astonishing how rarely it has been noticed. Lancaster’s own words may be quoted to demonstrate the similarity: The great expense of common education arises from the usual practice of retaining ushers. If one master has thirty pupils under his care, as schools are commonly open but three hours at a time, divide the number of minutes in three hours, by the number of children, it is but six minutes individual instruction for each child. If the number under the care of one master increases to sixty pupils, the time is then reduced to three minutes for each scholar. Assuming it for a fact that one master can govern and teach thirty children, when his school exceeds that number, he must either do the children injustice, or take an usher. If his school amounts to sixty, the master has one usher: if it amounts to one hundred, he has two: and if it amounts to one hundred and forty, say he shall be allowed three ushers. But as assistants of this description cannot be increased without increasing expense, the more assistants increase, the more expense will increase also. The economy of education depends on an efficient substitute being found for ushers: for at present, as scholars increase, ushers and attendant expense rise in proportion. But do away with the expense of ushers as scholars increase, and if one master only is wanted, one salary is only requisite. But this depends upon boys being qualified to act as substitutes for ushers, which only can be done by simplifying the system of order and tuition, whereby both may be equal to the meanest capacity, and may consequently be delegated to any pupil in the school.19 Bentham’s interest in the Lancaster system is normally discussed in terms of his involvement with the Chrestomathic School which was at one time planned to be set up in his garden; this however was never intended for the poor but for the middle classes.20 The first of the Panopticon Letters sets out the essence of the technique: the inspection principle.21 The idea is that in establishments where categories of person need to be kept under inspection, there is a way of designing the buildings that will fulfil that goal with unique efficacy. What comes over as very


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scary in this first letter is Bentham’s observation that ‘ideal perfection’ would require 24/7 inspection. However, he immediately recognises the impossibility of this, and it is what he proposes to do as the next best thing that really matters: the supervisees are to assume that they are being watched. This is of course exactly the principle of the speed camera or security camera. Two things need to be said immediately about Bentham’s inspection principle. First, it was clearly intended to apply to a strictly limited case: the case of institutions where inspection was already inherently a requirement because of the character of the particular category of inmates. Second, he never proposed extending the inspection principle beyond such institutions. He did not think that it was a panacea for the administration of society, for he was only contemplating how to perfect inspection where it was generally accepted to be an existing requirement (though it could perhaps be argued that he sometimes went beyond this in his proposals for the treatment of paupers). The other letters concerning the particular application of the technique to a prison are devoted up to letter 8 to an outline of how the plan works in that context and of its advantages. Letters 9–13 deal with the essential combination of the architecture with a contract management system and with the need for the prison to be a profit-making industrial plant. Letter 14 discusses the need for provision for ex-convicts. The 15th letter is a lengthy consideration of the savings that will result from the implementation of Bentham’s proposal. Letters 16 to the end cover the types of penal and other institutions for which it is appropriate. The missive accompanying the text of the Panopticon Letters is significant: When first I sat down to write I intended but one letter, to which I intended no other publicity than what you might think fit to give it, by communicating it to your Brethren of the Magistracy for whose use it was designed. But when I came to see the extensive applicability of the idea, I saw no reason for confining the communication to any one set of men.22 The message is clear: Bentham developed Panopticon as an architectural technique with ‘extensive applicability’ and was addressing his letters to as wide an audience as possible. Hoping that friends could get the letters published, he enclosed a copy of a letter he was sending to London booksellers. ‘Please to publish on my account the pamphlet herewith deliver’d, being a series of letters . . . on the plan and uses of a newly-imagined kind of building called an Inspection-house’ [my emphases].23 Notice that he does not describe the text as being about a prison or penitentiary house but about a building, and he does not use the name ‘Panopticon’ but denotes it an ‘Inspection-house’. Samuel too considered this project to be of huge importance, so much so that he was seriously apprehensive of the idea being leaked to others in England by returning workmen.24


It so happened that at this point in time the British government was grappling with the need to supplement local prisons – for the maintenance of prisons had long been the responsibility of local authorities – with some directly under its own management, chiefly on account of the termination of transportation to America as a result of the commencement of hostilities with America in 1776.25 An Act of 1779 had provided for this but no prison had as yet been built. Although Australia then opened up as a new transportation destination, even together with the Hulks (which were very costly to operate) this was not sufficient to meet the need. At the end of April 1787, Bentham drafted a letter that Samuel was to dispatch to Prime Minister William Pitt (it was never sent) about the proposed Panopticon. It opens revealingly: I suppose you have received before now a printed copy of my brother’s letters on the subject of a particular kind of building contrived by me for the purpose of keeping persons of any description under the eye of an Inspector. . . . Since then my Brother’s ideas of the advantage with which the principle might be applied to Penitentiary-houses or other prisons, an application which otherwise would hardly have attracted my attention, has so far operated on my mind, that if any such use should be thought of being made of it in England, I could almost wish to lend my hand to the accomplishment of such a business.26 It is interesting to ponder the way that C. W. Everett presents the conception of the Panopticon idea in the context of Bentham’s visit to Russia.27 Everett describes Potemkin’s vision of bridging the gap between feudal Russia and industrial England in terms of ‘the colonization of a great area in the steppes, not as a primitive agricultural community, but as a completely organized industrial unit’. Everett goes on to describe Jeremy as being attracted by ‘the prospect of helping to establish a model civilization’. But he subsequently speaks of Jeremy’s ‘disillusion’ when he ‘saw the ideal community in operation’, for he found that ‘the Russian Utopia was little better than a madhouse’.28 Observing that ‘running a community of such a sort was far different from making a code’, he remarks that ‘Bentham wisely kept his hands off.’29 This is literally true in that Jeremy devoted himself to writing while at Krichev rather than getting himself involved in Samuel’s business activities, but Everett fails to see the connection between all this and Panopticon, stating that Jeremy ‘relinquished any dreams he may have had of sharing in Samuel’s work’. In fact Panopticon was born out of the Krichev enterprises and was a continuation of them, a joint enterprise between the brothers. Another product of the Krichev period was Bentham’s Defence of Usury.30 Although on the face of it there is not an obvious connection between Panopticon and Bentham’s critique in this pamphlet of Adam Smith’s belief in the need for governments to legislate in the area of interest rates, closer


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investigation reveals that the tract is well within the logic of Bentham’s preoccupation with Panopticon. Like the Panopticon brochure it comprises a series of letters, and in fact the burden of his complaint is to be found in Letter xiii, where he combats the low opinion that Smith – following the generality of public opinion – has of ‘projectors’ – or what we would today call ‘entrepreneurs’. Bentham himself would like to ban the term completely on account of its negative connotations, were it not that he knew it would simply be replaced by some other similar term of similarly negative repute.31 Bentham wants to rehabilitate the image of the entrepreneur, and the connection between this and Panopticon is clear. He saw himself in his capacity of manager of the Panopticon as an entrepreneur. Quite possibly he also anticipated a need to borrow in order to set the undertaking on its way. Significantly, although he himself saw no reason to place restrictions on interest rates at all, he concludes his broadside with a plea that at least if prevailing prejudice requires such restrictions, let projectors be exempted.32 Light is thrown on Bentham’s understanding of his own need to be the one to implement the plan in an analogy he gives with ancient myth. The tyrant Phalaris in 5th century BC Agrigentum had a brazen bull constructed in order to have his victims burnt alive in it. But he needed to test its efficacy before beginning operations, and he chose as the first to be burnt its inventor Perillus. Bentham’s relationship to Panopticon, as seen by himself, is that of inventor to invention. And what must the inventor do with his invention before putting it into general use? He must test it personally. This is precisely what Bentham conceived he would be doing as manager of a Panopticon penitentiary.33 In no way did he have ‘a freakish ambition to become a prison contractor’ as Semple states:34 his (perfectly logical) aim was to demonstrate how his utilitarian principles could be applied in practice via the Panopticon technique to minimise public expenditure and therefore minimise the threat to individual happiness posed by taxation. By February 1788, Jeremy was back in London but the Panopticon letters remained unpublished. In May 1791, Samuel too was back in London. The next month he wrote to Jeremy and the last line of his note reads, ‘I hope Panopticon will be finished till which no new objects must take our attention.’35 Samuel’s contribution was to provide employment for the prisoners: he had invented a machine for working wood and stone. In recent years there has been an increasing recognition of the degree of Samuel Bentham’s technical inventiveness and the importance of it in the modernisation of the navy.36 As Coad writes of Samuel, his ‘interests and talents remained centred on naval shipbuilding and the introduction of more efficient working methods in both industry and agriculture’.37 His Panopticon design had been intended to revolutionise factory production. He took on the technical side of the Panopticon project, ‘developing further designs for woodworking machinery and touring the principal manufacturing areas to see such machinery as was then in use’. Samuel devised a wood-planing machine and


a range of veneer-cutting saws, dovetailing and boring machines for making parts for sash windows and carriage wheels. One historian described him as ‘the father of woodworking machinery’.38 The brothers installed a model of the inspection house and a model of Samuel’s machine in premises at Jeremy’s home so that they could demonstrate the design to influential people.39 Many important visitors came to look and it seems that as many would have been attracted by Samuel’s machinery as by the Panopticon model. One result of this was Samuel’s appointment to be Inspector General of Naval Works in 1795.40 The consequences of this appointment were historic, for in partnership with engineer Marc Brunel,41 Samuel developed a sophisticated method of block production which ‘laid the foundations for the subsequent world-wide development of industrial production-lines that used ever more sophisticated machinery to replace the work of individual craftsmen’.42 What they created in Portsmouth in the early years of the nineteenth century was not a production-line as such, but its forerunner; it was not simply the new machinery that mattered but the manner in which the machines were arranged in relation to each other. Although not a production line in the modern sense, this pioneering arrangement on the part of the Block Mills shows considerable logic. It positioned three sets of machines for each range of block sizes into small production groups around the sides of the room, reducing to a minimum the distance the processed material had to travel between machines.43 What Jeremy and Samuel were trying to create together in the 1790s with their Panopticon was a factory that employed prisoners, an establishment that would embody both Samuel’s technical inventiveness44 and Jeremy’s desire to apply this to the minimisation of public expenditure. Samuel’s proposed machinery was so simple to operate that it did not require any special expertise, and this was the crucial thing that made it so suitable for prisoners.45 In 1862 Samuel Bentham’s daughter published a text which her mother (Mary Sophia) had written about Samuel’s work.46 It is a truly astonishing document. Mary Sophia Bentham was the daughter of the distinguished chemist George Fordyce (1736–1802) and had been her father’s assistant in his experiments: the technical expertise she displays in this work is most impressive.47 It seems clear that Samuel discussed all that he did with her. The story it tells is backed up meticulously with dates and names and references, and it lists one by one the veritable torrent of improvements that Samuel devised, promoted, and quite often succeeded in introducing wherever he went, but particularly in the British navy. Many of these hugely improved the performance of ships at sea, their safety, and their firepower, but for our purposes it is particularly fascinating that the motif running through the entire book is Samuel’s goal of effecting economies, and particularly in public expenditure.


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On the very first page of the book a short preface by his daughter speaks of many of his inventions ‘which have effected an incalculable saving in public expenditure’. In the main text, Mary Sophia records his constant preoccupation with ‘the degree of economy with which works in the shipyards were executed’ (p. 12). His new mode of making masts is said to have effected a saving of twenty-five per cent in workmanship and a considerable sum in timber (p. 18). On his travels to Russia, Samuel came to a place called Narkinsk and was struck by the uneconomical manner of operating the local silver mines (p. 48). In the masonry works he undertook at Portsmouth dockyard, he replaced the traditional Portland stone with Purbeck, which was not only more durable, but ‘so much cheaper, that by this single change of material, a saving on each dock was obtained of no less than £15,000, besides the farther saving of £10,000 on each dock by other expedients of his introduction’ (pp. 125–126). It seems that warehouses were often built to a huge height to impress rather than for utility, and he devised ways of introducing extra floors into these (p. 141). He was also committed to improving the system of management of Portsmouth Dockyard when he later came to take charge of it. His widow’s frustration at the lack of recognition for Samuel’s achievements led her to complain to the historian of naval architecture John Fincham, author of An Introductory Outline of the Practice of Shipbuilding, about his failure to give her late husband adequate recognition in his work.48 Fincham’s reply to her was apologetic and he admitted that ‘in some high official quarters there has been a disinclination to own [Samuel’s] merits’, going on to write, ‘I am glad to know that there are men of ability and influence now endeavouring to justify his claims to national esteem and gratitude.’ He hopes she will in due course ‘have the pleasure of seeing his vindication complete’.49 In an article published in 1851, Mary Sophia also revealed that as early as 1793, Samuel had ‘devised a “School of Arts’’, in which an education should be given that would prepare children for a great variety of useful employments’. Tellingly, Samuel’s plan involved ‘the education of many hundred children under the same roof’. Samuel’s widow went on to note that ‘such a school should be regulated, so that good instruction should be afforded at the smallest possible cost’. If hundreds of children could be taught together, ‘a master of superior intellect and tact might be afforded’. The monitorial system could be used – Mary Sophia explained that the weaknesses that eventually emerged in Lancaster’s schools did not derive from defects in the system but ‘from some self-conceit in the master’ and a growing indolence on his part. She goes on to quote an article in which a Dutch school is described, where 776 scholars were taught by a total of eight teachers. She concludes that English schools are extravagant in their numbers of teachers and that consequently the assumed expense involved in running industrial schools has discouraged manufacturers from patronising such institutions. Moreover


she notes that Samuel had planned to ensure that the products of his industrial schools would defray a part of the expenses: Needlework for girls and in a naval seminary twine-spinning, peg-making, nail-straightening or toymaking. It is plain that the bent of his mind was every bit as much towards the maximisation of economy in public institutions as that of his brother’s.50 By 1791 Jeremy had put together two sets of ‘Panopticon Postscripts’, the first devoted to a more detailed exposition of the architectural details of the building, and the second to a discussion of the contract management basis which he considered to be essential to the profitability and effectiveness of a Panopticon establishment. All of the materials mentioned – the original letters and the postscripts – were printed in 1791. They were not published until Bowring inserted them in volume four of the Works.51 Panopticon Postscript I52 is devoted to an elaboration of further details of the design of the building. Bentham understood the wise precept ‘the devil is in the detail’ all too well. His plan includes innovations like ‘speaking tubes’ – a primitive form of telephone like the tubes used on ships to communicate with the engine room. He also worked out a design of a central heating system. It is very strange that Bentham’s inventiveness is often described as something that illustrates his eccentricity. For example, David Boyle describes him as ‘the Professor Branestawm of crazy ideas’. But of the nine such ideas listed by Boyle, seven were in time to be implemented in some form – ‘speaking tubes’ (telephones), a Panama Canal, the freezing of vegetables, refrigerators, unforgeable banknotes, votes for women, the legalisation of homosexuality.53 Usually when somebody is clearly ahead of his time, it is regarded as highly creditable and indeed a reflection of genius. The last section of Panopticon Postscript I is devoted to ‘economy of construction’. Panopticon Postscript II begins with the plan of management. Economy ‘should be the ruling object’.54 Bentham identifies two enemies of economy – peculation and negligence, and claims that contract management is the remedy for each.55 The text continues with coverage of subjects such as the separation of the sexes, employment, schooling within the prison, exercise, and provision for ex-convicts.

II

Bentham the entrepreneur

So much for the origins of the Panopticon design and the writings in which Bentham’s plans were set out. The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to a narrative of the unfolding Panopticon story and its impact and importance in Bentham’s life up to 1813. I will tell the story directly out of his correspondence because I believe that it is the best way to bring home just how deeply the man so often described as a ‘hermit’ committed himself over a number of years to active personal involvement in the practical business of all the planning and negotiation that goes into the implementation of any major project. So intense was his commitment to this undertaking that when he


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was frustrated by government prevarication he turned to threats and public condemnation of those involved in the policy of transportation. The correspondence for the years in question fully supports and justifies my thesis about the importance of economy in Bentham’s conception of the plan. Moreover, it demonstrates the wide range of the network involved with Bentham in pursuance of his aspiration. He could never have got as far as he did with it – to the point of being the recipient of a government contract for its construction – without massive support from influential persons. If Panopticon dominated Bentham’s whole existence for 10 or even 12 years, it was in part because the project aroused such interest and enthusiasm around him. He was no prophet crying in the wilderness, and he could only push forward with his proposal to establish and operate a Panopticon penitentiary in central London because he enjoyed powerful and influential support: the galaxy of sympathisers included the likes of William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton, Secretary to the Admiralty Evan Nepean, celebrated architect Robert Adam, fellow-reformers Samuel Romilly and Patrick Colquhoun, and Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland. If I have narrated this story at some length, it is because I feel it is necessary to press home the message in the face of a continued reluctance to come to terms with its importance on the part of many Bentham scholars. The first person to contact Bentham over the possibility of establishing an institution on the Panopticon model was Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, who wrote to Bentham’s friend Lord Lansdowne on 6 August 1790 in these terms: I have never read a more ingenious Essay on a subject of such a nature. I am so convinced of the utility of the Plan, that I believe it would be adopted in Ireland . . . I beg leave to trouble your Lordship to return my thanks to Mr Bentham for his having been so obliging as to give me an opportunity of receiving the benefit of his Information on a Subject with which humanity and good Government are so much connected.56 Lansdowne forwarded this letter to Bentham at a time when the latter was already engaged in correspondence with influential individuals in France regarding the possible construction of a Panopticon there. In January 1790 the National Assembly had set up a Mendicity Committee to deal with problems arising from poverty and vagrancy, including the condition of workhouses and prisons.57 The duc de Liancourt58 was the head of the Committee and he had sent Mirabeau’s friend the marquis de Casaux to London to collect information.59 The Committee ceased to meet after September 1791 however, and nothing came of the discussion. Meanwhile Parnell wrote to Bentham to say that he was expecting to be authorised to push forward with the measure.60 The establishment Parnell had in mind was not a penitentiary but a poorhouse. As Jeremy wrote to Samuel in December 1790,


Poor Inspection House is taken up by the government of Ireland; they have ordered it to be printed, and given me what money I have a mind for, to waste upon it with architects. Lord L[ansdowne] thinks he has persuaded them I am necessary to them, and that they must bring me into parliament there . . . 61 Although the 1791 printing of the Panopticon Letters was entitled Panopticon: Or, the Inspection-House, there was a reissue of it in 1796 under the title Management of the Poor: Or, a Plan Containing the Principle and Construction of an Establishment, in which Persons of any Description are to be Kept Under Inspection. . . . 62 In his reply to Parnell Bentham extols the economy of his plan, quoting as a model the example of the Penitentiary House established by Sir Thomas Beevor at Wymondham, which seems to have been run as a business in the manner that Bentham himself intended. Bentham notes ‘the experimental proof it affords of the frugality of this mode of punishment, the profit of the earnings having turned out more than double the expence of maintenance’.63 He goes on to speculate that the profits to be made in the running of the institution ‘might pay not only the expense of maintenance but the interest of that capital laid out on building . . . especially by the help of the additional advantages . . . in point of frugality of building which may be hoped for from the peculiarities of the plan’. Parnell in his reply refers to ‘an officer in Ireland called Inspector of Prisons’, who had brought him ‘a treatise to prove the practicability of the earnings of prisoners exceeding their maintenance’.64 This individual was Sir Jeremiah Fitzpatrick (1740–1810), author of An Essay on Gaol Abuses and on the Means of Redressing Them.65 Interestingly, Parnell notes ‘I have procured him a power of superintending the labour and maintenance of a number of persons in confinement in hopes that experience may justify his reasoning.’ The treatise Parnell is referring to seems to have been Fitzpatrick’s Thoughts on Penitentiaries which he published early in 1790 after making a tour of English workhouses and penitentiaries.66 As it happens, Fitzpatrick had been particularly impressed by the Wymondham penitentiary.67 Fitzpatrick’s activities in the 1780s demonstrate that a concern with the establishment of structures that made inspection a systematic matter were a growing concern at this period.68 In this initial exchange between the man in charge of Ireland’s finances and the would-be prison entrepreneur, the issue of economy is paramount, and moreover Bentham’s conception of his prison as a profitable enterprise does not seem at all strange to his interlocutor. In Beevor’s presentation of his own scheme on the other hand the issue of economy does not have the same prominence: in his account of how he became involved he records reading John Howard’s book69 and being shocked to discover that ‘as many prisoners died yearly in England by the gaol distemper, as by all the executions put together’ and forming the resolve to ‘attempt . . . a reformation of those crying


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evils in this county’. He goes on to indicate that solitary confinement ‘is that part of their punishment from which reformation is chiefly expected’.70 Here then is a classic philanthropist motivated by a desire to remedy a specific social ill, whereas Bentham is interested in using a model penitentiary as a template for the implementation of economies in public establishments in general. A long letter to Parnell of around 30 August 1790 includes the proposed text of an advertisement for a manager. The terms of it are extraordinary: To Manufacturers in General. Wanted a person capable of undertaking the setting up of a Manufacture of any kind, to be carried on by new hands who will require to be taught the business. The numbers capable to being applied to it are already from two to three hundred, but in certain events it may admit of considerable extensions. If the Manufacture includes different processes and operations to bring it to a Marketable state, the undertaker should be capable of giving or providing the requisite instruction in every process or operation.71 The text is couched as a straightforward classic business proposition, there is no reference to the ‘operatives’ being inmates of a prison. On 3 September, Parnell replied from Buxton.72 He proposes to get Bentham’s Essay printed in Ireland and encourages Bentham to consult an architect. On 3 September, Bentham wrote to an architect friend named Willey Reveley about the project.73 On 3 November, a friend of Bentham’s named James Wadman Alexander wrote in answer to queries about the improved gaol in Oxford Castle.74 Bentham was clearly interested in the system of paying prisoners for their labour and in the terms on which the Keeper Harris was employed. A letter to Samuel of 6 December reveals that Lord Lansdowne is encouraging the Ireland plan and anticipates Bentham getting a seat in the Irish parliament. ‘ . . . he is strenuous with me to go over there upon those terms, – saying . . . that everything is to be done there and nothing here.’75 On 23 January 1791, Bentham wrote to William Pitt76 to alert him to his intention of sending him a plan for the construction of a Penitentiary House.77 His opening gambit is economy; I will already hazard . . . a proposal for carrying into execution the Penitentiary system . . . at about half the annual expence of that pursued on board the Hulks, with about half the proportion of capital required for building upon the late Mr Blackburn’s plan, and that too to be reimbursed, by an extra-rent accumulated at compound interest by the end of a term not longer than that of a short lease: – the best system at half the expence of the worst: and that too not felt for a moment in the shape of a public burthen.


To the text of the letter is appended a brief summary of the plan of construction for a Panopticon Penitentiary followed by ‘an outline of a plan of management for a Panopticon Penitentiary House’. The letter to Pitt was followed in late January 1791 by another to the Home Secretary, Baron Grenville.78 He says he had made a mistake in going first to Pitt on the assumption that the matter in question was a financial one. Then another letter to Parnell in February (a draft only so we don’t know if it was actually sent).79 He remarks that a good part of his time has been employed ‘in acting as whipper-in to Architects, Drawing-Engravers, Writing-Engravers and Copper-Plate-Printers’. ‘If the project sinks it shall not be for want of any thing I can to/set/put it upon its legs.’ The cheapness of his system is a constant theme, and he fantasizes about the kind of dear and bad prison they could have if they wanted, with luxurious accommodation and fine architecture.80 Later in February an encouraging letter comes from Joseph Jekyll MP,81 one of Lansdowne’s protégés, who promises to send Bentham’s plan to two MPs, Bunbury and Powys, and mentions two other potentially sympathetic individuals, one of them the celebrated William Wilberforce.82 In the Spring, Bentham told Samuel, ‘I gave in a proposal to our Potemkin [Pitt] two months ago . . . Happily my proposal is in little danger of being out of date.’83 In May, he wrote (or planned to, it is a rough draft) to Sir Charles Bunbury complaining about transportation.84 He condemns the New South Wales establishment as presenting ‘a truly curious scene of absurdity/imbecility/improvidence and extravagance’. Transportation he compares to ‘a drain provision for carrying off convicts’, ‘It is of all the most expensive . . . .’ In May, Pole Carew told Bentham that Thomas Steele, Junior Secretary to the Treasury, had more than once spoken to Pitt about Panopticon; Pitt promised to consider it but is assailed with other business.85 Pole Carew reported that he had met Robert Adam,86 the famous Scottish architect, who was ‘turning his thoughts to the building of a Penitentiary House in Edinburgh’. Adam was keen to see Bentham’s plan. In the Works of Bentham, John Bowring printed a letter which he claimed Bentham had sent to King George himself.87 Here Bentham first introduces the design of an amphibious vehicle invented by Samuel, and then goes on to Panopticon, ‘an invention of a very different nature, of which, though the superstructure be my own, the fundamental idea originated with the same person’. He claims that ‘(not to mention the other purposes to which it might be applicable,) one-half, at least, of the present expense of maintaining felons might be saved by it at the first outset . . . ’. There is no trace of this communication in the royal archives however. At about the same time, Benjamin Vaughan88 commented to Bentham on the introduction of a piped heating system into the House of Commons and asked after Bentham’s warming scheme for his Panopticon. His blueprint was innovatory in terms of more than just the basic architecture.89 In May 1791, a letter from James Anderson,90 an old acquaintance, warns Bentham that his only hope of succeeding with Pitt is to make his application ‘through the


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medium of some party connexion’.91 It doesn’t matter how much money it is likely to save, it has to come to him through the ‘proper channel’. Towards the end of May, Pole Carew sent Bentham a letter he had received from Robert Adam, in which Adam calls Panopticon ‘one of the most ingenious plans I ever saw’.92 Soon after this Bentham replied to Anderson, whom he seems to wish to act as some kind of agent for the scheme in Scotland. The letter contains a most revealing paragraph on the issue of economy:93 With regard to economy, I will unbosom myself to you without reserve. Part of my expedients you will find in print. I was afraid of giving the whole of them, or placing them in the clearest point of view of which they were susceptible, for fear of being beat down, or seeing others reap the fruit of my labours. A man who begins with saving 50 percent to the nation, may be allowed to think a little for himself. He then proceeds to discuss a long list of areas in which he anticipates making economies, especially in the matter of clothes and diet. On 7 June, Robert Adam sent Bentham a highly confidential letter which he asked Bentham to burn, putting forward a plan to construct a Panopticon in Edinburgh, entirely on Bentham’s plan but adapted to their necessities and to their budget. He is making drawings and is planning a model.94 In a joint letter from Jeremy and Samuel to Baron St Helens in July,95 the brothers told him that ‘The “Panopticon’’ plan . . . is approved by everybody, architects themselves not excepted . . . .’ In November 1791, Bentham sent Etienne Dumont’s Panoptique – an abstract in French of his Panopticon Letters96 – to Jean Philippe Garran de Coulon, a member of the Legislative Assembly who spoke frequently on legal topics.97 Bentham was asking for it to be presented to the Assembly. He offered to play the part of gaoler himself, without a salary, at no cost to the nation. Once again then, the economy of his system was to the fore and the clear expectation that it would generate profits so substantial that he would not need a salary. At the same time he sent a copy of the English material to Brissot.98 He called his invention ‘a mill for grinding rogues honest, and idle men industrious’. At this point Bentham fulfilled his promise to Pitt to send him his Panopticon Letters.99 He urged Pitt to take notice of the proposal, which Wilberforce and Steele had also been bringing to Pitt’s attention. ‘A saving of more than one half the present expense . . . will not I hope place its claim to your attention in an unfavourable point of view.’ Panopticon becomes a topic of discussion with Lansdowne for the first time in December 1791. He reports a visit from Hobart, Irish Secretary.100 Hobart professed to be supportive but spoke of ‘the immobility of the still higher powers’. ‘In Ireland it is not yet published: but he declared his intention of publishing it immediately upon his return in the view of getting it universally called for, as he made no doubt it would be, by the public voice.’ And indeed


the text was published – or perhaps simply printed and circulated among a favoured few – before the close of 1791 in Dublin and London. At the end of December a letter from Garran de Coulon reports that the Assembly has ordered the printing of Panoptique, to allow all the deputies to study it prior to debate. A citizen has asked to translate ‘the work’ which presumably means the original English texts by Bentham. At around the same time, Bentham writes to someone called Thomas Johnes, MP for Radnorshire, who apparently had recommended the adoption of Panopticon in that county.101 In the New Year of 1792 a further letter to Pitt promises to execute the Panopticon plan ‘at an expence per man less by 25 per cent than that of the Hulk system’.102 Bentham promised to take upon himself the building costs without any government advance. A letter to Baron Auckland on 14 February brings a new player into the game – Bunbury had told Bentham of Auckland’s interest in the project.103 Bentham repeats to Auckland what he had said to Pitt – that ‘the only objection, viz: the expence, and in particular the great advance, supposed to be necessary for the building, completely done away’. Auckland’s reply soon afterwards indicated only an approval of ‘such parts of your humane Views as I think practicable’.104 The following month Earl Stanhope acknowledged receipt of the Panopticon writings.105 In May 1792 a letter to Sir Charles Bunbury indicates that the proposal was likely to be put before Parliament, though Bentham was very concerned that he might look like a business rival of Duncan Campbell, the current manager of the Hulks, interested only in profiteering by undercutting a rival.106 (The Hulks were floating prisons moored in the Thames.) On the same day Bentham wrote the first of many letters to George Rose, Pitt’s Secretary of the Treasury.107 A draft dated a month later shows Bentham trying to get Rose to forward the project.108 He devoted a quantity of further letters to this in the coming months. In September, we learn that Home Secretary Dundas had been to see the Panopticon model and promised to return to discuss terms.109 The building was to be at Battersea Rise. There seems to be real progress. In February 1793 a letter to Lord Loughborough,110 about to become Lord Chancellor, indicates that a further grandee has become intrigued by the plan.111 ‘Livelyhood ensured to prisoners after enlargement, Provision ensured to the convicts after the expiration of their terms, the annual expence diminished by one fourth, the first expence of building and stock struck off altogether: these are among the advantages which the proposal offers in point of economy.’ However, in May 1793 a letter to Dundas indicates that the latter has done nothing to fulfil his promises and is about to resign, so the project is dragging.112 Very soon afterwards we hear that Pitt and Dundas are to come to see Panopticon together.113 Bentham tells his brother that ‘various of Pitt’s friends, yea, manifold, I am told, have been at him with mallets, beating Panopticon into his head . . . ’. On 1 July 1793, Bentham is beginning to talk about the question of where Panopticon is to be sited,114 and in mid-August he reports, ‘The Ministry . . . will bring in a bill


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to get me Battersea Rise next session; and, in the meantime, recommend it to me, to try what I can do . . . towards getting it immediately by consent of the proprietors.’115 In the course of his negotiation with Earl Spencer116 for the land, Bentham points out that it is part of my plan, . . . and indeed the main pillar of it, to give the establishment such a face as may attract to it persons of all classes, but particularly of the superior ranks of life, whose inspection as such would afford the most powerful check to mismanagement: on Sunday in particular it would be my endeavour to render it, by means of the Chapel which is inclosed in the centre of the building, a sort of place of public entertainment suitable to the day117 In fact this aspect of the transparency principle – the openness of the penitentiary to the outside world as a means of audit and control on the management – made it unfashionable in the eyes of progressive prison reformers, who were beginning to dislike the idea that inmates of such institutions should be the object of public entertainment. For months the correspondence consists almost exclusively of negotiations for the land for the Panopticon. At the end of October, Bentham hears of a plan to erect a new gaol in Bury.118 In a most revealing sentence he writes, ‘Either I am very much mistaken, or I could save money to the Gentlemen of the County, to say nothing of what they will look upon as the more important saving, that of misery and wickedness, to the Prisoners.’ He also states it as his own ambition to become ‘Jailor, as Lord Kenyon119 is Chief Justice, of all England.’ At the same time we learn that he is drawing up a bill for Pitt to bring in at the opening of the next parliamentary session.120 Earl Spencer had refused to part with the land voluntarily so it would be up to parliament. At the end of March 1794 the Panopticon plan was in a condition ‘so much worse than stationary’.121 No bill has been brought in the present session, as Bentham complains to Evan Nepean.122 An interesting piece of information in this letter is that Samuel has been offering ‘to save the public 25 per cent in the article of woodwork for the Navy’ – an offer unfortunately rejected on the ground of Samuel’s ‘attachment to the Russian service’. Samuel has now lost his position in that service and will have to go back to Russia to petition the government there. The problem with this is that Jeremy cannot set up Panopticon without his help. ‘My own economical plans have so absolute a dependence on my Brother’s mechanical ones, that without his assistance, even with money at command, it would be impossible for me to go on, at least upon any terms like those agreed on . . . .’ Halfway through March we hear that Charles Long, Joint Secretary to the Treasury, is ‘working and working to put it [Bentham’s bill] into a Parliamentary shape . . . but with little hope of being able to do it in time’.123 A letter to Long of 21 April demonstrates how astonishingly forward-thinking the


Bentham brothers were in terms of technology; Jeremy explains to Long that the structure will be of cast iron and wood, mainly of iron, and that much of it could be prepared and erected by way of experiment even before the ground has been acquired.124 The brothers seem to have anticipated modern steelframed buildings. On 6 May, news came through that money was to be given to Bentham towards ‘carrying your plan into execution’ – 2000 pounds.125 At around this time Lord Chesterfield126 saw the Panopticon models and pointed out that the plan would do very well for barracks.127 Bentham told Nepean that he believed Samuel could make savings of at least 50 per cent ‘under that expensive head’. On 17 June 1794 Jeremy wrote to tell his brother that the Bill had passed in the Commons with amendments.128 The following day he applied to Evan Nepean for ‘the first advance to the amount of 10,000 pounds’.129 He reports that Samuel has been at the only factory of the kind capable of meeting their specifications, a place near Sheffield. They really have to go forward with the work because otherwise the team of workmen specially assembled will have to be let go. A few days later the big problem that was to scupper the project is mentioned in a letter to Lansdowne. ‘The Bill out of danger, but the Bastille still hanging in the Air, for want of land to be set down upon.’130 In the air it was to remain for many years. The Bill formally became an ‘Act for erecting a Penitentiary House or Houses for the confining and employing Convicts’ on 7 July 1794.131 In mid-August a long letter to Dundas regarding the question of the location of Panopticon. Bentham was furious because Earl Spencer, owner of the plot of land he was anticipating being occupied by Panopticon, was doing everything in his power to block the plan. Charles Long thought that a place could be found on Hounslow Heath. Bentham’s answer was that this would place it too far from ‘the great seat of public inspection, the Metropolis’, and too far from sources of raw materials and finished goods.132 This would then upset all his calculations as to the profitability of the establishment; not merely because of the extra cost of transport, but also because the avoidance of corruption in the management was directly related to the ease of inspectability of the establishment by parliamentarians. This letter is one of the most important in the long series relating to Panopticon. It contains a Memorial in which Bentham gives a brief history of the negotiations thus far. The government’s response to the obstructive tactics of Earl Spencer was to offer Bentham alternative sites, as though the location of the Panopticon was a trivial matter. When Bentham expressed an anxiety that amendments to his plan would damage the profitability of the establishment, their response was to propose to make up the difference from the public coffers. This drove Bentham into a fury because it meant doing the exact opposite of what Panopticon was intended to do – introduce greater economy into the public services. Their response was to say – ‘that’s our business, you don’t have to worry about it!’ But this plainly demonstrated that they had missed the point of his endeavours entirely. Bentham’s answer


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to this is profoundly significant and demonstrative of my thesis about the purpose of Panopticon, and needs to be quoted fully: But, says Mr Long, leave that [sc. B’s worry about the added public expenditure entailed by the choice of a different site] to us, whose business it is: what concern is it of yours? – With great submission to that gentleman, to whose candour I really feel myself much obliged, it is not impossible to a man to have public feelings, without being, or ever having been, or ever having thought of being, a member of any Jacobinical society, or of any other popular society, and at the same time without being in the pay of government; my whole life, if I must confess it, my whole life, obscure as it has been, has been made up of such feelings. There is scarce any nook or cranny in government that I have not pried into in my time, in every one with a wish, and in some of late with a hope, which now I am on the point of foregoing, of seeing economy, and that not as a mere inactive spectator, of seeing improved economy introduced into it.133 The government simply regard him as an entrepreneur who wants to make money out of a penitentiary, whereas his actual interest is to promote a model for economy in public expenditure. He states bluntly that if he cannot have the Battersea site, he will be obliged to abandon the whole project – a threat he did not carry out. In September 1794 Bentham’s report to Philip Metcalfe134 about the status of the Panopticon project is disconsolate.135 It is at a standstill. A year earlier he was promised 10 000 pounds from the government, 3 months later a further 10 000 pounds, everything was agreed, but then it was suggested that the proposal must be put to Parliament. He has so far invested 4000 pounds and it is costing him more than 2000 pounds a year just to keep the team of skilled workmen together. Samuel having lost his regiment in Russia on account of his absence may have to go back, and ‘If Sam goes, there is an end of Panopticon in all its shapes . . . .’ In the Autumn, Dundas returned Bentham’s furious 80-page rant of protest about the proposed change of site with the admonition that it was of such a style that he could not pass it on to the appropriate persons at the Treasury.136 Dundas exhorted Bentham to ‘put your reasoning into a form more consonant to the Stile in which official business is usually treated’. Long then wrote an answer to Bentham’s points a few days later.137 He hotly denied any idea that he was casual about spending government money. If government surveyors come up with another spot, Bentham will need to redo his sums. ‘ . . . perhaps you cannot work it at so low a rate per man elsewhere’, but on the other hand the cost of another piece of land to the government might be cheaper and so balance increased expense in one area with savings in another. Jeremy writes to Dundas a couple of days later (before receipt of Dundas’s letter) to lament that he has had to let most of the skilled workmen


go and that he has had to make financial sacrifices in order to hang on to a remnant of them.138 He needs the promised funds. When Dundas’s letter comes he writes to ask for a pledge that if he rewrites his Memorial in proper language, will Dundas forward it?139 At the same time he writes to Long to reiterate that As to economy, no other ground can possibly be so convenient to government as that I wish for. For rather than be deprived of it I would pay rent for the difference to the amount of the interest government borrow at, instead of accepting of other ground with an encrease of terms . . . . At this time Bentham was busy writing one of his pamphlets proposing means of reducing the tax burden: Supply without Burthen; or Escheat vice Taxation: being a Proposal for a Saving in Taxes by an Extension of the Law of Escheat, which was to be published the following year.140 He sent a copy of it to Dundas.141 At the beginning of October, Bentham heard that Dundas would pass on his revised Memorial. Samuel was by now taking a more active role, and a letter of late October reports to Jeremy on a visit to Long.142 The shortened version of the Memorial had still not been submitted, Samuel was planning to do the work. Eventually it was sent to Dundas by Jeremy at the end of October.143 Early in 1795, Wilberforce was asking if his friends Lord Muncaster and Isaac Milner could come and see the Panopticon models.144 The following month Bentham was sending the Panopticon texts to Viscount Sydney, who had expressed an interest in it.145 Bentham notes that he cannot send prints because the plates together with the impression have been burned by accident at the Copper-plate printers. The loss however is the less to be regretted, as the details of the construction have received very great improvement in the hands of my Brother, and in particular to such a degree in the article of expence, as enables me to save upon a moderate computation £200,000 to the public . . . . It seems that these savings were to be derived at least in part from the application of Samuel’s advances in manufacturing technology. The whole Panopticon project involved architectural innovation, technological innovation, and management innovation: it was an interlocking package. As February advanced, Bentham got into meetings at Treasury Chambers with Dundas and Long.146 The following month he reported a sorry tale of procrastination and delay to Lord Lansdowne.147 The advancement of the project apparently required a joint meeting of Pitt, Dundas, and Long but it had proved impossible to get them together.


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At the same time Samuel’s technological innovations were attracting attention – in particular an amphibious baggage-wagon. No less a person than the Duke of York commissioned some to be made – and then came over unheralded to Queen Square Place to see the Panopticon models ‘and the other things’, and indeed announced ‘that he should bring the king, who would probably have been here before this, if my brother had not desired a day’s notice, which was accordingly promised’.148 In the same letter Bentham reports, ‘We have already an order from the Board of Ordnance to make wheels, but the present situation of the works does not admit great despatch in the execution of it.’ However, delay continued and at the end of March Wilberforce told Bentham that there were ‘more obstacles than we are aware of’ to the implementation of the Panopticon plan as far as Pitt was concerned, he could not go into details but was optimistic of the progress.149 In the Spring of 1795 a renewed contact with Sir John Parnell, from whom a letter arrived with an announcement that he expected to be authorised ‘in a very few days’ to write with a contract ‘for the Employment of Persons now banished by Transportation’.150 Further encouraging noises 6 days later, talk of support from the administration, but nothing concrete.151 Oliver Macdonagh reports that although Bentham’s plans were approved by Dunn, the architect of the Dublin Newgate, Parnell remained sceptical about Bentham’s costings. In the event no new penitentiaries were built in Ireland until 1801.152 Wilberforce announced a whole visiting party to see the models soon after.153 But delay continued, the next step being the signing of ‘Instruments of Appointment’ – making Bentham feoffee to treat for the requisite land154 – which persisted in not getting signed.155 A letter to Charles Long in August 1795 indicated that attempts were being made to alter the terms of the contract.156 In September, Pitt was still refusing to sign the necessary instruments.157 In October of that year matters were still at a stand, Bentham summarised the frustrating scenario thus: my original proposal in relation to this business was delivered as long ago as Jan 1791, . . . my amended proposal was accepted so long ago as July 1793, . . . in the course of that and the following month I was repeatedly called upon to ‘take my arrangements’ accordingly, . . . arrangements were accordingly taken by me at an expence still going on and amounting already to little short of £10,000. . . . ’158 In the same month Bentham complains to the duc de Liancourt (then domiciled in the United States) that ‘ . . . two-thirds at least of the time that has elapsed since I had the honour of seeing you, has been consumed, in fighting them [the government], or dangling after them in ante-chambers and passages’.159 (Not much of a ‘hermit existence’ here!) The contract however remained unsigned, and his brother’s inventions remained unexploited.


Pitt of course had other fish to fry at this time, for since the beginning of 1793 Britain had been at war with France, and from the summer of 1794 the government had been preoccupied with the suppression of ‘an international Jacobin conspiracy to subvert the British government, if not its constitution. The ministry was so convinced that a radical rising was in contemplation that in May 1794 the Home Office and Treasury solicitors embarked on a witch-hunt for the British conspirators and their French paymasters’.160 The fact that Bentham’s vision was itself so radical and the fact that he himself had been granted honorary French citizenship by a French revolutionary government probably did nothing to help his cause at this particular historical juncture. In addition, Bentham was associated with the Opposition to Pitt and this could have done nothing to help his cause. The times had changed greatly since the 1780s, when Pitt had been a regular at Lansdowne House, where he had borrowed from Price the idea of a Sinking Fund and become acquainted with the thinking of Adam Smith. As Halévy writes, Insensibly, against his conscious will, against the tradition of the Tory Party, Pitt found himself thrown back upon the old policy of war with the hereditary enemy; insensibly Lord Lansdowne found himself steadily converging towards . . . Charles Fox, until, in 1794, they found themselves together at the head of the new Whig opposition, the democratic and ‘jacobin’ party.161 In January 1796, Bentham remained optimistic about the project despite so many vexatious delays.162 At the end of February he was engaged on his ‘Essays on the Poor Laws’.163 Panopticon was central to his plans for provision for paupers, and Bahmueller observed that among the various applications Bentham had in mind for the Panopticon technique, ‘Panopticon poorhouse was decidedly uppermost in his mind.’164 Bahmueller goes on to note, Both prisons and workhouses were to be run on the contract system, and from both he expected to reap substantial profits – he was to be the sole contractor for the former and investor and paid official in the latter. The system of pauper workhouses would also mesh with Panopticon prison, for Bentham had proposed a ‘subsidiary’ institution to receive and employ – at lower wages than the market rate – discharged prisoners who were otherwise unemployed. A poorhouse suited this need perfectly and was accordingly substituted for the subsidiary institution.165 We have already seen how the first proposal to establish a Panopticon-style institution was for a poorhouse.166 In 1792 Bentham had been in discussions with Francis Burton on the subject of the establishment of a poorhouse in Welshpool.167


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On 16 February 1796, Pitt announced his intention to bring in a poor relief bill and on 1 March he moved for leave to bring in a bill ‘for the regulation of the laws relating to the relief and employment of the poor’.168 Bentham wrote to Pitt to point out that ‘A Penitentiary Inspection House might afford an useful trial and exemplification of the Inspection plan, for the purpose of the Industry-Houses which it is your purpose to spread over the Kingdom.’ (Numerous drafts, the letter may not have been sent.)169 He went on to complain bitterly that the only thing holding up Panopticon was the need for Pitt’s signature. At around the same time, Bentham wrote to William Morton Pitt in these terms: ‘Poor Panopticon might ere this time have puffed up and shewn what use might be to be made of it in the line of PTOCHOCOMIAL economy’ – that is the economy of ‘caring for paupers’.170 The operation of the poor relief system as a profitable undertaking had a long history at that time. ‘In the first half of the nineteenth century . . . it had become an accepted axiom that the object of a Poorhouse was to set the inmates to work, and that the industry would be profitable if managed properly.’171 On 8 March, Bentham lamented to Wilberforce that matters remained at a stand, and that he had had to advance more than £1200 on the business ‘in addition to the many thousands advanced before’.172 The following month he made another desperate attempt to win over the recalcitrant Earl Spencer, who was claiming that the establishment of the Penitentiary House in the proposed location would lose him 2000 pounds a year because it would make it impossible for him to rent out neighbouring land;173 Bentham offered to replace any tenants lost to the Earl himself. At the end of May, Bentham told his brother that Spencer was still adamant about his land, and was offering instead ‘the cursed Marsh, or Barnes Common, of which he is Lord of the Manor’.174 Barnes Common he felt was not suitable, but the Marsh might do. It would however be very detrimental to the health of the prisoners.175 In May 1796 a note of despair is clearly present in a letter to Wilberforce, which makes plain that Pitt’s failure to sign has scuppered any progress.176 Correspondence continues to be devoted to the siting of the prison, with the attitude of Earl Spencer still the main obstacle. Bentham accepted to proceed on the basis of using the marsh, but this involved approaching another landowner, Sir Thomas Wilson, in addition to the Earl.177 The small piece of land turned out to be the terminus of his wife’s favourite morning walk.178 Grandees continued to come to view the models – such as the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and his wife in the Summer of 1796.179 By midAugust, Bentham had accepted that the piece of land first chosen would never be made available, but this meant that a new instrument of appointment would be required.180 Furthermore Sir Thomas Wilson remained adamantly opposed.181 In an extraordinary letter of 1 September 1796, Bentham – clearly longing again to become involved in public life in some useful capacity – observes


to Wilberforce that out of the six Englishman on whom the French have bestowed the title of honorary French citizen, only Wilberforce and himself are not ‘reputed Republicans’; he has conceived the notion that the two of them could be commissioned to go to France with the purpose of making peace with that country.182 We must, sooner of later, have done fighting with Pandemonium: and upon that occasion may find it advisable to look out for some sort of a Candle to hold to the Princes of the Devils. – Waiving Devils and Candles, might it not contribute to smooth the approach to Peace, if in the steps taken, whatever they may be, towards that end, use were made, in some shape or other, of some person, the choice of whom might, upon the strength of some conspicuous and inconspicuous attribute, stamped, as it were, upon his forehead, appear intended purposely as a compliment to them, and indicative of a disposition to humour and flatter them? – Now, my good friend, where is that sort of person, the choice of whom, for such a purpose, could be more likely to prove flattering to them, than that of one of the chosen few, on whom they took it in their heads to confer that sublimest of all earthly honours – that highest of all degrees in the climax of Equality, the title of French Citizen? In addition to his qualification of being a French citizen, Bentham lists his other qualifications for being a peace-making envoy to France – yet another aspiration demonstrating his desire to get involved – the first one being a sketch of the Panopticon plan as printed by the Legislative Assembly, which he calls ‘a sort of certificate of Civism, such as no other Non-Frenchman that I know of could display’; second, an invitation from Talleyrand in the name of the Directory of the Department of Paris, to go and set up Panopticons of different sorts there; third, eulogies of his Judicial Establishment in both Brissot’s and Mirabeau’s journals;183 fourth, the esteem in which Brissot had held him.184 On 10 September, a letter from Baron St Helens pours cold water on Bentham’s idea of being sent on a peace mission to France.185 His Lordship allows that the French would find him acceptable, but feels that such a mission would have ‘the appearance of a most unworthy and degrading compliance with their arrogant and unwarrantable pretensions’. Bentham cheerfully accepts, but asks His Lordship that if he himself is appointed to such a mission, could he please take Bentham with him unofficially and incognito?186 At around the same time, Bentham was writing once again to Charles Long with another proposed site, Tothill Fields, a waste that did not bring a farthing to its proprietors, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.187 On 13 September 1796, Bentham reports to his brother that he has seen Charles Long and that although Long has not seen Pitt, he is so sure of Pitt consenting to the Tothill Fields plan that he is ready to tell Bentham to take the land


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at once and take a chance on consent being given.188 But Bentham pointed out that a building erected on this basis could be torn down by any Commoner. A new Act would be required. The correspondence at this period covers not just Panopticon affairs but those of Samuel and his naval innovations. Wilberforce continued to be the main channel to Pitt.189 At the end of October, Wilberforce told Bentham there was no doubt that Pitt approved of the Tothill proposal but ‘Wilberforce had to fight him and quarrel with him about the mode of bringing it into Parliament.’190 Bentham immediately wrote to the Dean of Westminster, Bishop Horsley, to gain the cooperation of himself and the Chapter.191 In November, Bentham reported to Rose that the Dean and Chapter were disposed to negotiate, though making conditions.192 In a letter from Wilberforce of 21 November we learn, however, that the Dean and Chapter are hostile.193 Bentham endured more heel-kicking in the antechambers of the Treasury, waiting for Rose.194 A week later, things were looking more favourable, and the only obstacle was now the Dean, who had his own issues with the government.195 Early next month Bentham was telling Samuel that there was ‘authority to get a bill drawn’.196 At around this time a further ally appeared, Patrick Colqhuoun, a metropolitan police magistrate, who wanted to ‘see the completion of this very useful Establishment’.197 Colquhoun wanted to know what was blocking the project and if he could help. Correspondence continues to be largely devoted to Panopticon and to Samuel’s inventions.198 At the end of the year 1796, Bentham sent a Bill ‘for the purpose of the Penitentiary business’ to George Rose, asking him to introduce it as soon as possible in the House.199 All that needs to be done is ‘to explain and amend the existing Act, principally by extending the provision of it to Land in the state of Waste and Common Land’. At the end of February 1797 we learn that the Bill has been sticking once again, this time in the hands of the Attorney General.200 It was still on his desk a month later.201 A month later, a letter from Romilly202 indicates that the Attorney General is raising objections to the Bill, ‘he says it is the most unlike an Act of Parliament he ever saw’.203 At the beginning of May it was reported to Bentham that the Attorney General ‘did not understand it – and seemed to insinuate the Plan of it was romantic’.204 (How often, one wonders, has this epithet ‘romantic’ ever been applied to the arch-rationalist Jeremy Bentham?) In the Summer of 1797, Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board of Agriculture, invited Bentham to write a paper on ‘the proper management of the poor’.205 In response to this invitation Bentham prepared a series of letters on ‘the Situation and Relief of the Poor’ which appeared in Annals of Agriculture (1797–1798). They were published in 1812 as Outline of a Work entitled Pauper Management Improved.206 The list of topics Sir John proposed that Bentham cover included something on ‘Panopticons or correction houses for the Idle’. Bentham started to collect information and statistics for these essays soon afterwards, picking the brains of Arthur Young among others.207 In late November 1797, Bentham


sent Rose a revised draft of ‘the Tothill Fields Division Bill’.208 Schofield points out that it was in this year 1797 that Bentham first used the expression ‘sinister interest’ in his writings on the poor laws, a notion that was to be central to his later democratic theory.209 Meanwhile Samuel had been approached about a Panopticon in his capacity as Inspector-General of Naval Works at Portsmouth Dockyard. It is both ironic and significant that he should have had the title of ‘Inspector’, given that Panopticon was presented in its earliest manifestation under the label of ‘inspection house’, and that it was the ‘inspection principle’ Jeremy saw himself as promoting. In January 1797 the government planned to set up a prison for 10 000 prisoners of war. Plans were drawn up but these were felt to be enormously costly. Samuel devised a panoptical prison camp in which the sheds holding the prisoners were arranged around the circumference of a large circle with the guardhouse in the centre; the sheds were to be glazed at each end to promote transparency and visibility. He asserted that 100 men could guard the 10 000 on his plan. In the event, the prison plan was dropped as the captured soldiers were housed elsewhere.210 By early February 1798, a fresh bill had been dispatched, the product of the labours of Charles Butler.211 Ruefully in a draft for a letter Bentham remarked, ‘Dating like Robinson Crusoe from the time/a’on/of my Shipwrack I am now in the middle of my fifth year.’ He was dating the first troubles of Panopticon back to the Summer of 1793. Romilly wrote later in the month to inform him that the Speaker and the Attorney General regarded his Bill as an Enclosure Bill, which meant that it could not be brought in in the current session because a certain minimum amount of notice was required – written notice had to be fixed on the church door of the relevant area for three Sundays in the months of August and September immediately preceding the parliamentary session in which the petition was to be presented.212 In desperation at the prospect of massive further delay, Bentham wrote out a draft of a letter to George Rose offering to take over the Hulks contract from Duncan Campbell.213 He admitted that the Hulks system was too radically vicious to allow for much improvement, but argued that it would give him a chance of getting some experience of the business. Campbell had not resided in situ and neither would he. A letter was definitely sent because Rose replied promptly, saying he could fairly approach the Committee on Finance who were about to give consideration to the ‘Expence of the Convicts’.214 In the event, the Finance Committee endorsed the suggestion, seeing it as a compensation for the many delays to the implementation of Panopticon.215 Bentham’s total exasperation is expressed in a rough draft of a letter to Rose dated at the end of February 1798.216 Every time somebody in office has got the message about Panopticon and about his hardships, the business gets passed to someone else. Now Rose wants his latest proposal, that he should manage the Hulks, to be put before a new committee: ‘Dispirited and enfeebled by so long a course of unavailing contention, necessity would


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indeed drag me – but nothing short of necessity would drag me – before a tribunal before whom I know not [in] what other character I could appear than that of an accuser.’ And later, ‘Disciplined in the school of adversity I have learnt for my own part to crouch beneath the rod of power.’ Bentham believes that the Committee would not consider any such thing as recommending an individual for a post – this is the job of Pitt, and none but him. Bentham wrote to Wilberforce to send him copies of his recent exchange with Rose.217 Wilberforce wrote a most affecting letter expressing his sympathy, admitting his own past lack of greater commitment to the cause and offering his support.218 He seems to have a genuine regard for Bentham, and states that he considers Bentham ‘a much injured man’. In March another encouraging communication was that from Henry Thornton, MP for Southwark and member of the Select Committee on Finance.219 Initially hostile to the establishment of a penitentiary in Battersea, he was now willing to help. He proposed to the Committee ‘to bring forward the plan of J.B. for a more oeconomical mode of maintaining the convicts’.220 At the beginning of April, Bentham wrote to Rose, prompted by the news that a vessel was soon to be sent to New South Wales with 300 convicts.221 He offered to build a temporary wooden penitentiary on yet another piece of land on ‘a spot that belongs to nobody’ – he just needs to get a licence to use it from the City of London as Conservators of the Navigation of the Thames. It is between Greenwich and Woolwich. This is a huge compromise for Bentham – it is only approachable by river, there are no houses near, it is covered by the spring tides. The snag is that he is asking for 10 000 pounds. He would need to be paid the same per prisoner as the manager of the Hulks because of the inappropriateness of the site. The labor of the Prisoners is a fund too uncertain to reckon upon, in a place so confined in point of room, in a situation so remote from the seat of traffick, and so unfavourable to the reception of Visitors and Customers . . . the choice of employments and employers would be so much narrowed . . . . At the end of April 1798 there was another hopeful sign – a letter from Charles Long inviting Bentham to an interview with the Treasury Committee to discuss ‘a Contract proposed to be entered into between you and their Lordships respecting the Erection and management of a Penitentiary House . . . ’.223 The result of the meeting was that the Committee said they were keen to do business but could not do so until the issue of siting had been resolved, while Bentham told them as politely as possible that it was they who were causing the site problem.223 A letter to Wilberforce contains a summary account of the history of the delays to the project so far. He recalls ‘besieging Mr Long and Mr Dundas’ from 31 October to 30 December 1794. On 12 January 1795,


Dundas had declared it impossible to change the land. Earl Spencer had signified a change of heart publicly but let slip to Samuel when they were meeting on some naval business (Earl Spencer being Lord of the Admiralty) ‘his fixed determination not to part with the land’. In May 1798, Bentham was still fighting to make progress, with Wilberforce seemingly one of his chief allies.224 Reginald Pole Carew assisted with statistics relating to public moneys spent on convicts.225 In June 1798, Bentham was still pushing to have a go at ‘trying the experiment in the mean time at a reduced expence, and indeed without any increased of disbursement on the part of Government, by a temporary erection . . . ’, as he put it in a letter to the Lord Mayor of London.226 He enclosed with this letter a fresh proposal ‘for a new and less expensive mode of employing and reforming convicts’. Also a copy of his Outline of a Work entitled Pauper Management Improved, which had been printed (though not published in that year). He indicated that this pamphlet on pauper management could ‘serve to satisfy any farther curiosity that may be entertained with regard to the peculiarities and advantages of the proposed principle of architecture: for with a few additions required for the purpose of security, what serves for any one class of working hands, will serve equally for any other’. In a further letter to Pole Carew, Bentham once again outlines the financial savings entailed in the Panopticon scheme:227 Convicts actual number/under sentence/transported and transportable – 4924. Annual expence of that number on the Colony plan – the expence increasing ad infinitum and the Security against returns diminishing precarious, and not under command – 221,308 pounds, thirteen shillings and one halfpence. The same on JB’s plan ceasing at his and SB’s death – 75,511 pounds, three shillings and fourpence. The same on the Hulk plan probably somewhat less, but the amount precarious and more likely to encrease than decrease. – the system detestable in all other respects. The problem now was Lord Grosvenor228 – whose house was only a quarter of a mile from Tothill Fields and whose estates in Westminster gave him an interest in local developments. He was opposed and could influence other parties with whom Bentham had to negotiate. In June, Henry Thornton reported on the deliberations of the Finance Committee.229 The Committee’s job [irony of ironies!] was to save public money and not to provide justice for aggrieved individuals, but they did the best they could in stating:


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we hope no Circumstances will arise to prevent the carrying of your plan into effect next year as any further delay will both enlarge your Claim to Compensation . . . and will alone postpone the period of time at which the public will begin to feel the effects of a System, which we consider as likely to be beneficial. At the end of July 1798, Bentham wrote to Long to get him to have the official notices drawn up for want of which the requisite Bill could not be presented to Parliament.230 It was necessary for the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to give directions to their Solicitor to prepare and deliver the notices. In August, Bentham had an interview with Rose who refused to countenance his temporary Panopticon plan or his appointment as manager of the Hulks.231 Bentham knew that it was absolutely essential to remain calm and patient. He did at least learn that an Order had been entered on the Treasury Books for delivering the notices he had asked for. On 20 September he reported that the requisite notices have been given to the newspapers.232 The site was to be Tothill Fields.233 But on 11 October a letter came from the Attorney General warning that the Dean and Chapter of Westminster planned to oppose the Penitentiary Enclosure Bill ‘in every stage’.234 Colquhoun wrote supportively encouraging him not to be anxious, ‘Depend upon it we shall allay all opposition.’235 His contacts assured him that the opposition came from certain individuals who had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Through the Autumn of 1798 Bentham continued to press for the progression of the project, trying to establish who would introduce the necessary Bill into Parliament, trying to negotiate with the Dean.236 Nobody wanted to take responsibility for the Bill.237 A letter from Charles Long of 15 November indicates that what is necessary is a private member’s bill. Long confessed that he did not know ‘any public man’ who would be able ‘to follow up a contested private Bill in all its stages through the House’.238 Bentham would need ‘some friend to take charge of it’. Shortly afterwards Colquhoun wrote supportively, none but your self would have engaged in such a task. . . . It grieves me to the heart after all your trouble to find you are to be compelled to fight the Tothill fields Bill through the House as a Private Bill. Never I believe did so many untoward Circumstances occur to obstruct one of the best measures that ever was devised for the public good.239 Wilberforce too wrote sympathetically, though reluctant to take on the bill himself.240 Pole Carew also wrote to offer help.241 Sadly however, on 21 November, Bentham was writing to tell Pole Carew that Tothill Fields was not going to work (the Dean and Chapter having stated resolute opposition).242 Long had told him to apply to the Lord of the Treasury to ask what was to be done about finding another place.


A letter at this time shows the practical entailments of what had happened – Bentham had to sell the 130 tons of cast iron purchased for the planned penitentiary which had been stored at a Millbank wharf for 4 years.243 However, he pressed indefatigably on with another possibility – that of acquiring some land belong to Lord Salisbury at Millbank – he not being averse to selling it.244 Negotiations over the new plot of land dragged on through the Spring of 1799. New hope sprang up in late May of that year when a letter came from Charles Long stating: The Lords Commrs. Of His Majesty’s Treasury having given the requisite directions of the Agreement to be executed by them with the Marquis of Salisbury for the purchase of his Estate adjoining to Tothill Fields for the purpose of the intended Penitentiary House, I enclose to you for your information a copy of their Lordships minute on the subject.245 The kind of life Bentham was leading and the merry dance of the Panopticon was illustrated in a letter of June to his brother.246 Poor Panopticon. 2d May Treasury Minute – that White247 should draw a Contract for Ld S.’s Land – 4 or 5 May Letter accordingly to White. 11 May JB and Estcourt248 calling on White, learnt from him in a rage that he was utterly against a previous Contract – but that the Conveyance should be drawn if the Title was approved, by the Atty Genl – 11 May J.B. to Long denouncing White’s refusal: no answer – and Long since then inaccessible, unless by being caught in a passage. 21 May J.B. to Long begging copy of Treasury Minute of 2d May with one from Long to J.B. to authenticate it for the purpose of treating with Wise. . . . 22d May Copy accordingly and letter from Long . . . 27 May, J.B. to Long begging letter from Long to Estcourt as representing the other party, to stand in lieu of the hopeless Contract . . . – Long inaccessible – nothing done – About a week ago Estcourt after a thousand promises had at last given in the Abstract of his Title to White – same day J.B. saw White who in cross examination said he had read about half of it . . . Miracle of miracles, on 26 June Charles Abbot 249 writes to tell Bentham that Rose has proposed a vote of 36 000 pounds to him ‘for buying the Ground and carrying on the plan of the Penitentiary House’.250 This vote was confirmed by the Appropriation Act of 12 July 1799. ‘I hope now you will be enabled to proceed with Confidence and Success.’ Negotiations with Long and others continued regarding the steps necessary for purchase of the land and also about the number of prisoners Bentham was to be entrusted with.251 The Attorney General continued to throw spanners into the works whenever possible.252 And on 19 February a letter from Edward Boodle253 announces continued opposition from Lord Grosvenor and Lord Belgrave,


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who not only fear the ill effects of proximity to ‘a place of confinement for Convicts’, but have their own plans for the land involved.254 At the beginning of March, Bentham attempted to open lines of negotiation with their lordships.255 Meanwhile he pushed on with all the meticulous business of dealing with land ownership and sitting tenants and questions of compensation for persons having to move. In April 1800, he was still in the thick of it and he was writing to Long to ask for an imprest to pay for a load of arbele – a wood he considered particularly suitable for flooring as ‘noted for comparative incombustibility’.256 A harpsichord maker was offering a quantity of this at a reasonable price and the opportunity was too good to miss. At the end of April news that Long is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.257 A month later Bentham reports a meeting with Dundas who is trying to push matters forward.258 But in June he tells Samuel, I have been putting off writing from day to day, in expectation of something definitive to tell you about Panopticon, but so I might for everlasting . . . Nepean has had a promise these ten days or more of Long of an hour from 2 to 3 for my business: but hitherto there has always been something in the way to hinder.259 Later that month he is consulting Arthur Young about the amount the original 1793 figures for the sum allotted to him for the maintenance of the convicts needed to be adjusted to allow for inflation since.260 On 19 June, Bentham addressed a Memorial to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury explaining that changes since the original agreement mean that he has to adjust the figures in his original quotation.261 In mid-July as matters dragged on, Bentham wrote in desperation to Henry Thornton to intervene in the House on his behalf.262 At the end of August, Bentham reported to Samuel that Long was trying to get Pitt to commit himself.263 Meanwhile he was promoting his ideas for new refrigeration techniques, enlisting the help of Romilly’s nephew Peter Mark Roget.264 In September 1800, Bentham heard that he was to be allocated only 500 prisoners instead of the original thousand he had budgeted for.265 He was immensely frustrated by the inability of others to appreciate that his calculations were an interlocking web and that altering the figures so drastically would ruin them. In mid-October, he was complaining to Samuel that nothing at all was happening.266 In mid-January 1801, Bentham continued to be preoccupied with Panopticon.267 Part of the land he was hoping to build on was occupied by a nursery and he had heard of plans to cut down fruit trees there before the end of the lease. But these fruit trees would serve his purpose. In late March a letter came from Portland officially requesting what terms Bentham would set for accommodating 500 persons only.268 In a letter to Addington, the new First Lord of the Treasury, Bentham complained bitterly and vociferously about this kind of treatment.269 He enclosed the letter just received and


said he would not be answering it until Rose and Long, soon to be departing their offices, had gone. He appealed to Addington to go to his great supporter Nepean and ask for an account of the agonies he had suffered at the hands of government. L. J. Hume states with some justification that in practice the administration’s insistence on reducing the number of inmates marked the end of the Panopticon project, for the mathematics of the government’s proposal of a reduced scheme did not add up for Bentham, and it took him more than a year to accept that he would not be able to reverse their decision.270 In June, Bentham received a report of the Treasury Board to the House of Commons including material relating to the Penitentiary plan.271 He was horrified to find that the omission of certain items made it appear as if he had submitted fresh terms that were ‘a departure, and that a “material’’ ’ one, from the terms originally agreed on: that these new terms appeared exorbitant, and so exorbitant as to constitute a distinct ground . . . for the retrenchment now proposed to be made from the extent originally engaged to be given to the establishment.’ In other words, they were trying to shift the blame for the downsizing of the proposed project with all its attendant complications, onto Bentham. He lists the documents extant which are ‘necessary to my exculpation’. Panopticon-related letters now become more spaced out among the mass of the correspondence. In September 1801 there is a letter to Vansittart, joint secretary to the Treasury, in which Bentham tried to get things moving again.272 Vansittart said in his reply that the matter was now in the hands of Lord Pelham, who had become Home Secretary on 30 July 1801.273 At the end of October, when Dumont was about to go to Paris to supervise the printing of the Traités,274 Bentham asked him to try his luck with the French government on Panopticon again.275 Just before Christmas, Dumont wrote to say that he had raised the Panopticon with Talleyrand.276 He was listened to with interest but the topic was not mentioned again, and no encouragement came from that quarter. The year 1802 begins with letters to Dumont.277 In the second of these, Bentham talks of having sent a set of ‘my Brothers Patent, but never-sold, Fire Irons, of which the characteristic . . . quality is levity ’.278 The ever-prescient Samuel was looking to the question of reducing the weight of ordinary items. It is a truism that the development of lighter and lighter materials in combination with miniaturisation has played a major role in the continuous reductions in the price of consumables in the modern era. Bentham goes on to ask if these cannot ‘serve as a specimen, though a trifling, and hors d’oeuvre, and uncharacteristic one of the Panopt. System of works?/inventions?’ At the same time, Bentham proposes to send some samples of work done by Samuel’s wheel-making machinery ‘to the working of which neither dexterity in any degree nor good-will is necessary’. This machinery had been patented by Samuel in 1793. Bentham notes that such machinery would be particularly useful for the establishment of


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a general and connected system of national roulage, upon a plan analogous to that of our Mail-coaches: for the multiples of each of the several component parts, being precisely of the same dimensions one as another, a spoke (le rayon) for example – or the segment of the felly (la circonference) – in case of an accident to any such part, it might be replaced by a spare part of the same sort, either kept at the several houses of call, or carried in the carriage itself for that purpose: and if (as with us) it were deemed advisable to prescribe dimensions for wheels by law, with a view to the good keeping of the roads, such a system of machinery would afford the means of conforming to such prescription, with peculiar accuracy: especially if Iron Rail-Roads were adopted (as Grooves for the wheels to run in almost without friction) as they begin to be with us. – Expence our newspapers say £St. 300 a mile. This is a delightful illustration of the astonishing range and versatility of Bentham’s creative vision and the inventiveness of his brother, also of his tremendous interest in current industrial developments. Here he seems to foresee the imminent development of rail transport and to take a personal interest in its possible introduction into France or encouragement there. Bentham goes on to discuss Samuel’s interest in the use of wheels in machinery. In mid-April, Bentham was writing to Bunbury in hopes of persuading him to take on parliamentary responsibility for Panopticon.279 A fortnight later he sent Bunbury an account of ‘how the business stands as between me and the present Treasury’.280 A few days later he addressed a new contact, Sir William Pulteney, MP for Shrewsbury since 1775, whom he regarded as ‘beyond comparison, the most watchful and efficient, as well as among the most independent guardians of the Constitution’.281 He quotes Wilberforce, Bunbury, Abbot, and Nepean ‘as being fully impressed with the persuasion, that the treatment given . . . has been, in an unprecedented degree, oppressive and unjust, – and the conduct of the late administration, in respect of it, altogether indefensible’. Bentham wanted Pulteney to raise this issue in Parliament. Pulteney politely declined, claiming to be ‘too much engaged in business relating to my own private affairs’.282 Bentham wrote again on 12 May enclosing some of his writings.283 In a postscript he observed that whereas the Treasury Reports indicated that the problem with the Panopticon lay in disagreements about terms, he was quite certain that the real problem was that secret undertakings had been given to the Spencer and Grosvenor families that no penitentiary would be built on or near their estates. Later on, Bentham was to claim that the blockage came from much higher up, blaming the frustration of his hopes on the King himself, whom he supposed had been alienated by a newspaper attack early in his career.284 Bentham addressed Bunbury again on 30 July 1802.285 Bunbury replied immediately, stating that he had been nagging Pelham to act and complaining about the


way Bentham had been treated.286 Pelham was in possession of the papers Bentham had given Bunbury, and Bunbury had assumed that he would get in touch with Bentham. ‘That he has not, much surprises me, and looks as if some Persons had endeavoured to prevent him, since he seemed by his Manner to agree with my Remarks in your Favour . . . .’ Bentham was by this point clearly exhausted by the years of futile negotiations and lobbying. His cheerfulness had evaporated and given way to fury, and he now began to adopt a new tactic to forward his project: threats. In a letter to Bunbury of 9 August, he raises the affair to a new pitch with a claim that he can prove the administration guilty of wrongdoing and will not hesitate to do so if they refuse to move on Panopticon.287 On 11 August, a letter to Bunbury contained an announcement that Bentham wanted Pelham to be given an ultimatum: if within a week he had heard nothing himself from Pelham he would conclude that Panopticon was dead in the water, and he would take the legal action he thought necessary.288 Bunbury in his reply said he had forwarded what Bentham had requested to Pelham and had hopes that Pelham was ‘friendly both to you, and to the Panopticon Plan’, so should not be antagonised.289 A letter of 14 August to Samuel reveals that Bentham still had a man busy with Panopticon on the timber side.290 On 20 August, Bunbury wrote enclosing a positive-sounding letter from Pelham.291 Pelham said he would find out what steps had been taken by the Treasury and then send for Bentham. He would endeavour to get something settled before the opening of Parliament. Bunbury was encouraged but Bentham immediately replied to warn him that ‘This is the old lay, over and over, for the hundredth time.’292 Pelham had said the previous November that transportation was bad and he thought the Penitentiary plan a good thing. And yet surely it was his own job ‘to see to the carrying of that good thing into effect, without a moment’s further delay . . . ’. For the first time at the end of August 1802, Bentham wrote a long account of the Panopticon doings to Dumont.293 He announces a plan to go to Paris the following month, when ‘everybody’ will be there.294 He reports to Dumont that since the foundation of the New South Wales penal colony in 1787 most convicts sent have been condemned for 7 years; and yet the government has repeatedly sent orders to Australia that at the end of their terms the convicts should be kept over there for good, ‘ . . . adding thereby to a temporary legal punishment a perpetual illegal one’. Whole shiploads were sent out without any indication of their prison terms, and when they claimed their liberty, they were flogged. Such government actions were an offence against Magna Carta, against the Bill of Rights, and the Habeas Corpus Act. Bentham developed this argument in A Plea for the Constitution, privately printed in 1803.295 Bentham considered that publication of this pamphlet would force Parliament to pass a Bill of Indemnity. He also believed that the Duke of Portland had committed an impeachable offence in a letter of 14 October 1799 in which he professed a determination to prevent the execution of the Act


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of Parliament made for Panopticon, to crowd the gaols with convicts, and to throw their expense on the Poor Rates, instead of the general fund assigned by Parliament. The purpose of his letter to Dumont was to get the latter to interest influential members of the Opposition in making use of these discoveries. At the same time he was wary because he knew they would have their own agenda and would not scruple to cause trouble themselves in order to gain power. However, ‘If by any puffing of your’s. . . . You can puff any of those potentates into a persuasion, that by any means they might be enabled to get a good attack upon Pitt and Co with the Roses, Longs and Portlands of the age, you would do this country, I think, and the general interests of justice and humanity some service.’ This is a reminder that Dumont habitually moved among the highest echelons of the Whig elite. Bentham mentioned Dumont’s former pupil Lord Henry, son of Lord Lansdowne, specifically as one who could take the business on.296 Schofield observes that by the summer of 1802, Bentham ‘had become exasperated by the treatment he had received at the hands of the successive administrations of Pitt and Addington. He complained that, although the legislature had, by the Penitentiary Act of 1794, authorized the construction of a Panopticon prison, the executive, in defiance of Parliament’s wishes, had deliberately blocked the scheme’.297 Bentham believed that it was the ‘secret influence’ of the Grosvenor family and other landowners that had blocked all his attempts to purchase land for his penitentiary. And he went on to apply the idea of the ‘sinister interest’ in his writings on evidence and procedure in 1803, claiming that it was the sinister interest of the legal profession that was responsible for the deplorable state of the law. He concluded that a democratic franchise represented the only way of negating the influence of this interest when it lurked in government, where it was in fact as endemic as it was in the arena of law.298 Bunbury wrote at the end of August 1802 to assure Bentham that Pelham could not possibly be as bad as Bentham was making out.299 Early in September, Bentham tried to arouse Abbot’s interest in the government illegalities he had uncovered.300 Once again he is issuing ultimatums: if he hears nothing from Abbot within 10 days, he will move to act on the impeachment issue. At the same time a letter from Sir Frederick Morton Eden assures him of the latter’s support for Panopticon and of his sympathy with the way Bentham has been so ‘scurvily treated’.301 He has been reading the presentation of Bentham by Dumont in the recently published Traités302 and speaks very highly of it, only lamenting that the account of Panopticon it contains is too concise. ‘He has collected a glorious harvest of your sowing.’ Wilberforce wrote at the same time with a response to Bentham’s allegations.303 He doubts the wisdom of Bentham’s new approach and points out that most people may feel that Pitt, with ‘the whole Machine of Govt to superintend, during a period, such as never before was witnessed in the History of this Country’, could be excused for having failed to turn his mind properly to


Panopticon – a subject which, though important, was not within his immediate department. Pitt was guilty of procrastination and he was also guilty of allowing others, particularly Earl Spencer, to put pressure on him, but Wilberforce thinks that even Spencer was to an extent influenced by his own agents, who convinced him that the Panopticon must be opposed. Wilberforce points out that when a person is threatened, it becomes very difficult for that person to comply with the wishes of the threatener, because it looks as though they are succumbing to intimidation. Bentham would gain the reputation of being a biting satirist, but he would not get revenge and Panopticon would founder. He proposes that Bentham’s friends should hold a Council of War when Parliament assembles to discuss what policy to pursue. Writing to Charles Abbot in September, Bentham speaks very frankly about Wilberforce’s ideas.304 He was fascinated that Wilberforce, having before him Pelham’s promise to do something about Panopticon, took it for granted that he would not. Bentham did not propose to follow his policy of ‘passive obedience and non-resistance’, He preferred a policy of ‘terror’. He also thought Wilberforce was shutting his eyes to the facts. But Abbot’s reply was in much the same vein as Wilberforce’s, only brief and to the point.305 He had sent Addington information about those of the facts raised by Bentham he judged appropriate, and ignored the invective and threats. ‘The greater part . . . I saw no good in communicating and much probable hindrance to your own object.’ A letter from Bunbury on 30 September reported on a meeting with Pelham.306 He had puffed Panopticon, and Pelham said that as soon as he had read Bentham’s books and talked to the chancellor and the judges he would tell Bentham what steps he intended to take. Bentham’s reaction to this was predictably cynical.307 He did not believe Chancellor or Judges would have any time for the project. Bunbury wrote on 11 October to warn that although he was keen to promote Panopticon as a Mediator, if Bentham was determined to send challenges, he ‘must select a more Warloving Friend for a Messenger’.308 Even Romilly, writing at the beginning of November, protests about Bentham’s ‘violence’ and the very strong expressions he uses.309 He points out that excessive language particularly has to be avoided in cases where one is involved oneself. He believes that Bentham’s approach will simply make the ministers implacable. In January 1803, Bentham told Bunbury that Pelham had proved his utter uselessness in various ways.310 A few days later Bentham contacted an old acquaintance, the MP Benjamin Hobhouse,311 sending ‘two printed but unpublished Letters to Lord Pelham’.312 On 19 January, Bentham prodded Vansittart once again to see if he could get some action,313 but a subsequent letter indicates that Vansittart was avoiding him.314 At the end of January 1803, Bentham wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins, whom he had heard was planning to build a Panopticon penitentiary in Australia, to ask him to dinner.315 Collins was the man whose writings about Botany Bay had


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encouraged Bentham to take up the illegalities involved in transportation. In February, Bentham reported to Dumont some contacts with Samuel Parr,316 a friend of the celebrated Whig politician Charles James Fox.317 Parr was convinced that Fox was a zealous ‘Panoptician’. On 1 March there was a supportive letter from another old contact – the MP Joseph Jekyll.318 A few days later Romilly wrote to Bentham to alert him to the result of his Plea for the Constitution – the Attorney General (Spencer Perceval319 ) said there was no way he could recommend to a Secretary of State to entrust the management of a Penitentiary to the author of such a work.320 In it Bentham claims that transportation is ‘a wound in the vitals of that constitution . . . Over British subjects, the agents of the crown have exercised legislative power without authority from parliament . . . they have exercised an authority as completely autocratical as was ever exercised in Russia: they have maintained a tyranny . . . ’.321 There was much more in the same vein, and clearly it was not likely to endear Bentham or his project to those in authority. On 8 March, Bentham wrote to Romilly in terms that suggest he was trying to browbeat Addington by the threat of publishing A Plea, which was still only circulating privately.322 It is often implied that Bentham was embittered by his experience of the Panopticon negotiations because of pique or vanity or eccentricity. His increasing awareness of what he called ‘sinister interests’ at the heart of government has often been put down to wounded pride or paranoia. But it must have been particularly shocking to him when his claims that the government was in breach of the fundamentals of the British Constitution seemed to produce no reaction other than irritation. Where was the vaunted mechanism that should have led to a considered defence against a considered and well-grounded attack? For Bentham’s accusations do seem to have been well-grounded. But the truth was that they were of no concern to the ruling elite because they related to the treatment of a category of individual – the convict – whose rights, let alone welfare, carried no clout. This experience must indeed have intensified the disenchantment he already felt about the failings of government in respect of Acts of Parliament and contracts which to people in government were so many pieces of paper. The lesson was that good government required structures deliberately designed to build in incentives to the fulfilment of duty and safeguards against dereliction of it, as in his later Constitutional Code proposals. The exchange with David Collins continues – he was off to Australia and was indeed planning to set up a Panopticon there.323 Bentham sent him a few observations – in particular noting that the building did not have to be circular; the point was not the shape but the principle of inspectability – in fact a square would do.324 The walls of the building both interior and exterior must be as transparent as possible and then the outside yard could be inspected from the centre. At the end of May 1803, Bentham wrote to Wilberforce in response to something Bunbury had told him: that Wilberforce had refused to confront


Addington with him on the grounds that the business made him so angry that he could not keep calm.325 Bentham was quitely sarcastic about this – indicating that if it were true it would give great comfort to the defenders of the Slave Trade. Wilberforce wrote back to deny it, saying a conversation he had had in a shop with Bunbury had been misinterpreted.326 He professed a continued willingness to help. Meanwhile Bunbury wrote to discourage Bentham from publishing A Plea for the Constitution, warning that it would harden his enemies without getting him any friends. Its very ingeniousness and acuteness made it the more likely to be disastrous. In mid-June a very pessimistic message from Bunbury.327 He had finally managed to see Pelham, who said that the judges were against the plan and that he did not think Addington would provide the needful funds. Bentham’s reply328 adverts to the fact that apparently Pelham had said in an earlier conversation with Bunbury that if it had been a new project, he would have supported it; the real problem was all that had happened in relation to it under the former Administration, for which reason ‘he questioned whether it would be advisable for the present Administration to go on with it’.

III

Defeat is in the air

Although exchanges of letters regarding site issues continue,329 the project now begins to fade away from the Correspondence. Amazingly however, a letter of 10 October 1806 from Samuel in St Petersburg reported that he had been authorised by the Emperor to build a Panopticon there.330 Construction work had begun but Samuel did not think it would be complete before the onset of winter and so it would not be finished till the following year. The building was to be a training school ‘for educating and employing boys in a variety of trades subservient to the business of the Naval Department’.331 But in the Autumn of 1807, Samuel left Russia to return to England.332 However, Bentham later told George Holford, chairman of the Parliamentary Penitentiary Committee, that Under instructions from my Brother . . . an Establishment on the Panopticon principle, for educating and employing boys in a variety of trades subservient to the business of the Naval Department, was begun at St Petersburgh during his mission there Ao 1807-8, and has since been not only finished, and employed with success, but copied in several other private as well as Government establishments in that Empire333 In 1807 a letter came from the Audit Office in Somerset Place asking for some account of the sum of 2000 pounds which was imprested to Bentham in 1794 to build a Penitentiary House.334 Discussions about the accounts continued over many months. By mid-1808, Bentham is telling Samuel that he ‘has next to no expectation of seeing Panopticon set on foot . . . and at his time of


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life [60 years] scarce a wish about it’.335 He now claims [sour grapes perhaps?] that it has never been more than a secondary object, ‘his primary object being a reform in the state of the law . . . and in the state of the penal law in particular’. But if Bentham had given up, Wilberforce had not, and in mid-June 1809 he wrote to Bentham to tell him he had recently referred to Bentham’s plan in Parliament (although no reference to his speech had appeared in reports of the debates).336 He felt the time was ripe for another campaign, but was Bentham up to it? A couple of days later, Wilberforce tried to rouse him not to refuse his support to his friends who were eager to bring his project forward.337 On 7 May, Bentham told Wilberforce that if his friends were really in earnest, Nepean was the man who knew all the history of the project.338 Bentham wrote to Bunbury on 18 May 1810 but firmly stated that ‘the age of attendance-dancing’ was over for him, ‘till I lay myself down to sleep for the last time’.339 Bunbury’s reply indicates that he is out of the frame too.340 Unbelievably, Bentham received a letter from assistant secretary to the Treasury George Harrison at the beginning of 1811 inquiring whether he would undertake to carry the Penitentiary plan into execution for 500 inmates and on what terms?341 In his reply, Bentham (in a rough draft of the letter actually sent) expressed himself very reluctantly ready to accept a very bad proposal (‘10s in the pound I will accept, if no more will be paid’) for want of a better one.342 A parliamentary committee under the chairmanship of George Holford was appointed, and Bentham assumed that this was for the purpose of giving effect to his plan. However, he later came to believe that Holford had been chosen for the purpose of crushing the Panopticon plan of management, and setting up the Patronage plan instead.343 On 27 March 1811, Bentham appeared before the Holford Committee. Minutes of the interrogation he underwent can be found in the ‘Report from the Committee on the laws relating to Penitentiary Houses’ of 31 May 1811. It turned mainly on the question of how much land Bentham needed. No longer having the talents of Samuel to draw on, he proposed to employ the inmates on agriculture and gardening – once again a remarkable anticipation of the modern practices in some open UK prison establishments. The employment of prisoners in horticulture in such a context was even featured in a recent MGM feature film based on an episode in which inmates of an open prison exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show.344 The Committee understandably felt that too much about Bentham’s proposal hinged on Bentham himself. It is indeed not difficult to see that if he had died in the course of construction, there would have been no guarantee that someone else could or would have managed the contract in the way that he planned to. They disliked the fact that his plan


departed from ‘the principles upon which Prisons have hitherto been conducted in this country’.345 They feared for the religious welfare of the inmates: the Public could have no reasonable assurance that sufficient attention would be paid to the religious instruction and moral improvement of the prisoners, under a system of management, every part of which is to be formed and directed by a person, whose interest it must be that the prisoners committed to his charge should do as much work as they were competent to execute, and that their labour should be exercised in the manner by which most profit would be produced.346 They worried that if the chaplain wanted to have particular individuals kept apart or doubted whether any particular practice was advisable on moral grounds, the economic interest of the gaoler would trump the moral concern. They supposed that ‘pecuniary advantage’ would always win the day over moral reformation. They were not impressed by the provision that future felonies by ex-inmates would give rise to a requirement that compensation be provided by the contractor, for there was no provision for this to continue after the contractor’s death.347 They adopted a similar attitude with regard to provision for compensation to be paid by the gaoler in respect of more than a certain number of deaths in a year, arguing that what was needed was a professional medical man independent of the governor. The committee were unimpressed by the lack of provision for inmates’ complaints against the governor, for transparency operated against the inmate being interviewed privately by the chaplain in a context where he could make known complaints against the governor. They respected the fact that Bentham relied greatly on inspection by the wider public, but denied that this could compensate for the lack of properly authorised inspectors acting on behalf of the authorities. On the evening of the day when he had appeared before the Holford Committee, Holford wrote to Bentham to establish whether he was still prepared to set up a Panopticon penitentiary.348 He asked Bentham to state the terms on which he would now undertake the building and superintendence of a Penitentiary House to contain 400 male and 300 female Convicts. The same for 700 males and 300 females. Alternatively he is invited ‘to state any terms upon which you would now enter upon a Contract for carrying your plan into execution’. He was also asked to state the amount of compensation he felt he was entitled to if the project was finally relinquished. Now comes the final spasm of exchanges dealing with Panopticon. In a reply to Holford, Bentham states that he can no longer take on the work of construction because he no longer has the necessary assistance to hand.349 Samuel is now fully occupied with naval duties at Sheerness. As to management, Bentham would still be willing to undertake the superintendence of 1000


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male prisoners. The question of accommodating female prisoners was a difficulty for him, as he explained in a letter to Holford at the beginning of April 1811.350 There was also a blurry area over numbers, and he attempted to explain why reducing the numbers of inmates did not significantly reduce the cost. On 6 May, Bentham wrote again to Holford, recommending the multiplication of Panopticons across the country to house convicts.351 He averred that in any comparison between large-scale Panopticons and small-scale traditional establishments the advantage would inevitably lie with the former. Management better, expense less was his watchword. However, best of all would be to have all the Panopticons in the metropolis, chiefly because ‘the Metropolis affords beyond comparison the best public’. He then went on to give answers to a series of objections that had been made to the Panopticon. In particular, he listed 16 strategies for preventing escape – most of them in his opinion novel. For example, a special uniform designed to fit closely so as to make concealment of weapons impossible, inmates to be marked with a distinctive tattoo,352 constant play of light, spikes on the walls – so thin that any attempt to throw a rope against them would break them and the fragments would strike against wires that would set off alarms; also, dogs in each guard-house. The objection that too many Panopticons would lead to an accumulation of convicts for whom provision had to be made on discharge he met with the project for subsidiary Panopticons. As to the expense of bringing convicts from the Provinces to London, Bentham proposed that the management contract include provision for the contractor to be responsible for the costs of this in return for a set grant. At a meeting of the Penitentiary Committee on 17 May 1811, Holford, without any previous notice or discussion, came out with a ‘cut and dry’ report setting aside Panopticon, which was ‘slightly touched on’.353 On 1 June, Romilly wrote to tell Bentham that the Committee had made their report the previous day, it was unfavourable, he had attended the last day but ‘except Abercromby354 and myself and Wilberforce no person friendly to you was present’.355 Ironically, Bentham, an innovator in so many respects, was negotiating on the ebb tide of the old farming system of prison administration which looked dated to the new breed of reformers. The [Holford] committee were convinced that penitentiary imprisonment required administration of the Gloucester and Southwell (trustee-management) type. The essentials were an independent, vigilant, accountable and authoritative regulatory body; a salaried and materially disinterested governor checked by colleagues with access to and directly responsible to the control body; a code of rules and regulations, and a bookkeeping system. In particular the committee stressed the need for independent supervision within the prison: in the person of chaplain and


surgeon they saw ‘the most obvious channel of complaint, if the governor be concerned in the supposed injury . . . ’. But to carry out this duty the chaplain and surgeon could not be employees of a contractor, as had been suggested by Bentham.356 Their preference was for the operation of public establishments to be in the hands of charitable trustees, and this approach was to become the dominant one right up until the 1980s, when the privatisation of such establishments came back into fashion in the United Kingdom for the first time in two centuries (though it was familiar in the United States earlier). The Committee’s report recommended that oversight of the new Penitentiary should be through a body of 15 to 20 of the great and the good offering their services voluntarily.357 The membership of the committee was dominated by the promoters of the new prison reform movement in which evangelical sympathies were to the fore and the desire of moral reformation of prisoners very pressing.358 They were much influenced by the ideas of wealthy philanthropist Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, who had designed and established a county gaol in Gloucester in 1791.359 He appeared before the Committee on 8 March 1811 and his evidence included accounts of the moral improvement of the prisoners and an emphasis on the role of the Chaplain and provision of religious books.360 Referring to Gloucester Penitentiary, Seán McConville wrote, Religion was important . . . one cannot make sense of the Gloucester regime without a full appreciation of the importance placed on the cellular visits and admonitions of the chaplain and governor. Solitude was central to their policy only because it was thought to be a precondition of reflection, a preparation for the beneficent influence of the senior penitentiary officials.361 He was called a second time on 18 March.362 Paul considered that ‘seclusion’ was the great means of reformation of the prisoners and that the exploitation of convict labour must be subservient to this. Work done by inmates must be a penance for sin not a source of profit. The contract system favoured by Bentham was blamed for all the old abuses that the reformers were determined to stamp out.363 His ideas looked retrograde, those of the mainstream reform movement innovatory. As Holford himself wrote later, ‘It was the prevailing opinion at the time that those who superintended convicts should be paid out of their earnings’, and this prevailing opinion the reformers wanted to combat.364 Bentham’s plan was not rejected because it was too visionary or innovative but because – at least in respect of its management theory – it seemed backward-looking to many of those who might have been expected to back him. Bentham believed that his design would achieve moral reformation and that it was a great deal less cruel than prevalent methods, pointing out that


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it obviated the need for forbidding masonry walls and also for cruel means of detention like irons.365 He shared with Romilly and Enlightenment thinkers in general the conviction that certainty of punishment (which transparency would achieve within the Panopticon) was a far greater deterrent than the plethora of severe punishments attached in English criminal law to crimes;366 the fact that juries and judges found many ways of avoiding inflicting these draconian penalties meant that the whole system was weakened. What was needed was a combination of rational penalties with a high degree of certainty of detection. In this argument we can see the germ of all the future development of penal reform in the United Kingdom and other countries along with the rise of sophisticated police forces. The reason Bentham chose to apply his panoptical technique to the operation of a prison is that he considered this to be the most challenging type of environment in which to pioneer his scheme. If it succeeded in this environment, it could succeed in any other.367 It is also true that the penal terrain was the most challenging for Bentham’s utilitarian principles in general. How could those who seemed to be enemies of the greatest number by virtue of their anti-social behaviour be transformed into contributors to the greatest happiness? This looked like the Everest of social improvement, and they the most hopeless cases for the application of the greatest-happiness principle. In actual fact Bentham was to draw up proposals for an even more daunting project than this – the utilisation of dead bodies in the interests of the greatest happiness. In his Auto-Icon, or farther Uses of the Dead to the Living,368 he put forward several proposals to this end, and indeed he ultimately acted as a guinea pig himself, since his own dead body was dissected in the interests of furthering medical science, and then his stuffed skeleton was placed in a glass-fronted box where it reposes in University College London to this day. This was no mere exercise in whimsy or eccentricity: his aim was to offer his remains to public inspection as a reminder of his life as a sage who devoted his whole existence to advancing the happiness of the greatest number, and also as an incitement to others to do the same. In spite of so much discouragement, Bentham was still clinging on to hopes of a result, for on 21 January 1812 he wrote a letter expressing his worries about the proposed new bridge across the Thames that would cut across his Tothill Fields site.369 Amazingly, Panoptical administrative matters begin to dominate the correspondence yet again. On 12 March he wrote, seemingly at the prompting of Romilly, to Lord Folkestone370 to complain about the role of Holford in the Penitentiary business.371 Romilly had heard that Holford, having actively condemned Bentham’s plan, was to become superintendent of the Penitentiary himself. A few years later in an article in the Philanthropist it was pointed out that Holford is the person chosen, with very considerable emoluments, to be the superintendent of the new penitentiary. The choice of a man to sit in judgement


upon a plan, who was to be disappointed of a great source of emolument by the execution of that plan, looks pretty much like a determination to set it aside.372 Once again there appeared to be no recourse against public and open abuses committed by government, where the victims were voiceless and widely despised. In June 1812, Bentham requested an audience with Lord Sidmouth, the new Secretary of State for the Home Department, regarding ‘the business of the Penitentiary Establishment’.373 In the Autumn of that year, he sent Sidmouth five tracts together with a letter about Panopticon.374 The text begins like a kind of CV, with references to favourable opinions expressed about Bentham as far back as 1778 by Blackstone.375 Lord Auckland’s support is mentioned, John Howard’s too. It seems that at his audience with Sidmouth on 15 June, Sidmouth had made a solemn promise that ‘in relation to the Penitentiary no father step should be taken till the opportunity had been given me of being heard’. Bentham argues that Holford’s report does not actually provide any reason for setting aside Panopticon. He refers to the Act of 1794 and the 28th Report of the Finance Committee of 1797–1798. He asks that if all else fails he be allowed to submitt, in the first instance to Your Lordship, and in the last instance to Parliament and the public at large, a compleat examination of the grounds and reasons, by which, in that same Report, the propriety of rescinding the Contract in question, depriving the public of the benefit of it, and breaking the public faith, for so many years plighted to me, has been endeavoured to be supported. He relates his huge effort to offer compromise, only to be told it was a waste of time for his fate was preordained. He concludes by claiming that ‘Not only in prison, but in every other place, in which human beings are intended to be kept under rule, want of inspection is the undeniable, and even acknowledged, cause of every thing that is amiss’. Why are the prospects of ‘an unlimited faculty of inspection’ so pernicious that it is worth spending 200,000 pounds on the proposed penitentiary to exclude this inspectability? An enclosure lists the financial savings entailed in Panopticon, together with answers to objections. To the end it was the Panopticon as model of economy that really interested its apostle. He and his brother were at one in this. The biography of Samuel by his widow amounts to one long tale of battles waged with the authorities to alter entrenched practices that were inherently wasteful, whether in terms of methods of working, type of materials used, or management systems. And one persistent theme in these battles was the need for inspection, a massive safeguard against waste. Those who condemn the brothers out of hand for promoting their inspection principle may well


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have no objection to concepts like Factory Inspection, School Inspection, and Health and Safety Inspection – all highly intrusive for those who must undergo them. In the words of Janet Semple: Bentham’s angry eloquence failed to move the Home Secretary. Sidmouth’s refusal to overrule Holford and his reports was gently conveyed to Bentham by Dumont on 22 February 1813: ‘He spoke with admiration of Mr Bentham etc. etc. but could not hesitate when a committee of the H of C was at variance with him’. The panopticon project was dead at last.376 Twenty-seven years had elapsed since Bentham wrote his Panopticon letters, and 21 years had elapsed since the beginning of his intensive negotiations with the government in 1792. These were the years of the prime of his life. Dumont soon noticed the change in him as a result of this bitter experience. Later that year Dumont wrote to Mme de Staël in defence of the moral character of Bentham, whose doctrine she had dismissed as inimical to all morality in de l’Allemagne.377 While praising Bentham for his natural goodness and sweetness of temper, he conceded that for a while now [my italics] Bentham’s writings had been full of ‘bitter bile’ against the law, against the Church, against the government. This was something Dumont clearly could not understand, perhaps because he had never really faced up to the ‘other’ Bentham; not the Bentham who claimed to have invented a new science of law, but the ‘parallel’ Bentham who aspired to set up and establish an establishment that would be a model of how to operate waste-free public institutions. All that remained was to claim compensation. On 19 October 1813, Bentham was paid 23 000 pounds by the government. In a letter to Romilly he expressed his profound irritation that having set out to promote economy in public administration he has ended up being a public burden: Forced, after twenty years of oppression – forced to join myself to the Baal-peor of blood-suckers, and contribute to the impoverishment of that public, to which, in the way of economy, as well as so many other ways, I had such well-grounded assurance of being permitted to render some signal service.378 Semple complains that he ‘ostentatiously paraded his repugnance to compensation’ in this letter,379 but this merely goes to show how far she was from grasping that from the beginning Panopticon was in fact all about economy. Surely it is very far from coincidental that the period of Bentham’s greatest preoccupation with Panopticon – the 1790s – was also the period when he was producing his writings on political economy? For he took up the study of political economy in 1786 and abandoned it in 1804.380


By a kind of final irony the first national prison (the Millbank Penitentiary) that was in fact completed in 1821 in place of Bentham’s Panopticon and on the plot of land purchased by Bentham for his own projected buildings was supposedly inspired by Panopticon but in reality the opposite of it. A hexagonal building with a chapel at the centre had another building built on each of the six sides in the shape of a pentagon.381 On paper it seemed to be vaguely panoptical but the reality was that it was ‘a gigantic puzzle’, its architecture ‘one of the last specimens of an age . . . when the safe custody of criminals could only be compassed by granite blocks and ponderous bolts and bars’.382 Each separate pentagon did actually have central inspection, but its design was so confusing that even the warders found it impossible to find their way around it. Bentham commented icily: Instead of securing good management by that security which nothing but the eye of the public can afford, Lord Sidmouth has actually converted the prison into a Bastile, into which noone, without an order from him or those under his dependence, can have access: the first example of a Bastile that this degraded country ever exhibited.383 It finally closed in 1890 and was demolished, its site now occupied by the Tate Gallery. To add insult to injury, architect James Elmes in his Metropolitan Improvement published in 1827 claimed that the plan of Millbank was ‘principally on the Panopticon, or all-seeing principle of Jeremy Bentham’. A mere glance at the accompanying plate demonstrates how false this claim is, as is Elmes’s further claim that ‘the governor, or overseer, can at all times have the power of overlooking every division of the prison, from windows in the central part’. He is quite correct, however, to add that the vast building resembled ‘a fortification, or rather a continental fortified chateau’.384 Bentham continued to promote the Panopticon idea whenever he could throughout the 1820s, as his Correspondence shows. Though he no longer had any hopes of implementing the design himself, he still cherished hopes that others might do so. In a fascinating letter of 1822 to Rivadavia, chief minister of Buenos Aires,385 he notes that he is in correspondence with the constituted authorities of Peru, Mexico, and Colombia. His main concerns in his approach to Colombia are for a proposed canal between the oceans and Panopticon. Colombia having in her service in the rank of Colonel an Englishman of the name of Hall, a very superior man who is in high trust and favour there, that part of my Letter had for its object the engaging the Colombian Government to set on foot – not Panopticons by hundreds which is what the Prison Committee of the Spanish Cortes recommended . . . to be done in Ultramaria as well as the Peninsula, but one single one to begin with and Colonel Hall . . . to undertake the management of it.386


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In 1826 we find Bentham sending Sir Francis Burdett 387 a copy of Panopticon on the occasion of news about a proposal to bring in a bill for a new Tothill Fields Prison. On this occasion he recalls the enthusiasm for the scheme he believed had been shown by Pitt and Dundas, and muses over how all prisoners and all paupers ‘were intended by them to have been put into my hands’.388 The following year Bentham was getting his little book sent to Calcutta in hopes of his Panopticon making its mark there.389 Where Bentham does seem to have made his mark in the development of prisons was in his reinforcement of the idea of the importance of inspection. He did not invent this idea, which was in the wind from the late eighteenth century, but his Panopticon did obviously make a particularly vigorous and memorable point about it. Robert Alan Cooper points out that in fact the reformers who pushed through the Prison Act of 1835 (‘the most important piece of prison legislation in the first half of the nineteenth century’) rejected Bentham’s prison reform ideas insofar as they went with solitary confinement and hard labour, both of which he opposed, while also rejecting his proposed contract system of management.390 However, Cooper shows that the principle of inspection was central for those later reformers,391 and that to this extent Bentham’s philosophy must have had a potent influence. Everett suggested that the traumatic effect on Jeremy of his own experience of dealings with government may have been greatly reinforced by the parallel experiences of his brother Samuel in his efforts to improve economy in the navy. As Everett writes, Any proposal for reform ran into the concrete fact that someone was making money or making a living out of the wastefulness. A mast-pond could be built for £17,525, by Samuel Bentham’s estimate, with more abundant water supply and storage than in the one officially estimated at £189,000. The £189,000 one was built.392 Samuel’s experience of seeing improvements blocked by privilege went right back to his teenage years, as Christie reminds us. At the age of sixteen he impressed the Commissioners of the Navy with a model of an improved ship’s pump, but was mortified to have it passed over in favour of another invention, one which the Surveyor of the Navy admitted to be inferior but which had been tendered by a Captain Bentinck, ‘really a man of merit, but what was much more to the purpose an officer of rank in the Navy and of the Portland family’.393 Mary Sophia Bentham’s biography of Samuel points shrewdly to another very revealing factor which complicated the struggles of the brothers to introduce improvements. It was the prevalent view among many around them that failings in the practices which the brothers identified as deficient had to do


solely with the character weaknesses of those involved, and this view came into conflict with the assumptions made by the brothers that faults could be identified in the prevailing systems, structures, use of materials, or principles. This conflict of worldviews has persisted unresolved down to the present times. There is danger on both sides. The belief that ‘solutions’ are to be found in new systems needs to be balanced by the acceptance of the limitations of human nature. Equally, the belief that ‘solutions’ are a pipedream because of the weaknesses of human nature needs to come to terms with the fact that some systems bring out the best in people.

3 The Creator of the Bentham Brand: (1) Dumont the Genevan

What then happened to Bentham the entrepreneur and inventor who aspired like Robert Owen not just to theorise a new social order but to play a leading role in creating it? In one sense he never entirely went away, as a study of the volumes of the Correspondence for the 1820s demonstrates. At this period when Bentham supposedly lived like a hermit, he was in fact playing the role of ‘Legislator of the World’. He had a sense of urgent mission and it was this that drove him to a rigid selectivity about social contacts: he felt he had a task to perform, and only those who could assist him in that task were welcome at his ‘hermitage’. His task remained that of providing a blueprint for a new world order, a blueprint comprising principles of universal applicability. He continued fixated on the idea that the reform of the laws was the key to the regeneration of society, focussing increasingly on codification and then on his new scheme of constitutional thinking, honed by his bitter experiences at the hand of government. But now all Bentham could hope for was to provide ammunition for the batteries of others. He was finished with playing the entrepreneur, he spent his final decades as an advisor, a consultant, a sage. However, the reason he could do this was because the activities of his greatest promoter, Etienne Dumont, had provided him with a ready-made audience. Such matter as he had himself published in English had for the most part disappeared from view. When men of influence in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Latin America, in Tripoli and elsewhere turned to him, it was because they had discovered his ideas in the Dumont abstracts of his manuscripts. So the question arises, who was this Etienne Dumont and why did he choose to become the apostle of Benthamism? The first thing to be said about Dumont is that he was a convert to Bentham’s ideas. He did not drink from the springs of Voltaire or Helvétius or Beccaria the inspiration that would have prepared him to be receptive to the greatest-happiness principle, far from it. He grew up with a very different mindset in a milieu that thought very differently from such minds. It is a milieu of some complexity, a milieu not often studied or described, but I will attempt to do so now. 95


I

Eighteenth-century Geneva: Nationalists versus aristocrats

Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind about the creator of Bentham as a global brand is that although he wrote in French he was not French. Far from it. He was Genevan, a Genevan pur et dur, and from a segment of Genevan society for whom being Genevan was very much about not being French; in the same way that historically for many Irish people, Irishness has been about not being English or for Canadians their identity has been about not being American. Like Rousseau, Dumont came from a segment of Genevan society for whom France was in fact the auld enemy, enemy number one.1 But to state that this anti-French attitude was common to only one part of Genevan society is to point to the really salient feature about the eighteenth-century Geneva in which Dumont grew up: that it was deeply divided.2 This may be hard to grasp for those who have a monochrome view of Geneva as nothing more nor less than the Protestant ‘Rome’, the historic bastion of Calvinism. But the truth is that eighteenth-century Geneva was so deeply fissured and scarred with internecine conflicts that some observers have seen the history of the tiny republic of some 25 000 souls during these years as an anticipation of the turmoil in France in the 1790s.3 And particularly so in that the rhetoric of the parties involved in the conflict seems often to echo in advance the rhetoric of the parties in the French Revolution. To those who might imagine that Geneva was far too insignificant a place to have had any substantial impact on the wider world, Godechot replied that its writers, scientists, and bankers enable the republic to punch way above its weight and that Geneva was ‘a microcosm’.4 For all his exaggerations and parti pris, the critic of the French Revolution and notorious conspiracy theorist J. L. Soulavie conveys the nature of Geneva’s internal fissure quite effectively: ‘The republic of Geneva . . . so admirable for its genius, its qualities, and its industry, presents two distinct characters to the view, equally famous in history for their respective excesses. On one hand, we observe a description of manners bearing a striking resemblance to those of the ancient Athenians. Among a part of the inhabitants of Geneva, the graces, taste, levity, and easy character of the country of the fine arts in ancient Greece are to be found: while, on the other hand, we perceive a Lacedaemonian severity, a revolutionary spirit, and all the inflexibility and distrustfulness of the popular system.’5 At mid-century the conflicts between these two mentalities crystallised around the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In a brilliant recent study, Helena Rosenblatt, building on the work of French scholar Michel Launay and an older tradition within Genevan scholarship, has shown that a proper understanding of the Genevan background from which Rousseau came throws floods of light on his mature thinking.6 The same of course is true of some of Voltaire’s writing from the period when he was living in the vicinity of Geneva. Most of the historical research in English on Genevan

Dumont the Genevan 97

history of the period and much of that in French has focussed on the subject in the context of studies of these two legendary figures. But the remarkable thing is this: not only does Geneva throw light on Rousseau and Voltaire, but Rousseau and Voltaire throw light on Geneva. Rousseau and Voltaire throw light on Geneva because from the 1760s they became symbols of the respective worldviews of the two major parties at odds in the republic. For some people in Geneva, Voltaire embodied the sophistication and refinement of a ‘superior’ French culture which they admired and wanted to emulate. For others, Rousseau came to embody a ‘superior’ ‘Genevanness’, the ideals of the austere ‘Spartanist’ republic which gave them a sense of a special identity over against decadent ‘Frenchness’. These are inevitably crude generalisations and it is true that initially some Genevans remained on friendly terms with both men,7 but for the 1770s, the period when Etienne Dumont was growing to young manhood, it certainly applies. Those for whom French culture looked like something admirable and attractive and worthy of emulation constituted the patriciate, the affluent governing elite of Geneva. At the heart of this patriciate was a core of families from the French and Italian aristocracy who had fled their countries in the sixteenth century. While they had progressively been developing strong financial ties with France, at the same time they had become accustomed to relying on French support to retain power in the face of the increasingly restive bourgeois who were well-educated but deprived of political power.8 (To write this is to be reminded of the strong parallels with the situation in France in the 1780s.) It was for the patriciate therefore that Voltaire (the Frenchman) became something of a cultural icon – though he blotted his copybook eventually by siding with their enemies9 – and it was for the bourgeois that Rousseau (the Genevan and a bourgeois like them) became a hero. There were two things about Geneva’s ruling elite that enraged the bourgeois, and the two things were interconnected. First, this elite behaved like an aristocracy in a republic which did not recognise birth castes. Over the years the government of Geneva had developed into a de facto oligarchy, the rulership of a tiny number of families. There were three key assemblies in the Genevan governmental system: the Small Council or Council of the Twenty-five; the Great Council of the Two Hundred (the CC); and the General Council of all Genevans with citizenship rights. (Only about 1150 of Geneva’s 25 000 inhabitants had citizenship rights.) From the beginning of the century until the 1790s there was an ongoing battle for power between the elite group of families who kept control of the two smaller and most powerful councils by the practice of cooptation of their members, and the mass of the members of the General Council which had been effectively marginalised. Of the great number of the inhabitants of Geneva who were excluded even from the General Council (and also encumbered with various civil disabilities and exclusions), the most important class was known as the natifs, and they sought to better themselves by allying with whichever of the two warring


parties seemed the more likely to further their interests. It was acknowledged by all parties that the General Council was the repository of sovereignty in Geneva, but the patriciate argued that this Council had devolved the exercise of power permanently to the smaller councils simply because it was not practical for such a large body to administer the republic. The bourgeois however claimed that the smaller councils or ‘lower councils’ as they called them were rather delegated to act on behalf of the General Council, to which they must give regular account in matters like taxation, areas over which the General Council retained the right to have the ultimate say. The bourgeois persistently claimed that the ruling elite had perverted the constitution from its original basis and ethos, but the facts do not seem to bear out their claim.10 It seems that the constitution as first established after the departure of the Catholic bishop in the 1530s had been essentially aristocratic in ethos; the Edicts of 1543 said nothing about the attributions of the General Council, which was merely consultative, and proposals for new taxes had ceased to be submitted to the General Council as early as 1570. Spink even claims that the Genevans had more freedom under their medieval bishops than they did under the post-Reformation regime, and this is confirmed by Carew Hunt, who stated that ‘the new constitutions (of Calvin’s Geneva)11 wereundoubtedly less democratic than the old, and more in harmony with the aristocratic tradition which Calvin seems always to have favoured’.12 It was in association with the Genevan Reformation that the tradition of austerity set in to which the city and the name of Calvin was to become inseparably linked. Even before Calvin, when the Reformer Farel’s influence was at its height, edicts were ordered to be posted in the taverns forbidding blasphemy, cards, or dice; no drink was to be served during sermons or after nine at night, while citizens were enjoined to attend sermon under penalty of a fine.13 Calvin’s contribution was to introduce the celebrated discipline that connected the restraint of private extravagance and immorality with fitness for communion.14 Notable offences could be reported to one of the ministers and if there was contumacy the minister could declare the matter publicly and eventually exclude the individual from the communion.15 It has been pointed out that in many free cities before the Reformation and in Geneva before the Reformation strict regulation of morals was common,16 but this practice of excommunication seems to have been exercised with particular severity in Geneva, and we know that in Voltaire’s day Covelle was arraigned for sexual offences and expected to kneel in contrition before the authorities in an episode made famous by the mockery of Voltaire. Roney seems to want to apologise for Geneva’s exceptional moral austerity, whereas we shall see that Rousseau and his followers were fiercely proud of it. The top layer of Genevan society comprised ‘citizens of Geneva’, sons of citizens or of bourgeois who were born and baptised in the town. Members of this class alone were eligible for the highest political offices and for the Small Council. This council was also the Supreme Court in all criminal cases.


Those who occupied the highest places in government were accorded the title ‘noble’.17 The second layer comprised the ‘bourgeois’ – those who had been granted residence rights and the right to engage in commerce and industry, along with sons of citizens born outside Geneva. They belonged as of right to the General Council but were excluded from the Small Council. They could, however, belong to the CC (after 1738 its membership had risen to 250 though the label remained the same), which played the role of a kind of parliament. The General Council was theoretically the sovereign body but it had effectively been sidelined by the ruling coterie of families.18 The third layer comprised the habitants who were foreigners who had bought residence rights and who lived in the town. They had no political rights and suffered certain exclusions such as from the position of master watchmaker. Their children, known as natifs, comprised the fourth layer. Though the natifs had a few more rights than their parents, and were often rich, they were the most heavily taxed, and their desire to gain political standing in the republic was one of the biggest political issues of the eighteenth century. Admission to the bourgeoisie was made very costly for them. The fifth layer, the sujets, had temporary residence rights only. The General Council comprised all citizens and bourgeois over 25 years. Since the sixteenth century it had lost the power to appoint the members of the CC. It did not have the initiative in legislation and was reduced to accepting or rejecting proposals put to it that had already been adopted by the two smaller councils. According to the Edict of 1738 it had the legislative power and was entitled to elect the principal magistrates, but in practice it could only accept or reject names proposed to it by the other councils.19 The governance of Geneva is elegantly summed up by Barbara Roth-Lochner as follows: ‘The General Council forms the Genevan electoral body. It is composed of male citizens and bourgeois over 25 years of age. The Council of the Two Hundred or Great Council adopts the laws, but only those proposed to them by the Small Council. The Small Council, or Ordinary Council, made up of 25 members with two secretaries, constitutes the real executive power. The four Syndics who preside over it deal with current business. The members of the Small Council elect the members of the Council of 200 and vice-versa.’20 By the eighteenth century the General Council was assembled only for the election of the four Syndics, of the Attorney general, of the Lieutenant de justice, and of the Auditors. The Small Council happily followed its own customs and usages, blithely ignoring official edicts and statutes.21 The main (though not the only) battleground of the century was over the desire of a section of the citizen body to revive the virtually dormant powers of the General Council. As D’Ivernois put it succinctly: ‘There exist in Geneva two classes of person, one of which wants to push the constitution towards aristocracy, while the other wants to keep it free of all alteration.’22 From this perspective the battle was to maintain a ‘sagely tempered’ democracy from the ravages of an aristocratic spirit. It was a theme of this anti-government thinking that the object of the law should


be the interest of the majority,23 and the claim was made that even though a free people has to delegate executive power to mandatees, it retained the right of ‘inspection’ of them to prevent them from falling asleep.24 And so D’Ivernois called for the ‘restoration’ of the right of the General Council to elect the government.25 The internecine political conflict in Geneva mirrored a social separation. The rich increasingly abandoned the lower town in their desire to distinguish themselves from the ordinary people who remained living there, and established themselves in the old upper town. So the magistrates had less and less actual daily human contact with their compatriots. The more this social separation grew, the more the people were reminded of the equality they were entitled to enjoy with the upper strata under the law and agitated to recover it.26 For all Soulavie’s partisanship he gives quite a helpful account of the contrasting attitudes dividing Geneva throughout the eighteenth century. He puts the argument of ‘party of laws’ opposing the government in this way: The council-general is the assembly of the sovereign; its province is to establish the imposts, institute laws, decide upon peace and war, as well as form alliances; the supreme power resides in it, and yet it has scarcely ever been any thing more than the subject of the delegated executive power; it can neither act, nor make laws, nor promulgate its decrees, till after a previous agreement of a lesser council and the executive council of two hundred. The sovereign power of Geneva is therefore a paralytic, unable to move any further than as it is allowed by a part of its subjects.27 The view of the Genevan government he states like this: All power is doubtless derived from the people; its assembly is the sovereign, who expresses its legitimate will in the great council . . . but it is necessary that the whole people delegate the power which they cannot exert in mass. The syndics, the council of twenty-five and of two hundred, constituting the executive power, are orders constituted by the state for the administration of government. Their existence and power cannot depend on the will of a general council, because the sovereign cannot refuse to support a government, and the preserving order in the state.28 A huge bone of contention between the government and the bourgeois concerned the need for a complete code of laws in the republic, as promised by the Act of Mediation that had ended a period of confrontation and disturbances in the republic in 1738.29 The Small Council said this was its job and claimed that the citizens had the right only to approve or reject it when it was presented. The citizens claimed that the code should be worked on by a committee made up of members of the two parties. In 1777 such a commission


was appointed, with an equal number from the government and opposition sides. The leading figure among the latter was Du Roveray, of whom we shall be hearing more.30 The centrality of the whole issue of ‘codification’ in eighteenth-century Genevan politics must have prepared Dumont to take an interest in Bentham. As Barbara Roth-Lochner writes, From then [1738] on, the debate about the publication of a code and about the revision of the Edicts takes centre stage. Going well beyond the matter of the organisation of justice, it touches above all on the Political Edicts as well as the penal dispositions of the Civil Edicts, and sets the conservatives, very reticent about any great enterprise of legislative reform, against the représentants,31 partisans of the publicity of the laws, including the most ancient, in which they see the roots of Genevan democracy, and of a thorough revision of the Genevan legislative corpus.32 Soulavie, the reactionary chronicler of what he conceived to be the AngloGenevan war against France, observed that the agitation for the production of a code of laws was perceived as threatening by all the allies of the Genevan government: the demand made by the representatives of the popular party, of a digest of all the laws of the republic, was considered as insidious in France, Geneva, and Berne, tending to the overthrow of laws long respected, reviving those which were become obsolete, and destroying the union which the Genevese government, France, and Switzerland had effected for the republic in prior pacifications.33 The 232 individuals who were members of the Small Council between 1600 and 1775 came from only 90 families.34 As the patriciate were numerically a minority, they were often hard-pressed to maintain their control, hence they were obliged to resort to the Court of Versailles for support. Versailles was naturally happier to bolster the patriciate than to sympathise with the interests of a party that presented as wanting to unsettle the political status quo. In 1738 internecine troubles had been resolved only by the combined Mediation of France, Berne, and Zurich; the Edict of 1738 upheld the theory of citizen sovereignty but since it also upheld all taxes established before 1714, there was no need for the government to call on the General Council.35 At the same time for obvious reasons the patriciate were always keen to appear pro-French. In the eyes of the bourgeois their enemies were not merely aping the aristocratic system of (Catholic, hierarchical) France, but betraying the vocation and identity of (Protestant, egalitarian) Geneva to embody the very antithesis of that system. The polarities which evolved down the century were between one class viewed by its enemies as a treacherous aristocracy who had sold out Geneva’s very heart and soul and another class viewed by its


enemies as dangerous demagogues and subverters of peace. As the very image of French wit, refinement, sophistication, and high culture, Voltaire, who had come to live very close to Geneva and was in regular communication with many of her leaders,36 came then to embody the image of the ruling elite in the eyes of the bourgeois; while for the latter their hero was Rousseau, the apostle of simplicity, virtue, and down-to-earth frankness and critic of high culture. Following the 1738 Mediation, the government made it their priority to please Versailles.37 They even went to the lengths of forbidding Genevan pastors to have any contact with French Protestant preachers or to send their books into France. Naturally, those who continued to view their homeland as the flag-carrier for central European Protestantism – albeit of the ‘reasonable’ attenuated eighteenth-century variety – were outraged and humiliated.

II

Rousseau: Icon of Genevan nationalism

I cannot tell here the full complicated story of Geneva’s commotions in the 50 years before Dumont’s birth, but there are two episodes (both of them involving Rousseau and Voltaire) which require to be narrated on account of their impact on the outlook of Dumont and his peers. Chronologically, the first is the publication of Rousseau’s Letter to d’Alembert on the Theatre of 1758; the second is the public burning of his Emile and The Social Contract in Geneva. For various reasons, I will deal with this later episode first and much more briefly. The first thing to be said about the condemnation and burning of Emile and The Social Contract in Geneva on a decision of the Small Council of 19 June 1762 was that it was widely assumed to be yet another instance of the craven subjection of the republic’s ruling class to France, for it followed very shortly after a similar condemnation in Paris.38 The patrician father of Marc-Auguste Pictet, later joint editor of the Bibliothèque britannique, in which Dumont was to publish his first abstracts of Bentham, was imprisoned and then excluded from the CC for a year as a result of his support for Rousseau.39 He claimed that the persecution of Rousseau arose from adulation of Voltaire and the desire to please Versailles, an opinion shared by others. It was all grist to the mill of the bourgeois, and yet they were slow to seize this golden propaganda opportunity; it was only when Rousseau, who had fled from Geneva, officially abdicated his citizenship, that they launched a protest.40 They made a représentation to the government that the correct procedure had not been followed in Rousseau’s case nor in the case of Pictet and that the condemnation should be rescinded. The government denied that they were under any obligation to receive or to consider this or any other représentation from the bourgeois, and this episode gave rise to the epithet of représentants for the one side and négatifs for the other. In later years some of the ultras among the latter were to take to calling themselves constitutionnaires, but the term which


the enemies of the governing elite regularly used for their opponents was aristocrates. It was to the représentant party that Etienne Dumont belonged, and throughout the 1780s he was to be a strong and vocal advocate of its interests. In 1766 the government was obliged to seek the help of France again to deal with the troubles that arose following the disputes over the Affaire Rousseau. The French government tried to bring the représentants to heel by means of an economic blockade. An Edict of Conciliation was accepted by the General Council after military action by the représentants in March 1768 but it did not include a revision of the judgement against Rousseau. For some years a fragile peace ensued, in part because the two adversaries were each equally now concerned about keeping down the natifs.41 But from the time of the affaire Rousseau a robust pamphlet tradition developed in Geneva which continued up to the end of the Old Regime to condemn the ‘despotism’ of the Small Council and the arbitrariness of its legal proceedings, especially in criminal cases.42 The second episode of importance at this point is the publication of Rousseau’s Letter to d’Alembert. The ramifications of this extraordinary affair for the life and outlook of Dumont and his peers are manifold and we need to look at it in some detail. It is fair to say that this pamphlet sums up as well as any the philosophy and mindset revealed in Dumont’s correspondence, a philosophy I call ‘Genevanism’ or ‘Genevan nationalism’ (though they called it ‘patriotism’, a term I consider far too euphemistic to designate the outlook satisfactorily). The young Dumont was a ‘Rousseauist’ in the sense conveyed by the Letter to d’Alembert. Vallette stated that among all Rousseau’s writings this was one of the most perfectly Genevan.43 In a searing polemic, written in response to the comment made by d’Alembert in his Encyclopédie article on Geneva that the republic would be better off with a theatre, the superb imaginative novelist and littérateur who had composed his own contributions to both the theatrical and the operatic stage sets out at once to denounce the theatre as a damaging and corrupting influence in society and to defend the longstanding Genevan veto on the construction of a theatre in the Republic. In attacking the theatre, Rousseau was of course following in a long tradition of polemic by Christian moralists who condemned the theatre on grounds of its incompatibility with discipleship of Christ – one of the most celebrated of these came from the pen of Bossuet.44 Indeed, Barras pointed out that Rousseau borrowed passages in his own work from earlier polemicists including Bossuet.45 Rousseau’s real target was, however, entirely different from that of these earlier polemicists: it was not the theatre as such but the culture of France, which had produced the most highly regarded dramatists of the day. This culture he branded false, ‘theatrical’, and deeply corrupting for the honest burghers of Geneva. Rousseau’s tract was a proud and strident declaration of Genevan nationalism. The Spartanist ‘Genevan nationalist’ republican ethos set out – or rather assumed – by Rousseau here was to be the philosophy imbibed from their hero by Dumont and the young Turks among


his Genevan peers: a close study of this text will provide an excellent picture of the mentality of the young Dumont for whom – as for many of his peers – Rousseau was the hero. Dumont’s first sermon as a newly ordained pastor in 1783 would include a Rousseauistic attack on the kind of ‘decadent’ mores that he and his party associated with the theatre: it was to bring him straight into conflict with the republic’s ruling elite, who had in the view of Dumont and his peers colluded with the French to impose their false and theatrical values on ‘the republic of virtue’. It was a collision which was to lead to his departure from his native land. The nature of this conflict can only be understood if we have an understanding of what was at stake, and this requires us to dwell at some length on the ethos of the Letter to d’Alembert, which (although the philosophy it preached was not entirely novel) quickly became the bible of Genevan nationalism. My reading of this text would have been perfectly familiar to Genevans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but in more recent times it has tended to be forgotten by commentators. Where the ethos of the Letter to d’Alembert has been studied, as classically in the very useful introduction to the old Garnier edition of the text by Léon Fontaine,46 its awkward nationalistic anti-French implications were often sidestepped by means of a contextualisation that read it exclusively in terms of Rousseau’s sparring match with Voltaire. It is certainly true that the rivalry between the two idols of eighteenth-century European culture played its part in spurring Rousseau to compose his startling pamphlet. Fontaine’s introduction gives an excellent account of the role played by Voltaire’s provocation in the episode, but it touches on the wider Genevan issues only in passing. Fontaine recalls how the passion for the theatre had become widespread in eighteenth-century France, noting that by mid-century the French had become the acknowledged masters of the dramatic art with Racine, Molière, and Corneille. French troupes set up all over Europe.47 He goes on to describe how Switzerland in general was increasingly penetrated by French influences at this time. He observes, ‘The old simplicity of manners still persisted in certain places, the natural result of isolation and poverty more than of republican virtue or Protestant austerity.’48 A traveller spoke of the struggle he observed in Basle between the traditional simple ways and modern manners.49 Fontaine contrasts the state of affairs in Lausanne with what happened in Geneva. Lausanne was subject to Berne and had no political autonomy and lived off tourism, so encouraged plays and shows, whereas Geneva had remained in many respects the city of Calvin, where the pastors still held sway in morals and kept a close surveillance on the behaviour of the inhabitants. Offenders against the prevailing moral code could be subjected to public censure. The theatre was regarded as an abomination and banned from the republic by the Sumptuary Laws of 1617 and of 25 February 1732.50 Even puppet shows were suppressed.51 Jean Rousset in his introduction to the Lettre à d’Alembert in the Pléiade edition does advert to the historical background but only briefly; as a literary


scholar, he is more interested in the literary structure of the piece than in its place in Genevan history.52 Graham Gargett has, however, set the issue of the theatre against the Genevan background admirably.53 Drawing on the work of Michel Launay,54 he observes that the artisans of Geneva, imbued with the Spartanist culture traditional to Calvinism, resented the aspirations of noble ladies to imitate the bon ton of the French aristocracy and import their passion for the theatre. The aristocracy on the other hand had a political motive for encouraging the theatre because it was an art form at which the French, whose support they needed, were the masters.55 No doubt one of the major reasons for the sheer intensity of Rousseau’s fury was that pressure for the establishment of a theatre in Geneva actually came from the French. In 1738, the comte de Lautrec, French representative in Geneva, found life there far too monotonous and called for a theatre. (Fontaine comments acidly that ‘a Frenchman, a courtier and a diplomat could hardly imagine life without shows’.56 ) In 1738, theatrical performances began with a French troupe.57 The Consistory of Pastors remonstrated with the government for their complaisance towards the theatre but seem to have been ignored.58 However, despite the financial success of their season in Geneva, the actors managed to undermine their own cause by running up unpaid debts with suppliers in the city, and this appears to have been the real reason why the ban on the theatre was enforced once again in 1739.59 Truth to tell, Genevans continued to put on informal dramatic performances in private residences, while also crossing the border to go a few miles to Carouge in Savoy and watch plays there. But it was Voltaire who reignited the issue. In 1755, he came to live at les Délices close to Geneva and launched a campaign to overcome resistance to the theatre in the republic. He was soon working on his contacts to get them to take part in plays at les Délices, but pastor Desroches persuaded the authorities to forbid Genevans to engage in such activities. He was not alone in his opposition, and KunzAubert cites a joint letter of complaint to the Consistory according to which the actors and actresses would be liable to debauch Genevan morals, the theatre would encourage the young to get into debt, and Carouge was known for murder and debauchery.60 Voltaire was absolutely furious and swore to get his revenge. ‘Geneva will have its comedy in spite of Calvin’ was his response.61 It was Voltaire who encouraged d’Alembert to publicly criticise Geneva for its lack of a theatre in the Encyclopédie article Genève of 1757. This criticism was somewhat overshadowed in the minds of the wider public by the row that erupted over his allegation in the same article that the Genevan pastors were ‘Socinians’ – that is, they were essentially Unitarians who rejected the Christian dogma of the Trinity.62 But when he undertook to defend the honour of Geneva in his Letter to d’Alembert, Rousseau dismissed the strictly religious controversy concerning the pastors in a few pages, preferring to focus instead on the criticism of Geneva for not having a theatre.


Fontaine claims that Rousseau himself had been not just a fan of the theatre but ‘besotted with it’.63 In the Letter to d’Alembert, Rousseau does not deny this, but he proposes a distinction which he believes can exculpate him from inconsistency, and it is this distinction which is the foundation of his attack on the theatre. He claims that while theatre cannot do any further damage in a country already corrupted (i.e. France – where Rousseau’s own theatrical involvement had taken place), it is poisonous in a country with pure morals (i.e. Geneva). The whole purpose of Rousseau’s tract then is to glorify Geneva and rubbish France. It is as well to remember that in 1754 Rousseau had returned to Geneva to be reconciled to his homeland and to his religion after having spent some years as a Catholic convert.64 He was now trying to expiate by the virulence of his attack on French Catholic culture his earlier betrayal of his ancestral faith. The title page begins, J J Rousseau, citizen of Geneva, to M D’Alembert of the French Academy, the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, the Prussian Academy, the Royal Society of London, the Royal Academy of Literature of Sweden, and the Institute of Bologna.65 The contrast is quite deliberate between Rousseau’s own plain and dignified title and the fussy and pretentious list of honours attached to the name of his opponent. The core of the book consists of an acid contrast between the shallow frivolity of French culture and the depth and sincerity of Genevan. The model and example which Genevans follow is said to be Sparta, famous for her military prowess and the simplicity of her manners. The healthy virtue of Geneva/Sparta is illustrated in an anecdote which tells of an old man in Athens (France) who could not find a seat in a theatre. The youngsters simply laugh at him, it is the Spartan envoys who give him their places and treat him with respect.66 Athens/France, the model of sophisticated refinement, of wit and sophistication, is contrasted with Sparta/Geneva, home of simple virtues. There is a reference here to d’Alembert’s article, for he had claimed that once she had a theatre, Geneva, already the home of philosophy and liberty, would also become the home of honest pleasures, thus combining the wisdom of Sparta with the refinement of Athens.67 But the Spartan virtues Rousseau has in mind are not those of wisdom, they are masculine warrior virtues, and Rousseau plays up the emasculating consequences of a theatrical culture. He notes that a love interest has increasingly been predominant in dramatic productions, with the consequence that the influence of women over men is increasing where such productions are patronised.68 In Paris even old men enslave themselves to women, making themselves ridiculous by galant behaviour. He recalls how in the warlike culture of ancient Rome the patrician Manlius was banished from the Senate for having kissed his wife in front of his daughter.69 Theatre then, far from improving morals, can only harm them. But ironically, in a great city like Paris which is full of idle folk without religion or principles, where morals and honour are nothing, Rousseau’s argument is that it is prudent for the police to encourage legitimate pleasures so as to divert individuals from illegitimate ones.70 Two hours a day at the theatre


will likely lead to a reduction in the crime rate. His approval of the theatre in a Parisian context is tantamount to a blanket condemnation of French culture as corrupt and empty. Rousseau then analyses the likely effects of the theatre in Geneva. First he condemns the attitude to places like Geneva of ‘stupid Parisians’, who judge solely by appearances and assume from the quiet and languid atmosphere of provincial towns that their inhabitants have nothing to do but quietly vegetate. They are totally ignorant of the fact that in many a provincial town lurks an unsung genius (Rousseau himself?), and such persons are far wiser than ‘big city monkeys’.71 Rousseau draws an idyllic picture of a hill near the Swiss town of Neuchâtel covered by houses, each surrounded by its own little plot of land, close enough for friendship but apart enough for independence; these are free men unburdened by taxation, growing food for themselves and making things with their hands. In winter they gather their families and provide their own amusement. They use their skills to help each other. In their spare time they make instruments of all kinds, even watches, which each has the full gamut of skills to make.72 These are educated people who read and can draw and paint and enjoy making music. Imagine a theatre in such a place; work would cease to be their amusement now they had another; time would be wasted at the theatre; money would be spent on it and clothes would be needed for the visits. Products would become more expensive and some people would leave, reducing the market. Paved streets and lighting would be needed to get people to the theatre, this would be a burden on the public. In such places the theatre will not merely bring economic decline but moral decay too; the rhetoric of the theatre will replace the practice of the virtues, citizens will be turned into beaux esprits, mothers into petites maitresses, a general softness and idleness will spread.73 There are universal prejudices about the scandalous morals of actors, he continues, so universal that we are obliged to believe them.74 Suspicion of actors predates the rise of Christianity, it can be found in ancient Rome. The art of the actor is to pretend, to say something other than what he believes.75 The actor sells himself for money. And Rousseau challenges ‘vous autres philosophes’ – you think you are so superior to prejudice, would you do this? Actors cultivate the art of deceit. And he compares them again with the powdered manicured elegant men of the world who seduce the innocent – will an actor never be tempted to use his talent for deceit to exploit others in the real world? The truth is that Rousseau sees the actor as incarnating the spirit of the salons – total externality as opposed to the inwardness of the true-hearted, honest and sincere Genevan. Starobinski’s paraphrase of Rousseau’s thinking is apt: ‘In the salons, where appearance and opinion are triumphant, you can say anything but nobody believes anything that is said: the protestations of the philosophes are just part of social gossip . . . .’76 As for actresses and their notoriously loose morals – women’s morals always decide those of their men. Rousseau offers England as a contrary example to


France – over there men and women honour marriage, if they break their vows they do not trumpet it about. Both sexes are happy to live in the country, English women wander contentedly in their parks, they enjoy solitude and ‘contemplative reading’ and novels. They are less a prey to frivolous imitation, they enjoy life’s real pleasures.77 The truth is that there are no good morals for women outside the domestic arena, care for their family is their role, their dignity lies in their modesty, women who show themselves publicly dishonour themselves. Of course, to say this is to provoke the outrage of ‘an evanescent philosophy’ that is born and dies in the streets of a great city, a philosophy that wants to stifle the cry of nature in the human heart and the unanimous voice of the human race. All this is put down by them [i.e. the philosophes] to small-mindedness, to deceits of the law and bad education; they claim that shame is just a social invention to protect the rights of fathers and husbands and keep order in families. They ask why we should blush at the needs nature has bred in us, why one of the sexes should resist more than the other desires they have in common? By contrast, Rousseau argues that this shame that veils from others the pleasures of love is nature’s defence of us at weak and unprotected moments. Moreover the modesty of women and their reserve actually inflames our desire for them rather than dousing it,78 and if the sexes operate differently in love it is also because the consequences of it for women are much more acute. A shameless woman is depraved because she tramples on a sentiment natural to her sex.79 So much for reasoning, what of experience? If sexual modesty were merely a prejudice of society and education, it should increase in places where these things are more refined and vice-versa. The opposite is true – in the mountains [i.e. Switzerland] the women are modest to an extreme, in the great cities [i.e. Paris] modesty is the only thing a well-bred woman would be ashamed of.80 Foreigners and provincials [i.e. Genevans] are extremely embarrassed by the shamelessness of women in the big cities [i.e. Paris]. Geneva has retained the purity of her values and the intrusion of a theatre would pollute them for ever. In this island of virtue81 everyone has a job to do, nobody is idle, and they simply do not have time to go to the theatre. If this seems a little strange to us today when we think of the theatre primarily as an evening leisure-time distraction after work, it should be borne in mind that during the two seasons of 1738 and 1739 when the theatre was operating in the city, it opened its doors at 2 PM and performances often did not end until 7 in the evening – they frequently comprised two plays, a comedy and a tragedy.82 Theatre would develop a taste for luxury that the Genevan lifestyle cannot accommodate. Geneva has her own innocent amusements, they are associated with the existence of a citizen militia which has shooting competitions and martial exercises that offer the opportunity for wholesome and masculine entertainment.83 Geneva is comparable with Sparta for simplicity, austerity, and purity. How indignant many citizens will feel at the sight of this building synonymous with luxury and softness raised on the ruins of their ancient


simplicity!84 The truth is that for a variety of reasons a town as small as Geneva will not be able to support a theatre anyway, so either the rich will subscribe – an onerous burden they will soon be wanting to share – or state subsidy will become an issue. Would such a subsidy be funded from ordinary necessary expenditure? Or will it be funded from savings held in reserve? The likelihood is that a special tax will have to be imposed. Supposing a theatre up and running, how will it affect the Genevan way of life? Geneva already has her cercles (clubs),85 she has her military exercises, she has her hunting expeditions and associated gatherings.86 These amusements have the simple innocence that goes with republican manners. Once there is a theatre, that will be an end of the cercles. These are gatherings for men. Men need to meet together on their own, because the presence of women softens them and makes them more effeminate. This does not matter in a monarchy, but it does in a republic: ‘Whether a Monarch governs men or women ought to be rather indifferent to him, provided that he be obeyed; but in a Republic, men are needed.’87 Among the ancients the men went about with each other and lacked nothing of wit, of taste, even of love for this reserve. But we have learnt to serve women instead of protecting them, we have learned to despise them even while we obey them, to outrage them with our mocking attentions: ‘and every woman at Paris gathers in her apartment a harem of men more womanish than she, who know how to render all sorts of homage to beauty except that of the heart, which is her due.’88 The perpetual requirement to amuse women saps modern men’s virility.89 Women suffer in Paris because they do not have genuine adorers, since elaborate conventional courtship formulae take the place of real affection. The Genevan cercles have retained a smattering of the manners of old.90 The men have no need to dress reason up to please women, they can have serious discussions without fear of mockery. Witticisms or bons mots will not do to settle discussions. The language may get a bit agricultural but that is infinitely preferable to the refined language of vice. People are active, they do not sit about in armchairs all day. There is a lot of drinking in the cercles, but it does less harm than disorders between men and women.91 Drunkenness diverts you from other vices whereas sexual irregularities engender them all. Two years of the theatre and the cercles will be gone. The exhibition of ladies dressed up in all their finery, set out in the boxes like goods in a shop awaiting buyers, will be too much of an attraction. Soon the agreeable life of Paris will replace our ancient simplicity, ‘and I rather doubt that Parisians in Geneva will long preserve the taste for our government’.92 Moral corruption will lead to political upheaval.93 Genevans are already showing signs of decadence – their young are learning how to bow better, how to give their hands gallantly to ladies, how to find the right formulae of politeness – for all of which Rousseau would like to whip them if he had his way. They are being taught to abandon modesty and


discretion, they are being educated to be impertinent. So as to keep them close to the women they will have to distract, they are being given the same education, they are being protected from the elements and left soft. ‘On my last trip to Geneva, I already saw several of these young ladies in jerkins, with white teeth, plump hands, piping voices, and pretty green parasols in their hands, rather maladroitly counterfeiting men.’94 Economically, theatres are a kind of tax that weighs on the people, opening up a continuous source of expenditure.95 This tax weighs much more on the poor than on the rich. The poor who live a life of perpetual labour are least able to resist the distracting influence of the theatre and least able to afford it. Politically, the actors themselves will become so much part of society and so popular that they will before too long become arbiters of the state.96 People wanting public positions will have to get their support, elections will be fought in the boudoirs of actresses, ‘and the Leaders of a free people will be the creatures of a band of Histrions’. Looking at the societal implications of the establishment of the theatre, Rousseau goes on to draw a dramatic contrast between the interior of a theatre, like a darkened cave holding a tiny number of people kept in silence and inaction, and the open air festivals of Geneva.97 The traditional sporting competitions are thoroughly healthy and to be encouraged. Boat races and gymnastic competitions would be a great idea. Dancing competitions would be nice.98 Once again the example of the sober festivals of Sparta is praised.99 Some, like Voltaire himself, dismiss this work as just another sign of Rousseau’s love of paradox or his eccentricity,100 whereas the Letter to d’Alembert is a paean of praise to Genevan culture and its values,101 with a corresponding denigration of France and her values. As Vallette wrote, ‘He stood foursquare for Geneva against Voltaire, for the old national mores against the novel mores imported from outside, for Genevan Protestantism against the Encyclopédie, for the watchmaking Saint-Gervais bourgeoisie and its cercles and against the patriciate and its fears.’102 Corrupt, decadent, frivolous, superficial, completely given up to externals, the French deserve nothing better than the theatre. Garrard remarks justly that ‘Rousseau came to detest the salon culture of Paris’103 but more than that it was what he perceived to be French culture that he despised. No wonder the text has been neglected – even though the same theme can in truth be found in La Nouvelle Héloïse.104 Moreover the Letter to d’Alembert echoes many of the sentiments expressed earlier by Rousseau in his Discourse on the Sciences and Arts. our minds have been corrupted in proportion as the arts and sciences have improved . . . The daily ebb and flow of the tides are not more regularly influenced by the moon than the morals of a people by the progress of the arts and sciences. As their light has risen above our horizon, virtue has taken flight.105


Then Rousseau goes on to speak of Sparta and its superiority to Athens: Can it be forgotten that, in the very heart of Greece, there arose a city as famous for the happy ignorance of its inhabitants, as for the wisdom of its laws; a republic of demi-gods rather than of men, so greatly superior their virtues seemed to those of mere humanity? Sparta, eternal proof of the vanity of science, while the vices, under the conduct of the fine arts, were being introduced into Athens . . . The difference was seen in the outcome. Athens became the seat of politeness and taste, the country of orators and philosophers. The elegance of its buildings equalled that of its language; on every side might be seen marble and canvas, animated by the hands of the most skilful artists. From Athens we derive those astonishing performances, which will serve as models to every corrupt age. The picture of Lacedaemon is not so highly coloured. There, the neighbouring nations used to say, ‘men were born virtuous, their native air seemed to inspire them with virtue’. But its inhabitants have left us nothing but the memory of their heroic actions: monuments that should not count for less in our eyes than the most curious relics of Athenian marble.106 It was not that Rousseau believed Geneva to have retained unalloyed the purity of her republican spirit. On the contrary, he was convinced that she too had been corrupted by ‘French’ influences. What he was propagating was an ideal of what he believed the Genevan spirit to be, or what he believed Genevans ought in terms of their heritage and identity to be standing and fighting for. As Vallette wrote, Rousseau, ‘once he had returned to Geneva and recovered his citizenship, began to spread through the world the Protestant, republican and puritan thought of Geneva through a Declaration of War on Voltaire, on the Encyclopédie, on French society, which he attacked in its favourite passion, the theatre’.107 It became a commonplace for the antigovernment party that ‘the culture of the mind, pleasantness of manners, and a surface education are all a seductive trap’ leading to the ‘drying up of the heart’.108 Rousseau’s pamphlet was a rallying-cry in Geneva for anti-aristocratic forces and it impacted profoundly on the mentality of Dumont’s generation, some of whom were to precipitate the republic into revolution at the beginning of 1789, several months before the assembly of the Estates General in Paris in May of that year.109 It is no doubt true that a part of Rousseau’s agenda was to engage with Voltaire, but one reason Rousseau took against Voltaire was precisely that the latter epitomised that urbane sophisticated ‘French’ salon culture which Rousseau came to hate. During the early days of the Revolution, Samuel Romilly asked Dumont if he had read Voltaire’s posthumously published letters.110 In his reply, Dumont could not contain


his contempt for the French author and his sense of the superiority of the Genevan Rousseau: I have read some of Voltaire’s posthumous letters; they are not very interesting; you have to wade through a hundred bad ones to find one good one. Voltaire’s reign is over, except in the theatre. Rousseau’s star is waxing as his wanes. Posterity will be very surprised that they were ever regarded as rivals.111 At this period Voltaire was much more highly regarded as a dramatist than today, and the phrase ‘except in the theatre’ may sound quite innocent but it is laden with venom, since for Dumont to excel at the theatre was a black mark against a French writer. There is no doubt that Voltaire did conduct an aggressively energetic campaign to force the theatre down the throats of the Genevans as part of his battle to install ‘philosophy’ there, but to those in the republic who detested the theatre he was more than a personality or a celebrity, he embodied certain ‘French values’.112 Writing in 1858, Gaberel made this point very trenchantly: ‘Voltaire, as is well known, wanted to demoralise Geneva and destroy the Christianity professed by the majority of its inhabitants. To this end, he favoured the taste for pleasure, luxury, the theatre . . . .’113 Godet went as far as to say that for 20 years, irritated by his failure to win over the Genevan pastors to his view of the world, Voltaire ‘pursued one single goal with a diabolical tenacity: to introduce the theatre into Geneva’.114 He even referred to the theatrical performances he loved to put on in his house as anticonsistoire115 – a reference to the Consistoire, the body of Genevan pastors and laymen that were concerned with the affairs of the Genevan church. The pastors made numerous attempts to uphold the ban on theatricals116 but their power was diminishing. It is worth noting that the Rousseauist identification of the theatre with alien and dangerous ‘French values’ survived into the post-Napoleonic era. In 1814, A. Duvillard published a complaint about the continuance of the theatre in Geneva in which he called on the Genevans not simply to celebrate their newfound independence from Napoleon’s empire but to reflect on what had laid them low in the first place.117 His tract is a call for Geneva to purify herself from all that has corrupted her primitive morals.118 He claims that Genevan republicanism is not just about a particular form of government but about a set of moral principles.119 The abandonment of the theatre would be the ‘first act of republican virtue’.120 ‘French’ ways, however attractive they may be, are incompatible with the love and the preservation of liberty in a small republic. Have the lessons taught by Rousseau in his polemic against the theatre been forgotten? All the plays performed are by French authors who either teach libertinage or who teach us about vices we do not have. The theatre encourages frivolous chatter and theatre talk predominates in the cercles. ‘Republic and theatre are mutually exclusive.’121 The author summarises the thinking of Rousseau’s pamphlet, concluding that reconciliation


of republic with theatre, French ways with Genevan ways is impossible – you will simply get degraded Genevans without ‘national character’. This was the frightful result that emerged in the 1780s, with a widespread cowardly imitation of ‘alien’ ways.122 The very absence of a theatre in the old days taught visitors that they were entering a republic. This extraordinary broadside concludes with some extracts from the Letter to d’Alembert. Graham Gargett wrote in connection with the reception of Rousseau’s pamphlet: ‘ . . . to many Genevans [Voltaire] symbolised the hated French domination inside and outside their republic, and they consequently rallied to Rousseau when he weighed in on behalf of the traditional values of austerity and patriotism.’ This was especially true of the pastorate – a body to which Dumont himself was later to belong. Roustan, for example, future pastor of the Swiss church in London, wrote a congratulatory letter to Rousseau in response to the Letter to d’Alembert.123 Others were Daniel de Rochemont and Paul Moultou. The former praised Rousseau for his ‘vertu mâle’ and love of liberty. Moultou claimed that the book had rallied all good citizens. How much a Genevan loved his homeland could be judged by how enthusiastic he was for the pamphlet. He lamented that although there were still good morals among the Genevans, it was only among the poor, but now the rich had begun to corrupt even them.124 Jacob Vernet, doyen of the Genevan theologians of the day, wrote in positive and encouraging terms.125 Vernet also offered his own answer to d’Alembert’s Geneva article in his Lettres critiques d’un voyageur anglais.126 In general this constituted a rehash of Rousseau’s own arguments. Other critics latched on to different themes in Rousseau’s pamphlet. Bastide published a reply in which he took issue with Rousseau’s attitude to women.127 D’Alembert and Marmontel both issued counterblasts, but neither of them could see Rousseau’s piece as anything more than an essay in paradox and a questioning of the social value of the theatre.128 They simply could not take seriously his proclamation of the superiority of Genevan/Swiss culture over French, nor did they want to grasp the nettle of the contrast between the two completely different value-systems he was headlining. Meanwhile Vernet, writing to Rousseau, agrees with him that ‘a certain type are taking deep draughts of the poison of irreligion, luxury and corruption, offered to them under the guise of bel esprit, in association with the seductions of theatrical shows. There is already a clique of them that sees itself as setting the tone’.129 Vernet continued to harry d’Alembert mercilessly for 5 years from the first edition of his attack on the Geneva article in 1761 to its final complete version in 1766,130 and this echoed d’Alembert’s own preoccupation with the subject. One scholar observed that for d’Alembert the writing of the article was ‘one of the most important acts of his life’.131 There has been a resurgence of interest in Rousseau’s attack on the theatre in very recent times, though there continues to be a tendency to read it not in terms of Genevan nationalist propaganda but in terms of Rousseau’s broader philosophy, while the virulent hostility to French culture is glossed over.132 For example, Jean


Montier’s essay largely ignores the evident anti-French bias of Rousseau.133 Having acknowledged a Geneva/Paris polarity in his opening remarks, he goes on to generalise the message of the Letter as though Rousseau was chiefly interested in exploring the relationship of theatre and culture, specifically denying that the work was an expression of Rousseau’s patriotism. Quite rightly recognising that Rousseau identifies the theatre as the place of a false sociability, he ignores the fact that the Genevan specifically identifies this as a French/Parisian vice. He acknowledges that the Genevans identify with Sparta but fails to note that ‘Athens’ was clearly meant to represent Paris. Mostefai too refers to Rousseau’s discussion of the effect of theatre-going on ‘a small town’,134 whereas the point is that the concept of ‘Geneva’ and that of ‘a small town’ are in no way interchangeable: to Rousseau and to most of his contemporaries, Geneva was quite simply unique, and it was for Geneva that Rousseau was campaigning, not for the morals of small towns. Likewise it is misguided on Mostefai’s part to suppose that Rousseau is showing that the values of d’Alembert are ‘cosmopolitan’,135 for they are supremely ‘French’ in the eyes of Rousseau. Gargett by contrast describes how in Geneva hostility to the theatre became a political issue, a stick with which the représentants attacked the government,136 and how ‘an attachment to the traditional moral ethos of Calvinism also represented a “patriotic’’ stand against the domination exercised by the ruling, pro-French oligarchy’.137 Ourida Mostefai has pointed to the paradox that while this work of Rousseau has been much less studied than his other works, it was in its day a massive success and provoked a huge literary and political controversy.138 But she is more interested in placing it in the context of the rest of the writer’s oeuvre than in the context of Genevan history. She notes how it fits into Rousseau’s move to place himself over against the philosophes, and in particular to promote his image as a solitary thinker by contrast with the preoccupation of the philosophes with collaborative work (e.g. the Encyclopédie) and the Republic (or community) of letters.139 Rousseau was to write directly on his country’s political order elsewhere,140 but I cannot spend time on other texts here, as my purpose is to focus on the theatre as symbol for Dumont and his fellow Young Turks of the hated ‘other’. To an extent the values promoted by Rousseau reflected not just the Genevanist outlook but also a mentality common to many Swiss and expressed by other Swiss eighteenth-century writers like Muralt, Zimmermann, Iselin, Bodmer, and Haller. Muralt famously said he preferred ‘natural simplicity’ to all the grandeur of the Tuileries Palace, and Bridel said there was ‘more equality’ in the mountains.141 Muralt too feared the spirit of facile brilliance and sophistication.142 During the Revolution a French ‘sanitised’ version of Rousseau emerged which saw the Genevan as simply a defender of the values of the honest hardworking artisan against those of his wealthy oppressors. A classic example was


that of Michel-Edme Petit, Deputy for the Ain Department.143 In a pamphlet in praise of Jean-Jacques, Petit devotes some breathless pages to the Letter to d’Alembert.144 He claims that the Genevan writer, far from being inconsistent in writing his own dramas and then attacking the theatre, was in fact making a heroic sacrifice for the greater good. He claims that Rousseau’s venom was directed against the values of the rich and wealthy in general. This is wilfully to ignore the open Genevan nationalism/patriotism for which Rousseau stood, of which a classic illustration can be found in a letter of 1760 to Jacob Vernet. Rousseau writes in mournful tones of the decay of Geneva: Ridicule, that poison for good sense and honour, satire, that enemy of public peace, softness, arrogant display, luxury, are forming for our future nothing more than a people of little charmers, buffoons, clowns, gutter philosophers, and saloon bar wiseacres, who will elevate our men of letters from the position of respect they used to enjoy to the glory of the academies of Marseilles or Angers, who will find it a much finer thing to be courtiers than free men, actors than citizens, people who would never even have got out of bed to defend Geneva at the Escalade . . . .145

III

From Protestantism to ‘virtuism’

Helena Rosenblatt considers that Rousseau’s ‘most interesting and pertinent arguments against theatre . . . are social and political’,146 but my argument here is that fundamentally they are cultural. The deep hostility to French culture manifested by Rousseau can only be explained by reference to Geneva’s past. Scholars have much preferred to focus on the republicanism with which Geneva had long been associated rather than on its deeply rooted Calvinist tradition.147 And it is true that it was pastor Vernet – about whom we have already heard much – who oversaw the printing of the first edition of The Spirit of the Laws in Geneva.148 Vernet could of course cite the famous French writer as a prominent supporter of the old myth that in republics moral austerity was an essential.149 But Geneva’s identity was built not first and foremost on its political constitution – though that was certainly a source of pride – but on its rejection of Catholicism, of which the political constitution was in large part a consequence. Geneva was born in the 1530s out of defiance of the Catholic Church. By the early eighteenth century, Geneva was apparently sharing in the Europe-wide apaisement of religious feelings and the old dogmatic Reformation disputes had lost their power to arouse. As Goyau put it, ‘The pastors of old . . . armed the city for their God, and . . . drew it with them, [they] had been succeeded by moralists whom the Genevans were beginning to find tedious.’150 But in Geneva the religious convictions on which they had founded their new ‘city of God’ did not die out so much as transmute or ‘mutate’ – to use the term that John Gray has popularised in the context of the emergence of modern secular utopias that seem to have


their origins in religion151 – into something else. The intensity of aggression aroused by Catholicism in earlier times transmuted/mutated into a cultural aggression against Catholic nations and cultures, and particularly France and French culture – which had by the eighteenth century become Geneva’s ‘Big brother’. If we examine the arguments put forward by Rousseau in his polemic against theatre, we can see that they merely echo the old anti-Catholic arguments of earlier times, only now in a ‘cultural’ dress. This was a reflection of a Europe-wide tendency for theological battles to transmute/mutate into culture wars. In the case of Geneva, Calvinism transmuted into a kind of nationalism.152 ‘We cannot explain Rousseau [or Dumont either] without knowing the Geneva of his day, without grasping how the Christian idea had transformed in our city after the Reformation, and how it had amalgamated through the study of the ancients with the idea of “fatherland’’ (patrie) as they had conceived it.’153 The Protestant Reformers had claimed that they were rejecting Catholicism’s ‘materialistic’ and ‘ritualistic’ understanding of the Christian faith with its mechanical performance of rites, rituals, and ceremonies, and its attribution of special powers to a rigidly hierarchical order of priests and bishops. Ralph Barton Perry describes Puritanism – which was Calvinism in Anglo-Saxon dress – as belonging to a tradition of thinking which advocated ‘strictness of living and simplicity of worship – Christianity in its pristine purity, and opposed to fleshly and worldly compromise, as well as to ecclesiasticism, ritualism, the multiplication of sacramental mysteries, and the elaboration of dogma’.154 Some Protestants believed that Catholicism had actually reverted to Judaism, which to them was likewise a mechanical religion of salvation by rite, ritual, and ceremony. What the Reformers advocated instead was something we might describe as ‘inwardness’, a slimmed-down, simplified religion in which the disposition of the heart to God mattered far more than the ‘mechanical’ performance of authorised rituals. What was needed to please God was a heart turned to God and a proper respect for God’s laws and commandments. Salvation came to the upright of heart, not to those who had kept all the Catholic rules and performed all the Catholic rituals. Favourite words in the Genevan religious vocabulary (in common with that of many Protestants of the time) were pure/purity and simple/simplicity. In his life of the most celebrated Genevan theologian of the eighteenth century, Jacob Vernet, the Genevan Saladin writes with reference to one of Vernet’s works (Pièces fugitives sur l’Eucharistie) ‘ . . . M. Vernet, deeply convinced of the beauty of Christianity, looked at in its source and in its primitive purity, thought he could serve religion by stripping it of all the human inventions that theologians have added to it.’155 Later Saladin, writing in 1790, refers to the number of foreign lords and princes who used to come to Geneva in the mid-eighteenth century, remarking that ‘our ways were still simple’.156 In a letter to Voltaire written in 1755, Vernet observes about the Genevan religion that it is ‘so simple, so wise, so gentle, so purified, that a philosopher


could not possibly ask for anything more reasonable’. He goes on to claim that the Genevan ministers ‘stick to the pure gospel’.157 Some years later the half-Genevan Protestant Mme de Staël included in her novel Delphine the statement that the Protestant religion was much closer to ‘the pure spirit of the gospel’.158 Among the recommendations that d’Alembert made in his Encyclopédie article on Geneva was that the Genevans could well afford to adorn their churches with sacred art and encourage better music and poetry in their worship. Vernet replied with a condemnation of the corporal representation of the deity and of ceremonies commemorating the events of sacred history. Rather, Genevan pastors sought to engrave in the minds of the faithful through clear and solid instruction a right knowledge and persuasion of holy truths. Such was the nourishment and principle of a healthy devotion. Moreover, the most beautiful church is the one where a Christian community assembles in orderly and decent fashion to render to God the humblest and purest worship and receive instruction from the pure source of the Word of God. This is far more edifying than all the ‘superstitious worldly pomp of the basilicas of Italy’.159 Vernet rejected the theatre as intrinsically alien to Geneva’s republican traditions, since it would encourage libertinage: ‘Nothing is more hostile to republican liberty than libertinage; it would be the tomb of her happy constitution.’160 He was enthusiastic in his response to Rousseau’s attack on French/monarchical culture. He tells Rousseau that he is delighted with the distinction between a very corrupt city where shows can actually be a good thing and a disciplined small town which has everything to lose by them. Unfortunately the present generation is forgetting these truths, they are getting soft and imitating big city culture and ‘the manners of a monarchy’.161 Vernet says Rousseau’s broadside will help to revive among Genevans the ‘male’ virtues of their forefathers. So ‘inward’ was the Genevan concept of religion that for 20 years the pastors blocked Burlamaqui’s proposal for the establishment of a school of drawing in 1732162 and it was not until 1776 that the Society of Arts came into being.163 Writing in 1914, the centenary of the liberation of Geneva from the yoke of Napoleon, Paul Seippel noted that there was not a single public monument from the time of Calvin to the end of the seventeenth century to indicate any interest in the fine arts in Geneva. He continues tellingly that efforts were made in the eighteenth century to discourage any such activity in order ‘to combat the French ways that were invading the elect city ’ [my emphases].164 He quotes an ordinance of 1739 that forbade ornate busts and statues, ornamental paintings, ‘excesses in sculpture’, or exhibitions of porcelain. No wonder an English Anglican vicar could in 1566 lament ‘the Genevans’ fashion to have nothing in the church but naked walls and a poore fellow in a bare gown, telling a long tale and brawling and chiding with his hearers’.165 Protestants saw themselves as champions of the inward values of the heart against externalism, the respect for outward rank or material factors


like wealth or social standing. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, the polemic of Genevan nationalism was no longer focussing on ‘Catholic’ values, but on ‘French’ values. As the premier Catholic country and the neighbouring big-brother power, the French now wore the ‘Catholic’ mantle as far as the Genevans were concerned. ‘French’ values were now read in Protestant thinking as ‘outward, external, materialistic, trivialising and frivolous’ in contrast with the Genevan’s respect for truth, sincerity of heart nobility of soul rather than nobility of caste, and so on. Ironically, to this Genevan mindset even the philosophes had taken on the cultural mantle of their Catholic predecessors – however, little time for Catholicism they might actually have. The philosophes were associated with the Parisian salons, and salon culture was as shallow, superficial, and effeminate in Genevan eyes as the Catholic religion had been.166 The refinement of intelligence did not go hand in hand with the development of virtue. Even the intelligence was a sham, a self-delusion, as Dumont’s friend Mallet Du Pan wrote to him in 1787: ‘Nobody wants to learn anything in Paris; the assumption is that they don’t need instruction, for they already know everything in this hearth of Enlightenment whose blaze lights up all of Europe.’167 A classic exposition of this point of view is to be found in a best-selling epistolary novel first published in 1772 by the Genevan pastor Jacob Vernes, entitled Confidence Philosophique. Vernes, who was one of Dumont’s college mentors and who remained his correspondent and friend, uses the epistolary structure to tell the story of how a Parisian philosophe sets out to detach a pious married woman from her Christian beliefs in order that he can seduce her. Here is a typical sample of Vernes’ writing: I am sure, Sir, that you are well aware of the effects of all this on my lovely pupil . . . What a happy revolution in all her being, as Philosophie pulled away the ivy, sowed the good seed in the furrows taken up by weeds, and dissipated those phantoms of Virtue & Wisdom forged by a gospel education! I had the pleasure of seeing untied knot by knot all the cords which bound her to what she had thought to be her duties, as soon as she had learnt that those so-called duties were simply a matter of arbitrary convention; that personal interest should be her only rule; & that God, if he exists, has no interest whatever in what she does on this earth.168 The writer goes on to describe how this lady’s life now turned from being a ‘langorous vegetation’ to being a ‘real existence’, how she lost her taste for the domestic details she had previously enjoyed, how she abandoned her prayer time to make more time for her toilette, for balls, gambling, and parties. She began to dress more sexily and eventually he was able to seduce her – which had been the real aim of his course of instruction in ‘philosophy’ from the start.169


A statement like that of Jeffrey Watt that ‘During the “Age of Reason’’ Genevan intellectuals were more influenced by Enlightened than Calvinist thought’ needs therefore to be read with caution.170 Gaberel quotes a letter by Rousseau’s friend the pastor Mouchon dating from 1771, in which Mouchon declares that ‘the great majority of Genevans are wavering indecisively between the faith of their fathers and the incredulity of the philosophes; they are afraid of Voltaire and his satellites. They retain a secret sympathy for Rousseau.’171 Mouchon goes on to cite a Genevan acquaintance remarking how good he feels when someone speaks well of Rousseau and how indignant he is to hear people mocking Rousseau to please Voltaire. For the image of the one is linked in his mind with virtue, that of the other with nastiness and vice. On the eve of the Revolution Dumont’s fellow-Genevan Mallet Du Pan wrote to him about the correspondence of Voltaire which had just been published. ‘You can see in the full light of day the infernal charades, the intolerance, intrigues of the philosophic sect . . . crude charlatans, how well Rousseau knew you!’172 This was the environment in which Etienne Dumont, the global promoter of Benthamism, grew up. A letter of 1780 from his childhood friend Badollet, by then a tutor in a family in France, gives a strong flavour of Dumont’s youthful mindset. I am sure you must remember how when we were little . . . we were very far from being enslaved to opinion; the form of our government, the study of Rousseau and our conversations had reinforced our republican inclinations . . . And you know too how you showed when you were with the De la Rives your attachment to the sort of ideas of equality that are alone capable of infusing some energy into the soul, and how I was the one of the two of us who had only talked about being a disciple of Rousseau: but now I am your equal on that point. You cannot believe what new energy my stay in France has imparted to my republican pride now that I have seen with indignation that the human race is split into two classes.173 Some years later, Dumont vented his Genevanism and distaste for the French in a reference to Rousseau’s Emile. In a journal he kept of a visit to France in 1802, he recorded dining with the local Prefet in Nîmes. They got to talking about the differences between the respective education systems in France and England. Dumont writes that Rousseau would never have written Emile in London. He would not have had shocking encounters with ‘little doctors’, giving their opinion, trying to make an effect, with a politesse quite out of keeping with their tender years, repeating opinions that could only have come from their teachers. On the other hand, by 1802 Dumont had lost his fondness for Rousseau and he went on to say that Rousseau’s distaste for French preciousness and artificiality had driven him to an opposite extreme of exaggeration. Instead of these ‘little gentleman’ he wanted to produce ‘little peasants’.174 In the following month of July 1802, Dumont


found himself in Chambéry, which brought back thoughts of Rousseau. But it reminded Dumont how differently he felt about his former hero now that his name had been profaned in the Revolution as well as by his own peculiar writings of his last years.175 This was a measure of Dumont’s later detachment from Rousseau as a result of the Revolution.

IV

Dumont’s youth and disillusioned departure from Geneva

It may seem that I have devoted an inordinate amount of space to the question of Rousseau and his polemic with d’Alembert, but it is important for us to get a handle on the unfamiliar Genevan nationalist mindset which formed Dumont. It was into this troubled and divided republic that Pierre-EtienneLouis Dumont was born in Geneva on 18 July 1759. His father, descendant of a Huguenot family, died when he was young, leaving his mother with five children to care for. Etienne – as he was always known – was already supporting his mother at school by giving lessons to other younger pupils. He opted for ordination to the ministry of the Genevan Reformed Church and stood out among his contemporaries for his brightness, wit, and eloquence. One obituary notice later spoke glowingly of all the youthful promise he had shown as a rookie preacher: ‘from the very beginning of his preaching he proved to be a consummate orator, and people would come from all over in crowds to hear him’.176 For a while he tutored the sons of M. De La RiveSellon. One of them, Charles-Gaspard De la Rive (1770–1834), later became a celebrated pharmaceutical chemist with a particular concern for the treatment of mental illness.177 But the formative event in Dumont’s young life was something that happened during his student years: the burning humiliation of having to watch French and Bernese troops marching into Geneva in the summer of 1782 to restore the power of the aristocratic elite after a failed représentant coup in 1781. What happened was this. In April 1779 the commission for the finalisation of a new code completed its task and its draft was printed and distributed to the citizens for them to be able to make their observations.178 At that point the CC was dominated by the constitutionnaires, a grouping of ultra-négatifs who looked to France to save the aristocrat cause from what Martin calls ‘democratic demagogy’. The moderate négatifs were more accommodating and opposed to foreign intervention except as a last resort. The constitutionnaires opposed the new code because it did not include the Mediation Ruling of 1738 which formalised the involvement of the Guarantor Powers and kept alive their hopes of French intervention, and the French were openly siding with them, warning that the new Code must not contravene the laws guaranteed by the mediation of 1738.179 Combined pressure from these two quarters resulted in the old commission being dissolved and a new one appointed.180 The leaders of the représentants at this point were two men of whom we shall be hearing more in the next chapter – JacquesAntoine Du Roveray and Etienne Clavière – the former having been elected


Attorney General of the Republic.181 They were furious over the rejection of their Code and their compatriot Necker, by now French Director of Finances, invited them to come to Paris to put their case to Vergennes, the Foreign Minister. Vergennes made crystal clear the hostility of the French government to any sort of ‘democratic’ regime in Geneva, a strategically important place which they needed to know was politically stable and secure.182 Vergennes then proposed a new plan of pacification to Berne and Zurich with the intention of crushing the représentants and strengthening the government. On 11 December 1780, Du Roveray made a speech attacking the French government for their intervention in Genevan affairs and then proceeded to publish it. Since it was this speech that led more or less directly to the crushing defeat of the représentants who were Dumont’s party and hence to his exile, and since Du Roveray and he shared a very similar worldview, it is worth pausing to consider what Du Roveray’s argument was here.183 He focussed his attack on the fact that Gabard, the French Resident, had chosen to address a letter from his Court to several members of the Council of the CC and to a few natifs, on the subject of Genevan political matters, an action which Du Roveray condemned as an instance of unjustifiable foreign interference in the domestic affairs of his country.184 The independence of a small state was something that had to be guarded most meticulously, especially at a time when citizens might forget their duty enough to call on foreign assistance in order to crush opposition.185 On the side of the French Resident, the risk is that he will be influenced by highly partial and biased accounts of what is actually going on. In particular Du Roveray condemns the French Court for having encouraged the government to dissolve the Commission for the Revision of the Laws.186 He goes on to ask what deplorable effects this readiness to intrigue with a foreign court is likely to have on the Genevan national character,187 and proceeds to pour typical représentant insults on the French character: in place of integrity in administration, application to duties, openness and loyalty in conduct, cordial relations among the citizenry, there will be an artificial and fussy spirit that delights in trivia and hates serious things, a vanity and a puerility. In place of simple republican manners there will be the taste for dissipation, idleness, and their accompanying vices. All this will undermine the industry and commerce which are dependent on frugality, economy, and simplicity of manners. Down the drain will go the spirit of patriotism and elevation of soul that is characteristic of free men. Du Roveray claims that the desire of his party is simply to conserve the constitution of the state as established by the Edicts especially of 1568, 1738, and 1768.188 At the same time they want to see the redaction of a complete code of clear and wise laws. Finally, to procure an amelioration in the situation of natifs, habitants, and sujets. Du Roveray repeated his attack on 28 December. Through its Resident in the Republic, the French government demanded energetic action against Du Roveray by the Genevan authorities. They wanted his speech publicly burned


and they wanted him sacked. However, on 5 February 1781 opponents of the government, largely driven by the increasingly restive natifs, took control of the republic by force, occupying the arsenal. The government was effectively held hostage and in April 1782 stripped of its powers and replaced by a new government dominated by the représentants. Du Roveray went to London to enlist the support of the British government, on which they were relying, but vainly as it turned out. In the spring of 1782, Dumont’s young friend Francis D’Ivernois attempted to influence matters by writing an apology for the représentants for the French. It was dedicated to the French monarch.189 It was entitled Tableau historique et politique des révolutions de Genève dans le 18ème siècle, and provides an excellent account of eighteenth-century Genevan history as written from the point of view of Dumont’s party. History is written by the winners, as the saying goes, and Genevan eighteenth-century history is no exception. A typical anonymous brochure published at the time described the représentants as a faction conspiring to overthrow a legitimate government by force and fraud.190 After 1789 the old aristocratic worldview had few defenders but it is worth pausing to consider how the other side viewed matters. In 1803, a member of one of the elite families, J. L. Mallet, wrote an account of Geneva’s woes over the previous century seen as leading up to the final ignominy of the French Occupation of 1798.191 Mallet spoke of the happy days of Geneva prior to the beginning of the eighteenth century in terms of the life of ‘a patriarchal family’. The administration of her magistrates was her glory, but her peace was disturbed by ‘ambitious demagogues’ who branded the ways and customs that had governed their ancestors as ‘arbitrary’, and the Genevans succumbed to ‘a mania for legislation’.192 Mallet claims that individuals wanting to play a role in the state raised questions about the sovereignty of the people, personal freedom, taxes, the redaction of a general code of laws, the secret ballot, periodicity of the assemblies, the right of petition, movability of magistrates, and so on. Without these ‘troublemakers’ the mass of the people would have been happy under the ‘paternal administration’ of the magistrates. The result was to transform a tempered aristocracy into a stormy democracy. Interestingly, Mallet claims that the turbulent minds of the Genevans turned towards politics out of boredom with theology, and that the habit of discussing questions of dogma had formed them to discussion. An earlier brochure on the government side had attacked the représentants for turning against the Guarantee, whereas in earlier times (1766) they had proclaimed it to be a ‘recourse for the oppressed’. This same author had suggested that rule by the représentant party would amount to the subjection of government and people to ‘the arbitrary wishes of the cercles where they reign’.193 Godechot remarked that when the Bernese sent an ultimatum to the Genevan représentants then in power on 13 May 1782, the reply came back that ‘the Genevans were determined to live as free men and die as free


men’ – a saying very close to the later Revolutionary slogan ‘vivre libre ou mourir’.194 At the beginning of July 1782, French and Bernese195 troops entered the city and the leaders of the revolution took flight.196 Among them were Du Roveray and Clavière, later to be colleagues of Dumont’s in the circle of Mirabeau’s advisers in Paris in 1789–1790. The aristocratic regime reinstalled in power by foreign armies banished the seven leading représentants (including Clavière, Du Roveray, and D’Ivernois) in perpetuity, while 12 others were exiled for 10 years. Some of the party tried to set up colonies elsewhere in places like Constance197 and Brussels, and in the case of Francis d’Ivernois, in Ireland, believing that they carried with them the true spirit of Geneva, driven out by the aristocrates.198 In at least one case – that of the father of Guillaume-Henri Dufour (born at Constance in 1787 and later co-founder and first president of the Red Cross) – there was a period of residence in two of the colonies, for Bénédict Dufour went to Waterford before moving on to Constance.199 Du Roveray was appointed to a Chair of Public Law in the University of Dublin and was given a pension by the British government.200 Dumont and his fellow représentants were deeply traumatised to see their own Genevan aristocrats ‘sleeping with the enemy’ and actively encouraging the importation of alien ‘French’ values that would stain the purity of Genevan minds. The defeat of 1782 ratcheted up their Genevan nationalist fervour and their hatred for the aristocrats and for the French with whom the aristocrats were in league. To sum up the important features of Dumont’s young représentant 1780s mindset then, it was based on a ‘Spartanist’ regard for a set of ‘Genevan’ values which stemmed from the Protestant Reformation. These values had transmuted/mutated from the theological to the cultural sphere. They exalted simplicity, austerity, inwardness and seriousness, virtue, discipline, domesticity, manliness and the warrior ethos over against sophistication, luxury, external display and frivolity, salon culture, and effeminacy. The behaviours in the second list were associated with France and amounted to a frivolous kind or pretence or ‘theatricality’ which the philosophes had inherited from the culture of Catholicism.201 Sometimes the polarity was expressed in purely political terms as being between republican Geneva and monarchical France. In 1799, describing his outlook when he arrived in Paris 10 years earlier, Dumont said that he had inherited a contemptuous attitude towards France from the influence of his ‘republican education’.202 This hatred for France was shared by his celebrated Genevan contemporary Mallet Du Pan, who was unsparing in his expressions of distaste for the French character, going so far as to claim towards the end of his life that they were ‘the vilest people in the history of Europe since the Fall of the Roman Empire’.203 One of Dumont’s friends, then Resident in France, wrote to him in 1782 about the French in the following terms: Take note of this, it is only when you meet a Frenchman that you think he is good, and indeed nothing is more seductive, promises, devotion,


everything is offered, but what foreigners don’t know and what is a maxim in this country is that you must say something honourable to people, and from this principle, which does look like a good one at first sight, flow so many friendships dead as soon as born, offers of services that it is understood are not to be accepted – something that trips up a poor Genevan badly because he believes that words are made to translate thoughts – futile compliments that turn society into a school of shameless lies.204 Dumont’s attitude towards the Genevan aristocracy was to mellow in the crisis years of the 1790s when he discovered an intense concern among them with the independence of Geneva which made them willing to make political concessions. His attitude to the French also became decidedly more optimistic in 1789 but this did not last, as I documented in a paper given at a Colloquium in Geneva to mark the bicentenary of the annexation of Geneva by France.205 Dumont and his fellows in Geneva were of course far from being alone in these kind of nationalistic attitudes. In 2003 Ann Wroe wrote a review of Ben Rogers’ Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull, and the English Nation.206 Rogers described how the rich in eighteenth-century France liked food with all kinds of dressings while the British ‘ate beef, an honest and substantial fare closely linked to blood and soil . . . ’. Ann Wroe remarked that There was a religious dimension, too, in these culinary divides. . . . a clear link existed between dressing up food and dressing up faith. To eighteenthcentury Englishmen, the absurd pretentiousness of French pastries and stews was evidently an offshoot of Catholic ritualism . . . Beef-eating, on the other hand, like Protestantism, was simple, direct, pure . . . .207 The same point was made by another reviewer of this book, Sarah Bakewell: ‘ . . . while Continental food was popishly debauched, English food was as plain and wholesome as its religion.’208 Rogers reproduces caricatures that persistently showed Frenchmen as skeletal figures, and Mirabeau commented on these during his stay in England.209 Even the cult of rustic simplicity as opposed to aristocratic decadence can be traced back at least as far as the discovery in Rome in 1455 of the only surviving copy of Tacitus’ Germania.210 Dumont left us a very clear statement of his view on developments in Geneva, it was written several years later in 1789 in an attempt to persuade the French government to refuse to ratify the new status quo which had emerged after a revolution in the Republic at the start of that year.211 It was a manifesto purporting to represent the views of Genevan expatriates in London and carried 16 signatures. In the Cambridge University Library there is a copy which bears Dumont’s own signature with the legend ‘this writing is by me, it was begun in London and finished in Paris in 1789’.212 He begins by observing that there are no noble families as such in Geneva, just families who have made a lot of money and become great in their own eyes; in fact all citizens


have equal rights.213 Such power as these families exercise is thus usurped. He relates how these ‘aristocrats’ crushed their fellow-citizens with the help of the combined forces of France, Piedmont, and Berne and proceeded to ban all militia exercises, all civic assemblies, even forbidding friends to have periodic gatherings.214 They terrorised the citizenry into accepting the new order, so that 500 Genevans went into exile rather than remain. Dumont claims that at this point the city existed only in those who had left – clearly seeing himself and his sympathisers as the ‘real’ Genevans.215 A regiment of 1000 foreigners was brought in to police a city of 24 000 peaceful inhabitants. A statue of Vergennes set up in the place where the Small Council met reminded them of their ‘shameful obligations’ and provided the rest with a constant reminder of the horror of their situation.216 The new regime involved capitulation to French pressure in a number of areas. The bourgeoisie were deprived of their ‘right of representation’; the cercles were suppressed under suspicion that they were a key source of the unrest in the republic. The construction of a theatre was authorised. The fury of Dumont and friends knew no bounds. No doubt their anger was fuelled by the fact that so many of their fellow Genevans were inclined to follow French ways. In the 1770s theatrical societies had flourished and the efforts of the clergy to repress this urge came to nothing. As one historian wrote of the period: ‘Voltaire was gaining the upper hand over Rousseau, the spirit of the times over the spirit of Calvin.’217 It was as if the siege of Geneva had had no other purpose than this, so soon after the army came in did the construction work begin, writes Dumont, to reinforce the victory won over freedom by the destruction of republican morality; the immortal Rousseau had already seen the connection between these two projects, when he said to his fellow citizens: ‘the day when you get a taste for the amusements of corrupt peoples, you will take on their vices and their chains’. Dumont returns to this subject to mark the climax of his polemic at the end of the piece: It is among the deadly secrets of a disastrous policy, which works secretly to finish off, by the distraction of minds and the softening of moral fibre, what the last remains of the republican genius still clings to, that we must place the establishment of a theatre in our midst . . . .218 He accuses the theatre of constantly presenting images of inequality, of classifying men in terms of their wealth, of flattering vanity; the theatre, inspiring a taste for frivolity, will introduce the ordinary Genevans to all the French vices.219 Dumont’s friend d’Ivernois made acidly comical remarks about the aristocrats and the theatre, commenting that the new regime in Geneva was


enrolling actresses and their hangers-on as part of the French occupation forces on whom they founded their power.220 Ordained to the pastorate of the Genevan church on 2 December 1783, Dumont soon made himself unpopular with the authorities. He told his mentor Pastor Vernes how this day, which should have been the happiest of his life, had been spoiled by the recent revolution.221 His very first sermon (28 March 1784) contained a clear expression of contempt for the government over their allowing the construction of a theatre. The topic of the sermon was self-knowledge. Having spoken of how self-knowledge – requiring the ability and the discipline to retreat within oneself for self-examination – was the work of a lifetime, Dumont went on to say that instead of this kind of essential labour there was ‘a new system for avoiding retreat and renewal’.222 Frivolity had become the order of the day, and it was far more dangerous than people realised. Once Athens had been corrupted, the Athenians longed only for entertainment, once the Romans had lost their freedom, they consoled themselves in their theatres – a clear enough reference to Geneva’s lost liberty. ‘To escape from their tyrants they took refuge in their own baseness.’ Drowning yourself in entertainment was an infallible way to self-disgust, sadness, and to a habit of preferring appearance to reality223 and elevating politeness and futility into virtues. The sermon was greeted with universal applause. But against the background of all that I have written about Genevan political/cultural battles, it will come as no surprise that the government reaction was immediate – the preacher was visited and ordered never to preach that sermon again nor to permit it to be published unless the offending section about the theatre was removed.224 Dumont resolved to shake the dust of the republic off his feet. In fact he had already – a mere few days after his ordination – told Pastor Vernes of his resolve to leave Geneva.225 As far as he was concerned, the ministry had been honourable as long as there was something to be hoped for from the fatherland and from its morals. He was learning English and beginning to translate Adam Smith’s Theory of the Moral Sentiments. He lamented that the great days of Genevan religion were now past, a sentiment which seems to have reflected opinion among the pastorate, for whom Rousseau’s Letter to d’Alembert had been a rallying cry.226 It was to be more than 30 years before he returned to settle under the post-Napoleonic restoration regime. Over the 5 years between his departure in 1784 and the outbreak of the French Revolution he continued to agitate behind the scenes from afar for an end to the shameful status quo instituted in 1782. Indeed the reason that he found himself in Paris in 1789 at the outbreak of the Revolution was that he had gone there to complete and present his Réclamation to Necker.227 ‘It is against this background of a Genevan aristocracy completely integrated into French old regime society and in solidarity with it that we must see the agitation of the Genevan emigrés.’228 So wrote one historian. The subservience to France went beyond culture and extended to finance. Lüthy gives


a vivid description of ‘a symbiosis with France that was close to fusion’.229 He states that the rentier class was living more and more as a parasitic body on the French Treasury, ‘in a deeply unhealthy dependence’. As one near-contemporary stated only 10 years on, nineteen-twentieths of Genevan fortunes depended on the finances of France. All this added to the anger of Dumont and his peers. Even a defender of the old regime like Mallet could accept in 1803 that the 1780s had been an era of moral decline in Geneva, but he did not blame the French. He claimed that speculation had made Geneva the richest town in Europe proportionately to its population at this period, with the result that luxury came in the door and the traditional simple way of life of the Genevans went out of it, along with the equality which was the foundation of any republican edifice.230 However, he insisted that the real ruination of Geneva had been the fact that it was in the eighteenth century ‘a school of insubordination’, claiming that the religious fanaticism of earlier days had not produced anything like the evils generated by the political fanaticism of the eighteenth century.231 Writing about the current state of Geneva to his brother-in-law David Duval in December 1785, Dumont raged, . . . the town is getting more and more beautiful for foreigners but losing more and more of its charm for its citizens . . . nobody is happy, except the fops who go to the theatre, the theatre itself won’t be able to last out the year, it has managed to degrade our manners or to lay bare corruption, the most scandalous stories have brought to light infamies unknown up to now within our walls, at one time Geneva was a haven for young people who were sent there as a sanctuary still free from contagion, but nowadays parents are obliged to send their children away from a place where frivolity threatens their studies, where vices are contracted at a young age . . . .232 In the same letter, writing of Paris he says, In the heart of this town where tumult and noise wreck reflection, where a young man carried away by seductions of every kind forgets the family that cherishes him and does not have the time to think about friendship, at the time when libertinage is awake while the hard worker is getting ready to rest, when the idle and the chic think they are having a good time in their sumptuous parties, I am retreating to relax in the bosom of a cherished family . . . .233 He was only passing through Paris at the time, and his retirement ‘to be with the family’ was simply a mental exercise whereby he imagined himself with his family in St Petersburg as he penned a letter to them.


Looking back at a later date, Dumont was to be slightly more forgiving, accepting that France – and especially Paris – had been going through a particularly corrupt period following the licentiousness encouraged during the Regency, which had all but extinguished the sense of honour which had been a feature of life under Louis XIV.234 Though Dumont was a Genevan nationalist, he was not a republican pur et dur (for whom republicanism was simply the form of government) like some of his friends. His correspondence with J. L. Badollet, a friend of Albert Gallatin (1761–1849, future Secretary of the US Treasury), shows that Badollet had no time for the English constitution, which he regarded as a milk-and-water affair, and soon resolved to head for America, where he made a career for himself in public service, living to a ripe old age and dying in Ohio.235 Dumont was hostile to the fake Genevan aristocracy but not to real aristocrats, and like many of his compatriots he had a huge admiration for England, the premier Protestant power, despite the aristocratic preponderance there. Indeed, he had long nourished the desire to go to England. For many Genevans of his class, hostility to ‘French’ values was balanced by veneration for English culture, and it is no surprise that the Bibliothèque britannique, devoted to the dissemination of English literature, ideas, and values on the Continent, was founded in Geneva by Genevans.236 For the greater part of Dumont’s adult life, his closest friend was Samuel Romilly, whom he met when the latter visited Geneva. The visit to Geneva was not because Romilly was of Genevan extraction – as Mary Mack incorrectly supposes237 – for Romilly was directly descended from a French Huguenot from Montpellier who had settled in London.238 Romilly’s connection with Geneva was that his sister Catherine had married a Genevan pastor named Jean Roget (1751–1783).239 Dumont’s desire to go to London was satisfied in a rather roundabout way. The only position a pastor like himself could suitably take there was the charge of the Swiss church in London or tutoring the children of some aristocratic family. He had already done some tutoring and found it not to his liking, and there was no vacancy in the ministerial line. He was determined to leave Geneva before his 25th birthday in the summer of 1784, to avoid having to take the oath of loyalty to the regime that would otherwise have been required of him, and in the event he took a position he was offered in St Petersburg, as pastor to the tiny French Reformed community in the Russian capital. The main reason for choosing this particular location was that he had three married sisters living there. Their husbands were partners in a flourishing jewelry business.240 His sister Louise (Lisette) was married to Louis-David Duval, and an indication of the high standing of their family at Court is given by the fact that when their son Jacob-David Duval had children, two of them acquired royal godparents.241 Dumont soon became known in St Petersburg for the eloquence of his sermons, which were appreciated even at Court. One particular sermon, on egoism, was widely appreciated.242 In classic Rousseauian Genevanist terms Dumont


describes in this sermon how the egoist substitutes deference for real feelings, politeness for real affections.243 He goes on to attack ‘elegant urbane sophisticates’ for whom egoism is the principle of their lives. They prefer fashionable maxims to their duties to their families. Their children are a nuisance and are relegated to governesses. Their hearts, denied the pleasures of child-rearing, wither and turn to stone. They live in a whirlwind of boredom and converse without listening, indulging in passing liaisons that leave no impression on their hearts. Fashion, artifice, luxury, politeness are contrasted with ‘the real charm of natural affections’. They love to weep at the theatre but they hate real sufferers because such persons call out for a virtuous response. It was his reputation for eloquence and his conversational skills that provided Dumont with an escape route. His Genevan friend Francis d’Ivernois was in England and acquainted with Lord Lansdowne (formerly the Earl of Shelburne, he had been Prime Minister for 6 months in 1782), who also knew Samuel Romilly. Lord Lansdowne was a Maecenas, a typical patron of letters who liked to have the company of a tame intellectual who could also look after his extensive library for him.244 He had had Joseph Priestley in his household for eight years until 1780 and had not managed to replace him – indeed had been reduced to asking for him to come back in 1784.245 Hearing from d’Ivernois of Dumont’s liveliness as a conversationalist and general reputation for eloquence, Lansdowne made an approach. Officially Dumont would be in charge of the education of Lansdowne’s son Lord Henry but in practice Lord Henry already had a tutor, another Genevan named Voullaire (whose successor was Peter de Barry), and Dumont’s role would be simply to ‘supervise’ his education.246 In essence Dumont was to be successor to Priestley.247 He was also to play some sort of vague role as companion to Lansdowne’s friend Isaac Barré. Barré,248 who was one of Lansdowne’s closest friends and the occupant of one of the parliamentary seats in the noble lord’s patronage, was going blind, and was in need of assistance. Dumont was also given charge of Lord Lansdowne’s library, which apparently became one of the finest in London.249 This was hugely much more than the ‘insipid tutoring’ job he had feared he would be obliged to accept as the price for exile from Geneva.250 The best part of the story though for Dumont was the fact that Lord Lansdowne had arranged a government sinecure for him. The story of this sinecure was told with delightful clarity by Bentham himself (as recorded by Bowring) many years later:

In the department of the Exchequer there existed . . . a sinecure called the Clerkship of the Pells:251 produce in fees, about £3000 a year. . . . Col Barré was invested with it. Under this clerk, were clerks in considerable numbers, by whom the business was carried on: of these under clerkships, the


highest in pay and dignity (pay in fees about £400 a year) was . . . a sinecure, and . . . was given to Dumont: the said M. Dumont not being a native, this appointment was contrary to an express law, but there are times and seasons at which laws are silent, or tantamount to it.252 Lord Lansdowne has been called ‘one of the magnificent failures of the eighteenth century’.253 The same writer went on to state that He played a leading, and, for a few months, the dominant part in the great changes in English politics in the Age of the American Revolution: – the rise of the party system, and the beginnings of the reform of parliament and of the financial system. His reforms mark the beginnings of the modern civil service, the modern public accounts, and the modern systems of taxation and debt redemption. Obviously there is a great irony in this reformer of the financial system allocating sinecures to his favourites. Even more ironic was the fact that one of his proposed reforms – which did not happen then because of his fall from power – was drastically to reduce the salary of the Clerk of the Pells.254 Lansdowne had a very poor reputation and one scholar found it puzzling that he ‘made himself odious to almost everyone who had to do business with him’.255 Pitt apparently considered his 9 months serving under Lansdowne as a purgatory. But Lansdowne was very sympathetic to Dissenters and those outside the pale of Establishment thinking. Another view was presented by a contemporary styled only as ‘A D’, the anonymous author of an essay on him in Public Characters 1799–1800, a series of pen portraits of leading figures of the day.256 ‘A D’ speaks of the then Earl of Shelburne prior to his short-lived prime ministership as ‘preserving a consistency and uniformity of principle, highly creditable to his political character’.257 He enthuses about how Shelburne ‘resisted the increasing influence of the crown, and the enormous additions to the public debt’, noting that he ‘suggested an inquiry into the public expenditure, proposed an abolition of useless places and of unnecessary expense in various departments of the state, and brought forward various motions which tended to establish a more rigid system of public economy’.258 He is praised as a statesman universally acknowledged to have first-rate qualities, as a parliamentarian for the fascination of his speeches, invariably well-informed, as a human being for his energy, wit, and acuteness.259 Hostility towards him is put down to the ‘calumny of parties’.260 Dumont became a constant presence at Lansdowne’s London home and at his country seat, Bowood in Wiltshire. The ‘Bowood Circle’ was described some years later by Mme de Staël as ‘the finest gathering of enlightened men that England, and consequently the world, can offer’.261 At a stroke, Dumont was catapulted into the very heart of the Whig aristocracy. The person to


whom Dumont was now attached and the circle in which he now moved was described thus by one historian: [Lord Lansdowne’s] ability was of the first order, and was matched by his industry. . . . Bowood and Lansdowne House were princely houses, and [Lansdowne] filled them not with fashionable gamesters and rakes, but with the first brains of the time. . . . All that was best worth patronising he patronised: he lived in terms of intellectual equality with the cleverest thinkers in science, in economics, in political theory. He maintained a regular intercourse with well-informed correspondents of many countries: he kept his own staff of clerks at Lansdowne House to analyse and examine the public accounts. He was a government department in himself; he knew more about the revenue than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and more about diplomacy than the Foreign Secretary. He was armed at all points, a professional among amateurs.262

4 The Creator of the Bentham Brand: (2) Dumont in the French Revolution

The character of Etienne Dumont had been formed and tested in the Genevan cockpit. His experience had been enriched in St Petersburg and his exposure to life among the Whig elite in England. But if 1782 was the first crucial turning point in his development, 1789 was to be the second. However, if the events of 1782 in Geneva had strongly reinforced his inbred sense of moral values and nationalistic zeal, 1789 was to do the opposite. The French Revolution impacted on Dumont in the same way it did on very many of his contemporaries:1 it wrecked his system of beliefs. But he did not take the path followed by many others – including his friend Francis d’Ivernois – to reaction. Rather, he reached out and grasped what seemed to him to be the new system of beliefs promoted by Bentham, which enabled him to retain an essentially liberal outlook while eschewing the wilder shores of Jacobinism or the republicanism of friends like Badollet and Gallatin. This system cannot have been totally unfamiliar to Dumont because much of it overlapped with the views of his great friend and Bentham’s friend Romilly. What caused Dumont to jump ship from the Genevan nationalist virtuism he had espoused in his youth were the shocks to his system of all that he witnessed in the National Assembly in 1789. Although he was still defending the Revolution to friends in early 1792, he had converted to utilitarianism by then. There are, however, two stories about Dumont in the Revolution; before we consider the story of his conversion to utilitarianism, there is the other story, the story of his involvement with Mirabeau to be told.

I

Mirabeau

Before there was Bentham (or, between Rousseau and Bentham), there was Mirabeau – labelled by François Furet and Ran Halévi as ‘the most famous figure in the Assembly of 1789’.2 Aulard describes him as forming ‘a kind of one-man party in the Constituent Assembly’.3 Dumont’s fame derives not just from the promotional skills which he applied so assiduously to the marketing of Bentham: he also left behind him a timebomb in the form of a 132

Dumont in the French Revolution

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manuscript account of his experiences with Mirabeau. It was a timebomb that was exploded shortly after his death by his nephew in the form of a text entitled Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, published in 1832.4 By this time Mirabeau’s name was surrounded with an aureole of glory and he was regarded as a hero of the Revolution. On 23 June 1789, Louis XVI had appeared in the assembly of the Third Estate, announced that the distinction they so hated between the three orders with their three separate assemblies was to be preserved, and declared all deliberations of the Third Estate up to that point null and void. It was Mirabeau’s words of open defiance to Dreux-Brézé, the King’s emissary, that rallied the Tiers on that day, and his famous apostrophe ‘we shall not leave unless we are forced to at the point of the bayonet’ echoed around Europe and found its way into the revolutionary myth.5 From this point Mirabeau had rapidly become known as one of the leading orators of the National Assembly. The main bombshell in Dumont’s book, which ran to a second edition within weeks of coming out and was immediately translated into English,6 was its exposé of the extent to which Mirabeau had relied on other people to do most of his literary work and his speechwriting for him: not just Dumont himself along with certain Genevan friends, but numerous others. This hit the headlines at a time when something like a cult of Mirabeau had been developing among the 1830 generation of revolutionaries. Barbara Luttrell points out that in 1831 ‘four plays celebrating his memory were running simultaneously in Paris theatres’.7 Although in reality there was nothing new about the information in Dumont’s book, for Mirabeau’s plagiarism had been well known in his own lifetime,8 admirers of Mirabeau nonetheless refused to believe Dumont’s story, and for 50 years after the publication of the Souvenirs many tried to discredit Dumont. The first and the most prominent of these was Mirabeau’s adoptive son, Lucas de Montigny, who published his multi-volume Mémoires de Mirabeau soon afterwards (1834–1835).9 The opening words of this massive work make his purpose plain: Mirabeau adopted, in 1783, a child born the previous year; he treated this child with a deeply paternal tenderness; he kept the child near him, took him on his travels, and did not separate himself from the child until his dying breath, when he handed him over to his friends; and, as if he had guessed that those friends, locked into a mute and sterile admiration, would do nothing to defend his memory against party hatreds, he commended it to the child . . . I am that child and I am going to try to fulfil that duty.10 The splenetic fury of many French admirers of Mirabeau when faced with Dumont’s book is typified by Jules Janin, whose two-part review of Dumont’s book constitutes a long rant focussing exclusively on the warts in Dumont’s portrait.11 No less a person than Goethe, however, pointed


out that Dumont’s revelations did nothing to damage Mirabeau’s stature, as ‘everybody outside France’ could understand. He observed very wisely to Dumont’s nephew Soret that the greatest genius would not get very far if he relied on his own resources. It was of the nature of genius to make use of whatever materials came to hand.12 Well before Goethe, Dumont’s friend Samuel Romilly had commented that ‘Of all Mirabeau’s extraordinary talents, his faculty of availing himself of the knowledge and abilities of others was perhaps the most extraordinary.’13 Included with the Duval edition of the Souvenirs are facsimiles of notes from Mirabeau to Dumont. They are reproduced in the 1832 English translation and transcribed and translated in Lady Seymour’s The Great Frenchman and the Little Genevese.14 Unfortunately Lady Seymour’s transcriptions are very inaccurate and the translations not very satisfactory, but this does nothing to diminish their cumulative effect as showing that Mirabeau looked to Dumont for ideas, materials, and texts.15 Further evidence corroborating the claims of Dumont and other contemporaries of Mirabeau began to emerge in 1874 with the publication of Plan’s book in which Mirabeau’s manuscript letters to Reybaz, one of the quattuor of his Genevan collaborators,16 were published for the first time.17 These letters make it plain that Mirabeau was exploiting the talents of Reybaz as consultant and speechwriter just exactly as Dumont had said. Confirmation was provided not long afterwards by Alphonse Aulard, widely regarded as the pioneer modern historian of the French Revolution, and well known for his resolute preference for original sources and research ‘without preconceptions’.18 Although there were further outbursts of rage against the Genevan collaborators by adulators of Mirabeau in the early twentieth century,19 Aulard’s acceptance of the evidence of Dumont’s veracity was reaffirmed in more modern times by Georges Lefebvre.20 But the most solid phalanx of evidence backing the veracity of Dumont’s story is to be found in a study called l’Atelier de Mirabeau (‘Mirabeau’s thinktank’, 1962). Jean Bénétruy, the book’s author, makes a number of detailed comparisons of Mirabeau speeches with extant manuscript texts in the handwriting of one or other of his reported collaborators, as well as drawing on material from Mirabeau’s correspondence to demonstrate Dumont’s reliability. Bénétruy’s book is a model of scholarship, beautifully written, carefully researched, and fully annotated. It is all the more surprising then to note how little trace of him, his personality, aims, or agenda, remains. In addition to l’Atelier de Mirabeau, Bénétruy put modern historians of the Revolution further in his debt by producing a fine scholarly edition of the Souvenirs in 1950. Strangely though, his name barely features on the Internet, and l’Atelier – for all that it is frequently quoted – is almost unobtainable (nor was it ever translated into English). It is known that he was a Catholic priest with a doctorate in Canon Law – could this be a reason why he has been so little discussed? It is difficult to imagine a type of person more alien to the typical mentality of Revolution


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scholars. But there is another and perhaps more disturbing reason for the silence. For Bénétruy clearly has an agenda, and it is not a welcome one in the historiography of the Revolution. Essentially he is making a connection between the représentant exiles from Geneva of 1782 and the French Revolution. He describes how these men left their homeland with a sense of burning resentment against France and a determination to get a change of heart in Versailles towards Geneva. In Mirabeau they found someone who was both sympathetic to their cause and potentially influential enough to help them achieve their goals. The implication is clear: a deliberate policy on the part of a group of Genevans to manipulate the Revolution to their own ends.21 Such a thesis is uncomfortably suggestive of the style of counterrevolutionary accusation made by a Joseph de Maistre, according to whom the Revolution was the result of a plot involving Protestants, Jansenists, philosophes, and Gallicans (but not Freemasons – that came from Barruel and Robison – nor Jews).22 Bénétruy quotes some telling words of Dumont’s from a letter to Romilly in the Autumn of 1789 just after the Assembly had quashed Mirabeau’s hopes of entering the government: ‘If the ministry in contemplatione had actually been appointed at this moment, Duroveray and I would have been on our way to Geneva to promote a revolution there, it was all arranged, we would have seen no more French Residents in the Republic, but our fine projects have been delayed . . . .’23 It is clear that Dumont and his Genevan friends did desire to see a new regime in France more favourable to their Genevan cause, and Dumont was equally keen to see the destruction of the Catholic Church in France. He stated this very plainly in a letter to Romilly of 25 January 1791, on the debates in the Assembly about a married priesthood. ‘It is certain that they should have taken the opportunity to destroy Catholicism in France. Those who say that the people were not ready for this forget what state the people were in at the time that the Protestant religion was embraced by England, Switzerland, and part of Germany.’24 To read this statement in the light of Maistre’s allegations that the Revolution was fundamentally aimed against the Catholic Church and her values is sobering. One of the most celebrated proponents of conspiracy theory in the aftermath of the Revolution was J. L. Soulavie, whose version centred on an Anglo-Genevan plot to crush the power of France. The author was French Resident in Geneva at the height of the Terror there for over a year and so witnessed some of the atrocities committed in the name of the Revolution. It is easy to dismiss this kind of writing because Soulavie makes all kinds of wild accusations, many of which can be very easily disproved, but some consideration needs to be given to his work not simply because the Genevans around Mirabeau play a very prominent role in his story and because some people no doubt believed it, but because not all of what he says is entirely inaccurate. What is particularly interesting is the importance assigned by Soulavie to the events of 1782 in Geneva. His thesis is


set out in an ‘Analytical Table of the Anarchy introduced in the department of Finance during the reign of Lewis XVI.’25 In this he begins with Necker’s appearance at the head of French finances in 1776, asserting that the Genevan banker was ‘author of the system of loans and transfers, the father of jobbing, and the inventor of the English system . . . ’. He contrasts with this Calonne’s administration from 1783 based on the classic ‘French policies’ pursued by Vauban and Sully and the physiocrats – ‘subjecting all lands to the impost, and . . . the improvement of the receipt’.26 He notes that the second Necker administration coincided with the formation of the States General. He then identifies the next phase of Anglo-Genevan domination in the ministry of Clavière, claiming that he was ‘a distributor of the English subsidy of 50 000 pounds sterling, granted to the Anglo-Genevese revolutionary party banished from Geneva by France’. It was perfectly true that the British government had assisted Genevan refugees from the French Occupation of 1782. Some contemporary observers were then ready to connect the events of Geneva in 1782 and the French Revolution, suspecting that the latter was fomented by victims of the former as an act of revenge. Soulavie’s take was that it was the English who provided the needful support for this. Speaking of the failure of the English government to make any effort to save Louis XVI from execution, he writes, Mr Pitt might in a moment have destroyed all the revolutionary and preparatory measures of the d’Ivernois, Duroverays, and Dumonts; he might have annihilated the insurrections of the mob of the suburbs, planned, executed, and paid by Clavières [sic]; he could have rendered null all the attempts and violence of Marat. The intentions of England, in receiving these revolutionists, were far from being unsullied; nor did she send them to France when in a state of revolution, without meaning. According to the system of Mr Pitt, it was the interest of England to reduce your country [i.e. France] to a state that it would no longer dare to accuse the English of regicide. Mr Pitt was desirous that his country should have no occasion thereafter to hang down their heads when out of their own island, in consequence of the manifestoes of your ministers, and the writings of your authors; and it is because the English still blush at the execution of Charles I, that a few adventurers, nurtured in the conspiracies of Geneva, and who had departed with an ill-regulated mind from the centre of our revolutions, that Dumont, d’Ivernois, Clavières, Marat, and others, were employed in the execution of the various scenes and proscriptions of the 14th of July, the 20th of June, the 10th of August, and the 21st of January. Englishmen, I will venture to say, were scarcely capable of conducting these revolutions themselves, because they were not exasperated against your government to the same degree as our exiles were.27


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The mention of Marat together with Dumont et al. is intriguing. Doctor, scientist, and revolutionary extremist Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1893) – famously murdered by Charlotte Corday – was born at Boudry near Neuchâtel and his mother was a Genevan. He himself left Switzerland in 1760 to go to France, but subsequently lived several years in England where he wrote radical works in English. His brother David was involved in the revolutionary events of 1789 in Geneva.28 Another brother, Jean-Pierre Marat (or Marat-Lossier) was born in Geneva in 1767 and was in the employ of Soulavie.29 It is obvious why Soulavie included him along with Dumont and the others, but I have not found any evidence of connections between him and Dumont. Even while generations of historians have pillaged Dumont in their researches,30 resentment persists against Dumont down to the present day, and the most recent biography of Mirabeau in English, that by Barbara Luttrell, treats Dumont’s account – and his motives – with suspicion. She puzzlingly dismisses him along with Du Roveray as ‘hangers-on’ rather than friends, and goes on to write, The modest pastor with secret ambitions and a knack of inserting his foot into the doorways of more talented men, had assumed that working for Mirabeau would bring him a certain fame among the cognoscenti as the true author of his genius. Mirabeau, like Bentham after him, had had to engage with a character genial on the surface but with a core of resentful vanity.31 Unfortunately she combines this quite unwarranted attack on Dumont with a display of ignorance, claiming that he returned to London in January 1791 ‘having failed to find employment with his patron, Lord Lansdowne’.32 Since at this time Dumont was never out of the employment of Lansdowne, the comment is a very strange one. Luttrell’s attitude is really rather curious because in reality the Genevan’s presentation shows him to have been very fond of Mirabeau. The fact that Mirabeau turns out to have used speechwriters and thinktanks seems perfectly normal today when such things are taken for granted with politicians. The most recent French-language biography of Mirabeau, by ChaussinandNogaret, ignores the issue entirely and sidelines Mirabeau’s helpers.33 But generally speaking French historians have come to accept Dumont’s fundamental supportiveness of Mirabeau and to see that his account need not be read as diminishing the celebrated orator’s stature. Noting that Michelet called Mirabeau ‘the very voice of the Revolution’, François Furet refers to Dumont’s recognition that Mirabeau’s ability to exploit material all around him from other sources to harness it to his purpose was indeed ‘an extraordinary talent’.34 The same distinguished historian of the Revolution observes that while Sieyès was the philosopher of the Revolution, Mirabeau was its artist,35


and this is a remarkably astute way of conveying what Mirabeau was about – he was like the sculptor hewing his statue out of materials provided for him by others. Nowadays the fact that Mirabeau relied on others to produce most of ‘his’ work is pretty much taken for granted. For example, in his study of Cabanis, the physician who attended Mirabeau at the end of his life,36 Martin Staum notes that Cabanis ‘joined the circle of researchers and scriptwriters who collaborated with Mirabeau’ and readily concludes that Cabanis himself mainly wrote the first three of the four discourses published posthumously under Mirabeau’s name in 1791.37 One person who had no doubt that Dumont’s book was actually good for Mirabeau’s reputation – at least in England, where the rightness or wrongness of what happened in 1789 and afterwards was still a hot topic of debate in the 1830s – was the anonymous translator of the Souvenirs. In his introduction he wrote, There is no public character whose actions have been more the subject of misrepresentation, and over whom calumny has had greater sway, than the Count de Mirabeau. He is known in this country rather as one of the most profligate promoters of the French Revolution, than as the most extraordinary man of his age, in those surpassing endowments of mind in which he far surpassed all the great luminaries of that brilliant period; and it has been reserved for Dumont, a man of high character and unsullied principles, to rescue his name from the blind obloquy by which it has been so long and unjustly obscured.38 Down the years Mirabeau’s character, conduct during the Revolution, and politics have proved to be controversial among historians.39 Dumont himself observed that in 1790 Mirabeau was the object of conversation all over France and indeed all over Europe, as the most dominant personality in the Assembly. He was the one visitors looked for among the deputies, they were happy if they had the chance to hear him speak.40 On his death, theatres and public entertainments were closed, mourning clothes were the order of the day, and his cortege included members of the Assembly, of the municipality, of the Department, of the National Guard, and so on, with a vast concourse of bystanders. ‘ . . . a profoundly mournful silence reigned among this immense multitude, which seemed overwhelmed by an extraordinary new feeling.’41 Sismondi called him ‘the first great master of parliamentary oratory in France’.42 On 5 August 1792 at a ceremony to celebrate the abolition of feudal dues 3 years earlier several busts were solemnly carried into the city hall in Paris, including those of Rousseau, Voltaire, Franklin, and the recently deceased Mirabeau, ‘victim of despotism, orator of liberty’.43 But the discovery not long afterwards of secret correspondence between Mirabeau and the Court revealing that the late great orator had been receiving money from the Court damaged Mirabeau’s Revolutionary credentials


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badly.44 Leading left-wing historians of the Revolution like Aulard dismissed him as an apostate,45 while Soboul condemned him for having sold his services to the Court.46 Luttrell comments that ‘this commitment to serve the king’s interests would become the great ineradicable stain on his record for future historians of the left’.47 Romilly, who knew him well, admitted that his being in the pay of the Court might be considered a ‘gross immorality’ but added that ‘those who believe that he suffered himself to be bribed to do what his own heart and judgement condemned, and that unbribed he would have acted a very different part, do him, in my opinion, and I had frequent opportunities of hearing his sentiments at the different periods when I was intimately acquainted with him, very great injustice’.48 This is a most remarkable testimony from someone so renowned for his own integrity in public life. Dumont commented that although he received an allowance first from Monsieur and then from the King, Mirabeau took their pensions as their agent to govern them rather than to be governed by them.49 Mirabeau not only began his parliamentary career in 1789 as a convinced monarchist, but clung to his convictions to the end. As early as 1788, we find him writing to the comte de Montmorin, the Foreign Secretary, warning him that the monarchy was in danger and stressing that it could only be saved if ministers became much more proactive and set the agenda for the deputies rather than waiting for them to decide it themselves, even offering to draw up a master plan for the defence of the throne.50 Dumont’s statement in the Souvenirs that Mirabeau later regretted that the Tiers had converted themselves into the National Assembly because he felt it had opened the door to anarchy and demagoguery51 has probably not added to the number of Mirabeau’s admirers, since this event has acquired an almost totemic status as ‘the dawn of freedom’. At least one historian called it ‘the precise date on which the Revolution began’.52 More recently however, Furet spoke of the ‘miracle’ by which the ‘double life’ of Mirabeau amounted not to ‘an imposture’ but to a ‘fidelity’, for he pleaded the cause of the King in the Assembly while pleading the cause of the Revolution with the King. Furet notes that even his enemy Lafayette could say of Mirabeau: ‘Mirabeau was not indifferent to money; but no amount of it would have persuaded him to defend an opinion that would have destroyed liberty or threatened his integrity.’53 Another contemporary scholar sympathetic to Mirabeau is Anne Sa’adah. She considers that he was the only moderate member of the Assembly with anything like a political programme: ‘ . . . although his recommendations were often shunned by an uncomprehending Assembly and an unwilling Court, he alone, among all the leaders of the Revolution, proposed a coherent political strategy constructed around the moderate demands.’54 A recent biographer of Sieyès points out that during the crucial weeks of 1789 which made the Revolution, the Assembly was dominated by him and Mirabeau, whom he calls ‘the two founders of the Revolution.’55 Another


historian spoke of ‘the three major figures in the Summer of 1789’ – at least in the order of ideas – as being Mounier, Mirabeau, and Sieyès.56 Mirabeau’s early life clearly affected his outlook deeply. Born in 1749,57 he was the son of the famous Physiocrat the vicomte de Mirabeau, known as l’ami des hommes.58 Disputes with his father led to disastrous consequences for him, since his father applied to the King for a lettre de cachet to have him imprisoned. This imbued him with a lifelong hatred of despotism, and he vented his anger in his Essai sur le Despotisme.59 (In spite of his anger at his treatment by his father, however, he seems to have taken on board his father’s laissez-fairism, which he preferred to the protectionism of Necker.) He incurred further notoriety – and a death sentence he was fortunate to elude – by running away from prison with a married woman, and the combination of this with his public disputes with his father meant that when the Estates General began in 1789 and he turned up as the Deputy for Aix-en-Provence, he was in many people’s eyes a byword for immorality and debauchery. Robespierre observed that initially Mirabeau was completely undermined in the Assembly by his own universal reputation for immorality.60 At the same time he was a prolific publisher of books; but already in the years before the Revolution he had developed the habit of relying on others to do the actual writing for him.61 Dumont first met Mirabeau on a trip with Romilly to Paris in 1788.62 Romilly had already known him for some years. Dumont – who was not easily won over by French aristocrats – found this one’s charm quite irresistible, and the encounter was the start of a new phase in his life that began the following year. Mirabeau professed himself to be an admirer of Geneva (and of Rousseau63 and all the distinguished men it had produced), alleging that he himself would never be happy if he could not contribute to break the chains riven onto it by the revolution of 1782. Mirabeau’s connections with Geneva went back to his visit to Neuchâtel in 1782 to see his editor Fauche and ask for a loan.64 In Neuchâtel he met Du Roveray and Clavière, who had just been banished from their homeland, and this was the beginning of a long collaboration with Clavière.65 By coincidence, another future key player in the French Revolution spent time with them in Neuchâtel at this juncture: J.-P. Brissot.66 Brissot went on to publish an impassionedly propagandistic pro-représentant account of recent events in Geneva.67 Impassioned about the reform of the law, Brissot had a vision similar to Bentham’s – the simplification of the mass of burdensome commentary inherited from the past; it was to be replaced by the ‘rational’ approach of the philosopher, who approached the law by meditating on the social pact and the goal of society. The proper goal should be restored and the means to achieve it reformed. Brissot believed, however, that the goal in question was conformity with the order of nature, which had been followed in France before the appearance of the Parlements, and which had always been followed in England. You


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could even find it being followed out in the forests, where ‘man is closer to nature’.68 Although this kind of ‘naturism’ seems to distance Brissot from Bentham’s philosophy, with its rejection of the idea of a social pact and distrust of historical precedent, it is worth remembering that Bentham’s view of trial procedure, for example, was that it should stay as close to the ‘natural’ simple ways of human experience as possible: he proposes the father of the house seeking to establish the truth about some incident in the home from the members of his family as a model. His hostility to lawyers’ jargon was that they deliberately eschewed ordinary ‘natural’ language in order to obfuscate everything and conceal it from the general public, for purposes of making themselves indispensable. There is a definite thread of the ‘return to nature’ in Bentham. Impressed by what these Genevans were telling him, Mirabeau attempted to intervene with the French government on their behalf, dispatching a memorandum to Foreign Minister Vergennes on 8 October 1782 in which he urged the latter to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the defeated party in order to discourage the threatened mass emigration, which he claimed would damage the interests of France.69 The copy of this memorandum in the Archives of the French Department of Foreign Affairs seems to have been written by Du Roveray rather than by Mirabeau himself, which was a foretaste of their future collaboration. In 1784 Mirabeau met Clavière and Du Roveray again in London. Mirabeau’s stay in England was important for another reason – it converted him to respect for the English constitution. Initially he found much to dislike in England, but after a few months he began to change his attitude.70 He found himself conceding that the British constitution, though certainly not perfect, was nonetheless the best available, and he seems for a while to have planned to write a study of it. This too would of course have endeared him to Dumont. It might still seem implausible that a Genevan Spartanist like Dumont, so imbued with moral seriousness and so concerned with rectitude, so suspicious of ‘French’ manners and morals, should have been so attracted to this notorious adventurer whose respect for the public mores of the day was so lacking: he was even quite happy to make money from publishing pornography. Dumont himself wrote that when they met in 1788, Mirabeau’s reputation was ‘as bad as it could possibly have been’.71 On the other hand, Dumont commented on Mirabeau’s scant respect for the conventions of politesse and his frankness in conversation, suggesting that the Frenchman was what we might today call ‘very real’ – or perhaps ‘just like a true Genevan’ in terms of the myth with which Dumont grew up.72 , Mirabeau was also imbued with Rousseauism: for example, in a letter to Romilly he argued that hospitals, poorhouses, asylums, and orphanages should be transported out of cities and into the country. He suggests that it is an odd thing that establishments that subsist on the charity of the government and the


nation are placed in the towns, where luxury makes everything dearer. The upkeep of such establishments will be cheaper in the country. He goes on to argue that it is in towns that the staff of such establishments are most likely to rob the inmates. Such crimes, he adds Rousseauistically, can only be committed in places where the greatest excesses have become needs, where passions are constantly being excited and constantly satisfied so that feelings are dulled.73 Mirabeau was a devotee of Rousseau in other ways. His love letters to Sophie Monnier, with whom he had eloped to Holland, show that they shared a common obsession with the author of La Nouvelle Héloïse. Mirabeau refers to him as ‘the god of eloquence’ and ‘the apostle of virtue’. Their ambition was to attain to greater heights of passion than Julie and Saint-Preux.74 Mirabeau, despite being a minor aristocrat himself – whom Dumont later mocked for his attachment to his title – had form as an enemy of aristocracy. In 1784 he had published a diatribe against a newly founded American society of ex-soldiers known as the Society of the Cincinnati.75 Franklin and others had been particularly annoyed because the Society had agreed that membership would pass to the eldest male descendants of the founders, which seemed to be sowing the seeds of a future American aristocracy. Franklin gave Mirabeau a copy of a work attacking the Society,76 and Mirabeau published a French version of this in London in 1784.77 Mirabeau’s own father felt alienated by his son’s fondness for ‘Protestant prejudices’ as evinced in De la Monarchie Prussienne sous Frédéric le Grand, which the son had dedicated to his father on its publication in 1788.78 The marquis disliked the fact that his son took every opportunity to attack Catholicism.79 Along with all these factors which provided common ground between Mirabeau and Dumont, we should also note their shared antipathy to Necker. As early as 1788, Mirabeau ‘was friendly with all Necker’s enemies’.80 Not only did Mirabeau cling faithfully to the physiocratic doctrines of his father which on certain points Necker opposed, he was also irritated by the ostentatious virtue which Necker liked to flaunt.81 After Mirabeau and Dumont had met in Paris in 1788 they paid a visit together to the Salpêtriere prison and the Bicêtre hospital. Dumont saw the prison as a school for crime and the hospital as a breeding-ground for germs. Typically, he regarded these two institutions as symptomatic of French insouciance and frivolity.82 Romilly was so affected by what he saw that he wrote an account of it in a letter to a friend. Dumont described the account to Mirabeau who insisted on seeing it and then translated and published it.83 Mirabeau added to it a translation of an anonymous work on the administration of the penal laws in England and another translation of a little piece by Benjamin Franklin. There are, however, discrepancies between Dumont’s version of the episode and Romilly’s in his Memoirs.84 Romilly states that it was Mirabeau who asked him to write an account of the visit, and adds that the anonymous writing was in fact his own reply to Madan’s book on repressive justice.85 When Romilly returned to London he had his text printed in The


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Repository,86 giving it out as a translation from Mirabeau. The report refers to overcrowding in the hospital such that patients have to bathe four at a time.87 The asylum is said to be ‘more properly a receptacle for madness, than an hospital for their cure’. The public pay to look at the inmates: ‘That such savage amusements should be endured in any civilized country, is scarcely credible, but that they should be tolerated by a nation . . . so boastful of its humanity as the French, exceeds all imagination.’88 Regarding the prison, the writer notes that details of crimes, names, and terms are secret and observes that ‘Secresy, which in all matters that concern the internal government of a country, can only serve to screen abuses, does, in the administration of justice, far greater mischief; it becomes a source of injustice, and defeats the only legitimate end of punishment.’89 In December 1788 there were disturbances in Geneva resulting from a dispute over an actress – an episode which of course delighted those like Dumont who considered the incursion of a theatre to be a stain on the purity of the Republic.90 A popular actress had been expelled after having seduced the son of one of the Genevan aristocrats, whereupon some young men protested against this expulsion by creating disturbances in the theatre; this led to their being excluded from it. Dumont’s friend Mouchon wrote to him with exquisite irony to say that a Tribunal decision had led to there being ‘people who were excomédiés until they gave proof of morals worthy of the theatre’.91 This delightful expression is a play on the theological term ‘excommunicated’ – that is excluded from communion. In this case the punishment is ‘exclusion from the Comedy’. In January 1789 there were more serious disturbances in reaction to a government attempt to raise the price of bread in the middle of an exceptionally cold winter, and the government was forced to make concessions. It was obliged to seek the support of the représentants to get order restored, and in return the latter called for the revision of the political status quo.92 The Military Council was abolished, the paid garrison reduced, and its barracks closed; the citizen militia was reestablished, the cercles were allowed to reopen on condition that they did not turn into forums for political discussion. These concessions left Dumont and his network very dissatisfied for various reasons.93 Under the existing arrangements by which France was a co-guarantor of the peace of Geneva, the authorities had to obtain the consent of the French government to the new status quo, and Dumont went to France in the Spring of 1789 in hopes of persuading Versailles to refuse its sanction, thereby making necessary a revision of the settlement.94 It was for this reason that he was in France when the Estates General opened on 5 May 1789; with Du Roveray, hoping first to achieve a complete restoration of Geneva’s liberty by bringing an end to the highly irksome Guarantee; and second, to finish what the 1789 Genevan revolution had in his view merely begun – for the ‘popular party’ had recovered only a part of the rights lost in 1782. They misguidedly believed that the presence of Necker at the heart of the French Court would make their enterprise easier.95 Jarrett observes


that Necker had in fact never shown any stomach to fight for the cause that Dumont believed in, his Geneva being ‘the Geneva of the old establishment, the financiers who had subscribed to his loans between 1776 and 1781 and who would do so again if he could buttress French government credit with the confidence that sprang from a properly managed representative body’.96 Through his association with Mirabeau, Dumont became involved at the heart of events in those critical early months of the Revolution. First, he found himself called upon to provide material for Mirabeau’s speeches in the Assembly and in some cases actually to compose parts of speeches or even entire speeches.97 Second, he acted as an adviser to Mirabeau both individually and as part of the Genevan thinktank, where Mirabeau discussed strategy at crucial moments such as the debates on the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Third, he coedited the Courier de Provence, the journal that Mirabeau founded to disseminate accounts of the proceedings in the Assembly; eventually he ended up as a sole editor. Fourth, he wrote the texts of certain addresses made by the Assembly to the King: indeed he came to regard the composition of such addresses as his particular ‘thing’. This was to be the high point of Dumont’s political involvement; never again was he to find himself at the heart of the political life of a great nation. In the early days of his own short but high-profile political career, Mirabeau drew heavily on the services of his Genevan thinktank. Initially they were three – Du Roveray and Clavière were the other two – later they were joined by Reybaz. It is important to be clear about the nature of the Genevans’ influence on Mirabeau.98 There cannot be the slightest doubt but that Dumont and Du Roveray at least never anticipated a republican revolution in France nor did they desire one. Both Dumont and Du Roveray had a close acquaintance with England and their preference was for an English-style constitution in France.99 Dumont commented that in 1789 he had no thought of anything more than an imitation of the English government, which he regarded as ‘the finest model for political constitutions’.100 As Richard Whatmore wrote recently: ‘The Souvenirs articulated the view that had France moved towards Britain’s political model the result would have been less bloodshed, greater domestic stability, and a larger measure of international peace throughout the 1790s.’101 Whatmore quotes a very pungent observation by the historian Lerminier on Dumont, that he did not understand France, its spirit, its revolution, or Mirabeau. ‘Loyal to Genevan habits, he constantly sacrificed France to England; he did not forgive the Constituent Assembly for its failure to look like the House of Commons. In general Genevan writers are more open and more benevolent in respect of Germany and England than they are towards France. That can be explained by their Calvinist education.’102 In a letter of June 1789 to Romilly, Dumont lamented that the deputies ‘have so much of the national vanity, they are so pretentious, that they much prefer idiocies of their own choice to the lessons of British experience’. Further on, he observed that the British government is ‘despised as something that


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shames human reason’.103 Jarrett describes where Dumont and Du Roveray stood in 1789 thus: If the Estates General was to bring about the regeneration of France, the recovery of ancient liberties similar to those restored in England in 1688, then rights must be confirmed by royal charter and the Assembly must be sanctioned by royal decree. The alternative, a charter rehearsing natural and pre-existing rights and an Assembly deriving its authority from the people, would launch the French into the same dangerous void of uncertainty which the Americans already inhabited.104 In an earlier book Jarrett claimed that the effects of the Genevans’ Anglomania were counterproductive, for they merely fed the suspicions of Anglophobes among the deputies. Dumont, says Jarrett, ‘was a kind of burning glass, focussing the rays of Anglophobia with devastating effect upon the hapless Mirabeau’.105 Soulavie could not have been more wrong then to talk about the modelling of ‘the French democracy’ in 1789 on ‘the democracy inspired by Mirabeau, together with Dumont, Reybas [sic], Clavières [sic], and Duroveray’, as opposed to the British constitution, which he mistakenly says they despised.106 For it was precisely the British constitution whose merits they fought so vainly to advocate to the Assembly. Dumont’s emphasis on the deputies’ hostility to the British system is however misleading, for as Bonno shows, there was in fact a strong current of thought in France in favour of modelling reform of the constitution on English practice in 1789.107 Gouverneur Morris wrote on 3 March that there was a universal desire to imitate the English.108 Sieyès even complained that people were quite ready to mock a Frenchman who did not prostrate himself before the British constitution.109 It was a mania which at that point in time could be found in all classes of French society, though sometimes it was the criminal justice system across the Channel that impressed people rather than the political system.110 On the other hand, Rivarol complained that while many Frenchmen would be quite happy to be on a level with the English, the deputies insisted on going one better and instead of profiting from English experience, wanted to turn France into an experiment. ‘Prudence told them to imitate, vanity told them to create, and they did not hesitate.’111 By January 1791, Cerutti could claim that the new French constitution would serve as a model for reforming the British one.112 One of the practical ways that Dumont tried to promote the English system as an example to the French was through offering the deputies information about how debates were organised in the English House of Commons. At the beginning of 1789, Romilly had already had a request from France for a summary of the House of Commons rules of debate; he had drawn one up himself and sent it to the comte de Sarsfield.


Sarsfield had started to translate it into French but died before the completion of the work. It was Dumont who took over, and the task was done by 21 June.113 Around this date Réglements observés dans la Chambre des Communes pour débattre les matières et pour voter was published in Paris, ‘edited’ by Mirabeau.114 Although Clavière was rather a different proposition from the other two Genevans, being more of a republican in the modern sense in that he believed ‘that the republicanism of the American Revolution could be applied to large European monarchies’,115 in practice it was not he but the other two who were Mirabeau’s most powerful propagandists in 1789 as co-editors of the Courier de Provence. Lucas de Montigny alleged that the group of Genevans got at Mirabeau and turned him into a tool, compromising him publicly by associating him with republicanism or at least with sedition.116 Bénétruy points out acidly that it is strange to see Lucas de Montigny suggest that his heroic Mirabeau, ‘the dominant genius of the early days of the Revolution’, could have been enslaved and domesticated in such a way by a few foreigners.117 Dumont was extremely angry with his friend Achille du Chastellet when the latter allowed Tom Paine to fill his head with republican ideas.118 As Whatmore writes, ‘One of the points Dumont sought to emphasize in the Souvenirs was that men like himself, republicans when considering Geneva, were nevertheless the main enemies of democracy and republicanism in France.’119 Under the editorship of Dumont and Du Roveray, the Courier de Provence was never a republican organ, it consistently preached constitutional monarchy. It consistently lamented the prevalence of suspicion with regard to the King, reserving its venom for the Court and the aristocratic clique which gave the King such bad advice. In other words, the Genevans were at one with Mirabeau, whose great idea, according to Furet, was to reconcile monarchy and democracy, to ally the old monarchical power with that of the ‘popular party’. ‘Mirabeau understood right from the start in 1789 what neither the defenders of the Old Regime nor the moderate bourgeois could grasp: that the power of the King of France, rooted in divine right, had to be rebaptised by the new legitimacy that came from below.’120 Camille Desmoulins later observed that ‘on 12 July 1789 there were probably not even as many as ten of us republicans in France’.121 Desmoulins also theorised that Pitt and the English government were behind the events of 1789, Pitt being allegedly desirous of revenge for France’s interference in the war with the Americans, while the English still nurtured rancour for Richelieu’s interference in the Civil War.122 He named ‘the Englishman [sic] Dumont and the Genevan Du Roveray’ as agents of the British government.123 This accusation is actually more plausible, given their affection for England, than the suggestion that the Genevans were devoted to the spread of republicanism. It is ironic to see how the suspicions of the revolutionary left matched up with those of later critics of the Revolution from the right like Soulavie.


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Clavière’s interests were not quite the same as those of his two Genevan colleagues. Clavière was a banker and financier and he coveted Necker’s position – which he did obtain in 1792. In the late 1780s, he became interested in buying up the American debt and he sent Brissot to America to find out some information about the debt stock.124 As Jarrett put it, ‘Clavière had his own international visions, just as compelling in their way as those of Lansdowne and Bentham and Dumont and Duroveray.’ Clavière was the one who was eventually to accommodate to the republican regime in France and take office in it.

II

The Revolution begins125

One of Mirabeau’s first achievements in 1789 was to establish the freedom of the press. Immediately the Estates General opened, he began publishing his Journal des Etats Généraux without seeking governmental permission according to the regulations. The journal was suspended by a governmental decree, so he changed the title to Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau à ses commettants. Public opinion was on his side – the decree was publicly denounced by Target – and he was permitted to publish accounts of the debates freely – provided he did not comment on them (a condition he simply ignored).126 It needs to be remembered that at this time there were no real political journals as such, only papers like the Mercure de France and the Journal de Paris which were subject to censorship and simply reported news.127 Mirabeau’s publication was later renamed the Courier de Provence and Dumont co-edited this with Du Roveray until February 1790.128 This publication was read not just in France but in London too. Writing to Dumont in the autumn of 1789, Romilly observes, The Courrier [sic] de Provence is become very fashionable in London; and though the booksellers here make a profit of cent per cent (for they charge half a guinea for a month’s subscription), yet I saw the other day, in De Boffe’s shop, a list of forty-five subscribers to it. Among them were some persons of the first rank: the Duke of Portland, Lord Loughborough, Mr Grenville the Secretary of State, Lord Mountstuart . . . Elmsly has it too, and is a more fashionable bookseller than De Boffe. 129 Despite the fact that the true identity of the editors of the Courier de Provence has long been known, it has commonly been the custom in biographies of Mirabeau to quote from this journal as though it represented his ipsissima verba. Apart from a belief in the freedom of the press, what were Mirabeau’s political principles? Aulard cites a note of 14 October 1790 in which he sets out his constitutional creed, which turns out to have the following priorities: Hereditary monarchy in the Bourbon dynasty; a permanent legislative body


subject to periodical elections, limited in its functions to legislation; unity and breadth of latitude for the supreme executive power in all that relates to the administration of the kingdom, the execution of the laws, the leadership of the armed forces; exclusive attribution of taxation to the legislative body; a new division of the kingdom; justice to be available free of charge; responsibility of the ministers; sale of church property; establishment of a civil list and abolition of orders, privileges, pecuniary exemptions, feudalism, parlements, and so on.130 As a historian on the left, Aulard saw in Mirabeau a Machiavellian pessimistic figure who relied not on an optimistic belief in the perfectibility of humanity or on reason or justice, but on his own genius, in short the man was as a cynic out of step with the Revolution. Taking precisely the opposite approach to Soulavie, Aulard claims that Mirabeau was encouraged in his contempt for the revolutionary idea by Dumont and the ‘Genevan pedants’ around him.131 But the historian also points to Mirabeau’s close friendship with the comte de La Marck, prince d’Aremberg, who lived at the heart of the Court of Versailles, blaming this man for pushing Mirabeau increasingly in the direction of reaction.132 Before undertaking any of the work for Mirabeau for which he later became famous, Dumont strove to improve the Frenchman’s image. Mirabeau had responded to his unpopularity in the Assembly in kind in the first numbers of his journal, hitting out at the other deputies and comparing them to rowdy schoolboys. Dumont took him aside and advised him to stop treading on everyone’s toes and start cultivating a better image, advice which seems to have been heeded.133 Ironically, Mirabeau’s first triumph in the Assembly was connected to his association with the Genevans. One day when Du Roveray was present in the Assembly, he passed a note to Mirabeau about something in full view of a deputy who then complained about this interference by a foreigner in the affairs of the Assembly. Mirabeau seized on this as an opportunity and stood up and eulogised Du Roveray as an enemy of tyrants and a martyr for liberty. The storm of protest transformed into an outbreak of applause and the Genevan was feted by the deputies.134 Dumont’s speechwriting career took its rise from the debate about the new name for the assembly to replace the old title of ‘Estates General’.135 The Estates General had opened on 5 May but had remained paralysed for several weeks because of the reluctance among the members of the Third Estate to deliberate separately as one order among three. On 10 June, Sieyès proposed that after a month of delay, it was time to make a last appeal to the two other orders, then if they rejected that, to proceed to a verification of members’ credentials and an activation of the Assembly.136 But what then were they to call themselves? To call themselves National Assembly would be to declare war on the king, the nobles and the clergy, who would be left counting for nothing.137 To use the term Assembly of the Commons would be to express an undoubted fact, but it would leave the division of the Chambers alive. Other denominations were proposed as well. Dumont relates that this essential issue


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was debated at length in ‘our little society’.138 Mirabeau called for the title Deputies of the French People.139 He was opposing the motion of Sieyès that they entitle themselves ‘Assembly of the known authentic representatives of the French nation.’ He admitted that Sieyès’s proposal was ‘strictly speaking correct in principle’ and such as was to be expected from ‘a citizen who was a philosophe’. What follows is a classic attack on the politics of abstract political principles, the politics of the pur et dur, as contrasted with the politics of realism: There is this essential difference between the metaphysician, who, meditating in his closet, seizes truth in its energetic purity, and the statesman who is obliged to pay respect to precedents, and to lay his account for meeting with difficulties and obstacles; there is, I say, this difference between the instructor of the people and the practical politician, that the one thinks only of what is, and the other attends to what can be. The metaphysician, travelling over the map, clears everything with ease, is embarrassed neither by mountains, nor deserts, nor rivers, nor vast chasms: but when we come to realize the journey, when we would arrive at a given point, we must constantly recollect that we are travelling upon the earth, and are no longer in the ideal world.140 Malouet (considered to be someone close to the ministry) supported Mirabeau’s proposal and the moderates flocked to the banner, which aroused the suspicion of the popular party, and they went on the attack. They spoke as though Mirabeau had intended to saddle the Tiers with being the lowest order beneath the other two – taking the term people as if it were equivalent to ‘peasants’ or ‘plebs’. He was accused of being a closet aristocrat. Dumont was sitting in the gallery of the Assembly with Lord Elgin,141 who liked Mirabeau’s motion. Dumont was annoyed by all the nonsense being spouted about the word ‘people’, and found himself noting down what he would have said had he himself been a member of the Assembly.142 ‘After discussing the question I wrote with a pencil a sort of apostrophe intended as a peroration addressed to all these so-called friends of liberty who thought it degrading to be called “deputies of the people’’.’ Lord Elgin wanted to read it, and Dumont gave the jottings to him.143 That evening they ate at Mirabeau’s home. Du Roveray criticised the weakness of his speech and pointed out that he had left out the strongest and most convincing arguments for his case. Dumont showed Mirabeau the peroration he had written and Mirabeau decided to use it. Dumont was somewhat embarrassed, since he had already shown the text to Lord Elgin, but Mirabeau was not in the least bit troubled. He said he would quote it as the best text for the occasion. Du Roveray set to and produced a refutation of all the other arguments, and Mirabeau was delighted with it. When he managed to get a chance to speak he launched into Dumont’s exordium, which apparently went down reasonably well. The argumentation part


(by Du Roveray) was greeted with a mixture of applause and murmuring; but the peroration was a disaster – it aroused convulsions of rage. ‘ . . . a storm of invectives burst upon the speaker from all parts of the hall. But he stood calm, and unmoved, whilst I, the poor author of this unhappy attempt, remained petrified in a corner, lamenting an error of judgement so fatal to my friend and cause.’144 So what was in this speech? Mirabeau condemned the other proposals for their verbosity, claiming that his was the most concise and the clearest. He contends that his alone is exclusive and cannot be applied to any other bodies. Some have complained that the term peuple implies either too much (the whole nation) or too little (the canaille = ‘the rabble’). But Mirabeau says that the advantage of the word is this: it can mean everything to everyone, it describes them without degrading them, it renders them dear to their constituents without frightening those whose pretensions they have to oppose. In fact it is for the very reason that the term ‘people’ is still not respected enough in France, that it presents an idea alarming to pride, it is for that very reason that he wants to see it ennobled. Then he waxes rapturous – if this name was not ours, we would have to choose it above all others. The choice of this name should breathe firmness and courage into an oppressed people. My soul is elevated while looking forward to the happy consequences which this name may bring along with it! The people will behold no other object but ourselves, and we shall behold no other object but the people . . . Under the shelter of a name which inspires no terror, which creates no alarm, we are planting a young shoot; we will cultivate it, we will remove all noxious boughs that would overshadow and choke it up, we will protect it, our latest posterity will sit beneath the comfortable shade of its vast branches.145 There is an unmistakable preacherly echo here of the parable of the mustard seed in Luke’s gospel, whose growth into a tree under whose branches folk can shelter represents the kingdom of God.146 Then a direct appeal asking them whether they would be prepared to go and tell their constituents that they had rejected the name ‘people’. This is the name they need because it will attach the people to them. The point Dumont and Du Roveray were helping Mirabeau to make was that the Assembly should not arrogate to itself the title of national in the absence of the first two orders. Without them it could not claim to represent the whole nation. It was a cautious approach. Also it set the tone for their consistent policy as consultants to Mirabeau: to steer with the moderates between the conservatives and the ‘popular’ party. Dumont was mortified that this speech he and Du Roveray had written should have received such a poor reception, but when he turned up an hour later at Mirabeau’s residence he found the Frenchman proudly reading his


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speech over to some friends who were listening to it admiringly.147 Mirabeau dismissed his fellow deputies as wild donkeys, able only to rush about and bite, and he told his Genevan friend not to worry himself about the way the Assembly received the speech: thinkers would see profundity in his motion, the fools he would save in spite of themselves. Dumont’s involvement in the issue of the Assembly protest to the King over the gathering of the troops was even more significant. What happened was this. Reybaz and Clavière were encouraging Mirabeau to be more proactive in the days before the fall of the Bastille.148 They came out from Paris to Versailles and warned him that it would soon be impossible to keep the people under control any more. It became known that the Court was taking soundings to test the loyalty of the troops newly stationed in Versailles, and the atelier argued that the King needed to be warned of the manoeuvring going on around him. Mirabeau duly gave his famous speech on the removal of the troops.149 Dumont makes two bald statements about this speech in the Souvenirs.150 First, he says that the speech was a summary of the discussions in their group; secondly, that it was he himself who composed it while Du Roveray drew up the resolutions involved. François Furet includes it in his edition of the speeches of Mirabeau, but with a note that in the opinion of Alphonse Aulard it was to be attributed to Dumont.151 The speech builds up a dramatic picture of an Assembly under siege: ‘Spots are marked out for batteries. Every communication is secured. Every pass is blocked up; out streets, our bridges, our public walks are converted into military stations.’152 The orator continues, building up to a climax of indignation against this display of despotism: It was not, then, enough that the sanctuary of freedom had been polluted by the soldiery! It was not enough that the unheard-of spectacle had been exhibited, of a National Assembly surrendered up to military assignees, and subjected to an armed force! It was not enough that to this outrage was added every disagreeable circumstance, every mark of disrespect, in a word, the brutality of oriental government! It was found necessary to display the whole apparatus of despotism, and call out more soldiers to overawe the nation, the very day on which the king himself convened it for the purpose of demanding its advice and its assistance, than would, perhaps, have been employed to repel a foreign invasion . . . .153 It is important, adds the orator, for the king himself that the deputies be treated decently, since they are the deputies of the nation which alone is his glory, which alone constitutes the splendour of the throne, of that nation which will make the person of the king honourable in proportion that he honours it the more himself:


Since it is over freemen he would reign, it is time that these odious forms should disappear, those insulting modes of procedure, which too easily persuade those by whom the sovereign is encompassed, that royal majesty consists in the humiliating relations of master and slave; that a lawful and beloved prince should, in very place and upon every occasion, appear only with the aspect of an irritated tyrant, or of those usurpers unfortunately condemned never to feel the delicious and honourable sentiment of confidence.154 It cannot be said that circumstances have made these threatening measures necessary: they are useless and dangerous, they can only be regarded as the fruit of private passions masking treacherous intentions. These measures are useless: recent experience in connection with a riot in Paris have shown the people submissive to a gentle word from the king, which achieved what force could never have achieved. How powerful reason is, how well-disposed the people are when they experience kindness and trust! And above all at this moment of all moments, when everything is set fair for the regeneration of the kingdom! The people’s gaze is fixed on the Assembly, it is the source of their trust. The Assembly is the guarantee of public peace. The orator does not know what deceits have been used to convince of the need for the troops. How will the people, suffering the ravages of famine, regard these well-fed occupying forces? Their presence will arouse ideas of danger and provoke disturbances and panic. What effect will all this have on the troops themselves? What imprudence to bring them into contact with the Assembly, ‘to electrify them by the contact of the capital, to interest them in our political discussion!’ 155 They will see us as fellows, as family, as allies. They will in all likelihood be infected by party spirit and will be liable to fight each other. Have the counsellors of these measures learnt anything from the history of revolutions? Have they studied to see how the wisest are pressured into excess? Have they seen that they are endangering the throne itself? What is needed is a representation to the king that these measures are contrary to his beneficent intentions at a time of famine, that they are contrary to the liberty and honour of the assembly, that they will ruin the confidence the assembly has in him; then, a request that he order withdrawal of troops; then, a call for the raising of a citizen militia in Paris and Versailles. Dumont observes that this final provision was perhaps the most important, for it would have forestalled the people taking up arms of their own volition.156 To have done it on the orders of the king would have saved the situation. But the measure was rejected by the assembly. In a letter to Lord Lansdowne he reported that the speech itself was however received rapturously, its impact unprecedented.157 Again Dumont was encouraging the King to take over the leadership of the Revolution. A committee was entrusted with the job of drawing up an address to the King requesting the dispersal of the troops.158 The committee went back to


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Mirabeau and asked him for a draft, so it came back to Dumont himself to carry out this task. ‘Animated by the success of the speech, and full of the subject, encouraged moreover, by the flattery and affectionate caresses of Mirabeau, whom the applause of the assembly had filled with delight, I wrote with great ease and rapidity, in the interval between one sitting and another, the address to the King.’159 In the Souvenirs, Dumont fills in a little more of the story. He relates how Garat, who was a member of the committee in question,160 came to Mirabeau to ask when the address would be finished. Mirabeau could not tell him, for in truth it was Dumont who was in full flow penning the text. He tergiversated. The next day they were dining with the duc de La Rochefoucauld and another member of the committee was waxing eloquent as to the merits of (Dumont’s) address, which Mirabeau had communicated to the Assembly that day. The gentleman in question was particularly impressed by Mirabeau’s modesty, for he had happily accepted all the changes required by the committee. Dumont was not convinced, however, that the changes meant any improvement.161 What then of the address?162 The orator began by reminding the King that he had invited the assembly to show confidence in him. They have come to express the gravest alarm, not on their own behalf – for then he would be able to reassure them of his good intentions. Their fears bear on the interests of their constituents, public tranquillity, and the happiness of the monarch himself. With troops all over the place, it is the King’s apparent lack of trust in them that bothers them. Where are the rebels or enemies whose presence has necessitated this summoning of military might? Everyone is solidly behind their monarch. The only danger to the state lies in the bad principles of those close to the throne. Recent events have shown the power of the king to quieten disorder by gentle firmness. This is the only kind of authority possible for him to exercise today. He has called the Assembly to settle the constitution together with him and to effect the regeneration of the kingdom. Nothing will stop the assembly from carrying out this agenda. If the provinces hear of the military build-up, nothing will be able to restrain their anger. The people of the capital will not be happy to compete with a crowd of soldiers for scarce supplies of bread. The troops may all too easily be influenced themselves by the charged political atmosphere. The Assembly itself can only be seen to have done its job if it is known to have operated freely and without constraint. And if the surrounding atmosphere is tense, that will affect the mood in the Assembly. ‘ . . . reason and wisdom deliver not their oracles in the midst of tumult, disorder, and bloodshed.’163 The king is not to believe those around him who speak slightingly of the nation. Their loyalty to the king is unquestionable, but they will resist any arbitrary commands from people abusing the royal name. They are appealing to the King to send the troops back to the places from which his advisers have summoned them.


Dumont was delighted with the applause that greeted the address.164 But he did not flatter himself that he had written a masterpiece, even though ‘There was dignity and simplicity in the style, with as much oratorical eloquence as was consistent with the respect due to the monarch, and with the dignity of the assembly who addressed him. The expressions were measured and unctuous, and the whole was in good keeping with the subject.’165 This is what Mirabeau himself felt he could not manage – he was good at forceful and ardent expressions, but to be gentle, unctuous and measured was beyond him, on his own confession. A key sentence in the address is where Dumont alludes to the bad principles of those close to the throne. His enemy in France in 1789, as it had been in Geneva, continued to be the aristocracy. The address was met in the Assembly with acclamation on 9 July and afterwards read to the King on 10 July ‘in the very same room where Louis XIV was accorded so much fawning adulation’.166 The nineteenth Lettre de Mirabeau à ses commettants (edited by Dumont and Du Roveray) was even more cutting: ‘ . . . in that Palace soiled by the vile adulation of the courtiers of Louis XIV, & which at that very moment was concealing conspirators who wanted to arm Louis XVI against his people, Frenchmen finally spoke the language of free men to their Monarch.’ Dumont later commented on this episode in the Groenvelt Letters.167 He claimed that by his conduct in the Assembly on 8 and 9 July, Mirabeau had greatly enhanced his reputation.168 He struck out positively in the direction of boldness, aiming an attack at the Court that was so violent and blatant that his sympathies could not possibly be mistaken. His address to the King requesting the removal of the troops (of which no mention was made of the authorship here) excited the most enthusiastic admiration. ‘Eulogies of Mirabeau rang out in all the clubs and public places in Paris and he was the object of benedictions as if he were the liberator of his country. The most highly-praised part of the address was an intrepid declaration made at a moment of danger, in the midst of bayonettes, of a huge army . . . .’ On 15 July 1789, Mirabeau wrote to Lord Lansdowne to ask if Dumont could stay longer by his side. He begins by flattering the English nobleman for his statesmanlike and philanthropic outlook, and concedes that what he is about to ask is a grace which he is not entitled to expect. And he goes on: . . . I declare to you . . . [that Dumont] has been immensely useful to me, because along with a great knowledge of men and political assemblies, along with a long experience of reflection on the means of introducing and consolidating political and civil liberty among a people called by circumstances to create a constitution for themselves, he has great talents, a zealous fervour and a very pure soul. Mirabeau goes on to say that he himself has some influence in the National Assembly and that he will be much impoverished without Dumont.169 He


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points out that the French were not prepared for this revolution, that they need to be educated, and then they will be able to educate others. What he is asking for is for his ‘private counsellor’ to be allowed to finish his [i.e. Mirabeau’s] education and be his auxiliary in ‘the greatest work that can be entrusted to mortals’. As well as being a unique character reference for Dumont at the age of 30, these words are revelatory of the significance attached by Mirabeau to Dumont’s prior political experience. Dumont had cut his teeth in all essential respects in the campaign for freedom in Geneva and was fit therefore to be Mirabeau’s own mentor.170 We also have here a powerful piece of evidence for those who see the Genevan conflicts of the 1780s not simply as anticipatory of the Revolution but as umbilically connected to it in the same way as the American Revolution. There were several key debates during 1789 where the Genevans made their opinions felt in the pages of the Courier – largely on the side of promoting English constitutional practices – but they were invariably on the losing side. First, they favoured a strong executive, but the prevalence of a general suspicion of the Court prejudiced many in the Assembly against this idea. The majority desire was not to strengthen the executive but to muzzle it.171 This came to a head over the question of the royal veto.172 This veto became a bugbear even among the populace, a symbol of tyranny,173 but Dumont and his colleagues argued that an absolute monarchical veto was essential for the new constitution. In the Courier the idea of a merely suspensive veto favoured by some was attacked174 for placing the power back in the hands of the assembly that elected the deputies. The veto pure and simple was said to have no real disadvantages. A prince with a permanent assembly that held the ministers through their accountability to it would resist only for the good of the people. With the abolition of censorship the power of public opinion would be irresistible. Sieyès had argued that the ministry cannot be allowed to block the majority (i.e. the national will) in the assembly, but the Courier distinguishes between royal and ministerial vetoes. The king is one with the nation, so there is no danger in giving him the task of verifying if the proposed law conforms to the national will. But the ministers are accountable for any abuse of the veto, so no minister will want to block a majority that truly expresses the national will. Sieyès is arguing for a suspensive veto. What idea of the will of a nation, he asks, does someone have who thinks it can be blocked by a private will?175 The editor replies that the rich and the powerful will always have an influence on elections and therefore an influence in the Assembly which may lead it to go against the national will. The only safeguards are either to call the people to vote directly on laws, which degrades the kingdom into a confederacy of small democracies, or to give power to the king to block any law that seems to him to be contrary to the public weal. Sieyès claims that in England the constituent and the legislative are not sufficiently distinguished. The British parliament is unfettered in its operations and could attack the royal prerogative if the king did not have the


veto and the power to dissolve parliament. But this is no danger in France, where there is a fundamental rule that the legislature does not have the exercise of constituent or executive power. The question of future revisions of the constitution will require a special convention. The editor replies that the way they are going about things, many changes will be needed in the constitution, and the need for a national convention for every change will be highly embarrassing. A constitution that will cover everything, legislative power, executive power, judicial power, military power, finances, education, provincial assemblies, municipal assemblies! Who can flatter themselves that a work so vast, so complicated, produced and drawn up in such a short time by an Assembly of 1200 persons, with two sessions every day, which means that its members lack the time and the opportunity to reflect on what they are doing, who can flatter themselves that such a work will be exempt from imperfection and error!176 This is recalled in the Souvenirs 10 years on, when Dumont gives a vivid description of arrogant constitution-makers running round Paris renewing the human race overnight. The most leading trait in the French character is self-vanity. Each member of the assembly thought himself equal to any undertaking. Never were seen so many men congregated together, who fancied themselves legislators, capable of repairing the faults of the past, finding a remedy for all the errors of the human mind, and securing the happiness of future generations . . . infallibility always presided over their decisions.177 The sentiment was echoed by Romilly in his reflections on his experience in Paris in 1789, What struck me as most remarkable in the dispositions of the people that I saw, was the great desire that every body had to act a great part, and the jealousy which in consequence of this was entertained of those who were really eminent. It seemed as if all persons, from the highest to the lowest, whether deputies themselves, declaimers in the Palais Royal, orators in the coffee-houses, spectators in the gallery, or the populace about the door, looked upon themselves individually as of great consequence in the revolution . . . The most important transactions were as nothing, but as they had relation to the figure which each little self-conceited hero acted in them. To attract the attention of all Paris, or of all France, was often the motive of conduct in matters which were attended with the most momentous consequences.178


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The Courier went on to observe that Sieyès’s remedy for every problem with the constitution was an extraordinary constitutional convention. But frequent assemblies of this kind were a danger, and elections to them throw up the same problem about knowing the general will.179 Who will judge between conventions? If it is the conventions themselves, we are left with a new social hierarchy in which at indeterminate moments the executive will be paralysed, the legislative subordinate, and the nation obliged to decide between two masters. The editor concludes that Sieyès’ thinking amounts to a philosophical abstraction, original perhaps but not to be taken as a model. Alive as they were to the danger posed to the Assembly by the Court, the Genevans also saw that assemblies themselves were open to a number of temptations, not just through such obvious practices as bribery and venality, but through human failings like inattention or overemotional responses or vulnerability to clever rhetoric – they regarded the large-scale renunciation of feudal dues on 4 August as a classic case of the dangerous power of unchecked emotionalism. This was one night when Dumont was actually present at the debate, and in a letter to Romilly shortly afterwards he pictured the scene vividly.180 . . . the nobles, the clergy, the commons were throwing everything at each other, one was abandoning seigneurial rights, another hunting rights, another pensions, another the purchasing of offices . . . and it was all done in a rush and in epigrams, there was a lot of fear, a touch of patriotism, and above all a good dose of thoughtlessness; for they have made no plans, and some of their decrees will result in 20 000 court cases all over the kingdom, . . . in one single hapless and extravagant night they overturned the whole of feudalism, the tax system, property rights &c . . . In order to put out a fire, they threw all the furniture from the house onto it . . . Nonetheless, Dumont admits that these ancient furnitures also represented the price of the blood and the tears of the poor, so he would be genuinely pleased if the whole thing was executed in the kingdom without too many shocks and miseries. In the Groenvelt Letters,181 4 August is described as another example of French impetuosity. Dumont’s original French manuscript of the work adds that it was certainly not premeditated, for both Sieyès and Mirabeau would surely not have been absent had that been the case.182 In the text as published in English, the author writes that it is impossible to describe the excitement and ‘the triumphant flame of patriotism’ that seemed to burn in the Assembly that night. The French are said to be of all nations the most prone to such transports of passion, adoring operas and puppet shows as long as the government prevented them from thinking about anything else, ‘ . . . and now matured for liberty, they indulge transports equally extravagant, though more dignified by the cause which excites them’.183 Dumont notes soberly


that many deep wounds were inflicted that night which were not really felt until later. The abolition of feudal rights and game laws drove several nobles into the arms of the enemies of the Revolution.184 In the Souvenirs, Dumont remembers it as a night when a ‘sentimental contagion’ overwhelmed everyone – apparent magnanimity on the one hand, an indecent rush on the other. ‘This renunciation of all privileges, this abandonment of so many rights burthensome to the people, these multiplied sacrifices bore a stamp of magnanimity which covered with its splendour the indecent haste and precipitation, so ill-suited to legislators, with which they were made.’185 Moreover he notes that some who were going to be ruined by a proposition made by someone else quickly put forward another proposal that would ruin others, so that they would not be alone. He hints at a conspiracy, with leaders profiting from the general madness: ‘But the assembly were not in the secret of the principal movers of these great measures, and the latter took advantage of the general enthusiasm to carry their point.’186 Equally, Dumont thought it was a night which showed how vital it was for a single assembly to have a regulator. The Commons could not manage without its Lords. He compares the lightning rapidity of the proceedings unfavourably with the cautious procedure of the Houses of Parliament: ‘ . . . – the abolition of feudal rights, tithes, and provincial privileges – three questions embracing the whole system of jurisprudence and politics – were, with ten or twelve others, disposed of in less time than the English parliament would decide upon the first reading of any bill of consequence.’187 The same reproach as ever against the French – impetuousity, trivialisation, lack of caution and gravitas. Moreover there was a complete hypocrisy about it – ‘ . . . each member gave away what did not belong to him, and prided himself upon his generosity at the expense of others.’188 The Genevans promoted British experience as proving the need for a leisurely, calm, patient approach to legislative change, with decisions in the Commons subject to scrutiny by the Lords and decisions approved by both Houses subject to further scrutiny by the Monarch. They argued that he represented the whole nation over against the potential partialities of each Chamber. But they were on the losing side again over the requirement for a second chamber. In issue xxxviii of the Courier the question of a senate comes up. The editor is trenchant: experience and the knowledge of men teach us that we must create obstacles to precipitation and seductions from external sources.189 There is need of a Council for Revision to examine bills, look for problems, test by reason and public opinion. But there was widespread fear in the air of anything that might be seen to shackle the Assembly, and this was the mood that won the day. Moreover here they were at odds with Mirabeau himself. This is an example of the editorial independence of the Courier. As Dumont wrote in the Souvenirs, ‘it was very difficult to get Mirabeau to support the idea of two assemblies’.190 Jarrett observed that ‘On the one hand [Mirabeau] wanted France to have a monarchy strong enough to veto the


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decrees of the legislative and appoint ministers without consulting it but on the other he was determined that the legislative should consist of one chamber only.’191 He seems to have been influenced here by (among others) the marquis de Casaux, who in his Simplicité de l’idée d’une constitution praised the British constitution but warned that the influence of the Lords was ‘an infernal poison’.192 On 1 September 1789, Mirabeau told the Assembly that if the Long Parliament had destroyed liberty it was not by getting rid of the Lords but by cutting off Charles I’s head.193 Another area where the Genevans were on the losing side was the question of ministerial presence in the Assembly. They argued in favour of the British example, crucial to which was the practice that Ministers must come to the House to justify their policies. In addition, they claimed that it was important for Ministers to be able to liaise with the Assembly members in order to promote consistent policies. But there was at the time a rising suspicion of Mirabeau and a conviction that he craved ministerial office, and the mood was against the proposal precisely because his enemies did not want him to succeed; they voted to exclude deputies from being ministers. Issue xli bangs the drum for the English system of having the ministers present in the Assembly,194 appealing to experience as showing its value. ‘It is in vain that the opinionated and presumptuous ignorance of a few men rejects all the lessons to be drawn from the constitution of that People, of whom our slavery made us envious for so long, & and whom our foolishness now despises.’195 This was the agenda of the Courier; Dumont and Du Roveray wanted to encourage the French to emulate the English example as proved by experience, not by rational theory. The editor goes on to urge that until the new constitution has passed the test of time, wise men will always admire in England the practical results so superior to the sublime theories of ‘our utopians’. Ministers should be present in the Assembly because it is just – they too have been elected, and because it is useful – the legislative is concerned with the same objects as the executive. The legislative cannot yield wise results adapted to the circumstances if it does not call on experience, and the knowledge of difficulties as found in practice – hence the importance of hearing the executive. Influence is only dangerous when indirect and acting in the dark, not when it is outward and visible and all are talking. Moreover it is good for the ministers themselves to have to lay aside their morgue vizirale (‘the disdain of a vizir’) in the Assembly, dispensing with the etiquette and the cunning that for a long time provided the entire ministerial art, ‘in order to adopt the open, unfeigned, and consistent forms of Republican States’.196 Ironically, the theory of the separation of powers elaborated by Montesquieu with much reference to the British constitution was used as an objection by opponents of a ministerial presence in the Assembly. Lord Acton wrote that the vote of 7 November which excluded members of the Assembly from becoming ministers was ‘one of the decisive acts of the Constituent Assembly, for it ruined the constitutional monarchy’.197


III

The Declaration of Rights

The discussion of the Declaration of Rights once again revealed the Genevan posture of reliance on experience and hostility to abstractions, but once again, it was a defeat for them. If Dumont’s day-to-day experience of the chaos and brutality of Assembly debates was the first cause of his disillusionment with the Revolution, then the discussion of the Declaration of Rights was the second. He writes pungently on the subject in the Souvenirs (written 10 years after the event).198 It was an American idea, he wrote, and almost everyone regarded such a declaration as an indispensable preliminary. The discussions over it were mortally tedious: ‘ . . . silly disputes about words, much metaphysical trash, and dreadfully tedious prosing. The assembly had converted itself into a Sorbonne, and each apprentice in the art of legislation, was trying his yet unfledged wings, upon such puerilities.’199 A committee of five was appointed to draw up a draft after various others had been rejected. Mirabeau was one of the five, and with his customary generosity took the work upon himself in order to pass it on to his friends. He and Dumont, Clavière, and Du Roveray sat round working on drafts, debating them, adding words, taking them out: ‘there were he, Duroveray, Clavière, and I, writing, disputing, adding, striking out, and exhausting both time and patience, upon this ridiculous subject. At length, we produced our piece of patchwork, our mosaic of pretended natural rights which never existed . . . I felt the inconsistency and ridicule of a work, which was only a puerile fiction. A Declaration of Rights could be made only after the framing of the constitution and as one of its consequences; for rights exist in virtue of laws and therefore do not precede them. The maxims sanctioned by this declaration; that is to say, the principles intended to be established by it are dangerous in themselves; for legislators should not be tied down to general propositions which they are afterwards obliged to alter or modify; – above all they must not be cramped by false maxims. Men are born free and equal! That is not true. They are not born free; on the contrary, they are born in a state of weakness and necessary dependence.’200 Dumont claims that at the time he was so convinced of the nullity of all this that he persuaded the little ‘committee’ of his opinion, to the extent that Mirabeau when he presented the draft dared to make some objections to the Assembly, suggesting that the project be postponed till after the completion of the Constitution. Bentham’s hostility to the Declaration of Rights is of course celebrated; he had written to Brissot:201 I am sorry you have undertaken to publish a Declaration of Rights. It is a metaphysical work – the ne plus ultra of metaphysics. It may have been a necessary evil, – but it is nevertheless an evil. Political science is not far enough advanced for such a declaration. Let the articles be what they


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may, I will engage they must come under three heads – 1. Unintelligible; 2. False; 3. A mixture of both.

He goes on to claim that the example of the American Congress is a bad one. He does not believe that the Declaration served the American cause. When people get excited they become vulnerable to any rhetoric that’s going, they do not pay attention to logic. He refers to An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. His argument there was that on the basis of the American Declaration, any law that divested a man of the enjoyment of life or liberty was void. Hence every coercive law was void, etc. ‘In moments of enthusiasm, any nonsense is welcomed as an argumentation in favour of liberty. Put forward any pompous generality – stick to it – therefore we ought to be free – conclusion and premises may have nothing to do with one another – they will not be the worse for that.’ Dumont’s view of the subject was already very close to Bentham’s at the time, and on this point he had no need of input from the latter. The représentants of 1782 were not advocates of natural rights but desirous only of restoring or defending the constitution of 1768.202 In a memoir on Dumont’s Genevan contemporary the journalist and historian Mallet du Pan, Gaspard Vallette argued that it was a feature of the Genevan character to be essentially practical, trusting to experience, and suspicious of abstractions. He notes that Mallet du Pan was ‘a declared enemy of metaphysical systems, rhetorical generalisations, elevated theories without any basis in the straightforward observation of reality and good sense’.203 This seems to throw light on the attitude of Dumont and Du Roveray to the Declaration of Rights. Mallet Du Pan too reacted negatively to the Declaration. He saw the laws as the source of rights and thought that declaring rights was the same thing as declaring laws.204 Vallette suggests that like Dumont he was alienated by the prevalence of interminable discussion of abstractions and political metaphysics in 1789, and that he too saw the English constitution as a model.205 Moreover Dumont’s friend D’Ivernois, writing in 1781, noted that ‘History alone should guide us, it is the best of teachers and it is only by studying it with this aim that the history of small states can become useful to the nations for theories that are not based on experience are very dangerous.’206 There was a significant difference of opinion in the Assembly about the Declaration between those who argued that it must come first before the Constitution itself, and those who wanted to see it as the crowning of the Constitutional edifice, to be inserted as a postface. By August there was growing social unrest and the question was whether a Declaration would merely exasperate this or rather would have a calming effect. It seems however that despite Dumont’s claim that ‘everyone’ was in favour of a declaration, a majority of the pamphlets that appeared in Paris in the month of August


1789 were hostile to any such Declaration, mocking the metaphysical pretensions of the députés déclareurs.207 There was a right-wing traditionalist critique which alleged that any declaration giving to the people rights that they do not understand and would not know how to interpret would simply exacerbate the prevailing anarchy.208 In these pamphlets the idea of a Declaration of Rights was invariably coupled with the idea of disorder. One pamphleteer spoke of confusing the plans of a building with the rules of architecture, or of a clock repairer beginning his work by composing a treatise on clocks. When the debate got under way seriously on 1 August the most vigorous opponents of placing a Declaration of Rights at the start of the Constitution were the duc de Lévis, Champion de Cicé and the bishop of Langres, La Luzerne. They saw the Declaration as useless, dangerous, inopportune, and difficult, claiming that it would lead to academic disputes and literary debates and philosophical quarrels. More opposition on 3 August, including from Malouet.209 Baecque suggests that there were a good 15 hostile speakers over these 3 days of debate. The number of supporters was the same. Clermont-Tonnerre observed that the demand for a Declaration of Rights was the only difference between those of the cahiers which called for a new constitution and those which sought only the reestablishment of what they considered to be the existing constitution.210 In short the issue of the need to draw up a preliminary Declaration of Rights was a profoundly divisive one in the Assembly. When Dumont said that ‘almost everyone’ was convinced of the need for a Declaration, we must perhaps read him as meaning that ‘all those worthy of respect’, which in his book would have excluded the traditionalists and conservatives. On 17 August, Mirabeau gave the report of the Committee of Five entrusted with the task of synthesising the different drafts for a Declaration of Rights.211 The report is hesitant, stressing the difficulties of the task. ‘ . . . he gave the impression that he was very unenthusiastic about his role and that he was offering his version “with extreme repugnance’’.’212 It might have been easy for the Americans, he argued, they were not encumbered with existing traditions such as in France were a major obstacle to the expression of universal political truths. Mirabeau’s report and Declaration were severely censured in the Assembly on 18 and 19 August213 – he had proposed either the straight acceptance of his draft or the postponement of the Declaration till after the Constitution had been drafted.214 Finally his report was rejected. Bénétruy, a firm partisan of Dumontian influence on Mirabeau, points out that in pre-Revolutionary writings like his Essai sur le despotisme the count had deplored long-standing ignorance of the Rights of Man,215 and in his Adresse aux Bataves he had sketched out the code of ‘inalienable rights higher than all conventions’.216 Dumont himself reports that Mirabeau had in earlier sessions been one of the staunch defenders of the necessity of such a Declaration.217 Hence his about-turn created consternation. Dumont suggests that Mirabeau could have won the day, had he not given up just as several deputies were


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beginning to come round. So ‘The eternal babble had then full range and at last gave birth to the unfortunate declaration of the rights of man.’218 The English translator has greatly toned down the savage tone of Dumont’s original comment ‘et l’on enfanta cette malheureuse rapsodie qui sera le déshonneur eternel de ses auteurs’ [‘and so it was that they brought to birth that wretched rhapsody that will be the eternal dishonour of its authors’]. With his usual finesse, Chevallier depicts Mirabeau’s philosophy on this point as midway between that of Sieyès – with his contempt for the ‘gothic’ English constitution and for tradition – and Mounier, with his contempt for an abstract affirmation of rights in isolation from practice.219 The idea of the Declaration left him cold. How then did Dumont speak of the Declaration at the time? Issue xxviii of the Courier deals with these days (17–18 August 1789).220 The editor says that we are caught between two reefs, truth tells us to say everything, while wisdom advises us to temporise. Justice calls on us to conquer timid prudence while the fear of arousing dangerous passions alarms those who do not want to buy the good of posterity at the expense of the miseries of the present generation. The philosopher can afford to be clear-cut but the statesman must be circumspect. The principles of liberty and the laws that direct its exercise need to be put before the people together – that is, the Declaration should come after the Constitution. These are the very principles of Mirabeau’s speech of 17 August.221 Mirabeau noted that the declaration of the rights of man in society is only an exposition of general principles applicable to all political associations and forms of government. But he sees particular difficulties in such a declaration in relation to an old and senile political body, where local circumstances mean that it can attain only to a relative perfection. There is also the problem that it is proposed as a preamble to an unknown constitution.222 As for the practical difficulties of the task put before the committee, they have had only 3 days to make a synthesis of 20 drafts and come up with a result suited for a people prepared for liberty by the impression made by facts rather than by reasonings. The orator stresses the gulf between philosophical principles and the experience of the people. . . . as liberty was never the fruit of an elaborate doctrine based on philosophical deductions, but of daily experience, & simple reasoning based on facts, it follows that we will have understood one another better in proportion as we draw closer to such reasoning. If abstract terms must be used, we shall make them intelligible by connecting them to all that can bring to mind the sensations that served to produce liberty. . . . The difficulty has been to separate what belongs to the nature of man from the modifications he has undergone in particular societies.223 Issue xxix of the Courier reports on the reception of Mirabeau’s presentation (18 August 1789). In a second speech on the Declaration, Mirabeau argued


that if the circumstances were calm and the atmosphere peaceful, a proclamation of general maxims to guide the legislator could be made without fear. But the reality was that in the present circumstances such a declaration would arouse all sorts of counter-claims and prejudices and therefore a violent opposition.224 So he proposed that the definitive version of the Declaration be postponed until the completion of the other parts of the Constitution. This led Gleizen to make his famous – and perfectly justifiable – comment praising ‘the superiority of the talents with which M de Mirabeau has managed to guide the Assembly towards different goals’.225 In the 22–23 August 1789 issue of the Courier, once again the editor begins by claiming that although a universal Declaration of Rights is no doubt a wonderful idea, it would nonetheless be better to think about the rather humbler matter of the basis of a code for France before setting out a grandiose universal one.226 He blames the slow progress of the Assembly on its determination to go about things the opposite way. With every attempted step forward will come a reminder of the abuses that the citizen can make of a declaration.227 Hence multiple qualifications, pedantic precautions, laborious conditions attached to the articles that will follow. These will entail substituting duties for rights, erecting barriers to liberty, and trenching on the field of legislation; they will present man as he is in life, bound by the civil state, not the free man of nature. Over the hot and violent summer of 1789 there is a persistent anxiety in the Courier about the waste of time devoted to arguments over the minutiae of the text of the Declaration when there is so much need for concrete legislative progress. To Dumont the endless debate on this text merely amounted to useless and dangerous delays to the real legislative business of the Assembly, which was what the masses were looking to them for. No doubt all this awakened memories of the delaying tactics used by the ruling elite in Geneva to block the completion of the Code.228 They had incidentally found support for their claims in the natural rights doctrine preached by the celebrated Genevan law professor Burlamaqui. A study of the Courier seems then to provide a clear refutation of the suspicions of those like Keith Michael Baker who speculate that Dumont’s report of the Genevans’ contempt for Declarations of Rights, written in 1799, did not accurately reflect their opinions at the time.229 In his study of Condorcet in the Revolution, Alengry reports on the discovery of a manuscript defence by Condorcet of the project to complete a Declaration of Rights before the work on the constitution, overtly connecting this with Dumont’s arguments against.230 He does this on the basis of the known association between Condorcet and Dumont. However, we have seen that opposition to the idea of a Declaration was quite widespread at the time, so Condorcet’s manuscript may not have been directed specifically against the arguments of Dumont, as Alengry implies. Dumont also wrote about the Declaration of Rights not long after the event, in a chapter of the Groenvelt Letters.


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. . . each individual, conceiving that the rights of man was founded upon sentiment rather than reason, was desirous that the sentiments of others should be strictly conformed to his own, and suspected insincerity in all who did not think like himself. Thus the fundamental maxims, which were intended to prevent or to decide every dispute, were themselves the subjects of the most violent debates. These political axioms are not unlike the infallibility of the church, which if it were once demonstrated, would resolve every difficulty; but unfortunately the demonstration is itself the greatest of all difficulties.231 The debates were marked by poverty of ideas and multiplicity of words. This was less the fault of the speakers, than of the subject. Metaphysical abstractions, grammatical niceties, verbal disputes, a composition to be made of the sentiments of 1200 men, who were each desirous that his favourite expression should be adopted, who beheld dangers lurking in every sentence, snares in every line, who reciprocally accused each other of giving the reins to licentiousness, or of ducking the progress of liberty; such were the subjects, that occupied and fatigued the attention of the assembly.232 Dumont further complains that the Declaration of Rights lacks homogeneity as a composition. It sometimes announces rights and sometimes prescribes restraints, it sometimes anticipates objects of legislation, it sometimes attacks despotism, nor is it free from tautology or redundancy. . . . nor is it marked, as it might have been, by that majestic simplicity, that primitive character, which would have stamped the production of an age extremely remote, when men quitting their natural independence, were supposed first to solemnize the convention of the human race. During the perusal of it, I would willingly transport myself to those times which precede the earliest dates of history, and imagination would paint to my eager view the birth of society, and the smiling infancy of nature; but it forces me back, in spite of myself, to the contemplation of a decrepit world, it reminds me that it was made but yesterday, and seems, according to the observation of Mirabeau, to answer no purpose, but that of a political almanach for the present years.233 Ultimately, concludes Dumont in Groenvelt, A little senseless jargon about the law of nature and natural rights, is an excellent auxiliary to a professor, who would involve his ignorance in the cloud of a long and elaborate harangue; but men who understand what they talk about, and are desirous to be understood by others, will


readily agree to reject altogether these vague or unmeaning expressions. To speak correctly, rights have no existence but by virtue of the law; they do not precede society, but are produced by it; they are not anterior to the formation of the body politic, but are the benefits we derive from our social communion. For such a declaration cannot be considered the basis of reasoning, a touchstone to distinguish truth from falsehood, good laws from bad. The only true and immortal principle, is the general interest. Utility is the supreme object, which comprehends in itself law, virtue, truth and justice. Men who reason upon the principle of utility, can always understand each other, and are seldom likely to differ long in opinion, because they can have immediate recourse to experience, and the rule which is to fix the judgement of each being plain, simple, and capable of but one construction, they may readily discover wherein their difference consists, which is the greatest secret of deciding all controversies. Causes of riches and poverty, happiness and misery, pleasure and pain, are matters of mere experiment, and may be discerned without any violent exertion of the human faculties. And when these causes are understood, it is easy to determine whether a law be favourable to the interest of the majority. At some point then before early 1792, when the Groenvelt Letters went to press,234 it looks as though Dumont has thrown in his lot with Bentham – and for this reason: unlike people who talk rights language, people who talk utility language can always understand each other, it is a recipe for unity rather than anarchy. He goes on to say that any law may violate one or more of the imprescriptible rights of a citizen, so the rights of men are to be discerned by the general interest, and not vice-versa.235 Hence the declaration is ‘an ill-timed and fallacious measure, a subordinate and uncertain rule, an ignorant and deceitful guide, which . . . may bewilder men’s reason, but can never direct their judgement’. ‘I address myself to the grand principle of general utility, without trusting to any intervening medium; like the man who prayed immediately to God without addressing the saints, because, said he, my house would be burned down while those varlets were telling their master of my danger.’ He wants to talk a language intelligible to all, ‘and would gladly annihilate some thousands of volumes upon metaphysics, jurisprudence, and morals: all we need is a few social maxims – founded upon general utility – pointing out precisely the object of society and the duties of government. These maxims should never have pretended to the honour of being axioms, and of forming a creed of political religion’. Such maxims would not have bred conflict. ‘ . . . they would never have called forth a multitude of arguing blockheads, to inveigh with the bitter gall of religious sectaries, against all who do not implicitly subscribe to their doctrines.’236


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Yet Dumont does not want to pass for an enemy of the Rights of Man. He is critical of them because he wants something better for humanity. If he attacks them, it is ‘because I wish that liberty should no longer be shrouded under the jargon of scholastic subtleties: that the mystic veil, in which she has so long been wrapped, should at length be torn away, and her beauties no longer be concealed’.237 Bénétruy points out that the Assembly adopted Mirabeau’s proposed preamble to the Declaration more or less word for word,238 commenting: ‘As for the rhetorical charm of the piece, to credit Mirabeau with it would be to forget that the minister of the Holy Gospel, Etienne Dumont, a talented preacher, had a gift for rhetoric.’239 So Bénétruy considers it highly probable that the final text of the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, foundation stone of the first French Constitution, contained phrases and sentences produced by the fertile mind of the Genevan pastor. How ironical therefore that the author of the preamble to the Declaration composed it without any conviction and simply as an essential sop to prevailing political correctness. The pitched battles over the Declaration of the Rights of Man crystallised the polarities of the thinking that was common to Mirabeau, Dumont, and Du Roveray. Over against the detested ‘rhetoricians’ who seemed to live in a world of verbal abstractions remote from messy reality – such thinkers we might perhaps call ‘ideologues’ in today’s terms – they saw themselves as earthed reformers for whom progress was a matter of a slow and prudent advance that looked to existing or past models as its guide. The person who incarnated for Dumont the ‘abstractionist’ rhetorician was the abbé Sieyès. In the defeat of the ‘experience-based’ policies of Mirabeau (promoted by himself and Du Roveray) by the ‘rhetoric-based’ policies of those who thought like Sieyès, Dumont read the failure of the Revolution. He remembers the abbé as a rather remote person, a cold fish, with whom one did not really have a discussion, because he handed down opinions without deigning to respond to objections. ‘He seemed to have a profound contempt for the existing order of society’, remarks Dumont. Acquaintance with him was a big shock for Dumont. This was a man with little ability to laugh at himself, and worst of all it was someone who had nothing but contempt for the English and their political system, on which he looked down from an Olympian height of abstraction. He was a very absent man, did not encourage familiarity, and was by no means of an open disposition. He gave his opinion, but without discussion; and if anyone raised an objection, he made no reply . . . He . . . seemed to entertain the most profound contempt for the present order of society. I thought this friend of liberty must of course like the English, and I sounded him on this subject; but with surprise I discovered that he deemed the English constitution a mere piece of quackery, got up to impose upon the multitude. He seemed to listen to me as if I were uttering absurdities,


while I detailed the divers modifications of this system, and the disguised, though real checks upon the three estates composing the legislature. All influence possessed by the crown was, in his eyes, venality, and opposition a mere trick. The only thing which he admired in England, was trial by jury; but he badly understood its principles, which is the case with every Frenchman, and had formed very erroneous notions on the subject. In a word, he considered the English as tyros in framing constitutions, and that he could give a much better one than theirs in France.240 This is a profoundly revealing commentary. In it Dumont confronts a mentality that to him was one of the most destructive within the revolutionary current. First note that he describes Sieyès as ‘abstract’ and as reading very little. Murray Forsyth pointed out that at the time Dumont was encountering him, Sieyès’s correspondence shows that he was ordering and receiving books from Paris by authors such as Necker, La Harpe, and Linguet.241 However, what Dumont probably means is that Sieyès did not overtly or explicitly refer to other thinkers. Forsyth tells us that Sieyès’s characteristic method of launching a discussion of a political issue at this time was . . . not to survey the factual data of the problem, or to engage in a lengthy historical disquisition, but to move directly, even abruptly to a consideration of the principles involved. Having defined and related those, he would draw from them the consequences for the conduct of affairs. In the Views,242 for example, the first section began with a theoretical analysis of the ends or purpose of a legislative body, from which Sieyès demonstrated that a general assembly of elected representatives was the legitimate organ of the national will. From there he proceeded to deduce how the Estates-General, as such an assembly, should organise itself once it met . . . .243 Forsyth notes that this set Sieyès against not only the Rousseauists who looked for inspiration in primitive societies and the conservatives who wanted simply to tinker with the existing system but also against the likes of Dumont and Mirabeau who looked to the example of England.244 However, Sieyès did not object to meditation on history per se, only to a lazy spirit of imitation that did not want to be bothered to think things through.245 Order a clock from a clockmaker and see if he bothers to consult the history of clockmaking, . . . about the different ways the early industry used to measure time. Quite rightly, he considers that the prolonged groping of the human mind during the centuries of ignorance is far less suited to guide his craft than the branch of mechanics in which the laws and ideas of modern genius are expressed. Social mechanics has been equally enriched in our day by the long creative nights of genius. Why then do


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we refuse to consult it over the true means of satisfying the great needs of political sciences?246 Sieyès sounds remarkably like Bentham at this point, but in fact he was deeply averse to ‘treating man himself as a purely physical fact or phenomenon, and . . . making political deductions on the basis of the supposed physical inexorabilities of his nature’247 – which is of course exactly what Bentham tried to do. Sieyès moreover believed in natural law and ‘sublime relationships of humanity that nature has been careful to engrave in the bottom of our hearts’.248 Oddly, Dumont mocked Sieyès for claiming that ‘Politics is a science in which I think I am perfect’,249 which is not far from Dumont’s own later claim that Bentham had succeeded in perfecting the science of the law. The French original of Sieyès’s proud boast seems even closer to Bentham, for the abbé actually said something more like ‘politics is a science which I believe I have brought to perfection’ (‘la politique est une science que je crois avoir achevée’). In his respect for history and his dislike of the policy of trying to create a completely new basis for French society in contempt of her past, Dumont shared territory with quite a number of others in the Assembly. Rials notes the anxiety of Mounier in the face of those who ignored the significance of history, and his condemnation of the ‘rationalist’ policy of the tabula rasa.250 He also cites Clermont-Tonnerre, who contrasted the approach of those who were expecting the reform of abuses and the reestablishment of a fourteen-century old constitution with that of those who regarded the existing social regime as so vicious that an entirely new constitution was needed.251 Delandine argued that it was not ‘natural rights established at the birth of new tribes’ that should concern the Assembly, but the civil rights proper to a great people with a fifteen-century history whose laws are discordant – a people now enlightened by history, philosophy, and by its interests. ‘Let us abandon the natural man and get back to the fate of civilised man’, he cried.252 Was Mirabeau influenced by Bentham through Dumont? John Bowring stated quite definitively in his biographical memoir of Bentham that the materials which Dumont furnished for Mirabeau’s speeches ‘were mostly provided by Bentham’.253 Unfortunately the chronology of Dumont’s relationship with Bentham does not entirely fit with this statement. In 1936 Charles Blount, then a Cambridge postgraduate, went out to Geneva to study the evidence, and he subsequently wrote a full account of his conclusions.254 He traces the beginning of the relationship between Dumont and Bentham to the Autumn of 1788.255 He points out that Bentham did not give Dumont any of his papers until 1792. Dumont himself spoke of having received a copy of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation in 1789, but left on record a statement that it was only on his return to England in the Spring of


1790 that he began to study it carefully.256 Bearing in mind that Dumont’s most productive period as adviser to Mirabeau was between the Spring of 1789 and early 1790, we have to ask whether Bentham’s thinking really had the time to penetrate deeply into Dumont’s mindset, and Rials was quite justified in doubting that his ‘philosophical conversion’ could have taken place so quickly.257 As for the idea that Bentham contributed to what he was giving Mirabeau, there is no evidence of this. Starting with the autumn of 1788, Dumont did become familiar with a number of Bentham texts which we shall hear more about in the next chapter, but signs of a full-blown conversion to utilitarianism do not appear until 1791 with the completion of the material published the following year in the Groenvelt Letters. The first surviving letter from Bentham to Dumont dates from 9 June 1789.258 It indicates that they are as yet on fairly formal terms, and it shows that Bentham was mainly trying to use Dumont to get his writings (‘Political Tactics’,259 Defence of Usury) bearing on the Revolution translated or disseminated in France, and to get news of what was going on there. Dumont’s first letter in return is dated 27 September and is also fairly formal, being devoted to ‘Tactics’ and also to a paragraph on the Réclamation, of which Dumont is sending a copy.260 After this there are no surviving letters until one written by Bentham to Dumont some time after the latter’s departure from France and the service of Mirabeau, early in May 1790.261 This is about Bentham’s attempt to contribute to the Assembly debate on judicial organisation. The theory about Bentham having an influence on Mirabeau through Dumont underestimates the strength and conviction of Dumont’s ‘Genevanism’ which he shared with his colleagues in Mirabeau’s thinktank. These men had their own views and their own agenda well before Bentham came on the scene. We have also seen that other French observers in the Assembly and out of it shared in the scepticism of Bentham and Dumont about rights talk. Duquesnoy, for example, commented that the work on the Declaration of Rights gave far too much scope for vague metaphysical ideas. They argue over every point and every word of it even while claiming that these are rights that are imprinted on every heart!262 Nor must we forget the extent of Dumont’s exposure to the thinking of the ‘Bowood Circle’ in the years between his arrival in England at the beginning of 1786 and the outbreak of the Revolution. Although Dumont did much later publish the ‘Anarchical Fallacies’ material in which Bentham attacked Declarations of Rights (rechristened ‘Nonsense Upon Stilts’ in the modern Oxford edition), the surviving Bentham manuscripts for this date from 1795.263 Bentham did not pass these to Dumont until 1798/9 and even then Dumont chose not to use them for the Traités – apparently, and very plausibly, because Dumont did not at that point want to arouse the ire of the Sieyèsistes – who were still powerful.264 It is not clear when Dumont translated this material, and as it was not published in his translation until 1816, it lies outside the scope of this book. In including


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it with the ‘Political Fallacies’ material in the second volume of Tactique he made it plain that he intended it to be read not so much in terms of the debate about rights but rather as an illustration of fallacious reasoning or the rhetorical abuse of language. Having said all this, it is fair to add that Dumont did encounter Bentham’s political ideas in pamphlets addressed to France as early as the Autumn of 1788 and may have seen other pieces. What he found like there – the hostility to aristocracy, the call for ‘rational reform’ in France, and so on – is likely to have reinforced Dumont’s existing stock of ideas acquired from his Genevan background and from the Bowood Circle. His Genevan upbringing had imbued him with an admiration for England and for her political system, and this he brought with him to Paris in 1789. Ironically, he was much less of a critic of English practices than Bentham with his rejection of such institutions as bicameralism and hostility to juries, the assize system, and so on. The Bowood Circle had its own criticisms of English practice however, and it is clear from the Groenvelt Letters that Dumont initially absorbed this more attenuated Bowood critique rather than Bentham’s.265

IV

Dumont tires of the Revolution

On 26 September 1789, Mirabeau, having made a hugely eloquent speech against the threat of a declaration of national bankruptcy, was asked to compose an address on behalf of the Assembly to the electors asking for their support for an extraordinary contribution to bolster the national finances. This address was drawn up by Dumont, as is clearly evidenced by the presence of part of a first draft in his hand with comments by Mirabeau in the Geneva Public Library.266 At the end of October, Dumont and Du Roveray composed further speeches for Mirabeau. Du Roveray’s was devoted to the advocacy of the ineligibility of bankrupts for public office, and it was based on Genevan practices.267 On 28 October 1789, Mirabeau gave Dumont’s speech advocating the civic inscription of young persons in the body of active citizens. His manuscript of the speech is again to be found in the Geneva Library with corrections by Mirabeau.268 The famous events of 5/6 October, the storming of the palace of Versailles by the populace leading to the transfer of the King to Paris, aroused suspicions in many quarters with regard to Mirabeau. With his usual caution, Dumont does not claim to know the truth about this but he obviously had suspicions, because he notes that even though the Assembly officially absolved Mirabeau, ‘the absolution of the Assembly is not that of history and there are a great number of mysteries to be resolved before we can pronounce on the event with certainty’.269 He had no personal knowledge of any dealings involving Orleans (often accused of being the real instigator of these events) and Mirabeau; however, he did recall how he himself and Du Roveray had discovered copies of a translation Mirabeau had made of certain inflammatory


republican writings by Milton. The copies were at the offices of the publisher Le Jay and waiting to be published. Believing that their publication might well have been blamed on themselves and led to dangerous consequences, the two Genevans insisted on destroying as many copies as they could.270 Dumont afterwards wondered whether this edition had been prepared somehow in connection with the events of 5/6 October. There were those who had absolutely no doubt that Mirabeau belonged to a coterie of Orleanist conspirators.271 In October and November the question of Church property came up at the Assembly, and Dumont commented that it was unjust to ‘sacrifice victims to the public good’, so stripping the clergy to pay the national debt was unjust.272 He claimed to have absorbed this conviction in England, where it was assumed that reforms should not be carried out at the expense of living persons. This was certainly a key part of Bentham’s system. In the Souvenirs, Dumont makes a very Benthamic contrast between the imperceptibility of the gains to the public and the very damaging losses to individuals, when individuals are stripped of their property ‘for the good of the community’.273 In December 1789, Mirabeau came to Dumont with a plan to save France from the impasse into which he and some others felt it had fallen following the collapse of the old regime’s authority and power structures.274 The idea was for the King to leave Paris for some place where the army units were loyal and make an appeal to the nation. He was to dissolve the Assembly and annul its decrees and call for fresh elections. The Parlements were to be restored. Mirabeau would remain in Paris, if the capital remained intransigent it would have to be blockaded. The expectation was that all the right wing and the moderates on the left would go to the King. Dumont told him he wanted nothing to do with it, he would leave Paris immediately. The King simply did not have the character to stick to the plan. Mirabeau claimed that the queen had sufficient character for both, but Dumont observed that Mirabeau would be dispensed with immediately if the plan did actually work, because he would be seen as too dangerous. In any case it would lead to civil war because the Assembly had the sympathy of the people, and there would be the spectacle of Austrian troops backing the monarchy against the people. Dumont urged Mirabeau to see his place as being at the heart of the Assembly, influencing events from within the revolutionary movement. Mirabeau admitted that he had only come up with the plan because soundings had been made as to whether his support could be relied upon should the King leave the capital. Essentially Dumont is claiming to have put Mirabeau right off any such plan and to have persuaded the Frenchman that he could not have any faith in the Court. A few days later Mirabeau told him that not only he himself but the Court had abandoned the project. Not long afterwards the marquis de Favras was accused of plotting to remove the King from Paris and executed. Dumont implies that Mirabeau was all too relieved that he had been silenced.275


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On 10 December 1789, Mirabeau gave a speech written by Dumont on a Rousseau-inspired proposal for a system of gradual elections for all those aspiring to public office, so that a person would have to be a municipal officer before becoming a departmental one and a departmental one before eligible to the National Assembly.276 Despite the cachet of Rousseau’s name and the fact that the speech was met with approval, it aroused opposition from the left, and the matter was adjourned. This is a reminder that Dumont’s agenda was not only the imitation of English models but also occasionally Rousseauistic. Dumont was to return to England early in 1790, but before leaving the topic of his activities in the first phase of the French Revolution, there is one further matter to discuss, which brings us full circle back to our startingpoint and the reason why Dumont happened to be in Paris when the Estates General opened: namely, Genevan business. I stated that Dumont came to Paris to pester the French government into rejecting the new Genevan constitution resulting from the 1789 disturbances. He should have been helped by the fact that the First Minister was a Genevan, the celebrated Necker, but Dumont does not seem ever to have had much fondness for the ex-banker. His references to Necker are usually dismissive and sometimes downright contemptuous.277 The feeling is that Necker has sold out to the Court. Dumont and his Genevan associates considered that Necker should have used his influence within the French government to further their own goals and indeed to have abolished French interference in the affairs of Geneva as embodied in the Garantie.278 Mirabeau managed to convince French Foreign Minister Montmorin that the exiles including Du Roveray should be restored to their offices. Dumont completed his Réclamation in September 1789 and sent it to Geneva.279 It set out the reasons why the French government should reject the new status quo in his native land. It was to be the last time that he voiced his doctrine of ‘Genevanism’. I have already summarised the account Dumont gave in it of the philosophy of his party, focussing mainly on the preface and on the closing remarks about the theatre.280 One or two further observations are in order here. There are signs of some defensiveness on the part of Dumont and his sympathisers in London because they are aware that the new settlement has been accepted by many of their fellow-représentants back home.281 We can see evidence of this fissure in the correspondence of pastor Juventin with pastor Jacob Vernes – both of them had been Dumont’s mentors. ‘What do you say to this trip Dumont and Du Roveray are making to Paris?’, writes Juventin on 18 April 1789 . . . ‘these two ambassadors of the malcontents in England, together with MM. Clavière and Reybaz, will together forge the weapons with which they will try to overthrow our work. I don’t think they will succeed, the citizens will stake their honour and pride on it’.282 Juventin goes on to lament the fact that even when peace has been made at home, the fires of contention are being lit outside [i.e. by the London Genevans]. In a later letter he comments on the gulf that has opened up in


the seven years since 1782 between those who have remained in Geneva and those who left then.283 But essentially Dumont’s point of view in this passionate piece of invective is that his peers in Geneva have been rushed into signing up to something very inadequate. The London exiles are being courageous in going against the tide and they would have felt discouraged from doing so had it not been for the fact that they were living in England, where appeal has so often been made from decisions reached hastily in turbulent circumstances to conclusions reached after a period of calm reflection. The main objection to the settlement of 1789 contained in this piece is that it does not annul all the outrages of 1782 but simply modifies them, thereby allowing that laws sanctioned by constitutional forms, by a multitude of voluntary acts, on the validity of which no doubt has ever been raised, can be legally eliminated by military force, by the foreign forces introduced by the aristocrats in 1782.284 In other words the London exiles are complaining that their peers in Geneva have given up the attempt to turn back the clock to pre-1782 days. The argument continues in Rousseauian tones, claiming that the settlement has implicitly hallowed the raising of the partial will of a small number of citizens over the general will (in 1782).285 As the argument proceeds, it becomes clear that Dumont and the London expatriates are indeed pursuing a policy of seeking the restoration of the golden age of Geneva. ‘Before the last intervention of the Foreign Powers’ [in 1782], writes Dumont, ‘our constitution was almost in conformity in every way with the true principles of public happiness.’ Based by law on a democratic foundation, the government was tempered by prudent forms that allowed for unhurried debate, thereby countering the danger of ambush by demagogues. The law was the free enlightened expression of the general will. If the magistrates ceased to perform their task of ensuring that the general will was respected, they encountered obstacles that brought them back to their proper task.286 In short, prior to the shocking events of 1782, Geneva was becoming the cradle of all the Republican virtues. The noble undertaking of a general revision of the laws would have filled up the gaps in their legislation.287 It was the general code of laws that was the first, the most insistent, and the most just of their demands; this code was to be the measure of the authority held by the one side and the degree of submission owed by the other, for all a pledge of confidence and harmony, and the new settlement has obliterated it, accepting in its place an abridged collection of unimportant laws.288 The citizens will not only remain unprotected against arbitrary power and confusion, they will be unable easily to grasp the overall system of their laws.289 The seeds of Dumont’s openness to Bentham are in evidence here: his longstanding desire for a non-arbitrary legal system and his attachment to the idea that codification will enable ordinary citizens to understand the rationale of their laws. Although the right of the General Council to impose taxes is acknowledged in theory, in practice it will be unenforceable, for the settlement includes a


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confirmation of present taxes without any time limit. The universal duty of service in the citizen militia in times of emergency has not been honoured and the military exercises so valued by Rousseau remain suppressed.290 At this point Dumont makes another reference to the Letter to d’Alembert: This then is all that remains to us of those innocent military festivals, which, nourishing in our hearts disdain for frivolous amusements, providing us with opportunities to get together, to know each other, to serve each other, showing us liberty in our pleasures and ennobling them through their objective, retained in the national character that male simplicity, that cordiality, that openness so fitted to republicans, helping so powerfully . . . to bind our hearts to the Fatherland!291 Dumont calls for publicity in the area of judicial procedure, claiming that it is something constantly sought by the citizens and constantly refused by the government.292 He also calls for the law to classify penalties and fix penalties proportionate to offences, and for it to unify procedure. He calls for the elimination of remand except in cases where there is a danger of flight. He goes so far as to assert something utterly humiliating for a Genevan – that even the laws of France are more favourable to the freedom of individuals. There is a reprise of some of the arguments that D’Ivernois had already put forward in 1781 about the need for a complete renewal of Genevan criminal law.293 (The call for the elimination of remand had also been made by D’Ivernois.294 ) Interestingly, D’Ivernois had quoted Blackstone on several occasions as an authority for the model principles of the British penal system.295 D’Ivernois too had evinced shame at the superiority of the French penal system.296 He too had spoken of the need for publicity of procedure,297 arguing that ‘public opinion is the rampart of the liberty of peoples and the most salutary brake on power’.298 In fact a consideration of the 50 pages devoted by D’Ivernois to the need for reform of the penal law and to the crying weaknesses of the existing system make clear the extent to which Dumont’s Genevan experience had prepared him to be receptive to Bentham. One sentence from D’Ivernois’ Offrande says it all: What makes so many abuses in our system unbearable, is the fact that the tribunals responsible for them are the only judges of their own contraventions; and that, left to themselves in the matter of ascertaining offences, they have no rule at all for measuring the penalties they apply, and do not even want to follow the decrees of their predecessors. The accused is subjected to the passions of the judges . . . .299 The main burden of Dumont’s argument in the Réclamation though is that this new settlement continues to represent the embodiment of the power of


a minority – the aristocracy (or what Bentham would later call ‘the sinister interest’) – over the general will and the happiness of all.300 But Necker swung Montmorin against an earlier favourable attitude to the demands of the Genevan exiles. Dumont wrote a furious letter of protest to Necker in December 1789.301 Necker answered loftily that he simply did not have time to correspond, and urged him to accept what the majority in Geneva were happy to accept.302 Dumont drafted several vitriolic replies that seem not to have been sent.303 But the argument spilled over into the Assembly, for this reason: the Genevan government offered the Assembly a patriotic gift of 900 000 livres, which the exiles saw as a blatant attempt to buy French acceptance of the new constitution.304 They had a spokesman in the Assembly, the well-known writer Volney, and he attacked the Genevan government for trying to bribe the Assembly, calling for the gift to be rejected. The ensuing debate caused quite a stir.305 Dumont left Paris in March 1790. There was more than one reason why he was happy to cross the Channel again. Relations between Mirabeau and Du Roveray had soured on account of the fraudulent actions of Mirabeau’s mistress Mme Le Jay as manager of the Courier – which deprived the Genevans of any of the profits from the enterprise.306 Dumont was bored and exhausted with the work on the Courier which had lost its savour for him, especially since Du Roveray was opting out more and more. Dumont had long since become alienated from the Assembly with its unvarying diet of what seemed to him like turgid posturing, repetitious speeches, and pathological fear of the executive. He had seen Mirabeau himself at too close quarters to retain his original attachment to the great orator: he distrusted the impurity of Mirabeau’s motives for serving the monarchy, and the money which Mirabeau was now receiving from the Court enabled him to indulge in a luxurious lifestyle which alienated the austere Genevan. Worse, Mirabeau’s enemies had started to comment publicly on the fact that he had a group of faiseurs doing his work for him.307 They promoted the idea that the great orator was nothing but the tool of a little clique of foreigners. One pamphlet in particular, by Jean-Gabriel Peltier, entitled Domine, salvum fac regem (‘God save the King’ – a satirical reference to the English national anthem), contrasted the Mirabeau whose eloquence moved everyone at the tribune with the creatures that inhabited his ‘disgusting lair’.308 It gave a list of his works accompanied by the names of the actual authors, attributing the authorship of the Courier to Dumont. This was the first time Dumont had actually been identified by name in public in such a disparaging way and it caused him grave discomfort.309 One issue of the journal Les Actes des Apôtres suggested that Dumont would be rectifying France’s organisation as he had planned to do for Geneva and that his work would be the prototype on which every political artist, present and future, would model his constitution.310 Du Roveray and Clavière were treated even more harshly as individuals who had been banished from their homeland for sedition, and Du Roveray was singled


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out as an agent of Pitt.311 Dumont realised that it would be all too easy for observers to overlook the ways in which the Atelier were trying to direct Mirabeau into helpful channels and simply attribute his vices to them.312 In London too his association with Mirabeau was beginning to be looked upon unfavourably. Another cause of Dumont’s discomfort was apparently a feeling of disquiet about where Mirabeau was going. Although the National Assembly cleared Mirabeau of any involvement in the March on Versailles of 5 and 6 October and the violence associated with it, Dumont was clearly not so sure.313 He recalled close connections between Mirabeau and both Camille Desmoulins and Orleans’s secretary Choderlos de Laclos. Jarrett describes him as becoming ‘increasingly disgusted with Mirabeau’s shady political manoeuvrings’. It was as Dumont was leaving Paris that the Court was pressing Mirabeau into service. Through the comte de Lamarck substantial sums of money were offered to him, with even larger sums promised at the close of the legislature session.314

V

Dumont and Mirabeau: the last act

The year 1791 saw Dumont return to Paris for an incident-packed stay, followed by an excursion to Geneva, where he found himself reluctantly but unavoidably caught up – and not for the last time – in the turbulent maelstrom of the republic’s political developments. He reached Paris on 14 January 1791,315 and went to see Mirabeau that same evening, finding Volney, Garat the Younger, and Cabanis there, among others of his old acquaintances.316 At the end of the month, Dumont penned a huge letter to Romilly.317 He reports that Mirabeau is the same as ever except richer, more magnificent, stronger through his victories, difficult to undermine. Some of his recent speeches were written by the abbé Lamourette.318 He has a tribe of faiseurs who do not know each other’s identities. But he improvises at the tribune very successfully, and his eloquence in conversation supports his reputation as a writer. In short, ‘ . . . he outclasses all of his speechwriters to such a degree that it is impossible not to forgive him his charlatanry’. There is an enigmatic remark in the letter where Dumont says that Mirabeau does not do any writing; ‘I am well aware who has done half of his diplomatic report, but I don’t know who did the other half’. An account of this episode – nearly the last piece of collaboration between the two men – is given in the Atelier de Mirabeau. The Diplomatic Committee had asked Mirabeau to report on French foreign policy, and more precisely on the persistent rumours of war.319 Dumont contributed one half of this on the question of the relations between France and England.320 Mirabeau asked Dumont to write encouragingly about all that could promote peace and amity between the two nations, and also to attack Burke’s critique of the Revolution,321 on the grounds that his speech needed


to have a strongly democratic tinge since his conclusions favoured the executive power. Dumont was very keen to combat French prejudices against England so he accepted gladly.322 The address asked whether England was likely to be a belligerent nation. It points out that a different approach has to be adopted towards understanding the English state of mind than towards the other European powers. ‘When considering the other European powers, it is enough to work out the probable intentions of the Cabinets, but with Great Britain you have to listen to the voice of the nation too.’ The truth is that it would be a ‘virtuous and rare’ policy to set down the basis for an eternal Anglo-French fraternity. To wait and see how things pan out, to disturb Europe so as not to be idle, would be the intriguer’s way. Which way will the British cabinet follow? In fact the English nation rejoiced when we French ‘proclaimed the great charter of humanity’, ‘found in the ruins of the Bastille’. It is true that a few of our decrees have upset the political or episcopal prejudices of the English, but they have applauded our liberty. Public opinion over there would be outraged by ministers who launched a crusade to damage our constitution. This is in spite of the influence of Burke, that MP ‘whom every admirer of his great talents has been afflicted to see among the detractors of human reason’. Don’t be deceived: ‘ . . . from the heart of that classic land of liberty a volcano would erupt to engulf any guilty faction that would have wanted to try out on us the deadly art of enslaving peoples and give them back the chains they have broken.’ English ministers will not risk offending English public opinion, as strong and constant as it is over here. The danger is purely from ‘a few malign politicians’ who might get up to ‘secret manoeuvres, secret ways of inciting disunity, setting the parties against each other and getting them to cancel each other out . . . ’. They might in other words like to see France weakened.323 Dumont reports that this speech was well received and that Britain still had many friends across the Channel. On 29 January 1791, Mirabeau was elected President of the Assembly. Up to then he had been kept out of this post by his enemies, but Dumont took this as a sign that the Court was beginning to see him as a possible ally. Dumont is very complimentary about the way he conducted himself in this role, organising the debates much more efficiently, preventing distractions, clarifying issues at a stroke, silencing interruptions. ‘He introduced a degree of order and clearness in the proceedings, of the possibility of which no member had previously the least conception. He simplified forms; could render the question clear by a single word, and also by a single word put down tumult. His regard for all parties, the respect he always paid to the assembly, the precision of his observations, and his answers to the several deputations at the bar – answers which, whether prepared or extempore, were always remarkable for dignity and elegance, and satisfactory even in conveying a refusal; – in short, his activity, his impartiality, and his presence of mind increased his reputation, and added splendour to his talents in an office which had proved


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a quicksand to many of his predecessors.’324 Essentially Dumont is praising Mirabeau for having as Speaker personified the English parliamentary model to the French deputies.325 At their last parting, Mirabeau seemed to anticipate his death and prophesied that afterwards it would become obvious what a torrent of ills he had been holding at bay. He and Dumont had been so right to try and prevent the Commons from declaring itself the National Assembly.326 He pointed to this as the root of all ills, from the moment they won this victory they showed themselves relentlessly unworthy . . . ‘They wanted to govern the King, instead of being governed by him . . . .’327 He adds that soon neither they nor he will govern, they will be under a vile faction that will cover France with horrors. Dumont had not the least inkling that these dire prophecies would actually be fulfilled, he put the words down to Mirabeau’s easily inflamed-imagination. He was not inclined to believe in the viciousness of those whom Mirabeau designated as the leaders of the Jacobins. He believed that Mirabeau’s hatred of certain individuals was distorting his perception. In the Souvenirs, Dumont tries to grasp what it was that made Mirabeau special. His range of knowledge was mediocre – no depth, though he was very good at making good use of what little he had. His special gift in Dumont’s opinion was his passionate and eloquent soul, which very quickly transformed his whole appearance.328 Although he had been studying questions of politics and government from his youth on, he did not relish the hard grind of study, debate, and wrestling with doubt. But his imagination drove him forwards by leaps and bounds, compensating for the inability to work methodically. ‘He abounded in forcible expressions, of which he made a particular study.’329 In fact he was born to shine in a political assembly in stormy times when what was needed was audacity. Dumont delights in remembering how Mirabeau looked and sounded.330 Gravity, emphasis, leisureliness rather than voluble eloquence – this was his hallmark. He had an amazing gift for taking the notes that people would hand to him and introducing them immediately into the body of his speech. Garat compared him to conjurors who tore up a piece of paper into pieces, swallowed the pieces and then produced the piece whole again. He would grab at any remark or idea that he came across and use it, everything was grist to his mill, his mind was a kind of mental hoover. He knew how to exploit his physical presence, shaking his magnificent mane of hair to intimidate listeners. Dumont approaches perhaps the most interesting feature of Mirabeau: he was a one-man band, a man without a party, a leader without troops. He had no general plan but lived from day to day, he had become the bête noire of the Left without getting support from the Right. He did not even have the application to be regular at the sessions and hardly ever turned up in the evenings. He could not be bothered to consult others or win them over. It was only later that he learnt parliamentary tactics and in the last 6


months of his life made a systematic effort to build up a powerful movement against the Jacobins and in favour of the monarchy.331 Had Mirabeau lived, he would in Dumont’s view surely have been able to contain the Jacobins and he would certainly have blocked the decree by which the members of the Assembly made themselves ineligible for the new elections, thereby according to Dumont depriving their work – still very vulnerable – of the support it needed to hold up.332 He had already managed to block the proposal twice before his death. Dumont does Mirabeau the compliment of admitting that he was the only revolutionary leader who might have had the power to channel the destiny of France into a different course. But ultimately Dumont denies him the title of ‘great man’, preferring that of ‘extraordinary man’. Dumont defines the essence of Mirabeau’s genius as political sagacity, the ability to anticipate developments, knowledge of men. These he possessed to an eminent degree. He sometimes even claimed prophetic powers. Dumont describes him meeting the exiles from Geneva in Neuchâtel in 1782 and announcing the Estates General of France as inevitable. He also predicted he would be a deputy and that he would reestablish their homeland. He was particularly gifted at unmasking the secret motives of the deputies.333 If he failed to live up to his words it was through ‘inconséquence’ rather than through hypocrisy. ‘He had a purity of reason which elevated his soul, and violent passions which again dragged it down and degraded it.’334 Dumont’s remarkable portrayal is a very fine and sensitive attempt to get to grips with a deeply complex personality.335

5 The Creator of the Bentham Brand: (3) First Steps in Marketing

I

Dumont’s early abstracts of Bentham

‘From our point of view, the reason of Bentham appears the perfect antithesis of the reason of Rousseau’, so wrote Henry Sidgwick.1 There is much truth in this, and were it not for the French Revolution, it is hard to see how a mind like Dumont’s could have adapted so completely from the one to the other: but this was a period of conversions.2 On the other hand, it needs to be borne in mind that the starting point for Rousseau, as for Bentham, was the production of an alternative society, another order of things than the one that existed. The two thinkers also shared a deeply anti-aristocratic view of the world. Interestingly, Foucault argued that ‘Bentham was the complement to Rousseau’, arguing that many of the revolutionaries were motivated by ‘the dream of a transparent society’, waging war on areas of prerogative or privilege, which he characterises as ‘zones of darkness’ or ‘zones of disorder’.3 He refers to Starobinski’s work on the theme of transparency in Rousseau,4 claiming that they were following ‘the dream that . . . men’s hearts should communicate, their vision be unobstructed by obstacles, and that the opinion of all reign over each’. He describes Bentham as wanting the visibility to serve not so that the opinion of all should reign over each but to consolidate a ‘rigorous, meticulous’ power. ‘The two things combine into a working whole, Rousseau’s lyricism and Bentham’s obsession.’5 Of course, Rousseau too was a maker of codes – witness his writings for Corsica and Poland.6 And Bentham did once declare himself ‘fascinated by Rousseau . . . to the highest pitch of fascination’ – though left completely cold by the Social Contract.7 It needs to be remembered that although his reaction against ‘Rousseauism’ and his contempt for the addiction to inflated rhetoric he associated with the National Assembly had both made Dumont receptive to Bentham, there were other features in his experience that had prepared him for this: for example, the huge preoccupation with the preparation of a code of laws in the Geneva of his youth. In addition, he had already been in England for nearly 3 years 181


before he even met Bentham, and during this important period he had had ample opportunity to absorb the thinking of the Bowood Circle into which he had entered. There is much overlap between Bentham’s ideas and those of the Bowood Circle, and we cannot always assume that Dumont simply absorbed ideas directly from Bentham when they may have been part of the common currency of the particular segment of English society in which he was moving.8 All kinds of myths have been rehearsed about Etienne Dumont and his connection with Bentham. One of the most extraordinary is to be found in Mary P. Mack’s study of the young Bentham. She claims that prior to the American Revolution Geneva was ‘the best operating model of democracy’.9 We have heard enough about Geneva in the previous chapter to be able to assess the value of this particular generalisation justly. She then goes on to claim that as a Genevan citizen, Dumont was able to justify democracy to Bentham on utilitarian grounds, and thereby helped to convert him to democratic thinking from his initial toryism, a travesty of the facts. So is the account given of the beginning of Dumont’s collaboration with Bentham in some of the manuals. For example, C. W. Everett implies that in 1788 Dumont was so struck by the content of some material he saw written by Bentham that he offered to superintend publication of it himself.10 The reality is rather more complex. The way Dumont got to know Bentham was this.11 Scenting that the action developing across the Channel might offer opportunities for an enterprising individual to get some of his ideas accepted over there, Bentham wrote a short piece in French in the Autumn of 1788 (‘Observations d’un Anglois sur l’arrêté de la noblesse de Bretagne’) attacking the Breton nobility for what he regarded as their retrograde and arrogant attitudes as expressed in a recent decree.12 He wanted someone to correct his text for its French style and Romilly sent it to Dumont13 without telling him anything about the author. At the end of November 1788, Dumont looked over the text and corrected it as best he could, given that he was dealing with what he called Bentham’s ‘dog French’14 The acidly anti-aristocratic tone of Bentham’s commentary will certainly have commended itself to Dumont. The background to this piece was that on 20 October 1788, there was a demand from the municipal assembly of Rennes in Brittany for fairer representation for the Third Estate in the forthcoming assembly of the Breton Estates. They were objecting to the long-standing domination of the Estates by the nobles. Five days later a group of nobles met in Rennes and on 7 November produced a decree (Arrêté) containing nine ‘incontrovertible maxims’ which were alleged to form the basis of the status quo. In one of his numerous attempts to influence French public opinion at this time, Bentham took each of the ‘incontrovertible maxims’ one by one and offered a refutation of them.15 Bentham’s commentary shows him at his malicious best: in a brief preface he remarks that the only foundation for these maxims is their alleged

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‘incontrovertibility’; personally he would have preferred to see ‘a few little reasons’ adduced in support of their claims, but finds none.16 The second of the ‘incontrovertible maxims’ states that the parity of influence between the orders is ‘the surest base of their union’.17 Bentham proposes just one tiny amendment: replacing the word ‘union’ with the word ‘disunion’. He goes on to argue that whereas parity between men is just, parity between unequal orders is not. Paradoxically, he also points out that parity between two equal orders is not conducive to progress, because they will cancel each other out.18 One of them needs to have the upper hand, and Bentham adduces the English example, where peace has reigned only when either the Lords or the Commons has been in the ascendancy. The fourth ‘incontrovertible maxim’ states that the three orders must never allow the existing ‘parity of influence’ to be destroyed and that ‘innovations’ would simply introduce arbitrariness and hence perpetuate trouble and anarchy.19 Typically, Bentham observes that every law is in fact an ‘innovation’, slyly intimating that if ‘Messires’ have the secret of making laws that are not new he would be keen to know it. As for arbitrariness, it is nipped in the bud by free discussion. The seventh of the ‘incontrovertible maxims’ claims that the disproportion in the number of electors in different areas can be remedied by the Estates General for the future. Bentham acidly observes that although inconveniences might be extirpated by those who benefit from them, and that people who attain prizes at the cost of huge efforts might repudiate the object of their quest – is it really likely?20 Over the winter of 1788 and into the Spring of 1789 Bentham worked on various compositions intended to influence unfolding events in France.21 Although by the spring of 1789 he was corresponding with Dumont (then in France), it was through Lord Lansdowne’s old friend Morellet22 that he was working at this time to try and bring his writings to the attention of the French public. But Morellet’s response had been very discouraging – alerting Bentham to the fact that booksellers had been overwhelmed with writings relating to the Estates General to such an extent that they were now only taking them if offered for nothing and not always even then.23 He himself had to pay to get four or five pamphlets published. However, Bentham’s first extant letter to Dumont of 9 June indicates that Dumont has become involved as intermediary between Bentham and Mirabeau with regard to the Political Tactics material. Some confusion had arisen because Bentham had sent this material to Mirabeau as being written by the author of the Defence of Usury – only Mirabeau did not know of that book and did not realise who had authored the material. Bentham had chosen to send the Tactics material to Mirabeau because Romilly had told him that Mirabeau was interested in translating it.24 However, by this date the opening of the Estates General was well past and Bentham had moved on to other things. The aim of Political Tactics – as we shall see below – was to provide the outline for the organisation and structure of a model political assembly, and Bentham had wanted


it put in the hands of the deputies as they arrived for the opening, so it was already becoming outdated. It involved a comparative study of reports of assembly sessions from various countries and Bentham had first thought of the idea long before 1789.25 Dumont’s experiences of the chaotic debating conditions in the National Assembly convinced him of the wisdom of Bentham’s plan and 10 years later he drafted his own version of it.26 Finally in 1816 he published it in time to exercise an influence on the new Genevan Assembly established when the republic had regained its autonomy after the defeat of Napoleon.27 In the meantime Bentham had finally got round to publishing An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, which came out at the beginning of April 1789.28 Ironically, the publication of this work in 1789 (though it had already been privately printed nine years previously in 1780 and largely composed in the 1770s) was a total flop and only one review is known to have been written – and that too several years later.29 All eyes were on France and the moment was not propitious. On the other hand, the book proved to be the hook that landed the biggest fish of all among Bentham’s disciples – Etienne Dumont, who was to create for the Englishman a global reputation and transform his image. Without seriously looking at it, Dumont gave the book to a couple of people he knew who did translation work but they were extremely discouraging about it, claiming that it was far too arid and difficult for a francophone readership.30 Many would have been put off by this response, but Dumont had been raised in the hard school of Genevan Spartanism and for him the idea of austerity and difficulty was not a turn-off but a lure. It suggested something deep and serious, for that very reason alien to ‘French’ frivolity. This is not a minor matter, for it points us to one of the cultural transformations underlying Bentham’s worldview. As one commentator wrote, he was the first of those who tried to move politics into the high and dry barracks of what they supposed was science. With Bentham, we leave the time when political writing is at one with literature, when it is distinguished either by the loftiness of philosophy, the irony of the pamphlet, or the elegance and good sense of the essay.31 But the negative reactions of Dumont’s friends also pointed to the selfdefeating aspect of Bentham’s enterprise. The average reader found it difficult to read such stuff, it needed sexing up – and as it turned out, Dumont was the man to do this. Dumont then tells us that it was at this point he decided to study the book himself. He did indeed find it difficult, but he also found it rewarding. There were cliffs to climb but when you got up to the top there was a magnificent view. This book set out Bentham’s fundamental philosophy, the philosophy of social improvement as based uniquely on the greatest happiness principle, and at some point between late 1789 and 1791


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it converted Dumont from his earlier Genevan Spartanism to Benthamic utilitarianism. This was a step much further than merely appreciating Bentham’s anti-aristocratic wit or his wisdom about the organisation of assemblies, and it represented the starting point for the rest of Dumont’s life. Shortly after Dumont’s departure from Paris in March 1790, his first substantial published abstracts from Bentham started to appear over several issues in the Courier de Provence.32 They provided an abbreviated version of Bentham’s contribution to the Assembly debate on the reformation of the judicial order. A committee had been appointed by the Assembly to put forward the outline of a new judicial order, and Bentham immediately wrote a commentary on the proposals.33 In Bentham’s original text as published in the Bowring edition, there is a typical forceful sideswipe at English lawyers: ‘Leave the rattle of fiction to such children in legislation as our lawyers.’34 It is significant that Dumont omitted this sentence, so typical of Bentham’s hostility to English legal practice, for Dumont was much more sympathetic to English legal practice than Bentham. The paradox is that although Dumont was seen as a publicist for ‘English’ ideas, the thinker who fascinated him was himself so very untypical of the English tradition and such a fierce critic of it in many areas. Later Bentham attacks the British assize system for the delays of justice it causes. He has a delightful sentence which Dumont characteristically does not translate: When a piece of clockwork is set agoing, and heads to look after it are wanting, it keeps on going, whether it be of use or whether it be of none. The old clockwork of revolving judges, having kept on going for so many years, is admired to this day: partly because it was of use when new, but much more because it is so old, that greatest of all merits in the eyes of lawyers.35 In place of the assize system, Bentham the creative thinker proposes the principle of the intercommunity of jurisdiction, with geographical boundaries of tribunal areas fixed but not rigid; where convenience is better served, a person to be able to go to another tribunal than the one allocated to him. If motion be necessary to honesty, nothing hinders your putting your judges into a roundabout, so long as you put a seat into it, for every county, or whatever else the division be, with a judge in every seat. Complication precedes simplicity. Invention begins in imitation. I had made a model of a roundabout for my judges. – I settled on my principle of intercommunity of jurisdiction . . . and I threw my roundabout into the fire.36 All this is omitted by Dumont. The way Dumont dealt with Bentham’s text here is exemplary for his later handling of Bentham’s work. One of the sacrifices Dumont was to make in his many abstracts of Bentham materials was


that of passages which directly concerned English practice. Ostensibly this was because Dumont’s aim was to extract the meat from Bentham’s diffuse and prolix manuscripts in order to show the main lines of his mentor’s thinking. All that was not somehow a matter of general or universally applicable principles had thus to be omitted. All that might seem to be of interest chiefly in a specifically English context could be eliminated. However, there was another side to this, illustrated by the example just given. For Bentham’s discussion of English practice was very often far more than merely illustrative, it frequently had a polemical edge and indeed could involve mockery of venerable English institutions like the assize courts. Dumont was, however, often interested in presenting England to Continentals as a model, so this kind of material had no place for him. In an avertissement to the first extract from Bentham’s Draught, Dumont described Bentham as one of the greatest thinkers and one of the men most expert in legislative jurisprudence in England; out of pure philanthropy he has devoted precious time to the study of French laws and to the quest of those that are most appropriate to the national character and to the principles of the constitution adopted by the Assembly.37 Collaboration between Bentham and Dumont had now become close indeed: ‘Dumont . . . translated the instalments as Bentham wrote them, the two men working in adjacent rooms at Lansdowne House, with the marquis supervising.’38 In May 1790, Bentham sent off 100 copies of the part of this text so far printed to the President of the National Assembly.39 A few days before this, Lord Lansdowne had written to the duc de la Rochefoucauld to commend Bentham and his work to him.40 On 12 May, Dumont told Bentham that publication of his extracts from Bentham has been suspended – he has been told that the sessions of the Assembly are so long and interesting that they are now taking up the bulk of the Courier.41 He was very annoyed about this. But it turns out that in dealing with judicial organisation the Assembly had actually ignored the plan of its own committee anyway,42 so Bentham’s contribution had become something of an irrelevance. In his reply a couple of days later, Bentham announces that he has given up being useful to France, he has decided to attend to his own country’s legal system.43 His kingdom is not to be of this world, he will still be making tribunals when he gets to heaven. Dumont’s Courier articles had, however, not gone unread, and a year later encouragement came from France to make Bentham think he might yet have a role to play in the construction of the new order there. On 16 October 1791, Garran de Coulon proposed that the National Assembly should enlist the aid of foreign experts as well as Frenchmen in drawing up a code of laws.44 In his speech he actually referred to Bentham’s Draught by name. He observed


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that Bentham had done this considerable work with the sole aim of being useful to a country born for liberty, solely to contribute to the perfecting of a constitution so important for the happiness of the human race. The new and useful ideas in his work were such that his aid should be enlisted for the reform of French civil laws and the institution of an appropriate procedure. Garran de Coulon also proposed a vote of thanks to Bentham for his work on the judicial order, and suggested that a commissioner be appointed to give an account of Bentham’s plan. When it was objected that a vote of thanks should not be accorded to someone still alive, Garran de Coulon returned to the fray with enthusiastic praise of Bentham’s Draught. He suggested that there might be others out there who could also make similar contributions, and that the voting of official thanks would be an excellent way of eliciting further help. The question was referred to the Committee for Legislation. Bentham wrote a delighted letter to Garran de Coulon at the end of October,45 comparing the breadth of vision shown by this French deputy in being open to foreign contributions with the narrow-mindedness of the eighteenth-century Prussian Cocceius, interested only in getting German contributions when working on the Prussian code.46 He enclosed the printed part of Tactics47 and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, asking Garran de Coulon to pay particular attention to the latter as showing ‘the outlines and character of my writings’. In a second letter in November,48 he says he is about to send a Panopticon text, together with a French extrait made of it by Dumont.49 He announces that France is more open to innovation than anywhere, and says that it is from France that the world is now awaiting models for all parts of the administration. This is an eerie remark, given Dumont’s contempt in 1789 for those who thought France’s job was to provide models rather than to follow them. In the Archives parlementaires for 13 December 1791, receipt of Panoptique was acknowledged, the Assembly decreed an honourable mention of the project in the minutes, referring it to the Committee on Legislation and ordering the printing of Dumont’s text.50 Already Dumont was winning Bentham attention in France – though not as yet for his utilitarian system, but for his competence as a legal reformer. This abstract of the Panopticon Letters was then the second formal abstract of Bentham material that Dumont produced. It was later included by him in his Traités de législation civile et pénale.51 He describes how Bentham composed three separate pieces on the subject of Panopticon, printed but not published. They were made up of fragments and successive additions and corrections, accretions resulting from the evolution of his opinions and the new documents he was discovering. This memoir for the National Assembly was extracted from the three volumes in the form of a speech.52 Dumont records, however, that the Assembly’s order to print it was never carried out. Measures were actually in hand to implement the plan in Paris but were overtaken by events – namely the overthrow of the constitution and the monarchy.


It is instructive to compare the first paragraph of the preface which Bentham wrote for the printed text of Panopticon; or the Inspection-House which was printed in Dublin and London in 1791 with the first paragraph of Dumont’s abstract. Bentham’s opening sentence is as follows: ‘Morals reformed-health preserved – industry invigorated – instruction diffused – public burthens lightened-Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock – the gordian knot of the Poor Laws not cut, but untied – all by a simple idea in Architecture!’53 Dumont’s opening paragraph is of a very different flavour: Si l’on trouvoit un moyen de se rendre maître de tout ce qui peut arriver à un certain nombre d’hommes, de disposer tout ce qui les environne, de manière à opérer sur eux l’impression que l’on veut produire, de s’assurer de leurs actions, de leurs liaisons, de toutes les circonstances de leur vie, en sorte que rien ne pût échapper ni contrarier l’effet désiré, on ne peut pas douter qu’un moyen de cette espèce ne fût un instrument très-énergique et très-utile que les Gouvernemens pourroient appliquer à différens objets de la plus haute importance. [If we could find a means of making ourselves masters of all that can happen to a certain number of men, of disposing everything around them to as to operate on them the impression we want to produce, to make sure of their actions, their relationships, all the circumstances of their lives, so that nothing could evade or block the desired effect, there is no doubt that an instrument of this kind would be a very powerful and useful tool that governments could apply to different objects of the greatest importance.]54 Dumont’s strong opening statement then stresses not the technique’s potential as an economy measure but the theme of power. The Panopticon as Dumont introduces it in French looks first and foremost like an instrument to attain power, whereas in the original, it is only after the initial summary of the value of Panopticon – with a stress on economy – that Bentham speaks of it as ‘A new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example: and that, to a degree equally without example, secured by whoever chooses to have it so, against abuse’.55 Even then, although Bentham does state that Panopticon is about power, he adds that it is also about preventing abuse of power, and of that in Dumont there is not a word. Although Michel Foucault in Surveiller et Punir does quote from the actual Bentham text to be found in Bowring rather than the Dumont, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that as a francophone reader he first came across the project in the Dumont text, and this might well have encouraged him to develop his power-centred interpretation of Panopticon. There is, however, a fundamental point to be made in this connection. When Bentham uses the phrase, ‘the power of mind’ over mind, it has a special resonance, because in his mind it is one side of an unspoken polarity;


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the other side is ‘the power of will over will’. The point about the power of mind over mind is that it signifies the ascendancy gained by a higher intelligence over a lower. And the point about this type of ascendancy is that whereas the power of the will over the will is a matter of brute force, the power of mind over mind comes down to rational persuasion. There is a long discussion of this issue in a fragment Bentham wrote at some point around this period under the title ‘Of the Influence of the Administrative Power over the Legislative.’56 In this fragment he speaks of ‘the influence of understanding over understanding’, but the meaning is the same as ‘mind over mind’. The context of the discussion is that of the influence of the British monarchs over parliament, but the principles involved are highly relevant to Bentham’s language at the beginning of Panopticon. His purpose is to distinguish between damaging or corrupting influence – that of will over will, and healthy influence – that of understanding over understanding. He argues that it is a necessary part of life that in areas where we lack competence we should submit ourselves to the guidance of persons better qualified than ourselves. He argues that ‘literary merit display’d in the line of political discussion has been shown by experience to prove a very successful title to public confidence’. And he goes on to ask, how can it be learnt that a man has been occupying himself with success in the study of the public interest unless it has been made known, and how can his labours in that or any line be so effectually made known as by the publication of the works which are the fruits of them?57 His contention is that ‘When a man acts according to the dictates of his own will guided by the guidance of his own understanding he acts in favour of what appears to him to be most for his advantage’, whereas when he acts according to the will of another (the influence of will upon will) it is to be presumed that he does not follow what seems most to his advantage.58 ‘As my will is necessarily governed in preference by the prospect of my advantage, so is your will by the prospect of your advantage: if therefore in opposition to the dictates of my own will I follow those of your’s, my interest is sacrificed to yours.’ So Bentham concludes that the influence of will upon will necessarily implies the sacrifice of one person’s interests to another, whereas allowing your mind to follow the mind of another means that you are in fact pursuing your own interest, because you have been better instructed about it by the other. So in allowing his mind to be influenced by the mind of the Panopticon manager, the Panopticon inmate is actually pursuing his own interest rather than sacrificing it. Of course this will not reconcile Foucaultians and others who crusade against totalising Enlightenment claims to power/knowledge. Berlin’s gloomy portrayal of ‘positive liberty’ also comes to mind.59 With some justification in the light of the traumas of the twentieth-century world, Berlin inveighed against those who claim to be able to tell others how to


be free, and yet it is obvious that in many areas of life like medicine and technology, and when we are undergoing education or training, we must of necessity follow the instructions of others who have acquired knowledge and skills that we lack. It seems that freedom involves some kind of dialectic of obedience with questioning, and the recommendation to ‘listen to the expert’ cannot rationally be dismissed out of hand. Bentham’s own opening text is incorporated into Dumont’s several paragraphs after the start, absorbed into the flow of the text as it were, and it does not therefore have the same impact. Even when it does appear, Bentham’s stress on economy is lost. Introduire une réforme complète dans les prisons, s’assurer de la bonne conduite actuelle et de l’amendement des prisonniers, fixer la santé, la propreté, l’ordre, l’industrie dans ces demeures, jusqu’à présent infectées de corruption morale et physique, fortifier la sécurité publique en diminuant la dépense au lieu de l’augmenter, et tout cela par une simple idée d’architecture, tel est l’objet de son ouvrage.60 [Eng. Tr.: To introduce a complete reform of the prisons, to ensure the present good conduct and the amendment of prisoners, to promote health, cleanliness, order, industry in those places that up to now have been infected with moral and physical corruption, to strengthen public security while reducing the cost of it instead of increasing it, and all that by a simple architectural technique, such is the object of his work.] The economy aspect is submerged here under the weight of the other considerations, and the delightful phrase about seating economy on a rock disappears. Bentham’s frontispiece also disappears from Dumont, and that too is highly significant. The full Bentham text of this is as follows: Panopticon; or, The Inspection-House: containing the idea of a new principle of construction applicable to any sort of establishment in which persons of any description are to be kept under inspection: and in particular to Penitentiary-Houses, prisons, poor-houses, lazarettos, houses of industry, manufactories, hospitals, work-houses, mad-houses, and schools’ with a plan of management adapted to the principle. Although the word ‘Penitentiary-House’ is centred and in larger print than the other terms, there is a clear emphasis on the versatility and generalisability of the Panopticon principle. In Dumont under the title Panoptique is an account which describes the plan as being simply for guarding prisoners, but then of course the whole purpose of his abstract was to encourage the revolutionary government in France to build a Panopticon prison, so inevitably the


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wider implications of the design were not to the fore. In the Dumont text the applicability of the design to a variety of objects is noticed early on, but (understandably) much less obtrusively. Having described the structure and design of the Panopticon and set out its advantages, Dumont moves in his second part to the question of its administration. He observes in Benthamic terms that all the proposals for penitentiaries have been defective through either an excess of severity or an excess of indulgence or through excessive cost.61 This is very pale rendering of Bentham’s own statement introducing his Letter ix: I am come now to the article of pecuniary economy: as this is the great rock upon which the original penitentiary-plan I understand has split, I cannot resist the temptation of throwing out a few hints relative to the mode of management, which I look upon as the most eligible in this view; but which could not, as you will see, have been established with anything like the advantage, upon any other ground than that of my brother’s inspection principle.62 Dumont does now go on to comment on the rule of economy, stating that it must be a consideration of the first order in all that concerns administration.63 But how to ensure economy? While public establishments are prone to be neglected or pillaged, private ones prosper under the safeguard of personal interest. So penitentiary houses should be entrusted to the vigilance of personal interest – and this is something essential that requires detailed explanation. Dumont then gives a perfectly adequate account of Bentham’s reasoning in favour of contract management as the key to success in the administration of public establishments. Viewed from the perspective of contemporary privatisation debates and measures, this part of Bentham’s philosophy is particularly fascinating. Dumont explains Bentham’s argument that there are only two options for administration, by contract or by trust. The advantage of contract is that the contractor has a personal interest in success, whereas with trust he has little. The contractor carries the losses as well as the profits whereas in the trust system the governor has the profits without the losses.64 Administration by trust is exposed to both of the great enemies of economy – peculation and negligence – whereas the contractor is unlikely to be negligent and peculation becomes impossible. Although the trust administrator can do a good job, the fact is that the premium result will only come from the person with a personal interest in its success and the maximal level of efficiency will only be known then. A salary is an important motivation for someone to take a job but it is no motive for him to do it assiduously. The bigger the salary, the more you encourage an individual to live in the world and its pleasures and then any sort of minute attentiveness to his work begins to look servile and disgusting to him. If the salary is big enough he will employ


a deputy to do the work for him. By its very nature a salary has a tendency to encourage the giving of jobs to the most incapable.65 The creatures of ministers covet such places, the ‘spoilt children of fortune’ go after them, their only merit lies in their opulence and their only qualifications are their needs. Their pride naturally sets them above any sort of application to business. What is needed is an entrepreneur whose own personal interests are so bound up with those of his charges that he will be highly motivated to do his job well.66 Jealousy is the soul of government, transparency in administration is the only durable security. But even transparency is not enough unless there are curious observers to pay attention. The contractor will be subjected to careful scrutiny, whereas the trust administrator is granted a blind respect and a limitless deference. It is simply taken for granted that someone who serves for reasons other than pecuniary has a right to be trusted and indeed that to distrust him would be offensive. It is interesting to reflect on how this again may have appealed to Dumont, when we think of his comments about Brissot’s behaviour once in power.67 Brissot’s high-mindedness was to prove no guarantee against the corrupting effects of power and contained a huge element of self-delusion. Dumont further expounds Bentham’s objections against Board management – impossibility of unified plans, instability, disharmony in management, struggles for power in which the strongest or most stubborn will emerge the victor.68 But won’t the public be upset to see prisoners placed in the hands of an entrepreneur? They will think that it will expose the prisoners to barbarous exploitation. The answer is that prisoners have not so far benefited because all that has been done is to manufacture regulations, whereas in fact what is needful is to find a means of identifying the interest of prisoners with that of their governor. Panopticon will ensure that the duties of the entrepreneur towards the inmates will be so much bound up with his own interest that he will be forced to do for his own profit all that he would never do for theirs. The entrepreneur needs to be assigned an increasing profit in proportion to the good he does, and subjected to a loss in proportion to any harm that may have resulted from the omission of duties. Illustration: adopt the principles of life assurance. Suppose 300 prisoners, calculate how many would normally be expected to die each year, given the particular circumstances of prison life. Suppose 1 out of 20 can reasonably be expected to die each year, and allot to the entrepreneur 10 pounds for each. He will have to pay you for any that he loses beyond this. You could even double this sum – ‘et s’il se trouve plus riche à la fin de l’année, s’il fait, en quelque sorte, une économie de la vie humaine, quel argent pouvez-vous moins regretter que celui par lequel vous aurez acheté la conservation et le bien-être de plusieurs hommes?’ [Eng. Tr.: ‘ . . . and if he is richer at the end of the year, if he is as it were economic with human life, what expenditure would you regret less than the money spent to purchase the conservation and well-being of several men?’]69


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But the first safeguard of all is publicity: ‘ . . . c’est le meilleur moyen de mettre en oeuvre tous les motifs moraux et toutes les ressources intellectuelles. Or, cette prison, bâtie sur le principe panoptique, est comme transparente . . . ’ [Eng. Tr.: ‘ . . . it is the best way to set in operation all the moral motives and every intellectual resource. This prison built on the panoptical principle is as it were transparent’.] The work of the entrepreneur is open to the entire world, everyone can see if he is doing a good job. On top of that, he will be obliged to publish all his accounts and all the details of his administration.70 But his job must be guaranteed for life, to prevent others from profiting from his inability to have business secrets. Dumont summarises how the theme of financial inducement continues fundamental in the treatment of ex-prisoners. Here again Bentham’s visionary side is to the fore. He rightly perceives the vulnerability of the ex-prisoner, who is like a child who has been cooped up under observation for a long time and suddenly set free from oversight.71 It would be most imprudent to let him loose in the world without guardians and assistance. What Bentham essentially envisages is the need for a Probation Service. Prisoners should not be released unless there is provision for the next step. Some will be able to go into the armed services. Others will need to find a responsible man who can answer bail for them of a specified amount, the bail to be renewed yearly. Prisoners who have established a good reputation for themselves inside will have no difficulty finding such individuals. Bail-givers could be encouraged to come forward by several stratagems. They could be given a long-term contract similar to the one made between master and apprentice; for example, with compensation where others have seduced the ex-prisoner away to their employ. The idea would be to get a number of competing bail-givers keen to take on ex-prisoners. The best way of operating the system would be for the prison governor to be responsible for half of the bail if the man jumped bail, for this would give him an interest in knowing well the people under his care. Robert Roth drew attention to the fact that there is an undated manuscript in the Dumont archive in Geneva which suggests that Dumont was not too sure about the wider application of the Panopticon technique beyond its use in penitentiaries.72 He was commenting on an article Bentham wrote for the Annals of Agriculture in which he recommended the use of the central inspection principle for poor-houses.73 Dumont noted that the continuous inspection requisite for a prison might be uncomfortable in an establishment devoid of criminals. Decency, comfort, and rest would dictate that privacy screens be allowed to the inmates.74 But the Genevan certainly understood the importance of the connection between the inspection principle and efficiency. Shortly before he died, he passed through a place called Ardon, near Sion in the Valais region of Switzerland, where there was an ironworks. He comments that it was languishing not because of a labour shortage but because


of a lack of inspection which meant it was highly inefficient.75 Bentham and Dumont spoke of ‘inspection’: today we would speak of ‘transparency’, ‘accountability’, and ‘audit’.

II

Panopticon and Political Tactics

There is an echo of Panopticon in a writing of Bentham’s we have already mentioned, Political Tactics.76 But that echo is difficult to hear in Dumont’s rendering of the (now lost) original manuscripts. As was stated earlier, the announcement of the forthcoming Estates General in 1788 had galvanised Bentham into going ahead with a classically ambitious but deeply practical project: the production of a blueprint for the organisation of a model representative assembly, to be handed to each deputy as he arrived for the opening of the Estates General in May 1789.77 This then was a sober and very practical plan to assist the French in the political regeneration of their country. Unfortunately he was unable to complete the task in time and encountered insuperable difficulties with getting it translated. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the bulk of the manuscripts subsequently disappeared. Although the Bentham Project published a text in 1999 with the title Political Tactics (under my own co-editorship), this text represents Bentham’s ipsissima verba on the subject only in part; mostly it represents an English reworking and translation by Richard Smith of Dumont’s French abstract of Bentham’s original manuscript. This Richard Smith is a somewhat mysterious character about whom little is known. He is referred to in a letter in Bentham’s correspondence as ‘a Calvinist’ who was not keen to have his involvement with translating Bentham known. He was in fact the Government Assessor for Stage Coach Duties and gave evidence to the 1837 Select Committee of the House of Commons on Internal Communication Taxation. This evidence demonstrated that taxation rates for stage coach travel compared unfavourably with those for rail travel and he advocated equal rates of taxation for both.78 It seems he preferred to remain anonymous because he feared that his association with Bentham, by the 1820s a notorious radical and freethinker, might damage his standing with his employers. It seems likely that he was the Richard Smith who wrote to Brougham offering to serve on the Commission for the Poor Laws without pay79 – perhaps hoping to influence the Commission in a Benthamite direction, for he was responsible for editing and translating quite a number of the Dumont texts that Bowring later included in his edition of Bentham’s Works. Another letter accompanies papers he is leaving for Brougham on the Poor Laws – perhaps writings by Bentham?80 (In law reform Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778– 1868) Lord Chancellor 1830–1834, was himself ‘the disciple of Bentham’.81 Before making his huge 6-hour epochal speech of 1828 in parliament on the reform of the law, he was careful to consult the master).82


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One highly significant text that has come down to us is Bentham’s draft plan of an outline of the planned contents of Political Tactics.83 This draft outline shows us that typically, Bentham’s plan for a model parliamentary assembly went way beyond the study of the organisation of debating or ‘parliamentary procedure’, as it is called in the introduction to the Oxford edition of Political Tactics. Bentham was incapable of considering a subject other than in its totality, and this one was no exception. For him, a blueprint for a model parliamentary assembly must cover much more than the mechanics of debating and voting: it must also take into consideration the construction of an environment suitable for the operations of such an assembly. After some general initial consideration of such subjects as the purpose of a code of parliamentary procedure and the type of nomenclature and phraseology appropriate to the subject, Bentham planned to launch into two very substantial and very fundamental interconnected sections, the first on publicity and the second to be devoted partly to the kind of building appropriate to a political assembly and partly to material contrivances to facilitate the conduct of debates. Dumont, however, relegates Bentham’s proposed crucial second chapter on the design of the assembly building – along with a simple visual aid proposed by Bentham to assist with the comprehension of proceedings, a large screen carrying the words of the motion being debated (a ‘motion table’) – to the end of his abstract as a kind of afterthought.84 The Smith version – by and large a translation of Dumont (Bowring tells us Smith benefited from access to Bentham’s papers) – restored Bentham’s discussion of the ideal building for a political assembly to its place near the start of the work, and proposed as the chief goals of the building design general audibility, general visibility, general convenience for the individual members, and general appropriateness for the task.85 It is no surprise that according to the Smith version Bentham advocates as the best method of achieving these goals ‘a form nearly circular’, with ‘seats rising amphitheatrically above each other’. The seat of the president is to be so placed ‘that he may see all the assembly’. The parallelism with Panopticon is obvious – the president is like the prison manager. If any of the seats are so distant that the voice with difficulty reaches them, attention being rendered painful, will not be long sustained. The same distance will deprive one part of the assembly of the inspection of its president, and from this cause alone may give rise to habitual disorder.86 In Bentham’s opinion any such failings in the architecture of the assembly building could have truly calamitous political consequences: ‘ . . . those who do not hear are obliged to decide upon a borrowed opinion. It was thus that the great popular assemblies, in the ancient republics, were necessarily subjected to the direction of two or three demagogues.’87


In the paragraph that follows this one in the Smith version, Bentham points out that poor acoustics leads to the domination of those with the loudest voices, ‘Demosthenes might have been obliged to give way to Stentor.’ The first quality required would no longer be mental superiority, but a physical advantage, which, without being incompatible with talent does not necessarily imply it. The presumption is even on the other side, and in favour of the feeble and valetudinary individual, – inaptitude for corporeal exercises being partly the cause and partly the effect of a studious disposition. There is a pathos here in the fact that Bentham himself, though not perhaps ‘valetudinary’, is known not to have had a strong voice and was certainly studious – and had serious pretensions at one time to become an MP.88 Bentham’s meticulous account of his ‘motion table’ (for which the original manuscript has been preserved) manifests his typical concern with detail. In his version, Dumont gives a hugely abbreviated description of the ‘motion table’ which he displaces from this early section (where it is clearly connected to the theme of visibility in the architecture of the model assembly) to a position where it looks like nothing more than an afterthought. For what interested Dumont was the idea of proposing the example of prevailing English parliamentary practice to Continentals, which was something very different from Bentham’s own agenda to create a rational model assembly – however, much that did actually turn out to owe to English practice.89 Sometimes Dumont’s fondness for English practice led him into downright contradiction of Bentham; for example, over the question of the number of Chambers desirable in a parliamentary system. Bentham – like Mirabeau – was a monocameralist, Dumont a bicameralist who supplied arguments for a two-chamber system in his text which Bentham had not provided.90 In 1808, Dumont said to Bentham in a letter, I remember, that in a special chapter, you attack the system of two deliberative chambers. My observations in France have not brought me to the same conclusion. I added a chapter in favour of the division of the Legislative body, and I think the balance was on the side of two Chambers.91 In revamping Bentham’s text so as to present it as a eulogistic description of British practice rather than as an ideal model of the ‘rational’ structures and environment requisite for political debate, Dumont’s version masks to some extent the degree to which Bentham had in fact single-handedly created a new sub-branch of political science, the study of political assemblies. Some have thought that this honour belongs to Thomas Jefferson, whose Manual of Parliamentary Practice was published in 1801,92 15 years before Bentham’s


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ideas on the subject were presented to the world in the Dumont version of 1816. However, in the first place Jefferson’s Manual was in fact nothing more than a version of the classic style of manual which recorded examples of parliamentary practice – something that Hatsell93 had first composed many years before, making it a guide book rather than a blueprint; and in the second place as we have seen Bentham’s project had its roots many years before in 1778 and his work was originally written in 1788/89. A guidebook to existing practice was the very last thing that interested Bentham the utopian, as illustrated by an exchange of letters with Lord Lansdowne in 1791. Lord Lansdowne had received a letter from Prince Adam Czartoryski94 in Poland with some questions about British parliamentary practice. His response had been to contact Bentham and suggest that Political Tactics might usefully be sent with accompanying letter to the King of Poland.95 He would ensure that Bentham’s communication was transmitted in the appropriate way to ensure the best response – all for Bentham’s honour and glory, not his own. He made flattering comparisons with Rousseau – ‘ why should not Mr Bentham as well as Rousseau give a constitution to Poland?’ Along with his letter came a list of questions about existing parliamentary disciplines. But far from being in the least flattered by this approach, Bentham is profoundly irritated.96 Has not his lordship grasped that Bentham is not interested in what the law presently is, other than by way of illustration? Your Lordship is abundantly apprised that what I profess to understand, or to be able to find out, is what it is most for the advantage of any country that the Law relative to any head should be. If I touch anywhere upon what I conceive the Law actually to be, it is only in the way of illustration. I would not, were all the crowned heads of Europe to join in begging of me, sit down to write a law-book, shewing what the law is any where, with any other view.97 In passing, Bentham alludes to the fact that it is Panopticon that is now preoccupying him. He would only think of engaging in any other business ‘in the event of the Penitentiary System’s being dropped, or after it is established’.98 Lansdowne had implied that there might be scope yet for Political Tactics to be useful, but Bentham has lost hope of that. ‘As to the finishing my work on Tactics . . . it is what I should have no objection to, if I saw any probability of its being made use of.’99 One recent writer who has read Political Tactics is Jürgen Habermas, who remarks that in this work Bentham ‘explicated for the first time in monographical form the connection between public opinion and the principle of publicity’;100 but the extraordinary achievement of Tactics has rarely been acknowledged in the anglophone world. One commentator expressed surprise in 1931 that Bentham was the only British theorist in this subject despite the fact that British practical experience was the foundation of procedure


‘in nearly every legislative chamber in the world’.101 He went on to praise Bentham for having been the first to undertake a theoretical analysis of the needs underlying British parliamentary rules and of the advantages resulting from them, and the first to treat political tactics as a science in itself.102 However, in the francophone world the situation has been very different. In the preface to a French-language collection of rules of debate from all over the world, Félix Moreau and Joseph Delpech observed that ‘this treatise of Bentham’s’ – by which of course they were actually referring to Dumont’s Tactique – is the most profound and original piece that has been produced on the subject in political science or the theory of parliamentary law.103 Astonishingly, nearly 30 out of the 40 pages of Moreau and Delpech’s preface to their collection are devoted to Dumont and Bentham – more to the former than to the latter, since they quote extensively from what Dumont has to say in the Souvenirs about the failings of the rules of debate in the Constituent Assembly. Today’s leading expert on procedure in the Constituent Assembly, André Castaldo, observes that Dumont’s name has been cited by every critic of the procedure of the Assembly.104 Dumont had claimed that the French deputies were simply too arrogant to take on board British advice in the area of parliamentary procedure, since ‘national vanity was wounded at the idea of borrowing the wisdom of another nation’,105 but his claim has been contested. Castaldo pointed out that in reality, British precedent was largely followed in the rules of debate which the Assembly drew up, although the necessary discipline actually to observe them may have been lacking.106 Castaldo compares the provisions of the Assembly rules with those contained in Romilly’s account of British procedure, and demonstrates a parallelism in such areas as: if several members stand to speak, the speaker must invite the first to rise to speak; the speaker to bring into line anyone who digresses from the issue, or anyone who indulges in personal aspersions; the speaker to abstain from participating in debates; need for two names backing any motion; while one motion is under discussion, no other can be introduced, and so on.107 Castaldo claims that Dumont and others greatly exaggerated the disorderliness in the National Assembly, and Dumont was certainly contemptuous of how the deputies tackled the issue of their own internal procedure. Writing to Romilly in June 1789, he asserted that only time would teach them how absurd their planned rules of debate were.108 No doubt Dumont had in mind provisions like that which enacted that a new president of the Assembly must be chosen every fortnight – a recipe for instability; and particularly the absence of any discouragement to the practice of reading from prepared scripts, which he blamed for making debate well-nigh impossible. More recently Castaldo’s thesis has been reinforced by Nicolas Roussellier.109 His article provides some measure of exoneration for Dumont in that he gives reasons why ‘the English transfer’ was ‘long underestimated and almost forgotten’. The monarchists and the Right wanted to stress


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the continuity of the Estates General with earlier French assemblies, while those on the Left wanted to convey the idea that they were founding their rules of debate on reason and not on imitation of any other country’s modes of proceeding. Borrowings were made, as Castaldo had said, but that they were borrowings was immediately denied by the majority of the Assembly. Dumont’s interest in the whole topic was very greatly stimulated by his personal experience of attending the sessions of the National Assembly. He gives a vivid description of proceedings in chapter 8 of the Souvenirs.110 He describes how a list of speakers for and against was drawn up; each speaker, however, came with a prepared speech and so there was no connection between them. It was like an academic colloquium. Speakers were refuting objections that had never been made and were failing to refute those that had. Each speaker was entering on the topic as if nothing had been said before him on it. There was no hint of real debate where each speaker is answering or attacking what has just been said. Hence in chapter 19 of his Tactique, he begins by observing that the exclusion of written speeches was strictly maintained in the British parliament.111 When Dumont came to publish his Tactique in 1816, it was written out of a searing personal experience which he used to add anecdotes and illustrations from his experience of the Constituent Assembly to Bentham’s pre-Revolutionary text. This is an intriguing illustration of the role played by the French Revolution in the formation of ‘Benthamism’. What had been conceived by Bentham well before the Revolution as a universal model for a new parliamentary assembly (complete with a purpose-built building and technological innovations) was converted by Dumont as a result of his experience of the Revolution into something much more like a depiction of the British parliament’s methodology as an already-existing model. Ten years after the publication of Dumont’s Tactique, his friend AugusteLouis baron de Staël, son of the great writer, visited England and wrote a series of letters much like Groenvelt giving his impressions of the country.112 The last letter is devoted to a comparison between procedure in the British parliament and that in the contemporary French Chamber of Deputies. The author’s conclusion runs like this: Now let us take a rapid view of the order of debates in the house of commons: we shall meet, no doubt, with some caprices, and some abuses; but in every thing essential to the progress of business we shall find promptitude, method, and simplicity, where with us we have seen nothing but dilatoriness and confusion.113

6 Dumont’s Goodbye to Revolution: 1791–1793

I

Genevan interlude

When Dumont left Paris on 2 February 1791 to pay a visit to Geneva, he said goodbye to Mirabeau for the last time. The celebrated orator would be dead within months. On 5 February, Mirabeau wrote him a moving letter. You have left this place that you should love all the more in that you have rendered to it the greatest and least known of services, to go to a place where the only people you have that I know about are either lukewarm friends or perverse enemies . . . Go, my dear Dumont, because you are fulfilling a great and difficult duty. My good wishes follow you, not as those of Horace went with Virgil, but as those of a child of freedom who sees leaving the one among his defenders whose virtues and talents he esteems the most . . . whatever happens to me, I know that I will remain for the rest of my life at one with you in happiness and success. I know that the person who will be for you will have me on his side, that the person who is against you will have me against him. I know that those who hoped either to enslave or merely to dominate under our eyes, on our frontier, a town where so many fine men have studied the theory of liberty, in order to establish a cult of it, a town where I have personally known excellent individuals, and found cooperators who have increased tenfold my resources and capacities, are foolish blasphemers who will perish by their own machinations . . . I am relying on you to write me meticulously, for I have a very tender affection for you . . . 1 At this point Dumont was still optimistic about the Revolution. He told Romilly that he felt positive about the atmosphere in Paris: his friends were happy, the economy was looking good, the assignats were up. The ideals of liberty were making great progress, the spirit of discussion was slowly developing, everyone was talking about principles. The problem was with applying principles in the detail – they did not know how to form an administration 200

Dumont’s Goodbye to Revolution: 1791–1793

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on the model of the new ideas. The passion for liberty was embodied in the theatre (!). It had become the most basic need of the masses; but this was not just some sort of utilitarian calculation, it was ‘a kind of religion of the rights of man’ which was inspiring them with energy and fervour.2 In January 1791 then it seems that Dumont had not fully embraced Bentham’s utilitarian calculus, for he could still appreciate that the ‘religion of the rights of man’ could have positive effects. Dumont’s return to Geneva early in 1791 is a highly significant moment in his career. It proved to be his first opportunity to play a key role in Genevan politics, and it foreshadowed his brief participation in the Genevan Revolutionary government nearly 2 years later. Only a fragment of the letter to Romilly appears in the latter’s Memoirs, whereas in fact it is a huge epistle with a blow-by-blow report of Dumont’s attempt to play the role of mediator between warring factions in Geneva.3 When Dumont reached home he discovered a city torn between those wanting to stand by the Edict of 1789 and those calling for absolute political equality. Two draft edicts were drawn up, one by the Syndics and one by CC to reconcile the parties, but in vain. Then a commission of the CC was appointed to draw up a new draft, with Du Roveray as the chief redactor. The democrats were displeased with it and made a lot of disturbance in the streets, provoking a fight,4 in the course of which a citizen was killed by a natif. The government reacted with a show of force, but this incensed the citizens, who did not feel that the event merited such burdensome precautions likely to be so offensive to the natifs. Many of the citizens, natifs and habitants refused to take up arms. Dumont was heavily involved in attempts at mediation, but at the end of the day he was left feeling disillusioned in that he simply drew brickbats from all sides.5 The consequence of the disturbances was a new constitutional settlement in Geneva. Fazy observes that by this point the political situation had been completely transformed. The old reactionary leaders had been sidelined. The leaders of the day, who had imposed their ideas on the Commission for the Edict, were Du Roveray, Bérenger,6 and Dumont. Du Roveray had become the arbiter of the situation. On 10 March the CC accepted the new Edict. According to the terms of this, the people gathered in the General Council recovered their full sovereignty. No law or change in the laws could be instituted without the General Council’s approval, it was attributed the power of pronouncing in last resort on Representations, of regulating taxes and subsidies, of overseeing treaties and alliances, of war and peace, and so on. On the other hand, democracy was still limited; members of the smaller Councils were elected for life, and the question of the natifs and the sujets was not properly addressed. Civil disabilities may have been remedied, but political distinctions remained. Feudalism was not even completely eradicated. Neither conservative diehards nor progressive radicals were placated. But the Edict was accepted by the General Council on 22 March 1791 as the basis


for a complete codification of the laws of Geneva.7 Du Roveray was to be the leading figure in the Commission to whom this task was entrusted.8 A draft of a letter to Clavière written by Dumont in mid-March (and with an injunction that it be burnt) reveals some of the divisions behind the scenes.9 Dumont had taken up with Du Roveray some problems in the Edict that Du Roveray was working on. Du Roveray explained the numerous difficulties of the situation, one of which was hostility to him personally in some quarters. His enemies had spread suspicions about his patriotism, particularly based on his ‘French opinions’ and on his ‘affiliations with the Jacobins’. Dumont promised Du Roveray not to campaign in any way against the Edict: in any case he was kept busy helping his mother and his sisters who had returned to Geneva and needed his assistance in setting up their new homes. On 23 March, Dumont reported on the recent events in Geneva to Lord Lansdowne.10 What struck him as amazing was that the mass of the citizenry, far from being flattered by the increase in their rights, were actually worried about too much of a turn towards democracy. Dumont thought this very honouring of the moderation of free nations, a refutation of those who thought the people always avid for novelty, inconstant, ambitious to usurp all powers. Such for Dumont are actually the characteristics of nations spoiled by despotism when they have just got their freedom back [i.e. France!], whereas free nations are far too attached to old forms and fear novelty. He was also proud of the fact that although the distinction between citizen and natif had not been abolished, it had been made very easy for natifs to enter the General Council; he personally witnessed more than 1100 citizens let go of a hereditary privilege to share it with the natifs and the country folk.11 On the other hand, a letter written at the end of April12 to Romilly is more candid, revealing a real disillusionment with his fellow-citizens. What riles him is the injustice and calumny that have come his way, against him, against liberty, against reason, against anything that has the character of public spirit. Everyone is in a panic because of the French Revolution, everyone is taken in by the propaganda, conspiracies are seen everywhere. It can be instructive to compare the more ‘official’ version of the facts Dumont presents to Lord Lansdowne with what he says in his correspondence with his close friend Romilly.

II

First Parisian interlude

Dumont was back in Paris on the way to England at the end of May 1791.13 Tom Paine was also in Paris at that time. Dumont had no time at all for Paine: he comments drily that Paine thought he had made the American Revolution and now believed himself called to make another in France.14 One day Achille du Chastellet came to see Dumont with a manuscript in English in the form of a proclamation to the French nation. It was an anti-monarchical manifesto and an invitation to profit from the circumstances to form a republic. The author was none other than Paine. Du Chastellet had decided to put his own name on it and placard it all over the metropolis. He wanted Dumont to


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translate it and add certain necessary amplifications. Dumont pointed out that it was not a good idea to raise the Republican standard without the agreement of the Assembly. Had Du Chastellet spoken to Sieyès or La Fayette or other leaders? – ‘no’ was the answer. ‘Paine and he, the one an American,15 the other a thoughtless young member of the French nobility, put themselves forward to change the whole system of government in France.’16 Dumont stoutly refused to have anything to do with the project. The placard was duly put up all over Paris and duly denounced in the Assembly. According to Dumont, the idea of a Republic had not occurred directly to anyone, and this first signal spread terror in the ranks of the Right and the Left moderates. Malouet, Cazalès, and some others proposed prosecuting the author but were voted down. Dumont’s own account directly contradicts Soulavie’s assertion that ‘When Lewis XVI set off for Varennes, the Genevese Dumont, behind the curtain, under the name of Duchâtelet [sic], is ready to offer his plan of a republic.’17 According to Dumont, writing in June 1791, it was the King’s abortive flight18 that turned the Parisians into Republicans. The seed was sown and it began to germinate – Condorcet for one was converted. Clavière, Brissot, Pétion, and Buzot met to discuss the question. The king would now be seen as a conspirator, and great powers could not be given in the constitution to someone who was the declared enemy of it. For Dumont, such reasonings may have been strong against the king, but they were weak against the monarchy. Nobody made the distinction, because they could only resolve it by putting another member of the royal family on the throne and that meant the duc d’Orléans, who was generally despised. Condorcet argued that if a republic was created by a revolution there would be terrible consequences, whereas if it were done at once while the Assembly was all powerful it could be done easily. Royalty as such was regarded as something to scare children with, and Dumont noted that nobody put forward the real arguments in favour of monarchy. He remarked that the greatest evil is to abandon what one knows for that which one does not know. He reported that it was Condorcet’s circle that was the real birthplace of the republic. Some said that his wife had been the victim of a snub from the queen and that her republicanism was a woman’s vengeance. Dumont did not believe this, saying that she had a serious character and liked philosophical meditation; it was republican reading together with a passion for Rousseau that had inflamed her mind.19 Paine had fed both husband and wife with falsehoods about England which Dumont combatted vainly. They saw America as the model of good government and imagined that the federal system could easily be transplanted to France.

III

Talleyrand in London

The year 1792 was for Dumont in some ways as important a year as 1789, for it was in 1792 that he became close to Talleyrand, who was to play a key role in the publication of the Traités 10 years later. Talleyrand, whom Dumont


had not previously met, came to London with Du Roveray on a quasi-formal diplomatic mission.20 Before the Revolution, Talleyrand had been on excellent terms with Mirabeau,21 but there had been an estrangement during Mirabeau’s last years. Dumont records in the Souvenirs that Talleyrand could not have a public mission because of an Assembly decree that banned any of its members from being employed by the executive power for 2 years. However, Talleyrand’s position was as if he had such a mission. He had come as an observer, to see what he could do to enhance the acceptance of the constitutional king of France and encourage English neutrality if a continental war were to break out.22 Intriguingly, the French government had commissioned Du Roveray to go along too. Dumont had mutual acquaintances with Talleyrand and indicates that the Frenchman was quick to make overtures to him on arrival in London, where Talleyrand was an object of great interest for all but those who were strongly prejudiced against anything to do with the French Revolution. Dumont felt that the Frenchman was rather too keen to impose on people with an air of reserve and depth. His initial posture was one of coldness.23 The English did not find in him the vivacity, gaiety, and indiscreetness they expected in a Frenchman. He hid behind a cool politeness and formality when playing his diplomatic role. But among friends he was quite different. He would sit talking late into the night. Though indolent and voluptuous he managed to adapt to the privations of exile and live simply, sharing with his friends his superb library as long as he could afford to keep it. He had come to tell the British of the advantages to be gained by them from a revolution that had given France a constitutional king and to strengthen the links between the two courts. The Cabinet of St. James was very cool about the Revolution and kept its distance,24 a state of affairs causing some concern across the Channel. Interestingly, at a dinner with Lord Stanhope and Gallois, Talleyrand argued that the study of theology strengthened the mind, acquainted a person with metaphysics, and provided exercise for the reasoning capacity, adding that Turgot said theology had done a great deal for him.25 Dumont preferred the study of political economy as being apt to form a person to analysis, to distinctions, to the principles of the art of reasoning, without disorienting the mind (‘fausser l’esprit’). There was also an evening with the Benthams when Jeremy spoke with characteristic sarcasm of the High National Court of France on the occasion of some current case;26 extravagant expenditure because of too many judges, complexity of even the commonest cases. He drew an analogy with a famous Hogarth picture in which an assembly of savants gather admiringly around a highly complicated machine whose function is to remove corks from bottles. Note the underlying theme of economy once more. In February 1792, Talleyrand heard that changes in the ministry were imminent and that his friend Narbonne, then Minister of War, was about to be dismissed. He resolved to go back to Paris and decided to take Du Roveray,


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whose advice had been very useful to him. Du Roveray was keen to encourage good relations between Paris and London and thought his connection with Talleyrand would help towards that end, imagining that it would be looked on favourably by the English ministry.27 He was close to Lord Sidney and some others in the Cabinet and had tried to dispel anti-Talleyrand prejudice. Talleyrand thought Du Roveray would be useful for the purposes of confirming what he planned to say about relations with London in Paris, carrying conviction with Clavière, Brissot, and others who laboured under various delusions on the subject. For the same reasons they encouraged Dumont to go with them – but he had no need of encouragement. Life was monotonous at the time and a jaunt across the Channel would provide some excitement. He was keen to get a look at the new Assembly. Moreover he might be able to help clarify minds in Paris over ways to keep England sweet.

IV

Second Parisian interlude

Early in March 1792, Dumont returned to Paris.28 Through Condorcet, Brissot, and Clavière, Dumont came to know the Girondins.29 He attended dinners where he met Roederer, Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, the Ducos brothers. They had a caucus meeting before the sessions to arrive at agreed strategies. Brissot was the heart and soul of their activity. Their main aim was to gain the mastery over the Court by declaring against the ‘Austrian committee’. This committee was according to Dumont a kind of invisible power to which everyone attributed whatever he wished. It was taken for granted that the King had secret counsels, and the Queen secret conferences; that couriers were dispatched to the princes of the blood at Vienna and Coblentz; that all the ambassadors to foreign potentates were attached to the old regime, and had adhered to the constitution against their will; that, in a word, the professed opinion of the court was constitutional, but the real opinion decidedly hostile to the constitution.30 Dumont’s dealings with Brissot were not edifying. He had previously had respect for Brissot, but Brissot was changing. ‘I had formerly known him as candid and generous; he was now insidious and persecuting.’31 The occasion for his changed view of Brissot was this. De Lessart, Minister for Foreign Affairs, was an honest man and constitutional enough but more attached to the old regime than to the new.32 The Girondins wanted him out, and his correspondence with Noailles, French ambassador to Vienna, gave them an excuse. The Diplomatic Committee got hold of the letters and complained that Noailles had tarnished the honour of France by tolerating the insulting arrogance of Kaunitz. Instead of rebuking him, de Lessart had


seemingly been all too ready for accommodation, and appeared to be apologising for the Constitution at a time when as the King’s Minister he should have been lauding it to the skies. The Diplomatic Committee ordered de Lessart to demand explanations for some of the language used by Kaunitz. The explanation was given in the form of a violent attack on the Jacobins, whose excesses were alleged to be humiliating for the Royal Majesty and a dangerous example for Europe. This made new enemies for de Lessart and put the Jacobins on a pedestal. They were emerging from their obscurity and becoming an object of attention for kings. De Lessart tried to calm the storm by resigning, but Brissot prepared a formal accusation against him and he was sent to Orléans to be judged by the High National Court. Interestingly, Dumont was permitted to sit in on the Committee and heard the reading of the act of accusation. He remained silent, but when he was alone with Brissot and Clavière he grasped the nettle and weighed into the text of the act. He pointed out that some of the accusations overlapped, some were couched in terms so vague that it would be impossible to answer them; they were formulated so as to arouse violent prejudices and excite public hatred against the accused; some were contradictory and there were injurious terms that should be avoided in a juridical accusation. Already indignant about the act, Dumont was further infuriated by Brissot’s response, which was to smile sardonically and laugh at the Genevan’s naivety. It was a party matter, de Lessart had to be sent to Orleans or else the king – who liked him – would be rescinding his resignation. The Girondins had to get ahead of the Jacobins and this act of accusation would give them the merit of having done something the Jacobins would like to have done. The multiplication of the accusations was to ensure a lengthy trial. Garran de Coulon, head of the High National Court, was a pedant who would deal meticulously with each head of accusation and de Lessart would take 6 months to exonerate himself. He would certainly be acquitted, for there were only suspicions and no proofs. The aim of the exercise was to get him out of the ministry for good. Dumont was deeply shocked by this cheerful illustration of the Machiavellianism of party politics – had he not heard Brissot argue against precisely such behaviour? Brissot simply repeated that de Lessart’s ministry was ruining the Girondins and they must be rid of him; Garran’s integrity would ensure that no harm came of de Lessart; France must be saved and they could only destroy ‘the Austrian cabinet’ by putting a reliable man into Foreign Affairs. Brissot was evidently nonetheless disconcerted by Dumont’s vehemence and said he would remove the injurious terms from the act of accusation. All the same, Dumont dated a change in their relationship from this day; although there was no open breach, he could not respect Brissot as before and it spoiled the friendship. No doubt the fact that de Lessart was in fact executed not long after must have intensified Dumont’s sense of bitter disillusionment with the behaviour of the upholders of Rousseauian virtue when in power.33


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Dumont made Brissot’s conduct an illustration of the rightness of Helvétius’ ideas about virtue.34 Because Brissot was motivated neither by love of wealth nor by personal ambition for government position, he believed himself to be a pure and virtuous citizen.35 He lived simply, his morals were good, he did not go in for dissipation, he had not been near the theatre for 2 years. But he could not see that party zeal, love of power, hatred, and vanity were as corrupting as the love of gold, longing for a cabinet seat and love of pleasure. Prior to 1789, Helvétius would have embodied for Dumont the kind of pernicious ‘philosopher’ who was attacked by his mentor Vernes for masking immoralism under the cloak of ‘reason’. Later Dumont was to note that in Brissot he saw the worrying side of devotion to Rousseau. In a letter to Romilly of 13 November 1793,36 he notes that he never liked Brissot’s politics even though he admired him for his solid personal qualities and his devotion to the cause of the deprived. It was with some horror that Dumont had to admit that his misguided politics had partly been taken from Rousseau: ‘He was one of those who truly believed that everything was sanctified by what was called the will of the people, and he did a great amount of harm out of his enthusiasm for liberty, as so many others have done out of enthusiasm for religion.’ So it was that Dumont began to distance himself from the ‘religion of liberty’ which he himself had once espoused: he began the journey from Rousseau to Helvétius and Bentham, from virtuism to utilitarianism. Brissot had after all been a public defender of the représentant cause, a staunch defender of ‘the righteous’ in Geneva. His example now showed Dumont that the philosophy of virtuism could be just as damaging to the good of society as the aristocratic values that had always been the focus of his hatred. In other words, not only was Dumont alienated from the values of the Revolution by the vanity, unrealistic philosophy, and prejudices of the revolutionaries, he was also shocked by the realisation that preachers of the gospel of virtue and liberty could be as Machiavellian and duplicitous as the Court and its sympathisers. This was all too uncomfortably close to home. The indictment of de Lessart had exactly the effect desired by the Girondins. It proved an effective demonstration of their power.37 They seemed all-powerful and became so. The King threw himself into their arms. De Grave,38 who had the job of presenting names to the King for the ministry, no longer dared to act except on the say-so of men who decided the fate of ministers in this manner. So the Girondins came to control nominations to the King’s Council. An extraordinary thing happened during this stay of Dumont’s in Paris: he was actually consulted on the choice of a Minister for War. De Grave was persona non grata with the Girondins because he had been the choice of the Feuillants. Brissot and his friends knew of Dumont’s relations with Du Chastellet and asked him whether the latter would make a good War Minister, what were his talents and principles and general trustworthiness. Dumont evaded the issue by making a joke of it – the confidence De Grave had in


him and his close relations with Du Chastellet made it very embarrassing for him to be consulted on this question. He did, however, mention to the latter that his name was under consideration, only to be told that he had decided a Cabinet seat was not for him. Dumont was astonished that the Girondins could think of putting into the King’s Council a man who had signed the first Republican placard.39 Dumont had hopes briefly that he might act as peacemaker between the Feuillants and the Girondins through his closeness to de Grave. The two parties were exchanging mutual accusations of wanting to overthrow the Constitution, the one in order to set up two Chambers, the other in order to establish a republic. But although he did manage to set up some meetings and convey some messages, he was ineffective because the Girondins, fearful of arousing the Jacobins against them, were reluctant to come to terms with the Feuillants. He was, however, asked to compose a speech for Gensonné40 to serve as a manifesto for the Girondins. It was delivered at the Assembly session of 14 March and urged the King to put into the ministry ‘men known for their devotion to the cause of liberty’.41 The Assembly moved on to the order of the day and pronounced against having the piece printed. Gensonné was irritated and abandoned any idea of such a manifesto.42 Dumont tells us that the speech was intended to demonstrate the party’s attachment to the constitution and to point the finger at dangerous factions. ‘It was composed with sufficient art to prevent strong declarations in favour of royalty, and a vigorous denunciation of anarchy, from giving offence.’43 Gensonné’s delivery had none of the verve and fire of Mirabeau’s, but even so there was applause. The King was very pleased with it. Dumont thought it was the last monarchical speech to be delivered in the Assembly. He was very pleased to have pushed through such a speech with a party frequently suspected of republicanism. In the Moniteur it appeared mangled44 because the end had been displeasing to the Montagne and the Girondins were fearful of having been too favourable to the royal cause.45 Dumont was present at some of Pétion’s46 public dinners at the Mairie. The conversations always turned against the Court. The moderatism of the Feuillants got a rougher ride than the ‘fureur anarchique’ of the Jacobins. He found some of his fellow-guests shockingly crude in their ways.47 He was surprised to see Condorcet happily enjoying their company: ‘I know nothing, in a popular party, more annoying to a well-bred man, than being obliged to associate with low and ill-mannered persons.’48 He observes that this was the beginning of the sans-culottisme that dishonoured France. Dumont was also familiar with Roland.49 He was intrigued by the personality of Mme Roland but rather prejudiced by a dislike of ‘political women’. He had long conversations with several of the political leaders of the day. At dinners given by Clavière, Roland and de Grave Dumont got to know Dumouriez.50 One day the latter invited Dumont round. Bénétruy shows


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that this meeting must have been on 16 or 17 April 1792.51 Dumouriez had composed a memoir for the King’s Council and the Legislative Assembly setting out a list of accusations against Austria. The memoir had been composed hastily and clumsily and he wanted to look at possibilities of stylistic improvement with Dumont.52 His frequent digressions made his hatred of Kaunitz and his detestation for the Austrian alliance all too clear. He wanted Dumont to put some ferocity into the message – he had no time for moderation and dignity. Dumont agreed to help, provided that the aim was not simply to promote war but to gain authorisation from the Assembly to resort to war if satisfaction was not coming from the Emperor. Dumouriez said that the conclusion was up to the Council and all he wanted was for Dumont to do the body of the speech. The speech was done and the substance of it was that the King asked for authorisation to declare war on the King of Bohemia and of Hungary if he did not bring an end to the gatherings of émigrés and did not make appropriate satisfaction for France’s grievances against him. When Dumont saw Dumouriez later, the latter told him that the Council had resolved not on a conditional war but on a positive immediate one; Dumont’s speech had been read to the King in the Council, but he had found it too long and had written one himself that he considered more appropriate in the light of the discussions. Dumont returned to England with Chauvelin,53 who had been appointed to the legation in London.54 The embassy was badly received in England. Chauvelin was libelled. Perry, editor of the Morning Chronicle, wanted to help the cause of the newcomers and spoke of the impressive retinue that came with Chauvelin, noting in particular the literary attainments of many of the party. But this merely aroused suspicion, for the conclusion was drawn that all these propagandists had come to preach the system of ‘revolutionary opinions’ and the members of the legation were portrayed as evangelists with a message, whereas in Dumont’s view it was simply that Talleyrand liked intelligent people and wanted to have some around him in London.55 Romilly was consulted by the legation over how to deal with the flood of bile in the ministerial papers: Romilly composed a formal denial of all the calumnies with a challenge to prove any of the revolutionary activities with which they were accused and a threat to prosecute the calumniators, but it was not published. Lord Lansdowne advised them to ignore the attacks. Imprudently the legation welcomed the advances of Fox and Sheridan and the Opposition, which merely established yet another barrier between them and the ministerial party. On 5 July, Talleyrand returned to France and invited Dumont to go with him. But the latter realised that such a journey without any apparent purpose for him would merely encourage an impression that he was involved in intrigue.56 He did not go, and was glad to have missed the tumultuous events of that Summer in Paris. Talleyrand himself was fortunate to escape unscathed from the September massacres. He managed to get himself appointed to another mission to England, where he remained until expelled by the


government in 1794. He then went to America, where he spent 2 years before returning to France in 1796.57 That summer, at Dumont’s request, Bentham handed over to him three cases of his manuscripts,58 warning him that they were in a chaotic state. Bentham pointed out that much of the work had been done both in English and in French: the English versions he had not so much as glanced at for 8 or 10 years, the French was more recent. At some stage in the late 1780s he had conceived the idea of composing a ‘Projet d’un corps complet de droit’ (‘Plan of a complete body of laws’). The ordering of the material would not be obvious, it existed in his mind.59 Dumont replied that a preliminary examination of the material had astonished him, and that his expectations, high as they were, had been surpassed. ‘What is here is enough to make everything previously published on these topics redundant.’60

V The Groenvelt Letters and Dumont’s conversion to utilitarianism The Summer of 1792 also saw the publication of the book generally known as The Groenvelt Letters, a joint enterprise between Dumont, Romilly, and Scarlett.61 The idea originally came out of the lengthy and vivid eye-witness accounts of the unfolding drama of the Revolution that Dumont had set out for Romilly in his letters. So impressed was Romilly by these that in a letter of 26 January 1790 he had urged Dumont to write ‘the History of the Revolution’.62 This project coalesced with a different one that Romilly had had in mind for a while: the idea of writing a critique of the English social and political system in the form of letters written by a visiting foreigner.63 The enterprise evolved into a book of travellers’ letters describing experiences not just of France but of England too. The accounts of France were to be given as a first-hand description of the early days of the Revolution. Dumont was to write the text in French on the basis of his own diaries and experiences and Romilly’s notes about England. The point of the work was this: Dumont’s enthusiastic reports of the progress of enlightenment in France were to be made into fuel for the fires of reform in England. Progress and development across the Channel was to be contrasted brutally with the complacent and mindless adherence of the English to traditions whose main purpose was to fortify the rich against the poor. In Paris, Dumont was a fervent apostle of the value of English political experience, in London, he was a follower of a movement that was often highly critical of the system based on that experience, the Whig reformism he had absorbed at the Bowood dinner table. It is ironic that Dumont, fresh from his untiring advocacy of the English example to the French in page after page of the Courier, should return to England and proceed to put his name to a book in which the French example was used to belabour the English. James Scarlett described his involvement thus:64


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[Romilly] proposed to me to translate into English several letters he had received from Dumont . . . giving a very lively history of the progress of the French Revolution. He had made me acquainted with Dumont while I was at college, and it was impossible to know him without admiring his wit and genius. The letters in question exhibited both in a high degree, combined with a vigorous and animated style. Romilly had translated two or three of them himself. He had also written several essays, on different subjects, in the shape of letters. It was his plan that these should be translated by Dumont into French; and that the work should be published in both languages. It was a great amusement to me to translate Dumont’s letters, and Romilly submitted all his own essays to my correction before they were sent to the press. We also know that Scarlett wrote one of the letters himself. The way the work was done was that Romilly supplied notes which Dumont wrote up in French and then Scarlett translated it into English. In October 1792, Dumont told Romilly that he had written two letters on the English.65 He had been turning his attention to English political writers – Hooker, Bolingbroke, Mandeville. He wanted Romilly to cover Locke, Hume, Smith, and Priestley. Nor should they forget Petty, the father of political arithmetic, only Dumont admitted he had never read him. This material was never published and it is evident that a second volume was planned at this point.66 The last reference to the composition of the text comes in a diary Dumont kept of his activities at the beginning of 1792. It refers to one of the letters as being written between 8 and 22 January 1792.67 That Dumont’s contribution was not limited to the chapters on France is shown by his correspondence with Romilly. One of Romilly’s letters makes it clear for example that he has added several passages from Dumont to the letter on elections.68 When Dumont was in Paris in March 1792 he showed the French version of the Letters to Reybaz, to get his opinion on the possibility of publishing them in French.69 In August, Reybaz sent a discouraging response70 but in fact we know that the English text had already been published by then. J. D. Jarrett discovered in the November 1792 issue of the Analytical Review the only known review of Groenvelt, and we find the title listed in an appendix to this number entitled ‘Catalogue of Books Published in the first six months of 1792’, so it must have been out by the end of June.71 The full title of what is known as The Groenvelt Letters is as follows: Letters Containing an Account of the Late Revolution in France and Observations on the Constitutions, Laws, Manners and Institutions of the English; written during the Writer’s Residence at Paris, Versailles, and London in the Years 1789 and 1790. (Translated from German of Henry Frederic Groenvelt.) Among the manuscripts in the Dumont Archive is an unpublished sheet clearly intended to be a preface to the work.72 The author sets out his stall in terms of the classic Genevan rhetoric, as an observer marked out by his gravitas, by contrast


with the shallow and superficial attitude of other commentators. Other books give superficial accounts, he will be studying the effects of laws – as useful an activity as anything done by Crown Ministers with all their nonsense. He will ignore the palaces of Princes because telling the truth about them is too much like satire. He will attend to the sorrows of the people: ‘He is a sensitive observer who is less interested in climbing the social Pyramid than in going down it, and who often absorbs in silence the tears produced by oppression among the classes that bear the weight of all the rest.’ Then we come to it: a downright unmitigated statement of Benthamism. ‘In morals and in legislation, we can only reason according to the principle of utility, i.e. the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.’ The author then claims to be studying the British constitution as it is and comparing it with the one that the French have just given themselves – which suggests that the preface must have been written after the adoption of the new constitution on 3 September 1791. He goes on to explain that he has resisted the siren call of the fanatics of the religion of liberty – he prefers the language of reason to that of enthusiasm. If we have not adopted the tone of some of the writers of the day who cannot mention liberty without getting carried away, it is because we are suspicious of enthusiasm. We no longer hold on to liberty through the kind of untameable pride of youth which exalts and abuses the soul; we love it rationally as the most useful and precious possession of the human race: liberty is no longer clothed in the brilliant forms of heroism that are so seductive to the imagination but presented along with all the goods it brings with it. We have stripped it of all false glitter, it will be found all the more beautiful in its simplicity.73 The first part of Groenvelt, on France, is a narrative of events. Its agenda is to eulogise the National Assembly and the revolutionary changes which have been made in the constitution and social fabric of France since the Revolution began. It portrays a nation freed from despotism and the yoke of aristocracy, its energies released, its head raised high from its previous servitude. Civil disturbances and popular discontents are put down to a mentality formed by years of despotism and the difficulty of adapting to new-found freedoms. Where the Assembly has erred, the writer often puts this down to its reluctance to learn from English experience. Only at the end with the arguments over the Declaration of Rights does a more sombre note emerge; this part concludes with a call for utilitarian principles to govern political and social change – the general happiness, social utility to be the ultimate criterion, not the jargon of rights. The collection comprises 12 letters on France covering 240 pages and 11 letters on England covering 130 pages. Alongside the general praise for the achievements of the Revolution,


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the Dumontian distaste for ‘French’ weaknesses makes itself felt. In the first letter, dated in late April 1789, the French are branded as ‘not serious’, the people as ignorant of the real issues.74 Advanced political opinions are attractive simply because they are exciting and novel. Republicans are the esprits forts of the day.75 Decisions taken at meetings are decided in advance by small caucuses where the language is highly republican ‘they seem to consider the principles of Rousseau’s Social Contract as the only sound principles of government’.76 Dumont’s opinion of this celebrated work before the Revolution is not clear, but 10 years later in a travel diary he is prompted by reflections on the communities of the Swiss alpine valleys to observe that it is ‘simply the abstraction of these small governments. It is not a novel, like some have believed, it is a society of shepherds, hidden in the mountains, that Rousseau proposed as a universal model of politics to all the nations in the world’.77 The second letter, dated 16 May, contains an attack on Necker, dismissed as ‘incapable of considering any subject from a broad perspective’ and entirely ignorant of any ‘principles favourable to liberty’78 In letter five, dated 16 June 1789, Dumont puts his finger on the procedural weaknesses of the Assembly – 600 deputies all called to speak individually on the same subject in rotation – most of them ‘studying to give an appearance of novelty by the expression of ideas that have been repeated again and again’.79 Three hundred speeches could have been resolved into three or four opinions. The classic Dumontian contempt for subservience to fashion and a preoccupation with rhetoric comes out in an attack on Garat the younger, ‘who was one of the professors of the Lyceum in Paris, where the politest company of the metropolis used to assemble, to acquire a superficial knowledge . . . and who by his studied and ornamental style, was certain of the plaudits of his fashionable audience’. Dumont scathingly reports that Garat was now discovering ‘how different a thing it was to address himself to men’.80 And ‘while one of the finest wits of the capital was unsuccessful in his eloquence, a farmer of Montreuil sur Mer, a plain countryman, with a rough tone of voice and coarse language, gained universal applause’. Attentive readers of the Souvenirs will recall that Dumont and Du Roveray passed through this place on their way to Paris in 1789. Dumont reported how they discovered while there that the locals had no idea how to hold a meeting, still less an election, because they had no experience of such things. The two Genevans explained how it was done, to the delight of the locals, and ‘Soon after our arrival at Paris, we were not a little surprised at reading in the public prints, that the assembly at Montreuil had finished its election the first of any, and great praises were bestowed upon the order which had been established there’81 – an object lesson from the politically experienced Genevans for benighted folk emerging from the darkness of absolutism.


Letter six, dated 18 June, showed a Dumont intoxicated with excitement at the sight of the Assembly: A more noble spectacle can scarcely be conceived than that of the representatives of the people restoring the true principles of the social order, and proclaiming aloud that it does not become a nation to solicit for its rights, or to negotiate for them with a king, or a nobility, but to resume them the moment it has power to act.82 Mirabeau is treated less sympathetically, and Sieyès more so, than was to be the case in the Souvenirs. Dumont writes that Mirabeau is listened to ‘rather as an actor, on account of the pleasures which his speeches afford, than as an eloquent politician, whose opinions have weight with his audience’.83 This appears to be a criticism of his audience, who do not treat him seriously enough. But then his speeches are condemned as ‘obscure, weak in point of reasoning, swollen in expression and overloaded with superfluous ornaments’. This could possibly be a pointed way of saying how much Mirabeau needed the services of the speechwriters he later employed. Sieyès on the other hand is described in terms very complimentary for a Genevan: ‘He has not that polished exterior, which is so frequent in this country.’ And Dumont goes on: He has one of those uncommon, but vigorous minds, which will not bend to the vices of society, and which conceive an implacable hatred for our depraved institutions. Men of such character, are naturally disposed to trace back governments to their principles, and to compare what they are, with what they were, and what they ought to be. They transport us beyond the sphere of our accustomed ideas, and we discover in them that irresistible force, which enables them, unsubdued by prejudices, and unawed by established institutions, to conduct us to the most important truths.84 It seems that Dumont may have been more favourably disposed to Sieyès at the time than later readers of the Souvenirs could have guessed. His description of Sieyès here makes the Frenchman look remarkably like Bentham. On the other hand, we perhaps need to make allowances for political correctness – perhaps Dumont was pandering to an audience for whom Sieyès might have been someone of heroic stature. Letter eight is dated 26 June and gives a vivid picture of the complete failure of the King’s attempt to assert his authority over the Tiers. The king had the splendour and magnificence of his own power before his eyes, and the sound of his trumpets was still vibrating in his ears, when all that he had done was already abolished, and the whole purpose of his solemn ceremony was already defeated. His royal will, his sovereign


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commands, though delivered in the highest tone of authority, had passed away like the breath with which they were uttered, and had left no trace behind.85 The author asserts that had the king taken the initiative and converted the Estates General into the single National Assembly himself, he could have preserved his authority. Unfortunately royal policy was dictated by Necker, who was ‘timid, irresolute, and incapable of any decisive measure’.86 Letter ten (24 July) deals with the aftermath of 14 July. The writer’s enthusiasm for events knows no bounds: We may be said in the space of a week to have lived a century. The French are become, as it were, a new nation. They have entered on a sudden upon the exercise of all their rights. They have no longer to capitulate with a master, but are at liberty to chuse for themselves a constitution, as perfect as human reason, at this stage of its progress, will admit of.87 And he goes on to wax eloquent about how the spirit of liberty, which has impelled even the soldiers to leave their camps and join in the general exaltation, can convert into men, ‘those passive instruments of despotism in whom it was always supposed an indispensable duty, in France, to stifle their feelings, and to desolate, destroy, and murder, in blind and implicit obedience to the mandates of their commanders’.88 He portrays the drama being played out as one setting a vicious court faction against ‘the frank and ingenuous courage of a popular assembly’.89 This letter relating the events around 14 July looks like the swansong of the old Genevanist Dumont. ‘I could not but observe’, he writes, what an energy great and important interests give to all the faculties of the mind, and how much the assembling together of a great number of men, united by one common fate, inspires them with confidence in their strength, invigorates their courage, and fortifies their reason against the attacks of the imagination . . . On such occasions, a great object in view, illustrious dangers, honour, virtue, and patriotism, awaken sentiments in the human breast, which are never called forth by the ordinary occurrences of life . . . .90 The account rises to a rapturous climax: A more glorious spectacle surely cannot be conceived than that of a nation, which has just thrown off its bondage, beginning a new existence, and becoming an example to all the enslaved nations of the earth. It would seem, indeed, that it is at this period, that the history of mankind is to commence.91


Describing the events of 14 July, Dumont is more than indulgent with regard to the populace, claiming that barely a single act of private robbery occurred – and that immediately punished by the rest, for what they wanted was liberty rather than plunder.92 Interestingly, Rousseau is trotted out as having foretold the transformation of the French – saying that they were abject through the fault of others, but prophesying that in 20 years’ time they would be very different. He always had an idea that the nation would, at some time or other set a great example to the world; and when it has recovered its liberty, the benefits mankind would derive from its wisdom and virtue, would infinitely surpass all the calamities they have ever suffered from its tyrants.93 The Frenchman of 1789 had been transformed through the influence of the philosophes. ‘Philosophy has infused into the national character new ideas of its dignity, together with the habits of reflection.’94 Dumont can even bring himself to praise the formerly hated Voltaire, whose writings are said to have ‘removed prejudices, which had prevailed for ages’. But it is ‘the masculine genius of Rousseau’ that has done most to propagate the really important principles, together with the American Revolutionary War. Another huge compliment comes in Letter 11 dated 15 August 1789, when Dumont states that the theatres are now deserted, forsaken in favour of the district assemblies ‘and these former Sybaritics watch the whole night upon guard. In short . . . I seem to be at Sparta, not at Paris’.95 His description of the Assembly on the evening of 14 July rises to heights of elation: I shall not attempt to describe to you the various emotions of joy, grief, and terror, which at different moments agitated those who were merely spectators and strangers in the assembly . . . we were none of us strangers. For myself, I felt as a Frenchman, because I felt as a man.96 Athens had transformed into Sparta, or so it seemed. But the period of Dumont’s new-found faith in the French, of his relinquishment of years of anti-French prejudice, was to be short indeed. The return of Necker arouses some jubilation in Dumont simply in that he is tickled to see ‘a foreigner of obscure birth, a banker of a little Republic, solicited by the king, the assembly, and the whole nation to undertake the administration at a time of the greatest difficulty!’97 However, Dumont finds Necker unreasonably despondent and unable to rise to the challenge. He was at his best in ‘moderating the counsel of an arbitrary government, and not in conducting the force, and directing the zeal of a nation, who have the magnanimity to conceive, and the boldness to execute, the arduous design of asserting, and maintaining their liberty’. Necker, in other words, was entirely the wrong sort of Genevan. But in any case he had owed his elevation to the


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king and now it was the Assembly in charge and he would no longer be required.98 It is only when Dumont comes to the coverage of the issue of the Declaration of Rights in the final letter on France, dated 29 August 1789, that the tone begins to grow darker. He records with melancholy bitterness the depressing spectacle of the debates on this topic, which we have already covered in Chapter 3. In the second part of Groenvelt where the focus switches to England, an attack on lotteries is based on the assumption that ‘the very end of society is the happiness of the individuals who compose it; lotteries are wholly destructive of that happiness . . . ’.99 The account of the state of the English legal system amounts to a long invective against it in terms that reflect the closeness of Romilly and Bentham in this area. Blackstone is condemned as useless because his argument is utterly arbitrary and without any basis in philosophical ideas. His reasons may be technical, but are ‘of little weight when examined by common sense’.100 Coke’s language is dismissed as too technical, Acts of Parliament are reviled for being written in barbarous Latin, Norman, and obsolete French together with unintelligible English.101 Moreover ‘the law of one of the freest and best governed nations upon earth is so voluminous, that a long life would not be sufficient to learn it, and that it requires the previous knowledge of two obsolete languages to begin to study’. The criminal law suffers from the same deficiencies as in other European countries.102 Crimes are classed not by the degree of their immorality or of the injury they do to the community but according to mere positive and technical rules.103 Criminal procedure is generally admirable but with defects that should be remedied – for example the requirement for petty juries to give a unanimous verdict.104 This is well-nigh impossible and when it is achieved perjury must be assumed. for the fabulous miracle of the Septuagint, who are said to have made seventy separate translations of the bible, all of which, without any previous communication, were exactly in the same words, is hardly more wonderful than that twelve men, of different professions, ages and situations, with different degrees of understanding, and different principles, should all entertain the same opinion on questions of great doubt and difficulty . . . 105 The common law is also attacked – more a science of memory than of reason.106 The way the law works privileges matters of form over matters of substance, and people lose just cases over abstruse formalities. There is praise for the freedom of the press in England and a paean to the powers of publicity. At the same time there is criticism of the obsession of the media with trivia – and especially with the trivia of royalty.107


The widespread admiration for the British constitution is mocked – people fail to grasp that the accounts found in Blackstone, Delolme, and Montesquieu in no way correspond to the reality.108 Instead of looking at the actual constitution as it works in practice, people study it as a copy of the great archetype described in Montesquieu, de Lolme, and so on. But the most fervent panegyrists of it are the wealthy, who gain the most from it. The ways that the poor can be abused and victimised under the constitution are listed. There is a classic attack on the inequities of parliamentary representation and on the venality of parliamentary seats – the right to nominate being bought and sold through newspaper advertisements. There is said to be no opportunity for talented individuals to display their talents or get into parliament through them.109 There is a classic attack on economic protectionism, using the example of buttons. Four acts have been passed to prevent men wearing cheap buttons on their clothes, the point being to favour the button industry.110 Such laws ‘do not occasion one single hand to be employed in industry more than would be employed if they had never existed’.111 There are local municipal regulations that prevent persons from exercising particular trades without becoming a freeman of the city of or some corporation, for which a fat fee must be paid.112 The excessive reverence for aristocracy in England is attacked.113 There is no relation between titles and deserts.114 Not only the titles, but the legislative and judicial offices of the peers are hereditary.115 Yet these are offices of real utility that require the exercise of wisdom and integrity. It might have been expected that honours would originate in services done to the people so great that it was desired to reward a person’s posterity as well as himself; in fact honours were never considered as coming from the people, ‘the king is said to be the sole fountain of honour’.116 ‘In him is vested the miraculous power of rendering vice and infamy honourable, by the magic virtue of his letters patent, or by his royal touch.’ ‘ . . . the institution of an hereditary European nobility . . . is an invention to exact respect from us, to the degenerate posterity of those who have oppressed our ancestors, corrupted our princes, and violated our liberties.’ These titles are bestowed not for public services but frequently for injuries done to the people. Finally the slave trade is denounced and those MPs who abstain from voting on the issue likewise. As beasts, they [slaves] are debarred all the comforts of life; as men, they are dragged forth for exemplary punishment. When they are to be torn from those to whom nature has united them, by ties that are inseparable, they are supposed to be strangers to filial parental and conjugal affection; but when they have stolen a little food, to satisfy the irresistible demands of nature, they are presumed to be acquainted with the obligations of morality. and the positive laws of the state.117 Scarlett tells us that shortly after Groenvelt was published in 1792 Romilly got hold of all the copies he could and burned them118 – such was the trauma


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for himself as for Dumont caused by the terrible September massacres, which at a stroke blackened the French Revolution even in the eyes of many of its ardent erstwhile supporters. However, Scarlett’s account of the book-burning has been questioned not just by Jarrett but by Selth, and on good grounds.119 Selth managed to find 13 copies of the book in British and American libraries, and he points out that this is a very high total of copies to have survived from an edition of 1792, by comparison with the survival rate of copies of other texts published in that year. Jarrett found it listed in Bent’s Catalogue of London Books for 1799.120 Moreover, as late as October 1793 we find Romilly seeming to rebuke Dumont for having completely abandoned all thought of the book – presumably a reference to earlier plans for a second volume.121

VI

The September massacres

Dumont’s growing attraction to Bentham’s thought became a kind of lifeline when, barely a fortnight after the consignment of manuscripts reached him, the terrible news of the September massacres became known. He felt a profound sense of guilt that a movement with which he was still in fundamental sympathy should have had such terrifying consequences. The extent of his inner devastation is made clear in two letters to Romilly from mid-September: He asks Romilly to congratulate their friend M. Delessert on having escaped from ‘the cannibals of Paris’.122 He then describes how they were dining at Bentham’s with Mr de Liancourt when he was told of the terrible death of M. de la Rochefoucauld. They were hoping it was the Cardinal and not the Duke. ‘ . . . although those wild beasts had not more right to kill the one than the other, only the virtues, the services, and the patriotism of the Duke greatly intensified the horror of this massacre.’ Dumont describes himself walking around half the day in a state of extreme agitation, unable to remain still for a moment, going over the way so many terrible events have flowed from a source he had expected to produce the happiness of the human race: Let us burn all the books, let us stop thinking and dreaming about the best system of legislation since men abuse all truths and all principles so infernally. Who could believe that with such fine maxims people could revel in such excesses, and that a constitution that is such an extravagant exercise in freedom would look like a code of tyranny to these savages?123 The past is terrible enough, but the worst is that there is nothing left to be hoped for the future save conflict and massacre. He struggles desperately to see the other side of the coin – the feverish atmosphere provoked by the news of invading armies – he himself had lost his head when there were three armies surrounding Geneva to make her submit to an odious government. The Parisian aristocrats were accused of attracting the foreign armies. The prisoners were killed because the story spread that Brunswick would


open the prisons and the prisoners would be able to buy pardons by turning against the patriots. He consoles himself with thoughts of a letter from Cabanis, one of the gentlest and humane persons known to him, saying that it is all necessary to prevent conspiracy. A few days later Dumont again lets the reins off his feelings to show the strength of his anger:124 There are ten to twelve men, the blackest of all the assassins of the earth, who will be to blame for the whole of Europe becoming completely indifferent to the fate of the French and happy to see them subjugated . . . The National Assembly is atrociously guilty of all the murders that will be performed in the future, for not having immediately abrogated the decree on passports. To close the door of an empire where a raging people massacres on the slightest suspicion all who do not think as they do is to be responsible for all the murders committed. I do not want to extenuate horrors that threaten all my principles, but I am trying to see things as they are, and if peoples are ferocious, despots are none the less so. He tries to console himself with the thought of the victims of Louis XIV (always an emotive thought for a Protestant) – ‘no, we can still desire that French arms conquer without offending humanity’. He remains furious with the League of Princes which predates the massacres and mainly caused them. Ironically it was at this very moment that a letter came from Paris informing Bentham that he was among several foreigners to be accorded French citizenship.125 The letter stated that ‘the Nation had placed [him] in the ranks of the friends of humanity and society, on whom it has conferred this title’. It asked for his confirmation of acceptance. The reply from Bentham is illuminating.126 He believes that there is nothing incompatible between the interests of the two great countries. ‘The general good is everywhere the true object of all political action – of all law. The general will is everywhere, and for every one, the sole external index by which the conformity of the means to the end can be decided.’ He continues, ‘Passions and prejudices divide men: great principles unite them.’ He is a royalist in London but a republican in Paris, just as the English sovereign is a Presbyterian in Scotland and a Lutheran in Hanover. However, though Bentham considers all Frenchmen brothers, there is a problem for him, and it is the problem that many have lost their citizenship. ‘Because they have ill estimated the movement of the general will, they are crushed with all the weight of its indignation.’ He does not hold with the views of these royalists himself, but ‘these victims are too few to be proscribed as a measure of precaution – but too many to be sacrificed as a measure of punishment’. These are poor folk whose only crime is that they have not emancipated themselves ‘suddenly from the prejudices of ages – and their imperfections are but the consequence of mistakes as to the advent of an epoch they had not foreseen’. It would be perfectly possible


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to ‘draw up a declaration . . . by which, without wounding their conscience or their weakness, the Republic might obtain every security in the nature of things obtainable’. Every unnecessary punishment is in fact a lawless punishment, and ‘in cases of civil war, the end is answered when the minority is subdued’. Having the desire to do mischief without the power of doing so is not a punishable offence.

VII

In power in Geneva

In November 1792, Dumont set off on what was to be his last Continental excursion for 10 years, but now it was in answer to a call from the Genevan government, which had need of his assistance on a vital mission.127 His account claims that because Savoy was under threat from France and French armies were poised to invade, Geneva had adopted her usual course in the face of potential external threat and called on the Bernese for supporting troops. The Bernese had responded with a few regiments to buttress the slender Genevan garrison. At this time the French government was led by Roland, Clavière, Servan, and a Committee of the Legislative Assembly; it took offence at this appeal to Swiss support, which it claimed to see as a move hostile to France. Montesquiou, French commander in Savoy, was instructed to demand the withdrawal of the Bernese forces and to lay siege to the city in the event of a refusal. There is in the Dumont Archive a draft of a letter that Dumont thought of sending to someone in authority in Paris when he read in the Paris Gazette nationale (4 October) of the Convention’s threats to Geneva.128 He wrote that this behaviour was completely contrary to all the principles of liberty. Geneva had always needed the protection of France, now what she needed was justice from France. Brissot had once said that Geneva was a ‘political atom’. There was no dignity in France getting angry with an atom! How could the Minister claim to respect the liberty of Geneva while at the same time demanding the punishment of the government for having advocated the introduction of Bernese troops? The government proposals had been sanctioned by the Sovereign Assembly, so that the law was not an act of the magistrates but of the people. Vergennes had once forced the Genevan government to sack a minister of the government (a reference to Du Roveray) – is the current Minister going to take his rules of administration from the ruins of the monarchy? Then Dumont appeals to their respect for Mirabeau and Rousseau: Mirabeau loved Geneva, he would have spoken warmly on behalf of the fatherland of Rousseau, ‘and it seems to me that to have in your hands a page of the social contract would have made an interesting exordium to such a speech in the national assembly’. By 1792, Dumont had clearly accepted to align himself with Geneva’s governing elite for the sake of the republic’s independence. The sting of his hatred for aristocracy had been drawn.


The premier historian of Genevan history of this period, Henry Fazy, gives a rather different account of events. His thesis, copiously argued and defended, is that the aristocratic government of Geneva was becoming increasingly nervous of the turn things were taking in France after 10 August, when the King had lost his own freedom to the accompaniment of massacres of his elite Swiss bodyguard. They were all too aware that their hold on power had been legitimised since 1782 on the back of support from the French monarchical government. Their sympathies naturally therefore lay with this government. The people now taking over in France were profoundly hostile to aristocracy in any shape and form, and were happy therefore to espouse the view of Genevan politics preached by the likes of Du Roveray, Clavière, and Dumont. The Genevan government was very worried, says Fazy, because they were for the most part genuine supporters of the French monarchy, shocked by the advent of a Girondin ministry which included the proscribed Clavière, who had wanted his revenge on them since 1782.129 It was inevitable that the Genevan government would turn away from France at this juncture and seek closer links with the Bernese and the Zurichois, who were if anything even more aristocratically inclined than they were.130 But in addition Fazy shows that the tide of revolutionary thinking was lapping at the shores of Geneva and that the government was wanting the garrison not just to defend themselves against aggression from France but equally against domestic unrest caused by the ferment of revolutionary ideas. The French general Montesquiou who was commanding the troops near Geneva seems to have come to this conclusion: ‘it was solely to provide support to the aristocracy of the Genevan government that the Swiss were called in . . . ’.131 The unilateral call for troops from Switzerland was in fact entirely contrary to the 1782 Edict, which laid down that any such move could only take place after a discussion between representatives of the Guarantor Powers. The French reacted strongly, demanding the withdrawal of the troops. There was an attempt within the city to muster popular support for the government’s recourse to Berne however: a big rally was held on 10 October with expressions of support for the magistrates.132 Supporters of the government shamelessly appealed to the memory of the Rousseau whom their forefathers had persecuted – they spoke about the French Republic wanting to crush the motherland of the philosopher whom it considered its founder. The syndics wrote to London to Tronchin,133 who was by then their representative at the Court of St James, to ask him to persuade Du Roveray and Dumont to go to Paris and set to work on the French ministry, with which they were known to be well connected, to prevent any harm from coming to Geneva. In a letter addressed directly on 5 November to Du Roveray, Chauvet,134 Reybaz, and Dumont, they said it was necessary to enlighten on the rights of the Genevans, ‘a nation which, if it wants to maintain its empire, must establish it on the unalterable bases of Justice and Loyalty in


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order to reassure neighbours who are alarmed with reason by the preludes and the first actions of this astonishing revolution’.135 The letter flatters the foursome that nobody is better equipped than they are to carry out such a difficult enterprise successfully, refraining from giving them official accreditation and suggesting that they should appear to be simply private individuals inspired by a desire to serve their country. In the event Dumont left on his own on 30 November. When he got to Paris he found that Geneva’s situation was slightly less alarming.136 Montesquiou was rather ashamed at finding himself threatening a free city which had merely exercised its rights and – while making threatening noises towards the Genevans – had in fact been defending the Republic in his correspondence with the ministers.137 He won the trust of the Genevan leadership and entered into negotiations openly with them. They must send away the Bernese troops, but he would protect their independence and acknowledge openly that their behaviour had in no way been hostile to France. His first treaty with them signed on 31 October had not been ratified in Paris, where it was regarded as too favourable to the Republic. He had been told to make demands that would have been very offensive to Geneva. When Dumont got to Paris a second treaty had been sent, and ratification was hoped for. Clavière, who had been roundly abused in Geneva as if he was personally the author of every violent measure against his country, was keen to justify his behaviour to Dumont.138 He claimed he had been absent from the Council because of sickness on the day when a threatening decree had been passed against the syndics of Geneva.139 Dumont answered that if he ensured that the treaty would be ratified, all would be forgiven him. Dumont won round Brissot, who had been violently aggressive in his Patriote françois towards the little republic. He put it to Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, and Condorcet that England would be very upset by this attack by republicans on the weakest of republics, and one that had greatly honoured the cause of liberty. Shortly afterwards the treaty was unanimously ratified by the Convention,140 and the independence of the Republic recognised by the most formal of acts. Dumont was about to set off from Paris back to London and was dining at Clavière’s when Gensonné quizzed him about a fellow-Genevan named Grenus141 who had come to Paris to plead a cause diametrically opposed to Dumont’s; Grenus had been several times to the Diplomatic Committee and asked in the name of a sizeable number of Genevans for the union of Geneva with France. Gensonné warned Dumont that the Geneva question would not go away and that the French government was very far from having abandoned hope of annexing the Republic. Indeed, Grenus had pointed the way to do it. (If this is true, it seems to cast doubt on the line taken by Fazy, according to which the French never had anything but friendly intentions towards Geneva but were provoked beyond endurance by Geneva’s aristocratic government.) There would be a rising of the natifs (égaliseurs) helped by


the habitants from the rural areas, the citoyens would defend the magistrates, the natifs would call in the French troops who would appear at the gates as if to prevent carnage. The natifs would open the gates and the troops would proclaim the union of the two republics. Gensonné was on Dumont’s side but acknowledged that even though Grenus was not taken very seriously, if his plan succeeded its results would be accepted. Dumont took counsel with Reybaz as to how to deal with this situation. They agreed that the government of Geneva must be told of the doings of Grenus and his fellows. Reybaz said that Dumont must go there himself. He had earlier been able to influence the natifs and had rendered them enough service to hope to counterbalance the influence of Grenus on this particular class. Dumont went to see Gasc,142 an envoy from Geneva, who said that the news did not surprise him. Grenus had excited the hatred of the Genevan aristocrats – a class to which he himself belonged – and wanted nothing better than to humiliate them. Gasc reinforced Reybaz’s appeal to Dumont to go to Geneva in person. Dumont duly set off with Gasc over the rutted and treacherous December roads to go to Geneva.143 As they approached their homeland they learnt that Montesquiou was no longer in charge of the French troops and that there was an insurrection in the town, which had resulted in the rebels gaining a share of the power: they had been granted the guard of one of the gates and they had set up a Supervisory Committee which shared in the functions of government.144 A meeting of the General Council on 11 December had voted for the establishment of a new constitution by a General Assembly whose mode of election was to be fixed on 27 December. It had also voted complete equality for citizens, natifs, and habitants. Henceforth in Geneva there would only be citizens and foreigners.145 Bénétruy computed that the travellers must have arrived in Geneva somewhere between 13 and 15 December.146 When they got to Nyon, Dumont was surprised to encounter two members of the insurgent party who were known to him and who had come to wait for him. They tried every way to deter him from going on to Geneva.147 Dumont countered by pointing out that his service of liberty was as well known as his service to the cause of the natifs. He reminded them of the risks he had taken to further the natif interests in 1791, when the conclusion, highly favourable to them, had been largely his work. On his departure from Geneva afterwards he had been feted and assured of their confidence. What had happened to change their feelings towards him? It transpired that Grenus had written to Geneva to pressure them to keep Dumont away; he thought Du Roveray had come with Dumont and feared the joint ascendancy of the two. Dumont had the greatest difficulty in persuading the reception committee that Du Roveray was in fact in London, and even then they clearly suspected that Du Roveray would be hot on his heels. The merest rumour of his impending arrival had been enough to start a riot. The danger was not so great for Dumont himself, but enemies had succeeded in making him unpopular with the natifs.148


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In Geneva, Dumont discovered that the only desire of the aristocrats now was to save the independence of the Republic. Amazingly, all the old pretensions and all the old esprit de corps and family snobbery had finally been abandoned in the face of the one overwhelming threat. Give up their posts, appoint the leaders of the popular party as their successors, have a National Assembly, admit all the natifs to the political rights of the citizens, all these sacrifices they had already made gladly and freely in their hearts, provided only that the fatherland could be saved.149 Note how Dumont for the very first time expresses open sympathy for the aristocrat party, and contrast this with Fazy’s version – the aristocrats held on to their prerogatives till the bitter end then only surrendered them to brute necessity. The day after his arrival, Dumont headed for the Equality cercle, determined not to be put off by whatever reception awaited him. The men there were the elite of the revolution party. Dumont took advantage of his recent personal acquaintance with events in Paris to arouse their interest and by his second visit he was attracting avid listeners to his reports. This proximity to ‘the oracles of the Revolution’ quickly gave him a real superiority in the eyes of his listeners. They were all passionate admirers of the Gironde.150 How could a person so close to the leading Girondins be anything but a friend of liberty? However, he was attacked nonetheless for his newfound trust in the Genevan government, to which he replied that nothing was more sensible than to support a government you had previously attacked once it had changed its policy, once it had accepted the people’s claims, once it had accepted a constitution based on equality, once it had agreed to the convocation of a national assembly. A few days later Dumont turned up at a session of the Equality Club where there was an assembly of deputies from the cercles to discuss the organisation of a national assembly. A commission had been studying the subject and came up with a plan:151 Dumont observed caustically that it was all you would have expected from persons without knowledge or experience. ‘It was a mishmash of French ideas, a burlesque parody, enormously expensive, a waste of time spent on elections and sittings that would have been ruinous for a working town. The size of the National Assembly was out of all proportion with needs and resources . . . .’ People were afraid they would be labelled as aristocrats if they objected. Dumont emphasised his agreement on principles but sought changes in implementation and won a great deal of support: the plan was taken off for revision. He had successfully avoided offending anyone. Saussure152 afterwards told Dumont that he had had to disagree with him over some points in case people might believe there had been preconcertation between them. Dumont’s sardonic comment – that’s the kind of thing you are reduced to in a state of demagogy.153


On 27 December there was an extraordinary meeting of the committee of the natifs that lasted well into the night. Something was brewing. The majority of the natif assemblies spent the night in session and those of the Grille – the Jacobins or Cordeliers of Geneva – had spent the night having an orgy.154 The atmosphere was tense in the extreme and rumours abounded that the natifs had it in for certain aristocrats. The cercle most hostile to the natifs was in the centre of town and well barricaded, but the natifs laid siege to it. Some citizens tried to get both sides to disarm. Someone gave Dumont a plan scrawled on a piece of paper advocating removal of the government and the appointment of a revolutionary committee with representatives from all the cercles to take over the reins of power.155 Dumont feared that the worst thing of all would be to wait passively without making any plans, and decided to help the man sharpen up his proposal, getting him to insert the vital clause that if the government agreed to the formation of civil and military committees, there would be no proscription. He encouraged the man to take his draft plan around the cercles, and it was quickly approved in the Equality cercle. In no time copies were made and spread around and a good response elicited. The Small Council adopted it quickly. The besiegers offered to withdraw their siege if its terms were accepted. In less than 2 hours the whole face of the town was transformed. The citizens of all parties and the natifs went off to their assemblies and by four or five in the evening the nomination of the two Committees that were to replace the government was agreed.156 On the morning of 28 December, Geneva was in the hands of the revolutionaries.157 As Peter wrote, ‘Many Genevans were astonished on the morning of the 28th to see armed citizens in red bonnets at every post.’ A military committee with 13 members and a committee of administration with the same number were established.158 Government by the old Councils had come to an end.159 Dumont was not in the Central Committee where the election slips from the various cercles were gathered, it was announced that he had been voted for by all the cercles except that of the Grille.160 He was summoned to accept his nomination and help with immediate security measures. He was in a dilemma now because he had planned only a brief visit to Geneva and had never anticipated such an eventuality. He objected that it would be very compromising for him in England to become a member of a revolutionary committee at a time when the British government had taken fright over everything to do with the revolution. It meant risking a place which was his livelihood. Saussure promised to take measures to prevent this by writing to Tronchin in London to explain that Dumont’s entry into the revolutionary committee was at the instance of others and that it was a sacrifice for him for the sake of the public good. Dragged reluctantly to the Central Committee, still uncertain whether or not to accept the invitation, aware that he was the only person voted for by all the cercles less one, Dumont declared that he would only accept if requested to do so by the one cercle that had not voted for him. Considering that he could not decently refuse a unanimous plea and realising


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that this notoriously violent cercle would be flattered to have its contribution made so important, Dumont rightly assumed that such a deference for their opinions was what would open the way for him. And so it transpired. Dumont was appointed to the civil or administrative committee.161 The elections for the provisional committees were confirmed by the General Council on 30 December (the elections having taken place on the 28th). Dumont found the 2 months he was involved in all this business a very valuable experience – especially as regards knowledge of the way people functioned. He realised how much practice could add to theory and how much very minor circumstances that are overlooked by general theories actually influence the course of events. He also became aware of the weakness of new powers that are not founded on habits of respect and obedience, the danger of raising people above their station and giving them authority to which they are not accustomed, and the madness that engulfs a people who are infatuated with the idea of absolute equality. Reflections that had been merely interesting to him as a spectator of the French Revolution became a torment to him to the extent of preventing him from sleeping when he found himself actually entrusted with some of the responsibility for events. Writing several years later in the Souvenirs, Dumont remarked that nothing could have prepared him better to understand how the French, in their exhaustion after years of bloody anarchy, could take refuge in the arms of a Master. At the beginning of January, Dumont was optimistic about the new regime: he told Reybaz that Genevans had enough of the English character to cope with political debate – witness the cercles, where they showed themselves perfectly able to listen, to follow the thread of discussion, and to hear speakers in silence.162 What worried him, however, was the threat of agitators from outside.163 One of Dumont’s functions was to oversee the correspondence of the new government. He drew up official notifications of the Genevan revolution to be sent to England, France, Berne, and Zurich. He avoided wounding the defeated with triumphalism or ascribing to the victors a merit they were far from having deserved. The letter was found to be so well-written and so wellsuited to its purpose by the Committee that they ordered that it be printed. Sadly, Clavière’s loyalty to the cause of Genevan independence could not now be relied upon. There was consternation in the city when they heard of the terms in which he was writing to Montesquiou on the subject. Locked for good now within the territory of the French Republic, some think it appropriate for Geneva to be part of France, others consider that independence must be maintained at all costs. Both opinions can appeal to good reasons and the Genevans are too intelligent to overlook any. The French have no stake in the issue; it must not be a source of disunity among the friends of liberty. . . . Now that the Genevans can remain free


in the midst of the French, the difference is reducible to a pure question of political economy that can be resolved quite calmly over time.164 In a sense Clavière was showing himself to be ahead of his fellow-Genevans – he had taken in the lesson of the times. If the nature of France had changed, if France was now one with Geneva in her values and her sense of political and social mission, then logically, Genevan independence no longer mattered – it was only a matter of pure national pride. It had surely only been important when France’s culture and ways were at odds with those of Geneva. But of course the Genevans were more than a little upset to see a fellow-citizen publicly dismiss the independence issue as a minor matter of political economy and asked Dumont to pen a reply emphasizing that Genevans were in perfect solidarity as to their determination to retain national independence. His letter denied that there was any such thing as a pro-unification party in Geneva.165 Apparently this did nothing to diminish Dumont’s own faith in Clavière, witness a letter to Reybaz from this time. He put Clavière’s attitude down to ignorance of how things actually stood in Geneva, to being wrongly informed about how people felt, to not knowing that independence was simply not an issue there. Peter produces in full an example of Dumont’s handiwork as the correspondent for the Provisional Government.166 Kellermann167 had replaced Montesquiou in Savoy and the French army was uncomfortably close. The Genevans were all too aware of the threat. On 4 January, Dumont wrote to Kellermann on behalf of the Provisional Government both to announce the change of government and to ask why the General and his army were initiating movements of troops and personnel at the frontier. The letter begins by letting the General know that the Genevan Revolution is very much in line with the principles of the French Revolution – though the Provisional Committees have inherited the powers of the ci-devant Councils, they are not using the old titles. ‘Citizen’ is quite enough for them as a title.168 Then there is some flattery of the General, followed by a reminder that although the new regime is a popular government, there are plenty who would undermine it if they could. Some are even saying that the Genevans are less attached to the fatherland than to the triumph of their system of equality, but this is a calumny – they are certainly not going to give up their independence in a sentimental rush to embrace all their fellow men! The letter concludes with a request for an explanation of the alleged increase in troop numbers. The following day Kellermann reassured the Genevans without telling them that he was fearful of the return of the Swiss troops and that he would have preferred to occupy Geneva before any such return.169 On 11 January there was consternation in Geneva with the publication of a letter from Kellermann, informing the Minister of War that the Genevans would regard as a glorious day the day when they could receive the French


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among them. Reybaz was asked to trumpet in Paris the determination of the Genevans to retain their independence. Dumont wrote again to the General to emphasise Genevan unanimity on this point. Even the most revolutionary of the cercles, he observes, are agreed on it. Their traditional hatred of the aristocracy arose precisely from the readiness of the aristocrats to compromise Genevan independence by calling for intervention by the Guarantor Powers.170 Kellermann’s reply stated reassuringly that the published quotation from his letter was entirely inaccurate. On 8 January the General Council voted to set the number of members of a new Assembly at 120, its name was to be the National Assembly.171 Members were to be paid 30 écus per month. Dumont thought all of these decisions mistaken. The Assembly would be too large and far too costly for the struggling finances of Geneva. ‘I argued against the huge expenditure and the excessive pomp of the National Assembly. I would have preferred a style more in proportion with our smallness. The swelling-up of the frog is a lesson that terrifies me.’ Peter comments drily that Dumont’s opinion was entirely vindicated by the events that followed. Dumont himself was then elected to the National Assembly but he had to choose between being a member of the Committee and being a deputy, and he opted to accept the mandate of deputy. In the meantime, there were still French agitators in Geneva.172 There were factious spirits preaching the advantages of uniting the small republic to the great one in the cercles. General Kellermann, who was in charge of the French troops in the neighbourhood, signified a desire to make a fraternal visit most Genevans could have done without, because they knew perfectly well that his purpose was to sound out the strength of the pro-union party and see whether the agitation could be stirred into a pretext for decisive action by the French. Kellermann duly arrived on 26 and 27 January 1793.173 De Saussure and Dumont were appointed by the Civil Committee to receive him and do him the honours of the town. The two men were invited to the Residence to dinner and Dumont was able to chat all evening with Kellermann. Since the latter had been away from Paris for a long time, the Genevan was able to update him about the relative strengths of the Girondin and Jacobin parties there. The next morning they showed him round the town. The people’s acclamations carried not a trace of union fever and everything he witnessed could only have reinforced a sense of the Genevans’ intense patriotism.174 He then insisted on going round the cercles, something that must have been put into his head by another. They spent 5 or 6 hours going the rounds of a dozen cercles. Still no sign of a desire for anything but the independence of Geneva. In the cercle that was the most ‘popular’ and the most numerous a speech was delivered on the long Genevan experience of liberty, with which was contrasted the poverty of France’s experience as a neophyte in the area. If anything, said the speaker cheekily, France should join Geneva rather than the other way round.


After a preliminary swearing-in on 20 February, the Genevan National Assembly convened for the first time on 25 February 1793.175 A tree of liberty was planted with great solemnity at Saint-Gervais in the presence of the Assembly. In the second session on 26 February, arrangements were concerted for the sittings to be open to the public.176 On this day a committee of seven citizens was selected to work on a set of rules of debate. Apparently Dumont’s was the guiding hand in the rules proposed. The rules agreed upon include English-style elements, Benthamic suggestions, and material from other sources.177 Among the English-style elements were the role of the president in rebuking members who failed to observe the rules or used insulting language of colleagues. Motions were to be submitted in writing in advance. Members were to indicate their desire to speak by standing up in their places, avoidance of the use of proper names by members when speaking of each other. There were not the three separate debates on each legislative matter of British parliamentary practice but there were two. A number of Bentham’s suggestions in Political Tactics were adopted: the printing and publishing of the minutes, the stress on singleness of theme in each debate and the avoidance of the raising of new motions before the first had been voted on, the formal admission of adult spectators to the chamber. Interestingly, one of Bentham’s more provocative suggestions was adopted – the maintenance of a register of members’ attendance to prevent excessive absenteeism. In the afternoon session of 5 March, attention turned to work on the drafting of a constitution.178 Three days later at the 13th sitting the President read a letter from Dumont requesting 2 months’ leave, a request that was granted.179 There is an interesting manuscript fragment in the papers of Dumont’s nephew Frédéric Soret in the Bibliothèque de Genève where Soret takes the story on from where Dumont’s account in the Souvenirs ends.180 Soret points out that Dumont’s passport from Grenville had authorised him only to go to Paris, it was his fellow-Genevans who had pressed him to come to Geneva. They saw him as an ally against a party that was bent on having the republic annexed to France. He gambled his income and his good reputation in England when he consented to be a member of a revolutionary government. But Soret suggests that he soon realised he would be quite unable to stem a torrent that would in all likelihood sweep him before it as one of its first victims. Dumont was the most dangerous adversary of Grenus and the unionists but unfortunately the one most vulnerable to slander, a weapon that Grenus had no scruples whatever about using. Grenus’ double tactic was first to present Dumont to the Jacobins as a secret enemy of liberty, an aristocrat, and an emissary of Pitt. A single newspaper article was enough to strip him of the influence he had so painfully won over the Grille and other Jacobin cercles. But to the English on the other hand Grenus presented Dumont as a Jacobin fraternising in Geneva with the most extreme democrats, part of a revolutionary committee bent on overthrowing the republic’s traditional government. Soret is perhaps rather overly charitable to Dumont in implying that his


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overriding concern was to defend himself against calumny and that his uncle asked only for a 2-month leave of absence in hopes that he would be able to remove the prejudices implanted by Grenus in London. Dumont’s own correspondence indicates that more basic financial considerations were crucial and that he was more than a little ashamed to be following his financial self-interest rather than continuing to serve his homeland. Peter publishes a most revealing letter from Ami Lullin, an aristocrat completely opposed to the Revolution, to his compatriot Jean-André Deluc in London, written as Dumont was on the point of leaving for England.181 This letter offers one of the finest spontaneous testimonies to the courage and integrity of Etienne Dumont I have ever seen. Lullin says he is writing in order to exonerate a fellow-citizen cruelly slandered on account of moves made by him at the request of the leaders of the Republic. ‘I owe him the truth, and it would have all the more weight coming from me if people knew how much I detest our revolution and those who have encouraged it.’ Dumont has been getting letters from London, continues Lullin, telling him that the publication of the letter written by him on behalf of the Revolutionary Committees to Paris has given rise to most unjust criticism of him. It may make him look like one of the principal authors or defenders of a revolution that is degrading Geneva and seems likely to turn Genevans into Frenchmen. If Deluc can tell the truth about Dumont in London, that will go some way towards paying the debt of gratitude owed by true Genevans to him for his patriotic devotion. It must be remembered that when Dumont went to Paris 3 months earlier it was in response to repeated and insistent requests from there. When he got to Geneva the revolution was already a done deed. He treated with contempt the threats of Genevan agitators against him personally. He had the courage to yield to the entreaties of a great number of citizens and participate in the revolutionary committees. His only purpose was to defend Genevan independence, and he contributed to this with his powerful and trenchant letters to General Kellermann, making it clear that the revolutionary party in Geneva was solidly pro-independence. The truth is that his presence in Geneva helped prevent the revolution from ‘reaching the last extremities’ and bringing about the loss of Genevan independence. Dumont’s departure from Geneva in early March 1793 was a defining moment. It brought to a close a period of intermittent personal involvement in the political affairs of the Continent that had begun in the Spring of 1789. For periods during that time Dumont had been at the heart of political developments and his opinion had been sought by influential leaders. His flight from Geneva also brought to an end a difficult balancing act in which his British sinecure was put at risk by his involvement with notorious revolutionaries on the Continent. The seemingly abrupt decision to leave was not a whim or caprice but the culmination of a period when he knew he was gambling his income on his commitment to Genevan political life and the service of the Republic.182 This is clear from a letter to Romilly penned at


Calais on 19 March as he was waiting for his passport.183 His state of mind and the background to his precipitate departure are evident: ‘By this rushed retreat I have lost all the inner satisfaction that I should have gained from my conduct in Geneva . . . My Genevan friends approved of my departure, but it is more difficult for me to approve of it myself.’ Dumont also sent his niece Jeanne Duval a justification of his decision to return in a letter written at the end of March.184 He explained to her that he would have stayed longer in Geneva because he was able to defend her independence, but someone in London was slandering his behaviour and his principles. It had become essential for him to justify his conduct in person in London, to explain that the party to which he belonged had been obliged to give way to a revolution brought about by the influence of the French army. Significant compromises had been forced on them by circumstances. The desire to defend Genevan independence had been his sole aim in consenting to join the Provisional Committees. Everyone in Geneva knew that he had exposed himself to the hatred of the ‘French agitators’, that they had resolved to force him out because he was an obstacle to their projects, and that he had managed to block some of their more culpable manoeuvres. But this was not understood in London. Two months later Dumont wrote that he was more and more convinced that he did the right thing in leaving.185 He would not have been able to block the torrent, which would in all likelihood have dragged him along with it. The revolutionary party is heaping up expense and extravagances, it is ruining the state and tormenting individuals. No doubt you have been informed about the civic oath required of each citizen . . . something which half of the nation has refused. Moreover you have heard of the beatings at night-time in the streets administered to several of those not keen on the new ideas, it’s a powerful means of persuasion . . . it demonstrates political truths without being wearisome to the mind.

7 Theory of Legislation (1): The Gestation of the Traités, 1793–1802

I

Dumont starts work on Bentham’s manuscripts

A letter to Romilly of 28 August 1793 contains an indication of how Dumont is coping with his enforced retirement from the public life of Paris and Geneva.1 He has thrown himself into his ‘extrait de Bentham’. He has clearly made considerable progress because he announces that if he had not gone as far as he had already, he would be ready to give up because of the aridity and infinity of detail that characterise the texts he is working on. Moreover he reports having come across a large number of unfinished articles which he is sure Bentham will never complete. We have an idea of the kind of work that Dumont was doing on Bentham in 1793 because there is in his papers a manuscript of his first draft of the fourth part of the Principes du Code Pénal.2 Entitled ‘Indirect means of legislation to prevent offences’, it is dated at 1793, Kensington, and a note in the margin tells us that Dumont kept ‘out of curiosity’ the first draft that he drew up from the manuscripts of Bentham.3 Light is thrown on why Dumont treasured this particular manuscript from among so many pages he must have penned by a note in his nephew Duval’s preface to the Souvenirs.4 As an indication of how his uncle continued to venerate Bentham to his dying day, Duval relates some words that Dumont wrote shortly before his death. His uncle stated that what he admired in Bentham was the way he expounded his principle [i.e. the greatest happiness principle] and developed it, and the rigorous logic he drew from it. Dumont despised what he saw as the hypocrisy of those who condemned the principle as materialistic or egoistic, pointing out the importance in Bentham’s hierarchy of pleasures, of the pleasures of benevolence seen as the seed of all the social virtues. And he goes on to say that the ‘admirable’ ‘Traité sur les moyens indirects de prévenir les délits’ (‘Treatise on indirect means for preventing offences’) includes three chapters that suffice to refute all those wretched objections – the first on the culture of benevolence, the second on the motive of honour, and the third on the importance of religion – arguing that Fénelon himself would have been happy to put his name to this text. 233


It seems likely then that before converting to Benthamism, Dumont had to grapple with the fear that it somehow negated or cancelled out all the noblest of human motives for virtuous behaviour. In this manuscript, indirect legislation is said to comprise general precautions that serve to discourage whole classes of offences, as opposed to direct legislation aimed at countering particular offences.5 Indirect means may often succeed where direct fail. For example, extortionate pricing: the attempt has been made to counter it by fixing prices and interest rates. This measure having failed, the rigour of punishments has been redoubled, but the evil has been aggravated instead of being diminished, and yet there is a simple and effective way of achieving the goal, a way that few governments have followed – to give free rein to competition. This free competition is like a reward that the legislator offers to the one who puts his merchandise on sale for the lowest price. Indirect means are those that without being punitive act on the physical and moral nature of man, on his knowledge, on his power, on his will, to dispose him to obey the law, to spare him the temptation to offend, to govern him through his penchants and his intelligence. The Benthamite approach is presented as offering a humane and positive and effective treatment of anti-social behaviours in place of cruel, barbarous, and ineffective ones. Dumont lists a number of different means of indirect legislation – for example, methods of directing the course of general desires and inclinations towards tastes that are more in conformity with the public interest and away from those less so.6 For instance, by providing for people to have good things to do with their leisure time such as literature, sports, science, music, theatrical performances [!], to counter the tendency to drink. The legislator needs both to fortify existing sentiments of benevolence and to regulate their application, that is, encourage them to follow the dictates of the principle of utility. There is no better way of fortifying benevolent feelings than to show the most tender respect for humanity in laws and public establishments. A bloody code produces bloodthirsty citizens. All forms of cruelty to animals should be banned, for example blood sports, cock fighting and so on. Killing animals is fine but not tormenting them. Why should the law deny its protection to any sentient being?7 Humanity has begun by being compassionate towards slaves and will eventually turn its attention to animals. As for regulating benevolent feelings, education and persuasion are the only means; men have to be taught by degrees to appreciate the different degrees of utility and to proportion their benevolence to the extent of its object; Fénelon’s famous observation that family must come before self, nation before family, and human race before nation. Citizens must be taught to be ashamed of the esprit de corps, of family loyalties when they militate against love of country, and of an unjust love of country turned against other nations. They will be discouraged from sympathising with people like smugglers who offend against the state or with beggars who damage industry. They will be shown

The Gestation of the Traités, 1793–1802

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‘the pettiness and the danger of caprice, of antipathies, of partial and passing attachments, when they outweigh general utility and lasting interests’. As far as the honour motive or ‘the popular sanction’ goes, its force is in proportion to its intensity and its extent.8 Its extent comprises the number of persons whose approval is in question; its intensity, the degree of (dis)approbation of each person. Publicity is the great means of increasing its extent. The thinking public is the depository of the law and the archives of honour. As for intensity, the legislature can establish penalties for offences against honour, it can establish rewards that draw their value from honour. There is an art by which the legislator can exercise an almost limitless power over public opinion. He so disposes things that in order to commit the act it is desired to prevent, a person has to commit another one that is popularly condemned. For example, in the case of a particular tax, people might be made to swear that they have paid it, since false oaths are condemned by the public. You can also change public perception by changing the words for things. Cromwell had more power as ‘Protector’ than the kings had had before him.9 ‘If the people were philosophers this expedient would be useful, but it is a point on which the philosophes themselves are people; you see them endlessly applauding under one name what they condemn under another.’ There are a number of ways of involving the affections of citizens on the side of justice against criminals. Allow anyone to prosecute crimes without any personal interest; accord indemnities for costs of prosecution; give all delators the possibility of being heard; set up rewards appropriate to public opinion; give particular encouragement to those who work for preventative police. Example is the most powerful means – the Empress Catherine of Russia took inoculation herself in order to encourage her people to accept it. Dumont’s evident relish at this part of Bentham’s system is suggestive. It is clear that he was drawn to a philosophy that seemed to work with the grain of human nature rather than crossing it unceremoniously. He also found very attractive the notion that motives like honour, benevolence, and religion could be seen as sources of pleasure. Others believed that however pleasurable the virtue of religion might actually be, it made no difference because the good must be pursued apart from its pleasurableness. Dumont had concluded from his experiences during the Revolution with the likes of Brissot that such an approach encouraged people to live an unreal existence out of touch with their real human motives, deluding themselves into a conviction of their own virtue. Much more realistic to acknowledge the reality of human motivations and work with them. Dumont does not seem to have been troubled by the fact that the space left for religion in Bentham’s system was somewhat limited. Dumont accepts that religion can serve evil as it can serve good, often opposes the wisest laws, and in the shape of fanaticism is excessively damaging, so that the legislator will reinforce it only when it serves the public good. Religion can encourage individuals to give information, it can serve to guarantee the veracity


of promises and testimonies (as with oaths), it can strengthen the impression made by punishments by participating in the ceremonies that go with the execution of sentences.10 Laws could be promulgated during services by parish priests, and religion may also be helpful with socially advantageous exhortations such as ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.’11 On 3 October 1793, Dumont reported to Romilly that his Bentham was making very good progress indeed.12 He could even see the end in sight. But perhaps he was not being very realistic here, and the tone of Romilly’s letters to him indicates that Romilly was deeply concerned about his state of mind. In a letter that probably crossed with the aforementioned one, Romilly worries about Dumont’s lethargy and about the seeming waste of his talents it is entailing.13 In mid-November,14 Dumont reports that events in France are making him very melancholy: what use are books when the most enlightened nation in Europe is given over to barbarity? Dumont envies Romilly his involvement in judicial affairs which leaves him no time to brood on current events, for what is happening out there can only give rise to bitter reflections. His sadness at the terrible bloodshed and internecine warfare in which not only France but also his beloved Geneva was engulfed drove Dumont into a state of depression. He thought he saw the cause dishonoured, to which he had devoted his life, and without having taken part in any action with which he could reproach himself, without having contributed to the diffusion of any principle which he wished to disavow, tormented only by the recollection of his wishes so cruelly deceived, he remained for some years plunged in sadness . . . .15 Dumont’s grand project of promoting Bentham’s thought was first set out before a wider public in the pages of a Genevan journal newly founded by friends of his in the mid-1790s – the Bibliothèque britannique.16 The story of the founding of this remarkable journal has been exhaustively told by David Bickerton.17 The Pictet brothers were the moving spirits – Marc-Auguste (1752–1825)18 and Charles (1753–1824)19 . As it happens, Dumont’s simple grave in the Plainpalais cemetery in Geneva is to be found right next to the more elaborate memorial to Charles, known as Pictet de Rochemont. The brothers were actually from an aristocratic family, but when on 21 November 1782 the CC adopted a new Edict abolishing a part of the rights acquired by the représentants, Marc-Auguste and three others walked out, and on 13 January 1783 he resigned from the CC.20 There is plenty of evidence that Marc-Auguste would have been more than sympathetic to the greatesthappiness principle. On a visit to the Edgeworths in Ireland in 1801, he discussed the question of happiness with Maria and pondered a comparison of the way the elite classes devoted themselves to eating and drinking and gossip with what could be achieved if the ensemble of human faculties


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were directed towards the greatest sum of happiness that we can procure for each other. But he went on to observe that for this it would be necessary to reconstitute society from its basis in education upward. The heavy gothic structures of so-called ‘civilisation’ needed to be overthrown.21 In the Summer of 1795, the brothers began to concoct a plan with their friend Frédéric-Guillaume Maurice (1750–1826) to begin publishing a weighty new French-language journal which would bring before a French public the best of the new literary and scientific productions appearing in the English-speaking world.22 The first issue appeared on Christmas Day 1795. As it happened, at this time Dumont was prostrated by his illness and out of touch with most of his Genevan correspondents. Bickerton notes that in September 1795 prospectuses were sent all over Europe and cites the number of 4000 of these prospectuses sent to Italy and Germany. Dumont was apparently caught by surprise when he first heard about the new journal.23 The Bibliothèque britannique was to be an extracting and translating journal with its material derived exclusively from English-language sources.24 As such it was clearly an ideal vehicle for Dumont to publicise work in progress on the Bentham manuscripts. Bickerton has pointed to the ideological assumptions behind the work: the background was the aftermath of the Revolution and the revulsion against the ‘fruitless theorising and disastrous system-building’ of the Revolution. The editors deplore the fact that France is still under the influence of principles that are destructive of the social order; what she needs to counter this influence is to study the principles on which is based the prosperity of other peoples instead of continuing to feed on the poison that is destroying her. There exists a model of stability where the ‘new principles’ have been rejected, where religion, morality, and order have been preserved, where Science, the Arts, Commerce and Navigation have met the challenge of war and have prospered. This land is England, and at a time when ignorance, feeding on national hatreds, separates France, as never before, from a true understanding of its neighbour, the creation of the Bibiothèque britannique is proposed as a positive step towards the destruction of national barriers and as a means of confronting a continental public with objects of emulation . . . 25 Bickerton quotes a reaction from Directorial France to this prospectus: in the Mercure français there was anger at the insulting tone of the editorial team who were branded as little better than émigrés or even as Englishmen themselves. Bickerton also quotes an interesting letter by Marc-Auguste of 22 September 1795 in which he indicated that to begin with they were banking mostly on subscribers in Germany and Italy rather than in France, a country still too preoccupied with its quest for freedom to be bothered with thinking about the means of maintaining it by the spreading of enlightenment.26 On the other


hand, they did anticipate that a future restoration of peace would bring with it a revival of Anglomania in France.27 The starting point of Dumont’s public campaign to promote Benthamism can be taken as 1 May 1797, when he first announced officially to the world his work in progress on the Bentham manuscripts in a letter to the editors of the Bibliothèque britannique.28 He opens by contrasting the editors of the journal with the politicians of the day: against a background of war, when the politicians are weighing up England’s military strength and her trade and credit resources, these editors are studying her literary and philosophical resources. Nothing offers better evidence of the soundness of their motives than their choice of English works to review. Dumont expresses his surprise that (without him) they had picked out Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.29 The amazing thing about this is that the book had passed unnoticed even in England when it appeared, so the sharp-sightedness of the editors is highly commendable. Why has Bentham not made a greater impact up to now?,30 he asks, answering that the first problem with Bentham’s writing lies in the austere style of the work, out of keeping with the expectations still current in France that works in this field should be characterised by salon elegance. It is worth dwelling on this question of ‘austerity’ for a moment. Benthamism is often dismissed as ‘the selfish’ system or as a ‘hedonistic’ ethics, but Halévy points out that one of the attractions of it for English culture of the early nineteenth century was precisely its ‘ascetic’ side. The French scholar writes that Utilitarian morality cannot be described without qualification as a system of hedonism. It was based simultaneously on two principles. One of these was no doubt the identification of the ethical good with pleasure; but the other, of equal importance with the former, was the duty incumbent upon man, in virtue of the natural conditions to which his life is subject, to sacrifice present pleasure in the hope of future pleasure, and to purchase happiness at the cost of labour and suffering.31 Halévy thought that utilitarianism contained an element of ‘asceticism’ which gave it an appeal even for the ‘ascetical’ Christian mind influenced by evangelicalism. More recently this same idea has been taken up by Boyd Hilton. ‘Now at first sight this emphasis on self-denial distinguishes evangelicalism from utilitarianism, against whose hedonistic egoism it was in part a reaction. Yet Benthamism also contained a puritanical emphasis on selfdenial, at least in the short term.’32 Cheryl Welch noted that in France of the mid-1790s the idéologue Destutt de Tracy explicitly sought to move away from the discredited rhetorical excesses of the Revolution which had become identified with violence. ‘The dry, emotionless quality of his “ideology’’ was actually intended as an explicit antidote to revolutionary flamboyance. Tracy’s desire to suppress useless signs and ellipses, and to banish hyperbole,


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illusion, and metaphor reflected his own conviction that language had been dangerously distorted during the Revolution.’33 She remarks that the fundamental goals of an idéologue were to be ‘certainty in method and precision in expression’. Dumont did not attempt to conceal the fact that Bentham was not the one to help his own cause. The Genevan pictures Bentham divesting himself of An Introduction as of a cumbersome burden, to get it out of the way so that he could devote himself to what really interested him. What really interested him was to pursue and work out the themes for which this text was simply the introduction, so he unloaded it in an incomplete form in order to put it behind him – another reminder of Bentham’s complete lack of interest in theory.34 Unfortunately he had subsequently been diverted from pursuing this other work by ‘circumstances’ and ‘other undertakings’ [i.e. Panopticon!] – which meant that An Introduction had been abandoned by its own author. Back in London in 1790, continues Dumont, he himself gave some serious consideration to the book, and found it growing on him. True, it was hard going, but then there were great rewards to be had: so many discoveries to be made in the moral world where the superficial mind assumes that everything is already known. The qualities in Bentham he goes on to praise are these: confidence, mastery of his subject, control of his material, eye for detail, and ability to discern the parts. To Dumont, the book was like a map of an unknown territory, for Bentham checked out all the different routes and cleared up all uncertainties – a reference to the Englishman’s legendary thoroughness.35 He tackles difficulties that superficial legislators do not even notice. Readers will put the book down with a feeling of amazement at how much is entailed in the simplest of laws. They will appreciate that you cannot nod through 20 laws in a sitting – another sideswipe at the National Assembly.36 What Dumont is saying here amounts to a declaration that Bentham has made the study of law ‘scientific’ in the Linnaean sense of a complete and comprehensive classification. As for his own contribution, Dumont states that he did not set out to make a translation but an interpretation which was from one point of view an abridgement and from another a commentary. He decided that a rigorously philosophical method such as would appeal only to an elite of trained minds could be dispensed with in aiming for a wider public. All the reasoning could be translated into popular language, and abstract propositions could be illustrated with examples while a familiar method of discourse could be adopted. (Dumont sees his mission very clearly as that of the vulgarisateur.) Each separate work was unfinished, for the trouble of ordering and polishing has little attraction for the truly inventive genius.37 When his labours on a particular subject got interrupted, Bentham had no desire to go back to it. What really won Dumont over to the work was the very fact that something more than translation was required. Mere translation would have been tedious and would have reduced him to being just a slave of the author. But the kind of


work he had to do made him a friend of the author. Choosing from variants, clarifying obscure bits, connecting the disconnected fragments, abridging or elaborating, filling gaps, adding ornamentation, slimming down tedious catalogues of ideas, and incorporating them in the flow of his text – all this is stimulating for the interpreter. Dumont moves to the question of what will not be dealt with in the works. There will be no discussion of the organisation of states nor of the best form of government. He notes that Bentham has no preference in this area but believes that the best constitution for a people is the one to which that people is habituated.38 Dumont is clearly out to reassure his readership that this particular thinker is very far from being a horrible Jacobin subversive. There will moreover be no satire or declamation. (In fact Bentham was a highly satirical writer, but Dumont eliminates most of that.) The English jurist seeks to correct and modify, to study the circumstances, to be gentle with dominant prejudices even when they are unreasonable, to take a softly, softly approach with innovations, working towards them so that eventually they lose their harshly novel appearance. He avoids shocks to property or established authority and prefers not to disturb the ordinary course of hopes and habits. He wants to reform abuses without damaging prevailing interests. In other words, Dumont goes right out of his way to smooth the fevered brows of Europeans, their nerves shattered by too many years of anarchy and upheaval. The principles arrived at by Bentham are said to be universally applicable and the results valid for all nations. Basically Bentham is offering improvements in various branches of public administration. Economy is a strong point – less penalties, commerce and industry cheaply encouraged, laws reduced to a minimum. The aim is to create happy, numerous, prosperous, and calm people.39 At this point (unusually), referring to Bentham as offering ‘improvements in public administration’, Dumont comes close to my own reading of Bentham. But he still gives no hint of the entrepreneurial side of his mentor, which at this moment in time (1797) had become completely predominant in Bentham’s life,40 nor does he evince any awareness of the significance of Panopticon in Bentham’s scheme of things. He sees the Englishman simply as a classic Smithian laissez-fairist. He claims that Bentham is very far from being a subversive, he does not begin by reducing all that is to ruins, he raises a regular building, and the mere comparison between this and our ‘Gothic constructions’ will suffice to show their weaknesses without any need for direct censure. Of course the storms of the present, writes Dumont, mean that we are preoccupied with current dangers, but the time will come when planning will be required. Then the question of goals will become crucial.41 Politics has always been influenced by caprice and modishness, at times the goal has been glory or conquest or religion or trade: currently the goal is liberty. What is actually meant by this is the quest for political power. But the truth is that happiness is the only goal and the only object with an intrinsic value, while political liberty is only a relative good, one of the


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means for arriving at this goal. With good laws a people can attain a high degree of happiness even without political power; to enjoy maximal political powers while suffering under bad laws is the deepest misfortune for a people. What governments need to do is to apply themselves to perfecting legislation, for by opening the way to legitimate hopes they will quell the turbulence of illicit hopes.42 Dumont’s conversion is already complete. Before the Revolution, what mattered to him was liberty from aristocratic oppression. Now he has accepted Bentham’s assignation of priority to happiness viewed as dependent on security. Finally Dumont proclaims his rejection of conservative philosophies that locate our ills in vices alleged to be inevitable in humans, rather than seeking the source of those ills in ignorance that can be reduced and passions which can be restrained. If persons such as the editors of the Bibliothèque britannique had despaired of Geneva’s salvation, things would be in a bad way. In feeding the flame of the sciences in Geneva they will actually help to divert people’s minds away from their political wrangling. Dumont published further extracts from his forthcoming work in the Bibliothèque britannique starting in June 1797. In volume 6 – again in 179743 – Dumont praises Bentham for speaking about the law in a way that laymen can understand, claiming that Bentham will be much easier for laymen to grasp than for specialists, since he reasons on the basis of the experience that men have in common: ‘The science of the law is rid of all that makes its progress so difficult, its definitions so arbitrary, its fictions, its pointless debates, its sterile erudition, its scholastical metaphysics . . . Later in the same year comes a third extract, this time with a focus on marriage legislation.’44 In the following year came another contribution,45 on political economy. He begins by relating Bentham to Adam Smith: ‘Smith’s work is to Bentham’s as the branch to which has been added a graft’, for Bentham admires Smith but also criticises him. What Dumont admires particularly about Bentham’s economic writing is the way Bentham sheds new light on the great principles of the social order, on the advantages of property, security, and freedom in the exercise of industry. Furthermore Bentham brings out the energy of the remuneratory motives that make the free man work, by contrast with the constraining and painful motives that drive the slave. This kind of contrast of free and slave is classic Genevan thinking. In the background is always the contrast between the ‘Catholic’ slave and the Reformed ‘free’ man. Dumont frequently adverts to the power of authoritarianism to crush industry when recording his impressions of visits to the Catholic areas of Switzerland, whose general backwardness he contrasts with the dynamism released under the Protestant regime of ‘freedom’. The (Catholic) slave works mechanically and listlessly, the (Protestant) free man is filled with energy. Thus, for example, Dumont notes in his journal during a journey to Italy in 1816: It remains to be seen whether there is a better means of reducing the energy of a people than by creating a great number of convents and a


government in which celibacy is a necessary means for obtaining a great number of modest places . . . that support individuals without rendering any service to the state. In a Protestant country a father of a family has to have great energy to support his family.46 The sixth and final contribution from Dumont comprises a second piece on political economy.47 These extracts reached a very wide readership and created an awareness of Bentham on the Continent even before Dumont published the Traités in 1802.48 When he arrived in Paris in 1801 to organise publication, he found that ‘Everyone I’ve met here knows the Bibliothèque britannique: it’s known here by anyone who could be called a reader, and they’ve all been talking to me about the extracts of [Bentham] I put in there.’49 Hausermann referred to the journal as ‘the most important cultural link existing between England and the Continent during the Napoleonic era’.50

II

1799: The writing of the Souvenirs

In January 1799, Dumont was in Bath and he tells us that this was the moment when he began to write the only book for which he is remembered by posterity as a writer in his own right, the Souvenirs sur Mirabeau et sur les deux premières Assemblées législatives. We have already studied this publication at some length but a few final observations are in order here. In 1799, Dumont is very aware of how much he has changed since 1789: ‘My notions of liberty had been strengthened by my residence in England, and by the liberal spirit of the writings published, at that period, in France.’51 Dumont is a sensitive and careful observer. He gives a fine description of the initial confusion and lack of direction in the early days, when the nobility were themselves divided into democratic and aristocratic tendencies, and the clergy likewise. He demonstrates how different groups wanted different things, and his earthiness recognises that basically the mass of the people just wanted lower taxes. ‘It is impossible to describe the confusion of ideas, the licentiousness of imagination, the burlesque notions of popular rights, the hopes, apprehensions and passions of these parties.’52 The term ‘burlesque’ is a reminder that Dumont was gifted with a lively sense of humour that enabled him to see the comic irony in many a situation. It also encouraged him to laugh at the more extreme Jacobinical elements. The above quotation is followed by an equally significant one: The Comte de Lauragais said that it was like a world, the day after its creation, when, nations rendered hostile by interest, were trying to settle their differences and regulate their respective rights as if nothing had previously existed, and in making arrangements for the future, there was no past to be taken into consideration.


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At a distance Dumont realises that you cannot deal with constitutional issues in isolation, the different parts of a constitution are interdependent. ‘The law which might be very good when combined with some other, might produce a very bad effect if taken alone.’53 Before pronouncing on the veto they ought to have considered whether there were to be more than one chamber. With one single chamber the veto became an absolute necessity to prevent the one body from usurping all the power but at the same time it became impossible to employ because a king is too weak against a national assembly with a single will. It puts him in the position of seeming to oppose the nation. With a dual assembly system an absolute veto would not have been so necessary. Dumont considers it the biggest weakness of the Assembly that it worked on isolated parts so that it produced an irregular edifice with some parts too strong and others too weak, and he continues the architectural image impressively – ‘incoherent masses which could not sustain the slightest shock, a gigantic elevation, and foundations which gave way under the weight of the fabric’.54 (The attractiveness to Dumont of Bentham’s ruthlessly systematic approach is evident here.) He traces this weakness back to an extreme impatience on the part of the members to strut their stuff, to take the limelight. No preparation, no prior agreement, in fact people took pleasure in catching the Assembly by surprise. The Constitutional Committee was riven by disagreements and could never direct its labours to a common goal. It was the Assembly in miniature, the same competing vanities and the same desire to shine. Each, in short, took upon himself to introduce matters according to his own judgement, and often for no earthly reason than to be beforehand with the others. Study and meditation were foreign to the habits of the assembly; its decrees were passed almost at the sword’s point, and the most fiery passions had neither truce nor interval.55 One celebrated historian who rated Dumont’s work very highly was Lord Macaulay: We have never met with so vivid and interesting a picture of the National Assembly as that which M. Dumont has set before us. His Mirabeau, in particular, is incomparable. All the former Mirabeaus were daubs in comparison. Some were merely painted from the imagination; others were gross caricatures. This is the very individual, neither god nor demon, but a man . . . All his opposite and seemingly inconsistent qualities are in this representation so blended together as to make up an harmonious and natural whole.56 However, all is not as it seems here: for Macaulay’s article was a broadside as part of the war over the 1832 Reform Act. J. W. Croker was a Tory strongly opposed to the forthcoming Reform Bill, and he and the Whig Macaulay


embarked on a controversy from 20 September 1831 that was fought out through analogies with the events of the Revolution.57 Croker made use of Dumont for Tory propaganda in a review in the Quarterly Review of March 1832.58 He describes the union of the French Orders as equivalent to the Reform Bill and the ‘British cabinet of 1831’ as equivalent to the National Assembly. If the Cabinet consented to the dangerous new Reform Bill it would trigger the same kind of catastrophe that had resulted from the decision of the Tiers to declare itself the National Assembly. Dumont had agreed with Mirabeau that the transformation of the Tiers into the National Assembly was the beginning of France’s woes, so the parallel was obvious. According to Macaulay’s article in The Edinburgh Review (July 1832)59 on the other hand, Dumont had accepted that the Revolution had in the long term conferred great benefits on mankind despite all the failings of the revolutionaries; his judgement should be read therefore like a criticism of the first act of a good play.

III

The publication of the Traités

Dumont went to Paris in the Autumn of 1801 to organise publication of what was to be his classic presentation of Bentham’s ideas. This being the era of Napoleonic censorship, he was fortunate to have backing and assistance at the highest level in the shape of Talleyrand (now Napoleon’s Foreign Minister). It is interesting to speculate on the motivation of Talleyrand in taking such an interest in the enterprise. Some indications may be found in his Memoirs. These include a section on eighteenth-century philosophy. He muses that doubt as a starting point is not without value because it makes the seeker cautious and modest in his approach, avoiding a rush to conclusions, moving slowly from effects to causes and from discovery to discovery. This kind of caution led to the upside of eighteenth-century philosophy, the adoption of the Baconian method in the sciences and the acceptance of Newton’s conclusions. He particularly admires Voltaire’s description of philosophy as essentially tranquil, without envy or ambition, detached from worldly tumult or luxury or intrigue, indulgent, compassionate, supportive of the established order, never ready to incite violence.60 In Talleyrand’s view such thinkers reinforced the eternal foundations of human morality. It was some of their disciples, less enlightened and hence less circumspect, who shook the pillars of the social order. He specifically blamed Helvétius, Condorcet, Raynal, and d’Holbach for having exploited the ideas of ‘the state of nature’ and ‘perfectibility’ aggressively against the moral and political order. He considered it madness to think the world could be governed by abstractions, by analyses, and by a completely metaphysical morality. It is not clear what he understood exactly by ‘analysis’ but he claimed that it was the particular feature of eighteenth-century philosophy – useful when applied to the physical sciences, incomplete when applied to the moral sciences, dangerous when


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applied to the social order.61 It seems clear then that Talleyrand was on the side of Dumont when it came to distaste for ‘metaphysical abstractions’ and attacks on the political order, so Dumont’s strategy of promoting Bentham as apolitical and preaching a down-to-earth non-metaphysical system may well have appealed to him. Talleyrand’s reputation for amoralism as a philosophy (as opposed to immoral behaviour) seems to have been inaccurate, for according to his Memoirs he had no time for the kind of attitude satirised by Vernes in his novel attacking the philosophes, according to which scruples are weakness, justice a prejudice, and personal pleasure all that matters.62 He was convinced that individuals depended for their happiness on others, that the reciprocal need for services was a powerful motive of general benevolence.63 In his Memoirs, Talleyrand devotes several pages to an attack on the duc d’Orléans as being the embodiment of egoism, lamenting the development of cynicism as a way of thinking in late eighteenth-century France.64 He complained that Orléans never understood that man depends for his happiness on the happiness of others, that there is a reciprocal need for mutual services which is a powerful motive for general and particular benevolence. Nature furnishes us with the means to please which we are intended to use generously, whereas Orléans simply used them relentlessly for his personal ends to exploit the innocence of others. ‘Destined for an immense fortune, he had no conception that the good he might do to others would be the guarantee of receiving good from them, his narrow-minded egoism did not permit him to imagine that in such an exchange he would receive more than he gave.’ Talleyrand shared Dumont’s dislike for Sieyès, claiming that it was not out of philanthropy that the latter preached egalitarianism, but out of violent hatred of the power of others. Although Sieyès would never have been happy at the head of government, he wanted to be the brains of the government, and exclusively so. His principles were utterly unbending, without pity for the imperfections of nature or the weaknesses of humanity.65 He treated men like players on a chess board to be moved about at will. He never debated – because he knew only how to lay down the law. He had no desire to convince, only to subjugate. Talleyrand’s observations on the Revolution are sometimes close to Dumont’s too. Speaking of Necker (of whom he shares Dumont’s poor opinion), Talleyrand says that he was absolutely incapable of grasping that the movement of the day arose out of vanity, a vice dominant enough in the French to generate an energy capable of any excess.66 Talleyrand even goes so far as to say that ‘the French Revolution was born out of vanity’, referring to the issue of the existence of an order of nobility and the conflict between it and the increasingly wealthy middle classes. It is curious that Talleyrand, the consummate practitioner of salon life and in a sense the embodiment of the kind of wit and sophistication that Dumont disliked, shared with the Genevan a sense that vanity had been the downfall of the Revolution. He claimed that in most peoples vanity was only a subordinate character trait,


whereas in the French it was present everywhere and dominated with an individual and collective energy that made it capable of the greatest excesses.67 And he continued, In the French Revolution, this passion did not figure in isolation; it awoke others which it called to its aid. But those remained subordinate to it, they took on vanity’s colour and spirit, they acted in its sense and for its aims. It gave enough of the impulsion and directed enough of the movement for us to be able to say that the French Revolution was born out of vanity. It may seem surprising to some that we take seriously the notion that Talleyrand had any consistent philosophy; for there is a Talleyrand myth according to which he was simply a trimmer who had no principles but only the instinct of survival and self-preservation. The introduction to a recent English-language biography of Talleyrand deals cogently and convincingly with this myth and encourages us to take him seriously as having an ideological position of his own68 – as Mirabeau did too, despite the fact that he likewise was known for all kinds of scandalous behaviour which has detracted attention from his political ideas. Dumont left London on 1 November 1801 with Lord Henry. This was the window offered by the Peace of Amiens, the cessation of hostilities which allowed tourists to flock to France in their thousands. Dumont and Lord Henry reached Paris on 8 November. They went straight to the Foreign Ministry; the minister (Talleyrand) was there with the Russian Ambassador Marcoff.69 Talleyrand asked them round to dinner that night and there were 34 persons present including Joseph Bonaparte. Paris was in festive mood, it was the Fête de la Paix. Dumont remembers Rousseau’s reflections on public displays at the end of his letter to d’Alembert – and, significantly, Rousseau’s regrets at the costliness of such displays. In the entry for 10 November this preoccupation with the same issue reemerges. Here is a reminder of something that Rousseau and Bentham had in common – hostility to public extravagance at the expense of taxpayers. Dumont’s unpublished diary of this extended visit to Paris is replete with references to the political and intellectual elite of the day. Everywhere he found huge interest in the forthcoming publication, mainly as a result of the extracts in the Bibliothèque britannique. His standing and connections at this point were so elevated that he mixed quite naturally with the elite of Parisians and visitors, and it is worth dwelling a little on his life in Paris during the months when he was seeing the Traités through to publication. On the eighteenth of November he and Lord Henry went over the Bentham extracts together – interesting that even Lord Henry was roped in for this.70 He dined with Roederer and Morellet and M. de Boufflers and others. At Mme Pastoret’s he met LaFayette.71 On 20 November they were at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they met Chevalier and Talleyrand.72 Talleyrand showed such interest


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in the Bentham work that Dumont could not but make an unfavourable comparison with Roederer (who was actually a member of the commission that was working on the new Napoleonic Code).73 Talleyrand recommended that Dumont should proceed to publication as soon as possible, warning that there was a party that would try to block him. Sieyès would realise that he and Bentham could not both be right and he had a clique of supporters. Roederer and others would be offended by anything in legislation that did not come from them. This is a reminder that the polarities between the more pragmatic experiential school represented by Dumont and Mirabeau and Talleyrand back in 1789 and the ‘abstract’, ‘metaphysical’ style of thought represented by Sieyès and the natural rights school had not died out. If Dumont’s Traités was published in Paris in 1802, it was not because utilitarian thinking had taken over, far from it, hostility remained strong. Talleyrand in his Memoirs recalls a comment of Napoleon’s about the Jacobins made during the Consulate. Napoleon told him he distinguished between salted Jacobins who could be persuaded by bribery to do whatever you wanted with them and sugared Jacobins who were implacable and irredeemable: ‘With all their metaphysics they are capable of destroying twenty governments.’74 On 24 November, Dumont attends a sitting of the Legislature. There is a speech by Portalis on legislation in general and the division of the civil code. It gives Dumont yet again the opportunity to mock the French for their supposed preference for words over substance: I am always fascinated by this love of fine phrases, this avidity for clichés, this obligation to go all sentimental at the mention of family, father, fatherland, human race, &c, &c. – endless tirades – endless rhetorical nonsense – not a single clear idea – those who were around us in the gallery were going into rhapsodies over his facility – it was as though they were watching a high-wire artist jumping and admiring the way he kept on alighting back on the cord – what a bullshitting people! – not even ten years of suffering have cured them!75 We also have a reminder here that at the very moment when Dumont was preparing his edition of Bentham’s writings for publication in Paris, work was under way completely to renovate France’s legal system, with the aim of cementing the unity of the nation by the institution of a single legal code and of sorting out the confusions that had arisen from the provisions of the revolutionary Assemblies. Although much work had been done, the enterprise had not as yet come to fruition.76 They dined with Mme de Staël and met St Jean d’Angély, the Helvetic ambassador, Stapfer, and Constant.77 Dumont was dismissive of Necker’s famous daughter. He had known her from some time, and probably since 1793.78 He noted that she admired Villiers’s book on Kant, Dumont remarking that in England only Lord Stanhope79 had been able to make sense of it.80


Dumont admired Necker’s daughter for the richness of her conversation, for her wit and her sallies, but ultimately found her superficial and lacking in depth. He found much of her talk impressive at first blush but on reflection it proved specious.81 In a diary entry for 17 December he wrote, To me she was riding on a fine horse for fifty leagues only to be back in the same place. She has a mind always in movement but without any advance. She rises up and falls back in the same place. It is the Parisian mind . . . The English mind is very different. A lot less brilliance but much more progress.82 Mme de Staël followed a contrary philosophical trajectory to that of Dumont: having been initially favourable to utilitarianism, she subsequently espoused German idealism and turned against Bentham. In her book De l’Allemagne, she argued that in order to be truly and religiously honourable we have to practise a cult of moral beauty independently of circumstances, for whereas utility is modified by circumstances, virtue must never be. In fact a person’s behaviour is never truly moral unless he counts for nothing the consequences in terms of pain or pleasure of his actions. She argues that no matter how far ‘a man as superior as Dumont extends the meaning of the word “utility’’, he will never be able to make it synonymous with dévouement’.83 Despite having ‘immense encyclopaedic conversations’ with her, Dumont reports a continuing unbridgeable gap between them and brands her with the ‘French’ vices – far too much rhetoric and imagination, far too little reason, ‘like as if you tried to live on wine and champagne instead of bread’.84 But he was obviously stung by the reproach that you could not be utilitarian and moral at the same time, because he felt he had to send her a defence of Bentham’s highly moral character, portraying his mentor as some kind of secular saint: I have never met in anyone with more truth, more probity, more hatred for oppression; love of justice is a torment for him, he suffers with all those who suffer from preventable evils. In private life he is a man of perfect goodness, I don’t think he has ever addressed a hurtful word to anyone of lower social standing all his life.85 Despite her estrangement from Dumont’s philosophy, however, Mme de Staël remained attached to him throughout her life. A part of their correspondence has survived86 and they met at Bowood in 1813 when she was in England for a while. He was a frequent visitor to Coppet when she was there, especially after his return to Geneva in 1814.87 Volney came to visit – telling Dumont he was staying in d’Holbach’s old house. Girardin takes them to Joseph Bonaparte’s for dinner and they meet Lord Cornwallis, Lucien Bonaparte, Mme Muralt his sister, Massena,


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Bernadotte, Marmont (celebrated Napoleonic generals). Dumont had a conversation with Lucien Bonaparte. The rest of the evening they spent with fellow Genevans. They are visited by La Fayette. One of Talleyrand’s Commis, a man named Hauterive,88 was a fan of Bentham’s and was deputed to assist with the publication of Dumont’s work. Hauterive, who was to write his own book on political economy,89 was much influenced by J.-B. Say,90 who spoke of Bentham as ‘my friend, or rather, my master’.91 Say had in fact served for a while in an administrative capacity at the Courier de Provence at a time when he was working for Clavière.92 Hauterive was to see the publisher and make the arrangements. Things were facilitated in that Dumont was not asking for any money. Five or six days later Dumont received a message to say that all was sorted out. They dine at the Foreign Office with the Spanish Ambassador. Dumont meets Fontanes93 . What a contrast with Benthamism! He is an archFrenchman in every way, except for his attitude to the present government. He thinks you need to travel in Italy rather than in England, because there are monuments and antiquities in the one and not in the other &c. I prefer men to statues, and parliamentary debate between Pitt and Fox to all the pictures of Raphaël. The fine arts don’t really excite me. But Italy shows how they can be combined with the decay of public happiness.94 There are unmistakable echoes here in Dumont’s mindset of Rousseau’s celebrated observation about the progress in the arts and sciences as being like the garlands that are placed over the chains that enslave men. For a Genevan, Rousseau’s philosophy was very far from being paradoxical. Talleyrand discusses with Dumont the new prison ethos in Philadelphia.95 He compares the Panopticon unfavourably with it. He feels that the Panopticon regulates only the exterior. People in a Panopticon would avoid being seen, they would not avoid doing evil. But the Quakers get to work on the man, that is focus on moral reforms. He and Dumont discuss the Bentham publication. The publisher is to be Bossange. Talleyrand would prefer to see all the volumes coming out together (i.e. all the volumes that Dumont had projected) but Dumont thinks this antipathetical to the interests of the publisher and moreover too demanding on him. It seems he may have had more ready at this time than what actually went into the Traités, but deliberately chose to begin with a restricted offering on grounds of editorial policy. Dumont works on at his Preface. He discovers that the Celebrations about whose cost he had speculated had in fact been paid for out of ‘welfare funds’, which of course arouses his irritation. He meets Jacobi, styled ‘a famous German metaphysician’, but Jacobi approves of Ferguson, Reid, and Beattie – so Dumont is not at all impressed96 though he carefully avoids getting drawn into argument and contents himself with expounding Hartley instead.


Dumont reverts again to the scandal that money intended for relief of the poor was diverted to pay for festivities. He goes to Bossange; Talleyrand had been round the day before and together the statesman and the publisher had agreed on the paper and font to be used. This is indeed an extraordinary story, such a man as Talleyrand taking so great a personal interest in the publication of the works of such a writer as Bentham. Dumont observes wryly that an author rises considerably in a publisher’s estimation when a minister gets involved in the details of the publication. An hour on his own together with Talleyrand – they talked about Bentham and drew up a list of works to be ordered from England for him. Dumont sees Bossange again and notes, ‘we are ready to roll’. At a dinner with Malouet, Molé, and Suard, Morellet regales them with memories of Helvétius. Dumont goes to see Cambacérès.97 Dumont attends a meeting of the Tribunat, where there is discussion of the civil code;98 he notes the chaotic manner of deliberating. He meets Mme d’Houdetot99 at a party. The troublesome Preface was finally completed on 1 December.100 A letter to Bentham reports on the progress with the volume.101 Such is the enthusiasm of Talleyrand that he has even offered to pay the costs of a complete edition if the investment looks to risky to Bossange. But the bookseller is happy with the enterprise. He offers 300 copies as payment for Dumont, keeping ownership of the manuscript for himself. Talleyrand disapproves of this deal, wanting ownership to remain in Dumont’s hands and accurately scenting a bestseller. However, friends whom Dumont has consulted do not anticipate large sales or an imminent need for a second edition. Dumont expects to give away 100 copies to advertise the work and the sale of the other 200 subjected to the deductions of the bookseller will hardly mean great wealth for the translator, particularly as he has to remain in Paris to supervise the printing. The chosen passages he has read to people have ‘given the highest satisfaction’. Bentham’s name alone will ensure a decent circulation. Duquesnoy102 has just published a translation of Bentham’s publications on the poor, a work Dumont has not seen as yet.103 In 1804, Duquesnoy was to go on to publish a translation of Bentham’s Letters to Lord Pelham.104 . Bentham was wanting to come out to Paris to promote Panopticon but Dumont discouraged him. Talleyrand had given Dumont an order for the purchase of English books – which ‘should be in perfect condition’. They were political economy works by Smith, Stewart, and A. Young plus ‘anything on political economy lately published’. He wanted all Bentham’s works. On 24 , Dumont meets Constant at Mme de Condorcet’s.105 They had a discussion on the book by Soulavie. On 26 Dec, Dinner at Mme de Condorcet’s, where is Laclos and the actress Talma, whom Dumont regards as shocking for her ‘insolent atheism’ though she is witty with it.106 On 27 Dec, Reybaz, Morellet and Baggesen – the conversation was not for the ladies since it turned to metaphysics, and Genevan ladies are less keen than French ladies to talk about what they don’t understand (!). After dinner at Labriche’s he is aware


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of having rambled on too loquaciously about the imperfections of French philosophical terminology and moral nomenclature, comparing it to the state of Chemistry before modern discoveries.107 On 28 Dec, Dumont writes to Romilly, passing comment on the new vogue for German philosophy.108 There are ‘a few fanatical Germans’ around in Paris (‘ardents et obscurs’) who declaim against Bacon, Locke, Hume, and Condillac – that is against experimental philosophy – which they call ‘empiricism’, using that as a term of abuse. Dumont has met women convinced they have understood this system, and waxing lyrical about inspiration, inner sentiments, and enthusiasm. In a letter to Dumont early in 1802, Romilly describes how Bentham has been manifesting his excitement about the forthcoming publication: He says he is very impatient to see the book, because he has a great curiosity to know what his own opinions are upon the subjects you treat of, The truth I believe is that he has a great curiosity to read these opinions in print; for when you gave them to him in manuscript, he had so little curiosity that I believe he read very little of them.109 On 11 January, Dumont gave Bossange the Preface and Introduction.110 On that day in London Bentham was composing a letter to him which is indicative of the problems of working with such a man.111 Bentham happily acknowledges that in all the big things Dumont has done as well as anyone could, while pointing to grave deficiencies on his part in all matters of detail. This sentiment is expressed in typically contorted Benthamic phraseology: . . . as to those little nothings, which are everything as between mandant and commissionaire, and which are not absolutely nothing as between friend and friend – as to those points I can do no otherwise in regard to the future, than propose to you two lines of direction to take your choice of – the parallel to my conduct; or the opposite to your own: – not that, when you come to compare them you will find any very material difference. On 16 January, Dumont heard Cuvier speak at the Lycée,112 and on that same day he received the first printed sheet of the Traités. On 11 February, Dumont reported on the progress of the Traités to Romilly.113 He had realised at the last minute that he had omitted to cover the huge chapter of Bentham in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation on the divisions of punishments and he had to do that with the printer snapping at his heels. On 16 February, Bentham writes114 to say that he has heard via Chauvet that ten sheets of Civil Code material have been printed. He is put out that no news had reached him direct of ‘this advance’. At the same time, Bentham’s eagle eye has caught sight in the Moniteur of a report that Count Zavadoskii has been appointed as chairman of a commission to draw up a code of laws for Emperor Alexander I. What has attracted Bentham’s attention is a mention


that foreign experts, especially those familiar with Roman Law, are being encouraged to offer assistance. Bentham suggests that when Dumont’s work is out he should get a copy sent to Zavadovskii with a letter telling him that it is by a man whose brother is in the imperial service. News of the impending publication has reached Holland House – Romilly spoke of ‘a parcel of Lords as curious and expectant on the subject – Aristocrats as well as Democrats’. Lord Henry was presented to Napoleon, they saw Lady Mountcastel, a pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft 115 and Mme Récamier, they met the Prince d’Orange at the Foreign Office. On 3 March, they were with Destutt de Tracy at Mme de Lavoisier’s. On 6 March, they dined at Cabanis’s at Auteuil, again with de Tracy.116 On 7 March, Dumont tells Bentham that the Civil Code principles are in the printing and together with the penal code are nearly done – but not the part on indirect means, for Dumont is in the process of adding further materials from a bundle of Bentham’s manuscripts on the subject. People are beginning to talk about the book, despite the fact that Dumont has been as secretive as possible. ‘It is spoken of from aloft as a work of the highest importance.’ Dumont reports having pushed the Panopticon but without success. On 16 April, Bentham writes again117 with a request for dispatch of the two volumes which he has heard are already printed. Discussion of an announcement in the Moniteur that the Institut National has received the list of foreign candidates, which included in the Classe des sciences morales et politiques ‘M. M. Niehburh, Müller et Jérémie Bentham’. Bentham is amused by this evidence of Dumont’s ‘intriguing like dragons’. On 2 May 1802, Dumont is sending the two completed volumes to Bentham.118 He has steadfastly refused to release any advertisements, wishing to rely on the intrinsic merit of the work. He thinks Bentham will be ‘alternativement content et mécontent’. He explains that the episode of the Institut is far from being an intrigue – he has friends there who thought of the idea of the nomination all on their own. He did try to give a helping hand, going to see two or three persons to tell them that once Bentham was actually on the list it would have been very disagreeable for him, Dumont, to see the preference given to a Germanic compiler. But it was explained to him that the absurd form of election virtually guaranteed the success of a little-known mediocrity and prevented anyone from pushing a particular candidate. Dumont reports that the printer has miscalculated, and the third volume is short of 200 pages, so he has inserted ‘Panoptique’ as a filler – note that this was an afterthought. Whatever he thought about Panopticon – and that is not clear – Dumont was clearly not intending to place it in the forefront of his first abstracts of Bentham. To fill these pages he had to dredge from the bottom of the barrel to find material that was not part of one of the major works. He brought in the discussion of time and place and a rather thin discussion on the promulgation of laws and the rationale of laws together with an initial chapter of a specimen penal code by way of an example. So the rather bitty appearance of the finished product was accidental, it was not


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down to Dumont but to the incompetence of the printer. We also have an explanation here for why Dumont felt he had to pad out the third volume by inserting a massive 55-page account of the contents of all three volumes at the end of the third in addition to the contents page at the start of each separate volume. He regrets that Bentham’s scientific plan has rather been lost sight of with all these additions. He is sending 100 copies to Deboffe the London bookseller and expects the London market to absorb those at least. On 14 May he tells Romilly in a letter that his work is finished and that there remain but two sheets to print.119 On the same day, Bentham writes from London.120 He sends some materials he has written at the last minute that could be included in the preface if it is not too late. There follows the first of three last-minute proposed contributions by Bentham to the work. The second letter of suggestions was dated 18 May.121 The third list of suggestions came on 21 May.122 By now it was all rather late in the day.

8 Theory of Legislation (2): The Message of the Traités

I

Content of the Traités

The Traités de législation civile et pénale was the one work which more than any other established Benthamism as a creed in the public mind and created its shape and form for posterity.1 This book came to be cited as expressing the opinions and the ideas of Bentham to the extent that citations of ‘Bentham’ both outside the Anglo-Saxon world and within it were very frequently in fact citations of this presentation of his thought by Dumont taken either from his original French or from some translated version of it.2 Dumont went on to publish further presentations of other aspects of Bentham’s work, but the salient fact for us is that almost all of the material he drew on had actually been penned by Bentham in the early part of his long life, and most of it before the French Revolution.3 I do not propose to enter here into a close comparison of Dumont’s text with the original Bentham writings on which it is based. Some work has been done on this by other scholars, in particular Elie Halévy, C. K. Ogden, David Baumgardt, and Ross Harrison.4 It is well known that much of the material Dumont used was first written well before the Revolution, from the 1770s on. James Crimmins provides the most recent discussion of the issue in the excellent introduction to his new edition of the Theory of Legislation.5 An authoritative contemporary scholar has paid perhaps the greatest compliment to Dumont as presenter of Bentham’s ideas. With reference to a part of Bentham’s writing that Bentham himself wrote in French, Ross Harrison observes, Because of the intrinsic importance for Bentham’s thought of the axioms of mental pathology, as they appear in the Civil Code, I made a close comparison of Dumont’s text in the Traités with the original manuscript. . . . it seems to me, that at least for this important part of the Civil Code, nearly all of what is in Dumont is in Bentham . . . What Dumont did was to leave 254

The Message of the Traités

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a lot out, to correct or improve the French, and to reorder the material so that single sentences or images are sometimes lifted out of context and used elsewhere. Often what at first looks like a Dumont interpolation turns up elsewhere in Bentham’s own manuscript. So, although Dumont’s text is clearly nothing like Bentham’s thought as Bentham wrote it, it is still Bentham’s thought . . . .6 Harrison also notes that ultimately, for all Bentham’s occasionally rude criticism of Dumont’s work, his actions showed that he accepted to own it as a fair rendering of his thought.7 It is not my purpose here to give minute proof of changes Dumont may or may not have made in what Bentham originally wrote. Rather, I want to give an indication of Dumont’s general approach to his task in order to indicate how his own agenda affected the way he selected material from the manuscripts and the emphases he gave to this material. Dumont’s manifesto of Benthamism as published in 1802 comprises three volumes. The first begins with a preface written by Dumont himself, followed by a 150-page work entitled Principes de législation, which is a presentation of material mostly from the first 13 chapters of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation and the Fragment on Government. This is followed by the Vue générale d’un corps complet de législation [‘General View of a Complete Code of Laws’] then by the first part of a recension of Bentham’s manuscripts on the principles of the civil code, 250 pages long and in three parts. The second volume contains the remainder of the civil code material followed by the first part of ‘Principes du code pénal’. The third volume begins with the second part of the penal code material and the Panopticon, and this is followed by further essays we have already heard referred to as late additions – on promulgation (followed by a brief sample of an extract from a proposed penal code along Benthamic lines) and on the influence of time and place in legislative matters. In the two later editions of 1820 and 1830 the Vue Générale was relegated from the first to the final volume so that the civil code essay could all be fitted into the first volume following the introductory ‘principles of legislation’, while the penal code essay was now wholly contained within the second volume. This meant that the third volume now contained the sundry essays, and this was to be highly significant for the fate of the Panopticon essay in the English-speaking world. Had the arrangement of the material over the volumes remained in the later editions as it was in the first, with the penal code material spilling over into the third volume, perhaps Hildreth would have included the whole of all three volumes in his seminal English version of Dumont’s Traités entitled Theory of Legislation.8 As it was, the way the later editions arranged the material with the sundry shorter essays (including Panoptique) all in the third volume made it easier for Hildreth simply to omit the material in volume three entirely – with the result that Panopticon all but dropped out of sight.9


The preface to the Traités is one of the most revealing documents that Dumont ever wrote in terms of his approach to Bentham, his understanding of his task, and his own personal agenda. An extract from it appears in translation in Ogden’s introduction to his edition of the Hildreth translation10 and the full translated text in the very scarce work of John Neal, the Principles of Legislation, which renders a small part of the Traités into English.11 This preface expands on Dumont’s Bibliothèque britannique article of 5 years previously to present Benthamism again as a salve to pour onto the wounds of a world traumatised by years of revolution and war. He observes that it is a style of thinking which is the very opposite of subversive; in fact it is exactly what rulers need if they wish to stabilise and strengthen their position. He notes that the list of Bentham’s works does not include a constitutional treatise12 – the reason being that Bentham had no interest in forms of government as such. Bentham believes that the best form of government for any people is the one to which it is accustomed.13 This statement is more than a little disingenuous because the Vue générale d’un corps complet de législation does in fact contain three chapters on political matters.14 It is also a stark illustration of the fact that Dumont’s presentation of Bentham focuses exclusively on the young Bentham, since Bentham was to go on to devote many pages in later life to his Constitutional Code.15 According to Bentham’s system, continues Dumont, the only essential value is happiness, while political liberty he views as only an instrumental value, a means to attain the goal of happiness. What really makes for happiness is good laws, and a people with bad laws will be unhappy, even when it has the highest level of political power. The condemnation of the priorities of the revolutionaries is unmistakable. Bentham was one of the very few of his contemporaries who does not seem to have been personally moved by the French Revolution. His theories were neither suggested nor modified by the revolution. He looked on with a curious calmness, as though the revolutionary disturbances were rather a transitory interruption to the progress of reform than indicative of a general convulsion.16 But for Dumont the frightful outcome of the Revolutions in France and Geneva17 cut deep. In reaction he was to create Benthamism as a new force for reconciliation in a post-Revolutionary world, but paradoxically, with the bruising humiliation of the Panopticon experience, Bentham himself became increasingly embittered and increasingly radical in his political views. Both men started out as typical Enlightenment critics resentful of the old regime ascendancy of an aristocratic caste; but whereas this caste was destroyed by the Revolution in France and Geneva, it remained on top in England, and Bentham’s treatment by Earl Spencer and by members of the government embittered him even further against the ruling classes (as Dumont’s treatment by the Genevan government in 1784 had formerly intensified


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his hostility to the aristocratic elite there).18 Throughout Bentham’s life his enemies were the entrenched ‘superstitions’ of tradition, fear of innovation, religion, conservatism, with a hatred for vested interests leagued against reform increasingly to the fore after the Panopticon experience. But Dumont was to turn Bentham’s pre-Revolutionary writings into a healing balm for a post-Revolutionary world, a modern scientifically based creed which could unite all who still clung to a belief in rational reform as the only way forward for mankind. As Marco Guidi said, Dumont was a ‘postrevolutionary moderate liberal reformist’.19 And, as Lea Campos Boralevi observed, it was the French Revolution which brought Benthamism to birth through the work of Dumont.20 Dumont asserts that the fundamental vice of constitutional theory is to attack existing constitutions, arousing fear and jealousy in the authorities, whereas in reality great legislative reform requires political stability. Locating evils in inadequacies in the laws, Bentham’s aim has been constantly to prevent the overthrow of existing authority and property revolutions. His desire is in fact to show governments the ways of improving themselves so as to prolong their existence rather than to imperil it.21 He addresses himself to governments as healers of political maladies, calling on established authorities to fit their legislation to the needs and the state of knowledge of the day. Opening the door to legitimate aspirations prevents ‘an orgy of illegitimate hopes’.22 Even the most unreasonable of widely held prejudices must not be offended, and all innovations must be brought in so gradually that they are barely even noticed. Shocks to the system are to be avoided at all costs, and established aspirations and interests must not be disappointed.23 The revolution worked by Bentham is a bloodless one, it amounts to the transformation of the existing chaos of morals and legislation into science.24 It seems certain that Dumont’s presentation of Benthamism as uninterested in political or constitutional reform is one of the major reasons it was able to avoid the touchy censorship of the Napoleonic and ‘Restoration’ eras. This preface supports the grain of truth in Cheryl Welch’s thesis ‘that political revolution and the social distrust bequeathed by civil war were the essential crises to which classic utilitarianism was a response’ although we know that as applied to Bentham himself it is untrue.25 Bentham himself commented 16 years later on the fact that his approach to constitutional reform had been accurately represented by Dumont in 1802, but that he had since changed his mind: So lately as in 1802 Mr Dumont . . . that intelligent and faithful disciple of his found himself authorized in saying that in the eyes of Mr Bentham, there scarce existed a political constitution, there scarce existed that form of government, under which . . . a good system of laws in its other branches . . . might not, supposing good principles once laid down and presented to the eyes of rulers, be reasonably looked for at their hands.


But the more clearly he pried into all these several branches, the more hopeless in his eyes has been the existence of a good system of penal and civil under a bad system of constitutional law, till at last the impossibility became a point demonstrated.26 Dumont continues by announcing that Bentham has invented a logical apparatus complete with principles, tables, and classifications, which will lift the branches of morals and legislation that have traditionally been the domain of erudition, rhetoric, and bel-esprit into the realm of science. Dumont describes how sciences begin with vague conjectures and the observation of isolated facts which generate a deposit of erudition containing an admixture of truth and falsehood. Eventually attempts are made to reduce this miscellaneous deposit of facts to a system. What is new with Bentham is that he has applied ‘means of invention and models’ taken not from lawbooks but from physics, natural history, and medicine to morals and legislation (Linnaeus, Bergmann, and Cullen are specifically named).27 Bentham was particularly struck by the classifications of diseases and remedies as a model for that of crimes and punishments. Bentham is also a master of the study of spiritual dynamics, the science of the means of acting on the active faculties of man.28 In medicine we study first the passive physical state of man and the influence of internal and external causes on him29 and then we have to discover the forces within the human organisation so as not to contrary them, to slow down the harmful ones and encourage the nurturing ones. Bentham shows how to make the common interest predominate through the proper application of punishment and reward – and this is the art of the legislator. In other words, Dumont sees in Bentham a way to get people to behave well through the medium of a proper understanding of the human psyche. According to Dumont, Bentham offers a third way between the extremes of sceptical conservatism and radical pedlars of political dogma (i.e. Revolutionary extremists). Conservatives deny that there are any universal principles in politics, alleging that tradition is the only guide so that laws must be left as they are; for them political writers are destructive fantasists.30 But they fail to grasp the obvious fact that the implementation of the lessons of experience has brought about slow improvements in politics and that true philosophy has only newly come to birth.31 Locke was the first to apply it to the study of man, Beccaria to a few branches of legislation, then Bentham to the whole system. The radical dogmatists on the other hand form sects, they are enthusiasts who command assent while refusing to reason.32 They have slogans like liberty, equality, the rights of man, natural law, social contract. These are the enragés of the Revolution; they want to compose systems without regard for time and place and they see only the species and not the individuals. But the truth is that no system, however sublime, is worth the happiness of the generation that has to pay the price for its imposition.


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Bentham has absolutely no time for sophisms used to justify the sacrifice of actual present interests to future abstract ones.33 Dumont’s posthumously published writings on Rousseau link the above objurgations specifically to his one-time idol: ‘Liberty, equality, nature, morals, those are the four words that serve as the gripping-point for Rousseau’s lever to shake and attack all social institutions. It is impossible to deny that the ideas attached to these four words are vague and indeterminate; they belong more to declamation than to philosophy. It’s the sentimental principle, the principle of sympathy/antipathy, the cutting dogmatic principle that requires us to submit to it while refusing to submit to common reason.’34 He goes on to underline his final complete rejection of Rousseau’s thinking as ‘irreconcilable with the constitution of humanity and truly destructive of all government’: bluntly, Rousseau’s ideas have produced no positive good. It is understandable that Marx and Engels were so dismissive of Bentham as a typical ‘prophet of the bourgeoisie’, if they knew of him in Dumont’s version,35 since Dumont’s presentation gives us a deeply conservative younger Bentham. Nor did any of Dumont’s later presentations offer any hint of the radical Bentham who began to emerge in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Of that later Bentham, one commentator went as far as to say that ‘not even Karl Marx unveiled and persecuted in such a conscious and passionate way the abuses of class rule and political exploitations as Bentham did’.36 One historian of political thought states that Bentham’s thinking was ‘the enemy of all established governments’ – again, true of the later Bentham.37 Joseph Hamburger points out that the Philosophic Radicals who took up the torch of Benthamism in England in the 1820s and beyond saw it as their task to destroy aristocratic power.38 But after the Revolution, Dumont was facing a situation where aristocratic power had in fact already been broken in France and in Geneva, his enemy is as much vagueness, rhetoric, ‘declamation’, ‘abstraction’ – and the conservative forces which survive he tends to view from the point of view of their particular rhetoric. In respect of his editorial task, Dumont observes that the manuscripts Bentham gave him were not merely incomplete, but sometimes amounted to nothing more than raw materials. He often had to clarify ambiguous passages and to fill in lacunae. Sometimes he had to construct whole chapters in accordance with hints and notes from the author, sometimes he had to synthesise different versions.39 At the same time he observes that he had to do more abridging than adding, for ‘Nothing but good husbandry was required for the profusion of wealth that was committed to my care.’40 This seems fully to justify the use of the term ‘abstracts’ for his publications. He notes that the Traités are part of something much larger: for having discovered the main divisions and classifications of the laws, Bentham then set out to


provide individual maps for each department.41 His writings contain frequent cross-references to projected works which however exist only in the shape of plans, outlines, main ideas, and subdivisions. He could be on the last stage of a work but then stop to compose another in order to satisfy himself of the truth of a particular doubtful proposition.42 Problems in the area of procedure, for example, made him realise he had to tackle the related issue of judicial organisation. Dumont concludes his preface by summarising what he sees as Bentham’s achievements.43 He is the first to have included ‘les sympathies et les antipathies’ among the ‘false principles of reasoning’. Dumont means that Bentham is the first to have proposed an apparently ‘objective’ or ‘rational’ criterion for distinguishing between ‘arbitrary’ or ‘subjective’ moral judgements and the ways of reasoning about morals and legislation on the one hand, and ‘rational’ judgements based on the identification of ‘real’ rather than ‘factitious’ or ‘imaginary’ virtues and vices on the other. Bentham is the first to have taught the procedure for moral arithmetic involving the consideration of all types of pain and pleasure as well of the particular circumstances that modify the ways they are experienced by different individuals and groups. He is the first to refuse to accept any law unless a reason is given to justify it. He is the first to refute every sophism used to justify the sacrifice of present individual interests to distant abstract ones – this is a swipe at the thinking of the revolutionary left. He is the first to have insisted that every punitive act down to the last and the smallest must be based on demonstrable necessity. Dumont claims that Bentham’s system is as far as can be from the ‘esprit dogmatique et tranchant’ of the ‘Dogmatistes’ who put their faith in ‘magic’ words like ‘Equality’, ‘Liberty’, ‘divine right’, ‘the rights of man’, ‘the natural law’, ‘the social contract’, and so on. At the same time, Bentham is so little persuaded of the perfection of his proposals or indeed of the possibility of producing perfect laws that he insists on not setting them in stone or placing them beyond amendment. This is a reminder of the exasperation felt by both Dumont and Bentham at the determination of the Constituent Assembly to set their decisions in stone. Bentham wrote a scathing denunciation of this which remained unpublished until early in the present millennium.44 Dumont presents Bentham’s method as a slow and ponderously cautious enterprise that is merely irritating for those who have no time for the careful analyses it requires. For this reason, Dumont fears that his writings will never be fashionable. For all the certitude which Bentham’s system offers the operations of the judgement, these operations require sustained reflection.45 The effect of Bentham’s thinking should be to encourage caution and circumspection in lawmakers. Facility is the great trap for the mediocre. Dumont’s preface terminates with yet another expression of his favoured polarity – (English) seriousness/(French) superficiality and outward show:


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Facility is the snare of ordinary minds. No great thing is produced with ease. Meteors, that are lighted up in the sudden combustion of the atmosphere, may dazzle for a moment – but it is only for a moment – and they pass away forerver and leave no trace on their path. He who distrusts his first conceptions and does not evaporate too soon, fortifies his talent by all that he withholds from the indulgence of precipitate vanity . . . .46 It might seem a difficult task to summarise the content of three substantial volumes containing several separate treatises, but in fact there is one repetitive motif. What Dumont is telling us in these three volumes is that at the beginning of the nineteenth century it is both possible and essential to embark on a complete renewal of the world’s legal systems. A revolution has been accomplished by the English jurist Jeremy Bentham, and it is far more important than the French Revolution. What is needed for a happy and prosperous social order is good legal systems, and Bentham has provided the formula for these. With a truly breathtaking arrogance and presumption, Dumont announces that it will be possible to clear the shelves of the law libraries of all earlier works because Bentham’s discoveries have made them redundant. The Englishman has taken hold of a field of human endeavour that was heretofore based on custom, tradition, mysticism, and obfuscation, and transformed it into a science. In fact there were no ‘systems’ as such before him, only a formless chaos arising from centuries of tradition, piecemeal renewal, and reform, and from the deliberate obfuscations of legal minds intent on bolstering the importance and the income of the legal profession as the gatekeepers guarding access to the law’s mysteries. If Dumont was attracted to Bentham’s ‘scientific’ approach to the law, it was not simply because he hoped it would provide a platform or rallyingpoint for men of good will to regroup after the Revolution; it was also because he had observed what a weakness it was in the conduct of the revolutionary assemblies that they legislated piecemeal, without any overall plan to make possible the dovetailing of individual legislative enactments into an overall system. The Assembly needed to have in view a general plan of the new constitution, but instead it simply passed constitutional decrees on the hoof. It is highly ironical that in the Souvenirs, Dumont complained that Sieyès thought he had perfected the science of politics, because this was exactly the claim that Dumont was making for Bentham.47 In that same work Dumont attacked Tom Paine too48 because Paine was convinced that The Rights of Man would put right the errors of all the books that had been written, and that with it he had brought into being a new chain of ideas and principles. The claims of both these celebrated writers as portrayed by Dumont were not a million miles from what he was claiming for Bentham. It turns out that ‘scientific’ did not have quite the same connotations for Dumont as it does for us today. When we think of science we tend to think of


something very complex and technical, the preserve of persons with specialist knowledge. But for Dumont it actually meant ‘transparent’ in the sense of ‘easily comprehensible’, containing a kind of internal logic that meant anyone could work it out for themselves. But economy is also a keynote of the system – the smallest number of laws possible is the best, the smallest list of offence, the minimum of punishment required by the offences with no excess. In this combination of economy and transparency, we can see the figure of the Panopticon: though whether Dumont himself saw it like that is a moot point. As the printers were completing their work on Dumont’s volumes, Bentham was composing his own material for a preface, which he dispatched to Paris in mid-May.49 It is clear from this that Dumont was perfectly accurate in representing Bentham’s system as something that its author considered totally new because for the first time ‘objective’ [my term]. Bentham proposes beginning the preface by dismissing all former writers in morals or politics as having hit on ‘some cant word’ serving as a hook to hang their prejudices on. Then to run through predecessors by name, Hobbes, Filmer, Warburton, Locke, Rousseau, all having based themselves on fictions like parental power or a social contract (so many ‘masks to ignorance’). Bentham himself had already rejected the fiction of the original contract at age 16 and written against it at 28 (Fragment on Government). He observes that since the principle of utility clashed with the passions and interests of all parties, it is hardly surprising if this principle has met with a frosty reception. Like the followers of Aristotle in physics, thinkers like Locke and Rousseau kept on turning round and round in a perpetual circle while Bentham ‘was advancing by slow and cautious indeed but sure and lasting steps with observation’.50 He has learnt to look at the moral branch of science as Bacon and Newton did the physical: The only difference between the sensations which in the case of medicine form the subject matter of the experiment belonging to that case and those which constitute it in the case of morals and legislation is – that in the physical science the sensation is of the class of bodily ones, in the ethical one it belongs in most (though not in all) instances to that more refined class of which the seat is spoken of as being in the mind.51 While others taught criminal law ‘by declamations against individual depravity’ and against legal cruelty and tyranny, Bentham was investigating the sensations produced in the breasts of the several parties affected and interested by crimes and other pernicious acts: and according to the result of the investigation in each instance/case/referring the crime/act/ to its place in a system of classification in the construction of which no lawyer nor any moralist but the Limidus’s [Linnaeus], the


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Sauvages52 and the Cullens were his guides. His division of offences is the Nosology of the body politic . . . .53 Bentham contrasts his approach with that of the violent defenders of natural rights who ‘with definitions of right in their mouths and fire and sword in their hands were labouring to establish what they took for granted to be in each case the best laws finding for each regulation to be made a correspondent law of nature ready made’. He concludes that he would as soon have expected to see diseases cured or prevented by laws declaring it to be a man’s right to be in good health or to have a good physician as to see bad actions or bad laws prevented by declarations made of the rights of man by legislators . . . . Some of this material was included in Dumont’s preface and he added a preface to volume ii to include the rest. In a series of treatises spread through the three volumes of the Traités, Dumont sets out to demonstrate the way that Bentham’s science of law works. In the first place, he establishes that the basis for laws must be consequentialist – that is, that the only way of assessing the value of a law is in terms of its effects. In the second place, he asserts that the only effects to be taken into consideration are pleasures and pains. In the construction of legal systems, the legislator must apply himself to promoting the greatest happiness (pleasures) of the greatest number and minimising the general level of unhappiness (pains). A law is good if it advances the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This would be a merely platitudinous rehash of an Enlightenment cliché if it stopped there. But the key to the legal revolution in Dumont’s view is the quantification of pleasures and pains, which makes it possible to assess actions and laws in a ‘scientific’ way. In other words, Bentham’s system allows us to give ‘final’ answers to questions about which are better laws and which are worse. In applying Bentham’s quantitative analysis – his ‘felicific calculus’ – of pains and pleasures, we have an objective means of measuring the respective values of laws. What in Dumont’s estimation is the treasure in Bentham’s thinking is the possibility of establishing objective criteria for the assessment of legal systems. Having lived through the terrible internecine squabbles in the National Assembly and his own Genevan political turmoil, Dumont was desperate to find some such criteria. It was the seeming objectivity of Bentham’s system that appealed to him. Bentham provided a formula for lawmaking, it meant that the legislator need only apply the formula to generate a law. Here was something similar to what Bentham’s counter-revolutionary contemporary Joseph de Maistre called a ‘generative principle’.54


Beginning with the first essay in Dumont’s collection, the Principes de législation, there is a statement of the first characteristic feature of Benthamism as Dumont sees it: the open and explicit adoption of a single exclusive criterion for the assessment of legal systems, the principle of the degree to which they promote the happiness of the majority and minimise its unhappiness. This will be the Ockham’s razor of the critique of the laws and the founding principle of the new model legal system. Any existing laws that fail this test – insofar as they can be shown to increase the unhappiness of the majority – are to be jettisoned. The only regimes that have envisaged such an astonishingly radical recreation of their legal systems have been modern ideologically driven ones like the communist and fascist. The lawmakers to whom his thinking had most appeal at the time were those interested in creating new political and legal orders, as in the Latin American republics that were breaking free of the colonial powers55 or in Spain itself during the trienio liberal (1820–1823) when there was a desire to break comprehensively with the past. Dumont elaborates Bentham’s classification of pleasures and pains, listing 14 types of pleasures and 10 of pains. The pleasures are those of the senses, wealth, exercise of skills, friendship, enjoyment of a good reputation, power, piety, benevolence, enjoyment of seeing people we dislike suffer, pleasures of memory, imagination, hope, association, and relief. Pains are those of deprivation, physical sufferings, of clumsiness, enmity, bad reputation, fear of divine wrath, pains of benevolence at the sight of suffering in others, pains of hate, pains of memory, imagination, and fear. There follows Bentham’s subdivision of pleasures and pains into those which are experienced only by an individual (in Bentham’s own terms, ‘self-regarding’) and those suffered by others (‘other-regarding’). As applied to the criminal law, this means that the essence of a criminal action lies in the pain it causes to the individuals. The allure of a particular pleasure supplies the motive for the criminal to commit the crime. The enjoyment of a particular pleasure is what he gains by it. The pain which is inflicted on him represents the punishment for the offence.56 All of the traditional moral vocabulary of right and wrong, vice and virtue, good and evil is totally eliminated. Actions are viewed from the single exclusive perspective of the pleasure or pain that they cause. It is of course perfectly permissible to study human actions and crimes from this point of view, but the problem lies precisely in the exclusivity of the criterion. It is a classic reductionist scientistic philosophy of its era. Having analysed criminal actions exclusively in terms of the pleasures and pains they involve, Dumont moves on to consider what sanctions exist that can deal with ‘aberrant’ behaviour. These again are analysed solely in terms of pains and pleasures. He lists four sanctions – the physical, the moral, the political, and the religious. The physical or natural sanction is simply the natural consequence of imprudence, as when someone accidentally sets fire to his house with a lighted candle. The pains or pleasures involved in the moral


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or popular or public-opinion sanction are defined as those which we experience at the hands of others owing to their respect and friendship or their hatred. The pains or pleasures we experience at the hands of the magistrate by virtue of the law represent the political sanction. Those we may experience or anticipate by virtue of the threats or promises of religion represent the religious sanction.57 Dumont gives the example of a house that is burned down. If that is an act of nature then it represents the natural sanction; if at the orders of a judge, then it represents the political sanction; if by the malevolence of neighbours, it represents the popular sanction, if regarded as an act of punishment by God, it represents the religious sanction. The legislator of course wields only the political sanction, but it is vital that he take the other three into consideration in his calculations. The legislator has the single aim of spreading pleasures and avoiding pains.58 But in order to do his job he needs to be able to compare different pleasures and pains. Bentham offers an analysis on the basis of four qualities: we shall assess the value of a pleasure or a pain by virtue of its relative degree of intensity, duration, certitude, and closeness. In addition there are further criteria proposed: fecundity – aptitude to generate further pleasures of pains, and its opposite, purity – inability to do so. And finally and very importantly, the number of individuals liable to be affected by the pleasure or pain under consideration. On the basis of these classifications, legislation is reduced to a matter of ‘moral arithmetic’. Dumont claims that although Bentham is the first to have expounded this ‘theory of the moral calculus’, it has always been followed unconsciously in practice. He gives the example of the value of a plot of land, which one typically estimates in terms of the sum of pleasures it can yield, which itself varies according to the likely duration of one’s ownership, the proximity or otherwise of the period when one will enter into enjoyment of it, the certitude or otherwise of that possession. Dumont then expands on the individual factors alleged by Bentham to affect a person’s susceptibility to pleasures or pains. These are factors such as those like temperament, health, physical state, intelligence and degree of enlightenment, firmness and constancy, notions of honour or religion, and so on. The Spartan in Dumont lifts his head briefly in this section: explaining the notion of ‘firmness’, he states that it is the ability to respond more to great pleasures or great pains that are distant or uncertain than to immediate pains and pleasures. He cites Turenne as having revealed a state secret when solicited by a woman as a negative example; but his positive example is that of the young Spartans who allowed themselves to be whipped at the altar of Diana without uttering a cry, so attached were they to the hope of future glory and the fear of shame.59 He notes that there are also secondary circumstances that influence our sensitivity to pleasures or pains.60 These are factors like gender, age, rank, education, climate, race, government, and religion. These, however, merely subsume the primary factors, for example women have a more delicate health and constitution, they are inferior in


intellectual faculties, firmness, and so on. The point about all this is that the same nominal crime is not the same real crime: an action which would be a grave offence to a woman may be indifferent if it involves a man; a physical injury to a sick man may endanger his life, whereas it would be without consequence when suffered by an able-bodied man.61 The same pecuniary pain inflicted on a poor man and a rich man has vastly different effects in the two cases. If the discussion of the different ways that individuals experience pain and pleasure is uncontroversial enough, the section that follows, in which the role of the legislator is examined, is very different.62 Dumont states baldly Bentham’s conviction that every law is an evil simply because it is an infraction of freedom; so the government has only a choice of evils to impose. Obviously this assumption is based on a notion that untrammelled freedom of action is a sovereign good for individuals.63 On the basis of this assumption, Dumont announces that the legislator is to have only two concerns: to identify accurately real evils and to ensure that these are greater than the evils he has to impose to prevent them. Dumont observes that there are some actions widely regarded as evils which on the basis of the greatest-happiness principle are wrongly regarded as such – typically these are in the area of sexual activity – where Bentham’s system leads (though Dumont himself does not say so) to the abandonment of traditional Christian moral laws and safeguards. But in order to identify what constitutes an evil in terms of the greatest-happiness principle it is necessary to classify evils or harms. Dumont lists Bentham’s three initial categories of harm denoted as first, second, and third order. The harm resulting from an evil action can either affect definite assignable individuals, and then it is to be classified as first order; or it spreads throughout the community or to an indefinite number of non-assignable individuals, and then it is to be denoted second order. With first-order harms, a part is peculiar to the individual directly concerned, which is to be denoted ‘primitive’, while a part falls also on individuals connected to the victim, and then it is ‘derivative’. With second-order harms, there is first of all ‘alarm’, a positive pain of apprehension of suffering the same evil which has been inflicted; and second there is ‘danger’, the likelihood that the primitive harm will produce others of the same kind. ‘Third-order’ harm is when alarm reaches such an extremity as to demoralise a populace and destroy its economic activities. To my knowledge no legal system has chosen to base its hierarchy of crimes and punishments on this kind of analysis. Dumont now explains how this theory arrives at the classification of crimes.64 It is widely assumed that we generally agree about what crimes actually are, he argues, but in fact there is no commonly agreed basis for the definition of what constitutes a crime. Such accord as exists is based only on prejudices. Dumont then analyses how the principles he has laid down are to be employed to evaluate actions arising out of enmity, sexual passion, and cupidity, which he regards as three of the most common sources of offences.


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Just to comment on one of these analyses, the first one on enmity. Dumont observes that the indulgence of hostile feelings towards someone in action does really bring pleasure to the actor, but claims that it is a pleasure which is soon alloyed by competing feelings of humanity, by remorse, by awareness of the opinions of others, by religious fears, and so on. The criminal action once performed produces pain not only for the victim but also in the wider community in terms of alarm and fear. The implication is that if he could only be made to see that, the person tempted to indulge pleasurable hostile feelings would abstain from so doing. A classic example of the Enlightenment intellectualism of Bentham’s moral thinking: for him, offences arise from mistakes in calculation, not from weakness of the will in the face oftemptation. There follows a chapter on the boundaries between morals and legislation, taken from the final chapter of Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.65 The burden of this is to proclaim the unwisdom of legislative interference in issues of morals. The claim is that laws against such vices as drunkenness or fornication produce far more harm than the harm produced by the vices. The legislator who aims to stamp these out must begin with a multiplicity of decrees, and that is a first harm – complication of the laws. The easier such vices are to hide, the more severe the pains of the law must be – second harm, excessive rigour of the laws. The difficulty of getting proofs will bring into existence an army of spies – third harm of the law. And yet the vices in question do not produce alarm, while the remedy proposed generates huge alarm. The writer concedes that the most the legislator can do is to subject such vices to some light punishment in the case of scandalous notoriety so as to give them a tincture of illegality which will turn the popular sanction against them. This leads on to a plea for governments to keep out of the sphere of morals. The author claims that governments have been prone to treat citizens as children, establishing pointless limitations on marriage, sumptuary laws, and so on. No doubt Dumont’s memory of his Genevan youth made him receptive to this kind of thinking. Likewise, the futility of laws about uniformity of religious beliefs. The general rule should be to leave the greatest possible latitude where individuals harm only themselves, since they are the best judges of their interests. Only when there is risk of harm to others should the law intervene. This of is an area where Benthamic thinking, mediated especially through J. S. Mill, has been immensely influential in the postwar world.66 The final chapter of this section deals with ‘false ways of reasoning in matters of legislation’.67 It lists ten different types of ‘false’ reasoning, for example appealing to natural law, to tradition, to religious authority, to the dangers of innovation, and so on. The essay ends then by reinforcing the initial message that the greatest-happiness principle is the only legitimate way of reasoning about lawmaking. It also trivialises the opposition, dismissing the serious arguments against utilitarianism in a few pages (as Bentham himself did), as if those weighty objections could be swatted away like so many flies.68


The second essay contained in the Traités is the ‘Vue générale d’un corps complet de législation’.69 While the first essay had laid the theoretical foundation of the greatest-happiness principle, this one is intended to provide an overview of the whole scheme of reform that Bentham proposed to erect on the foundation of the theory. Dumont informs us that Bentham regarded this work as just a sketch that he used to guide himself, considering it too undeveloped for publication. In some parts Dumont found only fragments or lists of contents, so he had to work from those: but he believes it contains a ‘luminous and regular plan’ to replace the prevalent confusion and disorder. The logic of Dumont’s choice of the material as suitable to be placed here is clear. His first piece, the Principes de Législation, had been intended to lay down the ground rules for assessing the value of existing laws and creating new ones: this second piece is intended to provide the overview of the field of legislation that Dumont considers so essential if properly systematic reform is to be attempted and the lessons of disastrously piecemeal legislative reforms by the Revolutionary Assemblies learnt. The note of austerity is again struck: Clearly a Treatise on method and classification cannot be a work of entertainment. Precision and clarity are almost the only ornaments of which it is susceptible. You would need to be a person of puerile and questionable taste to want to introduce embellishments that are not appropriate to the subject.70 The essay opens with a highly critical account of classifications that have been proposed or assumed.71 They are dismissed as very unsatisfactory, even when approved by politically correct luminaries like d’Alembert, Diderot, and the Economists. Dumont then expounds some classic Benthamic distinctions like substantive/adjective law and direct/indirect legislation. In his second chapter, Dumont argues that in a body of law the four fundamentals are offences, rights, obligations, and services (duties). It is the law that creates duties and services – a renewed attack on rights talk and an assertion of legal positivism. It is positive laws that create rights and obligations, and in the absence of these the individual is perfectly entitled to make his own free decision without interference from others. Rights and obligations are purely fictitious in that they cannot in themselves be reduced to sensible form but must be applied to real things – this or that particular right or obligation. They are children of the law and must not be set in opposition to it. The author goes on to explain Bentham’s view of the relation between civil and penal laws.72 Traditionally the difference is explained like this: the civil code contains a description of rights and obligations while the penal code contains that of offences and punishments. But to create rights and obligations is in fact to create offences. These two branches of jurisprudence are interlinked, and yet two languages have been created, one of obligations, rights, services, the other of injunctions, prohibitions, and offences.


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To understand the relationship of one code with the other you must be able to translate the two languages into each other. This Dumont proceeds to do. A civil law establishes the right, a penal law then ordains that the person violating that right is to be punished. The law that converts an act into an offence and the law that ordains a punishment for that offence are neither the same law nor parts of the same law. The two laws address two different persons. Most laws include complex terms that require explanation. To explain what theft is, you must explain what property is. The legislator needs to make two catalogues, one containing the events that confer a right to possess a thing and the other containing the events that destroy that right. The civil code is explicative, the penal imperative. In the civil code the key thing is the description of the offence or right, in the penal the key point is the punishment. How are the various parts of a complete body of legislation to be ordered? The answer here is highly significant. 73 Dumont develops Bentham’s claim that the really important question is what can be understood by the mass of the people. So the transparency or comprehensibility of the law is being placed at the top of the list of priorities. The aim will thus be to distribute the material in a way that most ordinary folks can make sense of. The best method will be the one that helps the inquirer find what he is seeking. Dumont goes on to list ways in which this can be done. For example, laws that contribute more directly to the aims of society must precede those whose utility is not so evident; titles that are easier to understand must go first – in the civil code, for example, titles concerning things, palpable material objects, should be placed before titles concerning rights. If of two objects one can speak of the first without speaking of the second, while knowledge of the second presupposes that of the first, priority must go to the first. In the civil part, offences against individuals must precede offences against the public, offences against the person before offences against reputation. Laws whose organisation is complete, that is which have all they need to be executed, must precede those whose organisation is necessarily defective. It is worth noting here how the priority of physical transparency as embodied in Panopticon reflects Bentham’s concern with transparency in the law. Dumont then draws up a sketch of how the heads of a proposed penal code would look.74 How are offences to be categorised? The basis of categorisation must be that offences are exclusively those acts harmful to the community, which means they are harmful to one or more of the individuals who make up the community. Offences are to be categorised on the basis of who is harmed by them – that is they may be harmful to the offender himself, to a portion of the community, or be generally threatening to ‘an indeterminate number of nonassignable persons’ – that is offences against the state. Subdivisions arise from a consideration of the different ways a person or community may be harmed – that is through his person, his reputation, his property, his condition. Essentially what is needed is the most natural kind of classification, the one that is easiest for the mind and the memory. The author proposes


four classes of offence: acts harmful in the first instance to assignable individuals other than the offender – private offences. Acts harmful in the first instance to the offender and not to others unless by a consequence of the harm he does to himself – personal offences/offences against oneself. Acts harmful to non-assignable individuals in a circle smaller than that of the state, that is a portion of the community – semi-public offences. Acts harmful to or which threaten a danger more or less distant to an indeterminate number of nonassignable persons – public offences/offences against the state. There follows a list of subdivisions of offences – against the person, against honour or reputation, against property, and so on. The concern with transparency emerges again in Bentham’s approach to the classification of offences. The most natural classification presents objects under their most striking and interesting qualities – hence the easiest for a person to grasp. What is more striking and interesting for a sensible being than human actions considered from the point of view of the harm that can result from them for him and for others? Bentham’s classifications are simple and uniform and always analogous, to know the first class is to know the second and the third. Dumont observes that in every type of knowledge, disorder in language is both the effect and the cause of ignorance and error. Nomenclature cannot be perfected until the truth is manifested. How can you express yourself accurately until you have thought accurately? How can you think accurately as long as you have to use words so constituted that they can only generate false propositions? If nomenclature is formed on a series of objects before their nature is known, it is impossible to draw from it general propositions that are true. How do we talk about oils, for example, if the same word is used for olive oil, sulphuric acid, and potassium carbonate? Existing legal systems are encumbered with terms made up of such disparate parts and covering such disparate things that no general propositions can be formed with them. For example, ‘delicta privata/publica’ in Roman law, ‘felonies’, ‘misdemeanours’, ‘praemunire’ in English law. A complete and logical classification shows the reasons why acts are to be classed as harmful. It shows the citizen the reason for the sacrifice of freedom it requires of him and it also provides a brake on the legislative activity on the sovereign, for if he tries to legislate a harm that is in reality imaginary, it will find no place in the classification. Such a harm can easily avoid being noticed in a messy heap of laws but not in a methodical arrangement. This form of classification is also universal, being based on principles common to all, and it serves as a means of measuring the value of existing systems; to legislative science this classification is as instruments like the barometer and thermometer are to the physical sciences. After a more developed commentary on each of the four classes of offence, Dumont then proceeds to illustrate how similar principles of classification may be applied to the civil code.75 His first general title is ‘things’. He proposes classification according to source, use, and nature. Here things can


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be classified into natural/artificial, movable/immovable, usable/consumable, sensible/insensible, and so on. His second general title is ‘places’ – all things and all men exist in some place. His third general title is ‘time’. Ultimately it is only by combined consideration of time and place that one individual can be distinguished from another. There is a need to ‘moor individuals in the oceans of space and time’. His fourth general title is ‘service’. A man can be envisaged as capable of receiving the favours of the law or as capable of being subjected to obligations by the law. The notion of services is anterior to that of obligations, one can render services without any obligation to do so, they existed before the establishment of laws. They were the only bond between men before there was any form of government. Fathers cared for children before the law made it a duty. This natural sociability often makes up for what is lacking in the law. The first proposed division of services is by the faculties that produce them. There are as many classes of service as there are faculties. There are two sorts of faculties, the active and the passive. Passive faculties have two branches, the physical and the sensible, and sensible divides into suffering and enjoying. Hence four classes of service: positive services of the active faculty, such as rescuing a drowning man; negative services of the active faculty such as not committing a theft; services of the purely passive faculty – the conjugal condescension of the wife; and services of the passive but sensible faculty – legal punishments are services imposed on those who suffer them for the good of society. Services may also be distinguished depending on whether the service is applied to persons or things: the service of the person can be instanced by the work of the minister of religion; or according to the party who acts in the person rendering the service – there are corporeal services as when a man works my field, spiritual services as when a person teaches me abstract sciences, and so on. Then services may be distinguished according to the party served – another individual, oneself, a limited class of persons, the state. The theory of services is new but the idea is familiar, yet jurists have not given it any place in nomenclature. It is anterior to obligation, whereas they put obligation first. But they do not know what foundation to give to obligation, they speak of the divine will, of the law of nature, of the for intérieur, of the quasi-contract. They will talk about anything except service, which is the only clear and reasonable notion that can serve as guide and limit in the establishment of obligations. The best definition of a bad law is one that imposes an obligation apart from the rendering of any service, for obligation must always be based on a service rendered. The sixth general title is rights, which are said to owe their existence to the existence or non-existence of obligations. When I am attributed to the right of ownership to a piece of land, that means all others are under the obligation not to touch its products. The first division of rights refers to their source (existing by absence of obligation/established by obligation). Rights resulting from obligations imposed by law are based on coercive laws, rights resulting


from the absence of obligations are based on permissive laws. The second division of rights relates to their diversity of ends – for preservation of property/general security/personal liberty/general tranquillity. The third division is based on the subjects on which they are exercised – rights to things/rights to persons and their services (Extent of rights – private/political). The fourth division of rights is drawn from the extent of the right, that is from the number of persons who are its subject – hence private/political rights. The fifth division is drawn from the persons in favour of whom the law is established – rights exercised for the advantage of their possessor/fiduciary rights possessed only at the cost of exercising them to the advantage of others: all political power is fiduciary. The sixth division is drawn from the divisibility of rights – integral/fractionary/concatenated. Integral right is the right to entire ownership, concatenated rights stem not from absolute but from conditional laws. These novel classifications cannot be set up without the coining of new terms. For example, the proposed seventh general title of the civil code would cover things called ‘collative’ and ‘ablative’ events. To give a date for the event that marks the acquisition of a right is to make it collative in respect of this right. To give a date for the moment which marks the cessation of a right is to make it ablative with respect to that right. The current word ‘title’ is said to be equivocal, obscure, defective; it throws a fog over jurisprudence, whereas the idea of an event brings to the mind an image, a picture that can be painted. Names of titles should simply be names of events. Roman categories need to be revamped to fit in with this. The nomenclature of the Romanists has ensured confusion. Coining of new terms is essential to end the prevalent confusion in the law. Linnaeus reformed the first rules of Botany but he did not find it in such a degree of chaos – the Romanists, Cocceius, Blackstone all are guilty. Readers may seriously wonder whether things can have been so bad, but they are ignorant of such profound works of jurisprudence whose value is measured by their weight! What seems self-evident to sensible men is a paradox among jurists. Up to now truth, utility, and novelty have always had to go together. The eighth general title of the civil code is contracts. Here the defects of Roman divisions and nomenclature are said to be impossible to exaggerate, the old language needs to be eradicated and a new one created. Dumont reports that they are to be called acts of collation or investment, more or less ephemeral conventions or laws that individuals propose and the sovereign adopts as long as they are valid. The only reasons for invalidating certain contracts will be drawn from the nature of the conventions themselves as contrary to public interest or to the interest of a third party or to that of the contracting parties. The legislator must have the laws written down so that each disposition is present in the minds of all who have an interest in knowing it and at just the moment when he needs that knowledge. The code must be drawn up in a style intelligible for the masses, and each person should be able to


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locate the law he needs in the shortest possible time. There is discussion of how to make the code as user-friendly as possible, including provision for a maximally useful index. Once again we see the priority of transparency. There is a brief consideration of law in politics, including international law.76 The constitutional code will contain an explicative part which states the events by which individuals are invested with their powers – succession, appointment, presentation, concession, and so on, and the events by which individuals are divested of their powers – dismissal, resignation, and so on. Dumont says that at present there is no nomenclature enabling us to compare different political systems. There is need of a nomenclature not composed of the existing names of offices but expressing the elementary political powers contained in different offices. A classification is suggested – immediate power over persons, immediate power over others’ things – for example, the power to have a house searched, immediate power over public things owned by the government, power of command over persons taken individually/collectively, power of specification – that is to determine the individuals who are to compose particular classes on which command exercised – judges, nobles, soldiers, allies, enemies, and so on, – or over things, as specifying a particular day as a public holiday. Finally, the power to reward or not. Terms such as ‘legislative’, ‘executive’, ‘judicial’ are unhelpful. Nobody has managed to define the difference between judicial and legislative power. One of the things that had frustrated Dumont in the Revolution was the fact that some were inclined to reject good solid ‘British’ measures because they were said to contradict dogmas like that of the separation of powers which had been popularised by writers like Montesquieu. After short sections on maritime, military, and church law,77 there is coverage of political economy, which is categorised as the biggest field for remuneratory laws (another one is stated to be education).78 We can say that there is a distinctive science called political economy since the mind can envisage abstractly all that concerns the wealth of nations and make a general theory out of it, but there cannot be a distinct code of economic laws. A treatise on finance should begin with two tables: one listing the disadvantages that can arise from all possible taxes and the other listing all taxes arranged in the most appropriate order to facilitate comparisons and demonstrate the features of each. The first object of finance is to find money without making anyone suffer the pain of loss and privation. The second object is to ensure that the pain of constraint is reduced to a minimum. The third object is to avoid producing the harms accessory to the obligation to pay tax (I scarcely need to comment on the relevance of the first and third objects to my thesis about Panopticon). Here again there is an attack on those who encourage the use of technical terms which help conceal errors and charlatanry and restrict the science to a small number of adepts who monopolise it. The knowledge of this jargon has become a cabbalistic sign by which initiates recognise each other. Linguistic confusions have enabled


financiers to deceive simple folk. For example, they talk about ‘something withheld’ rather than about ‘something stolen’. In a section on the ‘integrality’ of the body of law, Dumont observes that a body of law must be complete, it cannot omit anything.79 Whatever is not in the body of laws is not law. A legislator who adopts Roman law opens up an endless range of disputes (again we see Dumont implying that Bentham’s doctrine will end disputes). However, in a civilised age complete bodies of integrated law are essential, and yet there is no complete code in existence anywhere. But everything needs to be in the laws, because the great usefulness of the laws is certainty. Unwritten laws will be exploited by judges as a continual means of favour and corruption. Of course lawyers will defend unwritten laws because such laws give them a means of acquiring power, reputation, and fortune. People love unwritten law for the same reason that priests love dogmas and mysteries – the implication being that they use these to exploit the laity: note the sideswipe at Catholicism. In the penultimate chapter of this essay, Dumont calls for ‘purity’ in the composition of the law.80 All that is not law must be excluded from an official code. Essentially this is about any admission of doubt or statement of conflicting opinions with regard to any matter of law. Phrases such as ‘some jurisconsults have another opinion’ must be rigorously excluded – for of course the Bentham–Dumont system is ‘science’ and therefore has no place for personal opinion. In a final section on the style of the laws,81 the purpose of the laws is said to be to guide the behaviour of the citizen. For this, two things are essential – that the law be clear and that the law be concise so that it fixes easily in the memory. As much as possible only terms familiar to the people should be used, where technical terms are necessary, they are to be defined, a word must always be used for the same idea. Dumont’s work will not need law schools to explain it, professors to comment on it, glossaries to understand it, casuists to unwrap its subtleties. It will be transparent. The final sentence envisages the father of a family with the law book in his hand, teaching the laws to his children. In the end then we shall be able to dispense entirely with the legal profession, which is such a costly burden on the public. Volume 2 of the 1802 edition begins with a treatise on the principles of the civil code.82 There is a preface to this,83 it observes that the civil law is the most rebarbative department of law for the non-specialist (p. v). People have an awed respect for the shelves of compilations and commentaries. But all this complexity is not down to the nature of the subject but to the way in which it has been studied (p. vi). Civil law is in the state of Scholasticism prior to the discovery of experimental science, and yet civil law covers an immense amount that is of importance to us in our lives. The meaning of ‘principles’ here is given as the reasons that are to guide the legislator in the distribution of the rights he confers on individuals and the obligations he imposes on them (p. viii). No civil law book has yet tried to do this (p. viii)


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and the prevalence of so much confusion has led many to claim that the subject itself is entirely arbitrary (p. viii). Bentham, however, justifies property rights not in terms of a social pact or natural/divine rights but in terms of his calculus of pleasures and pains. Obligations are founded on services required (founded in turn on anterior services received or on mutual agreement); he is constantly guided by experience and observation (p. x). One consequence of Bentham’s method is universality. It can be applied anywhere because it is a deduction from the universal experience of men and has no abstract terminology or arbitrary definitions which would have a merely local value; such definitions are in Dumont’s opinion merely wordplay and cannot be translated into languages which have no synonyms for them. It is curious to note the similarities between Bentham’s appeal to the universal experience of mankind and the counter-revolutionary message of Lamennais, Maistre, and Bonald, which constitutes one similar long appeal to the universal experience of mankind against a perceived threat of abstraction.84 After the preface, the treatise begins with a statement of aims: to draw up a blueprint for a new system of civil laws based on utilitarian principles. Dumont observes that the first inspired thought of Bentham’s was that natural right, the original pact, the moral sense, the notion of just and unjust were simply innate ideas whose falsity had been demonstrated by Locke. He resolved to apply the teaching of Bacon and Newton to legislation, to make legislation an experimental science, excluding all ‘dogmatic’ words, that is all that was not the expression of a pain or a pleasure. All that is abstract, arbitrary, rhetorical, and local is avoided. The whole range of objects that a legislator is called to distribute among the members of the community may be reduced to rights and obligations.85 Rights are advantages, obligations are burdens. Rights are good, obligations are evil, for in creating obligations the law reduces liberty, it converts into crimes acts that would otherwise be allowed. No restriction may be imposed without a sufficient specific reason. Every law damages freedom, so any coercitive law must be justified by showing that the reason for it is more powerful than any general reason against any law. Zealots for freedom are more ardent than enlightened, and they pervert language. They claim that freedom consists in being able to do all that does not harm others, yet surely even the freedom to do evil is still freedom. The care for enjoyment is to be left almost entirely to the individual. The chief function of government is to protect individuals against pains. It carries this out by creating rights that it confers on individuals. Government approaches perfection insofar as the acquisition of rights is the greater and the sacrifice of freedom the lesser. The main heads of the goal of the legislator are subsistence, abundance, equality, and security. Equality may be favoured either by protecting that which exists or by seeking to produce it when it does not. But here we have to be very wary, for one single mistake can overturn the social order. Perhaps Dumont was thinking of Mirabeau’s comment


about the change of the Estates into the National Assembly?86 The list of course omits liberty – but this may be considered a branch of security – personal liberty is security against a certain kind of harm to the person, political liberty is security against injustice from the ministers of the government. When these objects conflict, we have to figure out a hierarchy, and subsistence and security seem to come first. The primary object is security, because without security the farmer cannot be guaranteed the fruits of his labour. Equality must never be favoured except when it does not damage security, does not trouble expectations arising from the law, does not upset established distribution. If all goods were shared out equally, there would be nothing left to share. If the share of the industrious is not greater than that of the idle, then there is no incentive to work. To state that all men must have equal rights is to make legislation impossible, for laws constantly establish inequalities, they cannot give rights to some without imposing on others. There has to be subordination, for example between son and father. The lunatic cannot have the same rights as the sane person. Essentially, the economic takes precedence in this order. Protecting livelihoods from harm is the first aim of government, and the author launches into an analysis of the relationship between wealth and happiness.87 Each portion of wealth is said to correspond to a portion of happiness or an opportunity for happiness.88 The way that wealth affects people in different circumstances is explored – for example the difference between the effect of a portion of wealth on someone who has always been rich is not the same as its effect on someone newly wealthy. Likewise there is consideration of the effect of loss of wealth – the loss of a portion of wealth will produce in the mass of happiness of each individual a reduction that is a function of the ratio between the lost part and the remaining part. People seem to be more sensible to pain than to pleasure, and a loss that reduces a man’s fortune by half takes more from his happiness than a gain that doubled it would add to it. These axioms ‘of mental pathology’ are said to have (up to a point) the character and certitude of mathematical propositions. The term ‘equity’ is condemned as hopelessly vague, a matter of instinct rather than calculation. It takes a great deal of patience to reduce an incoherent mass of confused sentiments to ‘rigorous propositions’. Security is the inestimable good that is the distinctive mark of a civilisation, and it is entirely the work of the laws.89 The importance of a person’s tranquil expectation of future possession has never been properly attended to by jurists, who overlook the pain of disappointed expectations. They may have followed it instinctively but they have never named it. The idea of ownership resides in an established expectation of drawing an advantage from a thing and is entirely the work of the laws. In a law-based society the poor can have hopes of acquisition. Beccaria’s suggestion that the right of property might not be necessary is astonishing. It is the right that overcomes our natural reluctance to work, gives us empire over the land, forms the love of


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motherland and posterity. The task of the legislator with regard to the mass of existing goods is to maintain the status quo. You cannot make a different system without harming the security of all. Security is the foundation of life, equality gives only a portion of well-being. To overthrow property for the sake of establishing equality leads to the savage presocial state. All that the law can do in respect of equality is to reduce inequalities, for example by legislating in regard to wills. In nations that prosper through agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce the obstacles in the way of progress to equality are government-imposed regulations such as those maintaining monopolies. If security retains its first place it gradually leads to equality, while if equality is put first it destroys security as well as itself. In practice the security of all requires deduction from the wealth of individuals. Someone has to guard the workers. Government is a web of sacrifices, and the best government is the one in which these are kept as small as possible. What we must never do is to reduce people’s wealth in order to satisfy imaginary needs of the state. There follows a list of public activities which do require to be funded.90 Defence, policing, provision for physical calamities, criminal justice are the main heads. The legislator must also set up a tax to relieve poverty. The indigent’s title as indigent is stronger than the proprietor’s title to superfluity. The punishment of death that befalls the pauper is worse than the punishment of disappointed expectation suffered by those who must surrender a portion of their wealth to pay taxes for poor relief. Religion must also be underwritten, since ministers of religion maintain one of the moral sanctions. They are a body of moral inspectors and teachers who form the advance guard of the law, combating the vices from which crimes spring. By preserving morals and subordination they make the exercise of authority less necessary. Their activity and ambition could be directed in better directions – such as the education of the poor, the promulgation of laws, and then even unbelievers would not complain about contributing to their upkeep. Examples of harm to security illustrate the principle91 and show that what is unjust in morality cannot be innocent in politics – a swipe at Machiavelli, presumably. Dumont gives as an example the contrast between the sacredness of the public faith in England and violations of it by French monarchs. Result: in England creditors of the state supported the status quo while in France they favoured the Revolution.92 They saw security in having the administration of finances removed from the hands of the sovereign and placed in the hands of a national council. Distrust of the monarchy was the source of its downfall93 . General confiscations also of course damage security, but crimes like this when perpetrated by popular parties in democracies have always found apologists. People say that great fortunes are founded on injustice and the public can be given back what was taken from them, but this opens a limitless way to tyranny. To rob great landowners on the pretext that some of their ancestors gained their wealth unjustly is like bombarding a town because it contains a few thieves. Even the dissolution of the monasteries,


though an act of reason, was culpable in execution, they should have been told simply to accept no new members and would then have gradually faded away. The savings should have been applied to useful objects. The suppression of places and pensions without compensation seems like a measure of economy but the public good does not call for the misery of the individuals. Each place suppressed ruins an individual while its benefits are felt by none. We cannot say that individuals must yield to the public interest, for they are part of the public interest. The public interest is composed of a mass of individual interests; take care of individuals and you will have done your best for the public. There are even people foolish enough to torment present generations for the sake of doing good to putative persons of the future. The more firmly the property principle is respected, the more firmly it becomes anchored in the minds of the people, a fatal experience has shown how easily it can be shaken, how brigandage can overwhelm the laws. The legislator must defer to pre-existent expectations even though it hinders his system. Laws contrary to present expectations must be made to come into effect in the future. This will have been music to the ears of survivors of the Revolution! There follow proposed titles constituting property.94 The foundation of the right of present possession is the fact that to take from the one who has and give to the one who has not is to cause a pain and give a pleasure, where the first is greater than the second. Moreover such acts give alarm to all proprietors, which is a harm. People are vaguely aware of all this already, they talk about ‘reason’, ‘equity’, and ‘justice’, but these words are never explained or else express a mere arbitrary sentiment of approbation. Such approbation acquires new strength with the support of the principle of utility. Note the continuingly comforting noises about how close to the existing order of things is the order of utility, how little difference it will actually make, that is how unthreatening it is. On the theoretical level thinkers like Grotius, Puffendorf, Montesquieu have talked about natural law, divine law, conscience, a social contract, and so on, but all of these can be shown to be reducible ultimately to the principle of utility. The idea of a pact does not suffice as a reason, because it itself requires a base – and that is the existence of the mutual advantage of the contracting parties. Various further sections deal with classic civil law topics such as succession and marriage. The fourth essay in the first edition of the Traités is devoted to the principles of the penal code.95 The object of this essay is said to be to demonstrate what a crime is, to classify crimes and describe the circumstances that aggravate or attenuate them, and of course here again the ultimate purpose of the work is to draw up a blueprint for a penal code based on the greatest-happiness principle. Part I of this essay96 is based on further material taken by Dumont from Chapter 16 of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Harms done by crimes are to be classified as described above into first order – harms caused to the person or body of persons who are the direct object of


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the offence – and second order – alarm incited in observers or others by the offence. The author admits that alarm looks difficult to quantify, but claims that in fact the general alarm produced by different crimes follows fairly constant proportions that can be determined. The gravity of offences is to be measured in terms of the respective quantities of first- and second-order harm which they cause. An interesting feature is that the character of an offender will seem more or less dangerous depending on the degree of his susceptibility to seductive motives drawing him to offend as compared with the norm or average – for example if he is ready to commit crimes against the weak and helpless, or against those who merit very special respect – like those who have been able to develop a higher habit of reflection, those with a superior education. This kind of superiority is generally found in the elderly and in certain professions devoted to public education. Such respect is infinitely useful in effortlessly suppressing seductive passions, it is one of the best bases for morals and the laws. In the 1820 edition, Dumont added a footnote to the effect that it was because the French failed to grasp the utility or necessity of this subordination that they fell into foolish excesses during the Revolution ‘that brought them unheard-of woes and spread desolation over the world’. Because there were no superiors, there was no security. Perhaps in his mind were the dinners at Pétion’s in 1792, where he found himself mixing with sans-culottes and not liking it at all.97 The title of the second part of the penal code treatise98 is ‘remèdes politiques contre le mal des délits’ (‘political remedies against the harm of offences’), and its opening sentence contains a strong statement of Bentham’s conviction that offences are to be regarded as maladies in the political body so that the means to prevent or redress them are therefore to be known as ‘remedies’ (rather than simply ‘punishments’). Four such remedies are listed: preventative, suppressive, compensatory, and penal. Note that the punishment element comes last.99 The third part provides a commentary on each type of remedy.100 It opens with a list of inappropriate punishments. Here as elsewhere the principle is economy – only those punishments that are absolutely necessary. Some punishments are ill-founded because there is no real offence or because the harm caused is more than compensated by the good, as in political or domestic authority. Some acts are considered offences because of prejudice, antipathy, or ascetical principles. Some punishments are ineffective – perhaps applied to individuals ignorant of the law, or who acted unintentionally or under constraint. Some are superfluous, for the same end can be attained by gentler means, for example education. And some punishments are just too extravagantly wasteful – as when the harm of the punishment exceeds the harm of the offence. While Montesquieu and Beccaria saw the importance of the proportion between crimes and punishments, they did not explain it, but this book will.101 The principle is that the harm of the punishment must exceed the advantage of the crime. Moreover, the more uncertainty there is about whether those committing a particular type


of offence will be caught and punished, the heavier the punishment needs to be, and vice-versa. This is a truly astonishing way of deciding the gravity of crimes – in terms of how difficult they may be to detect! But regard must be had to circumstances influencing sensibility – differences in age, sex, and rank should be grounds for differences in punishment. Punishments are to be classified as (1) susceptible of more or less according to the relative gravity of the offence, (2) consistent – fitted to the different circumstances of the offenders so that they produce the same proportionate effect (3) commensurable, analogous with the offence – where possible we should look for the motive that led to the offence and punish through that – for example crimes of greed with fines. The point is that such punishments are more readily engraved in the memory. Montesquieu was, however, mistaken in thinking that the arbitrary could be removed from punishments so that the punishment came not from the whim of the legislator but from the nature of the thing. Thus he proposed religious punishments for religious crimes like excommunication for sacrilege, but this is quite pointless, since it means taking from the offender something that he already despises. The fourth part of this essay is the ‘indirect means of preventing crimes’ which we have already discussed.102 The fifth essay in the first edition of the Traités is the Panoptique.103 In his introduction to the plans, economy is foregrounded before public security and the effectiveness of reformation. There is also a summary of the story so far in England, where he reports that Bentham’s scheme has become bogged down. The context in which Dumont places Panoptique in his scheme is significant. First, he is placing it at the heart of a work devoted to legislation, and secondly, in the context of punishments, so he is soldering it every more firmly to the concept of the prison. However, he does not choose to include it in part 3 of the penal code writings devoted to punishment, but places it after the end of part 4, which is devoted to indirect means of legislation. The following essay is devoted to the promulgation of laws.104 Given the essence of Bentham’s utopia of legislation, that all should be familiar with codes simple to understand, the matter of making the content of the law codes known is obviously going to be fundamental. Dumont proposes that the code should be a basic book of instruction for schools. A candidate for a job where a certain level of education is required could be asked to produce a sample of the code either in English or translated. At 16, pupils of public schools should be better versed in the knowledge of the laws than today’s most experienced jurisconsults. Pupils should translate the code and put it into verse. In churches the reading of the law should be part of divine worship. It is good to present the Supreme Being as protector of the laws, property and security. Laws relating to specific places like markets should be on display on their premises. Then there is the question of promulgating the reasons for the laws.105 An isolated reason for a law is nothing, they have to be related to a single luminous principle. Up to now laws have been issued in the name of princes, who


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are superior in power but not in intelligence. Individuals take on the privilege of infallibility when they do not have that of rationality. The composition of a law code is no job for a prince. In the future the man of genius will have more authority. The jurisconsult presents his work not as the product of caprice but as containing no disposition not founded on the principle of utility. He does not ask for trust but for study. What makes law books so tedious is their confusion, disconnectedness, barbarous nomenclature, and caprice. The laws as they are call for obedience, not for rational understanding. Those who follow political quarrels know that the object of rulers is above all to avoid any consideration of the utility of laws. Personalities, ancient history, natural law, the law of nations are all appealed to in order to avoid facing the issue of their utility [echoes here of the National Assembly?]. By contrast, a law that is based on reasons becomes infused into the public mind, it becomes the logic of the people. The code of opinion will then be formed by analogy with the code of laws and obedience to the law will thus be barely distinguishable from the feeling of liberty. The great end of laws is said to be to prevent individuals in quest of their own happiness from destroying a greater quantity of the happiness of others. After the essays on promulgation comes a short specimen of how an article in a penal code would look if composed on the lines proposed.106 It consists of a statement of what a ‘simple personal injury’ would be in Bentham’s system, it is followed by definitions, by a list of appropriate penalties with aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and then by a commentary set out in catechetical question-and-answer format. The final essay in the 1802 edition is on the influence of time and place in matters of legislation.107 Though pains and pleasures are the same everywhere, the circumstances that affect our sensitivity to these are said to differ. The legislator needs two tables – the classification of offences and the catalogue of the circumstances affecting sensibility – the moral, religious etc. dispositions of the people in question. Montesquieu did take some of these circumstances into consideration. Before him any European would happily have made a law code for anywhere using the Bible or the Pandects, and so on. But since Montesquieu, attention must be paid to local factors. A list of maxims is given on how to transplant laws. The argument is very conservative – no law to be changed or abolished without special reason, changing customs repugnant to prevalent morals and sentiments is not good for that very reason, for the pain is for a great number, the satisfaction for a few. In all indifferent things the political sanction must remain neutral. The catalogue of pains and pleasures tells you what is indifferent and what not. Effect innovations where possible simply by refusing the sanction of a law to a custom that restrains the liberty of subjects. In Catholic countries you can destroy the harms to liberty caused by monasticism by simply withdrawing the sanction of the law from monastic vows. Innovators, in love with their ideas, think only of abstract advantages. Their impatience is the biggest obstacle to their


success. Joseph II a classic case: most of his reforms were good in the abstract but he failed because he ignored the temper of his people. Discontent can be measured in terms of the number of those discontented, their degree of power, the intensity and the duration of their displeasure. Each species of discontent can have its remedy – financial indemnity or an indemnity of honour for example. Gentle methods are better than violent. The example of the introduction of inoculation in England by the force of prestigious examples and by public discussion of the advantages. If you have several laws to introduce, begin with the one that will facilitate the introduction of the others. All interests must be conciliated, a calm and temperate approach essential. The legislator must make an alliance with time, which is the chemistry that fuses contraries. People are always attached to the laws under which they have lived. They know nothing better. The priests of the law encourage this superstition which is a source of wealth for them. Many people praise the constitutional branch of the laws of England, also the organisation of tribunals, the publicity of procedure, judgement by jury in political cases, freedom of the press, habeas corpus, the right of association and petition. But this is less than one-hundredth of the total mass of laws. By a simple procedure of the imagination, approval fallaciously extends to the rest, so people are blinded to the fact that the civil and criminal code of the English is in reality a mass of contradictions and inconsequences. The sheer immensity of these laws is a cloudy envelope defending it against attack. Dumont’s huge respect for the British political system is not then echoed in his attitude to English law. Whereas he wants politics to follow existing models of practice, for law he believes in system. Bentham went on to introduce system into politics with his Constitutional Code, but Dumont could not follow him there, it was a bridge too far for him. Perhaps the fact that he was able to be active in Genevan politics after his return home in 1814 and to achieve some of the measures he favoured gave him a more optimistic view of politics as he saw it practised. The essay closes with a discussion of the influence of time, and in particular of the question of possible future progress. Will the most perfect laws of today still be the most perfect in the future? Men like Chastellux and Priestley have spoken about a constant progress in the human condition, Priestley claiming we would reach an inconceivable degree of happiness in the future. But this is absurd – how can we speak of a degree of happiness of which we have no idea? Laws will be at their maximum of perfection and men at their maximum of happiness when great crimes are unknown, when there will be no offences depending on imaginary harm, when the rights and duties of the different classes of men are so well defined in the civil code that there will be no trials on points of law, and so on. What this amounts to is the absence of a certain quantity of evil. There is nothing inconceivable about it. But perfect happiness is a pipe-dream. There will still be all the imperfections


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of nature and our physical constitution to contend with. Jealousy and hatred will persist. Most will still be poor. Desires will continue to remain unsatisfied and penchants will have to be overcome. Reciprocal security will only ever be attained by the enforced renunciation by each one of all that can harm the legitimate rights of others.

II

Dumont’s agenda in the Traités

The relation of this and other Dumont texts to Bentham’s own thinking has been the subject of much discussion over the years. Halévy supplied a useful guide to the respective Bentham texts or manuscripts which the Genevan drew on for his work.108 Halévy observes of one part of the Traités – that on indirect legislation – that it is ‘the almost literal translation of a study, in English . . . which makes up almost the whole of No 87 of the MSS of University College’.109 The other point that emerges from this same author is that some of the material Dumont used had been written originally in French, for example ‘Principes du Code Pénal’.110 C. K. Ogden demonstrated that Dumont had a poor understanding of Bentham’s theory of fictions.111 Baumgardt points to some of the deficiencies in Dumont’s treatment of Bentham, to the occasional crucial lacunae in Dumont’s arguments, to the weakening of the trenchancy of Bentham’s expressions, to the transformation of Bentham’s anti-religious attitude into a more conciliatory one (which Halévy had already noted), and so forth.112 Baumgardt shows how Bowring and J. S. Mill followed a similar policy to Dumont’s in that they too ‘softened down the meaning of Bentham’s sentences’.113 My concern in the present work, however, is not with a detailed presentation of how well Dumont did or did not represent Bentham’s thinking; it is with Dumont’s general ethos and agenda and motivation in wishing to present ‘Benthamism’ to the world. The chief aim of the Traités was to establish that a new science of the law had emerged that would make all previous efforts in the same field redundant. The key to this new science was that the propositions in it would be linked in an unbreakable chain to a founding proposition that was a statement of universal experience so self-evident that no rational being could possibly object to it. A comparison might be made with the Cartesian chain of reasoning regarding the validity of our knowledge, which based itself on a similar supposedly indisputable experience, the famous cogito. Bentham’s greatest-happiness principle played precisely this role in Dumont’s system. The system erected on the basis of the founding proposition is said to be so straightforward and self-evident that it has finally enabled law to be brought within the comprehension of all. No longer is it to be an impenetrable forest of incomprehensible principles necessitating the employment of tribes of legal specialists who alone could claim to be able to interpret it. Bentham had made possible the despecialisation of the law, he had potentially made every man his own lawyer. Benthamic legal codes would be so simple that


they could be fitted into pocket-books and carried round for ready reference. Ultimately Bentham was proposing the abolition of the entire legal profession. This was something of which Halévy was well aware. ‘That every man should be his own advocate, and that anyone should be able to be the advocate of anyone else, was the wish always expressed by Bentham, from the time of his Draught of Judicial Procedure of 1791.’114 The French commentator quite rightly connects it to the economic formula ‘every man the best judge of his own interests’ but more intriguingly then to the Lutheran formula ‘every man is a priest’. Halévy notes that the first theorists of free trade had seen in their demand ‘a kind of commercial Protestantism’, and posits that Bentham and those around him saw in their movement the last stage of a movement of emancipation begun by the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Bentham actually saw himself as ‘the Luther of jurisprudence’.115 The completely new closed and exclusive system of consequentialist morality based on the idea of quantifying degrees of pleasure and pain as advocated by Dumont following Bentham requires the abandonment of all traditional moral thinking and its replacement by a new Enlightenment-inspired moral framework, a framework based on the assumption that the worth of all human actions is to be judged by the degree to which they contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It is at this point that the reader becomes increasingly aware of the deceptiveness of Dumont’s soothing and placatory language in the introduction, with its suggestion that the work is the opposite of revolutionary. Although Archdeacon Paley had attempted a conservative synthesis of Christian moral theology with the greatest-happiness principle, his aim was to demonstrate the thesis that Christian moral thinking did actually already fulfil the greatest-happiness criterion, that fulfilment of Christian moral laws was not only to be pursued in order to please God but also because it was a recipe for a happy society.116 The Benthamism advocated by Dumont in this work takes up a diametrically opposed position, arguing that the whole structure of existing Christian moral thinking needed to be torn down and replaced by a new system. Dumont’s book is in reality a ferocious attack on the established Christian values of Europe because they are considered inimical to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, in the name of a new creed rehearsing the generalised propositions of a number of Enlightenment thinkers but casting them into a systematic form for the first time. Although it is true that the Traités does not contain advocacy of violent revolution or political innovation, the moral theory which it proclaims – taking it for granted rather than seriously seeking to demonstrate it – continues the subversion of established religion and the accompanying moral values begun in France during the Enlightenment and pursued during the Revolution. The new order that Dumont the Genevan is announcing in these volumes is not of course the old austere Calvinist one of his youth but the scientistic one that has developed out of pre-Revolutionary Enlightenment thinking.


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The austerity is still there, but it has transmuted from the level of content to that of method and style. The austerity of the scientistic method lies in the rejection of all kinds of thinking that are not based on the one ‘greatesthappiness’ principle, and it lies in the will to eliminate all metaphor and all rhetorical devices from reasoning about morality and the social order.117 With the exception of ‘Panoptique’, all of these pieces carried the same message: that Bentham had discovered the key to simplifying the complexities of legal systems to the point where they could be understood by all. Codes generated in this way could be comprised within the covers of pocket books and carried around. Fathers could read them to their children. Everyone would be familiar with the laws. The clergy could read them from their pulpits – and Dumont implies that if they refused to do so, then questions would need to be asked about their value to society. But there was of course already a book that people in Protestant countries were encouraged to hear read in churches and to own and to carry around with them, and that was the Bible. The way that Dumont promoted his model law book, it is hard not to conclude that he wanted it to be placed in the hearts of the people where the Bible (or, in the case of Catholics, the missal or book of prayers) had traditionally been. In terms of its overall message of a new world in which legal systems would be generated out of the systematic application of the greatest-happiness principle and comprised in portable handbooks, the work was a spectacular failure. No country has applied this philosophy to its laws. Furthermore, its trenchant contempt for the vocabulary of human rights has been universally overruled in the postwar era by the swelling chorus of praise for the modern declarations of human rights, and to this extent other ways of understanding rationality have trumped Bentham’s. One contemporary commentator has even gone so far as to claim that the UN Declaration of Rights is ‘the greatest achievement in the sphere of rights and liberties that the world has hitherto seen’.118 Commentators on English nineteenth-century history have emphasised how many of the reforms of that century could be traced back to Bentham119 but if we look at these reforms we will see that it was generally speaking a matter of piecemeal application of individual suggestions or proposals made by Bentham but detached from the philosophy of the greatest-happiness principle he used to justify them. Some of the reforms were promoted by individuals who were avowedly themselves utilitarians, but the acceptance of the reforms did not constitute an acceptance of the utilitarian philosophy of their promoters. As Oakeshott observed, It is all very well to see Bentham’s influence everywhere in the legislation of the nineteenth century, but when we consider how extreme his views about English law actually were, what must be noticed is, not the number of his isolated suggestions which have been put into practice, but the total rejection which his fundamental principles have suffered.120


This was already noticed by the author of the ‘Introduction to the study of the works of Jeremy Bentham’, which was placed at the beginning of the first volume of Bowring’s edition of Bentham’s Works.121 Writing in 1838, John Hill Burton stated, His general principle has received few adherents, in comparison with the number who have adopted his detailed applications of it.122 There is no project of change, or plan of legislative reform, in which he has not kept the greatest-happiness principle in his eye as the end to which it has been adapted, yet there are many who accede to his practical measures, while they repudiate this general principle. Extravagant-sounding claims have nonetheless been made for the importance of Bentham’s new ‘science of legislation’, claims that often sound more like a rehash of Dumont’s statements than the product of a sober appreciation of reality. For example, in the preface to the first volume of the Bowring edition, coming before the introduction referred to in the paragraph above, an anonymous writer (‘W.W.’) claimed that ‘the science of legislation, and of morals as bearing on legislation, was invented by Bentham . . . ’.123 For much of the twentieth century this claim would have rung hollow. For example, Huntington Cairns does not even include a study of Bentham in his Legal Philosophy from Plato to Hegel (1949).124 Writing in 1958, Carl Friedrich stated that what Bentham hoped for was an objective science of human behaviour, something he patently failed to achieve.125 On the other hand, what he did produce was ‘the most comprehensive critique of an established legal order that was ever composed by any one man’. Friedrich accuses him of ‘persuasive vagueness’ in his formulations,126 and condemns his psychology as primitive in the light of modern psychology and psychoanalysis. But in the closing decades of the century – perhaps in part as a result of the new editions of Bentham coming off the presses,127 but also probably as a result of the decline in the influence of the Left, Bentham was increasingly recognised as some sort of a pioneer in various respects. For example, L. B. Curzon in a compact textbook of 1979 devotes five pages to Bentham and allows that ‘his contribution to the science of jurisprudence is considerable’.128 Not only did he prepare the ground for legal positivism but he ‘directed legal aims towards the solving of society’s practical problems’ and ‘stressed the importance of security in society as an important legal aim’. Surprisingly, having listed seven reasons why eminent modern philosophers consider that the philosophical basis for his utilitarianism has been discredited, Curzon then baldly states that Bentham ‘laid the foundations for the science of law’.129 Another general guide to jurisprudence from the following decade lists eight serious objections to utilitarianism,130 but admits laconically that ‘Bentham is big.’131 A popular textbook like this is most revealing about the philosophy of its time, which is implied in what it takes for granted. Curzon begins with


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a chapter on legal positivism as a kind of default position and then lists four alternative theories of law in successive chapters under the heading ‘the assault on positivism’. This again is suggestive of the impact of Bentham, for in his own day natural law would have been the default and his theory the opposing force. At around the same time in a textbook of legal philosophies, J. W. Harris noted that Bentham was the father of the command theory of law,132 only his failure to publish meant that it was left to his great disciple John Austin (1790–1859) to popularise the theory.133 The following chapter, ‘Utilitarianism and the economic analysis of law’, begins with Bentham, noting his rather crude psychological assumptions.134 It is followed by a summary of objections raised to utilitarianism as a moral and legal philosophy, affirming that ‘there are not many today who base all their moral and political judgements on strictly utilitarian reasoning. Yet it is also true that utilitarian considerations are seldom ignored. Consequences are usually accepted to be among the morally-relevant considerations of private acts and public measures’.135 Yet for Bentham this would have been nothing like enough, for his system had to possess a privileged exclusive place uncorrupted by any other if it was to make sense. It is quite clear that his aim of converting the chaos of law into a science is no nearer being achieved today. Moving forward to 1997, we find signs of a reaction against too much idolatry of Bentham. ‘ . . . the view of his importance currently held in some quarters may be an overestimation.’136 What is significant in Wayne Morrison’s work of that year is that he continues to identify the role of Bentham in the history of jurisprudence as being that of pioneer of legal positivism.137 But legal positivism does not require to be based on Benthamite utilitarianism.138 Once again, we see that although Bentham’s role as a pioneer in legal thinking is widely recognised, no respect has in reality been paid to the breathtaking fundamental claim made in Dumont’s Traités: that utilitarian thinking provides the single solution to the dilemmas of the law and the single foundation for a new science of the law, so that the shelves of the law libraries can now be emptied. The claim in Dumont’s textbook presentation of Benthamism that it represents a satisfactory solution to the problem of the complexity of legal systems has created a very precisely delineated image of Bentham that cannot have failed to make him look monomaniacal and deluded to many of its readers. My contention is that if Bentham was until recent decades marginalised in histories of thought and even quite often in histories of jurisprudence, it is in part at least on account of the power of the image of him promoted by Dumont. It is not that Dumont was wrong about Bentham, it is just that his presentation of Bentham is only a part of the picture. I have tried to show that the key to understanding the richness of Bentham’s thinking and aspirations lies in a true appreciation of the Panopticon and the Panopticon years, which scholars are only just starting to grapple with. To study that


project and those years is to begin to understand how Dumont’s monomaniacal preacher of the creation of a new method of lawmaking that has proved completely unpalatable could nonetheless have exercised the influence on the nineteenth century that he seems to have done. For even if the thesis of Himmelfarb is true – that many of the reforms often credited to Bentham’s influence were in fact not down to him at all – the fact that he propounded them early in the nineteenth century means that he was at the very least far-sighted and prophetic in his thinking. What was appealing and convincing about the approach to reform promoted by Bentham was not however the utilitarian system as such, but principles like those of transparency and economy (added to the fact that many of his proposals did have a feel of genuine humanity and progressive reformism to them).

III

The Code Napoléon: A parallel project

At the very moment that the Traités were being published, French jurists and politicians were working on the celebrated Code Napoléon.139 It did not represent the new world of Bentham’s dreams: it did not start from the greatest-happiness principle. But it did echo some of Bentham’s concerns, such as the importance of the proper promulgation of the law and its knowability to the citizens and the importance of clarity of expression in place of legalese. The French novelist Stendhal praised the Napoleonic Civil Code for its style and claimed that he regularly read passages from it for pure pleasure.140 It did also place a value on economy of expression and comprised a single volume that could be portable. Since the Code was being worked on in 1802, and since those responsible for it were regarded by Talleyrand and by Dumont as proponents of a rival system, it is worth devoting a few lines to it. There had been a number of unsuccessful attempts at codification of French law since the Revolution, and when the Consulate was established in 1799, one of its first imperatives was to rescue France from its ‘chaos légal’.141 The decision was taken to appoint a commission of legal experts to draw up a new civil code. The commissioners had to identify those old regime laws which had not been abrogated during the Revolution and compose a new code that was respectful both of the public law that had emerged from the Revolution and of well-entrenched traditions.142 France had never had a single law code, Roman law and Customary law prevailed in different areas and there was the added complication of Canon law. Portalis,143 leading figure on the Commission, wanted to take Roman Law as the pattern, while Tronchet144 preferred the customary law of northern France inherited from feudalism, but both showed a willingness to compromise. On 21 January 1801, Portalis published his Discours préminaire along with a draft Code.145 It discussed the historical background and noted that while the Revolution, in abrogating ancient laws, had made codification possible, it had also created partial and aggressive legislation.146 This arose


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from the need to break abruptly with the past and endear the Revolution to the people. He instanced the limitation of (or ‘failure to respect’) marital and paternal authority.147 Portalis observed that the ‘revolutionary spirit’ had got into everything, explaining that by this he meant ‘the exaggerated desire violently to sacrifice rights to a political end, and not to allow any other consideration but that of a mysterious and variable interest of state’.148 He reports that the commission has done its best to arrive at compromises between customary and written law where possible. Law must accommodate to long-established habits, where these are not vicious. Recent times have seen too many changes; whereas times of ignorance are the theatre of abuses, centuries of enlightenment are all too often the theatre of excess. So we hear the same note as in Dumont’s preface to the Traités – the need for stability, avoidance of provocation, accommodation to inherited tradition – but the conclusion is entirely different: Portalis goes on to speak of natural law as the basis of civil law, and observes that whenever there are no established rules to go on, recourse must be had to it.149 ‘When the law is clear, it must be followed; when it is unclear, its dispositions must be studied. If there has been no law, then custom or equity must be consulted. Equity is the return to natural law, in the silence, contradiction, or obscurity of the positive laws.’150 One statement may be a sideswipe at Dumont/Bentham: Portalis observes that the commission has eschewed the dangerous ambition of wanting to regulate everything. And he then asks, ‘Who would have thought that the very persons to whom a code always looks too voluminous would be the same ones daring to prescribe to the legislator the terrible task of leaving nothing down to the discretion of the judge?’151 The point of codification at this point in the history of France was to give one single legal system to a country that had previously had a variety of them in different geographical regions. This contrasts with Bentham’s aim of reformulating legal systems ‘scientifically’ in accordance with the singlefounding greatest-happiness principle. In England, the old penal laws were hopelessly irrational. The law was technical and formalistic, hidden in innumerable statutes and subject to gross judicial manipulation. Rather than applying the law, the judges had the habit of making it up as they went along. This was neither just nor effective: Bentham called it ‘dog law’ for it condemned individuals after the event, in the way that a person punishes his dog. The dog only learns after its punishment that what it has done is wrong. . . . The law must be known in advance, and be clearly stated. The judges must themselves be bound by it so that their job is to apply existing rules. . . . The proper and logical solution to the problem of law is a comprehensive legal code, in which one coherent, logical, concise document establishes the law, its penalties, and the duties of the free citizen.


These words of Alan Norrie about Bentham, though written in the particular context of a study of criminal law, can be applied to Bentham’s vision of codification in general. When the Civil Code came into force in 1804, it comprised 2281 articles and it subsequently inspired law reforms all over the world. (Ironically, this legal system designed specifically to unify French law had more global impact that Bentham’s version deliberately designed to be of universal applicability.) In presenting the Code to the legislature in March 1804, Portalis spoke of it as the accomplishment of the desire expressed in the Cahiers of 1789 for a unified law code for the whole of France: it built on the great principles of civil equality and freedom of conscience proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly.152 It was not intended as a conduit for dangerous innovations but had sought to preserve the best of the past. Over the nineteenth century, a myth of the Napoleonic Code developed – that it was the embodiment of bourgeois individualism, ‘a hymn to the individual’.153 From the socialist viewpoint, this meant that it was the ‘bible of egoism’. But Solimano argued that it emerged in a very particular ideological context; shocked and traumatised by the aberrations of the Jacobin regime, its creators evolved a pessimistic anthropology based on the philosophical speculations of sensualism and utilitarianism as forged in the Enlightenment.154 They saw man as totally subordinated to the natural laws of causality, as a creature moved first of all by the quest for pleasure and liable to a mechanical behaviour that was predictable and quantifiable. It was fashionable among jurists of the day to claim that the legislator must look to medicine, and must know the physiological constitution of man before he could cure him.155 The great art of the legislator was to direct the passions of man towards good.156 The jurists involved in the labour of codification believed that they could operate on the strongest motive for action of men – pains and rewards.157 Solimano concludes that these men had come under the influence of Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy, and the Idéologues,158 but also of Bentham. He refers to the widespread dissemination of the Bibliothèque britannique, and he notes that the Idéologue journal le Décade welcomed the greatest-happiness principle enthusiastically.159 Solimano’s theory has been backed up by Xavier Martin,160 but only in a qualified manner. Martin points out that the ideas which Solimano claimed had been taken from Bentham were very much ‘in the air’ in France and could be traced back to other sources like Helvétius.161 Essentially these come down to the emphasis on the pursuit of interest. Martin is also sceptical about how widespread knowledge of Bentham’s ideas really was. This is very much an ongoing debate, but the one thing that is clear is that neither Napoleon himself nor any of those who worked on his code conceived of their task in Benthamic terms – that is in terms of the systematic application of the greatest happiness principle to the elaboration of a new legal system with the adoption of Bentham’s quantitative analysis of pleasures and pains as fundamental criterion. Such borrowings as they may have made specifically from him were piecemeal rather than fundamental.


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This is equally true of the Napoleonic penal code of 1810, which has long been recognised as showing signs of utilitarian influence – Solimano provides citations from several authorities to demonstrate this.162 It has remained true ever since that although the Benthamism promoted by Dumont has had a widespread appeal and influence in legal reform the world over, its fundamental premise of the advisability of making a quasi-mathematical analysis of pains and pleasures in order to systematise legal provisions has never been adopted. Only in economics has that premise made an impact. Pleasure and pain are undoubtedly the ultimate objects of the Calculus of Economics. To satisfy our wants to the utmost with the least effort – to procure the greatest amount of what is desirable at the expense of the least that is undesirable – in other words, to maximize pleasure, is the problem of Economics.163 Even as Dumont’s work was being published in Paris, Bentham remained in the thick of Panopticon. While Bentham continued hopeful for some time of an active personal involvement in the creation of a waste-free economy, Dumont’s work was busily creating him a reputation as an expert on codification. This made it possible for Bentham to enter a third stage of his life and find satisfaction as an international codification consultant – or ‘Legislator of the World.’164 But at the same time, Dumont also diminished Bentham’s reputation by failing to present the bigger picture. He was to go on to produce more presentations of other aspects of Bentham’s thought, but almost all of his later work continued to focus on Bentham as legal theorist – and as the theorist he had been before Panopticon. Lost from view with the triumph of Dumont was the activist Bentham, the entrepreneur of utopia who aspired and fought to establish, organise, and administer at a profit an institution that would be the model of a waste-free utopia; the kind of utopia that modern politicians are busily attempting to implement through privatisation, transparency, and accountability. When James Mill, first of a new breed of followers, appeared on the scene in 1808, more than 5 years had already elapsed since the effective ending of Bentham’s years of negotiations with the government, and the activist Bentham of those years was just a memory. The other disciples who began to flock in numbers to Bentham’s banner as the years passed did not do so until the last two decades of the great man’s life, when the Panopticon saga – though the idea itself remained still a dream of a possibility that others might implement – had faded from the realms of possibility as far as its creator’s own prospects were concerned. His hopes now increasingly centred on imbuing others with the enthusiasm to fulfil his dreams on his behalf.

9 The Impact of the Traités: Benthamism goes Global

I

The impact of the Traités

The publication of the Traités was announced in the Moniteur of 15 June 1802, and a review of it appeared in the Moniteur of 13 August.1 Bentham’s initial reaction was very positive, ‘ . . . whatever parts there may be in it of your’s, with very few exceptions I have not been able to distinguish it from my own’.2 He was full of compliments for what he referred to as ‘Dumont principes’. In 1803, Dumont was in St Petersburg to visit his family and immediately discovered that 100 copies had been sold there – more or less the same as in London.3 An astonishing number of people were ready to talk to him about his book.4 He met Baron Rosenkampf5 who was working on a Russian legal code; Rosenkampf recognised the merits of Bentham’s arrangement but said he would not follow it because he did not want to be regarded as a mere plagiarist.6 Meanwhile in Paris, Combes-Dounous made an official presentation of the work in the name of the publishers to the Legislature.7 He observed that enlightened critics regarded the work as a kind of catechism of legislation especially appropriate for lawmakers.8 He was also careful to mention Dumont’s emphatic affirmation that useful legislative reforms can only be carried out at a time of political stability and that the subversion of public authority must be avoided at all costs as the worst evil of all. In April of 1804 there was a substantial but loftily dismissive review of the work in the recently established Edinburgh Review, penned by Francis Jeffrey.9 Jeffrey believes that Bentham’s system is neither helpful nor new. ‘That laws were made to promote the general welfare of society, and that nothing should be enacted which has a different tendency, are truths that can scarcely claim the merit of novelty . . . .’10 He dismisses all the ‘technical apparatus’ which so excited Dumont as quite unhelpful to the general application of the basic tenet. He dismisses enjoyments as being ‘variable feelings’ that cannot substitute for our common sense of the right and the wrong.11 He asserts that the moral feelings of the generality of men are themselves the best evidence 292

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of the utility of actions. He denies the possibility of measuring the intensity of feelings of pleasure and pain. The established rules and impressions of morality . . . we consider as the grand recorded result of an infinite multitude of experiments upon human feeling under every variety of circumstances, and as affording by far the nearest approximation to a just standard of good and evil that human conduct is concerned with, which the nature of our faculties will allow. And in any case, the advantages to be gained by a crime do really often considerably outweigh the risks to the criminal. A mere calculation of utilities would never prevent the unlawful gratification of passions that can take place without detection. ‘ . . . the greater part of men are only withheld from committing them by those general impressions of morality, which it is the object of Mr Bentham’s system to supersede.’12 Bentham is furthermore reproached with not having shown us how to compare relative magnitudes of pain or pleasure – for example how to weigh the pain of privation against that of shame?13 The circumstances Bentham wants us to take into consideration are so numerous that it would be more difficult to establish them than to establish the offence in question.14 The statutes would need to lay down what alleviation should be awarded to a culprit on account of his wife’s pregnancy or the colour of his children’s hair. ‘We cannot help thinking that the undistinguishing grossness of our actual practice is better than such foppery.’ Dumont wrote a reply to this review that was not published.15 He insists that moral sentiments are pure subjectivism – often based on false or even fantastic opinions – and can only lead to anarchy.16 Pains and pleasures are, however, real and positive. He claims that the diversities of pains and pleasures are limited. It is true that there can be no literal moral arithmetic, but it can be made susceptible of sufficient precision for the requirements of the legislator.17 The extreme divergence of moral sentiments by contrast means that we have to refer to the general interest. The inadequacy of reference to moral sentiments is proved by reference to past controversies and barbaric punishments. Dumont attributed a huge negative influence to the Edinburgh Review article, claiming that sales dropped like a stone after it. In 1806, he professed himself very disappointed with the general response to his book of the enlightened public. Reviews were generally disappointing, and yet the Paris edition of 3000 had already almost sold out.18 His discussion of the book with Richard Lovell Edgeworth19 is interesting. Ironically, Edgeworth was critical of Dumont now for being too tolerant of social ‘assemblies’, drink, and fashion, and so the boot is on the other foot. Dumont replies that village ladies love dressing up for parties just as much as fine ladies in cities.20 Luxury is necessary – to put luxury on trial is to put industry on trial. Fashion is simply public opinion insofar as it regulates the externals of society – it offers


chains for fools but guides for the wise. It prevents us from needing to bother ourselves about trivia. He has come a long way from Genevan Spartanism. Of Dumont’s Traités, David Lieberman wrote, More than any other publication, Dumont’s redaction of Bentham’s legislative theory marked the historical birth of Benthamism. And when, for example, Bentham in 1810 reported with characteristic exaggeration that his ‘fame’ now ‘spread itself all over the civilized world’, so that in future his legislative proposals would be received as oracles, he was luxuriating in the transformation wrought by Dumont’s publication.21 In 1869, John Neal, the first to attempt a translation of the Traités, said of Dumont that he was ‘the man, above all others, to whom the great and good Bentham is chiefly indebted for the prodigious reputation he now enjoys, throughout the world, among rulers, philanthropists, statesmen, lawgivers, and lawyers’.22 Candolle went into rhapsodies about the novelty of the spectacle of a man of merit evidently capable of powerful creativity himself devoting his entire life to propagating the ideas of another,23 but of course it was Benthamism as the scientific systemisation of law on the basis of the greatest-happiness principle rather than Bentham himself that Dumont was promoting. On the other hand, Candolle gets it right when he downplays commentators on long-dead geniuses like Aristotle in comparison with Dumont: ‘Here, by contrast, it is the commentator who gives a body to the thoughts of a man of genius, and who creates his glory or at least extends it far beyond its initial limits.’24 Another commentator described Dumont’s achievement vividly: Mr Dumont’s office in respect to Jeremy Bentham’s fragments, was the same as that of the comparative anatomists in respect to extinct species of animals, who, digging into the earth . . . and finding a tooth or a claw, a shell or a bone, here and there, construct therefrom the entire skeleton, and clothe it with flesh and a skin, and give, in due systematic order, the genera and species that have been extinct some thousand of years. So M. Dumont has ransacked the inexhaustible magazine of Bentham’s fragments, and brought together the scattered parts, as it seemed to him, of systems of ethics and legislation, in which, however, he has himself supplied many deficiencies.25 One of the first sources of recognition of Dumont’s achievement was the British government itself. Since 1786 he had enjoyed an income of £400 a year from his sinecure – a clerkship of the Pells. With the advent of a new administration in 1806 the list of clerks was overhauled. What then happened was narrated in his customary inimitable style by Bentham himself many years later:


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For no inconsiderable length of time, Stephen Dumont, Esq. was in a state of trepidation: all this time the sinecure was tottering and threatening to slip from under him. . . . Of this little political earthquake, what was the result? The £400 a-year, instead of being struck off, was thrown up in the form of a pension, and had a hundred a year added to it.26 Bentham explains that this pension was rationalised on the basis of the merit of Dumont’s Traités.27 The fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time was Lord Henry, Dumont’s former pupil, must have helped. Candolle claimed in 1829 that Dumont’s presentations of Bentham had already influenced thinking all over Europe.28 He suggested that traces of them were to be found both in writings and in laws that had appeared since publication of them and that success had been as much down to Dumont as to Bentham. ‘It would be fair to say that these two collaborators have been mutually indispensable for their fame: so their names will be inseparable for ever!’29 Sismondi in the same year stated that the system produced by Dumont ‘was at first almost universally adopted by those who pretended to carry philosophy into legislation’. He admitted that it had since come under attack, but argued that the attention given to it proved its greatness.30 In 1828, Lord Brougham made a speech in the House of Commons in which he praised Bentham to the skies, announcing that ‘The age of law reform and the age of Jeremy Bentham are one and the same.’31 Radzinowicz, who quotes extensively from Brougham’s speech to demonstrate the influence of Bentham in England, observes that ‘Abroad, where his fame had been established much earlier than in his own country, he was looked upon as the greatest contemporary legal philosopher, the inspiring architect of a new jurisprudence.’32 Radzinowicz instances Bentham’s acknowledged influence on the criminal jurist Edward Livingston in Louisiana,33 and refers to the request from Count Toreno in 1821 that Dumont write a report on the new penal code being submitted to the Spanish Cortes. Bossange said that more than 50 000 copies of Bentham’s works were sold on the Continent, while Bentham stated that 40 000 had been sold in South America.34 All of these sales were actually sales of the Traités plus Dumont’s later Bentham abstracts.35 In the frontispiece to the second edition of the Traités of 1820 there is a list of booksellers across Europe where the work can be bought: it contains an impressive list of 19 names in 11 countries. There are a further two in North America. The Traités were translated into Italian in 181836 and into German in 1830.37 There was a Russian translation – amazingly, commissioned by Tsar Alexander I himself.38 As a global movement hugely influential in many countries of the world, Benthamism or Benthamite utilitarianism was established by Etienne Dumont in 1802. The date is a significant one. We have already seen that the Napoleonic Code was in gestation and soon to be in force (1804). It was also the year in which Chateaubriand’s Génie du Christianisme was first published.39 This work, renewing Catholic polemic in the aftermath of the


Revolution and placing it on a new basis which involved aesthetic arguments and eulogies of the achievements of Catholic culture, made little impression in England, but it was the manifesto of the Romantic Movement in France. It played a similar role in France and elsewhere in Europe to that played in England by Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads – generally considered to mark the commencement of the Romantic Movement in the Englishspeaking world.40 Just one year later, 1803 would see the publication of the proto-socialist Claude-Henri Saint-Simon’s Lettres d’un habitant de Genève – the opening salvo in his call for a new scientistically based society.41 Drawing like Dumont on his experiences in the French Revolution, Saint-Simon was to launch a very different sort of movement, the so-called ‘utopian’ socialism that was a prelude to the full-blooded communism of the late nineteenth century. Dumont, Chateaubriand, and Saint-Simon, launching their careers as publicists at the same time, were all reacting against the French Revolution.42 For Chateaubriand it was a wake-up call to revive a threatened Christian civilisation, for Saint-Simon it was a call to end the Enlightenment era of criticism and inaugurate the new era of cooperation. For Dumont it was a summons to inaugurate a new legal and social order based on a proper understanding of human behaviour. (Saint-Simon was also a fervent adept of scientism, he too preached the adoption of scientific principles for the reorganisation of society.)43 Chateaubriand and Saint-Simon were to be much more influential in France itself and in parts of Continental Europe than Dumont.44 In Spain and her former colonies it was a different story.45 ‘What do you think of Spain taking off 300 copies – thrice as many as England?’, wrote Bentham to one correspondent.46 In 1821, Ramón de Salas y Cortés published a translation of the Traités into Spanish,47 and Sandalio Rodriguez Dominguez in his study of Salas observes that Dumont’s work was the vehicle for the transmission of Bentham’s ideas to Spain.48 Rodriguez Dominguez observes that for Salas, Bentham represented the scientific culmination and highest achievement of the science of society in the exposition of the general principles of legislation. Salas complained about the fact that Bentham did not have a political theory to match his legal thinking – and this is proof of one of the ways that Dumont’s presentation was in the long term misleading in terms of its lack of any presentation of the mature Bentham. Salas went on to observe that Bentham did not appear to have as liberal political principles as he did jurisprudential.49 Dominguez Rodriguez claims that the presentation of Dumont by Salas was a watershed, a key moment for the spread of utilitarian thinking in Spain.50 Over the next 20 years a number of further Spanish versions of Dumont appeared which covered four out of his five separate Bentham presentations. Rodriguez Dominguez provides a list of those published over the next 13 years,51 and alludes to Baltasar Anduaga Espinosa’s further translation of the Traités in 1841–1842.52 Salas had planned his work to be a textbook and it was adopted officially by the universities of


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Salamanca and Seville; his translation was also the medium for the introduction of Benthamism into Colombia.53 One commentator remarked that ‘No other foreign author exercised as much influence on Spain as Bentham did from 1820–1845.’54 This was almost entirely down to Dumont. ‘It seems that it was by means of Dumont’s French edition that Bentham’s work gained popularity with Salamancan scholars.’55 As for Latin America, Dinwiddy recorded of Colombia, for example, that in 1825 members of the Colombian Congress in Bogotá were quoting Bentham [i.e. Dumont] at each other much as eighteenth-century Englishmen had quoted Cicero in the House of Commons.56 In 1868, Colombian Catholic writer José Joaquin Ortiz dedicated an entire 210-page book to a refutation of Bentham.57 The first part was a theoretical polemic, in the second the author applied utilitarian thinking to historical personages like Pontius Pilate or to issues like slavery or poetry in order to ridicule it. That such a book could have been published is evidence of itself of the extraordinary impact of Dumont’s abstracts. Ortiz specifically states his chief sources as the Salas translation of the Traités along with the French translation of Deontology (a compilation by Bowring), not a translation by Dumont.58 One celebrated francophone writer who engaged with the Traités was the vaudois Benjamin Constant. Constant was no more convinced than was the mature Mme de Staël by Bentham however. He discussed the Traités in a fragment that was published in the Mercure de France in 1817.59 Constant was a firm believer in natural law and takes issue with Bentham’s positivist approach to the idea of law. If the law attaches a punishment to the act of saving one’s father, is that enough to make filial devotion a crime, he asks? Constant claims that the term ‘law’ is actually as vague as the term ‘nature’ that Bentham so despises. He believes that the term ‘nature’ evokes more or less the same idea for all, whereas the term ‘law’ can be applied to the most contrary notions.60 Attacking the Benthamite notion that laws are solely and exclusively decrees that are formally issued by the appropriate sovereign authority, Constant understandably refers to the regrettable laws passed by the Convention in France in 1793 and asserts that no law can bind us if it restrains our legitimate freedoms or if it commands us to perform actions contrary to ‘the eternal principles of justice and pity which man cannot cease to observe without denying his nature’.61 In his opinion the doctrine of limitless obedience to the laws has done more damage than any other error. As to Bentham’s notion of utility, he dismisses it as vague. He notes that Bentham attacks the notion of natural right as meaning different things to different people, whilst at the same time conceding that the notion of utility has itself been misused. Constant prefers the notion of duty to that of utility because utility arouses an arbitrary idea of profit whereas the notion of duty is clear. He deliberately reapplies the Dumontian vocabulary of utility to right: ‘What is right is a principle: utility is only a result. What is right is a cause, utility is only an effect. To want to subject what is right to utility is to want to subject


the eternal rules of arithmetic to our passing interests.’62 It is only when the law has been demonstrated, he continues, that it is good to show what utility it may have. Moreover, if you tell someone he has the right not to be killed arbitrarily, his sense of security is much greater than if you tell him it is not useful that he be put to death arbitrarily. Speaking of something as a right, you present an idea independent of any calculation, whereas in speaking of its utility, you seem to raise the need for further verification. At the same time, Constant praises Bentham for having many new ideas and profound thoughts and says he is blaming him only for his terminology. A celebrated francophone authority who was more than sympathetic to the message of the Traités on the other hand was Jean-Baptiste Say. He and Dumont knew one another. Say asked Dumont for a defence of utilitarianism to insert at the end of his Cours d’Economie Politique, but nothing came of this approach.63 In Say’s Mélanges et Correspondance there is an ‘Essay on the Principle of Utility’. A footnote to the first page refers to the Traités as the authority in the matter. The principle of Utility, clearly set out by Jeremy Bentham [!] in his Traités de Législation, has not been well understood, and has therefore given rise to very uncharitable declamations and accusations. It was all the more necessary to clarify the controversies it has generated, in that it is the sole criterion on which we can rightly assess the actions and doctrines of legislators and administration, and that it has served as guide to all those persons who have professed an elevated philosophy, often without them even being aware of it.64 The bulk of the essay is devoted to an analysis of Dumont’s Principes de législation followed by a scrutiny of Mme de Staël’s hostility to the principle of utility as expressed in her novel Corinne.65 In the English-speaking world the impact of the Traités was immediate. One of the places where Dumont was extremely influential was in Edgeworthstown in Ireland, home of the Edgeworth family.66 The novelist Maria Edgeworth, who maintained a deeply affectionate correspondence with the Genevan writer over many years, is the best-known family member but her father Richard Lovell Edgeworth was also a writer and indeed father and daughter collaborated on certain works, including Essays on Professional Education. In this book a potential law student was advised that the systems of writers like Burlamaqui, Vattel, Beccaria, and Paley would ‘soon fall to pieces under the examination of an acute student’, who would eagerly turn to the Traités; here they will find ‘the clear and simple principle of utility . . . admirably developed, and applied to the intricate and extensive science of legislation’.67 Edgeworth reports that Dumont has ‘rearranged and rewritten’ Bentham’s work and ‘endeavoured to give it a more popular form’. ‘He has removed much of that complicated scaffolding, which, however


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ingenious in its construction, and necessary to the progress of the workman, is useless when the whole is completed, and disfigures and obstructs the view of a superb edifice.’68 Later the student is again recommended to study Dumont’s work to acquire a ‘comprehensive view of the whole science of legislation’.69 In particular he is directed to the General View of a Complete Code of Laws where he will find ‘a legislative panorama, from which a young man may see the whole and perceive the connexion of all the parts of that science, which ought above all others to occupy statesmen’.70 John Bowring, who inserted a great deal of material translated from Dumont into his edition of the Works of Bentham, does not seem to have had a very high opinion of the Genevan. Among the sundry texts to be found in John Neal’s Principles of Legislation is ‘A biographical sketch of M. Dumont, of Geneva’ which is credited to ‘JB’ in the table of contents, and from internal evidence the JB must be John Bowring.71 The situation is complicated, however, by the fact that less than half of the text is in fact by Bowring himself, the last six pages being an extended quotation by him from Bentham. Bowring pays tribute to Dumont’s perseverance in his task in the face of the indifference of the English to their own countryman and in the face of the monumentally difficult task of reading Bentham’s manuscripts.72 However, commenting on Dumont’s work, he says, ‘You find the severity of Bentham’s reasoning kept under, the philosophy thereof abridged, the logic subdued, the vigour and amplitude and exactness put aside for something more palatable. Throughout the work, wherever the hand of M. Dumont appears at all, you detect the beautifying, enervating spirit of the declaimer, and the sophist.’73 Bowring intimates that anyone who reads Dumont’s Discours préliminaire to the Traités can see that the Genevan ‘was incapable of grappling with the subjects treated of by Bentham’. Bowring’s allegation that he was a declaimer and a sophist would have infuriated Dumont, who spent his life inveighing against such people, but Bowring did put his finger on the paradox of the deliberate beautification of a thought austere by nature. However, Bowring went on to acknowledge that much was owed to the Genevan. ‘He has made the works of Bentham what they never would have been, but for the order he has reduced them to, and the excellent style in which they are served up – he has made them popular throughout Europe’,74 and Bowring reports that each of the three editions of the Traités has sold 3000 copies. He notes that it ‘has never been offered to the public in English’ and indicates that this was a project he himself had worked on, that there were plans for it to be brought out in London, but that unnamed circumstances obliged him to abandon the project.75 Part of the Bowring article quotes Bentham himself as stating that between 1781 and 1788 the ‘matter’ of the ‘work on Morals and Legislation’ ‘had received considerable additions in manuscript’. The whole together, printed and manuscript, being in a state far short of completion, Mr Bentham could not harbour any such thought as that


of publishing it at that time, or at any other than a contingent, as well as indefinitely remote period. Dumont said, that with the help of a little labour, which would carry with it its own reward, he thought that if put into French, he could make such a work of it as need not be afraid of meeting the public eye. Mr Bentham, considering that on this plan he should stand exempt from the responsibility attached to the publication of a work manifestly imperfect, embraced the proposal, not merely with acquiescence, but with alacrity.76 Bentham the perfectionist could not bear to publish anything imperfect but could cope with it if someone came in between him and the public as a kind of mediator; if that published text was in a foreign language, it would be all the easier for him to keep his distance from it.

II

Dumont after 1802

Dumont went on after the publication of the Traités to enjoy a very rich and varied life. When he visited St Petersburg to see his family there again he was invited to stay and assist in the creation of a law code but refused.77 He also refused an invitation to teach at the new University of Kharkov.78 He became a gentleman of leisure, residing in the centre of London in Haymarket, and a habitué of the Holland House Circle.79 His friends now included the likes of David Ricardo, whom he was to entertain on a visit to Geneva in 1822.80 Ricardo’s comments on an unpublished manuscript presentation by Dumont of Bentham’s ideas on prices were included in the modern edition of Ricardo’s works.81 He was a member of the ‘King of Clubs’ in London, which counted among its regulars James Mackintosh, Samuel Rogers, the diarist Thomas Creevey, Francis Horner, Sydney Smith, Henry Brougham, Lord Holland, the Hon. Dudley Ward (later Lord Dudley), the Hon. William Lamb (later Viscount Melbourne), Francis Jeffrey, and Thomas Malthus.82 Lady Holland grew very fond of Dumont, whose name is to be found on the Holland House guest list as early as 1799.83 Ironically, in view of what we have seen about Dumont’s ‘Genevanism’, Lady Holland said that her patronage of him was only the ‘due of an amiable, enlightened, polished homme de lettres of Paris’.84 Dumont spent so much time at Holland House that a special room was set aside for him. In 1811, Dumont published his second recension of Bentham, Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses. This remarkable publication combined a presentation on Benthamism as applied to punishments with a survey of the balancing potential of means of incentivisation open to the legislator. It is a reflection of Dumont’s early attraction to Bentham’s writings on indirect legislation and to the idea of looking for ways of encouraging good citizenship as much as punishing bad. In 1814, nearly 30 years after his first arrival in England, Dumont eventually returned to Geneva, where the end of the Napoleonic regime meant the


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restoration of Genevan independence, lost since the French Occupation of 1798. He settled there for good and devoted the last 14 years of his life up to his death in 1829 to Genevan politics. One of the first things he did was to publish his third recension of Bentham, the Tactique.85 This comprised two volumes, the first of which was devoted to a version of Bentham’s ‘Political Tactics’ manuscripts, plus the text of Romilly’s account of the rules of debate for the House of Commons and the text of the new rules of debate for the Genevan Representative Council (see below). The second volume contained several writings by Bentham on fallacies. This might not seem to make for a homogeneous work, but Dumont’s point was that the first volume presented the structures necessary for anticipating and preventing the many pitfalls and abuses to which political debates were all too liable if they lacked a proper discipline, while the second provided salutary warnings about the equally dangerous pitfalls arising from abuses of language which political orators often exploited to manipulate their hearers. Both of the topics covered in the two volumes thus came under the head of the prevention of harms, a theme central to Bentham’s system. His prevention-centredness is another anticipation of modern trends, for we live in a world where prevention is a kind of shibboleth: crime prevention and disease prevention are big consumers of budgets. It is generally acknowledged that Bentham’s followers played a major part in the improvement of sanitation in nineteenth-century England. The names typically associated with this movement are Dr Thomas Southwood Smith (1788–1861) and Sir Edwin Chadwick (1800–1890), both of them disciples of Bentham. The former famously carried out the dissection of Bentham’s body and was the grandfather of Octavia Hill, the latter was employed by Bentham as an assistant and received a substantial legacy from his employer. Their sanitary crusade was a joint operation. Interestingly, one of Chadwick’s motivations in seeking improvements to public health was that he was sure it would save money. In the postwar town of Harlow in Essex, UK, there is a Health Centre called ‘the Addison Health Centre’ which comprises three separate buildings – Chadwick House, Galen House, and Bentham House.86 The coupling of the name of Bentham with that of Galen is honour indeed, and of a kind rarely accorded to him. For most of the rest of his life, Dumont was a member of the new Genevan assembly, and he fought to establish new institutions in his homeland based on Benthamic principles. According to Rappard, Dumont had been the leading intellectual influence in Geneva since the late 1790s.87 Robert Roth observed that Dumont’s project was to turn Geneva into a ‘laboratory of utilitarianism’. By now Geneva had lost its former greatness as the defiant stronghold of Protestantism at the heart of Europe, it became just another of the Swiss Cantons after 1815 (until its native genius for re-invention reasserted itself and it transformed into the symbol of internationalism and pacifism in the twentieth century). The story of Dumont’s numerous activities over the last 15 years of his life in Geneva offers scope for another volume.88 His


achievements include the creation of a new asylum and the encouragement of the Lancasterian system of education. He encouraged the development of the collection of statistical data. He was one of the founding members of the Société de Lecture in Geneva which continues to thrive today.89 In 1823 he published his fourth recension of Bentham, Traité des Preuves Judiciaires,90 devoted to the analysis of Benthamite criteria for the acceptability of judicial evidence. Dumont’s final recension came out in 1828, the year before he died, and was the only one to be based entirely on texts already published in English. It was entitled De L’Organisation Judiciaire, et de la Codification.91 In the meantime he had published further editions of three of his five presentations of Bentham. Four out of his five presentations focussed on matters to do with the law and the fifth, Tactique, focussed on politics and rhetoric (with a smattering of economics in Théorie des Récompenses). The side of Bentham that was to fore in Dumont was the jurist; the huge preoccupation of ‘the Panopticon years’ with economy, transparency, and accountability in public establishments and the minimisation of public expenditure hardly figures. For this he cannot reasonably be blamed; he focussed quite legitimately on the aspect of Bentham that meant most to him.92 Although we cannot dwell here on Dumont’s activities during this final Genevan period, three particular areas do call for some commentary. Two of them were abortive, one was highly successful. The first was his work on the commission for the preparation of a new penal code. He fought consistently in this commission for the application of Benthamic principles but ultimately its labours came to nothing.93 An anonymous writer described the duel in the several hundred meetings of the commission over four or five winters between Dumont and his chief opponent Pictet-Diodati: M. Dumont, a theoretician of great genius, turned up with a brand new system, it was powerful and interesting but sometimes not really applicable. M. Pictet, a practical and positive magistrate, brought along his experience of different tribunals and different places . . . . [Pictet’s] conscience made him attack one by one almost all the parts of a system that had to be adapted to the different situations on the ground.94 The second was his involvement in the erection of a new prison in Geneva, a subject which has been chronicled extensively by Robert Roth.95 The prison which was constructed in 1825 was demolished in 1862 and misconceptions about it are widespread. Roth describes the building as ‘semi-panoptical’ – it was semi-circular – and supervision from a central point was only possible in the daytime – and yet states that in its ‘architecture centrée’ it was the first European panoptical establishment96 . But apart from anything else, the cells were not on the circumference. Roth calls the Genevan prison ‘the daughter of Bentham and the Genevan liberals, a strange marriage of which Etienne Dumont was the high priest’.97 On 1 March 1822, Dumont addressed


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the Genevan Representative Council on the proposed new penitentiary and his approach on that occasion was markedly different from Bentham’s.98 To some extent this was no doubt down to the circumstances in which he found himself – such as the political context with whatever limitations it imposed and the particular requirements for a prison in Geneva. Among other things it was expected to house no more than 40 prisoners. He was silent about the contract management philosophy and the economic dimension was barely mentioned. Panopticon was referred to in a single paragraph in which Dumont noted that facility of inspection had become an essential condition of the ‘new’ system.99 The whole thrust of Dumont’s presentation is towards the efficacy of this type of prison as a model in terms of preventing reoffending. He claims that a regime of work, temperance, tranquillity, and opportunities for educational improvement (the ‘penitentiary system’) has been shown to achieve significant reductions in reoffending in Pennsylvania and New York.100 The third activity of Dumont – in which he was triumphantly successful – was his involvement as key figure in the composition of the rules of debate for the new Genevan Representative Council in 1814.101 One of the leading Genevan historians of this period, William Rappard demonstrated that Dumont’s work on the rules of debate became the foundation for the success of the liberal grouping in the Council.102 Although the new Restoration constitution attributed the initiative in legislation to the (aristocratically inclined) Council of State, Dumont enshrined the idea that any bill put forward by the Council of State must be accompanied by a report stating the reasons for it and must then be submitted on the English pattern to three successive debates. The first of these debates must be devoted to a discussion of the appropriateness or otherwise of the proposed measure. The Representative Council was permitted to refer any proposed measure to a commission in which there would be only two members of the Council of State. The rapporteur of the commission would then present the bill to the Representative Council along with amendments proposed by the majority of the commission. The debate would then focus on the proposal from the commission and not the original one from the government. This made possible the eventual adoption at the conclusion of the debating process of texts very different from those originally proposed by the Council of State. There were more gifted individuals in the Representative Council than in the government, and to avoid too humiliating an examination of its proposals, the government became accustomed to consulting appropriate deputies before bringing forward proposals. Rappard states that in this way it was Dumont and his likeminded (though not utilitarian) colleagues Bellot and Pellegrino Rossi who became ‘the real legislators of the Genevan Restoration’.103 This is a reminder that although Dumont was frequently a lone voice as a utilitarian in Geneva, he was very definitely not a lone voice as a liberal.104 In 1841, James Fazy reported that Dumont had expressly told him in 1814 of his intention to


use the rules of debate to recover for the Representative Council the initiative that the constitution had given to the Council of State. Once again we see the strength and potency of Dumont’s thinking and his ability to play a leading role in political developments in his own right. Marc Peter, writing in 1921, notes that many provisions of Dumont’s 1793 rules of debate were repeated almost word-for-word in the 1814 rules and indeed were still applicable in his own day.105 Candolle reports the testimony of one of the most powerful political figures in mid-century Geneva, Jean-Jacques Rigaud, to the worth of Dumont’s work in this area. Rigaud notes that his rules have passed from the Council into almost all the other bodies of the Republic.106 Rigaud observes that the rules of debate were the work of a member ‘who had for a long time been preoccupied with reducing to theory the practices of the British Houses of Parliament’.107 This may have been how Dumont saw his work, but it surely does not correspond with Bentham’s own vision of his enterprise. It is almost a commonplace that relations between Dumont and Bentham deteriorated badly in later years to the point that Bentham refused even to see his old friend. As Atkinson remarked, ‘It is probable that this is a highly coloured account of some passing breach of friendship.’108 Bentham was capable of being very rude on occasion and may have turned Dumont away when it suited him, and Dumont himself told Mme de Staël in 1813 that he had been supplanted in Bentham’s affections by James Mill (whom Bentham had met in 1808).109 However, against that it should be remembered that the two men continued to meet and dine together to the end. In the summer of 1824, Dumont records in a journal entry having spent 2 hours with Bentham while on a visit to England from Geneva, finding his old mentor ‘stronger, more fervent, more attached than ever to his great reform projects’. Interestingly, on this occasion Bentham told the Genevan that he had turned against the British constitution as he grew older not just because he saw that the British aristocracy was not favourable to the popular interest, but also because he had been encouraged towards democracy by the example of the United States.110 In the Spring of 1828, Dumont dined at Bentham’s and found the old man even more fervent than he had been at age 60 – and even more voluble and impatiently loquacious. On that occasion he told Dumont he no longer spoke of ‘utility’ as the goal but of ‘effective benevolence’ or ‘the greatest good principle’.111 When Pierre-Etienne-Louis Dumont died while on holiday in Italy in 1829 he was deeply mourned by many fellow-Genevans. He was a man with a prodigious number of friends and acquaintances. Bentham once remarked of him: ‘A man who counts so many friends among his acquaintance, or is so perfectly without an enemy I had almost said exists not anywhere.’112 He had a lovable character and treasured his nephews and nieces and great-nephews and great-nieces. The Genevans named a street after their famous son. Many mourned the fact that he had not branched out on his own and written


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more of his own material instead of devoting himself to the presentation of Bentham. This sentiment was shared widely outside Geneva, and it was, for example, a lament that came frequently from the Edgeworths.113 Goethe even remarked to Dumont’s great-nephew Frédéric Soret that it was an interesting phenomenon for him to see such a reasonable, moderate, and practical man as his uncle declaring himself a disciple and constant admirer of ‘that madman Bentham’.114 His contemporaries generally failed to grasp that what Dumont was devoted to was not Bentham as a person but Benthamism. He was preaching a system, a systematic or ‘scientific’ solution to society’s ills. In the eyes of his friends it seemed that he had not fulfilled his full potential because his name was not to the fore, but this is like complaining that Timothy Berners-Lee, credited with being the architect of the Internet, has somehow failed because his own name is not stamped all over it. The science is always bigger than the scientist. Romilly admired Dumont for his disinterestedness in respect of his work for Mirabeau even before the Bentham project had got underway. He has done what few people could have magnanimity enough to do; he has seen his compositions universally extolled as masterpieces of eloquence, and all the merit of them ascribed to persons who had not written a single word of them . . . Of everything that he has written, the advantages have been shared by Mirabeau and his bookseller, the one taking the glory, the other the emolument.115 In spite of the Genevans’ affection for him, and their willingness to adopt his proposals in areas like prison or asylum reform, he did not gain long-term disciples there for Benthamism as a system. Again, to use Bentham’s own delightful account of the reception of his penal code proposals: At Geneva, some years were passed in the endeavour to obtain adoption for a Penal Code . . . on the principles of Mr Bentham . . . The persons with whom he had to do, were Aristocrats to the backbone. Next to impregnable was the vis inertiae which he had to contend against. In a more particular degree distasteful was the Rationale, . . . Without the reasons, it might have passed; . . . At the end of a struggle of several years, M. Dumont has continued to introduce, in some indirect form, into that mixed Constitution in which Aristocracy has, in a high degree, the ascendant, some small additional spice of democracy . . . .116 One Genevan disciple who did briefly take to Benthamism as a system, Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez (1797–1869) founded a short-lived journal, l’Utilitaire (1829–1830), but he soon abandoned Benthamism.117 Another admirer was Jean-Jacques de Sellon, remembered today particularly for his campaign against the death penalty, but interested in the development of


representative government in Geneva.118 He published extracts from the second volume of Dumont’s Tactique in 1831.119 Sismondi was a great friend of Dumont’s and undoubtedly absorbed considerable Benthamite influence through him.120 Dumont’s great friend P.-F. Bellot made use of Bentham’s writings when drawing up a new code of civil procedure for Geneva, adopted in 1819.121 This code gained Bellot a ‘European reputation’ and was influential on codification elsewhere.122 Bentham would have been delighted with the very lengthy ‘rationale’ section in which Bellot explained the reasoning behind each article painstakingly. He indicates indebtedness to Bentham on such issues as the distinction between adjective and substantive law, the cost of obtaining legal redress, the categorisation of influences on witnesses into tutelary and seductive, and others. Bentham would also have been delighted by his insistence on the idea that no form or opportunity for delay should be admitted without any clear evidence of its usefulness.123 This is a classic example of how Bentham’s influence came through individual suggestions made by him rather than by any widespread adoption of a systematic application of the greatest-happiness principle. But it also needs to be said that Dumont was far from being the only source of utilitarian ideas even in his homeland. The editors of the celebrated Bibliothèque britannique in which his first extracts of Bentham had appeared announced in their first number that ‘the principle of utility’ would be their unvarying compass.124 There was not simply aristocratic opposition to Benthamism in Geneva but also philosophical, for in the 1820s the eminent émigré Italian jurist Pellegrino Rossi (1787–1848) – later professor of constitutional law in Paris and the French Ambassador to the Papal States – settled in Geneva and did not hesitate to attack the English thinker in his influential publications.125 He contrasts Bentham with writers who transformed into a system the totality of the consequences of their favoured abstract principle,126 noting that Bentham bases himself on a principle that is a fact rather than an abstraction. He compliments the English thinker on being the one who has the most philosophy among the jurists and the one who is most versed in jurisprudence of the philosophers,127 but he himself preferred to base his thinking on the idea of a moral sense.128 Dumont had a great respect for him, as witness the inclusion of Rossi’s Thémis review of the Traité des Preuves Judiciaires at the end of Dumont’s last Bentham publication, De l’Organisation Judiciaire et de la Codification.129 In this article Rossi, while expressing his admiration for Bentham’s desire to simplify everything and relate it to a single generative principle as the mark of genius, as well as for Bentham’s huge inventiveness in the wide field of legislation, suggests that he himself would begin by contesting the solidity of Bentham’s founding principle.130 Around the time of Dumont’s death an edition of the Oeuvres de J. Bentham was published in Brussels;131 it contained all of Dumont’s extraits de Bentham within the covers of its three volumes and also included further Bentham material that had been rendered into French by others: Dumont was not


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the only one to translate Bentham. This was reedited in 1840 with the further addition of the text of the Déontologie. So strong was the impact of Dumont’s French texts that his first American translator John Neal, who came to England in the 1820s, relates that until he made this journey he had assumed that Bentham was in fact French.132 He had planned to translate the Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses even before he left America, but was unable to find a publisher to pay for the work.133 Neal claims that even the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation would never have been studied had it not been for ‘Dumont’s admirable translation into French, and his rearrangement of the whole in three large octavos, whereby the system, and the laws of mind regulating that system, as first announced by Bentham, in language not easily understood by the common reader, became as clear as crystal, and compact as adamant’.134 This suggests that it was in large part because of the impact of Dumont’s works that a second edition of An Introduction was published in 1823. The popularity of the French versions was now even giving a stimulus to the republication of Bentham’s original printed text. But that was but the first chapter of the huge saga of the impact of Dumont’s work in the English-speaking world.

III Dumont’s long-term influence in the English-speaking world The extent to which Dumont’s French language extraits de Bentham were themselves translated into English, starting in Bentham’s own lifetime, is truly astonishing.135 Translation plans were afoot for the Traités from the moment of its first publication. It seems that Romilly was at one time hoping to produce a translation.136 Then a friend of Romilly’s, the barrister Basil Montagu (1770–1851) worked on it and according to Dumont, by 1807 he had almost completed the task, with publication anticipated in February 1808.137 But the project stalled, probably because Montagu’s wife died in 1807.138 Among other things, Montagu was one of the period’s leading advocates for the abolition of capital punishment, and in a work he published soon after entitled Opinions of Different Authors upon the Punishment of Death, he included a piece from the Traités, which apparently was the only part of his translation to see the light.139 Dumont’s works were in fact rendered into English in a rather higgledy-piggledy fashion. The first part to be translated (by Peregrine Bingham) was the second volume of Dumont’s Tactique, under the title The Book of Fallacies, published in 1824.140 The publishers were the Hunt brothers, John and the celebrated Leigh. The preface to this publication is interesting. Bingham begins with the words: ‘The substance of this treatise, drawn up from the most unfinished of all Mr. Bentham’s manuscripts, has already been published in French by M. Dumont; and, considering the very extensive diffusion of that tongue, the present work, but for one consideration, might seem almost superfluous.’141 So at this date there was still a


wide readership of the French language in England. The ‘one consideration’ which Bingham has in mind is the fact that with an eye to a continental readership Dumont understandably omitted a great deal of ‘applications of the writer’s principles to British institutions and British interests’. Bingham also felt that the work deserved to stand alone separately from Tactique – which he dismissed as a work ‘of limited interest’. His version of the second volume of Tactique was not however complete since it omitted the material on sophismes anarchiques (‘anarchical fallacies’) which Bowring later inserted in volume 2 of the Works after Bingham’s text.142 In 1825, Richard Smith’s translation (with some use of the original manuscripts) of the second volume of Dumont’s Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses was published under the title of Rationale of Reward.143 There is an intriguing comment about Smith and this work in one of Bentham’s letters to Dumont in 1824. Dumont had consulted Bentham about holding back on a third edition of his Théorie till he had had a chance to see the forthcoming English version, but Bentham answers, It can never be worth while to keep back your third edition till you have seen the edition of the English translation. Yours would beyond all comparison be more generally read & approved than the author’s were he even to rewrite the work, or add to the French a perpetual comment of supposed corrections. His would be republican, sévère à toute outrance [‘extremely severe’]: yours Whiggish. Yours has something to please both sides’.144 ‘Whiggish’ – perhaps an accurate label for Dumont’s thinking – which of course reflects the company he habitually kept in England. Remarkable to sense Bentham’s degree of approval of Dumont, he would prefer Dumont’s French text to that of the English translator of it. Also note the hint that Smith was a ‘severe’ ‘republican’. There was a reissue of this work in 1830, published by Robert Heward. The first volume of Dumont’s Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, also translated by Richard Smith with some use of the original manuscripts, was not published until 5 years after the second, under the title The Rationale of Punishment.145 In 1825 another translation from a Dumont text appeared under the title A Treatise on Judicial Evidence – the name of the translator unknown.146 This was a rendering of Dumont’s Traité des Preuves Judiciaires of 1823. The year 1830 saw the publication of John Neal’s Principles of Legislation, usually referred to as though it were the first translation of Dumont’s Traités, whereas in fact only 135 pages out of a total of 310 are devoted to that. The rest comprises biographical accounts of Bentham and Dumont together with a chapter by Neal on the principle of utility. Neal declares in his preface that he is a utilitarian and ‘a hearty disciple of Jeremy Bentham’.147 The portion of the Traités that Neal translates is simply the first part of his first volume, the 13 chapters of the Principes de législation. Neal


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gave a fascinating account of the origin of his work in his autobiography.148 Apparently it was Bowring who first invited him to work on Bentham translation, suggesting he produce a small one-volume abstract of the work on evidence. Long before the work was complete, Bowring asked him to provide a paper for The Westminster Review on the United States. Before that was finished, Bowring was asking him to translate the Traités, for a fee of 200 guineas. Having completed one volume, Neal then asked for an advance on the sum, whereupon Bowring confessed that he had made the offer on his own initiative and would have to approach admirers like Burdett and John Smith MP to stump up. Neal had had enough of this chicanery and published as much as he had completed on his return to the United States. He makes no secret of his contempt for Bowring in his autobiography. In 1836 another American lawyer Richard Hildreth translated a much more substantial part of the Traités,149 though this was not actually published until 1840.150 It made little impact initially,151 and only later did it become a classic, following a second edition in 1864 which was reprinted many times (and a third edition in 1931). In 1838 the foremost English disciple of Bentham and his executor, John Bowring, had started publishing the eleven volume Works which became the standard library reference source for Bentham’s thought. The casual reader of this volume might simply not notice that a significant proportion of the ‘Bentham’ material it contains consists in fact of Dumont extraits rendered back into English – albeit with more or less reference to original Bentham manuscripts. In the first volume An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation includes some additional material taken from Dumont. This is followed by an English version of Dumont’s ‘Essay on the promulgation of the laws, and the reasons thereof; with specimen of a penal code.’ A note from Bowring states that this is edited from the French of Dumont, and the original MSS and printed works of Bentham. After that we find ‘Essay on the influence of time and place in matters of legislation.’ Bowring states that the substance of the essay has appeared in the Traités but that it is now published in English direct from Bentham’s own MSS, and the differences between the Dumont text and the Bowring text are certainly much more substantial here. Next comes ‘The Principles of the Civil Code’, about which Bowring states that it is edited from the Traités and the original MSS. The same is stated of ‘The Principles of Penal Law’ which follows it; Bowring incorporated into this piece an English version of volume 1 of Dumont’s Théorie des peines et des recompenses. Of the seven works in volume 1 of Bowring then, five cover the same ground as the Traités and three are essentially translations of Dumont. In volume two we find Richard Smith’s ‘Rationale of Reward’. Bowring writes, ‘In preparing it for its appearance before the English public, the Editor has taken the above volume as the groundwork of his labours; but having availed himself wherever he could of the original manuscripts, his will, in many instances, not be found a literal translation of M. Dumont’s work.’152 But the editor goes on to note that


where Dumont has made additions they will be indicated. One of those additions is said in a footnote to be contrary to Bentham’s present opinion and a commentary by Bentham on this follows. The subjects mentioned are The Empress Catherine’s reorganisation of civil service staff structures along military lines and the question of retirement pensions (‘pensions of retreat’).153 I cannot in the present work pursue this. But one point worthy of note is that in his little commentary Bentham does not want to discourage readers from studying the Dumont text. He refers them to Official Aptitude Maximized: Expense Minimized154 for ‘a plan of official economy’ but observes that only in the Dumont text will readers find ‘discussions, explanations, and reasons at length; in the new one . . . little else than results’.155 Later in the second volume we have Political Tactics, stated by the editor to be ‘edited from the work of M. Dumont, and the papers of Bentham’.156 Bowring chose to separate the two volumes of Dumont’s Tactique into three clearly distinct works, following the precedent already set with the publication of Peregrine Bingham’s translation of part of the second volume as The Book of Fallacies in 1824. This latter publication had been a translation of most of the second volume of Dumont’s Tactique but omitted the part of it which dealt particularly with the natural rights rhetoric of the French Revolution. The Bowring edition prints this latter material under the title Anarchical Fallacies.157 The editor states, ‘the following papers are now first published in English, from Mr. Bentham’s MSS; the substance of them has previously been published in French by Dumont’.158 In Bowring’s second volume then, 4 of the 11 separate works correspond to Dumont compositions. In Bowring’s volume three ‘A general view of a complete code of laws’ is taken from the Traités. The editor states that it ‘is edited from the French of Dumont, and the original MSS and printed works of Bentham’.159 Charles Milner Atkinson had yet another go at the task of translating the Traités in 1914 when he published Bentham’s Theory of Legislation, being Principes de Législation and Traités de Législation Civile et Pénale, translated from the French of Etienne Dumont.160 This again presented just the first two of Dumont’s three volumes as they were ordered in the later editions, and therefore omitted Panopticon. Atkinson added material from other places in the Bentham corpus as well as footnotes of his own. Hildreth’s text had been reprinted as recently as 1911, but generally speaking Atkinson’s represents a definite improvement. For example, in the very first sentence of ‘Principles of Legislation’, Hildreth says that ‘the public good ought to be the object of the legislator’161 where ‘good’ translates ‘bonheur’, which Atkinson correctly translates as ‘happiness’.162 In his second paragraph, Hildreth writes that ‘the principle of utility, vaguely announced, is seldom contradicted’; Atkinson’s rendering ‘this principle of utility, when enunciated in vague and general terms, is rarely challenged’, seems much clearer – at least to modern understanding. Hildreth translates the word prétendu as ‘pretended’ which no longer fits with modern usage, and Atkinson rightly prefers ‘alleged’.163


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Similarly, Hildreth translates the French dévots as ‘devotees’, which makes little sense, whereas Atkinson helpfully puts ‘devotees or religionists’ which clarifies the meaning.164 Incidentally, the appearance of the Atkinson version meant that there were three separate published English abridgements of the material in the first 13 chapters of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation each derived by translation from Dumont (Neal, Hildreth, Atkinson), even while Bentham’s own original text existed in print versions. It is interesting to note that at least a dozen different printings or editions of The Theory of Legislation had appeared up to the end of the Second World War, as against half that number of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. One of the most surprising testimonies to the heavy reliance on Dumont as populariser of Bentham in the English-speaking world is the edition of the first two volumes of the Traités published in the original French by the University of London as late as 1858.165 According to the preface, because students were no longer able to obtain either the original French version or ‘the American translation of it’, the University had taken the decision to reissue the French text. Even before the dissemination of the Englishlanguage versions of Dumont then, his text was regarded in England as being the premier introduction to Bentham’s thinking. In this case it was a set book for candidates for the LLB. And indeed, long before this and well before Bentham’s death, J. S. Mill was advised by his father, Bentham’s friend James Mill, to read Dumont’s Traités as a way into Bentham’s philosophy.166 Another testimony comes from one who knew the Baptist Minister Robert Hall (1764–1831), so celebrated in his day that a fine marble statue erected to his memory in a park in Leicester by the notable sculptor John Birnie Philip still stands as an impressive memorial to him. According to this testimony Hall, a friend of Sir James Mackintosh, considered that in the science of legislation, Bentham had ‘advanced to the limits of reason’. Hall added that if he were compelled to legislate for the world upon uninspired principles, ‘he should take Mr Bentham, and go from state to state with as firm a step as though he walked upon a pavement of adamant’. But in a footnote we are told that Hall ‘always recommended those who were likely to be offended with the strangeness of Bentham’s style, to study his principles through the medium of his elegant French commentator, M. Dumont’.167 No doubt the decision to publish Hildreth’s translation in England in 1864 came in response to the continued reliance on the by-now-out-of-print Dumont.168 A significant date in the history of the dissemination of Benthamism is the centenary of his death in 1932. Charles Kay Ogden, whose interests were mainly in linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, but who had no legal training or background, had produced a new edition of Hildreth’s The Theory of Legislation the year before. He was an enthusiast not for utilitarianism but for Bentham’s theory of fictions and for Bentham’s ideas about a universal language. His edition was reprinted in 1950 and became the standard


textbook for introducing students to Bentham in the postwar era. Another edition of Ogden’s book was published in India in 1975.169 Ogden’s cover and title page make no mention of Dumont, only on page iv in fairly small type do we see the words ‘Translated from the French of Etienne Dumont by Richard Hildreth’, and only in the last 11 pages of his 42-page introduction does Ogden explain the history of the text. Ogden gives a remarkable list of reforms proposed by Bentham and implemented in the century since his death: the reform of the representative system in Parliament; municipal reform; the mitigation of the harshness of the criminal law; the abolition of transportation; the improvement of prisons; the removal of defects in the jury system; the abolition of imprisonment for debt; the abolition of the usury laws; the reform of the law of evidence; the repeal of religious tests; the reform of the Poor Law; the establishment of a national system of education; an extension of the idea of savings banks and friendly societies; cheap postage without the object of national profit coupled with post office money orders; a complete and uniform register of births, deaths, and marriages; a code for merchant shipping; full census returns; the circulation of parliamentary papers; the protection of inventors; uniform methods of drafting Acts of Parliament; the passing of public health legislation.170 But Ogden felt that full recognition of Bentham’s work was still to come, citing the potential of Bentham’s work on language and fictions, his proposals for universal codification, and his services to international law. It is certainly true that Harrison and others (e.g. Lacan171 ) have highlighted Bentham’s theory of language and fictions in recent years.172 One recent commentator stated baldly that ‘Although his main interest was in moral and political philosophy and legislation, it is through the panopticon and the theory of fictions that Jeremy Bentham made his most powerful impact on modern thought.’173 Surprisingly, the story of English translations of Dumont did not end even with Ogden’s revival of the Hildreth translation nor with Atkinson’s retranslation. As late as 1954, W. Stark, in his edition of Bentham’s economic writings, offered as ‘Bentham’ texts writings which were nothing more nor less than ‘a re-translation into English [by Stark himself] of Dumont’s French rendering, couched (as far as that is possible without undue artificiality) in Bentham’s own terminology and lingo’.174 The two texts were entitled The True Alarm and Of the Balance of Trade.175 Even the contemporary edition of Bentham’s writings currently under production at UCL is sometimes obliged to reproduce a translation of Dumont as the best available version of Bentham’s thought in the absence of complete original manuscripts. Thus we have seen that the edition of Political Tactics published in 1999 mainly reproduces Richard Smith’s translation of the Dumont French version (though Smith did have access to Bentham’s original papers on the topic). Bentham’s work made a strong impact of course in other parts of the anglophone world and particularly in the United States. It is interesting that both Neal and Hildreth were Americans whose work came out in the United States.


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I am not competent to develop this topic here even if there were space to do so, and would refer readers to the recent work of an expert in the field, James Crimmins (with Mark Spencer): Utilitarians and their Critics in America.176

Conclusion My study has raised a number of highly vexatious wider issues about writers, scholars, and politics, in particular the question of the influence of nationalism. Starting with Rousseau, we have seen how few scholars have ever faced up to the stark polarities which pit a Genevan protestant nationalist mentality against a perception of a ‘shallow’ (Catholic) French culture. Reflection suggests pragmatic reasons for such a silence. It is not in the interests of the French to acknowledge that such a universally idolised genius as Rousseau might actually have been engaged in vitriolic anti-French polemics. Easier to attribute Rousseau’s idiosyncratic position within the Enlightenment to a spirit of paradox, a sense of showmanship that alerted him to the profitability of adopting contrary positions, or to a personal eccentricity of character. Nor do the Genevans have much interest in seeing their universal hero being branded some kind of narrow Genevan Spartanist. Why do anything to lower the prestige of someone who adds such lustre to their culture’s reputation? It would be like suggesting that the universal genius Shakespeare was in reality just another ‘little Englander’. As I write I am in receipt of an electronic mailing from Geneva promoting celebrations of the birth of Rousseau in 1712 five years in advance.177 This is a measure of his world-historical stature and continuing attractiveness as a writer. The festivities are being promoted not in the first instance by the university but by the town, and the goal is to attract the attention of as wide a global audience as possible, for his name continues to add lustre to Geneva’s reputation. Indeed of course there is very much more to Rousseau than the Letter to d’Alembert. One of the long-term consequences of Enlightenment-style thinking has been to suppress reference to the religious elements that are in reality an embedded part of cultural history – though this is thankfully changing. Yet the ethos of eighteenth-century Geneva had to come from somewhere, and it is not very difficult to see that it represents a transmogrification of a Calvinism which had become uncomfortable with its dogmatic foundation. The same transmutation of theological debate into cultural was taking place all over Europe. Anyone familiar to any degree with the kind of Protestant antiCatholic polemic that formed modern British cultural attitudes will recognise this at once. The question of Mirabeau raises similar issues. The impressive scholarly work of Jean Bénétruy is constantly drawn on by historians but it is astounding that Google can find no other reference to him other than in booksellers’ catalogues; there is no sign on the net of any biographical note or account of who he was. His work on Mirabeau’s think tank has never been translated into


English and he has ever received the kind of recognition his superb scholarship merits. One is reduced to asking whether this might be because he was a Catholic priest and/or because he was interested in reviving a deeply unfashionable argument long dismissed as ‘reactionary’, that the Revolution was fed by some very partisan interests? Whenever I am struggling to persuade others that the unfashionableness of a topic has no relation whatever to its importance, I am reminded of an experience which Isaiah Berlin told me he had in interwar Oxford. When he mentioned to his colleagues in one of the world’s top universities that he proposed to write a book on Marx, their response was to ask him ‘what for?’ The book he published before the Second World War as a result is still in print.178 Then again, Bénétruy’s work was not merely unfashionable in its argument, but it brought Mirabeau down to earth, and for those who preferred to idolise him this was perhaps too much. Barbara Luttrell’s biography of Mirabeau serves as a salutary warning of the degree to which the rose-tinted-spectacles of hero-worship can cloud the vision of a writer. I hope I have managed to demonstrate that we can cheerfully acknowledge the Bentham of utilitarianism and the Bentham of Panopticon as perfectly compatible, provided that we equally cheerfully refuse to be sucked into the excessively power-phobic world of the mainstream postwar intelligentsia. We shall then discover that Jeremy Bentham can justly qualify to be one of the architects of the society of the third millennium, with its ideals of transparency, accountability, and economy, which his Panopticon so perfectly embodied. But then again, perhaps the widespread distaste for his architectural technique may have something to say to us too: it points to the double-edged quality of transparency. Yes, we praise transparency, but only up to a point, for then the sense of the importance of privacy kicks in. As Berlin was famous for saying, our ideals, while each good individually in themselves, may nonetheless be inherently conflicting.

Notes

Note on translations Quotations from foreign-language texts where no published translation is available have been translated by myself.

Introduction 1. See my World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006, and especially the Introduction by Roger Griffin. 2. Jeremy Bentham: Critical Assessments, Bhikhu Parekh (ed.), 4 vols, London/New York: Routledge, 1993. 3. Cf. Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, 6th edn, London: Geoffrey Bles/New York: Scribners, 1954. 4. Quoted in Richard Reeves, John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand, London: Atlantic Books, 2007.

1

Utilitarianism and panopticism: The umbilical cord

1. See ‘Introduction’, pp. 2–3, for how I understand the term ‘Benthamism’ in this book. 2. H. Sidgwick, ‘Bentham and Benthamism in Politics and Ethics’, The Fortnightly Review, 21 (January–June 1877), 634; reprinted in Parekh (ed.) Critical Assessments, iii, 457–481. Text viewable online at http://phare.univparis1.fr/textes/Sidgwick/Bentham.html (consulted 8 March 2007). 3. Elie Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, Mary Morris (trans.) London: Faber & Faber, 1934, p. 251. 4. J. R. Dinwiddy, Bentham, Oxford/New York: OUP, 1989, p. 9. 5. Ibid., p. 9. 6. Ibid. 7. David Lieberman, ‘Historiographical Review from Bentham to Benthamism’, The Historical Journal, 28, 1 (1985), 210. 8. A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation Between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century, London: Macmillan, 1905, pp. 126, 129. 9. Ibid., p. 130. 10. Anthony Holden, The Wit in the Dungeon: A Life of Leigh Hunt, London: Little, Brown, 2005, p. 84; see also J. R. Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham on invention in legislation’, Enlightenment and Dissent (1989), 25–42; reprinted in Parekh (ed.) Critical Assessments, iii, 803–819. 11. Mary P. Mack, Jeremy Bentham: An Odyssey of Ideas 1748–1792, London/Melbourne/Toronto: Heinemann, 1962, p. 15. 12. Ibid., p. 22. 13. William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits, New York: Chelsea House, 1987 [1825], pp. 3–4. 315

316 Notes 14. Ibid., p. 4. 15. ‘Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy’ in The Miscellaneous Works of The Rt Hon Sir James Mackintosh, 2nd edn, London: Longman, Brown, Green, 1851, p. 90. This piece was originally written by Mackintosh for the 7th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1830–1842) and completed in 1830. 16. Lieberman, ‘Historiographical Review’, 209. 17. Janet Semple, Bentham’s Prison, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 1. 18. C. F. Bahmueller, The National Charity Company. Jeremy Bentham’s Silent Revolution, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1987, p. 58. 19. C. W. Everett, ‘The Constitutional Code of Jeremy Bentham’ in Jeremy Bentham Bicentenary Celebrations, Tuesday 8 June 1948, London: Lewis, p. 14. 20. John Bowring (ed.) The Works of Jeremy Bentham, I, General Preface, p. ix. 21. J. H. Burns, ‘Jeremy Bentham: From Radical Enlightenment to Philosophic Radicalism’ in The Bentham Newsletter No. 8 (June 1984), 7. 22. Correspondence, x, 193, Bentham to John Bowring for the Conde de Toreno, 28 November 1820. 23. Correspondence, iv, 77–78, George Wilson to Bentham, 5 July 1789. 24. Correspondence, iv, 79, Bentham to George Wilson, 8 July 1789. 25. M. Oakeshott, ‘The New Bentham’, Scrutiny, 1, 2 (September 1932), 129. 26. J. S. Mill, ‘Bentham’ in Mill on Bentham and Coleridge, F. R. Leavis (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980 [1950], p. 44. 27. For the evidence of the foregoing statements, see Correspondence, vols xi, xii, covering January 1822 to June 1828. See, for example, F. R. Rosen, Bentham, Byron, and Greece. Constitutionalism, Nationalism, and Early Liberal Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992 for a rare book-length study of just one of these areas of Bentham’s influence. The title of the official Portuguese translation was Traducçào das obras politicas do sabio jurisconsulto Jeremias Bentham, vertidas do inglez na lingua portugueza por mandado do soberano congresso das Cortes Geraes, Extraordinarias, e constituintes da mesma nação, Lisbon: Na Imprensa Nacional, 1822. The title implies that the work is translated direct from the English whereas it is in fact a translation of Dumont’s French Théorie des peines et des récompenses, of which no English translation appeared until several years later (see p. 308); see also Catherine Fuller, ‘ “Primeiro e mais antigo Constitucional da Europa’’: Bentham’s contact with Portuguese liberals 1820–23’, Journal of Bentham Studies 3 (2000). 28. Correspondence, xi, 10, Bentham to Elizabeth Stoker, 11 June 1822. 29. H. Sidgwick, ‘Bentham and Benthamism’ in Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses, 1904, pp. 145–146; cited in L. Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750, London: Stevens, 1948, I, 380. (Five volumes of this work were eventually published.) 30. For the most recent treatment of this topic, see Philip Schofield, Utility and Democracy: The Political Thought of Jeremy Bentham, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, chapter 5. Earlier important studies were by Mary P. Mack, Jeremy Bentham, an Odyssey of Ideas, 1748–1792, London: Heinemann, 1962, chapter 9; J. R. Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham’s transition to political radicalism, 1809–10’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 35 (1975), 683–700; James E. Crimmins, ‘Bentham’s Political Radicalism Reexamined’, Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (1994), 259–281. James Steintrager (Bentham, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977, pp. 44–61) questioned whether there really was any ‘conversion’ at all, emphasising the continuity in Bentham’s thinking and suggesting that for many years he simply found it prudent to keep a low profile as regards his political convictions.

Notes

317

31. It has also been argued that for all his later attachment to radicalism, Bentham retained till the end a very strong notion of the importance of subordination to the commands of the superior and ‘the notion of ruler-ruled, of command-obedience’ as S. E. Finer put it in a review of L. J. Hume, Bentham and Bureaucracy (Cambridge: CUP, 1981) in The Bentham Newsletter No. 6 (May, 1982), 30. Finer’s views reflect those of Hume himself in the book cited. 32. John Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians, 2nd edn, Oxford: Blackwell, 1958, p. 63; see also F. R. Rosen, Jeremy Bentham and Representative Democracy: A Study of the Constitutional Code, Oxford: OUP, 1983; G. Himmelfarb, Victorian Minds, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1968, pp. 75–76. 33. J. R. Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham’s transition to political radicalism’, 690. 34. Schofield, Utility and Democracy, p. 109. For a somewhat different view, see Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham’s transition to political radicalism.’ 35. Cf. Stephen Conway, ‘Bentham and the nineteenth-century revolution in government’ in R. Bellamy (ed.), Victorian Liberalism: Nineteenth-Century Political Thought and Practice, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 82: ‘Notwithstanding the popular image of him as a retiring eccentric – an image, incidentally, that he encouraged in order to deter distracting visitors – he was in regular contact with government ministers, MPs, and civil servants, particularly in relation to his Panopticon penitentiary scheme and his efforts to codify the law.’ 36. Shirley Robin Letwin, The Pursuit of Certainty. David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Beatrice Webb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 132. I choose this text simply as a sample; it is an impression given by very many who have written about Bentham. 37. Ross Harrison, Bentham, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985 [1983], p. 19. 38. See Semple, Bentham’s Prison, pp. 279–281. 39. J. L. Stocks, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1933, p. 17. Stocks was, however, quite mistaken when he went on to claim that ‘Bentham became practical for the first time in his old age (p. 18).’ 40. Especially that of Gertrude Himmelfarb, whose essay ‘The Haunted House of Jeremy Bentham’ first appeared in Ideas in History, Duke University Press, 1965; it was reprinted in ‘adapted’ form in Victorian Minds, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. Writing in the 1960s, Himmelfarb could quite accurately observe that ‘Historians and biographers, plodding through [Bentham’s] vast tomes and mass of manuscripts, have ignored the readily available and far more readable material on the Panopticon . . . no one has adequately studied the actual plans of Panopticon, its role in Bentham’s private life, or its function in his philosophy and politics (Victorian Minds, p. 32).’ 41. Michel Foucault, Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison, Paris: Gallimard, 1975. 42. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Alan Sheridan (trans.), London: Allan Lane, 1977. 43. For example, the Social Sciences Citation Index contains more than 9000 citations of Foucault, while a keyword search of the US Library of Congress Catalogue turns up more than 750 works in various languages discussing his writings. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Michel_Foucault. Viewed 24 May 2007.) 44. Apart from one solitary paper, Bhikhu Parekh’s massive four-volume collection of Bentham criticism, published as recently as 1993, maintains a stunning silence on the issue (see Parekh, Jeremy Bentham: Critical Assessments). The Bentham Project has yet to publish a scholarly edition of the Panopticon writings and it is very curious that for all the contemporary fascination with Panopticon, the only modern

318 Notes

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52. 53.

54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61.

62. 63. 64.

editions in English and in French seem to have sold poorly and are both difficult to find even on the Internet (The Panopticon Writings, Miran Božoviˇc [ed.], London/New York: Verso, 1995; Le Panoptique, précédé par l’oeil du pouvoir, entretien avec Michel Foucault, postface de Michelle Perrot, Paris: Belfond, 1977). Anne Brunon-Ernst, ‘Foucault revisited’, Journal of Bentham Studies, online at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/journal/brunon-ernst_foucault, pp. 1, 3. The thesis is set out in Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Pt III, ch. 3, ‘Panopticism’. See Anne Brunon-Ernst, Le Panoptique des Pauvres, Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2007, pp. 205–206. ‘The Rationale of Reward’ in Bentham, Works, vol. ii, p. 222. See Harry Strub, ‘The theory of panoptical control: Bentham’s Panopticon and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, in The Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences, vol. 25 (January 1989), 40–59, for a comparative study of Bentham and Orwell. A classic example is Katrin Kaschadt, ‘Jeremy Bentham’ in Ctrl [Space]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne, Peter Weibel (eds), Karlsruhe: Center for Media and Art and Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press, pp. 114–119. Juan R. I. Cole, ‘The Baha’i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963–1997’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 2 (June 1998), 234–248. See esp. Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality, New York: Harper, 1954. The editor of the only modern edition of the Panopticon focuses on the ‘godlike’ status of the gaoler (Miran Božoviˇc, Jeremy Bentham: The Panopticon Writings, London/New York: Verso, 1995, ‘Introduction’). This is especially important in that the business of visiting prisons to check on abuses by the gaolers was greatly neglected at the period when Bentham was promoting Panopticon. See Sidney & Beatrice Webb, English Prisons under local government, London etc: Longmans, Green, 1922, p. 52. Christian Laval, Jeremy Bentham. Le pouvoir des fictions, Paris: PUF, 1994, p. 104. Brunon-Ernst, Le Panoptique des Pauvres, p. 37; see also p. 87. Ibid., p. 67. Correspondence, vii, 222, Bentham to David Collins, 5 April 1803. William L. Davidson, Political Thought in England. The Utilitarians from Bentham to Mill, Oxford: OUP, 1950 [1915], pp. 72–73. The Gaol of the City of Bristol compared with what a gaol ought to be. Intended to diffuse a more general knowledge of the requisites of a good prison, by a Citizen. With an appendix, containing a brief account of the Panopticon, a prison upon a new plan, proposed to government by Jeremy Bentham esq., Bristol: Barry/London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1815, Appendix, pp. 92–93. See John Loudun McAdam, Bristol Gaol. Report of the Committee of Deputies, appointed at a general meeting of the delegates, of the several parishes within the city of Bristol, held at St Peter’s Hospital, on Wednesday, the 18th day of October, 1815, made to a general meeting of the Delegates, on Friday, the 26th day of January, 1816, and resolutions of the general meeting in consequence, Bristol: John Mills, 1816. J. P. Brissot, Mémoires (1754–1793), Cl Perroud (ed.), 2 vols, Paris: Picard, 1911, i, 366. Diario de las Cortes, session del dia 6 de octubre 1820 (vol. viii of Diario de las actas y discusiones de las cortes, legislatura de los años de 1820 y 1821, Madrid, 1821, pp. 18ff. See Michelle Perrot, ‘L’Inspecteur Bentham’, in Jeremy Bentham, le Panoptique, précédé de l’oeil du pouvoir, entretien avec Michel Foucault, Paris: Belfond, 1977, pp. 198ff.

Notes

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65. Ibid., p. 199. See Robert Roth, Pratiques pénitentiaires et théorie sociale. L’exemple de la prison de Genève (1825–1862), Geneva/Paris: Droz, 1981 for the importance of the connections between the London Society and Geneva for the planning of the Geneva penitentiary. 66. Perrot, Jeremy Bentham, p. 199; see Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, 2 vols, London: Vogel et Schultze, 1811, bk ii, ch. 12. 67. Perrot, Jeremy Bentham, pp. 199–200. 68. Norman Johnston, Forms of Constraint: A History of Prison Architecture, Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000, pp. 70–74, where there is a plan of the design; Perrot, Jeremy Bentham, p. 203. 69. Perrot, Jeremy Bentham, p. 203. 70. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 249. 71. Cited in ibid., p. 250. 72. Johnston, Forms of Constraint, p. 45. 73. Margaret de Lacy, Prison Reform in Lancashire, 1700–1850. A Study in Local Administration, Manchester: Chetham Society, 1986. 74. Rem Koolhaas, ‘Project for the renovation of a Panopticon Prison’ in Ctrl: [Space]. Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, Thomas Y. Levin, Ursula Frohne and Peter Weibel (eds), p. 120. 75. James B. Jacobs, Stateville. The Penitentiary in a Mass Society, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1977, pp. 15–16. 76. Call Northside 777, directed by Henry Hathaway, starring James Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, Helen Walker, Metrodome Distribution, 1948. 77. Jefferson Selth, Firm Heart and Capacious Mind. The Life and Friends of Etienne Dumont, Lanham/New York/Oxford: University Press of America, 1997, p. 168. 78. ‘Lord Carter’s Review of Prisons’, London, 5 December 2007. 79. ‘What should prisons look like?’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7138110.stm. 80. From an unpublished ‘Essay on Religion’, quoted in Peter H. Marshall, William Godwin, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1984, p. 344. 81. Perrot, ‘L’Inspecteur Bentham’, p. 202. 82. See p. 249. 83. See Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, Colin Gordon (ed.), New York: Pantheon, 1980, p. 147. 84. See p. 34. 85. See ‘The Virtual Panopticon’ by David Engberg at http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/impact /f96/Projects/dengberg/. Viewed on 1 February 2007. 86. See ‘The Panopticon Singularity’ at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/rant/pano pticon-essay.html 87. Cf. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings, Colin Gordon (ed.), New York: Panther, 1980, p. 154; the website is at http://www.notbored.org/transparent.html (accessed 03/05/2007). Anne BrunonErnst in Le Panoptique des Pauvres, p. 205 cites an instance from the French newspaper Le Monde where P. Bollon and A Champagne compare the internet to Panopticon, ‘where one man could watch all the others without being seen himself’ (Le Monde 2, 11 February 2006, p. 21). 88. Nancy L. Rosenblum, Bentham’s Theory of the Modern State, Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1978, p. 19. I would not however concur with this author when she goes on to say that Bentham ‘had no intention of providing a site for . . . experimenting with character formation’ (Rosenblum, Bentham’s

320 Notes

89. 90.

91. 92.

93. 94.

95.

96. 97. 98.

99.

Theory, p. 20). Bentham believed that the inmate’s certainty that he could not escape would in fact be the starting-point for the reformation of his character. http://materialiresistenti.blog.dada.net/archivi/2003–07–01_8.html, consulted 26 April 2007. Cf. David Lyon (ed.), Theorizing Surveillance. The Panopticon and Beyond, Cullompton: Willans, 2006. ‘The field of “surveillance studies’’ has grown rapidly over the past two decades . . . the work of Michel Foucault stimulated new approaches to understanding surveillance. . . . Discipline and Punish was central to the new debates . . . ’ (p. 3). Cf. also Lyon, The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994; Christopher Dandeker, Surveillance, Power, and Modernity, Cambridge: Polity, 1994 [1990]. Kevin D. Haggerty, ‘Tear down the walls: on demolishing the panopticon’ in David Lyon, Theorizing Surveillance, p. 25. Theorizing Surveillance, p. 36. Another essay in the same work notes that ‘one of the most common sociological explanations for CCTV surveillance has sought to understand the effects of video monitoring by using the metaphor of panopticon’ (Sean P. Hier, Kevin Walby and Josh Greenberg, ‘Supplementing the panoptic paradigm: surveillance, moral governance and CCTV’ in Lyon, Theorizing Surveillance, p. 231). Bahmueller, The National Charity Company, p. 206. H. S. Jones, Review of Elie Halévy, La formation du radicalisme philosophique, H-Ideas, H-Net Reviews (May 2000) at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev/ cgi?path=26186957549773 Michael James, The Bentham Newsletter, No. 4 (May 1980), 49. James was reviewing Douglas G. Long’s book Bentham on Liberty. Jeremy Bentham’s Idea of Liberty in Relation to his Utilitarianism, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977. Bahmueller, The National Charity Company, p. 2. Janet Semple, ‘Foucault and Bentham: A defence of panopticism’, in Utilitas, 4, 1 (May 1992), 105. Janet Semple herself, generally sympathetic towards Bentham, observed that ‘It is almost beyond belief that a man of Bentham’s intelligence and humanity should have died still grieving for this mechanism of punishment . . . There is . . . something profoundly disturbing about the panopticon. The concept of ceaseless invisible inspection all too graphically conjures up the nightmares of Orwell’s Big Brother, Tolkien’s Dark Lord, or the hideous reality of the clattering surveillance towers along the old Berlin Wall’ (Semple, Bentham’s Prison, pp. 315, 316). This overlooks the fact that Bentham was quite happy with a type of virtual inspection, it was the idea that one might be being watched that he felt was powerful, actual inspection was not necessary. See also Harry Strub, ‘The Theory of Panoptical Control’, p. 41: ‘ . . . the parallels between the Panopticon and 1984 will be made more complete through an examination of the repressive and totalitarian components of the Panopticon. By demonstrating their fundamental incompatibility with Bentham’s hedonistically based philosophy of utilitarianism, in which pleasure is regarded as good and pain as evil, a paradoxical characterization emerges of the great reformer . . . .’ William Twining, ‘Reading Bentham’ (The Maccabean Lecture in Jurisprudence) in Proceedings of the British Academy lxxv (1989), p. 126.

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100. ‘There is . . . something profoundly disturbing about the panopticon’, Bentham’s Prison, p. 316. 101. For example Himmelfarb, ‘The Haunted House of Jeremy Bentham’, p. 81. 102. Ibid., p. 77. 103. Ibid., p. 81. 104. L. J. Hume, ‘Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon: an administrative history’ in Jeremy Bentham: Critical Assessments, 4 vols, London/New York, 1993, iv, 191. 105. Guillaume Tusseau, ‘Sur le panoptisme de Jeremy Bentham’, Revue française d’histoire des idées politiques, no. 19, 1er semestre (2004), 3–38. 106. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, p. 151. 107. For biographical insights on Foucault, see Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault, London: Faber & Faber, 1993; David Macey, The Lives of Foucault, London: Hutchinson, 1993. 108. See, for example, Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, New York: Orgone Institute Press, 1946. This was a massively popular book that went through several editions in the postwar era. 109. David Garland, Punishment in Modern Society. A Study in Social Theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, p. 174. 110. Richard Davenport-Hines, review of Justin Wintle, New Makers of Modern Culture (2 vols, London: Routledge, 2007) Times Literary Supplement, 5450, 14 September 2007. 111. As summarised by John Carroll in his entry on Philip Rieff in Wintle, New Makers of Modern Culture, quoted in the review by Davenport-Hines above. For a robust debate with Foucault on his view of Panopticon, see Janet Semple, ‘Foucault and Bentham: a defence of panopticism’, in Utilitas, 4, 1 (May 1992), 105–120. 112. Cf. Neal Kumar Katyal, ‘Architecture as Crime Control’, Yale Law Journal, March 2002, https://goliath.ecnext.com/free-scripts/document_view_v3.pl?item_id= 0199–1542838, p. 11: ‘Some recent evidence suggests . . . that the probability of enforcement matters more to criminals than the maximum length of sentence.’ 113. Principles of Legislation: From the MS of Jeremy Bentham; Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn. By M. Dumont . . . translated from the second corrected and enlarged edition; with notes and a biographical notice of Jeremy Bentham and of M. Dumont, by John Neal, Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1830, p. 99. John Neal (1793–1876), editor, lawyer, historian, advocate of minority rights, led a very varied life and wrote a great many books. A series of articles he wrote for Blackwood’s Magazine are considered to represent the first serious attempt at a portrayal of American literature. 114. Neal, Principles of Legislation, p. 99. Neal’s reference to Bentham’s anger at the failure of Panopticon (see Principles pp. 58–59) is interesting, and it runs counter to a presentation that suggests he lived happily codifying until the pen dropped from his fingers at his last breath. At least one contemporary, Sir James Mackintosh, was aware of this anger, describing Bentham in 1830 as ‘indignant that the systems of government and law which he believes to be perfect, are disregarded at once by the many and the powerful’, and attributing his shift to extreme radicalism to his belief that ‘all the ruling bodies who guide the community have conspired to stifle and defeat his discoveries’. 115. Harrison, Bentham, p. 19. 116. Cf. W. Bader, ‘Jeremy Bentham: businessman or philanthropist?’ in Albion, vol. 7 (1975), 245–254.

322 Notes 117. Correspondence, x, Bentham to José Joaquin de Mora, 19–21 November 1820, p. 168. 118. Hume, ‘Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon’, p. 193. 119. Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution 1750–1850, London/Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1978, p. 112. 120. George Peter Holford, An Account of the General Penitentiary at Millbank, 1828, cited in S and B. Webb, English Prisons Under Local Government, London: Longmans, Green, 1922, pp. 48–49. Holford (c. 1768–1839) was MP for Lostwithiel. 121. Himmelfarb, ‘The Haunted House’, p. 32. 122. See A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Works of Jeremy Bentham, Sadao Ikeda, Michihiro Otonashi, Tamihiro Shigemori (eds), Tokyo: Chuo University Library, 1989, p. 110. The original Panopticon Letters and related material may be found in John Bowring (ed.), The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols, Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838–1842, vol. iv. See www.elibron.com for the Elibron Classics reprint of the whole of the Bowring edition. 123. Cf. Bowring, Works, xi, 97. 124. Ibid., i, 498. 125. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 200. 126. Martin Jay, ‘In the empire of the gaze: Foucault and the denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought’, in Foucault, A Critical Reader, David Couzens Hoy (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1986, p. 195. 127. Jay, ‘In the empire of the gaze’, pp. 195–196. See also Majid Yar, ‘Panoptic power and the pathologisation of vision. Critical reflections on the Foucaultian thesis’, in Surveillance and Society, 1, 3 (2003); D. P. Gaonkar and R. J. McArthy (1994) ‘Panopticism and Publicity: Bentham’s Quest for Transparency,’ Public Culture, 6: 547–575. 128. Sir Samuel Bentham (1757–1831), naval architect and mechanical engineer. For an account of Samuel Bentham’s life in Russia and Jeremy Bentham’s visit to him there, see Ian R. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, Oxford/Providence: Berg, 1993; Simon Sebag Montefiore, Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin, London: Phoenix, 2000. For Samuel’s invention of the Panopticon technique, see Christie, The Benthams in Russia, esp. pp. 177–178; Semple, Bentham’s Prison, pp. 99–100. For biographical material on Samuel Bentham, see M. S. Bentham, The Life of BrigadierGeneral Sir Samuel Bentham, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862; Catherine Pease-Watkin, ‘Jeremy and Samuel Bentham – the private and the public’, Journal of Bentham Studies, 5 (2002). 129. John Annette, ‘Bentham’s fear of hobgoblins’, in Capitalism and the Rule of Law. From Deviancy Theory to Marxism, Bob Fine, Richard Kinsey, John Lea, Sol Picciotto and Jock Young (eds), London: Hutchinson, 1979, p. 74. 130. Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain, p. 113. 131. It seems that Foucault himself was aware of a connection between Bentham and the idea of ‘frugal government’. See Anne Brunon-Ernst, ‘Foucault revisited’, Journal of Bentham Studies 9 (2007). But he seems to have thought of this in political terms as ‘limited government’ (rolling back the frontiers of the state) rather than as the economical governance of public institutions. These two concepts are of course not at all unconnected. 132. Quoted in Hume, ‘Bentham’s Panopticon’, p. 201. 133. See Correspondence, iv, 172, note 5. 134. Bowring, Works, xi, 96n.

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323

135. Rem Koolhaas, ‘Project for the renovation of a Panopticon Prison’ in Levin et al. (eds) Ctrl [Space], p. 120. 136. Himmelfarb, ‘The Haunted House of Jeremy Bentham’, p. 46. 137. For an account of the basic principles of the design, see Bowring, Works, iv, 40–45. 138. The idea that the panoptical design allows the effective supervision of numbers of people by a kind of ‘virtual’/real supervisor encouraged Miran Božoviˇc in the introduction to his edition of the Panopticon writings to study the connection between Panopticon and Bentham’s theory of fictions (Cf. Panopticon Writings, Miran Božoviˇc (ed.) ‘Introduction’). 139. See Robin Evans, The Fabrication of Virtue: English Prison Architecture, 1750–1840, ch. 5 ‘A Way of Obtaining Power’ for illustrations of the Panopticon design and discussion of its architectural features; also Philip Steadman, ‘The Contradictions of Bentham’s Panopticon Penitentiary’, Journal of Bentham Studies, 9 (2007). 140. Bowring, Works, xi, 105. 141. Guidi, ‘ “My own utopia’’. The economics of Bentham’s Panopticon’, in European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 11, 3 (Autumn 2004), 406. 142. Brent Richards, New Glass Architecture, London: Laurence King, 2006, p. 7. Richards’ ‘glass family tree’ (p. 6) begins however with the Crystal Palace and there is no mention of Panopticon, perhaps because it was never actually built. 143. Bahmueller, The National Charity Company, pp. 142–144. 144. Michael Quinn, ‘Jeremy Bentham on the relief of indigence: an exercise in applied philosophy’, in Utilitas, 6, 1 (May 1994), 81, note 1. 145. RRR, pp. 195–203. 146. Ibid., p. 195. 147. Ibid., pp. 199–200. 148. Ibid., pp. 205–226. 149. This tract remained unpublished until 1830. Emancipate your colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Ao 1793, shewing the uselessness and mischievousness of distant dependencies to a European state, London: Robert Heward, 1830. 150. Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings, W. Stark (ed.), 3 vols, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952–1954, I, 283. 151. Ibid., I, 290. 152. Ibid., I, 290. 153. Ibid., II, 13. 154. Scotch Reform; considered, with reference to the plan, proposed in the late parliament, for the regulation of the courts, and the administration of justice, in Scotland: with illustrations from English non-reform: in the course of which divers imperfections, abuses and corruptions in the administration of justice, with their causes, are now, for the first time, brought to light. . . . With tables, in which the principal causes of factitious complication, delay, vexation, and expense, are distinguished from such as are natural and unavoidable, London: Richard Taylor, 1808. Text in Bowring, Works, v, 1–60. 155. For an interesting recent study of this work, see Anthony J. Draper, ‘Corruptions in the administration of justice: Bentham’s critique of civil procedure, 1806– 1811’, Journal of Bentham Studies, 7 (2004), 1–19 (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/BenthamProject/journal/adprocedure.htm). The opening words of Draper’s article are ‘To supply justice to all at least expense – this is the notion of legal procedure presented by Jeremy Bentham in his work Scotch Reform.’ In a footnote Draper points out that ‘expense’ is meant here in the widest utilitarian sense and ‘incorporating all evils and pains experienced during the process of litigation’.

324 Notes 156. See for example: Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized, Philip Schofield (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, Appendix C, pp. 368–373; An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, J. H. Burns, H. L. A. Hart, Fred Rosen (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 14, note d (Bentham here records hearing someone say that the principle of utility was ‘dangerous’, to which he replies: ‘Dangerous it therefore really was, to the interest – the sinister interest – of all those functionaries. . . . Whose interest it was, to maximize delay, vexation, and expense, in judicial and other modes of procedure’); See Scotch Reform in Bowring v, p. 5, Letter 1, ‘Collateral ends of justice, prevention of delay, vexation, and expense, insofar as superfluous or preponderant (viz. over the mischief from misdecision or from failure of justice’). 157. Jeremy Bentham, Draught of a new plan for the organisation of the judicial establishment in France: proposed as a succedaneum to the draught presented, for the same purpose, by the committee of constitution, to the National Assembly, December 21st, 1789; see Bowring, Works, iv, 285–406. 158. Bowring, Works, iv, 325. 159. Ibid., Works, iv, 331. Bentham contrasts this ‘metaphysical’ principle of organising the court system with the ‘geographical’ system according to which there are different courts at local, regional, and national levels: ‘Five courts the committee have taken from the geographical principle; courts of appeal included: the canton court, the district court, the department court, the superior court, and the supreme court. Four others they have taken from the metaphysical principle: their high national court, their court of trade, their court of administration, and revenue: not to mention what they call a reconciliation–office, and I a court for obstructing justice.’ 160. Ibid., Works, iv, 345. 161. See ‘Considérations d’un Anglois sur la composition des Etats-Généraux y compris réponses aux questions proposées aux Notables &c. 1788’ in RRR, p. 69. See also Nathalie Sigot, Bentham et l’Economie. Une histoire d’utilité, Paris: Economica, 2001, pp. 23 ff. For a discussion of Bentham’s view of the connection between money and happiness, see David Lieberman, ‘Economy and Polity in Bentham’s science of legislation’, Economy, Polity, and Society. British Intellectual History 1750–1950, Stefan Collini, Richard Whatmore, Brian Young (eds), Cambridge: CUP, 2000, pp. 123–124; Harrison, Bentham, pp. 155–162. 162. See Traités de législation civile et pénale [1802], vol. ii, pp. 55ff. for Dumont’s account of Bentham’s view of what activities have to be funded by the state; see also Bentham’s ‘Short view of economy’, RRR, 195–203. 163. Bowring, Works, i, 501. 164. Ibid., iv, 39. 165. Ibid., 118. 166. Bentham draws a comparison with the space allowed between decks in the vessel of Captain Cook: ‘Had Captain Cook ten feet, eight feet, seven feet between decks? – Captain Cook, under whom, in a voyage that embraced all the climates of the globe, out of 80 men not a single one died in a space of between four and five years?’ (Bowring, Works, iv, 121). 167. In the second postscript to Panopticon; see Bowring, Works, iv, 121–172. 168. Nathalie Sigot calls it ‘une sorte de cristallisation de l’utilitarisme’ (Nathalie Sigot, Bentham et l’Economie. Une histoire d’utilité, Paris: Economica, 2001, p. 1). 169. Bowring, Works, xi, 98. 170. Ibid., 99n.

Notes

325

171. Ibid., i, 498. This is part of Dumont’s brief and lucid summary of the Panopticon plan as printed by Bowring in ‘Principles of the Penal Law’. 172. See Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne: Afterwards First Marquess of Lansdowne 1776–1805, 3 vols, London: Macmillan, 1876, iii, 68ff. Lansdowne’s motion was debated in February 1780. See also J. E. D. Binney, British Public Finance and Administration 1774–1792, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958, p. 8. As Earl of Shelburne, Lansdowne was briefly First Minister 1782–1783. See pp. 129–131. 173. Fitmaurice, Life of William, Earl Shelburne, iii, 71; John Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640–1832, Cambridge: CUP, 1973, pp. 77–78. 174. Binney, British Public Finance, p. 11. 175. Ibid., p. 265. 176. Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl Shelburne., p. 73. See G. S. Veitch, The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform, London: Constable, 1913, ch. 3. 177. Cf., for example, Binney, British Public Finance and Administration, p. 7. 178. Ibid., p. 8. 179. Ibid., p. 15. 180. Ibid., p. 268. 181. Ibid., pp. 272 ff. 182. Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure, New York/London: Transaction, 2007 [1939], p. 94. 183. Marco E. L. Guidi, ‘Bentham’s economics of legislation’, in Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice (2002–2003), 165–189 (accessible on the Internet through http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/usbdipdss/guidi-20000301– 1.htm). See also Marco E. L. Guidi, ‘Bentham’s Economics of Emulation’, Dipartimento di Studi Sociali, Università di Brescia, DSS Papers, STO 1–97 at http://fausto.eco.unibs.it/segdss/dss/paper.html. 184. Guidi, ‘Bentham’s economics of legislation’, p. 6. 185. Guidi, ‘My own Utopia’, 405–431. 186. Ibid., 407. 187. Ibid., 408. 188. Alan McKinlay and Ken Starkey (eds), Foucault, Management, and Organization Theory, London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage, 1998, p. 4. Anne Brunon-Ernst has noted that Foucault was interested in Bentham’s focus on the idea of ‘frugal government’. See Anne Brunon-Ernst ‘Foucault revisited’, Journal of Bentham Studies (online), pp. 6–9. On Taylor see Robert Kanigel, The One Best Way. Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, London: Little, Brown, 1997. 189. Rusche and Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure. 190. The expression occurs in the introduction to Ctrl [Space], p. 11. 191. Janet Semple ended her account of Panopticon with a chapter on Bentham’s utopian thinking, but her discussion is vitiated by her focus on Panopticon as a prison rather than an architectural technique. 192. For a recent account of Dumont’s work on Bentham, see Emmanuelle de Champs, ‘La postérité des idées de Jeremy Bentham: la notion d’influence à l’épreuve’ in Cromohs, 11 (2006): pp. 7–17, http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/11_2006/ dechamps_bentham.htm. 193. W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, A. L. Goodhart and H. G. Hanbury (eds), vol. xiii, London: Methuen, 1952, p. 52. 194. Cited in Holdsworth, A History of English Law, xiii, 52. 195. Plamenatz, The English Utilitarians, p. 63.

326 Notes 196. L. J. Hume, Bentham and Bureaucracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 143. Cf. Jacques-Alain Miller’s delightful observation that each element of Panopticon is un carrefour d’utilités (a crossroad of utilities) – see Jacques-Alain Miller, ‘Le despotisme utile. La machine panoptique de Jeremy Bentham’, in Ornicar? Bulletin périodique du champ freudien, No. 3 (May 1975), 3–36. 197. More than 180 boxes of papers. The Bentham Project has been doing an impressive job of publishing them, but there remains some way to go. 198. John Neal lived in Bentham’s house for some time from 17 December 1825. See Neal, Principles of Legislation, p. 59. 199. Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 35–36. See also Cyprian Blamires, ‘Etienne Dumont: Genevan Apostle of Utility’, Utilitas, 2, 1 (May 1990), 58. 200. See F. Hayek, The Counterrevolution of Science, London: Free Press, 1955; Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers. The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996; I. Bernard Cohen, The Triumph of Numbers: How Counting Shaped Modern Life, New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. 201. Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794); see his Essai sur l’application de l’analyse aux probabilités des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix, 1785; also, for example, Keith Michael Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975; Franck Alengry, Condorcet, guide de la Révolution française, théoricien et précurseur de la science sociale, Paris: V Giard & E Brière, 1904. 202. Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), Swedish naturalist and physician and the creator of modern scientific nomenclature for organisms. The only monograph on the subject is Silvestro Marcucci, Bentham e Linneo. Una interpretazione singolare, Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore, 1979. For a useful study of Linnaeus, see Lisbet Koerner, Linnaeus: Nature and Nation, Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1999. 203. See J. Bentham, A Comment on the Commentaries and a Fragment on Government, J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (eds), London: Athlone Press, 1977. 204. See RRR, pp. 317ff. 205. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, p. 11. 206. See note 217 below. 207. The Theory of Legislation by Jeremy Bentham, Etienne Dumont (trans.), James E. Crimmins (ed.), Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004, Introduction, pp. v–vi. 208. W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, xiii , p. 51. 209. David Baumgardt, Bentham and the Ethics of Today, New York: Octagon, 1966 [1952], p. 13. 210. Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, pp. 76, 78. 211. [Miss Morgan,] The Gaol of the City of Bristol, p. 77. ‘Miss Morgan’ is mentioned passim in Bentham’s correspondence – see vol viii, as index. 212. Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, 2 vols, London: Vogel et Schulze, 1811, i, 242–268; Traités de législation civile et pénale, 3 vols, Paris: Bossange, Masson et Besson, 1802, iii, 203–272. 213. Lieberman, ‘Historiographical Review from Bentham to Benthamism’, p. 210. 214. Neal, Principles of Legislation, p. 64. 215. George Borrow, The Bible in Spain, London, 1843, ch. xxx. 216. For an account of this incident and for an excellent survey of the dissemination of the ideas of what he styles ‘Bentham-Dumont’ across the world, see

Notes

217.

218.

219. 220. 221.

327

J. R. Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham and the early nineteenth century’ in The Bentham Newsletter, No. 8, 15–33. For Spanish translations of Dumont, see below, pp. 296–297. Theory of Legislation; by Jeremy Bentham. Translated from the French of Etienne Dumont, by R. Hildreth, author of Banks, Banking, and Paper Currencies, Despotism in America, Archy Moore, &c., Boston: Weeks, Jordan, & Company, 1840. It is wrongly stated in the Chuo bibliography to be the first translation of ‘the whole three volumes’ of the Traités – whereas in fact it was a rendering of the first two only in the 1820 edition. The translation was not published in the United Kingdom until 1864 by Trubner & Co, but this ran through several editions until 1931 when C. K. Ogden brought out a new edition. Several further editions have been published since – the most recent in 2004 (see Bibliography under Dumont texts). In 1914 C. M. Atkinson produced a new translation: Bentham’s Theory of Legislation, being Principes de Législation and Traités de Législation civile et pénale, translated and edited from the French of Etienne Dumont by Charles Milner Atkinson, 2 vols, London: OUP, 1914. Atkinson’s version at least had the merit of mentioning Dumont in its title, unlike Ogden’s – which bears ‘The Theory of Legislation by Jeremy Bentham, edited and with an introduction by C. K. Ogden’ on its title page. (Overleaf it is stated to have been translated from the French of Etienne Dumont by Richard Hildreth – but how many readers would have noticed that or even been able to make any sense of it?) Again, the Chuo Bibliography of Bentham’s works mistakenly claims that Atkinson’s was a translation of all three volumes of Dumont when in fact it likewise rendered only the first two in the 1820 edition. The author has in his possession a copy of the Ogden edition of the Theory of Legislation that belonged to Charles Blount. Inscribed inside the front cover is the legend: ‘10th October 1934. Theory of the Modern State. Historical Tripos, part 2.’ Blount was an undergraduate at Pembroke College Cambridge who later went out to Geneva to research the question of a possible influence of Bentham on Mirabeau, research which he wrote up in an unpublished report, again in the author’s possession: ‘Bentham and Mirabeau: a study in Anglo-French history during the early years of the Revolutionary period’, Cambridge 1937. Holdsworth, A History, vol. I, pp. 355–396. Cheryl Welch, Liberty and Utility. The French Idéologues and the Transformation of Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1984, chapter 5. Jean Martin’s brief 1942 study of Dumont (Etienne Dumont 1759–1829: L’ami de Mirabeau, le voyageur, le patriote genevois, Neuchâtel: La Baconnière) was an anecdotal and highly selective account by a descendant of one of Dumont’s sisters, while Jefferson Selth’s more recent Firm Heart and Capacious Mind was written by someone confessedly unqualified to comment on Dumont’s ideas and intellectual life. Invaluable information in Jean Bénétruy, l’Atelier de Mirabeau, and in the same writer’s edition of Dumont’s Souvenirs sur Mirabeau et sur les deux premières Assemblées legislatives. A useful recent summary of Dumont’s life and work with an emphasis on translation issues: Hannelore Lee-Jahnke, ‘Etienne Dumont, ou l’esprit cartésien au service du jurisconsulte Jeremy Bentham’, in Portraits de Traducteurs, Jean Delisle (ed.), Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa/Artois Presses Université, 1999, pp. 131–170. Most summary accounts of Dumont’s life have relied heavily on two obituary eulogies: A. P. de Candolle, ‘Notice sur la vie et les écrits de M. Dumont’, Bibliothèque Universelle (literature section), 42 (1829), 318–339; and J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi, ‘Notice nécrologique sur M. Etienne Dumont’, in Revue encyclopédique, 4 (October 1829), 253–268. Eng. Translation

328 Notes in Boston Advertiser, February 10, 1830, reproduced in ‘Sketch of the life and character of Stephen Dumont’ in Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 157–176. In this same volume Neal also prints a ‘biographical notice of M. Dumont by J B’ and the J B in question is almost certainly John Bowring (Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 148–154). The modern edition of the Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham contains numerous letters written by Dumont and there are further letters in Memoirs of the life of Sir Samuel Romilly, Written by Himself: With a Selection from his Correspondence. Edited by his Sons, 3 vols, Shannon: Irish University Press, 1971 [London: John Murray, 2nd edn, 1840]. See also the various chapters and articles on Dumont by the present author in the bibliography; also Richard Whatmore, ‘Etienne Dumont, the British Constitution, and the French Revolution’, in Historical Journal, 50, 1 (2007), 23–47. The Bibliothèque de Genève (formerly the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève) holds a large collection of Dumont’s letters and numerous other manuscript writings by him in its archive.

2

Panopticon dominates Bentham’s existence

1. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, p. 13. 2. ‘To Russia we might go together: or if either of us prospered ever so little he ought to send for the other.’ Correspondence, ii, 222, Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 20–22 Jan 1779. 3. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, pp. 8, 32. 4. Oakeshott, ‘The new Bentham’, p. 122. 5. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, p. 31. 6. Ibid., p. 46. 7. For a vivid account of the Krichev estates and Samuel’s role there, see Sebag Montefiore, Prince of Princes, pp. 299ff. 8. Montefiore, Prince of Princes, p. 302. 9. Charles W. Everett, Jeremy Bentham, New York: Dell, 1966, p. 37. 10. Werret, ‘Potemkin and the Panopticon. Samuel Bentham and the architecture of absolutism in eighteenth century Russia’, in The Journal of Bentham Studies, 2 (1999); see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/journal/n/werret.htm. I am not in sympathy with Werret’s thesis in this article about a supposed influence of Russian Orthodox Church architecture on Samuel Bentham. 11. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, pp. 125 ff. 12. Montefiore, Prince of Princes, p. 303. 13. Correspondence, iii, 345ff. 14. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, pp. 177–178. 15. Ibid., p. 178. 16. Bentham, The Life of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, KSG, p. 83. 17. See Mora Dickson, Teacher Extraordinary. Joseph Lancaster 1778–1836, Lewes: Book Guild, 1986. 18. Foucault does not mention the Lancasterian system in his text, and this may be why the English version omits to reproduce these prints. 19. Joseph Lancaster, The British System of Education: Being a Complete Epitome of the Improvements and Inventions Practised by Joseph Lancaster: To which is Added, a Report of the Trustees of the Lancaster School at Georgetown, Col., Georgetown: Joseph Milligan, 1812, pp. 78–79; see also Cyprian Blamires, ‘Le Panoptique n’est pas une prison’, Les Sphères du pénal avec Michel Foucault Marco Cicchini, Michel Porret (eds), pp. 51–53. On Lancaster, see also Joyce Taylor, Joseph Lancaster, the Poor

Notes

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.

45. 46. 47.

48.

329

Child’s Friend: Educating the Poor in the Early nineteenth century, San Diego, CA: Campanile Press, 1996. On the topic, see Chrestomathia (The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham) M. J. Smith, W. H. Burston (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, editorial introduction. For the text of the letters, see Bowring, Works, iv, 40–66. Correspondence, iii, 509. Ibid., 511. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, p. 178. Cf. Webb, English Prisons, pp. 43–44. Correspondence, iii, 534–536. See p. 534 for an explanation of the circumstances. C. W. Everett, The Education of Jeremy Bentham, New York: Columbia University Press, 1931, pp. 154ff. Ibid., p. 163. Ibid., p. 164. It was composed between January and April 1787. Full title: Defence of Usury; Shewing the Impolicy of the Present Legal Restraints on the Terms of Pecuniary Bargains. In a Series of Letters to a Friend. To Which is Added, a Letter to Adam Smith esq: LL.D. On the Discouragements Opposed by the Above Restraints to the Progress of Inventive Industry, London: T Payne & Son, 1787. Text in Bowring, Works, iii, 1–29. Bowring, Works, iii, 28. Ibid., iii, 29. Correspondence, iii, 536. Semple, Bentham’s Prison, p. 311. Bentham, Correspondence, iv, 317, Samuel Bentham to Bentham, 28 June 1791. Cf. esp. Jonathan Coad, The Portsmouth Block Mills: Bentham, Brunel, and the Start of the Royal Navy’s Industrial Revolution, Swindon: English Heritage, 2005. Ibid., p. 23. J. Richards, A Treatise on the Construction and Operation of Woodworking Machinery, London, 1872 (cited in Coad, The Portsmouth Block Mills, p. 23). Semple, Bentham’s Prison, p. 106. Coad, The Portsmouth Block Mills, p. 23. Marc Isambard Brunel (1769–1849), engineer and inventor. In 1843 he was to complete the first tunnel under the Thames. Coad, The Portsmouth Block Mills, Blurb. Ibid., p. 96. Samuel’s giftedness as an inventor was expounded powerfully by C. W. Everett in his Bentham, pp. 77–81. Samuel’s treatment at the hands of the naval authorities led Everett to observe that it ‘shows that any projector who is ahead of his time, in engineering as well as in political economy, will be refused recognition’ (Everett, Bentham, p. 77). Bowring, Works, xi, 106–107. M. S. Bentham, The Life of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, KSG. On Mary Bentham, see Catherine Pease-Watkin, ‘The Influence of Mary Bentham on John Stuart Mill’, Journal of Bentham Studies, 8 (2006); George Bentham, Autobiography 1800–1834, Marion Filipiuk (ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. An Introductory Outline of the Practice of Shipbuilding, Portsea: William Woodward, 1825. John Fincham taught shipbuilding at the School of Naval Architecture as well as being himself a Master Shipwright: see John Fincham, A Treatise on Masting Ships and Mast-making, London: Conway Maritime Press, 1982 [1829], Blurb.

330 Notes 49. See John Fincham to Lady Bentham, 26 April 1834 (letter in private hands). 50. See ‘M[ary] S[ophia] B[entham]’, ‘Industrial Education’, The Mechanics’ Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette, J. C. Robertson (ed.), Vol. LIX (January 4–June 28 1851), 23–28. 51. Bowring, Works, iv, 37–172. 52. Ibid., 67–121. 53. David Boyle, The Tyranny of Numbers, London: Harpercollins, 2000, p. 24. 54. Bowring, Works, iv, 125; the statement is repeated on p. 128. 55. Ibid., 127. 56. This letter is cited at Correspondence, iv, 137, note 3. Sir John Parnell (1744–1801), grandfather of the famous Charles Stewart Parnell, had been appointed Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1785. He was responding to an initiative by Lord Lansdowne, who had sent him copies of the Panopticon Letters. See Semple, Bentham’s Prison, pp. 102–103. 57. Correspondence, iv, 139, note 3. 58. François Alexandre Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld, duc de Liancourt (1747–1827), briefly president of the National Assembly following the storming of the Bastille. 59. Correspondence, iv, 138–139. Alexandre Cazaux (1727–1796) passed himself off as a marquis, he was a West Indian planter and political writer for whom Mirabeau had a high regard. 60. Ibid., 142. 61. Correspondence, iv, 209, Bentham to Samuel Bentham 6 December 1790. 62. For an account of the complicated story of the first printings of the Panopticon texts, see A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Works of Jeremy Bentham, Sadao Ikeda, Michihiro Otanashi and Tamihiro Shigemori (eds), pp. 108–110. 63. Correspondence, iv, 143. This letter survives only as an autograph draft. Sir Thomas Beevor (1726–1814) was a Norfolk philanthropist who had converted the Wymondham Bridewell to the principles of penitentiary confinement in 1785; see David M. Horton, Pioneers in Penology: the Reformers, the Institutions, and the Societies, 1557–1900, Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007. 64. Correspondence, iv, 144. 65. See Oliver Macdonagh, The Inspector General: Sir Jeremiah Fitzpatrick and the Politics of Social Reform, 1783–1802, London: Croom Helm, 1981; Richard L. Blanco, ‘The Soldier’s friend – Sir Jeremiah Fitzpatrick, Inspector of Health for Land Forces’, Medical History, 20, 4 (1976), 402–421. 66. See Macdonagh, The Inspector General, pp. 133–138. 67. Ibid., pp. 133–134. 68. Ibid., chapters 3, 6. It is intriguing that Macdonagh should have chosen to entitle his book on Fitzpatrick The Inspector General. 69. John Howard, The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, London, 1777. 70. ‘An Account of the origin, progress, and regulations, with a description of the newly-erected Bridewell or Penitentiary House, at Wymondham, in Norfolk’, sent by Sir Thomas Beevor to the Annual Register (1786) 87–93; here, pp. 87–88. 71. Correspondence, iv, 190–191. 72. Ibid., 197. 73. Ibid., 199. Bentham had met architect Willey Reveley (1760–1799) on his travels in 1785. Reveley was a polymath and a visionary whose projects included a plan to straighten the River Thames in order to create a more efficient system of docks at a time of huge expansion in riverborne traffic; cf.

Notes

74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83. 84. 85.

86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

95.

96. 97.

331

http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/straight%20thames.htm, consulted 7 March 2007. Correspondence, iv, 207. James Wadman Alexander (c. 1767–1837) of Oxford University. Ibid., 209. William Pitt (The younger: 1759–1806), Prime Minister. Correspondence, iv, 223ff. Ibid., 230. William Wyndham Grenville (1759–1834: created Baron in November 1790) was appointed Secretary of State for Home Affairs in June 1790. Ibid., 231. Correspondence, iv, 235. Joseph Jekyll (1754–1837), MP for Calne 1787–1816. Correspondence, iv, 236. Sir (Thomas) Charles Bunbury (1740–1821), MP for Suffolk 1761–1784, 1790–1812, who had been working for reform of the criminal law since at least 1771. He was to become one of Bentham’s staunchest allies in the Panopticon project. Thomas Powys (1743–1800), 1st Baron Lilford, represented Northamptonshire 1774–1797. William Wilberforce (1759–1832) was the celebrated leader of the evangelical party (often referred to as the ‘Claphham Sect’) and slave trade abolitionist. He was also to become a fervent supporter of Panopticon. See Ross E. Stewart, ‘Nineteenth century accounting practices and prison proposals: Christian and secular allies in social discipline’, Christian Scholar’s Review, xxix, 1 (Fall 1999), 129–154 for some helpful reflections on why Wilberforce might have been sympathetic to Bentham. Correspondence, iv, 262. Ibid., 278. Ibid., 282. Reginald Pole Carew (1753–1835), MP for mostly Cornish constituencies 1782–1816; he had been on close terms with Samuel Bentham in St Petersburg. He became a supporter of Panopticon. Thomas Steele (1753–1823), MP for Chichester and junior secretary to the Treasury 1783–1791. Robert Adam (1728–1792) made designs for a new Bridewell in Edinburgh but after his death it had to be completed by his brother James who later corresponded with Bentham. Correspondence, iv, 289. Benjamin Vaughan (1751–1835), confidant of Lord Lansdowne. Correspondence, iv, 295. James Anderson (1739–1808) published a periodical named The Bee in Edinburgh 1790–1794. Correspondence, iv, 297. Ibid., 299. Ibid., 302. The Edinburgh Bridewell as constructed was semi-circular in design and did incorporate some elements of Bentham’s vision but could not be described as a Panopticon. Correspondence, iv, 319. Alleyne Fitzherbert (1753–1839), Baron St Helens, a diplomat had been envoy-extraordinary at the Russian Court 1783–1787 and was a good friend of the Bentham brothers. Printed in 1790 but not published. It was included by Dumont in his Traités de législation civile et pénale which he published in 1802. See pp.187–194. Correspondence, iv, 340. Jean Philippe Garran de Coulon (1748–1816) was a lawyer and judge.

332 Notes 98. Ibid., 342. Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754–1793) was a journalist and legal philosopher who had been in correspondence with Bentham since the early 1780s. He was elected a member of the municipality of Paris and later of the Legislative Assembly. 99. Bentham, Correspondence, iv, 343. 100. Ibid., 349. Robert Hobart (1760–1818), later Baron Hobart and Earl of Buckingham, was Chief Secretary of Ireland. 101. Ibid., 352. Thomas Johnes (1748–1816) represented several Welsh seats (including Radnorshire 1780–1796) in Parliament between 1775 and his death. 102. Ibid., 359. 103. Ibid., 361. William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland (1744–1814) held various diplomatic and ministerial posts during his lifetime and had published Principles of Penal Law in 1772. He and Bentham had corresponded previously in connection with the Penitentiary Act of 1779. 104. Ibid., 362. 105. Ibid., 363. Charles, 3rd Earl Stanhope (1753–1816), had close connections with Lord Lansdowne and was known for his radical political views. 106. Ibid., 366. Duncan Campbell had been appointed superintendent of the hulks at Woolwich after the Hulks Act was passed in 1776. (It had been precipitated by the closing off of the American Colonies as a transportation outlet.) 107. Ibid., 367. George Rose (1744–1818) represented three different constituencies during his lifetime and at this period was also Clerk of the Parliaments. 108. Ibid., 369. 109. Ibid., 395. Henry Dundas, later 1st Viscount Melville (1742–1811), Pitt’s Home Secretary from 1791 to 1794. 110. Alexander Wedderburn (1733–1805), created 1st Earl of Rosslyn on his relinquishment of the Chancellorship in 1801. 111. Ibid., 418. 112. Ibid., 428. 113. Ibid., 432. 114. Ibid., 435. 115. Ibid., 440. 116. George John Spencer (1758–1834), 2nd Earl Spencer, adamantly refused to sell the land Bentham considered most appropriate for his Panopticon. 117. Correspondence, iv, 455. 118. Ibid., 482. 119. Lloyd Kenyon (1732–1802), Lord Chief Justice 1788–1802. 120. Correspondence, iv, 483. 121. Ibid., v, 22. 122. Sir Evan Nepean (1751–1822), Under Secretary of State, in 1795 made Secretary to the Admiralty. He was to be one of Bentham’s most patient and long-suffering supporters in the Panopticon saga. 123. Correspondence, v, 27. Charles Long (1761–1838), later Baron Farnborough, was joint-secretary to the Treasury 1791–1801. 124. Ibid., 29. 125. Ibid., 32. 126. Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield (1755–1815) held minor offices in Pitt’s administration. 127. Correspondence, v, 37. 128. Ibid., 43.

Notes 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134.

135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144.

145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160.

161.

162.

333

Ibid., 46. Ibid., 49. 34 Geo: 3. Ch. 84; Correspondence, v, 114. Correspondence, v, 54. Ibid., 62. Philip Metcalfe (1733–1818), brewer and distiller, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. He was MP for Plympton Earle 1790–1796 and Malmbesbury from 1796. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 77. Ibid., 79. Ibid., 81. Ibid., 82. Bowring, Works ii, 583–598; see pp. 36–37. Correspondence, v, 90. Ibid., 97. Ibid., 99. Bentham, Correspondence, v, 112. Sir John Pennington, 1st Baron Muncaster (1737–1813) was MP for Milborne Port 1781–1796, for Colchester 1796–1802, and thereafter for Westmoreland. Sir Isaac Milner (1750–1820) was a divine and a mathematician, first professor of natural philosophy at Cambridge (1783–1792), president of Queen’s College (1788–1820) and university vice-chancellor in 1792 and 1809. Correspondence, v, 113. Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (1733–1800) had been home secretary under Shelburne and a member of the Bowood Circle. Ibid., 117. Ibid., 120. Ibid., 121. Ibid., 126. Ibid., 130. Ibid., 131. See Macdonagh, The Inspector General, pp. 138–141 for an account of the background to Parnell’s dealings with Bentham. Correspondence, v, 132. Ibid., 139. Ibid., 137. Ibid., 146. Ibid., 153. Ibid., 158. Ibid., 160. Jennifer Mori, William Pitt and the French Revolution 1789–1795, Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1997, p. 237. There is an abundance of literature on this topic, but see for example: Clive Emsley, ‘The Impact of the French Revolution on British politics and society’ in The French Revolution and British Culture, Ceri Crossley, Ian Small (eds), Oxford: OUP, 1989, pp. 31–62. Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, p. 165. Cf. Stephen Conway, ‘Bentham versus Pitt: Jeremy Bentham and British foreign policy 1789’ in The Historical Journal, 30, 4 (1987), 791–809; Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of Shelburne, iii, 478ff. Correspondence, v, 174.

334 Notes 163. Ibid., 187. See Writings on the Poor Laws vol. 1 (Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham) Michael Quinn (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001. 164. Bahmueller, The National Charity Company, p. 59. See also J. R. Poynter, Society and Pauperism. English Ideas on Poor Relief, 1795–1834, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969, pp. 117–155; Brunon-Ernst, Le Panoptique des Pauvres. 165. Bahmueller, The National Charity Company, p. 59. 166. For Bentham’s illustrations of his plans for a Panopticon poorhouse, see Brian Inglis, Poverty and the Industrial Revolution, London: Panther, 1972 [1971], pp. 89–91. 167. See Correspondence, iv, letters 846, 847, 855, 861. Francis Burton (1744?–1832) was a bencher of Lincoln’s Inn and a judge as well as being MP, latterly for Oxford (1790–1812). 168. Correspondence, v, 188. 169. Ibid. 170. Ibid., 189. William Morton Pitt (1754–1836), MP for Poole 1780–1790 and for Dorset 1790–1826. As a landlord he was a reformer and social improver with a concern for the problem of poverty. 171. A. G. L. Rogers, introduction to The State of the Poor. A History of the Labouring Classes in England with Parochial Reports, by Sir Frederic Morton Eden Bart., London: George Routledge, 1928 [1797]. 172. Correspondence, v, 193. 173. Ibid., 196. 174. Ibid., 207. 175. In a later letter he calls it ‘the plague-manufacturing marsh’. Bentham, Correspondence, vi, 212. 176. Correspondence, v, 210. 177. Ibid., 235. Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson (1726–98) was an army officer who owned Charlton manor. Not to be confused with his son Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson. 178. Correspondence, v, 238. 179. Ibid., 239. This was Sir Archibald Macdonald (1747–1826), Attorney General 1788–1792 and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer 1793–1813, and his wife Lady Louisa. 180. Correspondence, v, 240. 181. Ibid., 241ff. 182. Ibid., 252. 183. Brissot published le Patriote français during the Constituent Assembly; The journal of Mirabeau was the Courier de Provence – see p. 147. For Judicial Establishment, see pp. 185–187. 184. Brissot was instrumental in getting the Legislative Assembly to declare Bentham a French citizen; cf. Eloise Ellery, Brissot de Warville. A Study in the History of the French Revolution, New York: AMS Press, 1970 [1915], p. 25, note 1. 185. Correspondence, v, 265. 186. Ibid., 271. 187. Ibid., 259. 188. Ibid., 274. 189. Ibid., 281. 190. Ibid., 286. 191. Ibid., 289. Samuel Horsley (1733–1806) was both Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster.

Notes 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197.

198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205.

206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219.

220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228.

335

Correspondence, v, 301. Ibid., 309. Ibid., 310. Ibid., 316. Ibid., 324. Ibid., 325. Patrick Colquhoun (1745–1820) was a metropolitan police magistrate from 1792 to 1818. He authored a number of works on the police, on poor relief, and on trade. Ibid., 330. Ibid., 347. Ibid., 359; the Attorney General at the time was Sir John Scott (1751–1838), later Baron Eldon and 1st Earl of Eldon. Ibid., 362. Sir Samuel Romilly (1757–1818), MP, Solicitor-General, promoter of law reform in Parliament, longstanding friend of Bentham and of Etienne Dumont. Ibid., 365. Ibid., 366. Ibid., 369. Sir John Sinclair (1754–1835) was president of the Board of Agriculture 1793–1798 and 1806–1814; he was MP for three different constituencies between 1780 and 1811. Bentham, Correspondence, v, 369. Ibid., 374. Arthur Young (1741–1820), celebrated travel writer and editor of Annals of Agriculture. Ibid., 386. Schofield, Utility and Democracy, p. 109. For an account of the plan, see M. S. Bentham, Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham KSG, pp. 121–122. Correspondence, vi, 4. Charles Butler (1750–1832) was a Catholic lawyer who specialised in conveyancing. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 9. Hume, ‘Bentham’s Panopticon’, p. 202. Correspondence, vi, 10. Ibid., 13. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 18. Henry Thornton (1760–1815), fellow-member with Wilberforce of the ‘Clapham sect’, banker, economist, philanthropist, and MP for Southwark 1782–1815. Cited from the diary of Charles Abbott, in Correspondence, vi, 18, note 1. Correspondence, vi, 19. Ibid., 25. Ibid., 27. Ibid., 35. Ibid., 38, 39. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 45. Robert Grosvenor, 2nd Earl Grosvenor and 1st Marquis of Westminster (1767– 1845) was a lord of the Admiralty 1789–1791 and a Commissioner of the Board of Control 1793–1801.

336 Notes 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249.

250. 251. 252. 253. 254. 255. 256. 257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262. 263. 264.

265. 266. 267. 268.

Correspondence, vi, 47. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 61. Ibid., 85. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 95. Ibid., 96. Ibid., 108ff. Ibid., 114, 115. Ibid., 119. Ibid., 123. Ibid., 124. Ibid., 125. Ibid., 126. Ibid., 128. Ibid. 130ff. James Cecil, 7th Earl and 1st Marquis of Salisbury (1748–1823), holder of various minor government offices. Correspondence, vi, 150. Ibid., 158. Joseph White, solicitor to the Treasury. Edmund Estcourt (d. 1814), agent to Lord Salisbury. Charles Abbot, 1st Baron Colchester (1757–1829) was Bentham’s stepbrother; a barrister, he became an MP in 1795 representing Helston and became Speaker of the House of Commons 1802–1817. He was chairman of the Finance Committee appointed by Pitt 1797–1799. Correspondence, vi, 167. Ibid., 186ff. Ibid., 231. Edward Boodle (1750?–1828), land agent for the Grosvenors. Ibid., 237. The Grosvenors father and son: at this time Lord Grosvenor junior went under the title of Viscount Belgrave. Ibid., 247. Ibid., 288. Ibid., 292. Ibid., 298. Ibid., 300. Ibid., 311. Ibid., 316. Ibid., 326. Ibid., 344. Ibid., 345ff. Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), physician and savant, son of Samuel Romilly’s sister. He later attained celebrity as the author of the renowned Roget’s Thesaurus, still in print; for the frigidarium, see David L. Cohen, ‘Bentham’s Frigidarium: Utilitarianism and Food Preservation’, Journal of Bentham Studies, 1 (1997). Correspondence, vi, 352. Ibid., 364. Ibid., 375. Ibid., 382. William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738– 1809), Home Secretary 1794–1801, Lord President of the Council 1801–1805.

Notes

337

269. Correspondence, vi, 383. Henry Addington (1757–1844), later 1st Viscount Sidmouth, was First Lord of the Treasury 1801–1804. 270. Hume, Bentham and Bureaucracy, p. 165. 271. Correspondence, vi, 403. 272. Ibid., 443. Nicholas Vansittart (1766–1851), later 1st Baron Bexley, joint secretary to the Treasury 1801–1804, 1806–1807 and later Chancellor of the Exchequer. 273. Correspondence, vi, 464. Thomas Pelham (1756–1826), later Baron Pelham and 2nd Earl of Chichester, succeeded the Duke of Portland as Home Secretary. 274. See pp. 244–253. 275. Correspondence, vi, 449. 276. Ibid., 465. 277. Correspondence, vii, 3ff. 278. Ibid., 5. 279. Ibid., 13. 280. Ibid., 15. 281. Ibid., 16. Sir William Pulteney (1729–1805), MP for Shrewsbury since 1775. 282. Correspondence, vii, 19. 283. Ibid., 23. 284. See Bowring, Works, xi, 96–197 and Semple, Bentham’s Prison, Appendix, pp. 324–325. 285. Correspondence, vii, 67. 286. Ibid., 69. 287. Ibid., 72. 288. Ibid., 76. 289. Ibid., 77. 290. Ibid., 78. 291. Ibid., 79. 292. Ibid., 81. 293. Ibid., 93. 294. This was the window of peace in hostilities with France known as the Peace of Amiens, during which hordes of visitors flocked to Paris. 295. Correspondence, vii, 95, note 9. A Plea for the Constitution: Shewing the Enormities Committed to the Oppression of British Subjects, Innocent as well as Guilty, in Breach of Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights; as Likewise of the Several Transportation Acts; in and by the Design, Foundation and Government of the Penal Colony of New South Wales: Including an Inquiry into the Right of the Crown to Legislate with our Parliament in Trinidad, and Other British Colonies, London: Mawman, Hatchard, 1803. See Bowring, iv, 249–284. 296. Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), was the son of Lord Lansdowne by his second marriage. In 1806 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer for a brief spell and thereafter served several spells in government. For Dumont’s relationship with him, see p. 129. 297. Schofield, Utility and Democracy, p. 109. 298. Ibid., p. 111. 299. Correspondence, vii, 101. 300. Ibid., 102. 301. Ibid., 116. 302. See pp. 254–285. 303. Ibid., 117.

338 Notes 304. Ibid., 128. See John Pollock, Wilberforce, Tring: Lion Publishing, 1977, pp. 137– 139 for some account of Wilberforce and Bentham. Biographers of Wilberforce are chiefly interested in his involvement in the campaign against the slave trade and not in this kind of activity. But see Ross E. Stewart, ‘Nineteenth-century accounting practices and prison proposals: Christian and secular allies in social discipline’, Christian Scholar’s Review, xxix, 1 (Fall 1999), 129–152. 305. Correspondence, vii, 131. 306. Ibid., 137. 307. Ibid., 139. 308. Ibid., 146. 309. Ibid., 154. 310. Ibid., 187. 311. Benjamin Hobhouse (1757–1831), MP 1797–1818, secretary to the board of control Autumn 1803–May 1804. 312. Correspondence, vii, 189. These comprised: Letter to Lord Pelham, Giving a Comparative View of the System of Penal Colonization in New South Wales, and the Home Penitentiary System, as Prescribed by Two Acts of Parliament of the Years 1794 and 1799; Second Letter to Lord Pelham, in Continuation of the Comparative View . . . Printed in November and December 1802 respectively, they were later printed in 1812 together with A Plea for the Constitution under the title Panopticon versus New South Wales; See Bowring, Works, iv, 173–248. 313. Correspondence, vii, 190. 314. Ibid., 192. 315. Ibid., 194. Lt Col David Collins (1756–1810) had been judge advocate of New South Wales 1787–96. After his return to England he published An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, 2 vols, 1798–1802. 316. Rev Dr Samuel Parr (1747–1825), classical scholar and schoolmaster, an old acquaintance of Bentham’s. 317. Correspondence, vii, 198. 318. Ibid., 206. 319. Spencer Perceval (1762–1812), attorney-general 1802–1806, chancellor of the exchequer 1807–1809, first lord of the treasury 1809–1812. 320. Correspondence, vii, 207. 321. Bowring, Works, iv, 254. 322. Correspondence, vii, 215. 323. Ibid., 220. See R. V. Jackson, ‘Theory and Evidence: Bentham, Collins, and the New South Wales penal settlement’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 39 (1993), 318–329; Jackson, ‘Jeremy Bentham and the New South Wales convicts’, International Journal of Social Economics, 25 (1998), 370–379. 324. Correspondence, vii, 222. 325. Ibid., 231. 326. Ibid., 234. 327. Ibid., 240. 328. Ibid., 240. 329. Ibid., 253ff. 330. Ibid., 384. 331. See Hume, ‘Bentham’s Panopticon’, p. 211; Werret, ‘Potemkin and the Panopticon’, p. 12. 332. Correspondence, vii, 447. 333. Correspondence, viii, 224.

Notes 334. 335. 336. 337. 338. 339. 340. 341. 342. 343. 344. 345. 346. 347. 348. 349. 350. 351. 352. 353. 354. 355. 356. 357. 358. 359. 360. 361. 362. 363. 364.

365. 366.

339

Correspondence, vii, 430. Ibid., 507. Correspondence, viii, 33. Ibid., 64. Ibid., 65. Ibid., 68. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 88. George (later Sir George) Harrison (1767–1841) was assistant secretary to the treasury 1805–1826. Ibid., 107. Bowring, Works, xi, 106. Greenfingers, starring Clive Owen and Helen Mirren, MGM, 2003. ‘Report from the Committee on the Laws relating to Penitentiary Houses’, p. 13. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., p. 14. Correspondence, viii, 110. Ibid., 111. Ibid., 119. Ibid., 135. This is curious, in the light of the fact that many prison inmates themselves choose to be tattooed. Ibid., 150. James Abercromby (1776–1858), later 1st Baron Dunfermline, at this time MP for Midhurst. Correspondence, viii, 158. Seán McConville, A History of English Prison Administration, Vol. I, 1750–1877, London/Boston/Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, I, 133. See McConville, A History of English Prison Administration, I, 134. It is curious that leading evangelical William Wilberforce was on the side of Bentham however. Sir George Onesiphorus Paul (1746–1820), son of an enterprising and innovative cloth manufacturer. ‘Report from the committee on laws relating to penitentiary houses’, Appendix 1, pp 23–32. McConville, English Prison Administration, I, 103; see the section ‘The Gloucester Penitentiary’ pp. 98–104. ‘Report’, Appendix 1, pp. 43–49. See Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain, p. 112; McConville, English Prison Administration I, 66–73. George Holford, Statements and Observations Concerning the Hulks, 1826, p. 13; cited in Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English Prisons Under Local Government, p. 86, note 3. Bowring, Works, iv, 46, 47. Cf. for example The Speeches of Samuel Romilly in the House of Commons, 2 vols, London: James Ridgway, 1820, I, 126: ‘Let it at the same time be remembered, as is indeed universally admitted, that the certainty of punishment is much more efficacious than any severity of example for the prevention of crimes. So evident is the truth of that maxim, that if it were possible that punishment, as the consequence of guilt, could be reduced to an absolute certainty, a very slight penalty

340 Notes

367.

368.

369. 370. 371. 372. 373. 374. 375.

376. 377. 378. 379. 380. 381.

382. 383.

would be sufficient to prevent almost every species of crime, except those which arise from sudden gusts of ungovernable passion . . . no crime . . . could exist, if it were infallibly certain that not good, but evil, must follow, as an unavoidable consequence to the person who committed it . . . the only means of accomplishing this, are a vigilant and enlightened Police, rational rules of Evidence, clear and unambiguous laws, and punishments proportioned to the offender’s guilt.’ (Speech in the House of Commons on the reform of the criminal law, 9 February 1810.) Etienne Dumont testified to this: see TLCP [1802] iii, p. 210. ‘Of so many establishments to which this principle could be applied with more or less of advantages, prisons seemed to him to be entitled to be the first port of call for the Legislator. Importance, variety, and difficulty, those are the reasons for this preference.’ Auto-icon; or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living. A Fragment, from the MSS. Of Jeremy Bentham. Unpublished text (printed 1842) – the last composition Bentham undertook in his lifetime, working on it until a few weeks before his death, and referring to it as his ‘last work’. See A Bibliographical Catalogue, Sadao Ikeda Michihiro Otanashi and Tamihiro Shigemori (eds), p. 25; for the text, see Jeremy Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings, James E. Crimmins (ed.), Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2002. The text has been published in recent times in Germany along with a German translation: Michael Hellenthal, Auto-Ikone oder Weitere Verwendungsmöglichkeiten von Toten zum Wohle der Lebenden [englisch und deutsch] herausgegeben, übersetzt, mit Anmerkungen und einem Nekrolog, Essen: die Blaue Eule, 1995. The editor labours under the misapprehension that this essay was an elaborate joke on Bentham’s part, whereas it was far from being lighthearted (though perhaps not every proposed use for dead bodies was meant to be taken equally seriously). See further Cyprian Blamires, ‘Le corps violenté par la raison. Bentham, icône de sa philosophie ou comment rendre utile les morts aux vivants’, in Le Corps violenté: du geste à la parole, Michel Porret (ed.), Geneva: Droz, 1998, pp. 313–322. Correspondence, viii, 218. William Pleydell-Bouverie, Viscount Folkestone (1779–1869), later 3rd Earl of Radnor, was MP for Salisbury. Ibid., 236. Ibid., 236, note 5. Ibid., 246. Ibid., 263. William Blackstone (1723–1780), celebrated Oxford law professor and standard authority on English jurisprudence in Bentham’s day; Bentham famously failed to return the compliment. Semple, Bentham’s Prison, p. 279. UC 174, 22, Dumont to Mme de Staël, October 1813. Correspondence, viii, 290. Semple, Bentham’s Prison, p. 279. Stark, Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings, I, 12. For a plan of Millbank as completed and an engraving of the architect’s original model, see Simon Hurley, The Lost Buildings of Britain, London: Viking, 2004, pp. 151, 153. Hurley, The Lost Buildings of Britain, p. 153. Bentham, Correspondence, x, p. 168, Bentham to José Joaquin de Mora, 19–21 November 1820.

Notes

341

384. Metropolitan Improvements or London in the Nineteenth Century. Being a Series of Views of the New and Most Interesting Objects in the British Metropolis and its Vicinity from Original Drawings by Thomas H. Shepherd with Historical, Topographical and Critical Illustrations by James Elmes, New York: Arno Press, 1978 [London, 1827–1831]. 385. Bernardino de la Trinidad González Rivadavia (1780–1845), who was to become first President of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata in 1826. 386. Correspondence, xi, 115, Bentham to Bernardino Rivadavia, 13–15 June 1822. Francis Hall (d. 1833) was an officer in the Irish Legion raised to fight under Bolivar: see Correspondence, xi, 75, Bentham to Francis Hall, 17 May 1822. 387. Sir Francis Burdett (1770–1844) represented several seats in Parliament at different times, at this period he was MP for Westminster. 388. Correspondence, xii, 199, Bentham to Sir Francis Burdett, 25 January 1826. 389. Ibid., 420, Bentham to Lord William Bentinck, Late December 1827 or early January 1828. 390. Robert Alan Cooper, ‘Jeremy Bentham, Elizabeth Fry, and English Prison Reform’, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. xlii, no. 4 (October–December 1981), 675/680. 391. Ibid., 689. 392. Everett, Bentham, p. 79. See M. S. Bentham, The Life of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, pp. 148–151. 393. Christie, The Benthams in Russia, p. 7, citing Bentham, Correspondence, ii, 108–111, 235–238.

3

The creator of the Bentham brand: (1) Dumont the Genevan

1. Cf. Gaspard Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau Genevois, Paris: Plon-Nourrit/Geneva: Jullien, 1911. The first words of this book are ‘Among the great French writers, the chief originality of Rousseau and the most crucial is that of not being French but Genevan’ (Introduction, p. i. Vallette repeats this claim in his conclusion, p. 434). 2. ‘The whole eighteenth century in Geneva was taken up with a series of internecine political conflicts. There were innumberable uprisings, “representations’’, mediations, pacifications and constitutions one after the other’, Ph. Plan, Un collaborateur de Mirabeau, Paris/Neuchâtel, 1874, p. 13. Plan’s brief summary account of the essence of the disputes is quite helpful. 3. For example J. Godechot, France and the Atlantic Revolution of the Eighteenth Century, 1770–1799, London: Collier-Macmillan, 1971 [1965]; cited in André Gür, ‘La Négociation de l’Edit du 11 mars 1768, d’après le journal de Jean-André Deluc et la correspondence de Gédéon Turretini’ in Revue Suisse d’Histoire, tome 17, fasc. 2 (1967), 166. 4. Godechot, France and the Atlantic Revolution, pp. 51–55. 5. J. L. Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Lewis XVI from his Marriage to his Death, 6 vols, London: G & J Robinson, 1802, v, 189. Jean-Louis Soulavie (1752–1813), a Catholic priest who abandoned his vocation in 1792, was French Resident in Geneva June 1793–September 1794. His historical account of the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI combined scandalous gossip with the elaboration of a conspiracy theory according to which the Revolution had been fomented by an Anglo-Genevan alliance. His account of the behaviour of Dumont and his Genevan associates contains numerous blatant inaccuracies but also occasional grains of truth. Some of the gossip in the Memoirs was answered in Les Illustres Victimes vengées des injustices de leurs contemporains, et Réfutation des paradoxes de M Soulavie, auteur des Mémoires Historiques et Politiques du règne de Louis XVI, etc. etc. etc.,

342 Notes

6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Paris: Perlet, 1802 (by Charles-Claude Montigny). On Soulavie and Geneva, see Marc Peter, Genève et la Révolution I. Les comités provisoires, Geneva: Albert Kündig, 1921, passim; Mémoires de Isaac Cornuaud sur Genève et la Révolution de 1770 à 1795, Mlle Emilie Cherbuliez (ed.), Geneva: Jullien, 1912, passim; Frédéric Barbey, Félix Desportes et l’annexion de Genève à la France 1794–1799, Paris: Perrin/Geneva: Jullien, 1916. Helena Rosenblatt, Rousseau and Geneva from the First Discourse to the Social Contract 1749–1762, Cambridge: CUP (Ideas in Context series, no. 46), 1997; Michel Launay, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ecrivain Politique (1712–1762), Cannes: CEL/Grenoble: ACER, 1971. Among Genevan historians, esp. Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois. Cf. also Edouard Rod, L’Affaire J-J Rousseau, Paris: Perrin, 1906; John Stevenson Spink, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et Genève, Paris: Boivin, 1934. More recently Gabriella Silvestrini, Alle radici del pensiero di Roussea. Istituzioni e dibattito politico a Ginevra nella prima metà del settecento, Turin: FrancoAngeli, 1993; James Miller, Rousseau. Dreamer of Democracy, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1984; and Richard Whatmore, ‘Rousseau and the Représentants: The Politics of the Lettres Ecrites de la Montagne’, Modern Intellectual History, 3, 3 (2006), 1–29. See Graham Gargett, Jacob Vernet, Geneva, and the Philosophes, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1994. For the general Genevan background to the period, see esp. Paul-E. Martin (ed.), Histoire de Genève des origines à 1798, Geneva: Jullien, 1951; René Guerdan, Histoire de Genève, Paris: Mazarine, 1981, pp. 169–232. For a brilliant summary account see Michel Porret, ‘Genève républicaine au dix-huitième siécle: réalité des représentations et représentations de la réalité’ in Mémoires de la Société de Physique et d’Histoire Naturelle de Genève, vol. 47 (1994), pp. 3–17; also Peter Gay, Voltaire’s Politics. The Poet as Realist, 2nd edn, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1988, ch. 4. Graham Gargett, ‘French periphery, European centre: eighteenth-century Geneva and its contribution to the Enlightenment’, in Peripheries of the Enlightenment Richard Butterwick, Simon Davies, and Gabriel Sánchez Espinosa (eds), Oxford: Voltaire Foundation (SVEC 2008:01, pp. 29–47). A contemporary account by a British traveller in Travels in Switzerland. In a series of letters to William Melmoth Esq. from William Coxe MA FRS FAS, 3 vols, London, 1789, ii, 317ff. For another old but still useful account see A. Thourel, Histoire de Genève, 3 vols, Geneva: Collin, 1833, vol. 3. See Gay, Voltaire’s Politics, pp. 205–238; Jane Ceitac, Voltaire et l’affaire des natifs. Un aspect de la carrière humanitaire du patriarche de Ferney, Geneva: Droz, 1956. See John Stevenson Spink, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et Genève, Paris: Boivin, 1934, ch. 1 for an impressive demonstration of this. For a consideration of the medieval Genevan political ideas that may have inspired Rousseau, see Jules Vuy, Origine des idées politiques de Rousseau, Geneva: Trembley, 1889. R. N. Carew Hunt, Calvin, London: Centenary Press, 1933. Ibid., p. 67. John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism, New York: OUP, 1962 [1954], p. 140. Ibid., p. 139. John B. Roney, ‘Introduction’ to The Identity of Geneva, the Christian Commonwealth 1564–1864, p. 4. See Louis Dufour-Vernes, ‘La noblesse des bourgeois de Genève avant le 12 décembre 1792’ in L’ancienne Genève 1535–1798. Fragments historiques, Geneva: Kündig, 1909, pp. 37–48.

Notes

343

18. J.-P. Machelon, Les idées politiques de J L de Lolme (1741–806), Paris: PUF, 1969, p. 19. 19. For a useful summary account of the complexities of eighteenth-century Genevan politics, see Lucien Fulpius, L’Organisation des pouvoirs politiques dans les constitutions de la République et Canton de Genève, Geneva: Georg, 1942, Pt. I, ch 1. 20. Barbara Roth-Lochner, Messieurs de Justice et leur Greffe, Geneva: Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, 1992, p. 25, note 19. 21. Spink, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et Genève, p. 11. 22. [Francis D’Ivernois,] Offrande à la liberté et la paix par un citoyen de Genève; ou idées de réconciliation, adressées à Mr J A De Luc, en réfutation du Mémoire qu’il remit de 21 Aoust 1781, à Monsieur le comte de Vergennes, Geneva, 1781, p. 18. I am most grateful to Richard Whatmore for drawing my attention to this important text and for supplying me with a photocopy of it. Sir Francis D’Ivernois (or D’Yvernois 1757– 1842) was an extraordinary character whose life was chronicled by Otto Karmin (see bibliography); a Genevan who began his career as publisher of the works of Rousseau, he agitated audaciously in France for the représentant cause despite being a young man without any official appointment or recognition. He later reacted violently against the Revolution and entered the service of the British government, from whom he received a knighthood. His lurch to conservatism alienated him from Dumont in later years. 23. D’Ivernois, Offrande, pp. 22, 38. 24. Ibid., p. 27. 25. Ibid., p. 40. 26. Francis D’Ivernois, Tableau Historique et Politique des Révolutions de Genève dans le dix-huitième siècle, Geneva: Vaney, 1850 [1789]. 27. Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs, v, 201–202. 28. Ibid., v, 204. 29. Martin, Histoire de Genève, p. 459. 30. Ibid., Jacques-Antoine Du Roveray (1747–1814), appointed attorney general in 1779. 31. The name acquired by the bourgeois proponents of the supremacy of the General Council after the episode of the burning of Rousseau’s Emile and The Social Contract. See p. 102. 32. Roth-Lochner, Messieurs de la justice, pp. 42–43. For a survey of the debate about codification in Geneva in the second half of the eighteenth century, see RothLochner, Messieurs de la justice, pp. 42–51. 33. Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs, v, 199. 34. Georges Goyau, Une ville-église. Genève 1535–1907, 2 vols, Paris: Perrin, 1919, I, 182. 35. Cf. O. Karmin, Sir Francis D’Yvernois 1757–1842. Sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps, Geneva: Revue historique de la révolution française et de l’empire, 1920, pp. 6ff. 36. Cf. for example Gargett, Voltaire and Protestantism; Gargett, Jacob Vernet; Ian Davidson, Voltaire in Exile, London: Atlantic Books, 2004. 37. Martin, Histoire de Genève, I, 442. 38. For accounts of his affair, see Rod, l’Affaire J-J Rousseau; Spink, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et Genève, pp. 215–216; Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, p. 224. 39. Jean Cassaigneau and Jean Rilliet, Marc-Auguste Pictet ou le Rendez-vous de l’Europe universelle, Geneva: Slatkine, 1995, p. 27. 40. In 1763. Cf. Rod, l’Affaire Rousseau, ch. iv; Gay, Voltaire’s Politics, p. 201. 41. Karmin, Sir Francis d’Ivernois, p. 47.

344 Notes 42. Cf. Michel Porret, Le Crime et ses circonstances. De l’esprit de l’arbitraire au siècle des Lumières selon les réquisitoires des procureurs généraux de Genève, Geneva: Droz, 1995, p. xxviii; Porret, ‘Au Lendemain de l’“Affaire Rousseau’’. La “justice pervertie’’ ou les représentations de la justice patricienne chez quelques publicistes de Genève 1770–1793’ in Regards sur la Révolution genevoise, Geneva: Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, 1992, pp. 121–150. 43. Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, p. 134. 44. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Maximes et Réflexions sur la Comédie, Aux Editions du Raisin, 1928 [1694]. For a classic Reformed perspective from a slightly later era, see A Sermon, delivered January 19, 1812, at the request of a number of young gentlemen of the City of New-York, who had assembled to express their condolence with the inhabitants of Richmond, on the late mournful dispensation of Providence in that City, by Samuel Miller, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, New York: T and J. Swords, 1812, at http://www.truecovenanter.com/ against_the_world/miller_sermon_theatre.html (consulted 2 February 2007). Miller’s polemic was occasioned by a fire in a theatre which led to many deaths. For an interesting account of the history of attitudes to the theatre, see Leo Schidrowitz (ed.), Sittengeschichte des Theaters: eine Darstellung des Theaters, seiner Entwicklung und Stellung in zwei Jahrtausenden, Vienna/Leipzig: Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1925. 45. M. Barras, The Stage Controversy in France from Corneille to Rousseau, New York: Publications of the Institute of French Studies, 1933, pp. 258ff. 46. J.-J. Rousseau, Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles, Léon Fontaine (ed.), Paris: Garnier, 1926. 47. Fontaine, introduction to Lettre sur les spectacles, pp. 8ff. 48. Ibid., p. 9. 49. Ibid., p. 10; the reference is to Johann Rudolf von Sinner, Voyage historique et littéraire dans la Suisse occidentale, 2 vols, Neuchâtel, 1781. 50. U. Kunz-Aubert, ‘Le théâtre à Genève au XVIIIe siècle’ in Nos Centenaires, Geneva, 1914, p. 494. 51. Fontaine, p. 13. 52. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris: Gallimard, 1995, pp. xxx–xliv. 53. Graham Gargett, Jacob Vernet, Geneva, and the philosophes, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1994, pp. 108–114. 54. Launay, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, écrivain politique. 55. Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 110. 56. Fontaine, p. 14. 57. U. Kunz-Aubert, ‘Le théâtre à Genève au XVIIIe siècle’ in Nos Centenaires, Geneva, 1914, pp. 494–496. 58. Ibid., p. 496. 59. Ibid., p. 497. 60. Ibid. 61. Fontaine, introduction, p. 21, citing a letter to d’Argental of 18 July 1755. See Voltaire, Correspondance (Besterman edition), letter D6340. 62. Fontaine, introduction, pp. 28–36 gives a summary account of the controversy that raged over this. 63. Ibid., p. 43. 64. For an imaginative account of this return, see Miller, Rousseau, Dreamer of Democracy, pp. 49ff.

Notes

345

65. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to d’Alembert and Writings for the Theater, Allan Bloom, Charles Butterworth, and Christopher Kelly (eds) (vol. 10 of The Collected Writings of Rousseau), Hanover/London: University Press of New England, p. 251. Citations will be from this edition. 66. Rousseau, Letter, p. 274. Jacob Vernet agreed with Rousseau on this, claiming that the character of the Athenians was ruined by the theatre, which made them vain, lazy, gossipy, unstable, cunning, obsessed with novelty, and neglectful of their political and business affairs. See Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 319. 67. See Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 318. 68. Rousseau, Letter, p. 285. 69. Ibid., p. 289. 70. Ibid., pp. 293–294. 71. Ibid., p. 294. 72. Ibid., pp. 295–296. 73. Ibid., p. 298. Jacob Vernet expresses similar sentiments; see Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 321. 74. Rousseau, Letter, pp. 306–307. 75. Ibid., p. 309. 76. Jean Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: la transparence et l’obstacle, Paris: Gallimard, 1971 [1957], pp. 51–52. 77. Rousseau, Letter, p. 311. 78. Ibid., p. 313. 79. For a discussion of Rousseau’s detestation of the ‘womanishness’ of French salon culture, see Graeme Garrard, Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment. A Republican Critique of the Philosophes, Albany: SUNY Press, 2003, p. 25. 80. Rousseau, Letter, p. 314. 81. For a most interesting discussion of the importance of Rousseau’s eulogy of virtue for the French Revolution, see Carol Blum, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in the French Revolution, Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1986. 82. Kunz-Aubert, Nos Centenaires, p. 495. 83. Francis D’Ivernois later noted with anger that by 1781 the aristocratic party had started to treat these amusements with disdain; members of the government had stopped mixing socially with those outside their circle – or sending their children to the College to be educated with the others. See D’Ivernois, Offrande, pp. 79–82. 84. Rousseau, Letter, p. 322. 85. For a study on the cercles cf. Charles Gautier, Un cercle deux fois centenaire, Geneva: 1977 [1960]. Cf. also Kunz-Aubert, Nos Centenaires, pp. 493–494. 86. Rousseau, Letter, p. 324. 87. Ibid., p. 325. 88. Ibid., p. 326. 89. Ibid., p. 327. 90. Ibid., p. 328. 91. Ibid., pp. 331–332. 92. Ibid., p. 333. 93. The cercles were not as beloved by some of Rousseau’s allies as much as by him, and the pastors expressed concern about them from time to time. The celebrated Doctor Tronchin wrote to Rousseau to complain about the fact that these clubs were increasingly a distraction and cause of dissipation, taking men away from

346 Notes

94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

101.

102. 103. 104. 105.

106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112.

113. 114. 115.

116. 117.

118. 119. 120. 121.

their families (see Tronchin to Rousseau, 13 November 1758 in Rousseau, Correspondance [R. A. Leigh edition], letter 734). Cf. J. Gaberel, Rousseau et les Genevois, Geneva/Paris: Joël Cherbuliez, 1858, pp. 106–107. Rousseau, Letter, p. 334. Ibid., pp. 334–336. Ibid., pp. 341–342. Ibid., p. 343. Ibid., p. 346. Ibid., p. 349. Cf. Ourida Mostefai, Le Citoyen de Genève et la République des Lettres. Etude de la controverse autour de La Lettre à d’Alembert de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, New York: Peter Lang, 2003, p. 1. ‘National pride . . . was truly the muse of Rousseau when he was writing the burning pages of the Letter to d’Alembert’, Philippe Godet, Histoire Littéraire de la Suisse Française, Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Nestlé/Paris: Fischbacher, 1890, p. 251. Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, p. 138. Garrard, Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenmen, p. 25. Cf. for example Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, Bk 2, ch. 2. ‘A Discourse on the Arts and Sciences’, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract and Discourses, G. D. H. Cole (ed.), London and Melbourne: Dent, 1986, p. 11. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Gaspard Vallette, ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau, sa vie et son oeuvre’ in Nos Centenaires, Geneva, 1914, p. 71. D’Ivernois, Offrande, p. 24. See p. 143. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 348. Ibid., 350. For a brief account of Voltaire’s campaign to bring the theatre to Geneva, see Godet, Histoire littéraire, pp. 240–259; Georges Mailhos, Voltaire témoin de son temps, Lille: Atelier national, production des thèses/Paris: Aux amateurs de livres, 1985, p. 129. A very great deal of ink has been spilled on the subject of Voltaire and Geneva. Eg Gustave Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et la société au xviiie siècle. Voltaire et Genève, 2nd edn, Paris: Didier, 1876; Graham Gargett, Voltaire and Protestantism, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation (SVEC 188), 1980, chapter 5; Ian Davidson, Voltaire in Exile, London: Atlantic Books, 2004. J. Gaberel, Rousseau et les genevois, Geneva/Paris: Joël Cherbuliez, 1858, p. 63. Godet, Histoire Littéraire, p. 233. Voltaire to Horace Vasserot de Vincy (31 October 1759), Correspondence (Besterman edition), D8563; quoted in Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 167. See also ibid., p. 205. Cf. for example Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 200, note 6; pp. 210ff. A. Duvillard, Quelques Réflexions sur les moeurs républicaines et sur l’établissement d’un théâtre à Genève, Geneva: Paschoud, 1814. Duvillard (1760–1842) was professor of belles-lettres in Geneva from 1797 to 1829 and for many years a conservative deputy in the Representative Council. Ibid., pp. 8–9. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 16.

Notes

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122. Ibid., p. 17. 123. See Rousseau, Correspondance (R. A. Leigh edition), letter 724; Antoine-Jacques Roustan (1734–1788) was ordained in 1759, the year of Dumont’s birth; cf. Gargett, Jacob Vernet, 152 and note 86. 124. Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 154. 125. Ibid., p. 158. 126. The subject of a lengthy analysis in Ibid., pp. 261–331. 127. Lettre à M. Rousseau, au sujet de sa Lettre à M. D’Alembert, par M. de Bastide, Auteur du Nouveau Spectateur, Amsterdam, 1758. 128. Lettre de M. D’Alembert à M. J. J. Rousseau, sur l’Article Genève tiré du septième volume de l’Encyclopédie, Amsterdam: Zacharie Chatelain, 1759 (for an English translation, see Bloom et al., Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to d’Alembert, pp. 353– 380); J.-F. Marmontel, Apologie du théâtre ou Analyse de la Lettre de Mr Rousseau, Citoyen de Genève, à Mr d’Alembert, au sujet des Spectacles, printed with Contes Moraux, La Haye, 1761. 129. See Rousseau, Correspondance (R. A. Leigh edition), 4 November 1760, 1148; quoted in Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 211. 130. Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 331. 131. Raymond Naves, Voltaire et l’Encyclopédie, Paris: Presses Modernes, 1938, p. 19, note 64; cited in Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 331. 132. For example Patrick Coleman, Rousseau’s Political Imagination: Rule and Representation in the Lettre à d’Alembert, Geneva: Droz, 1984; Timothy M. Costelloe, ‘The Theater of Morals: culture and community in Rousseau’s Lettre à M d’Alembert, in Eighteenth-Century Life, vol. 27, Number 1 (Winter 2003), 52–71; Melissa Butler (ed.), Rousseau on Arts and Politics/Autour de la Lettre à d’Alembert (Proceedings of the Crawfordsville, IN colloquium, June 1–4, 1995), Ottawa: Presse Libre, no. 6, 1997; Mostefai, Le Citoyen de Genève et la République des Lettres. 133. Jean-Pierre Montier, ‘La Lettre à d’Alembert ou Jean-Jacques contre la société du spectacle, http://pierre.campion2.free.fr/montier_rousseau.htm, posted 14/01/03, consulted 02/03/2007. 134. Mostefai, Le Citoyen de Genève, pp. 85–86. 135. Ibid., p. 109; cf. also p. 112, where we are told that d’Alembert is addressed as a ‘European’ man of letters. 136. Gargett, Jacob Vernet, pp. 140–141. 137. Ibid., p. 151. 138. Mostefai, Le Citoyen de Genève, p. 4. 139. See esp Ibid., ‘Conclusion: Rousseau en marge des Lumières’, pp. 125–137. 140. See Letters written from the Mountain in Letter to Beaumont, Letters written from the Mountain, and Related Writings (Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 9), Christopher Kelly, Eve Grace, Judith R. Bush (eds), Dartmouth: Dartmouth College Press, 2001; also Anne Cohler, Rousseau and Nationalism, New York/London: Basic Books, 1970. 141. See Nicola Matteucci, Jacques Mallet-Du Pan. Ginevra, l’Illuminismo e la Rivoluzione francese, Lungro di Cosenza: Marco, 2004 [1957], p. 44. 142. See Raffaello Ramat, Sismondi e il mito di Ginevra, Florence: Sansoni, 1936, p. 3. 143. Michel-Edme Petit, Eloge de J-J Rousseau, citoyen de Genève, 2nd edn, Paris: Imprimerie du Roi de Sicile, January 1793 [1st edn Oct 1792]. I am indebted to Richard Whatmore for drawing this text to my attention and also for supplying me with a photocopy of it. 144. Petit, Eloge, pp. 39ff.

348 Notes 145. Rousseau to Vernet, 29 November 1760 in Correspondance (R. A. Leigh edition), letter 1176. See also Michel-Jean-Louis Saladin, Mémoire Historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Mr. J Vernet, Professeur en Théologie et Ministre de l’Eglise de Genève, Paris: Bossange/Geneva: Dufart, 1790, p. 79. The Escalade was the last attempt made by a foreign power (Savoy) to take Geneva by force, during the night of 11– 12 December 1602. The defeat of the invaders is still celebrated each year in the city in December. See P. F. Geisendorf, H. Grand-Jean, Bernard Gagnebin (eds), L’Escalade de Genève 1602: histoire et tradition, Geneva: Jullien, 1952. 146. Rosenblatt, Rousseau and Geneva, p. 224. 147. For example Garrard, Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment. A Republican Critique of the Philosophes, whose title is telling enough by itself. 148. See Gargett, Jacob Vernet, pp. 73ff. 149. See Ibid., p. 313. 150. Georges Goyau, Une Ville-Eglise. Genève 1535–1907, 2 vols, Paris: 1919, I, 212. ‘There is ample evidence for the growth of a softer theology in eighteenth-century Geneva’ writes Linda Kirk, ‘Eighteenth-century Geneva and a changing Calvinism’, in Religion and National Identity. Papers Read at the Nineteenth Summer Meeting and the Twentieth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Stuart Mews (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1982, pp. 367–380, here p. 368; see also Jean Haemmerlin, Histoire du Réveil religieux à Genève, Colmar: Camille Decker, 1856, Pt 1, chs. 1–3; Maria-Cristina Pitassi, De l’orthodoxie aux Lumières. Genève 1670–1737, Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1992; Pitassi (ed.), Apologétique 1680–1740: sauvetage ou naufrage de la théologie? (Actes du Colloque tenu à Genève en juin 1990 sous les auspices de l’Institut d’Histoire de la Réformation), Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1991; Timothy R. Phillips, ‘The Dissolution of Francis Turretin’s Vision of Theologia: Geneva at the end of the seventeenth century’, in The Identity of Geneva, pp. 77–92; Gargett, ‘French Periphery, European centre’. 151. John Gray, Black Mass. Apocalypic Religion and the Death of Utopia, London: Allen Lane, 2007. 152. For a sensitive study of the development of this phenomenon, see Irène Herrmann, ‘Le sentiment national genevois et l’ouverture de Genève vers la Suisse’ in Le Libéralisme genevois, du code civil aux constitutions (1804–1842), Alfred Dufour, Robert Roth, et François Walter (eds), Geneva: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1994, pp. 73–95. 153. François Roget, Pensées genevoises, 1859, ii, 382; cited in Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, p. iv. 154. Ralph Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy, New York: Vanguard, 1944, pp. 65– 66. 155. Michel-Jean-Louis Saladin, Mémoire historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Mr J Vernet, Professeur en Théologie et Ministre de l’Eglise de Genève, Paris: Bossange/Geneva: Dufart, 1790, p. 14. 156. Saladin, Mémoire, p. 24. 157. Vernet to Voltaire, 8 February 1754 in Voltaire, Correspondance (Besterman edition), D6146; Saladin, Mémoire, 46. 158. Quoted in Ramat, Sismondi e il mito di Ginevra, p. 23. Mme de Staël was the daughter of the celebrated Genevan financier and French government minister Jacques Necker and his Vaudois wife Suzanne Curchod. 159. E de Budé, Vie de Jacob Vernet, théologien genevois 1698–1789, Lausanne: Bridel, 1893, pp. 122–125. 160. Ibid., p. 128.

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349

161. Ibid., pp. 269–270. 162. It was run privately from 1748 since the pastors would not allow it in the college (cf. Etienne Chennaz, ‘L’instruction publique genevoise au cours du XIXe siècle’ in 1814–1914. Genève Suisse. Le Livre du Centenaire, Geneva: Jullien, 1914, p. 437). 163. Goyau, Une Ville-Eglise, I, 209. 164. Paul Seippel, ‘Beaux-Arts’ in 1814–1914. Genève Suisse, p. 249. 165. Quoted in Ralph Barton Perry, Puritanism and Democracy, p. 262. 166. ‘The philosophes are still a part of the world that they criticise’ as Starobinski wrote, paraphrasing Rousseau (Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. La Transparence et l’Obstacle, p. 51). 167. Lettres inédites de Mallet Du Pan à Etienne Dumont (1787–1789), Revue Historique, tome 97 (January–April 1908), p. 108. 168. J. Vernes, Confidence philosophique, 4th edn, 2 vols, London, 1788, ii, 21–22; Gargett, Voltaire and Protestantism, pp. 177–183. 169. See Darrin M. McMahon, Enemies of Enlightenment. The French CounterEnlightenment and the Making of Modernity, Oxford: OUP, 2001, pp. 38–40 for more on this kind of perception of the philosophes. 170. Jeffrey R. Watt, ‘Reformed piety and suicide in Geneva 1550–1800’ in The Identity of Geneva. The Christian Commonwealth 1564–1864, John B. Roney and Martin I. Klauber (eds), Westport/London: Greenwood, 1998, p. 117. 171. Gaberel, Rousseau et les Genevois, p. 87. 172. ‘Lettres inédites de Mallet Du Pan à Etienne Dumont’, 121. 173. MS Dumont 33, I, fo. 10. 174. Ibid., 6, 34, entry for 16 June 1802. 175. Ibid., 44, entry for 5 July 1802. 176. Journal de Genève, 22 October 1829. 177. Cf. Isaac Benguigi, Trois physiciens genevois et l’Europe savante. Les De la Rive 1800– 1920, Geneva, Georg, 1990, pp. 7ff. 178. Martin, Histoire de Genève, p. 451. 179. Karmin, Sir Francis d’Ivernois, p. 51. 180. Martin, Histoire de Genève, p. 462. 181. Etienne Clavière (1735–1793) was a banker who later developed close ties with Mirabeau and eventually became French Minister of Finances. For biographical details on both an excellent source is Bénétruy, l’Atelier de Mirabeau. On Clavière, see also Richard Whatmore, ‘Commerce and nation: Etienne Clavière’s revolutionary political economy 1788–1793’, in History of European Ideas, 22 (September 1996), 351–368; Edouard Chapuisat, Figures et Choses d’autrefois, Paris: Crès/Geneva: Georg, 1920, Pt 1. 182. For the account that follows, see Martin, Histoire, pp. 464ff. 183. Fameuse Remontrance faite dans le Magnifique Petit Conseil de la République de Genève, le 11 Décembre 1780, by Jacques-Antoine Du Roveray, London: P Elmsly & J Sewel, 1781. My thanks to Richard Whatmore for providing me with a photocopy of this text. 184. Ibid., p. 5. 185. Ibid., p. 30. 186. Ibid., p. 35. 187. Ibid., p. 38. 188. Ibid., p. 45. 189. Karmin, Sir Francis D’Ivernois, pp. 93ff.

350 Notes 190. Relation de la Conjuration contre le gouvernement et le magistrat de Genève qui a éclaté le 8 avril 1782, Geneva, 1782. 191. Tableau historique des dissentions de la République de Genève et de la perte de son indépendance, by J. L. Mallet, 1803. 192. Ibid., p. 12. 193. Très-humble et très-respectueuse déclaration, adressée au Mag. Petit Conseil par les membres du Mag. Conseil des deux-cent, et par les citoyens et bourgeois constitutionnaires, remises à Messieurs les Syndics le 23 décembre 1780, Geneva, 1780, pp. 12–13. 194. Godechot, France and the Atlantic Revolution, p. 54. 195. For an account of events through Bernese eyes, see Kurt von Steiger, Schulthess Niklaus Friedrich von Steiger: ein Leben für das alte Bern, Berne: Francke, 1976, pp. 45–58. 196. For a full account of this whole episode, see Edouard Chapuisat, La Prise d’Armes de 1782 à Genève, Geneva: Jullien, 1932. Cf. also Mémoires et Correspondance de Mallet du Pan, A. Sayous (ed.), 2 vols, Paris, 1851, I, pp. 59–83. 197. See Louis Dufour-Vernes, ‘La Colonie genevoise de Constance de 1784 à 1795’ in L’ancienne Genève 1535–1798. Fragments Historiques, Geneva: Kündig, 1909, pp. 103–119. 198. J. Feldmann, Die Genfer Emigranten von 1782/3, Zurich, 1952; Karmin, Sir Francis d’Ivernois, bk II; Danielle Plan, Un Genevois d’autrefois: Henri-Albert Gosse (1753– 1816), Paris: Fischbacher/Geneva: Kundig, 1909, pp. 139–144; Herbert Lüthy, La Banque Protestante en France de la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes à la Révolution, 2 vols, Paris: SEVPEN, 1961, vol. ii, De la Banque aux Finances, 666ff. 199. Cf. Edouard Chapuisat, Le Général Dufour 1787–1875, Lausanne: Payot, 1935, pp. 11ff. 200. Bénétruy, l’Atelier de Mirabeau, p. 53. 201. Cf. Gargett’s account of ‘the civic virtues praised by traditionalists and seen by them as interconnected: moral worth, patriotism, republican values, hatred of foreign (i.e. French, monarchical) habits’ (Gargett, Jacob Vernet, p. 154). 202. Souvenirs, p. 43. He noted that this prejudice had been reinforced by his years in England. 203. Quoted in Gaspard Vallette, Mallet Du Pan et la Révolution Française, Geneva: Georg, 1893, p. 96. 204. Jean-Louis Badollet to Dumont 22 October 1782, MS Dumont 33, I, fol. 18 (cited in Cyprian Blamires, ‘Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop: Etienne Dumont et la France’, Genève française 1798–1813. Nouvelles Approches. Actes du colloque tenu du 12 au 14 novembre 1998, Liliane Mottu-Weber, Joëlle Droux (eds), Geneva: Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, 2004, p. 263). See this same page for an even more caustic judgement on the French by another friend of Dumont, Pierre Boin, dating from 1778. 205. Blamires, ‘Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop’. 206. Ben Rogers, Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull, and the English Nation, London: Chatto & Windus, 2003. 207. Ann Wroe, review of Rogers, Beef and Liberty in The Tablet, 26 April 2003, p. 20. 208. Sarah Bakewell, review of Rogers, Beef and Liberty in the Times Literary Supplement, 23 May 2003, p. 36. See also Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the nation 1707–1837, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2nd edn, 2005 [1992], pp. 32ff.; Edwin Jones, The English Nation: The Great Myth, Stroud: Sutton, 1998.

Notes

351

209. Mirabeau’s Letters during his residence in England; with anecdotes, maxims, &c. Now first translated from the original manuscripts. To which is prefixed, an introductory notice on the life, writings, conduct, and character, of the author, 2 vols, London: Effingham Wilson, 1832, I, 20 (Kessinger Reprint). 210. See Joep Leerssen, National Thought in Europe. A Cultural History, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007; and review of this book by Tom Shippey in Times Literary Supplement, 28 September 2007, p. 24. 211. Réclamation des Genevois Patriotes Etablis à Londres contre la nouvelle Aristocratie de Genève. Contenue dans deux lettres au Procureur-Général & aux Adjoints, Paris: Lejay, 1789. 212. Press mark: Acton d.36.257 which is a volume of pamphlets bound together. Dumont’s is item 13 in the collection. 213. Réclamation, iii, note. 214. Ibid., p. iv. 215. Ibid., p. v. 216. Ibid., p. vii. 217. Godet, Histoire littéraire, p. 263. 218. Réclamation, p. 82. 219. Ibid., p. 84. 220. D’Ivernois, Tableau Historique et Politique, ii, 209. 221. Dumont to Vernes, 6 December 1783 – for the text see Lettre inédite d’Etienne Dumont sur quelques séances du Tiers-Etat (May 1789) extrait des Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève (tome xix)), Geneva: Ramboz et Schuchardt, 1877, pp. 5–6; see Selth, ‘Firm heart and capacious mind’ p. 24. 222. MS Dumont 31, 77. 223. Cf. Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: la transparence et l’obstacle, for a demonstration of the theme of the importance of this issue in Rousseau. 224. Bénétruy, L’Atelier, p. 147; Martin, Etienne Dumont, pp. 12–14. 225. Lettre inédite d’Etienne Dumont sur quelques séances, pp. 5/6. 226. Matteucci, Jacques Mallet-Du Pan, p. 42. 227. See ch. 4, pp. 173–176 for more on the content of this text. 228. Lüthy, La Banque Protestante, ii, 679. 229. Ibid., 563. 230. Mallet, Tableau historique, p. 52. 231. Ibid., pp. 136–137. 232. BG MSfr 3780, 13, Dumont to D. Duval, 2 Jan 1786. 233. Ibid., 12, Dumont to D. Duval, 1–5 Jan, 1786. 234. Dumont, ‘Observations sur le caractère et les écrits de Rousseau’, in Bibliothèque Universelle (March 1836), 7. 235. For Badollet, see The Correspondence of John Badollet and Albert Gallatin, Gayle Thornbrough (ed.), Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1963; For his letters to Dumont see MS Dumont 33 I, fos. 8–40; cf. André Gür, ‘L’émigration genevoise en Amérique à la fin du xviii siècle. Quelques lettres inédites de Jean-Louis Badollet et d’Albert Gallatin’ in Musées de Genève, March 1969, 11–14. 236. See Ch. 7, p. 000. 237. Mack, Jeremy Bentham, p. 409. The mistake is unfortunately repeated by Philip Schofield in his otherwise excellent work Utility and Democracy, p. 80. 238. Cf. C. G. Oakes, Sir Samuel Romilly 1757–1818, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1935, pp. 1–3.

352 Notes 239. See Roget, Lettres de Jean Roget. 240. Martin, Etienne Dumont, 14–17; Martin, La Famille Duval; Selth ‘Firm heart and capacious mind’, p. 29. 241. Cf. Jean Martin, Histoire des Traditions de Cartigny, Geneva, 1946, pp. 123–124. 242. One friend wrote to Dumont after he had left Russia that his sermons had ‘touched them all’, reporting that ‘we are for ever rereading them, and they constantly inspire new feelings in us’ (MS Dumont 33, 242, F de Guebow to Dumont, 20/31 March 1786) 243. The sermon is to be found at MS Dumont 31, 143–164. 244. Lord Lansdowne’s library was later described by a contemporary as a chef d’oeuvre, containing about 10,000 books ‘in all languages . . . arranged in a classical and scientific manner’, and perhaps unique in the strength of its collection in French and English on the French Revolution (‘A D’, writing in Public Characters 1799– 1800, London: R Phillips, 1799, pp. 218–219). 245. Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), theologian and scientist, was appointed by the then Earl of Shelburne as his librarian or ‘literary companion’ in 1772, but the relationship had cooled by 1780 and Priestley then left Shelburne’s service. An approach was made to him to return in 1784 but he declined. Priestley was one of those to whom Bentham acknowledged an intellectual debt, for having formulated the greatest happiness principle. 246. Candolle, Notice sur M Dumont, p. 321. 247. For Priestley’s situation with Lansdowne, see Robert E. Schofield, The Enlightened Joseph Priestley: A Study of his Work from 1773 to 1804, University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2004, p. 4–7. Schofield records that Priestley’s position was that of ‘companion-librarian and supervisor of the tutor’ (ibid., p. 5), and that fits Dumont’s role perfectly. See also John Graham Gillam, The Crucible: The Story of Joseph Priestley LLD, FRS, London: Robert Hale, 1954; Léon Velluz, Le Pasteur Priestley, Paris: Plon, 1968. 248. Isaac Barré (1726–1802) was the son of a French refugee who settled in Dublin. He was a soldier and fought in the Quebec campaign but was subsequently brought into parliament by Earl Shelburne. Later he was briefly paymaster general in Shelburne’s cabinet before his blindness brought an end to his active life. See entry in Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons 1754–1790, II ‘members’ A-J, London: HMSO, 1964, pp. 50–54. A biographical account is contained in John Britton, The Authorship of the Letters of Junius elucidated, London: J R Smith, 1848 (Britton believed that Barré and Lansdowne were behind Junius). Biographical information may also be found in Peter Brown, The Chathamites: A Study in the Relationship between Personalities and Ideas in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, London, Macmillan/New York: St Martin’s, 1967, passim. 249. Candolle, Notice sur M Dumont, p. 321. 250. Lettre inédite d’Etienne Dumont sur quelques séances, p. 5. 251. The Clerk of the Pells was an officer of the Lower Exchequer who was involved in the keeping of accounts of Exchequer receipts and issues and of opening and closing balances. Cf. Binney, British Public Finance, pp. 171, 224–226, Appendix IV, p. 287. 252. ‘Biographical sketch of M. Dumont’ in Neal, Principles of Legislation, p. 155. See also Peter Brown, The Chathamites, pp. 194, 197, 221ff. 253. John Norris, Shelburne and Reform, London: Macmillan/New York: St Martin’s, 1963, blurb. See also Peter Brown, The Chathamites, Pt 1 and passim. 254. Norris, Shelburne and Reform, p. 206.

Notes 255. 256. 257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262.

353

Binney, British Public Finance, p. 268. Public Characters 1799–1800, pp. 204–220. Ibid., p. 209. Ibid., p. 210. Ibid., pp. 217–218. Ibid., p. 220. Quoted in Selth, ‘Firm heart and capacious mind’, p. 38. Christopher Hobhouse, Fox, London: John Murray, 1964 [1934], pp. 117–118.

4 The creator of the Bentham brand: Dumont in the French revolution 1. See Cyprian Blamires, ‘Three critiques of the Revolution: Maistre, Bonald, and Saint-Simon’, Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Oxford University, 1985. I show in this study how two Catholic thinkers reacted under pressure of the Revolution into traditionalism while a future ‘utopian socialist’ reacted into cooperativism. 2. Orateurs de la Révolution française. I, la Constituante, François Furet and Ran Halévi (eds), Paris: Gallimard, 1989, p. 1424. 3. F.-A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de l’Assemblée Constituante, Paris: Hachette, 1882, p. 67. 4. Souvenirs sur Mirabeau et sur les deux premières assemblées législatives par Etienne Dumont, de Genève. Ouvrage posthume, publié par M J-L Duval, Membre du Conseil représentatif du canton de Genève, Paris: Charles Gosselin, Hector Bossange, 1832. For details of how the material came to be published and the minor alterations made to it by Duval, cf. Jean Bénétruy’s Introduction to his edition of the Souvenirs (Paris: PUF, 1950), pp. 22–24. Subsequent references to the Souvenirs will be to this edition: where there are quotations they will also be referenced to the 1832 English translations of the Souvenirs, Recollections of Mirabeau [see below pp. 242–244], abbreviated to Recollections. Duval was a Genevan law professor and deputy, Dumont’s great-nephew and his joint literary executor together with Frédéric Soret, who was a friend and companion of Goethe in his last years (see Ernst Gallati, Frédéric Soret und Goethe nach Sorets unveröffentlichten Korrespondenzen mit seinen Angehörigen in Genf, Berne/Munich: Francke, 1980); Frédéric Soret, Conversations avec Goethe, A. Robinet de Cléry (ed.), Paris: Montaigne, 1932. 5. B. Luttrell, Mirabeau, Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990, 127–129. For a discussion of the controversy over the exact words used by Mirabeau on this occasion, see Louis Caste, Mirabeau, Lyon: Lardanchet, 1942, ch. 12. 6. Recollections of Mirabeau, and of the Two First Legislative Assemblies of France. By Etienne Dumont, of Geneva, London: Edward Bull, 1832. There was an American edition in 1833 (Philadelphia: Carey and Lea). However, despite this early popularity in the English-speaking world, it must have faded from view by the end of the century, since Lady Seymour (Romilly’s granddaughter), in publishing her translation stated that it had not as far as she knew been translated before. (The Great Frenchman and the little Genevese, translated from Etienne Dumont’s Souvenir [sic] sur Mirabeau, by Lady Seymour, London: Duckworth, 1904, here p. ix.) Quotations from the Recollections will be taken from the 1832 London edition. 7. Luttrell, Mirabeau, p. 3. 8. J. G. Peltier in Domine, Salvum fac Regem (Paris, 1789) listed 13 works attributed to Mirabeau alongside the names of those said to be their actual authors. Authorship

354 Notes

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

of the Courier de Provence was attributed to Dumont alone – with much justification, as we shall see. Mémoires biographiques, littéraires et politiques de Mirabeau, écrits par lui-même, par son père, son oncle et son fils adoptif, Paris: Auguste Auffray/Adolphe Guyot, 8 vols, 1834–1835. There were other editions in different formats. Mémoires de Mirabeau, I, pp. vii–viii. Reprinted in Jules Janin, Variétés littéraires, Brussels: J. Rozez, sd., pp. 192–208 (originally published in the Journal des Débats, August 1832). Goethes Gespräche, Flodoard Frhr (ed.), Von Biedermann, 5 vols, Leipzig: Biedermann, 1910, iv, 430–431. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 111. Lady Seymour, The Great Frenchman and the Little Genevese, Appendix, pp. 268–275. For example Seymour, p. 273; Duval, Souvenirs, Appendix: the ninth letter gives the French original of this. Though he did not become part of the team until the autumn of 1789. See Bénétruy, l’Atelier, p. 270. Etienne-Salomon Reybaz (1737–1804), ordained minister in Geneva in 1765, left Geneva in 1782, he was diplomatic representative of Geneva in Paris 1794–1797. Ph. Plan, Un Collaborateur de Mirabeau. Documents inédits précédés d’une notice, Paris/Neuchâtel: Sandoz, 1874. See also Jean Martin, ‘Quatorze billets inédits de Mirabeau à Dumont et à Du Roveray’, in La Révolution française, nouv. Série. 28 (October–December 1925), 289–311. See Paul Farmer, France Reviews its Revolutionary Origins. Social Politics and Historical Opinion in the Third Republic, New York: Octagon, 1963 [1943], pp. 61–66. According to Farmer, at the start of the twentieth century, Aulard was ‘widely acknowledged as the foremost authority on the French Revolution then living’ (France Reviews, p. 61). Cf. also Madeleine Rébérioux, ‘Mirabeau vu par les historiens de la Troisième République’ in Les Mirabeau et leur temps (Actes du Colloque d’Aix-en-Provence, 17/18 December 1966), Centre Aixois d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le xviiie siècle, Paris: Société d’Etudes Robespierristes, 1968, pp. 239–249. Bénétruy cites the publication of Barthou’s biography of Mirabeau in 1913 as having occasioned attacks on the Genevans: cf. Bénétruy, Introduction to Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 28. In his preface to Dumont, Souvenirs (Bénétruy [ed.]), p. vi, Lefebvre states, ‘The collaborators of Mirabeau, after having prepared his speeches, wrote them from beginning to end, he did nothing but read them in the Assembly without taking the trouble to assimilate them, sometimes without even glancing at them beforehand.’ Attentive readers of the Souvenirs will be aware that this is an exaggeration, applying perhaps to a few speeches but by no means to all. Equally exaggerated is the claim by Sir William Collins that ‘ . . . the Genevan pastor became the brain, the unseen but operative genius of the Revolution . . . ’ (Sir William Collins, ‘Sir Samuel Romilly and Etienne Dumont’, Transactions of the Huguenot Society, 1908, p. 5). L’Atelier, p. 95. For example Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France, Richard A. Lebrun (trans), Montreal/London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1974 [1797]. See also Burdette C. Poland, French Protestantism and the French Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. L’Atelier p. 258, quoting MS Dumont 17, 38–39. MS Dumont 17, Dumont to Romilly 25 January 1791; cited in Bénétruy, L’Atelier, pp. 332–333. Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs, v, 107.

Notes

355

26. For a modern comparative study of English and French government finances in the eighteenth century, see David Stasavage, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State. France and Great Britain, 1688–1789, Cambridge: CUP, 2003; also Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution, Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. 27. Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs, v, 282–283. 28. Cf. Olivier Coquard, Jean-Paul Marat, Paris: Fayard, 1993, p. 43. 29. See Ed Chapuisat, De la Terreur à l’Annexion, Geneva, 1912; Marc Peter, Genève et la Révolution. II. Les Comités provisoires, Geneva: Albert Kündig, 1921, p. 256 &n. 30. ‘In the last century or so, the judgement has been unanimous. The Souvenirs is acknowledged as both a fine piece of writing and a major historical document. Revolutionary historians of all persuasions have quoted from it liberally, for the vivid atmosphere of the National Assembly and the detail of its debates, the intrigues and behind-the-scenes skirmishing, and many an incident not described in any other publication . . . ’, Jefferson P. Selth, Firm Heart and Capacious Mind, pp. 138–139. Perhaps the best of the twentieth-century biographies of Mirabeau is Jean-Jacques Chevallier, Mirabeau. Un grand destin manqué, Paris: Hachette, 1947. Antonina Vallentin, in Mirabeau, voice of the Revolution (E. W. Dicks [trans.] London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948) is severe about Dumont, whom she calls ‘a man of rigid character, downright, clear-headed, methodical, but with a tendency to pedantry and moralizing; very sure of himself, very critical of others . . . ’ (p. 274). 31. Luttrell, Mirabeau, p. 204. 32. Ibid., p. 205. 33. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, Mirabeau, Paris: Seuil, 1982. 34. Introduction to Mirabeau, Discours. Edition établie, présentée et annotée par François Furet, Paris: Gallimard, 1973, p. 16. 35. Furet and Halévi, Orateurs, 1427. 36. Pierre Jean George Cabanis (1757–1808), French physiologist. 37. Travail sur l’Education Publique trouvé dans les papiers de Mirabeau l’aîné, Paris, 1791. See Martin S. Staum, Cabanis. Enlightenment and Medical Philosophy in the French Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, p. 125. 38. Recollections of Mirabeau, pp. xiii–xiv. 39. Numerous accounts of Mirabeau’s life have appeared, the most authoritative and most substantial being Alfred Stern, Das Leben Mirabeaus, 2nd edn, Zurich, 1894; although a French translation of this was published (La vie de Mirabeau, M. M. Lespes, Pasquet, and Pierre Peret [trans.] 2 vols, Paris, 1895), there has never been an English translation. An equally fine work of scholarship is Louis de Loménie, Les Mirabeau. Nouvelles Etudes sur la société française au xviiie siècle, which casts a wider net and encompasses Mirabeau’s father and brother and family origins (nouvelle éd., 5 vols, Paris: Dentu, 1889). Much of the interest of biographers has focussed on the drama of his youthful escapades rather than on his thinking as a revolutionary leader (J. J. Chevallier is an honourable exception to this). 40. Souvenirs, pp. 145–146. 41. Quotation from a letter from a Parisian correspondent to Samuel Romilly in Romilly, Memoirs, I, 420. 42. J. C. L. de Sismondi, ‘Nécrologie’, p. 260. 43. Staum, Cabanis, p. 127. 44. Ibid.

356 Notes 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. 70.

Luttrell, Mirabeau, p. 4. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 208. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 109. Souvenirs, p. 159. Cf. J. D. Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution. Paris, London, and New York in 1789, London: George Philip, 1989, p. 82. Souvenirs, pp. 151, 160. R. K. Gooch, Parliamentary Government in France: Revolutionary Origins, 1789–1791, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960, p. 18. Furet in Introduction to Mirabeau, Discours, p. 19. Anne Sa’adah, The Shaping of Liberal Politics in Revolutionary France, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, p. 110. Jean-Denis Bredin, Sieyès, la clé de la Révolution française, Paris: Editions de Fallois, 1988, pp. 117–118. Stéphane Rials in La Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, présentée par Stéphane Rials, Paris: Hachette, 1988, p. 49. His full name was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau. His brother, nicknamed ‘Mirabeau tonnerre’ = ‘Mirabeau thunder’, was also a deputy in the National Assembly. Victor Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau (1715–1789). The sobriquet came from the title of a book he had written. Essai sur le despotisme, London, 1775 (published anonymously). Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, p. 95; see Chevallier, Mirabeau, pp. 51–55. See L’Atelier for abundante evidence. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 96–101 contains an account of this visit. See also Oakes, Sir Samuel Romilly, pp. 70–73. Cf. Vallette, Jean-Jacques Rousseau genevois, p. 372. L’Atelier, pp. 37–40. Bénétruy shows that Mirabeau used epistolary material sent by Clavière from Paris to write Doutes sur la liberté de l’Escaut, réclamée par l’Empereur: sur les causes et les conséquences probables de cette réclamation, London 1784. See Bénétruy, L’Atelier, p. 59; Luttrell, Mirabeau, p. 66; it was at Clavière’s suggestion that he wrote De la Caisse d’Escompte, Paris, 1785 – an attack on speculators. Bénétruy considers that part came from Brissot, part from Dupont de Nemours, and the rest from Clavière (L’Atelier, p. 101). A second work on finance came out in Paris in 1785, De la Banque d’Espagne, dite de St-Charles, also based on work done by Clavière (L’Atelier, p. 107). Likewise with a third published in the same year, sur les Actions de la Compagnie des Eaux de Paris, Paris, 1785 (L’Atelier, p. 110). L’Atelier, 38; J.-P. Brissot, Memoires 1754–1793, C. Perroud (ed.), 2 vols, Paris, 1911, I, 295. J.-P. Brissot, Le Philadelphien à Genève, ou Lettres d’un Américain sur la dernière Révolution de Genève, sa constitution nouvelle, l’émigration en Irlande &c. pouvant servir de tableau politique de Genève jusqu’en 1784, Dublin, 1783. J-P Brissot. Correspondance et Papiers, C. Perroud (ed.), Paris: Picard, 1911, pp. 14–16, Brissot to Droz, sd., 1780. Bénétruy, Introduction to Souvenirs, p. 8. Cf. Gabriel Bonno, La Constitution Britannique devant l’opinion française de Montesquieu à Bonaparte, New York: Burt Franklin, 1971 [1931], pp. 171–172; cf. also Mirabeau’s Letters During his Residence in England.

Notes 71. 72. 73. 74.

75.

76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85.

86.

87. 88.

89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94.

357

Souvenirs, p. 50. Ibid., p. 53. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 300–310. Heroic characters in Rousseau’s celebrated novel La Nouvelle Héloïse; See C.-A. Fusil, La Contagion Sacrée ou Jean-Jacques Rousseau de 1778 à 1820, Paris: Plon, 1932, pp. 115–116. See Minor Myers, Liberty without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981; John C. Meleney, The Public Life of Aedanus Burke, Revolutionary Republican in South Carolina, Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989, pp. 84–98. A. Burke, Considerations on the Society or Order of the Cincinnati, Charleston SC, 1783. Considérations sur l’Ordre de Cincinnatus, London: Johnson, 1784. Cf. Bénétruy, L’Atelier, pp. 52–53. De la Monarchie Prussienne sous Frédéric le Grand, 4 vols, London, 1788. L’Atelier, pp. 144–145. Souvenirs, p. 50. L’Atelier, p. 228. Souvenirs, p. 53. Observations d’un voyageur anglais sur la maison de force appelée Bicêtre: suivies de réflexions sur les effets de la sévérité des peines, & sur la législation criminelle de la Grande-Bretagne, imité de l’Anglais, par le comte de Mirabeau, Paris, 1788. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 97. Martin Madan, Thoughts on Executive Justice, London, 1785; Samuel Romilly, Observations on a Late Publication Entitled Thoughts on Executive Justice, London, 1786. See Oakes, Sir Samuel Romilly, pp. 60ff. The Repository, Containing Various Political, Philosophical, Literary and Miscellaneous Articles xiv, 1 (January 1789), 9–14. Cf. Frances Acomb, Mallet du Pan (1749–1800). A Career in Political Journalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1973, pp. 176– 180; ‘Lettres inédites de Mallet Du Pan à Etienne Dumont (1787–1789), Revue Historique, tome 97 January–April 1908, 101–104. The Repository, xiv, 10. Ibid., 11. Bentham’s happy acceptance of ‘inspection’ of inmates of the Panopticon pentitentiary by the public at large – albeit for him it was conceived as a protective measure for them – clearly jarred with the sensibilities of reformers at this time. The Repository, xiv, 13. MS Dumont 34, 13; Dumont to Jeanne Duval, 11 January 1789; Henry Fazy, Genève de 1788 à 1792: la fin d’un régime, Geneva, 1917, pp. 1ff. Ibid., 33, IV, 61, Mouchon to Dumont, 17 January 1789. Pierre Mouchon (1733– 1797), Genevan theologian and scholar held various pastorates before becoming principle of the College at Geneva. Interestingly, he is remembered among other things for his Sermon sur la nécessité d’une religion nationale, Deut. XXXII, 6, Geneva, 1793. Martin, Histoire de Geneve, p. 479. See pp. 174–176. This issue exposed divisions in the ranks of the représentants between the expatriates and those in Geneva: Mouchon objected to Dumont’s contempt for the new settlement. He argued that if you erected endless precautions against abuses of authority, you simply encouraged those who held it to circumvent the precautions. But if you made an appeal to their hearts to operate a paternal administration, you could bring into play the most powerful of all motivations in a small state where

358 Notes

95. 96. 97. 98.

99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105.

106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115.

116. 117. 118.

the fact that people were for ever bumping into each other meant that they felt a need for mutual affection. And Mouchon wrote,‘ . . . these men that we both alike despised in the past and that you continue to despise nonetheless have a soul and a heart’ (MS Dumont 33, III, 62, Mouchon to Dumont, 17 March 1789). Souvenirs, pp. 40–41. J. D. Jarrett, The Begetters of Revolution. England’s Involvement with France 1759– 1789, London: Longman, 1973, p. 264. On occasion at a later stage writing speeches for others as well: see pp. 208–209. Interesting commentary on the history of the Genevan diplomatic and political presence in Paris before and during the Revolution is provided in Lüthy, La Banque Protestante, vol ii, Appendice: ‘En marge de la banque: diplomatie et politique genevoise à Paris.’ With hindsight, we might say that their instincts were justified; it was the newly republican France that was to annex Geneva in 1798. Souvenirs, p. 43. Richard Whatmore, ‘Etienne Dumont, the British Constitution, and the French Revolution’, Historical Journal, 50, 1 (2007), 27. J.-L.-E. Lerminier, De l’influence de la philosophie du XVIIIe siècle sur la législation et la sociabilité du xixe (Brussels, 1834), p. 204n, cited in Whatmore, ‘Etienne Dumont’, p. 25, note 6. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 354, Dumont to Romilly, 21 June 1789. Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, p. 110. Ibid., The Begetters of Revolution, p. 275. For a very summary treatment of Anglophobia in France during the Revolution, see Frances Acomb, Anglophobia in France 1763–1789. An Essay in the History of Constitutionalism and Nationalism, Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1950, ch. 6. Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs, v, 311. Bonno, La Constitution Britannique, pp. 191ff. Mémorial de Gouverneur Morris, Paris, 1842, pp. 6–7; cited in Bonno, La Constitution Britannique, p. 192. Cited in Bonno, La Constitution Britannique, p. 193. Ibid., pp. 209–210 observes that the call for a type of judicial organisation on the British model was to be found in some of the Cahiers. Bonno, La Constitution Britannique, pp. 226–227. Ibid., p. 247. Cf. Souvenirs, pp. 277–279 for an account of this episode. The text was later included by Dumont in the first volume of Tactique des Assemblées législatives (i, 283ff.). Richard Whatmore, ‘ “A gigantic manliness’’: Paine’s republicanism in the 1790s’, in Economy, Polity, and Society. British Intellectual History 1750–1950, Stefan Collini, Richard Whatmore, and Brian Young (eds), Pt II, p. 109. Mémoires de Mirabeau, vi, 57, note 1. L’Atelier, p. 258. Dumont, Souvenirs, pp. 145, 175ff . . . ; on Du Chastellet and Dumont, see Jean Martin, Achille du Chastellet et le premier mouvement républicain en France, d’après des lettres inédites (Extrait de La Révolution Française, 34, 1927), Paris, 1927. By the summer of 1791, when republicanism was becoming generally more acceptable as a political position, Clavière was willing to join with Du Chastellet, Condorcet, Paine, and Brissot in the launch of a new journal called Le Républicain. See Martin, Achille Du Chastellet, pp. 8–9. Surprisingly, it seems that Dumont did initially promise a contribution but then changed his mind, so perhaps he was not quite as

Notes

119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125.

126. 127. 128.

129. 130. 131. 132.

133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140.

141.

142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148.

359

opposed at the time as he made out later. Achille François de Lascaris d’Urfé, marquis du Chastellet (1760–1794), aide-de-camp to the marquis de Bouillé during the American War of Independence. Whatmore, ‘Etienne Dumont’, p. 33. Introduction to Mirabeau. Discours, Furet (ed.), p. 17. ‘Fragment de l’histoire secrète de la Révolution’ in Oeuvres de Camille Desmoulins, Jules Claretie (ed.), Paris: Charpentier, 1874, I, 309. Desmoulins, Oeuvres, I, 306. Ibid., I, 308. Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, pp. 76–77. One of the most useful modern guides to the outlook and backgrounds and aspirations of the Assembly deputies is to be found in Timothy Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary. The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789–1790), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Louis Barthou, Mirabeau, London: Heinemann, 1913, p. 177. Loménie, Les Mirabeau, iv, 276. l’Atelier, pp. 182–185, 223; Souvenirs, pp. 89–93. Soon after Dumont’s return to England in March 1790 the journal ceased to be a mouthpiece for Mirabeau – see L’Atelier, p. 274. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 374, Romilly to Dumont 17 November 1789. Aulard, Les Orateurs, pp. 84–85. Ibid., p. 103. Ibid., p. 106; Souvenirs, p. 289. The comte de La Marck, Auguste-Marie-Raymond, prince d’Aremberg, was born in Brussels in 1753. He was elected representative for the Estates-General despite not having French citizenship as a possessor of fiefs in the kingdom. He served as intermediary between Mirabeau and the Court. See A. de Bacourt (ed.) Correspondance entre le comte de Mirabeau et le comte de La Marck pendant les années 1789, 1790, et 1791, 2 vols, Brussels: Auguste Pagny, 1851. Souvenirs, p. 59. Ibid., pp. 62–63. See A. Castaldo, Les Méthodes de travail de la Constituante, Paris: PUF, 1989, pp. 22–24 for a summary account; see also J. J. Chevalier, Mirabeau, pp. 54–58. Souvenirs, pp. 69, 265. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 71. Ibid. Speeches of Mirabeau the Elder, pronounced in the National Assembly of France. To which is prefixed a sketch of his life and character, From the French edition of M. Mejan (trans.), by James White, London, 1792, pp. 33–34. Souvenirs, p. 266; Thomas Bruce, seventh Count of Elgin and Kincardine (1766– 1841), the celebrated British diplomat and collector, associated with the famous Elgin Marbles. Souvenirs, p. 71. Recollections of Mirabeau, pp. 63–4 (Souvenirs, p. 72). Ibid., p. 65 (Souvenirs, p. 72). Speeches of M. de Mirabeau, pp. 59–60. Lk 13, 18–19. Souvenirs, p. 73. Ibid., p. 82.

360 Notes 149. On 8 July. Text in Recollections of Mirabeau, Appendix, pp. 379–384 and Speeches of M. de Mirabeau, pp. 69–91. 150. Souvenirs, p. 83. 151. Mirabeau, Discours, p. 66. The French text of the speech is printed pp. 67–73. 152. Speeches of M. de Mirabeau, p. 74. 153. Ibid., pp. 74–75. 154. Ibid., pp. 76–77. 155. Ibid., pp. 83–84. 156. Souvenirs, p. 83. 157. Ibid., p. 268. 158. Ibid., p. 83. 159. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 87 (Souvenirs, p. 83). 160. Dominique Joseph Garat (1749–1833), writer and politician. 161. Souvenirs, p. 84. 162. The Speeches of M. de Mirabeau, pp. 92–102. Furet in Mirabeau, Discours prints it at pp. 74–77. He makes no mention of Dumont’s claim to have written it. But Duval prints it as an appendix and an English translation is given in The Recollections of Mirabeau, appendix no 1, pp. 379–384. 163. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 382. 164. Souvenirs, p. 84. 165. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 88 (Souvenirs, p. 84). 166. L’Atelier, p. 176. 167. This was a book of pretended traveller’s letters on France and England jointly composed by Dumont, Romilly, and Scarlett. See pp. 210 ff. 168. Quoted in L’Atelier, p. 178. 169. Ibid., 181. 170. The text of this letter is reproduced in Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, pp. 373–375; and in L’Atelier, pp. 180–181. 171. In the Courier, xxxvi, 11 we find the opinion expressed that the real battle is between those who fear the overweening power of the monarch and those who fear the overweening power of the Assembly. 172. See Chevallier, Mirabeau, pp. 76–80. 173. Souvenirs, p. 104; MS Dumont 78, 102, Dumont to Lansdowne, 10 September 1789. 174. Courier, xxxvii, 8. 175. Ibid., 19. 176. Ibid., 21. 177. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 130 (Souvenirs, p. 106). 178. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 107. 179. Courier, xxxviii, 24. 180. MS Dumont 17, 34, Dumont to Romilly, 5 or 9 August 1789. 181. Groenvelt, p. 213. 182. MS Dumont 35, 95. 183. Groenvelt, pp. 216–217. 184. Ibid., p. 219. 185. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 117 (Souvenirs, p. 99). 186. Ibid., p. 118 (Souvenirs, p. 100). 187. Ibid., p. 116 (Souvenirs, p. 99). 188. Ibid. 189. Courier, xxxviii, 3.

Notes

361

190. Souvenirs, p. 71. 191. Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, p. 148. 192. Simplicité de l’idée d’une constitution, et de quelques autres qui s’y rapportent. Application et conséquences, par le Marquis de Casaux, de la Société Royale de Londres, & de celle d’Agriculture de Florence, Paris, 1789. The real name of the ‘marquis’ was Alexandre Cazaud or Cazeau. See Philippe de Roux, Un Planteur des Antilles, Inspirateur de Mirabeau: le marquis de Casaux, Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises, 1951. 193. Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, p. 155. 194. Courier xli, 11–14. 195. Ibid., 2. 196. Ibid., 4. 197. Lord Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution, J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence (eds), New York: Noonday Press, 1959 [1910], p. 144. 198. Souvenirs, pp. 97ff. 199. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 112 (Souvenirs, p. 97). 200. Ibid., p. 113 (Souvenirs, p. 98). 201. Correspondence, iv, 84, Bentham to Brissot, mid-August 1789. For Bentham’s view of natural rights, see RRR; also Nonsense upon Stilts. Bentham, Burke, and the Rights of Man, Jeremy Waldron (ed.), London: Methuen, 1987; Schofield, Utility and Democracy, ch. 3. 202. Karmin, Sir Francis D’Ivernois, p. 200. 203. Gaspard Vallette, Mallet-Du Pan et la Révolution Française, Geneva: Georg, 1893, p. 21. 204. Ibid., p. 27. 205. Ibid., p. 95. 206. D’Ivernois, Offrande, p. 105. D’Ivernois was like Dumont traumatised by the Revolutions in France and Geneva, but his trajectory took him in a very different direction and he became a reactionary in later years, which seems to have alienated him from Dumont. 207. See L’An 1 des droits de l’homme, Antoine de Baecque, Wolfgang Schmale, Michel Vovelle (eds), Paris: Presses du CNRS, 1988, p. 17. 208. Ibid., p. 18. 209. Ibid., p. 19. 210. Keith Michael Baker, ‘the Idea of a Declaration of Rights’ in Dale Van Kley (ed.) The French Idea of Freedom. The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, p. 173. 211. L’An 1 des droits de l’homme, p. 27. 212. L’Atelier, p. 190. 213. L’An des droits de l’homme., p. 27. 214. Ibid., p. 28. 215. Souvenirs, p. 275. 216. For the text of this, see La Déclaration des droits, présentée par Stéphane Rials, pp. 519–522. 217. Souvenirs, p. 98. 218. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 115 (Souvenirs, p. 98). 219. Chevallier, Mirabeau, pp. 74–76. 220. Courier, xxviii, 1. 221. See also L’An 1 des droits de l’homme, pp. 126ff. 222. Courier xxviii, 3.

362 Notes 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230.

231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 254.

255. 256. 257.

Ibid., 5. Ibid. xxix, 9. Ibid., 14. Ibid., xxxi, 1. L’Atelier, p. 191. See pp. 100–101 above. Keith Michael Baker, ‘The idea of a Declaration of Rights’ pp. 183–185. See also Rials in La Déclaration des droits de l’homme, pp. 127–128. Franck Alengry, Condorcet guide de la Révolution française: théoricien du Droit constitutionnel et Précurseur de la Science sociale, Paris: V Giard & E Brière, 1904, pp. 47–51. Groenvelt, p. 228. Ibid., p. 229. Ibid., p. 231. See pp. 210–211 below. Groenvelt, pp. 238–239. Ibid., p. 240. Ibid., p. 241. L’Atelier, p. 192; Cf. Baker, ‘The idea of a Declaration of Rights’, pp. 186–187. Ibid., 193. Rials attributes the preamble to Mirabeau and pays no attention to Bénétruy’s conclusion (Cf. Rials, La Déclaration, p. 203). Recollections of Mirabeau, pp. 52–53 (Souvenirs, pp. 64–65). Murray Forsyth, Reason and Revolution. The Political thought of the Abbé Sieyès, Leicester: Leicester University Press/New York: Holmes & Meier, 1987, p. 39. Views on the means of execution which the representatives of France will have at their disposal in 1789. Forsyth, Reason and Revolution, p. 17. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 19. Sieyès, Views on the Means of Execution, quoted in Forsyth, Reason and Revolution, p. 23. Forsyth, Reason and Revolution, p. 25. Ibid., p. 27. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 53, note (Souvenirs, p. 65, note A). Rials, La Déclaration, pp. 138–139. Ibid., p. 144. Ibid., pp. 159–160. Bowring, Works, x, 185. ‘Bentham and Mirabeau: A study in Anglo-French history during the early years of the Revolutionary period’ Cambridge, 1937. This was never published, but I have a copy in my possession. Confirmed in a later letter from Dumont to his niece Jeanne Duval (2 November 1790): see MS Dumont 34. See Bb, Literature section, v (1797), 157. Rials, La Déclaration, p. 128. Unfortunately Rials’ comments on Dumont are rather misleading, for he seems to have thought that Dumont had ‘taken refuge in France’, but he does raise the question of what Dumont’s formation was, a question to which this book is intended to provide an answer. His own supposition on the matter – which he acknowledges is a guess – is that Dumont’s thinking was probably a mixture of ‘germano-helvetic natural-lawism and Rousseauism’.

Notes

258. 259. 260. 261. 262.

263. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 271.

272. 273. 274. 275. 276. 277.

278. 279. 280. 281. 282.

283. 284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294.

363

At least the assumption of ‘Rousseauism’ is correct as long as it is understood in a restricted sense as I have tried to show above – see chapter 3. ‘Rousseauism’ tout court means all things to all men. Correspondence, iv, 68–71, Bentham to Dumont, 9 June 1789. See below, pp. 194 ff. Correspondence, iv, 92–94, Dumont to Bentham, 27 September 1789. Correspondence, iv, 126, Bentham to Dumont, 3 May 1790. Le Journal d’Adrien Duquesnoy, député du tiers état de Bar-le-Duc (3 mai 1789–1793 avril 1790), Robert de Crèvecoeur (ed.), Paris: Picard, 1894, 2 vols, I, 299; quoted in Rials, La Déclaration, p. 210. Cf. RRR, editorial introduction, p. xlviii, note 4. Ibid., p. xlix. See pp. 129–131. Cf. L’Atelier, pp. 198ff. Souvenirs, p. 121. For details of these two speeches, see L’Atelier, pp. 209–212; Souvenirs, pp. 122–123. This idea of a civic enrolment had originated with Sieyès. Souvenirs, p. 110. Ibid., pp. 110–112. Cf. for example Histoire de la Conjuration de Louis-Philippe-Joseph d’Orléans . . . par l’auteur de l’Histoire de la conjuration de Maximilien Robespierre, 3 vols, Paris, 1796. Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 132. Cf. Souvenirs, pp. 125ff. See esp. Bénétruy’s extremely valuable footnotes here. Souvenirs, p. 130. Ibid., pp. 139–140. Jean Martin dealt with the ‘Necker-Dumont polemic’ in an article of 1926: La Polémique Necker-Dumont en 1789, Extrait des Etrennes Genevoises 1927, Geneva: Atar, 1926. E. Lavaquery, Necker, fourrier de la Révolution, Paris: Plon, 1933, pp. 332–333. Martin, La Polémique, p. 8. See pp. 124–126. Réclamation, p. 3. Cited in Louis Dufour-Vernes, ‘Le Pasteur Juventin et sa correspondance’ in Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève, tome 1er, 1892, p. 320. Juventin to Vernes, 28 July 1789, cited in Louis Dufour-Vernes, Bulletin de la Société. Réclamation, pp. 8–9. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 15. Ibid., pp. 17–18. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 39. D’Ivernois, Offrande, pp. 107ff. Ibid., pp. 123ff.

364 Notes 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300. 301. 302. 303. 304.

305.

306. 307. 308. 309. 310. 311. 312. 313. 314. 315. 316. 317. 318.

319. 320. 321. 322. 323. 324. 325. 326. 327. 328. 329. 330. 331. 332. 333.

For example Ibid., pp. 99, 125, 157, 166. Ibid., p. 129. Ibid., pp. 135ff. Ibid., p. 143. Ibid., p. 152. For example Réclamation, p. 45. Dumont 33, III, 95, 96; printed in Martin, La Polémique, pp. 10–12. Ibid., 88; printed in Martin, La Polémique, pp. 14–15. Ibid., III, 98–92; Martin, La Polémique, pp. 15–20. Edouard Chapuisat, Necker (1732–1804), Paris: Sirey, 1938, pp. 200–208. Karmin believes this to have been a correct assumption: Karmin, Sir Francis D’Ivernois, pp. 193ff. See O. Karmin, Une Offrande genevoise à l’Assemblée Nationale, extrait des Annales révolutionnaires (October–December 1909), Le Puy: Peyriller, Rouchon & Gamon, 1909, 481–512; for a summary account of the Genevans’ agitation in Paris in 1789 for their political goals, see L’Atelier, pp. 154ff. Souvenirs, p. 141. Ibid., pp. 84–85. L’Atelier, pp. 247–248 and note 1, p. 247. See also Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, p. 164. Souvenirs, p. 142 and note 291. L’Atelier, p. 253. Ibid., p. 255. Souvenirs, p. 142. Jarrett, Three Faces of Revolution, p. 169. Aulard, Les Orateurs, p. 108. L’Atelier, p. 334. MS Dumont 17, 48, Dumont to Romilly, 25–31 January 1791. Printed in full in L’Atelier, pp. 467–477; Dumont to Romilly 25–31 January 1791. Adrien Lamourette (1742–1794), leading protagonist of the movement to reconcile the Revolution with Catholicism. Appointed Constitutional Bishop of Lyons in 1791. L’Atelier, p. 341. Souvenirs, pp. 147–148. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, London, 1790. The bulk of this speech is given in G. Pallain (ed.) Correspondence diplomatique de Talleyrand. La Mission de Talleyrand à Londres en 1792, Paris, 1889, pp. xvi–xviii. Souvenirs, p. 148. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 214 (Souvenirs, p. 150). Castaldo comments on Mirabeau’s exceptional talents as President of the Assembly (Les Méthodes de travail de la Constituante, pp. 293–295). Souvenirs, p. 151. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 216 (Souvenirs, p. 151). Souvenirs, p. 154. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 223 (Souvenirs, p. 154). Souvenirs, p. 157. Ibid., p. 158. Ibid., p. 161. Ibid., p. 162.

Notes

365

334. Recollections of Mirabeau, pp. 238–239 (Souvenirs, p. 163). 335. See ch. 7 for further on the Souvenirs.

5 The creator of the Bentham brand: (3) First steps in marketing 1. Henry Sidgwick, ‘Bentham and Benthamism’, p. 629, reprinted in Parekh (ed.) Critical Assessments, iii, p. 460. 2. See Welch, Liberty and Utility. See also Jack Hayward, After the French Revolution. Six Critics of Democracy and Nationalism, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991. 3. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, p. 152. 4. Jean Starobinski, L’Invention de la liberté 1700–1789, Geneva: Skira, 1964; see also Starobinski, Le Transparence et l’Obstacle. 5. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, p. 152. 6. Considerations on the Government of Poland and on its Proposed Reformation – completed but not published in 1772; Constitutional Project for Corsica, drafted 1765. 7. Bentham, Correspondence, vii, 26, Bentham to Dumont, 14 May 1802. 8. See, for example, Simon Schaffer, ‘States of Mind: Enlightenment and Natural Philosophy’ in The Languages of Psyche: Mind and Body in Enlightenment Thought: Clark Library Lectures, 1985–1986, G. S. Rousseau (ed.), Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990, pp. 233–290; J. D. Jarrett, ‘The Bowood Circle 1780–1793. Its Ideas and Influence’, Unpublished B Litt Thesis, University of Oxford. 9. Mack, Jeremy Bentham, p. 409. 10. Everett, Jeremy Bentham, pp. 47–48. 11. Cf. Cyprian Blamires, ‘Etienne Dumont, Genevan Apostle of Utility’, Utilitas, vol. ii, no. 1 (May 1990), 63–64; Charles Blount, ‘Bentham, Dumont and Mirabeau’ in University of Birmingham Historical Journal, iii, 2 (1952), 157. 12. For the text of this piece, see RRR, pp. 147–165. See RRR, editorial introduction xxix–xxxi for useful background information. See also Blount, ‘Bentham, Dumont, and Mirabeau’, 158; J. H. Burns, ‘Bentham and the French Revolution’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, xvi (1966), 96–114. 13. See Correspondence, iv, 18, Romilly to Bentham, 3 December 1788. 14. Correspondence, iv, 18–19 and 32–34, Bentham to Romilly, 2 December 1788, and Bentham to Lord Wycombe, 1 March 1789. Not surprisingly, Bentham was unable to get this small pamphlet published; Paris was deluged with political writings at the time. (cf. Rights, Representation, and Reform, p. xxx.) 15. For the fate of this little pamphlet, referred to by Bentham as ‘a dissection of the Noblesse of Brittany’, see Bentham, Correspondence, iv, 32, Bentham to Morellet, 25 February 1789. 16. RRR, p. 149. 17. Ibid., p. 151. 18. Ibid., p. 153. 19. Ibid., p. 155. 20. Ibid., p. 161.

366 Notes 21. For an account of Bentham’s writings on France at this period, see RRR, editorial introduction; see also Janko Zagar, Bentham et la France, Doctoral thesis, Paris: Sorbonne, 1958. 22. André Morellet (1727–1819), French economist and publicist. For the relations of Bentham and Dumont with Morellet, see Traité de la propriété e il carteggio con Bentham et Dumont, testi inediti, Eugenio Rienzo, Lea Campos Boralevi (eds), Florence: Centro Editoriale Toscano, 1990. 23. Correspondence, iv, 40. See also Lettres d’André Morellet, Dorothy Medlin, JeanClaude David, Paul Leclerc (eds), 3 vols, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1991– 1996, ii, 122–133 for texts of two letters from Morellet to Bentham with useful annotations. 24. Correspondence, iv, 70. 25. In 1778, in fact, see Political Tactics, Michael James, Cyprian Blamires, Catherine Pease-Watkin (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999, editorial introduction p. xvi. 26. In 1799. Dumont’s (incomplete) manuscript of his version can be found in the Dumont archive, MS Dumont 52. See Political Tactics, editorial introduction, pp. xxviii–xxxiv for an account of the history of Dumont’s work. 27. Tactique des Assemblées législatives, 2 vols, Geneva and Paris, 1816. 28. Correspondence, iv, 20, note 8. 29. The Monthly Review; or Literary Journal, Enlarged, vol. xvi (January–April 1795), 298– 360; (April 1795), 406–415. Much of the review was taken up with very lengthy extracts from Bentham’s text. The main concern of the reviewer was that Bentham might have overreached himself with the sheer ambition of his project. 30. See Blamires, ‘Etienne Dumont: Genevan Apostle of Utility’, 65–67. 31. Letwin, The Pursuit of Certainty, p. 188. 32. Courier, cxxi (123–128), cxxiii (177–184), cxxv (225–232), cxxxvii (49–56), cxlii (185–191), cxlvii (321–328). 33. Draught of a New Plan for the Organisation of the Judicial Establishment in France: Proposed as a Succedaneum to the Draught Presented, for the Same Purpose, by the Committee of Constitution, to the National Assembly, December 21st, 1789; this was privately printed but not published at the time. For the text see Bowring, Works, iv, 287–406; See also Correspondence, iv, pp. xxiii–xxiv and 124n; RRR, editorial introduction, passim; Mack, Jeremy Bentham, pp. 420–431 34. Bowring, Works, iv, 306. 35. Ibid., 338. 36. Ibid., 337. 37. Courier, cxxi, 123 ff. 38. Correspondence, iv, xxiii–xxiv. 39. Ibid., xxiii. 40. Ibid., xxiv. 41. Correspondence, iv, 127–128. Dumont to Bentham, 12 May 1790. 42. Ibid., 128. 43. Correspondence, iv, 129. Bentham to Dumont, 14 or 15 May 1790. 44. Ibid., 335, note 3. 45. Ibid., 335. 46. Samuel von Cocceji (1679–1755), Chancellor of Frederick the Great and reformer of the Prussian legal code. 47. See Political Tactics, Michael James, Cyprian Blamires, Catherine Pease-Watkin (eds), editorial introduction, for the complicated textual history of this work. 48. Correspondence, iv, 340–341. Bentham to Garran de Coulon, 25 November 1791.

Notes

367

49. Bentham’s use of the term extrait parallels Dumont’s earlier use of it in relation to the abstract he made of Bentham’s Observations on the Breton nobles’ arrêté. It seems that both men regarded Dumont’s productions as ‘abstracts’ of Bentham texts. 50. Correspondence, iv, 340, note 1. See Lea Campos Boralevi, ‘Un Riformatore tra due Rivoluzioni: Jeremy Bentham’ in Modelli nella storia del pensiero politico: ii. la rivoluzione francese e i modelli politici, Florence: Olschki, 1989, p. 123. 51. See p. 280; for a study of the relationship between Bentham’s texts and Dumont’s text see Catherine Pease-Watkin, ‘Bentham’s Panopticon and Dumont’s Panoptique’, Journal of Bentham Studies, 6 (2003), http://www.ucl.ac.uk/BenthamProject/journal/cpwpan.htm, consulted 26 February 2007. 52. As Pease-Watkin points out, much of Dumont’s text was taken from Bentham’s Panopticon Postscript II (Pease-Watkin, ‘Bentham’s Panopticon’, p. 4). 53. Bowring, Works, iv, 39. 54. TLCP (1802), iii, p. 209. 55. Bowring, Works, iv, 39. 56. See RRR, Appendix B, pp. 420–427. Cf. also editorial introduction, pp. lv–lvi. 57. RRR, p. 422. Bentham is clearly thinking of people like himself, uniquely fitted to be mentors to the world by virtue of their combination of intellectual gifts and communication skills. 58. Ibid., p. 424. 59. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford: OUP, 1969; see also Alan Ryan (ed.) The Idea of Freedom. Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin, Oxford: OUP, 1979. 60. TLCP [1802] iii, p. 210. 61. Ibid., 225. 62. Bowring, Works iv, 47. 63. TLCP [1802] iii, p. 226. 64. Ibid., 228. 65. Ibid., 231. 66. Ibid., 234. 67. See pp. 205–207. 68. TLCP [1802] iii, pp. 232–233. 69. Ibid., 234–235. 70. Ibid., 235–236. 71. Ibid., 257–261. 72. MS Dumont 63, ‘Mémoire et observations sur l’administration des pauvres, d’après un ouvrage de M. Bentham.’ 73. ‘Outline of a Work entitled Pauper Management Improved’, Annals of Agriculture, xxx (1798), 116–117; for the text, see Bowring, Works, viii, 369–439. See also p. 74 above. 74. MS Dumont 63, 69–70 (Bentham, Works, viii, 375). See Robert Roth, Pratiques pénitentiaires et théorie sociale. L’exemple de la prison de Genève (1825–1862), Geneva/Paris: Droz, 1981, pp. 293–294; see also Marco Guidi, ‘Attraverso lo specchio ginevrino: le traduzioni italiane degli scritti di Bentham’, in Il Genio delle Lingue. Le traduzioni nel settecento in area Franco-Italiana, Florence: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, p. 247 and note 29. 75. MS Dumont 27, 1/2. 76. See Schofield, Utility & Democracy, ch. 10, ‘Publicity, Responsibility, and the architecture of government.’ 77. For details of the genesis of this project, see Political Tactics, editorial Introduction.

368 Notes 78. See John Edwin Bradfield, The Public Carriages of Great Britain; a Glance at the Rise, Progress, Struggles & Burthens of Railways, Stage Carriages, Steam Vessels, Mail Coaches, Omnibuses and Hackney Carriages, London: Piper, Stephenson & Spence, 1855, pp. 101–102. 79. UCL Brougham Papers, Richard Smith to Lord Brougham, 6 June 1834. Smith’s offer was apparently not accepted. 80. UCL Brougham Papers, Richard Smith to Lord Brougham, 6 February 1834. 81. Chester W. New, The Life of Henry Brougham to 1830, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961, p. 391. 82. Correspondence, xii, as index. See Henry Brougham, On the Present State of the Law, London: Henry Colburn, 1828. 83. See Political Tactics, p. 176. 84. ‘Tactique des Assemblées politiques délibérantes’, chs xxxv and xxxvi, 245–250. This is in volume i of Tactique des Assemblées législatives. 85. Political Tactics, pp. 44–45. 86. Ibid., p. 45. 87. Ibid. 88. See Correspondence, iv, 145–170, Bentham to Lansdowne 24 August 1790, for the intensity of Bentham’s disappointment when he realised Lansdowne was not going to put him up for one of his pocket boroughs. 89. ‘ . . . the very rules that suggested themselves as necessary to every assembly, turned out to be the very rules actually observed in both assemblies of the British Legislature. What theory would have pitched upon as a model of perfection, practice presented as having been successfully pursued: never was the accord more perfect between reason and experience’ (Political Tactics, p. 1). But this applies chiefly to the rules of debate and not to other issues like the rules about the admission of visitors. 90. Ibid., pp. 24–29. For an attack on bicameralism by Bentham, see RRR, pp. 41–43. 91. Correspondence vii, 529. 92. Thomas Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. For the Use of the Senate of the United States, Washington, 1801. 93. John Hatsell, Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons under Separate Titles, with Observations, London, 1769. This soon became the classic authority on the established rules and discipline of the British Houses of Parliament and went through many subsequent editions. Indeed, it remains in print today. 94. Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (1770–1861). 95. Correspondence, iv, 242–243. Lansdowne to Bentham, 23 February 1791. 96. Correspondence, iv, 243–254. Bentham to Lansdowne, 24 February 1791. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid. 100. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Thomas Burger, Frederick Lawrence (trans.), Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006 [1989]. 101. H. R. G. Greaves, ‘Bentham on legislative procedure’, in Economica (August 1931), p. 308. 102. Cf. J. H. Burns, ‘Bentham and the French Revolution’, p. 98. 103. F. Moreau and J. Delpech, Les Règlements des Assemblées législatives, Paris: Giard & Brière, 1906, vol. I, preface, p. xxx.

Notes

369

104. André Castaldo, Les Méthodes de travail de la Constituante; les techniques délibératives de l’Assemblée Nationale 1789–1791, Paris: PUF, 1989, p. 13. 105. Souvenirs, p. 108. 106. Castaldo, Les Méthodes de travail, p. 93. 107. Ibid., pp. 94–96. 108. Romilly, Memoirs, I, 354, Dumont to Romilly, 21 June 1789. For the text of the rules of debate adopted on 29 July 1789 by the National Assembly, see Baecque et al., L’An 1 des droits de l’homme, pp. 39–43. 109. Nicolas Roussellier, ‘The Political Transfer of English Parliamentary Rules in the French Assemblies (1789–1848), in European Review of History, 12, 2 (July 2005), 239–248. 110. Souvenirs, p. 102. 111. Tactique des Assemblées législatives, I, 158. On p. 163 a long footnote quotes French practice in this respect as a terrible example of the dangers of failure to observe the rule. 112. A. de Staël-Holstein, Letters on England, London: Treuttel and Würz, 1825. 113. Letters on England, p. 326.

6 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

Dumont’s goodbye to revolution: 1791–1793 L’Atelier, pp. 352–353. MS Dumont 17, 48, Dumont to Romilly 25–31 January 1791. Ibid., 51, Dumont to Romilly 9 April 1791. My account of these events follows Henry Fazy, Genève de 1788 à 1792. La fin d’un régime, Geneva: Kundig, 1917, pp. 196ff. and MS Dumont 17, 51ff. Dumont was even accused after his death of having incited a riot. Jean Martin, the grandson of Dumont’s nephew Jacob-Louis Duval, produces evidence that this was incorrect (see Jean Martin, Etienne Dumont, p. 34). Jean-Pierre Bérenger (1740–1807), historian and leader of the natifs. L’Atelier, p. 383. Ibid., p. 384. MS Dumont 34, 127. L’Atelier, p. 384. Ibid., p. 385. MS Dumont 17, 57, Dumont to Romilly, 28 April, 1791. Souvenirs, p. 299; L’Atelier, p. 386. See John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life, London: Bloomsbury, 1995, p. 311. Paine had in fact been born in England in 1737 and did not emigrate until 1774. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 262 (Souvenirs, p. 176). Soulavie, Historical and Political Memoirs, v, 280–281. MS Dumont 17, 59, Dumont to Romilly, 23 June 1791. See MS Dumont 74, 170–181 for some affectionate letters from Mme de Condorcet to Dumont. Sophie (1764–1822), wife of the celebrated philosophe, was a writer and translator. She published important translations of Tom Paine and Adam Smith. For her circle, see Antoine Guillois, La Marquise de Condorcet, sa famille, son salon, ses amis 1764–1822, Paris: Ollendorff, 1897; Henri Valentino, Madame de Condorcet. Ses amis et ses amours (1764–1822), Paris: Perrin, 1950. For a full account of this, see Correspondance Diplomatique de Talleyrand, Pallain (ed.) introduction; cf. also Philip G. Dwyer, Talleyrand, London: Pearson, 2002, pp. 45–52. Robin Harris, Talleyrand: Betrayer and Saviour of France, London:

370 Notes

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 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.

John Murray, 2007, pp. 19, 59. Harris makes substantial use of the Souvenirs; Jean Orieux, Talleyrand ou le Sphinx incompris, Paris: Flammarion, 1970, pp. 183ff.; J. F. Bernard, Talleyrand: A Biography, London: Collins, 1973, pp. 114ff. Cf. Talleyrand, Mémoires 1754–1815, Paris: Plon, 1982 [1957], pp. 57–58. Souvenirs, p. 193; L’Atelier, p. 407. Dwyer, Talleyrand, p. 46. Ibid., p. 194. Ibid., p. 195. MS Dumont, 8, 64. Ibid., 65. Souvenirs, p. 196. MS Dumont 78, 168/151. Souvenirs, p. 201. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 308 (Souvenirs, p. 201). Ibid., p. 312 (Souvenirs, p. 203). Souvenirs, p. 202. Jean Marie Antoine Claude de Valdec de Lessart (1741–1792), minister for foreign affairs since October 1791. For an account of this episode, see Eloise Ellery, Brissot de Warville. A Study in the History of the French Revolution, New York: AMS Press, 1970 [1915], pp. 244–249. Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771) expounded these ideas in his bestselling work De l’Esprit (1758). Souvenirs, p. 204. Ibid., p. 305; the text may be found in Romilly, Memoirs, ii, 33–34. Souvenirs, p. 204. Pierre-Marie, marquis de Grave (1755–1825), appointed War Minister on 9 March 1792. Ibid., p. 206. Armand Gensonné (1758–1793), lawyer and leading figure in the Girondin faction. Ibid., p. 306. Le Moniteur, 15 March 1792, p. 310. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 318 (Souvenirs, p. 206). Le Moniteur, 15 March 1792, 631–632. See Bénétruy, L’Atelier, pp. 396ff. for the episode. Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (1756–1794), legal reformer, mayor of Paris and leading republican. Souvenirs, p. 207. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 320 (Souvenirs, p. 217). Souvenirs, p. 209. Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière (1734–1793), political journalist and leading Jacobin, appointed Minister of the Interior in March 1792. Mme Roland was an influential member of the Girondin faction and a political journalist. Souvenirs, p. 218. Charles François Dumouriez (1739–1823) was a French general, appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in March 1792. Ibid., p. 308. Ibid., p. 218. Bernard-François, marquis de Chauvelin (1766–1832). Ibid., p. 222. Ibid., p. 225. Dumont himself must have been one of the ‘literary people’, another would have been Garat. Ibid., p. 229. Dwyer, Talleyrand, pp. 52–56; Harris, Talleyrand, chapter 5. Correspondence, iv, 385, Bentham to Dumont, 16 August 1792.

Notes

371

59. ‘Both the English and the French Mss are now scattered in a number of boxes in the University College collection’ (Correspondence, iv, 385, note 2). 60. Correspondence, iv, 387, Dumont to Bentham, 23 August 1792. 61. James Scarlett (1769–1844), 1st Baron Abinger, barrister and MP. 62. Romilly, Memoirs I, 296. 63. Romilly had himself already published anonymously Thoughts on the Probable Influence of the French Revolution on Great Britain in 1790, in which he had put forth his agenda for domestic reforms. See Oakes, Sir Samuel Romilly, pp. 82–85. 64. P. C. Scarlett, A Memoir of the Right Honourable James, First Lord Abinger, Chief Baron of her Majesty’s Court of Exchequer, London, 1877, pp. 54–55. 65. MS Dumont 17, 62, Dumont to Romilly, 17 October 1791. 66. See MS Dumont 21 for some notes that seem to have been written by Dumont for the proposed second volume. 67. MS Dumont 8, 60. 68. Romilly to Dumont, 6 September 1791, quoted in Romilly, Memoirs, I, 432–433. 69. Dumont to Romilly, 23 March 1792, MS Dumont 17, 63–64. 70. Reybaz to Dumont, 7 August 1792, MS Dumont 33, III, 277ff. 71. Jarrett, ‘The Bowood Circle’, p. 65. 72. MS Dumont 35, 79. 73. Ibid., 35, 81. 74. Groenvelt, pp. 1–2. 75. Ibid., p. 4. 76. Ibid., p. 11. 77. MS Dumont 6, 58. 78. Groenvelt, pp. 26–30. 79. Ibid., p. 38. 80. Ibid., p. 40. 81. Recollections of Mirabeau, p. 24 (Souvenirs, p. 42). 82. Groenvelt, p. 52. 83. Ibid., p. 63. 84. Ibid., pp. 69–70. 85. Ibid., p. 100. 86. Ibid., p. 103. 87. Ibid., p. 131. 88. Ibid., p. 132. 89. Ibid., p. 133. 90. Ibid., p. 144. 91. Ibid., p. 151. 92. Ibid., p. 166. 93. Ibid., p. 166. 94. Ibid., p. 176. 95. Ibid., p. 181. 96. Ibid., p. 139. 97. Ibid., p. 200. 98. Ibid., p. 203. 99. Ibid., p. 250. 100. Ibid., p. 254. 101. Ibid., p. 256. 102. Ibid., p. 258. 103. Ibid., p. 259.

372 Notes 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117.

118. 119. 120. 121.

122.

123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134.

135. 136. 137.

Ibid., p. 262. Ibid., p. 264. Ibid., p. 318. Ibid., p. 272. Ibid., p. 277. Ibid., p. 294. Ibid., p. 310. Ibid., p. 312. Ibid., p. 315. Ibid., p. 345. Ibid., p. 349. Ibid., p. 351. Ibid., p. 358. Ibid., p. 367. For a consideration of the philosophy of the Groenvelt Letters, see Richard Whatmore, ‘Etienne Dumont, the British Constitution, and the French Revolution’ in The Historical Journal 50 (1) (2007), 26ff; Jarrett, ‘The Bowood Circle’. See Scarlett, A Memoir of the Right Honourable James, First Lord Abinger, pp. 54–55. Selth, Firm Heart and Capacious Mind, p. 91. Jarrett, ‘The Bowood Circle’, p. 64. ‘ . . . and as to K., it seems completely effaced from your memory.’ ‘K.’ was how Romilly and Dumont referred to Groenvelt, because the original name of the traveller was to have been ‘Kherkerberger’. If Romilly was concerned that Dumont had forgotten about doing any more work on the book, he can hardly have been in the mood to burn it. Cf. Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, ii, 28. For biographical information on banker Etienne Delessert (1735–1819), see Georges Petit-Dutaillis, Portraits de Banquiers, Paris: La Revue Banque, 1982, ch. 9. Delessert was in fact imprisoned in late 1792 and was not eventually liberated until July 1794, although he spent part of that time in hospital (Petit-Dutaillis, Portraits de Banquiers, p. 183). MS Dumont 17, 69, Dumont to Romilly, 11 September 1792. Ibid., 71, Dumont to Romilly, 16 September 1792. Correspondence, iv, 398, Roland to Bentham, 10 October 1792. Correspondence, iv, 401, Bentham to Roland, c. 16 October 1792. Souvenirs, p. 229. For a very full account of the events in Geneva in which Dumont was involved in late 1792 onwards, see Karmin, Sir Francis D’Ivernois, pp. 213ff. MS Dumont 34, 135. Fazy, Genève de 1788 à 1792, p. 309. Ibid., pp. 303ff. See Marc Peter, Genève et la Révolution: les comités provisoires, Geneva: Albert Kündig, 1921, pp. 10ff. Ibid., p.14, note 1; this is treated dismissively by Fazy. Souvenirs, p. 230 and note 1. Jean-Armand Tronchin (1732–1813) had been Genevan minister in Paris 1785–1792 before being accredited to London. The home of David Chauvet (1738–1802) in Kensington Square was at the hub of the Genevan community in London, and he was a close friend of Dumont’s. Souvenirs, p. 311. Ibid., p. 231. Peter, Genève et la Révolution, p. 13.

Notes

373

138. Fazy defends Clavière against A. Sorel’s accusation that he actually wanted to see Geneva become part of France; see also Peter, Ibid., p. 17. 139. Souvenirs, p. 232. 140. Peter, Genève et la Révolution, p. 19. 141. Jacques Grenus (1751–1819), a lawyer and early member of the représentant party. He became a furious égaliseur and intrigued for the union of Geneva and France with Soulavie. See Albert de Montet, Dictionnaire biographique des genevois et des vaudois, 2 vols, Lausanne: Bridel, 1877, I, 399–400; also Frédéric Barbey, Félix Desportes et l’annexion de Genève à la France (1794–1799), passim. 142. Esaie Gasc (1748–1813), pastor and theologian. See Charles Dardier, Esaie Gasc, citoyen de Genève, Paris: Fischbacher, 1876. 143. They apparently left on 7 or 8 December – see Souvenirs, p. 312. 144. See Peter, Genève et la Révolution p. 22. 145. Ibid., p. 23; he argues that this mass grant of citizenship to natifs and habitants was what constituted the Revolution in Geneva. 146. Souvenirs, p. 313. 147. Ibid., p. 238. 148. Ibid., p. 239. 149. Ibid., p. 240 [This chapter is not in The Recollections of Mirabeau nor in the earlier editions of the Souvenirs. I have translated this and the following quotations myself from the Bénétruy edition]. 150. Souvenirs, p. 242. 151. Ibid., p. 243. 152. Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–1799), geologist and physicist, pioneer of Alpine climbing, and author of numerous works; see Douglas W. Freshfield, The Life of Horace Bénédict de Saussure, London: Edward Arnold, 1920. 153. Souvenirs, p. 244. 154. Ibid., p. 245. 155. Ibid., p. 246. 156. On 30 December 1792; Souvenirs, p. 313. 157. Peter, Genève et la Révolution, p. 29. 158. Ibid., p. 30. 159. On the Genevan Revolutionary years from 1792, see Binz et al., Regards sur la Révolution genevoise 1792–1798. 160. Souvenirs, p. 247. 161. Ibid., p. 313. 162. BG, Papiers Reybaz, Correspondance Diplomatique, Dumont to Reybaz, 6 January 1793; quoted in Peter, Genève et la Révolution, p. 48. 163. Peter, Genève et la Révolution, p. 48, note 2 speaks of Dumont dealing with such an agitator in person on 29 December 1792. 164. Ibid., p. 54. 165. Ibid., p. 55. 166. Ibid., p. 56. 167. François-Christophe Kellermann (1735–1820), duc de Valmy. 168. Peter, Genève et la Révolution, p. 57. 169. Ibid., p. 58. 170. Ibid., p. 59. 171. Ibid., p. 69. 172. Souvenirs, p. 251. 173. Ibid., p. 314.

374 Notes 174. Ibid., p. 252. 175. Recueil des procès-verbaux de l’Assemblée Nationale de Genève, depuis l’ouverture de ses séances, le 25 Février 1793, l’an 2ème de l’égalité, tome premier, Geneva, 1793; Peter, Genève et la Révolution p. 72. 176. Recueil, p. 5. 177. Ibid.; Peter, Genève et la Révolution p. 72. 178. Recueil, p. 24. 179. Ibid., p. 28. 180. BG, MS 2501. 181. Peter, Genève et la Révolution p. 534, Annexe IV, Ami Lullin to Jean-André Deluc, 6 March 1793. Ami Lullin (1748–1816), elected syndic in 1790; Jean-André de Luc (1727–1817), a scientist, had settled in London in 1773. For both these individuals, see Albert de Montet, Dictionnaire biographique. 182. Dumont’s reasons for making an abrupt exit from the Genevan government are discussed in Jean Martin, Etienne Dumont, pp. 42–44. 183. MS Dumont 17, 77, Dumont to Romilly, 19 March 1793. 184. MS Dumont 34, 25, Dumont to Jeanne Duval, 30 March 1793. 185. BG MSFr. 3780, 32.

7 Theory of Legislation (1): The gestation of the Traités, 1793–1802 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

MS Dumont 17, 82. See TLCP [1802], ii, pp. 212ff. MS Dumont 59, 8ème liasse. Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, Paris, 1832, xvi. MS Dumont 59, 8ème liasse, 1. Ibid., 4. Ibid., 20. Ibid., 21. Ibid., 22. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 27. MS Dumont 17, 85, Dumont to Romilly, 3 October 1793. Romilly, Memoirs, ii, 28–29. MS Dumont 17, 86, Dumont to Romilly, 13 November 1793. J. Neal, Principles of Legislation, p.161; this is a translation of a passage in Sismondi’s ‘Nécrologie’, p. 261. 16. For a list of the Bentham abstracts which Dumont had published in the Bibliothèque britannique and in its successor, the Bibliothèque universelle, between 1787 and 1820, see E. de Champs, ‘La postérité des idées de Jeremy Bentham: la notion d’influence à l‘épreuve’ in Cromohs, 11 (2006), pp. 10– 11; http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/11_2006/dechamps_bentham.html, consulted 26 October 2006. 17. David Bickerton, Marc-Auguste and Charles Pictet, the Bibliothèque britannique (1796– 1815) and the Dissemination of British Literature and Science on the Continent, Geneva: Slatkine 1986; see also David Bickerton, Judith Proud (eds) The Dissemination of Culture in Western Europe, 1750–1850. Papers Celebrating the Bicentenary of the Foundation of the Bibliothèthe Britannique (1796–1815) in Geneva, Berne, etc: Peter Lang, 1999. 18. Cf. Cassaigneau, Rilliet, Marc-Auguste Pictet.

Notes

375

19. For Charles, see Edmond Pictet, Biographie, travaux, et correspondance diplomatique de Charles Pictet de Rochemont 1755–1824, Geneva: Georg, 1892. 20. Cassaigneau, Rilliet, Marc-Auguste Pictet, p. 64. 21. Ibid., p. 183. 22. Bickerton, Marc-Auguste and Charles Pictet, p. 113. 23. Ibid., p. 190. 24. Ibid., p. 199. 25. Ibid., p. 202. 26. Ibid., p. 203, note 3. 27. Ibid., p. 204. 28. Bb, Literature section, v (1797). See Cyprian Blamires, ‘The Bibliothèque britannique and the birth of utilitarianism’, in Bickerton, Proud, The Transmission of Culture, pp. 52–68; also Blamires, ‘Etienne Dumont, Genevan apostle of utility’, in Utilitas, 2, 1 (May 1990), 55–70. 29. Bb, Literature section, v, 155. 30. Ibid., 156. 31. Elie Halévy, A History of the English People in 1815, London: Ark, 1987 [1924], p. 510. 32. Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement. The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought 1785–1865, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 32. 33. Welch, Liberty and Utility, p. 51. 34. Bb, Literature section, v (1797), 157. 35. Ibid., 158. 36. Dumont was later to accuse even his one-time great idol Rousseau of having lacked the staying-power to accomplish ‘the slow and patient work of analysis, definition, method’, failing to take the time to reflect on means of execution, details, or necessary accommodations to human nature. With him it was always a matter of strong and resolute opinions stated without nuances. (‘Sur le caractère et les écrits de Rousseau’, p. 5.) 37. Bb Literature section, v, 159. 38. Ibid., 161. 39. Ibid., 162. 40. See pp. 71–72. 41. Bb Literature section, v, 163. 42. Ibid., 164. 43. Bb Literature section, vi (1797), 3–25. 44. Ibid., 287–306. 45. Bb Literature section, vii (1798), 105–33. 46. MS Dumont, 15, 61–62. 47. Bb, vii (1798), 368–389. 48. For analysis of the extracts and commentary on their impact in France, cf. Stefano Solimano, Verso il Code Napoleon, Milan: Dott A. Giuffrè, 1998, pp. 76–87. 49. Correspondence, vi, 459. Dumont’s friend Maria Edgeworth, who also figured regularly in the Bb, benefited similarly from the public exposure it gave her: cf. Maria Edgeworth in France and Switzerland, Christina Colvin (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, p. 7; Blamires, ‘Etienne Dumont, Genevan apostle of utility’, 64–65. 50. H. W. Hausermann, The Genevese Background, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952, p. 51. 51. Recollections of Mirabeau, pp. 3–4 (Souvenirs, p. 41). 52. Ibid., p. 31 (Souvenirs, p. 45). 53. Ibid., p. 127 (Souvenirs, p. 104).

376 Notes 54. Ibid., p. 128 (Souvenirs, p. 105). 55. Ibid., p. 129 (Souvenirs, p. 105). 56. Lord Macaulay, review of Dumont’s Souvenirs sur Mirabeau in The Complete Writings of Lord Macaulay, 20 vols, Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1899, iii, 145. 57. See Hedva Ben-Israel, English Historians of the French Revolution, Cambridge: CUP, 1968, pp. 102–106. 58. ‘Revolutions of 1640 and 1830’, Quarterly Review xlvii (March 1832). 59. Edinburgh Review, lv (July 1832). 60. Talleyrand, Mémoires, p. 88. 61. Ibid., p. 89. 62. Ibid., p. 114. 63. Ibid., p. 117. 64. Ibid., pp. 109ff. 65. Ibid., pp. 146ff. 66. Ibid., p. 156. 67. Ibid., p. 156. 68. Dwyer, Talleyrand, Introduction. 69. MS Dumont 5bis, 4ff. 70. Ibid., 15. 71. Ibid., 18. 72. Ibid., 19. 73. Pierre Louis Roederer (1754–1835), politician, economist, and historian, Member of the Council of State and Senator. 74. Talleyrand, Mémoires, p. 289. 75. MS Dumont, 5bis, 24. 76. Cf. Halpérin, L’Impossible Code Civil; Solimano, Verso il Code Napoléon, 1998; J. Van Kan, Les Efforts de Codification en France: Etude historique et psychologique, Paris: Rousseau, 1929. See also pp. 288–290. 77. Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), Swiss novelist, publicist, and politician, celebrated for his love affair with Mme de Staël. 78. Cf. Selth, Firm Heart and Capacious Mind, p. 125 and note 40. On Dumont and Mme de Staël see Norman King, ‘ “The airy form of things forgotten’’: Madame de Staël, l’utilitarisme et l’impulsion libérale’ in Cahiers Staëliens, 11 (December. 1970), 5–26; Pierre Kohler, Mme de Staël et la Suisse, Lausanne/Paris: Payot, 1916. 79. Charles, 3rd Earl Stanhope (1753–1816), statesman and scientist. He had been educated in Geneva and was known as a great democrat. See Ghita Stanhope with G. P. Gooch, The Life of Charles, 3rd Earl Stanhope, London: Longmans Green, 1914. 80. MS Dumont 5b, 26. 81. This part of Dumont’s diary together with other extracts from the same period devoted to Mme de Staël was published in Kohler, Madame de Staël et la Suisse, pp. 278–283. 82. Kohler, Mme de Staël, p. 279. 83. Ibid., p. 285; see Mme de Staël, de l’Allemagne, 2 vols, Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1967 [1812], Part 3, chapter 12. 84. UC 174, 20, Dumont to Mme de Staël, 6 September 1813. 85. UC 174, 22, Dumont to Mme de Staël, October 1813. 86. Some of it was published in Jean Martin, Madame de Staël et Etienne Dumont (tirage à part de la Semaine Littéraire des 9 et 16 avril 1927), Lausanne, 1927; see MS Dumont 77, 86–92.

Notes

377

87. Kohler, Mme de Staël, pp. 283–288. See also Simone Balayé, Les Carnets de voyage de Madame de Staël, Geneva: Droz, 1971, passim. Balayé states that Dumont was Mme de Staël’s closest friend in England after Sir James Mackintosh. 88. Alexandre Maurice Blanc de Lanautte, comte d’Hauterive (1754–1830), former consul in New York, appointed to a post in the Foreign Office in 1798. See entry in Biographie Universelle; Artaud de Montor, Histoire de la vie et des travaux politiques du comte d’Hauterive, 1831; Emmanuel de Waresquiel, Talleyrand, le prince immobile, Paris: Fayard, 2003, pp. 75–76 and passim; Harris, Talleyrand, passim. 89. Eléments d’économie politique suivis de quelques vues sur l’application des principes de cette science aux règles administratives, Paris: Fantin, 1817. See Artaud de Montor, Histoire, chapters xxxi, xxxiv. 90. Cf. Cheryl Welch, Liberty and Utility, p. 73. 91. Cited in Richard Whatmore, Republicanism and the French Revolution. An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say’s Political Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 208. 92. Whatmore, Republicanism and the French Revolution, p. 6. 93. Louis, marquis de Fontanes (1757–1821), poet and man of letters, at the time a zealous supporter of Napoleon, from 1808 he was to be Grand Master of the University. 94. MS Dumont 5, 27. 95. Ibid., 28. 96. Ibid., 38–39. 97. Ibid., 46; Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Duke of Parma (1753–1824), responsible as Second Consul under Bonaparte for overseeing the drawing up of the Napoleonic Code. 98. The Tribunat was established by Napoleon ‘to moderate the other powers’ as a forum for the discussion of legislative projects. 99. Sophie Lalive de Bellegarde, comtesse d’Houdetot (1730–1813) has gone down in history as the object of Rousseau’s unrequited love, memorialised in his Confessions. 100. Ibid., MS Dumont 5bis, 50. 101. Correspondence vi, 465, Dumont to Bentham, 23 December 1801. 102. Adrien Cyprien Duquesnoy (1759–1808), Mayor of the 10th Arrondissement of Paris. 103. A. C. Duquesnoy, Esquisse d’un ouvrage en faveur des pauvres adressé à l’Editeur des Annales de l’Agriculture, Paris, 1802; cf. Correspondence, vi, 466, note 1. 104. See Correspondence, vi, 466, note 1. 105. MS Dumont 5, 53. 106. Ibid., 56. 107. Ibid., 57. 108. MS Dumont 17, 154, Dumont to Romilly, 28 December 1801. 109. Memoirs I, 405, Romilly to Dumont, 9 January 1802. 110. MS Dumont 5, 62. 111. Correspondence, vii, 3, Bentham to Dumont 12 January 1802. 112. MS Dumont 5, 64. 113. MS Dumont 17, 156, Dumont to Romilly, 11 February 1802. 114. Correspondence, vii, 9, Bentham to Dumont, 16 February 1802. 115. MS Dumont 6, 6. 116. Ibid., 7–9. 117. Correspondence, vii, 14, Bentham to Dumont, 16 April 1802.

378 Notes 118. 119. 120. 121. 122.

8

Correspondence, vii, 20, Dumont to Bentham, 2 May 1802. MS Dumont 17, 164, Dumont to Romilly, 14 May 1802. Correspondence, vii, 24, Bentham to Dumont, 14 May 1802. Ibid., 39, Bentham to Dumont, 18 May 1802. Ibid., 44, Bentham to Dumont, 21 May 1802.

Theory of Legislation (2): The message of the Traités

1. This was recognised authoritatively in the editorial introduction to An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (eds), London: Athlone Press, 1970, p. xli: noting that Dumont used the first six chapters of An Introduction as the basis for much of the opening section of his Traités, the editors continue: ‘The importance of this is that, since the 1789 edition of the Introduction had a very restricted circulation and attracted little attention when it was published, these chapters of Dumont were the form in which Bentham’s basic principles first obtained wide currency.’ 2. Generally speaking, the only versions of ‘Bentham’ available in non-anglophone countries have until very recent times been translations of Dumont. The Spanish versions of the Traités have recently been reprinted at least twice: Tratados de legislación civil y penal, Magdalena Rodríguez Gil (ed.), Madrid: Ed. Nacional, 1981, and Valletta: Rústica, 2005. 3. Dumont’s subsequent extraits de Bentham: 1811, Théorie des peines et des récompenses (2nd edn 1818, 3rd edn 1825/1826); 1816, Tactique des assemblées législatives (2nd edn 1822); 1823, Traité des preuves judiciaires (2nd edn 1830); 1828, De l’Organisation judiciaire, et de la Codification. 4. Elie Halévy, La Formation du radicalisme philosophique I La jeunesse de Bentham, Monique Canto-Sperber (ed.), 3 vols, Paris: PUF, 1995 [Paris: Alcan, 1901] vol. 1, appendice 1, pp. 281–299; The Theory of Legislation by Jeremy Bentham, C. K. Ogden (ed.) London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner/New York: Harcourt, Brace: 1931, ‘Introduction’; Baumgardt, Bentham and the Ethics of Today, pp. 321–369; Harrison, Bentham. 5. The Theory of Legislation, Etienne Dumont (trans.), James E. Crimmins (ed.), p. xiv. 6. Harrison, Bentham, p. xiii. 7. Ibid., p. xiv. 8. See pp. 309–311. 9. Except for readers able to consult copies of Bowring, for he included not simply the full texts of the three Panopticon letters, but also Rationale of Punishment and ‘Principles of civil law’, each of which contained chapters on Panopticon. 10. The Theory of Legislation [1931], pp. xlvii–l. 11. Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 175–193. 12. TLCP [1802] I, p. xv. 13. Ibid., p. xvi. 14. Ibid., pp. 308–327. 15. Constitutional Code; For the Use of All Nations and All Governments Professing Liberal Opinions by Jeremy Bentham, London: Robert Heward, 1830, vol. I (no further volumes were published); see the modern critical edition edited by F. Rosen and J. H. Burns, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. 16. Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, 3 vols, London: Duckworth, 1900, I, 195; see Schofield, Utility & Democracy, ch. 4.

Notes

379

17. The Genevan Revolution also resulted in its own Terror: see Louis Binz, Bronislaw Baczko, Marc Neuenschwander, Olivier Labarthe, Roger Durand, Regards sur la Révolution genevoise, 1792–1798, Geneva: Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, 1992 (Acts of the Colloquium, ‘Genève et le bicentenaire de la Révolution française’, 18–19 May 1989); see also Edouard L. Burnet, Le Premier Tribunal révolutionnaire genevois, in Mémoires et Documents publiés par la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève, tome xxxiv deuxième série, tome quatrième, 1925. 18. See p. 126. 19. Guidi, Attraverso lo specchio ginevrino, p. 248. 20. Campos Boralevi, ‘Un Riformatore’, p. 125. 21. TLCP [1802] I, p. xvii. 22. Ibid., pp. xviii. 23. Ibid., pp. xix. 24. Ibid., pp. xxi. 25. Welch, Liberty and Utility, p. 3. 26. UC cxxviii, pp. 256–257 (20 April 1818), quoted in Schofield, Utility and Democracy, p. 247. 27. TLCP [1802] I, p. xxiii. Torbern Olof Bergman (1735–1784), Swedish chemist and physicist; William Cullen (1710–1790), professor of medicine at Glasgow and later at Edinburgh (where he was also professor of chemistry for a period; Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), Swedish naturalist and physician and the creator of modern scientific nomenclature for plants and animals. 28. TLCP [1802] I, p. xxix. 29. Ibid., pp. xxx. 30. Ibid., pp. xxxi. 31. Ibid., pp. xxxii. 32. Ibid., pp. xxxiii. 33. Ibid., pp. xxxiv. 34. Dumont, ‘Sur le caractère et les écrits de Rousseau’, p. 6. 35. Cf. Baumgardt, Bentham and the Ethics of Today, p. 350; Marco Guidi, ‘Perché Marx ha considerato “l’arcifilisteo Geremia Bentham’’ un filosofo e un economista superficiale’, in Storia del Pensiero Economico, 18 (1989), 14–25. 36. Oscar Jászi, in Géza Engelmann, Political Philosophy from Plato to Bentham, 1927, p. 337, quoted in The Theory of Legislation, C. K. Ogden (ed.) p. 471, note 360. 37. J. S. McLelland, A History of Western Political Thought, London/New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 453. 38. Joseph Hamburger, Intellectuals in Politics. John Stuart Mill and the Philosophical Radicals, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1965, pp. 32, 41–44, 64. 39. TLCP [1802] I, p. viii. 40. Neal, Principles of Legislation, p. 176 (Traités [1802] I, p. vii). 41. TLCP [1802], I, p. xi. 42. Ibid., pp. xii. 43. Ibid., pp. xxxiv–xxxv. 44. ‘Necessity of an Omnipotent Legislature’, in RRR, pp. 263–288. 45. TLCP [1802], I, pp. xxxv–xxxvi. 46. Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 192–193 (Traités [1802], I, p. xxxvi). 47. See p. 261. 48. Dumont, Souvenirs, p. 180. 49. Correspondence, vii, 24–28, Bentham to Dumont, 14 May 1802. 50. Ibid., 26–27.

380 Notes 51. 52. 53. 54.

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

64. 65. 66.

67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

Ibid., 26. François Boissier de Sauvages (1706–1767), French botanist and physician. Correspondence, vii, 27. Joseph de Maistre, On God and Society, Elisha Greifer and Lawrence M. Porter (eds) Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959 (translation of Essai sur le principe générateur des constitutions politiques et autres institutions humaines [1809]). Cf., for example, Theodora McKennan, ‘Santander and the vogue of Benthamism in Colombia’, Ph. D. Thesis, Loyola University: Chicago, 1970. TLCP [1802] I, p. 43. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., pp. 51ff. Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., pp. 63ff. Ibid., pp. 70 ff. Ibid., pp. 79ff. For a discussion of different notions of freedom, see for example Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty; Ryan, The Idea of Freedom; M. Cranston, Freedom. A New Analysis, London: Longmans Green, 1967. TLCP [1802] I, pp. 89ff. Ibid., pp. 98–107. Cf. ‘Utilitarianism’ and ‘On Liberty’: Including ‘Essay on Bentham’ and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin (2nd edn), Lady Mary Warnock (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. TLCP [1802], I, pp. 108–140. An important mouthpiece of opposition to utilitarianism in the francophone social studies area today is the ‘Mouvement anti-utilitariste dans les sciences sociales’, founded in 1981. It publishes the Revue du MAUSS semestrielle. The essay was relocated to the final volume in the later editions. TLCP [1802], I, p. 144. Ibid., pp. 146–152. Ibid., pp. 153–162. Ibid., pp. 163–169. Ibid., pp. 170–224. Ibid., pp. 225–307. Ibid., pp. 308–331. Ibid., pp. 322–340. Ibid., pp. 341–348. Ibid., pp. 352–357; Cf. David Lieberman, The Province of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Cambridge: CUP, 1989, pp. 278ff. TLCP [1802], I, pp. 358–360. Ibid., I, pp. 361–370. TLCP [1802], II, pp. 1–236. Translated at Theory of Legislation, Hildreth (ed.), pp. 88–92. See, for example, Hayward, After the French Revolution; Richard A. Lebrun, Joseph de Maistre, an Intellectual Militant, Kingston/Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988; Lebrun (ed.), Joseph de Maistre’s Life, Thought, and Influence , Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001; Francis Bayle, Les idées politiques de Joseph de Maistre, New York: Arno, 1979 (1945); Emile Faguet, Politiques et Moralistes du xixe siècle (2e série), Paris: Boivin, 1898; Blamires, ‘Three critiques of the French

Notes

85. 86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116.

117. 118.

119. 120. 121.

381

Revolution’ – one of the aims of my doctoral thesis was to show the common origins of post Revolutionary traditionalist and radical/protosocialist thinking in a shared way of reacting to the Revolution. TLCP [1802], pp. 11–17. See p. 179 above. TLCP [1802], II, pp. 18ff. Here the application of the terminology of medical science creates a novel effect. This chapter is entitled ‘Propositions de pathologie sur lesquelles se fondent le bien de l’égalité’. TLCP [1802], II, pp. 29ff. Ibid., pp. 57ff. Ibid., II, pp. 76ff. Ibid., p. 79. For consideration of this topic, see Sonenscher, Before the Deluge; Stasavage, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State. TLCP [1802], II, pp. 110ff. TLCP [1802], II, 237–434, III, 1–191. Ibid., pp. 237–290. See p. 208. TLCP [1802], II, pp. 291–379. Ibid., p. 291. Ibid., pp. 380–434. Ibid., p. 385. See pp. 233–236. TLCP [1802], III, pp. 201–272. Ibid., pp. 271–301. Ibid., pp. 284–301. Ibid., pp. 302–321. Ibid., pp. 325–395. Halévy, Philosophic Radicalism, Appendix, pp. 515–521. Ibid., p. 519. Ibid., pp. 518–519. C. K. Ogden, Bentham’s Theory of Fictions, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932, pp. xxixff. Baumgardt, Bentham and the Ethics of Today, pp. 325ff. Ibid., pp. 26–31. Halévy, Philosophic Radicalism, p. 381. Bowring, Works, vii, pp. 270, note ‡. William Paley (1743–1805), Archdeacon of Carlisle, published The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy in 1785 and the book went through 15 editions in his lifetime. It continued to be a university textbook until well into the twentieth century; see M. L. Clarke, Paley: Evidences for the Man, London: SPCK, 1974. See Cyprian Blamires, ‘Bentham et Dumont’ for a discussion of this. C. Grayling, Towards the Light. The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Right that made the Modern West, London: Bloomsbury, 2007, quoted in a review by Roger Scruton in The Sunday Times Culture section, 30 September 2007, p. 51. The classic is A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England in the Nineteenth Century, London: Macmillan, 1905. Oakeshott, ‘The New Bentham’, p. 123. Bowring, Works, i, p. 20.

382 Notes 122. See Radzinowicz, History, vol. I, pp. 359–361 (esp. p. 361, note 14) for indications of the massive influence of Bentham in different areas of law reform in England. 123. Bowring, Works, i, p. v. 124. Huntington Cairns, Legal Philosophy from Plato to Hegel, Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969 [1949]. This book ran through five printings by 1969. 125. Carl Joachim Friedrich, The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963 [1958], p. 96. 126. Ibid., p. 97. 127. See, for example, Raymond Wacks, Jurisprudence, London: Financial Training Publications, 1987, p. 35; he points out that prior to the start of the publication of the Bentham manuscripts it was ‘John Austin who was accorded the title of the father of British jurisprudence’; see also Philip Schofield, ‘Jeremy Bentham and nineteenth-century English jurisprudence’, Journal of Legal History, 12 (1991), 58–88 (reprinted in Parekh [ed.]), Critical Assessments, iii, 184–214. 128. L. B. Curzon, Jurisprudence, London: Pitman, 1988 [1979]. See pp. 93–98. 129. Ibid., p. 98. 130. Wacks, Jurisprudence, pp. 161ff. 131. Ibid., p. 35. 132. J. W. Harris, Legal Philosophies, London: Butterworth, 1980, ch. 3. 133. Ibid., p. 25. 134. Ibid., p. 38. 135. Ibid., p. 41. 136. Wayne Morrison, Jurisprudence: From the Greeks to Post-Modernism, New Delhi: Lawman, 1997 [London: Cavendish], p. 187, note 13. But Morrison’s suggestion seems to arise from a mistaken conviction that the derivative nature of Bentham’s principle of utility has gone unrecognised. 137. Ibid., p. 189. 138. See Philip Schofield, ‘Jeremy Bentham, the principle of utility, and legal positivism’, Current Legal Problems, 56 (2003), 1–39. 139. The Code Civil des Français later known as the Napoelonic Code (although it was only the civil part, the rest followed later) came into force on 21 March 1804. 140. See Jean-Luc A. Chartier, Portalis, père du Code Civil, Paris: Fayard, 2004, p. 166. 141. Ibid., p. 156. 142. Ibid., p. 161. 143. Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis (1746–1807), lawyer and member of the Napoleonic Council of State. 144. François-Denis Tronchet (1723–1806), elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1789, member of the Civil Code Commission with Portalis. 145. Portalis [sic], Discours préliminaire du premier projet de Code civil, Bordeaux: Editions Confluences, 1999. 146. Ibid., pp. 14–15. 147. See Rusche and Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure, p. 90. 148. Portalis, Discours, p. 15. 149. Ibid., p. 20. 150. Ibid., p. 22. 151. Ibid., p. 18. 152. Chartier, Portalis, pp. 202–203. 153. Solimano, Verso il Code Napoleon, p. 6. 154. Ibid., p. 8. 155. Ibid., p. 123.

Notes 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163.

164.

9 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.

383

Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., p. 127. Ibid., p. 129. Ibid., p. 72 and note 100. Xavier Martin, Mythologie du Code Napoléon: aux soubassements de la France moderne, Bouère: Dominique Martin Morin, 2003, p. 52 and passim. Ibid., pp. 313ff. Solimano, Verso il Code Napoleon, p. 156, note 177. See also Radzinowicz, History p. 358, note 5. William Stanley Jevons, Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, p. 132 (cited in Don Ross, The Concept of Utility. From Bentham to Game Theory, Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 1999, p. 89). Ross’s book is an excellent introduction to the place of Bentham’s ideas in the development of economic thought. The title of one of the volumes in the new Bentham edition.

The impact of the Traités: Benthamism goes global Cf. Lettres d’André Morellet, tome ii, 338, ‘Remarques’. Correspondence, vii, 60, Bentham to Dumont, 28 June 1802. MS Dumont 7, 27. Ibid., 37. Baron Gustav Andreevich Rosenkampf (1764–1832) edited a survey of the laws of the Russian empire published in 15 volumes, 1815–1822. MS Dumont 7, 36. Jean-Isaac Combes-Dounous (1758–1820), member of the Council of the 500. Moniteur, 9 April 1803, p. 895. Edinburgh Review, vii (April 1804), 1–26. See Stefan Collini, Donald Winch and John Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics. A Study in Nineteenth-century Intellectual History, Cambridge: CUP, 1983, p. 97. Edinburgh Review, vii, 2. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 14. Ibid., 16. Ibid., 18. MS Dumont 55 (in the hand of a copyist). Ibid., 107. Ibid., 113. UCL 174, p. 4, Dumont to Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 4 October 1806. Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817), writer and inventor, father of the celebrated novelist Maria (who was much enamoured of Dumont). UCL 174, p. 5. Lieberman, ‘Historiographical Review’, p. 210. John Neal, Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy life: An Autobiography, Boston: Roberts, 1869, pp. 302–303. Candolle, ‘Notice’, p. 326. Ibid. Anon., review of Hildreth’s Theory of Legislation, The North American Review, CIX, October 1840, pp. 384–385.

384 Notes 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

‘Biographical sketch of M. Dumont’ in Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 155–156. Ibid., p. 155. Candolle, ‘Notice’, p. 329. Ibid., p. 330. Sismondi, ‘Sketch of the life and character of Stephen Dumont’, p. 163. Lord Brougham, Speeches, London, 1838, vol. 2, p. 287; quoted in Radzinowicz, A History, I, p. 355. Ibid., I, pp. 357–358. See also Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham’ p. 24. Dinwiddy records that Edward Livingston, ‘who drew up a remarkable set of codes for Louisiana’, described Bentham as ‘a man to whom the science of legislation owes the great attention that is now paid to its true principles, and to whom statues would be raised if the benefactors of mankind were as much honoured as the oppressors of nations’ (Dinwiddy, p. 24). See also C. W. Everett, ‘Bentham in the United States of America’ in George W. Keeton and Georg Schwarzenberger (eds) Jeremy Bentham and the Law, London: Stevens, 1948, pp. 185–201. Radzinowicz, A History I, p. 358, note 5. For information on translations of Dumont, see K. Lipstein, ‘Bentham, Foreign Law and Foreign Lawyers’ in Keeton and Schwarzenberger (eds) Jeremy Bentham and the Law, London: Stevens, 1948, pp. 202–207; Alfred Siegwart, ‘Benthams Werke und ihre Publikation’, in Politisches Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, vol. 24 (1910), pp. 285–403. Etienne Dumont, Trattati di legislazione civile e penale. Preceduti da’ principi generali di legislazione, 3 tomi, Naples: Trani, 1818. For a discussion of some of the other early nineteenth-century Italian translations of Bentham texts, see Guidi, ‘Attraverso lo specchio ginevrino, pp. 241–270. For a bibliography of Italian translations of Bentham’s works see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/BenthamProject/info/biblio_rudan.htm. For a general overview of ‘the international reception’, see Selth, Firm Heart and Capacious Mind, pp. 163–164. Friedrich Eduard Beneke, Grundsätze der Civil- und Criminal-Gesetzgebung aus den Handschriften des englischen Rechtsgelehrten Jeremias Bentham, Berlin, 1830. See Steffen Luik, Die Rezeption Jeremy Benthams in der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau, 2003, pp. 126–133; Wilhelm Hofmann, Politik des aufgeklärten Glücks. Jeremy Benthams philosophisch-politisches Denken, Berlin: Akademie, 2002, pp. 49–58. (This author spells ‘Beneke’ as ‘Benecke’.) For some interesting reflections on Bentham’s influence in Germany, see Helmut Coing, ‘Bentham’s importance in the development of Interessenjurisprudenz and general jurisprudence’ in The Irish Jurist, vol. ii, part 2 (Winter 1967), pp. 336–351. See Bentham, Correspondence, vii, p. 366, note 15 for full details; cf also E. Salkind, ‘die Dekabristen in ihrer Beziehung zu Westeuropa’, in Jahrbücher für Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven, Band iv, Heft 4 (1928), pp. 537–538 for some indication of the impact of the work. François-Auguste Chateaubriand, Génie du Christianisme, ou beautés de la religion Chrétienne, vols 5, Paris: Migneret, 1802. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads, London: J & A Arch, 1798. Claude-Henri Saint-Simon, Lettres d’un habitant de Genève à ses contemporains, Paris, 1803. See Blamires, ‘Three critiques of the French Revolution’.

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43. See for example Frank E. Manuel, The New World of Saint-Simon, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963; Henri Saint-Simon: Selected Writings on Science, Industry, and Social Organisation, Keith Taylor (ed.), London: Croom Helm, 1975. 44. Interestingly, there has however been a recent surge of interest in Bentham in France, with numerous publications (and theses under way) as well as the foundation of the Centre Bentham in Paris in collaboration with the Bentham Project in London. There are even signs of a new curiosity in Germany – witness the recent publications by Hofmann and Luik (see Bibliography). The phenomena may well be related to the decline of the Left, which has encouraged the study of other options. 45. The Bentham Newsletter May 1981, no. 5 contains articles on Bentham’s influence in Chile, in Colombia, in Spain, and in Greece. 46. Correspondence, vii, p. 124, Bentham to Sir Frederick Morton Eden, 4 September 1802. 47. Tratados de legislacion civil y penal, obra extractada de los manuscritos del señor Jeremias Bentham, jurisconsulto ingles, por Esteban Dumont, membro del consejo representative de Ginebra, y traducida al castellano, por Ramon Salas, ciudadano español, y doctor de Salamanca, 2 vols, Madrid: D. Fermin Villalpando, 1821. It was based on the second (1820) edition of Dumont and included the whole of Dumont’s three volumes. 48. Sandalio Rodriguez Dominguez, Renacimiento universitario salmantino a finales del siglo XVIII. Ideología liberal del Dr Ramón de Salas y Cortés, Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1979, p. 200. 49. Ibid., p. 201. 50. Ibid., p. 247. 51. Ibid., pp. 247–248. 52. Tratados de Legislacion civil y penal, traducidos con comentarios por Don Baltasar Anduaga Espinosa, Madrid: Oficina del Establecimiento Central, 1841–1842. 53. Rodriguez Dominguez, Renacimiento universitario, p. 248; see McKennan, ‘Santander and the vogue of Benthamism in Colombia’. 54. L. Silvela, ‘Bentham: sus trabajos sobre asuntos españoles’ in Discursos de la Real Academia de Ciencias Morales Y Politicas, Madrid, 1908, p. 48 (quoted in Antonio Enrique Pérez Luño, ‘Jeremy Bentham and legal education in the university of Salamanca during the nineteenth century’, Bentham Newsletter, May, 1981, p. 45). 55. Luño, ‘Jeremy Bentham and legal education’, p. 45. 56. Dinwiddy, ‘Early nineteenth-century reactions to Benthamism’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, vol. 4 (1984), p. 47; John Dinwiddy, ‘Jeremy Bentham y el mundo hispanico’, Estudios en honor del profesor Almira de Avila Martel, Santiago de Chile: Annales de la Universidad de Chile, 1990. 57. José Joaquin Ortiz, Las Sirenas. Discurso contra la moral sensualista de Jeremías Bentham, Bogota: Imprenta de Ortiz Malo, 1868. 58. Ortiz, Las Sirenas, preface, p. v. Deontology, John Bowring (ed.) 2 vols, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1834 is described in the Chuo Bibliographical Catalogue of the Works of Jeremy Bentham as ‘a paraphrase of Bentham’s text with additions by Bowring’ (p. 56). See Deontology together with A Table of the Springs of Action and Article on Utilitarianism, A. Goldworth (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983; French trans.: Déontologie, ou Science de la Morale, ouvrage posthume de Jérémie Bentham, Benjamin Laroche (trans.), Paris: Charpentier, 1834.

386 Notes 59. ‘De l’obéissance à la loi. Fragmens d’un chapitre extrait des additions inédites à la collection des ouvrages politiques de M. B. de Constant’, Mercure de France, November 1817; reprinted in Benjamin Constant, Recueil d’articles, le Mercure, la Minerve et la Renommée, Ephraïm Harpaz (ed.), Geneva: Droz, 1972, pp. 244–255. 60. Constant, Recueil, p. 250. 61. Ibid., p. 251. 62. Ibid., p. 247, note 1. 63. J.-B. Say, Cours Complet d’Economie Politique Pratique, 6 vols, Paris, 1828–1829. For this correspondence, see MS Dumont 77, 5. Part of the correspondence is reproduced in Pappé, Sismondis Weggenossen, pp. 55–57. 64. J.-B. Say, Mélanges et Correspondance d’économie politique, Charles Comte (ed.), Paris: Chamerot, 1833, ‘Essai sur le principe de l’utilité’, p. 406, note 1. 65. Say, Mélanges, pp. 436ff. 66. Cf., for example, Elisabeth Inglis-Jones, The Great Maria. A Portrait of Maria Edgeworth, London: Faber & Faber, 1959, pp. 134–138; Maria Edgeworth in France and Switzerland. Selections from the Edgeworth family letters, Christina Colvin (ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, passim; Marilyn Butler, Maria Edgeworth, Oxford: OUP, 1972. 67. R. L. Edgeworth, Essays on Professional Education, 2nd edn, London, 1812, pp. 373– 374 [1st edn 1809]. 68. Ibid., p. 374. 69. Ibid., p. 433. 70. Ibid., p. 434. 71. Neal, Principles of Legislation, pp. 148–157. On p. 150 the writer says he has read all of Bentham’s works and this must surely point to Bowring, whom Neal knew well, though he had come to form a very poor opinion of him (see Neal, Wandering Recollections, passim). 72. ‘Biographical sketch of M. Dumont, of Geneva’, p. 150. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. See p. 307. 76. ‘Biographical sketch’, p. 153. 77. Candolle, ‘Notice’, p. 330. 78. See Correspondence, vii, 275, Jeremy Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 22 September 1804; vii, 282, Jeremy Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 2 October 1804. 79. See Lloyd Sanders, The Holland House Circle, London: Macmillan, 1902, pp. 329– 331. Apparently he was much appreciated for his skill in reciting from – Corneille and Molière! 80. For Dumont and Ricardo, see The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Piero Sraffa and M. H. Dobb (eds), 11 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951–73, p. vi (1952) and p. ix (1952). 81. Ibid., vol. iii. 82. Cf. Patricia James, Population Malthus, his Life and Times, London/Boston/Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979, p. 83. On the ‘King of Clubs’ see The “Pope’’ of Holland House. Selections from the Correspondence of John Whishaw and his Friends 1813–1840, Lady Seymour (ed.) (with a memoir of Whishaw and an account of ‘the King of Clubs’ by W. P. Courtney), London, 1906. 83. The Earl of Ilchester, The Home of the Hollands 1605–1820, London: John Murray, 1937, p. 247.

Notes

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84. Ibid., p. 247. 85. Tactique des Assemblées Législatives, suivie d’un traité des sophismes politiques; ouvrage extrait des manuscrits de M. Jérémie Bentham, jurisconsulte anglois, par Et. Dumont, membre du Conseil Représentatif du Canton de Genève, 2 tomes, Geneva/Paris: Paschoud, 1816. 86. See http://www.hhct.org.uk/contact.htm; consulted 18 December 2007. 87. William E. Rappard, ‘La Conversion de Sismondi’, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Statistik und Volkswirtschaft, 79 (1943), pp. 181–210; cited in Pappé, Sismondis Weggenossen, p. 47. 88. Cf. Roth, Pratiques pénitentiaires , passim. 89. Cf. Cassaigneau, Rilliet, Marc-Auguste Pictet, p. 530. 90. Traité des Preuves Judiciaires, ouvrage extrait des manuscrits de M. Jérémie Bentham, jurisconsulte anglois, par Et Dumont, membre du Conseil Représentatif et souverain de Genève, 2 tomes, Paris: Bossange, 1823. 91. De L’Organisation Judiciaire, et de la Codification, extraits de divers ouvrages de Jérémie Bentham, jurisconsulte anglois, par Et Dumont, ancien membre du Conseil Représentatif de Genève, Paris: Bossange, 1828. 92. It seems that Dumont did aspire to publish abstracts of Bentham’s economic manuscripts. See MS Dumont 50 and 51 and W. Stark (ed.) Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings. 93. Candolle, ‘Notice’, p. 334 – written before the ultimate demise of Dumont’s code was known; Sismondi, ‘Sketch of the life and character of Stephen Dumont’ pp. 167–168. 94. Notice sur feu M. Pictet-Diodati, Geneva, 1832, p. 50, note 1. 95. Roth, Pratiques pénitentiaires, esp. Parts II and III. 96. Ibid., p. vii. 97. Ibid. 98. Rapport sur le Projet de Loi relative à une prison pénitentiaire, prononcé par M Dumont, en Conseil Représentatif, le 1er mars 1822, Geneva: Lador, 1825. 99. Ibid., pp. 7–8. 100. Ibid., pp. 14, 18. 101. Cf. Alain Zogmal, Pierre-François Bellot (1776–1836) et le Code Civil, Geneva, 1998, pp. 89ff. for an excellent survey of leading features of these rules of debate. 102. William E. Rappard, L’Avènement de la Démocratie moderne à Genève, Geneva: Jullien, 1942, pp. 63ff. 103. Ibid., p. 64. 104. For a useful summary account of Dumont’s liberal circle at this time, cf. Roth, Pratiques pénitentiaires, pp. 83–96. 105. Marc Peter, Genève et la Révolution: les comités provisoires, Geneva: Kundig, 1921, p. 422. 106. Candolle, ‘Notice’, pp. 332–333; see Mémorial des Séances du Conseil Représentatif, 65, 2 September 1829, p. 135. 107. Ibid., p. 134. 108. C. M. Atkinson, Jeremy Bentham, London: Methuen, 1905, p. 92. 109. UCL 174, p. 22, Dumont to Mme de Staël, October 1813. 110. MS Dumont 26, p. 42. 111. Ibid., 58. 112. Correspondence, vii, 123–124, Jeremy Bentham to Sir Frederick Morton Eden, 4 September 1802.

388 Notes 113. Cf. Butler, Maria Edgeworth, pp. 220–235, 329, 404–410. Rowland Grey, ‘Maria Edgeworth & Etienne Dumont’, Dublin Review, 145 (1909), 239–265. 114. Goethes Gespräche, Flodoard Frhr (ed.). Von Biedermann, 5 vols, Leipzig: Biedermann, vol. iv, 1910, p. 203. Soret became acquainted with Goethe while serving as tutor to the later Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxe-WeimarEisenach. 115. Romilly, Memoirs I, p. 386. 116. Neal, Principles, pp. 156–157. 117. On Cherbuliez, see Alexis Keller, Le libéralisme sans la démocratie. La pensée républicaine d’Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez (1797–1869), Lausanne: Payot, 2001 (unfortunately says little about the young Cherbuliez, focussing on his later career after his utilitarian phase): William E. Rappard, Trois économistes genevois et la révision du Pacte fédérale de 1815, Basle: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1941; Rappard, La carrière parlementaire de trois économistes genevois (Sismondi, Rossi, Cherbuliez), Geneva: Georg, 1941. 118. Jean-Jacques de Sellon (1782–1839), founder and first president of the Geneva Peace Society (1830). Cf. W. H. Van der Linden, The International Peace Movement 1815–1874, Amsterdam: Tilleul, 1987, ch. 6, on Sellon’s championing of the cause of peace in Geneva. 119. Fragmens des ouvrages de M de Sellon, membre du conseil souverain de Genève, dédiés aux amis du gouvernement représentatif, Geneva, 1831. 120. Pappé, Sismondis Weggenossen, pp. 47–58. 121. Cf. Zogmal, Pierre-François Bellot, pp. 156ff; Dinwiddy, ‘Bentham and the early nineteenth century’, p. 26. For the pre-Revolutionary civil procedure in Geneva, see Barbara Roth-Lochner, Messieurs de la justice et leur greffe, Geneva: Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie, 1992, Part 2. 122. Loi sur la procédure civile du Canton de Genève précédé de l’exposé des motifs par feu M. P-F Bellot, Geneva: Cherbuliez/Paris: Sandoz & Fischbacher, 4th edn, 1877, pp. xxxviii–xxxix. 123. For this point and the foregoing three, see Loi sur la procédure civile du Canton de Genève, pp. 11, 54, 71, 12. 124. Cited in Pappé, Sismondi’s Weggenossen, p. 58. 125. For example Traité de droit pénal, 1829. 126. Pellegrino Rossi, De l’etude du droit dans ses rapports avec la civilisation et l’état actuel de la science, Geneva, 1821, p. 8. For Rossi, see M. Huber-Saladin, M. Rossi en Suisse de 1816 à 1833, Paris: Amyot, 1849; László Ledermann, Pellegrino Rossi, l’homme et l’économiste 1787–1848. Une grande carrière internationale au xixe siècle, Paris: Sirey, 1929; Des Libertés et des Peines. Actes du Colloque Pellegrino Rossi, Genève, 23/24 November 1979, Geneva: Faculté de Droit, 1980. 127. Rossi, De l’étude, p. 9, note 5. Pappé comments that Rossi wanted to combine Bentham and Savigny (Sismondis Weggenossen, p. 57, note 122). 128. Cf. Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez, ‘Pellegrino Rossi’ in Bibliothèque Universelle, x (1849), pp. 138–139. 129. De l’Organisation judiciaire et de la Codification, pp. 451–480. Rossi’s article had appeared in the journal Thémis in 1826. 130. Ibid., p. 469. 131. Oeuvres de J. Bentham, Jurisconsulte Anglois, 3 vols, Brussels: Hauman, 1829. 132. Cf. Neal, Wandering Recollections, p. 300. 133. Ibid., p. 301. 134. Ibid., p. 303.

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135. Curiously, Stephen Conway, in discussing the influence of Bentham in nineteenth-century England generally, not only underestimates the influence of Dumont’s versions (‘they sold well overseas but made much less of a mark in Bentham’s own country’) but fails to mention or assess the English translations of them. Cf. ‘Bentham and the nineteenth-century revolution in government’, in Richard Bellamy (ed.) Victorian Liberalism: Nineteenth-Century Political Thought and Practice, London: Routledge, 1990, p. 83. 136. Correspondence, vii, p. 125, Bentham to Sir Frederick Morton Eden, 4 September 1802. 137. Correspondence, vii, p. 450, Dumont to Bentham, 3 November 1807. 138. I am indebted for this piece of information to a private communication from David Graham, who is working on a book on Montagu in collaboration with John Tribe. 139. Basil Montagu, The Opinions of Different Authors upon the Punishment of Death, James Crimmins (ed.), Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004 [3 vols, London, 1809–1813]. The piece in question (from Traités [1802], ii), is at 1.25, pp. 216–232. I am indebted to James Crimmins for this information. 140. The Book of Fallacies: From Unfinished Papers of Jeremy Bentham. By a Friend, London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1824. The text is reproduced in Bowring, Works, ii, 375–487. 141. Ibid., 376. 142. Ibid., 489–534. 143. The Rationale of Reward. By Jeremy Bentham, London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1825. 144. Correspondence, xii, 79, Bentham to Dumont, 14 December 1824. 145. The Rationale of Punishment. By Jeremy Bentham, London: Robert Heward, 1830. 146. A Treatise on Judicial Evidence, Extracted from the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham esq. by M. Dumont, Member of the Representative Council of Geneva. Translated into English, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1825. The translation had appeared earlier in The Law Journal. 147. Principles of Legislation, Neal (ed.) Preface, p. iv. 148. Neal, Wandering Recollections, pp. 284–286. 149. Donald E. Emerson, Richard Hildreth, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1946, p. 52. Richard Hildreth (1807–1865) was an American lawyer, journalist, and historian, and author of a very popular anti-slavery novel. 150. Theory of Legislation: by Jeremy Bentham. Translated from the French of Etienne Dumont, Boston: Weeks, Jordan, 1840. 151. Emerson, Richard Hildreth, p. 92. 152. Bowring, Works, ii, 191. 153. Ibid., 245–246. 154. Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized; As shewn in the Several Papers Comprised in this Volume, London: Robert Heward, 1830. See the critical edition by Philip Schofield, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. 155. Bowring, Works, ii, p. 191. 156. See pp. 194–199. 157. For the text, see also RRR, pp. xlv–liii; pp. 317–401. This critical edition has replaced the title ‘Anarchical Fallacies’ with that of ‘Nonsense upon stilts’. 158. Bowring, Works, ii, 490. 159. Ibid., iii, 156.

390 Notes 160. 2 vols, London/Edinburgh: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press, 1914. 161. Theory of Legislation, C. K. Ogden (ed.), p. 1. 162. Bentham’s Theory of Legislation, C. M. Atkinson (ed.), I, p. 1. 163. Theory of Legislation, C. K. Ogden (ed.), p. 4; Bentham’s Theory of Legislation, C. M. Atkinson (ed.), I, p. 5. 164. Ibid., p. 6. 165. Traités de législation civile et pénale; ouvrage extrait des manuscrits de M. Jérémie Bentham, jurisconsulte anglais, par Et Dumont, membre du conseil représentatif de Genève, Londres: Taylor et Francis, 1858. 166. See Blamires, ‘Etienne Dumont, Genevan Apostle of utility’, pp. 69–70 for this episode. 167. See Olinthus Gregory, ‘Memoir of Robert Hall’ in The Works of Robert Hall, 6 vols, London: Holdsworth & Ball, 1833, i, pp. 131ff. 168. It was published in London by Trübner and this edition became the standard version; as late as 1931 Ogden was able to make use of the original printers’ plates for his edition, as he tells us in his preface. 169. The Theory of Legislation, C. K. Ogden (ed.) with an Introduction by Upendra Baxi, Bombay/New York, 1975. 170. Ibid., pp. ix–x. I have abridged Ogden’s own list slightly. 171. Cf. Miran Božoviˇc (ed.), Jeremy Bentham: The Panopticon Writings, London/New York: Verso, 1995, p. 23 (‘ . . . Lacan . . . often refers to Bentham’s theory of fictions’). 172. For example Harrison, Bentham; Laval, Jeremy Bentham, 1994. 173. Božoviˇc, Introduction to Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, p. 1. 174. Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings, iii, pp. 18, 27. 175. Ibid., pp. 61–216 and 217–246. 176. James Crimmins, Mark Spencer (eds), Utilitarians and their Critics in America, 4 vols, Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004. 177. Google 2012 Rousseau pour tous for further information. 178. Alan Ryan and Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx, Oxford: OUP, 2002.

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392 Bibliography Vol. 9: January 1817–June 1820, S. Conway (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Vol. 10: July 1820–December 1821, S. Conway (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Vol. 11: January 1822–June 1824, C. Fuller (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. Vol. 12: July 1824–June 1828, L. O’Sullivan and C. Fuller (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Déontologie ou science de la morale, 2 vols, Paris: Charpentier, 1834. Deontology, or the Science of Morality: In which the Harmony and Co-incidence of Duty and Self-interest, Virtue and Felicity, Prudence and Benevolence, are Explained and Exemplified. From the MSS of Jeremy Bentham. Arranged and Edited by John Bowring, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Browne, Green, and Longman/Edinburgh: William Tait, 1834. Deontology, Together with a Table of the Springs of Action and Article on Utilitarianism (Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham), A. Goldworth (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. Emancipate Your Colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Ao 1793, Shewing the Uselessness and Mischievousness of Distant Dependencies to a European State, London: Robert Heward, 1830. Esquisse d’un ouvrage en faveur des pauvres adressé à l’éditeur des Annales de l’Agriculture, Paris, 1802. A Fragment on Government: Being an Examination of what is Delivered, on the Subject of Government in General, in the Introduction to Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries: With a Preface, in which is given a Critique of the Work at Large, London, 1776. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham), J. H. Burns, H. L. A. Hart and F. Rosen (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Jeremy Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings, James E. Crimmins (ed.), Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2002. Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings, W. Stark (ed.), 3 vols, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1952–1954. ‘Legislator of the World’. Writings on Codification, Law, and Education (Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham), Philip Schofield and Jonathan Harris (eds), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Official Aptitude Maximized: Expense minimized; as shewn in several papers comprised in this volume, London: Robert Heward, 1830. Official Aptitude Maximized: Expense Minimized, Philip Schofield (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. ‘Outline of a work entitled “Pauper Management improved’’ ’, printed under the title of ‘The situation and relief of the poor’ in Annals of Agriculture, xxix (1797), 393–426; xxx (1798), 89–176, 241–296, 457–504; xxxi (1798), 33–64, 169–200, 273–288; see Bowring, Works, viii, 360–439. The Panopticon Writings, Miran Božoviˇc (ed.), London/New York: Verso, 1995. Le Panoptique, précédé par l’oeil du pouvoir, entretien avec Michel Foucault, postface de Michelle Perrot, Paris: Belfond, 1977. A Plea for the Constitution: Shewing the Enormities Committed to the Oppression of British Subjects, Innocent as well as Guilty, in Breach of Magna Carta, The Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill of Rights; as likewise of the several Transportation Acts; in and by the design, foundation and government of the penal colony of New South Wales: including an inquiry into the right of the crown to legislate without parliament in Trinidad, and other British colonies, London: Mawman/Hatchard, 1803.

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Published [NB: This is not a complete list of Dumont’s published writings, it simply represents the material drawn on in the present work.] Bentham’s Theory of Legislation, being Principes de législation and Traités de législation civile et pénale, translated from the French of Etienne Dumont, C. M. Atkinson (ed.), 2 vols, London etc: OUP, 1914. The Book of Fallacies: From unfinished papers of Jeremy Bentham. By a Friend, London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1824. ‘De l’Invention’, in l’Utilitaire, I (1829), 257–280. ‘Des Garanties d’Aptitude législative’ (from ‘Constitutional Code MS), in l’Utilitaire, 1ère année, 293–305; 373–381; 2nde année, 22–38. Fragmens des ouvrages de M de Sellon, membre du conseil souverain de Genève, dédiés aux amis du gouvernement représentatif, Geneva, 1831 (contains extracts from Dumont’s Tactique). The Great Frenchman and the Little Genevese, Translated from Etienne Dumont’s Souvenir [sic] sur Mirabeau, by Lady Seymour, London: Duckworth, 1904. Grundsätze der Civil- und Criminal-Gesetzgebung aus den Handschriften des englischen Rechtsgelehrten Jeremias Bentham, Friedrich Eduard Beneke (ed. and trans.), 2 vols, Berlin, 1830. Lettre inédite d’Etienne Dumont sur quelques séances du Tiers-Etat (Mai 1789), Extrait des Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève, t. xix, Geneva: Ramboz et Schuchardt, 1877. Letters, containing an account of the late revolution in France, and observations on the constitution, laws, manners, and institutions of the English; written during the author’s residence at Paris, Versailles, and London, in the years 1789 and 1790. Translated from the German of Henry Frederic Groenvelt [aka ‘The Groenvelt Letters’], London: Johnson, 1792.

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DVDs Call Northside 777, Directed by Henry Hathaway, starring James Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, Helen Walker, Metrodome Studios, 1948. Greenfingers, Directed by Joel Hershman, starring Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, David Kelly, Warren Clarke, Danny Dyer, MGM, 2000.

Index In this index notes are indicated by n. in italics, e.g. prevention, 31, 339(n.366). Works are indicated in italics. abolition of feudal rights, tithes, provincial privileges, 157–8 Acomb, Frances, 357(n.86), 358(n.105) Act for erecting a Penitentiary House or Houses for the confining and employing Convicts, 64 Act of Mediation (1738), 100, 101, 102, 120 Acton, Lord, 159, 361(n.197) Addison Health Centre, 301 administration by trust, 191 Adorno, Theodor, 318(n.52) Adresse aux Bataves, 162 Affaire Rousseau, 103 Age of Reason, 119 Alengry, Franck, 164, 326(n.201), 362(n.230) Allemagne, De l’, 91, 248 America, 203, 295, 312, 384(n.33) penitentiary system, 249, 303 prisons, 25, 26 America, Latin, 264, 297 American Civil War, 146 American Revolutionary War, 216 Analytical Review, 211 Anarchical Fallacies, 170, 310 Annals of agriculture, 71, 193 Annette, John, 33, 322(n.129) Appropriation Act (1799), 76 architecture, 6, 25, 35, 39, 64, 66 Archives parlementaires, 187 Argentina, 20 aristocracy, 97, 130, 176, 218, 259 see also elites Genevan aristocrates, 103 asceticism, 238 Assembly, Genevan, 184, 301, 303 assembly, model parliamentary (Bentham), 195 assembly, of Rennes, 182 Atelier de Mirabeau, 177

Athens/France, 106 Atkinson, Charles Milner, 304, 310–312, 327(n.217), 387(n.108), 390(n.162), (n.163) Aubert, Kunz, 105 Aulard, F.-A. (Alphonse), 132, 134, 139, 147, 148, 353(n.3), 354(n.18), 359(n.130), 364(n.314) Austin, John, 287 Austria, 209 Austrian committee, 205 authoritarianism, 241 Auto-Icon, or farther Uses of the Dead to the Living, 89 Baczko, Bronislaw, 379(n.17) Bader, W., 321(n.116) Badollet, J. L., 128 Baecque, Antoine, 162, 361(n.207), 369(n.108) Baha’i Faith, 23 Bahmueller, C. F., 19, 28, 35, 68, 316(n.18), 320(n.93), (n.96), 323(n.143), 334(n.164), (n.165) bail, 193 Baker, Keith Michael, 164, 326, 361(n.210), 362(n.229), (n.238) Bakewell, Sarah, 124, 350(n.208) Balance of Trade, Of the, 312 Balayé, Simone, 377(n.87) bankruptcy, France, 171 Barbey, Frédéric, 342(n.5), 373(n.141) Barbrook, Richard, 27 Barras, M., 103, 344(n.45) Barré, Isaac, 129 Barthou, Louis, 354(n.19), 359(n.126) Bastide, M. de, 113, 347(n.127) Baumgardt, David, 254, 283, 326(n.209), 378(n.4), 379(n.35), 381(n.112) Bayle, Francis, 380(n.84) Beccaria, Cesare, 258, 279 425

426 Index Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull, and the English Nation, 124 Beevor, Sir Thomas, 58, 330(n.63), (n.70) Bellamy, Richard, 317(n.35), 389(n.135) Bellot, P.-F., 303, 306, 387(n.101), 388(n.121), (n.122) Bénétruy, Jean, 134, 135, 146, 162, 167, 208, 224, 313, 314, 327(n.221), 349(n.181), 350(n.200), 351(n.224), 353(n.4), 354(n.16), (n.19), (n.20), (n.24), 356(n.65), (n.69), 357(n.77), 362(n.239), 363(n.274), 370(n.45), 373(n.149) Benguigi, Isaac, 349(n.177) Ben-Israel, Hedva, 376(n.57) Bentham archive, 43 Bentham, George, 329(n.47) Benthamism, intro.xxx, 2–3, 199, 212, 254 birth of, 294, 295 as force for conciliation, 256 opposition to, 306 promotion of, 238, 311 and virtue, 234 Bentham, Jeremy as activist, 18 and assize system, 185 and Declaration of Rights, 160–1, 170 and Dumont, 182, 185–6, 187, 195, 196, 304 as envoy, 70 and France, 183, 186 French Citizenship, 220, 334(n.184) influential supporters, 57 international impact, 254, 291, 295, 312 and Lancaster, 50 and language/fictions, 44, 46, 312 and Mirabeau, 183 nice/nasty, 22, 28, 29 and personal profit, 31 and political assembly building, 194, 196 as prison entrepreneur, 58, 86–7, 89, 240 and prisons, 193, 321(n.114) as recluse, 20, 95, 317(n.35) reforms implemented, 312 and religion, 235–6 and Rousseau, 181

as theorist, 19, 239 vision of, 79 as writer, 43 Bentham, Mary Sophia, 54–5, 93 Bentham Project, 13, 194, 317(n.44), 326(n.197), 385(n.44) Bentham, Samuel, 2, 6, 33, 48 importance of, 53, 54, 79, 322(n.128), 329(n.44) and the Navy, 93 Bentham’s Prison, 19, 29 Bentham’s Theory of the Modern State, 27 Bérenger, Thomas, 201 Berlin, Isaiah, 15, 189, 314, 367(n.59), 390(n.178) Bernard, J.-F., 370(n.20) Beyle, Marie-Henri, 288 Bibliothèque britannique, 128, 236, 238, 246, 290, 306 Bibliothèque de Genève, 230 bicameralism, 10 Bickerton, David, 236–7, 374(n.17), 375(n.22) Bingham, Peregrine, 308, 310 Binney, J. E. D., 41, 325(n.172), (n.174), (n.177), 352(n.251), 353(n.255) Binz, Louis, 373(n.159), 379(n.17) Blackburn, William, 34 Blackstone, William, 175, 217 Blamires, Cyprian, 326(n.199), 328(n.19), 340(n.368), 350(n.204), (n.205), 353(n.1), 365(n.11), 366(n.25), (n.30), (n.47), 375(n.28), (n.49), 380(n.84), 381(n.117), 384(n.42), 390(n.166) Blanco, Richard L., 330(n.65) block production, 54 Blount, C. M., 169(n.12), 327(n.218), 365(n.11) Blum, Carol, 345(n.81) Board management, 192 Bonno, Gabriel, 145, 356(n.70), 358(n.107), (n. 108), (n.109), (n.111) Book of Fallacies, 307, 310 Boralevi, Lea Campos, 257, 366(n.22), 367(n.50), 379(n.20) Borrow, George, 47 Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 103, 344(n.44)

Index bourgeois, Geneva, 97, 98 Bowood Circle, 130, 170, 171, 182, 210 Bowring, John, 19, 56, 299, 309, 310, 378(n.9) Boyle, David, 56, 330(n.53) Bradfield, John Edwin, 368(n.78) Bredin, Jean-Denis, 356(n.55) Breton Estates, 182 Bridewell, Edinburgh, 331(n.86), 331(n.94) Brissot, J.-P., 24, 25, 61, 70, 140–1, 147, 160, 192, 203, 205, 206, 207, 221, 223, 235, 318(n.62), 332(n.98), 334(n.183), (n.184), 356(n.65)–(n.68), 358(n.118), 361(n.201) Britton, John, 352(n.248) Brougham, Henry Peter, 194, 295, 300, 368(n.82) Brown, Peter, 352(n.248), (n.252), (n.253) Brunel, Marc, 54 Brunon-Ernst, Anne, 318(n.45), (n.47), (n.56), 319(n.87), 322(n.131), 325(n.188), 334(n.164) Budé, E. de, 348(n.159) Burke, A., 40, 177, 178, 357(n.76) Burke, Edmund, 364(n.321) Burlamaqui, Jean-Jacques, 117, 164, 298 Burnet, Edouard-L., 379(n.17) Burns, J. H., 19, 316(n.21), 324(n.156), 326(n.203), 365(n.12), 368(n.102), 378(n.1), (n.15) Burrow, John, 383(n.9) Burton, John Hill, 286 Butler, Melissa, 347(n.132) Cabanis, Pierre Jean George, 138, 290 Cabinet of St. James, 204 Cairns, Huntington, 286, 382(n.124) Calculus of Economics, 291 Call Northside 777 (film), 26, 319(n.76) Calvinism, 96, 98, 104, 105, 116, 313 Candolle, A. P. de, 294–5, 304, 327(n.221), 352(n.246), (n.249), 383(n.23), 384(n.28), 386(n.77), 387(n.93) (n.106) Cannon, John, 325(n.173) capitalism, rise of, 42 carcerality, 42 Carew Hunt, R. N., 98, 342(n.12)

427

Casaux, Marquis de, 57, 159, 361(n.192) Cassaigneau, Jean, 343(n.39), 374(n.18), 375(n.20), 387(n.89) Castaldo, André, 198, 199, 359(n.135), 364(n.325), 369(n.104), (n.106) Caste, Louis, 353(n.5) Catherine, Empress, 310 Catholicism, 11, 116, 135 CC (Great Council of the Two Hundred), 97, 120 CCTV, and Panopticon, 320(n.92) Ceitac, Jane, 342(n.9) Centre Bentham, Paris, 385(n.44) Chadwick, Edwin, 301 Champs, Emmanuelle de, 325(n.192), 374(n.16) Chapuisat, Edouard, 349(n.181), 350(n.196), (n.199), 355(n.29), 364(n.304) charitable trustees, of prisons, 88 Chartier, Jean-Luc A., 382(n.140), (n.152) Chateaubriand, François-Auguste, 1, 295, 296 Chaussinand-Nogaret, Guy, 137, 355(n.33) Chauvelin, Bernard-François, 209 Cherbuliez, Antoine-Elisée, 305 Chevallier, Jean-Jacques, 163, 355(n.30), (n.39), 356(n.60), 360(n.172), 361(n.219) Chrestomathic School, 50 Christianity, Europe, 284 Christie, Ian R., 93, 322(n.128), 328(n.1), (n.3), (n.5), (n.11), (n.14), 329(n.24), 341(n.393) Cicchini, Marco et Porret, Michel, 328(n.19) civil code, 255, 272 Clarke, M. L., 381(n.116) classification morals/law, 44, 262 of offences, 270 Clavière, Etienne, 146, 147, 221, 222, 349(n.181) criticism of, 176, 223 and Genevan independence, 227–8 Clerkship of the Pells, 129, 130, 294, 352(n.251) Clermont-Tonnerre, 169 Coad, Jonathan, 53

428 Index code, civil, 272 Code Napoléon, 288–91 codification, French law, 288 Cohen, David L., 336(n.264) Cohen, I. Bernard, 326(n.200) Cohler, Anne M., 347(n.140) Cole, Juan I., 23, 318(n.51) Coleman, Patrick, 347(n.132) Colley, Linda, 350(n.208) Collini, Stefan, 324(n.161), 358(n.115), 383(n.9) Collins, Lt. Col. David, 24, 82, 83, 318(n.58), 338(n.315) Collins, Sir W. J., 354(n.20) Colquhoun, Kate, 71, 75 Colombia, 92, 297 Colvin, Christina, 375(n.49), 386(n.66) Commission for the Edict, 201 compensation, from government, 86, 91 Comtean Positivism, 1 Comte, Auguste, 1 Condorcet, Marquis de, 44, 164, 203, 205, 208, 223, 244, 326(n.201), 358(n.118), 369(n.19) Confidence Philosophique, 118 Consistory of Pastors, 105 Constant, Benjamin, 247, 250, 297–8, 376(n.77), 386(n.60) constitutional monarchy, 159 constitution British, 141, 144, 145, 159, 167–8, 218 French, 156, 161 Genevan, 98, 161, 173, 174, 224, 230 Constitutional Code, 256, 282 constitutional theory, 257 constitutionnaires, 120 contracts, 272 Conway, Stephen, 317(n.35), 333(n.161), 389(n.135) Cooper, Robert Alan, 93, 341(n.390) Coquard, Olivier, 355(n.28) Corinne, 298 Cornuaud, Isaac, 342(n.5) Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, The, 19, 21, 48, 95 Cortés, Ramón de Salas y, 296 Cortes, Spain, 25 Costelloe, Timothy M., 347(n.132) Coulon, Garran de, 187, 206

Courier de Provence, le (periodical), 10, 144, 146, 147, 155, 176 and Declaration of Rights, 162–3 Cours d’Economie Politique, 298 Cranston, M., 380(n.63) crimes, 279–80 classification, 266, 278 motive for, 264 prevention, 31, 339(n.366) see also offences Crimmins, James E., 45, 254, 313, 316(n.30), 326(n.207), 340(n.368), 378(n.5), 389(n.139), 390(n.176) Croker, J. W., 243, 244 Crystal Palace, 6, 35 culture, French, 104, 106, 107, 110, 113, 116 Cunningham, Francis, 25 Curzon, L. B., 286–7, 382(n.128) Czartoryski, Adam, 197 d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, 103, 105, 106, 113, 114, 117, 120, 246, 268 Dandeker, Christopher, 320(n.90) Dardier, Charles, 373(n.142) data, statistical, 302 Davidson, Ian, 343(n.36), 346(n.112) Davidson, William L., 318(n.59) Declaration, American, 161 Declaration of Rights, 10, 35–6, 160–71, 217 UN, 285 Defense of Usury, 52, 170, 183, 329(n.30) de Grave, Pierre-Marie, 207, 208 De l’Allemagne, 91, 248 De la Monarchie Prussienne sous Frédéric le Grand, 142 de Lessart, J.M.A.C. de Valdec, 205, 207 Delisle, Jean, 327(n.221) De L’Organisation Judiciaire, et de la Codification, 302, 306 Delpech, J., 198, 368(n.103) Delphine, 117 democracy, 21 Déontologie, 307 Deontology, 297 Desmoulins, Camille, 146, 177, 359(n.122) Desnoiresterres, Gustave, 346(n.112) Desroches, Pastor, 105

Index detection, 30–1 dévouement, 248 Dicey, A. V., 17, 315(n.8), 381(n.119) Dickson, Mora, 328(n.17) Dinwiddy, J. R., 17, 21, 297, 315(n.4), (n.10), 316(n.30), 317(n.33), (n.34), 327(n.216), 384(n.33), 385(n.56), 388(n.121) Diplomatic Committee, 205–6 disciplinary society, 23 Discipline and Punish, see also Surveiller et Punir, 3, 22–3 Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, 110 Discours préliminaire, 288 D’Ivernois, Francis, 99, 100, 122, 123, 125, 129, 132, 136, 161, 175, 343(n.22), 345(n.23), (n.26), (n.41), 345(n.83), 346(n.108), 349(n.179), (n.189), 350(n.198), 351(n.220), 361(n.202), (n.206), 363(n.293), 364(n.304), 372(n.127) dog law, 289 Domine, salvum fac regem, 176 Dominguez, Sandalio Rodriguez, 296 Draper, Anthony J., 323(n.155) Du Chastellet, Achille, 202, 207, 208 Dufour-Vernes, Louis, 342(n.17), 350(n.197), 363(n.282), (n.283) Dumont, Etienne, 1, 7–14, 42, 95, 120, 123 and the aristocracy, 154, 221, 225 and Bentham, 169–70, 304 and Bentham’s works, 182, 184, 185–6, 187, 195–6, 238 and Declaration of Rights, 164–6, 167 employment of, 126, 128, 129, 294 and England, 128, 130, 196 and the French Revolution, 10, 132, 144, 160, 171–7 and Geneva, 201, 302 and Mirabeau, 144, 154–5, 158, 177, 200, 214 as mythmaker, 43–7 and Panopticon, 193, 252 and Rousseau, 103, 119–20, 259, 375(n.36) slandering of, 230, 232 speech: removal of the troops, 149–54 and Talleyrand, 203–5 and Traités, 283–8

429

and utilitarianism, 185 and Voltaire, 111–12, 216 and women, 208, 247–8, 251, 298 Dumouriez, Charles François, 208–9 Du Pan, Mallet, 118, 119, 123, 161 Duquesnoy, Adrien, 170, 250, 377(n.102), (n.103) Durand, Roger, 379(n.17) Du Roveray, Jacques Antoine, 10, 101, 120, 121–3, 137, 140, 141, 143–51, 154, 159–61, 167, 171, 173, 176, 201–2, 204–5, 213, 221–2, 224, 343(n.30), 349(n.183) and Talleyrand, 203–5 Duval, Jeanne, 232 Duval, Louise (Lisette), 128 Duvillard, A., 112, 346(n.117) Dwyer, Philip G., 369(n.20), 370(n.22), (n.57), 376(n.68) Dyson vacuum cleaner, 5 Economic Reform, 40–1 Economics, Calculus of, 291 economy, 34, 35, 56, 191, 273 Eden, Sir Frederic Morton, 81, 334(n.171), 385(n.46), 387(n.112), 389(n.136) Eden, William, 332(n.103) Edgeworth, Maria, 13, 298, 375(n.49), 386(n.66), 388(n.113) Edgeworth, R. L., 13, (n.19), 293, 298, 383(n.18), 386(n.67) Edicts, Geneva, 103, 121–2, 201, 222 Edinburgh Review, 292, 293 education, monitorial, 5 educational system, Lancaster, 49–50, 55, 302 efficiency, and inspection, 193–4 Elgin, Lord, 149 elites Genevan, 97, 98, 221, 256 see also aristocracy Ellery, Eloise, 334(n.184), 370(n.33) Elmes, James, 92, 341(n.384) Emerson, Donald E., 389(n.149), (n.151) Emile, 119 empiricism, 251 Emsley, Clive, 333(n.160) Encyclopédie, 103, 105, 110, 117 Engberg, David, 27 Engelmann, Géza, 379(n.36)

430 Index Engels, Friedrich, 259 England, 107–8, 128 and Mirabeau, 141 England/France relationship, 177–8, 205 English, as global language, 46 Enlightenment, the, 3, 23, 256, 284, 313 entrepreneurs, 17, 53, 192 environmentalism, early, 16, 43 equality, 276–7 Equality Club, 225 Eribon, Didier, 321(n.107) Ernst, Anne Brunon, 24 escheat, law of, 36 Espinosa, Baltasar Anduaga, 296 Essai sur le Despotisme, 140, 162 Essay on Gaol Abuses and on the Means of Redressing Them, An, 58 Essay on the Principle of Utility, 298 Essay on the promulgation of the laws, and the reasons thereof; with specimen penal code, 309 Essays on Professional Education, 298 Estates, Breton, 182 Estates General, 183, 194, 215 Evans, Robin, 323(n.139) Everett, C. W., 19, 48, 52, 93, 182, 316(n.19), 328(n.9), 329(n.27), (n.44), 341(n.392), 365(n.10), 384(n.33) exile, of Genevans, 123 extraits de Bentham, 46, 307 Faguet, Emile, 380(n.84) fallacies, 301 Farel, William, 98 Farmer, Paul, 354(n.18) fascism, 30 Favras, marquis de, 172 Fazy, Henri, 201, 222, 223, 225, 357(n.90), 369(n.4), 372(n.129), (n.132), 373(n.138) Fazy, James, 303 Feldmann, Josef, 350(n.198) felicific calculus, 263 feudalism, 201 Feuillants, 208 fictions, theory of, 283 Finance Committee, 74 Fincham, John, 55, 329(n.48), 330(n.49) Fine, Bob, 322(n.129)

Finer, S. E., 317(n.31) Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, 325(n.172), (n.176), 333(n.161), 360(n.170) Fitzpatrick, Jeremiah, 58, 330(n.65) Fontaine, L., 104 − 6, 344(n.46), (n.47), (n.51), (n.56), (n.61), (n.62) Fordyce, George, 54 Formation du Radicalisme Philosophique, La, 28 Forsyth, Murray, 168, 362(n.241), (n.243), (n.246), (n.247) Foucault, Michel, 2–3, 6, 15, 22, 23, 25–30, 33, 41, 42, 50, 181, 188, 317(n.41), (n, 43), 318(n.45), (n.46), 319(n.70), (n.83), (n.87), 320(n.90), (n.97), 321(n.106), (n.111), 322(n.125), (n.126), (n.131), 325(n.188), 328(n.18), 365(n.3), (n.5) Fox, S., 209, 249 Fragment on Government, A, 45, 262 France as Athens, 106 prisons, 25, 26 relationship with England, 177–8, 205, 238 Franck, Ad, 326(n.201), 362(n.230) Franklin, Benjamin, 142 freedom, 190 French, language of culture, 46 French Occupation (1798), of Geneva, 122, 125 French Orders, union of, 244 French Revolution, 8, 132 aftermath, 237 and Benthamism, 199 British reaction, 204, 209 conspiracy theories, 135, 136, 146, 341(n.5) and Dumont, 10, 132, 144, 160, 171–7 failure of, 167 Kings role in, 152, 153 September massacres, 219–21 Freshfield, Douglas W., 373(n.152) Friedrich, Carl Joachim, 286, 382(n.125), 384(n.37) Frohne, Ursula, 318(n.50), 319(n.74) Fulpius, Lucien, 343(n.19) Furet, François, 137, 139 Fusil, C. A., 357(n.74)

Index Gaberel, J., 112, 119, 346(n.93), (n.113), 349(n.171) Gagnebin, Bernard, 348(n.145) Gallati, Ernst, 353(n.4) Gaonkar, D. P., 322(n.127) Garantie, 173 Garat the younger, 213 Gargett, Graham, 105, 113, 114, 342(n.7), (n.8), 343(n.36), 344(n.53), (n.55), 345(n.66), (n.67), (n.73), 346(n.112), (n.115), (n.116), 347(n.123), (n.124), (n.129), (n.130), (n.131), (n.136), 348(n.148), (n.150), 349(n.168), 350(n.201) Garland, David, 30, 321(n.109) Garrard, Graeme, 110, 345(n.79), 346(n.103), 348(n.147) Gautier, Charles, 345(n.85) Gay, Peter, 342(n.8), (n.9) Gazette nationale, 221 Geisendorf, Paul Frédéric, 348(n.145) General Council, Geneva, 97, 98 General View of a complete code of laws, 299 generative principle, 263 Geneva, 9, 14, 96–102, 301 annexation by France, 124 Art in, 117 French Occupation (1798), 122, 125 governance of, 98–9 independence of, 223, 227, 231 military exercises, 175 moral decline, 127 Protestantism/virtuism, 115–20 and republicanism, 174 as Sparta, 106, 108, 110 unrest in, 143, 1788 Genevan Assembly, 184, 301, 303 émigrés/exiles, 123, 126, 136, 174 politics, 8, 222 Revolutionary Government, 201 thinktank, 144, 170, 313 Genevanism, 103, 119, 170, 173 Genevans and England, 144, 145 and French Revolution, 135 Génie du Christianisme, 1, 295 Gensonné, Armand, 223, 224, 370(n.40) German philosophy, 251

431

Gillam, John Graham, 352(n.247) Girondins, 205, 206, 207, 208, 222, 225 glass/iron buildings, 6, 35, 39 Godechot, Jacques, 96, 122, 341(n.3), (n.4), 350(n.194) Godet, Philippe, 112, 346(n.101), (n.112), (n.114), 351(n.217) Godwin, William, 26 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 133 Gooch, G. P., 376(n.79) Gooch, R. K., 356(n.52) governance, 3, 30 government British model, 158, 159, 218 function of, 275 Geneva, 97 Goyau, Georges, 115, 343(n.34), 348(n.150), 349(n.163) Grand-Jean, Henri, 348(n.145) Grave, Pierre-Marie de, 207, 208 Grayling, A. C., 381(n.118) Gray, Rowland, 388(n.113) Great Council of the Two Hundred (CC), 97, 120 greatest-happiness principle, 12, 184, 236–7, 284 Great Exhibition, 6 Great Frenchman and the little Genevese, The, 134 Greaves, H. R., 368(n.101) Greenberg, Josh, 320(n.92) Grenus, Jacques, 223, 230, 373(n.141) Groenvelt Letters, 154, 157, 164–6, 171, 210–19 Guarantor Powers, 120, 222, 229 Guarantors, 9, 143 Guerdan, René, 342(n.8) Guidi, Marco, (n.35), 35, 41, 257, 323(n.141), 325(n.183–185), 367(n.74), 379(n.19), 384(n.36) Guillois, Antoine, 369(n.19) Gür, André, 341(n.3), 351(n.235) Habermas, Jürgen, 197, 368(n.100) Haggerty, Kevin D., 28, 320(n.91) Halevy, E., 17, 28, 46, 68, 238, 254, 283, 284, 315(n.3), 320(n.94), 326(n.210), 333(n.161), 375(n.31), 378(n.4), 381(n.108), (n.114)

432 Index Hall, Rev Robert, 311 Halperin, Jean-Louis, 376(n.76) Hamburger, Joseph, 259, 379(n.38) happiness, 282 and money, 324(n.161) as value, 256 harm, categories of, 266 Harris, J. W., 287, 382(n.132) Harrison, Ross, 31, 254, 255, 312, 317 (n.37), 321(n.115), 324(n.161), 339(n.341), 378(n.4), (n.6), 390(n.172) Harris, Robin, 369–70(n.20) Hatsell, John, 368(n.93) Hausermann, H. W., 242, 375(n.50) Hauterive, Alexandre Maurice Blanc de Lanautte d’, 249, 377(n.88) Haviland, John, 25 Hayek, Friedrich, 326(n.200) Hayward, Jack, 365(n.2), 380(n.84) Hazlitt, William, 18, 315(n.13) Helvétius, Claude Adrien, 207, 290 Herrmann, Irène, 348(n.152) Hier, Sean P., 320(n.92) Hildreth, Richard, 255, 309, 310, 311 Hill, Octavia, 301 Hilton, Boyd, 238, 375(n.32) Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 2–4, 29, 32, 34, 288, 317(n.32), (n.40), 321(n.101), 322(n.121), 323(n.136) Hobhouse, Christopher, 353(n.262) Hofmann, 384(n.37), 385(n.44) Holden, Anthony, 315(n.10) Holdsworth, W. S., 42, 47, 325(n.193), 326(n.208) Holford Committee, 85–6, 87–8 Holford, George, 32, 84, 85–9, 91, 322(n.120), 339(n.364) Holland House Circle, 300 honor motive, 235 Horton, David M., 330(n.63) Howard, John, 24, 330(n.69) Hoy, David Couzens, 322(n.126) Huber-Saladin, John, 388(n.126) Hulks, the, 52, 62, 72, 75, 332(n.106) humanism, 15 Hume, L. J., 15, 21, 29, 32, 43, 78, 211, 251, 371(n.31), 321(n.104), 322(n.118), (n.132), 326(n.196), 335(n.215), 337(n.270), 338(n.331)

Hunt, Carew, 98 Hunt, Leigh, 17 Hurley, Simon, 340(n.381), (n.382) Idéologues, 290 Ignatieff, Michael, 32, 33, 322(n.119), (n.130), 339(n.363) Ilchester, Earl of, 386(n.83) incentives, financial, 191, 192, 193 Indirect means of legislation to prevent offences, 233 Industrial Revolution, 33 inequalities, 277 Influence of the Administrative Power over the Legislative, of the, 189 Inglis, Brian, 334(n.166) Inglis-Jones, Elisabeth, 386(n.66) innovation, 66 inspection, 6, 90 and efficiency, 193–4 principle, 33, 50–1 prisons, 25, 93 Inspection-house, 51 Institut National, foreign candidates, 252 interest rates, 53 internet, and Panopticon, 27, 319(n.87) Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, An, 7, 44, 45, 184, 187, 311, 378(n.1) in Bibliothèque britannique, 238 and Dumont, 11, 169–70, 309 Introduction to the study of the works of Jeremy Bentham, 286 Jackson, R. V., 338(n.323) Jacobins, 179, 180, 206, 208, 226, 247 Jacobs, James B., 75 James, Michael, 28, 320(n.95), 366(n.25), (n.47) James, Patricia, 386(n.82) Janin, Jules, 133, 354(n.11) Jarrett, J. D., 15, 143, 145, 147, 158, 177, 211, 219, 356(n.50), (n.60), 358(n.96), (n.104), 359(n.124), 361(n.191), (n.193), 364(n.308), (n.313), 365(n.8), 371(n.71), 372(n.117), (n.120) Jay, Martin, 33, 322(n.126), (n.127) Jefferson, Thomas, 196, 197, 319(n.77), 368(n.92)

Index Jeffrey, Francis, 292 Johnston, Norman, 319(n.68), (n.72) Jones, Edwin, 350(n.208) Jones, H. S., 28, 320(n.94) Joseph II, 282 Journal des Etats Généraux, 147 judicial system expense of, 38 reformation of (France), 185 jurisprudence, 268 Juventin, pastor, 173 Karmin, Otto, 343(n.22), (n.35), (n.41), 349(n.179), (n.189), 350(n.198), 361(n.202), 364(n.304), (n.305), 372(n.127) Kaschadt, Katrin, 318(n.50) Katyal, Neal Kumar, 321(n.112) Kaunitz, Wenzel Anton Graf, 206 Keane, John, 369(n.14) Keeton, George W., 384(n.33), (n.35) Keller, Alexis, 388(n.117) Kellermann, François-Christophe, 228–9 King of Clubs, 300 King, Norman, 376(n.78) King’s Council, 207 Kinsey, Richard, 322(n.129) Kirchheimer, Otto, 42, 325(n.182) Kirk, Linda, 348(n.150) Klauber, Martin I., 349(n.170) Koerner, Lisbet, 326(n.202) Kohler, Pierre, 376(n.78), (n.81), (n.82), 377(n.87) Koolhaas, Rem, 34, 319(n.74), 323(n.135) Kunz-Aubert, U., 105, 344(n.50), (n.57), 345(n.82), (n.85) Labarthe, Olivier, 379(n.17) labour costs, reduction of, 33, 39 Lacy, Margaret de, 25 laissez-faire, 240 Lamarck, comte de, 177 Lancaster, Joseph, 5, 49, 50, 55, 302, 328(n.17)–(n.19) Lansdowne, Lord, 40, 41, 131, 352(n.244) and Bentham, 57, 59, 186, 197 and Dumont, 129, 130, 154 l’Atelier de Mirabeau, 134 Latin America, 264, 297

433

Launay, Michel, 96, 105, 342(n.6), 344(n.54) Lauragais, Comte de, 242 Laval, Christian, 23, 318(n.55), 390(n.172) law of escheat, 36–7 law reform, 95, 274 classification, 268 Geneva, 174 Latin America/Spain, 264 penal, 175 scientific approach, 261, 263 simplifying, 285 three enemies of, 37 utilitarian principles, 29 laws British, 217 civil/penal, 268, 269 codification, 288 four fundamentals of, 268 general education in, 280 and happiness, 241 and morals, 267 natural, 289 in politics/international law, 273 remuneratory, 273 science of, 283 substantive/adjective, 268 transparency, 283–4 laws, code of, 181 Emperor Alexander I, 251 Geneva, 100, 101, 202 lawyers, as enemies to justice, 38, 185, 284 League of Princes, 220 Lea, John, 322(n.129) Lebrun, Richard A., 354(n.22), 380(n.84) le Décade, 290 Ledermann, László, 388(n.126) Lee-Jahnke, Hannelore, 327–8(n.221) Leerssen, Joep, 351(n.210) Lefebvre, Georges, 134 legal positivism, 287 legal systems, 217, 261 legislation direct/indirect, 234, 268, 283 and morals, 267 science of, 286 and time/place, 281 legislators, role of, 265

434 Index Le Républicain, 358(n.118) Lerminier, J. L. E., 144, 358(n.102) Les Actes des Apôtres, 176 Lessart, J.M.A.C. de Valdec de, 205, 207 Letter to d’Alembert, 11, 103–4, 104–15 Letters to Lord Pelham, 250 Lettre de Mirabeau à ses commettants, 154 Lettres critiques d’un voyageur anglais, 113 Lettres du Comte de Mirabeau à ses commettants, 147 Lettres d’un Habitant de Genève, 1, 296 Lettre sur les Spectacles, 104 Letwin, Shirley Robin, 22, 317(n.36), 366(n.31) Levin, Thomas Y., 318(n.50), 319(n.74) Liancourt, duc de, 57 liberalism and Bentham, 28 and Dumont, 303 libertinage, 117 liberty, 201, 207, 212, 240, 242–4, 276 ideals of, 200 positive, 189–90 spirit of, 215 Lieberman, David, 17, 18, 46, 294, 315(n.7), 316(n.16), 324(n.161), 326(n.213), 380(n.79), 383(n.21) Linnaeus, Carolus, 44, 379(n.27) Lipstein, K., 384(n.35) Livingston, Edward, 295, 384(n.33) Locke, John, 258, 275 Loménie, Louis de, 355(n.39), 359(n.127) lotteries, 217 Louisiana, 295, 384(n.33) Louis XV1, 214–15 Luik, Steffen, 384(n.37), 385(n.44) Lullin, Ami, 231 Lüthy, Herbert, 126–7, 350(n.198), 351(n.228), 358(n.98) l’Utilitaire, 305 Luttrell, Barbara, 133, 137, 139, 314, 353(n.5), (n.7), 355(n.31), 356(n.45), (n.65) Lyon, D., 320(n.90), (n.91) Macaulay, Lord, 243 Macdonagh, Oliver, 67, 330(n.65), (n.66), (n.68), 333(n.152) Macey, David, 321(n.107)

Machelon, J. P., 343(n.18) Machiavellian behaviour, 207 machinery, new, 54 Mackintosh, Sir James, 13, 18, 300, 311, 316(n.15), 321(n.114), 377(n.87) Mack, Mary P., 18, 128, 182, 315(n.11), 316(n.30), 351(n.237), 365(n.9) Madan, Martin, 357(n.85) Mailhos, Georges, 346(n.112) Maistre, Joseph de, 14, 135, 263, 275, 354(n.22), 380(n.54) Mallet Du Pan, Jacques, 118–19, 123, 161, 350(n.191), 351(n.230) Mallet, J. L., 122 management Board, 192 contract, 191 innovation, 66 systems, 55 utilitarian, 40 Management of the Poor, 58 Manual of Parliamentary Practice, 196–7 Manuel, Frank E., 385(n.43) Marat, Jean-Paul, 137 Marcucci, Silvestre, 326(n.202) Maritain, Jacques, 315(n.3) Marmontel, J. F., 113, 347(n.128) Marquet-Vasselot, 26 Marshall, Peter H., 319(n.80) Martin, Jean, 352(n.241), 354(n.17), 358(n.118), 363(n.277), 369(n.5), 374(n.182), 376(n.86) Martin, Paul-E., 342(n.8), 343(n.29), (n.37), 349(n.178), (n.180), (n.182) Martin, Xavier, 290, 383(n.160) Marx, Karl, 259 Masson, 326(n.212) Matteucci, Nicola, 347(n.141), 351(n.226) Maurice, Frédéric-Guillaume, 237 maxims, social, 166 McAdam, John Loudon, 24, 318(n.61) McArthy, R. J., 322(n.127) McConville, Seán, 88, 339(n.361), 339(n.356), (n.357), (n.363) McKennan, Theodora, 380(n.55), 385(n.53) McKinlay, Alan, 325(n.188) McLelland, J. S., 379(n.37)

Index McMahon, Darrin M., 349(n.169) McNeill, John T., 342(n.14) mediation system, Geneva, 9 Mélanges et Correspondance, 298 Meleney, John C., 357(n.75) Mémoires de Mirabeau, 133 Mendicity Committee, 57 Mercure de France, 297 Metropolitan Improvement, 92 Millbank Penitentiary, 31–2, 92, 340(n.381) Miller, Jacques-Alain, 326(n.196), 342(n.6) Miller, James, 344(n.64) Miller, Samuel, 344(n.44) Mill, J. S., 1, 15, 20, 267, 283, 291, 311, 316(n.26) Mirabeau, H.G.R. compte de, 327(n.218), 330(n.59), 334(n.183), 349(n.181), 354(n.20), 355(n.30), 356(n.53), 357(n.83), 362(n.239) assistants to, 10, 137–8, 177 and Bentham, 169, 170, 183 character of, 138–9 and Declaration of Rights, 162 and Dumont, 140, 142, 148–55, 154–5, 200, 214 in England, 140 and freedom of press, 147 Genevan influence on, 144 genius of, 179–80 as Monarchist, 146 political/moral principles, 147–8, 176, 177 as President of Assembly, 178–9 removal of King to/from Paris, 171–2 and Rousseau, 141–2 modernity, and Bentham, 16 Monarchie Prussienne sous Frédéric le Grand, De la, 142 monarchy, France, 159, 203 monasteries, dissolution of, 277–8 money, as pleasure, 38, 324(n.161) Moniteur, 251, 252, 292 Montagu, Basil, 307 Montefiore, Simon Sebag, 49, 322(n.128), 328(n.7), (n.8), (n.12) Montesquieu, Charles Louis, 279, 280, 281

435

Montesquiou, Anne-Pierre, 221, 222, 223, 227 Montet, Albert de, 373(n.141), 374(n.181) Montier, Jean-Pierre, 114, 347(n.133) Montigny, Charles-Claude, 341–2(n.5) Montigny, Lucas de, 133, 146 Montor, Artaud de, 377(n.88), (n.89) Montreuil, 213 moral calculus, theory of, 265 morality, consequentialist, 284 morals and actors, 107 and Bentham, 267, 284 French, 109 Genevan, 98, 106 and legislation, 260 women’s, 108 moral theology, 284 Moreau, F., 198, 368(n.103) Morellet, André, 183, 246, 250, 365(n.15), 366(n.22), (n.23) Morgan, Miss, 24, 46, 326(n.211) Mori, Jenifer, 333(n.160) Morning Chronicle, 209 Morrison, Wayne, 287, 382(n.136) Mostefai, Ourida, 114, 346(n.100), 347(n.132), (n.134), (n.138) motivation, human, 11 Mouchon, Pierre, pastor, 119, 143, 357(n.91), 357–8(n.94) Moultou, Paul, 113 Mounier, Jean Joseph, 169 Muralt, B. L. de, 114, 248 Myers, Mynor, 357(n.75) Namier, Sir Lewis, 352(n.248) Napoleonic Civil Code, 288–91 natifs, 97, 99, 122, 201, 202, 223, 226 National Assembly French, 132, 157–9, 198–9, 243, 244 Genevan, 229, 230 National Charity Company, 43 nationalism and fascism/Nazism, 4 Genevan, 11, 14, 96–102, 103–4, 118, 123 natural law, 289 natural rights school, 247 Naves, Raymond, 347(n.131)

436 Index Navy, modernization of, 53 Neal, John, 31, 43–4, 256, 294, 307–9, 311–12, 321(n.112), (n.113–n.114), 326(n.198–n.199), (n.214), 327–8(n.221), 352(n.252), 374(n.15), 386(n.71) Necker, Jacques, 121, 136, 142, 143, 176 negative views on, 213 return of, 216 négatifs, 120 Neuchâtel, 140, 180 Neuenschwander, Marc, 379(n.17) New, Chester W., 368(n.81) New Lanark Model factory, 5 New View of society, A, 5 new world order, blueprint for, 95 Nonsense upon Stilts, 45, 170, 389(n.157) Norrie, Alan, 290 Norris, John, 352(n.253) North Lord, 40–1 Nouvelle Héloïse, La, 110 Oakes, C. G., 351(n.238), 356(n.62), 357(n.85), 371(n.63) Oakeshott, M., 20, 48, 285, 316(n.25), 328(n.4), 381(n.120) obligations, 268, 275 Observations d’un Anglois sur l’arrêté de la noblesse de Bretagne, 182–3 Ockham’s razor, 264 Oeuvres de J. Bentham, 306 offences, 269, 270, 278 see also crimes Official Aptitude Maximized: Expense Minimized, 310 Offrande, 175 Ogden, C. K., 254, 283, 311–12, 327(n.217), 378(n.4), 379(n.36), 381(n.111), 390(n.161), (n.163), (n.168−n.169) Opinions of Different Authors upon the Punishment of Death, 307 Orieux, Jean, 369–70(n.20) Orleanist conspirators, 171–2 Orléans, duc d’, 203, 245 Ortiz, J., 297, 385(n.57), (n.58) Otonashi, Michihiro, 322(n.122) Outline of a Work entitled Pauper Management Improved, 71, 74 Owen, Robert, 5, 95

Paine, Tom, 202, 203, 261, 369(n.15) pain/pleasure, 263, 265 Paley, Archdeacon William, 284, 298, 381(n.116) Pallain, G., 364(n.322), 369(n.20) Panama Canal, 92 Panopticon, 32–3, 317(n.40) architectural/management technique, 2, 5–6, 32 attempts to build prison, 21, 59, 60–78, 84–91 in Australia, 83 and CCTV, 320(n.92) and Dumont, 252, 255, 262 and economy, 33, 39 failure of, 21, 31, 78, 321(n.114) in France, 25, 26, 70 generalisability of, 190 and governance, 30 in Ireland, 58, 59 as oppressive power, 3–4, 23, 320(n.98) as political assembly building, 195 and political tactics, 194–9 poorhouse, 68 and power, 188 St Petersburg, 84 South America, 92 and Taylorism, 41 testing of, 53 as unproductive interlude, 18 and utilitarianism, 29 views of, 23–4 and World Wide Web, 26–7, 319(n.87) Panopticon letters, 14, 378(n.9) Panopticon: or, the Inspection-House, 32, 58, 188 Panopticon Postscripts, 56 Panopticon Singularity, The, 27 Panoptique, 24–5, 187, 280 Pappé, H. O., 386(n.63), 387(n.87), 388(n.120), (n.124), (n.127) Parekh, Bhikhu, 4, 315(n.2), (n.10), 317(n.44), 365(n.1), 382(n.127) Paris, and Geneva, 109 Parliamentary Candidate Society, 22 Parliament, British, 368(n.93) Parnell, John, 57, 58, 67 patriciate, Geneva, 97 Patronage plan, 85 Paxton, Joseph, 6

Index Peace of Amiens, 246, 337(n.294) Pease-Watkin, Catherine, 322(n.128), 329(n.47), 366(n.25), (n.47), 367(n.51), (n.52) Peltier, Jean-Gabriel, 176, 353–4(n.8) penal code, 255 Geneva, 302 Napoleonic, 291 principles of, 278 penal law reform, 175, 252, 269 penitentiaries Millbank, 31–2, 92, 340(n.381) Wymondham, 58 see also prisons penitentiary system, America, 303 Penitentiary Act (1794), 81 pensions, retirement, 310 Perez Luño, Antonio Enrique, 385(n.54) Perry, Ralph Barton, 116, 209, 348(n.154), 349(n.165) Peter, Marc, 226, 228, 229, 231, 304, 341–2(n.5), 355(n.29), 372(n.131), (n.137), 387(n.105) Petit-Dutaillis, Georges, 372(n.122) Petit, Michel-Edme, 115 Philadelphia, prison ethos, 249 Phillips, Timothy R., 348(n.150), 352(n.244) Pictet-Diodati, 302 Pictet, Edmond, 375(n.19) Pictet, Marc-Auguste, 102, 236, 374(n.18) Pièces fugitives sur l’Eucharistie, 116 Pitassi, Maria-Cristina, 348(n.150) Pitt, William (the younger), 41, 136, 146, 177 Plamenatz, John, 21, 42, 317(n.32), 325(n.195) Plan, Danielle, 350(n.198) Plan, Philippe, 341(n.2), 354(n.17) Plea for the Constitution, A, 80, 84 pleasure/pain classification, 264, 265 quantification of, 263 Poland, Burdette C., 354(n.22) political economy, 273 Political Fallacies, 171 political remedies against the harm of offences, 279 political science, and Bentham, 196, 198 political system, Britain, 9, 10

437

Political Tactics, 183–4, 197, 230, 301, 310, 312 and Panopticon, 194–9 politics, Genevan, 8 Pollock, John, 338(n.304) poor-houses, 193 Poor Inspection House, 58 Poor Laws, 28, 194 popular sanction, 235 Porret, Michel, 328–9(n.19), 340(n.368), 342(n.8), 344(n.42) Portalis, Jean-Etienne-Marie, 247, 288–90, 382(n.143−n.146), (n.148−n.151) Porter, Theodore M., 326(n.200) Portsmouth Dockyard, 55 Portugal, 20, 316(n.27) positive liberty, 189–90 positivism, legal, 287 postmodern worldview, 42 Potemkin, Prince, 33, 48–9, 52 poverty, 277 power, 3, 27, 29, 30 Poynter, J. R., 334(n.164) prevention of harms, 301 prevention of reoffending, 303 Priestley, Joseph, 129, 282, 352(n.245) Principes de législation, 255, 264, 268 Principes de Législation and Traités de Législation Civile et Pénale, 310 Principes du Code Pénal, 233, 255 Principles of the Civil Code, 309 Principles of Legislation, 256, 299, 308 Principles of Penal Law, 309 prisoners of war, 72 Prison Act (1835), 93 prisons America, 25, 26, 249 Bridewell, Edinburgh, 331(n.86), 331(n.94) design, 34, 318(n.60) France, 26, 143 Geneva, 302, 303 Lancashire, 25 management of, 88 Millbank Penitentiary, 31–2, 92, 340(n.381) Panopticon, 25, 32 for prisoners of war, 72 privatization, 88

438 Index prisons – continued reform of, 190 Tothill, 93 Wymondham Penitentiary, 58 probation service, 193 production-lines, 54 projectors (entrepreneurs), 17, 53, 192 property, 278 Protestantism, Geneva, 115–20 Protestant Reformers, 116 Proud, Judith, 374(n.17) public administration, 35, 36, 240 establishments, management of, 191 expenditure, 36, 40, 41, 54, 56 services, 2, 37, 38 public activities, funded, 277 Public Characters, 130, 1799–800 publicity, 41, 197 public relations campaign, by Dumont, 2, 7–8 punishments, 279, 280, 339(n.366) sanctions, 264–5 Puritanism, 116 Quakers, 249 Quinn, Michael, 35, 323(n.144), 334(n.163) Radzinowicz, L., 295, 316(n.29), 382(n.122), 383(n.162), 384(n.31), (n.34) Ramat, Raffaello, 347(n.142), 348(n.158) Rappard, William E., 301, 303, 387(n.87), (n.102), 388(n.117) Rationale of Punishment, 308 Rationale of Reward, 308, 309 reasoning, false, 267 Rebérioux, Madeleine, 354(n.18) Réclamation, 170, 173, 175 recycling movement, 43 Reeves, Richard, 315(n.4) Reform Act (1832), 243 Reformation, Genevan, 98 Règlements observés dans la Chambre des Communes pour débattre les matières et pour voter, 146 Reich, Wilhelm, 30

religion, 11, 23, 277 and Bentham, 235–6 and culture, 116 Europe, 284 and food, 124 Genevan, 103, 116–17 and prison, 88 remedies, for offences, 279 Repository, The, 143 représentant party, 103, 120, 121, 122, 135, 161 Representative Council, Geneva, 303 republicanism, 112, 146, 203, 358(n.118) revolutionary committee, Geneva, 226 revolutions, Genevan, 111, 123, 124, 224–6, 373(n.145), 379(n.17) Reybaz, 134, 144, 211, 224, 229 Rials, Stéphane, 169–70, 356(n.56), 361(n.216), 362(n.250), 362(n.229), (n.239), (n.257), 363(n.262) Ricardo, David, 13, 300, 386(n.80) Richards, Brent, 323(n.142) Richards, J., 329(n.38) Rieff, Philip, 30, 321(n.111) Rigaud, Jean-Jacques, 304 rights, division of, 271–2 rights of man, religion of, 201 rights/obligations, 268, 275 right and utility, 297 Rivarol, Antoine de, 145 Rochefoucauld, duc de la, 186 Rod, Edouard, 342(n.6), 343(n.38), (n.40) Rodriguez Dominguez, Sandalio, 296, 385(n.48), (n.53) Roederer, Pierre Louis, 247 Rogers, Ben, 124, 350(n.206) Roget, F. F., 348(n.153) Roland, Jean Marie, 221 Roland, Mme, 208 Romantic Movement, 296 Romilly, Samuel, 13, 31, 128, 132, 139, 140, 142, 156, 209–10, 335(n.202), 354(n.13), (n.20), (n.24), 355(n.41), 356(n.48), (n.62), 357(n.73), (n.84−n.85), 358(n.103), 359(n.129), 360(n.167), (n.178), (n.180), 364(n.316–n.317), 365(n.13−n.14), 369, (n.2−n.3), (n.12), (n.18), (n.108), 370(n.36), 371(n.62−n.63), (n.65), (n.68−n.69), 372(n.121), 374(n.13)

Index Roney, John B., 342(n.16), 349(n.170) Rosenblatt, Helena, 96, 115, 342(n.6), 348(n.146) Rosenblum, Nancy L., 27, 319(n.22) Rosenkampf, Baron, 292 Rosen, F. R., 316(n.27), 317(n.32), 324(n.156), 378(n.15) Ross, Don, 383(n.163) Rossi, Pellegrino, 303, 306, 388(n.126) Roth-Lochner, Barbara, 99, 101, 343(n.20), (n.32), 388(n.121) Roth, Robert, 193, 301–2, 319(n.65), 348(n.152), 367(n.74) Rousseau, G. S., 341(n.1), 342(n.11), 343(n.22), 345(n.84), 345(n.66), (n.68), (n.74), (n.77), (n.80), (n.86), 346(n.94−n.99) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques and Dumont, 259, 375(n.36) and England, 107–8 and French culture, 113, 115 and Geneva, 11, 115, 313 negative interpretations of, 207 and religion, 106 Social Contract, 213 and Voltaire, 96–7, 104, 111–12 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 344(n.46) Roussellier, N., 198, 369(n.109) Rousset, Jean, 104 Roustan, 113 Roux, Philippe de, 361(n.192) royal veto, France, 155 Rusche, Georg, 42, 325(n.182), (n.189), 382(n.147) Russia, Narkinsk, 55 Russian period, 52 Ryan, Alan, 367(n.59), 390(n.178) Sa’adah, Anne, 139, 356(n.54) St Petersburg, 84, 128 Saint-Simon, Henri, 1, 296, 353(n.1), 384(n.41), 385(n.43) Saint-Simonianism, 1 Saladin, Michel-Jean-Louis, 116, 348(n.145), (n.155−n.157), 388(n.126) salary, as motivation, 191–2 Salkind, E., 384(n.38) sanctions, the four, 264–5 Sanders, Lloyd, 386(n.79)

439

sanitation, 301 Saussure, Horace-Bénédict, 225, 226 Savoy, 221 Say, J.-B., 249, 298, 386(n.63)–(n.65) Sayous, A. E., 350(n.196) Scarlett, P.C., 210, 218, 371(n.64), 372(n.118) Schaffer, Simon, 365(n.8) Schidrowitz, Leo, 344(n.44) Schmale, Wolfgang, 361(n.207) Schofield, Philip, 21, 72, 81, 316(n.30), 317(n.34), 324(n.156), 335(n.209), 337(n.297), 351(n.237), 382(n.127), (n.138), 389(n.154) Schofield, Robert E., 352(n.247) School of Arts, 55 Schools, Lancaster, 55 Schwarzenberger, Georg, 384(n.33) sciences, 258, 261–2 scientism, 4, 44, 239, 261 Scruton, Roger, 381(n.118) security, 276–7, 282 Seippel, Paul, 117 Sellon, Jean Jaques de, 305, 388(n.118) Selth, Jefferson, 26, 219, 319(n.77), 327(n.221), 352(n.240), 353(n.261), 355(n.30), 372(n.119), 376(n.78), 384(n.36) Semple, Janet, 4, 13, 19, 29, 53, 91, 316(n.17), 317(n.38), 320(n.97)–(n.98), 321(n.111), 322(n.128), 325(n.191), 329(n.34), (n.39), 330(n.56), 337(n.284), 340(n.376), (n.379) Servan, Joseph Michel Antoine, 221 services, theory of, 271–2 sexuality, social control of, 30 Seymour, Lady, 134 Shippey, Tom, 351(n.210) Sidgwick, H., 17, 21, 181, 315(n.2), 316(n.29), 365(n.1) Siegwart, A., 384(n.35) Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, 157, 167–9, 214 criticisms of, 10, 11, 157, 245 Sigot, Nathalie, 324(n.161), (n.168) Silvela, L., 385(n.54) Silvestrini, Gabriella, 342(n.6) Simplicité de l’idée d’une constitution, 159 ‘sinister interest’, 21, 72, 81, 83, 175

440 Index Sinner, Johann Rudolf von, 344(n.49) Sismondi, J. C. L. de, 295, 306, 327–8(n.221), 355(n.42), 374(n.15), 384(n.30), 387(n.93) slave trade, 218 Smith, Adam, 52, 68, 240, 241 Smith, Richard, 194, 195, 308, 309 Smith, Thomas Southwood, 301 Soboul, Albert, 139 social control, 3, 29, 30 deviance, dealing with, 30–1 theories of, 3 Social Contract, 181, 213 socialism, 1, 296 society, disciplinary, 23 Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, 25 Society of Cincinnati, 142 Socinians, 105 sociology of law, 42 Solimano, Stefano, 290, 375(n.48), 376(n.76), 382(n.153), 383(n.162) Sonenscher, Michael, 355(n.26), 381(n.93) Soret, Frédéric, 134, 230, 305, 353(n.4), 388(n.114) Soulavie, J. L., 96, 100–1, 135–7, 145–6, 148, 203, 250, 341–2(n.5), 343(n.27), (n.33), 354(n.25), 355(n.27), 358(n.106), 369(n.17), 373(n.141) and conspiracy theories, 135–7 and Geneva, 96, 100, 101 Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, 133–4, 146, 153, 156, 242–4, 355(n.30) positive reflections on Mirabeau, 138, 179 Spain, 20, 25, 47, 264, 295, 296–7 Sparta and Geneva, 106, 108, 110, 111 and Paris, 216 Spencer, Mark, 313, 390(n.176) Spink, John Stevenson, 98, 342(n.6), (n.10), 343(n.21), (n.38) Spirit of the Laws, The, 115 Staël, Auguste-Louis, baron de, 199 Staël, Mme de, 117, 130, 247, 248, 298 Stanhope, Ghita, 376(n.79) Starkey, K., 325(n.188) Stark, W., 37, 312

Starobinski, Jean, 107, 181, 345(n.76), 349(n.166), 351(n.223), 365(n.4) Stasavage, David, 355(n.26), 381(n.93) Staum, Martin S., 138, 355(n.37), (n.43) Steadman, Philip, 323(n.139) Steiger, Kurt von, 350(n.195) Steintrager, James, 316(n.30) Stendhal, 288 Stephen, Leslie, 378(n.16) Stern, Alfred, 355(n.39) Stewart, Ross E., 331(n.82), 338(n.304) Stocks, J. L., 317(n.39) Strub, Harry, 318(n.49), 320(n.98) substantive/adjective law, 268 sujets, 99, 201 Sumptuary Laws (1617, 1732), 104 supervision, 23, 33, 34 Supply without Burthen: or Escheat vice Taxation, 66 surveillance central, 25 theory, 28 Surveiller et Punir, 22–3, 50, 188 see also Discipline and Punish Swiss mentality, 114 Switzerland, 222 Tableau historique et politique des révolutions de Genève, 122 tabula rasa, 169 Tackett, Timothy, 359(n.125) T actique des Assemblées législatives, 20, 171, 198, 301, 302, 306 Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles Maurice de, 203–5, 209, 244–7, 370(n.21), 376(n.60), (n.74) taxation, 36, 38, 66, 194, 273 theatres as, 110 Taylor, Joyce, 328–9(n.19) technological innovation, 66 Thatcherite worldview, 42 theatre, Geneva, 103, 104–15, 125–6, 346(n.112) T hémis, 306 T héorie des Peines et des Récompenses, 20, 25, 307, 308, 309, 316(n.27) T heory of Legislation, 2, 13, 42, 47, 255, 311 theory of moral calculus, 265 think tank, Genevan, 144, 170, 313

Index T houghts on Penitentiaries, 58 Thourel, A., 342(n.8) Tiers, the, 139, 214, 244 titles, 272 Toreno, Count, 295 Tracy, Destutt de, 238–9, 290 T raités de législation civile et pénale, 42, 170, 187, 244–53 and Dumont, 283–8 international publication, 1, 2, 12–13, 295, 296 translation of, 307, 309 T raités des Preuves Judiciares, 302, 306 T raité sur les moyens indirects de prévenir les délits, 233 transparency and accountability/economy, 6, 16, 34 in administration, 192 as deterrent, 89 of entrepreneur, 193 of law, 269, 270, 274 as oppression, 27 and Panoptical architecture, 24, 33 principle, 6, 63 and publicity, 41 and science, 262 transportation, policy of, 52, 57, 60, 80 T reatise on Judicial Evidence, 308 trienio liberal (1820–1823), 264 Tronchet, François-Denis, 288 Tronchin, Henry, 222, 226 T rue Alarm, The, 312 Tusseau, Guillaume, 29, 321(n.105) Twining, William, 29, 320(n.99) Universalist, The (newspaper), 22 universality, 275 utilitarianism, 1, 2, 3–4 and asceticism, 238 Benthamite, 295 and Dumont, 132 and morality, 248 objections to, 286, 287, 380(n.68) and Panopticon, 4, 29 utilitarian management, 40 utility principle of, 166 and right, 297 utopia, waste-free, 35

441

Valentino, Henri, 369(n.19) Vallentin, Antonina, 355(n.30) Vallette, Gaspard, 341(n.1), 342(n.6), 343(n.38), 344(n.43), 346(n.102), (n.104), (n.107), 348(n.153), 350(n.203), 356(n.63), 361(n.203) Van Der Linden, W. H., 388(n.118) Van Kan, J., 376(n.76) Van Kley, Dale, 361(n.210) Veitch, G. S., 325(n.176) Velluz, Léon, 352(n.247) Vergennes, Charles Gravier, 121, 221 Vernes, J., 118, 173, 349(n.168) Vernet, Jacob, pastor, 113, 115, 116–17, 118, 173 Versailles Court of, 101 storming of, 171, 177 veto, 243 V iews, 168–9 virtues/vices, 260 virtuism, Geneva, 115–20 visibility, and vulnerability, 23–4 Volney, Constantin François, 176 Voltaire, François-Marie, Arouet de and Rousseau, 97, 104, 111–12 and the theatre, 105, 346(n.112) Vovelle, Michel, 361(n.207) V ue générale d’un corps complet de législation, 255, 268 Vuy, Jules, 342(n.11) Wacks, Raymond, 382(n.127), (n.130) Walby, Kevin, 320(n.92) Waldron, Jeremy, 361(n.201) Waresquiel, Emmanuel de, 377(n.88) war on waste, 37 waste-free utopia, 35 Watt, Jeffrey R., 119, 349(n.170) Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 318(n.54), 322(n.120), 329(n.25), 339(n.364) Weibel, Peter, 318(n.50), 319(n.74) Welch, Cheryl, 47, 238, 257, 327(n.220), 365(n.2), 375(n.33), 377(n.90), 379(n.25) Werret, Simon, 49, 328(n.10), 338 (n.331) Westminster Review, The, 309

442 Index Whatmore, Richard, 144, 324(n.161), 327–8(n.221), 342(n.6), 343(n.22), 347(n.143), 349(n.181), (n.183), 358(n.101), (n.115), 372(n.117), 377(n.91) Whig reformism, 210 Whishaw, John, 386(n.82) Wilberforce, William, 67, 71, 73, 84, 85, 331(n.82) Winch, Donald, 383(n.9) Wintle, Justin, 321(n.110)–11 Works (of Jeremy Bentham), 19, 56, 194, 286, 309

Wroe, Ann, 124, 350(n.207) Wymondham penitentiary, 58 Yar, Majid, 322(n.127) Young, Brian, 324(n.161), 358(n.115) Young, Jock, 322(n.129) Zagar, Janko, 366(n.21) Zavadoskii, Count, 251, 252 Zimmermann, J. G., 114 Zogmal, Alain, 387(n.101), 388(n.121)

The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism

The Armies of French Revolution

The French Revolution