Cosmopolitan Conservatisms Countering Revolution in Transnational Networks, Ideas and Movements (c. 1700-1930) 9004445234, 9789004445239

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
1. Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction
1 Countering Revolution: Present and Past
2 Aims
3 Conservatism: Problems of Definition
4 Counterrevolutionary Cosmopolitanism: A Conceptual Approach
5 Modalities: Transnational Media, Movements, and Networks
6 Contents and Structure
7 Conclusions and Perspectives
Bibliography
Part 1. Conservative Enlightenments
2. Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness: 18th-Century Traditions of Nature Writing
1 Noël-Antoine Pluche, Alexander Pope, and Popular Conservatisms
2 Divine Providentialism and the Physico-Theological Tradition
2.1 From the Great Chain of Being to an Organicist Worldview
3 From Nature to Human Society
4 Conservation and Conservatism
5 Epilogue: The Legacy of Popular Conservative Ecologism
Bibliography
3. Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan: The Linguistics and Anthropology of Lorenzo Hervás
1 Lorenzo Hervás: Exile, Linguist and Counter-Revolutionary
2 Hervás’ Collaborators: Nationalists, Conservatives, Traditionalists, Cosmopolitans
3 Hervás’ Conservative Epistemology
4 Hervás, Andrés, and Eximeno
5 Conclusion
Bibliography
4. Counter-revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy in the Cosmopolitan Public
1 Mallet, Barruel and the Philosophes
2 Mallet Du Pan and the Recent Historiography of the Enlightenment
3 Conservatism and the Public Sphere
4 Philosophie and Anti-Philosophie before the Revolution
5 Mallet Du Pan and Conservative Networks
6 Journalistic Networks and Cosmopolitan Conservatism
7 Conservative Journalism in Pre-revolutionary Europe
8 Humanitarianism, Abolitionism and Social Revolution in Conservative Journalism
9 Conclusions
Bibliography
5. Enlightenment against Revolution: The Genesis of Dutch Conservatism
1 In Praise of the Republic
2 Modern Natural Law versus Revolutionary Natural Rights
3 Celebrating the Rise of Commercial Society
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
6. A Christian Cosmopolitanism: Pauline Universalism and Cynic Apostolicism during the Brabant
1 Introduction
1.1 Ancient Cosmopolitanism
2 Stoic Cosmopolitanism in the Austrian Netherlands
3 A Return of Cynic Cosmopolitanism: Pauline Ethics against Josephist Reformism
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
7. 18th-Century Crusaders: The War against France and the Catholic Counterrevolution, 1789–99
1 The Revolution against Catholicism
2 For God and the Country: Spain’s War against the Revolution
3 An 18th-Century Crusade
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
Part 2. Transnational Networks and Institutions
8. Survival Strategies: Jacobite Adaptability, ­ 1689–1789, and Counter-revolutionary Prototypes
1 Bourbons and Stuarts: Connections and Convergences
2 Jacobitism, Counter-Revolution, and Conservatism
3 The Several Versions of 18th-Century Jacobitism
4 ‘James III’ and the Exiled Court in Italy
5 Jacobite Strategic Options: The Importance of Aristocratic Networks
6 Two Brothers, Two ‘Counter-revolutionary’ Strategies
6.1 James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde
6.2 Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran
7 Conclusion
Bibliography
9. Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability, and Multilateral Exchanges in the Study
1 Transnational Conservative Networks and Exchange
2 Conservative Exchanges in the Revolutionary and Restoration Eras
3 Conclusion and Epilogue: Towards the 20th and 21st Centuries
Bibliography
10. The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier: The Birth of Russian Conservatism in Vienna ­­(1803–12)
1 Introduction
2 Russian Traditionalism or Conservatism?
3 Uvarov’s Road to Vienna
4 A Viennese Refuge in an Unruly Europe
5 Russian Conservatism In- and Outside Russia? Identifying Different Narratives
5.1 The “Most Liberal of Monarchists”
6 The Narrative of the Vienna Circle
6.1 De Ligne
6.2 Gentz
6.3 Pozzo di Borgo
6.4 de Staël
7 A Strategic Narrative?
Bibliography
11. How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance Really? Tsar Alexander’s Offer
1 A Celebration of Holy Magnanimity
2 How Did the Holy Alliance Come to Be Considered Conservative?
3 What Did the Tsar Want?
4 A Plan for the Security and Salvation of Europe—with Help from the Prussians
5 A Mesmerizing Perspective
6 Historicizing the Holy Alliance
Bibliography
12. France and Spain: A Common Territory of ­ Anti-Revolution (End of the 18th Century–1880)
1 A Shared Struggle against the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire
2 Absolutists, Ultras, Legitimists and Carlists: The Franco-Spanish axis of the Internationale Blanche (1820‒1876)
3 Conclusion
Bibliography
13. Romancing the Monarchy: Romantic Queens and Soft Power
1 Prussia’s Mater Dolorosa: Queen Louise
2 Victoria and Her Highlanders: Royal-rustic Communitarianism
3 Aber Sissi!...
4 Conclusion
Bibliography
Part 3. Conservative Modernisms
14. Conservative Women Writers: A Transnational History of Literary Bestsellers Opposing Liberalism
1 Male Anti-feminism and the Mobilization of Conservative Women
2 Conservative Female Literature
3 Networks and Transnational Distribution
4 Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
15. Muddling Through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789–2010
1 Introduction
2 Glorious Revolution: A Foreign Event
3 Destructives and Unionists: Against Reformism and Separatism
4 Socialist Scourge: The Rise of Labour
5 Disarming Revolution: Ironies and Paradoxes
6 Conclusion
Bibliography
16. Languages of Transnational Conservatism: The Emergence of “Left” and “Right” in Britain
1 “Revolution” in Fin-de-Siècle Britain
2 1917 and After
3 Across the Spectrum
Bibliography
17. Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China from the 1910s to the 1930s
1 “Conservatism” in Chinese
2 English Conservatism and Zhang Shizhao
3 Western Conservative Ideas in China between the World Wars
4 The Kuomintang and German Conservatism
5 Conclusion
Bibliography
18. Modernity and the Question of Conservatism: Reflections Based on the Chinese Case
1 Modernization, Conservatism, and Cultural Particularity
2 The Challenge of Research on Conservatism
3 Conservatism from the Perspective of Intellectual History
4 Chinese Conservatism in the 20th Century
5 Chinese Critiques of Progress: A Typology
6 The Dilemma of Chinese Conservatism
References Cited
Index

Citation preview

‘What a pleasure it has been to read the essays in this volume, a large number of which break new ground. There are numerous thematic surprises and new takes on old material—on conservative women in the 18th and 19th centuries, on the international diplomacy and cooperation of monarchs in Europe in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, on the central importance of Russia and Spain in conservative and transnational networks, on the emergent (and currently arresting) issue of ecological conservatism, on the contemporary currency of the terms “Right and Left,” on the perennially vexing relationship(s) between the Enlightenment and Conservatism, and on the complexities of conservative thought in China. This will be an essential resource for anyone interested in the fortunes of conservatism in the modern world.’ Darrin M. McMahon, Dartmouth College ‘This original collection shows that rather than trying to turn the tide of history, the counterrevolutionary movements in several parts of the globe were also moments for conservative renewal and modernization. The book emphasizes the cosmopolitan nature of conservatism and invites us to rediscover the internal diversity of an ideology that continues to play a major role in our politics.’ Aurelian Craiutu, Indiana University, Bloomington

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms

Studies in the History of Political Thought Series Editor Annelien de Dijn (Utrecht University) Advisory Board Janet Coleman (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK) Vittor Ivo Comparato (University of Perugia, Italy) Jacques Guilhaumou (CNRS, France) John Marshall (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA) Markku Peltonen (University of Helsinki, Finland)

Volume 16

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ship

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms Countering Revolution in Transnational Networks, Ideas and Movements (c. 1700‒1930) Edited by

Matthijs Lok, Friedemann Pestel and Juliette Reboul

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: “Solea l’altero Franco il mondo intero divorar”, etching by Chiari (1799) commenting on the downfall of France’s “Sister Republics”, reproduced from Christian-Marc Bosséno, Christophe Dhoyen, and Michel Vovelle, Immagini della libertà: L’Italia in rivoluzione 1789–1799 (Rome: 1988), 322. The inscription reads: “Solea l’altero Franco il mondo intero/ Divorar, dispregiando onore e Dio;/ Ma la Giustizia giù dal Ciel discende/ Fuga l’Inganno e l’Ingordigia, estende/ La man pietosa a discacciare il rio,/ Unendo insieme l’uno e l’altro Impero.” [“The haughty Frank used to devour the entire world, despising honor and God. But Justice descends from Heaven chasing out deception and greed. She extends her pitiful hand to repel the villain, reuniting the one and the other Empire.”] Our special thanks go to Glauco Schettini for his help in finding this cover picture. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lok, Matthijs, editor. | Pestel, Friedemann, editor. | Reboul, Juliette, editor. Title: Cosmopolitan conservatisms : countering revolution in transnational networks, ideas and movements (c. 1700-1930) / edited by Matthijs Lok, Friedemann Pestel, and Juliette Reboul. Description: Boston ; Leiden : Brill, [2021] | Series: Studies in the History of Political Thought, 1873-6548 ; volume 16 | Includes index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021001920 | ISBN 9789004445239 (Hardback : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9789004446731 (eBook) Subjects: LCSH: Conservatism–History. Classification: LCC JC573 .C678 2021 | DDC 320.5209–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001920

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1873-6548 isbn 978-90-04-44523-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-44673-1 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements xI List of Illustrations xII Notes on Contributors xiII 1 Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction 1 Matthijs Lok, Friedemann Pestel and Juliette Reboul

PART 1 Conservative Enlightenments 2 Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness: 18th-Century Traditions of Nature Writing (Noël-Antoine Pluche, Alexander Pope) 41 Alicia C. Montoya 3 Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan: The Linguistics and Anthropology of Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro ­(1753–1809) 67 Carolina Armenteros 4 Counter-revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy in the Cosmopolitan Public Sphere from 1770s to 1790s: Mallet Du Pan, Barruel and the Philosophes 86 Simon Burrows 5  Enlightenment against Revolution: The Genesis of Dutch Conservatism 108 Wyger R.E. Velema 6 A  Christian Cosmopolitanism: Pauline Universalism and Cynic Apostolicism during the Brabant Revolt (1787–1790) 131 Michiel Van Dam 7 18th-Century Crusaders: The War against France and the Catholic Counterrevolution, 1789–99 152 Glauco Schettini

viii

Contents

PART 2 Transnational Networks and Institutions 8 Survival Strategies: Jacobite Adaptability, ­1689–1789, and Counter-revolutionary Prototypes 175 Nigel Aston 9 Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability, and Multilateral Exchanges in the Study of Conservatism during and after the Revolutionary Era 197 Brian Vick 10 The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier: The Birth of Russian Conservatism in Vienna (1803–12) 219 Lien Verpoest 11 H  ow Conservative Was the Holy Alliance Really? Tsar Alexander’s Offer of Radical Redemption to the Western World 241 Beatrice de Graaf 12 France and Spain: A Common Territory of Anti-Revolution (End of the 18th Century–1880) 261 Jean-Philippe Luis† 13 Romancing the Monarchy: Romantic Queens and Soft Power 283 Joep Leerssen

PART 3 Conservative Modernisms 14 C  onservative Women Writers: A Transnational History of Literary Bestsellers Opposing Liberalism and Early Feminism, c. 1850–1900 307 Amerigo Caruso 15 M  uddling Through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789–2010 330 Joris van Eijnatten 16 Languages of Transnational Conservatism: The Emergence of “Left” and “Right” in Britain 354 Emily Jones

Contents 

ix

17 Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China from the 1910s to the 1930s 375 Aymeric Xu 18 Modernity and the Question of Conservatism: Reflections Based on the Chinese Case 397 Axel Schneider Index 425

Acknowledgements This book is the result of transnational collaboration and the traveling of people and ideas, both physically and digitally. In the volume, different national, linguistic, and disciplinary research traditions have been integrated to the study of a many-sided and somewhat elusive topic. Our volume is based on a conference organized in the serene and monastic settings of the Soeterbeeck conference center at Ravenstein in the eastern Netherlands on 14 and 15 June 2018. Most of the chapters originated from papers presented there. The conference was made possible by the generous assistance of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam School for R ­ egional, Transnational and European Studies - ARTES), and Radboud University. Special thanks go to Alicia Montoya, Professor of French Literature and Culture at Radboud University, who greatly stimulated the organization of this conference and with whom we have been discussing the history of conservatism and counterrevolution in various forms for many years. Also, we would like to warmly thank Brill publishers for considering the publication of this volume, in particular editor Ivo Romein, Alessandra Giliberto, and the editor of the Brill Studies in the History of Political Thought (SHIP), Annelien de Dijn, Professor of Political History at Utrecht University, as well as the two peer reviewers who commented on the manuscript. During the completion of this book, we sadly learned that our colleague and contributor Jean-Philippe Luis passed away in fall 2020. Based at the University of Clermont-Auvergne, Jean-Philippe was a kind and open-minded historian who, among other works, published an important study of the Spanish restoration monarchy (L’utopie réactionnaire, 2002). He also wrote extensively on transnational counterrevolution. In 2015 he edited, together with JeanClaude Caron, an impressive volume on the French Restoration bringing together authors from many different countries (Rien appris, rien oublié?), a cosmopolitan endeavor in itself. With this volume, we would like to pay homage to our outstanding and deeply missed colleague.

Illustrations 13.1 Queen Louise, painting by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1801) 288 13.2 The Death Bed of Queen Louise, allegorical mural by Hermann Wislicenus in the Kaiserpfalz, Goslar (1885) 290 13.3 Queen Victoria upon her accession to the throne in 1837. Enamel by Henry Pierce Bone (1843) after the state portrait by George Hayter (1838) 292 13.4 Franz Joseph and Elisabeth proclaimed King and Queen of Hungary, painting by Eduard von Engerth (1872) 296 13.5 Bust of Elisabeth in the Vojvodinian city of Szabadka (present-day Subotica, Serbia), cast from the original design by Strobl 300 13.6 Ludwig II of Bavaria as Swan Knight, vintage postcard 301 15.1 Similarity scores for the words “revolution”, based on unigram embeddings of the Times (1811–1835) 337 15.2 Similarity scores for the words “conservatism”, based on unigram embeddings of the Times (1831–1840) 339 15.3 The relative frequency of the words “revolution”, “revolt” and “protest” in the Times (1785–2010) 344 15.4 The bigram productivity for ‘revolution’ in the Times (1785–2010) 346

Notes on Contributors Carolina Armenteros is the Director of the Centre for European Studies at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra. She is an intellectual historian specialized in 18thand 19th-century Europe with interests in early conservatism, Catholic thought, women writers, and the foundations of sociology and anthropology. She is the author of “The Enlightened Conservatism of the Malabar Missions: GastonLaurent Coeurdoux and the Making of an Anthropological Classic” (Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2019); “The Spanish Counter-Enlightenment: An Overview, 1774– 1814” (International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, 2019); “Piety and Popularity: The Life and Works of Félicité de Genlis” (Women, Enlightenment and Catholicism); and The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794–1854 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Nigel Aston is an Honorary Fellow in the School of History, Politics, and International Relations at the University of Leicester, and was a residential Research Fellow at Durham University in 2019–20. Educated at Durham University and Christ Church, Oxford, he has written widely on British and French 18th-century religious, political, and intellectual history. His most recent publication was Negotiating Toleration: Dissent and the Hanoverian Succession 1714–1760 (OUP, 2019), co-edited with Benjamin Bankhurst. His next book Enlightened Oxford: the University in the Cultural and Political Life of Eighteenth-Century Britain and Beyond is forthcoming in 2020–21 from Oxford University Press. Simon Burrows is a Professor of History and Digital Humanities at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is Principal Investigator of the French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe (fbtee) database project which was awarded the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Digital Resource Prize in 2017. He has written extensively on French exiles in Britain, the 18th-century newspaper press and book trade, and digital humanities. His most recent publications are The French Book Trade in Enlightenment Europe II: Enlightenment Bestsellers (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Digitizing Enlightenment: Digital Humanities and the Transformation of Eighteenth-Century Studies (Oxford Studies in Enlightenment, 2020), which he co-edited with Glenn Roe.

xiv

Notes on Contributors

Amerigo Caruso is an Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Greifswald (Germany). His current research project investigates how different political regimes reacted in times of turmoil and widespread insecurity during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He has published widely on political history, the history of ideas, nationalism and social conflicts. His recent publications include Nationalstaat als Telos? Der konservative Diskurs in Preußen und Sardinien-Piemont 1840–1870 (De Gruyter, 2017), “Blut und Eisen auch im Innern”. Soziale Konflikte, Massenpolitik und Gewalt in Deutschland vor 1914 (Campus, 2021) and a guest-edited issue of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies on historical identities and the process of nation-building in 19thcentury Italy and Germany. Michiel Van Dam is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Antwerp. He has written his doctoral dissertation at the University of Ghent on the political spirituality of the religious anti-philosophes in the Southern Netherlands during the Brabant Revolt (1787–1790). Titled Between Enlightened Reform and Spiritual Revolt, it aims to show how a group of Catholic polemists extensively borrowed, adapted and translated the philosophical language of their main opponents – Reform Catholics, enlightened philosophes, and Jansenists – in order to construct their own program of a politicized Christian ethics, opening up the possibility to think themselves differently. His current research investigates 19th- and 20th-century sociology as a ‘science of solidarity’, with a focus on its conceptualization of the sacred-secular interactions making (im)possible the imagination of a faith-based social action. Beatrice de Graaf is Distinguished Professor of History at Utrecht University. She specializes in the history of security, international relations and terrorism since the early 19th century. In 2018 she was awarded the Stevin Prize, the highest academic distinction in the Netherlands. Her monograph Fighting Terror after Napoleon. How Europe became Secure after 1815 was published with CUP in 2020. She is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academia Europaea. Joris van Eijnatten is Professor of Digital History at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and general director of the Netherlands eScience Center. He has worked on various interrelated subjects, including the history of ideas, religion, media and communication, employing source material from the 18th century to the

Notes on Contributors 

xv

present. His numerous publications include books and articles on toleration, Dutch religious history, the poet Willem Bilderdijk, sermons, the justification of war, media history and conceptual history. A digital historian, van Eijnatten specializes in applying digital methodologies to newspapers, periodicals, parliamentary records and other historical data, with a focus on tracing changing concepts over time. Emily Jones is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Manchester. Her first monograph, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914: An Intellectual History (OUP, 2017) won the 2018 Longman-History Today Prize. Her current research focuses on the development of ideas about conservatism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Joep Leerssen is Professor of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam. A recipient of the Spinoza Award and the Madame de Staël Award, he has published widely on the cultural and intellectual history of nationalism and on the comparative history of national movements. He is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe. His most recent book is the collection Parnell and His Times (Cambridge UP). Matthijs Lok is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the European Studies Department of the University of Amsterdam. He was appointed a senior fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study NIAS (Yeargroup 2019–20). Recent publications include The Politics of Moderation in Modern European History (2019, with Ido de Haan), Eurocentrism in European History and Memory (2019, with Robin de Bruin & Marjet Brolsma) and a themed IJCHM issue on the Global Counter-Enlightenment (2019, with Joris van Eijnatten). He is currently completing a monograph on ‘Counter-Revolution, Enlightenment and the Making of the European Past’. Jean-Philippe Luis† was a Professor of Modern History at the University of Clermont Auvergne, and director of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme de Clermont -Ferrand (USR NCRS 3550). He is the author or editor of 12 books and approximately 70 articles and book chapters in French and Spanish. These include L’utopie réactionnaire: épuration et modernisation de l’État dans l’Espagne de la fin de l’Ancien Régime (1823–1834), Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 2002; L’ivresse de la fortune. A. M. Aguado, un génie des affaires, Paris, Payot, 2009; and with

xvi

Notes on Contributors

Jean-Claude Caron Rien appris, rien oublié? Les restaurations dans l’Europe post-napoléonienne (1814–1830), Rennes, PUR, 2015. Alicia C. Montoya is Professor of French Literature and Culture at Radboud University, The Netherlands, and Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded MEDIATE project (Measuring Enlightenment: Disseminating Ideas, Authors, and Texts in Europe, 1665–1840). She is the author of Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge 2013), Marie-Anne Barbier et la tragédie post-classique (Paris 2007) and the co-editor of several volumes, including La Pensée sérielle, du Moyen Age aux Lumières (Leiden 2019), Women Writing Back / Writing Back Women: Transnational Perspectives from the Late Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Modern Era (Leiden 2010) and Lumières et histoire / Enlightenment and History (Paris 2010). She is an advisory editor for Book History and for Brill’s Library of the Written Word series. Friedemann Pestel is Lecturer in Modern European History at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. He was a Visiting Fellow at the German Historical Institutes in Paris and London and the Universities of Vienna and Bordeaux. In 2020/21 he held a junior fellowship at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. His research interests and publications cover the French and Haitian Revolutions, political migration in the Age of Revolutions, conceptual history, the history of classical musical life, and memory studies. In 2015 he published his book Kosmopoliten wider Willen: Die monarchiens als Revolutionsemigranten (Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Monarchiens as Émigrés of the French Revolution) with OldenbourgDe Gruyter. He is currently working on a global history of orchestral touring in the 20th century. Juliette Reboul is a post doctoral researcher Radboud University, The Netherlands, where she also lectures. Her research interests focus on the movements and exchanges of people, books, and ideas in Europe and beyond in the early modern period. She has worked for the French Book Trade in the Enlightenment project (FBTEE) and helped design and populate the MEDIATE database (Measuring Enlightenment: Disseminating Ideas, Authors and Texts in Europe). She has written and edited works on the French counterrevolutionary emigration in the late 18th century, including French Emigration to Great Britain with Palgrave Macmillan in 2017.

Notes on Contributors 

xvii

Glauco Schettini is a PhD candidate in Modern History at Fordham University, New York. He received his MA in History from the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa. His research interests focus on the intellectual, political, and religious history of the age of revolutions, and he is currently writing a global intellectual history of the Catholic Counterrevolution. He has published several articles and book chapters in English and Italian. His most recent publications include “Building the Third Rome: Italy, the Vatican, and the New District in Prati di Castello, 1870–1895” (Modern Italy, 2019) and “Confessional Modernity: Nicola Spedalieri, the Catholic Church, and the French Revolution, c.1775–1800” (Modern Intellectual History, 2020). Axel Schneider is Professor of Modern Sinology at Göttingen University, Germany. He studied at Bochum U. and Cheng-chi U. (Taiwan) and got his PhD in 1994 from Bochum U. He has been working at Heidelberg U. (1989–2000), Leiden U. (2000–09), and Göttingen U (2009-). His fields of specialization are the history, intellectual history, and history of knowledge of early modern and modern China. He is editor of the Leiden Series in Comparative Historiography and Brill’s Humanities in China Library. His most recent publication is Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), ed. together with Thomas Fröhlich. Wyger R.E. Velema PhD (1992), Johns Hopkins University, is Jan Romein Professor in the Department of History of the University of Amsterdam. He is specialized in early modern history, with an emphasis on the 18th century, the history of political thought in particular that of republicanism - and conceptual history. He has published widely in these fields, including Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic. The Political Thought of Elie Luzac (1993) and Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought (2007). Most recently, he co-edited the volume Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republican Imagination (2018). Lien Verpoest is Associate Professor at the research group Modernity and Society 1800–2000 at the History Department of the KU Leuven Faculty of Arts and academic director of the Centre for Russian Studies. Her research lies at the intersection of history and area studies, with a focus on diplomatic history and East-West relations, which she studies from the perspective of strategic narratives and historical institutionalism. She recently edited the volume Rusland:

xviii

Notes on Contributors

onveranderlijk anders? Russische identiteit in politiek, cultuur en geschiedenis (Leuven University Press, 2019) and publishes regularly on Russian diplomatic history (Low Countries Historical Review, European Review of History, European Foreign Affairs Review). Brian Vick is Professor of History at Emory University. He is the author of essays on German liberalism, nationalism and ideas of race, and of the books Defining Germany: The 1848 Frankfurt Parliamentarians and National Identity (Harvard University Press, 2002), and The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard University Press, 2014), winner of the 2015 Hans Rosenberg Book Prize of the Central European History Society of the American Historical Association. Most recently he co-edited, with Beatrice de Graaf and Ido de Haan, the volume Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Aymeric Xu is currently ATER (Research and teaching fellow) at the Institut d’Asie orientale, École normale supérieure de Lyon. Associated member of the Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, he obtained his PhD in history at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, with a dissertation on modern Chinese conservatism.

CHAPTER 1

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction Matthijs Lok, Friedemann Pestel and Juliette Reboul 1

Countering Revolution: Present and Past

In 2018, political scientist Jan Zielonka published an essay entitled ­Counter-revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat.1 In it, the Polish-born Oxford don analyzed what he perceived as the present-day rise of an “illiberal” or “conservative” Europe. Zielonka first and foremost attributed this ascension to mistakes made by what he termed “liberal” and progressive governments in the wake of 1989. His observations were addressed to his former mentor Ralf Dahrendorf. Dahrendorf himself had published a long letter on the fall of the communist bloc in 1990.2 Both essays were modelled on a late-18th-century classic: Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790 by the ­British Whig Member of Parliament Edmund Burke.3 In Zielonka’s view, today’s “illiberal” and “conservative” movements echoed earlier waves of attacks on liberalism and Enlightenment values. He compared contemporary illiberalism to the hostile response to the French Revolution in the last decade of the 18th century. Likewise, in his widely read Age of Anger (2017), British-Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra traced the origins of what he perceived as the current worldwide “anger” and “resentment” at ruling liberal democracies back to 18th- and early 19th-century France, but above all to early German critics of “a rational, universal, and cosmopolitan civilization.”4 In Germany, the argument for the historical ideological roots of the “new right,” demonstrated for instance in the longstanding use of the concept of the Abendland, has been made by

1 Jan Zielonka, Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat (Oxford: 2018). 2 Ralf Dahrendorf, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Warsaw (New York: 1990). 3 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event in a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris (London: 1790). 4 Pankaj Mishra, The Age of Anger. A History of the Present (New York: 2017); see also idem, “Welcome to the Age of Anger,” The Guardian, 8 December 2016.

© koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_001

2

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

the journalist and publicist Volker Weiß.5 Harvard historian Jill Lepore has ­interpreted American history as a permanent struggle between a liberal and universal nationalism against its antiliberal and more conservative ­counterpart since American independence in 1776.6 Scholars and essayists are not the only ones to label contemporary rightwing challengers of liberal orders as “conservatives” and “counterrevolutionaries” and to amalgamate their discourse with previous ideological traditions. Dutch radical right-wing politician Thierry Baudet, for instance, has often ­portrayed himself as following in the footsteps of 18th- and 19th-century political thinkers. Before embarking on a political career, he co-edited two volumes of biographies of intellectuals he deemed part of a homogenous and continuous “conservative” tradition.7 These included a wide range of authors such as Montesquieu, Hume, Tocqueville, Donoso Cortés, Maistre, and Jacob ­Burckhardt. According to Baudet, these thinkers taught lessons that were still relevant today, mainly on the danger of abstract utopia and the perilous hubris of modernism.8 This Dutch radical-right politician does not stand alone in reclaiming the epithet “conservative.” Twenty-first-century antiliberal nationalists in Europe have regularly branded themselves as “conservative nationalists” or “conservative revolutionaries,” thus ambiguously engaging in politics on a European and transnational level while still proclaiming the “central myths of the

5 Volker Weiß, Die autoritäre Revolte. Die Neue Rechte und der Untergang des Abendlandes (Stuttgart: 2018). For France, Jean-Philippe Vincent, Qu’est-ce que le Conservatisme? Histoire intellectuelle d’une idée politique (Paris: 2016). On the concept of the “Abendland,” Susan Rößner, Die Geschichte Europas schreiben. Europäische Historiker und ihr Europabild im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: 2009). 6 Jill Lepore, This America. The Case for the Nation (New York: 2019). More extensively: idem, These Truths. A History of the United States (New York: 2018). See also on the American ­conservative tradition vis-à-vis the European experience, Edmund Fawcett, Conservatism. The Fight for a Tradition (Princeton: 2020). Fawcett describes and compares the development of the conservative tradition in four countries but does not analyze conservatism as a transnational and cosmopolitan phenomenon by definition. 7 Thierry Baudet and Michiel Visser (eds.), Revolutionair Verval en de conservatieve vooruitgang in de 18de en 19de eeuw [Revolutionary Decline and Conservative Progress in the 18th and 19th Centuries] (Amsterdam: 2011); idem (eds.) Conservatieve Vooruitgang. De grootste ­denkers van de 20ste eeuw [Conservative Progress: The Greatest Thinkers of the 20th Century] ­(Amsterdam: 2010). The individual chapters were written by academics who did not necessarily share Baudet’s political agenda. 8 On the ideological development of the “new” Dutch conservatism since the 1990s, Merijn Oudenampsen, De conservatieve revolte. Een ideeëngeschiedenis van de Fortuyn-opstand [The Conservative Revolt: An Intellectual History of the Fortuyn Uprising] (Nijmegen: 2018).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

3

right, namely ethnonationalism and national identity.”9 Calling ­themselves conservatives allows radical-right-wing politicians to endow their ideals ­ with an aura of respectability and tradition.10 Nevertheless, embracing the ­conservative tradition is a rather new development. On the European continent, populist challengers from the right have traditionally been hesitant, if not reluctant, to describe themselves as “counterrevolutionary” or “conservative,” believing this seemingly unfashionable label would turn away voters. However, in the British context, references to late-18th-century conservatism, mostly to Edmund Burke, have been traditionally used as the ultimate argument to ­further a heterogeneous array of discordant political agendas: recently, both Brexiteers and their opponents invoked the Irish-born philosopher s­everal times in support of their own position.11 Undoubtedly, Zielonka’s book demonstrates the political urgency of studying the concepts of counterrevolution and conservatism from a longer historical perspective. But his interpretation of the current revolt against elites in Europe and beyond as a “counterrevolution,” and the lineages he and many others draw between the 19th century and the 21st century, can, and should, be questioned. Whether these positionings take the form of appropriations, anachronisms, or false ascendancies, they need to be critically examined. Our reason for studying conservative and counterrevolutionary pasts is first and foremost historical. This implies that we are mostly interested in the differences between past and present and changes rather than continuities in the evolution of political languages and ideas. This historical approach does not imply that the cosmopolitan conservatisms studied in this volume are of antiquarian interest only. Following Quentin Skinner, we regard the past primarily 9

10

11

Manuela Caiani, “Radical Right Cross-National Links and International Cooperation,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. Jens Rydgren (Oxford: 2018), 394–411. See also Nora Lagenbacher and Britta Schellenberg, Is Europe on the Right Path? Right-Wing Extremism and Right-Wing Populism in Europe (Berlin: 2011), in which the authors underline how the transnational “interlinkages” and exchanges between the different local and regional players of the extreme right in Europe play a crucial role in the success of extremism and populism. On 3–4 February 2020 an international conference was held in Rome by self-proclaimed “national conservatives,” organized by the American Edmund Burke Foundation. An example of a more mainstream politician who claimed to be inspired by the conservative tradition is Roland Koch, the former prime minister of the German state of Hessen; Roland Koch, Konservativ. Ohne Werte und Prinzipien ist kein Staat zu machen (Freiburg im Breisgau: 2010). See for instance Bryn Harris, “The Legitimacy of Referendums: Why Edmund Burke won’t rescue Remain,” 30 October 2019, https://briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-legitimacy-of-­ referendums-why-edmund-burke-wont-rescue-remain/ (accessed 14 January 2020).

4

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

“as a repository of values we no longer endorse, of questions we no longer ask.”12 A second reason for a historical study of earlier conservatisms is that most scholarship on right-wing populism and antiliberalism has a strictly contemporary focus. Political scientists use labels such as “conservatism” and “conservative populism” without exploring longer historical semantic lineages. Furthermore, the pedigree showcased by self-proclaimed “conservatives” is often taken at face value.13 2 Aims In Cosmopolitan Conservatisms, authors from different national and disciplinary backgrounds study the making of conservative thinking, referring to both transnational and long-term perspectives between the late 17th century and the 1930s.14 Many chapters in this volume deal with the Age of Revolutions and its aftermath. Whereas the French Revolution may no longer be seen as the birth of modern conservative thought, its importance for the emergence of 19th-century “-isms” – not only “conservatism” – cannot be denied.15 Throughout the 19th century, which was a century of “counterrevolution” as much as of “revolution,” conservative ideas and ideologies were transformed and reinvented. Each revolutionary wave that swept over Europe and other parts of the world was followed by a counterrevolution of some sort, usually far less studied by historians.16 Rather than being mere attempts to turn back the tide, each counterrevolutionary moment was also a period of conservative renewal, transformation, and modernization, as will be argued in this book. “Modernity,” or at least 12 13

14

15 16

Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: 1998), 112. We are referring here to the enormous and quickly growing literature on antiliberalism and populism written by political and social scientists. The conservative tradition is also curiously absent from the influential short book by Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism? (Philadelphia: 2016), although Müller takes the words of the populists seriously. See also Oudenampsen, Revolte. Studies on 20th-century conservatism from a comparative perspective include Clarisse Berthezène and Jean-Christian Vinel (eds.), Conservatismes en mouvement. Une approche transnationale au XXe siècle (Paris: 2017) and Martina Steber, Die Hüter der Begriffe. Politische Sprachen des Konservativen in Großbritannien und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945–1980 (Berlin: 2017). Cf. Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: 1966); Panajotis ­Kondylis, Konservativismus. Geschichtlicher Gehalt und Untergang (Stuttgart: 1986). David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds.), The Age of Revolutions in Global ­Context, c. 1760–1840 (Basingstoke: 2010).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

5

what was regarded as such by conservatives around the world, was simultaneously rejected and embraced in various ways. Undertaking some forays into ­conservative discourses and policies in the 20th century, the book limits its scope to the interwar period. Indeed, the rise of fascism and Nazism, the Second World War, and the tensions of the Cold War raise an entirely new set of conceptual questions that merit a comprehensive study on its own.17 The long-term perspective of this volume fits into the current trend in intellectual history and the history of political thought to study the development of ideas from a longer and geographically broader perspective.18 However, a good part of this new intellectual history seems to focus on concepts interwoven with notions of optimism and philosophical progress such as human rights, revolution, and the Enlightenment. The relative neglect of conservative themes becomes particularly obvious in the rapidly emerging field of global (intellectual) history. Amongst its practitioners, David Armitage has pointed out in his foreword to a new edition of Robert Roswell Palmer’s classic The Age of Revolution that “there is no synoptic account of the late 18th century as the age of global antidemocratic counterrevolution.”19 And while, in 2001, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra asked his famous question “Whose Enlightenment was it anyway?,” demonstrating how the challenge and critique of European ideas by intellectuals outside North-Western Europe resulted in substantially new scientific discoveries, few scholars have endeavored to think of conservatism and counterrevolution on a global scale.20 In fact, the historical study of “global conservatism” remains very much Western-oriented and Eurocentric, usually favoring American and (North-West) European examples.21 Although 17 Fawcett, Conservatism, 160–264; Daniel Ziblatt, Conservative Parties and the Birth of D ­ emocracy (Cambridge: 2017), 297–333. On the problem of the “conservative revolution” in the 1920s, Bernhard Dietz, “Radical Conservatism in Europe in a transnational perspective,” Journal of Modern European History 15 (2017), 36–47. 18 David Armitage, “What is the Big Idea?,” History of European Ideas 38 (2012), 493–507, here 498; Darrin McMahon, “The Return of the History of Ideas,” in Rethinking European Modern Intellectual History, ed. idem and Sam Moyn (Oxford: 2014), 13–31. An example of this long-term approach is Annelien de Dijn, Freedom. An Unruly History (Cambridge, MA: 2020). 19 David Armitage, “Foreword,” in Robert Roswell Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution. A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (Princeton: 2014), xv-xxii, here xx. 20 Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Stanford: 2001). 21 Cf. the special issue on “Global Counter-Enlightenment” of the International Journal for ­History, Culture and Modernity 7 (2019). On Eurocentrism in historiography, Marjet Brolsma, Robin de Bruin, and Matthijs Lok (eds.), Eurocentrism in European History and Memory ­(Amsterdam: 2019).

6

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

many chapters in this volume revisit “European” topics, a number of authors discuss non-European interpretations of conservatism as well as ­conservatives’ exchanges with colonial and imperial spaces. This book has four scholarly aims. The first is to discuss the long-term historical transformation of conservative ideas and rhetoric through the lens of transnational connections. While individual cases have been separately studied in national contexts, a transnational approach to early forms of conservatism is still much needed. Usually conservatism is regarded as a hostile reaction to internationalism and cosmopolitanism. We posit instead that the transfer of conservative ideas via travel, counterrevolutionary migration, or the transnational book market helped to shape seemingly homegrown conservative ideologies. Conservatism and counterrevolution are analyzed here as being by definition transnational phenomena, despite the anti-cosmopolitan rhetoric of some of the most radical conservatives.22 Our second aim is to study conservatism not only as a response to allegedly “progressive” or “liberal” internationalism, cosmopolitanism, and universalism, but as an essential part and manifestation of these phenomena.23 This book investigates the cosmopolitan nature of conservatism from the late 17th to the early 20th century. In this way, the emphasis is on the persistence of cosmopolitan forms of conservatism over two and a half centuries, putting the ingrained characterization of the 19th century as the exclusive “age of nationalism” into perspective. Most of the literature sees a transition in the early 19th century when Enlightenment cosmopolitanism was replaced by a romantic nationalism, to re-emerge only at the beginning of the 20th century.24 This volume thus offers a more comprehensive and less ideological interpretation of historical “cosmopolitanism.”25 The third aim of this book is to historicize the respective meanings and interrelations of notions and concepts such as “conservatism,” “counterrevolution,” “the right,” “reaction,” or “counter-Enlightenment” in different temporal, 22

23 24 25

Friedemann Pestel, for instance, terms the monarchiens émigrés “cosmopolitans against their will,” after Mallet du Pan’s description of the émigrés as “cosmopolites malgré eux”; Friedemann Pestel, Kosmopoliten wider Willen. Die monarchiens als Revolutionsemigranten (Berlin: 2015). For a comparable approach in the 20th century, see Dieter Gosewinkel (ed.), Anti-Liberal Europe. A Neglected Story of Europeanisation (New York: 2010). A good example is Margaret Jacob, Strangers Nowhere in the World. The Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: 2006); Marc Belissa, Repenser l’ordre européen (1795–1802). De la société des rois aux droits des nations (Paris: 2006), 397–407. See for instance, Pauline Kleingeld, “Romantic Cosmopolitanism: Novalis’ ‘Christianity or Europe’,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (2008), 269–84.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

7

geographical, and linguistic contexts. The choice of a long-term perspective does not imply that the “origins” of contemporary conservatism can simply be found in earlier periods or that contemporary conservatism is a simple successor to 19th-century traditions. Instead, the focus is as much on ruptures as it is on continuities. Conservative thinking and behavior in the early modern period and in the 19th century differed fundamentally and in many ways from the ideological currents nowadays termed “conservatism.” Moreover, we distinguish “conservatism” from categories such as “the right.” The equation between these two concepts is not self-evident as is illustrated by divergent counter-concepts such as “liberal” in contrast to “the left.” The relation between “conservatism” and “the right” rather forms a historical topic in itself, as the chapter by Emily Jones in this volume shows.26 The fourth and final aim is to demonstrate that the evolution of conservatism reaches beyond a mere history of ideas. Counterrevolutionaries and conservative concepts were related to institutions and networks as well as mobilities. This approach is in line with conservative and counterrevolutionary thought itself, which usually rejects abstract philosophical concepts and which understands ideas only in their concrete historical contexts. Many protagonists in this volume were “thinker-agents,” intellectuals and writers as well as active diplomats, bureaucrats, and politicians. Our emphasis on the cosmopolitan and modern aspects of conservative thinking does not imply that we ignore the ambivalences of early conservative and counterrevolutionary thought, nor that we try to paint a rosy picture of conservatives by hiding some of their more backward and exclusivist ideas. Though we argue that the conservatives covered in this volume were not the reactionaries portrayed a posteriori by hostile historians, we must consider the fact that their cosmopolitan ideals were no doubt aimed at excluding certain social, religious, and ethnic groups and individuals from the political community and the political decision-making process. Conservative arguments served to confirm existing social, religious, ethnic, and cultural hierarchies. Although they often preached their own version of moderation, freedom, and reason, the men and women portrayed in this volume often advocated a merciless ideological and military war against their political and religious opponents. Religiously inspired counterrevolutionaries regarded freedom of religion and speech as expressions of fanatical atheism. Some conservatives defended 26

On the terminology of “the right” in France, Olivier Tort, La droite française. Aux origines de ses divisions, 1814–1830 (Paris: 2013); Jean Starobinski, Action et réaction. Vie et aventures d’un couple (Paris: 2003). From a comparative Western perspective, Fawcett, Conservatism.

8

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

slavery and European imperialism with arguments drawn from religion as well as the Enlightenment.27 Others were much more critical about the European effort to impose a uniform enlightened culture all over the globe. Overall, the conservative idea of the human character was deeply pessimistic. Historical institutions such as the church, the monarchy, and the legal system were imperative to hold mankind’s basic instincts in check. The new international order established in Vienna in 1815 was originally based on enlightened and cosmopolitan ideas of perpetual peace, but after even a few years it had already acquired a much more repressive and antiliberal character in response to the (imagined) specter of another revolutionary eruption. At the same time, conservatives also played – often reluctantly ‒ a crucial, not yet fully explored, role in the making of modern democracy in the 19th and 20th centuries.28 3

Conservatism: Problems of Definition

Studying early “conservatisms” from a transnational perspective is a hazardous scholarly task. As so many authors have pointed out, conservatism is an exceptionally heterogeneous concept, difficult to define and problematize. The conceptual history of conservatism has so far received far less attention than other intellectual traditions, particularly liberalism.29 Furthermore, conservatives themselves are often opposed out of principle to the concept of ideology, defined as a coherent belief system used as the basis of a socio-political order. Writing in 1815, liberal-leaning Benjamin Constant used the words “esprit conservateur” to qualify the most reactionary of his opponents, thus correlating conservatism with an informal way of envisaging the world, a mental

27

This position was, for example, taken by the Catholic antiphilosophe and counterrevolutionary journalist François-Xavier de Feller from the Southern Netherlands. See more extensively on the interrelation between imperialism and early conservatism, Matthijs Lok, Counterrevolution and Enlightenment in European History Writing (­ forthcoming). 28 Ziblatt, Conservative Parties. Ziblatt focuses mainly on the late 19th and the 20th century. The contribution of early- and mid-19th-century conservatism to Western democracy to a large extent still remains to be written. 29 Jörn Leonhard, Liberalismus. Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmusters (Munich: 2001); Michael Freeden, Javier Fernández Sebastián, and Jörn Leonhard (eds.), In Search of European Liberalisms: Concepts, Languages, Ideologies (New York: 2019). See also Duncan Bell, “What is Liberalism?,” in Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire, ed. idem (Princeton: 2016), 62–90; De Dijn, Freedom. On conservatism, see, however, Steber, Hüter.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

9

disposition, rather than a formal system. In recent decades, much scholarship has emphasized the idea that conservatism is an “anti-ideology,” an ideology ­critical of the very idea of ideology.30 Indeed, conservatives believed that writing down political opinions was in essence a betrayal of the counterrevolution and a victory for the revolution.31 Another pitfall is the danger of anachronism. Rudolf Vierhaus has pointed to the vagaries of the words “conservative” and “conservatism” around 1800. They were used for different agendas and acquired various meanings in different contexts. As a political concept, conservateur (rather than conservatisme) first appeared in French discourse during the Thermidor moment in the French Revolution, although earlier uses in the Latin classical and medieval Christian tradition can be found.32 These early uses were not antirevolutionary in their intent but, on the contrary, supported the legacy of 1789. In 1794 a Parisian journal devoted to “the true democratic” principles, Le Conservateur ou Journal historique de la République française, appeared in print. On 18 Thermidor, an III (5 August 1795) a report to the Convention used the epithet “conservateur” to define a government “which protects against disorder” (“qui protège du désordre”).33 In other words, the Convention and later the Directory were caught between the revolutionary tradition and the aforementioned conservative emphasis on the need for order. In 1798 Madame de Staël pleaded for the establishment of a “corps conservateur” in which democratic and aristocratic elements would be united in order to prevent revolutionary radicalization. In his declaration of 19 Brumaire, an VIII (10 November 1799) Napoléon Bonaparte, moreover, declared the return of “conservative principles” and, indeed, named one of the legislative chambers the Sénat conservateur. Only after the return of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814 did the concept of conservatism acquire its antirevolutionary programmatic 30

31 32 33

In 1950, Reginald White stated: “To put conservatism in a bottle with a label is like trying to liquefy the atmosphere. […] For conservatism is less a political doctrine than a habit of mind, a mode of feeling, a way of living”; The Conservative Tradition, ed. idem (London: 1950), 1. Benjamin Thurston, “Joseph de Maistre: the Paradox of the Writer,” in The New enfant du siècle: Joseph de Maistre as a Writer, ed. Carolina Armenteros and Richard Lebrun (St Andrews: 2010), 75–98. Rudolf Vierhaus, “Konservativ, Konservatismus,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: 1982), 531–65, here 537. “Rapport du 18 Thermidor an III,” in Alphonse Aulard, Histoire politique de la Révolution française (Paris: 1903), 625. See also Bernard Gainot, “Benjamin Constant et le cercle constitutionnel de 1797: la modération impossible,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 357 (2009), 103–18, where Gainot theorizes the existence of a “républicanisme conservateur.”

10

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

connotations. In Chateaubriand’s journal Le Conservateur (1818–20) a constitutional royalist program was formulated against the liberal opposition, but also to counter the radicalism of Restoration “ultraroyalistes” who did not accept the Charte constitutionnelle as a constitutional basis. From the beginning “conservatism” thus did not imply a simple return to an imagined Ancien Régime.34 In the 1820s and 1830s the concept of conservative as subject and adjective traveled to other parts of Europe. However, its adoption differed greatly in the various linguistic and national contexts. In 1827 Wellington advocated a parti conservateur to defend the interests of the crown by “moderation, by consistency, by firmness and by good temper.” In 1830 John Wilson Croker gave the Tory party the name of Conservative Party. The word was increasingly used in British discourse after that year.35 In Germany the use of the word conservative (konservativ), borrowed from the French and English, became more frequent in the 1830s, without yet acquiring a definite political content. The revolutionary year 1848 and its aftermath presented an important moment in the crystallization of “conservative” parties in Germany. There, as well as in other European countries, an ambiguous relationship with conservatism developed: while self-proclaimed conservative parties existed, a certain reticence prevailed in making use of the word itself.36 Similarly, in Spain, the noun conservadurismo and the adjective conservador were not used by political parties, at least until the Spanish Restoration in the 1870s, when the Partido Conservador was founded. “Antiliberalism” or “reaction,” rather than “conservatism,” seemed to be in more frequent use there.37 34 35 36 37

Vierhaus, “Konservativ,” 538. The word “conservatisme,” however, was first attested in French around 1835 and was a direct translation of the English “conservatism” seen as the political doctrine of the British Tory party. On the concept of conservatism in 19th-century British context, Emily Jones, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914. An Intellectual History (Oxford: 2017) and her contribution to this volume. Vierhaus, “Konservativ,” 539–40. Cf. Viktor Aimé Huber, Über die Elemente, die Möglichkeit oder die Notwendigkeit einer konservativen Partei in Deutschland (Marburg: 1841). Fidel Gómez Ochoa, “La formación del Partido Conservador: la fusión conservadora,” Ayer 52 (2003), 57–90. See also Javier Herrero, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1973); Josep Escrig Rosa, “Pasión racional, razón apasionada. El primer antiliberalismo reaccionario en España,” Ayer 111 (2018), 135–61, here 137; Julio Herrera, ¡Serviles! El grupo reaccionario de las Cortes de Cádiz (Málaga: 2007); Andoni Artola Renedo and Antonio Calvo Maturana, “Declinaciones de la reacción eclesiástica contra la Revolución francesa en España (1789–1808),” Hispania 77 (2017), 437–69; Peer Schmidt, “Contra ‘la falsa filosofía’: la Contra-Ilustración y la crítica al reformismo borbónico en Nueva España,” in La formación de la cultura virreinal, ed. Karl Kohut and Sonia Rose, vol. 3. El siglo XVIII (Madrid and Frankfurt: 2006), 231–54, here 233–36; Jean-Philippe Luis, L’utopie reactionnaire. Épuration et m ­ odernisation de l’état dans l’Espagne de la fin de l’Ancien Régime (1823–1834) (Madrid: 2002).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

11

The vocabulary in Italy and other Latin countries has its own conceptual ­history.38 At the same time, conservatives joined forces in the European colonies and newly independent states of Latin America and adopted the term to qualify their political options. In 1836 Brazil for instance, a coalition of the Partido Restaurador and the Partido Moderado formed the Partido Conservador do Brasil, which went on to dominate national politics by the mid-19th c­ entury.39 A comparative conceptual study of “conservatism” and its semantic field in different linguistic and national contexts beyond the well-known English, French, and German cases remains an important desideratum.40 This is surely a worthwhile task for large-scale digital data mining and textual analysis. These examples demonstrate that concepts like “conservatism,” “counterrevolution,” and “reaction” are not neutral and merely analytical tools: they were, and are, political weapons in rhetorical battles.41 In the context of continental Europe, the word conservative was often a negative marker ascribed by opponents. For instance, very few Dutch politicians in the 19th or 20th century designated themselves as “conservatives.”42 Hence, one of the ideological founders of 19th-century Dutch political Protestantism, Guillaume Groen van 38 39

40

41 42

Alfonso Prandi, Cristianesimo offeso e difeso. Deismo e apologetica cristiana nel secondo S­ ettecento (Bologna: 1975). Jeffrey Needell, The Party of Order: The Conservatives, the State and Slavery in the Brazilian Monarchy, 1831–1871 (Stanford: 2006). On Columbia, Juan Guillermo Zapata Ávila, “La reacción conservadora: procesos y referentes ideológicos de la oposición conservadora al reformismo liberal,” HiSTOReLo. Revista de Historia Regional y Local 3 (2011), 97–126; Roberto Breña and Gabriel Torres de Puga, “Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in Spanish America. Debating Historiographical Categories’,” International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 7 (2019), 344–71. On the concept of Restoration from a ­Latin-American and European perspective, see the special issue of the Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar 7 (2018), edited by Daniel Gutiérrez Ardila and Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz. For the “global” language of Enlightenment criticism in continental Europe, Latin America, Spain, Russia, and Egypt, see the special issue on “Global Counter-Enlightenment” (HCM). On Central and Eastern Europe, Balázs Trencsenyi, Michal Kopeček, Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič, Maria Falina, and Mónika Baár (eds.), A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe (Oxford: 2018). For the application of digital methods to the conceptual history of conservatism, see the chapter by Joris van Eijnatten in this book. On the term “reaction,” Starobinski, Action et réaction. On the question (or the absence of) conservatism in Dutch history: Ernst Heinrich Kossmann, “Over conservatisme. Johan Huizinga-lezing 1980” [On Conservatism], in Politieke theorie en geschiedenis: Verspreide opstellen en voordrachten, ed. idem (Amsterdam: 1987), 9–25; Ronald van Raak (ed.), special issue Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland 10.1 (1999) [Conservatism in the Netherlands, 1780–1940]; Idem, In naam van het volmaakte. Conservatisme in Nederland in de negentiende eeuw van Gerrit Jan Mulder tot Jan Heemskerk Azn [Dutch Conservatism in the Nineteenth Century] (Amsterdam: 2001); ­Oudenampsen, Revolte.

12

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

Prinsterer, refused to be called a “conservative,” preferring for himself the term “anti-­revolutionary.” For him conservatism stood for a compromise with the principles of the French R ­ evolution.43 Another example of the Dutch a­ version to the word conservative can be seen in the remarks of Catholic politician ­Willem Hubert Nolens, who exclaimed in Parliament on 4 December 1917 that he would rather be called a thief or an arsonist than a “conservative”.44 In French and German discourse comparable problems with the concept of conservatism appear. The words konservativ and Konservatismus were formulated in public discourse as counter-concepts against other notions such as “liberalism,” “democracy,” or “radicalism.”45 In the North American context, words like “conservative” and “liberal” followed different trajectories altogether.46 A further challenge comes from the existing historiography. Writing the ­history of conservatism in different national contexts is dependent on national political developments. This is most salient in the case of Germany. In G ­ erman historiography, academic interest in conservatism seems correlated with large-scale upheaval. After the First and Second World Wars, a renewed scholarly interest in older forms of conservatism can be found, and continuities between the present and older tradition were constructed and reinvented.47 Later, in the aftermath of 1968, new scholarly publications appeared, while in the 1980s the “neoconservatives” emerged.48 Again after 9/11 and following a global rise in antiliberalism, German historians and political scientists, as well as those of other countries, turned to the counterrevolutionary past, as we noted at the start of our introduction. The study of the history of conservative 43

44 45 46 47

48

Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Ongeloof en Revolutie. Eene reeks van historische voorlezingen (Leiden: 1847), 6. The Christian party that was inspired by his principles, the Anti-­ Revolutionary Party (ARP), became one of the forerunners of the center-right Christian Democrat party (CDA). Hubert Willem Nolens, Handelingen Staten-Generaal 4 December 1917 (1917–1918) ­(Staten-generaal digital: www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl: accessed on 1 November 2019), 587. Vierhaus, “Konservativ,” 565. Cf. Corey Robin, The reactionary mind. Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin (Oxford: 2017); Fawcett, Conservatism. After 1945, German historians Fritz Valjavec and Heinz Gollwitzer, among others, published influential studies on early 19th-century conservatism and liberalism, emphasizing the European character of German political and intellectual developments in this period; Fritz Valjavec, Die Entstehung der politischen Strömungen in Deutschland 1770–1815 (Munich: 1951); Heinz Gollwitzer, Europabild und Europagedanke. Beitrage zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: 1951, new edition 1964). For instance, in the Dutch case the writings of Ernst Kossmann and Hermann von der Dunk could be interpreted in the context of the (backlash against) the events of 1968; ­Oudenampsen, Revolte.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

13

historiography thus presents an interesting exercise in political history in its own right. In the 20th century, several attempts have been made to create ­“typologies” of different conservatisms as part of the attempt to define the concept of conservatism. Most famously and still influentially, German sociologist Karl Mannheim distinguished in the 1920s between an ahistorical “traditionalism,” a psychological characteristic of every individual mind, and “conservatism” as a distinct modern ideology that arose in the 18th century.49 Rudolf Vierhaus, however, has argued against creating an overly strict dichotomy between the two concepts as “traditionalism is also influenced by historical and social ­factors” and cannot be analyzed only from anthropological and ­psychological perspectives. Conservatism, according to Vierhaus, contained many “pre-­ political elements.”50 American historian Klaus Epstein, building on Mannheim as well as on the work by the former Ostforscher Fritz Valjavec, in his 1966 study of German conservatism identified three distinct ideal types of conservatives: defenders of the status quo, reform conservatives, and reactionaries. He personally sympathized with the middle type.51 Epstein’s influential analysis has come under criticism by later historians for clearly demarcating two separate homogeneous social groups, a progressive “party of movement” versus a conservative party.52 Political scientist Samuel Huntington described in 1957 three broad and conflicting conceptions of the nature of conservatism as an ideology: first, a defense of feudal aristocratic agrarian classes against liberalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie; second, conservatism as a system of ideas that are generally valid. Huntington himself was most convinced by the third, “situational,” definition of conservatism, which holds that conservatism essentially is the defense and rationalization of any existing establishment or set of institutions.53 Conservatism in this situational definition does not contain any substantial ideological core. In that sense, conservatism differs from all other ideologies 49

Karl Mannheim, “Conservative Thought,” in From Karl Mannheim, ed. Kurt Wolff (New ­Brunswick: 1993), 260–350, here 280–81. 50 Vierhaus, “Konservativ,” 532. Cf. Panajotis Kondylis dated the origins of political conservatism much earlier. He interpreted conservatism as an early modern ideological and socio-­ political current in defense of an aristocratic societas civilis; Kondylis, Konservatismus. 51 Epstein, Genesis; Valjavec, Entstehung. 52 The party of movement is rather simplistically defined as the party whose ambition was “to transform society into a secular, egalitarian and self-governing direction.” Epstein, Genesis, 5. Cf. Palmer, Democratic Revolution. 53 Samuel P. Huntington, “Conservatism as an Ideology,” The American Political Science Review 51.2 (1957), 454–73.

14

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

except radicalism. Although Huntington rightly emphasized the changing and dynamic nature of conservatism, his analysis that ­conservatism paradoxically lacks an intellectual tradition appears less convincing. In different periods authors were constrained in their rhetoric by the invocation of an invented tradition and older vocabulary and harkened back to earlier ideas and idealized persons.54 New and less rigorous typologies and “family resemblances” have, furthermore, been formulated by political scientists such as Michael Freeden and Jan-Werner Müller.55 The most recent historical scholarship, including many contributions to this volume, has by contrast been increasingly critical of attempts to define a conservative ideological essence or a continuous conservative tradition or typology. Richard Bourke in 2018 professed his skepticism towards typologies and the existence of a continuous tradition that has transmitted conservative principles down the generations intact.56 Bourke and Emily Jones have both convincingly demonstrated that the construction of Edmund Burke as the intellectual “father” of a conservative tradition was an invention of the 19th century.57 Carolina Armenteros and Raphaël Cahen have similarly emphasized how early 19th-century “conservative icons” such as Joseph de Maistre and Friedrich von Gentz should be seen as the advocates of late- or post-Enlightenment cosmopolitan tradition rather than as the ideologues of a reactionary response to the French Revolution.58 54 55

56

57 58

More generally on the “remediation” of older memories in new contexts, Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture (Basingstoke: 2011), 139–143; Idem and Ann Rigney (eds.), Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory (Berlin and New York: 2009). Michael Freeden described conservatism as an “ideological family” with family resemblances. Jan-Werner Müller proposed a multidimensional approach, discerning four dimensions (sociological, methodological, dispositional, and philosophical); Michael Freeden, ­Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: 1998); J­ an-Werner Müller, “Comprehending Conservatism: A New Framework for Analysis,” Journal of Political I­ deologies 11 (2006), 359–65. Richard Bourke, “What is Conservatism? History, Ideology and Party,” European Journal of Political Theory 17 (2018), 449–75. According to Bourke, the political thought of the 19th and 20th centuries remained comparatively immune from rigorously historicist procedure. The myth of Edmund Burke as “father of modern conservatism” has been thoroughly revised by Richard Bourke and Emily Jones, see Richard Bourke, Empire and Revolution. The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton: 2017); Jones, Burke. Carolina Armenteros, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794– 1854 (Ithaca, NY: 2011); Raphaël Cahen, Friedrich Gentz 1764–1832. Penseur post-Lumières et acteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2017); Jonathan Green, “‘Fiat Justitia, pereat mundus, pereat mundus’: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Gentz and the Possibility of Prudential Enlightenment,” Modern Intellectual History 14 (2017), 35–65.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

15

In his study of the Congress of Vienna, Brian Vick, continuing the work of Michael Broers among others, called attention to the blurry lines between liberal and conservative writers, underscoring the adoption of progressive values such as nationalism by so-called conservatives.59 Beatrice de Graaf has described the peacemakers of 1814–15 as first and foremost “moderates,” underscoring the main protagonists’ own terminology. She further argues in this v­ olume that even the Holy Alliance, a monarchical pact once seen as the byword for reaction, should be presented in a new and more liberal light.60 Therefore, our aim has not been to come up with a new typology or a new ­overall definition of conservatism. Instead, our emphasis is primarily on the concepts and political languages that conservative writers used themselves, as well as on the institutional contexts, networks, and the mobility of people and ideas. 4

Counterrevolutionary Cosmopolitanism: A Conceptual Approach

How should we call those historical actors who “fought revolutions” as we state in this volume’s title? “Counterrevolutionaries,” “antirevolutionaries,” “reactionaries,” “enemies,” or “opponents” of revolution or the Enlightenment are but some of the labels and counter-concepts both historical contemporaries and later scholars have attributed to them. As a political movement, ideological frame, or practice of resistance, “counterrevolution” has probably become the most prominent of these categories, though its conceptual complexity and semantic layers have rarely been investigated in more detail.61 Emerging as a neologism at the beginning of the French Revolution, counterrevolution, like 59

60 61

Brian Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Cambridge, MA: 2014), 134–38, 235–38. Michael Broers has described post-revolutionary conservatism as an ideology above all aimed at stability, in contrast to reaction: Michael Broers, Europe after Napoleon. Revolution, Reaction and Romanticism, 1814–48 (Manchester: 1996). Beatrice de Graaf, “Taming the Evil Passions: Moderation in the International Relations,” in The Politics of Moderation in Modern European History, ed. Ido de Haan and Matthijs Lok (Basingstoke: 2019), 89–107. Idem, Fighting Terror after Napoleon (Cambridge: 2020). For factualist approaches, see Jacques Godechot, La contre-révolution: Doctrine et action, 1789–1804 (Paris: 1961); Gérard Gengembre, La contre-révolution ou l’histoire désespérante: Histoire des idées politiques (Paris: 1989); Jean Tulard (ed.), La Contre-Révolution: Origines, h­ istoire, postérité (Paris: 1990); Massimo Boffa, “Contre-Révolution,” in Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf, vol. 4 (Paris: 1992), 87‒101; Jean-Clément Martin, Révolution et contre-révolution en France de 1789–1989: Les rouages de l’histoire (Rennes: 1996); idem (ed.), Dictionnaire de la contre-révolution: XVIII e–XX e siècle (Paris: 2011).

16

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

conservatism, is a counter-intuitive concept in several respects. Against its prevailing negative and backward-oriented connotations, the term initially bore a semantic openness.62 Contrary to later uses, counterrevolution, initially, did not simply imply turning the political clock back, in the most extreme case to the Ancien Régime. Rather, the term, initially used with the indefinite (“a counterrevolution”) more than with the definite article (“the counterrevolution”), first and foremost, designated the process of combating the revolution and the agency of its actors. It referred much less to clearly defined political objectives which, given the dynamics of the revolutionary process, also changed quickly. Against upcoming Jacobin Terror and the unstable military situation during the First Coalition War, French émigré François Dominique de Reynaud de Montlosier, in a memoir for the Austrian government written in 1793, provided a progressive and agency-led definition of counterrevolution: “A principle to which one has never paid sufficient attention is that a counterrevolution is nothing other than a revolution against the revolution. Consequently, the means of counterrevolution are essentially revolutionary means.”63 When contemporaries of the 1790s spoke of counterrevolution, they often felt the need to specify the means to bring it about, which accounts for the many occurrences of collocations such as “political counterrevolution,” “armed counterrevolution,” or “constitutional counterrevolution.” We also encounter the notion of “complete counterrevolution” if the objective was indeed a re-establishment (rather than a return) of the ancienne constitution. Yet, this was only one option among others. Within the broad spectrum of possible approaches toward the revolution, the idea of “countering” was, indeed, politically highly flexible as it primarily implied contesting an existing political order whose political orientation was perceived as different. Hence, in the most extreme case, counterrevolution could even be a left-wing political phenomenon. French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan as well as German commentators of the French Revolution regarded the republican enemies of the new – yet ephemeral – French Constitution in the early 1790s as “counterrevolutionaries” 62

63

The following considerations are based on Friedemann Pestel, “On Counterrevolution: Semantic Investigations of a Counterconcept during the French Revolution,” Contributions to the History of Concepts 12 (2017), 50‒75; idem, “Contre-révolution,” in Handbuch politisch-­sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680‒1820, ed. Jörn Leonhard, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, and Rolf Reichardt (Berlin: forthcoming). “Un principe auquel on n’a pas fait assez d’attention, c’est qu’une contrerevolution n’est autre chose qu’une révolution contre la revolution, et que par conséquent les moyens de contrerévolution, sont essentiellement des moyens révolutionnaires”; François ­Dominique de Reynaud de Montlosier, Memorandum, 22 November 1793, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Frankreich Varia 50, fol. 40.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

17

as they were attacking an order which, from their viewpoint, had been ­established by the legitimate authorities of the Revolution.64 Transnational perspectives further complicate linear or retrograde understandings of counterrevolution. In the British case, translating the concept from the French and from France collided with the 17th-century legacy of the Glorious Revolution, raising the question to what extent revolution presented a reversal toward a new order or a “conservative” movement. Also, Thomas Paine’s attempt at defining counterrevolution might have appeared ­paradoxical from a French point of view. Emphasizing the progressive character of the French Revolution, he preferred, in his Rights of Man, the category of counterrevolution to revolution: The Revolutions which formerly took place in the world had nothing in them that interested the bulk of mankind. They extended only to a change of persons and measures, but not of principles, and rose or fell among the common transactions on the moment. What we now behold may not improperly be called “counter Revolution.” Conquest and tyranny, at some early period, dispossessed man of his rights, and he is now recovering them.65 In this remarkable statement, we find earlier ideas of revolution as a circular movement as enshrined in the Glorious Revolution linked to the experience of the American Revolution. These historical layers provided a different interpretive frame for the developments unfolding in France than the invention of the Ancien Régime by the revolutionaries.66 In the Swiss debate, to evoke another example, counterrevolution conveyed the ambivalent relationship between the French Revolution and the Helvetian Revolution of 1798.67 As the breakdown of the old confederation 64 65

66

67

Mercure de France, 7 August 1790, quoted in Julien Boudon, “La voie royale selon Mallet du Pan,” Revue française d’histoire des idées politiques 27 (2008), 3‒41, here 14–15; Pestel, “On Counterrevolution”, 65‒66. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, Rights of Man, and other Essential Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Sidney Hook and Jack Fruchtmann, jr. (New York: 2003), 269; see also Reinhart Koselleck, “Revolution, Rebellion, Aufruhr, Bürgerkrieg,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 5, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck (Stuttgart: 1984), 653‒788, here 737 and Stephanie Barbé Hammer, “Schiller, Time and Again,” The German Quarterly 67 (1994), 152‒72, here 156. François Furet, “Ancien Régime,” in Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française, ed. idem and Mona Ozouf, vol. 4 (Paris: 1992), 25‒43; Diego Venturino, “La naissance de l’‘Ancien Régime’,” in The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. Colin Lucas (Oxford: 1988), 11–40. For details, see Pestel, “On Counterrevolution,” 71.

18

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

and the ­emergence of the short-lived Helvetic Constitution resulted from the ­collaboration between the French invaders and Swiss radicals, the Swiss understanding of counterrevolution took a direction opposite to that of France. For Swiss politicians during the Helvetic period (1798‒1803), counterrevolution designated the overthrow of the new constitution by French influences. For the ­revolutionaries of 1798, it was hardly conceivable that the French Republic, which meanwhile had come under Bonaparte’s authority, could only a few years later openly support a Swiss “counterrevolution” abolishing substantial parts of the changes brought about by the Helvetian Revolution. To be sure, the concept of counterrevolution lost much of this ambivalence and semantic openness over the 19th century, though large parts of the concept’s later semantic trajectory still need to be explored.68 Becoming first a liberal, then a left-wing battle cry, and finally turning into the other of revolution in a Marxist sense, counterrevolution took on quasi-exclusively negative connotations against a positive, progressive understanding of revolution.69 The dark vision of an “illiberal” or “conservative” Europe Jan Zielonka develops in his essay Counter-Revolution, in a way, is evocative of this semantic narrowing that has little to do with situationist and process-related ideas of combating the revolution in the late 18th century. As we do not wish to present a clear-cut and inevitably ahistorical or anachronistic definition of counterrevolution here, our goal in this volume is to pay more attention to the breadth and variety of counterrevolutionary strategies, their manifold political and ideological roots and appropriations, and their transformations and transfers across national borders. Emphasizing this transnational dimension, we rely on a counter-concept to conservatism and counterrevolution that is mostly positively connoted both in vernacular uses and in scholarship: “cosmopolitanism.” In contrast to works that use cosmopolitanism as an analytical category or even as a normative horizon for studying interactions across borders, between different cultures, ethnicities, or regions, we, again, take our start from the concept’s complex historical trajectory.70 For 18th-century contemporaries being c­ osmopolitan implied “being a stranger nowhere” (“qui n’est étranger nulle part”), according to the

68 69

70

For France, see Pestel, “Contre-révolution.” See Karl Marx’s articles for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from 1848, http://www.mlwerke. de/me/me06/index.htm and Friedrich Engel’s article series on Revolution and Counterrevolution in Germany for the New York Daily Tribune from 1851/52, http://www.mlwerke.de/ me/me08/me08_003.htm (accessed 7 April 2020). Bernhard Gißibl and Isabella Löhr (eds.), Bessere Welten: Kosmopolitismus in den G ­ eschichtswissenschaften (Frankfurt: 2017); Ulrich Beck, The Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge and Malden: 2006).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

19

definition provided by the Encyclopédie in 1751.71 This early understanding differs from later “internationalist” perspectives insofar as it did not necessarily imply a process of overcoming borders or creating international structures and did not immediately convey ideas of transnational communities in the spirit of a “republic of letters.” Rather, the term cosmopolitan could also convey skepticism towards such attitudes. In its 1762 edition, the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française defined a “cosmopolitan” in a more ambivalent sense as “someone who does not adopt a fatherland” (“celui qui n’adopte point de patrie”).72 Tellingly, the concept’s negative connotations prevailed during the French Revolution, which is often emphatically considered as a golden age of cosmopolitanism. In French revolutionary discourse cosmopolitanism did not refer to emancipation, the rights of man, republicanism, or egalitarianism. These connotations were much more connected to “universalism,” though in a mostly Francocentric way. Instead, cosmopolitanism was largely associated with suspicion, treason, and anti-patriotism.73 With the outbreak of the revolutionary wars and the emergence of “the foreigner” as enemy of the Revolution, cosmopolitanism remained an anti-pluralist concept.74 During the Napoleonic Wars a similar shift can be observed for Germany. The Jenaische Allgemeine ­Literatur-Zeitung in 1811 made a clear distinction between a negative understanding of “cosmopolitan” linked to French hegemony and a positive understanding of a “citizen of the world” as a patriot: “The false cosmopolitans wish that one constitution fit all peoples. […] The true citizen of the world is the faithful son of his people.”75

71 72 73

74 75

Quoted after Charlotta Wolff, “Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism in the Intellectual Culture of the Enlightenment,” in Debating Internationalisms: A European History of Concepts Beyond Nation States, ed. Antero Holmila and Pasi Ihalainen (New York: forthcoming). Quoted after Andrea Albrecht, Kosmopolitismus: Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und Publizistik um 1800 (Berlin and New York: 2005), 35. Gerd van den Heuvel, “Cosmopolite, Cosmopoli(ti)sme,” in Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680–1820, ed. Rolf Reichardt and Eberhard Schmitt, vol. 6 (Munich: 1986), 41‒55; Friedemann Pestel and Pasi Ihalainen, “Revolution beyond ­Borders: Conceptualizing the Universal and Cosmopolitan in the French Revolution, 1789–1815,” in Debating Internationalisms, ed. Holmila and Ihalainen; see also Tristan Coignard, Une histoire d’avenir: L’Allemagne et la France face au défi cosmopolitique (1789–1925) (Heidelberg: 2017). Sophie Wahnich, L’impossible citoyen: L’étranger dans le discours de la Révolution française (Paris: 1997). “Die unächten Kosmopoliten wollen, dass eine Verfassung allen Völkern gemein sey [...]. Der ächte Weltbürger ist der treue Sohn seines Volks.”; Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 28 February 1811; see also Michael Jeismann, Das Vaterland der Feinde: Studien zum nationalen Feindbegriff und Selbstverständnis in Deutschland und Frankreich 1792–1918 (Stuttgart: 1992).

20

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

As with counterrevolution, these early constitutive meanings of cosmopolitanism were largely eclipsed over the 19th century, though these semantic patterns emerged simultaneously with the concepts of conservatism and counterrevolution. They shaped each other as they integrated some and rejected other elements from Enlightenment discourse and conveyed alternative ideas and practices to the experience of revolution. In emphasizing the interrelations between these concepts, we, again, do not seek to develop a normative understanding of cosmopolitanism but use it as a conceptual tool to critically revisit backward-oriented, reactionary, or anti-modern notions of ­conservatism as well as to challenge national perspectives. Cosmopolitan Conservatisms therefore provides an intellectual, political, and cultural history of those actors opposing a historical trajectory they or their opponents perceived as a direct transition from Enlightenment into revolution, liberalism, or democracy, and it presents this history of contestation as a transnational history.76 5

Modalities: Transnational Media, Movements, and Networks

The basic idea of cosmopolitan conservatisms certainly seems oxymoronic. This might partly explain why the transnational perspective has seldom been used to study conservative ideas and movements. For instance, studies on the Enemies of the Enlightenment by Darrin McMahon, on the Antiphilosophes by Didier Masseau, or on the Antimodernes by Antoine Compagnon, while groundbreaking, remain resolutely focused on France as a nationally defined intellectual space.77 Yet, as demonstrated by the chapters in this volume, the use of relational approaches to study conservative experiences and thoughts brings out their transnational dimensions. These contributions also combine empirical analysis of unexpected interconnections with broader theoretical 76

77

Pauline Kleingeld and Andrea Albrecht, studying German sources, have argued for a more inclusive definition, allowing for a plurality of cosmopolitanism. Pauline Kleingeld, “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), no. 3, 505–24; Albrecht, Kosmopolitismus. Darrin McMahon, Enemies of the Enlightenment. The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001); Didier Masseau, Les ennemis des philosophes: L’antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières (Paris: 2014); Antoine Compagnon, Les antimodernes de Joseph de Maistre à Roland Barthes (Paris: 2005). McMahon has pleaded for a transnational approach to studying the Counter-Enlightenment: idem, “Seeing the Century of Lights as a Time of Darkness,” in Les Lumières européennes dans leur relations avec autres grandes cultures et religions, ed. Florence Lotterie and idem (Paris: 2002), 81–104.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

21

questionings of the transnational habitus, thought processes, and networks of individuals, groups of individuals, or institutions who asserted their ­conservatism or were portrayed as doing so. Adopting a transnational and long-term approach, we also hope to bypass the pitfalls of comparative history and literature in the most traditional sense of comparison as the description of differences and similarities between national and cohesive spaces. In an essay entitled What is Counter-­ Enlightenment? Darrin McMahon warned against those who perceived the heterogeneous ­counter-enlightened faction as a “primarily, though not exclusively, […] G ­ erman affair, characterized by a militant reaction to the perceived rationalism, universalism, and materialism of the French Enlightenment,” and voiced by “leading figures” (such as Johann Georg Hamann, Friedrich Jacobi, and Johann Gottfried Herder), “travellers in the francophone world” (Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald), and “Italian predecessors”(Giambattista Vico).78 The attribution of a central and influential role to authoritative figures in the formation of national conservatisms is indeed problematic. The focus on (national) authority additionally conceals popular and middlebrow forms of conservatism, furthering an imagined gap between intellectual centers and peripheries, between intellectual elites and “the people,” and downplays the role of lesser and anonymous figures and minorities, in particular women, in shaping conservative ideas and habits. Conversely, s­ nubbing prominent figures, such as Edmund Burke or Friedrich von Gentz, would be problematic. However, further cultural and political contextualization is required to comprehend the role of these presumed conservative authority figures in defining conservatism and in the reception and redefinition of their philosophies by their contemporaries across national borders. This volume emphasizes the role of transnational communities and networks. Through the study of conservative and counterrevolutionary salons and the circulation of books, encompassing most of the communication circuit, with studies on relations between authors and translators, publishers and booksellers, as well as readers,79 the chapters inquire into the cross-­border networks of support and exchange, and their nodes. From these analyses, the hitherto elusive role of transnational connections in shaping conservative experiences and thoughts in the “Age of (E)Migrations” as well as on 78 79

Darrin McMahon, “What is Counter-Enlightenment?,” International Journal for History, ­ ulture and Modernity 5 (2017), 33–46, here 35; Isaiah Berlin, “The Counter-EnlightenC ment,” in Against the Current, ed. Henry Hardy (Princeton: 2011), 1–24. Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books? Revisited,” Modern Intellectual History 4.3 (2007), 495–508.

22

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

“agonal transfers” in times of war and revolution, emerges as an often subtle yet ­defining transformative process.80 The transnational focus is not novel per se, though we could argue this approach has overwhelmingly been used to analyze processes of “modernization” or “progress” rather than conservation and reaction from the early modern period onwards.81 An adjacent methodology, the transfer approach, is increasingly used to study political migrations such as that of the Irish and Scottish Jacobites, British loyalists from North America, or post-1789 counterrevolutionary transborder movements from France or Spain. Transfer studies analyze intellectual exchanges between migrants and the communities ­welcoming them, often as refugees, and the cultural production born out of this traffic.82 Indeed, this methodology posits that each time an idea crossed a ­border along with a person or a book, its meaning was altered and renewed by the milieu it entered.83 Likewise, the hermeneutical approach based on the concept of reception resonates in many chapters: European conservative textual corpora were 80

81

82

83

Sylvie Aprile, Le siècle des exilés: Bannis et proscrits de 1789 à la Commune (Paris: 2010); Maya Jasanoff, “Revolutionary Exiles: The American Loyalist and French Emigré Diasporas,” in Age of Revolutions, ed. Armitage and Subrahmanyam, 37‒58; Friedemann Pestel, “The Age of ­Emigrations: French Emigrés and Global Entanglements of Political Exile,” in French Emigrants in Revolutionised Europe: Connected Histories and Memories, ed. Laure Philip and Juliette Reboul (Basingstoke: 2019), 205–31; Michael Werner, “Zum theoretischen Rahmen und historischen Ort der Kulturtransferforschung,” in Kultureller Austausch: Bilanz und P­ erspektiven der Frühneuzeitforschung, ed. Michael North (Cologne: 2009), 15–23, here 18‒19. Anne-Marie Thiesse and Joep Leerssen have used a renewed comparative methodology to study the development and entanglement of national and nationalist thoughts in 19th-­ century Europe; Anne-Marie Thiesse, La Création des identités nationales (Paris: 2014); Joep Leerssen, National denken in Europa. Een cultuurhistorische schets [National Thinking in Europe. A Cultural Historical Sketch] (Amsterdam: 1999); see also his online Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe: https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/21 (accessed 20 January 2020). See for instance, but not exclusively, Juliette Reboul, French Emigration in Great Britain ­(Basingstoke: 2017); Friedemann Pestel and Matthias Winkler, “Provisorische Integration und Kulturtransfer. Französische Revolutionemigranten im Heiligen Römischen Reich deutscher Nation,” Francia 43 (2016), 137–60. Michel Espagne and Michael Werner (eds.), Transferts. Les relations interculturelles dans l­ ’espace franco-allemand (Paris: 1988). Simon Burrows, Edmond Dziembowski, and Ann Thomson (eds.), Cultural Transfers: Studies on Franco-British Intellectual and Cultural Exchange in the Long Eighteenth Century, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 2010); Rudolf Muhs, Johannes Paulmann, and Willibald Steinmetz (eds.), Aneignung und Abwehr: Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert (­Bodenheim: 1998); Stefan Manz, Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, and John Davis (eds.), Migration and Transfer from Germany to Britain, 1660–1914 (Munich: 2007).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

23

transformed by the temporal, geographical, and cultural circumstances surrounding the act of reading. This issue is raised, for instance, by the ­question of the global reception of Western conservative thought: a striking example of this, considered by Abhijit Gupta, would be a mid-19th-century Bengali adaptation of Sophie Cottin’s 1806 novel Elisabeth, ou les Exilés de Sibérie, commissioned by a missionary, reformist, and family-oriented publishing house from Calcutta and reedited several times.84 What could a Mughal woman (the target audience of this publishing house) comprehend of a genre (the émigré novel) and topic cherished by European counterrevolutionaries?85 Finally, challenging the legacy of traditional synchronic comparisons and the national frames of reference used to study transformative processes with the methodology of transfers, in this volume both histoire croisée and entangled histories approaches are adopted.86 Geography plays a crucial role in this history of intersection and intertwinement. The geography we propose is multilayered, moving between private, individual, national, and pan- and extra-European perspectives. National ­politics deemed conservative might have been first phrased in the intimacy of early 19th-century salons in Vienna or Saint Petersburg and developed through reading the words (or translated words) of a fellow yet foreign conservative. Overlaying several places allows for the re-introduction of new figures in the history of conservatism, in particular women, whose societal and political role was diminished all over Europe in the last decade of the 18th century. This change of perspective brings to the fore the ways in which they spread conservatism, either through familial politics or in their attempts to popularize conservative thought. This geography is complex and also cautiously decentered. Studies of cross-channel or Franco-German exchanges are integral to the analysis of the transnational formation of conservative thought in Europe. In addition, this volume foregrounds less conventional networks, with case studies of exchanges between so-called peripheral spaces. Examples in this volume include Spanish Jesuits, exiled in Rome, who in the last decade of the 18th century conceptualized a Catholic counterrevolutionary crusade, and aristocratic and conservative networks in the capital of the newly proclaimed Austrian Empire, highlighting the Viennese origins of Russian 19th-century conservatisms. Consistently in this volume, exchanges are not thought of in binary terms, but 84 85 86

Abhijit Gupta, “Household Words: An Account of the ‘Bengal Family Library’,” in The Culture of the Publisher’s Series, ed. John Spiers (Basingstoke: 2011), vol. 2, 152–65. Cf. Xavier de Maistre, La Jeune Sibérienne (Paris: 1825). Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empirie et réflexivité,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58 (2003), 7–36.

24

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

rather as multidimensional relations, with networks extending across Europe and beyond. With its sociable and epistolary networks, its web of authors, translators and readers, who probably never met in person, we could think of a transnational imagined conservative space, a sort of conservative equivalent, counterpart, or even partial overlap to, what remained of the Republic of Letters, with its own centers and peripheries.87 The movements and interpenetrations discussed in this volume were not just geographical; exchanges also took place between socio-cultural environments, often led by a combination of shared religious beliefs and political principles. Conservatism is a topic often studied top-down, with a theory defined by the thinkers of the movement, which was later adapted in popular milieus. Elite and popular conservatisms should no longer be opposed, but rather be seen as complementary.88 A trend in literary studies uses the heuristic concept of “middlebrow” to describe the plethora of literary production occupying the middle space between highbrow and lowbrow productions. Often written by women or clergymen, these frequently socially conservative and pedagogical works functioned as a bridge between the ideas developed in the other two spaces and aimed at a bourgeois readership.89 6

Contents and Structure

This book is structured both chronologically and thematically in three parts, subsequently discussing “Conservative Enlightenments” (I), “Transnational Networks and Institutions” (II) and “Conservative Modernisms” (III). This tripartite thematical division reflects the chronological evolution of conservatism. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, conservatism manifested itself above all as a criticism of as well as a specific variation on Enlightenment thought, contributing to the development of an autonomous public sphere. From the 1790s, problems of the institutional order between states but also on the national level increasingly came to the fore as a result of the emerging 87

88 89

Cf. Matthijs Lok and Alicia Montoya (eds.), “Centre and Periphery in the Enlightenment,” special issue De Achttiende Eeuw, issue 2012.2; Floris Solleveld, “Afterlives of the Republic of Letters: Learned Journals and Scholarly Community in the Early 19th Century,” Erudition and the Republic of Letters 5 (2020), 82–116. Jörg Neuheiser, Crown, Church and Constitution: Popular Conservatism in England, 1815– 1867 (New York and Oxford: 2016). Alicia Montoya, “Marie Leprince de Beaumont et la littérature ‘médiocre’ (middlebrow),” in Une éducatrice des Lumières. Marie Leprince de Beaumont, ed. Rotraud von Kulessa and Catriona Seth (Paris: 2018), 205–26.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

25

revolutionary republics and the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, culminating in the Vienna order of 1815. This new monarchical order evolved in the early 19th century, in response to challenges from the left as well as from right-wing critics. In the late 19th century, conservatives responded to the new challenges of “modernity,” including the rise of mass politics and the political emancipation of social groups such as women, religious minorities, and laborers. In some cases, conservatives drew on older counterrevolutionary authorities, while in other cases they consciously rejected them. The first part of the book deals with the complex relationship between “Enlightenment” and “Conservatism.” The rational and allegedly egalitarian and emancipatory worldview of the Enlightenment is still often regarded as incompatible with the traditionalist and religious legitimation of the institutions of what would after 1789 become known as the Old Regime.90 The authors in this part question this dichotomy in several ways. Alicia Montoya starts with examining the relation between ecology and 18th-century “popular conservatism,” in particular in the work of the Jansenist-leaning abbé Noël-Antoine Pluche. A tradition of mostly francophone pedagogical works comprising a strong element of natural theology appears markedly different from the aristocratic conservative tradition associated with Edmund Burke, who remains the reference point for most discussions of 18th-century conservatism. Montoya posits that the tradition exemplified by Pluche, and later taken up by other pedagogical authors, points to an alternative strand of conservative writings, often female-authored, that scholarship is gradually beginning to recover. In her study of the linguistics and anthropology of Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, Carolina Armenteros reveals an author who combined nationalist, traditionalist, conservative, cosmopolitan, and counterrevolutionary tendencies even while admiring Enlightenment reformism. He illustrates eminently the eclecticism of 18th-century Spanish and Italian Jesuits as well as the cosmopolitanism that had long characterized the Society of Jesus and that was still so much in the air of the post-expulsion Papal States. Simon Burrows, next, argues in his case study on Jacques Mallet du Pan that the grip of traditional religious forces over pre-revolutionary discourse appears to have been underestimated by historians. Generally, the public sphere was a laboratory more conducive to developing conservative ideas than radical ones. Within this public sphere, the rudiments of an international, cosmopolitan conservative ideology were emerging well before the French Revolution.

90

Cf. A. de Dijn, “The Politics of Enlightenment: From Peter Gay to Jonathan Israel,” The Historical Journal 55 (2012), 785–805.

26

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

In his chapter, Wyger Velema argues that many late-18th-century Protestant conservatives in the Dutch Republic were far from being traditionalists forced to rationalize their position, for the first time, under the pressure of a rapidly changing political scene. Instead, they turned against radical reform and revolution on the basis of a strongly held conviction that they were defending an essentially modern and enlightened social, economic, cultural, and political order against what they considered to be a barbaric, regressive, and deeply irrational onslaught. Michiel Van Dam’s contribution nuances the dichotomy between Christian or Catholic nationalism and philosophical cosmopolitanism in the Southern Netherlands, by showing how the Catholic publicists of the Brabant Revolt tried to alter and expand the ideal of philosophical cosmopolitanism instead of rejecting it completely. They did so by returning to a more original notion of “cosmopolitanism” and by integrating a type of spiritual ethics, both of which were based on Saint Paul’s tactical appropriation of a Cynic philosophy of life. Glauco Schettini examines how the idea of a counterrevolutionary “crusade,” which was born out of transnational intellectual exchanges, signaled the emergence of a new understanding of the ongoing struggle against the French Revolution and its defenders. On the one hand, such a project relied on the identification of a model of society as an idealized medieval Christendom led by the papacy that could be opposed to the secularized world of the revolutionaries. On the other hand, appeals for a crusade also pointed to the need to embrace a key aspect of the new politics engendered by the French ­Revolution: the active involvement of the popular masses in the political and military scene. The second part of the book discusses the interplay between the development of conservative and counterrevolutionary ideas and their institutional contexts, as well as the role of networks and sociability. As many conservatives themselves emphasized, conservatism could be understood only in relation to a set of concrete institutions and not as an abstract philosophy. Through a case study of the Butler brothers, two Anglo-Irish aristocrats, Nigel Aston considers the appropriateness of taking Jacobitism as a transnational counterrevolutionary phenomenon that prefigured in many of its structural and ­circumstantial aspects the character and challenges French émigrés faced at the end of the 18th century. The primary energies of Jacobites and émigrés were equally directed, in the first instance towards return and restoration, and both required survival strategies and the articulation of public values that might end displacement, dispersal, and marginalization. In his chapter, Brian Vick emphasizes the role of pan-European social networks in the development of conservatism. Focusing on the salon environment

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

27

in the post-revolutionary era, he argues that individuals of l­iberal and conservative opinions mingled instead of being separated into sharply distinguished camps. His emphasis on sociability offers another way to move beyond the canon of major conservative thinkers. Even in the later 19th century, sociability among European elites continued to shape the formation and dissemination of conservative ideologies. Lien Verpoest underscores Western European influences on the shaping of early Russian conservatism. Between 1801 and 1812, Russians and West Europeans with counterrevolutionary sympathies met in Vienna. The exchange of views and ideas in the Viennese salons and theaters, and encounters in resorts outside Vienna provided a cosmopolitan setting for the formulation of ­Russian conservative doctrines. For future ministers and high administrators like Sergey Uvarov, these formative years strongly influenced their later views. Beatrice de Graaf then takes a fresh look at the Holy Alliance. She argues that Alexander I’s project was far less conservative, and instead far more “revolutionary” and innovative than it has subsequently come to be understood. She demonstrates how the Tsar’s convictions about redemption and salvation entered into a chain reaction with novel ideas about reforms and constitutionalism, along with Prussian ideas on countering the revolution, mesmerist notions of purification, and very mundane French royalist desires to remove Fouché and Talleyrand from office. Jean-Philippe Luis follows with a long-term approach to networks of solidarities between France and Spain in shaping a shared legitimist identity in an age of counterrevolution. From their resistance to the Enlightenment to the waning of monarchical legitimacy in the early 1880s, legitimists and proponents of Bourbon restorations on both sides of the Pyrenees used the fluidity of traditional and familial transborder networks as well as exile to establish their political and intellectual conservative stance. Joep Leerssen closes the second part by discussing the topic of transnational conservatism and the romantic representation of monarchy. He discerns simultaneously in various countries of 19th-century Europe an “ideological hybrid” he terms “monarchical patriotism.” Building on Enlightenment virtues, restored monarchs after 1813 to some extent bought into nationalism, projecting themselves as their nation’s paternal protector and trying to evoke some of the soft power that father-figures elicited. This monarchical patriotism consisted of a sense of the organic, communitarian bond between monarch and the “rustic,” bypassing the intervening institutional layer of bourgeois officialdom and avoiding the modern, tradition-breaking ambience of the city. The chapters in the third and final part of this volume deal with the problem of conservatism and modernity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

28

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

Conservatives did not only reject modernity, but also tried to incorporate and to invent their own alternative versions of “conservative modernities.” Amerigo Caruso describes how after the turning point of 1848 and into the first decades of the 20th century, numerous translations of literary best-sellers disseminated and recast conservative visions through popular literature. Their message helped reinforce traditional gender roles, Christian values, religious identities, and antiliberalism against ideas of progress and modernization. The success of conservative women’s literature extended not only to Christian persuasions, but spread well beyond borders, becoming a transnational phenomenon in late-19th-century Europe. Mastering innovations from digital humanities and bringing big data analysis into the history of conservatism, Joris van Eijnatten examines the way the London Times defined “conservatism” in relation to “revolution” in over two centuries of journalism. Tracing semantic fields involving “conservatism” and “revolution” over time, he identifies four broad temporal clusters in which the tension between revolution and conservatism took on a different form. He argues that the semantic field in which revolution co-existed with conservatism owed its texture partly to “un-British” manifestations of revolts and rebellions in foreign places. Emily Jones’ chapter examines the growth of the terms “Left” and “Right”— and their usages—from the 1880s in English-language texts, with a focus on Britain and the British Conservative Party. She demonstrates that the turn of the 20th century was a moment in which political identities in Britain were subtly opening out, as older traditions were reframed in the context of revolution—perceived and real, historical and contemporary. British Conservatism increasingly conceived of British political difficulties as part of a wider European struggle. In the last two chapters, the perspective changes from Europe to Asia, reflecting on conservatism and modernity in China. Aymeric Xu revisits the introduction, influence, and reception of British, American, French, Danish, and German conservative ideas and politics in China from the 1910s to the 1930s. This process of the dissemination of ideas involved a transnational network of translators, intellectuals, and students across Europe, America, and Asia. Through their engagement in travel, study in foreign countries, and translation, Chinese intellectuals encountered and adopted diverse interpretations of Western conservative ideas. They blended these with indigenous cultural elements in order to rationalize the political strategies they introduced during a period characterized by immense political crisis and turmoil. Axel Schneider, in the final chapter, takes issue with the prevailing interpretation of Chinese 19th- and early 20th-century conservatism as “apolitical” and purely cultural in nature. Distinguishing between cultural nationalism

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

29

and conservatism, Schneider argues that Chinese conservatives, in contrast to nationalists, criticized modernization. These processes either contradicted the universal ethical standards of the classicist conservatives, or modernization did not seem to be in line with the attempt of the historicist conservatives to carefully build on the wisdom of tradition, and thus avoid the destructive consequences of the project of modernity. Schneider suggests a new typology of critiques of progressivism, which provides a starting point for a more comprehensive analysis of Chinese conservatism in future research. 7

Conclusions and Perspectives

The chapters in this volume jointly present a fresh picture of the historical development of “conservatism” from the late 17th to the early 20th century. Special emphasis is given to the significant part played by (e)migration, mobility, and exile in shaping counterrevolutionary identities. Moreover, this volume brings innovative approaches, such as the ecological and gender prisms, together with digital history tools to a well-established field. We show that counterrevolutionary concepts did not emerge in isolation, but resulted from the interplay between ideas, media, networks, and institutions. Literary sources and other art forms are indispensable when studying conservative ideologies and ideas. The insightful interrelations between political philosophy, practical politics, and bureaucracy, pioneered in this volume, will hopefully spark further research. Our volume also explores the broader geographies of transnational conservatism and counterrevolution. Studying conservatism and counterrevolution from decentered and global perspectives may lead to surprising results when we consider that the roots of Russian antiWestern conservatism can, for instance, partly be found in Western Europe itself or what happened with canonical European authors when appropriated in China. Many other geographical areas such as the USA, India and South-East Asia, Japan, and Latin American remain out of the scope of this volume, but will hopefully be included in the emerging panorama of cosmopolitan conservatisms in future publications.91 Finally, the relation between conservatism and imperialism is 91

See also the special online issue on Global Counter-Enlightenment, International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity (2019), no 7, https://www.history-culture-modernity. org/collections/special/global-counter-enlightenment/; on monarchism in Atlantic history, Carolina Armenteros, Matthijs Lok, and Iason Zarikos (eds.), The Making of Modern Monarchy, vol. 1. The Invention and Establishment of Conservative Monarchism (London: forthcoming).

30

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

a topic that needs further exploration and clarification, following the many studies on liberal imperialism.92 Attempts by contemporary politicians in the 21st century to construct a timeless European or national “conservative tradition” are historically distorted. Yet, it would be overdrawn to argue that those authors who opposed “revolution” in different times and places have nothing in common. This volume interprets counterrevolutionary ideologies as a transnational and transtemporal phenomenon. It shows how concepts and historical narratives from different countries were copied and adapted, sometimes implicitly and sometimes more explicitly, to new circumstances, often radically altering the original historical meaning. Like 19th-century liberalism and socialism, conservatism was the product of traveling ideas and people. Bibliography “Rapport du 18 Thermidor an III,” in Alphonse Aulard, Histoire politique de la Révolution française (Paris: 1903). Albrecht, Andrea, Kosmopolitismus: Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und Publizistik um 1800 (Berlin and New York: 2005). Aprile, Sylvie, Le siècle des exilés: Bannis et proscrits de 1789 à la Commune (Paris: 2010). Armenteros, Carolina, Matthijs Lok, and Iason Zarikos (eds.), The Making of Modern Monarchy, vol. 1. The Invention and Establishment of Conservative Monarchism ­(London: forthcoming). Armenteros, Carolina, The French Idea of ­History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794– 1854 (Ithaca, NY: 2011). Armitage, David and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds.), The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840 (Basingstoke: 2010). Armitage, David, “Foreword,” in Robert Roswell Palmer, The Age of Democratic ­Revolution. A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (Princeton: 2014). Armitage, David, “What is the Big Idea?,” History of European Ideas 38 (2012), 493–507. Artola Renedo, Andoni, and Antonio Calvo Maturana, “Declinaciones de la reacción eclesiástica contra la Revolución francesa en España (1789–1808),” Hispania 77 (2017), 437–69. Barbé Hammer, Stephanie, “Schiller, Time and Again,” The German Quarterly 67 (1994), 152‒72.

92

For instance: Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Liberal Imperialism in Britain and France (Princeton: 2005); Idem, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (­Cambridge, MA: 2018).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

31

Baudet, Thierry, and Michiel Visser (eds.), Revolutionair Verval en de conservatieve vooruitgang in de 18de en 19de eeuw [Revolutionary Decline and Conservative Progress in the 18th and 19th Centuries] (Amsterdam: 2011). Beck, Ulrich, The Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge and Malden: 2006). Belissa, Marc, Repenser l’ordre européen (1795–1802). De la société des rois aux droits des nations (Paris: 2006). Bell, Duncan, “What is Liberalism?,” in Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire, ed. idem (Princeton: 2016), 62–90. Berlin, Isaiah, “The Counter-Enlightenment,” in Against the Current, ed. Henry Hardy (Princeton: 2011), 1–24. Berthezène, Clarisse, and Jean-Christian Vinel (eds.), Conservatismes en mouvement. Une approche transnationale au XXe siècle (Paris: 2017). Boffa, Massimo, “Contre-Révolution,” in Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf, vol. 4 (Paris: 1992), 87‒101. Boudon, Julien, “La voie royale selon Mallet du Pan,” Revue française d’histoire des idées politiques 27 (2008), 3‒41. Bourke, Richard, Empire and Revolution. The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton: 2017). Bourke, Richard, “What is Conservatism? History, Ideology and Party,” European ­Journal of Political Theory 17 (2018), 449–75. Breña, Roberto, and Gabriel Torres de Puga, “Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in Spanish America. Debating Historiographical Categories’,” International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 7 (2019), 344–71. Broers, Michael, Europe after Napoleon. Revolution, Reaction and Romanticism, 1814–48 (Manchester: 1996). Brolsma, Marjet, Robin de Bruin, and Matthijs Lok (eds.), Eurocentrism in European History and Memory (Amsterdam: 2019). Burrows, Simon, Edmond Dziembowski, and Ann Thomson (eds.), Cultural Transfers: Studies on Franco-British Intellectual and Cultural Exchange in the Long Eighteenth Century, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 2010). Cahen, Raphaël, Friedrich Gentz 1764–1832. Penseur post-Lumières et acteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2017). Caiani, Manuela, “Radical Right Cross-National Links and International Cooperation,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. Jens Rydgren (Oxford: 2018), ­394–411. Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Stanford: 2001). Coignard, Tristan, Une histoire d’avenir: L’Allemagne et la France face au défi ­cosmopolitique (1789–1925) (Heidelberg: 2017). Compagnon, Antoine, Les antimodernes de Joseph de Maistre à Roland Barthes (Paris: 2005).

32

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

Darnton, Robert, “What is the History of Books? Revisited,” Modern Intellectual History 4 (2007), 495–508. Dietz, Bernhard, “Radical Conservatism in Europe in a transnational perspective,”­ ­Journal of Modern European History 15 (2017), 36–47. Dijn, Annelien de, “The Politics of Enlightenment: From Peter Gay to Jonathan Israel,” The Historical Journal 55 (2012), 785–805. Dijn, Annelien de, Freedom. An Unruly History (Cambridge, MA: 2020). Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: 1966). Erll, Astrid, Memory in Culture (Basingstoke: 2011). Erll, Astrid, and Ann Rigney (eds.), Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of C ­ ultural Memory (Berlin and New York: 2009). Escrig Rosa, Josep, “Pasión racional, razón apasionada. El primer antiliberalismo reac­ cionario en España,” Ayer 111 (2018), 135–61. Espagne, Michel, and Michael Werner (eds.), Transferts. Les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand (Paris: 1988). Fawcett, Edmund, Conservatism. The Fight for a Tradition (Princeton: 2020). Freeden, Michael, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: 1998). Freeden, Michael, Javier Fernández Sebastián, and Jörn Leonhard (eds.), In Search of European Liberalisms: Concepts, Languages, Ideologies (New York: 2019). Furet, François, “Ancien Régime,” in Dictionnaire critique de la Révolution française, ed. idem and Mona Ozouf, vol. 4 (Paris: 1992), 25‒43. Gainot, Bernard, “Benjamin Constant et le cercle constitutionnel de 1797: la modération impossible,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 357 (2009), 103–18. Gengembre, Gérard, La contre-révolution ou l’histoire désespérante: Histoire des idées politiques (Paris: 1989). Gißibl, Bernhard and Isabella Löhr (eds.), Bessere Welten: Kosmopolitismus in den G ­ eschichtswissenschaften (Frankfurt: 2017). Godechot, Jacques, La contre-révolution: Doctrine et action, 1789–1804 (Paris: 1961). Gollwitzer, Heinz, Europabild und Europagedanke. Beitrage zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: 1951, new edition 1964). Graaf, Beatrice de, “Taming the Evil Passions: Moderation in the International ­Relations,” in The Politics of Moderation in Modern European History, ed. Ido de Haan and Matthijs Lok (Basingstoke: 2019), 89–107. Graaf, Beatrice de, Fighting Terror after Napoleon (Cambridge: 2020). Green, Jonathan, “‘Fiat Justitia, pereat mundus, pereat mundus’: Immanuel Kant, ­Friedrich Gentz and the Possibility of Prudential Enlightenment,” Modern Intellectual History 14 (2017), 35–65. Gupta, Abhijit, “Household Words: An Account of the ‘Bengal Family Library’,” in The Culture of the Publisher’s Series, ed. John Spiers (Basingstoke: 2011), vol. 2, 152–65.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

33

Gutiérrez Ardila, Daniel, and Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz (eds.), Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar 7 (2018). Harris, Bryn, “The Legitimacy of Referendums: Why Edmund Burke won’t rescue Remain,” 30 October 2019, https://briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-legitimacy-of -referendums-why-edmund-burke-wont-rescue-remain/ (accessed 14 January 2020). Herrera, Julio, ¡Serviles! El grupo reaccionario de las Cortes de Cádiz (Málaga: 2007). Herrero, Javier, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1973). Heuvel, Gerd van den, “Cosmopolite, Cosmopoli(ti)sme,” in Handbuch politisch-­ sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680–1820, ed. Rolf Reichardt and Eberhard Schmitt, vol. 6 (Munich: 1986), 41‒55. Huber, Viktor Aimé, Über die Elemente, die Möglichkeit oder die Notwendigkeit einer konservativen Partei in Deutschland (Marburg: 1841). Huntington, Samuel P., “Conservatism as an Ideology,” The American Political Science Review 51.2 (1957), 454–73. Jacob, Margaret, Strangers Nowhere in the World. The Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: 2006). Jasanoff, Maya, “Revolutionary Exiles: The American Loyalist and French Emigré ­Diasporas,” in The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840, ed. David ­Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Basingstoke: 2010), 37‒58. Jeismann, Michael, Das Vaterland der Feinde: Studien zum nationalen Feindbegriff und Selbstverständnis in Deutschland und Frankreich 1792–1918 (Stuttgart: 1992). Jones, Emily, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914. An Intellectual History (Oxford: 2017). Kleingeld, Pauline, “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century ­Germany,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999), no. 3, 505–24. Kleingeld, Pauline, “Romantic Cosmopolitanism: Novalis’ ‘Christianity or Europe’,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (2008), 269–84. Koch, Roland, Konservativ. Ohne Werte und Prinzipien ist kein Staat zu machen (Freiburg im Breisgau: 2010). Kondylis, Panajotis, Konservativismus. Geschichtlicher Gehalt und Untergang (­ Stuttgart: 1986). Koselleck, Reinhart, “Revolution, Rebellion, Aufruhr, Bürgerkrieg,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 5, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck (Stuttgart: 1984), 653‒788. Kossmann, Ernst Heinrich, “Over conservatisme. Johan Huizinga-lezing 1980” [On C ­ onservatism], in Politieke theorie en geschiedenis: Verspreide opstellen en voordrachten, ed. Ernst Heinrich Kossmann(Amsterdam: 1987), 9–25. Leerssen, Joep, National denken in Europa. Een cultuurhistorische schets [National Thinking in Europe. A Cultural Historical Sketch] (Amsterdam: 1999).

34

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

Leonhard, Jörn, Liberalismus. Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmusters (Munich: 2001). Lepore, Jill, These Truths. A History of the United States (New York: 2018). Lepore, Jill, This America. The Case for the Nation (New York: 2019). Lok, Matthijs, and Alicia Montoya (eds.), “Centre and Periphery in the Enlightenment,” special issue De Achttiende Eeuw, issue 2012.2. Lok, Matthijs, Counterrevolution and Enlightenment in European History Writing (­forthcoming). Luis, Jean-Philippe, L’utopie reactionnaire. Épuration et modernisation de l’état dans l’Espagne de la fin de l’Ancien Régime (1823–1834) (Madrid: 2002). Maistre, Xavier de, La Jeune Sibérienne (Paris: 1825). Mannheim, Karl, “Conservative Thought,” in From Karl Mannheim, ed. Kurt Wolff (New Brunswick: 1993), 260–350. Manz, Stefan, Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, and John Davis (eds.), Migration and Transfer from Germany to Britain, 1660–1914 (Munich: 2007). Martin, Jean-Clément (ed.), Dictionnaire de la contre-révolution: XVIII e–XX e siècle (Paris: 2011). Martin, Jean-Clément, Révolution et contre-révolution en France de 1789–1989: Les rouages de l’histoire (Rennes: 1996). Masseau, Didier, Les ennemis des philosophes: L’antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières (Paris: 2014). McMahon, Darrin, Enemies of the Enlightenment. The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). McMahon, Darrin, “Seeing the Century of Lights as a Time of Darkness,” in Les Lumières européennes dans leur relations avec autres grandes cultures et religions, ed. Florence Lotterie and idem (Paris: 2002), 81–104. McMahon, Darrin, “The Return of the History of Ideas,” in Rethinking European Modern Intellectual History, ed. idem and Sam Moyn (Oxford: 2014), 13–31. McMahon, Darrin, “What is Counter-Enlightenment?,” International Journal for ­History, Culture and Modernity 5 (2017), 33–46. Mishra, Pankaj, “Welcome to the Age of Anger,” The Guardian, 8 December 2016. Mishra, Pankaj, The Age of Anger. A History of the Present (New York: 2017). Montoya, Alicia, “Marie Leprince de Beaumont et la littérature ‘médiocre’ (middlebrow),” in Une éducatrice des Lumières. Marie Leprince de Beaumont, ed. Rotraud von Kulessa and Catriona Seth (Paris: 2018), 205–26. Muhs, Rudolf, Johannes Paulmann, and Willibald Steinmetz (eds.), Aneignung und Abwehr: Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien im 19. Jahrhundert (Bodenheim: 1998). Müller, Jan-Werner, “Comprehending Conservatism: A New Framework for Analysis”, Journal of Political Ideologies 11 (2006), 359–65.

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

35

Müller, Jan-Werner, What is Populism? (Philadelphia: 2016). Needell, Jeffrey, The Party of Order: The Conservatives, the State and Slavery in the ­Brazilian Monarchy, 1831–1871 (Stanford: 2006). Neuheiser, Jörg, Crown, Church and Constitution: Popular Conservatism in England, 1815–1867 (New York and Oxford: 2016). Ochoa, Fidel Gómez, “La formación del Partido Conservador: la fusión conservadora,” Ayer 52 (2003), 57–90. Oudenampsen. Merijn, De conservatieve revolte. Een ideeëngeschiedenis van de F­ ortuyn-opstand [The Conservative Revolt: An Intellectual History of the Fortuyn Rising] (Nijmegen: 2018). Paine, Thomas, Common Sense, Rights of Man, and other Essential Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Sidney Hook and Jack Fruchtmann jr. (New York: 2003). Pestel, Friedemann, Kosmopoliten wider Willen. Die monarchiens als Revolutionsemigranten (Berlin: 2015). Pestel, Friedemann, “On Counterrevolution: Semantic Investigations of a Counterconcept during the French Revolution,” Contributions to the History of Concepts 12 (2017), 50‒75. Pestel, Friedemann, “The Age of Emigrations: French Emigrés and Global Entanglements of Political Exile,” in French Emigrants in Revolutionised Europe: Connected Histories and Memories, ed. Laure Philip and Juliette Reboul (Basingstoke: 2019), 205–31. Pestel, Friedemann, “Contre-révolution,” in Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680‒1820, ed. Jörn Leonhard, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, and Rolf Reichardt (Berlin: forthcoming). Pestel, Friedemann, and Matthias Winkler, “Provisorische Integration und Kulturtransfer. Französische Revolutionemigranten im Heiligen Römischen Reich deutscher Nation,“ Francia 43 (2016), 137–60. Pestel, Friedemann, and Pasi Ihalainen, “Revolution beyond Borders: Conceptualizing the Universal and Cosmopolitan in the French Revolution, 1789–1815,” in Debating Internationalisms: A European History of Concepts Beyond Nation States, ed. Antero Holmila and Pasi Ihalainen (New York: forthcoming). Pitts, Jennifer, A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Liberal Imperialism in Britain and France (Princeton: 2005). Pitts, Jennifer, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (Cambridge, MA: 2018). Prandi, Alfonso, Cristianesimo offeso e difeso. Deismo e apologetica cristiana nel secondo Settecento (Bologna: 1975). Prinsterer, Guillaume Groen van, Ongeloof en Revolutie. Eene reeks van historische v­ oorlezingen (Leiden: 1847). Raak, Ronald van, (ed.), special issue Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland 10.1 (1999).

36

Lok, Pestel and Reboul

Raak, Ronald van, In naam van het volmaakte. Conservatisme in Nederland in de ­negentiende eeuw van Gerrit Jan Mulder tot Jan Heemskerk Azn [Dutch Conservatism in the Nineteenth Century] (Amsterdam: 2001). Raak, Ronald van (ed.), special issue Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland 10.1 (1999) [Conservatism in the Netherlands, 1780–1940]. Reboul, Juliette, French Emigration in Great Britain (Basingstoke: 2017). Robin, Corey, The Reactionary Mind. Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin (Oxford: 2017). Rößner, Susan, Die Geschichte Europas schreiben. Europäische Historiker und ihr Europabild im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: 2009). Schmidt, Peer, “Contra ‘la falsa filosofía’: la Contra-Ilustración y la crítica al reformismo borbónico en Nueva España,” in La formación de la cultura virreinal, ed. Karl Kohut and Sonia Rose, vol. 3. El siglo XVIII (Madrid and Frankfurt: 2006), 231–54. Skinner, Quentin, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: 1998). Solleveld, Floris, “Afterlives of the Republic of Letters: Learned Journals and Scholarly Community in the Early 19th Century,” Erudition and the Republic of Letters 5 (2020), 82–116. Starobinski, Jean, Action et réaction. Vie et aventures d’un couple (Paris: 2003). Steber, Martina, Die Hüter der Begriffe. Politische Sprachen des Konservativen in Großbritannien und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945–1980 (Berlin: 2017). Thiesse, Anne-Marie, La Création des identités nationales (Paris: 2014). Thurston, Benjamin, “Joseph de Maistre: the Paradox of the Writer,” in The New enfant du siècle: Joseph de Maistre as a Writer, ed. Carolina Armenteros and Richard Lebrun (St Andrews: 2010), 75–98. Tort, Olivier, La droite française. Aux origines de ses divisions, 1814–1830 (Paris: 2013). Trencsenyi, Balázs, Michal Kopeček, Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič, Maria Falina, and Mónika Baár (eds.), A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe (Oxford: 2018). Tulard, Jean (ed.), La Contre-Révolution: Origines, histoire, postérité (Paris: 1990). Valjavec, Fritz, Die Entstehung der politischen Strömungen in Deutschland 1770–1815 (Munich: 1951). Venturino, Diego, “La naissance de l’‘Ancien Régime’,” in The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. Colin Lucas (Oxford: 1988), 11–40. Vick, Brian, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Cambridge, MA: 2014). Vierhaus, Rudolf, “Konservativ, Konservatismus,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: 1982), 531–65. Vincent, Jean-Philippe, Qu’est-ce que le Conservatisme? Histoire intellectuelle d’une idée politique (Paris: 2016).

Cosmopolitan Conservatisms: Introduction

37

Wahnich, Sophie, L’impossible citoyen: L’étranger dans le discours de la Révolution française, (Paris: 1997). Weiß, Volker, Die autoritäre Revolte. Die Neue Rechte und der Untergang des Abendlandes (Stuttgart: 2018). Werner, Michael, “Zum theoretischen Rahmen und historischen Ort der ­Kulturtransferforschung,” in Kultureller Austausch: Bilanz und Perspektiven der F­ rühneuzeitforschung, ed. Michael North (Cologne: 2009), 15–23. Werner, Michael, and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Penser l’histoire croisée: entre e­ mpirie et réflexivité,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58 (2003), 7–36. Wolff, Charlotta, “Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism in the Intellectual Culture of the Enlightenment,” in Debating Internationalisms: A European History of Concepts Beyond Nation States, ed. Antero Holmila and Pasi Ihalainen (New York: ­forthcoming). Zapata Ávila, Juan Guillermo, “La reacción conservadora: procesos y referentes ideológicos de la oposición conservadora al reformismo liberal,” HiSTOReLo. Revista de Historia Regional y Local 3 (2011), 97–126. Ziblatt, Daniel, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (Cambridge: 2017).

PART 1 Conservative Enlightenments

∵

CHAPTER 2

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness: 18th-Century Traditions of Nature Writing (Noël-Antoine Pluche, Alexander Pope) Alicia C. Montoya In a provocative re-interpretation of early British conservatism, Katey ­ astellano recently argued that “Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France C (1790) is the beginning of a strand of Romantic political conservatism that is committed to environmental conservation”.1 Through a series of close readings of texts by the likes of Edmund Burke, William Wordsworth, and Maria Edgeworth, Castellano shows how these authors, by their critique of the commodification of land, the loss of bioregional diversity, and modern, exploitative labor relations, express an environmental ethics “which is guided by the imagination of intergenerational responsibility when making decisions about culture or land”.2 Burke’s conservatism, in this view, has three major tenets – organicism, traditionalism, and skepticism – that underpin “a social ecology that views the human place in the natural world as embedded and reciprocal rather than as rational and dominant.”3 Drawing on Castellano’s insights, but substantially revising her proposed chronology, this essay takes as its premise that rather than inaugurating a new strand of conservationist conservatism, Burke’s Reflections in fact came at the end of a long tradition of conservative nature writing. Because of the immediate political context that gave rise to the Reflections, however, they also mark a departure from that tradition – a departure characterized by a double movement of politization and nationalization. Leaving aside the revolutionary context that shaped Burke’s ideas, therefore, I focus instead on the underlying question, within his ecologism, of the human place in the natural world. In doing so, I explore the view of nature developed in an earlier 18th-century tradition of works that have been linked by subsequent scholarship to a conservative worldview. In particular, I study the physico-theological magnum opus of the Jansenist-leaning abbé Noël-Antoine Pluche, his eight-volume 1 Katey Castellano, The Ecology of British Romantic Conservatism, 1790–1837 (Basingstoke: 2013), 1. 2 Ibid., 2. 3 Ibid., 16. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_002

42

Montoya

Spectacle de la nature, ou entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle, published between 1732 and 1750. This work was one of the foundational texts of 18th-­century nature thinking, and exerted a profound influence on later authors, in France and beyond. Underscoring Pluche’s role within a broader, cross-­Channel movement of ideas, I read his Spectacle de la nature against the background of another work that was exactly contemporaneous, and expressed many of the same sentiments, but was produced in a different context, ­Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, whose four epistles were first published serially in ­London in 1733 and 1734. In proposing this comparative reading, I seek to define the role, within the intellectual current represented by Pluche and Pope, of an early-modern, naturalist cosmopolitanism conceptualized in terms of an imagined orbis Christianus, and a worldview that included notions of divine providentialism and a social theology of the states of life. Finally, I provide some suggestions as to how these early conservative views, elaborated in an Ancien Régime context, may have subsequently evolved and how they differed from later conservative ideas, exemplified by Burke’s paradigmatic Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1

Noël-Antoine Pluche, Alexander Pope, and Popular Conservatisms

According to a widely-accepted narrative, the 18th century saw the emergence of an organicist appreciation of nature in which humankind, culture and nature became linked in new representations. These viewed nature as acting not as a mere background, but as fundamentally tied to human sentiments and aspirations. In several aspects, this new view of nature appeared to foretell Romantic, and even modern ecologist ideas.4 Arguing backward from modern-day forms of environmental consciousness, scholarship has most often equated these new attitudes toward nature with revolutionary, secular modernity – or at best, with a variety of “paleoconservatism”5 – rather than with a politically conservative, religious worldview, despite some scholars noting early on that “ecology 4 On Romantic ecologies, see for example Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (London: 1991); Timothy Morton, Shelley and the Revolution in Taste: The Body and the Natural World (Cambridge: 1994); and James McKusick, Green ­Writing: Romanticism and Ecology (New York: 2000). For a critique of the Romantic ­reification of nature, see Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge, MA: 2010). 5 Roger Scruton identifies his own ecological variety of conservatism as a form of Burkean “paleoconservatism”, as opposed to modern, market-liberal varieties of conservatism. Roger Scruton, “Conservatism,” in Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge, ed. Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley (Cambridge: 2006), 7–19, here 10.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

43

(more properly, ecologies) may be permeated with ‘left’ and ‘right’ thinking”.6 As D.G. Charlton has argued, “the whole transformation [toward an organicist view of nature] has often – even usually – been interpreted as a replacement of a supernaturalist by a naturalist view, as a manifestation and a product of the decline of Christian belief in modern Europe. Jean Ehrard, for example – the most authoritative of scholars of the 18th-­century ‘idea of nature’ – describes it as a ‘pagan idea’ on various grounds.”7 In an a­ lternative reading, however, others have suggested that the new, Romantic conceptualization of nature actually grew out of earlier traditions, exemplified by the Great Chain of Being paradigm whose philosophical genealogy has been retraced by Arthur Lovejoy, among others.8 Viewed against this background, the new intertwining of nature and humankind may be considered as much part of a religious, conservative tradition than as part of the movement toward secularization. As Charlton remarks, most people in the 18th century retained their religious faith, suggesting that “the new perceptions [of nature] modified alike the philosophy of the unbelievers and the interpretations of Christian teaching that were developed by some at least of the believers”.9 Within this religious, Christian perspective, Noël-Antoine Pluche’s pedagogical Spectacle de la nature and Alexander Pope’s philosophical poem Essay on Man were the two most sustained and influential literary reflections on “the nature and state of man, with respect to the universal system’”10 to be p ­ ublished in the early 18th century. Drawing on a long tradition of natural theology writings, that included works by William Derham, Bernard Nieuwentijdt and John Ray on the one hand,11 and the religious writings of Pascal and Fénelon on the other, Pluche and Pope elaborated a new synthesis of religion and ­natural history that fit easily within an early Enlightenment context. Within their ­Christian framework, both authors presented defenses of social hierarchy, ­economic differentiation, and the political status quo that would later be ­elaborated by thinkers like Burke into a full-fledged conservative doctrine. 6 Morton, Shelley and the Revolution in Taste, 220. 7 Donald Geoffrey Charlton, New Images of the Natural in France: A Study in European Cultural History, 1750–1800 (Cambridge: 1984), 6. 8 Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: 2001 [1936]). 9 Charlton, New Images of the Natural, 7. 10 Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, ed. Tom Jones (Princeton: 2016), 3. 11 On the tradition of natural history writings that influenced Pluche, see Andreas G ­ ipper, “La nature entre utilitarisme et esthétisation. L’abbé Pluche et la physico-théologie européenne,” in Ecrire la nature au XVIII e siècle. Autour de l’abbé Pluche, ed. Françoise Gevrey, Julie Boch and Jean-Louis Haquette (Paris: 2006), 27–40.

44

Montoya

Contrary to later Burkean conservatism, however, they took as their point of departure not a specific political event, but a broader physico-­theological understanding of the world, identified with the concept of the Great Chain of Being, that brought to its ultimate expression an ancient tradition going back at least to Plato’s Timaeus and Plotinus’ neo-Platonist writings. “It was in the eighteenth century”, writes Lovejoy, “that the conception of the universe as a Chain of Being, and the principles which underlay this conception – plenitude, continuity, gradation – attained their widest diffusion and acceptance.”12 Because of Pluche’s apologetic, Catholic perspective, French-language scholarship has traditionally identified him as belonging to a conservative or “anti-Enlightenment” movement.13 Alexander Pope’s politics and personal friendships, similarly, aligned him with Tory views, as an “Erasmian Catholic” whose appeal to tradition was a defining element of his poetics, and he has hence commonly also been viewed as an essentially conservative thinker.14 But both authors have in recent years become the object of important critical re-evaluations, that have productively focused on their “conflicting ideological impulses and social postures”,15 and have studied their intellectual stances as independent bodies of thought, rather than merely as reactions to more ­well-known Enlightenment viewpoints.16 Beyond their grounding in religious tradition, there were also differences between Pluche and Pope. Pluche was of modest social origins, and this was reflected in his writings. Informed by his own teaching experience, including a period as a private tutor to a young British aristocrat, he gave his Spectacle a pedagogical format. From a sociological viewpoint, his work was characterized by its commercial success, and its appeal to a broad readership. Like Pope’s Essay, the Spectacle was an uncontested best-seller, whose success 12 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 184. 13 Jacques Domenech, “Anti-Enlightenment,” in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Michel Delon, trans. Gwen Wells, volume 1: A-L (London: 2001), 71–79; Didier Masseau, Les ennemis des philosophes. L’antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières (Paris: 2000); D ­ arrin McMahon, E­ nemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the M ­ aking of M ­ odernity (Oxford: 2001). 14 Chester Chapin, “Alexander Pope: Erasmian Catholic,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 6 (1973), 411–30. See however for a recent re-evaluation of Pope’s political thought, that aligns him more closely with the Enlightenment, Lockean tradition, Courtney Weiss Smith, ­“Political Individuals and Providential Nature in Locke and Pope,” Studies in English Literature, ­1500–1900 52 (2012), 609–29. 15 Emrys D. Jones, “An Appetite for Ambivalence: Pope Studies in the Twenty-First Century,” Literature Compass 15 (2018), 1–12, here 1. 16 For recent re-evaluations of Pluche’s work, see especially the important edited volume Ecrire la nature au XVIII e siècle, ed. Gevrey, Boch and Haquette.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

45

reached well beyond its original national context through translations, adaptations, and other forms of appropriation. Not only was it the fourth most commonly listed work in the 18th-century French private libraries studied by Daniel Mornet.17 Pluche’s Spectacle went through at least fifty-seven editions, abridgments and translations in France, seventeen in England, and others in Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Dutch Republic.18 In the two decades after its publication, some 20,000 copies were printed and sold in France alone.19 Both Pluche’s and Pope’s works were cosmopolitan in outlook, and participated in a cross-Channel literary field that was particularly vibrant in the first half of the 18th century, before its mid-century eclipse by more nationalist, militarist discourses.20 Pluche’s ideas owed much to the English tradition of natural theology, and indeed one of his merits as an author was to make this lesser-known current known across the Channel.21 Walter Mignolo has described this ­early-modern cosmopolitanism as an imagined orbis universalis Christianus, or “project toward planetary conviviality [that] preceded the civilizing mission” developed by later Enlightenment philosophers such as Immanuel Kant. The orbis universalis Christianus conceived of the world in a Christian framework, and was an emancipatory movement, opposing the idea of a universal law of nature, on which all human societies should be based, to a state-based, managerial and homogenizing approach.22 Pluche himself described his intention in explicating the Book of Nature as providing access to a form of “popular theology” accessible to all, regardless of education or social status.23 In adopting this popularizing stance, he inspired a larger, French-language tradition of pedagogical works that led through writers such as the Berlin-based pastor Samuel Formey, and governess-authors like Marie Leprince de Beaumont, to the early 19th-century works 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Daniel Mornet, “Les enseignements des bibliothèques privées (1750–1780)”, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 18 (1910), 449–96. Caroline V. Doane, “Un succès littéraire du XVIIIe siècle: le Spectacle de la nature de l’abbé Pluche” (PhD dissertation, Université de Paris-Sorbonne: 1957). Dennis Trinkle, “Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Le Spectacle de la nature. An Encyclopaedic ­Bestseller,” Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 358 (Oxford: 1997), 93–134. Mary Helen McMurran, The Spread of Novels: Translation and Prose Fiction in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton: 2010) provides a nuanced analysis of this cross-Channel literary field and its development through the century. Camille Limoges, “Pluche, Noël-Antoine,” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: 2008). Walter D. Mignolo, “The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis: Border Thinking and Critical ­Cosmopolitanism,” Public Culture 12 (2000), 721–48, here 721. On Pluche’s popularizing aims, see Jean Dagen, “Le Spectacle de la Nature: Une ‘théologie populaire’,’’ in Ecrire la nature, ed. Gevrey, Boch and Haquette, 127–40.

46

Montoya

of Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis and other counter-Enlightenment writers. This filiation was openly recognized by later practitioners of this genre. Genlis, for example, referenced Pluche and Pope, as well as their successors, in her 1782 pedagogical bestseller Adèle et Théodore.24 These later authors often targeted a juvenile audience, and addressed the middling and even the lower orders of society, for example in Beaumont’s Magasin des pauvres, artisans, domestiques et gens de la campagne (1775), and in Genlis’s Veillées de la chaumière (1823). Their socially heterogenous, popularizing aspirations therefore broadly inscribed them in a tradition that could – perhaps anachronistically – be labelled “middle-class” (referring to their intended audience) or “middlebrow” (referring to their cultural positioning).25 In keeping with their self-improvement agenda and often juvenile audience, this pedagogical tradition was also frequently gendered female, and represented a sub-literary genre that functioned self-consciously on the margins of “high” Enlightenment discourse. Despite the aristocratic protagonists of his Spectacle, Pluche made concessions to a lesser-read audience by his choice of a cheaper, duodecimo format, and by the inclusion of appealing illustrations by several artists, foremost among them his close collaborator, the female natural history painter Madeleine Basseporte.26 This tradition of mostly French-language, pedagogical works comprising a strong element of natural theology appears markedly different from the aristocratic conservative tradition associated with Edmund Burke, who remains the reference point for most discussions of 18th-century conservatism. In fact, the dominance of the Burkean model may obscure earlier, lesser-studied forms of conservatism. As J.G.A. Pocock has shown, Burke’s Reflections were actually marginal to the development of conservative thinking in his own day, despite his text’s later reification by scholarship into a benchmark of conservative thought.27 Burke’s British contemporaries perceived conservatism, just as often, 24 25 26

27

Stéphanie-Félicité, comtesse de Genlis, Adèle et Théodore ou Lettres sur l’éducation, ed. I­ sabelle Brouard-Arends (Rennes: 2006), 631. Alicia C. Montoya, “Middlebrow, Religion, and the European Enlightenment: A New Bibliometric Project, MEDIATE (1665–1820),” French History and Civilization 7 (2017), 66–79, online: http://h-france.net/rude/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/vol7_Montoya.pdf. These illustrations were in some instances reprised by Diderot and d’Alembert’s more prestigious Encyclopédie, whose publication in a rich folio format however belied its more well-off audience. On the illustrations, see Madeleine Pinault-Sørensen, “Les planches du Spectacle de Nature,” in Ecrire la nature, ed. Gevrey, Boch and Haquette, 141–62, here 142–43. Cited in Kevin Gilmartin, Writing against Revolution: Literary Conservatism in Britain, ­1790–1832 (Cambridge: 2007), 8–9, who provides an overview and discussion of the “Burke problem” in conservatism studies.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

47

as being incarnated by the popular writings of authors such as ­William Paley, Robert Southey, and Hannah More in her Cheap Repository Tracts ­(1795–98). Kevin Gilmartin has recently argued, in an important re-­evaluation of early 19th-century British literary conservatism, that these “anti-radical arguments and print forms [...] were often not simply retrospective nor committed to preserving ‘things as they are’, but were instead involved in a more enterprising and potentially compromised literary-political project that itself contributed to the transformation of the established order”.28 Hannah More’s popular, moral-reformist writings, significantly, bear more similarity to those of the French governesses Leprince de Beaumont and Genlis than to the writings of Burke.29 By their appeal to print culture, these British authors contributed to a process of cultural democratization that had already been set in motion by Pluche and his followers. Their real popularity was reflected by their choice of cheap, octavo and duodecimo editions enabling widespread diffusion.30 I therefore posit that the tradition exemplified by Pluche, and later taken up by other pedagogical authors, in fact points to an alternative strand of conservative writings, often female-authored, that scholarship is gradually beginning to recover, in the English-speaking as well as the French-speaking world.31 Mark Philp has proposed calling this alternative tradition “vulgar ­conservatism”, using the term to contrast it to Burke’s famous dismissal of “the vulgar”.32 I would prefer instead to label this phenomenon “popular conservatism”, in reference to the publishing success and sometimes avowedly commercial aspirations of many of these authors, or even “inclusive conservatism”, to signal their texts’ holistic, reformist vision – on which I say more below – of a non-contractual, organic social order in which different social classes were capable of living ­harmoniously together. 28 Gilmartin, Writing against Revolution, 3. 29 The resemblance between Hannah More’s and Genlis’s works was frequently remarked by contemporaries. Thus the Monthly Review quipped in 1813 that “Madame de Genlis is to France what Hannah More is to Great Britain: she is a very pious critic, and her ­opinion weighs with mothers of families: her orthodoxy is admired by the clergy, her zeal by the devout; and she views through the green spectacles of faith, in a somewhat tinted day-light, the portraits exposed and the artists employed in the picture-gallery which she examines.” Monthly Review 72 (September-December 1813), 475. 30 On Genlis’s strategic use of the octavo format, see Kevin Gilmartin, Writing against Revolution: Literary Conservatism in Britain, 1790–1832 (Cambridge: 2007). The cultural democratization made possible by cheap print formats and exemplified by these female authors sets them apart from their highbrow precursor Pope. 31 See especially, for British alternative conservatisms, Gilmartin, Writing against Revolution. In France, recent work on female apologists points in a similar direction, but has still to take full stock of the political implications of these women’s writings. See however Fabrice Preyat’s edited volume Femmes des anti-Lumières, femmes apologistes ­(Brussels: 2016). 32 Mark Philp, “Vulgar Conservatism, 1792–3,” English Historical Review 110/435 (1995), 42–69.

48 2

Montoya

Divine Providentialism and the Physico-Theological Tradition

The title of Pluche’s magnum opus foregrounds in the first place what has been described as “the point de vue spectaculaire – the cosmical piety and the sort of Romantic delight in the world which can arise, not from any belief in its adaptation to man’s needs or hopes, but from its infinite richness and diversity as a spectacle”.33 In other words, it is the richness of divine Creation – or as we might say today, its biodiversity – that Pluche seeks first and foremost to exhibit in his volumes, in a classic physico-theological perspective that considers nature a second Book or even “library” (in Pluche’s term)34 that has been given to humankind to complement the book of Revelation. Like the Bible, the Book of Nature too reveals the greatness of divine creation. It is therefore up to humankind to observe nature closely not only to admire its maker’s hand, but also to draw lessons from it: There is no-one, of any age or social rank, who does not take pleasure in having his heart moved, and having emotions aroused in it at the sight of the marvels that God incessantly works for us, and all around us, in the small things as in the great ones.35 Pluche places emphasis here on his readers’ affective reaction to the exteriority and spectacle of nature, that is capable of moving their cœur or heart, as opposed to an intellectual reaction based on rational, scientific knowledge of the mechanisms at work. This is in keeping with his Jansenist stance on the impossibility of attaining knowledge of God’s ways in the world.36 But besides this, he also argues for divine providentialism, or the idea that God has created every living being in nature, down to the smallest insect, in such a way as to provide it with everything it will need to survive. Starting his description of the natural world by looking more closely at insects, one of Pluche’s interlocutors observes that “attentive eyes will perceive a wisdom that, far from neglecting them, has taken particular care to clothe them, to arm them, to furnish them 33 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 189. 34 “La nature est la bibliothèque la plus sûre et la mieux faite.” Noël-Antoine Pluche, Le ­Spectacle de la nature, ou entretiens sur les particularitez de l’histoire naturelle, III, 178. 35 “Il n’y a personne, de quelqu’âge & en quelqu’état que ce soit, qui ne trouve bon qu’on remue son cœur, & qu’on y fasse naître des sentimens à la vuë des merveilles que Dieu opére sans cesse autour de nous & pour nous dans les petites choses comme dans les grandes.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, I, xvi. 36 Ann Blair, “Noël-Antoine Pluche as a Jansenist Natural Theologian,” Intellectual History Review 26 (2016), 91–99.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

49

with all the instruments necessary to their condition.”37 Following upon this observation, Pluche takes the characters of the Spectacle on a tour of the natural world that begins with the insects – moving from caterpillars to silkworms, then on to spiders, and from there to wasps, bees, and flies – and pays minute attention to every detail of their physiology, behavior and social organization. At every juncture, a sense of wonder is called up for the marvels of creation, and the outward beauty of these most miniscule of creatures. This sense of awe is heightened by the inclusion of beautiful, fold-out illustrations to demonstrate the finer points of his description. Complementing this sense of awe, there is also in Pluche’s Spectacle a more traditional teleological stance at work, according to which the beauties and bounties of God’s design all tend toward the satisfaction of human needs. Taking his cue from Genesis, Pluche contends that humankind, as the supreme and therefore highest-placed of God’s creations, has been given dominion over animals and the natural world: “Moses teaches us that God made mankind in his likeness, and in order to exert like him his sovereignty over the earth”.38 Yet, just as in Pope’s Essay on Man, there are important limits to this sovereignty. Pope reminds his readers in the third epistle: “Parts relate to the whole; / One all-extending, all-preserving Soul / Connects each being, greatest with the least; / Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beast”.39 Humankind’s sovereignty over nature is born of a recognition of man and beast’s mutual interdependence. Each human being has a specific duty to perform in the greater scheme of things, and it is only as part of this greater whole that he or she can be “good”, in the ontological sense of playing his or her assigned role in God’s creation. In other words, humankind’s dominion over nature comes with obligations toward the greater whole, and humans lose their rights over nature when they leave society to act alone, instrumentalizing nature only to fulfill personal needs.40 There is furthermore an important argument put forward by both Pluche and Pope about humankind taking lessons from nature. In an analysis of the Spectacle de la nature as a contribution to 18th-century theories of government, 37

“Des yeux attentifs y aperçoivent une sagesse, qui bien loin de les négliger, a pris un soin tout particulier de les vêtir, de les armer, de les pourvoir de tous les instrumens nécessaires à leur état.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, I, 8. 38 “Moïse nous apprend que Dieu a fait l’homme à sa ressemblance, & pour exercer comme lui la souveraineté sur la terre.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, VIII, 64. 39 Pope, Essay on Man, 54 (vv. 21–24). 40 “C’est au contraire parce qu’il a une aide & qu’il est en société, que tout lui est soumis sur terre. Il ne perd ses droits que quand il veut être seul.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, VIII, 65.

50

Montoya

Elisabeth Wallmann shows how Pluche presents the animal world as a potential model for human societies. “The idea that animals were flawless ‘oeconomists’”, she observes, “rather than spectacular models for court nobility, is echoed across the descriptions of the various species”.41 Similarly, Courtney Weiss Smith discusses how Pope’s Essay on Man presents an extended argument on how “the political individual should try to subordinate himself to a suprahuman order by heeding prompts discovered in metals, birds, fish, and atoms”.42 Both authors invoke the biblical authority of King Solomon to defend their view of humankind’s place in nature. The Spectacle de la nature opens with a frontispiece citing the book of Kings and showing Solomon in his gardens, in front of a greenhouse, discoursing with an old man on the structure of plants and on the unfortunate death of a small potted tree.43 The engraving’s subscript underlines Solomon’s concern with trees, from cedars to the hyssop shrub – a specifically arboreal concern that will surface again in the later volumes of the Spectacle de la nature.44 Pope, too, references King Solomon in the dramatic center of the third epistle of the Essay on Man, when he has the “voice the Nature” address the reader directly in a long, programmatic monologue, about which Weiss Smith writes: Pope’s “voice of Nature” begins her monologue by speaking in the l­anguage of the scriptures. In Proverbs 6:6, Solomon exhorts, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” This is an important biblical precedent, drawn on in much contemporary physico-theology, for the idea that nature provides clues for how men ought to behave: ants teach us to be provident.45 In short, Pluche and Pope’s texts move between two ways of looking at nature, a traditional biblical one, which could encourage either a straightforward anthropocentrism or a more Jansenist, humble recognition of humankind’s place in 41 42 43 44 45

Elisabeth Wallmann, “Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Le Spectacle de la nature, ou, Entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle as an Instrument for the Government of Bodies,” French Studies 72 (2018), 364–79, here 374. Courtney Weiss Smith, “Political Individuals and Providential Nature in Locke and Pope”. “Salomon dans ses jardins devant une volière, raisonnant avec un Vieillard sur la structure des plantes & en particulier sur la mort d’un Arbuste, dont la séve a été interrompue par une entaille faite circulairement dans l’écorce.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature I, 551. The engraving’s subscript reads: “Salomon a traité des plantes depuis le Cedre qui est sur le Liban jusqu’à l’Hissope qui sort de la muraille. Il a traité de même des animaux de la Terre, des oyseaux, des reptiles, et des poissons.” Weiss Smith, “Political Individuals and Providential Nature,” 618.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

51

the larger scheme of things, and a more aestheticized view, emphasizing the spectacular biodiversity of the natural world, that would lead ultimately to the Romantic “discovery” and celebration of nature. Supporting Pluche’s affective reaction to the spectacle of nature, his descriptions of the richness of creation – from insects up to humankind itself – betray a clear delight in creation for its own sake, that is not dissimilar to what some commentators have described as Pope’s pre-Romantic sensibility toward the pastoral pleasures of the natural world, in works like his political poem Windsor-Forest (1713). 2.1 From the Great Chain of Being to an Organicist Worldview Both Pluche and Pope, like other conservative and anti-Enlightenment thinkers, grounded their works in early 18th-century ideas concerning theodicy, as formulated most famously by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his 1710 Essais de Théodicée – 46 a work Pope claimed not to know, in contrast to Pluche’s passing references to it.47 Leibniz’s Théodicée postulated that the universe could be conceived as a Great Chain of Being “composed of an immense, or – by the strict but seldom rigorously applied logic of the principle of continuity – of an infinite, number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents, which barely escape non-existence, through ‘every possible’ grade up to the ens perfectissimum – or in a somewhat more orthodox version, to the highest possible kind of creature, between which and the Absolute Being the disparity was assumed to be infinite – every one of them differing from that immediately above and that immediately below it by the ‘least possible’ degree of difference.”48 This notion was grounded in three principles: the plenitude of creation, the continuity between species, and the existence of a hierarchical gradation from God to the lowest of creatures. This was therefore a ­religious outlook, but one that in Pluche’s writings was adapted to an 18th-century c­ ontext, and to contemporary science, and that expressly sought to reconcile reason and faith. Consequently, there is in Pluche’s and Pope’s works a clear sense of the order of nature, that leads from the lowliest of creatures such as insects and mollusks to birds, land animals, all the way up to humankind itself. This order is reflected in the organization of the eight volumes of the Spectacle de la

46

Domenech, “Anti-Enlightenment,” 71. This idea is also echoed in the writings of the a­ rchbishop of Dublin William King, particularly in his De origine mali (1702), and others. 47 Pluche however distances himself from Leibniz, rejecting his overly rationalist approach, and opting instead for a view of nature focusing on its exteriority. 48 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 59. See also cardinal Roberto Bellarmino’s De ascensione mentis in Deum per scalas rerum creatarum, a devotional work first published in 1614, that enjoyed enormous commercial success right into the eighteenth century.

52

Montoya

nature. Volume I is dedicated to animal life, moving up from insects to fish and birds to the larger mammals. Volumes IV through VIII – the largest section of the series – deal with humankind and human society, focusing especially on human trades and commerce, and giving much attention to the early 18th-century world of small peasants and artisans (IV through VII). Finally, a concluding two-part volume addresses human-God relations (VIII).49 In the last volumes especially, nature is described as part of a totality joining human culture, including agricultural and artisanal labor, and the natural world, in a complex interconnectedness that leaves neither one pure or unaffected by the other. It is because all species and human activity are so inextricably bound up together that human existence itself is rendered possible: The gnat lays its eggs in the water. Out of them come little worms that live there a long time before living in the air. They are the common food of fish, shrimp, and aquatic birds. All of these are made for man. It is therefore also for the good of man that there are gnats. He thus brings all beings closer to one another: they all tend toward him. His presence is a chain that makes a whole out of so many different parts.50 This is a firmly teleological view of nature: all nature is there to serve humankind, in Pluche’s reading. This view is echoed still by Bernardin de SaintPierre, in his 1784 Etudes de la nature, when he writes that God aims only at the happiness of man, since “all the laws of nature are designed to serve our needs”.51 Nature is profoundly instrumentalized, even while this instrumentalization encourages a closer attention and quasi-scientific observation of natural ­phenomena, and hence – perhaps counter-intuitively – an aesthetic ­appreciation of nature, as argued by Andreas Gipper: “for physico-theological

49

50

51

“Nous avons cru devoir imiter ici l’ordre de la Nature même, & débuter sans façon par les premiers objets qui se trouvent autour de nous, & qui sont à tout moment sous notre main : je veux dire les animaux & les plantes. Nous avons commencé par les plus petits animaux. Des insectes & des coquillages nous sommes venus aux oiseaux, aux animaux terrestres, & aux poissons.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, I, iii. “Le moucheron dépose des œufs dans l’eau. Il en sort des vermisseaux qui y vivent ­long-tems avant que d’habiter l’air. Ils sont la nouriture ordinaire des poissons, des écrevisses, & des oiseaux aquatiques. Tous ceux-ci sont faits pour l’homme. C’est donc aussi pour le bien de l’homme qu’il y a des moucherons. Il rapproche ainsi tous les êtres: ils tendent tous à lui. Sa présence est un lien qui forme un tout de tant de parties différentes.” Ibid., I, 535. “Toutes les lois de la nature sont dirigées vers nos besoins”. Jacques Bernardin Henri de Saint Pierre, Etudes de la nature (Basel: 1797), II, 156.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

53

literature, the aesthetization and domination of nature go hand in hand and are but one.”52 In this view of humankind’s dominion over nature, Pluche appears, at least at first sight, to differ from Alexander Pope, who instead criticizes anthropocentrism right after discussing the interrelatedness of all life. In fact, however, Pluche’s position is more nuanced than Pope’s explicitly formulated stance might initially suggest.53 For despite its teleological, instrumental appearance, the emphasis on the interrelatedness of all living things underpins an attitude that is also, in some aspects, close to modern, ecologist viewpoints. The complex genealogy leading from pre-Romantic and Romantic views of nature, and ultimately to modern ecologism, has been studied extensively by ecocritical scholars. In these discussions, one of the issues has been the extent to which post-Romantic definitions of nature privileged certain kinds of supposedly pristine, wild nature over other kinds of more mundane or “dirty” nature, such as the nature-culture world of artisans and peasants described by Pluche in the later volumes of the Spectacle de la nature. More essentially, however, philosophical commentators on modern conservation biology have pointed to the p ­ roblems that arise when attempting to operationalize the concept of biodiversity. Described in a frequently cited conservation biology textbook, in Pluche-like phrasing, as “the sum total of all living things – the immense variation of the living world”, biodiversity remains difficult to define in practice.54 Most commonly, biologists use surrogates to do so – including most commonly species richness, phenotypic variation, ecology, development, and phylogeny. However, given the large number of such surrogates, and especially the fact that they are often mutually exclusive, conservation biology inevitably ends up having to make choices between them to decide what is worthy of conservation. These choices betray human valuations, such as that a top predator like the grey wolf is of greater value than a taxa like Ebola, leading some conservation biologists to recognize that, ultimately, nothing in nature “can have value outside of a value that human beings place on it, because value is something uniquely human”.55 Pluche’s anthropocentric view of nature, seen from this perspective, is not 52 53 54 55

Gipper, “La nature entre utilitarisme et esthétisation,” 40. Pope rhetorically asks: “Has God, thou fool! work’d solely for thy good, / Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?”. Pope, Essay on Man, 54 (vv. 27–28). Martha J. Groom, Gary K. Meffe and C. Ronald Carroll, Principles of Conservation Biology (Sunderland, MA: 2006), 27. Conservation biologist S.J. MacNaughton, cited in Jay Oldenbaugh, “Conservation Biology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, online: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/conservation-biology/ (accessed 15 January 2020).

54

Montoya

that far removed from modern conservation biology, then, that has implicitly adopted natural theology’s Chain of Being concept to underpin its own biodiversity discourse, even while emptying it of its ­specifically ­early-modern religious content. 3

From Nature to Human Society

But is there also a politics, properly speaking, at work in Pluche’s Spectacle de la nature and Pope’s Essay on Man? More problematically, is such an explicit politics even possible, given that conservatism has been characterized precisely by its refusal to formulate its own doctrine? Roger Scruton has written about conservatism that “its essence is inarticulate”, for its very denial of politics is part of its ontological stance against contractual, theoretical definitions of society.56 “As a motivating force in the political life of the citizen [conservatism] is characteristically inarticulate, unwilling (and indeed usually unable) to translate itself into formulae or maxims, loath to state its purpose or declare its view”.57 In keeping, perhaps, with the characteristically conservative refusal to articulate a political stance, the abbé Pluche refrained from adopting an explicitly stated political stance in his writings. Indeed, he was not in a position to do so, due to Jansenist sympathies that distanced him from official channels of patronage, and on one occasion even forced him into an internal exile, in hiding in Normandy. Like Pluche, Alexander Pope too was a political outsider. As such he adopted a politically agnostic posture in his Essay on Man, writing in the third epistle that “For Forms of Government let fools contest / What e’er is best administer’d is best,”58 while his biographers point to the many occasions on which he claimed – despite his Catholicism – that he was actually ecumenical in religion, and a member of no party. Notwithstanding this authorly pose, however, it has been suggested that in his only major work with an expressly political content, Windsor-Forest, Pope emerged as a spokesperson for the conservative “country ideology”, that “maintained that the nation could best be governed by landholders from the countryside”, and that “viewed politics nostalgically, idealizing a balanced government of monarch and gentry-dominated Parliament, perceived to have existed before the civil wars.”59 In this sense, it can be argued, Pope’s work may well have contributed to the creation 56 Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism (South Bend, 2002 [1980]), 1. 57 Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism, 9. 58 Pope, Essay on Man, 70 (vv. 303–04). 59 Daniel Wheeler, “The Personal and Political Economy of Alexander Pope’s Windsor-­ Forest,” South Atlantic Review 75 (2010), 1–20, here 11.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

55

of the concept – later so famously taken up by Burke – of the landed interest, and the definition of the landed classes as a distinct political class, in these crucial post-war years. Taking into account these biographical contexts, there are two other senses in which Pluche and Pope’s writings reveal an implicit politics, that could arguably be labelled conservative. First of all, as I have noted, the animal kingdom is presented in their works as a model for human societies, leading to some reflection on the history and constitution of the political commonwealth. In Pope’s Essay on Man, notes Weiss Smith, “bees exemplify an ideal monarchy where individual liberties and property rights are respected (‘tho’ a Monarch reign, / their sep’rate cells and properties maintain’), while ants provide a useful model for a republic.”60 But secondly, the concept of the Great Chain of Being also has ethical and political consequences, potentially turning it into an instrument of conservative apologetics. Accepting that God has providentially determined all for the best of creation implies, indeed, that humankind’s duty is to keep to its place, and not to seek to transcend it. Because of its defense of the status quo, writes Lovejoy, “the principles embodied in the cosmological conception of the Chain of Being could be used as weapons against social discontent and especially against all equalitarian movements.”61 Leibniz counsels in his Théodicée that “inequality of conditions is not to be counted among evils”.62 This is the message that Pluche also leaves his readers in the epistle that closes the first volume of the Spectacle de la nature, a “Letter of Monsieur le Prieur de Jonval to Monsieur le chevalier du Breuil, touching on the extent and the limits of human reason”, in which the author reflects on the peasant condition: Let us observe the peasant. Considered in a certain manner, and in comparison with others, he may seem worthy of our pity. He is rough; he leads a hard life; sweet pleasures are not for him; he knows neither fine glory, nor gold, nor precious stones. Has Providence then forgotten him in order to bestow its favors on others? Nothing could be further from the truth than that. For what place does this man hold in the order of Providence? He is destined to the most necessary of labors, the cultivation of the earth. He therefore has all the parts he needs, since he has enough for his condition. If he had more, he would not carry out his destiny.63 60 Weiss Smith, “Political Individuals and Providential Nature,” 619. 61 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 205. 62 Quoted in Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 206. 63 “Jettons les yeux sur l’homme de campagne. Considéré d’une certaine façon & par comparaison avec les autres, celui-ci nous paroît à plaindre: il est grossier: il mène une vie dure: les doux plaisirs ne sont point faits pour lui : il ne connoît ni la belle gloire, ni l’or, ni

56

Montoya

As Pluche goes on to explain, the peasant has been given exactly the necessary amount of intelligence and taste needed for his daily occupations, tending to his flocks and laboring the earth, for if the contrary were to be the case, he would neglect his duties and “if the herds and the land were to be neglected, all society would fall into disorder, and would be reduced to having neither food nor clothing”.64 The providentialist conclusion is inescapable: every human being has been given exactly the talents and intelligence required by his state in life, and would defy God’s divine plan if he or she were to attempt to leave this God-given position.65 This injunction for all to remain in their assigned place in the Chain of Being is an 18th-century version of the post-Tridentine, Salesian theology of the states of life, that was also adopted by many of Pluche’s pedagogical successors,66 and influenced the creation of other paternalistic utopias, ranging from Rousseau’s ideal country retreat at Clarens,67 to Genlis’s idealized estate of Lagaraye in her pedagogical novel Adèle et Théodore. According to an eloquent litote in the Enneads, “cities which have the best governments are not those in which all citizens are equal”,68 and Plotinus’ 18th-century ideological successors took care to make this point clear. les pierreries. La Providence l’a-t-elle donc oublié pour prodiguer à d’autres ses faveurs? Rien de plus faux que ce point de vûe. Quelle place tient cet homme dans l’ordre de la Providence? Il est destiné au plus nécessaire de tous les travaux, à la culture de la terre. Il a donc tout ce qu’il lui faut de lumières, puisqu’il en a assez pour son état. S’il en avoit plus, il ne rempliroit point sa destination.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, I, 525. 64 “Si le bétail & la terre sont négligés, voilà toute la societé dans le désordre, & réduite à n’avoir ni nourriture ni habits”. Ibid., I, 526. 65 “Ces talens & ces lumières ont des bornes qu’il ne nous est pas permis de franchir : & vouloir aller plus loin, c’est vouloir sortir de notre état.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, I, 526. 66 Cf. this passage from Marie Leprince de Beaumont: “Marie [la servante] dira en s’habillant: Mon Dieu, je vous remercie de m’avoir fait servante; j’aime à l’être, parce que c’est votre sainte volonté; je crois que c’est pour mon bien. En disant ces choses, Marie élève son coeur à Dieu: elle aura accompli le premier commandement, en adorant son Créateur.” Marie Leprince de Beaumont, Le Magasin des pauvres, artisans, domestiques, et gens de la campagne (Lyon: 1775 [1767]), I, 140–41. 67 The conservative credo was explicitly taken up by Rousseau in his Emile, when he follows his statement that “la nature fait tout pour le mieux” by writing that “l’homme est très-fort quand il se contente d’être ce qu’il est: il est très foible quand il veut s’élever au-dessus de l’humanité. [...] Mesurons le rayon de notre sphère, et restons au centre comme l’insecte au milieu de sa toile; nous nous suffirons toujours a nous-mêmes, et nous n’aurons point à nous plaindre de notre faiblesse, car nous ne la sentirons jamais.” Didier Masseau reminds us of the crucial role Rousseau played as a source of inspiration for many later conservative or anti-philosophe thinkers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile ou de l’education, in Œuvres complètes, ed. Bernard ­Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris: 1969), 304–05. Masseau, Les ennemis des ­philosophes, 22. 68 Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, 65.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

4

57

Conservation and Conservatism

If the Great Chain of Being metaphor is conducive on the one hand to a ­societal organization where all must stay in their divinely prescribed place in the cosmos, on the other hand, observing the spectacle of nature also imbues humankind with a sense of humility, for the artistic and technological creations of humans compare poorly with those of God: In all that man does, you will see but unevenness, cracks, and coarseness. Everything shows the limits of his industry, and the roughness of the instruments he employs; everything seems to have been made with a sickle or with a trowel; everything reveals a clumsy artisan who is unfamiliar with the material with which he is working. On the contrary, the smallest creations of the Maker are perfect. In the inside you will see everywhere a freedom, a suppleness, and hidden springs whose structure, ­artifice and upkeep are known to him alone. On the outside you will find everywhere the finest brushstrokes; everywhere magnificence, symmetry, delicacy, and graciousness.69 From the principle of plenitude as an expression of God’s immense goodness, it further follows that any damage caused to the Chain of Being is also an attack on the essence and coherence of Creation, as Pope underlines: “From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike, / Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.”70 The specter of the possible damage wrought by breaking a link in the chain compromises the freedom of humankind at the summit of creation, turning humankind not into the sovereign but into the steward of the natural world. Thus, while nature has been created for the benefit of humankind, Pluche argues, it is entrusted to humanity’s care, and humans must act responsibly toward creation. Foregrounding humans’ responsibility as stewards of the natural world, Pluche ends the second volume of the Spectacle de la nature, closing the main 69

“Dans ce que l’homme fait, vous ne verrez qu’inégalitez, que crevasses, que rudesse. Tout s’y ressent des bornes de son industrie, & de la grossiéreté des instrumens qu’il employe: tout y paroît fait avec la serpe ou avec la truelle: tout y découvre un artisan mal habile qui ne connoît pas la matiére qu’il met en œuvre. Au contraire, les plus petits ouvrages du Créateur sont parfaits. Dans l’intérieur, vous trouverez par-tout une liberté, une souplesse, & des ressorts dont la structure, l’artifice, & l’entretien sont connus de lui seul. Dans les dehors vous trouverez par-tout les plus beaux coups de pinceau : par-tout de la magnificence, de la simétrie, de la finesse, & des graces.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, I, 15. 70 Pope, Essay on Man, 22–23 (vv. 238–246).

58

Montoya

section devoted to the flora and fauna of the natural world, with a highly ­s­ignificant, final chapter on woodlands, that contains an eloquent warning against the excesses of irresponsible forestry. In a possible reference to John Evelyn’s 1664 Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty’s Dominions, on the dire consequences of British deforestation, he warns that “as valuable as the fruit of the earth may be, it could come to pass, through excessive cutting down and clearing of its woods, that France would suffer a fate similar to that of England, that has allowed its forests to die out completely.”71 There follows an extensive account of how the kings of France, perceiving the deforestation wrought by their subjects’ unregulated access to the woods, decided to put in place institutions such as the Water and Forestry administration (Eaux et Forêts), as well as a system of far-­ranging regulations, to ensure not only the conservation of the woods, but also the ­regulated replanting of trees: Our Kings, always attentive to maximize the natural products of France, established the Water and Forestry services to prevent environmental degradation and arbitrary felling. They regulated the order and the moment of the tree-cutting. It was forbidden to cut down a tree trunk before the responsible officer had marked it with the official imprint of the administration. But they were not content merely to no longer a­ bandon the old-growth woods to the caprices of private individuals. They also wisely set aside reserves of copses that could be cut, that is, smaller woods that could be used for firewood, wooden beams, and barrel-making.72 The public good, over which the king watches vigilantly, is here opposed to private interests, that are potentially destructive of the natural world. R ­ eferencing the “admirable” royal Ordinance on Waterways and Forests (Ordonnance des

71

72

“Mais on peut excéder dans les meilleures choses; & quelque estimable que soit sur-tout le produit des terres, il pouvoit arriver, à force d’abattre & de défricher des bois, que la France éprouvât un sort semblable à celui de l’Angleterre, qui a laissé totalement déperir ses forêts.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, II, 432. On the relation between sustained yield forestry and 18th-century ecologism, see Jeremy L. Caradonna, Sustainability: A History (Oxford: 2014), 21–54. “Nos Rois toûjours attentifs à faire valoir les productions naturelles de la France, établirent les maîtrises des eaux & forêts pour empêcher les dégradations & les abatis arbitraires. Ils réglerent l’ordre & le tems des coupes. Il fut défendu d’abatre une tige d’arbre avant que ­l’Officier préposé y eût imprimé la marque du marteau de la maîtrise. Mais on ne se contenta pas de ne plus abandonner les bois de haute futaye au caprice des particuliers. On mit aussi de sages réserves à la coupe des taillis, c’est-à-dire, des menus bois dont on fait des fagots, des chévrons, des lates, & des cerceaux.” Pluche, Spectacle de la nature, II, 433.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

59

Eaux & Forêts), drawn up by Colbert for Louis XIV in 1699, Pluche then continues with an account of Louis’ ambitious reforestation schemes, and enters into great detail to describe the processes involved in planting new woods, ranging from the defensive measures required to keep out wild animals, to the considerations to be taken into account when choosing between working from seed or from saplings, the costs incurred, the spacing of the trees, mulching, and the rate of growth of the new forest. The last section of this chapter is dedicated to specific tree species, with rich fold-out illustrations showing the leaves of each species, and a long excursus on the chestnut tree and its unfortunate disappearance from French forests. In short, forests are presented, both in their nature-bound essence and in the eyes of royal legislation, as “a sacred thing that even forestry officials are not permitted to touch”.73 There are some parallels between Pluche’s concerns about the health of forests and Edmund Burke’s much later, conservative conservationism, that was based on the notion of transgenerational solidarity, conserving and transmitting land to future generations. Like Burke, Pluche too “recognizes, prophetically, that liberal individualism’s short-term view, which posits the individual as the ‘entire master’ of a piece of land, allows us to become ‘unmindful’ of our obligation to conserve the land for future generations.”74 However, while Burke’s ecologism is based on the principles of private property and aristocratic ownership of the land, Pluche – perhaps because of his own social origins – remained sensitive to the plight of the rural and working poor, even when this was to the detriment of their social superiors, in a pre-physiocratic emphasis of the importance of agriculture for the nation’s prosperity and well-being. Additionally, as historians have pointed out, the French ancien régime forestry regimes that Pluche praised were based on the notion of the monarchy’s ability to overrule even the private landed interests lauded by Burke, leading sometimes to discontent and conflict that was to erupt in the revolutionary years.75 Finally, there is another difference between Pluche’s and post-Burkean, Romantic forms of conservative conservationism. The natural world described in the Spectacle de la nature is not that of pure, untouched nature, as in later Romantic phantasms, but a nature solidly touched by human labor. Indeed, some scholars have argued that one of the primary merits of Pluche’s Spectacle de la nature was its positive evaluation of human labor, that in many 73

“Une chose sacrée à laquelle la maîtrise même ne peut permettre de toucher”. Pluche, S­ pectacle de la nature, II, 435. 74 Castellano, The Ecology of British Romantic Conservatism, 18. 75 Hamish Graham, “‘Forced against our will to make a report’: The Nature of Woodland Property and the Problems of Policing Forests in Eighteenth-Century France,” French History and Civilization 9 (2020), 51–64, here 57–58.

60

Montoya

aspects announced the Encyclopédie’s later rehabilitation of manual labor – as reflected also by the fact that the latter’s sumptuous illustrations often drew on Pluche’s for inspiration.76 Significantly, Pluche’s holistic view was not at odds with, but part of his focus on the natural world. Drawing on “Francis Bacon’s notion that the mechanical arts were the most important branch of natural history”,77 Pluche devotes as much attention to the arts and trades as he does to natural history because for him, the arts form part of nature. Thus, his text draws attention to the work of a dizzying range of artisans and workers, from carpenters, joiners, weavers, tanners and glassblowers down to Auvergne miners and itinerant Savoyard shoeshines and chimney sweeps. Above all, it is the labor of illiterate peasants, and their traditional knowledge of the natural world, that he praises. Underlining his attention to the role of humans as an essential part of nature, Pluche begins his discussion of the world’s flora not in some remote natural enclave, far from human habitation, but in a humanmade garden. In doing so, he inaugurates a characteristically French strand of ecological thinking, that views human-made and transformed nature – or “dirty nature”, as modern ecocritics would have it –78 as its primary focus, rather than supposedly wild or pure nature. 5

Epilogue: The Legacy of Popular Conservative Ecologism

What happened to the popular brand of conservatism represented by Pluche’s Spectacle de la nature after the rise of Burkean conservatism? The tradition of natural theology and its underlying concept of the order of nature lay the groundwork for new ways of viewing nature, including a new aesthetic perspective, that profoundly shaped the Romantic engagement with the natural world.79 Despite the absence of a concept of the sublime in Pluche’s vision, his attention to the minutiae and outward beauty of nature underwrote later conceptualizations of the sublime, with its attendant emotions of awe and horror. More specifically, Pluche’s utilitarian Christianity, and the popular conservatism

76

77 78 79

Wallmann, “Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Le Spectacle de la nature”; Cynthia Koepp, “Advocating for Artisans: The Abbé Pluche’s Spectacle de la nature (1732–51),” in The Idea of Work in Europe from Antiquity to Modern Times, ed. Josef Ehmer and Catharina Lis (Farnham: 2009), 245–73. Koepp, “Advocating for Artisans,” 248. The term has been used particularly by Morton, The New Ecological Thought. Gipper, “La nature entre utilitarisme et esthétisation”; Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

61

it brought forth, rather than being eclipsed by the Burkean ­paradigm, continued to inspire thinkers and writers into the aftermath of the French revolution. This tradition was carried forward by a number of authors, notably women pedagogues whose works are beginning to be re-read today, sometimes despite their own denial of overt political intent, as important political reflections on their own. In Britain, Hannah More’s Cheap Repository Tracts incarnated one form of post-Burkean, popular conservatism. In France, the religious, conservative strand incarnated by Pluche was continued by authors like Stephanie-Félicité de Genlis, in a series of publications that engaged actively with the issue of how to regenerate society after the trauma of revolution. I conclude, then, with a scene drawn from Genlis’s Restoration oeuvre. In her 1810 novel-cum-home management manual Maison Rustique pour servir à l’éducation de la jeunesse, ou retour en France d’une famille émigrée an ­émigré family returns to France after ten years spent abroad, hoping to reclaim and re-cultivate their “devastated lands” in Burgundy.80’ The day after their arrival, they seek out the site where their château once stood, and behold the spot where the chapel used to be, now overgrown with foliage surrounding an immense ebony tree. Their faithful gardener Girard, who has stayed behind, explains how he took action when the revolutionary mob destroyed the ­original chapel: When the chapel was torn down, I planted among the rubble a large ­number of violet seeds, and lilies and reseda, that came up in large clumps the following year; as soon as all the stones had been removed, I planted an ebony tree at the very site where the chapel used to stand, and which I had taken care to mark; the tree prospered, and you will find it all covered with leaves. During the absence of our good masters, continued Girard, we did not let a single day go by, my wife, myself, and my daughter, without going to pray there; we went there every ­morning before sunrise; that little piece of land was our church, and we still called it “the château

80

Addressing his son, the protagonist Volnis instructs him: “Vous, mon fils, vous me seconderez dans les soins relatifs à la culture de ces champs dévastés ; et dans l’ordonnance des bâtimens qu’il faut reconstruire, vous m’aiderez à conduire les ouvriers.” Stéphanie-Félicité, comtesse de Genlis, Maison rustique, pour servir à l’éducation de la jeunesse, ou retour en France d’une famille émigrée (Paris: 1810), 6. I am grateful to Lisanne Jansen for drawing my attention to this text, which she studied in her MA thesis “L’exil de Mme de Genlis et sa pensée politique: Une rupture intellectuelle avec les (anti)philosophes?” (Nijmegen, Radboud University: 2016).

62

Montoya

chapel”; the marble altar, the gold ornaments, the fine paintings could no longer be found there, but the good Lord remained always.81 This intertwining of religion – symbolized by the demolished but still virtually present altar – and the fecund powers of nature is symptomatic, firstly, of the way in which nature and culture had become linked within a new, Romantic aesthetic. Genlis’s use of the tree-as-altar topos was not original, as the same image had been used before her by authors including Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and most recently Chateaubriand, who in his Génie du Christianisme famously likened primeval Germanic forests to the Gothic cathedrals they supposedly inspired.82 But Genlis’s introduction of a foreign growth, in the form of the tropical ebony tree, in this scene of primeval Christian faith sustained among a ravaged civilization, hints also at a de-localized, new conceptualization of the intertwining of “dirty nature”, the human-made world, and human aspirations. This is no nostalgic return to a previous state of harmony, but a new, strange growth among the ruins of the old. Contrary to Burke’s turning toward the past as a model, this scene announces, like H ­ annah More’s conservative works, a “postlapsarian approach to contentment as a politically constructed and polemically enforced condition” and as such, “contains an implicit ­challenge to more nostalgic or retrospective varieties of conservatism”.83 Secondly, the role of the faithful gardener Girard gestures not only toward Genlis’s sustained reflection, throughout her very extensive oeuvre, on the place of humankind in nature, with human beings as the stewards of the natural world. Girard’s loyalty also signals the symbiotic relationship that obtains at the human level, within the Great Chain of Being, between his own ­family and that of his aristocratic landlords. In Genlis’s Restoration novels, the return of émigré families is greeted with rejoicing by the larger, peasant and artisan 81

“Quand elle fut démolie, j’y semai à travers les décombres une quantité de graines de v­ iolettes, de muguet et de réséda, qui vinrent par grosses touffes l’année d’ensuite; aussitôt qu’on eut enlevé toutes les pierres, je plantai un ébénier à l’éndroit même où jadis étoit l’autel, dont j’avois soigneusement marqué la place; l’arbre a prospéré, vous le trouverez tout couvert de fleurs. Durant l’absence de nos bons seigneurs, poursuivit Girard, nous n’avons pas, ma femme, ma fille et moi, passé un seul jour sans aller prier là ; nous nous y rendions chaque matin avant le lever du soleil ; ce petit coin de terre nous tenoit lieu d’église, nous l’appelions toujours la chapelle du château ; l’autel de marbre, les belles dorures, les belles peintures ne s’y trouvoient plus, mais le bon Dieu y étoit toujours.” Genlis, Maison rustique, 8–9. 82 “Les forêts ont été les premiers temples de la Divinité, et les hommes ont pris dans les forêts la première idée de l’architecture.” François René de Chateaubriand, Le Génie du C ­ hristianisme, ed. Maurice Regard (Paris: 1978), 801. 83 Gilmore, Writing against Revolution, 35.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

63

communities of which they had once been a federating element. In another, contemporary work, Les Veillées de la chaumière, Genlis describes how the arrival of the émigré count Alfred d’Ormelis, to “the estate where he had been born” is celebrated with a Rousseau-like fête champêtre. The scenes of peasant happiness at the return of the count underline the recovered harmony and regime of benign paternalism that will be reinstated, as “the ladies of the ­chateau, as in former times, danced with the peasants, a custom that has not been universally conserved in our day, like that of offering them refreshments and an excellent dinner”.84 Just as Hannah More’s pamphlets “imagine[d] a self-reforming polity knit together by the collaborative energies of model clergymen, enterprising charitable women, munificent gentry, and redeemed common people”,85 so too does Genlis create narratives of social regeneration that are inclusive of all orders of society, in a harmonious Great Chain of Being that embraces, beyond humankind, the natural world too. This new society is not, however, a return to an imagined, pure past, but a cosmopolitan vision of the future born of the cross-Channel movement of ideas begun in the first half of the century, and further elaborated in a long tradition of popular conservatism – of which ­Genlis was the latest representative. In this revision of early 18th-­century “country ideology” and providentialist theology, conservatism and conservation go together, because nature and culture cannot be viewed as separate from one another, but are, rather, inextricably bound up. In this vision of the future, humankind must necessarily assume its God-given role as steward of God’s divine creation, for “long-term social equilibrium,” as the late Roger Scruton reminds us, “must include ecological equilibrium.”86 Bibliography Bate, Jonathan, Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition ­(London: 1991). Blair, Ann, “Noël-Antoine Pluche as a Jansenist Natural Theologian,” Intellectual ­History Review 26 (2016), 91–99.

84

“Les dames du château, comme jadis, y dansèrent avec les paysans, usage qui ne s’est pas u­ niversellement conservé de nos jours, non plus que celui de leur donner des rafraîchissemens et un excellent souper.” Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis, Veillées de la chaumière (Paris: 1823), 11. 85 Gilmartin, Writing against Revolution, 15. 86 Scruton, “Conservatism”, 10.

64

Montoya

Boch, Julie, Françoise Gevrey and Jean-Louis Haquette (ed.), Ecrire la nature au XVIII e siècle. Autour de l’abbé Pluche (Paris: 2006). Carroll, C. Ronald, Martha J. Groom and Gary K. Meffe, Principles of Conservation B ­ iology (Sunderland, MA: 2006). Caradonna, Jeremy L., Sustainability: A History (Oxford: 2014). Castellano, Katey, The Ecology of British Romantic Conservatism, 1790–1837 (Basingstoke: 2013). Chapin, Chester, “Alexander Pope: Erasmian Catholic,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 6 (1973), 411–30. Charlton, Donald Geoffrey, New Images of the Natural in France: A Study in European Cultural History, 1750–1800 (Cambridge: 1984). Chateaubriand, François René de, Le Génie du Christianisme, ed. Maurice Regard (Paris: 1978). Dagen, Jean, “Le Spectacle de la Nature: Une ‘théologie populaire’,’’ Ecrire la nature au XVIII e siècle. Autour de l’abbé Pluche, ed. Françoise Gevrey, Julie Boch and JeanLouis Haquette (Paris: 2006), 127–40. Doane, Caroline V., “Un succès littéraire du XVIIIe siècle: le Spectacle de la nature de l’abbé Pluche” (PhD dissertation, Université de Paris–Sorbonne: 1957). Domenech, Jacques, “Anti-Enlightenment,” in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Michel Delon, trans. Gwen Wells, volume 1: A-L (London: 2001), 71–79. Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de, Adèle et Théodore ou Lettres sur l’éducation, ed. Isabelle Brouard-Arends (Rennes: 2006). Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité de, Veillées de la chaumière (Paris: 1823). Gilmartin, Kevin, Writing against Revolution: Literary Conservatism in Britain, 1790–1832 (Cambridge: 2007). Gipper, Andreas, “La nature entre utilitarisme et esthétisation. L’abbé Pluche et la physico-théologie européenne,” in Ecrire la nature au XVIII e siècle. Autour de l’abbé Pluche, ed. Françoise Gevrey, Julie Boch and Jean-Louis Haquette (Paris: 2006), 27–40. Graham, Hamish, “‘Forced against our will to make a report’: The Nature of ­Woodland Property and the Problems of Policing Forests in Eighteenth-Century France,” French History and Civilization 9 (2020), 51–64. Jansen, Lisanne, “L’exil de Mme de Genlis et sa pensée politique: Une rupture ­intellectuelle avec les (anti)philosophes?” (MA thesis, Nijmegen, Radboud University: 2016). Jones, Emrys D., “An Appetite for Ambivalence: Pope Studies in the Twenty-First ­Century,” Literature Compass 15 (2018), 1–12. Koepp, Cynthia, “Advocating for Artisans: The Abbé Pluche’s Spectacle de la nature (1732–51),” in The Idea of Work in Europe from Antiquity to Modern Times, ed. Josef Ehmer and Catharina Lis (Farnham: 2009), 245–73.

Popular Conservatisms and Ecological Consciousness

65

Leprince de Beaumont, Marie, Le Magasin des pauvres, artisans, domestiques, et gens de la campagne (Lyon: 1775 [1767]). Limoges, Camille, “Pluche, Noël-Antoine,” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: 2008). Lovejoy, Arthur O., The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea ­(Cambridge, MA: 2001 [1936]). Masseau, Didier, Les ennemis des philosophes. L’antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières (Paris: 2000). McKusick, James, Green Writing: Romanticism and Ecology (New York: 2000). McMahon, Darrin, Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). McMurran, Mary Helen, The Spread of Novels: Translation and Prose Fiction in the E­ ighteenth Century (Princeton: 2010). Mignolo Walter D., “The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis: Border Thinking and Critical ­Cosmopolitanism,” Public Culture 12 (2000), 721–748. Montoya, Alicia C., “Middlebrow, Religion, and the European Enlightenment: A New Bibliometric Project, MEDIATE (1665–1820),” French History and Civilization 7 (2017), 66–79. Mornet, Daniel “Les enseignements des bibliothèques privées (1750–1780)”, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France 18 (1910), 449–96. Morton, Timothy, Shelley and the Revolution in Taste: The Body and the Natural World (Cambridge: 1994). Morton, Timothy, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge, MA: 2010). Oldenbaugh, Jay, “Conservation Biology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, online: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/ entries/conservation-biology/ (accessed 15 January 2020). Philp, Mark, “Vulgar Conservatism, 1792–3,” English Historical Review 110/435 (1995), 42–69. Pinault-Sørensen, Madeleine, “Les planches du Spectacle de Nature,” in Ecrire la nature au XVIII e siècle. Autour de l’abbé Pluche, ed. Françoise Gevrey, Julie Boch and ­Jean-Louis Haquette (Paris: 2006), 141–62. Pope, Alexander, Essay on Man, ed. Tom Jones (Princeton: 2016). Scruton, Roger, “Conservatism,” in Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge, ed. Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley (Cambridge: 2006), 7–19. Scruton, Roger, The Meaning of Conservatism (South Bend, 2002 [1980]). Trinkle, Dennis, “Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Le Spectacle de la nature. An Encyclopaedic Bestseller,” Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 358 (Oxford: 1997), ­93–134.

66

Montoya

Wallmann, Elisabeth, “Noël-Antoine Pluche’s Le Spectacle de la nature, ou, Entretiens sur les particularités de l’histoire naturelle as an Instrument for the Government of Bodies,” French Studies 72 (2018), 364–79. Weiss Smith, Courtney, “Political Individuals and Providential Nature in Locke and Pope,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 52 (2012), 609–29. Wheeler, Daniel, “The Personal and Political Economy of Alexander Pope’s ­Windsor-Forest,” South Atlantic Review 75 (2010), 1–20.

CHAPTER 3

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan: The Linguistics and Anthropology of Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro ­(1753–1809) Carolina Armenteros Few thinkers exemplify so clearly the cosmopolitan aspects of early conservatism as Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735–1809), and probably none illustrate so amply the rapport between conservatism, cosmopolitanism, and scientific paradigms. In becoming, for his time, the best-informed linguist of all time, Hervás built an international network of collaborators who helped shape his scientific universalism and forge him as a major figure of the ­Spanish ­Counter-revolution. The Society of Jesus’ turbulent history during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries provided a formative context for this development. Paradoxically, the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain in 1767 and the dissolution of the Society by Clement XIV in 1773 created the social and intellectual circumstances that enabled Hervás to devote himself to research and writing and to acquire an international scholarly reputation. It was in exile in Italy that Hervás met Juan Andrés (1740–1817) and Antonio Eximeno (1729–1809), two fellow expulsos who, with him, would become the main representatives of the Spanish Universalist School. By this term Pedro Aullón de Haro designates the muffled ex-Jesuit representatives of the late Spanish Enlightenment who, as exiled scholars in Italy, developed a ‘universalist ideation’ and reflected on the planetary universe, the cultural and anthropological universe, and the epistemological, or scientific and literary universe.1 Unlike French enlighteners, these Spanish ex-Jesuits offered a scientific and humanistic rather than a political view of knowledge. Their scholarship, internationally recognised, may still be considered the cradle of modern comparative studies.2 Andrés wrote the first comparative and universal history of ‘literature’ (which included what we would nowadays call scientific literature), Eximeno founded ethnomusicology, or the study of music in ­cultural context,

1 Pedro Aullón de Haro, La escuela universalista española del siglo XVIII (Madrid: 2016), 59. 2 Ibid., 7.

© koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_003

68

Armenteros

and Hervás fathered comparative grammar.3 Even more, Hervás established vocabulary, grammar and phonetics – especially phonetics – as the three principal comparative elements needed to deduce linguistic parentage. Hervás’ map of human languages remains generally valid today: he was the first to define the Austronesian language family, and to scientifically prove the parentage between Indian and European languages twenty-five years before Franz Bopp (1791–1867). In light of these accomplishments, one wonders why, with recent exceptions in Spain and Italy, the Spanish Universalist School vanished from scholarly remembrance along with the 19th-century Spanish scholars who discussed it. There are several explanations. Pedro Aullón de Haro mentions the isolated artistic identity that Spain crafted for itself during the Golden Age, the Romantic oblivion of Enlightenment historiography, and a certain tendency by North Atlantic scholars to exclude Spain intellectually. This last was influentially evidenced in René Wellek’s (1903–1995) foundational History of Modern Criticism 1750–1950 (8 vols. 1955–1992), which ignored Juan Andrés, Manuel Milà i Fontanals (1818–1884) and his prodigious disciple and five-time Nobel Prize nominee Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo (1856–1912) in order to establish Arthur O. Lovejoy (1873–1962) as the creator of the history of ideas.4 The deep cause of this exclusion is political and religious. Much to the dislike of foreign intellectuals, traditionalist Catholicism was a major source of public and intellectual reason in Spain well into the 20th century. As for the ex-Jesuits, the state of public ignominy in which they found themselves after the expulsions and suppression made them easy prey to ­plagiarism and scholarly exclusion.5 Pettiness aside, studying Hervás’ scholarship in the context of the ­Spanish ex-Jesuits’ Italian exile opens a window onto post-expulsion and post-suppression Jesuitism, a subject that remains largely neglected. 18th-century Jesuitism may be defined as a precursor of conservatism with nationalist tendencies

3 See Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language (New York: 1862), 114. 4 Aullón de Haro, La escuela universalista, 14–18. 5 See, for instance, the experience of José Miguel Petisco (1724–1800), Hervás’ collaborator and the author of the first translation of the Bible into Spanish (Antonio Astorgano Abajo, “José Miguel Petisco,” Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/20810/josemiguel-petisco); Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (1767–1835) treatment of Hervás (Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, 114–115); and the fate of the ex-Jesuit text Manners and Customs of the Brahmins [Mœurs et coutumes des brahmes], the founding treatise of Indology (­Carolina Armenteros, “The Enlightened Conservatism of the Malabar Missions: Gaston-Laurent Cœurdoux (1691–1779) and the Making of an Anthropological Classic,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 6 (2019), 439–66, here 440.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

69

in politics and empiricist preferences in epistemology6 that was nonetheless eclectic in its Iberian and Italian variations, and that, like any other Catholic philosophy, tended to theorize the political as ultimately subordinate to the divine order. To this may be added the cosmopolitanism that distinguished the Society of Jesus in the 18th century, when the vast majority of the world’s ­Catholic missionaries were Jesuits. Cosmopolitanism provided the Society with its main claim to Enlightenment and endowed it with an openness to non-European cultures that helps understand not only post-expulsion Jesuitism but also its precise rapport to conservatism. This chapter studies Hervás’ well-known linguistics and his comparatively neglected anthropology in the context of his cosmopolitan scholarly collaborations, and in comparison with the thought of the other two main Spanish universalists. The dual goal is to gain insight into his politics and epistemology, and to improve our understanding of post-expulsion and post-revolutionary Jesuitism. The result will be the first English-language study on a pioneer of linguistics and comparative studies. 1

Lorenzo Hervás: Exile, Linguist and Counter-Revolutionary

Born into a modest peasant family, Hervás entered the Society of Jesus at ­fourteen and studied philosophy, theology, canon law, mathematics and astronomy at Madrid’s Universidad Complutense. He was ordained in 1760. He taught philosophy at the Jesuit college in Cáceres, metaphysics at the Seminario de Nobles in Madrid (which he also directed) and philosophy at the Colegio de la Anunciata in Murcia. The dissolution of the Society of Jesus in Spain in 1767 and the consequent expulsion of the Jesuits from the country meant that soon after he found himself in Forlì, residing in the company of fellow expulsos from Spain and the Spanish colonies who had arrived from around the world to find refuge in the Papal States. In 1773, the year that Clement XIV finally dissolved the Society, Hervás moved to Cesena, where he found work as preceptor of the children of the Marchese di Chini. Five years later he moved to Rome. There he read in the city’s libraries, especially the Propaganda Fide’s, and worked for the high clergy. Hervás became canonist to Cardinal Aurelio Roverella (1748–1812), theologian to Cardinal Gian Francesco Albani (1720–1803),7 and finally prefect 6 Jeffrey Burson, The Rise and Fall of Theological Enlightenment: Jean-Martin de Prades and Ideological Polarization in Eighteenth-Century France (Notre Dame, 2010). 7 Sergio Mendez Ramos, Lorenzo Hervás Panduro como filósofo: antropología, ética, moral y política (Oviedo: 2013), 62.

70

Armenteros

of the Quirinal Palace Library, a post to which Pius VII appointed him in 1804, and which required him to have lunch with the pontiff at least once a week.8 Given this stellar success it is little wonder that, excepting four years spent in Spain (1798–1802) after Carlos IV issued a decree allowing former Jesuits to return, Hervás resided in the Eternal City until the end of his life. During the French Revolution Hervás insisted passionately and ultimately successfully that his fellow ex-Jesuit Juan Clímaco de Salazar (1744–1815) publish his tragedy Mordecai9 (1791), an adaptation of the story of Esther that garnered the difficult praise of Menendez Pelayo. Maurizio Fabbri has read Mordecai as a critique of the aristocracy represented by Haman the ambitious and unscrupulous minister, and as praise of the enlightened monarch and enlightened politician incarnated by Esther’s husband Ahasuerus and Esther’s father10 Mordecai, respectively.11 As an ex-Jesuit work written in the aftermath of the suppression, however, Mordecai reads more obviously as a critique of the tyrannical government resulting from impious philosophy that is incarnated by Haman, who wants to eliminate the Jesuits as represented by the Jews. Haman says to his friend Cársenas that ‘[t]he idea, though false, of a God, or of a destiny superior to others, serves much […] him who reigns’, as it is but an instrument enabling him ‘to tyrannize the best part of man with the chains of superstition’.12 Flowing from the pen of an ex-Jesuit, and put in the mouth of the story’s villain, this perverse rendition of philosophic arguments on the uses of religion can be read with reference to the sway that enlighteners exercised over the Bourbon and Braganza kings to suppress the Jesuits as competing possessors of souls. The praise of God’s people as heroically incarnated by Esther and Mordecai, and the portrayal of temporal governments as potential agents of brutal injustice, also coincides with the Jesuit idea that Catholicism, rather than kings, crafts the model state. The French Revolution, so disquieting for the clergy, probably encouraged Hervás to insist on Mordecai’s publication. From the play’s completion in 1788 to its publication in 1791, the Second Estate was abolished, freedom of religion was adopted, ecclesiastical properties were seized, and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was passed. By 1792, Hervás was a counter-revolutionary, w ­ riting to Antonio María Ponce de León Dávila y Carrillo de Albornoz, Duke of ­Montemar (1757–1826), that revolutionary liberty and equality were

8 9 10 11 12

Mendez Ramos, Lorenzo Hervás, 88. Mardoqueo. In the Bible Mordecai is Esther’s cousin. Maurizio Fabbri, “Conflitto ideologico e polemica anti-Raquel nella tragedia Mardoqueo di Juan Clímaco de Salazar,”, Finalità ideologiche e problematica letteraria in Salazar, Iriarte, Jovellanos: tre saggi sul teatro spagnolo dell’ultimo Settecento (Pisa: 1974), 9–45. Juan Clímaco de Salazar, Mardoqueo: tragedia en cinco actos (Madrid: 1791), 26–27.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

71

false.13 Two years later Tomás Bernad (1726–1806), Councilor of Castile, suggested to the exiled Jesuit that he write on the Revolution, as Jansenism had become rooted in Spain. Hervás – who accurately blamed his order’s expulsion on the Jansenists – left everything aside, wrote 1,000 pages in forty days, and sent them to Madrid. Known as Causes of the French Revolution,14 the resulting manuscript could only be published in 1803,15 not least because Carlos IV had ­forbidden the p ­ ublication of any book whose title contained the word ‘revolution’. ­Meanwhile, though, Hervás’ text circulated unpublished. With ‘astounding’ erudition16 and a Manichean disposition, Causes identifies Augustinian and philosophic movements from the Reformation to the 18th century as the French Revolution’s ‘true’,17 ‘monstrous’18 and dechristianizing causes – a thesis that present-day historians continue to uphold from a strictly factual point of view. Causes also complains that the French, unlike the Spanish, have been irreligious since antiquity,19 and contravened religion’s indispensable role in human societies. For this they have paid, and will continue to pay,20 like the Algerians and Egyptians, who were governed by slaves after abandoning Catholicism.21 This exaltation of Spain vis-à-vis France, understandable in a Spaniard in the wake of the War of the Pyrenees, also converges with Jesuit proto-nationalism. And yet Causes is but a spurt of spite in a huge creative effort that, rather than compare and divide nations, has the universal aim of studying all the world’s languages in order to unravel humanity’s post-Babelic history. One might think such an enterprise purely scientific and thoroughly apolitical, but linguistics is Hervás’ political key. In politics, he sees only two types of people: those who govern and those who are governed. The great difficulty is that those who govern do not know what those who are governed think. Languages, though, reflect a people’s thought, and thus provide precious resources for government. Hervás hopes that proper linguistic knowledge will enable the future’s papal ­government to reign over the whole orb.22 13 14

Javier Herrero, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1971), 153. Causas de la revolución de Francia en el año 1789, y medios de que se han valido para efectuarla los enemigos de la religión y del estado, 2 vols. (Madrid: 1807). 15 Herrero, Los orígenes, 157. 16 Ibid., 153. 17 Hervás, I, 191. 18 Ibid., 3. 19 Ibid., 201. 20 Ibid., 23. 21 Ibid., 25–26. 22 Sergio Mendez Ramos, “Lorenzo Hervás Panduro como filósofo,” paper delivered at the School of Philosophy, University of Oviedo, 2 December 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PTFtubtEH4Q.

72

Armenteros

2 Hervás’ Collaborators: Nationalists, Conservatives, Traditionalists, Cosmopolitans To accomplish his survey of more than 300 world languages, Hervás set up a vast scholarly collaboration whose development he describes in the Practical Essay on Languages23 (1787), the twenty-first and last volume of his encyclopedic magnum opus Idea of the Universe.24 Writing in 1785, he recalls: ‘[i]t is a little more than two years, that the idea came to me to write the history of languages [taking advantage of] the opportunity, that afforded me the continuous establishment […] in this Ecclesiastical state of hundreds of Missionary Ex-Jesuits from most of the known nations’. Regrettably, he continues, ‘[t]he idea came to me a bit late; because in the 18 years since their arrival more than two hundred […] have died, and with some of them has died the knowledge of various languages’. Even at this late stage, though, the situation is auspicious to a historically exceptional degree. Hervás feels ‘as in another factory of Babel, among so many learned men’, and predicts that ‘centuries w[ill] have to pass’ before a ‘gathering similar to […] that of the Ex-Jesuits in a small state’ repeats itself. He hopes though that when it does his history of languages, which is still ‘in its infancy’, can be perfected by including those languages whose knowledge has died for Europe along with their ex-Jesuit speakers.25 With the celerity characteristic of someone who wrote over 60 volumes, Hervás began publishing about a year after beginning to consult his fellow exiles. In 1784 appeared the Catalogue of Languages,26 the seventeenth volume of Idea of the Universe, which he later translated into Spanish in a greatly amplified and enriched version. 1785 would see the publication of the Treatise on the Origin, Formation, Mechanism and Harmony of Languages27 (1785), the eighteenth volume of Idea, and 1787 that of the Polyglottic Vocabulary,28 the twentieth volume. Hervás’ collaborations also resulted in the composition of forty micro-grammars of ‘exotic languages’ in Italian and Spanish that remained in manuscript form. These linguistic studies were complemented by ethnographic ones. The two parts of the nineteenth volume of Idea of the U ­ niverse are entitled Arithmetic of Almost All the Known Nations29 and Division of Time among the Oriental Nations30 (1786). 23 Saggio pratico delle lingue. 24 Idea dell’Universo. 25 Hervás, Saggio pratico delle lingue, in Idea dell’Universo, 21 vols. (Cesena: 1787), vol. 21, 56. 26 Catalogo delle lingue. 27 Trattato dell’origine, formazione, meccanismo ed armonia degl’idiomi. 28 Vocabolario poligloto. 29 Aritmetica di quasi tutte le nazioni conosciute. 30 Divisione del tempo fra le nazioni Orientali.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

73

Mostly former Jesuits, Hervás’ collaborators numbered about three dozen. Profiling them is important for understanding how his epistemology dovetailed with his politics and cosmopolitanism. Here I focus on a few whose roles in Hervás’ scholarship disclose key aspects of his worldview. One of his strongest interests was the Basque language and in particular the theories of Pedro Astarloa (1752–1806), who had famously argued, in the Apology of the Basque Language31 (1803), that Basque was the Iberian Peninsula’s original language. Hervás corresponded with no less than six informants on Basque. These included Joan Antonio Moguel Urkiza (1745–1804), the priest who authored Peru Abarca (1802), the first novel in Basque, and one of the fathers of Basque literature in Biscayan dialect. Another Basque informant was José Miguel Petisco (1724–1800), the ex-Jesuit author of the Bible’s first translation into Spanish and of the first modern Greek grammar textbook in Spanish.32 Basque occupies an important place in the Catalogue of Languages not only because it was the Spanish Enlightenment’s preferred candidate for the primitive language, but also because it represented regional particularism in the face of Manuel Godoy’s (1767–1851) state-led homogenization. The nationalist politics conveyed by Basque studies also converged perfectly with Jesuit proto-­ nationalism, which had more raison d’être than ever in the face of France’s introduction of patriotic internationalism into Spain by force of arms. Hervás, whose most original contribution to comparative philology was his application of phonetics to the history of nations,33 was probably also fascinated by Basque because he believed Spanish phonetics, the language’s oldest components, to derive from Basque. If, however, Hervás’ collaborators could be nationalists, they could also, paradoxically, be cosmopolitans. On the Americas, the Spaniard maintained an ‘extremely copious correspondence’34 with his close friend Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731–1787), the precursor of Mexican indigenism who authored the Ancient History of Mexico35 (1780–1781) and argued for the equality of Aztec and European civilizations. Even more cosmopolitan was another of Hervás’ ­informants on Mesoamerican languages, Pedro José Márquez (1741–1820). A student of architecture and classical antiquity who applied the archaeological critique used in the study of classical art to pre-Hispanic art, Márquez ­compared indigenous Mexican architecture with Mesopotamian, Egyptian 31 Apología de la lengua bascongada. 32 Astorgano Abajo, “José Miguel Petisco”. 33 Mendez Ramos, “Lorenzo Hervás Panduro como filósofo”. 34 Batllori, La cultura hispano-italiana de los jesuitas expulsos: españoles, hispanoamericanos, filipinos, 1767–1814 (Madrid: 1966), 206. 35 Historia antigua de México.

74

Armenteros

and even ancient Roman constructions in an effort to lend prestige to M ­ exican civilization and rehabilitate its image in Europe from a cosmopolitan ­ perspective. Cosmopolitanism inhered in Hervás’ very project of seeking out world experts, who were mostly former missionaries with long experience of, and openness to, the cultures on whose languages they reported. Among those who helped him to discover the Austronesian languages was the professor of Greek at the University of Bologna, Manuel Rodríguez Aponte (1737–1815), a former missionary to the Philippines who was a distinguished teacher of Tagalog. On Sanskrit, Hervás conferred with the polyglot Austrian discalced Carmelite Paolino de San Bartolomeo (1748–1806), who had studied theology and philosophy in Prague and Orientalism at the Carmelites’ College of Saint Pancras, the first seminary for the missions,36 before leaving for Malabar as a missionary in 1774. For fourteen years, San Bartolomeo lived in India, where he learned Sanskrit, Malayalam, and other Indian languages. Among the first to theorize a rapport between Indian and European languages,37 he authored the first published Sanskrit grammar (1790) and an essay on India entitled Voyage to the Oriental Indies38 (1808). Regarding Kurdish, Hervás collaborated with Maurizio Garzoni (ca. 1730–1790), the Dominican friar who founded Kurdology and composed the first Kurdish grammar. Practically the only lay informant of Hervás was the famed Polish novelist, aristocrat and pioneer of Slavic ethnology Jan Potocki (1761–1815), who informed him on the languages spoken on the coast of the Black Sea, as well as the Kamchatkan, Korean, Kuril and Nubian languages.39 Potocki excepted, the overwhelmingly clerical identity of Hervás’ informants meant that their cosmopolitan profile overlapped with their religious, traditionalist one, in ways usually unthinkable from an enlightened perspective, but very common among 18th-century Catholic missionaries. Religious traditionalism, in turn, could slip into political conservatism, as is suggested by the profile of those who did the needed research for Hervás when no experts could be found. These were Hervás’ closest friends. The closest was Ramón Diosdado Caballero (1740–1829), Hervás’ heir and trustee, who informed him on Arabic, Chaldean, Mochican, Pekinese, Semitic, and Russian. Anything 36 37

38 39

Heinrich Joseph Wetzer, Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la théologie catholique (Paris: 1864), 146. Rosane Rocher, “The Knowledge of Sanskrit in Europe until 1800,” in History of the Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Language Sciences from the ­Beginning to the Present, ed. Sylvain Auroux, Ernst Frideryk Konrad Koerner, Hans-­ Josef Niederehe, and Kees ­Versteegh (Berlin: 2001), vol. 2, 1156–59. Viaggio alle Indie orientali. Mendez Ramos, Lorenzo Hervás, 53–54.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

75

but a cosmopolitan, Diosdado defended Spain’s conquest and ­colonization of the Americas against the French Enlightenment.40 Hervás shared views on non-European cultures with Diosdado, arguing that non-Christian nations – like Asiatic societies that trafficked eunuchs, and indigenous American cultures that practiced cannibalism and human sacrifice – needed missionaries because of their inhumane aspects.41 These views, though, were more moderate than Diosdado’s and resembled those expounded centuries earlier by Francisco de Vitoria (1483/1486–1546), the founder of the School of Salamanca. They were also tempered by the cosmopolitanism that underlay Hervás’ universalist linguistics, which aside from supporting Catholic government also attempted to display the divine order linguistically expressed. Hervás’ other close friend, and the one who researched Armenian, Coptic, Etruscan, Tibetan and Turkish, was the Andalusian ex-Jesuit Juan de Osuna (1745–1818). It was Osuna who directed the publishing house of Gregorio Biasini in Cesena, the very one that published Hervás’ Idea of the Universe and much literature produced by expelled and suppressed Jesuits.42 It was also Osuna who founded Political News43 (1788–95), Cesena’s first journal, which expressed politico-religious, anti-encyclopedist and antirevolutionary opinions that ensured it a large number of readers including Pius VI, and that was succeeded by Literary News44 (1791–92) and Europe’s Literary Genius45 (1793–4), cultural journals open to enlightened currents.46 Osuna’s publication history suggests an eclecticism that fit well with Hervás’ own diverse identity as a ­counter-revolutionary who yet admired Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744–1811), the torchbearer of the Spanish Enlightenment, for his call to reform the Old Regime. Significantly, soon after Hervás died and Napoleon annexed the Papal States, Diosdado and Osuna refused to swear allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte. Hervás himself had at first criticized Napoleon and later admired him for his military abilities.47 If obliged to swear allegiance to him, ­however, it is very probable that he would have imitated his best friends’ gesture. Both his identity as an 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

See, for instance, his L’eroismo di Ferdinando Cortese confermato contra le censure nemiche (1806). Sergio Mendez Ramos, “Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro,” El catoblepas 125 (2012), http://www .nodulo.org/ec/2012/n125p03.htm. See Antonio Astorgano Abajo, “El universalista Hervás, propulsor de la literatura jesuítica de los expulsos en la Imprenta Biasini,” Elkasia: revista de filosofía 81 (2018), 461–503. Notizie politiche. Notizie letterarie. Genio letterario d’Europa. Antonio Astorgano Abajo, “Juan de Osuna,” Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe.rah .es/biografias/20756/juan-de-osuna. Mendez Ramos, “Lorenzo Hervás como filósofo”.

76

Armenteros

ex-Jesuit and his insistence on society’s need for traditional religion made him not only a likely supporter of papal rights, but also an apt candidate for legitimism. That, together with Causes, however, is all we can tell with some directness about his conservatism: the rest must be gathered from his epistemology. 3

Hervás’ Conservative Epistemology

Through the abundant samples provided by his collaborators, Hervás collected the linguistic knowledge that is normally the product of direct personal experience. Tellingly, for centuries – since Friedrich von Adelung (1768–1843) introduced the error in an 1801 review48 until Eugenio Coseriu (1921–1981) corrected it in 197449 – Don Lorenzo was believed to have been himself a missionary to America. What might be termed his Jesuit approach to linguistics encouraged this impression. Jesuit scholasticism tended to exalt the spoken over the written word, and to value things-in-the-world – God’s Creation – above the human intellect’s petty creations. Hervás was hence more interested in living than literary languages,50 an orientation expressed by his effort to understand the thought of whole peoples rather than just literate elites’. Hervás also sought more to compare significant facts than to achieve philosophical systematicity. He described languages unevenly, and though he always specified the location, dialects and number of speakers of each ­language, he covered more abundantly those languages on which he was well informed. He ‘often manag[ed] to perceive linguistic relationships that were not at all evident on the basis of shallow and very imperfect similarities’, Coseriu comments, so that he possessed ‘exceptional perspicacity (almost a n ­ atural talent) in this respect’.51 Though risky and unorthodox, especially in the late 18th century’s often rigid scholarly context, this methodology allowed Hervás to discover the Malay-Polynesian language family,52 to be the first to scientifically prove the kinship between Indian and European languages, and to apply the concept of substrate languages53 nearly a century before it was defined by the 48 Adelung repeated the error in Mithridates, oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde (1806), 672. 49 Coseriu, “Lo que se dice de Hervás,” 48–55. 50 Batllori, La cultura hispano-italiana, 307. 51 Coseriu, “Lo que se dice de Hervás,” 37n. 52 William Jones’ (1793–1794) more famous comparison was not scientific and contained errors like the inclusion of Chinese, Egyptian and Japanese and the omission of Hindi and the Slavic languages. 53 Mara Fuertes Gutierrez, “Lo que se sabe de Hervás,”: ideas lingüísticas, errores y revitalización de su figura en el marco de la historiografía lingüística,” Estudios de linguística del español, 36 (2015), 197–234, 203.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

77

Italian ­linguist Graziado Isaia Ascoli (1829–1907). Indeed though the roots of substrate theory go back as early as the 15th century in the area of phonetic development,54 Hervás was (to my knowledge) the first to use the concept in the process of scientifically establishing language families. Hervás’ intuitive approach, direct empiricism, and work on uneven samples of mostly spoken languages aligned with the early conservative rejection of philosophical systems. He avoided Enlightenment-style dissertations and refused to privilege some languages over others. When Álvaro Vigil (1711–1792), who informed him about the languages of the Near East and the Canaries, suggested that he synthesize his samples into a History of the Origin, Antiquity, Economy and Mutual Relationships between All the World’s Foremost Languages,55 Hervás ignored the advice.56 Such a treatise would have striven more to organize than to describe. It would have contributed more to the sciences of reason than of memory, and Hervás, like the early conservatives, preferred the latter. As well, and unlike Vigil’s proposed History, which required some rational discrimination for the purposes of subject selection, Hervás’ linguistic work established no priorities or value judgments between the languages of nations great or small, powerful or powerless: all were equally valuable as diverse expressions of the human mind and divine order. As we will see, it was a worldview that contrasted notably with that of the other two main Spanish universalists. 4

Hervás, Andrés, and Eximeno

The leader of the Spanish Universalist School, Juan Andrés was the editor of the Prospectus of Universal Philosophy57 (1773), a programmatic text that collected studies developed at the ex-Jesuit house in Ferrara. Inspired by the ­Encyclopédie, the Prospectus superseded baroque epistemology in order to forge a humanist and historically integrated empiricism that converged with the indirect empiricism, or apprehension of the world through technology and

54

55 56 57

Hans Goebl, Peter H. Nelde, Zdenek Stary, and Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Kontaktlinguistik / Contact Linguistics / Linguistique de contact: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / An International Handbook of Contemporary Research / Manuel international des recherches contemporaines, 12 vols. (New York and Berlin: Gruyter, 1996), vol. 1, 2. Historia del origen, antigüedad y oeconomía y relaciones entre sí de todas las lenguas más ­principales del mundo. Antonio Astorgano Abajo, “Álvaro Vigil,” Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe.rah.es/ biografias/47189/alvaro-vigil. Prospectus philosophiae universae.

78

Armenteros

other mediators, that European science had adopted since Francis Bacon.58 Importantly, Andrés’ Baconian perspective departed from Hervás, whose work shows us man59 apprehending the world directly as God has made it. This epistemological divergence is reflected in the two men’s respective subjects of study. Where Hervás worked on languages as the mind’s natural reflections, Andrés worked on literatures as cultural productions. His magnum opus is On the Origins, Progress and Current State of Every Literature60 (1782–1799), the first and as yet unequaled attempt to write a universal comparative history of literature, where ‘literature’ includes both artistic and scientific works. Andrés only managed to publish seven volumes of On the Origins, which remained unfinished. Still, the text was abundantly debated and internationally recognized in literary circles, with Juan Melendez Valdés (1754–1817) subscribing to it in Madrid and August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) acquiring a copy of the princeps edition for his library.61 Like Hervás, Andrés worked for a while as preceptor of the children of an Italian marquess – in his case di Bianchi at Mantua – and created a network of informants and correspondents that included many Spanish ex-Jesuits. But Andrés had a vaster network and more lay relations than Hervás, and was esteemed and employed by temporal rulers. Joseph II visited him in Bologna and Francis I made him Rector of the University of Pavia. As well, and crucially for his job prospects, unlike Hervás, Diosdado and Osuna, Andrés felt no need to reject Napoleon out of loyalty to the pope. Joseph Bonaparte made him Director of Naples’ Royal Library, and Joachim Murat named him Perpetual Secretary of the Academia Herculanense. That Andrés could be employed by both Napoleonic rulers and the Holy Roman Emperor suggests not only his lack of traditionalism, but also his political eclecticism, in particular his ability to conciliate enlightened despotism with the revolutionary progressivism that the Napoleonic project encompassed. Certainly, Hervás also befriended the laity. He corresponded with the Etruscan Academy and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Dublin, and with elite women like Angelica Kaufmann (1741–1807) the painter and Lady Knight, a friend of Lady Hamilton’s. But these relations never led to employment, only to conveniences like Kaufmann painting the only portrait we have of Hervás, and Nelson ordering the British Mediterranean 58 59 60 61

Aullón de Haro, La escuela universalista española, 46–7. For the purposes of historical accuracy, I use the word ‘man’ in the abstract philosophical sense lent to it by 18th- and 19th-century writers, fully aware of, yet harboring no sympathy for, the potentially sexist implications of this usage. Dell’origine, progressi e stato attuale d’ogni letteratura. Aullón de Haro, La escuela universalista, 87n.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

79

Fleet not to molest, and even to aid if necessary, any ship on which Hervás was traveling.62 By comparison with Andrés and Hervás, the radical sensualist Antonio ­Eximeno, Andrés’ close friend and Hervás’ fellow resident in a religious house in Rome, made huge, self-transforming use of the intellectual possibilities opened up by the expulsion and suppression. In a manner radically ­antithetical to his early interests, this author of the celebrated Observations on Venus’ Passage over the Solar Disc63 (d.u.) and former professor of mathematics at Segovia’s College of Artillery alarmed the Italian musical world by arguing, a contrario of the whole Western musical tradition, that music has nothing to do with mathematics. Such was the thesis of On the Origins of Music Rules with the History of their Progress, Decadence and Renewal64 (1774), the founding treatise of ethnomusicology, which argued that music originates in prosody, and is ultimately an expression of feeling. Indeed Eximeno was convinced that ‘true reflection’ was unneeded for ‘man’s operations, which ­proceed from pure instinct’, so that understanding music (and language) required only ‘allowing oneself to be led by “sensations”’.65 In keeping with these principles, Eximeno composed the Philosophico-Mathematical Institutions66 (1796), a treatise on physics, mathematics and psychology inspired by Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding (1689) and Condillac’s Essay on the Origin of Human ­Knowledge67 (1746). Echoing early conservative populism, Eximeno was the first to speak of ‘popular taste’ in music. Recalling Jesuit proto-nationalism, he was also the first to argue that each people should construct its musical system on its national music.68 Though eclectic in thought like his fellow Spanish ex-Jesuits, however, Eximeno was anything but a conservative, as is suggested by his public controversy with the Franciscan and eminent musicologist Giovanni Battista Martini ­(1706–84). Martini suggested that ecclesiastical music derived from Hebrew Psalm chants.69 To this Eximeno retorted that music is the expression of a people’s ethos and feelings and not a tradition inherited from ancient times. His famous argument that counterpoint does not derive from plainsong must be understood in this little noticed anti-historical and anti-traditionalist

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Mendez Ramos, Lorenzo Hervás, 78. Observaciones sobre el paso de Venus por el disco solar. Dell’origine e delle regole della musica colla storia del suo progresso, decadenza, e rinnovazione. Aullón de Haro, La escuela universalista, 197. Instituciones filosófico-matemáticas. Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines. Aullón de Haro, La escuela universalista, 204. Ibid., 202.

80

Armenteros

sense. Worthy of note as well is Eximeno’s postulate of the instinct-expression relationship, which prefigured Benedetto Croce’s (1866–1952) later intuition-­ expression dyad in the field of education. Most relevant for our purposes, however, is the political radicalism that subtly underlay the Spaniard’s ­sensualism. According to Aullón de Haro, there was ‘no kind of insurrection that did not seem recommendable to him’ given his ‘benevolence toward Diderot’s dramatic attempts’, and his sympathy for ‘all the daring episodes of [­ Diderot’s] theatre critique’.70 Eximeno’s revolutionary streak, his adherence to the French Enlightenment and the theoretical nature of his work, which required little collaboration, probably help explain why he enjoyed little patronage in the exceedingly traditionalist Papal States, and indeed of the three founders of the Spanish ­Universalist School he was the least connected and cosmopolitan. If Eximeno abandoned mathematics for radical sensualism, Hervás praised mathematics as a key to divine knowledge. He was persuaded that only geometry was a ‘true science’ and that neither theology nor philosophy could give an idea so clear of the Creator as astronomy.71 This belief, which he shared with Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821),72 set Hervás apart from his fellow universalists. He was the only one who wrote at length on the planets. Volumes 9 and 10 of Idea of the Universe are entitled Ecstatic Trip to the Planetary World,73 while volumes 11–16 are devoted to Earth’s Story.74 These studies of the cosmos were preceded by a volume on the human body, Man’s Anatomy75 (volume 8 of the Idea) and seven volumes on the ages of man – Man’s Conception, Birth, Infancy and Childhood76 (­ volume 1), Man’s Puberty and Youth77 (volume 2), Man’s Virility78 (volumes 3–6), and Man’s Old Age and Death79 (volume 7). Hervás’ main work, then, was an attempt to understand man’s place and experience as a living being in the cosmos, where man possessed ‘greatness […and…] superiority over all visible things’.80 His linguistic work, which comprises the last volumes of Idea, was but the completion of this vaster exercise in philosophical

70 71 72

Ibid., 204. Mendez Ramos, “Lorenzo Hervás Panduro como filósofo”. Carolina Armenteros, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794–1854 (Ithaca: 2011), 200. 73 Viaggio estatico al mondo planetario. 74 Storia della terra. 75 Notomia dell’uomo. 76 Concezione, nascimento, infanzia, e puerizia dell’uomo. 77 Pubertà, e gioventù dell’uomo. 78 Virilità dell’uomo. 79 Vecchiaia, e morte dell’uomo. 80 Hervás, Idea dell’Universo, vol. 1, 26.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

81

anthropology, in which the world’s languages were the outward sign of man’s unique cosmic spiritual status. The Catholic Mass’ many references to humanity’s place in the universe may help explain why, interestingly, cosmic anthropology also formed the core of the work of contemporary Catholic conservatives. Joseph de ­Maistre’s ­St Petersburg Dialogues81 (1821) and Clarification regarding ­Sacrifices82 (1821) reflected on humanity’s place in the cosmos, while Louis de Bonald’s (1754– 1840) Primitive Legislation83 argued that a ternary governs the universe including human relations. Félicité de Lamennais (1782–1854) and Pierre-Simon Ballanche (1776–1847) for their part collaborated on developing a philosophy that embraced ‘by a wholly rational method the entire order of knowledge on the basis of the most simple concept of Being’.84 During his later, socialist years, Lamennais also produced the Sketch of a Philosophy85 (1840–6), which reads like a deist evocation of Maistre’s Dialogues, which the former Breton priest probably conceived while still in the Catholic fold. As derivations of Catholic conservatism, these works delved more into spirituality than politics, and into man’s rapport to the universe than to nations. Whether they were more properly theodicies or anthropologies depends on their historicity, that is on the extent of their focus on the development of human communities overtime. On this last point Hervás departs from the lay conservatives, who had a strong interest in political communities and who, Bonald excepted, developed philosophies of history with politically illustrative capacities. Though Hervás reflects on human society, in particular its need for religion – two of his unpublished manuscripts are titled Man in Religion86 (3 vols.) and Man in Society87 – he does so from an anthropological rather than historical perspective. This is not only at the theoretical, but also at the empirical level, since he contributed to the nascent science of ethnography, composing, in addition to volume 19 of the Idea (on world cultural notions of time and mathematics), a treatise on Basque notions of time88 and a pamphlet on the Mexican calendar.89 Thus though society and culture matter to Hervás, and though the ideal of papal 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg. Éclaircissement sur les sacrifices. Législation primitive. Bernard Reardon, Liberalism and Tradition: Aspects of Catholic Thought in Nineteenth-­ Century France (Cambridge: 1975), 83. Esquisse d’une philosophie. El hombre en religión. El hombre en sociedad. Lorenzo Hervás, “División primitiva del tiempo entre los bascongados usada aún por ellos,” Biblioteca virtual universal, https://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/300097.pdf. Lettera sul calendario messicano.

82

Armenteros

g­ overnment motivates his linguistics, he never resorts to philosophical ­history as a way of understanding human communities. This is because, for him, nations need not craft their own politics, at least in a sophisticated sense. The model state, governed by Catholic morality and a minimum of laws, already exists and is adaptable to all times and places.90 Hervás’ traditionalist conservatism emerges yet again, but this time wholly implicit in his anthropology. A similarly conservative focus on individual life experience as opposed to politics underlies Hervás’ practice of philosophical anthropology as the ­highest speculative science. The first sixteen volumes of Idea, with their description of man’s life course and its cosmic context, suggests this, as does far more briefly Physical Man91 (1800), a two-volume work of Hervás’ post-expulsion years in Spain that studies man’s body and soul, and more specifically man’s experience of himself as an embodied being. Physical Man dwells on the ‘anatomical study of the body and the spirit’, with the anatomy of the spirit being the ‘most noble, as it treats of what is properly man’.92 ‘To banish the fear of his mortality’, Hervás writes, and know himself immortal, the lesson of the book of nature is useless [to man], as he knows, sees and experiences that all the productions which are registered in it are mortal […] in order for man to know himself immortal […] it is necessary that entering into himself, he focuses on himself, and observes, considers and knows himself. Then, with the invisible view of that rational being that thinks in himself and forms his being, he will know that it does not consist in his bodily matter […] that the body is not thinking, nor intrinsically vital, because its parts successively die, and that only its spirit is vital and thinking.93 Only the spirit, writes Hervás, ‘knows, and says: I am; I exist; I live; I think, want and remember: all that I am, is extrinsic to me: I am not the body I animate’.94 This strongly spiritual philosophy highlights the difficulties of likening Hervás without substantial qualifications to someone like Eximeno who defined human beings as fundamentally instinctive. Spiritualism likewise makes it problematic to present Hervás as an enlightener in the sense of someone who considered the reorganization of social and material conditions as the key to human happiness. 90 Mendez Ramos, “Lorenzo Hervás Panduro como filósofo”. 91 El hombre físico. 92 Volume I, no page numbers. 93 El hombre físico, 163–4’. 94 Ibid., 164.

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

83

Though, like the enlighteners, Hervás identifies reason as humanity’s defining quality, his reference to man’s ‘invisible view’ makes plain that for him reason’s highest purpose is to show man that he ultimately belongs to the world of invisible things.95 The place that Hervás lends to the spirit at the center of the subjective universe explains why even his contributions to ethnography focus on cultural notions of time: for him, the key question is man’s self-awareness and self-experience, which is irreducible to reason and only knowable within. 5 Conclusion Hervás’ linguistics and anthropology reveal a thinker who combined nationalist, traditionalist, conservative, cosmopolitan and counter-revolutionary tendencies even while admiring Enlightenment reformism. Within Jesuit circles, he illustrated eminently the eclecticism of 18th-century Spanish and Italian Jesuitism, as well as the cosmopolitanism that had long characterized the Society of Jesus and that was still so much in the air of the post-expulsion Papal States. Beyond Jesuit circles, Hervás’ thought represented the transition from eclecticism to ideology at the time of the birth of ideologies, a worldview where it was still more important to perceive reality the way it is, than to build thought systems to reorganize it. Hervás’ world was a divine one that the human will should not alter, but that the human spirit should perceive and experience deeply. It was in this even more than in Causas’ counter-revolutionary arguments that Hervás’ conservatism emerges. And it is in this above all that he differed from his fellow universalists. If his spiritual philosophy separated him from Eximeno, his subject choices distinguished him from Andrés. Where Andrés studied literature, or products of the human mind, Hervás focused on languages as things-in-theworld; where Andrés compared literatures to judge their intrinsic worth, Hervás compared languages in order to understand the human mind. Andrés evaluated the world of culture; Hervás described that of nature and of man’s self-experience. Indeed even when studying culture, he chose the existential subject of time. In all, Hervás’ scholarship in intellectual context suggests that far from being unitary and homogeneous, the Spanish Universalist School was diverse and heterogeneous, and that rather than be politically well-defined, post-expulsion Jesuitism was an eclectic phenomenon with exceedingly tenuous, mostly implicit, but creative and contributive links to the birth of modern politics.

95

‘And so we have no eyes for things that are visible but only for things that are invisible; for the visible things only last for a time, and the invisible things are eternal’. 2 Cor. 4:18.

84

Armenteros

Hervás’ preference for philosophical anthropology over philosophical history opens up both conceptual and methodological possibilities. After the French Revolution, anthropological and spiritually inspired reflections on man’s place in the universe characterize the work of early Catholic conservatives but are generally absent from that of Enlightenment heirs, whose interests lie more exclusively in society, especially political society. This is so to the extent that philosophical anthropology in the cosmic sense may be a litmus test of early religious conservatism, a set of sensibilities that often escapes scholarly notice given the early conservative repugnance, or simply lack of interest in, political expression. The outburst of Causes excepted, Hervás’ case demonstrates amply how revealing anthropology can be of early conservative thought. Inversely, early conservative contributions to theoretical anthropology and empirical ethnology can throw much light on the early history of these fields, until now presented, with few exceptions, as inventions of lay enlighteners.96 After all, if philosophers strove for a science of man, so did theologians, and for better or worse, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, those with first-hand and lifelong ­knowledge of world cultures and languages were frequently missionaries. Bibliography Armenteros, Carolina, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, ­1794–1854 (Ithaca: 2011). Armenteros, Carolina, “The Enlightened Conservatism of the Malabar Missions: ­Gaston-Laurent Cœurdoux (1691–1779) and the Making of an Anthropological ­Classic,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 6 (2019), 439–66. Astorgano Abajo, Antonio, “El universalista Hervás, propulsor de la literatura jesuítica de los expulsos en la Imprenta Biasini,” Elkasia: revista de filosofía 81 (2018), 461–503. Astorgano Abajo, Antonio, “Álvaro Vigil,” Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe.rah .es/biografias/47189/alvaro-vigil. Astorgano Abajo, Antonio, “Juan de Osuna,” Real Academia de la Historia, http://dbe .rah.es/biografias/20756/juan-de-osuna. Aullón de Haro Pedro, La escuela universalista española del siglo XVIII (Madrid: 2016). Batllori, Miguel, La cultura hispano-italiana de los jesuitas expulsos: españoles, ­hispanoamericanos, filipinos, 1767–1814 (Madrid: 1966). 96

See e.g. Larry Wolff and Marco Cipolloni (eds.), The Anthropology of the Enlightenment (­Stanford: 2007) and Han F. Vermeulen, Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and ­Ethnology in the German Enlightenment (Lincoln: 2015).

Eclectic, Conservative, Cosmopolitan

85

Burson, Jeffrey, The Rise and Fall of Theological Enlightenment: Jean-Martin de Prades and Ideological Polarization in Eighteenth-Century France (Notre Dame, 2010). Causas de la revolución de Francia en el año 1789, y medios de que se han valido para efectuarla los enemigos de la religión y del estado, 2 vols. (Madrid: 1807). Clímaco de Salazar, Juan, Mardoqueo: tragedia en cinco actos (Madrid: 1791). Fabbri, Maurizio, “Conflitto ideologico e polemica anti-Raquel nella tragedia ­Mardoqueo di Juan Clímaco de Salazar,” Finalità ideologiche e problematica letteraria in Salazar, Iriarte, Jovellanos: tre saggi sul teatro spagnolo dell’ultimo Settecento (Pisa: 1974), 9–45. Fuertes Gutierrez, Mara, “Lo que se sabe de Hervás,” Estudios de lingüística del español, 36 (2015), 197–234. Goebl, Hans, Peter H. Nelde, Zdenek Stary, and Wolfgang Wölck (eds.), Kontaktlinguistik / Contact Linguistics / Linguistique de contact: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / An International Handbook of Contemporary Research / Manuel international des recherches contemporaines, 12 vols. (New York and Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), vol. 1, 2. Herrero, Javier, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1971). Hervás, Lorenzo, L’eroismo di Ferdinando Cortese confermato contra le censure nemiche (Rome: 1806). Hervás, Lorenzo, “División primitiva del tiempo entre los bascongados usada aún por ellos,” Biblioteca virtual universal, https://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/300097.pdf. Hervás, Lorenzo, Saggio pratico delle lingue, in Idea dell’Universo, 21 vols. (Cesena: 1787), vol. 21. Mendez Ramos, Sergio, Lorenzo Hervás Panduro como filósofo: antropología, ética, moral y política (Oviedo: 2013). Müller, Max, Lectures on the Science of Language (New York: 1862). Reardon, Bernard, Liberalism and Tradition: Aspects of Catholic Thought in N ­ ineteenth-Century France (Cambridge: 1975). Rocher, Rosane, “The Knowledge of Sanskrit in Europe until 1800,” in History of the Language Sciences: An International Handbook on the Evolution of the Language ­Sciences from the Beginning to the Present, ed. Sylvain Auroux, Ernst Frideryk Konrad Koerner, ­Hans-­Josef Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh (Berlin: 2001), vol. 2, 1156–59. Vermeulen, Han F., Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the G ­ erman Enlightenment (Lincoln: 2015). Wetzer, Heinrich Joseph, Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la théologie catholique (Paris: 1864). Wolff, Larry, and Marco Cipolloni (eds.), The Anthropology of the Enlightenment ­(Stanford: 2007).

CHAPTER 4

Counter-revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy in the Cosmopolitan Public Sphere from 1770s to 1790s: Mallet Du Pan, Barruel and the Philosophes Simon Burrows Jacques Mallet Du Pan’s essay “Du degré d’influence qu’a eu la philosophie française sur la Révolution” [“Of the degree of influence which the French Philosophy has had upon the Revolution”], was one of the most significant essays he ever wrote.1 A partial refutation of the philosophic and freemasonic conspiracy theories popularised throughout Europe by abbé Augustin Barruel’s celebrated Mémoires pour server à l’histoire du jacobinsme français,2 it illustrates the extent to which even one of the most informed, politically moderate and, reputedly, judicious of revolutionary exiles,3 blamed the revolutionary contagion on the enlightenment and its enthusiasts. This essay uses Mallet’s engagement with Barruel’s argument, and the contexts in which it arose, as a starting point to explore the emergence and circulation through the cosmopolitan public sphere and international conservative networks of conservative discourses concerning the dangers of philosophie and demands for liberty, both before and after the outbreak of the French revolution. In the process, it suggests that then, as now, the print public sphere – so often associated in this period with progressive politics4 – was, save in times of revolutionary rupture, structurally conservative to a degree unrecognised hitherto, and shows how key conservative discourses were circulating in Christian apologetic writings and among an elite European audience two decades before the French revolution.

1 Jacques Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence qu’a eu la philosophie française sur la ­Révolution,” Mercure britannique, 10 March 1799, 330–53. 2 Augustin Barruel, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme, 4 vols. (Hamburg: 1798). 3 The assertion that Mallet Du Pan was a moderate dates back to John Emerich Edward ­Dalberg, Lord Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution (London: 1910), 212. 4 The classic statement of the enlightenment era press as essentially progressive is Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: 1989). See also Thomas Munck, Conflict and Enlightenment. Print and Political Culture in Europe, 1635–1795 (Cambridge: 2019). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004446731_004

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

1

87

Mallet, Barruel and the Philosophes

Mallet’s essay, which addressed an elite audience of francophone readers and policy-makers across Europe, was first published in London in his journal, Le Mercure britannique, on 10 March 1799. It was republished five days later in the journal’s English-language edition, The British Mercury, which was translated by the novelist Robert Charles Dallas.5 More than an ideologically-driven essay on contemporary history, the essay was also deeply personal: Mallet knew most of the philosophes he discussed personally. An admirer of his Genevan compatriot Rousseau in his youth, Mallet was also friendly with Voltaire, whose patronage helped procure for him an academic post in Hesse-­Cassel.6 Indeed, as Frances Acomb revealed, the essay is the source for an anecdote once considered apocryphal, concerning the sage of Ferney’s cautious patrician approach to the expression of religious scepticism in public.7 Mallet tells how, at a private dinner attended also by the mathematician, philosophe and future revolutionary Condorcet and the Encyclopédiste d’Alembert, he witnessed Voltaire upbraid his guests for speculating that God did not exist in front of his servants. Voltaire insisted that this was inappropriate, as he feared being robbed or murdered in his bed should his attendants lose their fear of divine punishment.8 There is little reason to doubt the story’s veracity, for the essay was balanced in its treatment of Voltaire, and Mallet, whose austerity and probity are well attested, told and documented other verifiable anecdotes tending to the same effect. Furthermore, as Acomb noted, d’Alembert and Condorcet indeed visited Voltaire at Ferney in 1770, whilst the nineteen-yearold Mallet was still living in Geneva.9 Later in the essay, Mallet clarified Voltaire’s strategy. His writings were intended to convert the governors not the governed, and despite his well-known hostility to the Church, he recognised that religion was a vital social cement, the last bulwark between civilization and bloody anarchy.10 Barruel recognised no such nuance between the chief of the philosophic “sect” and Voltaire’s younger, less cautious acolytes. Barruel’s alleged conspiracy

5

Dallas (1754–1824) was Lord Byron’s biographer and relative by marriage. All English citations in this essay are from Dallas’s translations in the British Mercury. 6 Frances Acomb, Jacques Mallet Du Pan (1749–1800): A Career in Political Journalism (Durham, NC: 1973), 7–18, 20–22. 7 Acomb, Mallet Du Pan, 65–66. 8 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 336–37. 9 Acomb, Mallet Du Pan, 65–66. 10 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 337, 338–40, 341, 347.

88

Burrows

supposedly had deep historical roots and was, as he spelt out in his i­ ntroductory remarks to his Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme, the result of “the coalition of a triple sect, of a triple conspiracy, in which, long before the revolution, the overthrow of the altar, the ruin of the throne and the dissolution of all civil society had been debated and resolved on.”11 He explained the evolution of the conspiracy thus: First, many years before the French Revolution, men who styled themselves Philosophers [philosophes] conspired against the God of the ­Gospel, against Christianity, without distinction of worship … The grand object of their conspiracy was to overturn every altar where Christ was adored. It was the conspiracy of the Sophisters of Impiety, or the ­A NTICHRISTIAN CONSPIRACY.12 A second group of conspirators were the “Sophisters of Rebellion” who coalesced “with that ancient sect whose tenets constituted the whole secret of the Occult Lodges of Free-Masonry” to combine “their conspiracy against kings with the Sophisters of Impiety.”13 Finally, out of these two groups emerged the “Sophisters of Impiety and Anarchy”, the Illuminés, who “conspire not only against Christ and his altars, but against every religion natural and revealed; not only against kings, but against every government, against all civil society, even against all property whatsoever.”14 From this conspiratorial triple alliance, in Barruel’s telling, was ultimately born the Jacobin “sect”.15 In contrast, Mallet was adamant that there had been no general conspiracy, identifiable sect, or unity of purpose among the philosophes.16 Indeed, he noted that many surviving philosophes rejected the revolution, including Raynal and the Encyclopédistes Marmontel, St Lambert and Morellet.17 Furthermore, the philosophes were notorious for their discordant views and public squabbles.18 11 Barruel, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme, I, xv (Translation from Memoirs ­Illustrating the History of Jacobinism. A Translation from the French of the Abbé Barruil [sic], 4 vols (London: 1797–98), I, xxi). 12 Ibid., I, xv-xvi (English translation, Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, p. xxii). 13 Ibid., I, xvi (English translation, Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, p. xxii). 14 Ibid. (English translation, Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, p. xxii). 15 Ibid. 16 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 332. 17 Ibid., 350. 18 Ibid.

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

89

Moreover, they aimed not for “vulgar suffrages” but rather “the conversion of Sovereigns, of Courts, of Ministers, Courtiers, and persons of rank”. 19 In evidence, Mallet quoted a letter to the comte d’Argental from (February) 1769, in which Voltaire argued his aim was not “a revolution, as in the times of Luther and Calvin” but rather a revolution “in the minds of those who are formed to govern.”20 This predilection was evident in both the monarchical tone of Voltaire’s historical writings and his wider rhetorical strategies, which were designed, Mallet insisted, to appeal to a sophisticated, sceptical urbane, worldweary and morally corrupt aristocratic audience.21 Voltaire’s guilt thus went no further than having “premeditated, pursued, and conducted methodically the project of subverting Christianity”22 and mobilizing a body of fanatical youthful believers, who after his death proved capable of political organisation.23 In Mallet’s eyes Rousseau also bore some responsibility, for (through the principles advanced especially in the Discourse on Inequality) he prepared the way for a generalised attack on property. This was a view that dovetailed with Mallet’s deeply-held conviction that the revolutionary dynamic had become a rampage of spoil, culminating in Directorial France’s imperialistic policy in which the Rights of Man served as nothing more to her than “a drowsy potion … in the hands of robbers.”24 Rousseau was also culpable in Mallet’s eyes, both for having through his eloquence “seduced honesty itself”25 and introducing an army of readers from the lower and middling orders to the socially ­revolutionary “doctrine of the sovereignty of the people” and Leveller and Anabaptist ideals of equality.26 Nevertheless, and this was a key point in response to Barruel, Rousseau’s intellectual independence and rejection of his 19 20

Ibid., 333 (English translation: British Mercury, 338). Ibid. (English translation: British Mercury, 338). This letter was published by Theodore ­Besterman in The Complete Works of Voltaire (Oxford: 1968-present), vol. 118, 310, Letter D15, 490. 21 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 347. Mallet lists as Voltaire’s enthusiasts the comte d’Argental, Thibouville, Vilette, and d’Argence and adds that Voltaire even hoped to convert Louis XV’s notorious mistress, the courtesan Madame du Barry. The Marquis de Vilette was France’s most brazen and notorious homosexual and Voltaire’s close friend; the Marquis de Thibouville was also a notorious homosexual; and d’Argence presumably was the libertine novelist the marquis d’Argens. It is not immediately apparent why ­d’Argental is included on this list. 22 Ibid., 349 (English translation: British Mercury, 356). 23 Ibid. 24 Jacques Mallet Du Pan, “Question résultant du tableau des rapines françaises,” Mercure B ­ ritannique, 25 January 1799, 145–54, here 146 (English translation: British Mercury, 130). 25 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 347. (English translation: British Mercury, 354). 26 Ibid., 348 (English translation: British Mercury, 355).

90

Burrows

fellow philosophes left him socially and politically isolated. He was innocent of intriguing with anyone.27 Yet if Mallet rejected Barruel’s conspiracy theories, he shared Barruel’s ­conviction that the philosophes and philosophie bore primary responsibility for the Revolution. For it was, he asserted, a “historical truth beyond all controversy” that a class of opinions equally subversive of religion, morality, and society, had been systematically propagated in France for 60 years past; that a class of men of letters and men of the world had been the promoters, ­partisans, and protectors of those opinions; and that their school has given birth to that crowd of pedants, sophists and demoniacs who from its origin seized upon the Revolution as by right of conquest.28 Further, like Barruel, Mallet proposed a tripartite model to show how p­ hilosophie evolved into jacobinism. Voltaire and his “sectaries” sought “a religious revolution”. Then Rousseau “undecided and inconsistent as to ­Christianity, ­censured the Philosophers [philosophes], and dogmatized Democracy”. Finally, Diderot, “leading the Demoniacs, raved on a Revolution in Church State and Society” and his “branch of the fanatical Illuminati” was responsible for works such as Etienne-Gabriel Morelly’s Code de la nature and d’Holbach’s Christianisme dévoilé, and Système de la nature.29 These works, Mallet asserted, offered “a complete Revolutionary Catechism” and served as a “Manual of all the learned and unlearned Robbers, who have subjugated France since 1789.”30 This ­typology appears to map more of less exactly onto Barruel’s “Sophisters of Impiety”, “Sophisters of Rebellion” and “Sophisters of Impiety and Anarchy.” 2

Mallet Du Pan and the Recent Historiography of the Enlightenment

Mallet’s suggestion that Rousseau, Voltaire and other key early enlightenment thinkers were intellectually radical yet politically cautious is, of course, reminiscent of Jonathan Israel’s suggestion that the first six decades of the 18th century were characterised by a politically moderate enlightenment, which dominated and held in check a more radical strain. Israel argues that this 27 28 29 30

Ibid., 349. Ibid., 331 (English translation: British Mercury, 335). Ibid., 344 (English translation: British Mercury, 350). Ibid. (English translation: British Mercury, 351).

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

91

radical enlightenment was based upon an atheistic, politically radical ‘one substance materialism’ that can be traced back to the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza and re-emerged with new force from around 1770, aided by a more radical generation of philosophes.31 Its key manifestations included Raynal’s Histoire philosophique des Deux Indes – the book Israel claims “made a world r­ evolution”32 – and several texts that loom large in Mallet’s narrative, notably d’Holbach’s materialist masterpieces, Le Christianisme dévoilé and the Système de la nature, works Mallet linked back to Diderot. Tellingly, Mallet also notes that Voltaire recoiled from the arguments in the last of these texts,33 which he indeed refuted in his article ‘Dieu’ in Questions sur l’Encyclopédie.34 The deaths of Rousseau and Voltaire in 1778 play a pivotal role in both ­Mallet’s and Israel’s narratives, passing the leadership of the French enlightenment into more radical (or less responsible) hands. Mallet saw Voltaire’s ­‘sceptre’ as passing to d’Alembert and then rapidly to Condorcet.35 It was ­Condorcet and d’Alembert’s co-editor on the Encyclopédie, Diderot, who were in Mallet’s eyes “the real heads of the revolutionary school”. This chimes with Israel’s reading of their significance, too.36 Yet Mallet’s story is also one of contingency. For although d’Alembert and Condorcet attracted a “flock of raw scholars, who had neither bread, fame, nor talents, all of which they had been often promised by the philosophic cabals”, few would have thought of overthrowing government whilst it retained “some respected Ministers, its power entire, and a habit of liberality towards men of letters”.37 It was only with the meeting of the Assembly of Notables, the “contemptible ministry” of Cardinal Lomenie de Brienne, and calls for 31

Jonathan Israel expounds this idea across 5,000 pages in Radical Enlightenment: P­ hilosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford and New York: 2001); Enlightenment ­Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man (Oxford and New York: 2006); Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750– 1790 (Oxford and New York: 2011); Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (Princeton: 2014) and The Enlightenment that Failed: Ideas, ­Revolution, and Democratic Defeat, 1748–1830 (Oxford and New York: 2020). For a short synopsis see Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton: 2009). 32 Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 413. 33 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 344. 34 The article ‘Dieu’ appeared in volume four. It was also published separately in 1770 as a ­four-page pamphlet under the title Dieu. Réponse de M. de Voltaire au systême de la nature by the Société typographique de Neuchâtel, who distributed over 2,200 copies. 35 Mallet Du Pan, “Du degré d’influence,” 345. 36 Ibid., 350 (English translation: British Mercury, 357). 37 Ibid., 345 (English translation: British Mercury, 352).

92

Burrows

the Estates-General that “the valets of philosophy” began “rallying with the ­populace” and “advising every crime, and justifying them didactically.”38 From that point, Mallet asserted disdainfully, “a swarm of vulgar blaspheming Platos, whose folly and insolence would have made their first institutors blush” poured out from the Clergy, Court, Nobility, Treasury, Bar, Regiments and Lyceums.39 Mallet’s essay might thus be seen as a foundational text of what Annelien de Dijn has labelled “the myth of enlightenment”.40 For all his counter-revolutionary distaste for its values, the enlightenment described by Mallet might be characterised as a fundamentally progressive force. But his interpretation can also be seen as a conservative precursor to Jonathan ­Israel’s radical enlightenment thesis (which de Dijn rejects). It offers a contemporary’s view of the role of enlightenment in revolutionary causation and a first-hand eye-witness historical account of the interplay of ideas, intellectuals, a­ udiences and political life. 3

Conservatism and the Public Sphere

In retrospect, Mallet’s essay also might be considered a culmination and fusion of two key trends of conservative thought that were already emerging in the European public sphere at least two decades before the French revolution. The first was a surprisingly coherent critique of the advance of ‘democratic’ forces in reaction to a perceived international revolutionary threat: this view had been developed by a small cadre of politically influential journalistic commentators, including Mallet himself. The other was a frequently but not invariably conspiratorial discourse concerning the existential philosophic threat to religion that emerged particularly in reaction to D’Holbach (which engaged considerably more writers).41 The remarks which follow explore the interplay and merging of these critiques or discourses; the extent to which a coherent conservative critique linking revolution and a “radical enlightenment” was already in formation even before 1789; and the implication of these observations for

38 39 40

Ibid., 345–46 (English translation: British Mercury, 352). Ibid., 346 (English translation: British Mercury, 353). Annelien de Dijn, “The Politics of Enlightenment from Peter Gay to Jonathan Israel,” ­Historical Journal 55 (2012), 785–805. 41 See Darrin M. McMahon, Enemies of Enlightenment (Oxford: 2002). See also on counter-­ enlightenment Christian pamphleteers, Mark Curran, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment in Pre-Revolutionary Europe (Woodbridge: 2012); Didier Masseau, Les ennemis des ­philosophes. L’antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières (Paris: 2000).

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

93

our understanding of the pan-European public sphere and the e­ mergence of ­conservative ideologies. The pre-revolutionary European public sphere, as initially conceived by ­Jürgen Habermas, was a place of rational and inherently progressive enlightened rational critical discussion and political contestation, where mostly urban (bourgeois) elites could critique, interface with and influence state power and policy.42 Whilst more than two generations of scholars have now grappled with and revised many aspects of the Habermas model, there can be no doubting that across the two centuries preceding the French revolution, there was a growing space, both in a metaphorical and geo-spatial sense, for the articulation and discussion of political ideas in and through print.43 Nevertheless, the market-place of ideas was not a level playing field – like most markets it was rigged in favour of existing powers, which generally tried to exert a monopoly wherever this was possible and hence maintain the status quo. Censorship, prohibitions, financial incentives, legislative structures, and political complaints were all used, by existing elites and authorities (both political and religious), with varying degrees of success, to contain or suppress political discussion.44 Conservative voices thus enjoyed significantly more space for discussing and developing ideologies than their opponents. Nowhere is this more evident than in the discussion of heterodox religious ideas, particularly in the French-speaking world. 4

Philosophie and Anti-Philosophie before the Revolution

In the early 1770s, whilst the French government was distracted by internal political turmoil between royal ministry and the sovereign law courts (the ­Parlements), the baron d’Holbach and his allies launched a systematic propaganda campaign, turning out compelling anonymous original works of materialist propaganda and French translations of the works of leading British free-thinkers, including Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Toland and Collins.45 Probably, few copies of these works reached the French public. Most educated French readers probably learned through the writings of Christian apologists,

42 Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. 43 For a recent reassertion of this view see Munck, Conflict and Enlightenment. 44 On this point see especially Simon Burrows, “French Censorship on the Eve of the Revolution,” in Censorship and the Limits of the Literary. A Global View, ed. Nicole Moore (London and New York: 2015), 13–31; Louise Seaward, “The French Government and the Policing of the Extra-Territorial Print Trade, 1770–1789” (PhD dissertation, University of Leeds: 2013). 45 On this campaign, see Curran, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment.

94

Burrows

both in the periodical press and the more than two hundred responses and refutations that poured off the presses, fed by a combination of outraged piety and clerical careerism, though Protestants and Deists (including Frederick the Great), also sought to refute d’Holbach.46 Multiple forms of evidence suggest that the d’Holbach corpus struggled to penetrate French borders. Such heterodox works were printed abroad, generally in the Dutch Republic, but in comparison to other carefully policed enlightenment classics they seldom appear in the customs confiscations registers.47 To understand what the fuss was all about, then, French readers would have to read against the grain of non-­ specific denunciations, which typically conflated recent pamphlets with the works of previous deists, materialists and epicureans, and generally worked through sermonising denunciations based on repetition and association rather than deep engagement with particular texts.48 Christian apologetic responses to d’Holbach frequently sought to beat the philosophes at their own game.49 Whereas earlier in the century in France and elsewhere, novels had been seen as a frivolous or secular form, containing potentially dangerous social messages, d’Holbach’s respondents saw them as useful tools for challenging heterodox ideas and their libertine social implications in the eyes of a wider audience. Moreover, the idea that the philosophes were an organised sect permeated many of these novels, including Barruel’s Les Helviennes (1780), and served as a “terrific plot device”.50 Collectively novels such as Les Helviennes, Jacob Vernes’s Confidence philosophique (1771), Gérard’s Le Comte de Valmont (1774), Pierre Duval’s La Nouvelle philosophie à vau-l’eau (1775) and Crillon’s Mémoires philosophiques du baron *** (1777) depicted the freethinking libertinism of the philosophes as tending towards self-regarding atheism, hedonism, sexual libertinism, and moral disaster. Typically such works were redemptive, depicting a hero being seduced by p­ hilosophic systems before succumbing to personal catastrophe, despair and finally ­recantation and a reconversion to Christian faith.51 These works hammered home to readers that 46 Ibid. 47 For example, the Parisian customs confiscation register for 1770 to October 1777 records only two confiscations of d’Holbach’s most notorious work, the Système de la nature ­Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS 21, 933. The contents of this register will soon be published in database form at the Mapping Print, Charting Enlightenment website at http://fbtee.uws.edu.au/mpce/ (last accessed 19 October 2020). 48 See Curran, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment. 49 Masseau, Les ennemis des philosophes, 273–74. 50 Curran, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment, 131; Mark Curran, “The Reception of the Works of the Baron d’Holbach in France, 1752–1789” (PhD dissertation, University of Leeds: 2005), 162. 51 See Masseau, Les ennemis des philosophes, 308–12; Curran, “The Reception of the Works of the Baron d’Holbach,” 162–63.

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

95

philosophic libertines had little regard for the bonds of obligation, faith, family and duty that held society together. They also offered a safe space for the development, elaboration and popularisation of fantasies of philosophic conspiracy. Thus even before the revolution, Barruel and his Christian apologist confrères had developed a conservative religious discourse suggesting that materialist philosophes were not only a threat to religion, but also to society writ large, and they viewed this threat in conspiratorial terms.52 Moreover, thanks to Mallet Du Pan’s essay, we know that some of their fears seem to have been shared by the chief philosophe Voltaire himself, who (as noted above) cautioned against indulging in atheistic speculations whilst servants were present. Conservative Christian apologists’ forebodings thus resonated with a wide audience, including some of the more politically moderate intellectuals whose free-thinking theological experiments and scathing Biblical criticism they condemned.53 Further, their apocalyptic pre-revolutionary warnings of the dangers of philosophe-led attacks on religion and society appeared highly prophetic in the aftermath of 1789. They held a broad appeal even to writers as sophisticated and – from the perspective of emigration – politically moderate as Mallet Du Pan. What Mallet took issue with in his 1799 essay was not the attack of Barruel and his confederates on the radical philosophes per se, nor even entirely on their conspiratorial modes of thinking. It was rather the tone-deaf, catch-all nature of the Christian apologist critique. Indeed, Mallet’s claims that both Rousseau and Voltaire, had they survived, would have been horrified, and eventually rejected, by the revolution might be read in part as an attempt to claim them both – together with a moderate strand of enlightenment thought – for the anti-revolutionary cause, if not throne and altar royalism. This also opened the possibility of creating a discursive space in which to attempt to reconcile conservative counter-revolution and revolutionary France. In fact, Mallet Du Pan and his monarchien allies, above all Malouet, had been working on this project for some time, apparently with encouragement from the Bourbon pretender Louis XVIII.54

52 53 54

On this point see also MacMahon, Enemies of Enlightenment, chs.1–2. The enlightenment tradition of Biblical criticism of course goes back to Pierre Bayle and extends through Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique. See Robert Howell Griffiths, Le centre perdu: Malouet et les « monarchiens » dans la Révolution française (Grenoble: 1988), 190–92 and passim; Pierre-André Sayous, Mémoires et correspondance de Mallet du Pan pour servir à l’histoire de la revolution française, 2 vols. (Paris: 1851), II, 102–04; Friedemann Pestel, “Monarchiens et monarchie en exil: conjonctures de la monarchie dans l’émigration française, 1792‒1799,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 382 (2015), 3–29.

96 5

Burrows

Mallet Du Pan and Conservative Networks

Yet Mallet Du Pan’s essay must also be seen as a rejoinder to a suggestion from the British government minister, Lord Hawkesbury. Mallet’s son’s autobiography reveals that when Mallet was preparing to launch the Mercure Britannique, his host, the British loyalist John Reeves, wrote to Hawkesbury. Having consulted, Hawkesbury advised Mallet to consider a three-way collaboration with the pur émigré journalist Jean-Gabriel Peltier and Barruel. Jenkinson thought that together the three publicists might create a “very useful journal”,55 as long as a committed Calvinist like Mallet Du Pan was prepared to work with an ecumenically-minded publicist like Barruel, whose work transcended any Catholic denominational bias. Clearly he feared Mallet Du Pan, not Barruel, might be an ideological zealot. Mallet’s article might therefore credibly be seen in part as a dialogue with the ministry, and self-justification for ignoring the recommendation of a British government minister. That Hawkesbury took a personal an interest in Mallet Du Pan’s journalistic initiative – which attracted around 2,000 subscribers in Britain, France and across Europe56 – is emblematic of the close integration of European conservative political, intellectual and journalistic elites in the 1790s as a result of the struggle against European counter-revolution. Although he had not spent time in Britain prior to 1797, Mallet Du Pan had deep contacts with local conservative elites. His journal’s early sponsors included the British diplomat and spymaster William Wickham and the loyalist agitator Reeves and moral support, if not material, from the ministers Windham and Hawkesbury.57 Mourners at his funeral included leading British loyalists such as Reeves, John Gifford and Mr Bowles; British noblemen and politicians such as Lord Sheffield, the M.P.s Whitshed Keene and Sir John MacPherson, former Governor-General of Bengal, the diplomat John Trevor, later 3rd Viscount Hampden, and the exiled monarchien politicians Malouet and Lally-Tollendal. Shortly afterwards Trevor

55

The incident is mentioned by John-Lewis Mallet, An Autobiographical Retrospective of the First Twenty-Five Years of his Life (Windsor: 1890), 200–01; Sayous, Mémoires et correspondance de Mallet du Pan, II, 365–66. The original letter is held in Balliol College Oxford in the Mallet family papers I. Papers of Jacques (James) Mallet du Pan (1749–1800), M ­ allet 1.04, Liverpool to Reeves, 5 January 1798. On Peltier see: Hélène Maspero-Clerc, Un journaliste contre-révolutionnaire: Jean-Gabriel Peltier (1760–1825) (Paris: 1973); Simon ­Burrows, French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792–1814 (Woodbridge: 2000). 56 On the Mercure britannique’s circulation, see Burrows, French Exile Journalism, 78–80. 57 Mallet, Autobiographical retrospective, 198–201.

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

97

secured a £200 civil list pension for Mallet’s family from Prime Minister William Pitt.58 Eye-witness testimony also records that Mallet Du Pan was a frequent visitor to the Piccadilly bookseller’s shops of Wright, Stockdale, and Hatchard which, as David Fallon has shown recently, functioned as significant centres of conservative sociability and political-literary networks in the 1790s and 1800s.59 There, according to a letter written by Wright’s apprentice, John Upcott, 45 years later, he would have encountered “literary men of the highest order” including – among others – Pitt, Edmund Burke, George Canning, Hawkesbury, Lord Nelson, Lord St Vincent, General Moore, Arthur Murphy, George Stevens, George Rose, William Gifford, Charles Burney, the French poet Jacques Delille “(who usually called with Mr Canning)”, Mallet’s good friend Lally-Tollendal, as well as “Mons. Calonne and the most considerable of the French emigrants.”60 Several of these individuals were heavily involved at various periods with ­British loyalist propagandising and the international campaigns of the French émigré press, including Mallet Du Pan’s journal.61 Indeed, Wright’s shop was the centre for the production of the ministerial Anti-Jacobin or Weekly Examiner, edited by Mallet’s associate William Gifford, which was supposedly the brain-child of then rising-Pittite star George Canning, as well as its successor paper the Anti-Jacobin Review.62 Mallet Du Pan’s monarchien friends and allies Montlosier and Mounier were among the contributors.63 Yet equally Mallet Du Pan’s networks were international, as befitted a ­Genevan journalist who had risen to prominence as the political editor of France’s foremost literary-political periodical, the Mercure de France in the 1780s and early 1790s, before being targeted by Jacobin activists for his constitutional monarchist leanings.64 After leaving France in the spring of 1792, he supplied regular political correspondence to statesmen serving the courts of Vienna, 58 59

Ibid., 250–51. David Fallon, “Piccadilly Booksellers and Conservative Sociability,” in Sociable Places. ­Locating Culture in Romantic-Period Britain, ed. Kevin Gilmartin (Cambridge: 2017), 70–94. 60 William Upcott letter of January 1845 published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, new series 26 (December 1846), 603 cited in ibid., 73. The letter mentions Mallet du Pau [sic] by name. 61 Burrows, French Exile Politics. 62 Fallon, “Piccadilly Booksellers,” 76. 63 Emily Lorraine de Montluzin, The Anti-Jacobins 1798–1800. Early Contributors to the Anti-Jacobin Review (Basingstoke and London: 1988), 118–21, 122–23. 64 Acomb, Mallet Du Pan, 158–252. On his targeting by the revolutionaries see William J. M ­ urray, The Right-Wing Press in the French Revolution, 1789–1792 (Woodbridge: 1986), 98–102.

98

Burrows

Berlin, Lisbon and London, as well as the émigré princes in exile. Subscribers to the Mercure britannique included “the [British] Ministers”, George III’s sons, most of London’s foreign diplomatic corps, Tsar Paul I of Russia and the one-time allied commander the Duke of Brunswick.65 But Mallet also corresponded with some of the other most significant conservative journalists in Europe, notably Friedrich von Gentz, who became political advisor to Prince Metternich, and claimed to have modelled his own journal on the Mercure britannique.66 Equally, Mallet’s son recounts how as the Mercure britannique took off, their family home became a veritable salon for the most politically influential European exiles then resident in London. Its habitués included the archbishops of Aix and Bordeaux, the prince de Poix, the Vendéan leader and later Napoleonic general Bourmont, the Corsican exile Pozzo di Borgo, and the Genevan exile intellectual elite, notably Etienne Dumont, Saladin Egerton and François d’Ivernois.67 6

Journalistic Networks and Cosmopolitan Conservatism

The picture which emerges from such close networks and connections between publicists such as Mallet Du Pan and politicians and agitators in ­Britain and Europe is that by the mid-1790s, if not earlier, conservative propaganda efforts were closely linked and not infrequently co-ordinated across Europe. This impression is reinforced by the biographies of other, less prominent émigré journalists such as Peltier (who in 1800 defended William Gifford in a violent fracas with the Tory-baiting poet John Wolcot a.k.a. ‘Peter Pindar’ at Wright’s premises),68 the comte de Montlosier (who co-edited the Courier de Londres with Calonne’s brother), Jacques Regnier (who enjoyed the patronage of Canning and the counter-revolutionary spymaster the comte d’Antraigues) or François Suleau, who edited a brief-lived Journal de la Contre-Révolution at Neuwied on behalf of the émigré princes.69 Evidence suggesting that the Anti-Jacobin titles were co-ordinated by Canning, or that the émigré Princes’ council at Coblentz generally began its daily proceedings by preparing articles 65 Mallet, Autobiographical retrospective, 210; Burrows, French Exile Journalism, 64. 66 Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, 1968/28 D.O., Gentz to Mallet Du Pan, 15/19 January 1799; MS Suppl. 976 fos. 167–70, Gentz to d’Ivernois, Berlin, 18 October 1799. On Gentz and cosmopolitan conservatism see Raphaël Cahen, Friedrich Gentz 1764–1832. Penseur post-Lumières et acteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2016). 67 Mallet, An Autobiographical Retrospective, 212–13. 68 Fallon, “Piccadilly Booksellers,” 82. 69 On the journalistic operations of these individuals see Burrows, French Exile Journalism; Murray, The Right-Wing Press; Maspero-Clerc, Un journaliste contre-révolutionnaire.

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

99

for publication in sympathetic papers across Europe, adds further weight and colour to the picture.70 Yet linkages across and between conservative cosmopolitan francophone periodicals had deep roots in the pre-revolutionary period. From the late 1760s it is possible to discern the development of a pan-European conservative discourse on their pages. This coincided with the emergence of in editorial content, albeit in embryonic form, on the pages of the so-called “international gazettes” which from the Huguenot diaspora to the age of the French revolution served as Europe’s elite press, or newspapers of record.71 This space was nevertheless limited, both by conventions surrounding the traditional form of the gazette and practicalities linked to censorship and the fear of offending governments in the states where the gazettes were based and the need to retain access to their main market (i.e. France). By tradition, the gazettes offered a miscellaneous diet of mostly political news information, reported, in a regular order, from the place where reports originated. These reports were usually published more or less verbatim as received, under the dateline of the place of origin, and the impression of objectivity and reliability was maintained by giving accounts of contentious news from several places. Readers were expected to make sense of competing versions of the news for themselves.72 Generally, too, gazettes did not give news local to their place of publication, or did so only with prior approval. But from the 1760s this began to change, not least because the Bourbon government opened up the French market, allowing gazettes to circulate via the French postal system on condition that they did not offend the government.73 At the same time, political turmoil across much of Europe and in North America from 1768 until 1789 led journalists on the international gazettes to take positions for or against political movements both in their home states and abroad, albeit under the watchful eyes of local authorities.74 Equally the need for business and political elites to access reliable and up-­ to-date political and commercial news information gave editors significant ­leeway to express opinions. Usually this story of creeping liberalisation of the European elite press has been told from the perspective of progressive politics. For example, Jeremy 70 Burrows, French Exile Journalism, 95–96. 71 Jeremy D. Popkin, News and Politics in the Age of Revolution: Jean Luzac’s Gazette de Leyde (Ithaca, NY: 1989). See also Henri Duranton, Claude Labrosse and Pierre Rétat (eds.), Les gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Saint-Etienne: 1992). 72 Simon Burrows, “The Cosmopolitan Press,” in Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820, ed. Hannah Barker and idem (Cambridge: 2002), 23–47. 73 Gilles Feyel, “La diffusion des gazettes étrangères en France et la revolution postale des années 1750,” in Les gazettes européennes, ed. Duranton, Labrosse and Rétat, 81–99. 74 Popkin, News and Politics.

100

Burrows

Popkin’s classic study of the Gazette de Leyde stresses how from 1772, under the guidance of Jean Luzac, the paper became Europe’s paper of record, chronicling the American and Dutch patriotic revolts with considerable sympathy, and supporting the insurgent case for political liberty and representative government against the incursions of the British monarchy or the Dutch Stadhouderate. It was thus a mouthpiece for representative if not democratic forms of government.75 The other Dutch gazettes, produced in La Haye, Utrecht and ­Amsterdam, generally followed a fairly similar line. Other studies have stressed, for example, how the Courrier d’Avignon or the London-based Courier de l­ ’Europe covered British parliamentary affairs during the American revolution and introduced readers to the conceptual language of constitutional government.76 More generally, liberal journalists such as Luzac tended to depict the political struggles of the day as a clash between monarchic, absolutist forces and their constitutionalist opponents, who variously demanded liberties based on both (sometimes imaginary) ancient rights and rational principles.77 7

Conservative Journalism in Pre-revolutionary Europe

This was a worldview with which the more conservative voices in the cosmopolitan press largely agreed, save that they sided with a strong central authority, seeing it as a more reliably transformative force. Most prominent among these conservative journalists was Luzac’s arch-rival, Jean Manzon, editor of the C ­ ourier du Bas-Rhin, which was produced in the Prussian Rhineland territory of Cleves. Like Luzac, Manzon saw the European world as being locked in a ­Manichean struggle between liberty and monarchy, but, an outspoken advocate for the Dutch Stadhouder, he repeatedly came out on the side of the latter. This position seems to have stemmed from genuine ideological conviction, in which Manzon persisted deep into the 1790s, when Prussian arms could no longer protect him and he faced persecution from pro-French forces and ­financial ruin.78 75

Ibid. Jean Luzac’s cousin Elie Luzac, a moderate conservative thinker, features in Wyger ­ elema’s chapter on the intellectual origins of Dutch conservativism in this volume. V 76 Gunnar and Mavis von Proschwitz, Beaumarchais et le Courier de l’Europe: documents inédits ou peu connus, 2 vols., SVEC 273–4 (Oxford: 1990), I, 22–24; Jack R. Censer, “English Politics in the Courrier d’Avignon,” in Press and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France, ed. idem and Jeremy D. Popkin (Berkeley and Los Angeles: 1987), 170–203. 77 Popkin, News and Politics. 78 J. J. V. M. de Vet, “Le Courier du Bas-Rhin de Jean Manzon et les Provinces-Unies (1787–1795): un traitement idéologique de l’information,” in Les gazettes européennes, ed. ­Duranton,

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

101

A pronounced preference for absolute monarchy could also be found in the journalism of the controversialist lawyer and maverick self-publicist, Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet, whose celebrated Annales civiles, politiques, et littéraires, launched in April 1777 and edited from London and later Brussels, were required reading at Versailles and enjoyed a significant vogue, though repeatedly held up by French customs. Linguet’s journal existed primarily as a soapbox for Linguet himself, who habitually presented himself as a victim of ministerial persecution and spokesman for the impoverished masses. Linguet’s periodical format was first and foremost an experiment with essay journalism, in which he expounded absolutism as the only vehicle capable of overcoming the resistance of entrenched elites to achieve the radical reforms he believed vital to preventing violent social revolutionary excess.79 Linguet was for some time assisted in his venture by Mallet Du Pan, who made his editorial debut as continuator of the Annales after Linguet was lured to Paris and arrested.80 A similarly ambiguously conservative voice was provided by the Courier de l’Europe under the editorship of former scandalmonger Charles-Claude Théveneau de Morande (1784–1791), a secret agent for the French police, navy and foreign ministry, who styled himself a patriote royalist. Morande’s venality, cynicism and vitriolic clashes with journalists of all persuasions, including Linguet, Mirabeau, Brissot and Marat, have hitherto masked the ideological consistency of his journalism. From 1787, as the revolution approached, Morande was able to find an independent editorial voice, and made pioneering use of editorial essays in the French cosmopolitan press, drawing on British examples. A champion of strong royal executive power, which he believed essential to “the strength and the grandeur of the kingdom”,81 Morande was nevertheless a long-standing opponent of ministerial despotism who tried to balance revolutionary and royal reformism, a tight-rope act that would become increasingly difficult over time. But in the revolution’s early stages this goal appeared attainable, if monarch and Third Estate operated together to outflank the opposition of noble, clerical and legal-parlementaire elites.82 Labrosse and Rétat, 107–20; François Moureau, “Lumières et libertés vues de Cleves par le Courier du Bas-Rhin de 1768,” in Le concept de liberté dans l’espace rhénan supérieur, ed. ­Raymond Oberlé (Gap: 1976), 77–88. 79 See Darline Gay, The Ideas and Careers of Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet: A Study in ­Eighteenth-Century French Politics (Urbana, IL: 1980). 80 Acomb, Mallet Du Pan, 106–40. 81 Le Courier de l’Europe, 1 January 1788. 82 Simon Burrows, A King’s Ransom: The Life of Charles Théveneau de Morande, Blackmailer, Scandalmonger & Master-Spy (London and New York: 2010), ch. 8, ‘The First Revolutionary Journalist’.

102

Burrows

Finally, Mallet Du Pan himself, in his early pamphleteering and in his j­ournalism in the political pages of the influential and widely-read Mercure de France, developed a critique of democratic forces, which he saw as ­incompatible with liberty. The germ of this thinking was evident even in his earliest ­pamphlet, written under the influence of Voltaire in response to the civil strife which wracked Mallet’s patrie from 1768. This Compte-rendu de la défense des citoyens bourgeois de Genève (1771) offered an apology for the ­disenfranchised natifs, who were excluded from direct participation in Genevan political life on the grounds of their foreign ancestry. Whilst ostensibly radical in challenging the political status quo, the pamphlet also attacked the doctrine of popular sovereignty and denounced the demagogic tendencies of the ascendant représentatif faction in the city’s legislative councils. These were themes he continued to develop as a professional journalist from 1777. By the outbreak of the revolution Mallet had been preaching suspicion of demagoguery and the incompatibility of liberty and democracy for nearly two decades.83 None of these conservative journalists could be styled reactionary. Most had progressive inclinations, tempered by anxieties over the dangers inherent in reform and fears of democratic forces. Manzon, for example, was an advocate of penal reform and even d’Holbachian materialism (which naturally led to temporary interdictions for his work in France).84 Linguet called for radical social reforms from above to stave off social revolution, and during the early revolution put some of his progressive ideas into action on his estates.85 Together with Mallet Du Pan and Morande, Linguet even cautiously welcomed the revolution in its early, constitutional monarchist phase. 8 Humanitarianism, Abolitionism and Social Revolution in Conservative Journalism Pre-revolutionary conservative journalism thus frequently articulated humanitarian concerns in combination with prescient forebodings of social revolution. This outlook drew on organic views of society and emphasised the violence and dislocations which might emerge from sudden dramatic change. Such a prophetic, shared, proto-Burkean worldview made the conservative response to revolution all the more powerful, and all the more cosmopolitan. Conservative forebodings took many forms. For example, Morande’s strident 83 Acomb, Mallet Du Pan. 84 Vet, “Le Courier du Bas-Rhin”; Moureau, “Lumières et libertés vues de Cleves”. 85 Levy, Linguet, 320–28.

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

103

campaigns against British abolitionist plans to end the slave trade articulated a pragmatic caution rather than absolute opposition. Rather than instant abolition of the trade and slavery, he argued for a gradualist amelioration of the trade and for a Spanish-style progressive liberation of slaves, under which they would be allowed a day’s free labour per week and be permitted to buy more days over time. Such a transition, in line with progressive conservative thinking, would allow both the enslaved and the colonial economy to adjust to freedom, and thus shield both from the shock and dislocation of a sudden emancipation, whilst compensating former slave owners.86 This idea and practice of paying reparations for the loss of ‘property’ in bonded labour remained widespread across Europe and her colonial possessions.87 On returning to France to defend the dying monarchy in 1791, Morande castigated the French abolitionist Société des Amis des Noirs and their leader, the priggish and idealistic young philosophe Jacques-Pierre Brissot, as irresponsible fomenters of colonial revolt, going as far as to suggest that Brissot (who he had met and detested) was working at the behest of the British.88 The outbreak of bloodily contested slave rebellions and inter-racial civil war and anarchy from 1791 in the rich French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue (which became Haiti in 1804) and the subsequent descent into warlordism both before and long after the 1793 slave liberation decree and de facto independence seemed to many Europeans to prove the prescience of such warnings, and these beliefs were reinforced by international propaganda campaigns aimed at promoting “the famous ‘black fear’”.89 Nor was this the only apocalyptic bloodshed that conservatives could accuse Brissot and his allies of irresponsibly working to precipitate. For from the autumn of 1791, as a newly elected representative in the Legislative Assembly, and in the Jacobin Club, Brissot led the charge to war, believing that it would 86 87

Courier de l’Europe, 4 September 1787; 5 February 1788. The principle of reparations was central to the British abolition act of 1833 (3° & 4° Gulielmi IV, cap. LXXIII, ‘An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British ­Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves’, 28 August 1833) and to France’s extortion by gunboat of crippling compensation from Haiti in 1825 to compensate former slaveholders for losses resulting from the Haitian revolution and the French emancipation decree of 1793. In Russia, emancipated serfs paid compensation to their owners from 1861 through to the 1905 revolution; Austrian peasants remunerated their former owners through taxes. 88 Burrows, A King’s Ransom, 194–95, 203. 89 Digna Castaneda de Fuetes, “The Haitian Revolution: Legacy and Actuality,” International Journal of Cuban Studies 2 (2010), 286–300, here 296. On émigré journalism’s role in shaping views of the Haitian revolt see Burrows, French Exile Journalism, 168–76.

104

Burrows

isolate the King. A celebrated victim of royal ‘despotism’ himself, who had spent time in the Bastille, Brissot had also, in all probability, swallowed his own rhetoric that the peoples of Europe would reject the chains of their e­ xisting rulers and rally to the standards of the free French armies wherever they appeared.90 This delusion unleashed more than 20 years of near continuous warfare, in which the French would increasingly resort to mass ­mobilization, total war and, eventually, imperialistic expansion, which led critics such as Mallet Du Pan to conclude that the revolution was nothing more than a rampage of spoil. Having seized the assets of the Church and the émigrés, and defrauded its population through the introduction of rapidly devaluing paper currencies not just once but twice, it turned to naked colonial exploitation to fund its predatory armies and ward off economic, moral and political collapse.91 9 Conclusions Mallet Du Pan’s treatment of the malign influence of enlightenment philosophy, written after a decade of revolution, shows a notable convergence between the author and the conspiracy theorists he sought to refute. Whilst he rejected their assertions that the French revolution emerged from a conspiracy, M ­ allet and his opponents shared a remarkably similar view of the e­ volution and impact of philosophe thought, which he believed to be politically as well as religiously radical. This harmonisation of views grew from long-matured cosmopolitan conservative discourses and habits of thought, as well as immersion in tightly-knit international counter-revolutionary sociable and publishing networks where intellectuals and propagandists rubbed shoulders with publishers, aristocrats and senior political actors. Furthermore, Mallet Du Pan’s essay formed part of a more general critique of revolutionary excess, which fused together a narrative denunciation of the destabilizing influence of anti-­ Christian ­philosophe zealots with political, economic and moral claims about revolution as democratic anarchy. This chapter has traced the emergence of both these discourses in the cosmopolitan public sphere across at least two decades before the French revolution. This very prevalence suggests that, save in moments of revolutionary disturbance, the European public sphere may have been more conducive to conservative than radical thought. This case study therefore concludes that the revolution was important to the intellectual development of cosmopolitan conservatism more for popularising 90 91

See Simon Burrows, “The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot,” Historical Journal 46 (2003), 843–71. See Burrows, French Exile Journalism, 161–62.

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

105

and fusing divergent strands of conservative thought than for developing new ideologies, particularly beyond the elite. Conversely, it suggests that key forms of ‘radical enlightenment’ discourse discussed by cosmopolitan conservatives (particularly those around religion) were more contained or marginalised than they or much existing literature would suggest, even after the 1770s watershed identified by Jonathan Israel. The grip of traditional religious forces over pre-revolutionary discourse appears to have been underestimated by historians: generally, the public sphere was a more conducive laboratory for developing conservative than radical ideas. Within this public sphere, the rudiments of an international, cosmopolitan conservative ideology were emerging well before the revolutionary maelstrom. Cosmopolitan conservative ideologies were watered, rather than created, by the blood of [counter-] revolutionary martyrs. Bibliography Acomb, Frances, Jacques Mallet Du Pan (1749–1800): A Career in Political Journalism (Durham, NC: 1973). Barruel, Augustin, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme, 4 vols. (Hamburg: 1798). Burrows, Simon, A King’s Ransom: The Life of Charles Théveneau de Morande, Blackmailer, Scandalmonger & Master-Spy (London and New York: 2010). Burrows, Simon, “French Censorship on the Eve of the Revolution,” in Censorship and the Limits of the Literary. A Global View, ed. Nicole Moore (London and New York: 2015), 13–31. Burrows, Simon, French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792–1814 (Woodbridge: 2000). Burrows, Simon, “The Cosmopolitan Press,” in Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820, ed. Hannah Barker and Simon Burrows ­(Cambridge: 2002), 23–47. Burrows, Simon, “The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot,” Historical Journal 46 (2003), 843–71. Cahen, Raphaël, Friedrich Gentz 1764–1832. Penseur post-Lumières et acteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2016). Castaneda de Fuetes, Digna, “The Haitian Revolution: Legacy and Actuality,” ­International Journal of Cuban Studies 2 (2010), 286–300. Censer, Jack R., “English Politics in the Courrier d’Avignon,” in Press and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France, ed. Jack R. Censer and Jeremy D. Popkin (Berkeley and Los Angeles: 1987), 170–203. Curran, Mark, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment in Pre-Revolutionary Europe ­(Woodbridge: 2012).

106

Burrows

Curran, Mark, “The Reception of the Works of the Baron d’Holbach in France, ­1752–1789” (PhD dissertation, University of Leeds: 2005). Dalberg, John Emerich Edward, Lord Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution,­ (London: 1910). Dijn, Annelien de, “The Politics of Enlightenment from Peter Gay to Jonathan Israel,” Historical Journal 55 (2012), 785–805. Duranton, Henri, Claude Labrosse and Pierre Rétat (eds.), Les gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Saint-Etienne: 1992). Fallon, David, “Piccadilly Booksellers and Conservative Sociability,” in Sociable Places. Locating Culture in Romantic-Period Britain, ed. Kevin Gilmartin (Cambridge: 2017), 70–94. Feyel, Gilles, “La diffusion des gazettes étrangères en France et la revolution postale des années 1750,” in Les gazettes européennes, ed. Henri Duranton, Claude Labrosse and Pierre Rétat (Saint-Etienne: 1992), 81–99. Gay, Darline, The Ideas and Careers of Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet: A Study in ­Eighteenth-Century French Politics (Urbana, IL: 1980). Griffiths, Robert Howell, Le centre perdu: Malouet et les « monarchiens » dans la R ­ évolution française (Grenoble: 1988). Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: 1989). Israel, Jonathan, The Enlightenment that Failed: Ideas, Revolution, and Democratic Defeat, 1748–1830 (Oxford and New York: 2020). Israel, Jonathan, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton: 2009). Israel, Jonathan, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750–1790 (Oxford and New York: 2011). Israel, Jonathan, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man (Oxford and New York: 2006). Israel, Jonathan, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, ­1650–1750 (Oxford and New York: 2001). Israel, Jonathan, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre (Princeton: 2014). Mallet Du Pan, Jacques, “Du degré d’influence qu’a eu la philosophie française sur la Révolution,” Mercure britannique, 10 March 1799, 330–53. Mallet Du Pan, Jacques, “Question résultant du tableau des rapines françaises,” M ­ ercure Britannique, 25 January 1799, 145–54. Mallet, John-Lewis, An Autobiographical Retrospective of the First Twenty-Five Years of his Life (Windsor: 1890). Maspero-Clerc, Hélène, Un journaliste contre-révolutionnaire: Jean-Gabriel Peltier (1760–1825) (Paris: 1973).

Counter-Revolution, Conservatism and Conspiracy

107

Masseau, Didier, Les ennemis des philosophes. L’antiphilosophie au temps des Lumières (Paris: 2000). McMahon, Darrin M., Enemies of Enlightenment (Oxford: 2002). Montluzin, Emily Lorraine de, The Anti-Jacobins 1798–1800. Early Contributors to the Anti-Jacobin Review (Basingstoke and London: 1988). Moureau, François, “Lumières et libertés vues de Cleves par le Courier du Bas-Rhin de 1768,” in Le concept de liberté dans l’espace rhénan supérieur, ed. Raymond Oberlé (Gap: 1976), 77–88. Munck, Thomas, Conflict and Enlightenment. Print and Political Culture in Europe, ­1635–1795 (Cambridge: 2019). Pestel, Friedemann, “Monarchiens et monarchie en exil: conjonctures de la monarchie dans l’émigration française, 1792‒1799,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 382 (2015), 3–29. Popkin, Jeremy D., News and Politics in the Age of Revolution: Jean Luzac’s Gazette de Leyde (Ithaca, NY: 1989). Proschwitz, Gunnar and Mavis von, Beaumarchais et le Courier de l’Europe: documents inédits ou peu connus, 2 vols. (Oxford: 1990). Sayous, Pierre-André, Mémoires et correspondance de Mallet du Pan pour servir à ­l’histoire de la revolution française, 2 vols. (Paris: 1851). Seaward, Louise, “The French Government and the Policing of the Extra-Territorial Print Trade, 1770–1789” (PhD dissertation, University of Leeds: 2013). Vet, J. J. V. M. de, “Le Courier du Bas-Rhin de Jean Manzon et les Provinces-Unies ­(1787–1795): un traitement idéologique de l’information,” in Les gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles), ed. Henri Duranton, Claude Labrosse and Pierre Rétat (Saint-Etienne: 1992), 107–20.

CHAPTER 5

Enlightenment against Revolution: The Genesis of Dutch Conservatism Wyger R.E. Velema Powerful and appealing historical myths are extraordinarily tenacious and die hard. One such myth with which students of 18th-century political thought have to do battle over and over again is that of the linear and direct relationship between the Enlightenment and the political revolutions of the late 18th century. This particular myth has a very long pedigree, going back to the late 18th century itself, has reigned virtually unchallenged until the final decades of the last century, and still seems to be alive and well today, despite all scholarly criticism that has been aimed at it. It derives its considerable power and great longevity from its clarity and simplicity. The 18th century, so the myth goes, saw the rise of a modern, enlightened and progressive world view, in which human beings were regarded as equal, or at least as equal in rights. The only possible outcome of the spread of this new outlook was political revolution, since the rational and egalitarian worldview of the Enlightenment was completely incompatible with the traditionalist and religious legitimation of the institutions of what would soon become known as the old regime.1 Those who turned against this late 18th-century assault on the established order and who would, from the early 19th century on, be called political conservatives therefore were, or so the logic of the myth goes, enemies of both the Enlightenment and of its offspring, the democratic revolutions.2 Conservatism, in other words, found its origin in resistance against the combined horrors of Enlightenment and revolution. Yet however appealing this story may be and however convincing it may sound, it is completely untenable and demonstrably false. There are a great 1 Among the most influential statements of this thesis is Peter Gay’s grand synthesis The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York: 1966–69). 2 A classic formulation of this view is Isaiah Berlin, “The Counter-Enlightenment,” in I­saiah Berlin, Against the Current. Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy (London: 1979), 1–24. For the further and more recent historiographical development of this theme see for instance Darrin M. McMahon, Enemies of the Enlightenment. The French Counter-­ Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001) and Matthijs Lok, “Vijanden van de Verlichting. ­Antiverlichting en Verlichting in de Europese intellectuele geschiedenis,” ­Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 127 (2014), 211–28. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004446731_005

Enlightenment against Revolution

109

many reasons for this, of which only the two most prominent and important ones will be briefly mentioned here. First of all, historical research since roughly the last quarter of the 20th century has made it abundantly clear that the Enlightenment was a much more complex and much less unitary phenomenon than had always been supposed. Historians have started to distinguish between different types of Enlightenment along national lines, but they have also broken up the international Enlightenment into various varieties such as a moderate Enlightenment and a radical Enlightenment.3 Indeed, some prominent historians have even suggested that we should drop the definite article altogether and should cease to speak about the Enlightenment.4 Secondly, the historical interpretation of the ideological origins of the revolutions of the late 18th century has dramatically changed. This is partly due to the fact that historians have recognized that the newly discovered complexity of Enlightenment thought has made it virtually impossible to establish a direct and clear link between Enlightenment on the one hand and the program of the various late 18th-century revolutions on the other. It is however also due to the fact that historians have increasingly realized that the revolutionary ideology of the late 18th century can at least in part be traced back to patterns of political thought which had little or nothing to do with Enlightened thought and derived from, for instance, the heritage of early modern classical republicanism.5 These two profound shifts in the historical analysis of Enlightenment and revolution have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the ways in which the established order could be and was defended during the 18th century. The realization that there was no necessary or inevitable clash between many varieties of enlightened thought and the established political order during the 18th century has made it impossible any longer to regard the concept of enlightened conservatism as a contradictio in terminis. J.G.A. Pocock has repeatedly pointed out that there existed such a thing as a “conservative Enlightenment” and 3 Essential publications include Roy Porter and Mikuláš Teich (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: 1981); Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: ­Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: 1981); Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: 2001). 4 John G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols. (Cambridge: 1999–2015); idem, “Historiography and Enlightenment: A View of their History,” Modern Intellectual History 5 (2008), 83–96. 5 Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: 1969); Franco Venturi, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: 1971); John G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: 1975); Keith M. Baker, “Transformations of Classical Republicanism in Eighteenth-Century France,” Journal of Modern History 73 (2001), 32–53.

110

Velema

in the context of Dutch history it was E.H. Kossmann who pioneered the use of the term “enlightened conservatism” as early as 1966.6 Despite the persistence of the myth of the politically progressive Enlightenment, this view has now become widely accepted and has even found its way into publications for a broader public. Jerry Muller, the editor of an excellent and widely used anthology of conservative political writing first published in 1997, aptly summarizes it with his observation that “Conservatism arose not against the Enlightenment but within it.” 7 Yet apart from opening our eyes to the existence of 18th-century enlightened conservatism, the revisionist historiography on Enlightenment and revolution also points the way to surprising conclusions about the content of 18th-century conservatism. Conservatism, whether enlightened or not, is often associated with a deep traditionalism and has even, in a famous essay by the sociologist Karl Mannheim, been described as developing out of unreflective traditionalism, as traditionalism made conscious of itself.8 Yet the enlightened conservatism of the 18th century does not quite seem to fit into this model. It was largely formulated in opposition to the perceived threats posed by the late 18th-century revolutions, yet in opposing these revolutions enlightened conservatives were defending what they regarded as a distinctly modern social and political order against an onslaught in the name of either pre-social natural rights or ancient political virtue. It may therefore well be that the enlightened conservatives should paradoxically be regarded as the true moderns of the 18th century. 1

In Praise of the Republic

In order to further explore the interpretation of Enlightenment conservatism as the defense of modernity against revolutionary regression, this chapter will discuss the genesis and nature of enlightened conservative thought in the

6 John G.A. Pocock, “Clergy and Commerce. The Conservative Enlightenment in England,” in L’Età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, 2 vols. (Naples: 1985), vol. 1, 524–62; idem, “Conservative Enlightenment and Democratic Revolutions: The American and French Cases in British Perspective,” Government and Opposition 24 (1989), 81–105; idem, “Josiah Tucker on Burke, Locke, and Price. A Study in the Varieties of 18th-Century Conservatism,” in Virtue, Commerce, and History. Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century, ed. idem, (Cambridge: 1985), 157–91; Ernst H. Kossmann, Verlicht conservatisme: over Elie Luzac (Groningen: 1966). 7 Jerry Z. Muller, “Introduction: What Is Conservative Social and Political Thought?,” in ­Conservatism. An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present, ed. idem (Princeton: 1997), 3–31, here 24. 8 Karl Mannheim, “Conservative Thought,” in From Karl Mannheim, ed. Kurt H. Wolff (New York: 1971), 132–222.

Enlightenment against Revolution

111

Dutch Republic during the second half of the 18th century. This was a period in which many Dutchmen became convinced that their country was in a state of deep moral, political and economic decline and was teetering on the brink of total collapse. Such worries were at the basis of the various movements for reform that sprang up in the Dutch Republic from the late 1770s on. The deplorable state of the country, these Patriot reformers maintained in a political discourse which combined elements from classical republicanism with the Enlightenment notion of inalienable natural rights, could only be remedied by the introduction of a democratic and representative government.9 It was in the effort to counter such claims and proposals that Dutch enlightened conservatism took shape in the writings of a remarkably talented group of Dutch political thinkers during the final decades of the 18th century – Elie Luzac, Adriaan Kluit, Rijklof Michael van Goens, Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, Johan Meerman and the young Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp among them.10 These men have often been called Orangists and they certainly all approved of a mixed form of republican government with the Orange Stadholder as the monarchical element. Yet their thought had virtually nothing to do with the still flourishing Dutch Israel variety of Orangism, which stressed the need for obedience to the divinely sanctioned rule of the established powers, the intimate and indissoluble union between church and state, and the role of the Stadholders as instruments of God’s providence and protectors of true religion.11 Dutch enlightened conservatives, on the contrary, were firm supporters of the subordination of the church to the civil authorities, were deeply distrustful of all manifestations of religious fanaticism or enthusiasm, and indeed – as in the case of Van Goens and Luzac – repeatedly and openly clashed with the representatives of orthodox protestant religiosity.12 What these men set out to do 9

10

11 12

The best comprehensive study of the Dutch Enlightenment is Joost Kloek and Wijnand Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving (The Hague: 2001). For 18th-century Dutch political thought see Wyger R.E. Velema, Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought (Leiden and Boston: 2007). Although the political thought of all of these conservatives has been studied in some depth, very little has been written about their shared characteristics. See, however, Johan C. Boogman’s pioneering article “Kanttekeningen bij het verschijnsel conservatisme, in het ­bijzonder in Nederland,” in Van spel en spelers. Verspreide opstellen, ed. idem (The Hague: 1982), 29–50. Cornelis Huisman, Neerlands Israël. Het natiebesef der traditioneel gereformeerden in de a­ chttiende eeuw (Dordrecht: 1983); Joris van Eijnatten, God, Nederland en Oranje. Dutch Calvinism and the Search for the Social Centre (Kampen: 1993). Jacobus Wille, De literator R.M. van Goens en zijn kring. Studiën over de achttiende eeuw, vol. 2, ed. P. van Vliet (Amsterdam: 1993), 332–76; Wyger R.E. Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic. The Political Thought of Elie Luzac (1721–1796) (Assen and ­Maastricht: 1993), 6–22.

112

Velema

was to demonstrate that the late 18th-century established order of the Dutch Republic perfectly embodied the values proper to an enlightened, polite, commercial and thoroughly modern age. In later historiography the rosy view of the Dutch Republic expressed in the writings of these enlightened conservatives has often been taken as evidence for their curious blindness to the rather bleak realities of Dutch late 18th-­ century life. Yet these men were intellectual cosmopolitans and their positive and appreciative view of the late 18th-century Dutch Republic was, it is worth stressing, widely shared by enlightened foreign observers of the Dutch scene. At the end of an essay in which he unfolded his thoughts on the “perfect commonwealth”, the sceptical Scottish philosopher David Hume observed that his ideas on the most ideal political arrangements imaginable strongly resembled those actually existing in “the commonwealth of the United Provinces, a wise and renowned government.”13 When the prominent French philosophe Denis Diderot wrote his Voyage en Hollande some two decades later, he expressed his deep admiration for a country where the form of government was so perfectly suited to modern commercial society and where “one never encounters either the sight of abject poverty, or the spectacle of tyranny.”14 Just a few years later, when the Patriot reform movement was already gathering strength, the prominent Italian enlightened thinker Carlo Antonio Pilati pointed out that a true and proper appreciation of the glories of the Dutch Republic was only possible from an international and comparative perspective: “One has to have been in countries where superstition, despotism, and brutality are on the throne and keep the subjects in chains in order to appreciate the liberty that reigns in the assemblies and the conversations of the Dutch, and the pleasure a reasonable man is able to find there.”15 Even as late as 1790 such thoughts were still shared by the German observer Georg Forster, who in his Ansichten vom Niederrhein insisted that, compared to most other European countries, the Dutch Republic was “the country of true, not imaginary liberty.”16 Small wonder then that Dutch enlightened conservatives could feel entirely justified and confident in extolling the many blessings their compatriots were enjoying and in presenting glowing descriptions of the 18th-century Republic to their readers. 13 14 15 16

David Hume, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: 1985), 526. Denis Diderot, Voyage en Hollande, ed. Yves Benot (Paris: 1982), 39. [Carlo Antonio Pilati di Tassulo], Lettres sur la Hollande, 2 vols. (The Hague: 1780), I, 52. Georg Foster, Ansichten vom Niederrhein, von Brabant, Flandern, England und Frankreich im April, Mai und Juni 1790, ed. Ulrich Schlemmer (Darmstadt: 1989), 382.

Enlightenment against Revolution

113

In the late 1770s, when the American revolution seemed a fairly distant event and texts by the likes of Richard Price – later to be deemed one of the chief instigators of Dutch revolutionary turmoil – were only just beginning to be translated, the tone of the writings of those praising the established regime in the Dutch Republic was still moderate and conciliatory.17 Thus Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, who was to become the last Grand Pensionary of the Dutch Republic, used his historical work on the Zeeland town of Goes (where he had recently been burgomaster) to gently remind his readers of the great blessings the Dutch Revolt had brought to the inhabitants of the Low Countries and of the constant need for vigilance in safeguarding this precious inheritance.18 Far from arising out of unprovoked and random rebelliousness, Van de Spiegel observed, the 16th-century Dutch struggle against Spain had been an absolutely necessary act of self-defense by inhabitants of the Low Countries who had been systematically deprived of their rights and privileges and had been “trodden down, tortured, robbed and driven away.”19 The felicitous outcome of this “entirely justified act of self-protection” had been the foundation of a state where liberty reigned undisturbed. This liberty should, Van de Spiegel emphasized, be carefully distinguished from on the one hand the slavish submission to be found in arbitrary governments where the will of the ruler was decisive and on the other hand – and equally dangerous – licentiousness.20 He then proceeded to explain the nature of Dutch liberty as it had existed ever since the 16th century. It consisted, first of all, of religious liberty in the form of liberty of conscience and a considerable measure of toleration, albeit within the framework of an established religion overseen by the civil authorities. To ask for more would be to pave the way for chaos.21 Civil liberty, Van de Spiegel continued, consisted of two parts. It meant, first of all, the rule of law. “In our blessed country the humble laborer is as much master of himself as the

17

18 19 20 21

For a recent discussion of the role of the American revolution in Dutch late 18th-century politics and political thought see Wyger R.E. Velema, “Republicanism Redefined. How the American Revolution Transformed Dutch Political Culture” in Beyond 1776. Globalizing the Cultures of the American Revolution, ed. Maria O’Malley and Denys van Renen (­Charlottesville and London: 2018), 48–73. By far the best analysis of Van de Spiegel’s political thought is Johan Christiaan Boogman, Raadpensionaris L.P. van de Spiegel: een reformistisch-conservatieve pragmaticus en idealist (Amsterdam: 1988). [Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel], Historie van de satisfactie, waar mede de stad Goes en het eiland van Zuid-Beveland zich begeeven hebben onder het stadhouderschap van Prins ­Willem van Orange, in het jaar 1577, etc. (Goes: 1777), 36. Ibid., 37. Ibid., 37–39.

114

Velema

elevated nobleman: the laws of the country are publicly known and as long as someone does not act against the law, nobody can hurt or harm him.”22 It also meant a form of government in which offices were not distributed on the basis of heredity, the government was subject to the laws and punishable by those same laws, and the most important decisions were taken unanimously.23 All of this, it seemed to Van de Spiegel, was evidently still the case in the late 18th-century Republic. Its inhabitants should therefore stop complaining and instead learn to count their blessings. More than a decade and a half later, the tone of the defenders of the established order – which had in fact, after the anti-Patriot counterrevolution of 1787, become a re-established order – had clearly become shriller, even somewhat desperate.24 Enlightened conservatives in the Dutch Republic by then found themselves surrounded by increasingly vocal supporters of the American and French revolutions, whose demands for political reform became ever more radical. It was in these circumstances of high political tension that Johan Meerman in 1793 decided once again to explain to his compatriots how privileged they were to live in a free republic and how wrongheaded they were in embracing the dangerous and regressive notions of liberty espoused by the Americans and the French.25 The existing mixed form of government of the Dutch Republic, he pointed out, guaranteed civil liberty in the most perfect manner. The presence of a strong Stadholderate prevented the emergence of aristocratic despotism, and all inhabitants of the country, including its ruling elites, were subject to the rule of law. These felicitous arrangements not only ensured continued “trade, credit, and wealth”, but generally made the life of Dutchmen exceptionally secure and happy. They were entirely free to move around the country or even leave it, enjoyed a large measure of religious liberty, saw their individual property and personal security protected through a system of justice even better than that to be found in Great Britain, and were almost entirely free in the expression of their opinions.26 Van de Spiegel’s and Meerman’s rosy perspectives on the merits of the established order in the 18th-century Dutch Republic were shared, albeit with minor 22 23 24 25 26

Ibid., 39–40. Ibid., 41. The best Anglophone overview of Dutch political history in these years still is Simon Schama, Patriots and Liberators. Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 (New York: 1977). On Meerman see Peter Wolfgang Klein, “Johan Meerman (1753–1815). Conservatief aan de kantlijn,” in Mensen van de Nieuwe Tijd. Een liber amicorum voor A.Th. van Deursen, ed. ­Marijke Bruggeman a.o. (Amsterdam: 1996), 399–413. Johan Meerman, De burgerlyke vrijheid in haare heilzaame, de volks-vryheid in haare schadelyke gevolgen voorgesteld, inzonderheid met betrekking tot dit gemeenebest (Leiden: 1793), 8–17.

Enlightenment against Revolution

115

variations, by most enlightened conservatives and made it exceedingly hard for them to understand why anyone should desire a radical transformation of the existing situation. Yet that was exactly what increasing numbers of Dutchmen demanded from the mid-1770s on. The enlightened conservatives therefore made it their task not only to extoll the many virtues of the existing political arrangements in the Dutch Republic, but also to systematically demolish the ideology of their reformist and revolutionary opponents and to demonstrate that their notions of liberty, equality, popular sovereignty and classical republican virtue were misconceived and would, if implemented, lead to utterly disastrous results. 2

Modern Natural Law versus Revolutionary Natural Rights

Dutch enlightened conservatives were in no doubt that the late 18th-century attacks on the established order they were witnessing constituted nothing less than a comprehensive assault on the very foundations of what they regarded as enlightened modernity. They used a wide range of arguments to counter the Dutch reformers and revolutionaries. In what follows, this chapter will concentrate on two strands in their argumentation which bring out the enlightened nature of their thought and the fact that the accomplishments they were defending were of relatively recent origin and therefore might be termed modern. The first claim the enlightened conservatives made was that the critics of the established order were subverting and perverting the generally accepted language of politics and thereby undermining the whole science of morals and politics which in their eyes had been successfully developed by the modern practitioners of natural law from Grotius on. Conservative laments of this nature were ubiquitous. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, for instance, in 1785 bitterly complained that the Dutch Patriots with all their talk of natural rights, natural equality and inalienable popular sovereignty evinced a deep lack of understanding of natural law. Not only did they apparently fail to realize that the state of nature was no more than an “ens rationis, a state which only exists as an intellectual construct”, they also without any foundation presumed that in this state of nature everybody had been equal and independent, whereas it was much more realistic to assume that inequality and relations of mutual dependence were inherent to the human condition and had therefore existed even before the introduction of civil laws.27 Similar views were voiced 27

George Willem Vreede (ed.), Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel en zijne tijdgenooten (­ 1737–1800), 4 vols. (Middelburg: 1874–77), II, 422.

116

Velema

by Elie Luzac, who was a lifelong student of modern natural law, produced an ­authoritative French edition of Christian Wolff, and whose synthetic three volume Du droit naturel was posthumously published in the early years of the 19th century.28 “To dig up natural rights,” he scathingly observed in one of his many polemical publications of the 1780s, “to peddle them as truths, and to demand their enforcement regardless of the civil laws and despite their incompatibility with a country’s political system and the patterns of its social life is, in our view, a sign of enormous foolishness.”29 Among the most persevering critics of Patriot (and later Batavian) discursive innovation was Adriaan Kluit, who was a professor of history at Leiden University until he was fired in 1795 for holding views which, at least according to the curators of that venerable institution, were totally opposed “to the eternal and unchangeable rights of man.” 30 Kluit, whose meticulous source criticism gave him a special place in Dutch 18th-century historiography, is perhaps best remembered as a pioneer in the field of modern historical s­ cholarship.31 Yet even his historical work was deeply political, as he openly avowed in the preface to his voluminous History of Holland’s Government. History, he there observed in good enlightened fashion, should be much more than “a dry account of past events.” It should, instead, “establish an inseparable connection between the historical and the doctrinal and political.” 32 This is exactly what he did in his historical publications which, among other things, served to prove that sovereignty in the Netherlands had historically never been or remained in the hands of the people and had, before the Dutch Revolt, been held by the Counts. This analysis obviously served to obstruct any appeals to ancient Dutch history in order to bolster theories of popular sovereignty. Yet Kluit was much more than a historian and was well aware that the Patriots who were attacking the Dutch republican established order with increasing vehemence during the 1780s were not only trying to harness Dutch constitutional 28

29 30 31 32

Christian L.B. de Wolff, Institutions du droit de la nature et des gens, etc. Avec des notes par Mre Elie Luzac, etc., 2 vols. (Leiden: 1772); Elie Luzac, Du droit naturel, civil et politique en forme d’entretiens, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: 1802). On Luzac and natural law, see Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism, 81–114. [Elie Luzac], De Vader­landsche Staatsbeschouwe­rs, overweegende alles wat ‘er binnen en buiten het Vaderland omgaat en tot deszelfs belang betrekking heeft, 4 vols. (S.l.: [1784–88]), II, 205. Willem Otterspeer, Groepsportret met Dame III. De werken van de wetenschap. De Leidse ­universiteit, 1776–1876 (Amsterdam: 2005), 161. On Kluit’s historical thought see, most recently, Mathijs Boom, “Against Enlightened Abstraction: The Historical Thought of Adriaan Kluit,” De Achttiende Eeuw 46 (2014), 128–54. Adriaan Kluit, Historie der Hollandsche staatsregering, tot aan het jaar 1795, etc., 5 vols. (Amsterdam: 1802–05), I, iv–v.

Enlightenment against Revolution

117

history to their cause, but were also attempting to change the very language of politics. To expose their egregious errors, and on the occasion of stepping down as rector magnificus at his university in 1784, he delivered a lecture entitled On the abuse of general public law, or on the disadvantages and disasters to be expected from its abuse for all civil societies. It was so controversial that it could not be published until 1787, when the Patriots had been defeated – at least for the moment.33 It was truly astonishing, Kluit remarked at the beginning of his lecture, that a century which, after the chaos of the previous ones, had finally witnessed the triumph of sane and solid theories about liberty, the rights of citizens and the happiness of civil societies should now all of a sudden see this considerable achievement undermined by the widespread adoption of the most outrageous and absurd political proposals.34 In the course of his talk he made it abundantly clear that the main culprits were Richard Price, Joseph Priestley, and the Dutch Patriots who adopted their theories.35 Indeed, what seemed to be going on was an all-out confrontation between the misguided and confused teachings of Price and Priestley and their followers and the accumulated wisdom of the modern tradition of natural law as represented by, among others, Grotius, Pufendorf and Thomasius.36 Price, Priestley and their followers, who were as harmful as the 16th-century monarchomachs had been, piled misunderstanding upon misunderstanding. The adoption of their incoherent theories, which were entirely founded on the distortion of the generally accepted meaning of key concepts such as sovereignty and representation, would make all forms of stable government, indeed all government whatsoever, impossible.37 Their first mistake was to claim that the people perpetually remained the sovereign power in the state, even after governments had been instituted.

33 34 35

36 37

Adriaan Kluit, Academische redevoering, over het misbruik van ’t algemeen staatsrecht, of over de nadeelen en onheilen, die uit het misbruik in de beoefeninge voor alle burgermaatschappijen te wachten zijn (Leiden: 1787). Kluit, Misbruik van ’t algemeen staatsrecht, 2–3. On the role of the writings of Price and Priestley in Dutch Patriot thought see Meindert Evers, “Angelsaksische inspiratiebronnen voor de patriottische denkbeelden van Joan Derk van der Capellen,” in 1787. De Nederlandse revolutie?, ed. Theo S.M. van der Zee a.o. (Amsterdam: 1988), 206–17. Kluit, Misbruik van ’t algemeen staatsrecht, 27–28. The abuse of language and its disastrous consequences was a favorite theme of many late 18th-century conservatives. See Rolf Reichardt, “Einleitung,” in Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680–1820, ed. idem and Eberhard Schmitt, Heft 1/2 (Munich: 1985), 39–148; Steven Blakemore, Burke and the Fall of Language. The French Revolution as Linguistic Event (Hanover and London: 1988).

118

Velema

This was obviously “a monster in public law.” 38 Their second mistake was their view of representation. Kluit acknowledged that the sovereign was the servant of the people and represented it. This should be taken to mean, however, that the sovereign fully replaced the will of the people and not, as these subversive theorists would have it, that the people could in every instance dictate what the sovereign should do. The consequence of the latter position would be “an ­eternal confusion in society and government.” It was the certain road to “the ruin of all states.” 39 At the root of all such errors, Kluit thought, lay the inability of these dangerous theorists to distinguish between civil liberty, that is the rights of every citizen as an individual, and political liberty, that is the right to govern.40 The inability to distinguish between the two, he was convinced, would lead to “the revolution of all civil societies, the destruction of all kingdoms, and the death of millions of people in civil wars.” 41 Discarding the conceptual framework put together by the modern school of natural and public law from Grotius on, as these radical authors did, could in short only result in the utter destruction of the hard-won civilization of the 18th century. That Kluit’s dire warnings went largely unheeded seems evident from the fact that he felt compelled to return to the same themes some ten years later. Obviously, however, circumstances had changed. In 1787, the Dutch Patriot movement had been vanquished by the intervention of Britain and Prussia. The counterrevolutionary government which had been installed, however, did not – despite considerable effort – succeed in entirely silencing those convinced of the need for reform or even revolution in the Dutch Republic. After the outbreak of the French revolution, this political opposition grew in strength and emphatically pointed to the French declarations of the rights of man as shining examples to be imitated in the Netherlands, with Pieter Paulus’s 1793 bestselling treatise on equality as the most famous example of this line of argument.42 This was the context in which Kluit decided that it was of the utmost urgency to demonstrate that the Dutch could learn nothing ­whatsoever from the French revolution and its declarations of rights. The title of his pamphlet – The rights of man in France, already realized in the ­Netherlands – suggested that 38 Kluit, Misbruik van ’t algemeen staatsrecht, 25. 39 Ibid., 59–60. 40 Ibid., 46–47. 41 Ibid., 89. 42 Pieter Paulus, Verhandeling over de vrage: in welken zin kunnen de menschen gezegd worden gelyk te zyn? En welke zyn de regten en pligten, die daaruit voortvloeien? (Haarlem: 1793). On Paulus and his treatise see Ernestine van der Wall, “Geen natie van atheïsten. Pieter ­Paulus (1753–1796) over godsdienst en mensenrechten,” in Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der ­Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1995–1996 (Leiden: 1997), 45–62.

Enlightenment against Revolution

119

his intention was to argue that the Dutch had already for a considerable time been enjoying the rights which the French had only so recently acquired.43 The lengthy text itself, however, unambiguously demonstrated that Kluit’s purposes were both more complex and more polemical. What he wanted to show was not only that those elements in the French declarations of rights which were valid and valuable were already enshrined in the Dutch established order, but also that these declarations contained a great many dangerous and subversive articles, the adoption of which in the Dutch Republic – or in France for that matter – would have utterly ruinous consequences. In order to make these points, his mode of proceeding was an article by article discussion of the French Déclaration des droits de l’homme of 1793.44 Despite his novel focus on the French declaration of 1793, Kluit’s arguments were largely identical to those he had employed in his On the abuse of general public law of almost a decade earlier. Emphatically styling himself a “true patriot”, as opposed to the “nominal patriots” who desired the overthrow of the established order in the Dutch Republic, Kluit insisted that he was defending the sane views of all “enlightened lovers of liberty” against the deluded innovators who claimed to be furthering the cause of enlightenment, but were in fact dangerously deviating from political and conceptual sanity.45 His main targets were, once again, Richard Price and Joseph Priestley, but these firebrands were joined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Paine. In his own cause, Kluit now enlisted Edmund Burke.46 Yet the addition of these new authors to his repertoire made very little difference to what he had to say. Liberally quoting from his own previous writings, he started out by emphasizing that it was indisputable that all legitimate government ultimately rested on the consent of the people, that the sovereign represented the people, and that governments should be held to be the servants of the people.47 To demonstrate that all of this was indeed the case in the Dutch Republic, he cited Van de Spiegel’s and Meerman’s glowing descriptions of the established order at great length.48 Where, 43

[Adriaan Kluit], De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, geen gewaande rechten in Nederland. Of betoog, dat die rechten bij het volk van Nederland in volle kracht genoten worden. En iets over vrijheid en patriotismus (Amsterdam: 1793). 44 For the full text of this declaration see Marcel Gauchet, La Révolution des droits de l’homme (Paris: 1992), 326–28. 45 [Kluit], Rechten van den mensch, 1–22, 25, 175–76. 46 Ibid., 351. On the rather slow early reception of Burke in the Netherlands see Wessel Krul, “An Ambivalent Conservatism: Edmund Burke in the Netherlands, 1770–1870,” in The Reception of Edmund Burke in Europe, ed. Martin Fitzpatrick and Peter Jones (London: 2017), 149–70. 47 [Kluit], Rechten van den mensch, 30. 48 Ibid., 51–62.

120

Velema

then, had things gone wrong? It was once again in the widespread abuse and perversion of the generally accepted meaning of political and legal concepts that Kluit sought the explanation. This was as true for the French declaration of 1793 as it had been for Price, Priestley and the Dutch Patriots in the 1780s. Take, for instance, the very first article of the French declaration, which stated that among the rights of man in society were equality, liberty, security, property, and resistance to oppression. This was a fine formulation, Kluit observed, which succinctly captured the principles upon which every society and government ought to be founded. Unfortunately, however, the French were now abusing this well-known and familiar truth by giving it an entirely new meaning and making it rest on the “permanent and active sovereignty of the people.” 49 In this vein, Kluit went through the entire declaration, only to conclude that the chaos currently reigning in France and Europe was entirely caused by the wrongheaded and nonsensical concept of inalienable popular sovereignty.50 It was no more than a sad confirmation of what many of his fellow Dutch enlightened conservatives thought and of what Rijklof Michael van Goens had observed as early as 1782, namely that those who attacked the established order were either ignorant of or hostile to “the generally recognized truths and first principles of natural law and of the science of morality.” 51 3

Celebrating the Rise of Commercial Society

There was, however, a second and further quintessentially enlightened line of argument the conservative defenders of the established order used against their political opponents. They blamed the reformers and revolutionaries not only for their misguided and dangerous attempts to undermine the generally accepted modern language of politics and morality, but also for their utter failure to understand the nature of modern commercial society. Virtually all Dutch enlightened conservatives welcomed – and sometimes actively contributed to – the international rise of philosophical history during the 18th century and insisted that this innovative genre was, for the very first time, addressing the truly important topics in human history by broadening the scope of historical investigation from high politics and warfare to the nature and development of societies as a whole. Rijklof Michael van Goens, for instance, in the early 1770s 49 Ibid., 44. 50 Ibid., 349–51. 51 [Rijklof Michael van Goens], De ouderwetse Nederlandsche patriot, 65 numbers ([The Hague]: 1781–83), No. 54, 37.

Enlightenment against Revolution

121

observed that all historiography before the enlightened 18th century had been exclusively focused on, indeed obsessed with, the deeds of kings and tiny political elites and had therefore unjustifiably neglected “the history of the nation itself” and “its population, industry, commerce, and societal prosperity and happiness.” 52 More than twenty years later Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, who viewed many of the self-proclaimed achievements of the century of Enlightenment with a skeptical eye, entirely endorsed this view. Classical and humanist historiography, he wrote in 1795, had not been altogether without merit, but had unfortunately avoided any discussion of those aspects of the past which mattered most and were therefore of the greatest use to the present. It had been the achievement of the 18th-century philosophical historians to remedy this situation by systematically researching “the origin of Civil Societies”, the subsequent “progress of Civilization, and the fruits of the Arts and Sciences” and “the bonds between Peoples both of the old and the new World constituted by Traffic and Commerce.” They had thereby made themselves the pioneers of “the History of Human Beings for Human Beings and in their hands history has developed into a veritable school for this and the next Centuries.”53 As these comments by Van Goens and Van de Spiegel suggest, Dutch enlightened conservatives held that the enlightened philosophical history of their age had for the first time laid bare the mechanisms by which states and societies progressed from rudeness to civilization. They adopted the findings of the French and Scottish “four stages theory”, which, as Ronald Meek has demonstrated, saw all societies historically moving through the stages of hunting, pasturage, agriculture, and commerce.54 They were also deeply indebted to what researchers such as Karen O’Brien, J.G.A. Pocock and Dan Edelstein refer to as “the enlightened narrative.”55 This was the historical story of Europe’s slow emergence from, in Edward Gibbon’s words, the “barbarism and religion” of the Christian millennium and its gradual progress towards a stable system of ­sovereign states and a fully developed system of commercial interaction.56 In both of these varieties of enlightened historical thought, commercial society was the highest stage of development, superior to everything 52 53 54 55 56

Cited in Wille, De literator R.M. van Goens, 22. Vreede (ed.), Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, IV, 493–94. Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge: 1976). Karen O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment. Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge: 1997); Pocock, Barbarism and Religion; Dan Edelstein, The Enlightenment. A Genealogy (Chicago and London: 2010). The Dutch reception of and contribution to the enlightened historical narrative has recently been studied in Eleá J. de la Porte, “Verlichte verhalen. De omgang met het verleden in de Nederlandse Verlichting” (PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam: 2019).

122

Velema

that had preceded it. Dutch enlightened conservatives gratefully used these ­enlightened ­historical insights to highlight the superiority of the highly developed commercial society in which they and their compatriots were living. They did, however, not limit themselves to smugly extolling the historical superiority of 18th-century Dutch and European commercial society, but creatively developed enlightened historical thought into an indispensable prop in their defense of the established political order. For it was possible to argue that the gradual development of commercial society, with its intricate and complex legal and financial arrangements and its advanced specialization and division of labor, made all appeals to either pre-social and inalienable rights or ancient virtue both regressive and highly dangerous and was completely incompatible with both equality and any form of popular government. Such was the conclusion of, for instance, the young Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp when he pondered the consequences of what he referred to as the “système mercantile.” In his Considérations sur la Révolution de l’Amérique, written in 1784, he confidently predicted that America, once it became a fully developed commercial society, would see the end of democracy and the rise of institutions of an aristocratic nature, since “aristocracy is the certain result of the mercantile system.” A year later, he severely reprimanded his revolutionary compatriots for their utter lack of understanding of “the commerce which makes the state all it is, the reasonable liberty upon which commerce is founded and which it in turn reinforces, and the right governmental balance, on which our liberty rests; as much liberty, that is, as is compatible with the advanced state of our society.” 57 It was undoubtedly the Leiden lawyer, publisher and publicist Elie Luzac, perhaps the most versatile of all Dutch 18th-century enlightened conservatives, who developed the political potential of the enlightened theories on the progress of society and civilization to its fullest extent.58 Luzac, who was always highly aware of international intellectual developments, enthusiastically embraced the enlightened view that commercial society was the highest and most desirable stage of historical development. Since he thought that the rudiments of commercial activity had been present in human societies since their very beginnings, he did not subscribe to a full-blown version of the four stages 57 58

Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, Brieven en gedenkschriften, 7 vols. (The Hague: 1866–1903), I, 411 and II, 280. The best discussion of the political thought of Van Hogendorp still is Hans van der Hoeven, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp. Conservatief of liberaal? (Groningen: 1976). An extended discussion of Luzac’s political thought may be found in Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism. For his publishing activities see Rietje van Vliet, Elie Luzac (1721–1796). Boekverkoper van de Verlichting (Nijmegen: 2005).

Enlightenment against Revolution

123

theory. He did, however, maintain – in line with the “enlightened n ­ arrative” – that it was only in the recent past that what he habitually referred to as “polite and commercial nations” had come to dominate the European scene. This was a historical development of fundamental importance and made the modern age far superior to anything that had come before it, including the world of ancient Greece and Rome which was still revered by so many – and particularly by reformers and revolutionaries – during the late 18th century. Luzac found such admiration misguided and incomprehensible. The moderns, he explained over and over again, had far surpassed the achievements of the ancients in their knowledge of nature, in their systematic development of a science of morality, and above all in their organization of society and politics. The ancient world, with its adoration of primitive military virtue, had revolved around violence and foreign conquest and for that reason alone should never be viewed as an example to be imitated, unless of course one was of the opinion that “the happiness of social life and those who participate in it” was to be found in “carnage and devastation.” 59 The modern commercial world, built on “industry, frugality, and work”, had brought untold and previously unknown blessings to mankind.60 Commerce, Luzac observed in his pioneering history of Dutch economic life entitled Holland’s Wealth, was basically no more than “the art of meeting the needs of life, and of offering people the objects that can satisfy their wants.”61 The more this art was perfected and came to dominate the world, the better human needs and desires would be fulfilled. Commercial societies had an unsurpassed capacity to provide people with the material goods they needed for a happy life, to create a great diversity of forms of polite social interaction, and to stimulate the arts and sciences. The widespread 18th-century fears that the rise of commercial society might lead to excessive luxury, corruption and eventual decline Luzac dismissed as completely unfounded.62 The growth of commerce, however, did much more than just increase the material wealth and thereby the social happiness of nations. It also meant that states in their mutual relations no longer primarily depended on brute power and military force, as they had in the ancient world, but instead now engaged in peaceful and harmonious exchange. Luzac, who had translated and annotated Montequieu’s 59

[Elie Luzac], Lettres sur les dangers de changer la constitu­tion primitive d’un gouverne­ment public. Ecrites à un Patriote Hollandois (London [Leiden­]: 1792), 108. 60 Ibid., 114–15. 61 Elie Luzac, Hollands Rykdom, behelzende den Oorsprong van de Koophandel, en van de Magt van dezen Staat, etc., 4 vols. (Leide­n: 1780–83), IV, 248. 62 Luzac, Du droit naturel, I, 225; idem, Hollands Rykdom.

124

Velema

De l’Esprit des Lois, was evidently convinced of the merits of the 18th-century concept of doux commerce.63 All these arguments in favor of commercial society taken together made him deeply grateful, as Van Goens and Van de Spiegel also were, that modern philosophical historiography had now finally started to address this all important topic. In his Holland’s Wealth, a publication that was explicitly intended as a contribution to this new approach to the past, he expressed a deep satisfaction that it was now finally being established beyond doubt that “civil society owes more to industry and diligence in the arts, commerce and navigation, than to the devastating art of war” and that only the former could “assure a happy and pleasant life.” 64 Although Luzac regarded the rise of commercial society as an international phenomenon, he nonetheless considered the Dutch Republic to be the perfect embodiment of this central feature of modern European history and most ­frequently explained his views on the political implications of the modern dominance of commerce in the context of that republic. From the above it is already clear that according to Luzac – and contrary to what Dutch reformers and revolutionaries seemed to believe – there could be no place in modern commercial society for the politics of ancient virtue. Its very complexity and diversity meant that the political participation and the single-minded devotion to the public good of the ancient citizen-soldier had become anachronisms. The sophisticated systems of exchange in commercial societies, Luzac insisted, were based on a highly developed division of labor. This meant that commercial society largely consisted of human beings focused on a specific and limited task, with neither the capacity nor the desire to participate in the process of political decision-making and primarily interested in pursuing their own goals under the protection of the law. The liberty of commercial society was not, as Benjamin Constant would again point out some four decades later, the positive liberty of the classical republican tradition, but instead the negative liberty of the rule of law.65 Luzac could see no reason to regret this consequence of commercial modernity and gladly left it to those dissatisfied with the ease and prosperity it brought “to call it slavery.” 66 The question that remained to

63

On the notion of doux commerce in the 18th century see Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests. Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: 1978), 56–63 and Anoush Fraser Terjanian, Commerce and Its Discontents in Eighteenth-Century French Political Thought (Cambridge: 2013), 9–16. 64 Luzac, Hollands Rykdom, I, 146–47. 65 Benjamin Constant, “De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes,” in De la liberté chez les modernes. Ecrits politiques, ed. Marcel Gauchet (Paris: 1980), 491–516. 66 [Luzac], Lettres sur les dangers, 47.

Enlightenment against Revolution

125

be answered was how the liberty appropriate to commercial ­society could be maintained. Luzac’s solution was clear and simple. In the Dutch Republic the rule of law was best secured by a mixed and balanced government combined with the separation of powers and in which the presence of a Stadholder guaranteed that no unchecked oligarchical government could arise. Thus Luzac turned his praise of commercial society into an instrument in the service of enlightened political conservatism. 4 Conclusion This essay has argued that many late 18th-century conservatives in the Dutch Republic were far from being traditionalists forced to rationalize their position for the first time under the pressure of a rapidly changing political scene. Instead, they were turning against radical reform and revolution on the basis of a strongly held conviction that they were defending an essentially modern and enlightened social, economic, cultural and political order against what they considered to be a barbaric, regressive and deeply irrational onslaught. Dutch late 18th-century enlightened conservatives refused to believe, as many of their compatriots increasingly did, that the Dutch Republic in the second half of the century was in a state of near mortal decline. They were not unwilling to admit that the United Provinces had, for a variety of reasons, lost the unique preeminence it had enjoyed during the 17th century. Yet they insisted that this should not be taken to mean that the country was now teetering on the brink of disaster. Dutch enlightened conservatives emphatically pointed out that the established order in their country embodied many of the values cherished by enlightened thought: religious toleration, freedom of opinion and of the press, moderate and balanced government ensuring the rule of law, the protection of individual rights and liberty by a strong judiciary. They therefore found it exceedingly hard to understand why larger and larger numbers of their compatriots desired a radical restructuring, let alone the entire overthrow, of this benign political system. In the end, they came to the conclusion that the Patriot reformers and later the Batavian revolutionaries simply failed to understand the nature of enlightened modernity. As Adriaan Kluit in particular never tired of explaining, the reformers and revolutionaries were undermining both the teachings of modern natural law and the very possibility of stable government in any form by adopting a language of inalienable natural rights, including the notion of inalienable popular sovereignty. They also completely failed to understand, as Elie Luzac argued at great length, the fact that modern commercial society was incompatible with ancient notions of participatory politics

126

Velema

and military virtue. From the perspective of these c­ onservatives, the political program of the Dutch reformers and revolutionaries of the final decades of the 18th century could only be understood as a deeply regressive assault on enlightened values and accomplishments. Over the past decades, enlightened conservatism has become a generally accepted notion in historical scholarship. It is certainly true that the term – as is the case with so many labels we apply in attempting to understand 18th-century political thought – was not used by contemporaries.67 It is also true that the second half of the 18th century, as any reader of Klaus Epstein’s classic study has known for a long time, saw the emergence of a number of different forms of conservative political thought, many of them not easily identifiable as enlightened.68 Nonetheless it seems undeniable that the term enlightened conservatism usefully captures the way in which a considerable number of 18th-century defenders of the established order in England, the Dutch Republic and elsewhere battled revolution in the name of Enlightenment. The Dutch conservatives discussed in this essay made use of the enlightened languages of natural jurisprudence, philosophical history and political economy to depict the established order they were defending as essentially a modern one, to be defended against a radical and eventually revolutionary political onslaught they regarded as deeply regressive. Their rich and complex political thought contained many other strands as well, but the enlightened element was prominently present. The concept of enlightened conservatism, it therefore seems clear, is here to stay. Bibliography Baker, Keith M., “Transformations of Classical Republicanism in Eighteenth-­Century France,” Journal of Modern History 73 (2001), 32–53. Berlin, Isaiah, “The Counter-Enlightenment,” in Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current. Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy (London: 1979), 1–24. Blakemore, Steven, Burke and the Fall of Language. The French Revolution as Linguistic Event (Hanover and London: 1988).

67

68

For the conceptual history of conservatism see Rudolf Vierhaus, “Konservativ, Konservatismus,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 3, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck (Stuttgart: 1982), 531–66. Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: 1966).

Enlightenment against Revolution

127

Boogman, Johan Christiaan, “Kanttekeningen bij het verschijnsel conservatisme, in het bijzonder in Nederland,” in Van spel en spelers. Verspreide opstellen, ed. idem (The Hague: 1982), 29–50. Boogman, Johan Christiaan, Raadpensionaris L.P. van de Spiegel: een reformistisch-­ conservatieve pragmaticus en idealist (Amsterdam: 1988). Boom, Mathijs, “Against Enlightened Abstraction: The Historical Thought of Adriaan Kluit,” De Achttiende Eeuw 46 (2014), 128–54. Constant, Benjamin, “De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes,” in De la liberté chez les modernes. Ecrits politiques, ed. Marcel Gauchet (Paris: 1980), 491–516. Diderot, Denis, Voyage en Hollande, ed. Yves Benot (Paris: 1982). Edelstein, Dan, The Enlightenment. A Genealogy (Chicago and London: 2010). Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: 1966). Evers, Meindert, “Angelsaksische inspiratiebronnen voor de patriottische denkbeelden van Joan Derk van der Capellen,” in 1787. De Nederlandse revolutie?, ed. Theo S.M. van der Zee a.o. (Amsterdam: 1988), 206–17. Eijnatten, Joris van, God, Nederland en Oranje. Dutch Calvinism and the Search for the Social Centre (Kampen: 1993). Foster, Georg, Ansichten vom Niederrhein, von Brabant, Flandern, England und Frankreich im April, Mai und Juni 1790, ed. Ulrich Schlemmer (Darmstadt: 1989). Fraser Terjanian, Anoush, Commerce and Its Discontents in Eighteenth-Century French Political Thought (Cambridge: 2013). Gauchet, Marcel, La Révolution des droits de l’homme (Paris: 1992). Gay, Peter, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York: 1966–69). [Goens, Rijklof Michaël van], De ouderwetse Nederlandsche patriot, 65 numbers ([The Hague]: 1781–83). Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests. Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: 1978). Hoeven, Hans van der, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp. Conservatief of liberaal? ­(Groningen: 1976). Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel van, Brieven en gedenkschriften, 7 vols. (The Hague: 1­ 866–1903). Huisman, Cornelis, Neerlands Israël. Het natiebesef der traditioneel gereformeerden in de achttiende eeuw (Dordrecht: 1983). Hume, David, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: 1985). Israel, Jonathan I., Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: 2001). Jacob, Margaret C., The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: 1981). Klein, Peter Wolfgang, “Johan Meerman (1753–1815). Conservatief aan de kantlijn,” in Mensen van de Nieuwe Tijd. Een liber amicorum voor A.Th. van Deursen, ed. Marijke Bruggeman a.o. (Amsterdam: 1996), 399–413.

128

Velema

Kloek, Joost, and Wijnand Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving (The Hague: 2001). Kluit, Adriaan, Academische redevoering, over het misbruik van ’t algemeen staatsrecht, of over de nadeelen en onheilen, die uit het misbruik in de beoefeninge voor alle ­burgermaatschappijen te wachten zijn (Leiden: 1787). Kluit, Adriaan, De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, geen gewaande rechten in ­Nederland. Of betoog, dat die rechten bij het volk van Nederland in volle kracht genoten worden. En iets over vrijheid en patriotismus (Amsterdam: 1793). Kluit, Adriaan, Historie der Hollandsche staatsregering, tot aan het jaar 1795, etc., 5 vols. (Amsterdam: 1802–05). Kossmann, Ernst H., Verlicht conservatisme: over Elie Luzac (Groningen: 1966). Krul, Wessel, “An Ambivalent Smbivalent Conservatism: Edmund Burke in the ­Netherlands, 1­ 770–1870,” in The Reception of Edmund Burke in Europe, ed. Martin Fitzpatrick and Peter Jones (London: 2017), 149–70. Lok, Matthijs, “Vijanden van de Verlichting. Antiverlichting en Verlichting in de Europese intellectuele geschiedenis,” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 127 (2014), 211–28. Luzac, Elie, Hollands Rykdom, behelzende den Oorsprong van de Koophandel, en van de Magt van dezen Staat, etc., 4 vols. (Leiden: 1780–83). Luzac, Elie, De Vader­landsche Staatsbeschouwe­rs, overweegende alles wat ‘er binnen en buiten het Vaderland omgaat en tot deszelfs belang betrekking heeft, 4 vols. (S.l.: [1784–88]). Luzac, Elie, Lettres sur les dangers de changer la constitu­tion primitive d’un gouverne­ ment public. Ecrites à un Patriote Hollandois (London [Leiden]: 1792). Luzac, Elie, Du droit naturel, civil et politique en forme d’entretiens, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: 1802). Mannheim, Karl, “Conservative Thought,” in From Karl Mannheim, ed. Kurt H. Wolff (New York: 1971). McMahon, Darrin M., Enemies of the Enlightenment. The French Counter-­Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). Meek, Ronald L., Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge: 1976). Meerman, Johan, De burgerlyke vrijheid in haare heilzaame, de volks-vryheid in haare schadelyke gevolgen voorgesteld, inzonderheid met betrekking tot dit gemeenebest (Leiden: 1793). Muller, Jerry Z., “Introduction: What Is Conservative Social and Political Thought?,” in Conservatism. An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present, ed. idem (Princeton: 1997), 3–31. O’Brien, Karen, Narratives of Enlightenment. Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to G ­ ibbon (Cambridge: 1997). Otterspeer, Willem, Groepsportret met Dame III. De werken van de wetenschap. De Leidse universiteit, 1776–1876 (Amsterdam: 2005).

Enlightenment against Revolution

129

Paulus, Pieter, Verhandeling over de vrage: in welken zin kunnen de menschen gezegd worden gelyk te zyn? En welke zyn de regten en pligten, die daaruit voortvloeien? (Haarlem: 1793). [Pilati di Tassulo, Carlo Antonio], Lettres sur la Hollande, 2 vols. (The Hague: 1780), I, 52. Pocock, John G.A., The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: 1975). Pocock, John G.A., “Josiah Tucker on Burke, Locke, and Price. A Study in the Varieties of Eighteenth-Century Conservatism,” in Virtue, Commerce, and History. Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century, ed. idem, (­Cambridge: 1985), 157–91. Pocock, John G.A., “Clergy and Commerce. The Conservative Enlightenment in England,” in L’Età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, 2 vols. (Naples: 1985), vol. 1, 524–62. Pocock, John G.A., “Conservative Enlightenment and Democratic ­Revolutions: The American and French Cases in British Perspective,” Government and Opposition 24 (1989), 81–105. Pocock, John G.A., Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols. (Cambridge: 1999–2015). Pocock, John G.A., “Historiography and Enlightenment: A View of their H ­ istory,” ­Modern Intellectual History 5 (2008), 83–96. Porte, Eleá J. de la, “Verlichte verhalen. De omgang met het verleden in de Nederlandse Verlichting” (PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam: 2019). Porter, Roy and Mikuláš Teich (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (­ Cambridge: 1981). Reichardt, Rolf, “Einleitung,” in Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680–1820, ed. idem and Eberhard Schmitt, Heft 1/2 (Munich: 1985), 39–148. Schama, Simon, Patriots and Liberators. Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 (New York: 1977). [Spiegel, Laurens Pieter van de], Historie van de satisfactie, waar mede de stad Goes en het eiland van Zuid-Beveland zich begeeven hebben onder het stadhouderschap van Prins Willem van Orange, in het jaar 1577, etc. (Goes: 1777). Velema, Wyger R.E., Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic. The Political Thought of Elie Luzac (1721–1796) (Assen and Maastricht: 1993). Velema, Wyger R.E., Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought (Leiden and Boston: 2007). Velema, Wyger R.E., “Republicanism Redefined. How the American Revolution Transformed Dutch Political Culture” in Beyond 1776. Globalizing the Cultures of the American Revolution, ed. Maria O’Malley and Denys van Renen (Charlottesville and London: 2018), 48–73. Venturi, Franco, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: 1971).

130

Velema

Vierhaus, Rudolf, “Konservativ, Konservatismus,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. ­Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 3, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck (Stuttgart: 1982), 531–66. Vreede, George Willem (ed.), Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel en zijne tijdgenooten (1737–1800), 4 vols. (Middelburg: 1874–77). Wall, Ernestine van der, “Geen natie van atheïsten. Pieter Paulus (1753–1796) over ­godsdienst en mensenrechten,” in Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1995–1996 (Leiden: 1997), 45–62. Wille, Jacobus, De literator R.M. van Goens en zijn kring. Studiën over de achttiende eeuw, vol. 2, ed. P. van Vliet (Amsterdam: 1993). Wolff, Christian L.B. de, Institutions du droit de la nature et des gens, etc. Avec des notes par Mre Elie Luzac, etc., 2 vols. (Leiden: 1772). Wood, Gordon S., The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: 1969).

CHAPTER 6

A Christian Cosmopolitanism: Pauline Universalism and Cynic Apostolicism during the Brabant Revolt (1787–1790) Michiel Van Dam 1 Introduction During the autumn of 1789 a series of miraculous events took place in the ­Austrian Netherlands, when a hastily assembled militia achieved several highly unlikely victories against the fully professional military forces of the Habsburg army. In the process, a completely new state was created, the republic of the United Belgian States, as the Southern Netherlands tore itself away from the rest of the Habsburg Empire.1 This came as a great surprise to the rest of Europe because commentators across the continent had been lauding the reforms implemented by Joseph II, as the monarch had attempted to finally bring enlightenment to the ‘backward provinces’ of the empire.2 These reforms had focused on the domains of jurisprudence, administration, political decision-making and religious education, as the Habsburg government aimed to create a more centralized, rational, and efficient model of governance for its provinces.3 In contrast to his mother, Maria Theresa, who had always sought some sort of compromise with the local political elites, Joseph II chose to impose his vision of what was right for the provinces of the Austrian Netherlands, getting rid of the ancien régime-bureaucracy and replacing it with a system of nine administrative circles (Kreisen).4 This, added to his decision to substitute the 1 For an overview of the military expedition and its institutional results, see Luc Dhondt, “Politiek en institutioneel onvermogen (1780–1794) in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden”, in ­ Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden Vol. 9 (Haarlem: 1980), 139–60; Janet Polasky, ­Revolution in Brussels, 1787–1793 (Brussels: 1985), 84–129. 2 Janet Polasky, “The Brabant Revolution, ‘a Revolution in Historiographical Perception’,” ­Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis 35 (2005), 436–38. 3 Jan Roegiers, “De Brabantse Omwenteling in haar politieke, religieuze en culturele context,” in Handelingen van het Colloquium over de Brabantse Omwenteling 13–14 oktober 1983, ed. Jean Lorette, Patrick Lefevre and Piet De Gryse (Brussels: 1984), 75–91. 4 Polasky, Revolution, 45–46. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_006

132

van Dam

traditional forms of priestly education with a newly established General Seminary in Leuven at the beginning of 1787, lay at the root of the protests by the Belgian people against their Austrian monarch, as they felt like their own ancient traditions and rights to self-government were being taken away from them.5 What eventually transpired in the Belgian provinces was the utter victory of the conservative opponents to enlightened reform, with the new republic of 1790 being founded on the populace’s belief in divine Providence, traditional mores and customs, and the centrality of the ancient provincial constitutions, like Brabant’s Joyous Entry, for the preservation of local rights and privileges.6 In this sense, the Brabant Revolt, as it has come to be known, was part of a series of conservative revolutions, where the political subversion was mainly led by a pro-papal clergy and representatives of the traditional Estates, with other such religious-inspired riots simultaneously taking place in Hungary, Mainz and the Duchy of Tuscany.7 Besides its religious-conservative character, the revolution has since become notorious for its prominent pamphlet literature, which was often steeped in an increasingly nationalistic rhetoric, as the provincial identities of the insurgent groups were gradually being replaced by a feeling of national ‘commonness’.8 And yet, not every mention of ‘nation’ should be carelessly integrated into a grand narrative of an unfolding Belgian nationalism. Take for example, the ­dedication prefacing the newly founded Journal philosophique et chrétien (1790), written by its young editor Henri-Ignace ­Brosius (1764–1840), in which the ­Luxembourg-born publicist thanked the government of the newly-founded republic.9 Brosius had been a vocal opponent of the J­ osephist reforms throughout the 1780s, and after being prohibited from undertaking any publishing activities during the years between 1787 and 1789, he returned in 1790 with his Journal philosophique et chrétien, which, like so many of its literary contemporaries, 5 Roegiers, “De Brabantse Omwenteling,” 80–81. 6 Geert Van den Bossche, Enlightened Innovation and the Ancient Constitution. The Intellectual Justifications of Revolution in Brabant (1787–1790) (Brussel: 2001). 7 Dale K. Van Kley, “Religion and the Age of “Patriot” Reform,” The Journal of Modern History 80 (2008), 291–92. 8 See for example: Johannes Koll, “Die belgische Nation”. Patriotismus und Nationalbewusstsein in den Südlichen Niederlanden im späten 18. Jahrhundert (Münster: 2003); Jane Judge, “Qu’allons-nous devenir? Belgian National Identity in the Age of Revolution,” in The Roots of Nationalism. National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600–1815, ed. Lotte Jensen (Amsterdam: 2016), 291–307. 9 On Brosius and his journal, see Alphonse Sprunck, “La censure et la surveillance des librairies à Luxembourg pendant la Révolution brabançonne: Le journal philosophique et chrétien de l’abbé Brosius,” Publications de la Section historique de l’Institut grand-ducal de ­Luxembourg 72 (1951), 137–72.

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

133

hailed the victory of the nation and its new ­government. What becomes clear, however, through the Journal’s recapitulation of the revolutionary events, is that its references to the ‘Nation’ were not pointing to a particular sense of ‘Belgianness’, but to the existence of a ‘reborn’ Catholic community.10 The disavowal of the Josephist reforms transformed, in Brosius’ narrative, into a key moment in a wider European history, with the Belgian populace historically instantiating themselves as the people of the God of Israel. ­Echoing St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Brosius called the new religiously inspired g­ overnment of the Southern Netherlands “a precious seed”, which was to preserve the continent from a general apostasy.11 The opening to the Journal philosophique et chrétien shows another discourse than the one often considered prevalent during the Brabant Revolt, as it embedded itself within a European-wide context and had as its main opponent, not the Habsburg government, but enlightened philosophy and irreligion. Strangely enough, it can be suggested that it was not just the enlightened-democratic branch of the Brabant Revolt, led by Jan Frans Vonck (­ 1743–1792) and Jan Baptist Verlooy (1746–1797), who imagined itself embroiled in a new borderless conflict, inspired by the ideals of republican fraternity and universal Reason propagated during the French Revolution.12 The counter-­enlightened revolutionaries were broadening their political, conceptual and historical gaze as well, moving beyond their own provincialism, as they interpreted the chaotic events occurring all over Europe as part of a single struggle between Christian thought and philosophy, between a religious morality and a secular utilitarianism, between spirituality and atheism.13 In large part this was the result of a steadily growing European network of pro-papal, anti-philosophical, and former Jesuit figures, who were constantly exchanging books, letters, and pamphlets amongst each other throughout the second half of the 18th century, as an anti-enlightened discourse was collaboratively constructed within these networks.14 10 Henri-Ignace Brosius, Journal philosophique et chrétien, vol. 1 (Liège: 1790), iii-iv. 11 Brosius, Journal philosophique et chrétien, vol. 1, v. Specifically, Romans 9:29: “Nisi Dominus Sabaoth reliquisset nobis semen”. 12 The classical work by Suzanne Tassier on this group still sets the mark: Les démocrates belges de 1789: étude sur le Vonckisme et la Révolution brabançonne (Brussels: 1930). 13 Matthijs Lok, ″La construction de l’Europe moderne, entre esprit des Lumières et des Contre-Lumières,″ in Histoire de la conscience européenne, ed. Antoine Arjakovsky (Paris: 2016), 179–92; Matthijs Lok and Joris van Eijnatten, “Global Counter-Enlightenment: Introductory remarks,” International Journal for History, Culture, and Modernity 7 (2019), 406–22, here 412–13. 14 On this network, see the work of Dries Vanysacker, especially his The Erudite Activities and Contacts of Papal Nuncio Giuseppe Garampi in Warsaw and Vienna, 1772–1785 (Leuven: 1994) and Cardinal Giuseppe Garampi (1725–1792): an Enlightened Ultramontane (Brussels: 1995).

134

van Dam

As a historical phenomenon, this is only now starting to get studied, as counter-enlightened and counterrevolutionary thought was long considered to be a reactionary movement, solely aimed at rejecting the lofty goals set by their more cosmopolitan and enlightened counterparts, rather than providing anything intellectually worthy on its own.15 For this reason, the many religious pamphlets published during the Brabant Revolt have very rarely been analyzed properly on their own terms, instead often being considered as either an ideological coating obscuring political and institutional self-interests or as a sign of the still prominent ‘superstitions’ governing the provinces of the Southern Netherlands. In this chapter, I will deepen our historical understanding of this ‘spiritual’ language used by the anti-reformist publicists, by arguing that the ­discourse taken up by Brosius in his Journal philosophique et chrétien was part of a broader tradition of what I will call ‘Christian cosmopolitanism’. I will show how this tradition was not so much characterized by our current, Kantian understanding of the term – a positive vision of a common humanity defined by its sharing of a moral space and an idealization of a global peaceful order based on a universal recognition of human rights16 – but by the more negative, Cynic understanding of the term, founded on a rejection of cultural and political identity, on the personal development of an agonistic ethics, and on an emphasis on lived practices rather than on the recognition of laws and rights.17 When I refer to ‘Christian cosmopolitanism’ here, I also mean something different from Augustinian conceptions of Christian cosmopolitanism, both its communitarian and rationalist variants, based on a cosmic salvation history or a common love of humanity through God.18 I am referring to a very specific tradition of Pauline apostolicism recuperated by Belgian publicists at

15 16 17 18

Carolina Armenteros, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794– 1854 (New York: 2011), 5–6. For a thorough historical analysis of the several eighteenth-century cosmopolitan traditions, see Pauline Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship (Cambridge: 2012). Tiziano Dorandi, “La Politeia de Diogène de Sinope et quelques remarques sur sa pensée ­politique,” in Le Cynisme ancient et ses prolongements: Actes du colloque international du CNRS, ed. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé and Richard Goulet (Paris: 1993), 57–68. For a further discussion of these traditions, see Luke Bretherton, “The Duty of Care to ­Refugees, Christian Cosmopolitanism, and the Hallowing of Bare Life,” Studies in Christian Ethics 19 (2006), 39–61, esp. 46–49; Pauline Kleingeld and Eric Brown, “Cosmopolitanism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/cosmopolitanism/ (20 December 2019).

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

135

the end of the 18th century, containing traces of a cosmopolitan ethics which have not yet been recognized up to this point. Focusing on the continuous engagement with enlightened philosophy by religious polemists in the Southern Netherlands in pamphlets and p ­ eriodicals, I argue that anti-reformist publicists like Brosius and the former Jesuit FrançoisXavier de Feller (1735–1802) imagined their own forms of cosmopolitanism through an experimental reading of St. Paul and his Cynic-­cosmopolitan influences, as a reaction to the Stoic cosmopolitanism founding the enlightened Josephist reforms and in collaboration with Catholic intellectual networks across Europe.19 By contextualizing the anti-reformist discourse and taking its intellectual foundations more seriously, I contribute to further historicizing what it meant to be ‘Counter-enlightened’ at the end of the 18th century in the Southern Netherlands, while giving a more nuanced account of the Brabant Revolt’s relation to nationalism and Catholic narratives of self-government. 1.1 Ancient Cosmopolitanism Before delving into the question of 18th-century cosmopolitanism and its Christian alternatives, I would like to take a brief detour to ancient Athens, to the place where the notion of ‘cosmopolitanism’ itself originated, first uttered by the Cynics. Notorious for their self-imposed poverty, their snarky attitude, and their witty aphorisms, the Cynics were perhaps the most apt example of a ‘lived philosophy’.20 The most prominent exponent of this philosophical tradition was Diogenes of Sinope, who resided, supposedly, in a tub outside the city of Athens, with his only possessions being a mantle, a walking stick and a knapsack.21 His life, much like that of Socrates, was shaped by a message received from the oracle of Delphi, which in this case was to “change the value of the currency”, parakharattein to nomisma.22 This principle, which came to symbolize the very goal set out by every Cynic, meant that Diogenes needed to use his own life to ‘deface’ the current effigy stamped on the coins, with “currency”, nomisma, being a reference to the “rules” and “conventions” (nomos) customary in 4th-century BC Athens.23 In other words, the ­Cynics believed that 19 20 21 22 23

Darrin M. McMahon, The Enemies of Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001), 107–08. For a good introduction to this philosophical tradition, see Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé and Richard Goulet (ed.), Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements (Paris: 1993). Louisa Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon (Baltimore: 2010), 9. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. II, book VI (Cambridge, MA: 1925), 23. Michel Foucault, The Courage of the Truth. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Graham Burchell (Basingstoke: 2010), 226–27.

136

van Dam

through their particular lifestyle they pushed the traditional norms of Athenian morality to their extreme, exhibiting their own body and experiences as a “grimace of the true life”.24 What did this ‘true life’ consist of, philosophically? Extracted from Diogenes’ biography rather than any formulated treatise, it becomes clear that the main values of Cynic living are made up of frank speech (parrhêsia), living according to nature, a devotion to asceticism, self-sufficiency, shamelessness, and clarity of mind.25 Parrhêsia, mostly employed in the Socratic tradition as the ability to speak courageously in a political context, transformed with Diogenes into the embodiment of an inconvenient truth, not just at the agora, but throughout the city, using humorous quips and self-embarrassment to constantly display a true life, to live parrhêsia.26 Furthermore, they believed that one had to live according to nature (physis), not laws or customs (nomos), accepting both the hardships and the pleasures natural to human existence, with their public acts of defecation and masturbation often leading to comparisons with the life of a dog.27 This life of living according to nature rather than laws was fundamental to their self-orientation as kosmopolitês, citizens of the cosmos.28 This did not mean the valorization of a common humanity above any partisan adherence to a city or nation, but rather the rejection of man as a political animal.29 According to Tizio Dorandi, this form of cosmopolitanism should be understood in rather negative fashion, as it expressed “the total uprooting of man in relation to any historically constituted community”.30 Such an attitude was well encapsulated in a phrase often uttered by the famous Cynic, recalled by Diogenes Laertius: “A homeless exile, to his country dead, / A wanderer who begs his daily bread.”31 Cosmopolitanism, in its original conception, can then be categorized as a refusal: a refusal to conform to the polis’ laws and customs, and an unwillingness to perform one’s civic duties for the city-state.32 At the same time, it reflected a willingness to make a radical philosophy of life the model of public ethics, as, at its core, Cynicism contained a universal appeal through its

24 Foucault, The Courage of the Truth, 227–28. 25 Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, 11–19. 26 Ibid., 12. 27 Ibid., 16. 28 Ibid., 16–17. 29 Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, 17, 76–77. 30 Dorandi, “La Politeia de Diogène”, 68 [my translation]. 31 Laertius, Lives, vol. II, book VI, 39. 32 Fouad Kalouche, “The Cynic Way of Living,” Ancient Philosophy 23 (2003), 181–94.

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

137

practicality, which stood in great contrast to the more complex ­ethics provided by other, more erudite philosophical traditions. 2

Stoic Cosmopolitanism in the Austrian Netherlands

Of course, cosmopolitanism, after the Cynics, transformed into something rather different, as the Greek and Roman Stoics, even though they were deeply influenced by Cynic principles, took up a different stance towards, for example, political involvement and their own attitude and relation to their fellow man.33 Roman Stoics, like Cicero and Seneca, were closely affiliated with high circles of political decision-making, while another prominent Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, was emperor, saturating his policies with principles of Stoic philosophy.34 Stoic cosmopolitanism was based on the idea that all members of the human race are connected through their common reverence for reason, which, according to the Stoics, should translate into a reverence for the entire species.35 While Aristotle considered the polis the basic unit of his ethics, the Stoics expanded this unit to include the entirety of humanity, with every action undertaken a deliberation not just for the good of those surrounding oneself or for that of the city-state, but for the good of everyone, including non-citizens.36 Cosmopolitanism, as a concept, kept evolving throughout the centuries, and by the 18th century, philosophers had their own version of the concept, even though these more ‘modern’ versions were still thoroughly shaped and inspired by their classical counterparts, with Roman Stoicism especially being significant for thinking “world-citizenship”.37 It was this source of inspiration which played an important role in the few cosmopolitan writings that did appear in the 18th-century Austrian Netherlands. They were written by a young theologian at the University of Leuven, Cornelius Franciscus de Nelis (1736–1798), who was, at the time, librarian at the University and who would later go on to become

33 34 35 36 37

On the influence of Cynicism on Stoicism, see Miriam Griffin, “Le movement cynique et les romains: attraction et répulsion,” in Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements, ed. MarieOdile Goulet-Cazé and Richard Goulet (Paris: 1993), 241–58. Miriam Griffin, “Philosophy, Politics, and Politicians at Rome,” in Philosophia Togata, ed. ­Miriam Griffin and Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: 1989), 1–37. Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics ­(Princeton and Oxford: 1994), 342–43. Ibid., 343–44. Martha C. Nussbaum, “Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 5 (1997): 1–25, esp. 4.

138

van Dam

the final ancien régime-bishop of Antwerp from 1785 to 1798.38 Brimming with ambition and already earmarked for future projects by prominent government official and institutional reformist, Patrice François de Neny (1716–1784), Nelis drew up two brief texts in 1763, the ­Fragment sur les principes du vrai bonheur. Discours à Lysimaque, and the Alexis. Fragment d’institution d’un Prince.39 While both contained neo-Stoic elements, it was Nelis’ Discours à Lysimaque which most clearly shows the young theologian’s cosmopolitan vision. The Fragment sur les principes du vrai bonheur was presented as an address by an old sage who had traveled across Greece, Egypt and Judea, delivered to Lysimachus, an officer in Alexander The Great’s M ­ acedonian army, and one of his later successors. According to the sage, it is both reason and love which dictate the order of the cosmos, with all humans naturally drawn to both, and manifesting itself in belief, understood here as a love of all things throughout one’s life.40 This natural order is further guaranteed by Providence, which extends equally to everyone and which becomes accessible through a love of the divine: “The Providence of the Father of all extends itself across all His children. Everything that happens, is directed by her. Within her dominion, no blind chance, no disasters: superfluous are complaints, useless are sorrows. WE LOVE, AND ALL IS WELL.”41 Nelis seems to have been also inspired by the political, theological, and moral anthropology espoused by the famous archbishop of Cambrai at the end of the 17th century, François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon ­(1651–1715).42 Like we find in Nelis, Fénelon’s theology was founded on the basis of a pure love, and became translated “into the Leuven theologian’s” moral-political

38 39 40 41

42

For more biographical information on Nelis, see the work of Willy J.H. Prick: CorneilleFrançois de Nelis, 18e et dernier évêque d’Anvers (1785–1798): un évêque humaniste et homme d’action à la fin de l’Ancien Régime (Leuven: 1947). Jan Roegiers, “De Leuvense theologen en de Verlichting. Onderwijs, wetenschap, polemiek en politiek van 1730 tot 1797” (PhD dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven: 1979), vol. 2, 351–52. Cornelius Franciscus de Nelis, Fragment sur les principes du vrai bonheur. Discours à Lysimaque (Leuven: 1763), 7–12. Ibid., 22: “La Providence du Pere commun s’étend sur tous ses enfans. Tout ce qui arrive, est réglé par elle. Sous son empire, point d’aveugle hazard, point de désastres: superflues les plaints, inutiles les chagrins. ON AIME, ET TOUT EST BIEN” [When citing sources in full, I have made my own translations, when needed, from French and Dutch. The original fragment, with original spelling, has been retained in the footnotes, MVD]. For an intellectual contextualization of Fénelon, cf. Christoph Schmitt-Maaß, Stefanie Stockhorst and Doohwan Ahn, “Introduction: Early Modernism, Catholicism, and the Role of the Subject – Fénelon as a Representative of the Age of Enlightenment,” in Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations, ed. Christoph SchmittMaaß, Stefanie ­Stockhorst and Doohwan Ahn (Amsterdam and New York: 2014), 13–24.

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

139

theory through Stoic principles such as the natural sociability of Man and his inherent connectivity to his kind through the universality of Reason.43 In this sense, Nelis made use of the typical Enlightenment-strategy of ‘cultural transfer’, as he used Fénelon’s work to form his own little Enlightenment-project, while trying to tie himself more closely to the more enlightened administrative policies being developed by Habsburg officials like Neny and then plenipotentiary minister, count Johann Carl Philipp von Cobenzl (1712–1770) via these more ‘cosmopolitan’ treatises.44 Little seemed to remain of cosmopolitanism’s Cynic origins within Nelis’ consideration of the universal human community, apart perhaps from his critique of ancient philosophers who proclaimed great wisdoms, but failed to practice and live them, as they were still surrounded by slaves.45 Even then he would have questioned the peculiar methods taken up by the Cynics, as later in the text the sage argued that irritating someone was not a proper way of convincing anyone.46 Nelis, by doing this, again followed an Enlightenment-­ tradition, as 18th-century philosophes were wary of contentious and agonistic attitudes within texts, preferring polite literature, conventional manners, and the “conversible world” of salon culture, wishing to preserve the fragile détente between moderate enlighteners and the permanently anxious authorities, as well as the goodwill among themselves.47 Remarkably enough, Diogenes attained a renewed sense of popularity during the 18th century, as ­philosophes like d’Alembert recalled the Cynic’s constant search for a sage, scanning the streets with a lantern in broad daylight, noting how the philosophical age was looking for its own Diogenes.48 The 18th-century Cynic, however, was, like Louisa Shea has shown, something different to his ancient predecessor, looking instead more like a “stockinged and well-­powdered Dog”, as enlightened philosophes tried to retain Diogenes’ political independence and frank speech, while condemning his misanthropy and indecency to a now faraway past.49 Even if certain philosophers like Diderot and the Marquis de Sade explored 43

Christopher Brooke, Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau (Princeton: 2012), 151–52. 44 Schmitt-Maaß, Stockhorst and Ahn, “Introduction,” 19–21. 45 Nelis, Fragment sur les principes, 18. 46 Ibid., 32. 47 Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, 23–24; Knud Haakonssen, “Enlightened Dissent: An Introduction,” in Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. idem (Cambridge: 1996), 3. 48 Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Mélanges de littérature, d’histoire et de philosophie, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: 1764), 380. 49 Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, 24, 30.

140

van Dam

some of the more ‘disturbing’ aspects of ancient Cynicism in their critiques of enlightened salon culture, their approach was still mostly defined by their engagement with Cynic thought rather than any mode of existence. The Cynic imperative among 18th-century philosophes was no longer to “live differently”, but to “think differently”: “another thought for another world” rather than “another life for another world”.50 3 A Return of Cynic Cosmopolitanism: Pauline Ethics against Josephist Reformism The reappearance of a Cynic mode of existence, however, can be traced to a rather unexpected place, manifesting itself as a renewed spiritual ethics, displayed by a group of Catholic and anti-reformist publicists during one of the most polemic periods of the 18th-century Southern Netherlands, the 1780s.51 This period represented a radicalization of the clergy’s ethics and public involvement, as they came to experience what they considered to be a suspension of the constitutional order, with several Catholic critics of the Josephist reforms being persecuted and illegally detained. One example of this was the priest Joannes Jozef Van den Elsken (1759–1803), who was a professor at the Atrecht College in Leuven and author of the infamous Letters of Keuremenne (1788–89), which ruthlessly tore to shreds the Habsburg government’s religious reforms, especially its establishment of a General Seminary for the education of priests in Leuven.52 Van den Elsken had been chased by the Habsburg authorities, not once but twice, this second instance being captured outside of the Austrian Netherlands, in the territory of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. In his own account of his capture, Van den Elsken emphasized the remarkable state the 18th-century believer was living in, as even a man like Van den Elsken, a priest and citizen of Brabant, could be hunted down like “the greatest of murderers, refusing him every formality of law”.53 Van den Elsken returned 50 Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment, 24. 51 For a thorough political-intellectual contextualization of this decade, with a focus on ­Catholic anti-reformism, see my doctoral dissertation “Between Enlightened Reform and Spiritual Revolt: Religious Self-Historicization and -Governance in the Southern Netherlands during the Catholic Enlightenment (1760–1790)” (PhD dissertation, Universiteit Gent, 2019). 52 On Van den Elsken, see Jaak Muyldermans, “Joan. Jos. vanden Elsken (deknaam Keuremenne) (1759–1803): bio- en bibliografische aantekeningen,” Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde (1928), 265–392. 53 [Joannes Jozef Van den Elsken], Omstandig verhaal van de injurieuse gevangenisse van den eerweerdigen heere J.J. Van den Elsken op den 14 Junius MDCCLXXXIX voorgevallen buyten,

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

141

to this point several times, for example, when he recounted being bound to a chair and asking his abductors for a lawyer and witnesses to defend his case. “All words and reasons simply vanished into thin air”, he said, “for them, it was sufficient that they held me underneath their claws with violence [my italics].”54 While this state of lawlessness came as a shock to some, to others, like the former Jesuit Pierre de Doyar (1728–1806), it simply signified a return to the ‘true’ state of Christianity, one where the ‘law’ could not distinguish true from false Christianity, but only the believer’s willingness to face the public dangers of a Christian life and his ability to speak a difficult truth to others.55 It recalled the plight of the ‘primitive Christians’, for whom every moment of evangelization was a potentially life-threatening situation.56 For someone like Doyar, it was this state of lawlessness which formed the very essence of the apostolic message, the very core of a possible resistance, since it allowed men to transform themselves from their current, ‘unthinking’ existence, which saw them slip into a spiritual crisis without notice and made them value temporal goods and interests exclusively.57 The life of the 18th-century apostle was meant to be a “grimace of the true life”, something which Christianity, in the age of philosophy, had completely lost, according to François-Xavier de Feller (1735–1802), another former Jesuit and editor of the notoriously anti-enlightened periodical Journal historique et littéraire (1773–1794).58 In, what Feller called, the century of “pusillanimity”, everything had been steered towards “prudence”, “cowardice”, and “indifference”, whereas the true Christian needed to rediscover the ­values of courage, public zeal, and a willingness to ‘disturb’ his fellow man.59 But where could such values be found, which were so strongly reminiscent of the Cynic answer to the prudent and indifferent philosophical ethics of ancient Athens? Surely not with the 18th-century version of Diogenes, whose enlightened appropriators en des selfs ontzet binnen de stad Sint-Truyden (tot Brussel: 1790), 3–4: “en als den grootsten der moordenaeren bind, stoot en voorts-dryft alle formalityt van recht hem wygerende”. 54 [Van den Elsken], Omstandig verhaal, 20: “ik vroeg eenen Advocaet, Notaris en getuygen, om de zaek echtlyk te beweeren, maer alle woorden en redenen vlogen in den wind; ‘t was hun genoeg, dat zy my met geweld onder hunne klouwen hadden”. 55 [Pierre de Doyar], Lettres d’un chanoine pénitencier de la metropole de *** à un chanoine théologal de cathédrale de **, sur les affaires de la Religion. Nouvelle Édition revue et corrigée (S.l.: 1786 [1st ed., 1785]), 119. 56 [Doyar], Lettres d’un chanoine pénitencier, 126. 57 Ibid., 120 and 125n(a). 58 On Feller, see Jacques Wagner, “Feller, François-Xavier de,” in Dictionnaire des anti-Lumières et des anti-philosophes (France, 1715–1815), A-I, ed. Didier Masseau (Paris: 2017), 550–58. 59 Journal historique et littéraire, 15 March (Luxembourg: 1782), 459-60n(2): “Dans ce s­ iècle de pusillanimité, on ramène tout vers la prudence, la modération, la circonspection, la tolérance, l’indifférence, et le doux repos.”

142

van Dam

retained his anti-religious sentiments while ­simultaneously making his philosophy of life more tame.60 Instead, Catholic publicists like Feller, Doyar, and Van den Elsken turned to the Christian source of a courageous and socially disturbing ethics, the life and epistles of St. Paul. To employ Pauline literature as an instrument towards both reading the present and engaging with enlightened philosophy was by no means uncommon throughout the 18th century, as the complexity, ambiguity and subtlety of the Apostle’s Letters made it possible to use them as a textual body through which one’s own contemporary intellectual concerns could be translated and historicized into a Scriptural language.61 In the enlightened circles of Vienna, Leuven and Utrecht, St. Paul took up an important role as the propagator of a “reasonable belief”, as expressed in Rom. 12:1, providing a middle way between religious irrationalism and philosophical rationalism.62 In France, Paul had been a constant presence in confessional politics since the publication of ­Unigenitus, with Jansenist militants especially recognizing themselves in the spiritual ethics of St. Paul.63 This constant engagement with Paul can be found within pro-papal and anti-reformist networks as well, as anti-­philosophes, like the Parisian apologist Jean Pey (1720–1797), came to see Paul as the Christian philosopher par excellence.64 The anti-reformist publicists in the Austrian Netherlands, however, turned to a more radical reading of the Pauline epistles, not as a tool of engagement with enlightened philosophy, but as a philosophical alternative in itself, emphasizing the Cynic aspects of Paul’s ethics and worldview. In Paul’s time of evangelization, followers of Cynic philosophy were spread across many Mediterranean cities. They were considered by many, like Lucian of Samosata, to be lazy “busybodies”, leaving their workshops to “tan their bodies to Ethiopian hue” or to meddle in other people’s affairs.65 Paul was then eager to distance 60 61 62 63 64 65

For an example of this within the context of the Southern Netherlands itself, see the ­ amphlet, Dialogue dans les champs élisées, entre Diogene, Platon et un habitant s­ ublunaire p (Brabant: 1787). Carlo Ginzburg, “High and Low: the Theme of Forbidden Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Past & Present 73 (1976), 28–41. David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment. Protestants, Jews and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton/Oxford: 2008); Ulrich L. Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment. The Forgotten History of a Global Movement (Oxford: 2016), 10. Olivier Andurand, La Grande affaire: Les évêques de France face à l’Unigenitus (Rennes: 2017), 99–100. For example, see Jean Pey, De l’autorité des deux puissances, vol. I (Strasbourg: 1788 [1st ed. 1781]), 31–32. Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: the Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: 1987), 19.

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

143

himself from such types, underlining in his Epistles to the Thessalonians the crucial role of the Christian work ethic.66 And yet, in many ways, Paul echoed certain traditions of Cynic philosophy as well, taking over Dio Chrysostom’s description of the ideal parrhesiastic Cynic in I Thess. ii, while internalizing crucial philosophical traits of the Cynic tradition, like making poverty and a hardnosed life into a virtue, disparaging the law and society’s conventions, and doing away with any social identifications – Jew or Greek, slave or free, and male or female – within his community.67 The Pauline epistles offered, to Catholic anti-reformists like Feller, Van den Elsken, and Doyar, a more radical ethics, which could be used to ‘read’ and ‘think’ the events of the 1780s. With Feller, a Pauline ethics presented the ideal antidote against philosophical prudence and indifference, with the Apostle providing a model of courageous public truth-speech, something that Feller reflected upon after the death of one of the century’s great examples of Christian firmness, the Archbishop of Paris, Christophe de Beaumont (1703–1781).68 His description of St. Paul increasingly emphasized the Apostle’s own Cynic characteristics, such as his indifference to worldly respect and contempt, and his active embrace of poverty and frugality. Paul was considered to be more philosophical than even his philosophical opponents, as Paul, like the Cynics, was able to fully ‘live’ his thought through the simplicity of his lessons and his patience and activity: Which of them [Epicureans and Stoics, MVD] would have dared to boast of having the zeal, the activity, the patience, the perseverance of Paul, & above all the complete (“parfaite”) indifference for the glory & the contempt, for the slander & the respect, for the name of seducer & that of an honest man, for obscurity & reputation? No, the sublime disposition of the soul […] was not known to them …69 But the Pauline aspect most akin to that of the Cynic was his wish to “exist as an anathema for his brethren”, a quality of the Apostle which was recalled 66 67 68 69

Ibid., 99–101. Abraham J. Malherbe, “‘Gentle as a Nurse’: the Cynic Background to I Thess. II,” Novum Testamentum 12 (1970), 216–17; Francis Gerald Downing, Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline Churches (London and New York: 1998), 307–10. Journal historique et littéraire, 15 March, 459-60n(2). François-Xavier de Feller, Dictionnaire historique, seconde edition, vol. VII (Liège: 1797 [1st ed., 1781–84]), 83: “Qui d’eux eût osé se vanter d’avoir le zele, l’activité, la patience, la persévérance de Paul, & sur-tout la parfaite indifférence pour la gloire & la mépris, pour la calomnie & le respect, pour la nom de séducteur & celui d’homme vrai, pour l’obscurité & la réputation? Non, la sublime disposition d’ame […] ne leur étoit pas connue …”.

144

van Dam

by Doyar in his pamphlet on the dangers of tolerance, Éclaircissement sur la tolérance, où entretiens d’une dame et de son curé (1782), a pamphlet that immediately responded to Joseph II’s Patent of Toleration (1781) published the year before.70 Consisting of a dialogue between a lady and her priest on the topic of tolerance, Doyar turned his Éclaircissement at a certain point towards the ­relation between Christian charity and intolerance, as the priest argued that the two complemented each other.71 Confused by this paradox, the lady echoed the enlightened conviction shared by reformist Catholics and Josephists, that charity, “qui ne respire que paix et douceur”, seemed impossible to comply with something like intolerance.72 The priest responded by taking up the example of the life of St. Paul: So now, Madam, you can see how these terms are perfectly compatible with each other; & we have striking evidence of it in the person of St. Paul. This great Apostle wishes to be an anathema for his brethren. Can we carry ourselves any further from charity? But he also wishes that we say anathema to those who corrupt the Gospel, even when they would be Angels descendent from the Sky. Such a marked Intolerance! On the one hand, it’s the very gentleness itself; he grieves with those who cry, he rejoices with those who are in joy. After having quit everything, sacrificed everything, he would want to sacrifice himself still, for the salvation of his brethren. On the other hand, he disturbs: he threatens, he punishes those who trouble the church, he hands them over to Satan, he commands to avoid them. What do you think, Madam, of this alternative to Tolerance and Intolerance?73

70

71 72 73

On this aspect of Cynic philosophy as an ethical ‘disturbance’, see Foucault, The Courage of the Truth, 231–49. On the publication and reception of the Patent, see Paul ­Maertens, “La promulgation de l’Edit de Tolérance dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens: réactions et conséquences immédiates,” Études sur le XVIIIe siècle (1982), 55–62. [Pierre de Doyar], Éclaircissement sur la tolérance, où entretiens d’une dame et de son curé (Rouen: 1782), 81–82. Ibid., 82. Ibid., 82: “Vous voyez donc à présent, Madame, que ces termes sympatisent parfaitement entr’eux ; & nous en avons une preuve frappante dans la personne de S. Paul. Ce grand Apôtre souhaite d’être anathême pour ses freres. Peut-on porter plus loin de la charité ? Mais il veut aussi qu’on dise anathême à ceux qui corrompent l’Evangile, quand même ils seroient des Anges descendus du Ciel. Quelle Intolérance plus marquée ! d’un côté c’est la douceur même ; il s’afflige avec ceux qui pleurent, il se réjouit avec ceux qui sont dans la joie. Après avoir tout quitté, tout sacrifié, il voudroit encore s’immoler lui-même, pour le salut de ses freres. D’un autre côté, il fait trembler : il menace, il punit ceux qui troublent

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

145

Like the ancient Cynic, Paul embodied the reality of suffering in everyday ­existence as his role as a “grimace of the true life”, framing apostleship as a mode of existence which was threatening and fear-inducing.74 This radical image of a Cynic Paul, as the symbol of Christian suffering and resistance, became an ever present within the anti-reformist literature of the late 1780s in the Southern Netherlands.75 It was through Paul, as well, that an alternative cosmopolitanism could be thought by the Catholic anti-reformists, away from the cosmopolitan ideal supported by a common love of reason, or the Christian Stoicism which, in all likeliness, lay partly at the foundation of the religious Josephist reforms.76 In his imagination of the newly developing Christian community during his time, Paul stood much closer to a Cynic understanding of self-transformation – which was based on a rejection of previous markers of identity – than on, for instance, Stoic ideas. While Stoics, like Zeno, maintained a rather disparaging attitude towards barbarians, believing anyone can ultimately become a ‘Hellene’ through “honorary transfer”, Cynics, and Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians, explicitly renounced all markers of identity: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female”, Gal. 3.28.77 ­Wishing to convey to new believers God’s willingness to accept all of the converted into the Christian community, Paul made use, one could say, of the Cynic conception of what constituted a “citizen of the world”, where opposed pairs like ‘Hellenes and barbarians’ were deemed irrelevant.78 We find something similar at work in the writings of the anti-reformist publicists, who considered it their task to broaden ‘philosophy’, making it accessible to all. According to Feller, philosophes, while monopolizing what could be understood as ‘philosophy’, ignored more simple things and practices, like the Christian catechism.79 Through their hierarchical distinction between l’église, il les livre à Satan, il ordonne de les éviter. Que pensez-vous, Madame, de cette alternative de Tolérance & d’Intolérance?”. 74 On the similarities and historical influence of Cynicism on Paul’s Epistles, cf. Sophie F­ uggle, “On the Persistence of Cynic Motifs,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 11 (2010), 159–71. 75 See also [Joannes Jozef Van den Elsken], Waere grond-regels van de constitutie der Catholyke Kerke Tegenstrydig aen de hedendaegsche verwoestende aenmerkingen der Kerk-regering ende wettige Regtsgeleertheyd (tot Roomen: 1790), 7–8. 76 On the claim that Joseph II was “a sort of Christian Stoic”, see William Reginald Ward, “Late Jansenism and the Habsburgs,” in Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe, ed. James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley (Notre Dame, IN: 2001), 180. 77 Downing, Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline Churches, 13–22. 78 Ibid., 14. 79 [François-Xavier de Feller], Flexier de Réval, Catéchisme philosophique ou Recueil d’observations propres à défendre la religion chrétienne contre ses ennemis (Paris: 1777 [1st ed., 1773]), vii.

146

van Dam

reasonableness and ignorance, enlightened philosophers went against what Feller considered to be the “spirit of evangelical doctrine”, where both the wise and the ignorant are called upon, as stipulated by Paul in Romans 1:14.80 The same logic was present in the embrace, by these Catholic anti-philosophes, of the doctrine of Resurrection as the true wisdom of the world, which was lambasted by their more ‘enlightened’ opponents as the “foolishness of the Cross”.81 When the Antwerp canon, Pieter Simon Van Eupen (1744–1804), referred, in an open letter to the editor of the Journal général de l’Europe, to 1 Cor. 4:10, that the Belgian people were “fools for Christ’s sake”, he was, in many ways, showing how the Christian struggle with philosophy encountered by Paul was being relived during the late 18th century.82 And same as it was with St. Paul, it was ultimately the event, of both Christ on the Cross and the spiritual resurrection of the Belgian people, which made a Christian cosmopolitanism possible.83 This was not a universalizing cosmopolitanism where something like Reason, or in this case, the spiritual rebirth of ‘Belgians’ as a Catholic community, transformed into a transcendent principle erasing difference, nor was it a spatial cosmopolitanism, entering into a spatialized dialectic between the global and the particular.84 Comparable to C ­ ynic cosmopolitanism, the Christian version inspired by St. Paul was essentially a rejection of political involvement, instead advocating a public display of spiritual ethics and belief, consisting of a lived philosophy of sacrifice, reviving once again the apostolic example of primitive times.85 4 Conclusion Cosmopolitanism has conventionally been understood as a fundamental aspect of Enlightenment culture. Through their rejection of national and local 80 [Feller], Flexier de Réval, Catéchisme philosophique, vii. 81 Brosius, Journal philosophique et chrétien, vol. I, 163n(b). 82 On this letter and its meaning, see Michiel Van Dam, “Een spirituele revolutie? Geloof en zelfrepresentatie tijdens de Brabantse Omwenteling (1787–1790),” De Achttiende Eeuw 49 (2017), 11–22. 83 Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: the Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier (Stanford: 2003). 84 On the Pauline relation to universalism and the law, see Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, trans. Patricia Dailey (Stanford: 2005), 49–53. 85 [Doyar], Lettres d’un chanoine pénitencier, 119–20: “ils affronterent tous les périls, ils ­mépriserent toutes les menaces, & refuserent courageusement d’obéir à la loi du silence”.

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

147

biases based on the moral universalism of Reason, 18th-century cosmopolitans are often contrasted with the so-called anti-philosophes, who were prominent members of counter-revolutionary traditions all across Europe. Reactionary in their nature and provincial in their mindset, the latter were seen as key contributors to the development of nationalism and patriotism at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the 19th century.86 None more so than the anti-reformist and anti-philosophical publicists who came to prominence in the Southern Netherlands during the 1780s, figures like Henri-Ignace Brosius, Joannes Jozef Van den Elsken, François-Xavier de Feller and Pieter Simon Van Eupen, as they provided an organic and anti-rational conception of society as a way of delegitimizing the sovereignty of the enlightened monarch, Joseph II.87 Of course, reading their often highly polemical pamphlets and coming across their continuous invocations of the Catholic Church as a patriotic institution opposing an anti-patriotic philosophy, it is difficult to see past a clear-cut division between a Christian nationalism and a philosophical cosmopolitanism. Here, however, I have tried to nuance this historiographical scheme, by showing how the Catholic publicists of the Brabant Revolt, rather than completely reject the ideal of philosophical cosmopolitanism, tried to alter and expand it. They did this by returning to a more original notion of ‘cosmopolitanism’ and by integrating a type of spiritual ethics, both of which were based on St. Paul’s tactical appropriation of a Cynic philosophy of life. C ­ osmopolitanism, in its first guise, was formulated by Diogenes of Sinope, who thought himself a “citizen of the cosmos”, rather than a citizen of the polis. This ideal, founded on a rejection of civic duties and a radical commitment to a parrhesiastic ethics, would later be partially appropriated by the apostle St. Paul, as he tried to engage with the challenge of Greek philosophy, while making the idea of a Christian community both philosophically coherent and as accessible as possible. This struggle by the Apostle would play a crucial role among the anti-reformist publicists in the Southern Low Countries, who themselves tried to imagine a public role for Catholic beliefs in the face of an increasingly dominant culture of exclusively reasonable croyance. St. Paul’s Cynic cosmopolitanism, then, with its message of a simple and accessible ethics, formed an important instrument for the anti-reformists to “think themselves”. Modeling themselves on the apostolic martyrdom of the first Christians, the anti-philosophical publicists advocated an embodied ethic of truth-speech and intolerance, a mode of life that embraced the dangers and

86 McMahon, Enemies of the Enlightenment, 51–53. 87 Van den Bossche, Enlightened Innovation, 177–88.

148

van Dam

risks of speaking the truth of the Gospel. They could do this by exhibiting a life that was deeply disturbing and ‘cutting’ for both their fellow brothers as it was to their more prudent philosophical opponents, who viewed religious o­ pinions as those that should be kept silent. In this sense, the publishing activities of polemists like Feller, Van Eupen, Van den Elsken and Doyar transformed into practices of resistance, not simply because of the messages they contained, but by their very performance, establishing a literary means by which they could bracket the rationalizing schemes of the philosophes and install their own prescribed mode of life. Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, transl. by Patricia Dailey (Stanford: 2005). Andurand, Olivier, La Grande affaire: Les évêques de France face à l’Unigenitus (Rennes: 2017). Armenteros, Carolina, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, ­1794–1854 (New York: 2011). Badiou, Alain, Saint Paul: the Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier (Stanford: 2003). Bretherton, Luke, “The Duty of Care to Refugees, Christian Cosmopolitanism, and the Hallowing of Bare Life,” Studies in Christian Ethics 19 (2006), 39–61. Brooke, Christopher, Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau (Princeton: 2012). Brosius, Henri-Ignace, Journal philosophique et chrétien, 4 vol. (Liège: 1790). d’Alembert, Jean Le Rond, Mélanges de littérature, d’histoire et de philosophie, 5 vol. (Amsterdam: 1763–67). Dhondt, Luc, “Politiek en institutioneel onvermogen (1780–1794) in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden,” in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden,vol. 9 (Haarlem: 1980), 139–60. Dialogue dans les champs élisées, entre Diogene, Platon et un habitant sublunaire (Brabant: 1787). Dorandi, Tiziano, “La Politeia de Diogène de Sinope et quelques remarques sur sa ­pensée politique,” in Le Cynisme ancient et ses prolongements: Actes du colloque international du CNRS, ed. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé and Richard Goulet (Paris: 1993), 57–68. Downing, Francis Gerald, Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline Churches (London and New York: 1998).

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

149

[Doyar, Pierre de], Éclaircissement sur la tolérance, où entretiens d’une dame et de son curé (Rouen: 1782). [Doyar, Pierre de], Lettres d’un chanoine pénitencier de la metropole de *** à un ­chanoine théologal de cathédrale de **, sur les affaires de la Religion. Nouvelle Édition revue et corrigée (S.l.: 1786 [1st ed., 1785]). [Feller, François-Xavier de], Flexier de Réval, Catéchisme philosophique ou Recueil d’observations propres à défendre la religion chrétienne contre ses ennemis (Paris: 1777 [1st ed., 1773]). Feller, François-Xavier de, Dictionnaire historique, seconde edition, 10 vol. (Liège: ­1797–1817 [1st ed., 1781–84]). Foucault, Michel, The Courage of the Truth. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Graham Burchell (Basingstoke: 2010). Fuggle, Sophie, “On the Persistence of Cynic Motifs,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 11 (2010), 159–71. Ginzburg, Carlo, “High and Low: the Theme of Forbidden Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Past & Present 73 (1976), 28–41. Goulet-Cazé, Marie-Odile, and Richard Goulet (ed.), Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements (Paris: 1993). Griffin, Miriam, “Le movement cynique et les romains: attraction et répulsion”, Le cynisme ancien et ses prolongements, ed. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé and Richard Goulet (Paris: 1993), 241–58. Griffin, Miriam, “Philosophy, Politics, and Politicians at Rome,” Philosophia Togata, ed. Miriam Griffin and Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: 1989), 1–37. Haakonssen, Knud, “Enlightened Dissent: An Introduction,” in Enlightenment and ­Religion: Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. Idem (Cambridge: 1996), 1–11. Journal historique et littéraire, (Luxembourg/Maastricht: 1775–1794). Judge, Jane, “Qu’allons-nous devenir? Belgian National Identity in the Age of ­Revolution,” in The Roots of Nationalism. National Identity Formation in Early ­Modern Europe, 1600–1815, ed. Lotte Jensen (Amsterdam: 2016), 291–307. Kalouche, Fouad, “The Cynic Way of Living,” Ancient Philosophy 23 (2003), 181–94. Kleingeld, Pauline, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World C ­ itizenship (Cambridge: 2012). Kleingeld, Pauline and Eric Brown, “Cosmopolitanism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/win2019/entries/cosmopolitanism/. Koll, Johannes, “Die belgische Nation”. Patriotismus und Nationalbewusstsein in den ­Südlichen Niederlanden im späten 18. Jahrhundert (Münster: 2003). Laertius, Diogenes, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2 vol. (Cambridge, MA: 1925).

150

van Dam

Lehner, Ulrich L., The Catholic Enlightenment. The Forgotten History of a Global M ­ ovement (Oxford: 2016). Lok, Matthijs, “La construction de l’Europe moderne, entre esprit des Lumières et des Contre-Lumières,” in Histoire de la conscience européenne, ed. Antoine Arjakovsky (Paris: 2016), 179–92. Lok, Matthijs, and Joris van Eijnatten, “Global Counter-Enlightenment: Introductory remarks,” International Journal for History, Culture, and Modernity 7 (2019), 406–22. Paul Mae­rtens, “La promulgation de l’Edit de Tolérance dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens: réactions et conséquences immédiates,” Études sur le XVIIIe siècle (1982), 55–62. Malherbe, Abraham J., “‘Gentle as a Nurse’: the Cynic Background to I Thess. II,” Novum Testamentum 12 (1970), 203–17. Malherbe, Abraham J., Paul and the Thessalonians: the Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: 1987). McMahon, Darrin M., The Enemies of Enlightenment: The French Counter-­Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). Muyldermans, Jaak, “Joan. Jos. vanden Elsken (deknaam Keuremenne) (1759–1803): bio- en bibliografische aantekeningen,” Verslagen en mededelingen van de ­Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde (1928), 265–392. Nelis, Cornelius Franciscus de, Fragment sur les principes du vrai bonheur. Discours à Lysimaque (Leuven: 1763). Nussbaum, Martha C., “Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism,” The Journal of Political P­ hilosophy 5 (1997): 1–25. Nussbaum, Martha C., The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton/Oxford: 1994). Pey, Jean, De l’autorité des deux puissances, 3 vol. (Strasbourg: 1788 [1st ed. 1781]). Polasky, Janet, Revolution in Brussels, 1787–1793 (Brussels: 1985). Polasky, Janet, “The Brabant Revolution, ‘a Revolution in Historiographical Perception’,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis 35 (2005), 435–55. Prick, Willy J.H., Corneille-François de Nelis, 18e et dernier évêque d’Anvers (1785–1798): un évêque humaniste et homme d’action à la fin de l’Ancien Régime (Leuven: 1947). Roegiers, Jan, “De Brabantse Omwenteling in haar politieke, religieuze en culturele context,” in Handelingen van het Colloquium over de Brabantse Omwenteling 13–14 oktober 1983, ed. Jean Lorette, Patrick Lefevre and Piet De Gryse (Brussels: 1984), 75–91. Roegiers, Jan, “De Leuvense theologen en de Verlichting. Onderwijs, wetenschap, ­polemiek en politiek van 1730 tot 1797,” 3 vol. (PhD dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1979). Schmitt-Maaß, Christoph, Stefanie Stockhorst, and Doohwan Ahn, “Introduction: Early Modernism, Catholicism, and the Role of the Subject – Fénelon as a Representative of the Age of Enlightenment,” in Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations, ed. Christoph Schmitt-Maaß, Stefanie Stockhorst, and Doohwan Ahn (Amsterdam/New York: 2014), 13–24.

A Christian Cosmopolitanism

151

Shea, Louisa, The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon (Baltimore: 2010). Sorkin, David, The Religious Enlightenment. Protestants, Jews and Catholics from L­ ondon to Vienna (Princeton/Oxford: 2008). Sprunck, Alphonse, “La censure et la surveillance des librairies à Luxembourg pendant la Révolution brabançonne: Le journal philosophique et chrétien de l’abbé ­Brosius,” Publications de la Section historique de l’Institut grand-ducal de Luxembourg 72 (1951), 137–72. Tassier, Suzanne, Les démocrates belges de 1789: étude sur le Vonckisme et la Révolution brabançonne (Brussels: 1930). Van Dam, Michiel, “Between Enlightened Reform and Spiritual Revolt: Religious Self-Historicization and -Governance in the Southern Netherlands during the ­Catholic Enlightenment (1760–1790)” (PhD. diss., Universiteit Gent, 2019). Van Dam, Michiel, “Een spirituele revolutie? Geloof en zelfrepresentatie tijdens de Brabantse Omwenteling (1787–1790),” De Achttiende Eeuw 49 (2017), 11–22. Van den Bossche, Geert, Enlightened Innovation and the Ancient Constitution. The ­Intellectual Justifications of Revolution in Brabant (1787–1790) (Brussels: 2001). [Van den Elsken, Joannes Jozef], Omstandig verhaal van de injurieuse gevangenisse van den eerweerdigen heere J.J. Van den Elsken op den 14 Junius MDCCLXXXIX voorgevallen buyten, en des selfs ontzet binnen de stad Sint-Truyden (tot Brussel: 1790). [Van den Elsken, Joannes Jozef], Waere grond-regels van de constitutie der Catholyke Kerke Tegenstrydig aen de hedendaegsche verwoestende aenmerkingen der Kerk-­ regering ende wettige Regtsgeleertheyd (tot Roomen: 1790). Van Kley, Dale K., “Religion and the Age of “Patriot” Reform,” The Journal of Modern History 80 (2008), 252–95. Vanysacker, Dries, Cardinal Giuseppe Garampi (1725–1792): an Enlightened Ultramontane (Brussels: 1995). Vanysacker, Dries, The Erudite Activities and Contacts of Papal Nuncio Giuseppe G ­ arampi in Warsaw and Vienna, 1772–1785 (Leuven: 1994). Wagner, Jacques, “Feller, François-Xavier de,” in Dictionnaire des anti-Lumières et des anti-philosophes (France, 1715–1815), A-I, ed. Didier Masseau (Paris: 2017), 550–58. Ward, William Reginald, “Late Jansenism and the Habsburgs,” in Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe, ed. James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley (Notre Dame, IN: 2001), 154–86.

CHAPTER 7

18th-Century Crusaders: The War against France and the Catholic Counterrevolution, 1789–99 Glauco Schettini “Today is the day”, an alarmed Dionigi Strocchi wrote on 17 September 1796 to his friend Francesco Conti in Faenza. In Rome, where Strocchi worked as a secretary of the College of Cardinals, “everyone [was] murmuring about a holy war, a war of religion” soon to be waged against France. Its consequences, Strocchi anticipated, would be ruinous.1 Strocchi’s fears were not misplaced. After Bonaparte’s invasion of the Papal States in June, an armistice had been signed in Bologna between the French and the papal emissaries, but negotiations for a peace treaty, which had started in Florence early in September, were stalling. The prefect of the Index, Cardinal Stefano Borgia, who had once argued for a policy of appeasement toward revolutionary France, was now adamant that declaring a war of religion was necessary.2 Even the populace of Rome, Cardinal vicar Giulio Maria della Somaglia informed the papal delegate in Florence, Lorenzo Caleppi, “longed to see [Caleppi] come back with an overt declaration of a war of religion.”3 And the Spanish plenipotentiary in Rome, José Nicolás de Azara, who had been deployed to Florence as a mediator, notified prime minister Manuel Godoy, with unusual desolation, that pope Pius VI was soon going to declare a crusade against France—with which Godoy had concluded a peace treaty in Basel the year before.4 The day that Strocchi feared and Azara wished so desperately to avoid never came. And yet, the prospect of a crusade against France was more than the late-summer dream of a papal Curia suddenly realizing that Rome was no longer safe from the dangers of war. Catholic thinkers across Europe had 1 Giovanni Ghinassi (ed.), Lettere edite ed inedite del cavaliere Dionigi Strocchi ed altre inedite a lui scritte da uomini illustri, vol. 1 (Faenza: 1868), 55. All translations are mine. 2 Vatican City, AAV, Segreteria di Stato, Epoca napoleonica, Italia, 11/1, fasc. 4, no. 11, 7 ­September 1796. 3 Lajos Pásztor, “Un capitolo della storia della diplomazia pontificia: La missione di Giuseppe Albani a Vienna prima del trattato di Tolentino,” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 1 (1963), ­295–383, here 300. 4 José Nicolás de Azara, Epistolario (1784–1804), ed. María Dolores Gimeno Puyol (Madrid: 2010), no. 310. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004446731_007

18th-Century Crusaders

153

long been pondering over the best way to react against the Revolution, and ­especially against the secularizing thrust that they regarded as the most frightful feature of the post-revolutionary world. The idea of a counterrevolutionary crusade, which was born out of transnational intellectual exchanges, signaled the emergence of a new understanding of the ongoing struggle. The war the French were fighting for the exportation of Revolution, as Catholic intellectuals saw it, was a new kind of war aimed at replacing a traditional world order with a new one that left little room for established religions. It was an ideological war and a war of annihilation—a total war, as we would say in current parlance.5 In the eyes of its promoters, the project of a counterrevolutionary crusade was a fitting response to this kind of war. It also announced some of the main features of 19th-century Catholicism. On the one hand, such a project relied on the identification of a model of society that could be opposed to the secularized world of the revolutionaries. This was the model, however idealized, of medieval Christendom, in which all Christian powers cooperated to achieve a goal set by the highest religious authority, the pope. On the other hand, appeals for a crusade also pointed to the need to embrace a key aspect of the new politics engendered by the French Revolution—the active involvement of popular masses on the political scene. No crusade was ever launched against France, but the wider fight for the re-Christianization of the post-revolutionary world—one that would profoundly impact 19th-century Europe and conservative cultures at large—would build upon the efforts of 18th-century crusaders. First, this chapter looks at the ways Catholic intellectuals in France and beyond conceptualized their fight against the French Revolution in the early 1790s. It then shifts to the Spain of the War of the Pyrenees (1793–95), where clerics extensively used the vocabulary of holy war to build a rationale for the fight against the French. Finally, it turns to the Papal States, where intellectuals openly called for a counterrevolutionary crusade. 1

The Revolution against Catholicism

The word “crusade” did not take long to enter the vocabulary of the ­Revolution. In a debate on the necessity of war held at the Jacobin Club in December 1791, Jacques-Pierre Brissot, the leader of the Girondins, famously called for

5 See David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Boston: 2007).

154

Schettini

“a crusade of universal liberty” against reactionary powers.6 Although the voice guiding 18th-century crusaders should be the voice of reason, not that of the pope, Brissot’s crusade, as a war uniting all the peoples of Europe and animated by an unwavering ideological commitment, had actually much to share with its medieval predecessors. References to the crusades were even more frequent in the writings of pro-revolutionary authors intent on decrying counterrevolutionary resistance, especially when motivated by religious reasons. These authors relied on a longer tradition of Enlightenment works that were critical of the crusades. Throughout the 18th century, historians like Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson had repeatedly represented the medieval expeditions to the Holy Land as the apex of fanaticism and superstition, and had raised questions on their results from both a geopolitical and an economic perspective.7 Even some Catholic historians, such as Claude Fleury, agreed upon such a narrative.8 Unsurprisingly, then, counterrevolutionaries could easily be ridiculed as would-be crusaders—the modern-day imitators of the most quintessential manifestation of unenlightened religion. In Germany, Karl Gottlieb Daniel von Clauer ­published in 1791 a speech titled Der Kreuzzug gegen die Franken, in which he tried to talk the German princes out of their warlike intentions by lampooning the idea that religion could provide an acceptable rationale for fighting against the Revolution.9 And in an anonymous French satirical ­pamphlet probably published after 10 August 1792, an unlikely Pius VI, who qualified himself as the “king of kings”, invited all Catholic powers to wage a crusade against France in order to reestablish “the blissful kingdom of fanaticism” all over Europe.10 It took counterrevolutionary thinkers slightly longer before they actually came to describe their struggle as a religious war. The awareness that the fight against the Revolution was not just a battle of ideas, to be sure, emerged rapidly. 6 7 8 9

10

Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Second discours sur la nécessité de faire la guerre aux princes allemands (Paris: 1791), 27. Christopher Tyerman, The Debate on the Crusades (Manchester: 2011), 67–94. See also ­Alicia C. Montoya, Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques R ­ ousseau (Woodbridge: 2013). Robert Favre, “Critiques chrétiennes des croisades et de l’intolérance,” Dix-huitième siècle 34 (2002), 131–36; Tyerman, Debate, 54–56. Karl Gottlieb Daniel von Clauer, Der Kreuzzug gegen die Franken: Eine patriotische Rede, welche in der deutschen Reichs-Versammlung gehalten werden könnte (Germanien [i.e. Brunswick]: 1791). The pamphlet was republished in German in 1792 and 1796 and rapidly ­translated into French as La croisade contre les Français: Discours patriotique qui pourrait se tenir à la diètte de l’empire (s.l.: 1791). Manifeste du pape à toutes les puissances catholiques pour former une croisade contre la France (s.l.: 1792), 14.

18th-Century Crusaders

155

Edmund Burke, for one, made it clear in his Reflections (1790) that the system the National Assembly was setting up posed a radical ideological alternative to every other, and already in 1791, in his Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, he expressed the need for a pan-European military coalition. However, not until 1793 did he clearly qualify the war against the Revolution as a “religious war”.11 On the opposite shore of the Channel, François Dominique de ­Montlosier was among the earliest critics of France’s new c­ onstitution, which he lambasted in 1791 in his De la nécessité d’une contre-révolution en France.12 Shortly thereafter, in a second pamphlet, Des moyens d’opérer la contre-­révolution, he clearly argued in favor of a military intervention against the newly formed Legislative Assembly. However, he stopped short of suggesting that the upcoming conflict should be legitimized as a religious struggle.13 It was among Catholic intellectuals that such an idea was first sketched and swiftly caught on. Catholic Counter-Enlightenment thinkers had long been accustomed to regard 18th-century culture as disruptive of traditional beliefs—as well as of the existing political order and of social stability, which, they argued, were both dependent upon religion. The offensive against Catholicism, many of them claimed, was the result of a plot hatched by a diverse set of enemies—ranging from the philosophes to freemasons and Jansenists. When the Revolution came, its Catholic opponents, both within and without France, only had to graft their criticisms of the National Assembly onto the tradition of Counter-Enlightenment thought. This process was smoothed by provisions that curtailed the Catholic church’s legal privileges and by Pius VI’s condemnation of the Civil constitution of the clergy in 1791, which widened the gap between the Revolution and much of the Catholic world. For the many French priests who refused to take an oath to the Civil constitution, as much as for Catholic observers abroad who grew increasingly concerned with the Assembly’s religious policies, opposing the Revolution soon became 11

12

13

Edmund Burke, “Remarks on the Policy of the Allies,” in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 4 (London: 1887), 449. On Burke’s evolving conceptualization of the war against France, see Jennifer M. Welsh, Edmund Burke and International Relations: The Commonwealth of Europe and the Crusade against the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 1995). Burke would eventually refer to the war as a “new crusade” in 1796 in his Letters on a Regicide Peace (Indianapolis: 1999), 157. François Dominique de Montlosier, De la nécessité d’une contre-révolution en France, pour rétablir les finances, la religion, les mœurs, la monarchie et la liberté (s.l.: 1791). On ­Montlosier, see Carolina Armenteros, “Royalist Medievalisms in the Age of Revolution: From Robert de Lézardière to Chateaubriand, 1792–1831,” Relief 8 (2014), 20–47. François Dominique de Montlosier, Des moyens d’opérer la contre-révolution, pour servir de suite à son ouvrage intitulé De la nécessité d’une contre-révolution (Paris: 1791).

156

Schettini

synonymous with defending Catholicism.14 But even before the passing of the Civil constitution and the subsequent schism in the French clergy, Catholic authors had started to ramp up their counterrevolutionary rhetoric. Already in 1789, for example, Jean-Baptiste Duvoisin, who would become the bishop of Nantes in 1802 and one of Napoleon’s most trusted advisors for religious affairs, ranted that the philosophes and their epigones, the members of the National Assembly, were using “every means of war” in their onslaught on Catholicism. Religion, he proclaimed, desperately needed “soldiers” ready to fight in its defense.15 This need became all the more urgent when military conflict broke out. ­Religion provided an effective rallying cry for those who opposed the Revolution. Counterrevolutionary insurgents in western France rebranded themselves the Catholic and Royal Army, adopted the Sacred Heart as their symbol, and explicitly included “the reestablishment of the Catholic religion” among their goals.16 Outside of France, too, prelates and priests actively supported the military efforts of their compatriots. In February 1793, the Capuchin Albert Komploier, a preacher in Bolzano, a city under imperial control, exhorted his audience to “detest this feverish and contagious plague”, the Revolution, and to fight it “until death”.17 In June 1794, the bishop of Parma, Adeodato Turchi, encouraged the faithful “not to be afraid to die” as martyrs “in defense of the altars”—a sacrifice that would grant them eternal salvation.18 The year before, while Savoy was under French occupation, a Piedmontese Franciscan, Filippo da Rimella, had authored an extensive oration devoted to the crusade launched in 1307 against the heretic Fra Dolcino.19 Although Rimella stopped short of openly calling for a new crusade against revolutionary France, his intentions were easily intelligible to his readers.20 And the refractory archbishop of Cambrai, prince Ferdinand de Rohan, who had fled his diocese in 1792 to seek shelter in Belgium, was even less cautious. In a pastoral letter he wrote 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

Javier Herrero, Los origenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1973); Daniele Menozzi, La Chiesa cattolica e la secolarizzazione (Turin: 1993), 15–71; Luciano Guerci, Uno spettacolo non mai più veduto nel mondo: La Rivoluzione francese come unicità e rovesciamento negli scrittori controrivoluzionari italiani, 1789–1799 (Turin: 2008). Jean-Baptiste Duvoisin, La France chrétienne, juste et vraiment libre (s.l.: 1789), 3 and 55. Manifeste de l’armée chrétienne et royale au peuple français (s.l.: 1793), 4. [Albert Komploier], Albero della iniqua libertà francese: Tradotto dal tedesco in italiano i­ dioma (Assisi: 1793), 5 and 46. Adeodato Turchi, Omelia recitata al popolo nel giorno di Pentecoste dell’anno 1794: Sopra le orazioni pubbliche che si fanno attualmente (Parma: 1794), 20. Filippo da Rimella, Orazione sopra la sacra lega de’ Valsesiani contro l’eretico Dulcino e seguaci, con tre appendici e con riflessioni analoghe agli errori ed ai bisogni dei correnti tempi (Vercelli: 1793). Giornale ecclesiastico di Roma, 27 September 1794, 151–52.

18th-Century Crusaders

157

in November 1793, he claimed that the war against France was “the war of ­religion against impiety”. “Is a war that religion and humanity require”, he went on, “less holy of a war than the crusades?”21 Such utterances, though, generally failed to coagulate into a cohesive narrative. Rohan, after all, left his question unanswered, and the Belgian episcopacy proved somewhat reluctant to adopt such a militant rhetoric. In their pastoral letters, they condemned the French as impious and qualified the ongoing war against the Revolution as just, but they generally refrained from using religion as a tool to stir up the resistance.22 Things, though, were about to change. 2

For God and the Country: Spain’s War against the Revolution

In June 1793, the Spanish ex-Jesuit Juan de Osuna, who had found shelter in Cesena, in the Papal States, after the Jesuits’ expulsion from Spain, described the French invasion of his homeland as “hell’s ultimate, most critical, and decisive attempt to strip the Omnipotent of his scepter”. But the French would soon discover, he proclaimed, “that it is hard to fight against God”.23 It was in Spain, indeed, that the claim that the ongoing conflict was a war of r­ eligion was most thoroughly elaborated upon. When France opened hostilities against its former ally in March 1793, the understanding of the Revolution as an anti-­ religious conspiracy had already made inroads south of the Pyrenees. Spanish clerics, who willingly accepted the crown’s appeal to support military mobilization, seized upon existing counterrevolutionary tropes and weaved them into a coherent religious rationale for war. For almost two years, sermons and pastoral letters served as a sounding board for its propagation. French émigrés, too, lent their assistance, galvanizing the Spaniards with accounts of the ­persecutions they had endured.24 21 22

23 24

Maurice Chartier, “Une lettre pastorale de l’archevêque insermenté de Cambrai en 1793,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 28 (1956), 211–13, here 213. Horst Carl, “Religion and the Experience of War: A Comparative Approach to Belgium, the Netherlands and the Rhineland,” in Soldiers, Citizens and Civilians: Experiences and Perceptions of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1790–1820, ed. Alan Forrest, Karen Hagemann, and Jane Rendall (Basingstoke: 2009), 222–42, here 224–25. Juan de Osuna, Orazione parenetica recitata per implorare dall’altissimo la celeste benedizione sulle armi cattoliche nella guerra intrapresa contro l’anarchia francese (Cesena: 1793), 20 and 23. Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton: 1958), 297–315; Scott Eastman, Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic, 1759–1823 (Baton Rouge: 2012), 17–44; Gregorio Alonso, La nación en capilla: Ciudadanía catolica y cuestión religiosa en España, 1793–1874 (Granada: 2014), 23–31. On the circulation of counterrevolutionary ideas between France and Spain, see also Jean-Philippe Luis’s chapter in this volume.

158

Schettini

In the works of Spanish clerics, the French were invariably portrayed as the enemies of religion. Tomás de Lorenzana y Butrón, the bishop of Girona, explained that beyond the Pyrenees the French had already “abolished every sacred ceremony and ruined churches and altars, without any reverence for God”, and Mariano de Perea, the rector of the University of Orihuela, labeled them as “apostates”.25 Spain, thus, was now in danger. The Augustinian friar Gregorio Galán described the French as “impatient to spread their errors throughout the globe”, and Nicolás Chornet y Año, a Carmelite, warned his compatriots that the National Convention had “sworn to tear off their holy faith from Spain”.26 The source of France’s corruption, of course, was the thought of the philosophes—“the false philosophy of this century”, a­ ccording to ­Francisco Aguiriano y Gómez, bishop of Calahorra.27 An anonymous ­pamphlet by a French émigré railed against “the much-praised filósofos”, especially “the most impure Voltaire”, and Joseph López de la Fuente, canon of Mondoñedo, denounced that it was the fault of the Enlightenment if France, once “a cultured nation”, was now venerating a number of “idols mistaken as gods”.28 Such accusations became all the more frequent as dechristianization spiraled in the winter of 1793–94 and the new revolutionary cults of Reason and the Supreme Being were created. Revolution and war, thus, could be interpreted as God’s punishments for the sin of apostasy. God, explained the bishop of Tarragona, Francisco Armañá, “chastises the peoples’ rebellion”.29 His wrath, Chornet remarked, “spills onto our crimes”.30 And if the whole revolutionary crisis was of God’s making, concluded López de la Fuente, it required an appropriate remedy: “the lack of faith is the cause of all the evil France has experienced; faith alone will protect us Spaniards”.31

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

“Edicto del ilustrísimo señor obispo de Gerona,” Semanario de Salamanca, 16 December 1794, 178; Mariano de Perea, Oración con que exhortó al servicio voluntario de las armas los jóvenes (Orihuela: 1793), 25. Gregorio Galán, Sermón en la rogativa a Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Madrid: 1793), 2; Nicolás Chornet y Año, Medio seguro para triunfar de la Francia: Oración deprecatoria y ascetica (Valencia: 1794), 2. “Carta pastoral del ilustrísimo señor don Francisco Mateo Aguiriano y Gómez,” Semanario de Salamanca, 8 November 1794, 82. Clamores de un francés católico en la desolación de su patria (s.l.: s.d.), 7; Joseph López de la Fuente, Sermón que predicó el día 30 de junio de 1793 (s.l.: 1793), 35. Francisco Armañá, “Pastoral con motivo de la guerra contra la nación francesa en el estado infeliz de su anarquía,” in Pastorales del ilustrísimo señor d. fr. Francisco Armañá, vol. 2 ­(Tarragona: 1794), 103. Chornet y Año, Medio seguro, 11. López de la Fuente, Sermón, 11.

18th-Century Crusaders

159

Such a remedy, however, did not consist just in the cultivation of faith, but in an actual religious war. After demonstrating that a conflict for the defense of religion was necessarily a just war, Galán proclaimed that Spain had to “brandish a double-edged sword, the word of Jesus Christ, and protect itself with the shield of faith”.32 And as he celebrated a Spanish victory in July 1793, Friar Pedro Pont observed that “this triumph [was] the work of [God’s] right hand”.33 Invocations of the Lord of Hosts were countless. Antonio Despuig y Dameto, the bishop of Orihuela, reassured the faithful that “the God of Hosts will fight alongside us and send his exterminating angel against a nation of reprobates, who deserve to be loathed by the righteous for declaring themselves against God.”34 Even Chornet, who had no doubt that the current “sufferings” would end “when we decide to seek the kingdom of God and his justice before all other things”, conceded that fighting was necessary, and that the ongoing war was “a holy war, a war of religion, which can be described with the sacred name of war of God”.35 This war could draw strength from Spain’s long-established Catholic tradition, and especially from its tradition of religious warfare, which preachers ceaselessly recalled to shore up their appeals. Among others, Despuig urged Spaniards to fight in the name of the faith “that our fathers received from Saint James the Great, protector of this kingdom”.36 Lorenzana reminded his flock that “any time the enemies of the faith had tried to … introduce their errors among us”, relics and the blood of martyrs had “defended us from any infection”, and they would certainly allow Spaniards to “destroy and annihilate the enemies of our holy law” once again.37 Even more numerous were specific references to the Reconquista, the multisecular war against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, which was increasingly seen as the foundational moment of ­Spanish national identity.38 Agustín García Porrero, a friar and a calificador of the Spanish Inquisition, claimed that the “God of Hosts”, who once 32 Galán, Sermón, 42. 33 Pedro Pont, La soberbia francesa humillada y la humildad española exaltada: Sermón ­(Barcelona: 1793), 24. 34 “Carta del ilustrísimo señor don Antonio de Espuig y Dameto,” Correo de Murcia, 14 ­December 1793, 236. 35 Chornet y Año, Medio seguro, 25 and 30. 36 “Carta del ilustrísimo señor don Antonio de Espuig y Dameto,” 235. 37 “Edicto,” 247. 38 On the broader connection between war rhetoric, Catholic identity, and nation building in Spain, see Scott Eastman, “Soldiers, Priests and the Nation: From Wars of Religion to Wars of National Independence in Spain and New Spain,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 22 (2011), 13–32.

160

Schettini

“shattered the shackles of our slavery” and “exterminated the cruel and ­lecherous S­ aracens”, would now guide the Spanish army against the French.39 And Agustín de Lezo y Palomeque, the archbishop of Zaragoza, exhorted the Spaniards to fight as their ancestors had “fought to reestablish our sacred religion and our monarchy” when “the Arabs defiled our temples”.40 Preachers and prelates spent a great deal of time explaining what kind of war the Spaniards were called to fight. By defending their religion, they were also— Friar Joaquín Antonio Díez clarified—fighting for “the public order” and for “the good of the state”, as religion was assumed to be the foundation of the existing social and political order.41 This thesis, which Counter-Enlightenment thinkers and Catholic apologists had long been putting forward, was now taking on a new meaning, as it was no longer just an argument used by intellectuals of opposite fields while sparring with each other, but also a legitimate reason to call for popular participation in the struggle against the Revolution. This struggle, everyone agreed, was one of unprecedented extent—it required the mobilization of every available resource and was aimed at the total annihilation of the enemy. Driving back the French army, thus, was not enough. The war’s ultimate goal was to stifle the Revolution in its own cradle, and according to Lorenzana, to “bring the flag of our faith back to France”.42 For this purpose, he explained, “everyone is needed.”43 Women, according to Díez, were called to exhort their sons to “face up to the enemies and sacrifice their lives”.44 And Lezo y Palomeque highlighted that although “not everyone will be able to take up arms, all can participate in the defense” of the country. “The wealthy should use their riches to support the soldiers”, and clerics, he went on, should employ “their revenues, their advice, and their exhortations to encourage the defenders of religion”.45 The clergy’s involvement in the war, indeed, was among the points most frequently touched upon by preachers. According to Lorenzana, clerics were called to support and direct the military efforts by offering “an example of loyalty and love in serving the king, defending the country, and preserving our sacred religion.”46 While conceding that priests “should not take up arms”, 39 40

Agustín García Porrero, Sermón hizo el día 27 de octubre de este año 1793 (Toledo: 1793), 17. “Carta pastoral del ilustrísimo señor arzobispo de Zaragoza,” Semanario de Salamanca, 2 September 1794, 166. 41 Joaquín Antonio Díez, Exhortación al pueblo (Valencia: 1794), 13 and 34. 42 “Carta del ilustrísimo señor obispo de Gerona,” 247. 43 “Edicto,” 179. 44 Díez, Exhortación, 35. 45 “Carta pastoral del ilustrísimo señor arzobispo de Zaragoza,” 167. 46 “Carta del ilustrísimo señor obispo de Gerona en que anima à todos sus diocesanos à la permanencia y constancia en nuestra Santa Fe, y que se opongan à las invasiones y astucias de los ultramontanos,” Correo de Murcia, 16 April 1793, 248.

18th-Century Crusaders

161

Armañá insisted that they were not “useless for the state, not even in a time of war”, as they were uniquely suited to wield their “spiritual weapons”, as opposed to the “physical and earthly weapons” of the soldiers.47 Aguiriano y Gómez consented that priests could even escort fighters to the front, although he reminded them that they were not supposed to get directly involved in military operations—a caveat that some had apparently forgotten.48 It is the sheer number of orations and pastoral letters published in support of the war, however, that bears witness to the extent of the clergy’s involvement in the general mobilization. This involvement was certainly the product of concern, as clerics were sincerely horrified by the news coming from France and by the accounts of French émigrés. But they were also seizing a chance to reassert their hold on civil society and their capacity for moral and political leadership. As they defended religion and made it central to Spain’s war effort, after all, they were also claiming for themselves a directive role in the ­post-revolutionary world. The Spanish clergy, thus, extensively described the War of the Pyrenees as war of religion, in which the very survival of Catholicism, and of the country, was at stake. Such a war required the energies of the whole nation and the complete dedication of the soldiers, whom God would certainly reward for their sacrifices. No peace could be signed with the French until the Revolution was completely crushed and Catholicism restored. There was perhaps no work into which all these themes were more fully distilled than El soldado católico en guerra de religión by Diego de Cádiz, a Capuchin friar and a preacher of great renown. “Every good son of the holy church”, he wrote, “must take up arms to defend it from its opponents and enemies”.49 However, neither Diego nor any other of the many preachers that supported Spain’s war efforts ever went as far as to describe the ongoing war as a crusade. The power to launch a crusade, as they knew, rested with the pope. It was up to someone who could expect to exert a more direct influence on Pius VI to call for an actual crusade against France. 3

An 18th-Century Crusade

Francisco Gustá was born in Barcelona in 1744.50 He joined the Society of Jesus as a novice in 1759 and was still a theology student in Valencia in 1767, when 47 48 49 50

Armañá, “Pastoral con motivo de la guerra,” 111. “Carta pastoral del ilustrísimo señor don Francisco Mateo Aguiriano y Gómez,” 84. Diego José de Cádiz, El soldado católico en guerra de religión: Carta instructiva ascetico-­ historico-politica, vol. 1 (Ecija: 1794), 7. On his life, see Miguel Batllori, Francisco Gustá: Apologista y crítico, Barcelona 1744 – ­Palermo 1816 (Barcelona: 1942).

162

Schettini

the Jesuits were expelled from Spain. After a year spent in Corsica with his fellow exiles, in 1769 he finally reached Ferrara, in the Papal States. There he gradually established his name as a talented polemicist and a major figure in the ex-Jesuits’ intellectual networks.51 His two-volume Vita di Costantino, first published in 1786, eventually gave him some wider celebrity. Though a work of history, the book was clearly meant to support an ultramontane political agenda.52 Constantine was presented as a sovereign who, considering “the interests of the state inseparable from those of religion”, had accordingly “set appropriate boundaries between church and empire”. Thus, his example served as a counter-model vis-à-vis “the innovators and philosophers of our time”—by which Gustá meant reforming sovereigns such as Joseph II of Austria and their supporters, most importantly the Jansenists, who called for increasing state control over religious affairs.53 Indeed, it was his anti-Jansenist zeal that kept Gustá at work over the following years. In late 1786, a diocesan synod organized in Pistoia, Tuscany, by the local Jansenist bishop, Scipione de’ Ricci, and backed by Grand Duke Peter Leopold provided a blueprint for a Jansenist reform of the church.54 Although Ricci’s provisions were rejected the following year by a general assembly of the Tuscan bishops, they resonated widely with reform-minded Catholics throughout Europe, and sparked a virulent reaction from their opponents.55 Gustá himself wrote against the dissemination of Jansenist-leaning catechisms and produced an extensive refutation of the works of Italy’s leading Jansenist theologian, and the mastermind behind the Synod of Pistoia, Pietro Tamburini.56 When C ­ atholic counterrevolutionaries started arguing that the Jansenists were among the conspirators responsible for the outbreak of the French Revolution, Gustá soon joined in. Between 1793 and 1795, he published Memorie 51

52 53 54 55 56

On these networks, see Niccolò Guasti, L’esilio italiano dei gesuiti spagnoli: Identità, controllo sociale e pratiche culturali, 1767–1798 (Rome: 2006), 245–93; Antonella Barzazi, “I gesuiti iberici in Italia tra libri e biblioteche,” in La presenza in Italia dei gesuiti iberici espulsi, ed. Ugo Baldini and Gian Paolo Brizzi (Bologna: 2010), 337–53. See Mario Rosa, Settecento religioso: Politica della Ragione e religione del cuore (Venice: 1999), 288–90. Francisco Gustá, Vita di Costantino il Grande, primo imperador cristiano, vol. 1 (Foligno, 1786), 2. See Shaun Blanchard, The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for C ­ atholic Reform (Oxford: 2019). On the debate between reform-minded Jansenists and ultramontanes in the 1780s, see Dale K. Van Kley, Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe (New Haven: 2018), 243–86. Francisco Gustá, Sui catechismi moderni: Saggio critico-teologico (Ferrara: 1788); Francisco Gustá, Gli errori di Pietro Tamburini nelle Prelezioni di etica cristiana (Foligno: 1791).

18th-Century Crusaders

163

della rivoluzione francese and L’antico progetto di Borgo Fontana, in which he ­reiterated the thesis of the Jansenist conspiracy.57 Most importantly, as he ­provided a ­diagnosis of the causes of the Revolution, he also set out to explain how to deal with its consequences—and this he did in his Saggio critico sulle crociate. Gustá’s Saggio, first published in June 1794, offered a historiographical ­reassessment of medieval crusades and then suggested how to adapt that model to the needs of the modern era.58 Its first half was entirely devoted to a rather tendentious reconstruction of the expeditions to the Holy Land, whose merits Gustá vindicated against the charges recently leveled by historians—­ especially Fleury and Robertson. Medieval Christendom, he argued, had found itself faced with an existential challenge, as the Turks envisioned to “destroy ­Christianity” and “reduce all Europe to slavery.”59 The crusades, according to Gustá, had ­successfully averted that threat. Most notably, as he defended the usefulness of the crusades, Gustá also praised the system that had made them possible. They were, he explained, the product of the “remarkable agreement of religion and politics”, that is to say, of a period in which religious and political authorities cooperated harmoniously and it was up to religious figures— and ultimately to the pope—to determine the goals that political powers had to pursue.60 The goal of a modern crusade would be to resurrect such an arrangement. Medieval crusades also offered a blueprint for the organization of the war against France. As the Turks before them, the French were trying to eradicate Catholicism and replace it with “new rites and new celebrations of an idolatrous sort”, hence there could be no doubt that the war against Revolution was a religious war.61 Gustá referenced works from the Spain of the War of the Pyrenees, but he also emphasized an aspect that had been only alluded to, but not explicitly theorized, by other authors. France’s mass levy was entirely unprecedented. The ongoing war, Gustá claimed, was a people’s war, and the professional armies of the Old Regime could hardly match the ideological commitment and sheer manpower of the revolutionary armies. The 57

58 59 60 61

Francisco Gustá, Memorie della rivoluzione francese tanto politica che ecclesiastica, e della gran parte che vi hanno avuto i giansenisti (Assisi: 1793), later republished as Dell’influenza dei giansenisti nella rivoluzione di Francia (Ferrara: 1794); idem, L’antico progetto di Borgo Fontana dai moderni giansenisti continuato e compito (Assisi: 1795). Francisco Gustá, Saggio critico sulle crociate: Se sia giusta la idea invalsane comunemente e se sieno adattabili alle circostanze presenti, fattovi qualche cambiamento (Ferrara: 1794). Ibid., 42. Ibid., 33. Ibid., 77.

164

Schettini

only credible response to the levée en masse was a modern crusade in which the masses would enlist out of their profound religious devotion. “Religion”, Gustá argued, “is the most powerful incitement for the peoples to take up arms ­willingly and courageously”.62 Instead of opposing the sudden irruption of the masses onto the stage of politics, Catholics should welcome it—and direct it. While the management of military operations was the duty of the leaders of this world, it was up to the clergy to employ religious symbols and tropes to stir people to war, and up to the pope to launch an actual crusade. A modern crusade, thus, would allow Catholics to embrace a key aspect of modern politics, its mass dimension, while channeling it toward the renewal of the harmonious ­cooperation of church and state that had made the crusades possible in the past. The Saggio met with some success. Gustá himself promptly sent it out to Godoy and expressed the intention to have copies delivered to all European courts, although there is no evidence that he actually did it.63 A second, augmented edition was issued in Foligno in the fall of 1794. In December 1795, Manuel Luengo, a fellow ex-Jesuit exile, jotted down in his diary that Gusta’s work, which he had not read, was frequently discussed among ex-Jesuits, and that based on what he had heard, it persuasively demonstrated that the Holy See should adopt a more confrontational stance toward France.64 The Giornale ecclesiastico di Roma, the unofficial organ of the Curia’s influential ultramontane faction, praised the Saggio in a long review penned by the editor-in-chief, Luigi Cuccagni.65 Most importantly, an increasing number of people began to call for the pope to launch an actual crusade. Whether or not he had read Gustá, Count Joseph de Puisaye, the royalist leader who would later guide the disastrous landing of a British-backed émigré army in Quiberon, wrote from Brittany to Pius VI in November 1794 to ask him to launch “a crusade similar to those for the Holy Land”. Puisaye’s request was discussed in the Curia, although it was eventually rejected on the premise that after Robespierre’s recent fall the National Convention was going to pursue a more moderate course.66

62 63 64 65 66

Ibid., 100. See Batllori, Gustá, 123. Ibid., 67. Giornale ecclesiastico di Roma, 6 September 1794, 137–38; 13 September 1794, 141–43. Vatican City, Segreteria di Stato, Sezione per i Rapporti con gli Stati, Archivio Storico, Fondo Congregazione degli Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari, Francia, pos. 30, fasc. 16, fols. 22r-29v. On Puisaye, see Maurice Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution: Puisaye, the Princes and the British Government in the 1790s, 2 vols. (Cambridge: 1983).

18th-Century Crusaders

165

The premise, curial prelates would soon discover, was awfully wrong. Crusades, indeed, came back into fashion as Bonaparte invaded the Papal States in 1796. True, as papal emissaries were signing a ceasefire with the French in Bologna, the Holy Office prevented Gustá from publishing two new works,67 and negotiations between papal, Neapolitan, and Austrian delegates for the creation of a holy league rapidly came to grief.68 But the project of a crusade had won the approval of major diplomats, such as the papal Secretary of State Ignazio Busca, his soon-to-be successor Ercole Consalvi, the Austrian Chancellor Baron von Thugut, and the Neapolitan Marquis of Vasto. Church officials, in particular, viewed the launching of a crusade as a chance to reassert the status of the Holy See as a supranational power, with the right to determine the foreign policy goals of Catholic sovereigns. Appeals for a crusade grew increasingly frequent also beyond diplomatic circles. A third, clandestine edition of Gustá’s Saggio was published in 1796 toward the end of the summer, and large excerpts of it were included, with no attribution, in a widely successful pamphlet, Lo Stato pontificio agli altri incliti co-stati d’Italia, which called for a general insurrection against the French.69 An anonymous Eccitamento a’ popoli della Italia exhorted Italians to fight in defense of religion and of the rights of the clergy, which the French had trampled upon.70 The Roman antiquarian Carlo Fea presented the struggle against the Revolution as the continuation of several centuries of religious warfare against the Ottomans,71 and repeatedly claimed that papal subjects and Italians at large should rise up to defend Catholicism—although he never used the word crusade to describe such a war.72 For Bishop Turchi of Parma, 67

68

69 70 71 72

David Armando, “La costruzione di una profezia: Stratificazioni testuali e vicende editoriali del Trionfo della Santa Sede di Mauro Cappellari,” in L’ordine camaldolese in età moderna e contemporanea, secoli XVI–XX, ed. Giuseppe Croce and Ugo Fossa (Cesena: 2016), 765–90, here 778. Benedetto Maresca, La pace del 1796 tra le Due Sicilie e la Francia studiata sui documenti dell’Archivio di Stato in Napoli (Naples: 1887); Paul Wittichen, “Briefe Consalvi’s aus den Jahren 1795–96 und 1798 mitgeteilt,” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 7 (1904), 139–70; Pásztor, “Un capitolo.” Lo Stato pontificio agli altri incliti co-stati d’Italia (s.l.: 1797). Another edition of the pamphlet appeared almost simultaneously. Eccitamento a’ popoli della Italia ad armarsi e a difendersi da’ francesi, e a detestarne le ­massime distruttive della religione, de’ governi e della società (Cosmopoli [Rome]: 1796). Carlo Fea, Lo sprone d’oro al patriotismo romano (s.l.: s.d.); Carlo Fea, Motivo di conforto agli italiani nel venturo anno MDCCXCVII (s.l.: 1796). Motivo di conforto was also translated into French. Carlo Fea, Parenesi agli italiani, e specialmente ai popoli dello Stato ecclesiastico e al Popolo romano nelle presenti circostanze (Petropoli [Rome]: 1796).

166

Schettini

“heaven” itself “had spoken”, calling all Italians to actively fight the invasion, and an anonymous pamphlet, Certa è la vittoria, o religiosi romani, went as far as to exhort clerics, too, to take up arms and kill the enemies with their own hands.73 Still at the beginning of 1797, an anonymous theological advisor to the College of Cardinals argued that Pius VI should call for a crusade to “defend God himself, whom he who defines himself the God of Italy ­[Bonaparte] and his vast, impious sect want to remove from heaven”.74 While eschewing such apocalyptic tones, even a major figure as the curial intellectual Giovanni Marchetti embraced the project of an anti-French crusade. In his Che importa ai preti, which was first published toward the end of 1796 and had three more editions in less than two years, Marchetti exhorted the pope to just “acknowledge the truth” and proclaim that the ongoing war was a war of religion. This would “reunite the cause of the state with that of religion”, healing the wound that reforming sovereigns and the Revolution had caused.75 Echoing Gustá, whom he duly referenced, Marchetti regarded a crusade not just as the most effective way to counter the Revolution, but also as a means to reassert the international stance of the Holy See and to recreate what he regarded as healthier relationships between church and state. 4 Conclusion In February 1798, the French took Rome. Pius VI, who in 1782 had been the first pope in centuries to travel abroad in order to visit Emperor Joseph II in Vienna, was forced for a second time to leave the Papal States, now turned into the Roman Republic. He would die a prisoner in Valence, France, one year later. In the meantime, calls for a crusade multiplied, once again supported by Austrian and Neapolitan diplomats. Pius VI himself preached caution, and while he was safely sheltered in Tuscany in the summer of 1798, he refused to consecrate the offensive that Naples was preparing against the Roman Republic as a war of religion.76 Years of propaganda, however, had gone a long way to disseminate 73 74 75 76

Adeodato Turchi, Epigrafe all’Italia: Patientia laesa fit furor (Rome: 1796), 22; Certa è la vittoria, o religiosi romani: Perché? Verità esposta da un cristiano autore (Rome: 1796), 5. Vatican City, Segreteria di Stato, SRRSS, AAEESS, Stati ecclesiastici, pos. 84, fasc. 20, fols. 45r-55v, here 52v. Giovanni Marchetti, Che importa ai preti, ovvero l’interesse della religione cristiana nei grandi avvenimenti di questi tempi: Riflessioni politico-morali di un amico di tutti dirette a un amico solo, 2nd ed. (Cristianopoli [Rome]: 1797), 178. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, R.G.Storia.III.555 (2), Studio sulle calamitose vicende della Santa Sede nei pontificati di Pio VI e Pio VII, 135–36 and 234–35; Pietro Baldassarri, Relazione delle avversità e patimenti del glorioso papa Pio VI, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Modena:

18th-Century Crusaders

167

the idea that the struggle against the Revolution was a holy war. As Italians insurgents took up arms against the French in 1799, they had no doubt they were fighting in defense of Catholicism, as French and Spanish counterrevolutionaries had done before. In the Italian South, insurgents branded themselves the Army of the Holy Faith and fought under the guidance of Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo. The perception of the ongoing fight as an epochal confrontation between religion and the forces of evil had become common sense. Although no crusade was ever launched against the Revolution, the efforts of Gustá and his fellows point to the crucial features of the Catholic Counterrevolution—a diverse and transnational body of thought that fundamentally redesigned the shape of Catholicism in the modern world. The war against France led Catholics to invoke a reframing of the relationships between religion and politics on the model of medieval Christendom. To be sure, this model was highly idealized, but to its supporters, it essentially meant that the legal privileges of the church had to be restored, and that it was up to the ecclesiastical hierarchies to set the goals for the political powers of this world. Spiritual and temporal authorities should cooperate for a greater good that only the church—and ultimately its leader, the pope—could properly identify. The world Catholic counterrevolutionaries dreamed of was a world in which it was possible to overturn the outcomes of revolutionary secularization, enlightened absolutism, and the Protestant Reformation, which had first shattered the unity of Christian Europe and undermined the Holy See’s ability to lead the international community. It was a new, modern world, though one that was radically alternative to that of the revolutionaries, and one that contrasted their arguments for progressive change with a conservative vision of history. But calls for a crusade also implied the need to embrace one of the most radical consequences of the Revolution itself—the active participation of the people in politics. The church, Catholic counterrevolutionaries argued, should enlist the masses in its fight, using against the Revolution the very forces conjured up by the sorcerer’s apprentices in Paris. Though in an unsystematic and perhaps tentative fashion, the defining characters of 19th-century Catholicism—its medievalist ideals and its drive toward the creation of a mass-based Catholic movement—made one of their first appearances in the writings of 18th-­century crusaders.

1842), 185–87; Luigi Berra, “Gioacchino Tosi vescovo giurato di Anagni e la relazione della sua visita a Pio VI prigioniero dei francesi nella Certosa di Firenze,” in Studi offerti a Roberto Ridolfi direttore de La Bibliofilia, ed. Berta Maracchi Biagiarelli and Dennis E. Rhodes (Florence: 1973), 147–67.

168

Schettini

Bibliography Alonso, Gregorio, La nación en capilla: Ciudadanía catolica y cuestión religiosa en España, 1793–1874 (Granada: 2014). Antonio Díez, Joaquín, Exhortación al pueblo (Valencia: 1794). Armañá, Francisco, Pastorales del ilustrísimo señor d. fr. Francisco Armañá, vol. 2 ­(Tarragona: 1794). Armando, David, “La costruzione di una profezia: Stratificazioni testuali e vicende editoriali del Trionfo della Santa Sede di Mauro Cappellari,” in L’ordine camaldolese in età moderna e contemporanea, secoli XVI–XX, ed. Giuseppe Croce and Ugo Fossa (Cesena: 2016), 765–90. Armenteros, Carolina, “Royalist Medievalisms in the Age of Revolution: From Robert de Lézardière to Chateaubriand, 1792–1831,” Relief 8 (2014), 20–47. Azara, José Nicolás de, Epistolario (1784–1804), ed. María Dolores Gimeno Puyol (Madrid: 2010). Baldassarri, Pietro, Relazione delle avversità e patimenti del glorioso papa Pio VI, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Modena: 1842). Barzazi, Antonella, “I gesuiti iberici in Italia tra libri e biblioteche,” in La presenza in Italia dei gesuiti iberici espulsi, ed. Ugo Baldini and Gian Paolo Brizzi (Bologna: 2010), 337–53. Batllori, Miguel, Francisco Gustá: Apologista y crítico, Barcelona 1744 – Palermo 1816 (Barcelona: 1942). Bell, David A., The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Boston: 2007). Berra, Luigi, “Gioacchino Tosi vescovo giurato di Anagni e la relazione della sua visita a Pio VI prigioniero dei francesi nella Certosa di Firenze,” in Studi offerti a Roberto Ridolfi direttore de La Bibliofilia, ed. Berta Maracchi Biagiarelli and Dennis E. Rhodes (Florence: 1973), 147–67. Blanchard, Shaun, The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform (Oxford: 2019). Brissot, Jacques-Pierre, Second discours sur la nécessité de faire la guerre aux princes allemands (Paris: 1791). Burke, Edmund, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 4 (London: 1887). Burke, Edmund, Letters on a Regicide Peace (Indianapolis: 1999). Cádiz, Diego José de, El soldado católico en guerra de religión: Carta instructiva ascetico-historico-politica, vol. 1 (Ecija: 1794). Carl, Horst, “Religion and the Experience of War: A Comparative Approach to B ­ elgium, the Netherlands and the Rhineland,” in Soldiers, Citizens and Civilians: Experiences and Perceptions of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1790–1820, ed. Alan ­Forrest, Karen Hagemann, and Jane Rendall (Basingstoke: 2009), 222–242.

18th-Century Crusaders

169

Chartier, Maurice, “Une lettre pastorale de l’archevêque insermenté de Cambrai en 1793,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 28 (1956), 211–213. Chornet y Año, Nicolás Medio seguro para triunfar de la Francia: Oración deprecatoria y ascetica (Valencia: 1794). Clamores de un francés católico en la desolación de su patria (s.l.: s.d.) Clauer, Karl Gottlieb Daniel von, Der Kreuzzug gegen die Franken: Eine patriotische Rede, welche in der deutschen Reichs-Versammlung gehalten werden könnte ­(Germanien [i.e. Brunswick]: 1791). Duvoisin, Jean-Baptiste, La France chrétienne, juste et vraiment libre (s.l.: 1789). Eastman, Scott, “Soldiers, Priests and the Nation: From Wars of Religion to Wars of National Independence in Spain and New Spain,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 22 (2011), 13–32. Eastman, Scott, Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic, 1759–1823 (Baton Rouge: 2012). Eccitamento a’ popoli della Italia ad armarsi e a difendersi da’ francesi, e a detestarne le massime distruttive della religione, de’ governi e della società (Cosmopoli [Rome]: 1796). Favre, Robert, “Critiques chrétiennes des croisades et de l’intolérance,” Dix-huitième siècle 34 (2002), 131–136. Fea, Carlo, Lo sprone d’oro al patriotismo romano (s.l.: s.d.). Fea, Carlo, Motivo di conforto agli italiani nel venturo anno MDCCXCVII (s.l.: 1796). Fea, Carlo, Parenesi agli italiani, e specialmente ai popoli dello Stato ecclesiastico e al Popolo romano nelle presenti circostanze (Petropoli [Rome]: 1796). Galán, Gregorio, Sermón en la rogativa a Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Madrid: 1793). García Porrero, Agustín, Sermón hizo el día 27 de octubre de este año 1793 (Toledo: 1793). Ghinassi, Giovanni (ed.), Lettere edite ed inedite del cavaliere Dionigi Strocchi ed altre inedite a lui scritte da uomini illustri, vol. 1 (Faenza: 1868). Guasti, Niccolò, L’esilio italiano dei gesuiti spagnoli: Identità, controllo sociale e pratiche culturali, 1767–1798 (Rome: 2006). Guerci, Luciano, Uno spettacolo non mai più veduto nel mondo: La Rivoluzione francese come unicità e rovesciamento negli scrittori controrivoluzionari italiani, 1789–1799 (Turin: 2008). Gustá, Francisco, Vita di Costantino il Grande, primo imperador cristiano, vol. 1 (Foligno, 1786). Gustá, Francisco, Sui catechismi moderni: Saggio critico-teologico (Ferrara: 1788). Gustá, Francisco, Gli errori di Pietro Tamburini nelle Prelezioni di etica cristiana ­(Foligno: 1791). Gustá, Francisco, Memorie della rivoluzione francese tanto politica che ecclesiastica, e della gran parte che vi hanno avuto i giansenisti (Assisi: 1793).

170

Schettini

Gustá, Francisco, Saggio critico sulle crociate: Se sia giusta la idea invalsane comunemente e se sieno adattabili alle circostanze presenti, fattovi qualche cambiamento (Ferrara: 1794). Gustá, Francisco, L’antico progetto di Borgo Fontana dai moderni giansenisti continuato e compito (Assisi: 1795). Herr, Richard, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton: 1958). Herrero, Javier, Los origenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1973). Hutt, Maurice, Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution: Puisaye, the Princes and the British Government in the 1790s, 2 vols. (Cambridge: 1983). Kley, Dale K. Van, Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in Enlightenment Europe (New Haven: 2018). [Komploier, Albert], Albero della iniqua libertà francese: Tradotto dal tedesco in italiano idioma (Assisi: 1793). Lo Stato pontificio agli altri incliti co-stati d’Italia (s.l.: 1797). López de la Fuente, Joseph, Sermón que predicó el día 30 de junio de 1793 (s.l.: 1793). Manifeste de l’armée chrétienne et royale au peuple français (s.l.: 1793). Manifeste du pape à toutes les puissances catholiques pour former une croisade contre la France (s.l.: 1792). Marchetti, Giovanni, Che importa ai preti, ovvero l’interesse della religione cristiana nei grandi avvenimenti di questi tempi: Riflessioni politico-morali di un amico di tutti dirette a un amico solo, 2nd ed. (Cristianopoli [Rome]: 1797). Maresca, Benedetto, La pace del 1796 tra le Due Sicilie e la Francia studiata sui documenti dell’Archivio di Stato in Napoli (Naples: 1887). Menozzi, Daniele, La Chiesa cattolica e la secolarizzazione (Turin: 1993). Montlosier, François Dominique de, De la nécessité d’une contre-révolution en France, pour rétablir les finances, la religion, les mœurs, la monarchie et la liberté (s.l.: 1791). Montlosier, François Dominique de, Des moyens d’opérer la contre-révolution, pour ­servir de suite à son ouvrage intitulé De la nécessité d’une contre-révolution (Paris: 1791). Montoya, C., Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques ­Rousseau (Woodbridge: 2013). Osuna, Juan de, Orazione parenetica recitata per implorare dall’altissimo la celeste benedizione sulle armi cattoliche nella guerra intrapresa contro l’anarchia francese (Cesena: 1793). Pásztor, Lajos, “Un capitolo della storia della diplomazia pontificia: La missione di Giuseppe Albani a Vienna prima del trattato di Tolentino,” Archivum Historiae P­ ontificiae 1 (1963), 295–383. Perea, Mariano de, Oración con que exhortó al servicio voluntario de las armas los jóvenes (Orihuela: 1793).

18th-Century Crusaders

171

Pont, Pedro, La soberbia francesa humillada y la humildad española exaltada: Sermón (Barcelona: 1793). Rimella, Filippo da, Orazione sopra la sacra lega de’ Valsesiani contro l’eretico Dulcino e seguaci, con tre appendici e con riflessioni analoghe agli errori ed ai bisogni dei c­ orrenti tempi (Vercelli: 1793). Rosa, Mario, Settecento religioso: Politica della Ragione e religione del cuore (Venice: 1999). Turchi, Adeodato, Omelia recitata al popolo nel giorno di Pentecoste dell’anno 1794: Sopra le orazioni pubbliche che si fanno attualmente (Parma: 1794). Turchi, Adeodato, Certa è la vittoria, o religiosi romani: Perché? Verità esposta da un c­ ristiano autore (Rome: 1796). Turchi, Adeodato, Epigrafe all’Italia: Patientia laesa fit furor (Rome: 1796). Tyerman, Christopher, The Debate on the Crusades (Manchester: 2011), 67–94. Welsh, Jennifer M., Edmund Burke and International Relations: The Commonwealth of Europe and the Crusade against the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 1995). Wittichen, Paul, “Briefe Consalvi’s aus den Jahren 1795–96 und 1798 mitgeteilt,” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 7 (1904), 139–70.

PART 2 Transnational Networks and Institutions

∵

CHAPTER 8

Survival Strategies: Jacobite Adaptability, ­ 1689–1789, and Counter-revolutionary Prototypes Nigel Aston Through a case study of the Butler brothers, two Anglo-Irish aristocrats, this essay considers the appropriateness of viewing Jacobitism as a transnational counter-revolutionary phenomenon that in many of its structural and circumstantial aspects prefigured the character and challenges faced by the French émigrés towards the end of the 18th century. The primary energies of Jacobites and émigrés were equally directed, in the first instance, towards return and restoration and both required survival strategies and the articulation of public ­values that might terminate displacement, dispersal, and marginalisation. Neither found the achievement of consensus on strategy easy in practice. This chapter also assesses the extent of Counter-Revolutionary awareness in the 1790s and 1800s that history might be deemed to be replaying itself and whether Jacobite prototypes offered comfort, consolation and object lessons for the Bourbons as they experienced what their Stuart cousins had previously endured four ­generations previously. After considering the connections and convergences between the two royal families, and aristocrats from families that had experienced double dispossession, first, as Jacobites, second, as opponents of the Revolution, the essay notes the historicized, romanticized Jacobitism that partly infused the creation of Conservatism in the early 19th century before briefly and contextually considering the several versions of 18th-century Jacobitism. It then offers some comparisons between ‘James III’ and his exiled court in Italy with the similarly penurious Bourbon monarchy in exile. The former, despite limited financial resources, kept up the appearances of monarchy for several decades while adjusting gradually to permanent exile as the consequence of the de iure sovereign’s refusal to become an Anglican; the other, without there being any confessional, issue at stake, became increasingly pragmatic over time. The second half of the essay, with its theme of the primacy of aristocratic networks when examining contrasting Counter-Revolutionary prototypes, discusses the careers of the 2nd duke of Ormonde and 1st earl of Arran. Taken together, these disclose varieties of cultural transfers, various forms of conservative cosmopolitanism, aspects of assimilation and integration in host communities, as © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_008

176

Aston

well as the nature of internal exile, that, accurately contextualized, offer the historian of the 1790s and 1800s precedents and practices that anticipate that later era. 1

Bourbons and Stuarts: Connections and Convergences

When the comte d’Artois arrived in Edinburgh in January 1796 to reside at Holyroodhouse it was the first time that the Palace had been occupied by a prince since Charles Edward Stuart had held court there between September and November 1745.1 Both men were there on behalf of exiled kings, the ‘Young Pretender’ for his father ‘James III’, Artois for his brother Louis XVIII;2 and both regarded Scotland as a mere holding post before England and France respectively submitted to their legitimate sovereign. Prince Charles Edward’s presence at Holyrood was a major security threat to the British government that had been placed on the backfoot by the celerity with which he had marched south out of the Highlands;3 per contra, the comte d’Artois’s residence at the Castle was intended by Pitt’s administration to protect him from his bailiffs and minimize his influence on policy formation in London. The prince soon attracted a small French colony to Edinburgh and émigré visitors arrived from south of the border. Early attempts at a ceremonial court proved unaffordable and, despite the fourteen month stay of the young duc d’Angoulême,4 the contrast with the glamorous, hopeful Holyrood of 1745, was pronounced. Culloden, of course, lay ahead of Prince Charles Edward; the French royalists had already experienced their equivalent at Quiberon Bay in June 1795 and, in due course, Napoleon Bonaparte would refuse to re-enact the part of General George Monck (for Charles II in 1660) and facilitate the restoration of Louis XVIII.5

1 For Artois in Scotland see Lord Mackenzie-Stuart, “French Emigrés in Edinburgh,” in The French Emigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814, ed. Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel (Basingstoke: 1999), 108–23; idem, “A Royal Debtor at Holyrood,” Stair Society Publication 26 (1971), 193–201; André Castelot, Charles X: La fin d’un monde (Paris: 1989), 161–70; Francis Steuart, The Exiled Bourbons in Scotland (Edinburgh: 1908), chap. 2. 2 Artois had been given the office of Lieutenant General of the kingdom [of France] by the comte de Provence after the execution of their brother, Louis XVI, in 1793. 3 See Jacqueline Riding, “‘His little hour of royalty:’ The Stuart Court at Holyroodhouse in 1745,” in Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, ed. David Forsyth (Edinburgh: 2017), 95–126. 4 Artois’s other son, the duc de Berri arrived in Edinburgh in spring 1798 and left in September; he briefly returned in 1802. Mackenzie-Stuart, “French Emigrés in Edinburgh,” 114. 5 Patrick Huchet, 1795 – Quiberon, ou le destin de la France (Rennes: 1995); Jean-Paul Bertaud, Les royalistes et Napoléon: 1799–1815 (Paris : 2009), 51–69.

Survival Strategies

177

Artois used the passing of the Aliens Act 1798 (which gave legal protection against pursuit for debt contracted outside Britain) to leave the protection of Holyrood the following year only to return briefly during the interval of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802–3. Thereafter, until the Restoration of 1814–15, he resided in London. Like all his family, the Prince was undoubtedly aware of the comparisons that could be made between his situation and those of the exiled Stuarts in the 17th century. Louis XVIII in exile had a historian’s knowledge of the Stuarts congratulating himself in a memoir of June 1799 (tellingly, prior to Brumaire) for having issued the Declaration of Verona and thereby not made himself the prisoner of one party as Charles II had done through his alliance with the Scottish Presbyterians in 1651.6 He also frequently invoked James II and the “Old Pretender” when asking for money or considering where to reside.7 As Murray Pittock has observed, these associations, if anything, intensified after the Resoration, reflected in the splendid ceremonial that accompanied the reburial of James II/VII at Saint-Germain in 1824, and Charles X (the former Artois) hubristically contrasting James II unfavourably with himself.8 The Stuart and French Bourbon blood lines were so interlinked as to make the perceived resemblances between their respective causes unavoidable. This ancestral overlap was found more directly still in the ranks of Counter-­ Revolutionaries lineally descended from Jacobite exiles. Thus Edouard, duc de Fitzjames (1776–1838), an Artois ally, was directly descended from the duke of Berwick, the illegitimate son of James II, by his second marriage to the English woman, Elizabeth Bulkeley. Fitzjames had, early in his martial career, commanded one of the Irish regiments in Louis XV’s service; the father of Trophime Gérard Lally-Tollendal (1751–1830), later executed in 1766 as the scapegoat for French military failures in India during the Seven Years’ War, had led the régiment de Lally in the famous Irish brigade at Fontenoy in 1745.9 The family had lived in France since Gerald Lally from Tuam, county Galway, had been obliged 6 He had proved an avid reader of David Hume’s History of England under the Stuarts. Philip Mansel, Louis XVIII (London: 1981), 86–87, 351. 7 Ibid., 118, 130. National Library of Scotland, Minto Papers, 13002, fol. 56, duc d’Avaray to Minto, February 1801, for the king’s fondness for talking of “mon devancier” Charles II, quoted in Philip Mansel, “From Exile to the Throne: The Europeanization of Louis XVIII,” in Monarchy and Exile. The Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Médicis to Wilhelm II, ed. idem and Torsten Riotte (Basingstoke: 2011), 181–213, here 193. 8 Murray Pittock, Scottish and Irish Romanticism (Oxford: 2008), 209. See, generally, Philip Mansel, “The Influence of the Later Stuarts and their Supporters on French Royalism ­1789–1840,” Royal Stuart Papers 21 (1983), 1–12. 9 Murray Pittock, Jacobitism (Basingstoke: 1998), 121–22. He also noted that at least two Irish republican generals were later guillotined for anti-revolutionary activity.

178

Aston

to leave Ireland under the Treaty of Limerick (1691) for his loyalty to James II. He died a brigadier general in the French army (1734) and an Irish baronet in the Jacobite baronetage (1707). After a career as a monarchien down to 1791, the comte de Lally-Tollendal, Sir Gerald’s grandson, left the National Assembly and emigrated to Britain where he swore an oath of allegiance to George III and received a royal pension.10 Other examples include the celebrated Mme La Tour du Pin, a member of the Jacobite Dillon clan,11 and Joseph Alexis Walsh, from another Jacobite and Counter-Revolutionary family, which had grown wealthy and influential as part of the Nantais mercantile elite, and had helped to finance Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s expedition to Scotland in 1745.12 2

Jacobitism, Counter-Revolution, and Conservatism

If their lineage was a nagging reminder to many émigrés of Jacobite pre-­ figurations of their plight after the fall of the French monarchy, the question remains as to how far Jacobite ideological and intellectual responses to dispossession and exile were serviceable to the wider Counter-Revolutionary movement. The plural is deliberate: there was no more ideological consensus within Jacobitism regarding political strategies best designed to secure restoration than there was among their successors confronting the first French Republic and Empire.13 There was a constant contest among the exiles of both movements as they maneuvered to win the ear of the de jure monarchs or 10

11 12

13

Lally-Tollendal returned to France in 1802. Friedemann Pestel, “The Age of Emigrations: French Emigrés and Global Entanglements of Political Exile,” in French Emigrants in ­Revolutionised Europe. Connected Histories and Memories, ed. Juliette Reboul and Laure Philip (Basingstoke: 2019), 205–31, here 211; Robert Griffiths, Le centre perdu: Malouet et les “monarchiens” dans la Révolution française (Grenoble: 1988). Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac, “Jacobites in Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye,” in The Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites, ed. Eveline Cruickshanks and Edward Corp (London: 1995), 15–38, here 16 for the Dillon family assimilation. Patrick Clarke de Dromantin, Les Réfugiés jacobites dans la France du XVIIIe siècle: l’exode de toute un noblesse pour cause de religion (Bordeaux: 2005); Juliette Reboul, French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 2017), 31; Joseph Alexis de Walsh, Mélanges: Feuilletons politiques et littéraires. Scènes contemporaines (Paris: 1832). And see the discussion in Pestel, “Age of Emigrations”, 210–11. Daniel Szechi showed how early moderates or ‘compounders’ around the exiled James II were willing to make concessions to the Revolutionary settlement in England, even to try and out do it in a bid to widen their support base. “The Jacobite Revolution Settlement, 1689–1696,” English Historical Review 108 (1993), 610–28. For the post-1693 Jacobite commitment to ­religious toleration in Britain see Gabriel Glickman, The English Catholic Community 1688–1745. Politics, Culture and Ideology (Woodbridge: 2009), 110.

Survival Strategies

179

their advisers; argument centred on the extent to which concessions should be made to the régime(s) that had dispossessed them or whether, in the interests of order and stability, it was requisite to restore the status quo ante before it was dislodged. Ancestral ties apart, it is then ideological diffuseness as well as the existential reality of exile and disempowerment that makes an examination of the overlap between Jacobitism and Counter-Revolution worth pursuing.14 Counter-Revolution and Conservatism were both responses to the upheaval in European state systems that came in the three decades after 1789, and both had a transnational dimension to them. Considered exclusively in British terms, Conservatism was strictly a Peelite response to the unscrambling of the ‘ancient constitution’ produced by the repeal of the Test & Corporation Acts (1828), full Catholic Emancipation (1829), and the Reform Act (1832), but it had been anticipated by the policy preferences of many of Pitt’s followers both before and after his death in 1806.15 These were not unhappy with the revival of the term ‘Tory’ to describe themselves. The label had been for practical purposes redundant since the 1760s as those who had considered themselves Tories gave their undivided loyalty to George III. Prior to that date, to be a Tory was, at least in the eyes of their Whig detractors, to be a Jacobite, well-affected to the Stuarts, a threat to the endurance of the constitutional settlement of 1688–89. But a century later, after “Charles III” had been “succeeded” by the ­Cardinal-duke of York, aka “Henry IX”, few in British political society, from George III downwards, were not well-disposed to the last surviving grandson of James II.16 Though Napoleon had pondered the restoration of ‘Henry IX’ in the event of a successful invasion of England,17 with its unbending attachment to legitimate monarchism Jacobitism had by that date become a totemic inspiration to all Europeans who yearned for a post-Napoleonic settlement that had stability and order as its hallmarks. That Pittites could be Tories was a sign that, shorn of its original dynastic threat, its values again had contemporary resonances, and not just in Britain: Jacobitism was perceived to offer the 14

Joseph Hone has noted that Jacobitism “was a stance that spoke in multiple and often ­contradictory voices.” Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne (Oxford: 2017), 9. The same could be said of French Counter-Revolutionaries in the 1790s. 15 Cf. the comments of James J. Sack, From Jacobite to Conservative. Reaction and Orthodoxy in Britain c.1760–1832 (Cambridge: 1993), 4–6. 16 George III arranged for a pension of £5,000 to be paid annually to him from 1800 to ­prevent the Cardinal becoming destitute. Charles Petrie, The Jacobite Movement (London: 1932), 2­ 71–76. 17 James Lees-Milne, The Last Stuarts (London: 1983), 164 and n. He also apparently asked the Countess of Albany (Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s estranged wife) if she had ever had a son. Herbert M. Vaughan, The Last Stuart Queen (London: 1910), 257.

180

Aston

defenders of throne and altar everywhere both an inspiration and an ideological ­framework within which better to explain (and perhaps escape from) their present travails. 3

The Several Versions of 18th-Century Jacobitism

But the loosely historicized Jacobitism of early 18th-century Europe readily skirted over the complexities and ambivalences of the original movement considered as a strictly ‘conservative’ political manifestation during the half-­ century of its vigorous existence after the “Glorious Revolution”. Without doubt, dynastic loyalty was primary to Jacobitism but the formulation and projection of a supportive ideology designed to achieve the restoration of the l­awful sovereign in their eyes seldom ceased to agitate and divide his supporters. Much of it came down to influence, of how close one was to the king “over the water”, how far one had his ear (or that of his chief ministers and courtiers). For the majority of Jacobites, either because they lacked rank, wealth, or both, the scope for influencing policy was minimal. Moreover, they were scattered, for Jacobitism was definitionally transnational as the majority of its most ardent adherents from “the three kingdoms” had left the British isles after the flight of James II and VII in late 1688 and taken with them wives, children, servants and sympathizers; another tranche of soldiers followed them from Ireland after the passing of the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. They were exiles but most believed, as their French equivalents did a century later in the 1790s, that it would be for a limited duration and that they were simply sojourners, mere guests in their countries of refuge. It was only as their hopes faded that signs of assimilation increased. Jacobitism, of course, had national origins born of its attachment to the regnant, then excluded Stuarts. Of necessity it became a transnational phenomenon after the Revolution when active or potentially active Jacobites were deemed a security risk to the Williamite regime and those who did not go abroad had limited scope for fermenting rebellion because of legal restraints and a watchful state.18 The object for Jacobites who had quit their homeland was invariably reversion to a more exclusively British or Irish identity. Diasporas confer a kind of mutable, temporary trans-nationality, best seen as 18

Jacobite attempts at killing William III (tyrannicide rather than regicide in their eyes) came less close to success than those a century later against Napoleon Bonaparte during the ­Consulate. Jane Garrett, The Triumphs of Providence. The Assassination Plot of 1696 ­(Cambridge: 1980). For the ‘Infernal Machine’ attempt of December 1800 see, most recently, Jonathan North, Killing Napoleon. The Plot to Blow Up Bonaparte (Stroud: 2019).

Survival Strategies

181

an unsought and unwanted identity to be discarded after “Restoration” and return.19 Trans-nationality, then, for Jacobites as for their émigré successors, was to varying degrees, assumed rather than sought, acquired from motives of expediency and, above all, out of loyalty. Cosmopolitanism was no less a problematic virtue for Jacobites in as much as it could be read as compromising an individual’s allegiance to their country of origin. Cosmopolitanism may be considered the creation of a distinct social identity through breeding, background, and education, one early imprinted on an individual and probably less likely to be discarded than any hopes invested in the Jacobite cause.20 There was always a tension between Toryism and an excessive investment in alliances or related associations with foreign polities and Jacobities (as indeed Counter-Revolutionaries would discover later in different circumstances) could find it extremely uneasy to rely on French or Spanish help to bring about the restoration of James II or “James III”, essential though it was.21 Defeat of forces loyal to a usurper was on one level fundamental to the achievement of a happy return, on another, calculated to upset and alienate the people whose renewed allegiance they desperately sought. And yet the cosmopolitanism of the Jacobite elite measured in terms of language skills, common culture, even a shared Catholicism, was of service in establishing congenial social links with their host equivalents, of opening up the way to extracting practical assistance not just reckoned as overthrow of the usurper in their homeland but on the everyday basis of personal association easing lives in a foreign country where costs were high and incomes were always strained. For decades the two Jacobite sovereigns attempted in exile to keep up a court and the usages of a court that was both recognisably English in flavour and yet cosmopolitan in its personnel, much as Louis XVIII would do at Hartwell House in due course. Members of the host nation from Louis XIV and his ministers downwards came and went, paid their respects, and did all in their power to maintain the standing of the de iure Stuart sovereign.22 19 20 21 22

Arguably, there is a sense in which those who host and work for political exiles in their c­ ountry refuge assume a kind of transnationality themselves. For a slightly later era, see the essays in Marc Belissa and Bernard Cottret (eds.), Cosmopolitismes, Patriotismes: Europe et Amériques, 1773–1802 (Rennes: 2005). For the centrality of French aid to Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s on behalf of his father in 1744–46, see Frank J. McLynn: France and the Jacobite Rising of 1745 (Edinburgh: 1981). For Jacobite efforts to commit scarce French resources to another attempt at invading Britain during the War of Spanish Succession see Daniel Szechi, Britain’s Lost Revolution? Jacobite Scotland and French Grand Strategy 1701–1708 (Manchester: 2015). And immediately after the accession of George I, idem., “‘A Nation much given to changes:’ The French Understanding of English Politics in 1715,” Journal of the Western Society for French History 32 (2004), 65–81. Counter-Revolutionaries had the same problem with the British in the

182

Aston

4 ‘James III’ and the Exiled Court in Italy That pattern changed after the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) required the Stuart court to leave St Germain and take up residence in Italy but French ministers well-disposed to Jacobitism such as Cardinal Polignac and Cardinal de Tencin subsequently did their best to make Jacobite visitors to Versailles welcome and lobby Louis XV to support the “honest” cause.23 Nevertheless, with every passing year, the attempt to maintain the distinctive ‘Britishness’ of the court in exile became harder. The temptation was strong for courtiers to imitate Lord Bolingbroke inter alia and make their peace with the ascendant Whigs after the Hanoverian Succession appeared secure following the failure of the 1715 Rebellion and the Atterbury Plot of 1722.24 Other dependents and servants were likely to follow them. And their places (where they were filled at all) tended to be taken by members of the indigenous population giving the entire establishment at the Palazzo del Re in Rome a “foreign” rather than a cosmopolitan feel, certainly to those looking out from Britain. And that appearance of ‘otherness’ was reinforced by the Catholic flavour of the court in exile, a propaganda gift to Sir Robert Walpole’s government (1721–42) that “James III” was as uncompromising as his father in sustaining.25 That confessional discrepancy was much less of a problem for the Bourbons where their subjects at home could never use a common Catholicism as a reason for not endorsing their return. Such cosmpolitanism as the Jacobite court retained after 1719 was conferred principally through its uses as a social forum, a primary site of conservative sociability for local princely families and for British visitors; to these it became a “surrogate embassy”.26 Social recognition from English grandees such as the 3rd duke of Beaufort (1707–45) could barely be separated from political acknowledgement. He called on Queen Clementina at Trastevere when in Rome on his Grand Tour in 1726, celebrated her birthday with a magnificent supper, met “James III” and Prince Charles at the Villa Borghese most days, and used the secret staircase at 1790s. Maurice G. Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution. Puisaye, the Princes and the British Government in the 1790s, 2 vols. (Cambridge: 1983). 23 ‘James III’ had used his privilege of nominating Cardinals to name Polignac in 1712. Edward Corp, The Stuarts in Italy 1719–1766. The Royal Court in Permanent Exile (Cambridge: 2011), 17, 70. 24 Daniel Szechi, 1715. The Great Jacobite Rebellion (New Haven and London: 2006); Eveline Cruickshanks and Howard Erskine-Hill, The Atterbury Plot (Basingstoke: 2004); Harry Thomas Dickinson, Bolingbroke (London: 1970), 144–53, 172–83. 25 James was financially supported by Clement XII in the 1730s. Corp, The Stuarts in Italy, 214. 26 To use Edward Corp’s coinage. See Edward Corp, “The Alternative to the House of Hanover: The Stuarts in Exile, 1714–1745,” in The Hanoverian Succession. Dynastic Politics and Monarchical Culture, ed. Andreas Gestrich and Michael Schaich (Farnham: 2015), 251–60, here 257.

Survival Strategies

183

the Palazzo del Re to see the king privately in his apartment.27 And what Beaufort did so lavishly, any number of British visitors did with less public notice. It was paying one’s respects in a manner that could be variously read, and would not preclude participation in British public life, whereas a visit to Louis XVIII could be considered a sufficient degree of identification with the king-in-exile that it precluded one from participation in the Napoleonic state. “James III”, in his long “reign”, made unadaptability a point of honour. The contrast with Louis XVIII, who in time showed himself ready to align better with public opinion and move gradually away from the stern, unconditional insistence on loyalty to the pre-Revolutionary status quo ante contained in the Declaration of Verona (1795) is pronounced.28 At least James, having no surviving sibling after the death of his sister Princess Louisa Maria in 1712, had no equivalent to Artois in offering distracting policy alternatives to his own. Jacobites had no choice but to respect their sovereign’s commitment to the hereditary, legitimist position but they were required to be flexible, adaptable, and discrete in trying to achieve their policy objective. These were high ideals, achievable only up to a point in practice, when personal and political one-­ upmanship flourished in exilic conditions. Though outwardly respectful, it was not difficult for Jacobites as it would be later for Counter-Revolutionaries to be disobedient to the de iure king if he appeared to be following policies with which they disagreed, patronising rival courtiers, or failing to reward them appropriately for their services (in as much as he could). Like all exiles, the ­Cavaliers before them in 1650s following the peripatetic royal martyr’s son, Charles II, around Europe, and the Counter-Revolutionaries after them, internal squabbling was an underlying aspect of Jacobitism, less diversionary than intrinsic, often the product of petty national jealousies. There was, however, less of the preening and self-conferred pre-eminence within the movement between the original arrivals at Saint-Germain and those who followed later (or resentment towards those who did not come at all), than would be found among the original Counter-Revolutionaries departees of the “first emigration” of 1789 compared with the much larger wave of 1791–2, for the most part (prominent deputies such as Jean-Joseph Mounier and L­ ally-Tollendal were exceptions) die-hard purs as opposed to constitutionalists.

27 Corp, The Stuarts in Italy, 168–72; Jeremy Black, The British Abroad. The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (Stroud: 1992), 248. 28 Mansel, Louis XVIII, 114–19, 125–26, 132–33. What they did share, as Mansel points out, was the motor of dynastic pride. Ibid., 85. For the argument that Louis XVIII’s 1795 Declaration actually made some modest concessions to developments since 1789 see Friedemann ­Pestel, “Monarchiens et monarchie en exil: conjonctures de la monarchie dans l’émigration française, 1792–1799,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 382 (2015), 3–29.

184

Aston

5 Jacobite Strategic Options: The Importance of Aristocratic Networks Jacobites and Counter-Revolutionaries were alike confronted with the ­multiple choices attendant on the overriding question of how best to subvert or engage with a régime deemed Revolutionary in order to achieve the supreme objective of displacing it. The answer depended on time, place, and individual and familial circumstances. On the face of it, exile suggested a more solid loyalist commitment but its results might be negligible whereas to remain behind and go through the motions of cooperating with the dynasty in possession might contribute to undermining it from within while awaiting the deliverance that only invasion from continental Europe was likely to bring. The range and variety of strategies is arguably best considered through comparative studies of cosmopolitan aristocratic networks where engagement with and commitment to Jacobitism manifested itself differently over decades but undoubtedly contributed to the longevity of the cause. One might, for instance, take the involvement and interplay of members of the Churchill family, c­ ontrasting the unyielding support down to 1716 of that archetypal transnational the duke of Berwick (1670–1734), Marshal of France, born and educated in that kingdom, a naturalized Frenchman after 1703, son of James II/VII, with the fitful, occasional, and self-serving Jacobite overtures of another outstanding soldier, his mother Arabella’s brother, John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, who never committed himself or crossed clandestinely to France as Berwick did to England in 1696. Marlborough had professed his loyalty to James II after William III had dismissed him from his commands in 1692, and was quite capable of covert communication through his nephew as in late 1708 when he ­intimated—behind the back of the Whig administration – that the time was ripe for peace negotiations which, if successful might lead to Louis XIV granting Marlborough a substantial pension.29 And Berwick himself knew the limits to loyalty writing to his eldest son on 31 October 1716: “Methinks that he [“James III”] should caress people, and not always speak of duty, of which perhaps he knows not the extent. We ought always to wish him well, and even render him service, but it is out of principles of honour, and we are not obliged to abandon all our e­ stablishment, and leave our children to starve for his projects or fancy.”30 29 30

Charles Petrie, The Marshal Duke of Berwick. The Picture of an Age (London: 1953), 233–34; Frances Harris, The General in Winter. The Marlborough-Godolphin Friendship in the Reign of Queen Anne (Oxford: 2017), 63, 66–67, 70, 133, 355. Quoted in Petrie, The Marshal Duke of Berwick, 308. The disillusioned return of Berwick’s eldest son, the earl of Tynemouth, from the ’15, his disagreements with ‘James III’ and his own loyalty to the Regent Orléans, led Berwick away from Jacobitism after 1716.

Survival Strategies

185

Another family that would repay scrutiny of its varying pro-Jacobite strategies is that of the Somersets, the first four dukes of Beaufort, but the case study here pertains to another ducal clan, the Ormondes,31 and focuses on the successive heads of the great Butler family in Ireland, James, 2nd duke of Ormonde ­(1667–1745) and Charles, 1st Earl of Arran (1671–1758) when confronted by ‘régime change’, in this case the Hanoverian Succession of 1714 in Britain. It amounts to a study in two brothers, two archetypes, one in exile and uncompromising in his allegiance; the other an accommodationist who stayed behind in England, but together, through domestic and transnational networks, they protected both their family’s inheritance and its Tory patrimony without ­sacrificing political principles. 6

Two Brothers, Two ‘Counter-revolutionary’ Strategies

6.1 James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde It might be presumed that, as the grandsons of the 1st duke of Ormonde (1610–88), the great Cavalier loyalist, whose dukedom was a reward in 1660 from Charles II for his loyalty to the Stuart cause in exile, Jacobitism would be a natural alignment for the Butler brothers. Not so, for the brothers were halfIrish and half-Dutch, the sons of Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory (1634–80), and his wife Aemilia van Nassau (d. 1688), daughter of a Dutch army officer and administrator, and herself second cousin to William of Orange. Thus upon the descent on England of the Prince of Orange, the Butler family connections to the Williamite side were actually much closer than to the Jacobites; efforts to pull them into the shadowy world of Jacobite conspiracy in the 1690s failed, and they campaigned with distinction with king William in Flanders year by year during the War of the Augsburg League (1689–97). Both men welcomed the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 as an opportunity to reaffirm the supremacy of the Church of England against its competitors for, throughout their lives, irrespective of residence, Ormonde and Arran remained staunch Anglican churchmen with Anglican chaplains on their pay roll. In the War of Spanish Succession, Ormonde won acclaim for his actions at Cadiz and Vigo in 1702 and became the Tory party’s favourite general (there was undisguised pleasure in that quarter at his replacement of Marlborough as Commander-in-Chief and captain-General in 1712).32 Arran bobbed along in 31 32

They were related by marriage to the Beauforts. See the essays in Toby Barnard and Jane Fenlon (eds.), The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610–1745 (Woodbridge: 2000); John Kirwan, The Chief Butlers of Ireland and the House of Ormond: An Illustrated Genealogical Guide (Dublin: 2018). Ormonde held the Irish Lord-Lieutenancy three times (1703–1705, 1710–11, 1713–14).

186

Aston

his brother’s wake, rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and was an obvious choice as Master-General of the Ordnance in Ireland in 1712, on his brother’s nomination to the queen.33 Like most Tories, who were caught somewhat offguard by Anne’s death on 1 August 1714 when, under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701, the Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover became George I, Ormonde missed his chance to act the heroic part and lost all his offices.34 The duke was impeached on 21 June 1715, responded, like Bolingbroke, by fleeing to France on 8 August, and paid the price: he was attainted and his estates forfeited on 20 August 1715, a month before the earl of Mar, unknown to the Chevalier, raised the Stuart standard at Braemar in Scotland, just when hopes of a rebellion in the west of England had been dashed by disorganisation created by the duke’s flight.35 Yet if there was to be a Stuart Counter-Revolution delivered by military means in 1715 Ormonde was its obvious generalissimo and, when “James III” sailed for Scotland, the duke embarked for the west of England. But this was to be no repetition of William of Orange’s successful invasion in 1688. There were no English Jacobites ready to receive him as a deliverer and no possibility of seizing Plymouth as a base so Ormonde gave up and returned to France.36 Ormonde’s personal circumstances were unpropitious and bankruptcy loomed for this compulsive spendthrift. At the date of his flight, David Hayton estimates, ducal indebtedness had risen to £110,000, or close to £10 m sterling in current v­ alues.37 Exile therefore had its compensations: he literally could not afford to return to England except in the wake of a Jacobite restoration that would restore him to lucrative offices of state and enable him to negotiate with his creditors. The duke threw himself into international efforts to bring home the Stuarts: he used all his personal charm and courtly style to persuade other European countries to play the Jacobite card when Regency France declined to do so, and spent much of 1718 discussing with Cardinal Alberoni the shape of a Spanish backed invasion of England with a diversionary attack on Scotland. In the end, the Spanish 33

He continued on regimental duties with the 3rd Troop of Horse Guards and fought at the ­battle of Blenheim, but attended regularly in the Lords as a reliable Tory supporter. Summarized in Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill, The Atterbury Plot, 95–6; Stuart Handley, “Earl of Arran,” in History of Parliament. The House of Lords 1660–1715, ed. Ruth Paley, 5 vols. ­(Cambridge: 2016), II, 351–54. 34 Paul Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788 (Cambridge: 1993), 173. His birthday, 29 April 1715, was celebrated with bonfires near Newgate Market. Lees-Milne, The Last ­Stuarts, 13, accused the duke of lack of resolution. 35 Szechi, 1715, 55–92. 36 Ibid., 19–20. 37 David W. Hayton, “Dependance, Clientage and Affinity: The Political Following of the Second Duke of Ormonde,” in The Dukes of Ormonde, ed. Barnard and Fenlon, 211–42, here 219.

Survival Strategies

187

government made available only 5,000 men with arms for another 30,000, and the fleet carrying them was mostly scattered by a Biscay storm before it could put into Corunna in north-east Spain and embark the duke and “James III”.38 Ormonde, the model of a cosmopolitan nobleman, fitted seamlessly into the court of Philip V as Captain-General of Spanish forces and commended his cause less by exhortation than by his own example as an adopted grandee. Louis XV’s envoy, the duc de Saint-Simon, looked on admiringly and found in the Duke “…a greatness of spirit that no reverse of fortune could alter, the nobility and courage of a grand seigneur, faithfulness in all trials and complete loyalty to King James and his party, despite the setbacks he had experienced and which he was ready to face anew…”.39 In the so-called Atterbury Plot of 1722, the duke was for the third time nominated to take an army to England but, even as its details were finalized, Ormonde’s financial past – and his creditors – caught up with him and obliged him to leave Madrid and take up residence in Avignon.40 Though there were occasional returns to Madrid during the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727–9, Ormonde’s primary abode for the remainder of his long life was Avignon, his residence an hospitable calling point for young British Grand Tourists of a Tory persuasion en route to and from the south of France and Italy.41 There was never any question of his seeking pardon from George II and negotiating his return. Per contra, in August 1744 Prince Henry Stuart traveled to Avignon from Rome via Antibes to discuss with Ormonde another embarkation that never was: the planned French invasion of Britain in 1744.42 Ormonde, aged almost seventy, was designated commander of 10,000 French regulars once Saxe had landed them in south-east England. In fact, he played no part in the ’45 and actually died during its course – on 16 November. Though Chancellor of both Oxford University and Trinity College, D ­ ublin before 1715, the 2nd duke of Ormond was not bookish, not academic, and with limited political talent. Neither was he an ideologue nor a sponsor of 38

A diversionary force of 307 Spanish infantrymen reached Scotland to be defeated by government forces at Glenfinnan in the Highlands in 1719. Bruce Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689–1746 (London: 1980), 190–94; William Kirk Dickson (ed.), The Jacobite Attempt of 1719 (Edinburgh: 1895). See generally Lawrence Bartlam Smith, Spain and Britain, 1715–1719: The Jacobite Issue (New York: 1987). 39 Quoted in Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill, The Atterbury Plot, 102. 40 Lenman, The Jacobite Risings, 200. For Ormonde’s emergence as the dominant figure in Irish vernacular literature in the 1720s see Eamonn ó Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, ­1685–1766. A Fatal Attachment (Dublin: 2001), 224. 41 Jeremy Black, France and the Grand Tour (Basingstoke: 2003), 109. No detailed study of Ormonde’s Avignon years has yet been undertaken. 42 McLynn, France and the Jacobite Rising, 70.

188

Aston

i­deologues; he was just loyal to his values both in state and Church. Force of circumstances may have made him a Jacobite in 1714–16 but, once committed, he never wavered. And he also possessed in abundance that gift that would be found in the young noble commanders in the Vendée in 1793–4, men such as la Rochejaquelein and de Bonchamps: he was popular and he knew how to please people, whether monarchs or a mob. ‘High Church and Ormonde’ was the cry of aggrieved crowds across England on 28 May 1715 (George I’s ­birthday), ­Restoration Day 1716, and on many others. Just the chanting of the duke’s name was enough to convey meaning.43 The same could not be said for his brother. 6.2 Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran If James Butler was the principled exile who planned to overturn the Anglo-­ Hanoverian polity from outside and never deviated from that objective, Charles Butler, by contrast, was another counter-revolutionary archetype, the one who remains behind, ostensibly loyal to the new regime, but using his powers of patronage to subvert it from within – until adversity and age blunted his commitment to the cause. His primary arena of operation was the University of Oxford. Charles, earl of Arran, was the third successive head of the Butler family to be Chancellor of Oxford: that University was about the one institution in the country where Tories could expect to gain more than their fair share of posts and places after 1714. Charles functioned as the understudy to the 2nd duke until the latter left for exile in 1715 leaving his brother acting head of the family, managing and protecting what remained of its wealth and landholdings in two kingdoms. Arran was also far less lavish than his brother (it would be hard not to be) and his shrewd marriage to an English co-heiress in 1705 also consolidated his personal financial position. And his political judgment became more keenly tuned than the duke’s. If his private loyalties to the legitimate line were never in doubt, his public honouring of the Act of Settlement was demonstrable and conspicuous after the fiasco of the Atterbury attempt. The election of Arran changed nothing at Oxford immediately. He was elected on the credit of his brother and their politics were too readily assumed to be pretty much identical by all sides on the basis of his willingness to allow Ormonde the prominence pre-1715. This was understandable: Arran had yet to define and establish himself as an operator in his own right. He certainly kept lines of communication open with the “Pretender” via Ormonde and it is likely that ministers knew as much. Within the University, Arran wasted no time in naming two conspicuous Jacobites to office: the first, was Robert Shippen, ­Principal of Brasenose College, loyal to Bolingbroke, appointed vice-­chancellor 43 Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 204; Pittock, Jacobitism, 37.

Survival Strategies

189

in 1718; the second was to confirm the accomplished humanist William King as his secretary (he had first served Ormonde in that capacity), one who was central as an apologist for the Jacobite cause in Oxford more or less continuously down to Arran’s death, but who possessed a capacity for upsetting his closest allies, including, in time, both Shippen and Arran.44 Yet just as he was beginning to forge a working relationship with Hanoverian-inclined Tories in Oxford in the early 1720s, Arran became sucked into the Atterbury Plot. He could hardly avoid it because, more or less at the same time as he had become Chancellor, Arran had been nominated by the Pretender to be one of the Council of Regency to administer Britain until his arrival; he had his commission of “General of all [land and sea forces in] England and Ireland” in his brother’s absence, with Bishop Atterbury as his civil equivalent.45 James had even thanked him in advance for his “zeal and forwardness in my cause” adding “I am sure you will not take it ill of me to wish that D[uke] of Ormond’s speedy joining you may render the commission you have in your hands to command in his absence of a short lasting.”46 It was a huge hostage to fortune for the “Pretender” might insist on Arran moving into action at any juncture.47 Ministers well knew the Plot was a fiasco, but were intent on turning it to their political advantage and arresting carefully chosen plotters, led by Atterbury.48 Although evidence is elusive, it was undoubtedly a close call for the earl. It helped that he stayed where he was and did not incriminate himself by fleeing abroad and joining Ormonde in Spain, yet the evidence was there had Walpole cared to use it, and he was aware that the “Pretender” had offered and Arran accepted a high command in anticipation of the rebellion. Yet the odds, the earl survived. Arguably because Arran had well-placed friends at the Hanoverian court, notably his sister Henrietta’s (d. 1724) husband and their common first cousin, Henri de Nassau d’Alberquerque, 1st earl of Grantham (1673–1754), Lord Chamberlain to Caroline, Princess of Wales. In the wake of the Plot’s failure, with Jacobitism apparently moribund, the appearances are that Arran was happy to mend fences with the ruling dynasty and avoid imperilling yet again either his personal prosperity or that of Oxford University. He made a 44 45 46 47 48

David Greenwood, William King. Tory & Jacobite (Oxford: 1969), 327, calls him “England’s most forceful polemicist for the Jacobite cause.” Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Stuart Papers Belonging to His ­Majesty the King, Preserved at Windsor Castle (London: 1902), ii, 305, 466–67, 469. Arran may have been invited to asuume that office by James as far back as 1716. HMC ­Stuart MSS, ii. 386–87. They exchanged regular letters in 1721–22. Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill, The Atterbury Plot, 116. There is a succinct account in Lenman, The Jacobite Risings, 195–201.

190

Aston

prudent nomination of successive vice-chancellors who were c­ areful to avoid any confrontations with ministers, and the accession of George II was treated as an opportunity by the University to make a further effort to co-exist with the new sovereign and his family. Thus congratulatory verses offered in 1727 at the start of the reign and a triumphant Oxford reception was given for the Prince of Orange in March 1733, the king’s prospective son-in-law.49 Arran thus showed an awareness of the potential advantage accruing to the University from respecting the royal family in possession while not failing throughout his Chancellorship to offer many nods to the “honest cause” without re-­ establishing direct contact with the Pretender.50 In his private capacity, Lord Arran anticipated the habitual initiative of elite families that have lost status from publicly committing to overturning a revolution: that of reclaiming and managing the patrimonial estates on behalf of the exiled and disgraced elder brother. The fact that he recovered the Irish estates by private Act of Parliament in 1721 (a mere five years after the 2nd duke’s attainder) was remarkable in the political circumstances; no less so was how close he came to losing them again (and probably his own earldom) through his participation in the Atterbury Plot. He never made that mistake again.51 No doubt mindful of how close he – and, by extension, Oxford University – had come to disaster on that occasion, Arran kept his head down during the’ 45 Jacobite Rebellion. There was a good reason for this (apart from his being in his mid-70s by that date): at the height of the national emergency, Arran was preoccupied with arrangements for bringing the duke of Ormonde’s body back for burial in Westminster Abbey (22 May 1746) and he needed the good will of ministers to facilitate the funeral when they were themselves distracted by public affairs. He showed himself ready to be cooperative by a symbolically important gesture of self-denial: though he had technically succeeded as 3rd duke of Ormonde he deliberately did not assume the title de iure, respected the attainder, and continued to style himself “Earl of Arran” until his dying day. Neither did he encourage Jacobites to use his late brother’s death as any kind

49 50 51

Details in William Reginald Ward, Georgian Oxford: University Politics in the Eighteenth C ­ entury (Oxford: 1958), 136–37. Details in Nigel Aston, “The Great Survivor: Charles, Earl of Arran and the Oxford ­Chancellorship, 1715–1758,” in Oxford: The Forgotten Century, ed. Robin Darwall-Smith and Peregrine Hordern, History of Universities (special issue, 2021–2). He raised the sum of £50,000 for the privilege. Kirwan, The Chief Butlers, xxxv, 145–46. By the late 1720s Arran was drawing £11,000 pa from the Butler estates in Ireland but much of that was probably destined to pay off creditors. See Thomas Prior, A List of the Absentees of Ireland (Dublin: 1729), 2.

Survival Strategies

191

of inspirational rallying cry during the ’45 rebellion which, by the time of the funeral in the Abbey, was over anyway. Arran lived on for a further thirteen years until December 1758 but the duke’s death and the decisive victory gained by government troops at Culloden appears to have terminated his residual interest in propagating Jacobitism as a viable cause. It was close to sixty years since the Revolution of 1688, thirty since the Hanoverian Succession, and the reversionary interest within the reigning family seemed more promising to the disaffected than anything the exiled Stuart family could do for them. True, Oxford incidents such as the Blacow Affair in 1748–9 and the very politicized opening of the Radcliffe Camera in April 1749 blew up into a general Jacobite panic that Oxford Whigs and ministers exploited for party advantage.52 Arran stood slightly apart from the furore, a benign geriatric presence whose longevity, principled pragmatism, and capacity for survival won him several expressions of regard and affection.53 Once the hard lessons of the Atterbury Plot had been absorbed, the earl walked the tightrope between loyalty and disloyalty with consummate mastery, carefully supported in his act by his intelligent wife, Elizabeth (1679–1756), whose importance is not to be under-estimated. He was not a second swashbuckling Ormonde, but rode his luck, and was well-protected. No less but less flamboyantly the great gentleman than his brother Ormonde, Arran was hard to dislike, an essentially agreeable, polite and decent man. Somehow, he had managed to make a public career despite his private disengagement from the Hanoverian monarchy and thereby showed how an ‘internal’ émigré who appeared to come to terms with a new régime could benefit those who shared his underlying political sympathies by giving them a continuing stake in the polity that they might use – should they care to do so – to sap it from within. Arran was also arguably lucky to have served uninterruptedly as Chancellor of Oxford, probably against the odds. Good fortune was a pre-requisite for the quietly subversive with his profile and background, in part secured by the avoidance of risk, by not drawing the attention of the authorities towards one, of not giving them grounds for arrest. And his survival also disclosed the the importance of having kinsmen and friends implanted within the establishment, men and women who could make all the difference when the going got really tough, as it did for Lord Arran in the early 1720s.

52 Ward, Georgian Oxford, 170–71, 178–79. 53 Thus in his Latin work of 1746, Hydra, William King opted to hail his early patron’s ­prudence. Greenwood, William King, 179.

192

Aston

7 Conclusion That both Ormonde and Arran became Jacobites shortly after the Hanoverian Succession was as much a matter of desperation as conviction. But they were not unusual among Tories in taking that path at that juncture when it had become plain that their party members would not be appointed to office in either Church or state. The Butler brothers confronted a problem no counter-revolutionary can avoid: how best to overthrow a polity that has adopted a Revolutionary settlement? Consensually or through force majeure, constitutionally or militarily? And it was apparent that the triumphant Whigs in the reign of George I planned no general amnesty to reabsorb noble counter-revolutionary exiles into the new political order (Bolingbroke was an exception) along the lines of the Brumaire settlement that Bonaparte would subsequently introduce in France. Their treason would not be forgiven; their return would lend no luster to the rule of the Whig oligarchs, many of them members of the great Revolution families. For those Jacobites who had left Britain, there would be no easy return. These were political exiles not emigrants, men to be watched apprehensively for signs of treasonable activity directed at the new British order. None was more prominent than the duke of Ormonde, for three decades an exile but constantly attempting to maintain a style, a figure, and a household commensurate with his rank. Unlike other Irish exiles (principally those from a Catholic background who had left after the Treaty of Limerick), the duke resisted assimilative pressures and retained his distinct Anglo-Irish identity rooted in ancestral pride,54 on the one hand receiving small payments from his brother once the Butler estates had been put in order, on the other taking up employment in foreign service (in his case, Spain) as a means of furthering the Jacobite cause while also generating income. These strategies highlight the centrality of cosmopolitan aristocratic networks to the longevity of Jacobitism, offering political exiles a sympathetic social life with men and women from comparable backgrounds, and plenty of leisured distractions to go some way towards compensating them for their diminished expectations should restoration be finally unacheivable. Ormonde’s dedication to the Stuart cause never wavered, 54 Pittock, Jacobitism, 125–26. The 5th and 6th Viscounts Clare are good instances of Irish noblemen and army officers who were incorporated into French service. John ­O’Donoghue, Historical Memoir of the O’Brien Clan (Dublin: 1860), and generally Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac, “The Irish Jacobite Regiments and the French Army: A Way to Integration,” in Loyalty and Identity. Jacobites at Home and Abroad, ed. Paul Monod, Murray Pittock, and Daniel Szechi (Basingstoke: 2010), 206–28.

Survival Strategies

193

but a similar display of unswerving rectitude was probably out of the question for his younger brother after the duke’s flight in 1715.55 In practical terms, Arran was obliged thereafter to stabilize and improve as he could the dilapidated material state of the family estates, if only the sake of his kinsmen who were heirs to what was left of the Butler inheritance. These twin-track approaches remind us that dynastic strategies within Counter-Revolutionary frameworks are not just for kings. Arran died a year before Choiseul toyed with the idea of placing a Stuart on the British throne should the projected cross-channel invasion of 1759 have been successful.56 But the latter was no more impressed with the character and capacities of the middle-aged Prince Charles Edward Stuart than was Clement XIII who, on the death of “James III”, in 1766 refused to recognize the Prince as “King of England.” Thereafter Jacobitism was confirmed as a political will o’the wisp that attracted elite interest on the basis of nostalgia and cultural curiosity rather than a serious political proposition. What did survive was principally plebian Jacobitism in some parts of rural Ireland where longing for a Stuart sovereign loosely converged with the aim of the United Irishmen and Defenders in the 1790s to end British rule.57 At any rate, some French Republicans strangely thought the tradition had a sufficient radical potency to underpin a successful invasion of Ireland in the 1790s, an incongrous misreading that was never put to the test.58 It seems unlikely that French Counter-Revolutionaries’ reading of Jacobitism (such as it was) was much influenced by putative asociations of Jacobitism with Jacobinism in the 1790s. It leaves open the broader and under-assessed question of how the Counter-Revolutionaries historicized their circumstances, and with what archetypes of political expulsion and internal and external exile they identified. Further case studies are required in examining prototypes and Jacobite examples are likely to be prominent in that exercise. Varied survival strategies and hybrid identities were required by counter-revolutionaries and Ormonde and Arran in their different fraternal responses exhibit several. Their careers also evidence the range of Jacobite adaptability within transnational and national 55 56

Whether Arran knew in advance of Ormonde’s flight remains unclear. Claude Nordmann, “Choiseul and the last Jacobite Attempt of 1759,” in Ideology and Conspiracy: Aspects of Jacobitism, ed. Eveline Cruickshanks 1689–1759 (Edinburgh: 1982), 201–17. 57 ó Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 368–72: Kevin Whelan, Tree of Liberty: ­Radicalism, Catholicism and the Construction of Irish Identity 1760–1830 (Cork: 1996), 33, 35, 40, 47–49; Thomas Bartlett, The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation. The Catholic Question 1690–1830 ­(London: 1992), 5, 11. Jacobite songs were still being sung by radical mobs in Scotland in the 1790s. Pittock, Jacobitism, 131. 58 Petrie, The Jacobite Movement, 455; Pestel, “Age of Emigrations,” 210–11.

194

Aston

settings where Butler family obligations and the need for affirmation of status (usually inseparable from the need for money) did not necessarily coincide with Stuart loyalty. Half-Dutch and international dynasts, Ormonde and Arran afford a study in two classic counter-revolutionary types: the exile and the stayat-home, the general denied field command of an army whose public loyalties were never compromised; and the more pliant and pragmatic office holder who did what he could to sustain an institution against ‘Revolutionary’ outsiders. They also show something else: the sheer difficulty of sustaining counter-revolutionary fervor and commitment with each passing post-Revolutionary year. Bibliography Aston, Nigel, “The Great Survivor: Charles, Earl of Arran and the Oxford Chancellorship, 1715–1758,” in Oxford: The Forgotten Century, ed. Robin Darwall-Smith and ­Peregrine Hordern, History of Universities (special issue, 2021–2). Barnard, Toby, and Jane Fenlon, (eds.), The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610–1745 (Woodbridge: 2000). Bartlett, Thomas, The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation. The Catholic Question 1690–1830 (London: 1992). Belissa, Marc, and Bernard Cottret (eds.), Cosmopolitismes, Patriotismes: Europe et Amériques, 1773–1802 (Rennes: 2005). Bertaud, Jean-Paul, Les royalistes et Napoléon: 1799–1815 (Paris: 2009). Black, Jeremy, The British Abroad. The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (Stroud: 1992). Black, Jeremy, France and the Grand Tour (Basingstoke: 2003). Castelot, André, Charles X: La fin d’un monde (Paris: 1989). Clarke de Dromantin, Patrick, Les Réfugiés jacobites dans la France du XVIIIe siècle: ­l’exode de toute un noblesse pour cause de religion (Bordeaux: 2005). Corp, Edward, The Stuarts in Italy 1719–1766. The Royal Court in Permanent Exile ­(Cambridge: 2011). Corp, Edward, “The Alternative to the House of Hanover: The Stuarts in Exile, ­1714–1745,” in The Hanoverian Succession. Dynastic Politics and Monarchical Culture, ed. Andreas Gestrich and Michael Schaich (Farnham: 2015), 251–60. Cruickshanks, Eveline, and Howard Erskine-Hill, The Atterbury Plot (Basingstoke: 2004). Dickinson, Harry Thomas, Bolingbroke (London: 1970). Dickson, William Kirk (ed.), The Jacobite Attempt of 1719 (Edinburgh: 1895). Garrett, Jane, The Triumphs of Providence. The Assassination Plot of 1696 (Cambridge: 1980). Genet-Rouffiac, Nathalie, “Jacobites in Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye,” in The ­Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites, ed. Eveline Cruickshanks and Edward Corp ­(London: 1995), 15–38.

Survival Strategies

195

Genet-Rouffiac, Nathalie, “The Irish Jacobite Regiments and the French Army: A Way to Integration,” in Loyalty and Identity. Jacobites at Home and Abroad, ed. Paul Monod, Murray Pittock, and Daniel Szechi (Basingstoke: 2010), 206–28. Glickman, Gabriel, The English Catholic Community 1688–1745. Politics, Culture and I­ deology (Woodbridge: 2009). Greenwood, David, William King. Tory & Jacobite (Oxford: 1969). Griffiths, Robert, Le centre perdu: Malouet et les “monarchiens” dans la Révolution française (Grenoble: 1988). Handley, Stuart, “Earl of Arran,” in History of Parliament. The House of Lords 1660–1715, ed. Ruth Paley, 5 vols. (Cambridge: 2016), II, 351–54. Harris, Frances, The General in Winter. The Marlborough-Godolphin Friendship in the Reign of Queen Anne (Oxford: 2017). Hayton, David W., “Dependance, Clientage and Affinity: The Political Following of the Second Duke of Ormonde,” in The Dukes of Ormonde, ed. Barnard and Fenlon, 211–42. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Stuart Papers Belonging to His Majesty the King, Preserved at Windsor Castle (London: 1902). Hone, Joseph, Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne (Oxford: 2017). Huchet, Patrick, 1795 – Quiberon, ou le destin de la France (Rennes: 1995). Hutt, Maurice G., Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution. Puisaye, the Princes and the British Government in the 1790s, 2 vols. (Cambridge: 1983). Kirwan, John, The Chief Butlers of Ireland and the House of Ormond: An Illustrated Genealogical Guide (Dublin: 2018). Lees-Milne, James, The Last Stuarts (London: 1983). Lenman, Bruce, The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689–1746 (London: 1980). Mackenzie-Stuart, Lord, “A Royal Debtor at Holyrood,” Stair Society Publication 26 (1971), 193–201. Mackenzie-Stuart, Lord, “French Emigrés in Edinburgh,” in The French Emigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814, ed. Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel, (Basingstoke: 1999), 108–23. Mansel, Philip, Louis XVIII (London: 1981). Mansel, Philip, “The Influence of the Later Stuarts and Their Supporters on French Royalism 1789–1840,” Royal Stuart Papers 21 (1983), 1–12. Mansel, Philip, “From Exile to the Throne: The Europeanization of Louis XVIII,” in Monarchy and Exile. The Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Médicis to Wilhelm II, ed. idem and Torsten Riotte (Basingstoke: 2011), 181–213. McLynn, Frank J., France and the Jacobite Rising of 1745 (Edinburgh: 1981). Monod, Paul, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788 (Cambridge: 1993). Nordmann, Claude, “Choiseul and the last Jacobite Attempt of 1759,” in Ideology and Conspiracy: Aspects of Jacobitism, ed. Eveline Cruickshanks 1689–1759 (Edinburgh: 1982), 201–17. North, Jonathan, Killing Napoleon. The Plot to Blow Up Bonaparte (Stroud: 2019).

196

Aston

ó Ciardha, Eamonn, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685–1766. A Fatal Attachment (Dublin: 2001). O’Donoghue, John, Historical Memoir of the O’Brien Clan (Dublin: 1860). Pestel, Friedemann, “Monarchiens et monarchie en exil: conjonctures de la monarchie dans l’émigration française, 1792–1799,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 382 (2015), 3–29. Pestel, Friedemann, “The Age of Emigrations: French Emigrés and Global Entanglements of Political Exile,” in French Emigrants in Revolutionised Europe. Connected Histories and Memories, ed. Juliette Reboul and Laure Philip (Basingstoke: 2019), 205–31. Petrie, Charles, The Jacobite Movement (London: 1932). Petrie, Charles, The Marshal Duke of Berwick. The Picture of an Age (London: 1953). Pittock, Murray, Jacobitism (Basingstoke: 1998). Pittock, Murray, Scottish and Irish Romanticism (Oxford: 2008). Prior, Thomas, A List of the Absentees of Ireland (Dublin: 1729). Reboul, Juliette, French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 2017). Riding, Jacqueline, “‘His little hour of royalty:’ The Stuart Court at Holyroodhouse in 1745,” in Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, ed. David Forsyth (Edinburgh: 2017), 95–126. Sack, James J., From Jacobite to Conservative. Reaction and Orthodoxy in Britain ­c.1760–1832 (Cambridge: 1993). Smith, Lawrence Bartlam, Spain and Britain, 1715–1719: The Jacobite Issue (New York: 1987). Steuart, Francis, The Exiled Bourbons in Scotland (Edinburgh: 1908). Szechi, Daniel, “The Jacobite Revolution Settlement, 1689–1696,” English Historical Review 108 (1993), 610–28. Szechi, Daniel, “‘A Nation much given to changes:’ The French Understanding of English Politics in 1715,” Journal of the Western Society for French History 32 (2004), 65–81. Szechi, Daniel, 1715. The Great Jacobite Rebellion (New Haven and London: 2006). Szechi, Daniel, Britain’s Lost Revolution? Jacobite Scotland and French Grand Strategy 1701–1708 (Manchester: 2015). Vaughan, Herbert M., The Last Stuart Queen (London: 1910). Walsh, Joseph Alexis de, Mélanges: Feuilletons politiques et littéraires. Scènes contemporaines (Paris: 1832). Ward, William Reginald, Georgian Oxford: University Politics in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 1958). Whelan, Kevin, Tree of Liberty: Radicalism, Catholicism and the Construction of Irish Identity 1760–1830 (Cork: 1996).

CHAPTER 9

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability, and Multilateral Exchanges in the Study of Conservatism during and after the Revolutionary Era Brian Vick This essay offers some reflections on how to study conservatism (or other political thought) as a transnational phenomenon. The study of political ­history and of cultural history, including the development of conservatism, has often focused primarily on developments within single national histories. This is particularly true of the German case, where scholars have sometimes stressed the more limited regional character of conservative networks, or at any rate that they remained mainly within German boundaries.1 The transnational moment has not been neglected, as with studies of cultural transfer and exchange, but this is often conceived as occurring between nations or states as relatively fixed and solid entities, and often in terms of bilateral exchanges between two countries. Even where the fixity of the end points has been questioned and the porosity and fluidity of nationalities in reciprocally-influenced processes of change has been recognized, as by Michel Espagne, the emphasis usually still lies on bilateral transfers, from person to person, country to country, or culture to culture.2 Partly building on some further work by Espagne and others on ­“triangular” and even “quadrilateral” exchanges involving three or more nationalities, I would like in this essay to consider the role of pan-European social networks

1 Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: 1966), 6–7; Ewald Grothe and Edgar Liebmann, “Konservative deutsche Politiker im 19. Jahrhundert. Eine Einführung,” in Konservative deutsche Politiker im 19. Jahrhundert. Wirken – Wirkung – Wahrnehmung, ed. Ewald Grothe (Marburg: 2010), 1–12, here 3. Noting the relative lack of attention to external influences in the German case, Axel Schildt, Konservatismus in Deutschland. Von den ­Anfängen im 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: 1998), 22. 2 Michel Espagne, “La notion de transfert culturel,” Revue Sciences / Lettres (online) 1 (2013), https://journals.openedition.org/rsl/219, accessed 14 October 2019; idem, Les transferts c­ ulturels franco-allemands (Paris: 1999). © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_009

198

Vick

in conservatism’s spread and development.3 These networks involve not just exchanges through correspondence and readership but also those through interpersonal contact via salon sociability, travel, and migration. By definition the link between any two persons or nodes in the network is bilateral, but the network itself and the flows of ideas through it are multilateral. Such links could and did also extend across borders, often more than one border, and the nodes, as mobile persons, could and did themselves often cross borders, and thus stretch the network further in transnational directions. As primary foci, the essay will take the cases of Friedrich Gentz, Joseph de Maistre, and the salon circles in and around St. Petersburg, the Congress of Vienna, and ­Restoration-era Paris, in which the connections among religious ­conservatives leading to the Holy Alliance also feature. It will close with some thoughts on how methods involving networks and sociability could offer continued insights into conservatism’s development from the late 19th century through the 20th. The shift to thinking in terms of social networks and sociability has three further, equally significant results, each of which leads to a certain decentering of standard depictions of the history of conservatism. First, it puts a spotlight on the role of women alongside men in the formation of conservative thought, even if they were not as productive of published texts that could become canonical. The salonnières and their male and female guests helped mediate, germinate, and disseminate the viewpoints and ideas that buttressed conservative worldviews and politics. Second, salon sociability was based on the principle of offering a relatively neutral and civil space for the discussion of both politically thorny issues and less politically charged topics, in each case bringing together those of disparate views for conversation and exchange.4 Liberal and conservative individuals and opinions thus mingled in this salon environment rather than being separated into sharply distinguished camps, with consequences for the development of both ideologies. Among other things, this ongoing juxtaposition helps explain why it is often so difficult to categorize or distinguish between moderate liberals and reform conservatives

3 Michel Espagne, “Introduction,” in Russie, France, Allemagne, Italie: Transferts quadrangulaires du néoclassicisme aux avant-gardes, ed. idem (Tusson: 2005), 5–8. Wolfgang Schmale in the same volume suggests the possibility of generalizing to “les transferts polygones”: “Aperçu historique des transferts quadrangulaires dans l’Europe du XIXe siècle,” ibid., 11–20, here 20. Karin Hoff, Udo Schöning, and Per Øhrgaard (eds.), Kulturelle Dreiecksbeziehungen. Aspekte der Kulturvermittlung zwischen Frankreich, Deutschland und Dänemark in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg: 2013). 4 Petra Wilhelmy, Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert (1780–1914) (Berlin: 1989), 25–26.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

199

in the first half of the 19th century.5 Finally, a focus on networks and sociability offers another way to move beyond the canon of major conservative thinkers and texts, by considering their interlocutors as shaping influences on the texts, their interpreted meanings, and their illocutionary force, as a complementary method to those of Cambridge School contextualists. Conversation and faceto-face exchanges figure alongside reading and writing as the focus of analysis in this approach. The transnational dimensions of conservative networks and political thought were reinforced in the social and political circumstances of the 1790s and the Napoleonic era. Particularly in an era of salon sociability and amidst the disruptions of war, revolution, and exile, counterrevolutionary elites often found themselves coming together in foreign locations to converse and confer about responses to the revolutionary threat, from Britain to Switzerland to the German lands, Russia, and the Americas. An émigré press emerged as well, but interpersonal contacts among émigrés and with the elites in their host states were just as central.6 In the same way that transnational ties within the so-called liberal or socialist internationals of 19th-century Europe and the Atlantic World were facilitated by the experience of repression and exile as of club- and salon-based sociability, conditions during the revolutionary era fostered similar links among conservatives. Efforts to coordinate the curtailing of perceived and real threats of transnational revolutionary movements when the political balance between liberal and conservative turned after 1815 then promoted the maintenance of such ties. In the era of internationalization in the later 19th century too, however, exchanges among governments, organizations of experts and activists in civil society, or even still salon-style sociability among European elites, continued to shape the formation and ­dissemination of conservative ideologies.

5 On this point, Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Cambridge, MA: 2014), 134–38, 235–38; Alexander M. Martin, Romantics, Reformers, ­ ­Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I (DeKalb, IL: 1997), 6–10, 170. Also on overlapping of the categories liberal and conservative, Jörn ­Leonhard, Liberalismus: Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmusters (Munich: 2001). 6 Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel (eds.), The French Émigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814 (New York: 1999); Simon Burrows, French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792–1814 (Rochester, NY: 2000); Friedemann Pestel, Kosmopoliten wider Willen: Die monarchiens als Revolutionsemigranten (Berlin: 2015); Caroline Shaw, Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief (Oxford: 2016), ch. 1; Juliette Reboul, French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 2017).

200 1

Vick

Transnational Conservative Networks and Exchange

By what mechanisms do transnational cultural exchanges occur? How do ­political ideas spread and change? In this case, how did conservative political ideas emerge and proliferate across Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and continue to resonate and develop thereafter? The classic scholarly measure of cultural exchange and influence has been translations of central texts, with readership, perhaps supplemented by correspondence networks, as the primary channels of communication.7 People, however, also meet one another to converse, singly and in groups, and they often travel to do so, hence interpersonal exchanges too formed a central vector for the dissemination of political ideas and the coordination of political activity, particularly in the cosmopolitan salon society that spanned Europe in this era. Mediation, and at a general level communication across several potential media and venues, needs to be set alongside translation as vehicles for cultural transfer.8 In this approach, participants in cultural networks become intermediaries between cultures, without necessarily translating concepts, much less whole texts, in a technical sense. They take on ideas or practices from some person or group with whom they come in contact, and then pass them on to others in their circles, from their own or other nations. With mediation too one of the main research questions remains that of how and how far the elements communicated are altered, that is, modified in the process of being transposed from one context to another. The spatial sense of the term translatio is, be it noted, still preserved in the notion of mediation, in the movement from one context and location to another. This is all the more true as focusing on mediation places renewed emphasis on the physical movement of interlocutors in travel, rather than seeing the ideas or texts themselves as the sole elements being shifted. Translation is in any case not necessarily the best guide to cultural transfer or reception – for political symbols and concepts among educated elites, reading texts in the original, and speaking with people in other languages (above all French, but not only), were also common practice. Translation was certainly a sign that particular texts, authors, or ideas had aroused interest among readers 7 Along with the work of Michel Espagne cited above, see for example Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and Rolf Reichardt, “Kulturtransfer im Epochenumbruch. Fragestellungen, methodische Konzepte, Forschungsperspektiven. Einführung,” in Kulturtransfer im Epochenumbruch. Frankreich – Deutschland 1770 bis 1815, ed. Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Rolf Reichardt, and René Nohr (Leipzig: 1997), 9–26. 8 Noting several modes of mobility and mediation, Espagne, “Transfert culturel,” 3.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

201

of the other language, but it was not the only vehicle for their reception. R ­ eaders may have still wanted to read the original even when translations were present, as a glance into the library of, for example, Karl and Rahel Varnhagen von Ense or Prince Metternich suggests. That tendency too has implications for the question of how far concepts were altered in the movement from producer to recipient. Similarly, Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann emphasize with their notion of “histoire croisée” that it is not just the ideas but the people who are changed in the process of exchange and transfer, in reciprocal but also often asymmetrical relationships. Focusing on mediation in social networks also helps emphasize the two-way nature of exchanges, even in asymmetric situations, as opposed to the often more one-way traffic of translation.9 As a second step in revising our picture or model of political dissemination, it is important to observe that transnational exchanges as shaped through social networks were not just bilateral but multilateral in nature, as people of different nationalities met in places that could be away from home for both parties, and interacted with others of multiple nationalities. Franco-German exchanges, for instance, need not be thought of as only taking place in France or Germany, or even as only Franco-German. Not all such contacts took place within France or the German lands, or directly between French and German individuals. They could instead occur in the Geneva or Coppet of Madame de Staël, or in Rome, London, or St. Petersburg, all, along with various ­German and Austrian cities, frequent haunts of counterrevolutionary and anti-­Napoleonic exiles and activists.10 Such considerations offer still another way of decentering histories of conservatism. Diplomatic and salon networks among men and women of the social and political elites, ties among academic and ­cultural figures, and links among religious communities and political groupings all point to a larger European web of exchanges that was multinational rather than transnational in a solely bilateral sense, or even transnational in the sense of an additive accumulation of bilateral ties. As already noted, shifting to focus on salons and networks helps show how ideologies developed not in hermetically sealed camps but through the circulation of people and ideas across party lines, if not usually from Jacobin to conservative then at least encompassing liberal and conservative. In this regard it makes sense to think of the political spectrum as tripartite rather than bipolar. Madame de Staël, for example, is usually thought of as a liberal, but it is important to remember that her circle included the Catholic conservative Chateaubriand as well as the liberal 9 10

Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity,” History and Theory 45 (2006), 30–50, here 38. Also emphasizing multipolar contacts and entanglement, Pestel, Kosmopoliten, 37–41.

202

Vick

Protestant writer Benjamin Constant, and extended to touch Metternich’s ­collaborator the ultramontane Catholic revivalist Friedrich Schlegel in Vienna or the Protestant evangelical Baroness Krüdener of the Holy Alliance.11 2

Conservative Exchanges in the Revolutionary and Restoration Eras

The example of Friedrich Gentz may seem to illustrate the classic case of the spread of ideas by translation but even here a shift of perspective reveals additional facets of his development. Gentz’s fame certainly derived from his translation of Edmund Burke, reading whom had helped to dampen his initial enthusiasm for the French Revolution, shared with so many intellectuals, young and old, in the German lands at that time. In translating, Gentz provided a Burke more adapted for German conditions, and somewhat more open to (gradual) reform and to certain liberal ideas even than Burke himself was.12 Gentz then went on to work for Prince Clemens von Metternich in Vienna as a cornerstone of the latter’s conservative administration and ­publicistic machine. How far Gentz’s approach to conservatism may have influenced Metternich remains an open question, though Metternich’s most recent ­biographer Wolfram Siemann tends to downplay that possibility.13 At this point one can already begin to reinterpret the flows and adaptations of conservative ideas with attention to physical mobility and salon sociability. Metternich, for instance, became a devotee of Burke not through Gentz’s translation or through Gentz’s direct influence, but rather through having visited England in 1794 and heard Burke speak in Parliament. As Siemann emphasizes, Metternich remained a sort of “British conservative Whig,” partly adapted to German conditions, for the rest of his career.14 As for Gentz, it is important to remember that at the time of his conversion to conservatism, he was immersed in the Berlin Jewish salon circles of Henriette Herz and Rahel Levin, consorting there among others with his good friend Wilhelm von Humboldt.15 Already in 1791 the 11 Vick, Congress, 235–37; Leonhard, Liberalismus, 415–16, 503, 564–65. 12 Raphaël Cahen, Friedrich Gentz, 1764–1832. Penseur post-Lumières et auteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2017), 109–12, 405. Also on Gentz as more open to preserving liberties, in this instance compared to Burke and Metternich, Günther Kronenbitter, Wort und Macht. Friedrich Gentz als politischer Schriftsteller (Berlin: 1994), 42–43, 60. 13 Wolfram Siemann, Metternich: Stratege und Visionär. Eine Biografie (Munich: 2016), 213– 14, 401; Kronenbitter, Gentz, 44, similarly evaluates Gentz as more a “tool” of Metternich than an influence on him. 14 Siemann, Metternich, 137–45, 455, 867, quote 155. 15 Kronenbitter, Gentz, 33; Cahen, Gentz, 45.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

203

young Humboldt in exchange with Gentz had written a rather Burkean essay on constitutions, in which he stressed their national and historical particularity over universal political principles. It would then be at about the same time as Gentz was composing his translation of Burke that Humboldt drafted that classic of the 19th-century liberal tradition, The Limits of State Action (1793). This conjunction of sociable and literary activity further illustrates both the closeness of liberal and conservative thought in the years after the French Revolution and their protean nature in this early phase, with cross-fertilization an important aspect of their mutual development. Whether one highlights conservative elements of emerging liberalism in this context, or lingering liberal elements of conservatism, is less material for present ­purposes than the fact of their juxtaposition and their origins in similar environments and overlapping circles. The development of Gentz’s thought and career in later years shows the enduring importance of networks, as Raphaël Cahen has emphasized in his recent studies of the conservative icon. Cahen particularly puts the spotlight on Gentz’s correspondence networks, as these reveal the extent of his connections with émigré circles and counterrevolutionary figures, including after 1817 the French monarchist Louis de Bonald, which helps to explain Gentz’s shift in a reactionary direction and toward a more religious basis for conservative and monarchist thought in the period just before and during the era of the C ­ arlsbad Decrees. Even before that, however, Gentz had consorted with the Viennese counterrevolutionary and Catholic revival circles around Metternich’s secretary Joseph Anton Pilat and his wife Elisabeth and around ­Countess Laure Fuchs. Gentz and his friend and protégé Adam Müller were also well-­connected in salon circles in the Saxon capital of Dresden, where Gentz met Metternich; Müller, like Pilat’s wife – and like Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel, Schlegel being another of Metternich’s collaborators – was a convert to ­Catholic revival Catholicism. Gentz wrestled with the question of conversion but never could bring himself to do so, something that did not dim his enthusiasm over several years for the religious conservatism of Joseph de Maistre’s work On the Pope (1819), glowingly discussed with Pilat and Müller and of a comparable depth to his initial response to Burke almost three decades before.16 It is also perhaps relevant here, at once for Gentz’s relationship to Burke, his historicism, 16 Cahen, Gentz, 48, 66–67, 317, 321–31; idem, “The Correspondence of Friedrich von Gentz: The Reception of Du Pape in the German-Speaking World,” in Joseph de Maistre and His European Readers: From Friedrich von Gentz to Isaiah Berlin, ed. Carolina Armenteros and Richard A. Lebrun (Leiden: 2011), 95–121. On the connections with Pilat and the Catholic revival, see Wolfgang Zechner, “Joseph Anton von Pilat” (PhD dissertation, University of Vienna: 1954), 102–28.

204

Vick

his appreciation of religiosity, and his cosmopolitan sense of a wider European civilization and identity, that he tended to operate with Burkean and Scottish Enlightenment views of European civilization as building on medieval, feudal, and Catholic foundations to give rise to the commercial civil society of the 18th-century equilibrium that Gentz and Burke strove to preserve in the face of the secular and anti-historicist threat of the French Revolution.17 Gentz’s place in the European elite and its salon society may have reinforced that self-understanding. Gentz also followed Central and Eastern European salon circles in their annual peregrinations to spas such as Marienbad and in his case Carlsbad and Teplitz. It was in Teplitz that Gentz forged his acquaintance with Madame de Staël, before meeting her again in Paris in 1815.18 In between his Berlin and ­Austrian years, Gentz had visited England for a few months, where he circulated in both Whig and Tory society.19 Moreover, during the Congress of Vienna, Gentz attended the salon of the conservative Duchess Wilhelmine of Sagan, sometime lover of Metternich and facilitator of the coalition negotiations against Napoleon in the summer of 1813 at her estate of Ratiborzitz. But he still kept up ties with visitors from his salon days in Berlin, including the more liberal Rahel Varnhagen von Ense née Levin and her husband Karl, and once again Wilhelm von Humboldt, Prussia’s second plenipotentiary at the Congress. Gentz also famously cultivated social and political contacts in his own apartment, throwing opulent dinner parties featuring the talents of his specially acquired French chef as well as his own renown as conversationalist and as one of the best-informed statesmen in Europe.20 It is important to emphasize here that the salon circles in and around the Congress of Vienna were important not only as context for Gentz’s thought and career – or for the negotiations leading to the redrawing of Europe – but also in their own right as shaping conduits and milieus for the development 17

László Kontler, “The Ancien Régime in Memory and Theory: Edmund Burke and his ­ erman Followers,” European Review of History 4 (1997), 31–43. G 18 Cahen, Gentz, 56, 58, 62–63. On the significance of spas for salon sociability and elite ­culture more generally, see David Blackbourn, “Fashionable Spa Towns in Nineteenth-­ Century Europe,” in Water, Leisure and Culture: European Historical Perspectives, ed. Susan C. ­Anderson and Bruce H. Tabb (Oxford: 2002), 9–22; Astrid Köhler, Salonkultur im klassischen Weimar: Geselligkeit als Lebensform und literarisches Konzept (Stuttgart: 1996), 51–52; and Wilhelmy, Berliner Salon, 447. 19 Cahen, Gentz, 49–51. 20 Vick, Congress, 124, 129, 136, and generally on Congress salons here and in the following ­paragraphs, ch. 3; Dorothy Gies McGuigan, Metternich and the Duchess (Garden City, NY: 1975).

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

205

of conservative thought between revolution and Restoration. One could think partly of the at first glance more strictly cultural dimension of salons in helping to inculcate Romantic or other forms of historicist culture, which at the same time reinforced the growth of conservative and certain strands of liberal political ideologies. But even at a level of politics as more narrowly construed, salons served as cross-class venues for the discussion of political issues and values among both noble and middle-class elites. Some catered more solely to the ranks of German speakers, as with the homegrown salon of Caroline Pichler, associated from 1809 to 1815 with the party keen to promote war against Napoleon, or with the temporary salon of Princess Elisabeth of Fürstenberg-Donaueschingen, gathering point of the mediatized nobility of the Holy Roman Empire and linked to the private association “Die Kette” or “The Chain,” which was devoted to a broader revival of national and aristocratic spirit in the German lands and incorporated such figures as the poet-diplomat Isaac von Sinclair, Werner von Haxthausen, Joseph von Lassberg, and Henrich Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode. Members of the latter organization were in turn associated with figures such as Friedrich Schlegel, Jacob Grimm, Goethe, the Slovene scholar Jerneij Kopitar, and the Serb poet Vuk Karadžić, through a group meeting at the White Wolf Inn in Vienna to promote linguistic and cultural revival among Slavic-speaking peoples.21 Many other salon gatherings catered to wider European clienteles. Some of the highest profile ones included that of Wilhelmine Duchess of Sagan, who as the wealthy heiress of the Courland dynasty and an experienced salonnière could appeal to elites from Russia through Eastern and Central Europe, with Tsar Alexander and Metternich as principal draws, and with Gentz in attendance, as noted above, or his old acquaintance Wilhelm von Humboldt. Sagan’s younger sister Dorothea de Talleyrand-Périgord also served as an experienced hostess for her uncle-by-marriage Prince Talleyrand, France’s main delegate to the Congress, and between them they attracted notable figures from across Europe, from Russia to France. Nor was Talleyrand the only diplomat to host rather than only attend salons during the Congress, with Metternich for the host government and Lord and Lady Castlereagh for the British also effectively pulling in a dense array of varied notables from across Europe. Jewish salon culture from Berlin too possessed a well-established outlet in Vienna through the salon of Fanny von Arnstein, wife of Baron Nathan von Arnstein and orchestrator of probably the most opulent and successful salon in the 21

Horst Conrad, Die Kette: Eine Standesvereinigung des Adels auf dem Wiener Kongreβ (­ Münster: 1979); Ursula Brauer, Isaac von Sinclair. Eine Biographie (Stuttgart: 1993), 289– 94; on the Slavic revival connection, Vick, Congress, 150–51 and the literature cited there.

206

Vick

Habsburg capital from the 1790s to 1817. Sagan’s rival Princess Bagration of ­Russia, along with several Polish noble households, also managed over years to maintain a high-level cosmopolitan presence on the Viennese and European social scene, to the displeasure of some in the Habsburg monarchy who disapproved of political women or at least of the politics of these particular women. Such gatherings helped to set a social, cultural, and political tone in Viennese and European society even as they provided a relatively neutral venue in which people of different political perspectives, religion, and nationality could come together to debate, exchange views, or at least learn what the other side was saying and thinking. As has been spotlighted in the work of Steven Kale, elite salon society ­continued to play an important role in politics in the decades after 1815. When the negotiations in Vienna shifted to Paris in the summer of 1815, salon society upped stakes and moved on to pitch tents in the French capital, again sometimes building on well-established local foundations and often on imported ones. In each instance the cosmopolitan character of the European elite shone through, whether French salonnières welcomed visitors from elsewhere in Europe or those from beyond France gathered both temporary residents and locals. While some of the salons of non-French figures were temporary, others stayed on, thus leaving the salon scene in Paris still quite cosmopolitan. As Kale has shown, salons provided crucial infrastructure for the coalescence of political groupings in a new parliamentary regime after 1815 in the absence of fully developed clubs and parties. Although Madame de Staël did not survive very far into the Restoration, the Princess de Vaudémont and the author the Duchess de Duras maintained relatively open political salons, while Staël’s daughter Albertine, the Duchess de B ­ roglie, provided a rallying point for the doctrinaire liberals, and Staël’s old friend Madame Récamier did the same for the radical monarchists the Ultras. The conservative celebrity Chateaubriand oscillated between the establishments of Duras and Récamier.22 Numerous women brought their experience as salonnières to Paris from elsewhere in Europe, including from the Viennese scene still Dorothea (as of 1815 the Duchess of Dino) alongside Talleyrand, and the Russian Princess ­Bagration. After her departure from London following a collision with Lord Palmerston, the Russian Princess Lieven also cultivated a Parisian political

22

Steven Kale, French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to 1848 (Baltimore: 2004), and idem, “Women, Salons, and the State in the Aftermath of the French Revolution,” Journal of Women’s History 13 (2002), 54–80; Philip Mansel, Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814–1852 (New York: 2001), ch. 4.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

207

salon, supporting the moderate liberal statesman François Guizot.23 A ­ nalogous political salons continued to influence conservative politics and party formation in London, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and elsewhere in the decades after 1815 as well, sometimes even in smaller centers. An example of the latter is the circle around the out-of-favor Electoral Princess Auguste of Hessen-­Kassel, which nourished the conservative political thought of Joseph von Radowitz and furnished him with the connections to rise through the ranks of the conservative elite in Prussia, despite his outsider status as a Catholic, of Hungarian descent, from another German state.24 With Joseph de Maistre, one of the other central figures of conservatism in the revolutionary era, the case for interpretations emphasizing networks, mobility, and face-to-face exchanges is equally clear. Maistre was among those seeking refuge from the French Revolution as it spilled over France’s borders. The religious conservative Savoyard aristocrat and Piedmontese official first migrated to Switzerland and then served as ambassador in St. Petersburg from 1803 to 1817. His Considerations on France (1797) made his reputation in the 1790s, and among the influential works of his later career was the Nights in St. Petersburg (from 1809, published posthumously in 1821), a theodicy in dialogue form reflecting on the balance of good and evil in the world at the moment of Napoleon’s triumph that to some extent enacts the cosmopolitan dimension of conservatism in that period. The three main characters include the Count (Maistre himself), a Russian Slavophile senator modeled on Basil Stephanovich Tamara, and a Bonapartist Bavarian official of French extraction, based on Gabriel de Bray, Bavaria’s representative to the Romanov court. The contrast of national origins and religious and political orientations stands out in that constellation, but it ultimately helped to facilitate rather than hinder the coalescence of Maistre’s theological, social, and political thought.25 23

24 25

Günter Erbe, Dorothea Herzogin von Sagan (1793–1862). Eine deutsch-französische Karriere (Cologne: 2009); Glenda Sluga, “Women, Diplomacy and International Politics, Before and After the Congress of Vienna,” in Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500, ed. idem and Carolyn James (London: 2016), 120–36; Judith Lissauer Cromwell, Dorothea Lieven: A Russian Princess in London and Paris, 1785–1857 (Jefferson, NC: 2007). Brigitte Meier, “Joseph Maria Ernst Christian Wilhelm von Radowitz. Fremd- und Selbstwahrnehmung eines ungarischen Katholiken in preußischen Diensten,” in Konservative d­ eutsche Politiker, ed. Grohte, 83–103. For the background and identifications, Jean-Louis Darcel, “Genèse et publication des Soirées de Saint-Petersbourg,” in Joseph de Maistre, Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg ou Entretiens sur le Gouvernement Temporel de la Providence, ed. Darcel (Geneva, 1993), vol. 1, 9–26, here 15–17. Emphasizing the cosmopolitan character of St. Petersburg society in this period, and the different nationalities and political inclinations of the three main figures, Carolina Armenteros and Richard A. Lebrun, “Introduction,” in Joseph de Maistre and His European Readers, ed. idem, 1–25, here 3.

208

Vick

While the three interlocutors in the Nights in St. Petersburg were all male and point to a somewhat different homosocial sociability, a truer reflection of ­Maistre’s evening conversations and social circles might be his exchanges with Roxandra Sturdza and Sophie Swetchine in the gatherings of Countess Golovkin and Madame Chichagov, which put him more squarely in the cosmopolitan and cross-confessional realm of salon sociability and highlight both the women’s history dimension of conservatism and the centrality of religious networks in that regard.26 Roxandra Sturdza was of Greek Orthodox extraction from a Greek princely family of the Ottoman Empire, in exile and in Russian service. In the period before, during, and after the Congress of Vienna, ­Roxandra was most noted for her connection with Tsar Alexander I and with the ecumenical evangelical revival circles around Baroness Julie von Krüdener of the Baltic German nobility in the Russian Empire and the southwest ­German author and revivalist prophet Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling, out of which milieu emerged the Holy Alliance of 1815, in part through Krüdener’s salon in Paris that summer.27 ­Roxandra’s younger brother also featured as an increasingly important member of this network as he held political office in the Russian Foreign ­Ministry under the Corfiot Count Ioannis Capodistrias and helped to shape both the Holy ­Alliance and the trajectory of Russian conservatism more generally. Madame Swetchine for her part was Russian Orthodox but achieved greater fame through her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1815; she continued to circulate in Parisian salons such as that of the Duchess de Duras and also entertained conservative statesmen and politicians herself in Paris in the years after 1815. Roxandra and her brother were also contacts of the German author and thinker Franz Baader, the other figure in these circles with a major role in the formulation of the Holy Alliance. In general, among Russian conservatives it was the ecumenical religious conservatives who proved most open to foreign influences and transnational connections, above all through German philosophy and British evangelical movements and associations such as the British and Foreign Bible Society (whereby it should be noted that even the other strands of Russian conservatives kept up with developments to their west in Europe, even 26

Roxandra Countess Edling, Mémoires de la comtesse Edling (née Stourdza), demoiselle d’honneur de Sa Majesté l’Impératrice Élisabeth Alexéevna (Moscow: 1888), 23–24, 99–100; ­Alfred-Frédéric-Pierre de Falloux, Life and Letters of Madame Swetchine, trans. Harriet Waters Preston (Boston: 1867), 48–49, 59; Stella Ghervas, Réinventer la tradition. ­Alexandre Stourdza et l’Europe de la Sainte-Alliance (Paris: 2008), 299–305. 27 Martin, Romantics, ch. 6; Susan A. Crane, “Holy Alliances: Creating Religious Communities after the Napoleonic Wars,” in Die Gegenwart Gottes in der modernen Gesellschaft: Transzendenz und religiöse Vergemeinschaftung in Deutschland, ed. Michael Geyer and Lucian Hölscher (Göttingen: 2006), 37–59; Andrei Zorin, “‘Star of the East’: The Holy ­Alliance and European Mysticism,” Kritika 4 (2003), 313–42.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

209

if they mostly tried to work around them).28 Roxandra similarly found much to discuss with the German reform conservative and advisor to Tsar Alexander Baron Karl vom und zum Stein, on both spiritual and political grounds, and she would eventually marry the Saxon Count Edling. Worth noting too in this regard is that one of the topics that most drew together Sophie Swetchine and Joseph de Maistre across confessional lines was discussing Kant, Fichte, and Hegel.29 Analysis of the Holy Alliance brings up again the difficulties at times in ­categorizing liberal and conservative viewpoints in the late revolutionary or early Restoration eras. Whether one thinks of Baroness Krüdener or the Sturdzas, concern for the poor, or support for emancipation of the serfs or Greek independence could also feature in their programs, leaving undoubted conservatives such as Metternich rather suspicious of their politics. With the Holy Alliance itself, for that matter, Metternich perceived the potentially revolutionary implications of effacing the boundaries between states in a Christian fellowship grounded in popular sovereignty or defining Europe as one family, hence leading him to revise the text of the draft treaty in a way that instead stressed its nature as an agreement among the monarchs themselves in a patriarchal conception of monarchical rule, with the kings and emperors as fathers of their respective subjects.30 The example of Maistre in St. Petersburg also helps underscore the utility of taking a network- and salon-centered view of conservatism not just for understanding Maistre’s thought and influence but for probing Russian conservatism more broadly. While the public sphere and press in Russia was more robust than often depicted, it remains true that it was less well developed than in most of Western or Central Europe, and that the role of salon sociability or loose voluntary organizations such as the Symposium of the Lovers of the Russian Word was therefore relatively greater. The categories of oral and written culture could themselves become blurred in this context, as with the example of Maistre himself, whose manuscripts often circulated in Russian salon networks alongside his prominence as a conversationalist.31 It is also significant that in 28 Martin, Romantics, ch. 6 and 7; Falloux, Swetchine, 156–57. 29 Edling, Mémoires, 224–25, 237; Falloux, Swetchine, 48–49. 30 Hildegard Schaeder, Die dritte Koalition und die Heilige Allianz (Königsberg: 1934), 82–85; Werner Näf, Zur Geschichte der Heiligen Allianz (Bern: 1928), 11–18; Ernest John Knapton, The Lady of the Holy Alliance: The Life of Julie de Krüdener (New York: 1939), 5, 167–70, 183, 189. 31 Martin, Romantics, 8–10; Angela Rustemeyer, “Das Arkanum zwischen Herrschaftsanspruch und Kommunikationspraxis vom 16. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert,” in Jenseits der Zarenmacht. Dimensionen des Politischen im Russischen Reich 1800–1917, ed. Walter Sperling (Frankfurt a. M.: 2008), 43–70, here 45, 63–69. On Maistre’s manuscripts, Carolina Armenteros, “Preparing the Russian Revolution: Maistre and Uvarov on the History of Knowledge,” in Joseph de Maistre and His European Readers, ed. idem and Lebrun, 213–48, here 218–19.

210

Vick

addition to his close association with Admiral Shishkov and the S­ ymposium of the Lovers of the Russian Word and with Roxandra and Alexander Sturdza and Madame Swetchine, Maistre also still attended the gatherings of Grand Duchess ­Catherine and the Tuer and Moscow circles of Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin and Nikolai Karamzin. In doing so, he remained in conversation with all three of the main strands of Russian conservatism in that era as identified by Alexander Martin: the Romantic nationalists, the gentry conservatives, and the religious conservatives (however much the latter group may have seemed a closer fit).32 3 Conclusion and Epilogue: Towards the 20th and 21st Centuries The question certainly arises of how far this model of transnational ­multilateral and face-to-face exchange and networking applies beyond the period considered here. When considering radical, liberal, or socialist politics, the model indeed seems applicable in many times and places. Conspiratorial networks in the liberal or socialist internationals also relied on salon and associational culture and on transnational connections among refugees, exiles, and hosts, in the lean years of the Restoration as in the period of expansion during the late 19th century (the examples of the Fabians in Britain, Anna Kuliscioff in Italy, and the various expatriate radicals circulating in and around assorted Swiss refuges should suffice to illustrate the point). For conservatism, the model may not be as easily or generally applicable. There is a case to be made that the émigré experience of political exile during the revolutionary era was exceptional, that it facilitated European-wide exchanges among conservatives in ways that did not occur to the same extent, for example, in the Restoration or the later 19th century, when they were more often in or near power. Further reflection, however, suggests that perhaps the mid 19th-century focus on networking and consolidating within national frameworks was the exception, rather than the early 19th-century experience of emigration. Later, exchanges among conservative government officials, statisticians, scholars, and others in the years after 1850 may have promoted the growth of conservative European, trans-Atlantic, and global-imperial conceptions and practices of governance in the late 19th century as well; more research could find further evidence of such networks. Christopher Clark and Anna Ross have already begun to show the density and significance of exchanges among government officials and academic 32 Martin, Romantics, 91–92.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

211

experts in the wave of reformist state-building by conservative governments in the 1850s.33 Similarly, police scholars have traced the networks and institutional cooperation involved in the internationalization of policing of ­international criminality, terrorism, and political dissidence beginning in the first half and expanding in the second half of the 19th century, and one could well examine how far conservative ideas and notions of governance and governmentality were also transmitted through these networks and institutional channels, alongside information about threats or methods of surveillance. Determinations of threats as well as proposed solutions were shaped by these kinds of exchanges within emerging “security culture.” Among both officials and increasingly professional experts, exchanges continued to involve face-toface meetings in the exponentially growing numbers of international organizations, congresses, and conferences of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This wave of internationalization is more typically examined under the rubric of liberal internationalism, but without at all challenging that depiction, one should not underestimate the opportunities for conservative exchanges in these venues, even beyond the specific police congresses.34 More in line with the kind of networks central to this chapter, Faith Hillis has shed fascinating light on the ways in which Russian and French salon circles in Paris promoted a blending of Left and Right into a new radical nationalism and a Franco-Russian alliance. Featuring as crystallization points were above all Juliette Adam in Paris, who brought together a rich array of political opinion from radical to conservative, along with Olga Novikova in London, and involving such central figures in the rise of the new Right in France as Paul Déroulède and General Boulanger. Wider international influences contributed as well, including the Danish exile Jules Hansen and the Polish-Ukrainian-­German aristocrats the Radziwiłłs. Cross-confessional ties figure here again too, particularly Catholic-Russian Orthodox connections in the cultural and political climate of Pan-Slavism and the social Catholicism of Rerum Novarum, and, indeed, of antisemitism, in the form of Édouard Drumont and the murky gray zone between 33 34

Christopher Clark, “After 1848: The European Revolution in Government,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 22 (2012), 171–97; Anna Ross, Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848–1858 (Oxford: 2019). Ido de Haan and Jeroen van Zanten, “Constructing an International Conspiracy: Revolutionary Concertation and Police Networks in the European Restoration,” in Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture, ed. Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, and Brian Vick (Cambridge: 2019), 171–92; Karl Härter, “Security and Transnational Policing of Political Subversion and International Crime in the German Confederation after 1815,” ibid., 193–213; Claude Tapia and Jacques Taieb, “Conférences et Congrès Internationaux de 1815 à 1913,” Relations Internationales 5 (1976), 11–35.

212

Vick

governmental and non-governmental circles that produced the f­orgeries of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.35 The growth of both ecumenical religious movements and ­Catholic international organizations also points to spaces and currents that could be fruitful to probe for the origins and dissemination of conservative thought and politics, not least in the context of the pushback against the liberal anticlericalism and secularism of the age of the Culture Wars.36 Further afield, as scholars begin to investigate the global interconnections between European observers and those in other parts of the world in the new global intellectual history, more attention could be paid to the extent to which conservative as well as liberal ideas were the subject of such exchanges with, say, scholars and officials in Meiji Japan, or in the Indian subcontinent after 1857. Much of these transfers did come in the form of reading, translation, and adaptation, but face-to-face exchanges were prevalent in this context as well, with Japanese, South Asian, and other individuals studying in European countries for several months or years, and with European scholars and officials teaching or serving abroad as well. Meiji Japan’s pathbreaking Iwakura Mission to the United States and Europe was based in part on the principle that one needed to experience Western civilization firsthand and through direct observation and engagement rather than through texts alone, or via teachers and advisors in Japan.37 And as emphasized previously, thinking in 35 36

37

Faith Hillis, “The ‘Franco-Russian Marseillaise’: International Exchange and the Making of Antiliberal Politics in Fin de Siècle France,” Journal of Modern History 89 (2017), 39–78. Stan M. Landry, Ecumenism, Memory, and German Nationalism, 1817–1917 (Syracuse: 2014); Vincent Viaene, “International History, Religious History, Catholic History: Perspectives for Cross-Fertilization (1830–1914),” European History Quarterly 38 (2008), 578–607; ­Abigail Green and Vincent Viaene (eds.), Religious Internationals in the Modern World: Globalization and Faith Communities since 1750 (Basingstoke: 2012); Christopher Clark and ­Wolfram ­Kaiser (eds.), Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe ­(Cambridge: 2003). On global intellectual history, see Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (eds.), Global Intellectual History (New York: 2013). For studies focusing on liberalism, see for example, ­Christopher A. Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: 2012); Douglas Howland, “Translating Liberty in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001), 161–81. On the Iwakura Mission and the suggestion of a Dutch advisor in Japan to encounter the West through “direct observation” rather than at second hand, Mark Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History (New York: 2017), 141–42, and ch. 5 generally. For a study of Japanese conservatism and German ties, Erik Grimmer-Solem, “German Social Science, Meiji Conservatism, and the Peculiarities of Japanese History,” Journal of World History 16 (2005) 187–222. On South Asian-German connections from the late 19th into the 20th century in the context of “de-Europeanization” and a “Post-Enlightenment,” Kris Manjapra, Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectuals Across Empire (Cambridge, MA: 2014); and see Suzanne L. Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship (New York: 2009).

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

213

terms of networks and face-to-face exchange helps to recover the reciprocity of ­communication even in asymmetrical relationships, a prime consideration in the new global intellectual history. The role of transnational exchanges among 20th-century conservatives, or for that matter radical nationalists and fascists or quasi-fascists, seems once again quite clear and significant across Europe and beyond.38 And beyond the caesura of the Second World War, the transnational and multilateral exchanges and organizations among Christian Democratic and other religious conservatives helped shape the character of the postwar era through the 1960s and ’70s. Moves towards internationalization and Europeanization in these years were the result of conservative as of liberal networking.39 A central current in these developments was once again the experience of exiles and refugees, in which conservatives as well as Communists, liberals, and those of Jewish descent could be entangled. Among those for whom anti-Communist as well as anti-fascist commitments were key, the lines between liberal and conservative could again blur, as the examples of important names such as Leo Strauss, Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Elie Kedourie, and Isaiah Berlin suggest, or the Austrian School economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises or the neoliberal German-Swiss economist with conservative ties Wilhelm Röpke. More shadowy international networks of conservative influence and exchange may also have played significant parts in the second half of the 20th century, as Johannes Großmann has indicated. Thinking of the social and institutional location of such figures also points to the increasing centrality of universities as nodal points of exchange in the 20th century, alongside international organizations and networks such as the Mont Pélerin Society or the Centre européen de documentation et d’information.40 In the 21st century too, investigating current trends in neo- and alt-Right conservative thought and populist movements involves transnational, 38

39

40

Madeleine Herren, “Fascist Internationalism,” in Internationalisms: A Twentieth-­Century H ­ istory, ed. Glenda Sluga and Patricia Clavin (Cambridge, 2016): 191–212; Arnd Bauerkämper and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (eds.), Fascism Without Borders: Transnational Connections and Cooperation between Movements and Regimes in Europe from 1918 to 1945 (New York: 2017). Marco Duranti, The Conservative Human Rights Revolution: European Identity, Transnational Politics, and the Origins of the European Convention (Oxford: 2017); Udi Greenberg, ­“Catholics, Protestants, and the Violent Birth of Religious Pluralism,” American Historical Review 124 (2019), 511–38. Steven B. Smith, “Conservatism and Its Discontents,” in The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought, 2 vols., ed. Peter E. Gordon and Warren Breckman (Cambridge: 2019), 2:391–416; Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Cambridge, MA: 2018); Johannes Großmann, Die Internationale der Konservativen: Transnationale Elitenzirkel und private Außenpolitik in Westeuropa seit 1945 (Oldenbourg: 2014).

214

Vick

trans-Atlantic, and global exchanges in multilateral frameworks. If much of this exchange occurs through social media, it might suggest the need to analyze these developments in terms of the kinds of studies of publication reception and translation associated with a previous generation of studies of cultural and political transfer. At the same time, though, the exchange of words and images through present-day social media also bears much resemblance to the sorts of salon and correspondence networks discussed here for the 19th century. For all these reasons, considering the role of multilateral, decentered, and face-to-face exchanges may provide a helpful set of questions to ask and avenues to pursue when seeking to explore many aspects of early modern and modern conservative political thought. Bibliography Armenteros, Carolina, “Preparing the Russian Revolution: Maistre and Uvarov on the History of Knowledge,” in Joseph de Maistre and His European Readers: From ­Friedrich von Gentz to Isaiah Berlin, ed. Carolina Armenteros and Richard A. Lebrun (Leiden: 2011), 213–48. Armenteros, Carolina and Richard A. Lebrun, “Introduction,” in Joseph de Maistre and His European Readers: From Friedrich von Gentz to Isaiah Berlin, ed. Carolina ­Armenteros and Richard A. Lebrun (Leiden: 2011), 1–25. Bauerkämper, Arnd and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (eds.), Fascism Without Borders: Transnational Connections and Cooperation between Movements and Regimes in Europe from 1918 to 1945 (New York: 2017). Bayly, Christopher A., Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: 2012). Blackbourn, David, “Fashionable Spa Towns in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” in Water, Leisure and Culture: European Historical Perspectives, ed. Susan C. Anderson and Bruce H. Tabb (Oxford: 2002), 9–22. Brauer, Ursula, Isaac von Sinclair. Eine Biographie (Stuttgart: 1993). Burrows, Simon, French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792–1814 (Rochester, NY: 2000). Cahen, Raphaël, “The Correspondence of Friedrich von Gentz: The Reception of Du Pape in the German-Speaking World,” in Joseph de Maistre and His European ­Readers: From Friedrich von Gentz to Isaiah Berlin, ed. Carolina Armenteros and Richard A. Lebrun (Leiden: 2011), 95–121. Cahen, Raphaël, Friedrich Gentz, 1764–1832. Penseur post-Lumières et auteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2017). Carpenter, Kirsty and Philip Mansel (eds.), The French Émigrés in Europe and the ­Struggle against Revolution, 1789–1814 (New York: 1999).

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

215

Clark, Christopher, “After 1848: The European Revolution in Government,” ­Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 22 (2012), 171–97. Clark, Christopher, and Wolfram Kaiser (eds.), Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge: 2003). Conrad, Horst, Die Kette: Eine Standesvereinigung des Adels auf dem Wiener Kongreβ (Münster: 1979). Crane, Susan A., “Holy Alliances: Creating Religious Communities after the ­Napoleonic Wars,” in Die Gegenwart Gottes in der modernen Gesellschaft: Transzendenz und religiöse Vergemeinschaftung in Deutschland, ed. Michael Geyer and Lucian Hölscher (Göttingen: 2006), 37–59. Darcel, Jean-Louis, “Genèse et publication des Soirées de Saint-Petersbourg,” in Joseph de Maistre, Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg ou Entretiens sur le Gouvernement ­Temporel de la Providence, vol. 1., ed. Jean-Louis Darcel (Geneva, 1993), 9–26. Duranti, Marco, The Conservative Human Rights Revolution: European Identity, ­Transnational Politics, and the Origins of the European Convention (Oxford: 2017). Edling, Roxandra Countess, Mémoires de la comtesse Edling (née Stourdza), demoiselle d’honneur de Sa Majesté l’Impératrice Élisabeth Alexéevna (Moscow: 1888). Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: 1966). Erbe, Günter, Dorothea Herzogin von Sagan (1793–1862). Eine deutsch-französische K ­ arriere (Cologne: 2009). Espagne, Michel, Les transferts culturels franco-allemands (Paris: 1999). Espagne, Michel, “Introduction,” in Russie, France, Allemagne, Italie: Transferts ­quadrangulaires du néoclassicisme aux avant-gardes, ed. idem (Tusson: 2005), 5–8. Espagne, Michel, “La notion de transfert culturel,” Revue Sciences/Lettres (online) 1 (2013), https://journals.openedition.org/rsl/219, accessed 14 October, 2019. Falloux, Alfred-Frédéric-Pierre de, Life and Letters of Madame Swetchine, trans. Harriet Waters Preston (Boston: 1867). Ghervas, Stella, Réinventer la tradition. Alexandre Stourdza et l’Europe de la Sainte-­ Alliance (Paris: 2008). Gies McGuigan, Dorothy, Metternich and the Duchess (Garden City, NY: 1975). Green, Abigail and Vincent Viaene (eds.), Religious Internationals in the Modern World: Globalization and Faith Communities since 1750 (Basingstoke: 2012). Greenberg, Udi, “Catholics, Protestants, and the Violent Birth of Religious Pluralism,” American Historical Review 124 (2019), 511–38. Grimmer-Solem, Erik, “German Social Science, Meiji Conservatism, and the Peculiarities of Japanese History,” Journal of World History 16 (2005), 187–222. Großmann, Johannes, Die Internationale der Konservativen: Transnationale Elitenzirkel und private Außenpolitik in Westeuropa seit 1945 (Oldenbourg: 2014). Grothe, Ewald and Edgar Liebmann, “Konservative deutsche Politiker im 19. ­Jahrhundert. Eine Einführung,” in Konservative deutsche Politiker im 19. Jahrhundert. Wirken – Wirkung – Wahrnehmung, ed. Ewald Grothe (Marburg: 2010), 1–12.

216

Vick

Haan, Ido de and Jeroen van Zanten, “Constructing an International Conspiracy: ­Revolutionary Concertation and Police Networks in the European Restoration,” in Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture, ed. Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, and Brian Vick (Cambridge: 2019), 171–92. Härter, Karl, “Security and Transnational Policing of Political Subversion and ­International Crime in the German Confederation after 1815,” in Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture, ed. Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, and Brian Vick (Cambridge: 2019), 193–213. Herren, Madeleine, “Fascist Internationalism,” in Internationalisms: A Twentieth-­ Century History, ed. Glenda Sluga and Patricia Clavin (Cambridge, 2016): 191–212. Hillis, Faith, “The ‘Franco-Russian Marseillaise’: International Exchange and the ­Making of Antiliberal Politics in Fin de Siècle France,” Journal of Modern History 89 (2017), 39–78. Hoff, Karin, Udo Schöning, and Per Øhrgaard (eds.), Kulturelle Dreiecksbeziehungen. Aspekte der Kulturvermittlung zwischen Frankreich, Deutschland und Dänemark in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg: 2013). Howland, Douglas, “Translating Liberty in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001), 161–81. Kale, Steven, “Women, Salons, and the State in the Aftermath of the French Revolution,” Journal of Women’s History 13 (2002), 54–80. Kale, Steven, French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to 1848 (Baltimore: 2004). Knapton, Ernest John, The Lady of the Holy Alliance: The Life of Julie de Krüdener (New York: 1939). Köhler, Astrid, Salonkultur im klassischen Weimar: Geselligkeit als Lebensform und l­ iterarisches Konzept (Stuttgart: 1996). Kontler, László, “The Ancien Régime in Memory and Theory: Edmund Burke and his German Followers,” European Review of History 4 (1997), 31–43. Kronenbitter, Günther, Wort und Macht. Friedrich Gentz als politischer Schriftsteller (Berlin: 1994). Landry, Stan M., Ecumenism, Memory, and German Nationalism, 1817–1917 (Syracuse: 2014). Leonhard, Jörn, Liberalismus: Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmusters (Munich: 2001). Lissauer Cromwell, Judith, Dorothea Lieven: A Russian Princess in London and Paris, 1785–1857 (Jefferson, NC: 2007). Lüsebrink, Hans-Jürgen and Rolf Reichardt, “Kulturtransfer im Epochenumbruch. Fragestellungen, methodische Konzepte, Forschungsperspektiven. Einführung,” in Kulturtransfer im Epochenumbruch. Frankreich – Deutschland 1770 bis 1815, ed. Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Rolf Reichardt, and René Nohr (Leipzig: 1997), 9–26.

Transnational Networks, Salon Sociability

217

Manjapra, Kris, Age of Entanglement: German and Indian Intellectuals Across Empire (Cambridge, MA: 2014). Mansel, Philip, Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814–1852 (New York: 2001). Marchand, Suzanne L., German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship (New York: 2009). Martin, Alexander M., Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I (DeKalb, IL: 1997). Meier, Brigitte, “Joseph Maria Ernst Christian Wilhelm von Radowitz. Fremd- und Selbstwahrnehmung eines ungarischen Katholiken in preußischen Diensten,” in Konservative deutsche Politiker im 19. Jahrhundert. Wirken – Wirkung – Wahrnehmung, ed. Ewald Grothe (Marburg: 2010), 83–103. Moyn, Samuel and Andrew Sartori (eds.), Global Intellectual History (New York: 2013). Näf, Werner, Zur Geschichte der Heiligen Allianz (Bern: 1928). Pestel, Friedemann, Kosmopoliten wider Willen: Die monarchiens als Revolutionsemigranten (Berlin: 2015). Ravina, Mark, To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History (New York: 2017). Reboul, Juliette, French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution (Basingstoke: 2017). Ross, Anna, Beyond the Barricades: Government and State-Building in Post-­Revolutionary Prussia, 1848–1858 (Oxford: 2019). Rustemeyer, Angela, “Das Arkanum zwischen Herrschaftsanspruch und Kommunikationspraxis vom 16. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert,” in Jenseits der Zarenmacht. Dimensionen des Politischen im Russischen Reich 1800–1917, ed. Walter Sperling (Frankfurt a. M.: 2008), 43–70. Schaeder, Hildegard, Die dritte Koalition und die Heilige Allianz (Königsberg: 1934). Schildt, Axel, Konservatismus in Deutschland. Von den Anfängen im 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: 1998). Schmale, Wolfgang, “Aperçu historique des transferts quadrangulaires dans l’Europe du XIXe siècle,” in Russie, France, Allemagne, Italie: Transferts quadrangulaires du néoclassicisme aux avant-gardes, ed. Michel Espagne (Tusson: 2005), 11–20. Shaw, Caroline, Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial ­Origins of Refugee Relief (Oxford: 2016). Siemann, Wolfram, Metternich: Stratege und Visionär. Eine Biografie (Munich: 2016). Slobodian, Quinn, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism ­(Cambridge, MA: 2018). Sluga, Glenda, “Women, Diplomacy and International Politics, Before and After the Congress of Vienna,” in Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500, ed. Glenda Sluga and Carolyn James (London: 2016), 120–36.

218

Vick

Smith, Steven B., “Conservatism and Its Discontents,” in The Cambridge History of M ­ odern European Thought, 2 vols., ed. Peter E. Gordon and Warren Breckman ­(Cambridge: 2019), 2:391–416. Tapia, Claude and Jacques Taieb, “Conférences et Congrès Internationaux de 1815 à 1913,” Relations Internationales 5 (1976), 11–35. Viaene, Vincent, “International History, Religious History, Catholic History: Perspectives for Cross-Fertilization (1830–1914),” European History Quarterly 38 (2008), 578–607. Vick, Brian E., The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Cambridge, MA: 2014). Werner, Michael and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity,” History and Theory 45 (2006), 30–50. Wilhelmy, Petra, Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert (1780–1914) (Berlin: 1989). Zechner, Wolfgang, “Joseph Anton von Pilat” (PhD dissertation, University of Vienna: 1954). Zorin, Andrei, “‘Star of the East’: The Holy Alliance and European Mysticism,” Kritika 4 (2003), 313–42.

CHAPTER 10

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier: The Birth of Russian Conservatism in Vienna ­­(1803–12) Lien Verpoest 1 Introduction Amidst the gallophobic discourse that engulfed the Russian Empire during the events of 1812, a small but persistent conservative movement resurfaced at the Russian court. Napoleon’s campaign and tsar Alexander’s eventual victory over the Grande Armée not only sparked intense Russian patriotism, but also brought together many conservative members of the elite who had been silenced in the first, ‘liberal’ decade of Alexander’s reign. The victory of 1812 paved the way for a greater role for Russia in European politics. Along the way, several Russian conservatives like Aleksandr Shishkov, Fedor Rostopchin and Sergey Uvarov gained access to the imperial court. This conservative momentum in Russia was strongly linked with the patriotism, monarchism and anti-revolutionary thought that eventually contributed to the Holy Alliance. The later connections of some of these conservatives with Western European counterparts who spent time in Russia (like Rostopchin and de Maistre) are well-documented.1 This chapter will however focus on a period that predated this conservative momentum. The first decade of Alexander I’s reign was crucial for the way in which Russian conservatism took shape in the 19th century. This period forms a bridge between the early ideas of Russian conservatives in Saint Petersburg and Moscow and the re-emergence of their ideas around 1812 that were cemented on the European level in 1815. Between 1801 and 1812, Russian and western European scions of the ancien régime met in Vienna; prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne, Count Sergey Uvarov, Friedrich von Gentz, Count Pozzo di Borgo, Madame de Staël, Princess Dolgorukova, Baron vom und zum Stein, and the Russian ambassador Count Razumovsky. The exchange of views and ideas in the Viennese salons, theatres, and 1 David W. Edwards, “Count Joseph Marie de Maistre and Russian Educational Policy, ­1803–1828,” Slavic Review 36 (1977), 54–75 and Derek Offord, Larisa Ryazanova-Clarke, ­Vladislav Rjeoutski and Gesine Argent, French and Russian in Imperial Russia (Edinburgh: 2015). © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_010

220

Verpoest

encounters in resorts outside Vienna provided a cosmopolitan setting that allowed these men and women to let ancien régime views merge with new ideas at a moment when Europe was in turmoil and Russia had a new tsar professing more liberal views than his predecessor. For some of them, like Sergey Uvarov, these formative years strongly influenced later views. Not only Uvarov himself, but also others later became protagonists in European and Russian politics. Starting out from correspondences and memoirs of this peculiar Vienna circle, I will discuss the Russian-European network in Vienna that laid the basis for Russia’s later conservatism by identifying the historical narrative that arose from these contacts and conversations. The contact between two people in this circle was crucial for this narrative; the ‘true European’ prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne and the young diplomat Sergey Uvarov. Together with these other members of the Vienna circle, who were united by their friendship, anti-Napoleonic sentiment and ancien régime nostalgia, their correspondence and memoirs demonstrate a discourse that contributed to the development of conservative thought in Russia. 2

Russian Traditionalism or Conservatism?

In recent years, the role of history in state discourse has become ever more apparent in Russia. This led to some academic discussion in Russia on the linkage between the study of conservative thought and state propaganda.2 Some academics were also critical about the fact that many Russian scholars still focused on biographical studies of political leaders, writers and philosophers,

2 A good overview is provided by Arkadii Iur’evich Minakov, “Russkii konservatizm v sovremennoi rossiiskoi istoriografii: novye podkhody i tendentsii izucheniia,” Otechestvennaia Istoriia 6 (2005), 133–42 and Aleksandr Repnikov, “Sovremennaia Istoriografiia rossiiskogo konservatizma”, in Konservatizm i traditsionalizm na iuge Rossii, ed. V.V. Chernous (Rostovon-Don: 2002), 5–22. The topicality of the study of Russian conservatism is demonstrated by the fact that both chapters were translated into in English in 2009, into a special issue together with an article of Igor Khristoforov, “Nineteenth-Century Russia Conservatism. Problems and Contradictions,” Russian Studies in History 48 (2009), 56–77. The year 2014 turned out to be a real critical juncture for Russian historiography. Not only politicians but also academics started to take sides. Russian scholars who in 2009 still contributed to this special issue that breathed new life into the study of the history of Russian conservatism now either opted to link their views on Russian conservatism with Russian state propaganda in East-Ukraine (Minakov) or to publicly endorse oppositional ideas, and openly shifted their focus to the study of liberalism (Khristoforov).

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

221

instead of entering a macro-study of conservative ideology in Russian history.3 Despite this criticism, this increase in academic scrutiny of conservative figures and their ideas has greatly enhanced and deepened the field of study. Also non-Russian scholars picked up the discussion. Marlène Laruelle pointed out the likeness between Putin’s policies and Sergey Uvarov’s conservative triad. In a similar vein, Lesley Chamberlain describes how Putin’s conservative policies are not all that new but reach back to the early 19th century. Sean Cannady and Paul Kubicek also compared president Putin with tsar Nicholas I.4 Yet despite the renewed attention for the history of Russian conservatism and the subsequent academic discussions, there still is a basic consensus among Russian scholars about several key characteristics that mark the history of Russian conservatism. Most Russian scholars subscribe Mannheim’s distinction between conservatism and traditionalism, and point out the diversity of conservative thought in Russian history, the “multiple variants of the conservative ideology and the variety of responses to the key social and political problems of the age (…) are perhaps the most characteristic trait of Russian prerevolutionary conservatism.”5 For a long time, there was less attention for the origins of Russian conservatism, especially the first two decades of the 19th century. There are different reasons for this: first of all, because most studies of Russian conservatism gravitate towards the second half of the 19th century, when conservatism had become a real societal issue. Secondly, because the discussion on the origins of Russian conservatism often focuses on the slavophiles, and whether they can be considered Russia’s first conservatives.6 Only a few studies venture beyond slavophilia to find the roots of Russia’s (proto-)conservative discourse. Those that did, like Alexander Martin’s Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries, or Andrei 3 More recently, political scientists like Elena Chebankova have endeavored a systematic ­analysis of the basic philosophical arguments and intellectual origins of fundamental conservative thought in Russia, not from a historical but a mainly sociological perspective, with a focus on ultraconservative contemporary Russian thinkers like Aleksandr Dugin. Elena ­Chebankova, “Russian Fundamental Conservatism: In Search of Modernity,” Post-Soviet Affairs 29 (2013), 287–313. 4 Marlène Laruelle, The Name of the Nation: Nationalism and Politics in Contemporary Russia (New York: 2009); Lesley Chamberlain, Ministry of Darkness: How Sergey Uvarov Created ­Conservative Modern Russia (New York: 2019); Sean Cannady and Paul Kubicek, “Nationalism and Legitimation for Authoritarianism: A Comparison of Nicholas I and Vladimir Putin,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 5 (2014), 1–9. 5 Minakov, Russkii konservatizm, 12, and Khristoforov, Nineteenth-Century Russian C ­ onservatism, 74. 6 Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy. History of a Conservative Utopia in N ­ ineteenth-Century Russian Thought (New York: 1975).

222

Verpoest

Zorin’s Kormia dvuglavogo orla (Feeding the two-headed eagle) provide great insights into how Russian conservatism developed through romantic nationalism and reactionary counterrevolutionary thought in late eighteenth- and early 19th-century Russia.7 Moreover, the works entail innovative approaches to the study of conservatism by tackling new sources, and exploring new theoretical approaches, like a comparison of ideology in the work of Clifford Geertz with the work of cultural historian Yuri Lotman.8 By taking on not only a cultural but diplomatic historical perspective, this chapter highlights how early Russian conservative thought actually also developed outside Russia. It will show that apart from national networks also longstanding diplomatic ties were crucial for the rise of a true “Russian” ­conservatism. The initial, formative period of the Vienna network determined a Russian conservative narrative that later arose from this period. In 1803–1812, most members of this network were non-state actors. Their informal, cosmopolitan setting at the time provided great openness and led to a rich ­correspondence. After 1812 most of them took up ministerial or diplomatic posts and became deeply ensconced in Russian politics and European diplomacy. This makes it all the more remarkable that it was only much later that this “cosmopolitan” conservative narrative gained traction again in Russia, through Uvarov’s conservative triad and his memoirs. The western influence on the architect of one of the most authoritative Russian conservative views deserves more academic scrutiny. Uvarov’s triad of orthodoxy, nationality and autocracy became the core of great-Russian official nationalism. A lot of the scholarly work on Uvarov focuses on his educational or philosophical views, and in doing so, point to a distinctly German influence (Kant, Humboldt).9 Yet at the end of his long career, the by then revered (and reviled) statesman wrote down several memoirs of people and events. In doing so, he focused almost exclusively on the brief period which turned out to be very influential for both his political views and his official discourse: his period as a young diplomat in Vienna between 1806 and 1809. 7 Alexander Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Age of Alexander I (DeKalb: 1997); Andrei Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla: ­literaturnaia i gosudarstvennaia ideologiia v Rossii v poslednei treti XVIII-pervoi treti XIX veka (Moscow: 2001); also as Feeding the Two-headed Eagle. Literature and State Ideology in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Russia (Boston: 2014). 8 Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla, 11. 9 Mariia Maiofis, Vozzvanie k Evrope: Literaturnoe obshchestvo ‘Arzamas’ i rossiiskii modernizatsionnyi proekt 1815–1818 godov (Moscow: 2008); idem, “After the Napoleonic Wars: Reading Perpetual Peace in the Russian Empire” in Cosmopolitanism in Conflict: Imperial Encounters from the Seven Year’s War to the Cold War, ed. Dina Gusejnova (Basingstoke: 2017), 85–112.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

3

223

Uvarov’s Road to Vienna

Born in 1786 in a noble family of Tatar origins, Sergey Semyonovich Uvarov saw his fortunes reduced when his father passed away only two years later. Taken in by his mother’s sister who had married into the princely Kurakin family, he grew up “a poor cousin in a wealthy family”, and enjoyed an excellent home education by Abbé Mauguin, a French tutor who abhorred the French Revolution and “idealized the educated aristocrat of the 18th century salon.”10 It was exactly this type of aristocrat he would befriend during his diplomatic service several years later. He joined the chancellery of Foreign Affairs in 1801, and had the opportunity to complete his classic education through a ­Lehrjahr in ­Germany in 1802, during which he attended classes at the University of ­Göttingen. After his return, he started to work as a translator at the Foreign Affairs chancellery and received the honorary court position of Kammerjunker in 1804. This consolidated his access to the elite and intellectual salon circles of Saint Petersburg.11 By 1805, he was ready for foreign service. After a brief stint as a courier in Naples, he was sent to Vienna in 1806 along with his uncle Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin, who went there on a temporary mission. The young Uvarov remained in Vienna for diplomatic training under the Russian ambassador Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky.12 Razumovsky was staunchly anti-Napoleonic, and Uvarov’s work and friendship with the count set the tone for his other acquaintances in Vienna. Apart from the salon of Razumovsky, Uvarov also frequented the salon of Prince de Ligne. This scion of one of the oldest Belgian noble families and knight of the golden fleece had fled his Belgian estates during the French invasion of the Southern Netherlands in 1794 and resettled with his wife and daughter in Vienna. Until his death in 1814, he divided his time mostly between Vienna and his daughter’s estate in Teplice. Known for his light take on life and all the pleasures it brought, he knew and befriended many rulers and famous figures of the 18th century. In his younger years, he divided his time between the courts of Versailles (he was very close to Marie Antoinette), Sanssouci (where he had long conversations with Frederick the Great), and Saint Petersburg. De Ligne spent a year at the court of Catherine the Great, and was invited to join her on 10 11 12

Cynthia Whittaker, The Origins of Modern Education. An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergey Uvarov, 1786–1855 (DeKalb: 1984), 13. Ibid., 14. Count Razumovsky had been ambassador in Vienna from 1790 until 1799, when he was recalled by tsar Paul. After the tsar’s assassination in 1801, Razumovsky was reinstated as ambassador to Vienna by the new tsar Alexander I.

224

Verpoest

the famous “cruise” along the Dnepr to the newly annexed Crimea in 1787. He enjoyed a lively correspondence with her for years to follow.13 As he got used to life in Vienna, he also befriended Giacomo Casanova, who was then librarian at the castle of Dux (Duchovce), near Teplice. After inspiring the aging, penniless Casanova to write his memoirs, de Ligne embarked upon the same path and decided to write his own Fragments de l’histoire de ma vie. During his time in Vienna, he also wrote several essays on Napoleon, military affairs and European politics of the time.14 For the young Uvarov, de Ligne was the representation of everything he valued in the ancien régime: the intellectual prowess easily wrapped in bon mots, the sharp wit, the gaiety, the connectedness to high society. De Ligne’s small salon was frequented by everyone of importance in Vienna: high nobility, diplomats and the intellectual and cultural elite. Among his closest confidants were “la muse belgique” Marie-Caroline Murray, the Russian princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova, the Corsican count Pozzo di Borgo, and the Silesian publicist Friedrich von Gentz. 4

A Viennese Refuge in an Unruly Europe

In this brief yet unique period in Vienna, this cosmopolitan set met against a backdrop of persistent international political turmoil. Between 1803 and 1809, Europe saw the Franco-British war of 1803, Napoleon who crowned himself emperor, the war of the Third Coalition and allied disaster in Austerlitz, the war of the Fourth Coalition and the dramatic defeat of Prussia against Napoleon in 1806, the establishment of the Continental System, the Russian defeats in Friedland and Eylau and the 1807 “humiliation of Tilsit”, as it was known among the Russian nobility, and the war of the Fifth Coalition of 1809 which again resulted in Austrian defeat and the harsh treaty of Schönbrunn. All these events were logically discussed in the correspondence between the Viennese friends. They were moreover all in a rather similar position: Vienna was a refuge, but also a temporary hiatus in their lives. Some had lost their assets after the French invasion of the Southern Netherlands in 1794 (de Ligne, 13 14

Sarah Dickinson “Russia’s ‘First Orient’: Characterizing the Crimea in 1787,” Kritika: E­ xplorations in Russian and Eurasian History 3 (2002), 3–25 and Charles Joseph De Ligne, ­Correspondances russes, ed. Alexandre Stroev and Jeroom Vercruysse (Paris: 2014). A collection of these essays and letters were published posthumously under the title “Ma Napoléonide”; Charles Joseph de Ligne, Ma Napoléonide, Œuvres posthumes inédites, ed. F­ élicien Leuridant (Paris: 1921).

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

225

Murray), some had temporarily lost their polemic purpose after the defeat of Austerlitz (Gentz), some had lost imperial mercy (Dolgorukova and, after his criticism on Tilsit, Razumovsky), some had been fired from their ministerial functions after the defeat against Napoleon in Jena (Baron vom und zum Stein), some had fled or been exiled because of their troubled relation with ­Napoleon (Pozzo di Borgo, Madame de Staël). What united this circle of friends and acquaintances is that most of them had lived under the ancien régime, had suffered from the consequences of the revolution and had resisted and rejected Napoleon. As Uvarov later pointed out, all took up major political and diplomatic positions after his defeat. They became the protagonists of the Congress of Vienna and architects of the conservative Holy Alliance. What is meaningful for their influence on Russian conservatism is that Uvarov’s “young” admiration for these European conservatives was substantiated in his memoirs at the end of his life. 5 Russian Conservatism In- and Outside Russia? Identifying Different Narratives This young admiration is all the more remarkable because after he returned from Russia, Uvarov was not known for his conservative or anti-Napoleonic views. He was known as a talented protégé of Kurakin and even favorite of tsar Alexander I who stood out because of his intellect and aristocratic charm. The young Uvarov was popular in salons and artistic circles. In Saint Petersburg, he was an enthusiastic member of the Olenin circle, which regularly met in Aleksey Olenin’s house in Saint Petersburg.15 The Olenin circle (1795–1809) was known to exclusively discuss arts, theatre and literature, even in the time of international political crisis. The literary circle that formed around this refined lover of the arts counted many talented artist and writers, like Ivan Krylov (known for his Russian fables), the playwrights Vladislav Ozerov and Sergey Marin, but also younger men like the classicist Nikolai Gnedich, the

15

Aleksej Nikolaevich Olenin had been elected to member of the Russian Academy at the age of 22 had a successful career in the Russian army and later administration under three consecutive tsars. In 1811, he was chosen as director of the National Public Library in Saint Petersburg. Tsar Alexander called him a “Tausendkünstler”. Filip Filippovich Vigel, Zapiski (Moscow: 1928), 46–47 and Sergei Semenovich Uvarov, “Literaturnye Vospominaniia A.S.,” Sovremennik 6 (1851), 39. Maksim Isaakovich Gillelson, Molodoi Pushkin i arzamasskoe bratstvo (Leningrad: 1974), 4 and Marinus Antony Wes, Tussen twee bronzen ruiters. Klassieken in Rusland 1700–1855 (Baarn: 1991), 124.

226

Verpoest

poet Aleksandr Batyushkov. When Uvarov was in Russia, he would go to the meetings in Olenin’s house on the Fontanka or would join the others in his country estate Priyutino. The artistic influence of this circle on Uvarov was considerable: “the influence of Olenin and his friends had a decisive effect on the spiritual development of a young diplomat, he became an ardent ­supporter of ancient culture, an interest that remained present in his character for many years to come.”16 Yet despite his fascination for ancient culture, Uvarov was also a founding member of the literary circle Arzamas, a merry club of very talented and rather progressive poets whose single aim was to ridicule the establishment. The ­target of their sharp epigrams was the majestic literary circle Beseda, which can be considered the first conservative society in Russia. Both circles emerged after the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit and because of the tense international situation, politics slowly started to seep through in these predominantly literary societies. Interestingly, and very telling about his personality, Uvarov was a member of both societies. The Beseda society (Beseda Liubitelei Russkogo Slova, The Symposium of the Lovers of the Russian word) had been meeting informally since 1807. Its chairman, admiral Aleksandr Semyonovich Shishkov, was a product of the ­‘Catherine’ generation: educated abroad, with a huge admiration for the ­tsarina, and a similar horror of the French Revolution and what followed. Increasingly gallophobic, Shishkov became one of the main proponents of the ‘old style’, who defended a ‘pure’ Russian language free of foreign influence. During the Beseda meetings, he and his companions (who later became known as archaists) read from their own work and opened the floor to young and patriotic poets about whom Shishkov expressed the hope that they would contribute to creating a truly Russian, national literature. In 1811, the meetings were formalized and Beseda became a literary society with the tsar’s approval. At the monthly public meetings in the stately ­Fontanka house of former minister of justice and poet Gavrila Derzhavin, ­writers, poets and statesmen met and mingled. As the society was founded during tense times, when the Tilsit treaty seemed untenable and war with Napoleon unavoidable, it is maybe logical that these stately meetings had an increasingly patriotic, conservative and anti-French undercurrent. Uvarov contributed to the society’s journal as an honorary member of Beseda. It seems that he went along with the gallophobic political climate at the time: formerly 16 Gillel’son, Pushkin i Arzamasskoe bratstvo, 24.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

227

so enraptured with French literature, in the Beseda journal he criticized a translation of the Iliad because it was in the French-style alexandrine verse. In the spirit of gallophobia, Uvarov remarked sharply that this made him imagine “the hero Achilles in French dress”.17 Beseda thus provided a forum to profess political views under a veil of ­literary criticism. In 1811, at one of the meetings, Shishkov held his famous speech “On the love of the fatherland”. This was such a success that afterwards, he was invited by the tsar, who asked him to write military manifestoes against Napoleon. When Alexander’s progressive state secretary Mikhail ­Speranskii was dismissed in 1812, Shishkov replaced him. In 1813, he became president of the Imperial Academy and in 1824 he became minister of education. Uvarov followed in Shishkov’s footsteps, and took up both functions himself in later years. Many of the members of Beseda held high positions in the administration or at court, and Uvarov aimed to join their ranks. After his diplomatic mission in Vienna, he became head of the Saint Petersburg educational district in 1811. He was appointed vice-president of the Public library in 1812 and president of the Russian Imperial Academy of Science in 1818. Uvarov became increasingly ensconced in the high society of which the Beseda members was also part. In 1832–3, under tsar Nicholas I, he became minister of Education, and authored his important circulaire in which he launched his view that the ­Russian Empire could not prosper without three important characteristics: autocracy, ­orthodoxy and nationalism. Later on, this was coined by the historian A.N. Pypin in 1875 as the “official nationality” of Russia, which eventually led to Uvarov epithet of the “father of modern Russian conservatism”.18 5.1 The “Most Liberal of Monarchists” Why then did Uvarov decide also to be part of the literary society Arzamas, who attacked his conservative colleagues? The reason is that like in his Vienna circle, he was attracted by their sharp wit and abundance of literary talent. 17

18

This polemic between the old members of the Olenin circle afterwards was published in the journal of the Beseda society: Sergey Semenovich Uvarov, “Pis’mo k Nikolaiu Ivanovichu Gnedichu o grecheskom ekzametre,” Chtenie v Besede liubitelei russkogo slova 13 (1813), 65. Aleksandr Nikolaevich Pypin, Kharakteristiki literaturnykh mnenii ot dvadtsatykh do pitaidesyatykh godov: Istoricheskie ocherki (Saint Petersburg: 1906); Aleksei Miller, “Official Nationality? A ­Reassessment of Count Sergei Uvarov’s Triad in the Context of Nationalism Politics,” in The Romanov Empire and Nationalism: Essays in the Methodology of Historical Research, ed. idem (Budapest: 2008), 139–59.

228

Verpoest

Although he subscribed the political undercurrent of the Beseda Society and even the temporary gallophobia and anti-Napoleonic discourse during the war, the patriotic verse recited at the Beseda meetings was dull compared to the excitingly ideas and “new” style of the Arzamas members, who instead of rejecting everything western, embraced it with an ease that could only appear very natural to Uvarov (who was known to write verse better in French than in Russian). His double attachment to seemingly opposing groups shows the ambiguity of Uvarov’s views. He was politically conservative, but throughout his life he remained very westernized in his cultural and literary taste. This landed him the epithet of “liberaluyushtvee monarchistov”: the most liberal of monarchists.19 In his young years, Uvarov was thus confronted with narratives of different circles. Outside Russia, there was the Vienna circle which consisted of a cosmopolitan group of French, Belgian, Prussian, German, and Russian ­intellectuals and diplomats and was politically conservative in the way that it was pro-ancien régime, counterrevolutionary and very critical of France’s new ambitions in Europe. Yet culturally, this group was essentially western. Inside Russia, the Beseda society represented a national traditionalist narrative that had political motives, whereas the Olenin and Arzamas circles had more of a l’art pour l’art approach without any political connotation. In the second part of this ­chapter I will explore how the political narratives of the Vienna circle influenced Uvarov’s later conservatism. 6

The Narrative of the Vienna Circle

Uvarov wrote about his time in Vienna in his Tablettes d’un Voyageur russe.20 This diary offers different insights. According to Cynthia Whittaker, the young Uvarov experienced in Vienna a “demystification” of the ancien régime he had idealized before. She concludes he did not particularly like the city, nor the ­Austrians.21 Sergey Durylin paints another picture of Uvarov’s time in Vienna: one of a period of intense cultural delight and rich conversation.22 Both authors agree that Uvarov fully immersed himself in the Viennese diplomatic and ­cultural elite and deeply enjoyed the concerts, art and conversation. The 19

Sergey Nikolaevich Durylin, “Gospozha de Stal’ i ee russkie otnosheniia,” in Literaturnoe Nasledstvo 33–34 (Moscow: 1939), 215–330. 20 Unpublished manuscript, State Historical Museum, Moscow. 21 Whittaker, Origins, 18. 22 Durylin, “Gospozha de Stal’,” 216–20.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

229

Russian ambassador Razumovsky was passionate about classical music. In the many decades he spent in Vienna, he was well-acquainted with Mozart and Haydn and became the mecenas of Beethoven. In his impressive Palais R ­ azumovsky he held balls, concerts and dinners.23 These cosmopolitan surroundings made a deep impression on Uvarov. Razumovsky and his guests were those who openly expressed “anti-Napoleonic feelings, ­conservative-­feudal aspirations and reactionary hopes that stealthily lived among the Viennese aristocracy”.24 Especially after the humiliating Tilsit treaty, Vienna became the capital of reaction against Napoleon, and the palace of the by then ex-ambassador was “the only place where this reaction could be expressed without masks”.25 With an aristocracy that was much more independent from the monarch than in Russia for example, the epicenter of elite interaction was not at the court, but took place in the salons and palaces of this cosmopolitan nobility. As Durylin pointed out, one could say that in 1807–08, “Vienna was a sort of ‘German Paris’, not yet subordinate to Napoleon, and that the free voice of independent political thought could still be heard in its salons”.26 It were these free and independent voices that Uvarov reminisced about nearly fifty years later when he wrote memoirs of the people he met there: de Ligne (1842), Madame de Staël (1851), Count Pozzo di Borgo and Baron vom und zum Stein (1851). 6.1 De Ligne His closest friend in this Viennese period was also the oldest: Charles Joseph de Ligne (1735–1814). Deeply appreciative of Uvarov’s intellect, de Ligne was well-placed to enter a sincere friendship with the young diplomat. Uvarov’s correspondence with de Ligne at the time was informal and often in verse.27 De Ligne enjoyed Uvarov’s curiosity about his experiences with Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, Potemkin, Madame du Barry etc. He even bestowed Uvarov with some memoirs of life at the French court and of Marie Antoinette. Uvarov was overjoyed with these original documents, given “to me, a young foreigner who came from the North, the epitome of two centuries, at the ­confluence of which it was reserved for me to be born”.28 23

Aleksandr Alekseevich Vasil’chikov, Semeistvo Razumovskich (Saint Petersburg: 1882), 464–66. 24 Durylin, “Gospozha de Stal’,” 217. 25 Ibid., 217. 26 Ibid., 220. 27 Ligne, Correspondances russes, 580–600. 28 Sergey S. Uvarov, “Le Prince de Ligne,” Études de philologie et de critique (Saint Petersburg: 1843), 355–72.

230

Verpoest

Yet it is also clear that there was a lot of projection in Uvarov’s Souvenirs of de Ligne. Written in 1842, he clearly idealized and the “past days, long gone now”.29 He starts out with the remark that people try to retrieve the long lost times of the 18th century, and then attempts to retrieve it himself through the persona of Ligne, by recounting his anecdotes or their meeting with the old Princesse de Lorraine, Comtesse de Brionne.30 At the same time, Uvarov largely ignores de Ligne’s political views and skills as a writer. It is clear that in hindsight, what Uvarov opted to take away from his friendship is that Charles Joseph de Ligne represented everything that was good, intelligent, stylish, and charming about the ancien régime.31 Yet the Viennese circle was far from apolitical. De Ligne’s views on N ­ apoleon were posthumously published as Ma Napoléonide.32 In correspondence among members of the circle, the dominance of Napoleon, the humiliation of Prussia, the delicate position of Austria and the hope that Russia would eventually form a “contrepoint” against France were all discussed. In a letter to Friedrich von Gentz, for example, de Ligne assesses the Prussian and Austrian losses, analyzes the defeats of Austerlitz and Ulm, and stresses the predominance of Napoleon in a battered Europe: It is a naughtly old lady who has lost her balance and is unsteady on the legs, as if she had been drinking. What has come upon her shows that the weight that one puts on one side of the lowering balance cannot make it rise again. I believed that one could make a dam against overflowing water and that it would just be a flood, but one cannot do anything against a torrent.33 6.2 Gentz Friedrich von Gentz (1764–1832) was maybe one of the most “decisive” ­conservatives of the Vienna circle. Gentz had been in Austrian service, but he left Vienna after the battle of Austerlitz. Between 1806 and his return to Vienna in 1809, he lived in Prague and often visited his friend de Ligne in 29 Ibid. 30 “Alors, par un coup de baguette, rétrogradant de cinquante ans, nous fûmes de prime abord, en plein Versailles, en plein Trianon. Le passé, ce passé si vieux et si complètement évanoui, redevint le présent, mais le présent en chair et en os ; c’était un dialogue des morts, mais ces morts étaient pleins de vie et rajeunissaient l’un par l’autre,” Uvarov, Le Prince de Ligne, 369. 31 But Uvarov also misunderstood De Ligne in certain ways. He for example perceived him as essentially French, and oversaw his loyalty to Austria. Ligne, Correspondances russes, 563–64. 32 Ligne, Ma Napoléonide. 33 Charles Joseph de Ligne, “Lettre à M. de Gentz, Vienne 20 Février 1806,” ibid., 39–40.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

231

­ eplice. During this time away from Vienna, von Gentz continued his antiT French ­rhetoric and was in correspondence with Adam Czartoryski, de Ligne and Ekaterina Dolgorukova and visited them in Teplice and Vienna. As the first translator Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France into German,34 he was not only staunchly anti-revolutionary but gradually became known as one of the most ardent critics of Napoleon. In the post-Austerlitz period, Gentz became notorious for lending his pen to the British and Prussian governments. In his writings, it is clear that he identified Napoleon as a similar threat to Europe as the revolution had been before: I have fought against the revolution, as much as I believed that there was a chance to overcome it; I have never made my peace with her, but since I became aware of a more real and more urgent danger than that of its first doctrines, the danger of the monstrous dominance gathered by the French Government after the rise of Bonaparte that started to threaten Europe, I have turned my efforts against this danger; I have battled it with all my means.35 He often looked North for an answer to Napoleon: in the run-up to the battle of Austerlitz (December 1805), he corresponded regularly with then Russian minister of foreign affairs Adam Czartoryski and in 1806, he addressed a memorandum on Russia to Czartoryski’s successor at the Russian ministry, Andrei Budberg.36 As he wrote in a letter to his friend, Ekaterina Dolgorukova before the Tilsit treaty, it seems that he even intended to move to Russia: There will now be only asylum in Russia. I have sensed for a long time the context that would make me set my sight upon such an asylum, and I could even say, that I have long secretly prepared for it.37

34 35 36 37

“Letter from Friedrich von Gentz to Edmund Burke, Berlin, 8 February 1793,” in The ­ orrespondence of Edmund Burke, vol. 7, ed. Peter J. Marshall and John A. Woods, C (­Cambridge and Chicago: 1968), 346–47. “Letter by Friedrich von Gentz to Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Dresden, 22 June 1806,” National Museum, Krakau. Czartoryski-Library, Manuscript Department, 5534 III, Bl. 5–19 1806. For more letters, see “Gentz Digital: Korrespondenzen des Friedrich von Gentz aus der ­‘Sammlung Herterich’ der USB Köln,” https://gentz-digital.ub.uni-koeln.de/portal/home. html?l=en (accessed 31 October 2020). “Letter by Friedrich Von Gentz to Princess Ekaterina Feodorovna Dolgorukova, Prague, 20 May 1807,” Russian National Library, St Petersburg. Manuscript Department, F. 608 (Pomjalowski, J.W.) Invl. 1, N 5581, Bl. 13–16v 1807.

232

Verpoest

There are two critical remarks to be made about Gentz’ discourse. First of all, he made similar remarks about Prussia and called both the Russian tsar Alexander I and the Prussian king “saviors of Europe”. Secondly, he subdued his rhetoric later on. The reason for this was of course a change in his professional position. During the Congress of Vienna, Gentz became secretary of Clemens von Metternich, and gained further fame as a conservative with a sharp mind stubbornly in favor of the old European order.38 6.3 Pozzo di Borgo Another member of the Viennese circle who did enter Russian service, was Count Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo. Corsican by birth, he was one of the few diplomats who had known Napoleon Bonaparte since his childhood.39 After his studies in Pisa, di Borgo joined forces with Pasquale Paoli and served as head of state during the British protectorate of Corsica in 1794–96. After Napoleon gained control of the island in 1796, Pozzo di Borgo had to seek refuge in Rome. From then onwards, di Borgo and Napoleon were lifelong enemies. After Napoleon demanded his extradition, di Borgo fled to Britain, where in 1798, he joined the British Ambassador Sir Gilbert Elliott, Count of Minto to Vienna. Di Borgo spent nine years in Vienna. In the salon of Razumovsky he befriended Uvarov, Gentz, and de Ligne and became acquainted with Adam Czartoryski. As Gentz recalled in his later published diaries: “Pozzo di Borgo was a member of the salon of Countess Razumovsky, where the cream of good society assembled and Armfeldt, Pozzo and I formed a sort of political three-leaf clover.”40 As Mark Ferraguto remarks, Razumovsky dispatched the memos of these “radical anti-bonapartistes” to Czartoryski with his enthusiastic ­recommendations.41 When Czartoryski became Russia’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs, di Borgo entered Russian diplomatic service.42 However, di B ­ orgo’s diplomatic activity was interrupted after Russia’s Tilsit Treaty with France. Forced to leave because of his ardent criticism of Napoleon that did 38 39 40 41 42

Paul Sweet, Gentz, Defender of the Old Order (Madison: 1941). Pozzo di Borgo was even a distant relative of Napoleon Bonaparte both through his father’s and his mother’s ancestors, see Michel Vergé-Franceschi, Pozzo di Borgo. L’ennemi juré de Napoléon (Paris: 2016), 330–31. Friedrich von Gentz, Tagebücher: Mit einem Vor- und Nachwort von K.A. Varnhagen von Ense (Leipzig: 1861), 36. Mark Ferraguto, Beethoven 1806 (Oxford: 2019), 102. His entry into Russian diplomatic service compelled de Ligne to exclaim in a letter to his friend: “Les glaces de la Neva ne couvriront jamais le Vesuve de votre coeur, et de votre esprit, mon cher ami,” Ligne to Pozzo di Borgo, Teplice, 6 October 1804, in Ligne, Correspondances russes, 768.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

233

not fit the new Franco-Russian relations, he retreated to Vienna again. There he sided with Count Razumovsky, who had resigned in protest of the Tilsit treaty. Yet the vindictive Napoleon ordered di Borgo’s arrest, and the Corsican was forced to leave the city. He spent the following years in Britain. In 1812, like his Russian conservative counterparts (like Shishkov, or ­Rostopchin) who had lost influence after the Tilsit treaty, di Borgo was restored to state service by tsar Alexander. He played a major role in convincing ­Napoleon’s former ally, the Swedish general Jean Baptiste Bernadotte (later Swedish king Charles XIV), to join Russia in the Sixth Coalition, thus enabling Alexander’s triumphant entry leading his troops into Paris. After the Congress of Vienna, di Borgo became Russia’s Ambassador to France and an important “conseiller” of Louis XVIII. Just like Gentz, Pozzo di Borgo’s hate of Napoleon was amplified by his view of Bonaparte as the destroyer of the “old” order, which in his eye had to be restored after Bonaparte’s downfall. His love for the ancien régime and restoration France was so great that in later years, Russia considered him too pro-French and relocated him as ambassador to Britain.43 He is remembered by many of his contemporaries for his aversion to his distant relative. In her memoirs, Countess Potocka reminisces about the Viennese salon presence of di Borgo: With the exception of some Poles reunited in that brilliant salon, all those that were there detested Napoleon beyond measure. The most vehement as well as most dangerous of his enemies was without saying the Corsican Pozzo di Borgo, who on his own knew better to speak and hate than all Germans presents at that meeting.44 Apart from his personal aversion, Pozzo di Borgo was also more in general an outspoken conservative. His counterrevolutionary ideas further developed during his time in Britain and especially through his closeness to Gilbert Elliott, Count of Minto, an old friend of Edmund Burke. Pozzo di Borgo’s conservative views were well received in the cosmopolitan setting of the Viennese salons, and Uvarov considered his youthful charm complimentary with the older ­personality of Prince de Ligne: And when in the middle of this mixed group one could distinguish a man with eyes like fire, with a bronzed and southern physique, it was Pozzo di Borgo, who possessed a conversational charm different of that of Prince 43 Vergé-Franceschi, Pozzo di Borgo, 312–14. 44 Comtesse Anna Potocka, Mémoires (Paris: 1897), 182.

234

Verpoest

de Ligne that attracted to him, and whose original spirit, passionate and completely of our time, wonderfully brought out in relief the eminently 18-century spirit of Prince de Ligne.45 This is what Uvarov chose to remember about di Borgo many decades later: his ancien régime charm and his “principes conservateurs” that predated his statesmanship.46 Uvarov explicitly mentioned di Borgo’s appreciation for Edmund Burke, similar to that of Gentz: “Among the English statesmen, Pozzo admired Mr. Pitt; but all his sympathy was for Mr. Burke, who left an indelible impression on him, and to whom he attributed an almost prophetic knowledge of European politics.”47 Thus, in his memoirs, Uvarov depicted di Borgo as an “original” conservative, stressing that he only knew him long before it was bon ton to express these views as an influential diplomat.48 What made di Borgo authentic as a conservative in Uvarov’s eyes was that he already defended his ideas at a time when he was stateless, penniless and without any influence, simply a staunch opponent of the revolution and what he called the “disaster for Europe”.49 In this sense, Sergey Uvarov used di Borgo’s earlier narrative to reinforce his own later ideas. 6.4 de Staël A last person of the “Vienna circle” who Uvarov fondly remembered more than forty years later was more of a passant, or at most a very temporary part of the circle. By 1803, Germaine de Staël (1766–1817), salonnière, daughter of the 45

Uvarov on Pozzo di Borgo in his Mémoire du prince de Ligne, in Ligne Correspondances russes, 563. 46 “S’adressant tour à tour à tous les gouvernements de l’Europe, persécuté quelquefois, ­toujours écouté, suscitant sans cesse des ennemis à son adversaire, fomentant avec art les ressentiments profonds et cachés, prêchant partout la croisade contre l’ennemi commun, propageant les principes conservateurs avec la fougue de l’apôtre et la prudence consommée de l’homme d’État, Pozzo insouciant du danger, absorbé par une résolution prise, ne reculait devant aucune barrière, ne se troublait devant aucun échec.” Sergey Semonovich Uvarov, Stein et Pozzo di Borgo (Paris: 1847), 17–18. 47 Uvarov, Stein et Pozzo di Borgo, 21. 48 “De Pozzo je ne sais que le proscrit, le fugitif privé, comme Dante ou Machiavel, d’asile et de patrie, le conspirateur politique, l’homme jeté par tous les flots sur tous les rivages, mais constamment dévoué au culte d’une seule idée, et dominé par une résolution souveraine. Pozzo, ambassadeur et comte de Russie, couvert de tous les cordons de l’Europe, roulant sur l’or, ce Pozzo-là me paraît une anomalie dont j’ai peine à me faire une représentation exacte. Ce que j’ai à dire de lui s’applique exclusivement à la première époque où j’appris à le connaître, et où il était dans toute la sève de ses idées et dans toute la force de son caractère.” Uvarov, Stein et Pozzo di Borgo, 9–10. 49 Vergé-Franceschi, Pozzo di Borgo, 228.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

235

famous Monsieur Necker and widow of the Swedish ambassador to France, had fallen out with Napoleon. Her subsequent travels through Germany, Italy, Austria and even Russia led to a literary oeuvre that greatly enhanced her fame.50 Uvarov met and befriended de Staël during her visit to Vienna in 1807: he wrote down his first-hand impressions of her in his Tablettes d’un v­ oyageur russe. When she visited Russia in 1812 however, they did not meet again, apparently to her disappointment: he did not answer her letters until after she left. Later in life, Uvarov reminisced about de Staël in his memoir of de Ligne (1842). He even wrote a separate memoir about de Staël at the very end of his life (1851). Here we see maybe most clearly the divergence between Uvarov’s impressions during his time in Vienna and his later narrative about this time, and how it turned strategic. In his original diary he kept during his time in Vienna, Uvarov described how he was rather star struck by this European celebrity. It is clear from de Staël’s letters to him that she immediately took a great liking to him and for a brief period, they spent much time together. However, the overall picture Uvarov paints in his 1807 diary is critical, and maybe even somewhat negative. He calls de Staël full of paradoxes, and remarks that her speech is driven by the desire to be original at all costs and is therefore general weak on logic. Irritated about her defense of a British liberal constitution and her remark that the French Revolution did not lead to anarchy, he remarked that her discourse reminds of “a political club of the first years of the revolution”.51 He was also outright hostile about her good ties with the Schlegel brothers, who he saw as initiators of the romanticism that gradually overshadowed classicist literature. As Uvarov later also reiterated, this romantic literature was “preaching ­liberties” and thus harmful, whereas classicist writing in his eyes was a literary form that more befitted enlightened absolutism.52 His words of 1842 and 1851 about Mme de Staël are significantly softer around the edges. Decades later, Uvarov focuses how much he admired the salonnière during her 1807–1808 visit to Vienna, and mentions how she “entered into interesting and meaningful conversation with Gentz and Pozzo”.53 Instead of the 1807 irritation about her “revolutionary club” discourse that disrupted

50 51 52 53

She published Corinne ou l’Italie in 1807, De l’Allemagne in 1810, and her fascinating Dix années d’exil appeared posthumously in 1821. The unpublished diaries and letters of Sergey Uvarov and his Tablettes d’un Voyageur russe are kept in the State Historical Museum in Moscow; Durylin, “Gospozha de Stal’,” 234–35. Durylin, “Gospozha de Stal’,” 236. Sergey Uvarov, Unpublished memoir of Madame de Staël, State Historical Museum, quoted in Durylin, “Gospozha de Stal’,” 241.

236

Verpoest

his légitimiste views, in his later memoirs he places her next to the two most vehement anti-bonapartistes of Vienna, Gentz and Pozzo di Borgo. By stressing how during this crucial post-Tilsit year he found de Staël’s political discussions with Napoleon’s sworn enemies more meaningful than her bon mots in the ­Viennese salons, he lifted de Staël out of the “political club of the revolution” and realigned her post-factum with the légitimiste, anti-bonapartiste views. Secondly, in his memoir of de Ligne, he evoked de Staël’s ancien régime nostalgia in her conversation with de Ligne. She reinforced the “esprit éminemment dix-huitième siècle du prince de Ligne”.54 Uvarov reminisced about the endless joy their conversation gave him, how pleasantly they talked about long lost days in Paris and Versailles, a ravishing spectacle he called it: It would be difficult to express the infinite pleasure that this delightful spectacle gave us: the Prince de Ligne was at his finest, never more ­flirtatious, never more ingenious; Madame de Staël was never so brilliant; only there was in him a very light, subtle tinge of irony which, without hurting Madame de Staël, formed a kind of passive resistance which was not without attraction for her. When Corinne flew to seventh heaven with an explosion of unparalleled eloquence, Prince de Ligne brought her back little by little to her salon in Paris. When he, in turn, madly threw himself into talks perfumed with Versailles or Trianon, Madame de Staël hastened to point out in a few brief and energetic words, in the manner of Tacitus, the end of this society doomed to perish by its own hands.55 This gentle battle of words, or as Uvarov called it, the many charmants assauts, toujours polis et naturels full of bonhomie réciproque, still delighted him so many decades later.56 7

A Strategic Narrative?

It is clear from Uvarov’s memoirs about his brief time in Vienna that the people he met there had a significant influence on him as a young man. To him, men like Stein and Pozzo di Borgo were “spiritual aristocrats, people of ­enormous presence, determination and moral fibre”.57 Yet it is also clear that 54 Ligne, Correspondances russes, 563. 55 Ibid., 564–65. 56 Ibid. 57 Chamberlain, Uvarov, 28.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

237

his ­reminiscences are selective, and very much in line with his later, more ­conservative ideas. This is all the more relevant when talking about strategic narratives, since this type of narrative is used by political actors “to construct a shared meaning of the past, present and future of (international) politics to shape the behavior of domestic and international actors”.58 Looking at what Uvarov chose to remember, can we conclude that he constructed a cosmopolitan strategic narrative that complemented the national conservative narrative of his later years? Cynthia Whittaker states that Uvarov’s views changed after the 1825 Decembrist uprising and the 1830 revolutions that spread throughout Europe. It is indeed so that much of the previous openness and camaraderie like that of the Arzamas society was left behind in later years. As he climbed in society and the government ranks, he fell out with several of his fellow Arzamas poet and writer friends. So much did his ambition overshadow previous friendships, that it led to that perception of Uvarov as a staunch conservative who eventually only cared for his project of official nationality, so much so that he had the tripartite emblazoned on the family shield when he was made count in 1846. Uvarov’s official nationalism of 1832 moreover seemed very much in line with the narrative of the Russian conservative elite that had developed ­significantly under the auspices of the Beseda president Aleksandr Shishkov and former Moscow governor Fyodor Rostopchin. Theirs was a discourse of Russian traditionalism, with a strong refutation of the West rooted in the gallophobia around the Patriotic war of 1812. Uvarov followed up on this with his triad: orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality was Russia’s answer to France’s liberté, égalité and fraternité. In this sense, linking this to the narrative of his Vienna days was adding a more cosmopolitan layer to his national conservative ­project. By creating this “shared meaning of the past”, one could indeed say that he started to develop a strategic narrative after the Decembrist uprising. What did this Viennese narrative then add to his vision of orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality? The comparison of his diary notes about his Viennese contemporaries and his later memoirs unveil a strategic narrative that emphasized 1. a pro-monarchist disposition and criticism of Napoleon (Pozzo di Borgo), 2. negative consequences of revolutions and idealization of the past (de Staël and de Ligne), and 3. conservative views on European politics and culture (Razumovski, Gentz). One cannot but conclude that these were carefully distilled views: gone were the irritation about de Staël’s paradoxes and the slightly

58

Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin, and Laura Roselle, Strategic Narratives – Communication Power and the New World Order (New York and London: 2013), 14.

238

Verpoest

derogatory remarks about de Ligne’s oeuvre, gone were Gentz, ­Razumovski and di Borgo’s laments about their loss of influence after the treaty of Tilsit. The Viennese circle deserved to be remembered because they were the spiritual aristocrats who so nobly stood up against Napoleon when few dared to do so. They were the elite that shone in the ancien régime, who had immediately realized what disasters the French Revolution would bring. And they were the ones that subsequently disseminated and expanded on the ideas of Burke and defended the classic culture against the currents of change. In doing so, they influenced the nascent conservatism of the young Uvarov, who used his memories of their cosmopolitan ideas and personalities to reinforce his views as a fully-fledged Russian conservative many decades later. In this sense, Russian conservatism and the official nationalism that resulted from it also has roots in the Viennese circle. Interestingly, this ‘cosmopolitan’ layer also brought out Uvarov’s ambiguity again. Russian conservatives like Shishkov and Rostopchin exclusively focused on Russian traditions and openly rejected their western influence on Russian language and culture. Yet it seems from his memoirs that Uvarov could not help finding the impassioned political discussions of Gentz and di Borgo and merry salon antics of de Ligne and de Staël endlessly more fascinating than the later sloganesque Russian conservatism he authored himself – and maybe rightly so. Bibliography Burke, Edmund, The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, vol. 7, ed. Peter J. Marshall and John A. Woods, (Cambridge and Chicago: 1968). Cannady, Sean, and Paul Kubicek, “Nationalism and Legitimation for Authoritarianism: A Comparison of Nicholas I and Vladimir Putin,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 5 (2014), 1–9. Chamberlain, Lesley, Ministry of Darkness: How Sergey Uvarov Created Conservative Modern Russia (New York: 2019). Chebankova, Elena, “Russian Fundamental Conservatism: In Search of Modernity,” Post-Soviet Affairs 29 (2013), 287–313. Dickinson, Sarah, “Russia’s ‘First Orient’: Characterizing the Crimea in 1787,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 3 (2002), 3–25. Durylin, Sergey Nikolaevich, “Gospozha de Stal’ i ee russkie otnosheniia,” in L­ iteraturnoe Nasledstvo 33–34 (Moscow: 1939), 215–330. Edwards, David W., “Count Joseph Marie de Maistre and Russian Educational Policy, 1803–1828,” Slavic Review 36 (1977), 54–75.

The Ancien Régime and the Jeune Premier

239

Ferraguto, Mark, Beethoven 1806 (Oxford: 2019). Gentz, Friedrich von, Tagebücher: Mit einem Vor- und Nachwort von K.A. Varnhagen von Ense (Leipzig: 1861). Gillelson, Maksim Isaakovich, Molodoi Pushkin i arzamasskoe bratstvo (Leningrad: 1974). Khristoforov, Igor, “Nineteenth-Century Russia Conservatism. Problems and Contradictions,” Russian Studies in History 48 (2009), 56–77. Laruelle, Marlène, The Name of the Nation: Nationalism and Politics in Contemporary Russia (New York: 2009). Ligne, Charles Joseph de, Ma Napoléonide, Œuvres posthumes inédites, ed. Félicien Leuridant (Paris: 1921). Ligne, Charles Joseph de, Correspondances russes, ed. Alexandre Stroev and Jeroom Vercruysse (Paris: 2014). Maiofis, Maria, Vozzvanie k Evrope: Literaturnoe obshchestvo ‘Arzamas’ i rossiiskii ­modernizatsionnyi proekt 1815–1818 godov (Moscow: 2008). Maiofis, Maria, “After the Napoleonic Wars: Reading Perpetual Peace in the Russian Empire,” in Cosmopolitanism in Conflict: Imperial Encounters from the Seven Year’s War to the Cold War, ed. Dina Gusejnova (Basingstoke: 2017), 85–112. Martin, Alexander, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Age of Alexander I (DeKalb: 1997). Miller, Aleksei, “Official nationality? A Reassessment of Count Sergei Uvarov’s Triad in the Context of Nationalism Politics,” in The Romanov Empire and Nationalism: Essays in the Methodology of Historical Research, ed. idem (Budapest: 2008), 139–59. Minakov, Arkadii Iur’evich, “Russkii konservatizm v sovremennoi rossiiskoi istoriografii: novye podkhody i tendentsii izucheniia,” Otechestvennaia Istoriia 6 (2005), 133–42. Miskimmon, Alister, Ben O’Loughlin, and Laura Roselle, Strategic Narratives – ­Communication Power and the New World Order (New York and London: 2013). Offord, Derek, Larisa Ryazanova-Clarke, Vladislav Rjeoutski and Gesine Argent, French and Russian in Imperial Russia (Edinburgh: 2015). Potocka, Anna Comtesse, Mémoires (Paris: 1897). Pypin, Aleksandr Nikolaevich, Kharakteristiki literaturnykh mnenii ot dvadtsatykh do pitaidesyatykh godov: Istoricheskie ocherki (Saint Petersburg: 1906). Repnikov, Aleksandr, “Sovremennaia Istoriografiia rossiiskogo konservatizma”, in ­Konservatizm i traditsionalizm na iuge Rossii, ed. V.V. Chernous (Rostov-on-Don: 2002), 5–22. Uvarov, Sergey Semenovich, “Pis’mo k Nikolaiu Ivanovichu Gnedichu o grecheskom ekzametre,” Chtenie v Besede liubitelei russkogo slova 13 (1813), 65. Uvarov, Sergey Semenovich, “Le Prince de Ligne,” Études de philologie et de critique (Saint Petersburg: 1843), 355–72. Uvarov, Sergey Semenovich, Stein et Pozzo di Borgo (Paris: 1847).

240

Verpoest

Uvarov, Sergey Semenovich, “Literaturnye Vospominaniia A.S.,” Sovremennik 6 (1851), 39. Sweet, Paul, Gentz, Defender of the Old Order (Madison: 1941). Vasil’chikov, Aleksandr Alekseevich, Semeistvo Razumovskich (Saint Petersburg: 1882). Vergé-Franceschi, Michel, Pozzo di Borgo. L’ennemi juré de Napoléon (Paris: 2016). Walicki, Andrzej, The Slavophile controversy. History of a Conservative Utopia in N ­ ineteenth-Century Russian Thought (New York: 1975). Wes, Marinus Antony, Tussen twee bronzen ruiters. Klassieken in Rusland 1700–1855 (Baarn: 1991). Whittaker, Cynthia, The Origins of Modern Education. An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergey Uvarov, 1786–1855 (DeKalb: 1984). Zorin, Andrei, Kormia dvuglavogo orla: literaturnaia i gosudarstvennaia ideologiia v Rossii v poslednei treti XVIII-pervoi treti XIX veka (Moscow: 2001).

CHAPTER 11

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance Really? Tsar Alexander’s Offer of Radical Redemption to the Western World Beatrice de Graaf 1

A Celebration of Holy Magnanimity

At four o’clock in the morning on 10 September 1815, the Allied forces engulfed the plains of Vertus, northeast of Paris.1 The Russian Tsar Alexander, flanked by the emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, the Duke of Wellington, and other princes positioned themselves on top of Mont-Aimé, arising from the plains. Thousands of spectators were drawn from Paris to watch the spectacle of over 150,000 soldiers spreading like crescents over fields, punctuated by the sound of 540 canons. According to a female spectator: “Owing to the heat, one man dropped down in a fit just at the saluting-point, but otherwise all went off with éclat.”2 The next day transposed this military spectacle into an almost eschatological event. That day, in honor of Saint Alexander Nevski, Tsar Alexander staged an ecumenical mass. For the onlookers, the sight of 150,000 soldiers kneeling before seven altars, organized in seven squares was unbelievably impressive. For Barbara Juliane (Julie) von Krüdener, Tsar Alexander’s pietist religious friend, it was a truly spiritual experience.3 Apart from this spectacular demonstration of Allied and Russian power and magnanimity toward the French people, a far more momentous event, but less visibly one, unwound behind the scenes: the preparation of a “secret plan for the benefit of Europe”—originating from Tsar Alexander and his entourage. This plan, which became known as the Holy Alliance, has entered history textbooks as a method to enact the repression of reformist and liberal ideals and

1 The research leading to this chapter received funding from the ERC under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-13) / ERC Grant Agreement n.615313. 2 Richard Edgcumbe (ed.), The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley, 1787–1817 (New York: 1912), 158–59. 3 See Clarence Ford (ed.), The Life and Letters of Madame de Krudener (London: 1893), 212.

© koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_011

242

de Graaf

return to the ancien régime.4 In short, it has been referred to as a blueprint for restoration and conservation rather than for renewal.5 I argue here that Alexander’s Holy Alliance was far less conservative and far more revolutionary than it was later understood to be. To make this point, I first unpack how this “secret plan” came to be understood as “conservative” and how this reading of the Holy Alliance Treaty was influenced by latter-day interpretations and machinations far more than by its concrete substance at the time. Subsequently, I will break down the origins and constitutive e­ lements of the plan in order to demonstrate that it was a revolutionary amalgam of Christian pietism, semi-scientific Enlightenment theories, and a dose of modern, bureaucratic state centralism. Based on new archival evidence, we can now point to the involvement of both Prussian security experts and French semi-scientist scholars in drafting the plan for the Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance contained conservative ingredients, but the liberal and provocative elements stood out—these were however suppressed within a few years by political appropriations by other statesmen.6 2

How Did the Holy Alliance Come to Be Considered Conservative?

The Holy Alliance was the treaty Tsar Alexander presented in draft form to his fellow royals on 22 September 1815, three months after the victorious battle of Waterloo and the onset of the joint Allied occupation of France in early July 1815. The Allied princes resided in the French capital until a peace settlement was concluded, whereas their ministers would remain in conference for the next five years—as long as the military occupation of France was thought to last. Each of the Allied monarchs, including the British Regent, signed the Holy Alliance Treaty on 26 September, and in the next months, all other secondary and smaller European powers subscribed to the Treaty as well. The Treaty contained—at first glance—a lofty and high-spirited appeal to the princes, the governments, and the peoples of Europe to abandon the power politics 4 See, for example, Alan John Percivale Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (Oxford: 1954), 2; Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: 1994), 83–85; Hajo Holborn, “Russia and the European Political System,” in Russian Foreign Policy: Essays in Historical Perspective, ed. Ivo J. Lederer (New Haven, CT: 1962), 377–409, here 383. 5 See especially Philipp Menger, Die Heilige Allianz: Religion und Politik bei Alexander I. ­(1801–1825) (Stuttgart: 2014). 6 This chapter is based on the research for my monograph, Beatrice de Graaf, Fighting Terror after Napoleon (Cambridge: 2020). In Dutch, Tegen de terreur: Hoe Europa veilig werd na Napoleon (Amsterdam: 2018).

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

243

of yore and subscribe to a new system of international relations based on ­Christian-­inspired brotherly love. Immediately upon announcement and presentation of the Holy Alliance Treaty, misunderstandings and misinterpretations arose. When Alexander called at Castlereagh’s Paris residence to share his European credo with him and Wellington, they had to do their best to remain serious: “It was not without difficulty that we went through the interview with becoming gravity”, Castlereagh reported to Prime Minister Liverpool. “The fact is that the Emperor’s mind is not completely sound.”7 In addition, on 28 September, Castlereagh simply discarded the Treaty as “this piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense”.8 Prince Metternich similarly is said to have quipped that, to him, the Treaty was nothing more than a laut tönendes Nichts. It was nothing more than “the expression of the Emperor Alexander’s mystical sentiments, and the application of these Christian principles to politics”.9 Yet it is too simple for historians nowadays to uncritically follow these early qualifications and dismiss Alexander as a religiously derailed autocrat. First, Alexander was doing exactly what Castlereagh had suggested in the Allied Council, the forum convened to discuss the future of France and design a security arrangement for Europe as a whole. It is just that his doing so turned out to be much more religious and grandiose than the British had anticipated.10 ­Second, by uncritically reiterating Castlereagh’s and Metternich’s ­qualifications, we lose sight of what really happened. The original draft of the Holy Alliance was far less autocratically inspired and backward looking than ­historical representation suggests. The reason for this framing of the Treaty is not illogical or completely unfounded: the contemporaries themselves tried to steer the interpretation in a specific direction. Most notably, Prince Metternich tried to acquire the Deutungshoheit over the Treaty almost immediately upon its dissemination. From 1815 onward, together with Friedrich Gentz,11 and in full communication with Wellington, the Austrian chancellor consistently tried to rewrite and 7 8 9 10 11

Castlereagh to Liverpool, 28 September 1815, cited in Arthur Wellesley (ed.), Supplementary Dispatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington [abbreviated as WSD], vol. 11 (London: 1864), 176–77. Ibid., 175. Richard Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773–1835 (New York: 1880–82), 210–12; Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, “Sainte-Alliance et Alliance dans les conceptions de ­Metternich,” Revue Historique 223 (1960), 249–74, here 251. See John Bew, Castlereagh: A Life (Oxford: 2012), 410–11. Although Gentz was initially somewhat more open to liberal influences. See Raphaël Cahen, Friedrich Gentz, 1764–1832: Penseur post-Lumières et acteur du nouvel ordre européen (Berlin: 2017).

244

de Graaf

appropriate the Holy Alliance and turn it into a ploy for conserving the existing legal order and legitimizing military interventions necessary to uphold that order, as in Spain or Greece. To Wellington, Metternich’s ambassador Vincent asserted in January 1819: A powerful antidote in the person of the Emperor can exist with regard to the principles that everywhere threaten the social order, busying him in the spirit of the Holy Alliance, which will deaden the effect of his ­troubling politics and will contribute to the continuance of conservative principles of general order.12 In addition, Metternich himself followed this manipulative line further when he wrote in 1821 to Alexander that all monarchs need to “oppose this plan of universal destruction” and to work for “the preservation [la conservation] of everything legal existing”.13 In reality, this meant that Metternich successfully deflected Alexander from bringing forward his ideas for a unity of peoples, of constitutional reforms, and of invading the Balkans to deliver oppressed ­Christians and bring in liberal rule. Two influential contemporaries noticed Metternich’s rewriting of the ­Treaty’s history and manipulating Alexander’s heritage (in his lifetime and then after his death). Benjamin Constant, in France, wrote in Le Courier Français, on 28 October 1822: Skilled diplomats … seized this Holy Alliance to … destroy the independence of the peoples in the name of the independence of sovereigns, to employ in the war of absolute power against freedom the forces, which it had dedicated to the maintenance of peace. By changing its nature in this way, the Holy Alliance also changed its leader … it is now Austria and M. de Metternich who lead the European coalition ... The philanthropic character and the pious direction chosen by the emperor Alexander are nothing more than a distant memory, without any influence.14 And Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in conversation with his friend Johann Peter Eckermann, on 3 January 1827 struck a similar chord, when he remarked 12 13 14

Letter Baron de Vincent to Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, 4 January 1819, in WSD, vol. 1, 2–3. Metternich to Alexander, Laibach, 6 May 1821, in Richard Metternich (ed.), Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1815–1829, vol. 3 (London: 1881), 535–42, here 538. Le Courier Français, 28 October 1822.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

245

that “nothing greater and more benevolent for humanity as a whole has been invented besides the Holy Alliance”.15 In short: first, Metternich appropriated the Alliance in the years after its conception, used it to bind Alexander to his continental conservative policies, and prevent him from letting loose all kinds of libertarian, reformist ideas, and after 1822, turned it into a vehicle for his own, more short-term preservationist and conservative ideals.16 Then, in the public understanding and interpretation, the Tsar’s original ideas and the Treaty itself were conflated with this c­ onservative instrumentalization by Metternich and Austria’s security police. The tragedy is that Metternich never really understood Alexander’s real i­ntentions, the real content of the Treaty, and only saw it as a tactical instrument.17 It is therefore high time to consign the Holy Alliance to history by going back to the Tsar’s original plans and the inspirations that flowed into the Treaty. 3

What Did the Tsar Want?

Over the last years, inspired by the bicentennial of the Congress of Vienna, more works have been written about Tsar Alexander—most importantly the recent biography by Marie-Pierre Rey.18 The Holy Alliance, the culmination of the Tsar’s plans for Europe completed just before his impending departure for Russia, can only be understood as the crown on longer term development of European affairs and a broader cultural climate of European renewal and regeneration,19 as well as on the Tsar’s growing sense of mission in the years since 1801, the year when his father was murdered and he was appointed Tsar and Napoleon’s coronation as emperor of France. This development was nourished by three sources: Alexander’s upbringing as a child of the Enlightenment, his conversion to pietism, and his almost mythological victory over Napoleon. According to his biographer, Marie-Pierre Rey, Alexander was a child of the Enlightenment, a lonely optimist, raised by 15 16 17 18 19

Johann Peter Eckermann, “Gespräche mit Goethe,” 3 January 1827, in Goethes Gespräche, vol. 6, ed. Woldemar von Biedermann (Leipzig: 1890), 1070. See also Henry A. Delfiner, “Alexander I, The Holy Alliance and Clemens Metternich: A ­Reappraisal,” East European Quarterly 37 (2003), 127–50, here 146. Bertier de Sauvigny makes this point as well, Bertier de Sauvigny, “Sainte-Alliance,” 256. Marie-Pierre Rey, Alexander I: The Tsar who Defeated Napoleon (DeKalb: 2012). See especially Matthijs Lok, “The Congress of Vienna as a Missed Opportunity: Conservative Visions of a New European Order after Napoleon,” in Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and a New European Security Culture, ed. Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, and Brian Vick ­(Cambridge: 2019), 56–71.

246

de Graaf

his extremely progressive Swiss tutor Frédéric-César de Laharpe and groomed for the job of tsar by an ambitious grandmother, Catherine the Great. Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire were his bedtime reading. His mother was a German princess who did much for charitable organizations; his father, Tsar Paul I, was a paranoid tyrant who was murdered by a camarilla from his court in 1801. Alexander was probably aware of a conspiracy against his father, but was nonetheless surprised by his murder and felt guilt and remorse about this turn of events for the rest of his life.20 But the 23-year-old heir to the throne courageously set about to put his own ideals into practice, to further modernize Russia, try to abolish serfdom, work toward designing a new constitution, and colonize and make the newly annexed territories in the Caucasus and Crimea productive. Yet, Russia’s realities frustrated and quashed most all of his plans for reform.21 Thus, when he started his reign, Alexander was already a tormented soul. The Tsar tried to wrestle his inner demons by stepping up his good deeds, such as trying to redeem his own people from backwardness and poverty. He also joined forces with the other allied countries, to together confront the “new antichrist,” Napoleon, starting in 1806. Jumping a few years into the future of his increasingly challenged reign, we find Alexander in front of an almost apocalyptical panorama—Moscow in flames. There, Alexander found a ­confirmation of his divine calling: In the end, the burning of Moscow illuminated my soul, and the judgment of God on the frozen battlefield filled my heart with a warmth of faith that it had never felt before. ... Henceforth I learned to understand— and I understand now—His will and His law, and the decision to devote my person and my reign only to Him and to His glory, matured and was fortified in me. Since that time, I have become another man; to the deliverance of Europe from ruin, I owe my own salvation and my deliverance.22 He brought this offer of mercy and redemption with him in the wake of his march into Western Europe.23 On 31 March, “Divine Providence” provided—at 20 21

22 23

See for literature on trauma in the Age of Revolutions, e.g. Barry M. Shapiro, Traumatic P­ olitics: The Deputies and the King in the Early French Revolution (University Park, TX: 2009). Alexander Poesjkin, “Bova” (1814). Cited in Liubov Melnikova, “Orthodox Russia against ‘Godless’ France: The Russian Church and the ‘Holy War’ of 1812,” in Russia and the Napoleonic Wars, ed. Janet M. Hartley, Paul Keenan, and Dominic Lieven (Basingstoke: 2015), 179–95, here 191. Cited in Rey, Alexander I, 256. Ibid., 264.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

247

least that is what Alexander believed and was told to believe by his Christian friends—what he had been yearning for: proof of atonement accepted, a calling confirmed. The man who had cried over the smoking ruins of Moscow, now drew loud cheers as he entered the French capital, flanked by the Prussian king and General Schwarzenberg (on behalf of the Austrian emperor). He was the elu and conduit par Dieu, it was “Divine Providence”24 that put him at the forefront of the allied victors. The Tsar wore his Chevalier Guard regiment’s uniform, rode his gray horse Mars and was escorted by the exotic Cossack Life-Guards on their small, fast horses. According to Alexander’s aidede-camp Mikhailofsky-Danilefsky, the welcome was warm and the troops behaved well.25 Even though Napoleon had invaded his kingdom, murdering thousands and setting cities ablaze, Alexander wanted to a be a conqueror who would have Paris fall at his feet—in order to subsequently pardon and save the city. Without waiting for the others, but on behalf of the other three allied powers, he proclaimed his divinely inspired, peace project for France and Europe: The sovereigns proclaim: ... That they respect the integrity of ancient France such as it existed under its legitimate kings; they may even do more because they still profess the principle that for the happiness of Europe, France must be great and strong; that they will recognize and guarantee the constitution that the French nation will adopt. They thereby invite the Senate to designate a provisional government that will be able to answer the needs of the administration and prepare a constitution that suits the French people.26 And indeed, at the insistence of the Tsar, Paris and the country were protected against pillaging and looting, and the French king and government were nudged into making haste to offer a new constitution to their people.27 The French writer, diplomat, and romantic Bourbon supporter François-René Chateaubriand was deeply impressed. “This first invasion by the allies remains 24 25

Roxandre Stourdza to Alexander, 15 December 1814, cited in ibid., 97. See A. Mikhailofsky-Danilefsky, History of the Campaign in France in the Year 1814 (London: 1839), 383–90; Bew, Castlereagh, 349. 26 NN, Alexandrana ou bons mots et paroles remarquables d’Alexandre Ier (Paris: 1815), 47. Cited in Rey, Alexander I, 268–69. See also Cobbett’s Political Register 25 (1814), 500. The Monthly Magazine; or British Register 37 (1814), 366. 27 See Henri Houssaye, 1814 (Paris: 1888), 537n1, 549–672; “Alliierte Dispositionen in Sachen Truppenkantonierungen in Frankreich,” 10 April 1814, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin [GStA PK], III. HA, I. Nr. 862.

248

de Graaf

unparalleled in the annals of the world: order, peace and moderation reigned everywhere ... The vanquished could be taken for the victors, who trembled with their success and seemed to excuse themselves for it.”28 Joyous shouts reverberated through the streets of Paris in March and April, Vive Alexandre, vivent les alliés.29 Of course, alongside all pietist and peaceful proclamations, Alexander was also driven by immense ambitions. His ambition was to continue the work of his grandmother—to elevate the Russian nation and position it on the international map. Besides Britain, only Russia exited the Napoleonic wars with her fleet intact and her dominance on the continent augmented. With Alexander, Russia once again had a tsar on the throne who, in line with Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, laid claim to a role for himself in European politics and who also thought and lived like a European. Nevertheless, these very mundane political ambitions went hand in glove with a truly heartfelt piety. Alexander’s imperial aspirations were inspired by a robust sense of calling and defined by strict limitations: he did not venture beyond Russia’s sphere of influence in the east, delineated by Poland. In the rest of Europe, not territorial aggrandizement, but staging a role as spiritus rector of a new just order was his aim in life—including the invention of a masterplan that captivated this idea of the renewal of France and Europe. 4 A Plan for the Security and Salvation of Europe—with Help from the Prussians Arriving on 10 July, Alexander sought out a hotel at the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré for his headquarters (close to the British headquarters). There, he invited his pious and considered by many almost fanatically religious friend Julie, the Baroness von Krüdener, with her daughter to stay in a city palace adjacent to his at number 35 the Hôtel Montchenu. They received the Russian emperor almost daily in their religious salon and succeeded in convincing him that his calling was not yet over. He was to be the redeemer of France and Europe: to lead the French people away from revolutionary convulsions, he

28 29

François-René Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, 12 vols. (Paris: 1973 [1849]), vol. 2, 251. English translation in Rey, Alexander I, 268. See Thomas McNally, “Das Rußlandbild in der Publizistik Frankreichs zwischen 1814 und 1843,” Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte 6 (1958), 82–170, here 90–95; Houssaye, 1814, 561–72.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

249

was the “second Abraham”30 that needed to prepare France for a departure out of their heathen ways towards the promised land, and save Europe as a whole. Alexander’s salvific visions were infused and strengthened by his Enlightenment beliefs and ideals. During a visit to the Académie française, he could not hide his emotions; walking through France’s temple of literature and philosophy, the Tsar could not help but realize that the names honored along the Neva River in St. Petersburg had their home here along the Seine.31 At the same time, it was he who had conquered his French idols and to him they now bowed in allegiance. It was to the peoples of France, and of Europe, to whom he felt an obligation to bestow upon them a plan for peace and security that would last. Between 10 July and 20 September 1815, lengthy and tiresome negotiations over the Second Peace Treaty of Paris (the peace settlement referred to above) took place among the four dominant Allied powers. Their council, the Allied Council of Ministers, convened daily at the Hôtel de Charost, embassy of Britain, and was presided over by Castlereagh as British Foreign Minister, and Wellington, as supreme commander of the joint Allied forces. Against this backdrop, the Holy Alliance was delivered. For Alexander, these negotiations on fortresses, arrears payments, borders, and the relocation of troops went far too slowly. The morass of nitty-gritty details and paragraphs consumed too much time and energy. To the Tsar, it was paramount to bring his troops back home before the winter set in and leave Paris as soon as possible. It was however equally pivotal to find a catchall solution, a quick fix to solve his dilemma: how to leave France secured and protected from disturbances and turmoil for the future? This is where new archival findings come in. The Holy Alliance is mostly attributed to Alexander’s pietist and orthodox advisers: the Baroness von Krüdener, or, as Stella Ghervas argues, his Greek orthodox confidents, ­Alexandre Stourdza and his pious sister Roxandre.32 Evidently, the Stourdzas were among his most loyal, faithful, and persistent friends and advisers, and the Baroness von Krüdener was certainly part of his inner circle in 1813–15 as well. Yet, the Holy Alliance Treaty found additional and more modern and e­ nlightened

30

31 32

Madame de Krüdener, 11 July 1815, as cited in Francis Ley, Alexandre 1er et sa Sainte-Alliance (1811–1825). Avec des documents inédits (Paris: 1975), 131. See also Ford, Life and Letters of Madame de Krudener, 189, where Madame de Krüdener describes Alexander as an “angel” and a “Christian hero”. See Albertz Beugnot (ed.), Mémoires du Comte Beugnot, Ancién Ministre (1783–1815) (Paris: 1868), 143–44. See Stella Ghervas, Réinventer la tradition: Alexandre Stourdza et l’Europe de la Sainte A ­ lliance (Paris: 2008).

250

de Graaf

parents in Paris in July 1815. They helped the Tsar accelerate the process and produce a Treaty before the end of September and meet his deadline. First, Tsar Alexander looked for, and found, hefty support in an old acquaintance and civil servant of his: the Prussian reformist bureaucrat Justus von Gruner. On the Prussian Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg’s recommendation, the Allied Council appointed Gruner as head of both the Allied secret police (Verbündetenpolizei) in France and the occupational police force in Paris. Born in 1777 in Osnabrück, legal student Gruner made a career as a careful and hardworking public servant in the newly conquered Polish areas, especially in the province of Posen, where he worked for an organization that helped Germans settle there. He introduced reforms on criminal law and the prison system and came with new ideas on the centralization and organization of public order and morality. Gruner was a modern-day professional: he combined his fervency for modernizing bureaucracy with a passionate and even romantic position on good manners and morals.33 He was appointed director of the police force in Berlin in 1809, as the Prussian reformers Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Hardenberg were both impressed by his unremitting commitment, patriotism, and penchant for administrative innovation. In B ­ erlin, Gruner made a name for himself by centralizing the police, extending their jurisdiction to Berlin’s suburbs, reforming the fire department and the city’s waste management services, and introducing all sorts of measures to combat corruption. Meanwhile, he was appointed to the Secret Council of State and as chief of “higher police” in Prussia. Intermittently, Gruner was invited by Tsar Alexander in 1812 to build an anti-Napoleonic spy network from Prague (where Metternich arrested him, since Austria was still an ally of France). After Austria joined the Sixth Coalition in 1813, Gruner was released and immediately appointed governor of the general government of the now occupied duchy of Berg. In 1815, thanks to his excellent contacts with Stein, Chancellor Hardenberg and Tsar Alexander, Gruner was an obvious candidate for the Verbündetenpolizei. According to Hardenberg, there was no better candidate imaginable.34 He arrived on 9 July charged by the Allies to establish a General Directorate of

33

34

Cf. Justus Gruner, Versuch über die rechte und zweckmäßigste Einrichtung öffentlicher Sicherheitsinstitute und deren Verbesserung (1802); Idem, Meine Wallfahrt zur Ruhe und Hoffnung oder Schilderung des sittlichen und bürgerlichen Zustandes Westphalens am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (1802). See Kurt Zeisler, “Justus von Gruner: Eine biographische Skizze,” in Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Werner Breunig and Uwe Schaper (Berlin: 1994), 81–105.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

251

Police as well as a military police force.35 Gruner was responsible for ­assisting and keeping an eye on the French administration, equitably distributing among the Allies the income from the occupied territories, and insuring the safety of the occupying forces. Among his methods was the establishment of a solid network of spies reporting on the esprit public, as well as on fausses nouvelles that ran around France and its capital that hot summer. Siding with Gruner, Alexander was far less optimistic about the political and social tendencies in France than his ­British and Austrian colleagues seemed to be. Alexander and Gruner felt, based on the latter’s daily intelligence briefs on the state of the French p ­ ublic mind, that the Duke of Wellington’s assessment was too rosy; he was too “assured and confident about the present situation—which is certainly his right as a great hero, but to me does not seem well-founded”. Gruner believed the threat of an insurgency was still far too great—“a moment can devour us”.36 He had been receiving a steady stream of reports from his agents that Joseph Fouché—still police minister until 20 September—surrounded himself exclusively with “die-hard Bonapartists” and that he was replacing “reliable,” that is, royalist, civil servants and administrators with “scoundrels” and “partisans du système anarchique”.37 Where Gruner applied his skillful techniques of centralized intelligence and monitoring, Alexander intended to take the securing of France a substantial step further. He wanted to infuse Gruner’s Allied police apparatus with a moral framework that would channel the new spirit, a new ideal for a restored, enlightened, wisely governed France. The Holy Alliance had to be the spirit in Gruner’s bureaucratic machine. Behind the scenes, that plan was indeed unfolding. At the end of August, a “secret society” of French royalists, mesmerists, and the Tsar himself was established. Now, the time was ripe to involve the Prussians and the Allied security service as well. Against that background, Gruner received a very ­special offer on 24 August. One of Gruner’s agents, a certain Chr. Deliège, a lawyer to the king’s council and the court of cassation as well as a loyal royalist, invited Gruner to be part of an association to save the honor of France and the civilization of Europe from the “scourge of our time”—Bonapartism and revolutionary rebellion. 35 36 37

The official order, signed by the four Allied powers, was issued on 8 August at Gruner’s request. Letter from the Administrative Committee of the Allied Council to Gruner, 8 Augustus 1815, GStA PK, Nr. 86. Gruner, Report of a conversation with Wellington, 24 July 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a. Reports to Gruner, between 13 and 20 August, GStA PK, Nl. Gruner Nr. 86; Gruner, Report of a conversation with Wellington, 24 July 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a.

252

de Graaf

According to Deliège, the French ministers, most notably Fouché, were not attempting to “heal” the French nation, but were bent on further enflaming the “hot fever that had pushed the French by the millions into the field of carnage”. As reported by Deliège, Alexander felt that the revolution was bound to return once the Allies had left, so something needed to be done. Gruner was therefore invited, together with the other “Heroes of Virtue”—Field Marshal August von Gneisenau, the above mentioned Hardenberg, and the Prussian minister Wilhelm von Humboldt—to assist with the tsar’s plan.38 Such an invitation was too tempting and Gruner agreed to meet the group at the place of a certain Nicolas Bergasse.39 By doing so, Gruner entered an extremely remarkable secret society, of which the third pillar, next to Alexander’s pious friends at the Krüdener salon, the Prussian bureaucrats and spies around Gruner himself, consisted of a group of semi-scientists around Bergasse and Deliège who called themselves Mesmerists. 5

A Mesmerizing Perspective

Alexander’s secret society of friends consisted of an unlikely and irregular group of pietists, semi-scientists, Parisian salonnières, and Prussian bureaucrats. In his quest for a rejuvenating of a European spirit, surpassing the confessional boundaries of religious orders—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox alike—new scientific ideas, bureaucratic rigor, and enlightened wisdom were called for in equal measure. In Paris, Alexander had found this unique combination in the “religious salon” hosted by Madame de Krüdener and frequented by, among others, Chateaubriand, Benjamin de Constant, and Nicolas Bergasse.40 Bergasse, the son of a wealthy merchant family, had come under the spell of the Austrian physician-charlatan Franz Mesmer before the French Revolution. This Austrian doctor taught that a single universal fluid surrounds and permeates all things, linking the cosmos, the earth, planets, and people, such that we can communicate through “animal magnetism” (as opposed to mineral magnetism) with our environs and fellow human beings. He claimed that when this communication was disturbed (by obstacles), disharmony arose, and the system became unbalanced. Through “crises”, convulsions and special séances,

38 39 40

Letter from Deliège to Gruner, 24 August 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Gruner Nr. 86, 29–33. Letter from Gruner to Deliège, 3 September 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Gruner Nr. 86, 47. For the influence of such transnational networks and salons, see Brian Vick’s chapter in this volume. See for more information on this “religious salon”: Ford, Life and Letters of Madame de Krudener, 182–88.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

253

some people were able, as “magnetizers”, to remove the obstacles and restore the harmony. This scientific theory and practice solicited so much acclaim and criticism that both the French and the British Royal Academies initiated a thorough assessment to establish whether mesmerism could be accepted as science. This elevated mesmerism even further into public and scientific awareness. While Franz Mesmer primarily applied his theory to nature, developing a kind of health therapy with it, Bergasse and his associates also applied mesmerism to politics—where obstacles were causing similar disharmony to spread. At the time of the French Revolution, this strand of radical mesmerism had many followers, including Lafayette, Jacques-Pierre Brissot, and Jean-Louis Carra. But Bergasse was the most fervent disciple, and his financial means and organizational talent made it into a veritable cult.41 We have to realize that, around 1800, it was by no means unusual to connect physical phenomena— such as electricity, magnetism, and physical disorders—with each other in a kind of holistic theory. Science, superstition, religion, and transcendent theories merged seamlessly. Scientists discovered only later in the 19th century that light does not flow through a fluid, magnetism has to do with electrons, and the human body does not have “poles”. Yet, in 1815, everything could still be connected to everything, and gravity was just as much a God-given force as mesmerism seemed to be a “scientifically” substantiated force to heal and purify man, animal, and society. Given his messianic perspective, his impatience with the ongoing meticulous and politically difficult negotiations in the Allied Council about compensation and reparations, Alexander wanted to do greater things, and save France from destruction—as quickly as possible. A series of visits by Bergasse to the Baroness of Krüdener’s salon, who came by to demonstrate his scientific talents by means of a sphere (a “melon”), gave him the inspiration he needed.42 An association had to be set up, with himself as its shining middle point, inspired by the spark of the Eternal and with the aim of spreading “anti-revolutionary sentiments and virtues throughout Europe”.43 In doing so, France, indeed all of Europe, could be purged of the Bonapartist convulsions, and divine order would be restored. The central mesmerizing role would, of course, be appropriated by the Tsar himself, as apotheosis of both his already existing salvific beliefs and this new, semi-scientific creed of radical political mesmerism. 41 42 43

See Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: 1968); See also Nicolas Bergasse, Considérations sur le magnétisme animal, ou sur la théorie du monde et des êtres organisés, d’après les principes de M. Mesmer (The Hague: 1784). See references in Krüdener’s diary, in Ley, Alexander 1er, 131–33. See also Francis Ley, Mme de Krüdener et son temps (Paris: 1961), 475–78. Gruner’s retelling of the plans, 5 September 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a.

254

de Graaf

On 24 August, this group, consisting of Bergasse, Deliège, a number of r­ oyalist allies, including Chateaubriand, and Tsar Alexander himself conspired with Gruner and the Prussians. On 4 September, Gruner set up a meeting with Bergasse, who told him that the Tsar had great faith in Gruner and wanted him to help the Tsar further develop his “religious insights”. According to Bergasse, the Tsar was already busy arranging secret meetings in France with an eye to putting “religion and virtue” back on the throne of Europe. The next day, Chateaubriand paid a somewhat overwhelmed Gruner a visit to underscore again the same message, but this time with a concrete political twist: not only the Tsar, but King Louis XVIII too, wanted to dismiss Talleyrand and Fouché as soon as possible because their “depravity and falsity” hindered any recovery of the political body of France. But nothing was going to happen without the support and injunction of the Allies.44 In other words, the royalists tried, together with the Russians, to undo the British refusal to go along with Fouché’s being dismissed. Gruner was by now fully convinced of the plan and about setting up such an alliance. He, too, tried to fit the plans of the Tsar, which were just as vague as they were megalomaniac, into his own political mold of forming a centralized police bureaucracy. He asked Hardenberg for instructions, but assured his chancellor that this was exactly what he had argued for earlier: Prussia should make a clear choice for one party in France. He offered to whisk Fouché and Talleyrand from their beds in the middle of the night and send them packing, under the pretext of having “discovered a conspiracy against us”—a conspiracy that will have surfaced in “the secret papers” (that Gruner himself would draw up and plant). The result of which would be “[t]he gratitude of the French family, the glee of the army, the admiration of our people, a lightening of the load for Germany and all of Europe, the preservation of tranquility in the future and the creation of an honorable peace.” In addition, Prussia would be “delivered” once and for all.45 The constant stream of rumors from his spies and the flattery of Bergasse and Chateaubriand had made Gruner’s head spin. Indeed, the elections of 14 and 22 August for the French Chamber of Deputies, the many upheavals and disturbances in the country, and the initial rumors surrounding the final outcomes of the Allies’ deliberations had deflated morale and stoked emotions throughout Paris. It also did not help that on 19 August, Talleyrand had blamed the Allied ministers and princes for the deplorable “moral state” of the country; those rising “passions”, that soured mood, were all owing to the presence of the 44 45

Accounts by Gruner and letter to Hardenberg, 5 September 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a. Letter to Hardenberg, 8 September 1815, Hardenberg 10a.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

255

Allied troops, which undermined the authority of the king.46 For Gruner, the Tsar and his association, these claims were like adding fuel to the fire. They saw proof of an imminent revolt in his defiance. Their presence and their intervening there was, without a doubt, necessary. Gruner’s agents could barely keep up with the many incidents. As mentioned above, on 10 September, Alexander absolved his military parade, followed the next day by a mass and public prayer. However, the Tsar did not want to leave without performing a final act of liberation. On 12 ­September, Bergasse’s “secret association” came to Gruner again, this time bringing with them a concrete draft for new regulations and laws. According to Bergasse, Tsar Alexander had a “great secret plan to unite all the peoples of the world—irrespective of their diversity—and find the secret way, the most suitable means, to that end”. The Tsar and the royalists felt that to save France Prussia had to become involved. The Tsar maintained that the time was now ripe.47 On 14 September, Bergasse wrote a first draft of the treaty text for a Holy Alliance to which Alexander added his own words. All three elements are visible: Christian messianism, enlightened ideas about a fraternal unity of peoples, and a mesmerizing approach that refers to “influence” of the general bond of “fraternity” that connects all peoples and sovereigns, and is inspired by a divine spirit. By means of the principles of this “holy religion”, the purification of “human institutions” could be executed, and they would “remedy them from their imperfections” that for so long had ­“agitated the nations”.48 Even more telling were the concrete measures that accompanied the drafting of the Treaty. From a mesmerist point of view, it was equally important to proclaim unity as to remove as quickly as possible all the obstacles that stood in the way of this fraternity. The way to do this was by triggering a “crisis”. The obstacles were, of course, Fouché and Talleyrand, the evil twins responsible for the continuation of revolutionary Bonapartism and ancien régime ­Macchiavellian politics. On 15 September, the support for deposing Fouché was broad enough; the Chamber now consisted of ultras who made it clear that the current ministry was no longer sustainable. The Prussian King and Russian Tsar agreed entirely, and Wellington, on his own, could no longer 46 47 48

Letter from Talleyrand to the Allied Council, 19 August 1815, annex Nr. 89 to the protocols of 20 August, GStA PK III. HA Nr. 1465, 82–83. Report from Gruner to Hardenberg, 12 September 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a. Treaty between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, signed at Paris, 26 September 1815, “Holy ­Alliance,” in The Map of Europe by Treaty: Showing the Various Political and Territorial Changes, ed. Edward Hertlet, vol. 1 (London: 1875), 317–20.

256

de Graaf

keep Louis XVIII from firing his Bonapartist leftovers. Therefore, Fouché was relieved of his post and sent to Dresden as an ambassador. On 19 September, Talleyrand submitted his resignation.49 With the obstacles to the purification of France removed, Gruner was now in charge, with his Allied bureaucracy, and the Tsar could offer his vision for the rejuvenation of France and Europe. On 22 September, the other Allies received a copy of Alexander’s plan. A startled Metternich proceeded to try to tone down the radicalism of the text somewhat.50 Yet, on 24 September, the Tsar, the Prussian King Friedrich ­Wilhelm, and Emperor Franz signed the treaty; as did the English later on. On the morning of 28 September, the Russians left for home. Gruner, the royalists, and their secret association had achieved their goal.51 It took another couple of weeks until the crisis was overcome. The greatest source of tension in France remained the imminent announcement of the final peace settlement, and the dread among the French population of an anticipated partitioning—“dismemberment”—of France by the Allies, the potential allocation of Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia and attempts by Austria to put Napoleon II on the throne.52 “Tension and ferment” were all around, Gruner wrote, “the ‘anti-Bourbon’ party holds its breath for the present, the ‘royalist party’, for the future”.53 On 20 September, the newspapers published the text of the Second Paris Peace Treaty. It was bad news for France, but less disastrous than feared. France would not be apportioned, but merely cut back to its 1790 borders. The reparations were high, but the king’s Prime Minister, the Duke of Richelieu, managed to have them reduced by 100 million francs. One of the greatest sources of unrest was defused: the troops would be evacuated from the French capital immediately, and the humiliating billeting of Prussian soldiers in Parisian parlors and hotels would be over. By the end of November, the Allies’ control and military administration of the capital was no longer necessary. Unfortunately for Gruner, his overzealous activities on behalf of the Tsar and his outrageous plans to kidnap and set up Fouché had alienated Hardenberg, Wellington, and the other Allied ministers. He received his last salary as chief of the Allied police in January 181654 and was sent to Switzerland as a diplomat. 49 50 51 52 53 54

Letter to Talleyrand, 19 September, Allied Council, 19 September 1815, GStA PK III. HA Nr. 1465. Letter from Talleyrand to the Council, 20 September, annex nr. 124, GStA PK III. HA Nr. 1465, 177. See Ley, Alexandre 1er, 148–53. Report La Coudraye, 8 October 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a. 20, 22, 24, 28, 29 September, 6, 8, 11 October, reports from Gruner, reports from La C ­ oudraye to Gruner, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a. Report Gruner, 20 October 1815, GStA PK, Nl. Hardenberg 10a. See “Nachweisungen,” in the back of the dossier, GStA PK, Nl. Gruner Nr. 86.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

257

He died there two years later, a lonely and bitter man. But not before he urged the Swiss cantons—­successfully—to agree to accede to the treaty of the Holy Alliance.55 Bergasse was rewarded by Charles X for his royalist loyalty and was appointed Councillor of State, days before Charles was toppled. 6

Historicizing the Holy Alliance

This quite astonishing story, pieced together from the Gruner files in the ­Prussian archives, sheds new light on the Holy Alliance. It serves to underpin the thesis that the Holy Alliance was indeed a strange amalgam of pietist ideas, semi-scientific enlightenment theories, and a strong belief in policing and surveillance bureaucracies. It also suggests a strong link between the Holy Alliance, the removal of Fouché, and the conclusion of the Second Treaty of Paris. By having identified the events and meetings of these hot days in Paris, in September, it becomes clear how the Tsar’s convictions about redemption and salvation entered into a chain reaction with novel ideas about reforms and constitutionalism, with Prussian ideas on countering the revolution, mesmerist notions of purification, and very mundane French royalist desires to remove Fouché and Talleyrand from office. That the Holy Alliance was soon thereafter reduced to a conservative ploy for Metternich was due to the latter’s astute political maneuvering and ­Alexander’s preoccupation with domestic uprisings, and of course his early demise in 1825. Since then, the enlightened, semi-scientific mesmerizing, and Prussian reformist, bureaucratic inspirations have been totally overlooked by latter-day historians. Their gaze became too fixed or obsessed with Alexander’s circle of mystical and pietist friends, their biases perhaps too much infused by Castlereagh’s and Wellington’s attempts to ridicule the Tsar and his orthodox beliefs. Obviously, the Tsar himself also forgot about his enlightened mesmerist friends soon enough. Once back in Moscow, and in the conferences of Aachen, Laibach, and Troppau, he let himself be charmed and duped by Metternich into the Austrian Chancellor’s more traditional, orthodox, and political reading of the Treaty. Only if we look very closely, traces of the ­mesmerizing and revolutionary ideals can be found, such as where France is considered to be struck by a “vehement disease”, and suffering from revolutionary “convulsions”.56 55 56

“De La Coudraye,” in Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne. KM-LAL. Supplement, ed. Louis-Gabriel Michaud and François-Celestin de Loynes, vol. 69 (Paris: 1841), 308; Werner Näf, Zur Geschichte der Heiligen Allianz (Bern: 1928). Castlereagh to Bathurst, 19 October 1818. Foreign Office [FO] 92/35, 138–47. The National Archives, Kew/London.

258

de Graaf

In  Aachen, in October 1818, Alexander therefore—again—­ proposed a ­“medicine” and remedy in the form of a General Alliance and a moral guarantee.57 At this time, however, his appeal to the other powers was waning, whereas Metternich’s attempts to use Alexander’s arguments for stepping up security monitoring and repression at home and interventions abroad were already successful enough to overwhelm the Tsar’s more enlightened ideals. In conclusion, by turning our eyes away from ill-informed and biased interpretations, we may discover that it is time to break the early 19th century away from 20th-century interpretations of conservatism, and realist, or all too materialist, readings of international relations. What is considered conservatism today, such as Tsar Alexander’s mystical and seemingly orthodox ideas, was in fact quite revolutionary and “scientific” in the early 19th century. He was advocating a new political religion, based on ecumenical, brotherly love and equality instead of repression and power politics—as disconnected from other European powerbrokers and ministers and as ill-suited for strategic planning these ideas were in the context of the Balance of Power around 1815. If we subscribe to the idea that history is an open process of human willfulness and contingency, and that this openness is filled with ideas, beliefs, and emotions, then it is high time to bring to light the Tsar’s ideas that were sometimes far more modern and revolutionary than historians or contemporaries have grasped and let ourselves be mesmerized by them. Bibliography “De La Coudraye,” in Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne. KM-LAL. Supplement, ed. Louis-Gabriel Michaud and François-Celestin de Loynes, vol. 69 (Paris: 1841). Bergasse, Nicolas, Considérations sur le magnétisme animal, ou sur la théorie du monde et des êtres organisés, d’après les principes de M. Mesmer (The Hague: 1784). Bertier de Sauvigny, Guillaume de, “Sainte-Alliance et Alliance dans les conceptions de Metternich,” Revue Historique 223 (1960), 249–74. Beugnot, Albertz (ed.), Mémoires du Comte Beugnot, Ancién Ministre (1783–1815) (Paris: 1868). Chateaubriand, François-René, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, 12 vols. (Paris: 1973 [1849]), vol. 2. 57

Castlereagh to Bathurst, 3 October 1818, FO 92/35, 10–17; Letter from Nesselrode and ­ apodistrias to Castlereagh and Wellington, 8 October 1818, in WSD, vol. 13, 742–51; “Projet C de protocole,” 14 October 1828, WSD, vol. 12, 770–73; see also letter to Metternich, 8 ­October 1818, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna. Staatskanzlei (StK), inv.nr. 17, 33–56.

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance really?

259

Darnton, Robert, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: 1968). Delfiner, Henry A., “Alexander I, The Holy Alliance and Clemens Metternich: A ­Reappraisal,” East European Quarterly 37 (2003), 127–50. Eckermann, Johann Peter, “Gespräche mit Goethe,” 3. January 1827, in Goethes Gespräche, vol. 6, ed. Woldemar von Biedermann (Leipzig: 1890). Ford, Clarence (ed.), The Life and Letters of Madame de Krudener (London: 1893). Ghervas, Stella, Réinventer la tradition: Alexandre Stourdza et l’Europe de la Sainte A ­ lliance (Paris: 2008). Graaf, Beatrice de, Tegen de terreur: Hoe Europa veilig werd na Napoleon (Amsterdam: 2018). Graaf, Beatrice de, Fighting Terror after Napoleon. How Europe Became Secure after 1815. (Cambridge: 2020). Gruner, Justus, Meine Wallfahrt zur Ruhe und Hoffnung oder Schilderung des sittlichen und bürgerlichen Zustandes Westphalens am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (1802). Gruner, Justus, Versuch über die rechte und zweckmäßigste Einrichtung öffentlicher ­Sicherheitsinstitute und deren Verbesserung (1802). Hertlet, Edward (ed.), The Map of Europe by Treaty: Showing the Various Political and Territorial Changes, vol. 1 (London: 1875). Holborn, Hajo, “Russia and the European Political System,” in Russian Foreign Policy: Essays in Historical Perspective, ed. Ivo J. Lederer (New Haven, CT: 1962), 377–409. Houssaye, Henri, 1814 (Paris: 1888). Kissinger, Henry, Diplomacy (New York: 1994). Ley, Francis, Alexandre 1er et sa Sainte-Alliance (1811–1825). Avec des documents inédits (Paris: 1975). Ley, Francis, Mme de Krüdener et son temps (Paris: 1961). Lok, Matthijs, “The Congress of Vienna as a Missed Opportunity: Conservative Visions of a New European Order after Napoleon,” in Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and a New European Security Culture, ed. Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, and Brian Vick (Cambridge: 2019), 56–71. McNally, Thomas, “Das Rußlandbild in der Publizistik Frankreichs zwischen 1814 und 1843,” Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte 6 (1958), 82–170. Melnikova, Liubov, “Orthodox Russia against ‘Godless’ France: The Russian Church and the ‘Holy War’ of 1812,” in Russia and the Napoleonic Wars, ed. Janet M. Hartley, Paul Keenan, and Dominic Lieven (Basingstoke: 2015), 179–95. Menger, Philipp, Die Heilige Allianz: Religion und Politik bei Alexander I. (1801–1825) (Stuttgart: 2014). Metternich, Richard (ed.), Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773–1835 (New York: 1880–82). Mikhailofsky-Danilefsky, A., History of the Campaign in France in the Year 1814 (London: 1839). Näf, Werner, Zur Geschichte der Heiligen Allianz (Bern: 1928).

260

de Graaf

Rey, Marie-Pierre, Alexander I: The Tsar who Defeated Napoleon (DeKalb: 2012). Shapiro, Barry M., Traumatic Politics: The Deputies and the King in the Early French R ­ evolution (University Park, TX: 2009). Taylor, Alan John Percivale, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (Oxford: 1954) Wellesley, Arthur (ed.), Supplementary Dispatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, vol. 11 (London: 1864). Zeisler, Kurt, “Justus von Gruner: Eine biographische Skizze,” in Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Werner Breunig and Uwe Schaper (Berlin: 1994), 81–105.

CHAPTER 12

France and Spain: A Common Territory of ­ Anti-Revolution (End of the 18th Century–1880) Jean-Philippe Luis† The circulation of men and ideas between the neighboring countries of France and Spain is a continuing reality. It increased by the end of the 17th century, first with the rapprochement between the ruling families of the two kingdoms, and later with the accession of the Bourbon monarchy to the Spanish throne at the beginning of the 18th century. The intensity and nature of these circulations changed following the beginning of the French Revolution, which imbedded them within the “Age of Revolution”.1 Hereafter, revolutions, often evolving as civil wars, were experienced on both sides of the Pyrenees, and France became directly involved on the Spanish territory with the War of the Pyrenees (1793–1795), occupying Spain during the Peninsular War (1808–1814) and intervening to help Spanish absolutists overthrow the liberal government in 1823. Each of these events were stepping stones in the onset of “modern politics”, inseparable from the violence entailed when societies arose from the political and mental framework of the Old Regime.2 Effectively, these events also amplified the circulation of men, ideas, and political models, henceforth encouraging the emergence of new forms of cosmopolitanism. The influence that the French revolutionary model had on Spanish liberalism has long been brought to light, along with studies of the actions of Spaniards in France and that of French revolutionaries in Spain such as Armand Carrel.3 In 1822, Carrel traveled hastily to Catalonia together with many ­foreign activists to participate in the armed defense of the new constitutional regime. These exchanges have been problematized in historical scholarship since the mid2000s within a Euro-American frame, resulting in the ­emergence of the notion of “Liberal International”. The latter was defined as a phenomenon deprived of 1 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution. Europe 1789‒1848 (New York: 1962). 2 Jean-Philippe Luis, “Cuestiones sobre el origen de la modernidad política en España (finales del siglo XVIII-1868),” Revista de historia Jerónimo Zurita 84 (2009), 247–76. 3 Laurent Nagy, “Le Rapport sur la campagne de Catalogne par un transfuge français (1823): L’internationalisme militant d’Armand Carrel dans une Europe post-révolutionnaire,” Parlements 20 (2013), 147–72. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_012

262

Luis

a coherent structure, yet constituting a community of ideas, of symbols and cultural references, as well as of hopeful expectations.4 In the 19th-century context of the progressive internationalization of political c­ ultures, this community survived thanks to the circulation of men, the existence of transnational support systems, and to the transfer of habits. Privileging a Euro-American frame is not however an acceptance of the “Atlantic Revolution” theory, in which the disruptions happening between the 1770s and the 1820s were perceived as the result of a vast politico-ideological movement, culminating with the independence of the United States and the French Revolution.5 Instead and thanks to the input of transnational and global histories, the Euro-American frame allows us to focus on the major disruptions that followed these revolutions as well as on the relations between these various disruptions.6 Consequently, this frame brings to the fore the emergence of other political cultures, differing from the revolution. These were born as reactions to the revolution and are dialectically related to it in the vast process of forsaking the Old Regime and the juridical, corporative, and religious foundations that organized it.7 These political cultures included all forms of resistance to the Revolution, from the anti-revolution to the counterrevolution, the whole constituting a pluralistic movement often categorized under the label of antiliberalism after the 1820s.8 Studying the relations between these diverse political cultures on a Euro-American scale led to the invention of the notion 4 Maurizio Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile. Italian Emigrés and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era (Oxford: 2009); Walter Bruyère Ostells, “Internationale libérale ou contre-monde libéral? Des degrés et des espaces d’opposition aux Restaurations,” in Rien appris, rien oublié? Les restaurations dans l’Europe postnapoléonienne (1814–1830), ed. Jean-Claude Caron and Jean-Philippe Luis (Rennes: 2015), 367–80. 5 Bernard Baylen, Atlantic History. Concepts and Contours (Cambridge: 2005). Within a similar school of thought, Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative Perspective (New York: 2009). 6 For instance, the revolutions and Hispano-American independences were not started by the victory of ideas originating in France or the United States, but by the collapse of the Spanish monarchy following the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by the French Napoleonic troops in 1808; Roberto Breña, El imperio de las circunstancias. Las independencias hispanoamericanas y la revolución liberal española (Mexico: 2013). 7 Andoni Artola Renedo and Jean-Philippe Luis, “Introduction: La contre-révolution dans le processus de sortie de l’Ancien Régime (de 1789 aux années 1830),” Siècles 43 (2016), http:// siecles.revues.org/3007. 8 Since the mid-1980s, the term of anti-revolution has been used in historiography to designate all types of rejection of the revolution, and in particular the tacit ones that escaped any justification based on the ideological and religious corpus of the counterrevolution. Jean-­Clément Martin (ed.), Dictionnaire de la Contre-Révolution (Paris: 2011), 60‒61. The identification between revolution and liberalism following the European revolutions from the beginning of the 1820s often led to privileging the use of the term antiliberalism.

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 263

of I­nternationale blanche9; it also permitted scholars studying the post-1815 monarchical ­restorations to bypass the national frame.10 Therefore, the circulation of men and ideas, and transnational support networks were also a facet of the opposition to the revolution. Cosmopolitanism, defined as the awareness of belonging to a larger social body than one’s original community, was therefore maintained through armed fights, and by the experience of exile that entertained the circulation of ideas and customs.11 The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how the Franco-Spanish axis played an essential role in this Euro-American phenomenon, thanks to the geographic proximity between the two countries and thanks to the extent of mutual interventions of counterrevolutionary actors in each-other’s countries. The basis of this axis can be found in the resistance to the Enlightenment, with the first shared experiences dating from the French Revolution, when the realm of ideas was united with and fed by the concrete experience of the revolution and the armed conflict. However, this rapprochement remained limited because France and the entire French population were perceived as a threat by Spain. And indeed, France invaded Spain in 1808. However, it was not before the 1820s and the budding precedence given to the defence of monarchical legitimacy that antiliberal struggles in the two countries actually converged, with much European and extra-European ramifications. This prospect only vanished from both sides of the Pyrenees, when all projections of a legitimist future were exhausted in the 1880s. 1 A Shared Struggle against the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire What were the propitious factors for the establishment of a counterrevolutionary Franco-Spanish axis? Three main factors seemed determinant: the emergence in the 1770s of an anti-Enlightenment cosmopolitan trend, the existence of a border society transcending state affiliation, and finally the Spanish exile 9 10

11

Jordi Canal, “Guerres civiles en Europe au XIXe siècle, guerre civile européenne et internationale blanche,” in Pratiques du transnational. Terrains, preuves, limites, ed. Jean-Paul Zuñiga (Paris: 2011), 57–77. Jean-Claude Caron and Jean-Philippe Luis (eds.), Rien appris, rien oublié? Les restaurations dans l’Europe postnapoléonienne (1814‒1830) (Rennes: 2015); Daniel Gutiérrez Ardila and Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz (eds.), “La Restauración como fenómeno extra-europeo,” special issue, Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar 7/15 (2018); Friedemann Pestel and Fabian Rausch (eds.), “1814/15 – A Threshold of Post-Revolutionary Experience,” special issue, Journal of Modern European History 15/2 (2017). Juan Luis Simal, Emigrados. España y el exilio internacional, 1814‒1834 (Madrid: 2012).

264

Luis

of antirevolutionary Frenchmen, fighting together with Spaniards against the Revolution. In Spain since the 1760s, the European Enlightenment movement took the form of a reformist offensive against the monarchy. Its objective was to increase the powers and means of the monarchy, by attacking the jurisdictional foundation of the Old Regime, in other words by reducing the autonomy and resources of bodies that structured society, in particular the Church. I­nitiated under Charles III, this offensive triggered exceptionally strong resistances essentially revolving around clergymen from the 1770s onwards.12 Falling within the scope of the vast and heterogeneous ensemble of the anti-­Enlightenment, this movement was marked by the circulation and translation of texts often written in France or in Italy, and linked to the Jesuitical resistance to deportation, which they were the victims of in several monarchies, and to the 1773 suppression of the Society of Jesus. Proponents of the anti-Enlightenment erected a caricatural and Manichean image of the Enlightenment, thus contributing to doting the movement with a coherence it was lacking.13 In it, the Enlightenment was described as evil incarnate, born out of a conspiracy against the Catholic faith which started with the birth of Protestantism. In Spain, the first significant works published were translations: Claude-François Nonnotte ­(L’Oracle des nouveaux philosophes in 1769–70, and Les Erreurs historiques et dogmatiques de Voltaire in 1771–2) followed by Antonino ­Valsecchi (Dei Fondamenti della religione e dei fonto dell’empietà in 1777). The main themes of these French and Italian works were soon adopted in Spanish works, one of the first and most important being that of Fernando de Ceballos, a H ­ ieronymite who published the 6-volume La falsa filosofia14 from 1774.15 Starting with the French Revolution, opponents to the Enlightenment fronted the opposition to the revolution. The intellectual opposition entered the territory of action, often arms in hand. A consequence was the phenomenon of political exile. The movement emerged in 1789 and was kept alive thanks to the beginning of the revolutionary wars in 1792, and then the P ­ yrenees War (1793–1795). Some aristocrats rallied Spain very early to participate in the fight against the Revolution. Once the war was declared, several amongst them

12 13

Javier Herrero, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1971). Darrin McMahon, Enemies of the Enlightenment. The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). 14 Fernando de Ceballos, La falsa filosofia, o El ateismo, deismo, materialismo y demás nuevas sectas convencidas de crimen de estado contras los soberanos, y sus regalias, contra los ­magistrados, y potestades legítimas (Madrid: 1774–76). 15 Herrero, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español, 105.

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 265

enlisted in the Spanish King’s regiments. Close and ancient relations between noble houses from both sides of the Pyrenees facilitated this type of exile. Many of these houses belonged to a Pyrenean society for which the border was merely an obstacle. Indeed, in a context of nation-building (and therefore of attempts to fix sovereignties in the 18th and 19th century), the process of fixing borders did not preclude the existence of transborder societies. These constituted a vast space of practices and support systems, creeping more or less deeply within the mainland of the different countries.16 The mountainous nature of most of this zone reinforced its traditional role as a refuge for all those pursued by one of the jurisdictions sharing this space. Thus, political exiles followed in the steps of bandits and smugglers.17 The largest wave of political exile was that of the French priests who refused to take the oath to the Constitution Civile du Clergé. Beginning in 1791 with the departure of several high dignitaries (the bishops of Tarbes, Comminges, Auch, Dax…), it transformed into a mass exodus following the decree dated 26 August 1792 condemning the refractory clergy to deportation. By the end of 1792, more than 7000 clergymen had found haven in Spain, a number close to how many had reached England. Most came from the dioceses located in the South-West of France, but also from Britany.18 Most clergymen remained in Spain until the signature of the concordat between Bonaparte and the Pope in 1801. A few years later, in 1808, the Peninsular War rekindled the enthusiasm of a few hundreds of Frenchmen fighting in Spain against their fellow countrymen. Hence Charles d’Espagne de Ramefort, son of the marquis d’Espagne and a nobleman from Ariège who had emigrated in 1794, became general of the Spanish troops in 1809. Wellington gave him the general command of Madrid and New-Castile in August 1813.19

16 17

18

19

Laura di Fiore, “The Production of Borders in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Between I­nstitutional Boundaries and Transnational Practices of Space,” European Review of H ­ istory 24 (2017), 36–57. Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrénées (Berkeley: 1991); Benjamin Duinat, “Transgressions, perméabilité et construction de la frontière. Brigands, déserteurs et prêtres à travers les Pyrénées basques (1789–1802),” Histoire des Alpes – ­Storia delle Alpi – Geschichte der Alpen 23 (2018), 89–108. Manuel Gutiérrez García-Brazales, El exilio del clero francés en España durante la Revolución (1791–1815) (Zaragoza: 2005); Jean-Philippe Luis, “Une histoire de réfugiés politiques: le clergé français réfugié en Espagne pendant la Révolution Française,” in Exils, passages et transitions: Chemins d’une recherche sur les marges, Hommage à Rose Duroux, ed. Anne Dubet et ­­Stéphanie Urdican (Clermont-Ferrand: 2008), 25–34. Ramón Arnabat Mata, “Els exilis al segle XIX: l’exili continu (liberals, carlistes, republicans, socialistes, anarquistes),” Butlletí de la Societat Catalana d’Estudis Històrics 20 (2009), 137–67, here 147.

266

Luis

Were the factors described above sufficient to see to the emergence of a true Franco-Spanish counterrevolutionary axis? On the ground, there were several limitations to the formation of a Franco-Spanish axis. When discussing the ideological perspective, the response should be nuanced. The cosmopolitan movement rejecting the Enlightenment had acquired significant strength in Spain. There the opposition to the Bourbons reforms was solid and manifested in the defense of Church autonomy and the rejection of regalism. The armed fight against France in 1793 reinforced this movement, which later ­developed with the Napoleonic invasion in 1808, finally flourishing with an abundant literary production owing to the first absolutist restoration (1814‒1820).20 It was sustained by the supply from representatives of the counterrevolutionary ­European literature, first and foremost by the Abbé Barruel. His Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du Jacobinisme were translated into ­Spanish by Raimundo Strauch and published in Palma de Mallorca in 1813. According to ­Barruel’s thesis the French Revolution was a philosophical and masonic plot, and this was referenced in one of the main texts of the Spanish Revolution: the ­Causas de la revolución francesa by Jesuit brother Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro. His original source of inspiration is still a mystery.21 Counterrevolutionary writing seems to have mostly circulated from France to Spain. French writings lack any reference to the abundant Spanish production. And, while Joseph de Maistre demonstrated some interest for Spain in his Lettres à un gentilhomme russe sur l’inquisition espagnole (1815), the first of his texts to be translated in Castilian (1819),22 he did not draw on Hervás y Panduro’s rhetoric. However, a paradoxical rhetoric was developed in the Spanish counterrevolutionary discourse. On one side, it claimed to spearhead a universal struggle against Satan, incarnated by rationalism and all shapes of modernity. The counter argument was used to mobilize in times of war against France and later against the Spanish liberals, and this reactivated ancient and everlasting references specific to Spain, that is to say those of the crusades, of the struggle against the heretics and the defense of the Inquisition in order to maintain the unity of the Catholic community. In the context of war against France, the rhetoric in these texts was vulgarized in libels and mostly sermons for the intent of the general public, leaning on an exacerbated and popular gallophobia. In this, 20 21

22

Javier López Alós, Entre el trono y el escaño (Madrid: 2011). Causas de la revolución francesa was first published in 1803, then in 1807. However, its ­circulation only increased with the War of Independence. The same happened to B ­ arruel’s Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme. On Hervás y Panduro, see also Carolina Armenteros’ chapter in this volume. Joseph de Maistre, Cartas a un caballero ruso sobre la inquisición Española (Zaragoza: 1819).

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 267

French was synonymous with Enlightenment, Atheism and Jacobinism. Hence, the cosmopolitan message of defending religion came along with the construction of a discourse defending an imagined and everlasting Spanish tradition, threatened by foreign influences which was becoming a permanent feature of reactionary thought in this country.23 The struggle against a common enemy promoted the implementation of transnational support networks grounded on the collective rejection of the revolution. Initially, the sociability of the European high nobility, reinforced by the Pacte de Famille, an alliance between the Bourbon kings of France and Spain, strongly stepped in so as to integrate some émigrés in the Spanish Court life. Following his dismissal from his post as French Ambassador in June 1790, the duc de la Vauguyon remained in Madrid. On 16 November 1792, he was amongst the hand-picked guests attending a ceremony in which Manuel de Godoy, the king’s favorite, received the insignia of the order of the Golden Fleece.24 The defense of shared political objectives was an added part of these traditional support networks. In late 1792, the duc d’Havré and the comte de Vauguyon made arrangements in Madrid to pressurize the Court into inciting Charles IV to declare war against the nascent French Republic.25 These same émigrés were also actively attempting to structure networks aiming to plot against the French Republic. Movements of solidarity in favor of the French clergy came first and foremost from the Spanish Church. Cardinal Lorenzana, the archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain devoted large sums of money to solidarity (an average of 3,1 to 5% of the revenues from his diocese).26 At the vanguard of this campaign, the bishop of Ourense, Pedro Quevedo, wrote a memoir in favour of the French priests for the attention of the Council of Castile. His arguments were grounded on religion rather than politics. French clergymen deserved help because “the Church was one” and “the distinctive churches from various kingdoms or States do not undo its unity”.27 It seems that this positioning was influenced by the discussions he shared with the many Frenchmen welcomed into his diocese, in particular Alexandre de Lauzières-Thémines, Bishop of Blois, and Jean-Charles de Coucy, Bishop of La Rochelle, with whom he corresponded

23 24 25 26 27

José Alvarez Junco, Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX (Madrid: 2001). Emilio La Parra, Manuel Godoy. La aventura de poder (Madrid: 2005), 101. Idem, “La inestabilidad de la monarquía de Carlos IV,” Studia Histórica. Historia Moderna 12 (1994), 23–34, here 27. Luis, “Une histoire de réfugiés politiques,” 32. Andoni Artola Renedo, De Madrid a Roma. La fidelidad del episcopado en España (1760‒1833) (Gijón: 2013), 167.

268

Luis

regularly.28 The latter was a close relation of the duc d’Havré, himself one the main representatives of the high nobility in emigration, politically active in Spain. The bishop of La Rochelle coordinated the relief grants addressed to French priests, whom in return for this help, were required to pledge loyalty to the French King and refuse to return to France until the restoration of the traditional monarchy. While the majority of the émigré priests returned to France owing to the religious pacification achieved by Bonaparte in 1801 with the concordat, the bishops of La Rochelle and Blois remained in Spain. They maintained a close relationship with the bishop of Ourense, who later became one the protagonists in the religious opposition to the liberal constitution of Cadix (1812), during the War of Independence. The importance of support networks born as a result of the exile should not be overestimated. Indeed, these were largely hampered by the political approach of the Spanish government. For fear of an infectious revolutionary spread, it silenced any form of public debate, including all counterrevolutionary propaganda, seen as an indirect way of raising awareness of the events in France. Thus, from March 1781, the émigrés had to “pledge obedience to the King, be catholic, remain silent about the events in their homeland and swear to forfeit the protection of the ambassador”.29 The certificate of indebtedness dated 2 November 1792 forbade French priests from preaching, teaching, confessing or celebrating mass; it also made provisions for their internment in convents. Later, the Napoleonic occupation severely reinforced the usual popular gallophobia. Published in 1808, a famous catechism stated: “Who are these Frenchmen? Former Christians and modern heretics”.30 This same text also reminded the principal motive behind the Spanish uprising in the spring of 1808, i.e. the defense of monarchical legitimacy, embodied by Ferdinand VII, and the refusal of dynastic change. Looming through all this were two vectors of the anti-revolution, one privileging the defense of the monarch and the other centered on the rights of the Church. The struggle against the revolution and the propaganda surrounding the union of the throne and the altar hid an underlying phenomenon: the separation between the political and religious powers. Evident in a French

28 29 30

Jesús de Juana López, “La influencia de los clérigos franceses en el nacimiento del ­ ensamiento reaccionario español. El caso de Galicia y del obispo Quevedo,” Boletín p avriense 24 (1994), 253–75. Carlos Sánchez, Colección de pragmáticas, cedulas, provisiones, autos acordados y otras ­providencias generales expedidas por el consejo real en el reynado del señor Carlos IV, vol. 1 (Madrid: 1805), 279–83. Fernando Diaz Plaja, La historia de España en sus documentos. El siglo XIX (Madrid: 1954), 71.

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 269

context, this separation also took place in Spain. There, the monarchical crisis and the collapse of the state following the Peninsular War led to the marginalization of the jansenist and regalist clergy by a hierarchy that now privileged loyalty to the pope rather than the king.31 This movement originating in the anti-­Enlightenment was later fed by the experience of the Revolution, the contact with the émigré French clergy and with the texts written by the theoreticians of the Counterrevolution. Thanks to its universalism, this movement favored some forms of cosmopolitanism that flourished later, from the 1820s onwards across the Catholic world, along with the arrival of an intransigent type of Catholicism that refused modernity. Thus, on the one hand, the revolutionary events in France favored the creation of a counterrevolutionary ideological corpus common to both sides of the Pyrenees and grounded on the defense of the centrality of the Catholic Church in Society. On the other, they led to the development of new support systems, forgoing networks traditional to the aristocracy or the border regions. However, this phenomenon was limited by a virulent gallophobia and by the making of a solid Spanish, catholic and antiliberal identity, which ­likened liberalism to a social illness and liberals to heretics and “cosmopolites”, i.e. someone who “without being a Moor, nor a Christian, nor a Frenchman, nor a Spaniard, belongs to the one who pays him”.32 2 Absolutists, Ultras, Legitimists and Carlists: The Franco-Spanish axis of the Internationale Blanche (1820‒1876) The context changed around the 1820s with the Euro-American revolutionary wave (1820‒1823); counterrevolutionaries became aware that monarchical restorations which followed the fall of the Napoleonic Empire did not put an end to what they had thought was a lengthy and painful parenthesis. The first major change was an inversion in the direction of antirevolutionary migrations between France and Spain. France became a haven of Spaniards fighting against liberal regimes. The first major contextual transformation was the internationalization of the Spanish civil war, between 1820 and 1828. The opposition to the constitutional 31 32

Artola Renedo, De Madrid a Roma. Francisco Javier Ramón Solans, “Una lectura del discurso eclesiástico en la Guerra de la ­Independencia: exclusión y comunidad,” in I Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores en Historia Contemporánea de la Asociación de Historia Contemporánea: Zaragoza, 26‒28 de septiembre de 2007, ed. Óscar Aldunate León and Iván Heredia Urzaiz (Zaragoza: 2008), 1–11, here 6.

270

Luis

regime of the Trienio liberal (1820–1823) set off both a movement of exile to France in 1821 and the foundation of an absolutist guerilla, mostly active in the Basque Country, Navarre, and Catalonia. The French Pyrenees were used as a support base. Thanks to financial assistance distributed by the French government, we can estimate the number of absolutist refugees at approximately 8000 in 1822. A majority of these were clergymen (42%); 11,5% were militaries.33 Support networks on both sides of the Pyrenees were fostered by a particular context in which the Holy Alliance and European antirevolutionary opinions were mobilized to avert liberal revolutions in Spain, Italy and Portugal. The French Ultras backed the Spanish Royalists: for instance, the comte de Damas and the members of the secret order of the “chevaliers de la foi” encouraged France to intervene in Spain in order to restore Ferdinand VII and the absolute monarchy. In a momentum best qualified as romantic, subscription campaigns were organized in the main newspapers of the royalist party, such as La Quotidienne. These called for donations and reminded readers that Spain had been a haven for French priests during the French Revolution.34 The dominant discourse likened the Spanish Revolution to the French one, foreseeably culminating in a new Terreur. Thus, in March 1823, the newspaper Le Drapeau blanc stated that “the sight of our revolution, that the leaders of the Spanish rebels feign to imitate, is sufficient to suggest a lengthy series of bloody disasters waiting for Spain, if a salutary and powerful intervention does not cut it short”.35 Villèle, head of the French government, was initially opposed to an intervention. He finally gave in to pressure from the Ultra milieu. On April 7 1823, the expedition known as the “Cent mille fils de Saint Louis” crossed the border. With the backing of 6500 Spanish volunteers, who were refugees in France, they had been for months preparing for this event.36 If this expedition resulted in a military victory as early as October 1823, it would have been a political failure for France. The objective of the French government had been to impose on Spain a moderate monarchy, bestowing a charter upon the country. This was successfully obstructed by Spanish absolutists and king Ferdinand VII, who distanced themselves from most ­circles ­supporting from France the regime of the Restoration. Nevertheless,

33 34 35 36

Anne Leblay, “Proscrits ibériques à Paris au temps des monarchies constitutionnelles (1814‒1848)” (PhD dissertation, EHESS Paris: 2013), 84. Emmanuel Larroche, L’expédition d’Espagne. 1823: de la guerre selon la Charte, (Rennes: 2013), 228. Ibid., 235. Jean-René Aymes, “Españoles en Francia (1789‒1823): contactos ideológicos a través de la deportación,” Trienio 10 (1987), 3–26, here 15.

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 271

and despite their decrease in numbers, exchanges between antirevolutionary ­circles in both countries persisted, but only insofar as France maintained some garrisons on the Spanish territory until 1828. This was at the request of Ferdinand, who needed protection against revolutionary threats. The return of absolutist refugees to Spain minimized direct communications, now reduced to traditional transborder relations as well as interactions with the French Ultra faction of the monarchists, nicknamed the “pointus”. For instance, La Bourdonnaye, one of the Ultras’ leaders, opened up the columns of his newspapers L’Aristarque français to those championing Ferdinand VII’s absolutism and to those Spaniards in Paris charged with this mission.37 Networks of solidarity across the Pyrenees were reactivated after 1827, when c. 1000 Catalan refugees crossed borders, fleeing the repression of ­Ferdinand VII’s troops that followed the agraviados uprisings.38 During this incident, part of Catalonia revolted against the “bad ministers” of the king, blamed for not reinstating the Inquisition and accused of indulgence towards the liberals. The French Ultras did not however lend them a hand, being unable to understand the nature of this uprising. Furthermore, after 1828, they favored the support of the Portuguese absolutists in the civil war that broke there. With the first Carlist war (1833–1840), many in France and Spain rallied under the flag of dynastic legitimacy. The passage from a defensive antiliberalism to an antiliberalism of opposition marked a profound transformation in both countries in the 1830s.39 Antiliberal governments lost their power in Paris in 1830 and in Madrid in 1834 (as well as in Portugal). Despite being close on ideological grounds, French and Spanish antiliberal factions were now ­converging around the defense of monarchist legitimacy. Both felt that it had been tarnished by the advent of the Orléans and the contested abolition by Ferdinand VII of the Salic system in 1830 with the Pragmática Sanción. This allowed his spouse to assume regency and govern in the name of his daughter Isabelle upon his death in October 1833. His death led to the uprising of the supporters of Ferdinand’s brother and the leader of the intransigent absolutists, Don Carlos. While legitimism was brandished as a standard in both countries, a consequence in the propagandist discourse of the counterrevolution (now antiliberalism) was the increased rhetorical space according to the 37 38 39

Jean-Philippe Luis, L’ivresse de la fortune. Alexandre Aguado, un génie des affaires (Paris: 2009), 208. Arnabat Mata, “Els exilis al segle XIX,” 422. Pedro Rújula, “El antiliberalismo reaccionario,”, in La España liberal 1833‒1874: Historia de las Culturas políticas en España y América Latina, ed. María Cruz Romeo and María Sierra, vol. 2 (Madrid and Zaragoza: 2014), 377–409, here 379.

272

Luis

throne. In France, the fight for the right to the throne of Don Carlos provoked a movement of enthusiasm in the legitimist opinion and was used as a distraction following the shameful failure of the uprising led by the duchesse de Berry in 1832. The Spanish cause was displayed as a fight transcending the country’s borders. The leading legitimist newspaper, La Quotidienne, stated on 12 March 1834: “these men who fight and die in Spain, fight and die for the principle which is the foundation of all European monarchies. Their efforts benefit all thrones. Helping Charles V, they preserve the rights of all the legitimist kings”.40 The mobilization of the French legitimist circles also materialized with the constitution of legitimist committees “for the Spanish insurrection” in many cities,41 and in subscriptions started by newspapers such as La Gazette de France or La Mode for the financial benefit of the Carlists. The analogy with the Vendée was also a recurring element in the legitimist press: in Spain, “it was the Vendéen spirit, so misunderstood by our shortsighted Statesmen, this spirit of equality, because equality was at the heart of Christianity, this spirit of abnegation and sacrifice, which gave this nation the title of Heroic”.42 A consequence of the first Carlist war was the revival of exile to France. The number of Carlist refugees listed by the French administration rose from 5700 in 1834 to 36,500 in 1840.43 Meanwhile, war took on a true international dimension as Spanish liberals were backed up by France, Portugal and England within the Quadruple Alliance (1834), while the Carlists were supported by Austria and Russia. This struggle was set within an Iberic frame: in 1832, a civil war in Portugal heralded the Carlist war, ending with the victory of the liberal faction two years later. In Spain, a dynastic dispute was superimposed onto the struggle between absolutism and liberalism. Finally, the international dimension of antiliberalism also showed through the presence of foreign volunteers in the Carlist troops: Portuguese deserters, former Miguelists,44 activists from central Europe, a few hundred Frenchmen (some having taken part in the Vendean adventure of the duchesse de Berry in 1832) and “Vendéens” such as

40

Quoted after: Laetitia Blanchard Rubio, “Violence politique et légitimisme pendant la P ­ remière guerre carliste: une occasion manquée,” Amnis 17 (2018), http://journals .openedition.org/amnis/3552. 41 This was the name of the committee in Toulouse, which was one of the most important; Véronique Clarenc, “Toulouse, capitale du carlisme catalan (1830‒1840),” Annales du Midi 202 (1993), 225–46. 42 La Gazette de France, 13 October 1833, quoted after Blanchard Rubio, “Violence politique et légitimisme,” 6. 43 Leblay, Proscrits ibériques à Paris, 89. 44 Maria Teresa Mónica, Errâncias miguelistas (1834‒1843) (Lisbon: 1997).

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 273

Auguste du Vergier de la Rochejacquelin. Don Carlos even chose a Frenchman, the comte de Villemur, to head the ministry of War in 1834. After 1835, some publications by French volunteers narrated their Spanish adventures, their actions falling in line with a counterrevolutionary cosmopolitan spirit. One such writer was Auguet de Saint-Sylvain, who, in July 1834 orchestrated the flight of Don Carlos from England to Navarre, via France.45 Captain Herman du Casse, another of these legitimist militants, wrote in 1842: “As a French royalist, I offered my sword to Charles V, sworn to defend in Spain, as long as it stood high, the standard of Legitimist, even in tatter”.46 Along with the press, these texts contributed to popularize the Carlist cause in France, turning the pretender Don Carlos and his general Zumalacárregui (who died in a fire in 1835) into heroes and martyrs of a Legitimist cause that transcended the Spanish borders. France welcomed the vast majority of the Carlist exiles; others found a haven in Austria, or in Rome and the Sardinian States for clergymen. Besides France, other European countries also sent volunteers and saw the publication of texts defending the Carlist cause. Some French texts were also translated, such as the bestseller Un chapitre de l’histoire de Charles V by Auguet de Saint-Sylvain. Published in 1835, it was translated in German and in English within the year. This was also the case of the reminiscences of Felix von Lichnowsky, translated from German to French by the comtesse de Bocarmé47 as well as the Mémoires sur Zumalacárregui et les premières campagnes de Navarre, by Charles Frederick Henningsen translated from English to French in 1836. After March 1834, French policies under Louis-Philippe entailed the removal of refugees away from the border zones. Always suspicious of possible collusions in Vendée and the West, the government also forbade the Carlists from residing in 29 départements, in-between Vendée and the Cotentin, and including Brittany in its entirety.48 Don Carlos crossed the border with his court in October 1839; they were confined in Bourges. Those amongst the Carlists who denounced the compromise ratified with the Spanish liberal government that year carried on their fight for a year. They then followed the court in exile. Thus, their leader, Cabrera, was sent by the French government in Lille and later in Lyon.49 Relations with the French legitimist circles were expanded through 45 46 47 48 49

Auguet de Saint-Sylvain, baron de Los Valles, Un chapitre de l’histoire de Charles V (Paris: 1835) Hermann Du Casse, Echos de la Navarre (Paris: 1842), 3, quoted after Blanchard Rubio, ­“Violence politique et légitimisme,” 7. Felix von Lichnowsky, Souvenirs de la guerre civile d’Espagne (Paris: 1844). Emmanuel Tronco, Les carlistes espagnols dans l’ouest de la France, 1833‒1883 (Rennes: 2010). Pedro Rújula, “Carlistas,” in Exilios. Los éxodos politicos en la historia de España siglos XV‒ XXI, ed. Jordi Canal (Madrid: 2007), 167–90, here 182.

274

Luis

these stays. And familial pacts were made: in 1835, General Elío’s sister wedded the comte de Barraute. The groom’s house in the Pyrénées-Atlantique became a refuge sought-after by the Carlists and stands as an example of strong transborder support systems in a large Pyrenean space. In the 1840s, the failure of the plan to marry the comte de Montemolín, son to Don Carlos, with Queen Isabella II, encouraged the return of a civil war, ­limited this time to the Catalonian space. Several Carlists exiled in France crossed the border to fight in this event, known as the “War of the Matiners” (1846–1849). In September 1846, Montemolín, the new pretender, accompanied by several leaders of the movement (including Cabrera), left France for England. There, they aimed to gather financial support and coordinate the insurrection. Defeated once again, they signed a few months later a general amnesty which allowed many Carlists to return home. Between the 1850s and 1870s, French and Spanish legitimists found a common ground in their uncompromising Catholicism. By the middle of the 19th century, Carlism was struck by a crisis, correlated to the death of many of the leading actors of the struggles in the 1830s and 1840s and to the depletion of the legitimist faction in France with the advent of the Second Empire. In the mid-1850s, only a little more than 1000 Carlists remained in France.50 While the Spanish current affaires were temporarily no longer the object of the mobilization of Legitimists in France, the antiliberal milieus in both countries tightened their ideological relations, independently from the Carlist movement. De Maistre became one of the main sources of inspiration in the reform of the antiliberal thoughts developed by Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) in the middle of the century.51 The former had had very little influence in Spain before that. Cortés was one of the leading intellectuals of a movement that was now integrating the idea of nation whilst also holding the impression that any compromise with liberalism was impossible. This movement was politically embodied in Spain by the neo-Catholics. Besides the Carlist sphere, they aimed to redirect Isabella II’s rule in a conservative and authoritarian d­ irection.52 Donoso Cortès and the neo-Catholics agreed with a transnational Catholic and intransigent political movement, centered on the primacy of papal ­powers over political powers; the movement was mobilized by the defense of the Pontifical

50 Leblay, Proscrits ibériques à Paris, 91. 51 Jesús María Osés Gorraiz, “De Maistre y Donoso Cortés: hermeneutas de lo inefable,” Revista de Estudios Políticos 152 (2011), 75–114. 52 Begoña Uriguen, Orígenes y evolución de la derecha española: el neocatolicismo (Madrid: 1986).

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 275

States, then threatened by the Italian unification.53 Cortés’ thoughts reached France thanks to Louis Veuillot, the famous journalist and essayist, owner of the neo-Catholic newspaper L’Univers. During his ambassadorship in Paris, Cortés patronized the salon of Madame Swetchine, a Russian aristocrat exiled for her conversion to Catholicism. There, he often met with the comte de Falloux as well as Charles de Montalembert. The latter, figurehead of the “Catholic party”, became a friend.54 If Donoso Cortés p ­ ublished several works in French, it was not before the publication of his Essai sur le catholicisme, le libéralisme et le socialisme, considérés dans leurs principes fondamentaux (Paris, 1851) that he began to be acknowledged north of the Pyrenees. Returning the favour, Veuillot’s texts were translated in Spain were they were met with e­ nthusiasm in neo-Catholic circles. From this point forward, the French and Spanish antirevolutionary movements included two close yet distinct movements. The first focused on monarchical legitimacy; characteristically cosmopolitan, the second one placed the defense of Catholicism and the pope at the heart of its Catholic and intransigent politics. The question of the Italian unification and the threat looming on the Papal States favored the rapprochement of the two movements in 1860, with the resultant and failed resistance in favor of the monarchy of Francis II. Legitimist networks remobilized in France. These were stimulated by the outbreak of a Catholic opposition to the Empire, since Napoleon III supported the Italian unification. Newly-formed support committees collected money and fostered the engagement of volunteers in the Papal Zouaves. Now causeless, a few Carlists joined them, amongst whom was José Borges. He had fought in the army of Don Carlos and had found a haven in France since 1840. Landing in Calabria in autumn 1861, he lost his life there.55 The 1870 European crisis gave a new meaning to the activities of the antirevolutionary cluster. In the 1870s, the French and Spanish struggles converged again. In both countries, the political upheavals increased hopes of a dynastic Restoration, considered as legitimate by the counterrevolutionary milieus. Madrid had adopted a democratic and liberal regime after the Revolution of

53

54 55

Alexandre Dupont, “Hacia una internacional neocatólica? Trayectorias cruzadas de Louis Veuillot y Antonio Aparisi y Guijarro,” Ayer 95 (2014), 211–36; Philippe Boutry, “Papauté et ­culture au XIXe siècle. Magistère, orthodoxie, tradition,” Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle 28 (2004), 31–58. Benjamin Demeslay, “Donoso Cortés à Paris (1847‒1853): la sociabilité d’un ‘diplomate catholique’,” Chrétiens et sociétés 22 (2015), 175–86. Simon Sarlin, Le légitimisme en armes. Histoire d’une mobilisation internationale contre l’unité italienne (Rome: 2013).

276

Luis

September 1868. This regime respected freedom of speech, which stimulated the Carlist propaganda; democratic elections gave the movement a new popular base in the North of the country. The rapid decline of the new regime gave a new lease of life to Carlist dreams of a Restoration. To achieve them, the ­movement took up arms once again in 1872. This Second Carlist war lasted until 1876. The new pretender, Carlos María de los Dolores, personified cosmopolitan and exile legitimism. Born in Laibach in 1848, he lived in Modena, ­Venice, Prague, and Paris. In France and in legitimist circles, the enthusiasm for the Carlist cause was strongly linked to the hopes of an imminent restoration of the Monarchy, when a royalist assembly was elected into government in 1871. The comte de Chambord, pretender to the French throne, actively supported Don Carlos, who had married the former’s niece, Marguerite of Parma, in 1867. What was new in comparison to earlier decades was mostly related to the modernization of practices and means of propaganda, that were adapted to the necessity of winning the public opinion over, especially via the press. The pretender Don Carlos astutely used his youth and modern image to promote his cause to European public opinions. In France, the Legitimist press and the papers representing the intransigent and catholic movement (especially Louis Veuillot’s L’Univers) supported the Carlist cause. The size and diversity of these networks are nowadays well known, thanks to the work of Alexandre Dupont.56 War led to the intense revival of ancient transborder support networks, now intertwined with that arising from Legitimist milieus. And, while the French government was not officially backing the Carlists, many civil servants and local government officers facilitated the insurgents’ actions. On the Catalonian side, the infants Alfonso and María de las Nieves de Braganza y Borbón were placed under the protection of the Lazerme family in Perpignan and Elne, and later with a Legitimist network the size of Languedoc.57 These support systems leaned on the living memory of mutual aide, dating at least from the first Carlist war. Familial tradition weighed strongly amongst Legitimist elites. Illustrative of this is the case of the comte de Barraute in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Since 1835, the family was related to the Carlist Elío dynasty. After 1872, their lands became once again a haven for Carlists as well 56 57

Alexandre Dupont, “Une internationale blanche. Les légitimistes français au secours des c­ arlistes (1868‒1883)” (PhD dissertation, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne: 2015). Idem, “Entre exil et internement, l’originale expérience des carlistes en France, 1868‒1876),” in Arrachés et déplacés. Réfugiés politiques, prisonniers de guerre, déportés 1789‒1918, ed. Nicolas Beaupré and Karine Rance (Clermont-Ferrand: 2016), 145–64, here ­150–52.

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 277

as the place where they prepared operations led on the other side of the ­border, just as it was used during the first Carlist war. Furthermore, in 1872, the count’s four sons enlisted in the Carlist army. Also emblematic, the Legitimist war veteran Henri de Cathelineau met Don Carlos in 1871 and used his connections to back the Carlists. His grand-father had famously been the first generalissimo of the Catholic and royalist army during the Vendée; his father was executed in 1832 for he had been one of the leaders of the duchesse de Berry’s insurrection. Henri de Cathelineau had participated in this insurrection, after which he fled to Portugal where he fought alongside the miguelists until their defeat in 1834. He later found a haven in Turin, then in Fribourg in Switzerland before returning to France when the July monarchy fell in 1848. He reenlisted in Italy in 1860 to defend the Papal States, creating a military unit that was incorporated within the Papal Zouaves.58 Just like in the first Carlist war, support committees for the Carlist cause were established. The main ones were in Bayonne and Paris (the “comité de Jésus Roi”). The latter included up to 150 people.59 The study of financial flows and contraband highlights the existence of true support networks on the E ­ uropean and even Atlantic scale: 130 ships flying under the flags of several countries could have been involved in arms trafficking, with the port of Marseille as its main hub.60 1875 was a turning point, with the monarchist coalition splitting up in France and Spain. The second renunciation of the comte de Chambord to the French throne in 1874 was related to his obstinacy to restore the white flag of the monarchy. This ended in the break of the monarchist faction and the implementation of republican institutions in 1875. In Spain, the failure of the democratic Republic led to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy under the rule of Isabella II’s son, backed up by a conservative coalition that led neo-Catholics to cease their support of Carlism. The defeat of Don Carlos’ partisans was complete in February 1876. This led to a second exile wave to France. There, 20,000 individuals were detained in camps and later dispersed to various locations by the French administration.61 With the difficulties of life in exile and the amnesties of 1876 and 1877, the majority returned rapidly to Spain. Don Carlos and the Carlist court first settled in Paris, then wandered across Europe, being subjected to various expulsions ordered by the French Republican government until 1881.

58 Dupont, Une internationale blanche, 381–83. 59 Ibid., 394–403. 60 Ibid., 435. 61 Ibid., 548.

278

Luis

3 Conclusion In the early 1880s, there was no hope left for the legitimist cause in both France and Spain. This was due in part to its own political failure, but also to the d­ istancing orchestrated by the intransigent Catholic movement. The breakdown of legitimism happened despite a long-standing association of the latter’s antirevolutionary and antiliberal stances with the cause of dynasties seen as legitimate in both countries. This failure sounded the death knell of the major role played by the Franco-Spanish axis in a vast movement of antiliberal cosmopolitanism. Progressively established during the French Revolution, the making of this axis was facilitated by geographical closeness, by the ­pre-existence of a transnational support network, and by the fundamental and anthropological space occupied by Catholic universalism. But its development was slowed down by wars between the two countries and the attacks on Spain. Following the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, France lost its status as an aggressor and the sole revolutionary incarnation. According to counterrevolutionaries, the revolutionary threat now spread all over Europe and the Americas. The opposition to the 1820–1823 revolutionary wave in Europe laid the foundation for a “white internationalism”, symmetrical to the development of a liberal one. The Franco-Spanish axis was central to this phenomenon, because of the role played by the French troops in the absolutist Restoration in Madrid in 1823. After the 1830s, this axis grew as a result of the Carlist wars, finally occupying a considerable space in the cosmopolitan antirevolutionary and anti-American movement. This led to the constitution of an authentic Internationale blanche, in which was organized a cluster based on active mutual support, memories of common struggles and shared hopes, within the frameworks of intransigent Catholicism and the defense of monarchic legitimacy. These relations were not exclusive to the two countries: many had also lived in England, Austria or Italy, or entertained relations with the antiliberal milieus in these countries. This is of course exemplified by the nomadism of many pretenders to the thrones of France and Spain, so much so that neither the comte de Chambord nor Don Carlos had set foot in the countries they p ­ retended to rule. Moreover, Spain was not the only territory mobilizing counterrevolutionary milieus in France and in Europe: Portugal in the 1828‒1834 and Italy in the 1848‒1870 played a similar role, but never with the same strength as that noted in Spain and in France. The type of counterrevolutionary cosmopolitanism that gave birth to the Internationale blanche never was a mass movement. It came out of pre-existing elite sociability, almost exclusively religious or noble, often mixed with Enlightenment Salon sociability. Both were transformed after the French Revolution,

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 279

and sustained by new sociable practices, opening up to new social groups, in a world where the social hierarchy based on estates was disappearing. These social networks were sustained by the novel experience of political exile and common struggles. This confirms that the study of the genesis of ideas cannot be separated from that of the networks of relations within which they are born, they circulated and were transformed.62 Following the 1880s, the Franco-Spanish axis ceased to play a major role in the counterrevolutionary space now confronted with a new world, permeated by the age of masses, a nationalist momentum, colonialism and the overture of the Catholic Church to the modern world. Concerns for Spain grew again with the 1936 Civil War and the establishment of the Francoist regime. This led to a renewal of transborder support and the increase of transfers and exchanges between both sides of the Pyrenees. Translated by Juliette Reboul Bibliography Alvarez Junco, José, Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX (Madrid: 2001). Arnabat Mata, Ramón, “Els exilis al segle XIX: l’exili continu (liberals, carlistes, ­republicans, socialistes, anarquistes),” Butlletí de la Societat Catalana d’Estudis ­Històrics 20 (2009), 137–67. Artola Renedo, Andoni, De Madrid a Roma. La fidelidad del episcopado en España (1760‒1833) (Gijón: 2013). Artola Renedo, Andoni and Jean-Philippe Luis, “Introduction: La contre-révolution dans le processus de sortie de l’Ancien Régime (de 1789 aux années 1830),” Siècles 43 (2016), http://siecles.revues.org/3007. Auguet de Saint-Sylvain, baron de Los Valles, Un chapitre de l’histoire de Charles V (Paris: 1835). Aymes, Jean-René, “Españoles en Francia (1789‒1823): contactos ideológicos a través de la deportación,” Trienio 10 (1987), 3–26. Baylen, Bernard, Atlantic History. Concepts and Contours (Cambridge: 2005). Boutry, Philippe, “Papauté et culture au XIXe siècle. Magistère, orthodoxie, tradition,” Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle 28 (2004), 31–58. Breña, Roberto, El imperio de las circunstancias. Las independencias hispanoamericanas y la revolución liberal española (Mexico: 2013). 62

Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change ­(Cambridge: 1998).

280

Luis

Bruyère Ostells, Walter, “Internationale libérale ou contre-monde libéral? Des degrés et des espaces d’opposition aux Restaurations,” in Rien appris, rien oublié? Les restaurations dans l’Europe postnapoléonienne (1814–1830), ed. Jean-Claude Caron and Jean-Philippe Luis (Rennes: 2015), 367–80. Canal, Jordi, “Guerres civiles en Europe au XIXe siècle, guerre civile européenne et internationale blanche,” in Pratiques du transnational. Terrains, preuves, limites, ed. Jean-Paul Zuñiga (Paris: 2011), 57–77. Caron, Jean-Claude, and Jean-Philippe Luis (eds.), Rien appris, rien oublié? Les restaurations dans l’Europe postnapoléonienne (1814‒1830) (Rennes: 2015). Cartas a un caballero ruso sobre la inquisición Española (Zaragoza: 1819). Ceballos, Fernando de, La falsa filosofia, o El ateismo, deismo, materialismo y demás nuevas sectas convencidas de crimen de estado contras los soberanos, y sus regalias, contra los magistrados, y potestades legítimas (Madrid: 1774–76). Clarenc, Véronique, “Toulouse, capitale du carlisme catalan (1830‒1840),” Annales du Midi 202 (1993), 225–46. Collins, Randall, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge: 1998). Demeslay, Benjamin, “Donoso Cortés à Paris (1847‒1853): la sociabilité d’un ‘diplomate catholique’,” Chrétiens et sociétés 22 (2015), 175–86. Diaz Plaja, Fernando, La historia de España en sus documentos. El siglo XIX (Madrid: 1954). Duinat, Benjamin, “Transgressions, perméabilité et construction de la frontière. ­Brigands, déserteurs et prêtres à travers les Pyrénées basques (1789–1802),” Histoire des Alpes – Storia delle Alpi – Geschichte der Alpen 23 (2018), 89–108. Dupont, Alexandre, “Hacia una internacional neocatólica? Trayectorias cruzadas de Louis Veuillot y Antonio Aparisi y Guijarro,” Ayer 95 (2014), 211–36. Dupont, Alexandre, “Une internationale blanche. Les légitimistes français au secours des carlistes (1868‒1883)” (PhD dissertation, Université Paris I Panthéon-­Sorbonnne: 2015). Dupont, Alexandre, “Entre exil et internement, l’originale expérience des carlistes en France, 1868‒1876),” in Arrachés et déplacés. Réfugiés politiques, prisonniers de guerre, déportés 1789‒1918, ed. Nicolas Beaupré and Karine Rance (Clermont-­ Ferrand: 2016), 145–64. Emmanuel Tronco, Les carlistes espagnols dans l’ouest de la France, 1833‒1883 (Rennes: 2010). Fiore, Laura di, “The Production of Borders in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Between Institutional Boundaries and Transnational Practices of Space,” European Review of History 24 (2017), 36–57. Gutiérrez Ardila, Daniel, and Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz (eds.), “La Restauración como fenómeno extra-europeo,” special issue, Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar 7/15 (2018).

France and Spain: A Common Territory of Cosmopolitan Conservatism 281 Gutiérrez García-Brazales, Manuel, El exilio del clero francés en España durante la R ­ evolución (1791–1815) (Zaragoza: 2005). Herrero, Javier, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: 1971). Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Revolution. Europe 1789‒1848 (New York: 1962). Isabella, Maurizio, Risorgimento in Exile. Italian Emigrés and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era (Oxford: 2009). Juana López, Jesús de, “La influencia de los clérigos franceses en el nacimiento del pensamiento reaccionario español. El caso de Galicia y del obispo Quevedo,” Boletín avriense 24 (1994), 253–75. Klooster, Wim, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative Perspective (New York: 2009). La Parra, Emilio, “La inestabilidad de la monarquía de Carlos IV,” Studia Histórica. Historia Moderna 12 (1994), 23–34. La Parra, Emilio, Manuel Godoy. La aventura de poder (Madrid: 2005). Laetitia Blanchard Rubio, “Violence politique et légitimisme pendant la Première guerre carliste: une occasion manquée,” Amnis 17 (2018), http://journals.openedition .org/amnis/3552. Larroche, Emmanuel, L’expédition d’Espagne. 1823: de la guerre selon la Charte, (Rennes: 2013). Leblay, Anne, “Proscrits ibériques à Paris au temps des monarchies constitutionnelles” (1814‒1848) (PhD dissertation, EHESS Paris: 2013). Lichnowsky, Felix von, Souvenirs de la guerre civile d’Espagne (Paris: 1844). López Alós Javier, Entre el trono y el escaño (Madrid: 2011). Luis, Jean-Philippe, “Une histoire de réfugiés politiques: le clergé français réfugié en Espagne pendant la Révolution Française,” in Exils, passages et transitions: Chemins d’une recherche sur les marges, Hommage à Rose Duroux, ed. Anne Dubet et ­Stéphanie Urdican (Clermont-Ferrand: 2008), 25–34. Luis, Jean-Philippe, Cuestiones sobre el origen de la modernidad política en España (finales del siglo XVIII-1868),” Revista de historia Jerónimo Zurita 84 (2009), 247–76. Luis, Jean-Philippe, L’ivresse de la fortune. Alexandre Aguado, un génie des affaires (Paris: 2009). Maistre, Joseph de, Cartas a un caballero ruso sobre la inquisición Española (Zaragoza: 1819). Martin, Jean-Clément (ed.), Dictionnaire de la Contre-Révolution (Paris: 2011). McMahon, Darrin, Enemies of the Enlightenment. The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). Mónica, Maria Teresa, Errâncias miguelistas (1834‒1843) (Lisbon: 1997). Nagy, Laurent, “Le Rapport sur la campagne de Catalogne par un transfuge français (1823): L’internationalisme militant d’Armand Carrel dans une Europe post-­ révolutionnaire,” Parlements 20 (2013), 147–72.

282

Luis

Osés Gorraiz, Jesús María, “De Maistre y Donoso Cortés: hermeneutas de lo inefable,” Revista de Estudios Políticos 152 (2011), 75–114. Pestel, Friedemann, and Fabian Rausch (eds.), “1814/15 – A Threshold of Post-­ Revolutionary Experience,” special issue, Journal of Modern European History 15/2 (2017). Ramón Solans, Francisco Javier, “Una lectura del discurso eclesiástico en la Guerra de la Independencia: exclusión y comunidad,” in I Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores en Historia Contemporánea de la Asociación de Historia Contemporánea: Zaragoza, 26‒28 de septiembre de 2007, ed. Óscar Aldunate León and Iván Heredia Urzaiz (Zaragoza: 2008), 1–11. Rújula, Pedro, “Carlistas,” in Exilios. Los éxodos politicos en la historia de España siglos XV‒XXI, ed. Jordi Canal (Madrid: 2007), 167–90. Rújula, Pedro, “El antiliberalismo reaccionario,”, in La España liberal 1833‒1874: Historia de las Culturas políticas en España y América Latina, ed. María Cruz Romeo and María Sierra, vol. 2 (Madrid and Zaragoza: 2014), 377–409. Sahlins, Peter, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrénées (Berkeley: 1991). Sánchez, Carlos, Colección de pragmáticas, cedulas, provisiones, autos acordados y otras providencias generales expedidas por el consejo real en el reynado del señor Carlos IV, vol. 1 (Madrid: 1805), 279–83. Sarlin, Simon, Le légitimisme en armes. Histoire d’une mobilisation internationale contre l’unité italienne (Rome: 2013). Simal, Juan Luis, Emigrados. España y el exilio internacional, 1814‒1834 (Madrid: 2012). Uriguen, Begoña, Orígenes y evolución de la derecha española: el neocatolicismo (Madrid: 1986).

CHAPTER 13

Romancing the Monarchy: Romantic Queens and Soft Power Joep Leerssen Auf Poesie ist die Sicherheit der Throne gegründet. Gneisenau

…

Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi. Il Gattopardo

∵ As a post-1789 ideology, nationalism is usually linked to the notion of popular sovereignty (which puts the “nation” into nationalism). Certainly in the first half of the 19th century, nationalism as a political force was generally situated at the liberal or radical end of the political spectrum, finding expression in subversive and revolutionary associations like the Filiki Eteria or the Carbonari, or manifestations like the Wartburg Feast of 1817, or emotive solidarity networks like the Philhellenes, and culminating in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848.1 But the picture is not black and white. National Liberals of the “Vormärz” would combine political radicalism with staunch cultural traditionalism and a good dose of xenophobic chauvinism when it came to defending the rights, not of “the” people as such, but of their own people in particular. Exemplars of 1 See, generally, my National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam: 2018). In much of what follows, I also draw on the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: 2018), hereinafter referred at as ERNiE. In the following pages I shall refer to its online version ernie.uva.nl, and to relevant primary documentation posted there, by URL. ERNiE also contains a more closely-argued definition of the notion of “Romanticism” as used in this article. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_013

284

Leerssen

such a combination of cultural conservatism, ethnic chauvinism and political radicalism are Ernst Moritz Arndt and Jacob Grimm. Indeed, for many p ­ olitical radicals across Europe (the French social Romantics, the champions of the ­Risorgimento, or Richard Wagner), wrapping themselves in the flag – extolling the glories and individual authenticity of the nation – was to some extent an opportunistic form of virtue-signaling calculated to lend respectability and high-mindedness to social reformism. “Loving one’s country” was a general moral duty (like being faithful to one’s spouse and respectful towards one’s parents) rather than a political program, and could be used to lend credibility to almost any political stance.2 True conservatives accordingly eyed such patriotic flag-waving with mistrust. Dr Johnson had famously called Patriotism “the last refuge of a scoundrel”. True-blue conservatives like he realized that love of country was also used to supplant that other political virtue: loyalty to one’s king.3 Logically enough, Metternich until 1848 and Pius IX after 1849 mistrusted all nationalists tutti quanti. A few decades later, however, Prussian supremacists like Treitschke and völkisch pan-Germanists like Felix Dahn could effortlessly invoke the names and intellectual heritage of Arndt and Grimm, and De Gaulle with his certaine idée de la France breathes the spirit of Michelet. That metempsychosis of nationalism from the Left to the Right is partly because by 1900 there was hardly any left-wing nationalism left in the metropolitan capitals of Europe, and the right-wing nationalists were the sole heirs of the entire previous century; it is partly also because nationalism had never been exclusively anti-establishment, reformist or revolutionary. There was a traditionalist, nostalgic streak in even the more radical champions of freedom of thought, of written constitutions and the rights of man; and also, there had been nationalists among the more conservative and reactionary elements of the post-­Napoleonic generation. Grimm and Arndt belonged to a generation of intellectuals that had been shocked out of their initial sympathy for liberté, egalité and fraternité when Napoleon crowned himself emperor, and had retreated into a sternly anti-French, ethnocentrically Germanicist attitude. The cause of the nation was, in other words, always a floating element on the political spectrum, moving now one way, then the other, like the air bubble in a spirit level.

2 Cf. Michael Freeden, “Is Nationalism a Distinct Ideology?,” Political Studies 46 (1998), 748–65. 3 Dryden had called a Patriot “one that would by law supplant his prince”. Generally, Franco Venturi, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: 1971); Maurizio Viroli, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism (Oxford: 1995).

Romancing the Monarchy

285

And despite reactionary desires to return to a full-force ancien régime, many restored monarchs realized that after 1813 they ruled, not just by the Grace of God, but also thanks to the fact that the people had lost faith in Napoleon. Picking up from Enlightenment virtues (a Ciceronian Love of the Fatherland and what Bolingbroke had called a Patriot King), restored monarchs to some extent bought into nationalism, projecting themselves as the nation’s paternal protector and trying to evoke some of the soft power that father-figures can elicit. A new national anthem like the Netherlandic one, by Tollens (1816), is an early example to reconcile the notions of Fatherland and Monarch, ideals which until then had belonged at opposite ends of the spectrum of political rhetoric (Vive la Patrie! vs. Vive le Roi!). This reconciled love of both Monarch and Fatherland is to be expressed by all those who live and breathe their shared nationality, and through whose veins, as the anthem’s initial metaphor has it, “Netherlandic blood flows”.4 Such gestures form the beginning of a remarkable ideological hybrid which I have elsewhere termed “Royalty Nationalism”, analogous to the German word Reichspatriotismus. It affected in particular those monarchs who had spent their youths during the Romantic decades and who had internalized some of the Romantic glamour with which the likes of Sir Walter Scott and Ludwig Tieck had invested royalty – the rosy-tinted spectacles of men with a medievalist interest and unsympathetic to the ruthless modernity brought by Napoleon and his armies. The prototypes were Ludwig I of Bavaria, who as Crown Prince sported the Old German traditional dress and evinced Philhellenic sympathies, and George IV, who allowed Walter Scott to dress him up in kilt and tartan for his notorious Edinburgh visit of 1822. They were followed by a second generation of “Romantics on the throne” such as Otto of Greece (Ludwig’s son) who introduced the fustanella kilt as court dress, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, and Willem II of the Netherlands.5 The retreat from royal power into national-symbolic glamour was a ­rearguard action, and in many cases we see lingering aspirations towards authoritarian monarchical rule untrammeled by constitutional checks and balances. But on

4 Lucien Febvre, Honneur et Patrie, Une enquête sur le sentiment d’honneur et l’attachement à la patrie (Paris: 1996); Matthijs Lok, Windvanen: Napoleontische bestuurders in de Nederlandse en Franse Restauratie (1813–1820) (Amsterdam: 2009). 5 I have discussed these exemplars of “Royalty Nationalism” more fully in “Reichspatriotismus and Royalty Nationalism: Romancing the Monarchy,” in Monarchy in the Age of Reaction and Nationalism: Post-Napoleonic Nordic Monarchies in a European Comparative Perspective, ed. Michael Bregnsbo (Basingstoke: forthcoming). Tollens’s anthem: https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer .p/21/54/object/351-224842 (accessed 31 October 2020).

286

Leerssen

the whole, between the French Revolution and the First World War, the monarchies of Europe lost most of their real, hard power. By 1920, the only absolute monarch left in Europe was the Pope. Reichspatriotismus by the later 19th century usually meant that the monarchy showed special affinity for the country’s outlying provinces and the common people, playing off their Gemeinschaft traditions against the centralizing and middle-class Gesellschaft orientation of nationalism. If, in Karl Mannheim’s view, the French Revolution had made traditionalists aware of their traditionalism and so turned them into conservatives, Reichspatriotismus was the inverse: conservatism trying to ­present itself as mere traditionalism. The “Romantics on the throne” were either motivated themselves by a Romantic self-image concerning their position and persona, or else could energize a Romantic glamour around their monarchical position, instilling it with sentimental appeal and “soft power”. And among the royals playing that particular role between the Romantic imagination and political reality were, foregroundedly, women. In the present chapter I want to sharpen the focus on this remarkable intersection between monarchism and Romantic Nationalism by looking at it in a gender-inflected way. In rendering the monarchy glamorous and “romantic”, women played perhaps a more successful part than Otto of Greece, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia or Willem II of the Netherlands, or the spectacularly unsuccessful Ludwig II of Bavaria. Female royals offered to the public-at-large something to sympathize with: a sense of charm, vulnerability and genuine emotion, often as a contrast-note to the monarchy’s more severe power-figures. The tone was set as early as 1790, in a famous purple passage from the ageing Edmund Burke: It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy. […] Little did I dream […] that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.6

6 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 12th ed. (London: 1872), 74.

Romancing the Monarchy

287

That lachrymose sentimentalism can be traced all the way to Tony Blair’s emotion-choked response to the death of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales (1997), calling her, in terms that would have set Burke reeling, “the people’s princess”. [People] liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was the people’s princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.7 Fond of romance, they became romance, and in sentimentalizing the monarchy they gave it something it had never cared about until 1815: soft power8 and an affective bond with “the people”. Romantic Queens have, to my knowledge, rarely been analyzed as a specific historical agent or cohort. Their presence is diffuse and we do not e­ asily see the individual instances as representatives of a collective type. At the same time the type was “in the air”. In the century when the Grimm Fairy Tales swept Europe, fictional princesses became proverbial sentimental heroines (foreshadowing the 20th-century rise of the “Disney Princess”9), and in very different countries we see young queens taking up a very comparable public persona. These ­various royal females embodied a very similar conduit between the glamour of royalty, the interest in colorful peripheries and picturesque traditions, and a “human touch” beyond the state-monarchical function capable of reconciling public opinion with the dynasty in an affective community. The typological similarities probably represent a parallel response to similar ­circumstances, where Royalty meet Romanticism and there is some mismatch between their declining power and the public taste for sentimental traditionalism. It is in this conjunction that traditional notions of femininity may come to play a very ­specific part. To illustrate this, I want to concentrate on three of them, ­Louise of Prussia, Victoria of the United Kingdom, and Elisabeth of Austria and Hungary.

7 8

9

John Rentoul, Tony Blair: Prime Minister (London: 2013), chapter 18: “Blair and the Crown: Death of Diana, 31 August 1997”. The concept was developed by Joseph Nye in the 1980s; cf. his Soft Power: The Means of Success in World Politics (New York: 2004). It is usually applied to international relations; I feel it is useful also for internal, constitutional power politics, where it is correlated with the monarchy’s “symbolic capital” (as per Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste: (Cambridge, MA: 1984)). Tison Pugh and Susan Aronstein (eds.), The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy-Tale and Fantasy Past (Basingstoke: 2012).

288 1

Leerssen

Prussia’s Mater Dolorosa: Queen Louise

How romantic can the Prussian monarchy be? Overshadowed by that country’s dour and militaristic reputation, we can nevertheless discern a historical myth that used femininity to bolster a sense of romantic and monarchical nationalism. This myth revolves around Queen Louise (1776–1810), wife of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III.10 She had been born into the ducal house of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and married the Prussian Crown Prince in late 1793. She was known for her good looks (a double statue of her and her sister, by Schadow, became iconic as a result of its girlish charm), for her harmonious

Figure 13.1 Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Queen Louise, c. 1801 WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 10

On the political cult of Louise, see the chapter on her in Wulf Wülfing, Karin Bruns, and Rolf Parr, Historische Mythologie der Deutschen, 1798–1918 (Munich: 1991), 59‒111.

Romancing the Monarchy

289

family life (she gave birth to ten children between 1794 and 1809), and for her charitable disposition. Some of the bourgeois sentimentality of the Sturm und Drang had made its mark in the Prussian royal family, which for the first time in history perhaps exuded something like “family values” rather than stern, manly dedication to austere duty. It was she, probably, who pioneered the royal habit of kissing babies when meeting cheering crowds – a gesture which was immediately celebrated by the romantic Friedrich de La Motte Fouqué, and which rendered her a nationally public figure in her own right rather than a consort in the monarchy’s private background. How profitable such as new public presence could be to the Prussian ­monarchy became obvious after the country’s humiliation at the hands of Napoleon. Friedrich Wilhelm was not a very able or successful head of state during the rise of Napoleon; under his rule, Prussia’s initial neutrality became a form of political vacillation, and when the country finally did join the anti-­ Napoleonic alliance it was only to incur the devastating defeat of Jena. Its military reputation and actual power in tatters, Prussia became a Napoleonic client state and faced punitive peace terms at the Tilsit Treaty in 1807. It was here that the figure of Louise catered for wounded feelings, largely by sharing them and by symbolically sharing her country’s humiliation with ­feminine meekness and self-abnegation. Inveterate enemy of Napoleon though she was, she agreed to meet him in person and to mount a charm offensive so as to gain better peace terms. Napoleon proved impervious, but Louise now enjoyed the status of a national martyr, sacrificing her dignity out of maternal solicitude for her country and its people. The fact that the royal couple could not return from East Prussia to the French-occupied capital Berlin added to her aura of martyrdom; her early death in 1810 was popularly explained as being caused by grief over her country’s shame. In other words: Queen Louise turned an embarrassing defeat into an edifying tragedy. She could do so by virtue of being a woman. Like her prettiness and domesticity, her “sacrifices” and drooping grief are sentimental qualities that would not have looked well on a Prussian king, but they chimed with traditional notions of femininity. While Friedrich Wilhelm had little inspirational value to offer his subjects after Jena, Queen Louise could turn her husband’s inept failure into her own affecting pathos and a conjunction of national and family values. The memory of Queen Louise was accordingly seized on immediately by her subjects. The progress of her funeral cortege sparked almost religious adorations, and in the town of Gransee, a monument to her coffin’s passage was raised as early as 1811, funded by public subscription. It was soon followed by this poem by the writer-volunteer Theodor Körner, immortalized by his death on the battlefield in 1813:

290

Leerssen

You saint, hear your children’s pleading! Let it surge upwards into your light! / You can kindly look down upon us, illuminated angel! Weep no more! / For Prussia’s eagle will wave us towards battle and your cheering people press forward to do its duty. / And each of them chooses – and no-one will you see shrinking – free death over servile life. ….. And much as long ago, to invigorate all forces, / a protective saint’s image was given to the army flags for the just war, / an oriflamme raised aloft skywards / – so your image will hover on our banners / and be a g­ uiding light across the night towards victory. / Louise will be the ­protecting spirit of the German cause; / Louise will be our vengeful battle cry!11 Mother to her children, angel and tutelary saint to her nation: small wonder that Louise was featured on the great Nationaldenkmal für die Befreiungskriege (1821), commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm and executed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and others in neo-gothic style. Louise is shown allegorically as an angelically winged figure holding a Reichsapfel and standing over a wreathed prototype of the Iron Cross. The Iron Cross in fact also holds a feminine connotation. Under Princess Marianne, Friedrich Wilhelm’s sister-in-law and Louise’s successor as First Lady of the Prussian court after 1810, noble ladies began to donate their jewelry in fund-raising efforts to buy arms. The slogan was that “I gave gold to buy iron” (Gold gab ich für Eisen), and iron jewelry was patriotically fashionable at the time. It was partly in recognition of this domestic, feminine support that

figure 13.2 The Death Bed of Queen Louise, allegorical mural by Hermann Wislicenus in the Kaiserpfalz, Goslar (1885). On the left, civilians mourn and soldiers join ranks as they march forth to war; on the right, women donating jewelry and soldiers ­arising in arms, with two ­allegorical eagles ready to take wing. ERNiE IMAGEBANK 11

“An die Königin Luise,” orig. 1813; original online at https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/21/56/ object/351-274183 (accessed 31 October 2020). An image of the Gransee cenotaph as well as other Louise monuments from the period 1811–1900 is at https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/ 21/56/object/131-140919 (accessed 31 October 2020).

Romancing the Monarchy

291

the campaign medal established by Friedrich Wilhelm for the 1813 Liberation Wars was, precisely, an Iron Cross. The spirit of 1813 became a foundational myth for Prussia, and the cult of Queen Louise spread far and wide. The völkisch-nationalist poet-professor Felix Dahn repeatedly invoked her memory in the closing decades of the ­century, starting when a Luisenfeier marked her centenary in 1877. Dahn addressed her as a national mother goddess (O Geist Luisens – segne unsre Jugend!). By this time (we are now in the triumphalist days of the Gründerzeit), Dahn could also represent her death as being ultimately vindicated in the Reich-restoring victory of her second son, Wilhelm I (1797–1888). She gave us that son, who gloriously gathered around him / the German tribes to build the Reich anew. / And the proud imperial throne of that realm / was given by the God of Victory to Louise’s son.12 The parallel between the Virgin Mary and her son, the Messiah, could not be more ham-fisted. But not only her public role of spiritually leading the nation through defeat towards victory was cultivated, there was also a twee celebration of or private, familial allure, with sentimental chromolithographed ­picture books for young children (Die Königin Luise in 50 Bildern für Jung und Alt13). Thus Prussian royalty could wield Bismarck-style blood-and-iron power, and at the same time appeal to the softer and more domestic virtues of patient endurance; the latter came in handy again after 1918. Sentimental-political films were made about her in 1913, 1927–28 and 1931. When yet another defeat threatened, between 1943 and 1945, the spirit of 1813 was firmly being put into Nazi service, with Goebbels channeling Körner and the 1813 events repeatedly, in his oratory and in his great film epic Kolberg (1945). To that large-scale extravaganza, major resources were diverted even as the Reich was collapsing and Louise’s statue in Tilsit was destroyed in the city’s total ruination. But myths about endurance have great powers to endure. In 1957, yet another sentimental biopic was made, starring Ruth Leuwerik. Its success was overshadowed by the world-engulfing shlock tsunami of the Sissi franchise, to which I shall turn further on; Louise remained latently present as a corrective afterthought to redeem Prussian history from its “blood and iron” harshness. Her stature links the realm of private moral redemption to that of public 12 13

Felix Dahn, “An Königin Louise,” 1878; original online at https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/ 21/56/object/351-247962 (accessed 31 October 2020). Paul Kittel (ed.), Die Königin Luise in 50 Bildern für Jung und Alt (Berlin: 1896), online at https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/21/56/object/348-251717 (accessed 31 October 2020).

292

Leerssen

political action, and in twinning the two, she is a unique and powerful example of Prussian political romanticism and royalty nationalism. In 2014, a copy of her destroyed Tilsit statue was put up in that city, now called Sovetsk. 2

Victoria and Her Highlanders: Royal-rustic Communitarianism

The reputation of Queen, later also Empress, Victoria (1819–1901) would not, at first sight, place her in a romantic light. Her name has come to stand for a period in cultural and literary history which arose after Romanticism had ended. “Victorian” is a byword for 19th-century prudery and priggishness. “We are not amused” is, appropriately, the apocryphal soundbite by which ­Victoria is best remembered. She draped her long-lasting widowhood around her public persona in order to avoid the duties of a Queen Regnant, and as a result

figure 13.3 Queen Victoria upon her accession to the throne in 1837. Enamel by Henry Pierce Bone (1843) after the state portrait by George Hayter (1838). WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Romancing the Monarchy

293

the British Monarchy at its apex wore an aura of mournful moralism. We do not associate romantic passion or emotive idealism with that. What romantic things there are in Britain’s mid-century decades are often associated with Victoria’s consort Albert, who is credited with importing from Germany an enthusiasm for the music of Mendelssohn, or the fashion for Christmas Trees. The impression of a romantic “Albert effect” is strengthened by a dual statue of the royal couple in the National Portrait Gallery, depicting them standing tenderly together in mock-medieval garb as a knight of romance and his noble damsel. Victoria, who survived Albert by 40 years following his death in 1861, married him at the age of 21, in 1840. By that time her emotional life flourished with all the affective intensity one would respect of that youthful age and in a decade when the literary school now called “romantic” was still fresh in the memory. Victoria’s birth-year 1819 has been memorably analyzed as a nodal point in political and cultural history by James Chandler,14 and the young princess carried the imprint of that birth-year in her early, fervent enthusiasm for the works of Sir Walter Scott. She was, indeed, among the first post-contemporary readers of Scott who would crystallize his imagery into an iconography of Scotland.15 Indeed, if Scott had notoriously played a crucial role in making George IV wear a kilt on his 1822 visit to Edinburgh, his influence on the taste of George’s niece and successor was more important and more lasting. Reared on Scott’s verse romances and historical novels, Victoria had a highly romantic image of Scotland and in particular of the Highlands. Her first visit to Scotland occurred in 1842, two years after her marriage; her highly colorful impressions of the country were kept in a notebook which was published in 1868 as Leaves from the Journal of our Lives in the Highlands, 1848–61. As the “our” in the title indicates, the book was also a record of the married bliss she enjoyed with her Albert during their off-duty times north of the border. Scotland provided hunting for Albert and a picturesque landscape with charming rustics, traditions and manners to Victoria. The scenic highlights were being by now canonized in the newly-developing tourist infrastructure and travel guides based, in turn, on the settings of Scott’s poems and tales.16 At the same time, the acquisition and restoration of Balmoral Castle and her patronage of the Scottish landscape 14 15 16

James Chandler, England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic H ­ istoricism (Chicago: 1998). John H. Raleigh, “What Scott Meant to the Victorians,” Victorian Studies 7 (1963), 7–34. Alex Tyrell, “The Queen’s ‘Little Trip’: The Royal Visit to Scotland in 1842,” Scottish Historical Review 82 (2003), 47–73; Katherine H. Grenier, Tourism and Identity in Scotland, 1770–1914: Creating Caledonia (Aldershot: 2005); Ann Rigney, The Afterlives of Walter Scott: Memory on the Move (Oxford: 2015).

294

Leerssen

artist Landseer show further proof that a penchant for romantic couleur locale was there within Victoria’s own personality, fully in tune and indeed in advance of British taste generally,17 and needing no cultural transfers from Germany mediated by the Prince Consort. The point I want to make here is not to trace a “romantic” image of Scotland in the 19th-century British imagination, or merely to highlight the more emotive early years of the Queen’s earlier life. It seems to me that what Victoria loved about Scotland fits, ideologically, the conservative Reichspatriotismus that was spreading in Europe in the mid-century. What was it that made Scotland attractive? The landscape fitted, of course, the register of the Sublime rather than the Beautiful, and its associations with the settings of Scott meant that narratives about doomed lovers and tragic rebels complemented the visual impression. Indeed, Scott had followed the imagination of his time by representing the Highlands as the habitat of cattle-robbers, rebels and outlaws, men with a feudal loyalty to their chief but scant regard for the laws of the civil authorities. This frisson was in fact precisely what Victoria enjoyed: the kilt-clad locals were rough-hewn and bluntly straightforward in their manners and as such they made a welcome change from the polished servility of manipulative courtiers. Throughout her life she persisted in her appreciation for precisely this popular traditionalism, with her patronage of bagpiping, Highland games, and her later reliance on her blunt-spoken Scottish ghillie John Brown. What takes shape here is, I think, a pattern in royalty nationalism: a sense of the organic, communitarian bond between monarch and rustic, bypassing the intervening institutional layer of bourgeois officialdom and avoiding the modern, tradition-breaking ambience of the city. Ferdinand Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft was as yet a few decades in the future but the mentality that he captured was already in the air: a nostalgic longing for the fixed and comforting relations of the rural community, as against the alienating individuation of modern urban society. That nostalgic longing was perhaps best captured, in these very decades, by Benjamin Disraeli’s “One-nation Conservatism”, which extolled the natural community of interests between paternalist landowner and loyal peasant; this community prevented, or could cure, the class struggle between Rich and Poor.18 Rustic nostalgia has remained a strong ingredient in one-nation conservatism, and traditionalist conservatism 17 18

John Morrison, “‘The Whole is Quite Consonant with the Truth:’ Queen Victoria and the Myth of the Highland,” in Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, ed. Susanna Avery-Quash (­London: 2012), 2–16. Terence Andrew Jenkins, Disraeli and Victorian Conservatism (Basingstoke: 1996); Robert O’Kell, Disraeli: The Romance of Politics (Toronto: 2013).

Romancing the Monarchy

295

generally, spawning a cultural production of “Englishness” narratives from Anthony Trollope to Downton Abbey. But it was also intuited in the sympathy Queen Victoria felt to exist between her and her Highland subjects. That they were rough-hewn in their manners and had an ancestral history of violence and insurrection (à la the Jacobites of Scott’s Waverley and the Macgregors of his Rob Roy) only added spice to the caber-tossing and strathspey-dancing. The register is a close analogue of another, very similar link between romanticism and royalty nationalism: that of the Tyrolean peasants on the ­Bavarian/ Austrian border. Like the Highlanders, Tyroleans were proverbially rough and forthright in their manners, and like the Highlanders they had engaged in an armed rebellion in living memory; but like the Scottish 1745, the Tyrolean Peasant Uprising of 1809 had been anything but revolutionary or ideologically threatening. Both Highlanders and Tyroleans, in their traditional, picturesque costumes, had marched forth from their fastnesses in their sublime mountainous homelands in order to assert a dogged traditionalist loyalty to their traditionally acknowledged feudal lords. The Scottish clans had fought for the ousted Stuart Pretender; the Tyroleans for their Austrian liberties now threated by the Napoleonic kingdom of Bavaria to which their territory had been transferred. Andreas Hofer, the executed leader of the doomed Tyrolean Uprising, soon became a darling of German Romantics; the Habsburg monarchy later canonized him by placing his statue in Vienna’s Feldherrnhalle.19 The conservative values of the ancien régime monarchy were well served by a bit of Roman�tic folk authenticity. And in a remarkable Highland-Tyrolean parallel, the traditional dress of both mountain regions found royal favor in the mid-century. In the same year that Victoria showed her young husband around Scotland, 1842, the wedding of the Bavarian Crown Prince Maximilian with the Prussian princess Marie featured the presence of Bavarian peasants in traditional costume. In 1853, the same Maximilian (now King Maximilian II) triggered the cult of Dirndl and Lederhosen when he issued a decree for the “Raising of national feeling and especially of traditional dress” in order to oppose allgemeine Verflachung (“general levelling”). One year later, Maximilian’s distant niece Elisabeth married the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph. She would direct her romantic sympathy for rough-hewn, picturesque provincials, not to Tyroleans or Highlanders, but to the disaffected Hungarian part of the Habsburg Empire.

19

Michael Forcher, Anno Neun: Der Tiroler Freiheitskampf von 1809 unter Andreas Hofer: Ereignisse, Hintergründe, Nachwirkungen (Innsbruck: 2008); Siegfried Steinlechner, Des Hofers neue Kleider: Über die staatstragende Funktion von Mythen (Vienna: 2000).

296 3

Leerssen

Aber Sissi!...

Throughout the past half-century, Europe has wallowed in the romantic and sentimental memory cult of Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and later also Queen of Hungary (1837–1898). Three generations having grown up with annual Christmas TV showings of the Romy Schneider film trilogy: Sissi (1955), Sissi – Die junge Kaiserin (1956) and Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957). Celebrity status was given to this Romy-Schneider-reincarnation of the young Bavarian princess (1837–1898) who married an emperor and was murdered in Geneva. Eleven statues have been put up to her since 1997, in places as diverse as Trieste, Merano, Zandvoort and Funchal. She has been used as a brand for

figure 13.4 Franz Joseph and Elisabeth proclaimed King and Queen of Hungary, painting by Eduard von Engerth (1872). ERNiE IMAGEBANK

Romancing the Monarchy

297

fancy chocolates, and has featured on four different issues of Austrian postage stamps in the same period. She has received the ultimate accolade of pop-­ cultural celebrity: the musical Elisabeth premiered in Vienna and has by now been seen, in various productions in different languages, by 10 million spectators worldwide (according to Wikipedia). Clearly, if the romance of Louise and Victoria had to be retrieved from comparative neglect, that of Sissi has to be retrieved from the post-Schneider avalanche of commodification.20 To work our way back towards the Elisabeth of 19th-century royalty nationalism, the run-up to the 1955 film may be a starting point. The film went back to a theatrical production of the 1931, Sissys Brautfahrt (by Ernst Décsey and ­Gustav Holm), which was turned into an operetta (Sissy, 1932–36) by the brothers Ernst and Hubert Marischka. At the same time a vie romancée was published for the popular market, Sissi, by Marie Blank-Eismann (1933). When that book was reprinted in 1952, one of the Marischka brothers, Ernst, decided to turn the pre-war operetta material into a film.21 He had already made a successful film about a young queen, in fact about none other than young Queen Victoria; in fact he had made that film twice, initially in 1936 with a remake in 1954. The post-war remake of Mädchenjahre einer Königin starred none other than Romy Schneider in her film debut, and it was she whom Marischka chose to star in his 1955 Sissi. A few things leap to the eye from amidst this thicket of names and recy�clings. One is that there was obviously, even then, a taste for sentimental enter�tainment about young queens: Romy Schneider played both Victoria and Sissi in the same decade that Ruth Leuwerik starred as Queen Louise. The other is that this vogue was not wholly part of the Heile Welt-nostalgia and escapism of the post-1945 Trümmerjahre.22 To be sure, the trilogy breathed the taste and spirit of the 1950s, not least in the way it opposes the girlish vitality and spontaneity of the young generation against the hidebound severity of the old. Sissi picked up from an earlier, 1930s vogue that had just been making the transition from theatre and pulp novellas to cinema. Imperial nostalgia was a constant, apparently, in Austrian middlebrow culture, merely suspended during the Third Reich. 20 21 22

Maura E. Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke, Sissi’s World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth (New York: 2018). The tangled lines of adaptation and inspiration led to a court case, the details of which were reported by Georg Markus, “Das Ende des ‘Sissi’-Krieges,” Kurier am Sonntag, 1 March 2015. On which, see Willy Höfig, Der deutsche Heimatfilm. 1947–1960 (Stuttgart: 1973), and more ­particularly, Karolien Lammers, “De verheerlijking van het Habsburgse verleden in de ­nostalgische Oostenrijkse film van de jaren vijftig” (MA thesis, University of Amsterdam: 2009).

298

Leerssen

But where, then, did the 1930s popularity come from? Indeed, the commemorative tradition goes back further, all the way to the years following Elisabeth’s assassination in 1898 and indeed even earlier. At the beginning of the 1930s cult stands the monument erected in her honor in Budapest in 1932, at the foot of the great bridge named after her, Erzsébet híd. The present-day bridge ­(1961–64) replaces an older one (destroyed in 1945), built in 1898–1903. The Elisabeth bridge was begun, then, in the very year of Elisabeth’s death, and at the same time we see a wave of Sissi statues erupt all over Austria-Hungary – sixteen between 1899 and the outbreak of the Great War. Many of these were copies of a prototypical bust by Aloys Strobl inspired by her coronation outfit of 1867; they were placed on pillars in public parks of the towns of Greater Hungary, and many of them, located as they were in places that ceased to be Hungarian after 1918, were subsequently destroyed or removed.23 There was, then, a huge Sissi cult in the Habsburg Empire around 1900. That this cult should affect the Hungarian Kingdom most of all is understandable in light of the fact that Elisabeth had traditionally been sympathetically predisposed towards that part of the Danube Empire – more sympathetic than the Austrian court that she married into. And it is at this point that we can trace the cult, or at least its Hungarian gravitation, back to Elisabeth’s own Romantic proclivities. She was, indeed, a “Romantic on the Throne”, more so than Louise and ­Victoria, who belonged to an older generation. In Elisabeth’s year of birth, 1837, Louise of Prussia had already been dead for a quarter-century and Victoria, having come of age, mounted the throne. Sissi’s Romanticism was intense and self-aware. She adored the poet Heinrich Heine, wanted to erect a statue in his honor in the poet’s native city of Düsseldorf and, when that failed owing to ambient antisemitism, had it placed on her summer estate in Corfu. She herself kept a poetical journal-in-verse, in which we find these fervent lines dedicated to her maestro: My soul sobs, jubilate and weeps / Last night she had been united to yours; / she kept you in such an intimate and tight embrace / and you pressed her passionately to yours. / You have fertilized her and made her happy / she still shivers and trembles, yet is enlivened. / O if only, after some months, from her might bloom / such delightful ballads as you used to create! / How she would cherish the offspring you gave her/ the ­children that you, your soul, have spilled.24 23 Online at https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/21/56/object/131-282157 (accessed 31 October 2020). 24 Original online at https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/21/54/object/351-282168 (accessed 31 ­October 2020).

Romancing the Monarchy

299

Part of Elisabeth’s passionate, self-conscious romanticism was her sympathy for Hungarian culture. At the time of her marriage to Franz Joseph in 1854, Hungary was laboring under the repressive backlash provoked by the failed revolution of 1848. The Habsburg authorities were deeply suspicious of any ­expression of Hungarian national-mindedness, interpreting it as a sign of d­ isaffection with the kingdom’s subordination under the Habsburg crown. Elisabeth, however, had, in preparation for her marriage, been tutored in ­Hungarian history by the historian Josef von Mailáth, who lived in exile in Munich, and his lessons appear to have awakened a lively sympathy for H ­ ungarian culture and cultural aspirations. Mailáth was, in fact, a perfect example of the ideology of ­Reichspatriotismus: too conservative to support the radicalism of Kossuth in 1848, he had nonetheless evinced a cultural commitment to the Hungarian past and to its folklore. It stands to reason that in his tuition something must have spilled over from the two history-books he had published on the subject: his Geschichte der Magyaren (1828–31) and his Geschichte des österreichischen Kaiserstaates (1834–37).25 Reichspatriotismus and romanticism meet in Mailáth. As an elderly man (he had been born in 1786) he appears to have been besotted with his young pupil, whom, despite his penury, he taught free of charge. He probably hoped for an upturn in his fortunes through the connection with the future Empress. When Elisabeth abandoned him and Munich in 1854, these hopes evaporated, and Mailáth, in despair, drowned himself. Elisabeth, for her part, maintained a pronounced Magyarophilia in silent defiance of the Court’s anti-­Hungarian mistrust. This did not go unnoticed among Hungarian public figures like Gyula Andrássy, with whom she was friendly. When in 1867 the Ausgleich restored Hungary to a dignified status under the Habsburg aegis, Elisabeth was widely credited with being its moving spirit. When the imperial couple were proclaimed King and Queen of what was now a kingdom in personal union with Austria, the pageantry in Budapest was a fervent, heightened display of ­historicist local color, with traditional uniforms and time-hallowed rituals. What Scott had attempted for George IV in Edinburgh, and what Victoria had cherished in a romanticized Scotland, was here brought to full fruition, with Elisabeth as the focus of affection. Small wonder, then, that after her death Hungary exploded in a statuomania which uniformly commemorated Elisabeth by her Hungarian name, Erzsébet, – which is also that of the country’s female patron saint26 – and not as Empress but as Queen. 25 26

On him, https://ernie.uva.nl/viewer.p/21/56/object/131-158817 (accessed 31 October 2020). Space does not permit a further exploration of the national and Reichspatriotic overtones of the Hungarian cult of St. Elisabeth during the years after 1854. Suffice it to point out

300

Leerssen

figure 13.5 Bust of Elisabeth in the Vojvodinian city of Szabadka (present-day Subotica, Serbia), cast from the original design by Strobl. The monument was put up by public subscription in 1900 and disappeared during World War II. ERNiE IMAGEBANK

4 Conclusion Sissi stands at the crossroads of two traditions. One is that of royal folklorism. Europe, on closer inspection, turns out to be full of queens who love the local color of their far-flung provinces and willingly present themselves in the that Liszt’s oratorio The Legend of St. Elisabeth of Hungary premiered in 1865, immediately preceding his commission to write the music for the 1866 coronation mass. Cf. Dezső Legány, Ferenc Liszt and His Country, 1869–1873 (Budapest: 1983).

Romancing the Monarchy

301

traditional dress of those peripheries. These queens might be businesslike in their approach to government – like Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who wore Frisian dress as part of the charm offensive undertaken as she succeeded her brutish father in 1890, or Alexandrine of Denmark, who wore Icelandic traditional dress on her 1921 visit to that independence-minded island. Or they may have been emotionally high-strung Romantics themselves, who lived the part. The example that comes to mind here is the Elisabeth, Princess zu Wied ­(1843–1916), who became Queen of Romania when her Hohenzollern husband Karl was called to the throne of that country in 1880 as Carol I. Elisabeth helped give the court its slightly Ruritanian flavor, and produced a great v­ olume of sentimental and passionate poetry, narratives and melodrama under the pen

figure 13.6 Ludwig II of Bavaria as Swan Knight, vintage ­postcard ALAMY

302

Leerssen

name “Carmen Sylva”.27 She had her portrait taken in the garb of a countrywoman, complete with spinning spindle and distaff. Also worthy of mention here is Ludwig II of Bavaria, not quite a Queen as such, but notorious for the ambivalence of his gender identity. For Ludwig, romance and real life were indistinguishable. How strongly he identified with Richard Wagner’s fairy-tale knight Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan,28 is evident from the name Neuschwanstein he gave to the castle he had constructed as a private Disneyland (or rather, Wagnerland) from 1869. Neuschwanstein is possibly the most notorious fairy-tale palace of the 19th century, but as such it is not unique; the Sinaia palace of Karl/Carol and Elizabeth of Romania runs a close second, and Victoria’s Balmoral was also a place designed to “live the dream”. The Hungarian place of choice for Elisabeth of Hungary was the Gödöllő palace offered to the royal couple by the Hungarian kingdom in 1867. Notoriously, Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein served as a model for the Castle of Sleeping Beauty that has become the hallmark of Disneyland and of Disney studios generally. If in the foregoing paragraph I have hinted at fairy-tale escapism as part of the mentality of feminine royalty nationalism – the type of escape from court life that male royals would find on the hunt or in military exploits – then indeed part of the after-effect of this “romancing of the monarchy” lies in the realm of fairy-tale and escapist romance. The Princess or Young Queen as a character in a sentimental romance or fairy tale: that is the other legacy of Elisabeth of Austria/Hungary. The fraught life of the real person was acknowledged in the literary reworkings of her ­legacy – it would be hard to write the Mayerling tragedy, or her death at the hands of an assassin, of the story altogether – but somehow it was glossed over by the jewelry, the gowns, the sumptuous, nostalgically recalled grandeur of court life, the cheerful, wholesome figure of Romy Schneider, and her mother in the movies (played by real-life mother Magda Schneider) clasping her hands in affectionate exasperation, sighing Aber Sissi!... From the kitschy 1950s movies about Louise, Victoria and Sissi to the biopic of Marie-Antoinette by Sofia Coppola (2006) and various Netflix series, Young Queens have been reframed as Disney Princesses. They give to a self-perpetuating, conservative über-elite at the apex of the state the ­candy-colored charm of a Once Upon A Time story, like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella or Snow White. 27 28

On her, Silvia Irina Zimmermann, Die dichtende Königin. Elisabeth, Prinzessin zu Wied, Königin von Rumänien, Carmen Sylva (1843–1916). Selbstmythisierung und prodynastische Öffentlichkeitsarbeit durch Literatur (Stuttgart: 2010). Cf. Sean F. Edgecomb, “A Performance between Wood and the World: Ludwig II of Bavaria’s Queer Swans,” Theatre Survey 59 (2018), 221–48.

Romancing the Monarchy

303

That, too, is a legacy of the Romantic period, as much as the neo-Gothicism of Balmoral, Neuschwanstein or Sinaia. Sinaia and Neuschwanstein are now tourist destinations, and the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales are a Disney franchise. It was the fate of Romantic Nationalism, and of 19th-century cultural nationalism generally, to dissipate into that informal, ambient feelgood branding that Michael Billig has memorably analyzed as Banal Nationalism. Billig’s analysis deals mainly with political symbols; but far more ambient than a flag, anthem or national coat of arms is the banalization of royalty nationalism into the trivia of escapist c­ ommercial entertainment. For better or for worse, this is often genderized in the traditional-feminine register. Interested as it is in the tension between public status and intimate emotions, its preferred focus is on the private affects of female royals. Bibliography Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste: (Cambridge, MA: 1984. Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 12th ed. (London: 1872). Chandler, James, England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of R ­ omantic Historicism (Chicago: 1998). Dahn, Felix, “An Königin Louise,” 1878; original online at https://ernie.uva.nl/­ viewer.p/21/56/object/351-247962 (31 October 2020). Febvre, Lucien, Honneur et Patrie, Une enquête sur le sentiment d’honneur et l’attachement à la patrie (Paris: 1996). Forcher, Michael, Anno Neun: Der Tiroler Freiheitskampf von 1809 unter Andreas Hofer: Ereignisse, Hintergründe, Nachwirkungen (Innsbruck: 2008). Freeden, Michael, “Is Nationalism a Distinct Ideology?,” Political Studies 46 (1998), 748–65. Grenier, Katherine H., Tourism and Identity in Scotland, 1770–1914: Creating Caledonia (Aldershot: 2005). Hametz, Maura E., and Heidi Schlipphacke, Sissi’s World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth (New York: 2018). Höfig, Willy, Der deutsche Heimatfilm. 1947–1960 (Stuttgart: 1973). Jenkins, Terence Andrew, Disraeli and Victorian Conservatism (Basingstoke: 1996). Kittel, Paul (ed.), Die Königin Luise in 50 Bildern für Jung und Alt (Berlin: 1896). Lammers, Karolien, “De verheerlijking van het Habsburgse verleden in de nostalgische Oostenrijkse film van de jaren vijftig” (MA thesis, University of Amsterdam: 2009). Leerssen, Joep, Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: 2018).

304

Leerssen

Leerssen, Joep, National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam: 2018). Leerssen, Joep, “Reichspatriotismus and Royalty Nationalism: Romancing the ­Monarchy,” in Monarchy in the Age of Reaction and Nationalism: Post-Napoleonic Nordic Monarchies in a European Comparative Perspective, ed. Michael Bregnsbo (Basingstoke: forthcoming). Legány, Dezső, Ferenc Liszt and His Country, 1869–1873 (Budapest: 1983). Lok, Matthijs, Windvanen: Napoleontische bestuurders in de Nederlandse en Franse Restauratie (1813–1820) (Amsterdam: 2009). Markus, Georg, “Das Ende des ‘Sissi’-Krieges,” Kurier am Sonntag, 1 March 2015. Morrison, John, “‘The Whole is Quite Consonant with the Truth:’ Queen Victoria and the Myth of the Highland,” in Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, ed. Susanna Avery-Quash (London: 2012), 2–16. Nye, Joseph: Soft Power: The Means of Success in World Politics (New York: 2004). O’Kell, Robert, Disraeli: The Romance of Politics (Toronto: 2013). Pugh, Tison, and Susan Aronstein (eds.), The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy-Tale and F­ antasy Past (Basingstoke: 2012). Raleigh, John H., “What Scott Meant to the Victorians,” Victorian Studies 7 (1963), 7–34. Rentoul, John, Tony Blair: Prime Minister (London: 2013). Rigney, Ann, The Afterlives of Walter Scott: Memory on the Move (Oxford: 2015). Steinlechner, Siegfried, Des Hofers neue Kleider: Über die staatstragende Funktion von Mythen (Vienna: 2000). Tyrell, Alex, “The Queen’s ‘Little Trip’: The Royal Visit to Scotland in 1842,” Scottish H ­ istorical Review 82 (2003), 47–73. Venturi, Franco, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: 1971). Viroli, Maurizio, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism (Oxford: 1995). Wülfing, Wulf, Karin Bruns, and Rolf Parr, Historische Mythologie der Deutschen, ­1798–1918 (Munich: 1991), 59‒111.

PART 3 Conservative Modernisms

∵

CHAPTER 14

Conservative Women Writers: A Transnational History of Literary Bestsellers Opposing Liberalism and Early Feminism, c. 1850–1900 Amerigo Caruso Throughout the 19th century, women, as both readers and writers, were at the forefront of the growth in the publishing market and the birth of a modern media society.1 However, in a century dominated by the idea that women belonged to a separate sphere, it was inevitable that female journalism and ­fiction favored themes that were constrained by the boundaries of what was considered acceptable and appropriate for a woman.2 Assuming an educational and maternal role consistent with the norms of the period, the ­majority of women writers addressed female readers or children. In the specific context of conservative narrative and discourse, women writers openly commended traditional female roles, although there was an intrinsic contradiction in their endeavors, namely the fact that the very activity and agency of writers and journalists questioned these roles. The case of Germany, the starting point for the transnational analysis addressed in this chapter, is particularly interesting in the light of several important distinctive characteristics that regard the large numbers of successful women writers and journalists in the publishing market, but also the intensity of the political-ideological and religious tensions within the feminist movements.3 At the turn of the 21st century, a series of excellent studies brought to light the highly dynamic nature and importance of the conservative component in the process of politicization and mobilization of women in Germany across

1 See Frank Bösch, Mass Media and Historical Change: Germany in International Perspective, 1400 to the Present (New York: 2015), 77–91. 2 Silvana Patriarca, “Journalists and Essayists, 1850–1950,” in A History of Women’s Writing in Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood (Cambridge: 2000), 151–63. 3 For a summary introduction, see Sylvia Schraut, Bürgerinnen im Kaiserreich: Biografie eines Lebensstils (Stuttgart: 2013); Caroline Bland and Elisa Müller-Adams, “Weibliche Beteiligung an der literarischen Öffentlichkeit des langen 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Frauen in der literarischen Öffentlichkeit: 1780–1918, ed. Caroline Bland (Bielefeld: 2007), 9–28. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_014

308

Caruso

the late 19th and early 20th centuries.4 The novelty of this h ­ istoriography lies in the fact that during the 20th century historical studies of feminism often took a militant standpoint and paid little attention to conservative discourse and to what could be called “feminine anti-feminism”. Feminist criticism, not only in Germany, but also in Great Britain, for example, showed little sympathy for the apparent conservatism of 19th-century writers, and often condemned them to oblivion while focusing on the role of a minority of women authors considered “proto-feminists”.5 Like the other major social and political movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, feminism conducted a work of self-historicization aimed at legitimizing itself through a search for its own origins. This occurred particularly in the first decades of the 20th century and around 1970, that is, during f­ eminism’s two phases of greatest growth.6 The viewpoint adopted by 20th-century feminist thought created a distortion, with conservative writers and journalists often dropping off the research radar in the field of political participation and literary production, despite many of them having been equally or even more successful than their liberal, democratic counterparts. Furthermore, while the ability of literature to convey political messages through c­ onventional narrative has been studied in the case of “proto-­feminist”7 ­writers, there has so far been less historical reflection on the significance of mass-­consumption literature within anti-feminist, conservative discourse. It was only in the 21st century that a critical reappraisal of what has been described as “counter-revolutionary” and “conservative” feminism was embarked on – not only in the field of German history, as previously mentioned, but also in the British context.8 This 4 See in particular the works of Ute Planert, Antifeminismus im Kaiserreich: Diskurs, soziale Formation und politische Mentalität (Göttingen: 1998); Andrea Süchting-Hänger, Das ­ “Gewissen der Nation:” Nationales Engagement und politisches Handeln konservativer ­ ­Frauenorganisationen 1900 bis 1937 (Düsseldorf: 2002); Kirsten Heinsohn, Konservative Parteien in Deutschland 1912 bis 1933: Demokratisierung und Partizipation in geschlechterhistorischer Perspektive (Düsseldorf: 2010). 5 See Nicola Diane Thompson, “Responding to the Woman Questions: Rereading Noncanonical Victorian Women Novelists,” in Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question, ed. idem (Cambridge: 1999), 1–24. 6 See Barbara Korte and Sylvia Paletschek, “Blick zurück nach vorn: (Frauen-)Geschichte in feministischen Zeitschriften des 19. Jahrhunderts in Großbritannien und Deutschland,” in Geschlecht und Geschichte in populären Medien, ed. Elisabeth Cheauré and Sylvia Paletschek (Bielefeld: 2013), 105–36. 7 Birgit Mikus, The Political Woman in Print: German Women’s Writing 1845–1919 (Bern: 2014). 8 See, for example, Harriet Guest, “Hannah More and Conservative Feminism,” in B ­ ritish Women’s Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century: Authorship, Politics and History, ed. ­Jennie ­Batchelor and Cora Kaplan (Basingstoke: 2005), 158–70.

Conservative Women Writers

309

complicated the narrative of modern feminism, in that it acknowledged the impact of the ideas, activities and political spaces generated by so-called conservative feminism on the history of women. Building on these new lines of research, this chapter aims to throw a spotlight on the success of conservative women’s journalism and literature, focusing in particular on distribution channels and translations as a vehicle for transnational history.9 The first section of this chapter presents a short, in-depth evaluation of masculine antifeminism and female conservatism in Germany during the second half of the 19th century. Building on these premises, the second section focuses on the theme of conservative female literature, and ­follows the biographies and literary activities of three highly successful female authors: Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius. The third section looks at the distribution channels and international export market of the three writers’ works, and continues the exploration of the connection between literature and conservative discourse in a phase that witnessed an expansion of the political space, a growth in the market of ideas, and the development of a media-driven society.10 The final section examines the reasons behind the success of nostalgic-reactionary texts and its consequences in an era marked by huge political and social transformations. 1 Male Anti-feminism and the Mobilization of Conservative Women “First-wave feminism” was a varied mosaic of the differing ideas and expectations of moderate, radical, “bourgeois”, and socialdemocratic activists. Overlapping with these political and social divisions in the movement, which appeared not only in Germany but also in other European countries and the United States, was the distinction between Catholic and Protestant ­activists.11 With the partial exception of feminists of Jewish origin, denominational 9

10

11

On the role of translations in the transnational space and in the context of cultural transfers in 19th-century Europe, see Christophe Charle, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, York-Gothard Mix (eds.), Transkulturalität nationaler Räume in Europa (18. bis 19. Jahrhundert): Übersetzungen, Kulturtransfer und Vermittlungsinstanzen (Göttingen: 2017). On these issues, see Dieter Langewiesche, “Politikstile im Kaiserreich: Zum Wandel von ­Politik und Öffentlichkeit im Zeitalter des politischen Massenmarktes,” in Regierung, ­Parlament und Öffentlichkeit im Zeitalter Bismarcks: Politikstile im Wandel, ed. Lothar Gall ­(Paderborn: 2003), 1–21. See Myra Marx Ferree, Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (Stanford: 2012).

310

Caruso

affiliation and religion were a key determinant of first feminism.12 However, the ­difficulties faced by the “first feminist wave” were not only to do with internal divisions, but hinged above all on the strength of a conservative movement fiercely opposed to the ideas of emancipation and gender equality. In the case of Germany on the eve of the First World War, the membership of the cluster of conservative, nationalist women’s associations was decidedly greater than that of the bourgeois, or socialdemocratic feminist organizations.13 The anti-feminist associations opposed not only the issue of women’s ­suffrage, but also the less “revolutionary” claims made by liberal feminists, for example, the freedom to choose a spouse, access to university education, and the improvement of working conditions. Despite its highly conservative ­orientation, activism on the part of women in anti-feminist associations did not automatically produce an anti-emancipatory effect, instead it had the capacity to generate a moderate increase in self-esteem and, above all, it raised the possibility of women’s participation in politics, society and the workplace.14 Many women, both Catholic and Protestant, saw social activities and 19th-­century philanthropy as a great opportunity for agency, even though the associations in which they were active advocated conservative values and ideals of discipline.15 Furthermore, social engagement was often the prerequisite for women’s literary activity through collaborations with newspapers, translations, and the drafting of more or less ambitious texts. As early as the first half of the 19th century, and particularly after the 1848 revolutions, increasing political engagement and the rise of nationalism brought with them an increase in female activism and conflicts over the definition of gender roles. The effects of the politicization process on women’s emancipation were ambivalent, and the emerging paradigm of the patriotic woman did not include transcending her role as subordinate to men and to 12

13

14 15

Several recent studies have revised the traditional assumption that German Catholics were on average less well-educated and less predisposed to emancipation than their Protestant neighbors. Sylvia Schraut indeed shows that Catholic women had greater agency. See ­Sylvia Schraut, “Bildung, Konfession, Geschlecht: Der Zugang von Frauen zu Universitäten und Wissenschaft,” in Vom Wandel eines Ideals: Bildung, Universität und Gesellschaft in Deutschland, ed. Nikolaus Buschmann and Ute Planert (Bonn: 2010), 29–45. Christiane Streubel, “Die Frauen der Rechten in Kaiserreich und Republik: ein Überblick und Forschungsbericht,” Historical Social Research 4 (2003), 103–66, here 110–11. On the women’s socialdemocratic movement in the German Empire, see Richard J. Evans, Sozialdemokratie und Frauenemanzipation im deutschen Kaiserreich (Berlin: 1979). Roger Chickering, “‘Casting their gaze more broadly’. Women’s Patriotic Activism in Imperial Germany,” Past&Present 118 (1988), 156–85. Tiziana Plebani, Le scritture delle donne in Europa: Pratiche quotidiane e ambizioni letterarie (secoli xiii-xx) (Rome: 2019), 238.

Conservative Women Writers

311

the nation.16 Following the introduction of male suffrage in the majority of European countries, gender became the essential discriminating factor in determining the right to participate in politics. Anti-female stereotypes, such as the supposed passivity and inadequacy for political life of the “weaker sex”, were drawn upon to justify excluding women from voting.17 Even the intent of women to participate, at least as spectators and commentators, in debates in the new parliaments was met with skepticism and derision.18 The 1848 revolutions and the development of the political space over the following decades provided a decisive impetus for female activism and the redefining of gender roles, but they also highlighted the limits and difficulties of this path. It must be borne in mind that the process of women’s emancipation was further complicated by the fact that the decades following 1848 coincided with a gradual reorganization and modernization of conservative discourse, which possessed means of communication, pressure groups, and arguments that could engage with the masses.19 Female literature was one of the new weapons available to conservatives, and the new wave of politicization of 1848 was fundamental in inspiring and realizing the literary production of writers such as Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius. Analysis of the link between women’s writings and political conservatism is particularly important in the second half of the 19th century, that is, the period in which literature, the press and illustrated magazines reached a mass audience with a combination of political content and entertainment.20

16

In recent years, following the pioneering studies of George L. Mosse, the link between g­ ender identity, the idealization of masculinity and nationalism has been analyzed in detail in the historiography. For the German case, see Karen Hagemann, “Mannlicher Muth und teutsche Ehre”: Nation, Militär und Geschlecht zur Zeit der antinapoleonischen Kriege Preußens ­(Paderborn: 2002); Bettina Brandt, Germania und ihre Söhne: Repräsentationen von Nation, Geschlecht und Politik in der Moderne (Göttingen: 2010). 17 Rüdiger Hachtmann, “‘…nicht die Volksherrschaft auch noch durch Weiberherrschaft ­trüben:’ Der männliche Blick auf die Frauen in der Revolution von 1848,” Werkstatt Geschichte 20 (1998), 5–30. 18 See Henning Türk, “‘Ich gehe täglich in die Sitzungen und kann die Politik nicht lassen:’ Frauen als Parlamentszuschauerinnen und ihre Wahrnehmung in der politischen Öffentlichkeit der Märzrevolution 1848/49,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 43 (2017), 497–525. 19 Amerigo Caruso, Nationalstaat als Telos? Der konservative Diskurs in Preußen und ­Sardinien-Piemont 1840–1870 (Berlin: 2017). 20 See Clemens Zimmermann, “Die Zeitschrift – Medium der Moderne. Publikumszeitschriften im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Die Zeitschrift – Medium der Moderne. Deutschland und Frankreich im Vergleich, ed. Manfred Schmeling and Clemens Zimmermann (Bielefeld: 2006), 15–42.

312 2

Caruso

Conservative Female Literature

Regardless of their political and religious affiliation, the central figures in the public arena in the second half of the 19th century clearly perceived the importance of journalism and literature as modern means of communication with which an ideological and cultural message could be disseminated without using the explicit channels and tones of political discourse.21 Unlike newspapers, magazines and books belonged more properly to the private sphere, and they constructed an imaginary state of affairs that was able to reach readers who were let down and disoriented by the political and social transformations.22 Given their formal exclusion from active politics, women writers and readers played a fundamental role in the informal and often implicit ­political discourse for which literature provided a vehicle. Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius were among those authors who were most successful in exploiting and interpreting the combination of cultural entertainment, political message and moral dimension that the public was seeking. Luise Hensel (1798–1876), the oldest of the three authors, was educated in Berlin in the Romantic milieu of the poet Clemens Brentano. This circle of young intellectuals - which also included Ludwig von Gerlach, the central ­figure in Prussian conservatism before Bismarck—was inspired by the Protestant revival movement and the counter-revolutionary legitimism of Karl ­Ludwig von Haller, political prophet of the post-Napoleonic restoration.23 In 1818, Luise Hensel decided to leave Berlin and to convert to Catholicism, ­following the example of other exponents of German Romanticism, such as Friedrich Schlegel, Adam Müller and Haller himself.24 From the 1860s, and particularly after the author’s death in 1876, the publishing house Schöningh of Paderborn began publishing various collections of Luise Hensel’s poems, often preceded by a biographical note or other references to the poet’s private life.25 Luise Hensel’s religious lyric poetry met with 21

22 23 24 25

For a theoretical analysis of the link between literary culture and political discourse, see Heiko Christians, “Begriffsgeschichte als Gebrauchsgeschichte,” in Historisches ­Wörterbuch des Mediengebrauchs, ed. idem, Matthias Bickenbach, and Nikolaus Wegmann (Cologne: 2015), 11–28. Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist (Munich: 1998), 752. Hans-Christof Kraus, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach: politisches Denken und Handeln eines preußischen Altkonservativen, vol. 1 (Göttingen: 1994), 74–91. Ibid., 77. As was the case with a successful edition of the poems published in 1892: Luise Hensel, Lieder von Luise M. Hensel mit einem Portrait der Dichterin (Paderborn: 1892).

Conservative Women Writers

313

great success, and by 1892 the main collection of her poems had been reprinted for the seventh time. In 1911, a popular edition of the collection (the twelfth)26 was published, while the thirteenth edition appeared during the First World War.27 The popularity of Luise Hensel is very clearly demonstrated by an issue of the magazine Illustrierte Frauen Zeitung, published after her death, which featured a long background article on the poet accompanied by a large portrait of her on the front page.28 In addition to the first successful collection of poems, Schöningh published a volume of Luise Hensel’s private correspondence in 1882, and a biography of the writer in 1878.29 Other biographies of the poet also appeared in southern Germany in various editions published by Herder of Freiburg.30 These publications drew particular attention to Luise Hensel’s conversion to Catholicism in an attempt to give her poems a political bent in the context of the Kulturkampf. Religious lyric poetry and conversion took on a symbolic value for German Catholics, and was essential reading even in the 20th century, as witnessed by another edition of the poems published in 1918 to celebrate the centenary of the author’s conversion.31 The public, therefore, was interested not only in Luise Hensel’s poetry but also in her private life. This can also be seen in the case of the conversion of Karl Ludwig von Haller and Ida Hahn, numerous ­volumes of whose letters and notes were printed not only in German, but also in French and Italian translations.32 Luise Hensel’s lyric poetry was based on recurring religious and romantic allusions, along with a semantics recalling that of sacred texts and constituting a modern version of them. However, the poems also contain clear political references. The text entitled 1848, for example, explicitly argues against the revolution, calling it senseless and shameful.33 The poem warns readers against 26 Luise Hensel, Lieder, 12th ed. (Paderborn: 1911). 27 Idem, Lieder, 13th ed. (Paderborn: 1917). 28 Illustrierte Frauen Zeitung, IV, 1877, 6 (19 March 1977), 89. 29 Ferdinand Bartscher, Der innere Lebensgang der Dichterin Luise Hensel nach den Original-­ Aufzeichnungen in ihren Tagebüchern (Paderborn: 1882); Luise Hensel, Briefe der Dichterin Luise Hensel (Paderborn: 1878). 30 Franz Binder, Luise Hensel. Ein Lebensbild nach gedruckten und ungedruckten Quellen, 2nd ed. (Freiburg im Breisgau: 1904) (the first edition came out in 1884). 31 Luise Hensel, Aus Luise Hensels Jugendzeit. Neue Briefe und Gedichte; zum Jahrhunderttag ihrer Konversion (Freiburg im Breisgau: 1918). 32 Ida Hahn, De Babylone à Jérusalem: histoire et motifs de la conversion de l’auteur au catholicisme (Paris: 1854); idem, Storia e motivi della sua conversione dal Protestantesimo al C ­ attolicismo (Milan: 1858); Karl Ludwig von Haller, Lettere e documenti relativi alla sua c­ onversione ­(Venice: 1821). 33 Luise Hensel, Lieder (Paderborn: 1869), 321.

314

Caruso

being seduced by revolutionary propaganda and calls on the intervention of the “Lord of the Church” to check the hellish drift of political events. The enormous appeal of the conservative, deeply religious message of Luise Hensel’s poems was paralleled by the success of the works of another conservative writer: Ida Hahn (1805–1880). Hahn was from the outset highly successful and became one of the few women authors of her time who could earn huge sums from her literary activities. The first rather disreputable phase of her life ended abruptly in the 1840s, particularly after the shock triggered by 1848. In the period immediately after the revolution came other episodes that were significant for the writer, including the death of her companion and her conversion to Catholicism. The new, conservative, ultra-Catholic stance was the essential feature underlying the 27 works of Ida Hahn published by Kirchheim of Mainz after her conversion. The novels and short stories written after 1848 were in direct contrast to her previous works, and featured two main characters: on the one hand, the female protagonist and her story as a virtuous example for the education of Catholic women, on the other hand, the negative model represented by those who turned their back on the Church. These characters were incorporated into a narrative that pit the protagonist, a practicing Catholic, against the antagonist, who abandoned religion, and showed the former triumphing, while the sins of the latter received suitable punishment.34 After her conversion and her shift to conservatism, Ida Hahn moved to Mainz, following her new spiritual mentor, Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler. As already seen for Luise Hensel, the conservative message of Ida Hahn’s works was also explicitly replicated in her novels and short stories. The novels Maria Regina, Doralice and Eudoxia, published in the 1860s, are the writer’s most political works. In Maria Regina, for example, the author maintains that true freedom cannot be won by progressivist reforms, let alone revolutionary movements, but only by voluntary subjugation to divine authority.35 Doralice, too, contains several passages explicitly opposed to the liberals, who are accused of having made a pact with the revolution.36

34

For a more in-depth analysis of the female protagonists of Ida Hahn’s novels, see Beate Borowka-Clausberg, “Gespiegelte Persönlichkeiten: Ida Gräfin Hahn-Hahns Romanheldinnen,” in Wege aus der Marginalisierung: Geschlecht und Schreibweisen in deutschsprachigen Romanen von Frauen 1780–1914, ed. Kerstin Wiedemann and Elisa Müller-Adams (Nancy: 2013), 241–52. 35 Ida Hahn, Maria Regina, vol. 1 (Mainz: 1860), 292. 36 Idem, Doralice: scene contemporanee, vol. 2 (Rome: 1865), 160.

Conservative Women Writers

315

Although interspersed with similar political messages, Ida Hahn’s literature was based on psychological introspection and on describing the character of the female protagonists, who were generally involved in debates on spiritual matters with overtones of sentimentality. The explicitly political passages were interwoven with this conventional narrative, and in some cases also with direct references to contemporary events. Doralice, for example, esteems her interlocutor Corrado because he does not give credit to modern ideologies, such as French socialism, British Chartism and Italian Mazziniism. Corrado, however, is reprimanded for his secular ideas, directed at the separation of religion and politics.37 The description of Doralice’s platonic love constantly alternates with political invectives against liberal reforms, the formation of nation states, and republicanism.38 The historical novel Eudoxia, published in 1866, launched a clear attack on those threats to the temporal power of the Church and its power over Rome.39 The Italian translation of the novel was published in 1869 and received an enthusiastic review in Civiltà cattolica, the Jesuits’ most influential journal.40 Alongside the increasing importance of the political content, after 1848 the role of the protagonists in Ida Hahn’s novels underwent a profound change. The writer took it upon herself to uphold a traditional, deeply religious image of women, replicating the male perspective of her mentor Ketteler.41 In addition to novels, Ida Hahn’s preferred genre after her conversion was hagiography, and in particular popular stories of the lives of saints and martyrs. Her increasingly marked partiality to the hagiographic genre reflects a general tendency in the literary work of Catholics in Europe after 1848. In her interweaving of political message and repetitive contents of religious or ­sentimental l­iterature, and her use of dichotomous terms in referring to ­political alignments, Ida Hahn was reflecting the radicalization of political debate.42 The intention of the message was to discredit liberals and moderates by placing them on the “wrong” side, i.e. the side ruled by “rebellion” and “misbelief”.43 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Ibid., 42. Ibid., 232. Ida Hahn, Eudoxia, die Kaiserin, Ein Zeitgemälde aus dem fünften Jahrhundert (Mainz: 1866), VI. Civiltà cattolica, Anno XX, vol. 6, 585. See Carol Diethe, Towards Emancipation: German Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century (New York: 1998), 118. Ida Hahn, Doralice, 232. Ibid., 232, see also 276.

316

Caruso

In some cases, the translations of Ida Hahn’s works acquired a much more political perspective than the original version. In the Italian edition of Doralice, published in Rome in 1865, the translator added comments underlining the political significance of the text. For example, Italy is referred to in a footnote as a “nation betrayed under the pretext of unity and independence”.44 The political message conveyed by Ida Hahn’s writings spread transnationally and acquired meanings specific to the various destinations it reached abroad. In Germany it was linked to the logic of the Kulturkampf, while in Italy it found a place in the context of Catholic mobilization against the Risorgimento. The case of Marie Nathusius (1817–1857), the third writer analyzed in this chapter, allows us to examine the link between literature, conservative discourse and large-scale distribution of political and moral value messages on the protestant side. Nathusius came from a Protestant family of northern ­Germany, but unlike Luise Hensel and Ida Hahn she did not convert to Catholicism. The 1848 revolutions also marked a turning point for her, in particular because Philipp Nathusius, Marie’s husband, decided to enter political life. In 1849 he took over management of the conservative newspaper Volksblatt für Stadt und Land, which became a vehicle for the stories written by his wife, published in it in serialized form. The overlapping of literature and political discourse therefore concerned not only the common conservative message, but also use of the same means of communication. From the outset, Marie Nathusius supported her husband’s political engagement in the conservative ranks. In 1848, in full throes of the revolution, the writer sent Magdeburger Zeitung one of her first poems, in which she declared complete loyalty to the Hohenzollern monarchy.45 The Nathusius family positioned itself at the center of a network that included some of the most important exponents of conservative discourse, such as the historian Heinrich Leo, the lawyer Friedrich Julius Stahl, and the aforementioned Ludwig von ­Gerlach.46 The connection between the Nathusiuses and Prussian conservatism was further reinforced by Marie’s sons: Martin Nathusius, who took over the Volksblatt in 1871, and, in particular, Philipp, who was editor-in-chief of the Kreuzzeitung, the Prussian conservatives’ most important newspaper. As well as being a member of the Reichstag and co-founder of the Deutschkonservative Partei, Philipp Nathusius was also the author of several texts that were 44 45 46

Ibid., 159. Ramona Myrrhe, “Marie Nathusius: Ein Frauenleben zwischen Anpassung und Aufbruch,” in Die Seele möchte fliegen: Ein Frauenleben zwischen Anpassung und Aufbruch, Marie Nathusius (1817–1857), ed. Matthias Puhle (Halle: 2007), 11–104, here 71. Thomas Schlag, Martin von Nathusius und die Anfänge protestantischer Wirtschafts- und Sozialethik (Berlin: 1998), 26.

Conservative Women Writers

317

fundamental to German conservatism in the last decades of the 19th century. One in particular was the anti-feminist pamphlet Zur Frauenfrage (1871), which defined women as the “helpers and servants” of their husbands, and became a manifesto of the mobilization against female emancipation.47 In the space of a few years, between 1848 and 1857, Marie Nathusius produced several highly successful works. Her most acclaimed publication, Tagebuch eines armen Fräuleins (1853), reached its eighteenth edition in 1899. The work was intended to “educate and entertain young girls” by passing on traditional values to them.48 The story Elisabeth (1858) also enjoyed extraordinary success, reaching its fourteenth edition in less than three decades.49 Elisabeth tackles the problem of marital conflict, implicitly suggesting to readers several strategies for settling tensions with their husbands and thus averting separation. The story sets out a conservative concept of marriage and motherhood in contrast to the examples of emancipation presented in the works of the French writer, George Sand, who herself was very successful in Germany and influenced important writers such as Louise Aston, Fanny Lewald and Louise Otto-Peters.50 The divergence between the literature of Marie Nathusius and that of her more progressive colleagues was also evident in her novel Rückerinnerungen aus einem Mädchenleben, published in 1855 and reprinted in its fifth edition in 1890.51 It tells the story of the young protagonist, Klärchen Löwenwitz, who heroically resists the “temptations” of emancipation, and settles into traditional gender attributes and roles. Aside from the different tones linked to their religious affiliations, the literature of Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius put out a fairly consistent message of criticism and distrust of liberal reforms and the transformations of the modern world. The three writers managed to build, each in her own religious milieu, a network and an agency able to uphold the expression and dissemination of their conservative ideas. Their bestsellers endorsed an idea of education and socialization of women based on religion and a traditional conception of gender roles, and therefore articulated a narrative in contrast with first-wave feminism and its demands for emancipation.52 The success 47 48 49 50 51 52

Philipp Nathusius, Zur “Frauenfrage” (Halle: 1871), 6. Marie Nathusius, Tagebuch eines armen Fräuleins. Abgedruckt zur Unterhaltung und ­Belehrung für junge Mädchen, 4th ed. (Halle: 1855) (the citation refers to the book’s ­subtitle). Franz Brümmer, “Marie Nathusius,” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 23 (1886), 283–85. See Kerstin Wiedemann, Zwischen Irritation und Faszination: George Sand und ihre deutsche Leserschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: 2003). Marie Nathusius, Rückerinnerungen aus einem Mädchenleben, 5th ed. (Halle: 1890). On these issues, see also Eva Kormann, “Bildungsroman und geschlechtsspezifische religiöse Erziehung im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Glaube und Geschlecht: fromme Frauen,

318

Caruso

of ­conservative female literature continued into the beginning of the 20th ­century, and also found transnational distribution. 3

Networks and Transnational Distribution

An element that is crucial to understanding the transnational distribution of conservative literature must be sought in the wide range of periodicals and publishing houses capable of building an infrastructure that could support the work of conservative writers, both male and female. On the Catholic side, the middle decades of the 19th century saw rapid modernization of the press and the publishing industry, alongside traditional means of communicating with the faithful, such as pastoral letters and diocesan bulletins. The groundwork was thus laid to influence the logic of mass consumption of writings of a religious and political nature, and for entertainment. A decisive impulse for the mobilization of European Catholics came from the legitimist activism of the Roman Curia and the monarchies forced into exile after the formation of the unified state of Italy in 1861.53 Bismarck called the network of militant Catholics the “Black International,” determined to destabilize the newborn German empire.54 In the same period, a strong anti-clerical network emerged in Europe, equally capable of exploiting the growing power of the media and public opinion on a transnational scale.55 On the Protestant side, support for conservative publications came from newspapers such as the Nathusius family’s Volksblatt, theologian Ernst Hengstenberg’s Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, and the Kreuzzeitung, the latter often entrusting its influential reviews to Protestant ministers. These publications were distributed among German Protestants but made few inroads abroad, while the transnational reach of the Catholic networks was more extensive and more intrinsic to the movement. From 1864, a decisive role in the distribution of conservative publications on the Protestant side was also played by the magazine Daheim, which received support from Protestant churches and

53 54 55

s­ pirituelle Erfahrungen, religiöse Traditionen, ed. Ruth Albrecht, Annette Bühler-Dietrich, and Florentine ­Strzelczyk (Cologne: 2008), 253–67. Simon Sarlin, “The Anti-Risorgimento as a Transnational Experience,” Modern Italy 19 (2019), 81–92. See Emiel Lamberts (ed.), The Black International: The Holy See and Militant Catholicism in Europe (Leuven: 2002). See Lisa Dittrich, Antiklerikalismus in Europa: Öffentlichkeit und Säkularisierung in ­Frankreich, Spanien und Deutschland (1848–1914) (Göttingen: 2014).

Conservative Women Writers

319

had the aim of revealing “Christian truth in the form of entertainment” and countering the success of popular liberal newspapers and magazines, such as the Gartenlaube.56 Alongside newspapers and journals, the publishing activities of the Innere Mission (internal mission) led by Protestant theologian Johann Hinrich Wichern were an equally important distribution channel. Through the publishers Agentur des Rauhen Hauses, the Protestants’ internal mission also set itself the goal of defeating the revolution with its own weapons, that is, by sponsoring the distribution of a mass-consumption literature inspired by Christian values. This initiative was aimed mainly at a female audience, and was a crucial inspiration to writers like Marie Nathusius.57 The Catholic counterpart to Agentur des Rauhen Hauses was Borromäusverein, established in 1844 in Bonn, also with the aim of disseminating “good literature”. The works of Ida Hahn, for example, were permanently included in the catalogs of the almost 1300 local offices of Borromäusverein, which mobilized to provide Catholic families with a private library that would “immunize” them against works by liberals and Protestants.58 In the case of the Catholic networks, parish priests were a visible point of reference for their respective communities, which, after 1871, had become a minority in the more or less openly hostile environment of the Protestant majority Kaiserreich.59 Alongside newspapers, publishing initiatives, and libraries established within dioceses and parishes, literature imbued with Christian values and conservatism was supported by extensive distribution of catalogs and collections of popular Christian literature on both the Catholic and Protestant sides.60 This infrastructure ensured that the success of the literature of Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius was not an isolated case. Aside from the popular writer Ottilie Wildermuth, whose novels were serialized in the 56

Eda Sagarra, “Gegen den Zeit- und Revolutionsgeist: Ida Gräfin Hahn-Hahn und die christliche Tendenzliteratur im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Deutsche Literatur von ­Frauen: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Gisela Brinker-Gabler (Munich: 1988), 105–19, here 108. 57 Ramona Myrrhe, Marie Nathusius, 66. 58 Gangolf Hübinger and Helen Müller, “Ideenzirkulation und Buchmarkt: Am Beispiel der konfessionellen und politischen Sortimentsbuchhandlungen im Kaiserreich,” in Ideen als gesellschaftliche Gestaltungskraft im Europa der Neuzeit, ed. Lutz Raphael and Heinz E. Tenorth (Munich: 2006), 289–312. 59 Olaf Blaschke, “Die Kolonialisierung der Laienwelt: Priester als Milieumanager und die Kanäle klerikaler Kuratel,” in Religion im Kaiserreich. Milieus - Mentalitäten - Krisen, ed. idem and Frank-Michael Kuhlemann (Gütersloh: 1996), 93–135. 60 See Praktische Wegweiser durch die christliche Volksliteratur (Bonn: 1859); Literarische Handweiser, zunächst für das katholische Deutschland (Münster: 1862/1931).

320

Caruso

magazine Daheim, another example of a conservative bestseller is Wilhelmine Canz’s novel Eritis sicut Deus, published in three volumes by Rauhes Haus in 1854. In addition, numerous writers made it their mission to spread Christian and conservative values to a readership of young people and adolescents.61 On the Catholic side, other examples of female literature linked to the conservative discourse are the novels and poetry of Ferdinande von Brackel, as well as the works of Charlotte Blennerhassett, Maria Lenzen and Antonie Jüngst, which were printed in several editions at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.62 Ferdinande von Brackel’s novel Die Tochter des K ­ unstreiters, for example, was published by Bachem of Cologne in 1875, reached its twenty-fourth reprint in 1904, and was translated into English and Spanish.63 In the same period, the creation of a modern internal distribution system for Christian and conservative literary works coincided with a huge increase in their international circulation. As we shall see, by the end of the century this had led to translations of works of conservative writers, such as Ferdinande von Brackel, Marie Nathusius and Ida Hahn, being disseminated in the ­European-Atlantic space, including the United States and the Habsburg Empire, and Italy and Sweden. The translation market in Europe was already flourishing in the 1820s. The German-speaking market saw a huge increase in the number of translations and an intensification of competition between publishing houses.64 Although translation was not invented in the 19th century, throughout that century it became a key factor in the growth of cultural transfer and of the transnational connections that characterize the modern world. Translations of works by women writers had a minor, but not unimportant, share of this expanding market. Of the total number of writings translated into French between 1840 and 1915, 12.3 per cent were of works produced by women writers (835 works by 138 authors).65

61 62 63 64 65

Eda Sagarra, Gegen den Zeit- und Revolutionsgeist, 106–08. For example, Antonie Jüngst’s novel Der Glocken Romfahrt was reprinted for the third time in 1911 by the publisher Schöningh. The English translation, Nora. A novel taken from the German, was published in London in 1877 by Burns & Oates; the Spanish edition of Nora was published in 1884 by Arte y Letras of Barcelona. Norbert Bachleitner, “Übersetzungsfabriken: Das deutsche Übersetzungswesen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur 14 (1989), 1–49. Annette Keilhauer, “Femmes auteurs et traduction au XIX siècle: une enquête franco-­ allemande,” in Transkulturalität nationaler Räume in Europa (18. bis 19. Jahrhundert): Übersetzungen, Kulturtransfer und Vermittlungsinstanzen, ed. Christophe Charle, ­ Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, and York-Gothard Mix (Göttingen: 2017), 287–306, here 291.

Conservative Women Writers

321

Despite Ferdinande von Brackel’s international success, it was undoubtedly the conservative literature of Marie Nathusius and Ida Hahn that was most well received outside Germany. The works of Nathusius were translated into five languages and appeared in seven different countries. The novel in diary form, Tagebuch eines armen Fräuleins, was the biggest seller; imbued with Christian values and aimed at young girls, five different translated versions of this work were published in Boston, New York, London and Edinburgh between 1857 and 1869.66 Two other novels by Marie Nathusius were published in Edinburgh in the same period: Above Her Station: The Story of a Young Woman’s Life in 1859, and Elizabeth: A Story Which Does Not End in Marriage the following year.67 Also in 1860, R. Bentley of London published the translation of another work by the German writer, Step by Step; or, The Good Fight, and in 1863 Above her Station was also published by Follett of New York. As far as English translations are concerned, Nathusius could boast a total of four novels translated and seven different editions. Aside from the countless editions of Marie Nathusius’ works published in Leipzig, Halle, and even in Catholic Freiburg,68 the novels Die Kammerjungfer and Tagebuch eines armen Fräuleins were also published in 1896 by F. ­Widmer of Bern in a series for Swiss readers. In addition, between 1853 and 1901 a total of eight works by Marie Nathusius were translated into Dutch, including the novel Stiefmoeder Martha, which appeared in Arnhem in 1858 in the “Evangelical Library” series.69 A little over a decade after the first edition, the novel Elisabeth had already been reprinted eight times in Germany, and by 1870 translations into Dutch, English, French, Danish, and Swedish had also been published.70 Other novels and short stories by Marie Nathusius were also translated and published in Denmark, including Langenstein und Boblingen in 1875, and Wo wächst der Glücksbaum? in 1899.71 Stockholm saw the publication of Swedish translations of not only Elisabeth in 1866, but also Joachim von Kamern three years later, Langenstein and Boblingen in 1871, and Die Kammerjungfer in 1896.72 66

David Blamires, Telling Tales: The Impact of Germany on English Children’s Books, 1780–1918 (Cambridge: 2009), 397–98. 67 Translations of, respectively, Die Kammerjungfer and Elisabeth. 68 I refer here to her most successful novel, Das Tagebuch eines armen Fräuleins, which was also published in 1911 in Freiburg in the series Bibliothek wertvoller Novellen (vol. 9). 69 See the Catalogus der Bibliotheek van de Maatschappij (Leiden: 1887), 684. 70 See Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes, vol. 75 (Berlin: 1869), 383. 71 The Danish titles are, respectively, Langenstein og Boblingen and Hvor finder man Lykken? 72 The Swedish titles are Elisabeth: en berättelse, som icke slutas vid bröloppet; Joachim von Kamern: en lefnadsteckning; Langenstein och Boblingen: en berättelse; and Generalskans ­kammarjungfru: en stadshistoria.

322

Caruso

Ida Hahn’s publications achieved a level of international success at least equal to that of Marie Nathusius. Their export markets differed, however, reflecting the writers’ religious affiliations: the Protestant Nathusius had a greater presence in Northern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries, while the Catholic Hahn was foremost in Catholic countries. Ida Hahn’s works were translated into eight languages and published in ten countries. By the end of the 1860s, as many as fifteen works had been translated into French.73 The novels Doralice and Les Amants de la Croix were published in 1864 in Tournai, Belgium, in the Bibliothèque internationale catholique series, the same in which the translation of one of the reactionary, anti-revolutionary works of Italian Jesuit Antonio Bresciani appeared.74 In the following years, the B ­ elgian publisher Casterman, and the Parisian publishing houses Sagner et Bray and P. Lethielleux also published Ida Hahn’s other ultra-Catholic writings: the novel Maria Regina, the autobiographical pieces Von Babylon nach Jerusalem and Aus Jerusalem, and the historical novels Peregrin and Eudoxia.75 Ida Hahn’s works were also greeted with great enthusiasm in Italy, where at least six of her works were translated. The first translation appeared as early as 1858 and was dedicated to the author’s conversion.76 In the following years, the novels Doralice (1865), Peregrino (1868), Eudossia (1869), Clelia Conti (1889) and Sigismondo Foster (1891) were also published.77 The translation of Doralice is particularly interesting because it was made by Giulio Borgia Mandolini, an aristocrat who was active in Antonio Bresciani’s anti-revolutionary network and had already translated the writings of Spanish conservative Catholic author and political theorist, Juan Donoso Cortés.78

73 74

See the Catalogue général de la librairie française, 554–55. Antonio Bresciani, Don Giovanni ou le bienfaiteur caché, suivi de quatre dialogues sur la ­résurrection du paganisme en Italie en 1849 (Tournai: 1859). 75 Ida Hahn, De Babylone à Jérusalem: histoire et motifs de la conversion de l’auteur au catholicisme (Paris: 1854) (the book was reprinted in 1864); idem, Une voix de Jérusalem, considérations d’une néophyte sur la vie catholique (Paris: 1854); idem, Maria Regina (Tournai: 1861). In the second half of the 1860s, three more French translations appeared, published this time by P. Lethielleux. These were: Pérégrin in 1865, Deux Sœurs in the same year, and Eudoxia in 1867. 76 Ida Hahn, Storia e motivi della sua conversione. 77 The translations were reprinted by various publishers in Rome, Naples, Bologna, Venice, and Treviso. 78 See Scritti vari di Giovanni Donoso Cortés, volgarizzati da Giulio Borgia Mandolini (Rome: 1861).

Conservative Women Writers

323

Between 1863 and 1870, several of Ida Hahn’s novels from her post-conversion phase were also translated into Polish and Hungarian.79 Her works also met with resounding success in the Netherlands, where six were translated, including those from her ultra-Catholic, anti-liberal phase.80 Prevalent among the English translations of Ida Hahn’s works were those belonging to her ‘liberal’ phase, although there were significant exceptions. A few weeks after publication in 1851 of the original German version of Von Babylon nach ­Jerusalem, Ida Hahn’s autobiographical work dedicated to her conversion, it was translated into English. The translator, Elizabeth Atcherley, a personal friend of the writer, stated in the preface that she was interested “in everything connected with the conversion of the author”.81 A few years later, in 1856, the English translation of Ein Büchlein vom guten Hirten, another work embodying Ida Hahn’s ultra-Catholic phase that extolled the perseverance of the Irish Catholic faith, was published in London, Dublin, and Liverpool.82 In the United States, the novel Gräfin Faustine was a huge success, and had several translations: the first appeared in New York in 1872 (Faustina: A Novel), and in 1894 the book was retranslated and republished by New York publisher R. Bonner’s sons in “The Popular Series”. However, the works written after her conversion were also distributed across the Atlantic, for example the historical novel Eudoxia, published in Baltimore in 1869.83 4 Conclusion After the revolutionary waves of the first half of the 19th century, the political space and discourse were transformed and acquired a new transnational dynamism. The distribution and success of conservative literature are linked to the broadening of the political space, which resulted not only in increasing numbers of actors and institutions being directly involved in public affairs, but also in a shifting of the boundaries between the political space and other areas

79

Ida Hahn, Eudoxia, obraz z V. wieku (Krakow: 1870); idem, Mária Regina: regény (Budapest: 1863); idem, Doralice: családi kép a jelenkorból (Győr: 1864); idem, Két nővér: regény ­(Győr: 1865). 80 Idem, Van Babylon naar Jerusalem (Groningen: 1852); and idem, De geschiedenis van een arm meisje (‘s-Hertogenbosch: 1869). 81 Idem, From Babylon to Jerusalem (London: 1851), III. 82 Idem, A Few Words about the Good Shepherd (London: 1858). 83 Idem, Eudoxia: A Picture of the Fifth Century (Baltimore: 1869).

324

Caruso

of society, such as, for example, the economy, culture, religion, and literature, and their ability to spread political messages.84 Literature, whether religious, sentimental or for entertainment, may be considered an indirect political communication channel that acquired a new function with the upsurge in the publishing market and the growth in participation and interest in politics over the course of the 19th century. The overlapping of entertainment, religious identity and political discourse were at the core of the success achieved by Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius. The three writers and the wide appeal of their works were part of a network of publishing projects, religious initiatives and political contacts that also supported the conservative literature of other well-known writers, such as Ottilie Wildermuth and Ferdinande von Brackel. Religious affiliation was of fundamental importance to women’s socialization and agency. The women writers examined in this chapter, although they belonged to different religious milieux, expressed similar conservative ideas and opposed liberalism and feminism. The success of conservative women’s literature extended not only to both confessional persuasions, but also well beyond Germany’s borders, becoming a transnational phenomenon in late 19th-century Europe as a result of numerous translations, prefaces and reviews. Despite constant sociocultural difficulties and anti-female stereotypes, the activity of female writers and journalists became an increasingly widespread and central element in 19th century history. In 1898, for example, the Lexikon deutscher Frauen der Feder catalogued around 5000 writers, and in the same period over 150 German-language women’s magazines were published.85 This chapter has shown that the growing activism of writers and journalists was not confined to liberal, progressivist publications. In fact, a substantial part of women’s literature and journalism articulated a clear conservative tendency, which can be seen in both their contents and the networks into which the works were incorporated. In the case of Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius, the conservative message was conveyed in a seemingly non-political format, showing the increasing importance of content that is not (explicitly) political in forming public opinion. In fact, in the second half of the 19th century, alongside the huge distribution of new publications that were not openly political, such as mass-consumption novels, magazines for entertainment and 84 85

Andreas Fahrmeir, “L’ampliamento dello spazio politico,” in Spazi politici, società e individuo: le tensioni del moderno, ed. Christoph Cornelißen and Paolo Pombeni (Bologna: 2016), 63–80. Sylvia Schraut, Bürgerinnen im Kaiserreich, 125.

Conservative Women Writers

325

illustrated newspapers, even traditional newspapers gradually reduced their political content, which went from around three quarters around 1800 to only a third at the end of the century.86 This chapter has drawn attention to and elaborated on several important aspects of the interweaving of political conservatism, anti-feminism and mass-consumption literature, focusing in particular on the energizing effect that literary and political anti-feminism had in mobilizing German conservatives. The exportation of these contents by way of translations also helped strengthen the conservatives’ transnational networks, especially on the Catholic side. In addition to anti-feminism, anti-Semitism was likely also a cultural code within the networks that involved writers, publishers and readers.87 Female literature was part of the general tendency in conservative discourse in the second half of the 19th century, namely, that of popularizing the contents and means of political communication by simplifying the message. Readers – male and female – who were insecure and skeptical of the political and social transformations of the time found a reflection of their feelings and enjoyable cultural entertainment in the works of Luise Hensel, Ida Hahn and Marie Nathusius. In the same period, authors such as Cesare Cantù, Antonio ­Bresciani, Jean-Joseph Gaume and Louis-Gaston de Ségur also reached mass audiences in Italy and France through a narrative that drew on a code of Christian values and conservatism.88 The success of nostalgic-reactionary publications shows that conservative literature, religion, confessional identities and anti-feminism constituted an archive of emotions and ideas ready to be ­reactivated in order to revive conservative discourse, alleviate the disorientation generated by the modern world, and defuse part of its revolutionary potential. Acknowledgments Translated by Tessa Say. The author would like to thank Annika Haß and Maike Jung for their comments on a previous version of this chapter.

86 87 88

Corey Ross, Media and the Making of Modern Germany: Mass Communication, Society, and Politics from the Empire to the Third Reich (Oxford: 2008), 31. See Henning Albrecht, “Preußen, ein ‘Judenstaat:’ Antisemitismus als konservative ­Strategie gegen die Neue Ä ra,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 37 (2011), 455–81. Amerigo Caruso, Nationalstaat als Telos?, 191, 207–36.

326

Caruso

Bibliography Albrecht, Henning, “Preußen, ein ‘Judenstaat:’ Antisemitismus als konservative ­Strategie gegen die Neue Ä ra,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 37 (2011), 455–81. Bachleitner, Norbert, “Übersetzungsfabriken: Das deutsche Übersetzungswesen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen L­ iteratur 14 (1989), 1–49. Bartscher, Ferdinand, Der innere Lebensgang der Dichterin Luise Hensel nach den ­Original-Aufzeichnungen in ihren Tagebüchern (Paderborn: 1882). Binder, Franz, Luise Hensel. Ein Lebensbild nach gedruckten und ungedruckten Quellen, 2nd ed. (Freiburg im Breisgau: 1904). Blamires, David, Telling Tales: The Impact of Germany on English Children’s Books, ­1780–1918 (Cambridge: 2009). Bland, Caroline, and Elisa Müller-Adams, “Weibliche Beteiligung an der literarischen Öffentlichkeit des langen 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Frauen in der literarischen Öffentlichkeit: 1780–1918, ed. Caroline Bland (Bielefeld: 2007), 9–28. Blaschke, Olaf, “Die Kolonialisierung der Laienwelt: Priester als Milieumanager und die Kanäle klerikaler Kuratel,” in Religion im Kaiserreich. Milieus - Mentalitäten Krisen, ed. idem and Frank-Michael Kuhlemann (Gütersloh: 1996), 93–135. Borowka-Clausberg, Beate, “Gespiegelte Persönlichkeiten: Ida Gräfin Hahn-Hahns Romanheldinnen,” in Wege aus der Marginalisierung: Geschlecht und Schreibweisen in deutschsprachigen Romanen von Frauen 1780–1914, ed. Kerstin Wiedemann and Elisa Müller-Adams (Nancy: 2013), 241–52. Bösch, Frank, Mass Media and Historical Change: Germany in International Perspective, 1400 to the Present (New York: 2015). Brandt, Bettina, Germania und ihre Söhne: Repräsentationen von Nation, Geschlecht und Politik in der Moderne (Göttingen: 2010). Bresciani, Antonio, Don Giovanni ou le bienfaiteur caché, suivi de quatre dialogues sur la résurrection du paganisme en Italie en 1849 (Tournai: 1859). Brümmer, Franz, “Marie Nathusius,” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 23 (1886), 283–85. Caruso, Amerigo, Nationalstaat als Telos? Der konservative Diskurs in Preußen und Sardinien-Piemont 1840–1870 (Berlin: 2017). Charle, Christophe, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, and York-Gothard Mix (eds.), Transkulturalität nationaler Räume in Europa (18. bis 19. Jahrhundert): Übersetzungen, K ­ ulturtransfer und Vermittlungsinstanzen (Göttingen: 2017). Chickering, Roger, “‘Casting their gaze more broadly’. Women’s Patriotic Activism in Imperial Germany,” Past&Present 118 (1988), 156–85. Christians, Heiko, “Begriffsgeschichte als Gebrauchsgeschichte,” in Historisches ­Wörterbuch des Mediengebrauchs, ed. idem, Matthias Bickenbach, and Nikolaus Wegmann (Cologne: 2015), 11–28.

Conservative Women Writers

327

Diethe, Carol, Towards Emancipation: German Women Writers of the Nineteenth C ­ entury (New York: 1998). Dittrich, Lisa, Antiklerikalismus in Europa: Öffentlichkeit und Säkularisierung in Frankreich, Spanien und Deutschland (1848–1914) (Göttingen: 2014). Evans, Richard J., Sozialdemokratie und Frauenemanzipation im deutschen Kaiserreich (Berlin: 1979). Fahrmeir, Andreas, “L’ampliamento dello spazio politico,” in Spazi politici, società e individuo: le tensioni del moderno, ed. Christoph Cornelißen and Paolo Pombeni (Bologna: 2016), 63–80. Guest, Harriet, “Hannah More and Conservative Feminism,” in British Women’s Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century: Authorship, Politics and History, ed. Jennie Batchelor and Cora Kaplan (Basingstoke: 2005), 158–70. Hachtmann, Rüdiger, “‘…nicht die Volksherrschaft auch noch durch Weiberherrschaft trüben:’ Der männliche Blick auf die Frauen in der Revolution von 1848,” Werkstatt Geschichte 20 (1998), 5–30. Hagemann, Karen, “Mannlicher Muth und teutsche Ehre”: Nation, Militär und Geschlecht zur Zeit der antinapoleonischen Kriege Preußens (Paderborn: 2002). Hahn, Ida, Storia e motivi della sua conversione dal Protestantesimo al Cattolicismo (Milan: 1858). Hahn, Ida, Maria Regina, vol. 1 (Mainz: 1860). Hahn, Ida, Doralice: scene contemporanee, vol. 2 (Rome: 1865). Hahn, Ida, Eudoxia, die Kaiserin, Ein Zeitgemälde aus dem fünften Jahrhundert (Mainz: 1866). Haller, Karl Ludwig von, Lettere e documenti relativi alla sua conversione (Venice: 1821). Heinsohn, Kirsten, Konservative Parteien in Deutschland 1912 bis 1933: Demokratisierung und Partizipation in geschlechterhistorischer Perspektive (Düsseldorf: 2010). Hensel, Luise, Briefe der Dichterin Luise Hensel (Paderborn: 1878). Hensel, Luise, Lieder von Luise M. Hensel mit einem Portrait der Dichterin (Paderborn: 1892). Hensel, Luise, Aus Luise Hensels Jugendzeit. Neue Briefe und Gedichte; zum Jahrhunderttag ihrer Konversion (Freiburg im Breisgau: 1918). Hübinger, Gangolf and Helen Müller, “Ideenzirkulation und Buchmarkt: Am Beispiel der konfessionellen und politischen Sortimentsbuchhandlungen im Kaiserreich,” in Ideen als gesellschaftliche Gestaltungskraft im Europa der Neuzeit, ed. Lutz Raphael and Heinz E. Tenorth (Munich: 2006), 289–312. Keilhauer, Annette, “Femmes auteurs et traduction au XIX siècle: une enquête ­franco-allemande,” in Transkulturalität nationaler Räume in Europa (18. bis 19. Jahrhundert): Übersetzungen, Kulturtransfer und Vermittlungsinstanzen, ed. ­Christophe Charle, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, and York-Gothard Mix (Göttingen: 2017), 287–306.

328

Caruso

Kormann, Eva, “Bildungsroman und geschlechtsspezifische religiöse Erziehung im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Glaube und Geschlecht: fromme Frauen, spirituelle Erfahrungen, religiöse Traditionen, ed. Ruth Albrecht, Annette Bühler-Dietrich, and Florentine Strzelczyk (Cologne: 2008), 253–67. Korte, Barbara, and Sylvia Paletschek, “Blick zurück nach vorn: (Frauen-)Geschichte in feministischen Zeitschriften des 19. Jahrhunderts in Großbritannien und Deutschland,” in Geschlecht und Geschichte in populären Medien, ed. Elisabeth Cheauré and Sylvia Paletschek (Bielefeld: 2013), 105–36. Kraus, Hans-Christof, Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach: politisches Denken und Handeln eines preußischen Altkonservativen, vol. 1 (Göttingen: 1994). Lamberts, Emiel (ed.), The Black International: The Holy See and Militant Catholicism in Europe (Leuven: 2002). Langewiesche, Dieter, “Politikstile im Kaiserreich: Zum Wandel von Politik und ­Öffentlichkeit im Zeitalter des politischen Massenmarktes,” in Regierung, ­Parlament und Öffentlichkeit im Zeitalter Bismarcks: Politikstile im Wandel, ed. Lothar Gall (­Paderborn: 2003), 1–21. Literarische Handweiser, zunächst für das katholische Deutschland (Münster: 1862/1931). Marx Ferree, Myra, Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (Stanford: 2012). Mikus, Birgit, The Political Woman in Print: German Women’s Writing 1845–1919 (Bern: 2014). Myrrhe, Ramona, “Marie Nathusius: Ein Frauenleben zwischen Anpassung und ­Aufbruch,” in Die Seele möchte fliegen. Ein Frauenleben zwischen Anpassung und Aufbruch, Marie Nathusius (1817–1857), ed. Matthias Puhle (Halle: 2007), 11–104. Nathusius, Marie, Tagebuch eines armen Fräuleins: Abgedruckt zur Unterhaltung und Belehrung für junge Mädchen, 4th ed. (Halle: 1855). Nathusius, Philipp, Zur “Frauenfrage” (Halle: 1871). Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist (Munich: 1998). Patriarca, Silvana, “Journalists and Essayists, 1850–1950,” in A History of Women’s ­Writing in Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood (Cambridge: 2000), 151–63. Planert, Ute, Antifeminismus im Kaiserreich: Diskurs, soziale Formation und politische Mentalität (Göttingen: 1998). Plebani, Tiziana, Le scritture delle donne in Europa: Pratiche quotidiane e ambizioni ­letterarie (secoli xiii-xx) (Rome: 2019). Praktische Wegweiser durch die christliche Volksliteratur (Bonn: 1859). Ross, Corey, Media and the Making of Modern Germany: Mass Communication, Society, and Politics from the Empire to the Third Reich (Oxford: 2008).

Conservative Women Writers

329

Sagarra, Eda, “Gegen den Zeit- und Revolutionsgeist: Ida Gräfin Hahn-Hahn und die christliche Tendenzliteratur im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Deutsche Literatur von Frauen: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Gisela Brinker-Gabler (Munich: 1988), 105–19. Sarlin, Simon, “The Anti-Risorgimento as a Transnational Experience,” Modern Italy 19 (2019), 81–92. Schlag, Thomas, Martin von Nathusius und die Anfänge protestantischer Wirtschaftsund Sozialethik (Berlin: 1998). Schraut, Sylvia, “Bildung, Konfession, Geschlecht: Der Zugang von Frauen zu Universitäten und Wissenschaft,” in Vom Wandel eines Ideals: Bildung, Universität und Gesellschaft in Deutschland, ed. Nikolaus Buschmann and Ute Planert (Bonn: 2010), 29–45. Schraut, Sylvia, Bürgerinnen im Kaiserreich: Biografie eines Lebensstils (Stuttgart: 2013). Scritti vari di Giovanni Donoso Cortés, volgarizzati da Giulio Borgia Mandolini (Rome: 1861). Streubel, Christiane, “Die Frauen der Rechten in Kaiserreich und Republik: ein ­Überblick und Forschungsbericht,” Historical Social Research 4 (2003), 103–66. Süchting-Hänger, Andrea, Das “Gewissen der Nation:” Nationales Engagement und politisches Handeln konservativer Frauenorganisationen 1900 bis 1937 (Düsseldorf: 2002). Thompson, Nicola Diane, “Responding to the Woman Questions: Rereading Noncanonical Victorian Women Novelists,” in Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question, ed. idem (Cambridge: 1999), 1–24. Türk, Henning, “‘Ich gehe täglich in die Sitzungen und kann die Politik nicht lassen:’ Frauen als Parlamentszuschauerinnen und ihre Wahrnehmung in der politischen Öffentlichkeit der Märzrevolution 1848/49,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 43 (2017), 497–525. Wiedemann, Kerstin, Zwischen Irritation und Faszination: George Sand und ihre deutsche Leserschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: 2003). Zimmermann, Clemens, “Die Zeitschrift – Medium der Moderne. Publikumszeitschriften im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Die Zeitschrift – Medium der Moderne. Deutschland und Frankreich im Vergleich, ed. Manfred Schmeling and Clemens ­Zimmermann (Bielefeld: 2006), 15–42.

CHAPTER 15

Muddling Through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789–2010 Joris van Eijnatten […] the British tradition of ad hoc answers and muddling through becomes quite appealing when compared with the continental tradition of constitutional reform through coup, revolt, revolution or conquest. Tim Hames

…

Britain’s unrivalled history of success as a moderate, tolerant and ­democratic nation has always been based on the principle that evolution is preferable to revolution. Anatole Kaletsky1

∵ 1 Introduction This article examines the way a major British newspaper, the London Times, defined “conservatism” in relation to “revolution” in over two centuries of journalism. The understanding that conservatism first arose in contradistinction to the French Revolution, that it “had its origins in a movement of opposition hostile to the progressive potential of 1789”, with Edmund Burke as its main B ­ ritish progenitor, is a trope commonly adhered to by philosophers, historians and

1 Tim Hames, “Year of the constitution,” Times (4 January 1999); Anatole Kaletsky, “To the ­barricades, my fellow irrationalists,” The Times (19 June 2003). All references to the Times are through The Times Digital Archive (https://www.gale.com/intl/c/the-times-digital-archive, accessed 31 October 2020). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004446731_015

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

331

political ideologues.2 True, there are exceptions to this commonly held view; not all writers define conservatism explicitly as a movement that understood itself as a self-conscious alternative to the French Revolution. The index of ­philosopher Roger Scruton’s How to Be a Conservative has no entry on ‘revolution’ but refers his readers to “socialism” instead, leaving it to them to assess the relationship between the two.3 Nor does E.H.H. Green’s I­deologies of Conservatism waste any words on the French Revolution, although he does mention “­ Bolshevism”, if only on three pages.4 Yet in all cases a revolution of sorts is implied. Few will dispute that conservatism derives its meaning at least in part from the philosophical, historical and moral opposition to everything the term revolution evokes: social rupture, grand schemes, political speculation, left-wing utopianism and at times ostensibly less dramatic manifestations of change such as technological progress and Western modernity. How did the view of conservatism as something ‘anti-revolutionary’ play out in ­public opinion over a longer period of time? That is the question this chapter seeks to address. A newspaper like the Times is a general newspaper. Most accounts mentioning revolution or counter-revolution or conservatism are news items that attempt to report objectively, factually and dispassionately, and give little or no insight into the nature of British conservative rhetoric. The newspaper articles that do offer such insight are those that comment directly on revolutions from the perspective of conservative ideas, or otherwise imply a relation between the one and the other. The challenge, then, is to find the articles that do this (such as letters to the editor, editorials, reports on parliamentary proceedings, and so on), and to construe a general pattern on the basis of these articles. To achieve this end, a combination of methods was used. The digitized Times data set, spanning the years between 1785 and 2010 and available ‘in bulk’ as a series of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) files, was first extracted in csv (comma separated values) format. This data was then analyzed using self-developed tools coded in the computer language Python and consisting of a reader, an n-gram viewer and tools for the analysis of collocations and so-called word embeddings. ‘Close reading’ was performed using the reader, on the basis of a selection of all items containing both “conserv*” and “revolut*” as keywords. To accommodate errors produced by faulty optical character recognition 2 Richard Bourke, “What is Conservatism? History, Ideology and Party,” European Journal of Political Theory 17 (2018), 449–75. I refer to this insightful article for further literature on ­conservatism. 3 Roger Scruton, How to Be a Conservative (London: 2014). 4 Ewen Henry Harvey Green, Ideologies of Conservatism. Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: 2002).

332

van Eijnatten

(ocr), the keywords were written as regular expressions. N-grams, contiguous sequences of words derived from the textual data, were generated in a range of n = 1 to n = 5; where n = 2, the n-grams are called bigrams. Collocations were derived used the Python package nltk,5 based on bigrams with a window of 9 left and 9 right, and taking into account only bigrams with a frequency higher than 2. Word embedding models were generated using Python package ­Gensim,6 on chronologically plausible subsets of at least 100 million words each, using a window size of 10 and 12 iterations.7 Together, the tools were used to trace so-called “value-laden semantic fields”. These semantic fields involve ideas and beliefs, have normative connotations, are highly iterative and vary over time. In our case, they involve the conceptual relationship between conservatism and revolution, two normative terms that have sufficiently high scores to be meaningfully approached in this way. Between 1785 and 2010 ‘revolution’ occurs more than 160,000 times, ‘conservative(s)’ approximately 400,000 times and ‘conservatism’ around ­ 13,000 times. How anti-revolutionary was British conservatism? To what extent does the notion of ‘revolution’ figure in conservative rhetoric in the Times between 1785 and 2010? To elicit an answer from the data these terms need to be examined from the different perspectives afforded by the tools. Table 15.1 offers an initial entry into the semantic field in question by looking at bigrams containing the word ‘revolution’. Plainly, ‘French Revolution’ is the most ­popular bigram, while “counter” and “glorious revolution”, which have an evident bearing on conservatism, respectively rank 13 and 14. In fact, most bigrams have a relation with conservatism, and in most cases that relation is a negative one: in the eyes of conservatives, Bolshevik and sexual revolutions tend to be morally reprehensible. But what, exactly, was the relation between the two? In what follows, I will trace patterns evidencing the semantic relationship between conservatism and revolution through the whole Times corpus. The results of the analysis have been divided over four chronological sections, respectively ending around 1840, 1890, 1960 and 2010. In each case the focus is on what appears to be the dominant theme in the semantic field connecting revolution with conservatism. 5 https://www.nltk.org/ (accessed 31 October 2020). 6 https://radimrehurek.com/gensim/models/word2vec.html (accessed 31 October 2020). 7 The methods used for this article are outlined at greater length in Joris van Eijnatten and Ruben Ros, “The Eurocentric Fallacy. A Digital-Historical Approach to the Concepts of ‘Modernity’, ‘Civilization’ and ‘Europe’ (1840–1990),” International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 7 (2019), 686–736.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

333

table 15.1 The productivity of ‘revolution’ in the Times between 1785 and 2010. The table shows the top 20 adjectival bigrams (in which the word ‘revolution’ is preceded by a qualifying adjective), arranged according to the frequency of their occurrence over the whole corpus

Bigram

Corpus frequency

French revolution industrial revolution cultural revolution Russian revolution social revolution American revolution great revolution world revolution complete revolution Islamic revolution October revolution quiet revolution counter revolution glorious revolution political revolution technological revolution Bolshevik revolution green revolution first revolution sexual revolution

2

8,483 4,486 3,632 2,466 2,074 1,163 1,063 829 814 801 720 689 670 603 577 560 529 468 456 453

Glorious Revolution: A Foreign Event

It does not come as a surprise that in the aftermath of the “Age of the Democratic Revolution” all things revolutionary would be mentioned in the papers.8 “French Revolution” was a common enough bigram, with sixty-two hits in 1791, and much more frequent in this period than ‘American Revolution’ (see Table 15.2).

8 Robert Roswell Palmer identified that age as the period between 1760 and 1800 in his The Age of the Democratic Revolution (Princeton: 1959).

334

van Eijnatten

table 15.2 Absolute frequency of four bigrams in the Times, 1785–1839, per five-year period

French revolution 1785–1789 1790–1794 1795–1799 1800–1804 1805–1809 1810–1814 1815–1819 1820–1824 1825–1829 1830–1834 1835–1839 Totals

20 208 154 75 24 28 135 110 101 300 170 1325

American revolution 4 1 2 0 1 1 4 1 4 4 12 34

Counterrevolution

Glorious revolution

0 67 6 1 0 2 5 18 6 7 9 121

29 15 7 1 7 3 14 18 17 84 20 215

In time, these particular bigrams became real concepts rather than just descriptive terms, denoting more than just specific events located in time and space; they came to be laden with meaning, and associated with such values as “freedom” and “equality”. This did not apply to a whole range of related bigrams that appeared in newspaper articles in the early decades of the 19th century and referred to the Spanish, Polish, Neapolitan, Piedmontese, Greek, Belgian and other local or national revolutions. In the newspapers these remained just what they originally were: mere events. For the Times’ writers there was often something less than pleasant about these events. Collocations are useful here, using a measure to determine the strength of a relationship between words.9 In this case, words that collocated strongly with “revolution” in the early decades were “horrors”, “anarchy” and “excess”. Such negative terms perhaps reflect a “conservative” position, although most newspapers (and most readers) would have rejected mutiny and violence. Hence the many other negative associations with “revolution”, such as “abyss” (1819, 1830), “diabolical” (1821), “frightful” (1822), “disaster”

9 Based on a PMI score of words to the left of “revolution”. “Strongly” means a PMI score of 5.0 or higher and a frequency of the collocating word (in this case, “horrors”) of 10 or higher.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

335

(1823), “horrible” (1827), “dread” (1828), “misery” (1829), “abusive” (1832), “disastrous” (1834), “folly” (1838) and “atrocity” (1840).10 As for the term “counter-revolution”, this began to appear frequently from the 1820s onwards, when it indicated a specific movement or event that contested a specific insurrection. The word was not used at the time as a generic opposition to revolution. Surprisingly, despite its association with turmoil and violence, “revolution” was frequently also framed positively. There is an explanation for this. Given that the French Revolution was still used very straightforwardly as a revolution that happened to take place in France, the most frequently occurring, value-laden, multi-purpose bigrammic soundbite of the time was ‘glorious revolution’ (see Table 15.2). Even more surprisingly perhaps, in most cases the bigram ‘glorious revolution’ did not refer to 1688, as one might have expected in an English newspaper. All contemporary revolutions that overthrew tyrannical despots while ensuring a degree of respectable stability in the aftermath were considered glorious. True, a collection of particularly bad poetry from 1791 praised, with a good measure of irony, the recent glorious revolution in France “by which Twenty-five Millions of civilized People are reduced from a great and ancient Monarchical Government to a Savage Anarchy.”11 More characteristic for the transnational mobility of meanings, however, was an 1830 sonnet that lauded the French Revolution of that particular year as glorious for having restored a constitutional monarchy.12 The Times quoted the French liberal Journal des Débats, which had made a point of framing revolution as in essence something conservative: (…) the revolution in its object, in its true spirit, is in the eyes of this party regarded far more conservative than destructive. It overthrew a dynasty, but only to preserve the laws. It expelled men, only to save things. It has done what the restoration should have done, by establishing a monarchy truly constitutional.13 Even when the home-grown British revolution of 1688 was meant, it was not necessarily invoked in an anti-revolutionary spirit. The Revolution Society in

10 11 12 13

“Anarchy” collocates particularly strong to the right of “revolution” after 1818, under the same conditions as in the previous note. “Songs, Parodies, and Choruses, for the Celebration of The Glorious Revolution in France”, The Times (14 July 1791). Robert Folkestone Williams, “Sonnet, On the Late Glorious Revolution in France,” The Times (28 August 1830). “London, Monday, September 13, 1830,” The Times (13 September 1830).

336

van Eijnatten

London, established at the 1788 centenary, advertised in the Times that the Glorious Revolution be “celebrated with zeal and spirit by every Friend to the British Constitution”. But the Revolution Society was an association of radicals and not a conservative club.14 Not everyone who commended the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was necessarily conservative in the sense of being a Tory; most self-respecting Whigs, too, valued 1688 as the anchor of British politics.15 In the Commons the “true” meaning of the British Glorious Revolution was regularly contested, however, and this brings us closer to “conservatism”. For example, the Irish Tory John Leslie Foster defended the unity of church and state that had been ­“permanently established” in 1688. “It had grown up with our civil freedom,” he said, “and was necessary for its security.”16 Around 1829 such religious exclusivity was a certain sign of Tory politics. One Whig opponent commented on a Tory politician, who, in praising the “principles” of the Glorious Revolution, appeared by his speech to know of no reason for his attachment to that cause than its antiquity, and who so resolutely advocated the continuance of laws excluding the Catholics from the benefit of the constitution, not on account of their expediency or necessity, but merely because they were old; as if bad laws, like good wine, became better by keeping.17 Such, it seems, was the intellectual quality of conservative debate at the time. It was the kind of criticism that would dog conservative politicians and writers for another two centuries. What, exactly, was conservatism? The tension between continuity and change was not very amenable to being theorized, which was something most conservative thinkers would have disliked doing anyway. Another way of determining the relevance of “revolution” to “conservatism”, apart from bigrams and collocations, is to examine whether these words occurred in similar semantic contexts. In terms of methodology, this means determining whether they shared similar distributions of words. We can do this by using vector space models (“word embeddings”) to calculate the words “most similar” to a specific keyword, in either a synonymic or antonymic sense. A couple provisos are in order. “Revolution” and “conservatism” are not

14 15 16 17

“Sixteenth Time. Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden,” The Times (29 October 1790). Cf. the political advertisement placed by the Whig politician Lord William Russel in 1796: “Opera Concert, Great Room, Haymarket,” The Times (16 May 1796). “House of Commons, Monday, May 3,” The Times (4 May 1819). “Newark Election,” The Times (9 March 1829); the quote is by a “Mr. Pearson” and refers to the Tory Michael Thomas Sadler.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

337

direct antonyms (one might expect a word like “progressivism” to work better), while the method is less precise for the early 19th century because of the less than perfect ocr quality of the data. Nevertheless, some conclusions can be drawn. Word embeddings for the Times between 1811 and 1830 result in a range of synonyms for “revolution”: “anarchy”, “insurrection”, “overthrow”, “commotions”, “troubles”, “rebellion”, “revolt”, and so on (Fig. 15.1). Antonyms include ­“despotism”, “dynasty” and “monarchy” but not “conservatism”. This absence was to be expected, given that the word “conservatism” only began to be used as such in the 1830s. Newspaper discourse thus built on 18th-century concepts: revolution was suggestive either of ancien régime anarchy or a variety of “glorious”

figure 15.1 Similarity scores for the words “revolution”, based on unigram embeddings of the Times (1811–1835). The radial graph shows the similarity score of each word in relation to the word “revolution”, for all values equal to or higher than 0.55; the higher the score, the greater the similarity. The red circles reflect the occurrence of each word in the dataset for the period in question; words with frequencies lower than 10 have been discarded

338

van Eijnatten

constitutional antidotes, both British and foreign. Terms like “revolutionary principles”, “revolutionary projects” or “revolutionary spirit”, which implied that “revolution” was more than just a political event but had become an idea, were absent before 1840 but became more common later in the century. Unlike other European languages, the simple word “anti-revolutionary” never figured largely in British English. The OED mentions the bigram “anti-revolutionary wars” as an early instance, dating from 1830.18 However, in the Times the only 19th-century bigram worth mentioning in this respect is “anti-revolutionary bill”, which only appeared in 1895. The term, incidentally, is distinctly transnational, deriving from the ant-socialist legislation in the German Empire (the so-called Umsturzvorlage).19 3

Destructives and Unionists: Against Reformism and Separatism

The most important conclusion to be drawn from vector space models is that the word “revolution” does not, in fact, occur as an antonym of “conservatism”, even once the latter began to be used. However, the models for words most similar (and dissimilar) to “conservatism” rather than “revolution” display some interesting relationships. Obviously, “conservative” and “conservatives” have a very strong semantic relationship with “conservatism”; for that reason these words were excluded. In the model for the Times between 1831 and 1840 (Fig. 15.2), “Tories” and “Toryism” turn up, as do their opposites “Whigs” and “Whiggism”. “Principles”, a common term of the time suggesting something of an ideology, and often reflected in the presence of words ending in “ism” (like conservatism), is prominent as well.20 For the purpose of this article it is of greater interest to look at words that are antonymic to “conservatism”. Most telling are “reform” and “reformer(s)”, as well as “radicalism” and “radical(s)”, next to “chartism” and, curiously, the word “destructives”. While “chartism” remains on the journalistic agenda for a while, “destructives” is limited to the 1840s. The term brings us a little closer to conservatism as an anti-revolutionary “ideology” or movement. Thus, the 18

“anti-, prefix1,” OED Online (Oxford University Press); https://www-oed-com.proxy.library .uu.nl/view/Entry/8501?redirectedFrom=antirevolutionary (accessed 27 May 2019); the reference is to T.P. Thompson, Exercises (1842) I. 241. 19 “Index,” The Times (9 April 1895): The “Anti-Revolutionary Bill (…) has been in great measure transformed by the Ultramontane and Conservative sections (…)”. 20 See Joris van Eijnatten, “On Principles and Values: Mining for Conservative Rhetoric in the London Times, 1785–2010,” Digital Scholarship, Digital Classrooms: New International Perspectives in Research and Teaching. Proceedings of the Gale Digital Humanities Day at the British Library, May 2, 2019 (Farmington Hills, MI: 2020), 1–26.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

339

figure 15.2 Similarity scores for the words “conservatism”, based on unigram embeddings of the Times (1831–1840). The radial graph shows the similarity score of each word in relation to the word “conservatism”, for all values equal to or higher than 0.5

conservative Sir Robert Harry Inglis, commenting on the Reform Bill of 1832, pointed out that its “object was not restoration, but revolution, and that its effect would be destructive, not conservative.”21 His opponents in similar vein accused “impudent Conservatives” of denouncing reform as “not English, but forced, exotic, and destructive of all our institutions.”22 The use in these years of the nounal form of destructive allowed conservatives to lump together “all classes of Reformers, Destructives, and Revolutionists”23 and to call for a halt to the “career of the Destructives”. Had the “immortal Burke” not said that “when bad men combine, good men should unite”? So too the current “friends

21 22 23

“House Of Commons, Monday, March 19,” The Times (20 March 1832). “London, Wednesday, May 30, 1832,” The Times (30 May 1832). “London, Monday, June 1, 1835,” The Times (1 June 1835).

340

van Eijnatten

of social order” should come together under a common banner to resist “the assaults and threats of revolution”, or, as another conservative put it, to arrest “the revolutionary march of that three-headed monster” of destructiveness, infidelity and sedition.24 Examining word vector models generated for later periods, we find that other, newer words used in contexts similar to “conservatism” began to appear between 1841–1850, such as “liberalism” and “liberals”, in addition to “republicanism” and “democratical”. In later years “peelite”, denoting a conservative who defended (liberal) free trade, turns up as the counterpart to “protectionist”. Another interesting word is “tendencies”. The radical and liberal Richard Cobden, for example, arguing for universal suffrage in 1858, observed that “if the working classes had votes they would be quite as Conservative in their tendencies” as any other social group, since they would then have something to preserve or conserve. Unfortunately, people tended to elect as their leaders persons from a higher station than their own, which is why the middle classes voted for aristocrats.25 In other words, the British working class just did not exhibit revolutionary proclivities, so that both Liberals and Conservatives could claim them as their own. In the context of the Irish question, “separatism” occurs in the 1880s, as does “unionists”, meaning those who conservatively rejected Irish calls for independence. Liberal “gladstonianism” speaks for itself. At the very end of the century, “socialism” emerges. In brief, 19th-century ­British conservatism was not much given to distancing itself specifically from revolution: reformism, radicalism and liberalism were closer to the mark. What about the adjective “conservative”? Does this give rise to “revolutionary” as its semantic opposite in vector space models? Between 1785 and 1810, we get “Tribunate”, “Legislative” and “Senate”, three governing bodies established under Napoleon in 1800. The third French body was the Sénat Conservateur, which in effect accounts for the early British use of this foreign word, as in “conservative senate”.26 In the 1830s this changes, when the words “conservative”, “conservatives” and “conservatism” begin to appear in the newspapers as English words. Once “conservative” becomes a commonly used word, we obtain as its antonyms not “revolutionary” but “radical”, “reformer”, “whig’” and, again, “destructive”. Another word also crops up, “sta(u)nch”, a term used mostly in a political context and implying ideological steadfastness. The ­adjective went both ways, to the Left and to the Right: there were “stanch reformers” but also 24 “Bath Conservative Dinner,” The Times (12 December 1835). 25 “Mr. Cobden on Reform in Parliament,” The Times (23 January 1858). 26 The OED offers a number of examples of British word use from the 1830s, but refers to parti conservateur (1827) as an earlier French instance, as well as the journal Le Conservateur (1818).

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

341

“stanch conservative principles”. In the 1840s we get “liberals” and “chartists”, as well as another kind of radical: the “repealers”, those who argued for a repeal of the Acts of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland. “Progressists” referred to foreign liberals in France, Spain, Bavaria, Belgium and Sweden, “Septembrists” to the Portuguese rebels of 1845. If anti-reform factions count as “anti-revolutionary”, the “Adullamites” of the 1860s, a group of British MPs who opposed a second Reform Act, might qualify as such; however, they were Liberals, not Conservatives. In response to the Irish question, the “unionists” sometimes came closest to being identified as anti-revolutionaries. In the 1880s “separatist” crops up as an antonym for “conservative”, again in the context of Irish nationalism and the question of Home Rule; variations on the same theme are “federalist”, the eponymous adjectives referring to Irish leaders (“Parnellite”, “Dillonite”, ­“Healyite”) and “Nationalist”, all referring to things that conservatives should reject. ­Nevertheless, while “revolutionary” itself was never used as an antonym for “conservative”, conservative positions were often framed in a rhetoric related to revolutions. For example, an opponent of Irish Home Rule, the Liberal A.V. Dicey, repudiated the “revolutionary methods” of the nationalists, contrasting “constitutional, pacific, argumentative reform” with “revolution carried out by force”.27 In 1900 a later Conservative leader even published a novel on revolution, the moral of which seemed to be that revolutions generally come to nothing. “Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill is a good war correspondent,” observed a critic, “but he is not a novelist”.28 The plot was set in the fictional country “Laurania”, bringing home the point that, to the British, revolution was not transnational but mostly foreign. 4

Socialist Scourge: The Rise of Labour

Thus in the 19th century, British conservatism was hardly ever explicitly framed as an anti-revolutionary movement or ideology; revolutions and revolutionaries were to be found mostly abroad. Terrible things happened beyond the national borders, and such examples served as a warning to firebrands at home. In the 1840s, revolutions had been seen as convulsions, insurrections, anarchy, commotions, agitations, revolts, massacres, crises and rebellions,

27 28

“Unionism at Mossley,” The Times, 1 November 1887. Times (13 April 1900) on Winston S. Churchill, Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania (London: 1900).

342

van Eijnatten

mostly associated with France.29 In the second half of the 1910s, revolutions were understood in terms of bolshevism, communism, anarchy, socialism, the proletariat, ­ disintegration, uprising, revolt, assassination, bloodshed, ­catastrophe, ­agitation, upheaval, terrorism, intellectuals, usurpers, disruption, conflict and Jacobins, mostly associated with Russia.30 This would remain the general pattern until the second half of the 20th century, after which “revolution” began to be associated more generally with ideology (communism, socialism, Marxism), with class (proletariat, peasantry, bourgeoisie) and with post-colonial, nationalist aspirations. If the French Revolution did not inspire British conservatives to identify themselves as anti-revolutionaries, the Russian Revolution and, more importantly, the associated isms (socialism and communism) certainly did. In the debates preceding the Parliament Act of 1911, on a reform of the House of Lords, Arthur Balfour framed tensions in terms of a “revolutionary or anti-­ revolutionary struggle”. The term “anti-revolutionary” was now accepted more than before in the self-description of Conservatives, who also distanced themselves from ‘Heaven forbid! – Socialists, Radicals, and Nationalists’.31 It was the British Labour Party, which had gained a substantial number of seats in Parliament in 1918, that inspired both Liberals and Conservatives to identify themselves, in the words of Lloyd George, as “anti-revolutionary forces” united against the socialist “peril”, a revolutionary party entertaining “subversive” Marxist doctrines.32 As a Liberal, Lloyd George did try to distinguish himself from the Conservatives. He ironically observed that the Tories discovered to their chagrin “that the prevalent mood of the electorate of this country was definitely anti-revolutionary but quite positively progressive – that is, it was Liberal.”33 Conservative writers too appropriated the language of their foes, such the letter-writer who observed: “A peasant class is a stable, anti-revolutionary force, and provides a permanent counterweight to Socialism”.34 Yet this anti-revolutionary rhetoric applied mainly to the 1920s. More often than not, “anti-revolutionary” was used as a foreign epithet. Foreign conservatives were styled as anti-revolutionary, such as the Italians, whose conflict with the Vatican deprived them “of the strongest anti-revolutionary elements

29 30 31 32 33 34

Word embeddings for “revolution,” The Times, 1841–50. Word embeddings for “revolution,” The Times, 1916–20. “Mr. Balfour In The City” The Times, 5 March 1910. “Close The Ranks,” The Times, 24 March 1921. “Parties and their principles,” The Times, 4 August 1928. “Points from letters,” The Times, 23 December 1924.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

343

in the national character.”35 Above all the Netherlands was associated with a politically institutionalized anti-revolution, by virtue of the fact that a (Protestant) party of that name existed there. The pre-war Times initially identified it explicitly as the “Conservative ‘Anti-Revolutionary’ Party” but in later years described it as “Calvinist”, which was closer to the truth.36 At the same time, things “anti-revolutionary” continued to imply resistance to communism outside Britain. “Communism, it was discovered in Bulgaria this year”, the paper reported rather gleefully in 1959, “has not, after all, abolished crime, especially among the young”. The latter succumbed to “anti-revolutionary hooliganism”, the root cause of which was an addiction to such Western, “anti-revolutionary cankers” as rock & roll, duffle coats, narrow trousers and pony tails.37 In the Cold War era, revolutionism subsequently expanded far beyond Soviet Bloc politics and culture. In 1964 the Times noted: “In most of Africa and Asia today it is as important to have had a revolution as it was in 19th-century Europe to have a constitution.” Nasser’s Egypt, which regarded itself as revolutionary, saw Britain as “actively anti-revolutionary”.38 The term cropped up repeatedly after 1966 in the context of Mao’s cultural revolution and the extermination of anti-revolutionary elements in China,39 and incidentally in places ranging from Libya and Greece to Portugal and Ethiopia. At home the debate on radical reform circled more traditionally around continuity versus change. The Left could still afford an outright rejection of permanency. “For we are the party of change”, declared Labour Party leader Harold Wilson: “We seek not to conserve but to transform society (…) The greatest enemy that lies in our path in creating the kind of Britain we want to create is conservatism in all its forms.”40 Yet Labour now preferred to be not branded as revolutionary. The kind of change the Minister of Housing and Local Government in Wilson’s government, Richard Crossman, advocated bordered on the conservative: “It was better for the reformer to be chastised as a laggard than branded as an irresponsible revolutionary”, he quipped.41 Soon ­outspoken socialists even began to describe themselves explicitly as “anti-revolutionary”,

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

“After a prolonged period of doubt and difficulty,” The Times, 17 May 1899. “Elections in Holland,” The Times, 28 April 1933; “Cabinet’s Clash With Crown In Dutch Crisis,” The Times, 10 February 1964. “Bulgaria’s Bleak Delights,” The Times, 7 February 1959. “The Thinning Mist,” The Times, 23 July 1964. “Chou believed to be checking Chinese hotheads,” The Times, 27 February 1967. “We Have Right To Nation’s Backing,” The Times, 5 October 1966. “Parliamentary Commissioner seen as extra weapon for M.P.s,” The Times, 19 October 1966.

344

van Eijnatten

7.0e-05

7.0e-05 revolution (n = 167135) revolt (n = 52423) protest (n = 235853)

6.0e-05

5.0e-05

5.0e-05

4.0e-05

4.0e-05

3.0e-05

3.0e-05

2.0e-05

2.0e-05

1.0e-05

1.0e-05

0.0e+00

0

8 17

0

0 18

0

2 18

0

4 18

0

6 18

0

8 18

00 19 year

0

2 19

0

4 19

0

6 19

0

8 19

0

0 20

0.0e+00 0

2 20

figure 15.3 The relative frequency of the words “revolution”, “revolt” and “protest” in the Times (1785–2010)

such as the Labour politician Denis Healey. Asked about his views on the redistribution of wealth, he proclaimed: “I’m a great believer in gradualism”.42 In a cultural rather than political sense the distinction between radicals and conservatives came as prominently to the fore in the 1960s and 1970s as it had done in the 1920s. It even fed into theology. Conservatives – Billy Graham, for instance – were “proponents of personal and instant salvation” who did not believe that man could radically change the world, or even that he needed to. Christ would take care of that. Radicals like Martin Luther King, on the other hand, believed fervently that religious truth demanded social change. The Times associated Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican bishop known for his opposition to apartheid, with Dr. King’s take on truth. It was for the Church “to recognize that that truth is revolutionary and that it is a most powerful solvent of traditional social ideas.”43 The protest movement of the Sixties added fuel to what had still been relatively moderate flames a decade before. As Fig. 15.3

42 43

“A Times Profile,” The Times, 17 March 1975. “Are religion and politics the same thing?,” The Times, 5 November 1966, citing Trevor Huddleston’s Naught for Your Comfort (1960).

relative frequency (protest)

relative frequency (revolution)

6.0e-05

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

345

shows, the years between 1940 and 1970 shows an enormous increase in the relative frequency of “revolution” and “protest”, and to a lesser extent “revolt”. The later Labour politician David Triesman, introduced in 1970 as a “Marxist sociologist”, distinguished between “three periods of rebellion” in British history, each of them brought about by the working class. The first coincided with the industrial and French revolutions; the second witnessed the rise of trade unionism at the beginning of the 20th century; the third had begun around 1968. It was marked by Labour’s sell-out to the bourgeoisie and “by the collapse of ideology (…) into mere advertising slogans.”44 Ironically, the ideological polarization in the wake of the Sixties now put erstwhile opponents – social-democratic Labourites and all Conservatives – into the same dismal camp as anti-revolutionaries. 5

Disarming Revolution: Ironies and Paradoxes

In the aftermath of the Sixties, and despite the polarization, not many people would have expected a violent revolution to take place on British soil. Commentators began to play with the terms “revolutionary” and “anti-­ ­ revolutionary” – a certain sign that they had begun to mean something different from before, when revolutions still occurred in earnest, as actual social events. The one exception that would remain deadly serious for decades was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. But that event, too, was paradoxical. As a very large number of newspaper accounts, particularly in the 1990s and 2000s, made abundantly clear, it had been a revolution engineered and institutionalized by (religious) conservatives. In other contexts, revolution became a fun idea, a useful metaphor for journalists to toy with, a term of moderate opprobrium for political commentators to tease with, and an intellectual windmill for quixotic traditionalists to battle with. The hardline, communist-style use of the word “anti-revolutionary” persisted after the 1970s, but that term too soon became a bit of a joke. In a prefiguration of the #Me Too movement, the Times reported with evident delight that Gerry Healy, the leader of the Workers R ­ evolutionary Party, a Trotskyist splinter group in the UK, had committed “anti-revolutionary” acts of a sexual nature with more than twenty-six women.45 Revolutionism had become all but harmless. How did that affect conservatism? To understand the semantic field of this period, it is helpful to look at

44 45

“Making Britain safe for motherhood,” The Times, 10 October 1970. “Disciplinary panel studies WRP sex claims delay,” The Times, 2 November 1985.

346

van Eijnatten

figure 15.4 The bigram productivity for ‘revolution’ in the Times (1785–2010); only words of more than three characters have been taken into account. The black line represents the number of unique unigrams (i.e. words) per year, which can be taken as a tentative measure for the richness of the vocabulary; the values are displayed on the y axis to the right

the popularity of the word ‘revolution’. This can be illustrated by its “bigram ­productivity”, understood as the number of times the word occurs in combination with a unique adjective within a given time span (see Fig. 15.4). The average productivity per year for each of six (unequal but historically cogent) periods is as follows: 23 unique bigrams (1785–1839), 63 (1840–1899), 73 (1900–1939), 48 (1940–1949), 102 (1950–1979) and 195 (1980–2010). Fig. 15.4 demonstrates an increase in productivity over the years, with a dip during World War II, and the highest degree of productivity (or rhetorical resourcefulness) between 1980 and 2010. The overall annual top scorer is 1999, with 238 different bigrams. The bigrams that occurred in the three final decades can be classified in a variety of ways: according to nation (French, Russian, American, Cuban, Mexican), date (1789, 1830, 1905, 1946, 1979), socio-economic domain (agricultural, technological, retail), media (TV, PC, digital, internet, information), religion and ideology (Islamic, communist, Bolshevik, feminist, Protestant), eating (food, culinary, gastronomic), fashion (punk, rock, raja),

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

347

entertainment (matrix, coconut), science (Newton’s, medical), generation (teenage, youth), behavior (sexual), process (armed, violent, bloodless, peaceful, velvet, palace, silent, quiet), symbol (rose), months (October, December, February), politicians (Reagan, Thatcher, Gingrich, Blair) and, of course, color (orange, saffron, red, blue). “Blue” did not refer to Tories but to a­ quaculture; however, there was also a ‘conservative revolution’. Concerning the relation between conservatism and revolution in this period three paradoxes can be identified. The first suggested that blue conservatives and red revolutionaries often actually shared the same ideals. In 1971 the writer of an item called “Romantics to revolutionaries” noted that the radical Left, “the many voices of protest, the anarchists, the hippies, the followers of ­Marcuse”, strongly resembled early 19th-century conservatives. Both “the extreme right, the literary Tories, Scott, Wordsworth and Southey” and the modern ­Marcusians rejected the (or rather some) outcomes of modernity, such as “depersonalized structures”, “the growing centralization of discussions” and “the horrors of urbanization”.46 The second paradox followed Hannah Arendt’s observation to the effect that the “most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution” – a one-liner cited in a “memorable quotes” section in the Times in 2010.47 And indeed, it is a well-known sociological paradox that the protest generation of the 1960s ultimately settled down, landed good jobs, made lots of money and bought large houses. But if they mostly remained leftist after 1968 that did not apply to their descendants. By 1984, the University of California, Berkeley, the cradle of the 1960s student protest movement, had become “a stronghold of conservatism, and born-again Christianity”.48 The revolutionary had turned conservative. But the opposite also held, which leads to the third paradox: conservatives could, in effect, be revolutionary themselves. It was Margaret Thatcher who was consistently praised as the paragon of revolutionary conservatism. Initially this was not the case. With Labour still in power, Thatcher in 1976 published a statement of conservative aims called The Right Approach (playing with words increasingly became a political marketing strategy in these years, as spin doctors gained influence); it was meant to serve as “a call to arms for a counter-revolutionary blow against the advance of socialism”. Yet in practice it was “classless, non-ideological, pragmatic” and focused on the political center.49 46 47 48 49

“Romantics to revolutionaries,” The Times, 17 April 1971. “The Daily Universal Register” The Times, 6 October 2010. Ian Bradley “Make money, not revolution,” The Times, 3 September 1984. “Conservatives sound call to arms against the advance of socialism,” The Times, 4 October 1976.

348

van Eijnatten

A year later the Times had completely changed its perspective. While Labour was described as the party of “pragmatism and compromise”, Thatcher’s political philosophy was seen not just as theological, ideological and dogmatic but as utterly radical and revolutionary.50 Thatcherites themselves preferred to call the new conservatism “counter-revolutionary” because it rejected the broadly social-democratic effort to build the welfare state in which post-war ­conservatives themselves had participated.51 Opponents likewise used the term “counter-revolutionary”, but in a negative sense – as nothing less than revolutionary. “Mrs Thatcher has treated the middle ground with contempt” noted one member of the British SDP. “Where previous Conservative governments have stood for consolidation and continuity, hers stands, quite explicitly, for a counter-revolution”.52 Thatcher’s “economic, cultural and moral revolution”53 divided opinion and led to a marked loss of direction among all parties. What kind of conservative was she? One opponent suggest that perhaps she was “a right-wing counter-revolutionary trapped in an essentially social democratic state”, a radical compelled to abide by institutional rules.54 In due course this conflation between the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary was taken for granted, and critics and supporters simply denounced or praised Thatcher and all she stood for as outright revolutionary.55 In the top twenty adjectival bigrams containing “revolution” printed in the Times between 1980 and 2010, the “Thatcher(ite) revolution” holds the seventeenth position with 206 hits. The term was usually not intended as a compliment. One of the “wets” during Thatcher’s ministry typically censured her clique as a bunch of “politically deaf, dogmatic, ideological, unbalanced, and insensitive extremists”.56 Others lauded Thatcher’s policies as the “Conservative meritocratic revolution of the 1980s”57 which had paradoxically turned Labour into a conservative, counter-revolutionary party,

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

“Entry of religion into new Conservative politics,” The Times, 17 April 1978. Such as Nigel Lawson, quoted in “Tories have embarked on counter-revolution,” The Times, 5 August 1980. “Now we must turn hope into votes,” The Times, 6 September 1983; the reference is to David Marquand. “More than a creed of greed,” The Times, 11 April 1988. “The whirling thoughts of Mrs Thatcher,” The Times, 8 May 1981. Cf. Andrew Adonis and Tim Hames (eds.), A Conservative Revolution? The Thatcher-Reagan Decade in Perspective (Manchester: 1994). “They cannot forgive her,” The Times, 26 June 1984; the reference is to Francis Pym. “The voters who want Tony Blair to be bold and William Hague to go have a clear choice in the European elections,” The Times, 20 May 1999.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

349

focused on “defending Britain against the Thatcher revolution”.58 Not entirely surprisingly, the bigram “Blair revolution” also occurred with some frequency, indicating Labour’s about-turn from working-class socialism to middle-class managerialism. Some conservative commentators, such as Conservative politician Norman Blackwell, believed it necessary “to carry forward a radical second stage of the revolution Margaret Thatcher started.” But, he warned (apparently without any irony): “Revolutions are not comfortable.”59 More dispassionate observers suggested that Conservatives might be throwing out the baby with the bath water. One journalist noted that Thatcher had ejected the conservative appreciation of “the English nation as one unique and even mystical social, tribal, political and spiritual community” out of the window in favor of an “arena of conflicting interests.”60 Commenting on Prime Minister Tony Blair’s 1999 conference speech, in which he opposed the left-wing “forces of modernity” with the right-wing “forces of conservatism”, the journalist Anatole Kaletsky pointed out that the Tories under Mrs. Thatcher had “ceased to be conservatives and turned into Maoist radicals, believers in permanent revolution for its own sake”. The people had accepted “the revolution of Thatcherite market fundamentalism” as something that needed to be implemented for a while, but Blair had come to power precisely because he was “a cautious, incremental, managerial sort of a leader, a ‘safe pair of hands’.”61 If Tories wanted power, argued Kaletsky, they should stop acting like “passionate, sincere and wildeyed revolutionaries’ and start resembling more the “managerial automata” of New Labour.62 In time, the term ‘revolutionary’ became a self-imposed conservative sobriquet. The Conservative Society at UCL presented its society song in 2007. To the tune of John Brown’s Body (which in the chorus became ‘Tory Tory ­Alleluia’), students sang: “Maggie Thatcher walks on water, Maggie Thatcher walks on water, Maggie Thatcher walks on water, When the blue revolution comes”.63 William Hague had earlier launched his ill-fated Common Sense Revolution, declaring to draw on the “instincts of the people”.64 According to its critics,

58 59 60 61

“Alternative capitalism,” The Times, 16 July 1987. “Bring back the Tory revolution, William,” The Times, 28 December 2000. “More than a creed of greed,” The Times, 11 April 1988. “The madness of King Tony,” The Times, 30 September 1999; the article was reprinted as ­“Dishonest and stupid — but still popular,” The Times, 10 May 2007. 62 “Taxing our credulity,” The Times, 7 October 1999. 63 “People,” The Times, 2 March 2007. 64 “Hague savages ‘the cult of Blair’,” The Times, 4 October 1999.

350

van Eijnatten

the program was not just oxymoronic65 but boiled down to “a right-wing revolution with a multibillion-pound price tag”.66 A few years later in Prague, Iain Duncan Smith called for a “democratic revolution”, to achieve his vision of a Europe of national democracies rather than “soulless supranational institutions”.67 David Cameron suggested that an “intellectual revolution” might be a good idea,68 and subsequently proposed a “responsibility revolution to ­create an opportunity society” (“in which everybody is a somebody, a doer not a done-for”).69 This was duly followed by a “rehabilitation revolution”, a policy unveiled by Cameron to combat overcrowding in prisons.70 A giggly journalist in the Times newsroom quoted Cameron on yet another conservative revolution, in this case a radical redistribution of power. “It was a John Lennon moment but then Dave ruined it by saying: ‘Power to the people is one of the most deeply held Conservative ideas.’”71 Revolution had become a conservative rallying cry; but the upheaval these politicians envisaged was a toothless revolt, and in fact a synonym for measured change. One writer to the editor had his doubts about this right-wing lapse into revolutionary rhetoric: “can Conservatives claim to be setting up a revolution and still be Conservatives?” Perhaps the Conservative Party had been trying to change too much, rather than conserving what was worthwhile.72 Wasn’t it past time to pursue “stability, social harmony, continuity and the removal of conflict”?73 Even worse, Conservative politicians actually began to speak in abstractions, something they had always found left-wingers guilty of. Under the influence of neoconservative ideology (although “ideology” was an abstraction to be avoided) they, too, used “metaphors of reform, rebirth and renaissance”.74 There seemed to be little difference anymore between left and right-wing rhetoric.75 The ideas launched by David Cameron illustrate the way modern conservatives wrestled with their tradition. When he launched his idea for a “massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power”, Cameron contended that his “philosophy of progressive Conservatism – the pursuit of progressive goals through Conservative means” would make this possible. As 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

“Traditional values or off their trolley?,” The Times, 8 October 1999. “Heseltine stokes war on Europe,” The Times, 5 October 1999. “Tory chief taking us out of EU, says Clarke,” The Times, 11 July 2003. “Choose your poison, Tories,” The Times, 7 November 2005. “‘Built to Last’ manifesto given running repairs,” The Times, 17 August 2006. “Tories plan to reward successful prisons,” The Times, 4 March 2008. Ann Treneman, “A speed-dater’s approach to history,” The Times, 6 June 2007. “Tory policy ‘revolution’,” The Times, 5 January 2001. “Balancing the Tory ticket,” The Times, 27 April 1989. “The Tories must speak the language of earthlings,” The Times, 10 May 2003. See Van Eijnatten, “On Principles and Values”.

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

351

a Times writer observed, this way of arguing was reminiscent of “new Labour Third Way thinking”, that is a blend of left and right-wing political philosophy. “It means a little bit less every time you say it.”76 The taming of conservatism had been some time in the making. The rhetoric of progressive change in the context of the welfare state had already figured prominently in the post-war conservatism of Macmillan and Heath. Asked why conservatives would carry through something as revolutionary as membership of the Common Market, prime minister Edward Heath replied: “Socialism is the doctrine of stagnation, conservatism is the policy of change.” Conservatives survive because they adapt.77 The aims of traditional Conservatism, observed Francis Pym, is “to conserve what is good and improve what is bad”.78 The argument harked back to the 19th century, but from the 1980s onwards it began to imply to commentators that conservatism lacked both content and color. One writer deplored the “vision-speak” vented by Conservative politicians and their “marketing quacks”, relentlessly selling “big dreams and visions, new beginnings, fresh starts and change – always change”. If real change were brought about such messages would make an impact, but if, as was more often than not the case, “the mission is managerial, the change gradual, and the core purpose continuity rather than revolution, vision-speak stales”.79 There were always dissenting views, of course. The philosopher Roger Scruton, for instance, gave the “conservatives-as-anti-revolutionaries” thesis a twist by proclaiming that old-style socialists were actually anti-conservatives. It was the conservatives who over the 20th century had prevented Labour from blowing itself up, by deflecting it from its “revolutionary purpose” and forcing it to operate in an institutional, and hence non-revolutionary mold.80 And to top it all, one journalist portrayed Karl Marx, on the occasion of the 1983 centenary of his death, as a staunch conservative ally. Marx’s followers might imagine society to be one happy family, but their spiritual leader never thought of life in that way: “it is red in tooth and claw, without happy endings or solutions. Marx’s tragic sense of life, his social pessimism, his anti-egalitarianism, his Homeric sense of the grandeur of conflict, his splenetic contempt of wets, his deep disbelief in people’s good nature, is deeply acceptable to the conservative.” And thus even Marx had become indispensable to the conservative struggle.81

76 77 78 79 80 81

“There is only one way out of this national crisis: a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power,” The Times, 27 May 2009. “Mr Heath in search of ‘personality’ of Ten,” The Times, 18 February 1972. “They Cannot Forgive Her,” The Times, 26 June 1984. “Cameron hasn’t sealed the deal. Thank heaven,” The Times, 3 October 2009. “Why we need to conserve Labour,” The Times, 8 March 1983. “Marx: a theory for all parties,” The Times, 16 March 1983.

352

van Eijnatten

6 Conclusion Tracing semantic fields involving “conservatism” and “revolution” over time, this article has identified four broad temporal clusters; in each the tension between revolution and conservatism took on a different form. Before 1840 revolution was seen as something that ought to be spurned because it led to anarchy, but often it was also appreciated positively as the glorious installation of a traditional monarchy. In the second half of the 19th century the revolution was contextualized, above all, in terms English anti-reformism and Irish unionism, two political processes allied to conservatism. Particularly between the two world wars and during the first half of the Cold War, conservatism was defined as the nemesis of socialism and communism, both obviously closely connected to revolution, especially in its Russian guise. Finally, following the Sixties, revolution was rendered a harmless metaphor for hot-headed ideologues keen on subverting what they saw as an increasingly dysfunctional postwar welfare state, and ultimately an ironical epithet to be bestowed upon, or appropriated by, just about anybody. Was all this “transnational”? To some extent perhaps: the semantic field in which revolution co-existed with conservatism owed its texture partly to un-British manifestations of untidy revolts and heated rebellions in foreign places. In that sense British conservative self-definitions in the Times are part and parcel of a broader European phenomenon. At the same time, conservatism in the Times was more about anti-reformism than anti-revolutionism. The “anti-revolutionary” element in British political thought never gained the semi-mystical status of a religious-philosophical principle, as it did at some points in time in France, Germany and the Netherlands. This longitudinal analysis of a single semantic field needs to be augmented by similar analyses based on other comparable quality newspapers (such as the more left-wing Guardian),82 in as many languages as possible. Given the combination of “close” and “distant” reading used in this article, pursuing this research agenda seems like a tall order. It is doable nevertheless, since this kind of digital historical research is a cumulative enterprise, in the sense that datasets can easily be combined to perform analyses based on the outcomes of this initial inquiry.

82

https://search.proquest.com/hnpguardianobserver (31 October 2020).

The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London ‘Times’

353

Bibliography Adonis, Andrew, and Tim Hames (eds.), A Conservative Revolution? The Thatcher-­ Reagan Decade in Perspective (Manchester: 1994). Bourke, Richard, “What is Conservatism? History, Ideology and Party,” European ­Journal of Political Theory 17 (2018), 449–75. Eijnatten, Joris van, “On Principles and Values: Mining for Conservative Rhetoric in the London Times, 1785–2010,” Digital Scholarship, Digital Classrooms: New I­ nternational Perspectives in Research and Teaching. Proceedings of the Gale Digital Humanities Day at the British Library, May 2, 2019 (Farmington Hills, MI: 2020), 1–26. Eijnatten, Joris van, and Ruben Ros, “The Eurocentric Fallacy. A Digital-Historical Approach to the Concepts of ‘Modernity’, ‘Civilization’ and ‘Europe’ (1840–1990),” International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity 7 (2019), 686–736. Green, Ewen Henry Harvey, Ideologies of Conservatism. Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: 2002). Palmer, Robert Roswell, The Age of the Democratic Revolution (Princeton: 1959). Scruton, Roger, How to Be a Conservative (London: 2014).

CHAPTER 16

Languages of Transnational Conservatism: The Emergence of “Left” and “Right” in Britain Emily Jones “Do you incline, on the whole, towards the Right, or … the Left?” This, observed The Nation in 1927, was “the broad question … the two-party system asks”.1 Today we also use these terms—a spectrum from “left-” to “right-” wing— without any reference to their specific origins in the French Revolutionary National Assembly of 1789.2 They are part of a language used indiscriminately and transnationally in order to describe, compare, and connect politicians and political ideas around the globe.3 Likewise, when we consider dominant ideologies such as conservatism we think of bodies of ideas that are useable in comparative ­transnational and even global contexts: liberal or conservative ideas might work differently in different contexts, or these ideas might be imposed by political or economic empires, but still a core set of values or concepts are relied upon, though their interpretation necessarily changes over time.4 In fact, the popularity of Left and Right in English is of a comparatively recent vintage: a Google Ngram of “left-” and “right-wing” points suggestively to the exponential growth in usage from the 1917 Russian Revolution and the end of the First World War.5 As intellectual historians have long established, transnational ideas, ideologies, and the concepts and languages they draw upon do not exist ahistorically 1 H.D. Henderson, The Nation (5 November 1927), quoted in Trevor Wilson, The Decline of the Liberal Party (London: 1966), 124. 2 Marcel Gauchet, “Right and Left,” in Realms of Memory: Conflicts and Divisions, vol. 1, ed. Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman (New York: 1996), 241–98. 3 See, for example, the special issue “Transnational Solidarities and the Politics of the Left, 1890–1990,” European Review of History 21 (2014), 447–50; Martin Durham and Margaret Power (eds.), New Perspectives on the Transnational Right (New York: 2010). 4 Andrew S. Sartori, Liberalism in Empire: An Alternative History (Berkeley: 2014); Christopher A. Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: 2011). 5 Google Ngram Viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=left-wing%2Crightwing&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_ url=t1%3B%2Cleft%20-%20wing%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cright%20-%20wing%3 B%2Cc0 (accessed 8 July 2019). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004446731_016

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

355

in the sky. The question remains, then, of assessing when and why commentators working within spatial frameworks such as locality, nation, and empire, abstract their own ideas and identities in this way. This is a question of how political labels such as right- and left-wing come to have purchase as dominant modes of political language. Indeed, if we are interested in the historical development of conservatism then we must also be interested in the process by which certain terms, ideas, concepts—including defining historical events or “moments”—came to have, or increasingly have, meaning in spatially located political traditions. This chapter will therefore examine the growth and usage of these terms in English-language texts, with a focus on Britain. Studies of the careers of political concepts, and the broader political “languages” within which they are embedded, form an ever-growing strand in modern political and intellectual history.6 Such work serves to illustrate the vital intersections between both political history and histories of political thought. This chapter will argue that the turn of the 20th century was a moment in which political identities in Britain were realigning and subtly opening out; decentering the constitutional debates that had dominated 19th-century party politics, and in doing so creating the space and intellectual context for the increased application of political labels primarily associated with Continental Europe. It is the story of academics, writers, journalists, and politicians contributing to the development of contemporary understandings of political thought and, in doing so, the history of comparative transnational ideologies. Of particular interest to transnational historians of conservatism has been the concept of “revolutionary conservatism”, which gains much of its rhetorical impact from the juxtaposition of two seemingly incompatible ideologies associated with radicalism and moderation, respectively, while at the same time being viscerally opposed to the French Revolution and its legacy.7 This essay takes a different path, asking instead how “moderate” conservatism, in particular that associated with the British Conservative and Unionist Party, became allied with an anti-revolutionary, European label—“the Right”. That British Conservatism arrived so late to the party may seem counterintuitive:

6 Recent examples include Helena Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton: 2018); Wael Abu-’Uksa, Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: 2016); David Craig and James Thompson, (eds.), Languages of Politics in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Basingstoke: 2013). 7 Bernhard Dietz, Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives against Democracy and P­ olitical Modernity (1929–1939) (London: 2018).

356

Jones

was ­modern conservatism not founded as a response to the French ­Revolution and its global ramifications at the end of the 18th century?8 However, this intellectual framework has limited application—and requires great leaps of ­genealogical reworking—in a 19th-century British context. Away from the clash between royalists and republicans, the central, indigenous, point of identification for both Tory-Conservatives and Whig-Liberals lay in their particular interpretation of the mixed, parliamentary, British Constitution, which included an established Church and a constitutional monarchy; not Left and Right, but “Government” and “Opposition”. This was quite unlike the situation in France, where the term “la droite” became increasingly common from 1815.9 Writing in 1918, for example, the British historian P.A. Brown noted that, while the “spirit” of the Revolution “blew like a thunder-storm against the wind”, its discernible legacy was “hidden” in the party politics of 19th-century Britain.10 What is of particular interest, then, is the moment when Conservatives, Liberals and the new Labour representatives began to conceive their political identities as situated more fully in transnational political and intellectual frameworks—including the language of Left and Right. This chapter consists of three parts. Section one examines the late-Victorian and Edwardian interest in the French Revolution and the consequences this had for Edwardian Conservative identity. Section two focuses on the impact of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Left and Right in connection to socialism and communism throughout the interwar period. The final, concluding, section considers the significance of language and what examining such a change can tell us about Conservatism and conservatism in both national and cosmopolitan contexts. Before we begin, however, we must note that the terms Left and Right are highly amorphous, imprecise terms which reduce complex political ideas and positions to either a simple dichotomy, or an identifiable point along a linear spectrum. Over the course of the 19th century, the Left-Right divide in France, for instance, was distinguishable variably between supporters of constitutional and a largely unlimited monarchy, monarchism and republicanism, Catholicism and anticlericalism. Since the 20th century, and the substantial growth in usage, the terminology has been used most frequently to signify stances on international social and political movements: socialism, free market capitalism, communism, and fascism, as well as on women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights and 8 9 10

Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (New York: 2013). Gauchet, “Right and Left,” 247–48. Philip Anthony Brown, The French Revolution in English History (London: 1918), 78, 215.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

357

immigration.11 Similarly, “right-wing” is not synonymous with ­“conservative” in its most basic sense as the conservation of the status-quo—be it political, social, economic, or otherwise. This flexibility of application is a strength, not a weakness; an essential quality for durability, particularly for transnational political languages which by necessity require adaptation to highly diverse national and/or imperial circumstances. 1

“Revolution” in Fin-de-Siècle Britain

It is from the 1880s that we can see the first applications of Left and Right to British party politics. Earlier usage in Britain was more limited: to reportage on France, for example, or those deemed to be on the “left” or “right” of Hegel.12 Likewise, an 1887 article on the Italian Chamber of Deputies in the US magazine, Harper’s, commented on “the political differences between the two great parties, the parliamentary Right and Left”.13 Yet, for many Conservatives and contemporaries, something more sinister was now underfoot: the growing perception of “revolutionary” behavior at this time encouraged Conservatives to reach for new rhetorical tools—the “extreme wing”, the “left-wing” now at large within. An evolving political situation in which the radicalism of the labor movement, Irish Fenianism, and women’s suffrage activism was professed to be developing into something more dangerous coincided with the 1889 centenary and a cultural and intellectual revival enthused by the French Revolution and its key players. Both provided essential context for the “opening” of British identities and the use of more overtly transnational and European political language. Firstly, it is possible to chart a remarkable increase in interest in the French Revolution preceding and following the centenary in 1889.14 A booming publishing trade featured a vast number of historians, novelists, dramatists, translators and biographers catering for this new market.15 While popular writers and novelists, drawing inspiration from the dramatic events of the 1790s and

11 12 13 14 15

Pierre Bréchon, “Valeurs de droite et valeurs de gauche: de la Révolution française aux é­ lections de 2017,” Pacte, 6 April 2017. The latter usage persisted: “Philosophy,” Westminster Review (July 1886), 241–48. “The Italian Chamber of Deputies,” Harper’s 76 (1887–88), 180. Billie Melman, The Culture of History: English Uses of the Past, 1800–1953 (Oxford: 2006). Ernest Baker, History in Fiction (London and New York: 1907) and A Guide to Historical Fiction (London and New York: 1914); Hatchards, “Napoleon and his Time: A Collection of Standard Books in Fine Second-Hand Condition” (London: 1908).

358

Jones

the Napoleonic era, swelled the cache of available material, so too did notable periodicals and publications on France and the Revolution. More broadly, the work of the École Nationale des Chartes was warmly welcomed in Britain as an unrivalled school of French history. To the Tory Quarterly Review, the Revolution presented, on the one hand, an irresistible tale of glorious and sordid life, teeming with paradox and mystery: “lofty hopes and bitter disillusions, beginning with wild enthusiasm of a great people panting for freedom, and closing with the most dramatic incident of history, the rise, the greatness, and the fall of the Heir of the Revolution.” On the other hand, there were more salient, contemporary reasons for its appeal: “the Revolution has influenced the daily life, the religion, the thought, the legal position of every Frenchman now living, in a degree which has no parallel in the past history of any other nation.”16 Similarly, W.T. Stead writing in the Contemporary Review remarked how the Revolution continued to raise great questions not merely among Frenchmen but in Britain, too.17 The growth of the historical discipline at the end of the 19th century, as well as historically-minded English Literature degrees, ensured that the Revolution was no “dead epoch”, but the central turning point in modern European history—Britain included. As the Conservative and historian, Geoffrey Butler, observed in The Tory Tradition (1914): If you go to certain history schools in England, you will learn that the French Revolution as a turning-point of history was only approached in importance by the creation of the world itself. It is described as the crucible of history into which were tumbled helter-skelter all the national ­traditions, civilisations, and politics of pre-revolutionary Europe, and from which the modern world emerged.18 While Butler clearly retained a degree of skepticism, across the country courses on the French Revolution and its perceived consequences, including literary Romanticism, rapidly increased. Yet, as for Stead, an examination of Revolutionary novels, to Allene Gregory, Lecturer at Rockford College, Illinois, was not undertaken for their intrinsic merit, but for lessons in “Revolutionary

16 17 18

George Knottesford Fortescue, “The French Revolution in Contemporary Literature,” ­ uarterly Review (April 1913), 353–71, here 354. Q William T. Stead, “Madame France and Her Brav’ Général,” Contemporary Review (June 1889), 910–28. Geoffrey Butler, The Tory Tradition (London: 1914), 52.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

359

ethics” and “social idealism”.19 Many academics, particularly those inspired by Idealist philosophy—itself a potent mixture of British and Continental ­European thought—led to reappraisals and republications of Rousseau, particularly with regards to his concept of the “general will”.20 Others, such as Edward Dowden, Professor of English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and Lord Acton, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, also delivered and published significant lectures on the history and legacies of the Revolutionary period.21 The history of France and the Revolution was clearly important in the national and political psyche, and Britain was no bubble: there was of course significant cross-channel intellectual exchanges earlier in the century.22 But still we must stress the previous centrality of an indigenous constitutional agenda to 19th-century party politics—and therefore political identities and principles, conservatism and Conservatives included.23 Even for Conservatives, while the fear of “revolution” may at times have been considerable in the 1820s or 1830s, Whigs, and later Liberals, were not deemed “revolutionary” in a serious, French sense. Moreover, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, British Conservatives frequently praised the pragmatic, non-revolutionary “character” of the “English people”.24 This wider intellectual culture provided a critical framework for political debates in which Conservatives realigned themselves and their opponents with “Revolutionary” precursors. First, Conservatives, and—after the Liberal split over Irish Home Rule—Unionists re-imagined their opposition, and the way in which the Liberal Party, as well as the nascent Labour movement, Irish Home Rulers and (for some but not all Conservatives, as well as some L­ iberals) supporters of women’s suffrage, were reimagined as a far more fearsome enemy: Jacobinical revolutionaries. For writers in Conservative periodicals 19 20 21 22

23 24

Allene Gregory, The French Revolution and the English Novel (New York and London: 1915), vii, 306–07. Jose Harris, “Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870–1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy,” Past & Present 135 (1992), 116–41. Emily Jones, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914: An I­ ntellectual History (Oxford, 2017), ch. 7. Debra Kelly and Martyn Cornick (eds.), A History of the French in London (London: 2013); Juliette Atkinson, French Novels and the Victorians (Oxford: 2017); Tom Stammers, “From the Tuileries to Twickenham: The Orléans, Exile and Anglo-French Liberalism, c. 1848– 1880,” English Historical Review 133 (2018), 1120–54. Robert Saunders, “Parliament and People: The British Constitution in the Long Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Modern European History 6 (2008), 72–87. See, for example: George Croly, Memoir of Edmund Burke (Edinburgh: 1840), 1, 165; [‘A Plain Tory’], Tory Democracy and Conservative Policy (London: 1892), 15, 69.

360

Jones

such as the Saturday Review, transnational Conservative-Unionist historians such as Goldwin Smith, and bipartisan anti-suffrage writers and periodicals such as the Anti-Suffrage Review and the Positivist Ethel Harrison, the ­argument for women’s suffrage was reminiscent of the French Revolutionary destruction of society they feared so much, as well as being a French import itself.25 In her successful book, The Freedom of Women (1908), Harrison blamed the recent growth of “women’s rights” on what “the French call ‘Le Féminisme’ … [a] hybrid culture from seed sown by the French Revolution”.26 It was a sentiment entirely supported as “quite true” by the more distinctly conservative Edinburgh Review in its appraisal of Harrison’s work.27 Many contemporaries thus articulated profound concern over internal, revolutionary, potentially alien (i.e. French) social and political movements at work within Britain. This led, firstly, to anti-suffrage Conservatives reimagining militant suffragettes as poissardes storming Parliament and, in the words of A.A. Milne (of Winnie the Pooh fame) writing in the popular satirical magazine Punch, utilizing revolutionary language to identify the “right” and “left” wings of militant suffrage.28 The debates over Irish Home Rule from the time of Gladstone’s Hawarden Kite in December 1885 also saw the reimagining of Gladstonian Liberals (who supported their premier’s move towards devolution) as constitutional revolutionaries. This was as true for the Benthamite democrat and constitutional lawyer A.V. Dicey as for old Tories in the Lords—both of whom held unitary parliamentary sovereignty at Westminster as a sacrosanct principle. It was in this context that Unionists, who opposed the Gladstonian use of Edmund Burke’s American speeches in support of Home Rule, poor readers of Burke. Instead, Liberal Unionists argued, Burke would have condoned the measure, and that they were themselves the true representatives of Burke’s principles against the Gladstonian “revolutionaries”. This allowed the Unionists to successfully “claim” Burke’s anti-revolutionary legacy as their own, ahead of their fusion with the Conservative Party.29

25

Emily Jones, “Constructive Constitutionalism in Conservative and Unionist Political Thought, c. 1885–1914,” English Historical Review 134 (2019), 334–57, here 341–43. 26 Ethel B. Harrison, The Freedom of Women: An Argument Against the Proposed Extension of the Suffrage to Women (London: 1908), 9. Harrison’s interest in the French Revolution arose from the Positive philosophy she shared with her husband, Frederic, as well as her own research on revolutionary France. 27 “Women and the Franchise,” Edinburgh Review (1908), 246–63, here 246. 28 “The Storming of the Bastille—New Style,” The Anti-Suffrage Review (August 1912), 187; A.A. Milne, “Votes for Men,” Punch (4 March 1908), 178. 29 Jones, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, ch. 5.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

361

Thanks to increasing concerns over Irish land and politics, therefore, the Home Rule leader Charles Stuart Parnell was identified as having a “left wing” support group by the Saturday Review.30 The founder of the Social Democratic Foundation, H.M. Hyndman, similarly wrote that the “dangerous communism of the Fenians, who represent the extreme left wing of the Irish party, is as completely destructive of present arrangements as the purest socialism of Paris or Berlin.”31 It was equally helpful for Conservative Imperialists, such as the relatively literary General Viscount Wolseley, to label opponents “Revolutionary Socialists … the left wing of the Radical party.”32 The Tory Blackwood’s Magazine similarly recalled how the 1859 Willis Room compact, in which the Liberal Party proper came into existence, formally recognized the “formation of a Left Wing in the Liberal camp”.33 This was, for Blackwood’s, part of a longer historical narrative in which the radicals grew in strength, while the moderate Whigs withered into the background; helped by the growth of the Liberal “caucus” set, in their eyes, on revolutionary destruction.34 Indeed, as the future Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, warned his Kensington audience in 1886: there was a great need to be “watchful and alert” for a blow that could strike “suddenly and bring about a revolution”: A few communards had been able to terrorise all Paris; a few Fenians in Ireland were able to demoralise the entire country: the same confusion would follow if a small Radical caucus were allowed to attack at its ­leisure, and unresisted, the foundations of our Constitution.35 These anti-revolutionary passions were reignited during the constitutional crisis following the rejection of the Chancellor, David Lloyd George’s 1909 ­“People’s Budget” by the House of Lords. After two inconclusive elections in January and December 1910, Unionists (from 1912, the Conservative and Unionist Party) were faced with a Liberal government propped up by the “factions” of Labour and the Irish Parliamentary Party. What followed was not merely the threat of Home Rule and, later, the disestablishment of the Welsh Church,

30 31 32 33 34 35

“Outrage and Expostulation”, Saturday Review (24 March 1883), 362–63, here 362. Henry Mayers Hyndman, “The Dawn of a Revolutionary Epoch”, Nineteenth Century (­January 1881), 1–18, here 16. Wolseley, “The Common Sense of Colonialization and Emigration”, Contemporary Review (March 1886), 375–82, here 375. “The Whigs Last Chance”, Blackwood’s (August 1882), 252–58, here 252. Ibid., 256. “Reginald Lucas”, Lord Glenesk and the Morning Post (London: 1910), 311.

362

Jones

but (to their mind) the destruction of a constitutional settlement based on the equal powers of the Commons and the Lords and thus the “tyranny” of a ­“revolutionary” government following the 1911 Parliament Act—likened as it was then to single chamber government as practiced in the “disastrous examples” of Revolutionary France and Cromwell’s England. As William Barry, a Catholic English constitutionalist, despaired: though Burke had delayed “our French Revolution” in the 1790s, that moment was now approaching.36 It was now possible for British Conservatism to be enduringly and intimately linked to both “modern” and historical anti-Jacobinism. In Lord Hugh Cecil’s Conservatism (1912), written as the twin of L.T. Hobhouse’s well-known Liberalism (1911) for the popular Home University Library series, the centrality of the French Revolution in the founding of modern British political parties was firmly established. From the moment that Burke severed himself from his friendship with Charles James Fox, Cecil argued, “the true division of English parties … relate[d] to the new French principles.”37 These were not merely historic principles but contemporary ones, too. “Men,” he wrote, “must henceforth stand for or against the movement of which the French Revolution was the first and most tremendous expression, and with the cry of Burke … Conservatism may be said to have been born.”38 Here, Cecil argued, Burke outlined the main principles used by “Tory and conservative minds” to oppose Jacobinism in Britain “even to the present day”.39 Similar conclusions were reached among other Conservative commentators: politicians such as F.E. Smith and Lord Selborne; historians and theologians such as William Barry and Geoffrey Butler; journalists and writers such as W.H. Mallock, Arthur Baumann, as well as the still-anonymous writers of periodicals such as Blackwood’s, the Saturday and Edinburgh Reviews.40 These commentators were driven by a widespread sense that Conservatives and Unionists were badly in need of new principles to combat both their Liberal and Labourite opponents in parliament and beyond, but also of the need to engage in dialogue with one another as well as with new voters. Many of these texts were transnational in origin and reach: some started life either as ­lectures at American universities while others attracted American publishers and periodical reviews, including the international academic journals founded 36 William Barry, “Rousseau or Burke?”, National Review (June 1910), 582–92, here 586. 37 Hugh Cecil, Conservatism (London: 1912), 44. 38 Ibid., 44, 249. 39 Cecil, Conservatism, 61. 40 Pierse Loftus, The Conservative Party and the Future: A Programme for Tory Democracy ­(London: 1912), 14. See also Jones, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, ch. 6.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

363

at the turn of the 20th century. A flurry of new texts which sought to re-­define what it meant to be a Conservative, and canonized a body of conservative thought, traceable to responses to the French Revolution and the publication of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. British Conservatism was rerouted through “the principles of 1789” in both political and historical texts, providing one key component in the naturalizing of Left and Right as pervasive terms of identification. 2

1917 and After

Undeniably, however, the immediate reception of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the subsequent debates regarding “left” versus “right” Communism—­ Britain and America included—provides the watershed. While the 1905 Revolution acted as an important precursor: as Rawson explains, it was in this period that terms and labels such as “right” and “left” were applied more frequently and collectively as practical indicators of whether one supported or opposed the old regime in Russia,41 it was not until the 1920s that the transformation becomes apparent in an English-language context. Indeed, historians have extensively documented the transnational relations between Soviet Russia and interested parties in the interwar period: in Britain, for example, the press coverage of the Revolution and its aftermath, the circulation of Revolutionary literature, as well as the reports from reconnaissance trips by Labour and Conservative representatives demonstrate the vibrant contemporary debate on the nature of the Soviet regime.42 Moreover, as with the French Revolution in fin-de-siècle Britain, the increased political attention given to Russia sparked a broader fascination with Russian arts and culture: “Cults of Russia” and a vogue for Russian literature and music—particularly the works of Tolstoy and ­Dostoevsky—were increasingly widespread.43 41 42

43

Donal C. Rawson, Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905 (Cambridge: 1995), 1. Charlotte Alston, “British Journalism and the Campaign for Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20,” Revolutionary Russia 20 (2007), 35–49; idem and Lara Green, Revolutionary Books: Reflections on the Russian Revolution in the Lit & Phil’s Collections (­Newcastle: 2017); Stephen White, “Soviets in Britain: The Leeds Convention of 1917,” International Review of Social History 19 (1974), 165–93; Gidon Cohen and Kevin Morgan, “Stalin’s Sausage Machine: British Students at the International Lenin School 1926–37,” Twentieth-­Century British History 13 (2002), 327–55. Caroline Maclean, The Vogue for Russia: Modernism and the Unseen in Britain 1900–1930 (Edinburgh: 2015); Marjet Brolsma, “Dostoevsky: A Russian Panacea for Europe,” in ­European Encounters: Intellectual Exchange and the Rethinking of Europe 1914–1945, ed. Carlon Reijnen and Margaeret Rensen (Leiden: 2015), 189–203.

364

Jones

Conservative periodicals such as the Saturday Review were quick to offer comment as the situation progressed in 1917. Many Conservatives welcomed early developments of “liberal forces” in Russia, and were keen to stress the comparison with events in France a century earlier: When people compare this Russian Revolution with the great French Revolution they forget that the principal aim of the people in France had already been secured in Russia. The French Revolution freed and established the French peasantry; in Russia the peasants had already been emancipated and endowed by the Tsar. The article remained hopeful of an acceptable resolution in Russia, however, based as it was on the assumption that certain countries were particularly suited to autocratic rule. Broadening its comparative lens to make the point clearer, the Saturday remarked how even the “most Tory of Englishmen is almost a ‘Red’ when compared with a Prussian Junker, because freedom is an English birthright”.44 A few months later, again in a more moderate tone, the Saturday continued to insist the comparison between the Russian and French Revolutions was a relevant historical analogy, in this case the Russian Council of Soldiers’ and Workmen’s’ Delegates with the Jacobin Club: both were extreme and un-English.45 Yet the Saturday underwent a change of heart following the second revolution of 1917 and the success of Bolshevism. The analogy between the two revolutions became more pertinent, as the perceived threat of insurrection now lay much closer to home. In an article entitled “Our Jacobin Government”, the Saturday raged against the Liberal Coalition Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, as a fermenter of democratic revolution and an enemy to monarchical government when he hailed the Russian Revolution as “the first fruits of the cause for which we are at war”. Kerensky and Trotsky (the author apparently saw little distinction) were not heroes of freedom deserving ­admiration and celebration, but “the cutthroats of Petrograd”, with Trotsky taking (to the Saturday) a murderous, immoral role: “the Russian St Just”.46 Thanks to well-established

44 45 46

“Russia and the Need for a Supreme Authority,” Saturday Review, (24 March 1917), 268–69, here 269. “The New Jacobin,” Saturday Review, (4 August 1917), 81–82, here 81. Yet while Lloyd George was referring to the February Revolution, the Saturday was eliding the two revolutions a year later: [‘Historian’], “Our Jacobin Government,” Saturday Review, (16 March 1918), 230. For the newspaper press, see Alston, “British Journalism and the ­Campaign for Intervention,” 41.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

365

pre-war tropes, Lloyd George was transformed once more into the Jacobinical propagator of dangerous revolutionary activity that all right-minded Conservatives should fear. The subsequent evolution of a language of Left and Right within the communist movement, and the place Lloyd George received in this debate, was another crucial development. Divisions between a Right who were willing to work with so-called “conservative” labor parties and trade unions, and a Left who would not, were rapidly emerging.47 As the self-styled “Left-Wing Section” of the Socialist Party of America’s Greater New York branch explained in 1918, their formation was central due to differences between their “Right and Left Wings” with regard to both tactics and principles, including “social reformism”.48 The subsequent publication and translation of Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920) into Russian, German, English and French is a monument to the frenetic debates and self-definition that was occurring within global communism.49 The British context—i.e. one without a separate communist party at the time of his writing—was particularly important for Lenin, and the book itself was dedicated to Lloyd George. The Communist Party of Great Britain was subsequently founded later that year, and the perceived need to articulate and promote the “left” position developed further in 1925 with the creation of the National Left Wing Movement, founded with the intention of turning Labour members towards communism.50 Significant numbers of individuals and groups around the world and in Britain were now branding themselves and their opponents “Left” and “Right” wing. In Britain, therefore, as in the United States, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere, self-fashioning oneself on “the Left” became a proud badge of identity. It also served a purpose as a term of condemnation from equally self-styled “moderates” or “rightists” who were either opposed to communism entirely, or in favor of working with “conservative” labourites and trade unions.51 In this 47 48 49

50 51

George Douglas Howard Cole, Workshop Organization (Oxford: 1923), 17. “Why the Left Wing is Contesting the Primary Elections” (New York: 1918). For Britain, see Matthew Worley, “Left Turn: A Reassessment of the Communist Party of Great Britain in the Third Period, 1928–33,” Twentieth-Century British History 11 (2000), 353–78. See, for example, the “authorised translation” published by the Marxian Educational Society (Detroit: 1921); George Slocombe (ed.), Left-Wing Trade Unionism in France; Containing Reflections on the Future of French Trade Unionism and Workers’ Control and Workshop Committees (London: 1922); William J. Ghent, The Reds Bring Reaction (Princeton: 1923), esp. vii-viii, xv. R.P. Dutto, “Stand by the Miners! An Appeal by the Communist Party of Great Britain,” 13 May 1926’, reprinted in James Klugmann, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: General Strike 1925–26 (London: 1969), 210–11. Worley, “Left Turn,” 354, 360.

366

Jones

understanding, to be “right wing” was, therefore, to be “conservative” in this specific sense. Simultaneously, as we will see, “left wing” remained a marker of a type of a problematically revolutionary extremism, as had been the case in the pre-war period. Yet now both uses of self-identification and condemnation were placed upon an entirely new, global platform, as a key component of Conservative (as well as Liberal) political language and rhetoric.52 But this was also true of those at the other end of the spectrum: historians of the interwar period have written extensively about the rise of “the Right” which intersected both anti-parliamentary fascism and the Conservative Party.53 The growth of a more self-conscious and newly branded “Left” also encouraged more mainstream Conservative identification with the Right: the Conservative Party was, for then-leader Stanley Baldwin, the “Party of the Right” in opposition to Labour, “the Party of the Left”.54 There was, of course, similar dissent within Conservatism over positioning: in his autobiography of 1922, the Spectator editor John St. Loe Strachey wrote of his break with the “right, or Tory, wing” of his party—figures such as Lord Halsbury, Austen Chamberlain, and their followers—who had favored Lords rejection of the 1911 Parliament Bill.55 Though Strachey’s meaning here is constitutional, rather than economic, he depicts himself as a moderate Unionist critically at odds with both the Liberal Government and the extreme “right wing” of his party. There was space, therefore, for a moderate “Right” that matched Baldwin’s presentation of Conservatism as harmonious with stability and Englishness, as well as opposed to socialism. The Conservative and Unionist Film Association production, “The Right Spirit” (1931), for example, invoked the moderate, anti-socialist meaning of the term “right”. The film utilized both an allegory of a broken car visiting a socialist garage to criticize Labour’s political proposals, and the play on words in the title to suggest it was the moderate Right—that is, the Conservative Party—who offered the true solution to national ailments.56 52

See, for example, John Morley, “Mr Lecky on Democracy” [1896], in idem, Oracles on Man and Government (London: 1923), 31–32. 53 Dietz, Neo-Tories; Barbara Storm Farr, The Development and Impact of Right-Wing Politics in Britain 1903–1932 (New York: 1987); Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: ­British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933–1939 (London: 1980). 54 Bruce Coleman, “Conservatives and the Extreme Right,” in The Failure of Political Extremism in Interwar Britain, ed. Andrew Thorpe (Exeter: 1989), 49–66, here 50. See also Ross ­McKibbin, “Class and Conventional Wisdom: the Conservative Party and the Public in Interwar Britain,” in Ideologies of Class (Oxford: 1994). 55 John St. Loe Strachey, The Adventure of Living: a Subjective Autobiography (London: 1922), 455. See also Harold Macmillan, The Past Masters: Politics and Politicians 1906–1939 (­London: 1975), 19. 56 See also William Temple, Thoughts in War-Time, vol. 3 (London: 1940), 23; Ralph Eugene ­Ellsworth, The American Right Wing (Urbana: 1960), 30.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

367

It is here that we begin to see one crucial attraction of the terminology in an era of mass politics: humor and visual imagery. An examination of the popular satirical, and by the late 19th century solidly Unionist, magazine Punch is particularly insightful. Under the editorship of Owen Seaman, Punch’s weekly circulation in the 1920s numbered 150,000 and attracted a readership that was, in the words of Phillipe Vervaecke, “almost exactly the same as the Conservative electorate”.57 The new political terminology captured its critical gaze in the years following the 1926 General Strike: one 1927 etching by Leonard Raven-Hill, “A Sinister Sign”, presented the Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald as an angel with two large feathered wings fully intact, looking down, concerned, at the defeated leader of the New South Wales Labour Party, Jack Lang. “I see your equilibrium has suffered from an enlargement of the left wing”, the lopsided MacDonald declared, “Accept my sympathy. I too … have a slightly abnormal development of the same limb.”58 Loss of balance and fear of the extremity of the Left similarly featured in “How to Restore the Pendulum” (1929) and a 1931 column of the longstanding feature, Charivaria. Both pieces expressed deep concerns of “what will happen if the country ever puts a Left-Wing McGovernment into power.”59 Yet the comedic value of the terms remained central, especially for illustrators and satirists. E.H. Shepard’s 1937 etching, “Trials of a Labour Leader”, delivered the same disdainful comment on the problems caused by an overly aggressive left wing by humorously depicting then leader Clement Attlee struggling to manage a disastrously imbalanced football team.60 Most tellingly of all, however, was a fictional conversation between a “Left-winger” and a derisive antagonist penned for Punch by A.P. Herbert in 1945; revealing both the pervasive and inescapable reach of the language of Left and Right across Europe—Britain included. Following a pointed and long-winded sparring over exactly how the “Left-winger” positioned themselves politically, the antagonist finally exclaimed: All over Europe new Governments and parties are taking the stage, ­standing in the wings, or being flung into the orchestra. Now, in the old 57

58 59 60

Quoted in Ian Cawood and Chris Upton, “Joseph Chamberlain and the Birmingham Satirical Journals, 1876–1911,” in Joseph Chamberlain: International Statesman, National Leader, Local Icon, ed. idem (Basingstoke: 2016), 176–210, here 200; Peter Mellini, “Seaman, Sir Owen, baronet,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-36000 (accessed 28 October 2020); Richard Geoffrey George Price, A History of Punch (London, 1957), 183. L. Raven-Hill, “A Sinister Sign,” Punch (19 October 1927), 15. “How to Restore the Pendulum,” Punch (26 June 1929), 724; “Charivaria,” Punch (15 July 1931), 44. E.H. Shepard, “Trials of a Labour Leader”, Punch (27 January 1937), 3.

368

Jones

days they would have been called Conservative, Liberal, Radical, Socialist, Democrat, Monarchical, Republican, Peasant, Patriot, Revolutionary, Moderate, Military, or what-not. Then, at least, one had a vague idea of something that each party stood for. But now they’re all called Left of Right—or Leftist—or more-to-the-Left; and I haven’t the faintest notion what any of them proposes to do.61 Here, Herbert’s exasperated antagonist represented very accurately the sentiment of the Conservative MP Quintin Hogg’s, The Left was Never Right, ­published in the same year—as well as “The Right Spirit”—that there was humor, mockery, and wordplay to be gleaned from this seemingly novel, widespread, yet interminably vague political language of self-identification and criticism. It was a journalistic, satirical and propagandistic dream—providing balancing, military, sporting, and aviation metaphors galore. 3

Across the Spectrum

In his 1935 Essentials of Parliamentary Democracy, the British historian Reginald Bassett wrote that, “More often than not, there is more in common between the Left Wing Conservative and the Right Wing Liberal or Labour man, than there is between either of them and their respective extremists.”62 In doing so, he encapsulates the two established uses of Left and Right by the late interwar period. The terms provided, firstly, a language of self-identification both within and outside of specific political movements and, secondly, terms of abuse for one’s opponents and for “extremists” of all hues. It was a transnational development across Europe and America, and was aided by the spread of and response to international political movements. Yet it also represents a fundamental shift in the way Conservatives in Britain conceived of their own principles and identity, and provided discursive space in the shift from the constitutional politics of Victorian Britain, to the changing political world of statism, welfare and economic management. Employing terms such as Left and Right to discuss individual or group politics in Britain was not something that commentators did in 1870, yet in the interwar period (and ever after) they came to act as common markers for affiliation and disassociation.

61 62

A.P. Herbert, “Little Talks,” Punch (30 May 1945), 466. Reginald G. Bassett, Essentials of Parliamentary Democracy (London: 1935), 57.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

369

Examining self-designation in this way may well cause problems for ­scholars attempting to define Left and Right as objects or analytical tools for academic study,63 but it is enormously helpful if our task is to understanding the gradual acceptance—the intellectual-political history—of the terminology itself. The adoption of Left and Right in Britain created a great deal of space for significant transnational comparison. It provided a linguistic and rhetorical framework increasingly central for placing British political identities— C/conservatism included—within a transnational framework of Left and Right. Indeed, if transnational conservatism (or Conservatism) is to have purchase with individuals, groups, or parties, then the broad principles and identities associated with such bodies of thought must be connected to lived and imagined national communities; the entangled histories of those who thought nationally as well as internationally. Indeed, part of the irony of this development is that, in using the terminology of “leftism” to castigate their opponents as abnormal and dominated by foreign influences, Conservatives popularized and established a new political language primarily associated with Continental Europe as increasingly applicable to British party politics in its entirety. An important component of the intellectual history of conservatism thus involves taking names and terms seriously, including the reinvention of old labels such as “Tory” by so-called revolutionary conservatives.64 But this is also true for the emergence of new labels and the political principles that are seen to be attached to them; expanding what counts (or “lands”) as persuasive argument and rhetoric—revolutionary and dangerous as well as satirical and humorous. Such rebranding was often combined with the reworking of longer British political—and especially constitutional—histories to fit the new labels: “The Labour Party,” Bassett wrote, “is by no means the first or the last example of the emergence of a new group on the Left”.65 In doing so, those interested in the comparison of political parties and other institutions across time, as well as the contemporary exchange of ideas, gained a new tool. At the turn of the 20th century, Conservatives in Britain transformed their political opponents into native “Jacobins”—an extreme left wing. Burke, an Irishman once accused of being a Jesuit priest, was placed at the head of British conservatism as an intellectual tradition. The French Revolution was also positioned center stage in a new genealogy of Conservatism in its party-­political sense, rewriting a very large chunk of 19th-century British political history as 63 Webber, Ideology, 3. 64 Dietz, Neo-Tories. 65 Bassett, Essentials of Parliamentary Democracy, 45.

370

Jones

it had been hitherto understood. A significant shift occurred in regards to the French Revolution in the British political imagination—and the power of a good historical analogy should not be lightly dismissed in a period saturated with historical and developmental notions of society and politics. When we think of the rejection of the 19th century, we recall Bloomsbury and the modernists; but there were other, more subtle ways in which 19th-century history was being reformulated to suit the needs of the present day—and this applied equally to Conservative and Unionist political thinking and to conservatism as a body of thought. It is in this context that we saw the first significant, though sporadic, usages of Left and Right as British political identifiers. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the spread of international communism raised this threat—and the possibilities for historical and political analogies—to a whole new level. The global response located the Revolution as an earth-shattering event analogous to 1789. “Cults” sprang up for Russian arts and culture, and a newly self-identifiable “Left” presented itself in Britain as in Russia, America, and elsewhere. Left and Right were not solely connected to a position on communism, and the terms were—then as now— interpreted very broadly indeed: “right” and “left” communists; the “right” of the Conservative Party and the “left” of the Labour Party (and vice versa). The Soviet bogey—and even MacDonald’s or Attlee’s Labour Party, precariously imbalanced by an oversized left wing—loomed large in Conservative intellectual and political culture after 1917.66 There was little doubt in contemporaries’ minds where they would position themselves along the spectrum of political faith. Conservatives were happy to place themselves to the “right” of Labour, yet they did not see this as entirely synonymous with an extreme or radical right which sat uneasily with the supposedly pragmatic or balanced tone of Conservatism in Britain. Scholars in recent decades have been particularly interested in “Europeanisation”; interwar internationalism; and the “transnationalisation of politics” in the 20th century.67 The widespread adoption of “foreign” terms and labels to identify oneself and one’s opponents in Britain was a rhetorical sea-change. It was 66 67

John Charmley, “Winston Churchill,” in British Conservative Leaders, ed. in Charles Clarke et al. (London: 2015), 237–50, here 241. Recent examples include Reijnen and Rensen, European Encounters; Caterina Froio and Bharath Ganesh, “The Transnationalisation of Far-Right Discourse on Twitter”, European Societies 21 (2019), 513–39; Stephen G. Gross, “European Integration across the Twentieth Century,” Contemporary European History, 26 (2017), 205–07; Hans-Jörg Trenz, Narrating European Society: Toward a Sociology of European Integration (Lanham: 2016); Jens Wegener, “Creating an ‘international mind’?: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Europe, 1911–1940,” (PhD dissertation, European University Institute, Florence: 2015).

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

371

also an important development in the way in which political actors self-fashioned both themselves and their opponents at individual and collective levels. It forms part of the transnational political and intellectual history of Conservatism and conservatism which relies upon broad, flexible languages such as Left and Right. In a world moving, apparently once more, “beyond left and right”, examining the development of political languages is essential for understanding conservatism as both an intellectual and political tradition today. Bibliography [“A Plain Tory”], Tory Democracy and Conservative Policy (London: 1892). [Anon.], “How to Restore the Pendulum,” Punch (26 June 1929), 724. [Anon.], “Outrage and Expostulation,” Saturday Review (24 March 1883), 362–63. [Anon.], “Philosophy,” Westminster Review (July 1886), 241–48. [Anon.], “Russia and the Need for a Supreme Authority,” Saturday Review (24 March 1917), 268–69. [Anon.], “The Italian Chamber of Deputies,” Harper’s 76 (1887–88), 180. [Anon.], “The New Jacobin,” Saturday Review (4 August 1917), 81–82. [Anon.], “The Storming of the Bastille—New Style,” The Anti-Suffrage Review (August 1912), 187. [Anon.], “The Whigs Last Chance,” Blackwood’s (August 1882), 252–58. [Anon.], “Women and the Franchise,” Edinburgh Review (July 1908), 246–63. Abu-’Uksa, Wael, Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: 2016). Alston, Charlotte, “British Journalism and the Campaign for Intervention in the R ­ ussian Civil War, 1918–20,” Revolutionary Russia 20 (2007), 35–49. Alston, Charlotte, “Transnational Solidarities and the Politics of the Left, 1­ 890–1990,” European Review of History 21 (2014), 447–50. Alston, Charlotte, and Lara Green, Revolutionary Books: Reflections on the Russian ­Revolution in the Lit & Phil’s Collections (Newcastle: 2017). Atkinson, Juliette, French Novels and the Victorians (Oxford: 2017). Baker, Ernest, History in Fiction (London and New York: 1907). Baker, Ernest, A Guide to Historical Fiction (London and New York: 1914). Barry, William, “Rousseau or Burke?,” National Review (June 1910), 582–92. Bassett, Reginald G., Essentials of Parliamentary Democracy (London: 1935). Bayly, Christopher A., Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: 2011). Bréchon, Pierre, “Valeurs de droite et valeurs de gauche: de la Révolution française aux élections de 2017,” Pacte, 6 April 2017.

372

Jones

Brolsma, Marjet, “Dostoevsky: A Russian Panacea for Europe,” in European Encounters: Intellectual Exchange and the Rethinking of Europe 1914–1945, ed. Carlos Reijnen and Marleen Rensen (Leiden: 2015), 189–203. Brown, Philip Anthony, The French Revolution in English History (London: 1918). Butler, Geoffrey, The Tory Tradition (London: 1914). Cawood, Ian, “Joseph Chamberlain and the Birmingham Satirical Journals, 1876–1911,” in Joseph Chamberlain: International Statesman, National leader, Local Icon, ed. Ian Cawood and Chris Upton (Basingstoke: 2016), 176–210. [“Charivaria”], Punch (15 July 1931), 44. Cecil, Hugh, Conservatism (London: 1912). Charmley, John, “Winston Churchill,” in British Conservative Leaders, ed. Charles Clarke, Toby S. James, Tim Bale and Patrick Diamond (London: 2015), 237–250. Cohen, Gidon, and Kevin Morgan, “Stalin’s Sausage Machine: British Students at the International Lenin School 1926–37,” Twentieth-Century British History 13 (2002), 327–55. Cole, George Douglas Howard, Workshop Organization (Oxford: 1923). Coleman, Bruce, “Conservatives and the Extreme Right,” in The Failure of Political Extremism in Interwar Britain, ed. Andrew Thorpe (Exeter: 1989), 49–66. Craig, David, and James Thompson (eds.), Languages of Politics in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Basingstoke: 2013). Croly, George, Memoir of Edmund Burke (Edinburgh: 1840). Dietz, Bernhard, Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives against Democracy and Political Modernity (1929–1939) (London: 2018). Durham, Martin, and Margaret Power (eds.), New Perspectives on the Transnational Right (New York: 2010). Ellsworth, Ralph Eugene, The American Right Wing (Urbana: 1960). Fortescue, George Knottesford, “The French Revolution in Contemporary Literature,” Quarterly Review (April 1913), 353–71. Froio, Caterina, and Bharath Ganesh, “The Transnationalisation of Far-Right Discourse on Twitter,” European Societies 21 (2019), 513–39. Gauchet, Marcel, “Right and Left,” in Realms of Memory: Conflicts and Divisions, vol. 1, ed. Pierre Nora and Lawrence D. Kritzman (New York: 1996), 241–300. Ghent, William J., The Reds Bring Reaction (Princeton: 1923). Gregory, Allene, The French Revolution and the English Novel (New York and London: 1915). Griffiths, Richard, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933–1939 (London: 1980). Gross, Stephen G., “European Integration across the Twentieth Century,” Contemporary European History 26 (2017), 205–07. Harris, Jose, “Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870–1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy,” Past & Present 135 (1992), 116–41.

Languages of Transnational Conservatism

373

Harrison, Ethel B., The Freedom of Women: An Argument Against the Proposed ­Extension of the Suffrage to Women (London: 1908). Hatchards, “Napoleon and his Time: A Collection of Standard Books in Fine ­Second-Hand Condition” (London: 1908). Herbert, A.P., “Little Talks,” Punch (30 May 1945), 466. [“Historian”], “Our Jacobin Government,” Saturday Review (16 March 1918), 230. Hyndman, Henry Mayers, “The Dawn of a Revolutionary Epoch,” Nineteenth Century (January 1881), 1–18. Jones, Emily, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914: An Intellectual History (Oxford: 2017). Jones, Emily, “Constructive Constitutionalism in Conservative and Unionist Political Thought, c. 1885–1914,” English Historical Review 134 (2019), 334–57. Kelly, Debra, and Martyn Cornick (eds.), A History of the French in London (London: 2013). Klugmann, James, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: General Strike ­1925–26, vol. 2 (London: 1969). Lenin, Vladimir, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (Detroit: 1921). Levin, Yuval, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (New York: 2013). Loftus, Pierse, The Conservative Party and the Future: A Programme for Tory Democracy (London: 1912). Lucas, Reginald, Lord Glenesk and the Morning Post (London: 1910). Maclean, Caroline, The Vogue for Russia: Modernism and the Unseen in Britain ­1900–1930 (Edinburgh: 2015). Macmillan, Harold, The Past Masters: Politics and Politicians 1906–1939 (London: 1975). McKibbin, Ross, Ideologies of Class: Social Relations in Britain, 1880–1950 (Oxford: 1994). Mellini, Peter, “Seaman, Sir Owen, baronet,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/ odnb-9780198614128-e-36000 (accessed 28 October 2020). Melman, Billie, The Culture of History: English Uses of the Past, 1800–1953 (Oxford: 2006). Milne, A.A., “Votes for Men,” Punch (4 March 1908), 178. Morley, John, “Mr Lecky on Democracy” [1896], in idem, Oracles on Man and Government (London: 1923). Price, Richard Geoffrey George, A History of Punch (London, 1957). Raven-Hill, L., “A Sinister Sign,” Punch (19 October 1927), 15. Rawson, Donald C. Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1995 (Cambridge: 1905). Reijnen, Carlos, and Marleen Rensen (eds.), European Encounters: Intellectual Exchange and the Rethinking of Europe 1914–1945 (Leiden: 2015). Rosenblatt, Helena, The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the ­Twenty-First Century (Princeton: 2018). Sartori, Andrew S., Liberalism in Empire: An Alternative History (Berkeley: 2014).

374

Jones

Saunders, Robert, “Parliament and People: The British Constitution in the Long ­Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Modern European History 6 (2008), 72–87. Shepard, E.H., “Trials of a Labour Leader,” Punch (27 January 1937), 3. Slocombe, George, (ed.), Left-Wing Trade Unionism in France; Containing Reflections on the Future of French Trade Unionism and Workers’ Control and Workshop Committees (London: 1922). Socialist Party of America, Greater New York Branch, Why the Left Wing is Contesting the Primary Elections (New York: 1918). St. Loe Strachey, John, The Adventure of Living: a Subjective Autobiography (London: 1922). Stammers, Tom, “From the Tuileries to Twickenham: The Orléans, Exile and ­Anglo-French Liberalism, c. 1848–1880,” English Historical Review 133 (2018), 1120–54. Stead, William T., “Madame France and Her Brav’ Général,” Contemporary Review (June 1889), 910–28. Storm Farr, Barbara, The Development and Impact of Right-Wing Politics in Britain ­1903–1932 (New York: 1987). Temple, William, Thoughts in War-Time, vol. 3 (London: 1940) Trenz, Hans-Jörg, Narrating European Society: Toward a Sociology of European Integration (Lanham: 2016). Wegener, Jens, “Creating an ‘international mind’?: The Carnegie Endowment for ­International Peace in Europe, 1911–1940,” (PhD dissertation, European University Florence: 2015) White, Stephen, “Soviets in Britain: The Leeds Convention of 1917,” International Review of Social History 19 (1974), 165–93. Wilson, Trevor, The Decline of the Liberal Party (London: 1966). Wolseley, “The Common Sense of Colonialization and Emigration,” Contemporary Review (March 1886), 375–82. Worley, Matthew, “Left Turn: A Reassessment of the Communist Party of Great Britain in the Third Period, 1928–33,” Twentieth-Century British History 11 (2000), 353–78.

CHAPTER 17

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China from the 1910s to the 1930s Aymeric Xu It is commonly held that the political and cultural dimensions of the Chinese Republican era (1912–1949) are structured around the troika of liberalism, socialism and conservatism. While there is little doubt that liberalism and socialism are imported from abroad, foreign influences of Chinese conservatism have suffered neglect in existing studies, although Western conservative thoughts were no stranger to Chinese intellectuals at the time. For example, Edmund Burke’s (1729–1797) writings were commented on by several intellectuals in the early 1900s. The conservative narration of the French Revolution by Louis Madelin (1871–1956), a member of the Académie française and the Republican Federation – the leading conservative party during the French Third Republic –, was also translated into Chinese in 1936. However, study of conservatism from a transnational perspective might, at first glance, seem problematic, since conservatism is generally considered to be context-specific and suspicious of attempts to remodel society from abstract ideas and universal panaceas.1 In contrast to this commonly perceived view, John Skorupski maintains that conservatism is not necessarily skeptical of reason: “rational conservatism” prescribes tradition, hierarchy and authority as orders for a harmonious way of life of all human communities.2 Both “universalist” and “particularistic” interpretations of conservatism have limitations with regard to non-Western conservatism. While Skorupski’s thesis reduces the universal aspect of conservatism to a limited number of ­values, a particularistic view of conservatism fails to recognize potentially overlapping characteristics of conservatism, which grew out of different historical backgrounds and intellectual interactions. Taking Chinese conservatism from the 1910s to the 1930s as a case study, this chapter shows how historically contingent ideas were made to converge in China, where Western conservative ideas 1 Frederick Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought 1790–1800 (Cambridge, MA: 1992), 283. 2 John Skorupski, “The Conservative Critique of Liberalism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism, ed. Steven Wall (Cambridge: 2015), 401–22, here 401. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_017

376

Xu

and politics were introduced and adapted to the indigenous traditional culture in order to tackle political crisis and to create a modern China. In the following pages, I firstly address the introduction of the term “conservatism” into the Chinese political vocabulary and provide a general overview of modern Chinese conservatism. I then identify and analyze the chronological influence of different types of European and American conservative ideas and policies on the Chinese conservative movement from the 1910s to the 1930s. In conclusion, I explore the circulation of Western conservative ideologies during the Republican era and briefly discuss the reception of these philosophies in contemporary China in order to encourage a comprehensive understanding of the appropriation of Western conservatism in modern China, as well as the political and cultural motivations that encouraged its dissemination. 1

“Conservatism” in Chinese

One of the most evident influences of Western conservatism in China is the introduction of the notion “conservatism” into Chinese. As in English, “conservatism” is composed of two parts in Chinese: “conserve” (baoshou) and “-ism” (zhuyi). Both components are indigenous words. While zhuyi is a rare word in traditional sources and was later used as the standard translation of the nominal suffix “-ism”, baoshou, in the sense of “conserve”, “defend” or “maintain”, is a common word in ancient texts. However, the verb “conserve” in “conservatism” conveys an essential reaction against progressivism; indeed, the term cannot be fully appreciated if it is considered without reference to the concept of progress. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that the word baoshou, understood as an anthesis of progressivism, was introduced to China. Could conservatism have existed in ancient China, while the concept itself did not exist? If conservatism is understood in a vague sense, one is always conservative to another. Michael Oakeshott maintains that conservatism is a mental disposition that “favors what is known to what is unknown”.3 Nevertheless, this mental disposition waits for a drastic moment to be ­“crystallized into definite tradition of thought and practice”.4 Thus, the origin of ­Western conservatism is usually associated with the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which overturned the traditional

3 Michael Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative,” in Twentieth Century Political Theory: A Reader, ed. Stephan Eric Bronner (New York: 2006), 77–90, here 77–78. 4 John Gray, Liberalism (Milton Keynes: 1995), 78.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

377

socio-political order and religious authority.5 Despite undergoing numerous reforms and rebellions, ancient China rarely experienced the drastic upheaval of its traditional political and cultural order because of the “ultra-stable structure” of Chinese society, which was maintained by the cohesive integration of its moral ideology with its socio-political system.6 Confucianism provided a strong practical and ethical foundation and sustained a kinship-based communitarian social structure and moral values, in which the needs of the family were elevated above those of the individual. The sovereign-subject hierarchy was a natural extension and reflection of the patriarchal relationship between father and son. Thus, Confucianism served as the spiritual and political rationale that legitimized each new dynasty: Confucianism was absorbed into the ideological apparatus of the state through the administration of the Imperial examination (keju), undertaken by Confucian scholars seeking appointment as state bureaucrats. As such, the political and cultural order became closely intertwined. The abolition of the Imperial examination in 1905 invalidated Confucianism as the hegemonic political philosophy. The revival of the country required the application of specialized and modern knowledge that could only be attained by learning from the West. It was only during the late 19th ­century, when this structure was no longer able to reunite Chinese society under the threat of the Western presence, that conservatism as a cultural and political movement really emerged. In this period of self-strengthening, a considerable number of Western ­learnings was introduced to China by Chinese students and intellectuals in Japan – a nation successfully modernized during the Meiji Restoration. ­Baoshou is one of a vast number of neologisms borrowed directly from ­Japanese. B ­ aoshou zhuyi is the Chinese pronunciation of the Japanese term hoshu shugi, which is written in the same Chinese characters. Fukuzawa ­Yukichi ­(1835–1901), one of the intellectual founders of modern Japan, translated conservatism and progressivism respectively as hoshu shugi and shinshu shugi (Chinese: jingqu zhuyi) in Minjō isshin (Reform on Popular Mentality, 1879), in which he presented the British political system in this way: English political parties are divided into two branches: a conservative one and a progressive one. […] Conservatives are not always stubborn 5 Pekka Suvanto, Conservatism from the French Revolution to the 1990s, trans. Roderick Fletcher (New York: 1997), 3–5; Roger Scruton, How to Be a Conservative (London: 2014), 79. 6 Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng, Xingsheng yu weiji: lun Zhongguo shehui chaowending jiegou [The cycle of growth and decline: on the ultra-stable structure of Chinese society] (Hong Kong: 1992).

378

Xu

and narrow-minded, while progressives are not always brutal and violent. […] When the popularity of the ruling party diminishes, and the popularity of the opposition is on the rise, […] the members of the governing party should leave the government and become only members of parliament. […] In this way, the change of power goes smoothly and flexibly. [As a result], the British government […], with two political parties in opposition, was able to bear the stress of progress of civilization in the 19th century.7 Fukuzawa left an influential legacy to Chinese intellectuals in Japan at that time. Du Yaquan (1873–1933), who had spent some time in Japan in 1906, wrote in 1911, that conservatism and progressivism should be the guiding principles of two major parties to win control of the government, as in the West. His interpretation of the relation between conservatism and progressivism resonates with that of Fukuzawa: Political parties of our nation in the future should be created in accordance with the general rules [of the West] and be divided into a conservative one and a progressive one. Progressive party is devoted to political reforms […], while conservative party is prudent, committed to tradition and aims to reform politics and strengthen the nation in a moderate way. […] I think this two-party system resembles the wheels of a car or the wings of a bird; the two parties balance each other and cannot function alone.8 This article was published several months before the Revolution of 1911, which would bring down the Qing dynasty in favor of the first republican regime in Asia in 1912. The question that faced Du Yaquan was about what kind of conservative politics to endorse, but also who the conservatives were. During the revolutionary decade of the 1900s, conservatives were royalist reformers desirous of reintegrating the traditional political and cultural orders. By reinterpreting Confucianism, reformers fought against revolutionaries in order to save the Qing dynasty and to maintain the imperial system. Revolutionaries were also “culturalists” that were keen to make political changes consistent with the nation’s cultural heritage. However, the cultural elements that they mobilized were dramatically remodeled to comply with political reforms that were inspired by modern Western political systems. It was in the spirit 7 Fukuzawa Yukichi, Minjō Isshin [Reform on popular mentality] (Tokyo: 1879), 108–16. 8 Du Yaquan, “Zhengdang lun” [On political parties], Dongfang zazhi 1 (1911), 10–14, here 14.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

379

of this “culturalist nationalism” that revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy.9 ­Following the Revolution of 1911, the imperial clan and royalists could hardly be permitted to represent the conservative contingent in the first Republican parliament. Revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) amalgamated ­multiple revolutionary associations into the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) after the Revolution of 1911. In December 1912, the Kuomintang, who at the time supported constitutional parliamentarism, secured an overwhelming majority in the first National Assembly election. However, despite this radical political context, the ideological foundation of parliamentarism, espoused by some Chinese intellectuals, did originate from Western conservatism. 2

English Conservatism and Zhang Shizhao

One of these intellectuals was Zhang Shizhao (1881–1973). During the same year when Du appealed for the formation of a conservative party, Zhang was a master’s student in political science at the University of Aberdeen in ­Scotland. During his studies, Zhang sent regularly political commentaries to the ­revolutionary newspaper Diguo ribao (Imperial Daily) in Beijing. Given his educational background, it is not surprising that he borrowed from numerous British thinkers and politicians to theorize his ideal of Chinese parliament, but almost all those whom he quoted and translated were conservatives or Tories, including Walter Bagehot (1826–1877), Albert Venn Dicey (1835–1922) and Edmund Burke. In common with many progressives in the 1910s, Zhang was anxious to find a way to build a less authoritarian regime without sacrificing the state’s power. He found his answer in British political model. Inspired by Bagehot, he argued that the British government was strong thanks to its cabinet system, in which legislative power and executive power were not strictly separated. Its strength was due to the superiority of cabinet members’ capacities with regard to other members of parliament. The cabinet and the parliament were dominated by the majority party, which had to step down if it lost popular support.10 In contrast, by evoking Dicey, he argued that a strict separation of powers, which resulted in constant quarrels between legislative power and executive power, usually weakened the government.11 Furthermore, British political system 9 10 11

Aymeric Xu, “Mapping Conservatism of the Republican Era: Genesis and Typologies,” Journal of Chinese History 4 (2020), no. 1, 135–59, here 135–43. Zhang Shizhao, “Hewei zhengdang neige” [What is cabinet?], Diguo ribao, 12 and 13 June 1911. Zhang Shizhao, “Zhengdang zhengzhi guo shiyu jinri zhi Zhongguo hu” [Is party politics really suitable for today’s China?], Diguo ribao, 29 May 1911.

380

Xu

emphasized and protected personal liberty, which China had barely tasted. For example, representation was directly linked to taxation. By quoting Burke, Zhang argued that tax revenue always belonged to the people, with their ­liberty guaranteed by private propriety and respected by the government.12 In this way, the British government was able to stay both strong and liberal, and China should emulate this political structure. One might wonder if Zhang was well aware that his intellectual mentors were conservative or if he chose to adopt British conservatives’ views on purpose. His theorization concerning a Chinese parliament clearly shows that Western conservatives’ ideas were not always introduced to support a conservative political project. One of the examples is Burke. Although self-identified as a Whig, his political philosophy was later interpreted as “the intellectual and moral cornerstone” of English conservatism, when Tories and Conservatives enacted cautious reforms in response to the rise of “English Jacobinism” from the 1880s onwards.13 Zhang’s time in Scotland coincided with the “canonization” of Burke as the founder of modern conservatism. Although Yan Fu (1854– 1921), a leading figure during China’s period of modernization, regarded Burke as a conservative after reading John Morley’s (1838–1923) Burke (1879), and quoted Burke’s arguments to advance his case for the selective preservation of Chinese tradition,14 the interest of Chinese intellectuals in Burke during the 1900s was, in general, focused on his writings on liberty, private propriety and the freedom of the press.15 Another example is Gustave Le Bon’s (1841–1931) work on the crowd psychology. While some evoked his works to preach social movements to enlighten the masses, so that democracy could function properly,16 others took forward Le Bon’s negative portrayal of crowds to rationalize their hostility to liberal democracy.17 In Zhang’s case, he did find an echo in British conservatives’ skepticism towards universal suffrage. Neither Burke, Dicey nor Bagehot supported 12 13 14 15 16 17

Zhang Shizhao, “Hewei buchu daiyishi buna zushui” [What is no taxation without representation?], Diguo ribao, 22 and 23 October 1910. Emily Jones, Edmund Burke & The Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914 (Oxford: 2017), 175–209. Huang Ko-wu, “Hewei tianyan? Yan Fu ‘Tianyan zhi xue’ de neihan yu yiyi” [What is ­evolution? The meaning and significance of Yan Fu’s theory of natural evolution], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 85 (2014), 129–87, here 145. See for example Liang Qichao, “Benguan diyibaice zhuci bing lun baoguan zhi zeren ji ­benguan zhi jingli” [Congratulations on Qingyibao’s 100th edition, a word on the responsibilities of the press and Qingyibao’s experiences], Qingyibao 100 (1901). See for example Lu Xun, “Suiganlu sanshiba” [Essays, no. 38], Xinqingnian 1 (1919). See for example Chang Chi-yun, “Bolatu lixiang guo yu Zhou guan” [Plato’s Republic and rites of the Zhou], Shidi xuebao 1 (1920).

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

381

democracy in the form of common suffrage. While Zhang wished to ensure a less authoritarian political future in line with the English model, it should be emphasized that liberalism – understood as the protection of civil liberties along with the rule of law – does not necessarily entail democracy.18 In The English Constitution, which Zhang frequently cited, Bagehot maintained that “cabinet government is possible in England because England was a deferential country”, in the sense that “the masses of the ‘ten-pound’ householders did not exact of their representatives an obedience to those opinions; that they were in fact guided in their judgement by the better educated classes; that they preferred representatives from those classes, and gave those representative much license”.19 To Bagehot, the conservative themes of social hierarchy, natural aristocracy and confidence of the people in their betters made the English representative government possible. Inspired by Bagehot, Zhang argued that that even the West was worried that Westerners’ morality and capacity were not sufficient for democracy to thrive, let alone China, whose population was so accustomed to authoritarianism that universal suffrage could simply not function immediately after the foundation of the Republic.20 In his own words: “We are a country for the people, but we cannot afford an extreme populist government. We are a country for majority rule, but we cannot expense the political spirit of the elites.”21 Thus, Zhang found, in these British conservative thoughts, a path not only to establish a liberal political system, but also to maintain and rejuvenate traditional Confucian “paternalism”. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to qualify Zhang Shizhao as conservative in the 1910s: in spite of his preference for English conservatism, he still envisaged one of the most liberal political projects for China at the time. 3

Western Conservative Ideas in China between the World Wars

Republicanism in China turned out to be a failure. Contrary to what Zhang Shizhao had whished, China was deprived of a strong central government after the death of President Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) – the only person who had the military power to unite the nation. After his death, the control of the nation was in the hands of local warlords until 1928, when the Northern Expedition 18 19 20 21

John Skorupski, “The Conservative Critique of Liberalism,” 403–04. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (Boston: 1873), 6. Zhang Shizhao, “Guojia yu zeren” [State and responsibilities], Jiayin 2 (1914). Idem, “Lun pingmin zhengzhi” [On populism], Minlibao, 1 March 1912.

382

Xu

launched by the Kuomintang reunified China. Arguably, the most important event that radically changed the intellectual landscape during this period is the outbreak of the New Culture Movement of the mid-1910s to the 1920s. New Culturalists blamed the failure of the institutionalization of the nation-state squarely on the persistence of traditional learnings, especially Confucianism, which they accused of polluting the popular mentality.22 While the late Qing radicalism was rooted in culturalist nationalism, which aimed to unify the political and cultural orders by refashioning traditional cultural institutions to reflect modern Western political ideology, this culturalist nationalism was rejected outright by the New Culturalists as a fruitless endeavor. From their perspective, to save China as a political entity, traditional culture had to be entirely replaced by a “new culture” aligned with the two bastions of modern Western civilization – science and democracy. The political and cultural orders were thus completely disentangled. The attempt to conserve this late Qing culturalist nationalism was now considered to be “conservative”. On the other hand, the First World War – along with its devastating consequences – caused some to question the value of the Western civilization that they used to admire. Consequently, the meanings attributed to “traditional culture” diversified. Although the phrase was still appropriated to inform political reforms, it no longer unproblematically evoked the cultural elements compatible with modern Western political culture and practices.23 As such, the New Culturalists’ embrace of science and democracy was dismissed by certain conservatives as shortsighted. In 1919, former royalist reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) and his follower Zhang Junmai (1886–1969) traveled to Europe and witnessed the disastrous consequences of the Great War. Disillusioned by the War, they rediscovered Confucianism as the solution to Western materialistic science, which they believed to have plunged Europe into warfare. After his exchanges with Henri Bergson (1859–1941), Liang questioned the all-powerful science eulogized by the New Culturalists and appraised the values of Chinese culture in remediating Europeans’ dream about the mighty power of science. Zhang stayed in Europe to study with Rudolf Eucken (1846–1926), Henri Bergson and Hans Driesch (1867–1941). For Zhang, a modern society cannot be sustained solely by scientific rationalism, and with no regard to what Bergson called élan vital,24 a concept which Zhang appropriated to interpret Confucian optimism 22 23 24

See for example Gao Yihan, “Fei junshi zhuyi” [On not having the ruler also serve as the teacher], Xinqingnian 6 (1918). Xu, “Mapping Conservatism of the Republican Era,” 143–45. Henri Bergson, L’évolution créatrice (1907; repr. Paris: 1959), 59.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

383

about an individual’s internal spirit as the foundation of human endeavors.25 In 1922, Hans Driesch went to China to give lectures, and Zhang served as his ­interpreter. One year later, his rejection of science as a means of understanding the human experience provoked the debate over “science versus metaphysics”, with New Culturalists defending science, and conservatives, metaphysics.26 The Critical Review Group (Xueheng pai) founded in 1921 formulated one of the most systematic critiques against science and democracy in the 1920s. Most of its members were students or followers of Irving Babbitt (1865–1933), the American scholar from Harvard University who developed New Humanism – one of the major American conservative intellectual forces of the early 20th century. This philosophy grew from a critique of what Babbitt called ­“sentimental and scientific humanitarianism” – the emotive aspect of which refers to the magnification of inner beauty to justify the unbridled expansion of emotion, whilst the scientific aspect may be defined as the nurturing of ­inferior instincts and the conceptualization of material progress as the ­ultimate goal of humanity. Both aspects failed to appreciate that human nature was ­predisposed to one-sidedness. Babbitt did not believe in human perfectibility. To him, men are born with inner dualism, but only humanists understand the law of measure and achieve a higher self. The capacity to unite in oneself opposite qualities constitutes what Babbitt calls “inner check” – a spontaneous feeling of moral uneasiness which stops a moral man from doing wrong when such an impulse emerges.27 To him, his philosophy is entirely individualistic and truly modern, because this power of veto is fully spontaneous and not motivated by any exterior authority such as religion.28 In contrast, the radicals anxious to construct a modern society upon the ruins of traditional morality and civilization were dangerously enchanted by industrialization, urbanization and democratization: they were not modern, but modernist, because their worship of modernity threatened to impose a stifling conformism, while the true embrace of modernity represented a critical, yet spontaneously evolving, living tradition that sought to revise, restore and renew – rather than to completely obliterate – the nation’s heritage.29 Thus, humanist individualism can only be 25 26 27 28 29

Peng Hsiao-yen, “‘Renshengguan’ yu Ouya houqimeng lunshu” [“The concept of life” and the post-Enlightenment narratives in Europe and in Asia”] in Wenhua fanyi yu wenhua mailuo [Cultural translation and cultural context], ed. idem (Taipei: 2013), 221–67, here 264–65. Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895–1949 (London: 2005), 178–80. Claes G. Ryn, Will, Imagination and Reason: Babbitt, Croce and the Problem of Reality (New Brunswick: 1997), 150. Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism (Boston: 1919), 58. Ibid., xi.

384

Xu

acquired “with the aid of the secular experience of both the East and the West”.30 ­University should be reserved for the selected few to cultivate and polish their inner power of veto.31 Although sympathy towards the intellectually inferior is necessary, a rigorous selection is indispensable for society’s well-being. In this regard, humanism is “aristocratic and not democratic in its implication”.32 Although he did not read Chinese, Babbitt was convinced that New Humanism and Confucianism could engage in a dialogue on social hierarchy, natural aristocracy and moral checks. In his writings, he evoked many Confucian terms and concepts, such as ju (rules)33 and ren (benevolence), to explain what he meant by inner check and sympathy tempered by selection.34 During one of his courses, one Chinese student told him that what he was teaching had nothing new: it was what Chinese had known for thousands of years.35 Particularly popular among Asian students at Harvard, he was invited to give a speech to a Chinese students’ association in Boston in 1921. He warned attendees against throwing out the baby – Chinese culture – with the bath water in the nation’s quest for modernization.36 His philosophy greatly inspired and encouraged the Chinese students anxious to preserve the Confucian tradition. Mei Guangdi (1890–1945), a master’s student of Babbitt, was attempting to rally students of the same mindset to challenge the New Culture Movement on the other side of the Pacific Ocean during his study in Harvard.37 In 1918, he encountered Wu Mi (1894–1978), a student of literature at the University of Virginia, during Wu’s trip to Cambridge. Wu was deeply touched by Mei’s enthusiasm and promised straightaway to join his league. Mei subsequently introduced Wu to his mentor, and Wu decided to transfer to Harvard in September to pursue his studies under the supervision of Babbitt.38 Babbitt’s Chinese disciples went back to China around 1920. Gathering at the National Southeast University in Nanjing, they founded the Critical Review Group to challenge the New Culture Movement in pursuit of science and democracy – two themes harshly denounced by Babbitt. The Group advocated 30 Ibid., Rousseau and Romanticism, xxiii. 31 Irving Babbitt, Literature and American College: Essays in Defense of the Humanities (­Boston: 1908), 80–81. 32 Ibid., 6. 33 Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism, 386. 34 Idem, “Humanistic Education in China and the West,” Chinese Students’ Monthly 2 (1921), 85–91, here 89. 35 A. Owen Aldridge, “Irving Babbitt in and about China,” Modern Age 4 (1993), 332–39, here 333. 36 Babbitt, “Humanistic Education in China and the West,” 89. 37 Wu Mi, Wu Mi zibian nianpu [Wu Mi’s autobiography] (Beijing: 1998), 177. 38 Ibid., 177.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

385

the integration of New Humanism and Confucianism to refute the ideals of science and democracy, which they judged as nothing but insupportable iconoclasm, materialism and mob rule. The Confucian and New Humanist values of cultural excellence, spiritual progress, natural aristocracy, balance, social hierarchy and rule by the elites constituted the cornerstone of the political order that they yearned to create. When Babbitt initiated the New Humanist Movement, the philosophy that dominated American society was John Dewey’s (1859–1952) pragmatism and naturalism.39 New Humanism constituted a direct accusation against Dewey, who influenced many leaders of the New Culture Movement, including Hu Shi (1891–1962). A symbolic figure of the New Culture Movement, Hu finished his PhD dissertation under Dewey’s ­supervision at Columbia University in 1927. In a letter addressed to Wu Mi on September 1922, Babbitt asked him to “publish notices of John Dewey’s last two volumes of a kind that will expose his superficiality”, because of his negative influence in the US and, as he suspected, in China.40 Hence, to a certain extent, the debate between the Critical Review Group and the New Culturalists ­constituted a continuation of the intellectual rivalry between Babbitt and Dewey in China. The Critical Review Group had existed for eleven years, but it failed to turn the iconoclast intellectual trend around. However, it has the merit of insisting on the idea of innate evil of human nature. Western conservatism is, in general, suspicious of the notion of human perfectibility: the prevalence of evil is not due to bad political arrangements, but inherent to human nature.41 In contrast, Confucianism believes in the realization of human perfectibility through education and cultivation. Thus, the Critical Review Group’s Confucian conservatism was shaped by Western conservative intellectual tradition that insists upon “the necessity and importance of political arrangements that hinder evil”.42 This alert about human imperfectability could have contributed to the New Culturalists’ optimistic pursuit of political reforms during a period where ascension to power was often accompanied by corruption. However, the Critical Review Group had inherited Babbitt’s suspicion of the manipulation of political machinery,43 while never conceiving a concrete project by which to institutionalize this conservative sensibility. 39 40 41 42 43

Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot (Washington, D.C.: 1987), 418–19. Wu Xuezhao, “The Birth of a Chinese Cultural Movement: Letters Between Babbitt and Wu Mi,” Humanitas 1/2 (2004), 6–25, here 13. John Kekes, A Case for Conservatism (Ithaca: 2001), 44–45. Ibid., 45. Irving Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership (Boston: 1934), 66.

386

Xu

In contrast to the Critical Review Group, some conservatives did manage to articulate their cultural resentment towards the New Culturalists’ ideals of ­science and democracy by the implementation of concrete alternative political strategies. Liang Shuming (1893–1988) is an example. To him, the revival of the nation depended on the return to the political arrangements consistent with her agrarian cultural tradition. Liang launched his experiment of rural reconstruction from 1931 to 1937 in Shandong. For him, capitalism, democracy and science could not be adopted in China due to the cultural differences between China and the West.44 Nevertheless, his idea of popular education and its coordination with Confucian values were, to a certain extent, fashioned by the educational theories about the folk high school of Danish conservative ­pastor, philosopher and teacher, Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872), and his students Christian Kold (1816–1870) and Ludvig Schrøder (1836–1908). The folk high school was originally conceived to educate the peasantry and other people from the lower social strata. Unlike the Critical Review Group, Liang never studied abroad and had little understanding of foreign languages. He learned of the Danish folk high school from The Folk High Schools of D ­ enmark and the Development of a Farming Community, written in 1927 by Holger ­Begtrup (1859–1937), Hans Lund (1890–1969) and Peter Manniche (1889–1981), and translated into Chinese in 1931 by Meng Xiancheng (1894–1967), a former student of the George Washington University and the University of London. Inspired by the advantages of this educational system, in which education was combined with the cooperative movement in Denmark,45 Liang turned to Grundtvig, the ideological father of the folk high school, and pointed out that the this educational system, which was built upon the decentralization of ­Danish education, the freedom enjoyed by teachers and the development of people’s faculties,46 made Danish education an authentic “peasant ­education”47 and “popular education”, which could be appropriated into his rural reconstruction theory to enlighten the peasants.48

44

Liang Shuming, Zhongguo minzu zijiu yundong zhi zuihou juewu [Final awakening of the national self-salvation movement of the Chinese nation] (Shanghai: 1933), 97. 45 Knud Eyvin Bugge, “The International Dissemination of Grundtvig’s Educational Ideas: I: Motivation and Interpretation,” Grundtvig-Studier 1 (2012), 168–77, here 176. 46 Jens Bjerg et al., “Danish Education, Pedagogical Theory in Denmark and in Europe, and Modernity,” Comparative Education 1 (1995), 31–47. 47 Christian Kold, whom Liang mentioned in his article, “was very close to the peasants he worked with, and taught from their perspective”. See Robert Thomas Anderson, Denmark: Success of a Developing Nation (Cambridge, MA: 1975), 109. 48 Liang, Zhongguo minzu zijiu yundong zhi zuihou juewu, 287–88.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

387

From 1916 to 1927, the lack of a strong central government certainly led to a chaotic political environment. Nevertheless, it also provided significant advantages for the flourishing of new ideas and the introduction of foreign thoughts and new ideas, including Western conservative schools, which were borrowed to open up new debates on China’s future policies. Even after 1928, when the Kuomintang seized power, the relative freedom of speech allowed the expression and practice of alternative conservative political proposals to that of the central government, as Liang’s case shows.49 In sum, Chinese ­conservatism between the World Wars was heavily influenced by Western conservative schools, sharing with the latter an anxiety about the alternative ways to build a modern society. 4

The Kuomintang and German Conservatism

As previously noted, merely four years after the foundation of the ­Republic, the control of the nation was dispersed among regional warlords. Led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) – successor of Sun Yat-sen after his death in 1925 – the Northern Expedition ended the Warlord Era in 1928. The capital of the Republic was transferred from Beijing (called Peiping at the time) to Nanjing. From the reunification of the nation to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Nanjing decade was marked by progress in terms of strong economic development, engagements in the international diplomatic arena, and massive educational, industrial, infrastructural and agricultural reforms. However, the Nanjing decade was also threatened by fragility and instability, namely, the growing forces of the Chinese Communist Party and the Japanese imperialism. With the reunification of the nation, Zhang Shizhao’s wish for a strong government could finally be fulfilled, but not in the way he had hoped in the 1910s. The Kuomintang government adhered to Sun Yat-sen’s ­three-staged nation-building strategy, outlined in his National Government’s Plan for National Construction (Guomin zhengfu jianguo dagang, 1924), which s­ tipulated that constitutional politics (xianzheng) would be realized only after the dissolution of the periods of military (junzheng) and party rules (xunzheng). After the Northern Expedition, Chiang declared that the first stage of national construction had been completed and announced the beginning of the party-rule period, during which the Kuomintang would exercise sovereign power, educate people about their civil rights and instruct them to work in the interests of revolution. 49

Frank Dikötter, The Age of Openness: China Before Mao (Hong Kong: 2008), 25.

388

Xu

This revolutionary activism evolved into support for strong leadership and a state-led economy and society in order to resist both the Communist Party and foreign imperialism. To this end, Chiang, who spoke to his followers of the necessity to “nazify” (nazuihua) the country,50 launched the New Life Movement in 1934. Emulating the Black Shirts and the Brown Shirts of European fascist regimes, the Kuomintang had the Blue Shirts (Lanyishe), a secret clique guided directly by Chiang.51 The Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang wrote in October 1931: “The Kuomintang should follow the example of the organization of Mussolini’s Black Shirts in Italy, completely obeying the orders of the leader and creating members who will use blue shirts as the symbol of their will.”52 The Blue Shirts were formed by students and young officers of the Party’s Whampoa Military Academy, many of whom were sent to Japan by Chiang to study military tactics at the end of the 1920s. The Blue Shirts admired fascism, which was eulogized by one high official as “a very progressive means of resurrecting the nation”.53 Under the guidance of Chiang, their lingxiu (chief, Führer), the Blue Shirts’ ultra-nationalism was reflected in their slogan “One doctrine, one party and one leader”.54 Among the members, violence was glorified and directed against Japanese troops, communists, dissidents and the morally deficient. The Kuomintang’s revolution evolved out of the idea that national spirituality was directly linked to national vitality. As in Nazi Germany,55 the state-­ orchestrated aestheticization of everyday life was an important strategy during the New Life Movement for “transforming rowdy protesters and ­philistine consumers into self-regulating and well-bred citizens”.56 While Chiang said privately to his followers that China needed to be Nazified, he addressed the public in exclusively traditional Confucian terms. To him, the reason why G ­ ermany quickly recovered from national decline after the First World War and became a great power was grounded in its invigorating national ­morality. He summarized

50

Frederic Wakeman, Jr., “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism,” The China Quarterly 150 (1997), 395–432, here 396. 51 Xuan Jianxi, “Lanyishe de lailong qumai” [Origins and ramifications of the Blue Shirts] in Lanyishe, Fuxingshe, Lixingshe [The Blue Shirts, The Society for Vigorous Practice, The Renaissance Society], ed. Gan Guoxun et. al. (Beijing: 2014), 16–45. 52 Wakeman, “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade,” 402. 53 Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 255. 54 Yu Zidao and Xu Youwei, “Lixingshe shulun” [On the Society for Vigorous Practice], Jindaishi yanjiu 6 (1989), 217–37, here 220. 55 John Weiss, Conservatism in Europe 1770–1945: Traditionalism, Reaction, and Counter-­ Revolution (New York: 1977), 162–67. 56 Brian Tsui, China’s Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927–1949 (­Cambridge: 2018), 179.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

389

Chinese national morality in the Confucian mottos of li (propriety), yi (justice), lian (integrity) and chi (honor).57 The government attempted to materialize these four Confucian values into what Chiang called “four social ties” (siwei): clothing, food, residence and transportation.58 As in European fascist regimes, the aestheticization of everyday life was combined with a strict control of popular behavior to shape a highly disciplined ­population. ­Meticulous rules that regulated personal hygiene, social interactions and consumption behaviors permeated the wartime New Life Movement. The government affirmed that these Confucian moral codes and industrial modernity were perfectly compatible, since Confucian values not only animated individuals to become involved in industrial modernization, but also imposed a ­technological logic of action on the population, which would be ready for the state’s mobilization.59 The Kuomintang’s attempt to harmonize and reintegrate the political and cultural orders made this movement conservative in the Chinese context. The cultural elements that the Party appropriated to establish and legitimize its political regime, which Frederic Wakeman described as “Confucian fascism”, represented the most repressive aspects of Confucianism.60 This conservative and nationalist movement responded to the growing distrust of liberal democracy in the mid-1930s. The democracy pursued during the New Culture Movement met with growing opposition from many intellectuals at the time. They argued that democracy was neither culturally nor politically rooted in China and the redundant administrative process of democracy was simply inopportune when bold leadership was called for to handle the imminent threats that confronted the nation.61 More and more intellectuals favored an “enlightened dictatorship”, identified with a strong and coordinated government, capable of naturalizing an interventionist policy that stood China in good stead.62 57 58

59 60 61 62

Chiang Kai-shek, “Xinshenghuo yundong zhi yaoyi” [Principles of the New Life Movement] in Xian Zongtong Jianggong sixiang yanlun zongji [Complete thoughts and speeches of ­former President Chiang Kai-shek], vol. 12, ed. Chin Hisao-yi (Taipei: 1984), 70–80, here 73–74. Lei Sean Hsiang-li, “Xiguan cheng siwei: Xinshenghuo yundong yu feijiehe fangzhi zhong de lunli, jiating yu shenti” [Habituating the Four Virtues: ethics, family, and the body in the anti-tuberculosis campaigns and the New Life Movement], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 74 (2011), 133–77, here 151. Maggie Clinton, Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937 (Durham, NC: 2017), 64–97; Lu Yudao, “Wei shuli kexue wenhua gao guoren shu” [Letter to the nation for the construction of scientific culture], Guofeng 7 (1936), 284–88, here 286. Wakeman, “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism.” Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927–1937 ­(Cambridge, MA: 1990), 140–80. Edmund S. K. Fung, The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era (New York: 2010), 151 and 188–89.

390

Xu

In this context, Chinese intellectuals began to take a serious interest in German conservative thoughts. In 1929, Zhang Junmai made his second trip to Europe. Enrolled at the University of Jena, he manifested a great interest in German conservative economists and politicians, including Adolph ­Wagner (1835–1917), Gustav von Schmoller (1838–1917) and Erich Ludendorff ­(1865–1937). Germany, at the time, saw the rise of a prominent national conservative revolutionary movement, known as the Konservative Revolution. This interest in the Konservative Revolution persisted in the 1930s. For example, the economist and sociologist Werner Sombart (1863–1941), was introduced to the Chinese public. Sombart’s Studiengesellschaft für Geld- und Kreditwirtschaft (The Study Society of Currency and Credit), in which he argued for the policy of Reagrarisierung (re-agrarization) to give state a strict control of the economy and to promote the first sector to contend with what he saw as failing capitalism, was translated under the title of Ziben zhuyi zhi jianglai (The Future of Capitalism) in Guofeng banyuekan (National Soul Bimonthly). The translators, in particular, highlighted two terms: national character (minzu de texing) and leader (lingxiu). They underlined that, in certain circumstances, the leader’s individual willingness could be transformed into the nation’s character and collective willingness, as in the cases of Lenin (1870–1924), Atatürk (1881–1938) and Mussolini (1883–1945). The translators emphasized: “May our fatherland be blessed with the direction of such an individual willingness, otherwise, […] we would surely become bogged down in a world of disorder.”63 While the Konservative Revolution cannot be confused with Nazism,64 pro-Kuomintang intellectuals found in Konservative Revolution useful ideological justifications for the anti-liberal, anti-communist and authoritarian policies introduced and advocated by the state. In this brief review of the Kuomintang’s conservative movement, I am not arguing that there was a local manifestation of Nazism in China. In fact, scholars have pointed out that the Kuomintang government’s Nazification of China was never turned into a mass movement as in Nazi Germany, and that the ­Chinese government was too weak in comparison to that of Germany.65 Nevertheless, given the same hostility towards liberalism and communism, parallels between the Chinese conservative revolutionary movement, the Konservative Revolution and Nazism (or fascism, in a broader sense) are not surprising. The 63

Xu Chongyan and Qian Desheng, “Ziben zhuyi zhi jianglai (xia)” [The future of capitalism, second part], Guofeng banyuekan 8 (1934). 64 For the differences between Konservative Revolution and Nazism, see Louis Dupeux (ed.), La “Révolution conservatrice” dans l’Allemagne de Weimar (Paris: 1992), part II. 65 Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 256–58.

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

391

Kuomintang’s conservatism was not expressed in its members’ admiration of far-right regimes, but rather in their attempt to integrate the nation’s political and cultural orders. This conservative political movement represents the last attempt of the Republican era to revive the culturalist nationalism of the 1900s: it was, however, cut short in 1949 when the Kuomintang lost the Civil War to the Communist Party and subsequently retreated to Taiwan. 5 Conclusion This chapter revisited the introduction, the influence and the reception of English, American, French, Danish and German conservative ideas and politics in China from the 1910s to the 1930s. The process of the dissemination of ideas involved a transnational network of translators, intellectuals and students across Europe, America and Asia. Through their engagement in travel, study in foreign countries and translation, Chinese intellectuals encountered and adopted diverse interpretations of Western conservative ideas; they blended them with indigenous cultural elements in order to rationalize the political strategies they introduced during a period characterized by immense political crisis and turmoil. Chinese conservatism during the Republican era was, at first, a response to the New Culturalists’ cultural iconoclasm from the mid-1910s onwards. It aimed to preserve the pre-1912 culturalist nationalism, which mobilized as a politicized form of traditional cultural expression. The Chinese conservative movement of this period was also a reaction to the Great War, the calamitous consequences of which inspired conservatives to devise alternative political solutions – other than the emulation of modern Western civilization, as advocated by the New Culturalists – to issues concerning China’s modernization. During this period, they intensely studied Western political philosophy in search of catalytic ideas and practices that might hasten national revival. Traditional learnings were refashioned to accommodate different Western conservative ideas and to support different policy future. This illustrates the plasticity of tradition, namely, Confucianism, which, as this chapter shows, was interpreted in numerous ways in accordance with Western thoughts in order to rationalize different or even opposite political movements and projects. Although Burke or Dicey would probably disagree that their political visions could be deployed in 20th-century China, Chinese and Western conservatives’ shared suspicion of scientific rationalism and liberal democracy and desire to build an alternative modern society, especially in the period between the World Wars, made the appropriation of Western conservative thoughts in a different spatial,

392

Xu

political and temporal context possible. Also, the ­Kuomintang’s conservatism can be understood as the “cosmetic effects” that the “global ascendance of the radical right” during the interwar period left on China.66 Furthermore, the transnational perspective in Chinese conservatism not only reveals a voluntary intellectual and political practice, but sometimes an “orchestrated” effort to repudiate progressivism at an international level, as the case of the Critical Review Group and Babbitt shows. Western conservatism continues to influence Chinese conservatism today. In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) led the Opening of China. During the first ten years of the economic reforms, market socialism, decentralization and a growing sense of political liberalization began to undermine the authority of the central government. These factors fostered the emergence of the so-called new authoritarianism (xin quanwei zhuyi) in the 1980s. ­Chinese new authoritarians were first inspired by Samuel P. Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies, which argues that economic development is unsustainable in the absence of a stable political order.67 Huntington’s Chinese followers are not necessarily anti-democratic. However, taking examples from the Four Asian Dragons (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan), whose economy had undergone rapid development under non-democratic or even authoritarian regimes, they regarded a steadfast and effective government as an important prerequisite for China’s economic development.68 Thus, contrary to the common belief that economic liberty will bring about political liberty, Chinese authoritarians support the Chinese Communist Party as the guarantee of economic reforms in the foreseeable future.69 Arguably, the most representative new authoritarian today is Xiao Gongqin. Xiao considers the French ­Revolution to be a negative development, based solely upon abstract ideas, that brought nothing but terror.70 While this resentment towards the French Revolution echoes the Western conservatism of the 19th century onwards, Burkean conservatism has aroused little attention in China. Although Xiao urges China to bid farewell to this type of “romantic” revolution,71 he ­welcomes 66 Tsui, China’s Conservative Revolution, 5. 67 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: 1973). 68 Peter Moody, Conservative Thought in Contemporary China (Lanham: 2007), 152. 69 See for example Zheng Yongnian, “Development and Democracy: Are They Compatible in China?,” Political Sciences Quarterly 2 (1994), 235–59, here 250–52. 70 Xiao Gongqin, “Dangdai Zhongguo xinbaoshouzhuyi de sixiang yuanyuan” [The intellectual foundation of modern Chinese conservatism], Twenty-First Century 40 (1997), 126–37, here 132–37. 71 Idem, Yu zhengzhi langman zhuyi gaobie [Farewell to political romanticism] (Wuhan: 2001).

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

393

Xi ­Jinping’s rule as representing an important step on China’s path to the so-called “socialist democracy”.72 Moreover, Chinese conservatism has vested in recent decades a growing interest in Carl Schmitt’s (1888–1985) critiques on liberal democracy and parliamentarism.73 Nevertheless, the Weimar Republic and contemporary China are situated in totally different political circumstances. What are the political implications of such an over-exaggeration of the crisis of liberal democracy and parliamentarism in a Party-State that has neither? With the globalization of the academic community, the question how Western conservatism and Chinese conservatism engage in a dialogue with each other and how this interaction might change the Chinese intellectual and political landscape, in an era where China is no longer a powerless nation as it was during the Republican era, remains to be explored. Bibliography Aldridge, A. Owen, “Irving Babbitt in and about China,” Modern Age 4 (1993), 332–39. Anderson, Robert Thomas, Denmark: Success of a Developing Nation (Cambridge, MA: 1975). Babbitt, Irving, Literature and American College: Essays in Defense of the Humanities (Boston: 1908). Babbitt, Irving, Rousseau and Romanticism (Boston: 1919). Babbitt, Irving, “Humanistic Education in China and the West,” Chinese Students’ Monthly 2 (1921), 85–91. Babbitt, Irving, Democracy and Leadership (Boston: 1934). Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution (Boston: 1873). Beiser, Frederick, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought 1790–1800 (Cambridge, MA: 1992). Bergson, Henri, L’évolution créatrice (1907; repr. Paris: 1959). Bjerg, Jens et. al., “Danish Education, Pedagogical Theory in Denmark and in Europe, and Modernity,” Comparative Education 1 (1995), 31–47. Bugge, Knud Eyvin, “The International Dissemination of Grundtvig ’s Educational Ideas: I: Motivation and Interpretation,” Grundtvig-Studier 1 (2012), 168–77.

72 73

Zhang Boshu, Gaibian Zhongguo: Liusi yilai de Zhongguo zhengzhi sichao [Changing China: political trends from June Fourth onwards] (Hongkong: 2015), 49. Xu Ben, “Zhongguo buxuyao zheyang de ‘zhengzhi’ he ‘zhuquanzhe jueduan’ – ‘Shimite re’ he guojiazhuyi” [China does not need such “politics” and “decisionism”: the Schmitt-fever and statism] Twenty-First Century 94 (2005), 26–39, here 26 and 31.

394

Xu

Chang, Chi-yun, “Bolatu lixiang guo yu Zhou guan” [Plato’s Republic and rites of the Zhou], Shidi xuebao 1 (1920). Chin, Hisao-yi (ed.), Xian Zongtong Jianggong sixiang yanlun zongji [Complete thoughts and speeches of former president Chiang Kai-shek], 40 vols. (Taipei: 1984). Clinton, Maggie, Revolutionary Nativism: Fascism and Culture in China, 1925–1937 (Durham, NC: 2017). Dikötter, Frank, The Age of Openness: China Before Mao (Hong Kong: 2008). Du, Yaquan, “Zhengdang lun” [On political parties], Dongfang zazhi 1 (1911), 10–14. Dupeux, Louis (ed.), La “Révolution conservatrice” dans l’Allemagne de Weimar (Paris: 1992). Eastman, Lloyd E., The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927–1937 (Cambridge, MA: 1990). Fukuzawa, Yukichi, Minjō Isshin [Reform on popular mentality] (Tokyo: 1879). Fung, Edmund S. K., The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era (New York: 2010). Gan, Guoxun et. al. (eds.), Lanyishe, Fuxingshe, Lixingshe [The Blue Shirts, The Society for Vigorous Practice, The Renaissance Society] (Beijing: 2014) Gao, Yihan, “Fei junshi zhuyi” [On not having the ruler also serve as the teacher], ­Xinqingnian 6 (1918). Gray, John, Liberalism (Milton Keynes: 1995). Huang, Ko-wu, “Hewei tianyan? Yan Fu ‘Tianyan zhi xue’ de neihan yu yiyi” [What is evolution? The meaning and significance of Yan Fu’s theory of natural evolution], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 85 (2014), 129–87. Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: 1973). Jin, Guantao, and Qingfeng Liu, Xingsheng yu weiji: lun Zhongguo shehui chaowending jiegou [The cycle of growth and decline: on the ultra-stable structure of Chinese society] (Hong Kong: 1992). Jones, Emily, Edmund Burke & The Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914 (Oxford: 2017). Kekes, John, A Case for Conservatism (Ithaca: 2001). Kirk, Russell, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot (Washington, D.C.: 1987). Lei, Sean Hsiang-li, “Xiguan cheng siwei: Xinshenghuo yundong yu feijiehe fangzhi zhongde lunli, jiating yu shenti” [Habituating the Four Virtues: ethics, family, and the body in the anti-tuberculosis campaigns and the New Life Movement], Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 74 (2011), 133–77. Liang, Qichao, “Benguan diyibaice zhuci bing lun baoguan zhi zeren ji benguan zhi jingli” [Congratulations on Qingyibao’s 100th edition, a word on the responsibilities of the press and Qingyibao’s experience], Qingyibao 100 (1901). Liang, Shuming, Zhongguo minzu zijiu yundong zhi zuihou juewu [Final awakening of the national self-salvation movement of the Chinese nation] (Shanghai: 1933). Lu, Xun, “Suiganlu sanshiba” [Essays, no. 38], Xinqingnian 1 (1919).

Western Conservative Ideas and Politics in China 1910s–1930s

395

Lu, Yudao, “Wei shuli kexue wenhua gao guoren shu” [Letter to the nation for the ­construction of scientific culture], Guofeng 7 (1936), 284–88. Moody, Peter, Conservative Thought in Contemporary China (Lanham: 2007). Oakeshott, Michael, “On Being Conservative,” in Twentieth Century Political Theory: A Reader, ed. Stephan Eric Bronner (New York: 2006), 77–90. Peng, Hsiao-yen (ed.), Wenhua fanyi yu wenhua mailuo [Cultural translation and ­cultural context] (Taipei: 2013). Ryn, Claes G., Will, Imagination and Reason: Babbitt, Croce and the Problem of Reality (New Brunswick: 1997). Skorupski, John, “The Conservative Critique of Liberalism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism, ed. Steven Wall (Cambridge: 2015), 401–22. Scruton, Roger, How to Be a Conservative (London: 2014). Suvanto, Pekka, Conservatism from the French Revolution to the 1990s, trans. Roderick Fletcher (New York: 1997). Tsui, Brian, China’s Conservative Revolution: The Quest for a New Order, 1927–1949 ­(Cambridge: 2018). Wakeman, Frederic, Jr., “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism,” The China Quarterly 150 (1997), 395–432. Weiss, John, Conservatism in Europe 1770–1945: Traditionalism, Reaction, and Counter-Revolution (New York: 1977). Wu, Mi, Wu Mi zibian nianpu [Wu Mi’s autobiography] (Beijing: 1998). Wu, Xuezhao, “The Birth of a Chinese Cultural Movement: Letters Between Babbitt and Wu Mi,” Humanitas 1/2 (2004), 6–25. Xiao, Gongqin, “Dangdai Zhongguo xinbaoshouzhuyi de sixiang yuanyuan” [The intellectual foundation of modern Chinese conservatism], Twenty-First Century 40 (1997), 126–37. Xiao, Gongqin, Yu zhengzhi langman zhuyi gaobie [Farewell to political romanticism] (Wuhan: 2001). Xu, Aymeric, “Mapping Conservatism of the Republican Era: Genesis and Typologies”, Journal of Chinese History 4 (2020), no., 135–59. Xu, Ben, “Zhongguo buxuyao zheyang de ‘zhengzhi’ he ‘zhuquanzhe jueduan’ – ­‘Shimite re’ he guojiazhuyi” [China does not need such “politics” and “decisionism”: the Schmitt-fever and statism] Twenty-First Century 94 (2005), 26–39. Xu, Chongyan, and Desheng Qian, “Ziben zhuyi zhi jianglai (xia)” [The future of ­capitalism, second part], Guofeng banyuekan 8 (1934), 10–25. Yu, Zidao, and Youwei Xu, “Lixingshe shulun” [On the Society for Vigorous Practice], Jindaishi yanjiu 6 (1989), 217–37. Zarrow, Peter, China in War and Revolution, 1895–1949 (London: 2005). Zhang, Boshu, Gaibian Zhongguo: Liusi yilai de Zhongguo zhengzhi sichao [Changing China: political trends from the June Fourth onwards] (Hongkong: 2015).

396

Xu

Zhang, Shizhao, “Hewei buchu daiyishi buna zushui” [What is no taxation without ­representation?], Diguo ribao, 22 and 23 October 1910. Zhang, Shizhao, “Zhengdang zhengzhi guo shiyu jinri zhi Zhongguo hu” [Is party ­politics really suitable for today’s China?], Diguo ribao, 29 May 1911. Zhang, Shizhao, “Hewei zhengdang neige” [What is cabinet?], Diguo ribao, 12 and 13 June 1911. Zhang, Shizhao, “Lun pingmin zhengzhi” [On populism], Minlibao, 1 March 1912. Zhang, Shizhao, “Guojia yu zeren” [State and responsibilities], Jiayin 2 (1914). Zhang, Shizhao, “Development and Democracy: Are They Compatible in China?,” ­Political Sciences Quarterly 2 (1994), 235–59.

CHAPTER 18

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism: Reflections Based on the Chinese Case Axel Schneider 1

Modernization, Conservatism, and Cultural Particularity

Chinese conservatism is cultural, not political. It emphasizes China’s long cultural tradition, now no longer seen as universal civilization, but as a culture particular to China. It is not political because it does not attempt to maintain or resurrect the imperial tradition of universal kingship that was based on the political philosophy of Confucianism. These are judgments concerning the nature of Chinese conservatism widespread in Western1 and Chinese2 research with deep roots in the history of modern China.3 These judgments are not entirely wrong, but they are misleading. In countries such as e.g. Germany, Russia, or China that were facing processes of ­modernization based on models of development rooted in the historical experience of Western European countries, elites emphasized cultural particularity to ground national identity and to promote nation-building,

1 For arguments along these lines, see Benjamin Schwartz, “Notes on Conservatism in General and in China in Particular,” in The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China , ed. Charlotte Furth (Cambridge, MA: 1976), 3–21; Guy S. Alitto, On Cultural Conservatism, An Analysis of Anti-modern Thought (Taibei: 1986). 2 For Chinese research along these lines, see Fengxiang Hu, “Theoretical Characteristics and Practice of Cultural Conservatism in 20th Century China,” Huadong shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexueban) 6 (2013), 18–24; idem, Social Transformation and Cultural Tradition: Research on the Trend of Thought of Modern Chinese Cultural Conservatism (Shanghai: 2000); Dahua Yu, Research on the Zeitgeist of Cultural Conservatism During the Late Qing (Beijing: 2001); Xiaoming He, Return to the Roots and Innovation——New Discussion of Chinese Cultural Conservatism (Beijing: 2006); Dahua Zheng, Liang Shuming and Hu Shi: Comparison of Cultural Conservatism and the Zeitgeist of Westernization (Beijing: 1994). 3 After the revolution of 1911, very few Chinese conservatives wanted to resurrect the monarchy. In view of the utter failure of the Qing dynasty to deal with the modern challenge, the majority of modern Chinese intellectuals had accepted the idea of popular sovereignty and a republican system. Next to the arguments favoring cultural particularity (see below), it is the scarcity of attempts to resurrect the monarchy which has led to the impression and characterization of Chinese conservatism as not being political, but cultural. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004446731_018

398

Schneider

while simultaneously pursuing policies of modernization. On the so-called ­“conservative” side of the spectrum too, we regularly find arguments emphasizing ­historically grown, particular cultures. This emphasis is even more pronounced in late-developing countries outside of Europe such as China that had no indigenous tradition of or ­philosophical affinity with enlightenment4 and the developments of the industrial revolution. Here modernity came in the wake of imperialist aggression if not colonization by foreign, hostile forces. Elites in those countries found themselves in the complicated situation of having to learn from the “West”, to adopt science, technology, and to emulate modern social and political arrangements from the very imperialist forces against which they wanted to defend themselves, hence emphasis on cultural particularity was a common phenomenon in these countries. This has been described for China by Joseph R. Levenson as the challenge to become modern and yet stay Chinese.5 Due to this need to modernize in order to survive, we hardly encounter voices opposing enlightenment ideas and the scientific-technological side of modernity as a whole, especially once the scope of the challenge became obvious.6 Because of this constellation of having to become modern and yet wanting to maintain one’s subjectivity, the majority of Chinese literati assumed positions marked by tensions, hybrid manifestations and attempts at compromises. Even on the so-called “conservative”7 side of the spectrum, we find few who rejected modernity completely. The conservative forces too were very heterogeneous and especially towards and after the end of the Qing-Dynasty in 1911, they already were inspired by the West, in their case by Western critiques of enlightenment ideas.8 Chinese conservative reflections on modernity thus were intertwined with concerns of cultural identity, which is why in Western and especially in ­Chinese 4 For the differentiation between “Enlightenment” and “enlightenment”, see Graeme Garrard, Counter-Enlightenments. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: 2005), 4–10. 5 Joseph R. Levenson, “‘History’ and ‘Value’: The Tensions of Intellectual Choice in Modern China,” in Studies in Chinese Thought, ed. Arthur F. Wright (Chicago: 1953), 146–94. 6 This of course holds true for conservatism in Europe as well, where conservative positions critical of the enlightenment not only were quite diverse, but were also influenced by the Enlightenment and absorbed some of its positions. 7 For my understanding of “conservatism”, see below. 8 See e.g. Zhang Junmai’s and Liang Qichao’s position in the debate on science and ­metaphysics and the influence of e.g. Rudolf Eucken and Henri Bergson on them. Liang Qichao (­ 1873–1929), one of the most influential modern Chinese intellectuals who started out as a reformer during the late Qing period propagating a constitutional monarchy, ­concepts of popular ­sovereignty and modern views of progressive history. He constantly revised his ideas ending up as a staunch critique of views of progressive history. Zhang Junmai (1886–1969), important intellectual, representative of the so-called Third Force in China and of modern Chinese Confucianism.

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

399

research Chinese conservatism is often characterized as being cultural. In this context “conservative” by and large refers to the attitude of wanting to protect, preserve (parts of) one’s own culture. However, this classification is misleading. Emphasizing cultural particularity quite often does coexist with, even can support a modernizing agenda such as the project of nation-building, industrial development and concomitant social and political changes. Some t­ raditionalistic regimes portray this modernizing agenda as being in line with core aspects of the cultural heritage as can be seen e.g. from the New Life Movement of the Nationalist Party during the 1930s, but that should not blind us for the fact that these movements are expression of a modernizing cultural nationalism rather than being conservative.9 In order to differentiate modernizing arguments favoring cultural particularity from genuinely conservative concerns that are highly critical of modernity, I will in the following identify what constitutes the core of “conservatism” from an intellectual history perspective, paying special attention to cross-cultural comparisons. I will then apply it to the Chinese case for the period of ca. 1900 to 1940, analyzing one aspect of the conservative engagement with modernity, i.e. the critique of the concept of progress, which is one of the cornerstones of modern views of history and concomitant social and political visions. Based on the analysis of these critiques as voiced by intellectuals such as Liang Qichao, Zhang Taiyan,10 Liu Yizheng,11 Liu Xianxin,12 Du Yaquan,13 Jing Changji,14 Taixu15 etc. I will suggest a typology of critiques of progressivism, which can serve as a starting point for a more comprehensive analysis of Chinese conservatism in future research.

9 10 11 12

13 14 15

For the New Life Movement, see Arif Dirlik, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in Counterrevolution,” Journal of Asian Studies 34 (1975), 945–80. For a comparison of conservatism with cultural nationalism, see below. Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936), Chinese revolutionary, philosopher, philologist and phonologist, who played an important role in the Chinese encounter with modernity. Liu Yizheng (1880–1956), Chinese historian and librarian, who initially played an important role in the reception of modern historical thought. Later he turned more conservative ­criticizing notions of progressive history. Liu Xianxin (1897–1932), intellectual from Chengdu, Sichuan, who was born to a Confucian family and became a prolific critic of modern, Western culture. Based on the Book of Changes and Chinese medical traditions, he explained Western modernity as a pathological development. Du Yaquan (1873–1933), influential Chinese translator and educator, who advocated a ­blending of Eastern and Western culture. Jing Changji (1903–1982), educator, exponent of Yogācāra Buddhism, and a student of ­Ouyang Jianwu at the Chinese Inner Studies Institute. Taixu (1890–1947), monk, who advocated the reform and renewal of Chinese Buddhism.

400 2

Schneider

The Challenge of Research on Conservatism

The challenges of doing research on conservatism beyond the rather wellknown Western cases are manifold. First, our vocabulary and our approaches to understanding conservatism are shaped by the Western experience(s). Second, the cases of conservatism in countries beyond the West more often than not developed in reaction to Western imperialist intrusion, hence they are of course heavily influenced by what they react to. And finally, in general, Western academic theories strive for universal models and explanations, hence they are of the a-cultural type,16 trying to abstract from cultural particularities, while too often ignoring the fact that their evidential basis is primarily Western, hence far from being universal. What needs to be done in this context is, first, to historicize17 and culturalize18 our understanding of conservatism, while simultaneously doing that in such a way that we are able, second, to strive in the long run for a less culture-bound, more universal theory of conservatism on a broader, not just Western empirical basis, without however, third, forgetting that conservatism in most late-developing countries is in fact a reaction to the modern challenge emanating from the West, hence it is always at least partly shaped by that. It is the purpose of this article to make a first contribution in that direction from the perspective of intellectual history. Usually, when describing the modern condition we refer to science and technology triggering processes of industrialization, to the rationalization of many spheres of human life, leading to democratic political arrangements, phenomena of social individualization and differentiation, eventually also, on the negative side, to phenomena of alienation and disenchantment. While we associate liberation from traditional authority, freedom and autonomy with the modern condition, the negative side is often described as the iron cage of cold, efficient modernity. While we easily can reach a consensus on most of these characteristics, albeit with different emphasis and causal connections, the central intellectual transformation to modernity is insufficiently grasped by them. I suggest that we have to understand the modern condition as a set of new views that constitute a groundbreaking redefinition of our understanding of the cosmos and of humankind’s position in it, with implications for our understanding of time, 16 17 18

Charles Taylor, “Two Theories of Modernity,” The Hastings Center Report 25 (1995), 24–33. Taking into account the specific historical conditions of the respective country being drawn into the modern transformation. Considering the specific philosophical, religious, political and social conditions of the moment of encounter with the modern transformation.

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

401

history, and human agency. I argue that it is this transformation that, although emanating from the West, can serve as a common ground for research on conservatism worldwide because it has reached most parts of the world through the development of global capitalism. This modern condition foremost is characterized by science and its corresponding worldview. But what is that? As expounded by Heidegger in his famous lecture “Die Zeit des Weltbildes”, metaphysics and a concomitant particular conception of truth are the foundation of an epoch.19 The metaphysics of the modern epoch is marked by a mathematical-physical blueprint defining nature by an understanding of space and time that is abstract and quantifiable, not taking into consideration qualitative differences between one place, time, motion or direction and another one. It is the projection of this blueprint onto nature that defines modern science.20 This projection entailed the objectification of nature by humankind, which thereby became the modern, ocular subject. Humankind no longer was embedded in a larger, given, and sacred totality (cosmos, creation, heaven), but came to stand outside it, gazing at it, researching and thus understanding it, and ultimately trying to control nature and to transform it according to its needs. Humankind thus moved to a central position empowering itself to decide its fate without reference to divine forces. Being master of its fate as a core element of the Enlightenment’s understanding of the human condition was closely linked to new concepts of time and history. The notion of linear, mechanical time as the basis of a progressive view of history came to dominate the 18th and 19th centuries well into the 20th century. This view of progressive history entailed a development towards the goal of a perfect or at least constantly improving society, the idea that all levels improve in an integrated way, i.e. that scientific, technological, economic progress goes together with social, political and human, ethical progress. Initially, during the high Enlightenment, it was assumed that progress was driven by human rational agency, a concept that later was replaced by varying notions of impersonal historical progress characterized by a rationality of its own.21 One of the consequences of such a shift from the medieval notion of 19 20 21

Martin Heidegger, “Die Zeit des Weltbildes,” in Gesamtausgabe, vol. 5: Holzwege, 6th e­ dition (1938; Frankfurt am Main, 1980), 73–110. Quoted from Martin Heidegger, trans. Marjorie Grene, “The Age of the World View,” boundary 2 4 (1976), 340–55, here 341. Heidegger, “Die Zeit des Weltbildes,” 343–44. Nannerl O. Keohane, “The Enlightenment Idea of Progress Revisited,” in Progress and its Discontents, ed. Gabriel A. Almond, Marvin Chodorov and Roy Harvey Pearce, (Berkeley: 1982), 21–40; J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth (London: 1920); Georg G. Iggers, “The Idea of Progress in Historiography and Social Thought Since the Enlightenment,” in Progress , ed. Almond et.al., 41–66.

402

Schneider

secular ­(sinful) history vs. divine history to an understanding of history that is thoroughly ­oriented towards the future is a fundamental transformation of the relationship between past, present and future, leading to what Reinhart Koselleck aptly has phrased as the disjunction of spaces of experience (past) and horizons of expectation (future),22 as the incessant, typically modern ­emphasis on newness and innovation. This process of innovation, closely linked of course to processes of technological and economic progress, has led to what nowadays in sociological discourse is addressed as modern society being characterized by never-ending attempts at increasing efficiency, thus propelling incessant acceleration,23 an analysis ultimately linking back to the metaphor of modernity as an iron cage. An important aspect of these developments is not just the pursuit of innovation, but the fact that it’s actually humankind that generates the New.24 The world no longer is rooted in a divine order, but becomes the product of human rational planning, it is centered on humankind. Finally, another consequence of the aforementioned changes is what ­William Egginton has analyzed as modernity being the epoch during which the world became a stage.25 The disintegration of a divine order and the increasing questioning of the possibility to arrive at a “true” understanding of “reality” led to the growing awareness that different perspectives on the “world” are not just a fact of life, but are actually unavoidable as reality is constructed by competing perspectives ultimately rooted in fundamental philosophical choices. The world as a stage is a metaphor aptly conveying this character of modernity as the epoch of pluralism, of a plurality of philosophical and political choices none of which can claim to be grounded in unquestionable truth. In the modern period the world is thus becoming a stage on which different plays (choices) can be performed in the full (liberal) awareness that alternatives are as feasible and convincing, a condition for which Egginton has coined the term theatricality. 22

23 24 25

Reinhart Koselleck, “Historia Magistra Vitae. Über die Auflösung des Topos im Horizont neuzeitlich bewegter Geschichte,” in Vergangene Zukunft: zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Stuttgart: 1979), 38–66. For the English translation, see Reinhart Koselleck, trans. Keith Tribe, “Historia Magistra Vitae: The Dissolution of the Topos into the Perspective of a Modernized Historical Process,” in Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York: 2004), 26–42. Hartmut Rosa, Beschleunigung und Entfremdung: Entwurf einer kritischen Theorie spätmoderner Zeitlichkeit (Frankfurt am Main: 2013). Martin Heidegger, “Weltbild”. William Egginton: How the World Became a Stage. Presence, Theatricality, and the Question of Modernity (New York: 2002).

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

3

403

Conservatism from the Perspective of Intellectual History

I suggest understanding conservatism26 as a critique of these core features of modernity, i.e. objectification (the scientific world view), self-empowerment (the rational, ocular subject), a new, linear view of history centered on human agency and incessant innovation (progress and newness), and theatricality (constructivism, pluralism, and tolerance). This critique can take various forms depending on cultural context and historical circumstances, but it is misleading to assume that it is either irrational27 and/or focused on particularity.28 At the heart of this critique lies a fundamental difference of opinion concerning the human condition and the source of moral principles. Whereas proponents of the Enlightenment emphasized human reason and its autonomy from transcendental powers and inherited authorities, the conservative critique doubted the reliability of human reason emphasizing instead its limits and fallibility, firmly anchoring ethics in holistic, transcendent and/or historical-traditional horizons.29 Conservatives are hence much less optimistic than the Enlightenment regarding the potential of human reason. They adopt a specific position about the origins and substance of ultimate standards of human behavior, the nature of human beings and human society, and, finally, the nature of history and its role in demonstrating or undermining ethical standards. It is thus clear why conservatism is a thoroughly modern phenomenon as it arises in reaction to the Enlightenment challenge against the authority 26

27 28 29

The classic text on conservatism still is Karl Mannheim, Konservatismus: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie des Wissens, ed. David Kettler, Volker Meja, and Nico Stehr (Frankfurt am Main: 1984); for the English translation, see Karl Mannheim, Conservatism: A Contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Kettler, Meja, and Stehr, trans. Kettler and Meja (London: 1986). For different approaches to defining conservatism, see Jerry Z. Muller, “What is Conservative Social and Political Thought?,” in Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present, ed. Jerry Z. Muller (Princeton: 1997), 3–31, and David Y. Allen, “Modern Conservatism: The Problem of Definition,” The Review of Politics 43 (1981), 582–603. For a thought-provoking general overview of the history of conservatism, see Panajotis Kondylis, Die Aufklärung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus (Stuttgart: 1981); Panajotis Kondylis, Konservativismus: geschichtlicher Gehalt und Untergang (Stuttgart: 1986). Isaiah Berlin, “The Counter-Enlightenment,” in Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. H. Hardy (Oxford: 1981), 2–24. Karl Mannheim, Konservatismus. The following is based on Axel Schneider, “Critiques of Progress: Reflections on Chinese Conservatism,” in Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949, ed. Thomas Fröhlich and idem (Leiden: 2020), 263–291. Greme Garrard, Counter-Enlightenments. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: 2005), 9–10.

404

Schneider

of tradition and thus has to organize and rationalize a defense against these ­challenges, quite often assuming a hybrid position by adopting certain aspects of the position of the Enlightenment. Contrary to Mannheim, who juxtaposed one type of conservative thought—the one emphasizing particularity—with the enlightenment or natural law type of thought,30 I argue that we should distinguish at least two ideal types of conservatism both of which arose in ­opposition to the enlightenment: classicist and historicist.31 While classicist conservatives do not raise objections against the enlightenment’s emphasis on universal standards, they do oppose the specific standards proposed by enlightenment philosophers; that is, the assumption that all human beings are rational and that human beings can—based on reason and supported by modern science—understand and thus ultimately control the world. The classicist conservatives argue that there exists a set of timeless and universal moral standards that can be apprehended, but cannot be altered and adjusted to human needs or desires. On the contrary, the human condition is defined by these standards.32 Classicist conservatives point out that the essence of these moral standards is to exert self-control, to control one’s desires rather than to pursue pleasure in a hedonistic or utilitarian way, to value duty rather than to cherish rights, and to further the interests of the collective and not of the individual. However, these aims cannot be enforced or ensured via some grand sociopolitical 30

31

32

According to Mannheim, the enlightenment type of thinking can be summarized and c­ ontrasted with the conservative type of thinking; see Karl Mannheim, Konservatismus. For attempts to further develop and adapt Mannheim’s theory of conservatism, see Martin Greiffenhagen, “Das Dilemma des Konservatismus,” in Konservatismus, ed. Hans Gerd Schumann (Cologne: 1974), 156–98. For a general account of historicism, see Carlo Antoni, Vom Historismus zur Soziologie, trans. W. Goetz (Stuttgart: 1950). Originally published in 1940 as Dallo storicismo alla sociologia (Firenze). For the history of German historicism, see Jörn Rüsen, Konfigurationen des ­Historismus: Studien zur deutschen Wissenschaftskultur (Frankfurt am Main: 1993), 18–113, as well as Friedrich Jaeger and Jörn Rüsen, Geschichte des Historismus. Eine Einführung (Munich: 1992). For my definition of two types of conservatism, I draw on John Kekes, “What is ­Conservatism?,” Philosophy 72 (1997), 351–74. For a study of this type of conservatism in the US, see Ted V. McAllister, Revolt Against Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Search for a Postliberal Order (Lawrence, KS: 1996). Conservatives of this type with strong religious backgrounds make a slightly different argument, since they do not anchor the human condition in universal moral standards, but in divine providence, in God’s will. For a recent attempt to ground conservatism neither in classical Greek philosophy nor in Christianity, see Andreas Kinneging, “Het Conservatisme: ­Kritiek Op de Verlichting En de Moderniteit;” in De Edmund Burke Stichting (2000), see http://www.burkestichting.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/kinnegingconservatisme-­moderniteit.pdf (accessed 23 July 2018).

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

405

design—such as the thinkers and politicians inspired by enlightenment thought had planned to do. The utmost human beings can do is to set up sociopolitical structures that are conducive to the realization of these standards. However, due to the limitations of the human mind and the inherent fallibility of human beings, any attempt to achieve this will face serious limitations and will repeatedly fail. Historicist conservatives, influenced by the ascendancy of historical thinking, start out from the assumption that all human institutions are historical. They argue that universal standards such as those proclaimed by their classicist contemporaries may exist. However, due to the limitations of human understanding and human moral faculties, they cannot be apprehended and are hence irrelevant. Rather than trying to apprehend the un-apprehendable, historicist conservatives argue that human beings should rely on particular, historically grown traditions. They should inherit, continue, and further develop tradition, that is, the wisdom of their ancestors, and should not be blinded by the fantasies of philosophers and their notion of timeless human reason that supposedly can control and improve the environment and human society. Opposing the enlightenment, historicist conservatives hold historically grown, particular cultures, languages, and customs in high esteem. For them, being—the individual, contingent existence of the here and now—is the starting point from which to strive for knowledge and wisdom. Therefore, they attack what they call the static way of thinking of Enlightenment thought, which imagines the correct way of thinking as an “ought” independent of the historically grown “is.” Eventually, this type of conservatism, sharing with the romantic movement its passion for the individual, led to a thorough historicization of all aspects of human life and thus made an important contribution to the development of modern historical science and to the philosophy of life in the late 19th century and later to existentialism. Quite different from romanticism, however, historicist conservatives attempt to anchor the individual being in larger entities: tradition and society. Tradition is the historically grown, tested wisdom of the forefathers on which one has to rely to cultivate a good society.33 Society is seen as an organism that is not structured mechanically as the sum of its parts, but as a totality that takes on qualities distinct from its individual elements, which in themselves only become understandable as parts of that totality.34 33

34

Although not classified as conservative, there is affinity in this with MacIntyre’s communitarianism; see Alisdair MacIntyre, “The Privatization of Good: An Inaugural Lecture,” The Review of Politics 52 (1990), 344–77; Cf. Evan Simpson, “Moral Conservatism,” The Review of Politics 49 (1987), 29–58. It is easy to understand how such a notion of society could later be easily grafted upon the state as the collective totality.

406

Schneider

What both types of conservatism share is their stress on human fallibility, doubts about universal human reason, and a critique, often even a rejection of necessary, linear historical progress. Before addressing the concrete Chinese case, conservatism as a concept has to be distinguished from (cultural) nationalism.35 The most basic difference between the two is to be found in their respective attitude towards the p ­ roject of modernization and the modern nation-state as its agent, establishing a modern educational system, transforming subjects into citizens, setting up a modern military and infrastructure, and creating a modern economic system. Nationalists emphasize the egalitarian, national community of compatriots. This community might be defined by reference to history and culture, which at first glance seems to be similar to the position of historicist conservatives; however, the goal of all these efforts is to modernize. Conservatives, in contrast, criticize modernization, either because it contradicts the universal ethical standards of the classicist conservatives or because it is not in line with the attempt of the historicist conservatives to carefully inherit and build on the wisdom of tradition, and thus avoid the destructive consequences of the project of modernity. In other words: conservatives who turn to the state as the focus of collective identification and accept or even support this state in pursuing a policy of political, social, and economic modernization strictly speaking cease to be conservatives. They become nationalists, emphasizing the role of the cultural heritage in the modernization process. They tend to adopt a moderate position vis-à-vis the question of progress, favoring piecemeal progress rather than radically severing the links with the past, whereas conservatives oppose the idea of comprehensive, men-driven, planned progress.36 In late-developing countries,37 the distinction between conservatism and nationalism is even more delicate. Because of the aforementioned need to secure physical survival in competition with more advanced countries and often facing imperialist aggression, it became necessary to introduce a certain amount of industrial-technical modernization. This in turn soon led to 35 36

37

On cultural nationalism, see John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (Boston: 1987); and idem and Anthony D. Smith (eds.), Nationalism. A Reader (Oxford: 1994). It is sometimes quite difficult to distinguish the position of historicist conservatism from these cultural nationalist advocates of modernization, a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that these cultural nationalists are very often in current Chinese research classified as cultural conservatives, a concept which in Chinese research connotes commitment to tradition without, however, clarifying how far this commitment goes, i.e. whether it is commitment due to identity concerns or a more fundamental opposition against the decentering, destructive aspects of modernity as described above. This not only refers to countries in the so-called “third world” such as India, China, and so on, but also to very early late-developing countries such as Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

407

cultural and social changes that went far beyond a purely industrial-technical level. So, even committed conservatives in these countries were, before long, facing the choice of either sticking to their principles, thus facing the possibility of extinction, or of making compromises and eventually having to give up core elements of their conservative ideology. As a result of this pressure, various forms of compromises occurred that complicate the distinction between historicist conservatism and cultural nationalism. 4

Chinese Conservatism in the 20th Century

Research on Chinese conservatism hitherto is scarce and has been dominated for a long time by the iconoclastic May Fourth38 narrative. It is based on two related assumptions. First, conservatives are characterized as affirming China’s tradition, mostly by assuming a position of safeguarding Chinese cultural particularity. They are hence seen to be backward and not in line with the dynamics of history and the needs of modernization. Closely related to this judgment is, second, the view that Chinese conservatism is apolitical, i.e. it focuses on cultural questions and does not attempt to protect or resurrect the Confucian imperial order.39 This view by and large is one sided and oversimplified. There is in fact a wide variety of conservative engagement with modernity, criticizing different aspects of it, going back not only to various elements of “Chinese” religious and philosophical traditions, but also actively considering Western conservative positions.40 Many of these positions were not primarily or exclusively ­concerned with the question of how to safeguard traditional cultural or provide a foundation for Chinese subjectivity. They rather were concerned with what 38 39

40



The May Fourth Movement (1915/17 to 1921/24) was a movement among intellectuals, foremost among students and academics striving in view of what they perceived as the failure of the Republic established in 1912 for a cultural renewal along Western lines. See e.g. Benjamin Schwartz, “Notes on Conservatism in General and in China in Particular,” in The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China, ed. Charlotte Furth (Cambridge, MA: 1976), 3–21. This view is reinforced by the fact that after 1912 very few Chinese politicians and intellectuals tried to restore the monarchy. See Charlotte Furth, “Culture and Politics in Modern Chinese Conservatism,” in Limits, ed. Furth, 22–56; Songqiao Shen, The Xueheng Group and the Opposition to the New Culture Movement during the May Fourth Movement (Taibei: 1985), and Songqiao Shen, “The Conservative Thought of Zhang Shizhao during the May Fourth Period,” Bulletin of the Institute for History and Philology of Academia Sinica 15 (1986), 163–250. Next to the aforementioned Eucken and Bergson, Irving Babbitt, the leader of American Neo-Humanism, played an especially important role in the topography of conservative critiques of modernity in China. See Songqiao Shen, The Xueheng Group. Shiqu Zheng, Between Europeanization and National Essence – Research on the Cultural Thought of the Xueheng Group (Beijing: 2001).

408

Schneider

they perceived as fundamentally flawed in the modern condition. In most of these cases we do not find arguments favoring a preservation of or return to the imperial order, but that does not imply that these positions were “only cultural”, i.e. not having political consequences.41 Before the 1940s, few Chinese intellectuals had a clear, comprehensive concept of modernity. The nature and scope of the challenge, however, was apparent to many leading intellectuals as can be seen from the publications of e.g. Wang Guowei,42 Zhang Taiyan,43 Liang Shuming44 and many others. Three topics were central in the Chinese conservative engagement with and critique of modernity: 1. The character of modern science and its implications for philosophy, especially for ethics. 2. The modern view of time and progressive history and the consequences of these views for human agency. 3. Humankind’s position in the world and the consequences for the ­relationship between humankind and nature. 5

Chinese Critiques of Progress: A Typology45

As the idea of progress driven either by human rational action or as inherent in History is a central aspect of the modern condition, I will in the following introduce in due brevity representative cases of Chinese critique of progressive history of 4 different types. 41 42

43 44

45

Axel Schneider, “The One and the Many: A Classicist Reading of China’s Tradition and its Role in the Modern World,” in International Conference on Conceptual Change in Chinese ­Literature, History and Thought (Taibei: 2005), 311–73. For Wang Guowei’s philosophical position see Hermann Kogelschatz, Wang Kuo-wei und Schopenhauer: eine philosophische Begegnung. Wandlung des Selbstverständnisses der ­chinesischen Literatur unter dem Einfluß der klassischen deutschen Ästhetik (Stuttgart: 1986). Fansen Wang, The Persistent Bass: Some Reflections on the Way of Historical Thinking ­(Taibei:  2014). Viren Murthy, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: The Resistance of Consciousness (Leiden: 2011). Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: 1979); Thierry Meynard, The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming. The Hidden Buddhist (Leiden: 2010); Zbigniew Wesolowski, Lebens- und Kulturbegriff von Liang Shuming (1893–1988) (Sankt Augustin: 1997). For modern Chinese views of progress see the articles in Thomas Fröhlich and Axel ­Schneider (eds.), Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 (Leiden: 2020). For research on Social ­Darwinism and notions of progressive history in Chinese see Fansen Wang, “The

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

409

1. A critique based on considerations of identity. 2. A critique based on factual concerns. 3. A critique based on ethical concerns. 4. A fundamental philosophical critique. The first type of critique is motivated by the insight into the negative consequences of modern views of history subordinating all nations to universal laws of development, thus negating, ignoring or downplaying issues of national or cultural particularity and identity. Strictly speaking, this type of critique is not a critique of progressivism per se, but only of progressivism insofar as it posits universal patterns of development that de facto are of Western origin (such as the classical modernization narrative). This critique does not amount to a fundamental questioning of progress and modernity, in fact in many cases it’s an example of cultural nationalism, a reassertion of e.g. Chinese national particularity while simultaneously pursuing a policy of forceful modernization with national traits (in a nutshell the multiple modernity concept). The CCP’s emphasis on socialism with Chinese characteristics is a good example of this type, but Liang Qichao’s critique of progress (see below) in his later years at least partly belongs to this type as well. The second type of critique starts out from the factual observation that in some realms of human history we cannot observe progress; in fact, more often than not, the opposite is said to be the case. Most prominently, the issue of morality is mentioned in this context as a realm of human activity where ­progress is painfully absent. The idea of progress in history, as much as it can be observed, for example, in technology, is thus not a theory of history that is adequate for analyzing all types of human activity. These first two types of critique were put forward, for example, by Liang Qichao in his later years (see below)46 and to a certain degree also by Liu Yizheng during the early 1920s.47 However,

46 47

Linear View of History in Modern China – Discussion with a Focus on Social Darwinism,” Xin Shixue 19 (2008), 1–46; Fansen Wang, “The Impact of the Linear Model of History on Modern Chinese Historiography,” in Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China, ed. Brian Moloughney and Peter Zarrow (Hong Kong: 2011), 135–68; Ying Zhang, “Investigation of the Evolutionary View of History in Modern China,” Lilun Tantao (2003), 38–40; Pi Wu, Theories of Evolution and Radicalism in China, 1859–1924 (Beijing: 2005); Zhongjiang Wang, The Rise of Evolutionism in ­China—A New Omnipotent World View (Expanded edition) (Beijing: 2009). Axel Schneider, “World History and the Problem of Historical Relativism – Liang Qichao’s Historiography after 1919,” in Truth and History; Two Chinese Historians and Their Search for a Modern Identity for China, ed. idem (Beijing: 2008), 238–59. Idem, “Nation, History and Ethics: The Choices of Post-Imperial Chinese Historiography,” in Transforming History, ed. Moloughney and Zarrow, 271–302.

410

Schneider

as much as the second type critique is a first step toward deconstructing the ­modern idea of progress, it still assumes a defensive position not fundamentally criticizing the ideology of progressivism as can be seen by the case of e.g. Liang Qichao, who in 1903 was one of the leading figures in the reception of notions of linear, law-like historical progress and of concomitant Western concepts of periodization.48 Around 1910,49 however, he became more and more aware of the hierarchical implications for national identity and survival o­ utlined above and of the fact that Chinese history simply didn’t conform to those Western models. He thus embarked on a search for a theory of history better suited to the needs of late-developing China and the observation that history is more complex, less law-like than proclaimed by the proponents of progressive history. After 1919, this search resulted led to a thorough and ­continuous revamping of his theory of history, culminating in a far-reaching, yet not complete, insufficiently theorized rejection of the notion of progress in history. In a first, deconstructive step,50 Liang distanced himself from concepts such as “causality” and “general rules.” Instead, he emphasized the particularity of history, paid more attention to the role of human agency, and adjusted the methodology of historical research by highlighting the intuitive understanding of human intentions as an important addition to the analysis of facts. However, his new methodology of historical research still was marred by inconsistencies, because he was not yet prepared to question progress all-out and to adjust his understanding of the nature of history and historical research accordingly. In a series of articles51 published between 1922 and 1926/27, he drew on a variety of sources, including neo-Kantian philosophy and Buddhism, to solve his problem of how to create space for human agency so as to allow for historical particularity as a basis for national identity and yet maintain a nationalist and at least partly progressivist view of history. Referring to Wilhelm Wundt and Heinrich Rickert, he introduced the notions of particular, historically grown culture and human “free will” to take the place of “general principles” and “causality” as central categories. Borrowing from Buddhism, he proposed the concept of “interdependence” (huyuan) as a foil to strict mechanical causality, without however abandoning completely the idea of the causality

48 49 50 51

For a step-by-step analysis, including detailed information on the sources, see Schneider, “World History.” Qichao Liang, “On National Customs,” Guofeng Bao 1 (20 February 1910). Idem, “Methods for the Study of Chinese History,” Gaizao 4 (1921). Idem, “What is Culture?,” in Chenbao Fukan 1922. Idem, “Several Important Questions of Research on Cultural History” (1922). Idem, Additions to the Methods for the Study of C ­ hinese History (1926).

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

411

of historical events at some level. He further elaborated on these themes by ­highlighting the subjective viewpoint of the researcher in discovering meaning in history. However, Liang still maintained that historical development is a progressive process leading towards the goal of a world order, at the heart of which he saw a family of free and equal nations. However, even this last version of his theory of history was inconsistent, because it failed to reconcile Liang’s wish to find a ground for Chinese particularity, national identity, and the relevance of human free will in history with his other goal to maintain some degree of a universal historical progress towards a world of free and equal nations. This vision of progress he attempted to ground in the notion of the meaning of history being immanent in history and not the outcome of free, unpredictable human action, a position that is hard to reconcile with the simultaneous emphasis on history being the expression of human free will.52 His failure was symptomatic of the difficulties Chinese historians faced in their attempts to accept modern views of time and history, while at the same time trying to provide ground for a Chinese national identity, seeking ways out of China’s backwardness, thus safeguarding China’s physical survival, and trying to find space for human agency in history. In his critique of progressive history, Liang combined elements of the first and the second type with aspects (emphasis on human free will) that prepare the ground for the third type. However, he ultimately returns to a view of ­history that can still be described as future-oriented, albeit only partial progress towards an ultimate aim. The third type of critique is, like the second, motivated by moral concerns. However, this position does not proceed from a historical-factual observation of the partial absence of progress but is a systematic critique of progressivism,53 arguing that a view of change based on competition and strength ­cannot be the basis for a good society and therefore must be rejected on moral, not factual, grounds. Some members of the Critical Review Group have argued in such a manner − Jing Changji54 from a perspective of Buddhist philosophy, Liu Yizheng from a Confucian perspective. 52 53

54

Schneider, “World History.” Some of these critics refer to “evolution” (jinhua), some to “progress” (jinbu). These two rather different concepts have for quite some time been used interchangeably in China, see Chunyong Liu, “Distinguishing Evolutionism and the View of Historical Progress – Discussing How They Were Mixed Up and Got Distinguished,” Zhoukou Shifan Xueyuan Xuebao 24 (2007), 59–63. Jing Changji (1903–1982) was a student of Liu Yizheng and Ouyang Jian. He served as professor of philosophy and history at various universities and was an active contributor to the Critical Review.

412

Schneider

In his lengthy “Critique of the Theory of Evolution”55 Jing Changji clarifies that whereas competition is a fact of daily life and as such cannot be denied, the question of how to deal with this fact is not a matter of objective observation and acceptance but a normative question that has to be addressed and answered on the basis of ethical principles. To argue, which according to Jing Changji the proponents of evolutionism do, that competition, violence, and the elimination of the weak are facts of nature and serve the larger purpose of the progress of a species is tantamount to shirking moral responsibility and veiling the violence the strong inflict upon the weak.56 The ethical laws Jing Changji refers to have their basis in the Buddhist concept of dharma and are as universal and immutable as modern laws of nature. They oblige humans to take care of the weak, act out of solidarity, and extend compassion to all sentient beings.57 The factual diversity of moral regulations is not proof of the relativity of morals, but merely an indication of the fact that concrete, historical regulations are often not in line with the aforementioned universal ethical laws. This argument of ethical responsibility and solidarity is further supported by reference to the Buddhist notion of karma. Karmic reward can be very indirect because sometimes it won’t be visible in the same life, but it is reliable insofar as the principles of conduct do not change; the dharma is consistent. Besides, wise people will and should act ethically even if there is no direct reward.58 Liu Yizheng started out, like Zhang Taiyan, as an advocate of modern views of history and historiography.59 However, his case is fundamentally different compared with Jing Changji and Zhang Taiyan because the theory of history he attempted to construct in his later years was deeply influenced by traditional Confucian concepts. In his early years, he propagated a progressivist theory of history and was involved in translating Japanese modern history books into Chinese.60 The historian, in Liu’s thinking, has to analyze history ­objectively in 55

56 57 58

59 60

Changji Jing, “Simple Buddhist Explanation 1, Critique of Evolutionism,” Haichaoyin 9 (1928), 8–20; Idem, “Simple Buddhist Explanation 2; Critique of Evolutionism,” Haichaoyin 9 (1928), 31–48; Idem, “Simple Buddhist Explanation 3, Critique of Evolutionism,” ­Haichaoyin 9 (1928), 33–48. Idem, “Simple Buddhist Explanation 1,” 8–12. Ibid., 13–14. Idem, “Simple Buddhist Explanation 2,” 34–35. There is a large number of further arguments critical of aspects of evolutionary theory, such as Jing Changji’s position on the theory of the Darwinist origins of life, which he tries to invalidate by reference to Buddhist notions of infinite time measured in kalpas and the concept of samsara (Changji Jing, “Simple Buddhist Explanation 3,” 33–48). Brian Moloughney, “Nation, Narrative and China’s New History,” in Asian Nationalism in an Age of Globalization, ed. Roy Starrs (Richmond, SRY: 2001), 205–22; Schneider, “Nation, ­History and Ethics”. Yizheng Liu, A Brief Historical Account of Different Epochs (Nanjing: 1902).

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

413

order to uncover general laws and the causality underlying historical e­ volution. History is conceptualized as being a universal, law-like process, in which cultures differ only insofar as they are positioned at different points along the temporal continuum of universal progress. Given this progressive notion of history, Liu Yizheng writes the history of Chinese antiquity as a history of progress from primitive society to more advanced forms of social organization, all the time putting the emphasis not on civilizational sage kings but on the ­people of the Chinese nation.61 However, as early as the late 1910s, Liu began to doubt these positions and to develop a new vision of history.62 This phase of his work culminated in his 1948 Essentials of the Country’s History,63 in which he now rejected notions of causality and progress. History was not progressive; on the contrary, the past is full of examples of moral decline. He relied now on notions of change, permanence, and cyclicality derived from the Book of Changes to posit a new view of history that embedded human beings in cosmic change. He thereby opened up a space for human action that is anticipatory and accommodative rather than manipulative as is the case with the modern, detached Cartesian subject that creates and controls its world by rational, technical means. At the heart of Liu’s Confucian-inspired theory was the notion of a comprehensive Heavenly Order as the foundation for human nature which, in turn, manifests itself in concrete, historical rules of conduct. He linked particular culture back to the Heavenly Order, that is, he saw the particular character of any nation as inextricably dependent on a general conditio humana rooted in a moral cosmic order. In Liu’s understanding, morality is thus not undermined by history, as was the case in European late historicism,64 but rather it is grounded in history and it provides a ground for history. It goes without saying that in this reconfiguration, history loses much of its modern progressive and directional nature. This understanding had far-reaching consequences for the historian and his work. Via a posited shared human nature, the historian would be able to access different cultural manifestations in time and space. Liu proposed a research methodology rooted in human self-intelligibility and derived from it a demand

61

Yizheng Liu, “History of Chinese Culture,” Xueheng Zazhi 49–54, 56, 58, 61, 63–64, 67, 70, 72, 75 (1926ff). Idem, History of Chinese Culture (Nanjing: 1932). 62 Idem, “The Doctrine of Moral Importance in China’s Rural Governance,” Xueheng Zazhi 17, 21, 36 (1923). Idem, “Elucidating Human Relations,” Xueheng Zazhi 26: 1–5 (1924). Idem, “A Critical Appraisal of Lu Moude’s History of Zhou and Qin Philosophy,” Xueheng Zazhi 29 (1924). Idem, Outline of Historiography (1926). 63 Idem, Essentials of the Country’s History (Shanghai: 1948). 64 Charles R. Bambach, Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism (Ithaca, NY: 1995).

414

Schneider

for mutual respect across time and space. But history is more than an academic discipline. For Liu it acquired nearly absolute status, because it is via research on history that human beings are able to glimpse the Heavenly Order, which is not revealed by divine power but rather manifests itself in history. Therefore, the historian must be a morally cultivated human being. In Liu’s understanding, the idea of the “virtue of the historian” (shide) did not primarily mean that historians had to be true to the facts. Rather, they were required to be morally cultivated Confucian gentlemen before they could even approach the records of the past. Here Liu’s position in effect amounted to a complete negation of the modern scientific worldview characterized by the strict separation of subject and object. And yet, in addition to these anti-modern positions, Liu also adopted modern elements. He insisted on building a modern historical profession. He opposed the centralizing modern nation-state but nevertheless adopted core notions of modern politics, such as the division of powers and popular sovereignty. And he clung to a modern national view of China and its culture centered on the nation. How these elements of a Confucian-inspired, partly traditional history would fit together with those modern aspects that he accepted is a question he did not address. In the writings of both intellectuals we find a critique of the concept of ­progress that is ultimately rooted in either the Buddhist view of the dharma and its moral implications of compassion and selflessness or Confucian notions of a benevolent moral cosmic and social order that encompasses humankind. The last and, from a philosophical perspective, most interesting type amounts to a critique not limited to progressive history and its moral shortcomings, but a critique of modernity as such, including the modern Cartesian emphasis on the rational subject, on objectification, on the ontology and epistemology of modern science. Examples are Zhang Taiyan’s Buddhist-inspired critique of history and the notions of subjectivity and agency, Jing Changji’s reflections on ontology and epistemology in the context of his writings about the philosophy of history or Liu Xianxin’s Confucian-Taoist critique of modern views of history that is firmly rooted in the cosmology of the Book of Changes.65 In his “Philosophy of History”66 Jing Changji actually goes beyond his ­aforementioned critique of evolutionary history based on ethical arguments. 65

66

On Liu Xianxin’s thought, see Fansen Wang, The Persistent Bass. On Liu Xianxin’s critique of progressive history, see Felix Erdt, Liu Xianxins Kritik am westlichen Fortschrittsdenken durch den Rückgriff auf die Tradition des Yinyang-Denkens (unpublished Master thesis, University of Göttingen: 2017). For reasons of space, I will not discuss Liu Xianxin’s ideas here in more detail. Changji Jing, “Philosophy of History,” in Shixue Zazhi 2:2 (1930), 1–15 and 2:3 (1930), 1–19.

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

415

He analyzes the modern tradition of philosophizing about history, juxtaposing various modern views of history and their underlying assumptions about causality with his own Yogacarin view of history, claiming that each object in the phenomenal world is dependent on consciousness and cannot be said to exist independently. This position substantially goes beyond e.g. Liang Qichao’s use of Buddhism to deconstruct the notion of causality67 and amounts to a denial of the subject-object dualism that lies at the heart of modern science. Zhang Taiyan (1868–1936),68 originally a radical theoretician of national and racial revolution, as Jing Changji was deeply influenced during his time in jail (1903−1906) by Buddhism (especially the Consciousness Only school of ­Buddhism). Based on Yogacara concepts of consciousness, he first explained history, the emergence of time, the self and the state, and then, in a second step, he unmasked time and history as illusions. In his early work around the turn of the century, Zhang emphasized the spatial and temporal particularity of history and proposed that on account of that particularity the study of history is fundamentally different from political science or sociology, which deal with universal phenomena. Under the influence of Buddhism he developed a karmic interpretation of history, that is, an understanding of history at the objective level as a process shaped by the activity of “karmic seeds” (bīja). These seeds are brought to fruition through action, producing “karmic fruits” (vipāka), which then in turn become the seeds of another round of future fruits in keeping with the Buddhist concept of “samsara” (lunhui). The flow of history at the phenomenal level can thereby be explained in Buddhist terms. However, although he accepted the phenomenon of evolution at a descriptive level, Zhang, with the help of Daoist arguments, rejected the use of evolution as a criterion for establishing temporal and civilizational hierarchies, an argument that is quite in line with his view of history as particular. He went even further by pointing out that with progress in political organization (the state) and technology (­ firearms), the potential for harm to human beings had greatly surpassed previous levels. Zhang then further developed the Yogacarin concept of karmic seeds to explain the emergence of notions of self,69 the experience of time, and the development of the state as a temporary means to achieve revolution and 67 68 69

Axel Schneider, “World History.” For a brilliant analysis of Zhang’s philosophy, see Viren Murthy, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: The Resistance of Consciousness (Leiden: 2011). The Buddhist understanding of “self” emphasizes the non-substantiality, the emptiness of the self. None of the phenomena of the five aggregates (form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness) qualifies as the self. Nor does the combination of these five aggregates constitute the self, which is nothing but an illusion.

416

Schneider

l­ iberation from imperialist oppression. Karmic seeds, which emerge out of past actions, are stored in the “storehouse consciousness” (ālaya vijñāna). This level of storehouse consciousness is then, upon contact with “sense-center consciousness” (mano vijñāna), misrecognized by “obscuration ­consciousness” (manas vijñāna) as the self. This then leads to the rise of self-consciousness, which in turn, is the basis for the experience of time. Once the self arises, subject and object are separated and alienation sets in, causing suffering and ­continuous rebirth. The political state is itself an expression of this process of the misrecognition of self, of alienation and suffering.70 According to Buddhist philosophy, this process of misrecognition has to be overcome. Once it is overcome, the mind is quiet and the self dissolves. A state of “thusness” (tathāta) is reached, characterized not by self-realization but by self-negation. Thusness indicates the absolute reality, which transcends the multitude of forms of the phenomenal world. All phenomena are viewed as empty and thus as being without movement or evolution. The karmic process comes to a halt and history, seen as the process of suffering caused by deluded impulses and afflictions, finally comes to an end. Thus, Zhang ultimately negates the world, time, and history. These scholars belonging to types 3 and 4 are interesting cases since they take issue no only with modern notions of time and history, but also with the underlying modern ontology and epistemology. Their opposition was by no means just a simple reiteration of traditional positions. They criticized the substance of new Western concepts, some of which many of them had adopted themselves earlier in their careers. Representatives of these types grasped the nature of these modern notions and resented them based on ethical and deeper philosophical concerns. They developed a critique based on Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian philosophy and, in several instances, the cosmology of the Book of Changes played an important role. 6

The Dilemma of Chinese Conservatism

As can be seen from these brief examples, the Chinese conservative critiques of modern views of history, of notions of subjectivity and ethics are not only heavily influenced by the Chinese religious and philosophical heritage, they are also located within the wider context of the challenges China was facing at that time, challenges that mostly were emanating from the West. We therefore 70 Murthy, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan, 150–55.

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

417

encounter an intensive and creative engagement with Western positions that deeply influenced those conservatives even when they were trying to protect “the Chinese tradition.” Often do we find references to Chinese cultural particularity in these texts, even passages where the critique of modernity is combined with pride in solutions Chinese culture is able to offer, but the overarching concern is with the human condition and the threats to it inherent in modernity. These intellectuals thus formulate a sharp critique, however, they were doing so in varying ways and with different levels of profundity, a fact that I have represented in a typology of, strictly speaking, three types of conservative critiques.71 Some just took issue with what they perceived as counterfactual claims of progress in history. Others engaged with the concept of progressive history from a morally normative position of the desirability of progress (mostly of the evolutionary variant). And yet others went beyond these aspects, analyzing and criticizing modernity at large in at times radical ways, i.e. going to the Cartesian roots of the modern condition.72 Yet all of them were facing a debilitating dilemma. Given that the modern Cartesian worldview, modern science and concomitant view of human nature and socio-economic organization are the closely-intertwined core of modernity,73 then how can China do both, criticize modernity and yet adopt science, modern technology and modern forms of social and political organization, which appeared to be necessary to fight imperialist aggression? As a consequence of this dilemma, some Chinese intellectuals combined conservative arguments with the rationale that the crude materialism of Western modernity could actually be rescued on a global level with the help of Eastern spirituality, thus ultimately assuming that modern science could be adopted without having to accept the very drawbacks of the modern condition they had criticized.74 Others made their peace with the modernizing nation-state transforming their arguments in such a way that they would still criticize Western modernity, now, however, claiming that ­Chinese cultural particularity allowed for modernization without the negative flip side of modernity the West was facing. Both positions sooner or later were caught in contradictions. 71 72 73 74

The first critique of progressive view of history was not conservative as I have shown above. Other important intellectuals worth mentioning here are Wang Guowei, Chen Yinque, Qian Mu, Zhang Junmai, and quite a few of the modern Confucians, such as Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, and Tang Junyi. For the close connection between modern views of time and economic organization see Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (Cambridge: 1993). As was the case with e.g. Liang Shuming, see Alitto, The Last Confucian.

418

Schneider

Those who from a philosophical perspective were consistently critical of modernity, in turn, could not offer a pragmatic solution out of the Chinese ­situation of the 19th and 20th century, they could not convincingly offer a strategy to fight imperialism while sticking to their critique of the modern condition. No wonder that they had close to no influence beyond the circle of elite intellectuals and philosophers,75 however, many of them have become a focal point of interest in Chinese academic and philosophical discourse since the early 1990s as China entered a process of rapid modernization.76 The questions they have been asking and the questions they formulated are still relevant, albeit in radically changed contexts with China being much more active and powerful than back during the first half of the 20th century. References Cited Alitto, Guy S., The Last Confucian: Liang Shu-ming and the Chinese Dilemma of M ­ odernity (Berkeley: 1979). Alitto, Guy S., 文化守成主義論, 反現代化思潮的剖析 [On Cultural Conservatism, An Analysis of Anti-modern Thought] (Taibei: 1986). Allen, David Y., “Modern Conservatism: The Problem of Definition,” The Review of P­ olitics 43 (1981), 582–603. Almond, Gabriel A., Marvin Chodorov, and Roy Harvey Pearce (eds.), Progress and its Discontents (Berkeley: 1982). Antoni, Carlo, Vom Historismus zur Soziologie, trans. W. Goetz (Stuttgart: 1950). ­Originally published in 1940 as Dallo storicismo alla sociologia (Firenze: Sansoni). Bambach, Charles R., Heidegger, Dilthey, and the Crisis of Historicism (Ithaca, NY: 1995). Bury, J. B., The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into its Origin and Growth (London: 1920). Dirlik, Arif, “The Ideological Foundations of the New Life Movement: A Study in ­Counterrevolution,” Journal of Asian Studies 34 (1975), 945–80. Dirlik, Arif, “Guoxue/National Learning in the Age of Global Modernity,” China P­ erspectives 1 (2011), 4–13. Erdt, Felix, Liu Xianxins Kritik am westlichen Fortschrittsdenken durch den Rückgriff auf die Tradition des Yinyang-Denkens (Master thesis, University of Göttingen: 2017). 75 76

Zhang Taiyan, of course, played an important role in late Qing discourse on politics, but not during those years where he was most vocal in his trenchant critique of modernity. Arif Dirlik, “Guoxue/National Learning in the Age of Global Modernity,” China Perspectives 1 (2011), 4–13; John Makeham, “The Revival of Guoxue: Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Aspirations,” in China Perspectives 2011/1, 14–21; Axel Schneider, “Bridging the Gap: Attempts at Constructing a ‘New’ Historical-Cultural Identity in the PRC,” East Asian History 22 (2001), 129–44.

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

419

Fröhlich, Thomas, and Axel Schneider (eds.), Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 (Leiden: 2020). Furth, Charlotte (ed.), The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China (Cambridge, MA: 1976). Garrard, Graeme, Counter-Enlightenments. From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: 2005). Greiffenhagen, Martin, “Das Dilemma des Konservatismus,” in Konservatismus, ed. Hans Gerd Schumann (Cologne: 1974), 156–98. He, Xiaoming, 何晓明, 返本与开新 – 中国文化保守主义新论 [Return to the Roots and Innovation – New Discussion of Chinese Cultural Conservatism] (Beijing: 2006). Hu, Fengxiang, 胡逢祥, 社会变革与文化传统: 中国近代文化保守主义思潮研究 [Social Transformation and Cultural Tradition: Research on the Trend of Thought of Modern Chinese Cultural Conservatism] (Shanghai: 2000). Hu, Fengxiang, “20 世纪中国文化保守主义的理论特征与实践” [Theoretical Characteristics and Practice of Cultural Conservatism in 20th Century China], Huadong shifan daxue xuebao (shehui kexueban) 6 (2013), 18–24. Hutchinson, John, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (Boston: 1987). Hutchinson, John and Anthony D. Smith (eds.), Nationalism. A Reader (Oxford: 1994). Iggers, Georg G., “The Idea of Progress in Historiography and Social Thought Since the Enlightenment”, in Progress and its Discontents, ed. Gabriel A. Almond, Marvin ­Chodorov, and Harvey Roy Pearce (Berkeley: 1982), 41–66. Jaeger, Friedrich, and Jörn Rüsen, Geschichte des Historismus. Eine Einführung (Munich: 1992). Jing, Changji, 景昌極, “佛法淺釋之一, 評進化論” (Simple Buddhist Explanation 1, Critique of Evolutionism), Haichaoyin 海潮音 9:3 (1928), 8–20. Jing, Changji, “佛法淺釋之一, 評進化論” (Simple Buddhist Explanation 2, Critique of Evolutionism), Haichaoyin 海潮音 9:5 (1928), 31–48. Jing, Changji, “佛法淺釋之一, 評進化論” (Simple Buddhist Explanation 3, Critique of Evolutionism), Haichaoyin 海潮音 9:7 (1928), 33–48. Jing, Changji, “歷史哲學” (Philosophy of History), Shixue Zazhi 史學雜志 2:2, 1–15 and 2:3 (1930), 1–19. Kekes, John, “What is Conservatism?,” Philosophy 72 (1997), 351–74. Keohane, Nannerl O., “The Enlightenment Idea of Progress Revisited,” in Progress and its Discontents, ed. Gabriel A. Almond, Marvin Chodorov, and Harvey Roy Pearce (Berkeley: 1982), 21–40. Kinneging, Andreas, “Het Conservatisme: Kritiek Op de Verlichting En de Moderniteit”, De Edmund Burke Stichting (2000), http://www.burkestichting.nl/wp-content/ uploads/2011/04/kinneging-conservatisme-moderniteit.pdf (last accessed 23 July 2018).

420

Schneider

Kogelschatz, Hermann, Wang Kuo-wei und Schopenhauer: eine philosophische ­Begegnung. Wandlung des Selbstverständnisses der chinesischen Literatur unter dem Einfluß der klassischen deutschen Ästhetik (Stuttgart: 1986). Kondylis, Panajotis, Die Aufklärung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus ­(Stuttgart: 1981). Kondylis, Panajotis, Konservativismus: geschichtlicher Gehalt und Untergang (Stuttgart: 1986). Levenson, Joseph R., “‘History’ and ‘Value’: The Tensions of Intellectual Choice in Modern China,” in Studies in Chinese Thought, ed. Arthur F. Wright (Chicago: 1953), 146–94. Liang, Qichao, 梁啟超, “說國風” [On National Customs], Guofeng Bao 1 (20 February 1910). Repr. Liang, Qichao, Collected Writings, vol. 9.2, 3–11. Liang, Qichao, “中國歷史研究法” [Methods for the Study of Chinese History], Gaizao 4:3–4 (1921). Repr. Liang, Qichao, Collected Writings, vol. 1.1, 1–128. Liang, Qichao, “什麼是文化?” (What is Culture?), in Chenbao Fukan. Repr. Liang, Qichao, Collected Writings, vol. 14.39, 97–104. Liang, Qichao, “研究文化史的幾個重要問題” (Several Important Questions of Research on Cultural History), n.d. (1922). Repr. Liang, Qichao, Collected Writings, vol. 14.40, 1–7. Liang, Qichao, “中國歷史研究法補編” [Additions to the Methods for the Study of ­Chinese History] (1926). Repr. Liang, Qichao, Complete Writings, vol. 1.1, 1–176. Liang, Qichao, 飲冰室全集 [Complete Writings from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio] (Taibei: Zhonghua Shuju). Liang, Qichao, 飲冰室文集 [Collected Writings from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio]. 16 vols. 3rd ed. (Taibei: Chung Hwa Book Company). Liu, Chunyong 刘春勇, “辨进化论与历史进步观 ─ 兼谈其在中国传播之初的混用与剥 离” [Distinguishing Evolutionism and the View of Historical Progress ─ Discussing How They Were Mixed Up and Got Distinguished], Zhoukou Shifan Xueyuan Xuebao 24 (2007), 59–63. Liu, Yizheng, 柳詒徵, 歷代史略 [A Brief Historical Account of Different Epochs] ­(Nanjing: 1902). Liu, Yizheng, “中國鄉治之尚德主義” [The Doctrine of Moral Importance in China’s Rural Governance], Xueheng Zazhi 17, 21, 36 (Nanjing: 1923). Repr. Liu, Yizheng, ­Continued Collected Historiographical Writings, 178–223. Liu, Yizheng, “明倫” [Elucidating Human Relations], Xueheng Zazhi 26:1–5 (1924). Liu, Yizheng, “評陸懋德周秦哲學史” [A Critical Appraisal of Lu Moude’s History of Zhou and Qin Philosophy], Xueheng Zazhi 29 (1924). Repr. Liu, Yizheng, Continued Collected Historiographical Writings, 231–42. Liu, Yizheng, “中國文化史” (History of Chinese Culture), Xueheng Zazhi 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 61, 63, 64, 67, 70, 72, 75 (1926).

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

421

Liu, Yizheng, 史學概論 [Outline of Historiography] (1926). Repr. Liu, Yizheng, ­Continued Collected Historiographical Writings, 97–117. Liu, Yizheng, 中國文化史 [History of Chinese Culture] (Nanjing: 1932). Liu, Yizheng, 國史要義 [Main Principles of National History] (Shanghai: 1948). Liu, Yizheng, 柳詒徵, 柳詒徵史學論文續集 [Continued Collected Historiographical Writings of Liu Yizheng], ed. Liu Zengfu 柳曾符 and Liu Dingsheng 柳定生 ­(Shanghai: 1991). MacIntyre, Alisdair, “The Privatization of Good: An Inaugural Lecture,” The Review of Politics 52 (1990), 344–77. Makeham, John, “The Revival of Guoxue: Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Aspirations,” China Perspectives 2011/1, 14–21. Mannheim, Karl, Konservatismus: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie des Wissens, ed. David ­Kettler, Volker Meja, and Nico Stehr (Frankfurt am Main: 1984). Mannheim, Karl, Conservatism: A Contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. David Kettler, Volker Meja, and Nico Stehr, trans. Kettler and Meja (London: 1986). McAllister, Ted V., Revolt Against Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Search for a Postliberal Order (Lawrence, KS: 1996). Meynard, Thierry, The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming. The Hidden Buddhist (Leiden: 2010). Moloughney, Brian, “Nation, Narrative and China’s New History,” in Asian Nationalism in an Age of Globalization, ed. Roy Starrs (Richmond, SRY: 2001), 205–22. Moloughney, Brian and Peter Zarrow (eds.), Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China (Hong Kong: 2011). Muller, Jerry Z., “What is Conservative Social and Political Thought?,” in Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present, ed. Jerry Z. Muller (Princeton: 1997), 3–31. Murthy, Viren, The Political Philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: The Resistance of Consciousness (Leiden: 2011). Postone, Moishe, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (Cambridge: 1993). Rosa, Hartmut, Beschleunigung und Entfremdung: Entwurf einer kritischen Theorie spätmoderner Zeitlichkeit (Frankfurt am Main: 2013). Rüsen, Jörn, Konfigurationen des Historismus: Studien zur deutschen Wissenschaftskultur (Frankfurt am Main: 1993). Schneider, Axel, “Bridging the Gap: Attempts at Constructing a ‘New’ Historical-­ Cultural Identity in the PRC,” East Asian History 22 (2001), 129–44. Schneider, Axel, “The One and the Many: A Classicist Reading of China’s Tradition and its Role in the Modern World,” in 中國文學、歷史與思想中的觀念變遷國際學術研 討會論文集 [International Conference on Conceptual Change in Chinese ­Literature, History and Thought] (Taibei: 2005), 311–73.

422

Schneider

Schneider, Axel, “世界歷史與歷史相對主義的問題 – 1919年以后梁啟超的史學” [World History and the Problem of Historical Relativism – Liang Qichao’s Historiography after 1919], in 真理與歷史：傅斯年、陳寅恪的史學思想與民族認同 [Truth and History; Two Chinese Historians and Their Search for a Modern Identity for China], ed. idem (2008), 238–59. Schneider, Axel, “Nation, History and Ethics: The Choices of Post-Imperial ­Chinese ­Historiography,” in Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic ­Discipline in Twentieth-Century China, ed. Brian Moloughney and Peter Zarrow (Hong Kong: 2011), 271–302. Schneider, Axel “Critiques of Progress: Reflections on Chinese Conservatism,” in ­Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949, ed. Thomas Fröhlich and idem (Leiden: 2020), 263–291. Schumann, Hans Gerd (ed.), Konservatismus (Cologne: 1974). Schwartz, Benjamin, “Notes on Conservatism in General and in China in Particular,” in The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China, ed. Charlotte Furth, 3–21. Shen, Songqiao, 沈松僑, 學衡派與五四新文化運動 [The Xueheng Group and the Opposition to the New Culture Movement during the May Fourth Movement] ­(Taibei:  1985). Shen, Songqiao, 沈松僑, “五四時期章士釗的保守思想” [The Conservative Thought of Chang Shih-chao during the May Fourth Period], Bulletin of the Institute for H ­ istory and Philology of Academia Sinica 15 xia (1986), 163–250. Simpson, Evan, “Moral Conservatism,” Review of Politics 49 (1987), 29–58. Taylor, Charles, “Two Theories of Modernity,” The Hastings Center Report 25 (1995), 24–33. Wang, Zhongjiang, 王中江, 进化主义在中国的兴起, 一个新的全能式的世界观（增 补版）[The Rise of Evolutionism in China, A New Omnipotent World View] (­ Beijing: 2009). Wang, Fansen, 王汎森, “近代中國的線性歷史觀, 以社會進化論為中心的討論” (The Linear View of History in Modern China, Discussion with a Focus on Social Darwinism), Xin Shixue 19 (2008), 1–46. Wang, Fansen, “The Impact of the Linear Model of History on Modern Chinese Historiography”, in Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China, ed. Brian Moloughney and Peter Zarrow (Hong Kong, 2011), 135–68. Wang, Fansen 執拗的低音: 一些歷史思考方式的反思 [The Persistent Bass: Some Reflections on the Way of Historical Thinking] (Taibei: 2014). Wesolowski, Zbigniew, Lebens- und Kulturbegriff von Liang Shuming (1893–1988). ­Dargestellt anhand seines Werkes Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue (Sankt ­Augustin: 1997). Wu, Pi, 吴丕, 进化论与中国激进主义 [Theories of Evolution and Radicalism in China, 1859–1924] (Beijing: 2005).

Modernity and the Question of Conservatism

423

Yu, Dahua, 喻大华, 晚清文化保守思潮研究 [Research on the Zeitgeist of Cultural Conservatism During the Late Qing] (Beijing: 2001). Zhang, Ying, 张英, “中国近代进化史观探究” [Investigation of the Evolutionary View of History in Modern China], in Lilun Tantao 2003, 38–40. Zheng, Dahua, 郑大华, 梁漱溟与胡适: 文化保守主义与西化思潮的比较 [Liang Shuming and Hu Shi: Comparison of Cultural Conservatism and the Zeitgeist of ­Westernization] (Beijing: 1994).

Index Acomb, Frances 87 Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Baron 359 Adam, Juliette 211 Adelung, Friedrich von 76 Aguiriano y Gómez, Francisco (Bp. of Calahorra) 158, 161 Albani, Gian Francesco 69 Alberoni, Giulio  186 Albert, consort of Queen Victoria 293–295 Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’ 87, 91, 139 Alexander I, Emperor of Russia 27, 205, 208–209, 219, 225, 232–233, 241–258 Alexandrine, Queen, consort of Christian X, King of Denmark 301 Andrés, Juan 67–68, 77–79, 83 Angoulême, Louis-Antoine d’Artois, duc d’ 176 Antraigues, Emmanuel-Henri-Louis A. de Launay, comte d’ 98 Anne, Queen of Great Britain 185–186 Arendt, Hannah 213, 347 Argental, Charles-Augustin, comte d’ 89 Aristotle 137 Armañá, Francisco (Bp. of Tarragona) 158, 161 Armenteros, Carolina 14, 25 Armfeldt, Gustav Mauritz 232 Armitage, David 5 Arndt, Ernst Moritz 284 Arnstein, Fanny von 205 Arnstein, Nathan von  205 Arran, Charles Butler, Earl of  26, 175, 185, 188–194 Arran, Elizabeth Crew Butler, Countess of 191 Artois, Charles-Philippe, comte d’ (See Charles X, King of France) Ascoli, Graziado Isaia 77 Astarloa y Aguirre, Pablo Pedro de 73 Aston, Louise 317 Atatürk, Mustapha Kemal 390 Atcherley, Elizabeth 323 Atterbury, Francis (Bp. of Rochester) 189 Attlee, Clement 367, 370

Auguet de Saint Sylvain, Los Valles, Louis Xavier, baron d’ 273 Aullón de Haro, Pedro 67–68, 80 Aurelius, Marcus 137 Azara, José Nicolás de 152 Baader, Franz von 208 Babbitt, Irving 383–385, 392 Bacon, Francis 60, 78 Bagehot, Walter 379–381 Bagration, Ekaterina, Princess  206 Ballanche, Pierre-Simon 81 Baldwin, Stanley Baldwin, Earl 366 Balfour, Arthur James 342, 361 Barraute, comte de 274, 276 Barraute, comtesse de 274 Barruel, Augustin 86–90, 94–96, 266 Barry, Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du 229 Barry, William 362 Basseporte, Madeleine Françoise 46 Bassett, Reginald 368–369 Batyushkov, Alexander 226 Baudet, Thierry 2 Baumann, Arthur Anthony 362 Beaufort, Henry Scudamore, Duke of 182– 183, 185 Beaumont, Christophe de (Abp. of Paris) 143 Beethoven, Ludwig van 229 Begtrup, Holger 386 Bergasse, Nicolas 252–255, 257 Bergson, Henri 382 Berlin, Isaiah 213 Bernad, Tomás  71 Bernadotte, Jean-Batiste-Jules (see Charles XIV John, King of Sweden and Norway) Berry, Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, duchesse de 272, 277 Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of 177, 184 Billig, Michael 303 Bismarck, Otto, Fürst von 312, 318 Blackwell, Norman 349 Blair, Tony 287, 349 Blank-Eismann, Marie 297 Blennerhassett, Charlotte, Lady 320

426 Bocarmé, Ida du Chasteler, comtesse de 273 Boisgelin de Cucé, Jean de Dieu-Raymond de (Abp. of Aix) 98 Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount 93, 182, 186, 188, 191 Bonald, Louis de 21, 81, 203 Bonaparte, François-Charles-Joseph (Napoléon II) 256 Bonaparte, Joseph  75, 78 Bonaparte, Napoléon (See Napoléon I, Emperor of the French) Bonchamps, Charles-Melchior-Artus, marquis de 188 Bopp, Franz 68 Borbón, Carlos Luis de (see Montemolín) Borges, José 275 Borgia, Stefano 152 Borgia Mandolini, Giulio 322 Boulanger, Georges Ernest (general) 211 Bourke, Richard 14 Bourmont, Louis-Auguste-Victor de Ghaisne, comte de 98 Bowles, Mr. 96 Brackel, Ferdinande, Freiin von 320–321, 324 Braganza de Borbón, Alfonso de las Nieves de 276 Braganza de Borbón, María de las Nieves de 276 Bray, Gabriel-François, comte de  207 Brentano, Clemens 312 Bresciani, Antonio 322, 325 Brionne, Louise-Julie-Constance de 230 Brissot de Warville, Jacques-Pierre 101, 103–104, 153–154, 253 Broglie, Albertine de Staël-Holstein, duchesse de 206 Broers, Michael  15 Brosius, Henri-Ignace  132–134, 147 Brown, John (servant to Queen Victoria) 294 Brown, Philip Anthony 356 Brunswick, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of 98 Budberg, Andrei 231 Bulkeley, Elizabeth 177 Burckhardt, Jacob 2 Burke, Edmund 1, 3, 14, 21, 25, 41–43, 46–47, 55, 59, 62, 97, 119, 155, 202–204, 231, 233–

Index 234, 238, 286–287, 330, 336, 360, 362–363, 369, 375, 379–380, 391 Burney, Charles  97 Busca, Ignazio 165 Butler, Geoffrey 358, 362 Cabrera y Griñó, Ramón 273–274 Cahen, Raphaël 14, 203 Caleppi, Lorenzo 152 Calonne, Charles-Alexandre de 97 Calvin, Jean 89 Cameron, David 350 Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge  5 Cannady, Sean 221 Canning, George 97–98 Cantù, Cesare 325 Canz, Wilhelmine Friederike Gottliebe 320 Capodistrias, Ioannis  208 Carlos III, King of Spain 264 Carlos IV, King of Spain 70–71, 267 Carlos María Isidro, Prince of Bourbon (called Don Carlos) 271–275 Carlos María de los Dolores, Prince of Bourbon (called Don Carlos) 276–278 Carra, Jean-Louis 253 Carrel, Armand 261 Carol I, King of Romania 301 Caroline, Princess of Wales 189 Casanova, Giacomo 224 Casse, Hermann du 273 Castellano, Katey  41 Castlereagh, Amelia Hobart, Viscountess 205 Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount 205, 243, 249, 257 Cathelineau, Henri de 277 Catherine I, Empress of Russia 223, 229, 246, 248 Catherine Pavlovna, Grand Duchess of Russia 210 Ceballos, Fernando de 264 Cecil, Hugh 362 Chamberlain, Austen, Sir 366 Chamberlain, Leslie 221 Chambord, Henri d’Artois, comte de  276, 278 Champion de Cicé, Jérôme Marie, comte (Abp. of Bordeaux) 98 Charles II, King of England 176, 177, 183, 185

Index Charles X, King of France 98, 176–177, 183, 257 Charles XIV John, King of Sweden and Norway  233 Charles Edward, Prince (Charles III, Bonnie Prince Charlie) 176, 178–179, 182, 193 Charlton, Donald Geoffrey 43 Chateaubriand, François-René,vicomte de 10, 62, 201, 206, 247, 252, 254 Chiang Kai-shek 387–389 Chichagov, Elizabeth 208 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 137 Chandler, James 293 Choiseul, Etienne François, duc de 193 Chornet y Año, Nicolás  158–159 Churchill (family) 184 Churchill, Arabella 184 Churchill, Winston Spencer 341 Clauer, Karl Gottlieb Daniel von 154 Clavijero, Francisco Javier  73 Clement XIII, Pope 193 Clement XIV, Pope 67, 69 Clímaco de Salazar, Juan  70 Cobden, Richard 340 Cobenzl, Johann Philipp, Graf von 139 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 59 Collins, Anthony 93 Compagnon, Antoine  20 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de 79 Condorcet, Nicolas Caritat, marquis de 87, 91 Consalvi, Ercole 165 Constant, Benjamin  8, 124, 202, 244, 252 Conti, Francesco 152 Coppola, Sofia 302 Coseriu, Eugenio 76 Cottin, Sophie 23 Coucy, Jean-Charles de (bp. of La Rochelle) 267–268 Croce, Benedetto  80 Croker, John Wilson 10 Crossman, Richard Howard Stafford 343 Cuccagni, Luigi 164 Clark, Christopher  210 Crillon, Louis Athanase des Balbes de Berton 94 Czartoryski, Adam Jerzy 231 Dahrendorf, Ralf  1 Dahn, Felix 284, 291 Dallas, Robert Charles 87

427 Damas, comte de 270 De Dijn, Annelien  92 Décsey, Ernst 297 Deliège, Chr. 251–252, 254 Delille, Jacques   97 Deng Xiaoping 392 Derham, William  43 Derzhavin, Gavriil Romanovich  226 Déroulède, Paul  211 Despuig y Dameto, Antonio 159 Dewey, John 385 Diana, Princess of Wales 287 Dicey, Albert Venn 341, 360, 379, 391 Diderot, Denis 80, 90–91, 112, 139 Diego José de Cádiz 161 Díez, Joaquín Antonio 160 Dino, Dorothea de Talleyrand-Périgord, duchesse de 205–206 Dio, Chrysostom 143 Diogenes of Sinope 135–136, 139–140, 147 Diogenes Laertius 136 Diosdado Caballero, Ramón 74–75, 78 Disraeli, Benjamin  294 Dolgorukova, Ekaterina, princess 219, 224–225, 231 Donoso Cortés, Juan, marqués de Valdegamas 2, 274–275, 323 Dorandi, Tizio 136 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 363 Doyar, Pierre de 141–144, 148 Dowden, Edward 359 Driesch, Hans 382–383 Drumont, Édouard 211 Duncan Smith, Iain 350 Dumont, Etienne 98 Duras, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de 206, 208 Duval, Pierre 94 Duvoisin, Jean-Baptiste (Bp. of Nantes) 156 Du Yaquan 378, 399 Eckermann, Johann Peter 244 Edelstein, Dan 121 Edgeworth, Maria  41 Edling, Albert-Gaëtan, Count 209 Egginton, William 401 Ehrard, Jean  43 Elío, Francisco Javier González de Castejón y, marqués del Vadillo 274

428 Elisabeth, Empress of Austria 287, 295–302 Elisabeth, Queen of Romania 301 Elsken, Joannes Josef van den  140, 142–143, 147–148 Epstein, Klaus 13, 126 Espagne, Charles d’Espagnac de Ramefort, comte d’ 265 Espagne, Michel  197 Eucken, Rudolf 382 Eupen, Pieter Simon van 146–148 Eximeno, Antonio 67, 79–80, 83 Evelyn, John  58 Fabbri, Maurizio 70 Fallon, David 96 Falloux du Coudray, Alfred-Frédéric-Pierre, comte de  275 Fea, Carlo  165 Felipe V, King of Spain 187 Feller, François-Xavier de 135, 141–143, 145, 147–148 Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe (Abp. of Cambray) 43, 138–139 Fernando VII, King of Spain 268, 270–271 Ferraguto, Mark 232 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 209 Fitzjames, Edouard, Duke of 177 Fleury, Claude 154, 163 Formey, Samuel  45 Forster, Georg 112 Foster, John Leslie 336 Fouché, Joseph, duc d’Otrante 251–252, 254–257 Fox, Charles James 362 Fra Dolcino 156 Franz I, Emperor of Austria 78, 241, 256 Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria 295, 298 Friedrich II, King of Prussia 94, 223 Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia 241, 255–256, 288 Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia 285, 286, 289–291 Freeden, Michael  14 Fuchs, Laure, Countess 203 Fukuzawa Yukichi 377–378 Fürstenberg-Donaueschingen, Elisabeth von 205

Index Gain de Montagnac, François de (Bp. of Tarbes) 265 Galán, Gregorio 158–159 García Porrero, Augustín  159 Garzoni, Maurizio 74 Gaulle, Charles de  284 Gaume, Jean Joseph 325 Geertz, Clifford 222 Genlis, Stéphanie-Félicité, comtesse de 46– 47, 56, 61–63 Gentz, Friedrich  14, 21, 98, 198, 202–205, 219, 224–225, 230–232, 234–238, 243 George I, King of Great Britain 186, 192 George II, King of Great Britain 187, 190 George III, King of Great Britain  98, 178–179 George IV, King of Great Britain 98, 285, 293, 299 Gérard, Philippe-Louis 94 Gerlach, Ernst Ludwig von 312, 316 Ghervas, Stella 249 Gibbon, Edward 121, 154 Gifford, William  96, 97–98 Gilmartin, Kevin  47 Gingrich, Newt 347 Gipper, Andreas  52 Gladstone, William Ewart 360 Gnedich, Nikolai 225 Gneisenau, August Wilhelm Anton, Graf Neidhardt von 252, 283 Godoy, Manuel  73, 152, 164, 267 Goebbels, Joseph 291 Goens, Rijklof Michael van 111, 120, 121, 124 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  205, 244 Golovkin, Countess  208 Graaf, Beatrice de  15 Graham, Billy 344 Grantham, Henry de Nassau D’Alberquerque, Earl of 189 Grantham, Henrietta Butler D’Alberquerque, Countess of 189 Green, Ewen Henry Harvey 331 Gregory, Allene 358 Grimm, Jacob  205, 284, 303 Grimm, Wilhelm 303 Groen van Prinsterer, Guillaume 11 Grotius, Hugo 115, 117–118 Gruner, Justus Karl von 250–252, 254–256 Grundtvig, Nikolai Frederik Severin 386 Guizot, François  207

429

Index Gupta, Abhijit  23 Gustá, Francisco  161–167 Habermas, Jürgen 93 Hague, William 349 Hahn-Hahn, Ida, Gräfin 307, 311–317, 319–324 Haller, Karl Ludwig von 312–313 Halsbury, Hardinge Stanley Giffard, Earl of 366 Hamann, Johann Georg 21 Hamilton, Emma, Lady  78 Hansen, Jules  211 Hardenberg, Karl August, Fürst von 250, 252, 254, 256 Harrison, Ethel Bertha 360 Hayek, Friedrich 213 Havré, Joseph-Anne-Maximilien de Croÿ, duc d’ 267–268 Hawkesbury, Lord (see Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of) Haxthausen, Werner, Graf von  205 Haydn, Joseph 229 Hayton, David  186 Healey, Denis 344 Healy, Gerry 345 Heath, Edward 351 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 209, 357 Heidegger, Martin 401 Heine, Heinrich 298 Hengstenberg, Ernst Wilhelm 318 Henningsen, Charles Frederick 273 Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (Henri IX) 179 Hensel, Luise 307, 312–314, 316–317, 319, 324–325 Herbert, Alan Patrick 367–368 Herder, Johann Gottfried  21 Hervás y Panduro, Lorenzo  25, 67–84, 266 Herz, Henriette 202 Hessen-Kassel, Auguste, prince von 207 Hillis, Faith  211 Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawny 362 Hofer, Andreas 295 Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel, Graaf van 111, 122 Hogg, Quintin 368 Holbach, Paul Henri Thiery, baron d’ 90–94 Holm, Gustav 297

Hu Shi 385 Huddleston, Trevor 344 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 202–204, 222, 252 Hume, David 2, 112, 154 Huntington, Samuel P. 13, 392 Hyndman, Henry Mayers 361 Inglis, Robert Harry, Sir 339 Isabella II, Queen of Spain 271, 274 Israel, Jonathan  90–92, 105 Ivernois, François d’ 98 Jacobi, Friedrich  21 James the Great, Saint  159 James II, King of England 177–181, 184 James, Prince of Wales (James III, the Old Pretender) 175–177, 181–183, 186–187, 189 Jing Changji 399, 411–412, 414–415 Johnson, Samuel 284 Jones, Emily 14 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor 78, 131, 144, 147, 162, 166 Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de  75 Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich  208 Jüngst, Antonie 320 Kale, Steven  206 Kaletsky, Anatole 349 Kant, Immanuel  45, 209, 222 Karadžić, Vuk  205 Karamzin, Nikolay  210 Kaufmann, Angelica 78 Kedourie, Elie 213 Keene, Whitshed 96 Kerensky, Alexander 364 Ketteler, Wilhelm Emmanuel, Freiherr von 314–315 King, Martin Luther 344 King, William  188 Kluit, Adriaan  111, 116–120, 125 Knight, lady  78 Kold, Christen Mikkelsen 386 Komploier, Albert 156 Kopitar, Jerneij  205 Körner, Theodor 289, 291 Koselleck, Reinhart 401 Kossmann, Ernst Heinrich  110 Krüdener, Barbara Juliane, Freifrau von 202, 208–209, 241, 248–249, 252–253

430 Krüdener, Juliette von 248 Krylov, Ivan Andreevic 225 Kubicek, Paul 221 Kuliscioff, Anna  210 Kurakin, Alexander Borisovich 223, 225 La Bourdonnaye, François-Régis, comte de 271 Lafayette, Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de 253 La Harpe, Frédéric-César de 246 Lally, Gerald 177 Lally, Thomas-Arthur, comte de 177 Lally-Tolendal, Trophime-Gérard, marquis de  96–97, 177–178, 183 Lamennais, Félicité Robert de 81 La Motte Fouqué, Friedrich de 289 Lang, Jack 367 La Rochejaquelein, Auguste du Vergier, comte de 273 La Rochejaquelein, Henri du Vergier, comte de 188 Laruelle, Marielle 221 Lassberg, Joseph, Freiherr von 205 La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, Henriette Lucie Dillon 178 La Tour du Pin-Montauban, Louis-Apollinaire de (Abp. of Auch) 265 Lauzières de Thémines, Alexandre-AmédéeJoseph de (Bp. of Blois) 267–268 La Vauguyon, Paul-François de Quélen, duc de 2 67 Lazerme (family) 276 Le Bon, Gustave 380 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm  51, 55 Lenin, Vladimir 365, 390 Lenzen, Maria 320 Leo, Heinrich 316 Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor 162 Lepore, Jill 2 Leprince de Beaumont, Marie 45–47 Le Quien de la Neufville, Charles-Auguste (Bp. of Dax) 265 Leuwerik, Ruth  291, 297 Levenson, Joseph Richmond 398 Levin, Rahel, (see Varnhagen, Rahel) Lewald, Fanny 317 Lezo y Palomeque, Agustín de (Abp. of Zaragoza) 160

Index Liang Qichao 382, 399, 409–411 Liang Shuming 386–387, 408 Lichnowski, Felix 273 Lieven, Dorothea, princess  206 Ligne, Charles-Joseph, prince de 219–220, 223–224, 229–231, 233–238 Linguet, Simon-Nicolas-Henri 101–102 Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of  96–97, 243 Liu Xianxin 399, 414 Liu Yizheng 399, 409, 411–414 Lloyd George, David 342, 361, 364–365 Locke, John 79 Loménie de Brienne, Étienne Charles de, cardinal 91 López de la Fuente, Joseph  158 Lorenzana, Francisco Antonio de (Abp. of Toledo)  267 Lorenzana y Butrón, Tomás de (Bp. of Girona) 158–160 Lotman, Yuri 222 Louis XIV, King of France 59, 181 Louis XV, King of France  177, 182, 187 Louis XVIII, King of France 95, 98, 176–177, 181, 183, 254–256 Louise, Queen of Prussia 287–292, 297–298, 302 Louis Philippe, King of the French 273 Lovejoy, Arthur Oncken  43, 55, 68 Lucian, of Samosaiya 142 Ludendorff, Erich 390 Ludwig I, King of Bavaria 285 Ludwig II, King of Bavaria 286, 301 Luengo, Manuel 164 Luisa Maria Stuart, Princess 183 Lund, Hans 386 Luther, Martin 89 Luzac, Elie 111, 116, 122–125 Luzac, Jean  100 MacDonald, Ramsay 367, 370 Macpherson, John, Sir 96 Macmillan, Harold 351 Madelin, Louis 375 Mailáth, János Nepomuk Jozsef 299 Maistre, Joseph-Marie, comte de 2, 14, 21, 80–81, 199, 203, 207–210, 219, 266, 274 Mar, John Erskine, Earl of 186

Index Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of  184–185 Mallet du Pan, Jacques  16, 25, 86–92, 95–98, 101–102, 104 Mallock, William Hurrell 362 Malouet, Pierre-Victor  95–96 Mannheim, Karl 13, 110, 221, 286, 404 Manniche, Peter 386 Manzon, Jean  100, 102 Marat, Jean-Paul  101 Marchetti, Giovanni  166 Margherita, princess of Bourbon-Parma 276 Maria Clementina, Princess of Wales (Queen Clementina) 182 Maria Cristina, Principessa delle Due Sicilie 271 Maria Feodorovna, Empress of Russia 246 Marianne, Princess of Prussia 290 Maria Theresia, Holy Roman Empress  131 Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France 223, 229, 286, 302 Marie von Preussen, Queen of Bavaria 295 Marin, Sergey 225 Marmontel, Jean-François  88 Marischka, Ernst 297 Marischka, Hubert 297 Martin, Alexander  210, 221 Martini, Giovanni Battista  79 Márquez, Pedro José  73 Marx, Karl 351 Masseau, Didier  20 Mauguin (abbé) 223 McMahon, Darrin  20–21 Maximilian II, King of Bavaria 295 Meek, Ronald 121 Meerman, Johan  111, 114, 119 Mei Guangdi 384 Melendez Valdéz, Juan 78 Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix 293 Menéndes Pelayo, Marcelino 68, 70 Meng Xiancheng 386 Mesmer, Franz Anton  252–253 Metternich, Klemens Wenzel Lothar, Fürst von 98, 201–205, 209, 232, 243–245, 250, 256–258, 284 Michelet, Jules 284 Mignolo, Walter  45 Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Alexander 247 Milà y Fontanals, Manuel  68

431 Milne, Alan Alexander 360 Minto, Gilbert Elliot, Earl of 232–233 Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de  101 Mises, Ludwig von 213 Mishra, Pankaj  1 Moguel Urkiza, Joan Antonio  73 Monck, George 176 Montalembert, Charles Forbes, comte de 275 Montemolín, Carlos Luis de Borbón, conde de 274 Montlosier, François-Dominique de Reynaud de, comte de  16, 97–98, 155 Montemar, Antonio Carrillo de Albornoz, duque de 70 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de 2, 123, 246 Moore, John (general) 97 More, Hannah  47, 61, 62–63 Mornet, Daniel  45 Morellet, André  88 Morelly, Etienne-Gabriel  90 Morley, John 380 Mounier, Jean Joseph  97, 183 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 229 Müller, Adam Heinrich, Ritter von Nitterdorf 203, 312 Müller, Jan-Werner 14 Muller, Jerry  110 Murat, Joachim (King of Naples)  78 Murphy, Arthur 97 Murray, Marie-Caroline 224–225 Mussolini, Benito 388, 390 Napoléon I, Emperor of the French 9, 75, 156, 165–166, 176, 179, 192, 204, 207, 230–233, 245–246, 284–285, 289 Napoléon III, Emperor of the French 275 Nathusius, Marie 307, 311–312, 316–317, 319–322, 324–325 Nathusius, Martin von 316 Nathusius, Philipp von 316 Nathusius, Philipp Engelhard von 316 Nelis, Cornelius Franciscus de  137–139 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount 78, 97 Neny, Patrice François, comte de 138 Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia 221, 227 Nieuwentijdt, Bernard  43

432 Nolens, Willem Hubert  12 Nonnotte, Claude-François 264 Novikova, Olga  211 Oakeshott, Michael 376 O’Brien, Karen 121 Olenin, Aleksei Nikolaevich 225–226 Ormonde, James Butler, Duke of 26, 175, 185–194 Osmond, Antoine Eustache d’ (Bp. of Comminges) 265 Ossory, Thomas Butler, Earl of 185 Ossory, Emilia van Nassau, Countess of 185 Osuna, Juan de  75, 78, 156 Otto I, King of Greece 285 Otto-Peters, Louise 317 Ozerov, Vladislav 225 Paine, Thomas  17, 119 Paley, William  47 Palmer, Robert Roswell 5 Paoli, Pasquale 232 Parnell, Charles Stewart 361 Pascal, Blaise  43 Paul, Saint  133, 143, 145–147 Paul I, Emperor of Russia 98, 246 Paulus, Pieter 118 Peltier, Jean-Gabriel  96, 98 Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Viscount 206 Perea, Mariano de 158 Peter I, Emperor of Russia 248 Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (see Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor) Petisco, José Miguel  73 Pey, Jean 142 Philp, Mark  47 Pichler, Caroline  205 Pilat, Joseph Anton  203 Pilat. Elizabeth 203 Pilati, Carlo Antonio 112 Pius VI, Pope 75, 152, 154, 164, 166 Pius VII, Pope  70 Pius IX, Pope 284 Pitt, William the younger 97, 176, 179, 234 Plato  44, 92 Plotinus  44, 56 Pluche, Noël-Antoine 25, 41–61 Pocock, John Greville Agard 46, 109, 121

Index Poix, Philippe-Louis-Marc-Antoine de Noailles Mouchy, prince de 98 Polignac, Melchior de 182 Pont, Pedro  159 Pope, Alexander 42–46, 49–55, 57 Popkin, Jeremy 99 Popper, Karl 213 Potemkin, Grigoriĭ Aleksandrovich 229 Potocka, Anna 233 Potocki, Jan  74 Pozzo di Borgo, Charles-André 98, 219, 224, 225, 229, 232–238 Price, Richard 113, 117, 119–120 Priestley, Joseph  117, 119–120 Provence, comte de (see Louis XVIII, King of France) Putin, Vladimir 221 Pufendorf, Samuel von  117 Puisaye, Joseph Geneviève, comte de  164 Pym, Francis 351 Quevedo y Quintano, Pedro de (Abp. of Orense) 267–268 Radowitz, Joseph von  207 Radziwill (family) 211 Ray, John  43 Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas François  88 Raven-Hill, Leonard 367 Rawson, Don C. 363 Razumovski, Andrey Kirillovich 219, 223, 225, 229, 232, 237–238 Razumovski, Konstanze von Thüreim 232 Reagan, Ronald 347 Récamier, Jeanne Françoise 206 Reeve, John  96 Regnier, Jacques  98 Rey, Marie-Pierre 245 Ricci, Scipione de (Bp. of Pistoia) 162 Richelieu, Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, duc de 256 Rickert, Heinrich 410 Rimella, Filippo da 156 Robertson, William 154, 163 Robespierre, Maximilien 164 Rodríguez Aponte, Manuel  74 Rohan, Ferdinand Maximilien Mériadec de (Prince-Abp. of Cambrai) 156–157 Röpke, Wilhelm  213

Index Rose, George 97 Ross, Anna 210 Rostopchin, Fyodor  210, 219, 233, 237–238 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques  56, 63, 87, 89, 91, 95, 119, 246 Roverella, Aurelio  69 Ruffo, Fabrizio 167 Sade, Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de 139 Sagan, Wilhelmine, Herzogin von  204–206 Saint-Lambert, Jean-François de 88 Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de  52, 62 Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de 187 Saladin-Egerton, Charles-Antoine 98 Salomon, King  50 San Bartolomeo, Paolino de 74 Sand, George 317 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich 290 Schlegel, August Wilhelm von 235 Schlegel, Dorothea 203 Schlegel, Friedrich von  78, 202–203, 205, 235, 312 Schmitt, Carl 393 Schmoller, Gustav von 390 Schrøder, Ludvig 386 Schwarzenberg, Karl Philipp, Fürst zu 247 Scott, Walter  285, 293, 299, 347 Scruton, Roger 54, 63, 331, 351 Seaman, Owen 367 Ségur, Louis-Gaston de 325 Selborne, William Palmer, Earl of 362 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus the younger 137 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of 93 Sheffield, John Holroyd, Earl of 96 Shepard, Ernest Howard 367 Schneider, Magda 302 Schneider, Romy 296–297, 302 Shea, Louisa 139 Shippen, Robert  188 Siemann, Wolfram 202 Sinclair, Isaac von  205 Shishkov, Alexander 210, 219, 226, 227, 233, 237–238 Skinner, Quentin  3 Skorupski, John 375 Smith, Frederick Edwin 362 Smith, Goldwin 360

433 Socrates 135 Somaglia, Giulio Maria della 152 Speranskiĭ, Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich 227 Spiegel, Laurens Pieter van de 111, 113–115, 119, 121, 124 Spinoza, Baruch 91 Sombart, Werner 390 Somerset (family) 184 Southey, Robert  47, 347 St. Vincent, John Jervis, Viscount 97 Staël-Holstein, Germaine de 9, 201, 204, 206, 219, 225, 229, 234–238 Stahl, Friedrich Julius 316 Stead, William T. 358 Stein, Karl, Freiherr vom und zum 209, 219, 225, 229, 236, 250 Stevens, George 97 Stolberg-Wernigerode, Henrich, Graf 205 Stourdza, Alexandre de  209–210, 249 Stourdza, Roxandra, comtesse Edling 208– 210, 249 Strachey, John St. Loe 366 Strauch y Vidal, Raimundo 266 Strauss, Leo 213 Strocchi, Diogini  152 Stróbl, Alajos 298 Stuart, Henry  187 Suleau, François-Louis  98 Sun Yat-sen 370, 387 Swetchine, Anne Sophie 208–210, 275 Sylva, Carmen (see Elisabeth, Queen of Romania) Taixu 399 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de  205–206, 254–257 Tamara, Basil Stephanovich 207 Tamburini, Pietro  162 Tencin, Pierre Guérin de 182 Thatcher, Margaret 347–349 Théveneau de Morande, CharlesClaude 101–103 Thomasius, Christian 117 Thugut, Johann Amadeus, Freiherr von  165 Tieck, Ludwig 285 Tocqueville, Alexis de 2 Toland, John 93 Tollens, Hendrik 285 Tolstoy, Leo 363

434 Tönnies, Ferdinand 294 Trevor, John Hampden 96–97 Triesman, David 345 Trollope, Anthony 295 Trotsky, Leon 364 Turchi, Adeodato (Bp. of Parma) 156, 165 Upcott, John 97 Uvarov, Sergey Semyonovich 27, 219–230, 232–235, 237–238 Valjavec, Fritz  13 Valsecchi, Antonino 264 Varnhagen von Ense, Karl 201, 204 Varnhagen von Ense, Rahel  201–202, 204 Vasto, Marquis of  165 Vaudémont, Elisabeth, princesse de 206 Verlooy, Jan Baptist 133 Vervaecke, Phillipe 367 Vernes, Jacob 94 Veuillot, Louis 275–276 Vick, Brian  15 Vico, Giambattista  21 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain 287, 292–299, 301–302 Vierhaus, Rudolf 9, 13 Vigil, Álvaro  77 Villèle, Joseph, comte de 270 Villemur, comte de 273 Vincent, Karl von 244 Vitoria, Francisco de  75 Voltaire 87, 89–91, 95, 102, 154, 158, 246 Vonck, Jan Frans 133 Wagner, Adolph 390 Wagner, Richard 284, 301 Wallmann, Elisabeth 50 Walpole, Robert 182 Walsh, Joseph Alexis 178

Index Wang Guowei  408 Weiß, Volker  2 Weiß Smith, Courtney  50, 55 Wellek, René  68 Wellington, Arthur Richard Wellesley, Duke of 10, 241, 243–244, 249, 251, 255–257, 265 Werner, Michael  201 Whittaker, Cynthia 237 Wichern, Johann Hinrich 319 Wickham, William 96 Wildermuth, Ottilie 319, 324 Wilhelm I, German Emperor 291 Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands 301 William III, King of England 184–185, 190 Willem II, King of the Netherlands 285–286 Windham, William 96 Wilson, Harold 343 Wolcot, John (Peter Pindar) 98 Wolff, Christian 116 Wolseley, Garnet Wolseley, Viscount 361 Wordsworth, William  41, 347 Wu Mi 384–385 Wundt, Wilhelm 410 Xiao Gongqin 392 Xi Jinping 393 Yan Fu 380 Yuan Shikai 381 Zeno of Citium 145 Zhang Junmai 382–383, 390 Zhang Shizhao 379–381, 387 Zhang Taiyan 399, 408, 412, 414–416 Zielonka, Jan 1, 3 Zimmermann, Bénédicte  201 Zorin, Andrei 222 Zumalacárregui, Tomás 273