Print and Power in France and England, 1500-1800 0754655911, 9780754655916

Citation preview

PRINT AND POWER IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, 1500–1800

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

DAVID ADAMS University of Manchester, UK ADRIAN ARMSTRONG University of Manchester, UK

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © David Adams and Adrian Armstrong 2006 David Adams and Adrian Armstrong have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Print and power in France and England, 1500-1800 1.Scholarly publishing – Political aspects – France – History 2.Scholarly publishing – Political aspects – Great Britain – History 3.Scholarly publishing – Social aspects – France – History 4.Scholarly publishing – Social aspects – Great Britain – History 5.Power (Social sciences) – France – History 6.Power (Social sciences) – Great Britain – History 7.France – Politics and government I.Adams, David II.Armstrong, Adrian 070.5'0944'0903 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Print and power in France and England, 1500-1800 / edited by David Adams and Adrian Armstrong. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7546-5591-1 (alk. paper) 1. Publishers and publishing—Political aspects—France—History. 2. Publishers and publishing Political aspects—England—History. 3. Books and reading—Political aspects— France—History. 4. Books and reading—Political aspects—England—History. 5. Literature and state—France—History. 6. Literature and state—England—History. 7. Power (Social sciences)—France—History. 8. Power (Social sciences)—England—History. 9. France— Intellectual life. 10. England—Intellectual life. I. Adams, David, 1947- II. Armstrong, Adrian. Z305.P69 2006 070.50944–78dc22 2006005996 ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-5591-6 (hbk)

Contents List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements

vi vii viii

1

Introduction

2

Cosmetic Surgery on Gaul: The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550 13 Adrian Armstrong

3

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible (1575–79) as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith Kenneth Austin

27

‘It was not mine intent to prostitute my Muse in English’: Academic Publication in Early Modern England Sarah Knight

39

4

1

5

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism Lee Morrissey

6

Spreading the Word: Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda in Seventeenth-Century France Alison Saunders

69

Insinuation and Instruction: Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’ Ann C. Dean

85

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France: The Testimony of J.-P. Lenoir, Lieutenant-Général of Police of Paris Simon Burrows

99

7

8

9

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution David Adams

Bibliography of Works Cited Index

53

113

135 151

List of Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Claude-François Menestrier, Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand, Paris: J.B. Nolin [Amsterdam], 1691, M1v–M2r André Félibien, Tapisseries du Roi, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons, Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1670, Y1r André Félibien, Divertissemens de Versailles, Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1676, engraving between pp. 6 and 7 Charles Perrault, Courses de testes et de bague, Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1670, I2r Title-page of the Costumes des Représentans du Peuple (1795) The official costume of a member of the Council of Five Hundred The official costume of a member of the High Court of Justice The official costume of a Minister of the Directory

72 76 78 82 114 126 127 128

List of Contributors David Adams is Professor of French Enlightenment Studies at the University of Manchester Adrian Armstrong is Professor of Early French Culture at the University of Manchester Kenneth Austin is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Bristol Simon Burrows in Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Leeds Ann C. Dean is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern Maine Sarah Knight is Lecturer in English at the University of Leicester Lee Morrissey is Associate Professor of English at Clemson University, South Carolina Alison Saunders is Carnegie Professor of French at the University of Aberdeen

Acknowledgements This volume originated in a conference, ‘Elites, Print Media and Social Control’, held at the University of Manchester in April 2003, and the editors are grateful to the Conference Office of the University for its help in preparing the event. Several speakers at that conference are not represented here, but all contributed significantly to making it a valuable forum for the exploration of the views and ideas set out in the essays printed in this volume, and more generally for defining the field we wanted to cover. Accordingly, we wish to thank Penny Brown, Elspeth Findlay, Rachel Goldberg, David Hartley, Andrew Hegarty, Peter Hinds and Maartje Scheltens for helping to inform these studies. Indispensable funds were supplied by various sources in the course of the project’s development. The conference was supported by the University of Manchester from its Elie-Auguste Bretey Fund, while production of the typescript was assisted by the Research Support Fund of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Manchester. Finally, we are grateful to Pat FitzGerald for preparing camera-ready copy and indexing the volume. David Adams Adrian Armstrong Manchester

Introduction David Adams Adrian Armstrong

Milan Kundera warns us that ‘metaphors are dangerous’.1 But let us, for a moment, live dangerously. For it is difficult to think of books other than metaphorically; or, more precisely, metonymically. When asked about our favourite books, the books that have inspired us, the books we feel guilty for not having read, we treat ‘books’ as a metonym. In proper accordance with the rules of this particular language-game, we understand that our questioner wants to know about favourite, inspirational or guilt-inducing texts; about semiotic structures; about what books contain. Were we to treat ‘books’ literally – to talk about favourite, inspirational, or guilt-inducing objects – we would fail to play by the rules, fail to acknowledge the space between container and contained. But scholarship abhors a vacuum and in recent decades has begun to fill the space between the literal and the metonymic book, between the physical object and the text which it transmits. For many years, the history of the book was a field for specialists in material bibliography, paper manufacture, the history of library catalogues and the like. Such concerns are no less indispensable to the advancement of learning than other kinds of scholarship, but in recent times intellectual and cultural developments in Europe and North America have transformed the discipline into something much more vigorous and multifaceted, enriched by productive exchange with economic history, literary history, sociology, art history and much else besides.2 The history of the book has come to occupy an important position in the humanities and shows every sign of continuing to flourish and expand. But another space is now opening up, this time methodological rather than rhetorical. If specific research projects are proliferating, they are largely underpinned by a body of theoretical reflection which is itself controversial, and which has stimulated investigation into the very nature of the relationship between print culture and the operation of power structures at all levels of society. Much of this reflection derives from a variety of Continental traditions, which have stimulated as much

1 2

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, trans. Michael Henry Heim (London: Faber and Faber, 1985), p. 11. Among the positive signs of this development are the steadily expanding conferences of the Early Book Society and significant publications such as Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Age, eds Joe Bray, Miriam Handley and Anne Henry (London: Ashgate, 2000).

2

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

dissent as agreement, notably in the English-speaking world. Marxism as interpreted by the Frankfurt School, the philosophies of Nietzsche and Heidegger, the structuralist anthropology of Lévi-Strauss and others.3 In other words, the history of the book is deeply influenced by some of the most radical thinking of the past century: the thinking usually, and often misleadingly, homogenized in literary and cultural studies under the umbrella term ‘theory’. The diversity and sophistication of ‘theory’ hardly lends itself to adequate exposition even in a large-scale volume, let alone a brief introduction. Nevertheless, it is essential to outline in summary form, and as neutrally as possible, the most important conceptions of the relationship between discourse and power, since these provide the intellectual context within which are conceived not only the history of the book as a discipline, but also many of the individual studies in this volume. Among the recent thinkers who have dealt with the relationship between power and discourse (a subject which of course goes back at least as far as Plato’s Republic), the pre-eminent figure is perhaps Michel Foucault (1926–84). Foucault is normally placed among the writers directly or indirectly inspired by structuralism, and particularly by the later developments collectively – and, again, often misleadingly – designated as post-structuralism.4 In reality, however, his work ranges much more widely than the textual analysis with which these terms are often associated. Like other poststructuralists, he argues that language can never reach the condition of objectivity, or even be fully adequate to convey meaning. All discourse, Foucault maintains, is ‘a totality in which the dispersion of the subject and his discontinuity with himself may be determined.’5 It is governed by rules which are both anonymous and historical, an emanation of the ‘episteme’ which unites all types of knowledge in a given period, imposing on them ‘the same norms and postulates […] a certain structure of thought that the men of a particular period cannot escape – a great body of legislation written once and for all by some anonymous hand’.6 This view of language, according to which the subject is manipulated by language as much as s/he manipulates it, is entirely consonant with Foucault’s notion of what constitutes power. Power, he claims, is not coterminous with the laws and regulations governing everyday social activity, oppressive as these often are. Rather, power is constituted by the whole corpus of devices, values and beliefs through which society disciplines, controls and confines all its members, whether through legal prohibitions or through what is generally acknowledged at a given time to be proper, sane, and permissible. This oppressive power manifests itself primarily in discourse, that is to say, in language: 3

4

5 6

See M. Jay, The Dialectical Imagination (London and Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), and P. Connerton, The Tragedy of Enlightenment: An Essay on the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). A basic guide to the complexities of this field (together with a detailed bibliography) can be found in Christopher Norris, Deconstruction, 3rd edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), The Archæology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith (London: Tavistock Publications, 1972), pp. 54–5. Ibid., p. 191.

Introduction

3

we must not understand by it a great anonymous voice that must, of necessity, speak through the discourses of everyone; but we must understand by it the totality of things said, the relations, the regularities, and the transformations that may be observed in them, the domain of which certain figures, certain intersections indicate the unique place of a speaking subject and may be given the name of author. ‘Anyone who speaks’, but what he says is not said from anywhere. It is necessarily caught up in the play of an exteriority.7

The individual subject, so Foucault claims, is thus entrapped unconsciously in the pre-existing ‘episteme’ which writes all knowledge, all discourse; oppressive power, in all its forms, pervades every area of life. From this perspective, the use of print media to further the interests of power is both inevitable and inescapable, but these media are only one facet of the all-enveloping discourse of power which guides, informs, and dictates our view of the essential operations of society at all levels. Once again, we must beware of homogenization, for Foucault’s reflections on power evolved significantly. It was in his early, relatively ‘structuralist’ works, such as The Archæology of Knowledge, that he conceived of power as essentially oppressive. His more ‘post-structuralist’ writings, such as Discipline and Punish, present power as not only oppressive, but also productive. It is upon this double-sided quality of power that many post-structuralist commentators have focused, though assessments of Foucault’s theories are as diverse as his own writing on the subject.8 Yet it is his more oppressive conception of power which has exerted most influence on the work of other writers on the discourse-power relationship, and it is with this analysis of what he called ‘the capillary effects’ of power (in that it seeps into every part of the human organism) that Foucault is now most closely associated.9 Responses to these ideas have been particularly perceptible in the work of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (b.1929), who has examined the social and intellectual context in which the printed word, since the end of the seventeenth century, has become a determinant of social change in countries such as France, Germany and Great Britain. Habermas’ central concern, to develop what he called ‘a social theory concerned to validate its own critical standard’,10 entailed a synthesis of two forms of

7 8

9 10

Ibid., p. 122. Foucault’s ideas in this respect have been strongly criticised by, among others, Frank Lentricchia, in his Ariel and the Police: Michel Foucault, William James, Wallace Stevens (Madison, WN: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). For a general (if sometimes hostile) analysis of Foucault’s ideas, see J.G. Merquior, Foucault (London: Fontana Modern Masters, 1985). A wide-ranging series of articles for and against Foucault can be found The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, ed. Gary Gutting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, 3 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990), I, p. 139. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas McCarthy, 2 vols (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), I, p. xli.

4

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

critique: Marxist, directed against bourgeois capitalist values, and Kantian, focusing upon the conditions of possibility for meaningful communication. In particular, it is Habermas’ assumptions about the nature of communication which underpin his interpretation of the power-struggles of the eighteenth century, especially (but not exclusively) in France. He posited the development, during the Enlightenment, of three ‘spheres’: that of the private citizen; that of public authority; and, between them, the ‘authentic public sphere’ in which debate took place.11 It is in the public sphere that issues are discussed and tested, in a process which testifies to a crucial principle: that communication at a social level is not only possible, but also effective. To be valid, every communicative act must necessarily be able to withstand critical scrutiny of its claim to be true, sincere and (in the relevant context) correct. The norms by which such acts must be judged are, in essence, the Enlightenment criteria of universal rationalism, the assertion of individual autonomy, and reciprocal respect for the autonomy of others.12 Hence, while rational analysis may reveal an individual communicative act to be logically flawed, incomplete or otherwise open to criticism, Habermas assumes that the act is performed in good faith, can be analyzed in good faith and can if necessary be amended on the basis of criteria agreed by all parties concerned. The indispensable political context for this process is a tolerant democracy, which alone can allow a full measure of individual freedom and the exercise of critical judgement for oneself, while accepting the right to formulate critiques without fear of retribution.13 Like earlier members of the Frankfurt School, such as Theodor Adorno (1903–69) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), Habermas considered that Enlightenment values such as individual liberty, intellectual self-assertion, and democracy had ultimately become mythologised and turned into their opposites, into fascism and totalitarian repression of all kinds.14 Unlike them, however, he retained a belief in the power of discourse to challenge and rectify any oppressive tendency, by subjecting its inadequacies and dangers to the rational criticism which, in his view, remains the bedrock of human intellectual activity. Some commentators, especially in France, have regarded Habermas’s basic assumptions as historically naïve; Jean-François Lyotard (1924–98) took him vigorously to task for his unremitting, Enlightenment-based defence of moral

11 12

13 14

See Robert C. Holub, Jürgen Habermas: Critic in the Public Sphere (New York: Routledge, 1991). These ideas have been central to Habermas’ system since its inception, and are expressed in a number of his publications. See, for example, ‘Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence’, in Recent Sociology No. 2, ed. Hans-Peter Dreitzel (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 114–48. For further discussion of these points, see Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992) See Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (written 1944) (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), and Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).

Introduction

5

absolutes, universal rationalism, individual freedom and intellectual independence.15 Yet Habermas has remained firm in his beliefs, and he has been at particular pains to contest Foucault’s ideas, despite the personal friendship which developed between them. While recognizing that Foucault had identified real problems in his attempts to account for the development of the individual consciousness in post-Renaissance Western society, Habermas accused him of subordinating facts to theory. Because Foucault had inadequately understood the historical conditions operating at specific times and places for ascertainable reasons, his investigations, so Habermas asserted, essentially confirm a pre-existing theory, rather than explaining why and how societies and attitudes evolved as they did.16 Such a conflict is hardly surprising: Habermas’ humanist values sharply contrast with Foucault’s more structuralist reading of history in which humans are the tools of supra-personal forces, which may be analysed but not definitively overcome.17 The two thinkers’ views have engendered vigorous debates, though their ontological assumptions are so fundamentally different that no final resolution can be expected. Nevertheless, these ongoing arguments usefully focus attention upon the problems inherent in attempts to account for the responses of different societies to self-expression and internal criticism. Although Habermas’s ideas have been particularly influential in the study of eighteenth-century culture, for instance, a historical perspective might suggest that his theory of communication is incompatible with the realities of European official discourse in that period, dominated as it often was by authoritarian dogmas of church and state. Such discourse could not accept dispassionate analysis of its claims to truth, correctness or sincerity; it tended to respond to critique by asserting the (usually) divine origins of its doctrines, and to discourage further challenge by punishing dissent, sometimes by death.18 Scholars emerging from cultural contexts less deeply characterised by the search for an over-arching theory have taken a different view of the relationship between discourse and power. In the Anglo-Saxon world at least, their investigations have often been based more on empirical practice than on theoretical constructs.19 This approach typifies the

15 16

17 18 19

Cf. Richard Rorty, ‘Habermas and Lyotard on Postmodernity, in Habermas and Modernity, ed. Richard J. Bernstein (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 159–75. Habermas’s most thoroughgoing critique of postmodernism can be found in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. F.G. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990). The book was first published as Der Philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: Zwölf Vorlesungen, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1985). See also Foucault contra Habermas, eds Samantha Ashenden and David Owen (London: Thousand Oaks, 1999). See especially The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, pp. 255–8. For a succinct account, see Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 218–29. Even the most empirical approach to history, of course, relies on theoretical assumptions of its own: assumptions concerning, for example, the validity of the documentary evidence and the proper ways in which it can be assessed. However, the place of theory is very different in research which explicitly develops a conceptual framework to account for historical processes.

6

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

third major intellectual historian who has engaged in this field, Robert Darnton (b.1939). His work has centred on the French Enlightenment, on the ways in which individuals, and particularly writers, sought to challenge the limitations placed upon them, and on the effectiveness of these challenges. Darnton has been concerned with the ways in which critical or subversive texts of all kinds circulated, whether in print, in manuscript or by word of mouth. In looking at the practical questions of how, where, by and for whom books were printed in eighteenth-century France, he has radically altered many previous assumptions concerning the accessibility, and even the stability, of the written and printed word. Even a public which was largely illiterate could, for example, hear court gossip in Paris and elsewhere through readily available oral sources. Darnton emphasizes the need to understand, through the analysis of documentary evidence, not what events and ideas mean to historians today, but what they meant to contemporaries. As such, he looks with scepticism at the theory-oriented historiography of Habermas and Foucault, regarding the former as emanating ultimately from an outdated Marxist view of history,20 and rejecting Foucault’s diminution of the notion of the ‘free’ author on the grounds that it ignored the realities underlying the publication and distribution of texts.21 More recently, however, Darnton has expressed a more sympathetic view of the notion of the public sphere.22 Indeed, like Habermas, he has been preoccupied with the ‘public space’ as a central factor in the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas; and, like Foucault, he has underlined (perhaps overmuch) the crucial repressive rôle of the state during the Ancien Régime. There is, then, a considerable overlap in these three authors’s interpretations of the conditions of eighteenth-century intellectual life, even if they have little in common in conceptual terms. Foucault, Habermas and Darnton have been subjected to intense critical scrutiny, and many of their basic premises have been challenged from a variety of standpoints.23 Yet they have stimulated a great deal of reflection on the relationship between discourse, especially printed discourse, and the power-structures prevailing in Europe since the Middle Ages. Much research is still conducted within the perspectives which they have established, and they have opened up wide areas of debate on the nature of power and on the ways in which it exercises control. Hence, even when their conclusions can be regarded as too narrowly systematic, their writings have provided a focus for the investigation of power-relationships which few other writers have afforded. While the work of these three scholars has been crucial in the re-evaluation of the relationship between power and discourse, questions remain to be addressed in broad areas which have not been central to their concerns. While they would agree that the medium of print readily lends itself to exploitation by the forces of authority, in the 20 21 22 23

Cf. The Forbidden Best-sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (London: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 414n. Cf. ibid., pp. 13, 59. See George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century (London and New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003), pp. 180–81, n42. See particularly The Darnton Debate: Books and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, eds H.T. Mason et al. (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1998).

Introduction

7

interests of social control, they have not always distinguished between the types of printed material through which this control was exercised. In some cases, such as accounts of royal festivities, printing allows a spectacular power to extend its visibility; in others, such as cheaply produced conduct books, it permits the wider diffusion of discourses and practices which constitute what Foucault has called ‘biopower’.24 Decades of illuminating research into the dissident potential of printing can hardly be ignored; yet in privileging this potential, scholars risk leaving the picture incomplete in both historiographical and conceptual terms. Historiographical, because the complexities of publishing culture require ‘thick’ description, accounts which attempt to address all the possibly significant historical circumstances or ‘webs of significance’ out of which any culture is woven.25 Conceptual, because the subtle interplay of control, conformity, consent and dissidence demands to be thought through in appropriately sophisticated ways.26 In allowing a focus on the nonconformist to determine our assessments, we risk perpetuating a binarized, indeed romanticized, conception of a monolithic Establishment and the heroic individuals who struggle against it.27 To understand properly the exercise of social control, it is essential to grasp the fine grain of processes – economic, rhetorical, technological, ideological – whereby control can be exercized, and the ways in which it is (and is not) possible to negotiate these processes and the contradictions between them.28 Our ultimate goal should be a more disabused and fuller appreciation of the ‘democratization’ widely (and often inaccurately) ascribed to print culture and the struggles to assert or oppose 24

25

26

27

28

A shift in early modern culture, from the exercise of spectacular power to that of ‘biopower’, is charted in Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Allen Lane, 1977). The term is coined in Clifford Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture’, in Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 3–30 (‘webs of significance’, p. 5). For an excellent example of ‘thick’ description in the field of publishing history, see Joseph Loewenstein, The Author’s Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). In the field of philosophy, for example, various critiques of Habermas rely on alternative readings of the Kantian notions underlying his concept of the public sphere. See, for example, Kimberly Hutchings, Kant, Critique and Politics (New York: Routledge, 1996). Various studies, for instance, have been devoted to the censorship and regulation of printing: see especially Censorship and the Control of Print in England and France 1600–1910, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1992); Francis M. Higman, Censorship and the Sorbonne, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 172 (Genève: Slatkine, 1979). However, while illuminating the complexities of censorship, such studies ultimately presume that the relationship between social control and printing was essentially one of repression; they do not explore the ways in which printing may produce techniques of control. On ‘negotiation’, the productive interaction of different discourses and the tensions between them, see Christine Gledhill, ‘Pleasurable Negotiations’, in Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television, ed. E. Deidre Pribram (London and New York: Verso, 1988), pp. 64–89.

8

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

repression, which this process has always entailed. This appreciation involves more than a clear understanding of the past, for the interplay between media technologies and mechanisms of social control has rarely been a more urgent issue. The doubleedged potential of new technologies – the potential of the internet, for instance, for both samizdat and surveillance – becomes ever clearer, and ever more closely related to socio-political developments.29 Of course, findings cannot simply be transplanted from one cultural context to another: this risks concealing rather than revealing the processes at work. But the more acute our awareness of the principles, the better able we shall be to grasp present and indeed future trends. These are the issues which this volume addresses. It examines the ways in which socially-privileged groups or those who identified with them, especially in France and England, exploited print media in attempts to maintain or reinforce their position over a period of some three centuries from around 1500 to 1800. The complementary articles enable an optimum balance to be struck between, on the one hand, the ‘thick’ description vital to any effective study of this kind, and on the other, the breadth which permits this study to be something more than a set of discrete investigations, and allows the contributors’ findings to be generalized – if only partially and provisionally. The volume’s chronological scope corresponds to what is commonly referred to as the ‘hand-press period’. This is a wide enough time-span to permit a coherent collective investigation: whereas printing technology changed little during this period,30 there were significant socio-cultural developments, in politics, economics and ideologies. Geographically, the focus is on Western Europe, across which print culture became established within a relatively brief time-span, so that simultaneous developments in different parts of the region can legitimately be compared.31 Within Western

29

30

31

On the implications of new technologies, see especially Peter Wollen, Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-century Culture (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 60–67; Sinikka Sassi, ‘The Transformation of the Public Sphere?’ in New Media and Politics, eds Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins (London: Sage Publications, 2001), pp. 89–108. On the technological stasis during this period, see Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer, ‘Fabriquer un livre au XVIe siècle’, in Histoire de l’édition française, ed. Henri-Jean Martin and Roger Chartier, 4 vols (Paris: Promodis, 1982–86), I, pp. 279–301 (p. 279). Printing took root much more gradually in Eastern Europe. Although a printing press was established in Kraków as early as 1474, no books were printed in Russia until a press was set up in Moscow in 1552. In Croatia, printing began in 1491 at the latest, though production in the hand-press period was on a very small scale; in Hungary, printing started in 1473 but abruptly ceased after the Turkish defeat of Hungarian forces at Mohács in 1526. See S.H. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years of Printing (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979), pp. 45, 65; Aleksandar Stipãeviç, ‘Le livre imprimé et le livre manuscrit dans la Croatie de la Renaissance’, in Le Livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance: Actes du XXVIIIe colloque international d’études humanistes de Tours, ed. Pierre Aquilon and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Promodis, 1988), pp. 106–11; Gédéon Borsa, ‘L’activité et les marques des éditeurs de Buda avant 1526’, in ibid., pp. 170–81.

Introduction

9

Europe, the articles concentrate upon two major nation-states whose public spheres overlapped to a significant extent, and within which centralised power structures developed: England/Great Britain and France. Findings for these states are more genuinely comparable than for areas which were politically more fragmented, such as the Italian- and German-speaking lands, where social control was exercised in much more diffuse fashion, or Spain, whose public sphere remained relatively distinct and largely immune to outside influences. The collection as a whole comprises literary, historical, and theological studies, whose wide-ranging concerns nevertheless overlap; the following brief synthesis indicates the extent to which the individual contributions coalesce into a ‘joined-up’ treatment of the field. It is clear, in the first place, that the notion of writers as belonging to an élite was widespread in Europe during the hand-press period. One such élite comprises those occupying a high position in the social and political hierarchy of their society. Their dominance might take spectacular form, as with the luxurious festival books discussed by Alison Saunders, which reinforce the image of the powerful ruler and celebrate his life in words and images designed to impress even the very small readership – itself a social élite – which could afford them or obtain access to them. Yet such an élite is more characteristic of the sixteenth century than of later times, at least in France. One of the most significant sociopolitical developments of the period is the process by which a single élite gradually gave way to a plurality of (sometimes conflicting) élites; as the Revolution of 1789 approached, each group sought to demonstrate its power, as Simon Burrows argues, by sponsoring the publication of pamphlets hostile not only to other factions, but also to royal absolutism. Consequently, the challenge to central authority was well under way some years before that climactic period, but it emanated more from within privileged circles than from the lower orders, as respect for any central royal authority under Louis XVI ebbed away. Control was reasserted in the political arrangements which emerged out of the chaos in the 1790s; a reassertion enacted not through words alone, but also through images, as David Adams argues in his study of the costumes designed for members of the Directory. The failure of the authors of this ambitious enterprise can be traced to inner contradictions of which they themselves were unaware but which testify eloquently to the persistence of pre-Revolutionary perceptions and mentalities; in true Hegelian fashion, these residual attitudes in turn paved the way for a different kind of élite to emerge under Napoleon. But élites are not identifiable solely in socioeconomic terms. During this period there were also intellectual élites, which undoubtedly overlapped with the upper reaches of the political and social order, but were sometimes in opposition to them. Several contributions to this volume explore the often uneasy position of intellectual élites, which frequently saw themselves as entitled not just to offer resistance but also to dictate to others. In various ways, writers and publishers attempted to neutralize the threat to the social fabric which they feared would result from wider access to knowledge, a development in which printing played a crucial part. Adrian Armstrong argues that French publishers began to adopt distinctly patriotic approaches to texts, often modifying works by late medieval authors whose political allegiance was to the court of Burgundy, rather than to France. Other cultural élites targeted communities

10

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

of readers which were defined in linguistic rather than political terms. As Kenneth Austin suggests, the deeply learned translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Latin by Immanuel Tremellius (1575–79) was instrumental in spreading the authoritarian, spiritually-élitist message of Calvinism internationally. At such a time, when religious factionalism brought accusations of unorthodoxy from all sides, especially from the Catholic Church, competing sects needed to struggle unceasingly to win adherents and converts. When Latin began to be challenged by the vernacular in the seventeenth century, the threat to its supremacy stimulated many scholarly writers to spring to its defence. Sarah Knight shows that, at least in Protestant England, the growing dominance of English was due to the commercial ambitions of printers, who became increasingly reluctant to publish books in Latin, which would not sell; as a result, the intellectual traditionalists, especially in the universities, were challenged by commercial pressures to which they were inevitably to succumb. But whatever their language, the increasing availability of printed publications led to the frequently expressed fear that the common people would start to read and interpret books for themselves, or that they would draw the wrong conclusions from them. Lee Morrissey documents this concern in English writing from the 1640s until the end of the eighteenth century, and concludes that, rather than reinforcing the Habermasian model of the emerging public sphere facilitating debate, literary criticism was widely regarded as a means of quelling dissent by offering interpretations of texts which would reconcile quarrelling political factions by proposing a definition of ‘charity’ which would help the less fortunate reader to understand the text through the work of the ‘altruistic’ critic. As Ann Dean’s study shows, charity was not much in evidence, however, in the polemical exchanges of mid-eighteenth-century British politics, as reflected through the prism of contemporary newspapers. On the contrary, conflicting interpretations of current events and personalities were juxtaposed for maximum effect. Conflicts between competing factions were thereby continued by proxy, through articles written by paid spokesmen in the pages of newspapers. Readers were thus invited to witness a political debate with the terms of which they were presumed to be familiar. Dean’s study has the merit of refining the Habermasian explanation of the changes in public discussion which took place in England during the eighteenth century. In an age when party politics in the modern sense had yet to emerge, and when few members of the population had the vote, print media could be used to broadcast factional in-fighting to a wider public than hitherto, without enabling that audience to influence these interpretations in turn. In one way or another, then, all these studies deal with attempts to impose on the public values, attitudes or modes of conduct deriving from an assertion of superior knowledge, wisdom or authority on the part of those involved in creating the printed product. In order to convey a sense of historical development, the studies are arranged along chronological lines, though they also have a thematic relationship. The articles by Armstrong and Saunders engage with the rhetorics of power and their reception. Armstrong makes clear the (often subtle) ways in which shifting allegiances were reflected by textual changes in printed works; Saunders reveals the extent to which appeals to the populace relied on an undisguised assertion of intellectual or political

Introduction

11

authority requiring and expecting acceptance by the people as a whole. Austin and Knight explore the economic and political implications of publishing in the context of intellectual élites, examining not so much the Habermasian ‘public sphere’, which scarcely existed at this time, as the competing claims of rival theologies and linguistic traditions. Morrissey’s essay traces the development of a particular notion, under the influence of printing, in intellectual circles: the secularisation of the concept of ‘charity’ and its transformation from a spiritual to an intellectual or interpretative act. Dean, Burrows and Adams examine the competing political discourses and pressures which influenced widely differing forms of (often ephemeral) publications such as newspapers and factional brochures. What emerges from this wide-ranging group of studies is that, while no one form of power-discourse characterised English and French culture during this period (how could it, with two such distinct civilisations, especially after the Reformation?), those in power, or those who sought power, often used remarkably similar techniques in their attempts to assert themselves or their cause. These studies move from the early period of the printed book to the dawn of the modern era and the birth of the mass media at the time of the French Revolution. What they trace across this period, in brief, is the mutually reinforcing process whereby the attempt to control print, or to control opinion through print, could often stimulate resistance to any such control, creating additional tensions. Ample scope remains for further investigation into the exercise of power through print in the hand-press period. Like any product of academic research, this volume is an intervention into what Habermas might recognize as a public sphere: an arena of discourse, by no means innocent of vexed power-relations, within which statements are exposed to scrutiny and critique. We hope, indeed, that the enterprise will in its turn initiate a process of debate and investigation which may enrich our understanding of the relations between writing, reading, publishing and diverse forms of power; a more productive result than the intellectual martyrdom suggested by the imagery of exposure and arenas. Metaphors, after all, are dangerous.

Chapter 2

Cosmetic Surgery on Gaul: The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550 Adrian Armstrong

During most of the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth, much francophone writing was produced outside France itself. Around the Dukes of Burgundy, and their Hapsburg successors, clustered numerous poets and chroniclers, based mostly in the Burgundian Netherlands. Not all these writers had an equal political engagement; not all necessarily saw themselves as Burgundian rather than French; but they all owed allegiance, for part of their careers at least, to a state independent of France. Political power-relations inevitably informed the publication and reception of these writers in manuscript and print, in both France and francophone Burgundian areas. I shall examine the ways in which these power relations affect Burgundian writing when it is printed in France; when, in other words, it becomes subject to the political sensibilities of a new public and to economic and technological imperatives. Such issues concern not only the ‘demographics’ of publication (which texts were printed, when and where), but also the inflections of textual presentation and variation. Sometimes these inflections derive from authorial interventions into publication; more often, they are symptoms of reception; but in all cases, they significantly influence readers. I focus upon the work of three particularly important Burgundian authors: the successive holders of the post of indiciaire, official court poet and historiographer, a post which had no direct equivalent in France and which gave them an institutional status unmatched by other writers.1 In various ways, the printed presentation of these authors’ works attenuates elements which might be seen as dissident in a French context.

1

Claude Thiry, ‘Rhétoriqueurs de Bourgogne, rhétoriqueurs de France: Convergences, divergences?’, in Rhetoric – Rhétoriqueurs – Rederijkers, ed. Jelle Koopmans, Mark A. Meadow, Kees Meerhoff, and Marijke Spies (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1995), pp. 101–16 (pp. 106–8).

14

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

George Chastelain (1415–75): Morality Begins Abroad The first indiciaire, George Chastelain, served Duke Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold.2 He produced an important chronicle, as well as works in verse and prose on moral, political and religious subjects, often using allegorical techniques. Generally, the political texts are conciliatory towards France. Indeed, when his Dit de Verité (1456) was accused of anti-French sentiment, Chastelain produced a defensive commentary, the Exposition sur Verité mal prise, expanding upon the original text’s arguments and rebutting accusations of factionalism.3 His output was largely transmitted in manuscripts: only six of his works were printed before 1550, most of them well after his death, and only four in France. An edition of the Miroir de Mort appeared in Lyon in the early 1480s; the Oultré d’Amour was one of the numerous texts collected in the large amatory anthology Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rhétorique, published in various configurations from 1502 onwards; the Temple de Bocace gave its title to a didactic anthology published in 1517; and the Complainte d’Hector figured in a poetic anthology printed three times in the 1520s, entitled Traictez Singuliers.4 The Miroir, which takes as its point of departure the memento mori signalled in its title, develops a set of moral reflections around the themes of sin, mortality and suffering;

2

3

4

On Chastelain’s career, see especially Graeme Small, George Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1997); Estelle Doudet, Poétique de George Chastelain (1415–1475): ‘Un cristal mucié en un coffre’ (Paris: Champion, 2005). See Claude Thiry, ‘Stylistique et auto-critique: Georges Chastelain et l’Exposition sur Verité mal prise’, in Actes du VIe colloque international sur le moyen français, 4–6 mai 1988, ed. Sergio Cigada and Anna Slerca, 3 vols (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1991), III, pp. 101–35. Le Miroir de Mort [Lyon, Martin Husz, c. 1481–82] (BnF, Rés. Ye 171); Le Temple Jehan Bocace (Paris: for Galliot Du Pré, 1517); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce C subt. 96. Traictez Singuliers (Paris: Antoine Couteau for Galliot Du Pré, 1525/6); BnF, Rothschild VI. 8 (bis). 37. Two subsequent editions appeared: Paris, for Galliot Du Pré, 1525/6 (Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 8o BL 8749 Rés.); Paris, for Jean St. Denis, n.d. (BnF, Rés. Ye 1257). On the various editions of the Jardin de Plaisance, see Frédéric Lachèvre, Bibliographie des recueils collectifs de poésies du XVIe siècle (Paris: Champion, 1922), pp. 3–11. The other works of Chastelain to be printed, in Burgundian areas, are the devotional poem Louenge à la trèsglorieuse Vierge, published under the title Chansons georgines, and the verse chronicle La Recollection des Merveilleuses Advenues (see my discussion of Molinet editions below): Valenciennes, Jehan de Liège, [c. 1500] (Chantilly, Musée Condé, IV E, 89/1); Antwerp, Guillaume Vorsterman, [c. 1514] (BnF, Rés. Ye 251). On the editions of these works, see Hélène Servant, ‘Jehan de Liège, premier imprimeur valenciennois’, Valentiana, 1 (June 1988), pp. 6–11 (p. 9); Adrian Armstrong, ‘Dead Man Walking: Remaniements and Recontextualisations of Jean Molinet’s Occasional Writing’, in Vernacular Literature and Current Affairs in the Early Sixteenth Century: France, England and Scotland, ed. Jennifer Britnell and Richard Britnell (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 80–98 (p. 95).

The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550

15

it has no political dimension.5 Even less political is the Oultré d’Amour, an amatory narrative from the mid-fifteenth century, which the analysis below does not consider in detail. Though explicitly attributed to Chastelain, it is almost invisible in the Jardin anthology: the first edition contains 658 different poems on 260 leaves, of which a slightly truncated version of the Oultré occupies only 11 (fols qq2r–rr6v).6 More elaborate than both these works is the Temple (1463–64), an allegorical work in prose which continues and implicitly challenges Giovanni Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium. Chastelain composed the Temple as a consolation for Margaret of Anjou (1429–82), the wife of Henry VI of England, who had lost her throne as a result of the Wars of the Roses; however, this specific pretext produces a much more general work, as Chastelain uses numerous historical exempla to teach widely applicable moral lessons.7 Hence the Temple is essentially didactic, rather than politically tendentious. The same can be said of the Complainte d’Hector, a dramatic piece performed for Philip’s court in 1454, based on a legendary episode in which Alexander the Great visited the tombs of Hector and Achilles.8 The play climaxes with the reconciliation of the mythological heroes through the agency of Alexander; the implicit suggestion is that Philip can play the part of Alexander, reconciling France and Burgundy.9 Publishers’ selections thus tend to privilege uncontroversial moralizing, rather than texts which engage directly with recent history or politics. The anthologies which contain the Temple and Complainte, and the material presentation of the Miroir de Mort edition, underline the didactic qualities of Chastelain’s pieces. Though the Miroir is not attributed to Chastelain, its title page indicates the poem’s utility: ‘Cy commence vng excellent et tresprouffitable ljure pour toute creature humaine apelle le miroer de mort’ [Here begins an excellent and most profitable book for any human being, called The Mirror of Death]

5 6

7 8 9

George Chastelain, Le Miroir de Mort, ed. Tania Van Hemelryck (Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d’Études Médiévales de l’Université Catholique de Louvain, 1995). See Lachèvre, pp. 3–4; Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rhétorique, ed. Eugénie Droz and Arthur Piaget, 2 vols (Paris: SATF, 1910–1925), II, pp. 302–3. On the Oultré in general, see Jacques Lemaire, ‘L’Oultré d’Amour de George Chastelain: un exemple ancien de construction en abyme’, Revue romane, 11 (1976), pp. 306–16; on the organization of the Jardin’s first edition, see Susan R. Kovacs, ‘Staging Lyric Performances in Early Print Culture: Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rethorique’, French Studies, 55 (2001), pp. 1–24. George Chastelain, Le Temple de Bocace, ed. Susanna Bliggenstorfer (Berne: Francke, 1988). George Chastelain, Œuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 8 vols (Brussels: Heussner, 1863–66), VI, pp. 167–202. See Small, pp. 99–100. The mythological characters do not, however, have wholly stable political referents: see Estelle Doudet, ‘Aux frontières du prosimètre: George Chastelain et le théâtre’, in Le Prosimètre à la Renaissance, Cahiers V. L. Saulnier, 22 (Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm/Presses de l’École normale supérieure, 2005), pp. 21–47 (pp. 31–47).

16

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

(fol. a1r).10 Below this text is an image of a dead man in a shroud, attended by monks and doctors; this is part of a series of woodcuts originally designed for Martin Husz’s edition of the Exposition et vraie declaration de l’ancien et du nouveau testament.11 Whether or not the readers of the Miroir recognized that the cut was being re-used, in conjunction with the title it clearly sets Chastelain’s poem in the context, so widespread in fifteenth-century French poetry, of moral discourse adumbrating on the theme of death.12 In the case of the Temple, the accompanying material is devoted largely to moral instruction of rather different kinds. L’Instruction d’un jeune prince, a prose text commonly attributed to the Burgundian aristocrat Ghillebert de Lannoy (d.1462), exemplifies the miroir des princes genre which dispensed practical ethical advice to future rulers. Bouchet’s Chappellet des Princes, composed before September 1515 and published here for the first time, performs the same function in verse; it is followed by other works written by Bouchet, short moral and religious poems and the Épître de Marie (1515), a lament in the voice of Mary, sister of Henry VIII, on the death of her husband Louis XII.13 Consequently, while the anthology has Burgundian affiliations, these are subordinated to an overall didactic orientation, and indeed counterbalanced by Bouchet’s Épître. Moreover, the title page sets Chastelain not in his professional context at the Burgundian court, but in a literary context, designating the text as ‘Le Temple Iehan Bocace, de la ruyne daulcuns nobles malheureux, faict par George son imitateur’ [The Temple of Giovanni Boccaccio, on the ruin of some unfortunate nobles, composed by George his imitator] (fol. A1r). ‘George’ is presented not as the indiciaire of Philip and Charles, but as the ‘imitateur’ of Boccaccio, and his moral discourse is placed in a wider, indeed pan-European, tradition.14 The Traictez Singuliers anthology produces similar effects. Accompanying the Complainte d’Hector are various poems, some by the other Burgundian indiciaires

10 11

12 13 14

In quotations from noncritical editions, abbreviations have been resolved; spelling and punctuation otherwise follow the source exactly. All translations are my own. See Eugénie Droz and C. Dalbanne, ‘Le Miroir de Mort de Georges Chastellain’, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1928, pp. 89–92 (p. 92). The dating of Husz’s edition of the Exposition is uncertain. See Christine Martineau-Génieys, Le Thème de la mort dans la poésie française de 1450 à 1550 (Paris: Champion, 1977). On this anthology, and on Bouchet’s texts, see Jennifer Britnell, Jean Bouchet (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986), pp. 91–5, 309. Jennifer Britnell suggests that this edition provides a set of moral reflections, in which the role of fortune is paramount, to complement the panegyric discourse of Bouchet’s Temple de Bonne Renommée, composed in honour of Charles de La Trémoille and published three months previously, also by Galliot Du Pré. See Britnell, ‘Couronne de l’art poétique, couronne mortuaire: Le Chapelet des Princes de Jean Bouchet’, in Lingua, cultura e testo: Miscellanea di studi francesi in onore di Sergio Cigada, ed. Enrica Galazzi and Giuseppe Bernardelli, 3 vols (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2003), II, pp. 125–38 (p. 135).

The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550

17

– Molinet’s Temple de Mars (1475),15 and three Contes de Cupido et d’Atropos attributed to Lemaire16 – but most by Guillaume Cretin, a Paris-based poet whose political loyalties were distinctly French. The first edition’s privilege highlights the diversity of authors represented: le present liure et opuscule, auquel sont contenus plusieurs oeuures en rethorique, tant de feux maistre Jehan le maire, Georges chastelain, Molinet que feu de bonne memoire maistre Guillaume cretin chantre de la saincte chappelle du palais royal a Paris [this little book, which contains various works in verse, not only by the late Master Jean Lemaire, George Chastelain, and Molinet, but also by the late Master Guillaume Cretin, worthy of remembrance, cantor in the holy chapel of the Palais Royal in Paris] (fol. A1v)

Furthermore, the Burgundian material is politically neutral. The Temple de Mars is an anti-war allegory with no distinct political stance; the Contes are playful mythological narratives on the origins of syphilis, based on an Italian poem. Cretin’s material has a topical dimension: by far his longest piece in the volume is L’apparition du feu mareschal de Chabannes, a response to the battle of Pavia in 1525, when French troops were defeated by Emperor Charles V’s forces, and Francis I taken prisoner.17 And in the light of Pavia, this apparently disparate collection takes on a certain coherence. The pacifism of Molinet’s Temple de Mars; the Contes’ Franco-Italian synthesis; the reconciliation of old enemies in Chastelain’s Complainte; the indiciaires’ very presence alongside Cretin; all reflect a common French literary reaction to the battle: the wish for peace and unity within Christendom. While many Burgundian poets gloated over the victory of Charles V, who formed part of the Austro-Burgundian lineage, the work of the three indiciaires has been recontextualized to more conciliatory ends.18

15 16

17

18

Jean Molinet, Les Faictz et Dictz, ed. Noël Dupire, 3 vols (Paris: SATF, 1936–39), I, pp. 65–76. Only the second Conte is regarded as being unquestionably an original Lemaire composition, and the poems are impossible to date precisely. See Pierre Jodogne, Jean Lemaire de Belges, écrivain franco-bourguignon (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1972), pp. 462–9. The text of the later editions is not identical to that of the first; most notably, Molinet’s Temple is absent from the Jean St Denis edition. Guillaume Cretin, Œuvres poétiques, ed. Kathleen Chesney (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1932), pp. 143–81. See Georg Roellenbleck, ‘Guillaume Cretins Apparition de Chabannes und das Problem des Epos im frühen sechzehnten Jahrhundert’, in Das Epos in der Romania. Festschrift für Dieter Kremers zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Susanna Knaller and Edith Mara (Tübingen: Narr, 1986), pp. 325–38. On poetic reactions to Pavia, see Thiry, ‘L’Honneur et l’Empire: A propos des poèmes de langue française sur la bataille de Pavie’, in Mélanges à la mémoire de Franco Simone, I. France et Italie dans la culture européenne: Moyen Age et Renaissance (Geneva: Slatkine, 1980), pp. 297–324. On the Traictez, see also Estelle Doudet, ‘Un dramaturge et son public au XVe siècle: George Chastelain’, forthcoming in European Medieval Drama.

18

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Jean Molinet (1435–1507): And the Lion Shall Lie Down with the Lily (but Not Peacefully) A more diverse and experimental writer than Chastelain was his successor, Jean Molinet. Besides a chronicle, he produced poems on varied subjects – political, religious, and didactic, but also ludic and bawdy – at least two mystery plays and a moralized prose version of the Roman de la Rose.19 His years as indiciaire were mostly difficult ones for Burgundy: Charles the Bold died at Nancy in 1477, leaving no male heir; there followed a French invasion of Burgundian territories and violent civic unrest in the Burgundian Netherlands. This unrest continued to plague Archduke Maximilian when he assumed the Burgundian heritage on marrying Charles’s daughter Mary of Burgundy. Yet Molinet’s loyalties were constant. He regularly took the side of the ruling Austro-Burgundian dynasty, both in his chronicle and in poems such as the Journée de Therouenne, celebrating a minor Burgundian victory over French forces at Guinegatte in 1479.20 His attitudes to France varied according to royal policy: he was a vehement critic of Louis XI, whose aggression caused great suffering in the Burgundian Netherlands, but praised Charles VIII for returning to more traditional chivalric values. The transmission of Molinet’s work reflects a period of transition from manuscript to print. More manuscript than printed witnesses exist; printed anthologies of his poetry did not appear until well after his death, though various pieces were printed during his lifetime. Some of these publications were unauthorized, but around 1500 Molinet probably played a part in the publication of some of his own poems, in the town of Valenciennes where he lived for most of his career.21 French editions of his work are quite frequent in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The Temple de Mars went through eight editions as a single text. The Art de Rhétorique (1492 at the latest), a manual of versification, was also published eight times, though never attributed to Molinet. By contrast, the Roman de la Rose moralisé (c. 1500) was always attributed in its three editions, as was the Naissance de Charles d’Autriche (1500), a poem celebrating the birth of the future Emperor Charles V, published once in Lyon after initially appearing in Valenciennes. Another anti-war poem, the Testament de la Guerre (after June 1479 or January 1493), is not attributed in the two French editions. Finally, a substantial collection of Molinet’s poetry, Les Faictz et Dictz, was printed three times in Paris between 1531 and 1540.22 19 20 21 22

The most useful general study of Molinet, and his political and ethical attitudes, is Jean Devaux, Jean Molinet, indiciaire bourguignon (Paris: Champion, 1996). Molinet, I, pp. 127–36. See Adrian Armstrong, Technique and Technology: Script, Print, and Poetics in France 1470–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 71–82. Editions of Le Temple de Mars, La tres desiree et prouffitable naissance de Charles d’Austrice, Le Testament de la guerre, and Les Faictz et Dictz are listed in Armstrong, Technique, pp. 224–5. Editions of L’Art de Rhétorique and Le Roman de la Rose moralisé are listed in Cynthia J. Brown, Poets, Patrons, and Printers: Crisis of Authority in Late Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 262.

The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550

19

Previous research has produced useful insights into these publications: it has been suggested, for instance, that illustrations and paratext in the Temple de Mars editions distort Molinet’s message, by apparently glorifying war.23 For the present purpose, I shall concentrate upon the Faictz et Dictz, and within it on a single poem, La Recollection des Merveilleuses Advenues, a verse chronicle of events from 1429 to 1495, begun by Chastelain and continued by Molinet.24 The Faictz et Dictz was a substantial publishing enterprise: its first edition used a prestigious folio format, rare for vernacular poetry in this period, and was covered by an unusually long four-year privilege.25 It was clearly a venture in which the printers were confident, and the appearance of two subsequent editions shows that their confidence was not misplaced. This commercial success might seem surprising, given Molinet’s arch-Burgundian attitudes; but a glance at the anthology’s contents and presentation explains matters. It is dominated by didactic, religious, and historical material: though some pro-Burgundian and anti-French sentiments are inevitably expressed, there is a distinct lack of poems such as the Journée de Therouenne, which celebrate Burgundian victories over France. Apolitical moralizing and religious pieces are most prominent: the collection opens with a series of poetic prayers, devotional and didactic poems. This selectivity is accentuated by an editorial preface, which presents Molinet as essentially an eloquent composer of moral works and says nothing about his political loyalties.26 Political defusing also operates at a microtextual level, as sensitive passages in individual poems are omitted or reworded. Whether this was a systematic editorial practice must remain uncertain: textual selection and variation may depend on manuscript exemplars. Yet the political variants do not appear in any surviving manuscripts; and the range of material which the editor includes makes it difficult to believe that he simply lacked access to the more sectarian texts, many of which were copied much more often than some of those collected in the Faictz et Dictz.27 Particularly interesting variants appear in one of these texts, the Recollection des Merveilleuses Advenues, whose complete version consists of 148 stanzas, of which 43 were by Chastelain. Claude Thiry has observed that Molinet’s selection of events to commemorate, and the nature of his commentary, differ significantly from Chastelain’s. Whereas Chastelain covered memorable events across Europe and made very few value judgements, Molinet focuses much more on material of local interest and often has

23 24 25 26 27

Brown, pp. 66–71. Molinet, I, pp. 284–334. Paris, Jean Longis and the widow of Jean Saint-Denis, 9 December 1531; BnF, Rés. Ye 41. On this edition’s presentation, see Armstrong, Technique, pp. 56–70. The Journée de Therouenne, for instance, is attested in seven manuscripts, while several prayers appearing in the Faictz et Dictz are otherwise known in only a single manuscript. See Noël Dupire, Étude critique des manuscrits et éditions des poésies de Jean Molinet (Paris: Droz, 1932), pp. 130–31.

20

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

a polemical, propagandist approach.28 The version of the Recollection in the Faictz et Dictz is 140 stanzas long; the omissions are all from Molinet’s portion and reveal an intriguing selectivity. The missing stanzas tend to concentrate either on French military defeats or on the crimes of Louis XI. One omission, for instance, involves two stanzas on Louis’s actions before and after Charles the Bold’s death at Nancy: J’ay veu chose piteuse Commettre au roy Loÿs, Incredible et honteuse, Comme dire l’auÿs, Sa filleule et parente Que deffendre debvoit, D’heritaige et de rente Despouilla, comme on voit. Sur treves accordees Au pere que je plains, Il presta les sauldees Pour l’occir sur les plains; Pour engendrer famine En plusseurs lieux divers, A la povre orphenine Fit fauchier ses bledz verdz. [I saw King Louis commit a deplorable deed, unbelievable and shameful, as I’ve heard it told: he deprived, as can be seen, his god-daughter and relative, whom he was supposed to defend, of her inherited lands and territories. During a truce concluded with her father, whom I lament, he paid wages to slay him in the open field; to cause famine in several different places, he had the poor orphan girl’s crops reaped before they had ripened.] (Molinet, I, 309, vv. 593–608)

The ‘god-daughter’ abused by Louis is Mary of Burgundy. Although Louis had signed a peace treaty in 1475, he gave financial support to the duke of Lorraine, who was engaged in conflict with Charles. Then, during the French invasion of the Burgundian Netherlands after Nancy, Louis sent thousands of peasants into the province of Hainaut, to cut down crops before they had ripened and thereby starve the city of Valenciennes into submission. Two further stanzas absent from the printed version deal with the Burgundian victory at Guinegatte and with the recapture of Saint-Omer from the French in 1489, when the city’s inhabitants gave the signal to attack by making a cat mew at a designated spot:

28

Thiry, ‘Le Vieux Renard et le jeune loup: l’évolution interne de la Recollection des merveilleuses advenues’, Le Moyen Age, 90 (1984): 455–85.

The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550

21

J’ay veu a la Viesville Bourguinons et Flamens Occir plus de six mille Francs archiers a tourmens; L’ost du roy fut tout rice De pillier le buttin, Mais le hault duc d’Austrice Fut l’honneur du huttin. [I saw, at Thérouanne, Flemings and Burgundians savagely kill over 6,000 francsarchers [volunteer infantry]; the king’s army was very rich from having pillaged the booty, but the noble duke of Austria won the honours in the battle.] (Molinet, I, 312, vv. 665–72) J’ay veu, par faire braire Ung chat, qu’on doit aimer, Sus Franchois plains de haire Reprendre Saint Aumer; Par armes y entrerent Allemans et Wallons, Et Franchois s’en trotterent En monstrant les tallons. [I saw St Omer retaken from the suffering French by causing a cat – which must be loved – to mew. Germans and Walloons entered by force of arms, and the French trotted away, showing a clean pair of heels.] (Molinet, I, 324, vv. 945–52)

Not all Molinet’s gloating over French defeats is absent from the printed text. But even where stanzas on these topics survive, some fascinating revisionism can be found. A particularly telling example is a stanza alluding to the 1475 Treaty of Picquigny, whereby Louis XI agreed to pay Edward IV of England an annual rent of 60,000 écus, which Molinet gleefully depicts as a humiliation for France. The left-hand text below is from the modern critical edition, based on a manuscript source; the righthand version is that of the Faictz et Dictz as published, revised to present Louis’s act as justifiable bargaining and to reverse Molinet’s polemical verdict: J’ay veu ung roy de France Tributaire aux Anglés, Affin que grand souffrance N’aist France en ses anglés; France, non france, est serve Aux anciens ennemis Et dure que leuserve A ses prochains amis.

Iay veu ung roy de france Accorder aux angloys Affin que grant souffrance Nayt france en ses angletz France franche et non serue Sinon a ses amys Et dure que leuserue A tous ses ennemys.

[I saw a king of France the English, so that the crannies of France may not have great suffering. France is , and harsh as a lynx to .] (Molinet, I, 307, vv. 537–44; Faictz et Dictz, 1531, fol. T2r)

It is partly thanks to such interventionist editing that the Faictz et Dictz was able to sell in 1530s Paris. To use the heraldic language that Molinet often exploited to rhetorical effect: the lion, a common symbol of Burgundy, comes to an accommodation with the lily, a standard metaphor for France. Not that this accommodation is a peaceful one: Molinet’s attitudes show through, albeit not strongly enough to cause too much offence.

Jean Lemaire de Belges (1473?–1516/1524): Negotiating a Career Jean Lemaire de Belges, who succeeded Molinet as indiciaire, first found truly secure employment at the Austro-Burgundian court, thanks to Margaret of Austria. In late 1511, probably due to court politics, he left for the French royal court and the employment of Anne of Brittany, but all trace of him disappears after the deaths of Anne and her second husband Louis XII (1514, 1515).29 Lemaire’s most substantial work was a three-volume combination of romance and historiography, Les Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie (first published 1511–13), which traces the history of the inhabitants of ‘Gaul’ and asserts this region’s cultural pre-eminence in Europe. The term ‘Gaul’ is ambivalent: sometimes it corresponds to France, elsewhere it covers both France and the Austro-Burgundian lands.30 Besides the Illustrations, Lemaire produced political, religious, didactic and other material, in verse and prose; while he took the side of his patrons, he cannot be regarded as sectarian to the same extent as Molinet. Lemaire was involved in the initial publication of much of his work, in ways broadly reflecting his career path. His first substantial text to be printed, the Temple d’Honneur et de Vertus (1504), was offered to the leading Parisian publisher, Anthoine Vérard, at a very early stage in Lemaire’s career. Between then and 1511, his only work published in France reflects a Franco-Burgundian concord: this was a short anthology headed by the Légende des Vénitiens, a polemical text composed after the Peace of Cambrai, which established an anti-Venetian alliance between France, the Empire, Spain, and the Papacy, and the French victory over Venice at Agnadello in 1509.31 From 1511 onwards, the three books of the Illustrations went through numerous

29 30 31

On Lemaire’s career and work, see Jodogne, Jean Lemaire de Belges. See Jacques Abélard, ‘Les Illustrations de Gaule de Jean Lemaire de Belges: Quelle Gaule? Quelle France? Quelle nation?’, Nouvelle Revue du Seizième Siècle, 13 (1995): 7–27. Jean Lemaire de Belges, La Légende des Vénitiens, ed. Anne Schoysman (Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1999).

The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550

23

editions in Paris and Lyon, separately until 1524, then usually in large single-volume editions. With them – either in the same editions, or in short anthologies which booksellers would normally bind with them32 – appeared the Légende anthology (until 1516), and two other short collections. The Traicté de la Différence des Schismes et des Conciles forms, along with two other pieces, an antipapal propagandist anthology supporting Louis XII of France, whose military expeditions in Italy had incurred the hostility of Pope Julius II; the Epistre du roi Louis XII à Hector de Troie introduces an anthology of occasional verse dealing with the Italian wars. From 1532 onwards the works which had been collected in the Traicté also appeared in separate editions, entitled Le Promptuaire des Conciles. It is generally acknowledged that Lemaire was involved in publishing the early editions of the Illustrations and accompanying material; the paratext of these editions promotes both Lemaire’s commercial interests and his attitudes to Franco-Burgundian relations. The earliest editions appeared during a period of professional uncertainty, when Lemaire had not yet broken with Margaret of Austria’s court, nor yet found a niche at the French royal court. Through their prefatory material and illustrations, these editions devote attention to both camps; later, when Lemaire’s employment with Anne of Brittany was secure, the political emphasis of the paratext is more clearly French.33 It is equally interesting, however, to examine how Lemaire’s work was presented in France in cases where he did not influence its publication; and in particular, how printers dealt with his more narrowly pro-Burgundian output. Only one text falls squarely into this category: the Couronne Margaritique, a long allegorical narrative which praises the virtues of Margaret of Austria after the death of her second husband, Philibert of Savoy (1504).34 This was printed only once, in the last major sixteenthcentury edition of Lemaire’s work, published in 1549 by Jean de Tournes.35 The Couronne is heavily framed by paratextual material: mentioned in an epistle which introduces the whole edition, by its editor Antoine du Moulin (fol. I2r–v), it also has two liminary epistles of its own, by De Tournes and Claude de Saint-Julien de Balleure, who had prepared the Couronne’s text for printing (fols aaa1v–2v),36 and is accompanied by marginal annotations of uncertain authorship. The paratext draws attention to Lemaire’s relationship to Margaret, and explains away politically sensitive passages on these grounds. Du Moulin’s liminary epistle, addressed to Antoine de Bourbon, draws a parallel between Margaret and De Bourbon’s mother-in-law, Marguerite de Navarre: 32 33 34 35 36

See Abélard, ‘Les Illustrations de Gaule et Singularitez de Troye’ de Jean Lemaire de Belges: Étude des éditions – Genèse de l’œuvre (Geneva: Droz, 1976). Ibid., pp. 23–9, 59–74, 77. Lemaire, Œuvres, ed. Jean Stecher, 4 vols (Louvain: Lefever, 1882–91), IV, pp. 1–167. Further references will be given after quotations in the text. Les Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie (Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1549); BnF, Rés. La2 13. See Abélard, ‘Les Illustrations’, pp. 156–7. See Philipp-August Becker, ‘Saint-Julien de Balleure und Jean le Maire’, Zeitschrift für romanische Sprache und Literatur, 51 (1928): 294–302.

24

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800 luy estant au seruice d’vne autre vertueuse Marguerite de Flandres, trauailla non seulement à la louenge de sa Maistresse, ains à celle de plusieurs […] le nom de celle Marguerite des fleurs, que vous y trouuerez, vous refreschira la bonne affection et entiere amour de la mere de vostre tresheureuse et tresuertueuse compaigne. [serving as he did another virtuous Margaret, from Flanders, he worked for the glory not only of his employer, but also of numerous other people […] the name of this floral Margaret which you will find there will renew your affection and whole-hearted love for the mother of your most fortunate and virtuous spouse.] (pp. 6–7)

Lemaire is presented as concerned primarily with glorifying his protector, in ways which De Bourbon, of all people, should understand. This theme continues through the other paratextual material. De Tournes asserts in his epistle, addressed to the reader, that he has not previously published the Couronne lest readers took offence at the claims into which Lemaire’s devotion to Margaret had led him: ie craingnois que plusieurs cerueaux trop delicats […] ne prinsent en mauuaise part les choses, que quelquesfois les Autheurs escriuent par commandement, ou comme affectionnés à leurs superieurs, ou comme passionnés, et ignorants autrement les importances des choses, quilz escriuent. [I feared that several overly delicate brains might take umbrage at the things which authors sometimes write under orders, or out of affection for their superiors, or out of passion, ignorant of all other important aspects of what they write about.] (p. 8).

The source of potential offence is Lemaire’s assessment of Charles VIII, who had been betrothed to Margaret but had repudiated her, for political reasons, in favour of Anne of Brittany. De Tournes explains diplomatically that this episode led Lemaire to speak ‘trop abandonnément […] en faueur de sa maistresse, et au desauantage dautruy’ [excessively in favour of his employer and against others] (ibid.), because of ‘le desplaisir grand quil auoit que sa princesse ne se vist couronnee du royaume’ [his great displeasure that his princess did not obtain the royal crown] (p. 9). Yet, de Tournes claims, this is excusable in view of Lemaire’s laudable fidelity to his employer, and the praise of France elsewhere in his work. Saint-Julien de Balleure’s epistle, like Du Moulin’s, exploits links between Margaret and the addressee, in this case Margaret’s niece Eleanor of Austria, second wife of Francis I. The author reworks the central metaphor of the Couronne, in which an allegorical crown is constructed in Margaret’s honour, and mentions the characters Vertu and Merite from Lemaire’s narrative to suggest that Eleanor has all Margaret’s virtues: lesquelz iestimois dignes de viure immortellement: Elle, pour tousiours reluire en faits vertueux deuant les yeux des hommes; luy, pour estre perpetuel preconiseur de si glorieuse vertu. […] toutes les habitudes vertueuses, pour lesquelles dame Vertu ha mis l’Orfeure Merite en peine de composer ceste triomphante Couronne, laquelle (aussi) par le decedz de ladite tresillustre Princesse vous appartient.

The Printed Reception of Burgundian Writing in France before 1550

25

[whom I believed worthy of eternal life: she, so that her virtuous deeds might always shine out before men’s eyes; he, to be the perpetual herald of such glorious virtue. […] all the virtuous habits which made Dame Virtue put the goldsmith Merit to work constructing this glorious crown, which also, through the decease of this most illustrious princess, belongs to you.] (p. 12).

Lemaire’s function as the ‘perpetuel preconiseur’ of Margaret’s qualities is further underlined in two annotations to characters’ speeches in the Couronne itself. When Marsilio Ficino compares Anne of Brittany unfavourably to Margaret, and when Martin Le Franc claims that Margaret was unjustly deprived of the French crown, the notes observe that Lemaire was not in full possession of the facts, and in any case had a patron to praise: au tresgrand desplaisir delle et de tout le peuple de France, elle se vid desnuer de tiltre de royne, dont vne autre fut incontinent saisie, voire vne autre, qui touchant hautesse dextraction ne de formosité corporelle, ne de rectitude, perfection et integrité de membres, nestoit en rien à elle comparable. (Lautheur en parle comme vn affectionné seruiteur de sa maistresse, sans sauoir plus auant les importances à luy pour lors incongnues.) [to her very great displeasure, and that of the French people, she was deprived of the title of queen, which was immediately bestowed upon another woman; indeed, another woman who, in respect of noble descent, physical beauty, and the straightness, perfection and shapeliness of limbs, could not in any way be compared to her. (The author speaks of this as a devoted servant of his employer, ignorant of the details of important matters which were then unknown to him).] (pp. 126–7; annotation in parentheses) Marguerite ha esté frustree de la couronne Françoise par linfraction de foy du roy Charles huitieme. (Nul ne se peult dire frustré de ce, ou il n’ha aucun droit. Mais il faut plus condonner à l’affection de l’escriuain, que à son dire: qui possible escriuoit comme commandé de son superieur.) [Margaret was deprived of the French crown by the breach of promise of King Charles VIII. (Nobody can call himself deprived of something to which he has no right. But one must pardon the writer’s devotion more than his claims; he was possibly writing under orders from his superior.)] (p. 132; annotation in parentheses)

The multilayered paratext in de Tournes’s edition thus makes the Couronne’s political stance acceptable to a French audience, thereby perhaps also averting possible censorship or other retribution. The French publication of these three writers reflects, in different ways, the ambiguous region which Lemaire calls ‘Gaul’. When Chastelain’s work is printed, frontiers of any kind between France and Burgundy are not at issue: the selection of material privileges a generalized didactic discourse, based on material culturally quite distinct from the political realities of French-speaking lands in the late fifteenth century. In editions of Molinet’s work, the frontiers are sometimes erased by ingenious

26

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

editing, and sometimes subordinated to uncontroversial moral themes. With Lemaire’s publications, reflecting as they do a career of delicate political balancing, the accent is not so much on differences within Gaul – in the broad sense – as on the differences between Gaul, on the one hand, and non-Francophone powers (Venice, the Papacy) on the other. While the influence of ideology on French publishers cannot be separated from the influence of commercial factors, the political effects of the various editions are undeniable. The exercise of political power in these cases does not involve, as far as one can tell, the dictates of an élite. Rather, publishers appear to be asserting authority on their own account, albeit in accordance with the presumed values of the royal government. They are enacting not blanket censorship, but the partial reworking of selected material; and it is this very selectivity which makes the reworking difficult to identify. It is easy to overlook the process, or to regard the amendments as simply more cases of mouvance, the textual instability inherent in manuscript and early print culture.37 Yet close attention to the minutiae of transmission reveals a broadly consistent, if diffuse, pattern of ideologically informed amendments. Taken together, these amendments constitute a kind of cosmetic surgery: a set of excisions, reconstructions and enhancements, which make the body of Burgundian material more desirable to the dominant ways of seeing, reading and thinking.

37

On the ways in which an indiscriminate understanding of mouvance can blur scholarly understanding of the realities of transmission, see Keith Busby, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), I, pp. 59–63.

Chapter 3

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible (1575–79) as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith Kenneth Austin

Calvinism was, almost from the outset, an international form of Protestantism. Unlike the majority of first generation religious reform movements of the sixteenth century, it did not enjoy a particular identification with just one locality or cultural environment. Rather, from its base in Geneva, a religious impulse spread across the continent, uniting like-minded communities in a complex web of connections and associations. The leader of this movement in the early years personified this internationalism: John Calvin was a religious exile from France when he was invited to Geneva in 1536.1 Over the next twenty years, with the support of men like Guillaume Farel, he sought to bring about the Reformation of that city, and to impose his will upon both church and state.2 This process was completed in 1555, when Calvin and his followers were able to exploit a slight change in the political mood to admit large numbers of French immigrants as bourgeois, thereby consolidating their electoral base and marginalising the anti-French faction, which had done most to resist his plans. Thereafter, Calvin’s power in Geneva was without challenge; he was, in effect, in charge of the entire city. In addition, from 1555, Calvin, until his death in 1564, and then his successor Theodore Beza, were able to turn their attentions fully to the promotion of their brand of Protestantism, Calvinism, on an international basis. Especially in the early years, Geneva provided significant leadership for the movement, producing pastors, printed 1

2

On Calvin, see T.H.L. Parker, John Calvin. A Biography (London: Dent, 1975), William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Alister E. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), and the various articles in Articles on Calvin and Calvinism, Vol. 1: The Biography of Calvin, ed. Richard C. Gamble (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992). On this, see especially William G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation on the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). See also Robert M. Kingdon, ‘Calvin and the Establishment of Consistory Discipline in Geneva: The Institution and the Men who Directed It’, in Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiednis, 70 (1990), pp. 158–72.

28

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

matter and advice, as well as a striking example of a godly city, for the fledgling Calvinist communities of Europe.3 Indeed, by the 1560s and 1570s, this campaign had already met with several notable successes. France and the Netherlands witnessed the rapid spread of Calvinism and the formation of significant religious minorities,4 the Church of England became Calvinist, at least in terms of its theology,5 while Calvinism was introduced as the state religion into both Scotland and the German Palatinate.6 By the end of the third quarter of the sixteenth century, then, Calvinism had undoubtedly established itself as part of the continent’s religious and political status quo: despite its relatively late emergence, it had rapidly become one of the most vibrant and widely spread movements of the period, affecting and controlling large swathes of the continent. On the other hand, however, in its continued reliance on the Vulgate, the translation of the Bible made by St Jerome in the fourth century, and a text which had relatively recently been affirmed by the Catholic Church in 1546 at the Council of Trent, its pretensions to be a leading, and more importantly independent, confession were seriously undermined.7 This was a situation which the Christian-Hebraist Immanuel 3

4

5

6

7

On the concept of ‘International Calvinism’ see, for instance, Robert M. Kingdon, ‘International Calvinism’, in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600, Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. II: Visions, Programs and Outcomes, ed. Thomas A. Brady Jr, Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy (Grand Rapids, Michigan: E.J. Brill, 1995), pp. 229–48, and also the collections of essays International Calvinism, 1541–1715, ed. Menna Prestwich (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); Later Calvinism: International Perspectives, ed. W. Fred Graham (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994); and Calvinism in Europe, ed. Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). On France, see especially Robert M. Kingdon, Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (Geneva: Droz, 1956) and Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967); on the Netherlands, see Alastair C. Duke, Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (London and Ronceverte: Hambledon Press, 1990) and Andrew Pettegree, Emden and the Dutch Revolt: Exile and the Development of Reformed Protestantism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). On England, see for instance Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–1603 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990). The Catechism, of 1570, written by Alexander Nowell, issued by the church derived its theology from the Genevan Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism. The English Geneva Bible of 1560 enjoyed popularity well into the seventeenth century. On Scotland see Ian B. Cowan, The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth Century Scotland (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982) and Michael Lynch, Edinburgh and the Reformation (Edinburgh: Donald,1981); on the Palatinate see Claus-Peter Clasen, The Palatinate in European History, 1555–1618 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966) and Volker Press, Calvinismus und Territorialstaat: Regierung und Zentralbehörden der Kurpfalz, 1559–1619 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1970). See Louis B. Pascoe, ‘The Council of Trent and Bible Study: Humanism and Scripture’, Catholic Historical Review, 52 (1966): 19.

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith

29

Tremellius did much to resolve. In his biblical scholarship, and especially in his Latin translation of the Bible of 1575–79, he provided a viable alternative to the Vulgate. Indeed, it is the contention of this article that Tremellius’ Bible played a highly significant role in bolstering Calvinism as a free-standing international movement; this work provided a crucial part of the intellectual and theological foundation upon which the burgeoning political set-up needed to rest. In so doing, it is clear that this text did much to reinforce the Calvinist faith. However, as I will also suggest, there is a slight tension between what Tremellius intended for the work and the position which it came to occupy. An appreciation of this complex issue will have further implications for our understanding of the roles which texts could play in the early modern period: it is simplistic, for instance, to think of books as either shaping opinion, on the one hand, or bolstering existing views, on the other. Most religious and philosophical works, of course, did both. Paradoxically, however, Tremellius’ Bible did these things despite having surprisingly little to identify it as an explicitly Calvinist work. What is more, in this way this article highlights the discrepancy between an author’s intentions for his work and what his audience actually makes of it. A proper appreciation of these themes will help us better understand the intellectual and religious culture in which these works appeared. Before moving on to look at this work in more detail, it is perhaps fitting that I should say a little about Tremellius himself. Although he was a figure with a considerable international reputation by the time of his death, he has largely been overlooked in more modern scholarship, with the result that the scope and nature of his contribution to the sixteenth century has not properly been appreciated.8 At least partly as a result of this absence of historical attention, our knowledge of Tremellius’ life is far less comprehensive than for many of the better known figures of the period. Virtually nothing remains from the first 30 years of his life. Nonetheless, the materials which have survived do allow us to reconstruct a coherent account of his career. Indeed, we can speak in considerable detail about the second half of Tremellius’ life, by which time he had risen to real prominence. He was born as a Jew in Ferrara in or around 1510; little is known about his family or his early life, but one must assume that during these years he received his education and, at the age of 13, he would have undergone his Bar Mitzvah, the ceremony which marks the initiation of a Jewish boy into the adult community. In about 1530, it is

8

Only two biographies, both dating from the nineteenth century, exist. These are Friedrich Butters, Emanuel Tremellius, erster Rector des Zweibrücker Gymnasiums. Eine Lebenskizze zur Feier des dreihundertjahrigen Jubiläums dieser Studienanstalt (Zweibrücken: n.p., 1859) and Wilhelm Becker, Immanuel Tremellius. Ein Proselyntenleben im Zeitalter der Reformation (Breslau: C Dülser, 1887; 2nd edition, Leipzig: J.C. Hinrische Buchhandlung, 1890). Both are very short accounts of his life, and both have serious limitations. My doctoral thesis, ‘From Judaism to Calvinism: The Life and Writings of Immanuel Tremellius (1510, 1580)’ (University of St Andrews, 2002) is the first extended treatment of his life in over a century.

30

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

thought that Tremellius left Ferrara for Padua, where he entered the university. At the end of that decade, he converted to Catholicism, probably of quite an evangelical character, through the influence of Cardinal Reginald Pole, who organised his baptism and held it in his own household in Padua. In the summer of 1541, Tremellius headed to Lucca, where Peter Martyr Vermigli, who had recently been appointed prior of the rich and influential monastery of San Frediano, was gathering around himself the best men he could find for the instruction of his charges. Tremellius provided instruction in Hebrew. At the same time, Peter Martyr is known to have been expressing Protestant views in his daily sermons in Lucca. Tremellius was one of a considerable number who was prompted to leave the Catholic church as a result; he underwent his second conversion in as many years. Unfortunately for him, his conversion was swiftly followed by the revival of the Roman Inquisition, in July 1542, whose main purpose was to root out heresies, and especially Protestantism. Tremellius, like Martyr and many others, chose to flee across the Alps. For the next four decades he travelled through much of northern Europe, teaching Hebrew and Old Testament studies in a wide range of highly prestigious academies and universities, including Strasbourg, Cambridge, Hornbach, Heidelberg and Sedan. Of these posts, the one he held for longest was his Professorship of Old Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He was there from 1561 to 1576. This was also the most productive phase of his career: he brought to fruition most of the writings which survive from his career, including his editions of the Old and New Testaments. Tremellius died in France in 1580 at the grand old age of 70, from where he seems rapidly to have disappeared into the footnotes of history. As I have just mentioned, Tremellius’ editions of both testaments of the Bible date from his time in Heidelberg. According to his own testimony, Tremellius began working on his edition of the New Testament in the middle of the 1560s. This work was a polyglot edition, which contained four versions of the New Testament, arranged in columns across the double page, each of which carried with it its own set of annotations.9 From left to right, these were a Greek text, the Latin Vulgate, the Syriac Peshitta, and finally Tremellius’ own Latin translation of the Syriac text. Two points are worth mentioning in passing here. First, Tremellius’ main contribution in relation to this volume was providing a translation of the New Testament from Syriac; all previous translations had, of course, been made from Greek. Secondly, there is the fact that he chose the Vulgate as his comparator Latin text, rather than an explicitly Protestant version. This work was then bound together, in two volumes, with Tremellius’ Aramaic and Syriac grammar, and published in 1569, in Geneva, by Henri Estienne, the son of the renowned Robert Estienne. Around 1570, Tremellius began his Latin translation of the Old Testament, in conjunction with Franciscus

9

Immanuel Tremellius, H KAINH ∆ΙΑΘΗΚΗ. TESTAMENTUM NOVVM. Est autem interpretatio syriaca novi Testamenti, Hebraeis Typis Descripta, Plerisque etiam locis emendata. Eadem Latino Sermone Reddita (Geneva: H. Estienne, 1569).

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith

31

Junius, who was not, as has often erroneously been suggested, his son-in-law. The latter was also responsible, alone, for a translation of the Apocrypha, which was generally appended to their joint translation. This work, which was again heavily annotated, first appeared in Frankfurt in five volumes between 1575 and 1579.10 Andreas Wechel, part of another illustrious printing dynasty, was responsible for this first edition; his descendants would see several more editions of this work through their presses. Indeed, as Robert Evans has commented, this Bible was ‘the most important book [the Wechels] ever published’.11 The Old Testament was almost immediately reprinted in London in 1579 to 1580, with Tremellius’ Latin rendering of the Syriac New Testament constituting a sixth part.12 Thereafter, the two went through numerous editions and reprintings across Europe. While each testament did occasionally appear on its own, more common was a complete Bible. With the exception of this first London edition, this either meant that Tremellius’ Old Testament was put with Beza’s New Testament, made from the Greek, or else that Beza’s and Tremellius’ translations of the New Testament were printed together in parallel columns. Historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries seem pretty consistent in regarding Tremellius’ Bible as the foremost Protestant Latin translation to emerge from the period. F.L. Cross, in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, writes that ‘Tremellius’ greatest work is his translation of the Old and New Testaments into Latin, from Hebrew and Syriac respectively. This was long the standard Protestant Latin translation of the Bible’.13 E.I. Carlyle, in the Dictionary of National Biography, remarks that while it was far from faultless, Tremellius’ translation ‘evinced very thorough scholarship, and for long, both in England and on the continent, was adopted by the reformers as the most accurate rendering’.14 Deborah Shuger, in her monograph on the Renaissance Bible, quite simply describes Tremellius as ‘the translator of the major Protestant Latin Bible’.15 D. de Sola Pool, in an article written at the start of

10 11 12 13 14 15

Immanuel Tremellius, BIBLIORUM PARS PRIMA, id est QUINQUE LIBRI MOSCHIS Latini recens ex Hebraeo facti (Frankfurt am Main: Andreas Wechel, 1575–79). R.J.W. Evans, ‘The Wechel Presses: Humanism and Calvinism in Central Europe, 1572–1627’, Past and Present (supplement 1975), p. 33. Immanuel Tremellius, Testamenti Veteris … libri Canonici … Latini … facti (London: Middleton; Barker, 1579, 1580). F.L. Cross, ‘Tremellius, John Immanuel’, in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 1638. E.I. Carlyle, ‘Tremellius, John Immanuel (1510–1580)’, in The Dictionary of National Biography 57 (London: Smith, Elder, 1899), p. 187. Debora Kuller Shuger, The Renaissance Bible. Scholarship, Sacrifice and Subjectivity (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998), p. 16. My italics.

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

32

Table 3.1 Editions of Tremellius’ New Testament

1 2 3 4 *

Year

Location

Size

1569 1571 1621 1622

Geneva Lyon Cothen Cothen

folio folio? 4to 4to

Printers/Publishers H. Estienne ‘in bibliopolo Salamandrae’* M. Trostius M. Trostius

This edition is mentioned in a note on the 1569 edition in Darlow and Moule’s Catalogue of Bibles, but I have been unable to find an extant copy of it, to confirm this independently.

the twentieth century, describes Tremellius’ translation of the Old Testament as ‘one of the classical works of the Reformation’.16 The information contained in Table 3.2 would go some way to endorsing these claims. The geographical diversity of editions is immediately striking: it was printed in Frankfurt, London, Geneva, Hanau and Amsterdam. The frequency with which the Bible was reprinted is equally remarkable. So far I have come across 17 editions of his New Testament and 34 of his Old Testament. The latter figure is the more important, because most editions of the New Testament are simply the final parts of complete Bibles; the four for which that is not the case have been put into the separate table (Table 3.1). These numbers are substantial. My own calculations suggest that, for the century following 1580, once the Vulgate and the Sixto-Clementine revision of that work, both of which were clearly aimed at a Catholic audience, are removed, Tremellius’ Bible went through more than twice as many editions as all other Latin translations of the Bible combined.17 Of course, one must be wary of attaching too much significance to the number of editions alone, as these do not take into account the relative size of print runs. Nonetheless, they do at least suggest the predominance of Tremellius’ Bible. Moreover, if we assume that an average edition consisted of somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 copies, then the 34 editions of his Old Testament would have constituted between 50,000 and 100,000 copies. In addition, Tremellius’ Bible does seem to have enjoyed a longevity unparalleled by any of the other Protestant Latin translations to emerge from the sixteenth century. While its heyday was undoubtedly the end of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, a further nine editions were published after 1650, including one each in the first two decades of the eighteenth century.

16 17

D. de Sola Pool, ‘The Influence of Some Jewish Apostates on the Reformation’, Jewish Review, 2/7–12 (May 1911 to March 1912): 340. I have collated 162 different Latin Bible editions from between 1579 and 1680. Of these,114 are clearly versions of the Vulgate. Of the remaining 48, Tremellius is an author of 34, which leaves only 14 other editions.

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith

33

Table 3.2 Editions of Tremellius’ Old Testament Year

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

1575–79 1579–80 1581 1585 1590 1592–93 1596 1596 1592–97 1602 1603 1607 1617 1618 1618 1623–24 1627 1628 1630 1631 1632 1633 1639 1640 1648 1651 1656 1661 1669 1673 1680 1688 1703 1715

Location

Frankfurt London London London Geneva London Hanau Hanau London Hanau Hanau Sancti Gervasi Geneva Hanau Hanau Hanau Amsterdam Amsterdam Geneva Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsterdam London Amsterdam Amsterdam London London Amsterdam Zurich London Amsterdam Zurich Hanau

Size

folio 4to 4to 4to 4to folio folio 8vo folio 4to/8vo? folio folio folio 4to 8vo folio 12mo 12mo folio 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 12mo 8vo 12mo 12mo 8vo 8vo

Printers/ Publishers Andreas Wechel Middleton; Barker Middleton Middleton; Barker Tornaesius; Wechels Bishop, Newbery etc. Wechels; Aubri Wechels; Aubri Bishop, Newbery etc. Wechels; Aubri Wechels; Aubri Sumpt. Cal. Soc. M. Berjon Wechels; Aubri Wechels; Aubri Wechels J. Jansson G.I. Caesium Philip Albert G.I. Blaeuw J. Jansson Blaeuw Blaeuw Flesher J. Jansson I. Blaeuw E. Tyler and A.M. E. Tyler I.I. Schipper Bodmerianus Norton; Ponder J. Jansson D. Gessner N. Forster

New Testament

Trem. Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Trem./Beza Beza Trem./Beza Beza Beza Trem./Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza Beza

34

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Much of the success of this work is undoubtedly a product of its perceived quality. In this, Tremellius’ Jewish background, and his consequent introduction to the study of Hebrew at a much younger age than his Christian contemporaries, must certainly have played a part. It is primarily for this reason, one must imagine, that he enjoyed such a successful professional career as a professor of Hebrew: especially in the sixteenth century, relatively few people were proficient in the semitic languages, and Tremellius was substantially ahead of this field. His skills as a hebraist, and more importantly his readiness to use them in a Christian context, moreover, seem largely to have helped him overcome the prejudices which most Jews and Jewish converts suffered during this period. Of course, being able to say that one translation is better than another is a very subjective statement. In this regard, the nature of Tremellius’ translation undoubtedly had a part to play. He offers quite a colourful explanation of his attitude, for instance, in his preface to the New Testament. He writes: ‘Moreover, from a very elegant Syriac text, we have rendered it into perhaps not the best Latin, but it is at least bearable, and can express and present the main ideas of the Syriac text as fully as possible. In this I would rather appear like a concerned knight who does not dare move an inch from his master than earn praise as a skilful translator (if I were particularly able to do so) by roaming freely’.18 Such comments are equally true of his Old Testament. As Basil Hall, in an extensive article on the biblical scholarship of the sixteenth century, comments: ‘This version turned away from the method of Castellio to the older more literal method of Munster, and sought to convey the Hebrew sense and idiom without sacrificing Latin style’.19 In relation to the New Testament, in particular, there was a further reason why Tremellius’ work was considered so favourably. The very fact that his translation of the New Testament was made from the Syriac rather than Greek was part of this. The Syriac version of the New Testament was thought to reflect an earlier version than any to which Jerome had had access. Some believed that the Gospel of Matthew and the Letter to the Hebrews had been written in Syriac, and it was even suggested that God himself had spoken that language; consequently, a claim could be made that as an older text, this was superior to the Latin Vulgate used by the Catholic Church. The Catholics countered by saying that the antiquity of the Syriac text was being overstated. In fact, it seems most likely that this text appeared early in the fifth century. The vogue for the Syriac can be quite easily perceived in the version of the New Testament 18

19

‘Praeterea ex Syriacis in suo genere elegantissimis, Latina fortasse non optima, sed tamen tolerabilia effecimus, & eiusmodi quae efficacitatem Syriacam, quantum eius fieri potest, representent & exprimant. Malim enim in hoc genere servus videri timidiusculus, qui nusquam a domini vestigiis audeat discedere, quam licenter vagando, diserti interpretis laudem (si vel id maxime possim) aucupare.’ Tremellius, H KAINH ∆ΙΑΘΗΚΗ. TESTAMENTUM NOVVM, dedication p. 7. Basil Hall, ‘Biblical Scholarship: Edition and Commentaries’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. III: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. S.L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 72–3.

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith

35

which completes the Tremellius-Junius editions in the table: in the 50 years after the first appearance of the complete Bible, the vast majority have the two versions of the New Testament, made from the Greek and Syriac respectively, whereas from 1630 onwards, it is always Beza’s translation which is included. These works were, of course, regarded as Calvinist from the outset. Even if, as I would contend, Tremellius was not the most committed or ardent of Calvinists, he was certainly universally perceived as a member of that confession. As the biographical sketch towards the beginning of this piece indicated, following his exile from Italy, Tremellius worked only in Reformed or sympathetic localities and institutions; similarly, he was frequently obliged to give up various jobs when the religious climate turned less favourable for Calvinists. This association with Calvinism is also apparent more specifically in the volumes themselves. As we have already seen, Beza’s New Testament was almost always a part of the Tremellius-Junius editions, either on its own or alongside Tremellius’ Syriacderived translation. After Calvin’s death in 1564, Beza was the leading figure within the Calvinist movement. In addition, one needs to consider the various figures to whom the different parts of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and the New Testament were dedicated. These were the Elector of the Palatinate, Frederick III; John Casimir, his son and the Duke of the Palatinate; William of Hesse; William of Orange; and Queen Elizabeth I of England. This constitutes a veritable who’s who of political Calvinism in this period. Finally, there is the fact that this text was largely published in Reformed or Reformed-sympathetic areas of Europe, and by printers and publishers who had strong associations with that faith too. Clearly then, this was a text written by a Calvinist scholar for a predominantly Calvinist audience. As we have also already seen, it is a work which met with quite phenomenal success in terms of its publishing history. Various reasons may be adduced to explain why this was the case, but one of the most influential must surely be what Pool considers Tremellius’ chief claim to historical recognition, namely that his Latin Bible ‘ranks high among the Protestant Bibles which made possible the revolt from Rome and from the Vulgate’.20 Of course, seeing the Vulgate as an exclusively Catholic text in the sixteenth century is simplistic; it originated in the Christian heritage shared by the Catholic and Protestant faiths. Consequently, even following the Reformation, it continued to be treated with great respect by adherents of both confessions. Nonetheless, as the century progressed, there developed an increasing identification between the Vulgate and Catholicism, something which was further endorsed, as we have already seen, at Trent. The provision of vernacular translations of the scriptures and their use for various dogmatic and confessional purposes are both well attested features of the emergent Protestantism of the sixteenth century, but this was a process that was undermined by a continued reliance on the Vulgate. Not only were Protestant scholars coming to regard it as an increasingly flawed text, but its continuing use also implied an indebtedness to the confession from which they were striving to separate themselves.

20

Pool, ‘Influence of Some Jewish Apostates’, p. 340.

36

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

It was against this background, then, that Tremellius produced his translation of the Bible, and in so doing resolved both issues: it could serve as a viable alternative to the Vulgate, both in its own right as a Latin Bible, and be used as a tool towards other enterprises such as vernacular translations. Perhaps more importantly, however, because of the level and quality of its scholarship, itself no doubt a product of Tremellius’ Jewish background, it could make a serious claim to being superior to the Vulgate. As we have already considered, such claims are impossible to substantiate beyond question (and the Catholics continued to endorse the claims of the Vulgate against these more recent challenges), but Tremellius’ version was particularly wellreceived by the Calvinists of his and later generations. Without doubt this was because they saw in Tremellius’ work the means of reinforcing on intellectual grounds an organisation which was already well-established in political and theological terms. The Bible was, in many ways, the foundation of what Calvinism was; Tremellius’ translation, indeed, provided an essential pillar upon which the faith needed to be able to rest if it were to survive in the longer term. On the other hand, however, it is worth considering that this was probably not quite what Tremellius had in mind when he put together these volumes. We have already encountered his attitude to the text of the Syriac New Testament, and the value which he attached to the provision of a literal and accurate translation. The fact that he was prepared to use the Latin Vulgate as his comparator text in that work makes it clear that he was not, at least explicitly, trying to attack that work, or prove his merits against it. We get a similar impression in relation to his translation of the Old Testament. In the preface to that work, he also demonstrates a real modesty in relation to his enterprise. He begins by listing various reasons which had discouraged him from publishing the work in the first place,21 and throughout he seeks to emphasise the good that will come to the church as a whole from a properly understood Hebrew text, rather than any personal glory which may come to him as its translator.22 The fact that he was in the last years of his life might dissuade us from being overly cynical about this remark. The annotations with which Tremellius supplements his translation give a very clear indication of what he felt he was doing in publishing this work, and, more generally, help us to evaluate its character. In addition, it is evident that he views his own work as part of a continuing scholarly endeavour, rather than as the culmination of it. He clearly thinks that his work is, in the main, better than those which have gone before – if he did not it would hardly be worth publishing it in the first place – but he still praises his antecedents and remarks that it would be spiteful to highlight their errors or omissions.23 Again, it is noteworthy that Tremellius does not single out the Vulgate for censure. Rather, he is happy that the reader should compare his

21 22 23

Tremellius, Bibliorum Pars Prima, preface, pp. 1–2. Ibid., pp. 3–4. Ibid., especially pp. 7–8.

Immanuel Tremellius’ Latin Bible as a Pillar of the Calvinist Faith

37

work with those that have gone before to judge its merits. Similarly, he accepts that people should compare his work with future translations, and indeed that, ultimately, it too will be superseded.24 In my own work, I have looked primarily at the annotative materials, rather than the translation itself.25 By identifying what is programmatic in the annotations, I have hoped to both evaluate the character of these works and to build up a picture of what I think Tremellius felt he was doing in producing them. Here it will be enough to mention briefly a number of the most frequent sorts of information with which Tremellius supplements his Bible editions. In one set of annotations, he offers corrections to his base text; this is especially true of his translation of the New Testament, not least because the Syriac was a relatively new discovery. In another set, he provides more literal renderings of verses of phrases, of which he has given a slightly more stylish translation. Tremellius also provides information which is intended to help his readers better understand the Scriptures as a literary text. He offers literary criticism, providing remarks on genre, structure, and rhetorical features of the text, such as figures of speech. All of this indicates that Tremellius feels that the Bible should be appreciated as a piece of literature. In a further set of footnotes, he refers to other parts of the Bible, and indeed to other, and especially classical, authorities. In Tremellius’ mind, this is a text which can correspond with other sources of wisdom and can be located within an independent historical and geographical context. On the other hand, exegesis, which was often a key component of sixteenth century biblical study, is in fact a relatively minor element of the annotations accompanying Tremellius’ translation. There are no glaring defences or expositions of obvious Calvinist doctrines; likewise, there are no attacks on other Christian confessions or on Judaism, which one might have expected to encounter here. At the same time, however, there are certain underlying theological principles, which do sometimes surface during the course of Tremellius’ annotations. In various places, we can identify an explicit belief in the Trinity while even more pronounced is his Christocentrism. Clearly, especially in these two themes, there was very little that could have caused offence to other Christians. The range of annotations which I have just skimmed through, then, does much to establish the character of this work and to explain the rather ambiguous position it came to occupy. On the one hand, it was a work of considerable scholarship produced by one of the leading Hebraists of the age. Both in its accuracy of translation and the wealth of explanatory material with which it was supplemented, it made a strong claim to be the best version of the Bible produced to that point. Because of the confessional allegiances of its author and its dedicatees in particular, it was always regarded as a Calvinist text, and as such played a significant role in bolstering that faith on theological and intellectual grounds. It removed the need for a continuing reliance on the Vulgate, 24 25

Ibid., p. 8. See chapters 5 and 6 of my doctoral thesis for a fuller treatment of these annotations.

38

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

which had, as I have said, come increasingly to be regarded as a Catholic text. On the other hand, as we have also seen, this was a largely supra-confessional text. There was very little that would have been unacceptable to all Christian confessions. This, of course, has significant implications for our understanding of Calvinism and the confessional struggles of the early modern period as a whole. Behind the polemical debates and the theological dogmatism, which are often seen to characterize the era, there was a more scholarly agenda. The Bible, accurately understood, was the starting point of the Reformation; as the success of Tremellius’ Bible indicates, moreover, this was true just as much at the end of the sixteenth century as it had been at the start.

Chapter 4

‘It was not mine intent to prostitute my Muse in English’: Academic Publication in Early Modern England Sarah Knight

Publication by scholars at the early modern universities in England was a complicated activity, particularly when they decided to publish in the vernacular. These scholars were the first to comment on the impact of printing on their production of literature and on their academic reputations. Although the act of publication offered an opportunity to win preferment and advance a career, university authors who chose to have their work printed discussed the act with ambivalence, articulating their concerns about how publication might compromise their scholarly seriousness and threaten their right to belong to the academic élite. By imagining that their university colleagues would perceive their participation in commercial literary production as indecorous, these publishing scholars offer valuable perspectives on how printing was regarded at the early modern universities. Two of the most eloquent commentators on contemporary print culture were Gabriel Harvey, Cambridge rhetorician and would-be courtier of the 1570s and 1580s, and Robert Burton, Oxford polymath and author of The Anatomy of Melancholy (first published in 1621). These writers explored the role and reception of the publishing scholar in sharply differing ways, but shared an interest in the commercial forces behind the growth of print and in the more nebulous forces of decorum and scholarly status that specifically affected the academic writer. They dwelt particularly on the choice to publish in the vernacular, which was by no means straightforward in the intellectual sphere they inhabited; both men were bilingual writers, who opted to publish in English only after many years of writing in Latin. Central to a scholarly reputation in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century was facility in Latin, the language of teaching, administration and official communication within the universities. The vernacular, on the other hand, was the language of extra-curricular social interaction and entertainment, traditionally associated with the world outside the academy. The association of the English language with demotic entertainment was important for both Harvey and Burton. Both writers returned repeatedly to what it meant for a scholar to perform as a writer in English, and used the metaphor of the publishing scholar as a commercial actor, giving a not necessarily willing performance within the sphere of literary publication. Removed by their profession from the world of literary exchange at court and from the world

40

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

of commercial publication in London, these two authors seem unsure of how to characterize their position, uncertain where they belong as scholars publishing in English. Crucially, both men imaginatively reconstructed an academy distrustful of vernacular publication. For different purposes, Harvey and Burton figured the effort to court extra-academic acclaim as potentially self-serving and inappropriate for the genuine scholar, defining success within the university microcosm against favourable reception outside college walls. The opposition recently formulated by Pierre Bourdieu, modern sociologist of the academy, valuably structures a discussion of these two impulses: Bourdieu separates the accumulation and management of academic capital (individual research, pedagogy, institutional duties), from what he terms ‘the work of representation which contributes to the accumulation of a symbolic capital of external renown’.1 For early modern scholars, external renown, manifest as extra-academic acclaim, was an ambiguous effect of publication. To use Bourdieu’s opposition, this renown was frequently figured as antithetical to purely academic activity. Bourdieu’s dichotomy can be usefully applied to Harvey in particular. His quest for external renown – specifically, the approval and patronage of powerful Elizabethan courtiers such as the Earl of Leicester – took him away from the university and ended his academic career, terminally damaging his scholarly credibility. Earlier in his career, Gabriel Harvey appears to have concentrated on the accumulation of academic capital rather than on the pursuit of external renown. Yet even when he was writing on conventionally scholarly topics, his acts of publication were professionally strategic, since the approval of his academic colleagues was crucially important to him, and so he published with an eye to advancement within the university. As Praelector of Rhetoric, he accumulated academic capital by having his lectures published as a guide to rhetoric, Ciceronianus (1577), a book which fell within a continuum of humanist debate over the proper use of imitation and rhetorical instruction. The book seems to have been well received, but even so its appearance was unusual: the publication of academic orations and lectures was not common in England, particularly not by scholars as relatively minor as Harvey. Harvey dedicated the Ciceronianus to William Lewin, an ecclesiastical lawyer who had previously held the post of Public Orator at Cambridge between 1570 and 1571. The dedication shows that he was already thinking of behaviour appropriate to scholars in the field of publication and defining himself somewhat disingenuously as a member of the academic élite at Cambridge against a munificent court culture in London. In his dedication to Lewin, Harvey represents himself as a poor scholar, devoted to his discipline, who cannot send Lewin gold or silver as a New Year’s gift: ‘Giving such gifts is for you Londoners’, Harvey writes, ‘not for us Cantabrigians’.2 Harvey can

1 2

Pierre Bourdieu, Homo Academicus, trans. Peter Collier (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988, first published 1984), p. 98. ‘Londinenses sunt hae vestrae, non nostrae Cantabrigienses strenae.’ Gabriel Harvey, Ciceronianus, ed. Harold S. Wilson, trans. Clarence A. Forbes (Lincoln, Nebraska: Studies in the Humanities No. 4, 1945), p. 36.

Academic Publication in Early Modern England

41

only send his book, he claims, thus defining himself against the courtly practice of gift-giving. Yet he was already starting to think of abandoning a Cambridge he figures here as nobly and self-denyingly bookish for London and the world of court ritual. Ciceronianus granted him some fame and fuelled his social and academic ambition. The book also spurred him to look beyond the universities, to other forms of literary production geared towards courtly success rather than institutional approbation. Harvey became associated with a particular printer, Henry Bynneman. Two years previously, Bynneman had published the orations made to Queen Elizabeth by Laurence Humphrey, the President of Magdalen College, Oxford. Although Harvey pretends in his Preface that he knows little of courtly London, he was already aiming at renown in the capital as well as at Cambridge: his courting of a London publisher who had already been involved with university writers suggests that he pitched his volume carefully, to a printer who would look favourably on a scholar’s work. Lewin probably helped Harvey secure Bynneman’s involvement.3 Harvey’s Latin publications brought him to the notice of the court. In 1578 he was introduced to Elizabeth when she visited Audley End, an aristocratic residence near Cambridge.4 Immediately afterwards, Bynneman published Harvey’s Gratulationes Valdinenses, a Latin rhetorical and emblematic work derived from the Queen’s visit.5 As Harvey manoeuvred himself into place to receive hoped-for offers of literary preferment, he published several Latin poems, but in the period when Sidney, Spenser and others at court were debating the possibilities of verse composition in English, Harvey did not want to be left behind.6 To reach a wider public, Harvey knew he would have to circulate his writing in English. His ‘letter-book’ contains several experiments in vernacular verse composition written during the 1570s.7 But Harvey was hampered by the publishing conventions of his profession. A manuscript letter of 1579, extant in draft in Harvey’s ‘letter-book’, sets out dramatically Harvey’s anxieties about how the university authorities would respond to his English publication. In this letter, written to Edmund Spenser, Harvey

3 4

5 6

7

See Harold S. Wilson, ‘Introduction’, Ciceronianus, pp. 11–12. In her article on Spenser and Harvey’s publication strategies, ‘No Room at the Top’, Muriel Bradbrook refers to this meeting as ‘Malvolio’s little moment of glory’ (p. 24) (‘No Room at the Top: Spenser’s Pursuit of Fame’, in The Artist and Society in Shakespeare’s England: The Collected Papers of Muriel Bradbrook (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1982), I, pp. 19–36. Bradbrook, ‘No Room at the Top’, pp. 24–5; Virginia F. Stern, Gabriel Harvey: His Life, Marginalia and Library (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 46–50. For instance, Harvey published the Latin funeral elegy Smithus, vel Lachrymae Musarum [‘Smith, or the Tears of the Muses’] (1578) on the death of his patron, Sir Thomas Smith, and wrote a long, unpublished epic poem on Elizabeth’s reign, the Anticosmopolita, or Britanniae Apologia. See Stern, Gabriel Harvey, pp. 50–51. See Stern, Gabriel Harvey, p. 34.

42

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

dwells morbidly on the risks of publication.8 Read in isolation, the fears Harvey articulates seem melodramatic. Yet when we set the letter in the context of how Harvey’s act of publication was received by his contemporaries, the anxieties expressed about the loss of scholarly credibility and the disapproval of the institutional authorities acquire weight and shape. The letter is disingenuous, but even though Harvey does not offer an unmediated outpouring of his authentic feelings, his representation of the academy and the professional anxieties he articulates are most telling. Harvey was clearly aware that although he wished to participate in courtly experiments in the vernacular, he nonetheless lived within a university whose medium was Latin. In his letter he imagines the university’s reception to publication in English, conjuring up a stern audience of academics who view his work in the vernacular as frivolous and undignified. His letter reveals his doubts about the difficulty of his position, wavering between the academy and the world of literary preferment. A sense of institutional élitism and awareness of university prohibitions underpin Harvey’s letter. He turns the official terms of university censure upon himself as he imagines the Cambridge response to this publication, setting himself within a place of misrule frowned upon the university. At the university during the 1570s and 1580s, Sturbridge Fair, held near to Cambridge, was legendary as a site of demotic entertainment: university statutes forbade student visits there and figured the fair as riddled with vice and disease.9 Harvey appears to have internalized this prohibition, placing himself and his book at the fair, among the pamphlets and ballads sold there. His élitist imagination seizes on his demotion from a specialist in Latin oratory to a common balladeer as he launches into an imitation of a bookseller at a fair: And nowe, forsoothe, as a mighty peece of worke not of mine own voluntarile election, which might have chosen a thousand matters both more agreable to my person and more acceptable to others, but they muste needs in all haste no remedye be sett to sale in Bartholomewe and Stirbridge fayer, with what lack ye Gentlemen?10

In his polyphonous discussion of academic publication, Harvey moves from the persona of the ballad seller cannily emphasizing the poems’ provenance (‘I wisse he is an University man that made it, and yea highlye commendid vnto me for a greate scholler’) to his own stance as a worried scholar (‘howe will my right worshipfull and

8

9

10

Gabriel Harvey, Works, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 3 vols (no place or publisher, 1884–85), I, pp. 111–26. The original letter is in Sloane MS 93, fol. 35v, the ‘Letter-book’ of Gabriel Harvey, at the British Library. In 1574 a ‘five-mile rule’ was established forbidding any demotic entertainment within a five-mile radius of the university precincts: as well as the threat of plague, the authorities seem also to have objected to the ‘great assemblies of vulger people’ found there (Letter from the Privy Council to the University, October 1575, cited in Records of Early English Drama, ed. Alan H. Nelson (Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press, 1989), I, p. 276. Harvey, Works, I, p. 113.

Academic Publication in Early Modern England

43

thrisevenerable masters of Cambridge scorne at the matter?’).11 Harvey represents simultaneously three separate attitudes towards vernacular publication: the author’s (tentative, self-doubting), that of the fairground hawker (grasping, mercantilistic) and that of the university authorities (élitist, disapproving). Caught between the imaginary vendor, who looks on the book’s academic provenance as a fortunate marketing gimmick, and the censoring academics, who look down on vernacular publication, Harvey figures himself as poised between the sphere of commercial literary production and the world of academic capital and scholarly credibility. For Harvey, the potential consequence of vernacular publication is that it may cause him to be ‘utterlye discredditid and quite disgracid for ever’.12 In the letter, he articulates the fear that he will lost his reputation as a scholarly rhetorician, his university standing and his membership of the élite Cambridge community. He blames Spenser and the printer for pushing his vernacular literary experimentation into the public sphere: What greater and more odious infamye for on of my standinge in the Universitye and profession abroade then to be reckonid in the Beaderoule of Inglish Rimers … Canst thou now tell me or doist thou nowe begin to imagin with thyselfe what a wunderfull and exceedinge displeasure thou and thy Prynter have wroughte me?13

Harvey’s aggrieved questions showcase his obsessions: professional pride (‘on of my standinge in the Universitye’), the ignominy of appearing in vernacular print (among ‘the Beaderoule of Inglish rimers’) and the publication (the ‘making public’) of work in a linguistic medium that will be unacceptable to the university. We have seen how unpopular local fairs were among the university authorities in the Cambridge of the 1570s and 1580s. Just as worthy of criticism were the London stage and the professional acting companies it fostered. By 1593, players had been forbidden from Oxford and Cambridge because of their dissolute reputation.14 The authorities regarded interest in local fairs and the professional stage as a symptom of pernicious worldliness and frivolity among the student population, a social malaise that grew more serious throughout the late Elizabethan period.15 When Harvey

11 12 13 14

15

Ibid., pp. 113–14. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid. Penry Williams, ‘State, Church and University 1558–1603’, in The History of the University of Oxford, III: The Collegiate University, ed. James McConica (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 397–440, 404; F.S. Boas, University Drama in the Tudor Age (repr. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1966, first published 1914), pp. 222–7. This institutional vice was perceived by the authorities at both Oxford and Cambridge: see C.M. Dent, Protestant Reformers in Elizabethan Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), ch. 8, pp. 181–200, for a discussion of how the authorities dealt with perceived student vice at Elizabethan Oxford. For an Oxford Puritan’s view of the diabolical effects of the commercial theatre, see John Rainoldes, Th’Overthrow of Stage Playes (1599).

44

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

comes to imagine further reasons why the university authorities might disapprove of his act of vernacular publication, he represents himself not only as a hack-writer to be trumpeted at a local fair, but also as an stage actor, that most disreputable of contemporary professions. For Harvey, when the scholar becomes an actor, his reputation instantly becomes sullied: he castigates Spenser for ‘thrustinge [him] thus on the stage to make tryall of [his] extemporall faculty’, making him into a theatrical clown playing ‘Tarletons parte’.16 Harvey builds on this metaphor to emphasize how inappropriate forced playacting is for a scholar: luridly he envisions that his career will turn into ‘sum mallconceivid comedye fitt for the Theater’ enacted for a vulgar audience so that they ‘maye laughe ther mouthes and bellyes full for pence or twoepence apeece’.17 Harvey’s self-depiction as a professional actor is crucial to understanding his fears of mocking reception at the university, for institutional hostilities to the professional theatre shaped Harvey’s concerns about how his own published works would be received. The concerns articulated in the 1579 letter are fuelled by academic snobbery. Harvey fears that the act of vernacular publication will place him in the lowest cultural rank: he will become a performer, and a seller, of his own talents. Harvey ultimately draws an analogy between vernacular publication and prostitution: ‘would to God that all the ilfavorid copyes of my nowe prostituted devises were buried a greate deale deeper in the centre of the erthe …’.18 Harvey was the first to articulate so vehement a scholarly fear over the reception and potential stigma over an act of vernacular publication; his anxieties proved justified. When his English correspondence with Spenser was published a year later, these Three Proper and wittie, familiar letters were badly received at the universities.19 Harvey’s scholarly status did become a selling-point, just as he had feared: the Three Letters were marketed as having ‘lately passed between two Vniuersitie men’.20 The Three Letters brought ridicule upon him at Cambridge, directed at his hastiness to advertise his talents, and his interest in vernacular poetics. The third letter includes ‘some Precepts of our Englishe reformed Versifying’, which prompted such lampoons as ‘Uppon Harvyes vile arrogant English versifyinge’ written at Oxford in 1581.21 Harvey’s hubris in presenting himself as both Latin scholar and English poet was unprecedented, and the universities responded swiftly and sarcastically. The highly-coloured paranoia manifest in the 1579 letter anticipated an actual reaction, for the very reasons Harvey had imagined. Students

16 17 18 19

20 21

Harvey, Works, I, p.125. Richard Tarlton (d. 1588) was Elizabeth’s court jester. Ibid. Ibid., p. 119. Evidence points to the letters being rushed through the press without Harvey’s permission. See Stern, Gabriel Harvey, pp. 58–61, who cites internal evidence and the regrets Harvey later expressed in the Foure Letters of 1592 as proof of his reluctance over the publication of the 1580 volume. Harvey, Works, I, p. 29. Stern, Gabriel Harvey, p. 69.

Academic Publication in Early Modern England

45

and senior colleagues mocked the rhetorician for his presumptuousness in publishing in the crowd-pleasing vernacular. Harvey’s treatment at the hands of the universities illustrates how charged an issue vernacular publication clearly was. Off-the-cuff occasional lampoons were soon equalled by a five-act Latin comedy mocking the same self-promoting impulses and turning Harvey into a character in a play. Edward Forsett, a satirically opportunistic don, thrust him onto the stage in the lead role of the Latin comedy Pedantius (1580/81). Pedantius, an ardent Ciceronian, continually cites Harvey, prizes his marginalia-laden library as highly as his real-life counterpart did, frets over academic disapproval and is constantly reproached by his sidekick (a scholastic dialectician) for his literary ambitions.22 Performed for a Cambridge audience, Pedantius showcases institutional mockery of Harvey the self-promoting and strategic publisher of his own works, and exemplifies anti-Harvey sentiment at 1580s Cambridge. A decade after their publication, pointedly, Harvey was still expressing regret for the publication of the Three Letters: ‘Letters may be priuately written, that would not bee publikely diuulged’.23 The doubts Harvey articulated about vernacular publication, and the mockery he encountered as a result of being published, were turned back upon him a few years later by his enemies. In the early 1590s, Harvey notoriously fell into a quarrel with the Cambridge graduates Thomas Nashe and Robert Greene. Central to the attack Nashe in particular launched on Harvey was the fact that Harvey had tarnished his academic reputation through his ambitious publishing programme. Nashe foregrounds how incongruous Harvey appeared within an academic context, and evokes the harshness of the authorities towards this pushy scholar. In the pamphlet Strange Newes (1592), Nashe skilfully appropriates university satire of the early 1580s directed at Harvey, infusing this decade-old material with new vigour and bite. A typically damaging sentence mocks Harvey’s act of publication, his fall from academic grace and his misuse of language: It is not inough that hee bipist his credite, about twelve yeeres ago, with Three proper and wittie familiar letters, but still he must be running on the letter, and abusing the Queenes English without pittie or mercie.24

22

23 24

See Moore Smith’s introduction to his edition of Pedantius (Louvain: A Uystpruyst, 1905), pp. xxxii–l for a list of parodic correspondences between the character Pedantius and Harvey. Harvey, Works, I, p.178. Thomas Nashe, Works, ed. R.B. McKerrow, 5 vols (London: A.H. Bullen, 1904–10), I, p. 261.

46

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

All of the literary characteristics Harvey exhibited and the anxieties he articulated in the 1579 letter can be found in Nashe’s pamphlet: the premature act of publication, the image of the commercial writer as clown and the mockery of the universities for authorial arrogance. Bristling with schadenfreude, Nashe picks up on Harvey’s fears of resembling Tarlton by setting himself on the stage of commercial publication and compares him to another Elizabethan clown, Will Kempe.25 Nashe refers to how Harvey was mocked on the Cambridge stage, gleefully reminiscing about when the hapless Praelector was ‘miserably flouted at’ in Pedantius.26 In Have With You to Saffron Walden (published 1596), Nashe intensifies the satire on Harvey. The publications are briskly brutalized: the Three letters become ‘ragged remnaunts’, for instance, and even Harvey’s marginalia are characterized as ugly (‘cyphers and round oos, lyke pismeeres [ants’] egges’).27 Nashe again dwells on Pedantius and on the ignominy of a scholar satirized on the university stage.28 Nashe’s Harvey even visits Sturbridge Fair.29 The two pamphlets cemented Harvey’s reputation as a self-important pedant; a year later, Nashe’s title Have With You to Saffron Walden proved prophetic, as Harvey left the capital to return to his home town, living the next 40 years in obscurity. Nashe turns Harvey into an object of satire because of his hasty publications and his display of learning for professional advancement. Harvey’s reflections on scholarly as opposed to vernacular publication, filtered through Nashe’s satire on his failure as an academic and his indecorous crimes of print, established a particular mode of discussing the issue of scholarly publication at the turn of the seventeenth century. Academic writers and audiences at early modern Oxford and Cambridge seem to have somewhat masochistically enjoyed plays based on the difficulties of deploying one’s education respectably and responsibly. As Mark Curtis and Christopher Hill among others have shown, employment prospects for university graduates were bleak.30 The student theatre, Harvey’s scourge, became a site for cynical debate on the validity of publication as a route to self-promotion. At Cambridge between 1598 and 1601, the Parnassus trilogy set a cavalcade of writers onstage, offering a dark picture of publication. Ingenioso, a recent graduate, is shown to be a brilliant scholar, capable of a ‘hundred latin sentences’, but is ultimately compelled to publish a tawdry pamphlet for profit.31 Satire increasingly became the mode the student population favoured to comment upon the difficulty of making a living as a scholar, and in 25 26 27 28 29 30

31

Ibid., p. 282. Ibid., p. 303. Ibid., III, pp. 78, 79, 44. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid. Mark H. Curtis, ‘The Alienated Intellectuals of Early Stuart England’, Past and Present, 23 (1962), pp. 28–9 and passim; see also Christopher Hill, Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), pp. 213–39 and passim. The First Part of the Return from Parnassus, ed. J.B. Leishman (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1949), I.i.245 (p. 147).

Academic Publication in Early Modern England

47

particular the problems scholars faced when seeking to maintain intellectual integrity within a grasping and opportunistic world of commercial literary production. One of the most cynical plays to appear on the university stage, which dwells at length on academic publication, was Robert Burton’s Philosophaster (written around 1606, performed in 1617/18). Burton’s play is set within the tradition of satire of scholarship fostered in the writing of disillusioned graduates such as Nashe and Greene, and in academic plays such as the Parnassus trilogy. In Philosophaster, performed at Christ Church before a university audience, as in the Cambridge plays, idealistic scholars collide with pushy exponents of spurious erudition. Central to the philosophasters’ performance of learning is promiscuous publication: Burton’s villainous scholars regard publication solely as self-advancement, never as an example of meticulous learning. ‘I will produce nine tomes off the top of my head!’ declares a particularly ambitious sophist in the play: ‘start saving your money to buy my books’.32 In Philosophaster, Burton depicts a scholarly world motivated by the will to publish, even if the works printed are slapdash and bereft of serious content. A few years after the play was performed, Burton came to explore the question of academic publication more fully, particularly the commercial forces acting upon the contemporary scholar, as he himself prepared to publish the Anatomy of Melancholy. In his Latin comedy, Burton mocks publication by self-aggrandising scholars in broad comic strokes. In the Anatomy, his reflections on the topic are articulated in a more subtle, shifting satirical mode. He characterizes the Anatomy’s prefaratory letter, ‘Democritus to the Reader’, as a ‘Satyricall Preface’, and within the satirical register he refers repeatedly to the reception a publishing scholar might expect within the university. Burton was a keen consumer of commercially printed vernacular texts.33 When he came to discuss the issue of publication, therefore, his perspective was somewhat unconventional for a scholar of the time. In his own reading, Burton seems to have been interested in the complaints of the late Elizabethan university graduates about the prostitution of their talents: in his copy of Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit (1592), he marked a reference to the demeaning sale of an erudite author’s literary talents.34 He would have known of Harvey’s career: he bought a copy of

32

33

34

‘Producam ex hoc capite nonem Tomos illicò … Reliqui ad coemendum parate pecunias’. The claim is made by Simon Acutus, in Robert Burton, Philosophaster, ed. and trans. Connie McQuillen (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1993). Burton’s bequest of his English books to the Bodleian greatly increased the library’s holdings: we possess many of his copies of the vernacular works of his contemporary authors. See Nicolas K. Kiessling, The Library of Robert Burton (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1988), pp. vii–x. Burton’s copy of the Groatsworth is held in the Bodleian Library (Bodl 4o C 110(2) Th.): in the right-hand margin, Burton marked with an ‘X’ a passage epitomizing Greene’s complaint: ‘A Poet and his Wit, must be like Adams and his Ape; they must trudge together from place to place, to shew tricks for a liuing’ (sig. A4r).

48

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Have With You to Saffron Walden in 1609, in which Nashe mordantly details Harvey’s precipitate acts of publication.35 Burton’s satirical voice in ‘Democritus to the Reader’ is original, but in his subject matter he certainly draws on the recent preoccupations of other authors directly connected with the universities, addressing the same question of scholarly publication that had so taxed Harvey and galvanized academic satirists against the hapless rhetorician. Burton wrote behind the persona of Democritus Junior, ‘masked … under this Visard’, and the rhetorical masking enabled him to write with irony about his act of publication.36 Unlike Harvey, who represented publication as an involuntary performance for a retiring scholar, Burton seems to relish the opportunity for the scholar to become an actor. From the outset of the Preface, we are told that the author will perform: ‘Gentle Reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what Anticke or Personate Actor this is …’37 Rather than rendering his narrator clownish and indecorous – such were the connotations scholarly acting held for Harvey – Democritus’s status as a satirical actor enables Burton to debate the question with humour and some deft rhetorical footwork. Steeped in his reflections on genuine scholarship and academic decorum, in ‘Democritus to the Reader’ Burton performs various facets of the publishing scholar, speaking now in the condemnatory voice of the institutional élite, and now in the guise of the mischievous Lucianic satirist who regards scholarship with deflating irreverence. Burton’s characterization of an élitist academic lamenting the ‘scribling age’ he inhabits relies upon the idiom of institutional disapproval.38 Behind this persona his narrator becomes a man inundated by superfluous books (‘New bookes every day’), aghast at the plundering instincts of academic authors desperate to publish: They will rush into all learning, togatam, armatam, [wearing togas, armed] divine, humane Authors, rake over all Indexes & Pamphlets & notes, as our Merchants doe strange Havens for traffique, write great Tomes, Cum non sint revera doctiores, sed loquaciores, when as they are not therby better Schollers, but greater praters.39

35

36 37 38

39

See Kiessling, Library of Robert Burton, p. xxix: Burton bought the pamphlet among other books from a High Street stationer who had acquired them on the death of a Merton Fellow. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), ed. Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling et al., 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989–2000), I, p. 2. Ibid., I, p. 1. ‘… there is no end of writing of bookes, as the Wise-man found of old, in this scribling age, especially wherein the number of Bookes is without number (as a worthy man saith) Presses be oppressed …’. Ibid., I, p. 8. The first citation is taken from Ecclesiastes 2:12: ‘of making many books there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh’ (King James Version). See ibid., IV (commentary), p. 21. Ibid., I, p. 9.

Academic Publication in Early Modern England

49

Burton performs a reactionary role here, linking the will to publish with a commercial impulse that causes scholars to behave ‘as our Merchants doe’. He proceeds satirically to catalogue the excesses of contemporary print culture, of authors publishing only ‘for vaine-glory, need, to get mony’ and of book fairs which prompt the academic community ‘to stretch our wits out & set them to sale’.40 Burton represents the awkwardness of his own position, aware that he might be accused of the same tendencies, and that the publication of the Anatomy will add to the commercial superabundance of books: ‘Yea but you will infer, that this is actum agere [to do what has been done], an unnecessary worke …’.41 The ‘you’ is the Reader to whom the ‘Satyricall Preface’ is nominally addressed, and from whom, significantly, Burton continually imagines receiving criticism. Because of the particular forms of readerly criticism Burton imagines, the addressee of the Preface comes to assume the contours of a specifically academic reader. As an apology, ‘Democritus to the Reader’ engages with the issues of inappropriate ambition, unscholarly linguistic medium and self-promoting writing as rhetorical performance that had become associated in erudite satire with the publishing scholar. The narrator disavows any intention to thrust himself forward in the avidity ‘to get a Paper-Kingdome’ and disassociates himself from ‘the itching humor, that every man hath to shewe himselfe, desirous of fame and honour’.42 We see Burton using the same language of prostitution as Harvey, similarly lamenting the commercial instincts of his printer: It was not mine intent to prostitute my Muse in English, or to divulge secreta Minervæ, but to have exposed this more contract in Latin, If I could have got it printed. Any scurrile Pamphlet is welcome to our mercenary Stationers in English, they print all … but in Latine they will not deale.43

Previously, Burton had been a Latin writer, so he had some affection for and facility in the language; it is also probable that his printer did hold opinions on the commercial viability of publishing a work like the Anatomy in Latin. Yet this statement of ‘intent’ must be set in the context of the satirical mode of Burton’s preface. His comment on vernacular publication as prostitution is an answer to hypothetical criticism of his choice and illustrative of the compositional processes behind the Anatomy. Certainly Burton seems to have absorbed potential institutional objections to his work and placed them in the person of his censoring reader, but at the same time he uses irony to confront any potential institutional disapproval of his vernacular publication.

40 41 42 43

Ibid., pp. 9–10. Ibid., p. 8. The citation is from Terence, Phormio, l. 419: see ibid., IV (commentary), p. 20. Ibid., I, pp. 8–9. Ibid., p. 16.

50

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Like Harvey, Burton rhetorically constructs a specifically academic audience as his opponents, but he does so to identify conventional institutional prejudice rather than to express a justified anxiety about losing membership of an élite. Burton’s imagined critic meticulously identifies mistakes in the sources: ‘if a rigid censurer should criticize on this which I have writ, he should not find three sole faults, as Scaliger in Terence, but 300 …’.44 Burton’s response to the ‘censurer’ is dismissive: ‘We may contend, and likely misuse each other, but to what purpose?’ Burton’s imagined critic has no real power, unlike the ‘thrisevenerable masters of Cambridge’ Harvey had evoked forty years earlier. By dramatizing satirically the objections stern readers could raise to his work, Burton obliquely questions the idea of an academic élite having the power to condemn individual authorial decisions to publish. The difference between Burton and his predecessor seems most distinct when we consider how they variously use public theatrical performance as a metaphor for publication. Unlike Harvey, who claimed to abominate the stage and his author and printer for pushing him into the limelight, Burton states that he performs voluntarily and assumes responsibility for his own performance, ‘Be it therefore as it is, well or ill, I have assay’d, put my selfe upon the Stage, I must abide the censure, I may not escape it’.45 One of the most extraordinary aspects of the Anatomy is the willingness its author demonstrates to engage with the question of what an early modern scholar ‘should’ publish. By preemptively addressing objections other scholarly readers might raise, Burton shows both how conventional these objections had become, and offers a confident answer. In contrast to the embarrassment Harvey articulates about having his vernacular works attributed to a ‘university man’, Burton defiantly emphasizes this attribution: ‘the method is ours onely, and shewes a Schollar’.46 Burton’s satirical apology and the robust success of his book illustrate how scholarly publication had changed between his day and that of Harvey. A new pragmatism about the importance of the vernacular was surfacing at the universities, and by the 1620s when the Anatomy went to press, academic authors were no longer condemned for publishing in ‘vile arrogant English’. At the Jacobean universities, even the authors of devotional works realized that English might be more appealing to readers. In a 1610 letter to Thomas James, Bodley’s Librarian, the Dean of Salisbury pragmatically states that the university printer might be more amenable to an vernacular work; ‘because it is in English, it wil be more saleable’.47 Burton was a

44 45

46 47

Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 13. See Gowland, ‘Rhetorical Structure and Function’, for a reading of the Anatomy as epideictic rhetoric, a ‘showing forth’ of the melancholic condition; ‘when the speech is designed purely for entertainment … then it is the orator himself that is on display’. Angus Gowland, ‘Rhetorical Structure and Function in The Anatomy of Melancholy’, Rhetorica, 19:1 (2001), pp. 1–48 (p.7, n.2). Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, I, p.11. John Gordon, Dean of Salisbury, cited in John Johnson, and Strickland Gibson, Print and Privilege at Oxford to the Year 1700 (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 8.

Academic Publication in Early Modern England

51

pioneer of this new scholarly pragmatism. He chose the vernacular as his medium of communication, negotiated ownership of at least part of the Anatomy’s copyright and ended up producing one of the most popular books of the seventeenth century, and one of the earliest bestsellers for Oxford University Press.48 In the half-century between Harvey’s letter to Spenser and Burton’s Anatomy, scholarly publication underwent marked changes. The power of the university to quell vernacular publication became diminished, and the institutional linguistic élitism that had stymied Harvey’s career lessened in force. Scholars writing in English were no longer ‘utterlye discreddited’, as Harvey had been, but could increasingly adopt the stance of Burton towards his imaginary censurer, ‘if you like not my writing, goe read something else’.49

48 49

Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ‘Textual Introduction’ by Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling and Rhonda L. Blair, pp. xl–xliii. Ibid., I, pp. 8 and 14.

Chapter 5

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism Lee Morrissey

The title of this book, Print and Power in France and England 1500–1800, broadly engages two important strands in contemporary literary studies: the history of the book and a New Historicism inflected by Foucault’s focus on how individuals are shaped by institutions. On one reading, then, the phrase ‘print media and social control’ might imply that print is enlisted in a grand project of enforcing limits and ensuring stability. In this reading, print media operates as something like, say, the prison in Foucault’s work, repressing and constituting simultaneously. Much has been claimed for print’s constitutive and exclusionary role, from a new form of psychological self-awareness to new, contractual forms of political arrangements. But it is not at all clear that print, printed text at least, actually does increase social control. The evidence from the 1640s in England, after the relaxing of the Star Chamber’s control over print, suggests the opposite in fact. Then, a newly-accessible press produced an extraordinary number of titles – more in 1642 than would be printed in any year until 1695, according to Thomas Corns’ Uncloistered Virtue.1 During the same period, of course, England also experienced Civil Wars and the execution of its monarch, Charles I. In this case, print media seems to have profoundly undermined social control; contemporaries certainly thought that it had. Thus, read another way, the topic of the current book raises instead the question of whether the spread of print invites a corresponding interest in social control and attempts at using print media to achieve it. There is widespread agreement today that it was during the decades after the Civil Wars and the Interregnum that modern English literary criticism emerges, in both its journalistic and academic versions, most famously through the work of pivotal figures such as Dryden, Addison, Steele, Hume and Johnson. As Douglas Patey points out in the ‘Introduction’ to The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism focused on the eighteenth century, ‘it is here’, during the eighteenth century, ‘we read, that “modern” criticism – criticism in its modern “institutional”, “specialized”, “professional”,

1

Thomas N. Corns, Uncloistered Virtue: English Political Literature, 1640–1660 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 2.

54

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

“disciplinary” or “autonomous” sense – emerges’.2 Traditionally, the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century origins of modern literary criticism are said to have contributed to criticism a number of distinguishing features, such as a commitment to the public sphere and a shaping connection to modern democracy. These features of criticism are seen, in turn, as particularly influential aspects of the Enlightenment, itself sometimes thought of as ‘the Age of Criticism’.3 However, recent work on the Enlightenment, and on criticism’s relationship to it, has undermined this vision of Enlightenment reason being employed through public debate over policy issues. That is, there has been a move towards seeing the emerging modern literary criticism as an attempt to use print media for social control – but only with a profound awareness of how destabilising print can be. Major figures in the early history of modern English literary criticism, such as Dryden, Addison, Steele and Hume, mention their concern about the possibility of violence implicit in differences between readings, and they point to the Civil Wars as evidence. In this respect, the work of Samuel Johnson, the most important eighteenth-century English literary critic, can be particularly – and perhaps surprisingly – helpful. In his life of Addison, he sketches a history of early English literary criticism in its modern form, tying its development to the attempt to control print media with print media: The Royal Society was instituted soon after the Restoration to divert the attention of the people from public discontent. The Tatler and the Spectator had the same tendency; they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each without any distinct termination of its view, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections.4

The early history of modern English literary criticism is characterised by this dialectic between print’s resistance to social control and a subsequent, reactive attempt to supply in print what Johnson calls ‘cooler and more inoffensive reflections’. While there are many ways to address this tension in their work, I focus in this essay on one overlooked aspect of it: the meaning of the word ‘charity’, which recurs across this early history of English literary criticism, appearing in the work of John Dryden, Joseph Steele, and David Hume. Influenced by Augustine, each of them uses the word ‘charity’ in their discussions of what it means to read. However, over time, across their work, the definition of the word evolves, away from a model of active reading, a hermeneutics, and toward a model of giving to those who are considered to be

2

3 4

Douglas Lane Patey, ‘Introduction’, The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 4: The Eighteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 3–31 (p. 10). Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. The Rise of Modern Paganism, 2 vols (New York: W.W. Norton, 1966), I, p. 130. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, ed. Donald F. Bond, 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), I, p. 335.

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

55

less fortunate, perhaps especially less fortunate readers, or toward, in other words, a philanthropy of reading given by the critic. In other words, we can trace in the changing use of the word ‘charity’ a developing relationship with social control, even if with the most benevolent of intentions. It is a matter for another and probably much longer paper as to whether ‘charity’ in the modern sense of the word as institutional, philanthropic giving to the poor is a form of social control. Here, the focus is on whether there is a use of the word ‘charity’ in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary criticism that casts the critic in the role of the modern, charitable giver. It is also beyond the scope of this essay to determine whether this change in the meaning of ‘charity’ causes the emergence of modern ‘charity’, in the sense of ‘philanthropy’. It is likely that the changing definitions of the word are related to additional changes unfolding in an increasingly urbanised eighteenth-century England; it was, after all, in 1742 that London’s Foundling Hospital, now home to England’s oldest children’s charity, was opened. In this essay, however, I am interested in the overlooked possibility that changes in the understanding of ‘charity’ might be related to the development of literary criticism, as ‘charity’ goes from a relationship to the text to a relationship to an imagined reader. In part, my concern is whether the eighteenth-century philanthropic vision of charitable reading is an attempt at social control through print media; on another level, though, my concern is in suggesting that the recent ‘ethical turn’ in literary theory is contesting the evolution of ‘charity’ that coincided with the early history of modern literary criticism. **** Of course, it must be admitted that ‘charity’ is a word and a concept with a history that is ultimately beyond the scope of an essay of this length. The best that can be done here is to provide a few moments in the history of the word, and for that Augustine is particularly important. In On Christian Doctrine Augustine makes an influential connection between reading and charity, arguing ‘what is read should be subjected to diligent scrutiny until an interpretation contributing to the reign of charity is produced’.5 There are two related ways of reading Augustine’s sense of charity here, as both the object and the method of reading. As far as the former is concerned, Augustine’s ideal readers all reach the same conclusion – charity. This charity is the extra-textual activity that can result from the good reader’s good reading. Augustine believes that ‘scripture teaches nothing but charity’.6 Such charity is not textual. It is instead about responding charitably to others. On this reading of Augustine’s sense of charity, it is not that there is something like a ‘charitable interpretation’, but rather that the best interpretations lead to charity. It is perhaps too much to say that the best reading of the Bible would prompt the reader to put down the Bible and go out to

5 6

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D.W. Robertson Jr (New York: Macmillan, 1958), p. 93. Ibid., p. 88.

56

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

help his or her neighbours, but one does get the impression that the Bible is there to promote charity. Thus, Augustine excuses misinterpretation if it leads to charity, ‘in the same way’, he writes, ‘as a man who leaves a road by mistake but passes through field to the same place toward which the road itself leads’.7 At the same time, there is also a way in which charity operates as a method of reading for Augustine. Charity is the result of ‘a diligent scrutiny’. It is this scrutiny that will be at the centre of subsequent debates over charity and reading (and in the recent discussions of textual otherness). For Augustine, scrutiny properly conducted produces the best meaning, charity, a point that can apply both to the text and to our relationship with others. Augustine contends that charity is ‘the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of one’s self and of one’s neighbour for the sake of God’.8 But there is an important duality in this diligent scrutiny. At least after Augustine there is in the history of the word ‘charity’ a tension between its hermeneutic and its philanthropic implications: reading texts requires a diligent scrutiny, but then so too does ‘reading’ others, as people will signify only if we provide the attention they deserve. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century use of the word does more than alternate between Augustine’s two poles; rather, it moves from the hermeneutic to the philanthropic. The question, both for philanthropy and for literary criticism, is whether something is lost in the relationship with the textual or personal other if we diminish the diligent scrutiny Augustine’s good reading involved. By relating charity to interpreting, John Milton is similar to Augustine, but it is a similarity that provides a basis for an illustrative contrast. For Milton, charity is the preferred method for achieving an outcome, not the desired outcome itself. In The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, for example, Milton describes charity as ‘the interpreter and guide of our faith’.9 Typically thought of as a way of lovingly responding to other people, charity as described by Milton is a way of lovingly responding to texts instead. Despite the differences between their two definitions of charity, Augustine and Milton nonetheless each agree on its value in reading: Augustine saw charity as the object toward which Scripture should always tend, while for Milton it is the guide to reading. For Augustine, the Bible leads readers to act with love toward others. For Milton, the best reading is flexible and charitable in that sense, even if it might result thereby in different conclusions about what the text claims.10 What ties the two understandings of charity together for Milton is the fact that both 7 8 9

10

Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., p. 88. John Milton, ‘The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce’, in John Milton, ed. Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 182–226 (p. 183). Thus, Milton’s idea of reading charitably differs from the ‘Principle of Charity’ described by philosopher Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). For Davidson, charity ‘counsels us quite generally to prefer theories of interpretation that minimise disagreement’ (p. vii). As a participant in the political debates during the Civil Wars, Milton was not known for minimising disagreement.

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

57

can move beyond what he calls ‘the mere element’, textually and interpersonally (ibid.). Milton’s charity sees beyond the literal, beyond a focus on the ‘outside’ and beyond just seeing an other as other. Milton’s reading charitably carries a sense of a text’s meaning lying beyond the text itself. Moving beyond the literal by refusing what Milton calls ‘alphabetical servility’ can sound like an invitation to misread – and maybe even to disregard – the text.11 For Milton, though, the best reading, the most charitable reading, is a metaphorical reading, a kind of reading that does not subscribe to what he calls ‘obstinate literality’.12 It is not surprising that a mode of reading that refuses servility to the printed words might be somewhat controversial. Indeed, probably no writings are more emblematic of the connection between violence and print media that comes to be associated with the 1640s, and from which early English literary criticism later recoils, than Milton’s essays of the 1640s, especially Eikonoklastes (1649). Written in response to Charles the First’s Eikon Basiliké, then thought to be the King’s last words and published within weeks of his death, Eikonoklastes would not let the recently-deceased Charles rest.13 Eikonoklastes ferociously combines literature and politics, while remaining at root a theory of reading. For example, Milton contends that ‘in those words which admitt of various sense, the libertie is ours to choose’.14 This liberty to choose from among various senses is part of the theory of charitable reading Milton had begun describing years earlier. In that choice from among possible meanings, the reader does not rest in the mere element, but goes beyond the given of the literal; in this, the reader treats the text charitably, at least to Milton’s way of understanding the term. Many observers, however, believed that there would be no end to the debates generated by such a perpetual choosing of meanings. They saw all the evidence they needed to justify their concerns in the Civil Wars, and in the execution of Charles in 1649. Because it may also make it look like the most inventive or inaccurate reading, this understanding of charity as reading’s ‘supreme resolver’ or ‘interpreter and guide’ is rejected by the subsequent development of criticism in the eighteenth century. Dryden – and later Steele – are convinced that the difference between the literal and the metaphorical in Milton’s sense of charitable reading results, by definition, in misreadings. Thus, in ‘Religio Laici’ (1682), Dryden describes charity

11 12 13

14

Milton, ‘The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce’, p. 202. Ibid., p. 201. According to John R. Knott Jr, ‘The matter of [Eikon Basiliké’s] authorship was not resolved in Milton’s day. It appears now that John Gauden, then Dean of Bocking in Essex and subsequently a bishop, worked from writings of Charles in fashioning the book and smuggled a draft to Charles in Carisbrooke Castle for revision and approval’ (‘“Suffering for Truths sake”: Milton and Martyrdom’, in Politics, Poetics, and Hermeneutics in Milton’s Prose, eds David Loewenstein and James Grantham Turner (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 160. John Milton, Eikonoklastes, in Complete Prose Works, eds Don M. Wolff et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1953–), III, ed. Merritt Hughes, p. 342.

58

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

as ‘a much unskillful, but well meaning guide’.15 By referring to charity as a ‘guide’, Dryden follows Milton, focusing more on the process than on the destination. Unlike Augustine, then, Dryden would not argue that charity is a result of reading Scriptures. Unlike Milton, however, Dryden considers charity to be unskilled. This crucial distinction would seem to turn the meaning of ‘charity’ away from reading. For Dryden, not only is charity not necessarily the preferred outcome of reading Scripture; it is not the preferred method either. Instead, Dryden proposes a theory of reading that would forestall interpretation, arguing ‘whatever is obscure is concluded not necessary to be known’.16 Dryden thus shifts critical attention away from a focus on the text. If the text proves difficult, one way to respond is to avoid the textual difficulty. Of course, Dryden is himself a sensitive and skilled reader. His own practice is similar to something like Milton’s idea of charitable reading. Dryden’s conversion of the classics into contemporary political allegories, for example, also requires seeing beyond ‘the mere element’. I am focusing here on his precepts, and those from just the one poem, ‘Religio Laici’. There, in addition to minimising the relationship between charity and reading in general, Dryden also makes a connection between charity as a giving to those less fortunate and the reading of critics: there are a ‘few, by Nature form’d, with Learning fraught, / Born to instruct, as others to be taught’.17 Dryden’s importance in the development of English literary criticism cannot be overstated. Samuel Johnson, for example, believes ‘Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism’.18 T.S. Eliot calls him ‘positively the first master of English criticism’.19 Strictly speaking, though, there was criticism in English before Dryden (for example, Sidney, Jonson). The question, then, is what makes his criticism different from what preceded him. Some might point to the unprecedented volume of his criticism, others to the fact that he wrote critically about contemporary work. But I think that part of the story involves how Dryden redefines reading, including his treatment of charity. That is, Dryden stands out from previous English literary critics because his work is emblematic of a socially-controlling, Restoration reaction to the increase and diffusion of print media. Consider, for example, how Dryden complains in ‘Religio Laici’ about the translation and mass printing of the Bible, perhaps the Reformation’s central achievement in print media: ‘the Book thus put in every vulgar hand, / Which each presum’d he best cou’d understand’.20 In Dryden’s description, the Bible operates as a figure for mass culture, spread by print, 15

16 17 18 19 20

John Dryden, ‘Religio Laici, or A Laymans Faith. A Poem’, in The Works of John Dryden, ed. Edward Niles Hooker, H.T. Swedenberg et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956–), II (1972), pp. 225, 105, 19–21. Ibid., §102.24–5. Ibid., pp. 336–7. Samuel Johnson, ‘Dryden’, in The Lives of the English Poets, 2 vols (New York: Everyman, 1950), I, p. 225. Quoted in James Engell, Forming the Critical Mind: Dryden to Coleridge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 38. Dryden, ‘Religio Laici’, l. 400.

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

59

and resulting in too many different interpretations. As a consequence, Dryden sets out in ‘Religio Laici’ to propose how ‘Texts may receive a kinder, and more mollified Interpretation’.21 Criticism then attempts a kind of social control over a crisis of print media by providing more mollified interpretations. Central to this gentler reading is the redefinition of ‘charity’ away from a way of reading and toward a way of helping those less well off, even if they are less fortunate as readers in this case. Twenty years after ‘Religio Laici’, the first issue of Steele’s Tatler (1709–11) incorporates Dryden’s redefinition of charity: ‘it is both a charitable and necessary work to offer something whereby such worthy and well-affected members of the commonwealth may be interested, after their reading, what to think’.22 ‘Charity’ is now directed toward the reader, rather than the text, and the activity and/or experience of reading the text itself has been so downplayed that criticism now understands charity as telling people what to think. Moreover, charity has changed from listening to telling. The otherness that criticism addresses is no longer textual; it is instead otherness of the reader, especially of the reader of criticism. According to Steele’s collaborator, Joseph Addison, the reader ‘is very often an utter Stranger to what he reads, and apt to put a wrong Interpretation upon it’ (3.35).23 The phrase ‘utter stranger’ makes the reader an other, in this case other to the text, and of course, other to the talented critic who is less apt to put a wrong interpretation on texts. In this, Addison is building on Dryden’s sense that some are born to teach. As Addison puts it, ‘It is very difficult to lay down Rules for the Acquirement of such a Taste as that I am here speaking of. The Faculty must in some degree be born with us’ (Spectator, III.529). Although it could just as well be described as an inborn capacity, something that cannot be learned, taste is here described as a faculty. The implication is that taste is reserved for the few, and their charitable act is telling others what they think. Augustine’s idea of charity is such that it is not necessary to read in order to achieve it. ‘A man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them, does not need the Scriptures except for the instruction of others. And many live by these three things in solitude without books’ (p. 32). For Augustine, Scripture is so focused on producing this kind of charity that there is actually no need for Scripture. Milton’s sense of charity is such that reading charitably leads to a multiplicity of competing interpretations (which might also be thought of as not reading). For Dryden, charity is an unskilled guide, and readers should turn to the ancients for help in reading correctly: ‘’Tis the safest way / To learn what unsuspected Ancients say’ (‘Religio’, 435–6). Steele takes the next step: there is again no need to read the original text, but rather than Dryden’s ‘ancients’, readers can now turn to contemporary critics, who play a modern version of Dryden’s role for the ancients. If charity was the objective of the Scriptures for Augustine, the way of reading them for Milton, and a possible problem with reading them for Dryden, it has become with Steele a way

21 22 23

Ibid., §101.21–2. Richard Steele, The Tatler (New York: Everyman Library, 1953), p. 1. Ibid., 3.35.

60

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

of compensating for readers’ limited reading ability. In the process, charity has been converted from other-centred (Augustine), to an other-centred way of approaching the text (Milton), and back to other-centred, with the signal difference that in Steele’s case, it is a way of reading directed at an other. Augustine’s textual scrutiny seems to have been absorbed by the reading of the critic and is presumed not to exist for the other readers. Where Milton uses the idea of an other-centred charity to read texts, Addison and Steele’s charity provides others with a reading they can use, so that they do not need to read texts. In ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ (1757–58), Hume also mentions ‘charity’. ‘It is to be supposed’, according to Hume, ‘that the ARABIC words, which correspond to the ENGLISH, equity, justice, temperance, meekness, charity, were such as from the constant use of that tongue, must always be taken in a good sense’.24 For Hume, like Milton and Augustine and unlike Steele, charity has a textual dimension, having to do with how words should be understood. By assuming it must be taken in its good sense, Hume reads the ‘charity’ charitably, in Milton’s sense of moving beyond the mere element. At the same time, insofar as all these ethical terms should be taken in their good sense, Hume is like Augustine in thinking that the text always leads to one conclusion: for Augustine it is charity; for Hume, it is ‘a good sense’. However, although he might not describe it as ‘unskillful’, Hume shares Dryden’s concern about charity: ‘Whoever recommends any moral virtues, really does no more than is implied in the terms themselves’.25 The implication is that words such as ‘charity’ are basically tautological. It is merely circular to say that one should be charitable: ‘noone, without the most obvious and grossest impropriety, could affix reproach to a term, which in its general acceptation is understood in a good sense’.26 To use the words in a way contrary to their valence would be a mistake, but to use them correctly does not actually help one act charitably. Hume brings Dryden and Steele together: textual charity is insufficient, readers should be told what to think, and most importantly there are certain readers who are more qualified to do the work of telling. Hume’s essay describes ‘men of delicate taste’, who ‘are easily to be distinguished in society, by the soundness of their understanding and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind’.27 It is a definition as circular as Hume claims the definition of ‘charity’ is, but what these superior men enjoy constitutes the standard of taste. The difference, however, between Hume’s men of delicate taste and Addison and Steele’s critic is the difference between ‘faculty’ and facility. As we have seen, Addison and Steele think that the critic has a particular, natural faculty for judgement. Hume, on the other hand, describes the delicacy of taste as a facility. It can be acquired. ‘Many men … are capable of relishing any fine

24 25 26 27

David Hume, ‘On the Standard of Taste’, in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987), pp. 226–49 (p. 229). Ibid. Ibid., p. 228. Ibid., p. 243.

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

61

stroke, which is pointed out to them’.28 As a consequence, the delicacy of taste can be trained. It is an important question as to whether it should be, as its training would be on the basis of the same circular logic: liking the better things that the better men like. Nonetheless, it seems more ‘charitable’ to believe that many people can learn than to believe that most cannot and that we have been born that way. Although they shared a concern for the effects of print, Hume and Dryden see that concern within or across time frames of different scale. For Dryden, the upheavals of the 1640s are but part of a larger process initiated with the Reformation at the turn of the sixteenth century. Letting everyone read the Bible results in an unfortunate range of interpretations: ‘Texts in it should have been prevaricated to the destruction of that Government which put it into so ungrateful hands’.29 Writing during the Exclusion Crisis of the 1680s, Dryden was afraid that ‘another Crop is too like to follow’.30 With the solidification of the party system at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Addison was ‘afraid that [he] discovers the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions’.31 Hume, of course, published a History of England (1754–57), which describes the Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century. Significantly, Hume refers to the central role of print media in the conflict, pointing out that ‘the war of the pen preceded that of the sword’.32 In other words, the Civil Wars raise for Hume the question of the connection between print and social control. Read one way, Hume is pointing out a causal link between print and profound social effects. However, it is also important to note that Hume is suggesting that print undermines social control, rather than increasing it. These writers’ shared response was to redirect attention away from the text, albeit in different ways: Dryden by sending readers to the ‘unsuspected ancients’,33 and Addison and Steele by substituting the reading of the critic. Steele, for example, offers to show how ‘the most dangerous Page in Virgil or Homer may be read by them with much pleasure, and with perfect Safety to their Persons’.34 There is an element of tongue-in-cheek humour to that claim, of course. At the same time, though, it speaks to or plays off an existing discussion of the dangers of reading. By converting the danger implicit in reading into pleasure, criticism as conceived by Addison and Steele can claim to make reading safe. Addison and Steele claim to ‘draw … Men’s minds off from the Bitterness of Party’.35 Their argument is that criticism can thus defuse political tensions by making texts safe. In other words, criticism claims to bring social control to print media. To do this, however, such a theory blunts the relationship between two related others: the text and the reader. Thus, the Tatler and Spectator readers are treated as needy, and texts’ dangerous implications are downplayed.

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Ibid. John Dryden, ‘Religio Laici’, p. 105, ll. 19–21. Ibid., ‘Preface’, p. 98. Spectator, II.4. David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, 6 vols (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1983), V, p. 380. Dryden, ‘Religio Laici’, p. 436. Spectator, II.384. Spectator, II.519.

62

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

**** Across the decades from Milton to Hume – reflecting perhaps the influence of Augustine – ‘charity’ is invoked in discussions of reading. For Milton, charity can act as a somewhat allegorical guide for one’s own act of interpreting a text. Of course, as Milton’s then-notorious participation in the Civil Wars (and his involvement with the Interregnum government) were thought to show, such textual charity does not necessarily lead to what Augustine calls charity – the enjoyment of others for the sake of God. Eikonoklastes showed many that something like Dryden’s idea of ‘kinder’ interpretations was necessary; to them, the events of 1649 revealed how unkind some interpretations could be, as Milton’s prose arguments of the 1640s and his lineby-line response to Charles’ Eikon Basiliké in Eikonoklastes were not particularly charitable toward King Charles I. In what can be seen as an instance of print media being involved for the purposes of social control, the critics who subsequently shape the early history of modern English literary criticism address this problem by taking to print and arguing for how they believe reading ought to be conducted. In the process, they redefine charity. First, Dryden argues against the accuracy of charity understood, as with Milton, as one’s own guide to one’s own interpretations. After Dryden, across the first half of the eighteenth century, Addison, Steele, and Hume take on the role of the guide, making it less allegorical, removing it from the activity of the individual reader, and giving it to the literary critic instead. Whereas for Milton each act of reading well involved interpretative charity, literary critics contend that their published readings now perform a charitable act, giving to the needy. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Addison and Steele are not alone in this attitude toward readers, although their work does inform the general discussion. The anonymous A Grammar of the English Tongue, for example, includes a prefatory advertisement indicating ‘The Approbation of Isaac Bickerstaff ’, narrator of The Tatler, claiming that ‘the Text will improve the most Ignorant, and the Notes will imploy the most Learned’.36 Like other early eighteenth-century critical texts, the Grammar of the English Tongue is said to be geared for both the ‘Ignorant’ and the ‘Learned’, and the ‘most’ ignorant and learned at that. This pitch for the ‘ignorant’ is part of the redefinition of critical charity that occurs at the beginning of the eighteenth century. However, with, for example, Jacobite uprisings through the 1740s, it is not clear that this attempt to enlist print media in a process of shaping reading achieved a desired effect of widespread social control. At the same time, though, deciding whether this redefinition of charitable reading resulted in an increase of social control depends very much on what we mean by the social, or which aspect of society was to come under control. For it could just as well

36

A Grammar of the English tongue, with Notes, Giving the Grounds and Reason of Grammar in General. To which is added, A New Prosodia; Or, The Art of English Numbers. All Adapted to the use of Gentlemen and Ladies, As well as of the Schools of Great Britain (London, 1711) in [Microfilm.] Ann Arbor, MI: Eighteenth-Century Sources for the Study of English Literature. Roll 103. #22, p.[A1v].

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

63

be argued that, if nothing else, the early figures of modern English literary criticism achieved a degree of social control by contributing to the origins of modern literary criticism as an institution. The charitable role of the critics, which is analogous to the modern, institutional philanthropy then coming into existence in England (as exemplified by the Foundling Hospital and Magdalen Hospital), fits with contemporary developments. With the steady increase in titles published, critics were needed to do the preliminary, charitable reading, by sorting through the great volumes of printed material. With the related growth in readership, as circulating libraries also started to come into existence, a need for the philanthropic gift of reading was being met in several senses, including the new prose and periodical forms of literary criticism. When someone such as Hume claims that some distinguish themselves by their superior sense of taste, there is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy or some circularity to the process. However, there is nonetheless a way in which it was charitable that readers such as Addison, Steele, Hume and Johnson, trained as they were by university education, provide for the new readers a description of what the critics believed constituted good reading. If it organised anyone, though, the sense of charity and the related sense of reading described by these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary critics shaped the work of subsequent literary criticism. Although we do sometimes find literary criticism, and more often, statements about literary aesthetics and value, prior to the eighteenth century, there is no similar sense of professional or academic literary criticism before this period. While literary criticism might have been born out of a profound concern over the destabilizing political power of the printed word, creating a category of professional and academic readers who were considered literary critics would seem to be its greatest social effect. In a time of increasing publication and readership, this would be no small achievement, offering important socialising benefits. With the emergence of modern literary criticism, these readers could integrate the emerging readership into a community of readers, and perpetuate a self-selecting process that culled and produced future critics from readers. This development could be understood as part of an eighteenth-century ‘rise of stability’, although events such as the Gordon Riots of 1780 suggest England was not entirely stable, even fairly late in the century. Moreover, if modern literary criticism emerges as part of a reaction against the uses of print associated with the violence of the 1640s, any rise of stability would seem to be predicated on a distinct narrowing of political possibilities, despite the familiar association between modern criticism and modern democracy. The circumstances of the early history of modern English literary criticism – the focus on stability after the Civil Wars, and the changing sense of charity from an internal guide for each reader to a beneficent provision of a reading from superior reader – affect the subsequent history of criticism. In Rhetoric and Reason in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Quentin Skinner contends that ‘in teaching philosophy to speak English, Hobbes at the same time taught it a particular tone of voice … The tone is very much that of the sane and moderate savant beset on all sides by fanaticism and

64

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

stupidity’.37 It is sometimes difficult not to think that early English modern literary critics make a similar contribution to literary studies as well. Some might, for example, hear it in Matthew Arnold’s treatment of the Philistines in his midst. Indeed, the sense of charity seen in the eighteenth-century literary critics might also be seen in Arnold’s well-known definition of criticism: ‘Its business is, as I have said, simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas’.38 Not only does the critic have the superior knowledge to share with those who lack it, but there is the same disseminating impulse that shaped the vision of the eighteenth-century charitable critic. Even the sense of arriving after the Civil Wars lingers into the twentieth century. For example, in one of his literary critical essays – significantly enough on Milton – T.S. Eliot contends, ‘The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war does end. Throughout that period English society was so convulsed and divided that the effects are still felt’.39 **** Recent literary studies have seen the development of what Lawrence Buell calls the ‘New Ethical Criticism’.40 Those whom we might call ‘New Ethical Critics’ acknowledge many sources for the current interest in ethics: a concern over formalism, the discovery of de Man’s wartime journalism, the influence of Emmanuel Levinas and even the end of the Cold War. But insofar as it focuses on questions regarding seemingly institutionalised reading practices, the New Ethical Criticism is also reexamining ideas about reading and otherness developed during the formative decades of early English literary criticism, developed, that is, during the Restoration and the eighteenth century. There is a way, then, in which attitudes toward the other implicit in the eighteenth-century vision of reading charitably – providing a reading made easier and safer for the less fortunate – are under investigation in the contemporary reconsideration of ethical criticism. In part, this reconsideration of how literary study could respond to others has to do with what seems to be a recent, significant lessening of print media’s chances of securing social control. With so many forms of communication today, critics’ sense that print somehow speaks from a position of superiority to those who are less fortunate does not wield the same – albeit contested – influence it may once have done.

37 38 39 40

Quentin Skinner, Rhetoric and Reason in the Philosophy of Hobbes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 436. Matthew Arnold, Selected Prose, ed. P.J. Keating. (New York: Penguin, 1970), p. 142. T.S. Eliot, ‘Milton II’, in On Poetry and Poets (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), pp. 146–61 (p. 148). Lawrence Buell, ‘Introduction: In Pursuit of Ethics’, PMLA, 114:1 (January 1999): 7–19 (11).

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

65

In one strand of the New Ethical Criticism, reading is understood as a relationship to an Other. Thus, Derek Attridge describes reading as ‘an attempt to respond to the otherness of the other’.41 In this connection of reading and otherness there is a way in which we have a contemporary version of the ancient, Augustinian connection between reading and charity. However, in this version of the New Ethical Criticism, the other to which the reader is responding is the text being read, not the needy reader of the critical work, as it was in the work of the eighteenth-century literary critics. By thus trying to engage the text as an Other, the New Ethical Criticism is returning, perhaps unknowingly, to a version of what I have here treated as a Miltonian vision of reading charitably. When J. Hillis Miller contends that there is ‘a necessary moment in that act of reading as such’,42 and reading itself raises the ethical questions, he reworks Milton’s related refusal of alphabetical servility and his assertion of a liberty to choose from among various senses while reading. This return to the earlier, seventeenth-century model of reading might also help to explain why so much controversy attends the development of theory in Anglo-American literary studies: it revives some of what English criticism carefully rejected in the eighteenth century, although without, it seems to me, the participants in the current debates over the New Ethical Criticism necessarily knowing it. Still, even within this strand of the New Ethical Criticism there are poles as to how in particular readers (should) respond to the text as Other. In this, the debate between Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas is particularly important and has come to represent two opposed poles for this version of the New Ethical Criticism. Into the 1960s, Levinas would argue that ‘all thought is subordinated to the infinitely other in the other person’.43 The other as infinitely other, as radically other, as radical alterity: each represents a variation on Levinas’s sense of otherness. In ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, by contrast, Derrida addresses this sense of radical alterity in Levinas’s work, arguing that radical alterity, universally experienced, would represent a similarity, not a difference. Thus Derrida contends that ‘the other is absolutely other only if he is an ego, that is, in a certain way, if he is the same as I’.44 What Levinas considered radical alterity is for Derrida a radical similarity, even if that similarity is what would usually be considered difference. With Otherwise than Being (1974), written after Derrida’s ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, Levinas offers a new formulation, one that

41 42 43 44

Derek Attridge, ‘Innovation, Literature, Ethics: Relating to the Other’, PMLA, 114:1 (January 1999): 20–31 (25). J. Hillis Miller, The Ethics of Reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), p. 1. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991), p. 97. Jacques Derrida, ‘Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas’, trans. Alan Bass, in Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 127.

66

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

seems to adjust to Derrida’s critique: ‘The self is non-indifference to the others’.45 The key phrase here is ‘non-indifference’, and it connects to the discussion of charity fairly directly, as it means charity in the familiar, modern sense: caring about, or having a concern for, others. At the same time, though, in a characteristic pun or doubleness of word choice, Levinas’s double negative – ‘non-indifference’, both ‘non’ and ‘in’ – also means that non-indifference is difference itself. ‘Not indifference’ equals difference. In Otherwise than Being, Levinas relates difference and awareness to each other, without difference becoming Derrida’s sense of similarity (nor, apparently, without difference being the radical alterity it had been for Levinas earlier). While the distinctions between Levinas’s and Derrida’s positions over time are important to their work and have important implications for how to respond to others, there does come a point at which arguments over the relationships between similarity and difference end up replaying Derrida’s question at the end of ‘Violence and Metaphysics’. Alluding to Joyce’s Ulysses, Derrida concludes ‘Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet?’46 The abstract discussion of similarity and difference sometimes has the same ring. We might say ‘Simdiff is diffsim. Extremes meet’. Moreover, responding to others need not be the same as acting charitably toward them, as Milton’s example famously illustrated for the early critics. In other words, it is important to find a way around the impasse represented by these two poles. With his sense of ‘charity’, and writing in the wake of Derrida and Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion offers precisely this new possibility in his Prolegomena to Charity. Rather than similarity or difference, charity for Marion represents the precondition for the response to otherness debated by Derrida and Levinas. For example, perhaps referring to Levinas’s sense of otherness, Marion argues that ‘charity empties its world of itself in order to make place [sic] there for what is unlike it’.47 Thus, like Levinas, Marion recognises a radical alterity, and like those who critique the subject, Marion talks of a loss of self. But for Marion, it is only this clearing by charity that makes possible a full awareness of the other, even a full awareness of an unloving other. ‘Only charity’, according to Marion, ‘opens the space where the gaze of the other can shine forth’.48 The question of the other’s similarity or difference does not enter into consideration; rather, it is charity’s ability to create a space in which the other can be present that matters for Marion. In this, Marion is also reworking Derrida’s terms. For example, Marion argues that ‘charity renders the gift present, presents the present as a gift’.49 In part, this means that the present is the space in which charity can be open to the other. But it also means, contra Derrida, that with charity, the present is fully present, neither an alternation between presence and absence nor a non-contemporaneity between past and present.

45 46 47 48 49

Levinas, Otherwise than Being, p. 171. Derrida, ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, p. 153. Jean Luc Marion, Prolegomena to Charity, trans . Stephen E. Lewis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002). Ibid., p. 166. Ibid., p. 154.

‘Charity’, Social Control and the History of English Literary Criticism

67

Moreover, with charity, for Marion, the present time is also a present in the sense of a gift – and unlike Derrida’s sense that there is a gift of death. In addition to offering a way of understanding the reader’s relationship to the text in this version of the New Ethical Criticism, Marion’s sense of charity also offers a way of understanding what happened to ‘charity’ in the early history of modern English literary criticism. For Marion believes that ‘charity remains profoundly misunderstood by modern Christianity’, even after the detailed discussions in continental philosophy of how to respond to Others.50 Central to this misunderstanding is that, today, Marion argues, ‘love is reduced to ‘making love’, charity to ‘doing charity’’.51 This latter sense of ‘doing charity’ is the institutional, philanthropic sense that emerges in the eighteenth century, and that can be seen in the attitudes of the eighteenth-century critics toward their readers. For Marion, such an attitude is also an unfortunate ‘objectification’.52 In the seventeenth century, England saw print’s extraordinary potential for political instability, or for a lack of social control. Across the eighteenth century, literary critics contributed to finding ways of re-establishing stability while the production of printed materials only increased. Looking back, we have to wonder whether the stability that was achieved came at a cost to difference of expression, and, consequently, at a cost to the democratic impulse that criticism is said to have helped to shape. If so, this loss has to do in part with how ‘charity’ was re-imagined during the later seventeenth century and the eighteenth century. Presuming what the reader needed to know seems more like Marion’s unfortunate, modern objectification of charity; the differences among readers could be lost in the critics’ sense of what those imagined readers might need. Eighteenth-century charity, that is, was not designed to create a space in which the otherness of the reader (or, it must be said, of the text) could shine forth. But it did achieve some level of social control. Today, with print only one of multiple layers of verbal social control, it is not clear that print will ever again exercise even the limited social control it used to achieve. However, rather than bemoaning this turn of events, as so many ‘death of literature’ and ‘rise of theory’ arguments used to do, we should instead recognize that this presents literary studies with an opportunity to reconnect to an older sense of textual charity and to a more democratic, listening relationship with readers (and especially students). Doing this, though, will require attention to Levinas’s sense of otherness as difference, to Derrida’s sense of it as similarity and to Marion’s sense of charity as an openness to otherness in its many forms. It will also mean relinquishing a degree of social control. For charity as an openness to others does mean taking the risks that come with openness and plurality. But literature’s defining connection to democracy, and the plurality of textual meaning, are worth it.

50 51 52

See ibid., p. 153. Ibid., p. 168. Ibid.

Chapter 6

Spreading the Word: Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda in Seventeenth-Century France Alison Saunders

Much seventeenth-century political propaganda was visual, and in its original manifestation either ephemeral, or restricted to a minority audience or both. Triumphal entries, chivalric events, court festivities and firework displays could offer the onlooker a forceful visual testimony of royal strength and authority, but one that was of its nature short-lived. Allegorical tapestries, wall or ceiling paintings and hung paintings offered a more durable testimony, but one that was restricted to those with access to the rooms in which they were displayed. Plays, ballets and exhibitions, which could also be used as a vehicle for political propaganda, combined the disadvantages of both. But the printed book could compensate effectively for such limitations, giving perpetuity to the otherwise ephemeral, and widening access to the otherwise narrowly exclusive. This paper discusses the way in which the printed book could be exploited to complement and further disseminate by verbal means political messages whose impact derived originally largely from visual stimuli. There was, of course, nothing new about the use of public display for political propaganda – triumphal entries were an established feature of life in the sixteenth century. So important were they considered as a means of bonding the citizenry to their king during the troubled decades of the mid-sixteenth century that the youthful Charles IX embarked in 1564 on a huge tour of his country, lasting over two years, and involving over 100 triumphal entries.1 Habitually such events were backed up by an official or semi-official printed account, occasionally produced in advance as a guide to what was happening, but more commonly after the event, to perpetuate the occasion in the memory of those present, or describe it for those unable to witness it themselves or to give an overall picture for those able to witness only a small part. Under the influence of Catherine de Medici, court festivities were already becoming more 1

See V. Graham and W. McAllister-Johnson, The Royal Tour of France by Charles IX and Catherine de Medici. Festivals and Entries 1564–66 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), and J. Boutier, A. Dewerpe and D. Nordman, Un tour de France royal. Le voyage de Charles IX 1564–1566 (Paris: Aubier, 1984). The entries on this tour ranged from the modest, as in Bar le Duc (1 May 1564), to the grandiose, as in Fontainebleau (14 February 1564) or Toulouse (2 February 1565).

70

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

decorative and sophisticated, incorporating ballets and other allegorical performances. Particularly grandiose were the festivities mounted in Bayonne in 1565, to mark the climax of Charles IX’s grand tour.This was a politically highly charged meeting between Charles and his mother, and his sister Elisabeth, by then Queen of Spain. The printed account2 provides a detailed illustrated record of the allegorical displays of French royal splendour designed to impress the Spanish. Margaret McGowan has described the Bayonne celebrations as ‘a complex series of festivities [which] served as a magnificent cover to all the political manoeuvring’,3 but in fact these festivities were more than just a magnificent cover: they actually played a meaningful role in the political manoeuvring. Such allegorical entertainments were increasingly used to promote particular political messages relating to royal grandeur. But in the seventeenth century, and particularly during the reign of Louis XIV, the use of public display for political propaganda became ever more emphasized, to the extent that glorification of the king and of his country – now inextricably linked, so that the message of royal greatness and power was not directed solely to a French audience, but also to a European audience – became a highly professionalized industry.4 And just as the ceremonial itself became ever more complex and grandiose, so also did the printed accounts. But these accounts also took on a more important role than had earlier been the case, serving as instruments of propaganda in their own right, since in many cases they go far beyond simply providing a description of a particular event. In addition they offer a systematized interpretation of the message which it was designed to convey, thus providing the king with a powerful tool for the expression to a wide audience of a clearly stated political message. A series of initiatives were taken in the 1660s to open up further channels for propaganda in addition to the traditional entries, festivities and chivalric events which continued to take place throughout the reign of Louis XIV, first in Paris and later at Versailles. In 1662 the Gobelins tapestry manufacture was established to produce tapestries not only to adorn public rooms within royal palaces, but also to serve as gifts for foreign dignitaries. In both cases their function was meaningful as well as decorative, since their message, whether realistically or allegorically expressed, was the greatness of the king.5 In 1663 the Petite Académie (later renamed Académie des inscriptions) was established to supply appropriate inscriptions and verses in praise 2

3 4 5

Recueil des choses notables, qui ont esté faites à Bayonne, à l’entreveuë du Roy Charles neufieme de ce nom, et la Royne sa treshonorée mere avec la Royne catholique sa soeur (Paris: M. de Vascosan, 1566, 4o). Margaret McGowan (ed.), Le Balet comique by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx 1581 (Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies), p. 10. For details of the propaganda machine established for the glorification of Louis XIV, see Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). See, for example, the realistic Histoire du Roy tapestries depicting notable events in the reign and the allegorical Four Seasons and Four Elements series. For discussion of these see Alison Saunders, ‘Emblems to Tapestries and Tapestries to Emblems: Contrasting Practice in England and France’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 21 (1999): 243–55.

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

71

of the king; other Académies followed (including Sciences in 1666; Architecture in 1671; Musique in 1672). A major function of all of these was to provide means of glorifying the king. One such means (with which the Petite Académie was much involved) was commemorative medals, which were regularly struck to celebrate Louis’s achievements within France and also on the wider European stage. These provided visible and also tangible testimonies to royal greatness, and as such their value as political propaganda was considerable. But their impact did have limitations – a major one being that their visibility and tangibility extended only to the relatively small elite who could see and hold them. Another limitation was that their political message was fragmented, since each medal celebrated only one single event. But in the latter decades of the century, it was realized that such medals could be used to promote the royal personage more effectively if their fragmented messages were presented all together as a single unit. Thus from the mid-1680s, the Petite Académie began to compile a printed anthology, with the medals reproduced in engraved form and disposed in a logical order, thereby providing, in book form, a more widely accessible and also more coherent visual testimony to the greatness of the king than could be achieved by the medals themselves. The project was slow to complete. Not until 1702 did the first edition of the work appear6 – an impressive folio volume, sharing a common character with other magnificent volumes published by the Imprimerie royale, all testifying in their different ways to the greatness of the king. In the meantime, however, noting this gap in the market, the entrepreneurial Jesuit polymath, Claude-François Menestrier, unrivalled specialist in the iconography of propaganda, produced his own version in 1689, thirteen years ahead of the official version, ensuring royal approbation by dedicating it to the three royal grandchildren.7 The material is mainly presented chronologically, but some medals are grouped thematically to give greater emphasis to particular royal achievements (as, for example, ‘religion’ or ‘taking over the reins of government’ (Figure 1).8 This sophisticated piece of royal propaganda was obviously successful since it ran through several editions and probably served as model for a similar history of William of Orange published three years later in Amsterdam.9 6

7

8 9

Medailles sur les principaux evenemens du regne de Louis le Grand, avec des explications historiques. Par l’Academie Royale des medailles et des inscriptions (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1702, folio). Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand par les medailles, emblêmes, devises, jettons, inscriptions, armoiries, et autres monumens publics. Recuëillis, et expliquéz par le Pere Claude François Menestrier de la Compagnie de Jesus (Paris: J.B. Nolin, 1689, folio). All illustrations in this article are reproduced by kind permission of the Librarian, Glasgow University Library. Nicolas Chevalier, Histoire de Guillaume III, Roy d’Angleterre, d’Ecosse, de France, et d’Irlande, Prince d’Orange &c. Contenant ses actions les plus memorables, depuis sa naissance jusques à son elevation sur le trône, & ce qui s’est passé depuis jusques à l’entiere reduction du royaume d’Irlande. Par medailles, inscriptions, arcs de triomphe, & autres monumens publics. Recueillis par N. Chevalier (Amsterdam: [no publ.], 1692, folio).

Fig. 1

Claude-François Menestrier, Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand, Paris: J.B. Nolin [Amsterdam], 1691, M1v–M2r.

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

73

Returning, however, to the new initiatives of the 1660s, a new post of Historiographe des bastimens du Roi was created in 1666, with the remit of publishing official descriptions of the glories of the royal buildings and their contents. Its first occupant, André Félibien, explains in one of the many publications he produced in this guise how the king wished to exploit all art forms to convey the message of royal greatness: Aussi comme il n’y a rien dans tous les Arts que le Roy ne fasse servir à l’utilité de ses Peuples, & à la gloire de son Regne, il ne se contente pas d’élever de magnifiques Edifices, d’orner ses Palais de Peintures, & de Statuës inimitables, de les parer de Vases & de Meubles précieux, de faire travailler à toutes sortes de riches Tapisseries, & d’employer une infinité de personnes à tous les Ouvrages qui peuvent embellir son Royaume ….10 [Thus since there is nothing in all the Arts that the King does not exploit to the benefit of his People and the glory of his Reign, he is not content with raising magnificent Edifices, adorning his Palaces with Paintings and inimitable Statues, embellishing them with Vases and precious furniture, instigating the production of all sorts of rich Tapestries, and employing infinite numbers of people to create Works which can embellish his Reign ….]

But to be effective that message must be widely disseminated, and this would happen by means of the printed book: … il veut encore que les Peuples éloignez en jouissent en quelque sorte, & que par les Descriptions & les Figures de ses superbes Bastimens, & de ses Royales entreprises, ils en connaissent l’excellence. C’est dans cette pensée que Sa Majesté ayant jetté les yeux sur des Personnes capables d’exécuter ses intentions, fait mettre au jour des Recueils pareils à celuy cy où la beauté des Caractères, jointes à celles des Figures, ne laisse rien à desirer, afin qu’ils soient un jour de precieux Monumens de tout ce qui se fait aujourd’hui, & que ceux qui viendront aprés nous soient en quelque sorte spectateurs des merveilles dont nous sommes témoins. (Tapisseries, π2r) [… he also wishes distant Peoples to enjoy these in some manner, and by Descriptions and Figures of his superb Buildings and Royal enterprises to become aware of their excellence. It is with this intention that His Majesty, having looked to People capable of executing his intentions, is having produced Compilations like this in which the beauty of the Words together with that of the Figures, leaves nothing lacking, so that they will one day provide precious Monuments of everything that is being done today, and that those who come after us will witness in some manner the marvels which we are seeing.]

10

Tapisseries du Roi, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1670, folio), [*]2r.

74

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

To Félibien, therefore, fell the task of describing the royal houses and their contents, focusing not solely on their beauty and richness, but also on the iconographic message, which buildings and contents alike were designed to convey. Pierre Dan had earlier described Fontainebleau,11 but Félibien described Versailles in particular, much more systematically, spelling out in book after book, more clearly and explicitly than would probably have been apparent to direct onlookers, the significance of the decoration of the buildings and of the treasures contained therein. Thus, for example, he not only describes the use of the sun as a unifying motif throughout the palace of Versailles, but also explains why this is so: … comme le Soleil est la Devise du Roy, que les Poëtes confondent le Soleil & Apolon, il n’y a rien dans cette superbe Maison qui n’ait raport à cette divinité; Aussi toutes les figures & les ornemens qu’on y voit n’estant point placez au hazard, ils ont relation, ou au Soleil, ou aux lieux particuliers où ils sont mis.12 [… since the Sun is the King’s Device, and since the Poets confuse the Sun and Apollo, there is nothing in this superb House which is not associated with that god; Thus all the figures and ornaments which can be seen are not placed at random, but relate either to the Sun or to the particular situation in which they are placed.]

In his description of the painted ceilings for the Petit cabinet, he again develops this point: Les plafonds doivent estre enrichis de peintures par les meilleurs Peintres de l’Academie Royale. Et comme le Soleil est la devise du Roy, l’on a pris les sept Planettes pour servir de sujet aux Tableaux des sept pieces de cét appartement. De sorte que dans chacune on y doit representer les actions des Heros de l’antiquité, qui auront rapport à chacune des Planetes & aux actions de Sa Majesté. On en voit ces Figures symboliques dans les ornemens de sculpture qu’on a faits aux corniches, & dans les plafonds. (Description sommaire, pp. 33–4) [The ceilings should be enriched with paintings by the best Painters of the Royal Academy. And since the Sun is the King’s device, the seven Planets have been taken as subject for the Paintings in the seven rooms of this apartment. Thus in each room should be represented the actions of Heroes of antiquity, which will relate to each Planet,

11

12

Le tresor des merveilles de la maison royale de Fontainebleau, contenant la description de son antiquité, de sa fondation, de ses bastimens, de ses rares peintures, tableaux, emblemes, et devises: de ses jardins, de ses fontaines, et autres singularitez qui s’y voyent. Ensemble les traictez de paix, les assemblées, les conferences, les entrées royales, les naissances, et ceremonies de baptesme de quelques enfans de France; les mariages, les tournoys, et autres magnificences, qui s’y sont faictes jusques à present, par le R.P.F. Pierre Dan (Paris: S. Cramoisy, 1642, folio). Description sommaire du chasteau de Versailles (Paris: G. des Prez and C. Savreux, 1674, 12o), pp. 11–12.

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

75

and to the actions of His Majesty. Symbolic Figures of these are visible in ornaments and sculptures incorporated into the cornices and ceilings.]

Therefore, Félibien uses the printed book as Historiographe des bastimens to convey verbally, to a greater audience and in a more explicit form, the political message about the heroic status of Louis XIV, which was originally conveyed only visually, and only to the restricted elite enjoying access to the palace. In his Tapisseries du Roi, Félibien’s descriptions and glosses accompanying engravings of the allegorical tapestries of the Four Seasons and the Four Elements serve the same purpose, revealing the political message of the tapestries to a wider audience, but also conveying that message more clearly in verbal terms than had been the case with the original wall-mounted tapestries whose impact was solely visual. Thus, after first explaining that the overall message of the Four Elements tapestries is praise of Louis XIV for bringing about peace, Félibien then explains for each tapestry how the individual allegorical messages of the devices around the borders each relate to one Louis’s four core virtues (magnanimité, piété, bonté and valeur), which enabled him to achieve that peace, and will enable him to achieve further great feats. The four devices relating to his valeur, for example, testify to his dominance both within France and across Europe. In the Air tapestry, valeur is represented by an eagle with the motto Meruitque timeri nil metuens, explained by Félibien as reflecting Louis’s ability to make the rest of Europe tremble, whereas nothing can make him tremble: Les Poëtes ont feint que cet oiseau portoit le foudre de Jupiter, parce qu’il est le seul de tous les animaux qui ne craint point le tonnerre & sur lequel il ne tombe jamais; Ainsi la valeur de Sa Majesté fait trembler toutes les puissances de la terre, parce qu’il n’y en a point au dessus d’Elle, & qu’Elle n’a aucun foudre a redouter. (Tapisseries, M1r) [The Poets have told that this bird bore Jupiter’s thunderbolts because it is the only animal which does not fear thunder, and on which it never falls. Thus the valour of His Majesty causes all the powers of the earth to tremble, because there is none greater than Him, and He has no thunder to fear.]

In the Water tapestry his valeur is represented by a dolphin with the motto Hunc et monstra timent, explained as reflecting Louis’s Europe-wide dominance, while in the Earth tapestry it is represented by a lion with the motto Quis hunc impune lacesset, explained as denoting his ability both to bring about and then maintain peace, by the exercise of a will that is greater than that of his enemies [Fig. 2].13 Lastly, in the border of the Fire tapestry, valeur is represented by a thunderbolt with the motto Micat exitiale superbis, explained as denoting Louis’s authority to cast down those who seek self-glory. The reference is here perhaps to internal affairs within France

13

Tapisseries, R1r and Y1r.

76

Fig. 2

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

André Félibien, Tapisseries du Roi, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons, Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1670, Y1r.

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

77

– the sudden downfall of the over-ambitious Fouquet in 1662 – rather than to Louis’s European dominance, which is stressed in the other three tapestries: Un Foudre abatant un grand Arbre … pour signifier que Sa Majesté pardonnant aux humbles, terrasse & détruit les superbes: Ainsi que le Foudre qui épargnant les joncs & les roseaux qui luy obeissent, abat & détruit les grands Arbres qui luy resistent. (Tapisseries, G1r) [A thunderbolt striking down a great Tree … to signify that His Majesty forgives the humble but casts down and destroys the proud: Just like Thunder which spares the rushes and reeds which bow down before it, and casts down and destroys lofty Trees which resist it.]

In printed form, therefore, as well as explaining the overall message of royal greatness, which the complex iconography of the tapestries was designed to convey, Félibien also provides a detailed analysis of the contribution of each individual element to this overall message. Nothing is left unexplained. Where the original tapestries offered an intellectual challenge to the privileged elite who could actually see them in their physical reality, but who had no further assistance in interpreting the allegorical significance of what they saw, Félibien provided his much greater readership with a highly decorative and beautifully produced book, pleasing in itself as an artefact, but meaningful also as a carefully elaborated and clearly expressed piece of royal propaganda. Although royal buildings and their contents were his official remit, Félibien also produced accounts of festivities mounted in those buildings, and again these are interpretative as well as descriptive. His Relation de la feste de Versailles. Du 18. Juillet mil six cens soixante-huit,14 for example, chronicles celebrations marking the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, while his Divertissemens de Versailles donnez par le Roy à toute sa cour au retour de la Conqueste de la Franche Comté en l’année M.DC. LXXIV similarly chronicles the even more elaborate celebrations marking this event which were staged at intervals, on six different days during July and August 1674, involving plays, concerts, opera, waterworks and firework display [Fig. 3].15 (Both these lavish folio volumes were published – like his Tapisseries du Roi – by the Imprimerie royale.) Such affairs played a major public relations role, since not only did members of the French aristocracy witness the splendours, but also – perhaps more importantly – visiting foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, for whom the display of splendour was intended to equate with strength and power. In the Relation de la feste de Versailles Félibien points to the presence of the ambassadors at the banquet and the association to be drawn between the opulence of that banquet and the magnificence of the king:

14 15

Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1679, folio. Ibid.

Fig. 3

André Félibien, Divertissemens de Versailles, Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1676, engraving between pp. 6 and 7.

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

79

Dans la Grotte proche du Chasteau, il y eut trois tables pour les Ambassadeurs … Il y avoit encore en plusieurs endroits des tables dressées où l’on donnoit à manger à tout le monde, & l’on peut dire que l’abondance des viandes, des vins & des liqueurs; la beauté & l’excellence des fruits & des confitures, & une infinité d’autres choses delicatement apprestées, faisoit bien voir que la magnificence du Roy se répandoit de tous costez. (Relation, pp. 30–31) [In the Grotto near the Castle there were three tables for the Ambassadors … In several places further tables were also laid at which everybody could eat, and it can be said that the abundance of meats, wines and liquors, the beauty and excellence of the fruit and desserts and an infinity of other delicately prepared dishes made it clearly apparent that the King’s magnificence spread on all sides.]

And the work ends with an even more explicitly stated political message equating the king’s ability to mount such splendid occasions with his ability to mount effective military campaigns: Ainsi finit cette grande Feste, de laquelle … on avouëra qu’il ne s’est jamais rien fait de plus surprenant & qui ait causé plus d’admiration. Mais comme il n’y a que le Roy qui puisse en si peu de temps mettre de grandes Armées sur pied & faire des conquestes avec cette rapidité que l’on a veuë, & dont toute la Terre a esté épouvantéee, lors que dans le milieu de l’Hyver Elle triomphoit de ses ennemis, & faisoit ouvrir les portes de toutes les Villes par où elle passoit: Aussi n’appartient-il qu’à ce grand Prince de mettre ensemble avec la mesme promptitude autant de Musiciens, de Danseurs & de Joüeurs d’Instrumens, & tant de differentes beautez … ainsi l’on voit que sa Majesté fait toutes ses actions avec une grandeur égale; & que soit dans la paix, soit dans la Guerre, Elle est par tout inimitable. (Relation, p. 42) [Thus ended this great Festivity, of which … it must be said, that nothing had ever been done which was more amazing or which caused greater admiration. But since it is only the King who can assemble great Armies in so little time and make conquests with the rapidity which we have seen, by which the whole Earth has been astounded, when in the middle of Winter He triumphed over His enemies and caused the gates to be opened of all the Towns through which he passed. So also it is only this great Prince who can assemble with the same rapidity so many Musicians, Dancers and Musicians, and so many different wonders … thus we see that His Majesty accomplishes all his actions with equal grandeur and that whether in peace or in war He is everywhere incomparable.]

These grandiose folio volumes, with their large double-opening engravings, offered a lasting testimony of a set of highly dramatic, but otherwise largely ephemeral demonstrations of royal splendour and power. But here again, as with the Tapisseries du Roi, the testimony is more than just a recording for posterity. It also offers a much clearer exposition of the meaningful subtext than could have been provided by the original spectacle, which necessarily relied – at least as far as the waterworks,

80

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

allegorical tableaux and the firework displays were concerned – on understanding of a visual stimulus alone. The allegorical firework display, for example, which took place on the Grand Canal on the fifth day of the Divertissemens de Versailles, had as its focal point a rocky island with a large obelisk, topped with a sun, and with various allegorical figures clustered at the base. At the bottom of the obelisk a realistic bas-relief depicted Louis leading his army across the Rhine. The significance of the sun would have been obvious, but less so that of the allegorical figures around the base of the obelisk. But Félibien carefully explains everything: obelisk and sun together represent ‘la gloire du Roy toute eclatante de lumiere’ despite the efforts of his enemies, and despite the efforts of Envy represented by a vanquished dragon. Hercules and Pallas, each depicted with captives at their feet, represent his ‘puissance invincible’ and ‘la grandeur des actions de Sa Majesté’. In the earlier Relation de la Feste de Versailles, even the symbolic meaning of the architectural decor of the theatre in which the play was acted is explained: Entre chaque colomne il y avoit une figure: Celle qui estoit à droit representoit la Paix, & celle qui estoit à gauche figuroit la Victoire, pour monstrer que sa Majesté est toûjours en estat de faire que ses peuples joüissent d’une paix heureuse & pleine d’abondance, en établissant le repos dans l’Europe, ou d’une victoire glorieuse & remplie de joye, quand Elle est obligée de prendre les armes pour soûtenir ses droits. (Relation, pp. 11–12) [Between each column there was a figure: That on the right represented Peace, and that on the left Victory, to show that His Majesty is always able to cause his people to enjoy happy and abundant peace, by establishing peace in Europe, or glorious and joyful victory when He is obliged to take up arms to support their rights.]

The function of such works as these was thus to express the message of royal splendour and authority on the one hand in a more clearly formulated manner than had been possible in the original event, and on the other to a wider audience than the ‘semi-private’ cohort of courtiers and distinguished visitors who were able to witness the events in their original, essentially visual form. But nevertheless it is evident from the luxury format of these works produced by the Imprimerie royale that the wider audience that they targeted was still an elite readership. It is also clear that the audience was wider in the sense of extending beyond the boundaries of France.This is evident from the fact that among the various editions of the Tapisseries du Roi, which were produced are three which include a German version of the text alongside the original French and one which includes a Dutch version of the text alongside the French. The fact that the bilingual French/German editions were actually published in Augsburg and the bilingual French/Dutch edition in Amsterdam is very significant. As we have seen, the essential purpose of this work by Félibien is to spread propaganda about the greatness of France and the French monarch. Yet so visually attractive is the way in which that propaganda is packaged that German and Dutch publishers were prepared to produce editions of the work in their own country, thereby

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

81

helping considerably the French propaganda machine.16 Another grandiose work emanating from the Imprimerie royale, Charles Perrault’s Courses de testes et de bague, whose superb engravings by Silvestre and Chauveau record the splendours of the two-day carrousel held in Paris in 1662 to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin, was also published in a Latin as well as a French version in order to extend more widely across Europe its message of French royal magnificence (Figure 4).17 There is further indication that copies of these splendid large-format printed representations of royal magnificence produced by the Imprimerie royale were intended for a European destination. Many of the surviving copies still retain their original luxury red morocco binding, bearing the French royal coat of arms, and it is clear that bound thus they were often intended for presentation to visiting ambassadors as impressive, but also message-bearing, gifts for the crowned heads of Europe. Several such copies, which once graced the royal libraries of Europe, are now housed in the various national libraries into which the old royal libraries were absorbed.18

16

17

18

Tapisseries du Roy, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons. Avec les devises qui les accompagnent et leur explication. Königliche Französische Tapezereijen, oder überaus schöone Sinn-Bilder, in welchen die vier Element samt den vier Jahr-Zeiten neben den Dencksprüchen und ihren Auszlegungen vorgestellet werden (Augsburg: J. Koppmayer for J.U. Krauss, 1687; ibid., 1690 and n.d.); Tapisseries du Roy, ou sont representez les quatre elements, avec les devises, qui les accompagnent & leur explication. Tapyten van den Konink van Vrankryk verbeeldende de vier elementen, beneffens haarwonderlyke zinnebeelden, en uytlegging op dezelve; Suite des tapisseries du Roy de France, ou sont representées les quatre saisons qui les accompagnent & leurs explications. Tapyten van den Koning van Vrankryk, verbeeldende de vier jaargetyden, benevens haar verwonderlyke zinnebeeldenen uytleggingen op dezelve (Amsterdam: P. van der Berge, n.d. [c.1700]). For details of all editions see Alison Adams, Stephen Rawles and Alison Saunders, A Bibliography of French Emblem Books, 2 vols (Geneva: Droz, 1999 and 2002), vol. 1, nos 240–52. Courses de testes et de bague, faites par le Roy et par les princes et seigneurs de sa cour en l’année M.DC.LXII (Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1670, folio); Festiva ad capita annulumque decursio, a Rege Ludovico XIV principibus summisque aulae proceribus edita anno M.DC.LXII (Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1670, folio). Copies, thus bound, of Perrault’s Courses de testes et de bague are in the Royal Library in Copenhagen and the Bavarian State Library in Munich, while a copy of Félibien’s Tapisseries du Roy is in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Additionally, Louis had particularly splendid versions made for his own library. A copy of Perrault’s Courses de testes et de bague in Versailles Bibliothèque municipale has engravings hand-painted by Jacques Bailly. The Bibliothèque nationale de France has a manuscript of the Devises pour les tapisseries du Roi produced by Bailly for the royal library. A copy of a series of engravings of the tapestries, again hand-painted by Bailly, and again in a French royal binding is in the British Museum (Harley 4377: Devises pour les Tapisseries du Roy de France: ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons de l’année. Peintes en mignature par J. Bailly, peintre du Roy en son Academie Royale de Peinture & Sculpture (Paris: 1669, folio).

82

Fig. 4

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Charles Perrault, Courses de testes et de bague, Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy for the Imprimerie royale, 1670, I2r.

Illustrated Books as Political Propaganda

83

It is not suggested that such grandiose works as these, catering for an elite, and in many cases a European elite readership, and designed to express a piece of political propaganda, totally replaced the more traditional model. Dozens of accounts, more modestly conceived and produced, continued to conform to the older pattern, among which one particularly interesting example might be mentioned. This is a printed account of a two-day carrousel organized for the Dauphin at Versailles in June 1685. It is interesting for two reasons, the first being that the text was produced in two separate versions. The first, entitled La brillante journée ou le Carrousel des galans Maures, was published in advance of the event to serve as a programme, describing what could be seen where, and its title page advertises the fact that it will be available for sale at Versailles on the day.19 However, the second version, the Seconde relation du carrousel des galans Maures, was published six weeks later, after the event, in order to provide – as its full title suggests – a more accurate account, correcting the earlier version in the light of what actually happened.20 But the work is interesting for another reason also. It was originally published in Paris, as might be expected for an event at Versailles, but then both versions of the text were almost immediately afterwards republished in Lyon, attesting to the extent of national interest that such royal festivities at Versailles could generate.21 A Lyon publisher who was prepared to take over the Paris privilege and produce new editions, closely modelled on the earlier Paris ones, and very soon after them, must have been confident that there would still be a sufficiently large market for these, far from the place where the event had been held, after it had taken place, and at a stage when the Paris market could be presumed to be catered for already. Amaulry’s confidence reflects again, albeit rather differently, the degree of nationwide commitment to the French king and his family.22 But to return in conclusion to the main works under discussion, the role of these luxury printed books, produced for propaganda purposes during the reign of Louis XIV, went far beyond the earlier one of providing a factual account of what happened at such court festivities or of what could be seen within the royal palaces, for the benefit of those not privileged to witness it themselves. This they certainly did, but the wider French and European audience that they targeted was no less an elite than those

19

20

21 22

La brillante journée ou le Carrousel des galans Maures, entrepris par Monseigneur le Dauphin. Avec la comparse, les courses, et des madrigaux sur les devises. Se vendra à Versailles le jour du Carrousel (Paris: Veuve C. Blageart, 1685, 4o). Seconde relation du carrousel des galans Maures, entrepris par Monseigneur le Dauphin. Contenant de nouvelles particularitez; & quatre grandes planches … (Paris: Veuve C. Blageart, 1685, 4o. (The achevé d’imprimer is dated 16 July 1685.) They were published by Thomas Amaulry in 1685 in quarto, with the same title as the Paris editions. All four editions are very rare. For the Paris editions of the Brillante journée and Seconde relation, only one copy of each survives in the Bibliothèque Mazarine. For the Lyon editions two copies of the Brillante journée survive – one in the Lyon Bibliothèque municipale and the other in the Grenoble Bibliothèque municipale – and one copy only of the Seconde relation survives in the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon.

84

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

who were privileged to see the real thing in the first place. Their objective, however, was not just to describe what could be seen, but more importantly to interpret more explicitly, by means of the printed word, the political significance of something which in its original form would have been seen only in visual form. In such printed works, the visual stimulus – now taking the form of large and elaborate engravings produced by the best artists – is as important as it was in the original manifestation, whether tapestry, firework display, jousting display or whatever. But that original, purely visual stimulus is now complemented by a written gloss, thereby ensuring that a coherent and meaningful message of political propaganda is conveyed to a national, and also an international, audience with maximum effect.

Chapter 7

Insinuation and Instruction: Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’ Ann C. Dean

During the summer and autumn of 1765, the London Chronicle printed an exchange of letters between two anonymous political writers. One defended George Grenville, recently ousted from his position as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, while the other praised his successor, the Marquis of Rockingham, and his associates. The letter writers engaged in a debate open to a general audience through print; the letters thus provide a helpful test case for claims about print, people and the public sphere in eighteenth-century Britain. Did newspaper letters such as these contribute to an ‘imagined community’ or ‘rational public sphere’ in which readers came to see themselves as connected to other anonymous citizens through their participation in ongoing political discussion?1 I argue that these letters suggest that general, abstract ideas about citizenship and debate developed out of writers’ and readers’ more traditional, familiar and local experiences with politics. Each writer in this exchange argued for one ‘set’ of ministers, using character sketches, accusations and anecdotes to discredit the other side. Each claimed that the stakes were high and that the other’s party was controlled by the King’s favourite, the Earl of Bute, rather than by devotion to liberty and the good of the nation. Both assumed that the range of possible political changes stretched only across the set of aristocratic men who might be appointed to ministerial posts. We can see the letters as figuring a public sphere only if we define such a sphere as constituted by agonistic, rather than rational, discourse. Neither writer proposed investigating evidence according to rational laws; neither considered theories of representation or social contracts. Their conflicting, irreconcilable claims about the personal qualities of the men in each ministry appeared in issue after issue of the weekly London Chronicle, often juxtaposed in adjacent columns. This periodic, adjacent publication constituted a form of debate that neither writer acknowledged in words. 1

‘Imagined Community’ is a term presented in Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983, 1991). ‘Rational Public Sphere’ comes from Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991).

86

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

The two letter writers, like most others during the period, used pseudonyms which allowed them to claim to be disinterested bystanders rather than members of particular parties or factions. The pro-Grenville letters were signed ‘Anti-Sejanus’. The classical reference to Sejanus, a commander of the Praetorian guard who attempted to seize power during the reign of Tiberius, signified to anyone with a classical education who read newspapers at all frequently that the writer opposed John Stuart, the third earl of Bute. Bute was widely thought to have exploited his position as King George III’s favourite in order to wrest control of the country away from Parliament. By the time this letter was published, Bute had resigned from office and had ceased to take any part in court affairs, but suspicion of his ‘corrupting influence’ continued to frame political discussion.2 Anti-Sejanus wrote in support of Grenville and his friends, arguing that they had not been influenced by Bute and that their opponents were entirely his tools. In response to Anti-Sejanus’s letters, the 11 July issue of the London Chronicle published a letter from a writer who described himself as ‘a Weaver in Spitalfields, whose sufferings make him somewhat attentive to the times’. This is a reference to several riots that took place in May, when the House of Commons passed a bill imposing duties on Italian silks, intended to make imported cloth more expensive than that made in the Spitalfields section of London. The Duke of Bedford spoke against the bill in the House of Lords. According to Horace Walpole, the next day Weavers pelted his coach with mud and paving stones and followed him home: rioters in prodigious numbers assaulted the house in the evening, and began to pull down the wall of the Court; but the great gates being thrown open, the party of horse appeared, and sallying out, while the riot act was read, rode around Bloomsbury-square, slashing and trampling on the mob, and dispersing them; yet not till a two or three of the guards had been wounded.3

Such rioting was traditional in this trade: Weavers had protested outside Parliament in 1689, and cotton Weavers had engaged in an ongoing campaign against imported Indian calico, directed at Parliament, at vendors and at consumers.4 The Weaver who wrote this series of letters to the London Chronicle, and who has not been identified, could thus have been an actual Weaver. It is more likely, however, that the writer was using the riot to discredit the Duke of Bedford and his friends, who

2 3

4

Peter D.G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians 1760–1770 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), pp. 95, 97–8, 119. Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, Vol. II (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1894), pp. 111–12. Punctuation as in original. See also J. Steven Watson, The Reign of George III 1760–1815 (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1960), p. 111. Robert B. Shoemaker, ‘The London “Mob” in the Early Eighteenth Century’, Journal of British Studies, 26 (July 1987): 280.

Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’

87

included George Grenville and the other members of his administration.5 The classical references and sheer copiousness of the correspondence suggest that the writer was not someone engaged in daily manual labour, but we lack sufficient information about both newspaper writing and the literacy practices of London workers to make this certain. Each of these two writers explicitly addressed ‘the public’ and claimed to represent the views of ‘my fellow subjects’ or ‘the generality’.6 By using this language, they invoked a link between newspaper printing and political participation. Jürgen Habermas’s ‘bourgeois public sphere’ and Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined community’ both rest conceptually upon such a link. Habermas locates this development specifically in the conflict between Bolingbroke’s Craftsman and the Gentleman’s Magazine: the press was for the first time established as a genuinely critical organ of a public engaged in critical political debate: as the fourth estate. Thus raised to the status of an institution, the ongoing commentary on and criticism of the Crown’s actions and Parliament’s decisions transformed a public authority now being called before the forum of the public … From now on, the degree of the public sphere’s development was measured by the state of the confrontation between government and the press, as it drew out over the entire century.7

For Habermas, the ‘continuing’ nature of periodical publication and the ‘critical’ debate carried therein meant that the group addressed by the press constituted a public. Anderson uses the term ‘print-capitalism’ to designate a ‘new way of linking fraternity, power and time meaningfully together’ (p. 36). He mentions time for the same reason that Habermas stresses continuity of discourse – to indicate the importance of periodicity to the sort of publication that gives readers the sense that they are part of a public. Reading a daily newspaper marks time in a different way from observing a religious festival or watching the progress of the seasons. The newspaper marks each day with information about far-flung events and unknown people. Reading it daily, at the same time as all the other newspaper buyers at all the other breakfast tables, a reader experiences time organized by an experience of a commodity (the printed paper) and as a member of an anonymous group (its readers). Naming and understanding modern social formations such as the group of people unified through such periodical

5

6 7

In this article, I have referred to the writer of the Spitalfield Weaver letters as ‘he’, as most of the letter-writers we have information about were men. Women did, however, read and write for eighteenth-century newspapers. See Paula McDowell, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678–1730 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) and The Practice and Representation of Reading in England, ed. James Raven, Helen Small and Naomi Tadmor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Anti-Sejanus, in the London Chronicle, 11 July 1765. Habermas, Structural Transformation, p. 60.

88

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

reading has required a language of abstraction; terms such as ‘fraternity’, ‘public opinion’, ‘society’, ‘the nation’ replaced metaphors based on the family, the parish or the manor.8 Recent scholarship has questioned the specifics of the large narratives of historical development proposed by Habermas and Anderson, while acknowledging the power of the concepts of public, print and nation they investigate. Theorists have proposed a model of multiple, competing ‘counterpublics’ in opposition to Habermas’s bourgeois public, and historians have questioned the extent to which an empirical example of a critical, rational, unaffiliated public sphere can be found at any particular historical moment.9 One common thread in critiques of the concept of the bourgeois public sphere is the observation that smaller and more localized images of political and social life can often be found in writings which characterize modern social forms. The ‘Anti-Sejanus’ and ‘Spitalfields Weaver’ letters suggest how, in the summer of 1765, newspaper writers imagined their readers as participants in the traditional politics of courtly patronage, rather than in an alternative arena of political interaction. Both writers referred to ‘the public’ and ‘the nation’ frequently and familiarly, but they achieved that familiarity through inviting the people of Britain into the networks of support and alliance that bound members of aristocratic families to each other. The political issues addressed by the two writers (and many others in the Chronicle and elsewhere) in the summer and autumn of 1765 were particularly closely tied to issues of friendship and alliance. Two years earlier, when Bute became determined to resign as Prime Minister, the post had gone to George Grenville after a protracted series of negotiations. Grenville’s charmlessness made for a rocky relationship with his sovereign. Describing his conferences with Grenville, the King wrote to Bute, ‘when he has wearied me for two hours, he looks at his watch to see if he may not tire me for an hour more’.10 Grenville also threatened to resign whenever the King suggested an appointment outside the circle of his own followers. The King made several attempts to put together alternative ministries. All the negotiations were conducted in the language of friendship and alliance. In his account of the negotiations, Horace Walpole reports that William Pitt refused to serve partly because he did not have enough ‘friends’ to undertake the work of administration: ‘himself told the elder T. Townshend that, had he been younger, or had one friend to whom he could have intrusted the Treasury, he would have undertaken the Administration’. As it was, Pitt insisted that he would serve only if his brother-in-law, Lord Temple, were made head of the Treasury. Temple

8

9

10

Each of these terms changed significantly in meaning during the eighteenth century. See the first chapter of Habermas’s Structural Transformation for a history of the usage of the word ‘public’. The Phantom Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics (New York: Zone Books, 2002). Brian Cowan, ‘Mr. Spectator and the Coffeehouse Public Sphere’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 37:3 (Spring 2004):345–66. Walpole, Memoirs, II, p. 115; Thomas, p. 115.

Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’

89

refused, and thus Pitt did not serve. Friendship and loyalty structured patronage not only practically, as here, but as a matter of principle. Walpole claims proudly that his own actions during this period were similarly motivated by his affection for his cousin Henry Seymour Conway, who in 1763–64 had been deprived of his place at court and his military command, for political reasons: I had entered into opposition on the view of the violent measures, and still more violent designs of the Court. Personal dislike to the Bedford faction had inflamed my natural warmth, and the oppression exercised on Mr. Conway had fixed in me an unalterable desire of overturning that Administration.11

Policy, which Walpole associates with ‘measures’ and ‘designs’, is interpreted through the warmth, loyalty and desire it inspires. Similar terms were used on the other side of this particular political battle. The King’s supporter, Lord Egmont, noted that at the news of Pitt’s commitment to Temple The King was in ye greatest Agitation [and ordered that] ye Duke of Cumberland should pass all ye Remainder of ye Day in seeing ye duke of Newcastle, his Friends, &c to try whether they could be brought … to Join with ye King.12

In the spring of 1765, the King succeeded in assembling a new ministry. It was led by the Marquis of Rockingham, aged 35, the Duke of Grafton, 29, and the Duke of Newcastle, 72, and it was installed on 10 July.13 Anti-Sejanus’s 11 July letter, implying that Bute was working behind the scenes to construct the new ministry, works to discredit the networks of loyalty that structure party politics around the court: ... one cannot help smiling to see what wretched tools he [Bute] employs to work out his infamous purposes. It is something remarkable, that he has not been able to prevail on one single person of character and experience to co-operate with him. The poor creatures whom he has pressed into his service remind me of the ragamuffins headed by his namesake in the last rebellion, who were composed of raw ignorant lads and decrepid old men.

It is clear from this letter that Anti-Sejanus was informed about the negotiations that led to the formation of Rockingham’s ministry. Even as the King was formally appointing them, Anti-Sejanus was attacking Rockingham and Grafton for being too young, Newcastle for being too old and the whole group for being tools of Bute, now assumed to be pulling strings from retirement. By mentioning the ‘late rebellion’,

11 12

13

Walpole, Memoirs, II, pp. 136, 149. The Correspondence of George the Third, ed. Sir John Fortescue (London: Frank Cass, 1967), p. 108. Egmont, like Walpole, uses the term ‘friend’ to signify a member of a political alliance founded upon family connection and obligations for past and future favours. Thomas, George III, pp. 119–20.

90

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

in which Scottish supporters attempted to put the Pretender (Charles Stuart) on the throne, Anti-Sejanus associates Bute’s unpopular Scottishness with Rockingham and his friends. The language used here treats personal qualities, such as character and loyalty, and traditional social identifications, such as Scottishness, as the major concerns of political discourse. The goal implicit in this passage is to locate and reward men who are firmly attached to the King and to each other by ties of loyalty and by mutual recognition of integrity and character. Neither the republican language of virtuous independence nor the Lockean language of social contracts operates here. Instead, Anti-Sejanus intends, he writes, ‘to instruct and open the eyes of my fellow subjects, the generality of whom have been grossly imposed upon by insinuations’. The reading public for this letter is here rhetorically constructed as a group of ‘subjects’. Like the dependents of particular court figures, they must interpret the ‘insinuations’ and rumours that circulate about who will be favoured by the King, who will do him favours and who will in turn be able to do favours for others. This model of political discourse as instruction about insinuation so fully defines political life for Anti-Sejanus that he does not criticize it as corruption or imagine an unsullied state of pure political representation outside it. His 11 July letter begins by defining an ideal of political discourse: I have often lamented, that in party-disputes so much warmth and acrimony should be made use of, even in points which seem to require nothing more than cool reasoning and sound argument.14

This claim seems to anticipate the sort of newspaper discourse which Habermas discussed in the passage above: ‘a genuinely critical organ of a public engaged in critical political debate’. It is important to notice, however, that Anti-Sejanus locates this cool reasoning ‘in party-disputes’. Political discourse is framed, in other words, around parties. ‘Sound argument’, as we have seen in the references to the personal qualities of particular men rumoured to be in negotiation for posts, is directed at locating the right people and groups to receive patronage, not at reasoning about the policies these men will implement. Accusing them of being beholden to Bute for their new positions, Anti-Sejanus writes ... it will be no small amusement to those who are only bystanders, to observe … how unwillingly they will compliment him with the dis[tribution?] of every place of trust or profit. I am sure indeed that as a Chart Blanche has been tendered to them, they may imagine they are to [rule?] in their own terms: but I will venture a prophecy, that they will find themselves, in the end, very woefully mistaken; for by what I saw of the Favourite, he will never part with his anger, which he has uniformly shewn, with amazing perseverance, is the sole dear idol of his soul.15

14 15

Anti-Sejanus in the London Chronicle, 11 July 1765. Ibid. Bracketed words are obscured in the bound newsprint edition.

Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’

91

Here, Anti-Sejanus provides an interpretative frame for readers of the next month’s newspapers. As the new ministry begins to dispense patronage, he argues, canny readers will be able to identify each new appointee as either a supporter of Bute or a supporter of Rockingham and his friends, who are now indebted to Bute and therefore under his direction. The policies which this new ministry implements, according to this interpretation, will be understandable in terms of this network of loyalties and debts. Having been instructed by Anti-Sejanus, the reading public will find it difficult to help smiling as they use the knowledge he has provided to understand the motives and causes of the political events reported in the papers. Anti-Sejanus assumes that understanding those motives and causes of policy, rather than the possible effects of policies once they are enacted, is the subject of ‘sound arguments’ about politics. Anti-Sejanus invites a general, anonymous reading public into a form of political discourse centered on specific, personal, local scenes and issues. Reading this letter, it is difficult to imagine the sort of abstract relation between people that Anderson describes as ‘a sociological organism moving calendrically through homogenous, empty time’.16 We might expect a suffering Weaver to address the London Chronicle’s reading public in significantly different terms. If we read within a frame of reference which includes the impending American and French revolutions, the development of workingclass protest in Britain, and eventual electoral reform, we might expect a Weaver to critically examine the relations between the hereditary aristocracy and the state. The Spitalfields Weaver, however, writes in terms strikingly similar to those employed by Anti-Sejanus. His discussion of the appointment of the Rockingham ministry, for example, is located in a conversation at ‘the club’ where he and his friends discuss politics: Last night, Sir, I and many other well-wishers [to] our country, waited at the club till the return of one of our members, whom we had sent to St. James’s for news. He returned at last with joyful tidings: The power of the oppressors is no more. Four of the principal offenders were, he said, dismissed. We teased him with a thousand questions concerning their successors: Lord Rockingham, he said, was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, a Nobleman of good character, large fortune, and staunch Whig principles, a tool to no man, and uniform in opposition to his sycophantic predecessor in office. This worthy Nobleman, he said, had taken upon him the arduous task of First Lord of the Treasury, merely to rescue his Prince from insolent servants, and his Country from cruel masters, equally regardless of its liberty, prosperity, and honour. General Conway, he said, was made Secretary of State for the Southern department; the same Gentleman whom the D. of B— and G— G— had last year deprived of his regiment, and turned out of an honourable station at court, for having spoken with eloquence, and voted with spirit, against the legality of General Warrants. He comes, continued he, in Lord H—’s room. We asked him if he was slave to no passion, tool to no favourite? if he was needy, corrupt, owed debts he would not pay, sold places which he could, and places

16

Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 26.

92

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800 which he could not give? Whether he had ever issued illegal Warrants to apprehend Members of Parliament? Had avoided bringing their legality to a fair trial, and was too poor and prodigal to maintain his independency, when he retired from office? To all which our friend answered in the negative. In the room of Lord S—, he said, the Duke of Grafton was appointed the other Secretary of State; a young eloquent Nobleman of great expectation, and unsullied character, a tool to no favourite, who never negociated a peace dishonourable to his Country, managed with a carelessness, and guaranteed by hostages; who had no secret ways of doubling his salary, and who never had, merely to keep his place, betray’d and sacrific’d an old friend, and gay companion, nor veer’d like a weather-cock from side to side. Mr. Dowdeswell, he told us, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; a Country Gentleman of great abilities in the H. of C. well versed in the state of our funds; who had often detected the fallacies and misrepresentations of a predecessor, and who opposed, with uncommon eloquence, true patriotism, and manly firmness, nay almost with success, the late most oppressive tax upon Cyder; a tax contrived by the enemies to our happy constitution, supported by Mr. G—, and the whole phalanx of administration. He told us further, that in Lord Gower’s room, as Chamberlain of the Household, the Duke of Portland was named; of him he assured us, that he had been always a whig. It was hoped, added our friend, that in a few days more the whole Augean stable would be cleaned.17

Like Anti-Sejanus, the Weaver frames his political analysis in terms of personal relationships, intimate conversations and familiar scenes. When he writes ‘the power of the oppressors is no more’, he does not refer to aristocrats as a class, but to the particular friends and allies of George Grenville. There are some notable differences between the Weaver’s arguments and those of Anti-Sejanus. The Weaver employs the language of civic republicanism to praise Rockingham and his friends for serving not in their own interests but simply for the good of the nation. The problem with the previous ministry, he implies, is not simply their association with Bute but their dependency: the Earl of Halifax ‘was too poor and prodigal to maintain his independency, when he retired from office’. The debts to Bute of which the Weaver accuses all the other members of the administration suggest that none of them have the personal or financial resources to be truly independent. An ideal public servant, he implies, is noble, honorable, loyal and wealthy. This consistent note in the passage suggests an alternative to Anti-Sejanus’s exclusive focus on favours and obligations. But it does not go so far as to suggest any standards of legitimacy outside the disinterested virtue derived from landed wealth. The Weaver also discusses specific policies, such as the cider tax and arrests under general warrants. The cider excise, proposed by Grenville in 1763, had been part of an attempt to deal with the costs of the Seven Years’ War. The tax was so unpopular that it contributed to the uproar provoking Bute’s resignation. General warrants were special arrest warrants, by which Secretaries of State could authorize arrests without

17

The omitted names are, in full, as follows: The D[uke] of B[edford], G[eorge] G[renville], Lord H[alifax], Lord [Sandwich], the H[ouse] of C[ommons], Mr G[renville].

Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’

93

naming specific individuals and seizures without naming specific papers. John Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant in 1763 for publishing number 45 of the North Briton, a particularly virulent attack on Bute. His cause served as a rallying point for the opposition and for citizens concerned with protecting the liberties of English subjects. Both the cider tax and the question of general warrants had caused widespread protest in writing and on the streets. The Weaver’s references to these issues imply the possibility of a sphere of discussion where individuals come together, leaving personal and individual interests aside, to subject the state’s action to rational criticism. The Weaver, however, does not go quite this far. Each of the policies he discusses is attributed to a particular statesman and is listed along with that man’s personal qualities: the Duke of Grafton compares favourably to Lord Sandwich. This is because the Duke is young, eloquent, noble and wealthy, as well as because Sandwich negotiated the unpopular Peace of Paris (1763) and ‘betray’d and sacrificed an old friend, and gay companion’ ‘merely to keep his place’. This betrayal again concerned Wilkes; Sandwich had provided the government with a copy of Wilkes’ pornographic and scurrilous ‘Essay on Woman’, which lessened support for him and assisted in his prosecution.18 Issues of policy, such as the articles of the treaty signed at the Peace of Paris or the legality of general warrants, are framed by portraits of individual character and scenes of personal interaction. This framing is found in the Weaver’s letter as much as in those by Anti-Sejanus. With this understanding of the Weaver’s frame of reference, it is easier to interpret the closing of his letter, where he speaks for himself and the other Weavers: We now hope, with confidence, to see our complaints attended to, our sufferings relieved, bread given to 30,000 industrious, but indigent Manufacturers, our Liberties secured, and his Majesty, that patriot Prince, happy in a Ministry honest, beloved, and well-intentioned as himself. A Weaver in Spital-Fields. Spital-Square, July 12.

The number 30,000 is the most glaring marker of modernity in this closing. It suggests a sociological knowledge of conditions in general among a class, rather than a specific club or family or neighbourhood. It is a large number to use in a newspaper with a circulation probably lower than 4,000, in a city with a population nearing the 780,000 it would reach in 1780.19 Like the Weaver’s references to particular policies, however, this invocation of the conditions of labour is framed within a traditional and hierarchical vision of a free nation: liberties will be secured and bread will be given to the indigent. All these felicities will be secured by the ministers’ independence and virtue and by their loyalty to their prince. It is not to these concepts as concepts that the writer appeals, but to these concepts as embodied in particular men and their particular histories.

18 19

Watson, The Reign of George III, p. 101. A rough calculation of the paper’s circulation, based on Hannah Barker’s discussion in Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 23.

94

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Among the sterling qualities the Weaver attributes to the members of the new administration is that each man is ‘a tool to no favourite’. This letter appeared on the same page of the newspaper as a letter from Anti-Sejanus, so that both the new and the old administrations were accused of being controlled by Bute at the same time. Such accusations can also be found in the city’s other newspapers. The London Evening Post, for instance, carried a series of letters by opposing writers, ‘Brutus’ and ‘Cato’, which made similar claims to those found in the Weaver and Anti-Sejanus letters. This consensus had caused the King to request Bute’s resignation three years earlier, and thus in part led to the frequent changes of administration these letter-writers addressed. The two opposed writers agree, and comfortably assume that their readers agree, that Bute’s influence is pernicious and his power dangerously unchecked. Can this consensus be seen as a public opinion? In attempting to answer this question, it is important not to project later definitions and structures back onto these texts. Despite the generic similarities, these are not the ‘letters to the editor’ that appear in newspapers today. When the Weaver refers to Anti-Sejanus as ‘that venal pen’, he is quite right.20 Anti-Sejanus, according to Robert R. Rea, was a clergyman named James Scott, hired by the Earl of Sandwich to write letters supporting him and the Grenvilles. In the course of his discussion of letters in the Public Advertiser (rather than the series that appeared in the London Chronicle), Rea identifies Scott’s affiliations: About 1764, Scott became intimate with Sandwich, Halifax, and other members of Grenville’s ministry, and under their patronage he wrote the series of letters signed Anti-Sejanus, which appeared in the Public Advertiser. Scott possessed more than moderate ability, and Anti-Sejanus was one of the most popular writers of short articles between Wilkes and Junius. He hewed to the party line, attacked ‘the favourite’ as well as the Rockingham Whigs, and maintained a high regard for George Grenville. It has been said that Scott’s letters were so popular that the sale of the Public Advertiser was increased from 1,500 to 3,000 daily. Scott’s Anti-Sejanus letters drew replies from ‘An Occasional Writer’ for the Rockingham ministry in 1765, and John Almon believed that Edmund Burke, among others, wrote several replies to Scott. Grenville’s use of ‘every coffee-house and every newspaper’ to sway opinion enabled Scott to retire in 1771, unbowed and undefeated.21

Anti-Sejanus was retained for pay by supporters of Grenville’s group, and the Weaver may have been a dependent of the Rockinghamites. Neither writer frames his claims around the abstract representation of a critical and logical examination of public good. Nor do they speak for ‘interest groups’, in the sense in which we use the term today. Such groups are also abstract, anonymous, and, in Benedict Anderson’s sense, ‘imagined’. Gay men and lesbians, West Indian immigrants, or

20 21

London Chronicle, 11 July. Robert R. Rea, The English Press in Politics, 1760–1774 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), p. 100.

Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’

95

Catholics become voting blocks or political actors, and are understood by their fellow citizens as political actors, not out of specific shared experiences as individuals but out of a concept of the rights of minorities, which they share in principle with the larger population. The Weaver’s 30,000 indigent manufacturers serve a different conceptual purpose from an attempt to sway an anonymous and abstract public opinion. They expand a traditional and familiar social practice, the riot, to a larger arena. Newspaper coverage of the frequent protests and riots by Weavers (discussed above), as well as familiarity with the crowd actions surrounding elections, markets and other social events and conflicts, provided context for reading references to such a large number. In the Weaver’s letter, the 30,000 Weavers indicate the capacity of the new administration to set things right by observing the duties of virtuous public servants: leaving their private lives in order to help their prince maintain Whig principles, and supporting their dependents by fixing prices fairly in times of need.22 A twentieth-century historian describes such riots as a traditional strategy of opposition parties: ‘it was usual for determined opponents of a government to play upon discontent among the public at large and not only among members of parliament or voters. A few good riots, as in 1733, brought home to ministers the danger of pursuing unpopular courses’.23 A much more positive view of the role of rioting in politics can be found in E.P. Thompson’s ‘Moral Economy of the English Crowd’: ‘if the rioting or pricesetting crowd acted according to any consistent theoretical model, then this model was a selective reconstruction of the paternalist one, taking from it all those features which most favoured the poor and which offered a prospect of cheap corn’.24 Both historians see rioting as a social practice understood by its participants to connect to a traditional and paternalist past. The Weaver imagines his 30,000 indigent manufacturers by enlarging a traditional and familiar scene, in which a nobleman addresses rioters, rather than by conceptualizing an alternate space. The Weaver does not imagine the participants in this interaction stepping out of their accustomed roles to address each other as separate from their histories and ranks, as in Habermas’s account of the public sphere, or as in an interest group, which claims recognition on the basis that all minority groups have rights, whatever their particular histories. Instead of projecting such an abstracted scene of address, in which individuals and groups relate in terms of their rights as abstract entities, the Weaver includes his readers in an amplified version of a more traditional interaction: ‘we now hope, with confidence, to see our complaints attended to, our sufferings relieved …’. The distance between ‘complaint’ and ‘critique’ marks an important conceptual difference between ‘public opinion’ and ‘instructing my fellow-subjects’.

22 23 24

See E.P. Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, Past and Present, 50: 76–136. Watson, The Reign of George III, p. 93. Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd’, p. 98.

96

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

The novel aspect of the public sphere, as it is imagined by Habermas, is a scene of interaction that is explicitly divorced from familiar scenes of the family hearth, the King’s closet, the church sanctuary or the village green. An arena where individuals can make free use of their reason and evaluate legitimacy entirely on the basis of rationality can be imagined only by negating all these other scenes and social roles. We have seen how the Weaver and Anti-Sejanus work, instead, by expanding familiar scenes and social roles, imagining their readers as a much larger crowd of Weavers, or of dependents upon a particular noble family. This way of imagining the scene of political interaction also influences the form of interaction the writers imagine. Political conversation is shaped by the forms of conversation practiced in families, at courts and on village greens. In the Anti-Sejanus and Spitalfield Weaver letters, the influence of these scenes upon the forms of political discourse can be seen most clearly when the writers refer to each other. Each dismisses the other’s claims and accuses the other of being impossible to engage in debate. Anti-Sejanus explains: I shall take upon myself to consider some parts of the letter of the Spitalfields Weaver; but at the same time shall caution the honest man, who has been at the pains of writing it, not to imagine that I mean to answer him: No; I have long ago determined to deal with such creatures, as my cousin Tristram did with the mule, never to hold an argument with one of his species.25

To ignore the views advanced by the competing writer and turn directly to the public is a crafty rhetorical move. But it is interesting to note that Anti-Sejanus is claiming that the argument itself is impossible to answer, not only because of the mulish nature of his opponent but because the questions at issue are those of personal integrity, indebtedness and obligation. It is impossible to talk to one of ‘his species’, a supporter of an opposing administration. Anti-Sejanus discusses questions that, if all personal roles and histories are left outside the arena of discussion, cannot be answered. When Anti-Sejanus does address the issues, he writes in terms of knowledge gained through personal experiences and access to powerful figures. In a letter signed ‘A Friend to Anti-Sejanus’, the writer responds to the Weaver’s claims: I beg, Mr. Printer, you will permit me to assure the Public, in the most solemn manner and from my own personal knowledge, that the late Ministry never had any dealings with the Scotchman: they never visited him; never saw him, nor ever wrote to him. They had frequent opportunities indeed of feeling his influence, but they did their utmost to counteract it; and if they did not succeed, it must be imputed to e[vil?] enchantment. I wish the same may be said with any degree of truth, of those who have succeeded them in the administration.26

The italics mark this argument’s reliance on inside knowledge and personal relationships. The writer argues on the basis of a familiarity with the visits, letters and 25 26

London Chronicle, 16–18 July. Ibid.

Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century ‘Letters to the Printer’

97

interactions of Grenville and his associates. The destructive aura attributed to Bute’s influence even suggests that he might have somehow affected the previous ministry by ‘enchantment’, since the usual ways of influencing courtiers were not practiced. Oddly, the letter from the Weaver about the good qualities of the new ministers and the letter from the Friend to Anti-Sejanus appeared in the same 16 July issue of the London Chronicle. The Friend must have had access to the Weaver’s letter before publication, because he quotes from it in order to deny its claims: he commends in the highest manner a certain magnanimous G—; and for what? why truly, because he is ‘no slave to passion’. What an unlucky blunder is this; and how impossible was it, if he had to fix upon any one more directly opposite to the character of this hero? Is not it universally known, that he is hot-headed and violent, and by turns under the dominion of almost every passion that can toss and torture the human mind? Was not he harrow’d up with fear at R—?

This disagreement over the character and integrity of General Conway, newly named Secretary of State, hinges directly on party loyalties. In 1764, as noted above, he had voted against the wishes of the King and court on the question of the legality of arrests under general warrants, and in response he had been dismissed from his court post and from his military command. His friends and supporters saw this as a noble stand on principle; his opponents interpreted it as a weak attempt to win approval from important men in opposition. As a general, Conway had also taken part in a failed attempt in 1757 to attack the island of Rochefort. Although the military cleared him of wrong-doing, newspapers and pamphlets repeatedly accused him of indecision and fear.27 In these letters, printed one after the other in the same column, each writer has a view of Conway’s character and makes the claim that this view is a widely held and accurate picture. Both writers treat Conway’s emotions as the only forces that might ‘dominate’ or ‘enslave’ him, and by extension the nation over which he is now to have influence. Neither writer, then, models or refers to a debate in which opposed positions on policy are exposed to each other and to question and rational critique from all sides. When they refer to the claims of their opponents, they treat the argument itself as a sign that faction and insinuation have muddied the otherwise clear and unarguable facts, facts that can be ascertained through personal visits and interactions. Their conflicting, irreconcilable claims about the personal qualities of the men in each ministry appeared in issue after issue of the Chronicle over the summer and autumn, often juxtaposed in adjacent columns.28

27 28

Watson, The Reign of George III, p. 103; ‘Henry Seymour Conway’, in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1891 edition. Letters from the Weaver can be found in issues published 11 July, 16 July, 10 August and 5 October. Letters from Anti-Sejanus can be found in issues published 11 July, 16 July, 18

98

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

For readers, the letters’ appearance in adjacent columns presented a possibility that neither writer ever acknowledged – that political discourse could encompass differing interpretations. Readers could move from one writer’s letter to the other’s, across the line which separated columns. They could look at particular claims made in one letter and compare them to those in another. Ongoing political discourse, for such a reader, could include movement back and forth across that line. Rather than arguing with a mule, political discourse among opposing parties could resemble collecting clippings. Rather than courting any reader as a possible dependent of one party or another, as each individual letter does, the newspaper itself courts the reader as a spectator of politics itself, a watcher of the scene at court. Newspaper readers who thought of themselves in this mode could, as Michael Warner has pointed out, make use of the republican concept of virtuous independence to explain their greater distance from any particular group or party.29 It is in this way that print itself can be associated with the mediation and abstraction we associate with a generalized ‘public opinion’. It is important to note, however, that the writers themselves do not refer to or frame their arguments within such a notion. It is only in the juxtaposition of their pieces on the page that an abstract concept of ongoing political discussion might be glimpsed. The debate between the letters, then, looks quite different from the debate in the letters. The spatial layout of the newspaper page ‘says’ something different from the words used by the writers. Print, in this case, expanded and amplified the conversations of the elites which continued to control the British government. Writers did not necessarily address imagined communities or critical publics when they composed works to be typeset and disseminated. That typesetting and dissemination did put new political possibilities on paper; in the summer of 1765, however, London newspapers were not putting those possibilities in words.

29

July, 8 August, 13 August and 5 September. Letters on the same subjects, some in direct response to the Weaver and Anti-Sejanus, and signed ‘Musidorus’, ‘A Citizen’, ‘Civis’, ‘Honestus’, ‘A. Marvel’, ‘A Friend to Anti-Sejanus’, ‘A Constitutional Writer’, ‘The Cato-nine Tails’, ‘O.M.’, ‘Talio’ and ‘A Plain-dealer’ appeared throughout the same period. Michael Warner, Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in EighteenthCentury America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 38–43.

Chapter 8

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France: The Testimony of J.-P. Lenoir, Lieutenant-Général of Police of Paris1 Simon Burrows

Post-revisionist narratives of the origins of the French revolution, drawing heavily on the work of the German sociologist Jürgen Habermas, privilege the role of desacralization and/or oppositional politics as major forces undermining the monarchy within a burgeoning public sphere which extended well beyond established elites.2 In this paper I am going to outline an alternative narrative which draws on a key primary source, the unpublished memoirs of the Lieutenant-Général de Police de Paris, Jean-CharlesPierre Lenoir (1732–1807), and stresses that – at least in terms of strategies for using print – the French political elite was conducting business as usual right down to the late 1780s.3 The dominant medium for domestic political discussion remained the political pamphlet, and political pamphleteering was controlled by the elites. Episodic flurries of pamphleteering, including the sustained campaigns of the Maupeou crisis of 1771–74, often depicted as a dress rehearsal for revolution, were conducted by factions within the elite and were essentially ephemeral in purpose. This is not to deny the importance

1

2

3

The archival research for this paper was funded with a Small Research Grant from the British Academy. I also thank the staff of the Médiathèque at Orléans for their kindness and help, and my wife, Andrea Kemp, for assisting my research and reading the manuscript. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991). The most important foundational post-revisionist works include: Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1990); Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991); Mona Ozouf, ‘Public Opinion at the End of the Ancien Regime’, Journal of Modern History, 60 supplement (1988): §§1–21; and several of the papers in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture ,Vol. 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime, ed. Keith Michael Baker (Oxford: Pergamon, 1987). Multiple drafts of the unpublished memoirs of Lenoir comprise the vast majority of the Lenoir papers in the Médiathèque d’Orléans, MS 1421–1423/3. Henceforth this source is referred to as Lenoir MS.

100

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

of enlightenment and other discourses, but to suggest that down until the revolution their influence and political meaning were contested, mediated and understood through elite interest groups and their competing claims. The ultimate erosion of royal control over print – and hence the ability to control and contain political messages – was not so much the result of the long-durée emergence of an autonomous public sphere and accompanying processes of attrition, but rather a contingent political failure to contain rampant factionalism within the elite, particularly in the 1780s. Pamphlets, which could be produced quickly, cheaply and clandestinely yet offered ample space to explore issues, were the dominant mode for printed discussion of current political affairs down to 1789.4 The newspapers that circulated in France, because they were distributed via the post, could not fulfil that function. They offered information and very little, if any, editorial comment. Those produced inside France were subject to heavy censorship, while those published outside the country operated a severe selfcensorship concerning political news of the Bourbon realm, fearing exclusion from their most lucrative market and French diplomatic pressure on their host governments. Indeed, from the early 1770s French government influence over these papers grew tighter: by April 1771 they had succeeded in excluding coverage of the Maupeou crisis from Dutch-based international gazettes, and from 1781 they licensed the correspondents to these papers.5 Similar censorship applied to periodicals which carried political news. Faced with such a controlled press, the main source of unauthorized printed messages to the French public remained the clandestine pamphlet, since book-length publications took too long to produce, were often bulky and usually censored; while ephemera such as song sheets, handbills and illustrations might contain highly subversive messages, but had insufficient space to elaborate complex political ideas.6 4

5

6

On this point see for example Vivian R. Gruder, ‘Political News as Coded Messages: The Parisian and Provincial Press in the Pre-Revolution, 1787–1788’, French History, 12 (1998): 1–24 (1). Every political crisis of the old regime was marked by an explosion in pamphleteering activity. The standard study of the French press prior to the revolution remains Jack Censer, The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). For a synthesis of work on the foreign-based French-language newspapers see Simon Burrows, ‘The Cosmopolitan Press’, in Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820, eds Hannah Barker and Simon Burrows (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 23–47. See also Les Gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles), eds Henri Duranton, Claude Labrosse and Pierre Rétat (Saint-Etienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 1992); Gazettes et information politique sous l’ancien régime, eds Henri Duranton and Pierre Rétat (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne, 1999); and Jerzy Lojek, ‘Gazettes internationales de langue française dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIème siècle’ in Modèles et moyens de la réflexion politique au XVIIIe siècle, ed. P. Deyon, 3 vols (Lille: Publications de l’Université de Lille, 1977), I, pp. 369–82. Despite these observations, both the role of popular ephemera and songs in eighteenthcentury French political culture and the interconnectedness of orality and print culture should not be underestimated. On these important topics see, for example, Robert

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France

101

However, the role of the political pamphlet remains subject to debate. Robert Darnton’s studies of radical pamphleteering under the ancien regime claim that the ill-defined illegal sector was massive, accounting for perhaps as much as 50 per cent of the eighteenth-century French book trade and depict a world in which commercial incentives drove autonomous pamphleteers to produce political works for profit, including the pornographic libelles, which he claims played a major role in desacralization.7 Darnton’s view of political pamphleteering has been challenged by Jeremy Popkin, whose case study of the Le Maître affair of 1785–86 offers a basis for concluding that, in general, illegal pamphleteers operated within traditional networks of power and patronage. Pierre-Jacques Le Maître, a prosperous lawyer and venal office-holder, had numerous allies in the parti Janseniste and the Parlement, and he and his associates produced much influential anti-ministerial propaganda against the ministries of Maupeou (1768–74), Necker (1777–81) and Calonne (1783–87) on their behalf. Le Maître provides a concrete example of continuous involvement in opposition pamphleteering from the 1770s right through to the revolution. Popkin contends that such propaganda could only be published and distributed inside France by individuals who enjoyed the protection of powerful patrons and were thus able to evade police surveillance. It came from insiders, not outsiders, to the establishment.8 Moreover, my recent reassessment of Darnton’s archetypical libelle, Charles Théveneau de Morande’s Gazetier cuirassé (1771), suggests it should be considered an ephemeral product of the political crisis, rather than an agent of long-term desacralization as Darnton claims.9 In consequence, it appears timely to

7

8 9

Darnton, ‘An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris’, American Historical Review, 105 (2000): 1–35; Laura Mason, Singing the French Revolution: Popular Culture and Politics, 1787–1799 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996). The most important of these studies are the collection of essays in Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); idem, The Forbidden Best-sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (London: Norton, 1996); and idem, ‘Two Paths through the Social History of Ideas’, in The Darnton Debate: Books and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, ed. H.T. Mason, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 359 (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1998), pp. 251–94. On the volume of the illegal section of the book trade see Roger Chartier, ‘Book Markets and Reading in France at the End of the Old Regime’, in Publishing and Readership in Revolutionary France and America, ed. Carol Armbruster (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), pp. 117–37, especially pp. 123–6. Jeremy D. Popkin, ‘Pamphlet Journalism at the End of the Old Regime’, EighteenthCentury Studies, 22 (1989): 351–67. Simon Burrows, ‘A Literary Low-life Reassessed: Charles Théveneau de Morande in London, 1769–91’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 22 (1998): 76–94. For Darnton’s description of Morande’s Gazetier cuirassé see Robert Darnton, ‘The High Enlightenment and the Low-life of Literature in Prerevolutionary France’, Past and Present, No. 51 (May 1971): 81–115.

102

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

attempt a general reassessment of the role of clandestine political pamphleteering in the pre-revolutionary era. Lenoir served as Lieutenant-Général of the Police of Paris from August 1774 to May 1775 and again from June 1776 to August 1785, and was in consequence probably better informed than anyone to comment on the conduct of pamphleteering in prerevolutionary France. His memoirs therefore seem as good a place as any to begin such a reappraisal. The memoirs, which were commenced in emigration, possibly as early as 1790, and finished only after Lenoir returned to Napoleonic France in 1802, survive as around 3,000 loose pages, written in the hands of several copyists. The memoirs were structured around the different functions of the police; this structure was derived from a memoir drafted by his predecessor Sartine in 1770 at the request of several (unspecified) foreign monarchs, who wished to use the Paris police as a model.10 Many sections exist in multiple drafts, while others survive only as incomplete fragments or preliminary outlines. Nevertheless, it is clear from the extant introduction that Lenoir had multiple motives for writing. First he wished to defend his record as chief of police against the calumnies of his pre-revolutionary and revolutionary critics; second he wished to offer a historical record of the last years of the ancien regime and to try to throw light on the revolution’s origins; and finally, after 1802, he sought to attract the patronage of Napoleon’s police minister Joseph Fouché, for which purpose he wrote a reflective commentary on each section of the memoirs.11 The memoirs, which were intended for eventual publication, were written mostly from memory, but in general Lenoir appears to have aimed to be reasonably objective in his judgements of fellow ministers and factual in his description of events. Although his treatment of ancien regime high politics has both avowed heroes (above all Louis XVI’s aging chief minister and mentor Maurepas12) and villains (Jacques Necker13 and the physiocratic minister Turgot14), his narrative in general appears to be factually reliable, and he shows even-handedness, 10 11 12

13

14

Lenoir MS 1421, p. 39. Ibid. and pp. 43–54 provide an ‘Avant propos’ and ‘Introduction’ outlining the first two motives. The third is made apparent at p. 70 in an ‘Avertissement’. Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de Maurepas (1701–81), served as a minister under Louis XV from 1718 to 1749, and was recalled by Louis XVI to serve as de facto chief minister from 1774 until his death. Jacques Necker (1732–1804), Genevan banker and French Finance Minister 1777–81 and 1788–90. Necker enjoyed enormous popularity for financing France’s victorious involvement in the American revolutionary war without recourse to extra taxation and claiming in his ‘compte rendu’ (1781) that the nation’s finances were healthy. Recalled in 1788 to resolve the monarchy’s financial problems, his dismissal in July 1789 sparked the rioting that led to the fall of the Bastille and his recall. His detractors thus had multiple reasons for blaming him for the revolution. Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1801). A leading member of the Physiocratic movement, Turgot’s appointment as Naval minister then Comptroller-général des finances (Finance Minister) in 1774 was believed to represent the political triumph of the philosophes. However, his policy of freeing the grain trade, coinciding with a disastrous harvest, was blamed for widespread misery, and he was dismissed in May 1776.

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France

103

for example, in his treatment of his ally Charles-Alexandre de Calonne,15 whom he is quite prepared to criticize as well as praise. It is necessary, nonetheless, to question Darnton’s judgement that Lenoir was ‘too honest, in fact, to have lied about [the revolutionary Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre] Brissot’.16 Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, Lenoir’s treatment of Brissot and other revolutionaries who had slandered him appears to contain distortions.17 Lenoir’s memoirs are not unknown to historians – they were pronounced authentic by no lesser authority than Georges Lefebvre and formed the archival basis for a biography of Lenoir by Maxime de Sars – but they have been under-utilized since Darnton examined them in the mid-1960s.18 Darnton’s exploration turned up some surprises, including Lenoir’s notorious assertion that the Brissot had been a police spy.19 It also provided material for themes treated in Darnton’s subsequent work, indicating, for example, the political importance of mesmerism, the flour war and the complex communications networks linking print and the spoken word on the streets of Paris.20 Nevertheless, this article contends that Lenoir’s memoirs supply more evidence to support Popkin’s case that ancien regime political pamphleteering was controlled by political elites than Darnton’s alternative position. Above all, they suggest that pamphleteering campaigns of the 1770s and 1780s involved a continuation and escalation of traditional political practices.

15

16 17 18

19

20

Charles-Alexandre de Calonne (1734–1802), Parlementaire and French finance minister from 1783 to 1787. A major rival to Necker, it was Calonne who informed the King that the monarchy was bankrupt. On his dismissal, Calonne went into self-imposed exile. He was an agent of the émigré princes in the 1790s but returned to France under the Napoleonic amnesty shortly before his death. Darnton, ‘High Enlightenment’, p. 318. See Simon Burrows, ‘The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot’, Historical Journal, 46 (2003): 843–71. Georges Lefebvre, ‘Les Papiers de Lenoir’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 21 (May–June 1927): 300–301; Maxime de Sars, Lenoir, Lieutenant de police (Paris, 1948). See also Robert Darnton, ‘The Memoirs of Lenoir, Lieutenant of Police of Paris, 1774–1785’, English Historical Review, 85 (1970): 532–59. Robert Darnton, ‘The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy’, Journal of Modern History, 40 (1968): 301–27. Darnton’s version of the early career of Brissot has proved controversial and been widely criticised, not least for the spying claims. Nevertheless, Darnton has reiterated this allegation on several occasions, most recently in his ‘The Skeletons in the Closet: How Historians Play God’, Raritan: A Quarterly Review, 22:1 (2002): 1–19, republished in his George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), pp. 156–74. For an overview of the debate and a reassessment of all the charges and evidence against Brissot, see Burrows, ‘Innocence’. See Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968); idem, ‘Le Lieutenant de Police J.-P. Lenoir, la guerre des farines et l’approvisionnement de Paris à la veille de la Révolution’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1969): 611–24; idem, ‘An Early Information Society’.

104

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Lenoir concurs with Popkin in considering the Le Maître case of central importance and in believing the parti Janseniste and its parlementaire allies to be the source of most anti-government pamphleteering. The ‘hack writers’ who produced clandestine pamphlets from the Maupeou crisis to the eve of the revolution were thus tied to powerful political factions, and not autonomous radicals. Nevertheless, Lenoir felt that the Maupeou crisis had had a lasting effect, promoting a permanent breakdown of the laws covering bookselling and spreading the spirit of political criticism.21 At the heart of this process was a series of pamphlets and works collectively known as Maupeouana,22 the most successful of which are known as the Mairobert corpus, after its putative author.23 Lenoir had quite a lot to say about these works, several of which feature at the very top of Darnton’s list of ‘forbidden best-sellers’ for the period 1769–89.24 He was in a strong position to do so, having interrogated two key figures in the network that produced them, the abbé Jabineau and Le Maître.25 Jabineau and Le Maître confirmed that the anti-Maupeou pamphlets were produced by some of the most significant opposition figures, several of whom went on to have illustrious careers in government, including the future ministers, Malesherbes, who was also a former director of the book trade,26 and Miromesnil, who in 1774 was appointed Garde des sceaux (Keeper of the Seals) and hence de facto minister of justice.27 Among other prominent members of the group were Antoine-Louis Séguier,

21 22 23

24

25 26

27

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 103. The most important of these pamphlets were gathered together in a five volume collection also known as Maupeouana, which appeared in 1773 and was frequently reprinted. For recent work on the Mairobert corpus see: The Mémoires Secrets and the Culture of Publicity in Pre-Revolutionary France, ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Further work is currently been conducted by a research team based at the University of Grenoble headed by Suzanne Cornand and Jean Sgard. Tables in Darnton, Forbidden Best-sellers, pp. 63–5, place works of the corpus in positions 2, 6 and 13 on his best-sellers’ list; Mairobert (‘and collaborators’) comes third behind Voltaire and d’Holbach on the best-selling authors’ list. For more detail on the figures behind this list, see Robert Darnton, The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769–1789 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995). Lenoir MS 1423/3 p. 191. Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (1721–94), Premier-Président of the Cour des Aides at the Parlement of Paris 1750–75; Director of the Book Trade, 1750–63; Minister of the Maison du Roi (Royal Household) 1775–76; Minister without Portfolio 1787–89. Malesherbes was a protector of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie and responsible for several liberal reforms. In 1792 he volunteered to defend Louis XVI at his trial. He was guillotined in 1794. Armand-Thomas Hue de Miromesnil (1723–96), Norman Parlementaire, protégé of Maurepas, Keeper of the Seals 1774–87. A liberal reformer, he presided over the abolition of judicial torture. The nominal head of justice was the Chancellor, Maupeou, who held his position for life, but as he was in disgrace, the Keeper of the Seals served as his substitute.

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France

105

avocat-général to the Grand-Conseil at the Parlement of Paris; and the distinguished lawyers André Blonde and Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target, who later became a prominent revolutionary deputy.28 To this illustrious list, Lenoir added his hero, Maurepas, who had boasted to him of his own involvement. A further important component of the pamphleteering machine was provided by a benedictine monk, Dom Liebe, and several associates in his abbé des Blancs-Manteaux, a hotbed of anti-ministerial activism.29 Thus Lenoir was aware – as Shanti Singham’s work on the Mairobert corpus confirms – that key figures in the Parlement and later regimes, not to mention (presumably Jansenist) members of the regular clergy, had been central to the pamphleteering of the Maupeou years.30 Moreover, contra Darnton, Lenoir noted that this group operated within established political parameters by showing respect for the person of the king: only after his death did they print the works attacking the sex life and morals of Louis XV that had previously circulated in manuscript form.31 Thus Lenoir understood the Maupeouana as essentially ephemeral pamphlets de circonstance produced by an important political faction. The involvement of so many powerful men was to become problematic for the control of illegal works, especially as factional groupings mutated over time. Le Maître himself began his pamphleteering career in the service of Miromesnil, then first President of the Parlement of Rouen, during the Maupeou crisis, but in 1783 the two men found themselves on opposite sides. On that occasion Le Maître’s allies set out to replace Miromesnil as Keeper of the Seals with his new patron, Lamoignon, Président à Mortier at the Parlement, who was a kinsman of Malesherbes.32 Lenoir quashed this pamphleteering campaign by persuading Louis XVI to express his confidence in Miromesnil. Thereafter, one of the pamphleteers, M. de Fayes, a Jansenist parlementaire, persuaded his associates to desist and presented Lenoir with the whole print-run of a further pamphlet, Crispin à la Cour, on condition that the authors, described as a ‘société des gens de cour et de robe’ [association of men of the Court

28

29

30 31

32

Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target (1733–1806) was famed for winning a number of high-profile legal cases, particularly for his successful defence of Cardinal Rohan in the Diamond Necklace trial in 1786. Lenoir MS 1423/3, pp. 263, 265. These are different drafts of the same document, but give slightly different details. The reference to other monks at Dom Liebe’s monastery is crossed out. Shanti Singham, ‘Imbued with Patriotism: the Politicisation of the “Mémoires Secrets”’ in The Mémoires Secrets, ed. Popkin and Fort, pp. 37–60 (p. 53). Lenoir MS 1423/3, p. 309. This appears to be correct: certainly the key politicalpornographic works of the Mairobert corpus, which attack the King’s relationship with Madame du Barry, were only published after Louis XV’s death in May 1774. See MathieuFrançois Pidansat de Mairobert (attrib.), Anecdotes sur Madame la comtesse Du Barry (1775) and idem (attrib.). Lettres originales de Madame la comtesse Dubarry (1779). Lenoir MS 1422, p. 725.

106

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

and Parlement], remained unknown.33 However, following Miromesnil’s unpopular attempts to reform the book trade, a new spate of pamphlets began to appear against him and Calonne, and new rifts opened in the ministry.34 Once again Le Maître was involved, and in December 1785, he was caught red-handed in the act of transferring proofs from his country estate to his house in Paris.35 Initially Lenoir’s successor, Louis Thiroux de Crosne, considered releasing Le Maître, but instead was persuaded to send him for interrogation in the Bastille with a view to a public trial, a decision that he probably came to regret. The eventual outcome of Le Maître’s arrest was a cover-up. Lenoir’s version of what happened makes instructive reading. He claims that Miromesnil and the baron de Breteuil, the influential and reactionary Minister of the Royal Household,36 favoured a trial, the latter in the mistaken belief that Le Maître was still Miromesnil’s protégé, the former no doubt in hope of clamping down on other opposition pamphleteers.37 Calonne, however, was opposed, despite having been defamed by Le Maître and his collaborators, because he feared that Le Maître would reveal that he (Calonne) was the source for works Le Maître had published against Necker, Miromesnil and others, especially during the campaign to promote Lamoignon. Meanwhile, Lamoignon was also directly implicated when Le Maître shrewdly named Jacques-Mathieu Augeard, a close relative of Lamoignon, as his collaborator. Augeard had been his close associate since the Maupeou pamphlet campaigns,38 but was also a protégé of the Queen and served as her Secrétaire des commandements. In consequence the Parlement’s Chambre de Tournelle surreptitiously quashed the case, which would have compromised many of its leaders, while Miromesnil earned contempt for his hypocrisy in attempting to silence his former protégé.39 Lenoir’s papers also tie the clandestine output of a host of obscure scribblers, including the future revolutionaries Jean-Louis Carra, Antoine-Joseph Gorsas, Brissot and Mirabeau, to wealthy patrons, including the police and government ministers. For example, during Calonne’s ministry, Mirabeau was employed by ‘the government’ – together apparently with Brissot and Brissot’s patron Etienne Clavière, the Genevan banker and future finance minister – to produce pamphlets attacking agiotage, the

33 34 35 36

37 38 39

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 726. See also Lenoir MS 1423, p. 191. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 726. Lenoir MS 1423/3, p. 191. Louis-Auguste Le Tonnelier, baron de Breteuil (1730–1807), a former ambassador to Vienna, served as Ministre de la Maison du Roi from 1783–88. Devoted to the Queen, he was selected to lead the royal counter-coup against the National Assembly in July 1789 as head of the reactionary Ministry of the Hundred Hours. He fled France after the fall of the Bastille. See Popkin, ‘Pamphlet Journalism’, p. 355. On this point see Singham, ‘Imbued with Patriotism’, p. 53. Lenoir MS 1423/3, p. 192.

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France

107

practice of speculating on artificially-inflated shares.40 Likewise, Lenoir felt that the earliest printed attacks of Carra, the barrister Nicolas Bergasse and the banker Guillaume Kornmann on his own administration of the police were encouraged by political rivals, above all by Calonne’s successor Lomenie de Brienne, the ambitious archbishop of Toulouse, and Breteuil, with the acquiescence of his own successor de Crosne.41 Moreover, it was not only polemical works that originated in court circles. Lenoir’s papers offer interesting revelations concerning the seedy politically pornographic libelles, which Darnton has depicted as the most radically subversive pamphlets of all.42 Lenoir notes that, together with mauvaises satyres and chansons, these works were less common early in Louis XVI’s reign, when the satires of the early Maupeou years had died down and the predominant influence in government was exercised by Maurepas, who treated libelles with detached amusement and enjoyed collecting épigrammes aimed against him.43 However, the regime’s decision to exile the authors, publishers and distributors of a series of scandalous pamphlets in (about) 1780, apparently because Louis XVI felt the alternative punishments offered under existing laws were too severe, backfired badly. The libellistes teamed up with publishers and exiled writers in London and the Netherlands to continue producing scandalous works and the government, following a precedent set under Louis XV, paid a fee to suppress

40

41

42 43

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 460. There is some need for chronological sensitivity here, as once Calonne decided to prop up certain government related stocks in 1785, Mirabeau, Clavière, Brissot and the ‘baisseurs’ began to oppose his policy. Richard Livesey and James Whatmore, ‘Étienne Clavière, Jacques-Pierre Brissot et les fondations intellectuelles de la politique des Girondins’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 321 (2000), pp. 1–26, show that most of their financial pamphleteering appears to have been aimed against over-inflated shares in government-associated ventures, whose success might harm radical hopes of reform by staving off government bankruptcy. See also on this subject Robert Darnton, ‘Ideology on the Bourse’ in L’Image de la Révolution française, ed. Michel Vovelle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), pp. 124–39, and republished as ‘The Pursuit of Profit: Rousseauism on the Bourse’, in Darnton, George Washington’s False Teeth, pp. 137–55; idem, ‘Trends in Radical Propaganda on the Eve of the French Revolution (1782–1788)’, unpublished doctoral thesis (University of Oxford, 1964), pp. 91–232 and Leonore Loft, Passion, Politics and Philosophie: Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot (Westport, CT: London: Greenwood, 2002), pp. 11–12. Lenoir MS 1421, pp. 44–7. These pamphlet attacks took place in the context of the acrimonious marital disputes of the Kornmann affair in 1787, which, as Sarah Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 295–311, shows, became highly politicised attacks on Lenoir and Calonne. Bergasse’s pamphlets even suggested that Lenoir had shared the favours of the adulterous Mme Kornmann in return for protection for her and her lover. On the Kornmann affair see also Darnton, ‘Trends’, ch. 8. The use of the term libelles is problematic, but Lenoir seems to make clear (Lenoir MS 1422, pp. 306–7) that he uses it to imply a scandalous content. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 306.

108

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

an illustrated edition of Les Amours de Charlot et de Toinette.44 Such feeble measures, Lenoir noted, only multiplied the number of scandalous works pouring out of foreign countries for export to France. This looks like classic Darnton, but in fact Lenoir’s claims need to be tempered by chronological nuances. Throughout the 1780s, libellistes continued to concern the police, but in strict terms of output, they had little effect until the eve of the revolution, and many of their most virulent works were suppressed.45 Political libelles published during the first dozen years of Louis XVI’s reign scarcely register in the figures in Darnton’s Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769–1789, and as Lynn Hunt has noted, well over 90 per cent of anti-Marie-Antoinette libelles postdate 1789.46 Those that did appear before the revolution were mostly aspersions on the paternity of the dauphin, which circulated among a small courtly

44

45

46

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 307. This was apparently the edition of Les Amours de Charlot et de Toinette that bears the date 1779. Darnton’s Corpus of Clandestine Literature, p. 15, suggests that at least one more edition appeared by 1789, but there is no compelling evidence that this libelle circulated in print prior to the fall of the Bastille, and (undated) later editions probably postdate the fall of the Bastille. It was certainly not in wide circulation until after the revolution. The same seems to have been true of other anti-Marie-Antoinette libelles, according to Vivian R. Gruder, ‘The Question of Marie-Antoinette: the Queen and Public Opinion before the Revolution’, French History, 16 (2002): 269–98; Simon Burrows, Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution: London’s French Libellistes, 1758–1792 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), ch. 6, takes this argument further and contends that printed copies of these works probably did not circulate at all before 1789. An English translation of Les Amours de Charlot et de Toinette is available in Chantal Thomas, The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette, trans. Julie Rose (New York: Zone Books, 1999), pp. 185–90. On the sexual-political libelles of this period, see especially Henri d’Almeras, MarieAntoinette et les pamphlets royalistes et révolutionnaires (Paris: la Librairie mondiale, 1907); Hector Fleischmann, Les Pamphlets libertines contre Marie-Antoinette (Paris: les Publications modernes, 1908, repr. 1976), pp. 33–78; Peter Wagner, Eros Revived: Erotica of the Enlightenment in England and America (London: Secker and Warburg, 1988), pp. 91–100; Burrows, Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution. Lynn Hunt, ‘The Many Bodies of Marie-Antoinette: Political Pornography and the Problem of the Feminine in the French Revolution’, in Eroticism and the Body Politic, ed. Lynn Hunt (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 108–30 (p. 116). Hunt bases her figures on Fleischmann’s bibliographic list of ‘libertine’ pamphlets against the Queen. It should be noted, however, that the copies and editions of early Marie-Antoinette libelles that survive today are mostly drawn from those produced in the revolution by entrepreneurial booksellers who published new editions following the pillage of the collection of confiscated books kept in the Bastille by the police. Interestingly, Les Amours de Charlot et de Toinette is the only pamphlet among the seven representative texts anthologized in Thomas, The Wicked Queen to predate 1789.

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France

109

elite,47 or products of the Diamond Necklace affair. Moreover, Vivian Gruder and the present author have argued that there is little if any evidence that the former circulated in print before July 1789,48 while tales of a sexual affair between Marie-Antoinette and Cardinal Rohan are absent from the literature produced at the time of the Diamond Necklace trial. They first emerged only in December 1787 in advertisements for the Comtesse de La Motte’s memoirs, which were not published until early 1789.49 However marginal the texts coming out of foreign Grub Street publishers between 1774 and 1786, Lenoir was confident that he knew the missing links between Court and libelle trade. Courtiers who were in league with the London blackmailer-libellistes forwarded materials to them, probably using the playwright Beaumarchais as their intermediary.50 The courtiers thus implicated in producing anti-Marie-Antoinette libelles included messieurs de Montesquiou,51 de Créquy52 and de Champcenetz,53 together with Chamfort54 and other writers, not to mention Beaumarchais himself.55

47

48 49

50 51

52 53

54

55

On the courtly origins of the early anti-Marie-Antoinette libels see Vincent Cronin, Louis and Antoinette (London: Collins, 1974), pp. 197, 402–5; Gruder, ‘The Question of MarieAntoinette’. For often-cited contemporary evidence on this point see the anonymous, Le Portefeuille d’un talon rouge (London: n.p., 178*). See above, note 44. Madame de La Motte announced her intention to publish her Memoirs of the Countess de La Motte: Containing a Complete Justification of her Conduct, and an Explanation of the Intrigues and Artifices used against her by her Enemies, Relative to the Diamond Necklace; also the Correspondence between the Queen and the Cardinal de Rohan and Concluding with an Address to the King of France, Supplicating a Re-investigation of that Apparently Mysterious Business in the Morning Post on 23 December 1787. The work was simultaneously published in English and French editions in February 1789. On these issues see Burrows, Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution. Probably Anne-Pierre, Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézenac (1739–98), soldier, courtier, literary figure, Académicien and noble deputy to the Estates-General in 1789. Liberal in inclination, he rallied to the Third Estate, served in the revolutionary army, but later fled. Probably Charles-Marie, Marquis de Créquy (1737–1801), writer, soldier and Maréchal de France. Probably Louis-Edmond de Champcenetz (1760–94), pamphleteer, wit and officer in the Gardes français. An associate and collaborator of the counter-revolutionary journalist Antoine Rivarol, he was executed in 1794. However, Lenoir might be referring to LouisEdmond’s father Jean-Louis (c. 1725–1813) or brother Louis-Pierre (1754–1822), who was successively a favourite of the comte d’Artois and a committed Orléanist. Both held the post of Governor of the Louvre. Nicolas Sébastien-Roch, dit Chamfort (1741–94), dramatist, journalist, one-time private secretary to the Prince de Condé, friend of Mirabeau and secretary to the Jacobin club in 1790–91. Placed under surveillance in the Terror, he died after a suicide attempt. Lenoir MS 1422, pp. 309–10. Beaumarchais’s connections with the arch-libelliste Morande are documented in Gunnar and Mavis von Proschwitz, Beaumarchais et le Courier de l’Europe: documents inédits ou peu connus, 2 vols, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: the Voltaire Foundation, 1990), pp. 263–4.

110

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Similarly, ‘hommes de la cour’ [courtiers] printed and protected scandalous works inside France.56 The government’s response, according to Lenoir, was feeble on two levels. Not only did their willingness to buy off foreign-based blackmailerpornographers lead to their proliferation,57 but their failure to chase the wealthy promoters and publishers of such pamphlets, while concentrating on the colporteurs who peddled them, did little to control their spread.58 A ‘further mistake’ was the inappropriate policy of sending poor colporteurs to the Bastille in the vain hope of discovering the authors. There, in comparative luxury, they could build nest-eggs from the sums provided for their upkeep by the Crown. The much more frightful Bicêtre would have provided a greater disincentive, but was only used for a few recidivist colporteurs.59 Moreover, as Lenoir noted, the colporteurs often did not know who was behind the pamphlets they sold, since factional groups inside France adopted classic ‘cellular’ organizational structures for producing and disseminating their works. The abbé Jabineau told Lenoir that since there were many Jansenist and Parlementaire presses in Paris and throughout the provinces, as well as abroad, the government might find some but could never get them all.60 He also gave Lenoir details of the clandestine operations behind the anti-Maupeou propaganda. The sellers and colporteurs of Maupeouana were not aware of the printers; the anti-Maupeou pamphlets were funded from a secret chest, a tactic developed by the Jansenist Nouvelles écclesiastiques;61 and this chest was administered by princes of the blood, peers of the realm and other rich persons in the Parlement and ‘la finance’. Twenty different presses were used to print Maupeouana. They were frequently moved from place to place and their ‘premiers agens’ [main agents] only knew each other by indirect means. The secondary agents knew nothing at all.62 More ominously, Jabineau reported that the whole machinery would revive ‘comme d’elle-même … à la première révolution qui surviendrait’ [as if of its own accord … at the first revolution (in the government) to arise].63 This, according to Lenoir, is exactly what happened in 1789. These developments in the conduct of political pamphleteering were accompanied in the run-up to the revolution by an increasingly direct and reckless involvement of the ministry in pamphleteering battles. The lead in this invidious development was, according to Lenoir, given by Necker, who installed a clandestine printing

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 253. Lenoir MS 1422, pp. 104, 307. Lenoir MS 1422, pp. 253, 308. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 308. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 268. Lenoir MS 1423/3, p. 281 discusses the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques and its war-chest, the Boïte à Porette. Lenoir MS 1423/3, p. 264. Ibid. Clearly ‘revolution’ is used here in the traditional sense of a significant change in the ministry or in the direction of policy.

Police and Political Pamphleteering in Pre-Revolutionary France

111

press in the Hôtel du Controlleur-Général and employed a printer named Sanson to operate it.64 When the Hôtel was raided, following a tip-off from the police spy Pierre-Louis Manuel, future procureur to the Paris Commune, Sanson was found printing the pornographic novel Thérèse philosophe, as well as the clandestine pamphlets by which Necker hoped to prop up confidence in the government and its financial schemes.65 Following Necker’s example many other ministers and powerful individuals established private presses of their own, employed their own printers as ‘officiers ou serviteurs de leurs maisons’ [officers or servants in their households], and produced factional works in order to ‘nuire’ [denigrate] and ‘calomnier’ [calumniate] their enemies in ways developed during their previous religious and parliamentary disputes.66 The inability of the police to exercise discipline over such powerful individuals, exemplified by Necker’s successful intervention to protect Sanson,67 led to a de facto breakdown of police control over political pamphleteering. Nor was this case unique: for example the Duc d’Orléans protected Manuel when he was arrested as a colporteur of illegal political tracts,68 while Maurepas’s confidant the abbé de Veri, a would-be minister, intervened to protect a former employee arrested with 50 copies of Thérèse philosophe.69According to Lenoir, these activities ‘fautes d’être reprimés, portent un grand prejudice à la tranquillité, à l’esprit public, à celui de la soumission’ [because not repressed, were seriously prejudicial to public tranquillity, the public mind and the spirit of submission].70 Thus Lenoir argued that ‘déjà l’ordre et la discipline étoient invertis, lorsque de tous les cotés de la France, on faisoit demander la liberté illimitée de la presse’ [order and discipline had already been overturned when, from all corners of France, there came demands for unlimited press liberty].71 Lenoir believed, then, that the descent towards a revolutionary press free-for-all was the result of direct political failings, abetted by ministers who supported calls for greater freedom. For it must have been clear to these ministers that while the police kept control over bookselling, ‘crimes’ and ‘abuses’ of this sort were less common, for ‘en général, les contrevenans redoutent la police, et se jouent des formes, mais les anciennes lois penales peut-être trop rigoreuses étoient tombées en désuétude, et les coupables qui voioient la discipline de la police contrariée dans les mesures, se livroient aux désordres avec plus d’audace’ [in general, the malefactors feared the

64 65 66 67 68

69 70 71

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 257. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 57. Lenoir MS 1423/1, pp. 77–8. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 57. Lenoir says Manuel had many other protectors and that Necker initially obtained his release in order to employ him. Lenoir MS 1423/1, fo. 184; MS 1422, p. 57. Similarly, Orléans’s role in allowing the production of pamphlets by the radical Kornmann group in a print shop under his protection in the Palais Royale has been noted by Popkin, ‘Pamphlet Journalism’, p. 362. Lenoir MS 1421, p. 284. Lenoir MS 1423/1, p. 78. Lenoir MS 1422, pp. 253–4.

112

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

police, and paid lip-service to the forms, but the old penal laws, which were perhaps too rigorous, had fallen into disuse, and the culpable parties, who saw police discipline was undermined by the new measures, infringed the laws with greater audacity].72 Lenoir’s testimony thus suggests that the 1770s and early 1780s saw no major break with traditional practices of pamphleteering in France. Clandestine political and scandalous pamphlets continued to be produced by writers tied to powerful interest groups and individuals, rather than by radical or autonomous solo-operators. The main change under Louis XVI was that interministerial pamphleteering raged unchecked and became habitual, especially after Necker’s resort to publishing his Compte-rendu des finances in 1781. This development seems to have been the product of Louis XVI’s failure to contain ministerial rivalries, the inclusion of veteran pamphleteers in government, and attempts to manipulate confidence in financial markets as a tool of policy. Louis XVI’s reign was also marked by the ideological conversion of key figures towards a free press – Lenoir condemned Turgot, Malesherbes and Necker for having spoken and written in favour of, and sponsored writings promoting, ‘la liberté absolue de la presse et la suppression de la censure’ [absolute liberty of the press and suppression of censorship]73 – and Louis himself famously opined ‘I must always consult public opinion. It is never wrong’.74 Thus Lenoir’s testimony suggests that the role of print in pre-revolutionary France has perhaps been misunderstood and the processes of desacralization and politicization presented in an overly deterministic manner. Print’s involvement in undermining the regime was less a consequence of the inexorable growth of a bourgeois public sphere, whose role Habermas and his followers believe to have been so central to the development of public consciousness at this time and, to a greater extent than has previously been recognised, a short-term consequence of the political crises and failures that spawned the revolution.

72 73 74

Lenoir MS 1422, p. 254. Lenoir MS 1422, p. 257. James van Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 2.

Chapter 9

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution David Adams

It is characteristic of times in political upheaval that the factions contending for supremacy make their views known, to supporters and enemies alike, by means of the printed word: pamphlets, posters, brochures and newspapers of all kinds pour forth from the presses as the struggle is pursued.1 As has often been observed, the Revolution of 1789 witnessed the birth of the popular press in France,2 but the communicative and propagandist strategies adopted by the competing factions embraced a far wider range of forms than the press alone. Under Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, all printed expressions of dissent were forbidden (even if manuscript and oral expressions of discontent could not be wholly suppressed).3 With their fall in July 1794, these constraints vanished, and the ensuing period of confusion and weak government allowed publications of all kinds to flourish openly once more. When some semblance of stability was restored in the summer of 1795, the new administration relied heavily on the printed word to consolidate its position, and it is with one of the works which it used for this purpose that we are concerned here. The Costumes des Représantans (Figure 5) appeared late in 1795, but its origins go back to the events which occurred following the fall of Robespierre a year earlier. The use of the press to assert the authority of the new régime has not been as widely studied as its role at other periods of the Revolution. Many historians end their accounts of the period with the Thermidorian upheavals of late July 1794, and 1

2

3

One need only think, in our own time, of the wall-posters which were a notable feature, especially in Paris, of the ‘événements’ of May 1968, or of their use, from time to time, by the various factions of the Chinese Communist Party. See, for example, Jeremy D. Popkin, Revolutionary News: The Press in France, 1789–1799 (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1990); Jack Censer, The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (London; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). See also Les Gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles), ed. Henri Duranton, Claude Labrosse and Pierre Rétat (Saint-Etienne: University of Saint-Etienne, 1992); Gazettes et information politique sous l’ancien régime, eds Henri Duranton and Pierre Rétat (Saint-Étienne: University of Saint-Etienne, 1999). See Laura Mason, Singing the French Revolution: Popular Culture and Politics, 1787–1799 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

114

Fig. 5

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Title-page of the Costumes des Représentans du Peuple (1795)

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

115

treat the subsequent history of the Revolution, under the Convention and then the Directory, as something of an anticlimax. To some extent, this is understandable, since there was a feeling that the Revolution had lost its way and was running out of energy. By 1795, it was widely thought not to have delivered the liberty, equality and brotherhood which its defenders had hoped for. A good deal of unrest was apparent, which sometimes manifested itself in direct action, as with an abortive uprising by the sans-culottes in Paris in the spring of 1795. There was also a more generalised feeling of discontent with the way politics was evolving, and the real possibility of a royalist counter-coup could not be dismissed. Christopher Hibbert, for example, comments that, in the summer of 1795, ‘So fast was the tide of reaction flowing, indeed, that royalists began to hope for a restoration … Already plans had been laid for a royalist restoration by force’.4 Hence, it is unwise to disregard what happened after Thermidor: the Revolution had not yet run its course, because its achievements, such as they were, might still be undermined and the cause lost irretrievably. It was therefore necessary for the Convention to safeguard its position and its revolutionary inheritance by offering a new way forward which would satisfy the malcontents and give new impetus to the desire to see some tangible benefit for the years of suffering which France had endured. The method by which it chose to pursue these ambitions was to introduce a new Constitution. Two previous Constitutions in 1791 and 1793 had failed to usher in the era of peace and prosperity, despite offering, in the latter case, the election of an assembly by direct universal suffrage. The supporters of this third attempt at a new polity (which is usually referred to as the Constitution of the year III, using the Revolutionary calendar) hoped that, by adopting it, France could avoid a repetition of the horrors inflicted by Robespierre and his allies, and give it stable government. To this end, they argued that it would be much better for the country to be governed by men of property; if those who had no property were to hold office, they would certainly be dangerous agitators who would plunge the nation back into violence. Indeed, this view was explicitly argued in a speech delivered to the Convention on 23 June 1795 by Boissy d’Anglas.5 Now, under this Constitution, dated ‘5 fructidor de l’an III’ (22 August 1795),6 it was proposed that almost all males over 21 who were born and resident in France could vote in primary assemblies and could nominate one elector for every 200 citizens. In order to be eligible as electors, these favoured few had to satisfy a property or income qualification. The electors were to vote for the members of two councils, two-thirds of whom would be drawn from the existing National Convention, a body which had already proved a political failure. First was a Council

4 5 6

The French Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), pp. 282–3. See ibid., p. 282. The text of the Constitution referred to here can be found in the third volume of the Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française, 3 vols (Paris: Auber, 1802); it is separately paginated. Copies of the document were printed and distributed throughout France.

116

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

of Five Hundred whose members were aged at least 30. Second, and above them, were the 250 members of the Council of Elders, who were all aged at least 40. The Council of Elders elected the five members of the supreme governing body, the Directory (who did not have any minimum age qualification). To reduce the risk of a dictatorship becoming established, every year one third of the members of each Council would be re-elected, as would one of the members of the Directory. Hence, under these arrangements, there was to be democracy, albeit of a more limited kind than in 1793, but with a heavy emphasis on obligations rather than on freedoms. In the preamble, citizens were apprised that their duties to society included obedience to the laws, and in the penultimate clause of the Constitution they were reminded that: c’est de la sagesse des choix dans les assemblées primaires et électorales, que dépendent principalement la durée, la conservation et la prospérité de la république. 7 [the duration, the preservation and the prosperity of the republic depend mainly on the exercise of wisdom in choosing the primary and electoral assemblies.]

The new Constitution was adopted by plebiscite in August 1795, though without much enthusiasm on the part of the populace. From a total population of about 28 million, some eight million had the right to vote, but only one million actually bothered to approve it, while 50,000 rejected it. Consequently, only 5,000 of the 40,000 potential electors actually took part in the vote for the two Councils.8 The high rate of abstentions was to be explained largely by the fact that voters feared the re-election of members of the discredited National Convention would result in a repetition of previous errors. In October 1795, riots occurred in Paris in protest against the ‘two-thirds’ rule, and although the Constitution was adopted, its future looked uncertain.9 While it arguably represented democracy in action, the voice of the people gave the new government no overwhelming mandate and, hence, no convincing authority with which it could face down its enemies, despite its pretensions. The Directory, which was set up as a result of the election, has never had a good press. On the positive side, it laid the foundations for specialist education, particularly in science. It built on the work of the Convention in setting up new schools that offered training in such subjects as medicine and engineering, to which candidates were admitted on the basis of merit rather than of social position. Such support as it won by this means, however, the Directory squandered in attempting to bribe speculators by offering them valuable properties in exchange for paper assignats, which were of

7 8 9

Article 376. See William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 320–21. See Malcolm Crook, Revolutionary France, The Short Oxford History of France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 19–28.

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

117

little value.10 This uncertain and inconsistent course won it few supporters at a time when the people of France needed to believe that the travails of the previous few years had at least brought stable and effective rule to the country. It was against this background that we need to examine the work with which we are here concerned, the Costumes des représentans du peuple, membres des deux conseils, du directoire exécutif, des ministres, des tribunaux, des messagers d’état, huissiers et autres fonctionnaires publics [Costumes of the representatives of the people, members of the two councils, of the Directory, of the ministers, tribunes, messengers of state, ushers and other civil servants]. The name of the author is given on the title-page as ‘Grasset Saint-Sauveur’, about whom something will be said in a moment, but it is important first to understand the ways in which the book is symptomatic of much wider concerns during this period. A preoccupation with the official dress of members of the new administration may strike one as odd, but, in fact, the subject had bulked large in contemporary publications since the very dawn of the Revolution and perhaps even before the old régime was brought to an end.11 In 1789, the new uniforms to be worn by regiments of the French army were determined by official decrees, the purpose of which was to inaugurate a more informal and less individualised style of military dress than had been used hitherto.12 Even before the Bastille fell, Camille Desmoulins had suggested that all those who wished to preserve freedom should wear a cockade to enable others to recognise them, and the red, white and blue symbol had very rapidly been adopted throughout France. What is more, from its earliest days, the ‘uniform’ of the sansculottes rapidly became the standard mode of dress for all those who wanted to signal their support for the new order. It is striking to note, then, just how much attention was paid to the question of devising a revolutionary mode of dress throughout the period. The same concern is apparent, from a converse point of view, in the decree issued by the Convention on 21 February 1795 (3 Ventôse of the year III), by which priests were prohibited from wearing their ecclesiastical robes in public.13 Although the authors of the Constitution were understandably sensitive to the charge that they retained links with the past, and sought in various ways to distance

10

11

12 13

One of the most outspoken historians of the Revolution, M. Mignet, calls the Directory’s financial methods ‘peu réguliers’ and concludes that they led ‘insensiblement à la banqueroute’ (Histoire de la Révolution française depuis 1789 jusqu’en 1814, 2 vols (Paris: Firmin Didot et Didier, 1869), II, pp. 180–81). For a study of Revolutionary attitudes towards official dress, see J. Quicherat, Histoire du costume en France depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1877), pp. 621–48, and Aileen Ribiero, The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750 to 1830 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Regulation military uniform had been introduced for the first time by a decree of 1779. For details see Quicherat, pp. 607–9. See D.M.G. Sutherland, Revolution and Counterrevolution (London: Collins, 1985), p. 279.

118

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

themselves, and the new political institutions, from it, they displayed much the same concerns with official dress as their predecessors. To take but one example: article 368 forbade the wearing of any distinctive marks which recalled ‘des fonctions antérieurement exercées, ou des services rendus’. The 1795 Constitution was, in addition, the first to state explicitly that all members of the administration and civil servants must by law wear their prescribed costume while carrying out their duties. In addition, it stipulated that the members of the Directory – which was not set up until October 1795, some two months after the publication of the Constitution – must never be seen in public or in private other than in their proper Directorial dress.14 A further indicator of the contemporary official concern with the importance of political dress was the publication of Saint-Sauveur’s Costumes des Représentans. In the light of the Directory’s floundering attempts at imposing a new order on a country which at heart felt unwilling to accept its authority, the Costumes needs to be understood as a way of using the printed word to convey a more imposing image of the new administration, and thereby exerting political control. The origins of the Costumes predate the new Constitution and bridge the gap, so to speak, between the previous, discredited régime which ended with Thermidor, and the new, allegedly democratic system set up in 1795. In the winter of 1793–94, the Société populaire et républicaine des Arts considered the question of creating a national costume. Its reflections led in April 1794 to the publication of a pamphlet entitled Considérations sur la nécessité de changer le costume français.15 No less a figure than the painter Jacques-Louis David was engaged to translate these ideas into a series of drawings which were engraved by Vivant Denon (both men were, of course, to become central figures in Napoleon’s artistic policy). But by the time they were ready, in late 1794, designs by David were no longer officially acceptable. In the first place, he was tainted by his association with Robespierre,16 whose own fall from grace had occurred a few months earlier. In addition, he was in prison, on suspicion of sympathising with the Robespierrist régime, from August to December 1794, when the designs for the Costumes were required, so that it would have been difficult for the Committee of Public Instruction to acknowledge openly any contribution he may have made to the conception of the work. He was to undergo imprisonment again in May 1795, and was pardoned only by a general amnesty issued in September of that year. Hence, as time went on, he was scarcely the ideal artist to be associated with a volume illustrating the official dress for the Directory, which was to govern France after the plebiscite of August 1795. It was, after all, the voice of a régime which proclaimed its intention to break with the

14 15 16

Constitution, articles 369, 165. See Madeleine Delpierre, Dress in France in the Eighteenth Century, trans. Caroline Beamish (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 121. On David’s relationship with Robespierre, see Warren Roberts, Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary Artists (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), esp. pp. 269–311.

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

119

past, but which was always open to the accusation that it was being administered by the same failed politicians as before. Whatever the attitude which the new régime adopted towards David himself, Jules Quicherat, the leading nineteenth-century historian of French revolutionary costume, states that his sketches did find favour with the Directory;17 more recently, Aileen Ribiero has concluded that David ‘was surely the inspiration for the official costumes of the Directory’.18 Yet whatever the truth of his association with that body, David’s name was not likely to appear on the title-page of a work setting out the official dress to be worn by members of the new government. It was for this reason that the authorities approached Saint-Sauveur to take over the task of presenting the new designs for official dress to the public in the Costumes. The question arises, then, of whether Saint-Sauveur actually used David’s own ideas for official dress, and if so to what extent. While Ribiero claims that David was involved in designing the costumes for the Directory, she also states without further explanation (p. 152) that they were commissioned from Saint-Sauveur in 1794 by the Committee of Public Instruction. Although David’s designs have not survived in large numbers,19 and no direct evidence of borrowing exists, several indications point at least to a similarity of style and intention on his part and on that of Saint-Sauveur. In the first place, one of David’s suggested costumes as described by Quicherat (p. 631) comprises a tunic, a short coat, tight trousers, boots and a Hungarian-style bonnet; to this extent, there are resemblances with some of the clothes designed by SaintSauveur for the Costumes. And inasmuch as David paid some heed to classicism, as well as to other influences, without attempting to reproduce exactly the dress of ancient times, there is a mixture which again bears some resemblance to the work of SaintSauveur.20 It is also true, of course, that both men were inspired by a political and social Zeitgeist which perhaps explains many of the features common to their work. What is less arguable is that Saint-Sauveur was acting on instructions from several of the same political figures (such as Barras, Carnot and Sieyès) who had occupied positions of power when David had been asked to create his designs, so that similarities were only to be expected. Finally, the title-page of the Costumes states only that the original drawings for the costumes of officials ‘ont été confiés par le Ministère de l’Intérieur au Citoyen Grasset S. Sauveur’, a form of words which leaves open the

17 18 19

20

Quicherat, p. 631. Ribiero, p. 152. See Delpierre, pp. 122–4. The Bibliothèque des arts décoratifs in Paris possesses an (apparently unique) and undated pamphlet ascribed to David and entitled Costumes de la Ie République (Shelfmark: N 53, Auteurs anonymes avant 1958). The Bibliothèque Forney possesses another undated item, attributed to Vivant Denon, which is described as Recueil de 8 planches de costumes coloriées, dessinées, gravées à l’eau-forte (Shelfmark: RES 301, Auteurs anonymes). Ribiero (p. 152) concludes that Saint-Sauveur’s designs ‘incorporated ideas of classical antiquity, but without Jacobin austerity’.

120

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

distinct possibility that he used David’s original designs, perhaps modifying them in some respects, rather than creating his own ab initio. Who, then, was the ‘citoyen Grasset S. Sauveur’ to whom the task of presenting the new forms of official dress was entrusted? He was born in Montreal in 1757 and was christened Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur; he dropped the aristocratic ‘de’ during the Revolution for obvious reasons of prudence and because he did not want to suffer the same fate as his brother André. This brother, who was a priest, refused to adopt the civil Constitution of 1791 and was guillotined for his principles in September 1792 (though he was beatified in 1926).21 It remains uncertain whether the fate of his brother influenced Saint-Sauveur’s attitude towards the Revolution beyond making him more prudent in his choice of name. Whatever the truth of the matter, he had first-hand experience of the destabilizing and sometimes murderous effects of political zealotry, and he was unstinting in his support for the new order which promised to bring peace to France once more. Indeed, his enthusiasm and energy are striking and are apparent from the sheer volume of his published writings. He was the author of numerous works, including copious accounts of voyages, and of novels which, to judge from their titles, fall into the category known to booksellers as ‘curiosa’. They are set in harems and other intriguing locations; they include La belle Captive, ou Histoire du naufrage et de la captivité de Mademoiselle Adeline, comtesse de Saint-Fargel, âgée de 16 ans, dans une des parties du royaume d’Alger, en 1782 [The beautiful captive, or the History of the shipwreck and captivity of Mademoiselle Adeline, countess of Saint-Fargel, aged 16, in one of the parts of the kingdom of Algeria, in 1782] (1785). Another, published in 1796, the year after the Costumes, was entitled Les Amours du fameux comte de Bonneval, pacha à deux queues, connu sous le nom d’Osman [The love affairs of the famous count of Bonneval, the pasha with two tails, known as Osman].22 In offering the public works of this sort, Saint-Sauveur was merely pandering to the prevailing taste for erotic exoticism (or exotic eroticism), and we can infer from them that he knew how to make the most of an opportunity. He also published, in conjunction with Sylvain Maréchal, a 12-volume popular introduction to mythology, which appeared in 1793.23

21

22

23

See the Dictionnaire des lettres françaises. Le XVIIIe siècle, ed. F. Moureau (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1995), p. 1205. A number of Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur’s works which appeared after 1792 are erroneously attributed to his brother André in the catalogue of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. See Henri Cohen and Seymour de Ricci, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 6th edition (Paris: Rouquette, 1912), col. 451. A list of Saint-Sauveur’s publications can be found in Maximilien Bibaud, Dictionnaire historique des hommes illustres du Canada et de l’Amérique (Montréal?: P. Cérat, 1857), p. 136. La Mythologie mise à la portée de tout le monde […] (Paris: n.p., 1795). The British Library has a copy (shelfmark 704.a.5–7), but the work is not listed in the Catalogue collectif de France.

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

121

The choice of Saint-Sauveur as the author of a work on political costume was not purely a matter of chance. The Costumes des représentans was his second recorded work on dress. The first (published in four volumes at his own expense between 1784 and 1788, and also written in collaboration with Sylvain Maréchal) was the Costumes civils actuels de tous les peuples connus, dessinés d’après nature, gravés et coloriés, accompagnés d’un abrégé historique de leurs coutumes, moeurs, religions, sciences, arts, commerce, monnoies … [The civic dress of all known nations, drawn from nature, engraved and coloured, and accompanied by an historical abridgement of their customs, manners, religions, sciences, art, trade, coinage …]. In 1796, shortly after the appearance of the Costumes des représentans with which we are concerned here, he published (in addition to accounts of voyages) a full-scale version, entitled Recueil complet des Costumes des législateurs, des autorités constituées, civiles, militaires et de la marine, dont les dessins ont été confiés au citoyen Saint-Sauveur [A complete collection of the Costumes of the legislators, and legitimate civil, military and naval authorities, the designs for which have been entrusted to citizen Saint-Sauveur].24 In addition, he was working on a book on dealing with the civil, military and religious dress of ancient Rome, which was likewise published in 1796.25 It seems probable, then, that he was asked to take charge of the Costumes des représentans because he had already produced one substantial work on a related subject, which had found favour with the authorities, and was working on another, so that he was more expert than many on the subject of dress. Having survived the Revolution by bending to its dictates by changing his name, Saint-Sauveur was doubtless a more pliable, if less illustrious, figure than the somewhat politically-tainted David. When we attempt to determine the perspective in which Saint-Sauveur undertook his task and the way in which he set about it, a number of indicators all point in the same direction. In the first place, the nature of the book’s intended appeal is apparent even from its physical form. It was published not as a multi-volume work of reference, like Saint-Sauveur’s other books on dress, but in a much smaller, more compact octavo format; as it contained only 40 pages and 15 coloured plates, it could be read quickly and carried easily for reference. For reasons which remain obscure, the first edition was published in a bilingual French and German text,26 though the decision to make it available in this form obviously indicates a wish to appeal to a wider constituency than that of the French public alone. Its hand-coloured illustrations, with commentaries,

24

25

26

See Cohen-de Ricci, supplément, col. 1103. As with the Costumes, the form of words used here is ambiguous enough to disguise Saint-Sauveur’s actual role in the creation of the designs. L’Antique Rome, ou Descriptions historiques et pittoresques de tout ce qui concerne le peuple romain dans les costumes civils, militaires et religieux, dans les mœurs publiques et privées depuis Romulus jusqu’à Auguste, 2 vols (Paris: Deroy, 1796). An English translation quickly followed, though it was not bilingual: Dresses of the Representatives of the People, Members of the Two Councils, and of the Executive Directory (London: Harding, 1795). The translations given here are my own.

122

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

showed examples of the official dress to be worn by people (all of them men, it need hardly be said) holding office under the new Constitution. While the illustrations were intended, no doubt, to have an aesthetic appeal for members of the public, this consideration was subordinate, if one reads what the text actually says, to its political purposes. Indeed, the close relationship between the authorities and the function of the book as a semi-official publication is sometimes made almost explicit. In the first place, its title-page confirms that it was published with the blessing of the authorities. Whether the designs were by David or Saint-Sauveur, or both, they received official sanction before they were submitted to public view. None the less, even if David was involved in the design of the costumes, it is Saint-Sauveur’s voice that we hear in the work itself, as he emphasises his adherence to the new political order. It is apparent that he wrote his comments to reflect not the time when a work along the lines of the Costumes was first mooted in 1794, but the new political situation created by the Constitution of 1795. Saint-Sauveur speaks of it as having recently been adopted, so that it now ‘reigns over the French people’ (p. 5), a statement which no doubt reflects the hopes of the authorities in anticipation of the plebiscite, rather than a considered judgement on its outcome. He goes out of his way to draw attention to the close links between his book and the letter and spirit of the new Constitution. In his preliminary address ‘Au Peuple français’ [‘To the French people’], Saint-Sauveur explicitly links the Costumes to the changes to be brought about by the new Constitution: Les premiers bienfaits de nos nouvelles lois, vont enfin cimenter le régne de cette fraternité douce qui doit consolider le régne de la justice distributive. C’est un beau spectacle pour les amis de la République, que de pouvoir fixer les yeux sur les premiers Magistrats de la nation, et d’être stimulé par le désir de pratiquer les vertus, qui donnent seules le droit de commander à tous pour le bien de tous. Le désir de plaire aux yeux et de parler au cœur, m’a fait entreprendre cet ouvrage. Assez d’autres chercheront à me surpasser, mais j’aurai au moins l’honneur de l’avoir entrepris. La récompense de mon zèle civique se trouvera dans l’intention qui a dirigé mes pinceaux. (p. 4) [The first benefits of our new laws will finally cement the reign of the sweet brotherhood which will consolidate the rule of distributive justice. It is a fine sight for the friends of the Republic to be able to fix their gaze on the first Magistrates of the nation, and to be stimulated by the desire to practice those virtues which alone give the right to command everyone for the good of all. The desire to please the eyes and to speak to the heart made me undertake this work. Many others will try to outdo me, but I shall at least have the honour of having undertaken it. The reward for my civic zeal will be found in the intention which has guided my paintbrushes.]

Saint-Sauveur was clearly nothing if not a stylist of a remarkable kind. In the second place, in his preliminary discourse he surveys the historical circumstances which have led the establishment of the new government, and to

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

123

the publication of a book showing the dress prescribed for its officials. Of the new Constitution, he says this: ... elle terrasse l’anarchie, réprime les mouvemens séditieux, donne une force active au gouvernement, et oblige les Législateurs à ne créer des loix qu’après un mur examen, enfantées par le génie, sanctionnées par la sagesse et l’expérience. (p. 5) [... it brings anarchy to heel, represses sedition, gives active force to the government, and requires the legislature to pass laws only after they have been studied maturely, created by genius and sanctioned by wisdom and experience.]

Then we have this: De célèbres artistes ont exécuté les nouveaux costumes Constitutionnels, créés par le goût et le génie … et qui sont à-la-fois dignes de la fierté républicaine et de la richesse d’une nation opulent. (p. 6) [Famous artists have created these new Constitutional costumes, and they have done so with taste and genius, and they are worthy at the same time of republican pride and the wealth of an opulent nation.]

These remarks are useful in themselves for outlining the favourable historical perspective in which the work was intended to be seen. Yet perhaps – inadvertently – the most significant observation which Saint-Sauveur makes in his preface is this: Dans des temps de troubles et d’anarchie, on crut qu’il n’étoit pas nécessaire de donner un costume aux fonctionnaires publiques. Les Législateurs même qui créèrent la Constitution de 1791, négligèrent cette partie si essentielle pour imprimer à la magistrature ce caractère de grandeur et de majesté, qui l’environne de respect. (p. 5) [In times of upheavals and anarchy, it was thought that there was no need to provide official dress for those holding public office. Even the legislators who created the Constitution of 1791, omitted this section which is so essential for giving the magistracy, the character of grandeur and majesty which imparts to it an aura of respect.]

Equality was therefore less important now than authority, and it is noticeable, if not surprising, that Saint-Sauveur readily argues that official dress will give magistrates ‘grandeur et majesté’. These qualities, their regal connotations notwithstanding, were now more highly prized than ‘fraternité’, following the ‘troubles’ of recent years. In offering this view of the new rulers of France, the work was, perhaps only half-unconsciously, reminiscent of the official portraits of French kings by Rigault, Van Loo and others. The revolutionaries had obviously learned that while equality had its attractions, it could not be carried too far. Hence, if the publication of a visual representation of power, a conversion of the abstract into the concrete, was a calculated move to give the new government an identifiable face, Saint-Sauveur

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

124

lost no opportunity to remind his readers of the gap separating them from the new political élite. The distinction between rulers and ruled is underlined by his emphasis on the classical dignity of the costumes, implying that those who will wear them are thereby invested with the authority, elevation and dignity of their ancient forebears. In his introduction, Saint-Sauveur draws attention only once to the democratic basis of the Constitution,27 but he invites his readers, on no fewer than three occasions, to compare the new Directory with the civilisation of classical Greece and Rome. In the Discours préparatoire he declares: Les grandes Républiques ont aimé cette représentation de leurs magistrats. Quel luxe, quelle magnificence, quelle dignité dans le costume des Grecs, dans celui des Romains! (pp. 5–6) [The great Republics loved to depict their public officials. What luxury, what magnificence, what dignity there is in the costume of the Greeks, and in that of the Romans!]

He goes on: On cherche avec plaisir les ornemens, les habits pontificaux, ces costumes qui décoroient les vestales, les augures, et les consuls de Rome …. (p. 6) [It is a pleasure to seek out ornaments and priestly robes, those costumes which embellished the vestal virgins, augurs and consuls of Rome....]

And he further asserts: C’est avec la même ardeur qu’on tâche de se procurer tout ce qui tient à l’antiquité, que les français voudront connoître nos nouveaux costumes, et jouir du plaisir d’y jetter quelquefois des regards, et les comparer avec ceux des Grecs et des Romains. (ibid.) [With the same ardour with which we have tried to obtain everything relating to Antiquity, the French nation will wish to become acquainted with these new costumes, and enjoy the pleasure of looking at them from time to time, comparing them with those of the Greeks and the Romans.]

The Costumes thus embodies (almost literally) both a desire to communicate with the people, and a way of showing that those whom they had just placed in positions of power are to be admired both in their own right and for the costumes they wear, emblematic as they are of the virtues of old.

27

He acknowledges the debt which his authors have to laws drafted by William Penn, to the United States and to ‘nos fiers rivaux, habitans des bords de la Tamise’ (p. 5).

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

125

Saint-Sauveur’s insistence on the classical origins of his designs is puzzling when one looks at the actual illustrations to the Costumes, which indicate that, in practice, this ideal was not closely adhered to. In some cases, one would have to admit that there is some resemblance between the costumes shown here and those of Ancient Greece and perhaps Rome (Figures 6 and 7). In other instances however, the costume shown might more accurately be described as medieval or early Renaissance than classical (Figure 8), while others are based on late eighteenth-century fashions. The designs are chosen apparently at random, and do not correspond automatically with political or judicial seniority. Figure 6, for example, shows a member of the Council of Five Hundred, while Figure 8 shows the costume prescribed for a minister. The discrepancy between the proclaimed reliance on the inspiration of classicism, on the one hand, and the actual realization of the designs, on the other, calls for some explanation (though there is none in the work itself). After all, there was no shortage in eighteenth-century France of reliable source-material for anyone who wanted to recreate ancient modes of dress. Classical statues had survived for millennia in many of the cities of the ancient world and had been collected for centuries by connoisseurs in France and elsewhere. Excavations had been going on at Herculaneum and Pompeii since the 1760s. The discoveries of wall-paintings and other evidence of ancient art had been disseminated through Winckelmann’s History of the Art of the Ancients and other popular works for 30 years or more before the Costumes was published in 1795.28 In 1776, André Lens had published his authoritative Costume des peuples de l’antiquité, which contained copious illustrations of ancient costume, accompanied by much learned commentary.29 With all this information at his disposal and in the light of his previous books on dress, Saint-Sauveur’s notions of classical costume are strikingly odd. What makes them stranger still is that he was writing at the height of the neoclassical era, when interest in, and awareness of, the costumes of ancient Greece and Rome was widespread. Yet it should be remembered that neo-classicism had its limitations, even amongst its most illustrious practitioners. While it was a powerful and significant force in late eighteenth-century French (and indeed European) aesthetics, it did not necessarily entail a slavish adhesion to the minutiae of ancient art. In 1789 and again in 1791, Jacques-Louis David – perhaps the foremost exponent of this new creed in France – had exhibited his Lictors returning to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons. His depiction of Brutus sitting with his wife and daughters in a room through which the dead bodies of his sons are to be conveyed to their burial outraged classicallyminded purists. Objections were raised both on grounds of taste and on the basis of historical accuracy, since Roman law did not permit burial within the city itself. Such

28

29

Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums first appeared in 1764; many other editions, both in German and in other languages, quickly followed. See Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994). See Ribiero, pp. 139–40, who calls it ‘comprehensive’ and ‘detailed’.

126

Fig. 6

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

The official costume of a member of the Council of Five Hundred

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

Fig. 7

The official costume of a member of the High Court of Justice

127

128

Fig. 8

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

The official costume of a Minister of the Directory

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

129

complaints did not, of course, prevent the painting from succeeding very well with the public, as David had anticipated.30 Yet, here again, even if we suppose that David was the inspiration behind SaintSauveur’s designs, the significance of the Costumes lies not in the sources of his ideas but in the presentation and intentions which underlie them. Despite its allegedly classical origins, Saint-Sauveur and the men responsible for commissioning and publishing the Costumes had little incentive to concern themselves with historical accuracy in the depiction of Roman dress. Their aim was to impose on the citizens of France a compelling view of their new masters. Saint-Sauveur’s insistence on the classical origins of his costumes is consequently more of a smokescreen than in the case of David’s Brutus, since many of his readers were unlikely to know, or to care overmuch, whether they accurately represented the dress of ancient times or not. His repeated references to classicism should therefore be seen as a piece of public relations. His emphasis on the point is a further indication that the book was not so much a guide to official costume as a means of impressing the public favourably (and inaccurately) with the weight of a tradition far older than that of the revolutionary past, which had caused so much havoc in France. What is more, in depicting allegedly Roman or Greek costumes, which were in fact nothing of the kind, Saint-Sauveur was merely echoing the confused and uncertain values of a government which had raised no objection to the eclectic set of confections submitted by David.31 This was because the authorities intended these costumes to be the embodiment of two tendencies: namely a link with the distant, classical past and, at the same time, a break with the horrors which had preceded the new Constitution of 1795. There was thus a strong conflict underlying the work. It was this uncertainty which made David, Saint-Sauveur and their political masters hesitate in the depiction of official dress, because they were unsure of the direction in which they wished to go and because they really had no other point of reference than the past. So, as the future was unknowable, they chose not to imagine what it might look like, and instead clung to an ersatz version of times gone by, coupled with a disregard for historical fact. The result was a mishmash, a fantasy of ‘classical’ and other styles which had little coherence, but which was not deemed to be any less acceptable on that account. The new government wanted to distance itself equally from the extreme republicanism of the Jacobins, who wished to break entirely with the pre-Revolutionary past, and from the reactionary tendencies of the monarchists, who mostly wanted to return to what they saw as the glorious days of royal absolutism.32 In trying to steer a middle course, it lost its way militarily, politically and economically, and the confusion discernible in these official costumes reflects an equal uncertainty. The 30 31 32

See Thomas E. Crow, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 253–4. See Delpierre, p. 123. Hibbert refers (p. 293) to the Directory’s desire ‘to bind all parties together in a stabilised regime’, while Sutherland (p. 296) comments that the Directory wanted to be ‘the only alternative to the threat of disorder from the royalists and Jacobins’.

130

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

desire to latch on to the prevailing classical taste was not bolstered by any concern with strict historical accuracy. Like David, Saint-Sauveur wanted to impress the public with the authority of Greece and Rome; unlike David, whose paintings set the tone for the whole era, he lacked the genius to bring off the disregard for historical truth by the use of deeply emotional spectacle. As Aileen Ribiero observes (p. 152), most of the designs in the Costumes were judged to be ‘absurdly theatrical’, and they were even parodied in England by no less a figure than Gillray.33 Nor was the disrespect for official institutions engendered by his efforts the only practical difficulty created by the perspective which Saint-Sauveur adopted. Foucault, among others, has alerted us to the omnipresence of power-structures,34 and his point is borne out in the present instance. It is not hard to see, both in the prefatory statements to the Costumes and in the designs which Saint-Sauveur illustrates, the assertion of a superior authority to which the people were expected to defer, notwithstanding the allegedly democratic ambitions of the Constitution. These divergences between theory and practice are present also in the description given by Saint-Sauveur of the functions of the ruling bodies under the new Constitution. In the case of the Council of Five Hundred, he states: Dans ce conseil, la carrière est ouverte au génie; les orateurs peuvent donner l’essor à leur imagination, produire de grandes idées, des projets utiles, de vastes conceptions. L’éloquence doit obtenir à cette tribune les triomphes les plus signalés …. (p. 7) [In this council, careers are open to men of genius. Orators can give full scope to their imagination, bring forth great ideas, useful projects, vast concepts. In this forum, eloquence will achieve the most signal triumphs ….]

When he comes to describe the functions which are accorded to members of the Council of Elders, he tells us: Il faut que les orateurs, dans ce Conseil, ayent l’éloquence des choses et non celle des mots; que leurs discours soient appuyés sur des raisonnemens solides et profonds, et qu’ils ne se laissent jamais entraîner par une imagination déréglée, par un civisme mal-entendu, par le désir de briller, et de courir à l’immortalité. (p. 8) [In this council, orators must speak eloquently about things, and not about words; their speeches must be based on solid and profound arguments, and they must never allow themselves to be led astray by an unbridled imagination, by a misguided civic spirit, or by the desire to shine, or to pursue immortality.]

33

34

Geoffrey Squire concludes that David’s designs of 1793 ‘continued to make the Council of Five Hundred look ridiculous in togas in 1796’ (Dress Art and Society 1560–1970 [London: Studio Vista, 1974], p. 136). See especially his study The Archæology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith (London: Tavistock Publications, 1972).

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

131

It seems that the two Councils were to be distinct not only in their functions, but in what they could actually say and how they could say it. The Council of Five Hundred could apparently say what it liked, so long as it did so eloquently and with imagination. The Council of Elders, on the other hand, must eschew imagination and concentrate on facts. How any continuity between the two was to be achieved is, to say the least, unclear. Saint-Sauveur was careful to state that the Constitution applied to a nation of free men. Yet the restrictions on the kind of oratory permitted to (or expected from) members of the Council of Elders and the Council of Five Hundred were so exacting and precise that their actual proceedings would unavoidably be inhibited, or else the rules would be almost constantly broken. Perhaps the most lucid sign of the tensions inherent in the new Constitution can be seen in Saint-Sauveur’s description of the Directory itself: Plus puissant [sic] que les Monarques, les Membres du Directoire exécutif commandent à des hommes libres. Leur pouvoir consiste à faire exécuter les lois, à obéir eux-mêmes à la volonté du Peuple qui s’exprime par la Constitution. (p. 10) [The members of the Directory are more powerful than kings, for they command free men. Their power consists in giving effect to the laws, and in themselves obeying the will of the people expressed through the Constitution.]

Commanding and obeying at the same time, more powerful than kings yet servants of the people, the Directors were undoubtedly going to have their work cut out to perform their duties successfully. These difficulties were compounded by the fact that the three elements of the government – the Council of Five Hundred, the Council of Elders and the Directory itself – were intended to be wholly separate and distinct. Consequently, they had no means of discussing matters jointly; indeed, under the terms of article 60 of the Constitution, they were expressly forbidden ever to be in the same room together.35 The Council of Five Hundred was to bring forward legislation, which would be discussed before it was passed up to the Council of Elders; the Elders had the power to accept it or to require amendments, but not to reject it. If they approved a law, it passed upwards to the Directory, but the Directory was often too divided to agree how legislation should be implemented. When, to these facts, is added the requirement for annual elections, it will be readily understood that the Constitution of 1795 was more likely to create problems than to solve them.36 Hence, a work which explicitly asserted the power and authority of the bodies set up under the new Constitution was in fact defending and promulgating a political

35

36

The text reads: ‘En aucun cas, les deux conseils ne peuvent se réunir dans une même salle’. Georges Lefebvre calls the arrangements governing the Directory ‘l’émiettement du pouvoir’ (France sous le Directoire [1795–1799], Paris: Editions sociales, 1977, p. 52). See Alfred Cobban, A History of Modern France, 3 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), I, pp. 251–9.

132

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Weltanschauung, which had little real substance and little chance of creating a coherent and durable set of political arrangements and institutions. It asserted an authority which was illusory and demanded respect for individuals and political bodies whose values and purposes were to be exposed as inadequate, and even worthless, within a few short years. There is little sign of these very real difficulties in the account of the functions of these new officials given by Saint-Sauveur. His descriptions were not based directly on the text of the Constitution itself, but they were extrapolated from what it does say. The fact that the Costumes was published with the blessing of the Ministry of the Interior means that officials at the highest level of government saw no inherent objection to his writing in these terms. Even if the new Constitution itself did not explicitly make the statements that he puts forward in his commentaries, it was, in the official view, essentially compatible with them. The tensions mentioned up to this point emanate, then, from the provisions of the Constitution. But there is one final tension in the actual enterprise that needs to be considered in a wider perspective. The fact that the wearing of special uniforms separated their holders of these offices from the people, and set them apart as distinctive groups at the same time as they were supposed to be representatives of their fellowcitizens, was to prove a considerable miscalculation. At no time subsequently has a French government decreed that its elected members should, in carrying out their ordinary duties, wear official dress that sets them apart from other citizens. From the words and images presented by Saint-Sauveur in the Costumes, a number of conclusions can be drawn. The fundamental problem to which the book bears witness was that the 1795 Constitution was essentially a façade that disguised a power vacuum and an indecision and confusion as to its aims and purposes which, in the end, fatally undermined all its operations. There was a second weakness of the Constitution, to which Saint-Sauveur likewise inadvertently gave voice. His costumes were intended to identify clearly each rank or grade or division of the new government, but there was no obvious link uniting the members of the various orders. There was no common uniform of the sort that one finds, for example, in armies or the clergy, or among members of the professions. This absence of a common identity reflected a major defect of the Constitution. It wanted to ensure the separation of the legislature and the executive, but in the process it failed to create any mechanisms by which they could jointly agree on anything. The Constitution was effectively a dead letter almost before it became operative. In particular, it could not cope with the fact that the Directory might be of a different political persuasion from the Council of Five Hundred. In the 1797 elections, for example, the Council was royalist, while the Directory was republican: ‘cohabitation’ is nothing new. Such divisions continued to bedevil its activities; ultimately, they made it politically ineffectual, and indeed inoperable. This inherent structural defect, as well as mismanagement of the finances, the army and the day-to-day business of politics by the Directory, opened the door eventually for the coup d’état of the 18 Brumaire [9 November] 1799, which brought Napoleon to power.

Fancy Costume and Political Authority in the French Revolution

133

The incoherences in dress and the absence of a common identity were the external symbols of a weakness and vacillation which eventually undermined the Directory and consigned it to political oblivion. The designs shown in the Costumes originated several years earlier in the conceptions put forward by David. Yet the continued failure of the authorities to appreciate the effect of their ersatz classicism, and to measure the extent to which these costumes would discredit their wearers in the eyes of the public, indicates that such limitations were inherent in the body politic, and not a function of the framers of the new Constitution only. Since many of the figures who had deferred to Robespierre before Thermidor were still prominent in 1795, this continuity of outlook is not entirely to be wondered at. From what Saint-Sauveur says in 1795 of the qualities needed to be a member of the two Councils and of the Directory, we can see that he was envisaging an ideal situation, which never came to pass in practice because it was unrealisable. The vision which he had of the three bodies and the way in which they were to operate made no allowance for the robust exchanges of everyday politics, nor did it acknowledge that in many cases political differences might be irreconcilable because they were the outcome of incompatible political principles. One ought, in fairness, to remember that the Costumes, like the Constitution itself, represented a view of human possibilities which, however naïve it might seem to us, was perhaps understandable in the aftermath of a blood-soaked Revolution whose most influential spirits had been determined to reinvent politics from scratch. After all, in 1792 the revolutionaries had abolished the Gregorian calendar and had started history all over again from the year 1. With such vaulting ambitions, why should the authors of the new Constitution doubt that human nature, too, could be brought closer once more to the ideal of Ancient Greece and Rome, whose example had inspired so many previous thinkers, and march towards a glorious (if noticeably unspecified) future? And if one were looking more widely at the uses of optimism in the eighteenth century as a whole, it would be fair, I think, to remember that the Revolution itself was the product, in part at least, of the optimism about human nature that had characterised the Enlightenment; this optimism, in various forms, can be seen in the work of the Encyclopédistes, or in Helvétius and Rousseau, for example, to look no further than some of the leading lights of French thinking at that period.37 Saint-Sauveur’s attempt to present the agencies of the new government in a way which would win public acceptance by using the printed word to show how they would be dressed, and what they would represent, was doomed to failure, although the causes of that failure cannot, of course, be laid exclusively at his door. His case points the way also to further consideration of the role of the printed media in the conflicts which characterised the French Revolution. The use of books published in small format, with attractive coloured illustrations, with a very clear official imprimatur, and for very obvious propaganda purposes, was typical of the Revolution, and one

37

The classic study of Enlightenment optimism is Carl L. Becker’s The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1932).

134

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

of the most significant ways in which printing at that period differed from that of the Ancien Régime. The government of Louis XVI did, of course, publish many works which bore the seal of official approval, but none which was intended to promote its officers and ideology in quite the same way as the Costumes, or which linked them so obviously to the power-structures of the state. As Simon Burrows argues in another article in this volume, factionalism before the Revolution usually took the form of anonymous or misattributed pamphlets, but these were symptoms of the in-fighting in which many rival groups indulged, rather than a proclamation of the triumph of any one clique. It was only with the coming of the Revolution, and the need to promote the popular appeal of the government, that propagandist pamphlets became a standard tool of government. In this perspective, the Costumes is an eloquent, and in some respects typical, example of the methods used to make power acceptable at this time, and of the fundamental (if unconscious) flaws in some of those methods. Saint-Sauveur reflected, to some degree, the naïve optimism of the Revolutionary period, as well as the contradictions of the Constitution, which was framed largely in this optimistic spirit. There may, none the less, be something more than simple optimism or naïve idealism in his attempt to depict these new political arrangements, expressed in bogus classical clothing, as representing the true interests of the populace. During the Revolution, when people of all kinds had to survive as best they could, some startling transformations occurred. Perhaps the most striking illustration of this point is the career of the Duc d’Orléans, a cousin of Louis XVI, who became known in 1792 as Philippe Egalité, and who was one of those who voted for the king’s execution. In the case of Saint-Sauveur, the transformation was perhaps less dramatic in its effects, but no less surprising. When he wasn’t inventing classical costumes, he earned his living doing conjuring tricks,38 and one cannot help feeling that his skill in this field made him particularly useful to those who had just acquired power under the new Constitution.

38

Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises, p. 1205.

Bibliography of Works Cited Primary Sources before 1800 Works listed without attribution are anonymous. A Grammar of the English tongue, with Notes, Giving the Grounds and Reason of Grammar in General. To which is added, A New Prosodia; Or, The Art of English Numbers. All Adapted to the use of Gentlemen and Ladies, As well as of the Schools of Great Britain (London, 1711) in [Microfilm.] Ann Arbor, MI: EighteenthCentury Sources for the Study of English Literature. Roll 103. #22. Chastelain, George and Molinet, Jean, La Recollection des Merveilleuses Advenues, Antwerp: Guillaume Vorsterman, [c.1514]. Chastelain, George, Chansons georgines, Valenciennes: Jehan de Liège, [c.1500]. Chastelain, George, Le Miroir de Mort, [Lyon: Martin Husz, c.1481–82]. Chastelain, George, Le Temple Jehan Bocace (Paris: for Galliot Du Pré, 1517). Chevalier, Nicolas, Histoire de Guillaume III, Roy d’Angleterre, d’Ecosse, de France, et d’Irlande, Prince d’Orange andc. Contenant ses actions les plus mémorables, depuis sa naissance jusques à son élévation sur le trône, and ce qui s’est passé depuis jusques à l’entière réduction du royaume d’Irlande. Par médailles, inscriptions, arcs de triomphe, and autres monumens publics. Recueillis par N. Chevalier (Amsterdam: no publ., 1692). Dan, Pierre, Le trésor des merveilles de la maison royale de Fontainebleau, contenant la description de son antiquité, de sa fondation, de ses bastimens, de ses rares peintures, tableaux, emblêmes, et devises: de ses jardins, de ses fontaines, et autres singularitez qui s’y voyent. Ensemble les traictez de paix, les assemblées, les conférences, les entrées royales, les naissances, et cérémonies de baptesme de quelques enfans de France; les mariages, les tournoys, et autres magnificences, qui s’y sont faictes jusques à present, par le R.P.F. Pierre Dan (Paris: S. Cramoisy, 1642). Devises pour les Tapisseries du Roy de France: où sont representez les quatre élémens et les quatre saisons de l’année. Peintes en mignature par J. Bailly, peintre du Roy en son Academie Royale de Peinture and Sculpture (Paris: no publ, 1669, British Library, Ms Harley 4377). Félibien, André, Description sommaire du chasteau de Versailles (Paris: G. des Prez and C. Savreux, 1674). Félibien, André, Divertissemens de Versailles donnez par le Roy à toute sa cour au retour de la Conqueste de la Franche Comté en l’année M.DC.LXXIV (Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy, 1676).

136

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Félibien, André, Relation de la feste de Versailles. Du 18. Juillet mil six cens soixantehuit (Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy, 1679). Félibien, André, Tapisseries du Roi, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1670). La Brillante journée ou le Carrousel des galans Maures, entrepris par Monseigneur le Dauphin. Avec la comparse, les courses, et des madrigaux sur les devises. Se vendra à Versailles le jour du Carrousel (Paris: Veuve C. Blageart, 1685). La brillante journée ou le Carrousel des galans Maures, entrepris par Monseigneur le Dauphin. Avec la comparse; les courses, et des madrigaux sur les devises (Lyon: T. Amaulry, 1685). Lemaire de Belges, Jean, Les Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie (Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1549). Le Portefeuille d’un talon rouge (London: n.p., 178*). Maréchal, Pierre Sylvain and Saint-Sauveur, Jacques Grasset de, La Mythologie mise à la portée de tout le monde […] (Paris: Deroy, 1795). Médailles sur les principaux événemens du règne de Louis le Grand, avec des explications historiques. Par l’Académie Royale des médailles et des inscriptions (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1702). Menestrier, Claude-François, Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand par les médailles, emblêmes, devises, jettons, inscriptions, armoiries, et autres monumens publics. Recuëillis, et expliquez par le Pere Claude François Menestrier de la Compagnie de Jesus (Paris: J.B. Nolin, 1689). Molinet, Jean, Les Faictz et Dictz, Paris, Jean Longis et la veuve Jean Saint-Denis, 9 December 1531. Perrault, Charles, Courses de testes et de bague, faites par le Roy et par les princes et seigneurs de sa cour en l’année M.DC.LXII (Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy, 1670). Perrault, Charles, Festiva ad capita annulumque decursio, a Rege Ludovico XIV principibus summisque aulae proceribus edita anno M.DC.LXII (Paris: S. Mabre Cramoisy, 1670). Pidansat de Mairobert, Mathieu-François (attrib.) Anecdotes sur Madame la comtesse Du Barry (London: n.p., 1775). Pidansat de Mairobert, Mathieu-François (attrib.) Lettres originales de Madame la comtesse Dubarry (London: n.p., 1779). Recueil des choses notables, qui ont esté faites à Bayonne, à l’entreveuë du Roy Charles neufieme de ce nom, et la Royne sa treshonorée mere avec la Royne catholique sa soeur (Paris: M. de Vascosan, 1566). Saint-Sauveur, Jacques Grasset de, Costumes des représentans du peuple, membres des deux conseils, du directoire exécutif, des ministres, des tribunaux, des messagers d’état, huissiers et autres fonctionnaires publics (Paris, 1795) [Translated as: Dresses of the Representatives of the People, Members of the Two Councils, and of the Executive Directory (London: Harding, 1795)]. Saint-Sauveur, Jacques Grasset de, L’Antique Rome, ou Description historique et pittoresque de tout ce qui concerne le peuple romain dans les costumes civils,

Bibliography of Works Cited

137

militaires et religieux, dans les mœurs publiques et privées depuis Romulus jusqu’à Auguste (Paris: Deroy, 1796). Seconde relation du carrousel des galans Maures, entrepris par Monseigneur le Dauphin. Contenant de nouvelles particularitez; and quatre grandes planches qui représentent L’ordre des deux quadrilles dans l’avant-cour de Versailles, pour commencer la marche; La comparse; L’ordre des chevaliers, and de leur suite pendant les courses; L’ordre de bataille des deux quadrilles pour sortir de la carrière. Comme aussi tout ce qui regarde les maisons, dignitez, and emplois de chaque chevalier (Paris: Veuve C. Blageart, 1685). Seconde relation du carrousel des galans Maures, entrepris par Monseigneur le Dauphin. Contenant de nouvelles particularitez; and quatre grandes planches qui representent L’ordre des deux quadrilles dans l’avant-cour de Versailles, pour commencer la marche; La comparse; L’ordre des chevaliers, and de leur suite pendant les courses; L’ordre de bataille des deux quadrilles pour sortir de la carriere. Comme aussi tout ce qui regarde les maisons, dignitez, and emplois de chaque chevalier (Lyon: T. Amaulry, 1685). Traictez Singuliers (Paris: Antoine Couteau for Galliot Du Pré, 1525/6). Traictez Singuliers (Paris, for Galliot Du Pré, 1525/6). Traictez Singuliers (Paris, for Jean St Denis, n.d). Tremellius, Immanuel, Bibliorum pars prima, id est Quinque libri moschis Latini recens ex Hebraeo facti (Frankfurt am Main: Andreas Wechel, 1575–79). Tremellius, Immanuel, Testamenti Veteris … libri Canonici … Latini… facti (London: Middleton; Barker, 1579, 1580). Tremellius, Immanuel, Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ∆ΙΑΘΗΚΗ. Testamentum Novvm. Est autem interpretatio syriaca novi Testamenti, Hebraeis Typis Descripta, Plerisque etiam locis emendata. Eadem Latino Sermone Reddita (Geneva: H. Estienne, 1569).

Primary Sources after 1800 Addison, Joseph and Steele, Richard, The Spectator, ed. Donald F. Bond, 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). Le Balet comique by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx 1581, ed. Margaret McGowan (New York: Centre for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982). Burton, Robert, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), eds Thomas C. Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling and Rhonda L. Blair, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989–2000). Chastelain, George, Le Miroir de Mort, ed. Tania Van Hemelryck (Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d’Études Médiévales de l’Université Catholique de Louvain, 1995). Chastelain, George, Le Temple de Bocace, ed. Susanna Bliggenstorfer (Berne: Francke, 1988). Chastelain, George, Œuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 8 vols (Brussels: Heussner, 1863–66).

138

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Cretin, Guillaume, Œuvres poétiques, ed. Kathleen Chesney (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1932). Dryden, John, ‘Religio Laici, or A Laymans Faith. A Poem’, in The Works of John Dryden, eds Edward Niles Hooker, H. T. Swedenberg, et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956–), II (1972), pp. 97–122. Harvey, Gabriel, Ciceronianus, ed. Harold S. Wilson, trans. Clarence A. Forbes (Lincoln, Nebraska: Studies in the Humanities No. 4, 1945). Harvey, Gabriel, Works, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 3 vols (no place or publisher, 1884–85). Hume, David, ‘On the Standard of Taste’, in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987), pp. 226–49. Hume, David, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, 6 vols (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1983). Johnson, Samuel, ‘Addison’, in The Lives of the English Poets, 2 vols (New York: Everyman, 1950), I, pp. 327–48. Johnson, Samuel, ‘Dryden’, in The Lives of the English Poets, 2 vols (New York: Everyman, 1950), I, pp. 181–264. Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rhétorique, ed. Eugénie Droz and Arthur Piaget, 2 vols (Paris: SATF, 1910–25). Lemaire de Belges, Jean, Œuvres, ed. Jean Stecher, 4 vols (Louvain: Lefever, 1882–91). Lemaire de Belges, Jean, La Légende des Vénitiens, ed. Anne Schoysman (Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1999). Milton, John, ‘The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce’, John Milton, ed. Stephen Orgel and Jonathan Goldberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 182–226. Milton, John, Eikonoklastes, in Complete Prose Works, ed. Don M. Wolff et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1953–), III, ed. Merritt Hughes (1962). Molinet, Jean, Les Faictz et Dictz, ed. Noël Dupire, 3 vols (Paris: SATF, 1936–39). Spenser, Edmund, The Shepheardes Calender (1579), in The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser, ed. William A. Oram, Einar Bjorvand et al. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 1–213. Steele, Richard, The Tatler (New York: Everyman Library, 1953). The Correspondence of George the Third, ed. Sir John Fortescue (London: Frank Cass, 1967). The Three Parnassus Plays (1598–1601), ed. J.B. Leishman (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1949). Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, II (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1894), pp. 11–112.

Bibliography of Works Cited

139

Secondary Sources Abelard, Jacques, ‘Les Illustrations de Gaule de Jean Lemaire de Belges: Quelle Gaule? Quelle France? Quelle nation?’, Nouvelle Revue du Seizième Siècle, 13 (1995): 7–27. Abelard, Jacques, ‘Les Illustrations de Gaule et Singularitez de Troye’ de Jean Lemaire de Belges: Étude des éditions – Genèse de l’œuvre (Geneva: Droz, 1976). Adams, Alison, Rawles, Stephen and Saunders, Alison, A Bibliography of French Emblem Books, 2 vols (Geneva: Droz, 1999 and 2002). Adorno, Theodore and Horkheimer, Max, Dialectic of Enlightenment [written 1944] (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972). Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983, 1991). Armstrong, Adrian, ‘Dead Man Walking: Remaniements and Recontextualisations of Jean Molinet’s Occasional Writing’, in Vernacular Literature and Current Affairs in the Early Sixteenth Century: France, England and Scotland, eds Jennifer Britnell and Richard Britnell (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 80–98. Armstrong, Adrian, Technique and Technology: Script, Print, and Poetics in France 1470–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Arnold, Matthew, Selected Prose, ed. P.J. Keating (New York: Penguin, 1970). Ashenden, Samantha and Owen, David, Foucault contra Habermas (London: Thousand Oaks, 1999). Attridge, Derek, ‘Innovation, Literature, Ethics: Relating to the Other’, PMLA, 114.1 (January 1999): 20–31. Augustine, Saint, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D.W. Robertson Jr (New York: Macmillan, 1958). Austin, Kenneth, From Judaism to Calvinism: The Life and Writings of Immanuel Tremellius (1510–1580), doctoral thesis (University of St Andrews, November 2002). Baker, Keith Michael (ed.), The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture Volume 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime (Oxford: Pergamon, 1987). Baker, Keith Michael, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Barker, Hannah, Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). Barker, Hannah and Simon Burrows (eds), Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Becker, Carl L., The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932).

140

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Becker, Philipp-Auguste, ‘Saint-Julien de Balleure und Jean le Maire’, Zeitschrift für romanische Sprache und Literatur, 51 (1928): 294–302. Becker, Wilhelm, Immanuel Tremellius. Ein Proselyntenleben im Zeitalter der Reformation, 2nd edition (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrische Buchhandlung, 1890). Bibaud, Maximilien, Dictionnaire historique des hommes illustres du Canada et de l’Amérique (Montréal?: P.P. Cérat, 1857). Boas, F.S., University Drama in the Tudor Age (repr. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1966, first published 1914). Booth, Wayne, The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Borsa, Gédéon ‘L’activité et les marques des éditeurs de Buda avant 1526’, in Le Livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance: Actes du XXVIIIe colloque international d’études humanistes de Tours, ed. Pierre Aquilon and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Promodis, 1988), 170–81. Bourdieu, Pierre, Homo Academicus, trans. Peter Collier (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988, first published 1984). Boutier, Jean, Dewerpe, Alain, and Nordman, Daniel, Un Tour de France royal. Le voyage de Charles IX 1564–1566 (Paris: Aubier, 1984). Bouwsma, William J., John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). Bradbrook, M.C., ‘No Room at the Top: Spenser’s Pursuit of Fame’, in The Artist and Society in Shakespeare’s England: The Collected Papers of Muriel Bradbrook (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1982), I, pp. 19–36. Bray, Joe, Handley, Miriam and Henry, Anne (eds) Ma(r)king the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page (London: Ashgate, 2000). Britnell, Jennifer, ‘Couronne de l’art poétique, couronne mortuaire: Le Chapelet des Princes de Jean Bouchet’, in Lingua, cultura e testo: Miscellanea di studi francesi in onore di Sergio Cigada, eds Enrica Galazzi and Giuseppe Bernardelli, 3 vols (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2003), II, pp. 125–38. Britnell, Jennifer, Jean Bouchet (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986). Brown, Cynthia J., Poets, Patrons, and Printers: Crisis of Authority in Late Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). Buell, Lawrence, ‘Introduction: In Pursuit of Ethics’, PMLA, 114.1 (January 1999): 7–19. Burke, Peter, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (Yale: Yale University Press, 1992). Burrows, Simon, and Barker, Hannah (eds), Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Burrows, Simon, ‘A Literary Low-life Reassessed: Charles Théveneau de Morande in London, 1769–91’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 22 (1998): 76–94. Burrows, Simon, ‘The Innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, or the Forging of a Revolutionary’, Historical Journal, 46 (2003): 843–71.

Bibliography of Works Cited

141

Burrows, Simon, Blackmail, Scandal, and the French Revolution: London’s French Libellistes, 1758–1792 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). Burton, Robert, Philosophaster, ed. and trans. Connie McQuillen (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1993). Busby, Keith, Codex and Context: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002). Butters, Friedrich, Emanuel Tremellius, erster Rector des Zweibrücker Gymnasiums. Eire Lebenskizze zur Feier des dreihundertjahrigen dieser Studienanstalt (Zweibrücken: n.p., 1859). Censer, Jack, The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1994). Censorship and the Control of Print in England and France 1600–1910, eds Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1992). Chartier, Roger, ‘Book Markets and Reading in France at the End of the Old Regime’, in Publishing and Readership in Revolutionary France and America, ed. Carol Armbruster (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), pp. 117–37. Chartier, Roger, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). Clasen, Claus-Peter, The Palatinate in European History, 1555–1618 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966). Cobban, Alfred, A History of Modern France, 3 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963). Cohen, Henri and de Ricci, Seymour, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 6th edition (Paris: Rouquette, 1912). Connerton, P., The Tragedy of Enlightenment: An Essay on the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Corns, Thomas N., Uncloistered Virtue: English Political Literature, 1640–1660 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Cowan, Brian ‘Mr. Spectator and the Coffeehouse Public Sphere’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 37/3 (Spring 2004): 345–66. Cowan, Ian B., The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth Century Scotland (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982). Cronin, Vincent, Louis and Antoinette (London: Collins, 1974). Crook, Malcolm, Revolutionary France, The Short Oxford History of France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Cross, F.L. (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Crow, Thomas E., Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985). Curtis, Mark H., ‘The Alienated Intellectuals of Early Stuart England’, Past and Present, 23 (1962). D’Almeras, Henri, Marie-Antoinette et les pamphlets royalistes et révolutionnaires (Paris: la Librairie mondiale, 1907).

142

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Darnton, Robert, ‘Trends in Radical Propaganda on the Eve of the French Revolution (1782–1788)’, unpublished doctoral thesis (University of Oxford, 1964). Darnton, Robert, ‘The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy’, Journal of Modern History, 40 (1968): 301–27. Darnton, Robert, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). Darnton, Robert, ‘Le Lieutenant de Police J.-P. Lenoir, la guerre des farines et l’approvisionnement de Paris à la veille de la Révolution’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1969), pp. 611–24. Darnton, Robert, ‘The Memoirs of Lenoir, Lieutenant of Police of Paris, 1774–1785’, English Historical Review, 85 (1970): 532–59. Darnton, Robert ‘The High Enlightenment and the Low-life of Literature in Prerevolutionary France’, Past and Present, 51 (May 1971): 81–115. Darnton, Robert, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, MA, 1982). Darnton, Robert, ‘Ideology on the Bourse’, in Les Images de la Révolution française, ed. Michel Vovelle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1988), pp. 124–39. Darnton, Robert, The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769–1789 (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1995). Darnton, Robert, The Forbidden Best-sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (London: HarperCollins, 1996). Darnton, Robert, ‘Two Paths through the Social History of Ideas’, in The Darnton Debate: Books and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 359, ed. H.T. Mason (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1998), pp. 251–94. Darnton, Robert, ‘An Early Information Society: News and the Media in EighteenthCentury Paris’, American Historical Review, 105 (2000): 1–35. Darnton, Robert, ‘The Skeletons in the Closet: How Historians Play God’, Raritan: A Quarterly Review, 22/1 (2002): 1–19. Darnton, Robert, George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century (New York: Norton, 2003). Davidson, Donald, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). De Sars, Maxime, Lenoir, Lieutenant de police (Paris: Hachette, 1948). Delpierre, Madeleine, Dress in France in the Eighteenth Century, trans. Caroline Beamish (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998). Dent, C.M., Protestant Reformers in Elizabethan Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). Derrida, Jacques, ‘Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas’, trans. Alan Bass, in Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 79. Derrida, Jacques, On the Name, ed. Thomas Dutoit, trans. David Wood, John P. Leavey, Jr and Ian McLeod (Stanford: University of Stanford Press, 1995).

Bibliography of Works Cited

143

Devaux, Jean, Jean Molinet, indiciaire bourguignon (Paris: Champion, 1996). Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder, 1885–1903). Docherty, Thomas, Alterities: Criticism, History, Representation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). Doudet, Estelle ‘Aux frontières du prosimètre: George Chastelain et le théâtre’, in Le Prosimètre à la Renaissance, Cahiers V. L. Saulnier 22 (Paris: Éditions Rue d’Ulm/Presses de l’École normale supérieure, 2005): 21–47. Doudet, Estelle, ‘Un dramaturge et son public au XVe siècle: George Chastelain’, forthcoming in European Medieval Drama. Doudet, Estelle, Poétique de George Chastelain (1415–1475): ‘Un cristal mucié en un coffre’ (Paris: Champion, 2005). Doyle, William, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Droz, Eugénie, and Dalbanne, C., ‘Le Miroir de Mort de Georges Chastellain’, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1928, 89–92. Duke, Alastair C., Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (London and Ronceverte: Hambledon Press, 1990). Dupire, Noël, Étude critique des manuscrits et éditions des poésies de Jean Molinet (Paris: Droz, 1932) Duranton, Henri, and Rétat, Pierre, Gazettes et information politique sous l’ancien régime (Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Etienne, 1999). Duranton, Henri, Labrosse, Claude, and Rétat, Pierre (eds), Les Gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Saint-Etienne: Université de SaintEtienne, 1992) Eaglestone, Robert, Ethical Criticism: Reading After Levinas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997). Eagleton, Terry, The Function of Criticism: From The Spectator to Post-Structuralism (London: Verso, 1984). Eliot, T.S., ‘Milton II’, in On Poetry and Poets (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 146–61. Engell, James, Forming the Critical Mind: Dryden to Coleridge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). Evans, R.J.W., ‘The Wechel Presses: Humanism and Calvinism in Central Europe, 1572–1627’, Past and Present, supplement 1975: 1–74. Fleischmann, Hector, Les Pamphlets libertines contre Marie-Antoinette (Paris: les Publications modernes, 1908, repr. 1976). Forsett, Edward, Pedantius (1580/81), ed. G.C. Moore-Smith (Louvain: A Uystpruyst, 1905). Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Allen Lane, 1977). Foucault, Michel, The Archæology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith (London: Tavistock Publications, 1972).

144

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, 3 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990). Gamble, Richard C. (ed.), Articles on Calvin and Calvinism, Vol. I: The Biography of Calvin (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992). Garber, Marjorie, Hanssen, Beatrice and Walkowitz, Rebecca L. (eds), The Turn to Ethics (New York: Routledge, 2000). Gay, Peter, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. The Rise of Modern Paganism, 2 vols (New York: Norton, 1966). Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973). Gledhill, Christine, ‘Pleasurable Negotiations’, in Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television, ed. E. Deidre Pribram (London and New York: Verso, 1988), pp. 64–89. Gowland, Angus, ‘Rhetorical Structure and Function in The Anatomy of Melancholy’, Rhetorica, 19.1 (2001): 1–48. Graham, Victor and Johnson, W. McAllister, The Royal Tour of France by Charles IX and Catherine de Medici. Festivals and Entries 1564–66 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1979). Graham, W. Fred (ed.), Later Calvinism: International Perspectives (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994). Gruder, Vivian R., ‘Political News as Coded Messages: The Parisian and Provincial Press in the Pre-Revolution, 1787–1788’, French History, 12 (1998): 1–24. Gruder, Vivian R., ‘The Question of Marie-Antoinette: the Queen and Public Opinion before the Revolution’, French History, 16 (2002): 269–98. Gutting, Gary (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence’, in Recent Sociology No. 2, ed. Hans-Peter Dreitzel (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 114–48. Habermas, Jürgen, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. F.G. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990). Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989). Habermas, Jürgen, The Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas McCarthy, 2 vols (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1984). Hall, Basil, ‘Biblical Scholarship: Edition and Commentaries’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. III: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. S.L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 38–93. Harpham, Geoffrey Galt, Getting it Right: Language, Literature, and Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Harpham, Geoffrey Galt, Shadows of Ethics: Criticism and the Just Society (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). Hibbert, Christopher, The French Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982).

Bibliography of Works Cited

145

Higman, Francis M., Censorship and the Sorbonne, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 172 (Genève: Slatkine, 1979). Hill, Christopher, Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956). Holub, Robert C., Jürgen Habermas: Critic in the Public Sphere (New York: Routledge, 1991). Hunt, Lynn (ed.). The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture. Vol. 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Hunt, Lynn, ‘The Many Bodies of Marie-Antoinette: Political Pornography and the Problem of the Feminine in the French Revolution’, in Eroticism and the Body Politic, ed. Lynn Hunt (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 108–30. Hutchings, Kimberly, Kant, Critique and Politics (New York: Routledge, 1996). Israel, Jonathan, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Jay, M., The Dialectical Imagination (London and Boston: Little, Brown, 1973). Jodogne, Pierre, Jean Lemaire de Belges, écrivain franco-bourguignon (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1972). Johnson, John, and Gibson, Strickland, Print and Privilege at Oxford to the Year 1700 (London: Oxford University Press, 1946). Kiessling, Nicolas K., The Library of Robert Burton (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1988). Kingdon, Robert M., ‘Calvin and the Establishment of Consistory Discipline in Geneva: The Institution and the Men who Directed it’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiednis, 70 (1990): 158–72. Kingdon, Robert M., ‘International Calvinism’, in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600, Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, ed. S.L. Greenslade. Vol. II: Visions, Programs and Outcomes (Grand Rapids, MI: E.J. Brill, 1995), pp. 229–48. Kingdon, Robert M., Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563 (Geneva: Droz, 1956). Kingdon, Robert M., Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967). Kovacs, Susan R., ‘Staging Lyric Performances in Early Print Culture: Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rethorique’, French Studies, 55 (2001): 1–24. Knott, John R. Jr, ‘“Suffering for Truth’s Sake”: Milton and Martyrdom’, in Politics, Poetics, and Hermeneutics in Milton’s Prose, ed. David Loewenstein and James Grantham Turner (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 153–70. Kundera, Milan, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, trans. Michael Henry Heim (London: Faber and Faber, 1985). Lachèvre, Frédéric, Bibliographie des recueils collectifs de poésies du XVIe siècle (Paris: Champion, 1922).

146

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Lefebvre, Georges, ‘Les Papiers de Lenoir’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 21 (May–June 1927): 300–301. Lefebvre, Georges, France sous le Directoire (1795–1799) (Paris: Editions sociales, 1977). Lemaire, Jacques, ‘L’Oultré d’Amour de George Chastelain: un exemple ancien de construction en abyme’, Revue romane, 11 (1976): 306–16. Lentricchia, Frank, Ariel and the Police: Michel Foucault, William James, Wallace Stevens (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). Levinas, Emmanuel, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991). Livesey Richard and Whatmore, James, ‘Étienne Clavière, Jacques-Pierre Brissot et les fondations intellectuelles de la politique des Girondins’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 321 (2000): 1–26. Loewenstein, Joseph, The Author’s Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). Loft, Leonore, Passion, Politics and Philosophie: Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood, 2002). Lojek, Jerzy, ‘Gazettes internationales de langue française dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIème siècle’, in Modèles et moyens de la réflexion politique au XVIIIe siècle, ed. P. Deyon, 3 vols (Lille, 1977), I, pp. 369–82. Lynch, Michael, Edinburgh and the Reformation (Edinburgh: Donald, 1981). MacCulloch, Diarmaid, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–1603 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990). Marion, Jean Luc, Prolegomena to Charity, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Fordham University Press, 2002). Martineau-Génieys, Christine, Le Thème de la mort dans la poésie française de 1450 à 1550 (Paris: Champion, 1977). Mason, Laura, Singing the French Revolution: Popular Culture and Politics, 1787– 1799 (Ithaca, NY, 1996). Maza, Sarah, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Célèbres of Pre Revolutionary France (Berkeley: California University Press, 1993). McDowell, Paula, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678–1730 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). McGrath, Alister E., A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). Melton, James van Horn, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Merquior, J.G., Foucault (London: Fontana Modern Masters, 1985). Mignet, M., Histoire de la Révolution française depuis 1789 jusqu’en 1814, 2 vols (Paris: Firmin Didot and Didier, 1869). Miller, J. Hillis, The Ethics of Reading: Kant, de Man, Eliot, Trollope, James, and Benjamin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987).

Bibliography of Works Cited

147

Moureau, F. (ed.), Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises: Le XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1995). Naphy, William G., Calvin and the Consolidation on the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). Nashe, Thomas, Works, ed. R.B. McKerrow, 5 vols (London: A.H. Bullen, 1904– 10). Norris, Christopher, Deconstruction, 3rd edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). Ozouf, Mona, ‘Public Opinion at the End of the Ancien Regime’, Journal of Modern History, 60, supplement (1988): §§1–21. Parker, T.H., John Calvin. A Biography (London: Dent, 1975). Pascoe, Louis B., ‘The Council of Trent and Bible Study: Humanism and Scripture’, Catholic Historical Review, 52 (1966): 18–38. Patey, Douglas Lane, ‘Introduction’, The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume 4: The Eighteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 3–31. Pettegree, Andrew, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis (eds), Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1620 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Pettegree, Andrew, Emden and the Dutch Revolt: Exile and the Development of Reformed Protestantism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Philip, I.G., and Morgan, Paul, ‘Libraries, Books, and Printing’, in The History of the University of Oxford, IV (‘Seventeenth-Century Oxford’), ed. Nicholas Tyacke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 659–86. Pool, D. de Sola, ‘The Influence of Some Jewish Apostates on the Reformation’, in Jewish Review, 2/7–12 (May 1911–March 1912). Popkin, Jeremy D., ‘Pamphlet Journalism at the End of the Old Regime’, EighteenthCentury Studies, 22 (1989): 351–67. Popkin, Jeremy D., Revolutionary news: the press in France, 1789–1799 (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1990). Potts, Alex, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of art History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994). Press, Volker, Calvinismus und Territorialstaat: Regierung und Zentralbehörden der Kurpfalz, 1559–1619 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1970). Prestwich, Menna (ed.), International Calvinism, 1541–1715 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). Proschwitz, Gunnar and Mavis von, Beaumarchais et le Courier de l’Europe: documents inédits ou peu connus, 2 vols, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1990), pp. 263–64. Quicherat, Jules, Histoire du costume en France depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1877). Rainsford, Dominic and Woods, Tim (eds), Critical Ethics: Text, Theory, and Responsibility (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999). Raven, James, Helen Small and Naomi Tadmor (eds), The Practice and Representation of Reading in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

148

Print and Power in France and England, 1500–1800

Rea, Robert R., The English Press in Politics, 1760–1774 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963). Records of Early English Drama: Cambridge, ed. Alan H. Nelson, 2 vols (Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press, 1989). Ribiero, Aileen, The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750 to 1830 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Robbins, Jill, Altered Reading: Levinas and Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Robbins, Bruce (ed.), The Phantom Public Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). Roberts, Warren, Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary Artists (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000). Roellenbleck, Georg, ‘Guillaume Cretins Apparition de Chabannes und das Problem des Epos im frühen sechzehnten Jahrhundert’, in Das Epos in der Romania. Festschrift für Dieter Kremers zum 65. Geburtstag, eds Susanna Knaller and Edith Mara (Tübingen: Narr, 1986), 325–38. Rorty, Richard, ‘Habermas and Lyotard on Postmodernity’, in Habermas and Modernity, ed. Richard J. Bernstein (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 159–75. Sassi, Sinikka, ‘The Transformation of the Public Sphere?’, in New Media and Politics, eds Barrie Axford and Richard Huggins (London: Sage Publications, 2001), 89–108. Saunders, Alison, ‘Emblems to Tapestries and Tapestries to Emblems: Contrasting Practice in England and France’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 21 (1999): 243–55. Servant, Hélène, ‘Jehan de Liège, premier imprimeur valenciennois’, Valentiana, 1 (June 1988): 6–11. Shoemaker, Robert B., ‘The London “Mob” in the Early Eighteenth Century’, Journal of British Studies, 26 (July 1987): 273–304. Shuger, Debora Kuller, The Renaissance Bible. Scholarship, Sacrifice and Subjectivity (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998). Singham, Shanti, ‘Imbued with Patriotism: the Politicisation of the Mémoires Secrets’, in The Mémoires Secrets and the Culture of Publicity in Pre-Revolutionary France, eds Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation 1998), pp. 37–60. Siskin, Clifford, The Work of Writing: Literature and Social Change in Britain, 1700–1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Skinner, Quentin, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Small, Graeme, George Chastelain and the Shaping of Valois Burgundy (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1997). Squire, Geoffrey, Dress Art and Society 1560–1970 (London: Studio Vista, 1974). Steinberg, S.H., Five Hundred Years of Printing (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979). Stern, Virginia F., Gabriel Harvey: His Life, Marginalia and Library (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).

Bibliography of Works Cited

149

Stipãeviç, Aleksandar, ‘Le livre imprimé et le livre manuscrit dans la Croatie de la Renaissance’, in Le Livre dans l’Europe de la Renaissance: Actes du XXVIIIe colloque international d’études humanistes de Tours, ed. Pierre Aquilon and Henri-Jean Martin (Paris: Promodis, 1988), pp. 106–11. Sutherland, D.M.G., Revolution and Counterrevolution (London: Collins, 1985). Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française, 3 vols (Paris: Auber, 1802) Thiry, Claude, ‘Stylistique et auto-critique: Georges Chastelain et l’Exposition sur Verité mal prise’, in Actes du VIe colloque international sur le moyen français, 4–6 mai 1988, ed. Sergio Cigada and Anna Slerca, 3 vols (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1991), III, 101–35. Thiry, Claude, ‘L’Honneur et l’Empire: A propos des poèmes de langue française sur la bataille de Pavie’, in Mélanges à la mémoire de Franco Simone. Vol. I: France et Italie dans la culture européenne: Moyen Age et Renaissance (Geneva: Slatkine, 1980), pp. 297–324. Thiry, Claude, ‘Le Vieux Renard et le jeune loup: l’évolution interne de la Recollection des merveilleuses advenues’, Le Moyen Age, 90 (1984): 455–85. Thiry, Claude, ‘Rhétoriqueurs de Bourgogne, rhétoriqueurs de France: Convergences, divergences?’, in Rhetoric – Rhétoriqueurs – Rederijkers, eds Jelle Koopmans, Mark A. Meadow et al. (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1995), pp. 101–16. Thomas, Chantal, The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette, trans. Julie Rose (New York: Zone Books, 1999). Thomas, Peter D.G., George III: King and Politicians 1760–1770 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Thompson, E.P., ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.’ Past and Present, 50 (February 1971): 76–136. Van Horn Melton, James, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Veyrin-Forrer, Jeanne, ‘Fabriquer un livre au XVIe siècle’, in Histoire de l’édition française, ed. Henri-Jean Martin and Roger Chartier, 4 vols (Paris: Promodis, 1982–86), I, 279–301. Wagner, Peter, Eros Revived: Erotica of the Enlightenment in England and America (London: Secker and Warburg, 1988). Warner, Michael, Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Warner, Michael, Publics and Counterpublics (New York: Zone Books, 2002). Watson, J. Steven, The Reign of George III 1760–1815 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960). Williams, Penry, ‘State, Church and University 1558–1603’, in The History of the University of Oxford, Vol. III: The Collegiate University, ed. James McConica (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 397–440. Wollen, Peter, Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993).

Index abbé des Blancs-Manteaux 105 academic publication 39, 42, 47 Académie des inscriptions 70 Achilles 15 Addison, Joseph 53–4, 59–63 Spectator, The 54, 59, 61, 88 Adorno, Theodor 4 Agnadello 22 Alexander the Great 15 Alps 30 Amsterdam 32, 33, 71, 72, 80 Anderson, Benedict 85, 87, 88, 91, 94 Anne of Brittany, queen of France 22–5 anthologization 14–16, 18–19, 22–3, 71 anti-semitism 34 Anti-Sejanus (pseud.) 86–94, 96–8 Apocrypha 31, 35 Aramaic 30 Aramaic and Syriac grammar 30 Arnold, Matthew 63, 64 Artois, Charles-Philippe, come-d’ 109 Attridge, Derek 64 Augeard, Jacques-Mathieu 106 Augustine, St 54–6, 58–60, 62 On Christian Doctrine 55 Bailly, Jacques 81 bar mitzvah 29 Barras, Paul-François, vicomte de 119 Bastille 102, 106, 108, 110, 117 Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de 70 Balet comique de la Royne 70 Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de 109 Bedford, 4th Duke (John Russell) 86, 89 Bergasse, Nicolas 107 Beza, Theodore 27, 31, 33, 35 Bible 10, 27–38, 55–6, 58, 61 biblical scholarship 29, 34 New Testament 30–32, 34–7 Old Testament 30–36 polyglot Bible 30 Vulgate 28–30, 32, 34–7

Bicêtre 110 Blonde, André 105 Boccaccio, Giovanni 15, 16 De casibus virorum illustrium 15 Boissy d’Anglas, François-Antoine 115 Boïte à Porette 110 Bonaparte, Napoleon 9, 102, 118, 132 book history 1, 2, 53 Bouchet, Jean 16 Chappellet des Princes 16 Épître de Marie 16 Bourdieu, Pierre 40 Breteuil, Louis-Auguste Le Tonnelier, baron de 106, 107 Brienne, see Lomenie de Brienne Brissot, Jacques-Pierre 103, 106, 107 Buell, Lawrence 64 Burgundy 9, 13–15, 18, 20, 22, 25 Dukes of 13 indiciaires 16, 17 Burton, Robert 39, 40, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 Anatomy of Melancholy, The 39, 47, 48, 50, 51 Philosophaster 47 Bute, 3rd Earl (John Stuart) 85–94, 97 Bynneman, Henry 41 Calonne, Charles Alexandre de 101, 103, 106, 107 Calvin, John 27, 35 Calvinism 10, 27, 28, 29, 31, 35, 36, 38 Cambrai, Peace of 22 Cambridge, university 2–5, 30, 40–41, 43–4, 46, 50, 58, 64, 85, 87, 98–101, 103, 112 Carlyle, E.I. 31 Carnot, Lazare-Nicolas 119 Carra, Jean-Louis 106, 107 Casimir, John 35 Castellio, Sebastian 34 Catherine de Medici, Queen of France 69 Catholicism 30, 35 Chamfort, Nicolas Sébastien-Roch, dit 109 Champcenetz, Jean-Louis de 106, 109

152

Print and Power in France and England 1500–1800

Champcenetz, Louis-Edmond de 109 Champcenetz, Louis-Pierre de 109 charity 10–11, 53–67 Charles IX, King of France 69, 70 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy 14, 18, 20 Charles V, Emperor 17, 18 Charles VIII, King of France 18, 24, 25 Chastelain, George 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25 Complainte d’Hector 14–16 Dit de Verité 14 Exposition sur Verité mal prise 14 Miroir de Mort 14–16 Oultré d’Amour 14–15 Temple de Bocace 14–15 Chauveau, François 81 Chevalier, Nicolas 71 Histoire de Guillaume III, Roy d’Angleterre 71 Christian 28, 31, 34–5, 37–8, 55 Christian-Hebraism 28 Christianity 67 Christocentrism 37 Church of England 28 cider excise 92 citizenship 85 Civil Wars, English 61, 64 classical authorities 37 Clavière, Étienne 106, 107 colporteurs 110 Committee of Public Instruction 118, 119 Committee of Public Safety 113 communications networks 103 Condé, Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, prince de 14, 109 Constitution, French (1795) 115–18, 122–4, 129–34 Conway, Henry Seymour 89, 91, 97 Corns, Thomas 53 Uncloistered Virtue 53 Council of Elders 116, 130, 131 Council of Five Hundred 115, 125–6, 130, 131, 132 Craftsman 87 Créquy, Charles-Marie, marquis de 109 Cretin, Guillaume 17

L’apparition du feu mareschal de Chabannes 17 Crispin à la Cour 105 Crosne, Louis Thiroux de 106, 107 Cross, F.L. 31 Curtis, Mark 46 Dan, Pierre 74 Le tresor des merveilles de la maison royale de Fontainebleau 74 Darlow and Moule 32 Darnton, Robert 6, 101, 103–5, 107–8 David, Jacques 125 Lictors returning to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons 125 Davidson, Donald 56 debate 4, 6, 10–11, 40, 46, 48, 54, 65, 85, 87, 90, 96–8, 101, 103 de Man, Paul 64 Democritus 47, 48, 49 Derrida, Jacques 65, 66, 67 Desmoulins, Camille 117 de Sola Pool, D. 31 de Tournes, Jean 23, 24, 25 Diamond Necklace affair 109 Dictionary of National Biography 31, 97 Directory 9, 115–19, 121, 124, 128–9, 131, 132–3 Dryden, John 53–4, 57–62 Religio Laici 57–9, 61 du Barry, Madame 105 Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester 40 du Moulin, Antoine 23, 24 Dutch international gazettes 100 editing 22, 26 education 29, 46, 63, 86, 116 educational institutions 10, 30, 39, 41, 44–6, 48, 50, 116 Edward IV, King of England 21 Eleanor of Austria 24 Eliot, T.S. 58, 64, 65 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 35 Empire, Holy Roman 22 Encyclopédie 104 England 7–10, 14–15, 21, 28, 31, 35, 39–40, 46, 53, 55, 61, 63, 67, 70, 87, 93, 108,

Index 117, 130 English language 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 51 English literary criticism 53 Enlightenment 2, 4–6, 54, 100–101, 103, 108, 112–13, 133 Estienne, Henri 30, 32 Estienne, Robert 30 Evans, Robert 31 exclusion crisis 61 exegesis 37 exile 27, 35, 103, 107 faction 27, 89, 97, 105 Farel, Guillaume 27 Fayes, M. 105 Félibien, André 73–8, 80–81 Tapisseries du Roi, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons 73, 75–7, 79, 80 Description sommaire du chasteau de Versailles 74 Relation de la feste de Versailles 77 Divertissemens de Versailles 77, 78, 80 Ferrara 29, 30 Fontainebleau 69, 74 Forsett, Edward 45 Pedantius 45, 46 Foucault, Michel 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 53, 130 Discipline and Punish 3, 7 The Archæology of Knowledge 2, 3, 130 Fouché, Jospeh 102 Fouquet, Nicolas 77 Four Elements tapestries 70, 75 Four Seasons tapestries 70, 75 France 3–4, 6–9, 13–15, 17–19, 21–5, 27–8, 30, 53, 69–71, 74–5, 77, 80–81, 99–104, 106–13, 115–18, 120, 123, 125, 129, 131 Francis I, King of France 17, 24 Frankfurt 1, 2, 4, 5, 31, 32, 33 Frankfurt School 1, 2, 4 Frederick III, Elector of the Palatinate 35 Geneva 17, 23, 27–8, 30, 32–3, 81 Gentleman’s Magazine 87 George III, King of England 86, 89, 93, 95, 97

153

Germany 3 Ghillebert de Lannoy 16 16 Gobelins tapestry manufacture 70 God 34, 44, 56, 62 Gorsas, Antoine-Joseph 106 Grafton, Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of 89, 92, 93 Grammar of the English Tongue 62 Greek language 30, 31, 34, 35 Greene, Robert 45, 47 Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit 47 Grenville, George 85–8, 92, 94, 97 Gruder, Vivian 100, 108, 109 Guinegatte 18, 20 Habermas, Jürgen 3–7, 11, 85, 87–8, 90, 95–6, 99, 112 Hainaut 20 Hall, Basil 34 Hanau 32, 33 Harvey, Gabriel 39–51 Ciceronianus 40, 41 Three Letters 44, 45 Hebrew 10, 30, 31, 34, 36 Hebrews, Letter to the 34 Hector 15 Heidegger, Martin 1 Heidelberg, university of 28, 30 Henry VI, King of Englgand 15 hermeneutics 54 Hill, Christopher 46 Histoire du Roy tapestries 70–72 Hobbes, Thomas 63–4 Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d’ 104 Horkheimer, Max 4 Hornbach 30 Hume, David 53–4, 60–63 History of England 61 Of the Standard of Taste 60 Humphrey, Laurence 41 Hunt, Lynn 108 Husz, Martin 14, 16 illegal book trade 101, 105, 111 immigrants, French 27 imprimerie royale 71, 73, 76–8, 80–82

154

Print and Power in France and England 1500–1800

Interregnum 53, 62 Italy 23, 35 Jabineau, abbé 104, 110 James, Thomas 50 Jansenist Party, see Parti jansensite Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rhétorique, Le (poetic anthology) 14, 15 Jerome, St 28, 34 Jew/Jewish 29, 31–2, 34–6 Jewish converts 34 Johnson, Samuel 53, 54, 58, 63 Judaism 29, 37 Julius II, pope 23 Junius, Franciscus 31, 34, 35, 94 Kant, Immanuel 7, 65 Kempe, Will 46 Kornmann, Guillaume 107 Kornmann, Madame 107 Kundera, Milan 1 Lamoignon, Chrétien-François 104–6 La Motte, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy de Valois, comtesse de 109 Memoirs of the Countess de La Motte 109 Latin language 10, 27, 29–32, 34–6, 39, 41–2, 44–5, 47, 49, 81 Lefebvre, Georges 103, 131 Lemaire de Belges 17, 22, 23 Contes de Cupido et d’Atropos (attr.) 16 Couronne Margaritique 23 Epistre du roi Louis XII à Hector de Troie 23 Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie 22, 23 Légende des Vénitiens 22 Le Promptuaire des Conciles 23 Temple d’Honneur et de Vertus 22 Traicté de la Différence des Schismes et des Conciles 23 Le Maître affair 101 Le Maître, Pierre-Jacques 101, 104–6 Lenoir, Jean-Charles-Pierre 99–112 Les Amours de Charlot et de Toinette 108 Levinas, Emmanuel 64–7 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1

Lewin, William 40, 41 libelles 101, 107–9 libellistes 107–9 Liebe, Dom (monk) 105 literary criticism 10, 37, 53–8, 62–4, 66 Lomenie de Brienne, Étienne-Charles de 107 London 1–3, 5–8, 27–8, 31–3, 40–43, 45–6, 50, 55, 57, 62, 64, 85–7, 89–91, 94, 96–8, 100–101, 107–9, 113, 117–18, 121, 125, 129–30 London Chronicle 85–7, 90–91, 94, 96–7 London Evening Post 94 Lorraine 20 Louis XI, King of France 18, 20, 21 Louis XII, King of France 16, 22, 23 Louis XIV, King of France 70, 75, 83 Louis XV, King of France 102, 105, 107 Louis XVI, King of France 9, 102, 104–5, 107, 108, 112, 134 Lucca 30 Lucian 48 Lyon 14, 18, 23, 32, 83 Lyotard, Jean-François 4, 5 Mairobert corpus 104–5 Malesherbes, Crétien-Guillaume do Lamoignon 104–5, 112 Manuel, Pierre-Louis 111 Maréchal, Pierre-Sylvian 109, 120–21 Margaret of Anjou 15 Margaret of Austria 22, 23 Marguerite de Navarre, Queen of France 23 Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France 108–9 Marion, Jean-Luc 66–7 Prolegomena to Charity 66 Mary of Burgundy 18, 20 Mary Tudor, Queen of England 18, 20 Matthew, Gospel 34 Maupeouana 104, 105, 110 Maupeou crisis 99, 100, 104, 105 Maupeou, René-Nicolas Charles Augustin de 99–101, 110 Maurepas, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de 102, 104, 105, 107, 111 Maximilian, Archduke of Austria 18 Medailles sur les principaux evenemens de regne de Louis le Grand 71

Index Menestrier, Claude-François 71, 72 Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand par les medailles 71, 72 Miller, J. Hillis 60, 65 Milton, John 56–60, 62, 64–6 Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce 56, 57 Eikonoklastes 57, 62 ministry, changes of 89, 91, 92, 94, 97, 96, 110 Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riquetti, comte de 106–7, 109 Miromesnil, Armand-Thomas Hue de 104, 105, 106 Molinet, Jean 14, 16–22, 25 Art de Rhétorique 18 Faictz et Dictz 17–22 Journée de Therouenne 18, 19 Naissance de Charles d’Autriche 18 Recollection des Merveilleuses Advenues 14, 19 Roman de la Rose moralisé 18 Temple de Mars 16–19 Testament de la Guerre 18 Montagu, Charles Dunk, 1st Earl of Halifax 92 Montagu, John, 4th Earl of Sandwich 94 Montesquiou-Fézenac, Anne-Pierre, marquis de 109 Morande, see Théveneau de Morande Morning Post 109 Munster, Sebastian 34 Nancy 18, 20 Nashe, Thomas 45–8 Have With You to Saffron Walden 46, 48 Strange Newes 45 National Convention 115–16 Necker, Jacques 101–3, 106, 110–12 Compte-rendu des finances 112 Netherlands 13, 18, 20, 28, 107 New Ethical Criticism 64–6 New Historicism 53 newspapers 10–11, 86–7, 91, 94, 97–8, 100, 113 circulation of 93, 108 ‘Letters to the Printer’ 85 Nietzsche, Friedrich 1

155

Nouvelles écclesiastiques 110 Orléans, Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duc d’ 111, 134 Other, the 64–5 Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 31 Oxford, university of 43–4, 46 Padua 30 Padua, university of 30 Palais Royal 17 Palatinate 28, 35 papacy 22, 26 paratext 19, 23, 25 Paris 6, 8, 14–19, 22–3, 69–74, 76–8, 81–3, 93, 99, 101–8, 110–11, 113, 115–17, 119–21, 129, 131 parlement 101, 104–6, 110 Parlement of Paris 104, 105 Parlement of Rouen 105 parti Janseniste 101, 104 Party 61 Patey, Douglas 53–4 Cambridge History of Literary Criticism 53–4 patronage 40, 88–91, 94, 101–2 Pavia 17 pedagogy 40 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, 1st Duke of Newcastle 89 periodical publication 87 Perrault, Charles 81–2 Courses de testes et de bague 81–2 Peshitta 30 Petite Académie 70–71 philanthropy 55, 56, 63 Philibert of Savoy 23 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy 14 Picquigny, Treaty of 21 Pidansat de Mairobert, Mathieu-François 105 Pole, Cardinal Reginald 30 polemics 10, 20–22, 38, 107 Popkin, Jeremy 101, 103–6, 111, 113 pornography 93, 101, 105, 107, 111 prefaces 19, 34, 36, 49, 123 press, popular 87, 113

156

Print and Power in France and England 1500–1800

princes of the blood 110 print 1, 3, 6–8, 10–11, 13, 18, 26, 32, 39, 43, 46, 49, 53–5, 57–9, 61–4, 67, 85, 87–8, 98–100, 103, 105, 108–12 printers 10, 18–19, 23, 32–3, 35, 110–11 Protestantism 27–8, 30, 35 public sphere 4, 6–7, 9–11, 43, 54, 85, 87–8, 95–6, 99–100, 112 publishers 9, 15, 26, 28, 32–3, 35, 81, 107, 109–10 Quicherat, Jules 117, 119 Rea, Robert R. 94 Recueil des choses notables, qui ont esté faites à Bayonne 70 Reformation 11, 27–9, 31–2, 34–5, 38, 58, 61 reformers 31 religious minorities 28 Revolution, French 11, 99, 101, 107–8, 113, 115–16, 133 Ribiero, Aileen 117, 119, 125, 130 Rigault, Hyacinthe 123 Robespierre, Maximilien 113, 115, 118, 133 Rohan, Cardinal Louis de 105, 109 Roman Inquisition 30 Rome 35, 121, 124–5, 130, 133 Saint-Julien de Balleure, Claude de 23–4 Saint-Omer 20 Saint-Sauveur, Jacques Grasset de 117–25, 129–34 Costumes des Représentans 114, 118 San Frediano, monastery of 30 Sanson (printer) 111 Sars, Maxime, comte de 103 Scotland 14, 28 Scott, James 94 Scriptures 37, 58, 59 Sedan, academy of 30 Séguier, Antoine-Louis 104 semitic languages 34 sermons 30 Shuger, Deborah 31 Sieyès, Emmanuel-Joseph, abbé de 119 Silvestre, Israël 81

Singham, Shanti 105–6 Sixto-Clementine, edition of the Vulgate 32 Skinner, Quentin 63–4 Société populaire et républicaine des Arts 118 Spain 9, 22, 70 Spenser, Edmund 41–44, 51 Spitalfields Weaver (pseud.) 88, 91, 96 Steele, Richard 53–4, 57, 59–63 Spectator, The 54, 59, 61, 88 Tatler, The 54, 59, 61, 62 Strasbourg 30 Strasbourg, academy of 30 Stuartm Charles Edward (the Young Pretender) 90 Sturbridge Fair 42, 46 Syriac 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37 Target, Guy-Jean-Baptiste 105 Tarlton, Richard 44, 46 theology 28 Thérèse philosophe 111 Théveneau de Morande, Charles 101 Le Gazetier cuirassé 101 Thompson, E.P. 95 Three Parnassus plays, the 46–7 Traictez Singuliers (poetic anthology)14, 16 translation 31, 34–7 translation, biblical 10, 28–32, 34–7, 58 Tremellius, Immaneul 10, 27, 29–38 Trent, Council of 28, 35 Trinity 37 Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques 102, 112 Valenciennes 14, 18, 20 Van Loo, Charles 123 variation, textual 13, 19 Venice 22, 26 Vérard, Anthoine 22 Veri, abbé de 111 Vermigli, Peter Martyr 30 vernacular 10, 19, 35–6, 39, 40–47, 49–51 Versailles 70, 74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83 Voltaire, François-marie Arouet, called 6, 101, 104, 109 Walpole, Horace 86, 88–9 Warner, Michael 88, 98

Index Watson-Wentworth, Charles, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham 85, 89 Weavers as rioters 86, 95 Wechel, Andreas 31, 33 Wilkes, John 93–4

157

William of Hesse 35 William of Orange, King of England 35, 71 Wilson, Thomas 44, 46 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 125