The Seventeenth Century THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: LEARNED CORRESPONDENCE, 1680–1720

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The Seventeenth Century

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THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: LEARNED CORRESPONDENCE, 1680–1720 MAARTEN ULTEE To cite this article: MAARTEN ULTEE (1987) THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: LEARNED CORRESPONDENCE, 1680–1720, The Seventeenth Century, 2:1, 95-112, DOI: 10.1080/0268117X.1987.10555263 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.1987.10555263

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THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: LEARNED CORR:t:,:SPONDENCE, 1680-1720

When the young Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote several drafts of a flowery but unfinished 'Relation de l'etat present de Ia Republique des Lettres' during his extended stay in Paris (1672-76), he certainly hoped to win the favour of Louis XIV. 1 Leibniz made flattering allusions to the French king and his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as well as to the official patronage of scholars. The German philosopher wanted to dedicate his work to the king, encouraging him to seek peaceful paths of glory. 2 He contended that the learning produced by scholars was more valuable than American tobacco and sugar because it offered immortality to the royal patron. Pensions and academies of science, official journals and sponsored research - all these gifts would encourage a thriving republic of letters. From the 1660s onward, there were indeed positive developments for scholarship concomitant with the strengthening of monarchy in France and England. The founding of the Academic Royale des Sciences and the Royal Society of London, as well as the publication of the Journal des S~tavans and the Philosophical Transactions suggested that governments were recognizing the value of scholarly work and communication. Yet interested as Leibniz and other scholars were in securing patronage, they also regarded their Republic of Letters as independent and self-defining. The philosophical foundation for this quite different view lay in Leibniz's idea of pre-established universal harmony in nature, expressed through all the branches of knowledge. Throughout his career Leibniz sought ways of harmonizing disputing parties, minimizing differences and finding common ground; he even hoped to discover a universal scholarly language. He had travelled widely through western and central Europe, and his cultural contacts extended as far as China. In 1705, when he was nearly 60, he wrote 'If I were young, I should go to Muscovy and perhaps even to China to establish this enlightened communication by means of my binary arithmetic'. 3 Leibniz thought that diplomatic policy within the German Empire should be directed toward harmony through alliances for collective security. In Europe and the world, he hoped the aggressive tendencies of Louis XIV could be directed away from war in the Netherlands and the Rhineland, to find expression in the conquest ofNorth Africa and Egypt. While Louis and other rulers did not pursue this intriguing proposal, Leibniz's schemes for confessional reunion of Protestants and Catholics, and his proposals for new learned academies all over Europe, did attract wide attention. In contacts with leading theologians, philosophers, journalists, scientists and princes, Leibniz would construct the Republic of Letters. First

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designed as a German Gelehrtenrepublik, then as a federation of national learned republics, a grander European conception of the German Reich, this scheme envisioned harmony and power guided by an intellectual clitc. 4 For Leibniz and many of his friends, this Republic had a strong ethical component- not surprising for a writer of Christian apologetics, whose correspondence was often concerned with religious subjects. But the Republic of Letters as a whole expressed the unity ofknowledge, and covered all worthwhile subjects of study. The Republic of Letters has fascinated literary and philosophical historians. Paul Hazard, Paul Dibon, Fritz Schalk, Erich Haase, David Douglas, Peter Gay and Hans Bots are only a few prominent contributors to a veritable academic industry that has arisen over the past half-century. Recently articles, books and conferences have been devoted to philosophical and literary aspects of the problem. Yet there is still plenty of work to be done, especially by social and economic historians. Despite or perhaps because of all the good monographic work, we lack a general synthesis of the Republic of Letters. In particular, three important historical questions have been left unanswered: I. What was the Republic of Letters? 2. Who belonged to it? 3. How was it affected by events from 1680 to 1720, i.e. what happened to learning in this period? The first question is perhaps the most literary, the second one sociological, the third traditionally historical. To answer them, we need evidence drawn from manuscript and published letters, journals, and books of the period. Ultimately, the vast quantity ofinformation requires serial treatment- statistics, tables, and graphs. In the end, however, we must explain the history of the period 1680--1720, when the Republic of Letters was at its peak. The dates were not arbitrarily chosen; rather, they reflect the influence of momentous political events. For while an ideal of the Republic of Letters had existed earlier, extrao.rdinary scholarly activity took place at this time: the age of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; the Glorious Revolution; the Nine Years' War, Great Northern War, and War of Spanish Succession; the peace treaties of Rijswijk, Utrecht, and Rastatt-Baden- the panoply of the late reign of Louis XIV, the great struggles of the houses of Bourbon, Habsburg, Stuart, and Orange. These events profoundly affected the transmission of ideas, the life and work of scholars. Paul Hazard wrote of a 'crise de conscience europcenne' between 1685 and 1715; while recognizing that political events seldom serve as exact markers for cultural history, our task is to make explicit the meaning of the Republic of Letters in this period.

What was the Republic of Letters? Voltaire, writing in The Age of Louis

XIV ( 1751), described it as the universal communication among philosophers much encouraged by Leibniz:

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A republic ofletters was being gradually established in Europe, in spite of wars and different religions. Every science, every art, was mutually assisted in this way, and it was the academies which formed this republic ... true scholars in every branch drew closer the bonds of this great fellowship of intellect, spread everywhere and everywhere independent. 5

Leibniz and his scholarly contemporaries felt an obligation to communicate with each other through letters, to express the unity of learning in Europe. 6 His striving for universal correspondence has been compared with Sir Isaac Newton's principle of universal gravitation: 'Just as forces worked at a distance, so the letter had power over the space of learning: statement and reply, action and rcaction'. 7 Scholars used letters as substitutes for conversation, thereby overcoming handicaps of distance and political or religious restrictions. We have thousands of letters by John Locke, Pierre Bayle, Antoine Arnauld, Isaac Newton, and many other scholars less well-known. The tradition to which they belonged was at least as old as Erasmus, the first grandly European scholar whose correspondence was already being collected and published in his lifetime. Res Publica Literaria was more than a loose association of salon and coffee-house society: it had explicit humanist intentions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 8 Time and again, however, dreams of reform and advancement of learning through secret societies and invisible colleges came to grief in war and discord. Not all scholarly communication was harmonious, as theological and scientific disputes adapted letters to pamphlet warfare, which Newton and Leibniz themselves employed with alacrity. 9 If the internal disputes of the Republic of Letters showed a gap between ideal and reality, 10extcrnal problems of wars and religious strife prevented 'the collective body of those engaged in literary pursuits' 11 from achieving their political goals. The term 'Republic of Letters' docs appear in print much more often from 1680 to 1720 than before. Quite apart from the rather tame enterprises of official academies and journals, there was a veritable explosion of sharply critical writing in Franco-Dutch journals. Nouvelles de la Ripublique des Lettres, edited from 1684 to 1687 by Pierre Bayle in Rotterdam, was the most famous; others, such as Jean Le Clerc's Bibliotheque universelle, Henri Basnagc de Beauval's His loire des ouvrages des savans, Samuel Masson's Histoire critique de la Ripublique des Lettres, reported literary news all over Europe. Publishing a journal, writing articles for a journal, or even reading one was a token of citizenship in the international Republic. The success of Pierre Bayle's journal, as his biographer Elisabeth Labrousse has stated, 'showed him the reality of this republic of letters, unrestricted by national frontiers, and, what is more, confessional ones: an ideal which he had proclaimed in the very title ofhisjournal' . 12 The Franco-Dutch journals were often produced by exiled Huguenots seeking employment in the relatively free Dutch

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publishing climate. They kept scholars abreast of philosophical and theological controversies, and also printed political and military commentary. Well-informed scholars read them regularly along with official gazettes and made even greater efforts to obtain them in wartime. Academics and scientific societies, designed to include the most distinguished scholars, operated on the provincial as well as the national level, and thus drew in larger numbers of learned and curious people. Daniel Roche has shown that French government attempts to control scholarship through the academies did not kill provincial intellectual life; rather, the literary circles and salons sought official charters and recognition. 13 But the number of societies was limited, and they had difficulty assembling their members. In the British Isles, for example, only three towns- London, Oxford, and Dublin- had scientific societies of note in the late seventeenth century. The Royal Society of London has been described as a 'club for Londoners': It was impossible for [foreign and country members] to take part in the society's activities except by correspondence, and many famous scientists whose names appear on the list of members had very little to do with the society because their place of residence made this physically impossible. 14

Would-be virtuosi of Aberdeen, Belfast, Durham and Exeter had to rely on letters. Michael Hunter goes on to observe that grandiose academic schemes for organizing the flow of information often came to nothing, while the less formal correspondence networks of secretaries Henry Oldenburg and Hans Sloane continued the fruitful communication of Samuel Hartlib and Marin Mersenne earlier in the century. 15 At the Prussian Academy founded in Berlin in I 700, serious work took place when Leibniz, the first president, was there; it faded away in his absence for want of proper patronage and scholarly results. 16 Published transactions of these academies were still the individual letters of scholars writ large. This is most evident in the Philosophical Transactions and in the Miscellanea Curiosa Medico-Physica or Ephemerides of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum (Akademie der Naturforscher) of Nuremberg, yearbooks which consisted entirely of contributions sent in by members. Thus letters were at the heart of the Republic of Letters: in an age of difficult transport and communication, the work of scholars depended heavily on correspondence. Often one editor wrote an entire journal from his private letters, and one energetic secretary could make all the difference between a moribund and a thriving academic institution. But given the vast quantities of scholarly letters that have survived- 15,000 of Leibniz, 3,000 of John Locke, more than 1,000 each of Bayle and Arnauld, thousands more by lesser lights - it is not surprising that historians have been reluctant to make more than monographic researches on the Republic. In a verse letter to Sir Henry Wottonjohn Donne wrote, 'Sir, More than kisses, letters mingle souls,/For thus friends

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absent speak'; but there is well-founded suspicion that these letters contain useless information, crackpot ideas, vulgar errors and deliberate deceptions. Early modern writers certainly were aware of the problem. In a review of Guy Patin's published letters, Pierre Bayle noted a general tendency among writers to disguise their thoughts- 'one doesn't write to people everything that one thinks' - and declared, 'In short, a man's letters are not good witnesses to his thoughts'. 17 Depending on the national and confessional background of writers and addressees, on varying intentions of public and private correspondence, on censorship and persecution and many other external circumstances, letters will say different things - and making general explanatory models presents problems. 18 The task of weighing the significance of letters has not been made easier by writers who earnestly pleaded for their destruction: By the body of Jesus Christ, and by all the holy laws of friendship, I pray your illustrious lordship to tear up this letter immediately on reading it, for I write in extreme secrecy and confidence, under the seal of natural confession. 19 (Antonio Magliabechi to Leibniz)

or: P.S. I should never have written what I put at the end of my letter, if! did not judge, sir, that the occasion of writing to you is sure. For there are bad interpreters ... [and in responding] the surest way when you wish to tell me your opinion, or the state of things, would be of doing it in general remarks, from which no one could learn anything. In saying for example, 'As for the affair of our friend, I find it feasible or not' etc., speaking as of a third person ... You will understand me sir, in half-words [a demy mot], and I pray you to burn this note. 20 (Leibniz to Mathias Johann v. d. Schulenburg)

English scholars who experienced several changes of government from 1660 to 1715 developed a similar impersonal style to discuss whether to take loyalty oaths: Though neither you nor I are concerned, yet perhaps our common friend, for whom I have so great a value may [be), and therefore may think this intimation seasonable: Consider also the proviso about travelling before the 1st of November next. (Dr. Arthur Charlett to Thomas Hearne) 21

Ambiguous? Confusing? Even so, here we arc dealing with clearly identified writers. What are we to do with letters from the hall of mirrors of constantly changing pseudonyms used by Antoine Arnauld and his Jansenist colleagues? Or the letters from 'a person who docs not judge it proper to name pimself, or (in the final abstraction of ideas from the persons who think them) the journalistic attacks of 'un inconnu' on 'un

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anonyme'? This last specimen comes from Samuel Masson's Histoire critique de Ia Ripublique des Lettres (vol. 14, 1717), a decadent but nonetheless important journal. These letter-writers did not necessarily write what they thought, or sign their names; they thus present many problems for research. The modern reader may well be tempted to throw up his hands, for while he may have a good idea of what the Republic of Letters was, the politically independent universal network of European scholars, it becomes blurred when he tries to discover who belonged to it. The great intellectual histories such as Paul Hazard's The European Mind persuade us to grant membership to Leibniz and Newton, Bayle and Locke, but we must also include lesser writers, those more typical souls who were frankly better at communication and vulgarization than original ideas. The great scientists and philosophers were often in touch with librarians and booksellers, editors and publishers, patrons and protectors whose co-operation was esential to the continued vitality of the Republic. But by applying the techniques of social history to surviving corrrespondences, we can be more exact: we can define this Republic geographically and trace its links on maps of Europe. Furthermore, we can estimate the volume and frequency of letters, and consider the social position of letter-writers. Early scholarly journals and letters, read from a social point of view, will allow us to understand the membership of the Republic. Finally, by combining this social history with traditional biography and political history, we can examine the effects of war on scholarship, and shed light on intellectual attitudes to contemporary events and European unity. Is this fated to be a never-ending project, a 'Synoptic Key to All Mythologies' of early modern scholarship? 22 I think not. First, in answering the question of who belonged to the Republic ofLetters, it has become apparent that the list of names is not infinitely long; indeed, in a given year such as 1690 there were probably not more than 1200 active corresponding members in northern Europe. For all our talk of farreaching effects of scientific revolution and enlightenment, the number of true corresponding scholars was quite small. Two separate studies of Renaissance humanists found about 600 active participants in that movement in Italy and Germany. 23 Jean-Pierre Niceron's forty volumes of Mimoires pour servir al'histoire des hommes illustres de Ia Ripublique des Lettres (1727-1745) list 732 persons. Christian Gottlieb ]ocher's Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexikon ( 1750) includes more, but over a longer period and greater geographic space. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, scholarly letter-writing in both classical and vernacular languages was limited to an elite: predominantly male, frequently ecclasiastical, tied to academic institutions in north-west Europe. In the Dutch Republic, for example, where publication was relatively free and literacy higher than in the southern Netherlands, some laymen may have been interested in discussions of theology and philosophy, classical philology and natural

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science, nonetheless published editions of texts and journals were measured in the hundreds, not the thousands. A few large libraries provided a few scholars with the facilities they needed. This docs not deny the possibility of a provincial irudit toiling away on a local history or scientific investigation, having no contact with his colleagues elsewhere; but most scholars were very keen on communication to take them out of their isolation. They were anxious to be informed of the works of others and to claim credit for their own discoveries. In the provinces, local contacts were insufficient: in 1691, writing to Hans Sloane in London, Dr. Victor Ferguson of Belfast put the problem clearly: 'It is indeed my great trouble and concern, my lotc is when I want converse or improvement; all must be hammered out of books and unpleasant meditation in study: none worth a farthing here to converse with or improve by ... You cannot do me a greater good under heavens, than to throw a letter now and then into the office and acquaint me what booke of note comes forth'. 24 Likewise in 1705 Lachland Campbell ofCampbclltown, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, expressed his desire for news in a letter to Edward Lhuyd, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford: For the present I have so little time to employ in studys ... that I am rather losing the small tincture I had of them, yet I have a great deal of satisfaction in getting news from the Republique of Letters (of which the Illustrious Society of which you are a member make no small part) and therefor if you'll be pleased to communicate any pa~5rs of that nature as occasion shall offer hereafter, it will be no small favour.

As Paul Dibon pointed out with earlier seventeenth-century examples, 'it was the strict duty of each citizen of the Respublica literaria to establish, maintain, and encourage communication, primarily by personal correspondence or contact' .26 Who, then, should be included in the Republic of Letters? The criterion of regular scholarly correspondence can be applied, starting from well-known inventoried collections. These produce lists of names, names that appear again and again in a self-closing universe. Following the exchanges oflettcrs will thus lead us to the membership of the whole. My study of the Republic of Letters in the North began with letters of Benedictine monks andjansenists in Paris, then continued with scholars and Huguenot refugees in Holland, historians, natural scientists and doctors in Germany and England. There will be several more years of archival work in these countries and in Scandinavia, but I have been able to use certain centralized inventories such as those of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Five German bibliographic projects have been especially valuable for statistical date. These arc: I. Zentralkartei der Autographen, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin: a card file of manuscripts in 63 major libraries of West Germany and West Berlin, organized alphabetically and supplementing the Nachliisse series.

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2. Repertorium of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbiittel: a card file of all published German scholarly letters of the seventeenth century (includes those by writers born 1575-1675 in the Reich and the Netherlands, but excludes scientific letters); in two series, A: letters published before 1750- 40,000 letters, by 2,000 writers, to 3,000 addresses; B: letters and extracts published from 1750 to 1980some 20,000 letters. There are plans to publish these lists if funds are available. 3. Suppelex Epistolica U.ffenbachii et Wo(fiorum, Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, Hamburg: a published inventory by Niliifer Kruger ( 1978) of a collection of 40,000 letters ranging from the fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, collected by Zacharias Konrad von Uffenbach ( 1638-1734), Johann Christoph Wolf ( 16831739), and johann Christian Wolf ( 168g_J770). About half the correspondence is theological; politics, diplomacy and law account for 35%; sciences the remainder. 4. Trew-Briefsammlung, Universitatsbibliothek Erlangen-Niirnberg: a published inventory by Eleanor Schmidt-Herrling (1940) of a collection of 19,000 letters, fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, collected by Christoph jacob Trew ( 1695-1769), medical doctor ofNiirnberg; Scientific and medical letters, including those of the Academia naturae curiosorum. 5. Leibniz, Siimtliche Schriften und Briefe (Akademie-Ausgabe), Niedersachsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover, and Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Berlin: complete edition of Leibniz' works and letters, a co-operative project; thus far II volumes of Allgemeiner Politischer und Historischer Briefwechsel (to 1695) published; others in press or in preparation; series of philosophical and scientific letters also underway.

With these sources, we should have a sufficiently large base for statistical analysis and reasonable generalizations. The Leibniz material lends itself to some immediate analysis. Leibniz was always ready to communicate with fellow members of the Republic of Letters. Most of the time he lived at Hannover, where he was court librarian and councillor; he had travelled widely in France, Holland and England in his youth, and received letters in at least six languages. Later he stayed at times in Wolfenbuttel, as librarian of one of the largest princely book collections in Europe; Berlin, as president of the academy; and Vienna, as hopeful political advisor to the emperor. He also carried out diplomatic missions and historical research for his employers. The geograpic distribution of his correspondents was undoubtedly influenced by these interests and travels. Hannover, Berlin, and Paris head the Jist of places from which his correspondents wrote, with 80 of them in each city. Not all of the Leibniz letters should be counted as scholarlywhen he was away from home he received news ofhousehold affairs from his servants, neighbours and friends. At Berlin and Vienna (61 correspondents), his letter-writing friends often discussed politics. Yet the Parisian letters have a strong scholarly tone, and some of his friendships there continued for twenty years, thirty years or longer. 27 The same is true of his 62 correspondents in London. The top five non-German cities where Leibniz's friends lived - Paris, London, Rome, the Hague, and Amsterdam- accounted for over 60% of the writers. These figures are in general agreement with those obtained from other correspondences, and show the cultural concentration in those cities at this time. 28

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For the German CJtJes, the distribution was quite different, and Leibniz's intellectual geography may be surprising to those who know modern Germany. Even without adjusting the figures for Hannover and Berlin, we find a much wider range of medium-sized cities, university towns, and minor courts. The old university town of Helmstedt had 46 letter-writers; Wolfenbuttel 40; Leipzig 33; Hamburg 30. Celie, Dresden, Jena, Halle, and Braunschweig were all ahead of Frankfurt am Main ( 12). Leibniz appears to have had only one correspondent in Cologne, and none at all in Munich. Places like Gottingen appear under-represented (5), until we recall that the university there was not founded until 1734. And, judging from this list, some places with older learned traditions (e.g., Prague (1), Cracow (1)), had few scholars who corresponded with Leibniz. Who were these German correspondents, and what were their other connections to the Republic of Letters? A sample of25 prepared from the Leibniz and Magliabechi lists was checked against the main bibliographic files. These writers included theologians and librarians, orientalists and philologists, medical doctors and jurists- but the most common description is polyhistor. No doubt it helped correspondents ofLeibniz to be interested in everything, as he was. About a third of those on the list belonged to scholarly/scientific families, such as the father and son Mencke from Leipzig, the editors of the Acta eruditorum; and father and son Franck von Franckenau, professors of medicine in Copenhagen. Leibniz and Magliabechi sometimes corresponded with only one member of a learned family such as the Carpzov of Leipzig or Schurzfleisch of Wittenberg; we may assume that other members, especially brothers, shared the letters and thus kept in contact as well. Among this group there was active correspondence with each other as well as with the leading lights. Friedrich Benedikt Carpzov (1649-1699), polyhistor of Leipzig, for example, wrote to Christian Daum ofZwickau (polyhistor), Hiob Ludolf of Frankfurt am Main (statesman and linguist), Heinrich Meibom of Helmstedt (professor of medicine), Konrad Samuel Schurzfleisch of Wittenberg (polyhistor, professor of poetry and history), Johann Christoph Wagenseil of Altdorf (professor of civil law, history, and languages), and many others. His wider European links to Etienne Baluze, Henri Justel, Antonio Magliabechi, Vincent Minutoli, and Claude Nicaise established his international reputation. Eventually a grapic presentation will clarify the links in this network. But we should not leap to the conclusion that everyone wrote to everyone else, or that scholarly correspondence implied social equality. There were many Germans and Italians whose international links were few, and who thus depended on more prominent agents for their foreign contacts. A similar pattern appears in Scotland, where the Reverend Robert Wodrow of Glasgow and Sir Robert Sibbald of Edinburgh collected and passed information between their country and the larger world. 29 It is possible that the need for proper introductions, poor

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command of languages, and postal costs presented obstacles to wider communication. Even the celebrated archaeologist and historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori ( 1672-1750), who worked at the library of the duke of Modena, wrote fewer and fewer letters to non-Italians as he advanced in years. And, like Magliabechi, he tended to respond to foreign letters in Italian, whereas French and Latin were more commonly used scholarly languages north of the Alps. 30 Indeed, these were the languages used for communications with scholars in frontier zones of European literary civilization - Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Britain. Despite aristocratic tourists like James Brydges, first duke of Chandos (who spent two years at Wolfcnbiittel in the 1690s), and the successive waves of British political exiles in France, Holland and Germany, it is noteworthy that much of the scholarly information about Britain available on the continent in the early eighteenth century was passed on by one person, Pierre Desmaizeaux, to a group of Franco-Dutch journalists. 31 The journalism of the Republic of Letters would have been much poorer without him. One swallow docs not make a summer, yet one bright star might provide almost enough light for reading. The appearance of some minor towns on the list of scholarly centres may indicate only the presence of a single active correspondent: Christian Daum in Zwickau, Gijsbert Cuper of Deventer, Bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet of Avranches, Bishop William Nicholson of Carlisle, Dr John Smith, prebend ofDurham. 32 An isolated scholar was all the more dependent on letters to remain in contact with the Republic, for journals and books gave him only partial information. Through letters he might touch the Republic in its very essence. Correspondence networks are very complex: suffice it to say that the literary distance between prominent and obscure scholars, between geniuses and crackpots, was not as great as we first might suppose. Even second-rate journals such as Masson's Histoire critique de Ia Ripublique des Lettres drew on first-rate contributors like Lcibniz. The unknown could approach the well-known through epistolary relations- the Republic of Letters was a self-defining organization. Several efforts to give it more institutional order were proposed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in Federations of invisible colleges, all-encompassing critical journals, even a bureau ginira/. 33 But the republicanism or anarchy of the learned Republic defeated such schemes, and the dreams of European unity guided by an intellectual elite remained unrealized. External political forces undoubtedly played roles in the scholarly communication of the Republic between 1680 and 1720. For many of those years conflicts dragged on without conclusive results: the Nine Years' War, the War of Spanish Succession, the Great Northern War, and of course the continuing state of war with the Turks, who laid siege to Vienna in 1683. Elsewhere I have suggested that the relations between letters and war can be studied from at least two approaches- either the

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comments and activities of individual scholars, or the more general effects of war on communication; 34 here I can only offer an outline of my VICWS.

To begin with a fact that accounts for much correspondence, but by no means all of it, the religious policies of Louis XIV of France produced a large community of Huguenot exiles in Holland, England, and Germany. These exiles made substantial contributions to the Republic of Letters as writers and publishers of'journals. 35 Among them we find Pierre Bayle, former professor of philosophy in the Protestant academy of Sedan, closed in 1681. Bayle was fortunate and found patronage and another teaching post in Rotterdam, where he embarked upon his literary career. His monthly Nouvelles de La Ripublique des Lettres began in March, 1684, and continued until February, 1687, when the strain of editorship brought on breakdown. In this scholarly journal he mentioned the revocation, which took place in October, 1685, five times in subsequent issues. The Nouvelles was not a political newsletter, but Bayle could not avoid inserting caustic comments about official French pamphlets congratulating the king and celebrating the unity of faith in France. He wrote partisan pamphlets himself: 'Ce que c'est que Ia France toutc catholiquc sous le regnc de Louis le Grand' ('The True State of Wholly Catholic France in the Reign of Louis XIV') and 'Commcntaire philosophique sur ces paroles de jesus-Christ "contrainslcs d'entrcr'" ('Philosophical Commentary on the words of our Lord, "Compel them to come in"'), both 1686. Although he was no longer editing the journal when the French went to war in the Rhineland, from his correspondence we can sec his concern for fellow- Protestants still in France. Whether or not Bayle actually wrote the 'Avis important aux refugiez' ( 1690), which counselled moderation among the exiles, he was certainly implicated in its publication and incurred the wrath of Pierre J urieu, another prominent Huguenot minister in Rotterdam. The struggle betwcenjurieu's uncompromising rigidity and Bayle's efforts at moderation has been well-chronicled. 36 Juricu's response to persecution and war included publishing inflammatory pamphlets full of misplaced hopes for the conversion of Louis XIV and the Dauphin, restoration of the Edict ofNantes, and return of the Protestant exiles to France under the crusading banner of William III. 37 J uricu conspired to have Bayle dismissed from his teaching post, and also organized an espionage ring in France itself for the English government- very dangerous and highly appreciated activity, the subversive side of the Republic of Letters. 38 For those who were not suffering •xile or the depredations of war, scholarly activity might continue much as before: in the published letters of Nicolas Malebranche, for example, there arc occasional references to the lack of literary news, but only one oblique mention of the wars themselves. 39 While Malcbranchc received direct reports of the persecutions in France, he continued his philosophical work and sincerely hoped for the conversion of individual Protestants like Leibniz. As for the

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harmonious German philosopher, his correspondences with scholars and political figures show some variations, suggesting a wishful link between scholarship and power. In wartime it was harder to get books and journals, to travel for bookselling or research, to write and send letters themselves. Yet contacts across frontiers and confessional lines continued. Scholars who were on the same side, e.g. Leibniz and his Protestant or moderate Catholic Friends in Germany (LandgrafErnst of Hesse-Rheinfels,Johann Friedrich Sinold gen. Schutz, Christoph Weselow), Gisbert Cuper in Deventer and Mathurin Veyssiere de Ia Craze in Berlin, or the Benedictine monks of St. Germain des Pres in Paris and their representatives in Rome, did discuss the wars frankly and offer political and military analysis. Leibniz repeatedly declared that the German states were not doing enough to support the Empire against France; his earlier admiration for Louis XIV had turned to disillusion and become an embarrassment. Yet his letters to scholars on the other side, e.g. Paul Pellisson, Bishop Bossuet, Jean Mabillon, and Nicolas Toinard in Paris, generally avoided mentioning the war, except to regret delays in correspondence. Indeed, during the Nine Years' War Leibniz and Bossuet were most seriously engaged in discussing the reunion of the Protestant and Catholic churches. The Parisians, undoubtedly writing with official approval, tried to convert Leibniz himself to Catholicism, a not unreasonable goal, as Leibniz's friend Ernst ofHesse-Rheinfels had converted, and his patron duke Anton Ulrich of BraunschweigLuneburg-Wolfenbiittel would do so in 1710. The French Catholics were unwilling, however, to go so far as Leibniz wished, and they refused to disavow the more extreme positions of the Council of Trent. The Republic of Letters in this period was more than just the opponents of Louis XIV joined in international fraternity. Without going too far into the depths of their controversies, we can say that these intellectuals often showed little understanding of political and military realities. Their analyses were naive, sometimes fantastic: Louis XIV would not restore the Edict of Nantes, and provincial rebellions against him could only come to grief. Scholars' attempts to give political advice showed their own desire for influence, clearly visible in Leibniz. His letters and political pamphlets breathed an air of confidentiality gained from his own diplomatic experience, and probably led him to overestimate the power of the pen. One wonders exactly which audience he was trying to persuade during the War of Spanish Succession with his defences of the rights of Charles III and attacks on the 'inexcusable' Peace of Utrecht. His opposition to the treaties of 1713-1714 had practically no effect on policy. 40 Unsuccessful in obtaining an ittftuential position at the imperial court in Vienna, Leibniz intended to follow George I to England on his accession to the British throne; but he was left behind with orders to finish his annals of the house of Brunswick, and died in Hannover in 1716. 41 Nonetheless Leibniz was not the only intellectual activist of his day, and we should compare his career with

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those ofBossuet, Locke, and Cuper, all of whom enjoyed greater political successes. To maintain the free flow of information essential to the momentum of the Republic of Letters in wartime, both imagination and subterfuge were required. Letters were carried or smuggled,journals and books sent by the diplomatic post, botanical specimens carefully dried and preserved until peacetime- or opportunities for shipment- appeared again. The journals were particularly affected in their collection of news and distribution, especially between countries formally at war. In 1708 Abbe Jean-Pierre Bignon, editor of the Journal des S(avans, organizer of the French academies and censor of books for his uncle Chancellor Phelypeaux de Pontchartrain, wanted news from Pierre Desmaizeaux in London, but suggested that they used assumed names, 'even though all our contacts should be concerned only with points ofliterature, and as a result only resemble those of which pure spirits are capable, independent of any political interest in peace and war' .42 If the powerful Bignon could be so anxious, lesser figures took even more precautions, even suspending altogether contacts with friends in enemy territory, as john Locke and Nicolas Toinard did in several wars. French journals were hard to get in Germany during the Nine Years' War, about the same time that the French-language publishing industry suffered a well-documented depression. 43 Efforts were made to sell multi-volume scholarly sets by subscription and to popularize periodicals, but even in the freest publishing climate in Europe, the United Provinces, literary culture was in decline. The reasons for this decline arc still unclear: economic factors and the wars appear insufficient explanation. By I 715 contemporaries were already suggesting that some blame must be placed on excessive criticism and bad journalism. 44 The best informed society was content to receive the journalists' opinions and no longer felt a need for thorough study or creative expression: 'The young people today draw their learning from these journals, and after havin~ read there a bad extract, boldly judge a book and the subjects it treats'. 5 In order to obtain a wide readership and commercial success, the journalists were forced to add quantities of the gallant to qualities of the savant; yet by doing so, their publications devalued true scholarship. If this explanation is correct, the Republic of Letters contained a paradoxical destructive impulse, destructive of the very learning it wished to communicate. The impulse to collect news, to collect letters, to collect antiquities and botanical specimens, to collect memberships in academies- in short, to collect everything - takes us to an eighteenth-century style of polite encyclopedic learning perhaps more marked by curiosity than science. Were Pierre Bayle and the other journalists of the 1680s and 1690s true scholars, or were they merely curious virtuosi? Between 1690 and 1700, 'the character of the virtuoso' and 'The Transactioneer' were ridiculed in English satirical pamphlets, and it would not require much imagina-

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tion to sec the targets as the Royal Society and their energetic secretary Hans Sloane. 46 Their activities were not so far removed from those of their fellow republicans of letters: Lcibniz planning his schemes for mining engineering and universal languages [even his willingness to believe reports of a talking dog], Isaac Newton calculating ancient prophecies and the dimensions of the temple of Solomon, Cotton Mather collecting remarkable providcnccs in New England. Anything curious would be worthy of study, and certainly worth communicating in learned letters. The Republic was waiting, waiting to read those letters and write more back. With the present research we arc moving closer toward exact definition of the Republic of Letters in the social context of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The hundreds of names can be reduced to manageable totals in specific branches oflearning, from all knowledge, science or polyhistory in the seventeenth-century sense, to specific modern sciences and fields of study. In this pre-enlightenment, we see the rise of scholarly correspondences, journals, and academics all over Europe, surmounting the challenges of war and political upheaval. We should consider their effects on learning itself. That, to my mind, would be the ultimate social history of ideas.

The University ofAlabama

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The author wishes to thank colleagues at the universities of Durham, London, and Sussex for their helpful comments. The research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the Research Grants Committee of the University of Alabama. I

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G.W. Leibniz, 'Relation de l'etat present de Ia republique des lettres', Siimtliche Schriften und Briefe (Akademie-Ausgabe), 4e Reihe, Politische Schriften, Band l (Darmstadt, 1931), pp. 569-71. 'Voulant le dedier au Roy, on pourroit commencer ainsi: Sire,je presente a Votre Majeste Ia relation d'un pays, oil elle vivra tousjours. Ce sont les champs Elisiens des Heros, et il faut passer par Ia pour avoir commerce avec Ia posterite'. Ibid., Konzept A, p. 569. 'Si j'estois jeune, j'irais en Muscovie et peutestre jusqu'a Ia Chine pour etablir cette communication de lumieres par le moyen demon Arithmetique binaire ... ' Leibniz to Mathias Johan v. d. Schulenburg, Hannover, 16 August 1705, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kultursbesitz, Berlin, MS Savigny 38, f. 28; draft in Hannover quoted by E. Bodemann, Der Briefwechsel des G. W. Leibni::. (Hannover, 1889; Hildesheim, 1966), p. 269. Hanns-Albert Steger, 'Die Europapolitik desjungen Leibniz',}ahrbuchfiir Friinkische Landesforschung, 41 ( 1981 ) , l 71-77. 'Jamais Ia correspondance entre les philosophes ne fut plus universelle; Leibnitz servit a l'animer. On a vu une republique litteraire etablie insensiblement dans !'Europe, malgre les guerres et malgre les religions dilferentes. Toutes les sciences, tous les arts ant re