The long, complex relationship between England and France as told by social networking, 1757-1815
Thesis
- Despite their differences, oftentimes substantial, the relationship within the elite social networks of English and French society remained strong throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century and through the revolution and Napoleonic era. Their cooperation, their friendships, and their continued interaction paved the way for a greater cooperation of elite and bourgeois governments in the nineteenth century. The turning point may be the return of Fox and others to Paris during the peace of Amiens to see an entirely different, disrupted society. This marks the end of the Old Regime and the beginning of the valorisation of the Old Regime just as politics and society were modernising. Thus although the elite castes were much more strongly related as a result of the revolutionary experience, they were also moving in two entirely different trajectories.
- Renversement: The politics and diplomacy of sociability, and the sociability of politics and diplomacy.(First, the utility of elite sociability, then the sociability of political bodies). Based in the private domicile and maintained by unspoken rituals rooted in the practices of an aristocratic milieu, the salon was a powerful tool for linking private interests to political power and public infulence prior to the rise of professional specialization and the bureaucratization of public life. Networks and relationships formed by marriage and liaisons that were contracted for public purposes made each salon at once familial, mondain, where consanguinity and friendship produced publicly significant alliances.(Steven Kale)
- Remember Michael Kwass and his reevaluation of Tocqueville. The people who discussed economics were, in fact, not removed from day to day governance. The same held for the salon attendees, who had the power to politicize a salon by their existence in the two worlds: le monde des salons and the monde of politics. Unlike French ministers who had little to no influence independent of the court, English MPs could take their knowledge with them and introduce it to their own political world.
- Despite the tendency to think about aristocrats as cosmopolitans and the middling classes as patriots, the interaction and networking between elites shows that for however much they might have shared in common, they were themselves on two separate trajectories.
- Out of the entire English population attracted temporarily to the French capital, only a fairly limited number were integrated into a relationship of exchange, let alone with the milieus of Paris intellectuals, philosophers, writers, scholars, academics, authors and art lovers. Among the travellers, depending on the year, between one third and two thrids could make this claim, and, through the recommendaitons they had, or their established celebrity, they could obtain access to those famous names who did not open their doors to all the world. It was a commonality of lifestyre customs and interests that made this society receptive to such privileged visitors. To understand its practices it is necessary to change schale and analyse sources less formal than the police reports, sources that moreover have not yet been fully exploited. They are complemented by the travel accounts collected by Boucher de la Richarderi, Pinkerton, Michele Sacquin, and by the CRIDAF. A definitive study that would use all the information supplied by these various sources – published and manuscript in all their forms, travel accounts, real or fictional correspondence, memoirs, novels, French and British address books – remains to be written; it would show the whole network of Egnlish travellers and display its operation and organisation, as well as the choices made, the role of transmission and that of individuals such as Franklin. Here we shall have to focus on a group of major actors and on the relations established between them.
- A number of the broader claims made by this dense and rewarding book, however, suggest that salons matter more than we have previously thought. Not only has Lilti reaffirmed that the subject will remain a vital element in a number of on going historical debates--concerning the roles of writers, the dimensions of the public sphere, the formation of public opinion, and the nature of Old Regime politics--but he has opened up new lines of inquiry by exploring such themes as the construction of social identities, the links between mondanité and literature, and the constitution of national stereotypes. Finally, Lilti has demonstrated that mondaine sociability was a key matrix of French identity, in which writers and foreigners alike found the distinctive traits of the French character and a privileged field of social and psychological observation.
- Within the network of aristocratic salons was itself a self-definition of high society, of which English passerbys where integral parts.
- Convergence of social, literary and political opinion formation
Intro
- The problem of England and France from the point of view of social history
o Anglophilia, Anglophobia
o The commercial competition between states
- The channel, contested barrier and piste migratoire
1. Channel Crossings
a. Crossing the English Channel in the eighteenth century
b. Rhythms, obstacles, diasporas, etc.
c. Towards a cross-channel understanding of sociability
2. Social Networks
a. The importance of social networking
i. Read, the representativeness of elite networks
ii. Note, the political crowd who gathered; aristocrats, ministeres, financiers, etc.
b. Who was friends with who
c. Types of Social Networks
i. Salons
1. The salon nobility as a closed caste, relatively static and resistant to change
ii. Academies
iii. Personal, etc.
iv. Universities
d. Lieux de Sociabilité
i. Salon
ii. Private Visits
iii. Diner/Supper
iv. Associational
v. Freemasons
vi. Entertainment
1. Balls, Routs, etc.
2. Theatre/Opéra
3. The importance of letter writing
4. Social Networking and the state
5. Cultural exchange
6. Social Networks reformulated: The survival of social networks and the apparition of new solidarities during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era
Conclusion
International Cooperation
A history of England and France
Journal
1/3/2009
- Lilti mentions the conspicuous consumption of the French nobility. I think that a case could be made for the same behavior in English nobles, especially considering Horace Walpole’s detailed list of expenditures and his penchant for visiting fancy shops.
- Gift giving as well
1/14/2009
- One of the principally important movements of late twentieth century historiography has been to look at the means of dissemination of information. Most of this has rightly concentrated on the published word, but imagine, for example, a study that takes into account how friendship and acquaintance was integral to spreading information as rapidly as through publication, if not more so. How to find this out?
o Debate between Anne Goldgar and Dena Goodman: we know about Dena Goodman’s taking seriously the republic of letters, while Goldgar rather puts it down, perhaps anticipating Lilti.
o Thirdly, Pocock in The Enlightenment of Edward Gibbon. One is a serious, erudite and Protestant movement, the other an effemincate, trivial collection of wits.
o Where’s the difference between the Republic of Letters and High Society
o The Republic as a Cultural Phenomenon
- Compare the letter network to subscription lists...who is getting the same information. It’s like a listserv.
1/17/2009
- Corresponding Societies
2/9/2008
- There are a series of internation castes or networks, and they include:
o Aristocrats and Elites
o Intellectuals (broadly defined)
o Diplomats
o Merchants and Financiers
o Free-masons
o Churchmen
o Families and Friens
o Exiles and Refugees
- Bastille Manuscripts. Think about the reports on Thompson. While the concern with diplomatic despatches and troop movements is important, there seems to be no contradiction between that and the everyday movement of the ambassadors, their retinue, the suspicious people who come by, etc. These two things are equally heavy on the mind of the police
2/13/2009
Intermediaries. The reason why so many Britons stuck to themselves and ketp to tourism rather than real social integration is because the real cultural intermediaries, those well integrated into social networks on both sides of the English channel, were actually few and far between. Attending a salon is one thing, but to strike a lasting friendship that results in “commerce des lettres” and opens the doors to new friends and networks is quite a rare feat.
- English
o Lady Berry
o Lady Hervey
o Horace Walpole
o Hume
o Ambassadors
- French
o Morellet
o Suard
o Du Deffand/Geoffrin
o La Rochefoucauld
o Ambassadors
There’s also a connection between between passport development, diplomacy, travel and the Anglo-British connection. One can see the parallel in the way that letters of recommendation opened up vistas for visitors and those attempting a foothold in society. These letters of recommendation and personal introductions were like your passports for society, attesting to your good character and your relative desire not to destroy that society.
The politics of economy is an international political culture. See Morellet and Landsdowne, Smith and Turgot.
17/2/2009
- Had workship with John Hight’s paper last night. He’s organizing things based upon self-identification in journals and letters. Not a terrible idea. So, mother, husband, son, Catholic/Protestant, class, political ideology, etc. Goes with his theory of identity, but it’s useful here as well.
20/2/2009
Policing Social Networks, The police of Paris followed the actors to different parts of the globe to survey and note the contacts they were making as a possibly suspicious set of actions. See, in particular, the Contrôle des Etrangers that reported on meetins, lisaisons, and intended itineraries of these visitors.
The Police of Paris invented the idea of social networking that we know today
New Outline
Inventing Social Networks
1. Historiography
2. Travel and Social Networks: The British in Paris
a. Caste Identity
i. An International Class
ii. Consumption
3. Correspondence Networks: Cross Channel Friendships
a. Caste Identity
i. An International Class
4. Surveillance and the Invention of Social Networks
5. Social Diplomacy
Back to Elaine Chalus, if we think about social diplomacy, then we give women pride of place as well as men.
3/2/2009
The instance of social networking between aritocratic, mercantile and financial elites could parallel modern day “caste survival” techniques, whereby aristocrats rely upon financiers to finance their consumption patterns and lifestyle choices whilst at the same time elevating the prestige of those same merchants and financiers by plugging them into their social networks. Connections pay off in both a monetary and a cultural fashion.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
My Blogs
http://allaboutsolarenergy.blogspot.com/
http://mostsearchedterms.blogspot.com/
http://barackobama2010.blogspot.com/
http://beerpeople.blogspot.com/
http://foodiesinparis.blogspot.com/
http://earn-some-dough.blogspot.com/
http://nelsonweddingphotos.blogspot.com/
http://crosschannelfriendships.blogspot.com/
http://ftap-guide.blogspot.com/
http://seinfeldtopfive.blogspot.com/
http://punditsareidiots.blogspot.com/
http://ftap-info.blogspot.com/
http://www.simmonsfields.com
http://www.renewablesolarinfo.com
http://mostsearchedterms.blogspot.com/
http://barackobama2010.blogspot.com/
http://beerpeople.blogspot.com/
http://foodiesinparis.blogspot.com/
http://earn-some-dough.blogspot.com/
http://nelsonweddingphotos.blogspot.com/
http://crosschannelfriendships.blogspot.com/
http://ftap-guide.blogspot.com/
http://seinfeldtopfive.blogspot.com/
http://punditsareidiots.blogspot.com/
http://ftap-info.blogspot.com/
http://www.simmonsfields.com
http://www.renewablesolarinfo.com
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Prospectus
British Paris, 1763-1789: The Social and Correspondence Networks of Britons in Paris
While the eighteenth century saw Great Britain and France locked political, economic, and cultural competition, the traffic of people, goods and ideas steadily increased in volume. At one extreme, Anglophobia and Francophobia were expressed in constitutional, national and commercial discourses that resulted in separate national development and at least six separate armed conflicts. At the other extreme, Anglophilia and Francophilia ensured that the social, economic and cultural exchange persisted in spite of this conflict. More than just persistence, the social elite, the members of the Atlantic and European Worlds’ “Republic of Letters,” and the growing commercial class cemented ties of sociability and solidarity that eventually pushed Great Britain and France into greater cooperation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
From 1763 to 1789, Britons of all social classes crossed the English Channel to France, leaving a vast and complex web of contacts and correspondents behind them when they returned. Historians have called attention to the heavy presence of British visitors to Paris, but have too often passed them off as sightseers. Those whose activities have garnered more attention, like Horace Walpole or Arthur Young, have shed light on the depth of the social interaction between the British and French in the period before the French Revolution. However, little attempt has been made to gauge the size and scope of these social networks, nor the motivations and practices that informed their creation and continued survival throughout decades of political turmoil. This project will examine the practices of cross-channel sociability and provide a tentative response to the significance and meaning behind these practices.
The most successful works of history in this field have recognized the significance of British travelers to the political, social and cultural history of Europe. Daniel Roche has repeatedly stressed that the networks of eighteenth-century travelers and correspondents were indicative of a social, economic and intellectual modernization of the continent. A team of researchers under his direction has also argued that the presence of foreign elite in Paris informed the development of a strong, centralized and efficient surveillance state in France and led to the invention of inscribing identities in passports. The most important works in this historiographical field, however, have begun to capture the significance of multi-polar social networks. British travelers entered communities by engaging in practices of sociability and entering into complex social networks maintained by personal visits and epistolary exchange. The most famous of these institutions were the Parisian salons, which acted as nodes in networks of elite sociability, whose existence was founded on complex social practices and representations and whose result was to project “mondain” social, intellectual and political opinion upon a more dispersed public. Due to the difficulty of capturing the dynamics of face-to-face meetings in the historical record, a number of studies have traced the outlines of correspondence networks to highlight the mechanisms behind the transfer of information and the sharing of sociability in the Republic of Letters. This study will move beyond the individual circle to evaluate the complexity and fluidity of a collection of social networks operating at an international level.
This study will propose an answer to three principal questions: 1.) How did Britons and the French form social networks in the late eighteenth century, and what were the meanings, understandings, and decisions that allowed these networks to take shape? 2.) How did these social networks affect the political, social, cultural, and diplomatic histories of the two kingdoms, and how were they shaped by their environments? 3.) How did these social networks confront the French Revolution and lead to long-term cooperation between the two kingdoms? This will be an international history that questions the relationship between France and Great Britain by confronting the “operation and organization” of networks created between Britons and the French, their social and cultural value, and their political character whose long-term effects lasted well into the nineteenth century. To complete this study, I will work from three principal sources: 1.) Published and unpublished correspondence, journals, and travel accounts in the libraries and archives of Paris and London; 2.) The Contrôle des Etrangers series at the Ministère des Affaires Etrangers (MAE) archives in Paris that document the arrival and movement of notable foreigners and diplomats in a series of weekly reports by the police to the MAE from 1774-1792; 3.) The diplomatic correspondence from Paris and London to their agents abroad.
On the one hand, the information taken from these sources will yield the first outlines of a series of cross-channel social networks. Recently, the sociological field of social network analysis has rapidly expanded due in part to its importance to contemporary internet-based sociability, and this study promises to rely heavily upon their innovations. Historians, however, have been somewhat slower to adopt this new technology for their own purposes, save for two research teams based at universities in Montpellier and Basel. Through the proper extrapolation and organization of information taken from both published and unpublished journals and correspondence, it becomes possible to manage a large database of information that will ultimately show the contours of the cross-channel social networks. An analysis of this data will give a quantitative model to eighteenth-century sociability and correspondence.
On the other hand, the contents of the journals, travel accounts and correspondence suggest a more complex understanding of cross-channel sociability than has hitherto been proposed in an historical monograph. This study proposes a more nuanced answer to its significance as an event in the relationship between France and Great Britain by confronting the motivations, decisions and consequences of sociability before the French Revolution. While “mondain” society and the “Republic of Letters” may have bound them, they were also bound by families and friendships, interests and organizations, freemasonry and religion, politics and diplomacy, etc. It remains for this study to show that whatever form sociability took had intrinsic meaning to those who participated, and that these practices also had long-term political, social and economic consequences. Not only did the social networks of Horace Walpole and Miss Merry Berry help to integrate a generation of British elites into French social circles, they also proved the cornerstone of the cooperation between French and British elites during the era of the French Revolution. Their cooperation was based not on sympathy or pity, but on a shared sense of social value developed in tandem in the eighteenth century through personal and epistolary contact. The most important institution in the development and projection of elite values was the Paris salon, whose social character was more overtly political than its recorded conversations might lead one to believe. The salon attendees, for example, were not the Tocquevillian caste whose opinions were formed in complete ignorance of the mechanisms of governance; the salon attendees were, in fact, very important people in the world of government, finance and business. The salon was an arena in which private interests were joined with the public power and influence of Old Regime elites, and while government policy may not actually have been decided (or even discussed) in salon conversation, the mise-en-scène of the sociability of elites was vital to their public, political careers.
Finally, this study proposes a new contribution to the still poorly understood field of social diplomacy. One very important part of eighteenth-century diplomacy was diplomats’ participation in social networks, and in no location was this more important that Paris/Versailles. The British Ambassadors, particularly the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Dorset, were notorious socialites who not only participated in Paris “mondain” society, but also held their own regular gatherings for their own countrymen, the other foreign envoys, and Paris society at large. By engaging in such intensive and customary social interactions, the resident ambassadors wove a web of social alliances and friendships whose outcome, if not its design, was to draw the social, cultural and commercial elite of the two kingdoms into closer cooperation. And yet, espionage and surveillance was also a very important aspect of eighteenth-century diplomacy, and these regular reports help us to reconstruct the contours of various social networks as well as the social priorities of diplomats and the governments who surveyed them. For this reason, the complete and well-preserved records in the Contrôle des Etrangers series are of immense importance, because their weekly reports present a bureaucratized account of the sociability of foreigners for a period of twenty-five years. I expect this series to show why the French state was obsessed with the danger and potential profit represented by social networks.
This project can only be conducted in the archives and libraries of Paris and London. The leading authorities on questions of migration and social networking in the Republic of Letters, such as Daniel Roche and Antoine Lilti, are based at the universities of Paris. My project will contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between France and Great Britain and their shared social history. In order to complete this project in a timely manner, I will need to begin research at the archives of the MAE in August 2009 when they reopen after more than a year of closure. I am currently in the midst of research into networks of correspondence and sociability using materials available at the Archives Nationales and the Bibliothèque National in Paris, and will conduct research at the National Archives in London from June to August 2009. I will need approximately five to six months in the archives of the MAE, at which point I plan to be ready to return to Berkeley having completed the research phase of my dissertation. I intend to finish my dissertation by May of 2011 and pursue a career in academia to continue my research and teaching in the area of Franco-British history.
While the eighteenth century saw Great Britain and France locked political, economic, and cultural competition, the traffic of people, goods and ideas steadily increased in volume. At one extreme, Anglophobia and Francophobia were expressed in constitutional, national and commercial discourses that resulted in separate national development and at least six separate armed conflicts. At the other extreme, Anglophilia and Francophilia ensured that the social, economic and cultural exchange persisted in spite of this conflict. More than just persistence, the social elite, the members of the Atlantic and European Worlds’ “Republic of Letters,” and the growing commercial class cemented ties of sociability and solidarity that eventually pushed Great Britain and France into greater cooperation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
From 1763 to 1789, Britons of all social classes crossed the English Channel to France, leaving a vast and complex web of contacts and correspondents behind them when they returned. Historians have called attention to the heavy presence of British visitors to Paris, but have too often passed them off as sightseers. Those whose activities have garnered more attention, like Horace Walpole or Arthur Young, have shed light on the depth of the social interaction between the British and French in the period before the French Revolution. However, little attempt has been made to gauge the size and scope of these social networks, nor the motivations and practices that informed their creation and continued survival throughout decades of political turmoil. This project will examine the practices of cross-channel sociability and provide a tentative response to the significance and meaning behind these practices.
The most successful works of history in this field have recognized the significance of British travelers to the political, social and cultural history of Europe. Daniel Roche has repeatedly stressed that the networks of eighteenth-century travelers and correspondents were indicative of a social, economic and intellectual modernization of the continent. A team of researchers under his direction has also argued that the presence of foreign elite in Paris informed the development of a strong, centralized and efficient surveillance state in France and led to the invention of inscribing identities in passports. The most important works in this historiographical field, however, have begun to capture the significance of multi-polar social networks. British travelers entered communities by engaging in practices of sociability and entering into complex social networks maintained by personal visits and epistolary exchange. The most famous of these institutions were the Parisian salons, which acted as nodes in networks of elite sociability, whose existence was founded on complex social practices and representations and whose result was to project “mondain” social, intellectual and political opinion upon a more dispersed public. Due to the difficulty of capturing the dynamics of face-to-face meetings in the historical record, a number of studies have traced the outlines of correspondence networks to highlight the mechanisms behind the transfer of information and the sharing of sociability in the Republic of Letters. This study will move beyond the individual circle to evaluate the complexity and fluidity of a collection of social networks operating at an international level.
This study will propose an answer to three principal questions: 1.) How did Britons and the French form social networks in the late eighteenth century, and what were the meanings, understandings, and decisions that allowed these networks to take shape? 2.) How did these social networks affect the political, social, cultural, and diplomatic histories of the two kingdoms, and how were they shaped by their environments? 3.) How did these social networks confront the French Revolution and lead to long-term cooperation between the two kingdoms? This will be an international history that questions the relationship between France and Great Britain by confronting the “operation and organization” of networks created between Britons and the French, their social and cultural value, and their political character whose long-term effects lasted well into the nineteenth century. To complete this study, I will work from three principal sources: 1.) Published and unpublished correspondence, journals, and travel accounts in the libraries and archives of Paris and London; 2.) The Contrôle des Etrangers series at the Ministère des Affaires Etrangers (MAE) archives in Paris that document the arrival and movement of notable foreigners and diplomats in a series of weekly reports by the police to the MAE from 1774-1792; 3.) The diplomatic correspondence from Paris and London to their agents abroad.
On the one hand, the information taken from these sources will yield the first outlines of a series of cross-channel social networks. Recently, the sociological field of social network analysis has rapidly expanded due in part to its importance to contemporary internet-based sociability, and this study promises to rely heavily upon their innovations. Historians, however, have been somewhat slower to adopt this new technology for their own purposes, save for two research teams based at universities in Montpellier and Basel. Through the proper extrapolation and organization of information taken from both published and unpublished journals and correspondence, it becomes possible to manage a large database of information that will ultimately show the contours of the cross-channel social networks. An analysis of this data will give a quantitative model to eighteenth-century sociability and correspondence.
On the other hand, the contents of the journals, travel accounts and correspondence suggest a more complex understanding of cross-channel sociability than has hitherto been proposed in an historical monograph. This study proposes a more nuanced answer to its significance as an event in the relationship between France and Great Britain by confronting the motivations, decisions and consequences of sociability before the French Revolution. While “mondain” society and the “Republic of Letters” may have bound them, they were also bound by families and friendships, interests and organizations, freemasonry and religion, politics and diplomacy, etc. It remains for this study to show that whatever form sociability took had intrinsic meaning to those who participated, and that these practices also had long-term political, social and economic consequences. Not only did the social networks of Horace Walpole and Miss Merry Berry help to integrate a generation of British elites into French social circles, they also proved the cornerstone of the cooperation between French and British elites during the era of the French Revolution. Their cooperation was based not on sympathy or pity, but on a shared sense of social value developed in tandem in the eighteenth century through personal and epistolary contact. The most important institution in the development and projection of elite values was the Paris salon, whose social character was more overtly political than its recorded conversations might lead one to believe. The salon attendees, for example, were not the Tocquevillian caste whose opinions were formed in complete ignorance of the mechanisms of governance; the salon attendees were, in fact, very important people in the world of government, finance and business. The salon was an arena in which private interests were joined with the public power and influence of Old Regime elites, and while government policy may not actually have been decided (or even discussed) in salon conversation, the mise-en-scène of the sociability of elites was vital to their public, political careers.
Finally, this study proposes a new contribution to the still poorly understood field of social diplomacy. One very important part of eighteenth-century diplomacy was diplomats’ participation in social networks, and in no location was this more important that Paris/Versailles. The British Ambassadors, particularly the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Dorset, were notorious socialites who not only participated in Paris “mondain” society, but also held their own regular gatherings for their own countrymen, the other foreign envoys, and Paris society at large. By engaging in such intensive and customary social interactions, the resident ambassadors wove a web of social alliances and friendships whose outcome, if not its design, was to draw the social, cultural and commercial elite of the two kingdoms into closer cooperation. And yet, espionage and surveillance was also a very important aspect of eighteenth-century diplomacy, and these regular reports help us to reconstruct the contours of various social networks as well as the social priorities of diplomats and the governments who surveyed them. For this reason, the complete and well-preserved records in the Contrôle des Etrangers series are of immense importance, because their weekly reports present a bureaucratized account of the sociability of foreigners for a period of twenty-five years. I expect this series to show why the French state was obsessed with the danger and potential profit represented by social networks.
This project can only be conducted in the archives and libraries of Paris and London. The leading authorities on questions of migration and social networking in the Republic of Letters, such as Daniel Roche and Antoine Lilti, are based at the universities of Paris. My project will contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between France and Great Britain and their shared social history. In order to complete this project in a timely manner, I will need to begin research at the archives of the MAE in August 2009 when they reopen after more than a year of closure. I am currently in the midst of research into networks of correspondence and sociability using materials available at the Archives Nationales and the Bibliothèque National in Paris, and will conduct research at the National Archives in London from June to August 2009. I will need approximately five to six months in the archives of the MAE, at which point I plan to be ready to return to Berkeley having completed the research phase of my dissertation. I intend to finish my dissertation by May of 2011 and pursue a career in academia to continue my research and teaching in the area of Franco-British history.
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