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Saturday, February 7, 2009
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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