Promoting a political agenda and attacking the reputation of rivals were essential tools in the power struggles at the French court during the ancien r & eacute;gime. However, pamphlets discussing political issues and defamatory libels were very different cases that required specific types of protection. By focusing on the politics of print in the eighteenth century, the special issue that this article introduces paints a portrait of a society in which the public sphere was more tightly controlled than has long been believed. If a pamphlet or libel was widely circulated, it was because it served the interests of the dominant faction at court. The authors, far from being marginalized and frustrated, were generally well integrated into influential and often wealthy circles. The criticisms they levelled at ministers did not stem from their position as outsiders but, quite the contrary, from their participation in the competitive social arena of court society.
Ever since publication of Jean-Paul Belin's Le Commerce des livres prohib & eacute;s & agrave; Paris, 1750-1789 (1913), the regulation of the late ancien r & eacute;gime French book trade has been considered largely ineffectual. Widespread smuggling, routine pirating of successful titles, haphazard censorship, an endless flurry of regulations, and the connivance of guild members and book trade officials, all supposedly made regular and consistent enforcement impossible. Yet increasing evidence, drawn from the archives and digital projects on the circulation of books, suggests that this picture is misleading. This article examines that evidence and suggests an alternative picture. It shows that moving or smuggling clandestine books in bulk was difficult, risky and prohibitively expensive, as rights over moving, receiving or trading in books were carefully regulated and jealously guarded. Moreover, new regulations from 1777 onwards gave the inspection regime sharper teeth. The article demonstrates the impact of these regulations through both qualitative and quantitative sources.
This article examines the impact of the Indochinese and Algerian Wars of Independence on the French scouting movement. Historically, the ties between scouting and imperialism were tight, with imperial service seen as a practical extension of scouting activities as well as a patriotic duty and an opportunity for adventure. In the post-war period, this consensus in support of colonialism and military service broke down. The participation of many members heightened political awareness and led to growing criticism of the French military. During the Indochina War, dissenters were accused of being subversive communists who were undermining the movement's patriotism and apoliticism, but anti-militarist and anti-imperialist currents grew during the Algerian War. This was closely connected to the growth of the religious Left in the faith communities of which the scouting associations were a part. Interactions between French Scouts and their counterparts in other nations, especially colonized and post-colonial states, also contributed. The Scouts de France (SDF) are therefore a valuable case study of how changing national, religious, generational, racial and gender identities in post-war France influenced response to the Algerian War, and how in turn the war impacted that reconceptualization.
A French Protestant refugee in the Dutch Republic, Anne-Marguerite Du Noyer published the Lettres historiques et galantes, her M & eacute;moires, the Nouveau Mercure galant des Cours de l'Europe and directed the Quintessence des Nouvelles. Although her detractors dismissed her work as libels against aristocrats, Du Noyer's writings suggest a more nuanced, less antagonistic relationship with the nobility. This article considers the representation of nobility in Du Noyer's corpus. It suggests that Du Noyer's participation in the literary public sphere provided a significant opportunity for her to discursively align herself with aristocratic milieux, appeal to potential patrons as a means of self-advancement and publicly negotiate her liminal status in religious exile and as a woman who defied gendered social norms. However, Du Noyer's attempts to benefit from noble patronage yielded limited results in part due to her failure to adhere to norms, and this left her vulnerable to critiques from her contemporaries.
Louis-Francois de Bourbon, prince of Conti, played a central role in French politics during the second half of Louis XV's reign. An adviser to the king and head of the Secret du roi, he subsequently became one of his principal opponents after 1756. A defender of intermediary bodies within the French monarchy, he used his status as a prince of the blood to protect several writers between 1736 and 1776, as part of a strategy of prestige and political action. He supported heterodox authors or those sympathetic to his political line, such as abb & eacute; Antoine-Francois Pr & eacute;vost, & Eacute;tienne-Gabriel Morelly, Louis-Adrien Le Paige and Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. This protection enabled them to write more freely, as evidenced by the publication of Morelly's radical works. Having been warned, some were able to escape arrest. Printed works conveyed Conti's ideas: political treatises (Morelly), political pamphlets notably against the Jesuits (Le Paige) and factums denouncing the Parlement de Paris (Beaumarchais).
Historiography has placed great emphasis on the improvised nature of the French Revolution, but a small minority of people worked purposefully to bring about a revolution. Exploring the case of Jacques-Pierre Brissot, this article sheds light on the context in which the project to establish a parliamentary monarchy crystallized and re-assesses the role of patronage and aristocratic networks in the creation of a political opposition movement and political pamphleteering. By focusing on the divisions between elites, it enables us to better understand the conditions of emergence of the French Revolution. For Brissot's case, this approach means reconsidering the place in his biography of his links with the duke of Orl & eacute;ans' Palais-Royal court, and especially with the Du Crest-Genlis faction, without denying his agency.
The case of the 'Scottish martyrs' transported from Britain for sedition in 1794 was followed closely in revolutionary France. Although these five foreign citizens of an enemy state could only be discussed and recognized as allies from afar, their case animated a renewed debate about how internationalist principles related to the peoples of England and Scotland as well as the relationship between political repression in Britain and France. This article follows French engagement with the incident from its role in the Montagnard debates of 1794 about the collective guilt borne by Britons for the crimes committed by their government to the failure of Thomas Muir to establish meaningful ties between France and Scotland in 1797-99. The case acted as a proxy for the contestation of interconnecting interpretations about repression, internationalism and the role of foreign individuals and peoples in the Revolution.
During the 'reaction' of 1795, Lyon and its region suffered a spate of political murders and prison massacres. Republican officials blamed these murders on elusive murder gangs, dubbed compagnies de J & eacute;sus, that were supposedly directed and funded by local aristocrats with ties to international counter-revolution. Despite notable uncertainty among historians, the idea became an enduring feature of the period, a political and cultural clich & eacute; of the Directorial regime. Why? The explanation lies in two potent sources that are best summarized as faction and fiction. First came two massive judicial prosecutions in 1797-99. These astonishingly large, protracted and expensive prosecutions resulted from an effort to weaponize the justice system on behalf of local Jacobins. However, the resulting trials yielded few convictions for politicized murder and no evidence of counter-revolutionary conspiracy. Thus, these prosecutions reveal the limits of justice in the late 1790s. Secondly, and much later, came a compelling connection made by Romantic Era authors between these failed prosecutions and a much smaller, successful, but unrelated, trial in 1800. A local 'historical' plaque reflects how powerful this fusion of faction and fiction remains.
This article examines the role of paid advertisements in the establishment of French-language newspapers edited by Huguenot refugees in the Dutch Republic between 1671 and 1701. While historians of early modern news have emphasized the commercial fragility of newspaper publishing, the place of advertising in the francophone press of exile remains understudied. Drawing on a systematic analysis of advertisements in surviving issues, it argues that paid notices were central to the financial viability and transnational reach of Huguenot newspapers. Operating in a limited domestic market, refugee editors relied on advertising income from booksellers, merchants and service providers across Europe. Advertisements supplemented subscription revenue and also revealed patterns of circulation, readership and trust. The article therefore treats exile not as a condition of marginality alone, but as a setting for commercial adaptation and transnational communication.
While historians have investigated many aspects of late eighteenth-century Bourbon censorship, they have not explored the evolving practice-well underway by the reign of Louis XV-of fining, suspending or banning printers and booksellers from the trade for censorship infractions and pirating. This article plots chronologically and examines 158 arr & ecirc;ts du conseil issued by the conseil d'& eacute;tat from 1703 to 1788 ordering France's licensed printers and booksellers to be fined, suspended, or banned from the printing and bookselling trades, and documents how matters of printer and bookseller discipline were removed from the regular courts and transferred to the conseil d'& eacute;tat, which handled printers and booksellers very strategically. In almost every case, delinquent printers saw their original punishments softened following the intervention of printers' patrons. Multiple voices and much negotiation among varied stakeholders governed state-media relations in the Bourbon monarchy, where an emerging bureaucracy tangled with the traditional influence of powerful patronage networks.
Following the insurrection of 10 August 1792, the Legislative Assembly named commissioners to bring news of the events in Paris to the departments and ensure the loyalty of French armies. This reflected fears that General Lafayette would march his troops on Paris. Such intervention appeared likely given expressions of support for the constitutional monarchy within the departments and the army throughout the summer of 1792. Historians have tended to minimize the significance of provincial opposition to the revolution of 10 August and attribute it to royalism or bourgeois fears of democracy. In contrast, this study argues that moderate revolutionaries' opposition to Parisian radicalism was based on sincere attachment to the constitution and the liberal revolution it embodied. Although Lafayette's coup d'& eacute;tat never materialized, evidence of uncertainty and fear in the departments suggest that support for the Constitution of 1791 has been underestimated.
Daniel Gordon in his monograph on Citizens without Sovereignty explored how, in eighteenth-century France, sociability enabled those without power in the ancien r & eacute;gime to organize and order social spaces where they could have autonomy and offset their political impotence. The idea that those without power could create an autonomous existence within the 'gaps and interstices' of that hierarchical, authoritarian regime offers a potential framework for thinking afresh about French prisoners of war held in Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815), when tens of thousands of captured French sailors, soldiers, civilians, women and children were held in sites across the country. This article will explore examples of the ways in which the prisoners of war found a sense of dignity and purpose in seemingly insignificant forms of sociability and benefited from the networks that underpinned the Transport Board's organization of their captivity. Daniel Gordon in his monograph on Citizens without Sovereignty explored how, in eighteenth-century France, sociability enabled those without power in the ancien r & eacute;gime to organize and order social spaces where they could have autonomy and offset their political impotence. The idea that those without power possessed a desire for dignity and an autonomous existence within the 'gaps and interstices' of that hierarchical, authoritarian regime offers a potential framework for thinking afresh about French prisoners of war held in Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815), when tens of thousands of captured French sailors, soldiers, civilians, women and children were held in sites across the country.(1)The sheer numbers of prisoners of war created the need for a centralized state administration to deal with the influx. The Transport Board at the Admiralty constructed systems and processes to control the potential subversiveness of so many 'enemies'. A heavily regulated, hierarchical system maintained the prisoners in a position of political impotence. Much as Gordon looked to take 'an inventory of the disparate spaces that remain free',(2)where those without power in ancien r & eacute;gime France created a refuge from arbitrary authoritarianism in sociability, so this article will explore examples of the ways in which the prisoners of war similarly looked to find a sense of dignity and purpose in seemingly insignificant forms of sociability that the British authorities did not regulate to the same extent as other aspects of the prisoners of war's lives.
