Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:33:48.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Babeuf's Conspiracy Viewed by the Press of the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Samuel Bernstein
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Georges Lefebvre concluded his Preface to the 1957 edition of Buonarroti's famous history of Babeuf's conspiracy with a sort of challenge to historians, saying that the final word on it still remains to be said. Whether Lefebvre's summons to further research on the subject has been a cause of new studies cannot be answered. All that can be said is that historians have continued to lift the veil on some hitherto obscure aspects of this conspiracy. Evidence of this trend was produced at the International Colloquium of Stockholm on August 21, 1960, to commemorate Babeuf's birthday.1 What appeared to be comparatively new was the emphasis on the impact of Babouvism outside of France. This was shown in three papers, two on Germany and one on the Austrian Tyrol. The two on Germany2 dwell on the reporting of the movement in the German press. We are told that alongside the generally turgid and hostile accounts there were analyses of Babouvist ideas in Minerva, the review of Hamburg, drawn from Le Tribun du peuple and the dossiers of the Babouvist trial. This review ran as many as ten articles on Babeuf and Drouet, who was boosted into prominence because of his official standing. The third paper3 suggests the probability of Babouvist infiltration among the insurgent Tirolese peasants early in the nineteenth century. It has also been shown elsewhere that Babeuf's organization served as a model, both in structure and methods, for the Italian underground, Società dei Raggi, that reached out from Piedmont to Romagna with the object of uniting the peninsula.4

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , April 1975 , pp. 91 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1975

References

page 91 note 1 Babeuf et les problèmes du babouvisme, ed. by Soboul, Albert (Paris, 1963).Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 Moškovskaja, Ju. Ja., “Otkliki na process Babefa v Germanii”, in: Francuzskij Ežegodnik, 1960, pp. 121–135Google Scholar (with a summary in French), and Markov, Walter, “Babeuf, le babouvisme et les intellectuels allemands (1796–1797)”, in: Babeuf et les problèmes du babouvisme, pp. 175–203.Google Scholar

page 91 note 3 Koplenig, Hilde, “Revendications agraires dans l'insurrection tyrolienne de 1809”, in: Babeuf et les problèmes du babouvisme, pp. 205–214.Google Scholar

page 91 note 4 Godechot, Jacques, “Le babouvisme et l'unité italienne”, in: Revue des Etudes Italiennes, III (1938), pp. 277–279.Google Scholar

page 92 note 1 See, e.g., The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics and Literature for the Year 1796, XXXVIII, pp. 149–152.Google Scholar A longer article in a similar vein appeared in The New Annual Register, or General Repository of History, Politics and Literature, for the Year 1796, pp. 201–205.

page 92 note 2 Copie des pièces saisies dans le local que Baboeuf occupoit lors de son arrestation, pp. 15–18, 25–26; also published as a small pamphlet, Le comité insurrecteur de salut public, au peuple, Acte d'Insurrection.

page 92 note 3 Adams, John Quincy, Writings (New York, 1913), II, p. 26.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 Debidour, A., Recueil des actes du directoire exécutif (Paris, 1910), II, pp. 149–150.Google Scholar

page 93 note 2 July 29, 1796.

page 93 note 3 New York Argus, May 18, 1796; The Weekly Advertiser (Reading, Pa.), June 4, 1796; Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, May 23, 1796; and The Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette (Alexandria, Va.), 05 24, 1796.Google Scholar A laudatory description of all the Directors was reprinted a year later by the Boston Independent Chronicle of May 18, 1797, from the London Monthly Magazine, February 1797.

page 95 note 1 July 14, 1796.

page 95 note 2 July 29, 1796. The last paragraph was reproduced in the Herald of the United States (Warren, R.I.), 08 13, 1796.Google Scholar

page 97 note 1 July 25, 1796.

page 97 note 2 We have found them cited in The Lancaster Journal (Pa.), June 17, 1796; The Western Star (Stockbridge, Mass.), 08 7, 1797;Google Scholar and in The Albany Gazette (N.Y.), August 7, 1797.

page 97 note 3 See Copie des pièces saisies, op. cit., pp. 156, 207.

page 98 note 1 Copie de l'instruction personnelle au représentant du peuple Drouet, pp. 202– 204, 232–233, 244–245. See Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia), 07 13, 08 6, 09 1 and 10 20, 1796;Google Scholar The New York Herald, August 10, 1796; The New York Minerva, August 8 and November 3, 1796, and April 28, 1797; The Boston Mercury, August 5 and 12, 1796; Bache's Philadelphia Aurora, April 17, May 2 and August 2, 1797; South Carolina State Gazette (Charleston), 10 19, 1796.Google Scholar

page 98 note 2 The New York Herald, August 10, 1796; The New York Minerva, August 8, 1796; Gazette of the United States, August 6, 1796; The Massachusetts Mercury (Boston), 08 12, 1796.Google Scholar

page 98 note 3 Le Directoire exécutif aux Français, (Paris,) 2 prairial an IV (May 21, 1796); and Compte-rendu du Directoire exécutif aux Conseils relatif à la conspiration qui vient d'être découverte, Paris, 23 floréal an IV; also The Massachusetts Mercury, August 5, 1796.

page 99 note 1 Aurora, General Advertiser (Philadelphia), May 12, 1796; South Carolina State Gazette, May 31, 1796.

page 100 note 1 Gazette of the United States, May 12, 1796; Aurora, General Advertiser, May 12, 1796; Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, May 18, 1796; The Argus or Greenleaf's New Daily Advertiser (New York), 05 11, 1796.Google Scholar

page 100 note 2 See, e.g., Herald, The, A Gazette for the Country (New York), 07 17, 1796.Google ScholarFor the relation of the Journal des hommes libres to the Babouvists see the article of Max Fajn in International Review of Social History, XIX (1974), pp. 228–244.Google Scholar

page 100 note 3 June 25, 1796.

page 101 note 1 On Dr Whiting and his ideas, see Riley, Stephen T., “Dr. William Whiting and Shays' Rebellion”, in: Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 10 1956, pp. 119–166;Google Scholaron Babeuf and Babouvism see my Essays in Political and Intellectual History (New York, 1955, reprint 1969), ch. V.Google Scholar

page 101 note 2 Manning, William, The Key of Libberty (Billerica, Mass., 1922).Google Scholar It was published by Samuel Eliot Morison with a Foreword on Manning.

page 102 note 1 Ibid., p. 51.

page 102 note 2 Suite de la copie des pièces saisies, pp. 235–239; also in Débats du procès instruit par la Haute-Cour de Justice contre Drouet, Baboeuf et autres, II, pp. 204–207.Google Scholar It was summarized by many newspapers. See, e.g., The Connecticut Courant (Hartford), 08 1, 1796;Google Scholar The Massachusetts Mercury, August 5, 1796; Greenleaf's New York Journal and Patriotic Register, July 29, 1796.

page 103 note 1 E.g., The Massachusetts Mercury, August 5 and 12, 1796; The Eastern Herald (Portland, Me.), August 22, 1796; The New York Argus, August 1 and 8, 1796; Gazette of the United States, August 8, 1796; Greenleaf's New York Journal, August 2 and 9, 1796; The Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette, August 16, 1796; The Lancaster Journal, August 19, 1796; Carlisle Weekly Gazette (Pa.), August 17, 1796.

page 103 note 2 [Adolphus, John,] Biographical Anecdotes of the Founders of the French Republic and of other Eminent Characters Who Have Distinguished Themselves in the Progress of the Revolution (London, 1797), I, pp. 203–204.Google Scholar

page 104 note 1 August 5, 1796.

page 104 note 2 Journal de la Haute-Cour de Justice et l'Echo des hommes libres, No 31, 6 Ventôse, An V, Supplément.

page 105 note 1 For a good biographic summation of Babeuf's early years, see Mazauric, Claude, Babeuf et la conspiration pour l'égalité (Paris, 1962), pp. 55–71.Google Scholar The most complete account is by Dalin, V. M., Grakch Babef (Moscow, 1963).Google Scholar

page 105 note 2 The Connecticut Courant, July 11, 1796; Greenleaf's New York journal, July 15, 1796; Gazette of the United States, July 13, 1796; The Columbian Centinel (Boston), 07 9, 1796;Google Scholar The Salem Gazette (Mass.), July 12, 1796; United States Chronicle, July 14, 1796. For the titles of the two addresses see p. 98, note 3.

page 105 note 3 Among the newspapers that published or summarized the Acte d'insurrection and related pieces are: The Eastern Herald, August 22, 1796; The Massachusetts Mercury, August 5 and 12, 1796; Greenleaf's New York Journal, August 2 and 9, 1796; New York Argus, August 1, 1796; Gazette of the United States, August 8, 1796; The Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette, August 16, 1796; The Carlisle Weekly Gazette, November 2, 1796; South Carolina State Gazette, November 2, 1796; The Lancaster Journal, June 17, 1796.

page 106 note 1 August 5, 1796.

page 106 note 2 May 19, 1797.

page 106 note 3 April 6 and July 27, 1796.

page 106 note 4 July 4, 1796.

page 107 note 1 The Minerva (New York), April 28, 1797; Aurora, May 2 and August 2, 1797; Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 04 15, 1797;Google Scholar Carlisle Weekly Gazette, August 3, 1797; The Western Star, August 7, 1797; The Albany Gazette, August 7, 1797.

page 107 note 2 New York Herald: A Gazette for the Country, October 22, 1796; The Massachusetts Mercury, October 21, 1796; Gazette of the United States, October 20, 1796; also Aurora, October 4, 1796; The Connecticut Courant, October 31, 1796; The Western Star, November 7, 1796; The Lancaster Journal, October 28, 1796; The Virginia Herald (Fredericksburg), November 1, 1796; Norfolk Herald (Va.), October 31, 1796.

page 107 note 3 See, e.g. The Providence Gazette (R.I.), September 16, 1797.