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English Republicanism in Revolutionary France: The Case of the Cordelier Club

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Rachel Hammersley
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 464 - 481
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2004

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References

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3 Nevertheless, several useful French articles have appeared since the 1980s: Lutaud, O., “Des révolutions d’Angleterre à la Révolution Française: L’exemple de la liberté de presse ou comment Milton ‘ouvrit’ les Etats généraux,” in Colloque international sur la Révolution Française (Clermont-Ferrand, June 1986), pp. 115–25Google Scholar, and “Emprunts de la Révolution française à la première Révolution anglaise,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 37 (1990): 589–607CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomson, A., “La Référence à l’Angleterre dans le débat autour de la République,” in Révolution et République: L’exception française, ed. Vovelle, M. (Paris, 1994), pp. 133–44Google Scholar. (I am grateful to Olivier Lutaud and to Ann Thomson for providing me with copies of their articles.) Monnier, R., “‘Démocratie Representative’ ou ‘République Démocratique’: De la Querelle des Mots (République) à la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 3 (2001) 1–21Google Scholar, and “Républicanisme et Révolution Française,” French Historical Studies 26 (2003): 87–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In addition, several recent Anglophone articles have addressed this issue: Baker, K. M., “Transformations of Classical Republicanism in Eighteenth-Century France,” Journal of Modern History 73 (2001): 32–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. K. Wright, “The Idea of a Republican Constitution in Old Regime France,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, vol. 1, Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, ed. Skinner, Q. and Van Gelderen, M. (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 289–306Google Scholar; Sonenscher, M., “Republicanism, State Finances and the Emergence of Commercial Society in Eighteenth-Century France—or from Royal to Ancient Republicanism and Back,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, vol. 2, The Values of Republicanism in Early Modern Europe, ed. Skinner, Q. and Van Gelderen, M. (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 275–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jainchill, A., “The Constitution of the Year III and the Persistence of Classical Republicanism,” French Historical Studies, 26 (2003): 399–435CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (I am grateful to Kent Wright and Michael Sonenscher for allowing me to see copies of their articles prior to publication.) Keith Baker also provided some support for this approach in his Inventing the French Revolution. Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar.

4 Ludlow, E., Les Mémoires d’Edmond Ludlow,…contenant ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable sous le règne de Charles I jusqu’à Charles II…Traduit de l’anglois (Amsterdam, 1699)Google Scholar; Sidney, A., Discours sur le gouvernement, par Algernon Sidney,…publiez sur l’original manuscrit de l’auteur, traduits de l’anglois par P.A. Samson (La Haye, 1702; reprinted 1755)Google Scholar; “De L’Excellence d’un État Libre, ouvrage traduit de l’Anglois,” in Les Loisirs du Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont Ancien Ministre Plénipotentiaire de France, sur divers sujets importans d’Administration, &c. pendant son séjour en Angleterre, 13 vols. (Amsterdam, 1774), 6:137–399Google Scholar.

5 Bernard, J., Nouvelles de la République (Amsterdam, 1700)Google Scholar, “Discourses concerning Government by Algernon Sidney” (March–May 1700): 243–69, 426–56, 553–79, and “Harrington's Oceana and other works by Toland” (September 1700): 243–63; Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans par M. Monsr B*** Docteur en Droit (Rotterdam, 1702): (1698) 15:271Google Scholar and (1699) 15:521–533 (Ludlow), (1699) 16:78–88, and (1699) 16:242–48 (Milton), (1702) 19:63–75 (Sidney); P. Kemp et al, “Oceana and other works of Harrington by Toland plus an appendix containing those works omitted by Toland,” Bibliothèque Britannique (July–September 1737): 408–30. On the French language Huguenot press see Reesink, H. J., L’Angleterre dans les périodiques français de Hollande, 1684–1709 (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar. On the Huguenots and their connections with the English republican tradition see Jacob, M. C., The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans (London, 1981)Google Scholar.

6 Gordon, T., Discours historiques et politiques sur Tacite, [ed. Daudé, P.], 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1742; reprinted 1749 and 1751)Google Scholar, and Discours historiques et politiques sur Salluste; par feu Mr Gordon, traduits de l’Anglois, par un de ses amis, [ed. Daudé, P.], 2 vols. (Paris, 1759)Google Scholar; [von Holbach, Baron P. H. D.], L’Esprit du Clergé, ou le Christianisme primitif vengé des entreprises & des excès de nos prêtres modernes. Traduit de l’anglois, 2 vols. (London [Amsterdam?], 1767)Google Scholar.

7 On Boulainvilliers see Ellis, H., Boulainvilliers and the French Monarchy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1988)Google Scholar. Mably, , Des droits et des devoirs du citoyen, ed. Cercle, J. L. (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar; see also Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, pp. 86–106, and Wright, J. K., A Classical Republican in Eighteenth-Century France: The Political Thought of Mably (Stanford, Calif., 1997)Google Scholar. [Marat, J-P.], The Chains of Slavery, A Work wherein the Clandestine and Villainous Attempts of Princes to Ruin Liberty are pointed out, and the Dreadful Scenes of Despotism Disclosed, to which is prefixed, An Address to the Electors of Great Britain, in order to draw their Timely Attention to the Choice of Proper Representatives in the Next Parliament (London, 1774)Google Scholar. A French translation was published in Paris in 1793. Marat figures in Baker, “Transformations of Classical Republicanism in Eighteenth-Century France” (pp. 43–47). More generally see Sonenscher, M., Work and Wages (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 333–61Google Scholar and Wright, “The Idea of a Republican Constitution in Old Regime France.” I am currently engaged in research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, examining this prerevolutionary French interest in English republican and commonwealth ideas.

8 St. John, Henry, viscount Bolingbroke, Des Devoirs d’un Roi patriote et portrait des ministres de tous les temps, Ouvrage traduit de l’Anglois de Bolingbroke (Paris, 1790)Google Scholar; Sidney, A., Discours sur le gouvernement, par Algernon Sidney, traduits de l’anglais par P.-A. Samson. Nouvelle édition conforme à celle de 1702 (Paris, 1793)Google Scholar; Gordon, T., Discourses historiques, critiques et politiques…sur Tacite et sur Salluste; traduits de l’Anglois [ed. P. Daudé]. Nouvelle édition, corrigée, 3 vols. (Paris, l’An II [1794])Google Scholar.

9 H.G., comte de Mirabeau, Sur la liberté de la Presse, Imité de l’Anglois de Milton (Londres [Paris], 1788)Google Scholar. The 1792 second edition of this translation has recently been reproduced in C. Tournu, Milton et Mirabeau Rencontre révolutionnaire (2002), pp. 55–92; H.G., comte de Mirabeau, Théorie de la Royauté, d’après la doctrine de Milton (Paris, 1789)Google Scholar. On Mirabeau and his circle see Bénétruy, J., L’Atelier de Mirabeau: Quatre proscrits Genevois dans la tourmente revolutionnaire (Paris, 1962)Google Scholar. Several articles have appeared that deal specifically with Mirabeau's interest in Milton: Wolfe, D. M., “Milton and Mirabeau,” Publications of the Modern Languages Association 49 (1934): 1116–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lutaud, “Des révolutions d’Angleterre à la Révolution Française”; and Davies, T., “Borrowed Language: Milton, Jefferson, Mirabeau,” in Milton and Republicanism, ed. Armitage, D., Himy, A., and Skinner, Q. (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 254–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Harrington's works were also translated during the Revolution: Harrington, J., Oeuvres Politiques de James Harrington, trans. Henry, P. F. (Paris: l'An III [1795])Google Scholar, and Aphorisms Politiques, trans. Aubin, P. F. (Paris, 1795)Google Scholar.

10 Défense du peuple anglais, sur le jugement et la condamnation de Charles premier, roi d’Angleterre, par Milton. Ouvrage propre à éclairer sur la circonstance actuelle où se trouve la France (Valence, 1792)Google Scholar. This translation also appears in Tournu, Milton et Mirabeau, pp. 93–158.

11 H.G., comte de Mirabeau, Histoire de l’Angleterre, Depuis l’Avènement de Jacques 1er Jusqu’à la Révolution, Par Catharine Macaulay Graham. Traduit en Français et Augmentée d’un Discours Préliminaire, Contenant un Précis de l’Histoire de l’Angleterre, jusqu’à l’Avènement de Jacques 1, et enrichie de(s) notes, 5 vols. (Paris, 1791–92)Google Scholar. Mirabeau's translation of Macaulay's History is mentioned in Hill, B., The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian (Oxford, 1992), pp. 214–18Google Scholar.

12 Lettre de Felicitation de Milord Sidney aux Parisiens et à la Nation Françoise, ou Résurrection de Milord Sidney second Coup de Griffe aux Renards de toute Couleur (Paris, 1789)Google Scholar; Histoire de la Republique D’Angleterre d’après Les Mémoires d’Edmond Ludlow l’un des Principaux Chefs des Républicains Anglais Contenant: La Narration des Faits qui ont Précédé Accompagné et suivi ces Momens Lucides de la Nation Anglaise. Par un Républicain (Paris, l'An II [1794])Google Scholar.

13 See Clapham, J. H., The Abbé Sieyès (Westminster, 1912)Google Scholar; Smith, H. Russell, Harrington and His Oceana (Cambridge, 1914), pp. 205–15Google Scholar; Liljegren, S. B., ed., A French Draft Constitution of 1792 Modelled on James Harrington's Oceana (Lund, 1932), pp. 44–79Google Scholar; Trevor, D., “Some Sources of the Constitutional Theory of the Abbé Sieyès: Harrington and Spinoza,” Politica 1 (1935): 325–42 and 443–69Google Scholar; and Forsyth, M., Reason and Revolution: The Political Thought of the Abbé Sieyes (Leicester, 1987)Google Scholar.

14 Quoted in Aulard, F.-A., “Danton au District des Cordeliers et à la Commune de Paris,” in Etudes et Leçons sur la Révolution Française, ed. Aulard, F.-A., 4th series (Paris, 1904), p. 117Google Scholar. The translations throughout are my own. On the Cordeliers see also Bougeart, A., Les Cordeliers: Documents pour servir à l’histoire de la Révolution Française (Caen, 1891)Google Scholar; F.-A. Aulard, “Danton au Club des Cordeliers et au département de Paris,” in Aulard, ed., Études et Leçons sur la Révolution Française, pp. 128–52; Mathiez, A., Le Club des Cordeliers Pendant la Crise de Varennes et le Massacre du Champ de Mars (Paris, 1910)Google Scholar; Robertson, G. M., “The Society of the Cordeliers and the French Revolution, 1790–1794” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1972)Google Scholar; Gueniffey, P., “Girondins and Cordeliers: A Prehistory of the Republic?” trans. Mason, L., in The Invention of the Modern Republic, ed. Fontana, B. (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 86–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Guilhaumou and R. Monnier, “Les Cordeliers et la République de 1793,” in Vovelle, ed., Révolution et République: L’exception française, pp. 200–12; R. Monnier, “Cordeliers, Sans-culottes et Jacobins,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française (1995), pp. 249–60; De Cock, J., Les Cordeliers dans la Révolution française, vol. 1, Lineaments (Lyon, 2001)Google Scholar; Hammersley, R., “The Influence of English Republican Ideas on the Political Thought of the Cordelier Club” (D.Phil. diss., University of Sussex, 2002)Google Scholar. This thesis is forthcoming under the title French Revolutionaries and English Republicans: The Cordeliers Club, 1790–1794 (Woodbridge).

15 On the earlier incarnation of the club see Moniteur universel, Réimpression de l’ancien Moniteur; seule histoire authentique et inaltéré de la Révolution française; depuis la réunion des Etats-Généraux jusqu’au Consulat (mai 1789-novembre 1799), 32 vols. (Paris, 1847–79) 4:279Google Scholar; Mathiez, Le Club des Cordeliers, pp. 1–2.

16 “Adresse aux Parisiens,” in Journal du Club des Cordeliers, ed. Momoro, A. F. (Paris, 1791), no. 10, pp. 87–88Google Scholar.

17 Ibid., p. 88.

18 Desmoulins, C., La France Libre (Paris, 1789), p. 38Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., p. 45.

20 de la Vicomterie de Saint Samson, L., Du Peuple et des Rois (Paris, 1790)Google Scholar; Robert, F., Républicanisme adapté à la France (Paris, 1790)Google Scholar.

21 Robert, Républicanisme adapté à la France, pp. 1–2.

22 Desmoulins, La France Libre, p. 46.

23 La Vicomterie, Du Peuple et des Rois, p. 23.

24 Robert, Républicanisme adapté à la France, p. 87.

25 Desmoulins, C., Révolutions de France et de Brabant, 7 vols. (Paris, 1789–91) 7:108Google Scholar.

26 Robert, Républicanisme adapté à la France, p. 90.

27 Ibid., pp. 93–94.

28 Ibid., p. 88.

29 Girardin, R., Discours de René Girardin sur la nécessité de la ratification de la loi par la volonté générale (Paris, [1791])Google Scholar. Girardin had been a friend of Jean Jacques Rousseau. It was he who offered Rousseau a retreat on his land at Ermenonville, and it was also Girardin who, after his friend's death, set about producing an edition of his collected works. Girardin survived the Revolution and died in 1808.

30 Théophile Mandar to Guillaume Tibbatts, 2 September 1790, in Mandar, T., De la souveraineté du peuple et de l’excellence d’un état libre, par Marchamont Néedham, traduit de l’anglois, et enrichi de notes de J.J. Rousseau, Mably, Bossuet, Condillac, Montesquieu, Letrosne, Raynal etc. etc. etc., 2 vols. (Paris, 1790), 2:228Google Scholar.

31 Mandar does not appear to have been aware of the earlier translation by the Chevalier D’Eon de Beaumont.

32 Momoro, ed., Journal du Club des Cordeliers, no. 4, pp. 31–34.

33 Mandar, T., Des Insurrections, ouvrage philosophique et politique sur les rapports des insurrections avec la prospérité des empires (Paris, 1793), p. 579Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 211n.

35 There are various spellings of Rutledge. I have adopted this form throughout, but Rutlidge is also commonly used. A biography of Rutledge was published in France in the early twentieth century: Las Vergnas, R., Chevalier Rutlidge “Gentilhomme Anglais,” 1742–1794 (Paris, 1932)Google Scholar. See also Alger, J. G., Englishmen in the French Revolution (London, 1889), pp. 19–21Google Scholar, and “Rutledge, James or John James,” Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Stephen, L. and Lee, S. (London, 1908–9; reprint of 1895–1900 ed.), 50:518–19Google Scholar; Peyronnet, P., “J. J. Rutlidge,” Revue d’histoire du théâtre 4 (1992): 330–59Google Scholar, and “Rutlidge,” in Dictionnaire des Journalistes, 1600–1789, ed. Sgard, J., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1999), 2: 891–93Google Scholar.

36 Rutledge, J. J., Éloge de Montesquieu (Londres, 1786)Google Scholar.

37 [Rutledge, J. J.], Calypso, ou les Babillards, Par Une Société de Gens du Monde et de Gens de Lettres, 3 vols. (Paris, 1785), 3:313–359Google Scholar.

38 Ibid, 3:221.

39 Rutledge, J. J., Le Creuset, Ouvrage Politique et Critique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1791)Google Scholar.

40 Idées sur l’espèce de gouvernement populaire qui pourrait convenir à un pays de l’étendue et de la population présumée de la France (Paris, 1792)Google Scholar. A copy of the work appears in the Archives Parlementaires for 17 April 1793. Madival, M. and Laurent, E., Archives Parlementaires, 1787–1860, 1st series, 99 vols. (vols. 1–82, Paris, 1879–1914; vols. 83–99, Paris, 1961–95), 62:548–65Google Scholar. It has also been reproduced in Liljegren, A French Draft Constitution, pp. 103–76. All quotations will be from the Archives Parlementaires version, since it is the most accessible.

41 Liljegren, A French Draft Constitution, p. 80.

42 Essai d’une déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen et Quelques pensées sur l’unité du Législateur, Par l’auteur des Idées sur la Constitution Populaire etc. (Paris: l' An I [1792]), p. 12Google Scholar.

43 Harrington, J., The Political Works of James Harrington, ed. Pocock, J. G. A. (Cambridge, 1977), p. 842Google Scholar. A more detailed account of these borrowings, together with a discussion of the authorship of the works presented by Le Sueur to the National Convention, can be found in Hammersley, “The Influence of English Republican Ideas,” pp. 159–90.

44 Desmoulins himself published a newspaper in 1793–94, that explicitly referred back to early Cordelier ideas and that drew directly on Thomas Gordon's Discourses on Tacitus, itself a Commonwealth work. Desmoulins, C., Le Vieux Cordelier (Paris, 1793–94)Google Scholar. See also Hammersley, R., “Camille Desmoulins's Le Vieux Cordelier: A Link between English and French Republicanism,” History of European Ideas 27 (2001): 115–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Nedham, M., The Excellency of a Free State (London, 1767), pp. 38–39Google Scholar. Italics added.

46 Mandar, De la Souveraineté du Peuple, 1:98. Italics added.

47 Nedham, The Excellency of a Free State, p. 106.

48 Mandar, De la Souveraineté du Peuple, 2:61. Italics added.

49 Nedham, The Excellency of a Free State, p. 38. Italics added.

50 Madival and Laurent, Archives Parlementaires, 62:553.

51 Ibid., 62:553–54.

52 Harrington, The Political Works of James Harrington, pp. 226–27.

53 Madival and Laurent, Archives Parlementaires, 62:549.

54 Ibid., 62:552.

55 The Jacobin domination of recent accounts of revolutionary republicanism is particularly evident in Furet, F. and Ozouf, M., eds., A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, trans. Goldhammer, A. (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)Google Scholar. See also Furet, F., “Revolution française et tradition jacobine,” in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 2, The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. Lucas, C. (Oxford, 1988), pp. 329–39Google Scholar.

56 See, in particular, Blum, C., Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986)Google Scholar.

57 Whatmore, R., Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say's Political Economy (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar.

58 Livesey, J., Making Democracy in the French Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)Google Scholar.