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Sully, the Press, and the Pursuit of Power
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
The Wars of Religion in France greatly stimulated the use of printing for partisan purposes. Books and pamphlets proliferated as France's internal divisions deepened. Several generations of historians have studied the content and tried to assess the impact of the propaganda issuing from the pens of royalist, Huguenot, and Leaguer polemicists. But another use of the press, the promotion of a royal minister's career and policy, has received little attention. In a recent study of Richelieu, William F. Church remarks: ‘For several generations, French statesmen had been aware of the power of the press to influence public opinion, but Richelieu was one of the first to use it systematically and effectively for promoting his views and himself.’ Church is referring to Richelieu's use of the writings of François Langlois de Fancan to promote his views and to secure his appointment as first minister to Louis XIII in 1624.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1975
References
1 See Hauser, Henri, Les sources de l'histoire de France, xvie siècle (1494-1610) (Paris, 1906-15), iii, 18–23 Google Scholar, iv. 11-18 , for a discussion of pamphlet literature. On holdings in American libraries, see Lindsay, Robert O. and Neu, John, French Political Pamphlets, 1547-1648 (Madison, 1969).Google Scholar
2 For a recent example, see Myriam Yardeni's La conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion (1559-1598) (Paris-Louvain, 1971), which examines the growth of patriotism expressed in the literature of the period. She alludes to ‘the abundant harvest of pamphlets’ (p. 44).
3 Richelieu and Reason of State (Princeton, 1972), p. 98.
4 ‘Fancan rendered Richelieu a supreme service by publishing La voix publique which decisively influenced opinion in his favor and was an important factor in bringing about his appointment as First Minister’ (p. 100).
5 Buisseret, David, Sully and the Growth of Centralized Government in France, 1598-1610 (London, 1968)Google Scholar, is the best study of Sully's career.
6 Ibid., p. 202.
7 Luat (1537-1623) was a secretary of Henry IV ‘who attached himself to Sully, who always showed him much respect and confidence. We know no more about his life’ ( Eugene, and Haag, Emile, La France protestante [Paris, 1881], iii, 739 Google Scholar). That he served Sully is shown in two letters of Henry to Sully, March 14, 1594, de Xivrey, Berger, ed., Lettres missives de Henri IV (Paris, 1843-76), iv, 112–113.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as LM.
8 There are no copies of Le Confident in either the Bibliothèque nationale or the British Museum. As Yardeni remarked: ‘A great many pamphlets described by historians or by memoirists have totally disappeared and are known only by these descriptions.’ Conscience nationale, p. 9.
9 Contarini, February 1,1599, Bibliothèque nationale (Paris), Fonds Italien 1747, fols. 181-181v, hereafter cited as F. It. Gustave Brunet, Aimé-Louis Champollion, et al., eds., Memoires-joumaux de Pierre de l'Estoile (Paris, 1875-96), vii, 184-185, hereafter cited as Mémoires-journaux. Marbault, , ‘Remarques sur les memoires …’ in Michaud, and Poujoulat, , eds., Nouvelle collection des mimoirespour servir a Vhistoire de France (Paris, 1850), Second series, in, 35.Google Scholar
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11 Contarini, February 1, 1599, F. It. 1747, fol. 181; Memoires-journaux, vii, 184.
12 Sully to du Plessis-Mornay, December 12, 1598, Anguis and la Fontenelle de Vaudoré, eds., Mémoires et correspondance de du Plessis-Mornay (Paris, 1824-25), ix, 196.
13 See Gaudet, J., Henri IV, sa vie, son oeuvre, ses écrits (Paris, 1879), pp. 262–272 Google Scholar, for a discussion of Henry's epistolary style. Buisseret, Sully, remarks that ‘many of Sully's falsehoods and fantasies announce themselves by the way in which he uses his own convoluted syntax in passages attributed to others, who might have been expected to write more elegantly’ (p. 2).
14 Ibid.; Pfister, Charles, ‘Les Économies royales de Sully,’ Revue historique, 54 (1894), 300–323 Google Scholar; 55 (1894), 67-82, 291-302; 56 (1894), 39-48, 304-339 passim; Dickerman, Edmund H., ‘The Man and the Myth in Sully's “Économies royales,” ’ French Historical Studies, 7 (Spring 1972), 307–331 and passim. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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16 L'Estoile mentioned Sully's and Luat's collaboration as late as March 1609, Mémoires-journaux, ix, 229.
17 Dickerman, ‘The Man and the Myth,’ pp. 327-329.
18 Buisseret, , Sully, pp. 44–45 Google Scholar; Dickerman, ‘The Man and the Myth,’ pp. 326-327.
19 For an account of the clash and documentation, see my ‘Henry IV, the Duel and the Battle Within,’ Societas - A Review of Social History, 3 (Summer 1973), 211-212.
20 Memoires-journaux, vii, 151.
21 On Montmorency, see Palm, Franklin C., Politics and Religion in Sixteenth Century France: A Study of the Career of Henry of Montmorency-Damville, Uncrowned King of the South (Boston, 1927).Google Scholar
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23 Henry to Montmorency, LM, v, 34-61 passim. On October 3, the king wrote: ‘In abandoning yourself to grief you are imitating more the courage of women rather than that of a man, which you must be and show yourself to be’ (LM, v, 41).
24 There is no scholarly biography of Cheverny. Henri Vibraye's Le Chancelier Cheverny (Paris, 1932) is based almost entirely on his memoirs. Durand, Yvres, ‘Phillippe Hurault de Cheverny,’ in Mousnier, Roland, Le Conseil d Roi de Louis XII à la Revolution (Paris, 1970), pp. 69–86 Google Scholar, focuses on his family connections.
25 Once when charged with profiting from his offices, Cheverny heatedly denied enriching himself (Cheverny to the duke of Nevers, April 7, 1588, Bibliothèque nationale, Fonds Français 3407, fol .63); Contarini, August 7, 1599, F. It. 1748, fol. 80, claimed that Cheverny was born poor and died leaving a fortune to his offspring. Durand, ‘Cheverny,’ pp. 83-86, suggests that the family fortune was restored by the chancellor.
26 Contarini, January 17, 1598, F. It. 1746, fol. 198V; June 11, August 7, 1599, F. It. 1748, fols. 55v–56, 80. ‘He was hated by His Majesty… .’
27 LM, v, 50-71 passim; on the importance of Henry's physical well-being for his mental ease, see my ‘Henry IV and the Juliers-Clèves Crisis: The Psychohistorical Aspects,’ French Historical Studies, 8 (1974), 626-653.
28 Palm, , Politics and Religion, pp. 244–252.Google Scholar
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30 Contarini, August 7, 1599, F. It. 1748, fols. 55v-56.
31 Dickerman, , Bellièvre and Villeroy, pp. 32–35.Google Scholar