Diplomaties au temps de Napoléon

Abstract

The high points of Napoleonic diplomacy remain both well known and fully integrated into the existing historiography, but very few studies have addressed the wider impact of the Napoleonic endeavour on the development of diplomacy in Europe. Diplomaties au temps de Napoléon represents a pioneering attempt to offer a comprehensive overview of the continuities and discontinuities that marked the transformation of European diplomacy between the early 1790s and 1815. The twenty-five chapters included in this work were initially presented at a conference held in Paris in March 2014. Summing up the conference’s overall objective, Yves Bruley explains that the time had come to examine the development of diplomacy by looking beyond the two big trees—Napoleon and Talleyrand—that have obstructed the view of the larger forest for too long. The first part of the book covers French diplomacy between the Revolution and the Empire. Yves Bruley emphasizes that the term diplomatie first entered the French language during the early 1790s, when its application to the realm of international relations departed from the pre-revolutionary emphasis on aristocratic negotiation and the accompanying courtly intrigues. However, Patrice Gueniffey rejects the view that the revolutionary period brought about a complete break in the practice of diplomacy, but he argues nonetheless that the republican government’s ideas about legitimacy led to the emergence of a new form of diplomacy, which later became increasingly marked by a military logic during Napoleon’s rise to power. The second part of the book presents a re-examination of the French ministry of foreign affairs through an analysis of the roles played by Talleyrand’s many associates. Continuing with the focus of lesser-known figures, the third part of the work contains an extensive analysis of the French diplomatic corps, as well as the shifting practice of diplomacy, which, as Michel Kerautret points out, initially preserved the pre-revolutionary tradition of congresses during the early 1800s and later succumbed to Bonaparte’s interventionist approach and penchant for centralization. The fourth part contains an illuminating discussion of Napoleon’s attitude towards the droit des gens , which he perceived as a type of moderating force that softened the harshness of the droit de la guerre . In this respect, Thierry Lentz argues that Bonaparte’s views on international law gradually led him to a reaffirmation of the traditional preference for the primacy of treaties and their written formulas. In other words, for Napoleon, the treaties’ texts came to represent laws that conditioned relations between nations and between sovereigns. Finally, the last part of the book examines the attempts of Russian, British and Italian diplomats to resist Napoleon’s domination of the continent. In the concluding chapter, Georges-Henri Soutou claims that Napoleon did not seek to reorganize Europe because he relied neither on the model of a Westphalian equilibrium nor the revolutionary droit des peuples . Instead, he opted for a general unilateralism that combined elements of traditional monarchism with the politics of the family.