French Emigres Research Articles

“Bitter Memory” Meets “Dark Retrospect”: Charlotte Smith, Satan, and the Politics of Nostalgia in The Emigrants

ABSTRACT Charlotte Smith’s The Emigrants (1793), a blank verse critique of Revolutionary France during the Terror, probes the unstable connections between sentiment, nostalgia, and political will, especially in the context of gendered political engagement. To do so, Smith aligns herself with Milton’s Satan. She uses this most subversive of Paradise Lost’s characters as a model for articulating her own republican ideals and nostalgic sentiment, which both undermines and feeds her political engagement in the French Emigration Crisis. Comparing passages from The Emigrants and Paradise Lost, I argue that Smith expresses a nostalgia imbued with satanic despair to glean the political use-value of memory. Can politics – especially of a marginalized person – ever be nostalgic, or must it focus on future reform? I argue that Smith’s satanic nostalgia protests the limited forms of political engagement for women in the period, the demands of charity on women, and their social disenfranchisement.

Enterprising Émigrés of the Channel Islands

During the French Revolution, thousands of French refugees migrated through the Channel borderlands. At least four thousand settled there. The Channel Island of Jersey served as the loci of migration where economic life operated under “refugeedom,” a polity both apart from and particular to state authority. Refugeedom—in its alterity—suggests a matrix of economic conditions, legal codes, and social relations that can explain the lives of people in the French Revolution’s emigration. This study of economic migration offers a way to reframe the French emigration as opportunism and resilience. Refugeedom serves as the analytic framework to understand economic migration, not only as a political crisis of displaced people in the midst of revolution—those seeking refuge from war, persecution, famine, and other hardships—but also as part of a strategy of survival, one that includes the economic migration of labor.

La marchandisation de l’émigration française au Brésil: la Maison Beaucourt, 1857-1859

Cet article interroge l’importance de l’émigration “sous contrat” dans la mise en place d’un marché global de la force de travail dans l’Atlantique du XIXe siècle. Il s’appuie sur le cas du contrat signé en 1857 entre la maison de commerce Beaucourt et Cie (Paris) et l’Association Centrale de Colonisation (Rio de Janeiro), et les conflits auquel il a donné lieu. Des ambitions initiales de constitution d’un réservoir de main d’œuvre aux dénonciations de traite des blancs, ce cas illustre la duplicité de l’engagisme.

Les foyers éclatés : Les émigrés français à l’île de Jersey et le facteur genre de l’exil

This essay focuses on the temporary settlement of refugees on the Channel Island of Jersey during the French Revolution, analyzing this borderland community with a gendered lens. Until recently, French historians have depicted the emigration as a direct response to French and British anti-émigré legislation and rhetoric, each wave contingent upon the political climate in France. This perspective, however, misses much of the complexity of Jersey’s unique place in the emigration as a French speaking island along the Brittany coast with a British military presence. A social analysis of this emigration from western and northern France to the Channel Island of Jersey reveals the complex motives of household migration and the realities of temporary exile in a fractured world. Domestic ruptures among these French emigrants were met with a mixed response from the host country (Britain) and the local authorities who managed these refugees. Viewing their losses evoked a crisis of masculinity and demanded a humanitarian response that highlighted female fragility.

Charles de Villers, avocat de Fichte dans le Spectateur du Nord (1799). Un plaidoyer pour la liberté de pensée ?

The study deals with an article by Charles de Villers (1765-1815) published in Le Spectateur du Nord (June 1799), a journal printed in Hamburg and also known as an organ of French emigrants. This article, entitled “Metaphysicien publiquement accuse d’atheisme”, is an advocacy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Philosophy as part of the Atheism dispute. The study first addresses the different stages of the dispute and Fichte’s philosophical development in the field of religious doctrine. A second part focuses on the analysis of Villers’ arguments. Finally, the study attempts to establish the specificity of Villers’ position, which takes on the symbolic dimension of a plea for the freedom of thought, in a key period of the Late Enlightenment, when even the concept of God was called into question.

‘L’île des bannis’: Jersey, Britain and the French Emigration 1789–1815

ABSTRACT The case of the Channel Island of Jersey is an important yet understudied part of the British Empire’s response to the French Emigration 1789–1815. During its high point in 1792–3, the émigré population in and around Jersey’s main town of St Helier was as large as that in London and one of the European centres of political migration. This article explores the complicated relationship between Jersey’s political institutions, the British military authorities in London, the British government and the émigré community. It shows how a brewing humanitarian crisis in the island prompted the British government to sanction subsistence payments in Jersey and enlist Royalist émigrés months before these policies were adopted in Britain. But British support was intimately bound up with the émigrés’ anti-Revolutionary military activities, as much as humanitarian concerns. The forced expulsion of most émigrés to Britain in summer 1796 resulted not from concerns about the wellbeing of the émigré community in face of imminent French invasion, but concerns about the Royalists’ military loyalties. During the Napoleonic Wars, British policy towards the émigrés lacked coherence and was not categorized by overriding humanitarian goals, though such concerns did compete with strategic ones.

Francuscy emigranci w pruskiej kolonii Wymysłów w latach 1797-1800

Wymyslow Folwark wchodzil w sklad dobr pabianickich, ktore do 1795r. nalezaly do krakowskiej kapituly katedralnej. W wyniku II i III rozbioru Polski wraz z innymi terytoriami Rzeczypospolitej zostaly zajete przez Prusy. Weszly w sklad utworzonych Prus Poludniowych, ktore staly sie celem pruskiej akcji osadniczej. Przejete majątki ziemskie podzielono na gospodarstwa tworząc nowe kolonie. Wymyslow byl jedną z takich osad, ktora zostala utworzona w wyniku parcelacji Wymyslowa Folwark. Nie zostala ona jednak zasiedlona typowymi pruskimi osadnikami. Fryderyk Wilhelm II, krol pruski, w 1796r. wyrazil zgode, aby podzielone na terenie Wymyslowa grunty zasiedlili francuscy emigranci opuszczający swoj kraj z powodu rewolucji (1789-1799). Byla to grupa arystokratow, wśrod ktorych znajdowal sie Stanislaw Jean de Boufflers. Nadanie ziemi przedstawicielom francuskiej arystokracji sluzylo nie tylko pruskiej polityce zasiedlania zajetych ziem, ale i stanowilo realizacje jednego z zalozen polityki wladz pruskich wobec emigrantow z Francji. Dotyczylo ono rozdzielania uciekinierow, aby nie tworzyli wiekszych skupisk w jednym miejscu. Byl to takze efekt nawiązanej znajomości i kontaktow S. J. de Boufflersa z krolem pruskim. Artykul przedstawia powstanie kolonii Wymyslow w ramach pruskiej akcji kolonizacyjnej i polityki emigracyjnej, zasad tworzenia i funkcjonowania nowych osad, porusza aspekty związane ze zjawiskiem emigracji francuskiej jako doświadczenia w wymiarze zbiorowym i indywidualnym oraz w kontekście rewolucyjnego prawodawstwa.

Crimea in the Era of Napoleon: the ‘French trace’ in regional politics

When the Crimea acquired the status of Russian territory in 1783, it became an imperial ‘borderland’ a long way from Saint Petersburg. However, in the geopolitical aspirations of European powers, and, also, from the viewpoint of the Russian Empire, the Crimea was not a remote periphery. The Russian government consistently sought to attract colonists from abroad to the thinly-populated Black Sea region. Several attempts to do so ended in failure; one of these was the organization of farming colonies at the Sea of Azov for French royalist emigrants and military men from Condé’s army. In the era of Napoleon, France paid particular attention to the peninsula; in the complicated foreign policy conditions, France did not miss any opportunity to reconnoitre the internal situation of this potentially unstable province of Russia, with the goal to infl uence the position of the Ottomans towards this territory which at that time was largely populated by Muslims. The author emphasizes that an important aspect of Napoleon’s foreign policy was supporting anti-Russian sentiment in the Ottoman Empire. One of the obvious means to achieve this goal was focusing on the Crimea issue and promising assistance for returning the peninsula into the Ottoman sphere of infl uence. The Russian authorities did not neglect these attempts and countered them skilfully. The author argues that the success of Russia’s policy in the Crimea was mainly related to certain Frenchmen in Russian service. During the Russian-Ottoman confl ict of 1806-1812, the military and administrative measures conducted by Armand de Richelieu, the Governor of New Russia, and Jean de Traversay, the commander of the Black Sea Navy, became an important factor for providing a stable situation within the peninsula.

Features of the expatriation of French citizens: reasons, main directions

The article deals with the current state of the French emigration from France. It specifies the definition of this category of persons, in particular, the possibility of considering them “the French Diaspora”. It is emphasized that the distinctive feature of the French presence abroad is a developed network of cultural and educational institutions, “export” of the image of “brilliant France”, certain cultural and ideological values, lifestyle, “the art of living in French”, French products. Statistics on the number of French expatriates abroad and their distribution by country are provided. The reasons for moving of French people abroad are considered in detail: economic, professional, family. There are analyzed the features of “educational”, “professional” emigration, in particular to the USA. The characteristics of the “typical” French expatriate and his living conditions outside France are given. There are considered the measures that could contribute to the return of French researchers and young specialists to their homeland and get them interested in their work in France. First of all, this refers to formation of policies that would ensure mobility of scientists, researchers and teachers. It is planned to develop special contracts and programs aimed at returning postdoctoral students. The idea of creating an open data Bank on the French scientific and academic community, including in the United States, to establish closer ties and establish cooperation between the communities of scientists and specialists is popular. There is also a clear need to address the lack of statistics on the exact number of French researchers, scientists and information on their further employment. The article shows why strengthening ties with French expatriates should be one of the priorities of the French foreign policy.

French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution by Juliette Reboul

Reviewed by: French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution by Juliette Reboul Christopher Coski Reboul, Juliette. French Emigration to Great Britain in Response to the French Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. ISBN 978-3-319-57995-5. Pp. 268. Reboul's study undertakes a reexamination of the standard notion of Revolutionary emigration as the formation of a discrete community of exiles cut off from their hosts and from any cultural exchange with them. Instead, the work sets out to analyze, on a variety of levels, the ways in which the émigrés and the British natives interacted and [End Page 243] intermingled. Eschewing the traditional texts left behind by financial and political elites of the French Restoration and the British establishment, Reboul focuses on documents for the most part not considered previously. Her extensive research took her to no fewer than nine archives and libraries in France and across Britain, and allowed her access to "classified adverts, passports, addresses and administrative forms [...], open letters and private correspondence, caricatures, printouts of parliamentary legislation translated and distributed to the exiled population, anti-emigration pamphlets" (xxi), along with diaries and memoirs. This unique array of texts allows Reboul to examine the émigrés from a variety of angles, from discursive structure, to ideology, to the "marketing" of their trauma. Reboul offers an excellent synthetic evaluation of the data culled from these myriad sources, and she is skilled at critiquing and contributing to the theoretical frameworks surrounding her topic. Some of the finest and deepest passages in the book are those where Reboul re-considers key terms and concepts related to those frameworks. The only aspect of the work that some readers might consider a shortcoming is the book's lack of extensive narratives of personal experience. While Reboul offers a great amount of detail to support her ideas, this detail often comes across as a series of bullet-point lists reworked into paragraph form. In some places there are too many details given from too many different sources, with no in-depth recounting or discussion of any one source at any particular time. This can render the book somewhat dry and at times can make the text feel stylistically jumpy. Consequently, certain readers may find themselves disengaged from the prose as the data points pile up. This is not a criticism of the book as such. Rather, it is an indicator of the types of readers who will find this book interesting and useful. Generalists, eighteenth-century specialists in other areas, and readers seeking a more vicarious sense of the émigrés' life experience will likely find that this book does not meet their needs. However, Reboul's text is an essential reference for the Revolution history specialist focusing on French emigration to Britain. Such specialists will definitely wish to consult this text. Christopher Coski Ohio University Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French

Образ Крыма в записках французского эмигранта Поля Гибаля

Образ Крыма в записках французского эмигранта Поля Гибаля

История российско-французских отношений в первой четверти XIX в. в документах фонда Жозефа де Местра в Архиве Савойи

The article presents an overview of epistolary heritage and other documents of French thinker, diplomat, and writer Joseph de Maistre, which are stored in the Archive of Savoy (Chambery, France). The Savoy Archive is a major research center which contains in its personal provenance fonds correspondence, essays, notes, and dispatches of J. de Maistre. Chambery was the Savoy thinker’s hometown, a place where his personality and views were formed and where his complex life path began. The authors analyze the main problems that worried J. de Maistre and were reflected in his works and letters which may be found in the archive of Chambery. While working with archival documents, the authors used source studies methods: firstly, such general scientific methods as retrospective and analytical approach; secondly, comparative analyses; thirdly, source studies methods, such as critical and heuristic approach. These methods have allowed to analyze the epistolary legacy of J. de Maistre, to identify the yet unpublished sources and interpret them. All these documents help to reveal the circle of his Russian correspondents. The research allows to interpret the views of the French philosopher, one of the founders of political conservatism. The authors emphasize that it was in Russia that he created his main works that influenced the emerging Russian conservative socio-political thought. The study of archival fonds helps to determine his social circle while serving in Russia (1803-1817) as a Sardinian envoy. The analysis of these documents assesses his influence on the Russian political elite and Emperor Alexander I himself. These documents have great value for a number of reasons. Firstly, they allow to trace the evolution of Joseph de Maistre`s views, his career, social and political activities; secondly, they reflect the Russo-French relations in one of most crucial periods of the European history, that of the Napoleonic wars. The authors point out that formation and evolution of Napoleon Bonaparte's image in Russia was closely connected with the name of Joseph de Maistre. Thus, it is important to study the heritage of the French emigrants, the French at the Russian Emperor’s serve or on a diplomatic mission in St. Petersburg. Studying de Maistre’s views allows not only to monitor his ideological attitudes and their evolution, but also to identify the mechanisms of their adoption in Russia. The accumulated scientific material allows the authors to come to certain conclusions, which are valuable for studying not just J. de Maistre’s views and influence, but also Russo-French relations in the Napoleonic era. Thus, the analysis of archival materials of the J. de Maistre`s fond significantly expands our understanding of international relations in early 19th century, interaction of two cultures, history of the Russian socio-political thought.

Um espelho invertido da República: a correspondência dos diplomatas franceses no Brasil como objeto histórico (1892-1910)

O artigo apresenta resultados do projeto de pesquisa sobre a correspondência diplomática dos franceses no Brasil na Primeira República. Explora-se um campo novo na história das relações internacionais, que são também nutridas pelos imaginários e trocas sociais, abordando a correspondência dos diplomatas como fonte de pesquisa e como objeto de estudo. Analisam-se dois elementos presentes na documentação: a polêmica sobre a autorização da emigração francesa para o Brasil entre 1875 e 1908 e a imagem da organização política brasileira na virada do século XIX para o XX. A República é vista através de um espelho invertido e forjado pelos ministros plenipotenciários ou cônsules franceses, que são também atores sociais plenos, com objetivos, estilos de escrita, opiniões e finalidades próprios. A Primeira República brasileira é compreendida como uma construção e uma representação ultrapassando as fronteiras nacionais.

ШАРЛЬ АНДРЕ ПОЦЦО ДИ БОРГО - КОРСИКАНЕЦ НА РУССКОЙ СЛУЖБЕ, «РЕШИВШИЙ СУДЬБЫ ФРАНЦИИ»

The article is devoted to the study of the worldview and activities of Carlo Andrea Poz-zo di Borgo, the Russian diplomat of Corsican descent. The author considers such aspects as the role and infl uence of Pozzo di Borgo on the foreign policy of Russia in the early 19th cen-tury, on the evolution of the Russian social thought, in particular, its conservative direction.It is also imporant to analyze the very phenomenon of French emigration in Russia in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The French revolution was an important stage of the Russian-French rapprochement. Despite the political and ideological confrontation between the revolutionary France and autocratic Russia, one can observe the development of huma-nitarian relations, intercultural contacts, etc., which was carried out largely due to the French emigrants in the Russian service.In the late 18th - early 19th centuries in Russia, at the invitation of Catherine II and later Paul I, there came a large number of French emigrants-royalists, who, when making an oath of loyalty to the monarchical regime, not only tetained their titles in Russia, but also got high positions in the government, property, position in the society etc. The diplomatic activities of Pozzo di Borgo is an example of such service to «the Second Homeland» - that is, Rus-sia. Pozzo di Borgo played an important role in resolving international issues of Europe after the Napoleoic wars, tried to implement the concept of a stable Europe, in which the primary role was played by the monarchical principles and the legitimacy of the authorities.The general conclusion of the article is the recognition of the contribution of Pozzo di Borgo not only to the settlement of the international issues related to the solution to Euro-pean problems after the Napoleonic wars, but also to the determination of Russia’s position in the world. In the context of the public policy debates that unfolded in Russia in 1830-1840, Pozzo di Borgo’s views played a key role in the evolution of the Russian conservative thought as well as the foreign policy course of Alexander I.

Los emigrados franceses y la evolución del afrancesamiento en España

With the Spanish Bourbons, there was a gradual introduction of Gallic cultural forms that gave rise to Frenchification , or cultural afrancesamiento , which was supported by most of the enlightened elite. The continual upheavals of the French Revolution and of the War of the Pyrenees were to change Spanish life in several of its facets, due in particular to the French emigrants. These exiles –above all, the clergymen– instilled in the popular classes a counterrevolutionary feeling that the Spanish clergy was to turn into a resentment of the French with religious and xenophobic overtones. Such latent prejudices were to reappear in 1808, in part helping to explain the forceful anti-Napoleonic reaction. The afrancesados supported the new Napoleonic Monarchy for political reasons with the purpose of regenerating the country. French residents in Spain from long before had to endure the anger of their Spanish neighbours at the beginning of the war as well as live under the cloak of suspicion.

СУСПІЛЬНО-ПОЛІТИЧНА ДОКТРИНА Ж. де МЕСТРА У ВТІЛЕННІ ІМПЕРСЬКОГО КУРСУ РОСІЇ (кін. XVIII – поч. ХІХ ст.)

Socio-political doctrine of J. de Maistre is studied in the article. The influence of the French emigration factor in the development of the Russian imperial ideology during the late XVIII – early XIX has been analyzed. It is stressed on the importance of J. de Maistre educational concepts for solving personnel problems of the Russian government.

Monarchiens and the monarchy in exile: the situation of the Monarchy in French emigration, 1792-1799

Le debat sur la restauration de la monarchie commence au moment de la chute de Louis XVI en 1792. Il s’est intensifie dans l’emigration francaise. En analysant les relations entre les « monarchiens », monarchistes constitutionnels favorisant un systeme bicameriste, et les Bourbons en exil, cet article montre comment l’idee d’un retablissement de l’Ancien Regime, souvent associe aux emigres, est successivement ecartee par les Bourbons. Les confrontations et cooperations politiques avec les monarchiens demontrent dans quelle mesure la pensee politique du futur Louis XVIII, dans les annees 1790, s’oriente vers une monarchie constitutionnelle qui, deja avant Brumaire, anticipe des elements centraux de la Restauration de 1814.

Anarchist Terrorism and Global Diasporas, 1878–1914

During the quarter century before the First World War, anarchist terrorism was often blamed on the impact of anarchist agitators on naïve immigrants. This article seeks to investigate the truth of this claim, focusing particularly on Italian emigrants, but also looking at some examples of Spanish, French, and Russian emigrants. My conclusion is that, with a few exceptions, radicals emigrated, but emigration did not create radical terrorists. A particularly good example of this can be found by examining the large Italian emigration to Argentina. At most, the emigrant experience may have heightened a pre-existing radicalism or given more precise configuration to its violent expression.

Castorland Journal: An Account of the Exploration and Settlement of Northern New York State by French Emigres in the Years 1793 to 1797 by Simon Desjardins, Pierre Pharoux

Castorland Journal: An Account of the Exploration and Settlement of Northern New York State by French Emigres in the Years 1793 to 1797 by Simon Desjardins, Pierre Pharoux

Le Grand-duche de Varsovie vu par un emigre français ou la relation de cet episode politique dans les Memoires de l'abbe Pochard (1806-1815)

The article by Jeremie Fischer titled The Grand Duchy of Warsaw as Seen by a French Emigrant or an Account of this Political Development in the „Memoires” of Fr. Pochard (1806--1815) presents so far unknown threads of political, social and military developments in the period of 1806-1815 connected with the history of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, of which the French tutor of children from the Skorzewski family was an eye witness. Although the focus of the account contained on the two hundred pages of the diary is largely on the family of Polish landed gentry, due Father Pochard’s many travels and encounters it definitely sheds new light on the historical events pertaining to the history of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and thus the diary becomes a valuable source for research on the history of Poland.