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• W2091553386 abstract "Abstract This article seeks to explore the European debate on commercial nobility at the beginning of the Seven Years War in the light of the intense reform debates over French absolutism in the 1730s and 1740s and Montesquieu's rigid refutation of noble trade in The Spirit of the Laws (1748). In early 1756, Montesquieu's position against noble trade had come under severe attack by Gabriel François Coyer's Noblesse Commerçante. Claiming that the royal absolutist system had transformed the nobles into an idle class without any political, economic, or military function that stood in sharp contrast to the dynamism of modern commercial society, Coyer perceived noble enterprises in maritime, wholesale, and even retail trade as a necessary means to help France compete with commercially more advanced states such as England and Holland. Coyer's pamphlet roused heated controversies in Paris and beyond and soon engaged the leading minds of the time in debates over the actual and desired role of the hereditary aristocracy in monarchies. Coyer's strongest opponents, like the Chevalier d’Arc, vehemently defended Montesquieu's contention that the upkeep of the non-commercial status of the nobility was a political necessity. Yet they, too, conceded that the nobility had to undergo severe reforms not to hamper France's military standing and future economic success. The article finally turns to Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, the most interesting commentator on the debate in Germany, who, by October 1756, had translated Coyer's and d’Arc's texts into German and written an own treatise on the same issue. Justi's pamphlet reveals that his political theory was deeply shaped by the debate and thus disproves the long-held assumption in the literature that German cameralism, with Justi as its main representative, was an allegedly isolated current of thought that neither received significant external influences, nor exerted any considerable impact beyond the boundaries of the Germanic world. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr. Istvan Hont for his help and comments on this article. Notes 1 Friedrich Melchior Freiherr von Grimm and Denis Diderot (eds.), Correspondance littéraire, 6 volumes (Paris, 1813), II, 76f. 2 Leonhard Adams, Coyer and the Enlightenment (Banbury, 1974), p. 33. 3 Gabriel François Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante (Paris, 1756). 4 Correspondance littéraire, I, 486–500. Paul Auguste de Sainte Foix, Chevalier d’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire ou le Patriote françois (Amsterdam, 1756). 5 Victor Riquetti, Marquis de Mirabeau, L’Ami des hommes, ou traité de la population, 6 volumes (The Hague, 1758–62), II, 3–10. 6 François Quesnay, ‘Impôts’, in: François Quesnay et la physiocratie, 2 volumes, edited by the Institut National d’Études Démographiques (Paris, 1958), II, 579–617. 7 Gabriel François Coyer, Développement et défense du système de ‘La Noblesse Commerçante’, 2 volumes (Paris, 1757). D’Arc had previously widened his views in the Histoire générale des guerres divisées en trois époques, 2 volumes (Paris, 1756). 8 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, in: Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (ed.), Der handelnde Adel, dem der kriegerische Adel entgegengesetzt wird (Göttingen, 1756), pp. 243–288. Sir James Steuart, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, 2 volumes, edited by Andrew S. Skinner (Oxford, 1966), I, 70f. John Brown, An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, 2 volumes (London, 1757–8), I, 205–207. 9 Joseph von Sonnenfels, ‘Versuch über das Verhältnis der Stände’, in: Politische Abhandlungen, 2 volumes (Vienna, 1777), II, 122–125. Denis Fonvizin, Torgujuscee dvorjanstvo protivu polozennoe dvorjanstvo voenomu (St. Petersburg, 1766). A Spanish translation of Coyer's treatise from as late as 1781 gives proof of the lasting impact of the issue outside France. 10 For a detailed account of the French dérogeance laws see: R.B. Grassby, ‘Social Status and Commercial Enterprise under Louis XIV’, in: The Economic History Review 13 (1960–61), pp. 19–38. For general overviews of the 1756 debate see: Edgar Deptire, ‘Le système et la querelle de la “Noblesse Commerçante”, in: Revue d’histoire économique et sociale 6 (1913), pp. 137–176. Jacqueline Hecht, ‘Un problème de population active au XVIIIe siècle, en France: La querelle de la noblesse commerçante’, in: Population [INED] 19 (1964), pp. 267–289. John Mackrell, The Attack on ‘Feudalism’ in Eighteenth-Century France (London, 1973), pp. 85–100. None of these interpretations has offered a detailed analysis of the contributors’ writings and their indebtedness to Montesquieu. The European response to the debate has not yet been considered at all. Kiyoji Kisaki (‘Controversy on the Noblesse Commerçante between Abbé Coyer and Chevalier d’Arcq’, in: The Kyoto University Economic Review 49 (1979), pp. 48–79) and Jay M. Smith (‘Social Categories, The Language of Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution: The Debate over noblesse commerçante’, in: The Journal of Modern History 72 (2000), pp. 339–374) explore Coyer's and d’Arc's contribution in detail, though under a very different angle. 11 Supported by the existing regulations, a small number of wealthier nobles (many of whom had enjoyed recent ennoblement) had managed to amass large fortunes by investing into companies enjoying royal exemptions or monopolies. Some of them had even started to engage secretly into retail trade with the aid of employed agents. Parallel to that, however, the economic situation of the growing number of poor country nobles (the hoberaux) had continued to deteriorate dramatically. For them, wholesale trade was unthinkable due to lacking capital, not to mention the absence of business-related knowledge and education. Cf. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, translated by William Doyle (Cambridge, 1985), p. 92. 12 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 114. 13 The aristocracy, on the one hand, would keep the people from having ‘the upper hand too much’, hence depriving popular leaders from the expectation of being able to rise to power and overturn the state (Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, translated by Anne Cohler Basia Miller, and Harold Stone (Cambridge, 1989) Book V, Chapter 11). On the other hand, their autonomous rank within the state as well as their independent code of honour would save them from falling prey to blind obedience to the prince. The nobility could thus effectively block the direct communication of power between ruler and subjects that was typical of despotic governments. Montesquieu offered two examples of this limited noble obedience in Book IV, Ch. 2: ‘Crillon refused to assassinate the Duke of Guise, but he proposed to Henry III that he engaged the duke in battle. After Saint Bartholomew's Day, when Charles IX had sent orders to all the governors to have the Huguenots massacred, the Viscount of Orte, who was in command at Bayonne, wrote to the king, “Sire, I have found among the inhabitants and the warriors only good citizens, brave soldiers, and not one executioner; thus, they and I together beg Your Majesty to use our arms and our lives for things that can be done.” This great and generous courage regarded a cowardly action as an impossible thing.’ 14 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book XX, Ch. 21: ‘It is against the spirit of commerce for the nobility to engage in it in a monarchy’, and it is ‘against the spirit of monarchy for the nobility to engage in commerce.’ Economically, noble trade would be without ‘any utility to commerce’. For this problematic see also: Donald A. Desserud, ‘Commerce and Political Participation in Montesquieu's Letter to Domville’. in: History of European Ideas 25 (1999), pp. 135–151. 15 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book V, Ch. 8. In the first case, the nobility—by trading—would be tempted to enlarge their constitutionally distinct standing in the state by abusing their politically privileged position to establish economic privileges in commerce, too. Such a development, however, would hamper the flourishing of trade and deprive commerce of its beneficial, i.e. doux effects. The nobility, in stretching their legitimate political distinction by additional economic privileges would receive a too large share of a power in the state, which would then destroy the constitutional balance and result in aristocratic tyranny. On the other hand, the nobles could adopt a commoner's status in trade and claim their privileges only apart from their commercial activities. Montesquieu, however, feared that such unprivileged economic standing would inevitably have dangerous repercussions on their constitutional privileges. In his eyes, the levelling force of markets were too strong so that the nobility, once it had become open to its attack by trading, would not be able to resist it in the long term. The nobility's commercial engagements would hence irreversibly cause their decline in political power. 16 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book XX, Ch. 21. 17 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book II, Ch. 4. 18 Coyer pointed at the obvious anachronistic nature of the nobility's privileges: ‘What would become of our privileges if we traded? …Why would you not keep them? You could, as in the past, sport your coat of arms and murmur against the middle classes who assume them; speak about your ancestors to those who do not question you…challenge to, or accept, a duel; keep your exemption of the taille, on condition that you pay under another name…pay your salutations to people and birth; hunt inconsiderately over the farmer's crops; beat and belabour those good people; and in case of need be decapitated, instead of perishing bourgeois-fashion by the rope’. (Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 163f.) According to Coyer's ironic description, most of the nobles did not do a lot more than walking ‘around in great numbers in the towns and in the country not knowing what to do with their existence.’ And, he went on, ‘when they finally start being bored in their vegetation they take up foreign military service and turn their arms against France’. (Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 48) 19 Both Saint-Pierre and d’Argenson were greatly influenced by the quarrel between Henri de Boulainvilliers and Jean Baptiste Dubos over the nature and origin of French feudalism in the 1720s and 30s, which can, however, not be discussed here in detail. See: Elie Carcassonne, Montesquieu et le problème de la constitution française au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: 1930). Harold A. Ellis, Boulainvilliers and the French Monarchy. Aristocratic Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century France (Ithaca, 1988). Herbert Hömig, ‘Der Marquis d’Argenson und das Problem der “Demokratie” unter dem Absolutismus’, in: René Louis Marquis d’Argenson, Politische Schriften, edited and translated by Herbert Hömig (Munich, 1985), pp. 9–28. 20 Saint-Pierre in his ‘Observations politiques sur le gouvernement des rois de France’ (1734) fully approved of Louis XIV's single-minded attempt to establish a greater governmental centralisation in France, and welcomed the fact that ‘practically the whole power of the grands was destroyed’ under his reign to be ‘wisely reunited to the ministry alone.’ (Harold A. Ellis, ‘Montesquieu's Modern Politics. “The Spirit of the Laws” and the Problem of Modern Monarchy in Old Regime France’, in: History of Political Thought 10 (1989), pp. 665–700, p. 680) And even though, as a result, France was now ‘governed in a manner more despotic’, the absolutist reforms had nevertheless caused a greater and more ‘durable domestic tranquillity’, which was ‘much more desirable for subjects than less despoticité in government and a greater number of petty perpetual powers and despots ready to disturb tranquillity by their resistance and by their contrariety of their opinions about good and bad government.’ (Quoted from: Charles-Irénée Castel, Abbé de Saint-Pierre, ‘Observations politiques sur le gouvernement des rois de France’, in: Ouvrajes politiques, 16 volumes (Rotterdam, 1734–41), IX, 270–280) Based on his fundamental assumption that ‘enlightened authority working according to evident principles of reason to maximise human happiness required no limitation’, and that there was nothing worse than ‘a divided authority’ Saint-Pierre demanded further reforms. In his plans for a political system that he had himself termed ‘aristo-monarchie’ Saint-Pierre proposed to let the king hold the only hereditary office in the state, and to replace the traditional hereditary nobility by a pure meritocracy. (Quoted from Saint-Pierre's Ouvrajes in: Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton, 1980), p. 370f.) D’Argenson took up Saint-Pierre's hostility against the aristocracy and developed his own model of a reformed French monarchy in the famous Considérations sur le gouvernement ancien et présent de la France (1737, first published in 1763). D’Argenson vehemently rejected the traditional hierarchy of distinct ranks believing that only economic and political equality among all citizens would enable them to live a life in liberty. D’Argenson therefore fervently demanded the abolition of the traditional noble privileges and the nobility's subjection to the Taille. (Cf. Hömig, ‘Der Marquis d’Argenson und das Problem der “Demokratie” unter dem Absolutismus’, p. 159f.) The monarch's most important duty was to establish—as far as possible—an equal economic standing of his subjects. Political equality ‘should be ensured by access of all citizens to power, by making merit the sole criterion for office, and enforcing the Aristotelian principle of ruling and being ruled in turn.’ (Quoted from d’Argenson's Considérations sur le gouvernement ancien et présent de la France in: Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, p. 387.) Instead of a political share of the nobility d’Argenson propagated the self-administration of local authorities. The necessary moderation guaranteeing the temperate behaviour of the absolute monarch would not be provided by intermediate powers, such as the aristocracy. Instead, French monarchy would be ‘tempered by mores, reason, and justice. These three bridles, so sweet and amiable, when they are attended to’ would ‘ceaselessly exhort the sovereign to take counsel and choose the best counsellors from all orders of his state’ (Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, p. 388). 21 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 10. 22 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, pp. 172+179. 23 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 184f. Trade would also help the poor hoberaux to break out of their hopeless financial trap. Coyer depicted their misery at great length and declared it a national task to assist them. 24 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 178. 25 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 25. 26 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, pp. 151+146f. 27 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante p. 156. 28 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 193f. 29 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, p. 68. 30 Voltaire, Letters concerning the English Nation, edited by Nicholas Cronk (Oxford/New York, 1994), p. 42f. 31 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, pp. 87f. Coyer hereby echoed the quite common 18th-century theory of an alleged population decline in France. Cf. Hecht, ‘Un problème de population active au XVIIIe siècle, en France’. 32 Coyer, La Noblesse Commerçante, pp. 101–103. 33 Année Littéraire, January 1756, pp. 37–55. 34 Grimm and Diderot (eds.), Correspondance littéraire, I, 408. 35 D’Arc had been educated at the famous Oratorian college at Juilly and afterwards entered the army. Having distinguished himself in the battles of Fontenoy and Lawfeld d’Arc obtained the Cross of Saint Louis, yet quit the military service to fully devote himself to a literary career. Cf. Frank Sutcliffe, ‘The Abbé Coyer and the Chevalier d’Arc’, in: Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 65 (1982–83), pp. 235–245. 36 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, p. 61. An application of Coyer's proposals would directly ‘lead to the destruction of monarchy’. 37 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, p. 20f. 38 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, p. 31f. 39 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, pp. 32+39. 40 Exceptions were only to be granted to large families who would be allowed to exempt one of their sons from the duty. 41 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, p. 102. D’Arc describes such a ‘noble’ common soldier in the following way: ‘He is a commoner, it is true, but he is brave. Honour is his treasure. He obeys only discipline, that is to say, the laws of his country. He gives his life for the tranquillity of his fellow citizens. He loves his kind and his country; he serves both with zeal. All he asks as a price of his labours, as price of the blood, which he is anxious to shed for them, is a modest subsistence. What more does the nobility offer? And if the French soldier has sentiments which can be required only from the nobility, is there so great a distance between a gentleman an him?’ 42 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, p. 103. 43 D’Arc, La Noblesse Militaire, p. 108f. 44 Journal Encyclopédique, August 1756, pp. 52–83. The books reviewed were (in order): Veron de Forbonnais, Lettre à M. F*****, ou examen politique des prétendus inconvéniens de la faculté de commercer en gros, sans déroger a sa noblesse (Paris, 1756); Jean-Jacques Garnier, Le Commerce remis à sa place: réponse d’un pédant du collège aux novateurs politiques, addressé à l’auteur de la lettre à M. F***** (Paris, 1756); Louis Edme Billardon de Sauvigny, L’Une ou l’Autre, ou la noblesse commerçante et militaire, avec des réflexions sur le commerce et les moyens de l’encourager (Paris, 1756); Séras, Le Commerce ennobli (Brussels, 1756); Marc Antoine Rochon de Chabannes, La Noblesse oisive (Paris, 1756); Jean Henri Marchand, La Noblesse commerçable ou ubiquiste (Amsterdam, 1756). 45 René Louis Marquis d’Argenson, Mémoires et journal inédit, 5 volumes (Paris, 1858), V, 135f. 46 Numerically, there was a roughly even split between pamphlets favouring Coyer's proposals and opposing them, with the latter position slightly prevailing. 47 A typical example is the contribution by the Abbé de Pézerols (Le conciliateur; ou la noblesse militaire et commerçante, en réponse aux objections faites par l’Auteur de La noblesse militaire [Amsterdam and Paris, 1756]). Further examples are the pamphlets by Rochon de Chabannes and Marchand (see note 44). 48 A typical example is Billardon de Sauvigny's pamphlet L’Une et l’Autre (see note 44). Further examples include: P.-A. d’Alès de Corbert, Nouvelles observations sur les deux systèmes de la noblesse commerçante ou militaire (Amsterdam, 1758); De La Hausse, La Noblesse telle qu’elle doit être, ou moyen de l’employer utilement pour elle-même pour la patrie (Amsterdam, 1758); De Vente de Pennes, La Noblesse ramenée à ses vrais principes, ou examen du dévelopement de ‘La Noblesse Commerçante’ (Amsterdam, 1759); Du Rey de Meynières (Dame Belot), Oberservations sur la noblesse et le tiers-état (Amsterdam, 1758). 49 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, Staatswirtschaft, oder systematische Abhandlung aler Oeconomischen und Cameral-Wissenschaften, die zur Regierung eines Landes erfordert werden, 2 volumes (Leipzig, 1755). 50 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 265. 51 The contrast to thèse nobiliaire thinkers such as Montesquieu could hardly be clearer. For Montesquieu, these states were lucid examples of despotism. 52 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 284. 53 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 246. 54 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 250. 55 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 251. 56 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 259. 57 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 251. 58 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 253f. 59 Justi, ‘Von dem Wesen des Adels und dessen Verhältnis gegen die Commerzien’, p. 252. 60 Der Grundriss einer guten Regierung (1759), Natur und Wesen der Staaten (1760) [which Justi himself called an ‘improved version of The Spirit of the Laws.’], Vergleichungen der europäischen mit den asiatischen und andern vermeintlich barbarischen Regierungen (1762). 61 My analysis supports Ernest Lluch's theory of the European nature of Austrian–German cameralism (‘Cameralism beyond the Germanic World: a Note on Tribe’, in: History of Economic Ideas 5 (1997), pp. 85–99. ‘Der Kameralismus, ein vieldimensionales Lehrgebäude: Seine Rezeption bei Adam Smith und im Spanien des 18. Jahrhunderts’, in: Jahrbuch für Geschichte 2000, pp. 133–156). Lluch, however, only looked at the outward impact of cameralistic writings in eighteenth-century Europe and did not say anything about the seminal importance of contemporary French writings for the theoretical outlook of thinkers (like Justi) who have usually been identified as typical representatives of cameralism. 62 Deptire, ‘Le système et la querelle de la “Noblesse Commerçante”’, p. 139. Simone Meyssonier, La Balance et l’Horloge. La genèse de la pensée liberale en France au XVIIIe siècle (Montreuil, 1989), p. 264. 63 Chaussinand-Nogaret, The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century, p. 38." @default.
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• W2091553386 title "Nobility and modern monarchy—J.H.G. Justi and the French debate on commercial nobility at the beginning of the seven years war" @default.
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