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FRANÇOIS-PAUL DE LISOLA AND ENGLISH OPPOSITION TO LOUIS XIV

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2019

MARK GOLDIE  and
CHARLES-ÉDOUARD LEVILLAIN
MARK GOLDIE*
Affiliation:
Churchill College, University of Cambridge
CHARLES-ÉDOUARD LEVILLAIN*
Affiliation:
University of Paris
*
Churchill College, Cambridge, cb3 0ds[email protected]
Université de Paris, 75103Paris[email protected]
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Abstract

Between the Restoration in 1660 and the Revolution in 1688 the English public abandoned its century-long animus against Spain and began to identify France as its chief enemy. Historians often hold that the most significant intervention in shifting the balance of public opinion was the Dutch-inspired pamphlet, England's appeal from the private cabal at Whitehall (1673), written by the Huguenot Pierre du Moulin. It is argued here that an immensely influential earlier intervention was made by François-Paul de Lisola, in his Buckler of state and justice (1667), which, at a critical juncture, presented a rhetorically powerful body of arguments about the nature of the European state system. A Catholic in the service of the Habsburg emperor, who spent nearly two years in England in 1666–8, Lisola was an accomplished and versatile diplomat and publicist. This article interweaves diplomatic history with the history of geopolitical argument, tracing paths which led to Europe's Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.

Type
Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , June 2020 , pp. 559 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

The authors wish to thank Gabriel Glickman and Jacqueline Rose, as well as the journal's anonymous referees, for advice on earlier drafts.

References

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5 Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge: CHAR 8/429, fo. 19. Churchill studied this period intensively, in preparation for his multi-volume life of his ancestor, Marlborough, written in the shadow of the rise of Hitler.

6 Lisola, François-Paul de, Bouclier d’état et de justice, contre le dessein manifestement découvert de la monarchie universelle, sous le vain prétexte des prétensions de la reine de France (Brussels, 1667)Google Scholar; English translation: The buckler of state and justice (London, 1667); La sauce au Verjus (Strasburg, 1674).

7 Bayle to Minutoli, 1 May 1675, no. 89, http://bayle-correspondance.univ-st-etienne.fr/, p. 8. For Bayle's admiration, see Dictionnaire historique et critique (15 vols., Geneva, 1969), ix, ‘Lisola’, at p. 283; first edition published in Amsterdam in 1697.

8 The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Kn.10647: Le dénouement des intrigues du temps (Brussels, 1673), p. 83.

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11 Ibid., pp. 532–3.

12 Pribram, A. F., Franz Paul Freiherr von Lisola (1613–1674) und die Politik seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1894)Google Scholar. But see, more recently, Baumanns, Markus, Das publizistische Werk des kaiserlichen Diplomaten Franz Paul Freiherr von Lisola (1613–1674) Ein Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Absolutistischem Staat, Öffentlichkeit und Mächtepolitik in der frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 1994)Google Scholar. Baumanns is the best existing study on the question of Lisola attributions. The end of the volume includes a reasonably certain list of Lisola's authentic publications.

13 Pribram, Lisola, p. 356.

14 Ibid., ch. 17.

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19 Lisola to the father general of Jesuits, 17 Oct. 1670: Romeinsche bronnen voor den kerkelijken toestand der Nederlanden onder der apostolische vicarissen, 1592–1727, ed. R. R. Post (2 vols., The Hague, 1941), ii, p. 557.

20 Arlington to Lisola, 20 Jan. 1671 (OS): British Library (BL): Add. MS 35125, fo. 236.

21 Pincus, Steven, 1688: the first modern revolution (New Haven, CT, 2009), ch. 11Google Scholar; Claydon, Tony, Europe and the making of England, 1660–1760 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 132–52Google Scholar. For a recent survey, see Glickman, Gabriel, ‘Conflicting versions: foreign affairs in domestic debate, 1660–1689’, in Mulligan, William and Simms, Brendan, eds., The primacy of foreign policy in British history, 1660–2000 (Basingstoke, 2010)Google Scholar.

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24 ‘Baron de Lisola sobre la paz de Portugal y liga con Francia. Antidoto contro el veneno de un papel che dijen se presento al Rey christianissimo por un ministro francés’, 20 Sept. 1666: BL, Add. MS 14001, fos. 134–5, 146, 159.

25 Lisola, ‘Sobre la paz’, fo. 159.

26 José Arnolfini, ‘Discurso’: BL, Harleian MS 4520, fos. 117, 119.

27 Temple to Arlington, 2 Nov. 1666: The National Archives, Kew (TNA), SP 77/35, fo. 124; Anon. to Arlington, 20 Jan. 1667: TNA, SP 78/123, fo. 11.

28 Temple to Arlington, 2 Nov. 1666: TNA, SP 77/35, fo. 124.

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31 New College, SCR/B/OGG. With thanks to Christopher Skelton-Foord, David Parrott, and Jennifer Thorp. Snippets of Molina's New College correspondence are kept under NCA 927. Ogg was a fellow of the college and author of a standard work on the reign of Charles II.

32 Marc Antonio Giustinian to Venice Senate, 1 Feb. 1667 (OS): Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1666–1668 (CSPV), p. 125.

33 Ruvigny to Lionne, 26 Sept. 1667 (OS), Paris, Ministère des affaires étrangères, correspondence politique: Angleterre, 89, fo. 99.

34 Lisola to Leopold, 26 Sept. 1667 (OS): New Haven, Beinecke Library (TBL), GEN-MSS-530, Harrach Papers, v, fo. 269. According to Spanish sources, Ruvigny's mission of 1667–8 cost the French crown 200,000 livres tournois, amounting to some £16,000. Clarendon, Charles II's chancellor, was paid an annual fee of 50,000 livres tournois, some £4,000. Richard to Precipiano and Philippe, 7 Sept. 1667: AGR, I 074/614, Secrétairerie d’état allemande, fo. 107.

35 Lisola to Leopold, 26 Sept. 1667 (OS): Vienna, Haus-, Hof- under Staatsarchiv (HhstA), Staatenabteilung, Großbritannien, Diplomatische Korrespondenz, 9, fo. 24.

36 Lisola to Anon., 21 Feb. 1667: Simancas, Archivo General, Estado 2382, unfoliated.

37 Lisola to Leopold, 12 Mar. 1668 (OS): TBL, GEN-MSS-530, Harrach papers, v, fo. 707.

38 ‘Cuentas de embajadores y ministros en Inglaterra’, 18 Oct. 1669: AGS, Estado 3972, unfoliated.

39 TNA, Williamson papers, SP 9/43, Broquel de Estado, p. 8. For a recent study of Williamson's continental networks, see Tessier, Alexandre, Réseaux diplomatiques et République des Lettres: les correspondants de Sir Joseph Williamson (Paris, 2015)Google Scholar.

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43 CSPV, 23 Aug. 1667 (OS), p. 180.

44 Dalicourt, A relation of the French king's late expedition, p. 5. St Albans to Arlington, 11 May 1667: TNA, SP 78/123, fo. 80. George Digby, earl of Bristol, a Catholic courtier, owned a copy of the pro-Aubery Dialogue au sujet des droits de l'actuelle reine de France (Dialogue on the rights of the present queen of France) (Paris, 1667): Bibliotheca Digbeiana (London, 1680), p. 112.

45 See Tagliabracci, Michele, ‘L'avventurosa vita di Domenico Federici’, Nuovi Studi Fanesi, 24–5 (2010–11), pp. 27–103Google Scholar.

46 French (Brussels, 1667, 1668; n.p., 1701), Spanish (Madrid, 1667; Brussels, 1667), Italian (Madrid, 1667), Dutch (Amsterdam, 1667; ?1702), German (Frankfurt, 1667), English (London, 1667, 1673, 1677).

47 Lisola to Precipiano and Philippe, 24 Feb. 1668: AGR, I 074/614, fo. 294.

48 The imprint now: ‘for Richard Royston, and are to be sold by Richard Chiswell’; the two items priced separately at 2s 6d and 1s, according to Chiswell's catalogue in William Cave, Primitive Christianity (London, 1675).

49 A single copy of the 1701 edition has been traced in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: 8-OC-504 (G).

50 Lisola, Buckler, p. 275.

51 Robert Latham and William Matthews, eds., The diary of Samuel Pepys (11 vols., 1971–83), ix, p. 61 (10 Feb. 1668); Knighton, C. S., ed., Catalogue of the Pepys Library: census of printed books (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar, no. 841.

52 Within the history of political thought, the theme of ‘universal monarchy’ would need to place Lisola in relation to such authors as Francis Bacon, Christoph Besold, Giovanni Botero, Tommaso Campanella, the duc de Sully, and Andrew Fletcher. For England, see Steven Pincus, ‘The English debate over universal monarchy’, in Robertson, ed., Union for empire.

53 Lisola, Buckler, pp. 15, 276.

54 Ibid., pp. 278–80.

55 Ibid., sig. A8r.

56 Ibid., pp. 73–92.

57 Ibid., pp. 19–20, 26.

58 Ibid., pp. 13, 294.

59 A free conference touching the present state of England (London, 1673), pp. 8–9, 20, 32.

60 Ibid., pp. 25–7.

61 See Pincus, Steven, Protestantism and patriotism: ideologies and the making of English foreign policy, 1650–1688 (Cambridge, 1996), ch. 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 A free conference, pp. 33, 39, 43, 50, 58. The treaties are of Madrid (1667) and Paris (1657).

63 Lettres et autres pièces curieuses sur les affaires du temps (Amsterdam, 1672); Letters and other curious pieces, relating to the present state of Europe (London, 1672).

64 Lisola, Traité politique (Villefranche, 1672), p. 16. Curtius to Arlington, 20 Jan. 1672: TNA, SP 81/59, fo. 121. Lisola made this argument as early as 1644, during the siege of Gravelines, in a tract now surviving only in manuscript: ‘Discours de Lisola, résident de l'Empereur à Londres, concernant l'intérêt que l'Angleterre a au sujet de Gravelines, June 1644’: Paris, Bibliothèque de l'Institut, MS Godefroy 326, fos. 189–92.

65 Lisola, Traité politique, p. 28.

66 Lisola, The French politician found out (London, 1680), part ii.

67 Council of state, 29 Sept. 1670: AGR, I 112/253, unfoliated. The tract was published in The Hague by Jean Laurent, who also published Lisola's Discours touchant les prétentions de la France sur les places de Condé (1670). See Kossmann, E. F., De Boekhandel te ’s-Gravenhage tot het eind van de 18de eeuw (The Hague, 1937), p. 230Google Scholar.

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72 The Observations (London, 1673) critiques the duke of Buckingham's anti-Dutch Letter to Sir Thomas Osborn (London, 1672), which in turn answered Bethel's Present interest (London, 1671). A second edition of Observations (1689) includes a reprint of The world's mistake.

73 Bethel, Observations, pp. 16–17; idem, Present interest, preface, and pp. 29, 33.

74 Pierre du Moulin (?), England's appeal (n.p., 1673), pp. 7, 8, 10, 11.

75 Patterson, Annabel, Dzelzainis, Martin, Keeble, N. H., and von Maltzahn, Nicholas, eds., The prose works of Andrew Marvell (2 vols., New Haven, CT, 2003), ii, pp. 242, 250Google Scholar. At p. 276, Marvell cited Lisola's La politique du temps (1671), which rehearsed many of the arguments of the Buckler.

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78 Too numerous to list and readily traceable in Early English Books Online.

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81 Evelyn's library catalogue: BL, Add. MS 78632, fo. 176; Bibliotheca Hookeriana (London, 1703), p. 48; Willems, J. M., ed., Bibliotheca Fletcheriana (Wassenaar, 1999), p. 130Google Scholar.

82 Hampshire County Probate Records, 148/18/5. With thanks to Carl Hammer for this information.

83 A third collection of papers relating to the present juncture of affairs (London, 1688), pp. 1, 4.