Age of Louis XIV

The Rise of Modern Diplomacy

William James Roosen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351533287
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

William James Roosen has written the first general study of European diplomacy in the age of Louis XIV which is based on the actual practices and institutions of that era, rather than on the writing of early theoreticians.

Though the seventeenth century may not have been a period of great innovations in international diplomacy, it provides us with an important illustration of the "workings of a system which was well suited to the gradually changing needs of its time" and which has been called "the best form of diplomacy ever developed."

Dr. Roosen demonstrates both the obvious differences and the many similarities between diplomatic procedures and practices of the seventeenth century and the twentieth. Any student of diplomacy and international relations will gain valuable insight and understanding from this study of the early modern diplomatic personalities, institutions, and practices.

One of Dr. Roosen's goals in writing this book has been to discover the relationships between the ideological and socioeconomic structures and the diplomatic personalities who have influenced modern diplomacy. Further, he supplies the only available study of the realities of diplomatic practices in seventeenth century Europe, and provides an excellent basis for comparison with twentieth century international relations, in the hope that "studying early modern diplomatic personalities, institutions and practices should increase our understanding of international relations today."

There are chapters on "The States of Europe," "Kings and Ministers," "Ambassadors," "Second Class Diplomats," "A Typical Early Modern Embassy," "Information: Important Objective of Diplomatic Activity," and "The Variety of Diplomatic Duties.

CHAPTER VI

Information: Important Objective Of Diplomatic Activity

In the seventeenth century, just like today, the necessary raw material of diplomacy was information. Early modern decision makers needed ever increasing amounts of data before they felt able to decide what policies they should follow. Of course, the early modern diplomatic world was less complex than today’s, and events moved with what would now seem excruciating slowness. In particular, the process by which diplomats gathered, arranged and sent home the data their masters needed usually proceeded at a snail’s pace. The reasons for the lack of speed will become obvious from an examination of the process of letter writing and the postal service. These techniques were primitive as were the ciphers used to keep the messages hidden from prying eyes. Then the chapter will examine the career of one of the chief “pryers, “ the Englishman John Wallis, who spent his life unraveling the messages diplomats and their governments had worked so hard to encipher. Diplomats abroad corresponded with many different people back home which in part accounts for the great variety of kinds of information in which they were interested. The specialization characteristic of twentieth century diplomatic establishments did not exist in the seventeenth century; the ambassadors or envoys themselves were required to be “jacks of all knowledge.” This chapter will end with an examination of the methods used by early modern diplomats to acquire information, both formal and informal, especially espionage.

Sending Letters Home by Mail and Courier

The early modern era was very unlike our own, at least insofar as devices for speeding communication are concerned. There were no telephones, typewriters or even efficient pens or pencils. Thus the actual writing of letters was a time consuming activity for seventeenth century diplomats. One or more days a week were committed largely or wholly to preparing and sending despatches. First the diplomat had to decide what to report, often using notes or some sort of diary in which he had recorded his thoughts and experiences. Then he had to write out his thoughts himself in longhand or dictate them to a secretary who also wrote in longhand since only elementary forms of shorthand had been invented by this time. The time consuming process was lengthened even more because of the necessity to make the copies as clean and neat as possible. Since letters provided almost the only contact between a diplomat and his master, the former had to try to make as good an impression as possible in order to maintain his reputation and hopes for future advancement. Even simple acts took time: sharpening the quill pens (which some writers did not do often enough to satisfy modern historians who must pore over almost indecipherable writing) and sanding the paper (occasionally with a kind of silver glitter to give the writing an attractive appearance). But the most important reason letter writing days were so long was the sheer volume of correspondence which diplomats maintained. Sending ten or more letters per post day was not uncommon. Fortunately, many diplomats found it possible to compose one letter which then served as the model for the others. If the diplomat had a trustworthy secretary, he was able to avoid the further tedium of copying the letters into a bound volume (simply called a “Letter Book”). The secretary also wrote the duplicates which, especially in wartime, were sent by an alternate route in order to increase the chances that at least one would arrive safely at its destination. The whole of this activity was complicated by pressures to complete the job before the “ordinary” left.

The use of the term “ordinary” occasionally confuses modern readers who picture seventeenth century diplomatic correspondence as being carried swiftly by mounted couriers dressed in handsome uniforms carrying bags marked with a “silver greyhound” or other appropriate emblem. The picture is false. Most diplomatic mail was carried by the “ordinary” mail service which early modern governments had recently established or reestablished. The reason why diplomats tended not to use couriers except when absolutely necessary was stated succinctly by the theoretician Rousseau de Chamoy: couriers were an expense which should not be incurred unnecessarily. They should only be used for carrying finished treaties, for extremely urgent and important affairs, if the ordinary postal service was entirely broken, or if the normal ways of sending letters were closed and it was impossible to get the letters through in any other way.¹ A diplomat who caused his master the expense of a courier except under these circumstances was liable to be reprimanded and even have to pay the charges himself.

On the occasions when couriers were used it was hoped that the despatches would arrive at their destination more rapidly than by the ordinary post and also that they would be less likely to be intercepted and read en route. Unfortunately the vagaries of travel were such that the speed of the courier (who usually went the whole distance himself) was not necessarily faster than the “ordinary.” In 1661, for example, the French ambassador at The Hague, was informed that his despatch of June 2nd sent by the ordinary had arrived before that of June 1st sent by courier; as a similar situation had happened previously the ambassador was warned not to send couriers who served only to cause the king a completely useless and unnecessary expense.

The hope of keeping despatches confidential by using couriers was also often in vain. The very fact that a message was so important that a diplomat chose to use a courier attracted attention and encouraged agents to try to discover the contents of his pouch. In theory it was widely agreed that couriers and despatches were protected by diplomatic immunity in the seventeenth century.² In fact interference was relatively common. This could be carried out under the guise of an ordinary highway robbery as happened to one of d’Avaux’s messengers while he was the French ambassador in the Netherlands in 1684. William, the Prince of Orange, wished to discourage communication between the ambassador and the leaders of Amsterdam. The Prince surrounded d’Avaux with spies who informed him whenever d’Avaux sent a courier who might carry information about such contacts. On one occasion, one of d’Avaux’s couriers started his journey from The Hague with the regular post horse; but the governor of Maestricht (one of William’s supporters) delayed the messenger for a very long time and would not give him permission to leave with the regular mail. Meanwhile three groups of men were sent out to wait a quarter of a league from Maestricht. The “bandits” who caught the messenger after he was finally given permission to leave the town were actually Dutch soldiers. They stripped him and took his letters without stealing anything else except his boots and Jerkin; then he was given back into the safekeeping of his postilion who took him back to Maestricht. The man returned to The Hague where he informed the ambassador of his misadventure.³

Other couriers also ran into difficulties with “robbers,” but some were openly stopped by government officials who examined the despatches. In these cases, the diplomat usually complained to his hosts who in turn replied that they would attempt to capture and punish the “robbers.” Or the interference was blamed on the officials’ over-zealousness and promises were made that the men would be punished and further abuses prevented. The major factor which prevented even more widespread interference with couriers was stated by an English ambassador in France whose man had been arrested. He said simply that the French would undoubtedly give satisfaction or they would find “their couriers and ambassadors’ servants used just in the same manner in England. “ As so often happened in early modern diplomatic conflicts, the threat of retaliation alone was effective.

Since diplomats used couriers in the hope of having their despatches delivered successfully rather than to provoke an incident with their hosts or other rulers, their messengers occasionally resorted to unusual tricks to get through. This was particularly true during wartime because even theoretical immunity did not apply to couriers of an enemy. In the sixteenth century couriers had sometimes disguised themselves as priests, monks, pilgrims or merchants — people who were protected by canon law. But there were disadvantages to doing this in the seventeenth century. It was difficult for them to claim any sort of immunity if they had hidden their identity at first; and the strictures of canon law did not, of course, apply in Protestant countries. Thus a diplomat was more likely to depend on a man who had proven his ability to pass through enemy territory because of speed and stealth. Or the diplomat might depend on an individual of somewhat more importance than an ordinary courier — for example, his secretary or a traveling nobleman. In any case we know that despite the restrictions governments placed on the use of special messengers because of their expense, they were still used sufficiently often that the English government had established a special group of “Forty Messengers of the Great Chamber in Ordinary” for both internal and external affairs. The master of the posts in France received 3,000 livres during the year 1660 alone for the horses of couriers sent to other countries.⁴

The excessive cost, publicity, and other problems attendant upon the use of couriers combined to ensure that most diplomatic correspondence was actually sent via the postal “ordinaries.” The actual techniques of carrying the mail changed very little in the early modern period, but most governments had established post office systems by the mid-seventeenth century. Although service was generally interrupted during wartime, the agreements necessary for international postal service were usually reestablished shortly after the cessation of conflicts. The main difference between the postal services in 1648 and those is 1715/21 was the increase in the number of cities between which mail was carried and the frequency with which it was done.⁵

The speed at which the letters could be carried was limited. There had been no technological advances for the past several thousand years — at least for land carriage. Letters could move no faster than a horse could run over poor roads which were seldom as good as those which the Roman Empire had built 1500 years before. In a contract signed in 1505 a private individual promised to carry mail between Brussels and other places in Europe according to this schedule:

Innsbruck — 5½ days in summer; 6½ days in winter

Paris — 44 hours in summer; 50 hours in winter

Toledo — 12 days in summer; 14 days in winter

Rome via Innsbruck — lO½ days in summer; 12 days in winter.⁶

A century and a half later these times were seldom matched much less bettered. The ordinary took about two weeks between Madrid and Paris in the late seventeenth century, about the same time as the Brussells-Stockholm schedule. In the spring of 1673 letters from Stockholm to Paris took between 13 and 16 days while the same journey in 1697 was running 16-18 days in summer and often 20-24 or more days in winter. Letter post between Paris and The Hague could arrive in 2 days, Paris-London in 3 or 4 days, but Vienna-London took nearly a month. All these times are, of course, just the normal, scheduled times. Storms, floods, ice, snow, and dark of night definitely slowed the postmen in their appointed rounds.

A diplomat’s letters ran into few difficulties, of course, while they were in the hands of postal officials working for his own master; but opportunities for problems were rife when the letters were in the hands of foreign postmasters. The postal agreements signed between various states were usually easier to negotiate and conclude than to enforce. The control of governments over their own officials in the seventeenth century was often tenuous so, of course, the influence of foreign governments was next to nil. A postal officer could cause difficulties on his own such as the conflict between the pope’s nuncio in Spain in 1680 and a Spanish “lieutenant of the post for Italy.” Their disagreement over the rate which the nuncio should pay and a variety of other problems finally led to an impasse when the lieutenant insisted on being paid at the departure and arrival of each post and the nuncio refused. The conflict was settled only after the nuncio appealed to the king’s ministers for assistance. They assured the nuncio that he would be required to pay only the same rate as the king. In cases where the government was unwilling or unable to act, diplomats resorted to making special, private agreements with individual postmasters in order to secure preferential treatment for their letters. This was possible since official letters continued to make up such a large proportion of the mails, especially of the part going long distances.⁷

In cases where some government official deliberately decided to make a diplomat’s life more difficult, there was little he could do except threaten reprisals if the matter became too serious. But even this latter action was hard to take if the difficulties were being made clandestinely or for an apparently good reason. The French ambassador in Sweden in 1674 found himself in such a situation. He was sure that the Swedish chancellor had deliberately advanced the time at which the ordinary mail boat sailed from Hamburg so that Louis XIVs letters which arrived two hours later would be held up six days. To have attempted to get them delivered earlier would have required using expensive “extraordinary” methods. The modern scholar must be suspicious of such accusations by seventeenth century diplomats, however. One of their major pastimes was making complaints about mail service which thus provided them with ready-made excuses for their own failures.

These difficulties were relatively minor compared to the major problem which arose from entrusting despatches to the care of foreign postal officials. Secret diplomatic letters were put into the hands of the very people who were most interested in knowing their contents. All seventeenth century governments were quite willing to take advantage of the situation. In fact the opportunity to use the public post as a device for discovering information about the state’s own subjects and about diplomats seems to have been an important factor in the decision to create postal systems in the first place. In France it was an axiom of political theory about sovereignty and absolute government that correspondence confided to the public post could be searched without scruple both in peace and war, whether it originally came from within or without the kingdom. The same attitude existed in England where the Post Office had been regarded “as part of the machinery for detecting conspiracies” against the government since the early 1500’s. A modern scholar goes on to note that “the secrecy of the post was violated on a greater scale during the seventeenth century than at any other time. Even the correspondence of ambassadors was not immune from inspection.”⁸ He should probably say that especially the correspondence of ambassadors was not immune! The legal right of the English government to open mail was based on the royal prerogative since Tudor times and given an unassailable legal basis in the Post Office Act of 1711. Comparable attitudes existed in the other European countries.

Most governments maintained special bureaus which were responsible for discovering and copying any important information which could be found in the mails. These have been called “black cabinets” or in England “the Secret Office;” numerous proofs of their existence not only in London and Paris but in the Netherlands, Austria, Venice, and Hanover can still be found in archives today. A series in the British Public Record Office is actually entitled “Intercepted.” The first volume begins in 1726, somewhat later than the period with which we are dealing, but an introductory letter by the compiler of the volume throws much light on the practice by which they were acquired which was also followed in the 1600’s. The series consists

of copies, translations, & extracts from t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• I The States of Europe, Their Diplomacy and Wars
• II Kings and Ministers: The Central Administration of Diplomacy and Creation of Foreign Policies
• III Ambassadors
• IV Second Class Diplomats: Low In Prestige, High In Importance
• V A Typical Early Modern Embassy
• VI Information: Important Objective Of Diplomatic Activity
• VII The Variety of Diplomatic Duties
• CONCLUSION
• CHRONOLOGY
• APPENDIX
• BIBLIOGRAPHY