Science, Enlightenment and Revolution

Selected Papers, 1976-2019

Dorinda Outram

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000441338
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Science, Enlightenment and Revolution brings together thirteen papers by renowned historian Dorinda Outram. Published between 1976 and 2019 and scattered in a variety of journals and collected volumes, these articles are published together here for the first time.

During her distinguished career, Outram has made significant contributions to the history of science, to the history and historiography of the Enlightenment, to gender history, to the history of geographical exploration, and to the historical uses of language. This volume also includes other writings by Outram, comprising an unpublished introduction in the form of an intellectual autobiography. Placing this together with her collected academic papers offers readers an overview of her development as an historian and a writer.

This book is important reading for scholars and students of early modern Europe, as well as those interested in the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and gender studies. (CS 1101).

1
EDUCATION AND POLITICS IN PIEDMONT, 1796–1814

DOI: 10.4324/9781003038085-2

From: Historical Journal, 19 (1976), 611–633. © Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

In 1820 many of the leading figures in the governments of the Italian states were men who had already been prominent before 1796, and had collaborated with the French during the period of the Empire. Vittorio Fossombroni and Neri Corsini in Tuscany¹ and Prospero Balbo in Piedmont² are the outstanding examples in the years immediately following the Vienna settlement. The political survival of these men into a Europe dominated by violent reaction against the events of the preceding twenty years poses interesting questions. How had the pre-revolutionary Italian ruling aristocracies reacted to the experience of Napoleonic government, and how did this experience affect their attitude to the events of the succeeding decade?³

1 For Fossombroni (1754–1844) and Corsini (1771–1845) see A. Carraresi, ‘La politica interna di Vittorio Fossombroni nella Restaurazione’, Archivio Storico Italiano, CXXIX (1971), 267–355. 2 Balbo (1762–1837) was left fatherless in 1765, and adopted by his maternal grandfather, Count Lorenzo Bogino, minister of the Interior. He studied law at the University of Turin, and graduated in 1780. In 1782 he helped to found the Patria Società Letteraria and became one of the Decurioni or municipal officials of Turin. In 1788 he became Secretary of the ccademia delle Scienze. Between 1796 and 1799 he was Sardinian ambassador in Paris. After Piedmont was invaded by France in 1798, he accompanied the exiled sovereign to Sardinia and Tuscany. He accepted employment under the Austrian regime in Turin in 1800, but resigned his position after a few weeks. In 1802 he returned to Turin, and refused several offers from the French of employment on the Conseil d’Etat in Paris. In 1805, however, he accepted the comparatively modest position of Rector of the University of Turin. In 1816 he was made ambassador to Madrid, and in 1818 placed at the head of the Magistrato della Riforma, or general administration of education in Piedmont. In 1819, he combined this position with that of minister of the Interior, a post which he lost in the aftermath of the revolution of 1821. His critics asserted that these disturbances originated in the liberal tendencies which he had fostered in the University of Turin, and in the dangerous diffusion of knowledge among the lower classes caused by his enthusiasm for the spread of primary education. His last years were spent in scholarly retirement. There is no adequate biography of Balbo, who has been overshadowed by the renown of his second son Cesare. The best modern account is that of F. Sirugo in Dizionario degli Italiani (Rome 1963), vol. V. Detailed examination of the events of 1821 is contained in P. Egidi, I moti studenteschi di Torino nel gennaio 1821 (Turin, 1923). Material relating to his career as Rector of the University is lengthily misinterpreted along nationalist lines by E. Passamonti, ‘Prospero Balbo e la rivoluzione del 1821’, Biblioteca di Storia recente, vol. XII, ed. Rossi and De Magistris (Turin, 1926), 190–347. 3 There are surprisingly few studies of the Italians who collaborated with the French regime. This deficiency is especially marked in the case of territories outside the Regno d’Italia. Little advance has in fact been made since the study of Tommaso Corsini, ‘Di alcuni cooperatori di Napoleone I’, in Ritratti e studi moderni (Milan, 1914), 397–459. See also the appeal for more detailed biographical study of these men in J. M. Roberts, Francesco Melzi d’Eril, an Italian Statesman (1796–1806) (unpublished Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1954).

The annexed Italian territories were financially vital to the needs of France. Gaudin, Napoleon’s Minister of Finance, went so far as to exclaim that the fate of the Empire was settled on the plain of Marengo.⁴ Yet precisely because of their importance, the Italian territories also presented France with serious problems, and their leaders could exert great pressure on her. To obtain men and money from Italy through the channel of an efficient bureaucracy, it was essential to reestablish the political harmony shattered by the violent internal struggles which racked the Italian states in the 1790s. Gaudin was careful to continue his appreciation of the importance of Marengo by pointing out that ‘la victoire elle-même eut été inutile si l’administration n’avait pas été toute préparée pour en recueillir les fruits’. To capitalize on their victory, the French had to create a civil administration commanding as wide a support as possible; in the event, this was to mean an administration staffed by as many of the Italian nobility as could be induced to serve.

4 Martin-Michel-Charles Gaudin, duc de Gaëte, Mémoires, Souvenirs, Opinions et Ecrits (2 vols. Paris, 1826), I, 170–1.

It is well known that the French in Italy quickly abandoned the extremists who had paved the way for their initial victories, and turned to the moderates for support.⁵ It was difficult to discipline and exploit the tiny provincial republics which were proclaimed in Piedmont after the first French offensives in 1792. Later, it was just as difficult to control the factional struggles in Turin after the collapse of the monarchy and the full French military occupation of late 1798 to late 1799. Accordingly, the French tended increasingly to rely on the collaboration of relatively docile moderate republicans. However, it is rarely pointed out that, between 1800 and 1802, French policy towards Italian collaborators underwent yet another shift. Serious efforts now had to be made to gain the allegiance of the nobility, the very class which had suffered most in the revolutionary period. The French needed to give their rule an aura of legitimacy and stability which the adherence of moderate republicans, mostly drawn from the middle and professional classes, could never provide. Efficient administration through a stable regime would then become possible.

5 P. Gaffarel, Bonaparte et les Républiques italiennes, 1796–1799 (Paris, 1895), p. 29 and note, quoting Bonaparte’s famous letter to the Directory of 28 Dec. 1796, ‘il y a en ce moment en Lombardie trois partis: 1. celui qui se laisse conduire par les Français; 2. celui qui voudrait la liberté et montre même son désir avec quelque impatience; 3. le parti ami des Autrichiens et ennemi des Français. Je soutiens et j’encourage le premier, je contiens le second, et je réprime le troisième.’

In this paper I examine the reactions of a group of Piedmontese nobles, gathered round Prospero Balbo, to their involvement with the administration of education under the French. Why did they agree to collaborate in the first place? French promises to hold down the radical groups were probably the most decisive factor. Other possible reasons, such as economic pressure, may be advanced, but cannot be convincingly sustained. It is undoubted that the period between 1796 and 1814 was one of severe economic stress in northern Italy. But the salaries attached to the upper strata of the University administration in Turin, where appointments among the nobility were to be concentrated, were hardly sufficiently high, at a maximum of 6,000 fr. p.a. for the Rectorship, to overcome all scruples of conscience against collaboration with the French.⁶

6 Among the teaching staff of the University, the position was rather different. Salaries, never generous (around 2,000 fr. p.a. for a professor) declined in value as the economic situation worsened. Nevertheless, prospects were no brighter in any other kind of employment, and the dissolution in 1809 of the religious orders, to which many teachers belonged, even further increased their dependence on their university salaries. University administrators and university teachers, proceeding from very different economic bases, were thus faced with very different financial problems.

In the case of Balbo himself, it could also be argued that his diplomatic career had been instrumental in turning his thoughts towards collaboration. After the Austrian victories of 1799, he certainly considered that Piedmont might have a better chance of survival as a buffer-state within the French orbit than as an Austrian protectorate. But the definitive annexation of Piedmont to France in 1800, and her full legal incorporation with the interior in 1802, would render meaningless the considerations of 1799.⁷

7 For Balbo’s thought on the situation of Piedmont in 1799, see E. Passamonti, ‘Una memoriale inedita di Prospero Balbo nel dicembre 1799’, Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, Atti, XLIX (1913–14), 914–51. J. M. Roberts has argued, in relation to the Austrian subject territories in Italy, that a strong tradition of the acceptance of de facto governments made it easier for the Lombard nobility to collaborate with the French. (rancesco Melzi d’Eril § 1). However, these considerations obviously do not apply to Piedmont, ruled by a native dynasty.

The real reasons for the eagerness of sections of the Piedmontese nobility to accept employment under the French are more convincingly to be found in the political conflicts which centred round the control of education in Piedmont between 1800 and 1802. This area of government had assumed a special importance because republican politics in the 1790s had been dominated by university and college teachers, and because universities and schools were widely credited with the diffusion of new ideas emanating from revolutionary France.⁸ Under the provisional government of Piedmont by General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan⁹ this influence remained. His immediate Italian subordinates, making up the Executive Commission of Piedmont, were Carlo Botta,¹⁰ Carlo Bossi¹¹ and Carlo Giulio. Botta was also a member of the Conseil d’Instruction Publique which took over responsibility for the University of Turin from the Magistrato della Riforma of the old regime. Other members of the Conseil were Sebastiano Giraud and Carlo Brayda. Giraud, like Bossi, Botta and Giulio, was a former member of the staff of the University of Turin.

8 See the social analysis contained in Giorgio Vaccarino, ‘L’inchiestà del 1799 sui Giacobini in Piemonte’, Rivista Storica Italiana, LXXVII (1965), 27–77. 9 Jourdan’s regime lasted from 1800 to 1802. There is no adequate account of his career, or of the military republican opposition to Napoleon. For Jourdan’s disapproval of the coup of brumaire, see Correspondance de Napoléon I… publiée par ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III (32 vols. Paris 1859–), VI, p. 14, no. 4397. Some additional information on military republicanism can be obtained from H. Auréas, Un Général de Napoléon: Miollis (Paris, 1961). Miollis was governor-general of the Roman départements from 1809 to 1814. 10 The only biography of Botta is still that of Dionisotti (Turin, 1867). Some effort towards a complete listing of his known correspondence was made by Arturo Bersano, Carlo Frati and Carlo Salsotto, in, respectively, Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, Atti, XXXVI (1900–1), 969–96; XLVI (1910–11), 12–28; LI (1915–16), 717–48. 11 F. Boyer, ‘Carlo Bossi et le Piémont’, Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento, LIX (1969), 44–57. There is no biographical study of Carlo Giulio, professor of medicine at the University of Turin, who became Prefect of the Stura in 1804, and died in 1814.

Under Jourdan’s guidance, the Conseil quickly reorganized the University in Turin. The faculties were regrouped and renamed Ecoles Spéciales after the French model. Literary teaching was relegated to the secondary schools, and many professors displaced. Most important of all, the teaching of theology was abolished, a measure which could not fail to arouse great resentment. Meanwhile, Jourdan and his secretary Philippe la Boulinière prepared their own report on the future progress of educational reform.¹² In the fortunes of this plan can be traced the combination of factors which led to the recall of Jourdan, the collapse of the Executive Commission, and the return of conservative groups in Piedmont to power under the French.¹³

12 Archives Nationales, Paris, F. 17. 1603, Organisation …, report of 77 pp. dated ‘Premier jour complémentaire, an IX’. All documents cited in this paper are to be found in the Archives Nationales unless otherwise stated. Little information on La Boulinière is available. He seems to have left no printed works. He was dismissed from his post of Secretary of the French administration of Piedmont when Jourdan was recalled in 1802, to reappear in 1804 as professor of geography and history in the University of Turin. I have been unable to discover any information after that date. 13 The importance of issues concerning the University of Turin and its staff in determining the crisis of 1802 has never been fully realised. F. Boyer, ‘Les institutions universitaires en Piémont de 1800 à 1802’, Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine, XVII (1970), 913–17, is an extremely brief summary of the main events.

At a time when republicanism was becoming increasingly attacked in France, and when the social thinking of the Consulate was becoming increasingly conservative, Jourdan’s plan emphasized values of a very different kind. The report acknowledges its debt to the educational scheme for France put forward by Chaptal.¹⁴ This scheme had already been strongly criticized by Napoleon and was eventually to be rejected in favour of the famous report by the fut...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: reflections on an intellectual life
• 1 ‘Education and politics in Piedmont, 1796–1814’
• 2 ‘The language of natural power: the “éloges” of Georges Cuvier and the public language of nineteenth century science’
• 3 ‘Politics and vocation: French science, 1793–1830’
• 4 ‘The ordeal of vocation: the Paris Academy of Sciences and the Terror’, 1793–95
• 5 ‘Before objectivity: wives, patronage, and cultural reproduction in early nineteenth-century French science’
• 6 ‘ “Le langage mâle de la vertu”: women and the discourse of the French Revolution’
• 7 ‘Life-paths: autobiography, science and the French Revolution’
• 8 ‘New Spaces in Natural History’
• 9 ‘On being Perseus: new knowledge, dislocation, and enlightenment exploration’
• 10 ‘The enlightenment our contemporary’
• 11 ‘Heavenly bodies and logical minds: John Banville’s astronomical novels’
• 12 ‘Negating the natural: or why historians deny Irish science’
• 13 ‘Enlightenment struggles’
• Index