1“Our Dramatic masterpieces are as acclaimed on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula as they are on the banks of the Seine,” proudly declared Nicolas Bricaire de La Dixmerie, a young follower of Voltaire’s, in 1765, alluding to the presence of French theater troupes in Vienna and Warsaw. [1] While the places he chose to mention show that he was probably influenced by current affairs — the new king of Poland, Stanislaw-August Poniatowski, had recently brought a French company to his capital — La Dixmerie could just as easily have referred to Berlin, Stockholm or Saint Petersburg. [2] During the eighteenth century, a total of twenty-seven European cities hosted French theater troupes at one time or another. [3] And yet, this quote should not be interpreted as merely recording the objective “fact” of French theater’s expansion across Europe. Instead, such a discourse is precisely what established this “fact” as such, by subsuming a variety of cases under a common perspective and thereby constructing France’s cultural grandeur, both in terms of its superiority and its domination. On the one hand, for La Dixmerie — by virtue of a Voltairian syllogism — the spread of French theater throughout Europe provided tangible proof of its “superiority over all ancient & modern Peoples.” [4] On the other hand, it embodied the existence of a French “cultural empire” over Europe under the banner of civilization. [5] Beyond current events, La Dixmerie’s choice of toponyms may also be explained by their “barbaric” connotations : “Today, there would be no more Sarmatians among whom a French Ovid could believe himself a foreigner ... It was only with difficulty that all the Roman Empire’s conquests extended its language to the conquered peoples. Five to six peaceful writers have extended ours in climates that our weapons have never entered.” [6]

2Thus, La Dixmerie’s statement about the expansion of French theater across Europe already included an interpretation of the phenomenon regarding its causes (the theater’s intrinsic superiority), modalities (it occurred spontaneously), and effects (it marked the accession to civilization). However, since the monumental Histoire de la langue française by Ferdinand Brunot — along with Louis Réau’s important synthesis in the “L’Évolution de l’Humanité” collection and Marc Fumaroli’s recent and more nostalgic interpretation — an entire historiography of “French Europe” has gradually taken shape, which essentially repeats this discourse with some minor variations. This repetition not only lends strength to this historiographical conviction, but also simultaneously constitutes it as a true historiographical trap. [7] Louis Réau provides a paradigmatic example : for his book, he chose to use the title of Louis-Antoine Caraccioli’s 1776 publication, L’Europe française. [8] Réau believed the author to be Domenico Caraccioli, the Neapolitan ambassador to Paris whose foreign nationality thus allowed him to objectively establish “French Europe” as an incontestable “fact.” That the author was in fact Louis-Antoine, born in Paris in 1719, sheds light on the assumptions that guided Réau’s approach. [9] Writing in 1938, Réau generally considered “French Europe” to be a counter-example to the time of aggressive propaganda and “integral nationalism” during which he was living — in other words, the image of acculturation via influence and consent. Exploring the causes of French “hegemony,” Réau concludes that the “prodigious” spread of French culture during the eighteenth century occurred “spontaneously, without the slightest political constraint, without the slightest governmental pressure … without violence and without proselytism via the sole virtue of universal consent.” [10] In The World Republic of Letters, Pascale Casanova expresses this idea in similar terms, attesting to the long-term dominance of this notion. The work primarily explores Parisian dominance beginning in the nineteenth century, when Paris was the “Greenwich Meridian,” the place where “the universal” was “manufactured.” Thus, the “symbolic domination” exerted by the French language during the eighteenth century is mentioned only as a prelude of lesser importance, a domination that was apparently fueled by Europeans’ “belief” in the “perfection” of the French language since the reign of Louis XIV. But no matter how much the assumption of the “superiority” of the French language, which was consubstantial to the discourse of “French Europe,” was kept at a distance by focusing on the “belief” surrounding it, the idea of its spontaneous spread nonetheless remains a central theme : “French came to be generally established, without the assistance or cooperation of any political authority, as a common language — the language of cultivated and refined conversation, exercising a sort of jurisdiction that extended to all of Europe.” [11]

3Thus, the notion of “French Europe” presents the distinction of being a “fact” that is inseparable from the discourse that constituted it, while, at the same time, it has always been considered according to the categories of this discourse. The aim of this article is to break this hermeneutical circle by proposing an object of analysis and a method through an emblematic case that connects them. [12] The object of analysis is the theater. As both a social practice conveying the idea of a specifically French way of life and a literary genre producing the “masterpieces” of the Molière-Corneille-Racine trinity (which were then being canonized), theater was central to the “French Europe” discourse, as La Dixmerie’s text attests. More importantly, compared to other potential markers of French cultural presence circulating in eighteenth-century Europe (artifacts and various products, books, periodicals, forms of sociability like the Freemasons or salons), [13] public theater performed by professional theater troupes was a political object. While referring back to the importance that had been attributed to the theater, the dissemination of theatrical works was in fine the result of political decisions (hiring, firing or subsidizing a troupe, for example) that can often be inserted into a specific context since it produced sources that can be studied. The choice of the theater as a subject therefore allows for implementation of a method that is both contextual and pragmatic, consisting of a decentering and a change of scale. The great unexamined assumption of “French Europe” is the one-way spread of French culture from France to Europe, modeled after the metaphor of cultural radiance. The proposed method challenges this paradigm by reversing the perspective and adopting the point of view of those who introduced French culture. It also shifts the focus : instead of immediately considering the phenomenon of “French Europe” on the European scale, this approach examines case by case the various contexts in which French culture was adopted. Rather than predetermining the meaning of this adoption by seeing it as the univocal sign of a generalized “belief” in the superiority of French culture and therefore a subjugation to symbolic domination, this approach requires the reconstruction of meaning in each case as a series of actions following motives and producing effects (not necessarily those initially sought-after) on multiple scales.

4One example demonstrating the fruitfulness of this approach is the emblematic case of the initiative led by Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg — Maria Theresa of Austria’s State Chancellor (Staatskanzler) beginning in 1753 [14] — between the end of the 1740s and the mid-1770s to host a French theater troupe at the Viennese court. The troupe was present from 1752 to 1765 and then from 1768 to 1772. [15] Kaunitz, whose writings attest to his perfect mastery of the French language, could have had a place among the great eighteenth-century Francophone figures studied by Marc Fumaroli. Conversely, the lack of interest that he incited in late nineteenth-century German historiography might be explained by the key role that he played in reversing alliances and his suspicious enthusiasm for French culture. [16] However, this article proposes neither to celebrate a “francophile” nor vilify a “gallomaniac.” On the whole, Kaunitz — who spoke and wrote equally well in Italian (besides German, Czech, and, to a lesser extent, English) and also had a great interest in the opera — further illustrates the cosmopolitism of the European elite, which transcended the simple adoption of French culture. [17]

5The Kaunitz case makes it possible to understand both how French theater was used in a given context as well as the mechanisms of its circulation within Enlightenment Europe. Further clarification is necessary. Insofar as my hypothesis sees each case as different and posits the irreducible singularity of a local configuration, the one developed here may not be considered representative of the whole. This, however, does not mean that its reach cannot be generalized. Generalization may be achieved in two ways. [18] The first is a generalization by ideal-typification : considered in its local context, the Kaunitz case allows for the identification of a number of typical characteristics concerning the practice of French theater, of which variants are found in different proportions in other European courts. [19] The second is a generalization by establishing connections : considered within the broader context of the European space of French theater’s circulation, it may be shown that the case acted as a node from which an overall reconsideration of this space’s organization is possible. Therefore, beyond the specific problem of “French Europe,” the possibility of connecting the local scale to the European scale by understanding so-called “transnational” literary circulations is also of interest. [20] Hence, although this article builds on the historiography of “cultural transfers,” it does not offer an analysis of French theater’s presence in Vienna as a simple or complex process of cultural transfer from France. To the extent that this presence cannot be understood outside of a broader European context, the hypothesis contends that the broadening of the analytical focus to a European scale, rather than the multiplication of intermediate links defining triangular or quadrangular transfers, makes it possible to account for the complexity of circulations. [21] Conversely, the local embedding of the analysis distinguishes the current study from approaches that, by understanding literary circulations at the macro-scale, mostly describe them in terms of measured and mapped flows (above all, translations). These are supposed to demonstrate the existence of relations of domination that necessarily assume a periphery-center model derived from world-system theory. [22] Here, measuring the circulation is less important than elucidating the political decisions that framed it.

6Documents relating to the management of court theaters are conserved in the archives of the State Chancellery (Staatskanzlei) in Vienna. [23] In addition to these administrative sources, all the documents concerning the theater found in Kaunitz’s personal archives held in Brno — comprising both his correspondence and two folders specifically dedicated to the theater — testify to the Chancellor’s personal involvement in theatrical affairs. [24] From these two collections, along with a number of complementary sources, it is possible to reconstruct the entire amorphous grouping of actors who, either through direct contact with the Chancellor or by corresponding with him, [25] participated in bringing French theater to Vienna (or tried to hinder the project) : the Viennese court’s theatrical directors (notably the Genoese diplomat Giacomo Durazzo, Kaunitz’s friend and protégé, who held this post between 1754 and 1764) and successive entrepreneurs (in particular, the Italian adventurer Giuseppe Afflisio between 1767 and 1770); the troupe directors and the French actors based in France or elsewhere in Europe; the agents responsible for the Viennese court’s theatrical affairs in Paris (Charles-Simon Favart, then Bréa); diplomatic representatives of the Viennese court based in Paris (Georg-Adam von Starhemberg, then Florimond de Mercy-Argenteau) or elsewhere; various French authorities (Minister of the Royal Household, the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, successive Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs); Austrian sovereigns (Francis I, Maria Theresa, and Joseph II, the latter being linked to his mother from 1765 as part of the “co-regency”); and, finally, the imperial aristocracy. This dense documentary corpus makes it possible to grasp the full complexity of the context in which Kaunitz undertook his project, one that the project eventually ended up modifying.

French Theater as a Social and International “Resource”

7In October 1770, after several weeks without news from Bréa, his agent in Paris, Kaunitz — who sought to hire the actor Dufresny, then in Bordeaux, for the French troupe in Vienna — apologized to Mercy-Argenteau, the imperial ambassador in France, for again asking him to intervene in such a matter. In passing, he attempted to justify the interest that these “theatrical affairs” held for him : they “interest me greatly … because the show, as you know, is just about my only resource in our good City of Vienna today.” [26] The initially innocuous expression “my only resource” could simply mean that the French theater was Kaunitz’s only distraction from the tedium of long Viennese winter evenings. However, contemporary dictionaries attribute a specific definition to the word : “that which we use & to which we have recourse to escape from affairs, to overcome difficulties.” [27] It is therefore possible to interpret the term as an expression of what the French theater really represented for Kaunitz : an acting and transitive socio-political instrument intended to produce effects.

8Twenty years earlier in 1750, even before his accession, Kaunitz was the first to formally suggest the need for a French troupe in Vienna in a note to the Empress, in which he presented a comprehensive plan for reorganizing the theaters. [28] Durazzo, whom he had recommended as theatrical director, kept Kaunitz informed of the evolution of these plans while he was in Paris as imperial ambassador over the next three years. [29] While Kaunitz did not seem to have been directly involved with the last-minute arrival in 1752 of Jean-Louis Hébert’s troupe, he was immediately responsible for the recruitment of new actors. [30] As decreed upon Emperor Francis I’s death, there was a long period during which there were no theatrical performances at court. After 1765, Kaunitz again campaigned for the presence of a theater troupe and worked diligently to find a solution for managing the exorbitant costs of a French production. Maria Theresa, however, was reluctant to host a new French troupe, fearing the negative effect their presence could have on her minister’s respectability. [31] In 1764, Durazzo was removed from office. Despite Maria Theresa’s strict orders against it, the Chancellor personally handled the correspondence with the actors and managed the troupe’s daily affairs. [32] Even though his final attempt to bring a French theater troupe to Vienna in 1975 failed because of Joseph II’s staunch support of a German national theater, [33] Kaunitz’s sustained efforts, while perhaps hiding inflexions, nonetheless highlight the importance he accorded to this issue throughout his political career. One obvious explanation for this is that Kaunitz loved French theater, which he “believed” to be “perfect” or at least pretended to love for snobbish reasons. I would like to focus instead on understanding the nature of the “resource” that French theater offered Kaunitz, which functioned on three distinct levels : an individual level designated as such ( “my only resource”) and compared to a personal trajectory of social and political ascent in the broader framework of the transformation of the imperial aristocracy’s identity; an international level in view of developing the “good City of Vienna” into a cultural capital; and, lastly, a diplomatic level within the context of the famous “reversal of alliances” endorsed by the 1756 Treaty of Versailles, which Kaunitz had been coordinating since 1749.

The Impossibility of French Cultural Diplomacy : The View From Vienna

20At the end of 1767, concerning a “small affair” (though one that was perhaps not so negligible), an exasperated Kaunitz bitterly complained to Mercy-Argenteau about the attitude of the French authorities : “If they do not do right by us either regarding this brazen hussy Montatier [sic] or regarding Monsieur de Beauveau, this will be the greatest injustice, and at the same time in my opinion an action of little consequence on the part of the French Ministry, since it is against good Policy as well as sound reason to suffer that those who have troupes outside of the Kingdom must squabble over it; especially when it is in their interest to do so, particularly in Vienna, where for compelling reasons one ought to be glad to see the Comédie Française again, sapienti pauca, so please interest yourself in this small affair.” [76] I have already explained how, following the interruption of 1765, Kaunitz was able to bring a company of French actors back to Vienna. The hiring operations that he personally supervised, however, proved difficult. Good actors were rare, and provincial theater directors had no intention of losing them. At the very least they wanted to receive a profitable “forfeit” in exchange : that is, compensation paid by a new employer when he hired an actor under contract. Hence the strategy employed by the director of the theater in Nantes, Mademoiselle Montansier (who later became famous), which led Kaunitz to call her a “brazen hussy.” Wishing to keep the actor Bursay, she intercepted the contract sent by the Viennese directors, explaining to them “that before telling S^r Bursay about it she was going to bind him with a new engagement that he would no longer be able to break.” Three other actors — Guigues, Miss Suzette, and Desmarets — apparently tried to make the shortage work in their favor by committing themselves to the troupe in Toulouse while they were holding talks with Vienna. “Eager to acquire these individuals,” the Viennese directors yielded to the actors’ demands and sent “the money necessary to pay the forfeit along with the contracts of engagement.” Although the affair seemed over, they “learned that [the actors] were being threatened, if their desire to leave persisted, with being either stopped when they leave the kingdom or put in prison when they come back.” [77] Kaunitz reacted to this type of threat by asking Mercy-Argenteau to implore the Count of Saint Florentin, the Minister of the Royal Household, to lift the obstacle that weighed on the recruitment of these actors. While hoping for favorable arbitration, Kaunitz expressed his doubts concerning the ability of the “French ministry” to make the “right” decision.

21As the analysis of his major memoranda on international politics has shown, this point of view was entirely characteristic of Kaunitz’s way of thinking. To the extent that he considered his diplomatic arrangements to be the logical and necessary result of rational analysis of the geopolitical situation, he could only conceive of their failure as involving the subjective, or exterior, factor that rendered other powers incapable of understanding where their objective interest lay. [78] In this case, “good policy” and “sound reason” should have made the French authorities see the “interest” in promoting the presence of French theatrical troupes outside the kingdom. This was particularly the case in Vienna, where — in a very clear reference to the Franco-Austrian alliance sealed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1756 that the marriage between the archduchess and the dauphin was about to further consolidate — “compelling reasons” should have been taken into account. As the main architect of this alliance — the basis of which he had formulated for the first time before the State Conference in the spring of 1749, [79] some months before submitting his memorandum on the theaters (which may be considered more than a mere chronological coincidence) —, Kaunitz regretted that the French authorities did not share his idea of a link between diplomatic and cultural rapprochement, which he had been trying to implement for over fifteen years. Beyond that, the very idea of cultural diplomacy — that is, the notion of a state fostering the spread of its “national” culture — seemed obvious to Kaunitz, who considered it problematic that the French did not share this viewpoint. Paradoxically, while historiography would later celebrate it as the crowning glory of “French Europe,” Kaunitz — who saw it as a potential obstacle to his own projects — regretted the absence of French cultural diplomacy. While his discourse tended to support the idea whereby the spread of French culture was not underpinned by decisive policy from Versailles, it nevertheless induced a double shift at the outset. On the one hand, compared to the historiographical cliché that cultural diplomacy is “par excellence a contemporary historical fact,” [80] the idea was far from foreign to conceptions of eighteenth-century statesmen. On the other hand, the corollary of this lack of French policy was not that the spread was spontaneous, but that it was driven by Kaunitz’s policy.

22In anticipating an “injustice” on the part of the French authorities, Kaunitz had been too pessimistic : he ultimately won the case against Saint Florentin. [81] In truth, the idea that the spread of the French theater was in their “interest” and deserving of support was not entirely considered odd by the French authorities. In 1758, when Empress Elizabeth of Russia asked Louis XV to “loan her” the two greatest stars of the Comédie Française, Lekain and Mademoiselle Clairon, she met with blunt refusal. Even though the Franco-Russian alliance against Frederick II’s Prussia was on the agenda and the king was full of good will, there was no way, as the cardinal of Bernis (the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) replied, that the Parisian public would be deprived of its favorite actors. In order to attenuate the bluntness of his refusal, however, he had opened the door to a compromise that would facilitate Elizabeth’s recruitment of good provincial actors “both for this princess and for spreading the taste for French theater to foreign countries.” [82] Beyond the leverage they represented in the international economy of give-and-take that was specific to the society of princes, Bernis thus considered the actors as potential agents for spreading the French theater abroad.

23However, the distinction outlined by Bernis between essential Parisian actors and potentially exportable provincial actors was not tenable. Beginning in the late 1740s, the French theater simultaneously boomed in France and Europe. As Lauren Clay has shown by elaborating upon Max Fuchs’s initial data on the subject, the theater in France developed in the provinces as an institutionalized and permanent form of urban leisure starting in the mid-eighteenth century, as opposed to the world of traveling troupes that dominated the first half of the century. [83] Measured by the construction of permanent auditoriums (only a dozen between 1700 and 1750, eighteen during the 1750s alone), this growth led provincial theatrical life to be organized differently. The former collective system of management and compensation based on joint discussion and sharing profits pro rata ceded to a managerial system in which each actor was paid according to a contract. However, this shift in the domestic French market occurred at exactly the same time as the second major phase of expansion involving French theater in Europe, which saw a number of French troupes taking up permanent residence throughout Europe. From eight in the early 1740s, the number grew to twelve at the end of the decade, then to fifteen at the beginning of the next decade. [84] These two phenomena had a combined effect, fueling a surge in the demand for actors. Moreover, in the absence of drama schools, which would have regularly produced new students, French actors had become a rare and coveted commodity since the 1750s. Favart regularly complained to Durazzo about the difficulties he faced in recruiting good actors : “Good actors are very rare,” “never have talents been so rare among us; we run up against a wall trying to find them.” [85]

24As the actors’ salaries substantially increased, so did the competition among the provincial and European theaters to engage their services. Beginning in the 1750s, directors of provincial troupes began denouncing the foreign courts’ practice of hiring their actors, which they considered disloyal. While some repressive measures appear to have been taken, they were unable to control the phenomenon. In the early 1760s, two factors rendered the problem even more acute, requiring the authorities to intervene. On the one hand, the end of the Seven Years’ War had stimulated theatrical activity in the provinces and abroad, causing a further increase in demand. [86] On the other hand, Catherine II’s accession to the Russian throne had led to a sudden injection of capital into the market for actors, the new empress having issued an edict upon her coronation calling for a troupe of French actors to be recruited. [87] Meanwhile, Favart, who was seeking to recruit a certain Mademoiselle Beaupré, had clashed with both the Duke of Duras (the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber) and Denis Papillon de La Ferté (intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs). For the case at hand, they invented a kind of preemptive right over actors of the realm, proclaiming themselves as having “the right to cancel by authority any kind of engagement with an actor who is needed for the royal theater when this actor is in France and not a foreigner.” [88] Insofar as it threatened not only the pool of provincial troupes but also that of the Parisian theaters, the emigration of actors had become a political problem that was brought to the attention of the king. A circular from the Count of Saint Florentin informed the Duke of Duras, upon whom the administration of the privileged Parisian theaters as well as the provincial directors depended, of the systematized repression “preventing theater actors from going to Foreign Countries.”

25

The King is, Monsieur, informed that many actors and actresses of the Theater want to go to Foreign Countries without permission. They are undoubtedly unaware of the prohibitions made by the ordinances to all of the King’s subjects against leaving the Kingdom without the permission of His Majesty, the actors and actresses are also subject to this, as are all other subjects of His Majesty. I think it necessary, so that none of them fall into such a wrong contravention for lack of knowledge, that you would be so kind as to warn them that if they leave the Kingdom without receiving permission they will be stopped at the border and if they find a way to avoid this, His Majesty would forever banish them from the Kingdom. [89]

26With this circular, practical measures were put into place for issuing permission to leave the kingdom. Praslin, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, revealed its content to the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber. The procedure involved three distinct institutions : dancers and singers would have to contact the Secretary of State to the Royal Household (upon whom the Royal Academy of Music depended), actors would have to ask the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, while the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was in charge of centralizing information and, above all, “sending the necessary passports.” [90] Ultimately, the passport proved the State’s tool for managing circulation. [91]

27This scheme linking the Royal Household with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in monitoring the actors’ international circulation was fundamentally hybrid — the institutional equivalent of friction in the monarchical administration between two contradictory rationales. On the one hand, as Favart noted when reporting the French authorities’ intentions to Durazzo, “the reason given for this new regulation is that, with persons related to the theater receiving higher salaries in foreign countries than in France, after a few years there would no longer be anyone in the three theaters.” On the other hand, the intention was not to “deprive foreign countries of tragic, comic, and prancing actors because it is thought the glory of our nation to give the theater to others.” [92] Indeed, proving that Favart as director of the Opéra-Comique was remarkably aware of the discussions occurring within the administration (this proximity had also led to his being denounced to Durazzo due to what appeared to be a conflict of interest between his official position and his post as correspondent to the Viennese court), [93] this restriction was further elaborated upon by Praslin.

28

Moreover, Monsieur, I must observe that it would not be a good Policy to be too difficult in granting these types of permission.

1. Because the subjects that seek them usually have the desire to return, and, indeed, we see almost all of them return to France with the small fortune they made in the foreign country.
2. Because it is a way for other nations to get a taste of our Theater and our literature and to expand the use of the French language in Europe, which constitutes a true advantage and a kind of glory for our nation. [94]

On the one hand, among the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, who were concerned about the quality of the shows performed in Paris and at court, monitoring the circulation of actors was justified from what can be described as a mercantilist perspective. Against the inflationist trend of the market fueled by the demand of foreign courts and confronted with the specter of shortages along with the pool of actors appearing likely to be exhausted, it was a matter of retaining the best actors within the kingdom through a monitoring policy. What the circular in fact did was apply to actors a prohibition that theoretically applied to “all the King’s subjects,” [95] but which had originally been designed from a primarily mercantilist point of view to combat the emigration of skilled artisans and seafarers (Edict of August 1669) before later being extended to Protestants fleeing the persecutions preceding the repeal of the Edict of Nantes (declaration of July 14, 1682). [96] Indeed, Papillon de La Ferté, referring to Colbert, considered the theatrical performances useful for the kingdom because, capable “of exciting the curiosity of foreigners, & thereby causing circulation & consumption advantageous to the State,” they stimulated the economy. [97] Praslin shared in this mercantilist rationale when he spoke of the medium-term consequences for actors demonstrating “the desire to return.” [98] If the actors ended up returning to France “with the small fortune they made in the foreign country,” could their temporary emigration thus be considered acceptable, since it would eventually end up bringing hard funds to the kingdom ?

29Besides this economic and centripetal conception of the theater’s usefulness, Praslin — in the same vein as Bernis but expressed with more clarity — articulated a radically different conception, at once cultural and centrifugal : the presence of French actors in Europe offered other nations “a taste of our Theater and our literature” and would “expand the use of the French language in Europe,” which would constitute a “true advantage and a kind of glory for our nation.” Although the wording remains somewhat vague and the exact nature of the “advantage” that France could gain from the spread of its literature and language across Europe is not specified, this is, to my knowledge, one of the first consistent expressions emanating from the head of the State that called for administrative support of this expansion, which was elevated to the rank of “good policy.” Praslin’s expression later found its way into Kaunitz’s writings, demonstrating that, contrary to Kaunitz’s pessimism, his conception of cultural diplomacy was shared by his French counterparts.

30However, while Praslin’s discourse marks a milestone in the emergence of the notion of cultural diplomacy, the scope of its impact must be analyzed in all its complexity. He did not formulate his ideas positively with a view to establishing an active policy of support for the spread of French theater, but negatively with a view to minimizing interference : Praslin thus recommended to the First Gentlemen not to “make it too difficult” to grant permission. His advice to be flexible when putting into practice the provision designed to halt the emigration of actors indicated the latent contradiction that would come to light a few years later during the attempted recruitment of the actor Jean Mauduit, known as Larive. In 1770, Bréa, Kaunitz’s new theatrical agent in Paris, along with Mercy-Argenteau, who was looking for a supporting actor, had become fixated on this young leading man “with a pleasant face” who had been recommended by Mademoiselle Clairon. [99] A contract was signed, and Choiseul, who had succeeded Praslin as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had even delivered a passport allowing Larive to travel to Vienna when the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber informed him that they had decided Larive would make his debut at the Comédie Française. Since the procedure indicated in the text of 1763, which they explicitly invoked, had not been respected (the passport had been delivered directly by Choiseul without the First Gentlemen’s prior permission), they considered Larive’s contract with Vienna null and void. [100] Mercy-Argenteau, however, did not agree. He informed Kaunitz of the “great quarrel” and “very strong explanations” that had arisen between himself and the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber regarding this issue. [101] Despite the support of Choiseul, who made a “very strong exhortation” to the Duke of Duras, he failed to succeed. “The Minister’s authority is null and void vis-à-vis the despotism of the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, encouraged by the Marshal of Richelieu,” explained Mercy. [102] At that time, Choiseul was in fact close to disgrace. The Marshal of Richelieu, along with the Duke of Aiguillon and René de Maupeou, headed the anti-Choiseul faction, so it is therefore no surprise to find him manipulating the situation. Beyond what this episode says about the likely state of power relations between parties within the court, the altercation between Choiseul and Duras shows how the opposition between the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, beginning with Praslin’s recommendations of flexibility in 1763, had become a structural one. The episode reveals all the perversity of the system introduced in 1763, which, far from putting an end to the practice of surreptitiously hiring actors, had almost led to its institutionalization under the leadership of the minister theoretically in charge of its repression. “Cheated,” Choiseul had in fact promised Mercy-Argenteau that from now on he would avoid “squabbles” with the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber by giving him the passports he needed “without consulting anyone,” the actors themselves being bound to secrecy. [103]

31The recruitment of actors thus took on the allure of a secret operation of exfiltration, demonstrating the impossibility of any cultural diplomacy on the part of France, not because it was unthinkable but because, structurally, the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber’s point of view tended to take precedence over that of the successive foreign Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs. For Kaunitz (who exercised his guardianship over the theater as Chancellor of State, in some way combining both roles), the failure to recruit Larive was symptomatic of “all the unreason, all the inconsistency, and all the injustice” characteristic of the French political system. While conceding that it was basically just “silliness,” he interpreted it nonetheless as a diplomatic incident, however minor. “A tit for tat : I answer you that I will remember this in time and place,” he wrote Mercy-Argenteau. [104] From the French point of view, however, the successful recruitment of an actor by Kaunitz would have been poorly perceived. In this respect, the Chancellor found himself in a paradoxical situation. Although he considered the recruitment of a French troupe to be a major pledge to Franco-Austrian rapprochement, the very act of recruiting French actors risked provoking a diplomatic incident, should it be seen as an attempt at “stealing.” This explains the precautions taken during the recruitment of Jean Rival, known as Aufresne. Having contacted the actor for the first time in June 1770 to offer him an engagement in Vienna in 1771, Kaunitz learned to his chagrin that Aufresne was not free but under contract in Strasbourg and that, in order to engage his services, he would have to pay a forfeit to Villeneuve, the director of the troupe. Kaunitz explained to Aufresne, “I cannot agree to this” because “by paying the forfeit I would look as though I wanted to steal you.” [105] In the end, Villeneuve received a gold snuffbox, an informal forfeit that saved appearances while providing at least some satisfaction. As for the Marshal of Contades, the high commander in Alsace who oversaw theatrical affairs in Strasbourg, Kaunitz thanked him for his “readiness to oblige” and a “process so noble and honest on your part that is similar to the impression that You gave me during the four last years of the war in the Netherlands, which preceded the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.” [106] As Kaunitz presented it, Aufresne’s recruitment thus had nothing to do with “stealing” but, rather, fell within the realm of a personal favor. The realities of the market faded behind a moral economy of mutual exchange and esteem between former enemies of war.

A Complex and Multipolar Space of Circulation

32A comparative analysis of the diplomatic stakes involved when recruiting actors thus fundamentally invalidates the idea of the spread of French theater from Paris to Vienna. It decenters one’s perspective by showing that the initiative actually came from Vienna, sometimes against the wishes of the French authorities and, paradoxically, at the risk of a diplomatic incident. It also calls for “de-linearizing” one’s understanding of cultural exchange. Here, this is not a matter of a simple (from Paris to Vienna) or triangular (from Paris to Vienna via an intermediary) movement, [107] but a complex and multipolar space of circulation. Approaching the process from Vienna provides a cross section of this space, revealing the circuitous and multiple paths involved in the circulation of actors. This cross section is delineated by two moments framing the presence of French actors in Vienna.

33Kaunitz’s first contact with a French theatrical entrepreneur actually occurred before the generally accepted date and also preceded the writing of his memorandum on the reorganization of the theater in 1750. At the end of 1748, following the end of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle where he had served as the negotiator for Austria, he approached a man named Desormes, a member of the Marshal of Saxe’s troupe of actors, which was then in the process of dispersing after the signing of the peace treaty on October 18. [108] Led by Favart beginning in 1746, this troupe was composed partly of actors from the Opéra-Comique (then only a fairground show, which closed in 1745 due to the complaints of the Comédie-Française) and partly of members of a troupe from Brussels (occupied by the French on February 25, 1746). It had traveled back and forth in the Austrian Netherlands from its base in Brussels, following the Marshal of Saxe’s armies for the duration of their entire victorious campaign. [109] “It enters into my political views as a strategic part of my military operations” [110] were the terms used by the Marshal of Saxe to inform Favart of the importance of the mission entrusted to him at the start of their collaboration. I will not describe the functions that the Marshal of Saxe assigned to his theater — such as entertainment and prophylaxis aimed at soldiers and officers, or prestige for the construction of his personal image. [111] What is important to note, however, is that the Marshal of Saxe had occasionally “loaned” his troupe of actors to the opposing camp, Charles Alexander of Lorraine, the commander of the Austrian army. [112] It was good practice towards an opponent who was not an enemy — the sign that, although temporarily at war, they belonged to the same European aristocratic society. [113] Although the Marshal of Saxe’s main goal was not the spread of the troupe’s repertoire, the “unintended consequence” was just that. Despite its patriotic dimension, [114] the pastoral idiom forged by Favart in close association with François Boucher would come to be largely appropriated in Brussels, under the aegis of Charles Alexander of Lorraine as governor of the Austrian Netherlands. The opéra-comique proved a success in Vienna, transforming from fairground genre into a veritable institution that (as I have shown, literally) acquired its pedigree as part of Durazzo’s programming. From this point of view, the subsequent institutionalization of the opéra-comique in France when it merged with the Comédie Italienne in 1762 appears in some respects to have resulted from the dignity the genre acquired in the foreign courts. Yet, while it is already known that Durazzo, the Genoan plenipotentiary at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, had met Favart in Flanders, [115] Desormes’s letter indicates that Kaunitz had at this time undertaken plans to hire a part of Favart’s troupe, which he had undoubtedly seen in performance. Nevertheless, the attempt apparently did not move beyond the “draft” stage, the only one for which documents are available. At that time Kaunitz was not in a position to hire a troupe himself and, after his initial contact with Desormes, probably had to write to Vienna. However, he was not alone in seeking an opportunity to recruit the rest of Favart’s troupe. Jean Monnet, the entrepreneur and former director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris, was then in London mounting a French show, and he also relied on Desormes and other troupe members through his intermediary. [116] Under these conditions, Desormes warned Kaunitz by providing proof (sending him the letter in which Monnet wrote his intentions) that he must act quickly, since “the interval from draft to execution is long, London will get what Vienna should have.” Although this premature attempt ultimately proved unsuccessful, it shows how the recruitment of actors occupied a European space of circulation from the outset, London and Vienna temporarily orbiting around the center that was Brussels. [117] The occupation of the Austrian Netherlands and the peace negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle constituted a real cultural melting pot, an essential relay in the dissemination of the galant model across Europe. [118]

34Situated in this European space of circulation, Kaunitz’s action modified it in turn, while Vienna ultimately polarized it. On March 3, 1772, the French troupe in Vienna showed Le bourru bienfaisant by Carlo Goldoni and Le mercure galant by Edme Boursault at the Nächst der Burg theater on what would prove to be its ultimate performance in the Austrian capital. After having ruined Afflisio, who in just over two years of managing theaters had accumulated a debt of nearly 120,000 guilders, the French show also drained the finances of his successor at the head of the theaters’ enterprise, Hungarian János Koháry, who was in turn forced to throw in the towel. Despite Kaunitz’s efforts to mobilize the aristocracy, the French theater proved impossible to finance without a grant from the court. At the same time, the movement in favor of the national theater led by Joseph von Sonnenfels gained ground with the support of Joseph II. [119] In the end, the French troupe was dismissed. Kaunitz nonetheless refused to admit defeat. In the hope — “not unfounded,” according to Khevenhüller — of obtaining a repeal, he thus decided to send the troupe on a tour of Italy. [120] He viewed it as a matter of preventing the troupe’s dispersion after having put so much effort into establishing it. He wanted to keep them on hand while he tried to change the Empress’s mind and find a viable financial solution — in other words, to gain time. By August 1771, he had sent a circular letter to the Austrian diplomatic representatives in the peninsula to test the viability and the potential profitability of his touring project outlined in a memorandum written by the actors. Placing them under his personal protection, there was little room to doubt the answer he hoped to receive : “I am also particularly interested in them, and I ask you in return to give me a prompt reply, and that it may be favorable to their Project.” [121] Despite the generally lukewarm replies from the diplomats like Johann Joseph von Wilczek, who was of the opinion that “the French actors will do their business badly by giving their time to Tuscany,” [122] the tour took place. The itinerary can be traced through the letters the actors wrote to Kaunitz, which testify to a bond uniting them to the Chancellor that effectively made them his personal troupe. [123] The troupe first gave twelve performances in Mantua from April 20, 1772. It then traveled through Verona, Brescia, and Florence in late June before stopping in Milan for eighteen performances in the second half of September. [124] After another detour through Mantua, it arrived in Venice for twenty-four performances in November and December, where it proved a “complete success” according to Durazzo (then the imperial ambassador in Venice), [125] and finished in Naples in January 1773, where Galiani chronicled its eighteen performances for Madame d’Épinay (and, through her, for the philosophes). [126] This itinerary was in part improvised; the choice of venue was made depending on the conditions negotiated with the local authorities. Kaunitz’s personal protection in a peninsula largely under Austrian influence seems to have played a vital role in opening the doors. Even the troupe’s presence in Naples, which the French ambassador Louis de Breteuil later presented in Versailles as the result of his own initiative with a view to “rendering the French language more familiar,” [127] seems to have been negotiated through the intervention of Austrian representatives. [128] A symbol of the circuitous routes borrowed by the French actors, it was thus through the action of the Austrian Chancellor of State, in command of the imperial diplomatic network in the peninsula from Vienna, that the French repertoire was performed “for the first time in the memory of man” in several Italian cities.

35When examined through the lens of the Kaunitz case, the equivalence between the spread of the French language and culture and French cultural dominance, put forth from the outset via the “French Europe” discourse and too conveniently taken at face value by the sociology of literary domination, dissolves. In truth, the singular power and longevity of the “French Europe” discourse was that it invented the idea of the “domination” of one culture on an international scale, which was then applied to it in an endless hermeneutic circle. Although Kaunitz may well have purchased six copies of the Commentaires sur Corneille sold by Voltaire to all of princely and aristocratic Europe in 1761, [129] this does not mean that his efforts to introduce the French theater in Vienna should be reduced to his “belief” in its “perfection.” On the contrary, Corneille was hardly staged at the Nächst der Burg theater, and the French theater was subjected to a severe process of selection and adaptation according to the uses assigned to it at different scales, both as an instrument of social distinction in the context of a broader reorganization of the imperial aristocracy’s identity and as a tool in the construction of a cultural capital and putative guarantee of diplomatic rapprochement with France.

36In many ways, insofar as this article addresses the mediators were involved in the circulation of French theater and examines the “semantic transformation” that affected it in the process, this study is indebted to an approach to “cultural transfer” studies. The discovery of the circuitous paths used by the French theater from Hanover to Naples via Brussels, Lorraine, and Vienna nonetheless invites one to go beyond a notion that is too linear in character or that immediately posits the relevance of the national framework. Broadening the focus to a European scale makes it possible to understand the complex pathways and appropriations. In this sense, this article may also be read as a contribution to the project for a new history of French literature within a perspective that could be qualified as “global” in that it would be written both within and beyond the national framework. [130] However, this is not about falling a contrario into a purely circulatory paradigm, in which “pure physical or economic circulation, is completely meaningless.” [131] Broadening the focus only makes sense when closely articulated with an analysis on a local scale, which allows for fixing the circulations within the material and political conditions in which they operate. From this point of view, the French authorities’ attempt to monitor the international circulation of actors only emphasizes Kaunitz’s voluntarism to acclimate French theater to Vienna. Literary circulations seen through the prism of printing often appear almost exclusively the product of “cultural mediators” (translators, booksellers, publishers, librarians, etc.) controlled by commercial rationales, with the courts and political authorities reduced to their actions in the field of censorship and thus implicitly considered obstacles to be overcome. The case of the theater, however, invites one to revise this idea and examine instead the driving force they may have proved in the process.