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Réseaux diplomatiques et République des lettres: les correspondants de Sir Joseph Williamson (1660–1680) . Par Alexandre Tessier.

2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 70; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/fs/knw098

1468-2931

Richard Maber,

Historical Influence and Diplomacy

Scholars have long been intrigued by the relationship in the early modern period between the networks of scholarly correspondence and the other two great co-existing epistolary networks: the diplomatic, and the political and administrative. The latter is currently the focus of considerable research; but the connections between the networks of scholarship and diplomacy have generally been taken for granted, with broad-brush generalizations extrapolated from a few well-known individuals who were distinguished in both fields. Alexandre Tessier’s impressive monograph is the first to engage with the question in real depth, and the results are illuminating and often surprising. He has found an ideal subject in Sir Joseph Williamson (1633–1701). Williamson’s scholarly credentials are impeccable: a cultured intellectual (and virtuoso violinist) with wide interests, he was a fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and later became President of the Royal Society. He was a polyglot in ancient and modern languages (including Anglo-Saxon), travelled in France, and developed friendly links with many leading French scholars. Williamson had a distinguished political career from 1660 to 1680, culminating in his appointment as Secretary of State, Northern Department, and Plenipotentiary Ambassador at three major congresses. Most importantly for posterity, he was for many decades Keeper of the State Papers, and he accumulated a huge number of primary documents that are now accessible in the British National Archives. Few archives of diplomatic correspondence have ever been fully exploited, and the sheer quantity of material in Williamson’s archive presents a daunting challenge. To give an idea of the scale of the resources available, the most abundant surviving correspondences among early modern scholars tend to be between 3000 and 7500 letters over perhaps forty or fifty years; of the most prolific, Leibniz, we have a total correspondence of 15,000 letters over fifty-four years. In Williamson’s case, for the twenty-year period from 1660 to 1680, the State Papers Foreign preserve no fewer than 17,794 letters addressed to him, while the letters that he wrote have never been catalogued. Tessier’s meticulous and exhaustive study of Williamson’s correspondence goes further than any previous work. Though not always escaping its origins as a thèse de doctorat , especially in the slightly laborious opening background section, this is a work of absorbing interest, supported by 135 pages of documentation and analytical tables and a fifty-page bibliography. The small but significant scholarly dimension to this correspondence is analysed in perceptive detail, including the important exchanges with Tanneguy Le Fèvre, with Henri Justel, and, on the other side of the confessional divide, with the Mauristes Luc d’Achery and Jean Mabillon. Tessier is alert to the subtleties of these interactions, and the calculations of reciprocal benefit that were involved. What emerges above all, however, is that the networks of scholarship and diplomacy remain radically distinct, and even scholar-diplomats such as Ezechiel Spanheim keep the different dimensions of their lives firmly in separate compartments. This is an important finding, initially unexpected yet fully comprehensible, and is supported by rigorous analysis of the documentation. The author is to be congratulated on a formidable achievement, and the publisher for supporting it.