September 20, 2015
Robert R. Palmer Research Travel Grant: Research Report
Katlyn Carter, Princeton University Department of History
With the generous support of the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies through a Robert R. Palmer Research Travel Grant, I was able to complete the last leg of my dissertation research over the summer in Paris, France. I spent eight weeks (from July 15-Sept.
10, 2015) conducting archival research that will be vital to my project.
The bulk of my time was spent in the Archives Nationales de France, at Pierrefitte. There,
I was able to consult four series of documents that yielded crucial material. First, I covered the entire series of records of the revolutionary
Comité des Recherches
, which was the committee tasked with investigating denunciations of counter-revolutionary activity from 1789 through
1791. This series was rich with documents that illustrate a central theme of my dissertation, which is the culture of surveillance and vigilance that was linked to a valorization of publicité in the political process. These documents will prove that already in the summer of 1789, deputies in the National Assembly were establishing realms of secret government activity aimed, ironically, at ferreting out secrets that seemed to threaten the revolutionary project. Of prime importance within this series were the cartons containing “documents considered secret,” within the committee. Examining these has allowed me to determine how the lines of visible and concealed were drawn in this realm of government activity during the early revolutionary period.
I then moved on to the records of the Comité de Sureté Général (in many ways the successor to the
Comité des Recherches
) and those of the
Comité de Salut Public
. Within these two series, I was able to hone in on records of postal surveillance established by the committees during the Terror. I was particularly excited to find evidence of how these committees went about monitoring mail—constructing standardized charts to analyze and keep track of mail being sent from outside the country. I was also able to consult administrative records of these committees, which let me see how they were composed and how they operated on a day-to-day basis. Numerous mentions of the importance of discretion and outright secrecy to their work will provide a central line of evidence in my dissertation. Additionally, I spent time with the records of the
Comité des Inspecteurs de Salle
, which have allowed me to trace the day-to-day activity of the entity charged with regulating access to and behavior within the National Convention. This yielded particularly helpful information about the procedures taken in relation to security concerns as the Revolution entered its most radical phase. Often, these concerns led to the closing of doors and tight restrictions on entry into the deliberative chamber. These documents will also serve as a core component of the evidence in my project.
Beyond the Archives Nationales, I was able to work extensively at the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France (BNF)—at Mitterand, Arsenal, and Richelieu, as well as at the Bibliothèque
Historique de la Ville de Paris. At the BNF, I explored the records of the Cordeliers Club in particular, which are full of fascinating and suggestive records showing the link between transparency and vigilance, and conceptions of representative government. These records will prove a rich source of evidence in my dissertation. At Arsenal, I was able to explore the archives of the Bastille, to trace how revolutionaries handled the mass of material uncovered there as part of a project to expose the secrets of the Old Regime. At Richelieu, I consulted the personal papers of deputies central to the founding of the National Archives and administration of the assembly meetings. Finally, I was able to track down many pamphlets and tracts that dealt with secrecy and discussed the centrality of publicity, vigilance, and surveillance to the success of the revolutionary endeavor.