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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
A previously unknown document reveals the authorship of the most important manifesto produced by the Dutch patriot movement of the mid-1780s and shows that it was originally written in French. This document was published in France in 1788 and may have influenced the drafting of the revolutionary Declaration of the rights of man in 1789.
1 Citations from articles II and IV of ‘Extrait du plan général de réforme concerté par les patriotes hollandois’, in Analyse des papiers anglais no. 75 (15–18 Aug. 1788)Google Scholar; citations from articles VI and XI of Declaration of the rights of man and citizen.
2 Anon., Ontwerp, om de republiek door eene heilzaame vereeniging der belangen van regent en burger, van binnen gelukkig, en van buiten gedugt te maaken (Leiden, 1785)Google Scholar. There were at least three editions of this pamphlet in 1785.
3 Palmer, R. R., Age of the democratic revolution (2 vols., Princeton, 1959, 1964).Google Scholar
4 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands staatswezen zo voor het algemeen bondgenootschap, als voor het bestuur van elke byzondere provincie (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1784, 1786).Google Scholar
5 Ibid. I, vii, 63, 328.
6 Ibid, II, vi–vii.
7 Simon, Schama, Patriots and liberators (New York, 1977), p. 95.Google Scholar
8 Nicolaas, C. F. Van Sas, ‘The Patriot revolution: new perspectives’, in Margaret, C. Jacob and Wijnand, W. Mijnhardt, eds., The Dutch republic in the eighteenth century: decline, enlightenment, and revolution (Ithaca, N.Y. 1992), pp. 107, 109.Google Scholar
9 Leeb, I. Leonard, Ideological origins of the Batavian revolution (The Hague, 1973), pp. 185–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Colenbrander, H. T., De Patriottentijd, hoofdzakelijk naar buitenlandsche bescheiden (3 vols., s'Gravenhage, 1897–1899), I 282Google Scholar; Schama, , Patriots, p. 95Google Scholar; Maarten, Prak, ‘Citizen radicalism and democracy in the Dutch republic’, in Theory and Society, XX (1991), 90.Google Scholar
11 Colenbrander, H. T., ed., Gedenkstukken der algemeene geschiedenis van Nederland van 1795 tot 1840 (s'Gravenhage, 1905), I, 4n.Google Scholar
12 Leeb, , Ideological origins, p. 184.Google Scholar
13 Van, Sas, ‘Patriot revolution’, p. 109.Google Scholar
14 Bibliothèque nationale (Paris), MS n.a.f. 6345, fos. 94–7.
15 Information from Eugène Dubois, in Bibliothèque municipale, Bourg-en-Bresse (France), Fonds Dubois, MS 212, ‘Histoire des pays qui ont formé le département de l'Ain’. For a general account of Cerisier's career, see Jeremy, D. Popkin, ‘From Dutch republican to French monarchist: Antoine-Marie Cerisier and the age of revolution’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, CII (1989), 534–44Google Scholar, written before the discovery of the important letter discussed here.
16 Cerisier to Brissot, 22 Dec. 1792, with copy of letter to Kersaint, 16 Dec. 1792, Paris, Archives nationales, Brissot papers, 446 AP 9.
17 Le pot au beure [sic] hollandais, ou la polygarchie (N. p., 1784), p. 24.Google Scholar
18 Cited in Colenbrander, , Gedenkstukken, I, 4n.Google Scholar
19 Antoine-Marie, Cerisier, Tableau de l'histoire générale des Provinces unies (10 vols., Utrecht, 1777–1784). I, iii.Google Scholar
20 Adams to continental congress, 16 May 1782, Adams papers microfilm, reel 106, fos. 39–40.
21 Cerisier, A. M., ‘Lettre écrite à un Ami sur la guerre présente entre l'Angleterre et l'Amérique, en lui envoyant cette traduction’Google Scholar, in William, Barrow, Histoire de la fondation des colonies des anciennes républiques, adaptée à la dispute présente de la Grande Bretagne avec ses colonies américaines, Cerisier, A. M., trans. (Utrecht, 1788), p. 176.Google Scholar
22 On this important journal, see Jeremy, D. Popkin, ‘The élite press in the French revolution: the Gazette de Leyde and the Gazette universelle’, in Harvey, Chisick, ed., The press in the French revolution (Oxford, 1991), pp. 85–99.Google Scholar
23 One of the most important was another French-born Dutch patriot, P.-A. Dumont-Pigalle, whose extensive papers in the Algemene Rijksarchief in The Hague form the basis for most modern research on the patriot movement. He kept a close eye on Cerisier's activities, as his letter about the burning of the Gazette universelle's offices in August 1792 (in Leiden University Library, MS BPL 1031 (I)) indicates.
24 For Cerisier's membership, see Jacques-Pierre, Brissot, Mémoires, Claude, Perroud, ed. (2 vols., Paris, n.d.), II, 74.Google Scholar
25 Marie-France, Silver, ‘Analyse des papiers anglais’, in Jean, Sgard, ed., Dictionnaire des jouynaux 1600–1789 (2 vols., Paris, 1991), I, 127.Google Scholar
26 Cerisier to Kersaint, 16 Dec. 1792, in AN, 446 AP 9.
27 Régénération de la France par les Etats généraux. Par M. ***, avocat en parlement (N. p., 1788). As Cerisier claimed in his 1792 letter, the most distinctive feature of his suggested reform plan was a sharp condemnation of all tendencies toward provincial autonomy, which he warned would lead to the kind of paralysis that he thought had doomed the Dutch patriot movement.
28 Colenbrander, , Patriottentijd, I, viii.Google Scholar
29 Prak, , ‘Citizen radicalism’, p. 90.Google Scholar
30 Lynn, Hunt, Politics, culture and class in the French revolution (Berkeley, CA, 1984), p. 188.Google Scholar
31 Arthur, Young, Travels in France during the years 1787, 1788 and 1789 (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 75–6Google Scholar, entry for 16 Sept. 1787.
32 On Marat's references to Dutch affairs in his revolutionary-period journalism, see Jeremy, D. Popkin, ‘Marat en Hollande: un témoignage inconnu’, Dix-huitiène siècle, XXII (1990), 291–3.Google Scholar
33 Jeremy, D. Popkin, News and politics in the age of revolution: Jean Luzac's Gazette de Leyde (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), p. 182.Google Scholar
34 Analyse des papiers anglais, no. 75 (15–18 Aug. 1788).
35 Christine, Fauré, Les déclarations des droits de l'homme de 1789 (Paris, 1988), p. 25.Google Scholar
36 Analyse des papiers anglais, no. 55, no. 61.
37 Ibid. no. 55.
38 Ibid. no. 61.
39 Ibid. no. 79.
40 Ibid. no. 75.
41 Ibid. no. 77.
42 Ibid. no. 78.
43 On the evolution of pre-revolutionary political argument, see Jeremy, D. Popkin and Van Kley, Dale, ‘The pre-revolutionary debate’, in Colin, Lucas, ed., The French revolution research collection (Oxford, n.d.)Google Scholar, and, more generally, Keith, Baker, Inventing the French revolution (Cambridge, 1990).Google Scholar
44 Cerisier to prefect of Rhône, 30 Sept. 1821, Lyon, Archives départementales du Rhône, 449.
