Britons in Paris from the Old Regime to the Revolution

Abstract

Over the final decades of the Old Regime, the French government adopted policies aimed at smoothing the path for economically valuable travellers and entrepreneurs from abroad to come to the country. This meant that Paris by 1789 had become a high-profile stage for all manner of British links with France, but also with the wider world. The early period of the Revolution in many respects further catalysed these dynamics. Surface tranquillity for the British in post-1789 France nevertheless masked two consequential background shifts. First, as the Revolution proceeded, there was a deprivileging of the courtly diplomatic links associated in favour instead of a greater emphasis on communications between national ‘peoples’ and their representatives. Second, as the Revolution proceeded, it brought the implication that it was not so much France that would need to model itself on Britain, but rather the reverse.