Rhetoric as Political Action

Witnesses to the propaganda campaigns of the early seventeenth century were particularly disturbed by the quantity and viciousness of the pamphlets. Responding to pamphlets attacking some great noblemen in the period from 1614 to 1617, one author wrote, "one has never seen written such an hysterical attack on the honor of the Princes. A single day does not go by that does not bring forth some little book full of injuries and slander [médisance ]."^[8] The author continued, "What ink has not been used to stain and blacken their reputation? . . . What devices and fabrications have not been used to give a bad impression of their rights and praiseworthy intentions?"^[9] Supporters of the other side had the same complaint, as illustrated by the passage from Jeannin's pamphlet quoted at the outset of this chapter.

The seventeenth-century vocabulary for describing these publishing practices reveals a complex interplay of rhetorical concepts on the one hand and legal notions akin to defamation and seditious libel on the other. Politicians and pamphlet authors commented frequently on the calculated dissemination of bruits and libelles diffamatoires and worried about the mauvaises impressions that these caused among the people. Bruit was a general term, frequently used to refer to political rumors or disturbances; it referred especially to public clamors or outcries, common tales, and the talk among the people.^[10] The phrases faire courir un bruit and semer un bruit were commonly used to describe the acts of spreading political news or rumors with the potential to create a public disturbance, but did not necessarily refer to printed propaganda.^[11] Another common

[7] . Brown, "Language as a Political Instrument."

[8] . Discours sur les calomnies (1614), 9.

[9] . Ibid., 5.

[10] . Cotgrave, Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues , s.v. bruit .

[11] . In a letter to Cardinal de Sourdis, 29 February 1614, Pontchartrain wrote, "Le vice-senechal est ung tres mauvais homme d'avoir faict courir les bruicts que vous mandez" (Pontchartrain's spelling), B.N. Ms. fr. 6379, f. 189. In a letter from the queen regent to many provincial governors and lieutenants sent 13 February 1614, Marie mentions that "les bruits qui s'espandent et augmentent a ceste occassion pouroient produire de mauvais effects dans les provinces au prejudice du repos public," in Correspondance de la mairie de Dijon , 3:128. I owe this reference to James Farr, who assisted me greatly with archival work in Dijon. An anonymous pamphlet from 1615 mentions "tousles faux bruits qu'on a semez contre . . . [le] gouvernement," Discourse , B.N. Lb36. 878.

phrase, publier un libel , also referred to spreading false information either orally or in printed form.

Pieces of printed propaganda—leaflets, posters, pamphlets, or small books—were occasionally designated by neutral terms such as billets, affiches , or livrets .^[12] But pamphlets were generally referred to as libels or libelles diffamatoires . Seditious and defamatory pamphlets were potent weapons of disorder, and politicians were thus often eager to punish the authors and printers of such literature. A special provision against pamphleteering was included in one section of a wide-ranging "peace treaty" reached in 1616 between the leader of a faction of rebel nobles and the government of Marie de Médicis. The section mandated a penalty of death for the authors of any "memoires, libelles diffamatoires, lettres, escrits, et livrets injurieux et scandaleux" of a political nature.^[13] The article also expressly forbade the printing or offering for sale of any such material.

Such severe measures were usually softened, however, by a convenient double standard that left room for patronage and protection. The same article that stipulated the death penalty for the authors of pamphlets bowed to this double standard by granting amnesty to anyone guilty of writing, printing, or selling propaganda during the previous two years. The loophole was obviously designed to protect loyal writers on both sides who had been active in the recent pamphlet campaigns, many of whom, after all, were high-ranking clergymen and important advisers.

Attitudes toward pamphleteering clearly reflected the general opinion about public discourse and its place in political life—views rooted in both political experience and academic training. Especially for the generation of Frenchmen who had survived the Holy League (1583-1594), political oration was a powerful, even deadly, weapon. Nicolas Pasquier, a respected intellectual and thoughtful student of éloquence , wrote the following bitter indictment shortly after the assassination of Henry IV in 1610.

The ability of a preacher to speak well is an attractive and valuable gift of nature which, augmented and cultivated by extensive use and study, provides clarity and beauty to the fair conceptions of his mind. . . . But, if he decides to abuse the sweetness of his language, there is no more terrible plague on a Kingdom than this well-spoken preacher . . . his tongue becomes a weapon of violence on which depends the life or death of those for whom and against whom he uses it.^[14]

[12] . Hubert Carrier suggested to me that a billet was probably a handbill or leaflet and that an affiche was most likely something posted.

[13] . Article 42, Edict of Loudun, Bouchitté, ed., Négotiations , 738-739.

[14] . Pasquier, Remonstrances tres-humbles (1610), 44-45.

This lament and warning suggests that respect for the power of the printed and spoken word stemmed mainly from personal experience. The writings of Guillaume Du Vair, another student of rhetoric who had survived the years of the League, confirm this view. Political oratory of the wrong sort could "strangely deform, and even ruin, the whole of civil society."^[15] Eloquence was one thing; demagoguery was quite another.

At the same time, Pasquier, Du Vair, and other students of rhetoric believed order, truth, and civic virtue in the realm of discourse would help support a realm of politics embodying the same qualities. Belief in the good of public discourse was borrowed in part from the Stoic authors (especially Cicero), whose treatises on rhetoric were then circulating widely in France.

Every educated person of the early modern era was familiar with the fundamentals of rhetoric as a discipline taught in the schools. The Renaissance inspired a great resurgence of interest in classical rhetorical theory and its implications for belles lettres , philosophy, and history.^[16] Rhetoric was an important part of the curriculum of higher education; a year of rhetoric was often the finishing touch on five or six years of secondary education.^[17] It was a subject for more advanced contemplation as well. The notion of éloquence was fundamental to the work of l'Academie français from the beginning.^[18] Marc Fumaroli's massive study of treatises on rhetoric demonstrates how extensively sixteenth-and seventeenth-century scholars investigated the process of persuasion and the characteristics of éloquence .^[19] Students of the subject devoted much time to the classical treatises—Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and their followers, especially St. Augustine.^[20]

The interest in rhetoric went well beyond aesthetics. The value of persuasion was obvious to the leaders of the Catholic church, who hoped to reconvert Protestants. And from still another angle, the study of rhetoric was important for developing what we might today call "social skills." In early modern elite society, where witty conversation, elegant letter writing, and effective public speaking were expected, l'art de bien dire

[15] . Du Vair, De l'éloquence françois , 151. Cf. Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism , 35-47.

[16] . Seigel, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism , and Struever, Language of History . For sixteenth-century France, see Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship . For the seventeenth century, see France, Racine's Rhetoric , and Rhetoric and Truth in France . For England, see Shapiro, Probability and Certainty .

[17] . France, Rhetoric and Truth , 4, and Huppert, Public Schools in Renaissance France , 51-54.

[18] . Davidson, Audience, Words, and Art , 3-4.

[19] . Fumaroli, L'Age de l'éloquence .

[20] . Professor Fumaroli traces these influences throughout his book and provides an extensive bibliography of classical treatises printed toward the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century.

and l'art de persuader were important skills for any ambitious person to cultivate.^[21]

When circumstances required it, a good citizen had a duty to use his understanding of rhetoric to move his fellow citizens into the proper state of mind by speaking out or publishing for the public good. Du Vair boasted that during the last years of the Holy League, Henry IV had asked him to compose an anti-League pamphlet favorable to the king's cause, which he did "under the name of an inhabitant of Paris, and in language suitable to this condition."^[22] It was not unusual for Du Vair to exploit the somewhat complex rhetorical strategy of fictionalized political voice. He used the persona of a Parisian bourgeois in part because the League had used the same strategy with evident success to mobilize the Parisians against Henry. Rhetorical calculations of this kind generated an entire repertoire of stylistic and argumentative devices that were a central part of pamphlet warfare in the seventeenth century.^[23] Rhetorical posture was as important as ideological content in conveying political messages. Persuasion, in the usual sense of convincing an audience of the truth of a particular proposition, was often less important than moving an audience to identify with the general worldview of a pamphlet as conveyed through its literary qualities.

A man such as Du Vair perceived his own use of rhetoric (in pamphleteering or public oratory) in high-minded Stoic terms, just as he envisioned his involvement in politics as arising out of transcendental values—goodness, justice, honor, and duty. The Stoic tradition, however, rested on an idealistic conception of the power of the virtuous orator to influence the political nation. This was as evident to many of Du Vair's contemporaries as it is to us, and they made fun of him later in his career as a deluded idealist fond of making great speeches but naive and ineffective in the world of ministerial politics. Yet French political culture was not amenable to Machiavellian strategies either. The author of The Prince hailed the importance of reputation as a basis of power and observed that in many cases a false reputation could function almost as well as a true one.^[24] This kind of cynicism was generally rejected, or at least suppressed, in France, but no one rejected the notion of the political efficacy of a prince's reputation.^[25] On the contrary, the need for princes, noblemen, and ministers to cultivate the affections of the people was

[21] . France, Racine's Rhetoric , 12.

[22] . Du Vair, Les Oeuvres . . . , 400-401.

[23] . Discussed more fully in chapters 2, 5, and 6.

[24] . Machiavelli, The Prince , quoted in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others , 3 vols., trans. Allan Gilbert (Durham, N.C., 1965), 1:57-68 (chapters 15-19).

[25] . Kelley, "Murd'rous Machiavel in France," 545-559.

taken to be a virtually self-evident political reality. The following passage, taken from a pamphlet published in 1614, illustrates the point.

For even though they [nobles in opposition to the government] are princes [of France's royal house], so are they in some fashion subject to the people, and their prestige [nom ] depends upon the esteem in which they are held. . . . So that I hold it necessary for all our princes [including the king] to communicate in a familiar way [communiquer familièrement ] with their peoples, and from time to time appear before them in public actions where their virtue and skill can be seen.^[26]

This passage also makes clear that the power of political communication depends not only on its eloquence but also on its strategic appropriateness. The rhetorical tradition shaped political discourse, in this context, by providing a way of strategically analyzing communicative practices embedded in French culture and society.