François-Antoine BOISSY D’ANGLAS (1756–1826), member of the - Lot 432

Lot n° 432
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François-Antoine BOISSY D’ANGLAS (1756–1826), member of the - Lot 432
François-Antoine BOISSY D’ANGLAS (1756–1826), member of the National Convention (Ardèche) and politician. Autograph manuscript, *Various Thoughts on Morals, Politics, and the French Revolution*, [January 1800]; 52-page notebook, small 8vo plus cover, paperback (water stains). A very interesting notebook by the former president of the Convention, containing reflections on the Revolution, anecdotes about his contemporaries, and notes on history; it is numbered “20.” It opens with an amusing anecdote about Sieyès, who, when he was to receive a national award, managed to take Roger Ducos’s place in drafting the message, and “never was a man praised as much as Sieyès in that piece (I still get this account from Carnot, who in turn got it from Bonaparte)”... He speaks humorously of Sieyès’s financial affairs: the 100,000 francs he “saved” in Prussia, his pensions as a senator, his request for a raise—“but Bonaparte refused: he often told me, while serving on the Committee of Public Safety, that his entire fortune consisted of 3,600 francs in life annuities, and that he never wanted a single sou more”... A note dated 1 Pluviose VIII (January 21, 1800) refers to the accusations of embezzlement against Ouvrard, a supplier to the armies, and Ouvrard’s statements regarding bribes paid to Barras. Boissy d’Anglas offers some general reflections: “The successive revolutions that are shaking the world [...] are nothing other than the result of the struggle that will always exist between the majority, which does not want to be oppressed, and the minority, which wants to oppress it. [...] The chains that bind men in slavery are auxiliary to those that bind them within the legal order”... He comments on this paradox: Louis XIV, the most powerful and absolute of kings, “did more to bring about the French Revolution than Louis XVI”... He speaks of constitutions, which result from compromises between existing powers: that of Year VIII was “a compromise between the ambition of Sieyès and that of Bonaparte, between the genius of intrigue and brute force”... He quotes remarks by Mallet du Pan and recalls a speech by Sieyès before the Constituent Assembly on liberty, equality, and property... He recounts how he was struck from the prefectural lists, Talleyrand having slandered him to Bonaparte: “He does not forgive me for the good I did him and the harm I have already suffered as a result”… He offers his assessment of Vergniaud and the Girondins, who did not want a republic and who “realized full well that by dethroning the king, they would end up siding with the House of Orléans”… He reports on Carnot’s remarks regarding the 18th Fructidor and quotes Montesquieu on the authority of the prince and the power of the people... “Bonaparte must strive to give the French nation a character, institutions, and customs; to create for it maxims of government in keeping with its mores; and to direct its industry, its people, and the strength of its armies toward a goal of prosperity that is uniquely its own. Without this, he will merely pass through the stages upon which he has taken the stage.”... He explains how the Constitution of Year VIII, by declaring the inviolability of the consuls, formally contradicted the Convention, which had refused to recognize the inviolability of the king... He quotes Saint-Lambert at length on the history of Europe, the various forms of government, etc. He also discusses the Renaissance of the arts, the power of the popes, the poisoning of Mirabeau by the Jacobins and the Orléanists, Santerre and the June 20 movement, the Romans, the Republic of Genoa, etc.
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