https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2664-4499
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Abstract
Le Trosne’s Discours sur l’état actuel de la magistrature was published in 1764. It is the first physiocratic book of Le Trosne, a major physiocrat. This paper records the reaction of Quesnay, the founder of Physiocracy, to this work: I discovered the text of the far-reaching letter sent by Quesnay to Le Trosne, which is the only extant trace of any written exchange between them. It provides a sketch of Quesnay’s fundamental beliefs, announces some of his most important later works and outlines ideas later developed by Lemercier de la Rivière. It also displays Quesnay’s religious streak.
Acknowledgements
I acknowledge the help provided by the Hagley Library. I was fortunate to receive lengthy and meticulous reports of two referees which corrected several oversights of an earlier version.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 I am grateful to Richard van den Berg for having sent me a summary of an unpublished draft of his on Le Trosne.
2 Vardi (Citation2012, 244, n.12).
3 At least one of these letters was partly reprinted in Quesnay (Citation1888, 6), was briefly mentioned by Weulersse (Citation1910, I, 93) and was rediscovered and quoted in a quite different context by Théré and Charles (Citation2008), see also Charles and Théré (2011) and Charles and Théré (Citation2019).
4 See e.g. Du Pont (Citation1906).
5 Their exchanges are well covered in Quesnay (Citation2005) and there is a plethora of manuscripts.
6 It is digitized, through https://lumieres.unil.ch/projets/4/. Other references on this collaboration were provided by Zapperi (Citation1972) and, in English translation, Zapperi (Citation1988), cf. Quesnay (Citation2005, XVIII, n.33).
7 Fuller information is found in Landgraf (Citation2008).
8 They are published in Quesnay (Citation2005).
9 See Sabbagh (Citation2022) for some precise details or Quesnay (Citation2005) for earlier data and references.
10 Cf. Sauvy (Citation1951).
11 I am indebted to the owner of the manuscript, who wishes to remain anonymous, for allowing me to publish it, and to Nicolas Rieucau and Benoît Walraevens for helping me to decipher it.
12 Cf. Le Trosne (Citation1773, liii-liv).
13 Cf. the summary provided in Le Trosne (Citation2019, 6 and 30).
14 Le Trosne (Citation1777a) has two parts, which can be found separately: while various chapters of the first part were written in 1770-1771, cf. Le Trosne (Citation1777a, XXI-XXII), it is its second and later part, entitled De l’intérêt social, which is a reaction to Condillac (1776) and was of course written well after the first part.
15 See Le Trosne (Citation1762, 63, footnote).
16 Here is the exact quotation of Le Trosne: ‘L’industrie met en oeuvre une partie des productions, elle leur ajoute un nouveau prix, souvent plus considerable que celui de la matière même qu’elle emploie’.
17 Le Trosne contributed to many journals, notably the Gazette du commerce, the Journal de l’agriculture, du commerce et des finances and the Éphémérides. His texts there are clearly physiocratic from September 1764, the date of what is possibly his first publication in any periodical, and it is impossible to identify them all, since contributions to the Gazette du Commerce are often unsigned. Some of his articles were also published in books. For the sake of simplicity I refer mostly to his books. The reader interested in Le Trosne’s contributions to journals might consult Charles and Théré (Citation2015) and Carvalho (Citation2020, 33-34).
18 See Recueil de pièces concernant la thèse de M. L’abbé de Prades (Citation1753).
19 See Sabbagh (Citation2022). It is quite possible that note 2 was influenced by exchanges with Mirabeau: the thesis of the abbé de Prades was largely forgotten in 1764.
20 ‘Il s’est élevé un homme d’un génie profond…’, a man of profond genius has risen…, p. 72.
21 Meek (Citation1962, 41 and 113) translates these ‘difficult’ terms by ‘luxury in the way of ornamentation’ and ‘luxury in the way of subsistence’.
22 This long note on luxury confirms the neglect of the Discours sur l’état actuel de la magistrature: Carnino (Citation2014), an excellent book which refers abundantly to the French authors who discussed luxury in the eighteenth century, omits the name of Le Trosne.
23 Hémery, the official in charge of policing the book trade, accurately described the book and gave the number of its pages in his diary on 23 April 1764, cf. (Ms. fr. 22163, folio numbered in red 123), preserved at the Richelieu department of the Bibliothèque nationale.
24 The decadence of morals.
25 Cf. Brissot (1782–Citation1785, vol. IV, published in 1782, 124): ‘M. Letrosne voyoit probablement du rapport entre la magistrature et le produit net…j’ai dû supprimer cette discussion’: Mr. Letrosne probably saw a relationship between the judiciary and the neat product… I have suppressed this discussion.
26 See Daire (Citation1846, 880).
27 Mille relies on the vague physiocratic ingredient of the notes of Le Trosne (Citation1777b), whose main part was a discourse pronounced by Le Trosne in 1763. It is very likely that the notes were written by Le Trosne well after the oral delivery.
28 See e.g. Adams (Citation1990) which will be discussed later on.
29 A manuscript memoir sent by Le Trosne to the government on 18 March 1763 is identical to the printed book and is preserved at the French Archives nationales (shelf-mark H/1502). I thank Benoît Walraevens and a referee for their help in this matter.
30 Here is his quotation: ‘Convict labor might be employed in mines or in the building of new ports to stimulate circulation and life in certain provinces. Gangs might be hired out to contractors on public works; their employment on roads might lessen the burden of the corvée’.
31 ‘L’impôt, de quelque manière qu’il soit combiné, est payé par les productions de la terre’.
32 Cf. Encyclopédie (Citation1765, vol. 17, 869; see for the authorship of the paper page 890): ‘c’est toujours sur la terre que portent les impôts’.
33 I am struck by a simple fact: in several letters, Mirabeau mentioned his influence on other physiocrats, notably Baudeau and Du Pont, while he was apparently silent on Le Trosne; this is a bit strange for a man supposed to have played a major part in bringing Le Trosne to Physiocracy. One may add that in December 1777 Mirabeau sent a letter to Butré, quoted in Charles and Théré (Citation2019, 59, n.6), dividing the main physiocrats into two categories, those who understood the Tableau économique and the other ones and that Le Trosne is not mentioned in this letter.
34 The lot was described as follows. 11 vol. reliure veau ou basane: MONTESQUIEU, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains, 1744; VERTOT Abbé de, Histoire des Révolutions de la République romaine, 1778. 3 vol.; DE LA BORDE, Principes sur l’essence, la distinction et les limites des deux puissances spirituelle et temporelle, 1753. 7 pages manuscrites reliées in-fine: Lettre de Monsieur Quesnai, médecin ordinaire du roi à Monsieur Letrône (?). Oeuvres choisies de ROUSSEAU, 1744; L’Orpheline Angloise, 1751. 4 vol.; Oeuvres complètes de BERNARD, 1777.
35 It is plausible that Le Trosne gave the Discours to this first owner and provided the text of Quesnay, and not impossible that he owned and had bound for himself the volume: the few errata of the Discours are corrected in a hand very similar to his.
36 ‘François Quesnay n’existe donc pas pour ses premiers lecteurs’.
37 Le Trosne (Citation1766), De l’utilité des discussions économiques.
38 I thank Lucas R. Clawson, Hagley Historian, and Max Moeller, Curator of Public Collections at the Hagley Library, for sending me the text of this draft, whose shelf number is W2-5. I am following in my use of this letter Vardi (Citation2012, 244, n.11). This letter is of the greatest interest for the history of the physiocratic journals (Du Pont was then the editor of the Journal de l’agriculture, du commerce et des finances) and for confirming the close relationship between the physiocrats and L’Averdy, the minister of finances in 1766, two topics which are outside the scope of this paper.
39 Le Trosne certainly had in mind p. 3-10 of the June issue of the Journal de l’agriculture, du commerce et des finances. The draft makes clear that Quesnay was strongly displeased by Du Pont’s words and that he conveyed to Du Pont a reproach similar to the one of Le Trosne.
40 The claim by Le Trosne that the nobility of the kingdom was rushing to learn the physiocratic doctrine, cf. Oncken (Citation1886, 76), is of course an exaggeration.
41 shelf mark W2-5651. I am grateful to the Hagley Museum and Library for the permission to use this text.
42 I thank Mr E. Witcomb and one referee for their assistance with the translation. Any infelicities are my sole responsibility.
43 See e.g. Quesnay (Citation1765a) and infra.
44 The best editions of the original printed text are those of Quesnay (Citation1888, 563-660) and of Éphémérides (1767, tomes 3 to 6). Two scribal manuscripts are extant, cf. Quesnay (Citation2005) and Sabbagh (Citation2020).
45 It was published in January 1767, cf. Éphémérides (1767, tome 1, 33-54).
46 ‘…m’attribuer des lumières, dont la lueur ne doit pas même rejaillir sur moi’, to attribute to me a flash of insight the glimmer of which should not even reflect onto me.
47 ‘c’est donner à manger à ceux qui ont faim, à boire à ceux qui ont soif & c’est gagner le royaume des cieux’, in English ‘it means providing food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, it means reaching the kingdom of heaven’.
48 ‘C’est… dans cet ordre adorable que l’on trouvera les loix éternelles de la morale, ces loix énoncées dans le décalogue’ = ‘It is…in this adorable order that can be found the eternal moral laws, those laws established in the Ten Commandments’.
49 See Du Pont (Citation1804).
50 ‘La dépravation des moeurs’.
51 Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616), author of a famous history of the Incas.
52 Two referees pointed out that Garcilaso de la Vega is named in Mirabeau (Citation1756, 23) - the first volume of Mirabeau (Citation1756–1760)-, which was written when Mirabeau and Quesnay were not acquainted, and that Incas are briefly mentioned without any reference provided (and in a different context) in Mirabeau and Quesnay (Citation1763, 393).
53 The treatise of Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, was published in 1649 (Descartes Citation1649).
54 I am grateful to Jean Cartelier for exchanges about Quesnay which convinced me that Quesnay was a ‘French moralist’ as much as an economist. Cartelier may not endorse this statement and I am the only one responsible for any inadequacy in my comments.
55 See Quesnay (Citation2005, 61-90).
56 See Sabbagh (Citation2022) and Sabbagh (Citation2020) which, together, allow one to trace the variations of Quesnay on the matter from circa 1745 and emphasize his interest in psychology and his wish to have a formulation consistent with Catholicism.
57 See Sabbagh (Citation2022) and Quesnay (Citation2005, 91-95).
58 ‘les loix positives ne sont que des loix de manutention relatives à l’ordre naturel…’, Quesnay (Citation1765a, 32), for the first version, exactly reproduced in its third version, Quesnay (Citation1767c, 26) (and in the second version, Quesnay (Citation1765b, 32).
I will return to the vocabulary of the letter.
59 I will quote here the final version of Droit naturel, part of the collective volume entitled Physiocratie, Quesnay (Citation1767, 27), which, as in the letter, asserts the conformity of the positive laws to the natural laws- in Physiocratie Quesnay uses the expression ‘loix naturelles’ instead of ‘loix primitives’-: ‘la legislation positive consiste…dans la declaration des loix naturelles’. The same conformity and the divine origine of the primitive laws are stated even more clearly in the final and most important part of Despotisme de la Chine, chapter VIII, see Éphémérides (1767, tome 6, 46): ‘Les Loix positives qui déterminent dans le détail le droit naturel des Citoyens…sont réglées par les Loix primitives instituées par l’Auteur de la Nature’ (the positive laws which determine in detail the natural right of citizens…are ruled by the primitive laws established by the Author of Nature’).
60 For Quesnay’s condemnation by the theologians of the Sorbonne and for his attempt to get the approval of a Jesuit for his philosophical musings, see Sabbagh (Citation2022).
61 For the exact chronology of Lemercier de la Rivière’s book, one may see Herencia (Citation2013) and Sabbagh (Citation2020) and note that the discussion, initiated in Herencia (Citation2013), on whether Quesnay influenced this book or Lemercier de la Rivière Despotisme de la Chine, is obviously settled by this letter of Quesnay: it will be seen that the gist of Lemercier de la Rivière’s book is in Quesnay’s letter.
62 I quote the in-quarto edition of the book.
63 ‘Ce n’est point assez que les loix positives soient exactement conformes aux loix naturelles & essentielles de la société…’.
64 This reference and several similar ones were given by Zapperi (Citation1988, 150).
65 One is again reminded of the ‘modesty’ attributed to Quesnay by Adam Smith.
66 Your reflections, Sir, on the corruption of behaviour have led me to reach the aim that you propose, you have handed me the torch.
67 The physiocrats and others did not accept that the population of France increased in the eighteenth century until the appearance of Moheau (Citation1778).
68 Its publication and the one of Le Trosne’s Discours sur l’état actuel de la magistrature are both recorded in the same page of Héméry’s diary, dated 23 April 1764.
69 Two states are recorded as one issue of the journal was censored. This issue was neglected until Sabbagh (Citation2020).
70 See van den Berg (Citation2021, 225-226).
71 Meek (Citation1962, 108 and 115-117) translates two letters of Quesnay to Mirabeau.
72 Quesnay’s style and vocabulary are undoubtedly singular, possibly because he was largely a self-educated man.
73 Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
74 What is meant is probably: C’est selon ces points de vues. Quesnay or the copyist erred here.
75 The copyist has only written the above, omitting the rest of the closing formula.
76 The book, Principes politiques sur le rappel des protestans en France, 1764a, is typical of the author’s populationism. He wanted to recall the banned protestants in France to increase the population of the country. The book obtained on 15 December 1763 a permission to be published but was prohibited on 1 March 1764, cf. (Ms. fr. 22163, p. 31). This presumably explains the scarcity of the first edition and the difficulty of identifying it: Ka-Mondo claimed without any justification that lot 330 was not the first edition. The book had several editions, often anonymous.
77 ‘Chevalier, Académicien Honoraire de la Corogne & des Sociétés Royales d’Agriculture des Généralités d’Orléans & de Soissons’.
78 The second marriage of Turmeau de la Morandière was announced there and his membership of the societies of Orléans and Soissons recorded. The same journal published on pages 196-200 an article on Turmeau de la Morandière’s ancestors who were part of the nobility since several centuries. This may explain his honorary membership.
79 Cf. (Ms. fr. 22000, p. 20). The title of the work was: Réflexions impartiales sur la Richesse de l’état, …servant de réponse à la Théorie de l’impot et à l’imposition sur les grains et sur la viande. The publication was not authorized and apparently did not take place.