Guillaume Thomas François Raynal

Portrait of Guillaume Raynal

Guillaume Thomas Raynal (12 April 1713 – 6 March 1796) was a French writer and man of letters during the Age of Enlightenment.

Biography

Early life and priesthood

Raynal was born at Lapanouse in Rouergue. He was educated at the Jesuit school of Pézenas, and received priest's orders, but left the Jesuits in 1746 to be appointed to the church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris where he was also a tutor for important families, which gave him connections in the parliamentary milieu.

He sold sermons to less inspired colleagues and caused a scandal when it was discovered that he had agreed to bury Protestants by passing them off as Catholics. Throughout his life, Abbé Raynal had strong ties to the Protestants through his family connections in the business world.

Literary career

He became a writer and journalist, leaving the religious life. Raynal made himself known as an apostle of enlightenment ideas. He made a small fortune by compiling a series of popular but superficial works, which he published and sold himself. These — L'Histoire du stathoudérat (The Hague, 1748), L'Histoire du parlement d'Angleterre (London, 1748), Anecdotes historiques (Amsterdam, 3 vols., 1753) — gained for him access to the salons of Mme. de Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Helvétius, and the Baron d'Holbach.

He also wrote commissioned works for the great ones of the time, such as the Duke of Choiseul, which led to his appointment as director of the Mercure de France in 1750 for his services. In the same year he became a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters in Berlin.

In May 1754 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1775, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.

The Histoire philosophique des deux Indes

Main article: Histoire des deux Indes

L'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (1770)

He had the assistance of various members of the philosophe côteries in his most important work, L'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies Amsterdam, 4 vols., 1770). Diderot is credited with a third of this work, which was characterized by Voltaire as "du réchauffé avec de la declamation." The other chief collaborators were Jean de Pechméja, Baron d'Holbach, Paulze, the farmer-general of taxes, the Abbé Martin, and Alexandre Deleyre. To this piecemeal method of composition, in which narrative alternated with tirades on political and social questions, was added the further disadvantage of the lack of exact information, which, owing to the dearth of documents, could only have been gained by personal investigation. He released an expanded edition in 1774 and another in 1780.

The "philosophic" declamations perhaps constituted its chief interest for the general public, and its significance as a contribution to democratic propaganda. The Histoire went through many editions, being revised and augmented from time to time by Raynal; it was translated into the principal European languages, and appeared in various abridgments. Its introduction into France was forbidden in 1779; the book was burned by the public executioner, and an order was given for the arrest of the author, whose name had not appeared in the first edition, but was printed on the title page of the Geneva edition of 1780. Seven new maps for the 1798 English edition were engraved by Thomas Kitchin, Jr.

The book examines the East Indies, South America, the West Indies, and North America. The final chapter comprises theory around the future of Europe as a whole. Raynal also examines commerce, religion, slavery, and other popular subjects, all with a perspective from the French Enlightenment. Additional versions of the book included maps of the discussed regions.

Later life

Raynal c. 1790

Forced into exile following the condemnation of his book by the Parliament of Paris in May 1781, he took refuge in Switzerland where he had a monument to "the glory of liberty" erected (1783–1796) in homage to William Tell. From there, he moved to the court of Frederick II of Prussia, where he was coolly received, in spite of his connection with the philosophe party, and then to that of Catherine II of Russia without ceasing to ensure the republication of his work.

Authorized to return to France in 1784, but forbidden to stay in Paris, he settled in Toulon, then in Marseilles and became the founder of numerous academic and charitable prizes which prolonged the success of his work in the great European academies. He refused to be a member of the States General in 1789, citing his old age.

Raynal now realized the impossibility of a peaceful revolution, and, in terror of the proceedings for which the writings of himself and his friends had prepared the way, he sent to the Constituent Assembly an address, which was read on 31 May 1791, deprecating the violence of its reforms.

This address is said by Sainte-Beuve (Nouveaux lundis, xi.) to have been composed chiefly by de Clermont-Tonnerre and Pierre V. Malouet, and it was regarded, even by moderate men, as ill-timed. The published Lettre de l'abbé Raynal a l'Assemblee nationale (10 December 1790) was really the work of the comte de Guibert. During the Terror Raynal lived in retirement at Passy and at Montlhery. On the establishment of the Directory in 1795 he became a member of the newly organized Institute of France.

Raynal died 6 March 1796 at Chaillot.

Address to America

Published on November 3, 1800, after his death, Raynal addressed the people of the young United States of America with the following words, printed in the National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser.

PEOPLE of North America! let the example of all nations which have preceded you, and especially that of the mother country, instruct you. Be afraid of the influence of gold, which brings with luxury the corruption of manners and contempt of laws; be afraid of too unequal a distribution of riches, which shews a small number of citizens in wealth, and a great number in miser; whence arises the insolence of one, and the disgrace of the other, Guard against the spirit of conquest; the tranquility of the empire decreases as it is extended; have arms to defend yourselves, and have none to attack.

Seek ease and health in labour; prosperity, in agriculture and manufactures; strength, in good manners and virtue. Make the sciences and arts prosper, which distinguish the civilized man from the savage. Especially watch over the education of your children.

It is from public schools, be assured, that skillful magistrates, disciplined and courageous soldiers, good fathers, good husbands, good brothers, good friends, and honest men come forth. Wherever we see the youth depraved, that nation is on the decline. Let liberty have an immovable foundation in the wisdom of your contributions and let it be the cement which unites your states, which cannot be destroyed. Establish no legal preference in your different modes of worship. Superstition is every where innocent when it is neither protected nor persecuted; and let your duration be, if possible, equal to that of the world.

Bibliography

A detailed bibliography of his works and of those falsely attributed to him will be found in Quérard's La France littéraire, and the same author's Supercheries dévoilées. The biography by A Jay, prefixed to Peuchet's edition (Paris, 10 vols, 1820–1821) of the Histoire ... des Indes, is of small value. To this edition Peuchet added two supplementary volumes on colonial development from 1785 to 1824. See also the anonymous Raynal démasqué (1791); Cherhal Montreal, Éloge ... de G. T. Raynal (an. IV.); a notice in the Moniteur (5 vendémiaire, an. V.); B Lunet, Biographie de l'abbé Raynal (Rodez, 1866); and J Morley, Diderot (1891).

See also

• Eliza Draper
• List of abolitionist forerunners

References

• Raynal, de la polémique à l'histoire, G. Bancarel, G. Goggi ed. Oxford, SVEC, 2000.
• G. Bancarel, Raynal ou le devoir de vérité, Genève Champion, 2004.
• A. Feugère, Un Précurseur de la Révolution. L'Abbé Raynal (1713–1796), Angoulême, 1922.
• Gonnard, René (1948). "L'Epopée Portugaise et L'Abbé Raynal," Revue d'Histoire Économique et Sociale, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 (1948), pp. 14–25.
• A. Jay, Précis historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de l'abbé Raynal, Paris, 1820.
• Peter Jimack (ed.), A History of the Two Indies – A Translated Selection of Writings from Raynal's Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements des Européens dans les Deux Indes, Ashgate, 2006. ISBN 978-0-7546-4043-1.

External links

• Works by Guillaume Thomas François Raynal at Gallica
• l'abbé Raynal Exposition website