From the Ancien Régime to the July Monarchy, Abbot de Pradt published a large number of works on national politics and international relations, on political regimes and their evolution, on institutions, constitutional law, governments, elites and intermediary bodies (in the order of pragmatism as in that of philosophy). His analyses and reflections are often of great finesse and undeniably modernity, even if the author appears infatuated with himself.
Dominique-Georges-Frédéric de Riom de Prolhiac Dufour, baron de Pradt was born in Auvergne, in Allanche, on April 23, 1759. When the Revolution occurred, vicar general of Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, archbishop of Rouen, he already enjoyed, through his action within the order of the clergy and through his written comments, the reputation of an eminently perspicacious and penetrating man. He was elected deputy of the clergy of Normandy in the States-General of 1789. He did not shine in the national forum with his eloquence. In any case, he sat among the deputies most hostile to the birth of a new order and seemed at that time to reject very far any idea of improvement in the social state. At the end of the first session, he hastened to emigrate, choosing to settle initially in Hamburg.
In 1798, in this city, he published, anonymously, a work entitled Antidote to the Congress of Rastadt or Plan for a New Political Balance in Europe, where he violently attacked the republican government of France. The work arouses only mediocre interest in France, but it is eagerly sought after in the German States. Two years later, he published, again anonymously, a brochure bearing the title Prussia and its neutrality. He blames the political system of this power. But, generally speaking, according to the authors of the New Biography of Contemporaries (1), the Pradt émigré used all his intelligence to pit the monarchs of Europe against the French Republic.
The chaplain of the god Mars
After Brumaire's coup d'état, wishing to integrate this republic which he had so despised and which he was convinced would probably disappear because power would soon be concentrated in the hands of a single man, he obtained, through a relative – the future general Duroc –, permission to return to Paris, and is presented to the First Consul. The culture shown by the abbot, his enthusiasm, some clever praise, and the commitment to complete dedication, of which Duroc also vouches, seduce Bonaparte: Pradt is appointed First Chaplain to the First Consul. Their relationship lasted thirteen years.
He attended the coronation of the Emperor in December 1804 and received on this occasion the title of baron and a bonus of 40,000 francs. On February 2, 1805, upon the intervention of Napoleon, he was elevated to the episcopal sea of Poitiers and even had the advantage of being consecrated by Pope Pius VII in person. However, he remained First Chaplain and then took pleasure in telling those who congratulated him on his favor and his dignities that he had become “the chaplain of the god Mars”. Pradt accompanied Napoleon to Milan when the Emperor was crowned king of Italy, and he officiated pontifically at this ceremony.
In 1808, he actively participated in the Bayonne negotiations, which temporarily deprived a branch of the House of Bourbon of the throne of Spain. Napoleon, satisfied with Pradt's services, granted him a new bonus of 50,000 francs and had him admitted, in February 1809, as archbishop of Mechelen and officer of the Legion of Honor (2).
Two years later, Pradt was sent to the Pope in Savona and displayed great zeal and talent in the negotiations that the Holy See and the Emperor then carried out on various fundamental subjects. Until then, a great understanding seems to link the Emperor to his First Chaplain. The situation will quickly deteriorate.
Jupiter Scapin
In 1812, Pradt accompanied the Emperor to Dresden. War against Russia has been declared and the prelate's diplomatic skills must be employed in a new theater. It was in this context that Pradt became French ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a mandate that he in no way desired. “Had lightning fallen at my feet,” he says in his History of the Polish Embassy, “I would not have felt a more deadly cold running through my veins […]. I had always hated the Polish expedition. » He occupied this difficult position throughout the Franco-Russian campaign of 1812 and, this time, his services were far from being as favorably appreciated as those rendered up to then, notably in Bayonne or Savona. After the retreat, Napoleon, passing through Warsaw, called his ambassador to him for a stormy, if not violent, conversation. Complete disgrace follows this interview. He must first go to Paris, where he is told that the Grand Chaplaincy is being taken away from him and that he must leave the capital to go to his diocese of Mechelen and stay there. This is what he did immediately and he did not return to the French capital until the beginning of 1814.
In Mechelen, Pradt returned to writing. He composed his History of the Polish Embassy, which was not published until 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon's exile to Saint Helena. This work will have immense success, in particular with the adversaries of the fallen Emperor, and will have eight consecutive editions. There we find fierce satires of the most important figures of the time, both French and foreign, but also and above all vehement criticisms against the man whom the author served and, like so many others, praised during his time. reign. “The Genius of Napoleon,” written by Pradt, “made both for the world stage and for the trestles, represented a royal mantle joined to a Harlequin’s habit. The god Mars was nothing more than a species of Jupiter Scapin, such as had not yet appeared on the world stage. » (3)
The Allies enter Paris. Napoleon abdicates. Pradt is in favor of the re-establishment of the royal government and the immediate recall of the princes of the old dynasty. On April 7, 1814, he was elevated by the Provisional Government to the post of chancellor of the Legion of Honor, but he left the post in November 1814. Shortly after, a new disgrace, royal this time, of which we do not know not the reasons, takes him away from the political scene and makes him seek a peaceful retirement, in his lands of Auvergne. He was still there when Napoleon returned from the island of Elba and remained carefully cloistered there during the Hundred Days. After the second return of King Louis XVIII, Pradt was not offered any new public office. However, he managed to treat his archbishopric of Mechelen advantageously with the new king of the Netherlands and, in return for a life annuity of 10,000 francs, ceded all his rights to this seat.
The political analyst
Pradt then returned to private life and devoted all his time, all energy, and all his culture to political literature. Until his death, he published a large number of works, largely original, relevant, subtle, and rich in terms of perspective (4).
In 1820, he was prosecuted before the Paris Assize Court for, allegedly, having, through work on the new electoral regime, provoked disobedience to the laws, carrying out a formal attack against the constitutional authority of the king and the chambers, excited to civil war. He is acquitted. By the declarations of the accused, the requisitions of the attorney general Antoine de Vatimesnil, and the pleadings of the lawyer André Dupin – both later called to high functions (5) – this trial is a fascinating lesson in political philosophy. As the New Biography already cited points out, "the maturity of age, the calm of passions and the experience painfully acquired during the different phases of a troubled life, finally inspired in this ingenious writer a deep horror for power arbitrary” and “constitutional opinions found in him a courageous and able defender.”
It was again during this period, which was very fruitful in political reflections and works, that Pradt joined the liberal opposition. On November 17, 1827, he was elected deputy for the 1st arrondissement of Puy-de-Dôme, but he resigned on April 13, 1828. He died in Paris on March 18, 1837.
You miserable rascal!
In his work entitled Napoleon and his Detractors, Prince Napoleon (1822-1891), youngest son of Jérôme Bonaparte and brother of Princess Mathilde, better known under the pseudonym Plon-Plon, explains in the introduction that during his childhood he, was lulled by the story of the great man's life, approached multiple witnesses to his existence, questioned those who had shared his glorious destiny or his difficulties. He first condemns the study that Taine has just published about Napoleon, concluding that we are in the presence of a “decline of the historian”. He naturally comes to name the contemporaries whose testimony Taine invokes and whom, according to him, simple fairness should have disqualified. Among these inopportune witnesses is Pradt, who, according to Plon-Plon, “invested with the confidence of the Emperor, wrote memories in which we find on each page the traces of his betrayal”.
Plon-Plon recounts that, in 1817, in Saint Helena, Napoleon received the work signed by Pradt and bearing the title History of the Embassy in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The famous exile reads it and annotates it. On one of the pages, the fallen Emperor writes: “You wretched rascal! " It didn't take much for Prince Napoleon to immediately paint a very severe portrait of Pradt, "an accomplished model of a type who has fortunately disappeared": "He was the last, he argued, in France, to these political abbots, famous for their spirit of intrigue, generally devoid of all scruples, and rarely honoring by their virtues the priesthood of which they only had the habit. » He recalls that, as a member of the Constituent Assembly, Pradt took up the defense of the old regime, voted against the reunion of the three orders, and finally emigrated to join “the main center of royalist intrigues”. He points out that, when returning from abroad, at the time of the Consulate, Pradt wrote to Louis XVIII to inform him that he was returning to France to serve his interests better but ultimately sought the favor of the consular government. Prince Napoleon quotes what Pradt wrote in 1815 about his presence at Napoleon's side for thirteen years. Then he adds: “He wants to make Louis XVIII believe that it was out of curiosity that he was placed with the Emperor. Is it the same feeling of curiosity that made him accept, in 1806, the bishopric of Poitiers, then the archbishopric of Mechelen, and successively bonuses of 40 to 50,000 francs? A lucrative curiosity certainly and which does not satisfy his greed. »
In his work concerning the embassy in Warsaw, Pradt suggests that, without him, Napoleon would have been master of the world. “After the disgust,” writes Plon-Plon, “such infatuation could only provoke a smile from the Emperor. »This undoubtedly explains why, on the copy in his possession of the work, the exiled emperor added: “Ah Monsieur abbot! » Still regarding this work, Prince Napoleon also reports the declarations made by the ex-Emperor at Las Cases: “It is a very wicked work against me, a real libel in which he overwhelms me with wrongs, insults, slander, and […] he only made me laugh, really amused me. » The Emperor, when he returned from Moscow and passed through Warsaw, expelled Pradt from his embassy: “This is what his vanity seeks to disfigure or avenge! » supports Prince Napoleon. “This ridiculous vanity,” writes Plon-Plon, “which never agrees to admit its wrongs, despite the obvious failures of inept or unfaithful diplomacy, leads Mr. de Pradt to constantly put himself on the stage. He disdains the truth, he disfigures the words of his sovereign or he invents them. » Prince Napoleon further emphasizes that the deposed emperor, alongside certain assertions by Pradt, wrote: “False and absurd! »
For Plon-Plon, Pradt’s role in Poland was “harmful.” Pradt reports in his work the instructions he allegedly received from Napoleon. " Fake ! »wrote his sovereign in the margins. The instructions given by the Emperor to his ambassador are not those reported by Baron Fain, secretary. And Plon-Plon drives the point home: “We can understand from this the process of falsification of this witty abbot. Under his vain and perfidious pen, words and actions are transformed. The truth is what worries him the least. »
When the Emperor separated from Pradt in Warsaw, the latter, according to Plon Plon, obviously gave himself a good role. But his successor, Bignon, reestablished the truth (6). “But what can we say about the unfaithful ambassador who cries out to save who can? Prince Napoleon asks in conclusion. What can we say about the priest who, to hide his defection, insults the prince whose favors he has solicited for ten years? Reading these slanders and these flat boasts, who cannot understand that Napoleon, his heart swollen with bitterness, dropped the severe words […] which sum up the entire countenance of the Abbot de Pradt: “You miserable rascal! ” » Regarding Pradt's mission to the Pope in Savona, Prince Napoleon writes, without explaining further, that he carried it out "clumsily", and adds: "His conduct, in religious questions, was always a series of contradictions and lies. » Plon-Plon also says that the Emperor has always formally denied having made the remarks reported by Pradt concerning the Concordat, remarks according to which the greatest fault of his reign would have been to have made the Concordat.
A traitor according to Plon-Plon to Louis XVIII as well as to Napoleon, Pradt, after returning from the island of Elba, will present his homage to the Emperor. He was received coldly by the latter, at least according to his nephew, who cited the memoirs of O'Meara, Napoleon's doctor at Saint Helena, memoirs according to which the abbot "deserved to be given the name of a girl of joy, who lends her body to everyone for money'. Prince Napoleon then evokes what he calls “a new incarnation of Pradt, when he becomes an opposition deputy and sits on the liberal benches, mixing his voice with the opponents of the Restoration which he had previously acclaimed. This last palinody underlines the nephew of the Emperor and earned him the contempt of all. »
(1) New biography of contemporaries for the historical and reasoned dictionary of all the men who have lived, since the French Revolution, have acquired fame through their actions, their writings, their errors, or their crimes, either in France or in the foreign countries, Librairie historique, volume xviii, 1824, chapter on Dominique Dufour de Pradt.
(2) The archdiocese of Mechelen, near Brussels, was established by the Bull Super Universal (1559).
(3) The Polish Count of Morski published a response to the work in 1815, a response entitled Letter to Abbot de Pradt, in which he sought to avenge his compatriots for some hazardous assertions.
(4) Among these works we may cite: Of the Congress of Vienna; Historical Memoirs of the Spanish Revolution; On the Progress of Representative Government in France, session of 1817; Letter to a Voter in Paris; Of the Colonies and the Present Revolution of America; The Four Concordats, followed by considerations on the government of the Church in general, and on the Church of France in particular, since 1515; The Last Six Months of America and Brazil; Europe after the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle; From the Election Law Case; Small catechism for the use of the French on the affairs of their country; Europe and America since the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle; Of Greece in its relations with Europe; Europe and America in 1821; Parallel of English and Russian power relative to Europe; France, emigration and settlers, etc.
(5) Vatimesnil will become Minister of Public Education and Dupin, elected deputy and appointed minister, will play an eminent role under the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, and the Second Empire.
(6) “In opposition to this story fabricated and arranged in 1815 by Mr. de Pradt in the presence of foreign occupation, there exists a document of a better date, which gave it the most formal denial in advance. This document is the very letter by which Emperor Napoleon ordered his Minister of Foreign Affairs to recall his ambassador to Warsaw, a letter bearing the date December 11, 1812, that is to say, the day after the day had taken place the conversation of which M. de Pradt made such an odious disguise. “I was,” wrote the Emperor in this letter, “one could not be more surprised by all the ridiculous remarks that Abbot de Pradt made to me for an hour; I didn't make him feel it. It seems that he has nothing that is needed for the place he fills. This abbot only has a mind for books. You can call him back right away, or when we arrive in Paris, by sending him to his diocese.” »
Pradtiana
An admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Yves Cousin d'Avallon hardly appreciates his detractors, especially when they have served him (A). On Pradt, his work is entitled Pradtiana (B). In the preface, he notes with humor: "We have more than a hundred abbots who, instead of saying mass, singing vespers and instructing the faithful, have found it much more lucrative and more amusing to disseminate indiscriminately and indiscriminately. through the interests of princes and peoples. »Among these abbots, we must “distinguish” M. de Pradt, author of “25 to 30 vols. In-8° of political conceptions”.
(A) Born to a father who was a bailiwick prosecutor, Cousin d'Avallon (1769-1840) published numerous works. Read in particular Bonapartiana or Collection of ingenious and sublime Responses, heroic actions and memorable deeds of Bonaparte, 1801, and also Summary of the life of the prisoner of Saint Helena, containing the account of his actions, from his birth to his death arrival in this island, according to Las Cases, Montholon, Gourgaud, the doctors O'Méara, Antommarchi, etc., 1827.
(B) Pradtiana ou Recueil des pensées, réflexions et opinions politiques de M l’abbé de Pradt, entremêlé de quelques anecdotes aussi curieuses qu’amusantes, et précédé d’une notice biographique sur la vie et les ouvrages de cet écrivain politique, Paris, Plancher libraire, 1820.
Le jugement de l'Empereur
Dans le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, Napoléon déclare : « L’abbé de Pradt n’avait atteint à Varsovie aucun des buts qu’on se proposait ; il avait au contraire fait beaucoup de mal. Les bruits contre lui étaient accourus en foule au-devant de moi. Les auditeurs de son ambassade, les jeunes même, avaient été choqués de sa tenue, et furent jusqu’à l’accuser d’intelligence avec l’ennemi, ce que je fus loin de croire [souligné dans le texte]. » Sur l’ouvrage de Pradt, en marge du passage où l’auteur tente d’expliquer « la stupeur dans laquelle la nation polonaise resta plongée pendant toute la campagne de Russie », Napoléon a écrit : « Voilà la trahison de ce misérable ! »
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