A Classified Methodology:

Count d’Hauterive’s Observational Training for Apprentice

Diplomats (1826?)

It is an obvious and trivial statement: physical “displacement”

and diplomacy often go together. Diplomacy, as the art or

science of negotiating with other groups or nations, initiates

intercultural contact. Ambassadors, but also consuls and agents

on special missions, roam between human groups – and that, even

in times and in places when other forms of travel are

discouraged or absolutely forbidden. Travelling as a diplomat

for the sake of one's country seems acceptable, and perhaps the

only acceptable form of travel in abstract conceptions as well:

such as Plato’s Republic or Thomas More’s Utopia.

In this presentation we will limit the scope of our

investigation to the particular meeting point of travel and the

education of a diplomat. Here, we open a somewhat different,

but still rather bulky folder. Educational travel intends to

prepare the young man to successfully fulfill his role in

society once his education is complete. This role might have

been defined, even before he leaves on his travels, as being

the service of his country; or the travel experience itself

could provide the inspiration to take up the diplomatic career.

Once again, examples are numerous from the classical age of

European travels: count Berchtold’s conception of patriotic

travel has just this goal among its many facets, but – to quote

a French example – Pluche’s conception of travel in the Spectacle

de la Nature promotes this same idea.

Even within this domain, we will further limit our object. We

are interested in how travel as such is used in an apprentice

diplomat’s training. The more or less precise instructions we

wish to study here, always come from inside the state administration,

and are offered as parts of wider, specific training programs.

It is the meeting of this diplomatic training tradition with

scientific and educational travels that will be the focus of

this paper.

Let us start with a brief overview of the professionalization

of diplomacy in the early modern period. Until the early 18th

century, there seems to be next to no formal training for an

aspiring diplomat. Those who intend to take up this profession

are advised to follow university studies in law, seen as the

closest related subject. The numerous handbooks and conduct

books about the “perfect ambassador” are more summaries of

principles than training programs.

More generally, one could obtain diplomatic positions not

through education, but through personal contacts and through

birth. This fact is often mentioned, and always criticized, by

all plans to initiate a specific training for people entering

diplomatic service. Starting in the last years of the 17th

century, several attempts are made to change this situation.

The first major such one was probably created by a former

ambassador to Sweden, Arnoul, who was also the author of Idée

d’un parfait ambassadeur (1697). This project tackles the question

of diplomatic training, including – as novelty – that of

“secondary diplomatic personnel”: ambassadorial secretaries,

consuls, etc. He imagines a Chamber, created by former

ambassadors and senior agents, acting as a training

institution. Apprentice diplomats are sent abroad with a “sort

of instruction” – unfortunately, we know nothing about the

content of this. Travel abroad is both a learning experience

and a sort of examination. Also, another dual conception,

apprentices travel both for educational purposes and also for

the sake of the prince and of the country. These two

associations of ideas will remain a key feature in all similar

projects.

The best known program of diplomatic training was the Académie

Politique, which did exist next to the other Académies, during

the last years of the reign of Louis XIV and the first years of

the Régence,. It is maybe best known for the reason that, as

soon as its creation was decided, Addison published in London a

ferocious piece which mixed anti-Jesuit tirades with the

general condemnation of the very idea of professional

diplomacy. The training offered in the academy concentrated on

archival questions, and no project of travel experience was

introduced. Guy Thuillier, author of a book on the Académie,

believes the reason behind this was the fact that the state had

to face serious financial difficulties, and could not possibly

sustain this expenditure. This seems to be only half of an

answer, as the two other projects we will mention both advised

that candidates (or more exactly their families) should sustain

the cost of the educational travel experience. In the next

decades, several other programs were submitted, some suggesting

the foundation of other schools, others imagining special

apprenticeships at the Ministry. None of these experiments

lasted very long. We will tackle two of them – the two that

considered travel as part of an ideal training practice. None

of them has a date or a known author: we can put both to the

last 10 years of the Ancien Régime.

The first of the two, a plan for an “Ecole Politique”,

considers travel to be one of the most important aspects of

diplomatic training. Two out of the three classes of pupils

will travel. One will travel inside France, with an emphasis on

maritime commercial activity, which will be useful when later

working in consulates. The most promising pupils will alternate

a residence of about a year in several European countries, and

will be given a great deal of liberty in order to get a well-

rounded picture of each country. Regarding this freedom, a most

interesting metaphor to be found in the text is that of the

bee: “It is a bee we are sending out to harvest (moissonner)

everywhere. Pity for him if he gets lost.” Of course, only an

institution and almost exclusively the state itself could

consider travel under this aspect and with this vocabulary.

There is of the course the question whether the author was

inspired by Francis Bacon’s image of the scholar as a bee,

gathering information and transforming it into a nourishing

product – there are obvious similarities, but also a clear

difference as to the position. This conception speaks from the

point of view of “sending out” bees, including the idea of

unavoidable loss of some of the bees.

In the third and last item, besides several topics we recognize

from the earlier texts such as the parallel goal of pedagogical

progress and, possibly, obtaining important information, let us

highlight two further points. One is the well-known importance

of sketching abilities: several of the plans for diplomatic

training included a professor of drawing, or of geometry

combined with drawing. The other is a typical question of these

years: that of patriotism. English patriotism and/or xenophobia

was widely discussed in France throughout the century, but by

the 1780ies, some considered it a possibly desirable thing to

develop in France too. Thus, studying the way patriotism works

is a vital topic of observation.

This survey of the earlier projects is necessary not only to

put our main centre of interest into context, but most of all

because the author of this project knows at least two of them

very well. He is inspired by them, though he does not wish to

imitate them in many respects. Let us introduce now the author

of the memoir we will study in depth, the count d’Hauterive.

Alexandre-Maurice Blanc de Lanautte, later count d’Hauterive,

was born in 1754 into an impoverished branch of an important

family. He studied at a seminar, but considered himself to be

self-taught most of all. Becoming a teacher in Tours, he was

remarked while giving a welcome speech during the passage

through town of the prime minister, the duke of Choiseul, who

subsequently invited him to join the service of the state. He

became a diplomat, and during a lengthy stay in Moldova,

prepared an in-depth survey of this country for the use of the

hospodar, the prince Ypsilantis. Unpublished at that time, this

text has interesting chapters on such various topics as Neo-

Latin languages, the use of language in peasant communities and

in the elites, and Gipsy communities.

He stayed in France during the first years of the Revolution,

but as his wife was afraid of the new regime, he was happy to

receive a consular position in New York. He had to leave this

post after some (probably unfounded) accusations – for a while,

he tried to live as a settler in America, among other

Frenchmen, similarly unprepared for this task. He was finally

called back to France under the Consulate, when several of his

former colleagues received important positions in the

reorganized Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During these years, he

published a well known text entitled L’Etat de la France à la fin de l’an

VIII, a survey and manifesto of the new French regime after the

18th of brumaire.

For a while he was deeply involved in French diplomacy, but

around 1807 he fell off with Talleyrand regarding a number of

topics. Talleyrand, who considered d’Hauterive always as an

“homme de lettres”, more of a scholar than a diplomat,

suggested that he takes up the role of reorganizing the

Archives of the Ministry – a role in which d’Hauterive

excelled.

As soon as he got back from America, d’Hauterive started to

launch petition after petition on a topic very dear to him:

that of the training of young diplomats and professional

administrators. His role in the Archives complemented this

inclination very well: one aspect of diplomatic training is the

handling of documents. To the greatest pleasure of the

historians interested in the question, d’Hauterive compiled a

folder of documents on many earlier attempts to create a school

of diplomacy, while preparing his own initiative to create the

same. Mostly for the use of his pupils, sometimes also for a

wider public, he prepared more than 60 memoirs, handbooks and

advice booklets. As recognition of his multi-faceted work, he

became an associate to the Académie des Inscriptions et des

Belles-Lettres.

It is in this double role, head of the archives and head of a

training program, that d’Hauterive is best known. Nobody

challenges the importance of his work in the archives. The

historian of French administration Guy Thuillier considers him

a well-intentioned and organized person, but at the same time

stuck in an Ancien Régime approach to administration. I would

like to argue that he was original and very much up-to-date in

many respects. On the other hand, as far as I know, the two

sets of texts that will be our main focus have not attracted

the attention of scholars: his works of travel advice, and his

activity in political economy.

Some of his works from this period are officially for the wider

public, but even in these, he admits that his main audience is

the personnel of the Ministry – this is the case of his

handbooks of political economy. Other documents are, on the

contrary, strictly classified. Each copy of these was numbered,

and they could not be taken outside the building of the

ministry. Significantly, among these classified items are all

those that are related to the various aspects of the training

of diplomats: the Conseils à un élève du Ministère, the Conseils à un

surnuméraire, and the Conseils à un jeune voyageur. Maybe surprisingly

for someone this prolific in advice literature, he had a

skeptical opinion about contemporary youth: he believes that in

a radically changed world, youngsters are reluctant to accept

advice from their “wise” elders. It is difficult not to think

here of the individualism and anti-conformism of the Romantic

generation. His suggestion to solve to this problem that he

discusses, interestingly, in the advice books themselves, is to

leave a great deal of liberty to the pupils in the program.

The immediate context of the creation of the Conseils à un jeune

voyageur, written probably in 1826, is the departure of

d’Hauterive’s youngest pupil for a brief mission to Brazil. I

have so far been unsuccessful in identifying this pupil, and

could not locate any report of his trip. But related to this

mission are other documents, all in the folder started by

d’Hauterive.

First, the senior of his pupils created a set of instructions,

or at least a document that was meant to be that. D’Hauterive

took up the idea and created his own instructions. His

superiors considered that these instructions were useful for

all destinations, and the text was printed, with further

additions, including a set of tables suggested by another

colleague, and the Appendix contains the well-known

instructions set by Colbert and his son Seignelay, considered

as the example to follow. Later, d’Hauterive added a complement

to his instructions regarding a brief mission in Europe – this

second manuscript was never printed and never studied.

D’Hauterive, creator of the training program for diplomats, did

not originally add a travelling project as the previously

quoted Ancien Régime programs did, but he happily added this

document to the many aspects of his activity when this

particular opportunity arose (the thinking behind this could be

best described as “now that you ask me…”).

Regarding the technical aspects of the travel that I will come

to discuss later, the instructions were in fact most certainly

useful for other destinations too. The same is true for the

list of items to be observed. But there is also a very

destination-specific side to these instructions. The fact that

the instructions were created for Brazil was first a random fact

– the young pupil was sent there, among all destinations, by

his superiors –, but it did become a program.

Already the instructions written by the senior apprentice,

viscount Carné, show this, although in a particular way. The

text, in which we notice his sentiment of superiority (and his

barely concealed jealousy because of this trip) towards the

younger pupil, has very little prescriptive content: we find

impressions and ideas more than advice. Undoubtedly, he does

not want to instruct – he wants to impress, both the younger

pupil and his own superiors.

About one fourth of the text is made up by lyrical tirades on

nature in Brazil – a country he has never seen! –, inspired by

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and possibly also by Chateaubriand.

In the remaining part, with an interesting analogy, Carné

compares the traveler to a botanist, who can classify all

things that he meets on the field according to a previously

established system of reference. This idea and this parallel

appeared in a little known French text published in Italy 1780,

written probably by one abbé Desacharts. But Carné does not, in

fact, create any sort of system. The author has a very clear

idea of what he believes to be the reality of Brazil, and the

task of the young pupil seems to be only to confirm this. His

theory is not without interest: he believes that Brazil’s

problem is the lack of national identity. And this identity can

not arise for now, because the part of the population that is

of European origin has no relationship to the natural

environment, and the European ideas and the form of society

they try to implement are inappropriate there. He believes – an

interesting idea – that including the indigenous population

included in the nation could be a way to solve this unhealthy

situation.

D’Hauterive begins his own text by saying that his senior

pupil’s instructions inspired him, but that this program asks

too many qualities of the traveler – more than is necessary to

obtain satisfactory results. The two texts have in fact very

little in common. The poetic outbursts about Brazilian nature

are entirely missing from the Conseils à un jeune voyageur. Even more:

nature as such is missing. D’Hauterive defines the very first task

of the traveler as taking a distance from the exuberant nature

and its beauties, aspects that are of no interest for the kind

of traveler he writes to. “I want him to reserve all of his

attention to the humans, for the humans only” – this is his

opening remark.

Brazil as conceived of by d'Hauterive, bereft of its lush

natural environment, remains a vital destination for other

reasons. Let us quote here some passages possibly inspired by

Hegel: “There are countries inhabited by nations without a

future, where there is nothing to be foreseen: the traveler

observes them without interest, and leaves them without regret,

and says upon leaving that these nations are historically

finished. Other countries have no past, inspire no memories,

but these promise a great future for forecasts. These countries

offer the proper domain for the observations of a traveler

wishing to take up a political career; for those who are

practicing this science only study what is past, and only

observe what is passing, in order to learn to read the times

that are to come.” We recognize in this quote the classic

proverb “Qui respicit praeterita et inspicit praesentia,

prospicit etiam et futura” –used here as basis for a philosophy

of travels.

Brazil happens to be the “accidental” destination that these

instructions revolve around. Obviously, it is also a

destination that is very important for France at this time, as

a number of scientific expeditions indicate it – even if these

are not referenced in this text. Brazil is important here for

another reason: it becomes the very type of a new kind of

destination and, as such, provides a transition from

educational travel to scientific travel. Designating Brazil,

the state without a past but with a present and with even more

future, as a new, priority destination, is a very important

step away from earlier travel methodologies. These were based

either on European states of various level of advancement, as

in the case of Berchtold’s, more rarely on the visit to former

or current great empires outside of Europe – or on uncivilized

populations, such as Degérando’s well known questionnaire. New

states such as Brazil were not considered as a separate

category before.

There is some similarity with ideas, common in Europe at the

time, regarding the new-born United States. Travel plans for

the United States concentrate on the question whether this is

an ideal political state. At around the same time, the topos of

the confrontation between virgin nature and European

civilization begins to appear in poetic works, mainly with

Chateaubriand – but even for him, this encounter is at least

partially situated in the past, evoking a longing for a lost

world. Brazil is different. Politically, it is far from being

an ideal state – all travel projects are aware of the serious

difficulties inherent to Brazilian politics at the time, all of

which are topics to be studied, along with whatever specific

trait can be identified in this young nation. But, more

importantly, it is a new actor on the world scene, and as such,

something that is to be urgently studied. There is little

surprise that this travel plan, even suggesting that Brazil

could become a possible laboratory for the study of other

Southern American states, comes from inside the state

administration.

D’Hauterive did also write brief instructions for one other

type of destination for his pupils. To illustrate the case of a

short European mission, he chose Prussia as an example; but

Prussia does not seem to be a country more important than any

other. In the discussion of the topics of observation, we will

indicate the fields that were suggested for this type of

shorter travel.

As all travel conceptions in diplomatic training, this project

is both pedagogical and scientific. But while this latter

aspect is made clear in the ambition of collecting various

types of data, it is another question to decide exactly which

science the travel instructions belong to. From one work to the

other, d’Hauterive has remarks about the necessary scientific

approach, but every time he uses a different expression. In the

Conseils à un élève, he expounds on politics and diplomacy as being

both art and science. Elsewhere, he uses the phrase “science de

l’état”. In his works on political economy, he defines

political economy as the “science de l’administration”. It

would be possible to pore over each phrase at length – his “art

and science” approach of administration was studied (and deemed

somewhat archaic) by historians of administration. But we

prefer to consider all of the above fields to be, basically,

different names for the same overarching science of the state,

Staatswissenschaft.

There is nothing exceptional about this ambition of creating a

“science of the state” and about wanting to use science as a

resource to support to the objectives of the state. In the

early modern period, we know similar conceptions from several

European countries, and during the first half of the 19th

century, the idea is gaining traction. Among others, Auguste

Comte’s early work, Plan des travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour

réorganiser la société  (1822), a first essay towards the creation

of positive science, has the exact same ambition. (D’Hauterive

could theoretically have read Comte's work, of which 1000

copies were printed: they do share some ideas, though some of

these also appeared in works by d’Hauterive published before

Comte’s essay.) Within the fields of travel studies, Berchtold

is the most obvious reference, but surely not the only one.

The difference in d’Hauterive’s project is the fact that the

entire conception comes from inside the administration – the

recognition of the necessity to change the existing

governmental practices were more often initiated form the

outside. He is himself aware that this is unusual, but with his

entire program of training for apprentice diplomats, he is

trying to form a group of state administrators who are well-

versed both in the practice and in the most essential theories

of this science of the state (this is the reason why he wrote

for example a handbook of simplified political economy). He is

working on these because he clearly perceives a lack of

expertise within the administration – and considers it to be a

danger.

Having inside the administration people who understand both

theory and practice is essential to avoid errors of

administration. Avoiding errors, creating governing “best

practices” is a continuous effort at this time and even in

previous periods, and not only in France – d’Hauterive is far

from being the first or the only one to initiate this. (Among

many others, one of the published dissertations of the Société

des Observateurs de l’Homme attributes the downfall of great

civilizations to errors in government – this is one of the rare

instances where d’Hauterive’s ideas match those of the

Observateurs.) This goal remains the overarching goal of all of

his works, and the framework through which we have to interpret

his endeavors.

Travel is not only to be included in this system, it becomes an

essential part of it. It is one of the means (not the only, but

a vital one) through which data can be collected, through

observation. As surprising as it might sound from the head of

the archives, observation on the field is the founding

principle of the entire system. From observation come

principles, which are to be put into “correspondences”. These

correspondences are then submitted to further. From their

interaction will appear the first inklings of a theory.

Amassing a significant amount of data is seen as essential for

political economy, a crucial part of this Staatswissenschaft, to

achieve the status of a science. D’Hauterive believes that

despite the genius of Adam Smith, it is impossible for one

person to collect a sufficient amount of data that would allow

the creation of an economic theory. But thanks to data

collected during travels, among other means, this becomes

possible. Not all travellers have to be scientists (his pupil

for example is far from being one) – but every observation,

every information is one step towards the desired (though its

finer details are never specified) accumulation of data.

D’Hauterive defines six domains in which data should be

collected. The six fields are: the financial system, the legal

system, the military system, the interior administration, the

religious system and a “tableau” of the population. They are

first defined very briefly – later, when his instructions are

extended to cover all destinations, he explains how he would

like to see them developed through the example of one such

domain: population. Neither the list of six fields nor the

short further development are particularly unusual: they show

clear parallels with other travel programs, and reflect

d’Hauterive’s “nothing but the human” approach to the study of

a nation. As you can see, only one of them, the financial

system, is a field where no human aspect was mentioned.

The detailed presentation of how to study population is

intended to be an example of a method of investigation.

D’Hauterive says he could have developed any other field in a

similar way, but knowing his interest for the human factor, it

is no surprise to see “population” set as an example. It is not

only a “method to direct the enquiry”, in Berchtold's well-

known phrase, but as much or even more a method to avoid the

dissipation of attention, a thing d’Hauterive considers a major

danger. Focusing on the right questions is the key to correct

observation.

Is this detailed presentation really a “method”? This is not

obvious – but it is a very detailed list of questions covering

some usual, but also some unusual fields. Every aspect of

census and every possible division of society is suggested as a

question to study. Some of the physical attributes of the

population are considered, such as age of puberty or fertility,

working conditions (age at which people start working, eating

habits). Considering how short the list is, these items are

worthy of interest – they can surely be linked to the growing

interest in working and living conditions of various groups and

nations. This interest has been growing constantly since the

late 18th century and will of course culminate in the 19th

century.

But the major emphasis is definitely not on this aspect, but on

social classes themselves: their respective roles and

ambitions, the distribution of wealth among them, their

structure, and their relationship with one another and with

central power. And central power, as administration itself, is

of course a key field of enquiry.

Interestingly, d'Hauterive stresses the privileged opportunity

for observation that is provided by the marketplace – possibly

a novelty idea, particularly in the way he sees it. If a market

is held in the town or region that the traveler is observing at

the time, it is a must-see and must-observe. But d’Hauterive

keeps in line with his earlier statements: the marketplace is

first of all to be studied as a social gathering. Products,

natural and industrial, should of course be noted, but the

priority is on the observation of human groups, in particular

in their interactions.

There is another peculiar aspect in this human-dominated

approach to the observational program. Both in the travel

instructions for Brazil and in those for Prussia, the idea of

providing a “biography” of the nation features prominently –

regarding Brazil, it is indicated even as the “most useful

thing a traveler could create”. I must admit I am not entirely

sure yet what d’Hauterive’s sources were (if there were any)

for this expression.

When talking about Brazil, this “biography of the nation”

includes the emperor and his family, then the ministers and

other major political actors. Then, as much as possible, one

should observe every level of the social system, from top to

bottom. At every level, the observer picks persons of interest,

reputations on the rise or already made: the knowledge of

persons who are or can become major actors in a rapidly

changing nation. He should provide a portrayal of these that

can prove, one day, extremely useful for the French

administration.

This conception is linked to the notion of “notoriété”, a word

difficult to translate in this context (‘fame’, ‘gained

reputation’). It covers any characteristic or process that can

raise somebody out of his class of origin. It features here

almost as a scientific notion, and definitely features per se

among the fields of observation: what are the possibilities and

conditions of social promotion in a country, or in various

classes inside a given country.

In the case of Prussia, the “biography of the nation” covers

mostly the same thing – portrayals of various persons in key

positions, though the royal family does not feature here. These

people to observe might have arrived in their position through

skill, birth or manipulation. But it is not how they got there

that is important (the notion of “notoriété” disappears), but

how to handle them. One should collect as much information as

possible about these major actors, by all means possible. This

will provide, just like in the case of Brazil, a useful

background if a member of the French administration has to

negotiate with them.

This conception is very clearly based on “diplomatic

pragmatism”: this is the kind of diplomacy against which

Addison wrote his pamphlet. At the same time, they belong very

much to the “scientific” aspect of travel, and not only

because of the vague notion of “notoriété” – the knowledge

obtained (basically insider information on all major actors) is

as much a part of the science of the state as any amount of

population data collected.

The “biography of the nation” is mentioned as one of the few

fields of observation during the travel to Prussia. D’Hauterive

lists some fields as unnecessary to study because they are

already well-known. Such is the case of national character

(“ultra-German” as he puts it), most aspects of administration,

etc. Besides the “nation’s biography”, d'Hauterive mentions

explicitly only one other field of interest. D’Hauterive

launches into a brief theory regarding Prussia – namely that

the continuous reform of state administration has resulted in a

lack of revolutionary instincts in the population –, and asks

the pupil to check its validity.

Like many other similar travel programs, d’Hauterive’s projects

– and in particular the more developed instructions for Brazil

– have the double objective of the personal development of the

pupil and obtaining information for the state. Merely observing

is only part of this system. Asking the right kind of

questions, he states, is half the answer. It is also vital to

write, and in particular to learn through regular practice to

write a great deal, with great ease and great speed: an

exercise of the eyes, of the hands, of the attention, of the

memory, of the mind. There is no need to be afraid to put

unnecessary things into writing – at a later point, one can

always eliminate whatever is erroneous or useless. (A somewhat

optimistic approach…)

We find some remarks regarding the process of acquiring

information in the field. One of these is to hide the desire of

obtaining information – people become suspicious when faced

with a barrage of questions, and would withhold information

they would happily give in normal conversation. Elsewhere,

d’Hauterive suggests that the best way to learn a nation’s

secrets is to learn the language. The knowledge of the local

language is very often quoted in travel philosophy, but it has

a specific element here – it is not a question of collecting

information, but that of gaining trust. When encountering a

foreigner who speaks their language, he says, everybody opens

up happily and is more likely to give them anything they ask

for. An interesting addition to these remarks is the fact that

among the many handbooks by d’Hauterive, one was on the

pronunciation of foreign languages, promising an easy to follow

method to learn pronunciation – even without actually speaking

the language.

Coming to the technical aspects of this travel program, as in

other contemporary travel instructions, we can find advice how

the collected data should be recorded and arranged. We can

distinguish two main directions here: one is the continuation

of an existing tradition; the other is typical of d’Hauterive’s

activity.

First, the Conseils à un jeune voyageur has a number of tables, or as

he calls them, “cadres”, “frames” – the same kind of tables

that were used by Berchtold and others after him. Actually, the

presence of these tables is something of an addition:

d’Hauterive admits that they are not by him, but were suggested

and prepared by a colleague. One could wonder whether

d’Hauterive knew Berchtold’s work first hand – his wide-ranging

culture would suggest he does, but he makes no direct

reference.

More interesting maybe than these conventional tables is his

advice for taking notes while on the field – and here the

“homme de lettres”, the head of the Archives, steps up. He had

written in 1825 a methodology for the “surnuméraires”, unpaid

apprentices of the Ministry. In it, he gave advice about

various key tasks that a ministry employee might have to

undertake – one of them being extracting information from

documents. He has a set method for this – and he considers that

this method, inherited from state administration science, can

be used for traveling purposes too.

He suggests a method that will be well known to all scholars

and archivists, but one that I have not encountered earlier in

travel methodologies. Basically he uses index cards, with a

header and a body. Index cards were undoubtedly more practical

during their post-travel use than the classical travelling

journal with omissions on the opposite page and the date in the

margin. Whether during travels the index cards would be usable

remains an open question – and one that does not seem to bother

d’Hauterive, who considers the perfection of his system self-

explanatory.

There is no information regarding the desired structure of the

text on the index card, besides the fact that it should contain

one set of information per card, indicate the source if

possible, and that it should cover the domains discussed

earlier. But the header is more specific. It consists of three

elements: in the middle should be the date the note was made.

To the left and to the right of this, are two elements of

classification that he calls “genre” and “espèce” – “genus” and

“species”. I am still trying to figure out whether, in the

choice of these elements of a rank-based classification system,

one should see a sort of reference to Linnean taxonomy, wildly

debated in France...

D’Hauterive does not think one should invent new categories on

the fly: he believes in directed observation. The best is to

travel with ready-made index cards with specific questions such

as the ones suggested in the study of population. If necessary,

additional remarks can be added according to this dual system

of classification.

What do we know about the use of these instructions? In fact,

as of now, next to nothing. We know nothing about how

d’Hauterive worked earlier, when he travelled in Moldova. As a

famously organized person, he mush have had some sort of a

program in his mind, but we know nothing about this – his

journal, which could inform us maybe, is in an unknown

location.

With this particular set of instructions, at least one pupil

was sent out, and it was suggested for further use, but I am

yet to find a report built on this schema. There might be some

– further research will be needed. An 1837 reprint of the

instructions in a handbook for diplomats suggests that the work

could have been used, in one way or another, at that time.

D’Hauterive’s school of diplomacy did not really survive the

death of its founder, and was disbanded step by step. Its

results did not disappear entirely, though – it is generally

considered as one of the forerunners of the Ecole Normale

d’Administration. Another interesting research would be to see

whether similar travel projects with similar or different

objectives were created for this school at a later moment.

Count d’Hauterive died in July 1830. He was already on his

deathbed when he heard gunshots in the streets. He asked what

they were, and his daughter told him it was a salvo to

celebrate the conquest of Algiers – a project that d’Hauterive,

a firm believer in the importance of colonies, has been

suggesting for a very long time. Reassured, he said: “This is a

great military deed that will cover the Bourbon family in

glory.” These gunshots were, to him, a statement of the

efficiency of the system he had been serving, and the

efficiency of his own services. The only problem with this

beautiful scene of “famous last words” is that his daughter

lied to reassure the dying count. What he heard was rifle fire

during the street fights of the 1830 revolution. While the

conquest of Algeria was to become a reality during these same

years, what he heard was not a triumphant salvo, but the death

knell of French absolutism as he knew and served it.