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
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