The Improbable Patriot Pierre-Agustin Caron de Beaumarchais with Iris de Rode

 Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a man about Paris—watch-maker, inventor, and playwright best known for light comedies like "The Marriage of Figaro." But as the Americans struggled to secure independence, he took on a greater role, managing to ship arms and supplies to the rebels despite French neutrality and the British fleet. Harlow Giles Unger brought Beaumarchais's story back to life in Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais, the French Playwright who Saved the American Revolution. We talk about Beaumarchais with historian Iris de Rode, who has written an introduction to a new edition of Unger's book. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

WEBVTT
 
 00:00:01.024 --> 00:00:01.725
 Hello, everyone,
 
 00:00:01.784 --> 00:00:03.547
 and welcome to the Revolution Two-Fifty
 
 00:00:03.567 --> 00:00:04.107
 podcast.
 
 00:00:04.187 --> 00:00:04.948
 I'm Bob Allison.
 
 00:00:04.968 --> 00:00:06.269
 I co-chair Rev Two-Fifty.
 
 00:00:06.288 --> 00:00:08.612
 We're a consortium of about seventy five
 
 00:00:08.672 --> 00:00:10.694
 organizations in Massachusetts which have
 
 00:00:10.714 --> 00:00:12.455
 been planning commemorations of American
 
 00:00:12.476 --> 00:00:13.135
 independence.
 
 00:00:13.756 --> 00:00:16.339
 And our guest today is Iris DeRoad.
 
 00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:18.702
 Iris is joining us for her second go
 
 00:00:18.782 --> 00:00:19.522
 round with us.
 
 00:00:19.603 --> 00:00:21.704
 Iris is one of the leading scholars of
 
 00:00:21.745 --> 00:00:23.486
 the French American relationship.
 
 00:00:23.547 --> 00:00:24.187
 She received her
 
 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:28.341
 of Amsterdam, a master's at the Sorbonne,
 
 00:00:28.882 --> 00:00:32.122
 and her doctorate at the University of
 
 00:00:32.182 --> 00:00:33.164
 Paris,
 
 00:00:33.204 --> 00:00:35.564
 writing about Francois-Jean de Chestelot.
 
 00:00:36.045 --> 00:00:40.045
 And that received the Prize Guizot of the
 
 00:00:40.085 --> 00:00:41.847
 Académie Française in twenty twenty three,
 
 00:00:41.866 --> 00:00:43.267
 which was the last time you were on
 
 00:00:43.307 --> 00:00:45.188
 with us talking about the French
 
 00:00:45.228 --> 00:00:45.747
 relationship.
 
 00:00:45.787 --> 00:00:47.329
 And you've done all kinds of other things.
 
 00:00:47.348 --> 00:00:47.728
 So, Iris,
 
 00:00:47.768 --> 00:00:49.789
 thanks so much for joining us today.
 
 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:51.881
 Thank you so much for having me for
 
 00:00:51.901 --> 00:00:53.540
 a second time in your podcast, Bob.
 
 00:00:53.661 --> 00:00:54.061
 Thank you.
 
 00:00:54.082 --> 00:00:55.843
 Yes, well, I'm sure there will be more.
 
 00:00:57.523 --> 00:00:59.124
 And the new project we wanted to talk
 
 00:00:59.143 --> 00:00:59.304
 about,
 
 00:00:59.323 --> 00:01:02.345
 you've actually written a new forward to a
 
 00:01:02.445 --> 00:01:04.727
 book that Harlow Giles Unger wrote about
 
 00:01:04.766 --> 00:01:07.427
 fifteen years ago, Improbable Patriot,
 
 00:01:07.447 --> 00:01:08.209
 The Secret History
 
 00:01:08.849 --> 00:01:09.808
 de Beaumarchais,
 
 00:01:10.129 --> 00:01:12.170
 the French playwright who saved the
 
 00:01:12.349 --> 00:01:13.811
 American Revolution.
 
 00:01:14.950 --> 00:01:16.132
 It's really a great book.
 
 00:01:16.432 --> 00:01:17.792
 He was a journalist.
 
 00:01:17.852 --> 00:01:20.972
 He wrote about seventeen really good books
 
 00:01:21.253 --> 00:01:22.093
 on history.
 
 00:01:22.153 --> 00:01:23.713
 And because he was based as a journalist
 
 00:01:23.774 --> 00:01:24.314
 in Paris,
 
 00:01:24.355 --> 00:01:26.114
 he did a lot of work on the
 
 00:01:26.174 --> 00:01:27.816
 French relationship.
 
 00:01:28.176 --> 00:01:30.596
 And Beaumarchais is an extraordinary
 
 00:01:30.716 --> 00:01:31.436
 character.
 
 00:01:31.557 --> 00:01:33.337
 And he has a whole story in his
 
 00:01:33.397 --> 00:01:34.897
 foreword to the book about how all of
 
 00:01:34.918 --> 00:01:35.739
 this was lost.
 
 00:01:38.608 --> 00:01:41.010
 So Unger wrote this book amongst a lot
 
 00:01:41.131 --> 00:01:41.811
 of, as you said,
 
 00:01:41.831 --> 00:01:44.153
 a lot of other books on French characters,
 
 00:01:44.192 --> 00:01:46.355
 let's say, of the American Revolution.
 
 00:01:46.435 --> 00:01:48.677
 And he wrote a book on Lafayette and
 
 00:01:48.697 --> 00:01:51.718
 then a lot of others doing original
 
 00:01:51.759 --> 00:01:52.319
 research,
 
 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:55.061
 which is sometimes rare because a lot of
 
 00:01:55.262 --> 00:01:57.483
 American historians didn't necessarily
 
 00:01:57.524 --> 00:01:59.364
 have the same access as he did to
 
 00:01:59.506 --> 00:02:00.665
 French source material,
 
 00:02:00.727 --> 00:02:02.328
 nor did they necessarily speak the same
 
 00:02:02.347 --> 00:02:02.548
 language.
 
 00:02:03.018 --> 00:02:06.060
 the language or read the language in
 
 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:06.540
 particular.
 
 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:10.581
 So Unger did a lot of specific research
 
 00:02:11.122 --> 00:02:13.022
 for this book on Beaumarchais,
 
 00:02:13.143 --> 00:02:14.443
 who we're going to talk about of course,
 
 00:02:14.503 --> 00:02:15.144
 who that was,
 
 00:02:15.544 --> 00:02:18.186
 but he had access to a particular
 
 00:02:18.605 --> 00:02:21.426
 collection of another Frenchman that had
 
 00:02:21.507 --> 00:02:24.649
 wrote a book on Beaumarchais and he had
 
 00:02:24.709 --> 00:02:26.110
 access to private papers
 
 00:02:28.030 --> 00:02:30.570
 His name was Loménie de Brienne,
 
 00:02:30.591 --> 00:02:32.412
 I believe, so the other author.
 
 00:02:32.731 --> 00:02:34.292
 Oh yeah, Louis de Loménie,
 
 00:02:34.391 --> 00:02:35.551
 in eighteen fifty-three,
 
 00:02:35.953 --> 00:02:38.772
 wrote a book and had access to his
 
 00:02:38.832 --> 00:02:39.653
 private papers,
 
 00:02:39.693 --> 00:02:41.074
 but since then they've been lost,
 
 00:02:41.373 --> 00:02:42.413
 but he had access to the
 
 00:02:45.014 --> 00:02:48.717
 to the notes that Professor Le Meny had
 
 00:02:48.937 --> 00:02:49.239
 used.
 
 00:02:49.718 --> 00:02:51.800
 And so the papers didn't exist anymore but
 
 00:02:51.841 --> 00:02:53.122
 he still had a lot of access to
 
 00:02:53.141 --> 00:02:54.823
 a lot of unpublished source material
 
 00:02:54.883 --> 00:02:56.625
 because of that collection of the notes
 
 00:02:56.685 --> 00:02:58.126
 taken by another historian.
 
 00:02:59.387 --> 00:03:01.209
 What I think Unger must have been excited
 
 00:03:01.248 --> 00:03:03.110
 about if he would still be alive to
 
 00:03:03.169 --> 00:03:04.931
 maybe write a second edition is that there
 
 00:03:04.991 --> 00:03:06.772
 is since then been a sort of a
 
 00:03:06.872 --> 00:03:08.995
 new discovery of Beaumarchais papers
 
 00:03:09.316 --> 00:03:11.837
 because the family donated their papers to
 
 00:03:11.858 --> 00:03:11.978
 the
 
 00:03:13.349 --> 00:03:14.691
 to the National Archives of Paris,
 
 00:03:14.751 --> 00:03:16.453
 and so there's a new research group on
 
 00:03:16.473 --> 00:03:17.633
 Beaumarchais right now.
 
 00:03:18.074 --> 00:03:19.715
 But without the material,
 
 00:03:19.735 --> 00:03:22.377
 this book is still really great because it
 
 00:03:22.417 --> 00:03:23.957
 tells a very interesting and the
 
 00:03:24.038 --> 00:03:26.080
 intriguing story of Beaumarchais seen
 
 00:03:26.099 --> 00:03:27.219
 through the eyes of his own source
 
 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:27.661
 material.
 
 00:03:27.681 --> 00:03:29.801
 David Plylar,
 
 00:03:29.921 --> 00:03:31.223
 And Beaumarchais is probably,
 
 00:03:31.984 --> 00:03:33.664
 he was very well known in his day
 
 00:03:33.884 --> 00:03:36.046
 as a playwright, The Marriage of Figaro,
 
 00:03:36.983 --> 00:03:39.824
 other really very popular plays at the
 
 00:03:39.864 --> 00:03:42.245
 time and his life is very much like
 
 00:03:42.405 --> 00:03:44.966
 that of figaro this the barber of seville
 
 00:03:45.225 --> 00:03:46.907
 who has these ups and downs he goes
 
 00:03:46.947 --> 00:03:49.187
 from being you know uh the king's
 
 00:03:49.407 --> 00:03:53.229
 watchmaker to being a non-citizen and he's
 
 00:03:53.269 --> 00:03:55.030
 a judge but then he's thrown in jail
 
 00:03:55.110 --> 00:03:55.669
 and he has these
 
 00:03:56.110 --> 00:03:58.471
 real extraordinary extraordinary stories
 
 00:03:58.491 --> 00:04:00.712
 that would be interesting even if we
 
 00:04:00.733 --> 00:04:03.193
 didn't know the big our big story is
 
 00:04:03.533 --> 00:04:06.116
 he finances helps finance sending arms to
 
 00:04:06.156 --> 00:04:08.197
 the americans even before the french have
 
 00:04:08.217 --> 00:04:09.617
 agreed to support the americans
 
 00:04:10.682 --> 00:04:11.022
 Exactly.
 
 00:04:11.783 --> 00:04:13.123
 He is known as a playwright and he
 
 00:04:13.163 --> 00:04:14.525
 could have written his own life.
 
 00:04:15.466 --> 00:04:17.706
 Everything that he does is what you're
 
 00:04:17.726 --> 00:04:17.927
 saying.
 
 00:04:17.966 --> 00:04:19.048
 It's going up and down.
 
 00:04:19.127 --> 00:04:20.088
 And so, for instance,
 
 00:04:20.108 --> 00:04:21.769
 at the beginning of his career,
 
 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:23.930
 his father is a watchmaker and he follows
 
 00:04:24.370 --> 00:04:26.232
 his footsteps and he invents,
 
 00:04:26.791 --> 00:04:28.892
 or at least who knows who invents it,
 
 00:04:28.913 --> 00:04:31.714
 but he claims to have invented a smaller
 
 00:04:31.754 --> 00:04:32.074
 watch.
 
 00:04:32.095 --> 00:04:34.456
 So he invents a way of making the
 
 00:04:34.475 --> 00:04:36.257
 watches smaller instead of having to hang
 
 00:04:36.497 --> 00:04:37.218
 around one's neck.
 
 00:04:37.567 --> 00:04:40.271
 they would be on someone's wrist.
 
 00:04:40.312 --> 00:04:42.694
 So the wrist watch is his invention and
 
 00:04:42.735 --> 00:04:44.617
 became very popular in Versailles.
 
 00:04:44.637 --> 00:04:46.038
 The king wanted his watches.
 
 00:04:46.379 --> 00:04:47.901
 And so he became integrated into the
 
 00:04:47.940 --> 00:04:51.586
 French court of Louis XV and then later
 
 00:04:51.665 --> 00:04:51.766
 XVI.
 
 00:04:52.990 --> 00:04:55.591
 And so he was very popular amongst the
 
 00:04:55.630 --> 00:04:56.930
 courtiers of Versailles,
 
 00:04:57.170 --> 00:04:58.350
 but a lot of people were jealous of
 
 00:04:58.391 --> 00:04:59.132
 him as well.
 
 00:04:59.471 --> 00:05:01.411
 And so there was always that back and
 
 00:05:01.432 --> 00:05:02.812
 forth, because he was a commoner.
 
 00:05:02.853 --> 00:05:04.372
 He was not from aristocracy.
 
 00:05:05.192 --> 00:05:06.072
 Quite early in life,
 
 00:05:06.112 --> 00:05:08.274
 he married an aristocratic woman,
 
 00:05:08.314 --> 00:05:09.194
 so he got a title.
 
 00:05:09.233 --> 00:05:12.814
 He changed his name to De Beaumarchais.
 
 00:05:13.355 --> 00:05:14.315
 She, however,
 
 00:05:14.355 --> 00:05:16.935
 died quite fast after their marriage,
 
 00:05:16.975 --> 00:05:18.836
 so he ended up without anything,
 
 00:05:18.857 --> 00:05:19.797
 but he kept the title.
 
 00:05:21.117 --> 00:05:22.377
 And so he went back and forth.
 
 00:05:22.398 --> 00:05:24.077
 He got very popular again.
 
 00:05:24.418 --> 00:05:26.499
 So after the watchmaking situation,
 
 00:05:26.538 --> 00:05:28.980
 he got sort of out of favor for
 
 00:05:29.019 --> 00:05:29.300
 a while,
 
 00:05:29.319 --> 00:05:30.880
 but then he got back because he also
 
 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:33.581
 invented a particular new way of a harp,
 
 00:05:33.661 --> 00:05:35.122
 as in the music instrument,
 
 00:05:35.541 --> 00:05:38.343
 and became the instructor of the daughters
 
 00:05:38.523 --> 00:05:39.283
 of the king.
 
 00:05:40.084 --> 00:05:40.944
 And so then he became
 
 00:05:41.464 --> 00:05:43.245
 sort of a popular figure again because the
 
 00:05:43.266 --> 00:05:43.987
 daughters of the king,
 
 00:05:44.007 --> 00:05:45.226
 the princesses of France,
 
 00:05:45.627 --> 00:05:46.487
 really liked him.
 
 00:05:47.067 --> 00:05:50.370
 And so then he got back into another
 
 00:05:50.430 --> 00:05:55.153
 scandal relating to something personal,
 
 00:05:55.173 --> 00:05:55.553
 I believe,
 
 00:05:55.593 --> 00:05:58.214
 with competition with someone about a
 
 00:05:58.274 --> 00:05:58.656
 woman.
 
 00:05:58.755 --> 00:05:59.836
 And so there was, again,
 
 00:06:00.197 --> 00:06:01.877
 he falls out of favor again.
 
 00:06:02.218 --> 00:06:03.017
 And this is his life.
 
 00:06:03.057 --> 00:06:04.139
 It goes up and down.
 
 00:06:04.459 --> 00:06:05.740
 He is sometimes very rich,
 
 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:06.901
 sometimes very poor,
 
 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:09.021
 sometimes in favor of the French king,
 
 00:06:09.262 --> 00:06:10.362
 then out of favor again.
 
 00:06:10.728 --> 00:06:12.309
 And that makes him probably a perfect
 
 00:06:12.348 --> 00:06:14.490
 figure to be sort of in the shadows
 
 00:06:14.529 --> 00:06:16.209
 of the French diplomacy,
 
 00:06:16.250 --> 00:06:17.170
 which he's going to become.
 
 00:06:17.190 --> 00:06:19.372
 He's going to become an agent of the
 
 00:06:19.411 --> 00:06:21.531
 French king and his what you call secrets
 
 00:06:21.952 --> 00:06:23.533
 of the king, the secret du roi,
 
 00:06:23.992 --> 00:06:26.514
 which is a sort of a spy network
 
 00:06:27.014 --> 00:06:30.636
 from Louis XV that is there to spy
 
 00:06:30.855 --> 00:06:32.576
 on the enemies of France.
 
 00:06:32.997 --> 00:06:35.057
 And so one of the main missions that
 
 00:06:36.559 --> 00:06:37.559
 Beaumarchais is going to get
 
 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:39.581
 and that is under Louis XVI,
 
 00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:42.343
 because in the year of the King Louis
 
 00:06:42.483 --> 00:06:44.824
 XV died, and Louis XVI takes the throne.
 
 00:06:45.204 --> 00:06:46.685
 And from that moment onwards,
 
 00:06:47.086 --> 00:06:48.846
 we all know what happens in America.
 
 00:06:48.947 --> 00:06:51.367
 The American Revolution is breaking out.
 
 00:06:51.749 --> 00:06:54.189
 The French had already been absorbing that
 
 00:06:54.250 --> 00:06:56.190
 for quite a long time, observing,
 
 00:06:56.372 --> 00:06:56.951
 I want to say, sorry,
 
 00:06:57.192 --> 00:06:59.192
 they were observing that since the end of
 
 00:06:59.213 --> 00:07:00.593
 the Seven Years' War already,
 
 00:07:00.973 --> 00:07:02.836
 Louis XV had sent some agents,
 
 00:07:03.336 --> 00:07:04.617
 and then when Louis XVI comes,
 
 00:07:04.656 --> 00:07:05.716
 he's continuing that.
 
 00:07:05.776 --> 00:07:06.497
 He wants to see
 
 00:07:07.081 --> 00:07:08.624
 What are the reactions in Great Britain?
 
 00:07:08.944 --> 00:07:10.446
 What is happening in North America?
 
 00:07:10.786 --> 00:07:13.428
 Can we maybe use that tension,
 
 00:07:13.468 --> 00:07:16.473
 this rebellion to maybe weaken the British
 
 00:07:16.572 --> 00:07:19.076
 Empire and put ourselves back on the map
 
 00:07:19.175 --> 00:07:20.697
 after losing the Seven Years War?
 
 00:07:21.077 --> 00:07:24.401
 So the French kings had been excited about
 
 00:07:24.442 --> 00:07:26.564
 the American Revolution even before it
 
 00:07:26.603 --> 00:07:28.045
 became an actual revolution.
 
 00:07:28.492 --> 00:07:30.454
 they knew what was going on and they
 
 00:07:30.494 --> 00:07:32.516
 needed to understand if they could use it
 
 00:07:32.696 --> 00:07:33.115
 or not.
 
 00:07:33.656 --> 00:07:35.577
 And so from the seventeen sixties onwards,
 
 00:07:35.697 --> 00:07:38.298
 they sent agents and Beaumarchais was one
 
 00:07:38.338 --> 00:07:40.480
 of them in seventy seventy five when he
 
 00:07:40.500 --> 00:07:42.942
 was sent to London for a lot of
 
 00:07:42.982 --> 00:07:43.762
 different reasons.
 
 00:07:43.822 --> 00:07:46.985
 But one of them was to understand what
 
 00:07:47.024 --> 00:07:49.346
 if we start to help the Americans?
 
 00:07:49.406 --> 00:07:50.466
 What would the British do?
 
 00:07:50.927 --> 00:07:53.048
 And we maybe do more.
 
 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:53.408
 Can we
 
 00:07:54.052 --> 00:07:54.733
 You know,
 
 00:07:54.754 --> 00:07:57.016
 let's stoke that revolution to become a
 
 00:07:57.076 --> 00:07:57.416
 war.
 
 00:07:57.476 --> 00:07:58.398
 Can we help in the war?
 
 00:07:58.478 --> 00:07:58.937
 And so on.
 
 00:07:59.077 --> 00:08:02.161
 And Beaumarchais saw great opportunities
 
 00:08:02.201 --> 00:08:02.901
 for France,
 
 00:08:03.242 --> 00:08:05.564
 not only to take the revenge they wanted
 
 00:08:06.105 --> 00:08:08.447
 on Great Britain to weaken the empire that
 
 00:08:08.468 --> 00:08:10.129
 had grown so big during the Seven Years'
 
 00:08:10.149 --> 00:08:10.449
 War,
 
 00:08:11.071 --> 00:08:13.252
 but what Beaumarchais saw also was
 
 00:08:13.494 --> 00:08:14.535
 personal enrichment.
 
 00:08:16.423 --> 00:08:16.723
 He does.
 
 00:08:16.783 --> 00:08:18.184
 We're talking with Iris DeRoad,
 
 00:08:18.223 --> 00:08:20.904
 who has written a new foreword to Harlow
 
 00:08:20.944 --> 00:08:23.185
 Giles Ongar's Improbable Patriot.
 
 00:08:23.204 --> 00:08:24.886
 Brandeis University Press has just
 
 00:08:25.386 --> 00:08:27.586
 republished this great book about this
 
 00:08:28.067 --> 00:08:30.288
 really unlikely hero in the secret
 
 00:08:30.327 --> 00:08:30.728
 history.
 
 00:08:31.208 --> 00:08:32.668
 And hero may be a word we put
 
 00:08:32.688 --> 00:08:33.528
 in quotes because
 
 00:08:36.479 --> 00:08:39.221
 the case that he sees the Americans doing
 
 00:08:39.301 --> 00:08:40.682
 something to topple the idea of
 
 00:08:40.721 --> 00:08:42.563
 aristocracy, as you mentioned.
 
 00:08:43.403 --> 00:08:45.086
 He invents this watch,
 
 00:08:46.226 --> 00:08:47.447
 basically invents the wristwatch,
 
 00:08:47.467 --> 00:08:48.908
 and then he reads in a French journal
 
 00:08:49.229 --> 00:08:50.850
 that the king's watchmaker is taking
 
 00:08:50.889 --> 00:08:51.951
 credit for the invention.
 
 00:08:52.311 --> 00:08:54.212
 And this is kind of a recurring theme.
 
 00:08:54.452 --> 00:08:56.794
 He's a commoner, so the aristocrats,
 
 00:08:56.835 --> 00:08:58.375
 even though they know he's smarter than
 
 00:08:58.416 --> 00:08:59.636
 they are, just as good as they are,
 
 00:08:59.677 --> 00:09:01.479
 don't accept him as one and keep trying
 
 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:01.658
 to
 
 00:09:02.816 --> 00:09:03.576
 kick him out.
 
 00:09:04.597 --> 00:09:06.480
 Do you see his motivations here?
 
 00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:07.880
 Partly for France,
 
 00:09:07.941 --> 00:09:10.383
 it's let's help support our American
 
 00:09:10.423 --> 00:09:13.986
 colonies and weaken the British Empire.
 
 00:09:14.667 --> 00:09:17.350
 But also there is this ideological
 
 00:09:17.830 --> 00:09:20.832
 possibility or philosophical possibility.
 
 00:09:20.952 --> 00:09:22.193
 I mean, and again,
 
 00:09:22.214 --> 00:09:23.875
 people argued about Beaumarchais' motives
 
 00:09:23.895 --> 00:09:24.436
 at the time,
 
 00:09:24.495 --> 00:09:25.957
 and we can argue about them now.
 
 00:09:27.313 --> 00:09:28.534
 I agree with you what you just said
 
 00:09:28.575 --> 00:09:31.196
 about Beaumarchais himself as a commoner.
 
 00:09:31.275 --> 00:09:33.275
 He's been frustrated by the aristocratic
 
 00:09:33.316 --> 00:09:35.336
 system since the beginning of his life.
 
 00:09:35.356 --> 00:09:37.118
 He's never accepted in the group he would
 
 00:09:37.158 --> 00:09:38.577
 want to be accepted in.
 
 00:09:39.217 --> 00:09:41.198
 And so there must have been personal
 
 00:09:41.239 --> 00:09:44.840
 resentments into just being in a monarchy
 
 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:46.461
 where everything is so rigid,
 
 00:09:46.520 --> 00:09:48.142
 where it's so hard to move up the
 
 00:09:48.182 --> 00:09:49.501
 ladder of the hierarchy,
 
 00:09:50.261 --> 00:09:51.082
 the social ladder,
 
 00:09:51.163 --> 00:09:52.363
 because he was a commoner.
 
 00:09:52.711 --> 00:09:54.652
 and he's always fighting to get in there.
 
 00:09:54.692 --> 00:09:56.452
 His theater plays that he writes,
 
 00:09:56.472 --> 00:09:57.774
 especially the earlier ones,
 
 00:09:58.134 --> 00:10:00.355
 are really all about criticizing the
 
 00:10:00.615 --> 00:10:02.657
 aristocracy and how rigid they are and how
 
 00:10:02.677 --> 00:10:05.178
 they are not open for talented people like
 
 00:10:05.219 --> 00:10:05.778
 himself.
 
 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:08.280
 When he sees the American Revolution's
 
 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:09.881
 ideals to fight against the king,
 
 00:10:09.902 --> 00:10:11.982
 to fight against the monarchy, well,
 
 00:10:12.003 --> 00:10:13.524
 against his aristocratic system,
 
 00:10:13.604 --> 00:10:15.144
 to have more freedoms, more liberties,
 
 00:10:15.205 --> 00:10:16.186
 more say of the people,
 
 00:10:16.645 --> 00:10:18.586
 for him that is a real cause because
 
 00:10:18.647 --> 00:10:21.249
 he would care personally for a cause like
 
 00:10:21.269 --> 00:10:21.489
 that.
 
 00:10:22.168 --> 00:10:23.089
 He's not the only one.
 
 00:10:23.129 --> 00:10:23.549
 In France,
 
 00:10:23.590 --> 00:10:26.293
 there's a growing group of that time
 
 00:10:26.332 --> 00:10:28.735
 period in the seventeen seventies that do
 
 00:10:28.816 --> 00:10:30.758
 see that the system they're in is too
 
 00:10:30.798 --> 00:10:31.239
 rigid,
 
 00:10:31.599 --> 00:10:33.822
 too outdated and needs to be at least
 
 00:10:33.902 --> 00:10:34.503
 reformed.
 
 00:10:35.182 --> 00:10:37.066
 Not everyone is necessarily calling for a
 
 00:10:37.105 --> 00:10:38.226
 revolution yet,
 
 00:10:38.326 --> 00:10:39.668
 but there are voices
 
 00:10:40.229 --> 00:10:41.870
 for reforming the French system from
 
 00:10:41.909 --> 00:10:43.890
 within to make it just a bit more
 
 00:10:44.350 --> 00:10:46.272
 equal, a bit more meritocratic,
 
 00:10:47.131 --> 00:10:48.753
 still while maintaining the monarchy and
 
 00:10:48.773 --> 00:10:49.873
 the aristocracy in place.
 
 00:10:49.913 --> 00:10:50.854
 But there are voices,
 
 00:10:51.193 --> 00:10:52.835
 even from the aristocracy themselves,
 
 00:10:52.875 --> 00:10:54.995
 to try to at least adapt to more
 
 00:10:55.035 --> 00:10:56.716
 modern times, if they say it that way.
 
 00:10:56.996 --> 00:10:59.077
 And that group is being very interested in
 
 00:10:59.118 --> 00:11:01.519
 what's happening in the American colonies
 
 00:11:01.558 --> 00:11:04.139
 because they can see these enlightened
 
 00:11:04.299 --> 00:11:06.441
 practices or enlightened ideals that they
 
 00:11:06.461 --> 00:11:06.620
 had
 
 00:11:07.422 --> 00:11:10.104
 imagined in France, Voltaire, Montesquieu,
 
 00:11:10.163 --> 00:11:12.725
 Rousseau, these type of thinkers, amongst,
 
 00:11:12.804 --> 00:11:13.125
 of course,
 
 00:11:13.205 --> 00:11:15.527
 other thinkers that had an influence on
 
 00:11:16.027 --> 00:11:17.587
 how to create this new society.
 
 00:11:17.988 --> 00:11:20.168
 And so for Frenchmen that were living in
 
 00:11:20.208 --> 00:11:22.429
 France, but thinking about a new world,
 
 00:11:22.769 --> 00:11:24.751
 seeing a new world happening at the other
 
 00:11:24.772 --> 00:11:27.452
 side of the Atlantic was very exciting.
 
 00:11:27.533 --> 00:11:29.634
 And so for people like Beaumarchais,
 
 00:11:30.073 --> 00:11:32.115
 it became also a revolution of ideals that
 
 00:11:32.135 --> 00:11:33.375
 they would really stand for.
 
 00:11:34.136 --> 00:11:35.356
 Beaumarchais himself, though,
 
 00:11:35.417 --> 00:11:36.557
 was also involved in
 
 00:11:37.030 --> 00:11:38.692
 transatlantic trade already.
 
 00:11:39.513 --> 00:11:40.432
 He was a playwright,
 
 00:11:40.452 --> 00:11:43.014
 he was his watchmaker, he was a musician,
 
 00:11:43.294 --> 00:11:45.515
 but he also had some very well connected
 
 00:11:45.556 --> 00:11:47.738
 friends to the transatlantic trade
 
 00:11:47.837 --> 00:11:48.398
 networks.
 
 00:11:48.817 --> 00:11:50.918
 through the different Caribbean islands.
 
 00:11:51.258 --> 00:11:53.558
 He was involved through other people also
 
 00:11:53.599 --> 00:11:54.759
 in slave trade,
 
 00:11:54.938 --> 00:11:56.940
 in sugar trade and so on from the
 
 00:11:57.039 --> 00:11:59.600
 islands to France and back to America.
 
 00:11:59.721 --> 00:12:03.001
 And so he also saw an opportunity because
 
 00:12:03.042 --> 00:12:05.243
 he knew what the Americans needed most was
 
 00:12:05.442 --> 00:12:07.163
 weapons, gunpowder,
 
 00:12:07.743 --> 00:12:10.083
 anything you could need to wage war
 
 00:12:10.144 --> 00:12:11.945
 because of course the Americans didn't
 
 00:12:11.985 --> 00:12:12.284
 have
 
 00:12:12.884 --> 00:12:13.426
 Much of that,
 
 00:12:13.446 --> 00:12:16.207
 they needed help from Europe to get that,
 
 00:12:16.268 --> 00:12:17.068
 to fight the British.
 
 00:12:17.469 --> 00:12:20.471
 And so Beaumarchais saw opportunities to
 
 00:12:20.532 --> 00:12:21.392
 sell weapons,
 
 00:12:21.692 --> 00:12:24.934
 to sell gunpowder through his channels
 
 00:12:24.975 --> 00:12:27.716
 that he was already involved with to make
 
 00:12:27.736 --> 00:12:30.259
 sure the Americans would buy what they
 
 00:12:30.299 --> 00:12:30.679
 needed.
 
 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.863
 So it was an ideological motivation,
 
 00:12:35.043 --> 00:12:38.966
 but it was also very likely inspired by
 
 00:12:39.187 --> 00:12:41.729
 the possibility of making a lot of money.
 
 00:12:43.472 --> 00:12:44.693
 Very true.
 
 00:12:44.974 --> 00:12:45.934
 And the book opens,
 
 00:12:46.095 --> 00:12:48.657
 Unger really opens the book at the moment
 
 00:12:48.677 --> 00:12:50.379
 which must have been the lowest point for
 
 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:52.000
 this idea that the Americans could win the
 
 00:12:52.059 --> 00:12:52.259
 war.
 
 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:54.621
 Washington's army is being kicked out of
 
 00:12:54.662 --> 00:12:55.241
 New York.
 
 00:12:55.663 --> 00:12:56.583
 It's falling apart.
 
 00:12:56.624 --> 00:12:58.524
 The British are taking the Hudson River.
 
 00:12:58.565 --> 00:13:01.027
 They've demolished Benedict Arnold's fleet
 
 00:13:01.167 --> 00:13:02.749
 on Lake Champlain.
 
 00:13:03.369 --> 00:13:06.030
 It seems like the whole cause is lost
 
 00:13:06.071 --> 00:13:08.192
 at the moment Unger opens the book with
 
 00:13:08.232 --> 00:13:09.813
 Vergennes getting a letter from
 
 00:13:10.154 --> 00:13:11.254
 Beaumarchais saying,
 
 00:13:11.796 --> 00:13:13.037
 this is really our opportunity.
 
 00:13:14.767 --> 00:13:16.067
 Which I think is a great point to
 
 00:13:16.087 --> 00:13:18.210
 start a book in the dramatic moment of
 
 00:13:18.330 --> 00:13:19.650
 everything is going to go wrong.
 
 00:13:20.552 --> 00:13:21.272
 What can change?
 
 00:13:22.072 --> 00:13:23.313
 Because we all know that it's going to
 
 00:13:23.433 --> 00:13:25.176
 end with, on a positive note,
 
 00:13:25.216 --> 00:13:26.356
 the revolution will be won.
 
 00:13:26.917 --> 00:13:29.078
 But the darkest moment is the good
 
 00:13:29.139 --> 00:13:29.820
 starting point.
 
 00:13:29.860 --> 00:13:31.341
 And it is true that there are several
 
 00:13:31.400 --> 00:13:33.702
 moments in the American Revolution where
 
 00:13:33.863 --> 00:13:35.845
 everything could have gone completely
 
 00:13:35.884 --> 00:13:36.144
 wrong.
 
 00:13:36.676 --> 00:13:38.356
 And one of the main reasons is just
 
 00:13:38.537 --> 00:13:39.037
 very,
 
 00:13:39.136 --> 00:13:42.077
 very poor supplies for the Americans.
 
 00:13:42.177 --> 00:13:45.259
 So the Continental Army had provision
 
 00:13:45.339 --> 00:13:45.859
 issues,
 
 00:13:46.179 --> 00:13:48.480
 especially also payment for the soldiers
 
 00:13:48.539 --> 00:13:48.961
 issues,
 
 00:13:49.081 --> 00:13:51.301
 as well as they could not make their
 
 00:13:51.380 --> 00:13:52.601
 own weapons at the beginning,
 
 00:13:52.642 --> 00:13:53.861
 especially because the British had
 
 00:13:53.902 --> 00:13:54.562
 prevented that.
 
 00:13:56.149 --> 00:13:57.711
 as a colony of course the thirteen
 
 00:13:57.751 --> 00:13:59.254
 colonies were not supposed to make their
 
 00:13:59.374 --> 00:14:02.136
 own weapons which makes sense if you're a
 
 00:14:02.177 --> 00:14:04.119
 monarch you don't want all these people in
 
 00:14:04.278 --> 00:14:06.601
 arms but so the Americans needed to find
 
 00:14:06.621 --> 00:14:08.403
 that elsewhere and they knew the French
 
 00:14:08.864 --> 00:14:10.787
 would provide it to them because they knew
 
 00:14:11.527 --> 00:14:12.928
 very well that the French were looking
 
 00:14:13.345 --> 00:14:14.765
 for ways to weaken the British.
 
 00:14:15.086 --> 00:14:17.206
 The Spanish as well, the Dutch as well,
 
 00:14:17.246 --> 00:14:19.028
 they knew because of the Seven Years'
 
 00:14:19.048 --> 00:14:22.269
 War's consequences that they felt the
 
 00:14:22.330 --> 00:14:24.711
 British Empire had become too powerful and
 
 00:14:24.731 --> 00:14:25.913
 so they wanted to counter that.
 
 00:14:26.432 --> 00:14:28.094
 And the fact he starts in that very
 
 00:14:28.134 --> 00:14:30.414
 dark moment is exactly when Beaumarchais
 
 00:14:30.755 --> 00:14:32.817
 realized, if we don't act now,
 
 00:14:32.856 --> 00:14:35.057
 we are losing the opportunity to weaken
 
 00:14:35.077 --> 00:14:35.577
 the British.
 
 00:14:35.979 --> 00:14:36.958
 If we don't act now,
 
 00:14:37.019 --> 00:14:39.441
 the Americans will lose and then the
 
 00:14:39.461 --> 00:14:42.062
 British Empire will just be more solid in
 
 00:14:42.081 --> 00:14:42.923
 that part of the world.
 
 00:14:43.368 --> 00:14:46.490
 So it's Beaumarchais' writing and other
 
 00:14:46.529 --> 00:14:47.549
 people as well, by the way,
 
 00:14:47.590 --> 00:14:48.730
 at this particular time,
 
 00:14:49.071 --> 00:14:50.591
 to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
 
 00:14:50.631 --> 00:14:53.232
 Louis XVI called Vergennes, just to say,
 
 00:14:53.533 --> 00:14:55.014
 if we don't take the opportunity right
 
 00:14:55.053 --> 00:14:55.354
 now,
 
 00:14:55.715 --> 00:14:57.836
 we're losing the momentum and who knows
 
 00:14:57.855 --> 00:14:58.975
 what's going to happen next.
 
 00:14:59.316 --> 00:15:00.297
 They're really afraid,
 
 00:15:00.356 --> 00:15:02.638
 especially not just that the Thirteen
 
 00:15:02.677 --> 00:15:06.139
 Colonies will be just in the British
 
 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:07.140
 Empire still,
 
 00:15:07.380 --> 00:15:10.062
 they're mainly also afraid of their own
 
 00:15:10.341 --> 00:15:11.743
 islands in the Caribbean, the French.
 
 00:15:12.178 --> 00:15:14.720
 They think that if the British just
 
 00:15:14.820 --> 00:15:17.022
 reconquer, let's say, and win the war,
 
 00:15:18.001 --> 00:15:19.783
 they might also just go on and get
 
 00:15:20.043 --> 00:15:22.384
 even more islands than they already had in
 
 00:15:22.423 --> 00:15:23.085
 the Caribbean.
 
 00:15:23.445 --> 00:15:25.005
 Spanish are afraid for that too.
 
 00:15:25.025 --> 00:15:26.365
 The Dutch are afraid of that too.
 
 00:15:26.385 --> 00:15:27.886
 They're afraid that they will solidify
 
 00:15:27.907 --> 00:15:29.128
 their power even more.
 
 00:15:29.508 --> 00:15:30.969
 And so if they don't take the opportunity,
 
 00:15:31.009 --> 00:15:33.830
 they might lose as well their very
 
 00:15:33.870 --> 00:15:35.390
 important sugar islands,
 
 00:15:35.410 --> 00:15:36.751
 is how they are referred to.
 
 00:15:38.307 --> 00:15:41.070
 places like Saint-Domingue and Martinique,
 
 00:15:41.629 --> 00:15:43.370
 which really were the wealthy
 
 00:15:44.591 --> 00:15:47.193
 revenue-producing islands for the French,
 
 00:15:47.214 --> 00:15:48.575
 as well as the sugar islands for the
 
 00:15:48.595 --> 00:15:50.615
 British and the Dutch were trading among
 
 00:15:50.655 --> 00:15:50.956
 them all.
 
 00:15:51.176 --> 00:15:53.298
 Exactly.
 
 00:15:53.357 --> 00:15:54.958
 And so if they would not act at
 
 00:15:54.979 --> 00:15:55.818
 that exact moment
 
 00:15:57.235 --> 00:15:58.817
 the seventeen seventy five six,
 
 00:15:58.918 --> 00:16:01.260
 they could have also lost that very
 
 00:16:01.302 --> 00:16:03.625
 important key of their trade.
 
 00:16:03.745 --> 00:16:06.889
 And so Beaumarchais knows it very well and
 
 00:16:07.188 --> 00:16:09.251
 is going to write a lot to Vergène
 
 00:16:09.331 --> 00:16:11.936
 and indirectly to Louis XVI himself.
 
 00:16:12.389 --> 00:16:14.590
 He wrote a few official sort of memoranda
 
 00:16:15.049 --> 00:16:16.710
 to convince the king.
 
 00:16:17.210 --> 00:16:19.150
 And there was a whole question there.
 
 00:16:19.171 --> 00:16:21.350
 The King Louis XVI was a young king.
 
 00:16:21.650 --> 00:16:23.152
 He arrived on the throne in the year
 
 00:16:23.172 --> 00:16:24.552
 of seventy-four.
 
 00:16:24.631 --> 00:16:25.091
 So really,
 
 00:16:25.152 --> 00:16:26.611
 this is the beginning of the revolution,
 
 00:16:26.652 --> 00:16:27.113
 of course.
 
 00:16:27.452 --> 00:16:29.413
 And he was very hesitant.
 
 00:16:29.452 --> 00:16:33.073
 He thought, if I go openly support them,
 
 00:16:33.563 --> 00:16:34.945
 we're going to be engaged in a war
 
 00:16:34.985 --> 00:16:36.505
 against Great Britain that we cannot
 
 00:16:36.566 --> 00:16:37.905
 afford, at least yet,
 
 00:16:38.206 --> 00:16:39.986
 because he was reforming his army,
 
 00:16:40.268 --> 00:16:42.249
 reconstructing his navy that was still
 
 00:16:42.308 --> 00:16:42.889
 really quite
 
 00:16:43.495 --> 00:16:46.077
 damaged by the Seven Years' War event,
 
 00:16:46.197 --> 00:16:47.339
 and so he was in a moment of
 
 00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:48.259
 reconstruction,
 
 00:16:48.538 --> 00:16:51.221
 it would be too early to immediately start
 
 00:16:51.280 --> 00:16:52.621
 helping the Americans.
 
 00:16:53.101 --> 00:16:55.504
 Vergen, however, thought, as I just said,
 
 00:16:55.844 --> 00:16:56.784
 if we don't do this now,
 
 00:16:56.825 --> 00:16:57.725
 it might be too late.
 
 00:16:58.125 --> 00:17:00.787
 And then Vergen had advisors around him,
 
 00:17:00.886 --> 00:17:02.207
 and Beaumarchais was probably the most
 
 00:17:02.288 --> 00:17:03.208
 influential there,
 
 00:17:03.609 --> 00:17:06.250
 that actually was able to convince Louis
 
 00:17:06.290 --> 00:17:08.913
 XVI of a different plan,
 
 00:17:09.232 --> 00:17:11.074
 not to aid the Americans directly,
 
 00:17:11.153 --> 00:17:12.394
 but to do it indirectly.
 
 00:17:14.683 --> 00:17:18.007
 secretly oh there's a little thing
 
 00:17:18.047 --> 00:17:24.512
 happening um it's not really clear if it's
 
 00:17:24.532 --> 00:17:26.295
 well done himself or beaumarchais that
 
 00:17:26.355 --> 00:17:28.436
 comes with that idea but to say let's
 
 00:17:28.717 --> 00:17:29.417
 support them in
 
 00:17:30.017 --> 00:17:31.617
 covered ways and secret ways.
 
 00:17:31.659 --> 00:17:33.640
 Let's just do it through trade channels
 
 00:17:34.101 --> 00:17:36.502
 and hope that the British at least won't
 
 00:17:36.623 --> 00:17:37.864
 react too badly.
 
 00:17:37.983 --> 00:17:39.965
 Of course, it was supposed to be secret.
 
 00:17:40.086 --> 00:17:42.048
 The British obviously knew that everyone
 
 00:17:42.087 --> 00:17:44.089
 was aware that agents of the British crown
 
 00:17:44.109 --> 00:17:44.930
 were everywhere,
 
 00:17:45.230 --> 00:17:47.031
 so they couldn't actually keep it secret,
 
 00:17:47.353 --> 00:17:48.473
 but at least they could make it
 
 00:17:49.253 --> 00:17:52.856
 look like it would not at least escalate
 
 00:17:52.896 --> 00:17:53.917
 immediately to war.
 
 00:17:54.057 --> 00:17:55.459
 That was the idea.
 
 00:17:55.519 --> 00:17:59.021
 So Beaumarchais, as a theatre playwright,
 
 00:18:00.242 --> 00:18:01.923
 someone who could imagine stories,
 
 00:18:01.963 --> 00:18:03.605
 he was really imagining a way to do
 
 00:18:03.645 --> 00:18:05.446
 this all very low-key,
 
 00:18:05.747 --> 00:18:07.209
 starting at least secretly,
 
 00:18:07.588 --> 00:18:10.030
 doing it through traders and individuals,
 
 00:18:10.250 --> 00:18:11.511
 not through the government.
 
 00:18:11.672 --> 00:18:13.933
 The king did give a big sum,
 
 00:18:13.953 --> 00:18:15.694
 he gave a million directly to
 
 00:18:15.795 --> 00:18:16.415
 Beaumarchais,
 
 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:18.481
 the Spanish joined with the same,
 
 00:18:18.541 --> 00:18:20.703
 and so Beaumarchais created himself a
 
 00:18:20.763 --> 00:18:24.688
 secret trading company called Rodrigues
 
 00:18:24.708 --> 00:18:27.851
 and Hortales, which was sort of a scam,
 
 00:18:28.811 --> 00:18:32.055
 a huge operation that was funded by the
 
 00:18:32.095 --> 00:18:33.316
 king, but secretly.
 
 00:18:33.811 --> 00:18:35.173
 It went through a lot of different
 
 00:18:35.192 --> 00:18:37.134
 channels, including Vergennes' son,
 
 00:18:37.194 --> 00:18:39.175
 to make sure it wasn't directly
 
 00:18:39.236 --> 00:18:39.876
 retraceable.
 
 00:18:40.436 --> 00:18:42.999
 And so this was really Beaumarchais' idea
 
 00:18:43.058 --> 00:18:45.181
 to still support the American cause,
 
 00:18:45.221 --> 00:18:47.321
 but through a sort of a fake trading
 
 00:18:47.362 --> 00:18:48.903
 company where he was supposedly just
 
 00:18:48.942 --> 00:18:51.085
 continuing the trade he was doing already,
 
 00:18:51.444 --> 00:18:54.326
 but actually under the cargo that he would
 
 00:18:54.366 --> 00:18:54.948
 normally have,
 
 00:18:54.968 --> 00:18:56.388
 there would be a lot of weapons and
 
 00:18:56.409 --> 00:18:59.250
 a lot of gunpowder and other provisions
 
 00:18:59.290 --> 00:19:00.412
 for the Continental Army.
 
 00:19:00.832 --> 00:19:01.672
 And it worked very well.
 
 00:19:01.711 --> 00:19:03.613
 He sent hundreds of ships.
 
 00:19:03.913 --> 00:19:06.673
 It went up until thousands of deliveries.
 
 00:19:07.034 --> 00:19:08.273
 It went through islands.
 
 00:19:08.334 --> 00:19:10.013
 It went through different hands.
 
 00:19:10.394 --> 00:19:11.914
 It was very hard to retrace.
 
 00:19:12.234 --> 00:19:13.394
 It went from, for instance,
 
 00:19:13.434 --> 00:19:16.875
 from the French, British, I mean,
 
 00:19:16.935 --> 00:19:19.196
 in the little island of St.
 
 00:19:19.217 --> 00:19:20.656
 Eustatius, which is a Dutch island.
 
 00:19:21.023 --> 00:19:21.845
 at the time, Ireland,
 
 00:19:21.865 --> 00:19:23.967
 where maybe a Spanish merchant would start
 
 00:19:24.126 --> 00:19:25.367
 to trade it for a little bit and
 
 00:19:25.387 --> 00:19:26.169
 then another one.
 
 00:19:26.548 --> 00:19:26.848
 So anyway,
 
 00:19:26.868 --> 00:19:28.570
 it was a whole way of making it
 
 00:19:28.830 --> 00:19:30.071
 very hard to trace.
 
 00:19:30.393 --> 00:19:31.834
 And Beaumarchais was really at the head of
 
 00:19:31.874 --> 00:19:35.136
 this operation and became really
 
 00:19:35.196 --> 00:19:36.857
 successful in it and also made a lot
 
 00:19:36.897 --> 00:19:37.679
 of money out of it,
 
 00:19:37.878 --> 00:19:38.599
 as we already said.
 
 00:19:39.800 --> 00:19:41.261
 We're talking with Iris Durode,
 
 00:19:41.301 --> 00:19:44.105
 who has written a new forward to the
 
 00:19:44.484 --> 00:19:46.106
 late Harlow Giles Unger's book,
 
 00:19:46.166 --> 00:19:47.268
 Improbable Patriot,
 
 00:19:47.748 --> 00:19:48.990
 The Secret History of Monsieur de
 
 00:19:49.009 --> 00:19:49.650
 Montmarché,
 
 00:19:49.730 --> 00:19:51.092
 the French playwright who saved the
 
 00:19:51.132 --> 00:19:52.553
 American Revolution.
 
 00:19:53.213 --> 00:19:54.474
 And I know I've heard that
 
 00:19:54.954 --> 00:19:56.736
 the weapons that the americans used at
 
 00:19:56.776 --> 00:19:59.357
 saratoga before the french enter the
 
 00:19:59.377 --> 00:20:01.479
 alliance actually came from france from
 
 00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:03.340
 part of this so the it was a
 
 00:20:03.381 --> 00:20:06.663
 very effective thing now he's involved in
 
 00:20:06.682 --> 00:20:08.963
 this too with silas dean the american
 
 00:20:09.404 --> 00:20:12.686
 emissary to paris and as we've said as
 
 00:20:12.727 --> 00:20:14.728
 you said one of his aims was to
 
 00:20:15.209 --> 00:20:16.609
 make money off of this that is the
 
 00:20:16.670 --> 00:20:19.050
 king the americans were going to pay him
 
 00:20:19.090 --> 00:20:21.012
 back but also these ships were going to
 
 00:20:21.053 --> 00:20:23.134
 bring back cargoes of tobacco and other
 
 00:20:23.173 --> 00:20:24.535
 things for the french to sell
 
 00:20:24.994 --> 00:20:27.257
 So what happens with that particular part
 
 00:20:27.356 --> 00:20:28.038
 of the plan?
 
 00:20:28.979 --> 00:20:29.538
 So, yeah,
 
 00:20:29.578 --> 00:20:31.580
 at the beginning it was very successful.
 
 00:20:31.621 --> 00:20:32.701
 He started to sell,
 
 00:20:32.761 --> 00:20:33.803
 he made a lot of money,
 
 00:20:34.202 --> 00:20:37.286
 but there was a lot of unclear,
 
 00:20:37.905 --> 00:20:38.507
 let's say,
 
 00:20:38.606 --> 00:20:40.147
 it was a little unclear what the,
 
 00:20:40.648 --> 00:20:43.211
 how do you call it,
 
 00:20:43.230 --> 00:20:46.053
 the sort of negotiations had been between
 
 00:20:46.133 --> 00:20:46.653
 Congress
 
 00:20:47.096 --> 00:20:49.176
 which was sort of CISD representing as
 
 00:20:49.217 --> 00:20:50.498
 well as Beaumarchais,
 
 00:20:50.518 --> 00:20:52.278
 because it was also secret that no one
 
 00:20:52.298 --> 00:20:54.479
 had really openly discussed what are the
 
 00:20:54.519 --> 00:20:55.279
 conditions here.
 
 00:20:55.720 --> 00:20:57.560
 And so the conditions according to
 
 00:20:57.601 --> 00:20:59.981
 Beaumarchais was that he would also invest
 
 00:21:00.021 --> 00:21:01.363
 quite a lot of personal money in all
 
 00:21:01.383 --> 00:21:03.844
 these different sendings of all the
 
 00:21:03.864 --> 00:21:05.384
 different material that he was sending,
 
 00:21:05.785 --> 00:21:07.525
 hoping that Congress would actually pay
 
 00:21:07.565 --> 00:21:08.105
 him back.
 
 00:21:08.145 --> 00:21:09.967
 They would reimburse his costs.
 
 00:21:10.487 --> 00:21:10.686
 Then
 
 00:21:11.676 --> 00:21:13.259
 He also hoped to have a lot of
 
 00:21:13.419 --> 00:21:14.941
 American products sent back.
 
 00:21:14.980 --> 00:21:16.122
 So he would send weapons,
 
 00:21:16.162 --> 00:21:18.003
 they would send tobacco, for instance.
 
 00:21:18.325 --> 00:21:20.166
 That was for him the conditions of this
 
 00:21:20.207 --> 00:21:21.147
 entire operation.
 
 00:21:21.646 --> 00:21:24.188
 However, he did sell the weapons often,
 
 00:21:24.228 --> 00:21:26.209
 but then the rest of that plan failed.
 
 00:21:26.628 --> 00:21:28.670
 So at the end of the,
 
 00:21:29.049 --> 00:21:29.750
 or not really the end,
 
 00:21:29.770 --> 00:21:30.310
 but in the middle,
 
 00:21:30.371 --> 00:21:32.432
 he's already started to be quite indebted.
 
 00:21:32.892 --> 00:21:35.232
 Silas Dean tried to help him and it
 
 00:21:35.252 --> 00:21:37.513
 was all very unclear who would pay what.
 
 00:21:37.634 --> 00:21:37.993
 And so,
 
 00:21:39.775 --> 00:21:41.375
 Beau Marchais started to invest a lot of
 
 00:21:41.455 --> 00:21:42.195
 personal money,
 
 00:21:42.675 --> 00:21:43.836
 convinced he would get it back,
 
 00:21:43.876 --> 00:21:45.178
 but he would not get it back.
 
 00:21:45.678 --> 00:21:47.598
 And so from seventeen seventy eight
 
 00:21:47.739 --> 00:21:48.058
 onwards,
 
 00:21:48.078 --> 00:21:49.980
 when the official French American alliance
 
 00:21:50.019 --> 00:21:50.440
 started,
 
 00:21:50.867 --> 00:21:53.611
 he became really frustrated because he had
 
 00:21:53.631 --> 00:21:54.673
 done so much effort,
 
 00:21:54.712 --> 00:21:55.814
 put so much money in.
 
 00:21:56.434 --> 00:21:57.095
 He had made a lot,
 
 00:21:57.115 --> 00:21:58.616
 but also lost a lot at the same
 
 00:21:58.656 --> 00:21:58.836
 time,
 
 00:21:58.856 --> 00:22:00.159
 because you have to imagine eighteenth
 
 00:22:00.179 --> 00:22:00.980
 century trade,
 
 00:22:01.339 --> 00:22:02.741
 a lot of ships and a lot of
 
 00:22:02.761 --> 00:22:04.523
 things go lost.
 
 00:22:04.544 --> 00:22:05.786
 A lot of things are unclear.
 
 00:22:06.165 --> 00:22:07.667
 Anyway, he wanted to get reimbursed.
 
 00:22:07.728 --> 00:22:09.028
 And it took, I think,
 
 00:22:09.410 --> 00:22:11.051
 until after his death that his
 
 00:22:11.444 --> 00:22:14.767
 the generation after him finally got some
 
 00:22:14.807 --> 00:22:16.627
 money back from the US Congress.
 
 00:22:16.988 --> 00:22:18.167
 But during his own lifetime,
 
 00:22:18.228 --> 00:22:20.670
 he ended up really quite bankrupt and
 
 00:22:20.710 --> 00:22:23.530
 started to be involved in other schemes to
 
 00:22:23.810 --> 00:22:24.692
 try to get out of that.
 
 00:22:24.751 --> 00:22:27.633
 But he was hoping to get that money,
 
 00:22:27.673 --> 00:22:29.134
 which he at the end did not get.
 
 00:22:30.894 --> 00:22:33.095
 And then Silas Dean comes under attack.
 
 00:22:35.276 --> 00:22:36.676
 Congress is a political body.
 
 00:22:37.196 --> 00:22:39.278
 And there are people who didn't like Silas
 
 00:22:39.317 --> 00:22:41.298
 Dean, including Richard Henry Lee.
 
 00:22:41.898 --> 00:22:43.278
 And Richard Henry Lee's brother,
 
 00:22:43.378 --> 00:22:45.319
 Arthur Lee, is involved in France.
 
 00:22:45.380 --> 00:22:47.101
 And Richard Henry Lee then is the one
 
 00:22:47.121 --> 00:22:49.281
 who investigates all of this in Congress
 
 00:22:49.301 --> 00:22:49.842
 and says, oh, no,
 
 00:22:49.902 --> 00:22:51.303
 Silas Dean is on the take.
 
 00:22:51.343 --> 00:22:52.883
 And the king was giving us all of
 
 00:22:52.923 --> 00:22:53.403
 this stuff.
 
 00:22:53.423 --> 00:22:54.784
 So why now does someone want to be
 
 00:22:54.844 --> 00:22:55.124
 paid?
 
 00:22:56.784 --> 00:22:58.845
 And it's interesting because Beaumarchais,
 
 00:22:58.884 --> 00:22:59.885
 since the beginning of his life,
 
 00:22:59.925 --> 00:23:02.707
 had a lot of people being very jealous
 
 00:23:02.787 --> 00:23:03.106
 of him.
 
 00:23:03.126 --> 00:23:05.709
 It feels like Arthur Lee and Silas Dean
 
 00:23:05.729 --> 00:23:06.648
 had the same problem,
 
 00:23:06.689 --> 00:23:09.550
 just jealousy over who would be the most
 
 00:23:09.590 --> 00:23:10.811
 important representative,
 
 00:23:10.852 --> 00:23:12.532
 who would be the most well-connected,
 
 00:23:12.573 --> 00:23:15.753
 who would get some interesting funds out
 
 00:23:15.794 --> 00:23:16.515
 of it as well.
 
 00:23:16.934 --> 00:23:18.576
 And so Arthur Lee seemed to have been
 
 00:23:18.635 --> 00:23:18.816
 on a
 
 00:23:19.286 --> 00:23:21.287
 on a war path against Silas Deane,
 
 00:23:21.326 --> 00:23:22.627
 because Silas Deane became too
 
 00:23:22.667 --> 00:23:24.209
 influential, according to him,
 
 00:23:24.249 --> 00:23:26.111
 and he hoped to become the official
 
 00:23:26.211 --> 00:23:26.851
 ambassador,
 
 00:23:27.632 --> 00:23:29.292
 or what you called Minister of Planet
 
 00:23:29.313 --> 00:23:30.334
 Potentiary at the time.
 
 00:23:30.693 --> 00:23:32.615
 But so there was a lot of jealousy
 
 00:23:32.734 --> 00:23:33.736
 involved in this story.
 
 00:23:34.215 --> 00:23:37.458
 And Silas Deane became sort of the black
 
 00:23:37.478 --> 00:23:39.339
 sheep of the whole story and really got
 
 00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:41.540
 written out of history with particular
 
 00:23:41.601 --> 00:23:42.362
 accusations.
 
 00:23:42.781 --> 00:23:44.803
 that up until today are still not totally
 
 00:23:44.843 --> 00:23:47.483
 clear what exactly happened but it does
 
 00:23:47.503 --> 00:23:51.526
 seem that Lee's made it much much worse
 
 00:23:51.566 --> 00:23:54.326
 than it actually was and if you start
 
 00:23:54.366 --> 00:23:56.807
 reading about Silas Dean he was also in
 
 00:23:56.847 --> 00:23:58.828
 a very complicated position because he was
 
 00:23:58.868 --> 00:24:00.789
 not an official envoy he had to always
 
 00:24:00.809 --> 00:24:03.510
 stay sort of out of the official channels
 
 00:24:03.570 --> 00:24:05.352
 because he was supposed to be just a
 
 00:24:05.491 --> 00:24:05.991
 merchant
 
 00:24:06.604 --> 00:24:08.625
 happening to be there but then he was
 
 00:24:08.766 --> 00:24:10.946
 sent by this this sort of secret committee
 
 00:24:11.047 --> 00:24:12.989
 of the of congress right so he was
 
 00:24:13.628 --> 00:24:15.730
 um in a place where he arrived first
 
 00:24:15.810 --> 00:24:17.612
 and then benjamin franklin would arrive
 
 00:24:17.672 --> 00:24:19.693
 later as well as lee would arrive later
 
 00:24:20.074 --> 00:24:21.835
 but in that period he was supposed to
 
 00:24:22.234 --> 00:24:24.957
 find aid for the continental army but also
 
 00:24:25.038 --> 00:24:28.000
 recruit officers but it always had to be
 
 00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:29.621
 secret and not official
 
 00:24:30.191 --> 00:24:31.212
 And then for instance,
 
 00:24:31.232 --> 00:24:33.516
 there's this episode where when he
 
 00:24:33.556 --> 00:24:33.876
 arrived,
 
 00:24:33.896 --> 00:24:35.138
 the declaration of independence was
 
 00:24:35.179 --> 00:24:38.002
 already written and started to be spread
 
 00:24:38.083 --> 00:24:39.945
 in the French press in translation.
 
 00:24:40.326 --> 00:24:41.647
 And that's the way he found out about
 
 00:24:42.308 --> 00:24:43.811
 the declaration of independence.
 
 00:24:44.132 --> 00:24:45.855
 He was not kept informed.
 
 00:24:46.134 --> 00:24:47.935
 Because letters didn't reach him from
 
 00:24:48.016 --> 00:24:48.556
 Congress.
 
 00:24:48.836 --> 00:24:50.876
 So he felt completely abandoned in Paris
 
 00:24:50.896 --> 00:24:52.777
 because he was not being informed.
 
 00:24:52.837 --> 00:24:54.278
 He had to stay sort of out of
 
 00:24:54.317 --> 00:24:55.979
 the official spotlight.
 
 00:24:55.999 --> 00:24:56.679
 But at the same time,
 
 00:24:56.699 --> 00:24:59.099
 he had a big mission to accomplish.
 
 00:24:59.420 --> 00:25:03.121
 But he was really left out by Congress.
 
 00:25:03.141 --> 00:25:05.321
 So he felt really bad.
 
 00:25:05.662 --> 00:25:07.303
 And so you have to understand, like,
 
 00:25:07.343 --> 00:25:09.463
 this figure is just on his own trying
 
 00:25:09.483 --> 00:25:10.304
 to make it all work.
 
 00:25:10.717 --> 00:25:12.097
 starts to work with Beaumarchais,
 
 00:25:12.377 --> 00:25:14.078
 is really excited that there's a lot of
 
 00:25:14.278 --> 00:25:15.679
 things going to America,
 
 00:25:15.719 --> 00:25:16.900
 which was his main goal.
 
 00:25:17.259 --> 00:25:18.800
 But then when Lee comes in,
 
 00:25:18.881 --> 00:25:21.501
 Lee thinks he's become too popular and
 
 00:25:21.541 --> 00:25:22.702
 wants to really crush him.
 
 00:25:22.782 --> 00:25:24.063
 So this is a huge story,
 
 00:25:24.083 --> 00:25:25.624
 but I think that in this book,
 
 00:25:25.663 --> 00:25:27.684
 what I really like about it is there's
 
 00:25:27.704 --> 00:25:29.425
 a lot of jealousy and competition
 
 00:25:30.278 --> 00:25:31.499
 amongst all these figures.
 
 00:25:31.858 --> 00:25:33.660
 And you even learn also like Franklin,
 
 00:25:34.119 --> 00:25:36.180
 he is obviously involved because of his
 
 00:25:36.619 --> 00:25:38.020
 very strong belief in the cause of
 
 00:25:38.080 --> 00:25:39.060
 American independence.
 
 00:25:39.401 --> 00:25:41.442
 He's also making quite some money with all
 
 00:25:41.461 --> 00:25:43.582
 these secret trade deals that are being
 
 00:25:43.862 --> 00:25:44.162
 done.
 
 00:25:44.481 --> 00:25:45.021
 And at the end,
 
 00:25:45.061 --> 00:25:47.242
 this book really shows just human nature
 
 00:25:47.303 --> 00:25:48.542
 is when there's opportunity for
 
 00:25:48.603 --> 00:25:49.042
 enrichment,
 
 00:25:49.083 --> 00:25:51.723
 people happen to dive on the occasion.
 
 00:25:52.203 --> 00:25:54.304
 So that is interesting.
 
 00:25:54.324 --> 00:25:55.904
 It's a melancholy reflection.
 
 00:25:55.924 --> 00:25:56.984
 And of course,
 
 00:25:57.924 --> 00:26:00.366
 Arthur Lee is madly jealous of Franklin
 
 00:26:00.386 --> 00:26:02.228
 and Franklin writes some of his scathing
 
 00:26:02.288 --> 00:26:03.347
 satires about Lee,
 
 00:26:03.367 --> 00:26:05.528
 but Lee's very politically connected at
 
 00:26:05.569 --> 00:26:05.869
 home.
 
 00:26:06.990 --> 00:26:10.811
 Franklin also elbows Beaumarchais and Dean
 
 00:26:10.892 --> 00:26:12.792
 out of the way because he has his
 
 00:26:12.893 --> 00:26:14.773
 own connections that he wants to be
 
 00:26:15.075 --> 00:26:18.856
 shipping weapons through.
 
 00:26:18.896 --> 00:26:21.137
 No one comes across as Simon Pure in
 
 00:26:21.178 --> 00:26:21.417
 this.
 
 00:26:21.438 --> 00:26:21.518
 No.
 
 00:26:23.492 --> 00:26:24.894
 But I think that is interesting because by
 
 00:26:24.933 --> 00:26:25.933
 looking at Beaumarchais,
 
 00:26:25.953 --> 00:26:28.415
 that illuminates that side of,
 
 00:26:28.435 --> 00:26:29.676
 for instance, Benjamin Franklin,
 
 00:26:29.737 --> 00:26:31.278
 who I'm not sure you see that often
 
 00:26:31.298 --> 00:26:31.938
 in that light.
 
 00:26:32.258 --> 00:26:33.318
 No, you don't.
 
 00:26:33.479 --> 00:26:35.160
 Unless you're reading John Adams or
 
 00:26:35.180 --> 00:26:35.660
 someone else.
 
 00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:36.601
 Yeah, exactly.
 
 00:26:36.661 --> 00:26:38.761
 But if you look at just Franklin,
 
 00:26:38.801 --> 00:26:40.762
 he seems to just be the architect of
 
 00:26:40.782 --> 00:26:42.163
 the French-American alliance.
 
 00:26:42.844 --> 00:26:44.905
 But his personal motivations are not often
 
 00:26:44.945 --> 00:26:45.586
 discussed in it.
 
 00:26:45.786 --> 00:26:47.067
 So that is interesting in this book,
 
 00:26:47.086 --> 00:26:47.707
 I think.
 
 00:26:47.727 --> 00:26:48.326
 Yeah.
 
 00:26:48.426 --> 00:26:49.688
 And we also see the French-American
 
 00:26:49.748 --> 00:26:52.068
 alliance being really shaped earlier by
 
 00:26:52.108 --> 00:26:55.151
 Beaumarchais and Dean and Virgin seeing
 
 00:26:55.171 --> 00:26:56.750
 the real interest in this.
 
 00:26:56.851 --> 00:26:58.672
 And Franklin certainly knows how to do
 
 00:26:59.093 --> 00:26:59.452
 that.
 
 00:26:59.472 --> 00:26:59.732
 By the way,
 
 00:26:59.772 --> 00:27:01.834
 Franklin can turn any conversation into a
 
 00:27:01.993 --> 00:27:03.515
 conversation about him,
 
 00:27:03.954 --> 00:27:05.455
 which is kind of what's happening now.
 
 00:27:08.217 --> 00:27:09.136
 Yeah.
 
 00:27:09.156 --> 00:27:10.577
 So we're talking with Iris DeRoad,
 
 00:27:10.597 --> 00:27:12.679
 who has written a new forward to Harlow
 
 00:27:12.778 --> 00:27:14.259
 Unger's Improbable Patriot,
 
 00:27:17.688 --> 00:27:19.628
 who saved the American Revolution.
 
 00:27:20.269 --> 00:27:23.310
 And Unger lived into his nineties,
 
 00:27:23.391 --> 00:27:25.393
 and it was after his career as a
 
 00:27:25.432 --> 00:27:27.374
 journalist that he started writing these
 
 00:27:27.413 --> 00:27:29.035
 biographies, including one, by the way,
 
 00:27:29.075 --> 00:27:30.115
 on Richard Henry Lee,
 
 00:27:33.037 --> 00:27:34.958
 as well as books on the French Alliance,
 
 00:27:34.978 --> 00:27:35.638
 as you mentioned.
 
 00:27:36.259 --> 00:27:38.961
 And I'm wondering what happens to
 
 00:27:39.361 --> 00:27:41.281
 Beaumarchais in the French Revolution.
 
 00:27:43.263 --> 00:27:45.785
 so in the French Revolution so as we
 
 00:27:45.845 --> 00:27:48.086
 remember he was quite impoverished out of
 
 00:27:48.106 --> 00:27:51.088
 this entire story of the secret trade
 
 00:27:51.148 --> 00:27:54.010
 company he was leading and then during the
 
 00:27:54.030 --> 00:27:57.913
 French Revolution he got quite because as
 
 00:27:57.973 --> 00:27:59.934
 we have said before too he was a
 
 00:27:59.994 --> 00:28:02.356
 commoner he always had been frustrated by
 
 00:28:02.396 --> 00:28:05.077
 the system of aristocracy but he was one
 
 00:28:05.117 --> 00:28:06.740
 of these figures that fell in between
 
 00:28:06.779 --> 00:28:08.740
 because he had been associated a lot to
 
 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:10.981
 the French monarchy and he had lived at
 
 00:28:11.001 --> 00:28:11.883
 Versailles he had
 
 00:28:12.349 --> 00:28:15.132
 taught the princesses of France how to
 
 00:28:15.152 --> 00:28:16.333
 play the harp and so on.
 
 00:28:16.633 --> 00:28:18.734
 So he was himself a revolutionary thinker,
 
 00:28:18.755 --> 00:28:20.415
 but he was also associated to that.
 
 00:28:20.817 --> 00:28:22.397
 And so then he started to become involved
 
 00:28:22.438 --> 00:28:24.779
 in some schemes of buying weapons from the
 
 00:28:24.839 --> 00:28:27.240
 Dutch for the French revolutionary cause.
 
 00:28:27.682 --> 00:28:28.162
 And again,
 
 00:28:28.582 --> 00:28:30.604
 invested a lot and lost it again.
 
 00:28:31.003 --> 00:28:33.145
 So he just fell through a bit in
 
 00:28:33.185 --> 00:28:34.527
 the story of the French Revolution.
 
 00:28:36.226 --> 00:28:38.448
 Keeps making fortunes, losing fortunes.
 
 00:28:38.647 --> 00:28:39.028
 Exactly.
 
 00:28:39.147 --> 00:28:40.388
 And then he had to flee,
 
 00:28:40.469 --> 00:28:42.109
 and he left with his family.
 
 00:28:42.651 --> 00:28:43.330
 And it's all,
 
 00:28:43.411 --> 00:28:45.132
 it's not a good ending for Bourbon
 
 00:28:45.152 --> 00:28:45.413
 Marchand.
 
 00:28:45.432 --> 00:28:48.134
 No, it isn't.
 
 00:28:48.174 --> 00:28:49.234
 But his plays live on.
 
 00:28:49.275 --> 00:28:51.777
 That's the amazing thing, though.
 
 00:28:51.797 --> 00:28:52.798
 The character of Figaro,
 
 00:28:52.837 --> 00:28:54.759
 Mozart turns it into an opera.
 
 00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:55.559
 You know,
 
 00:28:55.599 --> 00:28:58.301
 others write based on the marriage of
 
 00:28:58.342 --> 00:28:59.423
 Figaro and...
 
 00:29:02.426 --> 00:29:02.867
 In France,
 
 00:29:02.887 --> 00:29:05.529
 he's still quite well known and his plays
 
 00:29:05.690 --> 00:29:06.611
 are performed, I would say,
 
 00:29:06.651 --> 00:29:07.652
 every year still.
 
 00:29:08.251 --> 00:29:10.513
 It's a famous playwright and a lot of
 
 00:29:10.554 --> 00:29:12.214
 people are not at all aware of this
 
 00:29:12.435 --> 00:29:13.696
 other side of Beaumarchais.
 
 00:29:14.136 --> 00:29:15.698
 They just assume he's a playwright living
 
 00:29:15.718 --> 00:29:17.038
 in Paris, you know,
 
 00:29:17.078 --> 00:29:18.861
 but there's so much more to him.
 
 00:29:19.835 --> 00:29:21.195
 really is and he's also a very good
 
 00:29:21.236 --> 00:29:22.817
 musician and he's good at writing these
 
 00:29:23.376 --> 00:29:26.298
 songs kind of witty songs bawdy songs that
 
 00:29:26.318 --> 00:29:29.220
 are very popular among aristocrats and
 
 00:29:29.381 --> 00:29:31.281
 others but again he's writing these songs
 
 00:29:31.342 --> 00:29:32.883
 in this aristocratic world where he's also
 
 00:29:32.962 --> 00:29:36.424
 mocking the aristocracy yeah and i think
 
 00:29:36.464 --> 00:29:37.986
 that is interesting about the coming of
 
 00:29:38.006 --> 00:29:40.227
 the french revolution there because what
 
 00:29:40.267 --> 00:29:42.288
 people might not realize often is that in
 
 00:29:42.347 --> 00:29:44.028
 france there's a big movement already
 
 00:29:44.088 --> 00:29:46.470
 starting even in just after the seven
 
 00:29:46.490 --> 00:29:49.112
 years war like in the seventeen sixties of
 
 00:29:49.363 --> 00:29:51.042
 French aristocrats that also really want
 
 00:29:51.063 --> 00:29:52.183
 to change their system.
 
 00:29:52.523 --> 00:29:53.344
 Louis XVI,
 
 00:29:53.364 --> 00:29:54.463
 as soon as he's on the throne,
 
 00:29:54.584 --> 00:29:56.525
 is going to put in reforms to try
 
 00:29:56.605 --> 00:29:58.525
 to change that system and to make it
 
 00:29:59.484 --> 00:30:01.205
 at least a bit more equal than it
 
 00:30:01.326 --> 00:30:01.905
 used to be.
 
 00:30:03.445 --> 00:30:04.826
 But that really fails because a lot of
 
 00:30:04.866 --> 00:30:07.106
 conservative forces will put it all down.
 
 00:30:07.467 --> 00:30:09.028
 But so the story of the French Revolution
 
 00:30:09.048 --> 00:30:10.647
 is often really seen through the lens of
 
 00:30:11.051 --> 00:30:13.093
 Louis XVI didn't do anything and the
 
 00:30:13.153 --> 00:30:14.074
 people rose up.
 
 00:30:14.153 --> 00:30:16.315
 But there's a long story before that.
 
 00:30:16.694 --> 00:30:17.974
 With people like Beaumarchais,
 
 00:30:17.994 --> 00:30:20.696
 you can already see they're at court and
 
 00:30:20.717 --> 00:30:23.018
 they have revolutionary ideas, at least.
 
 00:30:23.298 --> 00:30:25.098
 They want a different system.
 
 00:30:25.679 --> 00:30:27.319
 And this is quite a large influential
 
 00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:28.200
 group at the time,
 
 00:30:28.601 --> 00:30:30.642
 especially in Paris and in the salons and
 
 00:30:30.662 --> 00:30:32.262
 the enlightened circles where people are
 
 00:30:32.282 --> 00:30:36.384
 looking for alternatives to make France a
 
 00:30:36.444 --> 00:30:38.105
 bit better, let's say it that way.
 
 00:30:39.763 --> 00:30:40.845
 And what you said before too,
 
 00:30:40.865 --> 00:30:42.365
 what I think is really interesting about
 
 00:30:42.405 --> 00:30:45.267
 the American Revolution, we often say,
 
 00:30:45.647 --> 00:30:47.489
 seventeen seventy eight is the moment
 
 00:30:47.608 --> 00:30:50.871
 because Louis XVI signed the alliance with
 
 00:30:51.050 --> 00:30:52.231
 the US Congress,
 
 00:30:52.251 --> 00:30:54.653
 and that is the start of their official
 
 00:30:54.692 --> 00:30:55.433
 alliance, right?
 
 00:30:55.513 --> 00:30:57.234
 And so often you hear a little bit
 
 00:30:57.255 --> 00:30:58.836
 like, oh, there was that secret aid,
 
 00:30:58.935 --> 00:31:00.836
 but it was really Saratoga that convinced
 
 00:31:00.856 --> 00:31:01.497
 them to go.
 
 00:31:01.998 --> 00:31:04.298
 That story is has to be really nuanced
 
 00:31:04.398 --> 00:31:06.780
 and put in a much longer time period
 
 00:31:06.921 --> 00:31:07.101
 than
 
 00:31:07.932 --> 00:31:10.053
 the seventeen seventy six seventy seven
 
 00:31:10.333 --> 00:31:10.512
 eight.
 
 00:31:10.573 --> 00:31:12.334
 It was already in the seventeen sixties.
 
 00:31:12.653 --> 00:31:13.835
 And that is really what you learn in
 
 00:31:13.855 --> 00:31:14.714
 this book as well,
 
 00:31:14.795 --> 00:31:18.416
 is that they the French were interested in
 
 00:31:18.457 --> 00:31:20.017
 the cause of the American Revolution
 
 00:31:20.076 --> 00:31:21.337
 before it became a revolution,
 
 00:31:21.377 --> 00:31:23.798
 because maybe even they knew before the
 
 00:31:23.838 --> 00:31:24.419
 Americans,
 
 00:31:24.499 --> 00:31:26.440
 the revolution would start because they
 
 00:31:26.460 --> 00:31:28.921
 had a lot of good agents observing it
 
 00:31:29.682 --> 00:31:31.261
 and people living in the colonies were
 
 00:31:31.301 --> 00:31:32.462
 living in their own colony.
 
 00:31:32.482 --> 00:31:34.364
 But these Frenchmen were traveling through
 
 00:31:34.483 --> 00:31:36.765
 all the colonies and could find a lot
 
 00:31:36.825 --> 00:31:37.625
 of moments of
 
 00:31:38.277 --> 00:31:39.719
 very early rebellions.
 
 00:31:39.878 --> 00:31:41.500
 And so I think that is an interesting
 
 00:31:41.540 --> 00:31:42.521
 part of this book too.
 
 00:31:42.561 --> 00:31:45.545
 It's tracing that longer history than
 
 00:31:45.845 --> 00:31:48.048
 Saratoga, Alliance, Yorktown.
 
 00:31:52.369 --> 00:31:52.529
 Right.
 
 00:31:52.549 --> 00:31:54.050
 I know in the late seventeen seventies,
 
 00:31:54.191 --> 00:31:55.811
 one member of Parliament,
 
 00:31:55.892 --> 00:31:57.451
 when things are starting to go badly for
 
 00:31:57.471 --> 00:31:58.653
 the British because the French are in the
 
 00:31:58.692 --> 00:31:58.873
 war,
 
 00:31:58.893 --> 00:32:01.114
 and he says the British ministry started
 
 00:32:01.153 --> 00:32:03.435
 the war on the assumption that the
 
 00:32:03.596 --> 00:32:05.997
 Americans were cowards and the French were
 
 00:32:06.116 --> 00:32:06.678
 idiots.
 
 00:32:07.137 --> 00:32:09.679
 And the French really had been invested in
 
 00:32:09.739 --> 00:32:12.401
 this even after it was the reason.
 
 00:32:12.421 --> 00:32:14.682
 One of the reasons they lose the North
 
 00:32:14.701 --> 00:32:16.823
 American colonies is because they had been
 
 00:32:16.863 --> 00:32:19.003
 moving into the Ohio River Valley and that
 
 00:32:19.023 --> 00:32:19.884
 precipitates.
 
 00:32:21.185 --> 00:32:22.906
 So it's a much longer trajectory,
 
 00:32:22.967 --> 00:32:26.589
 the French-American alliance than simply
 
 00:32:26.609 --> 00:32:28.171
 from Saratoga to Yorktown.
 
 00:32:28.750 --> 00:32:28.971
 Yeah.
 
 00:32:29.971 --> 00:32:31.932
 And that is probably a good lesson from
 
 00:32:32.554 --> 00:32:34.816
 Improbable Patriot because Beaumarchais is
 
 00:32:34.976 --> 00:32:36.636
 in these early stages and
 
 00:32:37.232 --> 00:32:39.115
 the influence of Beaumarchais should not
 
 00:32:39.154 --> 00:32:41.175
 be underestimated because several battles,
 
 00:32:41.296 --> 00:32:42.836
 including the Battle of Saratoga,
 
 00:32:43.218 --> 00:32:44.939
 was really mainly, well,
 
 00:32:45.038 --> 00:32:46.240
 there's other reasons, obviously,
 
 00:32:46.279 --> 00:32:47.601
 but one of the reasons they could win
 
 00:32:47.641 --> 00:32:50.163
 was because of the huge amount of weapons
 
 00:32:50.303 --> 00:32:52.484
 and gunpowder that he had brought in.
 
 00:32:52.845 --> 00:32:54.185
 And I forgot the exact numbers,
 
 00:32:54.226 --> 00:32:56.208
 but we're talking thousands and thousands
 
 00:32:56.248 --> 00:32:58.150
 of shipboats that arrived at the right
 
 00:32:58.190 --> 00:32:59.471
 time to fight.
 
 00:33:00.727 --> 00:33:01.627
 It's all in the book,
 
 00:33:01.667 --> 00:33:04.029
 Carlo Unger's Improbable Patriot,
 
 00:33:04.049 --> 00:33:05.290
 The Secret History of Monsieur de
 
 00:33:05.310 --> 00:33:06.030
 Beaumarchais,
 
 00:33:06.511 --> 00:33:08.212
 the French playwright who saved the
 
 00:33:08.232 --> 00:33:09.433
 American Revolution,
 
 00:33:09.453 --> 00:33:11.015
 which he originally published about
 
 00:33:11.055 --> 00:33:11.996
 fifteen years ago,
 
 00:33:12.056 --> 00:33:13.757
 and it's just been reissued by Brandeis
 
 00:33:13.817 --> 00:33:14.698
 University Press.
 
 00:33:14.718 --> 00:33:16.699
 Do you have any sense why at this
 
 00:33:16.759 --> 00:33:17.118
 moment,
 
 00:33:17.259 --> 00:33:19.280
 why this book at this moment being
 
 00:33:19.340 --> 00:33:19.820
 reissued?
 
 00:33:19.840 --> 00:33:21.241
 You know, you wrote lots of books,
 
 00:33:21.363 --> 00:33:22.683
 Unger wrote lots of books and there are
 
 00:33:22.703 --> 00:33:24.105
 other stories.
 
 00:33:25.045 --> 00:33:27.307
 And will the new material on Beaumarchais,
 
 00:33:27.326 --> 00:33:28.587
 you said, that's been uncovered,
 
 00:33:28.607 --> 00:33:29.608
 is it going to lead some
 
 00:33:30.308 --> 00:33:30.608
 say,
 
 00:33:30.729 --> 00:33:33.050
 rising scholar to take another look at
 
 00:33:33.070 --> 00:33:33.671
 Beaumarchais?
 
 00:33:34.172 --> 00:33:34.811
 I'm sure, yes.
 
 00:33:34.872 --> 00:33:35.813
 So the first,
 
 00:33:36.992 --> 00:33:39.055
 the reason Brandeis University Press
 
 00:33:39.075 --> 00:33:41.155
 wanted to republish is because of the two
 
 00:33:41.175 --> 00:33:42.537
 hundred fiftieth anniversary of the
 
 00:33:42.576 --> 00:33:44.637
 American Revolution, obviously this year,
 
 00:33:45.138 --> 00:33:47.059
 seventy seventy six, twenty twenty six.
 
 00:33:48.401 --> 00:33:50.241
 And so they wanted to focus first on
 
 00:33:50.261 --> 00:33:52.022
 the beginnings of that revolution,
 
 00:33:52.083 --> 00:33:54.163
 because this year is really talking about
 
 00:33:54.183 --> 00:33:54.884
 the beginnings.
 
 00:33:55.444 --> 00:33:57.226
 And Beaumarchais has an interesting place
 
 00:33:57.266 --> 00:33:57.987
 in that story.
 
 00:33:58.027 --> 00:33:58.207
 So
 
 00:33:58.577 --> 00:34:00.358
 That is why they wanted to create a
 
 00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:03.261
 second edition with a new forward because
 
 00:34:03.301 --> 00:34:06.223
 of the fifteen year gap in between the
 
 00:34:06.263 --> 00:34:07.585
 first and the second edition.
 
 00:34:08.186 --> 00:34:10.807
 And this book really just exactly tells
 
 00:34:10.827 --> 00:34:12.289
 the beginnings of the French-American
 
 00:34:12.329 --> 00:34:12.750
 story,
 
 00:34:12.809 --> 00:34:15.132
 which this is an appropriate moment to do
 
 00:34:15.172 --> 00:34:15.452
 that.
 
 00:34:15.847 --> 00:34:17.068
 Probably in twenty twenty eight,
 
 00:34:17.289 --> 00:34:18.731
 I could imagine they want to do something
 
 00:34:18.771 --> 00:34:20.911
 more, maybe on Lafayette or a friend,
 
 00:34:20.931 --> 00:34:23.735
 because that's another Unger book or my
 
 00:34:23.795 --> 00:34:24.094
 own book.
 
 00:34:24.135 --> 00:34:25.757
 Twenty twenty eight also coming out.
 
 00:34:27.538 --> 00:34:31.021
 But anyway, as for the renewed interest,
 
 00:34:31.141 --> 00:34:33.923
 I'm very convinced in general that in in
 
 00:34:33.983 --> 00:34:35.465
 France there is well,
 
 00:34:35.605 --> 00:34:36.806
 as there is one here,
 
 00:34:36.885 --> 00:34:38.887
 obviously a real renewal in American
 
 00:34:38.907 --> 00:34:40.670
 revolutionary studies because of the two
 
 00:34:40.690 --> 00:34:42.010
 hundred fiftieth anniversary.
 
 00:34:42.351 --> 00:34:44.092
 You can see the same happening in France
 
 00:34:44.152 --> 00:34:44.512
 right now.
 
 00:34:45.030 --> 00:34:46.711
 which for a long time they were not
 
 00:34:46.793 --> 00:34:48.114
 that interested in the American
 
 00:34:48.153 --> 00:34:48.693
 Revolution.
 
 00:34:49.255 --> 00:34:50.936
 I was living there, did my PhD there,
 
 00:34:50.976 --> 00:34:52.858
 and it was really rare to study the
 
 00:34:52.898 --> 00:34:53.858
 American Revolution.
 
 00:34:55.079 --> 00:34:56.201
 People are always saying,
 
 00:34:56.260 --> 00:34:57.641
 but we have a much more important
 
 00:34:57.661 --> 00:34:59.182
 revolution, the French Revolution.
 
 00:34:59.202 --> 00:35:01.184
 So this is one of the reasons.
 
 00:35:01.909 --> 00:35:03.791
 Anyway, because of the two fifties,
 
 00:35:03.811 --> 00:35:05.592
 you can see at least, I would say,
 
 00:35:05.652 --> 00:35:08.733
 about ten French scholars working on the
 
 00:35:08.773 --> 00:35:10.815
 topic right now and publishing books and
 
 00:35:10.894 --> 00:35:12.695
 new books, new research coming out,
 
 00:35:14.257 --> 00:35:15.356
 including on Beaumarchais.
 
 00:35:15.376 --> 00:35:18.639
 And there's a team of several scholars.
 
 00:35:18.998 --> 00:35:20.659
 Some are specialized in literature,
 
 00:35:20.739 --> 00:35:22.121
 some are specialized in theater,
 
 00:35:22.181 --> 00:35:25.103
 some are specialized in more military
 
 00:35:25.123 --> 00:35:25.563
 history.
 
 00:35:25.902 --> 00:35:27.043
 And so this is a team that is
 
 00:35:27.063 --> 00:35:28.724
 doing this new project around
 
 00:35:28.784 --> 00:35:29.324
 Beaumarchais.
 
 00:35:29.672 --> 00:35:31.514
 because the family had donated their
 
 00:35:31.855 --> 00:35:34.056
 private papers to the family,
 
 00:35:34.077 --> 00:35:35.818
 by which I mean the Beaumarchais family.
 
 00:35:36.360 --> 00:35:38.001
 And so there's a lot of new information
 
 00:35:38.422 --> 00:35:40.083
 on Beaumarchais that will come out.
 
 00:35:40.304 --> 00:35:42.346
 And so it would be a great sort
 
 00:35:42.365 --> 00:35:44.648
 of follow up to Unger's research because
 
 00:35:44.668 --> 00:35:47.251
 there are some new interesting documents
 
 00:35:47.271 --> 00:35:49.373
 that can reveal a little bit more about
 
 00:35:49.432 --> 00:35:49.552
 him.
 
 00:35:51.393 --> 00:35:52.534
 Can we talk a little bit about your
 
 00:35:52.574 --> 00:35:53.454
 work, Iris?
 
 00:35:53.615 --> 00:35:56.376
 I know you're busy with the book on
 
 00:35:56.398 --> 00:35:57.458
 the French American Alliance.
 
 00:35:57.478 --> 00:35:58.858
 You've been doing a lot, too,
 
 00:35:58.918 --> 00:36:01.161
 with the Rochambeau Washington Connection.
 
 00:36:01.240 --> 00:36:04.342
 And our friend Charlo is part of that
 
 00:36:05.384 --> 00:36:06.164
 expedition.
 
 00:36:06.605 --> 00:36:08.985
 And you're about to embark on the Society
 
 00:36:09.005 --> 00:36:10.286
 of the Cincinnati's Thomas J.
 
 00:36:10.306 --> 00:36:12.708
 Cahill Fellowship to further your
 
 00:36:12.748 --> 00:36:13.208
 research.
 
 00:36:13.329 --> 00:36:14.889
 Can you tell us a bit about where
 
 00:36:14.909 --> 00:36:15.610
 you're going with it?
 
 00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:16.659
 Yes.
 
 00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:18.161
 And so you mentioned Châtellu,
 
 00:36:18.201 --> 00:36:19.920
 and people probably don't know who that
 
 00:36:19.981 --> 00:36:20.161
 is,
 
 00:36:20.202 --> 00:36:22.101
 but he was the major general of
 
 00:36:22.222 --> 00:36:23.202
 Rochambeau's army.
 
 00:36:23.603 --> 00:36:25.423
 So it was as if he were in
 
 00:36:25.463 --> 00:36:28.344
 the third in command of the entire French
 
 00:36:28.804 --> 00:36:30.525
 expedition that went to America and at the
 
 00:36:30.606 --> 00:36:31.626
 end won Yorktown.
 
 00:36:32.226 --> 00:36:34.867
 And so I started my research mainly on
 
 00:36:34.927 --> 00:36:37.748
 him because I found his private papers in
 
 00:36:37.789 --> 00:36:38.989
 a castle in Burgundy,
 
 00:36:39.048 --> 00:36:40.650
 which is called the Châtellu Castle.
 
 00:36:40.969 --> 00:36:43.251
 And in it was a very large collection
 
 00:36:43.411 --> 00:36:45.431
 on his particular role in the American
 
 00:36:45.472 --> 00:36:45.972
 Revolution.
 
 00:36:46.498 --> 00:36:48.581
 Châtellu is known for his travel diaries
 
 00:36:48.601 --> 00:36:50.603
 through America amongst historians.
 
 00:36:50.643 --> 00:36:52.704
 He's not known for a larger public,
 
 00:36:52.744 --> 00:36:53.985
 but amongst historians,
 
 00:36:54.005 --> 00:36:56.148
 he's known for his descriptions of North
 
 00:36:56.188 --> 00:36:57.849
 America between seventeen eighty and
 
 00:36:57.909 --> 00:36:59.911
 eighty two when he was serving as one
 
 00:36:59.931 --> 00:37:00.652
 of the generals.
 
 00:37:01.432 --> 00:37:03.715
 But his private papers reveal so much more
 
 00:37:04.655 --> 00:37:05.976
 on his role as well as on the
 
 00:37:05.996 --> 00:37:07.398
 French American alliance as a
 
 00:37:08.139 --> 00:37:10.661
 larger story as Beaumarchais Chateauneuf
 
 00:37:10.701 --> 00:37:13.402
 was involved in the very early stages.
 
 00:37:13.442 --> 00:37:14.581
 He was first of all involved in the
 
 00:37:14.621 --> 00:37:17.143
 Seven Years War as one of the officers
 
 00:37:17.362 --> 00:37:20.563
 of the French King Louis XV came out
 
 00:37:20.623 --> 00:37:22.284
 of that war and got immediately,
 
 00:37:22.945 --> 00:37:23.806
 just like Beaumarchais,
 
 00:37:23.826 --> 00:37:24.425
 same sort of story.
 
 00:37:24.445 --> 00:37:25.746
 He was one of these agents,
 
 00:37:26.005 --> 00:37:27.686
 agents as well, sent to London,
 
 00:37:28.166 --> 00:37:30.088
 very similar to Beaumarchais.
 
 00:37:30.447 --> 00:37:31.927
 And he also really believed in the
 
 00:37:31.967 --> 00:37:34.648
 opportunity to take revenge on the British
 
 00:37:34.728 --> 00:37:36.429
 by aiding the Americans.
 
 00:37:36.806 --> 00:37:38.547
 So he's there from the early stages,
 
 00:37:39.027 --> 00:37:40.628
 all the way involved up until the end
 
 00:37:40.708 --> 00:37:41.349
 of that story,
 
 00:37:41.369 --> 00:37:43.650
 which is in when he dies.
 
 00:37:43.710 --> 00:37:46.333
 But so his story is interesting because it
 
 00:37:46.393 --> 00:37:48.335
 illuminates many aspects of the French
 
 00:37:48.355 --> 00:37:50.597
 American alliance that I'm now working on.
 
 00:37:51.016 --> 00:37:52.597
 So I did work on him for my
 
 00:37:52.657 --> 00:37:54.059
 PhD and my French book,
 
 00:37:54.079 --> 00:37:55.721
 which became the biography on
 
 00:37:55.740 --> 00:37:57.902
 Chateaubriand based on his entire private
 
 00:37:57.922 --> 00:37:58.643
 paper collection.
 
 00:37:59.072 --> 00:38:00.893
 but now I'm focusing just on his role
 
 00:38:00.954 --> 00:38:02.114
 in the American Revolution.
 
 00:38:02.775 --> 00:38:05.476
 And I'm using his example as an individual
 
 00:38:05.735 --> 00:38:07.476
 to tell the larger story of the French
 
 00:38:07.496 --> 00:38:08.518
 American Alliance.
 
 00:38:09.518 --> 00:38:10.699
 And it's really not too far from
 
 00:38:10.818 --> 00:38:12.980
 Improbable Patriot in the way that by
 
 00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:14.280
 focusing on an individual,
 
 00:38:14.601 --> 00:38:16.402
 you're gonna illuminate a lot on other
 
 00:38:16.461 --> 00:38:18.222
 figures that are much more known,
 
 00:38:18.302 --> 00:38:19.623
 including George Washington,
 
 00:38:20.184 --> 00:38:21.204
 the Marquis de Lafayette,
 
 00:38:21.224 --> 00:38:22.885
 who was his nephew by marriage.
 
 00:38:23.025 --> 00:38:23.965
 And so they're really close.
 
 00:38:24.385 --> 00:38:25.847
 Washington and Chateaubriand had a very
 
 00:38:25.907 --> 00:38:28.367
 special friendship that is very important,
 
 00:38:29.028 --> 00:38:31.630
 in my opinion, for the alliance itself.
 
 00:38:31.670 --> 00:38:32.690
 The fact that these armies could
 
 00:38:32.731 --> 00:38:33.371
 cooperate,
 
 00:38:34.150 --> 00:38:35.851
 their friendship became quite crucial to
 
 00:38:35.931 --> 00:38:36.092
 it.
 
 00:38:36.913 --> 00:38:37.932
 And so all this to say is I'm
 
 00:38:37.952 --> 00:38:39.434
 working on a book to tell the story
 
 00:38:39.454 --> 00:38:40.954
 of the French-American alliance starting
 
 00:38:40.974 --> 00:38:41.875
 in the Seven Years' War,
 
 00:38:42.376 --> 00:38:43.996
 ending at the outbreak of the French
 
 00:38:44.036 --> 00:38:44.556
 Revolution,
 
 00:38:45.577 --> 00:38:46.438
 and it will be published
 
 00:38:47.179 --> 00:38:48.719
 normally at the beginning of twenty twenty
 
 00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:49.061
 eight,
 
 00:38:49.121 --> 00:38:50.422
 which is going to be the year of
 
 00:38:50.722 --> 00:38:53.083
 the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of
 
 00:38:53.143 --> 00:38:54.764
 the signing of the French American
 
 00:38:54.804 --> 00:38:56.666
 alliance in seventeen seventy eight.
 
 00:38:57.527 --> 00:38:59.869
 Many will be published by Random House at
 
 00:38:59.889 --> 00:39:00.389
 that point.
 
 00:39:00.409 --> 00:39:01.550
 Very good.
 
 00:39:01.630 --> 00:39:02.851
 And it's in English.
 
 00:39:02.911 --> 00:39:03.911
 It's in English, finally,
 
 00:39:03.931 --> 00:39:06.213
 because often when I give lectures on this
 
 00:39:06.233 --> 00:39:06.733
 whole story,
 
 00:39:07.422 --> 00:39:08.244
 At the end, people were like,
 
 00:39:08.264 --> 00:39:09.164
 so can I buy your book?
 
 00:39:09.184 --> 00:39:10.585
 I'm like, well, it's in French.
 
 00:39:10.704 --> 00:39:11.786
 It's going to be complicated,
 
 00:39:11.905 --> 00:39:14.228
 but luckily I have published some,
 
 00:39:14.507 --> 00:39:17.289
 some chapters in English and articles.
 
 00:39:17.429 --> 00:39:19.771
 I really need an English book to tell
 
 00:39:19.811 --> 00:39:20.532
 this story for sure.
 
 00:39:20.552 --> 00:39:24.173
 I think there's a large English language
 
 00:39:24.233 --> 00:39:24.695
 audience.
 
 00:39:24.775 --> 00:39:25.315
 I mean, the,
 
 00:39:25.355 --> 00:39:26.795
 your subtitle for the channel,
 
 00:39:26.815 --> 00:39:29.538
 the book is I'll translate it roughly.
 
 00:39:30.117 --> 00:39:32.519
 a soldier philosopher in the Atlantic
 
 00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:35.101
 world at the age of the Enlightenment.
 
 00:39:35.141 --> 00:39:37.242
 So it tells a lot about who,
 
 00:39:37.362 --> 00:39:38.882
 it's not just that he's a soldier and
 
 00:39:38.902 --> 00:39:40.143
 not just that he's a philosoph,
 
 00:39:40.184 --> 00:39:43.364
 but he's also part of this transatlantic
 
 00:39:43.485 --> 00:39:44.266
 connection.
 
 00:39:44.365 --> 00:39:45.686
 And I'm thinking now as you were talking
 
 00:39:45.706 --> 00:39:47.286
 about him being a philosopher as well,
 
 00:39:48.947 --> 00:39:51.307
 some of Washington's officers like Knox
 
 00:39:51.447 --> 00:39:53.588
 and Green are also very much interested in
 
 00:39:53.648 --> 00:39:55.449
 ideas in the Knox collection at the
 
 00:39:55.489 --> 00:39:56.048
 Athenaeum.
 
 00:39:56.088 --> 00:39:58.010
 There are lots of books by, you know,
 
 00:39:58.050 --> 00:40:01.449
 Volnais' book travels through Mesopotamia.
 
 00:40:01.489 --> 00:40:01.769
 I mean,
 
 00:40:01.789 --> 00:40:04.210
 they're really part of this broader world.
 
 00:40:04.751 --> 00:40:05.150
 Exactly.
 
 00:40:05.170 --> 00:40:06.251
 And I think that is one of the
 
 00:40:06.311 --> 00:40:08.311
 more understudied parts of the American
 
 00:40:08.351 --> 00:40:11.112
 Revolution is to combine the military with
 
 00:40:11.431 --> 00:40:13.331
 the philosophical world of the eighteenth
 
 00:40:13.371 --> 00:40:13.831
 century.
 
 00:40:14.172 --> 00:40:16.253
 We often tend to completely separate
 
 00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:18.360
 the intellectual part of the military
 
 00:40:18.380 --> 00:40:18.721
 side.
 
 00:40:19.021 --> 00:40:20.041
 But if you put them together,
 
 00:40:20.081 --> 00:40:21.543
 you're going to realize that these worlds
 
 00:40:21.603 --> 00:40:24.224
 are absolutely intertwined and they're not
 
 00:40:24.264 --> 00:40:24.706
 separate.
 
 00:40:24.846 --> 00:40:28.467
 And so people and Chateaulieu is the most
 
 00:40:28.507 --> 00:40:30.369
 sort of clear example because he is a
 
 00:40:30.409 --> 00:40:30.909
 philosopher.
 
 00:40:30.949 --> 00:40:32.711
 He's even an official member of the
 
 00:40:32.771 --> 00:40:33.831
 Académie Française.
 
 00:40:33.871 --> 00:40:34.672
 He's recognized
 
 00:40:35.106 --> 00:40:35.907
 as a philosopher,
 
 00:40:35.927 --> 00:40:38.869
 because he wrote many books on topics that
 
 00:40:38.889 --> 00:40:40.389
 are unrelated to the military,
 
 00:40:40.750 --> 00:40:42.311
 which is a bit rare because there's a
 
 00:40:42.331 --> 00:40:44.731
 group of about twenty people like him that
 
 00:40:44.751 --> 00:40:46.634
 are writing a lot on how to change
 
 00:40:46.673 --> 00:40:48.295
 the army from a sort of enlightened
 
 00:40:48.315 --> 00:40:48.934
 perspective.
 
 00:40:49.454 --> 00:40:51.157
 He also writes about how to change the
 
 00:40:51.197 --> 00:40:52.197
 entire society.
 
 00:40:52.456 --> 00:40:55.539
 He wrote seven theater plays talking about
 
 00:40:55.579 --> 00:40:56.219
 Beaumarchais.
 
 00:40:57.221 --> 00:40:58.440
 He was writing theaters,
 
 00:40:58.460 --> 00:40:59.161
 writing about music.
 
 00:40:59.202 --> 00:41:01.623
 He did a lot of medical experience.
 
 00:41:01.663 --> 00:41:02.923
 He was actually a scientist.
 
 00:41:02.943 --> 00:41:03.905
 He was an economist.
 
 00:41:04.295 --> 00:41:05.936
 This was one of these figures who was
 
 00:41:05.956 --> 00:41:07.579
 just everything all at once.
 
 00:41:07.958 --> 00:41:10.322
 But so he represented that group of
 
 00:41:10.541 --> 00:41:12.224
 soldier philosophers of his time.
 
 00:41:12.684 --> 00:41:14.286
 Rochambeau himself, the general,
 
 00:41:14.567 --> 00:41:15.708
 would also be,
 
 00:41:15.728 --> 00:41:17.250
 I think you should count him as one
 
 00:41:17.710 --> 00:41:18.992
 in a lesser extent than Châtellu,
 
 00:41:19.052 --> 00:41:21.695
 as in he was not writing about larger
 
 00:41:21.954 --> 00:41:23.056
 questions of society,
 
 00:41:23.115 --> 00:41:24.637
 but he was thinking on.
 
 00:41:25.099 --> 00:41:26.400
 from the inside of the army,
 
 00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:28.623
 how do we reform and how do we
 
 00:41:29.063 --> 00:41:31.144
 next time prevent from losing as bad as
 
 00:41:31.184 --> 00:41:32.405
 we did in the Seven Years' War?
 
 00:41:32.766 --> 00:41:33.847
 So there's a group of people,
 
 00:41:33.887 --> 00:41:35.208
 and Knox would be one of them as
 
 00:41:35.248 --> 00:41:35.809
 well maybe,
 
 00:41:36.188 --> 00:41:39.911
 who is thinking not just about what is
 
 00:41:39.972 --> 00:41:40.773
 the next battle,
 
 00:41:40.833 --> 00:41:42.954
 they're thinking about the deeper
 
 00:41:42.994 --> 00:41:43.594
 questions,
 
 00:41:43.936 --> 00:41:45.516
 the scientific questions almost,
 
 00:41:45.952 --> 00:41:48.134
 to question what is an army?
 
 00:41:48.253 --> 00:41:49.634
 What is this place of an army in
 
 00:41:49.653 --> 00:41:50.175
 society?
 
 00:41:50.735 --> 00:41:51.594
 What are wars?
 
 00:41:52.094 --> 00:41:53.096
 What are the just wars?
 
 00:41:53.115 --> 00:41:54.436
 What are the unjust wars?
 
 00:41:54.795 --> 00:41:56.197
 What is all related to it?
 
 00:41:56.277 --> 00:41:57.657
 Anyway, these bigger questions.
 
 00:41:58.637 --> 00:42:01.418
 And they're asked by both the French and
 
 00:42:01.458 --> 00:42:02.018
 Americans.
 
 00:42:02.398 --> 00:42:03.179
 And it's one of the things I
 
 00:42:04.300 --> 00:42:05.820
 discussed a lot in my book is that
 
 00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:07.920
 overlap between the intellectual and the
 
 00:42:07.940 --> 00:42:10.081
 military which comes back in the military
 
 00:42:10.121 --> 00:42:11.121
 as well as of course in all the
 
 00:42:11.141 --> 00:42:13.623
 constitutional debates in America at the
 
 00:42:13.663 --> 00:42:15.884
 time as well as in the French debates
 
 00:42:16.083 --> 00:42:18.784
 on how to change this system so all
 
 00:42:18.804 --> 00:42:20.545
 this to say the world of enlightenment and
 
 00:42:20.585 --> 00:42:22.206
 military is very close to each other
 
 00:42:23.550 --> 00:42:24.269
 It's fascinating.
 
 00:42:24.289 --> 00:42:27.132
 And of course, in Harlow Unger's book,
 
 00:42:27.152 --> 00:42:28.853
 there's a chapter on Beaumarchais'
 
 00:42:28.893 --> 00:42:31.014
 connection with Paris Duvernay,
 
 00:42:31.034 --> 00:42:32.534
 who's creating the French military
 
 00:42:32.574 --> 00:42:33.215
 academy.
 
 00:42:33.715 --> 00:42:35.815
 And then we think about Knox and others
 
 00:42:35.856 --> 00:42:37.597
 pushing to create an American military
 
 00:42:37.637 --> 00:42:38.117
 academy.
 
 00:42:38.137 --> 00:42:39.077
 As Washington sees,
 
 00:42:39.097 --> 00:42:41.197
 a real need is for engineers,
 
 00:42:41.239 --> 00:42:42.579
 but it's not simply people who know how
 
 00:42:42.599 --> 00:42:43.239
 to draw lines,
 
 00:42:43.259 --> 00:42:45.159
 but people who are thinking about these
 
 00:42:45.179 --> 00:42:46.621
 bigger questions.
 
 00:42:46.701 --> 00:42:47.121
 Exactly.
 
 00:42:47.201 --> 00:42:48.442
 And they're very influential.
 
 00:42:48.481 --> 00:42:50.563
 And especially in France, this is
 
 00:42:50.922 --> 00:42:52.202
 as I've said so many times now,
 
 00:42:52.222 --> 00:42:53.643
 but the Seven Years' War is really the
 
 00:42:53.682 --> 00:42:56.204
 starting point of that because they lose
 
 00:42:56.563 --> 00:42:58.923
 in ways that are almost unimaginable to
 
 00:42:58.943 --> 00:42:59.445
 the French.
 
 00:42:59.864 --> 00:43:02.244
 There's moments they lose ten thousand men
 
 00:43:02.284 --> 00:43:04.025
 versus five hundred on the other side
 
 00:43:04.065 --> 00:43:05.346
 against the Prussians, for instance,
 
 00:43:05.405 --> 00:43:07.367
 at a battle called Rosbach.
 
 00:43:07.786 --> 00:43:09.387
 These are turning points for the French
 
 00:43:09.507 --> 00:43:11.427
 army where the officers themselves are
 
 00:43:11.467 --> 00:43:12.148
 starting to think,
 
 00:43:12.547 --> 00:43:15.168
 if we don't change our outdated ways
 
 00:43:15.228 --> 00:43:17.650
 against more modern armies, we are done.
 
 00:43:18.052 --> 00:43:19.652
 And so they're starting to write and to
 
 00:43:19.693 --> 00:43:20.753
 think about reforms.
 
 00:43:21.092 --> 00:43:23.213
 One of them is military academies that
 
 00:43:23.233 --> 00:43:26.416
 need to be actually started.
 
 00:43:26.916 --> 00:43:28.916
 They're founding them after the Seven
 
 00:43:28.936 --> 00:43:30.818
 Years War mainly for particularly
 
 00:43:30.958 --> 00:43:31.617
 engineers.
 
 00:43:31.978 --> 00:43:34.320
 So these engineers will be trained in the
 
 00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:34.659
 years,
 
 00:43:34.679 --> 00:43:36.260
 the seventeen sixties and seventies.
 
 00:43:36.621 --> 00:43:38.460
 And then who is going to America?
 
 00:43:38.481 --> 00:43:40.342
 A lot of these French engineers joined the
 
 00:43:40.382 --> 00:43:41.822
 Continental Army directly.
 
 00:43:42.284 --> 00:43:45.565
 So the influence of that reform-minded
 
 00:43:45.626 --> 00:43:47.586
 project of we need better education,
 
 00:43:47.626 --> 00:43:50.188
 we need a lot of different ways to
 
 00:43:51.048 --> 00:43:53.210
 create our new military institutions,
 
 00:43:53.550 --> 00:43:55.331
 that has a direct impact on the American
 
 00:43:55.371 --> 00:43:55.931
 Revolution.
 
 00:43:56.331 --> 00:43:57.612
 Because they send these,
 
 00:43:58.132 --> 00:43:59.092
 well they don't send,
 
 00:43:59.112 --> 00:44:01.454
 these engineers will go to America,
 
 00:44:01.534 --> 00:44:02.675
 one is called Duplochtai,
 
 00:44:02.715 --> 00:44:04.056
 he is trained in one of these new
 
 00:44:04.115 --> 00:44:06.637
 schools and will bring his expertise to
 
 00:44:06.697 --> 00:44:07.157
 America.
 
 00:44:07.829 --> 00:44:09.791
 Lafayette is another of these that will be
 
 00:44:09.851 --> 00:44:12.092
 trained in Military Academy of France,
 
 00:44:12.432 --> 00:44:14.494
 and then he goes to America,
 
 00:44:14.534 --> 00:44:15.735
 joins the Continental Army,
 
 00:44:16.155 --> 00:44:17.956
 and brings military expertise,
 
 00:44:18.318 --> 00:44:20.239
 mainly through the books and all the
 
 00:44:20.278 --> 00:44:21.099
 studies they've done.
 
 00:44:21.500 --> 00:44:23.041
 They didn't have a lot of military
 
 00:44:23.081 --> 00:44:24.581
 experience, but they had that knowledge.
 
 00:44:25.001 --> 00:44:27.563
 And that became important to influence a
 
 00:44:27.603 --> 00:44:29.405
 lot of other officers in the Continental
 
 00:44:29.465 --> 00:44:29.666
 Army.
 
 00:44:31.905 --> 00:44:33.547
 This is probably a subject for another
 
 00:44:33.568 --> 00:44:34.088
 discussion,
 
 00:44:34.108 --> 00:44:35.630
 and we could probably go on all day.
 
 00:44:35.650 --> 00:44:39.976
 So thank you so much, Iris.
 
 00:44:39.996 --> 00:44:42.239
 It's been always great to talk to you.
 
 00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:43.380
 Iris DeRose,
 
 00:44:43.420 --> 00:44:45.985
 who is a scholar of the French-American
 
 00:44:46.025 --> 00:44:48.148
 alliance in the age of the Enlightenment
 
 00:44:50.554 --> 00:44:52.876
 to the new edition of the late Harlow
 
 00:44:52.896 --> 00:44:55.077
 Giles Unger's Improbable Patriot,
 
 00:44:55.097 --> 00:44:56.398
 The Secret History of the Monsieur de
 
 00:44:56.418 --> 00:44:57.117
 Beaumarchais,
 
 00:44:57.478 --> 00:44:59.518
 the French playwright who saved the
 
 00:44:59.659 --> 00:45:00.900
 American Revolution.
 
 00:45:01.260 --> 00:45:02.900
 Thank you so much for taking the time
 
 00:45:02.940 --> 00:45:04.280
 to talk with us.
 
 00:45:04.300 --> 00:45:05.181
 Thank you so much.
 
 00:45:05.302 --> 00:45:07.463
 It was a very fun discussion.
 
 00:45:07.503 --> 00:45:08.242
 Thank you so much.
 
 00:45:08.463 --> 00:45:08.822
 It was, yes.
 
 00:45:08.862 --> 00:45:09.242
 Thank you.
 
 00:45:10.693 --> 00:45:12.875
 want to thank jonathan lane and jack caddy
 
 00:45:12.914 --> 00:45:14.876
 who are behind the scenes um pulling
 
 00:45:14.916 --> 00:45:17.257
 buttons and making my questions sound
 
 00:45:17.297 --> 00:45:20.818
 relatively interesting and um i want to
 
 00:45:20.858 --> 00:45:22.259
 thank our listeners you know every week
 
 00:45:23.179 --> 00:45:24.639
 it's really astonishing how many people
 
 00:45:24.699 --> 00:45:26.681
 tune in regularly and every week we thank
 
 00:45:26.701 --> 00:45:29.661
 folks who are regular listeners and this
 
 00:45:29.902 --> 00:45:31.101
 and if you're in one of these places
 
 00:45:31.141 --> 00:45:32.103
 and want some revolution
 
 00:45:36.536 --> 00:45:38.257
 And this week,
 
 00:45:38.277 --> 00:45:39.759
 I want to thank our listeners in
 
 00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:43.963
 Cagnes-sur-Mer on the coast of France and
 
 00:45:44.003 --> 00:45:46.784
 in Paris and in Marseille and in Massachin
 
 00:45:46.885 --> 00:45:48.826
 in Tunisia, Garching, Bavaria,
 
 00:45:48.905 --> 00:45:49.987
 Christianstedt in St.
 
 00:45:50.027 --> 00:45:53.489
 Croix, Amsterdam and Utrecht, Lafayette,
 
 00:45:53.530 --> 00:45:55.291
 Louisiana, Napoleon, Ohio,
 
 00:45:55.351 --> 00:45:56.931
 and all places between and beyond.
 
 00:45:56.972 --> 00:45:57.873
 Thank you for joining us.
 
 00:45:57.972 --> 00:45:59.713
 Now we will be piped out on the
 
 00:45:59.733 --> 00:46:00.394
 road to Boston.