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1. Pablo de Olavide and Disunity in the Spanish Enlightenment1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

Paul J. Hauben
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Type
Review Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , 1965 , pp. 112 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

2 Leading older works are Rio, Antonio Ferrer del, Historia del reinado de Carlos III en España, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1856)Google Scholar; Collado, Manuel Danvila y, Reinado de Carlos III, 6 vols. (Madrid, 1892-1897)Google Scholar; Fernan-Nunez, Conde de, Vida de Carlos III, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1898)Google Scholar; Dezert, G. Desdevises du, L'Espagne de l'ancien Régime, 3 vols. (Paris, 1897-1904)Google Scholar(reprinted with modifications in Revue hispanique, LXIV, 1925, 225-656; LXX, 1927, 1-556; LXXII, 1928, 1-488); Rousseau, François, Règne de Charles III d'Espagne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1907)Google Scholar.

3 Herr, Richard, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton, 1958), p. 436Google Scholar.

4 Ibid. chs. IV-V.

5 Ibid. pp. 435 ff.

6 Cf. Herr's discussion of this in part 11 with its total absence throughout part 1.

7 Defourneaux, Marcelin, Pablo de Olavide (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959)Google Scholar. Besides being a fine biography, this study is essential to an understanding of the first two decades of Charles Ill's reign. Defourneaux raises many hitherto unknown or unrecognized vital points, often clarifying previously confusing, misunderstood matters. His handling of the Motin de Esquilache is a brilliant case in point (see pp. 81 ff.). Some other recent very fine works in the field are Shafer, Robert J., The Economic Societies in the Spanish World, 1763-1821 (Syracuse University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Ortiz, Antonio Dominguez, La sociedad española en el siglo XVIII (Madrid, 1955)Google Scholar; the monumental Sarrailh, Jean, L'Espagne éclairée de la seconde moitie du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1954)Google Scholar.

8 The sole mention of this book is in Herr's otherwisefirst-ratereviewarticle ‘The Twentieth Century Spaniard Views the Spanish Enlightenment’, in Hispania, XLV (05 1963), 183–93, n. 48Google Scholar, and a very bare notice it is. It is a pity that Herr and Defourneaux, working at the same time apparently, were unable to make use of each other's materials. Reviews of Herr and Sarrailh in English-language journals abound in varying quality ( Elliott, John in the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, XXXVII, 1960, 48–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Helman, Edith in Hispanic Review, XXIII, 1955, 317–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and XXVIII, 1960, 381-3; Herriott, J. H. and Gershoy, Leo in the A.H.R. LX, 1955, 600–1Google Scholar, and LXV, 1959, 121-2 respectively; Lynch, John in the E.H.R. LXXV, 1960, 309–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gay, Peter in the J.M.H. XXXI, 1959, 364–5Google Scholar, are representative samples). Bulletin hispanique, LXIII (1961), 274–84Google Scholar. Ozanam's article has the great virtue of going over Defourneaux's primary sources.

10 Hispania, XX (1960), 585–93Google Scholar, for a somewhat conservative discussion of the period. The Hispania referred to in n. 7 is published by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese; this journal is the work of Instituto Feronimo Zurita in Madrid.

11 See n. 7.

12 An instructive discussion of Jovellanos is Helman, Edith, ‘Some Consequences of the Publication of the Informe de ley agraria by Jovellanos’, Homenaje a Archer Huntington (Wellesley College Spanish Department, 1952), pp. 253–73Google Scholar. See also Defourneaux and Herr throughout their books for some penetrating remarks about this important figure, especially , Defourneaux, op. cit. p. 356, for Jovellanos's attitude towards Olavide when questioned by the Inquisition about his one-time ‘patron’Google Scholar.

13 The literature on these colonies is exhaustive. The most recent is Atard, Vicente Palacio, ‘Los alemanes en las “Nuevas Poblaciones” andaluzas’, Gesammelte Aufsälze zur Kultur-geschichte Spaniens, XX (1962), 53–78Google Scholar. Chapter VII in Defourneaux presents an excellent study. Collado, Danvila y, op. cit. IV, iGoogle Scholar, is the best of the older accounts. An article by myself, shortly to appear in Agricultural History, will be the first English-language article on these settlements.

14 Curiously, the first inquiries were welcomed by Olavide and Campomanes. Only Defourneaux compares these with this investigation (op. cit. pp. 200-9).

15 Until Defourneaux uncovered Olavide's letter of 14 July 1769 to Finance Minister Muzquiz, Campomanes' ‘disgrace’ was unknown, at least to other historians (see pp. 209-11 and 209, n. 2).

16 , Rousseau, op. cit. 11, 79, 82Google Scholar, gives this story without comment from the available correspondence. None of the other historians, past or present, give any explanation at all.

17 , Defourneaux, op. cit. p. 211Google Scholar, is the first to suggest this possibility. But on p. 215 he notes a ‘reunion’ during the late summer-early fall of 1769 between Aranda and Campomanes, supposedly based on their joint realization that this inquiry into Olavide and the colonies was going too far; the two coalesced to protect the régime's prestige, so greatly involved with the outcome of this enterprise. Why didn't Aranda see this in the first place ? The conduct of two of the investigators, analysed by Defourneaux in ch. VII, part ii, does not support Palacio Atard's contention in his review of the book (op. cit. p. 590) that they were members of the ilustración in precisely the same way as Campomanes et al., if indeed they were reformers at all. In fact Palacio Atard continues along this line on p. 57 of the article cited in n. 13 above, but fails, I believe, to substantiate this contention. If anything, this article strengthens the impression, gained initially from his review of Defourneaux's work, that Atard is continuing the Menendez y Pelayo anti-Enlightenment tradition in Spanish historiography. The whole question calls for additional study.

18 Atard, Palacio, op. cit. p. 588Google Scholar.

19 Whether or not the Inquisition was using Olavide as a warning to the reformers, or justifiably investigating and condemning him is a point which has long divided students of the subject into ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals“. Cf. Palacio Atard, 590-1 with the judgement, oddly from a famous Spanish conservative historian, that Olavide had paid for all; see Pelayo, M. Menendez y, Historia de los heterodoxos espanoles, VI (Madrid, 1930, 2nd ed. corrected), 244Google Scholar. The second view seems more realistic, although as Defourneaux has shown very well the Inquisition went about its work with tremendous care (see ch. VIII, IV, IX, X).

20 Cited in , Voltaire, Œuvres completes, V, 95, pp. 27–8 (Paris, 1832)Google Scholar. The role of the royal confessor is most recently explored in , Defourneaux, op. cit. pp. 323, 326-7 and 345 ffGoogle Scholar.

21 , Voltaire, op. cit. V, 87, p. 79Google Scholar. For similar pairs of reaction see ibid, v, 87, pp. 71-2, 123; v, 94, pp. 452-3, and v, 95, pp. 7, 33. , Defourneaux, op. cit. ch. xi, cites an array of contemporary opinions of the Olavide affair, which Herr on p. 209 called the ‘most sensational case of the century’. Cf. the very usefulGoogle ScholarBruggeman, Werner, ‘Die Spanienberichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts’, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, XII (1955), 1–146, for further materials in this regardGoogle Scholar.

22 Bourgoing, Jean-François, Modern State of Spain, l (London, 1808), 356–7Google Scholar, anonymously translated.

23 Defourneaux goes into this at numerous points throughout his study (e.g. p. 243).

24 Ibid. ch. X for the whole story, including Olavide's own blunders.

25 Cited in Lea, H. C., A History of the Inquisition in Spain (London, 1907), III, 390Google Scholar.

26 Cited in Gigas, Emile, ‘Un Voyageur allemand-danois en Espagne sous la règne de Charles III’, Revue hispanique, LXVI (1927), 341Google Scholar.

27 See nn. 20 and 21.