Bentham and the French Revolution

J. H. Burns

doi:10.2307/3678797

Bentham and the French Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009

J. H. Burns

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God Almighty predestinated me to be the ame damnèe of France.’ So wrote Jeremy Bentham on 9 June 1789. It was a moment of frustration for a man who already felt a great opportunity slipping away from him. Opportunity above all was what the French Revolution meant for Bentham. Forty when the States General were summoned, he had for twenty years been convinced of his genius for legislation. Much of that time he had spent upon an immense but never completed Code of law. In 1785 he had gone to Russia, to join his brother Samuel and (he hoped) lay his Code before the Empress Catherine. But Catherine never saw either the Code or its author. Bentham remained secluded in western Russia, translating his work into French; and when the empress visited the district he stayed—stubbornly diffident—in his cottage.

Type: Research Article
Information: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 16 , December 1966 , pp. 95 - 114

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3678797 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1966

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^{page 95 note 1} Bentham to Etienne Dumont: B[ibliotèeque] P[ublique et] U[niversitaire, Geneva], Dumont MSS. no. 33, f. 56.

^{page 95 note 2} For the Russian venture cf. esp. Everett, C. W.. The Education of Jeremy Bentham (New York, 1931), chap. VIII, pp. 150–79.Google Scholar

^{page 95 note 3} Cf. Everett, op. cit., pp. 120–21; though that account requires some modification, which is partly provided by Mack, M. P., Jeremy Bentham: An Odyssey of Ideas (New York and London, 1963), pp. 370–72.Google Scholar

^{page 96 note 1} Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 2 May 1788: [The] Works [of Jeremy Bentham, Published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh, 1838–43)], x, pp. 182–83.

^{page 96 note 2} U[niversity] C[ollege] L[ondon], Bentham MSS., clxx. 36. Cf. also Lansdowne to Bentham, 16 June 1788: Lansdowne MSS., [Bowood] (printed, with some errors, Works, x, p. 183).

^{page 96 note 3} Preface to A Fragment on Government, 1776: Works, i, p. 227.

^{page 96 note 4} Cf. Works, x, p. 185: ‘As to Count Mirabeau… it's madness to hazard any communication with him.’ Bowring gives neither the exact source nor the precise date of this remark of Lansdowne's.

^{page 97 note 1} This is indicated by Bentham's letter to Dumont of 9 June 1789 (cf. p. 95, n. 1 above).

^{page 97 note 2} That a copy of at least the open letter was sent to Mirabeau appears from Bentham's letter to Andrée Morellet of 25 February 1789: Works, x, p. 199. Bentham himself perhaps explained (or explained away) Mirabeau's failure to reply: ‘I had designed myself to him as the author of the Defence of Usury, and he did not know that any such book existed’ (Bentham to Dumont, 9 June 1789: cf. p. 95, n. 1 above).

^{page 97 note 3} Drafts of these pamphlets are in U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxx. 1–7, 122–33.

^{page 97 note 4} Cf. Bentham to Romilly, 2 December 1788: B.P.U., Dumont MS, no. 33, ff. 171—72; Romilly to Bentham, 3 December 1788: Works, x, p. 195.

^{page 97 note 5} Mentioned in Bentham's letter to Romilly cited in n. 4 above; probably F. Buisson of the rue Hautefeuille: cf. Bénétruy, J., L'atelier de Mirabeau (Paris, 1962), p. 233Google Scholar, n. 1.

^{page 97 note 6} Bentham to Morellet, 25 February 1789: Works, x, p. 199.

^{page 98 note 1} Works, x, p. 199. Extracts from the essay (U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxx, 87–121) were printed by Halévy, Elie, La formation du radicalisme philosophique, i, Lajeunesse de Bentham (Paris, 1901)Google Scholar, Appendice IV, pp. 424–39; and, in translation, by M. P. Mack, op. cit., Appendix D, pp. 448–53.

^{page 98 note 2} Cf. Halévy, op. cit., pp. 270 ff.; Mack, op. cit., pp. 416 ff.

^{page 98 note 3} U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxx. 3.

^{page 98 note 4} Cf. Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 14 August 1778: B[ritish] M[useum], Add. MS. 33,538, ff. 221–22.

^{page 99 note 1} For the history of this work—Règlemens observés dans la Chambre des Communes pour débattre les matierès et pour voter—cf. Bènètruy, J.'s critical edition of Dumont's Souvenirs sur Mirabeau (Paris, 1951), p. 277Google Scholar, n. 2 (also his L'atelier de Mirabeau, pp. 170–71 and n.). Bénétruy, however, ignores the evidence of Bentham's correspondence for Wilson and Trail's contribution. Cf. Bentham to Wilson, 16 May 1789: Works, x, pp. 200–01; Wilson to Bentham, 21 May 1789: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 32–33 (also Works, x, pp. 212–13); Bentham to Wilson, 12 June 1789; Works, x, pp. 213–14. Nor does Bénétruy mention the part apparently played by the due de La Rochefoucauld: cf. Morellet to Bentham, 8 May 1789: B.M., Add. MS. 33,538, ff. 184–87.

^{page 99 note 2} Lansdowne to Bentham, 3 January 1789: Works, x, p. 195 (cf. B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 1–4.

^{page 99 note 3} Lansdowne to Morellet, 3 February 1789: Lansdowne MSS (MS. copy sent in 1876 to Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice by L. J. Cist of Cincinnati, Ohio, then in possession of the original).

^{page 99 note 4} Cf. U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 51.

^{page 99 note 5} Bentham to Wycombe, 1 March 1789: Works, x, pp. 196–97.

^{page 99 note 6} Bentham to Morellet, 25 February 1789: Works, x, pp. 198–99 (the exact date, not given by Bowring, is indicated in Morellet's reply: cf. p. 100, n. 1).

^{page 100 note 1} Morellet to Bentham, 25 March 1789: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 36–39 (partial translation, Works, x, p. 199).

^{page 100 note 2} Bentham to Morellet, April 1789: draft in U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 164–67 (undated but must be between Morellet's letters of 25 March and 8 May).

^{page 100 note 3} Morellet to Bentham, 8 May 1789: B.M., Add. MS. 33,538, ff. 184–87. For the translator cf. Garlick, R. C. Jr., Philip Mazzei, Friend of Jefferson (Baltimore, 1933), p. 121Google Scholar; Nouvelle Biographie Générale, xvii, col. 180.

^{page 100 note 4} Cf. U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 172, which despite its (later and evidently mistaken) heading, ‘Advice to Fayette’, may be a draft letter to La Rochefoucauld: it mentions the sending of copies to Mirabeau and Lafayette. Morellet also sent part of Bentham's MS. to La Rochefoucauld: cf. his note, dated 31 August 1810, on B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 72 (1).

^{page 100 note 5} The words are quoted by Bentham in a draft letter to Lansdowne dated 17 June 1789: U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 153. Cf. also Bentham to Dumont, 9 June 1789: B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 33, f. 55.

^{page 100 note 6} Courier de Provence, i, no. X, pp. 8–9; Wilson to Bentham, 5 July 1789: Works, x, p. 216.

^{page 101 note 1} Bentham to Wilson, 8 July 1789: Works, x, p. 217.

^{page 101 note 2} Bentham's ‘Anti-Machiavel’ letters are reprinted in Works, x, pp. 201–11. Cf. also Bentham to Dumont, cited p. 100, n.5 above.

^{page 101 note 3} Bentham to Dumont, as above; Morellet to Lansdowne, 22 June 1789: Lansdowne MSS.

^{page 101 note 4} Cf. Works, x, pp. 184–85; Everett, op cit., pp. 182–83, 196; Mack, op. cit., pp. 408–09. A corrective view is supplied by Blount, Charles, ‘Bentham, Dumont and Mirabeau’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, iii, 1951–1952, pp. 153–67.Google Scholar

^{page 101 note 5} Morellet to Lansdowne, 25 September 1789: E. Fitzmaurice (ed.), Lettres de l'abbé Morellet à lord Shelburne… 1772–1803 (Paris, 1898), pp. 183–84.

^{page 102 note 1} Dumont to Bentham, 27 September 1789: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 79–80 (partial translation, Works, x, 219).

^{page 102 note 2} Courier de Provence, iii, no. XLIX, p. 6 n.

^{page 102 note 3} Cf. U.C.L., Bentham MSS, ix. 37–49, clxvi. 1–26; Stark, W. (ed.), Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings (London, 1952–1954), i, 28–29Google Scholar and nn.; iii, pp. 524–25.

^{page 102 note 4} Cf. U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxx. 60–63, 134–72, 179, 181.

^{page 102 note 5} Works, x, p. 185. Cf. Everett, op. cit., p. 196: ‘…more and more, the voice of Mirabeau expressed the thoughts of Dumont. And… the ideas were taken direct from the MSS. of… Jeremy Bentham.’ A truer view is indicated by Charles Blount in the article cited above, p. 101, n. 4. Blount, however, does not consider all the available evidence, and the conclusions in the present paper differ from his in emphasis and detail.

^{page 103 note 1} U.C.L., Bentham MSS., ix. 43 a r°.

^{page 103 note 2} Cf. Bentham to Brissot, n.d.: Works, x, p. 214—‘I am sorry you have undertaken to publish a Declaration of Rights. It is a metaphysical work—the ne plus ultra of metaphysics.’

^{page 103 note 3} Draught of a New Plan for the Organisation of the Judicial Establishment in France… March, 1790: cf. Works, iv, pp. 285–406.

^{page 103 note 4} Courier de Provence, vii, pp. 123–28, 177–84, 225–32; viii, pp. 49–56, 188–91, 321–28.

^{page 103 note 5} Cf. Bénétruy, L'atelier de Mirabeau, pp. 268 ff.

^{page 104 note 1} Works, iv, p. 309.

^{page 104 note 2} Ibid., p. 363.

^{page 104 note 3} Ibid., pp. 362–63.

^{page 104 note 4} Cf. B.M., Add MS. 33,553, ff. 31–32; 33,550, ff. 397–99 (extracts printed, Mack, op. cit., pp. 408–09). The reliability in detail of these picturesque octogenarian reminiscences (written in January 1828 and March 1831 (respectively) is problematical. Cf. also Barthélemy to Lansdowne, 8 April 1790: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, f. 121.

^{page 104 note 5} B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 119–20 (copy in Bentham's hand; printed, Works, x, pp. 226–27).

^{page 104 note 6} Mme. Gautier to Romilly, 1 May 1790: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly written by himself… 3rd edn., (London, 1841), i, pp. 303–04. This letter indicates that Mme Gautier (née Delessert) and her husband (a Paris banker of Genevan origin) had passed a copy of Bentham's Draught to a member of the constitutional committee.

^{page 105 note 1} B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 33, ff. 57–58.

^{page 105 note 2} Bénétruy, op. cit., p. 274.

^{page 105 note 3} Dumont to Bentham, n.d. (between 3 and 14 May 1790): B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 109–10.

^{page 105 note 4} Cf. Works, x, pp. 190 ff.; Brissot, J. P., Mémoires (1754–1793), ed. Cl., Perroud (Paris, n.d. [1912]), i. pp. 363–67.Google Scholar

^{page 105 note 5} Patriote français, no. 269, p. 2.

^{page 105 note 6} Cf. Dumont to Bentham, cited p. 8, n. 3 above: ‘Qui auroit deviné qu'en traitant l'organisation judiciaire, on ne feroit nulle mention du plan du Comit’

^{page 105 note 7} Bentham to Dumont, 14(?) May 1790: B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 33, f. 59. Bentham enclosed (f. 60) a supplement to the extracts in the Courier de Provence, but this was not published.

^{page 106 note 1} Cf. La Rochefoucauld to Lansdowne, 27 June 1790: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, ff. 131–32. U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 170–71 are probably drafts for Lansdowne's letter of 6 June, referred to by La Rochefoucauld; while the second leaf of f. 171 may be a draft of Bentham's accompanying letter to the President of the National Assembly.

^{page 106 note 2} Cf. Brissot, op. cit., i, p. 366; also Bentham's later narratives cited above, p. 104, n. 4. Siéyès was President from 8 to 21 June.

^{page 106 note 3} Works, x, p. 227.

^{page 106 note 4} Cf. Works, x, pp. 229–45.

^{page 106 note 5} Lettres sur la liberté du taux de l'intérêt de l'argent… (Paris, 1790). The translator was probably Etienne Delessert, Mme Gautier's father. Cf. Romilly to Mme. Gautier, 20 August 1790: Romilly, Memoirs, ed. cit., i, p. 308; Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 6 December 1790: Works, x, p. 246; id. to id., 5 April 1791: ibid., p. 249 and n.

^{page 106 note 6} Essay on Political Tactics… Being a Fragment of a larger Work; a Sketch of which is subjoined…, London, 1791. Some copies contain only Essay VI—i.e. Chap. VI in Works, ii, pp. 330–50. Others include also the opening of Essay V—Chap. V, Works, ii, pp. 327–28, along with the preface reproduced in Works, ii, pp. 330–31 n. The 1791 edition seems to have been in print by 2 February (cf. Benjamin Vaughan to Bentham: Works, x, p. 247).

^{page 107 note 1} Lansdowne to Bentham, February 1791: Works, x. p. 247; Bentham to Lansdowne, 24 February 1791: Lansdowne MSS.

^{page 107 note 2} Bentham to Samuel Bentham, 5 April 1791: Works, x, p. 249.

^{page 107 note 3} Romilly to Dumont, 5 April 1791: Romilly, Memoirs, ed. cit., i, p. 318.

^{page 107 note 4} Panopticon; or the Inspection-House…, London, 1791. (Cf. Works, iv, pp. 37–172).

^{page 107 note 5} Bentham to Brissot, November 1791: Works, x, p. 226. (Bowring placed this letter in late 1789 or early 1790; but its contents establish the date given here).

^{page 107 note 6} Bentham to Garrain de Coulon, 25 November 1791: Works, x, p. 269.

^{page 107 note 7} Panoptique, Mémoire sur un nouveau principe pour construire des maisons d'inspection… Paris, 1791. For Dumont's authorship of the translation cf. Bentham to Dumont, 26 October 1801: B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 33, f. 83.

^{page 108 note 1} Cf. Works, x, pp. 269–270.

^{page 108 note 2} Works, x, p. 278.

^{page 108 note 3} Bénétruy, op. cit., p. 419.

^{page 108 note 4} Lansdowne MSS.

^{page 108 note 5} Bentham to Lansdowne, 9 September 1792: Lansdowne MSS.

^{page 108 note 6} Liancourt to Bentham, 10 September 1792: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, f. 363; Bentham to Lansdowne, same date: Lansdowne MSS.; Dumont to Romilly, 11 September 1792: Romilly, Memoirs, ed. cit., i, p. 352.

^{page 109 note 1} Samuel Bentham to Lord St Helens, 8 July 1791: Works, x, p. 264, referring to the Draught on judicial establishment—‘When he began it his opinion of the French National Assembly was much better than it is at present. They had not at that time laid violent hands on private property…’

^{page 109 note 2} On 26 August, under the seal of Louis XVI; but the republic had been declared before official notification was sent in October: cf. Works, x, pp. 280–82.

^{page 109 note 3} Works, x, p. 282.

^{page 109 note 4} In 1830 he addressed pamphlets to his ‘fellow-citizens of France’ (cf. Works, i, pp. 525–32; iv, pp. 419–50).

^{page 109 note 5} Cf. Gallois to Bentham, 4 October 1792: B.M., Add. MS. 33,541, f. 367; Beaumetz to Bentham, 3 November 1792: ibid., ff. 373–74.

^{page 109 note 6} Jeremy Bentham to the National Convention of France. January 1793. (Works, iv, pp. 407–18). Cf. MS. note on p. 1 of B.M. copy, 1127, c. 3(2).

^{page 110 note 1} Works, x, p. 282.

^{page 110 note 2} U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxx. 51: headed ‘Constitut. Franc.’, subsequently dated ‘1792–3’. The phrase quoted suggests a date in the autumn of 1792.

^{page 110 note 3} Ibid., clxx. 175: dated ‘1793 March’.

^{page 110 note 4} Ibid., clxx. 173: headed ‘Constit. 1793’.

^{page 110 note 5} Ibid., xliv. 3–5: dated 8 July 1795.

^{page 110 note 6} Cf. ibid., cxxvi. 1–18; cxxvii. 1–19: partly printed in Mack, op. cit., Appendices E, F and G, pp. 453–66.

^{page 110 note 7} The phrase is Mrs Mack's, op. cit., p. 440.

^{page 110 note 8} Plan of Parliamentary Reform…: Works, iii, pp. 433–557. Bentham claims indeed (p. 435) to have had publication refused by a newspaper in 1809; but this hardly accounts for an eight-year delay.

^{page 111 note 1} Economic Writings, ed. Stark, i, p. 336. A footnote (pp. 336–37 n.) referring to Condorcet's being in hiding places the passage between July 1793 and March 1794.

^{page 111 note 2} Works, ii, pp. 489—534. The term ‘Anarchical Fallacies’ was (perhaps first) used by Bentham in a MS. dated August 1811: U.C.L., Bentham MSS., civ. 49. For the date of composition cf. Romilly to Dumont, 27 October 1795: Romilly, Memoirs, ed. cit., i, p. 389.

^{page 111 note 3} U.C.L., Bentham MSS., cxlvi. 238–40.

^{page 112 note 1} Works, iii, p. 218 (Pannomial Fragments); B.M., Add. MS. 33,550, f. 87 shows that the passage was written on 30 December 1823.

^{page 112 note 2} Bentham to Philip Metcalfe, 31 October 1793: Works, x, p. 296.

^{page 112 note 3} Bentham to Wilberforce, 1 September 1796; Wilberforce to Bentham, 3 September 1796: Works, x, 315–19. It may be apposite also to recall here Bentham's defence of Benjamin Vaughan against the charges made in 1796: cf. U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 335–49.

^{page 112 note 4} He contributed to John Lind's An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress (London, 1776) a destructive analysis of the natural rights doctrine in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence: cf. op. cit., pp. 120–22 and B.M., Add. MS. 33,551, ff. 359–60.

^{page 113 note 1} U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxx. 176: dated ‘1793’.

^{page 113 note 2} Bentham to Wilberforce, 1 September 1796: Works, x, p. 315—‘We must sooner or later have done fighting with Pandemonium…’

^{page 113 note 3} The word is used advisedly: in an undated but apparently early MS. (U.C.L., Bentham MSS., clxix. 79) Bentham says: ‘I dreamt t'other night that I was a founder of a sect… it was called the sect of the utilitarians…’

^{page 114 note 1} Cf. Bentham to Dumont, 16 August 1792: B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 33, ff. 61–62; Dumont to Bentham, 23 August 1792: B.M., Add. MS. 33,54i, f. 359.

^{page 114 note 2} Cf. Dumont to Romilly, 29 November 1793: B.P.U., Dumont MSS., no. 17, f. 87V°—recounting a conversation with Lansdowne.

^{page 114 note 3} Cf. Toribio Nuñez, Principios de la Ciencia Social…, Salamanca, 1821, pp. viii-ix. Nuñez had previously published Sistema de la Ciencia Social… (Salamanca, 1820).

^{page 114 note 4} Cf. Bentham to Dumont, 27–30 May 1802: Works, x, p. 389.

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