Acceso usuarios
What did foreigners think of the French problems in 1787? At that time, many diplomats and foreigners were in Paris and were following the discussions of the Assembly of Notables. That was Louis XVI's final attempt to put an end to his financial problems. It is interesting to see the diversity of the interpretations of these problems or the ideas about the solutions to be implemented in order to avoid national bankruptcy. It is equally interesting to consider how foreign witnesses interpreted the ideological changes which they distinguished in pre-Revolutionary Paris and how they explained them. A new republican like Jefferson did not look at the situation in the same way as an old-style republican like the ambassador of Venice. A royalist like Mercy d'Argenteau had other ideas than an Englishman like the diplomat Lord Dorset who was accustomed to civil liberties and parliamentary policy. This wide range of opinions tells us more: it tells us that many things could have happened and that a political and violent revolution was not the only way out of the crisis experienced by the Kingdom of France. For most of these witnesses, well-constructed reforms could have saved the kingdom and given more liberties to the French people. In short, looking at the representations of foreign visitors enables us to capture the political mood of an important moment in European history.
