French Emigration (1789–1815)

Caricature mocking the King of Prussia and émigrés

French emigration from the years 1789 to 1815 refers to the mass movement of citizens from France to neighboring countries in reaction to the bloodshed and upheaval caused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic rule. Although the Revolution began in 1789 as a peaceful, bourgeois-led effort for increased political equality for the Third Estate (the non-elite, unprivileged masses of France), it soon turned into a violent, popular rebellion. To escape political tensions and save their lives, a number of individuals emigrated from France and settled in the neighboring countries (chiefly Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Prussia), however quite a few also went to the United States.

Revolution Begins

When the Estates General convened in 1789 and aired out their political grievances, many members of each estate found themselves in agreement with the idea that the bulk of France, the Third Estate, was carrying the tax burden without equitable political representation. They even took an oath, the Tennis Court Oath, swearing to pursue their political goals and committing to drafting a constitution which codified equality. Soon, the ideologies of fair and equal treatment by the government and liberation from the old regime diffused throughout France.

The first émigrés

While the "Father of the Revolution", Abbé Sièyes, and several other men of the first and second estates supported the Third Estate's desire for equality, several members of the clergy and nobility were averse to it. Under the old regime, they were accustomed with a certain quality of living and with the right to pass this life to their children. The Revolution was looking to remove all privilege in an effort to make everyone politically equal, so the first émigrés, or emigrants, were proponents of the old order and chose to leave France although emigration abroad was not prohibited.^[1]

Notable émigrés include Madames Adélaïde and Victoire, aunts of King Louis XVI, who on 19 February 1791 started their journey to Rome to live nearer to the Pope. However, their journey was stopped by and largely debated by the National Assembly who feared that their emigration implied that King Louis and his family would soon follow suit. While this fear eventually resulted in the Day of Daggers and later the King's attempt to escape Paris, the Madames were permitted to continue their journey after statesman Jacques-François de Menou joking about the Assembly's preoccupation with the actions of "two old women".^[2]

Upon settling in neighboring countries such as Great Britain, they were able to assimilate well and maintained a certain level of comfort in their new lifestyles. This was a significant emigration; it marked the presence of many royalists outside France where they could be safe, alive, and await their opportunity to reenter the French political climate. However, the majority of the émigrés left France not in 1789 at the crux of the revolution, but in 1792 after the warfare had broken out. Unlike the privileged classes who had voluntarily fled earlier, those displaced by war were driven out by fear for their lives and were of lower status and lesser or no means.^[3]

Motivation to Leave

France becomes unsafe

As the notions of political freedom and equality spread, people began developing different opinions on who should reap the benefits of active citizenship. The political unity that the revolutionaries once had began to fizzle out by 1791, although they had succeeded in establishing a Constitutional Monarchy.

Simultaneously, the Revolution was plagued with many problems. In addition to political divisions, they were dealing with the hyperinflation of the National Convention's fiat paper currency, the assignats, revolts against authority in the countryside, slave uprisings in colonial territories such as the Haitian Revolution, and no peaceful end in sight. Someone had to be blamed for the failures of the revolution, and it certainly could not be the fault of the revolutionaries for they were on the side of liberty and justice. As Thomas E. Kaiser argues in his article "From the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror", centuries of Austrophobia was reincarnated into a firm belief in an Austrian led conspiracy aiming to thwart the revolution.^[4] Kaiser states that the Foreign Plot:

"consisted of a massive, multilayered conspiracy by counterrevolutionary agents abetted by the allies, who allegedly—and quite possibly in reality—sought to undermine the Republic through a coordinated effort to corrupt government officials associated with the more moderate wing of the Jacobin establishment and to defame the government by mobilizing elements on the extreme left."^[4]

A political faction known as the Jacobins, who had a very active radical faction, the Girondists, genuinely feared this conspiratorial plot. Rousseau, a philosophe influential in the Enlightenment and fellow Jacobin, spread the idea of a "collective will", a singular purpose which the people of a nation must all unequivocally support. If anyone was against the collective will, they were a part of this counterrevolutionary conspiracy, and since the momentum of the Revolution had to be protected at all costs, any and all threats had to be eliminated. This attitude toward dissension only grew more violent and bloodthirsty throughout 1793-1794 when Robespierre enacted the Reign of Terror. In order to preserve the "republic of virtue", Robespierre had to "cleanse" the country of anyone who spoke out or acted against the virtues of the revolution by way of the guillotine. In this tumultuous time, several were justified in fearing for their lives.

Mass exodus

No one was really safe from scrutiny or the chopping block, ultimately not even Robespierre himself. This omnipresent sense of fear inspired many of lesser means to flee France, often without much preparation and therefore no money or helpful belongings. Those who left France were a heterogeneous bunch socioeconomically and professionally, although the vast majority of migrants were men. While these people came from diverse financial backgrounds, they all more or less suffered the same poverty while traveling. In his thesis "'La Généreuse Nation!' Britain and the French Emigration 1792-1802", Callum Whittaker recounts that while leaving France one aristocrat "disguised herself as a sailor, and hid for a day in the hold of a ship underneath a pile of ropes".^[5] Also, captains and sailors saw this as an opportunity to earn a little on the side, and so they levied taxes on the emigrants, leaving them on the shores of another nation with nothing. Yet still, thousands chose this path of discomfort and destitution because it at least provided the promise of peace.^[5]

Jewish migration

The Jewish people had historically been made a scapegoat for sociopolitical problems, and once again they were viewed with suspicion during this time. While a percentage of the Jewish people was politically aligned with the Royalists, the distrust was unwarranted.^[1] A majority of Jews were not counterrevolutionaries and did not partake in crimes against the republic such as money crimes with the assignats, although this was highly speculated.^[1][4] In Alsace, minorities such as the Jews and Protestants were pro-revolution, while the Catholic majority was not.^[1] Despite these facts, as Zosa Szajkowski states in the text Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848 it was still a widely held belief that "the Jews wanted to bring about a counter-revolution with all its destruction and death".^[1] Thus, the Jews were continuously unfairly suspected of fraud, although rarely ever convicted for it.^[1] Also, their correspondence in Hebrew with those living outside France was restricted.^[1] August Mauger, the leader of the terror in Nancy, refused to give Jews passports.^[1] Those emigrating had to do so illegally, without proper documentation and thus without guarantee of success. Threat of execution was very real for many more people than simply the Jewish population of France. Lacoste, the safety commissioner of Alsace, believed that one-fourth of the Parisian population should be guillotined.^[1] Jewish and non-Jewish alike emigrated to the Upper Rhine; despite periodic pogroms in the area, it was still better than the Lower Rhine where the Terror was rampant; very few Jewish Frenchmen remained in Alsace.^[1] The Jewish émigrés had to face the challenges of assimilating to a new culture which harbored a strong anti-Jewish and anti-French sentiment. Furthermore, the annual summertime invasions of the French army from 1793–1799 meant the immediate evacuation of any immigrant population. Consequently, the exact number of French in any specific area varied at any given time, but historical estimates place the number in the several thousands.^[5]

Life After Emigration

For most émigrés, returning to France was out of the question. While they did manage to escape the guillotine, they would face the death penalty if they were to return. Furthermore, their property and possessions were confiscated by the state, so there would be nowhere and nothing to return to.^[1] Wherever the migrants ended up, it was imperative that they were able to assimilate to the local culture.

Upon arrival in their host nations, the émigrés were watched with a cautious eye. Many locals were naturally weary of these foreigners who did not share their customs and who had been exposed to radical, violent, revolutionary principles.^[5] Although there was initial hesitation, citizens quickly learned that these migrants were refugees, searching for tranquility and focusing on how to feed themselves and their family members, not agents sent by France to disrupt the political order.^[3] While this generation of individuals did not have the luxury of being very politically active, their presence in neighboring European countries and the United States caused a wrinkle in the fabric of society. These thousands of men, women, and children had survived a popular uprising and would never be able to forget their experiences in revolutionary France, the uncertainty, turmoil, and promise of liberty.^[1]

America

Tens of thousands of émigrés saw America as a compelling destination for multiple reasons. Those who craved peace and stability were drawn to the neutral stance America had taken on the many wars France was engaged in with her neighbors.^[6] The majority of emigrants were older and left France as individuals and sought out where to live in the United States based on what professional opportunities were available there.^[6] Leaving their homelands with nothing, these Frenchmen were set on finding a way to feed themselves and make a living. Although they appreciated being away from the Terror, the French felt distant from their American denizens and imposed a self-isolation from their community.^[6]

Great Britain

Many more stayed on the European continent, in Great Britain, France's neighbor to the north. The country appealed to people because it had a channel separating them from the revolutionaries and because it was known for being tolerant.^[5] Emigrants primarily settled in London and Soho, the latter had grown into a thriving French cultural district, complete with French hotels and cuisine, although it had long been a haven for French exiles, housing many thousands of Frenchmen from the last mass migration which occurred in reaction to the Edict of Nantes.^[5] Here the French had a somewhat easier transition into English society, but to say emigrating to this district was easy is to dismiss how truly austere their circumstance; "money remained a chronic concern and hunger a constant companion" (Whittaker).^[5] Most people just picked back up the trades they had in France, and aristocrats found themselves having to seek employment for the first time in years.^[5] Those who had no knowledge of skills that would benefit them as laborers turned to crime.^[5] Malnutrition and poor living conditions led to an onslaught of maladies, and death did not quit put an end to their suffering for even posthumously their families were beset with the financial burden of administering their funeral rites.^[5]

The number of refugees fleeing into Britain reached its climax in autumn of 1792. In September alone, a total of nearly 4000 refugees landed in Britain. The number of displaced persons who found themselves in Great Britain was high, although the exact number is debated, it is believed to be in the thousands, and this posed a concern as they did lay witness to a revolution and may be in favor of vicious, reactionary politics which was in direct contrast to the British way of implementing gradual, moderate political change. The uncontrolled influx of foreigners created significant anxiety in government circles. After much debate, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Aliens Act of 1793 which served to document and regulate immigration. This act regulated exactly who could come into the country, essentially, making it more impossible for immigrants to live in the country. The British Government feared that those entering the country were spies and/or terrorists, and so created the Act in order to control who immigrated into the country. Those entering the country were required to give their names, ranks, occupations, and addresses to the Local Justice of Peace.^[7] Those who did not comply, were immediately deported or put into prison. However, after seeing the refugees suffering, however, the British people abandoned their fears and sympathized with them which led to a number of charitable and hospitable acts toward the émigrés.^[5] The Wilmot Committee, a private network of social elite, provided fiscal support to the refugees, and later the government adopted a national relief campaign which gained support both from those with political clout as well as the masses.^[5]

References