[Recueil de 3 brochures relatives à la question d'Orient] Considérations politiques, par M.*** - Ces réflexions devoient, avec beaucoup d'autres, faire suite aux Considérations politiques… - Lettre à M. le Comte de ***, octobre 1784

A very rare collection of three anonymous political pamphlets, issued without place or publisher in 1783 and 1784, all in first edition and bound together at the time in one octavo volume:

1. Considérations politiques, par M.***. N.p., 1783, title and 77 pp. Conlon 83:1465.
2. Ces réflexions devoient, avec beaucoup d'autres, faire suite aux Considérations politiques ; mais le tout n'étant pas encore rédigé, les circonstances du moment m'ont déterminé à faire paroître celles-ci sur-le-champ. N.p., n.d. [1783], 44 pp., with drop-title. Conlon 83:1464.
3. *Lettre à M. le Comte de **, octobre 1784. N.p., n.d. [1784], title and 49 pp. Conlon 84:1533.

Contemporary full mottled calf, smooth spine richly decorated in gilt with a lattice pattern, brown calf lettering-piece, covers framed with a triple gilt fillet, gilt fillet to board edges, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers and pastedowns. Rubbing to joints and spine, gilt decoration partly faded at head and foot, corners bumped, small areas of leather loss at the corners of the boards. Pale dampstaining to the lower margins of the leaves of the second work.

An early manuscript note on the first title page attributes the collection to "Mignonneau". The inscription is of particular significance, as it accords with the early attribution of the Considérations politiques to a political writer of that name who served as a commissioner of the King's Bodyguards. Mignonneau continued to publish on political questions in the years that followed: the Bibliothèque nationale de France attributes to him the Considérations intéressantes sur les affaires présentes, of which an enlarged second edition appeared in 1788, while a Suite des considérations politiques, recorded by Martin & Walter, again ranges across domestic politics, the colonies, naval affairs, and Russia. His full identity nevertheless remains uncertain; the forename Jean-Louis, adopted by some modern scholars, cannot yet be assigned to him without qualification.

The three works gathered here reveal the successive concerns of this political commentator. The Considérations politiques of 1783 range broadly over the condition of the principal European powers and the interests of France, rather than being confined to the Eastern Question. Before the larger project had reached its final form, however, current events compelled the author to detach and publish part of it separately. The title of the second pamphlet states the circumstances plainly: "These reflections were intended, together with many others, to form a continuation of the Considérations politiques; but since the whole is not yet ready, present circumstances have determined me to publish these at once." Its first half deals with the invasion of Crimea; the second examines Russian claims concerning "court etiquette", seeking to uncover the political significance concealed behind what might otherwise have appeared a dispute over protocol.

These pages appeared at the very moment when the balance established around the Black Sea after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca was being overturned. Catherine II annexed Crimea in 1783, bringing to an end the khanate whose independence from the Porte Russia had secured in 1774. At almost the same moment, far more extensive schemes for the reorganisation of the Ottoman Empire's European possessions were being discussed between St Petersburg and Vienna. In her correspondence with Joseph II, Catherine had envisaged in 1782 the establishment of a new Greek Empire centred on Constantinople. It would be too categorical to regard the annexation of Crimea simply as the execution of this "Greek Project", whose political reality and precise scope remain matters of historical debate; both nevertheless belong to the same period of Russian expansion towards the Black Sea and mounting challenges to Ottoman territorial integrity.

The issue directly concerned French diplomacy. Vergennes, Foreign Minister and a former ambassador at Constantinople, sought to preserve the Ottoman Empire rather than participate in its partition. Having expected Joseph II to oppose Russian annexation, he learned in the spring of 1783 that the Emperor, allied with Catherine since 1781, would not obstruct St Petersburg. France protested, while advising the Porte not to risk an immediate war over a fait accompli which it was scarcely in a position to reverse.

The *Lettre à M. le Comte de ***, dated October 1784, carries the argument forward after the annexation had become an established feature of the eastern balance of power. The author attacks Russian expansion, considers Catherine II's ambitions in Armenia, and discusses the consequences for the Ottoman Empire of the possible emancipation of Greece. The pamphlet therefore does not anticipate the "Greek Project", which had already been formulated in imperial correspondence two years earlier; rather, it records how rapidly the possible consequences of Russo-Austrian policy entered French political discussion.

The manuscript attribution in the present copy consequently acquires unusual significance. Far from being an isolated later conjecture, it accords with the contemporary tradition naming Mignonneau as the author of the Considérations politiques; the second pamphlet explicitly presents itself as a continuation of that work, while the third pursues, a year later, the same examination of Russian designs. Bound together at the time, these three first editions thus preserve the material record of a sustained political intervention, written almost in step with the events then transforming the balance of power around the Black Sea.