Welcome

(image generated with Artificial Intelligence)

We are happy to present the ERC Consolidator Grant TREATYLAB ("The Labyrinth of Treaties, 1712-1763. International Law Behind the Scenes of Early Enlightenment Diplomacy, 1712-1763").

This project does not create a "lab" in the sense of a laboratory. Neither does it focus on treaties. We investigate the legal advisory work produced in the bureaux des affaires étrangères under Louis XV, using over a hundred thousands of folios attributed to top civil servant Nicolas-Louis Le Dran (1687-1774).

Le Dran’s lifetime is grosso modo that of Enlightened natural law, stretching from Hugo Grotius’ De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (1625) and Samuel von Pufendorf De iure naturae et gentium libri octo (1672) -both translated and annotated by Jean Barbeyrac- to Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des Loix (1748), Adam Friedrich Glafey’s Vernunft- und Völckerrecht (1723), Cornelis van Bynkershoek’s Quaestionum Iuris Publici Libri Duo (1737), Christian Wolff’s Ius Gentium Methodo Scientifica Pertractatum (1749), Johann Jakob Moser’s Grundsätze des Völkerrechts (1759), Gaspard Réal de Curban’s La Science du Gouvernement (1760-1764) and Emer de Vattel’s Le droit des gens ou principes de la la naturelle appliqués à la conduite des souverains et des nations (1758). 

(Barbeyrac’s Grotius translation (1724), image generated with Artificial Intelligence)

Numerous analyses have been written based on these classics of law of nature and nations doctrine and published treaties (e.g. the Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, ed. Jean Dumont and Jean Rousset de Missy) as well as pamphlets and published documents from state practice, sometimes associated with political and philosophical work as that of Bolingbroke (1678-1751), Saint-Pierre (1658-1743), Rousseau (1712-1778) or Hume (1711-1776). 

The “classical European law of Nations” -another label attached to this period- was eagerly studied in nineteenth century Europe and America (e.g. by Henry Wheaton, US diplomat in Berlin). Its authors (Grotius, Vattel) and case studies were exported and translated to the Ottoman Empire, Japan, China or Latin America (as earlier to Russia), in order to avoid “Standard of Civilization”-inspired intervention and build up an own foreign service. 

In the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, the sense of a new era in international law created the habit of seeing a caesura with the “old law of nations”. Today, our reading grid has become more sophisticated, due to the progress of both legal research and historical hermeneutics. The instrumentalisation of legal arguments as such (or non respecting the fundamental norm of pacta sunt servanda) does not preclude studying the process of exchange in politico-legal language between actors professing to be bound and legitimated by common standards. 

However, what do we really understand about the law of nations in an era without international institutions such as the International Court of Justice or the UN Security Council? It seems a commonplace to liken violations of the UN Charter to the “era before 1945”, implying no credible normative environment existed. Studying the history of international law as a genealogy of institutions and pious de lege ferenda philosophical treatises swept away by brute force would then become irrelevant, as recently suggested by Perry Anderson in Le Monde Diplomatique (February 2024).

Just as the latter can be rejected by pointing to the vital role of the enduring “invisible college of international law” or the reiteration of norms and obligations by experts, or to the adherence of most states to the prevailing rules, the study of past normativities of international society is more subtle than establishing whether or not a provision was violated. 

Ubi societas, ibi ius: no coexistence between polities can exist without shared conceptions of -to use Vattel’s words- order and freedom in the European res publica, connected by permanent diplomacy, trade and letters. Prioritising self-preservation (primary obligation under the law of nature) does not mean that a powerful sovereign as His Most Christian Majesty can afford to wage war or to be severed from commercial ties with everybody. 

If international law is the art of persuasion (Andrea Bianchi), the dynamics of the conversation are not immutable, but changing, ergo capable of being understood across time and context using meta-concepts (an expression coined by Michel Troper) as building blocks of an enduring politico-legal discourse: sovereignty, neutrality, commerce, recognition, war, denial of justice, possession, property... Even with all sound historical criticism available, we are condemned to think the past in our own terms. Yet, we can guard ourselves against anachronism by making differences understandable.

Understanding the daily interpretation, application and transformation of the law between sovereigns or polities (or invoked by individuals, communities, companies…) requires delving into kilometres of secret letters and essays. read with a lawyer’s eye. The common cultural fund of the ius commune, studied at European universities since the twelfth century, provided diplomats with a reservoir of shared notions, that allowed to interpret treaties and customary norms, or to conclude new positive agreements. Diplomatic manuals of the age indicate that practice required a combination of the law of nature, Roman law, the law of nations, public law, treaties and… conversations with experienced peers.

The source material cannot be comprehended with a single reading grid. TREATYLAB thus logically communicates with different scientific fields within the humanities and social sciences. 

• The history of international law (wherein both public international law and legal history are relevant)
• Comparative legal history (as Le Dran analyses foreign legal systems, as seen from a French perspective)
• The history of political thought (for a contextual study of ideas)
• Diplomatic history
• Early modern history, encompassing cultural, economic and social approaches
• IR and political science (with regards to topoi as the balance of power or alliances)

(image generated with Artificial Intelligence: Gezicht op de slag bij Lafelt, 1747 - Rijksmuseum, Netherlands - Public Domain; source: Europeana)

The project has thus an interdisciplinary and conceptual focus. Nevertheless, the institutional, cultural, economic and social context of the first half of the early eighteenth century ("Early Enlightenment") remains crucial to tackle the mountain of handwritten sources. Certainly for the continuous oeuvre of a discrete and reserved civil servant, whose only publication concerns... music. The loci of advisory work (e.g. the aile des ministres in the Palace of Versailles [prior to the construction of the Hôtel des Affaires Étrangères during Choiseul's tenure as Secretary of State]; the Vieux-Louvre as seat of the Archives, which Le Dran guarded during a considerable period of his life) allow to reconstitute an atmosphere.

The same goes for the era's composers Campra (1660-1744), Rameau (1683-1764), Vivaldi (1678-1741), Bononcini (1670-1747), Händel (1685-1759), JS Bach (1685-1750), Caldara (1670-1736), Couperin (1688-1733), Fux (1660-1741), Salomon (1649-1732), the music written for Farinelli (1705-1782) or the plumes of Voltaire (1694-1778), proctor general d'Aguesseau (1688-1751), Fontenelle (1657-1757), Saint-Simon (1675-1755) and the portraits painted by Rigaud (1659-1743), Ranc (1674-1735) Van Loo (1705-1765) or Nattier (1685-1766) of major actors as Cardinal Fleury (1653-1743), Count Sinzendorf (1674-1742).

("Liebespaar in einer Weinlaube" (Nattier) - Historical Museum of the Palatinate, Germany - CC BY/ source: Europeana)

The project aims to provide the community of researchers and students around the globe with a searchable and tagged open access version of a considerable part of Le Dran’s work, as well as with specific studies of four identified themes and an overarching volume on the production of legal knowledge. Le Dran’s work covers places, actors, legal documents, institutional concepts and organisations within and outside of Europe, based on the original documents used by premiers commis, commis and secrétaires keeping track of alliances, obligations and pending claims linking up the French monarchy with the other players of international society. Even if his work was at all times in the monarch’s loyal service, the topics treated covered much more than dynastic affairs: a broad array of non-state actors and transnational links appears in both corpus and marginal notes. 

Indicative references

Joaquim ALBAREDA I SALVADÓ & Núria SALLÉS VILASECA (eds.), La reconstrucción de la política internacional española : El reinado de Felipe V [Collection de la Casa de Velázquez, ed. Nancy BERTHIER, vol. 189] (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2021), DOI 10.4000/books.cvz.27560

Antonella ALIMENTO, and Koen STAPELBROEK (eds.), The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century : Balance of Power, Balance of Trade (London: Palgrave, 2017), DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53574-6.

Lucien BÉLY, Espions et ambassadeurs au temps de Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard, 1990).

Lucien BÉLY, L’art de la paix en Europe: Naissance de la diplomatie moderne, XVIe-XVIIIe Siècle (Paris: PUF, 2007).

Lucien BÉLY, Guillaume HANOTIN, and Géraud POUMARÉDE (eds.) La diplomatie-monde: autour de la paix d’Utrecht 1713 [Histoire de la diplomatie et des relations internationales] (Paris: Pedone, 2019).

Guido BRAUN, La connaissance du Saint-Empire en France 1643-1756 [Pariser Historische Studien; 91] (Paris: DeGruyter Oldenbourg, 2010], DOI 10.1524/9783486719376.

Raphaël CAHEN, Frederik DHONDT, and Elisabetta FIOCCHI MALASPINA, ‘L’essor récent de l’histoire du droit international’, Clio@Thémis. Revue européenne électronique d’histoire du droit/European Electronic Journal in Legal History, 18 (2020), DOI 10.35562/cliothemis.298.

Juliette DELOYE, ‘Écriture du groupe et institution. Retour sur l’Académie politique de Torcy’. Les Dossiers du Grihl 15 (2022) (1), DOI 10.4000/dossiersgrihl.8959.

Frederik DHONDT, '‘Authorised by the Examples of the Most Renowned Legal Scholars’: Grotius, Moderation and Restraint in Louis XV’s Foreign Office', Grotiana. New Series XLVI (2025), pp. 66-110, DOI 10.1163/18760759-46010011.

Frederik DHONDT, Balance of Power and Norm Hierarchy. Franco-British Diplomacy after the Peace of Utrecht [Legal History Library, eds. Dirk HEIRBAUT, Matthew C. MIROW & C.H. VAN RHEE, vol. 17; Studies in the History of International Law, ed. Randall LESAFFER, vol. 7] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2015), DOI 10.1163/9789004293755.

Frederik DHONDT, 'From Contract to Treaty: The Legal Transformation of the Spanish Succession, 1659-1713’, Journal of the History of International Law - Revue d’histoire du droit international XIII (2): 347–75, DOI  10.1163/15718050-13020004.

Frederik DHONDT, 'Le savoir politique contre les préjugés : Antoine II Pecquet et son Esprit des Maximes Politiques (1757)’. Études sur le XVIIIe siècle LII (2025) [ed. Jean-Charles SPEECKAERT], 37-58 DOI 10.4000/14pu5.

Frederik DHONDT, 'The Law of Nations and Declarations of War after the Peace of Utrecht'. History of European Ideas XLII (2016) (1): 329–49, DOI 10.1080/01916599.2015.1118333.

Nicolas DROCOURT, and Éric SCHNAKENBOURG (eds.), Thémis en diplomatie Droit et arguments juridiques dans les relations internationales de l'Antiquité tardive à la fin du XVIIIe siècle [Histoire] (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2016), DOI 10.4000/books.pur.47665.

Dante FEDELE, Naissance de la diplomatie moderne (XIIIe-XVIIe siècles) : l'ambassadeur au croisement du droit, de l'éthique et de la politique [Studien zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts, ed. Bardo FASSBENDER, Anne PETERS & Miloš Vec] (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2017).

Christian FOURNIER, Etude sur Nicolas-Louis Le Dran, 1687-1774, un témoin et historien des Affaires Étrangères (s.l.: s.n., 2015).

Edward JONES CORREDERA, The Diplomatic Enlightenment: Spain, Europe, and the Age of Speculation [History of European Political and Constitutional Thought, eds. Erica BENNER, Mark SOMOS & Lászlo Kóntler, vol. 5] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2021), DOI 10.1163/9789004469099.

Martti KOSKENNIEMI, From Apology to Utopia. The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), DOI 10.1017/CBO9780511493713.

Martti KOSKENNIEMI, To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), DOI 10.1017/9781139019774.

Randall LESAFFER (ed.), The Cambridge History of International Law, vol. 6: International Law in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), DOI 10.1017/9781108757355.

Evan LUARD, The balance of power: the system of international relations, 1648-1815 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992).

Stephen C. NEFF, War and the law of nations : a general history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), DOI 10.1017/CBO9780511494253.

John C. RULE, and Ben S. TROTTER, A World of Paper: Louis XIV, Colbert de Torcy, and the Rise of the Information State (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014).

Núria SALLÉS VILASECA, La Política internacional de Giulio Alberoni. El Desafío al orden Europeo en el Reinado de Felipe V [Colleción Historia de España y Su Proyección Internacional, ed. Enrique GARCÍA HERNÁN, XXI] (Valencia: Albatros Ediciones, 2024).

Michael STOLLEIS, Reichspublizistik und Policeywissenschaft 1600-1800 (München: Beck, 1988). 

Jean-Fred WARLIN, J.-P. Tercier, l'éminence grise de Louis XV : un conseiller de l'ombre au siècle des lumières (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2014).