The "Chevaliers de la Jubilation" - Exile, Secret Societies, and Clandestine Politics in Early Eighteenth Century Holland

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The proposed research aims to explore the lives, works, intellectual and political connections of a small group of exiles who fled Louis XIV's France for Holland during the first decade of the eighteenth century. The four exiles in question - Prosper Marchand, Charles Levier, Bernard Picart, and Jean De Bey - left France between 1709 and 1710; their reasons for fleeing still remain, to some degree, unclear. Following their arrival in Holland, in late 1710 all four were present at a meeting (and named as members) of a society which went by the name of the "Chevaliers de la Jubilation". The exact nature of the Chevaliers remains open to question - explanations have ranged from freemasonry to libertine rowdiness. In the months following this initial meeting some members of the Chevaliers are recorded meeting up as part of another group with the title of the Vénérable Corps hermétique. The following year a Société would form containing members from both of the earlier groups and from which the Journal litéraire would emerge - its first edition appearing in 1713. Alongside their connections within the Republic of Letters, members of the group also had connections to important political figures such as Prince Eugène de Savoie, Baron Hohendorf, leaders and administrators of the States General, and (via men such as John Toland) politicians in England - the nature of many of these connections is, once again, unclear at present. Via a detailed exploration and consideration of these four figures (and their intimates) the proposed research will address not only issues directly connected to the group, but also important broader questions concerning the ideological constitution and motivations of individuals who left France as part of this second wave of "Huguenots" to seek exile in Holland; the methods used, and the difficulties faced, by would-be lettrés in establishing themselves in the Republic of Letters; the role and contributions of private intellectual meeting groups within the Republic of Letters; and also the opaque transnational political manoeuvrings which occurred during the latter years of the War of the Spanish Succession