Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles (Oct 2024)
Négocier avec son protecteur : la personnalité et l’action des diplomates de la principauté de Liège à Versailles à la fin du xviiie siècle
Abstract
The imperial and ecclesiastical Principality of Liège, a state at the crossroads of European influences, was a central player in French and Austrian policy in the region roughly corresponding to present-day Belgium. During the reign of the Francophile prince-bishop François-Charles de Velbrück (1772-1784), the Principality turned towards France and entered into a series of economic, military and territorial negotiations. Faced with the scale of the task, the prince-bishop successively sent two diplomats to Versailles to maintain a direct channel with the French government, much to the regret of the Viennese court. This rapprochement continued under the reign of his successor, despite Vergennes’s reluctance to see a new diplomat from Liège installed at court. Based on the extensive diplomatic correspondence kept in the archives of La Courneuve, Liège, Brussels and Vienna, this article sheds light on the activity of these agents, which has been little studied to date, as well as their careers before and during their missions at the royal court, while highlighting the issues at stake in French foreign policy in the Austrian Low Countries shortly before the Revolution.
