Despotism without Bounds: The French Secret Police and the Silencing of Dissent in London, 1760–1790

Through an examination of the policing of dissident French refugees in London between 1760 and 1790, this article contends that recent historians have tended to over‐emphasize the reforming nature of the Bourbon government in the decades prior to the French Revolution, especially under Louis XVI, and overlooked the more repressive and ‘despotic’ aspects of the regime. It reveals that the Paris police or French secret agents adopted a variety of clandestine methods in their attempts to silence dissident exiles, including attempts at kidnap, and allegedly murder. As much of this police activity was reported in the British press and French printed texts, both before and during the French Revolution, and several of the exiles were celebrated writers or future revolutionary leaders, it was widely known among informed contemporaries. The article therefore contends that the French revolutionaries’ allegations of despotism and suspicions of monarchic conspiracies were more deeply rooted in experience than recent historiography has tended to suggest. At the same time, reports of the attempts of the ‘despotic’ French government to suppress the activities of Frenchmen on British soil helped to reinforce a British national identity based on the celebration of the liberties France lacked.