Counter-revolution, conservatism and conspiracy in the cosmopolitan public sphere from 1770s to 1790s : Mallet Du Pan, Barruel and the philosophes

On 10 March 1799, the counter-revolutionary journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan published a deeply-meditated response to the abbé Barruel's conspiracy theories of the philosophic and freemasonic origins of the French revolution. This chapter uses Mallet's essay to explore the emergence of two key discourses in conservative thought, and show that the rudiments of an international, cosmopolitan conservatism were coalescing well before the revolutionary maelstrom. One discourse was a surprisingly coherent critique of the advance of 'democratic' forces in reaction to a perceived international revolutionary threat developed by a small cadre of politically influential journalistic commentators. The other was the frequently but not invariably conspiratorial discourse around the existential philosophic threat to religion that emerged particularly in reaction to D'Holbach (which engaged considerably more writers). Often, these conservative critiques were based upon humanitarian concerns and underpinned by prescient forebodings of impending cataclysm, which made the conservative response to revolution all the more powerful. This argument suggests that the revolution was important to the intellectual development of conservatism more for popularizing than developing conservative ideologies. Moreover, key forms of 'radical enlightenment' discourse discussed by cosmopolitan conservatives were more contained or marginalized than much existing literature would suggest. Conversely, the grip of traditional religious forces, and their role in moderating radical enlightenment, have been underestimated.