Abstract

Trust and Patronage in the Diplomatic Relations between France and the Ecclesiastical Electors after the Peace of Westphalia (1648–1679)

French foreign relations to the Holy Roman Empire relied on the existence of local personal networks which may very well be described as “crossborder”-clientelism. Most of these ties proved to be extremely volatile and unstable due to various conflicts of interest and Hapsburg “counter patronage”. Nevertheless, French diplomats kept relying heavily on their clients. This raises the question how trust was possible in these relations. Trust here must be distinguished from notions of trust which focus either on psychological and emotional aspects or on conditions of trust provided by society at large.

Departing from Georg Simmel's definition of “trust as the hypothesis for future behavior, which is certain enough thereby to ground practical action”, trust is founded on the fulfillment of normative expectations and rational predictions on behavior of the other. Other theories posit that trust is a mode of reducing social complexity (Niklas Luhmann), requiring certain modes of granting “credit” accompanied by practices of symbolic control and self-assurance. In this respect the notion of trust in question is linked to practices of communication and observation, as is extensively documented in French diplomatic correspondence for the present case.

While 17th-century practices of face-to-face interaction, such as politeness and exchange of information, were supposed to instill trust in one another and could be linked to the semantics of confiance and vertrauen respectively, they often failed to convince French diplomats fully and could be regarded as interchangeable. More risky ways of granting trust and providing material resources were – as can be seen during the Imperial election of 1657/58 – often accompanied by certain types of observation, such as the perception of irreconcilable enmity, manifesting itself in violations of codes of politeness perpetrated by clients towards the representatives of the Hapsburg or vice versa. This is closely linked to the frequent invocation of an anti-Hapsburg image, describing the dynastic foe as profoundly unwilling and unable to accept liberties and the rights of electors and princes of the Empire and to act as just and generous patron towards any clients, which in turn was regarded as reassuring the stability of French relations. This adds a triadic aspect to patron-client-relations and the process of trust in a competitive environment. Of equal importance was the ascription of private interests which originally stood in sharp contrast to the norms of patronage, but effectively contributed to the perception of the stability of such ties. Trust relations could be limited and controlled by predefined “thresholds”, anticipating situations and incidents, where trust would end. Even though those can be identified in French correspondence, they rarely served their purpose. On the one hand they could provide further possibilities to ascribe unfounded trust, on the other hand relations broken by mistrust could eventually be fixed by strategically “forgetting” the circumstances that led to their breakdown in the first place and thus undermined attempts of controlling trust.