Au tout début du XXIe siècle, une équipe d’archéologues plonge sur l’épave d’un petit navire de guerre du XVIIIe siècle, au nord de l’actuelle République Dominicaine. Sa coque est de fabrication américaine, ses canons sont écossais et les boutons d’uniformes sont français. Après avoir suivi quelques fausses pistes, la recherche aux Archives nationales permet de résoudre l’énigme : il s’agit de la corvette française Dragon du chevalier de l’Espine, détruite en janvier 1783 à l’issue d’un court combat contre des vaisseaux britanniques assurant le blocus nord de Saint-Domingue. Cette identification sert de catalyseur à une recherche historique dont le chevalier Joseph de L’Espine du Puy (1759-1826) constitue le personnage central. L’enquête révèle le destin de l’officier de la Marine L’Espine, en amont puis en aval de son fait d’armes de janvier 1783. Jeune chevalier de Malte et officier de la Marine de Louis XVI, L’Espine participe à la guerre de l’Indépendance américaine, effectue un passage obligé dans la Marine de Malte, et participe à des missions secrètes françaises de renseignement naval. La Révolution française vient briser ses espérances et l’oblige à l’exil. En Autriche, il gagne la confiance des hautes autorités autrichiennes en s’engageant sans ambiguïté contre les armées de la France à partir de 1795. L’Espine devient rapidement l’un des cerveaux d’une Marine de guerre autrichienne remise en question à chaque traité signé entre la France et l’Autriche. Promu Feldmarschall-Leutnant en 1813, L’Espine décide de ne pas rentrer en France à la Restauration. Nommé Gouverneur de Milan en novembre 1825, il y meurt le 31 décembre 1826. / At the very beginning of the 21st century, a team of archaeologists dived on the wreck of a small 18th century warship in the north of the current Dominican Republic. Its hull is of American manufacture, its guns are Scottish and the buttons of uniforms are French. After having followed some false leads, the research in the National Archives makes it possible to solve this enigma: it concerns the French corvette Dragon of Chevalier de L’Espine, destroyed in January 1783 after a short action against British vessels ensuring the northern blockade of Santo Domingo. This identification serves as a catalyst for a historical research of which Chevalier Joseph de L'Espine du Puy (1759-1826) constitutes the central character. The investigation reveals the fate of the Navy officer L'Espine upstream and downstream of his gallant action in January 1783. Young Knight of Malta and officer of the Navy of Louis XVI, L'Espine participated in the American Revolution, did a mandatory service in the Navy of Malta, and took part in French naval intelligence secret missions. The French Revolution ruined his hopes and forced him into exile. In Austria, he won the confidence of the high Austrian authorities by unambiguously engaging with the armies of France from 1795. L'Espine quickly became one of the brains of an Austrian Navy questioned at each treaty signed between France and Austria. Promoted to Feldmarschall-Leutnant in 1813, L'Espine decided not to return to France at the Restauration. Appointed Governor of Milan in November 1825, he died there on December 31, 1826.

Cet ouvrage porte sur la réaction du clergé canadien face à l’invasion américaine de 1775-1776. Alors que l’historiographie considère généralement que les prêtres de la colonie restèrent fidèles au gouvernement britannique à cette occasion, trois curés se détachèrent au contraire de cette image de loyalisme : Eustache Chartier de Lotbinière (1716-1785), Pierre-René Floquet (1716-1782) ainsi que Pierre Huet de La Valinière (1732-1806). Soupçonnés par les autorités ecclésiastiques et coloniales d’entrenir des sympathies pour les révolutionnaires américains, ces hommes furent frappés par diverses sanctions, affectant durablement le déroulement de leur carrière. / This dissertation examines the reaction of Canadian clergy to the American invasion of 1775-1776. While historians have generally considered that the priests of the colony remained loyal to the British Government on this occasion, three priests stand in contrast to this image of loyalty: Eustache Chartier de Lotbinière (1716-1785), Pierre-René Floquet (1716 -1782), Joseph Huguet (1725-1783) and Pierre Huet de La Valinière (1732-1806). Suspected by church and colonial authorities to have shown sympathy to the American revolutionaries, these men were struck by various sanctions that permanently affected the development of their careers.

Rape had an indelible effect on the American Revolutionary era. Using trial testimonies and depositions, newspapers, and literary sources, this thesis argues that there was a level of continuity between peacetime and wartime rape characterized by the assaulters’ modus operandi and rape’s ideological exploitation. Eighteenth-century Anglo-American society dictated that rape, or “carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly against her will,” was only a crime against virtuous white women. The gendered and racialized ways pre-revolutionary society identified and prosecuted rape influenced how rapists conducted their assaults. Women had to prove their sexual morality, that penile penetration and male ejaculation occurred, and that they sought help immediately after the assault to prosecute their attackers. During the war, rape became an important metaphor. Wartime publishers and propagandists used reports and victim testimonies as evidence of British immorality and to justify political independence. The rape of America subsumed individual atrocities. The nationalization of women’s sexual virtue continued into the new Republic. Artists and writers memorialized the Revolution through explicitly sexualized narratives and sentimental novels that emphasized female sexual morality. Women’s sexual virtue was linked with the stability of the Republic. This thesis utilizes a diverse historiography to highlight the intersectional correlations between rape and eighteenth-century patriarchal power in America. / Graduate / 2022-08-26

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This thesis explores the implications of chinoiserie, or Western creations of Chinese-style decorative arts, upon an eighteenth century colonial American audience. Chinese products such as tea, porcelain, and silk, and goods such as furniture and wallpaper displaying Chinese motifs of distant exotic lands, had become popular commodities in Europe by the eighteenth century. The American colonists, who were primarily culturally British, thus developed a taste for chinoiserie fashions and wares via their European heritage. While most European countries had direct access to the China trade, colonial Americans were banned from any direct contact with the Orient by the British East India Company. They were relegated to creating their own versions of these popular designs and products based on their own interpretations of British imports. Americans also created a mental construct of China from philosophical writings of their European contemporaries, such as Voltaire, who often envisioned China as a philosopher's paradise. Some colonial Americans, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, fit their understanding of China within their own Enlightenment worldview. For these individuals, chinoiserie in American homes not only reflected the owners' desires to keep up with European fashions, but also carried associations with Enlightenment thought. The latter half of the eighteenth century was a time of escalating conflict as Americans colonists began to assert the right to govern themselves. Part of their struggle for freedom from England was a desire to rid themselves of the British imports, such as tea, silk, and porcelain, on which they had become so dependent by making those goods themselves. Americans in the eighteenth century had many of the natural resources to create such products, but often lacked the skill or equipment for turning their raw materials into finished goods. This thesis examines the colonists' attempts to create their own chinoiserie products, despite these odds, in light of revolutionary sentiments of the day. Chinoiserie in colonial America meshed with neoclassical décor, thereby reflecting the Enlightenment and revolutionary spirit of the time, and revealing a complex colonial worldview filled with trans-oceanic dialogues and cross-cultural currents.

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