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The fabulous destiny of Saint-Patrice : Royalist cosmopolitanism and Republican France
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Wardhaugh, Jessica (2019) The fabulous destiny of Saint-Patrice : Royalist cosmopolitanism and Republican France. In: Ashby, Charlotte and Brockington, Grace and Laqua, Daniel and Turner, Sarah Victoria, (eds.) Imagined Cosmopolis: Internationalism and Cultural Exchange, 1870–1920. Internationalism and the Arts . Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 35-58. ISBN 9781788742801
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Abstract
James Harden-Hickey — or Saint-Patrice, as he was known — was an extraordinarily cosmopolitan character. Born of French and American parents, he was the eccentric author behind such literary experiments as Les Aventures merveilleuses de Nabuchodonosor Nosebreaker (1880), and a social adventurer who won the support of the aristocratic elite. He was also politically notorious as the founding genius of the satirical royalist newspaper Le Triboulet, which lasted for almost 50 years despite being prosecuted 37 times and fined a total of 200,000 francs. Indeed, the newspaper was so potently subversive that Harden-Hickey was driven into exile, whereupon he proclaimed himself king of an uninhabited island in the South Atlantic, and was subsequently ousted in a clash between British and Brazilian authorities. Victim of a morphine overdose in 1898, he is now almost entirely forgotten.
This chapter offers the first historical analysis of a remarkable cosmopolitan. In so doing, it illuminates not only the strategies and practices of cosmopolitanism in the fin-de-siècle, but also the political challenges (and limitations) of imagined worlds and their citizens at a time of ardent nationalism and state building. The first section analyses the construction of Harden-Hickey’s neo-medieval persona and literary fantasies within the wider context of royalist ‘counter-society’ in republican France. The chapter then probes the limits of the cosmopolitan’s ability to challenge the contours and culture of the nation state by tracing Harden-Hickey’s social and political fortunes both as editor of Le Triboulet and subsequently as short-lived king of Trinidad. Finally, the chapter draws on this case study to reflect more broadly on the complex interplay between fantasy and reality, power and vulnerability in the life of the social and political misfit. Harden-Hickey’s end may have been tragic, yet his fantastical adventurers were inspired by the self-fashioning of more successful adventurers — notably Napoleon III — and raise profound questions about the relationship between politics and the imagination in the modern world.
| Item Type: | Book Item | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DC France J Political Science > JC Political theory J Political Science > JZ International relations |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French Studies Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures |
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| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Royalists -- France, Cosmopolitanism, Republicanism—France | ||||||
| Series Name: | Internationalism and the Arts | ||||||
| Publisher: | Peter Lang | ||||||
| Place of Publication: | Oxford | ||||||
| ISBN: | 9781788742801 | ||||||
| Book Title: | Imagined Cosmopolis: Internationalism and Cultural Exchange, 1870–1920 | ||||||
| Editor: | Ashby, Charlotte and Brockington, Grace and Laqua, Daniel and Turner, Sarah Victoria | ||||||
| Official Date: | 11 September 2019 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Number of Pages: | 494 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 35-58 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.3726/b13225 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | Accepted Manuscript that has been published in Imagined Cosmopolis: Internationalism and Cultural Exchange, 1870–1920 edited by Charlotte Ashby, Grace Brockington, Daniel Laqua and Sarah Victoria Turner in the series Internationalism and the Arts. The original work can be found at: https://doi.org/10.3726/b13225 © Peter Lang AG. 2019 All rights reserved | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 23 March 2020 | ||||||
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