Dutens, Louis
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(1730 - 1812), diplomat and man of letters; French Huguenot, b. Tours; patronised by the D. of Northumberland who gave him the living of Esldon, Northumb., 1766; ed. works of Leibnitz 1768; sec. Turin 1758 - 60 and chargé d'affaires 1761 - 2, 1764 - 5, 1781.
1758 - 62 [dep. England Oct. 1758] Turin (Nov. 1758 - 12 May 1762)
1763 - 5 Turin (22 Aug. 1763 - 6 Sep. 1765)
1768 - 9 see Lord Algernon Percy
1777 - 8 see Hon. James Stuart Mackenzie
1779 - 83 Turin (13 Dec. 1779 - 11 Nov. 1781), Bologna, Florence, Rome (by Apr. - May 1782), Florence (May - Aug. 1782), Turin (Mar. 1783) [Paris Jun. 1783]
Dutens described the five visits he made to Italy in his anecdotal and somewhat pretentious Memoirs.1 An ambitious and intelligent Huguenot, he was persuaded to take orders soon after coming to London. In 1758 he was appointed chaplain and secretary to Stuart Mackenzie, the British envoy extraordinary at Turin, with whom he set out for Italy in October that year (1:166).2 Diplomatic business did not occupy much of his time and he was able to cultivate the Piedmontese nobility (he mentions the Marquis de Prie, the Count de Stortiglione and the young Mme Martin). He found the Piedmontese 'courteous and brave: extremely attached to all foreigners, except', he added naively, 'the French' (1:255). Much of his time was occupied with procuring amusements and advantages for the young noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland who stopped at Turin, but he received little subsequent benefit from them. At the Turin Academy, where the King of Sardinia was anxious that a strict discipline should be kept, their 'spirit of independence would submit to no regulations' (1:225). When Mackenzie returned to London in July 1761 Dutens was left in charge until the new envoy, George Pitt, arrived in March 1762. 'My situation was certainly singular: born in France, brought up in France, I found myself minister from the King of England at a foreign court during a war with France' (1:239), but this did not prevent him being on good terms with the French ambassador in Turin, de Chauvelin. He left on 12 May 1762.
Dutens returned to Turin in August 1763,3 to become chargé d'affaires after Pitt's departure for London on 28 April 1764. Again he commented on the wildness of the young English visitors - kicking tradesmen, ejecting coachmen and riding on horseback round the ramparts (2:72-3) - and on 'the facility with which I there met foreigners of distinction' (2:84; he mentions particularly the Duc de Crillon, the Duke of Savoy and Cardinal des Lances). Sir William Farington met Dutens in Turin early in 1765 and thought 'he seems a very well bred, agreeable man',4 but the Americans Morgan and Powel found him 'of more difficult access than any English Minister we had seen in Italy', and heard that Mr Dutens 'did usually take more state upon him than the Ambassador himself when present'.5 While in Turin Dutens prepared an edition of Liebnitz and published Recherches sur l'origine des decouvertes attribuées aux modernes. He left Turin on 6 September 1765 and returned to England in 1766 on being offered a living of £;800 a year by the Duke of Northumberland.
For his third visit to Italy in 1768 - 9, see Lord Algernon Percy. In his account of this tour Dutens described how Cardinal Albani in Rome, still accompanied by the aging Countess Cheroffini, could not endure the French 'and if there was an Englishman in the room, he always called him to take a place by his side on the sopha' (2:142). In Naples he met the minister Tanucci who for three hours explained 'a system of electricity' he had formed (2:164 - 5). Dutens mentioned publishing at Rome The Tocsin, a pamphlet attacking the French philosophes. He also wrote at this time Des pierres précieuses [Paris 1776], and Explication de quelques Médailles [London 1773].
His next visit to Italy in 1777 - 8, which he quickly passed over in his Memoirs (3:244), was made with Stuart Mackenzie and his wife. The first edition of his Itinéraire des routes les plus frequentées was published in Paris in 1777, a practical guide for travellers which enjoyed some popularity. A 'Mons Dutens' arrived in Venice on 26 May 1778.6
He returned to Italy for the last time in the vast retinue of Lord Mountstuart (later Marquess of Bute), who arrived in Turin to take up his duties as envoy extraordinary on 13 December 1779 (4:60 - 133). His relations with Dutens were not satisfactory but, as Dutens was preparing to leave, Mountstuart was called back to London and he chose to leave Dutens as chargé d'affaires. He held this position from June to November 1781. Again he was questioned concerning his suitability: 'But Sir you are a Frenchman', to which Dutens replied that 'a man is not a horse because he happens to be born in a stable' (4:77). He left Turin on Mountstuart's return, intending to spend the winter in Rome, and took his official leave of the Royal family on 11 November.7 He stayed first in Bologna and Florence, where Horace Mann's conversation was a 'fund of amusing instruction'; 'I have never', wrote Dutens, 'visited any man with whom I could spend more time alone' (4:96). He went on to Rome (particularly, he said, to see the Signora Maria Pizzelli), travelling 'in a good English post-chaise, in which I had a portable desk for my papers, and a number of favourite books in different languages' (4:122). In Rome the days were devoted to 'researches congenial with my taste, or in walking in the retired gardens', and the evenings were spent in a circle of friends. He was still in Rome on 21 April 1782, but left in May for Florence, where he proposed spending the summer. He had only an engagement to meet Lord and Lady Algernon Percy in the autumn, otherwise 'I don't know what I shall do, and where I may go', he told John Strange.8 He was then writing his Memoirs and had had six preliminary copies printed for approval. Although he was tempted to stay in Florence, which was made so attractive by 'the mildness of the climate, of the government, and of the disposition of the inhabitants' (4:132), he was called back to England for financial reasons. After spending some time in Paris he returned to London in May 1784.
In his Memoirs Dutens wrote that 'Life is like a game at backgammon; the most skilful make the best of it' (2:66). He had played well, although the Edinburgh Review was to condemn him as a 'dangler in large houses'.
1. Dutens, Memoirs; bracketed references to the English ed. of 1806. 2. For his diplomatic posts, see Horn, 1: 125 - 6. 3. SP 105/315, f.220 (Dutens, 22 Aug. 1763). 4. Farington jnl.MSS
(25 Feb. 1765). 5. Morgan Jnl., 182 - 6. 6. ASV IS 760. 7. AST cf. 8. Eg.1970, ff.82, 92, 99 (21 Apr., 8 Jun., 20 Jul. and 24 Aug. 1782).