Rex in fabula : travailler l'inquiétude dans la correspondance adressée aux autorités métropolitaines depuis le Canada (1700-1760)

Abstract

: The official correspondence sentfrom Canada to the French authorities in the eighteenth century offers a view of a special group of letter-writers at work, the colony's governors and intendants. Writing to the Minister of Marine and in a sense, to the king, these colonial administrators necessarily took into account the power their influential readers held over them. Three examples (a shipwreck, an infestation and popular subordination) are used to illustrate the letter-writers' techniques of persuasion. The article shows how they exploited the register « worry /reassurance » (an aspect of A. L. Stoler's « emotional economy of the archive ») to justify their decisions and their requests.