Classical Diplomacy and Bourbon "Revanche" Strategy, 1763–1770

In: The review of politics, Volume 32, Issue 3, p. 313-337

Abstract

Francois-Etienne, due de Choiseul-Stainville, chief foreign policy-maker of France between 1758 and1770, sought to reverse the Peace of Paris which marked France's humiliating defeat by England in the Seven Years War. The objective of his "Revanche" was the restoration of the prewar maritime, commercial and colonial equilibrium with the British. To accomplish it, he relied on the Family Pact of 1761 with Spain, then the world's third naval power, and on the defensive Franco-Austrian alliance concluded in 1756 and revised in 1759, which Choiseul believed would suffice to keep the European continent at peace while the Bourbon powers concentrated all their forces, military and financial, for a purely naval war with Great Britain.