Recovering The French Convert : Views of the French and the Uses of Anti-Catholicism in Early America

Historians today know a great deal more about the history of the book in the Atlantic world than they did twenty years ago, particularly with the publication of the first volume of the American Antiquarian Society's magisterial History of the Book in America series, The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. Although our knowledge has increased dramatically, the eighteenth-century book The French Convert still languishes in almost total obscurity. This widely reprinted chapbook, which eventually ran in more than forty editions in Britain and America, has received scant attention from historians, perhaps partly because of difficulties in assigning it authorship, date, or even initial location of publication. But these qualities make The French Convert significant and interesting, even beyond its obvious attractions as a largely forgotten colonial best-seller. A book like The French Convert is not text alone but an unpredictable interplay among authors, readers, and printers/publishers. Though textual analysis has a place in book history, it alone does not suffice to explain the historical uses of a book.¹ Thus both this book's text and the history of its many printings reveal important trends in Anglo-American print domains and consumer interests during the eighteenth century.² This article offers a case study of The French Convert and its career in print in order to consider two larger topics of interest: the changing but enduring influence of anti-Catholicism in early American culture, and the ways in which American views of the French conditioned The French Convert's uses.³

The French Convert told the story of the French noblewoman Deidamia's conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism, and its anti-Catholic tropes proved an excellent complement to the growing hostility among Britons toward French Catholicism, first during the early eighteenth century and then later during the era of the American and French Revolutions. Protestantism had been implicitly anti-Catholic since the Reformation, but British anti-Catholicism became much sharper beginning in 1689, with the coming of the imperial wars between Catholic France and Protestant Britain. The deposal of the Catholic king James II by William of Orange had secured Britain's official commitment to Protestantism, which in turn had set the stage for a generation of world war between the nascent French and British empires. These were not simply wars for political or mercantile hegemony, but the Protestant and Catholic powers saw the fate of world Christianity hanging in their balance. On both sides, the print trades helped create and service an apocalyptic hostility between them with hosts of anti-Catholic tracts, sermons, and stories such as The French Convert.⁴ Later, in the 1770s and '80s, the French alliance with American revolutionaries no doubt complicated Anglo-American anti-Catholicism, but nonetheless many remained culturally anti-Catholic and rejoiced to see the French throw off the shackles of "priestcraft" in the French Revolution. Many Americans saw Catholicism as the inveterate enemy of republicanism and liberty, which helps explain the resurgent popularity of The French Convert in the 1790s. Understanding the historical context and various uses of anti-Catholicism in early America goes a long way toward explaining the enduring popularity of Deidamia's story.

Though The French Convert underwent some revisions during its two hundred years of printing history, the basic narrative remained the same: it told the story of the noble French woman Deidamia, "a Young Lady of Quality ..., whose Beauty and Vertue were equally attractive." Beautiful, intelligent, and chaste, Deidamia was lacking in only one respect: knowledge of the true religion.⁵ In fact, though anti-Catholic literature did not lack for misogynist tropes, Deidamia represented the French woman as innocent heroine, waiting only to be liberated from the clutches of priestcraft.⁶

Deidamia learns about Protestantism from her Huguenot gardener, Bernard. Her husband is away in the military, and while one might expect an absent...