The problems of management in the "Notes" of Ambassador A.A. Matveev about France

Solovev Konstantin Anatol'evich Doctor of History Professor, Department of History of State and Municipal Administration, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27, of. 2 ksoloviov@spa.msu.ru Other publications by this author

Andrey Matveev, the son of the "near boyar and royal seal and embassy guardian" ^{[13, 4]} Artamon Matveev, in whose house the future Tsarina Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, the mother of Peter I, was brought up, personified that part of the Russian ruling stratum, which in the XVII century aspired to progress and integration of Russia with Europe. It is no coincidence that he is called a "bright representative of Russian Westerners" ^{[7, 53]}. His father died "from the rebellious Streltsy," and he himself joined the civil service as a carpenter, at the age of 8. In 1691, at the age of 25, he was appointed governor of Dvina ^{[13, 4-6]}, having the opportunity to gain experience in independent management of the region. But then his fate changed radically: in 1799, Matveev was appointed to The Hague, Russia's plenipotentiary representative in the Netherlands. And since that time, he has become one of the most influential figures of Peter the Great in the field of foreign policy of the Russian state. In 1705, he went to Paris on an unofficial mission, since France and Holland were at war at that time and it would be difficult for Russian diplomacy to explain to its main trading partner the existence of official contacts with the opposing side.

The purpose, nature, and course of the negotiations have been well studied, largely due to the notes that Matveev himself kept, his reports, as well as documents from the French side ^[8]. Our interest is not in the event itself or even in how the main participant described it, but in how Matveev's "Notes" fix the features of the French kingdom's public administration, which the Russian ambassador draws attention to, what characteristics he gives to French statesmen, how he understands the nature of the managerial activities of the king, his ministers, and state bodies management and, first of all, the Royal Council. Russian Russian scholars have not yet attracted the attention of this side of Matveev's text, as a rule, who noted the "cultural" significance of the "Notes" ^[3], including as the "first " book about France" compiled by a Russian" ^{[19, 7]}, as well as as a demonstration of "the interest of Russian culture in breaking with old" " ^{[15, 493]}.

In our opinion, the significance of Matveev's "Notes" is not limited to either the cultural or the political sphere. The Russian ambassador devoted a lot of space in his "Notes" to describing both the governance structure of the French kingdom and the personalities of statesmen. This was done, in our opinion, for two main reasons. The first reason is obvious: the task of diplomats is always to collect information about the host country, in all possible areas of activity. And in order to identify the second reason, we need to understand the managerial situation in Russia.

A. A. Matveev was in Paris in the autumn of 1705. In the previous year, 1704, the work of one of the main public administration bodies of the previous century, the Duma, was discontinued ^{[1, 151]}. Three years before that, the Council of Ministers was created, a body that absorbed the powers of the House of Justice, which pushed the Duma into the background in the 1780s ^{[17, 12]}. The Council of Ministers, as well as the House of Justice (and later the Senate), was necessary to govern the state at a time when the monarch could not do it (the House of Justice – during illness, the Council of Ministers and the Senate - when leaving the country). She served as a legislative and judicial body. The experience of interaction between the monarch and his "ministers" at that time was extremely small, there were many difficulties in the regular interaction of officials at the highest level. Under these conditions, the experience of other countries, in which the system of interaction between the monarch and his nobles was debugged, if not for generations, then for decades of functioning, within the framework of a system of absolute power, was important for understanding and developing their own forms of government. And Louis XIV's France was just such a country. Her experience was more interesting to Peter I than the experience of the United Provinces or England, where the process of changing the dynasty began in 1701, or the conglomerate of Habsburg possessions, which had not yet become the Austrian Empire. An indirect confirmation that the "Notes" were compiled, among other things, for the purpose of studying managerial experience is that on the basis of the text of Matveev's "Notes" a special document was drawn up: "On the ranks of the French court, explaining who controls what and what kind of power the board has" ^{[6, 149]}.

First of all, we will try to identify the terminology used by Matveev in characterizing public administration issues. In describing the figure of the King of France, he most often uses the term "rule". Thus, explaining the title of Louis XIV, he writes: "He, the king, ascribes to himself the name of Louis the Great for his glorious victories and extraordinary prosperity of the former affairs under the rule of his monarchy, both in his kingdom and throughout Europe, which ended before many of his ancestors, the French kings in his power" ^{[11, 83]}. In describing the childhood of the king, the phrase "state government" is used, which "was maintained by his mother, the queen" ^{[11, 83-84]}. And once again, the same term, in a similar combination, occurs where it is said about the coming of age of the king in 1651: "... he is the king, then publicly declared his perfection in years, when he no longer had any maternal authority in the government of his state, according to the decree of that state, he should not have been subject" ^{[11, 84]}.

It should be noted that the term "government" does not mean so much the king's activity in governing the state as his status – a formal place in the management system. That is why Matveev has a turnover of "power in the board", which should mean the following: the king now, according to his position in the hierarchy of power, does not depend on the Queen mother, his status is higher. But this does not mean at all that, having reached adulthood, the king rules the country. Only eleven years later, in 1662, "after the death of Cardinal Mazarin," the king became an independent ruler, which is noted in Matveev's text: "he, the king, accepted the all-perfect rule of his kingdom, and began to contain all the direct state power of his government..." ^{[11, 84]}.

In the last of the above quotes , let's pay attention to two phraseological turns "the board ... accepted" and "all the power." The use of these phrases by Matveev indicates his familiarity with the Russian chronicle, where you can find the phrase "accept power" and "accept all power". Refer to the "Tale of bygone years", the description of the events that followed the calling of the Varangians to Novgorod, "And the force's oldest Lados Rurik, and the second, Sineus BL on the lake, and Truvor-thirds unto Yzberisht (...) By the same token, Sineus and his brother Truvor died. And Rurik took all the power alone, and came to Ilmer, and cut down the city above Volkhov, and nicknamed Novgorod..." ^[9] Here we see a single turn: "take all the power alone." Then, when describing the events that followed the death of Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, the same turn is reproduced: "According to this, we repose to the great prince Yaroslav, and his son Izyaslav and his wife Kyev took power" ^[9]. And in the subsequent chronicle, the semantics of coming to power is associated with the phrase "accept power". At the same time, in the "Tale of Bygone Years" there is no term "government", but only the verb "to govern", that is, to authorize someone, to give him the right to power.

It seems to us that Matveev's acquaintance with the Russian chronicle left an obvious mark in his notes, both semantically and meaningfully. The term "power" for him – as well as in the chronicle – is the right to govern the state, and the term "government" characterizes the status of a person in power. But he uses the term "management" in the same meaning that we are used to: "He himself penetrated into the diligent provision of the Councils and the management of his entire state..." ^{[11, 84]}.

Matveev writes briefly about the role of the king in government, indicating only the most significant types of decisions that the king makes as head of state: he "starts" the war; "establishes" (appoints) "ministers of state", the head of "military affairs", the Chancellor. Matveev's remark about appointments to ministerial posts at the time of the formation of Louis XIV's personal power is indicative: they "by their great loyalty greatly united the king with the people, then rebellious" ^{[11, 84]}.

The nature of the daily administrative activities of the king and his ministers, as well as the description of the system of public administration, Matveev presents in several sections of his notes, paying special attention to various options for the composition of the Royal Council. The Council, whose meetings were chaired by the King himself, is described in the most detail. It was called the "upper council" or "council of Ministers" ^{[11, 78]}.

We can read the weekly schedule of the king's work in his "return council", divided into "sections" and its specific composition in Matveev's notes and, moreover, compare them with the information contained in the "Report" by Alvise Grimani, Ambassador of Venice to France from 1660 to 1664. Here's what Grimani wrote:

Text: "Il tempo resta sempre dal re nell' opera impiegato, tutti li giorni assistendo in uno due consigli nella forma che ha per li medesimi disposta. Il lunedì ed il venerdì riducendosi con lidetti signori Tellier, Lione e Colbert per la spedizione delle cose straniere. Nei stessi due giorni tenendo poi Consiglio per gliaffari interni del regno con li predetti tre ministri, e di più con il gran cancelliere, il maresciallo di Villeroy, li segretari tutti di Stato, che oltre i predetti due ministri sono la Vrilliere e Guenegaud. Il martedì, giovedì e sabbato tiene consiglio di finanza nel quale pari menti interviene il re e li tre soggetti predetti, il signor Colbert, ed in questo si discutono gli affari tutti che riguardano alle finan ze ed ai redditi della Maestà Sua» ^{[20, 86]}

Translation: "The King attends one or two meetings every day, according to the plan he has developed. On Mondays and Fridays, he meets with Monsieur Tellier, Lyon and Colbert to conduct foreign affairs. On the same days, he holds a council on the internal affairs of the kingdom with the three aforementioned ministers, as well as with the Grand Chancellor, Marechal de Villeroy, and all the Secretaries of State (in addition to the three aforementioned ministers, the Secretaries of State are Vriller and Genego). On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he holds a financial council, which is attended by the three aforementioned gentlemen, as well as Monsieur Colbert, at which all issues of finance and income of His Majesty are discussed" (Translated by V.K. Solovyova).

Here we see three variants (sections) of the composition of the royal Council: a) with three ministers (foreign grandfather, military grandfather and finance ^[5,]); b) with three ministers, the Chancellor and secretaries of State; c) with the Chancellor, Secretaries of State and the Minister of Finance. There are six Council members in total (besides the King). Domestic and foreign policy (in different Council compositions) are allocated Monday and Friday; finance – Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

In 1665, after Grimani's departure from Paris, the finance council switched to working two days a week; and from September 1664 until 1676, there was also a board of trade ^{[4, 83]}.

Forty years after Grimani, Matveev describes the schedule of the King's meetings with the Council members in this way: "The daily disposition of the royal councils. The royal councils are all located on certain days, which are always kept without cancellation. On Wednesday, Thursday and week councils on state and foreign affairs, on Monday and on other days on the management of those affairs, on which 4 secretaries and ministers of every one in those days can report to the king about their own. On Tuesday and Saturday, about all cash receipts and those belonging to it. On Friday, the king has a council with the Archbishop of Paris, with the most important Cardinal de Noailles, and with his confessor" ^{[11, 165-166]}.

As we can see, over the past forty years, the schedule of meetings of the Royal Light sections has changed: For internal and foreign affairs, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday are allocated instead of Monday and Friday. The Financial Council has retained Tuesday and Saturday. Friday is, according to Matveev, set aside for spiritual affairs. And a special role is assigned to Monday – on this day the king receives reports from departments.

Matveev divides the personal composition of the "upper council" into two parts. The first part is, as it could be called now, permanent members of all variants of the Council. This, of course, is the king himself, as well as the heirs of the first and second line ("the most illustrious Daufin, the royal son, the most illustrious artsukh or duc, de Burgoni, his son, daufinov") and the chancellor ^{[11, 163]}.

The description of the chancellor's position is the most extensive in the "Notes". Using her example, we can consider how Matveev saw his task as a Russian agent describing the management system of a foreign state. Structurally, the characteristics of the position and personality of the chancellor consist of several points, each of which is reproduced by Matveev and in shorter characteristics of other officials. Let's imagine the entire set in the table:

The eighth point in the table above is most significant for identifying Matveev's ideas about what the qualities of a manager should be. Among the useful qualities, he puts "scholarship" in the first place (now we would write – a set of competencies); sobriety in the second place (two interpretations are possible: direct – not a drunkard and figurative – understands the situation accurately); the third position is diligence in business; the fourth is attentiveness to subordinates, in their requests ("he is low and inclined to everyone," which corresponds to the definition of "favorable" ^{[12, 210]}). And finally, the last position in this characterization is "piety", which can be interpreted in two ways: both as diligence in faith, and as behavior within the strict framework of existing moral norms. Accordingly, a set of qualities that serve as an obstacle to public service can be represented as ignorance, drunkenness (or a tendency to fantasies), laziness, arrogance and promiscuity.

The second part of the list of persons of the royal Council are those who take part in one or another version of the Council, from those that are scheduled by day of the week. First of all, these are ministers whose characteristics are based on the example of the one given to the Chancellor, but in an abbreviated form, with randomly selected items. There are only two points in the description of "the most excellent Mr. Artsukh de Beauvilliers": his powers (paragraph 1): "the initial adviser of all royal revenues" and a personal characteristic: "a man of great truth, politeness, lucidity, and inner royal love" ^{[11, 164]}. In a more detailed description of the "overseer of the general of all posts and parcels of the Kingdom of France and the steward of state affairs" of the "most elegant gentleman" Colbert, Marix de Torcy, information was added to paragraph 4 about how he took up his post: "he was promoted to that rank by his father." The characteristic of his qualities (item 8) looks like this: "the husband is inclined, of moderate sharpness, but in his affairs he is very diligent and by his diligence the king is pleased." Matveev also indicates Colbert's income of "an annual cottage of 100,000 francs" ^{[11, 164]}.

It is significant that in the personal description of Shamiyyar, the "overseer of the initial of all state parishes, the adviser of the extraordinary for all incomes and the steward of all military affairs and artillery, and the head of toll and merchant reprisals", Matveev uses not only the enumeration of his qualities ("a meek husband, but a mediocre and small sharpness of mind in the matter of reprisals, especially in military affairs, he is much more stagnant") but also cites the opinion of the French: "honored officers are not very satisfied with him." We could have assumed earlier that Matveev was not limited to his own impressions of brief meetings with top French officials. Here, he makes it clear that he had informants or purposefully collected information using the conversations he conducted at court. And, since negative qualities predominate in the characterization of Shamiyar, Matveev gave an explanation of how he got to his post: "He was promoted to that rank to please Mrs. Mentieno" ^{[11, 164]}.

For comparison, let us cite Chamillard's charaterist, given by the extremely knowledgeable memoirist, Duke L. Saint–Simon (in an entry from 1701): "Here it will be appropriate to recall what has already been said about Chamillard's career and character, and add that never before has a minister occupied such a place under the King, but not because because he won his respect for his abilities, but because the sovereign felt a cordial affection for him, which arose even at the time of playing billiards with him, an affection that the King has since invariably shown to the minister with all kinds of distinctions and signs of favor, entrusting in the end the burden of the financial and military departments that bent him. This affection increased day by day because Chamillard confessed his ignorance of many subjects and because the King took a small and vain pleasure in enjoying the opportunity to instruct and guide his minister in these two so important areas. Madame de Maintenon had no less tenderness for Chamillard, because there is no other word to describe this kind of affection. Chamillard's complete dependence on her delighted Madame de Maintenon, and her friendship for him gave great pleasure to the King. The minister in such a position has unlimited power; and it was clear to everyone that this was exactly the position Shamiyar occupied, and therefore few of the courtiers did not fawn and grovel before him" ^{[14, 40-41]}.

So, seven people enter the royal Council and participate in all its meetings "without separation, with all sorts of business," according to Matveev: the king, the heirs of the first and second line, the chancellor, three ministers. In addition, two "two secretaries, but not ministers" and two "privy councillors" participate in separate meetings of the council. Matveev is critical of the characteristics of state secretaries. "The blessed Monsieur Count Pontchartrain, president of the Admiralty, of the whole kingdom of France and overseer of ships and galleys" (son of the Chancellor), in Matveev's characterization, "has no disposition in business, the grossest ignorance ... and his first commission Salbury owns everything, a great bribe taker and there is unspeakable treachery" ^{[11, 165]}.

Matveev gives this kind of (brief or detailed) characteristics to all officials – members of the royal council: Chancellor Porchartrain, three ministers and secretaries of State: (Duke de Beauvilliers, "chief adviser of all royal revenues" and the first chamberlain of the King; Marquis de Torcy, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Surintendant of the post; de Chamire, to the Secretary General for Military Affairs and two "secretaries, but not ministers", who "enter the King's council when they have to report on their business orders on appointed days, and do not enter other councils" ^{[11, 165]} (Count Pontchartrain, son of the Chancellor, president of the Admiralty, state Secretary of the court; Marquis de Vrijer, Secretary of State, "steward of all the general ecclesiastical affairs of France").

If we try to systematize the advantages and disadvantages of French statesmen (as Matveev saw them) then you will get the following:

Two more senior officials were mentioned, but remained without characterization. These are the "privy councillors" of the Royal Council: D'agesso, during the Attorney General of the Paris Parliament and Le Pellitier, Director General of fortifications.

In addition to what he wrote about the members of the royal Council, Matveev gave a description of those authorities who made the most important managerial decisions. This is, first of all, "Everyday advice". In order to show how important Matveev's information about the Daily Council is, we need its full description: "The above-mentioned state ministers and secretaries and advisers of others who are appointed to that without the king, where extraordinary and decent matters are dealt with by royal decree, and he acts with such force, as if himself Tom was present at the council. Moreover, there is no king at that council, only his place is mediocre, except for great favor, and the state's greatness is not brought to the inner council to the king himself, only to the aforementioned council, and they are carried out by the same verdict by the royal decree, as if the king himself were in the council without less cancellation" ^{[11, 166]}.

In the formation and functioning of the "Daily Council" (in Matveev's description), we can see three characteristic features. First: the composition of the council. These are the statesmen responsible for the "functional" management (ministers). At the same time, a significant part of the council's participants are also connected with territorial administration. The second: The Council is autonomous, the King does not take part in its meetings. The third feature: the decisions of the "Daily Council" have the same force as the decisions of the king. It should be noted that the set of these features is extremely close to how the work of the Councils of Ministers of European countries will be organized in the future, with the weakening of the powers of monarchs or with the transition to a parliamentary system of government. But it is more important for us to compare this characteristic with how the Senate was organized in Russia six years after Matveev's trip to Paris. Here we need three documents: Decree No. 2321 of February 22, 1711 "On the establishment of the Governing Senate...", which identifies the first composition of the Senate; Decree No. 2328 "On the authority and responsibility of the Senate" and Decree of March 2, 2330 "On the assignment to the Governing Senate of the care of justice on the arrangement of State revenues, trade and other branches of the state economy".

To begin with, we note that the previously prevailing idea that Peter created the Senate, with an eye to the Swedish experience, has now been revised, and a modern researcher of this problem writes: "The existing opinion that the Russian Senate was borrowed from Sweden cannot be accepted, because there is nothing between these institutions They have nothing in common with regard to the composition, office management and competence, nor with regard to the nature of the activity. The Swedish Senate was an organ of the Diet and as such limited the power of the king to a certain extent. The Senate, established by Peter I, although it stood at the head of state administration, was completely dependent on the sovereign, being subordinate to him and responsible to him" ^{[16, 14]}.

We present the first senators and the positions they held in public administration at the time of their appointment:

As we can see, the "ministerial" nature of the composition of the Senate has not been sustained, but the functional nature of appointments to the Senate, during its formation, is clearly noticeable, especially if we compare the "functionality" of senators with what was prescribed to the Senate by decree 2330: "Decree, what to do after Our departure.

1. To have a hypocritical court and punish unrighteous judges by taking away their honor and all their possessions, then let the scammers follow.

2. Look at the expenses throughout the state, and put aside unnecessary, and especially unnecessary ones.

3. Collect money as much as possible, because money is the essence of the art of war.

4. To gather young nobles for reserve officers, and especially those who are hidden, to find; so a thousand people of boyar literate people for that.

5. Fix the bills and keep them in one place.

6. Goods that are on sale or in offices and provinces, inspect and inspect.

7. Try to pay off the salt and take care of the profits from it.

8. Trade Chinese, make a good company, give it away.

9. To multiply the Persian trade, and to caress and ease the Armenians as much as possible, which is decent, in order to give them a hunt for their big arrival. To punish the fiscal officers in all sorts of cases, but what about them, the news will come" ^{[10, 643]}.

The functions prescribed to the Senate at its creation included three responsibilities: the exercise of the judicial function, cost reduction and replenishment of income necessary for waging war. And the first senators were precisely those people who, according to their position, already performed the duties of supplying the army and replenishing income. In this sense, albeit not exactly, the Senate created by Peter the Great had the same feature that we noted as the first in Matveev's characterization of the French "Everyday Council" of the king. We can easily find two other features in decree 2328: "We command all those who should be aware of this, both spiritual and secular, military and zemstvo administration to the upper and lower ranks, that for our constant absences in these wars, we have determined a governing Senate, to which everyone and their decrees should be obeyed so as for ourselves, under severe punishment or death, depending on the fault, and if this Senate, through its promise now brought before God, is unrighteous that they will act in some particular matter and someone will know about it, then let them remain silent until our return, so as not to interfere with the real other affairs, and then let them announce we, however, will cope with the original document; later it will be destined for us, and the guilty will be severely punished" ^{[10, 642-643]}. The duty of the Senate to sit without the participation of the monarch is also fixed here, that the decisions of the Senate, at a time when the sovereign is in "absences", act in the same way as the decisions of Peter himself.

At the same time, of course, it is not possible to talk about direct borrowings from the French management system. The Senate was created not as a permanent, but rather as an extraordinary governing body. It did not include statesmen who held key positions in the administration of the Russian Empire, the structure and order of meetings were not specified, there was no position of the head of meetings, similar to the chancellor in France. Thus, it is probably possible to say that Matveev's information about the structure of the Royal Council in France gave Peter the Great a certain guideline (as well as knowledge about how it was arranged in other states), but the French Royal Council did not become a role model.

The first thing that should probably be noted as a conclusion is that a comparison of Matveev's "Notes" with sources of independent origin (Saint-Simon's "Notes", Alvise Grimani's "Relations") shows that Matveev was well aware of how governance was organized in France. His assessments of the managerial qualities of the ministers of King Louis XIV (compiled on the basis of personal impressions and collected information) can be considered objective.

The second conclusion for us will be the designation of what Matveev was interested in in the management system of the French kingdom and what he paid maximum attention to – this is the system of governing bodies and the characteristics of decision makers in this system.

The third conclusion: Matveev's information about how the administration of the French kingdom is organized could be useful in reforming public administration in Russia and, in particular, in creating the Senate and organizing its work. At the same time, we cannot categorically assert that it was used by Peter the Great, since there is no such data. It can be a direct borrowing of the ideology of management, as well as the "peripheral" meaning of this information.