“La princesse d’Aschkow” under the supervision of the French police

Abstract

The publication «“LA PRINCESSE D’ASCHKOW” UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE FRENCH POLICE» is dedicated to a dossier of Parisian police of cers discovered in a Paris archive, which focused on the famous participant in the 1762 coup, Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, who was traveling around Europe for educational referring to his son and for the others purposes. A little more is known about this second stay of Dashkova in France than about the rst, but also only from her “Memories”, rst published in the original in 1881 (Moscow). It is known that again the princess visited Parisian sights, often met with Denis Diderot, but it is not known when exactly she arrived in Paris from United Kingdom and where she stayed. The dossier published for the rst time in accordance with the accepted rules for publishing 18th-century documents. The publication is preceded by an article about the history of the French Royal police in the 18th century, about a special service for monitoring foreigners, including those from Russia and about the some textual features of the published document. The document is of particular interest for a number of reasons, including the level of awareness with which police agents began monitoring foreigners arriving in the French capital. The publication is accompanied by an article about the French police in the 18th century and a translation of the dossier into Russian with detailed commentary on the text of the document