Righteous Letters: Vindications of Two Refugees in Lettres d'une Peruvienne and Its Unauthorized Sequel, Lettres taitiennes

Righteous Letters:Vindications of Two Refugees in Lettres dune Péruvienne and Its Unauthorized Sequel, Lettres taïtiennes Giulia Pacini (bio) Some of the most heated discussions in the eighteenth century revolved around the issue of human rights and the fundamentals of international law.1 Throughout this period, jurists and philosophers applied themselves to the study of the law of nations and the rules of diplomacy. Repeatedly they pointed to the value of establishing an active international community, debating the extent of the political role of this community, as well as the laws that should ideally regulate international relations. They mainly attempted to theorize what Castel de Saint-Pierre, in 1712, called a "system of peace," that is, a political system capable of ensuring peace and happiness throughout Europe. Only on occasion did someone bring up the idea that the international community might have duties towards individuals who lost their homes as the result of civil or foreign wars.2 In 1758, for example, Emmerich [End Page 169] de Vattel argued that granting refuge meant more than simply granting a person entry within a country's borders: "le Souverain ne peut accorder l'entrée de ses États pour faire tomber les étrangers dans un piège. Dès qu'il les reçoit, il s'engage à les protéger comme ses propres sujets, à les faire jouir, autant qu'il dépend de lui, d'une entière sûreté."3 As he described the humanitarian objectives of national and international laws, Vattel took care to underline the ongoing nature of a country's responsibilities towards the people it agreed to host. This was a groundbreaking concept, both because of the ideals it represented, and because, at the time, European governments had not yet developed national or international policies with which to address the situation of refugees. Until the end of the eighteenth century, nations tended to respond to the arrival of foreign exiles—such as French Huguenots, Spanish Jews, English Jacobites, and Dutch Patriots—on the basis of self-serving and ad hoc political or economic calculations.4 Given the rarity of any discussion in the eighteenth century about the situation of refugees, it is striking to note that this exact problem figures at the centre of a novel by a woman writer from Lorraine. In Lettres d'une Péruvienne, an immensely successful epistolary novel first published in 1747 and then re-edited in 1752, Françoise de Graffigny displayed a distinctive interest in addressing the psychological, socio-political, economic, and legal ramifications of war, imprisonment, and exile.5 Like Vattel, she emphasized how prisoners of war and refugees have long-term needs that their hosting community must address. By setting her novel in an explicitly colonial context, moreover, Graffigny sharpened the focus of discussion to highlight the unbalanced power [End Page 170] structures that configured colonial relationships, ultimately bringing up the question of European responsibility towards the inhabitants of its overseas colonies. As she depicted the plight of a Peruvian woman victimized by European expansionist enterprise, Graffigny insisted that human beings maintain their fundamental rights even after they have fallen into captivity. Far from assuming that they should simply be grateful for their lives, she suggested that prisoners of war are entitled to exceptional forms of protection and social support. Last but not least, as she raised the crucial question of what happens when a refugee is forced to resettle on foreign soil, Graffigny intimated to her readership that the effects of European colonialism would soon become visible at home, in France, as well as overseas. The novel relates the adventures of an Incan princess made prisoner during the conquest of Peru. Initially captured by the Spanish, Zilia changes hands when the French attack the Spanish boats: in accordance with the "droit de la guerre," the Peruvian woman is given to the victorious French commander, the chevalier de Déterville, who, in the name of the King of France, seems authorized to keep and then to free the prisoner he has taken.6 Following orders by Déterville, Zilia thus embarks on a journey that inexplicably transports her, over time and across space, from sixteenth-century Peru...

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