Digital archives of Beaumarchais's Correspondence and Papers – Archibeau

The @rchibeau project, inventory and digital edition of the complete correspondence and papers of Beaumarchais, which brings together 25 researchers from French and foreign universities, aims to collect, inventory and edit the complete correspondence of this man of letters, dispersed in multiple funds (Europe and America), and recently supplemented by a large-scale family donation to the Bnf. A first phase of prospecting and collecting manuscripts, involving the gathering of historical information aimed at dating, identifying and clarifying the data, will make it possible to establish a reliable digital inventory, accessible in open edition and intended for both researchers and the General public. A second phase of data exploitation using the digital tool will be completed by the writing of a research notebook and the organization of scientific or educational events and publications of transversal and interdisciplinary thematic surveys. This will involve providing access to the richness and diversity of the epistolary network of this leading author, artist and thinker, who embodies the dynamism and energy of the Enlightenment. The interactive and interoperable database will be accompanied by digital tools capable of revealing the diplomatic, economic and literary networks (printers, men of letters, actors) making it possible to understand its activities, at the end of the Ancien Régime and under the Revolution and to shed new light on his literary work (theater, pamphlets, libels, factums and memoirs), through the work of collecting and exploiting data on the chronology, the movements of Beaumarchais, his business relationships , literary and private, data that we wish to map to reveal his collaborators, his protectors and the high-ranking figures – in the hierarchy of royal, parliamentary and ecclesiastical power – with whom he must deal.