ABSTRACT

Merely to suggest that the Savoyard state might have exemplified Enlightened Despotism, in the generation before the French Revolution, might seem perverse since all previous historians of Enlightened Despotism. The wide-ranging revision of the notion of Enlightened Despotism in recent decades offers some states, which have not hither to been allowed within the fold of Enlightened Despotism, entry at last into what is becoming an ever less exclusive club. The Savoyard state certainly experienced some features typical of the Enlightenment as we have come to understand it. One very striking area of government intervention in the Savoyard state was that aimed at stimulating economic development. The range of measures just identified was not coherent or integrated in the sense of being part of a blueprint for all-embracing overhaul of the institutions of Savoyard state and society. However, the revision of our understanding of Enlightened Despotism has emphasised the danger of being too dogmatic and rigid in the assessment.