The ambassadors' fireworks parties: public and private performance in Bourbon Paris

In 1694, the French consul in Algiers, Le Maire, wrote to Louis Phélypeaux, comte
de Pontchartrain (1643–1727), describing his recent fireworks display. It had been
commissioned to impress his Ottoman trading partners but had unfortunately been
upstaged. Put simply, the rival English consul and merchants “n’ont rien obmis de
leurs soins, pour surpasser les artiffices que j’ay fait”.1 However, as well as economic rivalry among consuls, other diplomats’ fireworks more commonly sought or
symbolised union between two countries – whether dynastic or military, and took
place upon occasion across Europe’s capitals.2 Although such fireworks were relatively rare in seventeenth-century Paris,3 Parisians of the following century were
entertained by several magnificent ambassadorial displays, organised by Spanish
diplomats in honour of marriages and births in the house of Bourbon.4 Therefore,
comparison of these fireworks across the centuries is a valuable exercise illustrating how princely aims and ideals were represented and staged in another country’s
public places. Moreover, analysis of such displays and their associated events – Te
Deums, Balls and Suppers – allows us to enter the developing theatre of diplomacy
and its enactment in temporarily acquired extraterritorial space.