Convertir le privé en public L’évolution de la fonction d’information chez les consuls d’Espagne, xviii^e-xix^e siècle

Gathering information has always been a characteristic activity of Spanish consuls abroad but this function has nonetheless varied in significant ways. The comparative analysis of the correspondence of Spanish consuls in several European cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals the transformations and progressive standardisation of consular rapports, ways of collecting data, and the uses to which this was put.