Forfeiture of nationality or citizenship? The exclusion of the consular registration of French nationals in Spain who took the oath of loyalty to Charles IV in 1791

In 1796, the French consul in Cadiz refused to record "on the matricular register" of French citizens residing abroad, compatriots who, five years earlier, had agreed to take an oath of loyalty to the King of Spain to escape the threats of expulsion that then weighed on French nationals. This decision gave rise to protests and led the political authorities of the Directorate to rule on the case of the citizens who took these oaths and, more generally, on the meaning of the consular registration procedure. The debates between the most radical elements of the revolutionary government, who wanted to exclude those who had taken the oath from French nationality, and the pragmatists, anxious not to deprive France of part of its living forces, lead to the question of the condition of foreigners in modern Europe, and the changes induced by the revolutionary rupture, from the point of view of their country of origin.