bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Un pionnier dans l'art de faire parler les sourds-muets : Jacob Rodrigue Péreire
Authors: Neher-Bernheim Renée
Published: June 2016

A pioneer in the art of making deaf-mutes speak : Jacob Rodrigue Péreire.

Jacob R. Péreire (1715-80) was an eminent member of the Portuguese Jewish community in Paris. In addition to his activities in support of the Jews on the eve of the Emancipation, he was a distinguished scholar. He played a crucial part in the rehabilitation of deaf-mutes, an unknown art : deaf-mutes were thought to be possessed by the devil. Using methods that were both scientific and intuitive, Péreire accomplishes what at the time were considered true miracles. His pupils are presented along with him to Louis XV and at Cour and he arranges for their progress to be confirmed by the Académie des Sciences in Paris. Taking care of the handicapped was at that time the preserve of the clergy : it was quite exceptional for a Jew to be concerned with deaf-mutes. Péreire, at the end of his life, discovers a rival : the Abbé de l'Epée, who, as a priest, is supported by Louis XVI. He eclipses his predecessor and a «conspiracy of silence » is built up around the name of Péreire.
L'influence de la Révolution américaine sur les juifs d'Amérique
Authors: Sarna Jonathan D.
Published: June 2016

The impact of the american revolution on american jews.

The American Revolution had an enormous impact on Jewish life in America. Wartime migrations changed the distribution of Jews in the colonies and created new social patterns. War also fostered economic mobility and ritual laxity. Many Jews considered the war an initiation rite, and having passed they demanded complete liberty and equality. While Protestant Dissenters supported some of these claims, they basically fought for no more than Protestant pluralism. Jews won most of their rights through the efforts of Enlightenment rationalists. In the wake of the Constitution, Jews sought to prove that they could be loyal and devoted citizens, even organizing their synagogues on democratic principles modelled on the Constitution. But though they displayed their patriotism conspicuously, and slavishly copied prevailing Protestant standards of behavior, they failed to win total acceptance.
Psychothérapie traditionnelle et hassidisme
Authors: Rausky Franklin
Published: June 2016

Traditional psychotherapy and hasidism.

The dual character of the Enlightenment (as represented by rationalists and convulsionaries) is reflected in the Jewish community. Just as there is an institutionalised, environmental Jewish system of therapy, there is also a parallel therapy.

Hasidism as a system of faith-healing, precedes its existence as a theological movement with its own rites. In addition to its practical elements it represents a complex system of ideas where the new anatomy corresponds to a new relationship with the patient and with scientific knowledge. As the antithesis of the «classical » Jewish doctor who was often the vehicle of assimilation, the charismatic leader, embodying Justice, combines healing and initiation in a new symptomatology.
Nouveaux autographes de Diderot
Authors: Carriat Jeanne
Published: June 2016

New autograph manuscripts of Diderot.

A collection lodged in the Bibliothèque Nationale contains 5 hitherto unknown autograph manuscripts of Diderot which are the originails of texts included by Grimm in the Correspondance littéraire between 1758 and 1761.
Les notables à la fin de l'Ancien Régime
Authors: Gruder Vivian
Published: June 2016

Vivian R. Gruder : The Notables, and the political culture of the elite at

the end of the Ancien Regime.

The debate surrounding the Dismissal of the Controller general Calonne in April 1787 throws light on the political outlook of the elites in the late Ancien Regime. The Notables' appeal to public opinion revealed their beliefs about social relations and the limits of their political culture. Their demands that the nation counsel the King and participate in government (which stirred many to sympathize with open opposition to monarchical absolutism) were in fact claims for nobles and notables to share public authority with the Crown. This elitist conception of political power, muted in 1787, would become a more explicit and primary objective, with revolutionary consequences, two years later.
Expositions, peintres et critiques : vers l'image moderne de l'artiste
Authors: Becq Annie
Published: June 2016

Annie Becq : Exhibitions, artists and critics ; towards the modern image of the artist.

A study of painting exhibitions, and the debate which they immediately provoked among artists and critics, indicates that the years 1780-1820 constituted a critical period. The spread of this phenomenon led to doubts at the end of the Old Regime ; during the Revolutionary period the breakingdown of artistic institutions (rapidly reestablished under the Empire) revealed the contradictions in which the modern artist was trapped on the eve of the industrial age (as can be seen in David's attempt at individual exhibitions). The artist was 'liberated' by the Academies and by the system of production for the market, which produced the rival and complementary images of the creative genius and the critic.
Irritabilité et magnétisme animal : une lettre inédite de J.-M.-A. Servan
Authors: Azouvi François
Published: June 2016

François Azouvi : Irritability and animal magnetism : an unpublished letter

by Servan.

This unpublished letter, which dates probably from 1785 or 1786, comments on Tardy de Montravel's theses concerning magnetic somnambulism. In order to explain the facts presented by the magnetists, Servan proposes to use the theory of irritability, as revised by the Monpellier school. Servan — who had little confidence in 'systems' but wished to remain faithful to the facts — was seeking a middle way between credulity and scepticism.
Une lettre inédite de J.-J. Rousseau à Panckoucke
Authors: Canavaggio Perrine
Published: June 2016

Perrine Canavaggio : An unpublished letter from J.J. Rousseau to C.J. Panckoucke.

This letter, which was sent by J.J. Rousseau to the book-seller and publisher C.J. Panckoucke on 28th April 1765, was recently discovered among the letters of a collecter. Only the second paragraph, included by Leigh in his edition of Rousseau's complete correspondence, was hitherto known. This document sheds a new light on the two men's disagreement soon after the publication of the Lettres de la Montagne.
Les souvenirs de Saint-John de Crèvecœur sur Mme d'Houdetot
Authors: Chevignard Bernard
Published: June 2016

Bernard Chevignard : Saint-John de Crèvecœur's Homage to the countess d'Houdetot.

In 1813, shortly after the Countess d'Houdetot's death, Crevecœur devoted his last sketch (some fragments of which were published by Robert de Crèvecœur in 1883) to his memories of the d'Houdetot circle. Recently purchased by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, this manuscript briefly relates the Countess's life and death, before giving an autobiographical account of the years (1781-3) during which the influence of Mme d'Houdetot and her friends transformed the American Farmer into a French Consul. This text provides an insight into Crèvecœur's state of mind while writing the French version of his famous Letters.
Une ébauche du Préambule des Confessions
Authors: Moureau François
Published: June 2016

François Moureau : A first draft of the Preamble to the «Confessions ».

In this addition to the article in D.H.S. , n° 12 (1980) and to L. Versini's note in R.H.L.F. (Jan-Feb. 1981, p. 98), the author here presents an original version of the second Preamble to Rousseau's Confessions. This page, written at Bourgoin and probably circulated by Rousseau himself like other authobiogra-phical tracts, is known to have existed immediately after Rousseau's death in 10 printed or manuscript forms.
L'avènement de la pomme de terre
Authors: Fink Béatrice
Published: June 2016

Béatrice Fink : The coming of the potato.

This article traces the inroads of the potato in 18th-century French cuisine by examining relevant culinary and para-culinary texts, both on the factual level (development of potato recipes and processing, technological innovations) and on the level of textual sign (the potato as intersection of social, economic, scientific and gustatory discourses). Its use as an ersatz low-cost commodity in the latter part of the century can be explained by shortages and high price of wheat. The potato's promotion as a socially acceptable and humanitarian food is largely due to the efforts of pioneers such as Parmentier. Whether in the form of bread or of a subtly seasoned dish, it represents one of the French enlightenment's more noble conquests.
Albatros bouilli sauce piquante (Cap Horn, 1769)
Authors: Brahimi Denise
Published: June 2016

Denise Brahimi : Boiled albatros in hot sauce (cape horn, 1769).

An account like that of Cook's voyages inevitably deals with problems of food — both the crew's and that of the peoples encountered. Cook is particularly interesting on account of his own personal curiosity in this field. He believed that we must accustom ourselves to eating the most varied dishes, even if we have to vary the way they are prepared. He attempted to remove all sorts of prejudices which lead to tabous in matters of food, but he nevertheless insisted that any society must forbid the consumption of human flesh. For the rest, he is open to all sorts of new flavours, and thus appears also as an explorer of new dishes.
Du thème alimentaire dans le roman
Authors: Lafon Henri
Published: June 2016

Henri Lafon : The theme of food in the novel.

Between an ascetic tradition which considered it beneath the dignity of the novel, and a «philosophy » which was to discuss it at length, food imposes its presence in a whole series of 18th-century novels. By its presentation or preparation, food takes on a new importance. But it appears also in what is abnormal : when it is lacking or when it is consumed to excess. Nevertheless, the abnormal becomes more plausible. Food is of course more or less explicitly linked to sexual pleasure, as is particularly evident in the libertine novel ; Sade pushes this relationship to its extreme limit. Food, as a material substance coming from outside and modifying the subject, is still a disturbing element for the stable nature of the aristocratic world.
Le statut des anomalies dans la philosophie de Diderot
Authors: Ibrahim Annie
Published: June 2016

Annie Ibrahim : The status of anomalies in Diderot's philosophy.

When discussing monstrous organisms, Diderot uses contemporary vocabulary ; however, the term «anomaly », although an anacronism, would be more exact, not in order to make him a «precursor » of teratology, but to emphasize the fact that for him monsters are the result of pure chance, accidental deviations, subject to no norms. Attempting to provide a materialistic and «vitalistic » theory of these disorders, Diderot proposes two metaphors ; games of chance and natural grafts are models for the formation of monsters, seen in turn as a prototype for the production of living beings. Diderot thus describes both art remodelling Nature while obeying its laws, and a medical Utopia developing the infinite possibilities of modification of living forms.
Voltaire polémiste ou l'art dans la mauvaise foi
Authors: Sareil Jean
Published: June 2016

Jean Sareil : Voltaire as polemicist.

Voltaire is a polemicist : he carries the fight on the enemy's territory, and it is the accused who has to prove that he is not guilty. In order to make the reader laugh, he presents events from an incongruous, deeply subversive, point of view, which will be accepted because it is funny. The public will become the accomplice of the author and will understand all that is implied but not formulated in the attack. Consequently, Voltaire remains apparently innocent. Such a twisting is justified by the danger of the game. In the article «Gargantua » of the Dictionnaire philosophique, Voltaire assimilates Jesus to Gargantua and explains that to believe in Rabelais's hero is the best way to become rich and to secure ecclesiastical benefits.
D'Alembert et la théorie harmonique de Rameau
Authors: Escal Françoise
Published: June 2016

Françoise Escal : Music and science. D'Alembert v. Rameau.

The scholastic tradition made a clear distinction between the art of composition and theoretical speculation ; Rameau for the first time tried to unify them. In his opinion, music is not an art but above all a science. Starting from Sauveur's discovery of the series of harmonics, Rameau proceeded to a mathematical rationalisation of the properties of sound. Harmony, which generates arithmetical, geometrical and harmonic proportions, thus becomes the model for other sciences and for arts based on calculation, such as architecture. Rameau soon identified musical harmony with universal harmony. D'Alembert opposed this all-embracing conception and in the Discours préliminaire to his Elements de musique..., took issue with each aspect of Rameau's theory and asserted the autonomy of art in relation to science.
«Homo sum... ». Un vers de Térence comme devise des Lumières
Authors: Delon Michel
Published: June 2016

Michel Delon : Terence's "Homo sum..." as the enlightenment's motto.

Terence's dictum can be taken, as much as Kant's sapere aude, as a slogan of the Enlightenment. It is found in Dumarsais's Le Philosophe and defines the new philosophy as optimism, the development of a lay morality and a reconciliation of aesthetics and ethics. The Enlightenment's interpretation of this phrase is very different both from the pessimism of Montaigne and the classical moralists and from the Christian interpretation of classical antiquity. The quotation, which is frequently found in reflections on tragedy and the novel, enabled moral solidarity and aesthetic pleasure to be based on the idea of identification.
L'écriture féminine ? A propos de Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni
Authors: Piau-Gillot Colette
Published: June 2016

Colette Piau : Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni and feminine writing.

Is there any difference between a feminine and a masculine literary style ? The 18th Century, following tradition, made a distinction between them, based on the concept of nature ; paradoxically, the same ambiguous affirmation is often made today. This analysis of the writings of M.-J. Riccoboni, a female imitator of Marivaux who was in turn imitated by male writers, attempts to throw light on the validity of such a distinction and to show the dangers of a myth which denies rationality to women and sensitivity to men.
État présent des recherches et perspectives
Authors: Andries Lise , Lüsebrink Hans-Jürgen
Published: June 2016

Lise Andries and Hans-Jurgen Lüsebrink : Present state of research and

perspectives.

This introductory article, which is both a review of existing studies and an indication of research perspectives, lists five interconnected problems : theoretical models for studying popular literature and culture in modern Europe ; the main trends in the evolution of 18th-century popular literature ; the Bibliothèque bleue, at the heart of chapbook literature, on which research has hitherto been concentrated ; the interaction between learned and popular literature ; and finally perspectives for comparative studies. This comparative approach can be seen in several of the articles published here which discuss common themes (such as the brigand) and structures (e.g. the lament), and the differences between European popular literatures.
Trois lettres de J.-N. Delisle au comte de Plélo. L'exploration de la Sibérie
Authors: Benítez Miguel
Published: June 2016

Miguel Benitez : Three unpublished letters from J.-N. Delisle to the comte de Plélo, concerning Siberian exploration.

Among the manuscripts collected by Voltaire on the history of Russia, there is a copy of three hitherto unpublished letters from J.N. Delisle in St. Petersburg to Plélo, the ambassador in Denmark. They date from 1732 and 1733, and concern Delisle's work on a general map of the Russian Empire, whose Siberian possessions were little-known. Delisle informs Plélo of the discoveries made on Bering's first voyage and of the departure of his second expedition. As he was mainly invited to Russia in order to set up the study of astronomy in this country, he tries, via Plélo, to obtain the observations of the Danish astronomer Horrebow, who had succeeded Roemer at the Copenhagen Observatory.
Condorcet et le problème de l'Histoire
Authors: Frick Jean-Paul
Published: June 2016

Jean-Paul Frick : Condorcet and the problem of history.

Condorcet's Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, generally seen as the first of the great philosophies of progress which flowered in the 19th Century, is also frequently criticised for its lack of methodological rigour. According to such criticisms, Condorcet was unable to put his novel project into action. But, by considering the work from the methodological point of view and by elucidating the presuppositions behind this project, we can see that the Esquisse is not simply an anticipation of future philosophies of history. We can thus legitimately speak of a misunderstanding concerning this work, which the present article attempts to rectify.
Franc-maçonnerie et orientalisme en Grande-Bretagne
Authors: Révauger Marie-Cécile
Published: June 2016

Marie-Cécile Révauger : Freemasonry and orientalism in Great Britain.

The similarities between the symbolic Orient of the Freemasons, the literary Orient, and Orientalism can be seen in plays, stories and essays. Sometimes it was reduced to a literary convention, a simple decorative backdrop or a cover for moral and social satire ; It could also be the object of a new historical, ethnological and linguistic scientific study. Whatever the case, the Orient appealed to the imagination of the Freemasons, always eager for symbols, and satisfied their curiosity about the world. In addition, it could be easily reconciled with their claim to universality, with the Enlightenment and with British colonial expansion.
Du nouveau sur la maçonnerie en Europe centrale et orientale
Authors: Beauvois Daniel
Published: June 2016

Daniel Be auvois : A new look at Central and Eastern European Masonry.

This is an extended review of a book in Polish by Ludwik Hass which provides a useful overall view by studying each country chronologically. This approach allows for a comparative history which brings out the different development of Austria, Russia, Prussia and Poland. The links of the different lodges with Paris, London, or Stockholm are emphasized, as is the effect on Freemasonry of internal developments.
La guerre des sexes et l'amour-maçon dans la poésie
Authors: Brengues Jacques
Published: June 2016

Jacques Brengues : Sex war and Masonic poetry.

The establishment of single-sex speculative Freemasonry in France displeased the salons, which were controlled by women. As women were thought to be incapable of keeping secrets, they were at first excluded from the lodges. The result was a sex war full of insults, slander, spying and treason, which led finally to the creation of an original institution in the shape of Adoptive lodges. Masonic poetry contributed to the reconciliation of the warring sexes by its preciosity and its sensible arguments. It created the public image of Masonry, first seen as an organisation devoted to pleasure-seeking and then finally respected as the Temple of Virtue.
L'antimaçonnisme en France vers 1750 : La Lettre et consultation sur la société des francs-maçons
Authors: Porset Charles
Published: June 2016

Charles Porset : Anti-Masonry in France around 1750.

The Lettre et consultation sur la société des francs-maçons (1748), often seen as a condemnation of the order by the Sorbonne, is here shown, not for the first time, to be apocryphal. Above all, a review of works on the subject proves that the connection with the Sorbonne was only made in 1771 and that critics have been particularly confused by the bibliographical work of Fesch and his collaborators in the early 20th Century, who gave the dates of the condemnation. In fact the Lettre et consultation is an anti-Masonic work from a papist standpoint ; it filled a canonical vacuum (the non-registering of papal bulls) unwelcome to both Ultra-montains and Gallicans, for opposite, if complementary, reasons. For the former, Masonry favoured toleration and pro-Hanoverian leanings, while for the latter, under the guise of Gallicanism, it prepared the ground for the Jesuits.
Les origines de la maçonnerie bourguignonne
Authors: Ligou Daniel
Published: June 2016

Daniel Ligou : The origins of masonry in Burgundy.

Until recently, the earliest documents concerning Dijon Masonry dated from 1767-9. However, in the Archives of the Netherlands Grand Lodge (Kloss Collection) there are a large number of papers from the Lillo Lodge, founded by von Schweinitz, a Dutch officier with a long experience of Masonry. We learn that when he was a prisoner of war in Dijon in 1748, Schweinitz remarked the existence of three lodges in that town, one of which (to which he became affiliated) was presided by the province's Engineer and met in the «Palais des États ». On his liberation, the Dutchman took with him copies of several documents about this lodge, and they give us a valuable insight into life inside a French lodge in 1748 ; they also prove that the Order existed in Dijon at least twenty years earlier than had been supposed.
Georges Louis Schmid : Banquets de philosophes chez Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvétius et Mably, Présentation
Authors: Seifert Hans-Ulrich
Published: June 2016

G.-L. Schmid : Philosophical banquets with Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvétius and Mably. Text presented by Hans Ulrich Seifert.

George Louis Schmid (1720-1805) was a Swiss man of letters and author of two Physiocrat-inspired works which were quite successful in their day. He left a diary of his stay in Paris in 1767-9. Although the original has vanished, extracts from it (with descriptions of ten visits to Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvétius and Mably between 25th August 1767 and 28th March 1768) have survived in a German translation. II appears in the Miscellen fur die neueste Weltkunde, a periodical published in the Aargau by Heinrich Zschokke. This article provides an annotated re-translation of the text into French and a short survey of Schmid's life and works.
Heurs et malheurs du Tableau de l'amour conjugal de N. Venette
Authors: Piau-Gillot Colette
Published: June 2016

Colette Piau : The fortunes of Nicolas Venette's tableau de vamour

conjugal.

One of the first sex education manuals, Tableau de l'amour conjugal, by Nicolas Venette, a La Rochelle doctor, was published in Cologne in 1702 without official authorisation. This original edition continued to be republished in the 18th and 19th Centuries while, from 1772 onwards, several bowdlerized authorised editions appeared. The original edition was sold clandestinely among the poor. Until 1970 the work was sold in various versions as a contemporary text. Disapproval appears to have been based on religious and social rather than scientific considerations. The popularisation of sexual knowledge and recognition of women's difference and even sexual equality undermined the status of the couple in the patriarchal social order. But this ideological condemnation also ensured the work's success.
La bibliothèque d'Émile et de Sophie : la fonction des livres dans la pédagogie de Rousseau
Authors: de Negroni Barbara
Published: June 2016

Barbara de Negroni : The library of Émile and Sophie : The function of

books in Rousseau's educational theory.

Rousseau gives Émile Robinson Crusoe and Sophie Les aventures de Télémaque to read, thus providing man with a natural model of autonomy and woman with a social model of obedience. These texts have a two-fold purpose in their education : Sophie, who dreams of Telemachus, finds him in Émile and thus, by marrying him, satisfies an imaginary passion ; Émile, by identifying with Robinson Crusoe, learns to develop the good side of human nature. In this way, Rousseau manages to create artificially the conditions for a good education. He prevents Émile and Sophie from being contaminated by the bad examples of a degenerate society and prepares them to act on this society, to try to transform it.
Une lettre inédite de Philippe Secret an à Mirabeau (septembre 1789)
Authors: Hoffmann Paul
Published: June 2016

Although Mirabeau had apparently no musical education, he wrote, in 1777, a pamphlet in defence of Raimondi's Télémaque. This defense of instrumental music was unusual at the time, but his arguments appeal to the traditional theory of music as the universal language of feeling. What is new is his claim that instrumental music expresses more than vocal music and is therefore superior, even though the latter expresses better. Describing, at the end of the pamphlet, Raimondi's musical technique, he rejects his opponents' preference for seeing a story, in favour of hearing and feeling it. The emotion aroused by hearing is more personal, less reasoned, and therefore preferable. Mirabeau thus attempts a theoretical justification of instrumental music.
Les diplomates portugais devant la Révolution
Authors: Collor Jobim Leopoldo , Lisboa Joâo-Luis
Published: June 2016

This article studies the dispatches sent to the Foreign Secretary in Lisbon throughout the year 1789 ; through these reports we can analyse the reactions of Portuguese diplomats in European courts to the events of that year in France, Geneva and the Austrian Low Countries. We can see not only the unfolding of the revolutionary events, but also the way in which they were interpreted, and how they affected the outlook of these eye-witnesses. Thus we can follow the emergence of an awareness of the French Revolution as the foundation of a new political and social order.
La Déclaration des Droits dans la Gazette de Québec
Authors: Ruelland Jacques
Published: June 2016

Between 19th November 1789 and 5 th January 1792, the Quebec Gazette, a four-page weekly newspaper, published the text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen four times. This interest shows the extent to which the changes brought by the Revolution to the old continent were approved by the inhabitants of this former French territory, conquered by Britain in 1760-63 and living since 1774 under the yoke of the Quebec Act. By publicizing the Declaration, they were encouraging political change in a colony which was deprived of the most fundamental institutions and rights.
Vues nouvelles sur l'abbé de Prades
Authors: Combes-Malavialle Jean-François
Published: June 2016

The bicentenary of the death of Frederick II in 1786 produced a certain number of publications, biographies, monographs, volumes of selected works, and a conference on him. Politicians in the two Germanies gave their views concerning him, and the rediscovery of both the king and of Prussia have encouraged research into fields which had long been neglected. It is to be hoped that a similar reawakening of interest in Prussia and her most brilliant monarch will take place in France.
Le lecteur y mettra le titre. Un pamphlet de Mirabeau en faveur de la musique instrumentale
Authors: Cannone Belinda
Published: June 2016

Although Mirabeau had apparently no musical education, he wrote, in 1777, a pamphlet in defence of Raimondi's Télémaque. This defense of instrumental music was unusual at the time, but his arguments appeal to the traditional theory of music as the universal language of feeling. What is new is his claim that instrumental music expresses more than vocal music and is therefore superior, even though the latter expresses better. Describing, at the end of the pamphlet, Raimondi's musical technique, he rejects his opponents' preference for seeing a story, in favour of hearing and feeling it. The emotion aroused by hearing is more personal, less reasoned, and therefore preferable. Mirabeau thus attempts a theoretical justification of instrumental music.
L'Italie d'Antoine Watteau, ou le rêve de l'artiste
Authors: Moureau François
Published: June 2016

Watteau, a painter in the Northern tradition who never made the pilgrimage to Italy, was apparently fascinated by this latin civilisation. There was in Flemish painting a tradition of mixing conversations with subjects inspired by the commedia dell'arte and Arcadian myths ; but in Watteau's painting, the depiction of flirtation is almost always separate from evocations of Italian theatre. The characters of the commedia dell'arte constitute a modern mythology and explain that for him the fête galante appears, in the hierarchy of genres, as a substitute for historical painting. Pierrot replaces Apollo for new art lovers who look for a certain decorum but are blind to the meaning of the great genre.
Théorie des révolutions dans le rapport qu'elles ont avec les divers gouvernements (Éléments pour un livre 32e de L'Esprit des lois)
Authors: Volpilhac-Auger Catherine , Ehrard Jean
Published: June 2016

Jean Ehrard and Catherine Volpilhac-Auger : The theory of revolutions and their relation to different governments (elements for a thirty-second book of the esprit des lois).

Unlike other eighteenth-century historians, Montesquieu — who was a historian of structures and the long term — mistrusted the overused word «revolution » ; his use of it is therefore all the more significant. In the political field the revolutions of despotism are the most frequent and are the congenital vice of an inherently unstable and sterile regime. In fragile republics liberty is always their victim. In monarchies, the word always has a negative connotation, but there is less risk of sudden disruption and there have even been some good revolutions amongst peoples who are still young enough to be able to return to their original liberty. Thus a successful revolution is a restoration as can be seen in France as well as Rome and England. The modern reader is however left with the strangely premonitory image of a despotic queen, Brunehaut, judged and condemned by the «nation ».
Révolution inexistante et vraie révolution
Authors: Rosso Corrado
Published: June 2016

Corrado Rosso : Non-existent and true revolutions according to Montesquieu.

This article questions the existence of a true revolutionary doctrine in Montesquieu's thought. An analysis of certain passages in Montesquieu's works leads to the conclusion that such a doctrine, in its pure theoretical form, is an abstract or ambiguous notion. For Montesquieu a true revolution can only consist in the scandal and shock caused by a sociological approach to reality which tries to explain what is inexplicable and justify what is unjustifiable.
Édouard Laboulaye, légataire de Montesquieu : la «République constitutionnelle»
Authors: Goyard-Fabre Simone
Published: June 2016

Simone Goyard-Fabre : Edouard Laboulaye, Montesquieu's heir : the

«constitutional republic ».

Edouard Laboulaye influenced modern Western liberal individualism in a way which reflects the inheritance of Montesquieu's legal philosophy. Laboulaye, who liked to define himself as a «republican of the future », obviously condemned the Old Regime monarchy. But above all he denounced the sophistry which in his opinion dogged the French conception of sovereignty and which was defended by the Revolution with its obsessive centralism. Following Locke and Montesquieu we must, he said, oppose the artificiality of political rationality defended by the French Revolution and separate society and state. Thus his liberalism gives rise to an organic, pluralistic constitutional programme which demands that each individual, whatever his function, accepts his share of responsability.
Montesquieu et la Loi fondamentale de la R.F.A
Authors: Mass Edgar
Published: June 2016

Edgar Mass : Montesquieu and West Germany's Fundamental Law.

During the Weimar Republic Montesquieu represented the middle-class myth of the freedom of the individual, and the theory of the separation of powers embodied the fundamental tenet of the constitutional system as it guaranteed the balance of power between central and regional authorities. When the Nazis' Ermàchtigungsgesetz (23rd March 1933) suspended the guarantee of human rights, «Montesquieu » was expelled and the result was terror. After 1945 the debates on the new West German constitution were again profoundly influenced by Montesquieu's ideas and he was referred to and quoted. Article 20 of the Fundamental Law dealing with the separation of powers was drawn up with Montesquieu in mind and thus discussions on the interpretation and application of this article still refer to his works.
Le théâtre de la Révolution française, média de masses entre 1789 et 1794
Authors: Graczyk Annette
Published: June 2016

Annette Graczyk : French revolutionary theatre between 1789 and 1794,

a mass medium.

The theatre of the years 1789-94, which was largely concerned with contemporary events, was a potential source of agitation and a mass medium with an important role in revolutionary culture, aiming at mobilising and directing revolutionary energy. Thus it revitalised esthetic models to make them potentially liberating, Utopian, or even subversive. While the excessive aspect of most models could be integrated into the new revolutionary order, the carnaval element in some plays of 1793-4 threatened to oppose all existing order by its characteristics of pure revolt. The allegorical tableaux preferred by the Jacobin authorities did represent the revolutionary uprising, but by placing it on the symbolic level they neutralised its psychical and emotional effect.
Les manuscrits clandestins français en R.D.A
Authors: Desné Roland
Published: June 2016

Roland Desné : Clandestine philosophical manuscripts in gdr libraries.

I.O. Wade first drew up a list of clandestine philosophical manuscripts preserved in (mainly French) libraries. He was followed by Miguel Benitez who added a large number of titles and copies. This new investigation carried out in libraries in the GDR simply aims at completing Benitez's latest list published in the Rivista di Storia delta Filosofia (1988, n° 3). Nine new titles and twenty-four new copies are hereby added.
Hommage à Yvon Belaval
Authors: Sgard Jean
Published: June 2016

Jean Sgard : Tribute to Yvon Belaval.

In this tribute to Yvon Belaval, honorary President of the French Society for 18th-century Studies, who died in November 1988, Jean Sgard emphasizes in particular his openness, his concern to link philosophy to literature, and his influence on 18th-century studies.
A la recherche de la Mer de l'Ouest : l'exploration française en Amérique du Nord
Authors: Jacquin Philippe
Published: June 2016

Philippe Jacquin : The search for the Western Sea : French exploration in

North America.

In the first half of the 18th Century, French backwoodsmen criss-crossed the Great Lakes region and reached the Western Plains. Attempts at exploration, such as the La Verendrye family's search for the Western Sea must be seen in the context of the backwoodsmen's policy and the Indian tribes' strategies which exploited the presence of the French. When the La Vérendrye family arrived in the Great Plains, the way of life of the Indians in these great spaces was being transformed by the arrival of horses and European products. French westward advance had to take account of the new environment and was hindered by the Indians' warlike attitude and also by their disappointment at finding regions where the fur trade was unlikely to prosper.
Sur la mort de Mme d'Épinay : une lettre inédite de Grimm
Authors: Badinter Élisabeth
Published: June 2016

Grimm : Unpublished letter on the death of madame d'Épinay, presented

by Elisabeth Badinter.

An unpublished letter from Grimm to Baron Roumantsiev, written shortly after the death of Madame d'Épinay, has come to light in the State Archives in Moscow ; it shows Grimm's unhappiness at the death of his friend and his fondness for her grand-daughter, Emilie de Belzunce. This important document thus contradicts the widespread opinion that Grimm was heartless.
La santé urbaine à Madrid. Le projet de Jaime Bort pour l'évacuation des eaux usées
Authors: Blasco-Esquivias Beatriz
Published: June 2016

Beatriz Blasco Esquivias : Urban health in Madrid. Jaime Bort's plan for

waste drainage.

Throughout the modern period, cleanliness has probably been one of Madrid's most serious problems. Since 1561, when Philip II decided to place his court there, it had been under pressure as it did not possess a waste disposal system sufficient for its large population. Until the first underground drainage plans in the 18th Century, the Madrid inhabitants had to throw their rubbish into the street, which was the only way to keep their interiors free of infection. We study here the plans drawn up by the architect Jaime Bort in 1752, after a scientific commission which led him to travel throughout France and the Netherlands in search of a sanitary model applicable to Madrid. His project was the inspiration for the one finally applied in 1761 thanks to the efforts of Francisco Sabatini and Charles III.
Marat en Hollande. Un témoignage inconnu
Authors: Popkin Jeremy D.
Published: June 2016

Jeremy Popkin : Marat in Holland.

Very little documentary evidence exists concerning the future revolutionary journalist Jean-Paul Marat's visit to the Netherlands in 1775. A previously unknown letter of the Amsterdam Jewish banker and man of letters Isaac de Pinto shows that Marat met him and the leading Dutch propagandist for the Prince of Orange, Michael Rijklof van Goens, during his Dutch trip. This probably explains why Marat, unlike most of the other French revolutionaries, sided with the Orangists against the Dutch Patriots in later years.
Sade, Machiavel et Néron : de la théorie politique à l'imaginaire libertin
Authors: Cusset Catherine
Published: June 2016

Georges Dulac and Ludmilla Evdokimova : Literature and politics. D. A. Golitsyn's correspondence (1760-1784).

D. A. Golitsyn, the Russian minister in Paris and then in The Hague and a friend of the philosophes, in particular Diderot, wrote to his relative the Vice-Chancellor A. M. Golitsyn a large, theoretically diplomatic but also partly private correspondence. It shows how he used his relations in the publishing world to further Catherine II's plans. But certain positions defended by the Prince go against royal policies ; he is suspicious of the alliance with Frederick II, favours friendship with France and above all insists that the Empress should gradually prepare the abolition of serfdom, which he considers a prerequisite for Russian economic and cultural development. Two letters are published here : one (7.1.72) concerns the publication of Helvétius's De l'Homme, and the other (27.2.72) reproduces a diatribe from an anonymous Paris correspondent whose views on the situation in France under the Triumvirate are very close to those of Diderot.
La réception du De Sedibus de Morgagni en France au 18e siècle
Authors: Drazen Grmek Mirko
Published: June 2016

Mirko D. Grmek : The reception of Morgagnts De sedibus in France.

Morgagni's monumental work, published in Venice in 1761, constituted an epistemological break in the history of medicine. But in order to understand the nature of Morgagni's conceptual innovation, a new step in the conceptualisation of illness had to be taken. His first commentators and imitators in France, in particular Lieutaud, Portal and Vicq d'Azyr, tried subtly to reduce his work's importance by emphasizing its breadth rather than its originality. In the historical development of pathology, a new break took place during the early decades of the 19th Century, mainly in Paris hospitals. This article analyzes reactions to Morgagni's organic pathology in France before the end of the 18th Century, that is before they were to some extent outmoded, or rather integrated into a new scientific vision.
L'uniforme de la santé : les médecins et la réforme du costume
Authors: Pellegrin Nicole
Published: June 2016

Nicole Pellegrin : Uniforms for health. Doctors and clothes reform.

The revolutionary generation, wishing to "regenerate" the nation physically and morally, took over a favourite obsession of 18th-century doctors, namely the reform of attire under medical and political control. Their plan, full of ethnographical and historical references, aimed at removing all tight clothes (swaddling bands, corsets, collars, etc.) and thus freeing bodies and minds. But their desire to apply this hygienic reform led them to dream of an authoritarian introduction of uniforms for all stages of life.
Une étape dans la constitution de la pédiatrie : l'Encyclopédie méthodique
Authors: Teysseire Daniel
Published: June 2016

Daniel Teysseire : The Encyclopédie méthodique, a step in the development of pediatrics.

In the long elaboration of pediatrics (1760-1820) which preceded its institution as a medical speciality, the Encyclopédie méthodique constitutes an important step. This was not because its pediatric corpus — the articles on children's diseases together with cross-references — innovated in relation to the Encyclopé¬ die. Instead, the Méthodique improved on the Encyclopédie in three areas : 1) more detailed and precise nosography ; 2) above all, a self-conscious technique or method of observation, namely the anatomo-clinical, which allowed such precision ; and 3) an object on which to concentrate this anatomo-clinical techni¬ que or method, that is to say croup, a "new" disease recognised as specific to children.
L'acculturation d'un révolutionnaire : l'exemple de Billaud-Varenne (1786-1791)
Authors: Brunel Françoise
Published: June 2016

Françoise Brunel : The acculturation of a revolutionary : the example of J.-N. Billaud-Varenne (1786-1791).

In the context of the debate on the intellectual and cultural origins of the French Revolution, several studies have concerned the affirmation of public opinion and the emergence of political opposition in the 1780s. This article, originally presented at a Symposium on "Culture and Revolution" (University of Maryland, Nov. 1987), studies the particular cultural education of a notorious but insufficiently known revolutionary, Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, Monta¬ gnard deputy for Paris and member of the Committee of Public Safety in year II. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of the works published between 1789 and 1791 shows the system of references used to denounce the Old Regime's institu¬ tions and to justify the revolutionary ideal.
Figures du public au 18e siècle : le travail du passé
Authors: Merlin Hélène
Published: June 2016

Hélène Merlin : The public in the isth century. The legacy of the past.

18th century saw the division of the body politic into the State and civil society, a process which had already begun in the 17th century. Civil society, seen as a person with a conscience and an opinion, is called the "public". But in the 17th century the "public" still meant the organic unity of the res publico, the union of individuals in the body politic, and thus it preserved, even in literary debates, a "political" rather than a "civil" meaning. A study of this meaning seems to show that the Enlightenment public, retaining, but on other bases, the legitimacy and the cohesive function of the old word, was attempting to identify civil society with public good. The "public", even without an explicit political content, thus functions implicitly in opposition to the state.
Vauvenargues : de l'inquiétude vécue à l'expérience du savoir
Authors: Boucherie Jean-Luc
Published: June 2016

Jean-Luc Boucherie : Vauvenargues, from experienced unease to the

experience of knowledge.

In his youthful letters, Vauvenargues indulges in introspection and recognizes that he is unable to choose between the voice of reason and passionate impulse ; this conflict keeps his ego in a state of unease. To guide his conduct, he wishes to reinforce his character, which is an independent authority capable of deciding the conflict between reason and passion and harmonizing their interaction. This attempt is reinforced by the theoretical reflection embodied in the moralist's maxims. The elaboration of the work itself also appears to be a means of using the energy of this "passion for arts and letters" in order to maintain the harmony between impassioned activity and the exercise of reflection.
Un avatar de l'oratorio en France à la veille de la Révolution : l'hiérodrame
Authors: Guitton Isabelle
Published: June 2016

Isabelle Guitton : The hierodrama, a version of the oratorio in France on the eve of the Revolution.

The hierodrama, which was never theorised despite its real existence around the time of the Revolution, appears as a version of the oratorio. This ephemeral genre, derived from religious music, was terminologically unstable and tried, by its dramatic and spiritual content, and by its musical essence, to renew the interest of the great motet. Although it rapidly disappeared, it nevertheless contained innovative aspects and thus ensured the survival of the oratorio at the end of the 18th century.
Un spinozisme suspect : à propos du Dieu de Boulainvilliers
Authors: Benítez Miguel
Published: June 2016

A suspect Spinozism : concerning Boulainvillier's god.

Boulainvilliers, who claims that he is explaining Spinoza's system, defines God as a substance with an infinity of attributes. However, an attribute is here not the essence or nature of substance, but simply our way of knowing it. Substantial essence and thought discussed by Boulainvilliers are abstractions ; infinite substance is being and being is the determined being of modes. That is why he says that God is the universality of things. But a divisible whole, composed of parts, cannot be infinite. As he believes this contradiction to be insoluble, despite the solution implicit in his works, Boulainvilliers proclaims that the divinity is unknowable and thus he deforms Spinoza's doctrine.
L'héritage libertin dans le matérialisme des Lumières
Authors: Bloch Olivier
Published: June 2016

The libertin tradition in enlightenment materialism.

The libertin tradition is one of the most important roots of Enlightenment materialism. It can be seen in the common sources which they both draw on, the links between texts and authors who continue a traditional process marked by the primacy of erudition, the persistence of ways of writing and reading, the themes and trends involved in this literary and erudite preoccupation. All these traits, which particularly characterise early 18th-century materialism, nevertheless persist and can still be seen at the end of the century.
La Mettrie et le «Système d'Épicure»
Authors: Comte-Sponville André
Published: June 2016

La Mettrie and his Système d'Épicure.

La Mettrie often claims to be a disciple of Epicurus and Lucretius, but his Epicureanism, which is often rather vague, can be particularly seen in connection with four themes : the materiality of the soul ; the universality of death ; the value of pleasure ; and the rejection of finalism. This last theme is the main subject of his Système d'Épicure, in which he shows a resolute but non dogmatic materialism. In La Mettrie's thought, materialism is what destroys dogmatism, which is what distinguishes him from Epicurus, despite his claim to follow him.
Psychologie et physiologie de l'entendement chez Condillac
Authors: Paganini Gianni
Published: June 2016

Condillacs psychology and physiology of the understanding.

Despite his decision to treat the cognitive process only from a strictly psychological point of view, Condillac refers to the dominant neurophysiological model of his time. In his Essay, the use of this model is rooted in the causal theory of knowledge in which the mechanical description of the "impression" affirms either the dependence of knowledge on the external object or the latter's independent existence. It is interesting that this physiological pattern, considered as an "unfounded hypothesis" in the Traité des systèmes and almost absent from the Traité des sensations, is taken up again in his Logique, where Condillac rehabilitates to some extent the physical in order to combat materialistic tendencies on their own ground, without abandoning the spiritual primacy of consciousness.