bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Les dernières années de Mezzetin : vérité ou légende
Authors: Koch Philip
Published: June 2016

Philip Koch : Mezzetin's last years.

Two episodes mark the "last years" of Angelo Costantini, Mezzetin of the 17th-century Comédiens italiens du Roi : his life at the court of the Elector of Saxony after the Italians disbanded in 1697, and his brief return to the Parisian stage, in the new Italian company, in February 1729. Although opinions differ as to his success in 1729 and his career, most commentators have followed the lead of the Parfaict brothers whose remarks, this article shows, were inspired by a hitherto unpublished source, Thomas-Simon Gueuillette. The article also studies the ways in which the Parfaicts departed from their source, how the tradition about Mezzetin's last years corresponds to fact, and by what processes legends were woven into truth.
Les femmes d'Usbeck et la Lettre persane XLVII
Authors: Hunwick Andrew
Published: June 2016

Andrew Hunwick : Usbeck's Wives.

Usbek, in Montesquieu's Persian Letters, has five wives. In letter XX, he is angry with his wife Zachi for being familiar with one of the white eunuchs, and also with the young female slave Zelide. Zachi mistakenly believes she has been denounced by another wife, Zéphis, but is eventually reconciled with her (Letter XLII). Zéphis appears elsewhere only as the author of letter IV, but should not be confused with a third wife, Zélis (author of LIE).
Quand la fête remplace la secte
Authors: Harris Micheline-F.
Published: June 2016

Micheline Harris : From «sect » to «fête ».

The solution of a mystery contained in a letter written in October 1729 by Montesquieu from Amsterdam. A word usually read as secte is in fact fête, and the letter refers to an article in Amsterdam, a periodical, reporting the presence of Montesquieu and his correspondent, Poisson, at a fête in Brunswick.
Hermaphrodite et le prolétaire
Authors: Guicciardi Jean-Pierre
Published: June 2016

Jean-Pierre Guiccardi : Hermaphrodites and proletarians.

This article considers several examples of 18th-century representations of the hermaphrodite, who is ignored in the exclusive distinction of sexual beings into male/female, and whose very existence challenges the sexually «normal » individual. In the works of G. de Foigny, De Pauw, Jaucourt, of surgeons or anatomists such as Duverney or Saviard, in the engravings of Gautier-Dagoty, hermaphroditism is reduced to an unimportant detail, or to a physiological aberration. They generally seek the hermaphrodite's true sex ; it is sometimes a man, more often a sick, monstrous woman, and the physical anomaly becomes a metaphor for sexual excess, perversion, crime. A specific, hermaphrodite sexuality is never even imagined, and androgyny is finally expelled from nature, from Western society, from morality.
La sexualité dans l'anthropologie humaniste de Buffon
Authors: Brahimi Denise
Published: June 2016

Denise Brahimi : For a human sexuality : buffon's humanistic anthropology.

This article analyses the chapter on puberty in Buffon's anthropology (De l'homme). Buff on is particularly concerned to use scientific language without any licentious overtones, but not so precise as to exclude a style accessible to non-specialists. His «purely » scientific remarks are supported by the expression of very firm philosophical positions. Style and philosophy combine with science to preserve man's dignity at the very moment when he is being included in the realm of nature.
Le complexe d'Abélard ou le célibat des gens de lettres
Authors: Walter Eric
Published: June 2016

Eric Walter : The abelard complex or the celibacy of intellectuals.

This article, on the syndrome of celibacy and the fear of castration in modern literature, attempts to discern some aspects of the social and sexual imagination of the 18th-century philosophical intelligentsia, based on a genealogy — from Bayle to Sade — of the «philosophe » as bachelor. It reconsiders, from this point of view, the myth of Heloise and Abelard both in Bayle's Dictionary and behind the success of La Nouvelle Héloïse. Even more significant are the references to Socrates's mariage in Diderot's and Rousseau's autobiographical writings, which present three faces of femininity — courtisan, lover, wife. Finally, the inquiry is extended to the political, ideological and fantasmatic implications of the population debates and the celibacy dispute, in which the Church and Philosophy confront each other. Here we outline a microsociology of the 18th-century intelligentsia.
Le système de l'iconographie galante
Authors: Guillerm Alain
Published: June 2016

Alain Guillerm : The system of 18th-century love engravings.

An attempt to decipher 18th-century French engravings which enter into the vague category of «galant », although this term is not easy to define. In order to discover their symbolic system, this article considers, by way of comparison, a series of erotic engravings at the Bibliothèque nationale, in which the meaning of the symbols is clearly indicated. These examples, and the relationship between different engravings, enable the author to throw light on certain allusions and signs. He emphasizes the impossibility of providing a rigid system of interpretation, and insists that the symbols are above all light-hearted ; they do not express the subconscious, but form a deliberate system of enunciation, which is on occasion subversive.
Asmodée ou l'effraction
Authors: Chartier Pierre
Published: June 2016

Pierre Chartier : Asmodée or the intruder.

Indiscreet works, which violate privacy for publication, are numerous in the 18th Century, from the Diable boiteux to Félicia, via Le Sopha Les Bijoux indiscrets and especially Ceci n'est pas un conte. In these works, the narrator plays the role of confident, friend, go-between, and puts the reader-accomplice in the position of a voyeur , but at a distance, as if «veiled ». The case of Diderot reveals particularly clearly the necessities and limits of this complicity. The libertine or moral conte is for him an intermediate theatrical solution, which rejects the solitary, fascinated position which is more and more that of the modern novel reader. Did Asmodée, the limping devil, realize he would produce such a numerous progeny ?
Deux lettres inédites du Marquis de Sade à Gaufridy
Authors: Schorr James L.
Published: June 2016

James L. Schorr ; Two unpublished letters from sade to gaufridy.

These two letters from the Marquis de Sade to his lawyer Gaufridy are now part of the Carlton Lake Collection (H.R.C.) at the University of Texas. They both treat business matters ; the first is dated 9th November 1790, and the second, 7th November 1793.
Les «Amis du Pays»
Authors: Dubuis Michel
Published: June 2016

Michel Dubuis : «The «Amigos del pais ».

After 1774, economic societies of «Amigos del Pais» sprang up in Spain. They were modern-style charitable organisations which sought the means to bring about economic and social development. They opened the way, outside the royal administration, for democratic practices and attempted to constitute a new power. They were inspired by liberal ideology which led their members to criticize society and politics. They were victims of the negligence and suspicion of the authorities, who had encouraged their creation to revitalize and justify the Old Regime aristocratic society. Deprived of means, their activity remained theoretical. Recent publications show an effort to present and reinterpret this phenomenon, typical of late 18th-century Spain.
Ordre et désordre dans le «Dictionnaire philosophique»
Authors: Michel Marie-José
Published: June 2016

José-Michel Moureaux : Order and disorder in the «dictionnaire philosophique ».

Voltaire's pocket dictionary, essentially an antichristian pamphlet, is above all his battle-ground with the Bible ; its aim is the destruction of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity, which Voltaire then attacks at the tribunal of history and reason. The former shows up the imposture of its supposedly divine origins, while the latter explodes its regrettable indulgence towards absurdity and its forgetfulness of moral values, the first of which was tolerance, but which it continually betrayed. Thus Christianity has become the «Infâme » and must be reformed by a series of concrete measures. This is a possible, and even likely, way of discovering, amongst the juxtaposition of alphabetical articles, the secret continuity which the «conceited reader » is summoned to recreate.
Une lettre de Voltaire oubliée
Authors: Robert Loy J.
Published: June 2016

Robert Loy : A forgotten letter from Voltaire.

This letter from Voltaire to François-Antoine Chevrier (early 1758) has somehow escaped inclusion in the Besterman Correspondence. It is not an inédit , and must be considered a minor addition to the vast correspondence of a great writer. Nevertheless, it gives additional insight into Voltaire as a political analyst, as a historian (particularly the period of the Seven-Years' War) and as a European celebrity coping with his public image.
Le Leo Baeck Institute
Authors: Lowenstein Steven M.
Published: June 2016

The Leo Baeck Institute.

The Institute, with branches in New York, London, and Jerusalem, maintains a library and archives and undertakes publications concerning German Jewry from the 18th to the 20th century. Besides original 18th-century printed works, the Institute contains papers of a number of prominent Berlin Jewish families, as well as governmental decrees, Schutzbriefe and communal documents. Of special interest are the communal documents from various parts of Germany in the Jacobson collection as well as a number of original autographs by Moses Mendelssohn.
Raphaël Levi de Hanovre et la Frühaufklärung juive
Authors: Schwarzschild Steven S.
Published: June 2016

Raphael Levi Hannover -Exemplar of Jewish «Fruhaufklärung ».

Raphael Levi Hannover (1685-1779) was clerk to «court-Jews » and amenuensis in Leibniz's house from 1700 until the Hatter's death. His Jewishly philosophical and scientific inspiration was Maimonides. He lived long enough to be friends with Moses Mendelssohn. Levi earned his livelihood mostly as a teacher of commercial arithmetic, with which his German books deal, but his chief scholarly concern was calendaric astronomy, with which his Hebrew books deal. In the latter he made adjustments to Copernican astronomy. Levi submitted a scientific plan in person to the Royal Society in London in 1748. A long-lost eschatological essay by him, written in the 1730's, has now been discovered, in which he dates the messianic advent in 1783. Levi's life and work are set in the social economy and culture of the age of Enlightenment.
Une synagogue à la Chine
Authors: Dehergne Joseph
Published: June 2016

A synagogue in China.

The impact of the Letter on the Jews of Kaifeng (5 November 1704) which we owe to Giampolo Gozani (1659-1732) is unimaginable. It was published in French in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, vol. VII, 1707 ; re-edited several times and translated into the major European languages. The Journal des Sçavans judged it «très importante » (very important) and speedily published lengthy extracts, though the Journal inadvertently dated their Synagogue as going back «avant la naissance de Jésus-Christ » (before the birth of Christ). The Letter plays an important role in the Encyclopédie (article «Bible ») and in the travel literature so fashionable in the eighteenth century.
Les Nations juives de France
Authors: Schwarzfuchs Simon
Published: June 2016

The jewish communities in France.

The relationship of the Jewish communities in France to the realm as a whole is paradoxical. Whereas the Protestant order was abolished, they were officially recognised. Though they are generally considered as an united block, they have a long tradition of independence, despite the common problems they face. Only external intervention (such as the Malesherbes Commission and the Convocation of the States General in 1789) will induce them to get together and work out a conscious political response to their status. Even though there are clear indications of solidarity, it is not until the Napoleonic era that we see unification, centralisation and, in short, the dawn of French Judaism.
Les Caraïtes et l'émancipation des juifs
Authors: Popkin Richard H.
Published: June 2016

The Karaites and the emancipation of the jews.

In the eighteenth century the small Jewish sect of the Karaites attracted scholarly attention and represented something of a theological gamble. R. Simon and the Abbé Grégoire both wrote about them. The former sees them as pure, rational Jews, similar in some respects to the Protestants ; they are what Jews ought to be, though nonetheless they remain unacceptable in the light of Catholicism. In Gregory's view, they are also the best Jews, worthy of imitation by the Sanhédrin, but constantly threatened by a Mosaism dangerously close to deism and irreligion : the conversion of the Jews therefore is stilil the main object. Thus the Karaites are used to represent the best possible Jews but still do not offer a viable solution to the Jewish question.
Le Conseil du Roi et le commerce des juifs d'Avignon en France
Authors: Moulinas René
Published: June 2016

René Moulinas : The Conseil du Roi (King's Council) and the establishment of trade in France by the jewish community in Avignon.

From the end of the seventeenth century onwards, the Jewish communities in Avignon and the Comtat undertook commercial trips in France largely for the purpose of selling silks. The competition this causes brought about violent protests from merchant bodies in many towns where they succeed in banning the practice. But does the exclusion of the Jews also apply to the fairs ? The Conseil du Roi (King's Council) settles this controversial question in 1741 when the Jews were granted freedom of access to the fairs. This decision, like the arguments of the two interested parties, is based purely on economic considerations and does not reflect a doctrinal and theological anti-judaism.
Le théâtre en Allemagne
Authors: Mazingue Etienne
Published: June 2016

Theatre in Germany at the time of the seven years war.

This article highlights the main events that characterise the decisive progress made between 1750 and 1770 by the regular theatre in German that resulted from Gottsehed's reforms. Faced with competition from French and Italian theatre that is from official and stable institutions, another bourgeois institution is successfully established : one with which the nation itself is called upon to identify.
Les débuts de la critique théâtrale en Espagne (1762-1763)
Authors: Guinard Paul-Jacques
Published: June 2016

The beginnings of theatrical criticism in Spain (1762-1763).

In Spain at the beginning of the 60s one witnesses the rise of the periodical press and the birth of theatrical criticism. After mentioning the various aspects of theatrical life of the time in Spain, especially in Madrid, the author examines the tendencies of the theatrical criticism and brings out the contributions of two journalists : J. Clavijo (El Pensador), passionate supporter of a revival of Spanish theatre, and F. M. Nifo (Diario estrangero), whose reforming spirit is more finely shaded.
Les Anglais à Montpellier et à Nice pendant la seconde moitié du siècle
Authors: Sacquin Michèle
Published: June 2016

English visitors in Montpellier and Nice.

During the second part of the 18th century, the South of France attracted many english visitors, some of them the «splenetic travellers » Sterne spoke about. Two towns had their favour, as is attested by the numerous travel accounts and diaries. The first one, Montpellier, offered a pleasant climate, a renowned University and a choice society, mainly during the meetings of the États provinciaux. It went nevertheless soon out of fashion and was deserted by the english «milords » for a younger, cheaper and sunnier rival : Nice. For this, Smollett's Travels through France and Italy can be held partly responsible. During the years 1770-1790, the british tourists who spent the winter in Nice (they were 300 in 1784) became a good source of income for the locals, though they were careful not to mix with them.
L'Ile Maurice et la France dans la deuxième moitié du siècle
Authors: Gunny Ahmad
Published: June 2016

The Île de France (Mauritius) and France in the second half of the 18th century.

Labourdonnais's successful campaign against the British in India in 1746 encouraged the view that Mauritius was of great strategic importance. The idea was supported by a majority of people, both English and French. In fact, Mauritius was not that useful to France in the I750's : its agriculture was poor, though it improved by 1767. Its greatest hour was during the American war of Independence. Even then, French naval victories were inconclusive : hence the recourse to privateering. Mauritius played a less significant role by 1800. Thanks to their intelligence reports, the British could easily have captured it before, but they prized the Cape of Good Hope even more. However, to vindicate national honour, they concentrated on Mauritius subsequently and captured it in 1810.
La fable et La Fontaine dans la réflexion pédagogique de Fénelon à Rousseau
Authors: Granderoute Robert
Published: June 2016

Fable and la fontaine in pedagogical thinking from Fenelon to Rousseau.

Following the example of the Greco-Latin fables, La Fontaine's Fables were very quickly considered by the authors of educational treatises as a pedagogical tool capable of being used at the various stages in the development of the child. This use, although much desired, is not arbitrary : the fables are commended for use, and supported by an authoritative commentary... However, after 1750 a tendency (foreshadowed by the abbé de Saint-Pierre) towards distrust and hostility develops regarding the pedagogical use of the Fables of La Fontaine. The arguments put forward are precisely those which Rousseau will use. The latter is not therefore an innovator in proscribing fables. His proscription is simply part of the movement of negative education in Book II of Emile.
Deux conteurs : Voltaire et Goethe
Authors: Casalis Monica
Published: June 2016

Two tale writers, Voltaire and Gœthe.

Voltaire's influence on Goethe is considerable and widely acknowledged by the latter. It is in respect of the narrative that the French writer has most profoundly influenced the creation of Goethe. Thus his short story, Das Màrchen (or «The Green Serpent ») is intended to be faithful to the Voltairean tradition. Despite the differences of character and style, the two authors do undeniably share things in common, as a comparative study of the Taureau blanc and Das Märchen demonstrates. In both, their respective adherence to the spirit of the Enlightenment can be discerned. However, their differences are nonetheless great. Although both make considerable use of ironic (language, the parallel messages to be drawn in Voltaire's case serve as philosophical and social criticism whereas for Goethe they suggest symbolic realities that can only be expressed through poetry.
Lumières et élitisme dans les manuscrits clandestins
Authors: Benítez Miguel
Published: June 2016

Miguel Benitez : Enlightenment and elitism in clandestine works.

The existence of clandestine literature indicates a desire to spread Enlightenment ; this desire is evident in the simple structure of these treatises, in the repeated attacks on obscure scholastic terminology and in the deliberate use of simple language. The Philosophe's duty was to teach the truth and he must write for the people. Yet we often find elitist declarations which cannot be explained by fear of persecution ; the belief that the people must be left in ignorance does not disappear as the century progresses, despite a relative liberalization of society. Apart from a radical minority, generally to be found in the first thirty years of the century, the aim of clandestine works was not to enlighten the people.
Le frère de Maupertuis et l'homme machine
Authors: Vartanian Aram
Published: June 2016

Aram Vartanian : Maupertuis' brother and the «homme machine ».

Maupertuis' younger brother, Moreau de Saint-Elier, who is now all but forgotten, was the author of a Traité de la communication des maladies et des passions (1738). This work, which consists mainly of a discussion of the breast-feeding of infants, is one of the earliest crypto-materialist texts to be published in the Enlightenment. Saint-Elier 's exposed an «histoire naturelle de l'homme » (the phrase, which forms the book's sub-title, was his own) as the theoretical basis of his position against breast-feeding. Of more special interest are the close textual and thematic parallels between Saint-Elier's psychophysiological anthropology and La Mettrie's L'Homme machine (1747). These parallels assume greater significance when it is realized that La Mettrie and Maupertuis' brother must have known each other in Saint-Malo, and exchanged views on scientific and philosophical topics, in the period from 1734 to 1742.
Morelly pédagogue
Authors: Baudiffier Serge
Published: June 2016

Serge Baudiffier : Morelly's pedagogy.

Morelly is known above all for his Utopian Code de la Nature ; however, his first two published works, the Essai sur l'esprit humain (1743) and the Essai sur le cœur humain (1745) are equally interesting, not only for the coherence of their pedagogical doctrine and the originality of the methods proposed, but also on account of their use of the new philosophy of sensualism. The development of Morelly's pedagogical ideas can be seen in the later works attributed to him, up to and including his Code , in which pedagogy is an important part of his Utopian construction.
Orgueil et sympathie. A propos de Marivaux
Authors: Molino Jean
Published: June 2016

Jean Molino : Pride and sympathy : on Marivaux.

Marivaux's heroes are usually understood today through interpretations which see them as over-subtle consciences lost in introspection. This article proposes another approach. There are two contradictory impulses in the individual : on the one hand, love of self seeking victory over others, and on the other, sympathy which tries to establish contact with them. Self-knowledge is inseparable from knowledge of others. Marivaux's cogito is : I know others, who know me, therefore I am and I know myself. The individual only knows himself in and through others, in the conflict of two rivals' arrogance, and in the sympathy of souls in communion.
Le jardin de Julie
Authors: Blanc André
Published: June 2016

André Blanc : Julie's garden.

A straightforward reading of the famous letter about Julie's garden in Clarens (La Nouvelle Héloïse, IV, Letter XI) is insufficient, for it is not a real landscape but the symbolic description of Julie's sexual organs. It is a hidden, closed, wet place, whose entry is difficult if not forbidden, without any phallic element (full-grown trees, straightlined avenues, or fountains), covered with bushes and creepers, cooled by meandering streams or still waters, and culminating in a woody hillock full of singing birds. Saint-Preux is allowed to enter this paradise in an innocent way and regress into a prenatal condition, thus transforming Julie from lover into mother.
Les Lettres françaises et germaniques de Mauvillon et leur réception en Allemagne
Authors: Krebs Roland
Published: June 2016

Roland Krebs : Mauvillon's «Lettres françaises et germaniques » and their reception in Germany.

Mauvillon's work, a comparative study of the habits and culture of the French and the Germans, provoked a brief but violent quarrel when it appeared in Germany ; for the 10th German letter declared that the Germans lacked wit and taste and that their literature was worthless. This judgement — based on the norms of French classicism — aroused Gottsched and his followers (who however also defended the same aesthetic principles) to defend their national honour, while Bodmer and Breitinger (who were Swiss) supported Mauvillon. This conflict throws light on the situation of German literature around 1740 and on the difficulties it experienced in achieving international recognition.
Une erreur de Voltaire sur la Chine
Authors: Wenli Liu
Published: June 2016

Liu Wenli : A Mistake by Voltaire concerning China.

In Chapter 39 of the Siècle de Louis XIV, Voltaire was mistaken as to the succession of the Emperor Kang-hi. He was not responsible for this mistake, which can be explained by an error in a Chinese character which altered the Emperor's last wishes. Voltaire's information, which came from European missionaries' accounts, was insufficiant for a clear view of events in China.
Cuisine et alimentation populaire à Paris
Authors: Roche Daniel
Published: June 2016

Daniel Roche : The Parisian people's food.

The food of the common Paris people is one of the indications of the majority's life-style, and specifically, an expression of a style of consuming. For those who lived in a single room (that is, three-quarters of the population), the space devoted to culinary activities combined utility and the expression of values. Its organisation, furniture, the evolution of utensils during the century, show various changes which indicate both an improvement in living conditions due to an imitation of the habits of their superiors and the pauperisation of a large number by the deterioration of their economic situation. The superfluous and the necessary coexist in the people's cuisine, as do the ordinary and the extraordinary, to be seen in consuming habits, whether at home or in taverns.
Les cuisines régionales à travers les livres de recettes
Authors: Hyman Philip , Hyman Mary
Published: June 2016

Philip and Mary Hyman : Regional cooking in French cookery books.

The aim of this study was to see which regions appeared most frequently in French 18th-century cookery books, and the characteristics of the more important appellations. Although recipe titles containing regional names were few, by the mid-century recipes called «à la provençale » were already by far the most numerous, followed by «périgourdine » and «flamande ». In order to discern the characteristics specifically associated with these «regional » recipes, we compared them with a control group called «à la bourgeoise » ; we noted which ingredients surpassed this «bourgeois » mean, to see what distinguished each region and thus how it was perceived by the readers of the cookery books.
Les cuisiniers anglais face à la cuisine française
Authors: Lehmann Gilly
Published: June 2016

Gilly Lehmann : English cooks and French cuisine.

French food was fashionable in 18th-century England, and the aristocracy and their imitators demanded French dishes. English authors were therefore obliged to give French recipes, while their fear of losing their jobs to Frenchmen (plus traditional antipathy to things French) made them denounce French cooks and cuisine. This contradictory attitude led them to attack an imaginary French cuisine, moral values replacing culinary judgements. Meanwhile, they were accepting French dishes ; hostility disappears from English cookery books by 1770, to be replaced by approbation for frugal French eating habits. Thus, a new myth is being manufactured.
La cuisine janséniste
Authors: Cottret Monique
Published: June 2016

Monique Cottret : Jansenist cooking.

The purpose of this study is threefold : (1) cooking is related to everyday charity and popular education in Jansenist petty schools ; (2) medicinal prescription in their eyes confirmed the usefulness of Lent and periods of fasting ; a holy and a healthy life were thereby reconciled ; (3) the increasingly dissident convulsionaries cooked strange broths, incorporating filth in beverages reminis¬ cent of witchcraft, quite unlike other Jansenists. Some of these quite unpalatable recipes are inserted, though on the whole plain, homely fare tended to predominate.
Esthétique et art culinaire
Authors: Knabe Peter-Eckhard
Published: June 2016

Peter-Eckhard Knabe : Aesthetics and culinary art.

The birth of modern aesthetics as a philosophical discipline is the result of a development of 18th-century European thought. The thought of art theorists is above all imbued with empiricism and sensualism. In this philosophical current, the term «ragoût » for example becomes a metaphor for the work of art as such ; cookery thus becomes an art form on a level with painting or music. In his preface to La Science du Maître d'hôtel cuisinier (1749), Foncemagne situates culinary art in this modern current of thought.
Chardin ou la cuisine en peinture
Authors: Démoris René
Published: June 2016

René Démoris : Chardin : cookery and painting.

A Freudian enquiry into symbolic values of food in Chardin's painting. Most of his still-lifes concern either the preparation (things to be cooked, utensils) or the consumption (cooked things, fruit) of food. Objects are limited in number and many recur ; they are devoid of value, beauty belonging only to the picture as a whole. An analysis of La Raie — a bleeding object — reveals in various pictures the unconscious theme of harm done to the maternal body (oral-sadistic stage). Thus the world of cooking and eating induces feelings of repulsion and fascination ; this is also conjured up by the feminine domestic ritual of food, in the interior scenes. The symbolic equivalence of house and mother leads us to consider Chardin's still-lifes as a symbolic reparation (in M. Klein's sense) of the maternal body.
La nourriture dans les romans d'Isabelle de Charrière
Authors: Didier Béatrice
Published: June 2016

Béatrice Didier : Food in Mme de Charrière's novels.

In Isabelle de Charrière's novels, while meals are often mere social rites, food is not without significance ; it is a sign of her characters' fortunes (e.g. in Calliste's illness). It also has a political dimension, as for the «émigrés » whose misery is represented by food problems. In addition, all sorts of food are not equally important ; it can be analysed in terms of the dichotomy man/woman, or we can examine the role of characters as givers or receivers of food. Breast-feeding is discussed by I.C., who claims the right for the woman to decide. It is however difficult to discern a specifically feminine treatment of food ; she is remarkable nevertheless by the art with which she refines a romantic semiotics of food.
Sade ou l'alimentation générale
Authors: Bomel-Rainelli Béatrice
Published: June 2016

Béatrice Bomel-Rainelli : Sade or general foodstuffs.

In Sade's works, food plays a part in erotic scenes, first as an addition to pleasure — different for the master and the victim — then as a rival to pleasure itself. If the choice of food and wines characterises the libertine, their denaturation and the redefinition of food that is thus brought about are even more characteristic of libertinism. Finally, food is seen as a philosophical weapon of materialism ; our bodies' reactions to the molecules which feed them show them to be equally material, and thus food. In addition, if food directs us towards good or evil, our choice of it demonstrates our liberty ; but what margin is left to our free will when our tastes originate in our fibres and organs ?
Deux budgets nobiliaires en Provence
Authors: Grassi Marie-Claire
Published: June 2016

Marie-Claire Grassi : Two nobles' budgets in Provence.

A comparative analysis of budgets is always difficult, owing to differences in headings and in the numbers of individuals concerned. Nevertheless, two 18th-century documents — the budget of a counsellor in the Aix-en-Provence Parlement and that of a country gentleman — give some interesting results. The town budget is largely devoted to the ostentatious side of daily life (upkeep of the house, clothes) while food, essentially meat, is modest. The country budget, burdened with expenses and the upkeep of the land, allows for a richer and more varied diet. This example would perhaps indicate that good food was a compensation for the rural gentry.
Les académies espagnoles et la réforme pénale
Authors: Risco Antonio
Published: June 2016

Antonio Risco : Spanish academies and penal reform.

This article highlights the existence in 18th-century Spain of a certain number of academies created by and for letrado lawyers, and it tries to discern their true significance — as pressure groups or State agencies — through a consideration of the question of penal reform. The issues of the codification of criminal law, of torture and witchcraft, and, through them, that of punishment, enable us to conclude that these academies were instruments of the State, leading figures and pawns in a movement whose internal logic led them to reconsider, but also to reinforce, the state machinery.
Un grand réformiste : le quaker John Bellers (1654-1725)
Authors: Carrive Paulette
Published: June 2016

Paulette Carrive : The quaker John Bellers, a great reformer.

John Bellars (1654-1725), who inspired Robert Owen and whom Marx called «a phenomenon in political economy », is chiefly remembered for an educational scheme, embodied in what he called «a college of industry ». However, such a scheme presupposed a theoretical, moral and religious enquiry into the foundation of value, which is labour. It also implied a number of social and political reforms, among which the most important were a nation-wide organisation of health-care, the abolition of the death penalty and the edification of a European Community.
Grammaire et théorie du langage chez Buffier
Authors: Swiggers Pierre
Published: June 2016

Pierre Swiggers : Buffier's grammar and language theory.

In 1709 Father Claude Buffier (1661-1737) published his Grammaire françoise sur un plan nouveau, which replaced Chiflet's (1659) in the Jesuit curriculum. Buffier's grammar, explicitly based on current French usage, was an attempt to lay down the principles of the French language, not by an appeal to abstract logical categories, but by a careful analysis and classification of observed grammatical structures. Central notions are : nom (the thematic subject), verbe (the predicate), modificatif (adverb, preposition or conjunction) and terme de supplément (imperative, interjection, interrogative or other elliptical expressions). Buffier's syntactical analyses are remarkable and original, not only because they show the variety of functions fulfilled by each part of speech, but also because they point to the specificity of each language, thus preparing the way for language typologies.
Raynal, Venture de Paradis et la Barbarie
Authors: Thomson Ann
Published: June 2016

Ann Thomson : Raynal, Venture de Paradis and Barbary.

The aim of this study is to indicate the interest of Raynal's manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale which contain his articles on the Barbary States ; they develop the remarks in the Histoire des Deux-Indes and were published posthumously in 1826. These manuscripts contain the corrections and remarks made by Venture de Paradis, an orientalist and diplomat, and Raynal's subsequent alterations ; they thus enable us to study the difference in attitude between the 18th-century «philosophe » and Venture, who represents already the outlook of the nineteenth-century orientalist.
«Le monument du costume» de Rétif de la Bretonne
Authors: Bertrand Colette
Published: June 2016

Colette Bertrand : Rétif de la Bretonne's «monument du costume ».

This analysis of Le Monument du Costume (1789), a neglected work by Rétif which accompanied etchings by J.-M. Moreau, attempts to show how all Rétifs texts are tightly linked by recurring themes, and how the whole can be seen as a kind of summary of many aspects of the author's thought. We find typical Rétif traits, such as the obsessional presence of women, a tendancy to be didactic, eroticism, spirited writing on contemporary problems and depiction of customs of his day. The article traces the itinerary of the work in the period 1775-1789, when it appeared in different versions with different titles, and sometimes anonymously. Finally, we see the obsessional nature of the central theme of Le Monument du Costume in all Rétifs works after 1772.
Présence de Rousseau dans les romans de jeunesse de Balzac
Authors: Trousson Raymond
Published: June 2016

Raymond Trousson : Rousseau in Balzac's early works.

In the Notes philosophiques written in 1818-20 and in Sténie, an unfinished novel, Rousseau appears as one of the young Balzac's masters. In the many works composed between 1821 and 1827 (alone or with Le Poitevin de l'Egreville) we frequently find a Rousseau-like turn of phrase, borrowings of details and situations, «anarchistic » themes taken from the Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, denunciations of the evils of the social order, praise for natural goodness, or pedagogical and religious principles taken from Emile. These youthful works show the presence of a profound impregnation with Rousseau's works, which can still be seen in La Physiologie du mariage in 1829.
Dimitrie Cantemir, prince philosophe de Moldavie. Échos européens
Authors: Liu Nicolae
Published: June 2016

Nicolae Liu : Dimitrie Cantemir, the Moldavian philosopher-prince and his

influence in Europe.

Dimitrie Cantemir, the Romanian philosopher, man of letters, scientist and politician, who symbolizes the transition from humanist to enlightened ruler in S.E. Europe, was well-known in the Republic of Letters. But his most famous book, The History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire, was only published posthumously in London in 1734 (the same year as Montesquieu's Considérations...). Voltaire appreciated the work, which was lent to him by Dimitrie's son Antioch, and which led to an interesting and neglected exchange of letters. Until the middle of the 19th Century, other French, English, German and Russian men of letters were interested in this expert on Islam, who thus helped develop East-West relations.
La revanche de l'inconscient. D'Alembert vu par Diderot
Authors: Casini Paolo
Published: June 2016

Paolo Casini : D'Alembert as seen by Diderot

Through an analysis of some passages from the Discours préliminaire, the Prospectus and the articles Geometry and Encyclopedia, we can see a subtle controversy between d'Alembert and Diderot. This was only the beginning of a much more radical divergence which was to separate them around 1760. In the Rêve de d'Alembert (whose suppression d'Alembert requested) Diderot exploited certain problems and weaknesses of d'Alembert's epistemological reflections in the second edition of his Essai sur les éléments de philosophie (1767). Diderot puts into his character's mouth an involuntary self-criticism, denouncing the limits of his own sceptical phenomenism. The mechanism of the dream penetrates beneath the sphere of consciousness and reveals the irrational roots of reasoning dictated by "nature".
De quelques embarras dans le Traité de dynamique
Authors: Costabel Pierre
Published: June 2016

Pierre Costabel : D'Alembert's hesitations in the «traité de dynamique ».

The additions inserted by d'Alembert in the second edition of his Traité de Dynamique are mainly concerned with providing further justification of the two laws which clarify Newtonian inertia. A study of the texts reveals d'Alembert's desire to effect this justification with as few principles as possible, but also shows that the result is in part illusory. In addition, the "sole consideration of movement" that he claims as the basis for his reasoning reveals a curious hesitation as to the physical application of mathematical analysis ; as however this hesitation is also that of his time, his merit is indisputable.
Rapport des mathématiques et de la physique chez d'Alembert
Authors: Paty Michel
Published: June 2016

Michel Paty : The relationship between mathematics and physics in d'Alembert's thought.

The problem of the relationship between mathematics and physics — which recurs with every advance in each of the two branches — is here studied in the case of d'Alembert. The article first analyses his own practice in physics and mathematics, in which each contributes to the other's development (a concrete conception of mathematics and a mathematisation of rational physics by abstraction and unity) ; it then examines his theory of the relationship between the two, which is obviously linked to the science of principles, in other words d'Alembert's conception of metaphysics.
La querelle des inversions
Authors: Dominicy Marc
Published: June 2016

Marc Dominicy : The problem of inversions.

The aim of this article is to describe d'Alembert's approach to the celebrated problem of word order and so-called "inversions". It shows that his theory rests on four "axioms" which were generally accepted during the 18th Century : (i) words signify ideas ; (ii) meaning is compositional ; (iii) thought proves to be nonlinear, at least to some extent ; (iv) it is possible to define a "natural" ordering of ideas, in relation to a syntactic theory. D'Alembert's originality stems from his awareness of the limits of such an analysis, and from the epistemological background of his grammatical reflections.
De la mécanique à l'histoire
Authors: Brunetti Franz
Published: June 2016

Franz Brunetti : From mechanics to history.

The 18th-century idea of a unified organic world, like a chain of beings, with its totalising vision of rationality, may seem incompatible with the age's daring criticism. D'Alembert's writings throw light on this problem, for although insisting in his Discours préliminaire on the order and interrelation of human knowledge, he was finally forced to abandon his attempt to construct a genealogical tree of discoveries. The limits of reason can be seen in relation to history, in the gap between historical events and the ideal progression of historical time. We must distinguish between history as an account of letters or sciences and history as events ; history is not a projection of rationality in time. D'Alembert is forced to acknowledge the particular character of historical reason, constructed from situations which gradually determine each other.
D'Alembert et l'esthétique
Authors: Chouillet Jacques
Published: June 2016

Jacques Chouillet : D'Alembert and aesthetics.

D'Alembert did not develop an aesthetic theory of his own, but he gave his opinion on the aesthetic problems of his day. His tone varies according to whether he is writing for the Encyclopédie or officiating as Secretary of the Academie Française. The excesses of the Discours préliminaire reflect those of empericism ; if all our knowledge comes from the senses, then the only conceivable beauty is the imitation of nature. Hence he favours the imitative arts and neglects music. despite his (relative) admiration for J. -P. Rameau. In contrast, the academician's reflections on "taste" in general and on the need for moderation in literary judgements are part of an established tradition which is combined skilfully, in the Academy's "Éloges", with his frequently cutting irony. On the whole, d'Alembert's development brought him ever closer to a literary conservatism, tempered by his fundamental scepticism.
Le rêve d'amour de d' Alembert
Authors: Pascal Jean-Noël
Published: June 2016

Jean-Noël Pascal : D'Alembert's dream of love.

After a brief account of d'Alembert's relationship with Julie de Lespinasse, this article studies the two "tombs" which the mathematician dedicated to his friend. It appears that the woman who looked on him as simply a friend was the object on his part of a devouring, romantic passion, which appears under the effect of the shock of her death but loses its pathetic spontaneity as time passes. D'Alembert appears to have dreamed an impossible love for Julie de Lespinasse.
Travaux récents sur d'Alembert (1970-1983)
Authors: Chouillet Anne-Marie
Published: June 2016

Anne-Marie Chouillet : Recent work on d'Alembert (1970-1983).

This survey does not claim to be exhaustive ; its aim is simply to give the titles of the main recent articles or books, covering a wide range of subjects, which concern d'Alembert and which, in view of the diversity of disciplines involved, might be overlooked. We also attempt to give the most up-to-date information on the edition of his Works and correspondence.
Diderot et le portrait de Perronet : Trois lettres inédites
Authors: Moureau François
Published: June 2016

François Moureau : Diderot on Perronet's portrait : three unpublished

letters.

In a dossier put together by J. Doucet at the Bibliothèque d'Art et d'Archéologie de l'Université de Paris are all the documents concerning the engraving of the portrait of J.-R. Perronet, founder of the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées and Encyclopaedist. Saint-Aubin's drawing was engraved by Ch. N. Cochin and the inscription was entrusted to Diderot. Two of his letters to P. Ch. Lesage, who was asked by the School to carry out this engraved tribute, and one letter to Perronet are of interest to Diderot specialists in view of Diderot's strange relationship with Perronet, lover of Mme Legendre, Sophie Volland's sister. There is perhaps a trace of irony in the inscription, where he celebrates "the friend and the father".
Prévoyance sociale ou charité ? Les retraites des employés de la Régie générale (1777-1786)
Authors: Logette Aline
Published: June 2016

Aline Logette : Social insurance or charity ? the pensions of the "régie générale'"s employees (1777-1786).

During the Old Regime, civil servants were of many sorts and had no real security, as the State did not provide for "accidents" due to sickness, old age, death. However, there were certain departments, mainly fiscal, which were ahead of their time ; such was the "Régie générale" in the 18th Century, which was mainly concerned with the management of indirect taxation. Even if its individual decisions were closer to charity than to an ideal of public service (each case was decided separately by the Minister) nevertheless we can already see guidelines for each category of employee and the beginnings of the social function of the modern state.
Cassandre et Calas. Une nouvelle version de la lettre de Voltaire à d'Alembert (29 mars 1762)
Authors: Artigas-Menant Geneviève
Published: June 2016

Geneviève Menant-Artigas : Cassandra and Calas ; a new version of Voltaire's letter to d'Alembert.

The version of Voltaire's letter to d'Alembert on the Calas affair (29th March 1762) which was published in the English press in July 1762 was denounced by Voltaire as a forgery ; all his editors have reproduced a much milder and shorter letter. The discovery of two unpublished copies of the long version at the Library in Vire (one of which is given here with all the English and French variants) enables us to see how the false letter came about. The first part is a rearrangement of Voltaire's real letter, and the second part is in fact an accompanying commentary, probably by the journalist Jacques Lacombe, which was included by mistake as part of Voltaire's letter.
Diderot éditeur des Plans et statuts des établissements de Catherine II
Authors: Dulac Georges
Published: June 2016

Georges Dulac : Diderot as editor of the "plans et statuts des établissements de Catherine II"

Since the Plans et Statuts were first published in 1775, scholars have attempted to judge how much of it is Diderot's ; now a manuscript gives a convincing answer, for, written at the time of the philosopher's stay in St. Petersburgh, it gives a state of the text which precedes his alterations. At St. Petersburgh, Diderot revised the passages of his "feuillet sur l'école des cadets", which had been added on Clerc's, the translator's, authority ; but the main corrections were done at The Hague, before printing. It was here that he transformed some of his declarations to Catherine. This discovery can perhaps throw light on the respective aims and tactics of the philosopher and the Empress. Finally, Diderot considerably improved the original text's quality by adding a dozen hitherto unidentified additions, the most important of which is six pages long.