bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Présentation
Authors: Moureau François 
Published: June 2016

François Moure au : Introduction.
Voyages of exploration are slightly out of place in the civilisation of the French Enlightenment, in which travelling (on the Grand Tour or scientific journey) was seen as a way of finding oneself and verifying what was known. The voyage of exploration, on the contrary, is a search for the unknown, the epistemological revolution first undertaken by the great discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries. The present collection of essays concerns different categories of such journeys by professionals or experts, ranging from the diplomat or wanderer, the official or scientist, to the freebooter or adventurer. But these apparently utilitarian journeys which prefigure the imperialism of the following century, produce odd side-effects involving the scientific or sociological imagination, with the "imaginary savage" and the recurring myth of encyclopaedic knowledge. As the Enlightened expert advances towards the horizon of total knowledge, it recedes and the newly-explored earth acquires new mysteries.
Louis Monneron agent de la France à Ceylan
Authors: Abeydeera Ananda 
Published: June 2016

Ananda Abeydeera : Monneron, a French agent in Ceylon (1781-5).
Ceylon, with ports in both east and west, accessible in all weather, and near to India, was considered as the main base for Suffren's campaign to reconquer India in 1781. For this purpose, the Mascarene authorities placed Jean-Louis Monneron in Ceylon as agent for the French nation. As can be seen from his instructions, the authorities appreciated his financial ability and his knowledge of Indian trade. He was to ensure logistical support enabling the fleets of Suffren and Orres to continue their campaign at sea as long as necessary without having to go back to Isle de France. His critical analysis of the situation in Ceylon and his recommendations for improving it are the result of his work and his observations. They indicate the role of a French diplomat in the Indian Ocean during the pre-Revolutionary decade.
Cosmogonie politique de la Perse
Authors: Danechvar Néguine 
Published: June 2016

Néguine Danechvar : The political cosmogony of Persia.
18th-century Persia was shaken by invasions, insurrections and internal unrest which, linked to hedonism, the widespread use of opium and alcohol, and the decline of martial instincts, pushed her towards total collapse. The long period of peace and inactivity which preceded the reign of Shah Abbas the Great, and the bloody and tyrannical rule of his successors, entirely destroyed the courage of the fearful and poverty-struck Persians. The main factors contributing to Persia's decline were the inadequate education of her princes — rendered incapable of taking on governmental or military responsabilises — , their weakness and feeble submission to the authority of eunuchs and mollahs, and the eliminations of any princes, ministers or individuals whose wisdom could have saved the country.
La Description de l'Égypte
Authors: Ouasti Boussif 
Published: June 2016

Boussif Ouasti : The 'Description of Egypt'.
The Description de l'Égypte is a monumental work resulting from Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, which was published twice, once by Napoleon (1809 onwards) and once by Louis XVIII (1821 onwards) ; it was the work of scientists, writers, naturalists, artists, engineers etc. This article describes the content of the volumes, emphasizes its encyclopaedic spirit in the tradition of the Enlightenment, and judges its literary importance. Although this historical and geographical investigation on an unprecedented scale has been seen as an attempt by the West to appropriate the East, it is nevertheless an achievement whose scientific and literary importance has hitherto been insufficiently explored.
Mungo Park en Afrique, ou l'explorateur exploré
Authors: Brahimi Denise 
Published: June 2016

Denise Brahimi : Mungo Park in Africa of the explorer explored.
Mongo Park, a twenty-four year old Scotsman, was sent by the African Association to explore part of West African, from the Gambia to the Niger. He set off in 1795 for a journey of two and a half years and in 1799 published his account, which contains precise information on the places he passed through. He was sustained by concern for his mission and by the idea of providence, despite the dangers — which led to his death during his second journey, in 1805. His impartial judgements and his method of analysing the behaviour he saw are typical of the Enlightenment. What is new is his acceptance of the fact that the people visited had the same desire for knowledge in return, and his willingness to reciprocate.
Les fleurs d'Akiaki : un épisode du voyage de Bougainville
Authors: Le Goff Jean-Pascal 
Published: June 2016

Jean Pascal Le Goff : the flowers of akiaki : an episode in Bougainville's
voyage.
Before arriving in Tahiti, Bougainville and his companions discovered an apparently deserted island. They imagined a South Sea paradise, but were disappointed and astonished at the arrival of the Polynesian inhabitants ; this undermined their conception of their own origins. Instead of desiring this Eden they now brutally rejected it when they perceived its unacceptably primitive nature. But their interrogation concerning the Tahitian's nature and their troubling similarity, led them to invent another imaginary paradise, which succeeded in recreating the distance between them.
L'invention d'une chimère : Fragments du dernier voyage de La Pérouse (1797)
Authors: Gury Jacques 
Published: June 2016

Jacques Gury : Fragments du dernier voyage de la Peyrouse : Discovery
or mirage.
Fragments from Lapérouse's Last Voyage, published anonymously in Brittany in 1797, and purporting to be an account of the discovery of an island paradise in the Pacific, was a clever pastiche by Jacques Cambry (1749-1807). But it is not just another South Sea island tale, with echoes of Bougainville and Cook as well as of Virgil and Fénelon. Cambry refused Diderot's vision of native innocence in a Cytherean golden Age, and eulogised an Arcadian society inspired by the ideals of Rousseau. In the Fragments republished here, Otahiti was rescued from primeval brutality, as well as from Western corruption, and became a haven from the nightmare of the French Revolution.
L'abbé Renaudot en Italie (1700-1701)
Authors: Burger Pierre-François 
Published: June 2016

Pierre-François Burger : Abbé Renaudot in Italy (1700-1701).
Eusèbe Renaudot (1648-1720), who was a journalist, orientalist and secret agent, attended the conclave which elected Pope Clement XI. Then he stayed on in Rome until September 1701 to conduct business and intrigue with the Roman court, taking part in almost all the current affairs. His discussions with the Pope were probably not successful, despite his belief that attention meant approval. His relations with Cardinal Janson deteriorated and he had to leave Rome in September 1701. In Paris he transmitted a Papal message to the Theo¬ logy Faculty, which apparently welcomed it favourably while severely criticising the legitimacy of this unofficial messenger whose mission was not clearly defined.
La Hollande vue par les voyageurs français (1750-1795)
Authors: Van Strien-Chardonneau Madeleine 
Published: June 2016

Madeleine Van Strien-Chardonneau : Holland seen by French travellers (1750-1795).
18th-century French visitors to the United Provinces were struck by the intense urbanisation, particularly in the province of Holland. All the descriptions of towns include information on the walls, gates, overall view when seen from a height, and number of inhabitants. As characteristics of Dutch towns, the travellers noted the many canals with shady banks, the streets full of sledges, the convenient pavements and the simple, brightly-painted houses. The numerous attractive towns were seen to be evidence of the wealth of the country as a whole, which was borne out by the surprisingly clean and pretty villages. Dutch towns were to some extent idealized, and perceived in terms of long-standing clichés ; but the travellers' remarks also reflect contemporary views on town planning, for Dutch towns provided examples of planning and a quality of life rarely found in French cities.
Un anti-esclavagiste kleptomane ? En marge de l'affaire Milscent
Authors: Bénot Yves 
Published: June 2016

Yves Bénot : An anti-slavery cleptomaniac ?
Two unpublished letters, one from Milscent and the other from the mulatto La Bussonnière, throw light on the Convention's sitting of 4th June 1793, in which a petition for the abolition of slavery was presented for the first time. Following its failure, meetings were held at the Paris Commune to prepare a new attempt more carefully. Unfortunately, at the same time La Bussonnière, who headed the 4th June delegation, was arrested for robbery. Accounts by his acquaintances, including Milscent and Julien Raimond, leave no doubt as to the truth of the accusation, although we may wonder whether he was a thief or simply a cleptomaniac. In any case, this unfortunate incident meant that the planned anti-slavery petition was abandoned.
L'homme sauvage dans la pensée de Saint-Martin
Authors: Bartfeld Fernande 
Published: June 2016

Fernande Bartfeld : Savages in Saint-Martin s Thought.
Like his contemporaries, the theosophist Saint-Martin was interested in travel accounts and followed closely the debates to which the discovery of savages gave rise. But Saint-Martin's interest in savages was not very far-reaching, for they did not constitute for him an ideal or an important center of interest, but only a way to measure how far man was from the Truth. His approach produced a model which is different from the 'publicists' opposition between savage and civilised man. In Saint-Martin's scheme of things, civilised man is on the same side as the savage, opposed to the ideal of primitive, uncorrupted man.
Le mouvement scientifique et la problématique des droits de l'homme
Authors: Baridon Michel 
Published: June 2016

Michel Baridon : The scientific movement and human rights.
This article analyses the relationship between political theory and scientific research. It shows that on the eve of the Revolution several lines of research gave credence to the idea that any given society was a homogeneous whole composed of similar elements. The findings of economics confirmed those of psychology, sociology and linguistics, and the social mathematics of Price and Condorcet enabled these data to be analysed. All informed and honest intellectuals knew that this result meant that social structures had to be rebuilt. Of the three existing political theories — divine right absolutism, an English-style mixed constitution and the social contract — only the last one reconciled research data and the construction of a modern State.
Pour une théorie de la description au 18e siècle
Authors: Reynaud Denis 
Published: June 2016

Denis Reynaud : For a theory of description in the isth century.
Natural history in the 18th Century made description the supreme form of discourse, but it also profoundly rethought its functions and modes. It tried in particular to define what was specific about verbal description as compared to the power of pictural representation. The same preoccupation led to a divorce in the field of description between the 'history' of an object and its true 'description'. In their writings, scientists like Perrault, Réaumur, Buffon, Daubenton, Bonnet or Adanson were perpetually confronted with the problem of the order, limits and objects of description, and their answers to these literary questions concern literature as much as they do science.
Notes sur deux manuscrits clandestins
Authors: Fairbairn A.-W. , Schwarzbach Bertram Eugene 
Published: June 2016

A. W. Fairbairn and B. E. Schwarzbach : Notes on two clandestine texts.
1. A recent article by F. Charles-Daubert showed that the common French version of the Traité des trois imposteurs dévelops theses characteristic of the Paduan school, and in particular that it borrows/adapts 5 passages from Jules-César Vanini (1616). It is argued here (a) that those 5 passages, plus a sixth, were quoted from Vanini in a refutation by J. M. Schramm, dated 1709, and (b) that, since they all occur in the third chapter of the T.T.I. , they reinforce a previous suggestion that this chapter, at least, was reworked if not rewritten between 1709 and the earliest attestations after 1715.
2. The additions which transform the Examen de la religion from its classic, 11-chapter form into its 15-chapter form are characterized in part by their borrowings from Fontenelle's Histoire des oracles, a source absent in the 11-chapter version.
Jean Potocki méritait mieux
Authors: Beauvois Daniel 
Published: June 2016

Daniel Beauvois : Jean potocki deserved better.
J. Potocki's famous novel, Le Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, was written in French, its copies were 'lost' and its complete 66 chapters or 'days' were only known in an 1847 Polish translation, retranslated into several languages. Several incomplete copies were known to be scattered in Polish and European archives ; references are given in the 1972 Potocki Conference Acts (Cahiers de Varsovie, n° 3), in M. E. Zoltowska's thesis (Yale 1973), in Kukulski's Polish editions (1956, 1965) and their German translations (1981, 1984). M. E. Zoltowska has been preparing a complete edition for the last 15 years, thanks to new discoveries (17 mss), and had a contract with Gallimard for the 'Pléiade'. The publisher Corti has got in first by publishing in 1989 a so-called 'complete' version in which 14 chapters (about 100 p.) have been retranslated from the German — which is nowhere indicated. Thus the reader is deprived of the authentic version of the chapters that only M. E. Soltowska has found. [D. Beauvois's article is followed by Corti's reply.]
La physiologie mécaniste de Hoffmann
Authors: Duchesneau François 
Published: June 2016

François Duchesneau : Hoffman's mechanistic philosophy.
Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742) illustrates the dilemmas of late iatromecha-nism, for he can only fulfill his ambition of providing an explanatory system for the mechanisms of life by using models which are non-standard according to geometrical mechanics. The history of sciences has tended to present Hoffman's mechanism as the antithesis of Stahl's animism. Our aim is rather to bring out the original subtle theories in his Medicina rationalis systematica (1718-1741). Hoffmann takes as his basis an open group of dynamic models in order to account for the structuro-functional integration of the organism, and in so doing he anticipates different forms of organicism which appear in the middle of the 18th Century.
La théorie de la sécrétion chez Bordeu, modèle de la physiologie et de la pathologie vitalistes
Authors: Rey Roselyne 
Published: June 2016

Roselyne Rey : Bordeu's theory of secretion, a model of vitalist physiology and pathology.
Bordeu dealt a serious blow to iatromechanism when he demonstrated, by means of anatomical and pathological observations, that secretion was not the result of mechanical compressing action or of filtration of the humours, but a product of the gland's own activity. He insisted on the specific sensitivity of each gland for each secretion, and his examination of the three phases of secretory activity led him to propose a general model for interpreting the organism on the lines of his vitalist conceptions and to emphasize the identity of physiological and pathological phenomena.
La réception en Italie et en Europe du Saggio di Osservazioni microscopiche de Spallanzani (1765)
Authors: Castellani Carlo 
Published: June 2016

Carlo Castellani : The Italian and European reception of Spallanzani's
saggio di osservazioni microscopiche (1765).
The available documentary evidence appears to show that Lazzaro Spallanza-ni's Saggio di Osservazioni Microscopiche, published in 1765, received in the main a rather lukewarm reception from the scientific community. It is probable that this attitude on the part of the educated public and the specialised press to a work which modern critics consider to be revolutionary in its own way, is linked to the fact that Spallanzani's subject (the biology of infusoria) and the microscopic techniques on which his research was based, were still largely alien to the scientific mentality of his time.
Entre Ancien Régime et Révolution : les chirurgiens vus par eux-mêmes (1790-1791)
Authors: Goubert Jean-Pierre 
Published: June 2016

Jean-Pierre Goubert : Between the old regime and the Revolution, how
surgeons saw themselves.
At the end of 1790 the French sanitary committee launched an investigation into the practice of surgery, the hundred or so replies to which are the source of this article. An analysis of these replies shows how master surgeons, a relatively heterogeneous profession, saw the question of their autonomy at a crucial time which was favourable to far-reaching reforms. A small minority of them called for reforms but the great majority simply rejected a number of long-standing obvious "abuses" and wished to improve the standard of training and enhance the profession's status. These replies provided the sanitary committee with material for debate, and arguments for the champions of "change".
Une lettre oubliée de Voltaire sur le Messie. Entre Pollier de Bottens et l'Encyclopédie.
Authors: Desné Roland , Mandich Anna 
Published: June 2016

Voltaire : Between Polier de Bottens and the Encyclopédie, A forgotten letter on the Messiah, presented by Roland Desné & Anna Man-dich.
A copy of a letter by Voltaire, dated 21 October 1758, concerning the Jews' belief in the Messiah, has come to light in the Parma historical archives. The holograph version, in Leningrad, was published by Wade and Torrey in the Romanic Review in 1940, but ignored in Bestermann's edition of the Correspon¬ dence. The Parma version is reproduced here, together with the Leningrad variants. It is shown to be a commentary, in the form of a letter with a fictitious addressee, on the 14th Remark on Pascal and, contrary to the opinion of Wade and Torrey, to be based on Polier de Bottens's Encyclopédie article Messie. The reasons for the letter's preservation in Parma are discussed, as is its place in Voltaire's works.
Politique, littérature et mystification. Echec à Rulhière. Un récit inédit de Diderot rapporté par D. Golitsyn
Authors: Dulac Georges 
Published: June 2016

Politics, literature and mystification : countering Rulhière, an unpu¬ blished story by Diderot recounted by D. Golitsyn. Presented by Georges Dulac, with the collaboration of Vladimir Somov.
In a dispatch to the Vice-Chancellor A. M. Golitsyn, dated 16th June 1771, Dimitri A. Golitsyn, the plenipotentiary at the Hague, reproduces a letter from Diderot dated 1st June, recounting how he managed to discredit in Paris society Rulhière's account of the "revolution" which brought Catherine to the throne. The "charming account" which he wrote himself, using his conversations with Princess Dashkov, allowed him to defeat the former secretary at the St. Petersburg embassy. After having publicly destroyed this little work, he intends to finish off the task by collaborating on a history of the 1762 events in line with the Empress's views.
Six lettres inédites de Volney à Grégoire
Authors: Deneys Anne , Deneys Henry 
Published: June 2016

Four unpublished letters from Volney to Grégoire, presented by Anne and Henry Deneys.
These copies, from Grégoire's papers, show the close personal and epistolary relations, at two different moments, between the author of Les Ruines and the abbé Grégoire, organiser of the constitutional church, when they were both members of the Institut. The first three letters, written by Volney during his stay in America, from October 1795 to June 1798, show his financial request to the Directory, some of the geographical observations later put in his Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis (1803), and his criticisms of French diplomats. They confirm facts already known from his letters to la Revellière-Lépeaux. The last three letters, from Sarcelles in 1805-7, give details of Volney's life as a gentleman farmer and show the courage with which he faced old age and illness.
L'organisation des hauts grades du Grand Orient de France. Le Grand chapitre général de France (1783-1787)
Authors: Baumier Matthieu 
Published: June 2016

Matthieu Baumier : The organisation of the high grades of the French Grand Orient : the grand chapitre general de France (déc. 1783-july 1787.)
The Grand Chapitre Général de France, long considered as an unimportant Scottish Masonic obedience, has been ignored in the historiography of French Freemasonry. It was however the most important group of French Masonic chapters shortly before the Revolution. It was an emanation of the Grand Orient and its creation, functioning and role placed it at the centre of the Grand Orient's policy for the unification of French Freemasonry. It became the motor of the Grand Orient's takeover of the High Grades in a unified system, and once the latter had returned to the control of the Grand Orient only weak marginal or paramasonic groups were left beyond -the Grand Orient's influence.
D'Holbach et le «whig canon»
Authors: Lurbe Pierre 
Published: June 2016

Pierre Lurbe : D'Holbach and the "Whig canon".
D'Holbach's work shows the influence of late 17th and early 18th century neo-Harringtonian thinkers (in particular Trenchard, Gordon and Toland), known thanks to John Wilkes. His work seems to have a similar theme, namely that liberty and wealth depend on landowners, by definition independent and virtuous. But d'Holbach does not adopt the same point of view as the English thinkers, for a closer analysis reveals several important changes of meaning. The landowner is described by d'Holbach more as a producer in the Physiocratic sense than as a neo-Harringtonian aristocrat ; the former's virtue, essentially sociable, is opposed to the latter's, which preserves something fundamentally martial ; for d'Holbach the search for happiness replaces the defence of independence ; and he seems to favour a form of enlightened despotism rather than his predecessors' Polybian model of the balance of powers.
La Révolution : mort et régénération, ou la France «phénix» ?
Authors: Favre Robert 
Published: June 2016

Robert Favre : The Revolution ; Phœnix-like death and regeneration of
France ?
The frequent use of the word "regeneration" in 1789 and the revolutionary years can, and doubtless should, make us think of the many texts by various 18th-century authors concerning the necessary end of empires, as of all worldly things, and the decadence or old age of the French Kingdom. Thus viewed, the Revolution is an attempt to triumph over death, an effort to revive a 13 century-old empire. This is expressed most clearly by André Chénier in a verse of his ode on the Tennis-court oath, in which he compares the French people to the phoenix which he says is twice-born.
Rousseau selon Sade, ou Jean-Jacques travesti
Authors: Roger Philippe 
Published: June 2016

Philippe Roger : Rousseau according to Sade, or Jean-Jacques travestied.
In Aline et Valcour, Sade paints a flattering but unfaithful portrait of Rousseau, but elsewhere he is ignored or criticized. Rousseau was present in the libraries of La Coste and la Vignerme (unpublished inventories) and was mentioned by Sade's entourage, including his father (unpublished letters). In prison Sade asked for the Confessions and Pygmalion, but Rousseau's philosophy, when mentioned, is always deformed or denigrated. Even Sade's Idée sur le mode de la sanction des lois, during the Revolution, uses Rousseau (anonymously) to defend a "moderate" motion and although La Nouvelle Héloïse is admired, it is also perverted in La philosophie dans le boudoir. Sade opposed Rousseau because of his deism and his Jacobin followers. The bizarre apology in Aline and Valcour was probably originally intended for Voltaire, replaced, probably at the end of 1793, by Jean-Jacques.