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Science and Philosophy as Precursors of the English Influence in France: A Study of the Choix Des Anciens Journaux

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Minnie M. Miller
Minnie M. Miller*
Affiliation:
Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia
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Extract

From the popularity of Voltaire's Lettres philosophiques, one might infer that 1734 marks approximately the beginning of the English vogue in France. Although interest in English literature was greatly enhanced by Voltaire, a study of French periodicals published during the seventy years preceding 1734 shows that the influence of English science and philosophy was at its height prior to the appearance of Voltaire's Lettres. This study will endeavor to trace the early development of Anglomania, particularly in the fields of science and philosophy, as revealed in the Choix des anciens Mercures et des autres journaux. This collection, published at Paris from 1757 to 1764, drew its material from various periodicals of the seventeenth and the first sixty years of the eighteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , September 1930 , pp. 856 - 896
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930

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References

1 My special thanks are due to Professor E. P. Dargan of the University of Chicago, who read my manuscript and offered valuable suggestions.

2 The original spelling and punctuation of the Choix are retained in the quotations, although the titles of the periodicals are modernized.

3 The Mercure français, which is not to be confused with the later Mercure de France, was a collection of historical tales rather than a typical journal. Its twenty-five volumes (1611-48) gave a tabular view of events in the different European countries during the years 1605 to 1648.

4 Marmontel, the second editor, prints extracts from the Mercure français in volumes XVI to XXV of the Choix, although he, likes Bastide, apologizes for their lack of interest.

5 This study will not discuss the rôle of English history in the development of Anglomania. One notes, however, that news of state traveled quickly from England to France, even in the seventeenth century. Historical items in French periodicals are frequently contemporary with the event in England.

6 Cf. Lenel, Un homme de lettres au XVIIIe siècle. Marmontel (Paris, 1902).

7 Cf. Marmontel, Eléments de Littérature (1787).

8 Cf. Garat, Memoires historiques sur la vie de M. Suard (Paris, 1820, 2 vols.).

9 Voltaire, Œuvres (Moland), XLII, 128 and 221.

10 Haines, C. M., Shakespeare in France, 22-23 (London, 1925).

11 Hatin, Histoire politique et littéraire de la presse en France, I, 435-37 (Paris, 1859-61) has a complete list of the seventy-nine journals with the date of the first number of each.

12 Excellent monographs have already treated the English influence in the Pour et Contre and the Journal étranger. Cf. Havens, G. R., The Abbé Prévost and English Literature (Princeton, 1921. Elliott Monograph, no. 9) and Sichel, J., Die Englische Literatur im Journal étranger (Darmstadt, 1907). However, these studies deal only with literature and not with science and philosophy.

13 Texte, J., Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les origines du cosmopolitisme littéraire, 99 (Paris, 1895).

14 Muralt, Béat-Louis de., Lettres sur les Anglais et les Français (1725). Edition by Eugène Ritter, Paris, 1897. Letter I, p. 10.

15 Mornet, D., Les Sciences de la nature en France, au dix-huitième siècle, 3 (Paris, 1911).

16 Choix, XXVII, 186, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1685.

17 L, 53, from Pour et Contre, V (1734).

18 XXXIV, 60, from Mercure de France, 1735.

19 XXV, 167-71, from Journal des Savants, 1682.

20 XVI, 206-07, from Journal des Savants, 1666.

21 Œuvres (ed. Laboulaye) VII, 34-53.

22 Œuvres (ed. Moland) XLVI, 80, Lettres à Horace Walpole (1768). Similar statements are made in XVIII, 588, Dictionnaire philosophique, art. Epopée (1771) and V, 20-21, Mémoires pour servir à la vie de M. de Voltaire (1759).

23 Mornet finds that seventy-seven out of five hundred private library catalogues (1750-80) have copies of Voltaire's Eléments. This is a large number for a scientific work. Cf. Mornet, “Les Enseignements des bibliothèques privées (1750-80),” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XVII, 460.

24 Bloch, La Philosophie de Newton, 523-24 (Paris, 1908).

25 XVIII, 205-10, from Mémoires et Conferences sur les arts et les sciences, 1672.

26 XXIII, 161-86, from Journal des Savants 1679, 1681, and 1682.

27 XLIX, 194, from Pour et Contre, IV (1734).

28 XLIX, 151, from Pour et Contre, V (1734).

29 LXVII, 127-33, from Lettres secrètes, 1734.

30 LXXVIII, 147-87, from Mercure de France, 1744.

31 LXXXVIII, 105-11, from Le Conservateur, 1757.

32 LIII, 28-29, from Choix littéraire, III (1755).

33 LUI, 94-95, from Choix littéraire, VIII (1756).

34 XCIII, 92, from Choix littéraire, XVI (1758).

35 Papin was a friend of Boyle and assisted him in experiments with an airpump.

36 XXIV, 206, from Journal des Savants, 1681.

37 XXVIII, 194, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1685.

38 XXXIV, 162, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1688.

39 XVI, 164-66, from Journal des Savants, 1665.

40 XI, 140-44, from Journal des Savants, 1666; and XIV, 128-35, from Journal de Trévoux, 1701.

41 XVIII, 209, from Mémoires et Conférences sur les Arts et les Sciences, 1672.

42 XXXIII, 113, from Bibliothèque universelle, 1688.

43 XIII, 103, from Journal des Savants, I (1665).

44 XXVIII, 211, from Journal des Savants, 1685.

45 XXIV, 108-11, from Journal des Savants, 1682.

46 XXI, 175-79, from Journal des Savants, 1677.

47 XXIX, 147-56, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1686.

48 XXX, 151-63, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1686.

49 LXVII, 191, from Journal de Trévoux, 1716.

50 XXVI, 127-37, from Journal des Savants, 1683.

51 XXXVI, 159, from Histoire des ouvrages des savants, 1689.

52 XXIII, 117, from Journal des Savants, 1680.

53 XXX, 204-10, from Bibliothèque universelle, 1686.

54 XXVI, 193-206, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1684.

55 XXIX, 199-200, from Journal des Savants, 1686.

56 LXVII, 156-67, from Journal de Trévoux, 1701.

57 XIX, 169-78, from Journal des Savants, 1676.

58 XIX, 122-24, from Journal des Savants, 1676.

59 XXXV, 83-90, from Mercure de France, 1735.

60 XCV, 49-52, from Journal encyclopédique, 1761.

61 XC, 172-78, from Le Nouveau magasin français, 1750.

62 XXXVIII, 96, from Mercure de France, 1737.

63 Information on Bacon's early French influence is taken from Rémusat, Charles de, Bacon, sa vie, son temps, sa philosophie et son influence jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1857); and, more especially, from Fowler, T., Bacon's Novum Organum, edited with Introduction, Notes, etc., pp. 98-131 (Oxford, 1899, 2nd edition).

64 XIV, 176-79, from Journal des Savants, 1666.

65 XII, 140-41, from Journal des Savants, III (1667).

66 Childrey's book is entitled Britannia Baconica, or the natural rarities of England, Scotland, and Wales, according as they are to be found in every Shire historically related according to the precepts of the Lord Baccon (1660). The book appeared at Paris in French translation in 1662 and 1667.

67 XIX, 195-96, from Journal des Savants, 1676.

68 IV, 105, from Extraordinaire du Mercure, 1679.

69 IX, 106, from Extraordinaire du Mercure, 1682.

70 XXVIII, 193-94, from Nouvelles de la République des lettres, 1685.

71 XLVIII, 183, from Journal littéraire, 1716. The Choix, LXVII, 164 (from Journal de Trèvoux, 1701) names Bacon, but the article is a translation from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

72 LXXVIII, 174, from Mercure de France, 1744.

73 XCIX, 174, from Journal encyclopédique, 1761.

74 XLIX, 146, from Pour et Contre, V (1734).

75 XXXIX, 70, from Mercure de France, 1738.

76 XCV, 57-64, from Journal encyclopédique, 1761. Voltaire discussed the History of Henry VII in the Lettres philosophiques, XII.

77 LVII, 62-67, from Choix littéraire, VI (1756).

78 XIX, 30, from Mercure français, IV. The twenty-five volumes were published between 1611 and 1648.

79 XIV, 151, from Mercure de France, 1692.

80 XXVII, 79, from Mercure de France, 1729.

81 XLIX, 151, from Pour et Contre, V (1734).

82 LVI, 200, from Mercure de France, 1741.

83 XLVII, 57-86, from Choix littéraire, II (1755).

84 LX, 189, from Choix littéraire, IV (1755).

85 Bastide, Charles, John Locke, ses théories politiques et leur influence en Angleterre, 114 (Paris, 1907).

86 Mornet, D. “Les enseignements des bibliothèque privées (1750-80),” Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XVII (1910), 460.

87 X, 134-44, from Journal de Trévoux, 1701.

88 Cf. Voltaire, Lettres philosophiques, XIII (Ed. Lanson, I, 170).

89 The Choix, due to its orthodox attitude, gives no reflection of the immense influence of Locke upon the skepticism of Voltaire and the philosophes.

90 XCI, 5-56, from Bibliothèque choisie, VI (1705).

91 XL, 34, from Pour et Contre, I (1733).

92 C, 163, from Mercure de France, 1745.

93 XC, 113, from Lettres sur quelques Ecrits de ce tems, VIII (1752).

94 CII, 82-83, from Journal encyclopédique, 1762.

95 Œuvres (ed. Moland) I, 21. Mémoires (1759). Voltaire wrote: “Le sentiment de Locke n'avait point fait de bruit en France auparavant” (i.e. before the Lettres philosophiques).

96 Choix references to such philosophers as Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Hume, Burke, belong to a period when English influence was well established, hence are not included in this discussion.