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Voltaire, Sinophile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Arnold H. Rowbotham
Arnold H. Rowbotham*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

It is in the Lettres Philosophiques that Voltaire speaks of China for the first time. In these pages the oriental empire is already “la nation la plus sage et la mieux policée de l'univers.” By 1734 the cult of Chinese things had begun to exercise a decided influence on French art and thought. The movement had developed under two aspects: a material manifestation in the vogue of “chinoiseries” or “magots de la Chine,” and an intellectual manifestation which took the form of a profound admiration for Chinese culture and, more particularly, for Confucian thought. The first of these two aspects had made itself felt from the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. Russian, Portuguese, and English merchants had brought to Europe a vast quantity of Chinese objets d'art which were greatly admired and extensively copied in the Western countries. Of the second aspect of the movement Leibnitz, in the seventeenth century, was the undoubted progenitor. The German scholar, the most universal mind of his time (to quote the opinion of Voltaire), read the maxims of Confucius, newly translated, and his brilliant imagination was fired by the wealth contained in the literature of the Eastern people. He dreamed of a universal culture in which Orient and Occident should pool their resources to produce a new intellectual universe. As instruments for the creation of this new culture he looked first to the Society of Jesus and then to Peter the Great. The former had already given ample reason for being chosen. Under the impulse of the literature produced by the missionaries of the Society, and particularly that polemic element which dealt with the famous quarrel over the Chinese ceremonies, Europe had begun to acquire extensive knowledge of the great Oriental empire, a knowledge hitherto inaccessible.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 1932 , pp. 1050 - 1065
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 Lettre xi.

2 Jean Baruzi, Leibnitz et l'organization religieuse de la Terre (Paris, 1907), Première partie.

3 Voltaire (Corr. Oeuvres, xlii. 130, Moland ed.) quotes the following couplet which (he says) came from a Jesuit colleague:

C'est notre père Tournemine

Qui croit tout ce qu'il imagine.

4 H. Cordier, “Histoire écclésiastique de l'Extrême Orient,” Rev. de l'Extrême Orient, vol. iii. It is noteworthy that both Bouvet and Tournemine were in correspondence with the sinophile Leibnitz.

5 Oeuvres, xxix, 474.—Here and elsewhere Voltaire shows a contempt for the average merchant's knowledge of the customs of China. This, and his rejection of Anson's testimony regarding China, is interesting evidence of his reliance on the Jesuit missionaries for his knowledge of Chinese customs.

6 Oeuvres, xi, 180.—Voltaire mentions Fouquet a number of times in his works.

7 On his return to Europe he was made titular bishop of Eleuthéropolis. In 1727 he published a book on the Chinese classics. One of his Jesuit colleagues scornfully refers to him as “maigrotiste” (Maigrot was the papal representative in China who incurred the hostility of the Jesuits in his efforts to solve the Rites problem.) Fouquet was evidently one of that small group of priests (including the missionary-scholar De Visdelou) who were not able to accept the official Jesuit position regarding the Rites. Fouquet's views regarding Chinese religion had already been suggested by Lecomte in his Mémoires. They were developed also by his colleagues Prémare, Bouvet, Bayard, etc.

8 Did Voltaire correspond with Father Dominique Parennin? This brilliant missionary-scholar was in touch with several men in Paris, notably Dortous de Mairan, secretary of the Académie des Sciences. He was one of the most learned of the Jesuit missionaries. Voltaire speaks of him on several occasions in such an eulogistic manner that one is tempted to believe that his knowledge of him came from personal relations, in spite of lack of evidence to that effect.

9 De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu; ex P. Matthaei Riccii ejusdem societatis, commentariis libri V. in quibus Regni Sinensis Mores, leges atque instituta et novae illius ecclesiae difficillima primordia accurate et summa fide describuntur. Auctore P. Nicolao Trigautio Belga ex eadem Societate, (Amsterdam, 1615). French tr. (Lille, 1617).

10 Relaçao de propagaçao da fé no regno da China e outros adjacentes. (Madrid, 1640). French ed. (Paris, 1645).

11 China Monumentis qua Sacris qua Profanis nec non variis naturae et artis spectaculis aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrate. (Amsterdam, 1667.)

12 Nouveaux Mémoires sur l'Etal présent de la Chine par le R. P. Louis Lecomte de la Cie. de Jésus … (Paris, 1696).

13 Description Geógraphique, Historique, Chronologique Politique et Physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise par le Père J-B DuHalde, 4 vols, (Paris, 1735).

14 Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, écrites des mission étrangères.—The edition cited here is Paris, J. G. Merigot, 26 vols. In this ed. vols xvi to xxvi deal with the China mission.

15 Tratados historicos, politicos, éthicos y religiosos de la Monarchia de China (Madrid, 1676).

16 A Voyage around the World in the years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV, by George Anson Esq. … compiled … by Richard Walter M.A. (London, 1744).

17 Travels from Saint Petersburg in Russia to Diverse Parts of Asia, by John Bell of Antermony. Vol. II, to which is added a translation of the Journal of M. de Lange, resident of Russia at the Court of Pekin in the years 1721 and 1722 (Glasgow, 1763).

18 Historia de las cosas mas notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China … hecho y ordenado por el R. P. Maestro Fr. Joan Gonzalez de Mendoça de la orden de S. Augustin … en Roma, 1585. (French tr. 1589.)

19 Oeuvres, xxvi, 390.

20 Voltaire undoubtedly had a polemic motive in this eulogy of China's antiquity. In emphasizing the essential accuracy of Chinese chronology, for example, he was able to belittle the chronology of the Bible and the early traditions of Judaism.

21 It was undoubtedly for the purpose of preserving intact this idea of the unparalleled antiquity of the Chinese race that Voltaire opposed so strenuously the Egyptian theory of Chinese origin which was causing much controversy among scholars during his lifetime. In his later years he was willing to give precedence to the civilization of India.

22 See, for example, Duhalde, op. cit., (ed. 1736), ii, 10–25. Duhalde says: “Il est l'âme qui donne le mouvement à un si grand corps et qui en maintient toutes les parties dans la plus parfaite subordination.”

23 Duhalde, op. cit. (ed. 1736), ii, 10–25.

24 E. Carcassone “La Chine dans l'Esprit des Lois,” Revue d'Hist. Litt. de la France (Avril-Juin, 1924).

24 Oeuvres, xviii, 158.

25 Duhalde devotes several hundred pages (ii, 455–804) to imperial edicts, official announcements, etc., which furnish illuminating evidence of the sententious eloquence of Oriental official documents.

26 Lettres édif., xx, 371 ff.

27 Oeuvres, xxvii, 20.—See also xxvii, 64.

28 Oeuvres, xiii, 162.

29 Lettres édif., xx, 378.

30 Oeuvres, xxv, 556.

31 Oeuvres, xxvii, 28.; xxix, 232.

32 Oeuvres, xix, 409.

33 Oeuvres, xi, 57.; xviii, 158.

34 The picture bore the following legend:

De la seule raison salutaire interprète.
Sans éblouir le monde, éclairant les esprits,
Il ne parla qu'en sage, et jamais en prophète;
Cependant on le crut, et meme en son pays.

35 Oeuvres, xxvii, 26.

36 The Jesuit missionaries expended a great deal of effort in condemning this Buddhist doctrine and in pointing out the difference between it and the Christian conception of the future life. See, for example, the famous apologia of Christianity, T'ien chu shih i, written by Matteo Ricci. Lettres édif., xxv, Entretien v.

37 Oeuvres, xi, 58.

38 Ibid.

39 Oeuvres, xi, 58.

40 Oeuvres, xxv, 34.

41 M. Fernand Farjenel has pointed out to what extent Voltaire misunderstood the Chinese religious system. He aptly remarks: “Le déisme spiritualiste de Voltaire leur est resté inconnu et ils sont demeurés dans un panthéon grandiose et intéressant sans doute mais qui ne ressemble en rien aux idées du patriarche de Ferney.”—“Voltaire et les Chinois,” Revue hebdomadaire, (August 6, 1910).

42 Conyers Middleton, in his answer to Tindal writes, “… there never was a nation in the world, whose public Religion was formed upon the plan of Nature and instituted on the principles of meer Reason.” In his copy of this work, Voltaire has written the following comment: “the relligion of Chinese government.”—N. L. Torrey, Voltaire and the English Deists, p. 171.

43 Söderblom: Das Werden des Gottesglaubens (Leipzig, 1916), cited by A. Reichwein: China und Europa (Berlin, 1923), p. 94.

44 Oeuvres, xi, 173.

45 Oeuvres, xxix, 231.—Leibnitz also had defended the Chinese system of plurality of wives.

46 Lange says: “The great lords of China oppress the merchants to such a great degree and take their goods from them upon frivolous pretences without leaving them the least hope of obtaining any payment … If they go to the Mandarin of Justice they are even worse treated” (p. 228). It is possible that it was from these two works (Anson and Lange) that Montesquieu obtained the information which caused the famous remark “C'est le bâton qui gouverne la Chine,” and not from Duhalde, as he says.

47 Nouvelle Relation de la Chine … par le R. P. Gabriel de Magaillans de la Cie de Jésus (Paris, 1680).

48 Mémoires, i, 213.

49 Lettres édif., xx, passim.

50 Lettres édif., xx, 286.

51 Lettres édif., xxiii, 87–89.

52 Duhalde, op. cit., iii, 107.

53 Oeuvres, xi, 55, 167.

54 Oeuvres, x, 413.; xxix, 455.—Here he is obviously attacking the Christian doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Granet, in his La Religion chinoise (Paris, 1922), pp. 84–101, cites some interesting examples of these legends. Farjenel (op. cit., p. 121) points out that even the cult of Confucius is not free from them, since Chinese schoolboys are told of certain miraculous events which accompanied the birth of the Sage.

55 Oeuvres, xxix, 471.

56 Oeuvres, xiii, 168.

57 Oeuvres, xxv, 35.

58 Oeuvres, xxvii, 25.—See also xiii, 168., xv, 82., xvii, 152., xxv, 35., xxix, 473.

59 Duhalde represents this point of view when he says (iii, 2) of Buddhism: “(Le Buddhisme) n'est qu'un amas de fables et de superstitions venues des Indes à la Chine et entretenues par les Bonzes qui trompent les peuples sous les apparences d'une fausse piété.”

60 Correspondance littéraire, xii, 493.