https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0290-9328
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ABSTRACT
Émilie Du Châtelet is the only French woman author of a work included in the corpus of clandestine philosophical literature: a set of treatises, dissertations, or letters that circulated in Europe, and especially in France, mainly in manuscript form, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the main purpose of which was to subject religion to rigorous rational criticism (philosophical, historical, scientific). These Examens de la religion, one of the most controversial works in this corpus, circulated during the eighteenth century and gave rise to a form of legend: sometimes said to be the work of Émilie Du Châtelet, sometimes the result of a form of collaboration between Du Châtelet and the one whose life she shared for a long time: Voltaire. If the feminine point of view on the Bible played a role in the recent attribution of this text to Émilie Du Châtelet, the existence of a properly feminine writing in the wider context of clandestine philosophical literature can now be discussed. This article aims to put this debate into perspective, at both the methodological and philosophical level.
Notes on contributor
Maria Susana Seguin is Assistant Professor H.D.R. at Paul-Valéry Montpellier III University, a permanent member of I.H.R.I.M. U.M.R. 5317 E.N.S. de Lyon, and a Senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. She is a specialist in eighteenth-century French literature, particularly in its relations with science and philosophy. She is in charge of the “Libertins et clandestins” team, co-director (with Pierre-François Moreau) of the revue La Lettre clandestine (Paris, éditions Garnier), and co-manager (with Antony McKenna) of the online platform “Philosophie clandestine” (http://philosophie-clandestine.huma-num.fr).
Notes
1 Le Ru, Émilie Du Châtelet philosophe. One might also believe that she was a successful philosophical and scientific writer because her thought was in harmony with “dominant masculine thought.”
2 Du Châtelet-Lomond, Examens de la Bible.
3 On this subject, see Artigas-Menant, “Cent ans de réponses”; Seguin, “Quelques réflexions.”
4 Lanson, “Questions diverses.”
5 Wade, The Clandestine Organization and Diffusion.
6 Reference should be made here to the very important inventorial work carried out by Miguel Benítez in La Face cachée des Lumières, which has been further developed in the Spanish edition of the same work, La Cara oculta de la Luces (Valencia, Biblioteca valenciana, Ideas series, 2003). La Lettre clandestine regularly announces the discovery of new copies of previously inventoried texts or the existence of new titles that may be entered into the clandestine corpus. The whole corpus of clandestine philosophical literature can now be consulted at the digital platform philosophie-clandestine.huma-num.fr, which is regularly updated, to which I will refer from now on.
7 For an historical definition of the genre, see Paganini, “What is a Clandestine Philosophical Manuscript?”
8 See the various thematic issues of La Lettre clandestine devoted to the problems associated with the appellation and description of the clandestine corpus, such as “Tendances actuelles dans la recherche sur les clandestins à l’âge classique,” 5 (1996), “L’identification du texte clandestin aux xviie et xviiie siècles,” 7 (1998), or “Anonymat et clandestinité aux xviie et xviiie siècles,” 8 (1999). On the relationship between clandestine literature and the intellectual life of the period, in addition to the issues devoted to the major authors of the Enlightenment, see also “Protestants, protestantisme et pensée clandestine,” 13 (2004), “Les matérialismes dans la littérature clandestine de l’âge classique,” 14 (2005–2006), “Les Relations franco-anglaises aux xviie et xviiie siècles: périodiques et manuscrits clandestinsm,” 15 (2007), and “La littérature philosophique clandestine et les sciences,” 18 (2010). See also Paganini, Laursen, and Jacob, Clandestine Philosophy.
12 La vie et l’esprit de M. Benoît Spinosa. La Haye, 1719. Currently only five copies of this edition are known.
13 http://philosophie-clandestine.huma-num.fr/ms/189. See the issue devoted to this text by La Lettre clandestine, 24 (2016).
15 On this subject, see Martin and Chartier, Histoire de l’édition française.
16 Weil, L’Interdiction du roman et la librairie. See also Weil, Livres interdits, livres persécutés.
17 The manuscript in question is Le philosophe, written by Dumarsais, and published for the first time in Nouvelles Libertés de penser, published covertly at Amsterdam in 1743. http://philosophie-clandestine.huma-num.fr/ms/144.
18 Calmet, Commentaire littéraire.
19 By way of example, Du Châtelet, Examens de la Bible, 229, writes: “Que l’on compare ce passage avec le Lévitique et qu’on voye si Dieu a pu inspirer l’auteur du Lévitique et les prophètes qui lui donne[nt] si positivement le démenti,” “Examen du Lévitique”.
20 There are numerous examples of this type of criticism. Consider, for instance, the commentary authored by Du Châtelet, ibid., 195, concerning a prophecy of the Old Testament: “Le reste de la prophétie de Jacob est dans ce goût là et ressemble aux discours d’un homme qui a un violent transport au cerveau et dont les discours n’ont ni sens ni tête.”
21 Once again, there are numerous examples of this. We may consider one example that summarizes the position adopted by the Marquise: ibid., 280: “Voilà donc l’histoire du Pentateuque finie, il faut avoüer que c’était bien la peine de faire tant de miracles et tant de mal aux hommes pour faire sortir les Israelites d’un beau et bon pays comme l’Égypte […].”
22 Ibid., 189: “Mais elle [la bru de Judas] envoya à Judas avant d’aller au bucher le gage qu’elle avait reçu de luy; ce qui luy sauva la vie quoique par là, elle eut joint l’inceste à l’adultère.”
23 Regarding the genealogy of Jesus, she writes (ibid., 614): “Or Joseph n’etant que le pere putatif de Jesus, et n’y ayant rien mis du sien, autant valoit-il faire la généalogie de Mahomet que la sienne pour donner celle de J[ésus] C[hrist]. Mais cette généalogie si absurde à raporter, fourmille de contradictions.”
24 Letter from Condorcet to Turgot, 14 June 1772, letter LXVII, in Henry, Correspondance inédite, 87.
25 Schwarzbach, “Preface,” 38–9.
26 Du Châtelet-Lomond, Examens de la Bible, 178–9.
27 Ibid., 107, 207.
28 Ibid., 199.
29 Ibid., 343–4.
30 Ibid., 647.
31 Ibid., 646.
32 Ibid., 233.
33 Ibid., 642.
34 Ibid., 781.
35 Ibid., 747, 801–2.
36 Ibid., 275.
37 Ibid., 488–9.
38 Ibid., 325.
39 Ibid., 478–83.
40 A copy of this manuscript is also preserved in the same volume as one of the copies of Du Châtelet's Examens. This manuscript has remained anonymous. It is assumed that the author is male, but we have no evidence of this.
41 Ms. Mazarine 1193, fol. 22–6v.
42 On this subject, see Schwarzbach, “Preface.”
43 Following the literary and historical references present in the Examens, Bertram Schwarzbach (“Preface,” 24–9) places the composition of the text after 1736.
44 Du Châtelet-Lomond, Examens de la Bible, 494.
45 Rodrigues, “Emilie du Châtelet, a Bibliography.” See also Muceni, “De la mauvaise éducation des filles.”
46 Émilie du Châtelet, Préface du traducteur, Ms. Russian National Library of Saint Petersburg, Voltaire Collection, IX, pxx. My translation.
47 Bruxelles-B.R. 15188–15189.
48 Troyes-B.M. 2376–2377.
49 Schwarzbach, “Preface,” 19–21.
50 Letter LXVII from Condorcet to Turgo, 14 June 1772, in Correspondance inédite de Condorcet et de Turgot 1770–1779, Charles Henry ed., Paris, 1883; Genève, Slatkine reprints, 1970, 87.
51 Letter LXVII, 21 June 1772, Ibid., 79.
52 Wade, Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet.
53 We can point out the pages that Véronique Le Ru devotes to the comparison of the Institutions de physique and the Examens. Émilie Du Châtelet philosophe. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019.
54 Hazard, La crise.
55 The publication of Nouvelles libertés de penser, a collection of clandestine texts, at Amsterdam in 1743 opened a new era in the dissemination of clandestine philosophical literature, which reached its zenith in the 1760s thanks to the editorial work of Voltaire and the circle around d’Holbach.