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This is KZSU Stanford.
Welcome to entitled opinions.
My name is Robert Harrison
and we're coming to you from the Stanford campus.
[Music]
When Voltaire ends convieved with the famous declaration
he focused Ybe no Tejardin.
We should view the gardening question against the background of the wars,
pestilence and natural disasters evoked by the novel.
But who is the new?
Condeed and his comrades, the citizens of France,
humankind in general,
and what does the garden refer to?
To the plot of private land that Condeed retreats to after his adventurous odyssey
to his troubled nation,
to the social or moral virtues that are lacking in the public sphere,
but that can be cultivated privately,
to the values that keep us sane when all else goes to pot.
[Music]
We must cultivate our garden.
Now that's a dictum I hold to.
And in my opinion, the imperative of self-cultivation
has done more to enhance human relations than anything besides running hot water.
Some things like good genes or a vigorous liver are given to us as gifts,
but most of our personal, social or moral virtues are the fruit of systematic cultivation.
As Yates once put it, hearts are not had as gifts,
but hearts are earned by those who are not entirely beautiful.
And he went on to say, "We must labor to become beautiful."
Because even beauty more often than not isn't acquired quality.
Just ask Anukhe Me.
Over the centuries, no one in the Western world has labored harder to become beautiful in the French.
Whether it's the aristocracy of the Aussier-Rejim,
or the maligned bourgeoisie of the 19th and 20th centuries,
self-cultivation has long been a prime French directive.
The Greeks and Romans had highly developed traditions of "Kurfjud de Sua" as Michel Foucault called it.
They cultivated virtues like prudence, wisdom and temperance.
But the French taught us something new.
They taught us that vices are every bit as cultivatable as virtues.
Indeed, even more so.
For French sensibility, a highly refined vices far more beautiful than an earnest virtue.
It is precisely because vices are so susceptible to the transfigurations of form
that they thrive in highly formal settings like the Cordovette-Sai.
The cultivation of envy, spite, vanity, mean-spiritedness, pride,
and sloth or greed does not transform vice into virtue.
On the contrary, by submitting such vices to extremely formalized rules and protocols,
it gives them a style that renders them sublime while leaving their vicious essence intact.
"Efocurtivé no vise."
Speaking of cultivating one's garden, think of the gardens of Versailles.
The idea for the Versailles gardens came to Louis XIV on the evening of August 17, 1661,
when Louis' finance minister, Nico La Foucée unveiled the magnificent gardens he had had built for himself
at a place called Volu viqueult.
So sublime and awesome were these gardens that Louis XIV promptly stormed out of them in a rage.
The next day he had his minister arrested and cast into a dungeon,
where Fucque languished for the rest of his long life,
never to be pardoned by the king, despite many earnest appeals on his behalf from various quarters.
Now, no doubt the sumptuousness of the Volgarden suggested that only a corrupt minister could afford such luxury.
But Fucque's offense in Louis' mind was graver than that.
The gardens were a gesture of pride, vis-a-vis the king himself,
for only the king was entitled to such splendor.
Just as Lucifer and his pride over reached his station and sought to be the equal of God,
so too Fucque had done the same with the king,
and just as God cast Lucifer into the depths of hell,
so too Louis through his minister Fucque into a dungeon.
Yet at the heart of Louis' regal indignation,
there was a good deal of envy as well.
So jealous was the king of what he saw that night at Volu-Vikont,
that after punishing his minister he promptly hired Fucque's entire team of architects, gardeners,
and engineers, and initiated the project of building the gardens of Versailles.
Thus what we see in Versailles today is a magnificent spawn of jealousy, wounded vanity, and rivaled re-imitation.
And what about overbearing pride?
If pride is defined by overreaching, can a king be prideful?
He can be so only with respect to God,
yet it is precisely in his irrigation of the powers and stature of God on earth,
that the absolute monarch remains the living incarnation of Superbia.
Never had the Christian sin of pride institutionalize itself so unabashedly as it did under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV.
The gardens of Versailles were designed with one overriding purpose in mind,
namely to exalt the Sun King and reaffirm his analogical kingship with God.
In that regard, they put pridefulness on open display
and gave it one of the most exalted forms it would ever take,
without in the least, extenuating its vice.
And yet, despite this vicious matrix, or better, because of it,
Versailles remains one of the most cultivated gardens in the world.
In the next hour, we're going to talk with one of the world's leading scholars of the French Aacianne Jean,
and in particular, we're going to talk to him about some of the sublime vices that run through its society, its politics, and its competing ideologies.
His name is Pierre Saint-Amal, a professor of French literature at Brown University.
I'm taking advantage of his brief visit to Stanford to bring him into the studios of KZSU,
so that he can share with us his eminently entitled opinions about the covert,
as well as overt passions of the so-called Age of Reason.
Pierre, welcome to the program.
Welcome. Thank you, Robert for this invitation.
Now, Pierre, I don't usually do this with my guests,
but your background is somewhat out of the ordinary,
so I'd like to start with some personal bio, if you don't mind.
You were high-ish in by birth, and you grew up in Porto, Paris, is that right?
Yes, I grew up in Paul Paris, during the... I spent most of my childhood,
you know, during the reign of the infamous Fosois de Vallea, then is his son.
And I was a young student going to... what is called, "collegia," you know, "vise," there in Haiti,
left finally to come to North America to attend university.
I take it to the New State, was it French, at least, say?
It was a French-lea, it was a...
Actually, it was... I belong to two differentleaes, and the story is actually quite interesting.
I was first in a... there were two private schools. One of them was directed by French priests,
who were exiled by Fosois de Vallea, because the then-president thought that they were...
their ministry was becoming too problematic, and spreading dangerous words, and they were all exiled.
Were they Jesuits? No, they were actually marries, priests.
And when they left, then my father took me to another school, where I finished.
What age were you when he said? What age were you during that period of transition?
Yeah, I must have been 14, 14, yeah.
Did those exiled priests before their exile have a lasting influence on your education, or at least your personal recollectives?
I don't really think so. The ones that really had... the transition to the other school, I think, was in a way all the way.
I liked being in the school that I was before, but I think the second school had much more influence with me.
They were a school that was formed by a series of professors that had returned a long time ago to France for their own studies, and I was educated by them.
One had returned from France, and had studied the mathematics, another one philosophy, and another one was a prominent professor of literature, who had...
was one of the leading specialists of Haitian literature, his name is Padel Povidus.
So I was educated by those people, and I thought then as a student that I was privileged to have had these people, and they always instilled in me the desire to become actually a professor.
So, when you went on to become a professor of the humanities and in literature in particular, was that an interest that you knew you had already back then?
Well, my father was a teacher himself. He was a principal of a school, and a great lover of literature.
This is one of the rare things that I actually shared with him. I was educated by a very authoritarian father, and we had some clash when I was young.
But literature was one of the rare domains where we got along, and we shared some affective bond.
So I knew... I didn't know, but teaching was basically there.
I think I inherited that from him.
So you came to North America, and you had a... I think you're one of the youngest people, if not the youngest person, to get a PhD in America.
Is that right? Probably not, but...
Yes, I was.
You were held where you got a dissertation from Johns Hopkins University in French literature.
I think I was 23 years old.
I think you have to be one of the youngest. Maybe Nietzsche beats you.
I'm with the youngest full professor of your life.
But I knew you became a full professor pretty quickly too.
So, when you pursued graduate study at Hopkins, you ended up deciding to work on the 18th century.
Yes, I started being trained to actually work on the 20th, and I switched over to the 18th.
I don't exactly know when the passage to the early modern period became important for me.
My great interest was always actually to work on the 17th, but I felt more comfortable working in the 18th.
Because of the mix between literature and philosophy, which was always an interest to me.
I don't consider myself a philosopher really, but I always have interest in philosophy.
The language of philosophy itself has an interest for me.
So, in the 18th century, it allows me to go between the two discourses.
Your dissertation, I believe, was on Ditoo, is that correct?
My dissertation was on Ditoo.
Ditoo de la del adi rant de la relación.
And it was mostly on the scientific writings of Ditoo.
When I wrote that dissertation, very few people, it was actually close to the bicentennial of Ditoo's birth.
But there was very little interest in Ditoo really.
I think I was able to rekindle some interest in this sort of strange...
Ditoo was perceived as being sort of a strange philosopher.
But I wrote on his...
The connection between his scientific writings and his other writings around the concept of the complicated...
Basically, the complex, basically working around the notion of disorder, which was a main concept for Ditoo.
It was also very much in the air, I believe, in the early 80s.
And you were at the right place. You had there...
The right place, and it was a big o'jean was around.
And...
It was a hunde jirard at Hopkinson.
Hunde jirard was also there.
And Michel Cérez, both of whom have migrated now to Sanford.
Indeed.
So I was...
I think around the listening to Michel Cérez and also Pligoschien, who came to Johns Hopkins,
I could see that there was a precursor of those...
Of their theories in Ditoo and there was a line of sort of...
...
That was here, actually, at Stanford.
That conference?
Yes.
Was that here at Stanford?
That was you at Stanford.
Which is the one I'm thinking of.
You think of the famous conference on poststructuralism, no?
Yes.
That was before my time.
Well, anyway, those were times when academic conferences still could have some huge impact and resonance and consequences.
Now, you know, they happen every day and our words just kind of float into a void and disappear there.
Anyway, P.L.
After the whole your dissertation, I believe that came out as a book...
Yes.
It's a new territory, which isn't the intersection between science and literature, but it's a book...
A really fascinating book which in French is called de la Céducceon.
In English, I believe it was translated as the Libertines Progress.
They came out in '87 originally in French.
Translated a few years later.
This is a book about seduction in 18th century French literature.
What was so interesting to you about seduction?
Yes. First of all, I should say that I realized that it was difficult to teach especially in French department.
The scientific works that I had worked on.
So I progressively abandoned that field to teach what students could manage to read more easily.
So I developed a teaching the novel.
And it is in relationship to my pedagogy that I thought of this book on seduction.
What was my attraction usually on working in a field is to provoke in a way a new interpretation for the interest in D'Ora was that.
It is a unique really philosopher in the Enlightenment and odd figure.
That was the fascination.
Working in seduction was basically the same way too.
I did not approach it from a point of view of reading the novel, the way the specialist of the novel read it.
I read the 18th century novel introduction from a more anthropological point of view.
Basically, I read what can be considered modern phenomenon, not a cultural phenomenon of libertarianism in the 18th century with more archaic.
The connection, the clash of these individuals.
It was more the relationships of seduction that I wanted to study.
And I read them between model and agent, model and subject.
I have read the book.
It is not that you propose a theory of seduction in general as far as I recall, but there is definitely a theory of desire as it works in the
a bit of the 18th century French novel.
Where seduction is also a means of rivalry and of Skinner made violence.
Is that going too far?
No, that's it.
And yes, and I show that the novel of the 18th century provides actually a genealogy of this desire.
The novel of the 18th century going from Marivo all the way to the novel of sad is a
give us an anthropological
blueprint basically of
this progress of desire.
Desire itself becomes more and more
violent and relationships become more and more lethal
when we go from
Marivo to sad and all of that is done by
this mimetic
process and
the this clash of
vanity is basically.
So well, I have two questions. One who would you say then that what some of the remarks I was making in my opening lead in about the
cultivation of vices or the rendering of them in giving them style is something that really takes place
in the phenomenon of seduction in the 18th century novel.
In other words, you don't have brood violence. It's not an uncultivated. No, I think it's
yes, it is it has taken on a certain refinement, but it still hasn't lost its vicious. Not at all. It is
sort of performed
violence when
ritualized
highly ritualized violence. A lot of people were shocked for example, there is the in the famous
Black-Clue novel. Ladies and all those words.
There's been a lot of
you know interpretations of the end of the of the novel with the expulsion of
La Macquézneche, I
give to that particular episode a much more anthropological
background by
very distinctly
meticulously showing how the novel
places are at the end of the
at the end as a victim of this
of this community and and the way her her place
The wish you she becomes scared-goated
at the at the end
Although she's a participant in the same process. No, she's she's a participant of in the same process, but the
the collective finds in her way to redeem to redeem itself and she she's expelled and
an anthropological point of view allows us to to see that
much better and to give
to the
Contagion of release relations in the novel of much much more ample
feature
So by the time you get to sad however, I think you book their ends on sad there is there's no more
sublimation or
highly ritualization and formalization of
of the violent
foundations of of seduction and desire, but kind of unmasking of it
in in a way that I believe
Do or yes, we agree that it gives a game away and and and sad is important in in that way
Usually a sad is he is studied in in disconnection with the rest of the 18th century
With the readings that I do
We we can read sad in a on in a continuum rather than in
in disconnection
The forms may be parodid they may you know inside but yet yet they they enlighten the rest of the century
It's not
The readings that I provide we no longer can see sad as an absurdity of of the period, but really a
monstrous
Apojay
Not even the unconscious he's the
Or even the subconscious he he's the
The unmasking of the driving principle not made it when I go too far obviously
That's that's what I
Like to that's the way I like to see it now you you've had a lot of experience over the years teaching
these novels to students and
do you
do you find that there's been a
Change fundamental change in the last ten or twenty years in the reactions that you're finding in the classroom
to the liberty novel
There there is always some especially for sad there is always some degree of shock and
There is a for the for the for the the other ones the the liberty novels which are highly readable
About these are is the cracks, you know there is a level of
fascination
That that remains and that the students have
They as much today as before not as much maybe
The entire 18th century becomes more and more difficult to teach as the generations get become younger
I realize only yeah, maybe I'm getting older myself, but or maybe enlightenment is getting further and further away
there you go, but
I think the
The the fascination as I was saying we still remains remains there and
The it's it's a world and a language that is very obscure to them
They are
Sometimes in order to make it accessible, you know, I I make it more by now
Overwhite try to I just didn't have to take them away from that banality by talking about
Sexual proclivity and things like although I don't think it has anything to do with that only I
I'm glad that I teach things like Dante and
Petroc and I would find it very difficult and frustrating to try to
get American
students to
Imagine what a French 18th century aristocratic world was like the degree the kind of obsession with
With one's rank in the in this social hierarchy the vanity the kind of extreme
Vanity of the actors there the memetic contagion they don't understand no, it's very hard
I think for the passions of that century to be translated into our terms
Yeah, and more and more when I teach now the literature I start with basic ideas about about that society
about rank about hierarchy and then I
Progressively make them enter into this this strange
World I
was reading a quote the other day I guess in preparation for our conversation about this wasn't
Louis the 14th but
there was a some
priest Jansenist would died and he was buried in a cemetery and
Followers came there and they thought that he was a saint and they were eating dirt anyway the authorities the kings authorities came in there and
They they courtened off the place and they put up a sign
du par luehua
Defence adieu
Defere me raku also to you
We are forbidding God to perform miracles in this place. I mean du par luehua
Define the one to the king. Yes, the king by the king's order God shall not perform miracles in this
yep
How can one imagine the depth of presumption that such a
Dietic would you know in tales or assume this just yeah, it is it is it is it is a very interesting and peculiar
Edict in in many ways the king being of course the repress the representative of God on earth yet there in that particular edict
It's you have the infacement of one majesty over the other
Yeah, I know I'm with Dante on this whole issue
Dante thought that kings were just petty tyrants and he had no use for them in his political providential order at you know
An emperor okay one emperor, but all these petty little kings on absolute monarchs
That's a different discussion
Pied after seduction you went on to write a fascinating book on what we call the French fiddos off and I think we still call them even in English
fiddos off because
Many people don't consider them philosophers in the Anglo-Saxon sense of
metaphysicians and so forth. These are
Voltaire the de de ho and who so on so forth and this is a book
That you entitled in French Leil wadiros de dite the laws of hostility came out also in English in the mid 90s
What is that book about?
Yes, and in many ways both books are connected
seduction
book and the laws of our city today both deal with
the underside of the
Enlightenment and they both deal with the
foreclosure of
the violence that is usually connected with
with the
the enlightenment the
the laws of hostility laws is shorthand for
Philosophies of the philosophies of contract that are developed around
rather than that time and
contract you mean social contract social contract and
It's a play also on the multi-scuse famous East Piddell wad
What I wanted to
To show in in that book is
and there again is to
Read the 18th century upside down upside down start with
multi-scuse
majestic East Piddell wad and
Go on with who so all of both of them are sort of philosophers of goodwill
There was an American historian who spoke about
Philosophies of of
Decency in the 18th century and and to read them
to read them
in light of Dijot and sad who
bring violence back into
into the social into the social realm so
It that is the reason why it's appropriately called
law I think a laws of
the laws of hostility I
remember also that
One of the things that you suggest is that especially among these philosophers of goodwill
Who believed in the general benevolence of human nature the non-aggressive?
Yes, I think that that
They had displaced it into their own rivalry among themselves
indeed that that's
It was interesting to to to study itself
The space of political philosophy and the lineage of
These philosophers from Hobbes
and even before on to study
the the field itself as a study of
hostility and clashes between between them you say that I'll say
You'll say X I'll say why basically so the field itself becomes more and more
mimetic as it it
Progresses and I believe in other words. Yeah, you can't have also without
Multi-scuse and you can have sad without
Multi-scuse and also
To the point where perhaps their behavior belies their theories
To a certain extent no in a way in a way
So you say that the whole brings violence back into the equation
Sad obvious, you know, it very obvious
Yes, there's two philosophers that I'd like to ask you about what one is Voltaire and the others who so
You have some pages. I know on
Voltaire yes, and for my own curiosity because I began by invoking
Con deed yes, and I asked a number of questions not because I think that I have the answer to them
But it's because I think the novel and you know leaves us with these questions
About this dictum info
Christopher and what's your after so can I ask you? What is your on your opinion about?
Who is the new who are we that must cultivate our garden and what does what might
Voltaire mean by the garden there yes, well, I I don't know whether I can arrive to
more eloquent rendering of your own
perspective on on Voltaire but
in in in the book I
studied Voltaire
again in an end with an anthropological lens and as you
recalled very
very wonderfully
the
episode in
Con deed where the garden is
offered as as a response is at the end of the of the novel after
Voltaire basically takes us takes takes takes the reader and Con deed through
realm of
violence
there are plagues
earthquake earthquakes we which you can read anthropologically as
events of of contagion and indifference basically
but the garden
is in response to that and
a different model of of reciprocity is offered there
by Con deed and the moment of the garden is a moment of epiphany
for Con deed yes those you know the the Indian tire novel he oscillates between
between those two philosophers
there is a pessimistic discourse and there is an optimistic one
finally into garden not only does he himself
settles that little farm and erects himself as a kind of
benevolent
pastor he enunciates
his
dicto is you know he says
if for
Kojivé
not for the
for the first time in the novel Con deed does not hesitate
does not
reflex back and forth oscillates he oscillates he speaks in an
affirmative
affirmative way and the the garden moment is a is a wonderful moment you know of of peace
basically gained through experiment experience
it's a wonderful suspension
in the in the novel where the all the characters returned they have aged
around Con deed and and the reciprocity the model of reciprocity that
Voltaire develops there is a reciprocity of services and life there
you know at the on the on the on the
Shalebeau the La Proport on the on the on the on the how do you say that in English on the
it's on the bus on the bus for us is is is is is supposed to be a life with living with the minimum
yeah i think we can feel take a lesson from that today oh absolutely and i i think that
if what you're suggesting is indeed the case anyway that history is characterized by
what disaster violence in differentiation and so forth
the cultivation yes of the gardens whatever whatever the garden represents whether whatever kind of
virtue social personal communitarian that and minimalism
and there is a wonderful episode that people usually don't talk about when you know they
they insist of course on the realers insist on on the garden but there is one episode where you
see boats with different kings at you know across the day going going by and you know at the closest
thing we have and it's only i think in an exceptional moment in modern american history is when
jf cases ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country otherwise
we live more and more in a kind of climate where the citizen has
unlimited presumption that the government is there to provide services to
facilitate consumption and the idea of taking responsibility for cultivation is as alien as you can get
i think in our own day where the citizen is called upon to be primarily a consumer and not a cultivator
yes and in that regard i think both there's deep thoughts it's why i said yeah i mean i hold to it
yeah and and i think we should we should think of this moment in the garden as this agricultural
celebration yeah and it can be also expanded allegorically or symbolically to the university the
cultivation of the mind the cultivation of friendship the cultivation of conversation
various pretty even a vices as i originally said i mean if we're not going to get rid of vices
no why not you know render them then why don't we stylize them at least so that they become sublime
rather than corrosive yeah and that is the lesson i think of at the end of of county
yeah you know the the the aging the return of the aging characters i think is a key in that sense
so if we move on i i i wanted to speak a little bit about who's so but it's given that there's
not that much time i wanted to make sure that we get far enough ahead in our conversation before the time
runs out on us to ask you why you if you have any sort of insight to impart to us about why the
all-sean regime in France ended up the way it did namely decapitation and was the French revolution
necessary outcome given everything that had preceded it or was it something that could have been
avoided if certain moves were made at the right time by the right people yeah i you know i don't
know if i can offer you know an answer you know it's it's a it's a it's a great historical question
in my book i touched upon the revolution exactly in that terms there there you have all of these
philosophers of goodwill basically those theoreticians of decency to talk to return to this term
and then this great moment of the revolution this explosion of violence that will end up in
not only the death of the king but the replication of all these deaths you know the sea of deaths
and the revolutionaries themselves the men of the terror
there were lawyers and there were disciples of also they were talking
you know in in in in terms of natural the natural man natural rights and on the other side
they were decapitating millions of heads and and and for many of them violence was this supposed to be
this foreign thing this foreign affair so at the end of the century what you have indeed and this is the
reason why you have a lot of at the end of the 18th century going to the 19th a lot of critics of the
revolution like Joseph the mess would take issue principally with those so-called what they would
called the lawyers of the of the 18th century not only in the person of also but also in their
incarnations of the whole Bespierre and Sanjist but do you think there is a cause and effect
relationship between these lawyers having read who saw or Montezquez or the other Philosov's
and their willingness to resort to a a very abstract and unrestrained form of violence in order to
achieve political aims or were they just bad readers of good philosophers or was there reading of
those philosophers not relevant at all to their political the way they behaved as politicians
yeah well yeah that's a difficult question to answer you know you you can read all the sphere for example as
a monstrous deformation of also and is a vision of the virtue and the terror as a
horrible deformation of the of the resource general general will I don't know whether I can provide
ends and answer to that they certainly are you know real causes I think of the revolution
and there are many well certainly there is a certain there is activism among the philosophers of
the 18th century both there for example really believed that if with the proper reform in the social
political spheres and with enough people committed to changes you can ameliorate human society
and that this will mean necessarily taking on the vested interests that come to us from the past
and from certain classes of society and that perhaps there is in the philosophy
a recognition that a certain amount of violence has to be done in the name of a greater
higher good well I mean they they don't say that you know and they're they're
I think for most of the 18th century philosophers also especially violence is is really
is really behind behind us and even they don't sometimes you know use is a language which is
confusing and saying that the time of barbarity is is behind us and we all we all have become so
enlightened yeah in the period that you work on there are two in the popular American imagination
anyway there there are two moments or texts or figures that have a power to captivate one is
the liaison don't you lose which we talked about already yes the other is a figure of marion
to a net and there's a lot of interest in her in her continues not only in America but you know
in France as well as elsewhere and I know that you've worked on marion to net what is it about this
Austrian woman who was a victim of the revolution that so fascinates yes you know the
interest of course in her today she she is basically if I may provide a reading you know especially
thinking about the movie by Sofia Kupola she's seen between across between Lady Dye and Paris Hilton
you know this this woman who came to the side very young and become a consumer of all the
goods that that culture provides and that movie got very bad reviews by the way I don't I haven't seen
it yes I don't think it it's so bad myself personally I think the beautiful views of of the
XI my own fascination with marion to a net and again it's it's I read her a story with an in an
anthropological lens is the this extraordinary reversal in her story between a figure who is
celebrated to to being despised she she is sort of this narcissistic icon paraxelos and then she's
vilified and and everything is taken away from her
it's it's also in her case the way she represent becomes to represent and usually that's the way
she is perceived as a kind of icon of fashion but a contagious figure paraxelos you know
with all women becoming basically a figure of marion to a net and our alienation I think may
have to do with with that process but that that may be my my own vice of reading right is it
because she was the queen or because she had other personal qualities recommending her she was
not beautiful from the historical records of from what we're told no no she
but she had a not a pair of sultan is no no but she was cons she became she became this sort of
constructed figure you know of of fashion and she of fashion wise no doubt if you see some of those
yes but dresses what about her garden in Versailles Pier I wanted to ask you about the little
the little amu is yeah yes yes well what's that I actually it's been completely refurbished
I know and I had the opportunity to see it because this is the 250th anniversary of
marion to a net and the garden has been with thanks to a lot of funds some of them American
have been completely refurbished and it's quite a beauty you know she was a reader of Rousseau
and some of it you could say that it's also nostalgic she did not did not like when she came to Versailles
she did not like not only the formality of the of the court life itself and and the rigors of it you
know inherited from the Louis XIV time she preferred more interiorized intimate settings so she
retreated not only to the tree and but and when she had to put her stamp on the garden she created
this very informal pastoral garden that were more reminiscent of her Austrian life but also
some say close to what was being developed at the time by Rousseau thinking of the English
garden and it's it's truly beautiful and I had the opportunity to to revisit them this summer and
it was with great joy so you said according to some I thought it would that it was deliberately
and very openly based on Rousseau's contrasting the formality and artificiality of the
classical French garden versus the English garden and that there is just this little oasis of a
yes yes well there is that I I think also there is an element of nostalgia of the other
Austrian landscape I think it's it's it's both really so in conclusion
when we come back to the biographical I mean do you find we feel talking about Marianne's planet
no no we're talking now about your career as a these week yimis yes you know a scholar of 18th century
French literature primarily you do a number of other things obviously
but the curiosity is whether there are points of coincidence
between your background growing up in high E.T. and the history that that country has had as
an ex-French colony and your decision to devote your research to the most
regal and in a certain sense canonized century of the ex-colonizers history yes I often ask myself why
you know I remain in the 18th century and why this is this is a fascinating century for myself
and why I choose to read it the way I do and it might in fact have to do with a very
biographical element that I I always read the 18th century as as basically caught between an archaic
past made of of violence and clashes class class warfare class and class warfare and and this
this possibility of modernity and and almost utopia and I wonder if I wonder sometimes if if this is
if this is not this chaos mess that I experience in my own and I do you think there's nothing
distinctive about the French enlightenment that distinguishes it along the lines you've just
described that distinguishes it from either the English enlightenment or the American enlightenment
italian I don't know if Italy ever really had a true enlightenment but nevertheless is there
something distinctively French oh definitely yeah the the enlightenment the
the enlightenment the French enlightenment has all of these contradictions which make it very interesting
and and it has this fascinating style in a way too which make it so seductive
to return to and what about the claims to universality that is so much a part of the ideology
the French enlightenment and also subsequently becomes part of the fabric of French national identity
and French education especially when it comes to the colonial experience where
the unshakable belief in the universality of the rights of man for example and
dictates of reason and so forth that is this something that you
I don't want to say buy into but is it a faith that you inherited in any way through your French
education or is it something of which you are profoundly suspicious as speaking now as a
a heian who is seen things from then from another angle yes and you know I don't buy in it at all
and in I don't reject it the way some some do from a sort of postcolonial point of view there
there these days all these study of the others of the enlightenment I think that's very important
there was a great exhibit last year in France about the enlightenment
Le Le Miere point of
this uncovering of violence, of hostility those reversal of enlightenment propositions that I do in my book are
a contribution to a de-universilising of the enlightenment so my contribution may not be so readily read
as a critique of the enlightenment the way a postcolonial one would would be but I do believe that
it is nonetheless a contribution in in that light also a hermeneutics of suspicion that
is an old term exactly hernews of the earthquake and I think that's what's most powerful about the
the kind of perspective that you bring to bear on your own topic so for those of
the people in our audience who have been listening that we've been talking with P.F.S. at
that mall professor of French literature from Brown who's visiting here at Stanford and he's
authored three books his first book on the De-Hole and the two books that we've mentioned here in the
last hour one on seduction called the Libertines Progress and the other on the laws of hostility
and unfortunately P.F.R we've run out of time otherwise I was going to ask you about the book that
you're just finishing on laziness in the 18th century that's another whole topic do you want to
take a minute or two and just give us a little preview of what that well yeah very new project is
about very briefly it's the same exercise in contradiction you know the the 18th century is with the
merchants of capitalism is seen as the age of industry and I will be reading
series of authors who are proposing different types of subjectivity those
marred in in idleness and and laziness and who retract from the world of of labor and and and
discipline fabulous we'll look forward to that thanks for coming on yeah thank you
- Thank you, playthrough, and thank you for your wish.
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