Le Siècle des Lumières: bibliographie chronologique. Tome XXIII. 1788 (review)

The year 1788 is pregnant with the forthcoming French Revolution, public agitation and confusion mounting on every side. The Journée des Tuiles at Grenoble precedes the Assemblée des États du Dauphiné at Vizille, which has come to be regarded by many as the founding moment. Expectation of the États-Généraux (due the following April) and discussion about its form, function and the topics for debate are at fever pitch. A last attempt under the Ancien Régime to retain absolute power for the monarchy against the Parlements, through the creation of a Cour Plénière, ends in defeat. Such events are the setting for the spectacular increase in publishing activity, even over the already dramatic advances in previous years (see FS, lviii (2004), 115). From 1944 titles (1786) and 2882 (1787), the number now rises to 4190. Well over half of these contributions come from anonymous hands: Almanachs (fifty-eight), Arrêtés (ninety-four), 'Au roi' (sixteen), Avis (forty-one), Délibérations (124), Discours (thirty-three), Extraits (for instance, des Registres: 114), Lettres (163), Mémoires (ninety-six), Observations (forty-four), Procès-verbaux (seventy-one), Réflexions (forty-seven), Règlements (thirty-one) and Remonstrances (twenty-eight) inter alia give some idea of the general concern. Yet, strangely enough, these momentous happenings are rather underplayed in the Introduction, which takes the form of a catalogue: from biographies and literary matters to religious questions, arriving only at the end at political upheavals. Nor is attention drawn to the huge expansion in titles and especially in the anonymous documents (which are set out at the beginning of the bibliography, but without being allotted any separate section or sub-heading). The casual reader leafing through is given little by way of signposts. However, as before, these are minor quibbles. The important point about this series has always been the utter meticulousness of the research, which is worthy once again of the highest praise. This superb enterprise is now nearing the home stretch in 1789. Future students of the eighteenth century will surely pay deep respect to this project — whose importance, it has to be said, has not yet fully been recognized by the world of scholarship.