Voltaire et l’écriture de l’histoire: un enjeu politique (review)

In the last decade there has been a renewed interest in Voltaire’s historical praxis, most significantly in the publication of critical editions of some of his historical works, notably the collaborative, multi-volume Essai sur les mœurs (Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, 22–25 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2009–12)). One particularly strong aspect of the monograph under review is the extent to which this editorial work, which has shown the evolution of specific historical texts in their various editions, has contributed to a much more nuanced interpretation of general features of Voltaire’s historical œuvre. This feature could also have been successfully underlined if a chronological approach had been adopted, but Myrtille Méricam-Bourdet has opted instead for a more revealing, thematic treatment of her topic. In response to the commonly held view of the weakness of Voltaire’s political reflection when compared with that of other philosophes such as Montesquieu or Rousseau, Méricam-Bourdet’s work proves her assertion that ‘l’œuvre historique est le lieu privilégié où étudier ce qui serait la conception voltairienne de la politique’ (p. 3). Beginning with the much-debated questions of the origins of human societies, the subsequent attempts to legitimize political regimes, and the conflicts between the spiritual and the temporal authorities (Part I), Voltaire is shown to deny the normative value of history when it comes to the legitimation of power. In the four chapters of Part II, we see that, once authority — however legitimate — has been established, Voltaire’s focus is almost always on how the state acts through its monarch. Indeed, when Voltaire considers the people, it is through vague formulations such as the ‘esprit, génie, caractère et mœurs des nations’ (p. 141). Voltaire is also shown to be unconvincing in his understanding of the nature of republican government because of his very broad conception of this term. In this part, the text covers some familiar ground, such as Voltaire’s attachment to great monarchs as the motors of history (Chapter 5), or his essentially pragmatic approach to the suitability of particular political regimes (Chapter 6), although the latter point is developed to show the limits of his pragmatism in relation to political regimes: he seems unwilling to define the nature of legitimate, good government (‘bon pouvoir’). In Part III, an examination of the important questions of colonization, maritime trade, and public opinion proves how Voltaire’s historical œuvre is a vehicle not only for reflection on the past but also on contemporary political affairs. In her efforts to reconstitute Voltaire’s political philosophy as it emerges in his historical writing, Méricam-Bourdet presents a very coherent picture that highlights at the same time the contradictions and lacunae in his analysis of the political. Where some have seen Voltaire as a limited political thinker, this work shows him to be a politically minded historian who, by the latter stages of his career, was using historical writing as a tool — alongside his pamphlets and fiction — for the political education of France’s reading public.