Mandeville and France: The Reception of The Fable of the Bees in France and its Influence on the French Enlightenment

This article explores how The Fable of the Bees was received in France, and provides a broad outline of its influence on the philosophers of the French Enlightenment. Reference to Bernard Mandeville’s work in French periodicals (between 1720 and 1750), together with a series of disapproving critiques that appeared after the French translation of the Fable, indicate keen interest in this author on the part of French intellectuals. Mandeville’s reputation both on the Continent and in England as an immoral philosopher and champion of paradoxical theses, had earned him a degree of fame in France even before the publication of the French translation of the Fable in 1740. Even if considerably closer to the original than the unpublished translation by Émilie Du Châtelet, this translation reveals a number of discrepancies with respect to Mandeville’s text, which—along with the accompanying Introduction — suggest an attempt by the editors to adjust the philosophy and to tone down the shocking ramifications of some of the author’s theses. Despite the numerous adverse critiques prompted by the book, the Fable had a strong influence on several French authors, such as Voltaire and Jean-François Melon. In particular, Mandeville’s reflections on luxury and economics had a major impact on French philosophers, fuelling a heated dispute over luxury, and pointing to the centrality of economic analysis in the study of human society.