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Aristide, ou Le Citoyen: ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA R eflections o f C ulture and Society in the P ays de Vaud in the 1760s1 D A N IE L L E J O H N S O N -C O U S IN “ . . . c’est mon homme que Plutarque.” J.-J. Rousseau, quoting Montaigne, in E m ile, IV. “Dans la Republique on retient les citoyens par des moeurs, des principes, de la vertu ...” L a N ouvelle H eloise, quatrieme partie, lettre X. ristide, ou L e C itoyen— published before the French Revolution— and the Society Morale de Lausanne itself, of which it was the official publication, constitutes a tiny document, a footnote in the history of a greater cultural and social movement, and attests to the diffusion and propagation of ideas in the provinces in the middle of the 1760s. The movement in question is a Swiss-idealizing anti-Enlightenment Rousseauist identification in “virtue” {la vertu), encompassing the German-French cantons and particularly the Pays de Vaud. Indeed, when considered in its entirety, A ristide, ou L e C itoyen finds part of its significance in its close connection with Rousseau, and its various essays can serve as complementary texts to the writings of “le Citoyen.” Although inevitably provincial to some degree, the Societe Morale also reflected the Protestant Reformation itself, specifically the Calvinist 375 376 / QPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA J O H N S O N - C O U S I N movement. It is thus not without some degree of surprise that the reader of ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA A ristide discovers, in its six hundred and twenty-two pages, a perfect illustration of Max Weber’s Protestant ethic and of his essential idea of “innerworldly vocational asceticism” (innerw eltliche A skese), “a struc­ ture of sentiments and disciplines, incentives and religious rewards spur­ ring people to systematic conscientious, methodical conduct in this world.”2 For Weber, “the world itself had now become a monastery and all laymen had become brothers living under regulated discipline in the service of the Lord.”3 Discourse I: XI, dated September 6, 1766, gives all the bylaws of the Societe Morale, under the heading, “Institutes of a village society, composed of men who desire to become virtuous” (Instituts d ’une societe de village, com posee d ’hom m es qui desirent devenir plus vertueux)4 This first-born Vaudois periodical, which was published between June 28, 1766, and June 20, 1767, is said to have reflected the high-minded conversations and discussions of the members of that circle of concerned citizens of Lausanne, in the form of ethical, religious, philosophical, literary, and especially civic considerations, usually presented as essays (discours), but also frequently given in an epistolary form, real or ficti­ tious.5 Both A ristide and the Societe Morale were actually founded by a foreigner, Prince Louis-Eugene of Wiirtemberg, who was staying in Lau­ sanne once again, this time with his wife.6 The prince’s inspiration for the journal was, however, decidedly Swiss, both in its immediate model and in the philosophy animating its founder. Louis-Eugene of Wiirtemberg was involved in a highly charged emotional relationship with Rousseau in those years, writing numerous letters to the sage, asking his approval of his conjugal relations as well as of his plans for raising his daughter Sophie, and assuring Rousseau: “N’en doutez pas mon cher Maitre, oui, c’est Vous qui m’aves ramene a la vertu.”7 A ristide’s prototype was the Zurich-based publication called D er E rinnerer : E ine m oralische W ochenschrift (The R em em berer, a M oral W eekly),8 whose editors were Johann-Kaspar Lavater and JohannHeinrich Fiissli, another admirer of Rousseau’s. The Societe Morale de Lausanne was also Swiss-inspired; it was the French-speaking equivalent of the Helvetische Gesellschaft zur Gerwj (The Helvetic Society, for short), an association whose sole purpose was to form “good and wellread citizens” (again, this insistence upon the word citizens). Next to the names of Lavater and Fiissli, among the most prominent collaborators in the Zurich venture, we find those of philanthropists such as Pestalozzi and Tobler. Despite its German founder and its German-Swiss model...

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