Minerva's Message: Stabilizing the French Revolution by Martin S. Staum (review)

HUMANITIES 221 developed in society. As Lebrun points out, bothMaistre and Rousseau see the necessity for a social order. The difference is that Maistre wants the status quo and believes not only in the monarchy but in its divine right, the indivisibility oflaw and rule, while Rousseau believes in the social contract and the separation of the option to participate in the social pact and the choice of ruler. Maistre melds church and state, which Rousseau separates (until, of course, he discusses the cult of the state). Lebrun has done a fine translation and a very conscientious job of editing. For example, he refers both to the pages in the text and to the modem translation, The introduction provides an excellent, succinct discussion which leaves the reader wishing for more. For example, Lebrun offers the example of natural law, which Maistre does not discuss. This topic could be expanded. It might equally be of interest to compare Klng Stanislaus's and Gauthier's replies and refutations ofRousseau's Discourse. It would also have been interesting to look at other discourses that were submitted to the Academie de Dijon, a topic which the late Louise Marcil introduced recently at the North American Society for the Study of JeanJacques Rousseau. One could elaborate on parallels with Burke. One could refer to other works by Rousseau, such as the Dialogues and the Preface de Narcisse, in which Rousseau rejoins Maistre in talking about the conservation ofexisting institutions. One might elaborate on the topic of utopia and refer not only to Lester Crocker but to Raymond Trousson and Darko Suvin, who mention the role of the guide rather as an inherent structural part than as a political indicator in certain voyages aux pays de nulle part and utopias as well. I suspect you can already imagine the chapter headings of Lebrun's next book! However, you will certainly wish to read this one first. It constitutes the base text - a necessary tool handsomely and intelligently presented. (ROSEANN RUNTE) Martin S. Staum. Minerva's Message: Stabilizing the French Revolution McGill-Queen's University Press. xii, 342 " $49.95 Historians have spilled a great deal of ink on studies of the French Enlightenment and its call for changes in goverrunent, but rather less on recounting whathappened to thatagenda after 1795. MartinS. Staum ofthe University of Calgary contributes to what he calls 'the crowded historiographicallandscape of Enlightenment-Revolution relationships' with a study of the Class of moral and political sciences of the French National Institute. The Class was inaugurated in 1795, first met in 1796, and was abolished by Bonaparte in 1803. Staum departs from the more abstruse verbal games of some authors who contrast the language of politics or the 222 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 politics of language. He insists that the events of the Revolution were more than linguistic events, and that experiences like the Terror led writers to new formulations on human nature and political change. He sees the work of members of the French National Institute as reformulating the doctrines that had threatened the ancien regime into tools for stabilizing the Revolution and representative government. In a previous book, Cabanis: Enlightenment and Medical Philosophy in the French Revolution (1980), Staum advanced deeply into the intellectuallife of the Revolution in the form of a biography. In this volume he is particularly interested in the Ideologues, as a royalistnewspaper contemptuouslycalled them. Staum groups the Ideologues as he means them in appendix 1 with the Auteuil salon circle. Uponinspection, that appendix isJoseph Lakanal's list of nominees for the Class of moral and political sciences for considerationbythe National Convention, October 1795 (cancelled bythe Directory), A few pages later Ideologues are listed with'individuals not in appendix 1. This is not mere hair-splitting. It is notoriously difficult in the social history of ideas to put group labels on highly intelligent men of letters, many of whom were stimulated to new formulations by arguing with each other, particularly in a time of such political turbulence and opportunities as the French Revolution. It makes it difficult to fit generalizations like 'The Ideologue problem in the Consulate was whether stabilizing the Revolution would allow the human sciences to retain...