Dialog with the hells between Machiavel and Montesquieu

The Dialog with the hells between Machiavel & Montesquieu is a Pamphlet of Maurice Jolly (1829 - 1878) published in 1864 with Brussels at A. Mertens and wire.

Description

The author

Lawyer, Jolly shared not only the revolt of Victor Hugo in front of the coup d'etat of Napoleon III, but he also saw in the Manipulation mediums of businesses, press and population by the new Emperor a serious risk of moral constraint for the totality of French people.

He wrote under pseudonym and made circulate since the Belgium a lampoon against the mode: Dialog with the hells between Machiavel & Montesquieu . The lampoon circulated, but Maurice Jolly was discovered, the specimens still at his place destroyed, and the imprisoned author.

The title

The title indicates that one is located in the continuation of a kind already illustrated by Fontenelle: the Dialog of dead the of different times.

Maurice Jolly did not withdraw great consolation of the return of the Republic after the imperial demolished of Sedan. Its causticity and its clearness (which are not without evoking a Ambrose Bierce or a Thorstein Veblen) making it consider unverifiable , it is been sulky by his/her republican friends who do not associate it with their work; it notes that the replacement of the Emperor by the Republic does not move away really the threats from seizure on the company which it provided; it ends up committing suicide in 1878, one year before Jules Ferry does not start his educational great project.

The adventure of the text did nothing but start. He had arrived at the Tsar, and - hardly altered - started to be used as lampoon against the Russian middle-class which also went up it in power. This same text will be used as a basis for famous the Protocoles of Wise of Sion, lampoon anti-semite which one takes today still with serious in certain parts of the world (Egyptian televised series are based above, for example) in spite of the obviousness of the origin of the text.

The subject

Machiavel and Montesquieu unscrew with the hells, and exchange some remarks on the modern policy, and the most effective way for some politicians - any consideration of morals put aside - to acquire and preserve indefinitely the capacity (traditional topic of the Prince ), putting men of straw at the key places of the company.

Montesquieu, in accordance with its historical role, stresses the separation of the capacities, the Rule of law, the sovereignty of the Nation, but Machiavel each time turns over its arguments to show how these noble concepts can be diverted with the service of a man, here Napoleon III who is never quoted, handling all the components of the company.

The dialog refers to the beginning with the dialog of Socrate and Thrasymaque in the Republic of Plato.

Style

The comparison between this text and the contents of contemporary works of Emile Zola like the Money mark well its membership of the 19th century, and the spirit of this time such as it was also described to us by Honore de Balzac in his novels: it is roughly speaking about the company of the money opposed to the humanistic values morals : One finds there sometimes accusing accents similar to those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the social contract , but presented under the false aspect of the recommendation , following the example process used by Nicolas Machiavel in the prince or by Montesquieu in his matter on slavery.

Literary fortune

By its presentation of a Reality faked for political reasons, the Dialog is precursory later works like the 1984 of George Orwell, or works of Philip Kindred Dick, them so bathed political vision - even of the concept of spectacle briefly mentioned by Marx, and that forward much later the movement situationnist will put.

The fact that this work was used itself to later on create a other faking of reality is not without evoking what one names the Mise in abyme.

Theatrical adaptation

The Comédie-Française assembled this text in spectacle with Michel Etcheverry and François Chaumette in the titles roles in 1980. The part had at the time a very sharp success.

The theater of Lucernaire in Paris presented in its turn this part in November 2005.

Extract

“the men aspire all to the domination, and it is not which was not oppressor, if it could it; all all or almost are ready to sacrifice the rights of others to their interests” ( Dialog with the hells between Machiavel and Montesquieu )

“Any man is thirsty for the capacity: each one would like to be a dictator so only it could it, and quite rare are those which would not agree to sacrifice the wellbeing of others to achieve their personal goals” ( Protocoles of Wise of Sion )

External bonds

See too

Random links:Chryséis | Séjan | The Barber of Seville | The Rebel (televised series) | Luai Al-Atassi | Structure_algébrique