EnEncyclopedia or Reasoned Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts
| Encyclopedia or Reasoned Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts | ||||||||
 Frontispiece to the Encyclopédie (drawn by Charles-Nicolas Cochin and engraved by Bonaventure-Louis Prévost ). | ||||||||
| Author | under the direction of Denis Diderot and, partially, of Jean Le Rond d'Alembert | |||||||
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| Country |  France | |||||||
| Editor | André Le Breton Laurent Durand Antoine-Claude Briasson Michel-Antoine David | |||||||
| Place of publication | Paris | |||||||
| Release date | 1751 - 1772 | |||||||
| Number of pages | 17 volumes of text, 11 volumes of plates and 71,818 articles | |||||||
| Chronology | ||||||||
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The Encyclopédie or Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers is a French encyclopedia , published from 1751 to 1772 under the direction of Denis Diderot and, partially, of Jean Le Rond d'Alembert .
The Encyclopedia is a major work of the xviii th century and the first French encyclopedia. By the synthesis of the knowledge of the time which it contains, it represents a considerable drafting and editorial work for this time and was carried out by encyclopedists constituted in "society of men of letters". Finally, beyond the knowledge that it compiles, the work it represents and the purposes it aims for, make it a symbol of the work of the Enlightenment , a political weapon and as such, the object of many power relations between publishers, editors, secular and ecclesiastical power.
Context
The genesis and publication of the Encyclopedia take place in a context of complete renewal of knowledge. The representation of the world commonly accepted in the Middle Ages was gradually undermined by the emergence in the xvi th century the heliocentric model of Nicolas Copernicus defended the xvii th century by Galileo as a result of his experiments with his famous telescope ( 1609 ). At the end of the xvii th century, the theory of universal gravitation ofNewton provides a mathematical formalism able to explain the movement of the Earth and the planets around the Sun ( Principia , 1687 ). The optical proof of the movement of the Earth was definitively provided in 1728 by the work of James Bradley on the aberration of light . Newton's theories were disseminated in the years 1720–30 by Maupertuis outside England, then by Voltaire in France.
The new astronomical science required, to explain the movement of the Earth, experiments and a mathematical formalism which were foreign to the scholastic method still in force in the universities, and which for this reason was already criticized by Descartes . Astronomy needed the help of mathematics and mechanics for its theorization. Eventually, most sciences were affected by this change, the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn called a scientific revolution 1 . No comprehensive compilation of knowledge of sufficient scope to account for this paradigm shift had been carried out since the publication inxiii th centurythe great "encyclopedias" medieval (especially theSpeculum maiusofVincent of Beauvais).
In the Preliminary Discourse of the Encyclopedia , d'Alembert explained the motivations for the immense work undertaken by the team of encyclopedists . He harshly criticized the abuse of spiritual authority in the condemnation of Galileo by the Inquisition in 1633 in these terms:
- “A court (...) condemned a famous astronomer for having supported the movement of the earth, and declared him a heretic (...). It is thus that the abuse of spiritual authority united with the temporal forced reason into silence; and little by little was the human race forbidden to think. "
The encyclopedia provides a compilation of the knowledge of the time, the consistency of which was obtained by the rich documentation of articles on astronomy, and references to articles from different disciplines 2 .
The editorial adventure
A translation project (1728–1745)
Originally, the Encyclopedia was to be the translation into French of the Cyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers , whose first edition dates from 1728 . The France will then possess any work of this kind, trades and crafts is obliged to minors.
In January 1745 3 , Gottfried Sellius , renowned scholar and member of the Royal Society - and perhaps a Freemason , just like André Le Breton - offered the Parisian publisher André Le Breton to translate the Cyclopedia . Until his death, however, in 1740, Chambers had refused tempting offers of French publishers has , subjects, like many, to the Anglomania . Sellius then proposed John Mills , an Englishman who lived in France, as co-translator .
In February 1745, Mills, aided by Sellius, gave Le Breton an audit report in which he predicted that the translation would require four volumes of texts (1,000 pages in all), a volume of 120 plates and finally a supplement containing a lexicon French with translations into Latin, German, Italian and Spanish reserved for the use of "foreign travelers". In the process, Mills demands from the publisher that his name appear on the document called privilege., a mention to guarantee him property rights over his texts. The publisher promises to do so. Some time later, Mills discovers that Le Breton has not acted on his request, which leads to a feud because the request's expiration date has passed. For fear of seeing the project and its income escape him, Mills cedes part of his rights to Le Breton. Satisfied, he completes the usual formalities and the request for privilege is registered for 20 years on. The, Le Breton, Sellius and Mills sign the translation contract which will bind them. A subscription prospectus is distributed immediately; it already contains a few articles translated into French ("atmosphere", "fable", "blood" ...), announces that the first volume will be available for sale in June 1746 at a total price of 135 books and the following volumes in December 1748.
The following months, Mills became more and more nervous: before continuing the work, he demanded an advance from Le Breton, but he procrastinated. However, the call for subscription was somewhat successful and closed on December 31, 1745 at a level guaranteeing Le Breton (and Mills) substantial profits. No doubt decided to get rid of a collaborator considered too cumbersome, Le Breton argued that Mills' translations contain misinterpretations, approximations and above all that they lead to a significant increase in the number of words compared to the original. Could it be that Mills had recourse to the Chambers editions of 1741 or 1743, larger than that of 1728? The document linking the editor of Chambers and Le Bretonremains imprecise on this point of the reference edition. The fact remains that Le Breton realizes that the Sellius and Mills audit was below economic realities and that the Chambers translation would never last in so few pages. In January 1746, Mills demanded money and threatened the editor with a lawsuit when he realized that Le Breton had not respected the distribution agreement at all. Le Breton then canceled the document and claimed another on January 13 in his name and that of three other publishers, de facto excluding Mills. Disgusted, feeling cheated, Mills comes to blows on August 7 and receives a violent blow of the cane from Le Breton. A trial takes place, but Le Breton is acquitted due to the circumstances 4 .
1746-1750: a larger scale project
The , Le Breton decided to join forces with three other publishers, Antoine-Claude Briasson , Michel-Antoine David and Laurent Durand , in order to be able to cope with the increase in publishing costs. The, the four partners have their publishing privilege renewed for twenty years.
Diderot is not unheard of three new associates Le Breton : it was just for them cotraduire the Universal Dictionary of Medicine of Robert James , the first volume was released in 1746.
After having dismissed Mills, and having set out in search of an editor really capable of managing the translation (we are already talking about an "adaptation"), Le Breton hires on June 27, 1746 the abbot of Gua de Malves. who wanted to embark on the adventure, among others, the young Étienne Bonnot de Condillac , Jean Le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot , the latter two having signed the contract as witnesses. A big dinner, that same evening, brought together the editors, de Gua de Malves, Diderot and D'Alembert; Le Breton settled the 44 livres note and entered the sum in the register of accounts relating to the Encyclopedia .
In a letter dated May-June 1746, D'Alembert wrote to the Marquis d'Adhémar that, already, he "translated a column of English per day" and that he was paid "3 louis per month". The contract also stipulates that Diderot has the possibility of asking to "redo translate all the articles deemed unacceptable". Later, in his Preliminary Discourse , he justified the abandonment of a simple translation, firstly because Chambers had drawn from French works "the greater part of the things for which he composed his Dictionary" and also because " there was still a lot to add ”.
After thirteen months, on August 3, 1747 , de Gua de Malves was dismissed for his too rigid methods and Le Breton placed Diderot and d'Alembert officially at the head of a project to write an original encyclopedia on. Diderot will keep this charge for the next 25 years and will see the Encyclopédie completed.
Under their leadership, this modest project quickly took on a whole new dimension with a desire to synthesize and popularize the knowledge of the time; the Prospectus intended to bind subscribers, drawn up by Diderot , was published in 800 copies in November 1750 .
1751: publication of the first volume
To carry out their project, Diderot and d'Alembert surround themselves with a company of literary men , visit the workshops, take care of the publishing and part of the marketing.
The first volume appeared in 1751 and contained the Preliminary Discourse written by d'Alembert .
1752-1753: first ban
In February 1752, the Jesuits put pressure on the Council of State to obtain the condemnation and the interruption of the publication of the Encyclopédie - relying among other things on the scandal caused by the thesis b presented to the Sorbonne by the Abbot of Prades , collaborator of the Encyclopedia 5 . They succeed: the Council of State prohibits theto sell, buy or hold the first two volumes published, on the grounds that they contain "several maxims tending to destroy royal authority, to establish the spirit of independence and revolt, and, under obscure terms and equivocal, to raise the foundations of error, the corruption of morals, irreligion and incredulity ” 6 . It was through the support of Malesherbes , director of the Bookstore and in charge of censorship , but defender of the encyclopedic project, that the publication could resume in November 1753. d'Alembert , cautious, decided however to devote himself only to to the mathematical parts.
The lifting of this ban does not however put an end to the oppositions to the work even if they are sometimes confused with the attacks carried out in general against the Philosophical Party . The Récollet Hubert Hayer and the lawyer Jean Soret publish from 1757 to 1763 a periodical called La Religion avengée or Refutation of the impious authors . Abraham Chaumeix follows in 1758 , with his Legitimate Prejudices against the Encyclopedia and an attempt to refute this dictionary , in eight volumes.
1756: Borrowings from Descriptions of Arts and Crafts
From its creation, the king asked the Academy to provide support for industrial and artisanal development. In 1712, Réaumur was put in charge of a publishing program covering 250 arts , the Descriptions of arts and crafts . Réaumur and the Academy perfected the methods, developed the style of the engravings and accumulated immense documentation, but the project was interrupted in 1725 7 .
"The infidelity and negligence of my engravers, many of whom died, made it easy for people who were not very sensitive about the procedures to collect proofs of these plates, and they were made to be engraved again to bring them into the Encyclopedic dictionary. I learned a little late that the fruit of so many years of work had been taken from me ”
- Réaumur, letter to Samuel Forney, February 23, 1756
In all likelihood, Diderot and D'Alembert had hundreds of engravings reproduced in their Encyclopedia to the point that a plagiarism lawsuit was brought by Pierre Patte against Panckoucke who, between 1771 and 1783, reprinted them in the in-4 ° format, in Neuchâtel , in 19 volumes, with augmentations and annotations by J.-E. Bertrand . The historian Maurice Tourneux denies plagiarism and claimed that the publishing house associated Booksellers bought at least brass boards legally, for an amount equivalent to 250,000 F .
In addition, continuing Réaumur's work, Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau relaunched in 1757 the Descriptions des arts et métiers, from which Diderot borrowed elements in particular for the articles “Agriculture”, “Corderie”, “Pipe” and “Sucre”.
1759: revocation of the privilege
Until 1757, the publication of volumes 3 to 7 continued, but opponents fulminated.
After Robert François Damiens' assassination attempt against Louis XV (January 5, 1757), the devout party took the opportunity to point out the lax censorship. He believes that the purpose of the Encyclopedia is to undermine government and religion (which is partly true, since the Encyclopedia contains obvious attacks on the Church and the government of the day).
Pope Clement XIII condemned the work, he put it in the Index on March 5, 1759, and he "ordered Catholics, under pain of excommunication, to burn the copies in their possession".
On March 8, 1759, following the turmoil caused by the publication of De esprit d ' Helvétius , the privilege of the Encyclopedia was revoked 8 .
D'Alembert abandoned the project for good.
At the same time, booksellers must also face an accusation of plagiarism of plates drawn by the Academy of Sciences and intended for Descriptions of Arts and Crafts .
From September 1759, Malesherbes made it possible to circumvent the suppression of the privilege by obtaining permission to publish volumes of plates; they will appear from 1762. The writing and publication of the text will continue clandestinely 9 .
1762-1765: completion of the text
In 1762 , the political wind changed: the expulsion of the Jesuits following a decision by Parliament caused a wind of freedom to blow. Volumes 8 to 17 appear, without privilege and under a foreign address. In 1764, Diderot discovered the censorship exercised by Le Breton himself on the texts of the Encyclopédie 10 . In 1765 , Diderot completed the drafting and supervision work, with a certain bitterness.
1765-1772: end of publication
The last two volumes of the plates appeared without difficulty in 1772 .
1769-1778: the trial of Luneau de Boisjermain
From 1769, the booksellers, Briasson in particular, and Diderot, still had to defend themselves in the lawsuit brought by a disgruntled subscriber, Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain , who complained about the increase in the price of the book compared to to what the Prospectus of November 1750 announced. Indeed, the initial project was largely exceeded by the ardor of the encyclopedists and went from 10 to 26 volumes. As a result, the booksellers lowered the price to 850 pounds instead of the 280 pounds of the original subscription price. In 1771, partners must submit to the judge relevant documents, which are in his possession to the statement of judgment 11. The question was decided in 1778, in favor of the booksellers, three years after the death of Briasson c .
After 1776
The Supplement
In 1776-1777, Charles-Joseph Panckoucke and Jean-Baptiste-René Robinet published a Supplement in 4 volumes of texts and 1 of plates. Two volumes of tables appeared in 1780. It should be noted that Diderot did not participate as an article editor in this enterprise (see the Collaborators article of the Encyclopedia for the list of contributors to the Supplement ).
The 17 initial volumes, the 11 volumes of plates, the Supplement of 4 volumes, its volume of plates and the Tables of Mouchon in 2 volumes, constitute the 35 volumes of the basic edition, called Paris , of the Encyclopedia .
Reissue, adaptations, counterfeits
In addition, the original edition was quickly followed by reissues, adaptations and counterfeit editions.
Already in 1770, a Swiss publisher undertook the publication of a similar encyclopedia, of more European and Protestant inspiration: the Encyclopedia known as Yverdon .
A monumental encyclopedia, derived from that of Diderot and d'Alembert, of which it is intended to be an improved and enriched version, appeared from 1782 to 1832 under the name of Methodical Encyclopedia , known as the "Panckoucke Encyclopedia". This includes more than 150 volumes of text and more than 50 volumes of plates.
Thus, if the first edition was printed in 4,225 copies, there were nearly 24,000 copies, all editions combined, sold at the time of the French Revolution .
In its "enriched" form, the Encyclopedia arrived in England in 1799 , thanks to Panckoucke who sold the rights.
The economic adventure
This work, enormous for the time, employed a thousand workers for twenty-four years.
Selling price
The acquisition conditions, set out on the last page of the prospectus, are as follows. For 10 folio volumes including 2 of plates: 60 books on account, 36 books upon receipt of the first volume scheduled for June 1751, 24 books upon delivery of each of the following staggered six months in six months, 40 books at the receipt of the eighth volume and the two volumes of plates. In all, 372 lbs .
Considering the high price, we can deduce that the reader came from the bourgeoisie , the administration, the army or the Church d .
The first folio edition ultimately comes to a total of 980 books, while the subsequent quarto edition will cost 324 and the in-octavo 225 12 . To put these figures into perspective, it should be known that Diderot gained on average 2,600 pounds per year during his 30 years of work on the Encyclopedia and that a specialized craftsman then gained 15 pounds per week 13 , or about 750 pounds per week. year.
Draw
The Encyclopedia had a circulation of 4,255 copies 14 - a very large number at a time when a current circulation did not exceed 1,500 copies. Of this number, Robert Darnton estimates that around 2,000 copies were distributed in France and the rest abroad 15 .
Sale of the book
The prospectus of 1750 brings a thousand subscriptions. The temporary ban on volumes 1 and 2 has aroused curiosity about the book. There were then more than 4,000 subscriptions. Following the turmoil caused by De esprit , the prohibition of privilege and the papal ban, Le Breton is incidentally condemned to reimburse the subscribers: none will come forward in this direction. Buyers and readership should not be confused. As reading rooms grew in number, it is likely that a larger audience consulted the book there.
The Encyclopedic Spirit
The Encyclopedia is representative of a new relationship to knowledge. It “marks the end of a culture based on erudition, as it was conceived in the previous century, in favor of a dynamic culture turned towards the activity of men and their companies” 16 It allows a greater number of people to access knowledge.
Philosophical spirit
Jules Michelet wrote, "the Encyclopedia , powerful book, whatever may be said, which was much more than a book - the victorious conspiracy of the human mind 18 . "
In this Age of Enlightenment , the evolution of thought is linked to the evolution of manners. Travel stories - that of Bougainville , for example - encourage comparison between different civilizations: morals and habits appear to be relative to a place and a time. The bourgeois now come knocking on the doors of the nobility, they become the nobility of the dress as opposed to the nobility of the sword. Many bourgeois feel frustrated that the situation is blocked (especially in relation to the United Kingdom ).
New values are needed: nature which determines the future of man, earthly happiness which becomes a goal, progress by which each era strives to better achieve collective happiness. The new philosophical spirit that is forming is based on the love of science , tolerance. He opposes all the constraints of absolute monarchy and religion . The main thing is then to be useful to the community by disseminating concrete thought in which practical application takes precedence over theory, and actuality over the eternal.
Scientific mind
This evolution is inspired by the scientific spirit. Experimental methods, applied to philosophical questions, lead to empiricism, according to which all our knowledge derives, directly or indirectly, from experience through the senses. The Encyclopedia also marks the appearance of the human sciences .
In addition, the scientific spirit is manifested by its encyclopedic character. The xviii th century did not specialize, it affects all areas of science, philosophy, art , politics , religion, etc. This explains the production of dictionaries and literary sums which characterize this century and of which the Encyclopedia is the most representative work. We can cite: L'Esprit des lois de Montesquieu (31 books), the Natural History of Buffon (36 volumes), the Essay on the origins of human knowledge by Condillac , thePhilosophical Dictionary of Voltaire (614 items). End of the xvii th century , Fontenelle , in Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds ( 1686 ) and Pierre Bayle , in the Historical and Critical Dictionary ( 1697 ), already vulgarisaient thought based on facts, experience and curiosity for innovations .
Critical mind
As for the critical spirit , it is mainly exercised against institutions. To absolute monarchy, we prefer the English model of government (constitutional monarchy). Historical criticism of sacred texts attacks the certainties of faith, the power of the clergy, and revealed religions. Philosophers are moving towards deism which admits the existence of a god without a church. They also criticize the persecution of the Huguenots by the French monarchy (see the article Refugees ).
The positive counterpart of this criticism is the spirit of reform. The encyclopedists take sides for the development of education, the usefulness of belles-lettres, the fight against the Inquisition and slavery , the promotion of the mechanical arts , equality and natural law, the economic development that appears as a source of wealth and comfort.
To defend their ideas, the authors oscillated between polemical tone (see the article Priests of D'Holbach ) and techniques of self - censorship which consisted in disguising his ideas by relying on precise historical examples. The scientific examination of the sources allowed them to question the ideas bequeathed in the past. The abundance of historical annotations discouraged a censorship in search of subversive ideas. Some encyclopedists have preferred to pass iconoclastic views through seemingly innocuous articles. Thus, the article devoted to the hood is an opportunity to ridicule the monks.
Even if the quantity has sometimes harmed the quality, it is necessary to underline the singularity of this collective adventure which was the Encyclopedia : for the first time, one describes in it equal with the "noble" knowledge all the know-how: the bakery , cutlery, boilermaking, leather goods. This importance given to human experience is one of the keys to the thought of the century: reason turns to the human being who is now its end.
Bourgeois spirit
The article " Employees of the Encyclopedia " highlights the profile of the average employee of the Encyclopedia: it belongs to the emerging class of xviii th century, the bourgeoisie . In particular, Diderot and d'Alembert are bourgeois, the publishers are bourgeois, the average reader is bourgeois. It is therefore not surprising to find this trend in the Encyclopedia . The practical and concrete dimensions of the Encyclopedia bear witness to this.
- the title: dictionary of arts and crafts
- boards
- the materialism so much criticized by certain authors
The article "Refugees" is a perfect example. It values work, wealth, and industry, as opposed to the values of the nobility, namely, feats of arms, refusal of trade and agriculture.
The question of unity
These characteristics (bourgeois, scientific and critical spirit) are global impressions which emerge when one tries to comprehensively understand the editorial line of the Encyclopedia . However, do not believe that this is the result of a deliberate intention or strategy and that any unity has been sought by directors or editors.
The dissensions between Diderot and d'Alembert, or with the editors, the broken references (see below) and the contradictory articles sufficiently show the relative improvisation in the general conception of the corpus.
If the Encyclopedia was indeed the “Enlightenment war machine”, as has been said, “It is not a coherent war machine in which the historical role of the capitalist bourgeoisie, the only class, was expressed. assured of its aims and its means, as has been stated so many times; its public (...) is less animated by social and ideological cohesion than by the extremely widespread generalization of a need for knowledge. " 19
For the public xviii th century, however, "the book is a model of consistency. He shows that knowledge is ordered and not chaotic, that the guiding principle is reason operating on the data of the senses and not revelation speaking through the intermediary of tradition, and finally that the rational criteria applied to contemporary institutions help to unmask the absurdity and iniquity everywhere. This message permeates the book, including the technical articles. " 20
Referrals
To escape the limitations of alphabetical classification, Diderot innovates by using four types of references:
- classic so-called word references , for a definition found in another article;
- said references to things , to confirm or refute an idea in an article by another article E ;
- so - called genius references , which can lead to the invention of new arts, or to new truths f .
- a fourth type of so-called satirical or epigrammatic references , is a technique developed by the designers to counter censorship. Thus, the Cordeliers criticism is not found in the article Cordeliers [ archive ] where the censors would be likely to find it, but in the article Capuchon [ archive ] to which it refers g . The existence and scope of these satirical references, despite the words of Diderot, is questioned 21 .
Diderot's reflection on cross-references and the use he made of them to link together nearly 72,000 articles has earned him the recognition of "the ancestor of hypertext 22 ".
The publication of this work in volumes and in alphabetical order means that the articles are often rough, a theme not addressed in the dedicated article may reappear in a section of another article, as is the case, for example. , for the works of Isaac Newton which can be found in the article on Woolsthorpe , the hamlet where he was born 23 . The height of fame of the work means that volumes V to VIII (corresponding to the four letters EFGH) are far more developed, beyond the place used in a usual dictionary 23 .
The separate publication, chronologically, of the diagrams in relation to the text, poses other problems of comprehension (the plates of the conical article being published almost 14 years after the text itself) 23 .
Certain texts are copied from earlier works, the content of which is thus scattered over various articles 23 : such is the case of the Elemens de physique by Pieter van Musschenbroek .
The sources of the Encyclopedia
The Encyclopedia consists of original works and numerous borrowings.
Original works
The Encyclopedia contains a number of entirely new works, resulting from original research. This is particularly true in the field of science and technology, to the point of becoming in places a place of controversy, the authors using the work to present their point of view, or to answer from one article to another.
As the technical terms had long been ignored encyclopedias and had appeared with the Universal Dictionary of Furetiere (1690), there were few reference books on which could be based for the description of Arts and professions, with the exception of the Descriptions des arts et métiers collection still in progress. Diderot therefore reserved for himself, in addition to general coordination, this part of the work, the most complex and the least sought after:
“Diderot carried the aptitudes of his role to a marvelous degree. He not only had a multitude of original ideas at his service, he also possessed the incredibly fast power to assimilate what he wanted to know, and to learn it in as good faith as if his whole life. would have depended on it, or that his talents should have been endlessly consumed in it. Who does not know, having read it often, how he became master of the mechanical arts for which he was responsible for being the demonstrator, how he practically seized upon them before explaining them theoretically? In order to deal in full authority with such a great abundance of special subjects, he spent whole days in the middle of the workshops, he visited the factories, he studied, and exercised a host of trades. Several times, he wanted to get hold of the machines, see them built, get their hands on the job, and become an apprentice in order to know, as a worker, the secret of so many maneuvers. Finally, he was no longer unaware of any detail of the art of canvas, silk, cotton, or the making of chiseled velvets, and the descriptions he gave of them came straight out of his experiences.24 . "
Borrowings
Along with new work, contributors also borrowed extensively from existing works - ranging from citation for reference, to the entire article. Sometimes acknowledged, sometimes not, these borrowings are gradually identified by modern research. The list of sources proposed here is therefore still incomplete. A very specific question also consists in determining with precision the edition of the work actually used, among the following works:
- the Cyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers ;
- the Lexicon-Technicum of John Harris ;
- the New General English Dictionary of Thomas Dyche ;
- the re-edition by Fontenelle (1732) of Thomas Corneille's Dictionary of the Terms of the Arts and Sciences ;
- the Universal Business Dictionary by Jacques Savary des Brûlons & Louis-Philémon Savary (1723-1730);
- Elements of physics by Pieter van Musschenbroek .
For the boards, conceptually:
- Theater machinery of Jacob Leupold 25 , Leipzig, 1724.
For Description of the arts :
- the Novum Organum of Bacon ;
- the plates taken from Descriptions des arts et métiers (from 1761).
For the history of ideas and philosophy:
- Historia critica philosophiae (1744) by Jacob Brucker ;
- Historical and critical dictionary by Pierre Bayle .
Other reference characters
Among the authorities cited as a reference in the Encyclopedia , without being direct collaborators, we find the names of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Abbé Claude Sallier , guard of the Royal Library .
Reception of the Encyclopedia
Public enthusiasm
The publication of the Encyclopedia aroused an extraordinary enthusiasm in the public, which was manifested even in the circles of courtiers close to Louis XV, as evidenced by an anecdote told by Voltaire in 1774 in his pamphlet De l'Encyclopédie :
- “A servant of Louis XV told me that one day, the king, his master, supping at Trianon in small company, the conversation turned first on hunting, and then on gunpowder. Someone says that the best powder is made with equal parts of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. The Duke de La Vallière , better educated, maintained that, to make good gunpowder, one needed only one part of sulfur and one part of charcoal over five parts of well-filtered, well-evaporated, well-crystallized saltpeter.
- It is pleasant, says the Duc de Nivernais , that we amused ourselves every day by killing partridges in the park of Versailles, and sometimes by killing men or having us killed on the border, without knowing precisely what the 'we kill.
- Alas! we are left there on all the things of this world, 'said M me of Pompadour ; I don't know what the rouge I put on my cheeks is made of, and I would be very embarrassed if I were asked how the silk stockings I wear are made.
- "It is a pity," said the Duc de La Vallière, "that His Majesty confiscated our encyclopedic dictionaries, which each cost us a hundred pistoles; we would soon find the decision of all our questions there.
- The king justified his confiscation; he had been warned that the twenty -one folio volumes, which one found on the toilet of all the ladies, were the thing of the world most dangerous for the kingdom of France, and he had wanted to know for himself if the thing was true, before allowing that one read it delivered. He sent, at the end of supper, to fetch a copy by three boys from his room, who each brought seven volumes with great difficulty. We saw in the article POUDRE that the Duc de La Vallière was right; and soon Madame de Pompadour learned the difference between the old red of Spain, with which the ladies of Madrid colored their cheeks, and the red of the ladies of Paris. She knew that the Greek and Roman ladies were painted with purple which came out of the murex, and that, therefore, our scarlet was the purple of the ancients; that there was more saffron in the red of Spain and more cochineal in that of France. She saw how her stockings were made to her at the trade, and the machine for this maneuver delighted her with astonishment.
- - Ah! the beautiful book! she cried. Sire, you have therefore confiscated this store of all useful things, to own it alone and to be the only scholar in your kingdom.
- Everyone threw themselves on the volumes, like Lycomedes ' daughters on Ulysses' jewels; everyone there was at the moment all he sought 26 . "
As for Diderot, he relies on posterity to judge his work: "This work will surely produce a revolution in people's minds over time, and I hope that tyrants, oppressors, fanatics and intolerant people do not will not gain. We will have served humanity. " 27
But during his lifetime and during the publication protectors and opponents clash, sometimes strongly. The Encyclopedia is not just a reference work; it is also a platform, a manifesto and its publication is therefore also a political act, which is shocking.
Notorious and controversial opponents
- The Jesuits , who were the target of attacks by the encyclopedists, to which they responded with the Journal de Trévoux , until their order was banned from France in 1763 28 .
- Christophe de Beaumont , Archbishop of Paris
- Omer Joly de Fleury , Mortar President of the Parliament of Paris
- Jean-Jacques Lefranc de Pompignan , poet at war with Voltaire
- Élie Fréron , journalist who also attacked Voltaire
- Jacob-Nicolas Moreau , historian and writer, staunch supporter of the Ancien Régime
- Palissot , writer opposed to philosophers
- Clement XIII , who indexed the work on March 5, 1759 and "enjoins Catholics, under pain of excommunication, to burn the copies in their possession 29 . "
- In 1775, Salvatore Di Biasi underlines the ignorance of Sicily by the Encyclopedists and protests more particularly against the presentation of Palermo 30 as a destroyed city which, before its destruction by an earthquake, disputed with Messina the rank of Capital 31 . This article is signed by Louis de Jaucourt , which refers to the work by Augustino Inveges , Palermo antiquo, sacro & nobile, in Palermo , 1649-1651.
Subsequent editions
The success of this publication very quickly gave rise to competing projects, pirated copies and various reprints:
- Folio Encyclopedia of Lucca (1758), edited by Ottaviano Diodati, 1500 copies printed.
- Folio encyclopedia of Livorno (1771-1775), edited by Giuseppe Aubert, 1500 copies.
- In-folio encyclopedia of Geneva (1771-1773), edited by Panckoucke , 4,000 copies printed.
- Encyclopedia in-quarto of Geneva and Neuchâtel , also edited by Panckoucke , first printed in 4000 copies, followed by two other editions of 2000 copies. This edition is known by the acronym STN (Société typographique de Neuchâtel).
- Encyclopedia in-octavo of Berne and Lausanne (1778), similar to the Pellet edition of Geneva, the total circulation of which is estimated at between 5,500 and 6,000 copies.
- Encyclopedia of Yverdon (1770-1780), published jointly by the Typographical Society of Berne and the bookseller Pierre Gosse of La Haye , under the direction of Fortuné-Barthélémy de Félice , which transforms the spirit of the original work 32 .
- Methodical Encyclopedia , a project implemented by Charles-Joseph Panckoucke in 1782, but which did not come to fruition until 50 years later, with 212 volumes.
- Methodical Encyclopedia of Padua by the Typography of the Seminary (1784-1817), with 112 volumes of text and 38 of plates.
Robert Darnton estimates at 24,000 copies the total number of copies of the Encyclopedia printed before 1789 33
Main contributors
Diderot wrote articles on a wide variety of subjects, mainly in literature and aesthetics, but also in archeology, medicine, surgery, herbalism, cooking, color theory, mythology, fashion, etc. "He manifests a certain taste for religions distant from Christianity, obscure heresies, secrets and mysteries, popular beliefs and the marvelous 34 ". He has also given hundreds of articles on geography.
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert provided the main introductory texts ( Preliminary speech, Warning ) and some 1,600 articles.
The most prolific contributor is Louis de Jaucourt , also known as Chevalier de Jaucourt, who provided a total of 17,395 articles, or 28% of the text volume 35 .
The Baron d'Holbach produced 425 articles signed and many unsigned articles on politics and religion.
To these names are added the contributions of some 160 collaborators from various backgrounds. Their quality is uneven, by Diderot's own admission :
- “Among a few excellent men there were weak, mediocre, and quite bad ones. Hence that variegation in the work where one finds a scholar's outline, next to a master's piece; a stupidity bordering on something sublime, a page written with force, purity, warmth, judgment, reason, elegance on the back of a poor, petty, flat and miserable page. "
- Denis Diderot
Controversy between Diderot and Rousseau on the subject of the article "Natural law"
Diderot published in 1755 the article " Natural Law " of the Encyclopédie . From 1757 , relations between Diderot and Rousseau deteriorated, among others on the question of the value of man in society . Diderot in fact misunderstood the principle of solitude expressed by Rousseau and wrote in Le Fils naturel , that "the good man is in society, and that only the wicked are alone" . Rousseau, Diderot which attributes to the indiscretions of his affair with Louise d'Epinay , feels attacked 36 .
In the 1760 version of the Social Contract , known as the “Geneva Manuscript”, he introduced a chapter entitled “The General Society of the Human Kind”, in which we find a refutation of the article “Natural Law” written by Diderot. Wanting to avoid any controversy, Rousseau deleted the chapter in the final version of the Social Contract published in 1762 37 .
Jean-Pierre Marcos carried out an analysis of this controversy 38 .
The Encyclopedia in figures
Printed in 4,255 copies, the basic work comprises seventeen volumes of text, eleven volumes of plates and 71,818 articles. It spanned fifteen years and its publication over twenty-one years.
The Supplement (1776-1777) has four volumes of articles and one volume of plates.
The set totals 74,000 articles, 18,000 pages of text and 21,700,000 words 39 .
The Genevan pastor Pierre Mouchon 40 produced an Analytical and Reasoned Table of the Contents of the XXXIII folio volumes of the Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts 41 in two volumes (944 p., Paris and Amsterdam, 1780 42 ). This so-called “Mouchon” Table has 75,000 entries, 44,000 main articles, 28,000 secondary articles and 2,500 illustrations.
Publication detail
Caption:
- T = text volume
- P = volume of boards
- S = volume of supplement
- B = volume of tables
Internal links lead to the digitized version on Wikisource , external links lead to the digitized version in Gallica .
| Tome | Release date | Content |
|---|---|---|
| T 01 | 1751-06 | A - Azymites |
| T 02 | 1752-01 (dated 1751) | B - Cézimbra |
| T 03 | 1753-10 | Cha - Consecration |
| T 04 | 1754-10 | Council - Dizier, Saint |
| T 05 | 1755-11 | Do - Esymnete |
| T 06 | 1756-10 | And - Fne |
| T 07 | 1757-11 | Foang - Gythium |
| T 08 | 1765-12 | H - Itzehoa |
| T 09 | 1765-12 | Ju - Mamira |
| T 10 | 1765-12 | Udder - Myva |
| T 11 | 1765-12 | N - Parkinsone |
| T 12 | 1765-12 | Parliament - Polytric |
| T 13 | 1765-12 | Pomacies - Reggio |
| T 14 | 1765-12 | Reggio - Semyda |
| T 15 | 1765-12 | Sen - Tchupriki |
| T 16 | 1765-12 | Teanum - Hunting |
| T 17 | 1765-12 | Venereal - Zzuene and omitted articles |
| P01 | 1762 | |
| P 02 and P 02b | 1763 | |
| P 03 | 1765 | |
| P 04 | 1767 | |
| P 05 | 1768 | |
| P 06 | 1769 | |
| P 07 | 1771 | |
| P 08 | 1771 | |
| P 09 | 1772 | |
| P 10 | 1772 | |
| S 01 [ archive ] | 1776 | A - Blom-Krabbe |
| S 02 | ||
| S 03 | ||
| S 04 [ archive ] | 1777 | Naalol - Zygie |
Interactive and digital reissue, free access
The first online reissue of the Encyclopedia dates from 1982. It is the result of a monumental research program carried out jointly by the CNRS with researchers from ATIFL directed by Bernard Quémada and professors and computer scientists from the University. of Chicago from the ARTFL group [ archive ] . First reserved for academia, it has been freely accessible since 2008. Its version ( 1 st edition of Paris-Sorbonne) which includes a reference to each original page of the Encyclopedia- which allows an essential verification - is constantly corrected by readers for spelling. Finally, it contains new research possibilities thanks to computer programs placed in parallel.
Access to the encyclopedia: on the ATIFL site [ archive ] , on the ARTFL site [ archive ] .
On October 19, 2017, the Académie des sciences (via its D'Alembert committee) and the ENCCRE team (Collaborative Digital Edition and Encyclopedia), in conjunction with the Mazarine Library announced the opening of a "first digital, collaborative and critical edition of the Encyclopedia, or the Reasoned Dictionary of Arts and Crafts Sciences will be put online by the Academy of Sciences ... ” 43 , 44 . The presentation of this project is made at the Institut de France . This digital edition is based on a very high definition digitization of one of the two original copies kept at the Mazarine Library, which brings together all the characteristics of the first edition of the first edition of the Encyclopedia, making it the first original, homogeneous and complete digital copy of this monumental work 45 .
The ENCCRE project is presented by the Academy as the multidisciplinary work of 120 researchers coordinated by a CNRS team , with the UPMC and universities (Nanterre, Lausanne) accompanied by engineers, students and volunteers; This collaborative edition is planned to be continuously enriched 43 .
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