CHAPTER SIX

JAUCOURT, REPUBLICANISM, AND TOLERATION

Simone Zurbuchen, Zürich

One of the most effective arguments used to justify the oppression of Calvinism in France claimed an inherent relation between Protestantism and republicanism. The strength of the argument stemmed from the fact that it could be revived in different historical contexts. In the eighteenth century it took on a new dimension, as the accusation of political disloyalty no longer concentrated on a religious minority, but was aimed at the co• operation between religious and political opposition of different origins. When the Edict of Toleration of 1787 was in preparation, its Catholic opponents suggested that the Protestants were in league with the Jansenists and the in their endeavor to destroy the Monarchy and the Catholic Church.l This allegation of collaboration between Protestants and philosophes was, however, initially contradicted by the fact that most phil• osophers in France had welcomed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)2 and that prominent representatives of the Lumières such as and had even repeated the accusation that Protestant• ism tended to political rebellion.3 It was only with the Calas Affair that a concerted public campaign in favor of a new Edict of Toleration began. Its aim was, however, neither to dispossess the Catholic Church nor to over• throw the Monarchy, but to grant civil status to the Huguenots, i.e. to concede them the authentication of births, marriages, and deaths. These moderate demands fit in well with the fact that the Calvinists who re• organized their Church in France officially remained loyal to the Monarchy.4 According to Poland and Adams, who discuss the situation on the eve of the Revolution, the Huguenots were as royalist as the Catholics.

1 See B. C. Poland, French Frotestantism and the French Revolutiony pp. 141f. Similar accusations were reiterated after the French Revolution. 2 See G. Adams, The Huguenots and French Opinion 1685-1787. The Enlight• enment Debate on Toleration, chap.II, pp. 19-33. 3 See Montesquieu, De l'esprit des lois, book XXIV, chap. 5. For Voltaire, see G. Adams: "Monarchistes ou Républicains?", p. 83. 4 See Adams, "Monarchistes ou Républicains?", pp. 83-95. 156 SIMONE ZURBUCHEN

A general discussion of the alleged collaboration between Protestants and philosophes is beyond the scope of this article. Within the perspective of this question I will, however, attempt to evaluate the political ideas of the Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt, one of the rarely examined contributors to the Encyclopédie. I will argue that he conveyed to the French Lumières a sig• nificant part of the political theory of the Huguenot diaspora, as it was formulated by Jean Barbeyrac and further developed by Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui. This school of political thought can be characterized by its anti-absolutist tendency, which was motivated by the Huguenots' interest in developing a coherent concept of religious toleration. As they relied both on secular and religious arguments to advocate toleration, it seems accurate to see in their political theory an example of the alleged relation between religious and political principles.

1. Jaucourt's contribution to the Encyclopédie and the inheritance of the Refuge

The role which the Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt played in the French Enlightenment has for a long time been much underestimated. Although in vol. VIII of the Encyclopédie he is mentioned by Diderot as one of the most indefatigable contributors,5 his name was very soon forgotten. When the Encyclopédie was finished in 1765 Jaucourt retired from the literary scene and at his death in 1780 no eulogy was published. It seems that Jaucourt's self-sacrificing engagement on behalf of the Encyclopédie gave his contemporaries as much to scorn him as to hold him in esteem. Diderot, in a letter to Sophie Voll and, describes him as a person who never feels bored to "grind out" his articles and whose "physiognomy falls" when the end of the work is announced to him.6 Grimm, in the Correspondance littéraire, ironically suggests that with the money he earned thanks to Jaucourt's work the publisher Le Breton bought the house which the former had sold in order to pay his secretaries.7 The picture drawn in the eight• eenth century of Jaucourt as a colourless compiler seems to explain why Jaucourt was of little interest to those who studied the contributors to the Encyclopédie up to the twentieth century.

5 Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, éd. by Diderot and d'Alembert, vol. VIII, "Avertissement", p. i. 6 Quoted by J. Lough, The Encyclopédie, p. 45. 7 Quoted by Lough, The Encyclopédie, p. 46.