‘Being French’ : a study of references
to the French ‘national character’ in the Encyclopédie
Dr Elizabeth Rechniewski

This paper was given at the ISSEI Conference held at Aberystwyth, UK, in July 2002. It has also been published in the Conference proceedings.

Abstract

The aim of this paper - by means of an account of a particular project of historical textual research - is to raise a number of issues relating to the study of representation of national character and to indicate some of the disciplines that might be involved. Amongst these I will mention: imagological studies, discourse analysis, the construction of ‘imaginary communities’, functionality.

My study of the Encyclopédie aims to identify the stock of cultural representations concerning national character, and specifically those concerning Western European nations and France, which were circulating in the mid-eighteenth century, and analyse their content: the nature of the characteristics attributed to these nations, viewed in a comparative framework, and their functions: notably the discursive, argumentative and political functions of statements about national character.

This paper will also explore the paradoxes which resulted from the multiple functions performed by representations of national character in 18thc French thought; the contradictions that arose from the meeting of more modern notions of nationhood and construction of a ‘we subject’ independent of the sovereign, with old prejudices and traditional ideas; and the tensions between the authority of the ancients and the claims of empirical observation.The paper identifies further the historical, class and gender-bound nature of the references to national character.

The idea that nations possess unique characteristics has a very long history in European thought. The traditional discourse of the humours posited an essential link between nations, climates and individuals; these ideas acquired renewed vigour and currency in the sixteenth century and were evoked by Montaigne who supposed 'an essential link between nations, climates and individuals. In this tradition, the Spanish are choleric because of their hot climate and the Germans are phlegmatic because of their cold one, while the French [...] are perfectly balanced because of the temperate climate of France' (Hampton, 2001, 196). Such ideas remained very much alive through the seventeeth and early eighteenth centuries: John Hayman gives many examples from seventeenth and eighteenth century England and continental Europe of the attribution of national characteristics, often in the works of travel writers (Hayman, 1971); Paul Hazard records their prevalence in his discussion of the period 1680-1715 and cites as examples the portrayal of the French in English novels and comedies of the time (Hazard, 1961, 364-5), Pauline Kra and Roberto Romani offer detailed accounts of ideas about national character in eighteenth century France: they raise issues relating to the political significance of assertions about national character, and to the explanations given as to their origin, but do not focus specifically on the claims made about French national character in the context of other European nations (Kra, 2002; Romani, 1998).

My study of the Encyclopédie [ 1 ] aimed to identify the stock of cultural representations concerning national character, and specifically those concerning Western European nations and France, which were circulating in the mid-eighteenth century and to analyse:

- their content: the nature of the characteristics attributed to these nations viewed in a comparative framework: in other words, what patterns of relationship (similarities, differences, contrasts) are revealed in the attribution of traits to particular peoples and nations?

and their functions: notably the discursive, argumentative and political functions of statements about national character. What rôle did they play in constructing explanations and in justifying implicit and explicit judgements of inferiority and superiority? What political role in relation to a critique of French institutions ? How did they contribute to the re-ordering of the mental map of Europe in the context of the particular social, ideological and political agenda of eighteenth century Enlightenment thought in France? What paradoxes and contradictions resulted from the diverse functions performed by representations of national character in eighteenth century French thought, and the attempts to reconcile these contradictions ?

Any study of national character in the Encyclopédie must begin by examining two entries which address this question directly : NATION and CARACTERE DES NATIONS.

The entry NATION is only four paragraphs long. Written by Jaucourt, three quarters of the article is devoted to the use of the term in relation to Universities. A definition of a nation in its modern sense is proposed, however, consisting of three elements: a considerable quantity of people, living in a defined territory and under the same government. The few lines which remain are devoted to illustrating the assertion that: 'chaque nation a son caractère particulier…’ A number of examples are given: 'it’s a kind of proverb to say: as frivolous as a Frenchman; as jealous as an Italian, as serious as a Spaniard, as malicious as an Englishman, as drunk as a German, as lazy as an Irishman, as deceitful as a Greek, etc.' Several of these examples do not satisfy Jaucourt's own definition of a nation: the Germans, Italians and Greeks did not live under a single national government. Note, moreover, that these national characteristics are reported uncritically by Jaucourt despite the fact that he states that such ideas are merely 'une espèce de proverbe'.

Jaucourt is also the author of a similarly short entry on the CARACTERE DES NATIONS: Again he asserts that each nation has a general character, 'une disposition habituelle de l'ame', which, though not found in every member, is more common in one nation than another. Moreover this character is relatively stable over time because of the primary influence of climate, although there is a recognition that the form of government - if it is of some duration - also has an effect.

A list of French national characteristics is given : the first is ‘legereté’ (as in the entry NATION), then gaiety and sociability, and finally the love of the French for their king. There is some similarity between these characteristics and those attributed at the end of the entry to those peoples living in a despotic state: both are 'amateur[s] de la frivolité'. Despite the (politically astute) reference to the French people’s love of their kings, this implied criticism would be consistent with the idea - widespread in the thinking of eighteenth century political philosophers - that absolutist rule had led to a decline in the strength of the French national character. Other examples of national character are given, however, in support of the argument that national character is unchanging : thus Jaucourt asserts that the characteristics of the Germans are unchanged since Caesar’s time; however he does not say which things are still true concerning the Germans but relies on the reader to supply the missing evidence.

This reliance on common knowledge, which echoes the reference to 'une espèce de proverbe' in the entry NATION, is found in a number of the references to national character which will be discussed in the rest of this paper. It supports Romani's assertion that the attribution of national character traits was a 'platitude' to the vast majority of eighteenth century thinkers: although there was much debate about the causes and consequences of such traits, it was rare for their existence to be questioned (Romani, 1998, 205). Larry Wolff comments that Jaucourt, a Frenchman educated at Geneva, Leyden and Cambridge, had 'touched the bases that constituted the enlightened perspective of Western Europe' and concludes that ‘his articles would reflect conventional eighteenth century enlightened opinion.…' (Wolff, 1994, 185). Entries by other contributors to the Encyclopédie do indeed demonstrate that the existence of national character is a widespread presupposition. It can be found in contexts as wide-ranging as statements to illustrate grammatical points ( PROPOSITION) or in a discussion of the forms of impudence in different countries, which correspond to the national character (IMPUDENCE). It is argued that national character and climate influence national ways of singing (CHANT) and forms of entertainment (DIVERTISSEMENT). In the entry LANGUE, national character is the 'third term' which articulates the relationship betwen environmental factors and variety in languages

I suggest that reference to these national differences - which may seem to be simply an archaic survival of old discourses or popular prejudice - is an integral part of the discourse of the philosophes and fulfills a number of functions:

The construction of rational argument

National characterisation lends itself well to the forms of reasoning characteristic of Enlightenment thought: comparison, classification, the construction of typologies, the enumeration of characteristics, the relating of moral to physical qualities.. These tendencies are found in the Encyclopédie in the attempts to link ‘national’ behaviour, physical characteristics, and moral qualities. An example can be found in the comparison of the military qualities of the soldiers of four European nations where it is argued that the impetuosity of the French soldier is linked to the broader national characteristic of honour: 'Nations are also distinguished by different military qualities:: the German soldier is more robust, the Spanish more sober, the English fiercer, the French more impetuous : the character of the first is constancy, of the second, patience, of the third, pride, of the fourth, honour' (LEVEE). These generalisations, the attempt to relate minor behaviours to broader moral qualities, and the tendency to affirm without nuance are typical of the entries on national character. Note that, although Romani argues that discussion of national character refers only to the upper classes, this example (and others) suggests a consistency of national behaviour across social class.

National characterisation plays an important role in the construction of explanation and argument in the entries in the Encyclopédie: assertions about national character are presented as axioms on which reasoned argument can be built, a basis so widely accepted that it does not need to be proved: hence the recurrence of explanatory phrases such as : 'car chaque nation a son génie particulier' (LIVRE); 'car chaque peuple a son génie particulier' (MOEURS). Voltaire makes the same claim about the French, in very similar words, in the entry FRANCOIS where he declares: 'chaque peuple a son caractère, comme chaque homme'. As is usually the case, Voltaire provides little or no empirical evidence but rather appeals to the obviousness of similarities which are recognisable at first glance ('au premier coup-d'oeil') and which do not need to be specified. This entry will be discussed at length later.

The basis in comparison: France/England

The grounding of descriptions of national character in comparison is never more obvious that in the case of France and England. The two nations were of course almost constantly at war during the eighteenth century and in her study of the development of British nationalism, Linda Colley places great weight on the significance of this antagonistic relationship for the development of British consciousness, forged in 'confrontation with an obviously hostile Other' (Colley, 1992, 5). The relationship is complex, however; far from being exclusively hostile it is characterised by mutual fascination and waves of anglophilia and francophilia on each side of the Channel.

The relative freedoms enjoyed by the English were frequently attributed by eighteenth-century French writers to their restless, impatient nature which would not brook authoritarian rule. In L'Esprit des lois Montesquieu explains this characteristic by the 'illness of climate' (Livre XIV, ch.13c). This representation of the English as lovers of freedom and independent of mind is repeated by the Encyclopédistes in many contexts, usually in explicit comparison to the French. Thus in the entry COMEDIE it is argued that in England the forms of comedy result from the fact that all citizens pride themselves on thinking independently, indeed the affectation of being like no-one else leads to the dominant vice of the country, that of being unsociable. The French, however, it is asserted here and elsewhere, are characterised by excessive sociability, leading to too great a desire to please others and too little capacity for independent thought (COMÉDIE). This frivolity and excessive sociability is illustrated by the hold which fashion has over the French, whether it be fashion in clothes, in food, health, even in ideas.

These critical observations concerning the 'légèreté' of the French have a political function: they reflect the views of an intellectual élite which has adopted a critical stance towards the current régime and wish to imply that absolutism leads to a decline in strength of the national character, However other entries affirm that French excel in a range of cultural and intellectual pursuits : 'The French genius is perhaps today the equal of that of the English in philosophy, perhaps superior to all other peoples over the last eighty years in literature, and the undoubted leader in the social graces…' (FRANCOIS).

Redefining the place of France in the civilisation map of Europe

The French are portrayed in the Encyclopédie, then, as seriously flawed but their situation is far superior to that of more southerly nations such as Italy. In descriptions of Italy the emphasis is on decline and fall: the current situation of the Italians is that of being the slaves of other nations; the sovereignty of the Pope is limited; the republics of Florence, Venice and Genoa have lost their lustre and glory while the other states are politically subject and divided, or exposed to invasion. (ITALIE). In the entry LANGUE it is argued that the Italian language has lost robustness, just as the Italian people have lost their vigour since the time of the Romans.

Clorinda Donato notes the relatively rare references to Italy and to its historical importance in the Encyclopédie and argues that in ambition and realisation Diderot's Encyclopédie marked the transition from Italian to French cultural hegemony. French was replacing Latin and Italian as the language of the educated European elite (Donato, 1992). The references to Greece and Spain similarly portray societies in decline. Thus we can understand the references to Italy and other southerly nations in the Encyclopédie as part of a strategy, a staking of claim which necessitated the down-playing of the contribution of Italy and Greece to cultural and intellectual life, and a re-evaluation of the comparative superiority of the French and Italian language, reversing the superiority in matter of civilisation from South over North, to North over South. This conceptual shift in favour of the North is sometimes justified by Montesquieu's reflections on the effect of climate, as can be seen in the entry on Iceland where d’Holbach argues that Northern peoples (Scandinavia, England, Switzerland) have always been strongly attached to freedom, while subservience has been the lot of the South, these ‘peuples énervés’.

Respect for the classical authors

Much of the reflection on national character takes as its basis the observations of the classical authors on the character of the peoples they encountered. It must after all be in these writings that the fundamental traits of the nation can be discerned, before these are overlaid by influences of government This approach is evident in Voltaire's major entry on the French, where he asserts, as he does in his Dictionnaire philosophique, that the basic character of the French (‘le fond’) is the same as that which Caesar attributed to the Gauls: 'quick to decide, ardent in combat, impetuous in attack, easily discouraged. Of all the barbarian peoples, the Gauls were described by Caesar, Agathias and others, as the most polite.’ And indeed, comments Voltaire, this is still true, the Frenchman is the model of politeness to all his neighbours.. In a later passage in the same entry Voltaire refers to Caesar's attribution to the Gauls of 'legereté'. These descriptions become the touchstone for Voltaire's own assessment of French civilisation, up to his own time. Much of his entry is devoted to exploring and trying to resolve the paradoxes and contradictions which arise from his assumption that the French national character had undergone no fundamental change.

One such contradiction stems from Voltaire's observations on the frivolous, pleasure-loving behaviour of the Parisians of his time: this seems to constitute a marked change from the description of the Parisians in Roman times as 'serious and stern'. But Voltaire is able to square the circle by arguing that this serious-mindedness must have reigned in a town which was then small and without entertainment. Now, he argues, the opulence and idleness in Paris mean that people can occupy their time only with the pleasures of life and the arts, and not with government. And if in the past they were impetuous and furious in battle, Parisians now bring the same impetuousness to their pleasures as they once brought to their fits of factional and fanatical rage. So in fact the basis of their character, which derives from the climate, is still the same.

Another apparent paradox is acknowledged by Voltaire: although the French were called lightweight by Caesar and all the neighbouring peoples, the kingdom united and sustained itself by sound negotiations, skill and patience, its people thus demonstrating political and diplomatic skills. This paradox is resolved by Voltaire's argument that, though frivolous when young, with age Frenchmen become wise.

I would like to emphasise the centrality of the concept of national character to Voltaire's account of the French. Voltaire draws on the writings of the ancients, with their descriptions of (tribal) characteristics, as a starting point from which to understand and explain French civilisation up to and including the present day. When contradictions appear, he goes to great lengths to attempt to resolve them, rather than questioning the initial descriptions or indeed the assumption concerning the existence of enduring national characteristics.

Conclusion : Imagining the nation

I have sought to show that references to national character in general, and to the French national character in particular, fulfill important functions in the thinking of the contributors to the Encyclopédie. While I have touched on a number of these functions in the course of this paper, I would like to finish by emphasising the contribution of these ideas to new ways of conceptualising France and the French people as a national subject, independent of the sovereign.

Discussion of national character in the Encyclopédie has a clear secular basis: the ‘scientific’ experiments undertaken by Montesquieu on the tissue of the tongue of a sheep, to support his argument concerning the influence of climate (cited in several entries), illustrate the rationalist basis on which ideas about human communities were to be built. Of course the philosophes were divided over the extent to which differences between peoples could be attributed to environmental factors or to educational, institutional (ie. man-made) influences. But the crucial point is that divine explanation was completely discounted. The 'nation' was a product of an environment which, it was increasingly argued, could be analysed, understood, modified.

The significance of the references to the classical authors in Voltaire's entry, lies not only in the respect they reveal for the ancients, but also in their legitimating function: durability, longevity, continuity of national character argue for the legitimacy of the French nation as a continuation of these ancient peoples; this allows for a conceptualisation of the French people as a coherent, relatively homogeneous entity, independent of the more recent forms of monarchic government.

Reference in the entry ENCYCLOPEDIE to the necessity to understand the particular esprit of the French nation in order to address the state of mind and concerns of their contemporaries; and to the necessity to anticipate the evolution of this spirit 'qui marche sans-cesse' and thus to speak to future generations - such comments contributed to the idea that a French nation existed, in a continuity of interests, of shared endeavour, across time. In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson identifies as one of the key factors in the conceptualisation of the national community, the 'emptying of time' : time no longer has the significance asssociated with religious events but is an empty homogenised space: the nation can then be imagined as a coherent entity moving through time (Anderson, 1983).

In the references in the Encyclopédie to a secularised, homogenised national character, with roots deep in the past, subsisting and evolving relatively independently of forms of government, can be seen some of the elements that contributed to the new understanding of the nation that would characterise the Revolution and the nineteenth century.

Anderson, Benedict, 1983, Imagined Communities, London, Verso.

Colley, Linda, 1992, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, London/New Haven, Yale University Press.

Donato, Clorinda, 1992, ‘L’image de l’Italie et des Italiens dans les encyclopédies du XVIIIe siècle’, in L’image de l’Italie dans les lettres allemandes et françaises au XVIIIe siècle, Actes du Colloque International, Strasbourg, 16-18 sept 1992,

Hampton, Timothy, 2001, Literature and Nation in the Sixteenth Century: Inventing Renaissance France, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press.

Hayman, John G., 1971, ‘Notions on National Characters in the Eighteenth Century’, Huntingdon Library Quarterly, 35, 1-17.

Hazard, Paul, 1961, La Crise de la conscience européenne, 1680-1715, Paris, Fayard.

Kra, Pauline, 2002, 'The concept of national character in 18th century France', Cromohs, 7: 1-6, < URL: http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/7_2002/kra.html >

Romani, Roberto, 1998, ‘All Montesquieu’s sons: the place of esprit général, caractère national and moeurs in French political philosophy, 1748-1789’, Studies on Voltaire and the 18th Century, 362.

Wolff, Larry, 1994, Inventing Eastern Europe, The Map of Civilisation on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford California, Stanford University Press.

[ 1 ] This research was undertaken as part of an ARC Discovery grant project, in 2000. Parameters of search: Keyword search using the CD-rom of L'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.

Chief combinations of terms:

nation françoise (138)
caractère national (34)
esprit national (43)
génie national (23)
moeurs nationales (17)

Co-occurences

génie + nation (254)
national + françois (42)
patrie + amour+ françois (106)
national + amour (21)
moeurs + climat (79)
génie+ françois (304)
moeurs + nation + françois (142)
esprit + nation + françois (234)

In brackets : the number of entries in which found