selenak: (Default)
selenak ([personal profile] selenak) wrote in [personal profile] cahn 2024-02-15 07:08 am (UTC)

Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Rousseau

they are closest nation to my favorite ancient governments (Sparta 4ever!)

Yet another reason why Voltaire and Rousseau didn't see eye to eye, to put it mildly. And why young Maximilian Robespierre in the provinces is an ardent Rousseau fan. Meanwhile, Boswell of course managed to gatecrash and get interviews with Rousseau and Voltaire both. (And later even got Rousseau to attend his wedding and be one of the witnesses signing the contract.)

Re: Corsica, I think it was John Wain or Frederick Pottle who, in one of the introductions to selections of Boswell's diaries, said there's always one country which gets hopelessly idealized and seen as the ideal social experiment before reality and more extensive reports on the actual goings on there set in, and then goes on to compare Corsica being this for a while in the 18th century to Cuba being this (not in the US, I know! But in Europe!) in the early 1960s. I can't help but note the end of Corsica romantization also coincides with the most famous Corsican ever rising to the top, and then some.

If an investigation finds it was because you were corrupted, death penalty for you!

Robespierre: *hearteyes* (Okay, I'm being unfair to Maximilien R., who actually was anti death penalty, in a tragic irony, for most of his life and held speeches to that effect when starting his political career. Alas...)

Perhaps a good outcome would be if your neighbors took over parts of your country and made it smaller.

Mildred: NO REALLY, HE SAID THAT.


Wow. Do we know what Wielhorski's reaction was?


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