Voltaire: Précis du siècle de Louis XV

Abstract

Voltaire’s Précis du siècle de Louis XV is not as well known as it should be for a number of reasons. First, in historiographical terms, Enlightenment history has never recovered from the rise of historicism and its critique of that era’s presentism and universalist pretensions (Volpihlac-Auger, 2009; Force, 2009). Second, the reign of Louis XV – great-grandson of Louis-le-Grand – has been forgotten somewhat in the history of the French eighteenth century, which is generally viewed as the age of the philosophes and a prelude to the French Revolution (Jones, 2002). Third, and most importantly, Voltaire’s history of the age of Louis XV was not a work that he planned and composed in a coherent way, but instead emerged from the development of other works, an outgrowth of the Siècle de Louis XIV [Age of Louis XIV] intended to complete the Essai sur l’histoire générale de Charlemagne jusqu’à nos jours [Essay on General History from Charlemagne to our Times], but which relied on the filleting of Voltaire’s own Histoire de la guerre de 1741 [History of the War of 1741] (see article on this work in The Literary Encyclopedia) in order for it to be published as a work in its own right. As a result, it was little-known and under-appreciated by his contemporaries when it first appeared under its own title in 1769, thereby ensuring it was never considered a major work either before or after Voltaire’s death.