Fontaine (59 (2005), 268–69), and Corneille (63 (2009), 456–57) — in France in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries. It recounts the fluctuating views of Racine held bythe French establishment over a century and a half of, first, critical and, then, pedagogic-al material. The format of the central chapters consists essentially of summaries, withillustrative and frequently enlightening quotations, of a wide diversity of authorities, themajority of whose names will probably be unfamiliar to most readers — with salientexceptions, such as Hippolyte Taine (‘[qui] inaugure [. . .] la critique scientifique deRacine’, p. 77), Sainte-Beuve, Gustave Lanson, or, more recently, Thierry Maulnier.Three recurrent features are striking to a reader more familiar with later criticism ofRacine: first, and almost ubiquitous, the intensely didactic interpretation of the dramatist,widely brought into service in order to instil in his nineteenth- and early twentieth-century readers a respect for Christian [sic] values as incarnated above all by such unlikelyfigures as Andromaque or Iphigenie (‘un modele de la generosite chretienne et francaise’,p. 71), with concomitant warnings to be gleaned as to the dangers of the passions, aboveall, and predictably enough, in Phedre; secondly, the facility with which Racine wasaccorded an evolving political identity as monarchies and republics came and went; and,finally, the adoption of Racine (with Corneille) as the supreme exemplifications of artisticperfection within the corpus of writing associated with the apogee of the Ancien Regime,and so central to the self-attributed civilizing role assumed by France on an internationalscale. Ralph Albanese resumes these two dimensions, writing in fact of the ThirdRepublic, but in a more generally applicable axiom: ‘[La France] avait pour mission civili-satrice d’operer une magistrature morale dans le monde’ (p. 34). If the need to accountfor a substantial quantity of unfamiliar and inaccessible material results in a certainamount of (probably inevitable) repetition, above all in the second part, the more syn-thetic aspects of the text carry a good deal of conviction. The whole survey ends,however, on a brief and (arguably) unduly pessimistic reflection on the post-1968 statusof Racine, concluding bleakly as it does that ‘[etant] devenue un univers etranger qui faitappel de moins en moins a l’imagination des jeunes, la tragedie racinienne a fini par sedetacher de la culture francaise’ (p. 252). The bibliography is extensive and affords otherscholars an indispensable guide in a similar vein to critical and pedagogical tendencies inthe periods covered. On the other hand, there is no mention of the tenets of receptiontheory at any stage, which seems surprising in a book about reception; there is no index;and the practice of indicating titles by underlining looks both dated and rather cumber-some on the page to readers more familiar with the use of italicization for that purpose.

RICHARD PARISH

ST CATHERINE’S COLLEGE, OXFORDdoi:10.1093/fs/knu196

Defense de Montesquieu: sur une lecture absurde du chapitre ‘De l’esclavage des negres’. Par RENE

POMMIER. Paris: Euredit, 2014. 101 pp.

Ce pamphlet constitue une refutation detaillee d’une section du livre d’Odile Tobner,Du racisme francais: quatre siecles de negrophobie (Paris: Les Arenes, 2007), consacree a un celebrechapitre (XV, 5) du livre de Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois (1748). Tobner avait presente‘De l’esclavage des negres’ non pas comme une denonciation sous forme ironique, maiscomme une justification ehontee de l’esclavage. D’apres elle, ce sont les manuels sco-laires Lagarde et Michard qui ont, a tort, ‘diffuse le dogme’ (p. 253) selon lequel le textede Montesquieu serait ironique. La lecture revisionniste de Tobner fait de Montesquieunon seulement un raciste, mais plus encore un partisan de la traite et de l’esclavage desNoirs, ce qui n’a pas manque de faire reagir Rene Pommier. Defense de Montesquieu estdonc un ouvrage particulierement polemique, qui s’appuie toutefois sur une eruditionimpressionnante. Pommier est un habitue de ce genre d’ouvrages, s’etant deja livre a des

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attaques en regle contre Roland Barthes, Sigmund Freud et Rene Girard. Comme a sonhabitude, Pommier ne lesine pas dans le domaine de l’invective: ‘elle est profondementstupide ou completement folle’, ‘les allegations les plus ridicules’, ‘la sottise la plusepaisse’, ‘des insanites aussi insupportables’ (pp. 8–9). Afin de denoncer les assertionsde Tobner, Pommier fournit une minutieuse explication de texte — un exercice qu’il abeaucoup pratique, comme il le signale, durant sa carriere d’enseignant (p. 43). Leslecteurs apprecieront, par exemple, la longue serie de citations, scandee par ‘Citons aussi’(pp. 46–51), et destinee a refuter l’une des affirmations de Tobner, pour qui la teneurironique du texte de Montesquieu ne serait qu’une illusion lenifiante recemment propa-gee par des manuels scolaires, et qui en conclut qu’il faudrait plutot prendre ce chapitrede De l’esprit des lois au pied de la lettre. Sur le fond, cette question precise ne fait guere dedoute: ‘De l’esclavage des negres’ est un exemple d’ironie denonciatrice presque aussicelebre dans la litterature francaise que l’est le pamphlet de Jonathan Swift, A ModestProposal (1729), pour la litterature anglaise. A un autre niveau, le livre de Tobner constitueun exemple mineur d’un discours revisionniste plus vaste, dont l’origine remonte aumoins a La Dialectique de la raison (1944) de Theodor Adorno et Max Horkheimer, et quitend a transformer la vision des Lumieres, a en faire la matrice du racisme et du totalita-risme modernes. La tentative de renversement du sens d’un court texte de Montesquieus’inscrit dans ce discours plus general, qui consiste a nier toute valeur progressiste auxœuvres litteraires issues des Lumieres, a les representer non pas en fonction d’uneoptique subversive ou contestataire, mais comme l’alibi ideologique de l’imperialismeoccidental. Pommier a enfonce des portes ouvertes (comme il le dit lui-meme, p. 9) enrefutant de facon si detaillee les arguments de Tobner a propos du texte de Montesquieu.On se demande si tant de violence rhetorique etait necessaire pour si peu. L’enjeu veri-table est celui d’un discours nihiliste qui assimile les valeurs progressistes des Lumieresaux totalitarismes du vingtieme siecle.

EDWARD OUSSELIN

WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITYdoi:10.1093/fs/knu188

Charles Colle (1709–1783): au cœur de la Republique des Lettres. Sous la direction deMARIE-EMMANUELLE PLAGNOL-DIEVAL et DOMINIQUE QUERO. (Interferences.)Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2013. 323 pp., ill.

The editors of this volume classify Charles Colle as a minor author, relegated to theranks of the second ordre. So why devote such a substantial collection to him? They drawattention both to the importance of his Journal and to how the fact that he was at thecentre of literary life means that he can add much to our understanding of the period.They also, quite rightly, point to the importance of his most famous play, La Partie dechasse de Henri IV. The nineteen articles in the collection are arranged in three sections.Henri Duranton opens ‘Chansons, musique et fetes privees’ by looking at the satiricalpoems quoted by Colle in the Journal and his moral reflections on them; the late PierreEnckell considers Colle’s obscene songs, concentrating on questions of attribution andbibliography; David Hennebelle considers the fact that, despite his involvement withopera-comique, Colle seems to object to the composer being given more credit than thelibrettist (in general he appears to dislike both music and musicians); Benjamin Pintiauxexamines two unsuccessful early works that, he argues, contributed to the Querelle desbouffons; and Janine Barrier looks at Colle’s presentation of the trompe l’œil commissionedby Louis-Philippe d’Orleans for the dancer Marquise. ‘L’Œuvre theatrale’ begins withDominique Quero on the fate of Colle’s manuscripts, and Jennifer Ruimi comparing themanuscript of La Mere rivale with the parade ’s published text, showing Colle’s claims thatthe publisher Corbie had added obscenities to be unjustified. Nathalie Rizzoni examines

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