Henri, Comte de Boulainvilliers
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Henri, Comte de Boulainvilliers (1658, St. Saire, Normandy - January 23rd 1722, Paris) was a French political writer and historian. He was educated at the college of Juilly, and served in the army until 1697. He translated into French Spinoza's Ethics and wrote an analysis of his Theologico-Political Treatise, (mis)identifying Spinoza's conatus with the right of conquest and the "right of the strongest" of which he made large use in what has been considered as one of the first "theory of races".
Boulainvilliers' writings are characterized by an extravagant admiration of the feudal system, and considered that absolute monarchy was a decadence that had started with the Crusades and the Capetian Kings, whom allowed the original aristocracy to be diluted through miscegenation with the Third Estate. He was an aristocrat of the most pronounced type, attacking absolute monarchy on the one hand and popular government on the other. He was at great pains to prove the pretensions of his own family to ancient nobility, and maintained that the government should be entrusted solely to men of his class. Boulainvilliers is known as one of the inventor of the "discourse of race struggle", as analyzed for example by Michel Foucault. According to him, the nation was divided on one hand into the aristocracy, whom he called the Français, who were the descendants of the Franks, a Nordic race, and dominated France by right of conquest; and on the other hand into the Third Estate, who were considered to be the indigenous Gaul people. Opposing himself to the alliance of the throne with the people, he considered that the earlier Gallo-Roman population had been subordinated by the Franks and had no legitimate role in government, and that the aristocracy constituted not only a separate class, but a distinct and superior "race". True Frankish policy demanded unconditional acceptance of the rights of aristocracy to rule over their feudal domains and to participate in the councils of the nation. The Absolutist rule of Louis XIV had undermined these traditions by concentrating power in the state and encouraging the rise of meritocrats from the lower classes to serve the monarchical state. Such people had been granted the status of nobles (the noblesse de robe) but could not lay proper claim to it because they were not of true Frankish ancestry. Boulainvilliers thus opposed the Nordic race to the Latin race, but his concept of "race" had nothing to do with the biologized concept used by 19th century's scientific racism.
Bibliography
Boulainvilliers wrote a number of historical works (published after his death), of which the most important were the following:
- Histoire de l'ancien gouvernement de la France (La Haye, 1727)
- Etat de la France, avec des memoires sur l'ancien gouvernement (London, 1727)
- Histoire de la pairie de France (London, 1753)
- Histoire des Arabes (1731).
- Essais sur la noblesse de France, contenans une dissertation sur son origine & abaissement. Avec des notes historiques, Critiques et Politiques ; Un projet de Dissertation sur les premiers Français & leurs Colonies ; et un Supplément aux notes par forme de Dictionnaire pour la Noblesse. Amsterdam, Rouen, 1732.
- Analyse du Traité Théologi-politique de Spinosa, par le comte de Boulainvilliers. Londres, 1767.
References
See also
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