La mappemonde sceptique : une géographie des 'libertins érudits'

Abstract

Quelle serait une géographie des libertins érudits ? La plupart des études pionnières sur le libertinage ont privilégié une vision philosophique et doctrinale essentialisante, cherchant à réifier une tradition. Or, pour comprendre ce qui se joue dans les écrits comme dans les pratiques des libertins au XVIIe siècle, il semble important de revenir sur les contraintes sociales et spatiales qui encadrent la mobilité libertine. En étudiant des contextes spécifiques, il est possible de reconstituer une géographie des savoirs qui propose une nouvelle anthropologie morale et qui s’oppose à un orientalisme catholique mis en place par les ordres missionnaires et en particulier par les jésuites. Les écrivains libertins mettent en garde contre les dangers des récits de voyage qui essentialisent les différences culturelles. Pour ce faire, ils puisent dans une vaste série de savoirs et de genres qui appartiennent à la géographie : traités, récits de voyage, descriptions, cartes, atlas ou encore histoire universelle. En mettant en place un véritable art de lire, ils proposent une économie des savoirs alternative, moins dépendante des autorités religieuses et politiques.

What might a geography of erudite libertinism be? Much of the pioneering work on the idea of libertinage in seventeenth-century France tended to view the idea purely from the perspective of philosophical traditions. Yet to understand properly how the idea of libertinage operates in seventeenth-century France, and in libertine writing in particular, it is crucial also to take into account the new social and spatial constraints of the period, as well as the fictional figures who appear in libertine travel narratives. To understand the development of early modern libertine culture, we need to take our bearings from lexicographical and sociological evidence as well as from geographical considerations. We have to move from an essentialist definition of libertinage to more relative and mobile definitions, produced from analysis of specific contexts. This article explores the geography of knowledge, of the libertine writers. This geography yields a new sceptical anthropology that is at once more relativist and less realist than Catholic orientalism set in place by Jesuits. Libertine writers, for their part, warn against the dangers of travel writing and the power of narratives that tend to enlarge the divide between the Europeans and others and thus to transform the world into a stage on which cultural differences may be essentialized and played out. ‘Libertine’ writers mined a vast array of texts and visual tools in order to form their political conceptions; among the many genres pertaining to geographical knowledge that appeared in the period, the article scrutinizes treatises, travel accounts, and handbooks, descriptions, maps, atlases, and universal histories. By privileging a true art of reading, they proposed an alternative economy of knowledge less dependent on religious and secular authorities.