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La ''Fête de la Fédération'' si tenne il [[14 luglio]] [[1790]], ad un anno esatto dalla [[Presa della Bastiglia]], e vi parteciparono i rappresentanti di tutte le province della [[Francia]] per assistere al solenne giuramento di fedeltà che sarebbe stato pronunciato dal generale [[Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette|La Fayette]], da [[Luigi XVI di Francia|Luigi XVI]] e da [[Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord|Talleyrand]], [[Diocesi di Autun|vescovo di Autun]]. La cerimonia si svolse al [[Campo di Marte (Parigi)|Campo di Marte]], dove per l'occasione fu costruito un grande anfiteatro in grado di ospitare 400'000 persone.<ref>[http://www.filarmonicacapitanio.it/articolo%20N16P10.htm 14 luglio 1790: la Festa della Federazione] di [[Giovanni Ligasacchi]]</ref>
 
==Scetticismo e credenza==
Many eighteenth-century men called themselves ''philosophes'' simply because they had read Voltaire and because they rejected the principles of revealed religion.
 
Yet they were not skeptics; they.crowded the doorsteps of Mesmer, Cagliostro, and many a lesser charlatan. Chenier, in his "Epitre sur la superstition," has described the type:
 
Un jeune homme orgueilleux et docte repute,
Tout plein de quelque auteur au hasard feuillete,
Etonne un cercle entier de sa haute sagesse.
II se joue avec grace aux depens de la messe;
II plaisante le pape et siffle avec dedain
Tous ces reves sacres qu'enfanta le Jourdain.
Et puis d'un ton d'ap6tre empese, fanatique,
11 preche les vertus du baquet mnagnetique,
Et ces doigts qui de loin savent bien vous toucher
Et font signe a la mort de n'oser approcher.1
 
The particular "superstition" to which Chenier has reference here is mesmerism or, as it was then called, animal magnetism. The year 1784 was a critical one in the uneven history of mesmerism. For the first time, Mesmer's theories and practices were called to the
attention of the world at large, and for the first time a scientific attempt was made to evaluate Mesmer's claimed discoveries. The examination of animal magnetism was the work of a royal commission in which Bailly played an important role.
 
Bailly's life may be described in terms of the dual attraction of skepticism and credulity. These were two poles between which his thinking fluctuated. Sometimes, as in the Eloge de Leibnitz, he was attracted by skepticism. Sometimes, as in the Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne and the letters to Voltaire, under the influence of Court de Gebelin, he was repelled by it.
Come è stato detto, la sintesi di questa duplice attrazione è ciò che lui scrisse a Voltaire: "Le doute doit avoir des bornes;
toutes les verites ne peuvent pas etre demontrees comme les verites mathematiques." But Bailly had in him nothing of the "jeune homme orgueilleux et docte repute"; he knew how to doubt when reason demanded it. Participation in the official investigation of mesmerism
enabled him to dispel the illusion that he was a frere illumine, Condorcet to the contrary notwithstanding.
 
The year 1784 marked a turning point in Bailly's life in many ways. The contact with the other members of the commission on mesmerism and the clear issues between the physical and metaphysical explanations of a strange phenomenon did a great deal to scotch any
illuministic trends in his thought. He never managed to adopt the gentle skepticism of Franklin; he never achieved the purity of reflective thought of Diderot; he never learned to speak up like Condorcet and d'Alembert; lacking a real sense of humor, he tended
to see things without nuance; and yet this period marks a new maturity in his thinking and finds him a respected public figure.
By the curious workings of chance, Bailly also won the confidence of the government at this time. His writings, which might have shocked a generation earlier, now seemed innocuous. This may be a way of saying that Bailly was behind the times. It is also a way of saying
that the whole attitude of the French monarchy was changing rapidly. Despite the influence of Maurepas, the ideas of the philosophes had had interpreters at court in the persons of Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker, and there was a mood, even in government, for reform. Bailly was to take his first steps as a reformer under the aegis of that government.
 
After so detailed an account it is appropriate to consider Bailly's place in eighteenth-century thought. Taine held in Les Origines de la France contemporaine that the Revolution was a consequence of French classicism, with its exaggerated confidence in the value
of reason. Paradoxically, that confidence became, in course, an unreasonable fetich. In this sense, Freemasonry, illuminism, mesmerism, and other semi-mystic manifestations were not so much reactions to rationalism as an extension of it. Bailly was a consistent
rationalist when he substituted vraisemblance for la ''vérité inaccessible''. The urge to demonstrate and the will to believe the undemonstrable were both characteristic of the eighteenth century; Bailly was a good example of this rule. We have seen that Bailly was not an original thinker, but there is indeed nothing new under the sun, and not all merit lies in originality.
 
Bailly was a synthesist, and the end result of his work
differed, therefore, from the bits and pieces of borrowed
philosophy which went into its composition.
The first and most important influence on Bailly's
thought was Newtonian physics. From his first studies
with Montcarville to the last page of the history of
Indian astronomy, Bailly proved his ability as an
astronomer and mathematician and repeatedly affirmed
his conviction that natural phenomena could be explained
by essentially simple physical laws. He was not
merely an observer, and, in astronomy at least, he was
not satisfied with empirical evidence. He regarded
mathematics and particularly the advances in mathematics
made by Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz as one
of the triumphs of modern civilization and the instrument
by which the secrets of Nature could be wrested
from her. He learned always to accept the simpler of
two possible explanations and the explanation which
was applicable to more than one phenomenon. This
basically scientific procedure was to characterize all
his later non-scientific thinking.
When, after nearly a decade of application to
physical studies, Bailly began to examine the metaphysical
philosophy of Leibnitz, he was prepared to
believe that scientific precision could be extended to
other fields of human knowledge-history, law, language,
etc. It was here that he parted company with
the skeptical philosophers, who distrusted systematic
explanations of immaterial or intangible phenomena.
Like Leibnitz (and like Descartes), Bailly fell victim
to the hobgoblin of vraisemblance. Where truth was
undemonstrable he was prepared to accept the likely,
the probable explanation. He proceeded too rapidly
from the known into the unknown, projecting hypothetical
straight lines where a devious course would
have been more in order.
From Leibnitz and from Voltaire Bailly learned a
new philosophy of history. History was no longer a
mere object of curiosity and the chronicling of superficial
fact, but a deep source of knowledge and understanding.
As he agreed with the philosophes on the
didactic purposes of art, so Bailly agreed with them on
the didactic purposes of the study of history, which
taught a twofold lesson by good precepts and bad
examples. Latent in it were universal and enduring
physical truths which documented the progress of man
from the time of his creation. But in his study of
history, Bailly applied the touchstone of simplicity.
As in astronomy, he sought the simpler of two explanations
and the explanation which would cover more than
one fact. This meant generalization and oversimplification.
At this juncture in his development, Bailly came
under the influence of Court de Gebelin who was
traveling in the same general direction. For a few
years they worked separately, but along parallel lines,
on the interpretation of myth and allegory, in search
of a sure key to the past. Bailly's history, like Court
de Gebelin's, is the history of humanity rather than of
men, of universal laws rather than of specific events.
Like Court de Gebelin, Bailly thought he saw at the
beginning Order and Truth, a sublime philosophy and
a universal language, documenting the philosophers'
arguments for the fraternity of man. The eighteenth
century was blessed by the rediscovery of these lost
truths, and the renascence of the golden age was at
hand. There was a fundamental contradiction implicit
in Bailly's belief in progress and his devotion to the
cause of antiquity. It was, in a sense, the same conflict
which existed between his precise Newtonian doctrines
and his "esprit de systeme." He found these contradictions
resolved in Freemasonry. Whatever their motives,
Voltaire and Franklin had, by joining the order,
given it the stamp of approval of the philosophes, and
Court de Gebelin had found in it the unity and sublimity
of the grand ordre. There can be no doubt that Bailly
regarded Freemasonry as the resurrection of the guiding
principles of the past.
If Bailly differed from the point of view of the
philosophes, it was perhaps more in temperament than
in doctrine. He was neither a skeptic nor an iconoclast.
He was conservative in thought as well as deed; he
was, until the Revolution, obedient to the monarchy
and discreet in his dealings with the church. When he
turned to reform, it was the reform sanctioned by
authority. It was for these reasons that he was closer
to Buffon than to d'Alembert. It would be a gross
underestimation of Bailly to conclude that he was
spurned by the philosophes because he was incapable
of straight thinking. His association with Franklin in
the investigation of animal magnetism and his exhaustive
reports on the hospitals quickly dispel any such
illusions. Nor can we say that it was solely the influence of Franklin or of anyone else that brought him
back from his vain rambles among the ancients. In
the Essai sur les fables there was a turning point in
his thought or, more correctly, an increasing maturity.
He began to be aware of the exceedingly complex
nature of human activity, and, although he never lost
track of his cosmic principles, his later judgments were
more sober. Even the Indian astronomy, ill-conceived
and largely inferred though it was, was nevertheless
based on scientific methods, and its errors are errors
of degree, not of order. Perhaps the discovery and
publication of Bailly's unfinished manuscripts will some
day permit us to trace further this evolution of his
thought.
Whereas, in the period before the Revolution, Bailly's
life was almost synonymous with his works, after April
1789, his sudiden emergence as a public figure shifts
the emphasis from words to deeds. We have dealt
superficially with these years, partly because they lie
beyond the formative period of his thought, partly because
they are well documented elsewhere. However,
the Revolution represented the acid test of Bailly's
philosophizing; it was the moment that every theorist
waits for, the moment when he can try the practical application
of his ideas. Bailly's ideas did not survive the
test for the very reason that they were too diffuse, too
general, too simple. Reason did not engender reason,
and, while Bailly thought in terms of civic obedience,
the mob outside was committing murder and worse.
The remarkable aspect of Bailly's public life is not
his failure, but the fact that he succeeded so well in
coping with the practical problems which were so far
removed from his cognizance.
There is a wide field yet to be explored in connection
with Bailly's influence on his contemporaries and on
the generation immediately following. Dimoff has
written a detailed and penetrating account of Chenier's
indebtedness to Bailly. Similar studies might be done
on Shelley, de Maistre, Mme de Stael and possibly
Napoleon. We have the testimony of Mary Shelley that
the English poet had read and admired Bailly. De
Maistre perhaps based his theory of the degradation of
man on some of Bailly's historical research. Mme
de Stael, who disapproved of Bailly the revolutionary,
may owe to Bailly the historian her notions of the
"facultes primitives emoussees" which figure in De
l'Allermagne. One of Bailly's biographers, Lefevre-
Deumier, claimed that Napoleon ordered the assembling
of Bailly's manuscripts and a handsome collected edition
of his works. Indeed, the evidence seems to be that
Bailly's influence did not die out with the Revolution,
but carried on well into the Romantic period. Furthermore,
the number of translations of Bailly's works suggests
a certain influence abroad, especially in Germany.
If this influence has disappeared today, it is because
we have, to a considerable extent, emerged from the era
of philosophic systems which, in attempting to explain
too much, explain very little. Scientists and historians,
better equipped with factual knowledge, are increasingly
reluctant to generalize their findings in cosmic formulae.
Yet there is still what Franklin called "a wonderful
deal of credulity in the world," and Bailly, who certainly
regarded himself as an enemy of superstition, may
none the less serve as an object lesson in the subtle
dangers of rationalism.
Un mensonge vieillit; il devient ennuyeux.
I1 prend une autre forme et reparait aux yeux.
Pensant le fuir, trompes 'a sa ruse infidele,
Nous courons 1'embrasser sous sa forme nouvelle.
Nous quittons un prestige, une vaine fureur,
Non pour la verite, mais pour une autre erreur.
Andre Chenier, "Epitre a Bailly."
 
==Sulle disuguaglianze==