When Geology Encounters a Real Catastrophe:
From Theoretical Earthquakes
to the Lisbon Disaster
Grégory Quenet
Abstract: By the mid-eighteenth century earthquakes were already the
object of scientific enquiry in France, albeit that they were often
viewed with historical or geographical remoteness. The Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755 changed all of that. This chapter draws on
national and local archives in order to demonstrate how the unmediated pan-European experience of the Lisbon shock enabled whole
swathes of the population, hitherto untouched by the study of natural
phenomena, to participate in one of the first truly popular scientific
debates of the French Enlightenment. The continuing seismic activity
after Lisbon, in France and elsewhere, also ensured that the Lisbon
disaster threw up not only an array of new theories about earthquakes
but also a more consistent rigorous protocol for observing and recording them. With Lisbon, as the chapter ably proves, natural catastrophe becomes an historical event.
What must we do to combat earthquakes and to preserve humankind
from the havoc they wreak? I would like to put forward here the suggestions of two respected scholars. The first proposes that:
Dans chaque pais, des personnes passassent leur vie à examiner pendant tous les
jours et les nuits avec une attention continuelle, sérieuse, méditée & réfléchie, les
diférences et jusqu’aux plus petits changemens qui arrivent dans tous les
élémens, et leurs diférentes parties, en suivant pas à pas, pour ainsi dire, leurs
diférentes variations, dont ils feroient et conserveroient des nottes exactes; que
ces observateurs après leur mort fussent remplacé par d’autres, qui auroient avec
eux travaillés aux mêmes observations; et ainsi successivement jusqu’à ce qu’il
From Theoretical Earthquakes
to the Lisbon Disaster
Grégory Quenet
Abstract: By the mid-eighteenth century earthquakes were already the
object of scientific enquiry in France, albeit that they were often
viewed with historical or geographical remoteness. The Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755 changed all of that. This chapter draws on
national and local archives in order to demonstrate how the unmediated pan-European experience of the Lisbon shock enabled whole
swathes of the population, hitherto untouched by the study of natural
phenomena, to participate in one of the first truly popular scientific
debates of the French Enlightenment. The continuing seismic activity
after Lisbon, in France and elsewhere, also ensured that the Lisbon
disaster threw up not only an array of new theories about earthquakes
but also a more consistent rigorous protocol for observing and recording them. With Lisbon, as the chapter ably proves, natural catastrophe becomes an historical event.
What must we do to combat earthquakes and to preserve humankind
from the havoc they wreak? I would like to put forward here the suggestions of two respected scholars. The first proposes that:
Dans chaque pais, des personnes passassent leur vie à examiner pendant tous les
jours et les nuits avec une attention continuelle, sérieuse, méditée & réfléchie, les
diférences et jusqu’aux plus petits changemens qui arrivent dans tous les
élémens, et leurs diférentes parties, en suivant pas à pas, pour ainsi dire, leurs
diférentes variations, dont ils feroient et conserveroient des nottes exactes; que
ces observateurs après leur mort fussent remplacé par d’autres, qui auroient avec
eux travaillés aux mêmes observations; et ainsi successivement jusqu’à ce qu’il