Grégory Quenet
38
fut arrivé plusieurs tremblemens de terre; pour lors raprochant ensemble toutes
ces observations, l’on verroit si les circonstances qui ont précédé chaque
tremblement sont les mêmes, et par là l’on pourroit découvrir quelques signes
probables de l'aproche des tremblemens.
1
The second proposition advances the idea of an alliance of peoples
and nations joining forces to fight against a scourge that exceeds the
capabilities of any single country: “puisse [sic] les souverains se liguer
de concert pour détruire les fléaux multipliés qui semblent conjurés
contre ce malheureux globe”. You will not find any trace of these
scholars in recent publications. The first is a modest participant in the
essay competition organized in 1756 by the Académie de Rouen on
the subject of the cause of earthquakes, one La Sablonnière le Jeune, a
member of the Evreux religious chapter. The second is his more famous contemporary, the abbé Bertholon.
Just how and why did the scientific community devote its energies to explaining seismic activity and to combatting its effects after
the famous Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755? The question
may strike us as obvious, as much in light of the preoccupations of our
own risk society as in view of Enlightenment concerns to overcome
the misfortunes of our life in this world. But let us take a closer look.
For, in fact, this is the first time that a real-life catastrophe mobilized
the Republic of Letters with such urgency. Of course, historical earthquakes appear in earlier works, for example in Buffon’s Histoire et
théorie de la terre.
2 But these earthquakes are only ever cited as examples, most often in appendices and tables; they never constitute the
basis for critical thought on the subject. Their ability to illustrate a
theory prevents them from calling that same theory into question.
3 It
took the Lisbon disaster to throw the contrast between theoretical and
real earthquakes starkly into relief.
___________________________
1 Bibliothèque Municipale de Rouen, fonds de l’Académie, C 20: Concours de 1756
sur les tremblements de terre, mémoire n° 9 (fol. 2).
2 The reader is referred here to the previous article by Benoît de Baere.
3 To my knowledge, historians of geology do not use the term “risk”, as if the history
of their texts had nothing to do with the objective prediction of future catastrophes.
38
fut arrivé plusieurs tremblemens de terre; pour lors raprochant ensemble toutes
ces observations, l’on verroit si les circonstances qui ont précédé chaque
tremblement sont les mêmes, et par là l’on pourroit découvrir quelques signes
probables de l'aproche des tremblemens.
1
The second proposition advances the idea of an alliance of peoples
and nations joining forces to fight against a scourge that exceeds the
capabilities of any single country: “puisse [sic] les souverains se liguer
de concert pour détruire les fléaux multipliés qui semblent conjurés
contre ce malheureux globe”. You will not find any trace of these
scholars in recent publications. The first is a modest participant in the
essay competition organized in 1756 by the Académie de Rouen on
the subject of the cause of earthquakes, one La Sablonnière le Jeune, a
member of the Evreux religious chapter. The second is his more famous contemporary, the abbé Bertholon.
Just how and why did the scientific community devote its energies to explaining seismic activity and to combatting its effects after
the famous Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755? The question
may strike us as obvious, as much in light of the preoccupations of our
own risk society as in view of Enlightenment concerns to overcome
the misfortunes of our life in this world. But let us take a closer look.
For, in fact, this is the first time that a real-life catastrophe mobilized
the Republic of Letters with such urgency. Of course, historical earthquakes appear in earlier works, for example in Buffon’s Histoire et
théorie de la terre.
2 But these earthquakes are only ever cited as examples, most often in appendices and tables; they never constitute the
basis for critical thought on the subject. Their ability to illustrate a
theory prevents them from calling that same theory into question.
3 It
took the Lisbon disaster to throw the contrast between theoretical and
real earthquakes starkly into relief.
___________________________
1 Bibliothèque Municipale de Rouen, fonds de l’Académie, C 20: Concours de 1756
sur les tremblements de terre, mémoire n° 9 (fol. 2).
2 The reader is referred here to the previous article by Benoît de Baere.
3 To my knowledge, historians of geology do not use the term “risk”, as if the history
of their texts had nothing to do with the objective prediction of future catastrophes.