When Geology Encounters a Real Catastrophe
45
After having related numerous accounts by Parisians to his fellow
academicians, he noted in his handwritten papers that:
A l’égard de l’isle du Palais où je demeure dans la partie occidentale qui est formée
de terres rapportées, je ne me suis aperçu d’aucun mouvement quoique je fusse ce
jour, dès 5 h du matin, à travailler avec beaucoup de tranquillité à l’arrangement
d’une table, par ordre alphabétique, des lieux où les tremblements se sont fait sentir
depuis quelques mois en Europe et ailleurs. Mais j’ai appris que dans la partie
orientale qui est le terrain solide de l’isle, c’est-à-dire dans l’hôtel des Ursins, on
s’étoit aperçu d’un mouvement qui avoit effrayé des personnes qui travaillaient dans
leur cabinet.
26
The Lisbon earthquake would not have had such an impact if
contemporaries had not felt the same shocks at thousands of kilometres’ distance yet at precisely the same moment. In 1755-1756 nature
forged in a quite singular way a connection between a distant event
and its Europe-wide audience. This connection enabled a remote yet
almost instantaneous participation in the event, a characteristic, according to Pierre Nora, more commonly associated with the modern
media.
27 Nora effectively situates the emergence of the media event at
the end of the nineteenth century when progress in communications,
and the growing integration of distant parts of the world via colonialization, world war, revolution and economic interdependence, allow
for the democratization of, and mass participation in, events. The Lisbon earthquake therefore realized an unprecedented unification of
European society, something possibly without equal before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
28 At a time of basic – albeit everimproving – information systems, these seismic shocks suddenly collapsed geographical distance between the remotest parts of the continent, affording a totally new involvement in the event. Consequently,
there was a shift in the perception of nature, a new sensibility to tremors, something clearly manifest in the numerous journals which re___________________________
26 Académie royale des Sciences, Registre des Procès-verbaux des séances, 21 février
1756, vol. 75, fol. 99.
27 Pierre Nora, “Le retour de l’événement”, in Faire de l’histoire, Nouveaux
problèmes, ed. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, 3 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), I,
pp. 285-308.
28 Ana Cristina Bartolomeo de Araujo, “1755: l’Europe tremble à Lisbonne”, in
L’Esprit de l’Europe, dates et lieux, ed. Antoine Compagnon and Jacques Seebacher,
3 vols (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), I, p. 126.
45
After having related numerous accounts by Parisians to his fellow
academicians, he noted in his handwritten papers that:
A l’égard de l’isle du Palais où je demeure dans la partie occidentale qui est formée
de terres rapportées, je ne me suis aperçu d’aucun mouvement quoique je fusse ce
jour, dès 5 h du matin, à travailler avec beaucoup de tranquillité à l’arrangement
d’une table, par ordre alphabétique, des lieux où les tremblements se sont fait sentir
depuis quelques mois en Europe et ailleurs. Mais j’ai appris que dans la partie
orientale qui est le terrain solide de l’isle, c’est-à-dire dans l’hôtel des Ursins, on
s’étoit aperçu d’un mouvement qui avoit effrayé des personnes qui travaillaient dans
leur cabinet.
26
The Lisbon earthquake would not have had such an impact if
contemporaries had not felt the same shocks at thousands of kilometres’ distance yet at precisely the same moment. In 1755-1756 nature
forged in a quite singular way a connection between a distant event
and its Europe-wide audience. This connection enabled a remote yet
almost instantaneous participation in the event, a characteristic, according to Pierre Nora, more commonly associated with the modern
media.
27 Nora effectively situates the emergence of the media event at
the end of the nineteenth century when progress in communications,
and the growing integration of distant parts of the world via colonialization, world war, revolution and economic interdependence, allow
for the democratization of, and mass participation in, events. The Lisbon earthquake therefore realized an unprecedented unification of
European society, something possibly without equal before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
28 At a time of basic – albeit everimproving – information systems, these seismic shocks suddenly collapsed geographical distance between the remotest parts of the continent, affording a totally new involvement in the event. Consequently,
there was a shift in the perception of nature, a new sensibility to tremors, something clearly manifest in the numerous journals which re___________________________
26 Académie royale des Sciences, Registre des Procès-verbaux des séances, 21 février
1756, vol. 75, fol. 99.
27 Pierre Nora, “Le retour de l’événement”, in Faire de l’histoire, Nouveaux
problèmes, ed. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, 3 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), I,
pp. 285-308.
28 Ana Cristina Bartolomeo de Araujo, “1755: l’Europe tremble à Lisbonne”, in
L’Esprit de l’Europe, dates et lieux, ed. Antoine Compagnon and Jacques Seebacher,
3 vols (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), I, p. 126.