Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenement by Louis Sala-Molins, John Conteh-Morgan

Abstract

5I2 Reviews two.The present edition provides the reader not only with the textof the dialogues themselves, but also with the copious notes, attributed toEllies Du Pin: these use fullysituate thework within itsoriginal theological context by referringtoother texts which played a key role in the debate over Quietism stirred up byMadame Guyon. The Dialogues, which focus on the theological niceties of the controversy, were, on firstpublication, eclipsed by the greater interest then aroused by the public dispute on this subject which had broken out between Bossuet and Fenelon; subsequently theyhave received onlymodest critical attention. In thisedition theeditor deftly situ ates theDialogues within theiroriginal polemical context, while reserving thegreater part of his introduction for a detailed discussion of the dialogues, which they have not previously received. Richard Parish iswell equipped, as thebibliography reveals, to speak with authority on what he calls 'le style polemique mis au service d'une dispute chretienne' (pp. 2I-22). He concludes modestly that although thework has 'ni l'etendue ni les simples qualites d'invention qui marquent lesLettresprovinciales' (P. 32), it is nevertheless 'un temoignage fictifcapable, a travers les siecles, et tout partisan qu'il soit, de nous divertir' (p. 44). Beyond that, it should be observed, this edition has thevalue ofmaking available another example of a literary formalso prac tised, in the final thirdof the seventeenth century,by Fleury, Fenelon, and Fontenelle among others, and which, alongside the pensee, theportrait, the caractere, and the maxime, was central to contemporary moral discourse. UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS D. J. CULPIN Dark Side of theLight: Slavery and theFrench Enlightenement. By Louis SALA MOLINS. Trans. and intro.by JOHNCONTEH-MORGAN. Minneapolis and Lon don:UniversityofMinnesotaPress. 2006. xxxvi+i65pp. $I9.50. ISBN978 o-8 I66-4389-9. While the cumbersome and unidiomatic English translation of this text isunlikely to win itmany appreciative readers in the anglophone world, the original French ver sion, entitled Les Miseres desLumieres: sous la raison, l'outrage (Paris: Laffont, I992), provoked a good deal of controversy not only in the academic sphere, but farbeyond it too. Indeed, itsauthor became something of amedia celebrity, and even testifiedon slavery before a committee of theFrench Senate. The reasons for the book's impact are not hard tounderstand. It isessentially a vituperative diatribe against what Louis Sala-Molins sees as theutter hypocrisy ofEnlightenment thinkers,who preached the equality ofman while excluding slaves as inferiorbeings. The reformingprescriptions ofMontesquieu, Condorcet, Diderot, Buffon, and others applied, says Sala-Molins, only towhite citizens, not to the black slaves who provided their coffee and sugar. He argues forcefully that,because bien-pensant French intellectuals were unwilling to forgo their luxuries at once, figures such as Condorcet advocated thegradual emanci pation of slaves, and displayed a concern for the rightsof their masters which assorted ill with theirprofessed humanitarian goals. And thehypocrisy, so Sala-Molins alleges, continues to thisday,with the truehistory of slavery inFrance turned, inofficialdis course, into a triumph ofGallic civilization, instead of being recognized as one of its greatest causes forshame. Support for Sala-Molins's interpretation is not lacking, and the Code noir of Louis XIV (I685) enshrined precisely the ambiguities which emerge frommany En lightenmentwritings on slavery. InDe 1'espritdes lois,forexample, Montesquieu looks with equanimity on thepractice, which he regards simultaneously as both unnatural and as deriving from 'natural' local conditions, such as the need forcruelty tomake men work inhot climates. Condorcet, too, has a somewhat naively tolerant view of MLR, I02.2, 2007 513 slavery inhisReflexionssur l'esclavagedes negres,awork publishedon theeve of theRe volution, and forall his hatred of cruelty does not condemn thepractice. Sala-Molins is right, therefore,to rail against theequivocations and hesitations which characterize some of themajor writings on slaverywhich theEnlightenment has leftus. At the same time, his incensed determination to indict everymajor figure of the period leads him to take a rathermonocular view of the matter and even, on occasion, toplay fastand loosewith theevidence. He alleges (p. i i) thatDiderot 'enjoyed a pen sion from a shipping company involved in trade-who knows what kind?-between Africa, theCaribbean and France'. When publicly challenged by the Societe Diderot toproduce the evidence for this slur, Sala-Molins declined to reply.He also fails to recognize thathis thesis...