Esprit de Corps: A Timeline [chapter]

2020 Ensemblance  
All quotations and citations below will be referenced, developed and contextualised in the following chapters. 1656-58 Pascal writes Différence entre l'esprit de géometrie et l'esprit de finesse. 1662 Louis XIV's historiographer René Bary publishes L'esprit de cour. 1721 Publication of Montesquieu's Lettres persanes, in which the author mocks the esprit du corps of the Académie française. 1732 Lettres de Nedim Coggia, by Germain de Saint-Foix, praises the esprit de corps of the French
more » ... . 1752 D'Alembert, in the Encyclopédie, criticises the anti-national esprit du corps of the Jesuits. 1755 Voltaire, in the Encyclopédie, distinguishes esprit de corps from its supposedly worse version, esprit de parti. In the same volume, Diderot, more critical, suggests that the Encyclopaedists must avoid catching the esprit de corps by remaining objective. 1755 Lord Chesterfield, a friend of Voltaire, introduces 'esprit de corps' into the English language to describe the natural 'biased conduct' and 'inflamed zeal' in closed societies, a fatal aspect of 'human nature'. 1762 Rousseau explains in L'Emile: 'It is not only in the military that one acquires the esprit de corps, and its effects are not always good.' 1762 The formerly autonomous management of the French military corps, previously known for their respective esprit du corps, is centralised by the royal administration. 1764 The Jesuits are banned from France, after a long public campaign in which their esprit de corps was often attacked. 1765 The Parlement of Metz addresses a remonstrance to the King of France calling for a grand national esprit de corps, also called l'esprit de patriotisme. 1776 In the Wealth of Nations, the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith criticises the 'corporation spirit', leading 'every man to consent that his neighbour may neglect his duty, provided he himself is allowed to neglect his own'.
doi:10.1515/9781474454223-003 fatcat:u7dp6ghlsnfgrghsztjyiqt7oi