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Sylvain Maréchal: Pastoral Simplicity and Patriarchal Government

April 15, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

SYLVAIN MARÉCHAL TRANSLATIONS: Dieu et les prêtres, Fragments d’un poème moral sur Dieu (1780) Le livre de tous les ages: ou, Le Pibrac moderne; quatrains moraux (1781) L’Âge d’Or (1782) Livre échappé au déluge (1784) Apologues modernes, à l’usage d’un dauphin (1788) Dame Nature à la barre de l’Assemblée nationale (1791) Jugement dernier des rois (théâtre, 1793) Corrective à la révolution (1793) Culte et lois d’une société d’hommes sans Dieu (1798) Pensées libres sur les prêtres (1798) Manifeste des Égaux (1801) Projet d’une loi portant défense d’apprendre à lire aux femmes (1801) De la Vertu (1807) I’ve found myself perhaps […]

Sylvain Marechal, “A Book Escaped from the Deluge” (1784)

April 15, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

A BOOK ESCAPED FROM THE DELUGE, OR, NEWLY DISCOVERED PSALMS; Composed in the primitive language BY S. AR-LAMECH, Of the Family of Noah the Patriarch; TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH BY P. LAHCERAM, Parisipolitan. —– AT SIRAP Or at PARIS. [TRANSLATION IN PROGRESS] […] A BOOK ESCAPED FROM THE DELUGE. PSAUME I. Le Psalmiste annonce sa mission, & prédit les suites qu’elle aura. Dieu de Vérité ! délie ma langue ; je veux t’annoncer aux hommes. Qu’ils ne disent pas de moi : l’Apôtre de la Vérité bégaye. A l’âge où le Christ prêche sur la montagne ; longtemps avant lui, humble Disciple du plus modeste […]

Sylvain Maréchal, “The Golden Age” (1782)

April 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Golden Age consists of roughly thirty “pastoral tales,” touching on subjects that will be familiar to readers of almost any of Maréchal’s work. I’ve begun at the end of the collection, with “The Just Man,” and will add others as time allows. On dit qu’il fut un Temps appelle l’âge d’or, Où l’on sacrifioit à la Vérité nue, Où marchoit d’un pas sûr l’Innocence ingénue : Pour les cœurs Vertueux ce Temps existe encore. They say there was a Time called the Golden Age, When sacrifices were made to the naked Truth, When artless Innocence walked with a sure step: […]

Sylvain Maréchal, “Modern Apologues for the Use of the Dauphin” (1788)

April 11, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] When available, parallel French/English texts are linked below the lesson. Related Texts: The Last Judgment of Kings (1793) Posts with commentary: “The Desert Island“ Sylvain Maréchal anticipates the “general strike”? [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] MODERN APOLOGUES, FOR THE USE OF THE DAUPHIN. First Lessons for the Elder Son of a King. —– FIRST LESSON. PROMETHEUS. Thus far, the mythologists have misreported the allegorical history of Prometheus. Here are the facts: that ingenious artist of antiquity, having kneaded clay in water, made from it several figures of men, which he animated with the elemental fire. […]

Sylvain Maréchal anticipates the “general strike”?

April 11, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

In an article on “Precursors of Anarchism” in the Encyclopédie Anarchiste, E. Armand gave an account of the career of Maréchal, including the following remarks: [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] En 1788, ses Apologues modernes à l’usage du dauphin. C’est là que se trouve l’histoire du roi qui, à la suite d’un cataclysme, renvoie chacun de ses sujets chez lui, en prescrivant que, désormais, chaque père de famille sera roi dans son foyer. C’est là que se trouve énoncé le principe de la Grève générale, comme moyen d’instaurer une société où la Terre est propriété commune de tous ses habitants, […]

Sylvain Maréchal, “The Last Judgment of Kings” (1793)

April 5, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

No, no, no! we want no more prayers from a priest: the God of the sans-culottes is liberty, it is equality, it is fraternity! You do not know and you have never known those gods. Go instead and exorcise the volcano which must soon punish you and avenge us. Crowned monsters! You should each have died a thousand deaths on the scaffold: but where could we have found the executions who would consent to soil their hands with your vile, corrupted blood? We abandon you to your remorse, or rather to your helpless rage.

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A Counsellor (Josiah Warren), “Modern Government and its True Mission” (1862)

April 4, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

The “United States” are no longer united —“The union” is broken — The great “American experiment” is checked and we have silently drifted under military despotism! and, instead of being a “self governing” people, every one’s person and property are at the mercy or discretion of five or six military commanders—no two of whom can reasonably be expected to have the same settled policy or any policy founded on any principle or generally understood and accepted basis; and “security of person and property” (the professed object of all governments) is annihilated, and confusion and violence already reign supreme in the land proclaimed to be the lead of the political world!

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Minor site maintenance

April 4, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Approximately 100 posts, including some of the most actively used texts on the site, were removed as a result of some kind of glitch recently. I am in the process of restoring them. Unfortunately, that means that WordPress.com subscribers can expect a flood of notifications over the next day or two. My apologies.

Roads to Anarchism: Introduction

March 30, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Max Nettlau’s work as a theorist of anarchist development, based in his extensive work as a historian of the movement, found expression in a long series of short articles (some of which are being assembled in a collection called New Fields, forthcoming from PM Press.) But he also produced three longer works addressing the question of anarchism’s progress, or lack thereof, and future prospects:

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William B. Greene in the Second Seminole War

March 26, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] “From Florida.—Captain Beall, of the second regiment of dragoons, captured four Indians on the 4th instant, one of them said to be Holatoochee, a sub-chief of the Micasookies. The captain had about a dozen of his men with him, and the capture was made after some hours of chase, from among a party of thirty Indians. The four were taken to Fort Poinsett, and were to be employed by Captain Beall as guides. “On the 7th, the house of Mr. Dorsey, two miles and a half from Chattachoochie, was plundered and […]