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Restaurer L’Âme Antique: Rousseau, Mably Et Le Mirage Polonais, Rudy Le Menthéour

French and Francophone Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

In his Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne (written ca.1770-1771), Rousseau was not only opposed to the Russian supporters but above all to his rival in the republican camp, the abbé de Mably, who had also been asked to take sides by the Polish confederates. The comparison of their competing proposals highlights the strength and originality of Rousseau’s Republican project. While in the wake of Machiavelli’s and Montesquieu’s republican theory, Rousseau breaks fresh ground in making a close connection between the restoration of Ancient magnanimity, the strengthening of national singularity and the exaltation of patriotic sentiment. He opposes a …