Blockchain Papers

Christian Neschwara

From the point of view of an Austrian Legal Historian as (ever) lasting impacts of the 1848/49 revolution in Austria we can keyword-like count : (1.) Constitutions firstly promised the equality of citizens before the law and guaranteed equal rights also to churches and religious communities. (2.) The progress of political development led to the extinction of the traditional estate system and (3.) to the abolition of subservience of peasants − with far-reaching social and economic importance. (4.) State district courts took the place of the manorial patrimonial courts through uniformly organized local districts with authorities serving for sovereign administration, and on the field of autonomous tasks with communal authorities (Gemeinden) following the construction for self-organization. (6.) While the security police continued to exist in the cities, in the countryside the gendarmerie served as a separate armed security body. (7.) The decentralization of state power initiated the federalization of the state too. (8.) Self-government served as an organization-model for single professions in chambers, first for trade and commerce. (9.) Instead of collegial organised central state authorities of the Ancien Regime modern monocratic ministries came into being – this was a prerequisite for the political responsibility of the state administration to the parliament. (10.) For the first in the territory of today’s Austria elections led to the formation of modern parliaments, the German National Assembly (Deutsche Nationalversammlung) and the Austrian Imperial Diet (Österreichischer Reichstag). At least: What began in 1848 as a “springtime of the people” awakened nationalistic tendencies among Czechs, Poles and South Slavs and led to a far-reaching reorganization of the political map of the entire East-Central European area – not already in 1848, but in 1918 − following the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy.

Christopher Whyte, Brian M. Mazanec

This chapter examines some of the technologies that could go beyond an iterative transformation. Namely, those that could have as substantial impact on how humans communicate, store and interact with data, and cognitively interface with the world around people. Internet and related global network architecture that undergirds the modern world is largely based on trust and relies on approaches such as the aforementioned handshake protocol as well as the Transport Control Protocol, Internet Protocol and HyperText Transfer Protocol. Blockchain, a form of distributed ledger technologies (DLT), are a secure way of conducting and recording transfers of digital assets without a central authority or registry. DLT is “distributed” because multiple individuals or participants in a computer network share and synchronize copies of the ledger. In addition to the logical changes that DLT may bring to the Internet and cyber conflict, a change in the physical nature of data storage may also result in revolutionary changes.

Fabienne Henryot

Entre 1778 et 1788, les chanoinesses du chapitre noble de Remiremont font appel à un cordelier, Claude Vuillemin, pour dresser l’inventaire de leurs archives. Vuillemin travaille non seulement à cet inventaire, mais aussi au cartulaire du chapitre et prend l’initiative de produire, en marge de ce travail, des Monuments, recueils de pièces hétérogènes relatives à l’histoire du chapitre. Cet article se propose d’examiner les modalités du travail de Vuillemin et leur conformité aux pratiques documentaires de son temps pour en déterminer les enjeux. Si les dernières abbesses se sont montrées aussi vigilantes dans la gestion des archives, c’est que le contexte change à la fin du xviiie siècle. Les chapitres nobles font l’objet dans toute la France d’une attention soutenue du pouvoir, ce qui contraint les Dames de Remiremont à apporter les preuves d’une prééminence chronologique, temporelle et symbolique. Abstract Between 1778 and 1788 the canonesses of the noble chapter of Remiremont asked the Franciscan Claude Vuillemin to draw up an inventory of their archives. Vuillemin worked not only on this inventory, but also on the cartulary of the chapter, and in addition compiled on his own initiative the Monuments, which are collections of disparate pieces related to the history of the chapter. This article examines the Vuillemin’s working methods and their conformity with documentary practices of his time so as to determine the issues at stake. If the last abbesses were vigilant in the administration of their archives, it is the context that changes at the end of the 18th century. Throughout France noble chapters were under close surveillance by authorities, which obliged the Dames de Remiremont to provide proof of a chronological, temporal and symbolic preeminence. Abstract Zwischen 1778 und 1788 beauftragten die Kanonikerinnen des adligen Kapitels von Remiremont den Franziskaner Claude Vuillemin mit der Erstellung eines Inventars ihrer Archive. Vuillemin arbeitete nicht nur an diesem Inventar, sondern auch am Kartular des Kapitels und stellte darüber hinaus auf eigene Initiative neben dieser Arbeit eine Sammlung ganz verschiedener Schriftstücke zur Geschichte des Kapitels zusammen: die Monuments. In diesem Artikel sollen Vuillemins Arbeitsweise bei der Bewältigung dieser Herausforderungen und ihre Übereinstimmung mit den dokumentarischen Gepflogenheiten seiner Zeit untersucht werden. Dass die letzten Äbtissinnen bei der Verwaltung der Archive so wachsam waren, ist darauf zurückzuführen, dass sich die zeitlichen Umstände gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts änderten. Die adligen Kapitel waren in ganz Frankreich Gegenstand einer anhaltenden Aufmerksamkeit von Seiten der Machthaber ausgesetzt, was die Damen von Remiremont dazu zwang, ihre chronologische, zeitliche und symbolische Vorrangstellung nachzuweisen.

Patrice Higonnet

This book is a virtuoso performance. At stake is the trajectory of modern France and its historiography, which gives us, briefly, varying monarchic heroes from Jeanne d’Arc to Henry IV, Louis XIV, and, especially since 1789, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles de Gaulle, along with their allies and enemies, their admirers and their critics.1 The book outlines their careers and summarizes the work of their many historians, even that of René Goscinny, the creator of the comic-book characters Astérix and Obélix. Gueniffey considers all of them from a lofty point of view. He begins with a judgment about “the end of history” borrowed from Furet—not the “end of history” from an American standpoint with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1988 but for France.2 De Gaulle’s place in history marked the end of the history for France as it been written for centuries, as “a traditional idea of the nation—[of] the Monarchy and the Revolution, together; [of the] economy and [of] consciousness.” Thus, today, “Anti-Gaullism is dead. And so is Gaullism.” To cite the title of Williams’ biography of de Gaulle, the man was The Last Great Frenchman.3We can now, today, calmly, consider all the French heroes and their commentators, from Jeanne d’Arc to Henry IV very briefly and Louis XIV briefly but to Napoleon and de Gaulle in considerable detail. This book, Gueniffey explains, is not “an essay in comparative history.” It does not aim to follow its two subjects from their cradles to their graves. The introduction proposes instead “une réflexion” on various “lines of thought,” such as the exercise of power, the centrality of writing, their deaths, their funerals, and the place in history of “great men,” as in the work of Carlyle and Nietzsche. “Through them, my subject is France itself.”4In five chapters, Gueniffey’s text considers how Napoleon and de Gaulle resolved—for themselves, for France, and for the world—their political trajectories and their political resurrections during the decisive 100 days, in 1815 for Napoleon and in the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1958 after World War II for de Gaulle. As we might expect, the two men are both similar and dissimilar: Napoleon with his war of movement and de Gaulle with his tanks, the battles of Lodi in 1796 and Abbeville in 1940 serving as mutual positive proof. The two men were also authors, de Gaulle showing himself as an admirer, inter alia, of André Malraux and Napoleon engaging in a puerile quarrel with Germaine (Madame) de Staël.Underlying all of this comparison is a troublesome problem: What happens if Napoleon was not really French (curiously, the title of the book in Paris was Napoléon et de Gaulle: Deux héros français)? At one point, Gueniffey hints at the matter, quoting Taine’s characterization of Napoleon as “a Corsican, foreign to France” (127), but later in the book, Gueniffey is more direct: “Napoleon did not know a word of French as a child.… [He] belonged nowhere and as a teenager dreamed of succeeding [Pasquale] Paoli” (214). How true. He was also, incidentally, not merely a war criminal; like Adolf Hitler (an Austrian) and Joseph Stalin (a Georgian), he used war as an excuse to silence any kind of popular and nativist opposition to his demonic activities. De Gaulle was much closer to Michelet’s Jeanne d’Arc than to Chateaubriand’s “Buonaparte.”5The style of this book is flamboyant and invariably elegant even when it occasionally turns, for effect, to mere slang—for example, when it refers to Napoleon as “un bon zigue.” The book’s translation of Zazie’s utterance “Mon cul” from Raymond Queneau’s Zazie dan la Metro (Paris, 1959) as “my ass” also seems fair enough. But should we translate the rest of her dismissal of Napoleon, “Il m’intéresse pas du tout, cet enflé, avec son chapeau à la con,” as “a bombastic swell with his stupid hat”? Probably not.

Anwar Shah

To date, there have been 28 federal or quasi-federal and 20 decentralized unitary countries with a combined total of about two-thirds of the world’s population. These governance arrangements have led to a resurgence of interest in fiscal federalism principles and practices as federal systems are seen to provide safeguards against the threat of centralized exploitation as well as decentralized opportunistic behaviour while bringing decision making closer to the people. Fiscal federalism principles are concerned with the division of economic powers and the structure and design of intergovernmental finance to secure a common economic union. Each country adapts these principles to suit its political, institutional and cultural characteristics; as a result, each country has a unique structure of economic governance. More often than not, though, politics trumps fiscal federalism principles. This chapter is concerned with four areas of concern: division of taxing powers for sales and resource taxes, fiscal equalization transfers, tax competition, and shared responsibility for fiscal discipline.

Ursula Haskins Gonthier

In discussions of the French antislavery movement, it is customary to pinpoint Montesquieu's L'Esprit des lois (1748), as opening the debate into the rights and wrongs of slavery which would continue in France throughout the second half of the eighteenth century.1 As is well known, in book 15 of L'Esprit des lois, Montesquieu shows slavery to be an institution condemned by natural and civil law. Chapter 5 of this book famously sees the author assume the persona of an advocate of slavery, and through skilful use of irony, succeed in undermining the conventional economic, religious and racial justifications for the enslavement of black Africans. Montesquieu's indictment of slavery encapsulates many of the arguments against the practice that would be developed and reformulated by French Enlightenment philosophers over the following decades. His influence is nowhere more evident than in the articles relating to slavery that appeared in the Encyclopédie. In the article ‘Esclavage’, for instance, the Chevalier de Jaucourt refers readers to Montesquieu's groundbreaking work in order to strengthen his denunciation of slavery: ‘Il ne sera pas difficile de démontrer que l'esclavage ne peut jamais être coloré par aucun motif raisonnable [...]; en un mot, rien au monde ne peut rendre l'esclavage légitime. [...] Voyez-en les preuves dans M. de Montesquieu.’ Whilst not seeking to challenge Montesquieu's status as the leading exponent of enlightened French arguments against slavery in the eighteenth century, I do however wish to bring to light the significance of the publication, in 1745 (three years before the appearance of L'Esprit des lois), of the first French translation of a work that had already done much to stimulate the antislavery debate on the English side of the Channel. First published in England in 1688, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave tells the story of an African prince who is captured by English slavers and transported to the then English colony of Surinam in South America. Having married a fellow slave and conceived a child, Oroonoko baulks at the prospect of his offspring being born into slavery. He therefore incites his fellow slaves to rebellion, and when their schemes prove unsuccessful, kills his wife and unborn child and attempts to take his own life. Recaptured by his white masters, Oroonoko is brutally executed in order that his fate might discourage further uprisings. Soon after publication, Behn's text was adapted for the stage by Thomas Southerne, whose tragedy Oroonoko was first performed in 1695. During the eighteenth century, as the abolitionist movement gained in strength, both Behn's text and Southerne's dramatisation were appropriated by British antislavery campaigners, and the figure of Oroonoko became a powerful emblem of the evils of the slave trade.2 At the same time, Oroonoko's influence also began to spread overseas. In 1745, Pierre-Antoine de La Place, best known as the first French translator of Shakespeare's plays, published his translation of Behn's text under the title Oronoko, ou le Prince nègre. It is interesting to note that La Place, who was a prolific translator of English drama (his collection entitled Le Théâtre anglois ran to eight volumes, published 1745-1749), chose to translate Behn's fictional Oroonoko rather than Southerne's play.3 La Place's comments in his preface, which includes a reference to Southerne's adaptation, suggest that he chose to translate Behn's text in order to exploit the device of the female narrator, a feature of Behn's original work that disappeared in its transition from fiction to drama. In La Place's eyes, the narration of the story by a female eyewitness, whom he identifies as Behn herself, lends an added romantic and sentimental dimension to the text, of which French audiences will be particularly sensible.4 La Place's translation of Behn's work quickly became a bestseller in France, going through seven editions before the end of the century.5 Mornet's analysis of the catalogues of French private libraries in the years 1750 to 1780 further reveals that Oroonoko ranks alongside works by Richardson and Fielding as one of the most popular English novels to appear in French translation during this period.6 Not only, therefore, did the appearance of Behn's text in France predate the first systematic denunciation of slavery by a French Enlightenment philosopher, but the work also commanded a significant readership at a time when, as Claudine Hunting has commented, the French philosophes were making ‘their first concerted efforts against slavery’.7 This evidence is an invitation to interrogate the relationship between Oroonoko and the French antislavery debate. To do this, I will begin by examining the work's reception in France, before going on to assess Oroonoko's status as an antislavery narrative, and the extent to which the text foreshadows the arguments against slavery deployed by the French philosophes. The reception of La Place's translation of Oroonoko by contemporary French commentators has been documented in detail by Edward Seeber, whose short article, despite its age, remains the most comprehensive study of the impact of Behn's work on French audiences.8 Seeber's survey reveals that any mention of Oroonoko by French commentators is generally accompanied by a reflection as to the historical truth of the narrative. As La Place emphasises in the preface to his translation, Behn claims in the text to have witnessed the events she records during a period of residence in Surinam as a young woman. This claim is frequently reported by French reviewers of the text, as is the suspicion that the author's relations with the African prince went beyond disinterested humanitarianism. Typical of this tendency is Fréron's review in L'Année littéraire for 1756, written in response to the publication of a second edition of La Place's translation. This review emphasises the factual rather than the fictional dimension of the text, drawing attention to both the author's status as an eyewitness, and to Oroonoko's significance as a historical figure: ‘Ce fut pendant son séjour en Amérique qu'Astrea[Aphra Behn] témoin oculaire des aventures d'Oronoko, en composa l'histoire. [...] Le caractère d'Oronoko est un des plus nobles & des plus fermes que j'aye rencontrés dans l'Histoire & même dans les Romans.’9 Fréron's insistence on the truth of the narrative serves to reinforce the moral crux of the story, which he identifies as the contrast between the noble, heroic behaviour of the black African protagonist, struggling to achieve freedom for himself, his family and his people; and the cowardice and brutality of his white English masters. Playing on the binary oppositions between black and white, vice and virtue, Fréron presents Oroonoko to French readers as a challenge to traditional stereotypes: Lisez cet ouvrage en entier, [...] il vous attachera, il vous remuera, il vous attendrira. Vous y trouverez de l'intérêt, des situations, des faits, des épisodes liés à l'objet principal, des traits affreux de noirceur, de perfidie & d'inhumanité, mais tempérés par des couleurs douces de l'amour le plus tendre & le plus fidèle, & par de grands sentiments d'honneur, de vertu, de courage & de générosité.10 Fréron's comments are particularly worthy of note because L'Année littéraire was the most widely read literary periodical of its time, and its author is credited with wielding considerable influence over French public opinion.11 Interestingly, the review also pinpoints several factors which may account for the popularity of Behn's text in France. Firstly, as is suggested by the use of the terms ‘honneur’, ‘vertu’, ‘courage’ and ‘noble’ in the previous quotation, Fréron roots Oroonoko in a tradition of heroic romance that would have been familiar to French audiences. Indeed, this aspect of the text is emphasised by La Place in the preface to his translation, where he couples Behn's name with that of several famous French romancières of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, declaring Oroonoko to be the work ‘d'une plume aussi célèbre, en Angleterre, que celle des Villedieu, des Scudéri, & des Lussan, l'est en France’.12 Significantly, however, Fréron's review suggests that Oroonoko should be read as a conte philosophique rather than as a roman galant. Discussing the depiction of Oroonoko's youth at the beginning of the novel, Fréron comments on the African prince's education by a dissident Frenchman, whose radical ideas had made him unwelcome in France. This tutor, described by Fréron as an ‘homme d'esprit’, provided Oroonoko with ‘des leçons de morale & une idée des Arts & des Sciences de l'Europe’.13 In the novel, it is clear that this education results in the religious scepticism that is one of Oroonoko's distinctive characteristics, and which is reinforced when he is captured by a white slave trader. This trader gives Oroonoko his word as a Christian that he will be treated well, only to sell him to a notoriously cruel plantation owner in Surinam. Fréron quotes in his review Oroonoko's final address to his captor: ‘Adieu, Monsieur; ce que je vais souffrir est peu de chose en comparaison des lumières que vous me faites acquérir. J'apprend au moins le fond que l'on doit faire sur vos pareils & sur le Dieu au nom duquel vous avez juré.’14 This association of the term ‘lumières' with Oroonoko's dismissal of Christian morality, establishes a clear link between the philosophical import of Behn's work and the ideas of the French Enlightenment; a link further reinforced by Fréron's comment, elsewhere in the review, that certain scenes in the text recall Voltaire's tragedy L'Orphelin de la Chine (1755).15 Fréron's review thus suggests that Oroonoko was read in eighteenth-century France as a philosophical novel with an enlightened message. This message emerges even more clearly from the analysis of the work included in the article on Aphra Behn that appeared in the first volume of Chaufepié's Nouveau Dictionnaire historique et critique (1750-1756), a homage to and continuation of Pierre Bayle's famous work. While Seeber credits Chaufepié himself with the authorship of the long article in praise of Behn's writing that appears in the dictionary, closer examination has led me to question this attribution.16 In fact, when compiling his Nouveau Dictionnaire, Chaufepié extracted material from the most recent English translation of Bayle's dictionary, published 1734-1741.17 The editors of this translation had added new entries concerning the life and work of English literary figures who were deemed to have continued Bayle's tradition of radical critical thinking. Among was Aphra The English article to Behn was then by Chaufepié for in his Nouveau Dictionnaire, and into the of Oroonoko credited with fond & de which him worthy of the and the message of Behn's work is into the de dans To the of Chaufepié's article, which appeared in be to the of racial in the volume of published in The French a long of this volume to the dans that et la plus de est celle de la which is in to des Having the of the African the to his les [...] y en a même être en ne jamais au de que ne à Whilst the of the clearly between racial he to the white at the and the black African at the his comments appear to a relationship between characteristics, and the of black Africans. While recent suggests that of this did not in the of the eighteenth century, it would appear that a on as terms of be in French before this Indeed, in the French des a review of account of his in and in which the recent of the and of African in an to de The results of to the that une de celle des While the terms and were at this time, and their the of comments is It appears in the first half of the eighteenth century, French the that in a between black and white in Oroonoko as of the that de dans Chaufepié's article on Aphra Behn the of contemporary French It also that the institution of slavery, which was on a that which made for and this African slaves had the seventeenth been as by the French and were to To as did Chaufepié's article, that despite in between slaves and masters, was thus to conventional not arguments in of slavery. Indeed, French readers of the Nouveau Dictionnaire are to slavery as an and The analysis of Oroonoko with a reference to a by the protagonist, in which Oroonoko his and to that his child will be born a Oroonoko is to with de la doit être & doit y doit This analysis of of Oroonoko by French eighteenth-century commentators reveals that do appear to be for the work with the antislavery debate in Enlightenment France. when it to the of the work it is to a new in literary which to Behn's text in a as to its status as an antislavery narrative. as and have to Oroonoko's his education by an enlightened Frenchman, and his status as a that Behn not slavery in the enslavement of an African whose him from his scepticism is even more in the of La Place's translation of Behn's work. and the in which La Place any antislavery message in Behn's original text, making significant in with the of the roman La Place the of the novel that Oroonoko and his wife and are by a a of heroic the are a to in for which Oroonoko to the colony with slaves from his In of however, it be that certain of La Place's translation of Behn's work the arguments by the philosophes in their against slavery. The most of antislavery in the text be in Oroonoko's address to his fellow slaves on the of their This is from Behn's original Interestingly, La Place a in which Oroonoko his to the slaves on the le de en à dans est à un doit The of this which is from the English that not La Place's to the text had the of its as an indictment of slavery. Oroonoko's long is to his fellow slaves of the evils of the slave and thus to him in the He a of powerful arguments against slavery, declaring that the slave of both his and ‘Il les couleurs les plus les à de plus à des des en ou la he slavery has any in de être He reveals the also the and plantation who the of a la les des ce des les plus de in this he the white to be of their à une des de sur and most he the slaves that their is an not only to and to their masters, but also to the of dans vous [...] the of the narrative, are to that Oroonoko both his and his to his radical French when that Behn's original text was published in 1688, it clear that this is in the of In Oroonoko's with the on and freedom in the work of and Indeed, as to the evident between Oroonoko's and the antislavery arguments by the it is to the extent to which French philosophers as Montesquieu and were by the of the English his Montesquieu in was with the of and this is evident in his denunciation of slavery in book 15 of L'Esprit des lois, which with a of the of slavery on both slaves and [...] au à à ne peut rien faire par à de à à les Having thus Oroonoko's as to the of virtue, Montesquieu then several to an to the African prince's question the for slavery, de l'esclavage [...] est au de les [...] est aussi au civil It is to note that Oroonoko's was not only an in of but also an to The an of slave in the French which led to in France the of a comments that La Place on in his translation of Behn's more than the English author had done on the of that over La Place's of Oroonoko dans on est de les dans de le des de des The translator was in a to comments than Behn had In the on an as slaves their by to by the the had to to The philosophes who against slavery appear to have that the of slave was a that work in their In book 15 of L'Esprit des lois, Montesquieu a to the He the of the slave who is to his the of and une il même pas [...] il que son a une peut et que la est de ne plus de la des que de des et de ne [...] ne pas être par la des In his to his fellow Oroonoko emphasises the are treated des and made to à des des Montesquieu this declaring that slavery to des He also a for Oroonoko's to his and shows slave to be the of The in which slaves were by both slave and the is a in the Enlightenment denunciation of slavery. on the of slaves in the French in the edition of his sur les Dieu et on les des de He thus the of the French who that slaves be to their status as and as for to as In Voltaire's a slave in the of his who also that his white him a fellow than an the attention to the that it is to with the of not only by figures as but also the les & les moins que les me les que et ne pas mais de vous ne peut pas en plus It is also that this of in the colony in which the of Oroonoko is In the slave by has to and has as a as a his is the of a and a This Oroonoko's by his in Behn's original English text, where the are during his this suggests a to Behn's text on the of The French arguments against slavery their in the articles concerning slavery in the Encyclopédie. As have in the article ‘Esclavage’, the Chevalier de Jaucourt Montesquieu's as the of his of the He the many arguments against slavery made in L'Esprit des lois, and with his more on Montesquieu's claim that slavery is a Jaucourt terms that are to in La Place's translation of Oroonoko's declaring pas un le mais même est arguments in his article des further made by Oroonoko, for he the of in & ne un de ne être à aucun the question of slave rebellion, the of the of slavery, Jaucourt that slavery is an a slave has to He that the for slave with the ‘Il [...] la ne doit à une & par les de & de As Behn's Oroonoko first appeared in French years before the publication of L'Esprit des lois the into the French antislavery debate. it is an to claim that Behn's work had a influence on this it is to note despite La Place's to the text, the French translation of Oroonoko several powerful arguments against slavery particularly in the to his fellow slaves and that same arguments also be in the of the French philosophes. It is to that La Place, by Behn's work into a heroic Oroonoko in a of have the of Oroonoko, who is of and has a is as the of a French roman galant. La Place thus the and racial he a more response to the Discussing slavery in des the of a on the eighteenth-century of he that the public is to with the fate of African même des dans le & au a que la des ne les on les on les on les & & à ne jamais shows to be the against slavery have both a sentimental and a La Place's translation of Oroonoko clearly a to the The of Oroonoko in is in a as to Indeed, the response of the female at is the text in the of the female instance, first with Oroonoko, the to been La Place's preface to his translation further emphasises this for he comments that the in which the work is written that the author pas au de son As however, the of a heroic slave was not to readers of the evils of the in the also had to be This is in the of enlightened as in his article des the that would in stimulate the as slaves would work more and be more la les de therefore that La Place's translation of Behn's Oroonoko might be the sentimental side of the French antislavery which was by the more of the philosophes. This was not Oroonoko's only to French Enlightenment Interestingly, the translation of Behn's text not only the arguments to be deployed in the French antislavery but also to have to the of England as a of and that was by many French Enlightenment most famously by Montesquieu in book of L'Esprit des In the century, at the time when La Place's translation of Behn's work England and France were in a for in the and for of the slave in which the English were to prove In this it might have been that Behn's depiction of English slave and in and would have been to that but the to have As was La Place not only Behn's Oroonoko, but also Shakespeare's plays, and in his sur le Théâtre his of Oroonoko, in 1745, he to French the brutality and of the by the of La Place on of Shakespeare's work to prove that [...] to have his translation of Oroonoko, for in the French of Behn's the cruel who is for and the slaves is not an as in Behn's original text, but a The who Oroonoko and his family their however, remains it appears that Behn's text was as a of English humanitarianism. The Le in his also published in 1745, of Thomas Southerne's of Behn's Oroonoko performed on the He of the y a des traits les plus & les plus la de les & à des celle le plus It should be evident that is a to be made between Aphra Behn's Oroonoko and the antislavery debate in eighteenth-century France. contemporary of the work reveals that the ideas in the text were as being to by French Enlightenment a which appears when one the antislavery arguments in Oroonoko with the work of Montesquieu and the that the story of Oroonoko was also read as the English in a is a of the significant by the French antislavery movement to the ideas and of the English it is that the of in Behn's work through the of and serves to the and of the arguments made against slavery by the French philosophes. The of this aspect of French Enlightenment has to extent been by the recent work of particularly the who has that the French of the the as well as the to interrogate and the traditional critical the denunciation of slavery was in of but his in the of and as much has of Behn's Oroonoko the of slavery in the text is the work had its to to the antislavery It to me that be to the of the French whose on slavery might also be read as in and a powerful in the French for At it is to of the on slavery when with a text as article des in the where slavery is condemned as an institution la la les & les de la