13 - Sophie de Grouchy as an Activist Interpreter of Adam Smith

Summary

Every edition of the French translation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments published between 1798 and 1981 was accompanied by the Letters on Sympathy: the philosophical text of Smith’s French translator and interlocutor, Sophie de Grouchy (1763–1822). Grouchy declared that she intended to massage the message delivered in TMS for a French audience. Yet there has been little attempt to analyse the political motivations for the changes she made to Smith’s theory. This chapter describes two key critiques that Grouchy made of TMS: her rejection of the impartial spectator and her attack on hierarchy. Based on a redating of the drafting of the Letters to the mid-1780s, it argues that Grouchy focused on these elements due to two parallel contexts: her desire to write an educational treatise for an Académie française competition, and her involvement in an ancien régime legal scandal. After exploring how Grouchy constructed an Epicurean and egalitarian theory which she saw as better suited to these contemporary demands, the chapter concludes by arguing that seeing Grouchy as an “activist commentator” on Smith leads us to re-interpret the reception of his TMS in France.