LOCKE IN FRENCH: THE DU GOUVERNEMENT CIVIL OF 1691 AND ITS READERS

Abstract

The recent advances in Locke scholarship have given us a vivid description of the context in which Locke drafted the Two treatises of government. Yet, inadvertently, the result has been a skewed perspective on his concerns. As the focus has been on the English crisis in 1679–83 as the specific context from which Locke's theories emanated, the contexts in which they were published have attracted less attention. Redressing the balance, this article brings out Locke's participation in Francophone discussion in the context of a European crisis. After the Revolution of 1688–9 Locke's ‘Second treatise’ was translated into French by David Mazel, a Huguenot cleric. The article shows that Mazel's translation, the Du gouvernement civil, provided the Francophone readership with an anti-absolutist critique of the French regime, and that it emanated from the circle of Locke's closest friends. It was through the intermediary of a handful of Francophone Protestants that the Continental audience became aware of Locke's arguments and that he became known, not only as a theoretical philosopher, but also as a political theorist – as the author of, not the Two treatises, but the Du gouvernement.