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XIII: Corneille De Pauw, and the Controversy over his Recherches Philosophiques Sur Les Américains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Henry Ward Church
Henry Ward Church*
Affiliation:
Allegheny College
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Extract

History offers many examples of individuals who have occupied the center of the stage during their life-time, only to be forgotten by posterity; but in modern times few writers have risen so high, and then sunk so completely out of sight, as did the abbé Corneille de Pauw. From 1768, when his first work appeared, until the outbreak of the French Revolution, he stood in the very center of cultural discussions in Europe. Learned societies and academies devoted whole sessions to arguments over his theories; he provoked controversies which not only stirred up all Europe, but extended to China and America. His books passed through edition after edition, and were translated from the original French into English, Dutch, and German. Yet today few people have heard of him, and his name is in only the largest encyclopedias.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 1936 , pp. 178 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

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References

1 The name is spelled indiscriminately Pauw or Paw, with or without the de, in both French and English. Carli, in Italian, writes Pavv. The Dutch form is Cornelius van Pauw, or van Pauwe. In the Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains it appears merely as Mr. de P***. This was in keeping with the usual eighteenth-century custom of thinly veiled anonymity.

2 The longest account of his life is found in the Michaud Biographie universelle (Paris, 1843–66), xxxii, 321–322. Other sketches consulted are: Larousse, Dictionnaire universelle, xii, 422; Nouvelle Biographie générale (Paris, 1862), xxxix, 419; A. J. Van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenbock der Nederlanden (Haarlem, 1872), xv, 140; G. Beyerhaus, “Abbé de Pauw und Friederich der Grosse, eine Abrechnung mit Voltaire,” Historische Zeitschrift, cxxxiv (1926), 465–493.

3 “Washington Charles DePauw, Founder of DePauw University,” Meth. Review, lxxii (May, 1890), 383–398.

4 One of the children of John De Pauw was Washington Charles De Pauw, who made a considerable fortune as a manufacturer in New Albany, Indiana, and in 1884 rescued the struggling Indiana Asbury University from dire financial distress, transforming it into the well-endowed DePauw University.

5 This genealogy is accepted in toto by Professor W. W. Sweet in his article on W. C. DePauw in the Dictionary of American Biography (N. Y., 1928), v, 224. However, it was Professor Sweet who kindly called the present writer's attention to the work by Napoléon dePauw discussed below. He states that this work was discovered by him after the preparation of the sketch in the Dictionary, also that he was unable to find any trace of the materials used by Ridpath in the preparation of the Methodist Review article. It is unfortunate that this material is not available.

6 Généalogie de la Famille dePauw ou Van Den Pauwe, pp. 807–824 in the Cartulaire historique et généalogique des Artevelde by Napoléon dePauw (Bruxelles, 1920).

7 Op. cit.

8 Frederick is said to have offered him a position in the Academy of Berlin, also to have held out hopes of a bishopric at Breslau. This latter Beyerhaus denies.

9 Concerning the relations of De Pauw and Frederick the Great, Carlyle has the following: “Frederick, on loss of friends, does not take refuge in solitude; he tries always for something of substitute; sees his man once or twice—in several instances once only, and leaves him to his pension in some sinceure thenceforth. Cornelius de Pauw, the rich canon of Xanten, came on these principles; hung on for six months, not liked, not liking; and was then permitted to go home for good, his pension with him.”—History of Frederick the Great, Centenary Ed. (New York, 1905), viii, 250.

10 A complete list of its editions and translations is given in Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana xiv, Nos. 59, 239 ff. The most important are listed in another section of this study.

11 Michaud, op. cit., xviii, 126–129.

12 Œuvres (Garnier frères: Paris, 1883) (Beuchot text) xxix (1773), 228.

13 xxix, 234.

14 xxix, 223 ff.

15 xxix (1776), 451 ff.

16 xlix (April 7, 1776), 577.

17 Beyerhaus (op. cit.) sees in these Lettres chinoises an almost savage attack on De Pauw. According to him, when the Fragment was written (1773) Voltaire was in complete sympathy with him. (“Vrai savant, puisqu'il pense.”) But the next year an anonymous Lettre d'un Théologien appeared, which some persons had the audacity to attribute to De Pauw, after Voltaire had hinted that he himself might be the author of it (It was really the work of Condorcet). Voltaire, enraged, sought revenge, and found it in the Lettres chinoises. Evidently the victim did not know that he was being annihilated.

18 xliv, 74.

19 Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (Boston, 1889), says that the best edition is the one issued in London in 1770. Sabin, however, gives the date as 1771. This is the edition in the Allegheny College library, used and quoted by the present writer.

20 The source of this statement is Dumont's Mémoires sur la Louisiane (Paris, 1753), i, 103: “On y trouve jusqu'à une espèce de grenouille qui est monstreuse, étant grosse comme un sceau (italics mine), et ayant les yeux aussi grands que ceux d'un bœuf. Lorsque ces sortes de grenouilles coassent, on croirait entendre meugler des veaux. Elles sont excellentes, et l'on n'en mange pas seulement les cuisses, mais le corps entier.” De Pauw refrains from quoting this last sentence. Why he should assume that a sceau weighs thirty-seven pounds, I have no idea.

21 Jefferson's Complete Works (Washington, D. C., 1854), viii, 290.

22 Ibid., 303.

23 It is amusing to observe how much discussion was aroused by this alleged hairlessness of the Indians. Many examples might be cited, in fact nearly every author who attacked De Pauw referred to this point in the controversy. It was this that drew from Volney, the noted French author of the Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis (1803), the friend and correspondent of Jefferson, his only mention of De Pauw. We quote from the translation by Charles Brockden Brown, the American novelist (Philadelphia, 1804, pp. 366–367): “That the Indians have no beard is a notion groundless, indeed, but formerly very current. The smooth chin is occasioned by the extreme care with which the hairs are, from time to time, eradicated. … It is strange that our Lahontan, and Kaimes among the English (And the illustrious and laborious investigator Dr. Robertson—Trans.) should have been ignorant of this fact; but it is by no means strange that such a paradoxical visionary as De Pauw should adopt the notion that the Indians are beardless. …”—The explanation that the Indians plucked out the hairs of their beard is much older than Volney or Jefferson. Voltaire knew of it and ridiculed it in his Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), (xvii, 550): Comme si Christophe Colomb et Fernand Cortez, et les autres conquérants, avaient chargé leurs vaisseaux de ces petites pincettes avec lesquelles nos dames arrachent leur poils follets, et en avaient distribué dans tous les cantons de l'Amérique.“ Unlike De Pauw, however, Voltaire asserts that beards have nothing to do with virility.

24 Delisle de Sales. Discussed in the next section of this paper.

25 Cf. J. B. Black, The Art of History (New York: Crofts, 1926).

26 Ibid., p. 141.

27 Robertson: History of America, 4th ed. (London, 1783), ii, 7.—Other quotations and summaries are from following pages.

28 Ibid., ii, 50.

29 Ibid., ii, 135.

30 Cf. Dallas D. Irvine: “The Abbé Raynal and British Humanitarianism,” Journal of Modern History, iii, no. 4 (Dec., 1931), 564–577.

31 Op. cit., p. 312.

32 The identification of Bonneville as the author of an anonymous pamphlet is not positively established. See below. Winsor gives C. de Bonneville.

33 There were numerous minor attacks. Of some of these I have record, but a complete list would require a minute examination of all the literature of the time, including periodicals, in French, English, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. I have references to the following: Journal historique et littéraire (Luxembourg), Dec., 1770, p. 394; Sept. 1773, p. 159; Feb. 1, 1784, p. 176.—Carli refers to “l'auteur italien de la préface de la traduction de la Colombiade de Mme de Bocage” as attacking De Pauw. He also says that the translator of M. Sparrmann cites De Pauw and Raynal. Drouin de Bercy also refers to this translator, and adds: “le docte et judicieux abbé Frizi, qui ne s'est pas laissé imposer par les rêveries de M. Paw, a noté plusieurs de ses méprises. Both quote a certain abbé Crozier who says: M. Paw n'est pas un écrivain sincère; il dénature les faits pour en abuser.” But this probably refers to the controversy over the Égyptiens et Chinois.—A. von Humboldt seems to refer to De Pauw without naming him in the Introduction to his Researches concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, etc. tr. Williams. (London, 1814).—De Pauw is mentioned in the Lettres de l'Abbé Galiani à Mme d'Epinay, etc. (Paris, 1882), i, 114, 303.—[Roubaud]: Histoire générale de l'Asie, de l'Afrique et de l'Amérique par M.L.A.R. (Paris), xiii, 39–40, quotes De Pauw as authority for the statement that “la chaleur et les circonstances locales sont les seules causes de la couleur des nègres.” Ibid., p. 442: “on ne pardonnera point à M. de P. d'avoir écrit que comme les nègres ne peuvent se gouverner eux-memes, ceux qui les gouvernent en font d'excellents esclaves.” On page 554 he calls De Pauw “l'un des écrivains systématiques les plus infidèles et les plus hardis à dénaturer les faits.”—Delacroix, Jacques Vincent: Mémoires d'un Américain (Lausanne et Paris, 1771), ii, 167–169. He indicates that in general he agrees with De Pauw's Recherches.

34 Cf. Winsor, op. cit., i, 370. The copy I consulted is a second edition, (Berlin, 1772), 116 pages. (The first had only 80 pages.) This copy was secured from the Library of Congress. On its title page is written in pencil de Pazzi de Bonnerville (sic). The flyleaf says, also in pencil, “Not noticed by Rich.” But Winsor says: Rich has a note on the questionable attributing of it to Pernety.“ Quérard also suggests Poivre as the possible author.

35 Winsor, op. cit., i, 370.

36 “Je crois qu'on me saura gré de ne pas toucher ici à aucune hypothèse sur l'origine de la population du nouveau continent. … Ceux qui soutiennent qu'ils la connaissent, en imposent.” i, 32.

37 Mr. E. D. Seeber has kindly informed me that there are several references to De Pauw in the third edition (1778), but that he does not believe that these occur in the first edition, although there may be others there.

38 It should be borne in mind that the Philosophie de la Nature is a full-length work in six volumes, only a few pages of which are devoted to De Pauw, whereas the other works we have considered were shorter treatises written expressly to attack the Américains.

39 Michaud gives the date of the English translation, made by K. Cullen, as London, 1787. In the Allegheny College library there are two three-volume editions of this translation, one, Philadelphia, 1804, the other Richmond, Va., 1806. Although these are published by different firms and in different type, the paging is identical throughout. Quotations are from these American editions, the mere existence of which proves the importance of the work.

40 i, xxix–xxxi.

41 iii, 85–435.

42 iii, 93, note.—In spite of the inaccuracies in this designation we recognize our old friend Bonneville. The good abbé must have been quoting from memory. His anger is rather amusing. He hates De Pauw, but he loves his literal interpretation of the Bible more.

43 Cf. Winsor, op. cit., pp. 369–370.

44 The writer wishes to express his thanks to the many friends and colleagues who have helped him in the preparation of this paper by calling his attention to, and in some cases supplying him with, materials and references. Among those particularly helpful are Professor G. Chinard of the Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Edward D. Seeber of the College of Charleston, Professor W. W. Sweet of the University of Chicago, and Dr. A. Pierre Jaccard, formerly of the College of Wooster.