Abstract
Although the novel, Voyages et avantures de Jaques Massé, caused something of a stir during the first half of the eighteenth century, its author, Simon Tyssot de Patot (1655–1738), remained largely unknown in his lifetime, and it is only in this century that he has been recognized as one of the coundess soldiers in the vast army of philosophes that assaulted the bastions of religious, political and social life in Europe of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.1
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References
Tyssot and his work seem to have been first brought to the attention of modern writers by the German critics during their investigation of the type of desert island or robinsonade literature that preceded and followed Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The earliest reference I have found occurs in A. Kippenberg, Robinson in Deutschland bis zur Insel Felsenburg (1713–43), Hanover, 1892, pp. 66–67.
Tyssot’s name and work appear to have been first linked with the development of socialism in A. Lichtenberger, Le Socialisme au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1895, p. 44.
Tyssot’s Voyages et avantures de Jaques Massé was discussed for its literary merits in A. LeBreton, Le Roman au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1898.
LeBreton did not know that Tyssot was the author. The most important works of this century devoted to Tyssot and his writings are those of G. Lanson, “Simon Tyssot de Patot et ses Voyages de Jacques Massé,” Revue des cours et conférences, Décembre 1908, pp. 259–271;
G. Ghinard, L’Amérique et le rêve exotique dans la littérature française au XVIle et XVIIIe siècles, Paris, 1913, pp. 210–214;
J. G. van Slee, “Simon Tyssot de Patot,” Nieuw Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1916, pp. 26–53. This Dutch article was translated into French and published in Revue du XVIIIe siècle, IV (jan.-juin 1917), pp. 200–219;
F. Lachèvre, Les Successeurs de Cyrano de Bergerac, Paris, 1922, pp. 235–258;
G. Atkinson, The Extraordinary Voyage in French Literature from 1700 to 1720, Paris, 1922, pp. 67–112;
P. Valkhoff, “De wonderbaarlijke reizen van Simon Tyssot de Patot,” De Gids, II (1931), pp. 239–260. Valkhoff later slightly augmented this article and included it as a chapter of his book, Ontmoetingen tussen Nederland en Frankrijk, ’s-Gravenhage, 1943, pp. 99–120;
N. van Wijngaarden, Les Odyssées philosophiques en France entre 1616 et 1789, Haarlem, 1932, pp. 119–129;
D. R. McKee, Simon Tyssot de Patot and the Seventeenth-Century Background of Critical Deism, Baltimore, 1941.
Further bibliographical information is available in P. B. Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction, New York, 1941, pp. 217–219 and 235–236. This work was reprinted in 1961 by The Holland Press, London.
For an appreciation of the background to Tyssot’s life and work the following details are essential. The territory known as the Netherlands was, in the sixteenth century, under Spanish domination. In 1579, the seven northern provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Groningen, and Friesland, formed a union in an attempt to throw off the Spanish yoke. The independence of these United Provinces was not achieved until 1648 (see Fig. 2). The southern Netherlands (present-day Belgium) remained under Spanish control, although the Dutch retained the border districts of Flanders, Brabant and Limburg. The government of the United Provinces was complex and led to considerable internal difficulties largely between the royalists and the republicans. Difficulties also arose because the province of Holland was by far the most wealthy, powerful and influential. Each province, by its system of hierarchical representation formed a sort of republic in miniature and was very jealous of its independence. In Friesland and Groningen the peasants had a voice in Government. In Gelderland and Overijssel the nobility were powerful. In the other provinces, especially Holland, the merchants predominated. Each province sent representatives to a States-General in The Hague. This central government was little more than a figurehead and was dominated by the more powerful provinces. In addition there was the office of Stadtholder which was not clearly defined in the constitution. The Stadtholder was commander of the armed forces and had certain powers of nomination of officials. But since Friesland and Groningen also had their own Stadt-holder, the one at The Hague tended to be more of a national symbol than a political force. When William II of Orange died in 1650, it was decided not to appoint another Stadtholder, and, in 1653, by his appointment as grand pensionary of the province of Holland, Johan de Witt became the real ruler of the republic. In 1654, the province of Holland passed an act whereby the prince of Orange (the future William III) was excluded from the office of Stadtholder of that province. There were wars against England in 1652–54 and 1665–67. In 1667, Louis XIV invaded the Spanish Netherlands. At the same time, England formed a secret alliance with France to occupy the United Provinces who provisionally appointed William III to command the Dutch troops. In 1672, France invaded and occupied the provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel. A popular uprising forced the appointment of William III as Stadt-holder and de Witt was murdered at The Hague. By 1673, the French troops were repelled. In 1677, William III married the daughter of the future James II of England. In 1678 the Treaty of Nijmegen ended the war with France. In 1689 William became king of England and head of the coalition against Louis XIV’s imperialist ambitions. In 1702, William III died childless. His nephew, Johan Willem Friso, Stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, was a minor, and the other provinces refused to accept him. Again, a grand pensionary, Antonius Heinsius, was appointed to direct Dutch participation in the War of the Spanish Succession which ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht. Although, strictly speaking, the term Holland should be reserved for the province of that name, I have, throughout this study, used it to mean all the United Provinces of the Netherlands since this seems to be the more common practice nowadays. For the historical and political background to the period I am mainly indebted to P. Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century, Ft. II, 1648–1715, London, 1964.
For the more general background I have consulted the 1962 English translation of P. Zumthor, La Vie quotidienne en Hollande au temps de Rembrandt, Paris, 1959. Although the period covered by this book ends in 1669, the observations continue to be valid much after that date, especially for the more remote provinces of Gelderland, Overijssel and Friesland where people clung more tenaciously to the traditional ways of life.
Cf. A. Sayous, Histoire de la littérature française à l’étranger, Paris, 1853, I, p. 158 — “L’emploi de la langue française était si universel en Hollande que Saint-Evremond, passant les dernières années de son exil en Hollande, ne se donna pas la peine d’apprendre le hollandais.”
Because of my decision to deal with Tyssot’s works in a chronological order the chapters in this book are of unequal length in accordance with the degree of importance of the topic under discussion.
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Rosenberg, A. (1972). Introduction. In: Tyssot de Patot and His Work 1655–1738. Archives Internationales D’histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4692-2_1
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