Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles (Mar 2006)
Le roi, la Cour et les sciences en France, xviie-xviiie siècles
Abstract
The court of France never had the reputation of being a “scientific” court, not in the eyes of its contemporaries nor in the eyes of historians. The great age of “scientific progress” seems to have passed by the time the French court moved to Versailles. In France the major institution where research was conducted, in all scientific fields, is the Académie Royale des Sciences, created by Colbert in 1666. There is an extensive bibliography on the Académie des Sciences, on the development of the sciences and of scientists themselves; the kings of France, the court and Versailles were often the subjects of publications. But beyond princely patronage in its various forms, the link between power and knowledge – evolving elsewhere during this century and a half – has not been considered through the prism of the court until this exhibition. Thus it is not possible to establish an inventory, but only to sketch a few thoughts on the subject, which should define the contours and research that is, for the most part, yet to be realized. Among other things we will examine the social values and ideals that governed at the meeting of the court and the sciences in Versailles; the interactions between the sciences and curial life; on the choices of the kings, the ministers, scholars and the stakes involved; how the very existence of the court was able to, beyond dramatization, beyond a stage and beyond concrete requirements, influence the content of science. The title of the exhibition, which associates “science” and “curiosities” is paradoxical. The term “curiosities” evokes the cabinets that were favoured by the princes, particularly those from Germany and Italy during the Renaissance, and refers to a kind of knowledge already surpassed in the age of “scientific revolution”. “Science” by contrast, is to be taken at its current meaning, referring to the different disciplines that individually prevailed as the new worldview: mathematics, physics, botany, astronomy, etc. The association of these two terms implies a tension: is it only related to the development of scientific knowledge? Or was the court itself a source of tensions, even contradictions, between the different conceptions of science?
Keywords
