D’un nouveau complot contre les industriels

Two centuries after its publication, this text reads as remarkably prophetic: “Suppose an evil genius were to send the United States of America an ambitious president like Napoleon or Cromwell; this man will take advantage of the credit he finds established on reaching the presidency and… he will corrupt public opinion.”

In this pamphlet denouncing the effects of Saint-Simonianism, Stendhal defends the individual against the excesses of a society dominated by money and industrialization: “the profession of industrialists is highly estimable; but we do not see why it should be honored above any other profession useful to society. […] Industrialists lend money to governments, and often force them to draw up a reasonable budget and not squander taxes. There, probably, ends the usefulness of industrialists to the public good; for it matters little to them whether the money they lend goes to help the Turks or the Greeks. […] Reason is a severe deity; the moment one claims to serve her by preaching an error, all-powerful reason ceases its beneficial effects, and civilization comes to a halt. It would therefore hasten France’s happiness to make our great industrialists see the ridicule they bring upon themselves by having it proclaimed every Saturday that they are superior to every other class of society […]. While Bolívar was freeing America, while Captain Parry was approaching the Pole, my neighbor made ten million manufacturing calico — good for him and his children. But lately he has had a newspaper produced that tells me every Saturday that I must admire him as a benefactor of humanity.”

Skillful restoration to the upper margin of f. 17-18, without loss to the text.

Cordier, 69; Clouzot, p. 256: “Rare.”