La Révolution française jugée par un philosophe des lumières: une étude sur Jacques-Henri Meister

This article examines the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution by analysing the views of the philosophe Jacques-Henri Meister in a historical context. Unlike other surviving philosophes in Paris such as Forbonnais or Saint-Lambert, Meister had greater freedom to express his critical perspectives on the Revolution's process and outcomes. He strongly opposed what he saw as democratic or republican elements but was not a royalist counterrevolutionary in the mould of Louis de Bonald. Like Jacques Mallet du Pan, Meister was a monarchist Enlightenment thinker who believed in the progress and perfectibility of human society. He evaluated the historical impact of the French Revolution without the impractical nostalgia for the Ancien Régime often expressed by émigré nobles, yet he chose to stand against the republicans and democrats of revolutionary France. Meister's position complicates and enriches our understanding of the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.