How an 18th-century French abbot still sways the EU

Saint-Pierre described a union of nations in clunky prose to make Brussels proud


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  • 08 19, 2021
  • in Europe

THE “Project for Bringing About Perpetual Peace in Europe” did not receive rave reviews when published in 1713. Voltaire thought the author, the Abbot of Saint-Pierre, was deluded. “The peace…will no more be realised than among elephants, rhinoceroses, wolves, or dogs,” he wrote. Showing less understanding of nature than of politics, he added: “Carnivorous animals will always tear one another to pieces at the first opportunity.”Over the years, European intellectuals queued up to give the work a kicking. Immanuel Kant poked holes in it. Rousseau labelled it naive. Frederick II of Prussia declared the plan “very practicable: all it lacks to be successful is the consent of all Europe and a few other such small details.” Yet skip forward three centuries and the plan is, more or less, in place as the European Union.

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