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

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.