Versailles et Philadelphie : Benjamin Franklin et André Michaux

Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles

关键词: André Michaux;    Benjamin Franklin;    botanique;    colonies;    sciences;   

DOI  :  10.4000/crcv.11567

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

It is not really possible to speak of “science policy”, neither for the English colonies in America, nor for the newly independent American nation at the end of the eighteenth century. However, for the court of Versailles and for French science policy of the time – at that moment, the most highly developed – this region was of great importance. In this operation, the well-known example of Benjamin Franklin will be mentioned only briefly: as a scientist and a politician, he was able to forge links between Versailles and Philadelphia. The less well known but more revealing case, that of André Michaux (1746–1802) – botanist to the king, sent to the United States in 1785 and charged with sending American tree seedlings back to France – will be given greater attention. To understand André Michaux’s mission during his stay on American soil, until 1796, it must be seen in the context of what François Regourd and myself have designated the “colonial machine”, this institutional scientific nebula, technical and administrative, devoted to French colonial expansion. This machine incorporated a range of institutions for its operation, including, in the case of André Michaux, the Maison et les Bâtiments du Roi at Versailles, the gardens of Trianon, the Jardin du Roi in Paris, and the Jardin Royal d’Acclimatiation at Rambouillet. The two gardens Michaux founded in New Jersey and South Carolina were, in their own way, part of this colonial machine and the science policy of the French monarchy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown