ROUSSEAU'S AIR CHINOIS

ABSTRACTAmong its various ancient and extra-European examples, the celebrated Plate N of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique includes a melody of Chinese provenance. Scholars have proposed three possible sources for the melody: Jean-Joseph-Marie Amiot, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde and the Abbé Prévost. By synthesizing the known sources and introducing additional archival evidence I establish that Rousseau took the melody from Du Halde, not Prévost – and definitely not Amiot. Along the way, I provide an account of Amiot's extant manuscripts and their circulation in Enlightenment Paris. These details begin to suggest the broader panorama of the French Enlightenment's encounter with China and the networks of trade, diplomacy and proselytization that facilitated it.

The Arts in Abbé Prévost’s l’Histoire générale des voyages: a New Way of Looking at the Other?

This article focuses on how the art of the other is perceived in Histoire générale des voyages, an ambitious collection by Abbé Prévost, which brings together numerous tales of travel published up to the 18th century on Africa, America and Asia. Despite a small amount of attention paid to the arts, there are several comments to be found here, through anecdotes or in comparative passages. In a stylistically skilful manner and through consulting sources, Prévost takes a “neutral” stance on the artistic ability of faraway peoples and invites readers to temper their own presuppositions.