Gilbert Chinard (1881–1972)

This is THE book that reveals the Volney - Jefferson conspiracy to translate Ruins of Empires into English. Available only in French. My copy is bound with another work by Chinard, "Volney et Les Ideologues," same publishers, 1925.

This second book discusses Jefferson's translation of various works by Destutt de Tracy, Volney's colleague at the Institute in Paris and the man who invented the word Ideology. Originally defined by Tracy as "the study of ideas," the words Ideologue and Ideology took on their current pejorative meaning thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte. The Ideologues at first supported Bonaparte's rise to power, but later became his most ardent opponents. Bonaparte called them "philosophical dreamers" and thus began the pejorative connotation.

Although Volney and Bonaparte had been friends since the former's trip to Corsica in 1793, the rupture in their relationship was sealed when Bonaparte signed the Concordat with the Pope in 1800. This agreement ended the separation of church and state which Volney helped write into the constitution of 1791. Years later, in 1804, Volney became one of only three Senators to vote against the Proclamation of the Empire.

A generation or so later, a certain well-known German historian, reading deep into the history of the French Revolution, came across Bonaparte's conflict with the Ideologues. This historian realized that the basic theories promoted by the Ideologues refuted those he was trying to develop--so he took up Bonaparte's pejorative and spread it around the world.

Who was that still famous German historian? You guessed it. Karl Marx.

So remember, dear friends, whenever you use that pejoritive you are unconsciously using a definition invented by Napoleon Bonaparte and spread around the world by Karl Marx. But Tracy only meant the word to mean "the science of ideas"--how we conceive, test, accept or reject ideas. Hence, Bonaparte's pejoritive does not reflect the intention of the word's creator and certainly is not what Thomas Jefferson understood the word Ideology to mean.

Anyway, Chinard's discusses in this second book Jefferson's translation of other works by Tracy. This happened after Jefferson had left the presidency. In this period Jefferson openly admits he translated Tracy's book in several letters. This means, first, Jefferson had the lingusitic ability to translate Volney's Ruins of Empires. And second, after his presidency, Jefferson was still involved with the Ideologues and still wanted to introduce their theories to the American public...… (altro)