Arts and humanities
> Tuesday, October 7, 2025 - 4pm - UFR ARSH Library
Interview with Gilles Montègre, HDR lecturer in modern history, who will present his book "Voyager en Europe au temps des Lumières. Les émotions de la liberté".
This is an entirely new history of travel in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. Following in the footsteps of Voltaire and Casanova, but also of a mysterious traveler who may have been Montesquieu's hidden son, we discover that, in addition to the "Grand Tour" well known to aristocrats, an emancipatory form of travel emerged, opening the way to a novel approach to nature and human societies.
Women, craftsmen, scholars, servants, adventurers and philosophers: a new "society of travel" took to the roads of Europe in the 18th century, on foot, by carriage or under sail, from the Highlands to Italy, via the Alps or the Mediterranean islands. The Europe of the Enlightenment not only explored the far reaches of the world, it also set out to discover itself, subjecting itself to salutary self-criticism. Europeans experimented with other ways of traveling, claiming an intimacy with natural space, nearby territories, local knowledge and know-how. And travelers expressed emotions that betrayed an ardent desire for freedom, allowing us to rethink the link between the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions.
Comparing the unpublished manuscripts of Bordeaux-born François de Paule Latapie with 254 other writings by travelers of the Enlightenment, Gilles Montègre offers another historical approach to travel, written at ground level and along the way.
At a time when the environmental challenge is calling into question the model of mass tourism, this book is also an invitation to give new meaning to the way we travel.
