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Charles-Joseph de Ligne (1735-1814)
Hij is het prototype van de verlichte kosmopoliet en wordt in België herinnerd als de belangrijkste Franstalige auteur uit de 18de eeuw.
Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne has the paradoxical reputation of being both famous and little know. Most studies of the eighteenth century mention him, at least in passing, as one who was acquainted with Louis XV and Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Madame du Barry, Maria-Theresa of Austria and Catherine the Great of Russia, Potemkin and Loudon, Joseph II, Casanova, Goethe, Madame de Staël, Voltaire and Rousseau, Talleyrand, Frederick the Great, and many others. He was a grand aristocrat, a talented military man, an entertaining writer, a brilliant conversationalist, a great garden fancier, a moralist and a memoirist. Anyone interested in the years of his long lifetime - from 1735 to 1814 - will find him "unavoidable." The Prince de Ligne witnessed the fall of Napoleon, who fascinated him but whom he refused to meet. He died during the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe to the accompaniment of balls and intrigues.
Over the past fifteen years there has been considerable progress in knowledge of the Prince and his writings. Although the majority of writers on the period limit themselves to the same clever comments, the same quotations and the same anecdotes, more serious approaches to the Prince’s massive production have also multiplied. International meetings bring together professional academics and highly qualified amateur scholars, accurate editions of both published and unpublished works continue to appear, and pioneering studies pour forth. But there is still much to do.... To begin with, we must admit that these publications, although of high quality, are often little or even completely unknown to those interested in the Prince. Everyone does not necessarily have access to scholarly libraries.
A group of international scholars, based in Belgium (the first homeland of this authentic European!), we have undertaken an ambitious project: to pay the real Prince de Ligne his due by expanding our research and publications about him. This group was born from a decision reached in 1986 with the creation of the Nouvelles Annales Prince de Ligne. In addition, we are also preparing an accurate edition of his attested works. Several volumes of these Œuvres have already been published by the Champion Publishing House (Paris). At the same time, we are turning to more modern forms of communication to inform the public of our work. Thus we have created this Internet site dedicated to the life and works of Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne, in the hope that it may attract many visitors and, better still, many people interested in the subject who may consult it, as well as researchers able to contribute significant data.
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