The first French Utopia...  now translated.

                    The year 1616 saw France witness to a period of great societal stress & general malaise felt throughout much of the kingdom. The Estates General, a once in a generation body politic wherein much hope had been placed, had ended the previous year in utter failure. This the result of the unwillingness of the three estates to come together on any meaningful issues, and the crowns own motives who in the short term was looking to secure the Queen-Mother as regent for her juvinile son, and in the long term was looking to institute a more centralize, authoritative government under its control. Responding to the deplorable state of his nation a book of no literary acclaim was caused to be printed by an anonymous author titled, Histoire du Grand et Admirable Royaume d'Antangil...

                    Since having been reintroduced to the world in 1922 by famed French bibliophile, Frederic Lachevre,[1] who dubbed it "the first French Utopia", the mystery surrounding the identity of the book's anonymous author has remained its sole attraction.[2] Yet inside these Moroccan-leather covers, cloaked in the guise of a fantastical adventure, a political treatise of great merit awaits. For bound within are expressed guiding principles and fundamental preceps found in the later writings of Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau among others. Ideas that 170 years later would be enshrined in our own American Constitution, and implemented by our founding fathers. Such novel ideas as an elected sovereign, with limited powers, who could be impeached at any time for bad behavior; term limits for elected officials; an independent judiciary; federalism whereby laws enacted by the Senate would be returned to the local provinces & there could be accepted or rejected in full, or could be altered to suit each of the local populations. Some of the same ideas and pricipals found in Antangil would facilitate a fledgling American republic to rise out of ashes of revolution, to soar to heights unbound, to a grace yet to be achieved.

                    That said, it's ironic in the least that nearly all those who have commented on this book have given it a poor review, some have even termed it a dystopia. But all these negative reviews have been looking at the book from a literary point of view. An exception to this was Gilbert Chinard, a French born American historian and Jefferson scholor who recognized the similarity between Antangil and the U.S. Constitution. Chinard writes of the book's unknown author:


"... despite the awkwardness of his style, he deserves to retain the attention of historians. He indeed brings us valuable indications on the diffusion of certain ideas that we tend too much to attribute to the eighteenth century and more particularly to the English eighteenth century and which, very often, had been glimpsed and even developed from the end of the sixteenth. The chapters on education, where the influence of Rabelais is evident, but which mark an obvious progress on the Pantagruet, and the Gargantua are no less worthy of attention."

                   From the previous statement we can also conclude that if Antangil were written in English much attention would have been given to this book. We encourage all to read the whole book as there is a lot to be found inside of the ideas regarding republican government, an advanced universal education system, and the author's pathway to a universal Christian religion.

                   We hope you will enjoy this historical journey and excuse the awkwardness of our translation which we hope to improve along the way. To supplement the translation we have tried to provide notes and informative links. We hope you enjoy!










Map
Map of Antangil



Notes

n1.   Frederic Lachevre was the first to coign the phrase "first French Utopia" in regard to Antangil. SEE adendem attached to Les successeurs de Cyrano de Bergerac (1922) titled La Premiere Utopie du XVIIe

n2. Though there was only one printing of Antagil (1616) there are two printers associated with the book. The first of these was Thomas Portau of Saumur, France and the second was Jean Le Maire of Leiden. There is no doubt that Portau was the actual printer, yet the mystery remains, arising from that fact that every known volume of Antangil carries a placard, or the remnents of one, with the name of printer Jean Le Maire of Leiden. While Portau was associated with the Academy of Saumur, LeMaire was had some association with the University of Leiden.