Fontenelle’s Histoire des Ajaoïens, a radical, subversive, and secret fable

Borrowing its narrative models from utopian literature, the Histoire des Ajaoiens is generally read as an example of this genre from the 1680s. However, a study of its sources suggests a later date of composition and a different intention. The problem then becomes one of cultural reform and a form of state administration based on reason alone, and referring to Nature alone, led by a non-hereditary moral and intellectual elite capable of exercising control beyond any logic of domination.