The poetics and politics of ruins, from Diderot to Germaine de Staël

Long a simple vanitas, the ruin gradually becomes an archaeological object and a springboard for a meditation on history. As Diderot puts it, the poetics of ruins establishes a court of history, and posterity is worthy of public opinion. Volney makes the genius of the ruins predict 1789. Lezay-Marnésia and Grégoire respectively accuse the Terror and the monarchy of multiplying the number of ruins, while Chateaubriand and Germaine de Staël exalt the powers of the fragment and the void.