"Historiographical Heritages: Denis Diderot and the men of the French Revolution.

Was Denis Diderot “the master of Danton”, as the historian Aulard asserted, or was he “the master of Brissot” as Jean Dautry stated? Or rather, was the philosophe the true inspiration of Babeuf? From a general point of view, research on the circula- tion and heritage of Diderotian political ideas in Europe has mostly been interpreted in relationships of analogy or in contrast with the event, ideas and men of the French Revolution. This article aims to analyze the debate on the most recent historical read- ings that have reawakened the hermeneutic dialectic on the relationship between the political thought and works of Denis Diderot and the spokesmen of the French Revo- lution. The significance of this study thus lies in its focus on the most recent histo- riographical readings on the uses of Diderotian stratified production, which over time have distorted his political vocabulary. At the present time, we have some data – from the cross-analysis between the study of unpublished sources and new research per- spectives on political traineeships and clandestine circles – —on which to base future research: on the eve of the Revolution, Diderotian thought circulated in clandestine pamphlets and, in those same years, some men of the future Constituent took inspira- tion from the philosophe. Therefore, the category of “general will” in use among the men of the Constituent and the Legislative (Thouret, Brissot) seems not to be of Rous- seauian derivation only.