EUROPE: THE NEW IDEA OF THE LATE 18TH CENTURY

The 18th century sees the apparition of numerous political treatises where the construction of Europe is put at the heart of new sciences about the art of governing. Thoughts on organizing the continent go side by side with the growing necessity to find peace between countries, most often monarchies, taking into account people's rights. Coming from the top, the Revolution puts that utopia into the form of a Declaration of peace in the world; coming from the bottom, it brings a project of a municipalization of the continent. The Europe of revolutions progressively defines itself and takes the place of the Europe of crowns. The war which breaks out at the end of the century divides Europe in a different way between Coalition and Republic, monarchies and sister republics, and soon after that, quite unexpectedly, between north and south, where the Mediterranean appears in the spirit of many democrats as the place of the future republican revolutions.