Enlightenment and the shadows of chance1993
the novel and the culture of gambling in eighteenth-century France
by Thomas M. Kavanagh
While Montesquieu was praising indifference to financial gain, Louis XV regularly presided over dizzying gambling games at Versailles. While Descartes was advancing a strategy for escaping from chance by appealing to the protocols of certainty, clandestine gambling operations in Paris numbered in the hundreds. Despite efforts by the major figures of the French Enlightenment to suppress the period's fascination with chance, high-stakes gambling was an integral part of the social rituals of the most influential groups within the ancien regime.
In Enlightenment and the Shadows of Chance, Thomas Kavanagh explores this important paradox to shed light on the genesis, development, and function of the eighteenth-century French novel. First considering the roles of chance and gambling in the...