The constitution of Lycurgus according to lévesque: «portrait» of pre-revolutionary France

Abstract

The laws of Sparta offer to Lévesque a term of comparison with the political system existing before the French Revolution: the scholar openly condemns the structure of medieval feudalism, but also he refers to those political and social aspects that survive the legal death of feudalism, completely disappearing only with the Revolution. Furthermore, criticizing Sparta, Lévesque expresses his disappointment toward the policy of the Montagnards, who used the Spartan system as an ideological basis on which they constructed the new French society, leading the country to a dictatorship of few «equals» that looks like turning back with respect to the ideals of the Revolution.