IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO
"Le puissant est toujours injuste" — Helvétius

AM | agumack

In his indictment of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), Raynal calls it "un nouvel état placé dans l'état même" (HDI 1780, ii.4, p. 313). By this the abbé means "un corps puissant", strong enough to evade the normal checks and balances of the Dutch Republic. The notion, I am told, derives from Spinoza's imperium in imperio in Tractatus politicus, ii.6. Both d'Holbach and Diderot refer to it in a different context, but with much the same meaning (*).

In Le Christianisme dévoilé, d'Holbach slams Christianity as "un État indépendant dans l'État". Meanwhile, Diderot, in his "Précis historique" on Pablo Olavide (Correspondance littéraire, October 1782), attacks the Spanish Inquisition as "cet état dans l'État". The words used by these thinkers to describe the notion of imperium in imperio leaves no doubt about its perceived dangers: "despotisme, tyrannie intolérable, corruption" (Raynal), "tyrannie des Souverains" (d'Holbach), "pouvoir illimité, terreur, imbecillité nationale" (Diderot).

(*) See also Lettres persanes, cvii: "...c'est comme un état dans l'état"; Madison to Jefferson: "Without such a check in the whole over the parts, our system involves the evil of imperia in imperio" (Gary Wills. James Madison. New York: Times Books, 2002, p. 29).
____________