The rural economics of René de Girardin: Landscapes at the service of l’idéologie nobiliaire

Abstract

René-Louis de Girardin is remembered for having invited Rousseau to his Ermenonville estate. Girardin believed it necessary to further the debate on gardens on the basis of a principle of continuity that rejects any idea of enclosure. This made it possible to establish an agricultural model that increased production and finally allowed the monopoly in grain sales to be broken. At the service of l'idéologie nobiliaire, his analysis shows the existence of a form of economic thinking in the second half of the eighteenth century that, giving primacy to agriculture, nevertheless cannot fall within the paths of physiocrats and agronomists.