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584 UN DEBAT : LES MENTALJTES COLLECTIVE9 12

is a witness of his time. History would only gain from systematically dealing with such a point of view.

But, the extended prospectiyes of research in mental history should avoid neither pnidence nor modesty. We ought to be aware of the relativity and approximation of our field. In the realm of the invisible and of nuances, it is difficult for anybody to assume that he has “the last word”. Here are two examples : Rabelais and, generally speaking, the society of his time, that of the Renaissance, appear in Lucien Febvre’s view closer to the primitive mentality than to our modern world. But, at the highest of the Middle Ages, in a remote mountain village (see Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, Montaillmi, rillage occitan de 12U4 a J324, 1975) we find archaic expressions together with many thoughts and feelings quite close to our time. Finally, as Le Roy Ladurie has understood, the peasants in Mon-taillou are closer, in Febvre’s yiew, to the modern mentality than a great personality of the Renaissance, such as Rabelais.

Are these contradictions ? They are rather common expressions of the very condition of historiography. The historical work is bivalent. As it rebuilds the past, it is, at the same time, an expression of the present mentality (like the literary or artistic work). What we are faced with, therefore, is not Rabelais, but a Rabelais ^-Febyre relation; not the peasants in Montaillou, but a dialogue, through centuries, between these and a man of our time. Thus, the historical work itself becomes extremely inteiesting as a source of approach to mental and ideologie history pro-blems. Reading hlichelet, w<e may learn a lot about medieval France or about the French Revolution, but we leam as much about what it was like to be a historian in 19th century France, about the way in which the historiography of his time assimilated contemporaneous States of mind, ideas and ideals. Under its first aspect, a historical work may get old, but under the second it never does. It will thus last, together with the other works of human intelleetual life, as a testimony, over time, of a ciyilization, a society, a generation.

IMAGE «DE L’AUTRE»: RŚAUTŚS BALKANIQUES ET ROUMAINES A TRAVERS LES RŚCITS DE VOYAGEURS ETRANGERS

PAUL CERNOVODEANU

Dans ses ouvrages d’imagologie consacrśs & la manierę dans laąuelle ge refletent les r^alitćs existantes dans 1’espace sud-est europćen dans les rścits de yoyageurs venus de 1’ćtranger dans ces rśgions, Nicolae Iorga ^voque les avantages de la mćthode comparative, que seul ce genre narratif d’une facture toute particuliere est & meme de faire ressortir, et dćclarait «qu’un yoyageur est tres souvent prćferable ^ un chroniqueur, de mśme que 1’auteur d’une lettre privće est prćfórable au rśdacteur d’un document officiel... Or, il y a certains phśnomenes d’ame dans une socićtć, -qui