Cent’anni dopo: servi ancora in proscenio. Da Voltaire et le serf du Mont-Jura (1782) di Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian a Les serfs du Jura (1890) di Charles Grandmougin

In this study, two works are analysed, a poem by Florian and a play by Grandmougin, which, at two different times, evoke, in a direct form the former and indirectly the latter, Voltaire's last ‘combat’: the ‘affaire’ that, from the case of the Franche-Comté serfs, concerned the abrogation of Ancient Regime privileges. Even though these two texts are separated by a century, they both portray the ‘mythical’ figure of the servant as the prototypical victim of the Ancient Regime, and fulfil a civil and moral role in literature.