Les Diplomatiques Festival

After a first opus on the Prince of Talleyrand, the second edition of the festival of diplomatic arts will be held from October 25 to 27, 2019. It will focus more specifically on Niccolò Machiavelli.

Why Machiavelli?

This great Renaissance figure shared his fellow nobleman Talleyrand’s diplomatic destiny, brilliant if formidable mind and reputation that is just as fiendish today as in the past.

Aside from that, Talleyrand read Machiavelli, whose writings appeared in his library.

The 2019 edition of Les Diplomatiques will bring together a group of diplomats, ambassadors, historians, professors, artists, chefs, and more.

The 2019 program, still in the works, will be based on conferences, round-table discussions, readings, musical interludes, performances, and so on.

– Patrick Boucheron (provisional) will give a conference on the non-meeting between Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci. He will also engage in a discussion with Emmanuel de Waresquiel to put Machiavelli and Talleyrand into perspective.

– Anne Gérardot, Director of the Indre Departmental Archives

– Loïc Bienassis, Historian at the European Institute for the History and Culture of Food (IEHCA, Tours)

– Florient Azoulay will give a reading of The Mandrake, a play by Niccolò Machiavelli, a short five-act burlesque farce with seven characters.

Other events and activities are still in the planning stage.

A Steering Committee has been formed for this project:

Florient Azoulay, playwright
Loïc Bienassis, historian, European Institute for the History and Culture of Food
Jean-Pierre Stephan, former diplomat and current communications advisor
Philippe Selz, former ambassador
Vincent Eurieult, professor, Sciences Po
And with the support of Emmanuel de Waresquiel