Abbé Morio
Italian priest
The abbé appears in the opening scenes of War and Peace. He was inspired by Scipione Piattoli, a major figure of the Enlightenment in Poland. The abbé proposes a theory for universal peace based on the balance of power.
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I never thought for a second about this character before, he comes and goes in the soiree scene, as a way for Pierre to express his gauche political views and mortify Anna Pavlova.
But, seeing this description reminds me of the Enlightenment philosophy that Michael Sandel has been convincing us we should be applying to the rise of fascism/populist anger/rage against the intellectual and other ‘elites’ in our current times (via Mills, Bentham, Kant, etc). Peace, balance of power (equality/inequality, deserving or not of one’s elite or not status in society, etc.), and how that status is conferred—whether by striving/merit, inheritance, or luck/chance—all are at play here as then.