ABSTRACT
This chapter draws inspiration from F. Cooren's reflections on ventriloquism to analyze the modes of presentification of public opinion as a figure of authority. In the political realm of the Romans that Hannah Arendt takes as a paradigmatic example of genuine authority, the power of the living depends upon the authority of the dead founders. In placing public opinion in charge of the creation of the political body, the modern age mistook a problematic surrogate for authority. The elaborated, well-crafted concept of "public opinion" has not built from scratch the "thing" that it is supposed to designate; rumors, public criticism or individual opinions have not waited for discursive baptism and ideological recognition to come into existence. Thus, the figure of public opinion authoritative from a sociohistorical standpoint is that it crystallized, among different social classes, the disaffection for the monarchy and the progressive awareness that the multitude deserves to be the ultimate holder of sovereignty.
