'Parler librement': la liberté de la parole au tournant du XVIe et du XVIIe siècle (review)

The fruit of three study-days at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, the nine essays in this volume, complemented by a substantive introduction and conclusion, provide a series of case-studies on the concept of freedom of speech, concentrating on late Renaissance France. The theory and practice of free speech were especially contested during this period in which the religious and political authorities were slowly emerging from forty years of civil war. The very different but clearly related cases of Théophile de Viau and François Garasse are exemplary in terms of literary and intellectual history. As Benjamin Dupas shows in twin studies of the libertine poet and his Jesuit arch-enemy, freedom of speech is understandably sacrificed for freedom from prison for the former, while the latter is hoisted by his own petard in his alleged use of libel against Richelieu. The figure of the religious renegade is key to both Agathe Moroval's study of Antoine Fuzy and Frank Lestringant's piece on Guillaume Reboul. Despite going in opposite directions — the former from Catholic to Protestant, the latter vice-versa — both were rejected by their new communities. Again, the danger of freedom of speech, even in religious pamphlets which to all intents demand it, is plain to see, as is the fact that 'liberté de parole' is not necessarily liberating. The concept of freedom of speech is given an unexpected and interesting twist in Isabelle Moreau's and Grégoire Holtz's chapter on travel writing. Here it is not only the speech and behaviour of the exotic 'other' which are captured — not least in the moralistic criticism of the use to which bananas are put by the women of the Maldives (p. 72) — but also that of the ignorant traveller, in this case Vincent Leblanc, whose freedom of speech is suppressed by the learned editors and 'ghost writers' of his tales. In different ways, then, the contributions show how it became increasingly difficult to speak and write freely during this period. The subtle ways in which La Mothe Le Vayer weaves his praise of pagans into a work supposedly on Christian grace, as analysed by Isabelle Moreau, is indicative of the ever more elaborate strategies needed to speak or write freely. This collection does not pretend to offer the last word on freedom of speech at the turn of the seventeenth century—other potential areas for work in the field might include studies of La Satyre Ménippée, of the reaction to Théophile de Viau's trial in creative works and of the representations and theoretical discussions of ancient Greek parrhesia—but it does usefully open up a series of approaches for future research and will therefore be an essential point of reference for all those interested in the question.