In recent decades historians have documented the nature and impact of religious violence within French Catholicism during the French Wars of Religion (1562-1629). My dissertation introduces the question of religious nonviolence within French Catholicism in this era by examining the religiosity practiced and promoted by Francois de Sales (1567-1622). By interpreting the words, actions, and impact of this clergyman across three different contexts - the mission field of the Chablais, in lay spiritual counseling, and in the Order of the Visitation- this research presents a fresh perspective on the nature of Catholicism in early modern France and an important historical case study of the possibilities and limits of moderation in a society reeling from religious extremism.

This study of the term politique during the French Wars of Religion (c. 1562-98) argues that it is a keyword in the sense that it is is active and actively used in French explorations of the political, in the forming and undermining of collective identities in a period of civil crisis, and in the self-fashioning gestures of a shifting political class. I sample and analyse a range of texts - from treatises that form part of the canon of early modern French political writing (such as Bodin's Six livres de la Republique [1576] and the Satyre ménippée [c. 1593]) to anonymous polemical pamphlets - all of which feature prominent uses of the term politique. Certain of these sources gave rise to a longstanding historiographical impression that politique referred, in the period, to a coherent third party in the religious wars as well as to a related kind of expertise and its practitioner. This thesis builds on and extends recent work showing that there was no such party and no one in the period who directly identified as politique. Rather than seeking to identify the 'real' politiques or to establish a corrected definition of the term as used in sixteenth-century French, I argue that the term is strikingly and increasingly mobile across the period, coming at times to refer to mobility itself in conceptions of politics and political action. Dialogue emerges in the thesis as a key conceptual arena and discursive mode for writers attempting to work out what they and others mean by the term politique. I use philological and word-historical methods to examine writers of the period who seek to determine what makes a good or bad politique, to present themselves as politique, or to condemn politiques as morally bankrupt, and - in some cases - to do all of the above in the same text. Almost every text I analyse in the thesis offers its own definition of politique, and attempts to be definitive, but I show that all these attempts to make the reader recognise the 'true' meaning of politique are extending the drama rather than concluding it.

Pendant plus de vingt ans (1543-1565), Jean de Bretagne, duc d’Étampes est à la tête de la Bretagne en tant que gouverneur de la province. Héritier des comtes de Penthièvre, eux mêmes issus des ducs de Bretagne, il devient un fidèle serviteur des Valois à qui il doit tous ses honneurs. Des sources renouvelées, tant épistolaires qu’administratives, permettent de cerner les contours du métier de gouverneur, dans une province en voie d’intégration au royaume de France, entre le règne de François Ier et les premières guerres de Religion. Si le rôle de défense armée en zone frontalière, est central, il est loin d’être le seul. Au quotidien, le gouverneur de Bretagne est impliqué dans des domaines très variés. Surtout, il est facteur d’union entre la province et le souverain-suzerain. Relais mais aussi intercesseur, le gouverneur est assurément un acteur politique de premier ordre dans une province dont il est le premier gentilhomme. Analyser ses réseaux, cerner son influence, mesurer son pouvoir permet de mieux appréhender le rôle d’un type de serviteur du roi souvent mal compris, voire mal jugé, par l’historiographie. / For more than twenty years (1543-1565), Jean de Bretagne, duke of Étampes, governs Brittany as King’s governor and lieutenant. Heir of the Counts of Penthièvre, he became a faithful servant of the Valois to whom he owed each one of his honors. Some renewed sources, both epistolary and administrative, make it possible to seize the profession ofprovincial governor in the process of integration to the kingdom of France, between the reign of Francis I and the first wars of Religion. If the armed defense role of a reputed border province is central, the governor deals with many other problems on a daily basis. Above all else, he is supposed to be the link between the province and the king. Broker but also intercessor, the governor is undoubtedly a preeminent political actor in the province. First gentleman of the province, all his networks, influences and powers must be analyzed as a whole to better understand the daily life of a type of royal servant often misjudged and misunderstood by historiography.

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Although historians have written extensively on both the early modern era and the development of an absolute monarchy, the history of Jewish communities in France and the role they played has been largely ignored. Beginning with the French Wars of Religion, this study analyzes to what extent France’s religious situation affected the growth of absolutism and how this in turn affected the Jews. Taking advantage of the fractured nature of the early French monarchy, Jews began settling in provinces along the border of both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Affected by economic jealousies and cultural perceptions of Jews, the treatment of these communities by local officials led to requests by Jews for royal intervention in these regions. Perceptions of Jews evolved through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the French Enlightenment influenced the way Jewish characters were presented. This study then ties these perceptions of Jews to the political and economic reality of these communities in an attempt to create a unified history of France’s early modern Jewish population.

À partir d’un corpus composé d’une quarantaine de tragédies parues en Normandie entre 1566 et 1640, mettant presque toutes en scène des actes de cruauté exercés par des représentants d’altérités exacerbées, ce mémoire de doctorat étudie les particularités scénographiques qui transparaissent dans ces textes, en mettant en évidence la similitude des éléments décrits dans les didascalies internes et dans les rares indications scéniques des œuvres avec les pratiques de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne telles qu’elles sont définies par le Mémoire de Mahelot. Après un rappel des formes et des événements dramatiques joués dans la province, la thèse poursuit par une étude des pratiques éditoriales rouennaises. Une fois établie l’historiographie des guerres de religion et des règnes d’Henri IV et Louis XIII, la thèse observe la manière dont le théâtre normand est contaminé par la production parisienne en voie de normalisation classique, puis disparaît progressivement, ainsi que les scénographies signifiantes qui le caractérisent ou comment leur sens est dévoyé pour célébrer une unité politique, pour laisser place au palais à volonté des drames parisiens. / Based on a corpus composed of about forty tragedies published between 1566 and 1640 in Normandy, most of which staging acts of cruelty carried out by strongly antagonistic protagonists, this doctorate thesis studies the specific stage designs shown out through those texts. Thus throwing into prominence the existing similarities between the components described in the internal stage directions, the few stage indications of the works, and the practices at the hotel de Bourgogne such as defined in the Mémoire de Mahelot. After recalling the shapes and the dramatic events performed in the province, the thesis goes on studying the editorial practices in Rouen. Historiography of wars of religion and Henri IVth and Louis XIIIth reigns once established, it observes how the Norman theatre is being corrupted by the Parisian production on its move to classical normalization, and then gradually vanishes as well as the meaningful stage designs, demonstrating then how their meaning is being perverted in order to celebrate a political unity, to make way for “palais à volonté” in the Parisian dramas.

As French Protestantism emerged in the 1550s, the young community needed charismatic leaders. The main impetus came from native pastors with strong links to Geneva. Antoine de Chandieu was a key figure amongst these men. His writings promoted the values of French Protestantism over three decades and provide insight into how this vulnerable community faced the challenges of the civil war years. This study uses Chandieu’s prose and verse writings to examine how French Protestants defined themselves from the 1550s to the 1590s. Chapter one looks at Chandieu’s life and career, placing his works in the context of the Wars of Religion. Chapter two examines the early structural development of the French Church and the attempt to establish a system independent of that in Geneva. Chapter three concentrates on the Conspiracy of Amboise, and the tension that developed between the political and religious concerns of the movement. Chapters four and five explore the ways in which Chandieu engaged with perceived threats from internal and external sources. Chapter six focuses on the shift towards meditative writing provoked by the Protestants’ losses during the later wars, whilst chapter seven highlights the continuing preoccupation with theological issues throughout Chandieu’s later years of exile. Chandieu’s career provides a personal experience of the French religious wars which underlines how French Protestantism tried to retain its independence. This became increasingly difficult as the wars progressed, and the movement consistently returned to the refuge of Genevan influence. Although his faith was never shaken, the sustained losses suffered by the Protestants caused Chandieu to abandon his hopes of a fully independent French Church, and to reflect deeply on the emotional torment that resulted from years of interconfessional strife. In his works we see the French church’s struggle to find a workable group identity in the face of civil war.

This thesis is an examination of the printing industry in Paris between 1570 and 1590. These years represent a relatively under-researched period in the history of Parisian print. This period is of importance because of an event in 1572 – the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and an event in 1588 – the Day of the Barricades and the subsequent exit from Paris of Henry III. This thesis concerns itself with the two years prior to 1572 and two years after 1588 in order to provide context, but the two supporting frames of this investigation are those important events. This thesis attempts to assess what effect those events had upon the printing industry in the foremost print centre of both France and Western Europe. With the religious situation in Paris quietened was there any concrete change in the 1570s and 1580s regarding the types of books printed in Paris? Was there any attempt to exploit this religious stability by pursuing the ‘retreating’ Protestant confession, or did the majority of printers turn away from confessional arguments and polemical literature? What were the markets for Paris books: were they predominantly local or international? The method by which these questions have been addressed is with a bibliometric analysis of the output of the Paris print shops. This statistical approach allows one to address the entire corpus of a city’s output and allows both broad surveys of the data in terms of categorisation of print, but also narrower studies of individual printers and their output. As such this approach allows the printing industry of Paris to be surveyed and analysed in a way that would otherwise be impossible. This statistical approach also allows the books to be seen as an economic item of industrial production instead of purely a culture item of artistic creation. This approach enhances rather than reduces the significance of a book’s cultural importance as it allows the researcher to fully appreciate the achievement and investment of both finance and time that was necessary for the completion of a well printed book.