« François de Belleforest et la "contrainte du genre" historique, entre prudence courtisane et vérité partisane »
Résumé
In his history books, François de Belleforest would have imposed himself a flattering prudence, instead of expressing a partisan truth linked to his political and religious commitment. In L’Histoire des neuf roys Charles (1568), he presents Charles IX as a king seeking peace. But in the pamphlets published between 1568 and 1572, he encourages the royal power to use violence against the Protestants. In Les Grandes Annales (1579), he finally tells a eulogistic story of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. For Belleforest, the panegyric of the king and the honesty of the historian should not be opposed but combined to manifest the divine will, as he considers she manifests herself in history.