The European Research Council's ModERN project (Modelling Enlightenment: reassembling networks of modernity through data-driven research) is a pioneering five-year research initiative. This programme seeks to redefine the conventional understanding of 18th-century literary history by employing advanced data-modelling and analysis techniques. By developing a comprehensive corpus of 18th-century French texts and leveraging a range of data-science methodologies such as text-reuse detection and network analysis, the project aims to uncover novel research avenues and provide fresh insights into early-modern French print culture and its intertextual dynamics. In this report, we discuss some theoretical points underlying our research; we explain the choices made in constructing our corpus and their implications; and we present some case studies to show the potential of our research and the most prudent methodologies to adopt.