Chapter 6 - Strange Meeting

Summary

Chapter 6 considers two works that respond both to the polemical writings of c. 1588–89 (discussed in Chapter 5) and the immediate political circumstances of the failed Estates General of 1593 and the (re)conversion of Henri de Navarre to Protestantism. These are the Dialogue d’entre le maheustre et le Manant and the Satyre ménippée. I argue that these works redescribe politique qualities and behaviours as a means of intervening in the end stages of the civil wars. The Dialogue resists redescription whereas the Satyre constantly engages in redescription of the terms of conflict and the moral status of the key players. Both texts are strongly focused on Paris, the Catholic stronghold; the Dialogue seeks to defend Paris as a world unto itself and as a city loyal to supranational Catholicism; the Satyre sees it as a crucial microcosm of France as a whole and seeks to establish French (and Gallican) independence from external influences. The term politique is a kind of boundary marker here, invested with proto-Marxist class struggle as well as being represented as an agent in the rhetorical battles that accompanied the wars, and in the outcome of the conflict.