Etudes Epistémè (Feb 2021)
De la chaire à l’exil : pratiques de la polémique dans les Sermons (1594) du prédicateur ligueur Jean Boucher
Abstract
In his Sermons de la simulée conversion et nullité de la prétendue absolution de Henry de Bourbon, published in Paris in March 1594, the League preacher Jean Boucher launches an unrelenting campaign against the “heretics”. The priest mobilizes a vast array of rhetorical resources in order to make the so-called Catholic truth triumph. Boucher develops a demystifying ethos to invalidate the masquerade and the political "fiction" represented by Henry of Navarre's recent abjuration on 25 July 1593. This contribution aims at studying the power of the images used by Boucher in his act of unveiling. We intend to show how the preacher invites the reader to a spectacle of truth, the only one suited to annihilate the political sham performed by the opponent.
