Ostium (Sep 2016)
Rȇver au temps des guerres de Religion (Dreaming in the Times of Wars of Religion)
Abstract
The dream is a delicate subject of history. Between the pitfall of rhetorical pattern or, conversely, the psychological over-interpretation, this study aims at examining a few dreams as related by both captains during the Wars of Religion, in the late sixteenth century. Blaise de Montluc, lieutenant general in Guyenne, recounts the nightmares about the king’s death. This terror reflects the fragility of his political situation. The Protestant propaganda exploits this prophetic dream to denounce the iniquity of Valois. Agrippa d’Aubigné shows, meanwhile, the ambiguity of a humanist facing the dream. On the one hand, he makes fun of the credulity of those who see omens, on the other, he draws inspiration from it to write about the biblical prophets. The dream thus reflects the religious turmoils in the inner selves and in the partisan fight. The vision which Ravaillac, the regicide had about a bloody religious wafer refers to dangerous imagination. A negative view of what shall be called dream emerges.
