Forgetting and fictionalizing: French historical narratives and the case of the Breton League

Abstract

This article examines how historical narratives of the League in Brittany (1589–1598) contributed to the creation of a contradictory depiction of the war as it happened in the region. Focusing on the narratives of the three main historians who described these lesser-known events at length (Jacques-Auguste de Thou, Agrippa d’Aubigné and Pierre Victor Palma Cayet), this article shows that representations of the war in Brittany responded both to the political exigence of ‘oubliance’ and the philosophical exigence of transitioning from war to peace at the end of the sixteenth century. This article argues that early modern French historians negotiated these exigencies through the creation of a compensating fiction. They adopted similar rhetorical strategies which included blurring the lines of conflict, shifting the narrative focus away from the enemy victory and representing Mercœur as following a path of transgression, repentance and ultimately salvation. While these historians wrote independently, all three operated in similar ways, showing the extent of the ‘oubliance’ doctrine and the need, at the end of the sixteenth century, to provide a new historical narrative.