Le refuge par l’écriture : les utopies protestantes à l’époque de la Révocation de l’Édit de Nantes

Abstract

During the second half of the seventeenth century the repression against Huguenots in France increased and led to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), definitively prohibiting Protestantism. Most of the Huguenots stayed in France and abjured their religion, but a certain number of them fled abroad. The utopias written by French Protestants during this period represent “another exile”. First the recourse to the utopian genre reveals a flight from reality and present. Then, if original propositions are made in the ideal societies imagined by the authors – for example to avoid the evils Protestants are subjected to – they hardly seem to be feasible in the real world. This reinforces the impression of refuge in writing. Finally, these utopias also constitute a place of compensation and expression for authors who actually exploit the notion of pleasure in writing. It’s very explicit when writers integrate autobiographic elements, digressions or descriptions.