Profils d’un lectorat: Enquête sur les signatures d’énigmes du Mercure de France (1724‐1778)

Abstract

AbstractLittle is known about the distribution of ancien régime French periodicals and there are few sources on readers’ geographical origins and social positions. Most studies rely on subscriber lists, but subscription is not the only possible mode of acquisition. With a periodical such as Mercure de France (1724‐1778), however, another approach can be used to determine the identity of the public: much of the editorial content is provided by the readers. This article investigates the authors of the enigmas in verse published every month that together constitute a homogeneous corpus of texts. A new reader figure emerges next to the subscriber: that of the reader‐contributor who supplies the periodical with poems. With a more diversified social profile than the subscriber, this reader is often a provincial man who performs a judicial, administrative, ecclesiastical, or military function, and sometimes a woman, a student, a merchant, an artist, or even a prisoner.1