French 17 FRENCH 17

2000 Number 48

PART III: PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ABBOTT, CARMETA. "Religieuses enseignantes: Opportunities for a Professional Life." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 185–92.

Article deals primarily with the Ursulines, who spearheaded a movement among devout women to become educators. Author points out irony that while society outside the convent grew intolerant of women, the convent itself nurtured their intellectual pursuits.

ADKINS, GREGORY MATTHEW. "When Ideas Matter: The Moral Philosophy of Fontenelle." JHI 61.3 (2000), 433–552.

Argues against the oversociological tendency to interpret thinkers like Fontenelle as embodying aristocracy rather than expressing ideas. "It is in the difficulty of resolving the tension between passion and reason that Fontenelle rejected both the courtly and the classical ethics, and turned, as many of his contemporaries would, to the pastoral ideal as the model of human existence."

BERGIN, JOSEPH. The Making of the French Episcopate, 1589–1661. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.

Review: B. Diefendorf in RenQ 51 (1998), 235–236: Valuable volume presents careful and nuanced analysis of the politics of church and state in this key period. Studies the office, the revenues and the nominees, "their social origins, education, clerical status, and activities prior to the call."

BLANCHARD, JEAN-VINCENT. "Credit, et non videt: l'autre du visible, scepticisme et religion (des jésuites à Port-Royal)" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 331–338.

The model for representation in the "logique de Port-Royal" is constituted through the mediation of its Other: the Rhetoric of the Jesuits, which is ". . .la conséquence du fidéisme que suppose l'Eucharistie."

BONO, JAMES J. The Word of God and the Languages of Man: Interpreting Nature in Early Modern Science and Medicine. Vol. 1: Ficino to Descartes. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1995.

Review: K. R. Sorsby in RenQ 51 (1998), 272–274: Renaissance theories of languages, their impact on the study of nature, the relationship of language to God's Word —these are the central topics in the wide-ranging study of the "cultural transformation of 'science' during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (S. 272). Reviewer finds the volume valuable for its contribution in neglected areas of scholarship. Chapters treat: 1. "The Word, the Text, and the Narrative, 2. "Ficino and Neoplatonic theories of Language," 3. "the Word of God and the Languages of Man," 4. "The Priority of the Text"(reviewer finds this "the best in the volume"), 5. "Paracelsian Medicine and Occult Natural Philosophy," 6. "Galileo and Renaissance Natural History," 7. "The Reform of Language and Science," and 8. "Beyond Babel: Mersenne, Descartes, Language and the Revolt against Magic." Reviewer expects the second volume "to provide further amplifications ad explanations to issues raised herein."

BOURGEOIS, MURIEL. "Bien penser dans la culture mondaine: la Logique de Port-Royal" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 117–128.

Research on the meaning of the notion of "bien penser" in the Classical Age. The author studies Pascal's fragment 232 (édition Sellier) and the tensions and contradictions in the major works of ethical analysis or the period (Nicole and Arnauld, Fénelon, etc.)

BOUVIER, MICHEL. La Morale classique. Paris: Champion, 1999 (Moralia, 3).

Review: Alain Niderst in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 305–306. "C'est au fond une étude relevant de l'histoire des mentalités, que nous propose Michel Bouvier. Procédant comme un sociologue, il s'efforce (. . .) de reconstituer dans son ensemble l'éthique de l'âge classique."

BRAGUE, REMI. La Sagesse du monde. Histoire de l'expérience humaine de l'univers. Paris: Fayard, 1999.

Review: M. Fumaroli in Critique 632–633 (2000), 51–53: Fumaroli praises Brague's questioning of liberal commonplaces in human history: "L'enquête érudite de Rémi Brague montre que l'antithèse moderne Nature/Culture, Nature/Morale, si elle a quelques précurseurs dans la pensée méditerranéene, a été dans l'ensemble, et notamment dans l'Europe médiévale et prémoderne, contredite par le sens commun philosophique et religieux...L'imitation de la Nature a longtemps été tenue pour la source de la sagesse.... Cette synthèse entre la science et la religion a été ruinée par la 'nouvelle science' du XVIIe siècle."

BRIAN, ISABELLE et JEAN-MARIE LE GALL. La Vie religieuse en France: XVIe–XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Sedes, 1999.

Review: BCLF 621 (2000), 1414: "Destiné à des étudiants de DEUG et de licence, cet ouvrage traite de la France religieuse de l'aube de la Renaissance à la veille de la Révolution. Limité aux provinces soumises à l'autorité monarchique . . . il porte uniquement sur le christianisme."

BRUNEAU, MARIE-FLORINE. Women Mystics Confront the Modern World: Marie de l'Incarnation (1599–1672) and Madame Guyon (1648–1717). Albany: SUNY P, 1998.

Review: A. J. Strange in FR 73. 3 (2000), 576–77: In this "thoughtful, readable, and well-documented analysis" of the impact of epistemological shifts on the lives and work of Marie and Guyon, Bruneau argues that the two women suffered from the seventeenth century's discrediting of the mystical traditions that formed their thinking. Bruneau demonstrates how each woman managed to have a lasting and historically significant impact on their societies despite these difficulties.

CARR, THOMAS M. JR. "La perte de l'autre et l'autoconsolation" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 367–373.

Mourning and consolation in the Grand Siècle. Both the Stoïc and the Christian viewpoints agree on the need to temper, if not to purge, the sorrow occasioned by mourning.

CARRAUD, VINCENT. "'La matière assume successivement toutes les formes': Note sur le concept d'ordre et sur une proposition thomiste de la cosmogonie cartésienne." RMM no.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 57–79.

Descartes incorporates ideas from St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles to depict an ordered world without a specific teleology in his Principes de la philosophie.

CARRE, MARIE-ROSE. "La Folle du logis dans les prisons de l'âme, Etudes sur la psychologie de l'imagination au dix-septième siècle. Paris: Klincksieck, 1998.

Review: P. J. Archambault in SYM 53. 3 (1999), 187–89: "In a series of meticulous and well-commented readings of key texts, most of them written by contemporaries of Descartes, Marie-Rose Carré . . . demonstrates that the attitude of Descartes's contemporaries toward imagination was largely defensive and untrusting, but that it was far from being monolithic." Consideration given to Malebranche (who termed imagination "la folle du logis"), Coëffeteau, Pierre Chanet, Gassendi, Pascal, and Cyrano de Bergerac whom the author considers the most avant-garde thinker of the era on imagination: "His liberation of imagination anticipates the later views of Rousseau, Chateaubriand, and the Surrealists."

CHEDOZEAU, BERNARD. Choeur clos, choeur ouvert. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1998.

Review: B. Krajewska in RSH 254.2 (1999), 192–194: "La grande ligne de la tirdentinisation des églises consiste dans le passage de l'église à choeur clos à l'église à choeur ouvert....[le Concile de Trente] avec sa nouvelle approche de la dévotion, ainsi que les guerres de Religion, bouleverseront profondément la structure des églises, leur permettant d'epouser une expression architecturale et artistique de l'ecclésiologie, de la liturgie et de la doctrine même, différente."

CUCHE, FRANÇOIS-XAVIER. "Les correspondances sacrées de Laurent Drelincourt. Géométrie, typologie et théologie dans le second livre des Sonnets chrétiens." Littératures Classiques 39, 137–147.

Study of the second book of the Sonnets chrétiens of Drelincourt (1677): "Dans leur forme même, les Sonnets chrétiens inscrivent une somme des lectures chrétiennes de la Bible au XVIIe siècle."

DAMME, STÉPHANE VAN. "Le collège, la cité et les livres: stratégies éducatives jésuites et culture imprimée à Lyon (1640–1730)." Littératures Classiques 37, 169–183.

Study of the importance of books in the Jesuits' educational strategies. The author examines the printed production of 79 authors who taught between 1636 and 1724 in Lyon, focusing on the distribution of printed courses, the tailoring of the Jesuits' production to specific communities of readers, and on "les effets du dynamisme éditorial tant sur les contenus éducatifs que sur les mécanismes éditoriaux et les statuts d'auteur."

DARMON, JEAN-CHARLES. "Le Jardin et la Loi: de l'utilité comme fondement du Droit et du Politique chez Gassendi." Littératures Classiques, 40, 2000, 53–73.

Study of Gassendi's Neo-Epicurian political philosophy, as it is presented in his De justitia, jure, ac legibus, whose background is the general crisis of Natural Law and thECrisis of "morale communautaire" to which the "libertins érudits" have contributed (refusal of an objective ethical paradigm). The author focuses on the concept of utilitas to show how Gassendi creates a model for the origin of society, which is not the model of the contract (as in Hobbes), but rather a series of three pacts, united by a logic of pleasure, interest, and caution.

DAUGE-ROTH, KATHERINE. "Médiations, figures et expériences de l'autre vie: Jean-Joseph Surin à la rencontre du démoniaque" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 375–384.

Study of Surin's Triomphe de l'amour divin sur les puissances de l'Enfer and Science expérimentale des choses de l'autre vie, focusing on Surin's conception of otherness, represented for him by Jeanne des Anges and her demons, and on the dissolution of the borders between himself and the other: Surin becomes Other. This dissolution disturbs the representations, the rites and the traditional uses of otherness within the "théâtre de la possession".

DEAR, PETER. Discipline and Experience. The Mathematical Way in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1995.

Review: C. Goldstein in RdS 121.1/2 (2000), 189–192: Dear concentre "son attention sur une pratique discursive commune à de nombreux textes scientifiques de l'époque: cette pratique conçoit d'emblée l'expérience comme productrice d'un énoncé universel. L'objectif du livre de Dear est de montrer comment cette pratique enracinée dans l'enseignement a perduré tout au long du siècle et comment, aux prises avec le changement des relations entre mathématiques, physique et philosophie naturelle, elle intervient dans la transformation des modes de connaissance du monde naturel qui s'opère au cours du XVIIe siècle."

DEBUS, ALLEN G. and MICHAEL WALTON, eds. Reading the Book of Nature. The other side of the scientific revolution. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University, 1998.

Review: C. Postel in BHR 61. 3 (1999), 783–85: Quinze communications présentées en octobre 1996 à Saint Louis à l'occasion de la Sixteenth Century Studies Conference. "Cet ensemble constitue une contribution importante à l'histoire des sciences" aux XVIe–XVIIe siècles et "se veut pour une part une réhabilitation de l'alchimie et de la médecine comme témoins (trop négligés par les historiens) de la révolution scientifique, limitée trop souvent aux mathématiques et à l'astronomie."
Review: D. P. McKay et al. in RenQ 51 (1998), 1076: Praised for its extension of the work of Walter Pagel and Frances Yates, this collection of essays extends examination of nature and memory to include "religious, philosophical, alchemical, medical, and political currents"(1076). Focuses on 16th and 17th c. texts. Indices.

DEKONINCK, RALPH. "L'image prise au mot: méditation et rhétorique visuelles jésuites" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 161–174.

Study of the uncertain status of the image in the first 17th century, seen as both mimèsis and sémiosis, in between esthetics and rhetoric. The Jesuits attempted to stabilize this uncertainty by creating a codified iconographic language and a visual rhetoric.

DESCOTES, DOMINIQUE. "Les anges quadrateurs". Littératures Classiques 39, 179–196.

Do the angels have the solution to the ancient problem of the quadrature of the circle? Pascal and Mersenne, Arnauld and Lamy, among others, are questioned, and the author concludes that ". . .la quadrature du cercle peut difficilement tenir dans l'argumentation apologètique une aussi belle place que les 'incompréhensibles qui ne laissent pas d'être'".

DESJARDINS, LUCIE. "Du regard de l'autre à l'image de soi: mouvements intimes et lectures du corps" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 245–254.

Since the readings of the signs the passions imprint on the body—exemplified by the work of Cureau de la Chambre Charactères des passions— is mediated by an inner representation, a fiction, the author emphasizes the non-systematic, the "artistic" characteristics of this reading: "un art où la tension entre savoirs et je-ne-sais-quoi permet d'intégrer la singularité de la connaissance."

DEVILLAIRS, LAURENCE. Descartes, Leibniz. Les vérités éternelles. Paris: PUF, 1998.

Review: P. Drieux in RdS 121.1/2 (2000), 194–9: "L'objet de l'ouvrage est avant tout de mesurer le rôle architectonique et la fonction médiatrice d'une thèse qui se signale par sa constance et sa cohérence tout au long du développement de la pensée cartésienne."

DOMPNIER, BERNARD, ed. La Superstition à l'âge des Lumières. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998.

Review: J. Voisine in RLC 293.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 103–104: This collection of seminar papers represents a history of ideas and religion spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While Catholic theologians at the end of the seventeenth century combat superstition among believers, Protestants accuse them of promoting superstition. A. McKenna's contribution charts the pre-Voltairian, rationalist approach to topics of superstition, sorcery, and magic in works by Furetière and Bayle.

DUCHESNEAU, FRANÇOIS. Les Modèles du vivant de Descartes à Leibniz. (Paris: Vrin, 1998).

Review: M. Greene in RHSA 2000, 53/1, 173–174. "Dans ce livre riche et érudit, l'auteur retrace, dans quelques cas importants du XVIIe siècle, les relations entre la réflexion philosophique et un certain nombre de considérations empiriques qui constituent les lignes principales d'une théorie du vivant."

DUFLO, COLAS. Le Jeu. De Pascal à Schiller. Paris : PUF, 1997.

Review : J.-M. Rohrbasser in RdS 120.4 (1999), 660–2: "Duflo montre pourquoi et en quoi le jeu peut intéresser la réflexion philosophique." La première partie met en évidence le thème du jeu dans les textes théoriques et retrace le parcours philosophique qui conduit les auteurs du XVIIIe siècle à fonder une anthropologie qui rend nécessaire l'intervention du thème du jeu. Dans la deuxième partie, Duflo dresse un "autoportrait du joueur au XVIIIe siècle." Duflo, dans la troisième partie, entreprend de montrer qu'avec la naissance progressive de l'intérêt pour l'enfant se précise l'idée que l'étude puisse prendre la forme du jeu. La quatrième partie expose en quoi Schiller réalise la synthèse de ce mouvement de réhabilitation du jeu qui s'étend sur deux siècles.

RASHED, H., CH. HOUZEL AND G. CHRISTOL. Pierre Fermat: Œuvres I: La théorie des nombres. Trans.P. Tannery. Paris: Librairie scientifique et technique Albert-Blanchard, 1999.

Review: J.-L. Gardiès in RPFE 124.4 (1999), 557: A reissue of one part of a five-volume edition of Fermat's works (largely from the third volume, 1896), first published between 1891 and 1922. It includes "les Observations sur Diophante" (Fermat's marginalia from his edition of the "Arithmétiques") and "l'Inventum Novum" (excerpts from his letters to the jesuit Jacques de Billy) and the "Commercium epistolicum" (the correspondence between Fermat, Wallis, Frénicle, Digby, Brouncker and van Schooten). It adds to the previous edition two of Fermat's letters, discovered by J.E. Hofman. The texts are preceded by a 120-page introduction, and followed by a substantial appendix.

FERREYROLLES, GÉRARD. "Régimes religieux du littéraire, régimes littéraires du religieux." Littératures Classiques 39, 5–13.

Introduction to the issue of Littératures Classiques (Spring 2000, #39) entitled "Littérature et religion."

FICHANT, MICHEL. Science et métaphysique dans Descartes et Leibniz. Paris: PUF, 1998.

Review: J.-L. Gardies in RPFE 124.4 (1999), 557–9: A collection of thirteen previously-published studies: the first 3 concerning Descartes, the following 9 Leibniz, and the final one Cassirer.

FRANCILLON, FRANÇOIS, ed. Livres des délibérations de l'Eglise réformée de l'Albenc (1606–1682). Paris: Champion, 1998.

Review: M. Carbonnier-Burkard in DSS 206 (2000), 143–144: A collection of records of the deliberations of consistories, tribunals consisting of a pastor and church elders who were charged with enforcing discipline for minor infractions (dancing, swearing) and serious offenses against church doctrine. Includes index of geographical and proper names and biographical sketches. "Le texte brut des registres livre une mine d'informations vivantes sur cette Eglise réformée du Dauphiné au XVIIe siècle."

GALLI PELLEGRINI, ROSA. "Quand l'autre est une plante: les fougères d'Amérique, le Père Charles Plumier et ses problèmes de lexique" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 237–244.

Study of the 17th century botanist's description of the exotic natural world of America.

GARAVINI, FAUSTA. La Maison des jeux: science du roman et roman de la science au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1998.

Review: J. Mallinson in FS 54.3 (2000), 357–8: Garavini's wide-ranging book, first published in Italian in 1980, opened up areas of study which have been revisited in recent years: "the search for truth in fictional and scientific writing of the 1620s, the self-reflexive nature of 'realist' novels, the evolving view of social life as a game." Two-thirds of her work is devoted to Sorel, and the rest to writers including Scarron, Furetière, and Molière. Garavini's examination of Francion "remains one of the most probing of this now much discussed novel, in particular her analysis of its transformation over three editions." This translation will help give Garavini's analysis of Sorel the wide circulation it deserves.

GARBER, DANIEL and MICHAEL AYERS, eds. The Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Philosophy: Vols. 1 and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.

Review: D. P. McKay et al. In RenQ 51 (1998), 1071: Praised for its "encompassing overview of European philosophy in the seventeenth century," the work comprises thematically-arranged contributions by specialists (religious, moral, occultist, institutional, etc.). Extensive bibliographies, indices, and appendices.

GONTIER, THIERRY. De l'Homme à l'animal. Paradoxes sur la nature des animaux. Montaigne et Descartes. Paris: Vrin, 1998.

Review: A. Tripet in BHR 62. 1 (2000), 212–14: "Le titre agréablement accrocheur de cette étude ne doit pas égarer l'homme d'aujourd'hui. On ne vas pas assister à l'inversion de l'ordre devenu traditionnel de l'évolutionnisme ni remonter à nos origines. Le sous-titre met en relief des paradoxes d'un tout autre ordre: il s'agit de philosophie et, essentiellement, de la réflexion dérangeante sur les animaux aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles sous l'égide de Montaigne, d'abord, de Descartes, ensuite. On sait que leurs positions sont diamétralement antithétiques et on a pris l'habitude de réfléchir au problème dont il est question en comparant les contenus respectifs."

GRELL, OLE PETER and BOB SCRIBNER, eds. Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1996.

Review: M. P. Holt in RenQ 51 (1998), 659–660: Praised for its convincing arguments, in the 16 well-documented essays, against the traditional paradigm that "ideas of toleration . . . led to changes in lived religious experience to produce religious pluralism"(659). Instead of any "philosophical commitment to religious toleration," the essays show that the deciding factor was expediency, political or social (659). Singles out for its fine systematic analysis Philip Benedict's treatment of the Huguenot situation in France.

HASELER, JENS, and ANTONY MCKENNA, eds. La Vie intellectuelle aux Refuges protestants. (Actes de la Table ronde de Munster du 25 juillet 1995). Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.

Review: J. Voisine in RLC 293.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 104–106: This collection of fifteen round-table papers treats the intellectual role of three principal refuges for French Protestants from 1680 to 1710: Holland, Prussia, and Ireland.

HAZTENBERGER, ANTOINE. "Le texte de la loi. Philosophie, droit et rhétorique à l'Âge classique." Littératures Classiques, 40, 2000, 35–52.

The 17th century, often thought as a period of transition characterized by the inheritance of Roman law, as well as by conceptual hesitations, is however also notable for its own specificity in the field of Philosophy of law, which was to ". . .ciseler un centralisme étatique dominé par l'obsession formaliste." Starting with Rousseau's reading of the School of Natural Law, the author shows how the questions of the foundation and of the expression of law are articulated around the notion of "texte de la loi".

HELLER, HENRY. Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500–1620. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 1996.

Review: P. O. Long in RenQ 51 (1998), 233–234: Judged "most welcome" both for its "erudite discussion of certain aspects of French history" and its "bold new interpretive framework," the volume stresses "class conflict, changes in the structure of labor, and the on-going advancement of the bourgeois class" rather than the "longue durée" of the Annales group of historians. Reviewer suggests that study would have been enriched by "closer attention to . . . contexts of authorship, patronage, and readership" (234).

HILLMAN, DAVID and CARLA MAZZIO, eds. The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Review: D. P. McKay et al. in RenQ 51 (1998), 728–729: Essays on parts of the body answer the question, "Why did sixteenth and seventeenth century medical, religious and literary texts so often imagine the body in parts?" (728). Reflections and analyses on the "symbolics of physiological parts challenge assumptions about the whole body as a fundamental image of self, society, and nation"(728). Index.

HOFFMANN, KATHRYN A. "Structures of the Body, Eruptions of the Imaginary: Medieval Science in the Ancien Régime." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 73–90.

Distinguishing between "fact" and "fancy," author emphasizes the latter with respect to medical science's interpretation of the female body. Texts examined serve as vehicles for curious theories of sexuality and reproduction.

HOUDARD, SOPHIE. "Expérience et écriture des 'choses de l'autre vie' chez Jean-Joseph Surin. Littératures Classiques 39, 331–347.

Study of "La Science expérimentale des choses de l'autre vie" of Jean-Joseph Surin (the exorcist of Jeanne des Anges, Superior of the Ursulines of Loudun) centered on the notion of "experience" around which is created a spiritual experimental community on the model of the scientific community.

HOUDARD, SOPHIE. "Quand l'autre ressemble au même: le traître dissimulé" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 357–366.

Themes of the "complot", of "conjuration", of "faux chrétien" in the first third of the 17th century.

HSIA, FLORENCE C. "Some observations on the Observations. The decline of the French Jesuit scientific mission in China." RdS 120.2/3 305–333.

By examining the various Parisian editions of French Jesuit scientific work carried out on the China mission, the Observations (1688, 1692, 1729), Hsia traces the declining fortunes of the French Jesuit scientific mission to the dissolution of its alliance with the Académie des sciences and to its difficulties in sustaining a corporate identity and collective vision as investigators of natural phenomena.

HUNTER, MICHAEL, ed. Archives of the Scientific Revolution: The Formation and Exchange of Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Europe. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydelle Press, 1998.

Review: D. Chambers in UTQ, 69.2 (spring 2000), 615–618: "Archives of the Scientific Revolution is an account by various scholars of the archives of Galileo, Hartlib, Boyle, Newton, Leibniz, Christiaan Huygens, Marcello Malpighi, Sir William Petty, Ismaël Bouillau, and the archives of the Royal Society and the French Académie des Sciences. The world that this collection of essays examines is one in which the appropriation and reappropriation of ideas make a nonsense of rigorous codes of plagiarism or scholarly possession."
Review: A. E. Shapiro in Isis, 90.4 (1999), 804: "Although Archives of the Scientific Revolution may not offer profound or novel insights into scientific archives, its contributors ably describe a large number of collections and compel the reader to think about broader issues concerning them." Deals mainly with Galileo, Leibniz, and Newton; there is an essay by Christiane Demeulenaere-Douyère and David Sturdy on the Académie des Sciences.

JACQUES-CHAQUIN, NICOLE, and SOPHIE HOUDARD, eds. Curiosité et 'libido sciendi' de la Renaissance aux Lumières. Fontenay / Saint-Cloud: E.N.S. éditions, 1998. 2 vols.

Review: B. Krajewska in RSH 256.4 (1999), 161–164: A collection of seminar papers which has as its goal "de se pencher sur la notion de curiosité dans son rapport à la connaissance, en Europe entre les XVIe et XVIIIe siècles, notamment sur l'évolution de la notion de la curiosité, sur la 'libido sciendi' comme principe constitutif de l'homme dans divers domaines — théologique, moral, psycho-physiologique ou autre — sur la place de la curiosité dans l'évolution des classifications du savoir, sur les mythes et les fables de la curiosité, sur les représentations littéraires et picturales de la curiosité, enfin sur les 'objets' de la curiosité. . . L'âge classique distinguait soigneusement une mauvaise curiosité née de l'égoïsme et une bonne, tournée vers la connaissance."

JANOWSKI, ZBIGNIEW. "Is Descartes' Conception of the Soul Orthodox?" RMM no.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 39–55.

In bringing in Leo X's encyclical Apostolici Regiminis (1513) to support his conception of the soul, Descartes used a papal document for a purpose contrary to its original intention.

JOLY, BERNARD. "Rhétorique de l'alchimie au XVIIe siècle: cacher l'échec et diffuser la doctrine." DSS 207 (2000), 221–233.

A fascinating reading of alchemical treatises that explores the tension between the writers' stated desire to clarify and publicize their experiments and their deliberately obscure rhetoric. Because they remained essentially chemists (favoring distillation, for example, to the transmutation of metals), most alchemists, Joly argues, contributed to the advancement of science.

JULLIEN, VINCENT. "Silences cosmologiques." DSS 207 (2000), 235–256.

Author contends that the polemic surrounding Copernican heliocentrism occupied a small place in the writings of Pascal, Descartes and Gassendi. Jullien interrogates their mutisme on this subject in contrast to their audacity with regard to more heretical questions.

KAPP, VOLKER. "Instruction des femmes et politique chrétienne dans La Galerie des femmes fortes du Père Le Moyne." Littératures Classiques 39, 51–66.

Study of the "Galerie" of the Jesuit author, showing that the strong women depicted embody the principles of a Christian philosophy which includes politics. The "galerie" is thus a lesson in moral philosophy and Christian politics for its (mainly feminine) readers.

KELLY, VAN. "The Play of Utopia and Dystopia: Mindscape and Landscape in Descartes and Poussin." EMF: Studies in Early Modern France 4 (1998), 125–164.

Shedding new light on the comparison between Descartes's work and Poussin's Phocion paintings, the author locates a quality of "eurythmie" in philosophical writing and historical painting. This quality is based on harmonies sought in the thought process and the composition of the image. However, Descartes and Poussin differ in their approaches to the past: while the philosopher dismisses it as a source of conceptual imperfections, the painter prefers to locate in the past a well-spring of cautionary tales.

LACOUR, CLAUDIA BRODSKY. Lines of Thought: Discourse, Architectonics, and the Origin of Modern Philosophy. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996.

Review: T. J. Reiss in MP, 97.3 (Feb. 2000), 465–468: "Lines of Thought is entirely dedicated to analyzing certain of Descartes' writings, albeit with a brief consideration of Charles Perrault. (...) Lines of Thought thus sets out to show how architectonic form became foundational in modern philosophical thinking but also how it was necessarily concealed, since it could only tell itself in discursive production."

LAUDE, PATRICK. "L'intelligence contemplative et l'expérience du temps et de l'espace dans la mystique de pur amour et de simple regard." Littératures Classiques 39, 349–361.

Study of the "contemplative movement" of Jeanne Guyon, Malaval, and Fénelon. The author concludes by recognizing that in this movement a "science du coeur" is joined to a purely analytical perception of time and space.

LESAULNIER, JEAN. "Jean Chapelain et Antoine Le Maistre: histoire d'une amitié contrariée." DSS 205 (1999), 609–632.

Article describes the religious retreat of the Jansenist Le Maistre, examines the favorable and unfavorable responses to his withdrawal from the world, and evaluates Le Maistre's own discussion of his retreat and its motivations.

LESTRINGANT, FRANK, éd. La France-Amérique (XVe–XVIIIe). Actes du XXXVe Colloque international d'études humanistes. Paris: Champion, 1998.

Review: D. P. McKay et al. in RenQ 51 (1998), 1077–78: Important and diverse volume of essays treating France's response (literary, philosophical, scientific, religious, and artistic) to the "knowledge and conquest of the New World" (1077). Complete list of authors and essays. Wide variety of topics includes cartography, economy and Christianization of slaves, among others.

LESTRINGANT, FRANK. "Machines d'oubli (XVIe – XVIIe siècles)." RSH 256.4 (1999), 11–33.

In his analyses of Calvin, Antoine Arnauld, Jean Claude, Marc Lescarbot, and Jean de Léry, the author argues that forgetfulness functions in a plot of machination that has as a goal the rewriting of ecclesiastic history to the advantage of Catholic, Protestant, and the French colonialist.

LEVINE, ALAN, ed. Early Modern Skepticism and the Origins of Toleration. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999.

Review: D.L. Schaeffer in p&L 24 (2000), 227–230: The volume includes what Schaeffer refers to as "a judicious and balanced selection of authors and topics" treating Montaigne, Bodin, Charron, Descartes, Spinoza, the Levellers, Hobbes, Locke, Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot. Schaeffer praises the "generally superior essays."

MALBREIL, GERMAIN. "Réfléxions sur l'amour de Dieu." RPFE 1137 (2000), 201–215.

Demonstrates that mystical theologians François de Sales and Jean-Pierre Camus characterize the relationship between God and the mystics as one of reciprocal love. Traces the evolution of this concept in Spinoza and Simone Weil.

MARINER, FRANCIS. Histoires et autobiographies spirituelles: Les Mémoires de Fontaine, Lancelot et du Fossé. Tubingen: Narr, 1998.

Review: H. Phillips in MLR 95. 1 (2000), 213–14: "Well-argued and interesting" study "investigate[s] the writing of memoirs, where ownership of the text is a major preoccupation, using three major contributory figures to the history of Jansenism." M. examines "how the author legitimizes the personal act of writing" and "the manner of writing and what the writing of memoirs represents."

MARTIN, HENRI-JEAN. The French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715. Trans.Paul andNadine Saenger. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996.

Review: F. J. Baumgartner in RenQ 51 (1998), 644–645: This series of lectures at Johns Hopkins U in 1993 by "the expert on early modern French printing" is "nicely translated"(644–645). Martin describes an early modern print shop, examines responses by both Church and French monarchy to printing, and treats the reading public (including successes of Protestant and Jansenist books, despite policies of control). Illustrations, no bibliography.

MASSIGNAT, CORINNE. "Gassendi et l'élasticité de l'air: une étape entre Pascal et la loi de Boyle-Mariotte." RHSA, 2000, 53/2, 179–203.

"SUMMARY—It is generally assumed that the 17th-century works about air and its properties were produced during two periods. The first, begun by Torricelli, led to Pascal's barometric experiments in 1648. Taking its findings into account, air's elasticity and Boyle-Mariotte's law were discovered during the second one, in 1662 and 1676. In this article, I show that Pierre Gassendi, who was active during the first period, took a now forgotten, crucial step in the scientific elaboration of the notion of air's elastic pressure. His rather unusual conception of atomism, absent from Pascal's vision, enabled him to think of air's compressibility and its elastic pressure as early as the end of 1648. The presence, both implicit and explicit, of this thinking in the intellectual contexts of Mariotte in France and Boyle in England justifies viewing Gassendi's work as an essential link between Pascal and Boyle-Mariotte's law."

MAZAURIC, SIMONE. Gassendi, Pascal et la querelle du vide. Paris: PUF, 1998.

Review: N. Hammond in FS 54.1 (2000), 81: This clear and concise work goes a long way towards contextualizing the debate of the "querelle du vide." The first part of the book examines the origins of the debate about whether or not nature abhors a vacuum, including the positions of Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Descartes and Gassendi. The second part concentrates on various practical experiments up to and including Pascal's crucial Puy de Dôme test. The final part concerns the theoretical implications of the "querelle", concentrating on the influence of Gassendi on Pascal.

McKENNA, ANTONY and ALAIN MOTHU, eds. La Philosophie clandestine à l'âge classique: actes du colloque de l'Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne du 29 septembre au 2 octobre 1993. Paris: Universitas - Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1997.

Review: M. Gauna in FS 53.4 (1999), 467. These published proceedings are grouped under four headings: general field of philosophical clandestine literature, problems of attribution, readings of the texts, and finally their sources, influence, and diffusion. "The very disparity of that material ensures that any student of the history of ideas — not just of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but of earlier and later periods too — will find here much food for thought."

MENTZER, RAYMOND A., JR. Blood&Belief. Family Survival and Confessional Identity among the Provincial Huguenot Nobility. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue UP, 1994.

Review: I. Mieck in HZ 265 (1997), 488–89: Creates a four-hundred year history of the Laeger family from impressive consultation of archives. Well-documented and important for questions of social history, marriage, confessional identity in Early Modern France. Indices.

MOREAU, P.-F. et al. Le Stoïcisme au XVIe et XVIIe siècles: le retour des philosophies antiques à l'Age classique. Paris: Albin Michel, 1999.

Review: M. Lebiez in QL 770 (du 1er au 15 oct. 1999), 18: L'ouvrage dirigé par Moreau se présente "comme une succession de monographies classées dans un ordre historique, du XVe siècle avec Alberti et Mantegna jusqu'à l'extrême fin du XVIIe, avec les Exercices de Shaftesbury. Cette vingtaine d'études offre un bouquet varié, dont les fleurs plairont diversement. Certains textes ont l'aridité de travaux universitaires, d'autres sont plus immédiatement séduisants. Mais l'ensemble a un mérite rare: il éclaire les fondements d'une pensée classique finalement mal connue à force de l'être apparemment trop bien. En outre, second motif d'éloge, il ouvre grand les fenêtres, vers des disciplines aussi éloignées de la philosophie et de la religion que la médecine, la chimie ou la peinture, mais aussi vers des pays souvent négligés dans nos études obstinément francocentristes."

MUIR, EDWARD. Ritual in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Review: J. S. Grubb in RenQ 52 (1999), 221–23: Useful for advanced undergraduates and graduates, Muir's study "offers a synthesis of a well-established field" (221). Sections treat rituals of time, the calendar, rites of passage, representations, religious observances, political ritual. Argues successfully that "cultural values in the long run are just as significant as, or more significant, than events." Bibliography and glossary.

NIDERST, ALAIN, ed. Le Diable. Paris: Nizet, 1997.

Review: M. Demaules in RSH 256.4 (1999), 165–167. ". . .le recueil progresse selon un ordre chronologique depuis le Moyen Âge jusqu'au XXe siècle et se donne un large champ d'enquête puisque loin de se cantonner à la littérature ou à la théologie françaises, il ouvre des perspectives sur le productions culturelles allemande, espagnole, écossaise, irlandaise et russe."

OLAIZOLA, RUTH. "Les jésuites et l'utopie du 'comédien honnête' aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles." RdS 120.2/3 (1999), 381–407.

Focuses on the unknown actor's figure, central in the theatrical activity of the Jesuit colleges at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. Olaizola attempts to decipher the portrait of the Christian actor, an antiactor invested by all the strength of truth whose image is feigned by the comedian.

O'MALLEY, JOHN W. ed. The Jesuits: Cultures, sciences and the arts, 1540–1773. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1999.

Review: A. Shell in TLS 5072 (Jun 16 2000), 32: Essays explore ways in which Jesuits sought relationships among various disciplines. Discussion of "effectiveness and precise nature of Jesuit management strategy." Volume strongly stresses the Jesuit contributions to physical science and technology.

O'MALLEY, JOHN W. Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000.

Review: A. Shell in TLS 5072 (Jun 16 2000), 32: Book examines problem of viewing the post-Reformation Catholic Church only in terms of reaction against Protestantism, only as a "Counter-Reformation." An "important study" in which O'Malley "engages in a creative dialogue with approaches which, though imperfect, are likely to stay around."

PAIGE, NICHOLAS. "Je, l'Autre et la possession; ou, pourquoi l'autobiographie démoniaque n'a jamais constitué un genre" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 385–392.

Study of Madeleine Bavent's Confession, autobiography of the main character of the "possession de Louviers," the last major episode of possession in 17th century France. The autobiographical text is seen as a parasite on a cultural phenomenon which was becoming extinct, and illustrates the triumph of the "I" over the "Other".

PAPASOGLI, BENEDETTA. "La parole trouvée au fond de l'abîme: les Cantiques spirituels de Jean-Joseph Surin." Littératures Classiques 39, 317–330.

Study of "Les Cantiques spirituels de l'Amour divin" of Jean-Joseph Surin, the exorcist of Jeanne des Anges, superior of the Ursulines of Loudun.

PIQUE, NICOLAS. "Origine, Tradition et Histoire: éléments pour une généalogie du concept d'histoire" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 253–264.

Study of the genealogy of the concept of history, in the corpus of theological controversies between Protestants and Catholics before and after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

RAPPOPORT, MELINDA. "L'impossible oubli: un paradigme de la vision antithétique dans la poésie apocalyptique à la fin du XVI siècle." RSH 256.4 (1999), 79–97.

In the poetry of Jacques de Billy, Michel Quillian, and Jude Serclier, forgetfulness of God is the mark and the cause of damnation in man.

RAPPAPORT, RHODA. When Geologists were Historians, 1665–1750. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997.

Review: G. Gohau in RHSA 53/2 (2000) 322: "Ce qu'elle vise, dans le présent ouvrage, c'est l'époque, à cheval sur les XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, où les géologues mesurent l'histoire du globe dans les mêmes unités de temps que les historiens.(. . .) Un livre dense, riche, appuyé sur une bibliographie de quelque mille titres, qu'on ne saurait trop recommander."

RENAULT, LAURENCE. "La réalité objective dans les Premières objetions aux Méditations métaphysiques: Ockham contre Descartes." RMM no.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 29–38.

This article points out the ockhamist inspiration of the arguments of Caterus against the cartesian notion of the idea's objective reality in the First Objections.

ROBERTS, GARETH. The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and Books from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1994.

Review: H. S. Lang in RenQ 51 (1998), 266–267: A welcome study which treats not only alchemy in se, but also its role informing and influencing other disciplines such as philosophy, poetry, and the visual arts. Includes important reproductions from the British Library, a glossary, bibliography, appendix, and indices. Fills a lacuna as it presents, analyzes and illustrates material crucial to several disciplines including the sciences (notably physics and biology) as well as the arts and the humanities.

ROBIC DE BAECQUE, SYLVIE. "Romans et dévotion au XVIIe siècle." Littératures Classiques 39, 29–49.

Evolution of the novel at the end of the Seventeenth-Century, still dependant on the inter-relationship of literature and religious devotion. "La Princesse de Clèves" is seen as "une mise en abyme de l'impossibilité d'un roman dévot, de l'aporie des relations entre romanesque et dévotion."

RONEY, JOHN B. and MARTIN I. KLAUBER, eds. The Identity of Geneva: The Christian Commonwealth, 1564–1864. Westport, CT and London: Greenwood, 1998.

Review: D. P. McKay in RenQ 51 (1998), 1412: Focus is the Reformation's impact on Geneva, political unity, international reputation, and leadership. Essays treat exegetical, theological, educational, and socio-political issues.

SALEM, JEAN, éd. L'Atomisme aux 17e et 18e siècles. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1999.

Review: BCLF 621 (2000), 1237–38: "Parmi les communications de cette journée d'études sur 'l'Atomisme aux 17e et 18e siècles ' organisée [le 26 octobre 1997] par le Centre d'histoire des systèmes de pensée moderne se rencontrent d'excellentes études portant sur des sujets particuliers: le vide chez Pascal (lequel distingue cette question de celle de l'atome, à la différence des atomistes antiques); Descartes et l'atomisme (amenant à distinguer la question des corps et de la substance étendue, divisible à l'infini, de celle de l'atome); Leibniz et l'atomisme antique; Galilée et l'atome (incluant une étude sur les disciples de Galilée); Hume et la notion d'atome, etc."

SCHLIERF, NICHOLAS. "Finding the Bible in Seventeenth-Century French Politics: An Examination of Pamphlets from the Regency Crises of Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria. DAI (1999).

Diss. deals with how quotations from the Bible were used in support of both the monarchy and the rebellious nobility during the various Fronde revolts.

SCHMALTZ, TAD M. "What has Cartesianism to do with Jansenism?" JHI 60 (1999), 37–56.

Schmaltz uncovers the neglected figure of the Lorraine Benedictine Robert Desgabets (1610–1678), who was more involved than Arnauld in the 1671 "Eucharist Affair" and who tried to provide Cartesian foundations for a theology with strong Jansenist overtones, thereby shedding light on the association of Cartesianism and Jansenism in the seventeenth century.

SEDGWICK, ALEXANDER. The Travails of Conscience: The Arnauld Family and the Ancien Régime. Boston: Harvard, 1998.

Review: J. T. O'Connor in VQR, 76.1 (winter 2000), 177–183: Sedgwick "usefully reviews the changing fortunes of the extended Arnauld family from the 1500's through the mid-18th century. The effective organization of material is enhanced by Sedgwick's talent for exposition and his clear, graceful prose style. [...] Sedgwick includes a good genealogical chart together with extensive notes, lists of manuscript sources and printed primary sources, plus a generally serviceable index."

SHAPIN, STEVEN. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Review: J. Rogers in SCN 57 (1999), 239–241: Author adopts a "functionalist approach" ("What Was Known?," "How Was It Known?," "What Was the Knowledge For?") to study the "tense patterns of cross-fertilization among the period's politics, religion, philosophy, and natural history." "Because Shapin's book succeeds in its aim for accessibility, it is especially appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students of almost any aspect of seventeenth-century culture. Because The Scientific Revolution succeeds, too, in challenging the traditional reading of that historical phenomenon that was neither revolutionary nor even properly scientific, its usefulness extends to any scholar invested in early modern culture."

SIMON, GÉRARD. Sciences et savoirs aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Villeneuve-d'Ascq: P U du Septentrion, 1996.

Review: N. Roudet in EP (oct.-déc. 1999), 567–70: A "stimulating" collection of twelve articles by Simon, written between 1976 and 1993, dealing most notably with Porta, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton, and juxtaposing such diverse subjects as astronomy and astrology, physiognomy, dreams and fiction, optics and mechanics. According to Roudet, Simon challenges the reader to reflect on the uneasy cohabitation of "sciences et savoirs" "sans recourir aux catégories simplificatrices et 'faussement claires' issues de l'épistémologie bachelardienne." Roudet also applauds Simon's contribution, "dans le sillage de Michel Foucault," to a history of subjectivity.

SOUILLER, DIDIER. "Le théâtre religieux dans l'Espagne du Siècle d'Or: l'exemple de l'auto sacramental." Littératures Classiques 39, 67–79.

Study of the functioning of the auto sacramental in seventeenth-century Spain, a theatrical form uniting "les prestiges de la scène à l'évocation des concepts les plus importants de la théologie contemporaine." And questioning of the Spanish church approval and even sponsoring of the theatrical form it should theoretically reject. The author concludes that the auto sacramental is one manifestation of the rehabilitation of images initiated by the Council of Trente, and of the "mouvement de célébration du sacré par les arts visuels qui anime toute l'Europe et débouche, finalement, sur une réhabilitation du théâtre."

SPICA, ANNE-ÉLISABETH. "Une mise en Lettres de l'Écriture: emblématique et méditation au XVIIe siècle." Littératures Classiques 39, 17–28.

The author explore the relationship existing between emblematic writing and Scripture, between a new literary genre and the new form of devotion, the "exercice spirituel".

TARRÊTE, ALEXANDRE. "Le stoïcisme de Guillaume Du Vair, ou de l'utilité de la philosophie par gros temps." Littératures Classiques 37 (1999), 57–67.

"Ideological" reading of neo-stoicism: how philosophical themes are joined in Du Vair to political analysis, in his "premier stoïcisme" of the Henri III period, as well as in his "stoïcisme de combat en faveur d'Henri IV." His "engagement" sets this author aside within the stoic movement.

TODOROV, TZVETAN. Le Jardin imparfait: la pensée humaniste en France. Paris: Grasset, 1998.

Review: B. Fontana in TLS 5016 (May 21 1999), 12: Basic question of book is "how can we enjoy freedom without having to pay too high a price for it." In answer, Todorov turns to "good" moderns, including Montaigne, Descartes, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Constant. These theorists "combined the elaboration of personal liberty with the values of sociability and the pursuit of the common good in the public sphere."

TRACY, JAMES D.. Europe's Reformations, 1450–1650. Lanham, MD: Rowman&Littlefield Publishers, 2000.

Review: F. Fernandez-Armesto in NYT (11 June 2000), 28: Reviewer calls this "a well-informed, critical, independent-minded but essentially traditional view of the subject" but admits to disagreeing with many its propositions and assumptions. Treatment of key subjects is uneven. Tracy "takes it for granted that the Catholic and Protestant Reformations can be treated together, though in practice he gives little space to Catholicism. . . . He brilliantly summarizes research on urban reformations but leaves out the role of factionalism. . . . Not all his judgements are sound. He sticks to the view that the Reformation was an expression of anticlericalism, in defiance of most of the work done on this subject since 1925." The reviewer generally faults Tracy for focusing too much on theological rather than historical issues.

TREMOLIERES, FRANÇOIS. "Approches de l'indicible dans le courant mystique français (Bremond et Certeau lecteurs des mystiques)." DSS 207 (2000), 273–298.

Author begins by defining l'indicible as it was understood in the 17th century, then assesses the novelty and originality of mystical authors as interpreted by Bremond and Certeau.

VAN DAMME, STÉPHANE. "Écriture, institution et société. Le travail littéraire dans la Compagnie de Jésus en France (1620–1720)." RdS 120.2/3 (1999), 261–283.

Emphasizes the place and the process of literary activities in the Company of Jesus between 1620–1720 in France, by describing the attempts to create an intellectual apostolate.

VAN RULER, HAN. "Mind, Forms and Spirits: The Nature of Cartesian Disenchantment." JHI 61.3 (2000), 381–395.

Studies how Descartes' deanimation of the material world influenced the Dutch philosopher Balthasar Bekker and the Flemish philosopher Arnold Genlincx. He points to a new model of natural causality, the most striking aspect of which is that nature contains no "little souls," no spontaneous centers of activity.

VERSÉ, AUBERT DE. Traité de la liberté de conscience. Paris: Fayard, 1998.

Review: J.-P. Cavaillé in RPFE 1136 (2000), 132–133: A modern edition of a 1687 text, which is "d'abord consacré à fonder la notion de tolérance, et mérite tout à fait d'être comparé aux autres grands textes parus dans les mêmes années: la Lettre sur la tolérance de Locke (1689) et surtout le Commentaire philosophique de Bayle (1686). . . Comme les deux précédents, sa composition est inspirée par les persécutions dont sont victimes les protestants au lendemain de la révocation de l'édit de Nantes."

VINCIGUERRA, LUCIEN. Langage, visibilité, différence. Histoire du discours mathématique de l'âge classique au XIXe siècle. Paris: Vrin, 1999.

Review: J.-L. Gardies in RPFE 1136 (2000), 133–134: "Les mathématiques du passé one été profondément différentes de ce qu'elles nous apparaissent aujourd'hui. . . Ce thème est ici illustré par 《 quinze petites scènes 》 où sont étudiés successivement certains aspects de l'œuvre des mathématiciens aussi divers que Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Bernouilli, Euler, Arbogast, Carnot, Poncelet, Felix Klein, Hamilton, Boole et Puisieux. . . Au total, ce beau livre, qui se situe à l'opposé d'une histoire des sciences conçue comme établissement d'actes de naissance ou comme inventaire des innovation, elles-mêmes distinguées des simples reprises, réinventions et piétinements, mérite de susciter beaucoup de réactions, sauf l'indifférence."

WAGNER, MARIE-FRANCE et PIERRE-LOUIS VAILLANCOURT, eds. De la grâce et des vertus. Paris et Montréal: L'Harmattan, 1998.

Review: J. Le Brun in DSS 208 (2000), 544–545: Presented initially as conference papers, these essays explore literary and artistic manifestations of vertu and grâce, from virtue "au sens physique des corps saints à la vertu morale," to the relationship between the individual and the political (Machiavel). Another chapter explores 16th and 17th-c. debates about appetite, will, reason, and the Christian meaning of virtue. The reviewer notes that Augustinian, Molinist, and Jansenist disputes about grace are treated only secondarily in one chapter that includes an outdated bibliography. Le Brun concludes, "Il est dommage qu'un caractère un peu hâtif, bien des à-peu-près théologiques ou de contestables généralités sur la mystique et sur l'antimysticisme déparent un ouvrage qui n'est pas dépourvu de réflexions."

WILKIN, REBECCA. "L'Algonquin par abjection: Une mystique aborde le Nouveau Monde" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 31–46.

How did Marie de l'Incarnation approach the New World's otherness? Wilkin answers: first and foremost as a mystic: her mysticism is ". . .une épistémologie cohérente (. . .) où ses expériences individuelles se nouent et se confrontent à son statut de Femme."

ZARKA, YVES CHARLES. Philosophie et politique à l'âge classique. Paris: PUF, 1998.

Review: H. Bouchilloux in RPFE 1136 (2000), 136: Proposed goal: "écrire une histoire de la philosophie politique irréductible à l'histoire des idées politiques." Divided into seven parts which treat the theories of Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, Leibniz, Bodin, Harrington, Domat, Rousseau, Bayle, and Locke. B: "cet ouvrage éclaire non seulement plusieurs aspects de la pensée des divers auteurs convoqués, mais encore et surtout les enjeux philosophiques permanents que chacune de ces pensées ne laisse pas de comporter."

ZINGUER, ILANA and HEINZ SCHOTT, eds. Systèmes de pensée précartésiens: Etudes d'après le Colloque international organisé à Haïfa en 1994. Paris: Champion, 1998.

Review: D. P. McKay et al. in RenQ 51 (1998), 1080–81: Reviewer gives a complete list of these "wide-ranging essays which explore the significance of these [pre-cartesian] ways of thinking in the areas of medicine and alchemy, the arts and literature, and philosophy" (1080).

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