ABSTRACT
Until about the 1970s, seventeenth-century France was usually viewed in the most contradictory terms by scholars. In the very period when new instruments of political information began to flourish in France, it was claimed, particularly strict controls regulated their use. The seventeenth century was the century of the periodical press; and while notices of every kind proliferated, improvements in the postal system aided in their diffusion. However, theories concerning absolutist order and control consigned government affairs to the realm of the ‘secret of the prince.’ And, scholars insisted, the theories were carried out in practice. Censored and manipulated from above, the new proponents of information functioned mainly for encouraging consensus, while critical reflection, excluded from political matters, sought expression in literary and artistic fields. There a ‘public sphere’ would be formed, the bearer of modernity.1
