ABSTRACT
The development of economic publishing in the French language, which flourished during the Enlightenment, is all too often still regarded as a simple epiphenomenon which can safely be ignored when considering the history of economic thought. However, the inventory of this ancient library in political economy is rich in information concerning the various forms adopted in the practice of an emerging discipline. Such a project requires both a quantitative approach, rather unusual in the history of thought, and the rejection of the various hierarchies that were subsequently instituted with regard to these works of the past.
