Un « nouveau dictionnaire » ? Les huguenots face aux transformations du langage politique dans la France des années 1610-1620

In many passages in his political writings, Agrippa d’Aubigné explains the weakening of the Huguenot party at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII by its adoption of a new political language, which surrendered its most radical elements to approach the irenic ideology of the royal power. This paper intents to test d’Aubigné’s intuition, and shows that, while Huguenots indeed adopted a new political language, it did not alter their political engagements. D’Aubigné does, however, shed light on a debate that took place within the party on the use of language. After the Wars of Rohan, partisan language became more and more systematically linked to a religious violence that the edicts of pacification had been intending to eradicate; Huguenots then completely abandoned it in the political sphere, preferring the use of a language of obedience.