Modern Language Review

MLR, 104.3, 2009 861 Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de la vie d'Agrippa dAubigne. By La Chapelle. Ed. by Gilles Banderier. Paris: Champion. 2008.115 pp. 31. ISBN 978 2-7453-1547-2. La Chapelle's memoires are transmitted to us through twomanuscripts dating from the second half of the seventeenth century.While one of thesewas already known to scholars, the other, used as the basis for the present edition, came to light as a result of a serendipitous discovery by Gilles Banderier in the Bibliotheque de la Direction de l'Enseignement Militaire Superieur de Armee de Terre in 1996. The manuscript is elegantly presented and written in a stylish hand. This supports the hypothesis that it may have been the original manuscript of thework commissioned byMadame de Maintenon (second, secretwife of Louis XIV) in the 1670s in order to justifyher claim tobe descended from a noble line. What thememoires describe, therefore, are less the historical facts of d'Aubigne's life, which would in any case be more accurately and comprehensively represented in theHistoire universelle, than an authorized biography' produced with the collaboration and support of his family some fiftyyears afterhis death. As a consequence, thememoires propose a vision of d'Aubigne as a valiant warrior who fought bravely to protect the interests of Henry of Navarre, whose royal house was still in power when the work was penned, overlooking theways inwhich his fame as a Protestant dissident might jarwith the family's reversion to Catholicism in the subsequent generation. This edition is timely for a number of reasons. Firstly, Madame de Maintenon is a figure who is receiving increasing amounts of attention, especially in the light of John J. Conley's recent edition and translation of her Dialogues and Addresses (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004). Secondly, it contributes to our understanding of the emerging genres of thememoire and biographical writing in the late seventeenth century. Thirdly, itwill be of interest to scholars ofmilitary and religious history, especially those concerned with the historical reception of thewars of religion and the history of Protestantism. Finally, itwill enrich the study of the history of the book in the seventeenth century, opening up new perspectives on the endurance of manuscript publication in a period when print circulation might be considered to have been the norm. University of Liverpool pollie bromilow lVArtd'aimer au siede des Lumieres. By Stephanie Loubere. (SVEC, 2007:11) Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. 2007. vii+344 pp. ?65. ISBN 978-0-7294 0917-9. On 5March 1802 Joubertnotes: 'Ce vers ridicule de La Mothe: "La sci-ence d'aimer s'est perfecti-onne-e", bon ? envoyer ?M. de Saint-P[ierre].' The authors concerned, La Motte, whose Odes were published in 1709, and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who continued towrite in the early nineteenth century, show how important 'la science d'aimer was during thewhole of theEnlightenment. Stephanie Loubere's thesis, on a subject suggested byMichel Delon, a debt she fails to recognize, is published by ...