Fighting for truth or through truth? Construction and restriction of the truth in the polemics printed by zealous Catholics during French Wars of Religion (1585-1629)

The truth is known to constitute the essence of libels, i.e. the short printed texts produced during Early Modernity. This contribution aims to study how fabricating and restricting the truth were constitutive of the zealous Catholics’ identity during French Wars of Religion (1585-1629). It will consider at a glance three corpuses produced in distinct contexts (1585-1594, 1614-1615 and 1620-1629) but sharing many common discursive features, notably in terms of the structuring of truth in a polemical context. To explain how and why zealous Catholics have constructed the real while claiming to reveal the truth, this investigation will show (1) which evidentiary regimes were most commonly used in libels in order to legitimate or hide their fabrication of the truth – rhetoric of evidence, false proofs and direct testimony, ... – and (2) how did the zealous Catholics considerably narrow the field of truth – accusation of falsity, condemnation of diversity, rejection of the ‘third way’, ... Using the interplay of scales between discursive practices and societal issues, the investigation will consider both the argumentative strategies and the politico-religious objectives of those who produced the texts studied.