The “French Face” of Machiavelli

In an episode in the history of Machiavellian reception that would have a profound impact on European culture, whose effects are felt even today, the figure of Machiavelli simultaneously became immensely popular and greatly distorted. During the French Wars of Religion, anti-Machiavellism became a polemical weapon, used by both Catholics and Huguenots to slander their opponents. As Edmond M. Beame has put it, French pamphleteers who used Machiavelli's name indiscriminately, rather than serious scholars, were responsible for the “French face” of Machiavelli.

For three decades after his appearance in 1544 in French translation, Machiavelli remained tolerated in France, perhaps because this period coincided with the rise of a group of French scholars, such as Louise Le Roy, who began to consider questions of state as autonomous, even overriding those of religion. During this period reference to Machiavelli's name was infrequent. In his Methodus of 1566, Jean Bodin praises Machiavelli's republican thought; however, ten years later in his République he condemns Machiavelli and goes to great length to dissociate himself from the Florentine, despite the fact that his treatise agrees with him on many points. After the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1571, Machiavelli gained popularity among pamphleteers, who assigned him the status of spokesperson for whichever opponent they wished to attack: the crown, the Catholic League and most frequently the politiques.