Religious writing in the French seventeenth century is, to all intents and purposes, Christian and Catholic. Islam is accorded no more than a cursory treatment in the domain of apologetics; and Judaism tends to be viewed above all as a precursor of Christianity. It is presented as the flawed channel that makes way for, and by its very opposition affords additional credibility to, the revealed truth of the Incarnation. Even Protestant writing is scarce: the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV (1638–1715) in 1685 (denying the freedom of conscience to members of the ‘Religion Prétendue Réformée’ [the ‘so-called reformed religion’] granted by Henri IV in 1598) resulted in the exile of many of its adherents; and the single most celebrated Protestant text to be published earlier in the century, in the form of the epic account of the Huguenot cause during the Wars of Religion by Agrippa d'Aubigné (1552–1630) (Les Tragiques [1616–23]), shares more of the characteristics of the previous century by virtue both of its ethos and of its aesthetic.

Yet the written legacy of Catholic Christianity in the seventeenth century is of itself, perhaps surprisingly in view of the Roman church's authoritarian and monolithic reputation, a complex phenomenon, replete with argument, paradox, and dissent from ecclesial authority. Looking back to its origins in the narratives of the Incarnation and Redemption, historically recorded in the Gospels yet in many respects unclear as to their nature and implications (an ambiguity to which the early Christian councils bore witness in their painstaking formulation of orthodoxy), it could well be argued that some element of doctrinal controversy is likely to endure; but it is in a later event, the Council of Trent (1545–63), that the coexistence of conformity and plurality has its more immediate origins.