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Introduction In France, the period from the 1520s to 1750 saw the appearance of Protestant Bibles, in French, with or without notes, and often published in very difficult circumstances. It was also what has been called the ‘Golden Age of the Catholic Bible’, with the publication of many works inspired by Port-Royal and circles close to it. The Protestants It was around the Bible that the Protestant identity was, to a large extent, forged, in France as elsewhere. Many factors – the new demands and perspectives introduced by the Renaissance and humanism, the emergence of printing, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the politico-religious battles and the questioning of the role of the clergy – combined to explain the rapid appearance of Bibles in French which, while they cannot yet be called ‘Protestant’, nevertheless represented a break with the medieval past. The concern of the authors was now to establish the text and to translate it into the vernacular for the laity, sometimes with the addition of explanatory notes. The successive editions of the Protestant Bibles, some more open to the contemporary world, others more traditional, attest to the changing mentalities and perspectives of their translators. Three periods can be distinguished: from the 1520s to the end of the sixteenth century; Protestant Bibles from 1598 to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685); and from the Revocation to around 1750. From the 1520s to the end of the sixteenth century In 1523 there appeared, as a preliminary to a complete edition of the Bible, the Nouveau Testament of Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples; the translation was based on the Vulgate, but with some corrections from the Greek. After that, the next important stage was the publication in Antwerp, on 10 December 1530, of the same author's The Holy Bible in French, translated according the to pure and complete translation by St Jerome … , with extensive commentaries; it was republished in 1534. Lefevre d’Etaples emphasised the prime role that the Bible, ‘rule of life and rule of salvation’, should play in the Christian life; 1534 was also the year of publication of Luther's complete Bible in German, followed, in 1536, by the first edition of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion .

Les guerres de Religion n’ont laisse dans le monde monastique que des ruines. Pour retablir un monachisme parfois deconsidere, des les annees 1610-1620 et apres plusieurs tentatives avortees un certain nombre de monasteres benedictins francais se regroupent dans ce qui devient la congregation de Saint-Maur. Les religieux entendent agir dans l’esprit du concile de Trente 1, selon de nouvelles perspectives a la fois respectueuses de la Regle de saint Benoit et a l’ecoute des valeurs du  siecle, et enfin selon les visees du pouvoir royal. Cette reforme qui connait un grand succes (il y aura en France quelque cent quatre-vingt-dix etablissements mauristes) a defini ce qu’on peut appeler un monachisme renouvele.

Chédozeau Bernard. L’histoire religieuse au XVIIe siècle. L’histoire de l’Église, ou histoire ecclésiastique, et les Collectiones conciliorum. In: Littératures classiques, n°43, automne 2001. Le temps au XVIIe siècle. pp. 163-180.

Chédozeau Bernard. D'une religion baroque ?. In: Littératures classiques, n°36, printemps 1999. Le baroque en question(s) pp. 109-125.

Chédozeau Bernard. Pour une périodisation des rapports entre littérature et religion au XVIIe s. In: Littératures classiques, n°34, automne 1998. La périodisation de l’âge classique. pp. 103-117.

Le traite De la Grandeur de Nicole etudie les sources et les formes de la noblesse. Apres avoir presente « la grandeur chretienne » (le pouvoir politique est participation au pouvoir de Dieu ; l’ordre politique une « invention admirable » ; Pascal et Nicole), l’auteur definit une nouvelle signification de la grandeur glissant vers l’ordre de fonction. Abordant le difficile probleme du grand chretien, Nicole voit en lui un ministre et un modele ; il denonce la trahison des grands et insiste sur le difficile salut du grand. La definition theorique du grand comme haut fonctionnaire elu par Dieu se revele etre exclusive de la realite quotidienne, aussi bien pour le grand considere comme ministre que pour le grand comme modele.