La polémique autour de L'Ambassadeur de Jean Hotman : culture et diplomatie au temps de la paix de Lyon
Abstracts
In 1603, Jean Hotman de Villiers published in French a booklet : L'Ambassadeur. A son of François Hotman, the author of Franco-Gallia, Hotman had studied in Oxford, had been the secretary of the count of Leicester, then followed his uncle, an ambassador in Switzerland, and later on he was himself for Henri IV in charge of the difficult Kleve-Jülich affair. In a context of general peace — Vervins and Lyon, then London and the Twelve Years Truce — the kingdom of France was again an important actor on the European theatre, and for the king it was important to have ambassadors to defend the French point of view in front of the Habsburgian powers. This reflexion about diplomacy participated to the reconstruction of the State after the religious struggles : a new monarchy was emerging trying to conciliate authority and progress, under the absolute and independent will of the sovereign. It was also a way to encourage a mobilisation of the French subjects behind their king, after forty years of civil war, in order to assume an international rule in Europe. Hotman's booklet was not very original, but it was no longer a Latin treatise, difficult to read, but this brilliant essay with personal memories and remarks should have been attractive for the learned circles.
References
Electronic reference
Lucien Bély, “La polémique autour de L'Ambassadeur de Jean Hotman : culture et diplomatie au temps de la paix de Lyon”, Cahiers d'histoire [Online], 46-2 | 2001, Online since , connection on 19 May 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ch/233; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ch.233
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