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220.More information
This article aims to clarify the rhetorical strategies at work in the correspondence of Henri III—notably in the diplomatic letters or letters to multiple recipients, usually intended for broader circulation than the personal letters—so as to highlight an element, if not propagandist, at least strongly apologetic, by which the king sought to consolidate and expand his power. Henri forestalled the negative presumptions entertained in his regard via the systematic modulation of his ethos in function of the circumstances and persons concerned. This modulation is neither random, Machiavellian, nor the result of disordered conduct, but corresponds, rather, to the sovereign's idea of eloquence as an instrument of subjection.