De Rome à Amsterdam Religion et raison chez le jeune Montesquieu

Montesquieu’s first works, the Dissertation sur la politique des Romains dans la religion, presented in 1716 at the Académie of Bordeaux and the Lettres persanes (1721), as well the “Notes sur Cicéron” (unpublished before 2016), show that the young author from the outset considers religion in relation to society (even as a means of domination skilfully mastered by those in power); a reader of Bayle, and also Jean Le Clerc, he discovered the audacity of thought coming out of England.