Abstract: The humanist Nicolas Clénard (1495-1542), decided to learn Arabic, set off in search of a master throughout Western Europe, from Paris to Fez. He ended up mastering Arabic and he retraced his entire career in latin letters. The Arab-Muslim world is no longer a foreign space but part of the world to which it belongs. This transformation illustrates the individual mechanisms of migration and allows us to think about what an accumulation of knowledge, through direct experience, does to the subject.