Abstract: During the last two centuries of the Ancien Régime, royal censorship took a major step and was imposed to the whole book production and excluded any other authority. From then on, royal censorship assumed a role that went far beyond a mere control on the innocuousness of writings. This position made royal censorship a prominent relay for the European République des lettres. As paradoxical as it might appear, the painstaking work of the censors within the French absolute monarchy thus took a significant place in the coming of Enlightenment.
