Abstract: In a letter in 1731 to Jean Bouhier, the Paris lawyer Mathieu Marais believes, contrary to Prosper Marchand and a majority of his contemporaries, that the Cymbalum mundi (1537), found and published at the beginning of the century, attacks Christianity that is disguised as paganism. Three years later, Marais seems to be caught up in the prejudice of his century: the title of the libelle is nothing more than a pale metaphor for a critical religious discourse that can be interpreted in two different ways.
