Abstract: Departing from the observation that criticism has not fully exploited the traces of genesis in La Rochefoucauld’s Mémoires, this article aims to show how, by nuancing the commonly accepted conception of a two-phase writing process—before and after Mazarin’s death—, these traces shed new light on the complexity of a work that has been subject to endless appropriation and rewriting. The text’s ethical and aesthetic tensions were continuously intensified by this writing process, which is similar to that of Maximes.
