Abstract: This article deals with Villers’s active behaviour within the Republic of Letters, in particular at the time of the French occupation of Lübeck in 1806 and concerning his Lettre à Madame la Comtesse F... de B... Due to a multiplication of addressees, Villers tries to play on various textual devices and strategies to commit Napoleon to make reparations. By the forced or deliberate publication of the letter, Villers finally questions humanity in wartime and stages himself as an Enlightenment philosopher.
