« Enfin j’ai été vaincu, jeté à bas de mon cheval, j’ai vu la lumière, et je suis devenu apôtre. » À propos du Coup d’œil sur les universités et le mode d’instruction publique de l’Allemagne protestante de 1808

This article reconstructs the complicated circumstances under which in 1808 Villers’s Coup d’œil sur les universités was written, and points out the expectations of the author, of Jean de Müller in Kassel, and his collaborators in Göttingen. It analyses the ways to make the French audience understand the particularities of German culture, and highlights why Villers’s engagement was doomed to fail in his homeland. This text still offers an insight into the transition between the 18th-century university system and its emerging counterpart in the early 19th century.