Abstract

Previous studies of the Affiches, a genre of newspaper in late eighteenth-century France, have stressed that they were fundamentally conservative and circumspect. The Affiches ignored the philosophes, and on the rare occasions that they were mentioned, they were generally condemned. In the early years of the Affiches de Bordeaux, however, quite the opposite was true. It regularly covered all sorts of supposedly forbidden subjects, including detailed military and political news, it consistently praised philosophes by name, and it published banned literature. Even anodyne-sounding pieces were sometimes extracts from banned works. The articles in the Affiches de Bordeaux were frequently copied from other newspapers, including illegal foreign ones. Some of its articles were of a relatively conservative cast, but a wide eighteenth-century public in Bordeaux had easy access to Enlightenment ideas.

Les recherches sur les Affiches, un genre journalistique important du dix-huitième siècle, ont souligné leur conservatisme et leur prudence. Les philosophes ne paraissaient dans leurs pages que rarement et pour être condamnés. Cependant, dès ses premiers numéros les Affiches de Bordeaux étaient une exception à cette règle. Elles publiaient des articles sur toute une gamme de sujets interdits, par exemple des affaires militaires ou politiques. Les philosophes y étaient les bienvenus ainsi que la littérature clandestine. Même un article à titre apparemment anodin pourrait être extrait d'une œuvre interdite. Les Affiches de Bordeaux copiaient souvent des textes d'autres journaux, y compris étrangers. Certains articles étaient assez conservateurs, mais à travers les Affiches un large public bordelais avait un accès facile aux Lumières.

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