Poétique des lettres dans les Mémoires Présence, effet, structure modélisante de l’action

The letters inserted into seventeenth-century memoirs provide us with behind-the-scenes access into the corridors of power. The literary object in question has several functions, playing games with variations, temporal phases, and stylistic effects specific to the poetics of the memoir. The analysis concentrates in particular on the Mémoires of Louis XIV’s minority (1643-1661). The letter is revealed to have a function with regard to the modelling of the account.