François de La Noue czyta Amadisa z Walii

Amadis de Gaule is a chivalric romance adapted from the Spanish work of Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo by Nicolas Herberay des Essarts in 1540-1548. As the first bestselling novel in France, it initially generated enthusiastic reactions concerning the qualities of style and the pleasure of reading, then, with the progress of violence unleached by civil conflicts, more and more severe. François de La Noue, famous soldier sincerely devoted to the Protestant cause and author of Discours politiques et militaires, is one of the most intransigent censors of the French Amadis. In this paper we show the poisons that according to the Huguenot infect the fiction of this novel: tantalizing depictions of mages and witches, immoral conception of love relationships and fanciful military exploits of the characters. These three layers of the work risk perverting French youth, which plunges the moralist in deep concern.