Martin Luther in Nineteenth‐Century France

F rench‐language readers had little available about M artin L uther before the F rench R evolution. A few C atholic authors had written about him from a confessional perspective. At the beginning of the nineteenth century interest was aroused by an essay competition, but the topic had to do with political influence rather than with L uther's life. In 1835 there began a series of publications which addressed the life of the reformer, and included vast amounts of quoted material from the letters and table talk. One of these early works, by M ichelet, was from a R omantic but nonsectarian perspective, that by M erle was R omantic and providential, while another by A udin was from an arch‐Catholic point of view. Over the course of the century both Catholics and Protestants continued to write essays about L uther, from confessional points of view, but there was a growth of works which achieved a greater degree of non‐partisanship, even if appreciative of his contributions. Toward the end of the century there was a treatment of L uther which recognised explicitly that he belonged to a bygone era which was increasingly inaccessible to contemporary F rench readers.