With a few exceptions, French historiography has systematically glossed over attempts at religious pacification in the 17th and even more in the l6th century, which were regarded as mediocre prefigurations of the Edict of Nantes (1598). In so doing, historians deprived themselves of both an indispensable prehistory and of serious reflection on the issues peculiar to religious peaces in Modern Europe, even though Cari Schmitt and Reinhart Koselleck drew attention to those in the 1950s. The emergence of new documents (deliberations of Caps de Ville, friendship pacts between religious confessions, treatises on political philosophy, iconography) and above all an approach that is no longer anecdotal but theoretical and comparatist allow us to take a fresh look at this crucial issue for understanding the genesis of the modern absolutist State and the invention of freedom of conscience. The present article examines the theoretical and practical issues in three - nearly - concomitant experiences of institutionalized coexistence of confessions over the course of the l6th century: France, the Holy Empire and Switzerland.
wars of religion; secularization; European State