L'élite politique suédoise et les cercles philosophiques de Paris dans les années 1770–1780

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Swedish political elite had important personal ties to the literary circles commonly associated with the Enlightenment. This article examines the often ambiguous attitudes of Swedish courtiers and civil servants towards the Parisian philosophes in the 1770s-1780s, insisting particularly on the role of the diplomats as mediators. It shows to what extent the diffusion of Enlightenment ideas in aristocratic milieus was conditioned by the rules of sociability and politics, what kind of philosophical ideas were welcomed and what principles rejected, and how the so-called Enlightenment philosophy was diluted in the mass of French literary influences received by an elite that cherished this language as its own.Non peer reviewe