Libelle (literary genre)

[1] Libelles held particular significance in France under the Ancien Régime, especially during the eighteenth century, when the pamphlets' attacks on the monarchy became both more numerous and venomous.

In recent years, cultural historian Robert Darnton has written on the libelles, arguing for their subversive power of the late eighteenth century exercised in undermining monarchical authority.

"[2] Although originally it was used to describe pamphlets in general, it became primarily applicable to the genre of brief and defamatory attacks on pre-revolutionary French public figures.

Regardless of their format, the libelles were cohesive in their overblown and sensationalist style; they were full of wordplay, and often employed literary techniques such as metaphor.

Catholic libelles were typically pointed at the King, attacking primarily his weak religious beliefs and portraying him as not only godless, but evil.

They ridiculed Mazarin for a wide variety of things, including his low birth, his luxurious proclivities and speculated on his erotic liaison with the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria.

Presumably alarmed by the seditious possibilities of the libelles, the Parlement of Paris issued an ordinance against libellistes, declaring that anyone caught producing such pamphlets would be hanged.

By the 1770s, the way that the libelles conceptualized Louis XV was much less respectful, and implied that the monarch was a mere womanizer, with no interest in state affairs.