La naissance de la science politique moderne dans la Methodus de Jean Bodin : l'héritage de Budé et de Connan, du droit à la politique

Our research aims to examine how the innovative conception of "political science", developed by Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596) in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566; 1572), falls within the scope of a humanist program which restores legal science in the name of scientia civilis. We therefore propose to investigate the line of thoughts which regard the scientia civilis in the works of two of his predecessors, Guillaume Bude and Francois Connan, who develop this "science" for the sake of magistrates-judges of the Parlements by devising a "method" which intends to unify legal theory with practical knowledge. Their considerations lead them to establish a new paradigm of jusnaturalism and to re-establish, in modern times, the very notion of law on the basis of right reason, id est, on the basis of a community of laws dominated only by reason: civitas universa. We bring light to the fact that, when this community is identified with the international society of his time, supposedly ruled by the ius gentium which incarnates reason, Bodin bestows upon his scientia civilis a political character. If the jusnaturalist paradigm allows him to assume the transition from a barbarous state to a human society, it is his famous theory of sovereignty (summum imperium) that, by defining the coercive power delegated to the magistrates of Parlements, allows them to realize this transition. We propose that his "method" of reading the history enables him to materialize the political science, which determines, beyond the limits of legal science, the role the government plays in realizing the human society, or in other words, the new civitas universa, governed by the ius gentium.