Simon Goulart continuateur des chroniques de Carion : les paradoxes de l'histoire universelle

In 1579, Simon Goulart, pastor in Geneva, publishes a French version of the well-known Carion's chronicles in which the first author and his successors Philip Melanchthon and Caspar Peucer aimed to propose a German and Lutheran interpretation of the Christian Church history. In doing so, Goulart is at the same time careful to respect to some extent these revered figures and their original viewpoint, and, especially in the parts that he adds, to reorientate it towards not only a more French-centered but on the whole a spatially broader vision ; as much as he goes further in details as he deals with events closer to the present. This paper tries to examine the way the successive versions of Carion's chronicles, from Melanchthon and Peucer to Goulart, including the less known French translation by the Catholic priest Jehan Leblond, take into account, modify or sometimes challenge the intention of this work as well as the idea of universal history.