The Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns was a longstanding conflict between different factions of the European intelligentsia that erupted in the late Renaissance. With proponents of Classical-era arts and sciences pitted against proponents of contemporary intellectual endeavors, the two parties furiously debated the superiority of their respective positions over many decades. 

  

The Querelle had spilled into the pages of the Mercure, as it was an especially pronounced phenomenon in Italy, England, and France. Scholar Doyle Calhoun describes how the Mercure, the brainchild of the “Modern” de Visé, exemplified the presumed state of the “perfection” of the French language in the seventeenth century as well as a proto-Enlightenment idea of the encyclopædia, given “the diversity of its subject matter, its universalist ambitions, and collaborative production model. 

  

”Much of the controversy of the French Querelle revolved around new translations of ancient Greek epics such as the Iliad and Odyssey. Were the social mores and behaviors described in these poems primitive, barbarous and depraved—and if so, did their very presence in these ancient yet accessible works provoke sedition against Louis XIV’s centralized State and promote social subversion? 

  

The distinction between genuine belief in the superiority of Modern views and slavish flattery of the monarch, however, can be difficult to parse. In a 1686 edition of the Mercure, Mlle. de Scuéry, a regular contributor to the magazine, asserted the Iliad “would be more beautiful” (“en serait plus beau”) had Louis XIV been the story’s Hero. In contrast to de Scuréy, however, female translator Anne Dacier boldly denounced Louis XIV’s society as decadent and corrupt. Dacier instead extolled the simpler cultural practices described in the Greek epics as worthy of emulation, in contrast to the contemporary French propensity toward pomp and luxury. Indeed, her exhortations prefigure the pastoral ethos of the following century that gained traction even in the French Court. 

  

It will not surprise us to learn that fashion was among the most important aspects of the Mercure’s content, and de Visé’s made great effort to pay special attention to both men and women’s dressing habits. This careful observance of fashion trends encouraged the standardization of dress across class lines based on norms established at Louis XIV’s Court. However, Antoine de La Roque, a later editor of the Mercure, took a far more derogatory attitude toward fashion, dismissing it as a useless, feminine pastime responsible for degrading French society—but more of him later. 

  

Unusual and bizarre stories were another fixture of the Mercure. De Visé, in the wake of the Affaire des Poisons in 1679, capitalized on this horror in the Mercure’s pages by providing a brief tale (nouvelle) of a Frenchman who visits an Italian nobleman in Genoa. While viewing the unusual marvels in the Italian’s home, the Frenchman is suddenly attacked by a pair of zombie-like creatures, only narrowly managing to escape while wondering about the reality of his experience the next day. 

  

De Visé concludes the tale with a brief advertisement for his new play La Devineresse, whose plot consists of depictions of grotesque “faux enchantments” that are revealed as frauds through the power of empiricism. Other of de Visé’s nouvelles such as “Les Fausses Dents” (“The False Teeth”) and “Histoire desdes Faux Cheveux” (“The Story of the Fake Hair”), explores the theme of things not being how they outwardly appear, and the triumph of scientific reason over superstition and irrationality. 

  

Another unusual story is the “Histoire de Marquise-Marquis de Banneville,” a 1695 nouvelle about a cross-dressing woman who falls in love and marries a boy raised as a girl. Despite their unwitting deceptions to themselves and each other, both of the characters realize each other’s true natures by the end of the tale and manage to live happily ever after as husband and wife. 

  

This gender-bending fable is intended to illustrate the nature of an idealized romantic relationship despite its decidedly unusual parameters; the tale’s lighthearted tone complements de Visé’s efforts to moralize and gently instruct his readers on matters of personal and social conduct, including the decidedly Modern ethics of individualism and tolerance. 

  

De Visé’s literature from the end of the seventeenth century stands perfectly poised between Baroque irrationality and rising Classicism: the unusual, and even grotesque, pondered and considered with a not-small degree of fascination, but ultimately reconciled into the sublimely balanced ethos of Classicism and emerging Enlightenment. 

  

Music was one of the other cultural areas closely curated by the Mercure. Besides the numerous chansons (songs) and new music that appeared in its pages, it contained reviews of noted performers. Among them was Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, the most prominent French female composer of the Baroque era, whose works are still studied and admired today. A Mercure contributor—perhaps de Visé himself—made the following remark in 1687 about the extraordinary talents displayed by the young de la Guerre: