I recently participated in a fascinating conference in Paris on “Guerre, circulations et transferts culturels de la renaissance à l’Empire” (War, Circulation and Cultural Transfers from the Renaissance to the French Empire), organized by Hervé Drévillon and Arnaud Guinier. Conference participants presented new research on the circulation of war news, technical knowledge, and military intelligence in early modern and modern Europe. Papers explored diverse aspects of war reporting, military treatises, officer training, technical expertise, military migrants, historical memory, military espionage, and technology transfers.

I offered a research paper in French on “‘Actions Héroïques et Dignes de Mémoire’ : Les nouvelles de guerre et la circulation des connaissances militaires pendant les Guerres de religion.” The title of my paper translates as: “‘Actions Heroïques et Dignes de Mémoire’ : War News and the Circulation of Military Knowledge during the Wars of Religion.”

The conference was sponsored jointly by the Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine at the École Nationale Superieure and the Institut des Études sur la Guerre et la Paix en Sorbonne. Conference sessions were held at the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and at the ENS in rue d’Ulm.

The conference program is available at the website of the Institut des Études sur la Guerre et la Paix en Sorbonne and of the Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine.