Louis Sébastien Mercier (1740-1814) is a transient character whose pathway both pittoresque and exemplary shows the transition from bameters to literature. After breaking early with the academic world, he is entering dissent and, as he says, becomes ‘haretic in literature’. A few years later, he will even revive the encyclopaedic spirit by denouncing through him the sterile abstraction of the century he wants to name, with one of him...