Abstract EN:

The history of Voltaire's body has only been the subject of partial studies but not systemic ones. The first aim of this thesis consists in gatering the remaining scattered elements wich relate to this particular body : now skeleton of the Delights now old man in Ferney or even "Lazare getting out of his tomb". Such a history would only have an anecdotic interest if the letters and speeches delivered in the surroundings didn't account for a series of coherences sometimes a few years apart. If indeed Voltaire continuously speaks about his "poor body" or "his chronic illnesses", he actually studies thousands of alternatives, being over fond of the numerous registers, even re-exploiting some discourses of the time connected with the physocal, medical and philosophical associations. In so doing, the author makes us read, look at the declination of a body progressively transformed into a multiple, a multiform and polyphonic one. Thus Voltaire submits his "unsteady machine" to his correspondents, to his interlocutors within precise discursiv strategies whom this thesis understakes to analyse the ins and outs to finally make their meaning obvious.