Histoire et littérature: position, disposition, contrefaçon

The aim of this paper is to analyse the variation of relations between history and literature in the particular case of the French historic novel of the 19th century. It focuses on some works of Vigny, Balzac, Dumas and Flaubert and shows that most of the time, relations between literature and history range, theoretically and practically, from sharing to partition; except when tension is neutralized in the context of a non-rhetorical and non-didactical literature.