Introduction

Abstract

Although the novel, Voyages et avantures de Jaques Massé, caused something of a stir during the first half of the eighteenth century, its author, Simon Tyssot de Patot (1655–1738), remained largely unknown in his lifetime, and it is only in this century that he has been recognized as one of the countless soldiers in the vast army of philosophes that assaulted the bastions of religious, political and social life in Europe of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.¹