Abstract
First, we return to the case of Tabarin, with whom we ended the previous session. The image of Tabarin as a comedian, or even a philosopher, seductive as it may be, has a history. It was constructed in the second half of the XIXthcentury, when writers and amateur historians, driven by nostalgia for " vieux Paris ", turned the charlatans of the Pont-Neuf into figures of popular artists, precursors of boulevard theater and facetious literature.
Back to the modern era : Tabarin and the other charlatans can be placed in another genealogy : that of the triacleurs and itinerant sellers of theriac, the operators of the XVIIthcentury, then the orvietan merchants like Christophe Contugi, nicknamed l'Orviétan, who was at the head of a veritable family business and enjoyed royal privileges to sell his product.
This economy of remedies was part of a " pharmacological regime " (Emma Spary) transformed by the influx of exotic drugs, such as opium, whose therapeutic use and experimentation - for example at Moyse Charas - blurred the boundary between scholarly research and the theatricality of operators. At the same time, recent historiography has nuanced the model of a free medical market under the Ancien Régime, emphasizing the density of regulations, licenses and privileges, as well as the importance of charity, local networks and religious institutions. The focus on empirical medicine and drug sellers reveals the vagueness surrounding these activities, the porosity of boundaries, the diversity of players and the competition between institutions.
