| Summary: | In our everyday life, we all refer to a certain common notion of politics: we know what a parliament, a political party, and ideology are, thoughsuch a general knowledge does not allow us to question the relations between theory and practice, for example. As far as early modern Europe is concerned,we can also notice some important blanks or differences regarding the definition of politics as a discipline. These include, among others, the institutionalization of politics as a branch of knowledge in libraries, its presence in university teaching, the appearance of intellectuals specialized in this subject matter, and the limits of politics as a field of human activity. There are many ways of resolving this tension between an estranged vision of the past and an approach closer to its own point of view. Historiography, in the sense of theoretical reflection on the past, has devoted much attention to this issue. This article attempts to reexamine this topic from a relatively new perspective. Instead of elucidating theoretically how the past is distanced or made close to us, I wish to reflect on the everyday practice of historians, since it is in such everyday efforts where the real negotiation between a distanced and a closer past takes place. I use two early modern images of politics in order to illustrate the contrast with our contemporary conception of the field and to invite others to reflect upon the importance of practical solutions to historiographical problems. My objective is to state the capacity of historiography, as an art of writing history, to convey the real characteristics of the discipline. I also want to explore the difficulties historians confront when they try to communicate the practical foundations of their labours or when accommodating them within the theoretical descriptions of historical knowledge.
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