The study of history is the beginning of political wisdom.

In practical politics however he lost the king's favor in 1576–7 as delegate of the Third Estate at the Estates-General at Blois and leader in his Estate of the February 1577 moves to prevent a new war against the Huguenots. The Colloquium was one of the major and most popular manuscripts in clandestine circulation in the early modern period with more than 100 copies catalogued. Respect for individual liberty and possessions were the hallmark of the orderly state a view Bodin shared with Hotman and George Buchanan.

Jean Bodin (1530–1596) was a French jurist and political philosopher member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He remained a nominal Catholic throughout his life but was critical of papal authority over governments favouring the strong central control of a national monarchy as an antidote to factional strife. Bodin lived during the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and wrote against the background of religious conflict in France.