Quinet’s and Michelet’s courses at the Collège de France not only struck their contemporaries’minds - they also took place against the background of original thinking regarding the relations between the Jesuits and revolution. This is why they deserve to be reappraised not only through the lens of the incidents they provoked from a short term point of view, but also according to a wider vision of longer term historical processes. Four types of reception for the courses can be perceived: an immediate and material reception of the course; a political and ideological reception which considers the Jesuit theme within the immediate context of an « academic monopoly »; an ad personam reception which will interpret the Jésuites through the prism of religious convictions attributed to Quinet; and an historical reception which, thanks to temporal distance and a thorough cross-reading of Quinet’s works, can discern beyond the Jesuit theme a deep and personal reflection on the revolution.