David McCallam reveals the brilliant modernity of Liaisons dangereuses and of the Laclosian universe, rereading Laclos' masterpiece based on heretofore ignored notions and patterns such as the secret or the promise. The literary study is completed by the consideration of the author's life, his activities as revolutionary secretary and Bonapartist general, wherein the secretary commands while the general abdicates. L'Art de l'equivoque shows how apparently simple acts, keeping a secret, promising, reveal themselves to be fundamental and paradoxical, and why the characters in Liaisons are no longer formed morally, but modally. Finally, the study shows that, without the metaphysical (Christian sin) and the medical-legal (criminal pathology), the libertines' dangerousness is tantamount to high-risk financial speculation, residing precisely in social relations, in Liaisons . French text."