Sometimes historical research progresses by leaps and bounds instead of a gradual and steady evolution. Thanks to new research (Fontana 2009) we are now in a position to settle on certain issues in Bodin’s life that have remained matters of conjecture until quite recently, such as his supposed visit to Geneva in 1552 (on which, see below).  Biographers have been faced with a series of problems because, throughout his life, he was regularly confused with other individuals also called Jean Bodin, not least within his own family: he was the fourth of seven children, the second of whome was also called Jean (Levron 1950, 14). For this reason, he has often been assigned roles by historians which he may not have played.  He has been conflated, for instance, with a certain Jean Bodin arrested in two trials for heresy in Paris, one in 1547 and the other in 1548 (Weiss 1889, 17–8; Naef; Droz; but see Levron 1948).  He has also been confused with Jean Bodin de La Bodinière or Montguichet who, like our Jean Bodin, was an Angevin and a commissioner for the reformation of forests in Normandy, as well as a member of the household of the duke d’Alençon (cf. Chauviré, 33–4; Cornu 1907, 109–111 ; Holt 1986, 41).  Among the avocats of the Parlement of Paris who swore an oath to uphold Catholism in 1562, there were two Jean Bodins, one of whom was ours (Delachenal 1885, 405–6).  Someone called Jean Bodin was arrested at the priory of Saint-Denis-de-la-Chatre, rue Saint-Barthélemy in Paris on March 6, 1569, accused of being of the new opinion’.  He was released on August 23, 1570 following the edict of pacification of Saint-Germain (Weiss 1923, 87-9; Droz 1948, 79; Boucher 1983).  But this cannot be our Jean Bodin (De Caprariis 1959, 325).  None of the various Jean Bodins of whom we have knowledge around 1569 — the student at Angers, the priest at Bourgueil in the parish of Saint-Aubin du Pavoil near Segré, or the merchant at St-Maurice — correspond to the Jean Bodin in whom we are interested (Levron 1948, 73–4).  Nor ashould we identify Jean Bodin the philosopher with his various namesakes (Couzinet 1996, 240) who were implicated in the trial of La Môle and Coconnas in 1574 (Holt 1986, 41) or accompanied Brisson on a mission in 1581 (Moreau-Reibel 1933, 258), or got mixed up in the Champvallon affair of the following year (Radouant 1970, 45) or were suspected of having participated in the Babington Plot against Elizabeth I of England (Rose 1980, 215–6).