Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard
Encyclopedia
Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard is a term used to describe a group of 18th-century French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 religious pilgrims who exhibited convulsions and later constituted a religious sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

 and a political movement
Political movement
A political movement is a social movement in the area of politics. A political movement may be organized around a single issue or set of issues, or around a set of shared concerns of a social group...

. This practice originated at the tomb of François de Pâris, a Jansenist deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

 who was buried at the cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

 of the parish of Saint-Médard in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. The convulsionnaires were associated with the Jansenist movement, which became more politically active after the papal bull Unigenitus
Unigenitus
Unigenitus , an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713, opened the final phase of the Jansenist controversy in France...

 officially banned the sect.

The connection between the larger French Jansenist movement and the smaller, more radical convulsionnaire phenomenon is difficult to state with precision. As historian Brian E. Strayer has noted, almost all of the convulsionnaires were Jansenists, but very few Jansenists embraced the convulsionnaire phenomenon.

The Jansenist context

Jansenism
Jansenism
Jansenism was a Christian theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. The movement originated from the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Otto Jansen, who died in 1638...

 was a religious movement and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 which arose simultaneously in northern France and Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 in the mid-17th century. It was named for the Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 theologian Cornelius Jansen
Cornelius Jansen
Corneille Janssens, commonly known by the Latinized name Cornelius Jansen or Jansenius, was Catholic bishop of Ypres and the father of a theological movement known as Jansenism.-Biography:...

, the Bishop of Ypres from 1635-38. Jansen and his friend, l'abbe de Saint-Cyran
Jean du Vergier de Hauranne
Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, Abbé of Saint-Cyran was a French monk who introduced Jansenism into France.In the early 17th century, Jean du Vergier de Hauranne studied theology at the Catholic University of Leuven...

, are generally considered the fathers of the movement. After Jansen died in 1638, his book Augustinus was published in 1640-41. As the title indicates, Jansen intended for his theology to closely follow that of St. Augustine
St. Augustine
-People:* Augustine of Hippo or Augustine of Hippo , father of the Latin church* Augustine of Canterbury , first Archbishop of Canterbury* Augustine Webster, an English Catholic martyr.-Places:*St. Augustine, Florida, United States...

. In the 1640s, Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld
Antoine Arnauld — le Grand as contemporaries called him, to distinguish him from his father — was a French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and mathematician...

, a disciple of Saint-Cyran, became one of the leading French defenders of Jansenist theology against the attacks of other theologians, including Jesuit theologians who endorsed Molinism
Molinism
Molinism, named after 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile the providence of God with human free will. William Lane Craig is probably its best known advocate today, though other important Molinists include Alfred Freddoso, Alvin...

. Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 Innocent X condemned Jansenism as a heresy in 1653, and Arnauld was expelled from the Sorbonne in 1655. Nonetheless, the movement continued to exist through the 18th century. Socially, Jansenism was largely an urban phenomenon.

In keeping with St. Augustine's influence, Jansenist theology presented a strong contrast between the original perfection of the Creation and the tragic, sinful state of humanity which followed the Original Sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...

. It emphasized fallen humanity's alienation from God, and asserted the necessity of God's "efficient grace" in order to avoid damnation. In painting such a stark contrast, Jansenist theology offered a kind of predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...

 and appeared to its critics as a denial of human free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

. Jansenist writers, including Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...

, frequently criticized the Molinist position which placed more emphasis on free will. The early well-spring of Jansenist theology in Paris came undoubtedly from the convents and schools at Port-Royal des Champs in Paris, which was ultimately razed in 1708 because of its association with the Jansenist heresy.

Despite some theological similarities to Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

, Jansenism maintained several other orthodox Catholic positions. Historian Dale Van Kley has written that for Jansenists, "no sin would be more heinous in their eyes than that of schism." Jansenist authors frequently criticized Calvinist theology in order to maintain their own Catholic orthodoxy. Also, unlike Calvinists, Jansenists accepted - even relished - the existence of relics and miracles. The miracle, they believed, was a powerful historical event. God's grace, normally hidden from our sinful world, could be revealed in human history through a miracle.

Unigenitus

Unigenitus was a Papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....

 which was promulgated by Clement XI in 1713 at the request of the French King Louis XIV. The King had solicited the bull in the hope that it would provide a final solution to the continuing Jansenist problem in France. In particular, the bull was provoked by the Jansenist theologian Pasquier Quesnel
Pasquier Quesnel
Pasquier Quesnel was a French Jansenist theologian.He was born in Paris, and, after graduating from the Sorbonne with distinction in 1653, he joined the French Oratory in 1657...

 and his book Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament. Unigenitus condemned many of Quesnel's propositions as heretical. It called attention to similarities between Jansenist theology and Calvinism. It also criticized the Jansenists for subverting the Church hierarchy by exalting the religious role of the laity and the lower clergy.

A large controversy ensued. At least 200 books and pamphlets were published in 1714 alone, either in support of or against the bull. By 1730, there had been over 1000 publications on the subject. In March 1717, four Jansenist bishops formally appealed Unigenitus at the Sorbonne. By March 1719, these appelants had the support of the theological faculties at the Universities of Paris, Rheims and Nantes, as well as many other prominent clergy, most notably Louis Antoine de Noailles, the Archbishop of Paris
Archbishop of Paris
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...

. All told, 10% of France's clergy supported the appeal, including 75% of Paris's parish priests. This included 30 French bishops and roughly 3000 priests.

Many of the clergy did not simply oppose Unigenitus out of sympathy for Jansenism. There was also a concern that the bull would increase Papal and Monarchical influence over the French Church
Gallican Church
The Gallican Church was the Catholic Church in France from the time of the Declaration of the Clergy of France to that of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution....

, which operated with a good deal of autonomy in this period.

By 1730, the controversy had reached a boiling point. Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 André-Hercule de Fleury and the new Archbishop of Paris, Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc
Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc
Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc was Bishop of Marseilles from 1692 to 1708 and Archbishop of Aix from 1708 to 1729; from 1729 to 1746 he was the Archbishop of Paris.-Biography:...

 had closed one seminary (Saint Magloire) that was strongly Jansenist, and had begun to summarily replace Jansenist principals and regents at other colleges. They exiled some of Paris' Jansenist priests, and exiled others. The Jansenists, for their part, had begun to publish a journal, called Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques, in 1727. The journal frequently indicted 'despotism' in both Church and State. They made an explicit appeal to the "public," writing that such an appeal to public opinion was the only road left to them.

François de Pâris

François de Pâris (1690–1727) was a Parisian Jansenist and a popular religious ascetic whose tomb in the parish cemetery at Saint-Médard gave rise to the convulsionnaire phenomenon.

Pâris was born into a wealthy Parisian family. According to biographies published after his death, he was tutored as a young boy by Augustinians
Augustinians
The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

 at Nanterre
Nanterre
Nanterre is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located west of the center of Paris.Nanterre is the capital of the Hauts-de-Seine department as well as the seat of the Arrondissement of Nanterre....

. Originally destined for a career in law, he went against his father's wishes and chose a career in the Church instead. After his face was horribly scarred by small pox at age 22, he transferred to the seminary at Saint-Magloire, which was nearly dominated by Jansenists. In 1713, he gave up his annual family pension to the poor. After his parents died in 1723, he sold his family's property, gave the money to the poor, and went to live as a hermit in the poor neighbourhood of Saint-Marceau
Saint-Marceau
Saint-Marceau may refer to the following places in France:* Saint-Marceau, Ardennes, a commune in the Ardennes department* Saint-Marceau, Sarthe, a commune in the Sarthe department...

. He modeled himself after St. Francis
Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St...

 and was apparently considered a local Saint by many.

An active appelant, Pâris protested Unigenitus in 1720, calling it "the work of the Devil."

During the final years of his life, Pâris became increasingly reclusive, and his ascetic lifestyle became increasingly severe, and he practised self-flagellation:
Only 36 years old, Pâris died on May 1, 1727. Large numbers of people from across the social spectrum, including the Cardinal Archbishop Noailles, came to attend his funeral in the small chapel at Saint-Médard. During the funeral and after, people began to collect snippets of hair and fingernails, splinters of wood from his casket or furniture, soil from his gravesite, and other souvenirs which might serve as holy relics. Shortly after the funeral, his tomb became the site of religious pilgrimages. His admirers composed hymns and self-styled hagiographies praising the late deacon as a saint. Many of the city's prominent Jansenists wanted Pâris to be made into a saint, and Cardinal Noailles even began the process of beatification
Beatification
Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...

.

Miracles and Convulsionnaires

Pilgrimages to the tomb of Pâris continued over the years 1727-1730. During this period, roughly a dozen pilgrims declared that they had been miraculously
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...

 cured at the tomb. This number of miracle cures exploded in 1731. Over 70 cures were announced that year, from a variety of ailments which included paralysis
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...

, cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

, and blindness
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

, among others. Not surprisingly, the number of pilgrims also grew rapidly during the summer of 1731. Miracles were not necessarily unusual in this period, but the connection with Jansenism was considered a cause for suspicion.

Convulsionnaire practices

While the first recorded case of convulsions at the tomb of Pâris occurred in July 1731, one of the best recorded early cases is that of l'abbé de Bescherand, who made two daily pilgrimages to the cemetery:
During these visits, Strayer writes, "his body was wracked by convulsions that lifted him into the air, his face was contorted by grimaces, and foaming at the mouth, he yelled and screamed for hours on end." A number of other pilgrims began to exhibit similar convulsions, and the convulsion phenomenon began to rival and eclipse the miracle phenomenon. The cemetery's atmosphere became busy and noisy as people variously prayed, sang and convulsed. Rumours spread through Paris that people were speaking in tongues, stomping on Bibles, barking like dogs, swallowing glass or hot coals, or dancing until they collapsed.

After the closure of the cemetery in early 1732, the convulsionnaires continued to gather outside the gates. They were driven further underground in 1733, and began to assemble in private homes in Paris and in other French cities such as Nantes and Troyes. As a possible parallel to the contemporary Parisian salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

, women often hosted the meetings while men preached. Social class was largely ignored, and nobility and clergy were sometimes present. Many of the convulsionnaires began to live an austere and ascetic lifestyle in cooperatives, referring to each other as 'brother' or 'sister' and taking new names, usually from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

.

Just like their saintly Pâris, the convulsionnaires appear to have regarded the body with increasing contempt as the movement evolved through the 1730s. They began the practice of secours (release), which involved the violent beating of the individual who was experiencing the convulsions. The secours was intended to release the individual from the painful experience of the convulsions, while simultaneously symbolizing the pain of persecution. They viewed the body with disgust as the site of disease, sinfulness and corruption. Eighty convulsionnaires were arrested in 1736 for beating and cutting each other. They also began to practice regular crucifixions—with nails—to further connect their suffering to that of Jesus Christ and the early Christian martyrs
Christian martyrs
A Christian martyr is one who is killed for following Christianity, through stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Greek word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness."...

. Brian E. Strayer argues that movement descended further into sadomasochism from 1740 onward. The torture became increasingly brutal while the spiritual content decreased.

Gender analysis

Gender analysis
Gender analysis
Gender analysis is a type of socio-economic analysis that uncovers how gender relations affect a development problem. The aim may just be to show that gender relations will probably affect the solution, or to show how they will affect the solution and what could be done...

 has revealed a predominance of unmarried women and girls experiencing convulsions. Catherine Maire has demonstrated that of 116 people who claimed miraculous healing at Pâris's tomb, 70% were women, and the majority of these were celibate or widowed. Of an estimated 270 people experiencing or observing convulsions in 1732, 211 were women and only 59 were men. Women made up 90% of the convulsionnaires arrested between 1732 and 1774, and a smaller majority (55%) of the convulsionnaires imprisoned at the Bastille in particular between 1715-1774 were women. This 55% female majority, however, is in sharp contrast the strong male majority (82%) of Jansenists imprisoned at the Bastille during the same period.

Other sources reinforces this view. In 1732, a visitor from other another parish was quick to note that the convulsions were predominant among women. The robe de convulsionnaire was invented to facilitate the convulsions for women. The reports of police spies referred to the female convulsionaries as prostitutes who allowed others to beat and torture their half-naked writhing bodies. Philippe Hecquet, a Jansenist physician who sought to distance the Jansenist movement from the convulsionnaires phenomenon, claimed that female biology and moral inferiority were the causes of the convulsions. By contrast, defenders of the convulsionnaires tended the minimize the role of women and emphasize the social diversity of the movement.

Countesses, duchesses, and members of the Parlement of Paris, including the President Charles-Robert Boutin, came to observe the miracles at Saint-Médard in 1731. Certain members of the nobility did continue to attend private convulsionnaire meetings through the 1730s, including the brother of Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

. By and large, however, the dominant element among the convulsionnaire movement appears to have been lower-class women who were "assisted" by the lower male clergy. Daniel Vidal's study of convulsionnaires found the majority (60%) to be women, of which the largest portion (43%) came from the lower classes. By contrast, men comprised 78% of those who assisted the convulsionnaires, and nearly half of those were members of the clergy. Catherine Maire's study also made note of this predominance of male clergy.

Convulsionnaire Prophecy and Apocalypticism

As the historian B. Robert Kreiser has noted, the themes of persecution, martyrdom, apocalypticism
Apocalypticism
Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...

 and millenarianism
Millenarianism
Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...

, pervaded the "mental universe" of the convulsionnaire movement. Prophetic dreams and visions were common among its adherents, along with appeals to God's divine judgment
Divine Judgment
Divine judgment means the judgment of God or other supreme beings within a religion. The concept is prominent in Abrahamic religions, most significantly in the Last judgment.-Objective and subjective judgment:...

 and wrath.

Broader Jansenist theology encouraged a certain degree of individual conscience among the laity. It allowed for the possibility that a bishop could be wrong about a matter of religious truth, while a lowly priest could be right. Therefore, it allowed for the possibility of resistance to the higher clergy. The convulsionnaires took this belief even further. They identified themselves as God's persecuted faithful and compared themselves to the early Christians persecuted by the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. Prophetic and apocalyptic speeches, often preached by illiterate artisans or women, railed against the apostasy
Apostasy
Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...

 of the Church hierarchy and prophesied the destruction of Babylon
Babylon (New Testament)
Babylon occurs in the Christian New Testament both with a literal and a figurative meaning. The famous ancient city, located near Baghdad, was a complete unpopulated ruin by 275 BC, well before the time of the New Testament...

.

The convulsionnaires left behind thousands of written works, including prayers, visions, parables, dialogues, letters, songs and poems. Strayer identifies three common themes in their writing: eschatology
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...

 (their theology of the end-times), word games, and their relationship to the French Monarchy. Their eschatology was particularly concerned with the conversion of the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 to Christianity, which they believed to be imminent. The abbé Vaillant, a convulsionnaire leader who called himself 'Elijah' after the prophet who would accompany the Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

, was deeply concerned with converting the Jews to Christianity and predicted that the end of the world would come in 1733. He was arrested in 1734 and imprisoned until his death in 1761.

Their perception to the Monarchy appears to have been variable, but generally unfavourable. On the one hand, a number of them called Louis XV a "criminal" who would suffer God's wrath. They compared him to the Egyptian Pharaoh or even to the Antichrist
Antichrist
The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

. On the other hand, some convulsionnaire women dedicated their personal suffering and torture to the King after the attempted assassination of 1757 by Damiens.

Responses to Convulsionnaires

Altogether, the convulsionnaire phenomenon sparked a great deal of public interest. By mid-century, there had been 1600 publications on the subject. The early convulsions which occurred in 1731 at the cemetery at Saint-Médard attracted large crowds of observers. It is likely that many of these went purely for amusement. Onlookers were even able to rent chairs for 6 sous so that they could sit and watch the strange business that was taking place. The many rumours attracted many curious spectators, some of whom were actually converted to the convulsionnaire movement when they observed the convulsions or even experienced them for themselves.

The cemetery's closure in January 1732 led popular opinion to sympathize with the convulsionnaires and Jansenists. This produced, in turn, a backlash against the Monarchy's religious prerogative. "All powerful though he was," one writer said, "the king had no right to suppress the news of the marvels of God." One protester posted a sign on the cemetery, which read: "By order of the King, it is forbidden to the Divinity to perform any more miracles in this vicinity."

Public opinion, however, would turn against the convulsionnaire movement by the mid-1730s as more scandalous stories of torture and violence came to light. "In the popular mind," Strayer writes, "their tortures had crossed the line between the self-denial of spiritual mystics and sexual brutality. Increasingly, people viewed this strange blend of millenarianism, eroticism, torture, and hysteria as a medical problem rather than a religious phenomenon." In 1735, a group of 30 Paris physicians proposed that "overheated imaginations" were the cause for the convulsions.

Response from the Authorities

Cardinal Noailles, the aged Archbishop of Paris, had declared in 1728 that he believed the miracles to be genuine. However, Noailles died in 1729, and his successor, Archbishop Vintimille, was handpicked by Cardinal Fleury, who also served as Chief Minister of France under the young King Louis XV. As noted above, Fleury and Vintimille began a campaign to purge the Parisian clergy of Jansenists. This campaign extended to the convulsionnaires as well. Vintimille halted the process to beatify François de Pâris. Unlike his predecessor, he condemned the miracles as fradulent in 1731, claiming that they were the result of "Satanic healing" produced by rebellious heretics. Cardinal Fleury compared the convulsionnaires to previous heretical sects, notably the Camisards. When permanent police surveillance failed to dissuade pilgrims from coming to the cemetery, the authorities decided to close it to the public. Hundreds of soldiers came to wall up the entrance on January 29, 1732.

In 1735, Vintimille directed his Inspector General, Nigon de Berty, to conduct an inquiry into the phenomenon. In his report, de Berty established a set of well-defined criteria for miraculous healing. The cure had to exceed the laws of nature. It had to be immediate and perfect. It had to come as a direct result of a religious act, and more than one credible witness was necessary.

The Parlement de Paris contained a small but eloquent Jansenist minority. One of the Parlement Jansenists, Louis-Adrien Le Paige, vigorously defended various aspects of convulsionnaire practice in Parlement as late as 1737. Nonetheless, it appears that the Parlement was generally hostile to the convulsionnaires, launching an inquest against them in 1735. This hostility may have been shared by some of the Jansenists in Parlement who were embarrassed by the convulsions and repudiated any connection to them (see below).

The authorities also sought to involve medical professionals in their bid to discredit the movement. In 1732, René Hérault
René Hérault
René Hérault, Seigneur de Fontaine-l'Abbé et de Vaucresson , simply known as René Hérault, and sometimes as René Hérault de Vaucresson, was a French magistrate and administrator who served as Lieutenant General of Police of Paris from 1725 to 1739.-Origins and early career:Born in Rouen, he was the...

, the Lieutenant General of Police in Paris, summoned 24 doctors and surgeons to examine seven convulsionnaire prisoners at the Bastille. The doctors determined that the convulsions were voluntary and not divinely inspired. Their conclusion and methodology were widely criticized.

Response among Jansenists

As mentioned above, the miracle for Jansenists represented God's grace manifested in human history, however briefly. Jansenists theologians and writers were also deeply interested in the power of lay witness and lay faithfulness to true religion. The initiative to create the Jansenist periodical Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques in 1727 owed largely to this interest in inviting ordinary Christians to witness religious truth for themselves. As a result, the movement was thoroughly pleased by the miracles which occurred at Saint-Médard between 1727 and 1731. They separated the 'pure of heart' from the hard-hearted Church hierarchy. For the Paris Jansenists, the miracles served as proof that God was on their side and opposed Unigenitus.

The Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques, working to generate publicity, eagerly proclaimed the miracles to the public and devoted two whole pages to them in 1728. Jansenist churchwardens exercised their influence over their parishes and vigorously encouraged the cult of François de Pâris. Many of the appelant clergy supported the early cult; some even began to preach and perform masses there.

The spread of the convulsion phenomenon, however, divided the Jansenist camp. The Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques continued more or less to defend the convulsions through the 1730s. But the split became evident. Jansenists published as many as 100 different tracts during the years 1732-34 as a heated debate emerged within the movement. Jacques-Joseph Duguet, one of the editors of the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques fell our of favour with his colleagues when he condemned the convulsions. This debate did not escape the attention of the Cardinal Fleury, who exploited this division by encouraging, even subsidizing the publications of those Jansenists who attacked the convulsionnaire phenomenon. By 1742, popular opinion had turned so far against the convulsions that even the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques began to revise their stance and withdraw their support.

Response from the Philosophes

While the anti-hierarchical spirit of the convulsionnaire movement may have appealed to some of the philosophes, they generally looked down upon the phenomenon as a whole as emblematic of religious fanaticism
Fanaticism
Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby...

. Historian Lindsay Wilson has suggested that the convulsionnaires challenged the philosophes ideal of an enlightened public.

For Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

, the convulsionnaire phenomenon epitomized irrational superstition and fraudulent religion. He attacked them repeatedly in his writings, and he never wrote about his brother who participated in the movement. Diderot saw the convulsionnaire phenomenon as not only a "sect of fools," but as the link between female nervous disorders and religious fanaticism. Some philosophes, including d'Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie...

 and La Condamine
Charles Marie de La Condamine
Charles Marie de La Condamine was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician. He spent ten years in present-day Ecuador measuring the length of a degree latitude at the equator and preparing the first map of the Amazon region based on astronomical observations.-Biography:Charles Marie de La...

, attended secret convulsionnaire meetings as observers. D'Alembert, who observed a particularly bloody secours, argued that the convulsions would lose their appeal if only they were made public. He suggested putting them into the fair, perhaps as a kind of side-show, and charging spectators to watch. He predicted that the exposure and ridicule of the convulsionnaires would discredit the entire Jansenist movement, leaving it to fall into obscurity. La Mettrie frequented the assemblies and even assisted at one. Strayer speculates that La Mettrie's experience may have influenced some of his physiological theories.

Overview

E. Robert Kreiser (1975) describes the convulsionnaire movement using the language of identity formation. He suggests that the "spiritual energy" and religious solidarity achieved within the movement helped the individual members to foster individual identities for themselves within a cohesive group.

Catherine Maire (1985 and 1998) stresses the political significance of the convulsionnaire movement, and its centrality to the Jansenist cause.

David Garrioch (2002) argues that the common Parisian kneeling before the tomb of François de Pâris was seeking an expression of faith "that offered the poor full membership of the spiritual community."

Echoing Dale Van Kley's (1996) thoughts on the broader Jansenist controversy, Brian E. Strayer (2008) suggests that

Politically subversive

A number of historians have pointed to the movement as politically subversive and threatening to the absolutism
Absolutism (European history)
Absolutism or The Age of Absolutism is a historiographical term used to describe a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites...

 in 18th-century France.

Kreiser (1975) suggests that the movement's fundamental beliefs were simply incompatible with the established regime. They challenged the status quo by subverting the religious hierarchy, and were perhaps even more subversive than they realized.

Catherine Maire (1985) argues that the convulsionnaire movement helped establish public opinion in France.

Lindsay Wilson (1993), among others, points to the subversive power of the role of women within the movement. Not only did the female convulsionnaires challenge traditional models of Christian female religious behaviour, they were also sometimes 'priestesses' - invested with a ceremonial religious role usually reserved exclusively for men. The prospect of women claiming to serve as intermediaries between God and the people, Wilson writes, was perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the movement for some conservatives.

Monique Cottret (1998) describes the predominance of working class individuals and women in the convulsionnaire movement as the "proletarisation
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...

" of Jansenism. She refers to writers in the Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques who promoted the movement's low-class origins as a sign of its greatness.

Strayer (2008), echoing Kreiser and Van Kley (1996), argues that the convulsionnaires' "democratic, congregational polity constituted a serious indictment of the established, hierarchical order in both Church and state. By asserting that the convulsions were divinely inspired, the convulsionnaires threw down the gauntlet at the feet of the Bourbon Monarchy and its dependent episcopacy, challenging both the King's exclusive power to heal ('the King's touch') and the Church's right to control religious activity." This in turn, sparked a "vigorous political discourse" to respond the challenge to religious hierarchy.

Medicine and the female imagination

Wilson, in her book Women and Medicine in the French Enlightenment (1993), places the convulsionnaire phenomenon within the debate over so-called maladies des femmes (women's illnesses) in 18th-century France. She argues that women figured prominently in the struggle between the emerging professional medical community and other practitioners of medicine which might be called charlatan
Charlatan
A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception....

s. She points to physicians (Philippe Hecquet) and theologians (Nigon de Berty) alike who attributed the convulsions to female hysteria
Female hysteria
Female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by modern medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria was widely discussed in the...

, sexual frustration and menstrual irregularities, as well as woman's inherent moral inferiority.

Jan Goldstein (1998) has also commented on Hecquet's 1733 treatise on convulsions, which directly links a woman's "imagination" to her uterus and also to the convulsions. "Imagination," Goldstein argues, was the "smear word" of choice among 18th century French writers who considered it antithetical to "enlightened" rationality.

See also

  • Age of Enlightenment
    Age of Enlightenment
    The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

  • Catholic Church
  • Female hysteria
    Female hysteria
    Female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by modern medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria was widely discussed in the...

  • Gallican Church
    Gallican Church
    The Gallican Church was the Catholic Church in France from the time of the Declaration of the Clergy of France to that of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution....

  • Gallicanism
    Gallicanism
    Gallicanism is the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarchs' authority or the State's authority—over the Catholic Church is comparable to that of the Pope's...

  • History of Roman Catholicism in France
    History of Roman Catholicism in France
    The history of Roman Catholicism in France is inseparable of the history of France, and should be analyzed in its peculiar relationship with the State, with which it was progressively confused, confronted, and separated.-Early Christianity:...

  • Huguenots
  • Religious ecstasy
    Religious ecstasy
    Religious ecstasy is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive euphoria...

  • Sect
    Sect
    A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

  • St. Medardus
  • Trance
    Trance
    Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...


Further reading

  • Cottret, Monique. "Piété populaire et clandestinité : le cas des convulsionnaires parisiens au XVIIIe siècle". Histoire et clandestinité Albi, 1979, p. 169-173.
  • Cottret, Monique. 1998. Jansénismes et Lumières. Pour un autre XVIIIe. Paris, Albin Michel.
  • Kreiser, B. Robert. 1978. Miracles, convulsions, and ecclesiastical politics in early eighteenth-century Paris. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Maire, Catherine-Laurence. 1985. Les Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard; Miracles, convulsions et prophéties à Paris au XVIIIe siècle. Paris.
  • Maire, Catherine-Laurence. 1998. De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la Nation; Le jansénisme au XVIIIe siècle. Paris, Gallimard.
  • Vidal, Daniel. 1987. Miracles et convulsions jansénistes au XVIIIe siècle, Le mal et sa connaissance. Paris, PUF.
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