The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629-1645: "The Parting of the Ways" [Reprint ed.] 1409420841, 9781409420842

Table of contents :
Series Editor’s Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
PART I. Prolegomena
1. The Historical Context 3
2. The Original Context 7
3. The Dévot Movement 15
4. The Progress of the 'Dévots', 1615–1629 33
Part II. The Heart of The Matter
5. The Political Pressures 113
6. The Emerging Tensions 121
7. The Defining Critique 185
8. The Outcome 191
Select Bibliography 195
Index 205

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The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

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The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645 ‘The Parting of the Ways’

ANTHONY D. WRIGHT

ROUTLEDGE

Routledge Tatlor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2011 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Anthony D. Wright 2011 Anthony D. Wright has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Wright, A. D. (Anthony David) The divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645 : ‘the parting of the ways’. – (Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700) 1. Catholic Church–France–History–17th century. 2. Church and state–France–History–17th century. 3. Church and state–Catholic Church–History–17th century. 4. France–Church history–17th century. I. Title II. Series 282.4'4'09032-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wright, A. D. (Anthony David) The divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645 : ‘“the parting of the ways” / Anthony D. Wright. p. cm. — (Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-2084-2 (hardcover) — 1. France—Church history—17th century. 2. Catholic Church—France— History— 17th century. 3. Church and state—France—History— 17th century. I. Title. BX1529.W75 2010 282'.4409032—dc22 2010046651 ISBN 978 1 4094 2084 2(hbk)

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface   Acknowledgements   PART I

vii ix

Prolegomena

1

The Historical Context  

3

2

The Original Context  

7

3 The Dévot Movement  

15

4

33

The Progress of the Dévots, 1615–1629  

Part II

The Heart of The Matter

5

The Political Pressures  

113

6

The Emerging Tensions  

121

7

The Defining Critique  

185

8

The Outcome  

191

Select Bibliography   Index  

195 205

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Series Editor’s Preface The still-usual emphasis on medieval (or Catholic) and reformation (or Protestant) religious history has meant neglect of the middle ground, both chronological and ideological. As a result, continuities between the middle ages and early modern Europe have been overlooked in favor of emphasis on radical discontinuities. Further, especially in the later period, the identification of ‘reformation’ with various kinds of Protestantism means that the vitality and creativity of the established church, whether in its Roman or local manifestations, has been left out of account. In the last few years, an upsurge of interest in the history of traditional (or catholic) religion makes these inadequacies in received scholarship even more glaring and in need of systematic correction. The series will attempt this by covering all varieties of religious behavior, broadly interpreted, not just (or even especially) traditional institutional and doctrinal church history. It will to the maximum degree possible be interdisciplinary, comparative and global, as well as non-confessional. The goal is to understand religion, primarily of the ‘Catholic’ variety, as a broadly human phenomenon, rather than as a privileged mode of access to superhuman realms, even implicitly. The period covered, 1300–1700, embraces the moment which saw an almost complete transformation of the place of religion in the life of Europeans, whether considered as a system of beliefs, as an institution, or as a set of social and cultural practices. In 1300, vast numbers of Europeans, from the pope down, fully expected Jesus’s return and the beginning of His reign on earth. By 1700, very few Europeans, of whatever level of education, would have subscribed to such chiliastic beliefs. Pierre Bayle’s notorious sarcasms about signs and portents are not idiosyncratic. Likewise, in 1300 the vast majority of Europeans probably regarded the pope as their spiritual head; the institution he headed was probably the most tightly integrated and effective bureaucracy in Europe. Most Europeans were at least nominally Christian, and the pope had at least nominal knowledge of that fact. The papacy, as an institution, played a central role in high politics, and the clergy in general formed an integral part of most governments, whether central or local. By 1700, Europe was divided into a myriad of different religious allegiances, and even those areas officially subordinate to the pope were both more nominally Catholic in belief (despite colossal efforts at imposing uniformity) and also in allegiance than they had been four hundred years earlier. The pope had become only one political factor, and not one of the first rank. The clergy, for its part,

viii

SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE

had virtually disappeared from secular governments as well as losing much of its local authority. The stage was set for the Enlightenment. Thomas F. Mayer, Augustana College

Acknowledgements Due acknowledgement is recorded here of support gratefully received from the British Academy, for a substantial sum from the Small Research Grants scheme.

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PART I Prolegomena

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Chapter 1

The Historical Context ‘Dechristianization’ in France, Eighteenth–Twenty-first Centuries During the second half of the twentieth century one major issue among those concerning French ecclesiastics, sociologists and historians was the alleged ‘dechristianization’ of France. This was considered to be manifesting itself beyond all doubt after the Second World War, indicated by mass abstention from any regular involvement in the weekly or daily life of the Catholic Church there. It was thus a supposed phenomenon of a socio-religious nature, distinct from even if affected by the political ‘laicization’ of France, achieved by the separation of Church and postRevolutionary state.1 For historians within France the problem seemed to be not so much demonstrating such ‘dechristianization’ as determining its historical origins. The question was whether any such origins preceded the French Revolution itself, perhaps capable of being traced among the range of factors which made the Revolution of 1789 possible. Some native French historians, reviewing evidence from various parts of the pre-revolutionary kingdom, argued that by the second half of the eighteenth century at least a decline in popular religious practice, even if not yet its abandonment, was already evident. This line of interpretation has probably remained more widely received and accepted than a different approach, offered at the very end of the twentieth century, which suggested that more important was a ‘desacralization’ of European monarchy, not only in France, which had already occurred by the early eighteenth century. The size and social diversity of eighteenth-century France should, however, prompt caution as to how far even the second half of the century saw a general collapse of popular attachment to Catholic practice, let alone belief. There is also, arguably, a more fundamental problem, that of avoiding a retrospective and potentially teleological investigation, which seeks to find a predetermined type of evidence to explain an assumed outcome in a later, post-revolutionary age.2 It may be that resisting such predetermination is easier for historians who are not themselves native French. But it might be suggested that a noble example of pursuing a different path, using 1

 H. Godin and Y. Daniel, La France, pays de mission? (Lyon, 1943).   M. Crook et al., ‘Appreciation. The Work of Michel Vovelle’, French History, XIX, ii (2005): 143–88; cf. P.K. Monod, The Power of Kings. Monarchy and Religion in Europe, 1589–1715 (New Haven-London, 1999). 2

4

The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

comparisons not of conditions within France over disparate eras but of French conditions with those elsewhere in ancien regime Catholic Europe, in the states of the Italian peninsula for instance, was given by the late Bruno Neveu. Even so, such a distinct use of contemporary comparisons could be said to raise in a different form a remaining question: whether the experience of pre-revolutionary France was at all peculiar when related to that elsewhere in ancien regime Catholic Europe, and if so in what way. Bruno Neveu was admirably placed to reflect on that, because of his command of the problematic history of Jansenism, which he understood not as an isolated French, or even Franco-Netherlandish movement, but as one which, as well as evolving considerably over time, had to be analysed by reference also to the standards of belief and practice prescribed from moment to moment by the central, essentially Roman authorities of Catholicism. For him, one might say, Jansenism was a problem of Catholic history before it was a problem of French history.3 ‘The French Exception’: The Contested Role of Jansenism, 17th–18th Centuries Jansenism nevertheless remains, among other things, a problem within French history. Amid its protean manifestations it had, arguably, a core of moral ultra-rigorism, not least in the confessional, and this could well have contributed to a cumulative alienation of many, though obviously not all, laity by the time of the French Revolution. In the eighteenth century not all French bishops, or even all of the lower clergy, were Jansenist in sympathy, quite apart from the more political flavour of support which French Jansenists gained from lawyers within the parlements, opposed to aspects of royal policy on matters both ecclesiastical and secular. Before the Revolution, notoriously, eighteenth-century French Jansenism in all its forms became identified with an eventually successful attack on the Society of Jesus, a matter which will be considered subsequently. But even recently, at the end of the twentieth century, one powerful strand in native French history writing has reiterated the view that, in religious terms, ancien regime Catholic Europe did contain a French exception, precisely in the case of Jansenism. French Jansenism, in this tradition, is seen as 3   See now the continuing work of J.-L. Quantin, including ‘Le rigorisme: sur le basculement de la théologie morale catholique au XVIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire de l’église de France, LXXXIX (2003): 23–43; and J.-L. Quantin and J.-C. Waquet (eds), Papes, princes et savants dans l’Europe moderne. Mélanges à la mémoire de Bruno Neveu (Geneva, 2007), esp. J.-L. Quantin, ‘De l’histoire de l’érudition ecclésiastique à l’histoire de l’orthodoxie religieuse. Bruno Neveu et le catholicisme’, ibid., pp. 1–21.

The Historical Context

5

the crowning glory of France, not a deviation from standard Catholicism. This would therefore seem to be advanced in conscious opposition to a brave and seminal counter-argument, in Marc Venard’s famous study of the papal enclave of Avignon and surrounding territories of the French kingdom, in which a French Catholic rigorism of the pre-revolutionary era is acknowledged but distinguished from the counterproductive ultrarigorism of the Jansenists. The reasserted centrality of the Jansenism of ancien regime France, by contrast, has been once again put forward as a manifestation of the Gallican or ‘true’ Catholicism native to France, contrasted with an ‘alien’ Tridentine standard of Catholic practice. Such a reading of French history has its own difficulties, in any case, given the very varied and often contradictory positions adopted over time as Gallican by kings and their ministers, or parlementaires, or some theologians of the Sorbonne, or some bishops or some of the lower clergy. It is also, of course, distinct from more precise and detailed investigation of just how the French contributed to, and not only reacted to, the workings of the Council of Trent (1545–63) and its resulting decrees.4 All this, at any rate, ensures that the role of Jansenism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France remains contested. To understand its genesis and original identity thus remains imperative, despite the vast literature which it has engendered, from its own earliest years to the present. In pursuit of such understanding it is necessary to remember that the term, if used properly, ought to apply only to some French Catholics after the 1640 posthumous publication by associates of Jansenius of the Augustinus, or from the year of its publication in France, 1641. For precision of analysis a different identity will be needed for those who would from then on be defined by reference to the text, but who arguably did not spring into life as a movement born in an instant; for that reason the term ‘proto-Jansenist’ will be adopted here. For without a suitable term it is difficult to discuss the emergence of a new tendency, from within a previously coherent if unstructured movement, in the ‘long decade’ of the 1630s, from 1629 to 1642–43 – that is from the death of Bérulle to the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII. The original French movement, conventionally known as that of the dévots, can be described as conspicuously Catholic, and as tending to favour European Catholic 4  An incisive modern survey of such issues is provided by A. Tallon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du monde (Paris, 2002), esp. ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–24; M. Venard, Réforme protestante, réforme catholique dans la province d’Avignon (Paris, 1993); cf. P. Chaunu et al., Le Basculement religieux de Paris au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1998); W. Doyle, Jansenism. Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution (Basingstoke, 2000).

The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

6

solidarity against Gallican nationalism. It will be argued here that this ‘long decade’ saw the gradual division of that movement, and the separation of part of its original membership as an embryonic or ‘proto’ Jansenist party.5 It can also be suggested that such division had, in the longer term, into the later eighteenth century, fatal consequences for the cohesion of French Catholicism. If such consequences did indeed follow, the period and the process of the separation are crucial to historical understanding. Yet to trace the process in its natural chronological sequence, and without undue retrospection, should avoid any anachronistic forcing of a link to the later phenomenon of ‘dechristianization’ within France.

5

  L. Châtellier, The Europe of the Devout. The Catholic Reformation and the Formation of a New Society (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 98–101; cf. A. de Meyer, Les premières Controverses Jansénistes en France (1640–1649) (Louvain, 1919), p. 27. There has been some French criticism of the term ‘proto-Jansenist’. But its use here is simply adopted for lack, it seems, of a better one. Obviously it involves a conscious awareness that it can only be understood avant la lettre. See now J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580–1730 (New Haven-London, 2009), pp. xvi, 394–5, 423, 427.

Chapter 2

The Original Context Civil and Religious War in Sixteenth-Century France For half a century, from the mid-sixteenth century until the 1590s, the kingdom of France was persistently, and indeed almost continually, divided by armed conflict. This was conducted in the name of religion, as if between Catholics and Calvinists (known as Huguenots in France). But much of the conflict afflicting different regions, now more now less, was in fact driven by dynastic rivalry, making the warfare as much civil as truly religious. The dynastic dimension moreover was made more prominent as time passed, because of the impending struggle for succession to the French throne, if, as seemed increasingly likely, the Valois dynasty failed to persist, for want of a legitimate male heir in the direct line. With the assassination of Henri III in 1589 and the death in 1590 of the elderly Cardinal de Bourbon, a representative of the next line with a claim to the royal throne who was at least indubitably Catholic, a double or possibly triple problem presented itself. On the one hand the kingdom was still, in the minds of many of the French, an unalterably Catholic monarchy, whose ruler, to be accepted as legitimate, must, among other things, be Catholic himself. On the other hand the legal tradition, enshrined as the so-called Salic Law, insisted that such a legitimate ruler had indeed to be so ‘himself’, preserving a male succession. Yet thirdly the next presenting male heir in that Bourbon line, Henri de Navarre, was all too publicly identified as Huguenot. By the early 1590s the succession problem, as far as candidates within the kingdom of France were concerned, was thus concentrated in his person. This evolution represented also the eclipse of what had at an earlier stage seemed a possible alternative succession to the French throne, that of a member of the Catholic Guise family, whose power had been exercised both within the kingdom and in the adjacent duchy of Lorraine.1

1   J. Powis, ‘Gallican Liberties and the Politics of Later Sixteenth-Century France’, Historical Journal, XXVI (1983): 515–30.

8

The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

International Complications One reason for the interim importance of the Guises was their ability to stand as patrons of Catholic interests in a religiously divided Europe, not only within francophone territory, but also in respect of other, historically related areas, above all Scotland. That is an immediate reminder of the fact that the warfare in France of the second half of the sixteenth century was not merely dynastic as well as religious, but was also more even than a civil war, being simultaneously part of international conflict. A parallel struggle in the Netherlands, in the same half century, was also developing from partly religious but, initially, more obviously political insurgency to an increasingly and ultimately religious, rather than linguistic or clearly geographic, division. The challenge, in the case of the Netherlands, was directly to the control of the cities and provinces of this part of the original duchy of Burgundy by the Habsburg dynasty and, specifically, from the mid-century, by the king of Spain, Philip II. But indirectly the ability of the Valois monarchy to retain control of events in the neighbouring French kingdom was threatened by insurrection in the Netherlands, especially since Calvinists as well as Catholics were potentially able to act in their own cause across state boundaries. As a counter-measure the French monarch or regent might at times be tempted to give some encouragement to French intervention in the troubles in the Netherlands, to divert, it might be hoped, armed conflict to non-French soil; and also to subvert the rival power of Spain in this territory, adjacent to the frontier of the French kingdom, which was at the time nearer to Paris than its modern equivalent. Another parallel, for both France and the Netherlands, was provided by interference from the Protestant England of Elizabeth I, which could threaten, and occasionally deliver, some assistance to Calvinists in either case. But Catholic Spain, for reasons just noted, was itself well placed to intervene within France, ostensibly in support of French Catholicism, by moving forces into the kingdom from surrounding areas, whether across the Pyrenees or, potentially, from the Mediterranean or Atlantic coast, or via the Alpine passes or, above all, across the French frontiers with Burgundian territory. After the death of the Cardinal de Bourbon, and certainly while Henri de Navarre remained publicly identified as a Huguenot, Philip II was able to make a superficially plausible case, for genealogical reasons, that, in the absence of a legitimate, native and Catholic heir to the French throne, the claim reverted to his daugther, the infanta. Such a transparent device for attempting Spanish control of France (in addition to the successfully established control of Portugal since 1580) met the obvious obstacle of the Salic Law. But Philip’s determination was undiminished, in the sense that even the eventual, belated papal acceptance in 1595 of Henri de Navarre as legitimately reconverted to Catholicism, and thereby as legitimate king of

The Original Context

9

France, did not halt the Spanish attempt to intervene in supposed support of the ultra-Catholic resistance of the collapsing League within France. Papal mediation helped to secure a Franco-Spanish peace only in 1598, on the eve of Philip’s death.2 The Arrival of the New Bourbon Dynasty By 1593 the assessment made, famously, by Henri de Navarre was that his reconversion to Catholicism would be in the best interests of France as well as his own. To obtain a sufficient degree of support for his claim to the throne would involve his becoming a figure whom a majority of French Catholics could accept. This proved true despite the persistence for a while of an ultra-Catholic opposition, in the form of the League. This opposition nevertheless gradually declined, even with Spanish support for its last efforts. To reduce such internal resistance and opportunity for Spanish intervention it was important for Henri to obtain not just the rehabilitation granted him by some of the French episcopate in a ceremony of absolution in 1593, but also unambiguous reconciliation to the Catholic Church by the papacy. Partly though not wholly because of Spanish pressure at Rome for a refusal of any such reconciliation and, by that means, legitimation, the papacy at first declined to consider overtures on Henri’s behalf. Initially this remained the case, despite the fact that in 1592 a new pope, Clement VIII, had been elected who was, at least potentially, open to persuasion in a contrary sense. Only in 1595 did a combination of forces, ecclesiastical and political, operating within the papal court and in the Italian peninsula more broadly, prove strong enough to counter increased Spanish pressure and make it possible for the pope to entertain a formal embassy on Henri’s behalf. The pope’s decision had, in fact, to be highly personal, as within the College of Cardinals itself there were many who were not ready to oppose Spain. But in the end, in that year, the pope presided at a public ceremony in Rome by which the French envoys, on Henri’s behalf, were granted the formal reconciliation to the Church of, now, the legitimate Catholic ruler of the kingdom. The terms negotiated, as it were to the eleventh hour and beyond, were not in the event to prove ones which Henri IV could entirely observe.3 But the papacy had nevertheless secured one major gain 2

 E. Tenace, ‘A Strategy of Reaction: The Armadas of 1596 and 1597 and the Spanish Struggle for European Hegemony’, English Historical Review, CXVIII (2003): 855–82. 3  M.T. Fattori, Clemente VIII e il sacro collegio 1592–1605. Meccanismi istituzionali ed accentramento di governo (Stuttgart, 2004), pp. 54–93: esp. p. 81; A. Tallon, ‘Henri IV and the Papacy after the League’, in A. Forrestal and E. Nelson (eds), Politics and Religion in Early Bourbon France (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 21–41.

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The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

for its own cause, by ensuring that France remained an officially Catholic kingdom, ruled by a Catholic whom all French Catholics might accept as legitimate. But equally important for French developments was the corresponding fact that the legitimacy of the new, Bourbon dynasty was inextricably linked to profession of the Catholic faith and recognition at Rome. This was to remain true for the whole period until the Revolution, but it was of immediate importance during the politically uncertain years of Henri IV’s reign, the unstable years of regency following his assassination in 1610, and the following rule of Louis XIII until his own death in 1643. It was an essential fact of domestic politics which could not be altered by any amount of revived national Gallicanism within Catholic France. The Gallican Revival and the Politiques Even before the belated Roman reconciliation of Henri de Navarre his claim to the succession was receiving increasing and, obviously, crucial support from those of the French who were not among his original, Huguenot coreligionists, but who saw themselves as patriots and conceived an urgent need for France to escape its seemingly endless cycle of internal warfare and self-destruction. Such moderates were often identified as politiques, and in some cases the term was applied in a disparaging sense to imply that they prioritized political considerations at the expense of absolute defence of the true, Catholic faith. But if, for the moment, the term is now used in as neutral a way as possible it is clear that such persons, who saw their own identity as naturally and simultaneously both French and Catholic, were essential to the success of Henri IV. This was even more so after some of the king’s former, Huguenot co-religionists took up arms themselves against the once again Catholic king, from 1597 onwards. But moderate Catholics who saw themselves as French patriots were guided by a logic which made the Catholicism of the kingdom and its new king an inherent part of French identity, and certainly not something which depended on papal legitimation. That the French monarchy was, in this sense at least, absolute was the corollary of rejecting any Roman authority over the sovereigns, exercised to exclude or reject a proper claimant to the succession, as, from a French perspective, it seemed that the late sixteenthcentury popes had so long attempted to do. In other words, the belated nature of Rome’s recognition of Henri IV stimulated a revival of native claims for the self-sufficiency of French Catholicism. Such claims could well be advanced by the redeployment of arguments originally put forward in the fifteenth century, in the context of rivalry between a restored Roman (as opposed to Avignon) papacy and the Conciliarist programme which sought to subordinate papal jurisdiction to the ultimate authority of a

The Original Context

11

General Council. The rights of the Church within the kingdom of France, in particular, had been asserted by figures of that era such as Jean Gerson. The Gallican traditions which articulated these claimed rights accordingly enjoyed a conspicuous revival in late sixteenth- and early seventeenthcentury France, promoted not only by some ecclesiastics but also, rather more importantly, by parlementaires, some theologians of the Sorbonne and eventually representatives from the Third Estate in a meeting of the Estates General. Thus the Gallican revival identified itself as defending both French Catholicism and French sovereignty, even though, as already seen, the new Bourbon dynasty, from another angle, owed its potential call on the loyalty of ultra-Catholics to a highly personal exercise of papal policy.4 The End of the League and the Huguenot Minority The Franco-Spanish peace of 1598 ensured the failure of the League’s final attempt to maintain a pure Catholic enclave within the general boundaries of the kingdom. The question of ‘purity’ was relevant because while politiques had accepted that internal peace in Catholic France might well require some degree of separate identity allowed to the Huguenot minority, the ultra-Catholics had not been prepared to agree to any such toleration. In 1598 internal peace was also in fact prescribed by means of a set of documents, commonly described in the singular as the Edict of Nantes, which involved royal authority in granting carefully limited rights, defined in religious, judicial and military terms, to the French Huguenot communities. One obvious implication within France, irrespective of what Rome might think of this outcome, was that the theory sustained (despite, for example, the history of the Albigensians) until the early sixteenth century, identifying religious uniformity as a distinguishing feature of the French kingdom, was challenged. But the political watershed of 1598 arguably saw more than defeat of the concept of a single ‘religion of the French’. The laying down of arms by the last of the League did not mean that all French Catholics were suddenly of a common mind. Military, and to a considerably lesser degree, political subjection of the Huguenot minority, now dependent upon royal goodwill, allowed one religious division in France to replace or at least overshadow another.5 The new era was arguably defined increasingly by disputes internal to French Catholicism itself. 4   Cf. J. Bergin, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld. Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven-London, 1987), pp. 22–33. 5  R. Briggs, Early Modern France 1560–1715 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 32–3.

The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

12

Catholic France and the Peace of Vervins The maintained presence of a non-Catholic minority in France did not of itself, however, prevent an officially Catholic monarchy joining a supposedly harmonious Catholic Europe, once papal influence had again in fact been exercised in French (as well as Spanish) affairs, to help achieve the Peace of Vervins. Until a figure of unreconciled ultra-Catholicism assassinated Henri IV in 1610, French foreign policy at least could notionally be directed to ends which contributed to Catholic solidarity in Europe. In fact the assassination occurred when the French king was considering an attack on Habsburg territory. However the vulnerability of France immediately after this event, in the years of Louis XIII’s minority, left room for papal influence to attempt to promote a return of French policy towards common Catholic interests. French Catholics who favoured such a policy were not themselves unreconciled regicides; but they were potential critics of any contrary policy, and their views could not necessarily coexist peacefully with Catholic but nationalist opinions which harboured hostility to the Habsburgs and resentment of a papacy which, in this interpretation, had improperly sought to arbitrate on vital French matters, withheld for long recognition of a legitimate monarch. Worse still, they might be believed to have encouraged indirectly regicide by a more direct assertion of a right to exclude or depose an ‘illegitimate’ ruler. In this version of things the papacy was still too deferential to the Habsburgs, imperfectly liberated from subservience to Spain (despite being able since 1595 to counterbalance Catholic Spain with a Catholic France), and possibly complacent about the Habsburg hostility which the assassination seemed to make a horribly immediate threat. The memory of Spanish intervention in the last stages of the French civil war, after all, was still fresh and, on this reading of events, the monarchy, especially during a minority, remained all too vulnerable to Spanish attack or papal subversion.6 The international context itself was indeed still tense and complicated, in both political and religious terms. A formally anonymous tract, published in London in 1613 as the Supplicatio ad imperatorem … Contra Paulum Quintum, was dedicated to James I by the signatory ‘Novus Homo’. While this led to an English translation, The New Man in 1622, a French version purportedly printed at Oppenheim (in fact apparently in Leiden) in 1613 was an avowed expansion by Nicolas de Marbais of the original. As a convert to Protestantism he added details of alleged crimes and vices of popes and cardinals, and criticism of papal temporal pretensions, in the 6

 R. Bireley, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War. Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 3, 12–18; cf. H. Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought. The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 1540–1630 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 314–38.

The Original Context

13

context of the assassination of Henri IV. He thus embellished the original argument that the Roman See should be considered vacant by reason of simony, making it the duty of European Christian rulers to convene a new General Council of the Church – even if the enlargements arguably introduced inconsistency and incoherence to the text, composed by the idiosyncratic anti-papal lawyer Giacomo Antonio Marta, Professor of Law at the Venetian University of Padua and sometime informant in English service.7 The Internal Legacy of War and the Need for Catholic Reform Some French Catholics nevertheless preserved a conspicuous loyalty to Rome, not only by their support for a foreign policy supporting common Catholic interests in a religiously divided Europe. The half century of internal war had indubitably done great damage to the Catholic Church in many parts of the kingdom, and not only in those areas where property and revenues had been appropriated by non-Catholics or others, in the chaos of fighting. Structural damage could, in principle, be repaired, but many religious houses, in particular, had been degraded in a more profound sense, as communities were disrupted or simply ceased to observe with any degree of attention their professed rule. To devout Catholics who deplored such decay, or who were all too aware of the dubious quality of many episcopal appointments by the end of the war, with a corresponding relaxation of clerical discipline, Roman authority had another potential and positive role to play, as promoting a return to better standards. Internal Catholic reform, ideally to be led by satisfactory bishops, had been prescribed precisely enough in many decrees of the Council of Trent. Moreover the decrees of that naturally episcopal gathering had been confirmed immediately after the Council’s conclusion by papal authority, as the Council itself had requested. In theory, then, cooperation of episcopal and papal leadership in the cause of internal Catholic reform which was all too visibly necessary in France was possible there as much as anywhere else. Where religious houses claimed exemption from episcopal oversight,

7   Bibliothèque de Port-Royal, Paris [BPR], Collection Le Paige [LP] 470. A.D. Wright, ‘The Venetian View of Church and State: Catholic Erastianism?’, Studi Secenteschi, XIX (1978): 75–108: p. 85 n. 34; P.F. Grendler, ‘Giacomo Antonio Marta: Antipapal Lawyer and English Spy, 1609–1618’, Catholic Historical Review, XCIII, 4 (2007): 789–814: pp. 797–809; W.B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 119–20; P. Schmidt, ‘Inquisition und Zensur in der Kölner Nuntiatur’, in A. Koller (ed.), Die Aussenbeziehungen der römischen Kurie unter Paul V. Borghese (1605–1621) (Tübingen, 2008), pp. 409–27: pp. 412, 419.

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The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645

on the other hand, theory at least again allowed for papal intervention to restore observance of the rule.8

8   Cf. C.F. Black, Church, Religion and Society in Early Modern Italy (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 62–85.

Chapter 3

The Dévot Movement The Unresolved Question of the Tridentine Decrees After the Council of Trent (1545–63) the papacy had pressed the Valois monarchy for official reception within the French kingdom of the Tridentine decrees. But royal procrastination, coupled with considerable French dissatisfaction over some of the decrees – those on the future conditions for valid Catholic marriage for instance – meant that no such reception had been secured by the time of Henri III’s assassination. Similarly, when Henri IV was assassinated in 1610, his promise to Clement VIII that he would work for the kingdom’s reception of the decrees remained without positive result. The degree to which this second assassination provoked a renewal of politique rhetoric against aspects of papal activity made it almost as difficult to see how reception could be achieved under a regency. Indeed legal argument suggested that it was particularly important during a royal minority that what (from a Gallican perspective) could be challenged as ‘novelties’ in ecclesiastical regulation should not be allowed within a kingdom where the sovereign’s independence needed to be conserved and not reduced in such issues as, for example, freedom in the choice of French bishops. It was arguably, by this date at least, the disciplinary decrees which were the most objectionable from such a standpoint, rather than the doctrinal decrees which, by clarifying the demarcation between Catholic belief and a variety of Protestant errors, did indeed suggest the impossibility of any conceivable compromise between Catholic and Huguenot faith within the kingdom. Yet, as has already been seen, some devout French Catholics regarded the Tridentine decrees as an important declaration of the standards which Catholic renewal ought to emulate, in France just as much as elsewhere. While the decrees remained without official reception, however, it also continued to be difficult for bishops to take a lead in restoring discipline, in such matters and in such ways as the Council had entrusted precisely to them, because one Gallican tradition which certainly still had force was that refractory clergy could challenge attempts by their ecclesiastical superiors to discipline them, by means of the appel comme d’abus, brought before the secular courts of the kingdom.1 1   J. Bergin, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld. Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven-London, 1987), pp. 43–5, 49–52.

16

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The Jesuits in France The new model of religious life which Catholic reform had evolved in the first half of the sixteenth century, initially in the Italian peninsula, that of the clerks regular, was most prominently associated, by the end of the century, with the Jesuits (even if in Italy and Spain at least, to that date, they were quite often still named after the distinct but original clerks regular, the Theatines). The Society of Jesus had received approval of its singular constitution, even if not without prior difficulty, precisely from the papacy, and the extra, fourth vow of absolute obedience to the papacy taken by the Society’s inner elite was popularly held to reveal the utter dedication of all its members to undeviating service to the pope, at the expense of whatever other obligations or duties. Moreover a few Jesuits had been disproportionately prominent at the Council of Trent, and vociferous there in defending papal authority against any possible criticisms or attempted confinement. On the other hand, the ill will among some other members of the Council, bishops or regulars which this had encouraged did not prevent the Council’s explicitly allowing the Jesuit constitution to persist, with its own individuality, while other religious orders were being subjected to some degree of change in the decrees on the Reform of the Regulars. In France there had been from the start some hostility to the ‘novelty’ which the Jesuits were thought to represent, and politique opinion was able to build on educational concerns, as the Society evolved a new direction, distinct from the original ambition to ensure for its own future members a high quality and lengthy programme of preparation, opening educational provision increasingly to other young males from at least the upper levels of society. The alleged ‘unpatriotic’ devotion of the Jesuits to papal obedience could also be used to gather Gallican opposition, from parlementaires as well as from some theologians and prelates. Some ‘scandalous’ publications by Jesuits also served to foster the belief that the Society’s members corporately defended the right of popes to judge, excommunicate or depose kings, or to relieve subjects of their proper obedience to their sovereign, or that the Society taught the legitimacy and even vocation of regicide. The Jesuits had not escaped some association with the League, whatever their own internal debates about papal policy towards France, but on the other hand Henri IV, once again a Catholic, took as his confessor from 1602 (officially from 1608) a Jesuit, Père Pierre Coton. Nevertheless a failed assassination attempt on the king saw the Jesuits exiled from most parts of the kingdom from 1595, and, against legal resistance, their return was only in the end secured in 1603. It was hardly accidental, then, that open criticism of the Jesuits flared again in 1610–11, after the king’s assassination, and yet again in 1614 and 1626 in particular. Beyond that date too some elements among parlementaires

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and theologians of the Sorbonne remained opposed to the very presence of Jesuits in the kingdom, while the University of Paris as a whole pursued a policy of non-recognition in relation to their educational enterprise. In principle, by contrast, devout French Catholics who valued papal authority and sought to demonstrate their own loyalty to Rome might be expected to defend and cooperate with the Society’s activities in the provinces, within the kingdom, into which the Jesuits were divided. But such Catholic ‘ultramontanism’ (measured from the starting place of France) might equally have expectations about Jesuits, given the Society’s supposedly particular relationship with Rome. Two factors in practice complicated this, at least for a while. Until his death in 1605 Clement VIII remained openly reserved and privately more critical about some aspects of the Jesuits’ affairs, and this in part reflected dangerous internal tensions and divisions within the Society, touching on its identity and proper purposes, which, though in origin predating Clement’s pontificate, were still all too uncomfortable a reality during those years. Secondly, the contested return of the Jesuits to all parts of France from 1603 made them yet more ready to recognize their dependence on the continued patronage of the new royal dynasty, to protect their presence against persistent opposition, whatever their supposed attention to orders from Rome.2 The Estates General and the Assembly of the Clergy The predictable political difficulties within France after the assassination of Henri IV meant that eventually it proved necessary to allow a meeting of the Estates General. At this meeting in 1614 there was articulation, above all among representatives of the Third Estate, of anti-papal rhetoric and of asserted Gallican rights. Two French cardinals, Du Perron and de La 2

 A. Lynn Martin, ‘The Jesuit Mission to France’, in T.M. McCoog, SJ (ed.), The Mercurian Project. Forming Jesuit Culture 1573–1580 (Rome-St Louis, 2004), pp. 249–93: pp. 281–2; P. Lécrivain, ‘The Struggle for Paris. Juan Maldonado in France’, ibid., pp. 295– 321: pp. 299–303, 310–18; V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le clergé de France (Paris, 1929), pp. 89–137; R. Bireley, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War. Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge, 2003), p. 13. See now E. Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy. Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590–1615) (Aldershot, 2005), esp. ch. 5, ‘Accommodation’ (pp. 209–39) and ‘Conclusion’ (pp. 240–44) for the view that by 1615 the Jesuits in France had both successfully established an arguable and partly accepted position that the French Bourbon monarchy was supported not subverted by their presence in the kingdom, and reached a working accommodation with forces in the Paris parlement and within the Sorbonne by accepting a degree of ‘secular’, that is Gallican, regulation of Jesuit activity in the kingdom. The former produced the corresponding necessity of reliance by the French Jesuits on specifically royal authority; the latter enabled them to survive the potential crisis represented by the Estates General of 1614.

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Rochefoucauld not only stiffened the regency’s resistance to such talk but also, out of this distinctly unpromising situation, engineered a partial but indubitable demonstration of clerical independence which was certainly French but also conspicuously loyal to the wider Catholic Church. The Assembly of the Clergy which followed, in 1615, was persuaded to make a unilateral declaration, in the face of the continued non-reception of the Tridentine decrees by the secular authorities of the kingdom, that the French clergy, for its part, did accept the Council’s decrees. This sequence of events also revealed the persistent suspicion of the Jesuits among some of the Third Estate and, by contrast, La Rochefoucauld’s positive appreciation of them. His own role in the whole episode suggested, however, that a devout French Catholicism was possible which was ultramontane but yet not unpatriotic, let alone disloyal to the French monarchy.3 What also remained true was that the Jesuit presence within the kingdom of France was set to expand to a conspicuous degree. Between 1626 and 1640, on one calculation, the number of Jesuit Professed Houses within the kingdom expanded from three to four, that of colleges from 59 to 70 and of other houses, of various categories, from 17 to 27. Another calculation, for 1643, counts four Professed Houses, 75 colleges, 30 other houses and over 2,000 members of the Society, divided between five provinces involving different parts of the kingdom.4 The Province of France included the college which in some ways was the most prominent, the Paris Collège de Clermont. The Province of Aquitaine, created in 1564, included a similarly well-known educational presence at Lyon.5 Ultramontane Loyalties and the Assassination of Henri IV In the years immediately following the assassination of Henri IV, therefore, the Jesuits were once again in a rather delicate situation in France; but other native ultramontanes, clerical and lay, were not collectively at any similar disadvantage. On the contrary, there were potential opportunities for them to support the aims of the influence which the papal nuncios to the royal court attempted to exert, during the regency, pursuing Catholic solidarity in a Europe where tensions would soon result in the outbreak of what was to prove the Thirty Years’ War. This was a policy which, if it could succeed, would allow the papacy itself to reap some benefit from the new balance of a Catholic France against an otherwise all too 3

  Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 53–4; Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 11–16.   J. Brucker, La Compagnie de Jésus (Paris, 1919), p. 245; H. Fouqueray, SJ, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus en France (5 vols, Paris, 1910–25), vol. V, p. 461. 5   Lynn Martin, pp. 251–77. 4

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dominant Habsburg connection (even allowing for the internal tensions, in fact, between the Spanish court and the imperial court). The Italian, and specifically Florentine origins of the Queen Mother were, from this perspective, a promising factor, even if the political fragility of her regency meant, for example, the continued non-reception of the Tridentine decrees in the kingdom. Individual episcopal initiative was thus to be vital, and indeed as important as it might otherwise have been by virtue of the very terms of those decrees. In this way Rome appreciated what was first heard there of the efforts made by a young aristocratic bishop, Richelieu of Luçon, a bishopric on the edge of identifiably Huguenot territory. His activity in such things as catechizing and the founding of a small diocesan seminary was approvingly noted. At the same time he seemed to be increasingly well placed to promote a devoutly Catholic policy at the court of Queen Marie de’ Medici. That promised to be even more important when, at the political level, the difficulties of the regency involved attack on specifically Italian influence at the Queen Mother’s court and an assertion of native independence, in moves also connected with the emergence of Louis XIII as a king attempting to escape from the constraints of minority and assert his authority in his own right.6 Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld Another ecclesiastical leader, especially after the events of 1614–15, seemed for the time being to be the most crucial and conspicuous, and not in any way just because of his ever more openly pro-Jesuit views. As well as setting an example of internal reform pursued by use of the authority of a diocesan bishop, just as Richelieu was already doing, La Rochefoucauld, in addition, was able to play a double role – as a cardinal who received explicit support and specially delegated powers from Rome on the one hand, and equally visible support and authorization from the monarchy on the other. This combined role enabled him to intervene in another postcivil war weakness in the Church within France, the religious orders. In the case of a number of orders, monastic and other, he launched programmes of enforced reform, returning houses to a more nearly proper observance of their rule, and disciplining the recalcitrant. His reforms did not touch all the religious orders in France and did not, in any case, achieve perfect success. But what they very perfectly demonstrated was an alliance of papal and monarchical authority in pursuit of internal reform within the Church in France. Once again, then, it seemed possible for French ultramontane 6  Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 14–17; J. Bergin, The Rise of Richelieu (New Haven-London, 1991), pp. 89–96.

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allegiance to coexist harmoniously enough with unchallenged loyalty in political terms. Signs of eventual tension were also present, nevertheless, not least where French bishops and members of the religious orders clashed, in ways which La Rochefoucauld had some difficulty in resolving. All the same, it still seemed as though a conspicuously devout Catholicism in France could present itself as serving and supporting the new but Catholic Bourbon dynasty, despite the death of its first king.7 Bérulle and the Origins of the French Oratory Among such French dévots was a figure who appreciated the model of zealous priestly living supplied in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italy by the Oratorians of Philip Neri. In the case of the Roman (as distinct, in the end, from the Neapolitan) Oratory, the community’s status as secular priests, not regulars, was disputed but defended. To Pierre de Bérulle (1575–1629) it seemed that France too could benefit from a similar group of priests who would lead a collective, exemplary life, not to be confused with the existence (and claims) of the religious orders in France. It was also of note that the Roman Oratorians (rather more than the Jesuits, in fact) had been influential at the court of Clement VIII and certainly helped to bring the pope to his resolution to allow the reconciliation of Henri de Navarre, against Spanish opposition. Bérulle founded the French Oratory in 1611, the same year in which Adrien Bourdoise was founding the community of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris, which came to establish the better preparation of secular priests as one of its chief aims. Bérulle himself, then, seemed to embody an ultramontane French Catholicism, proud of its devotion to Rome though inherently loyal to the monarchy, and his eventual elevation to the College of Cardinals in 1627 appeared to confirm this; while the initial stance of his foundation, the French Oratory, obviously seemed to conform. Moreover the secular status of the priests of the French Oratory might promise a way of avoiding clashes of the type which occurred between French bishops and regulars and sometimes, specifically, between bishops and Jesuits in France. As the French Oratory developed, as one of its roles, the education of boys, however, there was potential and in the end actual rivalry between the Oratorians and the Jesuits over the expansion of colleges in France. At the time of Bérulle’s death, in 1629, of 49 Oratorian houses found in various parts of the kingdom, 13 were colleges.8 7

  Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, passim, esp. pp. 55–66.   Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 45, 68, 105, 107, 163, 273; J. Orcibal, Les origines du Jansénisme, II: Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran et son temps (1581– 8

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Olier and the Foundation of Saint-Sulpice Of greater importance, however, in the long run especially, for improved training of secular priests in France was the seminary eventually founded by Jean-Jacques Olier (1608–57) once he had taken over the Parisian (though extra-diocesan) parish of Saint-Sulpice in 1642. He too appeared as an ultramontane in his ecclesiastical loyalties, and accordingly his foundation also seemed to fit within the dévot movement in France. After Bérulle’s death, in 1629, Charles de Condren succeeded as superior of the Oratory, and at his own death, in 1641, he allegedly expressed himself more confident, in fact, in the loyalty, to Bérulle’s legacy, of what became Saint-Sulpice than of his own Oratory. The products of the Saint-Sulpice seminary were also, being secular priests, less likely than regulars to run into clashes with French diocesan bishops.9 Episcopal Reform at Odds with Regulars In the 1620s and 1630s, precisely as some French bishops tried to impose better, more Tridentine standards in their dioceses, conflict occurred over the exemption from episcopal jurisdiction which religious orders, in varying degrees, had traditionally claimed. The Conciliar decrees which, as already noted, the secular courts in France would not support a bishop in implementing had made some reduction in such exemption, specifically as to the pastoral functions (most often of the mendicant orders) of preaching to the laity and hearing the laity’s confessions. The Council had provided for diocesan bishops to examine and license regulars prior to their exercising either function. Diocesan bishops also sought to restore and reinforce the proper discipline of the laity, not least for example by insisting that the laity perform their Paschal Obligation (of annual confession and communion) at their parish church and not elsewhere. In some places bishops felt themselves obstructed in such matters by the regulars, and on occasion the latter included the local Jesuits. This was not simply because of the special link between the Jesuits and Rome. In the French context it was rather more because the Jesuits, as has been seen, felt 1638) (Louvain-Paris, 1947), p. 297; Y. Krumenacker, L’école française de spiritualité. Des mystiques, des fondateurs, des courants et leurs interprètes (Paris, 1999), pp. 140–43. On his calculation, in 1631 of 71 Oratorian establishments in France, 27 had an educational identity: p. 149. 9  A.D. Wright, ‘Bérulle and Olier: Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in R.N. Swanson (ed.), Studies in Church History, 39: The Church and Mary (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 271–9; J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580–1730 (New Haven-London, 2009), pp. 112–19.

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that their restored presence in the kingdom was dependent on their links with the monarchy, which could be their best hope for protection against the Gallican hostility of the parlementaires and of some members of the Sorbonne, but also, therefore, potentially against Gallican assertions of episcopal authority.10 New and Reformed Religious: Carmelites and Port-Royal The Catholic revival in post-Civil War France of the early seventeenth century was also marked by positive initiatives in relation to religious orders, not least female ones. A famous part of the Catholic reform in sixteenthcentury Spain had been the new network of austere Carmelite nunneries, following a strict version of the rule, led by Teresa of Avila. Members of her reformed Carmelites were brought from Spain to early seventeenthcentury France, though, after tensions which were both ecclesiastical and in a sense political, some of these moved on to the Spanish-ruled Netherlands. Bérulle’s contested attempts to control the Carmelite nuns in France, even after the arrival of reformed Carmelite friars, were a further complication, both for the Carmelites themselves and for the French Oratory. Sometimes religious houses were not newly founded but subject to major and severe reforms intended, after the disruption of warfare in France, to return them to strict observance of their rule; and this too could concern female as well as male regulars. The famous female convent of Port-Royal represented, initially, this type of reform, imposed internally on an existing community. In one sense this seemed an harmonious part of the dévot efforts at Catholic reform in France. But in the case of Port-Royal there was from the start a complication. Here the first reforming superior, Mère Angélique, was from the Arnauld family, which came to play a major role in the subsequent evolution of the community and its priestly and lay associates. From the family, of Huguenot origin, there had also come a leading challenge, couched in Gallican terms, to the very presence, not just to the educational activity, of the Jesuits in France – that of Antoine Arnauld the elder. Thus there was always a potential link between PortRoyal and Catholic opposition in France to the Jesuits. But initially the reformed community seemed a natural manifestation, among others, of the spirit of the dévot movement.11 10

 Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 65–8; Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 84–5, 88–90.  R. Briggs, Early Modern France 1560–1715 (Oxford, 1977), p. 172; L. Blond, La Maison Professe des Jésuites de la rue Saint-Antoine à Paris 1580–1762 (Paris, 1956), p. 102; Krumenacker, pp. 132–4; Martin, Gallicanisme politique, pp. 93, 101–9; Bergin, Church, Society, pp. 367–8. 11

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The community produced for itself new Constitutions in 1627, the year prior to the approval by Pope Urban VIII of the convent’s transfer in 1626 from the jurisdiction of the abbot of Cîteaux to obedience to the archbishop of Paris. The first official approval locally of a version of the Constitutions was granted by Archbishop Gondi only in 1648 however.12 The Case of Maffeo Barberini The evolution of French Catholicism between 1629 and 1644 would eventually occur within the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII. Certain stages in his own earlier career proved highly indicative of inherent difficulties affecting French Catholicism during the initial Bourbon reigns. Clement VIII’s nephew, Pietro Aldobrandini, was sent as Cardinal Legate to the Franco-Savoyard peace negotiations in 1600 which concluded with the Peace of Lyon in January 1601. This followed the previous papal legation to France, in 1596–98, of Alessandro de’ Medici, who subsequently, in 1605, would briefly be pope, as Leo XI. Aldobrandini’s first major stop was at Medicean Florence, and in his suite on that first stage was Maffeo Barberini, clerk of the Apostolic Chamber.13 When in September 1601 a male heir was born to Henri IV and Marie de’ Medici, official papal letters of the following month to the king and other leading figures in France announced the sending as extraordinary nuncio of the protonotary apostolic Maffeo Barberini on a congratulatory mission.14 The resident nuncio, Innocenzo del Bufalo, bishop of Camerino, was therefore host in Paris to Barberini in the winter of 1601–02, but, despite the king’s hopes, he did not also have to entertain Aldobrandini as legate there, specifically to represent the pope as godparent at a projected baptism of the dauphin.15 The pope’s willingness to be godparent, of which Barberini assured the king, was further represented by the gift presented by the extraordinary nuncio. Among blessed garments and objects presented by 12

  Constitutions du monastère de Port-Royal du Saint-Sacrement. Texte établi par Jean Lesaulnier (Paris, 2004): Véronique Alemany, ‘Présentation’, pp. 7–9. 13  A. Contini, ‘Aspects of Medicean Diplomacy in the Sixteenth Century’, in D. Frigo (ed.), Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy. The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 49–94: p. 69; L. von Pastor, The History of the Popes (40 vols, London, 1891–1953), vol. XXIII, p. 233; vol. XXVIII, p. 29. 14   Collectanea Archivi Vaticani, 41: Epistolae ad Principes, III, Sixtus V–Clemens VIII (1585–1605), ed. L. Nanni and T. Mrkonjić (Vatican City, 1997), nos 14135–51 (p. 566): Oct. 1601; Pastor, vol. XXIII, p. 173. 15   Acta Nuntiaturae Gallicae, 4: Correspondance du Nonce en France Innocenzo del Bufalo évêque de Camerino (1601–1604), ed. B. Barbiche (Rome-Paris, 1964), pp. 25, 44 and n. 2.

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popes to European rulers, these swaddling-clothes were a novelty, but not an absolute innovation. The delicacy of Pope Clement’s relations with the major Catholic powers, in the wake of his rejection of Spanish objections to his reconciliation of Henri to the Church, was evident from the preceding, similar gift sent via the nuncio in Spain three months before, on the birth of an heir to the Spanish throne. Alessandro de’ Medici, as legate, had worked without evident success for the realization of the promises made by Henri in the context of his reconciliation, including the official reception in the French kingdom of the Tridentine decrees. He had equally little success over any readmission to the whole of the kingdom of the expelled Jesuits. Aldobrandini’s representations on this latter issue, during his mediation of the Franco-Savoyard peace, had also been ineffective. When del Bufalo was appointed nuncio in May 1601 he was aware that his predecessor in that role, Silingardi, had also had no success, any more than had representations made directly on the pope’s behalf, from the summer of 1599, by Orazio del Monte, archbishop of Arles, and the Jesuit Lorenzo Maggio. The royal Edict of Rouen, in September 1603, allowed the readmission of the Jesuits; and del Bufalo was optimistic that the king would in practice modify the nominally severe restrictions governing their readmission. The withdrawal of the restrictions remained a further objective of papal policy.16 In December 1604 official papal letters to the king and other major personages in France announced the return to the kingdom of Barberini, now archbishop of Nazareth, as resident nuncio. When Clement VIII died in the spring of 1605 it was thought that Leo XI might change the appointment at the nunciature, in a pattern not uncommon at papal successions. But after Leo’s own death Barberini was confirmed as nuncio by Pope Paul V, partly through the intervention of the Datary, Pompeo Arigoni.17 On this occasion the instructions originally issued to the nuncio in 1604 were also confirmed. At his first appointment, in addition to formal faculties, such as that for absolving heretics, Barberini had received from Cardinal Aldobrandini instructions substantially based on those previously issued to del Bufalo, which in turn incorporated matter contained in earlier ones for Silingardi. To that extent there appeared a continuity in papal policy, even across the changes of pontificates. The royal promises, above all for the official reception in the kingdom of the Tridentine decrees, were to be pursued. Good relations with leading French ecclesiastics would obviously be necessary, and in 1604 Cardinal Gondi was specifically 16

  Contini, p. 69; Pastor, vol. XXIII, pp. 142–3, 173–8, 247, 263.   Epistolae ad Principes, nos 15171–210 (p. 681): Dec. 1604; Pastor, vol. XXIII, p. 174; vol. XXVIII, p. 29; M. Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence. Rhétorique et ‘res literaria’ de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique (Geneva, 1980), p. 202. 17

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mentioned, while a still too exceptional example of a French diocesan intent on implementing reform on a Tridentine model, the archbishop of Aix, Paul Hurault de L’Hôpital, had already been appointed at the time of del Bufalo’s instructions of 1601. The international scene was not forgotten, in the form of papal plans for a united Christian front against the Turks. The value of continuing the covert but friendly contacts initiated by del Bufalo with the ambassador of the British king, Sir Thomas Parry, was noted. Within France it remained important that the archbishops recognized Roman authority by seeking reception of the pallium before exercising metropolitan jurisdiction. In the French king’s original territory of Béarn, Henri should be pressed to pursue Catholic restoration, which could be further promoted by internal Catholic mission. Similarly, the advantage of the Franco-Savoyard peace might allow Catholic ‘missioni’ to work under the cooperative patronage of Barberini and the vice-legate of Avignon, with reference to Dauphiné and Languedoc, and of the nuncio and his counterpart in Savoy, in relation to other heresy-affected frontier areas. In the case of Clement VIII, that pope’s awareness of the needs of religiously divided states drew on his own knowledge of Poland. Specifically in France there remained the danger of the king’s being misled by some royal ministers, under the guise of ‘false reason of state’. Then too the Jesuits in France needed the nuncio’s protection, since, in addition to the question of restrictions on their presence since readmission to the kingdom, a column in Paris defaming them for supposed association with the attempted assassination which preceded their exclusion deserved demolition. On the latter, Barberini was able to report royal destruction of the column by February 1605. Indeed in 1606 the Jesuits were able to return to Paris itself (something not conceded by the Edict of Rouen) though not initially to educational activity there.18 Before Barberini returned to Rome, in autumn 1607, having become with royal support a cardinal in September 1606, he had indeed continued pressure on the king, from the summer of 1605, involving also Cardinals Joyeuse, Gondi and Sourdis, for official reception of the Tridentine decrees. Representations were also made to the royal councillor Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery and Chancellor Pomponne de Bellièvre, in addition to the constant contact with the king’s Jesuit confessor, Père Coton.19 But from the same 18

  Die Hauptinstruktionen Clemens’ VIII. für die Nuntien und Legaten an den europäischen Fürstenhöfen 1592–1605, ed. K. Jaitner (2 vols, Tübingen, 1984), vol. I, p. clxxi; pp. 725–49, no. 98: Instruktion für Maffeo Barberini Nuntius in Frankreich [Dec. 1604]; Correspondance … del Bufalo, p. 97; Pastor, vol. XXIII, pp. 178, 497–522; vol. XXVI, p. 1. 19   V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme et la Réforme catholique. Essai historique sur l’introduction en France des décrets du Concile de Trente (1563–1615) (Paris, 1919), pp. 336, 340; Pastor, vol. XXVI, pp. 7–9; vol. XXVIII, pp. 29–30.

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date Barberini was sowing in the minds of leading French clerics the idea of an alternative solution to the problem of the non-reception of the Conciliar decrees by secular authority within France, a negative situation seemingly confirmed after a meeting of the French Assembly of the Clergy in 1602.20 The type of solution envisaged by Barberini, though he was aware that it would have to await eventual application, proposed circumventing the opposition of cathedral chapters, and above all the parlements, by means of a formal request to the nuncio, to be initiated by the French episcopate alone, that they might unilaterally declare their reception of the decrees. This idea, despite papal impatience, outlasted a variation, apparently suggested to Barberini by Archbishop Honoré du Laurens of Embrun, in which an anthology of those decrees unlikely to be regarded as contentious by the parlements should be presented, with the hope of a royal order for their observation.21 Barberini’s model, by contrast, evolved as a plan for a Parisian counterpart to the Roman Congregation of the Council, set by papal authority over the universal interpretation and implementation of the Tridentine decrees. The Parisian body, on which some of the French bishops might join Cardinals Joyeuse and Du Perron, would not have interpretative powers but should oversee the gradual, incremental implementation of all possible decrees within France. Royal permission would obviously be necessary, but Barberini expected no objection from that quarter. The equally requisite papal authorization might extend to the sending, on behalf of the Parisian body, of Visitors into the dioceses of the kingdom, to encourage episcopal action and confront parlementaire obstruction. The inventive quality of such propositions would eventually, after Barberini’s nunciature, produce a positive outcome, with the 1615 unilateral reception of the decrees by the French Church, involving the whole Assembly of the Clergy.22 But the superficial continuity, before, during and after Barberini’s nunciature, of papal objectives could not conceal one strikingly distinct feature of the international developments within which France was placed and which Barberini himself would have to confront. On the one hand, by the end of his nunciature, Barberini was able to promote plans for panCatholic European relations of a type pursued by the papacy and admired by the French dévots. This followed the birth at the Spanish royal court of Don Carlos and envisaged a matrimonial alliance between the prince and Christina, daughter of the French king. An even more grandiose version of the scheme was still being urged, on behalf of Henri IV, on Roberto Ubaldini, Barberini’s successor as nuncio, after the latter’s departure from 20

 Martin, Gallicanisme et Réforme, p. 333; Pastor, vol. XXVI, p. 7.  Martin, Gallicanisme et Réforme, pp. 334–5, 338–42. 22  Martin, Gallicanisme et Réforme, pp. 339, 342; Pastor, vol. XXVI, p. 9. 21

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France.23 But on the other hand, the start of the pontificate of Paul V had rapidly brought upon Barberini a dramatic problem within France, as a result of the pope’s Interdict on the Venetian Republic. Promptly in 1606 there appeared in France a publication in the Venetian interest, critical of the pope’s position, Pro libertate status et reipublicae Venetorum Gallofranci ad Philenetum epistola (Paris 1606). There (on page 23) it was asserted that the pope’s conduct offended not just the Republic but all the ‘mundi Principes a rerum Dominatore Deo in suprema authoritate constitutos’. This pamphlet was by Louis Servin, Advocate General, a figure praised by the leading Venetian dissident and republican adviser, Paolo Sarpi, and prompted a reply, supposedly by a Roman prelate, ‘Ascanius Torrius’, an Apologie latine contre la consultation de [Jacques] Leschassier et l’épitre de l’avocat du roi Servin, in fact representing the Pro libertate ecclesiastica ad Gallofrancos apologia (Rome 1607) by the Jesuit Giustiniani Benedetto da Genova. In this same context, Barberini secured from the French Chancellor a ban on the sale of a 1606 edition of a Gallican text redeployed by the Venetians, Gerson’s De l’autorité des Conciles par dessus le pape. The attempt of the arch-Gallican Edmond Richer to respond by an ‘Apologie de Gerson’ was denounced to Barberini by his ultramontane contact at the Sorbonne, André Duval.24 The Venetian ambassador to France at the time of the Interdict, Pietro Priuli, persisted in circulating French translations of writings in defence of the Republic, though, as he reported, Barberini circulated pro-papal texts sent to the nuncio from Rome, in this international pamphlet warfare. Priuli also reported to the Republic that the French king resisted Barberini’s demands that the ambassador be excluded from official religious ceremonies, something which in relation to Venetian ambassadors at Catholic courts generally, for the duration of the Interdict, the papacy would have liked to achieve. The ambassador in France did not however choose to reveal that the king did exclude him in 1606 from the public, delayed baptism of the dauphin and other royal children. The king had apparently initially hoped for the elevation of Barberini to the rank of legate to represent Pope Paul at this baptism. But in fact Cardinal Joyeuse was appointed legate to represent the pope on this occasion. Priuli reported Barberini to have been an efficient intermediary in urging the pope to accept the French king’s assistance in resolving the 23

  Lettres de Henri IV concernant les relations du Saint-Siège et de la France 1595– 1609, ed. B. Barbiche (Vatican City, 1968), no. 186 (p. 104): to Paul V, 3 May 1606, thanking pope for congratulations on daughter’s birth; Pastor, vol. XXV, pp. 391–2. 24   S. Mastellone, La reggenza di Maria de’ Medici (Messina-Florence, 1962), pp. 52–4; Martin, Gallicanisme politique, p. 128; F.-T. Perrens, L’Eglise et l’Etat en France sous le règne de Henri IV et la régence de Marie de Médicis (2 vols, Paris, 1872), vol. I, p. 296.

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Interdict crisis. In his version of events, the nuncio’s advice to Rome concerning French support for the Republic in its determination not to yield to papal pressure helped the pope to accept the necessity of reaching a settlement with French mediation. In this way Spanish interference was also outmanoeuvred. This line of Venetian policy required sophisticated calculation, all the same. An offer by the Protestant James I to intervene in support of the Republic was one which Priuli ensured not only was represented to Venice by the French king as that of an untrustworthy monarch subservient to Spain but also was revealed by the ambassador to Barberini himself. Similarly, Priuli alerted the nuncio to an offer of naval support for the Republic made by the agent at Paris of the Protestant United Provinces, the Dutch States and similar approaches from French Huguenot grandees. But, in Priuli’s account of his embassy, the Jesuits in France were mortified when they saw that the settlement of the Interdict negotiated with the support of the French king was not going to include the readmission of Jesuits to the Republic. He reported them as making a new approach to the king, to have him press the Republic to allow readmission. Priuli depicted himself as countering this successfully, by urging that the king’s honour should not be risked on an intervention unlikely to succeed, while the Republic would wish not to have to refuse a request from its royal ally, so that he received no royal order to raise the issue at Venice. He added to this that a royal order to him to do just that was nevertheless still pursued, when an Italian Jesuit was sent to France expressly for the purpose.25 In fact Girolamo Barisone, rector of the contested Jesuit college in the Venetian university city of Padua prior to the Interdict, was sent to France to discuss with the king and Père Coton the difficulties still experienced by Jesuits readmitted to France itself, not least in their educational activities. Barisone apparently mentioned the parallel question of Jesuit readmission to the Republic only in his final audience with the king.26 Nevertheless, the 1594 attack on the Jesuits’ presence and educational activities in France made by Antoine Arnauld had included reference to the conflicts at Padua over the Jesuit college there, and specifically to a 1591 25   Relazioni di Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato: VI, Francia 1600–1656, ed. L. Firpo (Turin, 1975): Relazione di Francia di Pietro Priuli ambasciatore ad Enrico IV dall’anno 1605 al 1608: Appendice alla Relazione di Francia di Pietro Priuli relativa alla parte che prese il Re Enrico IV nelle differenze tra la Repubblica ed il Pontefice: pp. 259–87; Correspondance … del Bufalo, p. 44 n. 2; Lettres de Henri IV, no. 195 (p. 111 and n. 2): to Paul V, 20 June 1606, on a favour to be asked via the French ambassador; no. 203 (p. 115): to Paul V, 4 August 1606, thanking the pope for Joyeuse’s legatine appointment; Pastor, vol. XXV, pp. 167, 170. 26  P. Pirri, L’interdetto di Venezia del 1606 e i Gesuiti. Silloge di documenti con introduzione (Rome, 1959), p. 390 and n. 71; Doc. 41 (22 Oct. 1607, Acquaviva to P. Gerolamo [sic] Barisone).

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speech against the Jesuits in that city made by Cesare Cremonini. Copies of the speech had also circulated in France. The connection was evident again in 1595, during attempts to persuade Henri IV to reverse the Jesuits’ expulsion from French territory, in the form of a ‘Lettera d’un gentilhuomo italiano a un francese sopra di quello che passò in Vinitia tra l’Università di Padova et gli Giesuiti, con l’oratione del signor Cesare Cremonini’. Correspondingly, a French print, published at Lyon, of Arnauld’s 1594 attack was preserved at Venice, annotated in Italian with hostile reference to the Jesuits’ colleges in France inculcating among the young deference to Spain and encouraging insurrection or even tyrannicide. The Jesuit Father General, Claudio Acquaviva, had hoped for a covert operation to prevent printing at Venice of Arnauld’s attack, but urged the Jesuits there to keep him informed of any publications in the city against the Society of Jesus while maintaining locally silence on events in France. By the time of the Interdict there was a further fear that the Emperor Rudolf might be about to banish Jesuits from his territories too. So in May 1607 the cardinal nephew, Scipio Borghese, ordered Barberini to try to prompt Henri IV to intervene with Rudolf in the Jesuits’ favour.27 Such intervention might also counterbalance that of the French representative at Venice in 1606, Philippe Canaye de Fresne, who contrasted France’s wise non-reception of the Tridentine decrees with the Republic’s rash reception of them. Yet even he had reported to the king how he had urged the Republic to accept that a just, measured papal authority in the Italian peninsula helped sustain the interests of all Christian states (implicitly against the power of Spain) and especially those of France.28 Barberini indeed assured Rome that it was probably true that the French king would not follow the advice of those wanting him to let tension in Italy increase at this time, as a measure against Spain. In fact by March 1607, in a belated intervention, Rudolf himself was promoting peace in the peninsula, indirectly. Borghese informed Barberini of Spain’s dismay at the final mediation of a French cardinal, Joyeuse, to resolve the Interdict, and instructed the nuncio to circulate in France the real terms of the settlement, sent from Rome, to counter the Republic’s version of events. The Venetian ambassador in France, in Acquaviva’s mind, might be invited to help the Jesuits’ cause, but he realistically expected little success. Beyond the dramatic circumstances of the Venetian Interdict, Barberini was necessarily aware of other problems elsewhere which would later 27  M. Sangalli, Cultura, politica e religione nella Repubblica di Venezia tra cinque e seicento: Gesuiti e Somaschi a Venezia (Venice, 1999), pp. 308–12: Pastor, vol. XXV, p. 188. 28  A. Tallon, Conscience nationale et sentiment religieux en France au XVIe siècle. Essai sur la vision gallicane du monde (Paris, 2002), pp. 176, 182.

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prove to have some impact on disputes among Catholics in France itself, or also in the Netherlands. The nuncio was thus aware of the tensions in the proscribed English Catholic community, where conflict over the exercise of episcopal or quasi-episcopal authority would subsequently contribute to polemic on the continent of Europe over similar issues. His own opinion favoured an exercise of full episcopal authority within the English community as the ideal, but recognized the practical difficulty of selecting a figure who would not be identified as aligned only with the Jesuits or, alternatively, with their opponents there. As Paul V resumed the search, halted at the death of Clement VIII, for a solution to the De Auxiliis dispute dividing Jesuit theologians and their critics on a wider European stage, Barberini was ordered to make a covert investigation of views on the matter at the University of Paris. The nuncio asked, as if casually, Duval’s opinion. The latter’s own research among his colleagues provided Barberini with no more than inconclusive results to send to Rome, in 1605 and 1606. The outcome nevertheless contributed to the pope’s decision, by the middle of 1607, to attempt a permanent suspension rather than a determination of the controversy.29 Such major issues of course contrasted with more mundane affairs requiring Barberini’s attention as nuncio. In 1607 he was able to help the widow and children of the Florentine financier Orazio Rucellai achieve a partial settlement of the long-standing debt owed to them by the French crown for loans dating back to the time of Henri III. The great minister of Henri IV, Sully, cooperated in this, even if his good relations with Barberini never resulted in his conversion to Catholicism, a Roman ambition as unachieved as in the case of the famous scholar Casaubon. The support available within France to the nuncio was however enlarged when the French ambassador, Philippe de Béthune, retired in 1605, accompanied by Roman recommendation of this good friend of the Holy See. Barberini also succeeded in having Bérulle appointed as tutor to the dauphin, as well as securing the replacement of an unsatisfactory French bishop or the Sorbonne’s censure of unorthodox opinions expressed by a convert from Calvinism.30 His efforts on behalf of the French Jesuits bore fruit after his nunciature and after the assassination of Henri IV, when Letters Patent were issued promptly in 1610, in the name of the young Louis XIII, finally authorizing Jesuit educational activity in Paris, which resumed eventually at the Collège de Clermont in 1618. Before leaving France he indeed had 29   Sangalli, p. 313; Pastor, vol. XXV, pp. 158 n. 3, 172, 175 and n. 3, 176, 178 and n. 5, 241–2; vol. XXVI, p. 202; P. Broggio, La teologia e la politica. Controversie dottrinali, Curia romana e Monarchia spagnola tra Cinque e Seicento (Florence, 2009). 30   B. Barbiche and S. de Dainville-Barbiche, Sully. L’homme et ses fidèles [Paris] (1997), pp. 127, 417–18; Pastor, vol. XXV, p. 388; vol. XXVI, p. 6.

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had to organize a literary reply to an anti-papal pamphlet produced by the Jesuits’ opponent, the Advocate General Louis Servin. That did not prove to end literary hostilities though, as demonstrated by the writings of the Jesuit Louis Richeome in 1615, his Advis et notes donnés sur quelques plaidoyez de maistre Servin and his Plaincte justificative de Louis de Beaumanoir pour les Pères Jésuites contre la Remonstrance et plaincte de Maître Louis Servin, advocat du Roy adressée à la Cour de Parlement de Paris. For in the politically tense sequence to the king’s assassination, leading up to meetings of the Estates General and the Assembly of the Clergy in 1614–15, Richeome had felt the need to attack ‘Machiavellian’ politiques in his 1613 Examen catégorique du libelle anticoton, while to Coton himself was attributed the 1614 Response aux obiections qui se font pour empescher la reception du concile de Trente. A nos seigneurs des trois ordres qui se composent les Estats Generaux. So too in 1614 Richeome was in fact the author of the anonymous Advertissement à messieurs les Deputez du clergé sur la décadence de l’Eglise gallicane.31 Barberini’s effective success after his nunciature, when the Assembly of the Clergy received the Tridentine decrees, prompted some hopes, within France, of royal confirmation at last and even parlementaire registration. Similar hopes were still pursued in 1622 when Ottavio Corsini was sent as nuncio to France by Gregory XV. When Barberini himself succeeded to the papal throne as Urban VIII, his sending of his nephew Francesco as cardinal legate in 1625 reflected the pressing problem of the Valtelline which he had inherited from Gregory. But the Assembly of the Clergy in that year saw the last, unsuccessful pursuit of confirmation and registration.32 In what proved to be the prelude to the assassination of Henri IV, fear already of the outbreak of Franco-Spanish hostilities within Catholic Europe had led Paul V, in spring 1610, to consult Barberini, among other cardinals, about a plan to send extraordinary nuncios on a peace mission to the two royal courts. The assassination had also dashed the hopes of Carlo Emanuele of Savoy for a French alliance which might advance the duke’s expansionist ambitions. His own challenge to the papally brokered terms of the Peace of Lyon accordingly took the form of an independent invasion of Monferrato in 1612, thus destabilizing the north of the Italian peninsula even before the crisis over the Valtelline.33

31

 Mastellone, pp. 115–18; Martin, Gallicanisme politique, p. 112; Pastor, vol. XXVI,

p. 6. 32

 Martin, Gallicanisme et Réforme, pp. 392, 394 and n. 3.  E. Cochrane, Italy 1530–1630, ed. J. Kirshner (London-New York, 1988), pp. 274– 5; Pastor, vol. XXV, p. 411. 33

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Chapter 4

The Progress of the Dévots, 1615–1629 Richelieu’s Leading Example After the Assembly of the Clergy in 1615 there seemed reason to hope that the Catholic reform programme of the dévots might progress well. The most recent research has confirmed the centrality of Richelieu’s example in this apparently positive prospect. During the pontificate of Paul V, Richelieu was priested and episcopally ordained in Rome, in the spring of 1607. This decided advance on his previous position, from 1606 as an honorary and unremunerated royal chaplain, involved his taking legal possession of the diocese of Luçon in 1608, and he had entered his see in person by the December of that year. He largely ceased to reside from the second half of 1616, except for a period from June 1617 until his exile in papal Avignon in April 1618, and again very briefly in 1619. But in 1620 he took steps to have his grand vicaire Jacques de Flavigny – canon of Luçon from 1609, vicaire 1615, who would be dean of Luçon from 1622 and die in 1625 – made suffragan bishop. Similarly when Richelieu, after elevation to the rank of cardinal, resigned his bishopric in 1623, he had been able to observe his diocesan clergy, apparently on their own initiative, promulgate locally in 1622 the Tridentine decrees adopted nationally by the Assembly of 1615. He began personal visitation of his diocese, as ordered by those decrees, in 1609–10, and there is some evidence of his preaching in person, a duty also specified in these. A further duty was performed when he held his first diocesan synod in 1609, following the example of his metropolitan, represented by the Ordonnances faictes par Mgr. [François d’Escoubleau] de Sourdis … en son synode diocésain tenu … a Bordeaus [sic] … 1600 (Bordeaux 1600). Other potential models of conscientious episcopal authority at this time included Henry-Louis Chasteigner de La Rocheposay, bishop of Poitiers from 1612, and Henri d’Escoubleau, bishop of Maillezais-La Rochelle, who in 1615 predeceased Archbishop François de Sourdis of Bordeaux, who died in 1628. Richelieu summoned another synod in 1610, and in 1613 collected synodal decrees were edited by Flavigny, though the statutes of 1609 and 1610 certainly represent Richelieu’s own directions. Equally, Flavigny’s Briefve et facile instruction pour les confesseurs (Fontenay 1613), which diocesan clergy hearing confessions were ordered to possess, was published

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at Richelieu’s command and reflected the latter’s constant position that in the sacrament of penance attrition (as opposed to perfect contrition) was adequate. The 1613 regulations also recommended that the clergy use the Roman breviary of 1568, in preference to older, local versions, and made provision for parish priests to catechize and to give vernacular instruction at the main parish Mass on the fundamentals of the faith, both Tridentine imperatives. For the clergy, the Guide des pécheurs, a text by Luis de Granada favoured at the exemplary centre of post-Tridentine episcopal reform, Charles Borromeo’s Milan, was also recommended. The Borromean programme of regular deanery meetings to ensure the ‘in-service training’ of clergy was also introduced, following its adoption at Embrun from 1583, Aix-en-Provence from 1585 and Bordeaux from 1609. For the laity the 1613 regulations set as an ideal reception of communion monthly, or at least four times a year – well beyond the minimum obligation of annual communion. The local context of a population divided in religion could obviously not be overlooked however: Archbishop de Sourdis himself had published his Catechisme et abrégé des controverses de notre temps touchant la religion catholique in 1607, prior to Richelieu’s original attempt at a catechism, of 1611 or 1612.1 What became known as the Catéchisme de Luçon, by contrast, was ready by 1618 (and perhaps sent first to diocesan clergy in 1616), received the royal privilege for printing in 1619 and was published as the Instruction du chrestien (Poitiers 1621). It again accepted the propriety of well-prepared laity receiving relatively frequent communion. More controversial, intentionally, was a sequel to Richelieu’s rebaptizing of converts from Calvinism in 1609, his Principaux points de la foy catholique, which despite temporary political disgrace in 1617 he dedicated to the king. This also represented a response to Huguenot appeal to the king against literary attack by Père Jean Arnoux, SJ and included a measure of defence of the Jesuits in France, of papal authority and of the French clergy’s opposition to the attempt of the Third Estate in the Estates General of 1614 to intervene in the matter of Gallican ecclesiastical principles as fundamental law of the kingdom. The text was accordingly welcomed by both Père Coton, SJ and the Sorbonne. Within the diocese Richelieu followed Tridentine directives for open competition for vacant benefices in those cases where these were in his free appointment, and in the many other cases tried to examine for suitability the candidates presented by other patrons. But the Conciliar priority was 1  S.-M. Morgain, ‘Richelieu, “Pasteur d’âmes” ’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, CIV, i (2009): 115–37: pp. 116–17, 119–22, 125–30, 134–5; J. Bergin, The Rise of Richelieu (New Haven-London, 1991), pp. 76, 79–80, 88, 90, 92, 94, 97.

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for the creation of diocesan seminaries to train new generations of clergy to higher standards, and in cooperation with one of the cathedral canons Richelieu began his plans on this front in 1610. In general, the goodwill of the cathedral chapter might be hoped for, since in 1609 he had agreed to pay one third of the costs of much-needed repair of the building. Moreover he used his own funds to buy the small house intended for the seminary in 1612. But Tridentine provisions for a levy on cathedral or diocesan clergy to help finance the creation of seminaries proved universally problematic, and Richelieu’s caution was natural in seeking in 1611 royal letters patent authorizing his foundation. Initially he appointed as director of the seminary a cathedral canon, Antoine Froissard. But resistance to the levy suggested the need for new letters patent in 1613, and in 1616 Froissard resigned his directorate, at a time when Richelieu had declined an offer of Jesuit direction. The cathedral chapter openly opposed Richelieu when in 1620 he was seeking formal registration of the 1613 letters patent. The number of seminarians was evidently tiny, and the chapter’s opposition to financing the seminary obstructed its direction by Pierre de Bérulle’s Oratorians, taken on from 1617 after being proposed in 1616 and indeed mentioned as a possibility by Richelieu in a letter to Philippe de Béthune as early as 1612. At that date the syndics of the diocesan clergy had seemed to agree to the foundation, despite the prospect of a levy on certain categories of benefice. As chapter and benefice holders’ objections in fact continued, it is not surprising that problems over staffing emerged as soon as 1619, and that by 1625 only one Oratorian was left, Père René Le Gentilhomme, whose presence was supported by his cathedral post of canon theologian until 1633. Yet Richelieu had attempted to prolong the activity of the seminary, writing in support of the Oratorians in 1619, and on other fronts found support or cooperation within the chapter, as when Sébastien Bouthillier became a canon in 1607 and dean from 1614, or as with another dean, Michel Papin. Bérulle’s original plan of 1610 for the creation of the French Oratory had mentioned the prospect of work in the bishoprics of Nantes and Poitiers as well as Luçon. Richelieu mentioned their presence in his diocese in his 1612 letter, and eventually Jesuits, Carmelites, Capuchins and other Franciscans were all present too. The Capuchins were initially invited to preach at Luçon itself during the weeks after Easter of 1609, though their first house in the diocese was established only in 1616 and that in Luçon in 1619. But meanwhile the secular clergy were obliged to proceed to the stage of holy orders required by the benefice they held, and remained under stricter episcopal supervision in the administration of sacraments, penance and marriage especially, and in preaching, over their

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duty to eradicate magic and superstition and to recover alienated Church property.2 Richelieu’s first contacts with the Capuchin Père Joseph possibly occurred in 1610–11, and the latter became provincial of the Capuchins of Touraine between 1613 and 1616. The context was the need to introduce reform among the Benedictine nuns of the abbey of Fontevraud, a campaign which proved a prelude to the Capuchin’s foundation of the new female order, the Filles du Calvaire. So too by 1613 Richelieu had encountered the future abbé, Saint-Cyran, who initially proved helpful in supervising publication of the Instruction du chrestien. Richelieu thus remained, at this stage of his career, committed to the programme of episcopal reform within the wider dévot project, rejecting for instance Concini’s 1616 suggestion that he resign his see. In 1613 he helped to resolve conflict between bishop and cathedral dean at Poitiers, a leading diocese within the Bordeaux archiepiscopal province. At that time he was also demonstrating his patronage of the English secular cleric Richard Smith alongside other theologians at the Parisian Collège d’Arras. Even then the world of the dévots could not be entirely free of tensions. At the 1614 Estates General the sermons of Jean-Pierre Camus, bishop of Belley, included fierce denunciation of the clergy’s own abuses. But at the closing session, early in 1615, Richelieu’s official address to the crown on behalf of the clergy called for the legal reception of the Tridentine decrees in the kingdom: a continuing papal priority which he was still supporting in 1622. His address also revealed, at that earlier date, his approval of the royal marriage alliance with Spain, which the Estates had accepted. Such dévot conception of suitable foreign policy, pursuing Catholic solidarity in Europe, was after all still reflected a little later in the Jesuit Pierre Monod’s Recherches historiques sur les alliances royales de France et Savoye (Lyon 1621). So too in 1615 Richelieu accepted the post of Grand Almoner to the king’s new Spanish bride, Anne of Austria. Though he held it only until early 1617, it partly accounted for contemporary assumptions, at his first entry into the king’s council in 1616, that he was proSpanish, just as the nuncio Guido di Bentivoglio welcomed the entry of what he presumed was a pro-papal prelate. Such expectations were not entirely misguided: Richelieu as cardinal would also prove helpful to nuncio Ottavio Corsini in resolving dispute between another dévot, Miron, ultramontane bishop of Angers, and the Paris parlement over jurisdiction. Understandably Miron saw Richelieu’s return to public affairs in 1624 as a moment of hope for Church reform and ecclesiastical independence. Prior to that, in 1619, the momentarily most urgent dévot task was to preserve Catholic unity within the kingdom by reconciling the king and the Queen Mother, one involving 2  Morgain, ‘Richelieu, “Pasteur d’âmes” ’: 125–30; Bergin, Rise of Richelieu, pp. 85–90, 93–7, 99, 102, 104–107, 109.

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Richelieu alongside Bentivoglio and Bérulle, eventually Père Joseph too, as well as the Jesuits Arnoux, confessor to the king and to Luynes, and Suffren, confessor to the Queen Mother. The second stage of this operation in 1620 involved Richelieu alongside all these and also Sébastien Bouthillier, Archbishop Jean du Perron of Sens and the cardinals de Retz and de La Rochefoucauld, plus Michel de Marillac who at the time was intendant of Anjou. The inspiration behind the nuncio and these dévots was fear that open hostilities between the king and Queen Mother might provide an opportunity for Huguenot revolt. This was precisely the context in which the king agreed in 1620 that Bouthillier should go to Rome to promote Richelieu’s candidacy for cardinal rank, a campaign renewed, after political distractions at home until 1622, by the Queen Mother and by Cardinal de Sourdis, by then at Rome. Though on the death of Cardinal de Retz in 1622 it was initially La Rochefoucauld who entered the king’s council, the priority of the nuncio and the king’s confessor, Richelieu joined too in 1624. He was well placed in that year to secure quasiepiscopal status for Richard Smith in England, in the context of manoeuvres for an English royal marriage, both dévot ambitions of the time. By 1621 Bouthillier was First Almoner to the Queen Mother, with his patron Richelieu as her Grand Almoner.3 The death of Cardinal de Retz also allowed Richelieu to succeed to the position of Provisor of the Sorbonne, for another dévot concern was the orthodoxy of Catholic education in France. As early as 1616 he had taken the initiative, despite not being a member of the Faculty, since his 1607 degree was Bachelor not Doctor of Theology, when encouraging the Queen Mother to establish a new regius chair at the Sorbonne. This was conceived of as a chair specifically to counter Huguenot theology, and the first holder, Nicolas Ysambert, was appropriately as much an ultramontane member of the Faculty as was Duval. When another such chair fell vacant, Richelieu insisted on being present in person to secure the appointment of Jacques Lescot, subsequently his confessor and bishop of Chartres. The inconveniently radical Gallican, Edmond Richer, claimed that as early as 1612 Richelieu had attended a meeting specially convened by Cardinal du Perron in order to censure Richer’s De Ecclesiastica et Politica Potestate of 1611. Certainly as Provisor Richelieu was involved in the prolonged dispute over Richer’s views, from 1623 until the 1629 recantation, at the end of his life, demanded by the cardinal. Another ultramontane critic of Richer was Philippe Cospeau, who had a less stable relationship with Richelieu, being a friend of Bérulle and in that sense seen as pro-Spanish, but whose career progressed from the bishopric of Aire to that of Nantes 3  Bergin, Rise of Richelieu, pp. 87, 109–11, 118, 125, 129, 133–4, 136, 145, 186–7, 189, 195, 205–6, 209, 211, 228, 230–31, 238, 256.

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(1621–35) and subsequently Lisieux. As Provisor, Richelieu commissioned Jacques Lemercier to plan new buildings for the Sorbonne. Work began in 1626, the college chapel was begun in 1635 and the whole project was completed in 1642. As early as July 1628 a grateful member of the Sorbonne applauded Richelieu’s provision of a new Aula Magna, seen as a parallel to imminent victory hoped for at La Rochelle, as parts of a single triumph over heresy. The cardinal certainly cared about clerical education beyond the walls of the Sorbonne too, subsidizing the efforts of Vincent de Paul, Bourdoise, Jean Eudes and Jean-Jacques Olier in due course. Yet he had evident reservations about the expansion of the Jesuits’ colleges in France, even as the king, in the face of opposition from existing universities, encouraged from 1618 onwards Jesuit direction of colleges at Orléans, Aix, Angoulême, Pontoise and Sens and projects for their own universities at Angoulême and Tournon. But alongside positive provision of learning, the necessary control of opinion was not overlooked. After planning over perhaps two years, 1628 saw a first committee of royal censors appointed, whose imprimatur would authorize theological works’ publication in France. In the 1630s Séguier, as Chancellor of the kingdom, ensured he used his powers to appoint similar censors for the same purpose. Differences of opinion could also affect personal relationships however. La Rochefoucauld himself set an admirable example when in his diocesan synod of 1620 at Senlis he was the first French bishop to apply at local level the 1615 Clergy Assembly’s adoption of the Tridentine decrees. But when Denis-Simon de Marquemont wished to observe the obligation to reside in his see of Lyon, royal policy kept him in his Roman embassy during 1624–25. In the latter year, when Richelieu proposed Henri de Sponde as bishop of Pamiers, he had to involve the nuncio in order to overcome La Rochefoucauld’s opposition. The nuncio was also aware in 1626 of La Rochefoucauld’s lack of enthusiasm for the proposed appointment at Toulon of the pamphleteer Mathieu de Morgues. The candidate was disappointed with his patron as well as angered by La Rochefoucauld. But the inconstant author had in 1617 vented his own feelings against Jesuits as well as heretics, in his pamphlet Contrepoids aux Jésuites et aux Ministres de la Religion. By 1632 Richelieu was able to persuade La Rochefoucauld to resign his post as the king’s Grand Almoner – which had involved at least a notional right to be consulted on episcopal appointments – to his own brother, Alphonse. La Rochefoucauld suspected de Morgues of excessive Gallicanism, but Richelieu’s successful promotion of dévot candidates saw Alphonse become archbishop of Aix and then of Lyon.4 4  Les Papiers de Richelieu. Section politique intérieure. Correspondance et papiers d’Etat, ed. P. Grillon (Paris, 1979), vol. III, no. 378 (p. 373): M.

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Episcopal appointments in fact were bound to remain less than simple, even though under-age nominations to French sees declined during the 1620s. Richelieu himself had momentarily contemplated a move to a better diocese than Luçon, yet the illegitimate son of the Duc d’Epernon, secured a bishopric by his father, proved a conscientious bishop of Mirepoix in the same decade. In the same period the Queen Mother, royal governor of Anjou after 1619, retained the nomination to some sees in her own hands. She thus had a decisive role in the choice of a successor to Charles Miron of Angers when in 1626 he became archbishop of Lyon. In 1625– 27 royal favourites like Baradat and Toiras still obtained bishoprics for their relations and the years 1625–29 continued to see the nomination of clerical dependants or even less deserving associates of some of the great French noble families. But La Rochefoucauld represented the policy of more demanding standards. He objected that Henri de Béthune, supported by Richelieu, was too young for Lyon, and interposed the same objection in 1626 when Henri was proposed for Bayonne. With the cooperation of other dévots, however, Richelieu could have more success. In 1621 his friend Sébastien Bouthillier succeeded Cospeau at Aire, as his former mentor, Cospeau, moved to Nantes. He was involved in the appointments of Miron to Lyon, Montchal to Toulouse, Jaubert de Barrault to Arles, Bonsi to Béziers, Dony d’Attichy to Riez, Grillet to Bazas, Victor Bouthillier to Boulogne and then as coadjutor to the archbishop of Tours, Harlay de Sancy to Saint-Malo and Silvestre de Marcillac to Mende. He also succeeded in the translation of his close associate Henri de Sourdis from Maillezais to Bordeaux, despite understandable criticism among some other dévots of the warrior prelate. Nevertheless his was not the only competing influence. In 1631 Achille de Harlay obtained Saint-Malo when the intended candidate, the son of Michel de Marillac, died suddenly. In 1629 Bérulle imagined Saint-Cyran to be suitable for Dol en Bretagne, but was outmanoeuvred by the Queen Mother’s physician with an alternative candidate.5 Those who appreciated Richelieu’s influence were naturally ready to congratulate him on his appointment to the king’s council in 1624, Destestienne to Richelieu, Paris, 7 July 1628; vol. I (1975), pp. 365, 369; Bergin, Rise of Richelieu, pp. 230–31; J. Bergin, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld. Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven-London, 1987), pp. 61, 114, 133–5; J. Bergin, ‘Richelieu and His Bishops? Ministerial Power and Episcopal Patronage under Louis XIII’, in J. Bergin and L. Brockliss (eds), Richelieu and His Age (Oxford, 1992), pp. 175–202: pp. 186–9; L. Brockliss, ‘Richelieu, Education, and the State’, ibid., pp. 237–72: pp. 253, 255–8, 267–8. 5  J. Bergin, Rise of Richelieu, p. 111; Bergin, ‘Richelieu and His Bishops?’, pp. 179–80, 183–9.

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for example Jean Jaubert de Barrault, still bishop of Bazas, and Michel Raoul, bishop of Saintes since 1618, both writing on 15 May. Sébastien Bouthillier, bishop of Aire-sur-l’Adour and younger brother of the royal councillor Claude Bouthillier de Chavigny, still more naturally wrote similarly on 26 May. The sense that the cardinal’s attention might be moving to new preoccupations was nevertheless implicit in the appeal of the Catholic residents of Luçon, on 12 June, asking their former diocesan to prevent the re-establishment of Huguenot worship there. But local issues were expected to interest him. While from outside the kingdom the Florentine Bishop Cosimo de’ Bardi of Carpentras sent his congratulations in Italian on 24 June, the bishop of Sisteron, Toussaint de Glandèves de Cuyes, with the same message on 10 July added information about his initiative in another part of the kingdom – to impose proper discipline on the female convent of Saint-Sauveur at Marseille, with which he had a family connection. By September Cardinal de La Valette was clearly assuming that Richelieu’s interest extended to larger issues but from a dévot perspective. Bérulle would bring him up to date on the English marriage negotiations, in which the king’s care for Catholic interests would be evident, while La Valette himself was working on papal agreement to a suitable settlement of the Valtelline problem, again for the good of Christendom but also to demonstrate to the pope the king’s care for the Catholic Church. Aristocratic and dévot links were of course not separable. The abbess of Fontevraud asked on 17 October for Richelieu’s help in securing payment of her royal pension, needed to service the monastery’s debts and repair its buildings. He had presided, as bishop of Luçon, over the solemn installation of Louise de Bourbon-Lavedan in 1612, inaugurating her reform of the community, introduction of the Roman form of the Office and initiation of a daily period of meditation. La Valette showed his appreciation, in February 1625, of Richelieu’s part in resolving the difficulties of the bishop of Angers, which had involved the archbishop of Lyon, ambassador in Rome, as well as the nuncio, but also of his publications, the 1613 synodal decrees and the Principaux points de la foy catholique, published during his 1618 exile in Avignon.6 When Richelieu reported to the Queen Mother, on 16 August 1625, about the chances of reaching, with the nuncio and the legate, Cardinal Barberini, a peace settlement for the Valtelline acceptable at Rome, he expressed caution, which proved judicious when negotiations ended and Barberini terminated his legatine visit by the end of the next month. Richelieu noted division between those who wanted peace with Spain and action against the Huguenots and those pressing for war with Spain which 6  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. I, nos 9 (p. 72); 10 (p. 73); 21 (p. 79); 35 (p. 93); 37–8 (p. 94); 61 (p. 113); 65 (p. 123); 24 (p. 167).

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would necessitate peace with the Huguenots. To the king he was still able to promise, on 24 August, compliance with the royal wish for continued discussion of a suitable settlement with Bernardino Spada, nuncio from 1624 to 1627. Optimism on quite a different front, however ill founded in the event, was represented by the Jesuit François Garasse, who on 31 August sent him a copy of his Somme théologique des vérités capitales de la religion chrétienne. Richelieu drafted his own composition during the year, a memorandum for the king about the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline in France, involving not just reform in regulars’ houses but also the residence in their sees of conscientious bishops and the foundation of seminaries. Even at this date he also insisted on the need for observance of the Tridentine decrees except where royal authority or genuine Gallican liberties might be affected. In the same year a longer document, in the form of a draft royal edict, repeated these points. It was perhaps prepared by Bishop Miron of Angers rather than by Richelieu himself, and extended an ambitious dévot programme for the kingdom. Secular authorities, such as law courts, should not intrude upon spiritual affairs. On the contrary, provincial councils to be convened by archbishops should ensure catechisms were available as the basis for an adequate instruction of the laity by the clergy. Diocesan bishops should perform the visitation of their sees, and the revenues of regulars’ houses should be drawn on to help fund seminaries. Open competition for vacant benefices should be held wherever possible, with episcopal examination of candidates presented by other patrons. Parochial benefice holders did need a basic minimum stipend, and to achieve this it might be necessary to use the Tridentine provision for the redeployment of some endowments of non-parochial benefices. Bishoprics in turn needed to be protected from the imposition of excessive pensions drawn on their revenues for the benefit of others, though in other respects the document showed great concern for the preservation of papal authority. Bishops should prevent the multiplication of mendicant convents proving an impossible burden on towns. Strict enclosure and truly communal living should be imposed on female convents. In education, there should be some control of the number of colleges, but major cities, away from the capital, should be allowed a Jesuit college even where other local provision existed. The financing of all colleges should be overseen by municipal authorities. An unendowed Maison Professe of the Jesuits was always to be encouraged, but where local wealth could not support such an ideal institution it should be possible for the institution to revert to college status and purpose. The curse of duelling should be confronted, completing this both Tridentine and dévot programme. Any such ambitions would obviously need support from among influential laity, and Richelieu had on 28 July written to the Advocate General, Louis Servin, wishing him a return to good health.

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Servin in fact died in 1626, but by February of the new year Richelieu was drawing up a new memorandum on the king’s affairs. The need to press on with discussion of issues arising from the English royal marriage was still presented as an imperative concerning relief for English Catholics. Another way to protect the monarch and his ministers from accusations that they had insufficient zeal for the cause of Catholic religion was to ensure a positive view among the French clergy, by not raising excessive expectations about their financial grant, the don gratuit, to the crown. On the international front, any French action on behalf of the legitimate ‘freedom’ of the states of the Holy Roman Empire must equally avoid facilitating the further spread of heresy, especially Calvinism. Yet the pro-Spanish leanings of the pope had to be resisted, while respecting papal authority, by a France which was the real protector of papal independence. In March Cardinal de Sourdis expressed a less ambiguously dévot view to Richelieu: papal mediation should be allowed to effect the reconciliation of France and Spain. In April Richelieu expressed to Claude Bouthillier his agreement with Marillac’s reflection on the unwelcome contention over Roman authority engendered by Santarelli and the reaction of the Sorbonne, that the priority was to prevent any escalation of faction in the kingdom.7 At the same time Richelieu responded directly to Marillac himself, agreeing that unwise Roman intrusion into French affairs had proved a disaster in the past. But internal faction could also be caused by unhelpful advice given in the confessional by regulars (not, apparently, meant to include the Jesuits here). Obviously there was a deeper religious division still threatening the stability of the kingdom, but on 7 May M. de Valençay reported from Montpellier his hopes that some Huguenot ministers might lead their flocks back to reconciliation with the Church. The gradual exclusion of Huguenots from various forms of activity could extend even to maritime and commercial affairs now also supervised by Richelieu. A secret agreement was provided on 19 May by a commercial company promising such exclusion and naming Bérulle, as head of the French Oratory, to provide spiritual care for members in their operations both within and beyond the kingdom. Bérulle’s own collaboration with Marillac, more generally, went back to the latter’s action, at the request of the Queen Mother, to establish the new Carmelite nuns in a convent in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Paris, after Bérulle had co-operated with Madame Acarie to bring such nuns from Spain into France.

7  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. I, no. 57 (p. 205), cf. pp. 218, 221; nos 59 (p. 207); 61 (p. 209); 86 (p. 244); 89 (pp. 248–69); 51 (p. 196); 41 (pp. 294–300); 48 (p. 314).

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Older monastic foundations were still of course a prominent feature in France. The abbey of Royaumont was the cause of thanks sent on 24 June by Cardinal de Sourdis for Richelieu’s help to his brother over a matter relating to it. The Jesuits could not always avoid unwelcome attention moreover. On 1 August Père Séguiran sent apologies, seemingly rather urgently, for the sermon preached on the Feast of St Ignatius at the Jesuits’ Parisian church by Jean-Pierre Camus, bishop of Belley. Once again this disciple of François de Sales had been inconveniently robust in expressing dévot views, this time criticizing the parlement and even the royal government, with explicit reference to the Valtelline and also to events in the Palatine. International developments obviously raised again the question of influence at Rome. On 1 October Richelieu made clear to Bouthillier his view that, at his meeting with the archbishop of Damietta, the nuncio Spada, the king should protest about any exclusion of French candidates from a prospective promotion of cardinals, seemingly with the candidacy of Bérulle, soon in fact to be successful, in mind. A similar protest should be sent directly to Rome, but the precaution was apparently to be given a surprisingly transparent disguise, by enticing the Spanish ambassador in France to ask his king to make common ground with the French king in demanding Roman attention to crown nominations. Such nominations had first to be obtained, though. On the same date the archbishop of Rouen, François de Harlay de Champvallon, who had succeeded Joyeuse there in 1616, announced to Richelieu that he wished to be nominated for promotion in place of the deceased archbishop of Lyon and ambassador at Rome, Denis-Simon de Marquemont, who had died in September. But on 14 October Jean-François de Gondi, archbishop of Paris since 1622, wrote that he would like to be the candidate to succeed Marquemont. The opinion of Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, as well as of the Jesuit Père Suffren, was reported on a different matter. As royal councillor Henri de Schomberg forwarded on 8 November their view relating to aristocratic violence among the courtiers, suggesting that where cases were not beyond doubt the king should incline to clemency. Even Richelieu’s patronage on occasion met its limitations. The bishop of Mende, Daniel du Plessis de la Mothe-Houdancourt, was related to the cardinal. But when the French suite first accompanying Henrietta Maria to England was sent home, the bishop, who initially headed her chapel royal, had to retire to France too.8 The influence of Richelieu, more generally, during these years has of necessity to be traced via the detailed affairs of those at or associated with 8  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. I, nos 49–50 (pp. 314–15); 56 (p. 319); 62 (p. 337), cf. pp. 277, 469; nos 98 (p. 367); 158 (p. 413); 240 (p. 483); 243 (p. 485); 258 (p. 495); 289 (p. 522), cf. p. 458.

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the royal court. This was no less true with the elevation of Bérulle to the rank of cardinal. On the domestic front spiritual and military matters became increasingly intertwined. In the context of the Oléron military campaign, Richelieu corresponded on 28 March 1627 with M. de Guron about a garrison chaplaincy for some Reformed Observant Franciscans. The Capuchin Edouard Molé, in religion Frère Athanase, reported on 5 August that he was about to complete the conversion of a Huguenot military figure, Jean-Jacques de Pons, marquis de La Caze. By the 12th of the month this was accomplished, with a first confession in the Catholic Church to follow soon, but that raised the question of pension payments for this and similar prospective converts. The good of the kingdom as well of the Church would be advanced by Bérulle’s impending promotion as cardinal, Richelieu assured him on 10 September. But Bérulle expressed typical anxiety on 23 October. The papal chamberlain Ascanio Piccolomini had arrived with the red hat from Rome and the envoy was willing to deposit it with the Queen Mother, so that she could impose it. But nuncio Spada thought that Rome would react badly if it were not the king or a prelate who imposed it. Perhaps Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld could impose it, in the presence of the Queen Mother, though Bérulle understandably doubted if she would agree to his proposal. On the 26th she imposed it herself in fact, as Bérulle reported two days later, while thanking Richelieu for his part in the new cardinal’s promotion and assuring him of his own devoted service. He also expressed personal renewal of his vows to Christ and the Virgin Mary, vows which in other circumstances were to cause such trouble for Bérulle himself and within the Catholic Church in France. The two cardinals attempted cooperation from the start. The draft of a letter to Bérulle of 7 November promised attention to the nuncio’s wishes on royal policy and representation to the king of the pope’s good intentions towards France. Bérulle, fortified by the prophetic messages of various nuns, wrote on the 16th of the month to announce eventual success in the siege of La Rochelle. The saints and guardian angels of France would surely come to aid, and intercession to or through the Infant Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Mary Magdalen identified some of Bérulle’s personal devotions. On 3 December he repeated his prophecy, mentioning, in addition to the Infant Jesus, St Michael, the martial archangel of the Church and protector of France. The Queen Mother’s devotional interests were well aligned. At a time of alleged Huguenot plots against the life of the king she reported in the first fortnight of December, from Montceaux, that the Minim friars had staged the Forty Hours Devotion before the

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sacrament solemnly exposed to encourage prayers against the enemies of the Church.9 Some monastic orders in France were to prove the object of Richelieu’s ambitions for control and headship. Though the Benedictines of the Congregation of Saint-Maur were usually admired, as representing reformed standards of monastic life, the cardinal did not wish them to take over the abbey of Saint-Melaine. The local bishop, Pierre Cornulier of Rennes, hastened to assure him, on 9 January 1628, that he would not allow them to take advantage of the permission he himself had given them for temporary use of the place. The wider issues of relations with England and conditions for the English Catholics were raised anew by Bérulle on 7 April, when he reported that an English Catholic, known to him from his own time in England, had made secret contact, alleging that Charles I was willing to go behind Buckingham’s back in pursuing peace with France. But on 12 April it was monastic property which was agitating Bérulle himself. To sustain the new cardinal’s rank, the king had awarded him the abbey of Saint-Pierre de La Réole in the Gironde. He thanked Richelieu for arranging this, but nevertheless managed to strike a less than grateful note, as he lamented being forced to break his commitment never to accept beneficed income. The next day Richelieu expressed his own gratitude to the king for praying for him at the shrine of Notre-Dame des Ardilliers at Saumur. The king had visited this Marian sanctuary on his way to La Rochelle, and his devotion to the place of pilgrimage was shared by Anne of Austria and the Queen Mother. It was by the king’s wish that it had been in Oratorian care since 1614, stimulating the development at Saumur of the Oratorians’ most famous college. Richelieu would ensure the provision of an extra chapel between 1634 and 1636. But another letter of 12 April proved the prelude to a major incident, suggesting tensions between Richelieu and his associates on the one hand and Bérulle and other dévots on the other. The aristocratic Oratorian, Père Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi, wrote in great distress that false accusations had been made about his supposed conduct in relation to the national Assembly of the Clergy of 1628, held first at Poitiers and then at Fontenayle-Comte. He trusted that Richelieu would clear his reputation with the king over such a calumny. By the 28th of the month, when Bérulle complained at great length himself, Richelieu would certainly have been in a position to see that Bérulle, not Gondi, was the person whose opinions were in question. During 1627, with the Oléron military campaign, Richelieu had been in close and constant touch with the warrior prelate Henri d’Escoubleau de 9  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. II (1977), nos 160 (pp. 132–3); 462 (p. 355); 491–2 (pp. 384–5); 585 (p. 467); 719 (pp. 593–5); 730 (pp. 603–4); 751 (pp. 622–4); 780 (pp. 650–51); 817 (p. 680); 838 (p. 701).

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Sourdis, bishop of Maillezais, who was the exact opposite of the famously timid Bérulle. Bérulle was upset by Parisian gossip, which he attributed to the warrior prelate in origin, complaining of the new cardinal’s alleged intervention at the Assembly of the Clergy. According to the allegation, Bérulle had intervened indirectly, using Archbishop Charles Miron of Lyon. When the warrior prelate arrived, direct from the royal army, he was described as demanding the removal of Bérulle’s influence with the king, using language more military than episcopal. Whereas Parisian rumour had it that Bérulle and Marillac, as garde des sceaux, were intent on persuading the king to part with Richelieu; and the nuncio reported to Cardinal Barberini another supposed rumour, that Richelieu did not trust these two and wished to replace Marillac. Bérulle insisted that he had distanced himself entirely from the Assembly, except to thank the bishop of Aire-sur-l’Adour, by this date Gilles Boutauld, for congratulations on his promotion to cardinal rank. He was certainly not aware of having contacted the archbishop of Lyon, and had refused to listen to an envoy sent to him by the clergy. He repeated his gratitude for Richelieu’s agency in having the king promote his elevation as cardinal. His own contacts previously with the archbishop of Lyon had been about a quite different dispute. Since Jean-François de Gondi was naturally very conscious of his status as the first archiepiscopal holder of the see of Paris, a question had arisen about Miron’s use of the primatial cross within the capital. Bérulle’s preference was to recognize an absolute primatial right, but one to be exercised rarely and not in Gondi’s presence. Occasional use was thought best by Cardinals de La Rochefoucauld and Louis de Nogaret de La Valette and several other bishops. The late archbishop of Lyon, de Marquemont, had used his primatial cross in Paris and Tours, and believed he had a right to its use everywhere. So Miron should be aware of Bérulle’s support on the issue. As to the warrior prelate, the nuncio had approached Bérulle some time ago, hoping he would inform Richelieu of the pope’s intention to ask the king to nominate someone else to the archbishopric of Bordeaux vacated by Cardinal de Sourdis who, before his death, had made his martial brother his coadjutor bishop. The nuncio had hoped Bérulle would persuade Richelieu to support the papal wish with the king, but Bérulle refused to involve himself with a benefice succession. The nuncio indeed accepted that this would avoid any Parisian gossip that Bérulle wished to become archbishop himself. But some French prelates were now undoubtedly offended at the warrior’s appointment, with La Rochefoucauld blaming Bérulle, wrongly supposing him to be involved. Court gossip was that the pope had had the right instinct. Bérulle claimed to assume that Richelieu’s part in the promotion was designed to shield the king from any appearance of being in the wrong, since, he asserted, Richelieu had

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previously prevented the warrior’s being given the abbey of Blois, which he would have been likely to misuse. But archbishoprics mattered much more, having pastoral obligations, and such responsibilities should be given only to those Christ himself would choose. At least the accusations against Père de Gondi could now be seen as really directed against Bérulle himself. The real trouble, in the background of course, was the king’s anger in the spring of 1628 with the Clergy Assembly, where he felt the French prelates had not offered adequate financial grants for the campaign against the heretics of La Rochelle.10 Yet by 2 May Bérulle was able to return to the larger ambitions of the dévots, in terms of peace among the Catholic powers, seemingly assured of Richelieu’s continued sharing of such priorities. He reported that the ordinary and extraordinary Spanish ambassadors were intending to propose to Richelieu an end to hostilities in Italy if, in relation to Mantua and the Monferrato, Spain were to hand over Casale to the emperor, and Spanish cooperation against the English at La Rochelle. Since the king’s brother, Gaston, perpetually unstable in both personal and political terms, remained a potential source of disruption within and beyond the kingdom, it was at least satisfactory that he had performed his Easter obligation by making his confession to Père Condren of the Oratory. As to rumours of Marillac’s resigning his position as garde des sceaux, the Queen Mother saw these as originating with Charles de l’Aubespine, abbé de Préaux, who would indeed succeed Marillac in 1630. Unconscious of a possible irony, Bérulle concluded by promising continued secrecy over all information which reached him. By the 26th of the month the death of the bishop of Mende prompted Richelieu to contact his own secretary and agent, Michel Le Masle, about the bishop’s legacies. There were instructions for Père Bonet of the Oratory concerning also officials in Henrietta Maria’s suite, and he would act as would have Père Achille de Harlay-Sancy, future bishop of Saint-Malo, had the latter Oratorian been available in Paris. But Oratorian worries remained. On 2 June Bérulle anxiously reported the concerns of Père Gondi about criticisms of the widower’s son by his late wife. He had supposedly been insufficiently energetic in carrying out his naval duties. Not surprisingly the warrior prelate was again denounced for circulating hostile gossip about Bérulle in Paris. The latter hoped he could rely on Richelieu’s help and advice, so as to avoid having to complain directly to the king. Rather more assured was the Jesuit Suffren, who on 10 July reported his own recovery of good health, which would enable the confessor and the cardinal to discuss with the king, who seemed ready to follow Richelieu’s 10  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. III, nos 12 (pp. 25–6); 158 ( pp. 164–6); 171 (p. 177); 173 (p. 179); 172 (p. 178); 227 (pp. 239–42).

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advice, what the two of them had decided was for the good of the Church. On 25 July the Queen Mother intervened on the Bordeaux succession issue. Now that the warrior prelate had secured royal nomination to the archbishopric, she supported his wish to be succeeded at Maillezais by the royal preacher, Père Nicolas Grillet, and wished Richelieu to urge this on the king. In fact the see would be filled in 1630 by Henri de Béthune, who had been the candidate of the king’s brother for another vacancy. On the last day of the month came news from Béziers that Bishop Thomas de Bonsi was terminally ill. Richelieu was asked to obtain the king’s approval for his resignation of the see to his brother, Clément de Bonsi, abbé d’Aignane. Here too the Queen Mother intervened, telling Richelieu on 8 August that she had written to the king in support of this succession, moved by the fact that the brothers’ uncle, Jean de Bonsi, bishop of Béziers from 1596 and cardinal from 1612, had served her so well. He had in fact negotiated her marriage with Henri IV and became her Grand Almoner until 1615, baptizing in 1614 the two royal children, Gaston and Henrietta. Another nephew, Dominique de Bonsi, was her First Almoner from 1612 to 1618, so it was no surprise that Clément duly received royal approval for the see in 1629. Less happy, once again, was Bérulle, also contacting Richelieu in the first week of August to explain why he could not obtain for the latter’s client, a doctor of the Sorbonne, a specific ecclesiastical pension – precisely because it was already promised to another doctor, the abbé Mulot, Richelieu’s chaplain and confessor. But more problematic was the former nuncio, Ottavio Corsini, archbishop of Tarsus, who was agitated at the prospect of promotion as cardinal of the nuncio since 1627, Giovanni Francesco Guidi del Bagno. The latter had in fact been a cardinal in petto since August 1627, though his elevation was not published until November 1629. Corsini wanted Bérulle to intervene with the Queen Mother and Richelieu so as to have the French ambassador suggest that the promotion of Corsini himself would be pleasing to France. The former nuncio promised service to French interests and recognition of Richelieu’s determining favour. In this way he hoped to recover his career, adversely affected by the brevity of the pontificate of Gregory XV. Secrecy was obviously required, but though Bérulle was sure to maintain this, he needed a clue from Richelieu as to how to respond to so pressing a demand. Corsini was always helpful to the Queen Mother, but there was now a risk he might approach her directly. In fact, however, it was del Bagno whom Richelieu had kept contact with, ever since his own exile in Avignon, and it was he who would help Richelieu towards reconciliation with the Queen Mother in 1630, were that possible. Meanwhile Richelieu’s own family affairs were prospering. On 11 August 1628 the king informed him that for the succession to the deceased Miron at Lyon he wished to

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nominate the cardinal’s brother, Archbishop Alphonse-Louis du Plessis de Richelieu of Aix, who would himself become a cardinal in 1629 and Grand Almoner in 1632. Richelieu replied the same day, thanking the king for his favour to both of them. This prompt exchange was in contrast to the Queen Mother’s letter of 22 August, in which she again requested action to ensure the king agreed to the Béziers succession of Clément de Bonsi, repeating this yet again in a further letter of 27 September. In the interval, on 2 September, she reported better integration of dévot forces, as she was taking into her service the brother of Père Condren, on the recommendation of the Oratorian and of Bérulle. By 14 October Bérulle’s own dévot approach to international issues seemed momentarily modified, sounding closer to Richelieu’s. In the context of possible peace in Europe Endymion Porter was moving from England to Spain and Rubens was going there from the Netherlands. But if the Spanish king did not prioritize the good of the Church, divine punishment following would leave other means for the ruin of heresy, just as Richelieu was divinely chosen to effect this within France. In the first week of November, just after La Rochelle had indeed fallen, Bérulle was quick to remind Richelieu of his prophecy, with respect to its recovery for Church and king, that though the Oratorians had been forced out of their house there since the early 1620s the principal church would eventually be dedicated to the Nativity of Christ. Now that divine wisdom had used the presumption of the heretical English for such Catholic restoration, he hoped that Richelieu and if need be the king would agree to the vowed dedication, on the basis that the Oratorians would take charge of the principal church. No additional costs would be involved. If a bishopric were to be created there, then a cathedral when established should have this dedication, though in fact transfer of the bishopric of Maillezais followed only in 1648. The Protestant temple might be given to the Oratorians if the place of worship for the Huguenots were removed elsewhere. He himself would also discuss this with the Queen Mother. When on 11 November Bishop Henri de Sponde of Pamiers expressed his joy at the fall of La Rochelle, it was clear that Huguenots did not lack continued strength elsewhere. He wrote to Richelieu from Foix, to where local violence had forced him to retreat, and asked the cardinal’s protection for his diocese. The ex-Huguenot prelate, who had accepted his bishopric in 1626 at the express wish of Urban VIII, was hoping adequately to celebrate Richelieu’s achievements as he worked on his future publication, the Abrégé des Annales ecclésiastiques de l’éminentissime cardinal Baronius … mis en françois et continué jusqu’à la fin de l’anneé 1635 (Paris 1636). His difficulties arose despite the fact that when in spring 1628 Condé retook the rebel town of Pamiers he had given public support to de Sponde and the

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Catholic clergy, giving the bishop and canons use of the Protestant temple while awaiting the rebuilding of the cathedral demolished by the rebels, restoring the four mendicant orders to their properties and the Jesuits to their college. On 25 November joy over La Rochelle and Richelieu’s part in its fall was similarly expressed by Bishop Charles de Noailles of SaintFlour. He offered his prayers for Richelieu’s preservation in the service of the Church and kingdom. He enclosed some congratulatory Latin verses which a Jesuit had been inspired to compose while staying with the bishop. On the same date congratulations on the fall of La Rochelle from Archbishop Léonard de Trappes of Auch were accompanied by his hopes that, with heresy in the kingdom crushed, the restoration of the Church and the filling of its posts with good appointments could be pursued. His letter in some ways marked a moment where triumphant dévots and Richelieu might seem harmoniously at one, as the Capuchin, archbishop since the first decade of the century, had been in contact with the then bishop of Luçon since the Estates General of 1614.11 Both Richelieu and Bérulle were to benefit from the abbeys vacated by the death of the Grand Prior of France, Alexandre de Vendôme, as the king informed Richelieu on 13 February 1629. But as what was to prove the last year of Bérulle’s life began, his growing disagreement with the direction of French foreign policy under Richelieu began to emerge. Initially he attempted to represent doubts about the escalation of the Italian campaign as those of the Queen Mother rather than his own. He did this by following up, on 27 February, an earlier letter to Richelieu on that, using reports from two Oratorians, Père Achille de Harlay-Sancy, who was in Savoy, and Père Guillaume Gibieuf. Much more unambiguous was the dramatic intervention of Anne of Austria, in an autograph letter possibly drafted by Bérulle. On 10 March she urged peace with Spain over Italy, while dutifully professing acceptance of whatever policy was decided by the king, itself a telling formula in addressing Richelieu. Older Italian dimensions to French affairs were more calmly reflected on 20 of the month, when Clément de Bonsi thanked Richelieu for aiding his succession to the see of Béziers. At the end of the month Bérulle made his own position clear enough to Richelieu. Peace for Italy and Christendom must be the fruit of royal military victory, since peace was always the proper goal of war. God’s cause must be what the king pursued, whether in Italy or France, and his immediate and urgent duty was now attention to 11  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. III, nos 241 (pp. 256–8); 292 (pp. 304–305); 304 (pp. 318–19); 380 (pp. 374–5); 411 (pp. 397–8); 427 (pp. 410–11); 440 (pp. 419–20); 437 (pp. 417–18); 448 (p. 427); 451 (p. 428); 479 (p. 452); 551 (p. 508); 506 (p. 475); 582 (pp. 528–9); 617 (pp. 555–7); 127 (pp. 131–4); 626 (p. 563); 638 (pp. 573–4); 637 (pp. 572–3).

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Languedoc. It seemed accordingly apt that on 26 April Marillac reported on the design, by a Jesuit, of a new royal portrait which would show the king watched over by angels in the heavens. But on the last day of the month Bérulle renewed his anxious criticism. French occupation of the Monferrato could easily provide the Habsburgs with an excuse to refuse either Spanish or imperial agreement to a settlement of the Mantuan succession. The urgent appeal of the Jesuit Jean Suffren, written from Valence on 9 May, was for Richelieu to hurry to join the king, in the context of the siege of Privas and royal anxiety about that. Henri de Béthune, as bishop of Bayonne, also had his eye on confrontation with the Huguenots, though on a specific consequence which was not followed up until much later. On 17 May he reported on the plan to transfer to La Rochelle the bishopric of Maillezais and the terms on which the neighbouring bishop of Saintes, Michel Raoul, agreed to this. Five days earlier Bérulle had returned to his main charge, that the two wings of Habsburg power were being provided with a pretext for their own co-operation against Catholic France. His increasing desperation seemed evident on 22 May in a rather convoluted report of a new idea from some Catholic prelates in the Netherlands. If the Dutch republicans could be persuaded to allow public freedom of Catholic worship in their territories, European alliance against Spain would actually be strengthened, while the outcome would also redound to the glory of the Catholic king of France. By 6 June he appeared aware of the danger of disagreement with Richelieu becoming widely known, prompted by murmurs among other courtiers of the Queen Mother while Richelieu was far away in Languedoc. A further, unwelcome complication, caused as ever by the king’s brother, had to be addressed ten days later. Gaston had set off in an uncertain direction without warning his own courtiers, among them Antoine de Laage, seigneur de Puylaurens, who was with Père Condren at the Oratorian house in Orléans, from where Condren had alerted Bérulle. Yet the latter never forgot his other preoccupation with England and Catholic fortunes there. Queen Henrietta Maria needed a new Grand Almoner, and Jean Jaubert de Barrault, bishop of Bazas, was certainly learned and virtuous. But in the Oratorian’s eyes his disadvantage was to be reputedly dominated by the Jesuits, and so that central dévot figure, Sébastien Zamet, bishop of Langres, would seem preferable. Suspicion of certain Jesuits did exist, even in such circles. The former royal confessor Jean Arnoux sought on 19 June to explain to Richelieu why he had not gone to Rome, as apparently expected. By 14 July several of the problems which Bérulle saw himself as facing seemed to be coalescing. The king’s wish that the Oratorians be re-established at La Rochelle could certainly be met. But in the tense atmosphere over Henrietta Maria’s suite in England the Oratorians had

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done all they could, and Bérulle was now withdrawing the last of them from there. This would leave the new Capuchin chaplaincy to the queen without competition, since there were enough damaging divisions among Catholics in England as it was. Indeed, during this summer Bérulle seemed aware that the chaotic condition of priestly ministry among the English Catholics themselves was not just the result of recent political tensions. Chaos in French dévot circles themselves now appeared, however. On 19 of the month Bérulle sent Richelieu one of his not uncommon complicated accounts. By misfortune the Queen Mother had appeared to give permission for a public, as opposed to purely private, theological debate between the Jesuit Père Alexandre Regourd and a Huguenot minister of Charenton, Jean Mestrezat. Because some Catholic bishops objected, Cardinal La Valette advised Bérulle to send a correct version of events to Richelieu. A plan was put forward to have a public debate prohibited, either by the archbishop of Paris or by the parlement. On the advice of La Valette, of Bishop Gabriel de l’Aubespine of Orléans and of Bishop Léonor d’Estampes de Valençay of Chartres, steps had been taken to prevent the debate. Bérulle claimed to have had no prior knowledge of the affair, and to have reacted solely to protect the interests of the Church and also the Queen Mother whose name had been used. It was too bad that just when the Huguenots were being defeated in Languedoc there should be the prospect of scandal if a Huguenot minister were allowed public statement of his views at Paris. Bérulle blamed one of the Queen Mother’s courtiers, Denis Bouthillier, seigneur de Rancé, for this interference in ecclesiastical matters beyond his competence. Richelieu understandably wrote to Rancé from Pézenas on 30 July, complaining that both the Queen Mother and Bérulle seemed to have been put in the position of being taken by surprise, and insisting that no similar incident should be allowed to occur.12 It was perhaps not surprising that by 3 August Bérulle was anxious that the king might be displeased with him. Though the English king demanded it, the decision to withdraw the remaining Oratorians from the suite of Henrietta Maria, taken for the best interests, was his alone. It involved no reflection on the French envoy, Châteauneuf, and Richelieu should not blame the latter. Since the French king agreed to the proposition of Charles I for a Capuchin chaplaincy, it seemed to Bérulle that this should be headed by a bishop, if Père Joseph were to receive episcopal ordination, to match the original organization of the Oratorian chaplaincy. But 12  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. IV (1980), nos 64 (p. 97); 96 (pp.127–8); 113 (pp. 139–40); 139 (p. 167); 167 (pp. 186–7); 215 (pp. 230–31); 229 (pp. 246–7); 258 (pp. 277–8); 283 (p. 307); 270 (pp. 291–2); 301 (pp. 325–7); 350 (pp. 377–8); 375 (pp. 397–400); 403 (pp. 427–8); 385 (p. 411); 450 (p. 473); 463 (pp. 485–8); 477 (pp. 496–7).

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Châteauneuf doubted that Richelieu would favour this elaboration of the Capuchin presence, which Richelieu had certainly not welcomed in any case. Bérulle felt that the Oratory now needed some sign of the cardinal’s favour and protection, especially at Rome, to defend it in the circumstances of its withdrawal from England. Henri de Béthune, now bishop elect of Maillezais, had told his father, Philippe de Béthune – comte de Scelles et de Charost, ambassador at Rome – that Bérulle had lost Richelieu’s favour. There was also a rumour that he was displeased with Marillac. His favour and protection were now badly needed. A week later the disarray of the dévots continued to be manifest. Rancé replied to Richelieu to give his own version of events. The proposed theological debate had seemed an opportunity for the conversion of some Huguenot gentlemen, and only a select audience had been intended. When a larger attendance seemed likely, the Queen Mother agreed to prohibit the event. Once the bishops interfered, Rancé took the initiative to persuade the Huguenot minister to fall conveniently ill and not put in an appearance. Even so some bishops attended a version of the original programme and some conversions were achieved. Since no harm in the end resulted, it was to be hoped that the nuncio would not in fact complain, but accept that all had been done with the best intentions. Whatever Marillac’s family connections with the Capuchins, not all of Bérulle’s fears had been misplaced. The captain of royal guards, Nicolas Bautru, seigneur de Nogent, wrote to Richelieu from the king’s court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 12 August. While the king and Anne of Austria were for now living harmoniously together, the king had no regard for Bérulle, and not all were happy with Marillac’s position. Marillac himself wrote from Paris four days later, in the wake of the triumph in Languedoc. For religious conversions among the defeated Huguenots it would be best to send internal missioners there drawn from the Capuchins, the Reformed Observant Franciscans, the Oratorians, the Jesuits and the Pères de la Doctrine. These and any others would need some funding, as would subsidies for those converted. Richelieu was praised for his religious zeal in all this. The next day it was the Jesuit Père Suffren who wrote from Paris, thanking Richelieu personally and on behalf of the Society of Jesus, whose Father General he had alerted, for the cardinal’s patronage in just this context, specifically in relation to the Jesuit college at Montpellier. The fathers there were truly grateful. The king and his queen were indeed now living in union, and there were thus hopes of divine blessing and a fruitful outcome. But the king needed Richelieu’s presence as soon as possible. Meanwhile he himself had stressed to the Queen Mother how great was the cardinal’s service to Church, king and state, and he expressed his own devotion to that service. Richelieu clarified certain things to Bérulle on about 18 August. He retained his preference for secular priests, such as the

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Oratorians themselves, rather than regulars in the English mission. He had made this clear to Châteauneuf and Rancé. If he had not thought Zamet too old and infirm, as after all Bérulle had made out prior to this, but able and willing to go to England, Richelieu would have readily agreed. Even now he could be persuaded over this. Nothing done by Ambassador Béthune at Rome had been without his approval, and the nuncio would also be put in the picture. Both Bérulle and Richelieu must expect to have opponents. He could assure Bérulle that he was satisfied with Marillac. The king was not antagonistic to Bérulle, but he did not always choose to follow his advice, any more than Richelieu’s own advice. The next day Rancé wrote about Bérulle’s conspicuous humility positively provoking suspicion. The most recent report from Châteauneuf showed that the English did not want a bishop heading the queen’s suite. Following Richelieu’s orders he would write to Rome in support of the Oratory and inform Bérulle accordingly. The domestic harmony of the king and Anne of Austria was confirmed. He could vouch for the merits of the nephew, Louis de Revol de la Ramelière, of the deceased bishop, Antoine, of Dol. But Bérulle was putting forward those of Père Nicolas Grillet, also favoured by the Queen Mother, and in fact to be given Bazas in 1631.13 Harmony seemed achieved on another front when Marillac reported a week later. Since the first stone had been blessed in March 1627 by Archbishop François de Harlay de Champvallon of Rouen, the new work commissioned at the Sorbonne by Richelieu had progressed. Marillac’s inspection would cause the cardinal delight, since a first courtyard was now complete, with doctors’ rooms, a Grande Salle and above all a library. Mildly reassuring, by contrast, was Cardinal de La Valette’s confirmation, on 30 August, that Père Condren of the Oratory was doing his best to keep those who needed to know abreast of the likely movements of the king’s brother. The next day Rancé reverted to the question of the vacancy at Dol and Bérulle’s views, as well as those of Marillac and Bishop Philippe Cospeau of Nantes. Though the nephew of the deceased would make a good bishop, the Queen Mother’s physician, François Vautier, was eager to obtain a pension drawn on the episcopal revenues. The dutiful Condren had meanwhile warned her of Gaston’s possible plans to flee to Lorraine. There still seemed to be some possibility of Zamet being sent to head the suite of Henrietta Maria, as an existing bishop. The Jesuit Père Regourd who had featured in the contested theological debate was the confessor of the wife of Pierre Séguier. Together with his fellow Jesuit Suffren, he had talked to her about her husband’s ambitions to become judicial premier 13  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. IV, nos 488 (pp. 506–8); 501 (pp. 522–3); 511 (pp. 535–7); 521 (pp. 543–4); 522 (pp. 545–6); 524 (pp. 548–9); 529 (pp. 553– 7).

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président, and had promised that they would promote the idea with the king. Rancé’s less than pro-Jesuit view was that the ambitious Gascon Jesuit was taking advantage of the trusting Suffren. If it was feared that some voices were raised to turn the king against the Oratory, the Jesuits should be aware of the same possible fate if they made themselves insufferable. The next to feel a need to defend himself to Richelieu was the bishop of Montauban, on 15 September. Against apparent complaints that he had neglected his duties since being restored by Richelieu to his episcopal city, he urged that he was trying to attract a new Catholic population, despite problems posed by plague. He had plans to restore church buildings, while rebel fortifications were demolished. Capuchins and Jesuits were now established there and preached alternately in the main church on Sundays and Feast Days, while other Catholic missioners went out into the countryside to preach and catechize. On the same date he also appealed for royal aid for the cost of restoring the main church. He cited the precedent of funds provided for the same purpose at Montpellier. He also now needed the cardinal’s permission to allow his clergy to leave the city for a while if the plague worsened, given that for the duration no Catholic inhabitants remained requiring their ministry. On 2 October Marillac wrote from Fontainebleau, understandably shocked by the sudden news of Bérulle’s terminal illness. He asked Richelieu’s protection for the dying cardinal’s nephews, for the Oratory and for the Carmelite nuns in its care. His prayers for the preservation of Richelieu’s own health would be correspondingly the more intense. Naturally, after Bérulle’s death Soeur Madeleine de Saint-Joseph wrote to Richelieu on 7 of the month. Her own father had entered the Oratory at the end of his life, and after 1608 she had become the first native French prioress of the newly introduced Discalced Carmelite nuns in the kingdom. In 1624 she became head of their main Parisian convent on the Rue Saint-Jacques, and she now thanked Richelieu for what she took to be his assumption of protection for the nuns in France. Less happy was the elder brother of the late cardinal, Jean de Bérulle. On 4 October he had complained that he and his deceased brother were in financial ruin, for lack of adequate benefice income to support the status of cardinal. The benefices granted on the death of Vendôme proved to have been neglected, and so of little worth. After this frank exposition he equally frankly asked for Richelieu’s help. Still anxious, on 15 October, was the bishop of Montauban, worrying about negative reports on him to the cardinal and the cost of church repair. But for once Richelieu needed the help of an Oratorian. At the end of the month he wrote to the French Oratory’s representative at Rome, Père Claude Bertin. Bérulle’s death prompted his own displeasure at rumours in France and at Rome of the two cardinals being at odds at the time of the death. Richelieu would certainly keep

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the Oratory in his protection. But he asked a favour of Bertin – to obtain written confirmation of the viva voce papal dispensation of Richelieu from daily recitation of the Breviary; and moreover to secure Roman agreement that though the dispensation would remain unpublished, Richelieu might let its existence be known, to counter any suggestion that he was in breach of his clerical obligation. That the dispensation coincidentally marked the end of Richelieu’s integration within the dévot movement seemed possible, if lacking the obvious drama of Bérulle’s sudden removal from the scene. A melancholy echo of dissolution was provided by Bishop Anne de Murviel of Montauban on 12 December. Chaos and desolation reigned there, because of the plague, instead of Catholic victorious restoration. Four days later Marillac also reflected on the dévot priority of charitable relief of social need and, implicitly, on a potential ‘changing of the guard’ in devout circles. He hoped that Richelieu would give an eye to necessary grain supply, to shelter the dignity of the ageing Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, who as Grand Almoner had notional oversight of the charitable institutions of the kingdom. This seemed far from the triumph of the previous year, when Bishop Jean de Tulle of Orange had managed, in 1628, to convert Jean de Hertoge d’Osmale, seigneur de Walkenbourg, who governed Orange on behalf of the heretical Frédéric-Henri de Nassau.14 Bérulle’s Preoccupations One of the telling signs of the stresses involved in relations between Bérulle and Richelieu was their habitual use of coded names when writing to each other about figures such as the king, the Queen Mother, the king’s brother, Richelieu himself and others. It was a further sign of the unrelaxed nature of these exchanges that for a given figure the name might be varied even within a single letter. Yet when Bérulle wrote to Richelieu he was consistent in an unchanging code name for himself, ‘Francigène’. This reference would seem not to have received modern comment, but it arguably reflects Bérulle’s concerns for such things as obedience to Rome, due respect for primatial and archiepiscopal authority, and care for the English Catholics. For the tenth-century adoption of the term Via Francigena made reference to the recommended route, whether for pilgrims or archbishops visiting Rome, from Canterbury to the eternal city across what became the kingdom of France. Bérulle’s concerns more generally were put in some 14  Papiers de Richelieu, vol. IV, nos 538 (pp. 564–5); 542 (p. 567); 544 (pp. 569–71); 579 (pp. 598–9); 580 (p. 599); cf. pp. 620–21; nos 624 (pp. 629–30); 617 (pp. 625–6); 640 (p. 643); 660 (pp. 660–61); 697 (pp. 703–4); 702 (pp. 706– 7); cf. p. 267.

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sort of order and context by François Bourgoing, superior of the French Oratory, as early as 1644. Bérulle’s writings, instant responses to particular circumstances, had not achieved a coherent or even fully published form by the time of his death. Bourgoing dedicated to the queen regent, Anne of Austria, a first edition of what was represented as the complete works of Bérulle, thus indicating the Oratory’s position immediately after the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII. In his own preface, dated 1 March, to the priests of the Oratory, Bourgoing stressed, fairly enough, how the official title of the institution was the Oratory of Jesus, an obvious parallel to the Society of Jesus. Yet his own insistence, perfectly in line with Bérulle’s as well as Condren’s in fact, was that precisely as holders of the priesthood, something of divine origin, the Oratorians were marked by something superior to the vows of regulars, of human origin: for they participated in the priesthood of Christ. Their involvement as priests in pastoral, charitable and mission work, above all the work of clerical education – all of which had indeed developed under Bérulle - was thus as suitable as similar engagement among other communities, and clerical training was mentioned by allusion as akin to the noviciate of regulars. But a crucial difference, again in fact repeating Bérulle’s constant refrain, was the Oratorians’ willing service to diocesan bishops and submission to their authority. Another apparent implication of similarity yet difference concerned devotion to particular feasts. To contemporaries who would be well aware of the Jesuit tradition of special celebration of 1 January, the Feast of the Circumcision, Bourgoing stressed how Bérulle had received papal authorization for a feast of the Solemnity of Jesus, and had composed an Office for that which equally received approval. Use of the Office had also since been allowed beyond the Oratory, in certain dioceses, which Bourgoing saw as a prelude to its eventual authorization throughout the Western Church. But the delicate subject of vows could hardly be avoided in the rest of the preface. Bérulle had certainly composed his controversial two vows, to Christ and to the Virgin Mary, which in Bourgoing’s version of events had been illegitimately published by critics determined on their condemnation. But divine providence had ensured their approval by various bishops and doctors, and, after the ten years of opposition, met with silent patience by Bérulle, he had determined to defend the honour not of himself but of Christ by publishing the Grandeurs de Jésus. The edition of his works now produced by Bourgoing admittedly included some writings not published by Bérulle himself, so as to include compositions on other themes dear to his heart, such as Saint Mary Magdalen. Reference could equally not be avoided to the papal commission to Bérulle, as a relatively newly ordained priest, to establish in France the Discalced Carmelite nuns. But the detailed account of his sufferings in pursuing the progress

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of that foundation could be left to future biographers. The foundation of the Oratory itself Bourgoing made out to be a signal example of Bérulle’s obedience to his diocesan bishop. The contribution of Gibieuf, a figure controversial within as well as beyond the Oratory, in producing the present edition was made clear. Bérulle had intended the Oratory to demonstrate as perfectly as possible the role of the priesthood in all its aspects, but explicitly without the formal vows of regulars. Far from this being a deficiency, it expressed commitment to the primitive priesthood of Christ himself and union with his sovereign priestly perfection.15 Bérulle’s Discours de l’Estat et des Grandeurs de Iesus, stressing servitude to Christ and the Virgin Mary, was dedicated to the king. The dedication rapidly turned into an attack on the Huguenots, whose disruption of Christian Europe was contrasted with the Catholic missions to non-Europeans overseas. But Bérulle extended his sense of opposition to those, implicitly Catholic critics, who had stirred up trouble in Italy as well as France just when the king had seen fit to deploy Bérulle in aid of a royal ideal of peace both within the kingdom and beyond. Bérulle had long remained silent, in patience. But important figures in Church and state had now persuaded him to publish his Discours, very different from the pamphlets of such critics.16 In a preface ‘Au Lecteur’, Bérulle recorded that printing had begun after the approval of the text, necessary by Church law, given by two doctors. But continued and public controversy, which it was not now necessary to reproduce, caused some of his friends to judge that, in order to silence critics, the further approval of eminent names should be added. Printing had therefore been delayed, but the approbations of authoritative prelates and doctors were next cited. These included Richelieu, the archbishop of Tours; Cospeau, bishop of Nantes; the bishop of Poitiers; Camus, bishop of Belley; Zamet, bishop of Langres; the Dominican Coeffeteau, bishop elect of Marseille; the bishops of Chartres and of Aire; the superiors of the monastic congregation of the Feuillants; the English doctor William Bishop; Nicolas Ysambert of the Sorbonne, Regius Professor of Theology; Cornelius Jansenius, Professor of Theology at Louvain; Froger, doctor of the Sorbonne; a canon of Notre Dame; other Sorbonne doctors; Parisian parish clergy, including the priest of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet; the English doctor Richard Smith; and Père Joseph, a royal preacher: quite a dévot galaxy in fact. Some of the 15  Oeuvres complètes du Cardinal de Bérulle. Reproduction de l’Edition Princeps (1644) [2 vols, Montsoult, 1960], preface, pp. xxvj, xxix; xxj, xxiij; xxviij–xxix; cf. pp. iij, vij, xiv, xv; J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580–1730 (New Haven-London, 2009), pp. 205, 319, stressing the context of disputes between seculars and regulars in the 1620s and 1630s. 16  Oeuvres complètes, Discours, dedication, pp. 127–8, 131.

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approbations, especially those given in French as opposed to Latin, made explicit reference to the silencing of malicious critics.17 The Premier Discours maintained the aggressive tone, with reference to three years of calumny and criticism spread abroad in Italy and France, while insisting that the unnamed individuals responsible must not be thought to bring the institutions to which they belonged into disrepute: the obvious implication was of course to the contrary. So too with the section headings listed for the Second Discours, where XIII identified the calumnies as being effectively aimed against devotion to Christ himself. Within the text of this discourse Bourgoing’s edition correctly inserted a marginal reference to Copernicus where Bérulle welcomed the heliocentric model of the cosmos, however unattractive a novelty to astronomers, as providing an authentic guide to the soul’s being, centred on Christ and held in relationship to him. Once again the Sixiesme Discours recalled that obscure critics of due devotion to Christ opposed themselves to the practice of the early Church and to the sense of the Tridentine catechism. In the Huictiesme Discours the relative novelty of the Oratory itself was admitted, but its attempt to be Christ-like was to be confirmed by its share in suffering and persecution. Servitude to Christ could make it an instrument of his power. For dedication to the Incarnation and to the divine humanity of Christ was what distinguished it from other groupings in the Church. Other such communities divided among themselves Christ’s seamless robe, in their holy pursuit of one or another virtue, whether solitude or penance or obedience. But the Oratorians’ servitude to Christ in his wholeness seemed to stimulate ill-considered opposition, which the Oratory would persevere in overcoming. The final, Douziesme Discours claimed that in such servitude lay the Oratorians’ liberty. Thus was introduced a ‘narrative’ concerning what were initially headlined not as vows but as Elevations to Christ and the Virgin Mary.18 The first six sections of this ‘narrative’ were summarized as establishing that the vows, here termed as such, could not cause sin or scruple, unless they were formally disavowed subsequent to their pronouncement, precisely because they did not have the status or intention of solemn, canonical vows. Yet section VII was listed as finding an analogy for such essentially private and voluntary devotion in the historic title of the Servite friars, as servants of the Virgin Mary, and in the Marian sodalities established for the laity at so many Jesuit houses. Section VIII would note the paradox of criticism stimulating wider approval of the wording of the vows. The 17  Oeuvres complètes, Discours, preface (p. 140) and approbations (pp. 141–51). 18  Oeuvres complètes, Discours, pp. 161–8: pp. 163–4; pp. 168–95: pp. 169, 171–2; pp. 244–58: p. 255; pp. 278–305: pp. 304–5; pp. 369–82; pp. 383–4.

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next section could again show how critics attacked Bérulle precisely when he was engaged in promoting peace both within the kingdom and beyond. But a particular triumph was to be revealed in section X, recounting how the bishop of Lisieux, at the relevant time bishop of Aire, found himself invited to condemn a devotion he had until then never heard of, at a clerical assembly, but, on informing himself, won over some critics by his defence. The next three sections promised yet more details of opposition. But in the following section Bérulle cited Saint Augustine, soon to become a name of division among sometime dévots, after Bérulle’s death, as a consoling precedent for those facing attack just when they were engaged themselves in confronting heresy. The bishop of Lisieux was listed to reappear, in a letter to nuncio Bentivoglio, within the next two sections, after which other sections were due to reiterate the private quality of the devotion represented by the vow of servitude and then introduce, in XXV, the proposition that it appropriately extended or encapsulated the Christian’s baptismal vows. True faith and true piety were bound, it would be suggested in XXXI, to provoke heretical opposition and dissension. Comforted by this confirmation, the author finally offered a concluding prayer for the gift of peace to his adversaries. After such prolonged summary, the ‘narrative’ itself naturally opened on a more calmly descriptive note. In section II the text incorporated an earlier memorandum, seemingly of about 1611, not originally intended for publication. Private circulation, as the next section explained, was on request, and led to its approval by the Jesuits Coton and Suffren, as one of them subsequently reconfirmed. In section V the decision to circulate this original version among select enclosed nuns was defended. The title and devotion of the Servite friars were used as evidence in section VII. The antiquity (rather relative in fact) of that order in France and beyond, and its approval by the papacy, provided a suitable response to the accusation that the author of this devout vow must be a secret Huguenot. The following section alleged that critics had gone to great lengths to lay hands on a copy of the original version of the vow. The accusation of heresy, it was suggested in IX, was particularly offensive, whether made at Rome or in France, when Bérulle was by royal command attending on the Queen Mother in pursuit of peace within the kingdom. Section XIII at last got rather more to the heart of the matter. Without any adequate authorization, and on the contrary against the wishes of some, critics who presumed to speak for the Carmelite nuns in France addressed to the Sorbonne a request for examination and censure of the original version, apparently oblivious of the approval already given by some prelates and doctors of the Faculty. Not surprisingly, in this account at least, no judgement was given. As section XVI recorded, Bérulle and the Oratory still faced a further three years of attack, until Cospeau, bishop of Nantes and a prelate who had

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approved the original, felt the need to defend his own authority against critics by involving Cardinal Bentivoglio and the Roman Holy Office – an initiative welcomed in France and at Rome. Such a turn of events provided Bérulle, in XVIII, with the opportunity to cite the example of St Augustine and warn detractors that in opposing bishops they opposed those who had paternal authority over Christians, including regulars as well as priests. Warming to this distinctively personal theme of celestial and terrestrial hierarchy, he used the next section to liken priests to angels and bishops to the archangels commanding them, the latter also being the princes of the divine monarchy. Indeed, as Bérulle’s own inspiration in founding the French Oratory emerged, in XX the Apostolic Age was held up as the pristine example of good order in the Church – as had been demonstrated by the contemporary luminary, priest of the Roman Oratory and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Baronius, whose historical learning even the Huguenots revered. But in the following section Jesuit support was adduced, from the catechism of the Jesuit Louis Richeome, approved by theologians of the Society of Jesus and authorized by the king. Also cited were texts by the Jesuits Suarez, Vasquez and Canisius on the one hand, and the opinions of Louvain doctors, some of whom it was noted were also regulars, on the other, as well as the authority of patristic authors, Aquinas, of the Council of Trent and Cardinal Du Perron. Then in section XXIII a central calumny was addressed, that the vow in its original version represented a fourth vow of religion, something known by contemporaries to identify the inner elite of the Society of Jesus. A set of peculiar calculations followed, in which Bérulle tried to show that, by misapplied numbering, any Carmelite taking such a vow might be said to be taking a fifth, any Jesuit in such an hypothesis a ninth, any Carthusian likewise a second; but that all this was a profound miscalculation since what was in question was not a vow of religion at all. It could only be described as such in a totally different sense, asserted the next section – that of the primitive Church – at a time when all Christians were religious, and there were no religious in the form of regulars. Whereas now there were so many religious orders but fewer true religious, then the vow of Christians was their solemn profession at baptism. Once again the Council of Trent was cited, and Bourgoing’s editing helpfully provided marginal reference to a Bordeaux edition of the decrees, of 1621. So in section XXIX servitude to Christ was identified, in a very dévot way, as not altering the outward state in life. By such devotion the secular cleric persevered in his virtuous life, the members of religious orders in their regular duties, the laity in their calling, the magistrate in his public office. Finally this ‘narrative’ itself

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concluded with two approbations, dated 23 January 1623 and provided by doctors Chastelain and Coppin of the Paris theology Faculty.19 There followed the definitive Voeux ou Elevations à Dieu, relatively brief in both the first case, of servitude to Christ, and in the second, to Mary Mother of God. Much longer were the subsequent Approbations des Voeux et Elevations Precedentes. These were in Latin or French, and most were dated from 1620 to 1622. They were offered by the bishop of Aire, then of Lisieux; the bishop of Poitiers, Saint-Cyran; Camus, bishop of Belley; Zamet, bishop of Langres; William Bishop, since 1621 a titular bishop intended to superintend the English Catholics; a Cistercian doctor of the Sorbonne; another doctor and royal preacher who also served as both canon theologian and canon penitentiary of Beauvais and Jansenius, subsequently bishop of Ypres, who managed to introduce into his approbation an explicit reference to St Augustine, though he was not in total isolation in doing this. Also offering their approval, among others, were Richard Smith, who succeeded William Bishop as titular bishop for England; the bishop of Chartres; other doctors of the Sorbonne; canons of cathedrals and bishops. Fortified in this way, Bérulle recommenced with the Seconde Partie des Discours de l’Estat et des Grandeurs de Iesus. En laquelle commence la Vie de Iesus. Once again there was a dedication to the king, and yet again this was prefaced by a summary of the letter to the king. Prominent was point V, that the king’s first wars, like those of Saint Louis, were in defence of the true faith, for victory over heresy was reserved to the king. Equally typical of Bérulle was point VII, that the goal of war is peace, as indeed of royal government. So in point VIII he urged the king to peace, even before agreeing that victory at La Rochelle was the prelude to the crushing of heresy in France. The letter itself included reference to the king’s part in nomination of Bérulle to cardinal rank, at the start. But other contemporary references were less pacific. In point IV the divine judgement on England, for its presumptuous expeditions against France, and on the assassination of Buckingham introduced a less carefully confined threat of such judgement generally on the Great or on Favourites who abused their favour, their power or their time of opportunity. Even less reserved, in the next point, was hostile mention of Charles I, who despite his French marriage could not keep faith in performance of his promises for even three months, before persecuting Catholics. But, under the same heading, it was to be hoped that the king of France would soon preside over the destruction of the self-proclaimed Reformed Church in France, returning to invisibility what had been universally invisible for most of Christian history. For, in the next 19  Oeuvres complètes, Narrè de ce qui s’est passé, pp. 384–409: pp. 384–8, 390–95, 398–400, 406, 409.

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point, until so recently all in the kingdom had been both ‘bons Chrestiens et bons François’. Very different was the discursive Elevation à Dieu which followed. This also offered a justification of servitude to the Virgin Mary on the basis of her role as Virgin Mother of God in the Incarnation. Within another introductory summary, Elevation III promised defence of servitude to the sovereign Virgin against recent critics. They were roundly denounced at the appropriate point in the text itself. But another Elevation to Christ and the Holy Spirit recalled a devotion which for Bérulle came perhaps very close after that to the Incarnate and Infant Christ and that to the Virgin Mary – devotion to Saint Mary Magdalen. Here the text was explicitly presented as revised, corrected and augmented on the basis of Bérulle’s notes. But the importance of the text was as an introduction to Bérulle’s ‘Spiritual Exercises’, not of Jesuit origin, for Henrietta Maria’s guidance in the difficult circumstances of the English royal court.20 For a letter to that queen, an initial, preceding summary contrasted heretical England’s deplorable condition with its pious past, and noted especially the sad difference between the ancient and modern interior of its churches. The letter itself recalled the duty committed to Bérulle by the French royal family to advise the young queen as she passed into the dangerous religious and politically uncertain territory of England. She went as a French lily to be among thorns rather than the ancient heraldic roses of England. Heresy had turned England into a bed only of thorns, no longer of roses. Heraldic lions and leopards now signified only aggression against the true Church, with a corresponding desolation of a once flourishing realm. But if England was now a painful desert, it might still prompt memory of another, more blessed desert, that where the Magdalen had honoured with her penance the south of France. Evidently Bérulle here was not minded to share scholarly Jesuit reserve about the historicity of the penitential retreat of Saint Mary Magdalen’s last years at La Baume. The queen herself allegedly asked for Bérulle’s advice in writing, and chose to copy it in her own hand. But a printed copy would make regular reading more easy, as the queen honoured the Magdalen by her devotion in her own exiled solitude.21 Yet the figure of the Magdalen also featured in another area of Bérulle’s concerns, one which was topical in France itself both before and after his death. Following his Traitté des Energumenes, he returned to a text from St Luke’s Gospel featuring a figure traditionally identified with Saint Mary Magdalen. An initial summary insisted that the evil spirit which had troubled the female follower of Jesus 20  Oeuvres complètes, Sommaire, p. 428; Au Roy, pp. 429, 432–4; Elevation à Dieu, pp. 540–47: pp. 540–41, 546–7; Elevation à Jesus-Christ, p. 549. 21  Oeuvres complètes, Sommaire de ce qui est contenu en cette Epitre Suivante, p. [550]; A la Serenissime Reyne de la Grand’ Bretagne, pp. [551]–2.

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did not mean that diabolic possession in its modern sense was involved. The relevant passage in Bérulle’s own text then amplified the point, and repeated it a second time, so anxious was he to avoid any suggestion that the figure of the Magdalen should ever have been associated with a shameful possession. Only after all this did Bourgoing’s edition reproduce some more approbation, though it might seem to apply specifically to distinct, preceding pieces. While Zamet, bishop of Langres, provided in June 1625 approbation for a previous Elevation à Iesus Fils de Dieu, three doctors – one subsequently archbishop of Bourges – supplied in June–July 1627 their approbation for the Elevation regarding the Magdalen. Such wider concerns, as over possession, then gave way to more domestic issues in a memorandum by Bérulle for superiors in the Oratory regarding their role. The introductory letter admitted that public duties had increasingly prevented Bérulle’s personal visitation of the Oratory’s houses, so that written guidance became a vital substitute. There followed Oeuvres de Piété, forming a great bulk of the edition. Item XII represented a response to some of the Carmelite nuns in France for whom Bérulle had a responsibility. From a devotional consideration of the Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus at the well, Bérulle moved to a practical reply about the choice of property by the nuns for their convent’s establishment in one particular location. Though he could not generally but approve the desire to choose the humblest dwelling, the nuns must not take on a building which might cause ill health, and the most prominent physician of the place should be consulted first. Another item, about Lenten observance, reminded members of the Oratory of their distinctive reliance on the dignity of the priesthood, without any of the special features identifying religious orders. This item, LVIII, contrasted the Oratorians’ devotion to Jesus and Mary with the priorities of such orders. For Franciscans it was poverty, for Carthusians it was solitude and abstinence from meat, but priestly discipline was the Oratorian calling. By contrast item XC was once again addressed to Henrietta Maria. Within this, point VIII, contrasting the seeming weakness of the Infant Jesus and the royal majesty of Christ, called on the queen to give relief to the persecuted Catholics of England. It looked forward to Christ the King’s eventually restoring his true light to an island at present shrouded in stormy darkness. The next item was similarly addressed, made the same link between the infancy and kingship of Christ, and was offered as a consolation for the queen’s distress. It struck a political note in hoping for Charles I to see the error of his ways and for the French king to hold him to his promises. That second point was followed by yet more frank comment in point X. Herod, like heresy, persecuted the Innocents. British heresy had caused the cutting off of Mary Stewart’s head, which had worn the crowns of Scotland and France and which was entitled to the crown of England. In his excitement

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at this thought, Bérulle seemed to contract the passage of time, identifying the Queen of Scots as mother (not grandmother) of Charles I. The physical evidence of church buildings, stone crosses and altars which survived in England was appealed to in point XIV to demonstrate the traditional faith abandoned by only the most recent monarchs there. The next point hoped instead for an eventual abandonment of the equally recent royal headship of the Church in England, and a return to the obedience shown by the royal Magi at Christ’s birth. The death of Mary Queen of Scots, here more correctly identified as the English king’s grandmother, was again represented, with imaginative details of a martyrdom fortified by Catholic rites, and Bérulle even ventured a daring, though cautious, allusion to the reputation of his mother, Anne of Denmark, as a Catholic convert. Yet more extraordinary, in item CXVI, addressed to Carmelite nuns whose convent was receiving Bérulle’s visitation, was his reference to the troubles encountered by the Oratory over his direction of these nuns in France. He compared himself to the angel with the flaming sword guarding Paradise (apparently oblivious that the sword was directed towards the excluded rather more than as protection of the sacred enclosure itself) and applied to himself Christ’s remark that he did not come to bring peace on earth. Item CXLV was similarly uncompromising, stating that the priesthood, as held by the Oratorians, had a priority in the Church, being instituted by Christ himself. As a fundamental and necessary basis of the Church it thus ranked above the saintly foundation of religious orders, which were ornaments not foundations in the concrete sense. The same point, of the essential nature of the priesthood in the Church, was repeated in item CXCI from the start, with a comparable parallel between reform or return to observance in various religious orders and restoration of the dignity of the priesthood as represented by the Oratory. Point III of the item again recited the contrasting priorities of specific orders: poverty for the Capuchins, solitude for the Carthusians and obedience for the Jesuits. It is indeed striking how in all this, despite occasional references to Augustine, the stress on servitude and therefore on the negative aspects of the human condition, Bérulle was capable of capturing a truly Nerian spirit, the positive and even optimistic tone of the original Roman Oratory, with joyous celebration of the human potential for ‘deification’ by union with the humanity of Christ. The stress on the priesthood was also an authentic perpetuation of Neri’s spirituality.22

22  Oeuvres complètes, Traitté des Energumenes, pp. 1–35; Observations sur le texte de Saint Luc, en faveur de la Magdeleine, pp. 606–11: pp. 606, 609–10; Approbations, pp. 611–12; cf. pp. 526–32; Memorial de quelques poincts servans a la direction des Superieurs, pp. 613–42: Lettre … aux superieurs, pp. 615–16;

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The human obligation to serve God as perfectly as possible extended to all, but especially to kings, according to Bérulle in item CXCIII. This observation prefaced a memorandum for Henrietta Maria, prepared for her by Bérulle as he took up spiritual direction of the young queen entering the difficult world of the English court. The accompanying memorandum itself was a relatively simple instruction for daily prayers. Its preamble made much of an initial sign of the cross first thing in the morning. Heretical rejection of this elsewhere was favourably contrasted with the rejection by James I of English Puritan demands for its abolition in the rite of baptism. More complicated, inevitably, were letters concerning the Carmelite nuns in France. Since papal authority became involved here, it is worth recalling that in 1626, when that authority was at issue in France during the Santarelli controversy, the nuncio Spada found even Père Joseph unwilling to engage seriously in the affair. Bérulle, by contrast, he knew to be anxious to help, even if only to deflect accusations that the French Oratory was somehow complicit in the Sorbonne’s original antiJesuit censure and to prevent Urban VIII’s giving credit to such rumours. In June of that year, after a meeting between the nuncio and Richelieu, it was agreed that Bérulle should continue as intermediary between them. This built on the fact that Bérulle was already planning a manoeuvre whereby some more ultramontane doctors of the Sorbonne should appeal to Richelieu to intervene against the Gallican excesses of the Faculty’s initial position. In that same month Richelieu agreed to this attempt to have the original censure replaced by a more moderate formulation, and an appeal was accordingly drafted by Bérulle himself. His confidant, Marillac, was also made Chancellor in place of Etienne d’Aligre, to pave the way for this gradual resolution of the crisis. For the Carmelite nuns themselves, a first letter began blandly enough, with reference to the centrality of the Choir Office in their rule. In other respects, though, diversity of usage had crept in between Italy and Spain, and even within either province, so Bérulle now insisted on obedience to his revised rules for uniformity in France. Unity and obedience were called for in letter two, addressed from Paris on 15 January 1623 to the Carmelite nuns at Bordeaux.23 In this particular case the nuns were praised for their loyal obedience to the pope and to the proper superiors he had given them, in the face of efforts by others intent on separating them from the latter. The true, papally Oeuvres de Piété, pp. 743–1120: pp. 758–63, 864–7; pp. 913–25: pp. 918–20; pp. 925–33: pp. 926, 929–30, 932–3; pp. 971–4, 1020–22, 1102–3. 23  Oeuvres complètes, Oeuvres de Piété, pp. 1106–7; Memorial des Exercices de Piété, pp. 1107–17: pp. 1107–12; Lettres aux Religieuses Carmelites, pp. 1121– 37: pp. 1121–31, 1131–9; V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le clergé de France (Paris, 1929), pp. 200–204, 214–15.

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appointed superiors were those involved in establishing the nuns in France in the first place. But unlawful intrusion, against clear papal orders, was breaching the terrestrial and celestial hierarchy of obedience, which led upwards via the divinely chosen head of the Church. The loyal nuns were suffering for resisting such intrusion, retaining their due obedience which reflected that vowed by all Christians rather than the special vows taken in particular circumstances. They were suffering too for preserving the unity proper to the Carmelite sisters throughout France. They might well retort, on Bérulle’s behalf, to those urging them in a contrary direction, that they should not seek to introduce a disunity which they would not allow in their own religious order, an order moreover which had no monopoly of wisdom or counsel in the Church. The nuns in France formed a distinct part of the Carmelite order, separate from parts of the order in Italy or Spain, though originating from the latter. Italy could not claim a jurisdiction over the French nuns which Spain itself did not, especially as Italy had chosen to separate itself from Spain, yet it was in Spain not in Italy that the reform of the Carmel had originated. The Holy Spirit presided over all religious orders, while all too human authors in Italy and Spain launched a dispute over the inspiration of Saint Teresa, as to whether it should be understood as leading to eremitic solitude or as stimulating apostolic activism and social engagement. The third letter to be reproduced, but of an earlier date, 9 January 1619, was addressed to the Carmelite nuns at Bourges, urging them to obey their interim head as they awaited their chosen prioress. A fourth acknowledged the reiteration of the nuns at Amiens that they continued in obedience to Bérulle’s direction, despite the upheavals in the order. Letter VII called for the nuns of a convent to accept visitation by a deputy of Bérulle, even though he could not come in person to their house far from Paris. He had been obliged to make such a substitution at other places, including Tours, Nevers, Dijon, Lyon and Bordeaux. No more suitable deputy could there be than the dean of Nantes, Doctor of Theology, a learned preacher and diocesan vicar general as well as cathedral dean. Moreover he held the powers of papal commissary for the affairs of the order. Quite apart from his successful employment in such visitations elsewhere, he had shown special favour towards this convent. The next letter, of 28 August 1625, followed the same approach about delegated visitation. In Bérulle’s mind his return to France from Italy was to have been the prelude to personal visitations, but he was now commanded to go to England to protect the divine cause in that poor island. The royal command had been unsolicited, but in any case the express wish of the pope, against which Bérulle had appealed in vain, was maintained by an order to the nuncio to arrange the matter with the king. The superior of one of the Oratory’s houses who delivered this letter would then conduct

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the visitation. The convoluted course which some of the nuns, disturbed by the divisions among themselves in France, ended up taking was reflected in letter XXI in response to a perplexed approach to Bérulle from a nun who had gone from France and become prioress of the Carmelites at Louvain. His reply was less complicated, ordering her to return to France. Another request for direction appeared to have prompted letter XXX. During the Octave of Corpus Christi the prioress of the convent might indeed be permitted daily communion, a far cry from the reserve later associated with the nuns of another order at Port-Royal. Caution entered on another front however, when in letter LXII a prioress was permitted to continue using litanies composed in honour of the Infant Jesus but warned not to have these printed or circulated outside the community. This was immediately followed by one to another prioress, undated but calling urgently for prayers for the king’s health. The whole or at least the majority of the community, on the day after the letter’s arrival, should begin an Octave for this intention, marked by daily communion and by an hourly succession of sisters praying before the exposed sacrament during the early hours of the morning, all community devotions for the duration ending with the appointed verse and response with the collect for the preservation of the king’s life. It is again to be observed how during the 1620s Bérulle’s constant stress on the unity of the Trinity, on the unity of Christ and his Mother, on the unity of the Trinity and the Mother of God accompanied his involvement with the problems caused by the disunity of the king and the Queen Mother.24 Bérulle’s own ill health, after he had become a cardinal, seemed to inform his kindly letter to one of the nuns who, he accepted, had been sent from France to found convents in Flanders. His implicit starting point in letter LXXX was that this too showed obedience, so that it was his public duties and state of health which prevented his pursuing his hope to visit those in this situation. Instead he hoped to send a representative to visit them all soon and discuss with them a resolution of their position. The edition of the letters went into reverse order, to reproduce a set sent by the younger Bérulle from Spain to his collaborator in bringing Discalced Carmelite nuns to France, here addressed as ‘Mademoiselle’ (as opposed to Madame) Acarie. Initially he reported what, in purely human terms, was a very unpromising situation given the attitude of the Carmelite friars (not the Discalced brothers) there. Eventually of course he could point to divine intervention overtaking the obstructive authority of the order’s general and assistants, though elsewhere he mentioned the papal commission granted 24  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres aux Religieuses Carmelites, pp. 1131–9: pp. 1133–5, 1138; pp. 1140–41; pp. 1142, 1146–7, 1147–8, 1159–60, 1169–70, 1196–7.

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for his journey to this end. The letter collection as a whole, as edited, then turned to those written by Bérulle to his fellow Oratorians, though the numbering of the letters continued almost consecutively from those to or about Carmelites. The first two of this new set reflected the fact that Bérulle’s Oratory had been able to take into union the pristine, independent though similar Oratory of Provence. In the first Bérulle marked the return to Provence of a priest who had come to Paris for some months to observe the life of the Oratory there. In the second reference was made to the papal brief for the union of the houses of the Provence Oratory with Bérulle’s congregation. A copy of this was acknowledged with the reverence Bérulle habitually accorded to papal authority. Fortified by this papal approval he asked politely for a list of the Provence members accepting the union, with biographical details of their careers and capacities. In asking for this Jesuit style of return, addressing the superior of the Oratorians at Aix who had visited Paris, on 21 November 1626, Bérulle was unambiguously taking responsibility for the future direction of all the Oratorians in the kingdom. In a letter which the edition awarded the same number, CX, as the first of the Provence pair, a deceased Oratorian was named for whom all priests and unpriested members of the Oratory should offer Mass or prayers accordingly. The point was made that the deceased priest, Père Jean Courvoisier, came from outside the kingdom and had been instrumental in the establishment of an Oratorian house in his native Franche-Comté. Most important, and entirely true to Bérulle’s constant principles, was his instruction to the superior of an Oratorian house in letter CXIII. Oratorian priests should always be ready to assist the hearing of confessions, especially on great feasts, of the parochial laity. It was especially suitable on such feasts that the laity attend their parish churches, and not go elsewhere. Bérulle was stressing here the Oratory’s service to the episcopal and parochial hierarchy of the Church, as opposed to the rival attractions of regulars’ churches and chapels. Despite Bérulle’s own controversial involvement with the Carmelite nuns in France, he was also fairly consistent in avoiding potential trouble arising from any involvement of other Oratorians with female convents, allowing for the exception already noted of delegated Oratorians as visitors on his behalf of specific Carmelite nunneries. In letter CXVI, to the superior of an Oratorian house, Bérulle was emphatic in his prohibition of the recipient’s going on any pretext to a particular convent, refraining from expressing a command to be obeyed under formal obedience only because this had never been his style in the Oratory. The clear prohibition, all the same, on all Oratorians applied to all female convents, and the letter was to be read to the assembled community, whose superior was to report when he had done so. On the other hand, as letter CXVIII made clear, care of pilgrims, especially to a local Marian shrine, was very much part of

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the Oratorian vocation. But hearing the laity’s confessions needed careful regulation all the same. So in letter CXX another superior was ordered to confine a young and inexperienced Oratorian priest to hearing confessions in house, among his fellow Oratorians, for the time being. Nevertheless the matter should be dealt with prudently so that Bérulle’s intervention was not evident, with a priority for the needs of the Oratorians themselves over those of outsiders. Yet another superior, in letter CXXI, needed reminding that neither canon law nor Oratorian principles allowed the temporal resources of a house to be alienated. Instead there were detailed directions for lavish Oratorian celebrations, liturgically, of another of Bérulle’s favourite saints, Charles Borromeo. This eminent example of the hierarchy had protected the Oratory’s houses against plague and should be regarded as one of its devoted patron saints.25 The expansion of the Oratory in France was obviously to be encouraged. Bérulle contrasted the evangelism of earlier centuries of the Church or the work of modern overseas Catholic missions with the still too much neglected need for internal mission within the kingdom, in addressing the superior of a newly founded house. But not all foundations were without complications. In the following letter, CXXVII, dated 4 March 1627, the prospect for re-establishment of the Oratorians at La Rochelle was considered. Tact was needed in relation to a priest who had made this a possibility, as also at Niort, by assigning part of his own beneficed income to the Oratory. On the other hand, as reported in letter CXXX, at Tours a municipal assembly had unexpectedly asked for an Oratorian house to be set up, after seeming opposition up to the very last. Such a turn of events had delayed Bérulle’s movements and had caused him to postpone attending to the ever-pressing affairs of the Carmelite nuns. But a summary of points from various letters to one superior, apparently rather inexperienced, provided a reminder of potential difficulty in balancing competing priorities set by Bérulle. On the one hand unsolicited tasks given to the Oratory by a diocesan bishop should be accepted willingly. But if this involved the spiritual direction of a female convent, caution remained vital, on the other. Visits to it for this purpose should be brief and not too frequent, and Bérulle should be kept informed of how things went. New attacks on the Oratory were a possibility, so if the opportunity offered this particular responsibility should be surrendered promptly. Under this same number, CXXXI, an earlier point raised the alarm over another danger. Oratorians should keep clear of involvement with alleged incidents of diabolic possession, not all of which were genuine in 25  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres aux Religieuses Carmelites, pp. 1210–11; pp. 1228–34: pp. 1229–31, 1232–3; Lettres aux Prestres de l’Oratoire, pp. 1238– 1303: pp. 1239–[1240]; pp. [1240]–1241, 1242–3, 1245, 1246, 1247–8.

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any case. Let authorized specialists deal with such matters. Oratorians should not discuss the issue in public, and not much even among themselves. They should support those involved by their prayers, not by participation in exorcisms. When writing to a member of the Oratory, as in letter CXXXIII, Bérulle could obviously put his own views with great force. In the early Church priests and laity had been equally holy. But as the state of at least some of the Christians declined, others understandably drew apart, in primitive forms of monasticism. Nevertheless, evidence which Bérulle attributed to Saint Denis proved that the early monks were under the direction of priests. As Christian standards further declined over time, a separation set in, with prelates asserting authority, regulars seeking perfect sanctity and academics pursuing doctrine. But in the process those alien to pastoral ministry became involved in it, when it properly remained the prerogative of prelates and priests. The possibility now offered to recombine sanctity and doctrine under legitimate ecclesiastical authority, without disrespect for those who in the interim had helped supply for the neglect or deficiencies of priests. The Oratorians’ vocation was to recover the priesthood’s heritage, to reassert its rights, to enter into its legitimate inheritance, thus sharing in the divine illumination, sanctity and authority bestowed on bishops and by them given to priests. Such an ideal had to be considered alongside practical problems of course. In letter CXXXV Bérulle returned to the difficulties surrounding re-establishment at La Rochelle. The Oratory generally had been through a time of trials from which it was emerging, so patience was asked of the priest who was trying to promote the re-establishment. The Catholics of La Rochelle must be served, and Bérulle should be told just what was delaying Oratorian re-entry and what could be done meanwhile. Bérulle’s own commitment to this project remained absolute. A late letter, numbered CXLI and dated 9 March 1629, was addressed to a French Oratorian at Rome and was a frank account of Cardinal Bérulle’s anxiety over developments by then in Italy. In audience with the pope the representative should reiterate the cardinal’s devotion to continuing to serve papal authority, especially as a cardinal rather than a Frenchman. Indeed if the pope judged that he could be of greater use at Rome than in France, that would be agreeable. Before that, however, the problems of Catholic life among the English had required letters to the Oratorian Père de Sancy in England. Letter CXLII, of 10 February 1626, enclosed one for Henrietta Maria. If Toby Matthew were in London he alone could safely be allowed to read Oratorian correspondence, since he was valuably informed on the affairs of his native kingdom. He recommended himself to Bérulle by his proposal to translate into English the Grandeurs de Jésus. But, as the next numbered letter revealed, when Bérulle himself had had to leave England abruptly, it was de Sancy who would be sent for, to go from London to

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visit the queen and subsequently to hear her confession in early September. Bérulle had not even had time to see him at St James, but hoped to return in a month.26 Bérulle at this time attributed his being sent to France to the queen, but assured the Oratorians in England that he was not forsaking them, since, he claimed, she was equally insistent he come back too. Since he had been chosen to go rather than the bishop of Mende, the latter could advise de Sancy on how to conduct himself as a court confessor. The following letter gave Bérulle’s own instructions for what de Sancy should provide more generally. Every fortnight, or at least monthly, the queen’s servants should receive a sermon, whether she herself were present or not. A weekly sermon on Sundays, to be given by another Oratorian, was evidently envisaged as open to native English Catholics for their encouragement after long persecution and now its renewal. Public prayers should be held in the queen’s chapel and not only at the Oratorians’ own chapel at Saint James. The French king and the Queen Mother were watching the deterioration of affairs in England, and Bérulle himself was amazed at English affront to France and Spain simultaneously. The next letter, continuing thoughts on divine providence, claimed that Bérulle had had a premonition of trouble when the French suite had first set off for England. But at least Oratorians there had been preserved amid the plague epidemic, unlike some of them in France, including those at Saumur. Next was a Lenten letter, dated 10 February 1626. The bishop of Mende had now joined Bérulle, reporting the Oratorians’ good work in England and how one of them was accordingly to preach before the queen soon. There followed an encouragement for Saumur and the care offered to pilgrims to the Marian shrine there by the Oratorians. But after that, in Bourgoing’s edition, there was an earlier letter, of 28 September 1627, to the Oratorian Père Bertin at Rome. With the prospect of Bérulle’s promotion as cardinal, it was vital that papal authority be obtained for his remaining in charge of both the French Oratory and the Carmelite nuns in France. The request in this sense of both institutions should be represented, in support of Bérulle’s own letter to Cardinal Barberini. The French tradition was for those promoted cardinal to retain charge of headships of orders, whether Cluny or the Cistercians, and so of dependent female regulars too. In Bérulle’s case it was not even as though any financial considerations were involved, furthermore. A transparent contrast with Richelieu was added as an allusion, with more explicit mention of the preceding example of Cardinal de Guise. Bertin must make sure the relevant letters reached the pope and his nephews in person. Other French ecclesiastics in Rome must be led to understand how 26  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres aux Prestres de l’Oratoire, pp. 1252–3, 1253– 4, 1256–7, 1257–60: 1258, 1260; pp. 1261–2, 1263–4, 1269, 1270–71, 1271–2.

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public duties were preventing Bérulle’s writing to them. But the Roman Oratory must be graciously thanked on his behalf for their corporate congratulations on his promotion, assuring them of a personal reply in due course for a specially welcome letter, and meanwhile offering their institution any patronage or assistance the new cardinal could give. Next Bertin had to deliver similar letters of thanks to various cardinals in Rome, while yet more such letters to persons in Italy and France would be written as soon as the pressure of public affairs allowed. It was still a priority to reply to the Roman Oratory in writing. Under the number CLXV, points from various letters were collected in this edition. One concerned the need to assure a Dominican that as far as possible the French Oratory held to Thomist teaching on the contested question of divine Grace, as on all else. Another confirmed that while the Oratory was obviously dedicated to Jesus, the founder and head of the priesthood, Philip Neri – the effective founder of the Roman Oratory and modern model for the rehabilitation of the priesthood – was honoured and liturgically celebrated just as, for the same reason, was Saint Charles Borromeo. Indeed, as the edition moved on, still with consecutive numbering, to Lettres à Diverses Personnes, letter CLXXIV of 3 November 1615, a date of Borromean significance, presented to the Queen Mother an Oratorian translation into French of a Life of St Charles. The first point, as summarized, recalled her own divine blessings – coming from Italy as queen, acting as regent of the French kingdom – at the heart of the Catholic Church. Her own Medici relationship to Borromeo was awarded a special mention in second place. In third and fourth, the merits of the saint and the saintly cardinal’s zeal against heretics were contrasted with the preposterous allegations of Lutherans, Zwinglians and Huguenots about the supposed corruption of the Roman Church. The text of the letter suggested how apt it was that this translation from the Italian had been made by a member of the French Oratory, an institution devoted, in human terms, to the Queen Mother.27 The third point of the letter expanded on the example for French prelates of this prince of the Church who was so active as archbishop as well as cardinal, outstanding in his respect for papal authority, maintaining episcopal residence in his see, illuminating Europe as pastor. Such pastoral care, combined with support to the papacy, could not be overlooked by heretics either. His long service to the afflicted in the memorable plague at Milan, administering the sacraments in person to the sick, amplified this fourth point. A subsequent point noted the dedication of the Italian original 27  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres aux Prestres de l’Oratoire, pp. 1271–2, 1272– 3, 1273–4, 1274–5, 1275–6, 1277–8, 1278, 1291–2; Lettres à Diverses Personnes, pp. 1304–82: pp. 1304–8.

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to the pope, suitable in the case of the Life of a cardinal who was a true ornament of the Roman Church, though now the dedication of the French translation was equally suitable to the Queen Mother. Invocation should be made to the saint for the well-being of the king and of France. Letter CLXXV was also sent to the Queen Mother by Cardinal Bérulle, on 18 August 1628, dedicating to her another Life, this time of Sister Catherine de Jésus, a nun of the Carmelite house in Paris. Specific reference was made to the authority of the papacy by which Bérulle had introduced the Carmelite nuns to France, but the Life had been written at the command of the Queen Mother. The author was a nun of the same order, known to the Queen Mother and a former colleague of the subject, and indeed her superior. The subject had in fact come from a good dévot background, the legal elite at Bordeaux. In the next letter in the edition Henrietta Maria was addressed. The king and Queen Mother were delighted with her letters, brought to them by Bérulle, and especially for his account of her persevering in Catholic devotion and attempting to bring relief as well as edification to the English Catholics. Clearly at this moment Charles I was showing himself well disposed to all this. The French king had Bérulle repeat his account in the royal council, even prompting him over certain details. The king declared there his intention to protect the queen of England while preserving the treaty with that kingdom. The new ambassador, M. de Blainville, was summoned to Fontainebleau to receive his final instructions from the king, having already received those of the Queen Mother and, at the command of both royals, from Bérulle too. The young queen could be assured that France had not forgotten her. The French king and Queen Mother ordered Bérulle to write to her recapitulating how to behave with due honour to the English king, with gracious welcome to the great men of England and with a kindly regard to the Catholics there. So too in the following letter Bérulle asked the young queen’s understanding for his not sending it in autograph, because of eye trouble. It was sent by him at the Queen Mother’s command, in response to an account she herself had submitted to Bérulle about the public performance of her Catholic devotions. It was excellent that she had marked the holy season by making a pilgrimage on foot to the chapel at Saint James. The Queen Mother greatly approved this conspicuous display, in pious imitation of Christ’s journey to Calvary. If Henrietta Maria had been told that this was not the custom in England, that just showed that England was not used to the presence of the Catholic daughter of a Catholic king. In any case Paris had seen the king and queen, the Queen Mother and other royals going on foot on several days to visit the city churches assigned for the gaining of the Jubilee indulgence, setting an example to all the people. If the Most Christian King could thus go on foot with his nobility and guards it proved that royal dignity was not

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at risk. The French king needed no lessons from the English king, and had been applauded not criticized by his subjects. If the young queen’s domestic servants were urging her otherwise, let them know their place and not comment on things beyond their competence. The advice to be followed was that of the well-informed experts provided for her by the French king and Queen Mother, encouraging her in her piety and in the footsteps of devout kings and rulers. The Emperor Constantine, the first imperial convert, whom England claimed as its own, was one such. The Queen Mother praised her public celebration of the faith, and wished her to continue it for the Jubilee, if her health permitted. A further letter, dated 26 October 1625, assured her that Bérulle had not forgotten his promises on his return to France. But Buckingham had sent his agent, Gerbier, after Bérulle to complain that he had conspired against the duke while in England. Other French names, including that of the bishop of Mende, had been dragged into this. In France it was now thought that Bérulle’s return to England should be delayed until the storm blew over. The agent had also complained about him to Richelieu, but the latter was well informed about England by none other than Bérulle himself. He had made a pilgrimage to Chartres to seek Marian help for Henrietta Maria.28 A final letter in this sequence of those sent to the young queen of England assured her that the French king and Queen Mother remained passionately attached to her, and that this consideration helped stimulate them to attempt European peace in Italy. The aim was to raise still higher regard for France and the queen of England by confining to their proper sphere those daring to despise them. Bérulle himself recognized the needs of Christendom, England included, though the latter needed to attend to its promises and to its deserving young queen. For letter CLXXX, to Cardinal Barberini, the edition noted that it would appear to have been written when Bérulle had just returned from England. He represented his mission to England and its queen as an honour bestowed on him by the pope and the cardinal. Given the importance of its accomplishment for the Church even more than for the state, he seemed to be welcoming any advice from the cardinal on the next steps. But meanwhile he had reported to the king and Queen Mother, drawing their attention to papal interests in the matter. The next letter in the edition was again to the cardinal, this time after his departure from France, closing his legatine visit. Bérulle was as honoured by subsequent letters from the legate as by his encounters while the cardinal was in France. He only wished he could have served him better. France had now been divinely granted the peace for which the legate had so selflessly worked, even if at the time inconclusively. If a treaty could 28  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres a Diverses Personnes, pp. 1305, 1306–307, 1307–308, 1308–15: pp. 1313–14; pp. 1316–17, 1317–19, 1319–20: p. 1320.

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be worded which honoured the cardinal’s name and better promoted the cause of true religion and could be achieved, that would certainly reflect Bérulle’s wishes, though he was not very hopeful on this. The Cardinal di Santa Susanna was addressed in letter CLXXXIV, which clearly reflected the controversy over the direction of the Carmelite nuns in France. He thanked the cardinal for defending him against his detractors in France and at Rome. The affair had already, at the order of two different popes, been before the cardinal for the space of three years. Now thanks should be accompanied by a full account of the matter, starting with the point that the responsibility had never been sought by Bérulle but placed on him by papal commission. The order had reached him via Cardinals Joyeuse and Gondi, despite his previous resistance. The long years of responsibility which followed had certainly been painful, though Bérulle had been scrupulous in observing canon law, just as it pertained to all matters concerning regulars in France. What he wished to preserve was the reputation of the Oratory, rather than his own. The Cardinal di Santa Susanna was to be thanked for his care in producing a definitive judgement which might allow the Carmelites in France some peace at last. The Oratory sent its obedient service, as did Bérulle. The Roman scene could have its own difficulties, all the same. On 9 February 1626, as recorded in letter CLXXXIII, Bérulle wrote to congratulate the newly promoted Cardinal de Marquemont, but also to ask him to help the introduction of French Oratorians at the Roman church of San Luigi, traditionally seen as the national church of France in the city. Difficulties and delays over the new cardinal’s elevation evoked Bérulle’s sympathies, but now de Marquemont could work for the good of the Church and of France, having arrived safely in port, he might remember the French Oratory, still tossed on stormy seas. Where others had withdrawn their goodwill, the establishment of French Oratorians at San Luigi would redound solely to the cardinal’s credit. The next letter congratulated an unnamed bishop on publishing a book on the Catholic faith, for effective exposition came best from the episcopate, to whom after all the responsibility for definitive instruction had been committed. Defence of a bishop’s reputation was traced in the following letter. Bérulle had intervened with the French ambassador at Rome, while there himself, to shield the bishop against critics of his diocesan administration. Next in the edition came a letter of December 1626 to the Duchess of Lorraine, promising her the services of an Oratorian priest, apparently in place of the unavailable Père Condren. Earlier, as recorded in letter CLXXXVIII, Bérulle had written on 4 June 1624 to Schomberg, thanking him for his assistance in dissuading one of the Carmelite convents from following the advice of those who would have had it separate itself from the rest of the order. A devout lady was similarly thanked for help given to the Oratory

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and its affairs, in the following letter to the Marquise de Maignelay. Bérulle struck an authentic dévot note in calling attention to the proximity of a saint’s day commemorating a female saint who had been a married lady. But in letter CXCI, to a lady at the English court, the trials and tribulations of the wife of the king of England resurfaced.29 The queen’s troubles and those of her suite, as of the English Catholics, had been foreseen by Bérulle. Anglo-French peace had seemed the best remedy in all three cases, and Bérulle had proposed this to the French king and Queen Mother. This divine benefit for Christendom was to be hoped for, while the young queen’s situation was to be pitied. But whatever the heretics’ breach of their promises, the recipient must not contemplate abandoning the queen but await orders from France. The bishop of Mende meanwhile would give reliable advice. Just before Bérulle’s own departure from England, the Marquise de Maignelay had sent him a pious object which could make a focus for his devotions while on his travels. It would be good if this could be recovered and forwarded to him via Ambassador Blainville. The following letter in this collection reflected the earlier beginnings of French attempts to maintain political and religious influence at Constantinople. Baron de Sancy, French ambassador there at the relevant time, had apparently suggested bringing some Oratorians to assist him. Bérulle, writing on 2 August 1615, seemed more minded to send some to the Holy Land, though he realistically saw such a presence would not be a mission, but simply a sign of devotion to the earthly life of Christ. In any case the Oratory lacked the resources, though papal permission in principle had been given for the Holy Land. A French benefactor had offered a subsidy, if the Ottoman sultan would allow a small house, which could also help pilgrims. The French monarchy would not object, so the ambassador was asked to watch for any suitable diplomatic opening. From letter CXCIII onwards, Bourgoing’s edition turned to the letters sent after Bérulle’s promotion as cardinal. To Pope Urban VIII Bérulle insisted that he accepted only out of obedience, the same obedience owed by any simple priest of the Church. Much the same was represented to Cardinal Barberini. The sequence was momentarily interrupted by a letter of October 1627, congratulating the cardinal of Lorraine on his own promotion at that time. The recipient’s princely house was noted by Bérulle as the champion of the Catholic faith. But the sequence resumed with a letter thanking the bishop of Mende for congratulations on Bérulle’s own promotion and reciprocating with corresponding remarks on the recipient’s elevation to episcopal rank. To the Duc de Bellegarde, Bérulle acknowledged the king’s patronage for his own promotion. To the Father 29  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres à Diverses Personnes, pp. 1320–21, 1321–2, 1322, 1323–4, 1324–5, 1326, 1326–7, 1327–8, 1329, 1330–31, 1332–3.

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General of the Society of Jesus, Bérulle made complimentary remarks on the Jesuits’ outstanding service to the Church. A perhaps more spontaneous warmth distinguished Bérulle’s reply to the Fathers of the Roman Oratory. He regarded their letter to him as in a category of its own, distinct from the authoritative tone of letters received from Cardinals Barberini, Magalotti and Spada as from the human good wishes in others’ letters. The Roman Oratory was indeed the example for the French Oratory, and Bérulle hoped that in his service to the Church as cardinal he could imitate the modern cardinals who were members of the Roman Oratory. He trusted that contacts between his representative, Père Bertin, and the Roman Oratory would prove fruitful. He promised any assistance he could give as cardinal to the Roman Oratory and its individual members. Inevitably different again was the letter thanking the king for the monastic benefices given to support Bérulle in his cardinal rank. He would strive to regulate the relevant communities in such a way that their life gave credit to the king as well as honour to God and assistance to France. But it was striking that in this last year of Bérulle’s life he could not help explaining that he was keeping his thanks to the king brief, so as to not distract him from attention to the needs of France in Italy especially. Indeed a new range of discussion entered the letters from CCIV onwards. After the Prince of Savoy had visited France, Bérulle wrote to him about developments in Germany and the general good of Christendom. Heresy was making a last effort to undermine true religion in Europe, but finding a pretext in the power of the Habsburgs. Yet the real threat to Christendom was from the anti-Catholic alliance of the English, Dutch, Germans and Turks. This was powerful enough to enchant or daunt others. Bérulle implied that as a French Catholic he was entitled to his own independent assessment of the Habsburgs. The anti-Catholic axis must be confronted, despite the divisions of Christendom. He hoped that the recipient would set an example by diverting Savoy from any alliance with the axis, joining instead with the Catholic King of France to bring about a just arbitration and settlement in Christendom. Bérulle interestingly emphasized that he was writing all this with the knowledge of others, such as the Cardinal de Retz.30 Bérulle’s political speculation extended to wondering whether an imperial marriage for one of the prince’s sisters would be beneficial. Perhaps if a king of the Romans were chosen who was neither a Habsburg emperor-elect nor a heretic this would calm those agitated by the supposed ambitions of Spain. Possibly it was the divine will that the recipient did take up arms, but for the defence of the Church against heresy, including 30  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres à Diverses Personnes, pp. 1332–3, 1333–4, 1335–6, 1336, 1337, 1338, 1339–40, 1340–41, 1341–2, 1342–3, 1344–5.

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therefore within the Holy Roman Empire. But diplomatic closeness to France could only benefit the prince’s standing and authority, whatever further developments occurred, and promote the interests of which he had spoken to Bérulle while in France. Christendom was in need of powerful, capable but zealous princes, and Bérulle looked forward to a reply. Bérulle had also written on political topics to the Duc de Guise, on 23 December 1628, as recorded in letter CCVI. The duke’s services benefited France, but also Italy, which looked for French assistance. But the eyes of Spain as well as Italy and France were on him, and the difficult international situation was likely to remain so. While Bérulle continued his prayers for the success of the duke’s arms, he could not refrain from deploring Christendom’s misery, and its lack of that peace of which the Church spoke in the Christmas season. The duke should strive through war to peace. Less double-edged had been Bérulle’s message in July 1628 to the Duc de Montmorency. He could congratulate the duke, as in letter CCVII, on achieving the ruin of heresy and of the enemies of God and the king, and bringing relief for the future to an important part of France. After this the edition next included a letter which returned to events in Rome. The Commandeur de Sillery was asked to favour the establishment of French Oratorians there. His help would be particularly suitable, since his brother, the Chancellor, had done so much to assist the foundation of the Oratory in France itself. The project for a French Oratorian presence in Rome, long in existence, awaited a successful conclusion. When the Chancellor had visited Italy he had found such delight in conversation with the learned Baronius, priest of the Roman Oratory, that he ever after insisted that Bérulle must found an Oratory in France. Following this was a letter sent to the premier président of the Aix parlement, thanking him for his part in Bérulle’s promotion and also for his congratulations on that. Further thanks were due for protection given to the troubled Carmelite nuns, with a request for that to be continued. One of their oppressors, as Bérulle viewed matters, was particularly to blame for seeking to confront Bérulle still when this involved opposing the holder of a cardinal’s rank, one which should not be despised in this way. The next letter commended to an eminent ecclesiastic the oppressed Carmelite nuns of the relevant province. Bérulle explicitly added his own authority to be used in support of the recipient’s action, confirmation of his responsibility for the Carmelite nuns having been renewed after his promotion as cardinal. A pious young laywoman featured in letter CCXIII. She had been greatly troubled by an evil spirit. Bérulle suggested a partial remedy in the precise circumstances, that she should receive communion less frequently and in the least public manner possible. Such humility and reverence would restore the health of the soul, but above all would deprive the evil spirit of the opportunity to exercise its disruptive power. But, true to his general

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approach to communion, Bérulle stressed that no absolute exclusion from communicating was in question. To Monsieur de Fontaine du Bois, in letter CCXXV, Bérulle seemed to be reflecting on a relatively early stage in the Oratory’s expansion. While there were still difficulties, not unexpected, over establishment at Tours, Cardinal de Joyeuse was sending Oratorians to Dieppe, and the bishop of Angers appeared set on bringing them to Saumur. The optimistic assessment was maintained in the further letter to the same recipient. The following letter suggested a moment where even the influence of the Jesuit Père Coton was momentarily in eclipse in court circles. Bérulle assured him that his delay in writing did not imply disregard, since his respect for the Jesuit was only increased by observing, while himself away in Touraine, the tactful retreat made at present. He consulted his colleague on the text proposed for Saint Mary Magdalen, a feast for which the Oratory wished to put in use an Office suitable throughout the Octave. The final letter in the collection was again to Coton, in his role as Jesuit provincial. Bérulle thanked him for help in establishing the Oratorians at Limoges, and also apparently for Jesuit help in restoring unity among the Carmelite nuns there, despite an allusion to others who were perhaps stimulating disunity. Coton was asked to continue to support the moves for unity and to choose a Jesuit to whom Bérulle could safely entrust the spiritual care of the nuns now restored to that unity, given that others were still trying to influence them in the contrary direction. Bérulle trusted Coton would not take offence at his emphasis on the suitability of this choice, since a similar request to Suffren had led to a Jesuit’s being given the spiritual direction of a nun who was now prioress at Bourges, but she had found him to be one of the most disruptive influences on the Carmelites’ affairs both then and since. Coton’s help could prove the prelude to resolving the problem at the second of the Carmelite nunneries at Bordeaux, at least if three or four inmates were removed from the rest of the community. This edition thus ended with reference to one of the most public and serious disruptions among the Carmelite nuns in France, a cause of troubles to the end of Bérulle’s life.31 The Extension of Diocesan Reform That French diocesan reform in the spirit of the dévots would have some Gallican nuances as well as Tridentine imperatives was both natural and inevitable. In the matter of liturgy, for example, Paris provided illustration 31  Oeuvres complètes, Lettres à Diverses Personnes, pp. 1345, 1346–7, 1347, 1348, 1349–50, 1350, 1353–4, 1366–7, 1367–8, 1368–9, 1369.

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of this over an extended period, taking in the decades of dévot influence. The Parisian edition of 1585 entitled Missale Romanum had still in fact included local traditions. In a 1600 edition Bishop Henri de Gondi excluded these. Yet Jean-François de Gondi, the first archbishop, reinserted a few local peculiarities into text and calendar, though not until 1648. The Breviary used at Paris kept some local distinctions throughout. In the primatial see of Lyon, with its distinct liturgical tradition, the cathedral canons entrusted the choirboys’ education to the Oratorians as early as 1618. They had recently then been invited to the city by Archbishop Denis-Simon de Marquemont. The school developed as a sort of cathedral seminary, before collapsing in the plague of 1628. The archbishop, a friend of François de Sales, invited various religious orders to Lyon, and made a diocesan visitation in 1613–14, which may well have been the first truly diocesan inspection since the fifteenth century there. By 1630 the Lyon Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement was in operation, aiming to police sexual morality, and in particular trying to suppress public dancing on village patronal festivals. So lay dévots there were very much involved in Catholic reform in the diocese, even though there were to be subsequent tensions with the archbishop of Lyon in the later 1630s and early 1640s. The diocese was divided into 30 districts by de Marquemont, in each of which the parish clergy were ordered to meet regularly for discussion of moral theology. This ‘in-service training’ for confessors was thus very much on the classic model provided by Charles Borromeo at Milan. The mediating model, for the French episcopate, of François de Sales was also fundamental in the career of Jean-Pierre Camus, bishop of Belley, whose life is a reminder that, alongside liturgy, the French episcopate in pursuit of Catholic reform produced examples of commitment to the Word, as preached by bishops in person. When Camus was episcopally ordained in 1609 in the cathedral of Belley, de Sales was the principal consecrator. Camus also sought inspiration directly at Milan, visiting Archbishop Federico Borromeo there in 1616 in connection with his own ad limina visit to Rome, and his first volume of Lenten sermons in 1615 was dedicated to a member of the French episcopate who consciously adopted a Borromean programme of diocesan reform, Cardinal de Sourdis, archbishop of Bordeaux. When Camus established the Capuchins at Belley in 1622 he saw them very much as internal missioners, a role they performed not least in the Alpine borders of northern Italy too. Subsequently he was critical of their efforts, but meanwhile he did not overlook specifically female religious and educational needs, bringing to Belley the Visitandines in 1622 and, just prior to the resignation of his see, the Ursulines in 1629. But he also maintained good relations with the Jesuits, entering Savoy in 1611, on the beatification of Ignatius Loyola, to preach a panegyric on 31 July in the Jesuit college

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church at Chambéry. He included this in a volume of Ignatian sermons published at Lyon in 1623, just after Loyola’s canonization. In his native Paris, preaching at the church of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie in 1616, he marked the feast of Charles Borromeo, canonized earlier in the century, on 4 November. Other leading dévot figures received the dedication of further volumes of his prolific preaching. To Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld was dedicated his Premières homélies festives, its first of many editions in 1617 being followed by a second as early as 1619. Cardinal du Perron received the dedication of his Premières homélies eucharistiques (1618). These had been preached in 1617 at the Parisian church of Saint-Merry during the Octave of Corpus Christi and supported the ideal of relatively frequent lay communion. The dedication of his Premières homélies mariales, published in 1619 with further editions in 1620 and 1628, was to Bishop Zamet of Langres, royal Grand Almoner. His volume of diverse sermons, also of 1619, included a Maundy sermon preached before the Queen Mother at the Louvre in the preceding year. For the dévot world never of course excluded the political, and Camus had achieved publicity at the Estates General, early in 1615, for his famous ‘Homélie des désordres des trois ordres de cette monarchie’. Cardinal de Retz was the dedicatee of the Advent sermons preached in Paris at Saint-Severin in 1617 and published as sermons on penance in 1619. They included approving citations from Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. Advent sermons of 1618 preached at SaintJacques de la Boucherie developed the penitential topic in a subsequent volume dedicated to Archbishop de Marquemont of Lyon.32 Sermons preached in 1619 at the Paris Oratory were dedicated to the Oratorians when published in 1620 as a volume on the Song of Songs. Indeed Camus provided one of the episcopal approbations for the first edition of Bérulle’s Grandeurs de Jésus, and supported Bérulle in the conflicts over direction of the Carmelite nuns in France. More unusually he visited in 1624 those Oratorians who were chaplains to the French hospital at Madrid, at a time when there was discussion of a full foundation by the French Oratory in that city. Such a dévot project, at a time when Pope Urban VIII was contemplating a Franco-Spanish royal marriage as a measure towards settlement of the Valtelline crisis, was however overtaken by Bérulle’s priority of an Anglo-French marriage for Henrietta Maria and Oratorian encouragement for the English Catholics. The 1623 volume of Ignatian sermons incorporated others preached on visits to Savoy, in the Jesuit church at Chambéry, including, at the time of the canonization, on 32  P.T. Hoffman, Church and Community in the Diocese of Lyon 1500–1789 (New Haven-London, 1984), pp. 72–5, 79–80, 88, 92–3; A. Garreau, Jean-Pierre Camus, Parisien, Evêque de Belley (Paris, 1968), pp. 31, 39, 47–9, 56, 58–63; Bergin, Church, Society, pp. 278–9, 282, 321–2.

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31 July and 7 August 1622 in the presence of Prince Tommaso of Savoy and the Senate of Chambéry. Even before that celebration the church of Saint-Louis at the Jesuit Maison Professe of Paris had heard such a sermon on 31 July 1621, while Parisian sermons on Saint Charles Borromeo were delivered between 1616 and 1621, including some at Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie and some at the Oratory. Another volume of diverse sermons in 1622 was dedicated to Cardinal de La Valette, archbishop of Toulouse. A publication of 1624, connected to lay piety at Toulouse, had a saintly dedication, to the intercession of Charles Borromeo, but honourable mention of modern Jesuits, Père Coton and Père Barthélemy Jacquinot. Here again relatively frequent reception of communion was promoted, but the work aroused criticism among both secular and regular clergy for passing comments on confessors and spiritual directors. Not perhaps coincidentally there then appeared some signs of the disfavour for Camus expressed among the Arnauld leadership of PortRoyal circles. But on the other hand, when the Jesuits Père Garasse and Père Voisin launched an attack on the alleged libertine Théophile de Viau, from 1623, Camus attempted a literary defence. So despite his published praise for Ignatius Loyola, he and the Jesuits were at odds by 1626, and despite too his membership of the Archconfraternity of Prelates, based at the chief Roman church of the Society, Il Gesù. Possibly by an attempt at over-compensation, Camus, in a sermon for the feast of Saint Ignatius at the Maison Professe in 1626, spoke of the deceased Père Coton as effectively a martyr. That was very much how François Garasse himself, in his own account of the preceding ‘persecutions’ suffered by the Jesuits in France, chose to depict him. But Garasse blamed Camus for reopening in public contention which the Jesuits had been working to bring to an end. An invitation for 1 August to preach to the Franciscans in Paris was withdrawn. Camus – who had not had a Jesuit education but for a while had Père Jean Arnoux, the former royal confessor, as his spiritual director – came to believe that the French Jesuits had been ungrateful and had failed to defend him. He also found himself at odds with the scholarly Jesuit Antoine Sirmond and his brother Jean, an early member of the French Academy. By 1629, on resignation of his remote bishopric, Camus found ranged against him critics from among Franciscans, Capuchins and Dominicans as well as Jesuits. The idiosyncratic career of Camus was not in fact over, but, with his resignation, 1629 once again happened to prove something of a watershed for the dévot movement, including its episcopal and diocesan dimension. It might indeed be suggested that, with the essential defeat in that year of the internal Huguenot menace in the kingdom, French Catholicism, though in that sense victorious, entered into a dangerous luxury, however unconsciously, which permitted its own internal divisions. That was arguably different from the scene in 1624,

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when Richelieu’s recall to the king’s council, suggested by Bérulle and other dévots, had equally been applauded by ‘bons Français’, who did not see the dévot movement as simply a revival of the League. As to Théophile de Viau, he had perhaps been vulnerable in any case for his Protestant formation at Montauban and Leiden, though it is still striking that Camus sought to defend someone so influenced by the dangerous dissident, Lucilio Vanini. The dangers of dévot division were always potential. The Lyon Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, begun under the influence of the Jesuit Suffren and one of the king’s court officials, ran into the subsequent opposition of Richelieu’s brother, Archbishop Alphonse, because he felt he had not been consulted. When the Jesuit Père Caussin published his highly successful Cour Sainte, reference to tyrants like Tiberius was to be picked up by the dévot tendency which still after the 1620s opposed Richelieu’s foreign war policy.33 Nevertheless in 1629, at Bérulle’s death, the French Oratory already had about 400 members, based in over 60 locations, and was involved specifically in the training of clerics at Rouen, Clermont and Nantes, as well as Lyon. In his 1610 ‘project’ for the Oratory, while celebrating the divine origins of the priesthood, Bérulle was clearly opposed to the ‘presbyterian’ principles of Edmond Richer in promising obedience to the episcopal hierarchy. His elaborate sense of hierarchy was adjusted by the influence of Saint Augustine, bishop as well as doctor of the Church. His high sense of the corresponding obligations of the commanding episcopate was clear in his remarks in 1624 to Daniel de La Mothe-Houdancourt on the latter’s appointment as bishop of Mende. Even later, when Jean Eudes, originally trained at the Oratory, founded his own priestly Congregation of Jesus and Mary, he would be able to assure Archbishop Harlay de Champvallon of Rouen that it would work in obedience to the diocesan. The same insistence would identify Olier’s subsequent foundation of Saint-Sulpice too, as it already did when Vincent de Paul founded the Congregation of the Mission in 1625. Bérulle’s position thus commended itself to bishops like Philippe Cospeau as well as Camus. Condren was therefore true also to this priority when urging Zamet not to resign his bishopric in the 1630s. Bérulle’s recommendations to Richelieu for episcopal appointments were not always taken up for the see in question or at least until some other vacancy, but they included Bernard Despruets with a view to Saintes, also with an expected vacancy at Lyon, in a tradition extending to Vincent de Paul’s advice to Nicolas Pavillon in the late 1630s to accept Alet. From the 1590s, when the influence of Federico Borromeo of Milan 33  Garreau, pp. 64–6, 75–7, 99–100, 140–42; J.-P. Gutton, Dévots et Société au XVIIe siècle. Construire le ciel sur la terre (Paris, 2004), pp. 5, 9, 11, 13, 16, 19, 29; Bergin, Church, Society, p. 373.

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began to be experienced by François de Sourdis, there continued within France an episcopal strand of ultramontane thinking which could allow, for instance, Léonard de Trappes of Auch to compliment Archbishop de Sourdis for his provincial council at Bordeaux and its decrees. This was despite the criticism of the nuncio and Roman opposition experienced by de Sourdis because of contested control over regulars and the involvement in that of papal authority, an issue which escalated during the 1625 French Assembly of the Clergy. Even that Assembly, however, made no explicit reference to a jure divino theory of episcopal jurisdiction. French bishops, even if like Henri de Sponde of Pamiers they had studied at Rome, made their own local progress, in his case in reducing the independence and insubordination of the Capuchins in relation to pastoral functions, within his diocese from 1626 onwards. One reason why 1625 produced an abnormal degree of tension between Rome and even dévot French diocesans involved, yet again, Bérulle and the Carmelite nuns. A papal sub-delegate, Etienne Louytre, placed under interdict René de Rieux, bishop of Saint-Pol-de-Léon, who had protected some nuns resisting the papal brief confirming Bérulle as their superior. The sub-delegate owed his own commission to the papal delegates in this affair, Cardinals de La Rochefoucauld and de La Valette, but he was not himself in episcopal orders. Yet the Assembly rejected the Gallican reaction of Bishop Gabriel de l’Aubespine of Orléans, suggesting a national Church council, following the complaint of Rieux. Political events were to overtake Rieux in the 1630s however, when his rash cooperation with the Queen Mother led to his deposition until further developments, both political and ecclesiastical, led to his restoration in 1645 and papal rehabilitation. The loyalty shown by La Rochefoucauld, well after 1615, to the ideal of full reception of the Tridentine decrees in the kingdom of France maintained a campaign begun by Cardinal du Perron but also involving other archbishops and bishops, including Camus. When La Rochefoucauld resigned his own see of Senlis in 1622 he was able to ensure a suitable successor in the person of Nicolas Sanguin. Though an outstanding diocesan reformer like de Sourdis combined the influence of Borromean Milan with the moderating example of François de Sales, in 1610, when Charles Borromeo was canonized, the celebrations at Bordeaux were spectacular. There were processions, solemn exposition of the sacrament, pontifical Mass, a local indulgence, a panegyric; and a relic of the new saint was presented to the parlement. For de Sales, on the other hand, there was a call by the 1625 Assembly for his beatification, so relatively soon after his death. By the 1630s a Jesuit publication, by Nicolas Talon, was suggesting the importance of Jesuit spirituality in the formation of de Sales, and of the bishop’s association with the Jesuits of Chambéry and their rector there. Saint Augustine and Saint Charles were cited by Léonor d’Estampes de Valençay, bishop of Chartres,

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in his 1625 declarations on bishops and regulars, which contributed to the tensions of that year.34 While Camus published panegyrics of Saint Charles and Bérulle praised the saint to the Queen Mother, the importance of his episcopal stature remained clear in France. Camus also published De l’unite de hierarchie (Douai, 1634), and Jesuit care over episcopal authority could also be shown. La Rochefoucauld’s Jesuit advisor, Etienne Binet, dedicated his Idée des bons prélats (Paris, 1629) to Octave de Bellegarde, bishop of Sens, and also praised episcopal office in his De la sainte hiérarchie de l’église (Paris, 1633). An Abregé de la vie, miracles et canonisation de S. Charles Borromée had been published at Saint-Malo in 1618 by Jean Lemarie. It included explicit reference to the saint’s defence of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, even if need be against secular authority. By 1632, when Etienne Cavet published at Lyon the Pourtraicts racourcis de Sainct Charles Borromée … et du B. François de Sales, the latter pastor was depicted, for his liturgical care, preaching, administration of sacraments, alms-giving and discipline of the clergy, as essentially ‘another Saint Charles’. La Rochefoucauld had made sure he kept to hand an Italian edition of the Borromean Acta for the Milanese Church, while Caussin stressed the greater moderation of de Sales in austerity and ascetic practices. Not all French dioceses, of course, made equal advances under episcopal direction in the period before 1630. At Grenoble, for example, the bishops demonstrated limited initiative. Jean de la Croix – bishop between 1607 and 1619, a widower and originally a lawyer – was succeeded by Alphonse de la Croix de Chevrières, who was in office for only a year. From 1620 onwards Pierre Scarron held the see, but by 1624 had managed episcopal visitation of only 16 of the over 300 parishes in the diocese. Yet devout lay patrons, especially from among the parlementaire elite, took their own initiatives. As a result of such patronage, the Reformed Observant Franciscans opened a house at Grenoble in 1605; the Capuchins founded two houses there in 1606 and 1611; and the Visitandines arrived in 1618, following the Ursulines in 1607. Among other foundations, the Dominicans opened a school in the city in 1606 and the Jesuits were established there from 1623. Rather more militant dévot activism was evident in Poitou. This was the scene of the first systematic mission to convert Huguenots in 1617, and in the period after the assassination of Henri IV the bishop of Poitiers, HenriLouis de La Rocheposay, represented a hard-line dévot position which did look back to origins in the Catholic League. At Niort local patrons obtained 34  A. Forrestal, Fathers, Pastors and Kings. Visions of Episcopacy in Seventeenth-Century France (Manchester-New York, 2004), pp. 38, 51–3, 55–8, 61, 65–6, 68, 71, 112–14, 117, 121–4, 150, 155, 162, 165, 170–71, 177–8, 184, 192, 210.

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a former priory for use by Capuchins in 1611, and the Oratorians arrived in 1617. Père Joseph, who founded the Poitou mission and was prefect of all the Capuchin missions in France, envisaged Poitou as a model for the rest of the kingdom. After his foundation of the Poitou mission in 1617 he next expanded it to the neighbouring provinces, including Angoumois and Aunis. Papal authorization had been obtained for the Poitou mission when Père Joseph visited Rome in 1616, while in 1620 Louis XIII supported the request for papal renewal of the missioners’ faculties. The next year the king took over Maillezais from its Huguenot garrison and re-established episcopal authority there. To supplement the mission work, Père Joseph also established his female regulars, the Filles du Calvaire, in Poitiers in 1617. Richelieu’s invitation to Capuchins to preach at Luçon in 1609 in the context of the Forty Hours devotion led to his meeting with Père Joseph. The new papal Congregation – the Propaganda Fide, founded in 1622 – extended oversight to the Poitou mission, strengthening its Roman support; but Père Joseph also took the local advice of Bishop de La Rocheposay. The Capuchins doubled as military chaplains for the royal troops engaged against the Huguenots in the province. In the decade prior to 1617 the Capuchins had established themselves already in Poitiers, Fontenay-le-Comte, Châtellerault, Niort, Saint-Maixent, Les Sables d’Olonne and Loudun. The Capuchin houses particularly promoted the conspicuous Catholic display of the Forty Hours devotion, while Père Joseph’s female order, the Filles du Calvaire, was founded with aristocratic assistance from Antoinette d’OrléansLongueville. At the former Huguenot stronghold of Loudun the Jesuits arrived as early as 1606, the Capuchins in 1616, but the Filles du Calvaire in 1624 and the subsequently disturbed Ursulines in 1626, both after the last-stand national synod of the Huguenots held there in 1619. In Aquitaine the Capuchins had been in Condom since 1610. Between 1615 and 1648 the university-educated Antoine de Caux, experienced by virtue of his assistance to his uncle, predecessor in the see, pursued parish visitations as bishop. During his episcopate lay Penitent Brotherhoods were established, forming a sort of front line against Huguenot communities, as at Astaffort in 1626 or Layrac in 1633. In the latter case the confraternity was placed securely under the control of the parish priest. From 1628 the Oratorians had a college at Condom, and Ursulines later arrived. At Agen, where the Jesuits had first arrived in 1590, a catechism was printed in 1636 for use in the Jesuit college. Catholic control of the college at Nérac was regained by 1635.35 35  Forrestal, Fathers, Pastors and Kings, pp. 174–5, 181, 191, 194–5, 205, 210, 234, 238; K.P. Luria, Territories of Grace. Cultural Change in the SeventeenthCentury Diocese of Grenoble (Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford, 1991), pp. 44–6; K.P.

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In the period to 1629 one diocese of France was under conspicuously active and determined episcopal leadership. The case of Bordeaux is worth detailed consideration, both because of the explicitly ultramontane aspects of some of the archiepiscopal activity and also because, though certainly not at all typical of all French dioceses then, the range of that activity raised many issues which were also encountered elsewhere, in one see or another. François de Sourdis was in Rome in 1593 and 1594 and was influenced by Baronius and the Roman Oratory, by the inspiration of its virtual founder, Philip Neri, and by Federico Borromeo, the young relation of the deceased Charles Borromeo. De Sourdis was himself a cardinal from 1599, having determined on an ecclesiastical career after abandoning family plans for his marriage on his return from Italy to France. From his episcopal ordination for Bordeaux, also in 1599, until his death in 1628, he retained his ultramontane links, revisiting Rome in 1600–01 to receive his red hat and archiepiscopal pallium, this time in company with the Huguenot convert, Henri de Sponde. Federico Borromeo, archbishop of Milan from 1595, corresponded with a number of French prelates of whom de Sourdis was one, including Cardinal Davy du Perron, bishop of Evreux and then archbishop of Sens; Antoine de La Rochefoucauld, bishop of Angoulême; François de Sales and Henri de Sponde, rector of the French national church of San Luigi in Rome from 1617 and bishop of Pamiers from 1626. For de Sourdis Federico provided documents relevant to pastoral visitation in 1606, and advice in 1614 on the Milanese model for Ursuline houses. Their exchanges in 1624–25 concerned the provincial council held at Bordeaux and its resulting decrees, for the archbishop was as anxious for Federico’s Borromean approval of the latter as for Roman authorization. The delays and obstacles encountered over Roman response were also a topic of letters between the two archbishops, since there was some comparable Milanese experience. When plague affected Bordeaux, Milanese history could also be relevant again, and de Sourdis also reported to Federico on the celebrations for the canonization of Saint Charles in 1610. Federico supplied portraits of the saint in 1621 and 1622 which were destined respectively for the Bordeaux Charterhouse and for the hospital of Saint-Charles there. De Sourdis was a guest of Federico at Rome in 1604, prior to a papal conclave in the event, and at Milan on the journey home to France. The archbishop of Bordeaux defended the Luria, Sacred Boundaries. Religious Coexistence and Conflict in Early-Modern France (Washington DC, 2005), pp. 10, 27, 36, 51–2, 61–3, 69–70, 94, 231, 233; G. Hanlon, Confession and Community in Seventeenth-Century France. Catholic and Protestant Coexistence in Aquitaine (Philadelphia, 1993), pp. 171, 176, 179, 183.

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Church in France and its interests at the Estates General of 1614 and in national Clergy Assemblies. As metropolitan, the archbishop specifically came to the defence of the new bishop of Saintes, Michel Raoul, in 1619 in his problems with the Carmelites there. He also in this role intervened in 1613 to advise the bishop of Sarlat, Louis de Salignac, and supported the bishop of Poitiers in 1620 over the laity’s obligation to hear Mass precisely at the parish church on Sundays and major feasts. So too in 1619–20 he intervened at Agen in problems over the cathedral chapter and its finances. When he visited Rome once more in 1621–22 he was too late for the conclave from which emerged Gregory XV, but his stay was long enough to help the 1622 promotion of Richelieu as cardinal. He was himself named as one of the cardinals heading the new Congregation De Propaganda Fide founded then. But his ultramontane links did not prevent his defending Gallican episcopal authority, in the Louytre affair, while he was presiding at the Clergy Assembly of 1625. The Assembly applauded the decrees of the Bordeaux provincial council of 1624, especially as to episcopal control of regulars. The decrees had not employed for such control the Tridentine reference to the diocesan acting tamquam apostolicae sedis delegatus, and at Rome the consequent implication of unfettered ordinary episcopal jurisdiction over regulars enjoying papal privileges was unacceptable. The Assembly’s own declaration on the regulars enhanced this negative Roman reaction. The French bishops did not agree to the nuncio’s plan that they should redraft the declaration as a project for Roman consideration, and the Bordeaux provincial council’s decrees did not gain Roman confirmation. That council proved the last provincial synod in seventeenth-century France, after Rome deleted a clause in the decrees which gave the archbishop the power to interpret all the decrees until a further provincial council were held.36 Nevertheless the ultramontane aspect of dévot feeling was still in evidence when de Sourdis opposed French incursion into the Valtelline at a special, enlarged meeting of the royal council in 1626. His own militant younger brother, Henry, nominated as bishop of Maillezais in 1616, imposed the specifically Roman rite there, in line with archiepiscopal liturgical policy at Bordeaux. So too from arrival in the diocese in 1623, after episcopal ordination that year Henry initiated measures of clerical reform, as in his 1623 diocesan synod, which would be central to the successive provincial council decrees in 1624. Though papal agreement to 36  B. Peyrous, La réforme catholique à Bordeaux (1600–1719). Le renouveau d’un diocèse (2 vols, Bordeaux, 1995), vol. I, pp. 113, 115–16, 120–23, 133–4, 137–8, 140, 299; Forrestal, Fathers, Pastors and Kings, pp. 112–14, 162, 165, 170.

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Henry’s eventual succession at Bordeaux itself in 1629 was reluctant, the warrior prelate’s contribution to the French royal campaign in Piedmont in that year was the reimposition of Catholicism in the valley of Pragelas. Henry was also in good relationship with another episcopal reformer, Jean Jaubert de Barrault, bishop of Bazas from 1606 to 1630 and subsequently archbishop of Arles. François de Sourdis established for his own diocese an archiepiscopal congregation with oversight of the rural deans throughout the diocese, who were also called to meet at intervals in Bordeaux itself. For both the diocese and the province there was also a superior ‘Congrégation de l’Examen’, which within the diocese examined clergy as candidates for ordination or benefices, or as preachers, while at metropolitan level the membership, chosen by the archbishop, included cathedral canons, Jesuits and other regulars, reflecting the type of issue which might require consideration. It was in its metropolitan role that this body dealt in 1622 with dispute between the bishop and Jesuits at Angoulême. It had also arbitrated in 1616 in a conflict between Dominicans and Mercedarians at Bordeaux itself. The archbishop drew on its support when defending clerical immunity from secular justice, as in 1613–14. Following a Borromean pattern found quite widely in post-Tridentine Catholic Europe, he reduced the role and independence of archdeacons; but, again adapting a Milanese policy, he enhanced the part taken by the local archpriests, who were nominated by him and reported to him, throughout the diocese. Within each archpresbytery he extended in 1609, and again in 1613, a new network of rural deans, whose number could be expanded. They were chosen by the archbishop, and on occasion might be one of the existing archpriests, and he controlled closely their functions, authority and length of service in the role. Their crucial function was oversight of the local clergy, who were to be assembled at intervals for ‘in-service training’. This double network of archpriests and rural deans proved of particular use when from 1617 the archbishop launched a general visitation of the diocese, something he had initiated in 1615 by a personal visitation at Bordeaux itself of the seminary of Saint-Raphaël. In all this modern scholarship has rightly detected a conscious imitation of the Milanese paradigm provided by Charles Borromeo. What might be added here is the observation that de Sourdis would seem to have been drawing on the contemporary example continued by Federico Borromeo himself, as for instance in the sophistication of the diocesan networks of archpriests and rural deans. The archbishop of Bordeaux held regular diocesan synods, to which he sometimes invited neighbouring bishops or commendatory abbots, for example Bishop Jean-Jacques Du Sault of Dax in 1613. In 1619 his brother Henry attended as bishop-elect of Maillezais. The provincial council of 1624 was held with royal permission, but, because Rome withheld approval, the decrees were never officially

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published. A large group of relevant diocesan bishops attended: Antoine de Caux of Condom, Antoine de La Rochefoucauld of Angoulême, Claude Gelas of Agen, Henri-Louis Chasteigner de La Rocheposay of Poitiers, François de La Béraudière of Périgueux, Michel Raoul de La Guibougère of Saintes, Henry de Sourdis of Maillezais, Emeric de Bragelongue; only Louis de Salignac of Sarlat was absent. This non-resident prelate was fined by the archbishop in council when the dean of the see’s cathedral chapter, Jean de La Carbonnière de Jayac, was appointed as vicar general to take care of the diocese. The conciliar decrees would have emphasized episcopal control of both preachers and confessors in each bishopric, citing the 1622 Constitution of Gregory XV which reconfirmed episcopal control of regulars’ administration of the sacraments. The laity’s Easter obligation of confession and communion precisely at the parish church was stressed, but also the requirement to attend Sunday Mass on at least one Sunday in three, under pain of excommunication, also at the parish church.37 These were among the clauses to which Rome objected, despite the council’s reference to the canonized example of Charles Borromeo. The reassertion of the Tridentine objective that each diocese should have its own seminary was worded in rather a vague way on the other hand. Royal approval of the decrees was sought, despite objections from regulars and cathedral chapters. Since the king’s Jesuit confessor, Séguiran, was rather reserved about the matter, it was tactfully left for Roman determination. Once the Clergy Assembly of 1625 gave effectively national approval, the decrees were printed, though not officially published. During that year the Curial Congregation of the Council at Rome was considering them, at a time when Henri de Sponde, still rector of San Luigi, was the archbishop’s effective agent there, but when Bérulle had entered into dispute over direction of one set of regulars, the Carmelite nuns of France. This was the context of Roman reiteration, by the end of the year, that the decrees were not approved. The archbishop gave the nuncio a copy of the printed version, though assuring him that he had not himself authorized the printing. In response the nuncio, Spada, suggested an adjusted and authorized version to meet Roman objections, in 1626, but this too was rejected at Rome. Yet the presence of regulars in the diocese and province could also, of course, be seen in many ways as contributing to the Catholic reform led by the archbishop. The Minim friars had been re-established at Bordeaux from 1608, and the Charterhouse was established there in 1609. Reformed Observant Franciscans were at Libourne from 1610, and the Brothers of 37  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 142, 144, 146, 149, 230–33, 235, 237, 240–42, 254–5, 257–9, 266–7, 286–7, 291–3, 295, 297–8; Forrestal, Fathers, Pastors and Kings, p. 192; Bergin, Church, Society, p. 172.

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Saint John of God at Cadillac from 1617. The Jesuits began a noviciate at Bordeaux in 1607 and a Maison Professe in 1623. Discalced Carmelite friars came to the city in 1626, and in 1628 Observant Franciscans were established at Saint-André-de-Cubzac, after Reformed Observants at Bourg-sur-Gironde the previous year. Though Vincent de Paul made a single visit, on a mission to the galley crews in 1623, there was no Oratorian house at Bordeaux in this period. Female foundations included that of the Ursulines at Bordeaux in 1606, and at Libourne as well as at SaintMacaire and at Bourg-sur-Gironde in 1607. The two Carmelite nunneries at Bordeaux dated from 1611 and 1618, while Observant Dominican nuns were in the city from 1627. An important influence there was also that of Reformed Cistercian monks, whose spiritual direction brought some of the laity to support the archbishop’s charitable foundation of 1617, the Société de la Miséricorde, itself directed by one of the monks, Dom Marc-Antoine de Saint-Bernard. This influence was also at work among the laywomen associated with Ursuline foundations in the diocese, and subsequently with the troubled world of the Carmelite nuns in the city. The monks also supplied the archbishop’s own spiritual director, Dom Jean-Jacques de Berty. The Jesuit expansion at Bordeaux was notable too. Legal recognition in 1603 allowed the official re-opening of an initial establishment, which had in fact survived as a residence, as once more a college, thanks to the influence of Père Louis Richeome and to the Jesuits’ capacity for good relations with the archbishop, the parlement and the municipal authorities. This college of the Magdalen began new buildings in 1628, its church dating from 1615. Attached to the college was also the chapel of an aristocratic sodality, of a typical Jesuit type. The college was central enough to the life of the city to be visited by members of the royal family when in Bordeaux. The Jesuit noviciate, on the other hand, had its own influence even on laity, since the Spiritual Exercises were offered there to those who wished. The foundation of the Maison Professe, from 1624, saw its own chapel open its doors to Huguenot converts, as when 18 were reconciled there in 1625. This foundation followed those at Paris, Grenoble and Toulouse, and was an initiative of the archbishop. Financial contributions which made it possible came also from Jean Jaubert de Barrault, bishop of Bazas, and Jacques Le Comte, président au parlement. The archbishop celebrated the first Mass in its chapel, dedicated to St Francis Xavier. Here too the Spiritual Exercises were offered to the laity. From there as well as from the college preachers went out, beyond the diocese, to areas even further away. Père Coton himself preached at Bordeaux cathedral in Advent 1619, and in Lent and the Octave of Corpus Christi in 1620. As provincial of Aquitaine he resided between 1622 and 1624, when he returned to Paris. The second superior of the Bordeaux Maison Professe was the princely

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Charles de Lorraine, sometime coadjutor bishop of Verdun but a Jesuit since 1622, who was much admired by the archbishop. The college staff at one point included the Scots Jesuit James Gordon, a future confessor of Louis XIII.38 A Jesuit native to Bordeaux was Jean-Joseph Surin, who studied at the college from about 1610, entered the noviciate there in 1616 and was in the city again, studying theology, in 1625–27. His later, painful experiences would be with the exorcism of possessed nuns at Loudun. Less troubled seemed the introduction of the Capuchins at Bordeaux, proposed by the archbishop from 1600 and agreed in 1601 by royal, parlementaire and municipal authorities. The royal and municipal authorities also made a successful appeal for special Capuchin ministry to those affected by the plague in the city in 1605. This ministry was repeated in the renewed outbreaks in 1606 and 1629, and reflected not least the Capuchins’ generally close relations with the municipal authorities. The presence of the Charterhouse at Bordeaux received confirmation in 1618, at a time when Carthusian houses were also being founded at La Boutillerie in Picardy in 1618, Argentières near Troyes in 1620, Orléans in 1621 and also in the neighbourhood of Thonon in 1623, Aix in 1625 and Le Puy in 1628. Next to the Bordeaux Charterhouse, to which the archbishop gave a relic of Saint Charles Borromeo, he founded the hospital of Saint-Charles. During his life he retreated at intervals to a cell at the Charterhouse, and at his death in 1628 he was buried there. The hospital was established as officially under archiepiscopal supervision. In 1622–23 he commissioned for the Carthusians a pair of bronze statues, forming an Annunciation, and a bronze bust of himself from Pietro and his more famous son, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The arrival of the Discalced Carmelite friars at Bordeaux in 1626 followed an earlier attempt in 1608 to establish themselves at Avignon. On the failure of this attempt, those who were not French did not enter the kingdom but moved on to the Spanish Netherlands, which was to prove an unhelpful precedent in the vexed history of the Carmelite nuns in France. Meanwhile, however, the progress of the friars within France seemed happy enough, the Parisian Rue de Vaugirard foundation of 1613, after one at Nancy, outside the kingdom in 1611, being followed by a noviciate at Charenton in 1617 and houses at Lyon in 1619, Meaux in 1622, Toulouse as well as Pont-à-Mousson, again outside, both in 1623, Gerbeville and Rouen in 1624, Limoges in 1625 and Nevers in 1626. Nevertheless, it was perhaps indicative of some reserve that the archbishop came to support the prospect of a Bordeaux convent only after evident, overwhelming support for a friary among the parlementaire elite. The grandeur of the ceremony of 38  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 299–305, 309, 312–13, 317–24, 326–7.

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1626 at which the cross was erected on the construction site was indicated by the presence of a dévot royal councillor, Brulart de Sillery. Within his diocese de Sourdis supported attempts, over a long period between 1615 and 1628, to impose Observant life on Franciscan and Dominican friaries and priories, as resistance was gradually overcome. The Reformed Benedictine Congregation of Saint-Maur was able to spread in France after its 1618 separation from the original Congregation, in Lorraine, of Saint-Vanne. The Limoges foundation of 1613 joined the new body then, and foundations began at Solignac in 1619, Saint Jeand’Angély in 1623, La Daurade at Toulouse in 1624 and Saint-Savin, in the diocese of Tarbes, in 1625. The Congregation established a seminary for the training of its monks, Saint-Louis at Toulouse, in 1623 as well, with the support of the local parlement. Similar support at Bordeaux, and that of the archbishop, encouraged the city abbey of Sainte-Croix to transform itself into a member of the Congregation, effectively achieved by 1627–28. Observant Carmelite friars, of the older tradition, were found in France at Dol-en-Bretagne from 1616, Ploërmel from 1618, Nantes from 1620, Poitiers from 1622 and Aulnay from 1623, with other new foundations elsewhere, including Paris, by 1629 and 1631. The friars’ Bordeaux convent committed itself to the Observance only in 1633, after an unfortunate episode involving a Spanish member of this pristine Observance, Francisco Suarès de Villegas, who had published theological works at Paris and Lyon in 1620–21. The municipal authorities appointed him to the Bordeaux Collège de Guyenne in 1627, but he was forced to resign in 1629 in the face of opposition from the Jesuits of the college of the Magdalen. By contrast, less ambiguously, de Sourdis made no progress over any reform at the Benedictine abbey of Guîtres, which controlled various parochial benefices. Since 1618 the commendatory abbot was Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, and because of the commendator’s European reputation for egregious learning he was secure in the support of Pope Urban VIII, who was anxious to demonstrate his own erudition in relation to the savant of Aix.39 The world of female convents at Bordeaux provides a context for the specific case of the Carmelites. Aristocratic and parlementaire families dominated the composition of Les Annonciades, and in 1621 Bérulle made reference to the need of reform at this convent. But family pride resisted the archbishop’s attempts to impose stricter observance. De Sourdis for long remained disinclined to approve a new convent of Les Filles de Notre-Dame, and in 1617, still concerned about strictness of enclosure, he accepted their presence but attempted to limit the number of sisters so as 39  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 333, 340, 342–3, 345–8, 363–5, 367–9, 377–81, 390– 401, 405–8, 412–16.

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to correspond to the limited revenues. In this he reflected the experience of many reforming bishops throughout Catholic Europe ever since the Council of Trent. But the Filles de Notre-Dame were already spreading beyond the city and diocese, to Béziers in 1618, Poitiers and Le Puy in 1618, Périgueux in 1620, Agen in 1621 and La Flèche and Riom in 1622. This expansion involved the sending out of sisters from the Bordeaux convent, with their partly but not solely parlementaire family origin. Between 1622 and 1625 a crisis overtook the convent, predictably involving enclosure, but also the authority of the founding superior, Jeanne de Lestonnac, or the possibility of alternative superiors. The archbishop’s intervention concluded with his approval of a new superior in 1625. Expansion then recommenced, as with a new foundation in 1625 at Saintes. The essential difficulty, akin to that in some parts of Catholic Europe experienced by Ursulines, was the ideal of a conventual education provided for young girls when combined with the goal of strict enclosure, required in this case by the sisters’ adoption of the Benedictine rule. So too at Bordeaux, from 1609, the Ursulines conducted their educational work within unambiguous enclosure, on which de Sourdis insisted, though his admiration for their work in this sphere, ever since his visits to Milan, remained undiminished. Their convent in the city recruited well, bringing for the choir sisters good revenue from entry dowries. If some entrants were from relatively modest backgrounds, others were from families of the legal profession there. Ursuline houses elsewhere which were in origin inspired by or associated with the Bordeaux convent, in the French kingdom and eventually beyond, each remained as much under local episcopal authority as the Ursulines of Bordeaux or as in the Borromean programme’s aim. But in the case of the Bordeaux-led sisters, de Sourdis obtained from Paul V in 1618 a Bull which assured them of canonic status as regulars, with the corresponding strict enclosure and solemn vows of nuns. The presence of the Carmelite nuns at Bordeaux was unusual, as involving two foundations of 1611, Saint-Joseph, and of 1618, the Assumption, comparable only to the two Carmels at Troyes and eventually three at Paris. When in 1604 Bérulle led half a dozen nuns from Spain into France, they passed through Bordeaux. This, as well as Bérulle’s links with some parlementaire circles, stimulated enthusiasm in such circles as well as that of the archbishop. The Discalced nuns were set up in Paris in 1604, Pontoise and Dijon in 1605, Amiens in 1606, Tours in 1608, Rouen in 1609, Châlons in 1610, then Dôle in 1614, Dieppe in 1615 and Toulouse, Caen and elsewhere, within and beyond the frontiers of the kingdom, by 1616. Orléans and a second Parisian house, Bourges, Saintes followed in 1617, Riom in 1618 and subsequently also Nantes, Limoges, Valenciennes and Beaune. At Bordeaux parlementaire funding

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made possible both provisional and then more permanent buildings for Saint-Joseph. The Assumption was added by the cooperation of such support with that of the archbishop. Bérulle visited the city in this context in 1615 and 1619. All at Bordeaux should have been adequately aware that a 1603 Bull of Clement VIII, prior even to the Spanish nuns’ arrival in France, identified three superiors for their ordinary direction: Bérulle, André Duval and Jacques Gallemant. Prior to the arrival in the kingdom of the Discalced Carmelite friars, an extraordinary authority of a canonic visitor of the nuns had been distinguished, and in 1606 Paul V ordered that the three superiors present to the nuncio every three years the names of two potential visitors, to the exclusion of the friars. The first visitor was Gallemant himself. But in 1611 Discalced friars of the Italian Congregation of Saint Elias, detached from the Spanish Congregation, set themselves up in Paris, despite papal permission of 1610 being supposedly limited to the Netherlands. In that succeeding year Marillac was already anxious about these friars’ ambitions in France. The Brief of 1614 issued by Paul V supposedly resolved matters by replacing the 1606 provisions and naming Bérulle and his successors at the head of the French Oratory as perpetual visitors of the Carmelite nuns in France. However in 1611 the friars had in fact set up, under their own direction, a Carmel at Morlaix, housing nuns brought from the Netherlands.40 By 1620 divisions within the communities at both Bordeaux Carmels were emerging, and these were not unconnected to Bérulle’s promotion of the special ‘vows of servitude’, which raised the question in some nuns’ minds of whether direction by Carmelite friars might not be better. De Sourdis responded promptly to this local crisis in 1619, taking the nuns under his jurisdiction tamquam apostolicae sedis delegatus and handing their direction to the friars. Jesuit criticism of the special vows was clear by 1620, despite the approval of Bishop Cospeau of Aire, while the Bordeaux nuns’ divisions stimulated civic debate. Some of the nuns managed to get their opinions known at Rome, via a Flemish priest, de Smit, who had been placed as confessor at the Assumption by the archbishop but removed in 1619 by Bérulle. To oppose Bérulle at Rome appeared the provincial of the friars in France, Père Denis de la Mère de Dieu. A 1620 meeting at Angers between de Sourdis and Bérulle attempted to reach agreement, but a new complication arose when Bishop Raoul of Saintes disciplined nuns there who were resisting Bérulle and those nuns were then afforded the archbishop’s protection by his metropolitan intervention. Yet by the end of the year the archbishop seemed to accept that the Bordeaux nuns should return to obedience to Bérulle. As well as the Brief of Paul V in that year, 40  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 422–3, 435–8, 441, 447–9, 451, 455–7, 459, 461–2, 470–71.

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reconfirming Bérulle’s authority in France, de Sourdis, in Rome at the time of the conclave which elected Gregory XV, saw the new pope confirm Paul’s Brief in 1621. At this moment an essentially Gallican episode transformed the situation, when some of the nuns at Bordeaux appealed to the parlement. Père Coton, acting as rector of the Jesuit college, alerted the nuncio, but the parlement issued a ruling in the nuns’ favour. By royal intervention the matter was removed from the parlement and put into the hands of Cardinals de La Rochefoucauld and de Retz. The position of de Sourdis was ambiguous, since in 1621 nuncio Corsini was alleging to the new papal nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi, that the archbishop favoured the nuns. A superficially logical reallocation of the nuns was made, grouping obedient nuns at Saint-Joseph and opponents at the Assumption. But in 1622 de Sourdis showed his hand, to the extent that he obtained from Gregory XV a Brief which placed under interim episcopal jurisdiction convents containing disobedient nuns not only at Bordeaux but also at Limoges, Saintes and Bourges. However execution of the Brief at Bordeaux allegedly exceeded its terms, and the archbishop in consequence faced disobedience from the nuns of Saint-Joseph too. While in 1622 Cardinal de Retz was trying to act as papal delegate in the whole issue, the Sorbonne saw an opportunity to make its own intervention. The same year the Carmelite friars deposed their provincial, Père Denis, and renounced all involvement with female regulars, including Carmelites. Returning from Rome, de Sourdis had disobedient nuns of Saint-Joseph expelled from their convent. Louis XIII reprimanded the archbishop and asked for papal support for Bérulle. The archbishop’s actions were now effectively disavowed at Rome, while Cardinals de La Rochefoucauld and de La Valette attempted, in 1622–23, to execute a new papal Brief. But as their subdelegation to Louytre, dean of the cathedral at Nantes, brought a new crisis into being, Gregory XV died. Once the pope was dead, de Sourdis questioned Louytre’s ability to continue as subdelegate. Some Bordeaux nuns appealed to the new pope, Urban VIII, and such continued female agitation was blamed by the nuncio on Carmelite friars’ and Jesuits’ encouragement. The pope promptly ordered the nuns to obedience, while Bérulle renewed an attempt at reconciliation with de Sourdis. In 1623 Urban VIII confirmed all previous papal rulings and explicitly recited the terms of Gregory’s Brief within his own. He sent via the nuncio an order for the archbishop’s compliance in 1624, and de Sourdis accepted this. Louytre exercised authority to the extent of recommencing a local settlement at Bordeaux. Religious life resumed at Saint-Joseph, but the Assumption remained in turmoil. This latter problem was only resolved when Louytre and de Sourdis agreed to allow recalcitrant nuns from the Assumption to transfer to Lorraine, beyond the kingdom. Bérulle’s resumed authority over all the Carmelite nuns in the city was evident in

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his 1625 visitation of both city convents, via his personal delegate, Père du Chesne. At the time of the archbishop’s death in 1628, other events, as with the siege of La Rochelle, might be exciting France, but the Bordeaux parlement was able to resume its favour towards the Carmelite nuns at Bordeaux. De Sourdis had from 1613 encouraged a plan in the city for a house to provide both preventative care for female orphans and remedial care for former prostitutes. But despite some benefactions, as in 1616, from parlementaire circles this did not initially flourish, certainly not within the archbishop’s lifetime.41 Rather similar, in fact, proved the project, adopted from 1626 by the archbishop and some circles both civic and parlementaire, for a convent of Dominican nuns at Bordeaux. Such conventual life had been successfully established at Le Puy in 1605, Toulouse in 1611, Dijon in 1612, SaintEtienne in 1615, Semur-en-Aixoix in 1618, Châlon-sur-Saône and Toul in 1621, and then elsewhere, including Viviers in 1625 and Paris in 1626. The Bordeaux convent was begun in 1627 but remained financially precarious at the archbishop’s death, with the consequent prospect of litigation in the parlement. The lack, in this period, of any Oratorian foundation in the city was not difficult to explain. The initial enthusiasm of de Sourdis for such an institution, in 1618–19, was rapidly overtaken by the circumstances involving the Carmelite nuns, quite apart from the exceptionally strong presence of Jesuit establishments there. Franciscan nunneries of Poor Clares were successfully founded at a variety of locations in France between 1615 and 1626, but though such a convent was founded by 1628 at Saintes, this was not matched, during the period, at Bordeaux. So in some ways it seemed that the archiepiscopate of de Sourdis was more unambiguously a time of successful development of male regular life there. In the 1629 plague epidemic offers of ministry to the affected came not only from the Capuchins but also from the Jesuits, Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans and Reformed Observant Franciscans. There remained, as in any diocese where episcopal reform on Tridentine lines was pursued, the question of the secular clergy and their better preparation. In 1606 Archbishop Giovanni Battista Constanzo of Cosenza published in Italian a hand-book for parish priests, clearly reflecting Borromean standards. The French translation of 1613, Avertissement aux recteurs, curez, prestres et vicaires, was dedicated to de Sourdis, and 1620 saw a second edition. Bordeaux supposedly had a seminary, that of SaintRaphaël, formed from a medieval college, but poorly endowed and housed. By 1608–09, de Sourdis began to address the problem, obtaining some cooperation from the cathedral chapter, and later, in 1621 and 1624, using the Tridentine provision for annexation in support of the seminary of 41  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 472–82, 485, 488–9.

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some revenue from non-parochial benefices. The archbishop made canonic visitations of the seminary in 1609 and 1625, issuing regulations on both occasions as also in 1624, and chose the rectors of the institution. Students, in this period, were not divided into distinct groups by age, but some received additional education through external study at the Jesuit college of the Magdalen. De Sourdis used his own personal financial contributions to try to increase the number of seminarians, but the institution declined after his death. However the obligatory meetings of local clergy, under the relevant rural dean, were maintained throughout the diocese from 1609 onwards. The archbishop issued regulations at intervals, in 1609, 1613, 1616, 1617, 1620, 1622 and 1623–24. One example, from 1610, records the rural dean reading to the assembled clergy regulations which were of explicit Milanese origin. Also precisely Borromean was the archbishop’s adoption of a similar organization of the city clergy. Bordeaux was divided in 1617 into two sectors, in which equivalent meetings were summoned by the prefects of the sectors’ clergy. As an Atlantic port, Bordeaux also housed an Irish Seminary for the training of exiled Catholic clerics. This had its own statutes, of 1603 and 1613, confirmed in 1618 by a Bull of Paul V, and the archbishop’s encouragement extended to the canonic visitation he made in 1622. One of the Irish to emerge, priested by de Sourdis in 1613, subsequently became vicar apostolic and then a bishop in his native isle. The cathedral chapter was regulated by the archbishop too, seeking improvements in the canons’ lives by his interventions in 1618, 1620 and 1623. An Italian, and especially Milanese, model was clearly in his mind in the case of a Congregation of Christian Doctrine. This involved laymen and women, to provide more systematic catechizing in the city parishes, with some Jesuit assistance. The female participation in this enterprise, from 1613, drew in part on the membership of the Compagnie de la Miséricorde, which had first begun in 1601 as a female confraternity under Cistercian influence. Its activities were not just devotional, but stretched across a range of charitable care. New confraternities across the city were being founded during the period, as between 1616 and 1626 in a number of cases. Some of these were still traditional in being craft or trade based in their membership, but one had a dedication to Saint Joseph, whose cult was particularly promoted in the Counter-Reformation, sometimes under Carmelite influence. De Sourdis pursued throughout the diocese the Tridentine provision for confraternities to be under episcopal supervision, as by his regulations in 1618, 1622 and 1627.42 The Forty Hours devotion became a regular event staged by the Jesuits at Bordeaux, but on occasion the archbishop ordered it to be mounted, not 42  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 491–3, 495, 506, 510, 515, 520, 527–30, 536–7, 542, 546–8, 562–3, 575, 601, 603, 654–5; Bergin, Church, Society, p. 191.

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least in 1613, as a rival to the disorders of Carnival, which was another Borromean touch in fact. The Nerian devotion of pilgrimage to the Seven Churches at Rome received a parallel at Bordeaux, when Gregory XV granted an indulgence for similar pilgrimage to a number of specified city churches. Such urban pilgrim rounds were also organized by de Sourdis in parallel with the papal Jubilees, in 1605, 1609 and 1617. In the disturbed state of the kingdom in 1620 the archiepiscopal vicars general agreed to a parlementaire request that civic unity be demonstrated by means of a solemn procession. The relics of the city’s saints were carried, and municipal and parlementaire participation was prominent alongside the secular and regular clergy. A north Italian, and again Borromean, parallel was once more suggested by the archbishop’s care to promote and regulate a Marian pilgrimage centre, at Notre-Dame de Verdelais. He made regulations in 1623 and from 1625 onwards, and a monastic community was established there to serve the shrine. The authorities in some local communities organized their own pilgrim processions, not least in the context of the 1629 epidemic. On that occasion, at Bordeaux, the parlement made a special vow to the Virgin Mary as venerated at a shrine, established the previous year, in the cathedral nave. At another Marian shrine elsewhere in the diocese, de Sourdis again intervened, in this case encouraging the Observant Franciscans, in 1624, to build a more permanent chapel and granting, in 1626, an indulgence to pilgrims. As early as 1602–03 he asked the ladies of the Miséricorde to collect statistics which might create the basis for more systematic charity in Bordeaux, including a provision often favoured by Tridentine bishops, that of marriage dowries for poor but honest girls, as a preventative against prostitution. He intervened further in such charitable work in 1613 and 1617, while also resisting municipal licensing of begging in the city churches. The aristocratic sodality at the Jesuit college had, as usual, a Marian dedication, and a thoroughly, though not exclusively, parlementaire membership. Its charitable activities accordingly included prison visiting and debtors’ release, especially where Huguenot conversions could be achieved, as well as hospital visiting. The college also had two student confraternities, divided by age group, begun in 1603 and 1624, each with their own chapel. They were again of Marian dedication and were combined in the circumstances of the 1629 plague epidemic. At Milan the post-Tridentine bishops had encountered problems over contested placing of their throne in the cathedral. In 1601 de Sourdis secured his cathedral chapter’s agreement to a new throne, detached from the existing choir stalls and positioned, as the instructions of Clement VIII for episcopal ceremonial prescribed, on its own steps, to the Gospel side of the high altar. But the trouble which broke out from 1602, involving the archbishop, chapter, parlementaire and municipal authorities, concerned

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two altars in the nave. The dispute escalated to attract the attention of Henri IV and Clement VIII. The latter, generally precise in defence of ecclesiastical jurisdiction even if not always over every detail of episcopal thrones, saw the nuncio Del Bufalo intervene. This effectively aligned papal and archiepiscopal authority in the matter against king and chapter. The chapter then complained to the pope, but about the archbishop’s throne. The king wrote letters to Ambassador de Béthune and Cardinal d’Ossat at Rome, but the pope remained unmoved, and the archbishop continued to make dispositions for the cathedral interior. Typical of ancien régime Europe was the dispute over parlementaire and municipal seats in the building for the opening ceremony to mark the papal Jubilee in 1605. By 1608 de Sourdis gained the chapter’s agreement to removal of a barrier separating the choir from the high altar, so that in 1609–10 new regulation of official seating could be made. This was despite the chapter’s attempt, more generally, to seek parlementaire defence against imposition on it of archiepiscopal discipline in 1609. So too in 1610 the king and royal council were called to intervene against the archbishop’s insistence that the cathedral canons and city clergy replace surplices of a traditional local shape with those of a properly Roman cut. Though the latter was doubtless faithful to the spirit of the late pope’s concern for ceremonies properly ordered, the traditional shape was victorious, though on other issues at the time the royal council supported de Sourdis, as again in 1623. However the chapter never contested the sole government of the SaintRaphaël seminary by the archbishop during his lifetime.43 The extension of archiepiscopal examination of those seeking beneficed appointment was successful enough, so that from 1604 this was applied to benefices within the cathedral chapter’s patronage, just as with their inclusion in the scope of archiepiscopal visitation within the city. Elsewhere in the diocese the outcome was less clear, especially with respect to benefices which canons supposedly served in person. But this was where the royal council supported de Sourdis, both in 1609–10 and in 1622–23. This helped when benefices were concerned to which the other urban chapter, of SaintSeurin, nominated. The licensing of regulars for preaching and the hearing of the laity’s confessions, so widely contested in France and elsewhere, was successfully pursued at Bordeaux. The generally good relations established with the parlement were reflected when it supported the archbishop over reform of the Dominicans in 1615 and reform attempted at the abbey of Sainte-Croix in 1627. Even during a momentary contestation, in 1606– 07, royal policy then tended to support for de Sourdis rather than the parlement. He prevented its intervention in the affairs of the Ursulines 43  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 605–7, 616, 625, 630, 633, 655–6, 659–62, 667–73, 675, 703.

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in 1607, but was less successful, as in 1618 and 1624, when jurisdiction over matrimonial disputes was at stake. The 1615 confrontation between Louis XIII and the parlement left de Sourdis in a temporarily exposed position, but he was effectively rescued by royal intervention, despite further disputes of his own with the parlement in 1618–19. The unusual but not unique example of diocesan reform provided by Bordeaux can indeed be assessed by comparison with evolution elsewhere in France during the relevant period. In the diocese of Chartres reform essentially began under Léonor d’Estampes de Valençay, bishop from 1620 to 1641. Despite his clear Gallicanism, separating him in that sense from the dévot party, he urged his fellow bishops in the Clergy Assembly of 1625 to imitate Saint Charles Borromeo. The Minim friars had been established at Chartres in 1615 and the Carmelite nuns in 1619, both with the support of the cathedral chapter. The bishop, despite his part in the dispute over the regulars in the 1625 Assembly, introduced reform at the Augustinian canons’ abbey of Saint Jean en Valée and Maurist Benedictine observance at the abbey of Josaphat. He also brought into the diocese Oratorians and Ursulines at Vendôme, Jesuits at Blois, Capuchins at Montfort and Poissy, and Calvairienne sisters at Vendôme, Montfort and elsewhere. The secular clergy were to administer the sacraments according to his new Ritual of 1627, and to abide by his regulations and synodal statutes of 1629–30. One of the cathedral canons who also held a parish benefice demonstrated his appreciation of the new spirit in the diocese by organizing the Forty Hours devotion in his parish in 1619 and 1620. The devotion was also staged in another two churches, and in a 1620 case this was explicitly as a rival to Carnival disorder. Both then and in 1615 there was also a connection with an internal mission, conducted in one area of the diocese, under the inspiration of Adrien Bourdoise, who would eventually make his name as a dévot leader at Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet at Paris. Indeed in 1621 the bishop asked Bourdoise to produce a plan for a diocesan seminary, and Bourdoise organized an ordinands’ spiritual retreat in that year. The attempt in 1628 to create the seminary, in collaboration with clerics of Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet proved unsuccessful, but the bishop did issue a catechism for diocesan use. He conducted visitations in his vast diocese, necessarily with the assistance of archdeacons and rural deans. Dispute with the archdeacons was resolved by 1630, effectively rather in the bishop’s favour. The cathedral chapter and municipal authorities had hoped in 1605 to put the financially precarious cathedral college in Jesuit hands, but this did not come into effect, any more than did a similar plan in 1620 to involve the Barnabites. Nevertheless Bourdoise, having persuaded the archbishop of Paris to institute an examination for tonsured clerics from 1627, might have noted that in the same year the bishop of Chartres issued a regulation that the laity’s Easter obligation

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must be performed at the parish church, as opposed to a regulars’ church or a confraternity chapel. His further regulations of 1630 tried to ban folk ceremonies of an ambiguously religious nature, and in that context limited the range of local processions. Different again, for obvious socio-political and religious reasons, was the situation in the diocese of Nîmes. Though in non-religious allegiance he might be termed a politique, Bishop Pierre de Valernod began an unambiguous attempt at Catholic recovery between 1598 and 1625. He was resident in his see, despite being chased out in 1621 by Huguenot rebels. So, old and ill, he retired for 1621–22 to his native Dauphiné, but the diocese was looked after by the vicar general, Louis Maridat.44 Prior to that the bishop had conducted diocesan visitations in 1619 and 1620, concentrating in the latter year on the city churches while the vicar general and assistants went around the country parishes. The bishop also held diocesan synods, as in 1615 and 1620. To encourage Catholic devotion to the reserved sacrament, he had as early as 1604 reorganized a confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament at Nîmes. In 1621 the cathedral chapter, led by the archdeacons, blocked his attempts to replace the unsatisfactory minor canons, who served under the chapter there, with better staff. But in any case, newly reconstructed after previous damage, the cathedral was destroyed that year by the rebels. However, also in that year, on the eve of the troubles, Dominicans and Franciscans had been reestablished at Alais. The Jesuits had made frequent visits to preach at Nîmes, but a 1621 plan to put the city college in Jesuit hands was overtaken by the Huguenot insurrection. Even a partial implementation of the project had to wait until after 1629. The Reformed Observant Franciscans, established at Nîmes in 1615, had as their first Guardian Gilles Chaissy. Richelieu noted his consequent experience of Catholic life among Protestants and sent him in 1625 to England in the suite of Henrietta Maria, where he remained for the rest of his life. The Jesuits were also able to exercise some influence by another educational opportunity, for by 1618 the disorder at the city college under Huguenot management induced many in Nîmes, even Huguenots themselves, to send their sons to the Jesuit college at Avignon. After the 1622 Peace of Montpellier and before the 1629 Peace of Alais and Edict of Pacification of Nîmes, there were further hostilities in 1625–26 and again in 1627. But some pastoral continuity beyond 1622, and even a degree 44  Peyrous, vol. I, pp. 675–9, 681, 683, 691–5; R. Sauzet, Les visites pastorales dans le diocèse de Chartres pendant la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (Rome, 1975), pp. 25–32, 46–7, 49–50, 62, 247–9; R. Sauzet, Contre-Réforme et Réforme catholique en Bas-Languedoc. Le diocèse de Nîmes au XVIIe siècle (Paris) [1979], pp. 52–4, 57–9, 64.

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of Catholic recovery, were provided by the vicar general, Louis Maridat. He presided, by episcopal mandate, over a diocesan synod in 1627. His role was vital because Claude de Saint Bonnet de Thoiras proved no more energetic as bishop, from 1625 to 1632, than he had previously been as a coadjutor in the first half of the 1620s. So too Jesuit preaching was heard again in Nîmes in 1626 and 1628, and Reformed Observant Franciscans were there from 1622 until chased out by rebels in 1629, returning once more after the Peace of Alais. The Capuchins were established at the latter location in 1624, conducting a mission in the diocese of Nîmes that year. By 1629 they were also found elsewhere, in the city of Nîmes and the diocese, since 1622 in the case of Aigues-Mortes. Before the 1629 Peace Maridat and the cathedral chapter were exiled to Beaucaire, and he seemingly died in a plague epidemic. During their ministry to the affected in that epidemic of 1629, the Capuchins secured some Huguenot conversions, at Alais and Aigues-Mortes. The Reformed Observant Franciscans, some of whom died in such service at Nîmes, achieved some similar conversions in the diocese. The role of dévot women and of nuns, anywhere in France, could obviously not normally be so public. But at an individual level they might exercise crucial influence on others, not just fellow females, in ways which promoted Catholic recovery. Thus the importance of Madame Acarie went beyond her involvement in the bringing by Bérulle of Carmelite nuns from Spain to France. The tensions over how far the spiritual direction of religious sisters could remain in the hands of female superiors themselves, imported from Spain’s Discalced Carmel, may have contributed to the French confusion over the identity of the Carmelite nuns’ male superiors. In France, however, female dévot counsel in spiritual matters certainly continued, as when Acarie’s daughter, Marguerite du Saint-Sacrement, assisted in the religious conversion of Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi, on the death of his wife, which led him to join the French Oratory. Certainly Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, insisted on unambiguous enclosure for the Ursulines at Paris, but gave approval for their Paris house’s first constitution in 1622. The convent church was blessed in 1627 by Archbishop JeanFrançois de Gondi. Episcopal, subsequently archiepiscopal, visitation was delegated to a Reformed Cistercian, Dom Eustache de Saint-Paul, who conducted visitations in 1617, 1625, 1626, 1627, 1628, 1629, 1630 and 1632. Charitable care could obviously provide a major stage for female dévot and religious activity. Between 1600 and 1630 at Paris, the Hospital of Charity was run by the Brothers of Saint John of God, but founded by the Queen Mother. The foundation of Les Madelonnettes was established by Robert de Montry, but with the substantial assistance, in 1618–20, of the Marquise de Maignelay. The Hospital of the Cent Filles owed its origin to Antoine Séguier, but the Hospitalières de la Charité Notre-Dame

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were founded by Geneviève Le Beau and then more securely established by Madeleine Brulart de Sillery.45 In identifying the range of dévot life generally, and of episcopal leadership in particular, another figure stands out for his individualism and ability to act independently of or even against Richelieu’s wishes. Philippe Cospeau had a constantly ambiguous relationship with the cardinal. Though he held the see of Aire from 1607 to 1621, some of his most important work was in the archbishopric of Toulouse. In 1614 Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, a man of military inclination, was nominated to the archbishopric at the age of 21. By papal appointment, Cospeau acted as administrator of the diocese from then until 1616. As the effective diocesan, he chose his own vicar general, the austere and energetic canon theologian of the cathedral, Jean de Rudèle. The diocese required attention because in 1605 Cardinal de Joyeuse had been translated from there to Rouen, which left the see in the hands of vicars capitular and its temporal assets controlled by royal sequestrators. In 1614 Cospeau issued a renewal for the diocese of the 1590 decrees of Joyeuse’s provincial council, and in 1615 he defined the conditions under which regulars would serve in diocesan ministry. He appointed rural deans within the various archpresbyteries, and at a 1615 synod announced his canonic visitation of the diocese. To avoid immediate confrontation over this with the cathedral chapter, he began the visitation outside the city, while his vicar general went to the even more remote corners of the diocese. Before returning to Aire-sur-Adour in 1616 he established the Carmelite nuns at Toulouse. A papal and royal plan to send him back there in 1619–20 was obstructed by the indecision of La Valette and continuing difficulties with the cathedral chapter. La Valette’s renunciation of the see in 1628 thus just preceded the death, in 1629, of Léonard de Trappes of Auch, who had restored Church discipline in that diocese. By 1621 a confused situation existed concerning succession to the bishopric of Nantes. The Dominican royal preacher Père Noël Deslandes was proposed, but so was Sébastien Bouthillier, favoured by both Richelieu 45  Sauzet, Diocèse de Nîmes, pp. 57–9, 60, 64, 73, 115, 130, 139–40, 187, 192, 202–204, 207–209; B.B. Diefendorf, ‘Barbe Acarie and her Spiritual Daughters: Women’s Spiritual Authority in Seventeenth-Century France’, in C. van Wyhe (ed.), Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe. An Interdisciplinary View (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 155–71: pp. 163–5, 167–8; M.-A. Jégou, Les Ursulines du Faubourg Saint-Jacques à Paris (1607–1662). Origine d’un monastère apostolique (Paris, 1981), pp. 97, 113–14; J. Depauw, Spiritualité et pauvreté à Paris au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1999), pp. 118, 123; A. Forrestal, ‘Vincent de Paul: The Making of a Catholic Dévot’, in A. Forrestal and E. Nelson (eds), Politics and Religion in Early Bourbon France (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 180–99.

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and Queen Anne of Austria. Bouthillier in fact replaced Cospeau at Aire when the royal nomination for Nantes went to Cospeau, who took possession of the see the next year, 1622. The typical need for compromise with the cathedral chapter was, in this case, eased by the person of the dean, the favourite of Bérulle, Louytre. Though public duties took Cospeau to Paris often, he issued an instruction about lay reception of communion in 1624 and, in the absence of a diocesan seminary, demanded in 1626 that ordinands make a spiritual retreat at the house of the Oratorians, established at Nantes in 1617. The Oratorians also received from the civic authorities management of the city college of Saint-Clément, when in 1624–25 the bishop did nothing to encourage an unsuccessful bid by the Jesuits to take it on. The Calvairiennes, organized by Père Joseph, were brought to Nantes by Cospeau in 1626, and other female regulars he established there were the Ursulines in 1627 and the Sisters of the Visitation in 1630. The first stone of a Capuchin church was also blessed by the bishop in 1628. The Ursulines had been established at Paris in 1607, but their 1628 foundation at Saint-Denis, beyond the city, was the work of Vincent de Paul. The diocese of Paris saw rare excursions on visitation, as in 1624 and 1626, by Archbishop Jean-François de Gondi. But rural mission within the diocese, sporadic and never systematic, was begun by the initiative of associates of Bérulle and Bourdoise until a more systematized effort was launched by Vincent de Paul and his associates. In the latter case the archbishop’s approval was obtained by 1626, but also, between 1617 and 1625, the crucial family patronage of the Gondi, which led to the creation of the Congregation of the Mission from 1625. In Burgundy there were attempts to found seminaries at Mâcon in 1617 and Langres in 1619. More successful were the foundation of regulars’ houses, the Jesuits at Autun in 1618, more than one female convent, of Carmelite nuns in one case, at Dijon, another being the Sisters of the Visitation, established there in 1622 by the order’s founder, Chantal. At Lisieux the Ursulines became established between 1628 and 1630, while Guillaume Alleaume, bishop from 1622 to 1634, recommenced diocesan visitation, after a long interval, on his appointment. Although at Rouen François de Harlay, archbishop from 1615, came to have a reputation for clashing with regulars, Ursulines were able to establish themselves in 1619, after Reformed Cistercians and Oratorians in 1616 and before Discalced Carmelite friars in 1624. The controversial presence of Carmelite nuns at Morlaix preceded less problematic religious additions to Breton piety. Reformed Observant Franciscans came in 1622 and Calvairienne sisters in 1625. The Capuchins’ new convent at Nantes was continued, while the Minim friars were at Rennes from 1622, after the Carmelite nuns in 1620, and eventually alongside Ursulines too. The Jesuits also began a church

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there in 1624, and by 1626 their aristocratic sodality already had over 150 members. At Poitiers, La Rocheposay, bishop from 1612, established Ursulines in 1616, Filles de Notre Dame in 1618, with the mother house of the Filles du Calvaire from 1617, Carmelite nuns from 1629, and in 1619 a new male hospital.46 The spread of new and often more active religious orders, sometimes in response to episcopal initiative and at other times as a result of lay dévot patronage, can in fact be traced across France in the relevant period. At Angers the Reformed Observant Franciscans opened a small house in 1625, following the Ursulines in 1618 and preceding the Carmelite nuns in 1626. The Oratorians were established there in 1619 and in 1624 took over the Collège d’Anjou, in both cases at the instigation of the Queen Mother. At Saintes Carmelite nuns arrived in 1615, Poor Clares in 1617 and the Filles de Notre Dame in 1618. It was the civic authorities who in 1622 founded the Jesuit college at Angoulême, but Bishop Antoine de La Rochefoucauld who established the Ursulines in 1628. Limoges saw Reformed Observant Franciscans arrive in 1616, Discalced Carmelite friars in 1623 and Oratorians in 1624, after Carmelite nuns in 1618 and Ursulines in 1620. Bishop Raymond de La Marthonnie held a diocesan synod there in 1619 and issued consequent decrees, and Bishop Genouillac de Vaillac did the same at Tulle in 1624, just as Bishop Joachim d’Estaing had done at Clermont in 1620. Both ecclesiastical and aristocratic patrons helped establish Reformed Cistercians at Tulle by 1620, the same year the Jesuits arrived. At Toulouse there was parlementaire involvement in the establishment of Carmelite nuns in 1616. Bishop Fenouillet presided over Catholic recovery at Montpellier from 1607 onwards. He brought religious orders back into the city, Capuchins by 1624 and Dominicans by 1627, as also Carmelite friars of the traditional Observance. Discalced Carmelite friars did not arrive until 1639, but from 1629 the Jesuits were in charge of the College of Humanities. At Toulouse, again, Charles de Montchal became archbishop in 1628 and began from 1631 his assiduous diocesan visitations. The Oratorians had been established there in 1618, 46  E. Jacques, Philippe Cospeau. Un ami-ennemi de Richelieu 1571–1646 (Paris, 1989), pp. 68, 77–85, 88–90, 92–5, 97; J. Ferté, La vie religieuse dans les campagnes parisiennes (1622–1695) (Paris, 1962), pp. 19–20, 197–201, 253; J. Richard (ed.), Histoire de la Bourgogne (Toulouse, 1978), p. 225; H. De Formeville, Histoire de l’ancien évêché-comté de Lisieux (2 vols, Brionne [1971]), vol. II reproducing N. Deshays, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des évêques de Lisieux (s.l., 1763), pp. 253–4; M. Mollat (ed.), Histoire de Rouen (Toulouse, 1979), p. 194; A. Croix, L’âge d’or de la Bretagne 1532–1675 (Rennes, 1993), pp. 483, 485; R. Favreau (ed.), Histoire de Poitiers (Toulouse, 1985), pp. 203–204; Forrestal, ‘Vincent de Paul’, pp. 181–7.

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but a Jesuit Maison Professe as early as 1612. The Theatines came in 1621 and new Benedictine nuns in 1623, with Carmelite friars in 1625. Lay confraternities were founded or revived, as in 1617, 1624 and 1625, sometimes by the encouragement of the mendicant orders. At Marseille the Jesuits were present from 1615, Reformed Observant Franciscans and Oratorians from 1620, Carmelite nuns from 1621, Visitation sisters from 1624 and Capuchins from 1626. At Aix parlementaire patronage aided the 1625 arrival of Carmelite nuns, but there were also Observant Augustinians since 1616, Reformed Observant Franciscans and Trinitarians from 1621 and a Charterhouse by 1624. The Poor Clares reached Toulon in 1621, both the Visitation sisters and the Ursulines in 1625, the year the Oratorians took charge of the college there. At Fréjus Barthélemy de Camelin was bishop from 1600, and brought in Jesuits and both Dominican friars and nuns. There were Ursulines at Arles from 1617, and at Grasse Oratorians from 1628 and Discalced Carmelite friars from 1629. The influence of the Bordeaux provincial council decrees, though not officially published, was evident in the diocese of Agen. Diocesan reform in the spirit of the decrees was pursued by Bishop Claude Gelas between 1608 and 1631, and even secured the co-operation of the archdeacons in the see. The secretary of the provincial council of 1624 was Pierre Sauveur. He too was anxious to promote better clerical standards of training and life, taking an interest in the Jesuit college at Agen. The bishop made diocesan visitations in 1619–20, while Sauveur wrote a vehement treatise in 1626 about episcopal authority over regulars. This did not prevent his falling out with Bishop Gelas, but nor did it prevent the establishment there of Filles de Notre Dame in 1619 and Carmelite nuns in 1628. Carmelite friars there assisted the affected in the epidemic of 1629. Bishop Bernardin de Corneilhan advanced Catholic recovery at Rodez by adding, in 1616, Capuchins and Filles de Notre Dame to the existing Jesuit presence in the city. The distinct Catholic reconquest of Béarn saw the Jesuits established at Pau in 1620. That same year they held a great public procession in honour of the Blessed Sacrament there to mark the launch of the reconquest. The dévot interest in improving, usually by systematizing, Catholic charity was evident at Lyon. Enclosing at La Charité in Lyon the poor who were not sick obviously involved finding enlarged housing for it. In 1616 a building plan by the Jesuit Père Martellange was considered. Donations from local clergy and aristocrats enabled new building to be constructed between 1617 and 1622. Thus enclosure of the Lyon poor was achieved from 1622. The plans at Lyon attracted wider attention, and the authorities at both Tours and Grenoble consulted those of Lyon in the period 1615–19.47 47  F. Lebrun (ed.), Histoire d’Angers (Toulouse, 1975), pp. 64–6; A. Michaud (ed.), Histoire de Saintes (Toulouse, 1989), p. 170; J. Gervais, Mémoire

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At Grenoble 1627 marked the start of a move to enclose the poor in a hospital. Donations from aristocratic and legal circles were involved, but the bishop and cathedral clergy were allowed a degree of involvement in the new foundation too. Bishop Dinet, the cathedral chapter and local secular officials all agreed in 1623 that at Mâcon Vincent de Paul should found a pair of confraternities for laymen and women, both under the patronage of Saint Charles Borromeo. As well as promoting catechetical instruction, they would distribute alms on a discriminating basis, thus allowing begging to be prohibited. At Montreuil, near Vincennes, Vincent de Paul used both an existing confraternity of the Holy Name of Jesus and a new one, of charitable purpose, which he founded, combined under the original dedication, to involve both laymen and women in such activity. In 1629 he was called to Beauvais by Bishop Augustin Potier to organize there a whole set of parochial confraternities, under a leading female confraternity. Thus systematic charitable relief of poverty was provided for the town. The Beauvais network of parochial confraternities was also assisted by Louise de Marillac, who in the same year founded a similar confraternity at her Parisian church of Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet. The Calvairienne sisters, organized by Père Joseph, came to Loudun when in 1624 Richelieu blessed the first stone of a convent, giving large donations for the foundation. Jesuits were already there, as were the Capuchins from 1616, while the subsequently disturbed Ursulines began in Loudun in 1626. As bishop of Luçon, Richelieu was introduced by Père Joseph to Théophraste Renaudot. His innovative ideas about society eventually led, in 1617–18, to Renaudot’s being named Commissaire Général des Pauvres du Royaume. By 1626 Richelieu was considering government-sponsored low-interest loan banks for relief of those in need, though the scheme, akin to the Italian Monti di Pietà, was halted in 1627, and only revived some time later. One of the most central figures of the dévot movement, over a long period, was Sébastien Zamet, and his own activity as bishop of Langres sur l’Angoumois (Paris, 1864), pp. 122, 126; P. Ducourtieux, Histoire de Limoges (Marseille, 1975), pp. 224, 226; M. Cassan, Les temps des guerres de religion. Le cas du Limousin (vers 1530–vers 1630) (Paris, 1996); pp. 312–13, 315, 321; G. Cholvy (ed.), Histoire de Montpellier (Toulouse, 1984), pp. 188–9; R.A. Schneider, Public Life in Toulouse 1463–1789. From Municipal Republic to Cosmopolitan City (Ithaca-London, 1989), pp. 168, 172, 180, 226; R. Busquet, Histoire de Provence des Origines à la Révolution française (Monaco, 1954), pp. 274–6; S. Baumont (ed.), Histoire d’Agen (Toulouse, 1991), pp. 139–40, 143; H. Enjalbert (ed.), Histoire de Rodez (Toulouse, 1981), p. 129; C. Higounet (ed.), Histoire de l’Aquitaine (Toulouse, 1971), p. 293; P. Tucoo-Chala (ed.), Histoire de Pau (Toulouse, 1989), p. 146; J.-P. Gutton, La société et les pauvres. L’exemple de la généralité de Lyon 1534–1789 (Paris, 1971), pp. 302–303.

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provided an admirable encapsulation of the episcopal reform strand within that. He conducted visitations of his diocese between 1616 and 1620, and held diocesan synods, as in 1616, 1622 and 1628, with consequent decrees. In 1628 he regulated more strictly the role of archdeacons and rural deans when acting as delegated visitors. His attempt to establish a seminary has already been noted, as has the 1622 foundation at Dijon of the Visitation sisters. It is indeed an example of the world of the dévots that, in the latter case, the founder, Jeanne de Chantal, was daughter of a président au parlement.48 By a final irony, Bérulle insistently offered his Oratorians as secular priests to serve under the authority of diocesan bishops. Yet, it might be argued, he did as much as anyone among the dévots, by his ill-starred involvement with the indubitably regular Carmelite nuns in France, to destabilize episcopal reform, in some dioceses at least; even if this seems little recognized in modern scholarship.49

48  K. Norberg, Rich and Poor in Grenoble, 1600–1814 (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1985), pp. 18–19; G. Fagniez, La femme et la société française dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1929), pp. 321–2, 324, 332, 394; H.M. Solomon, Public Welfare, Science and Propaganda in Seventeenth Century France. The Innovations of Théophraste Renaudot (Princeton, 1972), pp. 12–14, 51; J.R. Farr, Authority and Sexuality in Early Modern Burgundy (1550–1730) (New York-Oxford, 1995), pp. 53–4; Forrestal, ‘Vincent de Paul’, pp. 188–95. 49 Cf. J. Bossy, ‘Postscript’ (pp. 126–45) to H.O. Evennett, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 135–42.

Part II The Heart of The Matter

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Chapter 5

The Political Pressures Richelieu’s Chequered Rise to Power Because Cardinal Richelieu was eventually to be so influential, until his death in 1642, in the fortunes of French Catholicism it is important to remember how uncertain and interrupted was his initial rise to power within the kingdom. Indeed, it is crucial to recall that his original powerbase was not the court of the young Louis XIII but that of the Queen Mother. In 1615 the young Louis was married to the Spanish Habsburg infanta, Anne of Austria, and this, with the corresponding marriage of the daughter of the late Henri IV to the Spanish heir, suggested that French policy was now to be set on pan-Catholic lines. But a ‘palace revolution’ in 1617, nominally to free Louis from ‘Italian’ control at court, also entailed making the Queen Mother a virtual captive until her escape in 1619. In that year Richelieu, as bishop of Luçon, negotiated an understanding between the king and his mother, which in turn enabled him to be a successful French nominee for a cardinal’s hat in 1622 and allowed his return to the royal council. By 1624 he appeared to be, potentially at least, the chief minister of the king, as opposed to being the most influential advisor of the Queen Mother. But in 1626 the conspiracy promoted by the king’s brother, Gaston d’Orléans, was just the first of repeated plots against the influence of Richelieu on the king and on French policy. In 1630 the challenge to his power came directly from the Queen Mother herself, and for a while contemporaries, possibly including the cardinal himself, thought that she had succeeded in obtaining the king’s dismissal of Richelieu, who nevertheless regained control in the so-called ‘Day of the Dupes’. From Brussels, the place of the Queen Mother’s exile, Gaston d’Orléans promoted another conspiracy inside France as soon as 1632, in which he invaded Languedoc. As late as 1641, Richelieu still faced conspiracy, involving a plot to return to the Habsburgs Spanish territories captured by the French. On the other hand, Richelieu’s Catholic credentials, on the domestic front at least, could seem to be assured by his defeat of the Huguenots on France’s Atlantic coast in 1628 (after the successful siege of English-assisted La Rochelle) and in Languedoc, where the Peace of Alais of 1629 more generally reduced the political and military independence of the French Huguenots while renewing, on government terms, their religious rights. During his period of power the quality of appointments in the French episcopate also advanced. His attempted suppression of duelling in France, even if pursued for

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essentially political reasons, was also in line with Tridentine declaration. His original design that the Capuchin Père Joseph should succeed him in the direction of French policy was necessarily altered by the friar’s death in 1639, but in the event one cardinal succeeded another in such a role, as the Italian-born Mazarin followed Richelieu. The latter had also, by 1638, gained control within France of the religious orders, in the three cases of Cluny, Cîteaux and Prémontré, ostensibly with their enforced reform as his programme.1 French Foreign Policy Towards Italian States, Spain and England The question of the degree to which Richelieu was at all secure in power within France, before 1630 especially, is crucial when considering the direction of foreign policy. It is arguable that until at least 1629, the year of Pierre de Bérulle’s death, the nature of that policy was still very much subject to domestic contest. Under Henri IV France had intervened successfully in the Italian peninsula, both by supporting the peaceful incorporation by Clement VIII of Ferrara into the papal states, in 1598, and by mediating a conclusion to the Interdict of 1606–07 imposed on Venice by Pope Paul V. The latter achievement had not, however, extended to obtaining from the Republic the excluded Jesuits’ readmission to its territories. The affairs of the Italian peninsula, a traditional forum for French ambitions, were not in any case stable, as was shown by the attempted expansionism of Carlo Emanuele of Savoy-Piedmont, who launched the First Monferrato War by his invasion of Monferrato in 1612. The strategic importance of the Valtelline as a crucial link in the ‘Spanish Road’ by which Habsburg campaigns north of the Alps could be reinforced from Lombardy was made greater than ever after the 1618 outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War and the subsequent resumption, from 1621, of warfare in the Netherlands. Following plans reluctantly formed by Pope Gregory XV, Urban VIII attempted at the start of his pontificate to prevent an open breach between the Catholic powers of France and Spain over the Valtelline by stationing papal garrisons there. This manoeuvre, intended also to preserve the Italian peninsula from the impact of the Thirty Years’ War and prevent the spread 1   J. Bergin, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld. Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven-London, 1987), pp. 222, 234, 243–6, 271; cf. S. Carroll, ‘The Peace in the Feud in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France’, Past and Present, 178 (2003): 74–115. It should also be noted that in one clearly implied interpretation, Richelieu once again effectively lost control of events after France entered openly into war, from 1635, even if he was unable or unwilling to recognize this: F. Hildesheimer, Richelieu (Paris, 2004), pp. 372–477; were this interpretation followed, it would not of course necessarily mean that Jesuits realized this, whether in France or at Rome.

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by foreign troops of heresy, was thwarted when French troops expelled the garrisons in 1624. Cardinal Richelieu had thus, in effect if not in theory, marked his first emergence as leading minister of the French king by a challenge to papal authority. But this moment also, obviously, represented an initial challenge for French ultramontanes over the direction of foreign policy. However the cardinal’s insecure position, as yet within France, quite apart from the prospect of a different, military challenge within the kingdom from the Huguenots, necessitated his reversion to cooperation with Spain. The Treaty of Monzon of 1626 gave renewed protection to the Catholics of the Valtelline, with effective Spanish control, but thereby at least refreshed the cardinal’s image as a defender of the Catholic faith, for the time being. But in spring 1629, following the death in 1627 of the Duke of Mantua, Richelieu led a French army into Italy in order to intervene in the contested Mantuan succession in support of the French-backed claimant by raising the siege of Casale mounted by Spain and Savoy. Yet the outbreak of Huguenot insurrection demonstrated once again the uncertain position of Richelieu; for though he was triumphant over the Huguenots on his return to the home front, the Habsburgs were nevertheless enabled to make gains in the Mantuan contest. A renewed French intervention in Italy, in 1630, led to the French gaining Pinerolo at the expense of Catholic Savoy, but threatened not to alter the loss by the French candidate of the Mantuan succession. However at the Diet of Ratisbon Richelieu’s envoy, Père Joseph, could point to the imperial award of Mantua to that candidate as a French success. Yet the cardinal felt it necessary to repudiate the terms of the consequent Treaty of Cherasco of 1631, suggesting the continued ambiguity of French foreign policy under his supposed direction, even allowing for papal dissatisfaction with the treaty’s terms. The French alliance with Bavaria negotiated by Père Joseph at Ratisbon, and approved by the Duke of Bavaria’s Jesuit confessor, involved France with a Catholic power in Germany, but one which was increasingly at odds openly with the imperial Habsburgs. Moreover from 1631 Richelieu was providing French subsidy of Protestant Sweden’s intervention in the war in Germany. But Swedish success, initially, rapidly led to the invasion of Catholic Bavaria, contrary to Richelieu’s intentions; nor could that in any way be obscured by the cardinal’s subsequent sending of French troops to occupy the Catholic duchy of Lorraine and refusal of a papal proposal for Roman mediation. The papacy was still able to help defer French invasion of Alsace, but Spain was supporting the plotting against Richelieu of Gaston d’Orléans and Marie de’ Medici. Finally in 1635 Richelieu took France into an alliance with the Protestant Dutch of the United Provinces, renewed agreement with Protestant Sweden and openly

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declared war on Spain; openly declared war with the imperial Habsburgs followed effectively from 1636. In Spanish eyes at least, Urban VIII was culpably complacent over the Protestant alliances of France. The pope certainly favoured France as a counterbalance to the still potential might of the Habsburgs. But when the papal nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, had been sent as legate to France in 1625, little advantage seemed to result. Richelieu’s opposition to papal garrisoning of the Valtelline was unaffected, for instance. Yet the presence of the legate arguably encouraged ultramontane criticism within France of the cardinal’s foreign policy and its increasing breach of any principle of Catholic solidarity in Europe. The momentary triumph of an ultramontane policy indeed seemed evident, to the fleeting satisfaction of the Queen Mother and Bérulle, when Richelieu felt compelled to accept the Treaty of Monzon, as already noted, and even an interim return to the Valtelline of a papal garrison. But the internal critics of Richelieu did not prevent French encouragement of Transylvanian resistance to the emperor, which diverted the focus of the imperial Habsburgs during their involvement in the war in Germany. The cardinal made potential capital which was both French and Catholic by securing in 1625 the French Catholic marriage of Charles I of England after the final collapse of the prolonged negotiations, begun when Charles was heir to the throne, for a Spanish marriage. But the gains for the English Catholic community from this, which Bérulle for example hoped would be achieved, hardly materialized. Similarly, the ultramontanes’ natural pleasure at Richelieu’s defeat of the Huguenots at home was followed by a realization that this domestic triumph left France free to confront the Habsburgs, in breach of Catholic solidarity. The defeat of the Huguenots of La Rochelle had also involved a defeat of Protestant England, irrespective of the French marriage; but the hopes of some French Gallicans, as well as of Bérulle, that the divided English Catholics might be given a full episcopal leadership, reducing Jesuit independent influence among them, met with disappointment, for reasons which were not purely internal to English circumstances.2

2   Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 69, 75; R. Bireley, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War. Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 4, 63–5, 69, 73, 89, 93–104, 107, 109–10, 114–23, 151–3, 167–8, 179, 183, 202; Y. Krumenacker, L’école française de spiritualité. Des mystiques, des fondateurs, des courants et leurs interprètes (Paris, 1999), pp. 143, 150–51; A.D. Wright, ‘The Jesuits, Paul V and his successors after the Interdict’, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 115, Die Aussenbeziehungen der römischen Kurie unter Paul V. Borghese (1605–1621), ed. A. Koller (Tübingen, 2008), pp. 35–47; A.D. Wright, ‘French Policy in Italy and the Jesuits, 1607–1638’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 75 (2007): 285–96; cf. F. De Vivo, Information and Communication in Venice. Rethinking Early Modern Politics (Oxford, 2007), p. 204.

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At the beginning of the 1630s the spokesman for the Spanish Habsburgs, Cardinal Borgia, made a notorious verbal attack, in the presence of the college of cardinals, on Pope Urban VIII for his alleged indulgence towards French complicity with Protestant powers. The French academician Jean Sirmond attempted, by a polemical publication linking such attack to pseudonymous criticism supposedly directed against papal policy from the pen of an Italian, ‘Zambeccari’, to defend the legitimacy of due devotion to the authority of both pope and king. A Brussels edition (the third, of 1635) of his Homme du Pape et du Roy began with a convoluted tracing of real authorship to Padua – but to a text originally in Spanish, with a further allusion to Venice – before elaborating a detailed defence of French royal policy, argued to be in accord with papal ideals, and in every respect to show up Habsburg policy to its disadvantage. The references to a Spanish text and to Venice were in fact acute. Behind the persona of ‘Lodovico Zambeccari’ in his Al Pio … Padre Urbano octavo, published in 1635 at Trieste (with the false imprint of Orleans), was the idiosyncratic ambassador to Venice, Juan Antonio de Vera, Count of La Roca.3 The Interaction Between French and Netherlandish Critics The proximity of the frontier made it natural that the Spanish Netherlands provided a place of exile, at various times, for both Marie de’ Medici and Gaston d’Orléans. But Catholic criticism of Richelieu’s foreign policy for its pro-Protestant tendency, in breach of Catholic solidarity, in a religiously divided Europe was voiced not only within France but among others based in the Netherlands too. In 1625, in the context of French intervention in the Valtelline, anonymous pamphlets which criticized Richelieu’s antipapal and anti-Habsburg policies appeared in Paris. French response rapidly proved confused, when Richelieu’s demand for a clerical censure resulted in a statement so extremely Gallican in nature as to provoke the clergy’s reaction against this purported reply in their name. The prolonged controversy among the French episcopal leadership as to how to resolve this ensured continued interference in their affairs by the Paris parlement, but arguably gave Richelieu unexpected room for manoeuvre to his own benefit. When Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld tried to bring closure to the matter, by producing a defence of ecclesiastical independence against the parlement, he wrote it with the encouragement of the nuncios in both 3   Bibliothèque de Port-Royal, Paris [BPR], Collection Le Paige [LP] 1646; B. Cinti, Letteratura e politica in Juan Antonio de Vera Ambasciatore spagnolo a Venezia (1632–1642) (Venice, 1966), pp. 24–5, 76–7, 158–60, 189–91; cf. W.F. Church, Richelieu and Reason of State (Princeton, NJ, 1972), pp. 342, 373.

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France and the Netherlands and with Jesuit assistance. Moreover it was printed not in Paris but in Brussels. But while totally ultramontane in relation to papal authority in doctrinal issues, the document drew attention to a dangerous and false attempt to distinguish between bons français and bons catholiques, to the disadvantage of the latter.4 In 1635 Richelieu was attacked in print by Jansenius, who became bishop of Ypres in that year: as the Mars Gallicus showed, the FrancoSwedish alliance against the Catholic Habsburgs seemed particularly outrageous from a Netherlandish perspective. But such an attack from beyond the frontiers of France did not come out of a clear sky. In 1626 French Jesuits promised Richelieu that they would publicly disavow the two pamphlets, Mysteria politica and Admonitio ad Regem, which had attacked Richelieu’s policy and been attributed to Jesuit authorship; and the French Jesuit Michel Rabardeau subsequently wrote in defence of the cardinal and his policy. The same Jesuit, by 1635, was also supplying arguments for use in defence of the legitimacy of French entry into war against Catholic Spain. Until the birth in 1638 of the future Louis XIV, Gaston d’Orléans represented a particular threat to Richelieu as the heir to the throne. The disputed marriage arrangements of Gaston therefore retained until then a political importance. He obtained ratification of his arguably ‘clandestine’ marriage to the sister of the Duke of Lorraine from the archbishop of Malines in 1634, and this was a potential boost to critics of the cardinal’s anti-Habsburg foreign policy in the face of French official opposition to the purported marriage and its recognition. When Richelieu failed to gain from Rome a clear annulment he intended the Assembly of the French Clergy to pronounce it invalid, which he hoped would be encouraged by a treatise he received in 1635 from Rabardeau.5 By contrast, the position adopted in 1635 by Saint-Cyran, associate of Jansenius and domestic critic of Richelieu’s policies, was against annulment. The French Oratorians resolved for the nullity of the marriage, in company with other French clerics including regulars and Jesuits, despite the fact that Père Condren was confessor to Gaston.6 4

  Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 69–76; V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le clergé de France (Paris, 1929), pp. 138–62. 5   Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome [BAV], MS Barb. Lat. 8103, fols 70r–73v, 6 Dec. 1633, Bichi, nuncio in France, to Cardinal Francesco Barberini; Barb. Lat. 8185, fols 92r–93v, 13 May 1635, Bolognetti, nuncio in France, to Barberini. 6   Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Rome [ASV], Segr. Stato, Francia, 394, fols 91r–92r, 18 May 1630, P. Claude Bertin to Cardinal Spada; P. Cloyseault, Généralats du Cardinal de Bérulle et du P. de Condren. Première partie du Recueil des Vies de quelques Prêtres de l’Oratoire (Paris, 1880), pp. 223, 225, 234, 240; P. Blet, S.J., Le Clergé de France et la Monarchie. Etude sur les Assemblées Générales du Clergé de 1615 à 1666 (2 vols, Rome, 1959), vol. I, pp. 418–19; P. Blet, ‘Jésuites Gallicans au XVIIe siècle? A propos de l’ouvrage

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From 1617 the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIII had been Jean Arnoux, who succeeded Père Coton, former confessor of Henri IV. From the circumstances of his appointment Arnoux became caught up in the struggles at the French court between the king and the Queen Mother, which had already had connotations of differences over the direction of French policy, and in 1621 he was in turn replaced by the Jesuit Gaspar de Séguiran. French sensitivity about external criticism was then revealed in 1624 when a publication at Antwerp by a Flemish Jesuit, Carlo Scribani, was accused of incorporating disparaging reflections on Louis XIII. However the two pamphlets which attacked Richelieu’s policies in 1625, not least for his encouragement of German Protestants, were indeed from a foreign but Jesuit pen, that of Adam Contzen, the confessor of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, though this was unknown even to the Father General of the Society of Jesus, Muzio Vitelleschi. An anonymous attack on Richelieu’s supposedly unsound policies, signified by reference to him as the ‘Cardinal of La Rochelle’, appeared in Paris in 1626, and was wrongly attributed to the French Jesuit François Garasse. He only managed to clear himself after an interview with the cardinal and the intervention with the king of Père Coton and of his latest Jesuit confessor, Jean Suffren, appointed in 1625 after serving the Queen Mother as confessor. In 1631 Vitelleschi was alerting the French Jesuit Barthélemy Jacquinot that among Jesuit publications in various states which might cause trouble for the Society was a recent book by Padre Hurtado de Mendoza, which might offend the French king for its criticism of Richelieu’s foreign policy links with Protestants.7 But then the French Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, who Richelieu insisted in March 1637 become the king’s new confessor, was peremptorily removed by the cardinal in December of the same year and sent into internal exile. He was seen to have tried to influence Louis against Richelieu’s war policy, and may also have been viewed as culpable for attempted contacts with Marie de’ Medici at Brussels, against the cardinal’s explicit wishes. The cardinal also seemed to believe he had interfered with matters in the politically sensitive situation in Piedmont involving the king’s sister, Christine of Savoy.8 du P. Guitton sur le P. de La Chaize’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 29 (57) (1960): 55–84: p. 66; L.-F. Jaccard, Saint Cyran. Précurseur de Pascal (Lausanne, 1944), p. 134; C. Bouyer, Gaston d’Orléans (1608–1660) (Paris, 1999), pp. 56–62. 7   Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu [ARSI], Francia 5, fols 347v, 349v, 12 July, 9 Aug. 1631; Lugdunensis 5, fols 617r–v, 12 July, 9 Aug. 1631: Vitelleschi to Jesuits at Lyon and Madrid. 8   H. Fouqueray, Histoire de la compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression (5 vols, Paris, 1910–25), vol. IV, pp. 398–9, 427–8; vol. V, pp. 106–23; H. Fouqueray, ‘Le père Jean Suffren à la Cour de Marie de Médicis et de Louis XIII (1615–1643)’, Revue des questions historiques, 68 (1900): 74–131, 445–71, esp. p. 461; M. Turrini, ‘Ordine politico

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In 1638 Richelieu had Saint-Cyran arrested, following the death of Jansenius as bishop of Ypres. Though the arrest was partly motivated by the cardinal’s irritation over a doctrinal and pastoral issue, it also came at a moment when he feared that the king might order the return from internal exile of his own former confessor, Caussin, and that such a turn of events might even lead to permission for the Queen Mother and her partisans to return to France. This suggests how far Richelieu remained concerned at any prospective challenge to his foreign policy. As early as 1629, at the time of Bérulle’s death, two years after he had become a cardinal, he himself was in political disgrace following his attempt to redirect French policy. In 1624 he had hoped, by a visit to Rome, to ease the negotiations for the marriage of Charles I to Henrietta Maria, whom in 1625 he briefly attended in England. But his attempt to extend negotiations to the question of the Valtelline was less to Richelieu’s taste. Saint-Cyran had associated not only with Bérulle but also with Michel de Marillac, who shared the latter’s opposition to Richelieu’s policy and opposed the repudiation of the terms agreed at Ratisbon, so that he accordingly fell foul of Richelieu, ending up in prison. Bérulle’s own objection to Richelieu’s leading France into the Mantuan succession war was shared by another important member of the French Oratory, François Bourgoing, who had succeeded soon afterwards in developing in the Spanish Netherlands an extension of the Oratory which, to avoid political difficulties, he himself headed with the independent title of Superior and Visitor of the Oratorians of Flanders: an evolution in which Saint-Cyran had been involved from an early date, alongside Jansenius.9

e coscienze nel Seicento in area cattolica’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 27 (2001) [2002]: 391–415: p. 395 and nn.; C. de Rochemonteix, Nicolas Caussin confesseur de Louis XIII (Paris, 1911). 9   J. Orcibal, Jansénius d’Ypres (1585–1638) (Paris, 1989), pp. 128–9, 169, 234; J. Orcibal, Les origines du Jansénisme, II: Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran et son temps (1581–1638) (Louvain-Paris, 1947), vol. II, pp. 257, 494–5, 503–4; J. Visser, ‘La relation entre Jansénius et Rovenius’, in J.M. van Eijl (ed.), L’image de C. Jansénius jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Louvain, 1987), pp. 46–7; F. Ferrier, ‘L’image de Jansénius dans l’Oratoire naissant: Jansénius et Gibieuf’, ibid., pp. 52–65: pp. 56–7; J. Laferrière, Etude sur Jean Duvergier de Hauranne abbé de Saint-Cyran (1581–1643) (Louvain, 1912), p. 164; Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 17, 44–56, 68–73, 99, 109–10, 114–15, 117, 119–22, 142, 169–71, 181–201; cf. M.C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England. Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 415–16, 420; J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580–1730 (New Haven-London, 2009), p. 206; cf. Krumenacker, pp. 149, 269–70; Michel de Marillac was garde des sceaux, 1626–30; Louis de Marillac, maréchal de France, was then executed.

Chapter 6

The Emerging Tensions The French Oratory at the Death of Bérulle The political disgrace into which Pierre de Bérulle had fallen at his death in 1629 was far from the only problem facing the French Oratorians. Quite apart from doubts about Richelieu’s attitude, no settled constitution of the French Oratory existed. Although the superior at the Paris house itself was Guillaume Gibieuf, it was François Bourgoing who presided at the confused attempts to find a successor to Bérulle in supervision of the whole institution. Gibieuf had been one of Bérulle’s companions at the foundation of the Oratory and had become the founder’s favourite disciple. It was at the cardinal’s request that Gibieuf wrote a work finished in 1629, De libertate Dei et creaturae, published in Paris in 1630, with a dedication to Pope Urban VIII which represented an attempt to assert the work’s orthodoxy.1 Gibieuf had acted as deputy for Bérulle in the affairs of the Oratory both at Paris and elsewhere in France. But as an astute Savoyard Jesuit, Théophile Raynaud, realized, the problematic succession to Bérulle revealed how much at odds with his fellow Oratorians Gibieuf was. Various candidates for the succession, including Gibieuf and Claude Bertin, another of the original companions of Bérulle, received votes in the odd election, but none gained a clear majority until Père Condren, who was absent because he was attending Gaston d’Orléans, eventually achieved such a majority. Constitutional doubts and hesitations on the part of Bourgoing and Bertin, among others, provided an opportunity for Saint-Cyran to intervene, securing recognition, even from Bourgoing in the end, that the election of Condren was definitive. This was despite the fact that Saint-Cyran had been among those expressing approval of Gibieuf’s book, after the prior, though in fact, as Saint-Cyran knew, hesitant and modified approval of Jansenius.2 One of the other initial candidates in the 1   A. Levi, French Moralists. The Theory of the Passions 1585 to 1649 (Oxford, 1964), pp. 204–5; J.M. van Eijl (ed.), L’image de C. Jansénius jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Louvain, 1987) [Préface], p. 10; F. Ferrier, ‘L’image de Jansénius dans l’Oratoire naissant: Jansénius et Gibieuf’, ibid., pp. 54–5, 58–9. Jansenius himself was to include in his own Dedicatory Letter to Urban VIII, in the Augustinus, optimistic reference to what he believed was the favourable reception at Rome of Gibieuf’s De libertate: B. Neveu, ‘Augustinisme janséniste et magistère romain’, XVIIe siècle, 135 (1982): 191–209: p. 200. 2   J. Orcibal, Jansénius d’Ypres (1585–1638) (Paris, 1989), p. 287; Levi, p. 206; van Eijl, p. 10; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 58–65; Y. Krumenacker, L’école française de spiritualité. Des

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election was Philippe Emmanuel de Gondi, of the great de Retz dynasty, who also shared the opposition of Bérulle, Bourgoing and Saint-Cyran to Richelieu’s foreign policy. Bertin clearly remained unhappy about the whole sequence of events. But he, Bourgoing and Condren were all united, on the contested issue of the identity and future development of the French Oratory, against Gibieuf, who by 1631 was to emerge effectively excluded from the main activities of the Oratory.3 Central to this strange situation was the question of the reformed Carmelite nuns in France. Gibieuf was also aware that the Dominican who at Rome had some degree of control over book publishing there, as Master of the Sacred Palace, had shown his book and its dedication to Pope Urban VIII. This seemed to be a way around the problem that Urban had, as recently as 1625, renewed the prohibition on publishing about the contested questions of Divine Grace, intended by his predecessors Clement VIII and Paul V to apply both to Jesuits and to their original opponents on the matter, the Dominicans, as well as more generally in an attempt to silence the internal Catholic controversies De Auxiliis. But once his book appeared it was predictable that Jesuits would wish to enter the reopened debate over Grace and free will. The Jesuit Raynaud wrote in 1631 to the French Assistant to Muzio Vitelleschi at Rome to seek approval for his projected response to Gibieuf, following a Jesuit attempt in 1630 itself to have the Oratorian’s book condemned at Rome. The Oratory’s agent there intervened with the papal nephew, Cardinal Barberini, and no condemnation was issued. The response of Vitelleschi, via the Provincial at Lyon, Jean Filleau, gave only cautious approval, and he then repeated his cautions. But Raynaud’s Nova libertatis explicatio appeared late in 1632, attacking both Gibieuf and another author, William Chalmers, who had already tried to defend him. The latter was a former Jesuit who left the Society for the Oratorians, and mystiques, des fondateurs, des courants et leurs interprètes (Paris, 1999), pp. 264–8. 3   Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Rome [ASV], Segr. Stato, Francia, 394, fols 91r–92r, 18 May 1630; fols 99r–v, 5 Jan., fols 109r–v, 27 Apr. 1632, P. Claude Bertin to Cardinal Spada, Rome; Orcibal, Jansénius d’Ypres, pp. 128–9; J. Orcibal, Les origines du Jansénisme, II: Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran et son temps (1581–1638) (Louvain-Paris, 1947), vol. II, pp. 257, 288–9, 297–303, 494–5; J. Visser, ‘La relation entre Jansénius et Rovenius’, in van Eijl (ed.), pp. 46–7, Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 54–7; P. Cloyseault, Généralats du Cardinal de Bérulle et du P. de Condren. Première partie du Recueil des Vies de quelques Prêtres de l’Oratoire (Paris, 1880), pp. 145, 234–7, 241, 245, 249, 255; [Anon.], The Revival of Priestly Life in the Seventeenth Century in France (London, 1873), pp. 180, 184; Krumenacker, p. 236. The problem of the absence of Roman approval for any constitution for the whole French Oratory, as opposed to the Paris house alone, was still causing Bertin alarm at Condren’s death: Acta Nuntiaturae Gallicae, 5: Correspondance du Nonce en France Ranuccio Scotti (1639–1641), ed. P. Blet, S.J. (Rome-Paris, 1965), pp. 484, 489, 519–20, 601: Card. Francesco Barberini to Scotti, 20, 23 Feb.; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 2 Apr. 1641, nos 678, 682, 746; final Relation of Scotti, 5 Apr. 1641.

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who had been attacked in print earlier in the same year by another Jesuit writer, François Annat, in his own reply to Gibieuf, the Philadelphi Romani Exercitatio triplicata. Raynaud represented his intervention as a response to a request from Cardinal Maurice of Savoy for an opinion on Gibieuf’s book. Vitelleschi however was already concerned, at this very time, about the danger of Jesuit confessors at the Savoyard court becoming involved in affairs of state, alien to the Society’s Institute, going beyond the properly strict interpretation of their duties.4 He was also worried that Raynaud’s sharp tone in responding to Gibieuf might prove counterproductively damaging to the Society of Jesus itself.5 Such preoccupations were certainly contrasted to the judgement of Bourgoing that the best person to write a life of Bérulle would be Saint-Cyran. The Legacy of Bérulle’s Clash with the Carmelites In 1603 the new Reformed Carmelite nuns in France had been given, by Roman decision, Bérulle and two other French clerics as their superiors. Subsequently it was similarly decreed that Bérulle, and his successors as superior of the newly founded French Oratory, should be the canonic Visitor of the convents. In his own mind this arrangement was perfectly consistent with the original Spanish constitution for such convents. But on the arrival, in 1610, of Reformed Carmelite friars in France, just prior to the foundation of the Oratory, these had already claimed the direction of the nuns’ convents. The nuns themselves were divided on the issue, and not all were content to remain under Bérulle’s authority; though papal policy on the matter remained ultimately constant under Clement VIII, Paul V and Gregory XV, despite the complication represented within France by other tensions over episcopal authority and regulars. When 4   Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu [ARSI], Lugdunensis 5, fols 627v, 628v, 26 Jan., 19 Feb. 1632: Father General Vitelleschi to Père Jean Filleau, Lyon;fol. 634v, 17 Apr. 1632: Vitelleschi to Père Pierre Monod; cf. Lugdunensis 6, Epistolae Generalium 1632–40, fols 10r–v, 16 Dec. 1632: Vitelleschi to Filleau; cf. ASV, Segr. Stato, Francia, fols 101r–v, 168r, 17 Feb., 24 Apr. 1632: Bertin to Spada; Levi, p. 205; van Eijl, p. 10; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 56–61; Cloyseault, p. 143; M. Turrini, ‘Ordine politico e coscienze nel Seicento in area cattolica’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 27 (2001) [2002]: 397 and n. 32; L. Blond, La Maison Professe des Jésuites de la rue Saint-Antoine à Paris 1580–1762 (Paris, 1956), pp. 83–4; Krumenacker, pp. 154–6. The problems of Jesuit involvement in the convoluted politics of Savoy would continue, as will be noted further, and the papal nuncio in France would be anxious to avoid any compromise to papal diplomacy from being drawn into such problems: Correspondance … Scotti, p. 167: Scotti to Barberini from Grenoble, 3 Oct. 1639, no. 115. 5   ARSI, Lugdunensis 6, fol. 4r, 18 Sept. 1632: to Filleau; cf. A. Meyer, Les premières Controverses Jansénistes en France (1640–1649) (Louvain, 1919), pp. 33–9.

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Urban VIII reiterated Bérulle’s authority over the nuns it was in a context where the nuncio himself realized that the resistance of some nuns was encouraged by Jesuits. Bérulle’s insistence on preserving his own authority over the Carmelite nuns did not, however, receive universal or constant support within the kingdom. Condren, as Bérulle’s successor but against the late cardinal’s wishes, insisted that the French Oratory relinquish the contested responsibility for the nuns, leaving the field to the Carmelite friars. But Bertin, taking care of the Paris Oratory as Gibieuf retreated from there to Saint-Magloire, clearly feared Rome’s reaction. He hoped Cardinal Barberini might intervene, and was particularly concerned that Condren had left the nuns without protection by renouncing the Oratory’s rights of Visitation of their convents. At Bourges, the Carmelite nuns eventually departed, finishing in the Spanish Netherlands at Ypres, where Jansenius would become bishop. This was despite the efforts of Gibieuf, who attempted to continue in Bérulle’s role as superior and Visitor of the Carmelite nuns in France. But when Gibieuf was sent by Bérulle to Bourges this had been in the context of Jesuit opposition to any foundation of the Oratory there also. Moreover the nuns’ confessor there was the Jesuit Michel Rabardeau. This caused Bérulle to complain to the Jesuit Provincial, Ignace Armand, whose response however appeared to instigate a defence of Jesuit conduct in the matter by Père Etienne Bauny, which appeared in print in 1623 but was not liked at Rome. Father General Vitelleschi, in this context, reacted strongly in disapproval of Armand, Rabardeau and other French Jesuits. At Sens too Bérulle himself had encountered complications with episcopal authority over supervision of nuns there. When he had learned from Saint-Cyran that in the Netherlands also there were problems between Carmelite nuns and friars, specifically over the choice of confessor by the former, he alleged to the nuncio at Paris that the trouble was caused by the Jesuits there. Saint-Cyran himself intervened within France, at Angers in 1628–29, in a dispute over direction of Carmelite nuns between the Oratorians and the bishop. But Gibieuf’s opposition to the Oratory’s renouncing of the Carmelite nuns’ direction in France, its decision not to include formal vows for its own members in its constitution and its affirmation that it sought no exemption from episcopal authority all contributed to a breach between Saint-Cyran and himself.6 6

  ASV, Segr. Stato, Francia, 394, fols 99r–v, 101r–v, 103r–v, 109r–v, 168r, 5 Jan., 3, 17 Feb., 27 Apr. 1632: Bertin to Spada; Recueil des Instructions Générales aux Nonces Ordinaires de France de 1624 à 1634, ed. A. Leman (Lille-Paris, 1920), pp. 26–7, 29–30, 76: Card. Francesco Barberini to Bernadino Spada, 1624; S.-M. Morgain, Pierre de Bérulle et les carmélites de France. La querelle du gouvernement 1583–1629 (Paris, 1995), passim; J. Bergin, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld. Leadership and Reform in the French Church (New Haven-London, 1987), p. 85; P. Blet, SJ, Le Clergé de France et la Monarchie. Etude sur les

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Bérulle’s promotion of vows of ‘servitude to Jesus and Mary’ was at the heart of much of this trouble. After the foundation of the French Oratory, in 1611, ‘vows of servitude’ had been taken by Bérulle and his initial followers, including Bertin and Gibieuf. But Bérulle’s attempt to impose special vows on Carmelite nuns was opposed by the Carmelite friars and by Jesuits, and there was trouble over the issue at Bordeaux in particular as early as 1620. By that date Bérulle had arranged for Gibieuf to compose a defence of the vows, though this remained unpublished. The University of Louvain pronounced against the ‘vow of servitude’, though one result of intervention by Saint-Cyran was to obtain from one critic, Lessius, the Jesuit scholar based in the Netherlands, a new proposal that the vow might be less controversially presented as an extension of the baptismal vows rather than as an extra, solemn vow which could be argued to be at odds with the Carmelite constitutions. Saint-Cyran had taken to Lessius a letter from Cospeau, bishop of Aire, and Jansenius publicized more widely a defence of Bérulle by the latter. Cospeau had also blocked an attempt by the Carmelite friars, aided by Jesuits, to obtain from the Theology Faculty at Bordeaux condemnation of the contested vows as part of their wider attack, again with Jesuit cooperation, on Bérulle’s theological views as revealed in his direction of the Carmelite nuns and concerning the vows. The Oratory’s difficulties were subsequently compounded when another of its writers, Claude Séguenot, could be shown to have misrepresented Early Church teaching, and specifically that of St Augustine himself, on the subject of virginity, which stirred more general agitation among French regulars about their vows while also clearly reflecting tensions over the issue of vows within the Oratory itself. The agitation over Séguenot’s arguments about virginity also helps to explain the hostility to his work of one important regular, the Capuchin Père Joseph, though Condren resisted Richelieu’s pressure for Séguenot, whose doctrinal opinions had more widely offended the cardinal, to be expelled from the Oratory. Richelieu however obtained condemnation by the Sorbonne of Séguenot’s version of St Augustine on virginity when it appeared in 1638. An anti-Gallican and ultramontane figure, André Duval, had also in fact parted company with Bérulle over the latter’s attempt to impose the vows he had devised on the Carmelite nuns, though this also reflected disagreement over Roman approval for Vincent de Paul’s Congregation of the Mission, supported by Duval but opposed by Bérulle. Assemblées Générales du Clergé de 1615 à 1666 (2 vols, Rome, 1959), vol. I, pp. 297–8; Cloyseault, pp. 143, 145, 148, 241; J. Laferrière, Etude sur Jean Duvergier de Hauranne abbé de Saint-Cyran (1581–1643) (Louvain, 1912), p. 123; Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 256, 282–3, 300–302; Krumenacker, pp. 154, 213–14, 223–4, 227–9; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 54–7, 60–61, 64–5; F. Ferrier, ‘Le père Gibieuf à Bourges: les affaires du Carmel et le voeu de servitude’, XVIIe siècle, 92 (1971): 37–79: pp. 54, 59–75.

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From the sixteenth century onwards there was controversy over the identity and hence authority of another problematic source from Early Church history, [Pseudo-]Dionysius. The problem allowed Saint-Cyran to alert Jansenius to supposedly erroneous citations from this source by the Jesuit Garasse, but also provided an opportunity for Jesuit attack on Gibieuf to include criticism of his use of questionable citations. Above all, Jesuits joined Carmelite friars in attacking Bérulle for his reliance on the same dubious source in his treatment of the Carmelite nuns. After Richelieu’s death, when Gibieuf and Bourgoing published posthumous editions of Bérulle’s works, in 1644, they seemed to take care to obscure the influence in these which could be traced to Pseudo-Dionysius. On the other hand, widespread resentment would eventually be caused in France when the Jesuit scholar Jacques Sirmond attacked the traditional identification of Saint Denis, apostle of the Gauls and first bishop of Paris, with [Pseudo]Denys the Areopagite. For this followed the 1623 claim, already, by the erudite Sirmond to be drawing on the authority of a prominent Gallican in the circle of J.-A. de Thou, Pierre Pithou, as Sirmond expressed it in his preface to his Karoli Calvi et successorum aliquot Franciae capitula. The sensitivity of such a Jesuit claim on Gallican tradition reflected the fact that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was indeed cooperation in anti-Protestant scholarship with the Church historian Caesar Baronius, of the Roman Oratory, from both Sirmond, then in Rome, and Nicolas Le Fèvre, a friend of de Thou, as Baronius worked on his Annales prior to the Jesuit’s return to France. Yet by 1620 Sirmond’s own learned polemics against Calvinist scholars clearly marked a divergence from the Gallican tradition of de Thou.7 7

 Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 252–3, 255–6; Laferrière, p. 163; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 54–5, 60–61; L.-F. Jaccard, Saint Cyran, Précurseur de Pascal (Lausanne, 1944), p. 132; L. Mezzadri, Fra Giansenisti e Antigiansenisti. Vincent Depaul e la Congregazione della Missione (1624–1737) (Florence, 1977), pp. 15–16, 55; C.E. Williams, The French Oratorians and Absolutism 1611–1641 (New York, 1989), pp. 410–11, 416; Levi, p. 137; cf. R. Cadoux, ‘L’Homme-Dieu: Le Christ de Bérulle’, in Chroniques de Port-Royal [56]: Port-Royal et l’Humanisme (Paris, 2006), pp. 277–88: p. 279, for Saint-Cyran’s assistance to Bérulle in composing his response to critics of the ‘vows of servitude’; Krumenacker, pp. 143–8, 154–5, 160–64, 174, 179, 200, 230–34, 274–6; M. Fumaroli, ‘Temps de croissance et temps de corruption: Les deux Antiquités dans l’érudition jésuite française du XVIIe siècle’, XVIIe siècle, 131 (1981): 149–68: pp. 156–7. The form in which Séguenot added his own comments to his French translation of Augustine’s De Sancta Virginitate seemed designed to disguise the absence of ecclesiastical approbation, while royal privilege seems to have been granted only for the translation itself: J.-R. Armogathe, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire: l’affaire Séguenot (1638)’, in Chroniques de Port-Royal, 50: Port-Royal et l’Oratoire (Paris, 2001), pp. 367–81: pp. 367–8. The antagonism of Père Joseph also reflected wider Capuchin concern that dispute over Séguenot’s work would eclipse a work by their famous confrère, Yves de Paris, Heureux succès de la piété, ou triomphe de la vie religieuse: Claude Lancelot, Mémoires touchant la vie de M. de Saint-Cyran, ed. D. Donetzkoff (Paris, 2003), p. 82.

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The doctrinal and pastoral issue which so preoccupied Richelieu was the question of the sufficiency of Attrition, as opposed to perfect Contrition; the authority of the Tridentine decrees on penance was implicitly involved here therefore. Condren tried to defend Séguenot, who in the cardinal’s eyes was guilty of denying the sufficiency of Attrition, in an interview with Père Joseph. But Bertin had to appear before the cardinal to declare formally that the opinions of Séguenot did not represent those of the Oratory. Richelieu nevertheless had Séguenot arrested, at the time of Saint-Cyran’s arrest. It was alleged that the former had been led astray by the latter. Condren’s contention to this effect at any rate had alerted Richelieu to the dangerous views of Saint-Cyran. The later leader of the Jansenists, Antoine Arnauld, in his Quatrième dénonciation published in Paris in 1690, argued that Richelieu’s treatment of Séguenot was also influenced by his anger over the short tenure by the Jesuit Caussin of the position of royal confessor. For in this Jansenist tradition Caussin, though a Jesuit, had not only braved the wrath of the cardinal over policy direction but had also angered him by supposedly denying the sufficiency of Attrition, in such a way moreover as to have endangered the cardinal’s own influence over the king. In reality there was certainly a breach between Condren and Saint-Cyran by 1636, whereas the breach between the latter and Gibieuf dated from the crisis over Bérulle’s succession. Condren undoubtedly insisted on fidelity to the Tridentine decrees on penance, while suspicion that Saint-Cyran was critical of the Council of Trent may not have been unfounded. Gibieuf’s view was that even Saint-Cyran’s pseudonymous Petrus Aurelius (1631), in defence of Gallican episcopal claims, concealed a private antipathy to the authority of bishops. Saint-Cyran was enraged by the Jesuit Sirmond’s claim to be following in the tradition of Gallican erudition, once again, with his reference to Nicolas Le Fèvre in the Jesuit’s dedication to Louis XIII of his 1629 edition of the Concilia antiqua Galliae. When the Augustinus of Jansenius finally and posthumously appeared, on the other hand, it included, among so much else, some element of agreement with Gibieuf (arguably where the latter was reflecting more nearly Condren’s views than those of Bérulle himself) but also implicit repudiation of some of his terminology (again with an implication for some of Condren’s positions). Jean Eudes, another dévot who proceeded to found his own congregation in support of Catholic reform within France and was perfectly sympathetic to the Jesuits there, made his plan to abandon his membership of the

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Oratory in 1642, in a context where Oratorian association with PortRoyal was already apparent.8 Zamet and the ‘Secret Chaplet’ Sébastien Zamet, bishop of Langres, was a dévot associated with the early history of Port-Royal. But at Sens, where as already noted there were difficulties concerning the Carmelite nuns, Zamet as well as Bérulle became involved. The nuns, regarding themselves as subject to the archbishop of Sens, Octave de Bellegarde, objected when Zamet attempted to remove from their convent the sub-prioress, Soeur Marie de Jésus. Zamet wished to transfer her to be at the head of a new Parisian congregation which he had founded, and which would in 1638 be reintegrated into the monastery of Port-Royal. This Institut du Saint-Sacrement was to be dedicated to perpetual adoration of the Eucharist, under the supervision of Mère Angélique Arnauld, the Port-Royal superior. The nuns of Sens alerted Bérulle, in his role as superior of the Reformed Carmelite nuns in France, who imposed harsh punishment on the sub-prioress, by which Zamet was understandably offended. The episode however alerted the archbishop to the continued existence of a text – 16 meditations on the Eucharist, composed in 1627 – for which he himself might formally be regarded as having become responsible, since Zamet and he and Archbishop Gondi of Paris were supposed jointly to govern the Institute. This was the ‘Chapelet secret du Saint-Sacrement’. In founding his new congregation Zamet had consulted the Oratorians Condren and Séguenot, and the former, like Zamet, had given his approval to the text too. But the reappearance of this devotional composition by Mère Agnès Arnauld of Port-Royal, despite that initial approval, now allowed the archbishop of Sens to demonstrate his resentment of Zamet’s dominance over the Institute. He ensured the text came to the attention of the Jesuit Etienne Binet, who had been an early advisor of the Port-Royal community. The Jesuit thought the composition contained doctrinal error, though eventually Rome, on the archbishop’s intervention, issued orders for its suppression rather than formally condemning it. Binet instigated an examination of the text by doctors of the Sorbonne, eight of whom condemned it. 8   Levi, pp. 138–9, 204–6; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 56–7, 62–5; Orcibal, Jansénius d’Ypres, p. 287; Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 295, 301–2; Laferrière, pp. 164–7, 183; Blet, Le Clergé, I, 305; P. Milcent, Un artisan du renouveau chrétien au XVIIe siècle: Saint Jean Eudes (Paris, 1985), pp. 114–15, 130–31; Jaccard, pp. 131–2, 257; Cloyseault, p. 258; Turrini, 405, 407 and nn.; Fumaroli, ‘Temps de croissance’, pp. 156–7; Armogathe, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, pp. 370–71.

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This all agreed with the position of the archbishop of Sens, who seemed conveniently oblivious of his own nominal responsibility and, having encouraged Carmelite hostility to the text and criticized Zamet, ensured publication of the condemnation, together with hostile ‘Remarques’ on the text, apparently by Binet. Saint-Cyran intervened, following his obtaining of a positive if cautious expression of opinion by Louvain theologians, Jansenius among them, in 1633, composing in 1634 his own ‘Réponse aux remarques contre le Chapelet’. Séguenot had also tried to defend the text, aware, like Saint-Cyran, of its reflection of Condren’s spirituality as well as of Zamet’s piety; but his ‘Elévation à Jésus-Christ au très saint sacrement’ was in turn attacked by Binet in the Jesuit’s ‘Examen d’une Apologie pour le chapelet secret’. Saint-Cyran then replied to Binet in 1634 in his ‘Réfutation d’un examen’, but there was a Jesuit response, in 1635, ‘Discussion sommaire d’un livre intitulé “Le Chapelet”’. Richelieu gave his support to the self-exculpatory, hostile stance of the archbishop of Sens, despite the fact that the archbishop was ultramontane to a perhaps inconvenient degree. During all this, in 1634, Zamet thought to resign his own bishopric and join the Oratory, but was blocked by Condren’s rejection of the idea. Jansenius was necessarily aware of the confrontation between Saint-Cyran and the Jesuits. At the end of 1633 Cardinal Bichi reported to Rome from Paris that the ‘war’ of publications over the ‘Chapelet’ threatened to become as serious as had been that over ecclesiastical authority in England (typified by the Petrus Aurelius). He had tried to deal with the situation by stating publicly that he had papal orders to suppress the devotion, the policy he was indeed implementing. But writers on both sides regarded it as legitimate to keep up their controversy, in the absence of a published official condemnation. New writers joined in the controversy, while the reply to Binet’s censure of the ‘Chapelet’ had indeed provoked a further response in turn. The archbishop of Sens, he added, suggested a new papal brief, giving the archbishop of Paris oversight of the community specifically as Apostolic Delegate, with himself as Co-Visitor for his own lifetime only, while he would help his Parisian colleague to draft a new permanent constitution. This might thus preserve the honour of the archbishop of Sens in the whole wretched affair.9 9

  Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome [BAV], Barb. Lat. 8103, fols 49r–50v, 6 Dec. 1633: Nuncio in France to Cardinal Barberini; Levi, pp. 138–9; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 62– 3; Laferrière, pp. 115, 123, 125, 166–7; Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 312, 314–15, 428; Jaccard, pp. 132, 240, 259–60; H. Bremond, Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France (12 vols, Paris, 1916–36), vol. IV, pp. 202–11; cf. analysis of the distance of the ‘Chapelet’ from the real positions of Condren or Bérulle himself, as from any true ‘Augustinianism’, in J.-R. Armogathe, ‘Le Chapelet Secret de Mère Agnès Arnauld’, XVIIe siècle, 170 (1991): 77–86. The account of the ‘Chapelet’ by Godefroi Hermant can be found chiefly in his Mémoires sur l’histoire ecclésiastique du XVIIe siècle (1630–1663), ed. A.

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Competition for Influence at Port-Royal At an early date, prior to Zamet’s involvement, one of the confessors and spiritual directors of the nuns of Port-Royal was the Jesuit Jean Suffren, at other stages in his career confessor to Marie de’ Medici and Louis XIII. It was also the Jesuit Etienne Binet who had advised the reforming superior of the community, Angélique Arnauld, to establish a Parisian house as a convent additional to Port-Royal des Champs near the city. The Paris Port-Royal convent began life in 1625. Initially then Port-Royal seemed in no way opposed to Jesuit influence. But from 1626 Oratorian rather more than Jesuit influence began to be felt, after Mère Angélique invited Zamet to take charge of the community’s spiritual direction, which he did from 1625. He in turn introduced Saint-Cyran, to whom he was grateful for his Apologia for the ‘Chapelet secret’, as a spiritual director, from 1634, originally at the Institut du Saint-Sacrement. This was indicative of the bishop’s initial esteem for a man he thought might be a worthy successor in his own bishopric. Similarly, the dévot milieu originally shared by so many important figures zealous for internal Catholic reform in France was indicated by the involvement in the founding of the quintessentially dévot organization, the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement of Suffren, Zamet and Condren, among others. That tensions could arise in such circles, however, was shown by the displeasure of Père Joseph when Saint-Cyran began to exercise an influence on the female religious whom the Capuchin promoted, the Filles du Calvaire. This influence was evident in the community at Poitiers (a place where Condren encountered Saint-Cyran as well as Père Joseph) and also, for a while, in that at Paris. So too Zamet came to deplore the influence of Saint-Cyran which he himself had thus introduced to Port-Royal itself, and withdrew from his own involvement there after 1636. The ubiquitous Basque was thus evolving from being the common link between so many of the dévots to being a cause and sign of division, as eventually between himself and Condren too from 1636. Furthermore, as has been seen, Saint-Cyran was identified, as Port-Royal originally (as opposed to some of the Arnauld family) was not, with confrontation with the Society of Jesus.10 Even after Richelieu’s Gazier (Paris, 1905), vol. I, pp. 37–41; it is vital to note that this contemporary source is striking as much for its criticism of Richelieu, especially in his treatment of the Sorbonne, as for its evidently favourable defence of Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal. 10  Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, p. 428; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 54–5; Laferrière, pp. 111–12; Jaccard, pp. 70, 80, 82–3, 104, 133–4; Blond, p. 102; L. Châtellier, The Europe of the Devout. The Catholic Reformation and the Formation of a New Society (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 155–6; R. Allier, La Cabale des Dévots 1627–1666 (Paris, 1902), p. 37; R. Allier, Une société secrète au XVIIe siècle. La compagnie du Très-Saint-Sacrement de l’Autel à Toulouse (Paris, 1914), p.81; J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change

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arrest of Saint-Cyran, the latter was able to continue indirectly to influence the Port-Royal community because of the presence there as confessor of his protégé, Antoine Singlin. At Port-Royal itself there was some belief that the distancing of Jesuits like Binet and Suffren from the convent, as Bérulle and Condren began to have influence there, was affected by Suffren’s sense of betrayal when the French Oratorians, whom he had at first defended against the hostility of fellow Jesuits, extended their activity to college teaching, contrary, he believed, to their promises to him. Certainly the gaining of Roman approval for Zamet’s project, the Institut du Saint-Sacrement, was aided by Oratorians, as Bérulle involved both Claude Bertin and Condren. Once the Institut was operative, from 1633, those frequenting it included not only Oratorians but also dévot members of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, itself still relatively new (1627) and at first officially linked to the Institut. Bérulle himself however had not favoured the creation of the Parisian house of Port-Royal, and came to disapprove of the way in which the Institut began to evolve. The defence by Saint-Cyran of the ‘Chapelet secret’ was instigated by Zamet, but publication of Séguenot’s ‘Elévation’ was organized by Condren without the prior knowledge of the author of the already circulating manuscript. It was reprinted alongside an anonymous treatment of the ‘Chapelet’, in fact by Saint-Cyran, in 1635. But an initial print, believed to exist from 1633, was what Séguenot claimed, to the Jesuit Binet, had been issued without his knowledge.11 The instability of personal relations in such circles was indeed suggested by Condren’s allegation, in 1637, that François-Etienne de Caulet, subsequently something of a Jansenist hero, was critical of his own spiritual director, none other than Saint-Cyran himself.12 The French Jesuits to the Time of the First Century At the beginning of the decade leading to the conspicuously splendid celebrations of the First Century of the Society of Jesus, to be held in 1640, the mood of the Jesuits in France at least seemed far from confident. The years preceding that decade caused the Jesuit François Garasse to write a somewhat hysterical account of the ‘persecutions’ suffered by the Society in France, 1580–1730 (New Haven-London, 2009), pp. 377, 398; cf. F. Ellen Weaver, The Evolution of the Reform of Port-Royal. From the Rule of Cîteaux to Jansenism (Paris, 1978), pp. 62–3. 11   J. Lesaulnier, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, in Chroniques de Port-Royal, 50: Port-Royal et l’Oratoire (Paris, 2001), pp. 7–45: pp. 10–13, 16–19, 23, 25; J.-R. Armogathe, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, ibid., pp. 367–81: pp. 369, 373. 12   Lesaulnier, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, p. 27.

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in France between 1624 and 1626. In his view these were caused not only by the attribution to Jesuits of writings, published in Germany and the Netherlands, which criticized French policy over the Valtelline in 1624. The legation to France of Cardinal Barberini with a Jesuit who was already a controversial figure in French eyes, Eudaemon-Ioannes, prominently in his entourage, in 1625, Garasse saw as an occasion for renewed Parisian opposition to the educational activities of the Society and for revival of the allegation that Jesuits defended regicide.13 The perspective of Garasse was perhaps partly affected by the fate of his own publications, attacked by critics who, by 1626, included Saint-Cyran.14 His early compositions were written to oppose Calvinism and the allegedly dangerous spread of ‘atheism’, but he also wrote to advance the Society of Jesus and confront Gallicans, publishing by 1622 his Recherche des Recherches et autres oeuvres de M. Etienne Pasquier. His major work, the Somme théologique of 1625, was attacked by Saint-Cyran in the Somme des Fautes of 1626, which some Jesuits wrongly attributed to Jansenius. The former work was also condemned in 1626, after much manoeuvring, involving the French regular clergy and the papacy, by the Sorbonne for its attack on Pasquier, a Gallican defender of its rights. Garasse indeed claimed that wider attack in 1625 on the rights claimed by the regulars within France, particularly over their roles as preachers and confessors, was not fortuitous but part of a concerted programme. The conflict between bishops and regulars in France was certainly going to recur, in a prolonged controversy between 1630 and 1638. But in the immediate term Saint-Cyran continued his attack on Garasse’s publication in two further works, Réfutation de l’abus prétendu de la découverte de la véritable ignorance et vanité du P. François Garasse and Avis à tous les savants et amateurs de la vérité touchant la réfutation de la somme du P. Garasse. Saint-Cyran was careful to eulogize Richelieu, but Garasse was sent by his superiors to Poitiers, where he died in 1631 in loyal service to the plague-afflicted. Yet Jansenius failed in his own proposition that the Louvain theologians should match the Sorbonne condemnation of Garasse by something similar. Jansenius had himself joined the anti-Jesuit campaign in Louvain, in the educational confrontations there in 1624 and in 1626, 13  H. Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought. The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 1540–1630 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 61, 317, 328, 330, 332. 14   ARSI, Francia 32a: Recit au vrai des persecutions soulevées contre les PP. de la Comp. e de Jesus dans la ville de Paris l’an 1624, 25, 26. Par le P. Garassus de la meme Comp.e [no pagination or foliation]; cf. A. Carayon (ed.), Documents inédits concernant la Compagnie de Jésus, 3 (Poitiers, 1864), 1–234; R. Bireley, The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War. Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 71–2; Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 260, 266–7; H. Fouqueray, SJ, Histoire de la compagnie de Jésus en France des origines à la suppression (5 vols, Paris, 1910–25), vol. IV, pp. 102–3.

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en route to seek support for this position in the Spanish Netherlands conflict from the Spanish universities themselves, he visited Paris. However in 1626–27, during a new controversy in France over the publication of an Italian Jesuit, Santarelli, the Louvain theologians had disapproved of the condemnation issued on this occasion by the Sorbonne, and Jansenius shared this caution on the grounds that the Sorbonne had improperly attacked legitimate papal authority. Indeed he ensured publication of a work against the Sorbonne’s censure, the Averruncus, which his colleague Fabricius had written at the request of the nuncio, and Saint-Cyran helped too. On the other hand, when the Sorbonne censured propositions contained in An Apology of the Holy See, by the pseudonymous ‘Daniel of Jesus’ (in fact the Jesuit John Floyd), it was the English secular cleric and Douai professor, Richard Smith, who sought in 1631 a parallel condemnation from Louvain, only to be blocked by the nuncio in the Netherlands. The University of Paris hoped for Louvain’s support against an attack on Smith in Floyd’s work the Spongia, and Jansenius feared that Roman authority was not adequately curtailing Jesuit subversion of episcopal authority. This was how Jansenius became involved in the controversy over leadership of the English Catholic community and the defence of Smith against the English Jesuits, in which appeared another work which excited public attention, the Petrus Aurelius. Later still, in 1636, the French Jesuits still felt themselves obliged to deny specifically that they had published works attacking episcopal office and authority.15 The development of French policy by Richelieu, especially by 1630, also affected the position of the Jesuits in France itself. Once Suffren was the French king’s confessor he became involved in correspondence with William Lamormaini, Jesuit confessor to the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand, which revealed something far from fraternal harmony. In particular a letter of 1630, intended as a response to Lamormaini, showed Suffren to be entirely supportive of France’s entry into the Mantuan Succession war and critical of imperial intervention. The emperor, in Suffren’s view, should concentrate on confronting German heresy rather 15

  C. Chesneau, Le Père Yves de Paris et son temps (1581–1638) (2 vols, Paris, 1946), vol. I, La querelle des évêques et des réguliers (1630–1638), pp. 69–71, 120; Jaccard, pp. 239, 249, 252–3, 255, 257; Orcibal, Jansénius d’Ypres, pp. 165–8, 209, 303; Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 260, 266–7, 281; Orcibal, ‘Jansénius et Rome’, in Actes du Colloque sur le Jansénisme [1973] (Louvain, 1977), pp. 27–45: pp. 30–31; Blet, Le clergé, vol. I, p. 305; Meyer, pp. 360–62; V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme politique et le clergé de France (Paris, 1929), pp. 163–239; R. Zuber, ‘Libertinage et humanisme: une rencontre difficile’, XVIIe siècle, 127 (1980): 163–79: p. 171, n. 32. Despite Jesuit opposition to Richard Smith, he was not only a protégé but also a theological advisor of Richelieu during the 1630s: S.-M. Morgain, ‘Une grande oeuvre théologique de Richelieu: “La méthode la plus facile et la plus assurée pour convertir ceux qui se sont séparés de l’Eglise” ’, ibid., 230 (2006): 131–49: p. 138.

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than risking its spread into Italy. His duty, it was asserted, was to enforce the recent Edict of Restitution, finally issued by the emperor in 1629.16 It hardly helped, in this context, that in Germany another Jesuit, Paul Laymann, encouraged the Edict’s demand for the surrender of ex-monastic property by public support for Lamormaini’s view that this represented an opportunity for specifically Jesuit expansion. Despite papal calls for silence on the matter, Laymann published in 1629 an anonymous but intransigent Pacis compositio, while Lamormaini was organizing other theologians to support imperial intervention in the Mantuan war, but was blamed by the Spanish for criticizing their own involvement in it.17 Within France, in 1629, the Jesuit Jacques Sirmond attracted generally favourable notice when he dedicated to Louis XIII his Concilia antiqua Galliae. Vitelleschi readily agreed then that Sirmond remain in France, as the king wished. But doctrinal controversy continued to be a permanent prospect for the Society, especially the Jesuits in France. In 1631 appeared one of Sirmond’s several publications on the increasingly contested interpretation of Augustine. From the summer of 1629 to that of 1630 Suffren constantly represented Richelieu as the one sure saviour of France itself. Suffren’s own spiritual care of the king, when Louis fell dangerously ill in summer 1630, was certainly compatible with his exact performance of his duties as royal confessor, not deviating from Father General Acquaviva’s rules of 1602 for court confessors.18 But in fact Jesuit confessors could not control the possibility of approaches to them by third parties seeking their intervention. Thus when in 1630 the king and Richelieu renewed French intervention in Northern Italy, and Louis was seeking new financial support from the French clergy, the pro-Jesuit Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld intervened with Suffren to seek respite from this royal pressure on the French Church. Moreover when Louis and the Queen Mother remained 16   ARSI, Francia 33, I–II: Historia Provinciae Franciae SJ [1630–1655], fols 22r–23v, 9 Jan. 1630: Copie d’une lettre au nom du P. Suffren pour response a celle du confesseur de l’Empereur; cf. Lugdunensis 5, Epistulae Generalium 1623–32, fol. 634v, 17 Apr. 1632: Vitelleschi to P. Pierre Monod, Turin; cf. A. Wild and A. Victorine (eds), Les papiers de Richelieu: Correspondance et papiers d’état: Section politique extérieur, empire allemand, I (Paris, 1982), pp. 586–9; Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 101–4 and n. 9. 17  Turrini, 398–400; cf. R. Bireley, ‘The Origins of the Pacis Compositio (1629): a text of Paul Laymann S.J.’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 42 (1973): 106–27. 18   ARSI, Francia 45, I, Necrologia, fols 190v–193v: Patris Ioannis Suffren; fols 258r– 259v: Elogium p. Iacobi Sirmondi Soc. Iesu; Gallia 46, I–II, Epistolae General. Ad Externos 1613–47/72, fols 120v–121r, 23 Sept. 1629: to Richelieu; P. Blet, ‘Jésuites Gallicans au XVIIe siècle? A propos de l’ouvrage du P. Guitton sur le P. de La Chaize’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 29 (1960): 55–84: p. 71; Turrini, 397 and n. 32; A.D. Wright, ‘The ghostly after-life of Bartolomé Carranza’, in J. Edwards and R. Truman (eds), Reforming Catholicism in the England of Mary Tudor. The Achievement of Friar Bartolomé Carranza (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 173–6: p. 173.

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essentially at odds, after Richelieu’s triumph over her in late 1630 in the so-called ‘Day of the Dupes’, Suffren was expected by Vitelleschi to do his best in the absence of a reconciliation, but above all not to risk alienating the cardinal. Thus in the end Suffren remained as confessor to Marie de’ Medici and was in due course replaced as confessor to the king. He shared the Queen Mother’s peripatetic exile and died in her entourage, in 1641, as she left England to return to the continent of Europe.19 By then the Society was of course once again at the centre of doctrinal controversy. In 1632 it still seemed to Vitelleschi that new publications by Jesuits on the divine ‘Scientia media’ proposed by the Jesuit theologian Molina could not easily be seen to abide by the renewed prohibition, by Urban VIII, of any reopening of the dispute De Auxiliis. He had already urged in 1629 that publications on this topic should not continue within papal territory at least, as at Avignon. Within the kingdom of France papal goodwill towards the Society was more necessary than ever that year, as hostility at the royal court was reported, to a supposedly excessive expansion of Jesuit foundations, which Suffren would have to counter. With a view to what occurred subsequently, in 1631, at the peaceful incorporation of the duchy of Urbino into the papal states, Richelieu drew Urban’s attention, in 1629, to the need for cooperation with France in the Italian peninsula, still so subject to Habsburg demands. The pope’s immediate concerns, in the face of war in the peninsula, were expressed that year by a Bull of Jubilee invoking divine protection against famine, plague and war. The cardinal astutely arranged, by the end of the year, that Edmond Richer, the proponent of a particular (‘Presbyterian’) strand of Gallicanism, should publish a recantation of his views (which were also, in fact, disapproved of by Jansenius).20 Papal hopes had, more generally, been to avert Franco-Habsburg confrontation in Italy, extending instead, even in 1628, to envisage a Franco-Spanish Catholic League not just against French Huguenots but against Protestant England too. In fact Venetian diplomacy intervened, to 19

  ARSI, Francia 47, Epistolae [Ad Generalem] (1605–1653), no. 84, 11 Jan. 1631; no. 86, 1 Aug. 1631: from Suffren; Gallia 64, Documents [ARSI quae ad tempus manserunt in archivo Prov. Lugdunensis], fols 66r–67r, 28 June [1629]: Copie de la lettre du R.P. Suffren; Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 78–9; cf. Blet, ‘Jésuites Gallicans’, p. 67; Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 98–9, 114–22; Cloyseault, p. 226 and n. 1. 20   ARSI, Lugdunensis 5, fol. 571v, 14 June 1629: to P. Stephano Bineto, Lyon; fol. 572r, 14 June 1629: to P. Stephano Guyon, Avignon; fol. 572v, 14 June 1629: to P. Claudius Donyol, Avignon; fols 574v–575r, 28 July 1629: to Guyon; fols 575r–v, 28 July 1629: to Binet; fols 577r–v, 8 Sept. 1629: to Binet; fol. 579v, 24 Oct. to Binet at Dôle; Lugdunensis 6, fol. 4r, 18 Sept. 1632: to Filleau; L. von Pastor, The History of the Popes (40 vols, London, 1891–1953), vol. XXVIII, p. 231; cf. pp. 58–61; 240, 243; Martin, Gallicanisme politique, pp. 251–61.

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facilitate an Anglo-French peace, interrupting any Franco-Spanish project against England. Nevertheless the Anglo-French peace was made part of the Capuchin Père Joseph’s own projects, though that was at the expense of Bérulle’s priority of avoiding French confrontation with Catholic Spain in Italy.21 The peace also proved the prelude to the nearly complete substitution of Capuchins for Oratorians in the service of Henrietta Maria at the English court – a substitution which in fact fitted well with the diplomatic role of other Capuchin friars in Europe at this time. Garasse had a particular, and not evidently charitable, slant on the noninvolvement of Jesuits in the suite of Henrietta Maria. Their exclusion, which he attributed to enemies of the Society, had at least meant that they could not be blamed for the breakdown of relations between England and France. Some of the French Oratorians who had formed her initial chapel when she went to England, he noted, had come to grief in various ways.22 The larger concerns of papal policy, on the other hand, had to focus in 1629 on the possibility of Richelieu’s disturbing the Italian peninsula in yet another way: by a plan to encourage the Duke of Savoy, too involved with Spain in the Mantuan contest for France’s interests, to take hostile action against Spain’s other north Italian partner, the Republic of Genoa. While Père Joseph remained involved in French policy formation, though, his interventions might at times at least prove compatible with papal policy. From 1631 he was among those working with the major papal initiative to bring about peace, not just in Italy, between the two Catholic powers of France and the Habsburgs.23 Richelieu had warned the Jesuits in France in 1625, at the time when the cardinal chose Suffren as the king’s confessor, to avoid bad relations with bishops or with other, older religious orders. In fact rivalry with the new foundation of the Oratory led to Jesuit obstruction of Oratorian houses at Poitiers and Bourges, and Jesuits and Oratorians also clashed at Orléans and Dieppe.24 The cardinal warned the French Jesuits above all not to seem to threaten subversion of the monarchy. Yet immediately after this just such trouble arose, following the 1626 publication by the Italian Jesuit Santarelli of his views on papal power to depose rulers. Not for the 21

  G. Lutz, Kardinal Giovanni Francesco Guidi di Bagno. Politik und Religion im Zeitalter Richelieus und Urbans VIII. (Tübingen, 1971), pp. 313, 315, 334–5; cf. 345; 348– 9; W.B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge, 1997), p. 157. 22   ARSI, Francia 32a: Recit au vrai; cf. M.C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England. Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 421, 428; Lutz, pp. 387, 399, 403–405. 23   Lutz, pp. 440–41, 510–15. 24  Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, pp. 252–3; Ferrier, ‘L’image’, pp. 54–7; Blond, pp. 83–4.

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first time there was an attempt to impose on the French Jesuits, on pain of exile, a formal declaration that the king could never be deposed by a pope for any reason, even heresy. Richelieu underlined the Jesuits’ dependence on him by substituting a formula which eventually both the French Jesuits and their critics were forced to accept, whatever Rome’s concerns that the Jesuits had compromised too much. They, however, promised the cardinal a refutation of Santarelli and also a disavowal of the two pamphlets of a pro-Habsburg nature, attributed to Jesuit authorship, critical of French policy. This was when the Jesuit Rabardeau produced his defence of that policy. At Louvain the university theologians disapproved of the censure of Santarelli’s work which the Paris theological faculty was for some time attempting to insist must be accepted by all, Jesuits included, and Jansenius himself shared the Louvain reserve, as already noted. At this date SaintCyran also took the same line, while Bérulle’s chief concern, at the Oratory, was to reassert his own ultramontane position and avoid any suggestions that he was anti-Jesuit.25 When Richelieu sought, as noted, financial support from the French clergy for his contested foreign policy initiatives Rabardeau provided legitimization for the demand. Subsequently, in 1640, when critics of the cardinal were alleging that he was contemplating schism between the French Church and Rome and aiming for a role as patriarch of a Gallican Church, Rabardeau again came to his defence, in a publication of 1641. The papal nuncio ensured that this was placed on the Roman Index. But ultramontane opinion in France was itself scandalized by a similar publication in the same year by another Jesuit, Louis Cellot, despite its dedication to Urban VIII. Cellot’s work precociously distinguished the different powers exercised by a pope in his distinct roles as bishop of Rome, patriarch of the West and supreme pontiff. The way in which the argument was developed was unmistakeably Gallican however. But Cellot’s real aim, even at this date, was to defend the regulars in France, Jesuits included, against Gallican episcopalist attack of the sort which had reached a public climax in Saint-Cyran’s pseudonymous Petrus Aurelius.26 25

  Recueil des Instructions … Nonces Ordinaires, pp. 105–108, 115: Barberini to Guido di Bagno, 1627; Orcibal, Jansénius d’Ypres, pp. 165–6, 209, 303; Orcibal, Les origines, vol. II, p. 281; Orcibal, ‘Jansénius et Rome’, pp. 30–31: Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 85–7; Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 72–5; Blet, ‘Jésuites Gallicans’, pp. 59–60, 65; Blond, p. 84; Martin, Gallicanisme politique, pp. 201–9, 214–22, 240–44; Krumenacker, p. 143. 26   Censura Librorum qui superioribus annis in lucem prodierunt. Authoribus Michaële Rabardeo … è Societate Iesu [s.l.] (MDCXLIII), pp. [3–]6, [13–15]; Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 456, 467, 479, 508, 557: Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 11, 25 Jan., 20 May 1641, nos 635, 650, 812; Barberini to Scotti, 14 Feb., 20 Mar. 1641, nos 668, 720: Scotti had been alerted by the ultramontane François Hallier of the Sorbonne to the dangers of Cellot’s De hierarchia et hierarchis (Rouen, in-folio 1641). This publication of the Jesuit rector at Rouen had been permitted by the Jesuit Provincial, who belatedly agreed that Cellot would need to

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That text of 1631 reflected criticism of supposed Jesuit subversion of proper leadership of the Catholic communities and the secular clergy in the difficult circumstances of England and the Dutch Netherlands. But troubles undoubtedly continued within France itself. By 1635 the archbishop of Rouen, Harlay de Champvallon, had initially seemed to obtain Roman support for his stance on the laity’s performance of their Paschal Obligation, relative to regulars’ provision of confession and communion. The Jesuit Ignace Armand revealed his sense of the need to defend the highly Gallican resort of the regulars, including Jesuits, to an appel comme d’abus to the parlement of Normandy, against orders on the matter issued by the archbishop. The most sensitive aspect was that the regulars had temporarily felt it necessary, in order to gain vital time, to interpellate by their appel their own first and second appeals to Rome itself against the archbishop’s commands. When Richelieu’s own manoeuvring in relation to Roman authority came to involve hints about a Gallican patriarchate and a French national Church council he took advice, however, not from a Jesuit but from an Oratorian, the former Huguenot Jean Morin, as well as drawing on the work of Pierre de Marca. Similarly a clearly Gallican work by Pierre and Jacques Dupuy at first received his encouragement. But when the publication was not only denounced by the nuncio but also publicly opposed by French prelates, led by Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, and censored in 1639 by the Assembly of the Clergy, he withdrew his support and made as if to suppress it. As already noted, however, that did not prevent a publication in 1640 alleging schismatic intentions on his part as well as opposing the Dupuy work. Richelieu’s search for episcopal support in these circumstances and encouragement of Rabardeau’s defence could equally not affect the view held, for a while at least, at the nunciature that the French Jesuits were not giving proper support to Rome in all of this. Cellot’s attempt to respond to Petrus Aurelius was attacked by the Assembly of the Clergy and censured by the Sorbonne (despite Richelieu’s favour), and his work was placed on the Roman Index.27 explain himself. Both ultramontanes and other regulars in France had been angered, yet an Assembly of French prelates also resolved to thank the pope for prohibition of works such as Cellot’s which undermined Roman authority. Barberini had agreed the need for Cellot to explain himself, since his difficulties were not the result of unjust persecution by Hallier and others; his book required revision. Cf. Bireley, Jesuits, p. 181; Blet, ‘Jésuites Gallicans’, pp. 67–70; Meyer, pp. 401, 518–19, 542. 27   Censura Librorum, pp. 7–12, [13–15]; Recueil des Instructions … Nonces Ordinaires, pp. 108–109, 178: Barberini to Guido di Bagno, 1627; to Giorgio Bolognetti, 1634, including Capuchin criticism of Jesuit concessions; Fouqueray, Histoire, V, 410–14, 417–20; Blet, ‘Jésuites Gallicans’, pp. 70–80; Chesneau, vol. I, pp. 161, 178–9; Meyer, pp. 67–8, 70–71, 363–4, 452–3, 546. When the archbishop of Rouen finally declared himself reconciled with the local Jesuits, Richelieu was regarded as having helped Roman interests by his intervention with the archbishop: Correspondance … Scotti, p. 347: Scotti to Barberini

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Already in 1631 the tensions between bishops and regulars in France were such that Vitelleschi, as Father General of the Society, aware of the conflicts involving the Reformed Carmelite friars and the disputes over episcopal or quasi-episcopal authority within the English and northern Netherlandish Catholic communities, tempered his welcome for any Jesuit writings which might seem to praise bishops. The rector of the Jesuit college at Paris, Etienne Binet, was warned of the need for even such texts to be checked with care before they were printed. The Society had been damaged by publications, in the course of this controversy, attributed rightly or wrongly to Jesuit authorship; misattribution was particularly a problem with works appearing in the Netherlands. By 1633 Binet was being alerted to the fact that the Provincial, Barthélemy Jacquinot, had failed to inform Vitelleschi adequately about a proposed response to Petrus Aurelius, though Vitelleschi was clear from other Jesuits’ reports about the scandal caused by the whole affair. In 1631 itself, however, the Father General’s view was that Jesuit complaints about false attributions of books published in the Netherlands might only annoy bishops and nuncios all the more. By 1635, when Binet was Provincial, Vitelleschi was warning him about new editions, not only in the Netherlands, of Paul Laymann’s work. His Theologia moralis had first appeared at Munich in 1625, but his subsequent political notoriety meant that for a Parisian edition of this work Binet was to seek deletion of one particular passage. It was not surprising that Vitelleschi was more widely concerned to deter unsuitable Jesuit interventions in political questions, nor that in 1635 from Corbie, 19 Sept. 1640, no. 493. Morin, too, was normally regarded as loyal to Roman interests, by virtue of his assistance to the nuncio; he was brought back to France from Rome, whither he had been summoned at the beginning of 1639 by Urban VIII, as an expert on Church history: ibid., pp. 202–3, 294, 322, 340, 367, 464–5, 499, 606: Scotti to Antonio Feragalli, cypher secretary, from Paris, 2 Dec. 1639; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 20 Apr., 1 June, 6 July, 5 Sept. 1640, 25 Jan., 1 Mar. 1641; final Relation, 5 Apr. 1641, nos 177, 334, 384, 416, 475, 648, 700. As to Pierre de Marca, it had been noted that his plan to treat of the appels comme d’abus in his projected ‘De concordia sacerdotii et imperii, seu de libertatibus ecclesiae gallicanae’ was unlikely to prove helpful from a Roman perspective; it was eventually published in Paris in 1643. There was hope Hallier might have been able to persuade de Marca not to persist with his large volumes, or at least to let him check the text: ibid., pp. 214, 240, 281, 431–2, 470, 498, 522: Barberini to Scotti, 14 Dec. 1639, 27 Jan. 1641, nos 189, 654; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 13 Jan., 23 Mar., 14 Dec. 1640, 1 Mar., 2 Apr., 1641, nos 232, 312, 596, 698, 752. Criticism of an alleged lack of support to and cooperation with the nunciature from the Jesuits in France certainly came to a head at the time of the edition by Pierre Dupuy of the Traitez des libertez de l’Eglise Gallicane, 1639. It was felt at Rome that such French writings only gave scope for Spanish accusations against France in any case: ibid., pp. 214, 240, 243, 283, 313, 315, 317–18, 343, 456, 594, 606: Barberini to Scotti, 14 Dec. 1639, 21 May, 9 July 1640, nos 189, 370, 372, 422; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 13, 20 Jan., 30 Mar., 6 Apr., 23 May 1640, 11 Jan. 1641, final Relation, 5 Apr. 1641, nos 232, 236, 314, 322, 375, 635.

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he was specifically displeased by Jesuit involvement in the appel to the parlement of Normandy. More positive reaction, in 1634 and 1635, was possible over the continued goodwill towards the Society, not only in France, of Cardinals Richelieu and de La Rochefoucauld and of the garde des sceaux. Such favour mattered when questions arose, like that of adjusting arrangements over administration of sacraments and burials, between the Jesuits’ new Parisian church, Saint Louis and the neighbouring parish church of Saint Paul. In French society trouble could so easily erupt, as over a dispute about precedence between ecclesiastics and magistrates which broke out at a typical Jesuit academic occasion, plays and prizegiving at Paris. The notorious investigation of diabolic possession at Loudun was even more problematic. Vitelleschi repeatedly stated that, while the wishes of the king and of Richelieu must be complied with, the involvement of Jesuits as exorcists was unsuitable, and such involvement should be ended as soon as possible and avoided in future. Binet was told to use his best judgement, but it was greatly to be desired that, either via the intervention of the king’s confessor or otherwise, the cardinal could be persuaded to allow the Jesuits to withdraw from their involvement. More generally the generous patronage of Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld was helpful; but on the specific of Jesuit involvement in the exorcism of nuns, the cooperation of the royal confessor should be sought, to ask for Richelieu’s permission at least to substitute at Loudun some other Jesuit for Jean-Joseph Surin. The need to pacify episcopal authority at Bordeaux offended by another Jesuit’s intervention in nuns’ affairs there might seem easier to meet. The royal wish for Jesuits to act as chaplains for the French armies in the Thirty Years’ War posed no problem, in Vitelleschi’s mind, provided they acted in conformity with their normal rule. Given that within France the Society always faced a potential danger from litigation or the fluctuations of court politics, the further promotion of the garde des sceaux was fortunate. Jesuit direction of nuns was, also, potentially problematic, especially where the Carmelite nuns and related clashes with the Oratorians featured; so that a particular Jesuit might be removed from any such direction, but specifically withdrawn from involvement with the Carmelites. The circumstances of war in any case suggested greater care than usual in the deployment of individuals. French government request for the transfer of an individual French Jesuit to Rome would be met, while a Scots Jesuit was to be returned from Paris to Douai in the Netherlands.28 28  ARSI, Francia 5, I–(II), Epistolae Generalium, fols 345r, 348r, 349r, 350r, 412r, 435r–v, 437v–438r, 438r–v, 446r, 452r–v, 453r, 455r–v, 456r–v, 462r–463v, 466v, 468v– 469v, 478r–v, 494r–v, 497r–498r, 500r, 505r–506r, 509r, 531r–532r, 31 May, 2, 9, Aug. 1631, 8 Sept. 1633, 28 Aug., 4 Dec. 1634, 10 Mar., 10, 25 Apr., 23 May, 8, 20, June, 4 July,

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The greatest danger nevertheless, in Vitelleschi’s view, remained inopportune Jesuit publications. Damage rather than benefit to the Society might be caused by some works, such as those of Jean-Etienne Taraut or Georges Fournier. Rigorous judgement within the Society about publishing proposals must not be overridden. In the case of Jacques Sirmond, Jesuit theologians might defend his work from any potential attack. But private or esoteric philosophies should not be published; nor (contrary in fact to evident practice) should works treating Cases of Conscience, casuistry in its pristine sense. In Sirmond’s case the embarrassing attack of a fellow Jesuit, Denys Petau, should be silenced; and Vitelleschi addressed Petau directly.29 Taraut’s historical composition needed prior review, so he must refrain from publication until Vitelleschi had taken a decision based on such internal review. Internal review in the case of Sirmond would take into consideration the opinion of Rabardeau, but the latter was warned against allowing any internal review to receive external publicity. Binet was capable, Vitelleschi judged, of assessing Fournier’s proposed work himself. It was thus a major worry when the Jesuit Etienne Bauny was supposed to have produced a work which failed adequately to support papal jurisdiction on the one hand yet offended the Gallican clergy on the other, even if it was a temporary relief when this seemed not to be the case. All the more reason then that, if Petau or Cellot were to provide a Jesuit response to one critic from within ultramontane circles themselves, they did not adopt a bitter tone liable to stimulate further critics.30 15 Aug., 26 Sept., 8 Nov. 1635, 30 Jan., 5, 19 June, 17 July, 15 Aug., 9 Oct. 1636, 12 Mar. 1637; cf. fols 539r–v, 15 June 1637: to another Jesuit at Paris, the former royal confessor, Gaspar de Séguiran; Fouqueray, Histoire, vol. V, p. 272; Turrini, p. 400; cf. Chesneau, vol. I, pp. 120, 178–9. Pierre Séguier was garde des sceaux from 1633 and chancelier from 1635, after the death of Etienne d’Aligre. See also now R. Briggs, ‘Dubious messengers: Bodin’s daemon, the spirit world and the Sadducees’, in P. Marshall and A. Walsham (eds), Angels in the Early Modern World (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 168–90: 186–7. 29   ARSI, Francia 5, fols 514r–515v, 516r–v, 516v–518r, 2, 16 Dec. 1636. The Patristic editor and Professor of Theology at the Collège de Clermont, Petau, was admired for his learning by Urban VIII and Cardinal Francesco Barberini, though the latter was more reserved about the Jesuit’s capacity for more delicate affairs: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 221–2: Barberini to Scotti, 23 Dec. 1639, no. 201. 30   ARSI, Francia 5, fols 518r–519v, 520r, 520v, 523v–524r, 544r, 545v–546r, 559v– 561r, 1 Jan., 25 Feb., 23 June, 9 July, 8 Oct. 1637; cf. fols 540r–v, 15 June 1637: to Jacques Dinet, rector of the Paris college; cf. Meyer, pp. 364–7, 541, 546. Bauny’s provocation of French clerical opinion, by his Somme des pechez qui se commettent en tous estats (5th edn, Paris, 1639) after his two-volume vernacular study of Cases of Conscience, was followed by Roman condemnation of his works, despite the dedication of one to Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 214, 240, 403, 412, 439, 441, 446, 456, 462, 464–5, 470, 498, 508, 557: Scotti to Feragalli from Paris, 7 Nov. 1640, no. 552; Barberini to Scotti, 14 Dec. 1639, 8 Nov, 24, 29 Dec. 1640, 27 Jan., 20 Mar. 1641, nos 189, 554, 612, 621, 654, 720; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 13 Jan., 16 Nov., 21 Dec. 1640, 11,

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It was little wonder, therefore, that Caussin’s appointment as royal confessor was initially taken by Vitelleschi as a welcome honour for the Society. In congratulating Caussin, the Father General stated that divine providence was at work. But the workings of that providence seemed less well understood at Rome, if Vitelleschi really thought that Richelieu would find an opportunity to pursue peace at this conjuncture. He promised his own support, encouraging Caussin to work, even if with prudence, for the king’s supposed goal in that direction. But when news of Caussin’s disgrace followed so relatively rapidly, it had to be hoped that divine providence would yet bring good to the Society out of its misfortune. Vitelleschi first intended, before second thoughts intervened, to reveal to Gaspar de Séguiran that his own judgement, if it had been sought, would never have been that Caussin was suitable for the post. There was natural relief that, in Sirmond, a Jesuit successor to Caussin had been appointed, with congratulations for the former and a hope that his tenure could obliterate the offence caused by the latter. Royal wishes remained more vital than ever, obviously, and with Sirmond in post the Society might even rise higher in the king’s favour than ever before. To try to ensure this, Vitelleschi approved the exile of Caussin to Brittany and, to demonstrate his own undoubted grief that the king and Richelieu had been offended, the prohibition of preaching or publishing by Caussin and the deprivation of his active or passive vote in the Society, with the restriction of his correspondence. He naturally warned Sirmond against any involvement in political issues. Certainly Sirmond’s promising first steps in office contrasted helpfully with Caussin’s risking further offence to both the king and the cardinal by his refusal to admit his error. Binet, furthermore, should assure Richelieu that Vitelleschi would, if the cardinal wished, silence Caussin’s complaints by having him removed to somewhere beyond the French frontiers. He himself hoped that the intervention with the cardinal of Ignace Armand would also contribute to settling the whole affair. But in this context the general faults of the Jesuits of the province seemed all too evident to the Father General. Theologians of the province seemed to diminish true ecclesiastical jurisdiction by espousing Gallican positions, while proper casuistry was neglected; the dangers to the Society of expounding extravagant opinions should have been obvious from the 18, 25 Jan., 1 Mar., 20 May 1641, nos 232, 566, 609, 635, 644, 648, 698, 812; cf. N. Reinhardt, ‘The King’s Confessor: Changing Images’, in M. Schaich (ed.), Monarchy and Religion. The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford, 2007), pp. 153–85: p. 179. Denys Petau criticized the Jansenists’ ideal of public penance in his publication De la pénitence publique et de la préparation à la communion (Paris, 1644): P. Nelles, ‘Du savant au missionnaire: la doctrine, les moeurs et l’écriture de l’histoire chez les jésuites’, in ‘Les jésuites dans l’Europe savante’, XVIIe siècle, 237 (2007): 669–89: pp. 683, 685–6.

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case of the edition of Laymann’s work. Only the prospective birth of a direct heir to the French throne (affecting of course the position of Gaston d’Orléans in relation to Richelieu as well as the king) promised some consolation to Vitelleschi. He hoped for the safe delivery of a dauphin, given the queen’s appropriate devotions, in the circumstances, to the Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier. The birth in 1638 of the future Louis XIV thus left the French Jesuits in an ambiguous position. On the one hand their potential influence at court and on royal policy had been preserved, despite the disastrous brief tenure by Caussin of the post of royal confessor. Yet on the other that tenure underlined the danger of opposition to nominally royal policy in fact driven by Richelieu.31 Within France such sensitivities were more acute than other, broader concerns of the Society elsewhere; as when in 1631, before Galileo’s case opened, Vitelleschi urged caution about any public teaching by Jesuits on the ‘fluidity’ of the heavens which might seem to reject the conventional notion of the spheres and abandon the Aristotelian doctrine of the Society, feeling it necessary to repeat the point in 1633, as the case ended.32 For the Jesuits in France, then, some of their difficulties can be understood by examining specific problems in greater detail. Jesuit Royal Confessors When Suffren replaced Gaspar de Séguiran as royal confessor in 1625, seemingly at Richelieu’s insistence, Séguiran reportedly stated that the post was one of the most dangerous in Europe. At an earlier date prior to his own appointment, in 1621, Suffren had certainly expressed a general alarm about ‘diabolic’ men whose aim was to stir up dissent and discord. At the end of that year Jean Arnoux had been dismissed from the post, apparently as part of the court manoeuvres by which Louis XIII was being encouraged by some to free himself from the Queen Mother’s dominance. But Arnoux remained a problem for the French Jesuits. In the admittedly hectic account by Garasse of the ‘persecution’ suffered by the Society in France, Arnoux returned to Paris by royal permission, but when he left for Rome this allowed enemies of the Jesuits to allege that he would reveal the king’s secrets to those outside the kingdom. The matter was certainly 31   ARSI, Francia 5, fols 537v–538v, 539r–v, 557r, 565v, 572v, 573r, 574v, 575r, 579r, 580v–581v, 585v, 10 May, 15 June (to P. Gaspar de Séguiran), 16 Sept., 8 Dec. 1637, 6, 20, 21 Feb., 1, 7, Mar. 1638; Recueil des Instructions … Nonces Ordinaires, pp. 187, 199–200: Barberini to Bolognetti, 1634. 32   ARSI, Lugdunensis 5, fol. 608v, 21 Mar. 1631: to P. Claudio Donyol, Avignon; Lugdunensis 6, fol. 11v, 13 Jan. 1633: to P. François Ignatio Cappon, Dôle; fol. 18r, 8 Apr. 1633: to Donyol, Avignon.

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not helped by proof that the former confessor had included comments on political and court affairs in letters to a young man. In Garasse’s version of events, moreover, the proposal that one Jesuit should, exceptionally, be allowed to be among the clerics accompanying Henrietta Maria to England, on the grounds that the former confessor of Henri IV, Coton, would be welcomed by Charles Stuart, was a device to remove him from France which was only thwarted by the perspicacity of the Father General. By 1626 Suffren, fully aware of the continuing importance of relations between the king, the Queen Mother and Gaston d’Orléans, nevertheless reported, as confessor at the royal court, that the king himself seemed willing to defend the Society where necessary. Though there certainly remained difficulties after the English marriage, Henrietta Maria’s chief chaplain, the bishop of Mende, was believed to be doing what he could to help the English Jesuits at least. When in 1631 Suffren ceased to be the king’s confessor, remaining in that role with Marie de’ Medici, Richelieu preserved the Jesuit succession in the former post by appointing Charles Maillan, who, Vitelleschi thought, was sure to prove satisfactory. As the Society’s Necrology of him recorded, his preaching had appealed both to Richelieu and to the cardinal’s brother, while in his role as royal confessor he did indeed manage to avoid absolutely involvement in political issues. At his death in 1635 Richelieu appointed a Scots Jesuit, James Gordon, who was hampered in his role not only by reason of old age but also by virtue of associated deafness. When illness forced Gordon’s retirement early in 1637, the troubled months of Caussin’s tenure followed. Sirmond, as successor, understandably professed his hope to perform the role to the benefit of the Society. At least initially he was reported as residing at the Parisian Jesuit Collège de Clermont, and better times might seem to promise, within France and without, as Petau dedicated his translation of psalms to the pope. Jacques Dinet replaced the aged Sirmond in the last months of the king’s life, in 1643, having been involved two years earlier in a mysterious plan to send Séguiran away from Paris for a while. While the 1641 Necrologies of Suffren and Gordon depicted them as acting very much as Maillan had done, in the case of the Scot his theological writings were also mentioned. The equivalent record for Dinet, in 1653, admitted that his role as confessor to both Louis XIII and the heir to the throne had been brief. Rather similarly, the sending away from Paris, in 1631, of the former confessor Arnoux took place despite what was represented at that date to be the continuing favour of both the king and Richelieu, though in fact it seems more probably connected to the cardinal’s continuing Suffren

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in the role of confessor to Marie de’ Medici while excluding him from that of confessor to the king.33 Of course Richelieu did more generally remain favourable to the Society in France, as with help in 1630 over the foundation of a new Jesuit college. A Jesuit, newly returned to the kingdom, who was sent to pay his respects to the cardinal on this occasion was, the next year, brought up to Paris from the Jesuit province of Aquitaine, based on Lyon, at the request of Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld. This indicated the Society’s gratitude to that other cardinal for his favour too, which was now more necessary than ever as it faced its ‘enemies’.34 The eventual Necrology, in 1649, of Etienne Bauny recorded him, among other things, as having been confessor to La Rochefoucauld.35 Richelieu’s chaplain, Des Chambres, was another acknowledged patron of the Society, who proposed some form of financial relief for the under-resourced operations of the Jesuits in Scotland. But gratitude for this could not extend to granting him the services of Father Seton for some enterprise of his own. The political delicacy of the times, it was implied, would not permit, and he was already destined to be head of

33   ARSI, Gallia 71, fol. 66r, 9 Feb. 1621: Suffren to Vitelleschi; fols 73r–v, 75r, 26 Mar., 8 Oct. 1626: Suffren to Vitelleschi; Gallia 46, fol. 123r, 20 Apr. 1630: Vitelleschi to Richelieu; fol. 129v, 31 May 1631: Vitelleschi to Richelieu; Francia 47, no. 87, 14 Aug. 1631: Arnoux to Vitelleschi; Francia 33, fols 150r–v: Literae Annuae; Francia 45, fols 161r–162r: Necrologia (1635); Francia 33, fols 175v–176v: Literae Annuae (1637); Francia 47, no. 110, 29 Dec. 1637: Sirmond to Vitelleschi; Gallia 41, fol. 193v, 2 Sept. 1641: Vitelleschi to Dinet; Francia 45, fols 190v–193v, 195r–v, 210r: Necrologia (1641/49); Francia 47, no. 120, 27 Mar. 1643: Dinet to Vitelleschi; Francia 45, fol. 288r: Necrologia (1653); Francia 32a: Recit au vrai. The aged Sirmond, though admired at Rome for his learning to some degree, was the object of criticism there and at the Paris nunciature for his failure to support Roman policy or speak frankly to the king. His alleged quasi-heretical remarks to the king in one instance led to discussion of whether senility or an ill-considered display of learning might be involved; in fact intrigue by the Jesuit Joseph Coppone might be thought equally involved: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 155, 181–2, 187, 214, 221–2, 243, 317–18: Barberini to Scotti, 14, 23 Dec. 1639, nos 189, 201; Scotti to Barberini from Grenoble, 28 Sept. 1639, from Lyon, 26 Oct. 1639, from Paris, 11 Nov 1639, 20 Jan., 23 May 1640, nos 96, 141, 143, 154, 236, 375; Reinhardt, pp. 153–85. See also now J. Bergin, ‘The royal confessor and his rivals in seventeenth-century France’, French History, XXI, ii (2007), 187–204: pp. 189–91 for the context of Suffren’s succession to Séguiran when the latter incurred French episcopal criticism for his involvement in ecclesiastical patronage distribution. Cf. for the contrast between Bauny’s condemned views and the more cautious Theologia Moralis (Paris, 1634) of Gordon: L.W.B. Brockliss, ‘The “Lettres Provinciales” as a Jansenist calumny: Pascal and moral theology in mid-seventeenth century France’, Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 8 (1986): 5–22: pp. 6–8. 34   ARSI, Gallia 46, fol. 132r, 9 Oct. 1631: Vitelleschi to La Rochefoucauld. 35   ARSI, Francia 45, fol. 210r: Necrologia.

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a college in Spain. Nor was Father David Kinnaird available, since he was working in Lithuania.36 Jesuits and the Conflict Between Bishops and Regulars At a relatively early date, 1623, the papal nuncio, Corsini, had been able to report to Rome on the excellent and necessary work of the Jesuits at Paris, which included the pastoral activities of preaching and hearing confessions as well as the education of boys. All this proved a valuable antidote to ‘atheism’ and to Gallican pretensions to a ‘liberty prejudicial to the Holy See’. But when Garasse excitedly reviewed the ‘persecutions’ of 1624–26 he saw the terrible saga as culminating in the death of the aged hero Coton, in 1626, as leading Parisian Jesuits signed a formula imposed as the price of protecting the Society from the wrath of the parlement in the Santarelli affair. The damaging prelude, he considered, had been the French legation of Cardinal Barberini, when French bishops objected to being required to attend on the legate’s entry into Paris and to the form of episcopal dress demanded of them on this occasion. Their sense that this lacked precedent caused them to attribute the dress requirement to Barberini’s Jesuit advisor, Eudaemon-Ioannes. The timing, according to Garasse, was particularly unfortunate, as anti-Jesuit feeling at the Sorbonne was once again on the rise, and there was a revival of accusations about Jesuit complicity in regicide. In fact, in his opinion, the legation made worse the developing conflict between bishops and the regulars in France. However he admitted that the cardinal legate had not been moved by critics of the Jesuits, whose college he visited, and he recorded with glee the famous visit to the library of the deceased Gallican, Jacques de Thou, when the cardinal turned a ‘blind eye’ to the special display of anti-Jesuit works assembled on a prominent shelf by the custodians of the library. By 1629 Vitelleschi, aware of the troubles between episcopal authority and regulars at Rouen, was writing, with reference to these, about a recent papal Bull and the involvement of the nuncio in France. His hope that agreement might be reached was made more interesting by virtue of the fact that he addressed his remarks to the head of house at Rouen of the order which had been, at a European level, the original opponents of the Society in the De Auxiliis dispute, that is the Dominicans. To Richelieu he was anxious to stress that he perfectly understood the cardinal’s intervention over an anti-Huguenot sermon by which a Jesuit at Paris had upset a parish priest and hence, rather more dangerously, the archbishop. Appropriate warning had been given to avoid such provocative topics in 36   ARSI, Gallia 46, fols 181r–182r, 185v–186r, 20 Jan., 18 May 1638: Vitelleschi to Des Chambres.

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future. Papal Jubilees were liable to raise particular issues over the work of regulars in hearing the laity’s confessions, in relation to local episcopal authority, and it was not necessarily a good sign that at this very time a Jesuit was writing on just this subject. Still in the same year, Jesuit confessors and their discernment as to their individual penitents was the issue where a topic which was to become so much part of later controversy between Jesuits and their opponents arose. This was the determining of a suitable frequency for the communion of lay persons. At the time Vitelleschi generally cautioned Binet against allowing excessive frequency in the Jesuit province of Aquitaine, while acknowledging that in specific cases confessors might suitably permit weekly communion. At least where the Society’s more general problems in the kingdom were concerned the protective intervention of Suffren at the royal court might be engaged. But by 1632 the disputes involving the English Jesuits and other English Catholics would be better left to the English; French Jesuits had surely enough to concern them, as they navigated a way through the actions of regulars, bishops, the nuncio and the pope. This reflection on the temptation for French Jesuits to reply to Petrus Aurelius came at a moment when both Richelieu and Père Joseph, concerned as a Capuchin, were intervening in the conflict between French bishops and regulars as well as the royal confessor, Maillan. The nuncio’s role as well as that of bishops needed to be considered, and Richelieu’s attitude to the specific privileges of the Jesuits had to be studied. Binet was attempting to defend the Society in France against anti-Jesuit publication by approaching the garde des sceaux. Roman reaction to French Jesuits’ signing of a formula proposed by Richelieu and Père Joseph might be unfavourable, though defence of papal authority certainly remained a genuine concern. The response of the Dominicans in France to the formula would equally be a relevant consideration, but the Jesuit leaders in France felt that the Society’s position was distinctive because of the danger of its once again being excluded from the kingdom. However the Parisian Jesuit leaders’ initiative in signing the formula was not to be repeated, Vitelleschi ordered, in the Jesuit provinces elsewhere within France, as at Lyon or Toulouse. At Bordeaux, where there had been some controversy, Archbishop De Sourdis nevertheless became so favourably impressed with the work of one particular Jesuit, Père Destrades, that he asked for him to be kept there and not moved elsewhere within the province. This repeated request offered an opportunity to assure the archbishop that the whole Jesuit province was eager to be of service. Equally, when the archbishop asked for the Jesuit to be moved to Paris for health reasons, that could be accommodated, before

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it was subsequently suggested that, for the same reasons, the archbishop might agree to the Jesuit’s wintering in a suitable house of the Society.37 It was recognized that Cellot’s work risked stirring up the enemies of the Society. But in 1639 the Necrology of Binet recorded his publications, some in the vernacular, as contributing to its defence. Cellot certainly complicated potential relations with both Richelieu and the pope, while specifically at Rouen the Jesuits’ problems were acknowledged not to arise solely from the attitude of the archbishop. The troubles caused by Cellot’s book did not fade away, and even at the death of Louis XIII the scandal he had given to French prelates was still being recorded, and that caused by Rabardeau’s publications. By contrast, the obituary ‘Elogium’ for Sirmond, recorded in 1651, compared his ecclesiastical history compositions to the Annales of Baronius. He had used the resources of the Vatican library and toured French libraries to find manuscripts on which to base his Concilia. Supposedly, even his opponents applauded this work, quite apart from the alleged project of Urban VIII to make him a cardinal. As royal confessor he had managed to win the hearts of all at court, while one of his early pupils had been Bishop François de Sales. This was a highly relevant reference, since the bishop was admired among dévots and could sometimes be seen to have typified episcopal duty without necessarily creating confrontation with regulars. It was striking that in a work published in 1625 outside the French kingdom, at Pont-à-Mousson, Binet had used this figure to illustrate episcopal hierarchy and the proper relations with regulars, in a work intended to reassure Zamet, a bishop whose links with the Oratory did not prevent his being sympathetic to Jesuits. The need for a common front among dévots and ultramontanes had, after all, been suggested also in a 1643 Necrology for Père Antoine Sirmond, another writer, whose work countered the errors of the times and particularly the impiety of ‘atheists’. At Orleans, however, there was a long conflict between the bishop and the Jesuits, involving the issue of the activity of regulars hearing the laity’s confessions, especially in a 37   ARSI, Francia 36 [–37], fols 218r–v: Fundationes; cf. Francia 45, fol. 200v: Necrologia (1623/43); Gallia 46, fols 118v–119r, 120v–121r, 19 Apr., 23 Sept. 1629; Lugdunensis 5, fol. 579v, 24 Oct. 1629: Vitelleschi to Binet, to Dominican prior at Rouen, to Richelieu; Francia 47, nos 90, 93, 94, 15 Jan., 11 May, 7 Dec. 1632: Binet to Vitelleschi; no. 96, 4 July 1633: Binet to Vitelleschi; Gallia 41, fol. 233v, 11 Mar. 1634: Vitelleschi to Arnoulph; Gallia 46, fols 140v–142r, 142r, 151r, 27 Jan., 10 Mar., 7 May 1634, 23 Oct. 1635: Vitelleschi to Richelieu, to Archbishop De Sourdis; fol. 168r, [2 Dec. 1636]: Vitelleschi to archbishop of Bordeaux; Francia 6, fols 66v, 68r, 75r–v, 1 Sept., 25 Dec. 1639: Vitelleschi to Séguiran, to Dinet; fols 103v, 110v, 15 July, 8 Sept. 1640: Vitelleschi to Cellot, to Séguiran; fols 136r–v, 141r–142r, 29 June, 2 July, 8 Sept. 1641: Vitelleschi to Dinet, to Cellot, to P. Julien Hayneufre, Paris; Francia 47, no. 121, 23 Aug. 1643: Filleau to Vitelleschi; Francia 32a: Recit au vrai; cf. Chesneau, vol. I, pp. 69–71, 120, 126–9, 161.

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papal Jubilee or with reference to the Easter Obligation, and the role of catechism; civic authorities as well as the king and the pope were potentially concerned. But by 1632, in a different diocese, Jesuits were putting their loyal effort into internal rural mission. The very next year, however, there was a contrasting and decidedly mixed picture to be drawn for Paris. The vast success of the Jesuits among the urban population, especially the fashionable or powerful, was provoking critics of the Society, while Jesuit devotion to internal mission in the rural margins of the diocese had produced disappointing results. The library at the college of La Flèche had been completed, meanwhile, and its decor reflected the conspicuous royal patronage which this college enjoyed from the Bourbons. That year, too, public reconciliation with the bishop at Orléans had been spectacularly celebrated, and the civic authorities were reconciled too. The troubles at Rouen, by contrast, continued, and affected the college there. The archbishop behaved in a hostile way towards all regulars, and by 1637 the heads of the regulars, led by a Jesuit, sought a solution via the nuncio. This did apparently produce a result favourable to the Jesuits at least, since a public reconciliation was marked when the archbishop in person conducted an ordination at the Jesuit church, and was also entertained by the Jesuits’ pupils at the seminary, which he was pleased to inspect. The Jesuits of the Parisian Collège de Clermont on the other hand, in 1636, were apparently being consulted by bishops anxious to promote the restoration of pristine observance of the rule at religious houses in their areas, whether Augustinian, Carmelite or Franciscan. Similarly the Jesuit Noviciate at Paris, at that time, was attracting outsiders to the Spiritual Exercises conducted there, which had supposedly helped achieve the return to pristine observance at the Parisian monastery of Saint Victor (though Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld may not have seen matters that way). At Lyon the Jesuits of the province had faced the problem of whether or not to sign the formula, signed by other regulars, in the controversy between bishops and regulars. In 1633 it seemed that the local Jesuits had forestalled Vitelleschi’s subsequent order by signing, when the Capuchins there had had grave doubts about doing so. This suggested a danger that the General Chapter of all the Capuchins, due to meet in Rome, might delate the Jesuits to the pope. As yet Vitelleschi remained unclear just what had been signed, and could only hope that the Jesuits’ conduct had been blameless. It was vital that members of the Society did not make declarations on anything which the pope might have reserved to his own judgement. In fact, at this time of the General Chapter Vitelleschi received a complaint himself from one individual Capuchin directed at two specific Jesuits, one of whom was

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Raynaud. The other was assured, in 1634, by Vitelleschi that in his case there was no need for him to worry about the complaint.38 But Raynaud was alleged, in one of his publications, to have mocked the Capuchin and misrepresented him. Vitelleschi was at least sure that no offence should be given to any Capuchin. Further investigation of the specific charge was necessary, to check if the Capuchin featured even anonymously, and satisfaction must be given. Raynaud also needed to grasp that it would be counterproductive to antagonize the Dominican who at Rome, as Master of the Sacred Palace, had some influence over book censorship and publishing, by criticizing him. At least a work complained of to the Holy Office by a member of the Order of Minims turned out to be wrongly attributed to Raynaud’s authorship. But in 1634, still, Raynaud was thought to have included an attack on another regular in a different book. The complaint did involve a Capuchin, and Raynaud had to be warned further not to compose a reply to a recent Capuchin publication supposedly hostile to the Jesuits. Vitelleschi was understandably concerned about counterproductive Jesuit books generally, and not only in relation to the Capuchins. Another Jesuit, of the Aquitaine province, was also to be ordered not to publish a work against the Capuchins unless it were first seen and allowed at Rome. How much more cheerful then, in 1641, that at Paris Jesuits from the Collège de Clermont had been sent to impose reform on an Augustinian house, while Richelieu’s patronage had extended to his attending plays in which young aristocratic pupils took suitably leading roles.39 Even without the particular gloss provided by Garasse, it was clear that the relations between the French Jesuits and Oratorians were peculiarly problematic. In 1630 Vitelleschi conceded that since the French Oratorians stressed that they were not regulars there was nothing, from the point of canon law, to prevent a former Oratorian’s admission to the Society in the Aquitaine province. But he was equally clear that nothing should be done that might open the way to any future complaints. The later order, in 1640, that an individual French Jesuit be removed from involvement in the affairs of the Carmelite nuns was natural, not least in this context. 38

  ARSI, Francia 33, fols 71r–80v, 110r–123v, 162r–173r, 174v–189r, 266r–282v: Annuae Literae (1632, 1633, 1636, 1637, 1641); Lugdunensis 6, fols 20r–v, 21r, 2 June 1633: Vitelleschi to P. Leonardo Patornay, to Filleau; fol. 35v, 27 Jan. 1634: Vitelleschi to P. Etienne Rolier; Francia 45, fols 177v–179r, 200v, 258r–259v: Necrologia (1639, 1643, 1651); Bergin, La Rochefoucauld, pp. 166–7, 173. Cf. Chesneau, vol. I, pp. 69–71, 126–9, 161, 181–2; Meyer, pp. 364, 367–74; Fouqueray, Histoire, vol. IV, pp. 124–7. 39   ARSI, Lugdunensis 6, fols 21r, 25r, 30v, 2 June, 13 Aug., 21 Oct 1633: Vitelleschi to Filleau, to P. François Poiré, to Raynaud; fols 41r–v, 49r–v, 57r, 58r, 24 Apr., 31 July, 4, 16 Dec. 1634: Vitelleschi to Filleau, to Raynaud; fols 135r–v, 16 Dec. 1636: Vitelleschi to P. Claude Boniel; Francia 33, fols 266r–282v: Annuae Literae (1641).

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Garasse believed that Oratorians had initiated trouble for the Jesuits not only with some bishops and the Queen Mother over the composition of the chapel attending on Henrietta Maria in England but also over Barberini’s legation and the presence in France of Eudaemon-Ioannes. The Society had its individual opponents, like Tarin, rector of the University of Paris, he accepted. But he alleged that in 1625 Oratorians at Saumur initiated the sequence of events which produced the bishops’ leading against the regulars in France at a meeting of the Clergy Assembly. Garasse claimed to have alerted Séguiran at the royal court, who in turn alerted La Rochefoucauld. Admittedly Jesuits at Quimper had allegedly been disrespectful towards episcopal regulations over Easter confession; and the orders emanating from a Clergy Assembly eventually held at Paris seemed, to him at least, to single out the Jesuits, both by refusing ordination or letters dimissory to any regulars who had not taken a public and solemn vow of poverty and by stipulating that bishops should place on a religious house which a regular left a pension for the regular’s support, to avoid burdening diocesan funds. However the idea for this second ruling he attributed to an ex-Jesuit rather than to Oratorians. Nevertheless, the particular animosity towards regulars of the bishop of Angers he traced to the bishop’s being ‘enrolled’ with the French Oratory.40 In response to the Spongia and also the Querimonia of the English Jesuit Floyd, Saint-Cyran’s Vindiciae of 1632 first raised, pseudonymously, the accusation that the Jesuit scholar Sirmond had falsified the reading of an historical text in order to support a colleague’s opinion that there was no absolute need of bishops to administer the sacrament of confirmation. Specifically, in 1633 and under the same pseudonym, Saint-Cyran used his Anaereticus to attack Sirmond’s 1629 edition of the Concilia antiqua Galliae, alleging that in relation to the second canon of the first Council of Orange the edition seemed to innovate, undermining the authority and privilege of bishops in the administration of that sacrament, and thereby the essence of the Rite. Sirmond eventually replied, to a first attack by his Antirrheticus (1633) and then to the Anaereticus by his Antirrheticus secundus (1634), defending his reading of the Orange text and pointing out that historical evolution of sacramental Rites was possible. In 1634 Father General Vitelleschi was alerted by Petau to Binet’s supposedly poor supervision of the Society’s Paris-based province, which failed to prevent tensions among the Jesuits themselves. Even La Rochefoucauld, a bishop as well as a cardinal, had allegedly been shocked by Sirmond’s treatment of confirmation, and the censure of the Sorbonne threatened, so that Vitelleschi’s intervention was vital, keeping in mind the origin 40   ARSI, Lugdunensis 5, fols 591r–v, 31 May 1630: Vitelleschi to Binet; Francia 6, fols 101v–102r, 8 July 1640: Vitelleschi to Dinet; Francia 32a, Recit au vrai.

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of the controversy in Floyd’s pseudonymous work. But by the next year Sirmond’s own attempt to defend himself to Vitelleschi tried to bring in Séguiran, the one possible internal critic of Sirmond in the person of Rabardeau, the range of opinion among the doctors of the Sorbonne, and Richelieu. Sirmond could not obscure the fact however that internal critics, within the Society, could see where the trouble lay. In discussing confirmation Sirmond had attempted to distinguish two elements in the ceremony, chrismation and the imposition of hands. At issue, in actuality, was his reading of the text in relation to the necessity, or not, of episcopal chrismation. Royal condemnation of Saint-Cyran’s Anaereticus was of little help in this situation. What neither Sirmond nor any other Jesuit needed to remind Vitelleschi of was the extraordinary delicacy of any discussion of confirmation when episcopal authority was at stake; nor solely in the context of disputes between Jesuits and secular clerics in the divided English Catholic community. The Council of Trent, after all, had avoided rather than resolved problems of theology and jurisdiction in relation to this sacrament by briefly asserting that the ‘ordinary’ (in the sense of normal) minister of this, to whose administration it was reserved, was the bishop (as opposed to a mere priest).41 Jesuit Dependence on Richelieu’s Favour When Garasse provided his distinctive interpretation of the events in France of 1624–26 he conceded that, at this relatively early date, Binet had been able to soothe episcopal opinion by his work on the hierarchy. There was, after all, in some of the French anti-ultramontane positions a Richerist element which could be opposed, since it was not to the taste of the bishops. But that was not the end of other troubles. In the Santarelli controversy the Paris parlement represented the greatest threat to the Society in France, and the danger was made worse when the death of a leading anti-Jesuit parlementaire made way for his replacement by Nicolas Talon, arch-critic 41   Petri Aureli Theologi Anaereticus adversus errores et haereses quibus canonem Arausicanum et sacramentum Confirmationis aspersit Jacobi Sirmondi Societatis Jesu Presbyteri Antirrheticus (Paris); ARSI, Francia 33, fols 143r–144r, 145r, 146r–147v, 15 Jan. 1634, 10 Apr. 1635: Petau to Vitelleschi, Sirmond to Vitelleschi; Francia 45, fols 258r–259v: Necrologia (1651); Hermant, vol. I, pp. 9, 11–12, 17; Chesneau, vol. I, p. 155; Meyer, pp. 69–70, 362, 545–6; A. Allison, ‘Richard Smith’s Gallican Backers and Jesuit Opponents. Part III’, Recusant History, XX (1990–91): 164–206: pp. 191–202; cf. W. Wizeman, S.J., ‘The Theology and Spirituality of a Marian Bishop: the Pastoral and Polemical Sermons of Thomas Watson’, in E. Duffy and D. Loades (eds), The Church of Mary Tudor (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 258–80: p. 272; Questier, pp. 258–9, 306–9, 342, 348, 350, 352, 402, 404, 406–7, 413, 417–18, 426, 454, 461, 495–6; Fumaroli, ‘Temps de croissance’, pp. 154–5 and n. 5, 158–9.

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of popes and all regulars. It was thus logical, if rather revealingly selfcentred, that Garasse should stress that such considerations made it all the more alarming when Richelieu himself, and the king, seemed as if they might believe him to be the author of a publication criticizing French policy, the Quaestiones politicae. Rather less myopic was Suffren’s great praise of Richelieu in 1629, when the cardinal had successfully imposed on the Huguenots the Peace of Alais. In 1630 the terms of agreement at Ratisbon, not yet disavowed by Richelieu, could be recorded, while the political danger at home, when the king had been so seriously ill during the summer, allowed the royal confessor himself to administer particularly intense spiritual care. When the king recovered, it was reported in a fascinating remark, he subsequently extended his patronage to the new Parisian Institut du Saint-Sacrement, which was so much Zamet’s pride and joy and so much the focus of eventual troubles. Richelieu’s favour to the Society in France, on the other hand, was continued in 1631, seemingly unaffected by his sending of Suffren away from the post of king’s confessor to remain in the role of confessor to the Queen Mother.42 By 1638, by contrast, the disaster of Caussin’s tenure as confessor caused Vitelleschi in person to send to France copies of his part of a correspondence with the king’s confessor intended to prove that the Father General was in no way part of a conspiracy to overturn French policy and substitute a peace policy. He emphasized the Society’s continued devotions on behalf of the king and insisted that he himself favoured European peace only as and when all relevant persons favoured seeking it. Caussin had begun his brief tenure by suggesting that in promoting peace he himself would be supporting Richelieu, indicating how profoundly he misunderstood the cardinal’s policy. He was on stronger ground when he represented himself as thereby conforming to papal policy, and clearly felt it was a promising conjuncture that the work which had made his name in the first place (and apparently appealed to Richelieu), the Aula Sancta (La cour sainte), was promised an Italian edition. Binet consoled himself that the king had refused to replace Caussin with a non-Jesuit despite his annoyance, but stressed even more Richelieu’s continued favour to the Society, together with that of the Chancellor and of the royal official François Sublet des Noyers (Secrétaire d’Etat by 1638). In this predicament such patronage was particularly valuable in relation to the Paris parlement. Sirmond hoped to succeed in his new post well enough to benefit the Society as a whole. Vitelleschi prepared, but in the end did not send to Richelieu, an elaborate 42   ARSI, Gallia 64, fols 66r–67r, 28 June 1629: Copie de la lettre du R.P. Suffren; Francia 33, fols 1r–3v: Annuae Literae (1630); fols 25r–v, 13 Oct. 1630: Compendium Pacificationis; Francia 47, nos 84, 86, 11 Jan., 1 Aug. 1631: Suffren to Vitelleschi; Francia 32a: Recit au vrai.

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defence, in case the cardinal thought he was at fault. He had intended to assure Richelieu of his devotion to France, amid the difficulties of the times, where others accused him of being improperly ‘French’, though few accused him of being anti-French. The cardinal might see from the copies of the correspondence which were being sent to France, via Binet, how far removed from any conspiracy he had been. He admitted some discussion with Cardinal Aldobrandini, but this had avoided secular affairs, while with Cardinal Barberini he had discussed peace only in general terms, such as those publicly used by the French king and Richelieu themselves. When he had made earlier contact with Father Gordon about possible discussion of peace with the king, he had specified that this was to be begun only after contact with Richelieu and only if the latter agreed.43 In 1640 it seemed to Vitelleschi necessary to repeat the Society’s obedience to the cardinal’s commands, even in the use of Jesuits as exorcists. Evidently a promise to release Jesuits from involvement in this work at Loudun was nevertheless welcome, and it was politely suggested that exorcism was not a ministry in which Jesuits were the most gifted, while it might well be one where others did have a special gift. Unauthorized exorcism by a Jesuit in France was, at the same time, interrupted by Vitelleschi.44 Garasse was well aware of the importance to the Society in France of Richelieu even at a relatively early date. The declaration about the powers of kings and popes which leading French Jesuits, fearful of the Venetian precedent of exclusion, were required to sign in the course of the Santarelli controversy he alleged had the approval of the nuncio, when formulated by Richelieu. Prior to this, during Barberini’s legation, attack on the legate’s Jesuit advisor, Eudaemon-Ioannes, had come from the Paris parlement as well as from literary critics, but the former did not in the end pursue a proposal to arrest the Jesuit. In the case of a ‘libertine’, Théophile de Viau, Garasse had in fact attacked him in print himself. But his account of events made the case a prelude to more general anti-Jesuit criticism and an opportunity for enemies of Père Voisin in particular to engineer royal pressure on Coton to send this Jesuit out of the kingdom, as was done by 43   ARSI, Francia 47, nos 109, 110, 26 Oct., 29 Dec. 1637: Caussin to Vitelleschi, Sirmond to Vitelleschi; no. 111, 12 Jan. 1638: Binet to Vitelleschi; Francia 6, fols 2v–3r, 9r–v, 10r, 13r, 21r–v, 23v, 1 Apr., 23 June, 1 July, 3 Aug., 8 Sept., 6 Oct. 1638: Vitelleschi to Binet: Gallia 46, fols 182r–v, 189v–190r, 6 Feb., 23 June 1638: Vitelleschi to Richelieu, to Des Noyers; fols 210v–211r, 30 May 1640: Vitelleschi to Des Noyers. Sublet des Noyers was regarded at Rome as reliably favourable, as well as by the Jesuits in France. At the nunciature the Jesuit links with the Secretary of State were regarded more ambiguously: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 257, 263, 317–18: Barberini to Scotti, 6 Feb. 1640, no. 265; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 21 Feb., 23 May 1640, nos 276, 375. 44   ARSI, Gallia 46, fols 210r–211r, 29, 30 May 1640: Vitelleschi to Richelieu, to Des Noyers; Francia 6, fols 109v–110r, 8 Sept. 1640: Vitelleschi to Dinet.

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means of the pretext of a trip to Rome in 1625. But even in the Sorbonne some could be found on different occasions who were friendly to the Jesuits, like the theologian André Duval. Voisin however, though ordered by the Father General to go to Freiburg, made for Lyon, from where, in Garasse’s version, it was feared by Coton he might try to return to defend himself in Paris, against the king’s orders. Later, by 1630, there was need to thank other royal ministers or nobles for help in defending the Society, as new storms arose: such were Brulart de Sillery and Claude de Bullion. From 1638 onwards Sublet des Noyers was repeatedly thanked, not only for help in intervening with the king and Richelieu over the Caussin debacle but also for further helpful intervention with both for the Society’s benefit, and then for moving the cardinal towards releasing the Jesuits from the work as exorcists at Loudun, which proved so troublesome for them. He was again thanked for his help, especially in 1643 over the case of a Jesuit, Joseph Coppone, who had fled from Italy to France after involvement in the dangerous politics of Savoy. It would obviously remain vital, after the deaths of both Richelieu and Louis XIII, that there were royal ministers who favoured the Society in France, and at the beginning of the 1650s Father General Piccolomini would find this to be true in relation to Pierre Séguier.45 The death of Richelieu was recorded, at the start of 1643, as the blow to the Society which it necessarily was. Subsequently Caussin was able to leave his internal exile, while meanwhile the question of European peace of course revived. What Caussin’s role in the Society was to be was less immediately clear, as the danger to the Society from counterproductive Jesuit writings remained as real as ever. When, in the same year, the king died the royal family and Condé received condolences from the Society, but a special note was struck in the relevant letter to Sublet des Noyers. He was no longer addressed with reference to any royal office he had held, and instead he was offered sympathetic reflections on consolation in misfortune and the uncertainties of court service. Appropriately, and tellingly, he was 45

  ARSI, Gallia 46, fols 122r, 123r, 8 Jan., 20 Apr. 1630: Vitelleschi to Sillery, to Bullion; fols 182v, 210v–211r, 247r–v, 6 Feb. 1638, 30 May 1640, 15 Feb. 1643: Vitelleschi to Des Noyers; Francia 32a: Recit au vrai; Bibliothèque de Port-Royal, Paris [BPR], Collection Le Paige [LP] 1513, p. 28 for the Sorbonne’s contesting of the Jesuits’ use of Duval in their own support. Coppone’s initial arrival from Savoy at the French royal court was rapidly realized at the nunciature to hide beneath a claim to need asylum a political mission, of which Coppone was evidently aware that the Jesuit Father General would disapprove. Coppone insisted he would return to Italy, to Rome indeed, despite Richelieu’s alleged wishes. But when the Jesuit subsequently retreated from Rome on the pretext that he once again needed French protection, it was clear that he would flee to France rather than obey Vitelleschi’s order that he return to Rome: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 107–8, 156–7, 167, 182, 543: Barberini to Scotti, 3 May 1641, no. 788; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 14 June 1639, from Grenoble, 28 Sept., 3 Oct. 1639, from Lyon, 26 Oct. 1639, nos 13, 97, 115, 143.

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assured that the Society from its own experience understood adversity. That the death of the king followed that of Richelieu so relatively soon certainly placed the Jesuits in France in a particularly vulnerable position during the political instability of the Regency. After des Noyers’s political disgrace, revived opposition to the Jesuits from the University of Paris, among other problems, continued into 1644 and beyond. When Vitelleschi himself died the Vicar General of the Society, communicating the news in 1645 to a number of important French figures, frankly appealed for protection of the Jesuits in France in such ‘troubled times’. But the political uncertainties in France made such potential protection itself insecure. Father General Piccolomini consoled Séguier with reflections on divine providence in 1650, when the latter appeared to have been required to give place to another Keeper of the Seals. He assured him of the Society’s gratitude for his defence of the true doctrine of the Church (in a pointed reference to Jansenism) and of the Jesuits. To Châteauneuf, as Pro-Chancellor of France, Piccolomini expressed his hope that now he too would protect the Society, while in 1651, at the end of his own brief existence as Father General, he was able to congratulate Séguier on his restoration to the office of Chancellor and to thank him for his renewed favour to the Society. The removal of Richelieu from the scene assuredly altered the position of the Jesuits in France for quite a while, during the minority of Louis XIV. It seemed, and indeed was, a long time since in 1623 the Queen was reported as making a vow to St Ignatius in her desire to produce children and an heir to the throne.46 Implications of the Thirty Years’ War As Richelieu’s policies involved France increasingly in European war, the consequential potential damage to Jesuit international interests made it more imperative than ever before for the Society, especially within France, to distance itself from even the most marginal suggestion of collusion with critics of the cardinal. That in itself was one reason why the common outlook of dévots and ultramontanes was bound to come under strain. In 1633 Richelieu was once more thanked for his constant help to the Jesuits 46

  ARSI, Gallia 71, fol. 69r, 17 Oct 1623: Suffren to Vitelleschi; Francia 6, fols 175v, 183v, 202r–203r, 204r–v, 25 Aug. 1642, 26 Jan., 15 Sept., 1 Oct. 1643: Vitelleschi to Filleau, to Caussin; Francia 33, fols 326r–328v: Annuae Literae (1643); Gallia 46, fols 254v, 257v–258r, 25 June, 1 Oct. 1643: Vitelleschi to the royal family, to Des Noyers; fols 270r–271v, 20 Feb. 1645: Carolus Sangrius, Vicar General to the king’s uncle, to Condé, to the chancellor; Francia 36, fols 69r–70v: Fundationes [c. 1645]; Gallia 46, fol. 311v, 25 Apr. 1650: Piccolomini to Séguier, to Châteauneuf; fol. 315v, 8 May 1651: Piccolomini to Séguier; cf. Hermant, vol. I, p. 204; at one point after the death of Saint-Cyran Matthieu Molé was garde des sceaux. Cf. Reinhardt, p. 165.

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and their colleges in France, but also for help in mitigating the tribulations of the Jesuits in Germany (which were of course caused by France’s allies). In 1634 he was politely asked to hear representations on behalf of the Society from Binet and Maillan. In 1637, when France itself had openly entered the war, the Society’s New Year greetings went to the French ambassador to the Grisons, Lanier, with added apologies for anything Jesuits there or elsewhere might have done which had proved a disservice to the king, to whom the Society owed so much. The ambassador’s goodwill in such troublesome circumstances was much appreciated, and the Society would respond accordingly. Two Jesuits in particular would be replaced by others who would do their duty better. Another French official was thanked for helping to spare and protect property belonging to a Jesuit college elsewhere, amid the damages of war. After the Caussin disaster, instead of the long defensive letter originally drafted, Vitelleschi in fact sent in 1639 a concise appeal for Richelieu to consider the terrible sufferings, in the war, of the Jesuit residence at Trier, hoping generally for the cardinal’s favour, since he and the king (in a fairly pointed remark) were so careful in things pertaining to the salvation of souls.47 French entry into the war also affected Jesuit interests when contribution to the costs of war threatened the regulars in France. At the beginning of 1637 des Noyers was thanked especially for helping to arrange that the king allowed the Jesuits to escape the contribution demanded of the regulars there. At the same time Richelieu was thanked for his intervention which had produced this royal exemption. Understandably it was hoped that the cardinal would long serve both the Church and France. He was thanked again for his recent benefaction to the Society, relieving the pressing financial state of the Jesuit houses in France. In the same year des Noyers was again thanked for his help in obtaining favours from the king and cardinal, specifically as to Jesuit property in France. But such property and related revenues were not exactly free of problems internal to the Society itself in any case. In 1623 when the nuncio, Corsini, was reporting so favourably on the activities of the Jesuits at Paris he had mentioned the Roman grant of a suppressed Augustinian abbey elsewhere in the kingdom, to benefit the Jesuits and their work. But there was an absence of agreement as to whether this was for the support of the Jesuit Collège de Clermont or alternatively, or additionally, for that of the Professed House (which by definition ought not to receive fixed income). There were parallel disputes, in fact, between these two institutions at Paris over the whole period 1609–44, including in particular the years 47

  ARSI, Gallia 46, fols 138r, 140v–141r, 15 July 1633, 27 Jan. 1634: Vitelleschi to Richelieu; fols 170r, 178r, 1 Jan., 23 Aug. 1637: Vitelleschi to Lanier, to De Montgaillard; fols 198v–199r, 4 Jan. 1639: Vitelleschi to Richelieu.

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from the 1620s to 1632, over other bequests. By 1641 the Professed House had at least resolved its disagreements with the neighbouring parish church of Saint Paul; while in 1638 the Collège de Clermont could report on the good work of its theologians and philosophers, with the gain to the true faith of a convert from heresy. In 1641 Richelieu himself had exercised his patronage in an otherwise problematic acquisition of another, former monastic property by the college. But this followed the difficulties in 1639– 40 (reported at a later date) experienced by the Professed House because of the cost of finishing its new buildings, and related dispute with the college over the allocation of financial resources between the two institutions. So too in 1641 there was a question of demolishing the old church at the Professed House and erecting new buildings, but with doubt as to which of the two institutions might benefit from any financial gains made in the process. The context was not made easier by the fact that both institutions had accumulated debts already. So on this score the Jesuits at Paris at least were not presenting a united front on the eve of the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII.48 The Jesuits and Educational Activity in France Attack on the educational initiatives of the Jesuits was persistent over a long period. The opposition was most conspicuously led by the authorities of the University of Paris before, during and after the 1630s. The proximity of the Jesuits’ central Parisian college to the Sorbonne and the large number of students frequenting the college were both criticized. A typical pamphlet, setting out legal objections to the involvement of the Society of Jesus in educational provision at Paris, was issued in 1632.49 Sometimes, as in 1643, the objections were linked to other alleged abuses on the part of the Jesuits, such as the supposedly dangerous content of their teaching.50 At that date the allegations of the University of Paris extended to the whole ‘innovatory’ and therefore ‘subversive’ method of instruction adopted by Jesuit colleges.51 Such attacks were published by the University of Paris repeatedly in that year and the next in the context of the Jesuits’ apparent vulnerability following the deaths of Richelieu 48

  ARSI, Francia [37], fols 218r–v: Fundationes (1623); Francia 33, fols 125r–136v, 197r–227r, 266r–282v: Annuae Literae (1634, 1638); Gallia 46, fols 170v–171r, 1 Jan. 1637: Vitelleschi to Des Noyers, to Richelieu; fol. 210r, 29 May 1640: Vitelleschi to Richelieu; Francia 36, fols 101r–103v, [37], fols 273r–274v: Fundationes [1639–40, 1662] (1641). cf. Blond, pp. 92–4, 97; cf. Brockliss, ‘Jansenist Calumny’, pp. 12–13. 49   BPR, LP 468 [item 15 bis]. 50   BPR, LP 1499 [items 2, 3, 4, 6]. 51   BPR, LP 1148 [item 2].

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and Louis XIII.52 The ‘vanity’ of the Jesuits could also be criticized, in their promotional activities for their Collège de Clermont as well as in the conspicuous display at the newly completed church of St Louis attached to their Parisian Professed House.53 The University of Paris on occasion attempted to expand its criticism in another way too, to attack Jesuits’ educational enterprise elsewhere in the kingdom and beyond.54 Their activity at Amiens was the focus of hostility in 1644–45, and linked in that instance to the Society’s supposedly insubordinate attitude to episcopal authority.55 But in the case of Toulouse their educational enterprise had been opposed as early as 1623–24.56 The legal opinions published as pamphlets by the University of Paris often made reference to the contested conditions under which, in the sixteenth century, the Society of Jesus had first been admitted to the kingdom. Sometimes there was parallel reference to the undertakings which the Jesuits had been forced to give in order to secure from the crown readmission to the whole of the kingdom, after the years of exile, in the early seventeenth century.57 Such lines of argument were well calculated to appeal to the Paris parlement in particular. Events in 1603, 1606, 1609 and 1610 were rehearsed in the course of the disputes concerning Toulouse of 1623–24.58 Within such pamphlets polemical use was also made of incidents involving the Society of Jesus beyond the frontiers of the kingdom, not least the Jesuits’ exclusion from Venetian territory ever since the papal Interdict of 1606–07 on the Republic. Indeed, according to a version first reproduced in 1636, a suggestion had been made in 1607 that Henri IV should leave those Jesuits to their deserved fate and not involve himself further in attempts to persuade the Republic, at the conclusion of the Interdict, to allow their readmission to the state.59 The continued exclusion of the Jesuits there was still used in French polemical publication in 1636 as supposed proof of the politically subversive nature of the Society.60 The accusation of subversion of European politics still more generally was linked in 1620 to the supporting authority of the scholarly Jacques-Auguste de Thou, while the legal eminence of Etienne Pasquier, as the original leader 52

    54   55   56   57   58   59   60   53

BPR, LP 1151, passim. BPR, LP 1513, chap. XXIX. BPR, LP 1499 [item 2]. BPR, LP 470 [item 42]. BPR, LP 1147 [items 5, 7]. BPR, LP 470 [item 42]; LP 1499 [item 2]. BPR, LP 1147 [items 5, 6, 7]. BPR, LP 1502: Ambassador Philippe Canaye de Fresnes to Henri IV, 24 Jan. 1607. BPR, LP 468 [item 5].

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in France of opposition to the presence of the Society, was acclaimed with reference to the Venetian events of 1606–1607. Such arguments by association could not of course later obstruct French involvement in the convoluted diplomacy by which the Jesuits were finally readmitted to the Republic in 1657.61 In 1643, on the other hand, it was still possible to identify the opposition of bons français to alleged Habsburg ambition to dominate Europe with approval of the supposedly deserved exclusion of the Jesuits from the Venetian Republic. Events in France itself of 1610, 1612 and 1626 were also mentioned by the University of Paris.62 The pamphlet campaign of 1643–44 conducted by the university certainly did not dispense with references to the Venetian Interdict.63 Jesuit response could try to counter this line of attack by drawing attention to the criticism of French policy which the Mars Gallicus of 1635 had represented, the product not of a Jesuit author but of Jansenius.64 In such pamphleteering a parallel accusation was advanced, that French Jesuits behaved with contempt for Gallican episcopal jurisdiction. Episodes of contestation between diocesan bishops and local Jesuits were cited, with reference for example to Rouen in 1635 and again in 1640.65 A more generalized insinuation that Jesuits had exhibited such contempt in the years between 1638 and 1641 attempted to draw on the earlier and in fact distinct difficulties between regulars, including local Jesuits, and the paradigm of post-Tridentine episcopal authority venerated by many of the French prelates of the seventeenth century – Saint Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan – in relation to events of 1572 and subsequently.66 Critics from the University of Paris argued that it was no accident that in contemporary France the clashes between bishops and Jesuits most often concerned control of preaching and the hearing of confessions, since it was by precisely these activities that the Society sought to extend its influence within French society beyond the contested educational sphere.67 It was further alleged that such ambition was similarly evident from the provision for the laity of the Spiritual Exercises and the attractive musical concerts at Jesuit foundations in France.68 The best direct proof of such disparagement of rightful episcopal authority in the Church was, however, asserted to be found in published 61

    63   64   65   66   67   68   62

BPR, LP 1144 [items 1, 2, 6]. BPR, LP 1148 [items 4, 5]. BPR, LP 1152, Section V. BPR, LP 1512, Première Partie, Section III. BPR, LP 468 [item 17]. BPR, LP 468 [items 24, 27]. BPR, LP 468 [items 21, 39]. BPR, LP 1148 [item 2].

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works by Jesuit authors. Conflicts involving Jesuits on the one hand and episcopal or quasi-episcopal authorities on the other in the British Isles provided one source for supposedly incriminating statements, not least over the necessity or not of a fully territorial episcopate to supply the sacrament of confirmation. With reference to both England and Ireland, published material from 1631 and 1633 was reprinted in France in or after 1643.69 In that last year the University of Paris, after making a parallel between episcopal authority and that of the Sorbonne itself, also cited the subversive opinion on the subject of confirmation to be found in the work of the French Jesuit Jacques Sirmond.70 He was even accused, more dramatically, of having argued for the possible administration of anointing (as an inessential part of this sacrament) not just by a priest (as might potentially be deduced from the wording of the relevant Tridentine decree, in fact) but even by a deacon.71 Jesuit response on the English disputes would have to refer back not just to 1631 and 1633 but to as early as 1602.72 But the issue of confirmation still formed part of the critique, apparently by Saint-Cyran’s nephew, Martin de Barcos, launched in 1644 against Sirmond’s Praedestinatus.73 It was similarly alleged that publications by French Jesuits proved the Society’s disparaging of episcopal authority in relation to the sacrament of confession.74 In this context the Episcopal Hierarchy of Louis Cellot was cited in 1643 by the University of Paris, after a broader accusation that Jesuit confessors were attracting penitents by their indulgent approach to the sacrament.75 In the following year Cellot was again in question, within the self-defence attempted by François Hallier, doctor of the Sorbonne, against pseudonymous attack on his undoubted prior involvement in a major publication against the Jesuits’ moral theology. The Jesuit Etienne Bauny was not forgotten here either, since discussion of reserved cases from which confessors might or might not in a variety of circumstances give absolution inevitably touched on episcopal authority.76 The growth of rivalry in France between Jesuits and Oratorians was not confined to educational competition. The responsibilities of confessors also became

69

    71   72   73   74   75   76   70

BPR, LP 468 [items 18, 20, 21]. BPR, LP 1148 [items 1, 2]. BPR, LP 1151 [item 1]. BPR, LP 1152, Section Quatriesme. BPR, LP 1515 bis, chap. V. BPR, LP 468 [item 17]. BPR, LP 1148 [item 2]. BPR, LP 1657, passim.

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an issue, as the French Oratorians professed dutiful subordination to the jurisdiction of diocesan bishops.77 Jesuit Publications Under Attack Central to French pamphlet attacks on the Society of Jesus was the repeated allegation that Jesuit teaching and publication incited, or at the very least defended, the assassination of legitimate rulers by means of spurious justification of ‘tyrannicide’.78 The allegation within France had its own longevity, even if the dispute over a work by the Italian Jesuit Santarelli contributed in 1626 to that tradition, still very much alive in 1643.79 By 1644 the Jesuit Airault had supposedly been detected teaching a justification of ‘tyrannicide’ in his Parisian classes, with evidence allegedly supplied in part by a cleric attached to Saint-Sulpice.80 Such an issue had a permanent potential for political excitement, of course. But the pernicious nature of Jesuit publications on the whole range of moral theology was more broadly asserted. Laxity and equivocation were held to be essential in the Jesuit approach, and were sometimes contrasted with the rigour identified with Saint Charles Borromeo or even, for some French polemicists, with François de Sales. The Somme des Péchés of the Jesuit Bauny was the object of attack in 1640, 1641 and 1643– 44.81 He was under attack, alongside the Jesuits Rabardeau and Cellot, in 1642 and 1643.82 But as early as 1623 the Recherche des Recherches and the Doctrine Curieuse had been subjected to criticism, in a purportedly pro-Jesuit work in other respects, when the Jesuit François Garasse had touched on such sensitive figures as Pierre Charron and Etienne Pasquier.83 The Borromean contrast might also be used with reference to supposed Jesuit laxity on the problem of usury. But by 1643 the University of Paris could also turn against the Society of Jesus not only the names of Sirmond, Garasse, Cellot, Rabardeau and Bauny, but also that of Antonio Possevino, an original internal source for the concept of a distinctly Jesuit tradition of teaching.84 The range of authors requiring defence on the Jesuit side

77

  Lesaulnier, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, pp. 11–12, 39.   BPR, LP 1499 [items 2, 4]. Cf. H.E. Braun, Juan de Mariana and Early Modern Spanish Political Thought (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 6–8, 84–9. 79   BPR, LP 1148 [item 5]. 80   BPR, LP 1151 [item 4]. 81   BPR, LP 468 [items 17 bis, 27, 29, 31, 35]; MSS Port-Royal [PR] 22, fols 533–4. 82   BPR, LP 468 [items 29, 31]. 83   BPR, LP 1146, Advertissement; Censure, chaps V, XI. 84   BPR, LP 1148 [item 2]. 78

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was extended also to Théophile Raynaud, for his Splendeur de la vérité.85 In 1644 the Jesuit Pierre Le Moine had specifically to defend the Society against the accusation that its authors had abandoned the due severity of ancient Christianity. A clever reference to a revered French prelate, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, was added here, since Bauny had acted as his confessor. Furthermore the Spiritual Exercises were put forward as consistent with the strict standards of both Saint Charles Borromeo and François de Sales.86 In the same year Hallier’s self-defence inevitably mentioned both Cellot and Bauny.87 In response to Le Moine the University of Paris equally predictably concentrated on Bauny’s Somme des Péchés, though not of course to the exclusion of other allegedly culpable authors, now including even Caussin.88 It was at Port-Royal itself, however, that it fell to Antoine Singlin to try to strengthen a potential weakness in the anti-Jesuit arguments about moral theology, as he attempted to represent François de Sales as in no substantial way alleviating the pristine severity of Saint Charles Borromeo.89 One specific area of laxity which was alleged to place French Jesuits in opposition to official government policy under Richelieu was certainly sensitive in both social and political terms. In 1641–42 the names of both Garasse, for his Somme théologique, and Airault were mentioned in the context of supposed laxity of teaching about duels.90 Le Moine implicitly recognized the sensitivity of the issue when he produced the example of Caussin as a severe critic of duels.91 Inevitably, however, even that issue was overshadowed by the lurid transgressions of decency as well as orthodoxy which were held against Jesuit authors in the realm of sexual morality.92 Contraception and/or abortion was allegedly given covert justification in certain circumstances, and the name of Airault again featured here.93 Hallier’s own dévot credentials were presumably being asserted when he criticized Rabardeau for contradicting Tridentine rules on marriage by the Jesuit’s rehabilitation of a requirement for parental consent, despite the fact that since the sixteenth century Gallican authority had unilaterally reinstated just such a requirement in France. Indeed Bauny was simultaneously accused of 85

    87   88   89   90   91   92   93   86

BPR, LP 1152, Response: Section Troisiesme, Proposition XIV. BPR, LP 1512, Première Partie, Sect. III; Seconde Partie, Sections III, IX. BPR, LP 1657, pp. 3–8, 50, 65–9. BPR, LP 1513, passim. BPR, PR 22, fols 533–4. BPR, LP 1499 [items 3, 4, 6]. BPR, LP 1512, Seconde Partie, Section V. BPR, LP 468 [item 17 bis]. BPR, LP 1499 [items 3, 4].

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subverting proper ecclesiastical authority over matrimony in relation to alleged Jesuit intervention in the politically sensitive issue of princely marriage. Bauny’s Somme des Péchés was regularly attacked as obscene for its comprehensive treatment of sexual conduct.94 Rabardeau was accused of contempt for both royal and papal authority in relation to the regulation of marriage.95 In fact Hallier’s disavowal of involvement, prior to 1644, in the great attack, prepared by Antoine Arnauld, on the whole of Jesuit moral theology was itself economical with the truth.96 The similar attack, countering defences attempted by Le Moine and Caussin issued by the University of Paris in 1644, did not fail to place Bauny’s Somme des Péchés at the centre of its review of Jesuit authors.97 Wider criticism still was directed repeatedly at Jesuit authors for their supposed ‘falsities’ in scholarly controversy. While it was the Oratorian Claude Séguenot and his interpretation of Augustine on virginity that the Sorbonne condemned, at Richelieu’s instigation, the central and Augustinian issue of Predestination was comprehensively and profoundly problematic. Jesuit authors could not escape hostile attention if they ventured into this arena. Bauny was criticized on these scores by the University of Paris in 1643.98 As has been noted, Sirmond’s Praedestinatus was attacked in 1644, and the identity and origin of the text he reproduced were subject to fundamental criticism. Response in 1645 inevitably took the controversy back beyond Arminius to Calvin.99 The university included the topic of Predestination in its attack on Caussin.100 But it was arguably questions of ecclesiology which most vividly revealed the fragmentation of dévot thinking in France. The Optatus Gallus of 1640 was naturally disturbing because of allegations about Richelieu’s willingness to disrupt the unity of Catholic Christendom by his own ambitions. Controversy on ecclesiological lines was kept alive by the contested plan to reissue the confrontational Petrus Aurelius in 1646; the accusation that French Jansenism promoted schism by making reference to Saints Peter and Paul as dual heads of the Church in 1647; and the allegation in 1648 that Cellot was refusing to retract substantially opinions advanced in his De Hierarchia.101 The University of Paris had already published criticism of that text in 1643.102 In replying to 94

    96   97   98   99  

BPR, LP 1151 [items 1, 5]. BPR, LP 1152, Section Quatriesme, Proposition XLIII. BPR, LP 1657, pp. 3–8. BPR, LP 1513, p. 6. BPR, LP 1148 [item 2]. BPR, LP 1515 bis, 1516, passim. 100   BPR, LP 1513, p. 5. 101   BPR, LP 468 [items 23, 29, 37, 38, 39]. 102   BPR, LP 1148 [items 1, 2]. 95

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the great attack published anonymously in an enlarged edition by Arnauld in 1644, La Théologie morale des Jésuites, and addressing the bishops of France, Caussin included an assertion that proper respect for bishops was perfectly compatible with the special obedience owed by Jesuits to the pope and that this had been demonstrable since the Council of Trent itself. Such a question was also raised with reference to combining duty to king and pope, as has been seen in the case of Rabardeau.103 Le Moine felt the need to refer to both Rabardeau and Bauny when defending the Society’s record on recognition of both secular and episcopal authority.104 When Sirmond’s Praedestinatus was attacked in print in 1644, Petrus Aurelius was mentioned, but the Jesuit’s own role as royal confessor was challenged.105 In the self-defence published in 1644 by the subsequently antiJansenist Hallier, both Cellot and Rabardeau were considered, while his own support for episcopal authority, issued at the orders of the Sorbonne, was put alongside justification of a right combination of allegiance to both king and pope.106 By then the University was also complaining of the Jesuit Denys Petau for his Degrés ecclésiastiques.107 In such a context the internal recording of tradition at Port-Royal itself is all the more revealing. Frank reportage of a ‘spiritual conference’ given by Mère Angélique to the community included her reference to Peter and Paul explicitly as the heads of the Church.108 When reprinting of the Petrus Aurelius was in question, no attempt was made there to doubt or conceal the authorship of SaintCyran.109 Jesuit Publications: Self-Censorship and Self-Destruction In 1638 Vitelleschi was ensuring that French Jesuits had updated decrees of the Roman Holy Office. But in fact Roman control and censorship of Jesuit publications, in the sense of regulation external to the Society itself, was only a part, and arguably not the most important part, of the relevant context. In the case of France there was always the danger of intervention by the Sorbonne, and in 1639, in relation to that, Vitelleschi stressed how necessary was internal review, for his own information, of intended Jesuit publications. Internal controls indeed should ensure that Jesuits from one province, such as those in Paris, did not seek to achieve 103

    105   106   107   108   109   104

BPR, LP 1152, passim. BPR, LP 1512, Première Partie, Section III. BPR, LP 1515 bis, pp. 103, 106. BPR, LP 1657, pp. 65–9. BPR, LP 1513, Response. BPR, PR 9, fol. 881. BPR, PR 22, fols 560–62.

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unapproved publication in another province, or use that route to publish anonymously; though in 1640 it was recognized that printers who were promised work would have to be satisfied if jobs were cancelled. In 1642– 43 the need for internal review and control was still requiring reiteration, as the disproportionate damage to the Society caused by inappropriate publications was recognized. This had been true, after all, as early as 1626, with the alleged errors in the Summa Theologica of Garasse and the need, reported by Suffren, for Garasse to persuade Richelieu that he was not also the author of an attack on the cardinal’s policy. For internal use some principles for an expurgatory index were provided in 1629; and, by a sort of parallel, in 1630 there followed detailed regulations for how the production of plays at Jesuit schools or colleges was to be kept within modest bounds, with limited use of the vernacular, mainly for the benefit of aristocratic parents in the audience. The rules for internal review and revision of Jesuit texts provided in 1631 specified the need to avoid disparaging remarks about identifiable rulers or nations, or treatment of dangerously controversial topical issues. In 1632 this was reinforced, with obedience to the rules demanded under pain of excommunication, while the problem of anonymous publications was noted. In that same year Binet reported on his efforts, during previous years, to keep suitable control over what was published by writers such as Armand and Suffren, avoiding above all offence to any specific nations. But even in 1627 reference to the attempt to establish such internal control had mentioned a similar attempt as early as 1621. In 1629, at a time when Binet was in charge at Lyon, he himself was alerted to the problem of works falsely attributed to Jesuit authorship, as well as to dangerous hostility at the royal court to the supposed over-expansion of the Society in France, though assured that the Paris-based province had been warned and Suffren told to intervene. Richelieu had to be approached directly in 1631, in order to seek his understanding and protection, when a Spanish Jesuit, Padre Hurtado de Mendoza, published a volume including imprudent references to France, critical of Richelieu’s links with foreign Protestants and likely to offend the king; and it was admitted that the work had escaped prior review at the Society’s Roman curia. Jesuit superiors in various places, including Paris and Lyon, both publishing centres, were being ordered to round up copies if they reached the booksellers, and destroy them; with similar orders to Spain itself. The cardinal was asked to accept that the Society was doing all it could to limit the damage, as previously when an English Jesuit made imprudent references, in writing, to the cardinal. On that occasion, it was alleged, the author had been ejected from the Society, but on this new occasion the cardinal might have to be asked to intervene himself to satisfy the king. In 1633, to resolve an internal question, a Jesuit was told clearly by Vitelleschi that the superiors of studies were correct

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in following St Ignatius by ensuring that the Society’s philosophy always conformed with Aristotle. But the next year the Jesuit rector at Aix-enProvence was reminded of the proven dangers, not least in that Jesuit province, of unreviewed or unauthorized Jesuit publications. References to leading public figures were always dangerous, and any mention of rulers was bound to offend one or another in a divided Europe. It remained vital that putative Jesuit publications be examined first, at the Society’s Roman curia, as now, it was claimed, those of Spanish Jesuits were. In that same year Jean Filleau, at Lyon, was alerted to the need to investigate, there as elsewhere, any ‘political’ discourse within Jesuit colleges which criticized Catholic rulers. But in 1636 it was still necessary to tell the rector of the more important of the two colleges at Lyon that before publishing his own work he must remove references to the question of whether a ‘regnum immediate sit a Deo’, despite his wording’s avoiding any specific reference to the issue of royal authority dependent on papal jurisdiction. The Father Provincial at Lyon, at the same date, was instructed that Jesuit authors should in future check with their Provincial on the work they were doing towards writing or publishing a book. This arose out of the case where a Jesuit there had to be prevented from publishing a work critical of the Capuchins until it had been examined at Rome. More generally, in 1637, the vivid concern was made clear, to the same Provincial, about offence liable to be caused by books published without Rome’s prior approval, to be based on the reports of internal censors. Yet again, though, Filleau was warned in 1640 of an unsuitable Jesuit publication which Rome believed was being planned; and, hardly surprisingly in the circumstances, of long-standing tensions between Jesuits themselves in France, in 1641. By 1642 Vitelleschi’s principal concern, understandably, was to avoid any Jesuit publication that touched on matters which might be considered to fall under the pope’s prohibition of the reopening of the disputes De Auxiliis.110

110

  ARSI, Gallia 38, fol. 20v, 1621, 15 Dec. 1627: Epistolae Communes to the Jesuit provinces of the kingdom; Gallia 71, fols 70r–v, 72r, 15 Jan., 13 Feb. 1626: Suffren to Vitelleschi; Gallia 38, fols 23r–v, 26v–27r, 31r–v, 30 June 1629, 11 Feb. 1630, 14 Dec. 1631, 18 Sept. 1632: Epistolae Communes; Lugdunensis 5, fols 577r–v, 8 Sept. 1629: Vitelleschi to Binet; Gallia 46, fol. 131r, 19 July 1631: Vitelleschi to Richelieu; Francia 47, no 91, 17 Jan. 1632: Binet to Vitelleschi; Lugdunensis 6, fol. 11v, 13 Jan. 1633: Vitelleschi to P. Ignatio Cappon; fols 45r, 47r–v, 5, 19 June 1634: Vitelleschi to P. Paul de Barry, to P. Bernard Dangles; Gallia 41, fol. 209r, 14 Aug. 1634: Vitelleschi to Filleau; Lugdunensis 6, fols 117v, 135r–v, 3 July, 16 Dec. 1636: Vitelleschi to P. Hugues Mambrun, to P. Claude Boniel; fol. 154v, 20 May 1637: Vitelleschi to Boniel; Francia 6, fols 27r–28r, 32v–33r, 57v–58r, 61v, 66v, 72r, 77v, 83v, 11 Nov. 1638, 4 Jan., 25 May, 5 July, 1 Sept., 1 Nov. 1639, 8 Jan., 25 Feb. 1640: Vitelleschi to Binet, to Dinet, to P. Jacques Saint-Remi, to Séguiran; Gallia 41, fols 192v, 237v, 10 Jan. 1640, 3 July 1641: Vitelleschi to Filleau; Francia 6, fols 163v, 178v–179r, 180v,

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Roman intervention in a different sense, that of the Holy Office or the Congregation of the Index, could of course occur. In 1641 it was necessary for Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, by means of an autograph letter, to intervene (irrespective of the nuncio’s role) to try to have the work of Bauny removed from the Roman Index; the cardinal was himself the dedicatee of one of Bauny’s publications. But in 1643 there was still need for repetition of the rules of the Society itself for internal review and revision of books and controls against anonymous publications. It was no accident that at a much later date, in 1670, the Necrology for François Annat mentioned not only his 16 years as confessor to Louis XIV but also, earlier in his career, his role as Provincial at Paris and as a censor of books at Rome. Roman authority in the fullest sense was what concerned Vitelleschi in relation, above all, to the papal prohibition of works seeking to reopen the disputes De Auxiliis. When he insisted in 1629 to a Jesuit at Avignon that there, in papal territory, the prohibition must be observed in particular, he had to explain patiently that he had indeed seen the copies sent to him of Dominican theses in which members of the order originally opposing the Jesuits in the dispute reopened their anti-Jesuit attacks; but that in the first place these had been published at Toulouse, in the kingdom of France (where the Dominicans did indeed have a convent of major, historic importance) not in papal territory; secondly that what Dominicans did was a matter to be left to the highest authorities of the Church; and finally that the Society for its part must avoid giving offence and keep the peace. It did in fact seem that at this date the papal inquisitor at Avignon, whose jurisdiction certainly ran there (as opposed to the kingdom of France), had ruled that no Jesuit publication there should in future deal with the question De Auxiliis, or the related issues of the ‘Scientia Media’ or the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Vitelleschi was clear that any such ruling was in line with papal orders and must be obeyed. Related problems would occur a little later, despite this, in the case of books by Raynaud, who was not normally based at Avignon. There, however, the situation seemed to Vitelleschi to be a little easier, if more complicated, by 1636. He himself then judged that Jesuit teaching on the ‘Scientia Conditionata’, allegedly caught by the prohibition on publishing with reference to De Auxiliis, was not in fact affected, since theses on it had been edited, with the permission of ecclesiastical authority, as enclosed examples showed. Nor did he think there remained any prohibition on treating of the Immaculate Conception, as was suggested by recent prints, at Rome itself, illustrating devout belief (not yet of course a dogma) concerning this, also enclosed for demonstration. If a clear prohibition did 195r, 208v–209r, 5 Apr., 25 Oct., 28 Nov. 1642, 1 June, 8 Dec. 1643: Vitelleschi to Dinet, to Saint-Remi, to Filleau, to P. Jean Bagot; cf. Bireley, Jesuits, pp. 80–82, 142, 169–70.

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stand, he needed to see an authentic copy of any such decree himself. For France, by 1639, he insisted that internal review of Jesuit publications, culminating in his own examination, was necessary above all to ensure papal anger was not aroused against the Society by any breach of the prohibition in relation to De Auxiliis. If others (implicitly other regulars and, presumably, Dominicans) committed a fault on this score that did not provide an excuse for Jesuits to disobey. Caution, for related reasons, extended to the ‘Scientia Media’, the ‘Scientia Conditionata’ and the ‘Physica praedeterminante’. But in 1643 there was still danger from another intended publication relating to De Auxiliis.111 All this suggested an area of uncertainty, itself dangerous for the Society, as to just what other specifics were covered by the general papal prohibition related to reopening the De Auxiliis dispute. In 1629 it seemed to Binet that it was the archbishop at Avignon who had refused to allow Jesuit theses on the ‘Scientia Media’, to which Vitelleschi responded that there as elsewhere the topic could be disputed privately in Jesuit studies, while any ruling against publication was to be obeyed, as conforming to papal orders. The rector at Avignon was accordingly told to obey the archbishop in this way while allowing such domestic disputation, and to another Jesuit there the matter was again clarified: what mattered was that nothing appeared in print. But by 1632 Filleau, as Provincial at Lyon, was ordered to investigate an alleged public defence there of a proposition, ‘De Praedeterminatione voluntatis et scientia media’, which supposedly offended not because of its public nature but simply because it was counter to the Society’s doctrine. If such an event did occur in this way a written account was to be sent to Vitelleschi to be examined. In 1642 it seemed as 111

  ARSI, Lugdunensis 5, fols 572v, 574v–575r, 14 June, 28 July 1629: Vitelleschi to P. Claude Donyol, to P. Etienne Guyon; Lugdunensis 6, fol. 133v, 16 Dec. 1636: Vitelleschi to Donyol; Francia 6, fols 57v–58r, 61v, 66v, 72r, 25 May, 5 July, 1 Sept., 1 Nov. 1639: Vitelleschi to Dinet, to Saint-Remi, to Séguiran; Francia 33, fols 286r–287v, 29 Mar. 1641: La Rochefoucauld to P. Etienne Charlet; Francia 6, fols 158r–v, 28 Feb. 1642: Vitelleschi to Jean Phélypeaux; Gallia 38, fol. 43v, 12 Aug. 1643: Epistolae Communes; Francia 47, no. 124, 19 Nov. 1643: Filleau to Vitelleschi; Francia 45, fols 337v–338r: Necrologia. Cf. Fouqueray, Histoire, vol. V, pp. 416–17; cf. Meyer, pp. 364–7. Bauny’s work was condemned in 1641 by the Sorbonne: P. Vismara, ‘Les jésuites et la morale économique’, in ‘Les jésuites dans l’Europe savante’, XVIIe siècle, 237 (2007): 739–54: p. 748. Quite apart from Bauny’s case, Rome was eventually perfectly firm about the application of rulings from the Congregation of the Index, inclusive where necessary of Jesuit works, even if urging on the nunciature the necessary caution about public use of such edicts within France. Rome was also realistic about the logistic impossibility of central Jesuit censorship there of all publications of the Society’s members, however unsatisfactory local licensing by Fathers Provincial in France had proved: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 441, 446, 456, 462, 469–70, 479, 498–9, 557, 594: Barberini to Scotti, 24, 29 Dec. 1640, nos 612, 621; 27 Jan., 14 Feb. 1641, nos 653–4, 668; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 11, 18 Jan., 1 Mar., 20 May 1641, nos 635, 644, 698, 700, 812; final Relation, 5 Apr. 1641.

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though a potentially troublesome publication in the same area of debate, involving the ‘Scientia Media’ and human free will, might be one where the author would claim that he wrote on Richelieu’s orders.112 Some of Sirmond’s works were liable to cause trouble for the Society for different reasons however. In 1634 Vitelleschi expressed his fears on this score to Petau, and the next year to Sirmond himself and to Gordon while reassuring the latter over his anxiety lest he had offended the pope. By 1641–42 the problem was all too specific: the Society would be accused of unacceptable arrogance if Sirmond had attacked the French tradition about the (single) identity of ‘Saint Denys’, or if he went on to challenge southern French traditions about St Mary Magdalen or pious Catholic beliefs about the miraculous history of the Holy House of Loreto in Italy. That was very different from the assurance to Sirmond in 1629 that he should remain in France to complete his work on the ancient Gallican Councils, which would surely be to the glory of God and the Church. His 1651 ‘Elogium’, however, recorded his 1641 dissertation ‘De Duobus Dionysijs’ among his works, as well as a volume (in 1631) of 40 of St Augustine’s sermons and then, as the Jansenist dispute got under way, works on predestination and the theology of Augustine, in 1643 and 1649.113 Rabardeau was another Jesuit whose writings threatened to do damage to the Society, as was noted again in 1641–42. In the 1630s the Duke of Lorraine had felt the need to supply his own Jesuit confessor with a certificate that the latter, Didier Cheminot, had not been even remotely involved in the duke’s contested marriage to Béatrice de Cuzance. He had, on the contrary, known nothing of it, being appointed as confessor only subsequent to the event. In 1641 Vitelleschi ordered Rabardeau to desist from writing about Duke Charles’s marriage, and alerted Dinet to the danger of such a work. But by 1643 it seemed the real danger was the possibility that any such publication might offend the pope. It was such a contrast with the New Year greetings which Vitelleschi was able to send in 1637 to the French scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri De Peiresc at Aix. He could assure him that the famously erudite Jesuit Athanasius 112   ARSI, Lugdunensis 5, fols 571v, 572r–v, 574v–575r, 14 June, 28 July 1629: Vitelleschi to Binet, to Guyon, to Donyol; Lugdunensis 6, fol. 4r, 18 Sept. 1632: Vitelleschi to Filleau; Francia 6, fols 158r–v, 28 Feb. 1642: Vitelleschi to Phélypeaux. 113   ARSI, Gallia 41, fols 48r–v, 22 Apr. 1629: Vitelleschi to Sirmond; fols 185v, 186v, 11 Mar. 1634, 8 May 1635: Vitelleschi to Petau, to Sirmond, to Gordon; Francia 6, fols 143v–144r, 151r, 164r, 25 Oct. 1641, 1 Feb., 5 Apr. 1642: Vitelleschi to Sirmond, to Dinet; Francia 45, fols 258r–259v: Necrologia (1651). In 1643 Sirmond attacked the Augustinus in two pamphlets, the Praedestinatus and the Historia Praedestiniana (both Paris). His disciple Petau attacked in 1649: De Concilii Tridentini interpretatione et S. Augustini doctrina dissertatio; Hermant, vol. I, pp. 310–12; cf. Meyer, pp. 149–50, 169–70, 213, 462–3; Fumaroli, ‘Temps de croissance’, p. 160.

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Kircher was free to give any scholarly help that was wished, provided any studies ordered by Richelieu were given priority by the Jesuit. Kircher, he further stressed, had all the books he needed, unless they were ones which could not be found in the Vatican or other major libraries. He hoped the Jesuit’s work would meet with the Frenchman’s approval. That followed Vitelleschi’s surprise in 1634 at a work of Kircher’s which appeared with Filleau’s permission but of which the Father General had known nothing in advance: rules about Jesuit publications should be followed unvaryingly in all cases. However Kircher’s unlicensed book turned out to be about clocks, which was less likely to be a cause for critics of the Society to be aroused. So Filleau, as well as a Jesuit at Avignon, was told all was well in the particular instance, but reminded that even the slightest work should be licensed at the highest level of the Society.114 Other Jesuits might give rise to worry on occasion, as when in 1632 Vitelleschi expressed his hope to Filleau at Lyon that suspicions and accusations involving Père Monod could be resolved satisfactorily. But Raynaud proved to be a one-man climax of trouble for the Society, and not just when he published an uncorrected and counterproductively bitter attack on Gibieuf in 1632. In 1633 Raynaud himself was alerted about a publication seeming to criticize the Jesuits and its context of a disputation among the Jesuit theologians at Lyon. A review was needed of anything that might give opportunity to enemies of the Society, and Raynaud was told to remove from his own writings any unsuitably critical passages. A description of the disputation itself satisfied Vitelleschi at this point, however. But in the case where a Capuchin complained of works by Raynaud and a fellow Jesuit, these two were ordered to destroy any writings by the Capuchin that they held. The rector of the main Jesuit college at Lyon reported to Vitelleschi about Raynaud’s publications, and 114   ARSI, Lugdunensis 6, fols 41v, 48r, 49r, 24 Apr., 17 July, [31] July 1634: Vitelleschi to Filleau, to Boniel; Gallia 46, fol. 169v, 1 Jan. 1637: Vitelleschi to Peiresc; Gallia 64, fol. 70r, 22 May 1639: Translatio testimonij; Gallia 41, fol. 193v, 2 Sept. 1641: Vitelleschi to Dinet; Francia 6, fols 148r–v, 15 Dec. 1641: Vitelleschi to Dinet; Francia 6, fol. 205r, 2 Oct. 1643: Vitelleschi to Filleau. Cheminot nevertheless found himself used by the duke as an agent to press for the validity of the duke’s new union, against Roman wishes at the time: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 116, 504: Scotti to Barberini from Saint-Quentin, 20 July 1639, from Paris, 15 Mar. 1641, nos 29, 713. Cf. also P.N. Miller, Peiresc’s Europe. Learning and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven-London, 2000), p. 6; Peiresc had been a member of the parlement of Provence at Aix in 1611, at the time of the witchcraft trial and execution of the ‘libertine’ priest Louis Gauffridy: ibid., p. 27. Cf. also J. Fletcher, ‘Kircher and Astronomy: A Postscript’, in M. Casciato et al. (eds), Enciclopedismo in Roma barocca. Athanasius Kircher e il Museo del Collegio Romano tra Wunderkammer e museo scientifico (Venice, 1986), pp. 129–38: pp. 130–32; S. Bedini, ‘Citadels of Learning. The Museo Kircheriano and Other Seventeenth-Century Italian Science Collections’, ibid., pp. 249–67: pp. 258–9.

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the latter was clearly himself apprehensive about potential examination and possible condemnation of his work. It was true that at Rome a book of his was being examined which touched on the subject of martyrdom achieved in plague conditions, though he was assured that all possible care was being taken there to preserve his reputation. Indeed, he was informed, all was being done to preserve him from danger, contrary to his fears, and especially in relation to the book in question (at a time, of course, when Pope Urban VIII was insisting on stricter than ever papal control of issues involving sanctity and canonization). But a decree of the Holy Office (not the Congregation of the Index) was forwarded to Filleau, dealing with a work at least attributed to Raynaud, which Vitelleschi accordingly needed to look at himself, while the Society must meanwhile avoid any possible complaint against itself, by perfect compliance with the decree. The book was the subject of a complaint lodged at Rome by a Minim, and the attribution was allegedly false. But Raynaud was meanwhile sent away from Lyon to Grenoble, and Vitelleschi examined this work to see if it contained anything that might merit the displeasure of the papal authorities. The broader problem of false attribution of works to Jesuit writers remained, however, though Vitelleschi clearly felt at a loss by not having had advance notice of the particular contested work or its delation at Rome. When Raynaud denied authorship, proof would be needed if his denial was itself untrue. A Jesuit at Grenoble was alerted to Vitelleschi’s hope that Raynaud would in any case write more cautiously in future. But then Raynaud, at Grenoble, was warned that the Father General had heard that he had published a work on Judas the Traitor, which might be construed as an attack on a particular regular, and this would be investigated. Unguarded and unlicensed works could only cause trouble for the Society, even if it obviously did all it could at Rome to protect works of individual Jesuits from condemnation. The need was to avoid giving offence, and thereby any opportunity to adversaries of the Society. This was the work of which a Capuchin had complained, as being a work of Raynaud’s including an attack on him. Filleau was ordered to investigate to see whether the rules for prior approval of Jesuit publications had been breached, and the rules about internal examination were reiterated once more. He was also, without Raynaud’s knowing, to collect in all the copies he could of the work about martyrdom in plague conditions, in order to comply with the Holy Office decree. Raynaud was promised he would be told what could be discovered about where it was thought the work needed correction. His denial about other authorship was accepted, but he must avoid trouble in future. But in fact, it turned out, two of his books had displeased the authorities at Rome, the second being a work about Efficacious Grace, a subject dangerously allied to the dispute De Auxiliis.

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Raynaud, who was now in the duchy of Savoy, at Chambéry, was told that these two publications, breaching papal prohibitions and appearing in Italy in the latter case, were damaging the Society. The point was repeated in 1635, together with the assurance that his reputation and that of the Society were being protected at Rome as far as possible, but that he must avoid further trouble. In the circumstances, he was now allegedly complaining to the cardinal of Savoy about his harsh treatment by the Jesuit Provincial and the obstacles to publishing put in his way. The Provincial had acted properly, in fact, and books could still be written at Chambéry but must be approved at the Society’s curia before publication to avoid any possible cause of offence. So in 1636 the new Provincial at Lyon was instructed to initiate a review of Raynaud’s latest composition, keeping strictly to all the rules for internal review designed to prevent such offence. Some of the internal assessors should be persons unknown to Raynaud, and all their opinions should be forwarded to Rome, before any other action was taken, while Vitelleschi’s approval was awaited. Any other Jesuits claiming to have his authorization for their publications must produce written proof. Raynaud was to be brought back to Lyon from Chambéry, as the evident wish of the cardinal of Savoy for this to happen was the most important consideration. Yet in 1642 Raynaud himself, writing from Avignon to Vitelleschi, lamented the troubles he, and hence the Society, had been in within the duchy of Savoy. The princes of Savoy and the parlement of Chambéry had become involved, and so seemingly had French Jesuits over-sensitive in their patriotic sentiments; but in the immediate he wished to clear his name with the Jesuit rector at Turin. The very next year it was the archbishop of Bordeaux who needed to be reassured, in relation to Raynaud, that he should never expect the Society to allow anything offensive to rulers to appear. But he would know what a zealous but ‘dangerous’ spirit Raynaud was, capable of damaging the Society. He was assured that the Provincial at Lyon was instructed to order Raynaud, under formal obedience, not now to publish or circulate or allow circulation of writings either within the Society or among outsiders. He was thus best kept under control where he was, and not allowed to transfer to Bordeaux, to avoid his damaging the Society with prelates or secular rulers. There was no alternative, given the amount of damage limitation his previous errors had required. The same general point, about his harming the Society by his publications, was also made to a royal minister, whose assistance was requested in collecting some of his work for emendation so that a corrected edition might appear, with a suitably grateful dedication to the minister.115 115   ARSI, Lugdunensis 6, fols 4r, 10r–v, 18 Sept., 16 Dec. 1632: Vitelleschi to Filleau; fols 10v–11r, 21r, 25r, 30v, 34r, 35v, 38v, 40r–v, 41r–v, 43r, 47r–v, 49r–v, 51v–52r, 57r,

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Such a climax to Jesuit publications in France was therefore totally unhelpful as the context for Jesuit response when the problem of French Jansenism first emerged. In 1653 the Necrology of Jacques Dinet claimed that he had achieved the initial delation to Rome by French bishops of Jansenist propositions. The year before, the Necrology of Denys Petau recorded not only his general learning, which had caused the French king to block his being taken to Madrid by the Spanish king or to Rome by Urban VIII, but also his zeal in detecting ‘new heresy’. But in fact, in 1644, it had been specifically with reference to Petau that it was noted that the royal wish was that no publications should appear attacking Arnauld. In 1648 the problem of Jansenism, the question of the Oratorians and the situation of the Queen Regent were reported to Father General Carafa. The dangers to the Church in France were all too evident, and not confined to the admittedly embarrassing case of a Jesuit who had fled to the Dutch Netherlands and turned Calvinist. In 1670 the Necrology of Annat summarized him as a pillar of the Church, a champion of the true faith, a defender of (a true reading of) Saint Augustine and an enemy of the new Jansenist heretics. He had obtained royal reinforcement in France of Roman condemnation of the last as well as writing acute attacks of his own, only retiring as royal confessor just prior to his death. But,

58r–v, 58v–59r, 64r, 77v, 92r–v, 112r–v, 115r, 13 Jan., 2 June, 13 Aug., 21 Oct., 30 Dec. 1633, 27 Jan., 24 Mar., 24 Apr., 7 May, 19 June, 31 July, 28 Aug., 4, 16, 19 Dec. 1634, [?]Mar., 18 July, 20 Dec. 1635, 23 May, 5 June 1636: Vitelleschi to Filleau, to P. François Poiré, to Raynaud, to P. Etienne Rolier, to P. Bernard Dangles, to Boniel; Gallia 64, fols 75r–76v, 3 June 1642: Raynaud to Vitelleschi; Gallia 46, fols 249r–v, 255v, 29 Apr., 20 July 1643: Vitelleschi to archbishop of Bordeaux, to D. Du Agent. Whereas P. Coppone was sent to Richelieu by Christine of Savoy to try to negotiate more urgent French support for her in the internecine conflicts in the duchy and to try to allay the cardinal’s suspicions against her, the Savoyard Pierre Monod in 1636 had been involved in negotiations with France over control of Pinerolo. This Jesuit confessor of Christine, duchess of Savoy, was in the event disgraced, under pressure from France in the wake of the Caussin affair, and incarcerated: P. Cozzo, La geografia celeste dei duchi di Savoia. Religione, devozioni e sacralità in un Stato di età moderna (secoli XVI–XVII) (Bologna, 2006), pp. 153–4. Richelieu regarded Monod, the rector of the Turin college, as a capital enemy of France for his promotion of a neutral but essentially hostile policy. The Jesuit’s 1633 publication in support of the Savoyard claims to a royal title was an obstacle to any reconciliation, within peninsular politics, between Venice and Savoy; but Christine would not abandon the claims. The duchess also found herself between French and Roman pressure with regard to the arrest of Monod and the location of his incarceration: Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 107–8, 156–7, 167, 258, 396, 428: Barberini to Scotti, 7 Dec. 1640, no. 591; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 14 June 1639, from Grenoble, 28 Sept., 3 Oct. 1639, from Paris, 10 Feb., 27 Oct. 1640, nos 13, 97–8, 115, 267, 541.

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notoriously, this was of course not the end but just the beginning of the Jesuits’ confrontation with Jansenism.116 High and Low: From 1637–1638 to the 1640s In 1637 Vitelleschi sent New Year greetings to Richelieu, which Séguiran was to expand on verbally, and thanks for the cardinal’s continued help to and protection of the Jesuits in France. The now good and peaceful position of the Society in the kingdom was due, after God, to the cardinal, who favoured it there and elsewhere. This optimistic assessment was repeated in 1638 in a report that the Society was flourishing in France, despite its opponents. In 1639 the papal attempts, via the nuncios, to procure European peace were to be matched with the prayers of the Society for this intention, and in the summer of that year information was sent from Rome about the ambitious plans for 1640, marking the first century of the Society. What celebrations were intended in Rome itself were outlined, including reference to the Jesuit role in defeating Lutheran heresy. In this connection a papal Jubilee for the Jesuits was promised for 1640, and Jesuits should celebrate Masses and say prayers correspondingly for the pope and the Barberini family. But while the general celebration of the first century, with lavish associated publication, is indeed as famous as the fact that this conspicuous display provoked a new resurgence of anti-Jesuit sentiment within parts of Catholicism itself, it was striking that the outline of the plans for celebrations in Rome came with an explicit caution that related events in France should be careful to preserve a suitable modesty. That was not, however, much in evidence when in 1641 the solemn opening of the new church of the Professed House at Paris was recorded. The triumphant account noted royal musicians sent in for the occasion, Richelieu’s prominent role and, alongside the royal party, an ambassador of the ‘king of Portugal’ and delegates of the Catalans, reflecting the newsworthy French opportunity to capitalize on the revolts in Spain. Even Suffren’s death and burial could hardly seem to dim the glamour of the year. Moreover by 1643 des Noyers was able to correspond about a proposal for a French edition of the Spiritual Exercises, to be published by royal patronage. He was sent, via Dinet, the necessary text for such a royal 116   ARSI, Francia 6, fol. 211r, 22 Jan. 1644: Vitelleschi to Filleau; Gallia 71, fols 77r– 78r, 21 Feb. 1648: P. Caroli Paulin to Carafa; Francia 45, fols 277r–v: Necrologià (1652); Francia 33, fols 424r–450r, 460r–465r: Necrologia [1643, 1653]; Francia 45, fols 337v–338r: Necrologia (1670); cf. Blond, pp. 103–4; Nelles, pp. 683, 685–6; Hermant, vol. I, pp. 232–6; Meyer, pp. 152–61, 216–17, 252–64, 460–62, 464–6. Petau’s own writings, as republished in his Dogmata theologica, alarmed Jesuits at Louvain, who thought they detected positions close to those of Jansenius: L. Ceyssens, ‘Que penser finalement de l’histoire du jansénisme et de l’antijansénisme?’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, LXXXVIII (1993): 108–30: p. 119.

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edition, with the papal Bull for the canonization of Ignatius (in 1622) and an account of that canonization. With corresponding gratitude relics of Saints Ignatius and Francis Xavier were being sent to des Noyers for the king. In 1644, when des Noyers could again be given his full titles as a royal minister, the edition was achieved. This spectacular success for the Jesuits in France, if taken in isolation, might almost seem to suggest that the deaths of Richelieu and then of Louis XIII had little harmed them.117 Even in 1643 a positive turn was given to the situation of the French Jesuits, when the favour of some French bishops, who had participated in the Jesuits’ obsequies for the king, was noted. But a fuller and more realistic record was made in the same year, that with these obsequies and the uncertain prospects for the Regency a great storm had blown up against the Jesuits, once again over their reopened Collège de Clermont and the degrees awarded by Paris University. Now that the king as well as Richelieu was dead, works hostile to the Jesuits were again being published, complete with the revival of old allegations against the Society. The Paris parlement took the opportunity to enter the hostilities; while at Rennes the parlement there and the civic authorities also became involved when local attacks on the Jesuits were stimulated by rumours about responsibility for the grain shortage, and even about Jesuit support for the Spanish in the continuing war. In 1644 the delicate situation in which the king’s death had left the Society was acknowledged, as the question of episcopal authority in France was once again raised. It was indeed suggested to Rabardeau that given the sensitivity of that question, now potentially in relation to Jesuit publications against early French Jansenism as well, Jesuit writing or preaching on the controversy might not necessarily be ideal. To 1645 the political dangers continued, as royal finances became a cause of crisis within which popular animosity to the Jesuits surfaced. The future in fact was unpromising, and it was not entirely surprising that the Necrology later recorded for one French Jesuit, in 1672, praised him for helping to settle, within France, trouble and dissent in the Society itself during the time of Father General Piccolomini. For another, in 1668, the Necrology drew on political developments in Europe, not least in the Iberian peninsula after 1640, to stress how Father General Nickel had thought well enough of the French Jesuit to send him as Visitor to Portugal, 117   ARSI, Gallia 46, fols 168v–169r, 1 Jan. 1637: Vitelleschi to Richelieu; Francia 47, no. 111, 12 Jan. 1638: Binet to Vitelleschi; Gallia 38, fols 37r, 38r–39v, 1 Feb. [Summer], Oct. 1639: Epistolae Communes; Francia 33, fols 266r–284r: Annuae literae (1641); Gallia 46, fols 247r–v, 251r–v, 252r, 15 Feb., 30 Apr., 1 May 1643: Vitelleschi to Des Noyers; fol. 265v, 15 July 1644: Vitelleschi to Des Noyers; Blond, pp. 67–8, 69, 95; cf. Châtellier, pp. 92–3. 1640 of course saw the publication of both the Jesuits’ Imago Primi Saeculi and the Augustinus: J.-L. Quantin, ‘Présentation’ to ‘Les jésuites dans l’Europe savante’, XVIIe siècle, 237 (2007): 611–14: p. 613.

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to compose differences among Jesuits there and win the favour towards the Society of the new, independent royal dynasty. As an internal record, in 1673, a frank but brutal note of ‘oblivion’ had however to be made for Jean de la Croix. During his incarceration for 20 years he had not received the sacraments, and he had been denied ecclesiastical burial at his death; his crime was to have embraced Jansenism.118 The precarious balance of the Society’s position in France, then, was certainly evident at the end of Richelieu’s life. The commitment of the French Jesuits to the monarchy was in practice compromised by the cardinal’s war policy and his unpopularity in France, which in turn soured relations between the French Jesuits and the nunciature.119 Critics of the cardinal alleged that he was preparing a schism by means of a projected national Church Council, bringing to a head other tensions with Rome, both directly diplomatic and in relation to ecclesiastical rights which Rome did recognize and defend, as opposed to ‘Gallican liberties’ whose assertion it deplored.120 The aged Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld had, exceptionally, his own good relations with the Jesuits in France, but other prelates loyal to Rome, whom the nunciature could look to for support, were associated rather with the remaining ultramontane element at the French Oratory, above all Claude Bertin.121 When a breach with Rome 118   ARSI, Francia 47, no. 121, 23 Aug. 1643: Filleau to Vitelleschi; Francia 33, fols 326r–328v: Annuae Literae (1643); Francia 6, fols 213v–214r, 13 Feb. 1644: Vitelleschi to Filleau; Gallia 46, fols 270r–271v, 20 Feb. 1645: Carolus Sangrius, Vicar General, to king’s uncle, to Condé, to the chancellor; Francia 45, fols 330r, 346r, 355r: Necrologia (1668, 1672, 1673); Blond, p. 67 n. 98, p. 94; cf. Meyer, pp. 374–86. Cf. Brockliss, ‘Jansenist calumny’: 12–13, for the attempt, in spring–summer 1643, by the University of Paris to prevent the crown giving students of the Jesuits at the Collège de Clermont the right to take degrees in the University’s faculties of arts and theology, a right claimed by the Jesuits since the 1618 reopening of the Collège de Clermont and revived after the death of Richelieu in December 1642 seemed to suggest such a possibility, but consistently resisted by the University. When it initially seemed the Jesuits might succeed in spring 1643, again in the context of the situation following Richelieu’s death, the University also tried to get the Paris parlement to restore to its former Benedictine ownership the Collège de Marmoutiers, purchased in spring 1641 by the Jesuits, to enable extension of the chapel of their Collège de Clermont, but the conseil d’état intervened in favour of the Jesuits. 119   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 202–3: Scotti to Feragalli from Paris, 2 Dec. 1639, no. 177. 120   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 202–3, 214, 240, 256, 263, 281, 283, 288, 313, 315, 322, 344, 464–5, 498, 543, 557, 594: Barberini to Scotti, 14 Dec. 1639, 21 May 1640, 3 May 1641, nos 189, 370, 372, 788; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 13 Jan., 3, 21 Feb., 23, 30 Mar., 6 Apr., 1 June, 11 July 1640, 25 Jan., 1 Mar., 20 May 1641, nos 232, 263, 276, 312, 314, 322, 384, 424, 648, 698, 812; Scotti to Feragalli from Paris, 2 Dec. 1639, no. 177; final Relation, 5 Apr. 1641. 121   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 202–203, 206, 221–2, 240, 243, 256, 279, 294, 322, 340, 344, 367, 400, 464–5, 499, 601, 606: Barberini to Scotti, 23 Dec. 1639, 19 Mar.

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threatened and, at diplomatic level, did in part occur, the French Jesuits’ connection with Richelieu was particularly unpromising as the background to the first signs of the Jansenist controversy. The nuncio, at the beginning of 1641, was prompt to promise a copy of the original, Louvain edition of the Augustinus for Roman consideration.122 Yet neither the Jesuits, nor for that matter the Capuchins, another supposedly ultramontane order, were regarded as in France giving dutifully adequate support to Roman authority.123 Even a Jesuit who did maintain contact, on behalf of the Society, with the increasingly isolated nuncio, Père François Puigeolet, was not regarded by the former as entirely reliable, while the latter himself was clearly anxious about the view of his activities held at the Society’s Roman curia.124 The nuncio might have his own Jesuit confessor but this professor at the Collège de Clermont, Père Pierre Rouvier, was, with appropriate caution, from the papal territory of Avignon.125 The essential problem for the French Jesuits remained, that what was to prove the beginning of the extended conflict over Jansenism came at a time when Richelieu’s policies had caused a major crisis in French relations with Rome. Yet criticism of Jesuit publications had in some ways already reached a climax in the attack on the Society’s grandiose publication of 1640, the Imago primi saeculi, the intentionally self-celebratory nature of which could not, in the circumstances, unambiguously help the Jesuits within France. Continued hostile reference there, in 1643 and 1644, was combined with the ‘revelation’ of a contrasting reality, the subversive teaching of Airault in Paris, according to evidence obtained in part from the cleric associated with Saint-Sulpice.126 For the University of Paris, in fact, the ambitious publications of Jesuits and the conspicuous display of their scholastic ceremonies were just further mechanisms by which they sought to extend their influence ever more widely throughout society. Their pompous volumes and academic celebrations were contrasted with an alleged aggrandizement made possible by financial exploitation in the 1640, nos 201, 307; Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 9 Dec. 1639, 13, 20 Jan., 3 Feb., 20 Apr., 1 June, 6, 11 July, 5 Sept., 2 Nov. 1640, 25 Jan., 1 Mar. 1641, nos 184, 232, 236, 263, 334, 384, 416, 424, 475, 547, 648, 700; Scotti to Feragalli from Paris, 2 Dec. 1639, no. 177; final Relation, 5 Apr. 1641. 122   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 450, 467: Scotti to Feragalli from Paris, 4 Jan. 1641; to Barberini from Paris, 25 Jan. 1641, nos 626, 650. 123   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 242–3: Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 20 Jan. 1640, no. 236. 124   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 263, 317–18, 456, 606: Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 21 Feb., 23 May 1640, 11 Jan. 1641, nos 276, 375, 635; final Relation, 5 Apr. 1641. 125   Correspondance … Scotti, p. 264: Scotti to Barberini from Paris, 24 Feb. 1640, no. 279. 126   BPR, LP 1148 [item 2]; LP 1499 [items 4, 6].

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war-torn German lands. Their success in gathering upper-class followers into confraternities at Jesuit foundations, under the ‘pretext of devotion’, promised nothing else but political faction in the France of 1643, according to the University.127 The Jesuit de la Haye tried in that year to reply to such charges, dismissing the danger of faction, defending the grandeur of the Parisian church of Saint Louis and its public opening by reference to the gracious patronage of Louis XIII, and complaining of covert encouragement given to popular rumours that in France the Jesuits were complicit in the causes of grain shortage.128 At such a time hostile allusion to the problem of princely marriage, combined with repeated critical references to the Imago, was the more threatening when controversial Jesuit authors were listed alongside famous critics: Lessius, Garasse, Eudaemon-Ioannes on the one hand, Pasquier and Antoine Arnauld [the elder] on the other.129 Le Moine implicitly accused the University of contributing to the false rumours of Jesuit responsibility for grain shortage in France.130The University in turn included explicit reference to those rumours in its 1644 appeal to the parlement of Paris against the ‘apologies’ published by both Caussin and Le Moine.131 Once again Port-Royal developed its own internal tradition, in which Gaston’s marriage, as an alleged impediment to Richelieu’s family ambitions, was recognized as a factor in the confrontation between the cardinal and Saint-Cyran.132 Nevertheless the deaths of the cardinal and then of the king certainly left the French Jesuits in a newly vulnerable position, as was recognized by the attempts of the University to deal a final blow to Jesuit involvement in Parisian education by means of approaches to the parlement in 1643, 1644 and 1645. But the exposure of the Jesuits apparently concentrated their minds too. Le Moine made a diversionary move in 1644, drawing attention to the exemplary sufferings of members of the Society throughout the globe in defence of the Catholic faith. Yet the French context remained the immediate reality, especially after the debacle of Caussin’s brief tenure as royal confessor and disgrace.133 The Paris parlement did go so far as to issue a summons for certain Jesuits to appear to defend themselves against the University’s accusations in 1645.134

127

    129   130   131   132   133   134   128

BPR, LP 1148 [items 2, 4]. BPR, LP 1150, passim. BPR, LP 1151 [items 1, 2, 4, 5]. BPR, LP 1512, Première Partie, Section III. BPR, LP 1513, pp. 2–4. BPR, PR 22, fols 382, 396–7. BPR, LP 1512, Première Partie, Section II; Seconde Partie, Section V. BPR, LP 1513, pp. 43–4, 49.

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One factor militating against the Jesuits in France, especially if royal protection were less certain after the death of Louis XIII, was the increasing isolation of the Society from other religious orders or institutions. This again suggested a fragmentation of the dévot movement, even if the Jesuits were not entirely without some responsibility for this situation. Tensions between Jesuits on the one hand and French Oratorians on the other provided a central example of such fragmentation.135 For the period of the 1640s and beyond, similarly, use of evidence against Jesuit teaching acquired from a cleric associated with Saint-Sulpice has been noted.136 Even the earlier disputes over Jesuit educational enterprise at Toulouse, in the 1620s, had also involved Dominican antagonism.137 Confused fragmentation rather than immediately clear separation between two distinct parties was also suggested by recognition, in Port-Royal’s own tradition, that one of its eventual heroes, Caulet, had initially been resistant to the influence of Saint-Cyran while still under the contrary influence of both Vincent de Paul and Olier, the founder of Saint-Sulpice, where Caulet had already received episcopal ordination in 1645.138 When recording the imprisonment of the Oratorian Séguenot as well as of Saint-Cyran, that same tradition could not disguise the opposition of Vincent de Paul to the latter. The fluctuations of relationships and alliances among dévots were also evident in the convoluted account of involvement by the Oratorian Gibieuf in a proposed change of curé at the Paris church of Saint Merri in which the Port-Royal confessor, Singlin, had himself become involved.139 Such complications were indeed part of the history of Port-Royal itself, even in its own recorded traditions. The precise date from which Singlin should be counted as having entered the list of Port-Royal’s confessors was avowedly ambiguous.140 The failure of the associated Institut du Saint-Sacrement could not be entirely glossed over in recording the life and death of Port-Royal’s great abbess, Mère Angélique. She and other leaders of the community, whether from the Arnauld family or not, were ultimately not independent of external authority, as in the crucial approval by Gondi of the Port-Royal constitutions or, from the same quarter, defence against mid-century attack by the Jesuit Brisacier.141 Anne of Austria, as Queen Regent, gave necessary approval to Robert Arnauld d’Andilly for the transfer of Saint-Cyran’s commendatory abbey, after his death, to his 135

    137   138   139   140   141   136

BPR, PR 22, fols 30–33; Lesaulnier, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, pp. 11–13, 39. BPR, LP 1151 [item 4]; LP 1499 [item 6]. BPR, LP 1147 [items 5, 6, 7]. BPR, PR 85, fols 507–508. BPR, PR 22, fols 30–33, 157–60. BPR, PR 9, fol. 787. BPR, PR 85, fols 7–11, 15–26, 111–12, 130–31.

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nephew Barcos.142 Marie de’ Medici was recorded as having obtained royal permission for the all-important right of Port-Royal to elect its own abbess. But while in due course, by the end of the century, the community could eulogize its greatest members or associates, including naturally Mère Angélique, Antoine Arnauld and the Duc de Liancourt, not all records could be as uncomplicated as that of the painter Philippe de Champagne and his daughter Françoise. The earlier death, in 1633, of another member of the Arnauld family, Soeur Anne de Saint-Paul, necessitated mention of her involvement in the unsuccessful Institut du Saint-Sacrement.143 The evolution of dévot initiatives in the religious life inevitably embraced diversity in fact. A female community which demonstrated both similarities and telling points of contrast with Port-Royal, in Paris of the 1620s and 1630s, was the Hospitalières de la Place Royale. These religious were also an enclosed female community, yet indubitably not contemplative but active in the care of the female sick. While observing the Augustinian rule they were directly subject to the archbishop of Paris, whose approval of their institute revealed a relative frequency of the sacraments of confession and communion for the religious and, potentially, the patients, which was seemingly regarded as quite unproblematic, even as to the sufficiency of attrition (as opposed to contrition) in confession.144 The Watershed of 1643–1644 The publication in 1643 of Arnauld’s Frequent Communion, in effect even if not ostensibly critical of such practice, provoked an attack by the Jesuit Jacques Nouet, quite apart from drawing attention to how far, by 1644, Jesuit and Capuchin views on confession had become opposed to those associated with Port-Royal or the French Oratory.145 The Jesuit’s attack on the Frequent Communion was the more dangerous because the work had received the explicit approbation of some bishops. When in 1644 Arnauld also oversaw publication of an enlarged edition of the hostile Théologie Morale des Jésuites, which did not fail to touch on the contentious issue of the sacrament of confirmation, a Jesuit reply rapidly appeared, before the end of the year. It was all too evident that public criticism of Jesuit authors now encompassed not only Garasse, Bauny, Cellot, Rabardeau, Jacques and Antoine Sirmond but non-French writers too, such as Laymann 142

  BPR, PR 22, fol. 580.   BPR, PR 3, fols 8, 189, 219, 231–5, 255–6, 343, 447; PR 85, fol. 9; Bergin, Church, Society, p. 378. 144   BPR, LP 1647, passim. 145   Lancelot, p. 165 and n. 71; Lesaulnier, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, pp. 34, 39; Bergin, Church, Society, p. 268. 143

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and Hurtado de Mendoza.146 The dispute over confession and frequent communion obviously prompted renewed allegations that the Jesuits disparaged legitimate episcopal authority.147 Caussin, as already noted, tried to reassure the French episcopate in the course of his reply to the Théologie Morale.148 Yet discussion of the discipline of confession could not avoid evocation of the confrontation over attrition and contrition, and hence of controversial figures of the stature of Richelieu, Saint-Cyran and Jansenius.149 But dispute was now immediate and unconcealed, as Jesuit response, including that by Le Moine, confronted the assertions of the University of Paris and Hallier’s self-defence.150 Such total disarray made its mark in Port-Royal’s own tradition. Here Richelieu’s imprisonment of Saint-Cyran was blamed on the manoeuvres of ‘false dévots’. Yet it was not denied that crucial to the cardinal’s action was his own anger over Saint-Cyran’s position in the attrition–contrition dispute.151 What, however, is striking in the disputes initiated by Arnauld in 1643–44 is that references to Jansenius or the Augustinus, or indeed the whole contest over the Means of Grace, remain almost as marginal as they appear to have been in controversies of the years immediately preceding, in 1640, 1641 and 1642. The attitude of the French Oratorians to the Augustinus was at issue by 1644 and 1648, certainly by 1653.152 But reference by the University of Paris to the Jesuit Molina’s contested contribution to the dispute on the Means of Grace, his ‘science moyenne’, was a relatively rare remark, even in 1643.153 Among the Jesuit responses to the Théologie Morale in 1644 there was admittedly mention of theses opposed to the views of Jansenius and the prospect of Roman condemnation.154 Correspondingly the critique, apparently by Barcos, of Sirmond’s Praedestinatus, in the same year, necessitated mention of Jansenius and the Augustinus.155 Still in that year the University of Paris mentioned Jansenius as well as the Frequent Communion and the Théologie Morale in its appeal to the Paris parlement.156 An edition of 1645 reproducing both Sirmond and Barcos 146

  BPR, LP 468 [items 30, 35].   BPR, LP 468 [items 31, 35]; LP 1499 [item 2]. 148   BPR, LP 1152, pp. 3–21. 149   BPR, LP 1151, pp. 24–5. 150   BPR, LP 1152, Section Quatriesme, Proposition XVIII; Section V, Proposition XVIII; LP 1512, passim; LP 1513, passim; LP 1657, passim. 151   BPR, PR 22, fols 122, 388. 152   Lesaulnier, ‘Port-Royal et l’Oratoire’, pp. 34, 39. 153   BPR, LP 1148 [item 2]. 154   BPR, LP 1152, Section V, Proposition XVIII. 155   BPR, LP 1515 bis, pp. 103–105. 156   BPR, LP 1513, p. 5; Bergin, Church, Society, p. 400. 147

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certainly ensured publicity for the former’s attack on the Augustinus.157 Nevertheless, while Roman reaction to the Augustinus had naturally suggested that it breached papal orders for suspension of published controversy on the Means of Grace, it also criticized Jesuit responses to the work for a similar breach. Rome indeed feared an anti-Jesuit reaction in the Sorbonne if the renewed controversy spread from the Netherlands to France, and deplored the opportunity offered to Protestant critics, both in anti-Jesuit attacks and more generally, by visible Catholic disunity. In this latter context Rome remarkably suggested a disguised approach to discover the reaction to the Augustinus of an eminent Protestant expert familiar with parallel Protestant controversies, the representative in France of Sweden, Hugo Grotius.158 The relatively precocious adoption at Port-Royal of a tradition which placed the community and its associates at the supposed heart of French Catholic orthodoxy did not seemingly choose to make Jansenius or the Augustinus central in this pristine account. A vernacular abrégé of a part of the Augustinus was disavowed, as neither commissioned nor authorized at Port-Royal.159 The plan of Saint-Cyran to produce his own definitive refutation of Huguenot heresy for all time was instead cited as indicative of his divinely inspired mission. Saint-Cyran’s intended campaign against Protestant heresy in France might not seem entirely at one with the supposed influence on him of the relatively more eirenic Lipsius, but his true mission was ultimately thwarted by the worldly ambition of Richelieu in this tradition.160 The care needed to present Saint-Cyran in this way as the tragically obstructed champion of Catholic orthodoxy in France was matched by the finely calibrated account, published by 1646, of the death of the lay dévot Sublet des Noyers. The spiritual care afforded in extremis by the Jesuits to their prominent patron was naturally made much of, but stress was laid on his pious reception of the Last Rites from his parish priest, to avoid any hint of Jesuit subversion of the parochial organization of the Catholic Church. Thus competing tendencies among dévots refined their own versions of history.161 Such mutually exclusive interpretations of the original dévot design for a perfectly Catholic France signified the real tragedy however. In 1644 the Jesuit Le Moine all too acutely analysed the damage done by the anti-Jesuit campaigns articulated by the University of Paris. Anti-Jesuit Catholics were 157

  BPR, LP 1516, Praefatio.   Correspondance … Scotti, pp. 485, 545–6: Barberini to Scotti, 20 Feb., 9 May 1641, nos 678, 792–3. 159   BPR, PR 9, fol. 32. 160   BPR, PR 22, fols 136–66, 382, 396–7, 639. 161   BPR, LP 470 [item 44]. 158

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giving the impression of being a sectarian organization, thus deserting the ‘true cause’, implicitly that of the pristine dévot movement. In this way what was only in reality an ‘academic dispute’, properly confined to educational competition at Paris, was being allowed to draw in the whole French Church and state.162 Reference at Port-Royal to the concept of ‘false dévots’ equally showed how destructive of the vision of an allCatholic France the divisions among reform-minded French Catholics had become between 1629 and 1645.163

162 163

  BPR, LP 1512, Première Partie, Section III.   BPR, PR 22, fols 122, 136–66.

Chapter 7

The Defining Critique Saint-Cyran’s Role Before the Publication in France of the Augustinus It will be clear how central a role Saint-Cyran played in France, from the late 1620s onwards, in the circles of the dévots. In many ways he was the one most common element in the overlapping circles, bringing individuals into contact and moving busily in the affairs of institutions, whether the election of Père Condren as successor to Pierre de Bérulle at the head of the French Oratory or the increasingly divisive question of the ‘Secret Chaplet’ at the Institut du Saint-Sacrement. But he was also constantly in contact with Jansenius and ecclesiastical developments in the Netherlands, adding an extra dimension to otherwise French issues as well as intervening in disputes which originated among English Catholics. In his opposition to the direction of French foreign policy pursued by Richelieu he initially, once again, demonstrated how much he was a natural part of the dévot movement, even after the death of Bérulle in 1629. But it was this dimension of criticism of French foreign policy which increasingly complicated the dévot position in the 1630s, not only for French Jesuits. The risk of an ultramontane stance appearing unpatriotic became stronger, even if it was the individual fate of Saint-Cyran to be imprisoned by Richelieu, achieving release after the cardinal’s death, only to die himself in 1643. Before this conclusion to that approximate parallel to the internal exile of the Jesuit Caussin, the working out of originally Netherlandish developments ensured in 1640 the posthumous publication at Louvain of the Augustinus of Jansenius. The first French editions (at Paris and Rouen) in 1641–42 thus appeared while Saint-Cyran was still incarcerated, but the lengthy elaboration of the work had very much been one involving his joint studies with Jansenius. The career of the latter, nevertheless, created an association between his authorship and criticism of Richelieu, which imposed a political dimension on an otherwise theological matter.1 For at the doctrinal heart of the controversy launched by the publication of the Augustinus there was a rupture in terms of belief, pitting those who were reviving an interpretation of Augustine – akin to that promoted, before the De Auxiliis dispute, by Baius at Louvain – against an alternative treatment of the problems of divine Grace defended prominently and persistently by 1   Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638) had attacked Richelieu’s foreign policy in print, in the Mars Gallicus, reflecting his concern for the preservation of the Catholic Netherlands.

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the Jesuits.2 This division was to prove stronger than a formerly common attachment to ideals of internal reform within the Catholic Church, seen as necessary not least in France itself after the disruption of the sixteenthcentury wars there. But it is also clear enough that Saint-Cyran’s ubiquitous activity could itself create fractures in dévot connections, as exemplified by Bishop Zamet’s effective exclusion from Port-Royal after he had introduced Saint-Cyran there. Thus the role of Saint-Cyran was undoubtedly crucial and destructive but did not, for chronological and other reasons, relate in any way just to the publication in France of the Augustinus. The Future French Jansenists Already Defined by Anti-Jesuit Sentiment If some central element in the mercurial career of Saint-Cyran is sought, an organizing principle arguably emerges in his opposition to Jesuits, at least in France. From his attack on the Jesuit Garasse onwards, at the very least, the opposition appears increasingly systematic, as something much more than a mere preference for the Oratorians in France. The dispute over the ‘Secret Chaplet’ seemed to consolidate this antagonism, and the influence of Saint-Cyran at Port-Royal apparently replaced not only that of Bishop Zamet but also that of earlier Jesuit advisors to the nuns. Admittedly, for Port-Royal, the Arnauld family tradition of hostility to the Jesuit presence in France was also of obvious importance. But that reinforces the impression that, in a way symbolized but not of course brought about by Zamet’s retreat from direction of the convent, a new axis within the former dévot movement emerged, inspired by SaintCyran and based at Port-Royal. This tendency within a previously real even if informally structured movement had as its distinguishing feature anti-Jesuit sentiment, coalescing before the publication in France of the Augustinus and therefore prior to any attachment to that text in itself. The anti-Jesuit position was associated with criticism of French foreign policy as developed by Richelieu, demonstrating the continuity, in this respect, of Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal from the earlier manifestations of dévot activity. But in the 1630s, by contrast, the still far from secure position of the Jesuits in Richelieu’s France meant that their search for patronage, from the cardinal and the king himself, precluded their sustaining, in 2

 Michel Baius (1513–89), whose teachings while a member of the University of Louvain incurred condemnation (initially without reference to him by name) in papal Bulls of 1567 and 1579. Despite his personal recantation, doctrinal dispute resurfaced, initially in Spain and Italy, causing papal attempts, in the end fruitless, to resolve argument on the operation of divine Grace. The Roman Congregation De Auxiliis was first appointed by Clement VIII in 1597, while Paul V attempted to silence polemics in the dispute by an initial decree of 1607. His ruling of 1611 was confirmed under Urban VIII by Holy Office decrees in 1625.

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relation to French foreign policy, an ultramontane critique which might in theory have been expected. In other words, that part of the French dévot movement which would emerge as the Jansenist tendency from 1641 already had a prior existence, defined, for obvious reasons, not by a text of Jansenius as yet unpublished but by confrontation with the Jesuits. The Realignment of Embryonic Jansenists with the Gallican Tradition The concern of Jansenius and particularly of Saint-Cyran over supposed Jesuit undermining of proper episcopal authority in the Catholic Church did not derive only from events in the Netherlands or in England. The Jesuits in France had not avoided being caught up in the disputes within France of the 1620s and 1630s between bishops and regulars. One strand in the French dévot movement, however, typified by Bishop Zamet – to a degree also by Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, or by the taking as an ideal of the figure of François de Sales – was the authentically Tridentine revival of episcopal responsibility and a corresponding authority. Here there was potential room for common ground to be found between specifically episcopal (as opposed to Richerist or parlementaire) Gallicanism in France and elements from the dévot movement. Richelieu’s own career, after all, had begun as that of a zealous diocesan bishop. Despite the ambiguous relationship of Port-Royal itself with episcopal authority, there was naturally more possibility of rapprochement between episcopal Gallicanism and proto-Jansenism in France than between many of the French bishops and the Jesuits there. In this way the originally ultramontane loyalties of the French dévots were arguably overshadowed, in the case of the embryonic Jansenist movement, by a new Gallican alignment. Later evolution would bring other elements of Gallicanism – in the Paris parlement, among members of the Sorbonne, within the lower clergy – into play in the Jansenist conflict. French Jansenism, whatever its original intentions or prolonged protestations, would develop an increasing opposition to the exercise of papal authority and accordingly find repeated, even if not total or permanent, defence mounted by Gallican forces (other than that of monarchical Gallicanism).

Other Forced Choices: The French Oratory and Saint-Sulpice Not all bishops considered sympathetic to the Jansenists in France would willingly accept policy imposed by monarchical Gallicanism, as became clear in the reign of Louis XIV. But the increasing sense, for others, of the

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need to demonstrate loyalties which were no longer common, but divided, can be seen in the contrast between the French Oratory under Bérulle’s successors and the identity of Saint-Sulpice, at least during Jean-Jacques Olier’s own lifetime. Both institutions were clearly part of the dévot tradition in origin, but in the case of the Oratory the poor relations with the Jesuits in France already visible in the 1630s seemed to produce an increasingly evident sympathy with the Jansenists. While Olier lived, on the other hand, and whatever the subsequent associations of later products of Saint-Sulpice, an ultramontane loyalty seemed to be preserved at the other foundation. After Urban VIII initially put the Augustinus on the Index in 1641, one pro-Jansenist preacher formed at the Oratory and by Saint-Cyran, Toussaint Desmares, found himself by 1652 forced to defend himself against specific attack by Olier. The latter had been among those who had denounced Saint-Cyran to Vincent de Paul, but they also included François-Etienne de Caulet, the eventual bishop of Pamiers, who had had his own breach with Saint-Cyran, despite the fact that in his later career he would be thought of as sympathetic to Jansenism: for Caulet had also broken with Saint-Sulpice by about 1665, following Olier’s death in 1657, whereas on that occasion he had celebrated a pontifical Requiem at Saint-Sulpice.3 A supporter to the last of Caulet, du Ferrier, had also left Saint-Sulpice, not entirely voluntarily, by 1649, with a reputation for favouring Port-Royal.4 So too in 1642, when another key figure in the dévot movement, Jean Eudes, was planning to leave the Oratory to promote his own programme of Catholic reform, he already felt that the Oratorians’ sympathies with Port-Royal were not to his taste, unlike his own sympathies with the Jesuits.5 What, in other words, Saint-Cyran had produced by his multilateral interventions in so many spheres of dévot life,

3

  Bibliothèque de Port-Royal, Paris [BPR], MSS Port-Royal [PR] 22, fols 30–33: Jesuit opposition to Toussaint Desmares as early as 1643; J. Lesaulnier, ‘Jansénius et plusieurs amis de Port-Royal: François Diroys’, in J.M. van Eijl (ed.), L’image de C. Jansénius jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Louvain, 1987), p. 82; J. Orcibal, Les origines du Jansénisme, II: Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran et son temps (1581–1638) (Louvain-Paris, 1947), vol. II, p. 575; J.-M. Vidal, François-Etienne de Caulet, évêque de Pamiers (1610– 1680) (Paris, 1939), pp. 65, 341, 355; E.H. Thompson, The Life of M. Olier, Founder of the Seminary of S. Sulpice (London, 1861), p. 350; G.-M. de Fruges, J.-J. Olier (1608–1657) curé de Saint-Sulpice et fondateur des séminaires. Essai d’histoire religieuse sur le XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1904), p. 112; Y. Krumenacker, L’école française de spiritualité. Des mystiques, des fondateurs, des courants et leurs interprètes (Paris, 1999), pp. 277–88. Cf. J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580–1730 (New Haven-London, 2009), p. 385. 4   Thompson, p. 352; de Fruges, pp. 111, 340. 5   P. Milcent, Un artisan du renouveau chrétien au XVIIe siècle: Saint Jean Eudes (Paris, 1985), pp. 114–15, 130–31; Krumenacker, pp. 292–3, 298–9, 302.

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both by the time of his death and posthumously, was the fragmentation of a common movement.

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Chapter 8

The Outcome Surviving Ultramontanism and French Rigorism It is hardly surprising that the fragmentation of Catholic reform in France, from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, produced a range of contrasting responses. Varieties of Gallicanism, albeit often competing ones, might well seem to dominate from then until the end of the eighteenth century. But a conspicuous loyalty to Rome was also still found at times, as shown famously by Fénelon, even at great personal cost, in his public submission to Roman censure of his Quietism, at the beginning of that same century. The Tridentine ideals for the priesthood espoused by Saint-Sulpice were combined there, at least initially, with a demonstrative opposition to the Jansenism of Port-Royal, and encouragement there of lay practice of the sacraments was opposed to the effective if not the ostensible argument of Antoine Arnauld’s De la fréquente communion (1643).1 But appeal to an earlier figure associated both with zealous episcopal reform and with an austere attitude to penance and absolution, Saint Charles Borromeo of Milan, continued to be made by French Catholics of various tendencies. The French clergy, led by its bishops, became formally committed to Borromeo’s instructions for confessors, which could certainly be represented as rigorist in any literal reading. But the figure of the ideal bishop, and the appropriate standards for lay Christian living, were often in practice modified by reference to the less inflexible example of François de Sales as being more suited to French conditions. Catholic rigorism in later seventeenth- and in eighteenth-century France was arguably a phenomenon which was pervasive but not uniform, involving on the contrary a tradition in which 1

  This work attracted wide attention from the first, including the Jesuit responses, Petau’s 1644 De la pénitence publique et de la préparation à la communion and Sirmond’s 1651 attack, Historia Poenitentiae publicae (Paris): M. Fumaroli, ‘Temps de croissance et temps de corruption: Les deux Antiquités dans l’érudition jésuite française du XVIIe siècle’, XVIIe siècle, 131 (1981): 149–68: p. 160. Whereas, perhaps surprisingly, the first edition of the work prepared in 1643, the Théologie Morale des Jésuites extraite fidèlement de leurs livres on which Dr François Hallier of the Sorbonne, otherwise anti-Jansenist, collaborated with the anonymous author, Arnauld, initially did not: J. Plainemaison, ‘Pourquoi “les Provinciales” ou une guerre perdue d’avance’, Revue historique, 581 (1992): 61–88: pp. 66, 73, 77; cf. L.W.B. Brockliss, French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. A Cultural History (Oxford, 1987), p. 262 n. 102; cf. A. Adam, Du mysticisme à la révolte. Les jansénistes du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1968), pp. 171–2: Hallier and Arnauld drew on Cellot and Rabardeau as well as Bauny, as has been seen.

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there was a graduated range of positions, not the preserve of committed Jansenists alone. Just as ultramontanism could survive, so could a Catholic rigorism distinct from Jansenist ultra-rigorism.2 A Powerful but Unstable Coalition: French Jansenism and Gallicanism By the eighteenth century, it may be argued, Jansenism in France had achieved a measure of social dominance, despite official pressure against it, and had secured its survival by tactical alliances with various types of Gallicanism. It might equally be argued that the dramatic achievement represented by the suppression of the Jesuits as a force in French Catholicism demonstrated just such a coalition, in that case of Jansenists and parlementaire Gallicans, with at least the acquiescence of some episcopal Gallicans. This evolution might be thought more telling than the suppression of Port-Royal in the early eighteenth century. But the coalition of Jansenism and Gallicanism, more broadly, could not be a stable one, and not only because of the antiJansenist policies of Gallican monarchy in France. It has been suggested that by the end of the eighteenth century the tensions between the French episcopate on the one hand and the lower clergy on the other were acute, and may indeed have contributed to the course eventually taken by the French Revolution. Even a more cautious assessment might question whether in France, as opposed to the Netherlands, Jansenists remained, in the long term, as devoted to episcopal authority (distinct from the 2

  M. Venard, ‘The influence of Carlo Borromeo on the Church of France’, in J.M. Headley and J.B. Tomaro (eds), San Carlo Borromeo. Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century (Washington DC, 1988), pp. 208–27: pp. 211, 216, 219–22; but see the very precise contextualization provided by J.-L. Quantin, ‘De la rigeur au rigorisme. Les Avvertenze ai Confessori de Charles Borromée dans la France du XVIIe siècle’, Studia Borromaica, 20 (2006): 195–251; as well as B. Dompnier, ‘La dévotion à Charles Borromée dans la France du XVIIe siècle. Représentations d’un saint et histoire de son culte’, ibid.: 253–92. J. Bergin, ‘The Counter-Reformation Church and its Bishops’, Past and Present, 165 (1999): 30–73: pp. 46, 52; Y. Krumenacker, L’école française de spiritualité. Des mystiques, des fondateurs, des courants et leurs interprètes (Paris, 1999), pp. 284, 445. Note also that in the case of Jesuit appreciation of the example given by François de Sales as an active diocesan bishop amicably disposed towards the Society of Jesus and as a flexible spiritual director, which appeared in a panegyric composed by Binet as the concluding chapter of a composition on rigorism or gentleness in direction, it has been suggested seemingly that it may be telling that this work would appear to have been first published in Italian, at Venice in 1655: V. Mellinghoff-Bourgerie, François de Sales (1567–1622). Un homme de lettres spirituelles. Culture, tradition, épistolarité (Geneva, 1999), p. 294; but Binet’s appreciation of François first appeared in 1625, albeit outside the kingdom, at Pont-à-Mousson: see Chapter 6 above, The French Jesuits to the Time of the First Century (Jesuits and the Conflict Between Bishops and Regulars). Cf. A. Meyer, Les premières Controverses Jansénistes en France (1640–1649) (Louvain, 1919), pp. 54–5, 236–7, 242.

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independent rights of the clergy) as they had at times purported to be. Not only did Gallicanism itself manifest competing interests but, by the eighteenth century at least, French Jansenism (whatever the case elsewhere in Europe) had become as much a tradition concerned with defence of asserted rights as with defence of doctrinal positions. The outbreak and development of the French Revolution certainly did not seem to reveal any lasting strength in previous coalitions of Gallicanism and Jansenism. The Distraction of French Catholics Until the Revolution The Jansenists in France, from the middle of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century, demonstrated an undoubted determination and persistence, and in that sense could claim their survival as a triumph of their own. But the endless polemics of a century and a half, from 1640 to 1790, between Jansenists and their opponents can hardly be seen as beneficial to French Catholicism. At the very least they might be seen as giving an opportunity for some Enlightened writers to put forward a critique of religious disputation, and by extension of ecclesiastical privilege more broadly. If this were in any measure the case, then the fracture of the dévot movement during the ‘long’ 1630s, from 1629 to 1643–45, could be described as the moment of catastrophe. For a proto-Jansenist tendency to have emerged as a distinct force, the previous combination of ideals pursued by the dévots had by definition to break down. The prioritizing of one form of self-definition at the expense of other demonstrations of devout and reforming Catholicism certainly after 1640–41 found eventual expression in defence of Jansenius’s version of Augustinian doctrine. But the separatist tendency led by Saint-Cyran was already forming during the previous decade, and therefore was not originally defined by loyalty to a text. On the contrary, the defining feature was arguably a negative one, opposition to the Jesuits in France and indeed elsewhere. But that is not to say that the French Jesuits did nothing towards creating this situation. They arguably failed, in the difficult circumstances of France’s entry into European war during the 1630s, to find a way to defend their own interests within the kingdom without a costly compromising of their supposedly characteristic ultramontane loyalties. Beyond the Outbreak of the Revolution: Other Times, Other Issues To argue that the disintegration of the French dévot movement during the 1630s had some damaging effect on the longer, intermediate evolution of French Catholicism, until 1789, is not in any way to assert that a

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particular impact was also created beyond the end of the ancien régime. The Revolution and all that followed from it and after it produced their own outcomes within French Catholicism, just as within French politics and society generally. It may be that ‘dechristianization’ visible in France by the mid-twentieth century, at the very least, had in part some ancient historical roots. But the historical disruption obviously represented by the Revolution means that such an assessment is for other historians of later periods to make.

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Index Academy, French, 83 Acarie, Mme (Barbe), 42, 68, 104 Acquaviva, Claudio, 29, 134 Agen, 87, 89, 91, 95, 108 Aigues-Mortes, 104 Airault, René, 162–3, 178 Aire, 37, 39–40, 46, 58, 60, 62, 96, 105–106, 125 Aix, 25, 34, 38, 49, 69, 79, 93–4, 108, 167, 170 Alais, 103–104 Peace of Alais, 103–104, 113, 153 Albigensians, 11 Aldobrandini, Cardinal Pietro, 23–4, 154 Alet, 84 Aligre, Etienne d’, 66 Alleaume, Guillaume, 106 Alsace, 115 Amiens, 67, 95, 159 Angers, 36, 39–41, 80, 96, 107, 124, 151 Angoulême, 38, 88, 90–91, 107 Angoumois, 87 Anjou, 37, 39, 107 Annat, François, 123, 168, 174 Anne of Austria, 36, 45, 50, 53–4, 57, 74, 106, 113, 143, 156, 174, 180 Anne of Denmark, 65 Antwerp, 119 appel comme d’abus, 15, 138, 140 Aquinas, Thomas, 61, 73 Aquitaine, 18, 87, 92, 145, 147, 149–50 Argentières, 93 Arigoni, Pompeo, 24 Aristotle, 143, 167 Arles, 24, 39, 90, 108 Armand, Ignace, 124, 138, 142, 166 Arminius, 164

Arnauld family, 22, 28–9, 83, 127–8, 130, 164–5, 174, 179–82, 186, 191 Arnoux, Jean, 34, 37, 51, 83, 119, 143–4 Assembly, French Clergy, 17–19, 26, 31, 33, 38, 42, 45–7, 60, 85–6, 89, 91, 102, 117–18, 134, 137–8, 151 Astaffort, 87 Attichy, Dony d’, 39 attrition, 34, 127, 181–2 Aubespine, Charles de L’, abbé de Préaux, 47, 52–4, 156 Aubespine, Gabriel de L’, 52, 85 Auch, 50, 85, 105 Aulnay, 94 Augustine, saint, 60–62, 65, 84–5, 125, 134, 164, 170, 174, 185 Augustinians, 98, 108, 149–50, 181 Augustinus, 5, 127, 178, 182–3, 185–8, 193 Aunis, 87 Autun, 106 Avignon, 5, 10, 25, 33, 40, 48, 93, 103, 135, 168–9, 171, 173, 178 Baius, Michel, 185–6 Baradat, François de, 39 Barberini, Cardinal Francesco, 31, 40, 46, 72, 75–8, 116, 122, 124, 132, 146, 151, 154, 175 Barberini, Maffeo, 23–31. See also Urban VIII Barcos, Martin de, 161, 181–2 Bardi, Cosimo de’, 40 Barisone, Girolamo, 28 Barnabites, 102 Baronius (Cesare Baronio), 49, 61, 78–9, 88, 126, 148 Bauny, Etienne, 124, 141, 145, 161–5, 168, 181

206

index

Bautru, Nicolas, seigneur de Nogent, 53 Bavaria, 115, 119 Bayonne, 39, 51 Bazas, 39–40, 51, 54, 90, 92 Béarn, 25, 108 Beau, Geneviève Le, 105 Beaucaire, 104 Beaumanoir, Louis de, 31 Beaune, 95 Beauvais, 62, 109 Belley, 36, 43, 58, 62, 81, 83 Bellegarde, Octave de, 86, 128–9 Bellegarde, Roger duc de, 77 Bellièvre, Pomponne de, 25 Benedictines, 36, 45, 94–5, 101–102, 108 Bentivoglio, Guido di, 36–7, 60–61 Béraudière, François de La, 91 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 93 Bernini, Pietro, 93 Bertin, Claude, 55–6, 72–3, 78, 121–2, 125, 127, 131, 177 Bérulle, Jean de, 55 Bérulle, Pierre de, 5, 20–22, 30, 35–7, 39–40, 42–86, 91, 94–8, 104– 106, 110, 114, 116, 120–28, 131, 136–7, 185, 188 Béthune, Henri de, 39, 48, 51, 53 Béthune, Philippe de, 30, 35, 53–4, 101 Béziers, 39, 48–50, 95 Bichi, Cardinal Alessandro, 129 Binet, Etienne, 86, 128–31, 139–42, 147–8, 151–4, 157, 166, 169 Bishop, William, 58, 62 Blainville, Jean de Varignies, marquis de, 74, 77 Blois, 47, 102 Bonet, Guillaume, 47 Bonsi, Clément de, 48–50 Bonsi, Dominique de, 48 Bonsi, Jean de, 48 Bonsi, Thomas de, 39, 48 Bordeaux, 33–4, 36, 39, 46–8, 61, 66–7, 74, 80–81, 85, 88–102, 108, 125, 140, 147, 173

Borghese, Cardinal Scipio, 29 Borgia, Cardinal Gaspare, 117 Borromeo, Charles, 34, 70, 73–4, 81–3, 85–6, 88, 90–91, 93, 95, 99–100, 102, 109, 160, 162–3, 191 Borromeo, Federico, 81, 84–6, 88, 90, 95, 99–101 Boulogne, 39 Bourbon, Cardinal Charles de, 7–8 Bourbon dynasty, 7–11, 17–18, 20, 22–4, 31, 34–6, 40–43, 60, 62–3, 67–8, 77–8, 89–93, 97, 101, 105–106, 116, 140, 148–9, 152, 154–6, 159, 164–5, 173–7, 187, 192 Bourdoise, Adrien, 20, 38, 102, 106 Bourges, 64, 67, 80, 95, 97, 124, 136 Bourgoing, François, 57–9, 61, 72, 77, 120–23, 126, 188 Boutauld, Gilles, 46 Bouthillier, Denis, seigneur de Rancé, 52–4 Bouthillier, Sébastien, 35, 37, 39–40, 106 Bouthillier, Victor, 39 Bouthillier de Chavigny, Claude, 40, 42–3 Bragelongue, Emeric de, 91 breviary, 34, 40, 56–7, 66, 80–81 Brisacier, Jean de, 180 Brittany, 106, 119, 142, 155 Brulart de Sillery, Madeleine, 105 Brulart de Sillery, Nicolas, 25, 79, 94, 155 Brulart de Sillery, Pierre, seigneur de Puysieux, 79 Brussels, 113, 117–19 Buckingham, duke of, 45, 62, 75 Bufalo, Innocenzo del, 23–5, 101 Bullion, Claude de, 155 Burgundy, 8, 106 Cadillac, 92 Caen, 95 Calvinists, 7–8, 25, 30, 34, 42, 56, 78, 115–17, 119, 126, 132–4,

Index

164, 166, 174, 183. See also Huguenots Camelin, Barthélemy de, 108 Camerino, 23 Camus, Jean-Pierre, 36, 43, 58, 62, 81–4, 86 Canaye de Fresne, Philippe, 29 Canisius, Peter, 61 Canterbury, 56 Capuchins, 35–6, 44, 50, 52–5, 65, 81, 83, 85–7, 93, 98, 102, 104, 106–109, 114, 125, 130, 136, 147, 149–50, 167, 171–2, 178, 181 Carafa, Vincenzo, 174 Carbonnière, Jean de La, 91 Carlo Emanuele, duke of Savoy, 31, 114 Carmelites, 22, 35, 42, 55, 57, 60–61, 64–70, 72, 74, 76, 79–80, 82, 85, 89, 91–9, 102, 104–108, 110, 122–6, 128–9, 139–40, 149–50 Carpentras, 40 Carthusians, 61, 64–5, 88, 91, 93, 108 Casale, 47, 114–15 Casaubon, Isaac, 30 casuistry, 141–2, 162–3 Catalonia, 175 catechism, 19, 34–6, 41, 55, 59, 61, 87, 99, 102, 149 Catherine de Jésus, 74 Caulet, François-Etienne de, 131, 180, 188 Caussin, Nicolas, 84, 86, 119–20, 127, 142–4, 153–7, 163–5, 179, 182, 185 Caux, Antoine de, 87, 91 Cavet, Etienne, 86 Cellot, Louis, 137–8, 141, 148, 161–5, 181 Chaissy, Gilles, 103 Chalmers, William, 122–3 Châlon-sur-Saône, 98 Châlons, 95 Chambéry, 82–3, 85, 173 Chambres, David des, 145

207

Champagne, Philippe de (and daughter Françoise), 181 Chantal, Jeanne de, 106, 110 Charenton, 52, 93 charity, 56–7, 82, 86, 88, 91–3, 98– 100, 104–105, 107–109, 181 Charles I, 45, 52, 62, 64–5, 74–5, 77, 116, 120, 144 Charron, Pierre, 162 Chartres, 37, 52, 58, 62, 75, 85, 102 Chastelain, François Ytier, 62 Châteauneuf. See Aubespine, Charles de L’ Châtelleraut, 87 Cheminot, Didier, 170 Cherasco, Treaty of, 115 Chesne, Père du, 98 Christina, princess, 26, 119 Cistercians, 62, 72, 92, 99, 104, 106–107 Cîteaux, 23, 114 Clement VIII, 9, 15, 17, 20, 23–5, 30, 96, 101, 114, 122–3 Clermont, 87, 107 Clermont, Collège de, 18, 30, 140, 144–6, 149–50, 157–9, 162–3, 176–80 Cluny, 72, 114 Coëffeteau, Nicolas, 58 communion, 21, 34, 68, 73, 79–80, 82–3, 86, 91, 102–103, 106, 138–40, 147–9, 158, 177, 181–3, 191 Comte, Jacques Le, 92 Conciliarism, 10–11, 13, 27 Concini, Concino, 36 Condé, Henri II de Bourbon, prince of, 49, 155 Condom, 87, 91 Condren, Charles de, 21, 47, 49, 51, 54, 57, 76, 84, 118, 121–31, 185, 188 confession, 4, 16, 21, 33–5, 42, 44, 47, 69–70, 72–3, 82–3, 85–6, 89, 91, 101–103, 105, 119–20, 125–7, 132, 138–40, 143–9,

208

index

151, 158, 160–64, 177–8, 181–3, 191 confirmation, 151–2, 161, 181 confraternities, 87, 92, 99–100, 103, 108–109, 179 Constantine, 75 Constantinople, 77 Constanzo, Giovanni Battista, 98 contrition, 34, 127, 182 Contzen, Adam, 119 Copernicus, Nicholas, 59 Coppin, Pierre, 62 Coppone, Joseph, 155, 173 Corneilhan, Bernardin, 108 Cornullier, Pierre, 45 Corsini, Ottavio, 31, 36, 48, 97, 146, 157 Cosenza, 98 Cospeau, Philippe, 37–9, 54, 58, 60–61, 84, 96, 105–106, 125 Coton, Pierre, 16, 25, 28, 31, 34, 60, 80, 83, 92, 97, 119, 144, 146, 154–5 council, national Church, 85, 138, 177 councils, provincial, 41, 85, 88–91, 105, 108 Courvoisier, Jean, 69 Cremonini, Cesare, 29 Croix, Jean de La, 86 Croix, Jean de La, S.J., 177 Croix de Chevrières, Alphonse de La, 86 Cuzance, Béatrice de, 170 dancing, 81 Dauphiné, 25, 103 Dax, 90 De Auxiliis, 30, 73, 122, 135, 146, 167–70, 172–3, 182–3, 185–6 dechristianization, 3, 6, 194 Denis, saint, 71, 126, 170. See also Dionysius desacralization, 3 Deslandes, Noël, 105 Desmares, Toussaint, 188 Despruets, Bernard, 84 Destrades, Jean, 147–8

dévots, 5–6, 15, 20–22, 26, 33, 36–7, 39–43, 45, 47, 49–53, 56, 58–61, 74, 76–7, 80–86, 89, 92–4, 99–100, 102, 104–105, 107–10, 127–8, 130–31, 148, 156, 163–4, 180–89, 193 Dieppe, 80, 95, 136 Dijon, 67, 95, 98, 106, 110 Dinet, Jacques, 144, 170, 174–5 Dinet, Louis, 109 Dionysius [Pseudo-], 126, 170 Doctrine, Pères de La, 53 Dol en Bretagne, 39, 54, 94 Dôle, 95 Dominicans, 58, 73, 83, 86, 90, 92, 94, 98, 101, 103, 105, 107– 108, 122, 146–7, 150, 168–9, 180 Douai, 86, 133, 140 duels, 41, 43, 113–14, 163 Dupuy, Jacques, 138 Dupuy, Pierre, 138 Duval, André, 27, 30, 37, 96, 125, 155 Elizabeth I, 8 Embrun, 26, 34 England, 8, 12–13, 25, 30, 36–7, 40, 42–5, 47, 49, 51–4, 56, 58, 62–7, 71–2, 74–5, 77–8, 82, 103, 113, 116, 120, 129, 133, 135–9, 144, 147, 151–2, 161, 166, 185, 187 Epernon, Jean-Louis de Nogaret, duc d’, 39 Escoubleau, Henri d’, 33, 39, 43, 45–8, 89–91. See also Sourdis Estaing, Joachim d’, 107 Estampes de Valençay, Léonor d’, 52, 85–6, 102–103 Estates General, 11, 17–19, 31, 34, 36, 50, 82, 89 Eudaemon-Ioannes, Andreas, 132, 146, 151, 154, 179 Eudes, Jean, 38, 84, 127, 188 Evreux, 88 exorcism. See possession

Index

209

Fabricius, Guillaume, 133 Fénelon, François de Salignac de La Mothe, 191 Fenouillet, Pierre, 107 Ferdinand II, emperor, 133–4 Ferrara, 114 Ferrier, Jean du, 188 Feuillants, 58 Filleau, Jean, 122, 167, 169, 171–2 Filles de Notre Dame, 95, 107–108 Filles du Calvaire, 36, 87, 102, 106–107, 109, 130 Flavigny, Jacques de, 33 Florence, 19, 23, 30, 40 Floyd, John, 133, 151–2 Foix, 49 Fontaine du Bois, M. de FontainesMaran, 80 Fontainebleau, 55, 74 Fontenay-le-Comte, 45, 87 Fontevraud, 36, 40 Forty Hours devotion, 44–5, 87, 99–100, 102 Fournier, Georges, 141 Franche-Comté, 69, 95 Francis Xavier, saint, 92, 143, 176 Franciscans, 35, 44, 53, 64, 83, 86, 91–2, 94, 98, 100, 103–104, 106–108, 149 Freiburg, 155 Fréjus, 108 Froger, Georges, 58 Froissard, Antoine, 35

Gaston d’Orléans, 47–8, 51, 54, 56, 113, 115, 117–18, 121, 143–4, 179 Gelas, Claude, 91, 108 Genoa, 27, 136 Genouillac de Vaillac, Jean, 107 Gentilhomme, René Le, 35 Gerbeville, 93 Gerbier, Balthazar, 75 Gerson, Jean, 11, 27 Gibieuf, Guillaume, 50, 58, 121–7, 171, 180 Gironde, 45, 92 Giustiniani, Benedetto, 27 Glandèves de Cuyes, Toussaint de, 40 Gondi family, 23–5, 43, 45–7, 52, 76, 81, 102, 104, 106, 122, 128–9, 146, 180–81, 187. See also Retz, de Gordon, James, 93, 144, 154, 170 Granada, Luis de, 34 Grasse1, 108 Gregory XV, 31, 48, 89, 91, 97, 100, 114, 123, 176 Grenoble, 86, 92, 108, 172 Grillet, Nicolas, 39, 48, 54 Grisons, 157 Grotius, Hugo, 183 Guidi del Bagno, Giovanni Francesco, 48 Guise dynasty, 7, 72, 79 Guron, Jean de Rechignevoisin, seigneur de, 44

Galilei, Galileo, 143 Gallemant, Jacques, 96 Gallicanism, 5–6, 10–12, 15–18, 22, 27, 31, 34, 37–8, 41, 66, 80–81, 85, 89, 97, 102, 116–17, 125–7, 132, 135, 137–8, 141–2, 146, 160, 163, 170, 177, 187, 191–2 Garasse, François, 41, 83, 119, 126, 131–2, 136, 143–4, 146, 151–5, 162–3, 166, 179, 181, 186

Habsburg dynasty, 8, 12, 19, 29, 42, 47, 50–51, 78–9, 113–18, 133–7, 160 Hallier, François, 161–5, 182 Harlay de Champvallon, François de, 43, 54, 84, 106, 138, 148–9 Harlay-Sancy, Achille de, 39, 47, 50, 71–2 Haye, J. de La, 179 Henri III, 7, 15, 30 Henri de Navarre, subsequently Henri IV, 7–13, 15–18, 20, 23–31, 48, 86, 101, 113–14, 119, 144, 159

210

index

Henrietta Maria, 43, 47–8, 51–2, 54, 62–6, 71–2, 74–5, 77, 82, 103, 116, 120, 136, 144, 151 Hertoge d’Osmale, Jean de, seigneur de Walkenbourg, 56 Holy Office, Roman, 61, 150, 165, 168, 172 Hospitalières de la Place Royale, 181 Huguenots, 7–8, 10–11, 15, 19, 22, 24–5, 28, 30, 34, 37–42, 44–5, 47, 49–55, 58, 60–62, 73, 79, 83–4, 86–8, 92, 100, 103–104, 113–16, 135, 138, 146, 153, 158, 183 Hurault de l’Hôpital, Paul, 25 Hurtado de Mendoza, Pedro, 119, 166, 182 Ireland, 99, 161 Italy, 4, 9, 16, 19–20, 28–9, 31, 40, 47, 50–51, 58–9, 66–7, 71, 73, 75, 78–9, 81, 86, 88, 96, 98–100, 109, 113–17, 133–6, 153–5, 162, 170, 173 Jacquinot, Barthélemy, 83, 119, 139 James I, 12, 25, 28, 66 Jansenism, 4–6, 127, 131, 156, 164–5, 170, 174–8, 186–93 Jansenius (Cornelius Jansen), 5, 58, 62, 118–20, 121, 124–7, 129, 132–3, 135, 137, 160, 182–3, 185–7, 193 Jaubert de Barrault, Jean, 39–40, 51, 90, 92 Jesuits. See Society of Jesus John of God, brothers of Saint, 91–2, 104 Joseph, Père (François Joseph Le Clerc du Tremblay), 36–7, 52, 58, 66, 87, 106, 109, 114–15, 125–7, 130, 136, 147 Joseph, saint, 99 Joyeuse, Cardinal François de, 25, 27, 29, 43, 76, 80, 105 Judas, 172

Kinnaird, David, 146 Kircher, Athanasius, 170–71 Laage, Antoine de, seigneur de Puylaurens, 51 laicization, 3 La Flèche, 95, 149 Lamormaini, William, 133–4 Langres, 51, 58, 62, 64, 82, 84, 106, 109, 128 Languedoc, 25, 51–3, 113 Lanier, François, 157 La Rochelle, 33, 38, 45, 47, 49–51, 62, 70–71, 98, 113, 116, 119 Laurens, Honoré du, 26 Laymann, Paul, 134, 139, 143, 181 Layrac, 87 League, Catholic, 9, 11–12, 16, 84, 86 Le Fèvre, Nicolas, 126–7 Leiden, 12, 84 Lemarie, Jean, 86 Lemercier, Jacques, 38 Le Moine, Pierre, 163–5, 179 Leo XI, 23–4 Le Puy, 93, 95, 98 Leschassier, Jacques, 27 Lescot, Jacques, 37 Lessius, Léonard, 125, 179 Lestonnac, Jeanne de, 95 Liancourt, Roger du Plessis, duc de, 181 Libourne, 92 Limoges, 80, 93–5, 97, 107 Lipsius, Justus, 183 Lisieux, 38, 60, 62, 106 Lithuania, 146 Lombardy, 114 London, 12, 71–2, 74 Loreto, 170 Lorraine, 7, 54, 76–7, 93–4, 97, 115, 118, 148, 170 Loudun, 87, 93, 109, 140, 154–5 Louis, saint, 62 Louis XIII, 5, 10, 12, 15, 19, 23, 27, 30, 34, 36–8, 41–2, 44–54, 56–8, 61–4, 67–8, 72, 74–5, 77–9, 84, 87, 91–3, 97, 102,

Index

113, 119, 127, 130, 133–7, 140, 142–5, 148–9, 153–9, 166, 176, 179–80, 186 Louis XIV, 118, 143–4, 156, 168, 187 Louvain, 58, 61, 68, 125, 129, 132–3, 137, 178, 185 Louytre, Etienne, 85, 89, 97, 106 Loyola, Ignatius, 81–3, 156, 167, 176 Luçon, 19, 33–6, 39–40, 87, 109, 113, 187 Ludovisi, Cardinal Luigi, 97 Lutherans, 73, 78–9, 115–17, 119, 126, 133–4, 166, 175 Luynes, Charles d’Albert de, 37 Lyon, 18, 23, 29, 31, 36, 38–40, 43, 46, 48–9, 67, 81–2, 84–6, 93–4, 108, 122, 145, 147, 149, 155, 166–7, 169, 171–3 Mâcon, 106, 109 Madeleine de Saint-Joseph, soeur, 55 Madrid, 82, 174 Magalotti, Cardinal Lorenzo, 78 Maggio, Lorenzo, 24 Maignelay, Claude-Marguerite de Gondi, marquise de, 77, 104 Maillan, Charles, 144, 147, 157 Maillezais, 33, 39, 46, 48–51, 53, 87, 89–91 Malines, 118 Mantua, 47, 51, 115, 120, 133–4, 136 Marbais, Nicolas de, 12 Marca, Pierre de, 138 Marcillac, Silvestre de, 39 Maridat, Louis, 103–104 Marie de Jésus, soeur, 128 Marie de’ Medici, 19, 23, 36–7, 39– 40, 42, 44–5, 47–54, 56, 60, 68, 72–5, 77, 82, 85–6, 104, 107, 113, 115–20, 130, 134–5, 143–5, 151, 153, 181 Marillac, Louis de, 120 Marillac, Louise de, 109 Marillac, Michel de, 37, 39, 42, 46–7, 51, 53–6, 66, 96, 120 Marquemont, Denis-Simon de, 38, 40, 43, 46, 76, 81–2

211

marriage, 15, 35, 100, 102, 118, 163–4, 170, 179 Marseille, 40, 58, 108 Marta, Giacomo Antonio, 13 Martellange, Etienne, 108 Marthonnie, Raymond de La, 107 Mary Magdalen, saint, 44, 57, 63–4, 80, 92, 99, 170 Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, 64–5 Masle, Michel Le, 47 Matthew, Toby, 71 Maurice, Cardinal of Savoy, 123, 173 Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, 119 Mazarin (Giulio Mazarini), 114 Meaux, 93 Medici, Alessandro de’. See Leo XI Mende, 39, 43, 47, 72, 75, 77, 84, 144 Mercedarians, 90 Mestrezat, Jean, 52–3 Milan, 34, 73, 81, 84–6, 88, 90, 95, 99, 100–101, 160, 191 Minims, 44, 91, 102, 106, 150, 172 Mirepoix. 39 Miron, Charles, 36, 39, 41, 46, 48 missions, 23, 53, 55, 57–8, 70, 81, 84, 86–7, 89, 92, 102, 104, 106, 125, 149 Molé, Edouard. 44 Molina, Luis de, 135, 182 Monferrato, 31, 47, 51, 114–15 Monod, Pierre, 36, 171, 173 Montauban, 55–6, 84 Montceaux, 44 Montchal, Charles de, 39, 107 Monte, Orazio del, 24 Montfort, 102 Montmorency, Henri duc de, 79 Montpellier, 42, 53–5, 103, 107 Montreuil, 109 Montry, Robert de, 104 Monzon, Treaty of, 115–16 Morgues, Mathieu de, 38 Morin, Jean, 138 Morlaix, 96, 106 Mothe-Houdancourt, Daniel de La, 43, 84 Mulot, Jean, 48

212

index

Munich, 139 Murviel, Anne de, 56 Nancy, 93 Nantes, 35, 37–9, 54, 58, 60, 67, 84, 94–5, 97, 105–106 Edict of Nantes, 11 Nassau, Frédéric-Henri de, 56 Nazareth, 24 Nérac, 87 Neri, Philip, 20, 65, 73, 88, 100 Netherlands, 8, 22, 30, 49, 51, 68, 93, 96, 114, 117–20, 124–5, 132–3, 138–40, 183, 187, 192 Nevers, 67, 93 Neveu, Bruno, 4 Nickel, Goswin, 176 Nicolas du Chardonnet, saint, 20, 58, 102, 109 Nîmes, 103–104 Niort, 70, 86–7 Noailles, Charles de, 50 Normandy, 138–40 Nouet, Jacques, 181 Noyers, François Sublet des, 153–7, 175–6, 183 Oléron, 44–5 Olier, Jean-Jacques, 21, 38, 84, 180, 188 Oppenheim, 12 Orange, 56 Oratory, French, 20–22, 35, 42, 45, 47, 49–61, 64–6, 67–73, 76–82, 84, 87, 92, 96–8, 102, 104–108, 110, 118, 120–31, 136–8, 140, 148, 150–51, 161–2, 164, 174, 177, 180–82, 185–8 Oratory of Provence, 69 Oratory, Neapolitan, 20 Oratory, Roman, 20, 61, 65, 73, 78–9, 88, 126 Orléans, 38, 51–2, 85, 93, 95, 117, 136, 148–9 Orléans-Longueville, Antoinette d’, 87 Ossat, Cardinal Arnaud d’, 101

Padua, 13, 28–9, 117 Palatine, 43 pallium, 25, 88 Pamiers, 38, 49, 85, 88, 188 papacy, 4, 8–19, 21–31, 34, 36, 40–41, 43–4, 55–8, 60–61, 66–9, 71– 7, 85, 87–91, 95–7, 99–101, 105, 114–18, 123–5, 128–9, 131–8, 142, 146–7, 149, 153, 155, 157, 159, 164–5, 167–9, 171–8, 182–3, 187–8, 191 Papin, Michel, 35 Paris, 8, 16–18, 20–21, 23–8, 30–31, 36, 42–3, 46–7, 52–3, 55, 58, 67, 69, 74, 80–84, 92–6, 98, 102, 104–106, 109, 117–19, 121, 124, 126–33, 137, 139– 40, 143–66, 168, 175–85, 187 parlements, 4–5, 11, 16, 22, 26, 31, 36, 41, 43, 52, 54–5, 61, 79, 85–6, 92–8, 100–102, 107–10, 117, 138–40, 146, 152–4, 159, 163, 173, 176, 179, 182, 187, 192 Parry, Sir Thomas, 25 Pasquier, Etienne, 132, 159, 162, 179 Pau, 108 Paul V, 12–13, 24, 27–34, 95–7, 99, 114, 122–3, 159–60 Paul, Vincent de, 38, 84, 92, 106, 109, 125, 180, 188 Pavillon, Nicolas, 84 Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de, 94, 170–71 penance. See confession. See also confraternities Périgueux, 91, 95 Perron, Cardinal Jacques Davy Du, 17–18, 26, 37, 61, 82, 85, 88 Perron, Jean Du, 37 Petau, Denys, 141, 144, 151, 165, 170, 174 Pézenas, 52 Philip II, 8–9 Picardy, 93 Piccolomini, Ascanio, 44 Piccolomini, Francesco, 155–6, 176

Index

pilgrimage, 45, 69, 72, 74–5, 77, 100, 103 Pinerolo, 115 Pithou, Pierre, 126 plague, 55–6, 70, 72–3, 81, 88, 93, 98, 100, 104, 108, 132, 135, 172 Ploërmel, 94 Poissy, 102 Poitiers, 33–6, 45, 62, 86–7, 89, 91, 94–5, 107, 130, 132, 136 Poitou, 86–7 Poland, 25 Politiques, 10–11, 15–16, 25, 31, 103 Pons, Jean-Jacques, marquis de La Caze, 44 Pont-à-Mousson, 93, 148 Pontoise, 38, 95 Porter, Endymion, 49 Port-Royal, 22–3, 68, 83, 128, 130– 31, 163, 165, 179–84, 186–92 Portugal, 8, 175–7 possession, diabolic, 63–4, 70–71, 79, 87, 93, 109, 140, 154–5 Possevino, Antonio, 162 Potier, Augustin, 109 Pragelas, 90 preaching, 21, 33, 35–6, 43, 55, 72, 81–3, 85–7, 89–92, 101, 103–105, 132, 142, 144–6, 160 Prémontré, 114 Priuli, Pietro, 27–8 Privas, 51 Provence, 69, 167 Puigeolet, François, 178 Pyrenees, 8 Quietism, 191 Quimper, 151 Rabardeau, Michel, 118, 124, 137, 141, 148, 152, 162–5, 170, 176, 181 Raoul, Michel, 40, 51, 89, 91, 96 Ratisbon, 115, 120, 153 Raynaud, Théophile, 121–3, 150, 163, 168, 171–3

213

regicide, 7, 12–13, 15–18, 20, 25, 29–31, 86, 132, 146, 162 Regourd, Alexandre, 52, 54–5 Renaudot, Théophraste, 109 Rennes, 45, 106, 176 Restitution, Edict of, 134 Retz, Cardinal Henri de, 37, 82, 97, 104 Revol de La Ramelière, Antoine de, 54 Revol de La Ramelière, Louis de, 54 Revolution, French, 3–4, 10, 192–4 Richelieu, Alphonse de, 38, 49, 84, 144 Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de, 5, 19, 33–58, 66, 72, 75, 84, 87, 89, 103–105, 109, 113–20, 121–2, 125–7, 129–48, 150, 152–8, 163–6, 170–71, 175–9, 182–3, 185–7 Richeome, Louis, 31, 61, 92 Richer, Edmond, 27, 37, 84, 135, 152, 187 Rieux, René de, 85 Riez, 39 rigorism, 4–5, 191–2. See also attrition; communion; confession; contrition Riom, 95 Rochefoucauld, Antoine de La, 88, 91, 107 Rochefoucauld, Cardinal François de La, 17–19, 37–9, 43–4, 46, 56, 82, 85–6, 97, 117, 134, 138–40, 145, 149, 151, 163, 168, 177, 187 Rocheposay, Henri-Louis Chasteigner de La, 33, 86–7, 91, 107 Rodez, 108 Rome, 4, 9–11, 13, 17–21, 25–7, 29–30, 33, 37–8, 40, 42–4, 51, 53–6, 60–61, 71–4, 76, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87–91, 96–7, 100–101, 117–18, 120, 122–6, 128–9, 131, 133, 137–8, 140–43, 146–50, 155, 157, 165–8, 171–5, 177–8, 182–3, 191

214

index

Rouen, 24–5, 43, 54, 84, 93, 95, 105–106, 138, 146–9, 160, 185 Rouvier, Pierre, 178 Royaumont, 43 Rubens, Peter-Paul, 49 Rucellai, Orazio, 30 Rudèle, Jean de, 105 Rudolf, emperor, 29 Sables d’Olonne, Les, 87 Saint-Cyran, Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbé de, 36, 39, 62, 118–20, 121–7, 129–33, 137, 152, 161, 165, 179–80, 182–3, 185–9, 193 Saint-Denis, 106 Saint-Etienne, 98 Saint-Flour, 50 Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 53 Saint-Jean-d’Angély, 94 Saint-Macaire, 92 Saint-Magloire, 124 Saint-Malo, 39, 47, 86 Saint-Maur, 45, 94, 102 Saint-Maxent, 87 Saint Merri, 180 Saint-Pol-de-Léon, 85 Saint-Sacrement, compagnie du, 81, 84, 130–31 Saint-Sacrement, institut du, 128–31, 153, 180–81, 185 Saint-Sacrement, Marguerite du, 104 Saint-Sulpice, 21, 84, 162, 178–80, 187–91 Saint-Vanne, 94 Saintes, 40, 51, 84, 89, 91, 95–8, 107 Sales, François de, 43, 81, 85–6, 88, 148, 163, 187, 191 Salic Law, 7–8 Salignac, Louis de, 89, 91 Sancy, Nicolas de Harley, sieur de, 77 Sanguin, Nicolas, 85 Santarelli, Antonio, 42, 66, 133, 136–7, 146, 152, 154, 162 Santa Susanna, Scipio Cobelluzzi, Cardinal di, 76 Sarlat, 89, 91

Sarpi, Paolo, 27 Sault, Jean-Jacques du, 90 Saumur, 45, 72, 80, 151 Sauveur, Pierre, 108 Savoy, 23–5, 31, 36, 50, 78, 81–3, 85, 90, 114–15, 119, 121, 123, 136, 155, 173 Scarron, Pierre, 86 Schomberg, Henri de, 43, 76 Scotland, 8, 64–5, 93, 140, 144–6 Scribani, Carlo, 119 Secret Chaplet, 128–31, 185–6 Séguenot, Claude, 125–9, 131, 164, 180 Séguier, Antoine, 104 Séguier, Pierre, 38, 54, 155–6 Séguiran, Gaspar de, 43, 91, 119, 142–4, 151–2, 175 seminaries, 19, 21, 35, 41, 81, 91, 98–9, 101–102, 106, 110, 149 Semur-en-Aixoix, 98 Senlis, 38, 85 Sens, 37–8, 86, 88, 124, 128–9 Servin, Louis, 27, 31, 41–2 Servites, 59–60 Seton, William, 145 sexual behaviour, 81, 98, 100, 163–4 Silingardi, Gasparo, 24 Singlin, Antoine, 131, 163, 180 Sirmond, Antoine, 83, 148, 181 Sirmond, Jacques, 126–7, 134, 141–2, 144, 148, 151–3, 161–2, 164–5, 170, 181–2 Sirmond, Jean, 83, 117 Sisteron, 40 Smit, Adrien de, 96 Smith, Richard, 36–7, 58, 62, 133 Society of Jesus, 4, 16–25, 27–31, 34– 8, 41–3, 50–55, 57, 59–61, 63, 65–6, 69, 78, 80–87, 90–94, 96–100, 102–104, 106–109, 114–19, 121–88, 192–3 sodalities, 59, 92, 100, 107, 179. See also confraternities Solignac, 94 Sorbonne, 5, 11, 17, 22, 27, 30, 34, 37–8, 42, 48, 54, 58, 60–62,

Index

66, 97, 125, 128–9, 132–3, 137–8, 146, 151–2, 155, 158–61, 164–5, 182–3, 187 Sourdis, Cardinal François de, 25, 33–4, 37, 42–3, 46, 81, 85, 88–102, 147 Spada, Bernardino, 38, 40–41, 43–4, 66, 78, 89, 91 Spain, 8–9, 11–12, 16, 19–20, 22, 24, 26–9, 31, 36–7, 40, 42–3, 47, 49–51, 66–8, 72, 78–9, 82, 93–4, 96, 104, 113–18, 120, 123–4, 133–6, 146, 166–7, 174–6 Sponde, Henri de, 38, 49, 85, 88, 91 Suarez, Francisco, 61 Suffren, Jean, 37, 43, 47, 51, 53–5, 60, 80, 84, 119, 130–31, 133–6, 143–4, 147, 153, 165–6, 175 Sully, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de, 30 Surin, Jean-Joseph, 93, 140 Sweden, 115, 118, 157, 183 synods, diocesan, 33, 38, 40, 89–90, 102–105, 107, 110 Talon, Nicolas, 85 Talon, Omer, 152 Taraut, Jean-Etienne, 141 Tarin, Jean, 174 Teresa of Avila, 22, 67 Theatines, 16, 108 Thirty Years’ War, 18, 114, 133–4, 140, 156–7, 176–9, 193 Thoiras, Claude de Saint Bonnet de, 104 Thonon, 93 Thou, Jacques-Auguste de, 126, 146, 159 Tiberius, 84 Toiras, Jean du Caylar de SaintBonnet, marquis de, 39 Tommaso, prince of Savoy, 83 Toul, 98 Toulon, 38, 108 Toulouse, 39, 83, 92–5, 98, 105, 107, 147, 159, 168, 180

215

Touraine, 36, 80 Tournon, 38 Tours, 39, 46, 58, 67, 70, 80, 95, 108 Transylvania, 116 Trappes, Léonard de, 50, 85, 105 Trent, Council of, 5, 13–16, 18–19, 21, 24–6, 29, 31, 33–6, 38, 41, 59, 61, 80, 85, 89–91, 95–6, 98–100, 114, 127, 152, 160–61, 163–5, 187, 191 Trier, 157 Trieste, 117 Trinitarians, 108 Troyes, 93, 95 Tulle, 107 Tulle, Jean de, 56 Turin, 173 Turks, 25, 77–8 Ubaldini, Roberto, 26 ultramontanes, 17–21, 27, 36–7, 66, 85, 88–9, 115–18, 125, 129, 137, 141, 148, 152, 156, 177, 185, 187–8, 191–3 United Provinces, 28, 51, 78, 115, 174 Urban VIII, 23, 31, 40, 42, 44, 46, 49, 66, 71–2, 75, 77, 82, 94, 97, 114–17, 121–4, 135, 137, 144, 148–9, 167–70, 172, 174–5, 183, 188 Urbino, 135 Ursulines, 81, 86–8, 92–3, 95, 101–102, 104, 106–109 usury, 162 Valençay, Jacques II d’Estampes, marquis de, 42 Valence, 51 Valenciennes, 95 Valernod, Pierre de, 103 Valette, Cardinal Louis de Nogaret de La, 40, 46, 52, 54, 83, 85, 97, 105 Valois dynasty, 7–8, 15 Valtelline, 31, 40, 43, 82, 89, 114–17, 120, 132, 157 Vanini, Lucilio, 84

216

index

Vasquez, Gabriel, 61 Vautier, François, 54 Vendôme, 102 Vendôme, Alexandre de, 50, 55 Venice, 13, 27–9, 114, 117, 135, 154, 159–60 Vera, Juan Antonio de, count of La Roca, 117 Verdun, 93 Vervins, Peace of, 12 Viau, Théophile de, 83–4, 154 Vincennes, 109 Visitandines, 81, 86, 106, 108, 110 Vitelleschi, Muzio, 119, 122–4, 134–5, 139–44, 146–7, 149–57, 165–75

Viviers, 98 Voisin, André, 83, 154 vows, 57–62, 67, 96, 124–5, 151 Wars of Religion, French, 7–13, 19–22 Ypres, 62, 118–20, 124 Ysambert, Nicolas, 37, 58 Zamet, Sébastien, 51, 54, 58, 62, 64, 82, 84, 109, 128–31, 148, 153, 186–7 Zwinglians, 73