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PIOUS SOCIABILITY AND THE SPIRITUAL ELITE

IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE c.1650 1680

Jennifer Hillman

PhD

University of York

Department of History

December 2011

2

ABSTRACT

Seventeenth-century female rigorists have received little archival study since the nineteenth century, when they were at once mythologized as beautiful luminari monopolized the salons, and reduced - Royal. This study attempts to show that they have been misinterpreted. It shows that by neglecting the correspondence of these women, historians have missed some of the richest descriptions of how female piety evolved after the dévot generation pioneered the Catholic

Reformation in France.

This thesis proposes that within the seventeenth-century Parisian rigorist movement there was an aristocratic friendship network comprised of women who socialized and worshipped

together. It argues that within this group a socially and spiritually exclusive devotional

culture developed, which it terms Pious Sociability. It seeks to show how Pious Sociability was characteriz aversion towards the licentious culture of an increasingly libertine royal court, and distinctive, anti-Baroque devotional practices. It suggests that the Pious Sociability of rigorist penitents may have informed, and been informed by, their perception of the early Christian community. Drawing upon manuscript and printed sources, this study demonstrates the significance of female pious networks to the history of the Catholic Reformation in France. It aims to offer an organic approach to the study of elite female culture, nuancing existing histories of post- Tridentine devotion and plotting the unfolding of feminine sociability beyond the salon. 3

CONTENTS

Abstract 2

List of Illustrations 5

List of Abbreviations 7

Note on the Text 8

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction 10

1. Historiography: The Catholic Reformation and Lay Female Piety in France

2. Methodology:

i) Friendship Networks ii) The Sources and their Interpretation

3. Chapter Summaries

PART ONE Spiritual Election and Sociability

Chapter One On the road to Damascus: Conversion and Penitence c.1638 1660 36

1. Conversion and the Spiritual Autobiography

2. Penitence in the Spiritual Autobiography

3. Grace and Salvation in the Spiritual Autobiography

4. The Social Visibility of Conversion

1. The History of Friendship

2. Spiritual Friendship:

i) A Network of Penitents ii) The Spiritual Director iii) Spiritual Friendships and Penitence

3. The Devotional Culture of the

i) La société et même ii) Anti-Court Attitudes? PART TWO A Spiritual Affinity? The Rigorists and the Early Christians Chapter Three The Material Culture of Piety c.1660 1679 125

1. Material Culture: An Approach to Aristocratic Piety

2. Domestic Devotional Spaces (i) The Cabinet

3. Domestic Devotional Spaces (ii) The Chapel

4. An Alternative Devotional Style?

5. Inconspicuous Consumption?

Chapter Four 190

1. The Histories of Reading and the Book

4

3. Non-rigorist Reading

4. Towards a Typology of Lay, Female Rigorist Reading:

i) Forbidden Books ii) Devotion made easy? Devotional Literature iii) Hagiography iv) v)

5. Reading for Salvation?

PART THREE Pious Sociability beyond Paris

Chapter Five Spiritual Retreat and the Pursuit of Solitude at the Estate 255

1. U Spiritual Retreat in the

Countryside

2. La separation du monde ou vous estes à la campagne fait la meilleure partie de vostre

state and the Pursuit of Solitude

3. Dieu soit eternellement beny continuant l: Charity at

the Estate

5. contraires à la discipline :

The Retreat from Babylon

6. Retraite à la mode? Aristocratic Sociability at the Estate

Conclusion 321

1. Friendships, Female Piety and the Catholic Reformation

2. Devotion

and the Spiritual Elite 3. negligence in a matter where their eternity are at stake, fills me with more irritation

Exclusive Sociability

Appendix A Prosopographical appendix and portraits 332

Appendix B Testaments 338

Appendix C Maps and Images 355

Appendix D A note on the Chartrier de La Roche-Guyon 366

Bibliography 367

5

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Tables

Table 1.1 The duchesse de 132

Table 1.2 Coulommiers 135

Table 1.3 The marquis 142

Table 1.4 prie-dieu 144

Table 1.5 The chapel at the Hôtel de Liancourt 151 Table 1.6 The chapel at the Hôtel de Longueville 154 Table 1.7 The sacristy at the Hôtel de Longueville 155 Table 1.8 The chapel at the Hôtel de Brienne 159 Table 1.9 The chapel and sacristy at the Hôtel de Guise 165 Table 2.0 Paintings at the Hôtel de Longueville 172 Table 2.1 The chapel at the château de La Roche-Guyon 178 Table 2.2 Books in the library at the Hôtel de Liancourt 199

Table 2.3 Books in the oratory 204

Table 2.4 Books in the apartment at La Roche-Guyon 206 Table 2.5 Books owned by the duchesse de Richelieu 209 Table 2.6 Books owned by the princesse Palatine 216 Table 2.7 Books owned by the duchess de Guise 220

Table 2.8 The 259

Maps

Map 1.1 Charles Inselin1705 355

Map 1.2 Faubourg Saint-Jacques 356

Map 1.3 Hôtel de Liancourt, rue de Seine 356 Map 1.4 Hôtel de Guéméné, Place Royale 357 Map 1.5 Hôtels de Gamaches and Brienne, rue des Saints-Pères 357 Map 1.6 Hôtel de de Schomberg, near Saint-Sulpice 358 Map 1.7 Hôtel de Conti, Quai de Conti 358 Map 1.8 Hôtel de Longueville, rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre 359 Map 1.9 Hôtel de Gonzague, rue Sainte-Geneviève 359 Map 2.0 Hôtel de Guise, rue des Francs-Bourgeois 360

Map 2.1 Hôtel de Richelieu 360

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Map 2.2 Johannes Blaeurançais, 1662 361

Map 2.3 Trie 362

Map 2.4 Trie and Liancourt 362

Map 2.5 Liancourt and l-Adam 363

Map 2.6 La Roche-Guyon and Liancourt 363

Figures and Portraits

Figure 1.1 Anne-Marie Martinozzi, princesse de Conti 332 Figure 1.2 Marie-Louise de Gonzague, Queen of Poland 333 Figure 1.3 Anne de Rohan, princesse de Guéméné 334 Figure 1.4 Jeanne de Schomberg, duchesse de Liancourt 335 Figure 1.5 Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon-Condé, duchesse de Longueville 336 Figure 1.6 Tomb of the princesse de Conti 364 Figure 1.7 Fountains in the gardens at Liancourt 365 Figure 1.8 Water-jets in the gardens at Liancourt 365 7

ABBREVIATIONS

BnF Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Ms. Fr Manuscrits français

Na. Fr Nouvelles acquisitions français

Ms. Arsenal Manuscrits Arsenal

Clair Collection Clairambault

Dupuy Collection Dupuy

Colbert Collection Colbert

Vc Col Cinq Cents Colberts

AN Archives Nationales de France

MC Musée Condé, Chantilly

BM Bibliothèque Mazarine

BIF BS MSVC Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, Manuscrits Victor Cousin

ADVO Archives Dé

ADO Archives Départementales de l

ADSM Archives Départementales de Seine-Maritime ADEL BSPR Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal 8

Note on the Text

All transcriptions of manuscripts are quoted directly from the original texts. I have added punctuation sparingly in the interests of clarity but neither added, nor modernized, diacritics. I have translated rare and/or ambigious words in the footnotes. Unless noted otherwise, all transcriptions and translations are my own. 9

Acknowledgements

The research for this PhD was made possible by a doctoral award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, a teaching scholarship from the University of York History Department, and a Doctoral Research Fellowship from the Humanities Research Centre, York. First and foremost, my thanks go to Professor Stuart Carroll for his advice, guidance and forbearance throughout my time as a Graduate student at York and his excellent supervision during the PhD. His expertise has helped to refine the arguments presented in this thesis and his continued support and encouragement is greatly appreciated. Thanks to Professor Bill Sheils and Dr Simon Ditchfield for their insightful comments on draft versions of the thesis chapters. Thanks are also due to Simon Ditchfield for lending me

copies of forthcoming publications and permitting their citation in the thesis. I am also

2009, which proved to be valuable preparation for researching the fourth chapter of the thesis.

I have benefitted from discussions with several other scholars. Thanks to Professor Robin Briggs for a useful conversation about Pascal at the Society for the Study of French History conference in 2010 and to Professor Joseph Bergin and Dr Alison Forrestal for their kind comments on my paper. Thanks to Professor Jane Moody for her supportive words during the final of the Humanities Research Centre Doctoral Fellowship Competition. Thanks to Alex Medcalf and Jenny Basford, fellow graduate students at York, for taking the time to proofread chapters of the thesis. I am grateful to the staff at the Archives Nationales, Bibliothèque Nationale, Musée Condé,

and the Bibliothèque de la Société de Port-Royal. I am particularly indebted to Patrick Lapalu

at the Archives Dépavalue of the Chartrier de La Roche-Guyon and for several archival references relating to the châte- Adam. This project would not have been possible without the support of my family and friends. Thanks to Rebecca for being a wonderful role model; to Rob for his patience, and for always taking an interest. I am grateful to my history A-level teacher Dr Tony Cruickshank for teaching me how, and not what, to think. Above all, thanks to my parents for a lifetime of love and encouragement. 10

INTRODUCTION

In 1615 the Catholic Reformation made its belated arrival in France. The Assembly of Clergy officially accepted the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545 1563) on the condition of Gallican independence from the Roman See.1 In the following decades, Catholic spiritual rejuvenation was pioneered by the pious and charitable activities of the dévot generation.2 By the middle decades of the seventeenth century, the period which this thesis takes as its point of departure, the dévot movement had begun to wane. The Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement was officially suppressed in 1666 and the charitable impulse within female confraternities such as the Dames de la Charité also suffered.3 The dévots were increasingly thought of as an the next generation of spiritual elite, who are the subject of this thesis.

1 Victor Martin, Le gallicanisme et la réforme catholique: e

Trent 1563 1615 (Genève: Slatkine, 1975), 385; Norman Ravitch, The Catholic Church and the French

Nation 1589 1989 (London: Routledge, 1990), 16; Jean Dagens, Bérulle et les origines de la restauration

catholique 1575 1611 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1952).

2 The historical literature on the dévots is extensive. For some good recent accounts, see: Jean-Pierre Gutton,

Dévots et société au XVIIe siècle: construire le ciel sur la terre (Paris: Belin, 2004); Joseph Bergin, Church,

Society and Religious Change in France 1580 1730 (London: Yale University Press, 2009), especially chapter

15; Barbara Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity: Pious Women and the Catholic Reformation in Paris

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Elizabeth Rapley, The Dévotes: Women and Church in Seventeenth-

Century France (Montreal: McGill-and Louis Châtellier, (Paris: Flammarion, 1987). Recinti: Donne, clausura e

matrimonio nella prima età moderna (Bologna: Il mulino, 2000), especially chapter seven, 417 52. On dévot

charity in this period, see Tim McHugh, Hospital Politics in Seventeenth-Century France: The Crown, Urban

Elites and the Poor (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Daniel Hickey, Local Hospitals in Ancien Régime France:

Rationalization, Resistance and Renewal (Buffalo: McGill- 1997); and Colin Jones,

The Charitable Imperative: Hospitals and Nursing in Ancien Régime and Revolutionary France (London:

Routledge, 1989). On the political parti dévot, see a recent article by Caroline Maillet-Rao:

Morgues and Michel de Marillac: The Dévots and Absolutism,French History, 25, no. 3 (September, 2011):

279 97.

3 Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity, 245; McHugh, Hospital Politics, 2.

4 Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 386 87; Alain Tallon, La compagnie du Saint-

Sacrement 1629 - 1667: spiritualité et société (Paris: les Éd. du Cerf, 1990), 45. On the organization of the

Compagnie, see Alfred Rébelliau, La compagnie secrète du Saint-Sacrement: lettres du groupe parisien au

groupe marseillais, 1639 - 1662 (Paris: H. Champion, 1908). A good summary is also provided in René

11

1. Historiography: The Catholic Reformation and Lay Female Piety in France

During the last ten years, historians have begun to investigate the lay, female contribution to the Counter Reformation in late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century Europe.5 Barbara Diefendorf, one of the most important proponents of this new historiography, charted the move from penitential spirituality to dévot charity among the Parisian female pious elite and highlighted their part in the early Catholic Reformation in France.6 Like Diefendorf, this study shows that female devotional culture was generational and needs to be understood as a response to changing spiritual currents, social and political circumstances. Distinct from also makes an important methodological departure from her work. It moves beyond the reliance upon institutional documentation,

such as the records of religious houses and confraternities, and instead proposes that an

interrogation of correspondence can help us to better understand the social realities of elite Tavenaux, Le catholicisme dans la France classique 1610 - 1715 (2 volumes, Pa

Supérieur, 1980), vol. 1, 225 33.

5 A non-exhaustive list is: Diefendorf, From Penitence to Charity;

Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View, ed. Cordula Van Wyhe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 155 71;

Counter-Reformation Paris French Historical Studies, 24, no. 3 (Summer, 2001): 469 99; Barbara

Changing Identities in Early Modern France, ed. Michael Wolfe (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), 169

90; Barbara Diefenious

Vocations in Early Counter-Reformation The Journal of Modern History, 68, no. 2 (June, 1996): 265

307; Marcel Bernos, e classique, XVIIe - XVIIIe siècle; préface par Jean

des filles par les femmes aux XVIIe et XVIIIe

siècles in La religion de ma mère: les femmes et la transmission de la foi, ed. Jean Delumeau (Paris: les Éd. du

Cerf, 1992), 269 81;

Renaissance Studies, 15, no. 3 (September, 2001): 328 53;

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