The Wanton Jesuit and the Wayward Saint: A Tale of Sex, Religion, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century France

by Mita Choudhury

Overview

This microhistory investigates the famous and scandalous 1731 trial in which Catherine Cadière, a young woman in the south of France, accused her Jesuit confessor, Jean-Baptiste Girard, of seduction, heresy, abortion, and bewitchment. Generally considered to be the last witchcraft trial in early modern France, the Cadière affair was central to the volatile politics of 1730s France, a time when magistrates and lawyers were seeking to contain clerical power.

Mita Choudhury’s examination of the trial sheds light on two important phenomena with broad historical implications: the questioning of traditional authority and the growing disquiet about the role of the sacred and divine in French society. Both contributed to the French people’s ever-increasing disenchantment with the church and the king. Choudhury builds her story through an extensive examination of archival material, including trial records, pamphlets, periodicals, and unpublished correspondence from witnesses.

The Wanton Jesuit and the Wayward Saint offers new insights into how the eighteenth-century public interpreted the accusations and why the case consumed the public for years, developing from a local sex scandal to a referendum on religious authority and its place in French society and politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271077017
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	12/09/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	28 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Mita Choudhury is Professor of History at Vassar College.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

The Girard/Cadière Relationship

1 A Community of Faith 13

2 The Meeting of Two Souls 33

3 Unraveling and Betrayal 47

The Trial

4 Becoming a Cawse Célèbre 69

5 Arguing the Case 89

6 Before the Courts 107

Beyond the Grand'chambre

7 Public Opinion and the Story of the Wanton Jesuit 127

8 The Aftermath 153

Epilogue 171

Notes 177

Bibliography 207

Index 225