Monseigneur Duchesne et les Bollandistes: Correspondance (review)

Scholars of modernism are well aware of Monseigneur Louis Duchesne (1843-1922), a distinguished historian who introduced a generation of Catholic scholars in France to the methods and findings of professional history. Less well known to modernist scholars are the Bollandists, Jesuits dedicated to critical hagiography, but they, too, promoted modern historical methods at a time when many in the Catholic world viewed such historical work with suspicion.

The correspondence between Duchense and the Bollandists that is collected in this volume covers virtually all of Duchesne's professional life, from 1878, the year after he earned his doctorate, until shortly before his death in 1922. Over these years, he exchanged thirty-five letters with Charles De Smedt (1831-1911), twenty with Albert Poncelet (1861-1912), and fifty-seven with Hippolyte Delehaye (1859-1941), as well as a few letters with others, that remain extant. Unfortunately, parts of the correspondence are lost. For example, the first letter from Duchesne is dated December 29, 1889, eleven years after the beginning of the exchanges. De Smedt's sixteen letters to Duchesne from these years clearly indicate that the correspondence was mutual, and indeed his first letter implies that Duchesne was the one to initiate contact. Despite such gaps, the correspondence gathered in this volume allows the reader to follow Duchesne and his Bollandist friends through the tumultuous years of the modernist crisis as they faced suspicion and sometimes the condemnation of their efforts by ecclesiastical authorities.

In general, the correspondence reflects the professional interests of the participants, as Joassart notes in the introduction. Duchesne and the various Bollandists share their reactions to new books and to other scholars, and they offer suggestions and appraisals about the work that each other is doing. More interesting to contemporary scholars, however, will be their responses to the larger ecclesiastical, political, and theological developments of their day, particularly the condemnation of modernism. In his introduction, Joassart draws attention to a letter of November 9, 1907 from Duchesne to Delehaye. In this letter, Duchesne distanced himself and Delehaye from (unnamed) modernists on the one hand and from the papal condemnation of modernism in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis on the other. At the same time, Duchesne acknowledged that times were grim and that he and his correspondent were at risk.

In the most touching letters, Duchense and his various correspondents express their mutual esteem and support. For example, when De Smedt expressed gratitude to Duchesne for his work on De Smedt's behalf (in a letter now lost), Duchesne replied that he was only giving De Smedt his due. After all, the normally caustic Duchesne asked, "do you not believe that Bollandism is one of the greatest scientific causes of modern times" (p. 112)? De Smedt expressed similarly warm respect for Duchesne's work.

Joassart's presentation of this correspondence is outstanding. His twenty-three-page introduction provides background information for all of the participants in these exchanges, which is particularly helpful in the case of the individual Bollandists who are mostly unfamiliar even to scholars of the period. The annotations are exhaustive, offering brief biographical sketches of the various figures mentioned in the letters and, where possible, elaborating on otherwise obscure details. As a consequence, the reader can better appreciate the significance of the scholarly judgments the correspondents shared with each other. An index of names enables the reader to follow references to individuals of interest. Altogether, then, this collection is a welcome contribution to contemporary scholarship.