Pierre de Bérulle et les Carmélites de France: La querelle du gouvernement 1583-1629 by Stéphane-Marie Morgain, O.C.D. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS103 make reference to previous scholarship on this point. Susan Haskins' Mary Magdalen:Myth andMetaphor (1993) may have appeared too late for Slade to have consulted,but it is obligatory for any discussion of this complex figure. One of Slade's many fascinating insights is that, when Teresa speaks of her parents in the Life, she seems to distance herself from them. After the death of her mother, Slade notes,Teresa adopts the Virgin Mary as her mother. Moreover, Teresa's "later ecstatic vision ofJoseph and Mary as benevolent parents outfitting her with jewels (Life 33.14) . . . might be interpreted in psychological terms as an attempt to replace her own parents with others who could suitably reward her" (p. 74). This suggestion would have been strengtliened by consideration of the ubiquitous paternal role that St. Joseph, whom Teresa consistently referred to as her father, had in her life and reform. Moreover, the divine locution that Teresa received commanding her to found St.Joseph's monastery in Ávila indicates that the Teresian Carmel was to be an extension of the Holy Family (Life, 32. 11). This book may not be the last word in the scholarly conversation regarding Teresa's writings, but it will surely influence its future direction. Slade's provocative analysis will undoubtedly stimulate much further discussion and research. Joseph F. Chorpenning, O.S.F.S. SaintJoseph's University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Pierre de Bérulle et les Carmélites de France: La querelle du gouvernement 1583-1629. By Stéphane-Marie Morgain, O.C.D. (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. 1995. Pp. 590. 240 F.) I suspect that this book tells more than anyone, except a few French Carmelites, wishes to know about the difficulties surrounding the introduction of Discalced Carmelite nuns into France in the early seventeenth century and the long, involved, and often bitter historiographical debate connected with that event. The book is an evidendy unedited S.T.D. thesis presented to the University of Fribourg and has many ofthe faults of that genre, except that it is generally well¦written. It also has the virtue of being based on a very wide range of sources, many ofwhich have never before been utilized, some ofwhich are published at the end of the book. Despite the origins of tliis study, there are rewards awaiting those who persevere through the myriad of minute details, careful refutations of obscure authors who wrote 120 years ago, and assorted snippets of well-known French political and religious history. 104BOOK REVIEWS For those interested in Carmelite history the reward to be gained from reading this book is a sensible conclusion to a long debate about the early days of the reformed order in France. The debate has centered around the extent to which French Carmelite nuns have honored the legacy of St. Teresa of Avila as expressed in her constitution of the reformed Carmelites. For the larger audience of historians interested in the Catholic Reformation the reward is fourfold. The first reward is a series ofmulti-dimensional portraits, the smaller ofwhich are presented without much editorial comment, which reveal both the halos and the warts of many French and Spanish participants in the Catholic Reformation during the period 1583-1629. These portraits occupy a significant portion of the book. Especially important among the portraits are those of Pierre de Bérulle, the titular head of the group that brought the Discalced Carmelite nuns to France, the first two superiors of tlie Paris convent, Mères Anne de Jésus and Anne de Saint Barthélémy, and Père Denys de la Mère de Dieu, the fiercest Carmelite opponent of Bérulle's methods ofgoverning the French Carmelite nuns independently of the order. Woven around the portraits is a finely nuanced account of the intricacies of Franco-Spanish-Papal relations, especially for the period 1590-1610. A third part of the reward is a set of concrete examples of the ways in which the decrees ofthe Council ofTrent concerning the reform of convents and monasteries by bishops challenged previously accepted modes of religious governance and the methods used to resolve the resulting conflicts—usually either trial and error or compromise. Finally...