Henri de Maupas du Tour: The Funeral Oration for Vincent de Paul, 23 November 1660 by Edward R. Udovic, C.M. (review)

To the undergraduate, it may seem extravagant to devote an entire book to a single speech. But Udovic’s attention in this elegant volume warrants the labor, and not simply because St. Vincent de Paul’s career remains an intriguing chapter of early-modern French Catholicism. Scholars are only just now beginning to submit the life of Vincent and the ministries of his followers to more heightened scrutiny, and justly so. The bolder accomplishments of Vincent’s life are now well publicized: for instance, his foundation of the Congregation of the Mission in 1625 and his establishment, along with St. Louise de Marillac, of the Daughters of Charity in 1633. Yet historians have much work to do in measuring his exact influence in French dévot circles, the extent of his collaboration with lay patrons, and the cumulative effects on the French Church of his lengthy career. Udovic begins here with an essential part of this task: probing the utterances, myths, and assertions advanced by contemporary commentators like Henri de Maupas du Tour. Starting with the work by Maupas du Tour (1606–80) is eminently sensible: he was a seasoned disciple and collaborator of Vincent, he was prominent among dévot circles in his own right, and he was the first to publicly comment on Vincent’s life and merits.

The reader would do well to approach this work with two observations in mind. The first is that Vincent remains a difficult subject to the scientific biographer, and second that Maupas du Tour’s eulogy is not a scientific biography. Vincent was notoriously restrained in his correspondence and sometimes cryptic; so interpreting his life makes acute demands on the analyst. Moreover, when he wrote his oration, Maupas du Tour assuredly did not consult the more than 30,000 letters Vincent bequeathed to historians. As well as remembering the enormous scope of this particular subject’s activity, Maupas du Tour’s text must also be foregrounded with the special exigencies placed on the eulogist in composing a life prior to Vincent’s canonization in 1737, added with the tailored literary demands of the seventeenth century.

In recognition of these requirements, this work cannot simply be a transliteration and translation of a primary document, however welcome such a labor would be. In fact, Udovic not only translates the text but also excavates far beneath it to give rich context and depth to the eulogy’s many biblical, literary, and historical components. Succeeding an opening chapter that helpfully provides new information on the author of the eulogy (and which usefully highlights Maupas du Tour’s own reforming credentials in the French Catholic Church), Udovic then uses particular passages from the panegyric to elucidate the eulogist’s precise methods and objectives. This is highly beneficial, for the reader is then well prepared to tackle the oration with a better understanding of the core ingredients of saintliness and sainthood to observers in the early-modern era. A final preambular chapter furnishes a cogent analysis of Vincent’s cause of canonization, reminding the observer that Maupas du Tour’s eulogy was the initial step in lengthy investigations (1660–1737) into Vincent’s virtue and his broader contributions to the French, and universal, Catholic Church.

This book is to be heartily recommended to all scholars of early-modern Europe and especially students of its cultural and religious heritage. Because it provides close textual analysis of a primary document from the early-modern period, this volume will be an excellent edition to any history syllabus, and will prove extremely useful as a teaching tool in the classroom. Finally, the text is accompanied by an array of impressive contemporary images and portraits drawn from the ever-growing Vincentian Studies Collection at DePaul University, testifying to...