The Wanton Jesuit and the Wayward Saint: A Tale of Sex, Religion, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century France by Mita Choudhury (review)

An examination of a dispute in eighteenth-century France that saw a young woman and her supporters locked in a factual, legal, and public relations battle against a Jesuit priest and his supporters, this work aims to be a case study of how the formation of a public opinion critical of monarchical and ecclesiastical authority foreshadowed the French Revolution. From 1728, Jean-Baptiste Girard, S.J., had been the spiritual director of Catherine Cadière, in Toulon; but in 1730 she accused him of witchcraft (of bewitching her), of touching her in indecent ways, of impregnating her, and of inducing an abortion. Girard denied all of it and insisted that she was a liar and a hysteric engaging in a false show of supposedly divinelygiven ecstasy and of sanctity. Choudhury does a good job of showing that hard evidence was lacking on both sides, though she speculates, perhaps less persuasively, that the two did have a sexual relationship albeit a consensual one. The author notes, correctly, that by the 1730s an accusation of witchcraft had lost the kind of credibility it could have had a century or so earlier, and thus it did not do much to help Cadière’s case.

The royal law court (parlement) of Aix-en-Provence found neither party guilty of anything. Choudhury highlights how this judgment did not please the large crowds assembled in Aix, and the many other people that followed with keen interest the proceedings; she suggests, with some hyperbole, that “everyone in France had an opinion about the affair” (p. 127). But some were more interested than others in its details and outcome, and Choudhury shows, convincingly, that French Jansenists used the controversy to promote their anti-Jesuit agenda. Jansenists were only too happy to depict Jesuits as hypocritical in their vow of chastity, and as deceivers and schemers never to be trusted. Anti–Jesuit polemic used images as well as words, and such polemic could mimic or parallel anti-Semitism: Choudhury includes among her excellent illustrations one in which “Father Girard’s features follow conventions of anti-Semitic caricatures” (p. 139). Other images and texts depicted Girard and his confrères as inhuman, as demons and animals, especially wolves, and as deviants of various kinds and as sodomites. One may wonder if the France Choudhury depicts was more a preview of 1930s Nazi Germany than of 1790s Revolutionary France. Girard left Toulon quickly after the parlement’s decision. His departure may have saved his life: crowds eager to exact what they thought was justice burned him in effigy.

This work could have benefited from greater knowledge of Jesuit history. Choudhury stresses that Jesuits were extremely close to the French monarchy, and this was certainly true in some ways, but she seems unaware of tensions between Jesuits and French monarchs, as in the Régale controversy of the late 1600s that saw French Jesuits caught between differing papal and royal demands. The author also imagines that Jansenists valued individual conscience, while Jesuits did not do so: a simplistic dichotomy that will not withstand close scrutiny. From Choudhury’s notes and bibliography, and from her analysis, it is obvious that she is wellgrounded in the Jansenist side of things; she appears largely unaware of the copious Jesuit sources from the period, and of the current abundance of new studies on Jesuit topics. Yet this remains a fascinating book and one I highly recommend, one that will interest a broad range of scholars.