La Paix Clementine: Defaite et victoire du premier jansenisme francais sous le pontificat de Clement IX (1667-1669) (review)

The "Clementine Peace" was the name given at the time to the unexpected truce that put an end to the twenty-year dispute between Catholics about Jansenism. The dispute was centered on five "propositions," first condemned by Urban VIII (1653) "on the occasion" of the publication of Cornelius Jansenius's Augustinus, that were declared extracted from that book by Alexander VII (1656). Along with Antoine Arnauld, the renowned Sorbonne theologian, the Jansenist party accepted the condemnation but denied the connection with the Augustinus. This was the famed distinction between right and fact, a classical one in theology. Claiming church authority to define "dogmatic facts," the French episcopate, soon followed by the Pope, imposed on all the clergy a formulary or oath acknowledging this connection (1665). However, in their diocesan publication of Regiminis apostolici, the papal pronouncement, four French bishops allowed for the distinction of fact, thus voiding the document's objective. As, at Louis XIV's request, Alexander VII had appointed an episcopal tribunal to judge the four bishops, nineteen of their colleagues offered their support. It was to resolve this perilous situation that the new pope, Clement IX, was approached. After secret negotiations, the "Peace of Church" was suddenly proclaimed (1668). A. Arnauld was presented to the king by Nuncio Bargellini, and the Jansenists were no longer a dangerous party. What had been negotiated and how? No explanation was given, but calculated leaks suggested a two-level agreement: officially the four bishops had given a "pure and simple" assent, but in a secret document they had nuanced it by maintaining the distinction. Clement IX was said to have condoned this face-saving stratagem on the principle of "respectful" or "obsequious silence," that is, that he would not prosecute the dissenters against a promise that they would not express openly their objections. The Jesuits, who had been kept out of the negotiation, cried foul, but as no formal rebuttal was ever issued, the interpretation was generally accepted and has been repeated by historians since.

For the first time, a precise and complete reconstruction of this mysterious episode is given in Philippe Dieudonné's work, begun as a doctoral dissertation (1996). Short of accessing the archives of the Holy Office, which were unavailable at that time, he has found documents that support a very different interpretation. The gist is that the Papacy never accepted such a duplicitous scheme; all that Rome was willing to concede, on the pressing instance of the French monarchy, was a form of submission that did not humiliate the recalcitrant bishops. The instructions given to Bargellini, a weak and gullible diplomat, were clear: "pure, simple, sincere, and frank" acquiescence, nothing less" (p. 170). The nuncio was tricked by the Gallican negotiators, who offered a subscription formula "on the model of the rest of the French episcopate." He realized too late that this "model" did not refer to the full adhesion to the papal formulary by the majority of the bishops, but to an additional report (procès-verbal) developing the distinction right/fact, that had been added to the signature of the nineteen bishops (p. 176). By the time the deception became evident to the special congregation of cardinals that followed negotiation in Rome, all they could do was to recommend a carefully worded papal brief that would sanction the "peace" but guard the future. Why such a decision that clearly weakened pontifical authority? The author suggests the fear of Gallicanism, which was indeed taking shape both at the political and theological levels in this decade, and with it, that of a schism. Diplomatic and political factors are also to be taken into account, including Clement's obsession with Christian resistance against the Turks. It seems more probable that the Romans...