La vie religieuse dans la France méridionale à l'époque moderneed. by Anne Blanchard, Henri Michel, and Elie Pélaquier (review)

104BOOK REVIEWS histories to justify their existence and efficacy as centers of orthodox spirituality . He concludes by suggesting that "The pilgrimage book dius reinforced the notion of geography as a 'sacred landscape' divided into places of 'hot' and 'cold' spiritual power," and that to this day "these perceptions survive . . . not as some kind of residual carryover, but as a dynamic part of Bavarians' daUy religion." In odier words, Bavarian CathoUcs stiU inhabit a sacral landscape defined by pUgrimage shrines, and their religious history is not dead, but part of a living past. Steven D. Sargent Union College Schenectady, New York La vie religieuse dans la France méridionale à l'époque moderne. Actes du coUoque organisé par le Centre d'Histoire Moderne en 1990. Edited by Anne Blanchard, Henri Michel, and Elie Pélaquier. (MontpeUier: Universit é Paul Valéry. 1992. Pp. 266. Paperback.) These fourteen essays, although weighted heavily in favor of exploring die southern French Catholic Counter-Reformation radier than die Protestant experience (twelve out of die total), focus on very specific questions. So, representing the smaU Protestant selection, Michel Peronnet questions die validity of the phrase "Provinces-Unies du midi" not as it was first coined by Jean Delumeau, but as it was expanded by Janine Garrisson to link Calvinism, democracy, and revolt inextricably. Didier Poton, in a rather rambling contribution , studies the role of the petty Protestant nobUity in one smaU but important cévenol town, Saint-Jean-du-Gard, and reflects upon die many dilemmas —social, ecclesiastical, monarchical—confronting them. Robert Sauzet 's brief but suggestive piece on the conversion of a lax priest to die Huguenot camp provides a good transition to the Catholic Midi, and aUows him the twofold purpose of probing the intolerant attitudes over several centuries of die minority nîmois Cadiolics, while also revealing the unevenness of Cadiolic reform. If die Counter-Reformation holds pride of place, the different offerings are designed to illuminate the many facets of this complex movement. Focusing on MontpeUier, Ghislaine Fabre, Thierry Lochard, and Jean Nougaret in two separate complementary articles gauge its political and architectural impact on die medieval city and municipal authorities. Another set of articles by Xavier-Louis Azéma and Anne-Marie Duport recount the troubled beginnings ofthe Ursulines in MontpeUier and theJesuits in Nîmes. Two suggestive articles by Isabelle Gestone, exploring the Jesuit use of the theater at Avignon to celebrate the Revocation, and Patrick Julien, studying a growing Christocentrism during die eighteenth century in Marvejols, underscore the attraction of a reinvigorated Catholicism, and its abUity to reinvent itself dirough new BOOK REVIEWS105 or restored cultural forms, in this case, die theater and confraternities. In a brief contrapuntal piece that evokes the protective powers of saints Sébastien and Roch in the Minervois is Hélène Berlan's timely reminder ofdie continuing power ofan older folkloric religionwidiin reformed Cadiolicism. A final cluster of four articles focuses on charity and cultic worship. Claude-Marie Robion's contribution is designed to give apanoramic view ofdie female confraternities inspired by Saint Vincent in die Aude, their success in the seventeenth century, and their slow decline in the eighteendi. Denis Fontaine analyzes die sudden popularity of Saint Joseph in RoussUlon at die end of die sixteendi century, connecting die saint's rising star to reformed Carmelite and Franciscan spirituality , initiatives of the secular clergy, and confraternities associating him with two powerful Tridentine images, die Holy FamUy and die Eucharist. Marie-Hélène Froeschlé-Chopard's two-part article first explores the popularity of die confraternity of the Rosary in eastern Provence during the same timeframe, and dien, analyzing altarpieces, argues for an underlying iconographie unity in the portrayal of the Virgin and the people who surround her expressive of the contradictions implicit in rosary worship. The coUection is concluded, oddly enough, widi a summary ofJean Georgelin's discussion of the Midi clergy's varied response in 1790 to the CivU Oath. These articles underscore the local diversity of a spiritual movement diat continues, ironically, to be thought of in uniform and universalist terms. They also implicitly question whedier we should think of diem as expressions of an underlying Midi culture. Such speculations should...