Les Lumières du miracle par Alain Sandrier (review)

Reviews 231 not a new idea that the essayist uses the “New World” to indict his own; and Roose shows no awareness of the problems that critics such as Gérard Defaux and Tzvetan Todorov have raised concerning the abuse of portraying the Native Americans as primitive and uncomplicated. In observations such as,“Ces nations offrent l’image de ce qu’a été la condition humaine avant l’erreur de Prométhée” (66), Roose plants his work in the ground of the noble savage. Although he is interested in Montaigne’s criticism of the violence of Western knowledge (69), Roose does not consider whether the essayist implicates his own view of the Americans in imperial epistemology, writing a stereotype for the purpose of disarming it, a question that Zahi Zalloua and I, among others, have examined. Roose takes almost sixty pages and an additional chapter to arrive at this position: “c’est ainsi que les découvertes opèrent l’inversion la plus inattendue: les chrétiens se sont transformés en diables,les peuples indigènes n’apparaissent nullement comme des monstres” (115). Despite the accuracy of the second part, given that Montaigne opens “Des cannibales” with an inversion of the categories of “civilized” and “barbarous,” Roose’s belabored extension of it is hardly “inattendue.” This level of acumen pervades the book. For a scholar of Roose’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for Montaigne, such limitation is especially disappointing. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Hassan Melehy Sandrier, Alain. Les Lumières du miracle. Paris: Garnier, 2015. ISBN 978-2-81243884 -4. Pp. 467. As the first sentence of this book points out, a couplet found on a placard at the Saint-Médard cemetery in 1732 could serve well as an alternate title for the study: “De par le roi, défense à Dieu / De faire miracle en ce lieu” (9). In this exceptionally well-researched volume, Sandrier demonstrates how the examination of miracles by philosophers and theologians wove together two seemingly paradoxical strands of inquiry: faith and reason. The text opens with the story of a series of strange phenomena taking place at the tomb of François de Pâris, a fervent Jansenist supporter who famously rejected the papal bull Unigenitus. The “Convulsionnaires de SaintM édard,”as those at the gravesite became known, would go into trance-like states that resulted in miraculous healings.What interests Sandrier in this story is less the miracle itself than the various narratives that support and refute the phenomena, or as he puts it, “le miracle est moins une expérience anthropologique, indéniable au demeurant, qu’un fabuleux phénomène d’intertextualité” (16). To support his claims, the author combines in-depth analyses of what defines a miracle (scientifically as well as theologically ) with accounts alternately supporting and critiquing the phenomenon. The text is divided into five sections with an introduction and a conclusion, and the objects of study range from exegetical texts to philosophical treatises to popular fiction. The first section,“La nature du miracle,”examines the ways in which various philosophers and theologians define a miracle. In it, Sandrier introduces one of the most innovative and intriguing ideas of the book: miracles, he argues, are material entities that are constituted only by their inscription in texts (oral and written). This point is elaborated over the next three sections through examinations of writings on certainty, the devil, and materialist philosophy. Most notably, in the second to last chapter (“La négation du miracle”) the author provides an account of Thomas Woolston, an oftforgotten unorthodox British theologian. One of Woolston’s most shocking arguments lies in the refutation of miracles involving resurrection. If these individuals had crossed over to the afterlife, he asks, why would they not offer an account of this experience? The final section of the book (“Fabuleux miracles”) shifts toward artistic and literary representations of miracles. The author points out that this section is rather unbalanced—visual productions are quickly passed over to focus on literary and theatrical representations of miracles—but it does succeed in bringing together“true” miraculous tales and fiction. This book provides an innovative look into an often overlooked phenomenon of...