Contesting Female Mysticism in the Public Sphere: Catherine Cadière, Convulsionaries and Marguerite Alacoque in 18th-century France

CREMS Seminar

Refreshments available from 4.15 - All welcome!

Throughout much of 1731, the public in France and most of Europe, closely followed the trial of 21-yaer old Catherine Cadière from Toulon who accused her confessor, the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Girard, of spiritual incest, Quietism and witchcraft.  But in the months before making her accusations, Cadière appeared to follow the established tradition of the mystic being guided by her revered Jesuit confessor. Toulon’s devout community, including the Jesuits, was ready to acknowledge her as a saint.  But once the Girard/ Cadière relationship transformed into a torrid scandal, the public debated the following questions: Was Cadière the victim of a lecherous Jesuit more than twice her age?  Or was Girard a sincere holy man duped by an unstable woman with pretensions to sainthood? The questions did not simply reflect skepticism about mysticism but more of an anxiety about its authenticity, especially in the case of women.  And who determined that authenticity: bishops, priests, or the public? 

Professor Mita Choudhury received her B.A. from Haverford College (1985), an M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1988), and her Ph.D. from Northwestern University (1997).  Her areas of research involve gender, political culture and religion in Old Regime France.

Her current project “The Wanton Jesuit and the Wayward Saint” is book-length microhistory that examines the Girard/Cadière trial, which took place in southern France in 1731.  The twenty-year old Catherine Cadière accused the fifty-year old Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Girard, her former spiritual director, of seduction, abortion, heresy and bewitchment.  As the case unfolded, it became a focal point for debates about religious politics, magic, and mysticism, revealing growing anxieties about the place of the sacred in everyday life.  Articles pertaining to the trial have appeared in Eighteenth-Century Studies and Common Knowledge.