(Re)building the sacred landscape: Orleans, 1560 1610

The seizure and subsequent occupation of Orléans by the Huguenot forces in 1562–1563 and 1567–1568 was accompanied by iconoclastic outbursts and the destruction of the religious landscape, which culminated in the demolition of the central tower of the cathedral. This article examines the ways in which the religious and civic authorities reacted to this destruction and their attempts not only to bring about a renewal of the sacred landscape of the city but also to assert the importance of Catholicism within that landscape. This was achieved against the background of the ongoing religious conflicts which wracked France during the second half of the sixteenth century. The article looks at how this was achieved not only through the reconstruction of the city's religious buildings but also through the use of religious rituals and sacred relics. Furthermore, a figure from the city's past, Jeanne d’Arc developed as a local cult symbolizing the triumph of Catholicism over the Huguenots.

Household appointments and dismissals at the court of Louis XIII

This article looks at the impact on court office-holding of one of the most celebrated royal favourites of the seventeenth century, Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes, who was in favour from 1617 until 1622. During these five years, he was responsible for appointing forty-two noble men and women to high office in the households of Louis XIII, his queen Anne of Austria and his brother Gaston d'Orléans. They were his dependents appointed for their personal loyalty and political usefulness to him, including influencing opinions, providing information, acting as messengers and go-betweens and helping him to get rid of rivals and enemies. Half of them left office within five years of his death in December 1621, and three-quarters within ten years, a much higher departure rate than in the general household population. More than half of them were dismissed by Richelieu after he came to power in 1624 because he loathed Luynes and regarded his household appointees as untrustworthy. There is clearly a need for more studies of the political ties and activities of royal household members during this period.

Sorcery and publicity: the Cadiere Girard scandal of 1730 1731

The Cadière–Girard trial of 1730–1731 is an early example of a sensational, nationally publicized French trial in which the major parties were private individuals. Cadière, a female penitent, accused Girard, her Jesuit confessor, of bewitching and raping her; Girard claimed that Cadière was guilty of slander. It was to be the last witchcraft trial in the francophone world. Another notable feature of the trial was its publicity, in which the contesting parties almost immediately became stand-ins for the Society of Jesus and for its Jansenist adversaries. This paper argues that certain anti-Jesuits, particularly Cadière's defence team and in the Parlement of Aix-en-Provence, acted to prolong the trial with the aim of creating as much bad publicity as possible for the Society of Jesus; it also shows how Jansenist publicists took advantage of the lengthy process, creating literature that ‘burned Girard in spirit’, and with him, the Jesuits as a whole.

Une loi de l'Eglise et de l'Etat: Napoleon and the central administration of religious life, 1800 1815

In 1802 the Napoleonic government removed authority over religious holidays from the Gallican Church. In Old Regime France bishops decided which holidays were observed in their dioceses. The Republican Calendar had eliminated official recognition of Catholic holidays but not their widespread observance. Napoleon reinstated the Gregorian Calendar but not the holidays of the Old Regime. At his request, a papal indult eliminated the weekday observance of all but four Catholic holidays. The reform drew on the legacy of the Enlightenment, especially Montesquieu. The clergy of the Gallican Church oversaw the indult's execution, which was complicated by ambiguous wording. Napoleon attempted to merge religious and political obedience, so the best Christians would also be the best subjects, while making it clear that the government was the dominant power. The Restoration subsequently kept the indult in place, neither adding more holidays nor relinquishing authority over the matter.

Martyrs of charity, heroes of solidarity: Catholic and republican responses to the fire at the Bazar de la Charite, Paris, 1897

The fire that devastated Paris' Bazar de la Charité on 4 May 1897, claiming around 130 lives, occurred at a moment of tension-ridden ambiguity in relations between the Catholic Church and the French Republican state—a moment traversed by initiatives of Ralliement and by the resistance that those initiatives encountered in both the Catholic and the Republican camp. The article shows how these tensions were reflected and worked out in the interpretations of the fire that were publicly offered by Catholic and Republican spokesmen. Focusing on the rhetoric and imagery of these interpretations, it shows how terms like ‘solidarity’, ‘charity’ and ‘sacrifice’ were employed in a range of senses and of rhetorical contexts, serving sometimes as vehicles of negotiation between Catholic and Republican sensibilities, sometimes as markers of intransigent positions. Discourse on the fire, both Catholic and Republican, found a potent focus in contrasting images of a heroism structured by class and gender, highlighting on the one hand the solidaristic spirit of heroic working class males and on the other the sacrificial martyrdom of upper class women.

Les peres de la patrie. La societe parlementaire en Dauphine au temps des Lumieres * Parlement et parlementaires. Bordeaux au Grand Siecle * Les fortunes de Themis. Vie des magistrates du Parlement de Bordeaux au Grand Siecle

Anglo-Norman Studies XXVIII. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2005

Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France

The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: Reassessments and New Approaches

The Bourgeois Revolution in France, 1789 1815

Louis Braille: A Touch of Genius

God's Eugenicist: Alexis Carrel and the Sociobiology of Decline

The Unfree French

Massacre at Oradour, France, 1944

The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France

Remnants of Empire in Algeria and Vietnam: Women, Words and War