« L’humidité les faisoit incliner et la sécheresse les redressoit » : étude des corps momifiés de Toulouse sous l’Ancien Régime

Abstract

The mummies from Toulouse have today disappeared from memory, but they were very popular since the French Revolution. Then the dried bodies were broken or buried by the revolutionnaries. Nevertheless, many travelers visiting Toulouse went « to the mummies », and described this bodies located in the catacombs of the jacobins, the cordeliers and Saint-Nicolas Church. But this bodies weren’t relics neither saints. This article enable to examine their nature, and the intentionnality that conducted the monks to mummify some dead bodys. Did they have a religious fonction?

Keywords

• city of Toulouse
• confession
• convents
• Dead bodies
• embalming
• mummies