Paris, 1633 : quand la prédication fait débat

Abstract

On the occasion of Lent 1633, a Mercuriale was published in Paris highlighting the shortcomings of the preachers. This first libellus was followed by a letter, Lettre ou Advis, criticizing it, and then by an Apology of the Mercuriale. Beyond the attacks and retaliation, this polemic through print refers to several types of analysis. First of all, it reflects a new place occupied by preaching in the context of the Catholic Reformation and Counter-Reformation that the capital was undergoing at the time. But beyond purely religious issues, it was also, through the printed word, the means of presenting and defending different conceptions of sacred eloquence. Although it remains difficult to identify their authors precisely, one can nevertheless take up the ecclesiological stakes, the rivalry between seculars and regulars as well as between old and new religious orders. These three texts also make it possible to shed light, beyond the form of quarrel and debate, on the injunctions of a literary nature, language correction, urbanity, but also on the performance expectations of the speakers that accompanied the flourishing of Catholic preaching in the 1630s.

Keywords

• Preaching
• Paris
• 17th century
• polemical
• Jesuits.