The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
Some new information about Marie Charpentier,
converse nun
at Port-Royal
return to Marie Charpentier of Port-Royal
The newly published Dictionnaire de Port-Royal, directed by Jean Lesaulnier and Antony McKenna (Paris: Champion, 2004) contains a three-paragraph article by McKenna about Marc-Antoine Charpentier's sister Marie.
I will quote the article, "Charpentier, Marie de Sainte-Blandine, Religieuse," paragraph by paragraph, and will comment on each. New information about Marie is shown in bold-face type.
"Pendant la Fronde, en 1652, un très grand nombre de religieuses étrangères à Port-Royal trouvent refuge dans l'abbaye; parmi celles-ci, selon les Mémoires de 1742, figurent six religieuses bénédictines de Montmartre qui arrivent à Port-Royal de Paris le 24 mai 1652: ce sont deux filles Charpentier, deux Parfait, et deux Brion. Il se peut que Marie Charpentier soit l'une des soeurs signalées à cette date."
My research shows that Marie-Sainte-Blandine Charpentier definitely did not begin her life in religion at Montmartre. Born in the mid-to-late 1630s, Marie was a just entering her teens in 1652. In fact, my notes show that the two nuns at Montmartre were Marie and Louise Charpentier, that they had taken their vows at Montmartre prior to 1636, and that they were the daughters of Michel Charpentier, a president in the Parlement of Metz. (Nor could the Brion girls mentioned by McKenna could have been the Guise singer, Geneviève de Brion. True, one of the nuns had been christened Genevieve, but she was born in 1620 and she took her vows at Montmartre in 1639, AN, MC, XXXIV, 105, March 14, 1633, and XX, 231, May 31, 1639).
"Nous savons, en tout cas, que Marie Charpentier est une religieuse converse, interrogée à Port-Royal de Paris par Jean-Baptiste de Contes et Louis Bail en juillet 1661, et signalée toujours parmi les religieuses converses à Port-Royal de Paris en 1664. Nous la connaissons aussi par une anecdote racontée par le sieur Flesselles de Brégy dans ses Relations de la vie de Marie des Anges Suireau, où Marie de Sainte-Blandine est décrite comme ayant « une extrême attache à son corps et à sa grande delicatesse », et comme étant « horriblement hardie »."
Marie Suireau took her vows in 1615, was an outstanding reforming abbess at Maubuisson, and withdrew to Port-Royal in 1650, where she helped prepare novices. In November 1654 she was elected abbess and resided in the Paris house until her death in December 1658. I have not read Sister Sainte-Eustochie de Flesselles de Brégy's account of Suireau's life. Perhaps Brégy was recalling her own experiences with Marie Charpentier --- events that clearly took place between September 1656, when Brégy began her noviciate, and November 1664, when she was expelled from the Paris house. On the other hand, if Brégy is quoting Mère Suireau, this raises the possibility that Marie Charpentier entered Port-Royal of Paris at some point between November 1654 and December 1658. Either option suggests that Marie was probably a few years other than I suggest in my Portraits, and that she began her noviciate circa 1658, rather than as late as 1661. In any event, the girl clearly was chafing at the harshness of a converse's life and was replying to her superiors in words that were deemed unacceptably brash and self-indulgent.
"Il est probable qu'elle a signé le Formulaire en 1664, mais cela
n'est pas certain. En tout cas, les autres religieuses se
méfient d'elle et la regardent comme une alliée de Flavie Passart.
En effet, elle reste à Port-Royal de Paris en 1665, et lorsqu'elle
tente de retourner au Champs avec la soeur converse Marie-Marthe Charon
le 24 mai 1669, on refuse de l'acceuillir et elle est renvoyée comme «
une fille très suspecte » à Paris."
McKenna calls
Flavie Passart (Catherine de Sainte-Flavie) one of the "most famous, or
rather, the most notorious" nuns at Port-Royal. Her position on the
Formulary led to her being accused of duplicity, hypocrisy, and
insubordination. Indeed, some of the nuns later said that it was she who
had been urging the other nuns to resist signing. Yet Sister Sainte-Flavie
herself signed in September 1664 and, in what the other nuns saw as a
reward for being a turncoat, was named sous-prieure only ten
days later. It undoubtedly was for that reason that she received no
votes for abbess in 1665. She died in 1670.
McKenna does not seem to be drawing a distinction between the conduct of "choir" nuns such as Flavie Passart, who had to decide, each according to her own lights, whether or not to sign the Formulary, and the conduct of converses such as Marie Charpentier. That is to say, on June 30, 1665, Mère Angès Arnaud ordered the converses to obey the Archbishop and remain calmly in Paris. In short, it is difficult to argue that in 1665 Marie de Sainte-Blandine had much choice about whether she would remain in Paris or would go to les Champs.
Marie-Marthe Charon's biography suggests why she and Marie Charpentier were so close. Marie-Marthe probably was a novice with Marie, for she took her vows in December 1659. Some thirty years older than Marie Charpentier, Charon had begun life as a domestic and was in her late fifties when she came to Port-Royal. Despite Mère Agnès's blanket instructions to converses, this tough, worldy-wise woman refused to sign the Formulary. The Peace of the Church finally permitted her to go to les Champs in May 1669, and she died there a year later.
Signing the Formulary did not, of course, mean that a converse could not feel sympathetic with the nuns who were resisting. Was that the case for Marie Charpentier? Did she admire the strength and resolution of Marie-Marthe Charon, who was old enough to be her mother and who conceivably could have been a mother-figure for her ever since their years as novice? Is that why Marie Charpentier did not want to be parted from Charon? And why the fervent Jansenist nuns at les Champs rejected her in 1669 as "suspect" to their cause.? That is to say, can we presume that Marie Charpentier obeyed her abbess, signed the Formulary, and consequently was perceived by the Jansenist hold-outs at les Champs as being more intent on remaining at the older converse's side than on continuing the resistance that had set Charon apart from the other converses?
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