The Ranums' Panat Times

Return to my Musing on the "Regular" Life

Notes for "The 'Regular' Life of Two Devout Princesses"

1. Jerothée, Oraison funèbre d'Elisabeth d'Orléans (Alençon, 1696), BN, Ln²⁷ 9433, p. 18. Cf. the Récit abrégé des vertus de Mme la duchesse de Noailles (1698), B.N., ms. Clairambault 1142, fols. 33 ff. Like Mme de Guise, who did not enter a convent because Marie-Thérèse wanted to keep her at her side, Mme de Noailles had only remained in the "world" as a result of the pleas of her close friend, Anne of Austria.

2. Donneau de Visé, Mémoires... [of the reign of Louis XIV], 10:11.

3. Le Moyne, La Gallerie des Femmes fortes, "Epistre panegyrique" addressed to Anne of Austria.

4. La Vie réglée des dames qui veulent se sanctifier dans le monde (Paris: E. Couterot, 1693), "Avertissement."

5. Philippe Goibaut du Bois, Les Lettres de Saint Augustin, "Epitre."

6. Jerothée, I, p. 18.

7. See B.N., ms. fr. 23506, fols. 476-477 for this verbal portrait.

8. Motteville, Mémoires, pp. 67-69. For Anne of Austria, see Ruth Kleinman, Anne of Austria (Columbus, 1988), especially pp. 164ff (and the translation, Anne d'Autriche, Paris, 1993, pp. 296 ff.)

9. La Vie réglée, p. 11.

10. A.N., R 4* 1056, items 771 ff.

11. Chevalier de Méré, Lettres (Paris, 1689) 1:151.

12. H. Tournoüer, "Elisabeth d'Orléans," Bulletin de l'Orne, 61 (1942), p. 99.

13. A.N., R 4* 1056, items 124 ff.

14. Arsenal, ms. 6631.

15. La Vie réglée, pp. 124-125.

16. Jerothée, p. 35.

17. La Vie réglée, p. 136.

18. AN, R4*, 1056, items 979-1024.

19. Fragments of the rough-draft of the inventory made of the Luxembourg after her death survive at the Mazarine, Rés. 19170, fols. 25 ff.  For the donation to Jean Eudes, see A.N, M.C., LXXV, 166, June 3, 1673.

20. Tournoüer, pp. 99-100.

21 La vie réglée, p. 56.

22. Mazarine, A 10694, which has quite a few little pamphlets published by the same group of Parisian women, especially pièce 83, "Relation des misères," signed by Mmes Nicolaï and Miramion in 1683, pièce 84, "Aux Ames Chrestiennes," which asks for alms to help the foundlings cared for by the "Dames de la Charité de Paris", pièce 91, "Mémoire des prisons de Paris," and pièce 94, Reglemens des assemblées de Madame de la Moignon, premiere Presidente du Parlement de Paris, pour assister aux Prisonniers, les Pauvres honteux, & les Malades, which states that "Ces assemblées de Paris sont composées de Princes & Princesses, Ducs & Duchesses, Presidents & Presidentes, & d'autres personnes de toutes qualitez." Like Mme de Guise, the noble members of the confraternity apparently preferred to remain anonymous: their names do not appear in these brochures.

23.  Abbé Rombault, "Elisabeth d'Orléans," Bulletin de l'Orne 12 (1893), pp. 487-488.

24. André Frossard, Votre très humble serviteur, Vincent de Paul (n. p., Bloud et Gay: 1960), p. 163.

25. B.N., m.s. fr. 32831, p. 83; ms. fr. 32832, p.147. Although this allusions to the group appear in the obituaries of the mid-1690s, they refer to the activities of ladies who had long been active in the confraternity.

26. Rombault, p. 488.

27. La vie réglée, p. 123.

28. Mazarine, A 10694, pièce 28, a representative Concession de l'indulgence par nôtre tres-saint pere Innocent..., with permission of the bishop of Luçon, July 1696: "Reglement de la Confrerie de la Charité," created to help "pauvres malades des paroisses où elle est établie." See also the similar but undated "reglement" of pièce 84.

29. Langlois, Hôtel de Guise, p. 106.

30. B.N., ms. fr. 17054, fol. 272.

31. Described in the fragmentary inventory of Mazarine, Rés. 19170, fols. 25 ff.

32. La vie réglée, pp. 13-14 and 56-57.

33. B.N., ms. fr. 17052, fol. 343, October 8, 1680.

34. La vie réglée, p. 216.

35. La vie réglée, p. 88.

36. Tournoüer, p. 99.

37. La vie réglée, pp. 125-128.

38. La vie réglée, pp. 95, 133.

39. La vie réglée, pp. 213-214.

40. La vie réglée, pp. 206-208.

41. La vie réglée, pp. 227-228.

42. For example, L'Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie pour dire aux compagnies des penitens seculiers de l'un et l'autre sexe du Royaume de France et desProvinces voisines (Lyon: Besson, 1724), B.M. Rodez, T 6711; Heures de Nostre Dame et autres offices pour les confrères Penitens Noirs de Saincte Croix (Béziers: Jean Martel, 1647), B.M. Rodez, T 846; J.J.D.B., Office de la Vierge Marie avec les pensées & Elevations d'esprit sur chaque heure (Paris, 1644); Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie (Carpentras, 1690), B.N., B 29055.

43. A.N., R4* 1056, item 876. For sacred dolls in Florence (where Mlle de Guise spent eight years of her late adolescence), see C. Klapisch-Zuber, "Holy Dolls: Play and Piety in Florence in the Quattrocento," in Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985), pp. 310ff.

44. Archivio di Stato, Florence: Mediceo del Principato, 6390, March 12, 1680, fol. 609.

44A. Mazarine, Rés. 19170.

45. Arsenal, ms. 6631, dossier II.

46. R. de Cerisiers, Saint Image de Notre Dame de Liesse (Reims: Constant, 1632), p. 495.

47. Instruction pour la Confrairie du Mont St-Michel (at Rouen), 1668, Mazarine, 50585, 3^o pièce, p. 23. For a confraternity of Saint Michael, see Lombard-Jourdan, on the St. Michel Confrérie, in Soc. de l'Histoire de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France, 1986-1987, pp. 106-107.

48. For this confraternity, see Simon de Doncourt, Saint-Sulpice, pp. 104-106. Both men and women belong to the "compagnie de la Vierge", pp. 119-120.

49. Among the handbooks stating that these litanies should be recited or "sung" at the end of lauds and complins are: Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie (Lyon: Besson, 1724), B.M., Rodez, T 6711 (which clearly is a reprint of a seventeenth-century publication), especially pp. 166 and 284, 1033, 1035; Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie (Carpentras, 1690), which contains virtually the same materials as the book in Rodez, albeit in a slightly different order, and which gives1615 as the date of first publication), B.N., B. 29055; Heures de Nostre Dame et autres offices pour les confrères Penitens Noires de Sainte Croix (Beziers: J. Martel, 1647), B.M. Rodez, T 846, p. 93; R. P. Carlo Musart, S.J.,  (Lemovicis: Nicolas Chapoulau, 1629), p. 78; and Ritual Sacri et regalis ordinis B.V. Mariae de Mercede, Redemptionis Captivorum (Hispoli, 1701), B.N., B. 29093, which states, p. 148, that these litanies (but with the phrase "Redemptrix captivorum" added after "Auxilium christianorum") were sung by the fathers during the processions celebrating a redemption of captives. By contrast, the litanies are missing from J.J.D.B., Office de la Vierge Marie avec les pensées & élévations d'Esprit sur chaque heure (Paris, 1644), which suggests that this book was written as a meditational guide to the "little office" of Saturday — which Roman breviaires in fact call the "Office de la Vierge au Samedy," Breviaire Romain (Paris: Josse, 1682), p. cxxxix.

50. Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie, Rodez, T 6711, pp. 140 and 166, where the statement is slightly ambiguous: does "on chante d'un ton plus relevé et plus beau aux troisieme pseaumes de Matines" mean that the three psalms are chanted this way, or only the third psalm? Page 1033 states: "Les litanies de Notre Dame, qu'on dit selon qu'il semble bon au Recteur, et Conseil aux fêtes de Notre Dame, ou quand quelque autre occasion se présente extraordinairement: mais on les dit presque toujours en fauxbourdon."

51. This would explain why Marguerite de Lorraine, a member of the Third Order of St. François, had herself painted with a penitent's handbook open to the "Litanies de la Vierge." It can scarcely be a coincidence that the composition of H. 310  (doubtlessly written for September 17, 1671, the feast of  the "impression of the stigmata" of  St. Francis), was written only a few months after the service (April 12, 1671) during which Marguerite de Lorraine received the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis from the Franciscan general.

52. For further information, see Rodez, T 1019, pp. 31-37.

53. Delamare, Traité de la Police, vol. 1, p. 372, lists the following holidays devoted to the Virgin or Jesus. January: Circumcision, Saint Genevieve, Epiphany; February: Purification; March: Annunciation; August: Assumption; September: Nativity of the Virgin; December: Conception of the Virgin, Christmas. On these feast days, no fairs could be held, no merchandise could be transported about the city, no vendors could ply their wares on the Pont Neuf, and no laundresses could gather along the riverbanks.

54. Officium B. Virginis Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum, p. i, bound with the Breviarium Augustinianum (Paris: Coignard, 1684), Rodez, T 1019.

55. Mazarine, 47181, pièce 1, Institution de la Confrerie des Agonisans, erigée le premier janvier 1673 par l'authorité de Monseigneur l'Archevesque en l'Eglise du Convent de Paris des Religieux de l'Ordre de Nostre-Dame de la Mercy Redemption des Captifs prés de l'Hostel de Guise, (Paris: Edme Couterot, 1673), p. 48.

56. A.N., LL 1559, fol. 85, which refers to a papal bull granting indulgences for "one Sunday a month," presumably the day the confraternity met to say the "little office."

57. Institution de la Confrerie des Agonisans, p. 176.

58. The Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie, Rodez, T 6711, states, p. iiii, that a number of its texts are used by this confraternity, which does not, however, appear on the partial list on p. 19.

59. See La Confrerie de la tres-Sainte Trinité et Redemption des Captifs (Lyons, 1706), B.N., 8^o Z. Le Senne 40396; and Rés. 8^o Le Senne 11341, a manuscript Officia propria made in 1744.

60. Office de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie, Rodez, T 6711, statutes and founding bull, pp. 20-37.

61. Institution de la Confrerie des Agonisans, p. 163: "qui n'a point d'incompatibilité avec celle des Agonisans."

62. Institution, p. 12.  

63. Institution, pp. 33 and 37. The unnamed founder can scarcely have been Magdaleine Bailly, widow of Jacques Vassan, conseiller du roi, who in February 1670, had founded 30 annual masses. Of  them, only 12 masses per year for the "aconisants," one for the last Friday of each month, LL 1556, p. 44. The mysterious benefactoress of August 1672 clearly had already founded 56 yearly masses for the dead.

64. Institution, p. 17.

65. Institution, pp. 47-48.

66. Institution, p. 48.

67. A.N., LL 1559, fol. 76. Was this Mme Sevin de Miramion, a relative of Charpentier's Sevin cousins? A "Mme de Miramion" gave altar hangings in the 1640s (LL 1559, fol. 9), but this could be the Mme Beauharnois de Miramion who was one of the leaders of the Dames de Charity and who advised Mlle de Guise in 1676 when the teaching institute was being created; LL 1556, p. 213, foundation created in 1664 by Marthe Croyer and the act itself, MC, XXXIX, 109, March 15, 1664, foundation before Rallu and Menard.

68. A.N., M.C., XC, 229, fondation, January 14, 1665.

69. Ritual Sacri, B.N., B. 29093, p. 148: "Litaniae B.V.M. in processione adeius favorem impetrandum."

70. Mme de Guise's will of March 1684, B.N., Morel de Thoisy, 420, fols. 17 ff, uses this nickname. I have not been able to connect Claude Charpentier to the composer. She was in Mme de Guise's service for at least twenty-five years and passed her job on to her niece, who was the daughter of her sister Bonne Charpentier and François Dubois, the bailli of Clermont?-en-Bassigny. A.N., M.C., LVIII, will, March 21, 1692; and LVIII, 192, donation, August 20, 1696. Marguerite de Lorraine and her daughter had several domestics called Charpentier, none of whom appear to be the composer's close relatives.

71. Nouvelles extraordinaires de divers endroits, Sept. 1, 1682 (information supplied by Jérôme de La Gorce).  

72. A.N., LL 798, fol. 97. The Condés took over the chapel in 1688, when they inherited the Hôtel de Guise.

73. A.N., LL 805, p. 114; LL 798, fols. 85v, 94v.

74. A.N., LL 1559, fol. 3.

75. B.N., ms., n.a. fr. 23168, fol. 116, re a notarial act dated April 15, 1660, and involving 10,000 livres.

76. Dumolin, "Notes sur l'Abbaye de Montmartre," Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France, 1931, pp. 197-198.  The acts, dated September 26 and 28, 1672, can be found in AN, Y 196, fol. 429 and Z¹ J317.

77. Mère Jacqueline Boüette de Blémur, L'année bénédictine ou les vies des saints de l'ordre de Saint Benoist pour tous les jours de l'année (Paris: L. Billaine, 1667), 3:39, about Marie de Beauvilliers, d. 1657.

78. Blémur, p. 39.

79. A.N., M.C., XXIX, 183, April 16, 1647.

80. Blémur, p. 17.

81. A.N., M.C., CXII, 393, foundation, September 13, 1685, which replaced a foundation dated August 3, 1682.

82. Le Petit office du Saint Enfant Jesus (Paris: Fr. Leonard, 1664), pp. 97, 150-153.

83. Père Floeur, Le Prince de la Paix, L'Enfant Jésus (Brussels: Liépart, 1662), "Avis."

84. Petit office du Saint Enfant Jésus, pp. 49-61.