Un Missionnaire de la Contre--Réforme: Saint pierre fourier et l'institution de laCongrégation de Notre--Dame by H. DerréalReview by: William F. ChurchThe American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Apr., 1966), pp. 968-969Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1846103 .

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968 Reviews of Books

UN MISSIONNAIRE DE LA CONTRE-RiFORME: SAINT PIERRE FOURIER ET L'INSTITUTION DE LA CONGREGATION DE NO- TRE-DAME. By H. Derrcral. Preface by Philippe Ari4es. [Civilisation d'hier et d'aujourd'hui.] ([Paris:] Librairie Plon. I965. PP. V, 7-478.)

MADAME Helene Derreal is also Mere Marie de la Misericorde and enjoys the distinction of being the first nun in France to win the coveted doctorat es lettres. That she well deserves this honor is evident from the extent of her publications and their scholarly thoroughness. Her major subject has been the life and work of St. Peter Fourier who, although a mere parish priest of Mattaincourt in Lor- raine, occupied an important position in the Counter Reformation during the early seventeenth century. The present volume, it should be noted, is but one of several that the author plans to publish concerning Fourier and is limited to one phase of his work, the founding of the Congregation of Notre Dame. Realizing that re- ligious knowledge and belief might be significantly propagated through Catholic education, Fourier early in his career determined to establish a teaching order of nuns who would combine religious life with active instruction of girls as the Jesuits were doing among young men. The book examines in exhaustive detail the vicissitudes of the order from its foundation by Fourier in 1598 to the winning of papal approval in I628. If all her projected works on Fourier are as thorough as this one, the series should provide innumerable insights into the practical func- tioning of the Counter Reformation and the many obstacles facing those who sought to advance its cause.

In tracing the history of the congregation's first three decades, Derreal rightly emphasizes the conditions that produced the organization, its great novelty in the period, and the enormous hostility that it encountered. Although Lorraine was not significantly infected with Protestantism, widespread laxity among both regular and secular clergy and the irreligion of the populace caused the area to be re- garded by Catholic leaders as a pays de mission. Fourier's approach to restoring the faith through religious instruction of girls ran counter to established social attitudes since the prevailing view was that girls should either marry or be im- mured in convents. The idea that they might combine the religious life with active direction of the young was revolutionary in the society of the period. Not only might the temptations of the flesh and the outside world overcome the good in- tentions of many; some might even return to their families and reclaim their property rights, upsetting many a plan for succession to the patrimony. The local hierarchy in Lorraine strongly opposed Fourier's organization, and, when this failed, sought to control it. As for Rome, the project for years faced insuperable opposition to Fourier's "female Jesuits" of which the papacy wanted no part. The extremely devious and extended maneuvers through which Fourier's sup- porters finally overcame all these obstacles and won papal approval are recounted in detail and form the substance of the book. With considerable ingenuousness, Derreal does not hesitate to expose the questionable motives of the opposition and the frequently unscrupulous methods that Fourier's supporters were obliged to use, all in a good cause.

The weaknesses of the book are those of style and organization rather than research and understanding. The author might well have placed greater emphasis

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Modern Europe 969

upon the more important elements of her narrative and suppressed many details. As it is, she moves from such minor matters as squabbles in a given house to ne- gotiations in Rome and back again without significant weighting of the more im- portant developments. The essentials are there, but the reader must find them for himself. Even Fourier's exact role is frequently lost in the maze of maneuvers. The book nevertheless significantly contributes to knowledge of the Counter Reformation and throws much light upon the realities of the movement at the local level.

Brown University WILLIAM F. CHURCH

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL AND THE FORMATION OF CLERICS. By Maurice A. Roche, C.M. [Studia Friburgensia, New Series, Number 39.] (Fribourg: University Press. I964. PP. xix, 202.)

THIS doctoral dissertation of the University of Fribourg was written by a priest whose religious congregation has been operating seminaries for the training of the Catholic clergy since I642, the number under Vincentian auspices having reached 104 by I960. The author has not escaped some of the hallmarks that so frequently accompany doctoral dissertations, such as a wooden and repetitious literary style. By the same token, however, he has surmounted the handicap that too often mars the work of members of religious orders when they write of their founders: the lack of a critical approach. He is quite frank, for example, in stating Vincent de Paul's failure to set for his men any premium on intellectual distinction, as well as his lack of any well-conceived plan for seminary instruction. A second service that the author has rendered is to delineate Vincent's clear departure from the seminary pattern adumbrated by the Council of Trent's legislation of July 1563. Vincent found it quite unsatisfactory to take boys of twelve, the age specified by Trent, and, as he said in a letter of May i644, the Tridentine system had succeeded neither in France nor in Italy, but it was a different matter, he remarked, "to take students from twenty to twenty-five or thirty years old." In Father Roche's judg- ment Vincent's most important contribution to priestly training was his retreats for ordinands, which grew out of a request made of him in I628 by the bishop of Beauvais. These retreats, rather than the decrees of Trent, prepared the way for the later seminaries of the Sulpicians, Vincentians, Eudists, and others.

The evolution from the ten-day retreats for ordination to the fully developed major seminaries of Vincent's last years is traced here in considerable detail from a number of hitherto unknown manuscript sources as well as from the printed lit- erature. The book will prove useful at this particular time when Catholic sem- inaries are undergoing the most searching scrutiny they have ever experienced. Thus the book will not only assist students interested in the history of the move- ment, but will also be helpful to administrators and faculties, not to mention the priest and the seminarian who, as Pope Paul VI remarked on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of Trent's seminary decrees, should be men prepared to bear witness to Christ before the world, and if they are to do this they "must be trained in the virtue of truth in word and action...."

University of San Francisco JOHN TRACY ELLIS

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