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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2018
Viewed with hindsight, the link between Jansenism and Gallican resistance to papal pronouncements can seem inevitable. Before 1653, however, Rome's reluctance to commit itself unambiguously to condemning Jansen's ideas of grace made the idea of gaining papal support conceivable to some of his supporters. This article examines one hitherto ignored moment: the panegyric delivered in Rome by Charles Hersent, whose career in controversy combined ultramontane views with Jansenist theology. The episode reveals the broader volatility of these years, often missing from accounts that present the condemnation of Jansenism as inevitable, and the fact that Jansenism was not yet fused with Gallicanism.
I would like to thank Joseph Bergin, Guy Rowlands, Emily Michelson, Marc Jaffré, Daniel Ponziani and the anonymous reviewer for assisting me substantially with the researching, writing and revision of this article. All faults, of course, remain my own.
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46 Gazette, 26 Sept. 1665, 943.
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55 ‘impétueux et entreprenant’: Rapin, Mémoires, i. 167–70.
56 Ibid. i. 322; Gazette, 24 Sept. 1650, 1285.
57 ‘il m'ordonne d'abandonner auiourd'huy la loüange, la feste & le triomphe preparé pour honorer la mémoire de sainct Louis, pour le deferer & le rendre entierement à celuy que cette Croix me represente donnant sa vie pour les hommes’: Hersent, Charles, L'Empire de dieu dans les sainctsou bien l’éloge de sainct Louis roy de France, 2nd edn, Rome 1651, 11–12Google Scholar.
58 ‘une Confession & une penitence proportionnée à la grieveté & au nombre de vos pechez’: ibid. 24.
59 ‘les prieres & les larmes de cette vertueuse Princesse’: ibid. 30.
60 ‘les Saincts en qualité de Saincts n'ont de vray estre & de vraye subsistence, que celle, qu'ils reçoivent de Iesus-Christ par le don d'une Grace purement gratuite’: ibid.
61 ‘Mortels qui me regardez en ce iour comme un objet digne de vos admirations, rendez plustost la gloire à ce grand Roy par la grace duquel ie suis tout ce que ie suis’: ibid.
62 ‘de sorte qu'il n'y a aucune action de nostre franc-arbitre qui puisse estre soustraite & separée de l'ordre & operation de sa Providence’: ibid. 14.
63 Rapin, Mémoires, i. 323.
64 ‘d'ambrasser la protection & la deffense de cette Grace medicinale qui a cousté au Sauveur tout son sang … qu'il a puissamment deffenduë par la tres-sçavante plume de S. Augustin…; & sur tout d'empescher par vostre authorité, que soubs le nom du tres-docte, tres-modeste & tres-religieux Evesque d'Ypre, la doctrine concernant la Grace & Predestination gratuite, que cette grande lumiere de l'Eglise sainct Augustin a enseignée avec l'ordre, l'approbation & admiration de nombre de grands Papes vos Predecesseurs … de laquelle [l'Eglise Romaine] ne doit iamais estre privée, ne soit point décriée & calomniée’: Hersent, L'Empire, 8.
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69 Moréri, Grand Dictionnaire, iv. 50–1.
70 Copie d'une lettre escrite de Rome par un pelerin françois en l'année saincte, sur le suiet d'un sermon, fait par le sieur Hersan à Rome, en l'eglise nationale de Saincte Louis, n.p. [1650].
71 [Sauvage], Réalité du projet, i. 182.
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75 The correspondence consulted was AAE, 109CP/114–20; 110CP/5.
76 ‘ad respondendum in causa fidei, & se expurgandum a criminibus, de quibus imputatur’: Censure, 17.
77 Journal de Mr de Saint-Amour, 47–50; [Gerberon], Histoire, i. 333–4.
78 Jean Gazaignes, Annales de la société des soi-disans Jésuites, Paris 1764–71, iv. 294n. It is worth pointing out that the sources dealing with Hersent's case before the Inquisition are sympathetic to the Jansenists, so may over-emphasise the extent to which they could not find theological fault with his sermon. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any documentation relating to Hersent's case in the Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Rome.
79 Journal de Mr de Saint-Amour, 61–5, 121, 327; [Gerberon], Histoire, i. 417–18.
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