The Jesuit priest Father Joseph Menoux is remembered today, if at all, chiefly as an adversary of Voltaire. He warrants barely a footnote in the great sea of Voltaire studies or, at best, a repetition of Voltaire's own dismissive caricatures. I decided to try and discover a little more about Menoux's life. It proved to be an interesting exercise, and one which supplies something of an alternative perspective on the world of the Enlightenment writers.
Early life
Sadly, there not a single anecdote or petty detail enlivens the perfunctory outline of Menoux's early life supplied in the biographical dictionaries. We learn only that he was born in Besançon on 14th October 1695 - making him not quite a year younger than Voltaire -, that he belonged to an "excellent famille de robe", and that he was always destined for an ecclesiastical career. He began his studies with the Jesuits at the age of fourteen and remained in the order; we can assume that he attended the Jesuit college in Besançon, the imposing buildings of which still survive today. He entered the Novitiate on 8th September 1711 and, having taught in a number of colleges, was singled out by his eloquence for a career as a preacher.
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| The Jesuit college in Besançon - now College Victor-Hugo https://structurae.net/en/structures/college-victor-hugo |
The preacher
In 18th-century Catholic France a talented preacher could command a great deal of prestige. Jesuits like Bourdaloue, and more recently, Charles Porée (d.1741), star of the Parisian house, attracted huge crowds. They rubbed shoulders with the highest echelons of society, and attracted attention from the Enlightenment world of culture and letters - to which the Jesuits themselves contributed through their Journal de Trévoux edited from the Maison professe in Paris.
By the mid 1730s Menoux had begun to establish his reputation. A letter of 28th January 1736 in the Mercure announces his membership of the new Academy of La Rochelle, which had been founded in 1732 under the protection of the prince de Conti. It explains that Menoux had preached with success in Paris, at the great church of Saint-Sulpice, and - still more significantly for future - at Chambord before the King of Poland. At La Rochelle his sermons had been extremely well-received: "one has never seen in this town so great a gathering of people, and such extraordinary effects of Christian eloquence. This Preacher touches, persuades; he has attracted universal applause for the solidity, judiciousness and polish of his Discourse".(Mercure de France, March 1736, p.474-481.)
In 1738 Menoux rose a stage further when he was named as the preacher for Advent to the French Court at Versailles: the duc de Luynes reports that his oratory was appreciated, even though on Christmas day his memory failed him and he stumbled over the the words of the conventional compliment to the King (De Luynes, Mémoires, vol.2, p.271)
It followed naturally that at Easter 1739 Menoux should be invited to Nancy to preach before newly-established court in Lorraine. King Stanislas subsequently named him as one of his regular preachers ("prédicateur ordinaire") and admitted him into his intimate circle. His long-term residency in Lorraine was assured when he was appointed as Director of Stanislas's new Royal Missions, created in May 1739.
It should not be forgotten that Menoux was a devout and conscientious priest and member of a highly disciplined regular order. A close chain of obedience bound members of the Society of Jesus; it would certainly have been under the direction of his Provincial that Menoux abandoned his peripatetic preaching and took up his new duties. Henceforth it was the Royal Mission, rather than the Court or literary concerns, which was to be the focus of his life and service.
The Missionary
The Society of Jesus had a strong presence in Lorraine, which was part of the Jesuit Province of Champagne. In addition to the university at Pont-à-Mousson, it ran several highly prestigious secondary schools in the duchies. Both Leopold and Stanislas favoured the Jesuits with their patronage - indeed, the heart of Duke Leopold lay buried in the Church of the Jesuit Novitiate in Nancy. They also enjoyed the firm support of Scipion-Jérôme Bégon, Bishop of Toul from 1723 to 1753.
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| The churches of the Capuchins and the Jesuit Novitiate (with the Porte Nicolas in the background). Etching by Israël Silvestre (1621-1691) |
By the time of Menoux the Jesuits of Lorraine had also long enjoyed particular prominence as missionaries. This was not a question of far-flung colonies but of evangelising at home: for parish missions, in which priests went out into the dioceses to galvanise the faithful, were a great feature of 18th-century religious life. From the beginning of the 17th century the Jesuit Novitiate and the College in Nancy both provided missionaries on a regular basis; each year the Rector listed in his journal the names of those involved and the areas that they had visited. In the 1730s, under the leadership of Fathers Foulon and Pichon, efforts had intensified in a bid to combat the spread of Jansenism among the lower clergy and their flocks.
Stanislas's Apostolat des Missions Royales, set up by letters-patent on 21st May 1739, greatly reinforced the existing provision. The new mission was to be financed by the interest on 626,000 livres deposited with the French Royal Treasury; later further 424,000 livres was added, yielding a total annual income of 21,200 livres.
Eight missionaries were to be installed in the Novitiate (the numbers later rose to twelve). They were charged with holding twelve missions, each of three or four weeks, six in the diocese of Toul, three in that of Metz and the remainder in other parishes in the Duchies. 12,000 livres in alms were to be distributed annually. The missionaries were also obliged to organise three days of public prayers each year: the first for the conversion of sinners; the second for the prosperity of the French royal family; and the third for the repose of the souls of Stanislas's mother and father (after their deaths, also those of Stanislas himself and Queen Catherine Opalińska).
Menoux was appointed director. In 1741 Stanislas awarded him personally a rente of 500 livres as a "pension alimentaire" [Muratori (2000) p.247-8].
The surviving annuary for the Province of Champagne gives the names of the missionaries for 1740-41, several of whom were well-known in Nancy. Besides Menoux himself, those listed were: J. Pichon; C.Morel; J. Grangié; H.Sauvage; J. Liechtle; L. Dehault, G. Bilger, J. Vincent. [Bocquillion, Une Maison de Retraite (1910), p.61]
The new missionaries began their activities by preaching for a month in Nancy itself in August to September 1739. Though this is only the first of the many Missions undertaken by Menoux and his confreres, it is by far the best documented.
The Mission began on 15th August, the feast of the Assumption, with a solemn opening procession of 10,000 faithful through the streets of the capital. The Holy Sacrament was carried by the Bishop of Toul, who was surrounded by the missionaries in their surplices, brandishing torches. They were followed by the King and his entourage, together with the assembled clergy and secular officeholders of Nancy, flanked by the dragoons of the Orleans Regiment.
Services and conferences succeeded one another. The bookseller François Nicolas reports in his diary that for the entire duration of the Mission there were nine sermons and three conferences a day. The masses, sermons and blessings began at four in the morning and continuing well into the evening. Processions went out to the different districts of the capital. Father Rousselot even preached in the open air, standing on a table in the middle of the place de la Carrière. There was also a generous distribution of alms. [Jean- Nicolas, Journal, p.125-7 ]
Events culminated on 14th September, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, with a procession to the park at La Malgrange where a great Mission Cross was erected in the presence of King Stanislas. Almost the whole town followed the cortege. In the following year Stanislas entered into a contract with the Jesuit Provincial to have the procession repeated annually. One of the Missionaries was to deliver an exhortation or prayer at each of the elaborate new shrines which now marked the Stations of the Cross, finishing at the Mission Cross itself ("O Crux ave") At the first of these regular processions in 1740 Mgr Bégon, Bishop of Toul, blessed the new Stations and it was Menoux himself who led the series of exhortations to prayer. Another Jesuit, Father Collin, delivered a lengthy sermon. [Nicolas, Journal, p.136].
A printed Exhortation by Menoux to be pronounced at the foot of the Cross, was later included in the collection Lettres sur les ourvrages de piété, 1757, t. 4. p. 74-89 ["Menoux" in Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, No.8]
Outside Nancy, accounts of the Missionaries' work are very scattered and give only a meagre idea of what was clearly a regular, wide-ranging and energetic set of initiatives. The Benedictine writer Dom Guyton, for instance, reports in his journal that in May 1744 Menoux conducted a mission with notable success at the main church in the town of Bar-le-Duc. Meanwhile Father Pichon, "a zealous and apostolic man", preached in the lower town. Dom Guyton lists the ten members of the Royal Mission at this time: Menoux, the superior, then Fathers Rousselot, du Changé, Moussoulié, Danton, Pichon, Grangié, Sauvage, Guillemin and Bouillard. [Pouillé du Diocèse de Verdun, Vol.II, p.102]
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| The drama of the mission - Communion and confession, and Preaching Plates from Paolo Segneri s.j., Pratica delle missioni (1714) [for sale on Abe Books] |
Stanislas's biographer Anne Muratori notes that, besides distributing alms, the Missionaries brought an emotional presence to the population, made tangible through the distribution of pious images and objects, processions and the erection of calvaries. Their preaching was characteristically direct and emotive, with much appeal to illustrative images. Missionary "conferences" took the form of dialogues, a sort of sacred drama inherited from the educational theatre of the Jesuit colleges. Different actors would take part, and there would usually be five acts with participative hymns and prayers in the intervals. [Muratori (2000) p.247-8]
As was typical of Jesuit preachers, the Missionaries waged an impassioned war against the sins of the flesh. An report in the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques of one of Pichon's sermons, though exaggerated, gives a flavour:
After declamations against impurity, the Jesuit apparently invited adulterous women to prostrate themselves. To give them a dramatic foretaste of the torments of Hell which awaited them, he suddenly produced from beneath the pulpit "an exterminating angel"(?) armed with a baton. He then noticed how the young men ogled from the edge of their pews as the girls sidled slowly up to the altar during communion. In a fury he forced the boys to kneel, pointed to the girls and cried out three times emotionally "Get thee hence Satan!" (The Jansenist journal takes pleasure in relating that on this occasion the earnest Jesuit provoked nothing by laughter and ribald remarks from the congregation.) Quoted in Louis Châtellier, La religion des pauvres (1993), p.227-8.
Menoux's first know foray into print was a modest collection of prayers and reflections for use by the missions, published in Nancy in 1740, prefaced by a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Toul. This work, Heures du chrétien à l'usage des Missions, is now virtually unattainable. The reviewer in the Journal de Trévoux, though declining to provide an extract, approved Menoux's approach and heaped praise on Stanislas for his generous provision of pious and charitable foundations: "Fortunate are Peoples who find in their Kings benefactors and Fathers."
[Notice for the 1741 second edition (312 pages in-12°), Mémoires de Trévoux, March 1741, p.535-9]
The Hôtel des Missions Royales
Accommodation for the Missionaries was at first found in the existing Jesuit establishments in Nancy. Some at least were lodged in a Maison de retraites which had been recently constructed next to the Novitiate, in the rue Saint-Dizier, up against the town wall. Documents record the installation in this building of five "lits à tombeau" for the Missionaries' use. [Bocquillion, p.61]
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| The Jesuits of the rue Saint Dizier, 1754, Bocquillion, Une maison de retraites (1910), p.57 https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96209087/f67.item |
In 1741, however, the Retreat was ravaged by fire. It would seem that Menoux himself was indirectly responsible for the blaze. The bookseller Nicolas reports: "On 25th March 1741 at 9 in the evening, a fire started in a chamber of the House of Retreats belonging to the Jesuit Novitiate in Nancy. Without the prompt arrival of help, the whole convent would have burnt down, perhaps even endangering the lives of those on retreat. The fire was the fault of Father de Menoux who had placed a large quantity of papers too close to the chimney. King Stanislas compensated him with money in excess of the loss that he had suffered".[[Nicolas, Journal (ed.Pfister, 1900) p.139; the reference is presumably to Menoux's pension of 500 livres.]
In the long term the disaster was to prove providential, since it provided the impetus for the construction of a splendid new "Hôtel des Missions royales", designed by the royal architect Héré.
On 27th May Stanislas signed letters-patent authorising the transfer of the Missionaries to more convenient premises. The text emphasises that their accommodation was already overcrowded: the Novitiate was scarcely big enough to house even the novices themselves, and the Missionaries were disturbing the peace of the Retreat.
The Jesuit Fathers rapidly set about securing a suitable building plot. Stanislas had already furnished funds which enabled them to purchase part of a fine house belonging to the former royal architect Jean Nicolas Jennesson. The site was close to the église Saint-Pierre (inaugurated in 1731), a church which Jennesson had built at his own expense; he perhaps originally intended the house as a presbytery. Between the house and the church was a substantial tract of land which the Jesuits also acquired; they even evicted a cemetery in the process.
Work got underway swiftly. Surviving documents show that Héré cooperated closely with Menoux in the construction. Large numbers of workers were employed, and building materials opportunely made available by the concurrent demolition of Leopold's "new Louvre", a huge and redundant extension to the ducal palace which had been built by Boffrand in the place de la Carrière. By the beginning of 1743 the project was already substantially completed. The expense had been enormous: the buildings, furnishings and fittings are reckoned to have cost Stanislas (or rather the court of France) more than 232,000 livres.
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| Façade of the Hôtel des Missions royales, c.1750. Archive municipales de Nancy https://archives.nancy.fr/fileadmin/ARCHIV/Images/ENSAN/13_Hotel_des_missions_royales_vf.pdf |
On 2nd February 1743, Father Bernard, Jesuit Provincial of Champagne, and Father Cléry, Rector of the Novitiate, took solemn possession of the new building. There was a grand celebration. The King was present, as was the Duke Ossolinski, the Chancellor La Galaizière, and M. de Choiseul, primate of Nancy. Menoux delivered a well-turned formal compliment to Stanislas and Mass was sung for the first time in the chapel. Afterwards the royal party dined at the Mission, then attended the church of Bonsecours to hear a sermon delivered by the famous Jesuit preacher, Anne-Joseph de la Neuville.
[ Nicolas, Journal, p.159]; see Pfister, Histoire de Nancy, vol. III, p.721-3]
We catch a brief glimpse of the sumptuous new building from the duc de Luynes, who paid a visit during Louis XV's stay in Lorraine in October 1744:
I also saw the Mission established...by the King of Poland.. The chapel where the Holy Sacrament is reserved is large, very light and magnificently decorated; the King has reserved there for himself a very large apartment, full of very beautiful sculptures; the dormitories, refectories etc. are attractive; there are chambers for those who want to make retreats. It is Father Menoux who is in charge of this foundation. Nothing could be larger, more magnificent or more useful.
Mémoires du duc de Luynes sur la cour de Louis XV, vol. 6, p.111.
Stanislas's suite, which Luynes describes, was situated to the left of the main entrance and consisted of a guardroom and antechamber, the bedchamber of the King, plus three small cabinets. The decorative panelling and stucco which once adorned the interior were the work of Jean Vallier; and, as De Luynes notes, there were also fine quality sculptures - by the Lorraine artists Guibal, Barthélemy Mesny and Louis Lenoir. We also have descriptions of extensive gardens, with walks, statuary, even bowling greens. However, this ostentatious splendour was mostly confined to public spaces. There is no hint, even in the smallest anecdote, that the Fathers themselves ever waivered from their austere routines of piety and service.
Stanislas continued to enrich the Missions. As noted, the initial annual rente was increased to 21,200 livres and number of missionaries increased to twelve; the house was also able to support two lay brothers and a number of domestic servants. Considerable tracts of land were purchased to endow the Mission. Additional monies were made available for charitable distributions, for processions and for regular preaching commitments - at Bonsecours during the six principal Feasts of the Virgin, and at Saint-Remi in Lunéville for the Friday following the octave of Corpus Christi. In 1748 it was decided that the Missionaries would distribute remedies to the sick, and for a few years the services of a "garçon-chirurugien-apothicaire" was funded. The Fathers were also exempted from the "don gratuit" and other taxes. Among other privileges, they were permitted to have their legal cases heard directly before the Royal Council, thereby circumventing the potentially hostile Sovereign Court. [See Pfister,"Le P. de Menoux et les Missions Royales de Nancy", p.233].
In 1745, the Jesuit General Retz, elevated the Mission into a teaching role as the Séminaire royal des Missions, a status confirmed by Benedict XIV.
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| Former Hôtel de la Mission Royale, 94-96 Avenue du Maréchal-de-Lattre-de-Tassigny, Nancy [Wikimedia] |
Today the Hôtel des Missions survives substantially intact and still appears much as it did in the 18th century. Since 2000 it has housed the Nancy Campus of the prestigious Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies). The main façade is in the Avenue du Maréchal-de-Lattre-de-Tassigny, with the Église Saint-Pierre adjacent to the south. It is a vast building, extending over two floors, with a three storey pavilion at the centre. An ornate but now bare escutcheon over the central door once bore Stanislas's coat-of-arms, with an inscription commemorating his endowment of the Missions for "the increase of piety and the relief of poverty".
Apart from the refectory, which was demolished, the internal layout also remains largely unaltered. The panelling from the guardroom to the King's suite was rediscovered in an attic in the 1950s and is now installed in the prefecture of Meurthe-et-Moselle. It represents the most complete surviving set of fittings from any of Stanislas's residences.
To the rear the once extensive gardens, which in the early 20th century still retained their sculpture of Christ and the Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, have now entirely disappeared.
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| Pannelling in the hôtel préfectoral de Meurthe-et-Moselle. Photo posted by L'Est Républicain, 24.02.2024 |
A splendid bust of Stanislas by Michel-Ange Slodtz, now in the Musée Lorrain, originally stood in the refectory of the Hôtel des Missions. Father Menoux personally commissioned the work from the sculptor when he journeyed to Rome in 1746. Once in Lorraine, it was given the finishing touches from life, probably by the sculptor Louis Lenoir. We learn that by this time the refectory already boasted eight huge frescos celebrating the munificence of Stanislas.
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| Bust of Stanislas by Michel-Ange Slodtz (Musée lorrain, ) |
The bust's installation in November 1750 was the pretext for yet another round of obsequious ceremonial with Stanislas in attendance. The statue was adorned with laurel leaves for the occasion. The highpoint was an ode delivered by Father Ernest Leslie, an accomplished Jesuit littérateur who taught belles-lettres at the College and was regularly called upon to provide occasional verses of this sort. His poem was reproduced in-extenso in the Mercure, and also by Fréron. It is worth quoting for the flavour it gives of this lost world of royal patronage and mannered ecclesiastics. Here Leslie apostrophises the Missionaries:
Ministres de ses nobles vues,
Ses dons & la Croix à la main,
Allez, à tant d'ames perdues
Du Ciel retracer le chemin.
Ils vont; les peuples applaudissent,
L'erreur fuit, les Enfers frémiſſent,
La licence expire à leur voix,
Le signe du salut s'arbore.
Qu'à son aspect tout siécle adore
Le Dieu qui donne les bons Rois!
Ministers of [Stanislas's] noble vision / With his gifts and with the Cross in hand/ Go forth, to so many lost souls / To retrace for them the path to Heaven! / They go; the people applaud/ Error flees, Hell trembles/ License expires at the sound of their voices/ The sign of salvation is raised high/ At the sight, let every age adore/ The God who gives us good Kings!
Mercure de France, February 1751, p. 36-45.
See: Fréron, Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps vol.3 (1752) p.267-73; p.271
Judicial and doctrinal conflicts
The sources do not state explicitly why Menoux, a relative newcomer in Lorraine, was chosen over his established confreres to head the new Royal Mission. Presumably he was singled out as an able administrator. Above all, he enjoyed the confidence of King Stanislas himself. In the hostile reports of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques he is invariably depicted as a dangerous and unscrupulous schemer, but this does not seem altogether justified. Certainly he was capable of ruthlessness. However, the power wielded by the Society, even in Lorraine, was strictly limited. Stanislas, moreover, was well known to dislike political manoeuvring or confessional conflict of any sort. When we see Menoux at his most decisive, it is always in the service of his royal master, avoiding confrontation as far as possible but, where necessary, attempting to silence dissent. This was true both of his dealings with fellow ecclesiastics and of his approach to the philosophes.
From the first the new Royal Mission was not everywhere well received. The Jesuit Fathers sometimes behaved highhandedly. The bookseller Nicolas preserves an account of their early dealings with their neighbours which, though it doesn't concern Menoux directly, reveals the petty politics of their situation. Nicolas reports that at the beginning of 1746, when Menoux was in Rome, the Missionaries built a communicating door into the Église Saint-Pierre without permission. They then erected trellises against the walls of the adjacent house (the "maison Marin"), which still belonged to Jennesson. The latter pursued them in the lawcourts for compensation, his complaint upheld by the Chancellor himself. However, Father Pichon, who was temporarily in charge of the Mission, persuaded Stanislas that Jennesson "lacked respect". The architect, whom Stanislas disliked, was promptly arrested and forced to return the money he had secured; further humiliation ensured; at the door of the Mission, he was greeted only by a "frère coupe-choux" who affected not to be able to sign the receipt [Nicolas, Journal for 1746, p.145-6]
It might be added that in 1748 the Society won out completely when the Jennesson's house was secured in its entirety and became the "maison de probation" for the Jesuit novices of the new Royal Seminary for Missions.
In other, more weighty, affairs Menoux was personally involved.
Far from being financed through royal largesse, a significant part of the Mission's revenues were deducted from assets belonging to other orders, notably the Benedictines and the Canons Regular. Stanislas was anxious to secure sufficient regular income to safeguard the Mission's future after his death. The duc de Luynes reports that in 1744 he had solicited Louis XV to support the union of certain benefices to his new foundation. At the beginning of 1746 Menoux was duly sent to Rome to secure these annexations. Despite opposition, he showed his diplomatic abilities by successfully obtained a papal bull giving over the revenues of the Benedictine priory of Saint-Cloud de Lay (Lay-Saint-Christophe). Voltaire claimed maliciously that this donation had been made on the strength of a false promise to translate Benedict XIV's Latin treaty on the canonisation of saints into French. When the prior of Saint-Cloud de Lay, Dom Hyacinthe Lafauche protested, Menoux prevailed on Stanislas to exile him by lettre-de-cachet to the remote Benedictine house of Saint-Mont, high in the Vosges Mountains. [Muratori (2000) p.248]
Doctrinal conflicts - "Le scandale Jean Pichon"
Despite the support of the Church hierarchy, the Jesuits of Lorraine often found themselves on difficult ground in their efforts to combat Jansenism, which was strongly rooted at local level. Since they were at a remove from the religious and political conflicts in Paris, they were also liable to misjudge the repercussions of their actions. In 1745 there was a major scandal involving Father Jean Pichon, Menoux's most respected and active missionary. Pichon had long preached against the Jansenism of the lower clergy and denounced the distancing of the faithful from the Eucharist. He now foolishly revived old doctrinal controversies by publishing a defence of frequent communion. There was an outcry: forty French bishops condemned him and in 1748 his work was placed on the Papal Index.
It is clear that the Jesuit of Nancy were taken completely by surprise. Pichon's book, which was dedicated to Catherine Opalinska, had been approved without difficulty by the censors of the Society. Whilst in Rome Menoux had even proudly presented a copy to Benedict XIV. [ On which, see Revue d'Ascétique et de Mystique, 1940: Vol 21, p.177-186]
The unfortunate Pichon was forced to publish a humiliating letter of retraction to Archbishop de Beaumont (dated 24th January 1748). He withdrew first to Colmar, but when he was discovered soliciting support from the German bishops, he was banished to Mauriac, shortly afterwards compelled to leave France altogether. He was finally given asylum by the bishop of Sion, in the Swiss canton of Valais, where he became grand vicar and general visitor of the diocese. It was here that he died on 5th May 1751 [See Nouvelle Biographie Générale, vol. 40: "Pichon"]
There was no real question in Pichon's work of Jesuitical "laxism". According to Professor McManners, Pichon had simply been "reckless in stating, without due precautions, one side of what had become the established view of the theologians" [Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France, Vol. 2, p.102]. In his view the spiritual benefits of frequent communion outweighed need for true contrition, a conviction which no doubt reflected the needs of the Missions, where fear of punishment and the hope of redemption were central to evangelisation.
Menoux himself was powerless to influence events and remained silent, but he must have felt deeply the loss of a valued and long-standing colleague. Nor was he allowed to forget his initial support for Father Pichon. A Jansenist chanson against "black" Pichon's "execrable work" mentions him by name.
[Chanson sur le P. Pichon, jésuite, Poèmes satiriques au XVIIIe siècle
It must also have pained him when non-believers made capital out of the episode - thus "Jésuite" in the Encyclopédie: "In 1745, Pichon prostituted the sacraments of Penitence and the Eucharist, and abandoned the bread of the saints to all the dogs who asked for it."
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| Drouâs de Boussey, Bishop of Toul Musée de Toul [Wikimedia] |
In the 1750s the Jansenist controversy continued to disturb the peace of the Church. The cause was reanimated in France by the conflict over "billets de confession". Stanislas, no doubt with Menoux's co-operation, produced a moderate memoir which advised Louis XV to show clemency in order to disarm the opposition of the Parlement of Paris. Nonetheless, in August 1754 the dispute extended to Lorraine when the new Bishop of Toul, Claude Drouâs de Boussey required all members of the regular clergy, who included many Jansenist sympathisers, to have permission from their parish priest to hear confession. The Sovereign Court opposed him under pretext of safeguarding the prerogatives the secular power. The Bishop eventually retracted his ordonnance and Stanislas imposed silence on all those concerned. But the respite from controversy was to prove all too brief.
The "Affaire Nicéville" (1761)
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| Église Saint-Gengoulf in Maron Constructed in 1761 [Wikimedia] |
An element of farce entered the proceeding when the Sovereign Court condemned the pamphlet and, on 13th May 1761, had it burnt, with much ceremony, on the place de la Carrière. The French envoy Lucé reported to Choiseul that spectators had descended in droves because certain malicious jokers had put it about that Father Menoux himself was to be burned. Voltaire, among others, greatly enjoyed this misunderstanding. Stanislas, however, did share the amusement, but flew into a great rage and demanded that the verdict to be overturned. The Chancellor La Galaizière had the greatest difficulty in calming him down. On 4th June on the request of the Jesuit Provincial, the King in his Council of State formally rescinded the arrêt of the Sovereign Court. A painful furore ensued, in which the avocats of Nancy staged a prolonged strike and the courts in Metz and Paris demonstrated in support. As to the final outcome, we learn that it was not until 1773, some time after the expulsion of the Jesuit from Lorraine, that Maron finally got its money. As to Nicéville, his reputation did not suffer unduly; between 1768 and 1773 he was elected sub-director, then director of the Academy
See:
Henri Megin, "Monsieur de Nicéville et les Jésuites", Le Pays Lorrain (1904), p.4-7; 38-40.
The Fall of the Jesuits
The debacle coincided with the escalating movement against the Society which culminated in its suppression in French territories by an edict of 6th August 1762. Stanislas resisted the move, immediately opened his territories to members of the Society and for the following four years offered them sanctuary. Louis XV waited until after the death of Marie Leszczyńska in 1768 before formally disbanding the Society in Lorraine.
In 1760 Stanislas invited Joseph Cerutti (1738-1792) , a young Jesuit professor of rhetoric in Lyon and winner of several prestigious literary prizes, to Nancy in order to write a defence of the Society. His Apologie de l’Institut des Jésuites, which appeared in 1762, was an influential contribution to what was to prove a major pamphlet war. The work was widely said to have been written under the guidance of Menoux and Father Leslie, though to what extent is unclear. Cerutti was later to renounce his vocation and served during the Revolution as Mirabeau's secretary.
It was during this fraught time that, on 4th July 1761, Menoux welcomed the princesses Adélaïde et Victoire to the Hôtel des Missions as they passed through Nancy on their way to take the waters at Plombières. For all his troubles, Menoux, ever the obliging courtier, rose to the occasion and presented the royal party with a pleasant entertainment:
After the theatre, Mesdames went on to the Mission Royale, accompanied by the sound of artillery, musical instruments and the acclamations of the people. This building is in the most beautiful district of the city; the King has spared nothing to create a superb edifice; the gardens are spacious and, with their regular and varied layout, their bowling greens, fountains, groves, their reservoirs and canals, they form the most delightful promenade that one can find in the vicinity of the city: the Superior laid on a fête for Mesdames and for the whole Court; he had a lottery drawn, the tickets of which were free and all yielded some prize.
Fillion de Charigneu, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à l'arrivée et pendant le séjour des Mesdames de France (1762), p.60.
Fillion de Charigneu, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à l'arrivée et pendant le séjour des Mesdames de France (1762), p.60.
It is a final vision of Menoux, in the affluent surroundings of his Mission, gracious and secure in the patronage of the aging Stanislas - a happy state which would soon be lost for ever.
[to be continued.]
References
"Menoux" in Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, ed.Sommervogel vol.5, p. 955.
https://archive.org/details/bibliothquedelac05back/page/n485/mode/2up
https://archive.org/details/bibliothquedelac05back/page/n485/mode/2up
Christian Pfister, "Le P. de Menoux et les Missions Royales de Nancy", Le Pays lorrain, 1906 p.168-176;.227-235; 264-270.
_____, Histoire de Nancy, vol. 3 (1908)
_____, (ed.) Journal of the bookseller Nicolas (1900):
Continuation for 1744-49, Mémoires de la Société d'archéologie lorraine (1909) vol.59: p.p.129-166.
E. Bocquillion, Une maison de retraites fermées à Nancy au XVIIIe siècle (1910)
Anne Muratori-Philip, Le Roi Stanislas, Paris, Fayard, 2000, p.235-273 [For loan on Internet Archive]
NOTE on the buildings of the Jesuits in 18th-century Nancy
The College was situated in the centre of the Ville-Neuve district at the so-called "coin de Saint-Roch", today "le Point central", at the intersection of the rue des Carmes, rue Saint-Jean and the rue Saint-Dizier. The building dated from the early 17th century. Its founder was the bishop of Toul, Jean des Porcelets de Maillane (1582-1624), whose splendid mausoleum, the chef-d'oeuvre of the sculptor César Bagard, formerly adorned the adjacent Église Saint-Roch. Three statues from the monument are conserved today in the Church of St. François des Cordeliers :
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| From the monument to Jean des Porcelets de Maillane [Musée Lorrain] |
The College remained on the same site until 1768 when control passed to the municipality. The school, now under lay direction, was then transferred to the premises which had formerly been occupied by the Jesuit Noviciate in the rue Saint-Dizier .
The Church of Saint-Roch was originally attached to the College. It was built in 1629, again at the expense of Bishop Porcelets de Maillane, to plans by the architect Rémy Bernard. The interior boasted an impressive perspective ceiling by Giacomo Barilli and Claude Charles depicting scenes from the life of St. Ignatius Loyola. There were also a number of fine paintings by Claude Charles and Jean Leclerc, some of which later found their way into other Nancy churches.
When the Ville-Neuve district was divided into three parishes, the municipality leased the church from the Jesuits to serve the new parish of Saint-Roch. The first curé, nominated in 1731 by the Bishop of Toul, was Charles-François de Tervenus. In 1770, after the expulsion of the Jesuits, the church became the property of the town. It was entirely demolished in the Revolution. In the early 20th century only the image of St. Roch on a painted shop sign recalled the former site.
In addition the College had a large chapel, known familiarly as the "chapelle de la Congrégation des Hommes", which ran along the rue des Carmes. The chapel enjoyed considerable revenues and had fine fittings and plate, but we learn that in 1768 the Society foolishly allowed its treasures to be confiscated. The paintings were sold off immediately, whilst the silver and ornaments were eventually purchased by the Benedictines. The buildings of the College, including the chapel, were sold to individual buyers, who demolished them to make way for houses.
The Jesuits possessed two further establishments - the Noviciate in the rue Saint-Dizier, near the porte Saint-Nicolas, and the Hôtel des Missions. The latter functioned as a Seminary between 1779 and 1906, when it was occupied by the University of Nancy. In the early 20th century many of the fittings were recorded as still in situ - decorative ironwork by Jean Lamour, the wooden panelling in the Guardroom, Stanislas's bust and the splendid Christ défaillant in the adjoining garden.
The Noviciate was the earliest Jesuit establishment in Nancy, founded in 1604 by Antoine de Lénoncourt, the Primate of Lorraine. After the dissolution in 1768, it became the municipal College, with the abbé Lionnois as the first principal; latterly it was a foundling hospital, the hospice Saint-Stanislas. The chapel attached to the Novitiate, originally built in 1603/5, was reconstructed at the time of Duke Leopold. From the dissolution of the Society until the Revolution it was retained as the church for the parish of Saint-Nicolas.
The conventual buildings are reported to have been relatively well conserved until a major fire occurred in 1871, which destroyed the interior of the chapel and part of the hospice. The Jesuits, who at this time had a house in the nearby Cours Léopold, were able to rescue some of the treasures, including a painting of St Francis Xavier by Claude Charles, later on display in the église Saint-Nicolas. Other works of art completely disappeared, including six statues by César Bagard and his sons and an image of Notre-Dame de Montaigu. In 1905 the former refectory of the Novitiate served as the chapel for the modern hospice. Today the battered facade of the original chapel is still visible, with its high windows and fronton, formerly decorated with the arms of the Dukes of Lorraine. Modern photographs show
the interior to be entirely derelict, though it is said to still contain some tombs and inscriptions.
Since 2015 the site of the Novitiate has been under threat of conversion into flats. Françoise Hervé, former adjointe au patrimoine, has led a determined campaign for its preservation, seconded by Didier Rykner in La Tribune de l'Art. A legal appeal was lost in July, but the fight continues.
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| A last remaining vestige - the façade of the Novitiate today |
E. Badel, "L'Art et l'Antiquité dans les Couvents de Lorraine: IV - Les Jésuites de Nancy"
L'Immeuble et la construction dans l'Est, 2nd April 1905, p.388-89.
NANCY: Les artistes et la Lorraine: "L'église Saint-Roch au Point Central"
The Hôtel des Missions:
Entry on Wikipedie.fr:
Base Mérimée - "Ancien hôtel de la Mission Royale ou ancien grand séminaire"
Olivier Petit, "NANCY (54) - Hôtel des Missions Royales (1741-1743)", Patrimoine de Lorraine [blog], post of 09.07.2019.
https://www.histoiresgalantes.fr/blog/2016/09/27/petit-visite-guidee-de-lhotel-des-missions-royales-amen/
The Novitiate
Base Mérimée -"Maison de plaisance d'Antoine de Lenoncourt puis noviciat de jésuites"
_____, - église de l'Annonciation de Notre-Dame de Grâce du noviciat de jésuites
Nancy-Focus: "Le Novitiat des Jésuites"
Pascale Debert,"Visite impromptue de l’église du noviciat des Jésuites reconvertie (triste nouvelle) en logements de luxe!" Couleur XVIIIe, post of 01.11.2019
Didier Rykner "Une " boîte dans la boîte ": le triste destin de l'église du Noviciat des Jésuites à Nancy", La Tribune de l'Art, 18.11.2020.
https://www.latribunedelart.com/une-boite-dans-la-boite-le-triste-destin-de-l-eglise-du-noviciat-des-jesuites-a-nancy
https://www.latribunedelart.com/une-boite-dans-la-boite-le-triste-destin-de-l-eglise-du-noviciat-des-jesuites-a-nancy
Article of 21st July from Est Républicain [Posted on Facebook]
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