Beleaguered Monasticism and Chateaubriand's vie de Rancé

Abstract

In his edition of the Vie de Rancé, M. Fernand Letessier traces the composition of the work but does not touch upon the pressures that were brought to bear upon Chateaubriand as he wrote it. However, several letters that passed between Chateaubriand and Abbé Joseph Hercelin in late summer, 1843, and which were published by M. Letessier in the Revue d'histoire littéraire in 1938 have led me to believe that pressure was exerted. Head of the entire network of Trappist monasteries, Abbé Hercelin presided over his order from the remote, wooded cloisters of the Trappists' mother house, Notre Dame de la Trappe, in the Perche country of northern France, where the Breton marshes become Normandy. Chateaubriand had been scheduled to visit the establishment in June, 1843, but had had to postpone doing so because of ill health. When the visit did take place two months later, he talked with Hercelin about a book on which he was then at work. It was to deal with the Trappist monasteries' patriarch, Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Rancé. Little more than a week had elapsed since Chateaubriand's departure when Hercelin observed in a letter to his venerable guest that “Cette religion sainte, continuée dans les bois, n'est pas connue des hommes de l'époque, mais elle va leur apparaître belle et amie de l'humanité, quand votre plume, aussi éloquente que catholique, aura écrit l'histoire de l'illustre réformateur dont vous avez vu le tombeau.” He went on to predict that because of the persuasive “unction” of his words, Chateaubriand would realize with his book a marvelous alliance between “the children of the world” and the “peaceable inhabitants of the cloisters.”