The Congregation of the Oratory in France in the late Seventeenth Century

Abstract

The history of the Oratory for which Bremond hoped has not yet been written and much of it remains doubtful. André George has recently repeated his own lament that this should be so, especially as a full study ‘éclairerait singulièrement les obscurités dont sʼentourent les origines du XVIIIe siècle…’. An examination of some of the difficulties which overpowered Sainte-Marthe, the fifth Superior General of the Congregation, may enlighten these dark places and perhaps serve both as a modest contribution to the unwritten history and as a detailed illustration of the magisterial thesis of Paul Hazard. A comprehensive history of the intellectual achievements of the Oratory—which would, in these years, include a study of such giants as Quesnel, Simon, Lamy, Male-branche and Thomassin—is plainly impossible within the limits of an article, and attention will therefore be concentrated on the attempts of Sainte-Marthe himself to direct the turbulent life of the Congregation.