PRIVATE DEVOTION, PUBLIC ACTION: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF MADAME ACARIE TO POST-REFORMATION FRENCH CATHOLICISM

Abstract

Among the figures in Post-Reformation France who greatly influenced the development of Catholic spirituality as well as French history and culture is Madame Acarie, a wife, mother, mystic, and reformer who later became a Discalced Carmelite under the name Marie de l’Incarnation. Yet Acarie’s name and influence are often obscured or marginalized in discussions of this important period in French Catholicism. This study addresses this gap in scholarship by investigating Madame Acarie’s contributions to Post-Reformation French Catholicism.

First, Chapter One investigates the history of the Carmelite tradition and the Teresian reform that produced the Order of the Discalced Carmelites. Chapter Two treats the initiative led by Madame Acarie to introduce the Discalced Carmelites to France and the resounding impact of French Discalced Carmelites in subsequent centuries. Chapter Three evaluates the social, political, and ecclesiastical contexts in which Acarie operated, addressing the practice of spiritual and literary salons, the notion of Gallicanism, and the religious reform currents that spread across Europe in response to the Protestant Reformation. Lastly, Chapter Four examines the writings of Madame Acarie and finds them representative of the main principles of the French school of spirituality. Accordingly, Madame Acarie merits attention as a contributor to this significant movement in Catholic thought, as well as more generally to the history of Post-Reformation Catholicism in France.

Keywords: Madame Acarie, Marie of the Incarnation, Marie de l’Incarnation, French school of spirituality, Post-Reformation Catholicism, Church in France, Discalced Carmelites, Gallicanism, salons, reform, history of the Carmelites, Carmelite tradition