Divine Revenge and Disability in Jansenist Paris

The convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard were a charismatic popular movement within French Jansenism that began after the death of a saintly deacon, François de Pâris (d. 1727). Known for wild shaking (hence their name) and spectacular miracles of healing upon the deacon’s tomb in the cemetery of Saint-Médard, the convulsionnaires also preserved the memory of a very different kind of miracle, exemplified by the case of Gabrielle Gautier. The working-class widow of a soldier, Gautier came to the cemetery in August 1731 as an unbeliever, intending to prank the assembled devotees by feigning both a sickness and a subsequent miracle. To her shock, however, once she lay down upon the thaumaturgical tomb, she found that she was paralyzed. This paper will examine the representation of this “punitive” miracle in the long memory of the convulsionnaires over the course of the eighteenth century, drawing upon published accounts, liturgical commemorations, and visual material. It will argue that the miracle became so important to the convulsionnaires, not simply because of its value as an apologetic proof of the supernatural phenomena at the tomb, but more basically, because it represented a kind of moral revenge on behalf of the many, many disabled people who came to the tomb to pray for their healing in sincerity and desperation. The cemetery was closed in January 1732, but as the convulsionary movement developed elsewhere, disability continued to be a central element of the group’s collective life. Gabrielle Gautier’s story was a powerful reminder both of God’s might and his willingness to avenge his afflicted devotees. The result is a deeper view into the religious history of disability at the margins of ancien régime Catholicism.