This study is concerned with the evolving spirituality of the Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus under Pierre de Bérulle and Charles de Condren in relation to the social and political environment of seventeenth-century France. The mentalité of the Congregation is shown to be principally that of sections of the clergy, robe nobility, officiers, bourgeois, and professionals, in opposition to the Jesuits and the emerging absolutist state.
"A meticulously researched and eloquently written study of the Oratorians, which gives scholars fresh insight into the history of the French Church and French society in the 17th century. It is a model of what can be achieved when a historian well schooled in his craft conducts a thorough and careful investigation of archival sources." (W.Warren Wagar, State University of New York at Binghamton)
"This important study recovers an important nexus of attitudes and beliefs from obscurity and helps to throw new light on both the Catholic (Counter)-Reformation and on the nature of French society, ideology and political culture in the age of Richelieu." (Archives)
"This important study recovers an important nexus of attitudes and beliefs from obscurity and helps to throw new light on both the Catholic (Counter)-Reformation and on the nature of French society, ideology and political culture in the age of Richelieu." (Archives)