Recueil des Exercices donnez de vive voix aux Ursulines faux bourg St. Jacques depuis le 24me jour de Septembre iusqu'au [jusqu'au] 2me Octobre de l'Année 1662 /
This is a contemporary manuscript of an apparently unpublished set of spiritual exercises prepared for the Ursuline nuns of Paris by the Jesuit Jacques Noüet. The inscription on the front free endpaper, “Aux Ursulines de Quebec”, indicates that this manuscript was written for the use of the members...
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| Format: | Manuscript |
| Language: | French |
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| Summary: | This is a contemporary manuscript of an apparently unpublished set of spiritual exercises prepared for the Ursuline nuns of Paris by the Jesuit Jacques Noüet. The inscription on the front free endpaper, “Aux Ursulines de Quebec”, indicates that this manuscript was written for the use of the members of the Ursuline convent of Quebec, established in 1639 by the mystic Marie Guyart de l’Incarnation. The convent was home to Indigenous, French, and English women and girls. Their dedication to education meant they schooled a significant number of Quebec girls and women resulting in high rates of literacy. Their spiritual intensity persisted all through the century and a half studied here, shaping their devotional practices and love of cloister as well as teaching.”(Main, p. iii) The Parisian Ursuline Constitutions ratified in 1640 dictated that the “Spiritual Exercises” be completed by Ursulines before profession; those Paris Constitutions would “set the stage for Ursuline life in New France. The exercises in this volume do not appear among the works by Noüet in De Backer-Sommervogel, and although Noüet wrote another work for the nuns, “L'homme d'oraison: méditations spirituelles à l'usage des personnes qui veulent avancer dans la perfection”, which remained in manuscript until 1839 (see De Backer – Sommervogel, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus ou Notices bibliographiques, II., col 1581, no. 18.), the text in this manuscript does not correspond to that book. |
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| Item Description: | TItle from first page of text. Translation of title: "Compendium of Exercises for the Renewal of the Heart, given orally to the Ursulines of St. Jacque Les Paris from the 24th day of September until the 2nd of October of the Year 1662." Based on the Spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Nouet wrote an explication of Ignatius's work, in Latin, printed in 1674, and a "Retraite spirituelle de dix jours, prise des exercices de Saint Ignace;" it is uncertain whether this volume corresponds to the latter. |
| Physical Description: | 360 pages, 48 blank leaves ; 16 cm |