Sœur Jeanne des Anges, supérieure des Ursulines de Loudun

Abstract

Gilles de la Tourette, Charcot, Bourneville, and Axenfeld all belonged to the group of atheist or free-thinking physicians who sought, during the second half of the nineteenth century, to fit possession, ecstasy, visions, and miraculous healings into the framework of mental pathology. This meant frontal opposition to the Church and to Catholic physicians. The book by Gilles de la Tourette and Gabriel Legué, Sœur Jeanne des anges, Supérieure des Ursulines de Loudun, published in 1886 in the “Bibliothèque diabolique” collection directed by Bourneville, was their contribution to this medical-political cause. The genesis of the work, its bibliographic sources, and society’s view of hysteria at the time are discussed with relation to the historical, political, and literary aims of Gilles de la Tourette and Legué.