The seventeenth-century crimes of "lèse majesté divine" varied from heresy and apostasy to such petty offences as swearing and cursing. This study focuses on the borderline infringements that involved subversive words and gestures that caught the attention of the authorities, even though they could have been easily overlooked. A priest who made a lame joke about the altar, or a simple worker who played a flute instead of listening to the clerics, was accused of blasphemy and sacrilege. At the same time more outrageous gestures (in terms of our modern sensibility), such as dancing in the church with a dead body, were not punished. It would be easy to dismiss this incongruity as a quirk of the juridical and social system (the dance involved a noblemen and thus was treated differently). Yet the relative insignificance of such cases provides useful insights into how blasphemy and sacrilege were perceived by the church and state authorities and by the general population. It would be simplistic to equate this perception with petty vindictiveness or superstition: both motivations should be acknowledged but viewed within the broader context of the Reformation.

Keywords: blasphemy, sacrilege, subversive gestures, seventeenth-century French culture.

Neklyudova M. On the verge of insulting the Divine Majesty: subversive patterns of behavior in 17th-century France // State, religion, and Church in Russia and abroad. 2017. N 2. pp. 52-73.

Neklyudova, Maria (2017) "On the Verge of lèse majesté divine: Patterns of Subversive Behavior in Seventeenth-Century France", Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 35(2): 52-73.

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In the LAST third of the seventeenth century, Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, who remains in the memory of posterity as the author of the Love Story of the Gauls (1663), began to recollect his turbulent youth. This decision was dictated both by disgrace and exile - having retired from the world, it was decided to write memoirs - and by consciously cultivated piety. In them, in particular, he told about a remarkable case that occurred in 1647, during the Spanish campaign of the Prince de Conde. In the midst of an impromptu feast held in the ruins of the church, two of his drinking buddies picked up one of the tombstones preserved there, pulled out the dead body, and began to dance with it. It was important for the memoirist, who claimed to have taken no part in this entertainment, to show that, for all its bad taste, it should not offend the Lord, since the body could not belong to a saint.1 It was not the threat of prosecution, although Bussy carefully avoided such words as "sacrilege" or "blasphemy," but the public opinion that attributed his failures in life to an indirect insult to the divine majesty, and probably his own doubts.

"Insulting the divine majesty", a paired category to " insulting the earthly majesty "(usually referred to simply as lèse majesté), in the XVI-XVIII century included a wide range of crimes, from godlessness, heresy, paganism, etc., to ordinary deity and other vulgar speech habits. All of them were subject to state laws and regulations, and were punished by the secular authorities. However, as the incident of dancing with the mummy shows, some antics, although directly related to the sacred sphere, remained more or less unnoticed, while seemingly insignificant and quite banal gestures attracted the attention of the relevant authorities. For lack of a better term, I call them "subversive", although they are united not so much by deliberate undermining of authority, but by outright strangeness and, if you will, extra-systemic. The question is how and why they appear, and what they mean.

1. For more information about this story, see: Neklyudova M. S. Dance with the mummy: author's intentions in the context and out of the context / / Ex Cathedra. Sovremennye metody izucheniya kul'tury [Modern methods of studying culture]. Sb. st. Moscow: RSUH, 2012, pp. 106-118.

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Let's start with the most trivial case. In 1661, Parisian Noel Desharges was imprisoned on charges of " swearing and blaspheming against the sacred name of God." A twenty-seven-year-old handyman, also known as Jean Bonnet 2, lived on the Rue du Bac with his wife and two children, and earned his living by carrying cargo in the river port. Judging by the interrogation protocol, the case primarily concerned domestic violence ("Asked: is it true that every day and without the slightest reason he beat and insulted his wife?") and drunkenness ("Asked: is it true <...> that every day he went to the tavern to drink and eat all the money he earned, returning home in the evening drunk and drunk?"). drunk?")3. According to the historian Alain Cabantus, this is a typical situation for the 17th century, when blasphemy (blaspheme) becomes on a par with various violations of public order, gradually acquiring an increasingly secular character4. The sequence of charges is beatings, drunkenness, and only then friendship, and so on. "it suggests that they came from Noel's wife, Madeleine Magnon, who was thus defending her own interests." And she was clearly capable of it. In his defense, Desharges complained that Madeleine had cracked his head open with a rock a month ago, and that she had not spent the night at home for a week. The next stage in this marital conflict, apparently, was her appeal to the parish priests, which was followed by her arrest. However, when during the interrogation Desharges was given the opportunity to accuse his wife of having intercourse with the devil ("did he not say many times about the said wife that she was belly and pregnant by the devil, and that he would like the devil to drag her body and soul to hell?"), he backed down: "nothing This is not ska-

2. The combination "Jean Bonnet" can be considered as speaking (Jean-kolpak), but it was also found among the usual names. Judging by the fact that the clerk does not pay attention to the fact that the prisoner has two different names, the second one is a nickname, and not an "alternative identity". In the records of any interrogations, the real name and nickname always go in this order. For comparison, see the testimony of witnesses in the case of Damien (1757), who attempted to assassinate Louis XV: "Noel Roy, surnamed Roy" (i.e., "the king"), "Julien Guerin, surnamed Saint-Julien", etc. See: Lebreton, A.-Fr. (1757) Pièces originales et procédures du procès, fait à Robert-François Damiens, T. I. pp. 54, 274. Paris: H. G. Simon.

3. The protocol is published by Alain Cabantous, see: Cabantous, A. (2015) Histoire du blasphème en Occident, XVI-XIX siècles, pp. 287-288. Paris: Albin Michel.

4. Ibid., pp. 157-161.

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I also wanted her to go to hell, because I get a lot out of her. " 5
It doesn't seem to be a crime to send your wife to hell; moreover, according to some theologians of that era, it is not necessarily a sin to wish evil to one's neighbor. So, for good purposes, it is permissible to wish "illness to a reveller so that he can improve"6. In our case, it is not the speaker's intention that is of interest (the expression "damn you", as well as" the plague suffocate you", are cited by the author of" Heart and Spiritual Theology " as common curses [maledictions]7), but the degree of semanticization of the formulas used. As we can see, Noel insists that when he sent his wife to the unclean, he did not mean that there were close contacts between her and the devil: this would inevitably lead to a charge of witchcraft. Although the reality of carnal intercourse with the devil was highly doubted by French magistrates, magical practices were prosecuted both in themselves and as fraud. But it would be a mistake to consider the curse of Desharges only a figure of speech, since it preserves the intention (causing evil), and the plot potential, which, if necessary, could be used. As Natalie Zemon-Davies has shown in her clemency petitions, people of the sixteenth century, whether criminals or notaries, were extremely sensitive to the symbolic roll calls and plot possibilities offered by the specific circumstances of the crime, 8 and there is no reason to believe that the situation changed in the seventeenth century. In other words, under unfavorable circumstances, the figure of speech could be transformed back into an accusation of witchcraft.

Between the literal wish that " the devil take her body and soul to hell, "and the figurative suggestion that" she go to hell, " there is a zone of semantic ambiguity. Its existence was a matter of serious concern to theologians and jurists of the seventeenth century, who, after the Council of Trent, had to regularly redefine the boundaries between the sacred and the profane. From the Noe's point of view-

5. Ibid., pp. 289-290.

6. La Feuille, C.-G. de. (1710) Théologie du coeur et de l'esprit, Partie 2, 5e édition. p. 329. Chaumont: G. Briden.

7. Ibid.

8. Zemon Davis, N. (1987) Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth Century France. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

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telling La Decharge to go to hell is a valid speech gesture that he readily admits to. From the point of view of people of spiritual rank, the situation is not so clear. For example, in his instructions to parish priests, Nicola Pavillon, Bishop of Aleta and associate of St. John the Baptist. Vincent de Paul pointed out that the penitent should be asked if he had ever "sworn a vow [imprecations], saying, for example,' damn me, ''may I perish on the spot,' and other similar vows, if he did not do this or that"9. Expressions of this kind are considered a violation of the second commandment (according to the Catholic canon) "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." The same category includes blasphemies, to which we will return later, and direct appeals to the enemy of the human race: "Have you ever summoned the devil and really asked for his help? Have you ever given him your body, or your soul, or your children, or your servants, or your neighbor? " 10 Swearing, as if calling evil spirits to witness, and directly entering into a contract with it-it seems to be sins of varying severity, as indicated by the sequence of their enumeration (from the lighter to the most serious). Doctrinally, this distinction is irrelevant, provided that both are considered violations of the second commandment. However, the position of Nicolas Pavillon, who was close in his beliefs to the Jansenists, was uncompromising, which was not shared by everyone. At the beginning of the next century, the Dominican Reverend Father de La Fay, quoted above, listed curses (including the infamous "damn you"), along with reproaches, ridicule, threats, and denunciations, as "offensive frankness"11. Even considering that his "Heart and Spiritual Theology" was primarily addressed to ladies, the contrast is obvious.

Thus, the simple and extremely common curse "damn it" in its various variations could be passed by interpreters of the XVII century through several explanatory filters, from a "valid" pact with the devil, violation of one of the commandments, spiritually and socially unpleasant "offensive frankness", up to almost neutral speech.-

9. Pavillon, N. (1670) Les instructions du rituel du diocèse d'Alet, p. 197. Paris: Ch. Savreux.

10. Ibid., p. 198.

11. La Feuille, C.-G. de. Théologie du coeur et de l'esprit, p. 321.

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howling habits and (in the case of young nobles) praiseworthy bravery. The problem-the research problem-is that the interaction of these interpretative systems is rarely fully understood, especially when we are dealing with individual varieties of subversive behavior.

Let's look at one of these borderline cases. In the early 1670s, Charles Favas, the cure of a hamlet in northeastern France, was accused of blasphemy. The reason for this was a denunciation, according to which the latter "once in a tavern, which will be about three years ago, said that it is best for him when he says Mass, and when asked for what reason, he replied that he turns his back to the Lord" 12 In addition, in his actions, they tried to find signs of sacrilege ,since he had to make his own host and stir the colors on the altar. Favas was clearly a self-willed man, heavy on his hands, short on his tongue, a heavy drinker, not very good at performing his pastoral duties, and, importantly, in conflict with the local magistrates. According to Andre Brulee, who reconstructed this story from court documents from the archives of the city of Metz, the desire of parishioners to get rid of such a pastor was generally understandable, and the accusations of blasphemy and sacrilege allowed it to be done legally. In this respect, Favas ' situation is similar to that of Noel Desharges, where "blasphemy" was used almost as a synonym for antisocial behavior. But if Decharge's fate was unknown (and he was unlikely to face serious punishment), Favas was condemned to public penance; his tongue was to be pierced with a red-hot iron; after which he was to spend eight years in exile outside the French possessions. 13 The temperamental cure did not accept this sentence and appealed to the king's mercy which granted him forgiveness, requiring only ecclesiastical penance and a temporary suspension from pastoral duties.

Following Andre Brulee's example, it is clear from the text of the royal charter that Louis XIV and his ministers and clerks were well aware that behind the accusations of "insulting the divine majesty" there was a common conflict of interest.

12. Brulé, A. (2009) Blasphème et sacrilège devant la justice de Metz (XIIème-XVIIème siècles), p. 175. Paris: Harmattan.

13. Ibid., p. 111.

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The successful outcome of the case could also be explained by the fact that Favas had quite influential patrons who interceded for him at court. However, neither the first nor the second would play a significant role if it were a real blasphemy and sacrilege. According to canon law, sacrilege was (1) the theft of consecrated objects from a consecrated place; (2) the theft of unsanctified objects from a consecrated place; and (3) the theft of consecrated objects from an unsanctified place.14 None of the cure's actions fell under these categories, even in their broadest and most casuistic interpretation.15 As it was said in the denunciation, Favas made guests and mixed paints on the altar, soiling the marble slab with them. He himself did not deny either, because from the point of view of the canon, there was nothing reprehensible in his actions. On the contrary, the renovation of the tabernacle (for which the colors were needed) and the production of guests rather testified to a responsible attitude to pastoral duties. Not only the king agreed with him on this, but also the local courts, since their sentence required burning the tongue (for blasphemy), and not the hands. Meanwhile, for complainants, any non-ritual actions in the ritual space seemed to border on sacrilege, especially touching the host.

The desecration of the host, accompanied by the theft of the sacrament chalice and other sacred vessels , is a frequent subject of printed pamphlets describing real or alleged cases of sacrilege. For example, on July 27, 1648, "a dozen despicable robbers" entered the Parisian church of Saint-Germain.-

14. La Croix, C. de. (1666) Le parfaict ecclésiastique ou diverses instructions sur toutes les fonctions, p. 615. Paris: P. de Bresche.

15. Theft is the basic definition of sacrilege, although this category has expanded greatly over time. When, at the end of the century, Antoine Furettiere defines sacrilege in his explanatory dictionary, it includes, in addition to violent acts, moral suffering-bullying, humiliation, unworthy treatment of the sacraments: "A crime during which there is desecration, robbery, causing violence or humiliation of sacred objects, consecrated persons,or those who are not sanctified by the rank of persons. those who have dedicated themselves to the Lord. Beating or abusing a priest, depriving a nun of her honor, desecrating a church, stealing sacred vessels - all this is sacrilege. It is a true sacrilege to receive communion intentionally and unworthily." Furetière, A. (1690) Dictionnaire universel, contenant généralement tous les mots François, tant vieux que modernes, et les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts, divisé en trois tomes. T.III. p. 462. La Haye: Arnout et Reinier Leers. However, even at the level of metaphor, sacrilege is associated with theft - see note 31 below.

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Sulpice (whose parishioner will later be the well-known Noel Desharges), hoping to steal silverware stored there that belonged to the brotherhood of Saint-Jacques. Not finding the expected loot (the brotherhood had just taken their chest), they broke the tabernacle lock and took the tabernacle with its host. In running away, the most daring and vicious of the whole gang, who was not afraid of becoming an atheist if he could become rich, despised the Lord Jesus Christ as a guest for the sake of the tabernacle that he held in his hands, and - oh, crime! O sacrifice! O blasphemy! - he scattered the guests in the corner of the chapel, among the dust and dirt, not being afraid to trample under his feet the God who thunders above his head <...>16.

A similar story occurred in 1668 in the Parisian church of Saint-Martin, with the difference that the guests were thrown out of the temple, and the places of their discovery became places of temporary pilgrimage. 17 In 1699, two robbers, a husband and wife, entered the parish church of Mussonvilliers (Normandy, Diocese of Chartres), and, they opened the tabernacle and emptied the tabernacle of the tabernacle, carrying it and the sacrament cup away, and then broke both into pieces, presumably to sell them. Although they did not attempt any additional desecration of the guests, nevertheless, as the Bishop of Chartres emphasized in his address to the parishioners, this was "a blasphemous and deliberate attempt on the sacred person of our supreme ruler and master", since it is impossible to touch the ark of the Covenant with an unclean heart.18
It is interesting that in all these cases, the robbers somehow got rid of the guests. A special case is the 1646 story about the sacrilege committed in the parish of Quevre (Diocese of Orleans-

16. Le Violement dv sanctuaire, ov Le sacrilége commis sur le Sainct Sacrement de l'avtel a Saint-Svlpice, avec la réparation d'honneur qui luy a esté faite: Et tout ce qui s'est passé en la Procession Generale faite le 6 d'Aoust 1648 (1648), p.2. Paris: G. Sassier.

17. L'Ordre et la Marche de la celebre Procession qui se doit faire Dimanche prochain 19 août 1668. Pour réparation d'honneur de l'horrible attentat & sacrilege commis contre le Tres-auguste & Tres-saint Sacrement de nos Autels, en l'Eglise de S. Martin, dans le Cloistre S. Marcel; & pour la closture de la Mission. Avec le nom des Ruës par où elle doit passer (1668), p. 2. Paris: J. de Laize-de-Bresche.

18. Mercure galant, 1699 (juillet), pp. 248-249, 252-253.

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on), where two vagabonds break into a church and not only steal the communion cup, but also eat seven consecrated guests (the eighth disappears and miraculously reappears at Easter)19. We will return to it later, but for now we will note that it was apparently not only a matter of wanting to free the vessels from unnecessary contents. The deliberate theft of the host suggested its use for magical purposes: thus, according to the characteristic testimony of the pamphlet "duck", in 1629, the inhabitants of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, frightened by a storm, accused a Jewish woman of stealing the sacred wafer, and lynchingly burned her right in the port 20. And according to very real documents of the XVI-XVII centuries, shepherds regularly appeared before the judicial colleges of Rouen, who mixed crushed wafers into cattle feed in order to protect their flocks from diseases and other misfortunes.21 It is possible that, shaking out the guests from the tabernacle, the thieves sought to get rid of magical items, the handling of which was unsafe and required special skills. The opposite is also true: perhaps they thought that (excessive) consumption of the host would avoid capture.

Let's go back to Charles Favas. One cannot entirely dismiss the idea that his familiarity with the altar, the tabernacle, and the hostelry was interpreted as sacrilege not only out of a desire to remove the inconvenient priest. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the veneration of the Blessed Sacrament increased, involving long vigils of the faithful in the church and the contemplation of the Eucharist, 22 which made the extra-liturgical activities of the priest particularly noticeable. The flip side of this cult was the belief in the unquestionably magical abilities of the wafers, and therefore any actions with them could theoretically cause wariness. Another factor had to play a significant role: a significant part of the inhabitants of Metz and its environs were Protestants. And as the Reverend Jacques Guyon reminded us, it is the veneration of the Holy Gifts that allows us to-

19. Guyon, J. (1646). Histoire du sacrilège commis contre le S. Sacrement de l'autel dans une paroisse du diocèse d'Orléans et d'une procession solennelle qui y a esté faicte pour réparation dudit crime, pp. 6-7. Orléans: M. Paris.

20. Seguin, J.-P. (1964). L'Information en France avant le périodique, 517 canards imprimés entre 1529 et 1631, pp. 37-38. Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose.

21. Mollenauer, L.W. (2006). Strange Relevations: Magic, Poison, and Sacrilege in Louis XIV's France, p. 100. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State UP.

22. Istoriya privatnoy zhizni [The history of private life]. Duby, T. 3: from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment Era, ed. by R. Chartier, translated from French, Moscow: UFO, 2016, p. 117.

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It is difficult to distinguish a Catholic from a Huguenot heretic "whose eyes are darkened and whose mind, blinded by its own pride, cannot and does not want to recognize the truth of this divine sacrament."23 Manipulation of the host and sacred vessels, including the destruction of some and the theft of others, provoked suspicion of "heresy", and vice versa. So, at the end of 1641 in Autun (Burgundy), four Huguenots, "like four furies animated by rage", broke into the church, opened the tabernacle, poured out the host from the tabernacle "on the altar cloth", took it and the communion cup, and the large host from the so-called "sun" (upper part of the tabernacle)"broken into thirty pieces", and thrown out, "sacrilegiously scattering its particles in the Huguenot cemetery" 24. Further description of the events does not allow us to say whether this was an ordinary robbery, or an ideological gesture. The theft of the vessels is more likely to indicate the former, but the strange act with the consecrated host and the Protestant cemetery serves as an argument in favor of the latter 25. There is at least one known case of captured robbers allegedly trying to pass themselves off as Huguenots. These are the already mentioned Orleans tramps who ate the guests. At the time of the theft, they were caught by the servants of the local seigneur, who just belonged to the "so-called reformed church". Once under lock and key, they throw the bowl into the privy, and, ostensibly at the prompting of the guards, declare themselves Huguenots, counting on the sympathy of the owner of the ze-

23. Guyon, J. Histoire du sacrilège commis contre le S. Sacrement de l'autel dans une paroisse du diocèse d'Orléan, p. 4.

24. Le sacrilege execrable commis contre le precieux Corps de nostre Seigneur, par quatre Heretiques. Lesquels heretiques ont esté bruslez dans le Bourg de Couches le 3. May 1642. pour auoir forcé sur la minuict l'eglise dudict bourg de Couches en Bourgongne le dernier jour de decembre 1641. & auoir emporté le S. Ciboire, avec un Soleil d'argent & un Ciboire d'estain, & rompu la Saincte hostie en plusieurs pieces. Ensemble l'heureuse Conuersion de 3 desdits Heretiques, a l'execution desquels s'est rencontré plusieurs Ministres, pour les empescher de se conuertir à la foy Catholique, Apostolique & Romaine (1642), pp.2-3. Autun: B. Simonnot.

25. In the Christian Autun, published almost half a century after these events, it is said that the guests were "buried in the place where a chapel was later erected by the efforts of pious Catholics" (Saulnier C. (1686). Autun chrétien, la naissance de son église, les évêques qui l'ont gouverné et les hommes illustres qui ont été tirés de son sein pour occuper les siéges les plus considérables de ce royaume et les premières dignités de l'Église, p. 69. Autun: J. Guillimin). Apparently, the idea of a "funeral" of the host is preserved in the local memory, but this does not make it clear what exactly was hidden behind it. Mockery of a transubstantiation?

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stranded. However, he turns out to be "too politically sensible to let them go home," and turns them in to the authorities.26
The stories of the Huguenot robbers (or Huguenot robbers) are mostly related to the early 1640s and seem to echo the famous conflicts of the 1620s that ended with the military and political defeat of the Protestant minority. But they do force us to take a closer look at later accounts of sacrilege, which do not mention the "so-called reformed church", although there are typologically similar features. For example, when "the most audacious and vicious of the whole gang", who robbed Saint-Sulpice in 1648, does not just pour out, but throws the guests in the mud, does this not indicate that he may belong to the "heretics"? For lack of information, there is no answer to this question. In the 1660s, references to the religion of various troublemakers became increasingly rare, which does not mean that there were no underlying conflicts and inter-confessional tensions. For example, in 1662, in one of the villages in the vicinity of the same Metz, a chapel was demolished and dismantled for building materials. This pragmatic decision did not seem to have the character of a challenge, and yet it was perceived as a sacrilege. The existence of the trial suggests that the authorities may well have suspected that Protestant sympathies were involved.27
Charles Favas, of course, was neither a robber nor a secret Huguenot, but his parishioners, who lived side by side with Protestant communities, apparently developed an increased sensitivity to the symbolism of ritual and near-ritual gestures, as well as extreme suspicion. This is indicated by their reaction to his words that he likes to say Mass, because "at the same time <...> turns his back to the Lord." In fact, this is an unfortunate seminary joke: Favas was referring to the specific moment of the service when the priest addresses the congregation with the blessing of Dominus vobiscum28, that is, the very turning of the back to the altar was an integral part

26. Guyon, J. Histoire du sacrilège commis contre le S. Sacrement de l'autel dans une paroisse du diocèse d'Orléan, pp. 7-8.

27. Brulé, A. Blasphème et sacrilège devant la justice de Metz (XIIème-XVIIème siècles), p. 96.

28. Ibid., p. 110.

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the liturgy. And the comic play-off or "reduction" of ritual gestures and procedures was part of the arsenal of the intra-church culture, which Mikhail Bakhtin partially associated with carnival. If we compare this speech gesture with the well-known description of "a certain country" that is "more than one thousand and one hundred leagues from the sea that washes the land of the Iroquois and Hurons," then Labruyer allows himself much more in presenting the alleged native custom.:

Every day, at the appointed hour, the local nobles gather in the church, which is called the chapel. At the back of this temple stands the altar of their god, where the priest performs the sacraments called holy, sacred and terrible. The nobles stand in a wide circle at the foot of the altar and turn their backs to the priest and their faces to the king, who kneels on a special platform and seems to hold the hearts and souls of all present to him. This custom should be understood as a kind of subordination: the people worship the sovereign, and the sovereign-god ("About the court" 74) 29.

We are talking about the French court, and the modern reader does not need to understand the realities of the XVII century in order to recognize in this "subordination" the combination of two cults, the religious one itself and the new, state one, associated with the figure of Louis XIV. By turning their backs to the altar and facing the king, courtiers make a choice in favor of secular power, thereby calling into question their adherence to the tenets of the faith. This is only one step away from the mocking reworking of the "Our Father" that was popular at the turn of the century: "Our Father, who art at Versailles, let not your name be glorified ... let not your will be done on earth or on water," etc. 30

It is clear that the distance from the true story of Favas to the" Characters " of Labruyer, which were published a decade and a half after the events of interest to us, is measured not only chronologically. However, the similarity between the two is not limited to a purely external gesture. As already mentioned, the priest turns away-

29. Labruyer J. de. Characters or morals of the present century. M.-L. Khudozhestvennaya literatura. 1964. p. 183.

30.Cit. по: Taveneaux, R. (1980) Le Catholicisme dans la France classique, 1610-1717, 2 vols, T.I, p. 252. Paris, SEDES.

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at a certain point in the service, the person's actions are liturgically determined. As for the courtiers of Louis, their freedom of choice is also limited: to stand with their backs to the king, they are not allowed not only by low worship, but also by etiquette and simply by the rules of politeness. Both here and there, the characters act according to established rules that tend to appear absolute, but reveal their relativity. This creates an estrangement effect that emphasizes the distance between a person (the drunkard Favas) and the priestly rank, between the duties of a secular person (a courtier) and a Christian.31
The Favas verdict also highlights the difference between the symbolic center and the periphery. It wasn't just that being part of the court meant that a moralist could afford more than a village priest. On the periphery, whether in Metz or Autun, where confessional problems overlapped with an underlying antagonism to the central government - let's not forget that Burgundy became part of the French kingdom in the late 15th century, and Lorraine in the mid - 16th century - the fear of misbehavior was probably much more acute than in the middle of the 16th century. in Paris. This is partly confirmed by the fact that Louis, who was not at all well-disposed towards libertines and boorish abbots, unconditionally justifies Charles Favas, despite all his antics.

So far, we have paid more attention to gestures and behavior, although, as can be seen from the verdict of the cure of Lorraine, he was convicted of blasphemy, that is, for words. The letter of pardon, in addition to the mass statement, mentions two instances in which he "swore and blasphemed the sacred name of the Lord."32 This is the standard wording that we have already seen in the case of Noel Desharges ,who " swore and blasphemed the sacred name of the Lord." As a rule, written documents avoid recording specific expressions, but in the interrogation of Desharges they are still contained, although in a slightly reduced form:

31. Cf. a later critique of the same custom, clearly oriented towards Labruyer: "In our temples we see the wicked, who, forgetting their reverence for God's Greatness, do not hesitate to turn their backs on the altar to worship the earthly luminaries; they are robbers who commit an unheard-of sacrilege, trying to steal the glory and veneration due to the Creator alone" (Proust C. (1703) Instructions morales touchant l'obligation ou sont tous les chrétiens de santifier les jours de dimanches et les fêtes, p. 139. Bordeaux: S. de la Court).

32. Brulé, A. Blasphème et sacrilège devant la justice de Metz (XIIème-XVIIème siècles), p. 175.

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It was asked: is it true that, in spite of < ... > prohibitions, he continued to swear and swear, blaspheming the sacred name of the Lord with such words: I swear by death, by blood, I reject - and adding to them "Gentlemen", and other things so monstrous that they cannot even be uttered 33.

We are talking about common oaths (mortdieu, par le sang de Dieu), which, according to contemporaries, were found at every turn. The chosen method of quoting them "in parts" shows that the problem was not only their content (it is retold), but also the form, apparently perceived as magical, and therefore dangerous. At the same time, the power of the oath depended on which sacrament it referred to, hence the preference for blood, death, and various parts of the Lord's body, while Noel's openly recognized bozhba "I swear twice by the love of the Lord" loses both rhetorically and in terms of effectiveness.

Blasphemy, if it did not go beyond the limits of the deity, was rarely punished by the judicial authorities, despite the relevant royal decrees. Thus, in 1646, Nicola Grillet, Bishop of Juzes, speaking on behalf of the French clergy, complained that " if one person beats another, while spouting blasphemies, he will be punished for the beating, and not for blasphemy against his Creator; and if he makes amends for the damage to the victim, he will be released from punishment, because Resentment to the Lord does not count at all. " 34 This observation is confirmed by the data provided by the researchers: compared to other serious crimes, the number of cases of blasphemy is insignificant, and rarely exceeds a few percent of the total 35. The secular authorities also recognized the ineffectiveness of the measures taken: in the royal declaration of 1666, which introduced a differentiation of punishments for blasphemy (for the first four offenses - a proportionally increasing monetary fine,

33. Cabantous, A. Histoire du blasphème en Occident, XVI - XIX siècles, p. 288.

34. Recueil des actes, titres et mémoires concernant les affaires du clergé de France, augmenté d'un grand nombre de pièces & d'observations sur la discipline présente de l'Église: Divisé en douze tomes, et mis en nouvel ordre, suivant la déliberation de l'Assemblée générale du clergé du 29 avril 1705 (1771). T.XIII. p. 542. Paris: G. Desprez.

35. For example, of the 283 sentences confirmed during the famous visiting session of the Royal Court of Auvergne in 1665, only 3 were directly related to blasphemy. See: Lebigre, A. (1976) Les Grands jours d'Auvergne: désordres et répression au XVIIe siècle, p. 139. Paris: Hachette.

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for the fifth - a fine and pillory, for the sixth-all the same, plus the upper lip is pierced with a red-hot iron, etc.), it was said that "despite our prohibitions <...> this crime prevails in almost all parts of our kingdom, mainly because of the impunity of those who commit it" 36.

In this regard, the prosecution of blasphemy is of particular interest, if it does not concern outright hereticism (in the broad sense of the word, from dogmatic disagreements to freethinking). As already mentioned, it often implies attempts by the community to get rid of undesirable members, whose behavior is unacceptable from the point of view of the majority, but does not fall short of a crime. However, not every drunk and foul-mouthed person found himself in such a situation, especially since a life of debauchery did not increase, but on the contrary eased the severity of the accusation. In the speech already quoted, Nicolas Grillet stated that blasphemies are most often uttered "during a game, in a fit of anger, or under the influence of another strong passion," and this somewhat mitigates the guilt of those who utter them, since "being Christians, they are able to instantly repent, admit a mistake, and the unfortunate language that has just been used He who curses his Lord seeks - even if it is too late-to bless Him and repent publicly. " 37 "In the heat of anger" is a common excuse for unintentional murder, which in the sixteenth century was accepted, if not by the courts, then by the French authorities and society.38 Without delving into the theological disputes of the era, it is worth recalling Pascal's "Letters to the Provincial", which ridicules the attempts of some theologians to doctrinally justify the pardonability of involuntary sin, even if it belongs to the category of mortals. From the point of view of everyday consciousness of the XVII century, obsession with any passion, whether it was anger or love, was an obsession in the most literal sense, when a person did not control himself, and therefore did not have to take full responsibility for his actions. It is no coincidence that during the interrogation, Noel Desharges claimed that if he ever swore, it was always under the influence of anger (and no more than once every six months)39.

36.Cit. по: Muyart de Vouglans, P.F. (1780) Les Loix criminelles de France, dans leur ordre naturel, p. 95. Paris: Mérigot, Crapart, Morin.

37. Recueil des actes, titres et mémoires concernant les affaires du clergé de France, p. 543.

38. Zemon Davis, N. Fiction in the Archives.

39. Cabantous, A. Histoire du blasphème en Occident, XVI - XIX siècles, p. 288.

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Fawas, in response to the accusations of blasphemy, cautiously replied that he "never swore or swore in his right mind, and did not utter any blasphemous words," admitting that he did not remember that he could have spoken "under the influence of wine." 40
Thus, regardless of the underlying motivation, ordinary friendship, especially in a situation of conflict or under the influence of wine, deserved to be condemned, but it required additional aggravating circumstances to bring to justice. In the case of Favas, this was his ecclesiastical rank. More mysterious is the incident of Desharges, who, as a longshoreman, was hardly distinguished by refined expressions. The immediate reason for his arrest, apparently, was a confrontation with the clergy, who, after the departure of his wife, came to exhort him:<... when one of the priests remonstrated with him, the priest laughed at him and taunted him by taking the flute he was playing in the kitchen, using his skill in a daring and mocking way.
This almost Hamlet-like gesture seriously alarmed his interlocutor, who is recognized as a Sulpician, that is, a member of the society of apostolic life that existed in the parish of Saint-Sulpice. As oratorians or, say, Jesuits, Sulpicians were actively engaged in missionary work both in France and abroad. Most of the members of the society belonged to the clergy, but were not necessarily parish priests. The latter could have played a significant role in this story, since the missionary optics were different from the diocesan ones. It is obvious that Desharges ' act spoke of disrespect for the authority of the representatives of the Church, and was perceived by them in this way, as indicated by the references to "ridicule"," audacity "and"mockery". According to the interrogation report, he himself vehemently denied it:

To which he replied that about three weeks ago one of the priests of Saint-Sulpice had actually called to remonstrate with him.-

40. Brulé, A. Blasphème et sacrilège devant la justice de Metz (XIIème-XVIIème siècles), p. 175.

41. Ibid., p. 289.

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he accepted them properly, without making fun of him, without making any mocking or impertinent remarks, and indeed he took the pipe and began to play, but only to distract his spirit, since his wife had treated him badly and had not spent the night at home for eight days.42
The "flute", which turns into a shepherd's "pipe", combined with sadness and a runaway wife (as if "lost lover"), give the whole scene an unexpectedly pastoral flavor, where music acts as a remedy for melancholy, which indirectly justifies the association with "Hamlet" 43. It is difficult to say to what extent this picture it was drawn by Noel himself, or formed in the mind of the clerk who recorded his statement: both are possible, although the probability of the second is slightly higher. The protocol contains few traces of oral speech, and its compiler, apparently, sympathized with the arrested person, trying to present him in a favorable light. But in any case, if Desharges had been charged with insulting a priest - and this is a separate category of misconduct, different from the charge of blasphemous speech - then this should have been reflected in the summary characteristics of his guilt.44 In other words, the Sulpicians reacted not so much to audacity as to something else.

And here it is worth returning to the story of 1642 about four Huguenots who robbed a church in Autun and scattered pieces of the host in a Protestant cemetery. The incident was widely publicized; at least two pamphlets are dedicated to it: "The abominable sacrilege committed by four heretics on the Body of God", which was published directly in Autun, and "An authentic report of the conversion of three criminals who professed to practice a reformed religion, convicted of sacrilege and miraculously converted", which was published in Dijon. These texts partly repeat each other, since the "Authentic Message" clearly borrows large chunks from the "Abomination".-

42. Ibid.

43. For the flute and flutists in Hamlet, as well as popular ideas about the beneficial effects of such sounds, see Welch, C. (1901). Hamlet and the Recorder. Proceedings of the Musical Association, рр. 28, 105-137. I take this opportunity to thank V. S. Makarov for his help and advice on the Shakespearean question.

44. См.: Cabantous, A. Histoire du blasphème en Occident, XVI - XIX siècles, p. 32n.

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blasphemy", especially as it relates to the description of the crime. But there are also significant differences between them, the nature of which is not entirely clear. For example, one of the Huguenots, a merchant named Benjamin du Frenois, known as Jamey (or Yameth), shows a strange insensitivity to torture. This is explained by the fact that, despite belonging to the "supposedly reformed church", in his travels he never forgot to pray for the protection of the Virgin Mary.45 Autun's pamphlet stops here, and Dijon adds that doctors were invited to confirm the supernatural nature of such a reaction, who confirmed that it was not without higher forces, since the interrogator's pulse did not even speed up during the fire torture.46 Does this mean that the prisoners were held in Dijon and not Autun? This is unlikely, since they were executed near the crime scene, and there are about a hundred kilometers between these cities, which made transportation extremely difficult.47 Is it necessary to assume that the author of the "Genuine Message" came up with additional details? It is quite possible, since the medical examination of the "miraculous incident" was an expected part of the procedure. At the same time, some of the details reported to them do not seem to be related to the pragmatics of the narrative, which makes them more plausible. For example, before his execution, Benjamin du Frenois asks judicial officials to execute his will.48 Given that he was the first of the convicts to agree to" voluntarily " return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, it is possible that we are talking about a preliminary agreement: an appeal in exchange for the opportunity to independently dispose of his property. This allows us to hope that the "True message" is still based on information, if not first-hand, then at least second-hand.

The reliability of the evidence, even if relative, plays a role here. Representatives of at least two monastic hordes worked on the conversion of "heretics" -

45. Le sacrilege execrable commis contre le precieux Corps de nostre Seigneur, p. 4.

46. Relation veritable de la Conversion de trois Criminels de la Religion pretenduë Reformée, conuaincus de Sacrilege, & miraculeusement conuertis (1642), pp. 5-6. Dijon: G.A. Guyot.

47. The fact that the prisoners were held in Autun is also confirmed by the Christian of Autun (Saulnier C. Autun chrétien, p. 70).

48. Relation veritable de la Conversion de trois Criminels de la Religion pretenduë Reformée, p. 22.

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new, the Jesuits and Oratorians who traditionally did a lot of missionary work, as well as the Bishop of Autun. When one of them came to admonish a prisoner who persisted in his faith, the prisoner, although his feet were burned after the torture, threatened to crawl out of the room rather than listen to insulting speeches.49 Apparently, "listening" and" hearing " were one and the same action for him, and therefore the physical barrier between hearing and the word was important. The exhorter, by the way, immediately changed tactics and led the speech so as not to touch on the differences between Catholics and Protestants, that is, it was also important for him to continue such "acoustic contact".

If you look at the scene with the flute through the prism of this story, the Sulpician who spoke to Desharges might well suspect him of Protestant sympathies. Unwillingness to listen to admonitions, an attempt to erect a sound barrier between oneself and the speaker - these actions corresponded to the model of behavior of the "heretic". Was such a suspicion justified? Almost certainly not, but as Benjamin du Frenois shows, the distinction between Catholics and Protestants at the everyday level was not always doctrinally clear. One could argue that if such suspicions existed, they should have been reflected in the interrogation report. However, in the middle of the 17th century, the courts usually chose the most provable of a series of charges and ignored the others. For example, as Arlette Lebigre demonstrated, during the famous visiting session of the royal court in 1665, a certain Etienne Journan was convicted of deity and blasphemy, while, according to the memoirs of the Abbe Flechier (the future famous preacher), who was present there, this character was accused of witchcraft and causing harm to fellow villagers.50 It is possible that the same thing happened to Desharges.

In conclusion, it is tempting to assume that the small stock of blasphemy cases known from the French judicial archives of the seventeenth century needs to be reviewed in the light of this logic of ideological substitution. Of course, in many cases, as Alain Cabantus convincingly showed, it was an antisocial lifestyle (see above). But for such misdemeanors

49. Ibid.

50. Lebigre, A. Les Grands jours d'Auvergne, pp. 150-151.

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there was a category of" bad behavior " (mauvaise conduite), which, according to the Auvergne materials, was quite functional. 51 If the choice was still made in favor of" blasphemy", then this could indicate underlying problems and conflicts that the magistrates preferred not to bring to light. This was partly due to the described principle of operation of the French judicial system, when the simplest possible accusation was chosen from the point of view of procedure. The efforts of the central authorities to unify the country, including the religious one, should also have played a certain role here, which in 1685 would lead to the cancellation of the Edict of Nantes on (partial) freedom of Protestant religion.

As can be seen from the incidents we have analyzed, the royal officials tended to turn a blind eye to the minor manifestations of heterodoxy that were reported to them, and punish the perpetrators as Catholics, not as apostates and heretics. In addition, unlike cases of sacrilege, which are more often based on facts (theft, causing material and physical damage), and therefore as if objective, accusations of blasphemy were not only subjective (that is, they depended on the individual perception of complainants, clerics, magistrates, etc.), but also openly used as a basis for the investigation of blasphemy. a method of influencing" from below " to higher authorities. Even the infamous case of the Chevalier de La Barre, executed in 1766 for unproven sacrilege and established blasphemy, was a local initiative, however, supported by the Paris Parliament and the king. In this regard, the divergence between local and more general administrative structures is particularly interesting, as seen in the stories of Desharges and Favas, when the state supervises but refuses to punish, thus allowing us to see the hidden conflicts that existed between the center and the periphery, the royal power and society, the law and religious sentiment.

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