66 - [MANUSCRIPT] [RELIGION] [DEMONOLOGY] Jean-Joseph SURIN - Spiritual Dialogues Between the Spiritual Director and the Soul on the Principal Points of the Devout Life

[MANUSCRIPT] [RELIGION] [DEMONOLOGY] Jean-Joseph SURIN - Spiritual Dialogues Between the Spiritual Director and the Soul on the Principal Points of the Devout Life An exceptional manuscript from the late 17th century [circa 1670] compiling several texts by Father Surin, nicknamed “perhaps the most mystical man of the 17th century,” who became known in particular for his leading role in the Loudun Demon Affair (or the “Possessed Women of Loudun”). This manuscript is labeled “T°2,” likely corresponding to a two-volume set produced some time after Surin’s death (1665); this volume is divided as follows: The Spiritual Dialogues, 4ff.; 419 pp.; the first printed edition was published in Nantes by Jacques Mareschal in 1700. This manuscript contains a number of variations, and the order of the parts and chapters differs from the versions printed in 1700 and 1704 in Nantes and Paris. The second part of the manuscript, 112 pp., comprising “How Three Demons Were Permanently Expelled from the Body of the Reverend Mother Jeanne des Anges,” 4 pp.—a text of which other manuscripts exist; here it includes a half-page entitled “The Glory of Saint Joseph, Victor over the Principal Demons Possessing the Ursulines of Loudun.” A letter to His Grace the Duke of Orléans on pp. 5–8, in which the author reports to the Duke of Orléans, describing himself and the other exorcists involved as “soldiers of the Church battling the powers of hell,” dated January 10, 1636, in Loudun. There do not appear to be any other manuscripts of this letter *The Glory of Saint Joseph, or the Expulsion of Demons from the Body of the Mother Prioress of the Ursulines of Loudun*, pp. 9–92; this text, if one takes into account the note “At Saumur by Louis Macé” on p. 4, this manuscript could refer (in what is surely an altered, early version) to the printed work “The Miraculous Healing of Sister Jeanne des Anges [...] through the Anointing of Saint Joseph,” published by Louis Macé in Saumur in 1637. The “written account in the Reverend Mother Jeanne des Anges’s own hand, which she composed at the behest of her exorcists regarding the final expulsion of the last of the seven demons that had possessed her,” pp. 92–98; as far as is known, no other manuscripts of this text exist, but it was later used and partially incorporated by Jeanne des Anges herself in the text that Legué published as her “autobiography” (Sister Jeanne des Anges [...] Autobiography of a Possessed Hysteric, Paris, 1886) The final text on pp. 99–112 reproduces Chapter 10 of *The Triumph of Love* by Surin, who wrote this chapter in 1660; page 98 includes a heading that leads us to believe that Father Surin had died by the time this manuscript was completed. The entire volume is bound in a contemporary or very slightly later full calf binding with an ornate spine, title labels and volume numbering in red morocco, the top joint split, corners worn, and some rubbing. The interior is in very fresh condition, with marbled paper endpapers. Consultant: Alexis Baude