Citation:
Abstract:
There is no denying the political and secular rather than religious nature of the Parisian Fronde of 1648-52, but religious symbols and vocabulary were nevertheless recruited by the rival camps that confronted each other during the civil war. Between 1649 and 1652, more than fifty Parisian Mazarinades invoked saints, angels, and hermits, imploring these divine protectors to save the city from Mazarin and to reunite the city with its God. Patron saints of Paris and of France were also implored in public processions of penance and in communal invocations. Examining these Mazarinades, as well as some devotional public rituals that took place in the city during these years, the article addresses the mobilization of religious sentiments during the Fronde. It argues that for contemporary Parisians, some Mazarinades were assumed to address issues that were both religious and political. The use of religious lexicon and rituals by the Frondeurs had a nostalgic component; it was an attempt to r