Pinault, Pierre (dit Frère Pierre)

Extraits des discours du Frère Pierre [Pinault] en convulsions. Copies sur l'original de la Marquise de Vieux-Pont. The extracts are dated from 31 January to 26 December, 1733. Included about the middle of the volume, and perhaps by another contemporary hand and written on page 19, is a 'Lettre sur la Communion' addressed to the Marquise de Vieux-Pont. Professor Duhem of Montpellier, from whom this MS. was purchased, includes an account of Pinault who is said to have been a Parisian lawyer, who visited the Marquise at her castle, and though at first sceptical, became a 'Convulsionnaire' himself, with results described in this MS. Documents of fairly contemporary date dealing with the extraordinary events connected with the 'Convulsionnaires' are very rare, as Cardinal Fleury [1653-1743], then virtual controller of the French government, had ordered the arrest of all affected by this delusion and the destruction of their writings.

c. 1735

1 volume 66 ll. (first & last bl.). 4to. 20 × 131/2 cm. Original paper covers. Some margins and corners damaged, margins cropped in binding.

Purchased 1930.

Pasted on to the verso of the first (blank) leaf is the engraved armorial book-plate of Antoine Barthélemy Fassin [1752-1794] a physician guillotined in Paris on 26 Floréal an II [15 May, 1794].

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).