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.

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).

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].