Review “Alexander Sedgwick examines the emotional turmoil of many Arnauld family members, as they sought to distance themselves from a corrupt world and focus their minds upon God...This book is largely based on memoirs, letter and polemical tracts written by the Arnaulds and their friends...[and is] successful in evoking the tormented lives of the Jansenists and their wish to pass on their beliefs.”―Roger Mettam, English Historical Review“Sedgwick resumes his theme of Jansenist individualism by focusing on the family most closely identified with the movement. The author skillfully traces the traits that brought the Arnaulds to prominence: education, dedication to royal service, and family cohesion...Sedgwick describes the remarkable characters of the story: Mother Angelique, the reformer at Port-Royal; the patriarch Robert Arnauld de'Andilly; Antoine 'le Grand Arnauld'; and foreign minister Simon Arnauld de Pomponne. The strength of the book, however, lies not in these highly readable portraits but in its analysis of internal family dynamics (the interaction of strong women who separated themselves from the world but remained dependent on family protection and men who wavered between the world and the divine) amid the culture and politics of early modern France. Recommended reading for all students of the Ancien Régime.”―D.C. Baxter, Choice“The Travails of Conscience chronicles the rise of the Arnauld family from provincial obscurity to bourgeois prominence and, eventually, to aristocratic eminence as well. But it does much more: it uses the vicissitudes of the Arnauld family to provide an ongoing commentary on the great problems of French society and culture at the time, ranging from the disorders of the seventeenth century, the Counter-Reformation, the place of Augustinianism in the religious life of the French elites of the time, the rise of absolutism, and the final mutation of Jansenism into patriotism during the fading years of the Old Regime. The style of the book is extremely pleasing: it is simple, lucid, and at times, gently ironic.”―Patrice Higonnet Read more About the Author Alexander Sedgwick is University Professor, Emeritus, the University of Virginia. Read more
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