«Twenty years ago, Catherine Maire wrote a landmark book on Jansenism in the 18th century.e century, From the cause of God to the cause of the Nation. Here, she extends her investigation to all the politico-religious affairs that marked the century, from the bull Unigenitus (1713), which condemned Jansenism and became a law of the realm in 1730, to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, during the Revolution. Far from calming the tensions linked to the Gallican tradition, the monarchy's assertion of independence from the Holy See at the end of the 17th century was a major factor in the French Revolution.e century has reactivated them on new foundations. Hence the title of the book The Church in the State, which highlights how inclusion has become a source of division.
The author does more than simply review the major controversies that have arisen in the wake of the dotcom bubble. Unigenitus, It highlights the common thread that links all these episodes. It highlights the common thread that links all these episodes; it draws out the meanings of these passionate quarrels that have become unintelligible to us; it brings out the issues at stake in this search for an impossible balance between religious freedoms and political necessities.
Finally, it shows how these disputes were the breeding ground for the thinking of the philosophers of the Enlightenment. From the Abbé de Saint-Pierre to d'Holbach, via Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau, philosophy takes on new life by linking up with the current events from which it springs and feeds.»
