Mise en fiction des témoignages des convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard (1727–1732): Vers une poétique de l’horreur.

The cultural and religious phenomena of the convulsionaries of Saint-Médard, associated with the Parisian Jansenism, raises questions concerning the testimonial discourses and its procedures of validation and accreditation within the context of the Eighteenth Century in France. This essay explores the aesthetic and rhetoric strategies of the La Vérité des miracles, edited by Carré de Montgeron (1737). Its aim is to show how fictional procedures linked with poetics of horror and obscenity must be considerate as a part of a whole strategy of accessibility and popularization of the testimonial religious discourse. It highlights the complexity of the links between processes of writing testimony discourses and cultural changes concerning genders, sexuality, science and knowledge within the French society of this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]