Unrecorded Pre-Revolution document from the Abbaye Royale de Fontevrault.

Name: Unrecorded Pre-Revolution document from the Abbaye Royale de Fontevrault.
SKU: 0031

[Fontevrault]. Je soussigné Religieux Receveur Grenetier de l’Abbaye Royale de Font-Evrault, reconnois avoir reçu… [Font-Evrault]: s.n., 18 February 1782 (in manuscript). [18.0 x 13.4 cm], (1) f. letterpress form filled out in brown ink. With folds and wrinkles, minor edge wear, manuscript portion neatly written and legible throughout.

Unrecorded 18th-century letterpress receipt from the Abbaye Royale de Fontevrault, a rare survival of a document of any sort from this unusual convent-monastery, which after its disestablishment in 1792 was converted into a prison. The form dates from 1782, during the rule of Fontevrault’s final abbess, Julie-Gillette de Pardaillan d’Antin (1765-92), and concerns a sum collected by the abbey’s receveur-grenetier, F. Cochard, from a certain Mlle. Beaufils on behalf of the cohéritiers of a recently deceased M. Maupetit. It is unclear to me precisely what the receipt is for, but, as grenetier of this royal house, Cochard likely was responsible for collecting the notorious gabelle, or salt tax, one of the financial injustices often credited with driving popular resentment that led the French Revolution (see, e.g., Sands & Penn Higby).

Fontevrault was founded in 1101 as the center for the newly established Order of Fontevrault. Initially the abbey housed both men and women in the same house, but soon these were segregated into separate structures, with both monks and nuns presided over by an Abbess. The early Plantagenets were benefactors of Fontevrault, and for a time Eleanor of Aquitaine resided there. In November of 1789 all property of the abbey was seized, and by October 1792 Fontevrault was fully evacuated. It was converted into a prison in 1804.

OCLC and KVK do not locate examples of this form.

* T. Sands and C. Penn Higby, “France and the Salt Tax,” The Historian, vol. 11, no. 2 (1949), pp. 145-65; Anon., “Mme de Valence, avant-dernière abbesse de Fontevrault (1754-1765),” Andegeviana, vol. 5 (1906), pp. 78-85, esp. pp. 81-5 [for info on Cochard]; Pipoulain-Delaunay, Nouvelle méthode pour aprendre la langue latine, par un sistême si facile, qu’il est à la portée d’un enfant de cinq à six ans qui sait lire, Paris: Samson, 1768, vol. 4, p. iii [for info on Cochard]; Religieuses de St. Marie de Fontevrault de Boular, Histoire de l'Ordre de Fontevrault (1100-1908) (1911-15).

$475.00