N is for Nouvelles Catholiques – Home for re-education

A contribution to the #AtoZchallenge 2024

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, members of the religion prétendue réformée (so-called reformed religion) endured tremendous pressure from King Louis XIV to abjure their faith and sign a writ to say they were now Catholics. Many did this, often unwillingly. Such people were referred to as Nouveaux or Nouvelles Catholiques. Children of Huguenot families were often abducted and placed in a home, where they were brought up to follow the ‘true religion’.

The community of the Nouvelles Catholiques in Alençon owes its birth to Elisabeth de Farcy, whose brother was a state treasurer in Paris. In 1672, Mademoiselle de Farcy opened a house of refuge for young girls who supposedly wished to abjure their faith against the will of their parents. She gathered these newly converted girls in a private house near the college. The bishop of Séez approved of this establishment, the town gave its consent, and the Duchess of Guise agreed to support it financially.

In official lettres-patentes, King Louis XIV authorised the establishment of two such houses – one for each sex – for all who wished to convert. They were to provide the children with all spiritual and temporal help. Elisabeth de Farcy kept the girls, and Père Rémy Mévrel took care of the boys.

The first lodging of the New Catholics soon became inadequate and they moved to a house known as the Bâtard d’Alençon. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Madame de Bridière, the superior of this house, obtained a sum of ten thousand livres from the property of the Huguenot consistory of Alençon – which had certainly not been given for this purpose – and used it to build a further house in the rue des Granges. [see Histoire d’Alençon by Jean Jacques Gautier]

In the book ‘Greet Suzon for me’, a crucial encounter occurs between intendant Jubert de Bouville’s son Noël and Madame de Guise at Mademoiselle de Farcy’s home for abducted children. As a result, young Rachel d’Albert is abducted and held against her will in La maison des Nouvelles Catholiques. She is later helped to escape and join her family, which has fled to Jersey in the meantime. The book is due to be published in 2024.

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