Prepping for Paradise
[CONFRATERNITY OF AGONIZANTS.]
Exercice de dévotion, pour les personnes associées à la confrairie de Notre-Dame des Agonisans, établie dans l’église des FF. Mineurs de l’observance de Saint François de la ville de Muret. Toulouse, ‘chez Birosse’, (colophon:) ‘de l’imprimerie de la veuve J. P. Robert’, [c. 1758–1779].
12mo, pp. ‘152’ (i.e. 142), [2, blank]; title within frame and with typographic vignette, initials, head- and tailpieces; some light marginal dampstaining, a little creasing, final quire slightly loose; a good copy in mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments with lettering-piece, edges sprinkled red; endbands wanting, corners worn.
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Exercice de dévotion, pour les personnes associées à la confrairie de Notre-Dame des Agonisans, établie dans l’église des FF. Mineurs de l’observance de Saint François de la ville de Muret. Toulouse, ‘chez Birosse’, (colophon:) ‘de l’imprimerie de la veuve J. P.
Very rare devotional manual for members of a confraternity of Agonizants in the town of Muret in the south of France, printed in nearby Toulouse by Marie Robert.
The confraternity was established at Muret, with the consent of Pope Innocent XII, in 1697, its female and male members being expected to assist and pray for the sick and dying, and to ready themselves for their own demise. If Noah spent 120 years building the ark and Christ hours of agony on the cross, then members should not flinch at spending three hours per month and three days a year preparing for a ‘good death’, states the preface. Alongside prayers, hymns, and litanies, the text contains meditations on hell, paradise, and mortal sin.
Marie Robert (née Lacarède, d. 1779) was a native of Toulouse and the wife of the printer-publisher Jean-Pierre Robert, whose business she took over upon his death in 1758. She served as printer to both the Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of Toulouse. Arbour notes that she also printed the statutes of the College of Master Surgeons in Montpellier. This manual was printed for Antoine Birosse, official libraire to the university of Toulouse. CERL states that Marie operated from the rue Ste Ursule – the address given here – from 1758 until her death.
OCLC records only one copy, at the University of Toulouse.