Conclusion

Abstract

The history of the Order in the eighteenth century, in common with that of the other orders, is one of steady decline. Large financial assets had accrued over the centuries and these were often for the benefit for a “couvent” where there were only two or three regulars in residence. The bishops were empowered to close down such “couvents” and a Commission des Réguliers was set up to report on the whole question of the monastic orders, since they had become an obvious target for the acrimonious criticisms levelled against the Church by the Philosophes. Lavisse ¹ gives the total number of regulars as 26,674 in 1774, falling to 17,500 in 1790. According to the statistics presented by the Commission des Réguliers in 1768, the Minims had 975 members in France; assuming no change between 1768 and 1774 (Lavisse’s date) and assuming a fall proportional to the National total, the Order must have dropped to about 850 at the time of the suppression. Agen, founded in 1661, was closed down in the middle of the eighteenth century ²; Fublaines, near Meaux, was amalgamated with the newly founded “couvent” at Crécy ³; Carcassonne was closed in 1771 and all its finances transferred to Narbonne.⁴ About one in three of the “couvents” belonging to the Order were closed or scheduled for closing by the time of the report (those marked with an asterisk in the list given on pages 22–27). The following examples will further show the decline as it affected individual “couvents”.