CURIOSITY - Miracle of GONESSE (95) in 1785 - Historical rem - Lot 506

CURIOSITY - Miracle of GONESSE (95) in 1785 - Historical reminder: On June 30, 1785, young Geneviève Baffart, lame from birth and paralytic for 3 years, dragging herself on crutches to go to mass, fell in prayer in front of the statue of Saint Peter adorning the portal of the Church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul in Gonesse. She implored the grace of the saint to leave the service cured, and left the church, walking without her crutches; 2 doctors attested to the cure, popular fervor was unleashed and Gonesse became a favored place of worship; Jean-François VAUVILLIERS, professor at the Collège de France and member of the Royal Institute, wrote to the Archbishop to support the veracity of the facts and to lend his respectability, but the Archbishop remained very measured, reluctant to initiate the long procedure in Rome; The Revolution swept all this away, the statue of Saint-Pierre was hidden and preserved, Geneviève married and had a son who became a priest and vicar of Gonesse / The document presented is an entirely autographed notebook by Jean-François VAUVILLIER, entitled Miracle de Gonesse, in which he has preserved copies of his letter to the Archbishop of Paris dated August 29, 1785, Monseigneur's reply of September 1 and the second letter from the parish priest of Gonesse - 16-page notebook, small in-4, on laid paper bound with silk ribbon - Jean-François VAUVILLIER (1737-1801), a Hellenist member of the Institut, adopted the new ideas and was a key figure in Paris during the Revolution, as President of the Commune, he saved Paris from famine through his fair management of supplies (a Paris street bears his name).