ABSTRACT
This chapter examines popular religious practices in eighteenth-century France through the lenses of both Enlightenment debate and religious experience. By examining the experiences and attitudes of three groups – the clergy, the philosophes, and the average laity, with a particular focus on those laypeople who possibly read but left few written records – this chapter reveals the diversity of perspectives toward the supernatural during this period. It shows that despite the clergy’s attempts to marginalize religious devotions associated with the supernatural and the philosophes’ attempts to eradicate them, these elements of Catholic tradition and practice remained central to daily lives of a substantial portion of the French population.
