Discours suivis : écrit en convulsion aux pieds d'un crucifix, 1737 / par le Frère Pierre.Pinault, Pierre Olivier, d. 1790Manuscript in a single hand of a series of Convulsionist meditations written while the author was in devotions at the foot of a crucifix. The meditations are often repetitive and concern the merit of suffering along with Christ; the justice, mercy, and love of God; and the value of ecstatic and convulsive experiences during prayer."Frère Pierre" has been identified as the pen name of Pierre Olivier Pinault, the jurist and Jansenist who wrote Histoire abrégée de la derniere persécution de Port Royal (Paris, 1758).Binding: 18th-century full mottled calf, rebacked; spine lettered in gilt; silk book ribbon markers bound in.In French.Purchased from Justin Croft on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2009.The Convulsionists, or Convulsionaires, were part of the Jansenist movement that rejected the papal bull Unigenitus after 1713. Their public and private devotions were marked by ecstatic convulsions and spasms, indifference to physical pain while in trace, occasional speaking in tongues, and claims of miraculous cures.text