Abstract
The prominent, even determining role of women in mission has often been remarked upon, but the study of the contributions and processes of achieving power in this domain has not received the scholarly attention deserved. The pioneering work of Michèle Sigg, Executive Director of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography, and editor of the Journal of African Christian Biography, Boston University, brings together, with wonderful detail, many threads of women’s agency in ministry and mission within the context of French “Réveil” (revivalist) Protestantism. It fills major lacunae in the historiography of French mission, the analysis of French women’s work in ministry, and in the study of women in French society before and during the early nineteenth century.
The volume builds on earlier research on women in French Protestant historiography. The daring scope of the book moves from the early Reformation to the mid-nineteenth century. There are careful nuanced presentations of the roles of women during the persecutions following the revocation of Henry IV’s Edict of Toleration, the interaction of Protestant refugees and French prophets/prophetesses with Auguste Francke, Moravians, John Wesley, Edward Irving and their followers, and the roles of women in the ministry of J. F. Oberlin as Bible women and teachers. Chapters discuss ministries of Parisian French Protestant women to the poor, their educational efforts on behalf of children, and support of the early Paris Bible Society. Through these and other activities, distinctive women’s ministry networks developed in the salons of Paris and spread throughout France.
An important part of the volume is devoted to the outworking of these networks in the context of the Paris Evangelical Mission Society, the Société des Missions Évangéliques de Paris (SMEP), during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It is appropriately observed that the women’s auxiliaries served as a link between the new post-Napoleonic power of the Parisian Protestant haute-bourgeoisie and the rest of the country, although it could be argued that with the primary nodes of the women’s networks in Paris, these networks enabled Parisian upper-class women significant power over their sisters in the provinces. Important chapters discuss the Deaconesses of Reuilly and the women missionaries of the SMEP Lesotho Mission.
There are three issues frequently alluded to in the volume that may deserve additional attention. The first is class. It is worth noting, while not detracting from their brilliance, resilience, and innovative work, that the women featured in the book were all connected to powerful men who were pillars of the Paris haute-bourgeoisie or influential in foreign missionary societies.
Second, a few influential men supported the women’s work. These “hommes alliés” including, for example, Henri Grandpierre, Adolph Monod, Frédéric Monod (editor of Archives du Christianisme who published Albertine de Broglie, Élise Guizot, and others), and the latter’s son Theodore Monod, aided, advised, and protected numerous women activists of the Réveil. Grandpierre’s and Theodore Monod’s efforts were the most extensive. The relationships were usually mutually beneficial. For example, women (especially Émilie Mallet and de Broglie) developed and diversified the Réveil vision of F. Monod in the Archives du Christianisme. The women’s auxiliary to SMEP used their organization and networks to extend Réveil spirituality and provided desperately needed SMEP financial support.
The third has to do with the scope of coverage promised by the subtitle. The volume is devoted primarily to the first four decades of the nineteenth century. The roles of women in French Protestantism continued to flourish and evolve during the nineteenth century, usually impacted by national political and financial developments. For example, French Protestant “Réveil” women became important figures in the Women’s Movement in France during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
These suggestions for additional research could have extended, unwisely, the book beyond publishable length. This truly important book is carefully nuanced, replete with data from archival resources and periodical publications; the well-chosen case studies of women in diverse aspects of the Réveil in France are presented in rich detail and in a pleasing literary style. It will reward careful attention by scholars of the Réveil and related movements around the world as well as scholars of mission history and women’s studies.