Labrousse, Clotilde Suzan Courcelles de

Labrousse, Clotilde Suzan Courcelles De, a French religious enthusiast, was born at Vauxain, Perigord, May 8, 1747. While quite young she adopted exaggerated mystical notions, thought herself called to become a saint, and was so anxious to leave this world for a better one that she made an attempt at suicide when but nine years old. Her ascetic practices were very severe, and became still more so as she grew up, yet did not seem to have any injurious effect on her health. At the age of nineteen she became a nun of the third order of St. Francis, and soon after declared that she had received a mission to travel through the world to convert sinners, but was detained in the convent by her superior. She then wrote a history of her life, which she addressed to M. de Flamarens, bishop of Perigueux, without effect. The MS., however, attracted the attention of Dom Gerle, prior of the Chartreuse of Vauclaire, who entered into correspondence with the authoress in 1769, and she afterwards declared, when he was elected a member of the National Assembly, that she had predicted it to him. When the Revolution broke out, M. Pontard, constitutional bishop of Dordogne, attracted her to Paris, where she prophesied against the court of Rome, and in favor of the civil constitution of the clergy. She subsequently returned to Perigord, and left there to go to Rome, thinking to convert the pope, cardinals, etc., to her views, and to induce them to renounce temporal power. On her way she addressed the people wherever an opportunity offered. In August, 1792, she arrived at Bologna, whence she was driven by the legate. At Viterbo she was arrested and taken to the castle of San Angelo. In 1796 the French Directory interfered to obtain her liberation. but she preferred remaining, as she had been very kindly treated; but when the French took Rome in 1798 she left the prison and returned to Paris, where she died in 1821. She persisted to the last in believing herself inspired, and actually succeeded in gathering a small circle of adherents. Labrousse wrote Propheties concermant la Revolution Frangaise, suivies d'une Pirediction qui annonce la fin du monde (for 1899) (Paris, 1790, 8vo): — Lettre de Milk. de Labrousse (Paris, 1790, 8vo). Pontard published a Recueil des Ouvrages de la celebre Ille. Labros-. se (Bordeaux, 1797, 8vo). See Mahul, Annuaire necrolog. 1822; Arnault, Jay, Jouy et Norvins, Biog. nouv. des Contemp.; Querard, La F'rance Litteraire.-Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 28:418.