Henry III and the Fate of Longchamp in 1587 : A Miracle of Isabelle of France in BnF MS nouv. acq. fr. 10871

This essay introduces a little-studied manuscript, BnF MS nouv. acq. fr. 10871, and presents a previously unedited miracle of Isabelle of France. The manuscript is a collection of vernacular saints’ lives given in 1569 by Sister Jean de Mailly to Longchamp, the house of Sorores minores located just west of Paris. It contains an unedited life of Longchamp’s foundress Isabelle of France, followed by lives of the ‘five Franciscan martyrs’, Anthony of Padua, Bonaventure, and Louis of Toulouse, all in French. The present essay first notes the manuscript’s overall interest: its composition seems intended to highlight the importance of ‘new’ Franciscan saints; Isabelle stands where one might have expected to find either Francis or Clare; and the manuscript begins and ends with Capetian family members. At the back of the manuscript, a new hand has added a miracle attributed to Isabelle in 1587. In this story, King Henry III of France sought to force the nuns of Longchamp out of their abbey, and only Isabelle’s miraculous intervention prevented this unwelcome exile. The episode is documented in other contemporary sources, but this version of events, the earliest recorded at Longchamp, has not previously been edited. This study therefore offers a fresh perspective on Longchamp’s continuing devotion to its foundress in the late sixteenth century.