Le récit de la «mort sainte» dans les biographies religieuses du XIX^e-XX^e siècle. Essai d'hagiographie contemporaine

Accepting the principle of a probable continuum of Christian saintliness from the origins down to our time, the aim of the present study is to see with regard to the idea of a "holy death" whether the canons or the topoi of hagiographical literature of early and mediaeval times still function today. In contemplating, living and describing a Christian death the task of the historian is to take the spirituality of the 19^th and 20^th centuries seriously, to examine it for its own sake and to be able to read with an open mind and with profit the thousands of biographical texts produced by contemporary Catholicism.