Communautés vigneronnes en vallée de Montmorency et catholicisme (1750-1800)

Francis Arzalier : Wine-growing communities in the Montmorency valley and catholicism, 1750-1800. The Montmorency Valley, twenty kilometres from Paris, is now simply one huge suburb, but in the 18th Century it was an area of scattered wine-growing villages. The village community, although it was less important from the strictly economic point of view, was very important in mentalities and behaviour, expressed in a religion that represented social rituals rather than dogma. The Valley reacted to the French Revolution firstly as a region of scattered rural communities, with overwhelming support for the disappearance of feudal restraints, but a refusal of the reforms which undermined Catholic practice. Attachment to Catholicism remained very strong, at the same time as the movement of déchristianisation in 1794 was important among the labourers on the neighbouring wheat-growing lands of the Valois, Brie or the Plaine de France.Arzalier Francis. Communautés vigneronnes en vallée de Montmorency et catholicisme (1750-1800). In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°29, 1997. Le vin, sous la direction de Jean Bart et Élisabeth Wahl. pp. 17-27