Abstract: Following Saint Paul, women were excluded from public religious. The article explores the gender bind this placed on Jansenist nuns and laywomen, who felt compelled to declare their stance, by focusing on Marie-Catherine Hecquet. She was pried from a convent and browbeaten into marriage. It examines two kinds of “I” portraits of these women: professions of faith and autobiographical accounts of their persecutions which reveal acute theological learning.
