Page 169 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Catholic Confraternities, Kinship and Social Discipline

serious difficulties, since many young men left the clerical institution and
developed a critical attitude towards the clergy. The influence of the French
Revolution became manifest, even in these mountain regions, and repub-
lican – or sometimes anticlerical – ideas spread, especially among the male
population.
This was the opportunity for new kin groups to affirm their influence as
active partisans of the Church and officers in the devotional associations.
From 1793, several crucial charges were thus occupied by men and women
closely connected to the Arlettaz/4 group from the ‘town’ of Liddes – the
main village is named ‘Liddes-ville’ in the sources: the offspring of tailor
Jean-Georges Arlettaz and his wife Anne-Geneviève Paulet built the core
of this devout milieu, where the women played a pioneering and crucial
role, assuming leading positions in the brotherhoods.
In 1793, Marie-Geneviève Balet became prioress of the female section
of the Blessed Sacrament; she was closely related to the aforementioned
Jean-Georges Arlettaz and Anne-Geneviève Paulet, since she was the
mother-in-law of their son, Pierre-Joseph Arlettaz. Anne-Geneviève Pau-
let herself became prioress in 1807. Before her, Angèle Tochet had been
prioress of the Holy Rosary in 1796. She was Anne-Geneviève’s daughter-
in-law (the wife of Jean-Michel Arlettaz), and she would become prioress
of the Blessed Sacrament in 1813. Figure 5.1 shows the structure of this
tight-knitted religious milieu which encompassed several allied families,
including the influential Darbellay-Chirurgi group and, indirectly, the fam-
ily of Bernard-Emmanuel Frossard who was to play an influential role, both
on the religious and on the political stage, during the early nineteenth cen-
tury. As secretary of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, Frossard
occupied a crucial role in the life of this association during many years.
For the sake of simplicity, the network represents only the supreme con-
fraternal charges of prior and prioress. However, the lower charges, such as
bell-bearer, crucifer or flag-bearer in the processions, singer, etc. were at-
tributed according to a similar logic: continuities within the Arlettaz group
and cooperation with allied families strongly oriented the recruitment of
active officials in the brotherhoods.
Kinship ties – both consanguine and affinal – contributed to shape a
tight network of political and religious cooperation which participated in a
particular Catholic milieu. After 1790 this milieu found itself increasingly
involved in a competition with republican and secular groups contesting
the privileges and the traditional role of the Catholic Church in Valais. We
could therefore suppose that this milieu of confraternity officials show-

167