Editing Denis Diderot (section)

===''La Religieuse'' (''The Nun'' or ''Memoirs of a Nun'')===
''[[La Religieuse (novel)|La Religieuse]]'' was a novel that claimed to show the corruption of the Catholic Church's institutions.

====Plot====
The novel began not as a work for literary consumption, but as an elaborate practical joke aimed at luring the [[Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de Croismare|Marquis de Croismare]], a companion of Diderot's, back to Paris. ''The Nun'' is set in the 18th century, that is, contemporary France. Suzanne Simonin is an intelligent and sensitive sixteen-year-old French girl who is forced against her will into a Catholic convent by her parents. Suzanne's parents initially inform her that she is being sent to the convent for financial reasons. However, while in the convent, she learns that she is actually there because she is an illegitimate child, as her mother committed adultery. By sending Suzanne to the convent, her mother thought she could make amends for her sins by using her daughter as a sacrificial offering.

At the convent, Suzanne suffers humiliation, harassment and violence because she refuses to make the vows of the religious community. She eventually finds companionship with the Mother Superior, Sister de Moni, who pities Suzanne's anguish. After Sister de Moni's death, the new Mother Superior, Sister Sainte-Christine, does not share the same empathy for Suzanne that her predecessor had, blaming Suzanne for the death of Sister de Moni. Suzanne is physically and mentally harassed by Sister Sainte-Christine, almost to the point of death.

Suzanne contacts her lawyer, Monsieur Manouri, who attempts to legally free her from her vows. Manouri manages to have Suzanne transferred to another convent, Sainte-Eutrope. At the new convent, the Mother Superior is revealed to be a lesbian, and she grows affectionate towards Suzanne. The Mother Superior attempts to seduce Suzanne, but her innocence and chastity eventually drives the Mother Superior to insanity, leading to her death.

Suzanne escapes the Sainte-Eutrope convent using the help of a priest. Following her liberation, she lives in fear of being captured and taken back to the convent as she awaits the help from Diderot's friend the [[Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de Croismare|Marquis de Croismare]].

====Analysis====
Diderot's novel was not aimed at condemning  Christianity as such but at criticizing cloistered religious life.<ref name="Andrew S. Curran 2019, p. 275"/> In Diderot's telling, some critics have claimed,{{Who|date=October 2024}} the Church is depicted as fostering a hierarchical society, exemplified in the power dynamic between the Mother Superior and the girls in the convent, forced as they are against their will to take the vows and endure what is to them the intolerable life of the convent. On this view, the subjection of the unwilling young women to convent life dehumanized them by repressing their sexuality. Moreover, their plight would have been all the more oppressive since it should be remembered that in France at this period, religious vows were recognized, regulated and enforced not only by the Church but also by the civil authorities. Some broaden their interpretation to suggest that Diderot was out to expose more general victimization of women by the Catholic Church, that forced them to accept the fate imposed upon them by a hierarchical society.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

====Posthumous publication====
Although ''The Nun'' was completed in about 1780, the work was not published until 1796, after Diderot's death.