Marguerite Périer is a figure of jansénisme, born with Clermont-Ferrand on April 6th, 1646 and died in the same city on April 14th, 1733.

The miracle of the Holy-Spine

Girl of Gilberte Pascal, Marguerite is the niece and the goddaughter of Blaise Pascal. She is placed at the abbey of Port-Royal-of-Fields in 1654.

The event has a broad echo which stops for a time persecutions against the abbey; it marks the religious evolution of Pascal.

This miracle is in the center of the stakes politico-monk of the time. The Jansenists consider that it is the sign of the support of God for their cause. At once, the father Annat, Jesuit and confessor of the king, answers by the Kill-joy of the Jansenists where, without blaming the reality of the miracle - recognized by the Church - it strongly attacks Port-Royal and analyzes the event like an invitation of God to give up the heresy Jansenist. In their turn, Antoine Arnauld and Pontchâteau answer while Pascal addresses his seventeenth provincial Lettre to the Annat father