Mystique du Néant

The singularity of the case of Louise du Néant has led it to be considered pathological from the beginning. Consequently, her mystic writings – which were deemed irregular, heterodox and nonconformist – have been increasingly marginalised. Conversely, this essay intends to draw attention to the fact that the letters of Louise du Néant belong, to all intents and purposes, to the mystic tradition, from which she draws both content and language. On the one hand, this essay proposes that her intense self-humiliation, ad infinitum, bespeaks both her inadequacy with regard to her object of desire (Jesus Christ), and the attendant anxiety. On the other, it intends to show that it is precisely in this mystic culture (from which Georges Bataille would go on to draw his lexicon) that the concept of the “formless” has its roots as “depreciation of being” (Inner Experience).