Gabriel Calloet-Kerbrat
Gabriel Calloet-Kerbrat, a member of the minor nobility of Trégor, was educated at the Jesuit college in La Flèche, before studying law in Paris.
[A 2] On July 21, 1642, he became general counsel at the Chambre des Comptes de Bretagne in Nantes, a position he held as a successor, most probably from his relative Antoine Calloet.
After listening to the advice of the women of his village on the effect of different wind directions on the birth of roosters, Calloet-Kerbrat conducted experiments on the influence of salt crystals on humidity, and made observations on hair curling, in the process indicting the cost and unhealthiness of wigs.
On the other hand, when he hadn't experimented with a procedure he reported, he pointed out that it could be used to select the coat of an unborn foal: a carpet of the desired color was painted, and the mare was covered with it from mating to birth.
These were all short texts, written in a direct, Olivier de Serres-like style, with a touch of humor and numerous references to personal experience and classical culture.
Audren de Kerdrel, his first biographer, noted the familiar tone with which Calloet-Kerbrat addressed great people, including the king, attributing this trait to his Breton origins.
He suggested, for example, sending a flandrin bull to each parish, to crossbreed with local cows to create a larger, more fertile breed, and granting their guardians tax privileges, as was done for stallions in Poitou.
Renaissance agriculturalists, such as Estienne's Praedium Rusticum (1554),[13] Jean Liébault's Maison rustique (Rustic house)(1564), or Olivier de Serres' Théâtre d'agriculture (Theater of Agriculture) (1600),[note 1] did not consider this possibility.
He saw his proposals as likely to enrich the peasants, and consequently reduce the burden of taxation on them:[18] "the people are no better off, however fertile the land, if it is exhausted by the Taille and other subsidies without giving them the means to make some extraordinary profit, which is what neighboring states are working on", he wrote, not without lending credence to confidences allegedly made to him by the Maréchal de la Meilleraye[19] – a close associate of the Company of the Blessed Sacrament.
In particular, he was featured in Noël Chomel's Dictionnaire œconomique (1708) and in the Nouvelle maison rustique (1772),[20] while Henri Grégoire praised him in the introduction to his edition of Olivier de Serres' works.
[citation needed] From 1670 onwards, he and two other former members, the Reverend Fathers André Guevarre and Honoré Chaurand – a well-known preacher – launched a campaign for the creation of general hospitals and charity offices for the poor, based on the model proposed in the royal edict of 1662.
They quickly won the support of the governors of the Paris hospices, notably Loyseau,[22] who wanted to promote the expansion of a hospital network to avoid taking in the poor from the provinces, and thus lighten their own financial burdens.
[note 2] The campaign to develop general hospitals met with some success, with promoters attributing to it almost one hundred and twenty creations – some of them short-lived – including those in Quimper, Roanne, Saint-Étienne and Bourg-en-Bresse.
The method devised by Guévarre and Calloet-Kerbrat was fairly rushed: the missionaries spent three days in the town, made numerous approaches to wealthy people and collected funds to create the new hospital "à la capucine", i.e. with very limited means, as the 17th century put it.
[24] In practice, this led to the large-scale confinement of beggars, as studied by Michel Foucault in his Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique (Madness and civilization).
[30] The closeness between the two men was confirmed by shared concerns: Pelisson published a Remède universel pour les pauvres gens et leurs bestiaux (Universal Remedy for the Poor and their Livestock);[31] for his part, Calloet-Kerbrat was passionate about supporting new converts, as evidenced by his correspondence with Nicolas de La Mare, commissaire au Châtelet de Paris, reporting cases of former Protestants persecuted by their co-religionists.
[30] Calloet-Kerbrat signed his pamphlets with the title "avocat général des pauvres" ("general advocate for the poor"), which could be likened to one of the attributes of Saint Yves, with whom he identified throughout his career,[A 4] or "procureur et protecteur général des affaires concernant les pauvres dans toute la France" ("prosecutor and general protector of matters concerning the poor throughout France").
In fact, he devoted most of his wealth to this activity, which he complained bitterly about to his friend Démia: "I am responsible for a wife and seven children, and yet for the past 25 years, I have been single-handedly paying for all the prints for the establishment of general hospitals, etc., and the postage of letters, which are immense.
[34] In 1688, Calloet-Kerbrat was expelled from Paris by order of Louis XIV, for printing "several ridiculous memoirs on the state of the kingdom's poor, and holding public assemblies where he exaggerated this poverty".
