‘The Apostolate of the Pen’: Mgr De Ségur and the mobilization of Catholic opinion in Second Empire France

This article contends that the papacy and ultramontane Catholicism played a pivotal role in the democratization of culture in Second Empire France. Drawing upon recent scholarship, which argues that religion played an important role in the constitution of mass democracies in modern Europe, this article revisits the pamphlet campaign led by Mgr Gaston de Ségur at the height of the Italian question in February 1860. Ségur made the most of the freedom of expression enjoyed by the Catholic Church in France in an attempt to direct Catholic opinion, and place pressure on the French government over its diplomatic relations with the pope. New archive material, notably Ségur’s correspondence with the leading Catholic journalist of the time, Louis Veuillot, sheds further light on Rome’s interventions in French culture and politics and its consequences. The article demonstrates that one of the most important, if unintended, results of the ultramontane campaign was to trigger reforms to the cultural sphere, and the granting of freedoms to their political enemies: the Republicans and freethinkers.

Membrane-initiated non-genomic signaling by estrogens in the hypothalamus: cross-talk with glucocorticoids with implications for behavior

The estrogen receptor and glucocorticoid receptor are members of the nuclear receptor superfamily that can signal using both non-genomic and genomic transcriptional modes. Though genomic modes of signaling have been well characterized and several behaviors attributed to this signaling mechanism, the physiological significance of non-genomic modes of signaling has not been well understood. This has partly been due to the controversy regarding the identity of the membrane ER (mER) or membrane GR (mGR) that may mediate rapid, non-genomic signaling and the downstream signaling cascades that may result as a consequence of steroid ligands binding the mER or the mGR. Both estrogens and glucocorticoids exert a number of actions on the hypothalamus, including feedback. This review focuses on the various candidates for the mER or mGR in the hypothalamus and the contribution of non-genomic signaling to classical hypothalamically driven behaviors and changes in neuronal morphology. It also attempts to categorize some of the possible functions of non-genomic signaling at both the cellular level and at the organismal level that are relevant for behavior, including some behaviors that are regulated by both estrogens and glucocorticoids in a potentially synergistic manner. Lastly, it attempts to show that steroid signaling via non-genomic modes may provide the organism with rapid behavioral responses to stimuli.