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Most French orders and congregations in the 1950’s, often at the level of their superiors in Rome, decided to devote part of their energy to historical studies concerning the origins and evolution of their institutions and their own particular spirituality. It is with this background that one should understand the invitation extended to Michel de Certeau in about 1956 by the Society of Jesus to devote himself to the order’s history in the 16th century. Although at the time he considered himself in line with his illustrious predecessors, both recent and distant, he was to rapidly free himself from "ordinary ways" and write, in contrast, a highly original work, which, starting with the critical edition of Mémorial by Pierre Favre (1960), would lead him to La Fable mystique and La Faiblesse de croire.