Elizabeth Cellier Elizabeth Cellier Elizabeth Cellier (commonly known as Mrs. Cellier and dubbed the "Popish Midwife"), flourished 1668–1688, London, England, was a notable Catholic midwife in seventeenth-century England. She stood trial for treason in 1679 for her alleged part in the "Meal-Tub Plot" against the future James II but was acquitted. She later became a pamphleteer and made attempts to advance the field of midwifery. Elizabeth Cellier was a noted London midwife, who came into prominence through the pretended "Meal-Tub Plot" of 1680. Nothing seems known of her life until her marriage with Peter Cellier, a Frenchman, and her conversion from Anglicanism.
Paris in the 17th century attention of the King and Queen, who provided funding in 1645 to build a large new home for abandoned children near Saint-Lazare. De Paul died in 1660. In 1737, he was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Beside the beggars and the poor there was another underclass in Paris, composed of thieves. They often were expert in cutting the cords of the purses that wealthy Parisians carried around their necks and running off with them. They also sometimes pretended to be blind or lame, so they could attract charity from the Parisians. In the 17th century the most