Church of the Holy Spirit – Rousseau’s “conversion”
The church of the Holy Spirit is famous for the "miracle" that happened here in 1728: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's conversion to Catholicism. Then an unknown sixteen-year-old boy from Geneve, Rousseau had come to Turin following suggestions by an attractive Annecy noblewoman, herself a newly-converted Catholic who had been tasked by the Pope with spreading the Good Word in Protestant lands: Louise Éléonore Delatour Depil, known as Madame de Warens. The young man, evidently in love with her, renounced his Calvinist faith on April 21 and was scheduled for baptism a mere two days later... and rumor has it that the "scheme" was successful in winning him the noblewoman's attentions.