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Abstract: GAGNER SON JUBILÉ À L’ÉPOQUE MODERNE : MESURE DES FOULES ET RÉCITES DE PÈLERINS The essay unites various levels of analysis. It begins by re-establishing the tradition of the Roman jubilee as part of a European panorama of pilgrimages to the great sanctuaries of western Christianity. The influx and the precise provenance of the pilgrims is assessed by analyzing the available quantitative data. All the pilgrims headed to Rome depended on the main hosting structures: the Holy Trinity of Pilgrims, the national hospices ant the confraternities. What emerges is the Counter- Reformation nature of the jubilee: 200,000 pilgrims hosted by the Holy Trinity in 1600 (against 70,000 in 1500), the premature decline of the confraternities which had characterized the late 16th century (297 hosting fraternities in 1575 against 156 in 1650) and the 18th century crisis notwithstanding the vitality and success of Benedict XIV’s jubilee. The essay then focuses on the experience of the journey to Rome through the accounts of French pilgrims over several jubilees (1650, 1675, 1700, 1750). A careful study of these sources provides a varied and disparate picture. Papal ceremonies were regarded as an intense participation in collective liturgy, as a deep understanding of the Catholic nature of the city of Rome which attracted men and women from all over Europe. However, there also was sarcasm and irony. A Calvinist doctor from Dijon wrote about a sort of “holy horror” which he witnessed at the opening of the holy gate in 1675. Finally, the jubilee was lived as the wearisome journey that it was, an unforgettable experience of contact within the crowd, a physical feat compensated by the vision of relics, the purchase of holy objects and the attainment of indulgences.