Bourdaloue, LOUIS,

Bourdaloue, LOUIS, one of the greatest pulpit orators of France, was born at Bourges, 20th August 1632. At sixteen he entered the order of the Jesuits, and afterwards filled in succession the chairs of Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Moral Theology in the Jesuit College of his native place. But his remarkable powers of eloquence determined his superiors to employ him as a preacher. Disdaining the inflated and theatrical style prevalent among the pulpit orators of his time, he assailed with fearless vigour and simple earnestness the passions, weaknesses, and errors of men. The dignity of his manner and the fire of his eloquence made him famous even when the public mind was occupied with the festivities of Versailles, the victories of Turenne, and the literary masterpieces of Corneille and Racine. At the court of Louis XIV. he was remarkably well received. The year after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he was sent to Montpellier to bring back the Protestants to the Roman Catholic Church. The orator understood how to accommodate his eloquence to the minds of those whom he addressed. Simple among the simple, a dialectician among ecclesiastics, he was equally a favourite with the common people and with the learned and the great. He was also much esteemed and beloved as a man, and bore throughout his life a high reputation for candour and honesty. In the later years of his life he relinquished the pulpit, and devoted his time to hospitals, prisons, and pious institutions. He died at Paris, 13th May 1704. The best edition of his sermons was edited by Bretonneau (16 vols. 1704-37). A recent edition is that published in 6 vols. at Lille in 1882. See Lives by Lauras (1881) and Feugère (1888).