Lacordaire, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI

Lacordaire, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI, was born at Recy-sur-Ource, in the department Côte-d'Or, March 12, 1802. He was educated at Dijon, and there began to study law. In 1822 he went to Paris, and practised successfully for two years as a barrister. His religious views were quite unsettled at this time. 'He was a deist, like all the youth of his day, and a liberal, like almost every Frenchman, but without any extreme views.' The spiritual change in him came suddenly, and then his true life began. He gave up his profession, entered the college of St Sulpice in 1824, and was ordained priest in 1827. In 1828 he became chaplain of the convent of the Visitation and in 1829 chaplain of the Collège Henri IV. Marked out by his Liberalism, he was asked to help the Abbé Lamennais and Montalembert in the establishment of the Avenir, the well-known High Church and Radical newspaper. In 1831 Lacordaire and Lamennais were summoned by Government, but acquitted, for writing in the Avenir against the appointment of three bishops by Louis-Philippe. Soon after this Lacordaire and Montalembert opened a free school in Paris, claiming as a right the liberty of teaching promised in the charter of 1830. The school was closed by the police, and Lacordaire and Montalembert were tried and fined one hundred francs. Thirteen months after its first appearance the publication of the Avenir was suspended, and, being condemned by the pope, was then finally given up. In 1834 Lacordaire gave a series of Conferences to the students of the Collège Stanislas which attracted great attention, and led the way to his famous Conferences in Notre Dame, delivered in 1835 and 1836. His audiences were immense, his success as a preacher was at its height, when he suddenly withdrew and went to Rome, feeling the need for himself of silence and solitude. In 1839 he entered the novitiate of the Dominican order, and in 1840 reappeared in the pulpit of Notre Dame, clothed in the habit of a Dominican monk. The next three years of his life were spent partly in France and partly in Italy. In 1843 he resumed his Conferences in Notre Dame, and continued them till 1851. In the revolution of 1848 Lacordaire accepted the republic, and was elected to the Constituent Assembly, but resigned his seat ten days after his election, as he found he was unsuited for the storms of parliamentary life. His last Conferences, delivered at Toulouse in 1854, are the most eloquent of all. After finishing these Conferences he undertook the direction of the military school of Sorèze, and at this post he remained till his death, which took place in 1861, a year after his election as Academician. Lacordaire was one of the greatest of modern preachers and orators. He laid hold of the thoughts of the day, he understood the difficulties he had to deal with, and he won men to the truth by his eloquent reasoning and by his love for their souls. A collected edition of his works appeared in Paris (9 vols. 1872). See Lives by Montalembert (1862; Eng. trans. 1863), Dora Greenwell (1867), and Lear (1882).