Bourdaloue, Louis

Bourdaloue, Louis, "the prince of French preachers," was born at Bourges, Aug. 20, 1632, and, having at sixteen entered the Society of the Jesuits, soon so distinguished himself in the provinces that his superiors in 1669 called him to Paris. His first sermons in that city had a prodigious success, and he was ordered to preach before the court at ten different seasons between 1670 and 1693, a thing altogether without precedent. "He possessed every advantage, physical and mental, that is required for an orator. A solid foundation of reasoning was joined with a lively imagination, and a facility in giving interest and originality to common truths was combined with a singular power of making all he said to bear the impress of a strong and earnest faith in the spiritual life. His was not the beauty of style or art; but there is about his writing a body and a substance, together with a unity and steadiness of aim, that made the simplest language assume the power and the greatness of the highest oratory." At the revocation of the edict of Nantes he was commissioned to preach to the Protestants. Toward the close of his life he abandoned the pulpit, and confined his ministrations to houses of charity, hospitals, and prisons. He died May 13, 1704. His Works, collected by Bretonneau, a Jesuit, appeared in two editions, one in 14 vols. 8vo (Paris, 1707), the other in 15 vols. 12mo (Liege, 1784). The best modern edition is that of Paris (1822-26, 17 vols. 8vo). A series of his sermons was translated into English and published in London in 1776 (4 vols. 12mo). A biography of Bourdaloue has been published by Pringy (Paris, 1705). On his character as a preacher, see Christian Remembrancer, July, 1854; Eclectic Review, 29:277; Fish, Masterpieces of Pulpit Eloquence, ii, 45.