Guignard, Jean

Guignard, Jean surnamed Briquarel, a French Jesuit of the 16th century, and, during the League, rector and librarian of the college of Clermont at Paris. After the attempt of Jean Chatel against the life of king Henry IV, the Jesuits were charged with being implicated in the affair, as the would-be assassin was one of their pupils. Their houses were searched, and some violent writings of Guignard against the king were discovered. .He defended himself by saying they had been written before the king's conversion to Roman Catholicism, and that since that time he had always taught obedience to the royal authority and remembered the king in his prayers, He was condemned of high treason, sentenced to be hung, and his body burnt. The execution took place on the same day, Jan. 7,1595. He persisted to the last in asserting his innocence. The next day all the Jesuits were banished from Paris. Some Jesuit writers — father Jouvency, for instance — in writing the history of the order, have represented Guignard as a martyr, See Sully, (Economies royales ; L'Etoile, Journal de Henri III; De Thou, Hist. lib. cxi; Sismondi, Hist. des Francais (see Index); Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 22:566. (J. N. P.)