Montgaillard, Pierre Jean Francois De

Montgaillard, Pierre Jean Francois de a French prelate, brother of the preceding, was born at Toulouse, March 29, 1633, and was educated at Paris, where he entered the Sorbonne, by which high school he was created doctor. He entered holy orders, and soon rose to positions of ecclesiastical distinction. In 1664 he was made bishop of Saint-Pons, and distinguished himself by great liberality of sentiment as well as religious devotion. He was one of the nineteen bishops who signed a petition to pope Clement IX for the pardon of the bishops of Alet, Passiers, Beauvais, and Angers, who had opposed the doctrines espoused in the papal bull issued by Alexander VII to defend the Jesuits and their tenets and practices. He also afterwards defended persecuted ecclesiastics against the Jesuits, whose immorality he unhesitatingly denounced. He was so severe that he was branded as a Jansenist, but there is proof extant that he freed himself from the imputation of disloyalty to the Church of Rome. He died March 13, 1713. He was well versed in archaeological studies, and noted for his valuable attainments in ancient ecclesiastical history. His works are of a controversial nature, and of value only to those interested in the Jansenist controversy. A list of them is given by Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 36:265, 266.