Noulleau, Jean-baptiste

Noulleau, Jean-Baptiste a French ascetic writer. was born June 24, 1605, in Saint-Brieuc. Descended from a religious family, he was educated at Rennes and Nantes, and at the age of twenty entered into the Congregation of the Oratory. In 1639 he took possession of the archdeaconry of Saint Brieuc, and in 1640 of the prebend, which he held until his death. "He was a pious man-learned, and of austere manners; a true model of penitence, but with an ardent and restless character, carried away by a reformatory zeal which no consideration could arrest. He rendered to M. de Villazel, his bishop, efficient service in the missions of Brittany; but he did not find in the latter's successor, M. de la Barde, a protector so benevolent. At the request of the chancellor, Boucherat, he was forbidden to preach, and he appealed in vain from this sentence. He then began to preach in the streets. Excluded in 1654 from ecclesiastical duties in his diocese, he retired to a desert place, and exercised upon his body long macerations. Fasting almost continuously, fatigue and excessive austerities shortened his days. He died in Saint-Brieuc, 1672. Noulleau composed upon morality, theology, and the reform of the clergy a great number of articles, of which the principal are, Conjuration contre blasphemateurs (,Paris, 1645, 4to): Pratiques de l'Oraison (Saint-Brieuc, 1645): — L'Esprit du' Christianisme, tire de cent paroles choisies de Jesus-Christ (Paris, 1664): — L'idee du vTai Chretien (ibid. 1664):Politique Chretienne dans les exercices de piete de

Monseigneur le Dauphin (ibid. 1665, 12mo): — De gratia Dei et Christi (ibid. 1665, 4to): — L'aimable composition des differends du temps, in which he abused the partisans of Arnauld and of Jansenius: — Velitationes contra Amedeum Guemenceum, cloacam, sterquilinium, latrinam casuistarum (1666, 4to): — Diverses pieces Latines et Franfaises sur les libertes de l'Eglise Gallicane (1666, 4to). See Le Long, Bibl. Hist. de la France:; Feller, Dict. Hist.