Pierre Cureau de la Chambre (20 December 1640,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

– 15 April 1693,

) was a French churchman.

Biography

Son of the doctor Marin Cureau de la Chambre and brother of François Cureau de La Chambre, he was struck down with deafness and had to abandon his medical studies. He travelled to Italy and became friends with the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the art historian

Carlo Cesare Malvasia Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693) was an Italian scholar and art historian from Bologna, best known for his biographies of Baroque artists titled ''Felsina pittrice'', published in 1678. Life and career Malvasia is the Bolognese equivalen ...

. He studied theology and in 1664 he published a collection of his father's works and attended the salon of the marquise de Sablé. A protégé of Colbert and a friend of Colbert's father chancelier Séguier, who had held him at his christening, he was elected to his father's seat in the Académie française in 1670. Around 1668, he became curé of the parish of Saint-Barthélémy in Paris. He died in the

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...

of 1693, during which he ran out of food trying to help the poorest of his parishioners. La Chambre had a scholarly reputation and corresponded with

Pierre de Fermat Pierre de Fermat (; between 31 October and 6 December 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he ...

, but the only written works he left were panegyrics and funerary orations for Theresa of Avila, Bernini,

Maria Theresa of Spain Maria Theresa of Spain ( es, María Teresa de Austria; french: Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche; 10 September 1638 – 30 July 1683) was Queen of France from 1660 to 1683 as the wife of King Louis XIV. She was born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal a ...

Pierre Séguier Pierre Séguier (; 28 May 1588 – 28 January 1672) was a French statesman, chancellor of France from 1635. Biography Early years Séguier was born in Paris to a prominent legal family originating in Quercy. His grandfather, Pierre Séguier (150 ...

, Rose de Sainte-Marie de Lima,

Charles Borromeo Charles Borromeo ( it, Carlo Borromeo; la, Carolus Borromeus; 2 October 1538 – 3 November 1584) was the Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584 and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation combat ...

and saint Louis.

External links

Académie française
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cureau de La Chambre, Pierre 1640 births 1693 deaths Members of the Académie Française