Esprit Fléchier

Esprit Fléchier (10 June 163216 February 1710) was a French preacher and author, Bishop of Nîmes from 1687 to 1710.

Biography

Fléchier was born at Pernes-les-Fontaines, in today's ''département'' of Vaucluse, the son of Pierre-Michel Fléchier and Marguerite Audifret. He was baptized on 19 June 1632. He first went to school in Pernes and later to the ''Collège'' of Tarascon, which was run by the Congrégation des Doctrinaires, of which his uncle Hercule Audiffret was the superior.

Fléchier then entered the Congrégation des Doctrinaires as a ''novice'' on 25 August 1647 in Avignon, and pronounced his vows on 30 August 1648. At the age of 17, he went to teach humanities during four years in Tarascon and in Draguignan. He then moved to Narbonne, where he taught and stayed for six years until mid-1659.

Fléchier then went to Paris to meet his dying uncle Hercule Audiffret, but arrived after his death (16 April 1659). He left the order around the end of 1959, shortly after the death of his uncle, owing to the strictness of its rules. In Paris, he devoted himself to writing poetry. His French poems met with little success, but a description in Latin verse of a tournament (, ), given by Louis XIV around 1662, brought him a great reputation.

Fléchier subsequently became tutor to Louis Urbain Lefebvre de Caumartin, afterwards intendant of finances and counsellor of state, whom he accompanied to Clermont-Ferrand, where the king had ordered the ''Grands Jours'' to be held (1665), and where Caumartin was sent as representative of the sovereign. There, Fléchier wrote his curious ''Mémoires sur les Grand jours tenus à Clermont'', in which he relates, in a half romantic, half historical form, the proceedings of this extraordinary court of justice.

In 1668, the duke of Montausier procured for him the post of ''lecteur'' to the Dauphin. The sermons of Fléchier increased his reputation, which was afterwards raised to the highest pitch by his funeral orations. The most important are those on the duchesse de Montausier (1672), which gained him the membership of the Académie française, the duchesse d'Aiguillon (1675), and, above all, Marshal Turenne (1676). He was now firmly established in the favour of the king, who gave him successively the abbacy of Saint-Séverin, in the diocese of Poitiers, the office of almoner to the Dauphine, and in 1685 the bishopric of Lavaur, from which he was in 1687 promoted to that of Nîmes. The edict of Nantes had been repealed two years before; but the Calvinists were still very numerous at Nîmes. Fléchier, by his leniency and tact, succeeded in bringing over some of them to his views, and even gained the esteem of those who declined to change their faith.

During the troubles in the Cévennes he softened to the utmost of his power the rigour of the edicts, and showed himself so indulgent even to what he regarded as error, that his memory was long held in veneration amongst the Protestants of that district. It is right to add, however, that some authorities consider the accounts of his leniency to have been greatly exaggerated, and even charge him with going beyond what the edicts permitted. He died at Montpellier.

Académie Française

Esprit Fléchier was elected at the ''Académie française'' on 5 December 1672, as a successor of Antoine Godeau. He entered the ''Académie'' on 12 January 1673, the same day as Jean Racine and Jean Gallois.Esprit Fléchier entry on the Académie française website
. Academie-francaise.fr. Retrieved on 2011-07-15.

Literary style

According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition, pulpit eloquence is the branch of '' belles-lettres'' in which Fléchier excelled. He is indeed far below Bossuet, whose robust and sublime genius had no rival in that age; he does not equal Bourdaloue in earnestness of thought and vigour of expression; nor can he rival the philosophical depth or the insinuating and impressive eloquence of Jean-Baptiste Massillon. But he is always ingenious, often witty, and nobody has carried farther than he the harmony of diction, sometimes marred by an affectation of symmetry and an excessive use of antithesis. His two historical works, the histories of Theodosius I and of Ximenes, are more remarkable for elegance of style than for accuracy and comprehensive insight.

Works

* ''La vie du cardinal Jean-François Commendon, où l'on voit ses voyages, ambassades, légations & négotiations, dans les plus considérables cours des empereurs, rois, princes & républiques de l'Europe. Écrite en latin par Antoine Maria Gratiani, et traduite en françois par Monsieur Fléchier'' (1671)
* ''Histoire de Théodose le Grand, pour Monseigneur le Dauphin'' (1679

Translated into English by F Manning (1693)
* ''Histoire du Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, cardinal Ximenès'' (1693

* ''Panégyriques des saints et quelques sermons de morale'' (1695)
* ''Lettres de Mr. Flechier, evêque de Nismes, sur divers sujets'' (1711

* ''Lettres choisies de Mr Fléchier, avec une Relation des fanatiques du Vivarez et des réflexions sur les différens caractères des hommes'' (2 volumes, 1715

https://archive.org/details/lettreschoisies00flgoog]. Reedition : ''Fanatiques et insurgés du Vivarais et des Cévennes : récits et lettres, 1689–1705'', Jérôme Millon, Grenoble, 1997.
* ''Œuvres complètes'' (10 volumes, 1782)
* ''Voyage de Fléchier en Auvergne'' (1796

* ''Oraison funèbres'' (2 volumes, 1802

* ''Œuvres complètes de Fléchier, classées pour la première fois, selon l'ordre logique et analogique'' (2 volumes, 1856). Published by Jacques Paul Migne (Paris)
* ''Mémoires de Fléchier sur les Grands-Jours tenus à Clermont en 1665–1666'' was first published in 1844 by Benoît Gonod. The second edition (1856), ''Mémoires de Fléchier sur les Grands-Jours d'Auvergne en 1665'', had a notice by Sainte-Beuve and an appendix by Pierre Adolphe Chéruelbr>
Reedition : Mercure de France, Paris, 1984.

Fléchier left a ''portrait'' or of himself, addressed to one of his friends. The "Funeral Oration of Marshal Turenne" has been translated in English in HC Fish's ''History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence'' (ii., 1857).

Memory

There are streets named after Esprit Fléchier in several communes of France, including Éleu-dit-Leauwette, Marseille, Paris and Tarascon.

References

*

Further reading

*
Vol. 1Vol. 2
**
*
* The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition entry lists the following additional bibliography:
** Adolphe Fabre, ''Fléchier, orateur'' (1886)
** A Delacroix, ''Hist. de Fléchier'' (1865)

External links

Works by Esprit Fléchier at gallica.bnf.fr

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flechier, Esprit
1632 births
1710 deaths
People from Vaucluse
Members of the Académie Française
17th-century French Roman Catholic bishops
18th-century French Roman Catholic bishops
Bishops of Lavaur
Bishops of Nîmes
People from Tarascon