BOURDEILLES
719
BOURDON
short time before. Bourdaloue took his hearers
as he found them, and Voltaire, referring to this
form of his discourses, says "he was the first one to
make reason speak, and always eloquently". Pos-
sibly the inaptness of the instrument be employed
only shows more clearly his greatness as an orator.
Only such a man as he could use it. For most readers
the printed text of his discourses is wearisome in
spite of the wealth of instruction it contains. It
needs the voice and action of the orator to give it
power. The vogue which his method has obtained
is sometimes consirlered a mistake, if not a mis-
fortune, for French pulpit eloquence. It supposes
a Bourdaloue, as well as conditions which have long
since ceased. Ch^rot who has made an exhaustive
stud}' of Bourdaloue dismisses ■nith contempt the
storj' that the orator spoke with his eyes shut. For
a court preacher who had to distribute compliments
to the dignitaries present, and who angered them
if he did not do it skilfully, or omitted anyone who
expected it (as happened in the case of Mme. de
Guise), it woultl have been a difficult or rather im-
possible task to perform that duty if he did not use
his eyes. The picture that so represents him was
taken after his death. Similarly, to suppose that
he would dare to say to Louis XIV in the sermon on
"Adultery": tu es ille v-ir, like Nathan to David,
is to be ignorant of conditions that prevailed in that
ser\'ile court. The alleged sermon, moreover, is
nowhere to be found. It is said to have been burnt.
More likely it was never written. Mme. de S^vign^
speaks of a .sermon on "Impurity" in which Bour-
daloue was merciless, but had that reproach been
addressed to the king, she, above all writers, would
have told it. Besides, that sermon was preached
in the Jesuit church, and there is no assurance that
it was repeated at Versailles. Again, some of his
biographers in speaking of his sermon on "The
Magdalene", insinuate that H was directed at
Mmes. de Montespan and de Fontanges, the king's
mistresses who sat before him. It is not certain that
"The Magdalene" sermon was ever preached before
the court. Moreover, Bourdaloue was too prudent
to irritate uselessly.
Considerable discussion has been raised with re- gard to his attitude in the quarrel between the pope and the king about the Four Galilean Articles. It is admitteti that in the Panegyric of St. Louis, pro- nounced in presence of Louis XIV, the preacher referred to "the rights of the Crown" and "the new attempts of the Court of Rome", and also the manner in which St. Louis defended those rights. He added, however, that "while Louis in his quality of king recognized no superior on earth" (all of which has a Galilean tinge), yet the monarch should remember that he was, at the same time, the eldest son of the Church. His defenders maintain that we have no right to infer from this phrase that he was a Galilean or stood side by side with Bossuet. Another point which has called for inquiry is his "abstention" from the .subject of the infallibility of the pope; he never spoke of it. Not only that, but when asked about it by Father AUeaume, he said that he had a sermon on the "Infallibility of the Church" which he had never preached. Bej'ond that, we have no means of knowing his theological view on the ques- tion of the pope. However, papal infallibility was not then a matter of discussion. His sermon on the "Infallibility of the Church" is not to be found, under that heading at least; but in the second ser- mon on the Feast of St. Peter, on "Obedience to the Church", he speaks explicitly of the Church's in- fallibility.
Bourclaloue seems to have written but very few letters. The collator, MonseigneurBlampignon, found only eighteen; five more have been discovered since — none of them letters of friendship. Some of them
are requests for inter\'iews, which would suggest a
preference for information by the medium of con-
versation. One of these letters is noteworthy as it is a
congratulation to his intimate friend, the Due de
Noailles, on the appointment to the See of Paris of
the duke's brother. Bourdaloue "thanks God for
having inspired the king to appoint such a worthy
and holy bishop". The prelate became afterwards
verj' unfriendly to the Jesuits. In this communica-
tion he speaks of himself as one of the ancient ser-
vitors of the house of Noailles, a phrase which in-
timates who was at the back of Bourdaloues mission
to the Protestants of Languedoc after the Revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes. In the fulfilment of
that mission Protestants and Catholics came in
throngs to hear him, and his gentleness and prudence
won all hearts. There is a verj' elaborate letter,
or rather disquisition, in the collection, addressed
to Mme. de Maintenon who was being alienated from
the Jesuits. Bourdaloue was remarkable as a di-
rector of souls. While paj-ing proper respect to the
great, he was the devoted friend of the poor, and
assiduous in the confessional. He was of a gentle
and amiable disposition and exerted a wonderful
power at the death-bed, especially of hardened
sinners. Towards the end of his life he desired to
quit Paris, and live in seclusion at La Fleche, and
though he had received the permission of the gen-
eral, the provincial thwarted the plan. It only in-
creased his zeal and he continued to preach, hear
confessions, and visit the poor till the end of his
life. After a sickness of two days he died at the age
of seventy-two.
Gri-Selle, Bourdaloue (Paris. 19011: Ca.«itets. Bourdaloue (Paris, 1901): Etudes, LXXV. 83-84: Sommervogel, BM. de la c. de J. (Brussels, 1892); Bretonneau, Prej. des serm. de Bourdaloue (Paris, 1723): Brodgham, Edinb. Rei'ieu' (Decem- ber. 1826); Revue Bourdaloue; Lauras, Bourdaloue. (Paris, 1880), 2 vols.
T. J. Campbell.
Bourdeilles, Helie de. Archbishop of Tours and Cardinal, b. , probably, towards 1423, at the castle of Bourdeilles (P^rigord); d. 5 July, 1484, at Artannes near Tours. He was the son of the Viscount Arnaud de Bourdeilles. Ha%nng entered the Franciscan Order at an early age, he was only twenty-four when, at the request of Charles VII, he was appointed to the See of P^rigueux (1447). During the wars between France and England he was held prisoner for several years by the English, in consequence of his defence of ecclesiastical immunity. In 1468 he was appointed to the Archiepiscopal See of Tours, and in 1483 he was raised to the cardinalate by Sixtus IV. Bourdeilles continued, during his epis- copate, to practise religious poverty and was an inti- mate friend of St. Francis of Paula. He is mentioned among the Blessed in the Franciscan MartjTology for the 5th day of July. A stanch defender of the rights of the Church against the encroachments of the State, Bourdeilles advocated the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, as may be seen from his treatise, "Pro Pragmaticae Sanctionis Abrogatione" (Rome, 1486). He also WTote " Li- bellus in Pragmaticam Sanctionem Gallorum " (Rome 1484); and a Latin defence of Jeanne d'Arc which is attached in manuscript to the process of her re- habilitation.
Ht'RTER. Nomenclalor (3d ed., Innsbruck, 1906), II, 1067-69. For full le.\t of his treatise on Jeanne d'Arc see Lanery de l".\rc in his documentary Livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc (Paris, 1894).
N. A. Weber.
Bourdeilles, Pierre de. See Br.\xt6me.
Bourdon, Je.\.x, b. at Rouen, France, 1612; d. at Quebec, 1668. In 1634 he went to Canada and be- came the first engineer-in-chief and land-surveyor in the colony of New France, and the first attorney- general of the Conseil Superieur, established in 1663,
