Beaucaire De Peguilon, Francis

, in Latin Belcarius Plguilio, bishop of Metz, a man of some note in the sixteenth century, was born April 15, 1514, of one of the most ancient families of the Bourbonnois. The progress he male in polite literature induced Claude de Lorraine, the h’rst duke of Guise, to choose him to be preceptor to cardinal de Lorraine, his second son, an appointment which very naturally, we will not say very justly, attached him to the family of Guise, and made him too partial in his writings to their character. He attended his pupil to Rome, where he became acquainted with Paul Jovius, in whose history he afterwards pointed out some errors. On his return from Italy, the cardinal of Lorraine procured him in 1555 the bishopric of Metz, but according to Beza (Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. xvi. p. 439), this was little | more than a titular preferment, the cardinal reserving the revenues, or the greater part of them, to himself. According to the same author, Beaucaire, with two other bishops, came to Metz, and occasioned an alarm among the inhabitants of the reformed religion, some of whom thought proper to retire for safety from the city. Beza, however, adds that Beaucaire only wrote a small tract in Latin on “Sanctification,” and “The Baptism of Infants,” which was soon answered. Some time after his promotion, his patron, the cardinal, carried him with him to the council, on the day that the fathers of the council had appointed as a thanksgiving for the battle of Dreux, fought Jan. 3, 1563, and here Beaucaire pronounced an oration, which was much applauded, and is inserted at the end of the thirtieth book of his “History of his own times.” This work he began in 1568, when he resigned his bishopric to his patron, and retired to his castle of la Chrete in Bourbonnois. He died Feb. 14-, 1591. His history, which extends from 1461 to 1580, or according to Bayle from 1462 to 1567, according to either account is not very properly called a history of his own times. The title of the publication, however, is “Rerum Gallicarum Coramentaria, ab. A. 1462 usque ad A. 1566,Lyons, 1625, fol. Saxius doubts whether he be the same Francis Bellicarius, who translated the first book of the Greek Anthology into Latin, as asserted by Fabricius, and which was published at Paris, 1543, 4to. His other works are so differently and confusedly spoken of, that we shall refer our readers to his biographers, rather than attempt to reconcile them. His tract on the baptism of infants, above alluded to by Beza, may perhaps be “Traité des enfans morts dans le sein de leurs meres,1567, 8vo, the question being, whether children dying in the womb, and consequently without baptism, are saved, which he was disposed to answer in the negative. The Calvinists held that children dying in infancy are saved, an opinion, we presume, that will seldom be denied. 1

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Gen. Dict. —Moreri. —Dict. Hist.Saxii Onomasticon.