Fontenay, Peter Claude

, a French Jesuit, was born at Paris in 1683, and entered on his noviciate in the order whcn he was fifteen years of age. Having completed his initiatory studies, he was employed some time to furnish extracts and remarks on books relating to religion and ecclesiastical history in the “Journal de Trevoux.” He was engaged for some years in collecting materials for writing a history of the popes, in which, however, he made but small progress; and what he left was too imperfect for publication. Having a turn for polite literature, he published various small poems in the collections of the day. His talents and learning pointed him out as a fit person for rector of the Jesuits’ college at Orleans, win-re he continued till 1735, when he was recalled to Paris, and appointed to continue Longueval’s “History of the Gallican church,” of which he wrote the 9th, 10th, and part of the 11th volumes. He was then interrupted by a paralytic stroke, and died at the college La Fleche, in 1742, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. ³

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