Gibert, Balthasar

, an elegant French scholar, was born January 17, 1662, at Aix in Provence. He took a bachelor’s degree in divinity, and was appointed professor of philosophy at Beauvais at the age of twenty-four, and professor of rhetoric four years after, at the Mazarine college, in which the exercises began 1688, and were opened by him with a public speech. He filled this chair with much credit above fifty years, and formed a great number of excellent scholars, by whom he had the art of making himself beloved. He was several times rector of the university of Paris, and defended its rights with zeal and firmness. In 1728 he succeeded his friend, the celebrated Pourchot, as syndic of the university; and it was in this character that he made a requisition in the general assembly of the university in 1739, by which he formed an opposition to the revocation of the appeal which the university had made from the bull Unigenitus to a future council; which step occasioned his being banished to Auxerre. He died in the bishop of Auxerre’s house, October 28, 1741. His principal work is entitled, “Jugement des Savans, sur les Auteurs qui ont traite de la Rhtorique,” 3 vois. 12mo. He also left “Traite de la veritable Eloquence,” and “Reflexions sur la Rheiorique,” in 4 books, where he answers the objections of P. Lami; “La Rhetorique, ou les Regies de TEloquence,” 12mo, the best work the French have upon that subject. 1