Beroald, Matthew

, was born at St. Denis near Paris, and was educated at the college of the cardinal Lemoine, where he made great proficiency in the learned languages, and became an able theologian, mathematician, philosopher, and historian. In 1550 he was at Agen as preceptor to Hector Fregosa, afterwards bishop of that city, and here he was converted to the Protestant religion along with Scaliger and other learned men. When he arrived at Paris in 1558, he was chosen preceptor to Theodore Agrippa d' Aubigne“but the persecution arising, he was arrested at Constance and condemned to be burnt, a fate from which he was preserved by the kindness of an officer who favoured his escape. He then went to Orleans, Rochelle, and Sancerre, and distinguished himself by his courage during the siege of this latter place by the marshal de Lachatre. In 1574 we find him at Geneva, officiating as minister and professor of philosophy. His death is supposed to have taken place in 1576. He wrote a curious book entitled” Chronicon, sacrse Scripture auctoritate | constitutnm,“Geneva, 1575, fol. In this he maintains that all chronological authorities must be sought in the holy scriptures Vossius and Scaliger speak highly of his talents. Draudius, in his” Bibliotheca Classica,“mentions another work in which he was concerned,” G. Mercatoris et Matthei Beroaldi chronologia, ab initio mundi ex eclipsis et observationibus astronomicis demonstrata," Basil, 1577, Cologne, 1568, fol. We have some doubts whether this is not the same as the work mentioned above. ¹