Duaren, Francis

, professor of civil law at Bourges, was born at St. Brien, a city of Bretagne, in France, 1509. He was the son of John Duaren, who exercised a place of judicature in Bretagne; in which place he succeeded his father, and performed the functions of it for some time. He read lectures on the Pandects, at Paris, in 1536; and, among other scholars, had three sons of the learned Budaeus. He was sent for to Bourges in 1538, to teach civil law, three years after Alciat had retired, but quitted his place in 1548, and went to Paris, being very desirous to join the practice to the theory of the law. He accordingly attended the bar of the parliament of Paris, but conceived an unconquerable aversion to the chicanery of the court, and fortunately at this time advantageous offers were made him by the duchess of Berri, sister of Henry II. which gave him a favourable opportunity to retire from the bar, and to resume with honour the employment he had at Bourges. He returned to his professorship of civil law there, in 1551; and no professor, except Alciat, had ever so large a stipend in the university as himself, nor more reputation, being accounted the first of the French civilians who cleared the civil-law-chair from the barbarism of the glossators, in order to introduce the pure sources of the ancient jurisprudence. It was however his failing to be unwilling to share this honour with any person; and he therefore viewed with an envious eye his colleague Eguinard Baron, who blended likewise polite literature with the study of the law. This jealousy prompted him to write a book, in which he endeavoured to lessen the esteem the world had for his colleague, yet, as if ashamed of his weakness, after the death of Baron, he shewed himself one of the most zealous to immortalize his memory 7 and erected a monument to him at his own expence. He had other colleagues, who revived his uneasiness; and Duaren may serve as an example to prove that some of the chief miseries of human life, which we lament so much, and are so apt to charge on the nature and constitution of things, arise merely from ur own ill-regulated passions. | He died at Bourses in 1559, without having ever married. He had great learning and judgment, but so bad a memory, that he was obliged always to read his lectures from his notes. Although a protestant, he never had the courage to separate from the church of Home. His treatise of benefices, published in 15 Jo, rendered him suspected of heresy, and Baudouin, with whom he had a controversy, accused him of being a prevaricator and dissembler, which, however, appears to have been unjust.

A collection of his won.s was made in his life-time, and printed at Lyons in 1554; but after his death, another edition, more complete, was published in 1579, under the inspection of Nicholas Cisner, who had been his scholar, and was afterwards professor of civil law at Heidelberg. Whether this, or the edition afterwards printed in 1592, contains the same number of pieces, we have not an opportunity of examining. His principal works are: 1. “Commentaria in varies titulos digesti &. codicis.” 2. “Disputation um anniversariarum libri dno.” 3. “De jure accrescendi libri duo.” 4. “De ratione docendi discendique juris.” 5. “De jurisdictione & imperio.” 6. “Apologia adversus Eguinarium Baronem.” 7. “De plagiariis.” This Bayle calls “a curious treatise, but too short for so copious a subject.” 8. “In consuetudines feudorum commentarius.” 9. “De sacris ecclesiae ministeriis ac beneficiis.” 10. “Pro libertate ecclesiae Gallicanrc adversus artes Romanas defensio.” This piece prejudiced the court of Rome against him, and procured it a place in the Index Expurgatorius. II. “Epistola ad Sebast. Albespinam, regis Gallise oratorem.” 12. “Epistola de Francisco BaU duino.” 13. “Defensio adversus Balduini sycophante maledicta.” ¹