Fevardentius, Francis

, a Franciscan friar, was born at Coutances in Lower Normandy, in 1541; and might have inherited a large estate, had he addicted himself to the military profession. Bayle thinks that he judged rightly of himself and his talents, and obtained a much greater reputation as a divine than as a soldier. It does not appear, however, that he attained any just eminence. Daille observes, that “he deserved his name Feu-ardent perfectly well: for that he was so transported with anger, hatred, and fury, as to be seldom in his right senses;” and he certainly was as fiery a zealot, and as bitter a persecutor, as the protestants ever had. He was one of the most seditious preachers who raised the disturbances against Henry III. and Henry IV. nor did he spare even the chief of the leaguers, when he thought him guilty of something that might prejudice the cause of the rebels. He wrote commentaries on some books of scripture, and translated some works of the fathers into French. He published at Pearls, in 1576j “The five books of Irenseus,” revised and corrected in several places from an ancient manuscript, with an addition of five entire chapters, which were in his manuscript 4t the end of the fifth book. He has added at the end of each chapter, such notes as he thought necessary for the better understanding of his author, which are for the most part useful and learned. The second edition, printed at | Cologne in 1596, and again i 1630, and at Paris in 1639, is better than the first, as it contains the Greek passages of Irenseus, which were in Epiphanius, and some other ancient writers. Feuardent published also some books of controversy, which the catholics themselves own to have been written with too much passion. He died at Paris in 1610, and before his death is said to have attained a more calm and christian-like temper. ¹