Feydeau, Matthew

, a French clergyman of the Jansenist party, was born at Paris in 1616, and studied in the college of the Sorbonne, where he obtained the esteem of persons of all ranks. In 164,5, he was engaged by M. de Bellegarde, archbishop of Sens, to deliver a course of instructions to the candidates for holy orders in his diocese. He obtained some preferment in the church, and composed several useful books, among which was one entitled “A Catechism on Grace 3” which was afterwards reprinted with the title of “Illustrations of certain difficulties respecting Grace.” This work was condemned by a decree of the inquisition at Home, which M. Fouquet, attorneygeneral of the parliament at Paris, would not permit to be promulgated in that city. In 1656, M. Feydeau was one of the seventy-two doctors who were expelled by the faculty of the Sorbonne for refusing to subscribe to the condemnation of M. Arnauld; and on this account he was obliged to relinquish his preferments. After this, for several years, he lived chiefly in retirement, and produced his “Reflections on the History and Harmony of the Gospels,” in 2 vols. 12mo; a work which has gone through several editions. In 1665, he was presented by the bishop of Aleth with a prebend in his diocese, which he resigned in 1668, in order to undertake the cure of Vitri le Francois, in Champagne, which after seven years he was obliged to give up, in consequence of the persecutions with which his party was harassed. He was banished to Bourges, | in 1677; and afterwards was sent to Annonai in the Virares, where he died July 24, 1694. He published many works besides those above-mentioned, and left behind him many others that have not yet appeared, particularly memoirs of himself, as far as 1678, and many letters. A long Latin epitaph, engraved on his tomb, which is preserved by Moreri, was written by a religious of the Celestine order. ¹