, professor of canon law in the university of Paris, was born at Bayeux
, professor of canon law in the university of Paris, was born at Bayeux in Normandy, September 8, 1611. He studied philosophy, law, and divinity,
for five years in the university of Caen; and also applied
himself to poetry, under the direction of his uncle Anthony
Halle, who was a Latin poet of some note, with such success, that he gained the prizes in the poetical exercises
that are performed every year in these two cities, “to the
honour of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.
”
This procured him so much reputation, that, though he
was still very young, he was chosen professor of rhetoric
in the university of Caen. Some time afier, being rector
of the university, he made an oration to M. Seguier, chancellor of France, then in Normandy, to -suppress some
popular insurrections; which was so much approved by
that head of the law, that he received a doctor of law’s degree from him in 1640. He attended M. Seguier to Paris,
and gained such reputation by some pieces he published,
that they offered him the mastership of five different colleges; and he was incorporated in his absence (a very unusual thing) into the body of the university in 1641. He
was made king’s poet, and reader of the Latin and Greek
tongues in the royal college in 1646. His assiduous application to study having ruined his health, he was obliged to
rest for two years, in order to recover it. He afterwards
resolved to raise the glory of the faculty of the law, which
was miserably sunk; and in 1655 he obtained the post
of regius professor of the canon law, when he vigorously
began, and, though he met with great difficulties, successfully executed what he had resolved. Besides “Canonical Institutions,
” which he published in A Collection of Latin Poems and Orations.
” He died December 27, 1689.