LACORDAIRE, JEAN-BAPTISTE HENRI, the most distinguished of the modern pulpit orators of France, was. b, at Recey-sur-Ource, in the department Cote-d'Or, Mar. 12, 1802. He was educated at Dijon, where he also entered upon his legal studies; and having taken his degree, he transferred himself in 1822 to Paris, where he began to practice as an advocate in 1824. and rose rapidly to distinction. As his principles at this period were deeply tinged with unbelief, it was a matter of universal surprise in the circle of his acquaintance that he suddenly gave up his profession, entered the college of St. Sulpice, and in 1827 received holy orders. He soon became distinguished as .a preacher, and in the college of Juilly, to which he was attached, he formed the acquaint .ance of the abb6Lamennats, with whom he speedily formed a close and intimate alliance, and in conjunction with whom, after the revolution of July, he published the well known journal, the Avenir, an organ at once of the highest church principles and of the most extreme radicalism. The articles published in this journal, and the proceed ings which were adopted in asserting the liberty of education, led to a prosecution in the chamber of peers in 1831; and when the Avenir itself was condemned by Gregory XVI., Laeovdaire formally submitted, and for is time withdrawiog from public devoted hinhelf to the duties of the pulpit. The brilliancy of his eloquence, and the novel and striking character of his views, excited an interest altogether unprecedented, and attracted unbounded admiration. Ills courses of sermons at Notre Dame drew to that immense pile crowds snch as had never been seen within the memory of the living generation, and had produced an extraordinary sensation even on the non-religious world, when once again Lacordaire fixed the wonder of toe public by relinquishing the career of distinction which was open to him and entering the novitiate of the Dominican order in 1840. A short time previously, he bad published a memoir on the re-establish
of that order in France. which was followed, after his enrollment in the order, by )a life of its founder, St. Dominic; and in 1841 he appeared once again in the pulpit of Notre Dame, in the well-known habit of a Dominican friar. From this date he gave much of his time to preaching in various parts of France. In the first election which succeeded the revolution of 1848, he was chosen one of the representatives of Marseilles, and took part in some of the debates in the assembly; but he resigned in the following May, and withdrew entirely from political life. In 1849, and again in 1850 and 1851, he resumed his courses at Notre Dame,. which, together with earlier discourses, have been collected in 3 vMs., under the title of Conferences de No Dame de Paris, 1835-50. His health having begun to decline he withdrew in 1854 to the convent of Soreze, where he died in 1861. In 1858 he vyrote a series of Letters to a Young Friend, which have been much admired; and in 1330, having been elected to the academy. he deliv ered what may be called his last address, a memoir of his predecessor, M. de Tocque ville. A collected edition of his works appeared in Paris in 1872; his memoirs by Montalembert iu 1862.