LACORDAIRE, lh 'kor'dAr'. JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI ( 1802-61 ) . A distinguished French preacher and publicist, the restorer of the Domin ican Order in France. Ile was born at Reeey sur-Ource„ near Dijon. in which town he was educated, taking up ultimately the study of the law. When he went to practice in Paris, his studies of the evidences of Christianity grad ually drew him away from the following of Rousseau, which had marked his earlier youth, and he decided to become a priest, lie studied at the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, and was ordained in 1827. He entered upon his work with zeal, but. meeting with discouragement, almost de cided to accept the invitation of Bishop Dubois, of New York. to come to .America as his vicar general. He had already come much under the influence of Lamennais (q.v.). and after the Revolution of 1830 threw himself enthusiastically into the work of the Arcnir. Its editors, at his suggestion. founded a 'general agency for the defense of religious liberty.' as a practical sup port of their ideas: its most significant result was the winning of a moral victory for the cause of religious education. When the .1 remit' was condemned by Gregory XVI.. Laeordaire sub mitted, and for a time withdrew from political affairs. He had gone to Rome with Lamennais, lad he saw the logical consequence of his old mas ter's position. and parted company with him finally at the end of 1832. Two years later he began a series of apologetic conferences which laid the foundation of his fame as a preacher; such men as Chateaubriand, Berryer, and Hugo were already among his regular hearers. 1 1 k lec tures were suspended for a time, owing to t he sus picion aroused by his former association with Lamennais; but in 1835 the Archbishop selected him as the Lent preacher at Notre Dame, where his sermons once more caused an extraordinary sensation, not less than six thousand people some times attending them. These courses of ser mons lasted ten years, with two interruptions, the latter of which was caused by his decision to enter the monastic life. Ile defended the right
of the Dominicans (the Order of his choice) to French citizenship in his Memoire pour be re tablissement des Freres Precheurs en France (1839) , and entered the Order a few weeks later. At the end of 1840 he returned to France in the Dominican habit, which had not been seen there for half a century. llis Fie dc Saint Do inique appeared at the same time, and he pres ently returned to Rome with ten more novices. ln 1843 he was able to found at Nancy the first new house of the Order in France. Ile gave much of his time to preaching in various parts of France. In 1845 were delivered the eight conferences on the divinity of Jesus Christ, which Alontalembert considered the greatest triumph of modern Christian oratory. lie still maintained his interest in political affairs, and was chosen Deputy from Marseilles to the Assembly after the Revolution of 1848, but soon resigned. llis health began to decline in 1854. and he with drew to the Convent of Soreze, still doing what he could for his cause. Thus, in 1860 he published his pamphlet, De la liberte de l'eglise et de l'Itolic, in which he protested vigorously against the interference of Napoleon ill, with the States of the Church. ln the same year he was elected to the French Academy, and made his last public address there. on his prede cessor, De Toequeville. fie resigned his office as provincial of the Dominicans in August, 1861, and died on November 20. His works appeared in nine volumes (Paris. 1873 et seq.). Three sup plementary volumes of sermons and addresses were published in 1884 et seq.. and Lcltrrs in eThics in 1881. Consult lives by Montalembert (Paris, 1862). Foisset (2d ed., ih., 1874), Cho carne (8th ed.. ib., 18941, Sirs. Sidney Lear (London, 1882), Greenwell (ib., 1877), D'Haus sonville (Paris, 1895), Nicolas. Le pore Laeor daire et be liberalisme (Toulouse, 1886) : Feseh, Laeordairc journalistc (Paris. 1897) : and many important letters in Correspondance de Lacor daire rt de Madame Swetchinc, ed. Falloux (4 vols.. ib., 1865).