FEUILLANTS, The name applied to (1 ) a religious congregation, springing out of the Cistercian Order and taking its name from the mother house of Feuillant, Latin Pa li um, near Toulouse. Its founder was Jean do la Barriere, who was abbot of this monastery from 1562. Protestantism made inroads upon his community. and the ancient discipline was relaxed. Finally, after courageous efforts at enforcement of the rule, he was deserted by most of his monks and himself accused as an innovator before the Genera] Chapter at CReaux. Ile defended himself so successfully that a number of the old monks put themselves under his guidance, and he instituted a severer mode of life than had of late been customary in Cistercian houses. They came to Paris in 1587, protected against the Huguenots by a troop of cuirassiers, to take possession of the convent founded for them by Henry 111. The reform was confirmed as a separate congregation by Sixtus V. in 1589. In 1630 Urban V111. divided them into two branches, the Italian, known as Reformed Berna Mines, and the French, who still kept the name of Feuillants, each under a general of its own. Cardinal Bona and other famous theologians have belonged to this Order. Bar riNv also founded a community of women. and Cardinal Rustic() did the same at Rome, placing his under the direction of the Feuillant fathers.
Anne of Austria founded a house for them in Paris in 1662.
(2) A faction in the assembly of the clergy in Paris (1755), which discussed the execution of the constitution Unigenitus. At this time Cardinal do la Itoehefoucauld, Archbishop of Bourges, was appointed Minister of Public Wor ship (de in Feuille, hence the name), and took the lead of a sort of ministerial party, Gallican and half Jansenist in tone, which formed a small majority of the assembly. See CALLicAN
Cficum.
(3) A political club in Paris during the early years of the French Revolution, originally known as the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, or the Club of 1789. It met at the ancient convent of the Jacobins, and comprised a majority I if the members of the Constituent Assembly. With the progress of radical ideas, the friends of monarchy in the society grew discontented, and in July, 1791, more than three hundred deputies, among them Barere, Lanjuinais, Sieyes, Lafayette, and the Lameths, seceded, taking up their home in the convent of the Feuillants in Rue llonor6 (see above). Those who remained came to be known specifically as Jacobins (q.v.). The Feuillants lost rapidly in numbers and influence; as a group of well-fed men who believed in a constitutional monarchy, they were hated alike by Jacobins and Royalists. In the Legislative Assembly they numbered only 162 out of a total of 745, and from conservative they became, in the course of time, reactionary. The Jacobins repeatedly im peached them before the Assembly; in December, 1791, they were compelled to abandon their meeting-place in the Feuillants, and in August, 1792, the papers of the club were seized. It died peacefully.