AMBROGIO da LOMBEZ. - Capuchin ascetical writer (in the world Jean de Lapeyrie), born at Lombez on 21 March 1708 into a noble Armagnac family, died at Saint-Sauveur-les-Bains on 25 Oct. 1778. He entered the Capuchins of the province of Guyenne in 1724.
Having freed himself from the scruples that had long tormented him, A. wished to help souls assailed by the same evil through a work that constitutes the principal and finest part of his literary activity: Traité de la paix intérieure (Paris 1757). The work had numerous French editions and translations into Italian, German, and Spanish.
A. also published: Lettres spirituelles sur la paix intérieure et autres sujets de piété, Paris 1776 (Italian trans. by Fr. Fedele da Tortona, Turin 1782). One year after his death there appeared, through the care of two of his confrères, the Traité de la joie de l'âme chrétienne (Paris 1779), which Morsella translated into Italian: Trattato dell'allegrezza dell'anima cristiana, Rome 1783. Other works by him have remained unpublished.