ANNAT, FRANCESCO. — Jesuit, born at Estaing near Annat (Rhodez) on 5 February 1590; died in Paris on 14 June 1670. He entered the Society of Jesus on 16 February 1607 and, having completed his studies, became professor of philosophy and theology at Toulouse; he was then rector of the colleges of Montpellier and Toulouse; subsequently assistant to the General for France (1648–52), and in 1653 he was appointed provincial in Paris. The following year he was chosen as confessor to Louis XIV. In this delicate and difficult office he conducted himself admirably and spared no vigilance or care, above all in order to dissuade the king from his illicit love affairs. He would have liked to retire as early as 1663, but, at the wish of his superiors, remained in his post until a few months before his death.
His great activity as a writer was directed against Jansenism, and he pursued this without stint in numerous works in Latin and French, opposing the Jansenists with the authority of St Augustine and St Thomas and contributing to the condemnation of the five propositions of the Augustinus by Innocent X and to the bull of 5 February 1665 issued by Alexander VII. The Jansenists, therefore, unable to prevail in the field of doctrine, did not spare him in their accusations and calumnies, and Pascal made him the object of his attacks in the Lettres Provinciales, especially in the last two, the seventeenth and eighteenth, which were addressed to him personally.
The many works of A. were collected in 3 vols., Opuscula Theologica, Paris 1866.