BAUDRAND, BARTHÉLEMY. - Ascetical writer, b. at Névache (Hautes-Alpes) in 1701, Jesuit in 1721, subsequently professor, preacher, and rector, d. at Vienne on the Rhône in 1787.
After the suppression of the Jesuits, he devoted himself to the composition of ascetical works. The first book, which
he published at the age of sixty-four, L'âme élevée à Dieu par des réflexions et des sentiments (Lyon 1765), placed him among the most highly esteemed and widely read ascetical authors. His numerous treatises went through twenty, thirty, and more editions down to the middle of the nineteenth century. B., however, lacked originality in substance, unlike his confrère and contemporary N. Grou; but he admirably synthesized the traditional teaching of the French Jesuits (including devotion to God dwelling within us through grace), the more affective teaching of the Salesian school, and the contribution of the recent theorists, Jesuits and Eudists, of devotion to the Sacred Heart.
Among his best works, besides the aforementioned one, may be cited: L'âme contemplant les grandeurs de Dieu (1775), L'âme religieuse élevée à la perfection (1767), and especially L'âme intérieure ou conduite spirituelle dans les voies de Dieu (1776) and L'âme pénitente ou le nouveau Pensez-y bien (1778), which was the first to be translated. They were all collected by the publisher Migne in two volumes of Oeuvres complètes (Paris 1853).