BAUDRAND, BARTHÉLEMY. - Ascetical writer, b. at Névache (Hautes-Alpes) in 1701, a 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 64, L'âme élevée à Dieu par des réflexions et des sentiments (Lyons 1765), placed him among the most esteemed and most widely read ascetical authors. His numerous treatises went through 20, 30 and more reprints down to the middle of the nineteenth century. B. nevertheless has no originality in substance as does his confrere and contemporary N. Grou, but he admirably synthesizes the traditional teaching of the French Jesuits (among other things the devotion to God indwelling in 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, we may cite: 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 gathered together by the publisher Migne in two volumes of Oeuvres complètes (Paris 1853).
Bibliography2 works
Edmondo Lamalle