BERARDIER, DENIS. - A priest born in 1729, died in 1794. After completing his theological studies at the Sorbonne, he became rector of the college in Quimper, his native city, in 1762, and later, in 1778, of the Louis-le-Grand college in Paris. There, his students Camille Desmoulins and Maximilien Robespierre were bound to him by ties of gratitude, the beneficial effects of which he soon experienced. Indeed, with the outbreak of the Revolution, B., as a deputy to the Constituent Assembly, opposed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy with vigorous words and writings, proving himself to be one of the boldest defenders of the Catholic Church. Arrested, he escaped the massacre only through the intervention of his former students.
Among B.’s writings are to be noted: *Les principes de la foi sur le gouvernement de l'Eglise en opposition avec la Constitution civile du clergé* (Paris 1791); *L'Eglise constitutionnelle confondue par elle-même* (ibid. 1792).