BÉRULLE, PIERRE de. — Cardinal, founder of the Oratory of France, born on 4 February 1575 in the castle of Serilly (near Troyes), died in Paris on 2 October 1629.
He pursued his studies with the Jesuits in Paris. At the Sorbonne he studied rhetoric under Giovanni Morel and logic under Fr. Eustache of St. Paul. In the ways of the spirit, until about 1610, he was guided by dom Beaucousin. “At seventeen he already seemed a consummate doctor in the science of salvation” (Caraccioli); at twenty-two he wrote the Traité de l'abnégation intérieure. On 5 June 1599 he ascended the altar and began his work of spiritual direction and controversy. He assisted Cardinal Du Perron in the dispute with Du Plessis, in the presence of Henri IV. From the Ménorial de direction we can discern the characteristic qualities of his ministry: tact and perspicacity; from the controversial pamphlets on the Eucharist and the Mass, especially from the Discours against the Calvinist minister Pierre Du Moulin (1609), his substantial dialectic, rich in associations, broad in its deductions, effective and courteous. The Retraite de monsieur le card. de B. preserves the long reflection which, in 1600, when he was on the point of embracing the religious state, he addressed to himself, together with the reasons that led him to retain his freedom.
Having remained in the world, he was made the king’s «aumônier»; but he abandoned neither the spiritual direction of a great number of souls, especially in convents and women’s communities, nor his polemical activity against heretics. Among the souls he directed was Mme Acarie. Convinced that this was God’s will, he went to Spain (1604) and, after laborious negotiations, transplanted the reformed Carmel to France. The Lettres aux Carmélites de France show that B. had no intention whatsoever of founding a Carmel different from the Teresian one. Appointed by Paul V, together with Gallimand and Duval, superior of the French Carmelites, he had to face lively opposition.
He declined the task of educating the Dauphin, offered to him by Henri IV. In 1605 he received his own mother (Louise Ségnier) into Carmel. Confessor to Maria de' Medici, he remained at her side with Fr. Cotton when, after Henri IV’s death (1610), the queen assumed the regency. Meanwhile Mme Acarie told him that God destined him to found a new Congregation in the Church, and wrote about this to Fr. Cotton, who at that time was directing B. Other highly devout souls, such as the abbess of Notre-Dame-de-Xaintes, asked him to give the Church holy priests. Cardinal de Retz intervened, moved by his sister, the Marquise of Maignelay, and, at the request of both, so did the archbishop of Paris. Having already conceived the plan of forming a society of priests devoted to prayer and instruction, B. consulted Fr. Cesare de Bus, appealed to St. Francis de Sales to take charge of it, and then to Fr. Romillon; he unsuccessfully asked Rome for some Oratorians to begin the work.
Finally, on 11 November 1611, in Paris, he founded the Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus with five companions. Paul V promptly granted the bull of approval, and the new Congregation rapidly spread throughout France. “The same God who has restored, in several Orders, the spirit and fervor of their first institution, seems now to wish to procure the same grace for ecclesiastics, renewing them in the perfection suited to them; in order to receive this heavenly grace, so as to live and work under the guidance of Jesus Christ himself, we are gathered here” (Discourse to the Fathers of the Oratory, in Ouvres complètes, col. 29). Around 1612 B. composed his threefold Élévation (à Jésus sur ses principaux états et mystères, à la T. S. Trinité sur le mystère de l'Incarnation, à Dieu en l'honneur de la part qu'il a voulu donner à la V. Marie dans le mystère de l'Incarnation). Harsh theological controversies followed. With his masterpiece, Discours de l'état et des grandeurs de Jésus par l'union ineffable de la divinité avec l'humanité... (1623), B. won wide approval.
At the Oratory, studies, both theological and secular, were cultivated with great care. Having acquired numerous Platonic codices, B. began their study and publication. In 1628 he summoned Descartes, whom he had heard at the nuncio’s in Paris, and obliged him to continue and publish his studies, which had been challenged from various quarters. The Bérullian colleges were, like those of the period, humanistic in character; nevertheless, in the lower classes, the national language was prescribed for the teaching of religion and national history. They enjoyed great success, despite lively opposition from the university and other colleges.
Around 1616 B. began to concern himself actively with politics; until Richelieu’s rise he had been more a confidant than an adviser of Maria de' Medici in the struggle between the queen and Concini on the one hand, and the great families of Condé, Bouillon, and Nevers, who had joined forces with the Huguenots against the “foreigner,” on the other. In these events, B. saw the religious aspect more than the political one, limiting his activity to doctrinal controversy and the defense of his country’s religious unity. Richelieu found B. already at the queen’s side and made use of him.
B. was grateful to Maria de' Medici for her constant protection of Carmel and the Oratory, and dedicated to her his translation of the Life of St. Carlo Borromeo. In 1617 the queen mother was confined to Blois, while Richelieu withdrew to Avignon, preferring not to fall out with Luynes: B. remained in Paris and worked to reconcile her son (Louis XIII) with his mother; this took place in 1620.
Richelieu sent B. to Rome to obtain the dispensation for the marriage of Henrietta of France to the Prince of Wales (the future Charles I), which was celebrated in 1625. B. accompanied the unfortunate princess to England and, as head of her ecclesiastical household, remained at her side until the Duke of Buckingham, accusing him of plotting against his life and possessions, forced him to cross the Channel again. To comfort Henrietta, B. wrote his Elévations sur ste Marie Madeleine.
In that same year, 1625, by order of Louis XIII, he negotiated with Cardinal Barberini, Urban VIII’s legate, concerning the question of Valtellina and the Grisons; but his proposals were not accepted. B. was displeased by Richelieu’s policy, which seemed to join forces with the Protestants and harmed the Catholic cause, but he followed it for reasons of national interest: Protestants allied with France were preferable to Catholics allied with Austria. In his Testament politique, written several years later, Richelieu would falsely accuse him of having, in order to please the Pope and contrary to the orders he had received, negotiated peace with Spain in 1627.
In 1627, immediately after the negotiations with Spain, B. was created cardinal. In 1629 he was appointed head of the queen’s council. During the king’s absence, acting in the queen’s name, B. had Maria dei Gonzaga of Mantua, mistress of the king’s brother, arrested after having unsuccessfully warned her. On returning from Casale, Louis XIII found the struggle against B. rekindled, with B. at odds with Richelieu. B. refused to sign the peace treaty with England and opposed the treaty of alliance with the Dutch, which Richelieu desired. Maria de' Medici once again tried to favor B. and removed Richelieu’s supervision of her household: Richelieu tendered his resignation to the king, who, bewildered, confirmed Richelieu as his first minister and superintendent of the queen’s household. Wishing to remove B. from the queen, Richelieu entrusted him with an embassy to Rome. B. declined the invitation and withdrew from court.
Shortly afterward, Louis XIII brought him out of his solitude so that he might meet once more with his brother. B. set out, but was forced by fever to stop in Paris, and died among his fathers of St-Magloire while celebrating Holy Mass. The allegation that he was poisoned by his enemies is calumnious.
Despite such a divided life, B. composed many works of the highest spirituality.
Some of them were published in various forms during his lifetime; the manuscripts were collected together with the earlier works by Fr. Bourgoing, B.’s successor, enriched with summaries and some notes by Fr. Gibieuf, and printed in Paris in 1644 and again in 1657.
B. is commonly regarded as the founder of the great French spiritual school of the seventeenth century; various figures were connected with him, besides the Oratory: St. Vincenzo de’ Paoli, l’Olier and St. Sulpizio, St. Giovanni Eudes, St. Lodovico Grignion de Montfort, and St. Giovanni B. de La Salle. Many others subsequently drew their inspiration from his doctrine, among them the ven. Libermann and the Fathers of the Holy Spirit, de Renty, de Bernières, Boudon, and Mgr. Gay. The oblivion that covered his works was due in part to the very merit of his disciples, such as Condren and Olier, who expounded his doctrine in a clearer and more accessible manner.
B.’s doctrine, in which all the earlier forms of Catholic spirituality converge, from the Fathers to S. Francesco di Sales, is founded on the dogma of our incorporation into Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, who reproduces in us His interior virtues, establishing us in a state of mystical adherence to the Incarnate Word, in that of His mysteries which He desires to communicate and, as it were, continue in each of His faithful, who form His Mystical Body. Urban VIII called B. “the apostle of the Incarnate Word.”
The form of his prayer is called “elevation.” We have notable examples of it in Bossuet’s Elévations sur les mystères: supernaturally dialectical, it begins with an act of faith concerning a scriptural fact or maxim, in order to rise up to God.
B. had a brother who was a councillor of state; from one of the latter’s younger sons descended the abbé de Bérulle, prior of St-Romand-Puy, near Lyon, who died in 1704.