BOURGET, Paul. — French poet, novelist, and critic, born in Amiens on 2 September 1852, died in Paris on 25 December 1935. A member of the Académie Française from 1894, he devoted himself to the most complex psychological and sociological problems of his time, applying to them an integral and steadfast Catholic conscience. He emerged as the most generous and effective champion opposing both Zola’s naturalism and Taine’s determinism. A brilliant continuer of Stendhal’s analytical method in narrative literature, he fostered a taste for minute and penetrating inquiry into the self and the relationships governing human life, though some pages were criticized for an abstract aridity and excessive tension of feeling. Nevertheless, he remains a master of the modern novel, even if his preeminent gifts as a critic and persuasive moralist are not matched by equally outstanding powers of imagination and creative force. His principal characteristic and merit consist in having sought to organize around the foundations of Christian morality the exigencies of the contemporary soul, demonstrating with delicate, profound, and persuasive art the inseparability of their interests and aims.
His characters are drawn preferably from the ranks of the wealthy bourgeoisie and aristocracy, in which Bourget found—or believed he found—more widespread and dramatically represented the spiritual unease whose causes were the object of his passionate investigations.
He began in the field of lyric poetry with the collections published in his early youth: *Au bord de la mer* (1872), *La vie inquiète* (1875), *Edel* (1878), and *Les aveux* (1882). In these, his excellence emerges more through refined stylistic gifts than through originality of individual inspiration, reflecting the influences of the literary generation dominated by Lamartine, Stendhal, and Baudelaire. Later, turning decisively toward what were to remain throughout his life his principal intellectual interests, he published the highly esteemed *Essais de psychologie contemporaine* (1883; definitive edition, 1901), followed by *Pages de critique et de doctrine* (1912) and *Nouvelles pages de critique et de doctrine* (1922). Meanwhile, he was disseminating the spiritualistic conclusions he had reached in a copious and successful series of novels, among which the best known are *Le disciple* (1889), whose lucid pages vigorously denounce the danger that philosophical positivism poses when it intervenes in the moral and logical formation of the young; *Un divorce* (1904), which warmly and eloquently upholds the indissolubility of marriage; *Le démon de midi* (1914) and *Le sens de la mort* (1915), in which the necessity of a profound restoration of moral and religious consciousness gains new persuasive force from an art ever more vigilant and conscious of its lofty purposes.
In *Le L'étape* (1903), as a supporter of monarchical tradition, he highlighted the dangers of democracy; in the drama *La barricade* (1910), he dramatized Georges Sorel’s social theories.
A friend of Italy, to which he offered numerous testimonies of his admiration and spiritual attachment, Bourget also wrote a book of observations and recollections, *Sensations d'Italie* (1891), which ranks among his finest works for its sincerity of inspiration and felicity of insight. Particularly noteworthy are the moral and philosophical reflections inspired by a stay the previous year at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Oliveto. Also worthy of mention is the volume *Outre-mer, notes sur l'Amérique* (1895).
A collected edition of his *Oeuvres complètes* was published in Paris (1910 and following).
BOURGOIN, François. — French Oratorian, a disciple of Bérulle (q.v.) and his second successor, born in Paris on 18 March 1585, died there on 22 October 1662. In 1611 he renounced in favor of St. Vincent de Paul the care of Clichy to become one of the first six fathers of the French Oratory. He founded a series of houses of the Congregation (Rouen, Nantes, Clermont, Lyon, etc.) and introduced it into Flanders as well. Elected Superior General in 1641 after the death of Fr. de Condren, he governed the Oratory until his death. His leadership was of great importance, for he codified and secured approval in Rome for the Congregation’s Constitutions, to which he also gave a *Ratio studiorum* and *Directions for Missions*. He energetically opposed Jansenist infiltrations within his ranks. Bossuet delivered his funeral oration.
Bourgoin occupies a distinctive place in the history of Bérullian spirituality, though he was not a writer of great distinction. His course of meditations, published in Latin (*Veritates et sublimes excellentiae Verbi Incarnati J.C. in argumenta meditationum totius anni propositae*, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1629) and later in French, praised by Bossuet, is a popularization of Cardinal de Bérulle’s doctrine; particularly noteworthy is the *Direction pour l'oraison, contenant 24 avis.*, prefixed to the French edition and also issued separately. *Le Méditations sur divers états de J. C.* (Paris 1648) aim to echo even more closely the founder’s teaching, as the 1661 edition’s title indicates: *L'esprit de l'E. card. de Bérulle, tiré de ses élévations sur les grandeurs des états différents de J. C.* Finally, Bourgoin, assisted by his confrere Ghibeuf, produced the first edition of the *Oeuvres complètes* of Cardinal de Bérulle (Paris 1644), prefacing it with a lengthy introduction essential for understanding the spiritual doctrine of the master.
*Bourgoin* de la Porte, Antoinette. - Visionary, born 13 Jan. 1616 at Lille (France), died 30 Oct. 1680. Of restless, eccentric, and fantastic temperament, she imagined from her youth that she had visions and ecstasies. Having refused several marriages, she fled from her father’s house at the age of twenty and began her wandering life, believing herself called to revive the spirit of the primitive simplicity and purity of the Gospel, and seeking to gather followers for this purpose. Returning to Lille after her father’s death (1648) and winning the inheritance suit against her stepmother, she accepted in 1653, at the suggestion of Jean de St-Saulieu, the direction of a girls’ orphanage. When an investigation was initiated against her by the authorities, she fled to Ghent (1662), then to Mechelen (1663), where she found a faithful follower in Cristiano de Cort. In conversations with him, later published under the title *La lumière du monde* (*Oeuvres*, VI and VII), she declared herself to be the woman of the Apocalypse who must bring forth spiritual children in pain; against the Catholic Church, in which the Antichrist reigns, she rejected infant baptism and falsified the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity. After a stay in Amsterdam (1667) and Haarlem (1670), in 1672 she managed to establish her own printing press at Husum (Schleswig) for her propagandistic writings, but soon became embroiled in bitter controversies and was accused of heresy and witchcraft. The preacher G. H. Burchhardt, in a work against her: *Christliche gründliche Anmerkungen über die groben Irrtümer der A. B.* (Schleswig, March 1674), spurred the authorities to intervene. The printing press was confiscated and her writings burned by the executioner (April 1674).
She then appeared in Flensburg, where she was attacked by M. Wolfgang Ouw with *Apocalypsis Haereseos* (Hamburg 1675), in Schleswig (1675), and in Hamburg (1676), where she hid for fifteen months. There the Calvinist mystic Pierre Poiret reached her and never abandoned her again. Discovered once more, she took refuge at Lüttelsburg with Baron Dodo von Knyphausen (1677); accused by a follower, La Costa, of being a witch and impostor, she tried to reach Amsterdam but fell ill en route and died at Franeker (Frisia).