CAMUS, Jean-Pierre. - Prolific bishop and writer, born in Paris on 3 Nov 1584, died there on 25 Apr 1652. He initially embraced the magistracy and for some time studied under Montaigne, whose method and style continued to influence him even after he left the legal profession and entered the ranks of the clergy. He soon distinguished himself by his eloquence; accordingly, Henry IV proposed him as bishop of Belley. He was indeed consecrated on 30 Aug 1609, despite a dispensation for his youthful age of 25, by St Francis de Sales, of whom he thereafter remained a faithful disciple, permeated by his example and doctrine. In 1629 he resigned the see in exchange for the abbacy of Aulnay in Normandy; but growing weary of that life of ease, he served briefly as vicar general in Rouen, whence he moved to Paris, to the hospice of the Incurables, resolved to devote himself entirely to the relief of the poor. He would have been bishop of Arras, by proposal of Louis XIV, had he not died before the bulls arrived.
His works number more than 200; among them are 40 novels, written for the young, whose passion for love stories he sought to wean gradually from human love to divine love. The plots are well constructed with attractive scenes, sometimes naive and sometimes indiscreet, occasionally bold; with this peculiarity, that the author uses them to polemicize, in matters of ascetics, against religious for their defects, their attachment to money, and their claim that perfection was reserved only to them, whereas Camus insisted that it belongs to all Christians; hence heated controversies on both sides. The same ideas he reiterates in another form in his sermons and ascetical works, which treat a little of every subject as controversy stirs them. Of these, the work still known is the Esprit du bienheureux François de Sales (6 vols., Paris 1639-41; later reduced to one volume by Collot [Paris 1727], frequently reprinted), in which the author mingles his own thoughts with those of the holy Doctor, developing and commenting on them, so that, as Bremond says, the work presents us with “a François de Sales camusine.”