CAUSSIN, NICOLAS. - Jesuit, born at Troyes on 27 May 1583, died at Parigi on 2 July 1651. Chosen by Richelieu, on account of his reputation as a preacher and writer, as confessor to Luigi XIII (1637), he soon incurred the wrath of the powerful cardinal, who had him exiled to Quimper in the same year, because he had urged the king to remedy three evils, all the work of the cardinal: discord within the royal family, the impoverishment of France through so many wars, and the alliance with the Protestants. After Richelieu’s death, C. was recalled to Parigi by Anna d'Austria. His disgrace was variously and outrageously interpreted; but its sole cause was the uprightness of his conscience, which did not allow him to tolerate, without opposing them, the grave evils mentioned above (cf. B. Duhr, I Gesuiti. Favole e leggende, Italian trans., II, Firenze 1908, pp. 290-91).
He wrote collections of sermons and works of literature and controversy; especially worthy of mention are: Eloquentiae sacrae et humanae parallela (Parigi 1619), against the defects of preaching at that time, and La Cour sainte (3 vols., ibid. 1624, 1629, 1631), a kind of sacred political teaching to be employed by the great ones of the earth—sovereigns, prelates, statesmen—for the sake of good example and the welfare of the people.