COUPLET, PHILIPPE. - Missionary in China, b. at Malines (Belgium) on 31 May 1622, entered the Society of Jesus there on 11 Oct. 1640, departed for China in 1656 in the company of Fr. Michael Boym (q.v.). He worked in various provinces, mainly in Kiangnan, assisted by the pious Christian Candida Hiu, whose life he later wrote. Sent to Rome in 1680 as procurator of the Chinese vice-province, he remained in Europe for ten years. Among other things, he revived at Rome the request for a Chinese liturgy, first presented 65 years earlier (cf. his *Dissertatio quibus de causis Paulus V indulserit lingua sinensibus eruditis communi per indigenos sacerdotes celebrari sacra*, published in the *Acta SS. Maii*, VIII, Paris 1868, pp. 126-31). Finally departing again for China, he died accidentally at sea near Goa on 15 May 1692.
Besides some works in Chinese, intended for religious instruction and reprinted in the 19th century, and many letters partly published (cf. Streit), he left several important writings: *Histoire d’une dame chrétienne de la Chine* (Paris 1688; this is the translation by Fr. d’Orléans of the life of Candida Hiu; Spanish ed. Madrid 1691, Flemish ed. Antwerp 1694, etc.); *Catalogus Patrum S. I. qui post obitum S. Francisci Xaverii ab anno 1581 ad annum 1681 in Imperio Sinarum Iesu Christi fidem propagarunt* (Paris 1686, and appended to *Astronomia Europaea* by Fr. F. Verbiest, Dillingen 1687); *Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae invita cyclos annorum I.X ab anno a. C. 2952 ad annum p. C. 1683* (Paris 1686); but the most important is *Confucius Sinarum philosophus sive scientia Sinica latine expositae*, to which he had collaborated in China with Frs. P. Intorcetta, C. Herdtrich, and F. De Rougemont, and which he published in Paris in 1687. These last two works, and especially the *Confucius*, played a major part in the controversies over the interpretation given by the Jesuits of the histories and thought of the ancient Chinese (q.V. also BOYM MIKAL).