CRETINEAU-JOLY, JACQUES. - Catholic historian and publicist, born 23 Sept. 1803 at Fontenay-le-Comte (Vendée), died at Vincennes 1 Jan. 1875. Founder of *Le Vendéen* and contributor to other legitimist journals, he was an elegant and effective polemicist who wrote some forty volumes, mostly historical, still valuable for their wealth of information.
Among these, his *Histoire religieuse, politique et littéraire de la Compagnie de Jésus*, composed from unpublished and authentic documents (6 vols., Paris 1844–46), aroused particular controversy by exposing the sectarian hatred stirred up in France against the Society in 1843. Fr. G. Roothaan, General of the Society, facilitated C.-J.’s work in every way, placing at his disposal not only the documents of the General Curia in Rome but also those of the Society in other European countries. After the history of the Society, the author returned to the subject to treat more fully of the papacy of Clement XIV and his relations with the Jesuits, producing the volume *Clement XIV et les Jésuites* (Paris 1847), which provoked lively debate. In 1864 he published the memoirs of Card. E. Consalvi (*Mémoires du card. Consalvi, secrétaire d'État du pape Pie VII*, ibid. 1864). Among his other works are: *Histoire de la Vendée militaire* (ibid. 1841); *Histoire du Sonderbund* (ibid. 1850); *L'Église romaine en face de la révolution* (ibid. 1859); *Histoire de Louis-Philippe et de l'ordinariat* (ibid. 1862); *Bonaparte, le Concordat de 1801 et le card. Consalvi* (ibid. 1869).