DARRAS, JOSEPH-EPIPHANE. - Historian, b. at Troyes in 1825, d. at Paris on 8 Nov. 1878. He studied at Troyes, where he was ordained priest and obtained a teaching post, which, however, he had to relinquish because of a panegyric of the bishop of Troyes, Stefano Antonio de Boulogne, who at the Council of French bishops (1811) had not adhered to Napoleon’s proposals and had been imprisoned.
D. then found welcome with the Bauffremont family, with whom he spent his entire life, wholly devoted to study.
His principal works, defective from the critical point of view, are: a translation of Pallavicino’s Storia del Concilio Tridentino (1848); Histoire générale de l'Eglise (1854); Histoire de St Denis l'Aréopagite, premier évêque de Paris (1863); Histoire de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (1864); Grande vie des saints (1873-75), 25 vols., in collaboration with Collin; Histoire de l'Eglise depuis la création, of which, during his lifetime, the first 25 vols. were published, reaching as far as the 12th century (1875-77). The work was continued by J. Bareille, who brought it down to the pontificate of Clemente VIII (vols. XXVI-XXVII, 1879-84), and completed by J. Fèvre with Leone XIII (vols. XXVIII-XLIV, plus two volumes of indexes; 1884-1907).