DU PERRON, JACQUES DAVY. - Cardinal, theologian-controversialist, diplomat and statesman, called "the Augustine of France." Born at St-Lô in Normandy on 25 Nov. 1556, died in Paris on 5 Sept. 1618. The son of Calvinists, he completed his studies in Paris on the Fathers, the Scholastics and the Catholic and Protestant theologians of his time; afterward he took part in public disputations. Having become a Catholic in 1577, ordained a priest in 1591, and elected bishop of Evreux, he struggled tenaciously against Gallicanism and Calvinism. In 1593 King Henry IV himself, on his advice, abjured Calvinism, and it was precisely during his reign that D. carried out his greatest political-religious activity. He took part in the conferences of Nantes; in that of St-Denis in 1593; and in 1595 he was sent to Rome to cooperate with d'Ossat in the reconciliation of the Holy See with the king of France. This having been happily achieved on 17 Sept. 1595, he was appointed first almoner of the king and councillor of state.
As a controversialist he won notable victories in Paris in 1597 and at Fontainebleau on 4 May 1600, in the religious conference in which he triumphed fully over the "pope of the Huguenots" Du Plessis Mornay (v.). For his merits he was created cardinal on 9 June 1604 and on 9 Oct. 1606 obtained the archdiocese of Sens. After a stay in Rome (1606-1607), where he cooperated in the resolution of the controversy on Grace and in the reconciliation of the Pope with the Venetian Republic, he returned to France and assumed the direction of the Collège Royal. When the king died in 1610, D. became a member of the regency council, but continued in his religious polemics. Among his last was the one in which he defended, against the Gallican principles of the Parliament, the full and direct power of the Pope in spiritual matters and his indirect power in temporal matters.
His writings, dense with erudition and doctrine, published separately, and only in part during his lifetime, were collected in various volumes with a biography after his death. The Paris edition of 1620-22, in 3 vols., bears the title Les diverses oeuvres de l'ill.me card. D.
Bibliography8 works
Giovanni Odoardi