FLECHIER, ESPRIT. - Writer and sacred orator, b. at Pernes on 10 June 1632, d. at Montpellier on 16 Feb. 1710. Having successfully devoted himself to eloquence, in 1672 he became a member of the French Academy. Bishop of Lavaur in 1686, he was later transferred to the see of Nîmes, where he remained for 25 years, wholly devoted to works of apostolate.
His literary production was extremely abundant: funeral and synodal discourses, homilies, letters, poems, in which the man of letters, indulgent toward the preciosity of the age, prevailed over the theologian and moralist. He also wrote several historical works of little value: Histoire de l'empereur Theodosius le Grand (Paris 1679); Histoire du card. Ximenes (Amsterdam 1679); De vita Ioannis Francisci Commendoni card. (ibid. 1669), republished two years later in French. A complete edition of F.'s works was prepared by Ducreux in 10 vols. at Nîmes in 1782 and subsequently at Paris in 1825-38.