GARASSE, FRANÇOIS. - Jesuit, polemicist, b. at Angoulême in 1584, d. at Poitiers on 14 June 1631. An effective and vehement preacher, he nevertheless owed his fame to his polemical works, which brought him into conflict with all the enemies of religion: Huguenots, Gallicans, and libertines. Logical, caustic, impetuous, he spared no one, nor did he always measure his words; thus, rather than winning sympathy for the cause he defended, he embittered minds and increased hatreds, so much so that he had to be transferred to Poitiers, where he wrote: Histoire des Jésuites de Paris pendant trois années 1624-26 (edited by A. Carayon, Paris 1864). He died while serving those afflicted by the plague.
His principal works were: Horoscopus Anticotonis (s. l. 1614; against the enemies of the Jesuits); Elixir Calvinisticum (Charenton 1615; against Protestants); Le banquet des anges (s. l. 1617; against the Gallican L. Servin); Le Rabelais réformé (Brussels 1619; against the anticlerical minister P. Dumoulin); La doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits (Paris 1623; against atheists, freethinkers, and especially against the poet T. de Vian); Somme théologique des vérités capitales de la religion chrétienne (ibid. 1625), dedicated to Richelieu, but censured by the Sorbonne and the Jansenists.