LABRIOLLE, PIERRE-HENRI-MARIE CHAMPAGNE de. — Distinguished Latinist and historian of Christian literature, born at Asnières (Seine) on 18 June 1874, died at Nantes on 28 December 1940. He taught at Laval University in Montréal, then at the Collège Stanislas in Paris, and subsequently at the Lycée of Rennes; these were followed, from 1904 to 1919, by the Catholic University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and from 1926 to 1940 by the University of Poitiers and the Sorbonne. He also founded and directed, from 1911 to 1914, the Bulletin d'ancienne littérature et d'archéologie chrétienne; and from 1916 he was a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres.
He began his work with Saint Vincent de Lérins (Paris 1906), Saint Jérôme (there 1907), and Saint Ambroise (there 1908); this was followed by the important dissertation Les sources de l'histoire du montanisme (Fribourg 1910) and the comprehensive work La crise montaniste (Paris 1913); then, the fruit of more than twelve years of teaching, came the agile and lively Histoire de la littérature chrétienne (there 1920; 3rd ed. edited by G. Bardy, 2 vols., there 1947), admirable for the completeness of its treatment, its broad learning, and the lucid order imposed upon so many items of information. Earlier, he had entirely recast Tivier’s Histoire de la littérature française (there 1904). On the vigorous and insidious literary reaction of paganism against nascent Christianity, he wrote La réaction païenne (there 1934), always grounded in a thorough knowledge of the subject, combined with clarity and elegance of style.
He contributed to Fliche-Martin’s Histoire de l'Église (vols. III, IV; there 1936, 1937). His St Agustin. Confessions. Texte établi et traduit (2 vols., there 1925–26) offers a version capable of rendering with exquisite fidelity the movement and colour of the Saint’s style. The same may be said of the Soliloquii (there 1927) and of De cura pro mortuis gerenda (there 1932), prepared for the same Budé collection.