LAURENTIE, PIERRE-SÉBASTIEN. - French publicist and historian, b. at Houga (Gers) on 21 Jan. 1793, d. in Paris on 9 Feb. 1876. Having settled in Paris in 1816, he first taught rhetoric at the Collège Stanislas (1817), then literature at the École Polytechnique (1818). Appointed inspector general of studies in 1823, he lost the post three years later because of his political intransigence and his harsh polemics published in the Quotidien, of which he was an editor.
In 1831 he founded and directed monarchist newspapers advocating the legitimism of the comte de Chambord, of whom L. was the confidant. He also left several works, among them: Sur la liberté fondée sur
le droit divin (Paris 1819); Etudes littéraires et morales sur les historiens latins (ibid. 1822); Considérations sur les constitutions démocratiques (ibid. 1826); De la légitimité et de l'usurpation (ibid. 1830); Théorie catholique des sciences (ibid. 1836); Liberté d'enseignement (ibid. 1843); La papauté (ibid. 1852); Philosophie de la prière (ibid. 1864), Le livre de M. E. Renan sur la vie de Jésus (ibid. 1863); Les crimes de l'éducation française (ibid. 1871).