LE GAUDIER, ANTOINE. - Jesuit, writer on ascetical theology, b. at Château-Thierry on 7 Jan. 1572, d. at Paris on 14 Apr. 1622. He was professor of Holy Scripture at Pont-à-Mousson and of moral theology at La Flèche, while at the same time serving as spiritual director of the communities; later he became master of novices and instructor of the third year of probation at Paris.
These duties afforded him the opportunity to expound in domestic exhortations the various points of ascetical theology, until he composed a complete treatise. To satisfy the desire of his hearers, he was induced to publish some parts: *De sanctissimo Christi Jesu amore opusculum* (Pont-à-Mousson 1619), *De vera Christi Jesu imitatione* (Paris 1620), *De Dei praesentia* (ibid. 1620), *Praxis meditandi a s. p. Ignatio traditae explicatio* (ibid. 1920). After his death these and other unpublished works appeared in a single volume under the general title *De natura et statibus perfectionis*, together with the full course of the Spiritual Exercises of thirty days (ibid. 1643; better ed. ed. J. Martinov, 3 vols., Paris 1856–58 and Turin 1903, ed. A. M. Micheletto). The work is one of the most complete, philosophical and personal treatises on the subject, and it shows in the author not only a theorist of spirituality but also the practiced hand of one who sought to live it practically and intimately.