LEGAUDIER,
ANTOINE. - Jesuit, ascetical writer, b. at Chateau-Thierry on 7 Jan. 1572, d. at Paris on 14 Apr. 1622. He was professor of Sacred Scripture at Pont-à-Mousson and of moral theology at La-Flèche, while at the same time serving as spiritual director of the communities; subsequently, master of novices and instructor of the third year of probation at Paris.
These duties afforded him the opportunity to develop, in his domestic exhortations, the various points of asceticism, until he composed a complete treatise.
To satisfy the desire of his listeners, he was induced to publish certain parts of it: De sanctissimo Christi Jesu amore opusculum (Pont-à-Mousson 1619), De vera Christi Jesu imitatione (Paris 1620); De Dei praesentia (there 1620); Praxis meditandi a s. p. Ignatio traditae explicatio (there 1920). After his death, these and his other unpublished works appeared in one volume under the general title De natura et statibus perfectionis, together with the complete course of the thirty-day spiritual exercises (there 1643; best ed., edited by J. Martinov, 3 vols., Paris 1856-58 and Turin 1903, edited by A. M. Micheletto). The work is one of the most complete, philosophical, and personal treatises on the subject, and reveals in its author not only a theoretician of spirituality, but also the experienced hand of one who sought to live it practically and intimately.