LETALIER, MICHEL. - Jesuit, apologist, b. at Vire, near Cherbourg, on 16 Dec. 1643, d. at La Flèche on 2 Sept. 1719. He taught literature and philosophy, and for 28 years biblical exegesis at the Louis-le-Grand College in Paris, of which he was also rector. Elected provincial in 1708, he was chosen a few months later as confessor to Louis XIV in place of the late Fr. F. La Chaise.
In his new office he continued with greater vigour his battle against Jansenism and Quesnel, and was repaid with abundant calumnies of an insolent and impudent confessor, devoid of understanding or compassion for his adversaries, cunning and vindictive even toward Cardinal De Noailles. Thus, although chosen by Louis XIV as confessor to the young Louis XV, he was instead exiled immediately after the former’s death (1 Sept. 1715) to Amiens and later to La Flèche.
Against the Jansenists he wrote: Avis importants et nécessaires aux personnes qui lisent les traductions du Nouveau Testament (Lyon 1675); Dissertations sur la nouvelle défense de la version française du Nouveau Testament (Rouen 1685); Quesnel séditieux et hérétique dans ses réflexions sur le Nouveau Testament (Brussels 1705 and 1708). On the question of the Chinese Rites he defended his Order in Défense des nouveaux Christens et des Missionnaires de la Chine (Paris 1687 and 1688), which was later placed on the Index (decrees of 22 March and 5 July 1694). He was also one of the founders of the Mémoires de Trévoux. Of the calumnies collected against him by Saint-Simon in his Mémoires and repeated for more than two centuries by modernists, history has now fully vindicated him.