LETOURNEUX, Nicolas. – Preacher and ascetical writer, b. at Rouen on 30 Apr. 1640, d. at Paris on 28 Nov. 1686. He soon distinguished himself at Rouen as a preacher, so much so that in 1675 the French Academy awarded him the Balzac prize for eloquence.
Having obtained a benefice at the Sainte-Chapelle and an annual pension from the king, he came to Paris, but preferring solitude and silence, he went to Port-Royal, where, however, his friend Le Maistre de Sacy urged him to resume preaching. He devoted himself to this with the greatest success, thanks to the clarity and simplicity enlivened by a great zeal. In 1682 he retired definitively to the Maine region as prior of Villier-sur-Fère.
He left several works, appreciated by his contemporaries: Le Catéchisme de la Pénitence (1676); Principes et règles de la vie chrétienne (1671); a translation of the Breviary (4 vols., 1688) which was censured by the ecclesiastical authority of Paris and defended by Arnauld. A posthumous work, L’année chrétienne (13 vols., 1685, augmented and completed by Ruth d’Ans), was placed on the Index on 7 Sept.