MASCARON, JULES. - Preacher and bishop of Agen, b. at Marseille in 1634, d. at Agen on 16 Dec. 1703. He entered at a very young age (1650) the Congregation of the Oratory, where he had been educated.
He continued his theological studies at the Seminary of Saumoir, where he began preaching with immediate success; he soon went on to Marseille, Aix, Nantes, Paris, and from 1666 to 1671 preached at Court, where Louis XIV (whose dissolute conduct M. nevertheless stigmatized with vehemence) wished him to return in 1675, 1679, 1683, 1684, and 1694. He was appointed bishop of Tulle in 1671 and of Agen in 1678.
Particularly famous were the funeral orations for the queen mother Anna d'Austria (1666), the duke of Beaufort, Enrichetta d'Inghilterra (1671), and Turenne (1675); with regard to the latter, as to other Calvinists, his oratory, rich in the merits and defects of the age, exercised considerable influence.