JEAN-JACQUES-AUGUSTE NICOLAS. — Apologist, born in Bordeaux on 16 January 1807, died in Versailles on 17 January 1888. After an indolent youth, he devoted himself passionately to the study of law in Toulouse (1828). In 1849 he was taken on by Falloux as head of a division in the Ministry of Worship; in 1854 he was promoted to...
It was he, moreover, who proposed and then increasingly defended the famous distinction between “fact and law,” characteristic of Jansenist mentality and action, according to which one could argue that the “five propositions” of Jansenius, as they appeared in the extracts in the work of Fr. Corneert, were heretical, but in reality they were not so in Jansenius himself. One could well say that the Pope was infallible in law, but not always in fact; and that Jansenism was heretical insofar as it was founded on the propositions attributed to it, but in reality it was not, since those propositions had a quite different meaning from what was believed, and everything ultimately reduced to a phantom conjured up by the opponents of Augustinian doctrine and sound moral tradition. Nicolas took a lively part in the controversy aroused by Pascal’s *Provincial Letters*, with the writings *Tredecim theologorum vota* (1657), *Belga percontator* (published under the pseudonym Franciscus Profuturus), and *Disquisitiones sex Pauli Irenei* (1657). He also translated Pascal’s *Provincial Letters* into Latin (*Ludovici Montalti Epistolae*, under the pseudonym Guglielmo Wendrock, 1658), in order to make them better known. After a long journey through Flanders and Germany, in 1658 Nicolas returned once more to the side of Arnauld and offered his assistance for various writings and initiatives of others. He collaborated, in fact, on M. de Saint-Martin’s *Apologie pour les religieuses de Port-Royal* (1664), and later on the celebrated New Testament known as the Mons Bible, an initiative of M. de Sacy but in reality a collective work of the Port-Royal group: this translation, prohibited in France, was later published in Belgium, at Mons, in 1667.
When in 1663 Alexander VII ordered all bishops to sign the formulary without distinction between “fact” and “law,” Nicolas supported the cause of the bishops of Pamiers, Aleth, Beauvais, and Angers who refused to sign. The distinction between “fact” and “law” was then developed by Nicolas in the ten *Lettres sur l’hérésie imaginaire* (1664–65), an imitation of Pascal’s *Provincial Letters*, in which he also examined the controversial issues raised by the anti-Jansenist controversy. The “peace of the Church” established by Clement IX in agreement with Louis XIV (23 October 1668), which allowed the dissenters to sign “in law” while reserving their position “in fact,” seemed to be a practical reaffirmation of the validity of the principles and methods dear to Nicolas. He then turned to combating more intensely the Protestant doctrine on the Eucharist: from a controversy with a Calvinist pastor there arose a work on the continuity of Catholic faith regarding the Eucharist (*Petite perpétuité*, 1664), later expanded into *Perpétuité de la foi touchant l’Eucharistie* (better known as the *Grande perpétuité*, 1669, 1672, 1676, 3 vols.). This work was often attributed to Arnauld, but in reality he had written only the preface.
Archbishop of Paris François de Harlay showed great hostility, so Nicolas, intimidated, left Paris for Belgium. There, on 10 July 1679, he met Arnauld but refused to follow him to Holland. The two old friends parted affectionately, but Nicolas now followed a different path from that of his friend. He addressed a letter of complete submission to the archbishop of Paris; after a long wait and various wanderings, he received on 17 May 1683 permission to retire to Chartres. There he spent the last part of his life, working on various theological, moral, and anti-Calvinist polemical works. In *Système de la Grâce générale* (1691), against the thesis that God, as the cause of all things, could be considered the cause of the ruin of the damned, he developed the idea of a “general grace” given to all and sufficient, in law, to save, even though, in fact, on account of original sin, a “special grace” of God, superimposed on the first, is alone effective for salvation. Arnauld, at first even if in a friendly way, and later Quesnel, criticized this theory, arguing that if nature is common to all men, grace is given to some only, and therefore one cannot speak of “general” grace. Death overtook Nicolas as he was preparing various works, including the unfinished *Instructions théologiques*. His most celebrated work, however, is the *Essais de morale* (under the pseudonym Mombringy, in 6 vols. in all: I–IV, 1671–78; V–VI, posthumous, 1700–14), in which he treated, with psychological finesse and in the light of a great—though pessimistic—moral vision, the various problems of life and Christian education. He also viewed with suspicion the manifestations of the great mystical current of his time, by which he was particularly struck by certain aberrant forms, and he combated the Quietists in *Refutation des principales erreurs des quiétistes* (1695). His moralistic and anti-mystical vision of life is summarized in *Traité de la prière* (1694).
NICOLET, DIOCESE OF. — The diocese of Trois-Rivières, already divided in 1874 to form the diocese of Sherbrooke (Quebec) and to enlarge that of Saint-Hyacinthe, and again in 1885 for the creation of the Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, was divided a third time in 1885, when Pope Leo XIII, after several years of negotiations, erected on 10 July the new diocese of Nicolet on the southern bank of the Saint Lawrence River; Nicolet then became a suffragan of Quebec, though since 1951 it has been suffragan of Sherbrooke. Its first bishop was Msgr. E. Gravel (1885–1904). The cathedral is dedicated to St John the Baptist.
Nicolet today has a population of 126,061, of whom 124,862 are French-speaking Catholics and 271 English-speaking. There are 219 diocesan priests and 20 religious (Montfort Missionaries and Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Issoudun). The diocese has two classical colleges, 76 parishes, 81 churches and chapels, 3 hospitals, and 1 orphanage.