Enciclopedia Cattolica

PELLISSON-FONTANIER, PAUL

Volume IX · p. 671 · 1952

English translation · Testo originale italiano

PELLISSON-FONTANIER, PAUL. - Storico e apologista, n. a Castres da famiglia protestante il 30 ott. 1624, m. a Parigi il 7 febbr. 1693. Si laureò in legge a Tolosa.
PELLISSON-FONTANIER, PAUL. - Storico e apologista, n. a Castres da famiglia protestante il 30 ott. 1624, m. a Parigi il 7 febbr. 1693. Si laureò in legge a Tolosa.

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

PELLISSON-FONTANIER, PAUL. — Historian and apologist, born in Castres to a Protestant family on 30 October 1624, died in Paris on 7 February 1693. He earned a law degree in Toulouse.

Counselor to the King (1652) and member of the Académie française (1653), he was implicated in the disgrace of the minister N. Fouquet and spent five years in prison (1661–66), later regaining the favor of Louis XIV in 1667. He converted in 1670 and entered holy orders, devoting himself as administrator of the fund for Catholic propaganda to the conversion of former coreligionists.

Principal works: *Histoire de l'Académie Française* (Paris 1653; 2 vols., ibid. 1858, ed. C. Livet); *Histoire de Louis XIV* (3 vols., ibid. 1749, ed. Lemasquier); *Réflexions sur les différends en matière de religion* (4 vols., ibid. 1686); *Traité de l'Eucharistie* (ibid. 1694): a highly esteemed work; *Oeuvres diverses* (3 vols., ibid. 1739); *Oeuvres choisies* (2 vols., ibid. 1805).

BIBL.: F. Marcon, *P. Étude sur sa vie et ses oeuvres*, Paris 1859; J. Carreyre, s. V. in DThC, XII, cols. 720–21; M. Bonfanti, s. V. in *Enc. Ital.*, XXVI, p. 635.