FLEURY, CLAUDE: French historian and ecclesiastic; b. at Paris Dec. 6, 1640; d. there July 14, 1723. He was educated at the college of Clermont, studied law, and for nine years practised as an advocate at Paris, where in 1674 he published his Histoire du droit français. Following the bent of his contemplative nature, however, and influenced by such men as Boeauet, he took orders, and was appointed tutor to the princes of Conti (1672), the count of Vermandoia (1680), and the dukes of Burgoyne, Anjou, and Berry (1689). In 1683 he received the Cistercian abbey of Locdien in Rhodes, and was elected to the Academy in 1696 as the successor of La Bruy&e. He declined the proffered see of Montpellier, but in 1706 accepted from Louis XIV. the priory of NBtre Dame d'Argenteuil, where he remained until 1716, when he was recalled to court as the confessor of Louis XV. This position

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he resigned in 1722, the year before his death. Fleury's reputation rests chiefly upon his Histoire ecclesiastique (20 vols., Paris, 1691-1720), a history of the Church to 1414, written with much detail and moderation of tone from a standpoint of pronounced Gallicanism, but marred by a lack of critical acumen. It was continued to 1778 by Jean Claude Faber and Alexandre la Croix, though with less happy results. In the middle of the nineteenth century the manuscript of Fleury's own continuation to 1517 was discovered at Paris and published in the latest edition of the entire work (Histoire ecclesiastique par l'Abb� Fleury, augment�e de quatre livres, 6 vols., Paris, 1640), but is far inferior in value to the preceding part of the work.

For his pupils, Fleury wrote Les Maeurs des Israelites (Paris, 1681; Eng. transl., The Manners of the Christians, . . . with Biographical Notes, Oxford, 1872); Las Maeurs des Chr�tiens (1682); and Grand cat�chisme historique (1679). His Institution au droit eccl�siatique (Paris, 1692), like his Discours sur les libert�s de l'�glise gallicane (1690), is permeated by a spirit of firm Gallicanism. His pedagogical system was developed in his Trait� du choix et de la m�thode des �tudes (1675). The minor works of Fleury were collected in his Opuscules (5 vols., Nimes, 1780-81).

Eug�ne Choisy.

Bibliography: Nic�ron, M�moires, vol. viii.; L. E. Dupin, Nouvelle biblioth�que des auteurs ecclesiastiques, vol. xviii., 35 vols., Paris, 1689-1711; F. R. Guett�e, Histoire de l'�glise de France, vols. x., xi., 12 vols., Paris, 1847-56; L. Genay, Un P�dagogue oubli� du xviie si�cle, Paris, 1879.