Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Born in Dijon in 1627, Bossuet trained with Jesuits before studying philosophy and theology at the College of Navarre in Paris. Ordained in 1652, he spent seven years at Metz sharpening his command of rhetoric and politics, then returned to Paris where his preaching caught the attention of Louis XIV's court. By the early 1660s he was a fixture at Versailles; in 1670 he became tutor to the Dauphin, joined the Académie Française a year later, and was named Bishop of Meaux in 1681. He championed divine-right monarchy and political absolutism, backed the king's revocation of the Edict of Nantes that stripped Huguenots of their protections, and waded into the theological fights over Gallicanism and Quietism. His funeral orations for Queen Henrietta Maria in 1669, for Henriette Duchess of Orléans in 1670, and for Le Grand Condé in 1687 remain touchstones of French oratory. He died in 1704 at seventy-six.