Dominique Bouhours
(1628–1702)
Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition (1911)
BOUHOURS, DOMINIQUE (1628–1702), French critic, was born in Paris in 1628. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen, and was appointed to read lectures on literature in the college of Clermont at Paris, and on rhetoric at Tours. He afterwards became private tutor to the two sons of the duke of Longueville. He was sent to Dunkirk to the Romanist refugees from England, and in the midst of his missionary occupations published several books. In 1665 or 1666 he returned to Paris, and published in 1671 Les Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène, a critical work on the French language, printed five times at Paris, twice at Grenoble, and afterwards at Lyons, Brussels, Amsterdam, Leiden, &c. The chief of his other works are La Manière de bien penser sur les ouvrages d'esprit (1687), Doutes sur la langue française (1674), Vie de Saint Ignace de Loyola (1679), Vie de Saint François Xavier (1682), and a translation of the New Testament into French (1697). His practice of publishing secular books and works of devotion alternately led to the mot, ”qu'il servait le monde et le ciel par semestre.” Bouhours died at Paris on the 27th of May 1702.