BARRUEL, AUGUSTIN DE

Jesuit polemicist; b. Villeneuve de Berg (Ardèche), Oct. 2, 1741; d. Paris, Oct. 5, 1820. He entered the jesu its in 1756, was exiled (1762) with them, and returned to France on the occasion of their suppression (1774). In collaboration with Fréron on the Année littéraire from 1774, he attacked the philosophes in his Helviennes ou Lettres provinciales philosophiques (1781). He edited (1788–92) the Journal ecclésiastique, which he used to criticize the french revolution. He wrote pamphlets (1790–91) against the civil constitution of the cler gy, and then gathered into one Collection ecclésiastique (13 v. 1791–93) all documents on this subject. From England he published his Histoire du clergé pendant la Revolution (1784). His most provocative work, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme (London 1787) underscored the role of Freemasonry and secret societies in the French Revolution: his thesis, correct but too sweeping, precipitated a flood of refutations. Barruel returned to France at the fall of the Directory, and wrote in defense of the new political order. He upheld the con cordat of 1801 and the right of the pope to depose French bishops in Du Pape et de ses droits religieux (1803). He reentered the restored Society of Jesus (1815). His last years were spent preparing a refutation of Kant.

Bibliography: c. sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels-Paris 1890–1932) 1:930–945; 7:1767. j.j. dussault, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages d'Augustin de Barruel (Paris 1825). r. daeschler, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris 1912— ) 6:937.

[r. j. sealy]