Bossuet
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Bossuet. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
bo-swa'(1627-1704), a noted French divine. He was born at Dijon. He was educated for the priesthood in his native town and in Paris. He was noted as a classical scholar, a refuter of Protestant doctrines, a pulpit orator, and as a writer on historical and other subjects. Bossuet was in the midst of the Huguenot controversy. He was chosen to convert the Protestants of Metz. In 1670 he became tutor of the young dauphin, with whose grandmother, Anne of Austria, he was a favorite. Both Louis XIV and his minister Mazarin regarded Bossuet with a kindly eye. He was elevated to various offices of importance in church and state. He is known best perhaps as Bishop of Meaux (mo). Here he officiated in a fine old cathedral but twenty-seven miles from Paris. Among his pulpit orations those delivered on the occasion of Marshal Turenne's admission to the Catholic church, on the death of the Duchess of Orleans, and at the tomb of "The Great Conde," are his most noted efforts. Bossuet's character is not called in question. He was a man of simplicity, piety, sincerity, and ability. His works fill forty-three volumes. He was one of the noted members of the French Academy.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JACQUES BÉNIGNE ( bosü-ā'), a French theologian, born in Dijon, Sept. 27, 1627. At the age of 15 he entered the College of Navarre, where he studied Greek and the Holy Scriptures, read the ancient classics, and investigated the Cartesian philosophy. In 1652 he was ordained priest, and made a canon of Metz. In 1670 he was appointed preceptor to the Dauphin, and in 1681 he was raised to the see of Meaux. He drew up the famous propositions adopted by the assembly of French clergy, which secured the freedom of the Gallican Church against the aggressions of the Pope. Pope. He opposed Quietism, and prosecuted Madame Guyon; Guyon: and when his old friend Fénelon defended her he caused him to be exiled. He died in Paris, April 12, 1704.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical facts in Aiton's 1910 and Collier's 1921 accounts still stand, and Bossuet's funeral orations — for Henrietta of England and for the Great Condé — remain fixtures of the French prose canon, still set in schools. What has moved is the standing of the causes he championed. Collier's praises the 1682 propositions that "secured the freedom of the Gallican Church against the aggressions of the Pope," but Gallicanism was already a lost cause by then: the First Vatican Council had defined papal infallibility in 1870. Modern biographers also dwell far more heavily than these entries do on the harsher side of the record — his welcome for the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and his relentless pursuit of Madame Guyon and of Fénelon, whom later scholars often treat as the more sympathetic figure.
Written for this edition, 2026.