DUPERRON, Jacques Davy (1556-1618), a celebrated French cardinal, was born at St Lô, in Normandy, November 15, 1556. His father was educated fora physician, but on embracing the doctrines of the Reformation became a Protestant minister, and to escape persecution settled at Bern, in Switzerland. Here Jacques Davy received his education, being taught Latin and mathematics by his father, and learning without the aid of any one Greek and Hebrew and the philosophy which was then in vogue. At twenty years of a^o he came to Paris, and was presented to the king by the count of Matignon; and, after he had abjured Protestantism, being again presented by Philip Desportes, abbot of Tiron, as a young man without equal for knowledge and talent, he was appointed reader to the king. He was commanded to preach before the king at the convent of Vincennes, when the success of his sermon on the love of God, and of a funeral oration on the poet Ronsard, induced him to take orders. On the death of Mary Queen of Scots he was chosen to pronounce her eulogy, which, though it contained an attack on Elizabeth of England that the king thought it prudent to disavow, tended to advance both the ecclesiastic’s fame and fortune. When the Cardinal de Bourbon, at the end of Henry III.’s reign, plotted to secure to himself the throne to the prejudice of Henry IV., Duperron is accused of having joined in the plot and revealed to Henry TV. its secrets. However that may be, when the plot failed, and Henry IV. mounted the throne, Duperron enjoyed the favour of that monarch, and in 1591 was created by him bishop of Evreux. He converted Henry to the Catholic religion; and, after the taking of Paris, accompanied the Cardinal d’Ossat to Rome to obtain the removal of the interdict which had been passed upon ...