Bibliography.— F. J. Bataille, Êlogehistorique de Μ. le Cardinal A. H. de Fleury, Strasburg, 1737, 8vo; Ch. Frey de Neuville, Oraison funèbre de S. E. Mgr. le Cardinal A. H. Fleury, Paris, 1743, 4to; Ph. Vicaire, Oraison funèbre du Cardinal A. H. de Fleury, Caen, 1743, 4to; Μ. van Hoey, Lettres et negotiations pour servir à l'histoire de la vie du Cardinal de Fleury, Londres, 1743, 8vo; Leben des Cardinals A. H. Fleury, Freiburg, 1743, 8vo; Fr. Morénas, Parallèle du ministère du Cardinal Richelieu et du Cardinal de Fleury, Avignon, 1743, 12mo; Nachrichten von dem Leben und der Verwaltung des Cardinals Fleury, Hamburg, 1744, 8vo.

FLEURY, Claude (1640-1723), the famous ecclesiastical historian, was born at Paris, December 6, 1640. Destined for the bar by his father, he was placed at the college of Clermont (now that of Louis-le-Grand), where the sons of the first families of France were educated. After passing brilliantly through the regular collegiate studies, he was nominated an advocate to the parliament of Paris in 1658, and continued during nine years to pursue the legal profession. Feeling a strong desire to enter the church, being fond of solitude, but especially influenced by the religious sentiments which he had imbibed during his early education, he renounced the law—which, with history and literature, up to this time had formed the principal objects of his study—in order to devote himself to theology exclusively. He had already been some time in holy orders, when Louis XIV., in 1672, selected him as tutor of the princes of Conti; and so well did he acquit himself in this office, that the king intrusted to him afterwards the education of the count of Vermandois, one of his natural sons; and at the death of the young prince, Fleury received as recompense for his services the abbey of Loc-Dieu, in the diocese of Rhodez. Five years after this (1689) he was appointed sub-preceptor of the dukes of Burgundy, of Anjou, and of Berri. He thus became intimately associated with Fénelon, the chief preceptor of his royal pupils. In 1696 he was selected to fill the place of La Bruyère in the French Academy; and on the completion of the education of the young princes, the king bestowed upon him the rich priory of Argenteuil, in the diocese of Paris (1706). On assuming this benefice he resigned that of the abbey of Loc-Dieu, thus setting an example of rare disinterestedness. It was about this time that he decided, according to the suggestions of his friends, on commencing his great work, for which he had been collecting materials for thirty years —the Histoire Ecclésiastique. Hitherto France did not possess any work of equal merit in this department of literature. There existed many works more or less voluminous on matters of doctrine and discipline; but no one had written a history of the church,—a complete and scientific exposition of the progress of Christian society, of its organization and its primitive doctrine, of its varied changes in connexion with the state, of the successive development of its institutions, of all the modifications introduced into its symbols and its rites. Fleury had evidently the intention of writing a history of the church for all classes of society; but at the time in which his great work appeared it was less religion than theology that absorbed the attention of the clergy and the educated public; and his work, as well as all those that had been published previously, is therefore more a work for the student than one for the people, dwelling as it does very particularly on questions of doctrine, of discipline, of supremacy, and of rivalry between the priesthood and the imperial power, while it notices very slightly general questions affecting religion and morality. This fault, which was then looked upon as a merit, secured to the Histoire Ecclésiastique a very great success. The first edition, printed at Paris in 20 volumes 4to, 1691, was followed by many others, among which may be mentioned that of Brussels, in 32 vols. 8vo, 1692, and that of Nismes, in 25 vols. 8vo, 1778 to 1780. The work of Fleury only comes down to the year 1414. It was continued by J. Claude Fabre and Goujet down to 1595, in 16 vols. 4to. In consulting the work of Fleury and its supplement, the general table of contents, published by Rondel, Paris, 1758, 1 vol. 4to, will be found very useful. Translations have been made of the entire work into Latin, German, and Italian. The Latin translation, published at Augsburg, 1758-59, 85 vols. 8vo, carries the work down to 1684. Fleury, who had been appointed confessor to the king in 1716, died in 1723.

Fleury left many works besides his Histoire Ecclésiastique. The following deserve special mention :— Histoire du Droit français, 1674, 12mo; Catéchisme historique, 1679, 12mo; Moeurs des Israélites, 1681, 12mo; Moeurs des Chrétiens, 1682, 12mo; Traité du choix et de la méthode des études, 1686, 2 vols. 12mo; Institution du Droit ecclésiastique, 1687, 2 vols. 12mo ; Les Devoirs des maîtres et des domestiques, 1688, 12mo. The Roman Congregation of the Index has condemned the Catéchisme historique and the Institution du Droit ecclésiastique. The books to be specially consulted on Fleury’s biography are—Chr. Ernst Simonetti, Der Character eines Geschichtsschreibers in dem Leben und aus den Schriften des Abbts C. Fleury, Göttingen, 1746, 4to; J. F. Lehret, Dissertatio de C. Flcuryo, Gallo-catholico an acatholico, Tübingen, 1800, 4to; Chr. F. Ph. Jaeger, Notice sur C. Fleury, considéré comme historien de V Église, Strasburg, 1847, 8vo.