LACORDAIRE, Jean Baptiste Henri (1802-1861), French orator, was born at Recey-sur Ource, Cote d’Or, 12th March 1802. He was the second of a family of four, the eldest of whom travelled a great deal in his youth, and subsequently occupied the chair of comparative anatomy at Liége, from which he contributed some valuable treatises on entomology. For several years Lacordaire studied at Dijon, showing a marked talent for rhetoric; this naturally led him to the pursuit of law, and in the local debates of the advocates he attained a high celebrity. At Paris he for a time thought of going on the stage, but was induced to finish the course, and, having done so with credit, applied himself for eighteen months with much success to the consideration of briefs. Meanwhile a great change was passing over his convictions. Lamennais had published his Essai sur l ’ Indifférence,— a passionate vindication of belief as against the tolerant contempt of a generation which regarded truth and falsehood in every department of life with equal complaisance, a demonstration of the weakness of individual reason and an assertion of the rightful supremacy of a central religious authority. Lacordaire read and was convinced. His ardent and believing nature was weary of the theological negations of the Encyclopedists. He was impelled towards a deistical explanation of the universe, from which in turn he went on to Catholicism as the only faith calculated to keep society from disintegration. In 1823 he became a theological student at the seminary of Saint Sulpice; four years later he was ordained and became almoner of the college of Henry IV. He was called from it to co-operate with Lamennais in the editorship of H Avenir, a journal established for the purpose of advocating the union of the ...