Fleury Claude

Fleury, Claude (1630-1723), a French man of letters, was born at Paris, and educated at the Jesuit College at Clermont. He became a lawyer, but abandoned the law for the Church. In 1672 he was appointed tutor to the princes of Conti, and later became the tutor of an illegitimate son of Louis XIV., and was appointed to aid Fenelon in the education of the young Duke of Burgundy. [Fenelon.] He was made abbot of a Cistercian convent at Loc-Dieu, and afterwards prior of the convent of Argenteuil. He became a member of the Academy in 1696, and, owing to the moderate attitude which he adopted in the ecclesiastical controversy of the time, he was appointed confessor to Louis XV. He wrote a good deal, among his works being an Histoire du Droit Franqais, Mceurs des Israelites, Mceurs des Chretiens, and Histoire Eccllsiastique.