1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Paris, François de

PARIS, FRANÇOIS DE (1690–1727), French theologian, was born in Paris on the 3rd of June 1690. He zealously opposed the bull Unigenitus (1713), which condemned P. Quesnel’s annotated translation of the Bible. He gave further support to the Jansenists, and when he died (May 1, 1727) his grave in the cemetery of St Medard became a place of fanatical pilgrimage and wonder-working. The king ordered the churchyard to be closed in 1732, but earth which had been taken from the grave proved equally efficacious and helped to encourage the disorder which marked the close of the Jansenist struggle (see Jansenism).

Lives by B. de la Bruyère and B. Doyen (1731). See also P. F. Matthieu, Histoire des miracles et des convulsionnaires de St Médard; M. Tollemache, French Jansenists (London, 1893).