Name Louis Baunard | Died 1919, Gruson, France | |
 | ||
Books Ozanam in His Correspondence, Life of General de Sonis | ||
Louis Baunard was a rector of the Catholic University of Lille and historian.
Contents
Biography
This great educator, was born at Bellegarde-en-Gâtinais (45270 Loiret), France, the 24 of August 1828, dead in the departement of Nord, in 59152 Gruson the 9 of November 1919. He was one of the clergy of Orléans, until 1877, after which he was attached to the Catholic University of Lille, first as professor, and later as rector. No Catholic university profited more by the Law of 1875 that granted freedom of higher education.
Monsignor Baunard received the degree of Doctor of Letters, in 1860. In the two theses which he wrote he treated of the pedagogy of Plato and of Theodulphus, Bishop of Orléans in the time of Charlemagne; both works which marked the beginning of a literary activity surpassed by few. As hagiographer he wrote on St. John the Apostle (1869) and St. Ambrose (1871). He wrote the biographies of Saint Louise de Marillac, the foundress of the Daughters of Charity (1898); of (Madame) Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat (1876), foundress of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart; of Vicomte Armand de Melun (1880), Cardinal Pie, Bishop of Poitiers (1886), Cardinal Lavigerie (1896), Ernest Lelièvre, co-founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor (1905), and Philibert Vrau, the great Christian manufacturer (1906). The French religious history of the nineteenth century was summarized by him in "un siècle de l'Eglise de France" (1901). He contributed notable works of religious psychology in his celebrated books, "Le doute et ses victimes" (1865), and "La foi et ses victoires" (1881-83). His "Espérance" (1892) throws much light on the beginnings of the contemporary religious revival among intelligent Frenchmen at the end of the nineteenth century; his "L'évangile du pauvre" (1905) appeared opportunely during a period of social unrest.