Jean Claude
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- For the action movie actor, see Jean Claude Van Damme.
Jean Claude (1619 – 1687) was a French Protestant divine.
He was born at La Sauvetat-du-Dropt near Agen. After studying at Montauban, Jean Claude entered the ministry in 1645. For eight years he was professor of theology in the Protestant college of Nîmes; but in 1661, having successfully opposed a scheme for re-uniting Catholics and Protestants, he was forbidden to preach in Lower Languedoc. In 1662 he obtained a post at Montauban similar to that which he had lost, but four years later he was removed from there as well. Next he became pastor at Charenton near Paris, where he engaged in controversies with Pierre Nicole (Réponse aux deux traités intitulés la perpétuité de la foi, 1665), Antoine Arnauld (Réponse au livre de M. Arnauld, 1670), and J.B. Bossuet (Réponse au livre de M. l'évêque de Meaux, 1683).
On the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 Jean Claude fled to the Netherlands where he received a pension from stadtholder William of Orange, who commissioned him to write an account of the persecuted Huguenots (Plaintes des protestants cruellement opprimés dans le royaume de France, 1686). The book was translated into English, but by order of James II of England, both the translation and the original were publicly burnt by the common hangman on the 5th of May 1686, as containing "expressions scandalous to His Majesty the king of France."
Other works by Jean Claude were Réponse au livre de P. Nouet sur l'eucharistie (1668) and Œuvres posthumes (Amsterdam, 1688), containing the Traité de la composition d'un sermon, translated into English in 1778.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- See biographies by J. P. Nicéron and Abel Rotholf de la Devèze; Eugène et Émile Haag , La France protestante, vol. iv. (1884, new edition).
Jean Claude: also referencing the fictional first-name-only vampire that apears in Laurell K Hamilton's "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" book series.
Jean Claude's age is unknown, though it is hinted he is well over a thousand years. In life he was a French whipping-boy for a wealthy man's spoiled son. He was brought to vampirism by the beautiful, insane, and deadly-seductive Belle Morte along with his former lover and best friend, Asher. His powers stem from the sensual and sexual nature of Belle Morte, among them, the ardeur.
Since the legalization of vampirism, Jean Claude has opened several night clubs and bars in the St. Louis area, the first of which is called 'Guilty Pleasures' and is the tittle name for the first book in the series. Jean Claude continues to shape and change the public view of vampires for the better as well as delicatly 'tweek' the vampire political system of olde.
Jean Claude is also the off and on boyfriend of Anita Blake, the series's main character, and legal vampire-executioner.
