Pierre de Bérulle (4 February 1575 – 2 October 1629) was a French cardinal and statesman, one of the most important mystics of the 17th century in France, and founder of the French school of spirituality, who could count among his friends and disciples St. Vincent de Paul and St. Francis de Sales.
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He was born in the château of Cérilly, near Troyes in Champagne, into two families of distinguished magistrates of the parlement de Paris. The château de Cérilly is situated in the modern department of Yonne, while the village adjacent to it, Bérulle, is in Aube. He was educated by the Jesuits at Clermont and at the Sorbonne, Paris. Soon after his ordination in 1599, he assisted Cardinal Duperron in his public controversy with the Protestant Philippe de Mornay, and made numerous converts. A mainstay of the Counter-Reformation in France, Bérulle founded the Congregation of the French Oratory in Paris (1611) and introduced the Carmelite nuns into France, notwithstanding the opposition of the friars of that order, who were jealous of his ascendancy. In his Discours Bérulle emphasized the incarnate Word of Jesus, and the abasement, self-surrender, servitude and humiliation—all Bérulle's words— of his Incarnation
Bérulle also played an important part as a statesman. He was the confessor of Henri IV after his conversion, but several times declined to be made a bishop. Bérulle obtained the necessary dispensations from Rome for Henrietta Maria's marriage to Charles I, and acted as her chaplain during the first year of her stay in England. In 1626, as French ambassador to Spain, he concluded the favourable treaty of Monzón, to which his enemy Richelieu found objections. After the reconciliation of Louis XIII with his mother, Marie de Medici, through his agency, he was appointed a councillor of state, but had to resign this office, owing to his pro-Habsburg policy, which was opposed by Richelieu. He was made cardinal by Pope Urban VIII on 30 August 1627, but never received the red hat.
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Bérulle encouraged Descartes' philosophical studies, and it was through him that the Samaritan Pentateuch, recently brought over from Constantinople, was inserted in Lejay's Bible Polyglotte (1628–45). His treatise, Des Grandeurs de Jésus, was a favourite book with the Jansenists. His works, edited by P Bourgoing (2 vols., 1644) were reprinted, by Migne in 1857.
He was called the "apostle of the incarnate Word" and was an opponent of the abstract school of mysticism that by passed the humanity of Christ. His depiction of the mystical journey through Mary to Christ, and through Christ to the Trinity is a hallmark of the French School of spirituality.[1]