DU PERRON, dü pā´´rēn´ (DUPERRON), JACQUES DAVY: French cardinal and author; b. near Bern Nov. 25, 1556; d. at Batignolles (now part of Paris) Sept. 5, 1618. He was the son of Reformed parents, and received a careful education from his father. Presented at the French court at an early age, he gained the favor of Henry III., and in his twenty-fifth year took orders in the Roman Catholic Church. He was an important factor in the conversion of Henry IV., who appointed him Bishop of Evreux in 1591, and it was he who, together with Cardinal d’Ossat, sought and obtained absolution for the king at Rome in 1595. At this same time the pope consecrated him to his bishopric, and he thereupon devoted himself to the conversion of the Reformed. In 1604 Du Perron became cardinal, and two years later was made Grand Almoner of France and archbishop of Sens. In 1604 he was invited by Clement VIII. to take part in the conferences of the Congregatio de auxiliis on Molinism, and he also labored for the reconciliation of the pope and the republic of Venice. He became still more prominent at the Synod of Paris in 1612, which condemned the De ecclesiastica et politica potestate of Edmond Richer, and at the assembly of the Estates at Paris in 1614-15, where he vainly sought to secure the acceptance of the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent. His writings were published at Paris in 1620-22 in three folio volumes, the first containing his Traité sur l’eucharistie, directed primarily against Du Plessis-Mornay; the second comprising his controversy with James I. of England, who had asserted that the Anglican Church formed part of the Church Catholic; and the third including briefer controversial works and the articles drawn up for the conversion of the sister of Henry IV.

(C. PFENDER.)

BIBLIGRAPHY: P. Feret, Le Cardinal Du Perron, Paris, 1877; Perroniana, Geneva, 1667.