Esprit Fléchier

Esprit Fléchier (10 June 1632 – 16 February 1710) was a French preacher and author, Bishop of Nîmes from 1687 to 1710.

Biography

Fléchier was born at Pernes-les-Fontaines, in the département of Vaucluse, in the Comtat Venaissin, and brought up at Tarascon by his uncle, Hercule Audiffret, superior of the Congrégation des Doctrinaires. Fléchier entered the order, but on the death of his uncle, he left it, owing to the strictness of its rules, and went to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing poetry. His French poems met with little success, but a description in Latin verse of a tournament (carrousel, circus regius), given by Louis XIV around 1662, brought him a great reputation.