Esprit Fléchier

He first went to school in Pernes and later to the Collège of Tarascon, which was run by the Congrégation des Doctrinaires, of which his uncle Hercule Audiffret was the superior.

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.

He was now firmly established in the favour of the king, who gave him successively the abbacy of Saint-Séverin,[4] in the diocese of Poitiers, the office of almoner to the Dauphine, and in 1685 the bishopric of Lavaur, from which he was in 1687 promoted to that of Nîmes.

[3] During the troubles in the Cévennes he softened to the utmost of his power the rigour of the edicts, and showed himself so indulgent even to what he regarded as error, that his memory was long held in veneration amongst the Protestants of that district.

The "Funeral Oration of Marshal Turenne" has been translated in English in HC Fish's History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence (ii., 1857).

There are streets named after Esprit Fléchier in several communes of France, including Éleu-dit-Leauwette, Marseille, Paris and Tarascon.