Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry

After a period of mental struggle which he has described in Souvenirs de ma jeunesse, he was ordained a priest in Strasbourg in 1832.

After a stay there as professor of the Petit Séminaire, he was appointed director of the Collège Stanislas in Paris in 1842 and, in 1847, chaplain of the École Normale Supérieure.

[2] He became vicar-general for the bishop of Orleans in 1861, professor of moral theology at the Sorbonne in 1863, and, on the death of Barante, a member of the Académie française in 1867, where he occupied the seat formerly held by Voltaire.

[1] Together with Abbé Philippe Pététot, pastor of Saint Roch, and Hyacinthe de Valroger, Joseph Gratry reconstituted the French Oratory, a society of priests mainly dedicated to education.

Gratry developed throat cancer at the end of his life and went to Montreux, Switzerland, for treatment, where he died.

Auguste Joseph Alphonse Gratry.