Fléchier, Esprit (1632-1710). French orator and churchman, bishop of Lavaur (1685) and Nîmes (1687). Active as a young man in the literary salons of Paris (see his playful Mémoires sur les Grands-Jours d'Auvergne, 1665, published 1844), he was appointed lecteur to the dauphin in 1671 and received into the Académie Française in 1673 on the same day as Racine. A distinctly précieux elegance and wit [see Preciosity] mark his preaching, especially the funeral orations for the great (Turenne, Le Tellier, Maria-Teresa of Austria, Julie d'Angennes), which contemporaries loved to contrast with those of Bossuet and on which his fame largely rests. They were first collected for publication in 1680.
[Peter Bayley]
