FLÉCHIER, ESPRIT (1632-1710), French preacher and author, bishop of Nîmes, was born at Pernes, department of Vaucluse, on the 10th of June 1632. He was brought up at Tarascon by his uncle, Hercule Audiffret, superior of the Congrégation des Doctrinaires, and afterwards entered the order. On the death of his uncle, however, 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. in 1662, brought him a great reputation. He subsequently became tutor to Louis Urbain Lefèvre de Caumartin, afterwards intendant of finances and counsellor of state, whom he accompanied to Clermont-Ferrard (q.v.), where the king had ordered the Grands Jours to be held (1665), and where Caumartin was sent as representative of the sovereign. There Fléchier wrote his curious Mémoires sur les Grand Jours tenus à Clermont, in which he relates, in a half romantic, half historical form, the proceedings of this extraordinary court of justice. In 1668 the duke of Montausier procured for him the post of lecteur to the dauphin. The sermons of Fléchier increased his reputation, which was afterwards raised to the highest pitch by his funeral orations. The most important are those on Madame de Montausier (1672), which gained him the membership of the Academy, the duchesse d’Aiguillon (1675), and, above all, Marshal Turenne (1676). He was now firmly established in the favour of the king, who gave him successively the abbacy of St Séverin, in the diocese of Poitiers, the office of almoner to the dauphiness, and in 1685 the bishopric of Lavaur, from which he was in 1687 promoted to that of Nîmes. The edict of Nantes had been repealed two years before; but the Calvinists were still very numerous at Nîmes. Fléchier, by his leniency and tact, succeeded in bringing over some of them to his views, and even gained the esteem of those who declined to change their faith. During the troubles in the Cévennes (see [Huguenots]) 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. It is right to add, however, that some authorities consider the accounts of his leniency to have been greatly exaggerated, and even charge him with going beyond what the edicts permitted. He died at Montpellier on the 16th of February 1710. Pulpit eloquence is the branch of belles-lettres in which Fléchier excelled. He is indeed far below Bossuet, whose robust and sublime genius had no rival in that age; he does not equal Bourdaloue in earnestness of thought and vigour of expression; nor can he rival the philosophical depth or the insinuating and impressive eloquence of Massillon. But he is always ingenious, often witty, and nobody has carried farther than he the harmony of diction, sometimes marred by an affectation of symmetry and an excessive use of antithesis. His two historical works, the histories of Theodosius and of Ximenes, are more remarkable for elegance of style than for accuracy and comprehensive insight.
The last complete edition of Fléchier’s works is by J.P. Migne (Paris, 1856); the Mémoires sur les Grands Jours was first published in 1844 by B. Gonod (2nd ed. as Mém. sur les Gr. J. d’Auvergne, with notice by Sainte-Beuve and an appendix by M. Chéruel, 1862). His chief works are: Histoire de Théodose le Grand, Oraisons funèbres, Histoire du Cardinal Ximénès, Sermons de morale, Panégyriques des saints. He left a portrait or caractère of himself, addressed to one of his friends. The Life of Theodosius has been translated into English by F. Manning (1693), and the “Funeral Oration of Marshal Turenne” in H.C. Fish’s History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence (ii., 1857). On Fléchier generally see Antonin V.D. Fabre, La Jeunesse de Fléchier (1882), and Adolphe Fabre, Fléchier, orateur (1886); A. Delacroix, Hist, de Fléchier (1865).
FLECKEISEN, CARL FRIEDRICH WILHELM ALFRED (1820-1899), German philologist and critic, was born at Wolfenbüttel on the 23rd of September 1820. He was educated at the Helmstedt gymnasium and the university of Göttingen. After holding several educational posts, he was appointed in 1861 to the vice-principalship of the Vitzthum’sches Gymnasium at Dresden, which he held till his retirement in 1889. He died on the 7th of August 1899. Fleckeisen is chiefly known for his labours on Plautus and Terence; in the knowledge of these authors he was unrivalled, except perhaps by Ritschl, his life-long friend and a worker in the same field. His chief works are: Exercitationes Plautinae (1842), one of the most masterly productions on the language of Plautus; “Analecta Plautina,” printed in Philologus, ii. (1847); Plauti Comoediae, i., ii. (1850-1851, unfinished), introduced by an Epistula critica ad F. Ritschelium; P. Terenti Afri Comoediae (new ed., 1898). In his editions he endeavoured to restore the text in accordance with the results of his researches on the usages of the Latin language and metre. He attached great importance to the question of orthography, and his short treatise Fünfzig Artikel (1861) is considered most valuable. Fleckeisen also contributed largely to the Jahrbücher fur Philologie, of which he was for many years editor.
See obituary notice by G. Götz in C. Bursian’s Biographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde (xxiii., 1901), and article by H. Usener in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (where the date of birth is given as the 20th of September).
FLECKNOE, RICHARD (c. 1600-1678?), English dramatist and poet, the object of Dryden’s satire, was probably of English birth, although there is no corroboration of the suggestion of J. Gillow (Bibliog. Dict. of the Eng. Catholics, vol. ii., 1885), that he was a nephew of a Jesuit priest, William Flecknoe, or more properly Flexney, of Oxford. The few known facts of his life are chiefly derived from his Relation of Ten Years’ Travels in Europe, Asia, Affrique and America (1655?), consisting of letters written to friends and patrons during his travels. The first of these is dated from Ghent (1640), whither he had fled to escape the troubles of the Civil War. In Brussels he met Béatrix de Cosenza, wife of Charles IV., duke of Lorraine, who sent him to Rome to secure the legalization of her marriage. There in 1645 Andrew Marvell met him, and described his leanness and his rage for versifying in a witty satire, “Flecknoe, an English Priest at Rome.” He was probably, however, not in priest’s orders. He then travelled in the Levant, and in 1648 crossed the Atlantic to Brazil, of which country he gives a detailed description. On his return to Europe he entered the household of the duchess of Lorraine in Brussels. In 1645 he went back to England. His royalist and Catholic convictions did not prevent him from writing a book in praise of Oliver Cromwell, The Idea of His Highness Oliver ... (1659), dedicated to Richard Cromwell. This publication was discounted at the restoration by the Heroick Portraits (1660) of Charles II. and others of the Stuart family. John Dryden used his name as a stalking horse from behind which to assail Thomas Shadwell in Mac Flecknoe (1682). The opening lines run:—
| “All human things are subject to decay. And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young Was called to empire, and had governed long; In prose and verse was owned, without dispute, Throughout the realms of nonsense, absolute.” |
Dryden’s aversion seems to have been caused by Flecknoe’s affectation of contempt for the players and his attacks on the immorality of the English stage. His verse, which hardly deserved his critic’s sweeping condemnation, was much of it religious, and was chiefly printed for private circulation. None of his plays was acted except Love’s Dominion, announced as a “pattern for the reformed stage” (1654), that title being altered in 1664 to Love’s Kingdom, with a Discourse of the English Stage. He amused himself, however, by adding lists of the actors whom he would have selected for the parts, had the plays been staged. Flecknoe had many connexions among English Catholics, and is said by Gerard Langbaine, to have been better acquainted with the nobility than with the muses. He died probably about 1678.