ere always effective. He died in
Paris on the 13th of May 1704. His peculiar strength lay in his power of
adapting himself to audiences of every kind, and throughout his public
career he was highly appreciated by all classes of society. His
influence was due as much to his saintly character and to the gentleness
of his manners as to the force of his reasoning. Voltaire said that his
sermons surpassed those of Bossuet (whose retirement in 1669, however,
practically coincided with Bourdaloue's early pulpit utterances); and
there is little doubt that their simplicity and coherence, and the
direct appeal which they made to hearers of all classes, gave them a
superiority over the more profound sermons of Bossuet. Bourdaloue may be
with justice regarded as one of the greatest French orators, and many of
his sermons have been adopted as text-books in schools.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The only authoritative source for the Sermons is the
edition of Pere Bretonneau (14 vols., Paris, 1707-1721, followed by
the _Pensees_, 2 vols., 1734). There has been much controversy both as
to the authenticity of some of the sermons in this edition and as to
the text in general. It is, however, generally agreed that the changes
confessedly made by Bretonneau were merely formal. Other editions not
based on Bretonneau are inferior; some, indeed, are altogether
spurious (e.g. that of Abbe Sicard, 1810). Among critical works are:
Anatole Feugere, _Bourdaloue, sa predication et son temps_ (Paris,
1874); Adrien Lezat, _Bourdaloue, theologien et orateur_ (Paris,
1874); P.M. Lauras, _Bourdaloue, sa vie et ses oeuvres_ (2 vols.,
Paris, 1881); Abbe Blampignon, _Etude sur Bourdaloue_ (Paris, 1886);
Henri Cherot, _Bourdaloue inconnu_ (Paris, 1898), and _Bourdaloue, sa
correspondance et ses correspondans_ (Paris, 1898-1904); L. Pauthe,
_Bourdaloue_ (_les maitres de la chaire au XVII^e siecle_) (Paris,
1900); E. Griselle, _Bourdaloue, histoire critique de sa predication_
(2 vols., Paris, 1901), _Sermons inedits; bibliographie, &c._ (Paris,
1901), _Deux sermons inedits sur le royaume de Dieu_ (Lille and Paris,
1904); Ferdinand Castets, _Bourdaloue, la vie et la predication d'un
religieux au XVII^e siecle_, and _La Revue Bourdaloue_ (Paris,
1902-1904); C.H. Brooke, _Great French Preachers_ (sermons of
Bourdaloue and Bossuet, London, 1904); F. Brunetiere, "L'Eloquence de
Bourdaloue," in _Revue des deux mondes_ (August 1904), a