DAILLÉ, JOHN, a Protestant minister near Paris, was one of the most learned divines of the seventeenth century, and the most esteemed by the Catholics of all the controversial writers among the Protestants. He was tutor to
two of the grandsons of the illustrious M. du Plessis Mornay. M. Daillé having lived fourteen years with so excellent a master, travelled into Italy with his two pupils, one of whom died abroad; but with the other he visited Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Flanders, Holland, and England, and returned in 1621. He was received as minister in 1623, and first exercised his office in the family of M. du Plessis Mornay; but this did not last long, for his patron died soon afterwards. The memoirs of this great man employed M. Daillé the following year. In 1625 he was appointed minister of the church of Saumur, and in 1626 removed to Paris. He spent all the rest of his life in the service of this last church, and composed several works. His first production is his masterpiece, and is really an excellent work, entitled Of the Use of the Fathers, printed 1631. It is a strong chain of reasoning, and forms a moral demonstration against those who would have religious disputes decided by the authority of the fathers. The works of Daillé were numerous. He died in 1670, aged seventy-seven.