James, in Latin Bongarius, counsellor and maitre d'hôtel to Henri IV., and one of the ablest critics of his time, was born at Orleans in 1548. He studied the belles lettres at Strasburg under an anabaptist professor, and law at Bourges under Cujas. He was for near thirty years employed in the most important negotiations of Henri IV. at the courts of the princes of Germany, in the capacity, first of resident, and afterwards of ambassador. Bongars was of the Protestant religion; and, happening to be at Rome when Sixtus V. fulminated his famous bull of excommunication against Henri IV., he wrote a spirited answer, which he had the boldness to post up in a conspicuous place, and which was afterwards published with his name in the Mémoires de la Ligue. He died at Paris on the 29th July 1612, at the age of fifty.