ERNEST, a writer eminently distinguished by his knowledge of history, ecclesiastical antiquities, and the canon law, was born at Tulle on the 24th of December 1630, of a family which had long adhered to the legal profession. He received his elementary education at the place of his nativity, and afterwards prosecuted his studies in the university of Toulouse, where he obtained an exhibition in the College of St Martial. Having finished his course of philosophy, he commenced his attendance in the schools of law; but although he attained to great proficiency in certain departments of jurisprudence, he felt no inclination for the ordinary occupations of a lawyer, and never followed the profession of an advocate. His earliest inquiries related to different subjects of ecclesiastical antiquities; and the reputation which he thus acquired recommended him to the notice of M. de Montechal, archbishop of Toulouse, who granted him access to his library. This prelate was succeeded by M. de Marca, soon afterwards archbishop of Paris, a man who was profoundly skilled in those branches of knowledge which Baluze so long continued to cultivate. In 1656 Baluze was invited by the archbishop to the metropolis; but before his hopes of preferment were realized, his patron died.

He speedily found another favourer of his studies in M. le Tellier, afterwards chancellor of France, who conferred upon him many benefits. He was next connected with the establishment of M. de Lamothe-Houdancourt, archbishop of Auch. In 1667 M. Colbert offered him the situation of keeper of his library, one of the most magnificent private collections in Europe; and its value, both in manuscripts and in printed books, was greatly augmented by the judgment and zeal of the learned librarian. Having retained his office for some time after the death of Colbert, he resigned it in the year 1700, and retired to a house belonging to the Scottish College.

In 1670 he was appointed professor of the canon law in the Royal College, a new chair which the king was pleased to erect in his favour; and of his high qualifications for such a professorship he has left the most unequivocal proofs. He was also appointed a canon of the cathedral of Rheims; and in the privilege appended to his edition of Marius Mercator, printed in the year 1684, he is designated "Estienne Baluze, prieur de Beauvais." It may therefore be inferred that he enjoyed a considerable pension from that abbey; nor were such arrangements uncommon at that period of the history of France. He is described as "simple tonsuré;" an expression which denotes that he was not a priest or a deacon, but had only been initiated into one of the lowest of the seven holy orders. In 1683 he published a volume of Councils, and it was his original intention to extend the collection; but as some of the materials which he had prepared could not be much relished at Rome, he thought it expedient to abandon his design. Of the acts of the council of Basle he had proposed to print a very ample collection; and this was indeed the part of his plan for which the whole had chiefly been undertaken. After an interval of ten years, he published his Lives of the Popes of Avignon; a work of curious research, which procured him a pension from the crown, and afterwards the office of director of the Royal College, where he succeeded the Abbé Gallois in the year 1700. But the favour of a court is at all times and in all places held by a very precarious tenure. Baluze, who had attached himself to Cardinal de Bouillon, was involved in the disgrace which attended that prelate. A lettre de cachet removed him from Paris; his place of exile was repeatedly changed, and his residence successively restricted to Rouen, Blois, Tours, and Orleans; nor could he obtain his recall till 1713, after the peace of Utrecht. Though at length permitted to revisit Paris, he never recovered his two offices of director and professor of the Royal College. This persecution did not however quench his literary ardour; for, during his exile, he employed himself in preparing an edition of the works of St Cyprian, which was published after his death. His constitution had never been vigorous, but the sobriety and regularity of his habits enabled him to reach a mature and healthy old age. He died on the 28th of July 1718, in his eighty-eighth year; and was buried in the church of St Sulpice. A person who had lived so long in the midst of learned dust, without either wife or children to blow it aside, could not well be without his share of peculiarities. He was not entirely exempted from caprice, and his testament exhibited this caprice in no very amiable light; his relations and domestics were almost totally forgotten, and the bulk of his property was bequeathed to a woman who appears to have had no claim upon him. Some scholars, who have collected libraries with much labour and at great expense, are inclined to cherish an anxious wish that they should be preserved entire; but, on the contrary, he was desirous that his library should be sold in detail, lest any one individual should be put in possession of those literary treasures which he himself had gradually amassed. This collection consisted of 10,759 articles, including more than 1500 manuscripts, together with 115 printed books which he had interspersed with annotations. The manuscripts were added to the Royal Library.

The merits of Baluze are perhaps more conspicuous in his capacity of editor than in that of author. If his labours had not extended beyond the Capitularia Regum Francorum, his name would always have been mentioned with respect by lawyers and historians; but some of his other publications greatly illustrate the history of the middle ages; nor must we forget the light which they reflect upon the history of the canon law, and upon the writings of the Latin fathers. His published works formed fifteen volumes in folio, three in 4to, sixteen in 8vo, and two in 12mo.