ANDRE HERCULE DE, CARDINAL, the celebrated minister of Louis XV. of France, was born in 1653 at Lodève, in Languedoc. He was educated by the Jesuits at Paris, and became successively almoner to Marie Thérèse, queen of Louis XIV., in 1699 bishop of Fréjus, and ultimately preceptor to the young prince, who afterwards succeeded to the French throne as Louis XV. On the death of the Regent Orleans in 1723, Fleury was made a member of the Council of State, and in 1726 (though at that time in his seventy-third year), was called to the office of prime-minister, which he held till his death in 1743. At the time when Fleury was called to the direction of affairs, the condition of France was truly deplorable. The nation was impoverished and worn out, and the exchequer emptied by the long wars of the Grand Monarchie and the extravagances of the regent. Commerce was annihilated, public credit ruined, the government held in contempt, and the church distracted by internal dissensions. Fleury immediately set himself to reform these abuses, and by his honesty, economy, disinterestedness, and decision, effected very great reforms. Indeed the only reputable part of Louis the XV.'s reign was that in which the helm of state was guided by the hand of the aged cardinal. Though he was a confirmed friend to peaceful measures, he was twice driven by court intrigues to take part in foreign wars; first, in the case of Stanislaus Leszinski, the dethroned king of Poland, whose daughter Louis had married; and afterwards in that of the Austrian succession, of which he did not live to see the end. One of the most useful acts of Fleury's administration was the completion of the Royal (now the Imperial) library, which he enriched with many valuable manuscripts, chiefly in the oriental languages.

Claude, Abbé, was born at Paris, December 6, 1640. Destined for the bar by his father, he was placed at the college of Clermont (now that of Louis-le-Grand), where the sons of the first families of France were educated. After passing brilliantly through the regular collegiate studies, he was nominated an advocate to the parliament of Paris in 1658, and continued during nine years to pursue the legal profession. Feeling a strong desire to enter the church, being fond of solitude, but especially influenced by the religious sentiments which he had imbibed during his early education, he renounced the law, which, with history and literature, up to this time had formed the principal objects of his study, in order to devote himself to theology exclusively. He had already been some time in holy orders, when Louis XIV., in 1672, selected him as tutor of the princes of Conti; and so well did he acquit himself in this office that the king intrusted to him afterwards the education of the Count of Vermandois, one of his natural sons; and at the death of the young prince, Fleury received as recompense for his services the abbey of Loc-Dieu, in the diocese of Rhodéz. Five years after this he was appointed sub-preceptor of the dukes of Burgundy, of Anjou, and of Berri. He thus became intimately associated with Fénelon, the chief preceptor of his royal pupils. In 1696 he was selected to fill the place of La Bruyère in the French academy; and on the completion of the education of the young princes, the king bestowed upon him the rich priory of Argenteuil, in the diocese of Paris. On assuming this benefice he resigned that of the abbey of Loc-Dieu, thus setting an example of rare disinterestedness. It was about this time that he decided, according to the suggestions of his friends, on commencing his great work, for which he had long been collecting materials—the *Histoire Écclésiastique*. Hitherto France did not possess any work of equal merit in this department of literature. There existed many works more or less voluminous on matters of doctrine and discipline, but no one had written a history of the church—a complete and scientific exposition of the progress of Christian society, of its organization and its primitive doctrine, of its varied changes in connection with the state, of the successive development of its institutions, of all the modifications introduced into its symbols and its rites. Of this great work the French say: "One work only was wanting at that time which should collect together the scattered information of the epoch, and that was the very time to publish it." Fleury had evidently the intention of writing a history of the church for all classes of society; but at the time in which his great work appeared it was less religion than theology that absorbed the attention of the clergy; and his work, as well as all those that had been published previously, is more a work for the student than one for the people, dwelling as it does very particularly on questions of doctrine, of discipline, of supremacy, and of rivalry between the priesthood and the imperial power, while it notices very slightly general questions affecting religion and morality.

Notwithstanding all this, the success of the *Histoire Écclésiastique* was very great. The first edition, printed at Paris, in 20 volumes 4to, 1691, was followed by many others, among which may be mentioned that of Brussels, in 32 vols. 8vo, 1692, and that of Nismes, in 25 vols. 8vo, 1778 to 1780. The work of Fleury only comes down to the year 1414. It was continued by T. Claude Fabre down to 1698, in 16 vols. 4to, and thence by Alexandre Lacroix down to 1778. These supplementary continuations are very inferior to the labours of Fleury; they are more compilations of facts, with little criticism, and still less talent. In consulting the work of Fleury and its supplements the general table of contents, published by Rondel, Paris, 1758, vol. 4to, will be found very useful. Translations have been made of the entire work into Latin, German, and Italian.

Fleury has left other works, though not at all so celebrated. These are *Mœurs des Chrétiens*, Paris, 1662; and *Mœurs des Israélites*, Paris, 1772—two works at first published separately, but afterwards united and published in 3 volumes 12mo, written with elegance and precision; *Catéchisme Historique*, first published in 1679, 12mo; *L'Institution au droit Écclésiastique*, Paris, 1687: besides several minor works of little importance.

FLEURUS, a small town of Belgium, province of Hainault, 7 miles N.E. of Charleroy, and remarkable for the battles fought there in 1622, 1690, 1794, and 1815. Pop. (1851) 3483.