Louis, a celebrated Jesuit, descended from a noble family, was born at Nancy in 1610. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus, and was sent to Rome to study theology. On his return to France, he became a classical teacher in the college of Rouen; but afterwards devoted himself to preaching, and occupied in turn the principal pulpits in the kingdom. Not until Maimbourg had reached the middle stage of life did lie produce any of those historical works upon which his fame rests. In 1682 he appeared as a bold defender of the liberties of the Gallican church in his Traité Historique de l'Église de Rome, a treatise which caused the immediate expulsion of its author from the Order of the Jesuits by the command of Pope Innocent XI. As a compensation, however, for this misfortune, Maimbourg was presented by Louis XIV. with a pension, and with the abbey of St Victor at Paris as a place of retirement. He died there of apoplexy on the 13th August 1686, leaving unfinished his Histoire du Schisme d'Angleterre. A collection of Maimbourg's histories, published in 14 vols., Paris, 1686–87, includes, besides the work mentioned above,—Histoire de l'Arianisme, Histoire des Iconoclastes, Histoire du Schisme des Grecs, Histoire des Croisades, Histoire de la Décadence de l'Empire, Histoire du Grand Schisme d'Occident, Histoire du Luthéranisme, Histoire du Calvinisme, Histoire de la Ligue, Histoire du Pontificat de Saint Grégoire le Grand, et Histoire du Pontificat de Saint Léon. Although once in great repute, Maimbourg, as a historian, has no longer any authority; yet Voltaire, a critic by no means guilty of partiality to churchmen, says that Maimbourg "was formerly in too great vogue, and has been latterly in too great neglect."