Jean Baptiste de, an excellent Latin poet, was born at Paris in the year 1630. Having finished his studies, he applied himself entirely to poetry, and celebrated in his verse the praises of several great men, by which he acquired universal applause. He enriched Paris with a great number of inscriptions, which are to be seen on the public fountains and monuments of the city. At length, some new hymns being required for the Breviary of Paris, Claude Santeul his brother, and M. Bossuet, persuaded him to undertake that work. Santeul was intimate with all the learned men of his time, and had as his admirers the two Princes of Condé, father and son, from whom he frequently received favours. Louis XIV. also gave him a proof of his esteem by bestowing upon him a pension. He attended the Duke of Bourbon to Dijon, and died there in 1697, as he was preparing to return to Paris. Besides his Latin hymns, he wrote a great number of Latin poems, which have all the marks of genius discoverable in the works of true poets. The best collected edition of the Œuvres of Santeul is that in 3 vols., Paris, 1729.