Michel de LHospital

L’Hospital, Michel de

 

(also L’Hôpital). Born between 1505 and 1507, in Aigueperse; died Mar. 13, 1575, in the castle of Bellebat, near Paris. French statesman.

L’Hospital studied law at Toulouse and Padua. He served as chancellor of France between 1560 and 1568. In an effort to consolidate absolutism in the period of religious wars, he urged reconciliation and toleration on the Catholics and Huguenots. He drew up the Edict of Toleration of January 1562, which granted the Huguenots the right of religious worship outside the cities. However, a sudden intensification of social conflict doomed his efforts to reconcile the warring religious groups, and he was obliged to retire from political activity in 1568. He wrote numerous juridical and polemical works and speeches, as well as Latin poetry.

WORKS

Oeuvres completes, vols. 1-3. Paris, 1824-25.
Oeuvres inédites, vols. 1-2, Paris, 1825-26.

REFERENCES

Luchitskii, I. V. “M. Lopital’ i ego deiate’nost’ po otnosheniiu k frantsuzskim religioznym partiiam 16 veka.” Universitetskie izvestiia. Kiev, 1870, no. 10.
Heritier, J. M. de I’Hospital Paris, 1943.
Buisson, A. M. de I’Hospital Paris, 1950.