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LACORDAIRE, Henri-Dominique (1802–61), French Dominican preacher. He was born at Recey-sur-Ource and, after losing his faith at an early age, became a disciple of J.-J. Rousseau. He studied law at Dijon and Paris and speedily made a reputation as an orator at the Paris bar.
In 1824 he was converted, entered the seminary at Issy, and was ordained priest at Saint Sulpice in 1827. In the next year he was appointed chaplain to the Convent of the Visitation in Paris. In 1830 he became a contributor to F. de Lamennais’s periodical L’Avenir, but severed connection with it on its condemnation by Gregory XVI in 1832. He replied to Lamennais’s Paroles d’un croyant (1834) with Considérations sur le système philosophique de M. de La Mennais (1834).
In 1835–6 he gave the first two series of his famous Conferences at Notre-Dame which drew a vast concourse, largely from the intelligentsia. His political liberalism and ultramontane theology aroused distrust, however, and at the height of his influence he retired to Rome. Here in 1839, with the encouragement of P. Guéranger, then engaged in restoring the Benedictine Order in France, Lacordaire entered the Dominican Order with the intention of re-establishing it in France, having earlier in the year published his Mémoire pour le rétablissement en France de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs. After his return to Paris in 1841 he resumed his Conferences, and preached also in other cities (Bordeaux, Nancy, etc.).
In 1843 he established at Nancy the first Dominican House in France since the suppression of the Order in 1790. He maintained his political interests and in 1848 was elected deputy for Marseilles in the National Assembly; in the same year, with A. F. Ozanam he founded the journal L’Ère nouvelle. From 1850 to 1854 and again from 1858 to 1861 he was Provincial of the newly-founded French Dominican province.
In 1852 he founded the teaching Third Order, of which he became Vicar General in 1854, at the same time taking charge of the college at Sorèze in the S. of France. In 1860 he was elected a member of the Academy. If hardly a profound theologian or philosopher, he was fully conversant with the religious needs of his time. His most influential work was his Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (4 vols., 1844–51), directed esp. to unbelievers. His other writings include Vie de Saint Dominique (1841), which may have some historical value, Sainte Marie-Madeleine (1860), which has none (both books have inspired passages), and his Notice sur le rétablissement en France de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs (an autobiographical work, posthumously ed. by C. R. F. Montalembert as Le Testament, 1870).
Edns. of his works incl. those in 6 vols., Paris, 1857–61; 9 vols., ibid., 1872; and 4 vols., ibid., 1912. Among the numerous collections of his correspondence, listed in detail by H. D. Noble, OP, cited below, those of most general interest are his Lettres à jeunes gens, ed. H. Perreyve [1862]; (Eng. tr., 1902), and his correspondence with Montalembert, 1830–1861, ed. L. Le Guillou and A. Duval [OP] (Paris, 1989). Repertoire of his correspondence by G. Bedouelle, OP, and C.-A. Martin (Fribourg and Paris, 2001 ff.). Modern edns., with introds. by A. Duval, of his Lettres à un jeune homme sur la vie chrétienne (1988), and of his Vie de Saint Dominique (1989). Eng. tr. of his Mémoire pour le rétablissement en France de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, ed. S. [C. ff.] Tugwell, OP (Dominican Sources, 2; Oak Park, Ill., and Dublin, 1983). G. Ledos, Morceaux choisis et bibliographie de Lacordaire [1923]. Primary Lives by C. R. F. Montalembert (Paris, 1862; Eng. tr., 1863) and B. Chocarne, OP (Paris, 1866; Eng. tr., Dublin [1868]). B. Bonvin [OP], Lacordaire, Jandel: La restauration de l’Ordre dominicain en France après la Révolution écartelée entre deux visions du monde (1989), with text of Mémoire Jandel. G. Bedouelle [OP] (ed.), Lacordaire, son pays, ses amis et la liberté des ordres religieux en France (1991). A. Duval, OP, ‘Lacordaire et Buchez. Idéalisme révolutionnaire et réveil religieux en 1839’, RSPT 45 (1961), pp. 422–55; id., ‘Le rapport du P. Lacordaire au Chapitre de la Province de France (septembre 1854)’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 31 (1961), pp. 326–64; id., ‘Les premiers entretiens du Père Lacordaire et de l’abbé Jandel sur la restauration dominicaine en France (31 oct. 1839)’, ibid. 36 (1966), pp. 493–542; id., ‘Lacordaire et Monseigneur de Quelen 1836–1838’, ibid. 56 (1986), pp. 381–428; 57 (1987), pp. 291–340; id., ‘Lacordaire: La Vie de Saint Dominique’, ibid. 59 (1989), pp. 267–96; id., ‘Le “Testament” du P. Lacordaire publié par le comte du Montalembert’, Mémoire Dominicaine, 4 (1994), pp. 225–99, incl. text. L’Abbé Lacordaire (ibid., 10, 1997). In Eng. there is a popular Life by L. C. Sheppard (London and New York, 1964). P. Spencer, Politics of Belief in Nineteenth Century France (1954), pp. 17–115. H. D. Noble in DTC 8 (pt. 2; 1925), cols. 2394–424, s.v., with detailed bibl.[1]
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