Charles Frey De Neuville
Charles Frey De Neuville [1]
a French pulpit orator, brother of the following, was born in the diocese of Coutances, December 23, 1693. He was educated in the college of the Jesuits at Rennes, who, recognising his ability, initiated him into their order in 1710. He taught belles-lettres and philosophy for eighteen years, when he made his debut in the pulpit, where he had great success (1736). After the dissolution of his society, his presence, quite inoffensive, was tolerated in France, and, under the protection of the king and queen, he lived unmolested but retired. His death occurred July 13, 1774, in St. Germain- en-Laye. We have of his works, Oraison funebre de M. le Cardinal de Fleury, etc. (Paris, 1743, 4to, and often): — Oraison de tres-haut, tres- puissant seigneur Charles-Auguste Foucquet de BelleIsle, duc de Gisors, pair et marechal de France, etc. (Paris, 1761, 4to): — Sermons (Paris, 1777, 8 volumes, 12mo; Lyons, 1778, 8 volumes, 12mo). These sermons have been translated into German by J.B. Dily (Vienna, 1777-80, 8 volumes, 8vo) and by Priest. Job. Buchmann (Augsburg, 1841, 12mo); into Spanish by Juan-Antonio Pellicer, Juan Ceron, and Pontela (Madrid, 1784); into Italian (Venice, 1774, 1786, 1793). Neuville had collected three volumes of Observations hist. et crit., but the fear of wrong interpretations and of compromising his editors determined him, some days before his death, to throw his manuscript into the fire. Biographers have often confounded this ecclesiastical orator with his brother, and with Anne Joseph de la Neuville. See Caballero, Bibliothecae scriptorum Societatis Jesu (Rome, 181416, 4to); Alois et Alphonse de Backer, Bibl. des csrivains de la Compagnie de Jesus, 1st series, pages 519, 520.
