The future educator of Louis XIV.'s son sprang, like most of the great Frenchmen of that time, from the upper ranks of the _bourgeoisie_. The Bossuet family had been for a long time honorably connected with the legal profession and the judiciary: the father of Jacques Bénigne was in 1627 a counselor practicing before the "Parlement de Dijon," where his own father had sat as "Conseiller," or Associate Justice. Later in life he was himself called to a seat on the bench, when a new Parlement was organized in the city of Metz for the province of Lorraine (1638). Ten years later (January 24th, 1648) Bossuet, who had received his education partly from the Jesuits of Dijon, partly in the celebrated Collège de Navarre in Paris, and who had been shriven for the Catholic priesthood when only eight years of age, made what may be called his first public appearance when he defended his first thesis in theology. With this important event of his life we find connected the name of the most brilliant Frenchman of that time, the celebrated Prince de Condé,--famous already by many victories, though hardly twenty-six years of age,--who attended the disputation and had allowed the young theologian to dedicate his thesis to him. Thirty-nine years later, after a long period of close friendship, their names were again associated when the illustrious Bishop of Meaux delivered the funeral oration of the great warrior, and announced, at the close of a magnificent eulogy, that this would be the last occasion on which he would devote his oratory to the praises of any man; a promise which he kept, though he outlived his friend for no less than seventeen years. Bossuet's period of study lasted until the year 1652, when at the age of twenty-five he was appointed Archdeacon of Sarrebourg. By virtue of his position he thenceforward, for no less than seven years, resided in Metz, a city whose peculiar position, especially in religious matters, exerted a powerful influence over the direction of his whole intellectual life. He found there what was very rare then in France, representatives of three religions. In addition to the Catholics to whom he was to minister, there were in Metz numerous Protestants,--both Lutherans, and Calvinists or Presbyterians,--and a not inconsiderable number of Jews; and the city was used to continuous theological controversy between minister, rabbi, and priest. The Protestants of Metz received the teachings of two brilliant ministers, David Ancillon and Paul Ferri, the latter of whom soon published a Catechism which was considered by the whole body of French Protestantism the clearest exposition of its doctrines. The Catholic clergy of France had then not yet renounced the hope of bringing all the inhabitants of the country to place themselves voluntarily under the spiritual guidance of Rome; and the conversions that were announced from time to time from the upper ranks both of Protestantism and Judaism to a certain degree justified such a hope.