INFORMATION
Nicolas Letourneux (30 April 1640 – 28 November 1686) was a French preacher and ascetical writer of Jansenistic tendencies.
Letourneux was born at Rouen. His parents were poor, but the talents he displayed at an early age attracted the attention of some wealthy benefactors, whose assistance enabled him to study the humanities at the Jesuit College in Paris, and later philosophy at the Collège des Grassins. To Dr. Jean Hersant, his teacher at the latter institution, may be traced his Jansenistic views. Ordained priest at Rouen in 1662, he served for some years as curate there. About 1670 he removed to Paris, became closely associated with the Port-Royalists, and began to cultivate Jansenistic asceticism. He exchanged his soutane for a coarse grey robe and abstained from celebrating Mass, to expiate in this manner what he esteemed his guilt in having accepted ordination at so early an age (22).