Charles Coffin

COFFIN, Charles. b. Buzancy, 4 October 1676; d. 20 June 1749. Buzancy is a small town in the present-day département of Ardennes, in the diocese of Rheims. Coffin left there in 1693 for Paris to complete his education. He was an outstanding student: as the favoured successor of Charles Rollin, he became a tutor of the Collège de Beauvais and then (1712) its head. In 1718 he was elected rector of the University of Paris and did much to reorganize its finances. He was entrusted with delivering the funeral oration for Duc de Bourgogne, the father of Louis XV, who died in 1712. Coffin gained a reputation for versification in Latin, for example with a poem entitled Campania Vindicata (1712) in...