Pingre, ALEXANDRE GUY, b. in Paris September 11, 1711; d. May 1, 1796. He was educated in Senlis at the college of the Genovefan fathers, Regulars of the Order of St. Augustine, which he entered at sixteen. In 1735 he was made professor of theology there. About 1749 he accepted the professorship of astronomy in the newly-founded academy at Rouen. Already famous for detecting an error of four minutes in Lacaille’s calculation of the lunar eclipse of December 23, 1749, in 1753 he further distinguished himself by the observation of the transit of Mercury and was consequently appointed corresponding member of the Academie des Sciences. Later he was made librarian of Ste-Genevieve and chancellor of the university. He built an observatory in the Abbey of Ste-Genevieve and there spent forty years of strenuous labor. He compiled in 1753 the first nautical almanac for the year 1754, and subsequently for 1755-57, when Lalande was charged with the publication. Laeaille had calculated for his treatise, “L’art de verifier les dates”, the eclipses of the first nineteen centuries of the Christian era; Pingre in a second edition took up his calculations and extended them over ten centuries before Christ. In 1760 he joined an unsuccessful expedition to the Island Rodriguez in the Pacific to observe the transit of Venus on June 6, 1761. More satisfactory results were obtained from an expedition to the French Cape on Haiti where the next transit was observed on June 3, 1769. About 1757 he became engrossed in the history of comets, and in his “Cometographie ou Traite historique et theorique des cometes” (2 vols., Paris, 1783-4), the material contained in all the ancient annals and more recent publications is methodically arranged and critically sifted. In 1756 he published a “Projet d’une histoire d’astronomie du dix-septieme siecle”, completed in 1786. Through Lalande’s influence the National Assembly granted three thousand francs to defray the expenses of publication, but it proceeded slowly and at Pingre’s death was discontinued. In 1901 the whole work was reedited by Bigourdan under the title: “Annales celestes du dix-septieme siecle”. Pingre also published “Manuale Astronomicon libri quinque et Arati Phwnomena, cum interpretatione Gallica et notis” (2 vols., 1786), and numerous astronomical observations in the “Memoires de l’Institut” (1753-87), in the “Journal de Trevoux”, in the “Phil. Trans.” etc.
In encyclopedic works it is commonly asserted that Pingre took an active part in Jansenistic quarrels, and hence was relegated to provincial towns and colleges. Consequently he is often said to have fallen a victim to Roman intolerance. The fact is that during his earlier career Pingre seems to have been imbued with Jansenistic views, as is borne out by the “Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques”, the great Jansenist organ. In 1737 Msgr. de Salignac, Bishop of Pamiers, active against Jansenism, summoned Pingre, who was severely rebuked and finally had to submit to an examen by some Jesuit fathers. He expressed himself willing to condemn the five propositions, de c xur et d’esprit, at the same time maintaining that he could not condemn them as propositions of Jansenius, as they were not to be found in his works. (It should be remembered that in 1653 and 1656 the popes had declared repeatedly that the propositions were de facto contained in the “Augustinus”.) In 1745 a general chapter of the fathers of Ste.-Genevieve was convened; by order of the king Father Chambroy was elected superior general. Strict orders had been issued to the superiors of the conventual establishments that only such members should be deputed as were willing to subscribe to the papal Bulls and especially “Unigenitus“. This measure excited opposition. Father Pingre, then living at Senlis, and some of his fellow religious entered a vehement protest against the proceedings of the chapter. Father Scoffier, one of the most determined opponents of the election, was removed from Senlis. A similar disciplinary punishment was inflicted on Pingre, then professor of theology. According to an introductory notice prefaced to the memoirs of the Jansenist Abbe Arnauld d’Andilly, in the collection “Memoires sur l’histoire de France de Michaud et Poujoulat” (2nd series, IX), Pingre is their editor (Leyden, 1756). He was therefore an active Jansenist, at least until 1747; his influence, however, never became serious nor lasting. In the ecclesiastical history of the eighteenth century, especially in the “Memoires pour servir a l’histoire ecclesiastique pendant le 18e siecle “of Picot, his name is not mentioned.
J. STEIN