author
Jean Barrin
d. 1718
A shadowy French cleric and man of letters, he is remembered for works that range from religious biography to the lively, scandal-tinged book long linked to the pseudonym Abbé du Prat. The uncertainty around his authorship only adds to his intrigue.
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About the author
Jean Barrin (c. 1640–1718) was a French abbé associated with Nantes, where reference pages identify him as grand chantre of the cathedral and grand vicar of the diocese. Reliable biographical detail is scarce, and even major reference sources note that little is known about his life beyond his clerical role and his writing.
He is connected with several kinds of work. Library and authority records link him to the learned periodical Nouvelles de la république des lettres, and French source pages also associate him with La Vie de la Bienheureuse Françoise d'Amboise, a religious biography published in 1704. He is most often remembered today because his name has been proposed as the real identity behind the pseudonym Abbé du Prat, attached to Vénus dans le cloître (Venus in the Cloister), though that attribution is not fully settled.
That mix of scholarship, church office, and disputed literary notoriety makes Barrin an unusual figure. He survives less as a fully documented personality than as a fascinating name at the edge of French literary history.