PETIT, John, a doctor of the Sorbonne, who very early gained to himself a name by his knowledge, and the eloquent orations which he pronounced before the university of Paris. He was employed in the famous embassy which was sent from France to Rome for the purpose of healing the schism in 1407; but he soon forfeited all the honour which he had acquired. John Sans Peur, duke of Burgundy, having treacherously contrived to assassinate Louis of France, duke of Orleans, only brother to Charles VI., John Petit, entirely devoted to the views of the murderer, maintained in a public disputation, at Paris, on the 8th of March 1408, that the murder was lawful· He had the effrontery to assert, that “it is allowed to employ fraud, treason, and every other method, however base, in order to get rid of a tyrant; and that no faith ought to be kept with him.” And he had even the audacity to add, that “the man who should commit such an action, not only deserved to be exempted from punishment, but to receive a reward.” This sanguinary doctrine was loudly exclaimed against; but the Duke of Burgundy’s powerful influence sheltered Petit for some time. Some eminent writers of that period, however, with Gerson at their head, denounced the doctrine to John de Montaigu, bishop of Paris, who condemned it as heretical, on the 23d of November 1414. It was likewise condemned by the council of Constance the year following, at the instigation of Gerson; but no notice was taken either of Petit’s name or of his writings. In fine, the king, on the 16th of September 1416, ordered the parliament of Paris to pronounce a severe decree against this dangerous performance; and it was also censured by the university. But the Duke of Burgundy, in 1418, had interest enough to compel the grand vicars of the bishop of Paris, who then lay sick at St Omer, to retract the sentence which that prelate had passed in 1414. Petit had died three years before this, or in 1411, at Hesdin; and his apology in favour of the Duke of Burgundy, with all the particulars of that infamous transaction, may be seen in the fifth volume of the last edition of Gerson’s works. Father Pinchinat, of the order of St Francis, and author of the Dictionary of Heresies, has endeavoured to vindicate his order from a charge brought by some writers, who have called Petit a Cordelier or Franciscan friar. “He proves very clearly," says the Abbé Prevot, “that he was a secular priest and adds, that “upon the same evidence, Father Mercier, a Cordelier, had a warm dispute in 1717 with Μ. Dupin, who had given this title to Petit in his Collection of Censures. He represented to him,” says he, “before a meeting of the faculty, the falsity of such a claim, and the injury which he offered to the order of St Francis. Dupin, convinced of his error, candidly owned that he was led into it by following some infidel writers; and promised to retract it in the new edition of the Censures, which was published in 1720. Μ. Fleury, who had committed the same mistake, promised also to make amends for it by a solemn recantation; but dying before he had an opportunity of doing that piece of justice to the Cordeliers, the continuator of his Ecclesiastical History, who had not such opportunities of information, fell into the same fault.” (Pour et Contre, tom. x. p. 23.) If we follow L’Avocat’s Dictionary, it would appear that no fault was committed; for it gives a list of the pensioners of the dukes of Burgundy, in order to prove that John Petit was a Cordelier. Indeed it is highly probable, that if Dupin, Fleury, and Father Fabre, did not alter their opinion, it was owing to a firm persuasion that they had committed no error.