Louis Le Comte

Louis Le Comte (Louis le Comte / Louis-Daniel Lecomte; 1655–1728), Chinese name Li Ming (李明), courtesy name Fuchu (复初), was a Frenchman and a Jesuit missionary. In 1684 he was sent to China as a missionary by King Louis XIV of France, and was named one of the “King's Mathematicians” and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1687 five men, Jean-François Gerbillon (张诚), Jean de Fontaney (洪若翰), Joachim Bouvet (白晋), Claude de Visdelou (刘应) and Le Comte, arrived in China.

In 1691 Le Comte returned to Europe as the representative (procurator) of the French Jesuits in China, going first to Rome to report to the pope and then back to France; in 1696 he was appointed confessor to the Duchess of Burgundy. Afterwards he published in France the New Memoirs on the Present State of China and a treatise on Chinese rites (论中国礼仪书), introducing Eastern Confucian thought to the Western world and criticizing the decadence of the West. The New Memoirs on the Present State of China brought the Chinese Rites Controversy to a climax and provoked fierce debate within the French church. The Sorbonne's faculty of theology held more than twenty meetings in two months to examine the New Memoirs, and 160 theologians gave their opinions.

Works

• New Memoirs on the Present State of China (中国近事报道; French: Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine), Paris, 1696
• Letter on the Ceremonies of China (论中国礼仪书; Lettre sur les cérémonies de la Chine, 1700)
• Detailed Map of the Waterway from Nanjing to Guangzhou (南京至广州水道详图)