 One of his ancestors had followed William the Conqueror into England, and he was himself the nephew of the Jesuit missionary to Canada Jean de Brébeuf (who was later made a saint after his death at the hands of the Iroquois).He studied in Caen and Paris (where he met Blaise Pascal) and became preceptor to the future Marshall de Bellefonds (1641), then moved to Rouen, to hold a religious benefice.His early poetry participated in the so-called "précieuses" movement and is considered on a par with the works of Vincent Voiture and Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac.