BAUSSET, LOUIS-FRANÇOIS DE

BAUSSET, LOUIS-FRANÇOIS de. - Cardinal, b. at Pondichéry in India, of a French family, on 14 Dec. 1748; he pursued his studies in France with the Jesuits. Ordained priest in 1773, vicar general at Aix and administrator of Digne, he was appointed bishop of Alais (now Alès) in 1778. When the diocese was suppressed under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), B. became an energetic defender of the rights of the Church. Forced to flee, he returned to France in 1792 and succeeded in surviving the vicissitudes of the Terror and the Directory. At the time of the Concordat he promptly resigned the diocese and devoted himself to literary work. In 1808 he published, in 3 vols., an Histoire de Fénelon, and in 1814 an Histoire de J. B. Bossuet, which were subsequently reprinted; in the latter work he celebrates and defends the declaration of the Gallican clergy of 1682. B. was showered with honours by Luigi XVIII; he entered the Academy in 1816 and was created cardinal on 28 July 1817. He died on 21 July 1824. In 1821, among other biographies, he published those of Card. A. de Talleyrand-Périgord, archbishop of Paris, and of Abbé Emery.