BELLOY, JEAN-BAPTISTE, DE

BELLOY, JEAN-BAPTISTE, de. — Cardinal, b. 9 Oct 1709 at Morangles (Oise), d. 10 June 1808 at Paris. Bishop of Glandève from 1752 to 1755, he then transferred to the see of Marseille, where he remained until the suppression of the bishopric in 1801, when, in obedience to the Concordat, he tendered his resignation to Spina. The Napoleonic minister of ecclesiastical affairs, Portalis, intended to give him, despite his advanced age, the archiepiscopal see of Aix, but the First Consul appointed him Archbishop of Paris, a see which B. took possession of in April 1802. Napoleon held B. in the highest esteem and named him senator in September 1802, declaring that “the citizen B. has for fifty years of episcopal activity been the model of the Gallican Church. As head of the first diocese of France, he offers us an example of every apostolic and civil virtue.” In January 1803 Pius VII created B. cardinal with the presbyteral title of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina. The elevation to the cardinalate was greeted with joy by the Parisians, since no Archbishop of Paris had been raised to the purple since 1729, the year in which Cardinal de Noailles had died. In the autumn of 1807 the Emperor selected B. to preside over the electoral college of the department of the Seine, an office which in the preceding session had been entrusted to Lucien Bonaparte. In the administration of his diocese B. distinguished himself by his outstanding organizational abilities and his lively pastoral zeal, though on more than one occasion he showed himself compliant and accommodating to the Emperor’s will.