Belloy, Jean-Baptiste, de

BELLOY, JEAN-BAPTISTE, de. - Cardinal, b. 9 Oct. 1709 at Morangles (Oise), d. 10 June 1808 at Paris. Bishop of Glandèves from 1752 to 1755, when he moved to the see of Marseilles, where he remained until the suppression of the bishopric in 1801, when in obedience to the concordat he communicated his resignation to Spina. Napoleon's minister of ecclesiastical affairs, Portalis, intended to give him, although very old, the archiepiscopal see of Aix, but the First Consul designated him archbishop of Paris, a see of which B. took possession in Apr. 1802. Napoleon held B. in very great esteem and named him senator in Sept. 1802, declaring that "the citizen B. has been for fifty years of episcopal activity the model of the Gallican Church. Finding himself at the head of the first diocese of France, he offers us the example of every apostolic and civil virtue." In Jan. 1803 Pius VII created B. cardinal with the presbyteral title of St. John at the Latin Gate. The appointment as cardinal was received with jubilation by the people of Paris, since from 1729, the year in which Cardinal de Noailles had died, no archbishop of Paris had again been honored with the purple. In the autumn of 1807 the emperor chose B. to preside over the electoral college of the department of the Seine, an office that in the previous session had been entrusted to Lucien Bonaparte. In the administration of the diocese B. distinguished himself by his high qualities as an organizer and by his lively pastoral zeal, although he proved, on more than one occasion, yielding and compliant to the will of the emperor.

Silvio Furlani