BESSON, Joseph-Antoine. – Priest and historian, born at Flumet (Savoie) on 10 Feb. 1717, died at Chapeiry, in the diocese of Geneva, on 26 March 1763. Ordained priest in 1741, he served as chaplain at the Monastery of the Visitation in Annecy and later as parish priest of Chapeiry (3 Aug. 1757). He was a passionate researcher into local history, receiving generous advice from the blessed Don Stefano Gabriele Brice, continuator of the *Gallia Christiana*, and from the Protestant pastor Baulacre, librarian of the City of Geneva.
The principal fruit of his researches was the *Mémoires pour l'histoire ecclésiastique des Diocèses de Genève, Tarantiae, Aoste, et Maurienne, et du décanat de Savoye* (Nancy, chez Sébastien Hénault, 1759), though in reality printed clandestinely, owing to the hostile attitude of the local clergy, at Annecy by Jean-Baptiste Burdet, hence the numerous typographical errors. These *Mémoires*, compiled according to the method of the *Gallia Christiana*, contain, for the dioceses listed in the title, brief notices on their origins, the chronology of bishops and capitular dignitaries, a list of ecclesiastical figures distinguished outside their dioceses, and finally a rich collection of documents. B. personally visited the dioceses he described and in each case secured intelligent collaborators, whose names he gives in the *avis préliminaire* (p. 17). The work is now somewhat outdated, but it remains the best written on the subject in the 18th century; it is worth noting that the compilers of vol. XII of the *Gallia Christiana* (Paris 1770) drew extensively upon II. A reprint was issued by the publisher Marc Cane at Moûtiers in 1871. A complete list of B.’s minor works may be found in the study by Petex.