CHAPT DE RASTIGNAC, ARMAND
Illustrious churchman, born in 1726 at the château of Lanion in Périgord and died in Paris on 5 September 1792. After graduating from the Sorbonne he held parochial posts first at St-Mesmin d'Orléans, then at St-Martin in Tours, finally becoming vicar-general of the diocese of Arles.
Deputy to the Assembly of the Clergy in 1755 and 1760 and to the Estates-General in 1789, he discharged his mandate with dignity in defence of the rights of the Church and of its status. Arrested at the Abbey on 26 August 1792, he was among the illustrious victims of 5 September following. Compelled to write by the weakness of his voice which prevented him from fulfilling his duties as deputy from the parliamentary rostrum, he combated in his publications the sectarian arrogance of the French Constituent Assembly against the Church, demonstrating its incompetence in matters of religion.
He wrote: *Question sur la propriété des biens ecclésiastiques en France* (Paris 1789); *Lettre synodale de Nicolas, patriarche de Constantinople, à l'empereur Alexis Commène, sur le pouvoir des empereurs relativement à l'érection des métropoles ecclésiastiques* (translation with notes from the Greek, ibid. 1790); *Accord de la révélation et de la raison contre le divorce* (ibid. 1791).