CHAPT DE RASTIGNAC, ARMAND. - Distinguished ecclesiastic, b. in 1726 at the castle of Lanion in Périgord and d. in Paris on 5 Sept. 1792. After taking his degree at the Sorbonne, he held pastoral office first at St-Mesmin d'Orléans, then at St-Martin de Tours, finally becoming vicar general of the diocese of Arles.
A deputy to the assembly of the clergy in 1755 and 1760 and to the Estates General in 1789, he fulfilled his mandate with dignity in defense of the rights of the Church and of his order. Arrested at l'Abbaye on 26 Aug. 1792, he was one of the distinguished victims of the following 5 Sept. Compelled to write by the weakness of his voice, which prevented him from fulfilling from the parliamentary tribune his mandate as deputy, he fought in his publications against the sectarian high-handedness of the French Constituent Assembly toward 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 Comnène, sur le pouvoir des empereurs relativement à l'érection des métropoles ecclésiastiques (translation from the Greek with notes, ibid. 1790); Accord de la révélation et de la raison contre le divorce (ibid. 1791).