CLAUSEL de MONTALS, CLAUDE-HIPPOLYTE. - Bishop, b. at Coussergues (Aveyron) on 5 Apr. 1769, d. on 1 Apr. 1857. Having fled from S. Sulpizio at the time of the storming of the Bastille, he was subsequently imprisoned. An eloquent orator, he was court preacher in the time of Luigi XVIII. Chaplain to the duchess of Angoulême, he delivered the funeral eulogy for the duke of Berry (1820). He was an honorary canon of Amiens when he was promoted to bishop of Chartres (1824); he later resigned in 1851. A champion of liberty, he claimed it both for education, under the government of Luigi Filippo, publishing on the subject some eighty pamphlets in a diffuse style, at times imaginative and not always clear; and for the Church of France, distinguishing himself as an almost fanatical advocate of Gallicanism; he later moderated his views and recanted. A friend of Lamennais, he subsequently opposed his doctrines, just as he opposed philosophical eclecticism, which he considered particularly harmful to the young.
Among his works are remembered: Réclamation en faveur de l'Eglise de France (Parigi 1817); Le concordat justifié (ivi 1818); Coup d'oeil sur l'Eglise de France (ivi 1818); La religion éprouvée par la Révolution (ivi 1818); Instruction pastorale au sujet des attaques livrées dans ces derniers temps à la religion et à ses ministres (ivi 1826); Lettre à un de ses diocésains sur un écrit de M. de Lamennais (ivi 1826); Réponse aux quatre concordats de M. de Pradt, ancien archevêque de Malines (ivi s. d.).