DUPANLOUP, FÉLIX-ANTOINE-PHILIBERT. — Bishop of Orléans, b. at St-Félix in Savoy on 3 Jan. 1802, d. at Lacombe (Savoy) on 11 Oct. 1878. Educated at the minor seminary of St-Nicolas du Chardonnet and later at St-Sulpice, he was ordained priest on 18 Dec. 1825. He began his ministry as vicar at the Assumption, where he immediately distinguished himself for his exceptional gifts as a catechist, so much so that he was entrusted with the religious instruction of the royal princes. There he founded the Academy of St Hyacinth, which did much for the education of youth. He then moved, still as vicar, to the Madeleine and then, in 1836, to St Roch. As early as 1833 he had begun those famous conferences at Notre-Dame, which were later to be joined by so many illustrious orators. In 1838 he received the retraction and last confession of Talleyrand. From 1837 to 1845 he was rector of the Chardonnet, where he acquired and displayed a treasury of pedagogical experience. E. Renan, his pupil, albeit a degenerate one, bears witness: “Only those who knew St-Nicolas du Chardonnet in the brilliant years from 1838 to 1844 can form an idea of the intense life that developed there. And this life had but one source, one principle, Monsignor D. ... He was an unequalled stimulator. He had no equal in the art of drawing from each of his pupils the full measure of what they could give” (Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse, Paris [n.d.], pp. 136-38).
He later gathered his educational experiences into a major work in two parts: De l'éducation en général (3 vols., Paris 1850-62) and De la haute éducation intellectuelle (3 vols., ibid. 1855-57). As versatile as he was, he also found time for external apostolate as an effective writer on all the great questions of the day: De la pacification religieuse (ibid. 1845); La situation intellectuelle et religieuse du clergé; Les petits séminaires. État de la question (ibid. 1847), on the freedom of education, etc. In 1841 he became professor of sacred eloquence at the Sorbonne and in 1845 vicar general of Monsignor Affre, canon of Notre-Dame and director of L’Ami de la religion. In 1849 he was a member of the commission appointed by Minister Falloux to prepare the law on educational freedom, in which he exercised a decisive influence.
In April of that same year he was elected to the episcopal see of Orléans. He distinguished himself for his intelligent and tireless zeal in the formation of the clergy, the education of youth, and the teaching of catechism. In 1852, in a letter to the professors of his minor seminary, he defended the study of pagan classics against the concerns of Gaume. On 9 Nov. 1854 he was received into the French Academy. The following year he delivered in the cathedral the panegyric of Joan of Arc; another he delivered in 1869, in which year he also took the first steps in Rome for the introduction of the cause of beatification of the heroine, and in 1876 he transmitted to Rome the results of the diocesan informative process.
From 1859 to 1870, with his words and writings, he was the indomitable champion of the temporal power of the Pope. He was not, however, an ultramontanist. In 1862 he pledged himself at the castle of La Roche-en-Brény with Montalembert and Falloux to fight “pro libera Ecclesia in libera patria.” It was the programmatic motto of French Catholic liberalism. Desirous of reconciling the unchanging rights of the Church with the modern spirit, he wrote La convention du 15 septembre et l'encyclique du 8 septembre 1864, in which he commented on the Syllabus with mitigating glosses that explained its reasonableness. He received praise from no fewer than 630 bishops and from Pius IX himself (4 Feb. 1865). Ever in the forefront, he opposed the attacks of the Duruy ministry on Christian education; fought the admission of Littré to the Academy; took part in the Malines Congresses of 1864 and 1867; in the episcopal meetings in Rome of 1862 and 1867; and continued to be present with pamphlets and pastoral letters in every religious and social debate of his time. It is a pity that certain Gallican tendencies led him to adopt, for reasons of expediency, a hostile attitude toward the definition of papal infallibility, though he had not failed to support and defend it in his thesis at Rome in 1842. He feared that such a definition might hinder the conversion of Protestants and compromise the faith, still too weak, of many Catholics. Accordingly, in Nov. 1869 he published Observations sur la controverse soulevée relativement à la définition de l'infallibilité au futur concile. He therefore maintained the inopportunity of that definition until the last moment, and on the eve of the final session, rather than repeat the non placet in the Pope’s presence, he preferred to return to his diocese. Yet as soon as the dogma was defined, he hastened to make an act of submission.
During the German occupation of Orléans he was the true defensor civitatis: the grateful faithful elected him their representative to the National Assembly, where he spoke whenever it was a question of defending a religious interest, especially regarding the freedom of higher education (July 1875). He refused the see of Lyons (1875) and instead accepted a seat in the Senate (1876). Despite his advanced age he continued to fight with youthful energy against the encroaching forces of unbelief and Freemasonry. By his vigorous protests he obtained that the government disapprove of the celebrations organized in 1878 by the municipal council of Paris for the centenary of Voltaire’s death. Leo XIII wished to confer the purple on him, but the government raised difficulties, and meanwhile D. died suddenly. He was certainly not a great theologian, but in compensation he was a great shepherd of souls. Bearing this in mind, certain of his attitudes are explained, even if not all can be justified.
A list of D.’s works is given in Herlusson, Liste bibliographique des écrits de mgr D. (Orléans 1878; in Polybiblion, 2 [1888], pp. 463 ff., and also in F. Lagrange, Vie de mgr D. [III, Paris 1894, pp. 486 ff.). Subsequently there have been published the Journal intime, ed. L. Branchereau (2nd ed. Paris 1910) and a selection of the best pages, edited by H. E. Dutoit, D. (Choisir series, I, 1913).