FESCH, JOSEPH. - Cardinal, b. 3 Jan. 1763 at Ajaccio, d. 13 May 1839 at Rome. Son of Angela Maria Pietra Santa who, widowed by Giuseppe Ramolino, married François F. as her second husband, the future cardinal was the half-brother of Letizia Ramolino and thus uncle of Napoleone Bonaparte. He studied at the Seminary of Aix-en-Provence from 1781 onward, and was ordained priest there in 1785. Having returned to Corsica, in 1791 he took the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy. Having laid aside clerical dress, which he resumed only after the conclusion of the Concordat of 1801, he accompanied his nephew during the Italian campaign. Archbishop of Lyon in 1802, he was created the following year by Pio VII cardinal of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, and was appointed ambassador of France to the Holy See.
He deeply felt the bond of blood with his nephew, but to this natural affection he joined profound veneration for the Pope and for the Holy See. Of Gallican views, he did not energetically oppose, as his status as a prince of the Church required, the Melzi decrees and the Organic Articles. Yet he had no intention whatsoever of repudiating the primacy of the bishop of Rome, and in 1810 he refused the Emperor’s appointment as archbishop of Paris, since it lacked the canonical institution of the Supreme Pontiff. At the fall of Napoleone he led a retired life in Rome, where Pio VII granted him generous hospitality. He never resigned the see of Leone.