LA MORICIÈRE, LOUIS-CHRISTOPHE-LÉON JUCHAULT de. – French general and commander-in-chief of the Papal army, born in Nantes of a noble Breton family on 5 Feb. 1860, died at the Château of Prouzel (Amiens) on 11 Sept. 1865. Choosing a military career in 1826, he spent two years at the École Polytechnique in Paris and the École d’Application in Metz, from which he emerged as a second lieutenant in the artillery. Sent to Africa in 1830, he distinguished himself at the capture of Algiers and thereby earned promotion to captain of the zouaves, the start of a meteoric rise. He served as acting governor of the colony after the victory of Isly (1845) and reached the height of his renown on 23 Dec. 1847 when he forced the most formidable of his adversaries, the redoubtable Emir Abd-el-Kader, to a definitive surrender.
Once Algeria was pacified, he turned to politics. Already elected in 1846 by the legitimists as deputy for the district of St-Calais (Sarthe), he opposed Guizot, was named Minister of War under Thiers, commanded the National Guard, and was gravely wounded during the disturbances of 24 Feb. 1848 that brought the “July Monarchy” to an end. The Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic returned him as deputy for the Sarthe department (Apr. 1848), and the new regime survived the tragic June riots largely through the “sublime” energy and valour—so wrote Alexis de Tocqueville—of La M. allied with Cavaignac. He held the War portfolio (28 June 1848), then served as French ambassador to Moscow, where he also defended Catholic interests (1849). Firmly opposing the ambitions of Louis Napoleon, he became one of the first marked victims of the coup d’état of 2 Dec. 1852. Arrested, transferred to Mazas and then to Ham, and finally expelled from France, he spent nine years in exile in England, Germany and Belgium, during which time, under the guidance of Montalembert and Dechamps (later Archbishop of Mechelen), he returned to the practice of the faith and to exemplary religious observance, becoming a devout and exemplary Catholic.
LA MORICIÈRE, LOUIS-CHRISTOPHE-LÉON JUCHAULT de. – French general and commander-in-chief of the Papal army, born in Nantes of a noble Breton family on 5 Feb. 1860, died at the Château of Prouzel (Amiens) on 11 Sept. 1865. Choosing a military career in 1826, he spent two years at the École Polytechnique in Paris and the École d’Application in Metz, from which he emerged as a second lieutenant in the artillery. Sent to Africa in 1830, he distinguished himself at the capture of Algiers and thereby earned promotion to captain of the zouaves, the start of a meteoric rise. He served as acting governor of the colony after the victory of Isly (1845) and reached the height of his renown on 23 Dec. 1847 when he forced the most formidable of his adversaries, the redoubtable Emir Abd-el-Kader, to a definitive surrender.
Once Algeria was pacified, he turned to politics. Already elected in 1846 by the legitimists as deputy for the district of St-Calais (Sarthe), he opposed Guizot, was named Minister of War under Thiers, commanded the National Guard, and was gravely wounded during the disturbances of 24 Feb. 1848 that brought the “July Monarchy” to an end. The Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic returned him as deputy for the Sarthe department (Apr. 1848), and the new regime survived the tragic June riots largely through the “sublime” energy and valour—so wrote Alexis de Tocqueville—of La M. allied with Cavaignac. He held the War portfolio (28 June 1848), then served as French ambassador to Moscow, where he also defended Catholic interests (1849). Firmly opposing the ambitions of Louis Napoleon, he became one of the first marked victims of the coup d’état of 2 Dec. 1852. Arrested, transferred to Mazas and then to Ham, and finally expelled from France, he spent nine years in exile in England, Germany and Belgium, during which time, under the guidance of Montalembert and Dechamps (later Archbishop of Mechelen), he returned to the practice of the faith and to exemplary religious observance, becoming a devout and exemplary Catholic.
LA MORICIÈRE, LOUIS-CHRISTOPHE-LÉON JUCHAULT de. – French general and commander-in-chief of the Papal army, born in Nantes of a noble Breton family on 5 Feb. 1860, died at the Château of Prouzel (Amiens) on 11 Sept. 1865. Choosing a military career in 1826, he spent two years at the École Polytechnique in Paris and the École d’Application in Metz, from which he emerged as a second lieutenant in the artillery. Sent to Africa in 1830, he distinguished himself at the capture of Algiers and thereby earned promotion to captain of the zouaves, the start of a meteoric rise. He served as acting governor of the colony after the victory of Isly (1845) and reached the height of his renown on 23 Dec. 1847 when he forced the most formidable of his adversaries, the redoubtable Emir Abd-el-Kader, to a definitive surrender.
Once Algeria was pacified, he turned to politics. Already elected in 1846 by the legitimists as deputy for the district of St-Calais (Sarthe), he opposed Guizot, was named Minister of War under Thiers, commanded the National Guard, and was gravely wounded during the disturbances of 24 Feb. 1848 that brought the “July Monarchy” to an end. The Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic returned him as deputy for the Sarthe department (Apr. 1848), and the new regime survived the tragic June riots largely through the “sublime” energy and valour—so wrote Alexis de Tocqueville—of La M. allied with Cavaignac. He held the War portfolio (28 June 1848), then served as French ambassador to Moscow, where he also defended Catholic interests (1849). Firmly opposing the ambitions of Louis Napoleon, he became one of the first marked victims of the coup d’état of 2 Dec. 1852. Arrested, transferred to Mazas and then to Ham, and finally expelled from France, he spent nine years in exile in England, Germany and Belgium, during which time, under the guidance of Montalembert and Dechamps (later Archbishop of Mechelen), he returned to the practice of the faith and to exemplary religious observance, becoming a devout and exemplary Catholic.
28. – ENCYCLOPEDIA CATHOLICA. – VII.
In his role as confessor he was not only a beloved and effective counsellor to the Emperor but also contributed greatly to the restoration of the Catholic religion in Austria. He promoted the edict of 1629, by which Protestants were required to restore church property that had been seized; he openly defended religious tolerance toward heretics, advised the establishment of several houses of his Order in the Empire, and played a leading part in the Catholic Reformation in Austria, Styria, Bohemia and Moravia. On the other hand, his influential and widely accepted position inevitably created bitter enemies who accused him of accepting money to keep silent, of urging his brethren to deceit and falsehood or to react with violence against heretics; letters and documents were forged in his name and others’, and he was even made the hero of disreputable romances. All these charges were unfounded, from which he defended himself successfully, leaving his reputation as a learned, pious, upright and unassuming man intact (“verus et omnibus numeris absolutus Jesu Socius,” as Urban VIII said of him). He wrote: *Ferdinandi II, Romanorum imperatoris virtutes* (Vienna 1638), in which some flattery of the Emperor and some unjustly harsh judgments on the memory of Wallenstein appear.