LA ROCHEFOUCAULD-BAYERS, François Joseph de, Blessed. - Bishop, b. at Angoulême on 28 Apr. 1736, d. at Paris on 2 Sept. 1792. A scion of a cadet branch of the house of La Rochefoucauld, he entered the Seminary of St Sulpice in 1757 and was ordained priest in 1762. Vicar general of the archbishop of Rouen in 1764 and archdeacon of Vexin, he was consecrated bishop of Beauvais on 12 July 1771.
On 13 Mar. 1789 he was elected by the bailiwick of Clermont en Beauvoisis as deputy of the clergy to the States General; his electors entrusted him with the task of opposing any attempt by the Third Estate to substitute personal voting for voting by estates, which he firmly declared on 20 June of that year. In the Constituent Assembly he opposed laws detrimental to the rights of the Church and in his diocese he combated in every way the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. He was denounced to the Legislative Assembly as a member of a counter-revolutionary committee and therefore sought refuge, together with his brother Pierre-Louis, bishop of Saintes, with a sister, abbess of Notre-Dame at Soissons. Discovered, he was transferred to Paris and imprisoned in the Carmelite convent. In 1792 he was assassinated, after having been gravely wounded, by a mob of fanatics, together with 119 other prisoners. Pius XI beatified him on 17 Oct. 1926.
SILVIO FURLANI