FRANÇOIS-MARIE-BENJAMIN RICHARD. — Cardinal, b. 1 March 1819 at Nantes, d. 28 January 1908 at Paris.
He studied at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, served as vicar general of Nantes from 1850 to 1860. Considered for the see of Belley in February 1872, he was appointed in 1875 coadjutor to the Archbishop of Paris, Guibert, with right of succession and the titular see of Larissa. Having become Archbishop of Paris on 8 July 1886, he was created cardinal in May 1889. In March 1891, following the celebrated speech of Cardinal Lavigerie at Algiers, which envisaged the possibility of collaboration between Catholics and the Republic, he published a pamphlet entitled *Réponse de son éminence le cardinal archevêque de Paris aux catholiques qui l’ont consulté sur leur devoir social*, in which he appealed for the unity of French Catholics and thus became the inspiration behind the *Union de la France chrétienne*, dissolved the following year at the government’s request because it was deemed to have legitimist leanings.