TALLEYRAND, ALEXANDRE-ANGÉLIQUE, Duke of. - Cardinal, b. in Paris on 16 Oct. 1736, d. there on 20 June 1821. Uncle of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and former bishop of Autun, he studied at the College of La Flèche and at the Seminary of S. Sulpizio.
Ordained priest, he became the King’s almoner, vicar general of Verdun in 1762, coadjutor to the archbishop of Reims, de la Roche-Aymon, whom he succeeded in 1777; he entrusted the direction of that Seminary to the Sulpicians and founded a pawnshop in Reims. Elected in 1789 as a deputy of the clergy to the Estates General, he took part in the Constituent Assembly and there defended the rights of the Church. Shortly afterward he left France, settling in Aachen, Weimar, and Brunswick, until Luigi XVIII summoned him to his side in Warsaw in 1803. After the Concordat of 1801 he was among the bishops who refused to resign. Grand almoner to the King in 1808, he returned to France in 1814 and again followed the King to Ghent during the Hundred Days. Created a Peer of France in the same year, he played a major part in the conclusion of the Concordat of 1817. Having finally resigned the archbishopric of Reims, he was created cardinal by Pio VII on 28 July 1817 and, on 1 Oct., archbishop of Paris. He took possession of his new see in 1819 and imposed upon the priests
of the diocese acceptance of a formulary favourable to Jansenism.