Augustin Potier

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Augustin Potier († June 19 or June 20, 1650 in Bresles ) was a French Roman Catholic bishop and statesman.

Life

Augustin Potier came from the Blancmesnil branch of the Parisian Potier family . His father Nicolas III. Potier was President à mortier at the Parlement of Paris and Chancellor of Queen Maria de 'Medici . In 1594 Potier received a canonical in Beauvais, the diocese of his brother René, and in 1608 was a city councilor in Paris. Appointed Bishop and Count of Beauvais to succeed his late brother René in 1616, he was ordained bishop by Cardinal Ubaldini on September 17, 1617 in Rome, in the Church of St. Louis des Français .

Potier had the special trust of the Queen Mother Anna of Austria , whose first almsman (grand aumônier) he had been since 1624. Appointed to the Council of State by the latter after taking office as regent in 1643 and envisaged as the successor to Cardinal Richelieu, who died the previous year, as First Minister, he soon proved unsuitable ( Cardinal Retz bluntly calls him an idiot in his memoirs). He lost the favor of the queen, who turned to Mazarin , and was banished from court in September 1643 and relegated to his diocese. With that, the hope for the cardinalate that the Queen had sought for him was dashed.

As bishop Potier made several visitations, cared for the poor (he was friends with Vincent de Paul ), founded and promoted a seminary and a hospital. He took care of the maintenance of churches and reformed some abbeys. He died after a long illness on June 19 or 20, 1650 in the castle of Bresles of the Bishops of Beauvais and was buried in the cathedral of Beauvais . His successor was his nephew Nicolas Choart de Buzenval .

literature

  • Oliver Mallick: "Spiritus intus agit". The patronage policy of Anna of Austria 1643–1666. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016
  • Fernand Potier de La Morandière: Augustin Potier, évêque et comte de Beauvais, pair de France. Impr. De P. Féron-Vrau, 1902
  • Ferdinand Hoefer : Nouvelle biography générale . Paris: Firmin Didot, 1852–1866
  • Michaud: biography universal. Paris 1823, p. 525

Web links

Commons : Augustin Potier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mémoires. Paris, Gallimard, La Pléiade, 1984, p. 170.
personal data
SURNAME Potier, Augustin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Roman Catholic bishop and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH 16th Century
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1650 or June 20, 1650
Place of death Bresles