François de Nesmond

François de Nesmond (born August 31, 1629 in Paris , † June 16, 1715 in Bayeux ) was a French bishop.

Life

Origin and family

François de Nesmond was the offspring of a family originally from Angoulême who had come to Bordeaux via Paris and rose there within two generations to the highest office at the Parlement (court of law). Nesmond's grandfather, André de Nesmond, was first President of the Parliament from 1611 to 1616. His father François-Théodore de Nesmond had pursued a career in Paris, had become intendant of Prince Condé in 1629 and had promoted his further rise through his marriage to Anne de Lamoignon, a daughter of his predecessor in the office of président a mortier, Chrêtien de Lamoignon . As president of a frondist rump parliament, he played a not insignificant role during the so-called Fronde in 1652 . The naval commander André de Nesmond (1641-1702) and the bishop Henri de Nesmond (1652-1727) were François' cousins.

Studies and first years of priesthood up to the appointment of bishop

Nesmond was born in Paris in 1629, where his father became director of the Condé army that same year and was baptized in the parish of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie . He attended the Jesuit College de Clermont (today Lycée Louis-le-Grand ) and studied at the Collège de Navarre . He studied theology with Gaston Chamillard at the Sorbonne , obtained a licentiate in 1652 and received his doctorate in theology on May 6, 1654. In the following year he took part as a deputy to the National Assembly of the French clergy ( Assemblée du clergé ) and was there a member of the commission to investigate the five Jansenist propositions .

After celebrating his primacy on the Feast of the Assumption of the same year , he worked at the seminary of St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet and in Saint-Lazare under Vincent de Paul . As benefice he received the Cluniac priory of La Voulte in the diocese of Saint-Flour and the Augustinian abbey of Mauléon in the diocese of La Rochelle in Kommende in 1646, and in 1647 the Maurinian abbey of Saint-Pierre de Chézy in the diocese of Soissons .

Already in 1659 Cardinal Mazarin elected bishop of the diocese of Bayeux , but due to a dispute between Cardinals Maidalchini and Ursino over a rent of 11,000 livres burdening the diocese, Nesmond was preconceived by the Pope in the consistory on August 8, 1661, on March 19, 1662 consecrated in the chapel of the Sorbonne by his metropolitan, Archbishop François de Harlay of Rouen. Consecration assistants were former Bishop Claude Auvry von Coutances and François de Clermont-Tonnerre , Bishop and Count of Noyon .

On April 19, 1662, Bishop Nesmond took possession of his diocese by his former Preceptor Jean Ratier, priest of the Diocese of Agen , per procurationem ; He himself only made his solemn entry into the cathedral on May 15th, to whom he presented a silver statue of St. Exuperius of Bayeux and one donated to the Virgin Mary .

53 years Bishop of Bayeux

At his first diocesan synod, which he held on May 24, 1662, he renewed the statutes of his predecessor François Servien and added more (reprinted by Hermant). After Cardinal Ursino's death had expired the diocese's pension, he resigned the monasteries that had been given to him by the king in the hands of the Pope. On September 29, 1663 he reformed the Saint-Étienne monastery in Caen, which he handed over to the Congregation of Saint-Maur . He had the diocese's breviary revised, above all removing all apocryphal legends and publishing it in a new edition in 1665. He instituted spiritual exercises that merged with the diocesan missions established by Jean Eudes , the founder of the Eudists , and founded a hospital for the poor in Bayeux in 1666. In the same year another seminary was established in Bayeux through the foundation of Canon Gilles Buhot (1602–1674), whom Nesmond also appointed director.

Nesmond also paid close attention to the Exemption Cambremer, consisting of nine parishes in the diocese of Lisieux , whose Cistercian Abbot Dominique Georges, appointed Vicar General by his predecessor, he confirmed in office. The spiritual conferences founded by Georges in 1650 were taken over by Nesmond for the entire diocese in order to ensure a better education for the diocesan priests. On April 15, 1706 he had Pope Clement XI's 1705 in a pastoral letter . proclaim the anti-Jansenist bull Vineam Domini in the diocese and his clergy sign the form of Pope Alexander VII . He was also not afraid to take tough action against individual objectors. He also turned resolutely against some secular landowners who oppressed his country pastors, and against the Protestants; He had thirteen of the eighteen Protestant houses of worship that existed in the diocese at the beginning of his term of office demolished.

Full of kindness (“ Plein de bienfaisance ”) he cared for the needy, had women's shelters built and entertained a large number of young people in the seminars in Bayeux, Caen and La Délivrande at his own expense. In 1662 Bishop Nesmond celebrated the beatification of St. Francis de Sales in the Chapel of the Salesian Sisters ( Order of the Visitation ) and consecrated the newly built chapel there in 1668, nine years later in Vire that of the Capuchins as well as the Capuchin Church in Bayeux. In 1677 he blessed the seminary chapel in Caen, which he consecrated in 1685, and had the episcopal palace in Caen rebuilt the following year. In 1682 he handed over the leadership of the seminary in Bayeux to the priests of the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul (Lazarists or Vincentians). He was also involved in several episcopal ordinations. In 1671 he consecrated Jean-François de Gaillard as Bishop of Apt and in 1682 was co-consecrator at the consecration of the Bishop of Gap, Victor de Méliand , and the consecration of the coadjutor of Rouen, Jacques-Nicolas Colbert , as Archbishop of Carthage in partibus . In 1677 he nominated the Commendatar Abbot Nicolas Druel of Notre-Dame-du-Val in Caen.

On April 20, 1693, Bishop Nesmond laid the foundation stone for the new major seminary in Bayeux and on June 30, 1699 he assisted the Provincial Synod in Gaillon (south of Rouen).

Death and burial

He died on June 16, 1715 in Bayeux as doyen of the French episcopate. His body was buried in the cathedral, next to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Louis de Harcourt , his heart in the seminary chapel, his entrails in the general hospital. He had bequeathed his furniture to his cousin Henri de Nesmond, Bishop of Albi, and his financial fortune to the poor of the diocese.

He came into office in 1661 as one of the last bishops appointed by Mazarin and died three months before Louis XIV. His term of office lasted 53 years. Therefore the diocese of Bayeux was the only French bishopric that was never occupied by King Louis XIV.

literature

• Jean Hermant: Histoire du Diocese de Bayeux, Caen 1705, p. 478 ff.
• Jacques Laffetay: Histoire du diocèse de Bayeux pendant le 17 ° et 18 ° siècle, Bayeux 1855
• H [onoré Jean Pierre] Fisquet: La France pontificale (Gallia Christiana): histoire chronologique et biographique des Archevêques & Évêques de tous les Diocèses de France, depuis l'établissement du Christianisme jusqu'à nos jours, divisée en 18 provinces ecclésiastiques. Paris: Repos, 1864-1871, pp. 110-115
• Armand Jean: Les Évêques et les archevêques de France depuis 1682 jusqu'à 1801. Paris [et al.]: Picard [et al.], 1891
• Joseph Bergin : The Making of the French Episcopate, 1589–1661. Yale University Press, 1996, p. 675
• Joseph Bergin: Crown, Church, and Episcopate Under Louis XIV. Yale University Press, 2004

Web links

• Entry on François de Nesmond on catholic-hierarchy.org