![Omer Joly de Fleury](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Omer_Joly_de_Fleury.jpg)
Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury (1715-1810) was a member of the distinguished Joly de Fleury family, originally from
Burgundy
Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...
, from which came a number of leading French magistrates and officials under the
ancien regime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for "ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for ...
. He is notable for four principal things: his strong opposition to the
philosophes and the publication of the ''
Encyclopedie'' in 1759; his role in the expulsion of the
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
; his involvement in the
Lally Tollendal Affair; and his ban on inoculation against smallpox in June 1763. In a pun on his name,
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
described him as ‘ni Homère, ni joli, ni fleuri' ( = neither
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
, nor pretty, nor flowery, a sarcastic comment on his apparently dreary oratory). In one of his private letters, Voltaire described him as a ‘little black balloon puffed up with stinking vapours’
Family
He was the son of , of the
Parlement of Paris
The Parliament of Paris (french: Parlement de Paris) was the oldest ''parlement'' in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. It was fixed in Paris by Philip IV of France in 1302. The Parliament of Paris would hold sessions inside the ...
and of
Marie Francoise Le Maistre
Marie may refer to:
People Name
* Marie (given name)
* Marie (Japanese given name)
* Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973
* Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in Tro ...
. His brothers were
Guillaume-François-Louis Joly de Fleury (1710-1787) who succeeded their father in his post as Procurator General, and
Jean-François Joly de Fleury
Jean-François Joly de Fleury (1718-1802) was a minor figure serving in the French government as finance minister within a decade of the French Revolution. He was a member of the influential Joly de Fleury family.
Family
He was the son of , of ...
(1718-1802),
intendant
An intendant (; pt, intendente ; es, intendente ) was, and sometimes still is, a public official, especially in France, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. The intendancy system was a centralizing administrative system developed in France. In ...
of
Dijon
Dijon (, , ) (dated)
* it, Digione
* la, Diviō or
* lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920.
The earlies ...
and
Administrator General of Finances. Joseph-Omer himself was
Advocate General to the
Grand Conseil
The term Grand Conseil () or Great Council refers two different institutions during the Ancien Régime in France. It also is the name of parliaments in several Swiss cantons.
Ancien Régime France Part of the King's Council
Starting in the 13th ...
(1737-1746), from 1746, to the Parlement of Paris, and ultimately became
président à mortier.
Opposition to the ''Encyclopédie''
On 7 February 1752, after the second volume of the ''
Encyclopédie'' was published, Joly de Fleury charged in a decree presented to the Grand Conseil that "these two volumes...insert several maxims tending to destroy Royal Authority, to institute the spirit of independence and revolt, and, in obscure and ambiguous words, to erect the foundations of error, of the corruption of morals, of irreligion and unbelief". The resulting controversy was only settled when the editors agreed that all future volumes were to be reviewed by censors personally appointed by
Bishop Boyer, the
Dauphin's
preceptor
A preceptor (from Latin, "''praecepto''") is a teacher responsible for upholding a ''precept'', meaning a certain law or tradition.
Buddhist monastic orders
Senior Buddhist monks can become the preceptors for newly ordained monks. In the Buddhi ...
.
On 23 January 1759, following the publication of the seventh volume of the ''Encyclopedie'', with its controversial article on
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, Joly de Fleury condemned it again, together with
Helvetius' ''
De l’Esprit'' and six other books to the Paris Parlement. His opening statement was ‘Society, the State and Religion present themselves today at the tribunal of justice… their rights have been violated, their laws disregarded. Impiety walks with head held high…. Humanity shudders, the citizenry is alarmed.’ These evils he blamed on ‘a sect of so-called Philosophers (the
Philosophes)… who imagined a project… to destroy the basic truths engraved in our hearts by the hand of the Creator, to abolish his cult and his ministers, and to establish instead Materialism and Deism.’ As a result of his speech the Parlement banned the publishers of the Encyclopedie from selling any more copies, and established a commission of enquiry to look in detail at the content of the seven published volumes. In March 1759 Parlement revoked the Encyclopedie's permission to publish altogether. After this ban, work on the remaining volumes of the Encyclopedie had to continue underground. ''De L’Esprit'' and seven other publications were ordered to be lacerated and burned in front of the Palais de Justice on 10 February. In 1765 Joly de Fleury further demanded, and secured, a condemnation by Parlement of Voltaire's ''Dictionnaire Philosophique''.
Opposition to the Jesuits
The Parlement of Paris and the Jesuit Order were often at odds in eighteenth-century France. In 1759 the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal and tensions in France escalated around a
complex fraud which involved a number of court cases in the 1750s and early 1760s.
On 6 August 1762, on the initiative of Joly de Fleury, the Parlement of Paris issued a decree depriving the Jesuits of all of their property. It required them to cease to live in their communities and to disperse. It forbade them to correspond with each other or to exercise any function. Later Joly de Fleury regretted the part he had played in the suppression of the order, whose equal, he then said, could not be found in science and learning.
Opposition to inoculation
The practice of
inoculation
Inoculation is the act of implanting a pathogen or other microorganism. It may refer to methods of artificially inducing immunity against various infectious diseases, or it may be used to describe the spreading of disease, as in "self-inoculati ...
against smallpox was introduced to Paris by an Italian doctor named
Gatti and by 1763 he had inoculated ninety-seven people. However, there was public consternation when some of those he had inoculated did not remain in quarantine as prescribed, and went freely around the city, potentially risking the health of others. It was said that this was the origin of the epidemic that struck Paris in late 1762 and early 1763.
Joly de Fleury responded to this emergency by asking the Paris Parlement to vote to refer the question of inoculation to the Faculties of Medicine and Theology at the
Sorbonne. In June 1763 the Parlement ordered that no further inoculations take place in Paris until the Faculties had rendered their judgement on the matter. Inoculations were allowed to continue outside the city, and those already inoculated were required to maintain quarantine for six weeks.
This apparently pragmatic approach quickly foundered as the physicians could not agree and published rival reports. This started a war of polemics between proponents and opponents of the practice, which effectively became a proxy for the continued struggle between the philosophes and the clerical conservatives. Joly de Fleury was the object of much mockery and abuse during these exchanges. In particular, Joly de Fleury's efforts made him the target of one of Voltaire's satirical pamphlets, or facéties. Not only did Voltaire hate him for his opposition to the philosophes, but he was also in favour of inoculation.
The Lally Tollendal affair
Joly de Fleury was also involved in one of the longest-running and most acrimonious legal disputes in late eighteenth century France, the Lally-Tollendal case.
Lally Tollendal was a French commander in India. Defeated by the British, he was taken as a prisoner of war to England. He was falsely accused of treason, and returned to France to clear his name.
[Davidson,Ian, Voltaire, A Life, Profile Books, London 2010 p.359] Joly de Fleury brought formal charges against him, but when his trial began in 1764, Lally Tollendal had not received any documentation of the charges, and was not allowed a defence lawyer. Throughout the trial, which lasted for two years, Lally Tollendal fought against Joly de Fleury's charges but on 6 May 1766 he was convicted and sentenced to death. On learning of his execution Voltaire began to campaign for his posthumous rehabilitation, which was obtained from
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
in 1778. The case was considered to be one of the great miscarriages of justice in
ancien regime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for "ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for ...
France.
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fleury, Joseph Omer Joly de
1715 births
1810 deaths
Jesuit history in Europe
18th century in France
History of Catholicism in France
Smallpox vaccines
Age of Enlightenment
Encyclopédie
18th-century French people
1762 in Christianity
18th-century Catholicism