Paul d'Albert de Luynes (5 January 1703 – 21 January 1788) was a French prelate. He was elected the seventh occupant of
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
seat 29 in 1743.
Early life
Paul d'Albert de Luynes was born on 5 January 1703 in the city of
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
hôtel particulier
An ''hôtel particulier'' () is a grand townhouse, comparable to the Townhouse (Great Britain), British townhouse or mansion. Whereas an ordinary ''maison'' (house) was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side an ...
''. He was the second son of Marie Anne Jeanne de Courcillon (d. 1718) and Honoré-Charles d'Albert de Luynes (1669–1704). His elder brother was
Charles Philippe d'Albert de Luynes Charles-Philippe d’Albert Duc de Luynes (30 July 1695 – 2 November 1758) held the title Duke of Luynes from 1712 to 1758. He wrote an important memoir of life at the court of Louis XV.
Early life
Charles-Philippe was a grandson of Charles ...
Duke of Luynes The Duke of Luynes (french: duc de Luynes ) is a territorial name belonging to the noble French house d'Albert. Luynes is, today, a commune of the Indre-et-Loire ''département'' in France. The family of Albert, which sprang from Thomas Alberti ( ...
, but did not become the Duke of Luynes because he died before his father. His maternal grandfather was
Philippe de Courcillon Philippe is a masculine sometimes feminin given name, cognate to Philip. It may refer to:
* Philippe of Belgium (born 1960), King of the Belgians (2013–present)
* Philippe (footballer) (born 2000), Brazilian footballer
* Prince Philippe, Coun ...
, the French officer and diarist. He was also the great-great-grandson of the
Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes
Charles d'Albert, Duke of Luynes (, 5 August 1578 – 15 December 1621) was a French courtier and a favourite of Louis XIII. In 1619, the king made him Duke of Luynes and a Peer of France, and in 1621, Constable of France. Luynes died of sc ...
, a favorite of King
Louis XIII
Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...
.
Career
On 17 February 1729, he was selected
Bishop of Bayeux
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux (Latin: ''Dioecesis Baiocensis et Lexoviensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Bayeux et Lisieux'') is a diocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is coextensive with the Department of Calvados and is ...
, France. He was confirmed on 17 August 1729 and ordained on 25 September 1729. On 9 August 1753, he was selected to succeeded
Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy
Jean-Joseph Languet de Gergy (; 25 August 1677 – 11 May 1753) was a French ecclesiastic and theologian. He was first bishop of Soissons, then a member of the ''Académie française'', and finally archbishop of Sens.
Biography
Son of the publi ...
as
Archbishop of Sens
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sens and Auxerre (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Senonensis et Antissiodorensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Sens et Auxerre'') is a Latin Rite Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The Archdiocese compr ...
. He resigned as Bishop of Bayeux on 21 September 1753 and was confirmed as Archbishop on 26 November 1753.
Less than three years later on 5 April 1756, he was elevated to
Cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
. On 2 August 1758, he was installed as Cardinal-Priest of
San Tommaso in Parione
San Tommaso in Parione is one of the two national churches of Eritrea in Rome. It is dedicated to St Thomas the Apostle. The church is normally open to the public every Sunday .
History
The church has ancient origins, but the first documented dat ...
. Considered one of the "seminary-trained clerical aristocrats," the Cardinal was called upon in the
Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau (; ) is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the ''arrondissement ...
of
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...
to rebuke the fashionable vices of courtiers:
"Everything he had prepared had been composed in order to recall high society to the unassuming ways of real Christians. Some hundred of peasants, sitting on their clogs, surrounded by the baskets they had used to carry their vegetables or fruit to market, listened to His Eminence without understanding a single word he addressed to them... ut he was heardto cry out, in the vehemence of the perfect pastor, 'My dear brethren, why do you bring this luxury with you into the very entrance to the sanctuary? Why do these velvet cushions, these laced and fringed handbags, lie in front of your entry into the Lord's house?"
Scientific interests
During his time in Bayeux, he protected the
Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Caen
The Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Caen was founded in Caen (Normandy) by Jacques Moisant de Brieux in 1652.
The Académie de Caen was the first academy of literature to be founded in France, after the French Academy. It also ...
and from 1731 to 1753, his residence in
Caen
Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Réginald Outhier.
He was elected the seventh occupant of
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
seat on 29 in 1743.
De Luynes endorsed the
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
manufacturer Brasselard, a grocer based on the Rue de Tournon in the
6th arrondissement of Paris
The 6th arrondissement of Paris (''VIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as ''le sixième''.
The arrondissement, called Luxembourg in ...
who was also endorsed by the Société Royale de Médecine. In 1776, when correspondeding with the physician Théophile de Bordeu regarding de Bordeau's recommendation that the Cardinal refrain from eating chocolate, which his personal doctor encouraged, he wrote: "The view of the learned chemist who has analysed it and who concludes from these experiments that the use of cacao is very advantageous for old people, whose radical moisture dries out with age; the experiment I made over two years of the marked advantage that I always derived from it with regard to the looseness of the belly and the sweetening of my phlegm, have caused me to remain firm in my sentiment and the more so since it is not out of gourmandise that I am attached to it, my palate in no may please by the taste of cacao."
Normandy
Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
region
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
in northwestern France.
De Luynes died in Paris on 21 January 1788.
Gallery
File:Anneau astro Luynes 2.png, Partial view of his astronomical ring
File:Anneau astro Luynes 1.jpg, His astronomical ring
File:Sceau de Paul d'Albert de Luynes.JPG, Paul d'Albert de Luynes's seal
File:Paul de Luynes.jpg,
File:Passage de Vénus sur le Soleil en 1761.png, Records of the passage of Venus in front of the Sun's disk.