Henri-Marie-Gaston Boisnormand de Bonnechose

Henri-Marie-Gaston Boisnormand de Bonnechose

Cardinal and senator, b. at Paris, 1800; d. 1883. Entering the magistracy, he became attorney-general for the district of Besançon in 1830, but having received sacred orders at Strasburg, under the episcopate of de Trevern, he was made professor of sacred eloquence in the school of higher studies founded at Besançon by Cardinal de Rohan. After the death of de Rohan, he went to Rome to settle the differences between Bishop de Trevern and himself, due to philosophical opinions found in his work, "Philosophy of Christianity", for which Bonnechose had written an introduction. In 1844, he was named by Rome superior of the community of St. Louis; in 1847 he became Bishop of Carcassonne, was transferred, 4 November, 1854, to Evreux, and in 1854 raised to the archiepiscopal See of Rouen. Created cardinal in 1863, he became ex-officio senator of the empire. The cardinal showed himself a warm advocate of the temporal power of the popes, and firmly protested against the withdrawal of the French army from the Pontifical States. In 1870, at the urgent prayers of the citizens of Rouen, notwithstanding his advanced years, he went in the rigor of the season to Versailles, the headquarters of the German armies, to entreat King William of Prussia to reduce the war contribution imposed on the city of Rouen. Under the republican government he uniformly opposed the laws and measures passed against religious congregations and their schools, but endeavored to inspire his clergy with sentiments of deference and conciliation in their relations with the civil authorities. His best known work is "Introduction a la philosophie du Christianisme" (1835), two octavo volumes.

GUERIN, Dict. des dict. (Paris, 1892); LAROUSSE Dict. Univ. du XlX siecle (Paris 1867).

F.M.L. DUMONT