1828 en literatura

Biography

Jean-Marie of Lau was born on October 30th 1738 with Biras in the diocese from Périgueux (the Dordogne), of Armand of Lau, lord of Coste, and Francoise de Salleton. It is resulting from a family which counts many prelates.

It makes its humanities with the Collège of Navarre and its its license of theology to the Sorbonne obtains.

It occupies successively several stations: canon and treasurer of Pamiers, general vicar of Bordeaux, prior of Gabillon and general agent of the clergy of France in 1770. Then crowned bishop of Grenoble in 1771 (?), it becomes finally, on October 1st 1775, the youngest archbishop named by Louis XVI while taking charges the Archevêché with it with Arles.

As of 1777, J.M. of Lau undertakes a pastoral visit of its Diocese of Arles. In 1778, on June 8th, it visits Our-Lady-of-the-Sea thus. The following year, it charges the abbot Laurent Bonnemant, promoter diocesan to present a report to him on the state of the diocese of Arles in order to engage, possibly reforms. It also implies in social actions as for examples the training of the midwives and the instruction of the children and one owes him the repair the large frontage of the Archbishop's palace, to rebuild in 1786.
In 1789, with the Revolution, it is appointed Clergy with the General states. On a purely anecdotic basis, one can probably announce the letter of Louis XVI written after the night of the August 4th, 1789 (abolition of the preferences and the feudal rights) following a request of J.M. of Lau:

I will never agree to strip my clergy, my nobility. I will not give my sanction to decrees which would strip them; at this point in time French people could show me injustice and of weakness. MISTER the archbishop, you subject yourselves to the decrees Providence; I believe to subject myself to it while not delivering to me to this enthusiasm which seized of all the kinds, but which does nothing but slip on my heart. If the force obliged me to sanction, then I would yield, but then there would be no more in France neither monarchy nor monarch. .

Its diocese, as of 1790 it enters in conflict with the 1st mayor of Arles, Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, a Jacobin aristocrat.

In 1790, on July 12th, the National Assembly decides to abolish the seat archiépiscopal of Arles and two years later, on September 2nd 1792, J.M. of Lau is carried out at the time of the revolutionary Terreur in the prison of the Carmelite friars in Paris.

Last archbishop of Arles, it is béatifié by the pope Pie XI on October 17th 1926.

Sources

Gerard Cholvy (scientific Editor), a bishop in the revolutionary upheaval, Jean Marie of Lau, archbishop of Arles, and his companions martyrs, 1792-1992 . Conference of IIe centenary held in Arles 2 October 4th, 1992. Acts joined together by Gerard Cholvy. Montpellier, University Paul Valéry, 1995,135 p.

Streets of Arles, which are you? of Annie Tuloup-Smith, Editions of Old Arles 2001

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