Guillaume Dubois

Biography

Very badly known, in the absence of substantial files, the youth of the Dubois cardinal was the subject of innumerable generally malevolent anecdotes. Born with Brive-the-Strapping woman (the Limousin), the Guillaume young person was according to his enemies the son of a Apothicaire. Resulting from a medium from robins and municipal officials, his father is actually doctor of medicine. Educated by the brothers of the Christian Doctrines, it receives the Tonsure at the thirteen years age. With Fleury and later Bernis, it belongs to this “line occitane of large prelates semi-liberals” (Emmanuel Roy Ladurie), typical of the South of the Lumières (philosophy). In 1672, it obtains a purse and leaves, undoubtedly by the protection of Jean, marquis de Pompadour and lieutenant-general of the Limousin, for the Collège Saint-Michel, disappeared today, but of which there remain some vestiges street of Beaver.

He is quickly noticed by the abbot Antoine Faure, with the head of the establishment, which obtains for its compatriot the envied station of tutor of the Philippe young person, duke of Chartres, future duke of Orleans. Today with the Museum Carnavalet, a full-length portrait, undoubtedly apocryphal book, shows it at the side of its pupil. Under his influence, the young duke marries, with the great satisfaction at Louis XIV, Francoise-Marie de Bourbon, known as Miss de Blois, natural girl of the king and Madam de Montespan. Dubois obtains then the abbey of Just Saint in Picardy. In 1698, member of the house of Orleans as well as the Abbot of Saint-Pierre, Dubois carries out a diplomatic mission in England. He discovers a capitalist nation there and liberal in full rise, visits Oxford, meets exiled French the such Saint-Évremond and undoubtedly ties useful relations in the entourage of the Court of Saint-James. Of return to the Palais Royal, Dubois becomes in the entourage of Orleans a specialist in the secret diplomacy. He crosses there the abbot of Saint-Pierre, theorist of universal peace.

The beginning of Regency in 1715 mark the beginning of a brief but blazing apogee in the career of Dubois. Become to advise of the regent, he exerts an increasing influence. He directs France towards British alliance, helped in that of the information of his mistress in title, Madam de Tencin, which, by its famous literary and political living room, was with the fact of the lower parts of charts of the English policy. Orleans and the Hanover having to face sharp interior oppositions, he endeavors to maintain peace. Vis-a-vis the projects of the Cardinal Alberoni in Spain, it negotiates the Triple Alliance (1717) with George I {{er}}. In 1719, a war limited against Spain forces Philippe V to return Alberoni. It obtains then the Archevêché of Cambric then, after the election of Innocent XIII in 1721, the Cardinalat. Its rise is completed by obtaining the post of principal minister, that Mazarin had been the last to be obtained, the entry with the French Academy then the presidency of the Assemblée of the clergy. During its short ministry, it tries to start again the economy by the reduction of the rights, to restore the situation of finances after the mistakes of the Système of Law and slows down the persecution of the Protestants.

Equipped with seven abbeys, it piles up an honest fortune (ten million books) and tries to promote its family. A dissipated life is lent to him: he was the lover of the famous Madam de Tencin whose living room, where the English policies were numerous, enabled him to collect extremely useful information on the English policy. He dies in 1723, followed closely by the duke of Orleans.

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