Dupanloup was born at Saint-Félix, in Upper Savoy, (which at the time was part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia rather than France) an illegitimate son of Prince Camillo Borghese.[4] In his earliest years he was confided to the care of his brother, a priest in the diocese of Chambéry. In 1810 he was sent to a pensionnat ecclésiastique at Paris. Thence he went to the seminary of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in 1813, and was transferred to the seminary of Saint Sulpice at Paris in 1820. In 1825 he was ordained priest, and was appointed vicar of the Madeleine at Paris. For a time he was tutor to the Orléans princes. He became the founder of a celebrated academy at St Hyacinthe, and received a letter from Gregory XVI lauding his work there, and calling him Apostolus juventutis.[5]
He was elected to the Académie française in 1854,[6] occupying the thirty-eighth chair and leading the academy's "religious party", in which capacity he manoeuvred against the election of agnostic intellectuals. Dupanloup resigned in 1875 after Émile Littré, an agnostic, was elected to the academy.[7]
His imposing height,[citation needed] his noble features,[citation needed]his brilliant eloquence, as well as his renown for zeal and charity,[citation needed] made him a prominent feature in French life for many years[citation needed]. Crowds of persons attended his addresses, on whom his energy, command of language, powerful voice and impassioned gestures made a profound impression.[citation needed] When made bishop of Orléans in 1849, he pronounced a fervid panegyric on Joan of Arc, which attracted attention in England as well as France.[citation needed] Joan of Arc was later canonized, due partly to Dupanloup's efforts.[citation needed] Before this, he had been sent by Archbishop Aifre to Rome, and had been appointed Roman prelate and protonotary apostolic.[5]
For thirty years he remained a notable figure in France, doing his utmost to arouse his countrymen from religious indifference. He was a distinguished educationist who fought for the retention of the Latin classics in the schools and instituted the celebrated catechetical method of St Sulpice. Among his publications are:[5]
De l'Éducation (1850)
De la Haute Éducation Intellectuelle (3 vols., 1866)
Œuvres Choisies (1861, 4 vols.)
Histoire de Jésus (1872), a counterblast to Renan's Vie de Jésus.
In the work known as Illustrissimi, a collection of letters written by Pope John Paul I when he was Patriarch of Venice, Dupanloup is one of the "recipients" of the letters. There are 40 letters in all, mainly to people in Italian history and fiction, but also to internationally well known fictional and historical characters such as Pinocchio, Charles Dickens, Hippocrates, and Jesus. Each of the letters tend to be droll and witty, but cleverly turned into a short sermon in order to make a point, whether it is on fashion, pornography, capitalism, or the communications industry.
"There is a story told," I said, "of Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, who was supposed to be one of the wittiest men of his time. He was at dinner once with a lady who made a peculiar little noise and then proceeded to shuffle with her feet on the parquet so as to cover the indiscretion with similar sounds.
'Oh, Madame,' said the witty Bishop, 'please don't trouble to find a rhyme; it is not important.'"
The Prince laughed but did not prize the witty word at its real worth.
^Sparrow Simpson, W.J. (1909). Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility. London: John Murray.
^Cross, Robert D. (1958). "Catholicism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe", in The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Further reading
Harrigan, Patrick J. (1973). "French Catholics and Classical Education after the Falloux Law," French Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 255–278.
Huckaby, John K. (1965). "Roman Catholic Reaction to the Falloux Law," French Historical Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 203–213.
May, Anita Rasi (1963). "The Falloux Law, the Catholic Press, and the Bishops: Crisis of Authority in the French Church," French Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 77–94.
O'Connell, Marvin R. (1984). "Ultramontanism and Dupanloup: The Compromise of 1865," Church History, Vol. 53, No. 2, pp. 200–217.
