La Rochefoucauld, Dominique de

La Rochefoucauld, Dominique de count of St. Elpis, a French prelate, was born in 1713 at St. Elpis, in the diocese of Mende. He was a descendant of a poor and ignorant branch of the house of La Rochefoucauld, which the bishop of Mendes, of Choiseul, discovered in one of his pastoral visits. Frederic Jerome de la Rochefoucauld, archbishop of Bourges, made known this discovery, and took upon himself the direction of the studies of young Dominique.' He placed him at the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and having made him grand- vicar, gave him the archbishopric of Alby in 1747. Being a member of the assemblies of the clergy in 1750 and 1755, he zealously defended the rights of the Gallican Church, and was invested with the abbey of Cluny in 1757. Two years later he was transferred to the see of Rouen. and in 1778 made cardinal. Elected deputy of the clergy of the bailiwick of Rouen to the States-General in 1789, he came out strongly against the principles of the revolution. He was one of the signers of the protest of September 12, 1791, against the innovations made by the national assembly in the matter of religion. In the preceding April he had published a pastoral instruction, which the tribunal of Rouen had torn and burned, as being contrary to the laws of the constituent assembly. After August 10, 1792, the cardinal La Rochefoucauld retired to Germany, and died at Munster, September 2, 1800. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.