Cardinal, uncle of Napoleon I, born Ajaccio, Corsica, January 3, 1763; died Rome, Italy, May 13, 1839. After ordination, he embraced the military career, becoming commissary of war under his nephew in 1795. When hostility to religion somewhat abated, he reentered ecclesiastical life and helped to negotiate the Concordat of 1801. In 1802 he was named Archbishop of Lyons, and, receiving the cardinal's hat in 1803, was appointed ambassador to Rome. He induced Pius VII to crown Napoleon in Paris, and was present at the ceremony. Though powerless to prevent the rupture between the emperor and the Holy See, he prevented Napoleon from acknowledging an independent Gallican Church, upheld papal rights in the matter of canonical institution, and fell into imperial disfavor by protesting his loyalty to the exiled pontiff. After the Restoration he resided in Rome, his diocese being governed meanwhile by an administrator.
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