Lacombe, Dominique

Lacombe, Dominique a French prelate of note, was born at Montrejean (Haute Garonne) July 25,1749, and was educated in the college at Tarbes, which he entered in 1766. In 1788 he became rector of a college at Bordeaux, but energetically embracing the principles of the Revolution in 1789, he solemnly declared in favor of separation of Church and State, and was elected in consequence curate of St. Paul at Bordeaux. Sent to the Assembly, he took quite a prominent part in politics until the decretal prohibiting all ecclesiastical dress was published (April 7, 1792), when he forthwith ceased his service to the state, and returned to Bordeaux to assume the duties of his ecclesiastical functions. In 1797 he was elected metropolitan of Bordeaux, and in 1802 was one of the twelve bishops nominated by the emperor Napoleon, as whose zealous partisan Lacombe is known after his elevation to the episcopacy of Angouleme. He died April 7, 1823. See Annales de la Religion, 15:134; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Genrale, 28:541.