Morlot, Francois Nicolas Madeleine

Morlot, Francois Nicolas Madeleine a French prelate of note, was born at Langres (department Haute Marne) December 28, 1795. His father, a modest mechanic, sent him to the college of his native town. Having afterwards passed through the course of theological studies at Dijon, before reaching the age required for priesthood, young Morlot was for some time private tutor. In 1825 he was appointed vicar of the diocese of Dijon, where, after the revolution of 1830, he made himself conspicuous by his resistance to bishop Rey, who was obnoxious to the clergy and legitimist party for having accepted his see from Louis Philippe. Discarded from the grand vicariate, but supported by the Ammi de la Religion and other papers of the same party he repeatedly refused an appointment as curate, and accepted only the place of canon. He published, under the title of Remonstrance, a censure of his bishop's acts, and was foremost in the attacks which at last forced the bishop to resign in 1838. In 1839 Morlot was appointed bishop of Orleans. He was also for his valuable services decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor on the occasion of the baptism of the comte de Paris, and in 1842 was elevated to the archiepiscopal see of Tours. Created cardinal March 7, 1853, he took as such his seat in the senate of the new empire, and January 24, 1857, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Paris. The same year he was also put at the head of the grand Aumnnerie, and at the beginning of 1858 he was called to the counsel of regency and to the private council. Cardinal Morlot died in 1870. His literary activity was very limited. Besides his Mandements and Circulaires, or Lettres Pastorales, all of them written with great simplicity, he edited Explication de la doctrine Chretienne, en forme de lectures (2 volumes, 12mo): —Catechisme du diocese de Dijon (18mo): — the Heures choisies de la Marquise d'Andelarre (1825, 12mo). See Dict. des Cardinaux, s.v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 36:614-15; Vapereau, Dict. des Contemporains, s.v.