Darboy, GEORGES

Darboy, GEORGES, an ill-fated Archbishop of Paris, was born 16th January 1813 at Fayl-Billot, in Haute-Marne. He was educated at the seminary of Langres, and four years after his ordination as priest (1836) was appointed a professor there. In 1845 he came to Paris, where his reputation as translator of Dionysius the Areopagite had preceded him. In 1854 he was made protonotary apostolic, in 1859 Bishop of Nancy, and in 1863 Archbishop of Paris. He strenuously upheld the Gallican theory of episcopal independence, and waged a long struggle with the Jesuits that lost him the favour of the holy see. At the Vatican Council he opposed with vigour the declaration of the papal infallibility, but when the dogma was finally adopted, was one of the first to set the example of submission. During the German siege of Paris he was unceasing in labours of benevolence, and during the brief but dreadful triumph of the Commune he refused to leave his flock. Arrested as a hostage by the Communists, 4th April 1871, he was shot in the court of the prison of La Roquette on the 24th of May. He died with the heroic courage of the Christian martyr, words of forgiveness on his lips, and his hands lifted in blessing as he fell. His two immediate predecessors had likewise died a bloody death—Sibour murdered during the celebration of a religious rite (January 3, 1857); Affre shot down on the barricades (June 1848). Darboy's body was reinterred in a stately public funeral, 5th June 1871. See Foulon's Vie de Darboy (1889).