Cardinal Fleury, one of many studio copies of the official portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud

Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus (June 22 or 26, 1653–January 29, 1743) was a French cardinal who served as the chief minister of Louis XV. Cardinal de Fleury (1653-1743), after Hyacinthe Rigaud This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Cardinal de Fleury (1653-1743), after Hyacinthe Rigaud This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Louis XIV King of France and Navarre By Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701) Hyacinthe Rigaud (July 20, 1659 - December 27, 1743) was a French painter. ... Events February 2 - New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) is incorporated. ... January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... // Events February 14 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister February 21 - - The premiere in London of George Frideric Handels oratorio, Samson. ... A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official in the Roman Catholic Church, ranking just below the Pope and appointed by him as a member of the College of Cardinals during a consistory. ... In most Protestant churches, a minister is a member of the ordained clergy who leads a congregation or participates in a role in a parachurch ministry; such a person may also be called a Pastor, Preacher, Bishop, Chaplain or Elder. ... Louis XV (February 15, 1710 – May 10, 1774), called the Well-Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1715 to 1774. ...

He was born in Lodève, the son of a tax farmer of a noble family. He was sent to Paris as a child to be educated by the Jesuits as much in philosophy and the Classics as in theology. He entered the priesthood nevertheless and became through the influence of Cardinal Bonzi almoner to Maria Theresa, queen of Louis XIV, and after her death, to the king himself. In 1698 he was appointed bishop of Frejus, but seventeen years in a provincial see eventually determined him to seek a position at court. Lodève is an attractive medieval town in southern France, in the Hérault département, of which it is a sous-préfecture. ... The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu), commonly known as the Jesuits, is a Roman Catholic religious order. ... Some suspected Theresas death in 1683 was foul-play. ... Insert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text here:For the musical group of the same name, see Louis XIV (band). ... Roman ruins, aquaduct Fréjus is a French city, in the Var département. ...

In May 1715, a few months before the old king's death, Fleury became tutor to Louis' great-grandson and heir, and in spite of a seeming lack of ambition, he acquired an influence over the child that was never broken, fostered by Louis' love and confidence. On the death of the regent Philippe d'Orléans in 1723, Louis XV came of age. Fleury, although already seventy years of age, deferred his own supremacy by suggesting the appointment of Louis Henri, duke of Bourbon, as first minister. Fleury was present at all interviews between Louis XV and his titular first minister, and on Bourbon's attempt to break through this rule Fleury retired from court. Louis made Bourbon recall the tutor, who on July 11, 1726, took affairs into his own hands, and secured the exile from court of Bourbon and of his mistress Madame de Prie. He continued to refuse the formal title of first minister, but his elevation to cardinal, in 1726, confirmed his precedence over any others. Philippe of Orléans Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Philippe Charles (August 2, 1674 - December 2, 1723) called Duke of Chartres (1674-1701), and then Duke of Orléans (1701-1723) was Regent of France from 1715 to 1723. ... Jeanne-Agnes Berthelot de Pleneuf, marquise de Prie (1698 - 7 October 1727) was a French noblewoman notable for her intriguing during the reign of Louis XV. She was the daughter of the rich but unscrupulous Étienne Berthelot. ...

Under the Régence, the Scottish economist John Law had introduced financial measures that were modern for the time: a national bank, easy credit to encourage investors, and paper money exchangeable for bullion. Investor overconfidence led to wild speculation after 1720, and when the bubble burst, Law and his policies were thoroughly discredited, and French finances were in as dire straits as they had been when Louis XIV died. Fleury was the right man for the moment; naturally cool and impeturbable in his demeanor, frugal and prudent, he carried these qualities into the administration. In I726 he fixed the standard of the currency and secured French credit by initiating regular payment of interest on the national debt, with the result that in 1738/39 there was a surplus of 15,000,000 livres instead of the usual deficit. Fleury's stringencies were enforced through the controlleur-génénerale Orry (who remained in office until 1750, for aimiable and lazy Louis XV, once he had a minister he trusted, was loath to change). By exacting forced labor from the peasants (see corvée) he improved France's roads, though at the cost of rousing angry discontent. During the seventeen years of his orderly government, the country found time to recuperate its forces after the exhaustion caused by the ambitions of Louis XIV and extravagances of the regent, and national prosperity increased. Social peace was seriously disturbed by the severities which Fleury exercised against the Jansenists. He was one of the minority of French bishops who published Clement XI's bull Unigenitus and imprisoned priests who refused to accept it, and he met the Jansenist opposition of the Parlement of Paris by exiling forty of its members. There have been a number of famous individuals named John Law: John Law (economist) John Law (sociologist) John Law is also the name of a single by Dropkick Murphys. ... Corvée, or corvée labor, is a term used in feudal societies. ... Jansenism was a branch of Christian philosophy founded by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), a Flemish theologian. ... Clement XI, né Giovanni Francesco Albani (July 23, 1649 – March 19, 1721) was pope from 1700 to 1721. ... Unigenitus (named for its opening words Unigenitus dei filius), a famous papal bull or Apostolic Constitution promulgated by Pope Clement XI, opened the final phase of the Jansenist controversy in France. ... Parlements in ancien régime France — contrary to what their name would suggest to the modern reader — were not democratic or political institutions, but law courts . ...

In foreign affairs, the maintenance of peace was a preoccupation he shared with Sir Robert Walpole, and the two old enemies refrained from war during Fleury's ministry. Jacobite sympathizers in France had formed a most un-Masonic secret lodge of Freemasons; their attempts to influence Fleury to support the Stuart faction led instead to raids on their premises, and Fleury urged Pope Pope Clement XII to issue a bull in 1738 that forbade all Roman Catholics to become Freemasons under threat of excommunication. It was only with reluctance that he supported the ambitious projects of Elizabeth Farnese, queen of Spain, in Italy by guaranteeing in 1729 the succession of Don Carlos to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. French diplomacy however was losing its military bite. Fleury's cagey double game with the Corsican revolutionaries under the elder Paoli, smuggled arms to the island while assuring the Genoese of French support. Fleury thus began the manipulations that landed Corsica in the arms of France in 1768. The Rt. ... American Square & Compasses Freemasonry is a worldwide fraternal organization. ... Clement XII, born as Lorenzo Corsini (Florence, April 7, 1652 – Rome, February 6, 1740), (pope 1730-1740), had been an aristocratic lawyer and financial manager under preceding pontiffs. ... Capital Ajaccio Land area¹ 8,680 km² President of the Executive Council Ange Santini (UMP) (since 2004) Population   - Jan. ... Pasquale Paoli (1725 - 1807) () was a Corsican general and patriot, who headed the unsuccessful Corsican struggle for independence, first from Genoa, then from France. ...

Fleury's economies in the army and navy, as elsewhere, found the nation poorly prepared when in 1733 war was forced upon France. He was compelled by court opinion to support the claims of Louis XV's father-in-law Stanislaus Leszczynski to the Polish crown on the death of Frederick Augustus I, against the Russian and Austrian candidate; but the despatch of a French expedition to Gdańsk turned into a humiliation. Fleury was pressed by his advisor Germain Louis Chauvelin to more energetic measures; he concluded a close alliance with the Spanish Bourbons and sent armies against the Austrians twice. Military successes on the Rhine and in Italy secured the favorable terms of the treaty of Vienna (1735 - 1738). France had joined with the other powers in guaranteeing the succession of Maria Theresa under the Pragmatic sanction, but on the death of Charles VI in 1740. Fleury by a diplomatic quibble found an excuse for repudiating his engagements, when he found the party of war supreme in the king's counsels. After the disasters of the Bohemian campaign at the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession he wrote in confidence a humble letter to the Habsburg general, Konigsegg, who immediately published it. Fleury disavowed his own letter, and died in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a few days after the French evacuation of Prague on January 20, 1743. ... Frederick Augustus I (or III) of Saxony (December 23, 1750 - May 5, 1827). ... This page is about Maria Theresa of Austria (often known as Empress Maria Theresa), ruler of the Habsburg Empire from 1740-1780. ... A pragmatic sanction is a sovereigns solemn decree on a matter of primary importance and has the force of fundamental law. ... The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). ... Issy-les-Moulineaux, is a city in the département of Hauts-des-Seine in the southwestern suburban Paris, France. ...

He had enriched the royal library by many valuable oriental manuscripts, and was a member of the French Academy from 1717, of the Academy of Science, and the Academy of Inscriptions. The Académie française (French Academy) is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ... The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society founded in 1663 and concerned with the humanities. ...

In the years following Fleury's death, escalating Franco-British skirmishes at sea, culminated in a declaration of war with England in March 1744, a war he had avoided for so long.

References

• Arthur McCandless Wilson, French Foreign Policy during the Administration of Cardinal Fleury, 1726-1743: A Study in Diplomacy and Commercial Development, the standard modern treatment .

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia entry
• Biographical dictionary of Roman Catholic cardinals
• Fleury's covert Corsican policy in a letter from the foreign minister, Chauvelin, to the French envoy at Genoa, January 30, 1735 (French)
• Drummond and other Scots Jacobites misread Fleury's politeness for support, and over-represent his vague promises in Scotland, 1742

Quotes

• "Richelieu bled France, Mazarin purged it, and Fleury put it on a diet". (d'Argenson)

Cardinal Richelieu was the French chief minister from 1624 until his death. ... Bleeding is the loss of blood from the body. ... Cardinal Jules Mazarin, French diplomat and statesman Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino; but best known as Cardinal Mazarin (July 14, 1602 – March 9, 1661) served as the France from 1642, until his death. ... Dieting is the practice or habit of eating (and drinking) in a regulated fashion, usually with the aim of losing weight. ...

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. This is a list of members of the Académie française (French Academy) by seat number. ... The Académie française, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ... Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) represents the sum of human knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century; indeed, it was advertised as such. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...