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Champion (de Cice) Jerome Marie

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Champion (de Nilon), Charles Francois

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Champion (De Cice) Jerome Marie

a French prelate and statesman, was born at Rennes in 1735. In 1765 he was appointed general agent of the clergy of France; five years afterwards he was made bishop of Rhodes. In 1781 he was elevated to the archbishopric of Bordeaux, and in 1787 to the assembly of the notables. As a member of the constitutional committee, he made, in 1789, the report on the rights of man, which his brother, the bishop of Auxerre, also a member of the national assembly, opposed as useless. Louis XVI selected Champion de Cice, in place of Barantin, as keeper of the seals; an office which, since the times of cardinal de Biragnd, who had done so much harm to France (1570-78), no minister had ever held. This nomination displeased many of the extreme parties; but Champion maintained his position from 1789 till November, 1790, when he resigned it, having, meanwhile, addressed to the national assembly several memoirs on the royal prerogatives. Afterwards the archbishop of Bordeaux was obliged to go into foreign countries (being in danger of persecution), where he lived ten years; but this exile ended by his submission to pope Pius VII, after which he was appointed archbishop of Aix, by the first consul, and directed all his attention to the erection of charitable establishments and schools. He died at Aix, Aug. 22,1810. See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. G n rale, s.v.