André-Hercule de Fleury
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His Eminence André-Hercule de Fleury |
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| Bishop emeritus of Fréjus | |
Cardinal de Fleury, official portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud, Château de Versailles.
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| Archdiocese | Aix |
| Diocese | Fréjus |
| See | Fréjus |
| Installed | 18 May 1698 |
| Term ended | 3 May 1715 |
| Predecessor | Louis d'Aquin |
| Successor | Pierre de Castellane |
| Other posts |
Cardinal-priest, no title assigned First minister for Louis XV of France |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1679 |
| Consecration | 22 November 1698 by Louis-Antoine de Noailles |
| Created Cardinal | 11 September 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII |
| Rank | Cardinal-priest |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
June 22, 1653 Lodève, Languedoc-Roussillon, France |
| Died | January 29, 1743 (aged 89) Issy-les-Moulineaux, Île-de-France, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Previous post | Bishop of Fréjus (1698-1715) |
André-Hercule de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus (22 June or 26 June 1653 – 29 January 1743) was a French cardinal who served as the chief minister of Louis XV.
He was born in Lodève, Hérault, the son of a tax farmer of a noble family. He was sent to Paris as a child to be educated by the Jesuits in philosophy and the Classics as much as in theology. He entered the priesthood nevertheless and through the influence of Cardinal Bonzi became almoner to Maria Theresa, queen of Louis XIV, and, after her death, to the king himself. In 1698 he was appointed bishop of Fréjus, but seventeen years in a provincial see eventually determined him to seek a position at court.
In May 1715, a few months before the Sun-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 11 July 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.
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 gold bullion. Investor overconfidence in the ability to exchange paper money for gold 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 impeturbable in his demeanor, frugal and prudent, and he carried these qualities into the administration. In 1726 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 contrôleur général des finances Philibert Orry (who remained in office until 1745). 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 to a "gilded cage" not far from Paris.
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