"Monument To The Effigy Of Mgr Duval De Dampierre, Bishop Of Clermont (1802-1833)"
CARus ANTus HENRICUS DU VAL E comitibus DE DAMPIERREEPISCOPUS CLAROMONTENSIS 1802 · 1833The bronze is signed "Bisson frères d'après ETEX".Dimensions: 166 x 114 cmThe bronze is the work of "Bisson frères", after Antoine Etex (1808-1888), famous painter and sculptor.https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_ÉtexProvenance: family of Bishop Duvalk de Dampierre.This monument was intended to commemorate this great bishop of Clermont, who organized the resumption of worship in Puy-de-Dôme, after the revolutionary persecutions.Life of Bishop Duvalk de Dampierre, according to Wikipedia:He is the 2nd son of Henri du Val or Du Valk, Count of Dampierre (1703-1785) and his wife MarieClaude Barbin de Broyes († 1755). He was born in the castle of Hans near Sainte-Menehould. Destined for the Church, he studied at the College of Juilly before entering the Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris and obtaining his doctorate in theology from the Sorbonne. In 1772 he became Grand Vicar of Antoine-Éléonor-Léon Leclerc de Juigné, then Bishop of Chalons. When the latter was transferred to the Archbishopric of Paris in 1781, he followed him, received a canonry of the Metropolitan Church and then became Grand Vicar of the Archdiocese of Paris. During the French Revolution, he refused to take the oath required by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and retired to his family. He was arrested as a refractory priest and transferred to Paris for trial in 1794; He only succeeded after the fall of Robespierre and was freed by the Thermidorian Convention. Following the emigration of the archbishop, he found himself the only vicar general present in Paris and he administered the archdiocese more or less clandestinely until the Concordat of 1801. Napoleon Bonaparte appointed him Bishop of Clermont in 1802; he was confirmed on April 14 and consecrated the following May by Marie-Charles-Isidore de Mercy, the Concordat Archbishop of Bourges. In 1811, he participated in the Council of Paris convened by Napoleon I and was one of the bishops who opposed the emperor in order to avoid a new schism. During the First Restoration, he was appointed by Louis XVIII as a member of the commission of bishops charged with reorganizing the Catholic Church, whose work was interrupted by the Hundred Days. He then returned to his diocese to which he devoted himself entirely until his death in Clermont-Ferrand on June 8, 18331.