Quelen, HYACINTHE-LOUIS DE, Archbishop of Paris, b. at Paris, October 8, 1778; d. there December 31, 183 He was educated at the College de Navarre, and under the private tuition of M. Emery and other ecclesiastics. Ordained in 1807, he served a year as Vicar-General of St. Brieuc and then became secretary to Cardinal Fesch. When the latter was sent back to his diocese, de Quelen exercised the sacred ministry at St. Sulpice and in the military hospitals. Under the Restoration of 1814he became successively spiritual director of the schools in the archdiocese, Vicar-General of Paris, and coadjutor archbishop to Cardinal de Talleyrand-Perigord, succeeding the latter in 1821. The favors of Louis XVIII and Charles Xdid not make him subservient. As a peer of the realmhe opposed, on behalf of the middle classes, the conversion of the national debt. At his reception into the French Academy he publicly lauded Chateaubriand, then in disgrace. While blessing the cornerstone of the Chapelle Expiatoire he demanded, though in vain, an amnesty for the exiled members of the Convention; and the ordinance of 1828, disbanding the Jesuits and limiting the recruiting of the clergy, was issued against his advice. Although de Quelen had not approved the royal ordinance of July, 1830, which aimed at restoring absolute monarchy, he was nevertheless held in suspicion by the House of Orleans. On one occasion Louis-Philippe said to him: “Archbishop, remember that more than one mitre has been torn asunder”. “Sire”, replied the archbishop, “God protect the crown of the king, for many royal crowns too have been shattered”.
Apart from some official functions such as the christening of the Comte de Paris, the obsequies of the Duke of Orleans and the Te Deum sung in honor of the French victory in Africa, he confined himself to his episcopal duties, visiting the parishes of his jurisdiction, looking after the religious instruction of military recruits, and organizing the metropolitan clergy. In the outbreaks which followed the Revolution of 1830 the archbishop, twice driven from his palace, had to seek refuge in humble quarters and to bear in silence the worst calumnies against his person. However, when the epidemic of 1832 broke out, he nobly transformed his seminaries into hospitals, personally ministered to the sick at the Hotel-Dieu, and founded at his own expense the “Oeuvre des orphelins du cholera”. He died shortly after, having the joy of witnessing the conversion of the apostate Bishop of Autun, the Prince de Talleyrand. Ravignan eulogized him at Notre-Dame, and de Mole at the French Academy. From de Quelen’s episcopate date the “Societe de St. Vincent de Paul”, the “Conferences apologetiques de Notre-Dame” and several religious institutes, among which are the nursing Sisters of Bon-Secours. Besides the eulogies on Louis XVI (Paris, 1816), on Madame Elizabeth (Paris, 1817), on the Duke de Berry (Paris, 1830), his “Discours de reception a l’academie frangaise” (Paris, 1824), and some 120 pastoral letters, we have from his pen “Manuels pour l’administration des Sacrements de l’Eucharistie et de l’Extreme-Onction: du Bapteme des Enfants: du Mariage” (3 vols., Paris, 1837-38) collected in the “Rituel de Paris“.
J. F. SOLLIER