Arthur Richard Dillon

Dillon's coat of arms

Arthur Richard Dillon (1721–1807), French archbishop, was the son of Arthur Dillon (1670-1733), one of the Irish Wild Geese who became a general in the French service.^[1]

He was born at St Germain, entered the priesthood and was successively curé of Elan near Mézières, vicar-general of Pontoise (1747), bishop of Evreux (1753) and archbishop of Toulouse (1758), archbishop of Narbonne in 1763, and in that capacity, president of the estates of Languedoc.

He devoted himself much less to the spiritual direction of his diocese than to its temporal welfare, carrying out many works of public utility, bridges, canals, roads, harbours, etc.; had chairs of chemistry and of physics created at Montpellier and at Toulouse, and tried to reduce poverty, especially in Narbonne.

From about the age of fifty, until she died shortly before Dillon, he lived with his wealthy, widowed niece, Mme. de Rothe. The pair were considered to be lovers, an arrangement considered scandalous even by the jaded standards of the day. They maintained a household primarily at the chateau Hautefontaine, where Dillon kept an extravagant hunt.

In 1787 and in 1788 he was a member of the Assembly of Notables called together by Louis XVI, and in 1788 presided over the assembly of the clergy. Having refused to accept the civil constitution of the clergy, Dillon had to leave Narbonne in 1790, then to emigrate (accompanied by de Rothe) to Coblenz in 1791. Soon afterwards he and de Rothe fled to London, where he lived until his death in 1807, never accepting the Concordat of 1801, which had suppressed his archiepiscopal see.

In October 2006, the St Pancras graveyard was excavated in preparation for the London terminus of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Dillon's coffin was opened and his porcelain dentures were discovered. It is believed that he purchased them from a Parisian dentist named Nicholas De Chemant. A brief report of that find appears here [1].

The body of Archbishop Dillon was returned to France in March 2007 and now lies in Narbonne Cathedral. His false teeth remain in the Museum of London.^[2]

Footnotes

1. ^ Burke's Peerage (2003) p.1148.
2. ^ "Hard-bitten display for World Smile Day". Museum of London. 6 October 2006. http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/AboutUs/Newsroom/Archived06/WSMteeth.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-25. 

References

• Morehead, Caroline (2009). Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era. Harper. ISBN 0061684414. 
• L Audibret, Le Dernier President des Etats du Languedoc, Mgr. Arthur Richard Dillon, archevêque de Narbonne (Bordeaux, 1868); L de Lavergne, Les Assemblées provinciales sous Louis XVI (Paris, 1864).

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

• Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Archbishop Dillon returns to Narbonne

Persondata
Name	Dillon, Arthur
Alternative names
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Date of birth	1721
Place of birth
Date of death	1807
Place of death