- François de Bonal
François de Bonal (b. 1734 at the castle of Bonal, near
Agen ; d. inMunich , 1800) wasBishop of Clermont .He had been Vicar-General of the
diocese of Agen and Director of theCarmelite Nuns in France when he was madeBishop of Clermont , in 1776. On the eve of theFrench Revolution , as he was warning his diocesans against the license of the press, he predicted that visitations of God were coming.He went as one of the deputies of the clergy to the
Estates-General of 1789 . To Target, who spoke of the "God of peace," he replied that the God of peace was also the God of order and justice.From his prison
Louis XVI sent for his opinion as to whether he should receivePaschal Communion. In reply, he was sympathetic, but advised the monarch to abstain "for having sanctioned decrees destructive of religion". Bonal was alluding chiefly to thecivil constitution of the clergy .Having declined to take the loyalty oath to the constitution, he was compelled to leave his diocese and country. He passed to
Flanders and later toHolland , was captured and sentenced to deportation by the French, but succeeded in making his escape and spent the last years of his life in various cities of Germany. He was the author of a "Testament spirituel".References
*Feller, "Biographie Universelle" (Paris, 1866)
*De GreveCoeur, "Journal d'Andrien Duquesnoy" (Paris, 1804)External links
*CathEncy|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02646b.htm|title=François de Bonal
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