The son of a tax farmer of a noble family, who was sent to Paris as a child to be educated by the Jesuits as much in philosophy and the Classics as in theology, he entered the priesthood nevertheless and became through the influence of Cardinal Bonzi almoner to Maria Theresa, queen of Louis XIV, and after her death, to the king himself. In 1698 he was appointed bishop of Frejus, but seventeen years in a provincial see eventually determined him to seek a position at court.

In May 1715, a few months before the old 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'Orleans in 1723 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 July 11, 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.

He was naturally cool and impeturbable in his demeanor, frugal and prudent, and carried these qualities into the administration, with the result that in 1738/39 there was a surplus of 15,000,000 livres instead of the usual deficit. In I726 he fixed the standard of the currency and secured French credit by initiating regular payment of interest on the national debt. 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.

In foreign affairs, the maintenance of peace was a preoccupation he shared with Sir Robert Walpole, and the two old enemies refrained from war during Fleury's ministry. It was only with reluctance that he supported the ambitious projects of Elizabeth Farnese, queen of Spain, in Italy by guaranteeing in 1729 the succession of Don Carlos to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. French diplomacy however was losing its military bite. Fleury's economies in the army and navy, as elsewhere, found the nation poorly prepared when in 1733 war was forced upon France. He was compelled by court opinion to support the claims of Louis XV's father-in-law Stanislaus Leszczynski to the Polish crown on the death of Frederick Augustus I, against the Russian and Austrian candidate; but the despatch of a French expedition to Danzig turned into a humiliation. Fleury was pressed by his advisor Germain Louis Chauvelin to more energetic measures; he concluded a close alliance with the Spanish Bourbons and sent armies against the Austrians twice. Military successes on the Rhine and in Italy secured the favorable terms of the treaty of Vienna (1735 - 1738). France had joined with the other powers in guaranteeing the succession of Maria Theresa under the Pragmatic sanction, but on the death of Charles VI in 1740. Fleury by a diplomatic quibble found an excuse for repudiating his engagements, when he found the party of war supreme in the king's counsels. After the disasters of the Bohemian campaign at the outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession he wrote in confidence a humble letter to the Habsburg general, Konigsegg, who immediately published it. Fleury disavowed his own letter, and died a few days after the French evacuation of Prague on January 20, 1743.

He had enriched the royal library by many valuable oriental MSS, and was a member of the French Academy from 1717, of the Academy of Science, and the Academy of Inscriptions.

Table of contents

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References

• Biographical dictionary of Roman Catholic cardinals