Louis-André de Grimaldi

Grimaldi was born on 17 December 1736 into the noble House of Grimaldi of Monaco as lord of Cagnes and Antibes, in the château of Cagnes,[5] in southeastern France. He was the son of Honoré IV Grimaldi, Marquis de Cagnes and Hélène-de-Orcel Plaisians, and belonged to the ancient nobility of France, descended from the House of Bourbon.[1]

Grimaldi became Vicar General of the Archbishop of Rouen. He was appointed bishop of Le Mans on 5 July 1767, after which he began a series of unpopular 'improvements', such as sweeping away the high altar and selling the Medieval and Renaissance silver without making an inventory of it.[6] A portrait painted by Charles-Étienne Gaucher[7] was hung in the vestry when he left Le Mans in 1777.[3]

On 16 October 1777, Pope Pius VI appointed Grimaldi as Bishop of Noyon;[8] he was also Count of Noyon.[2] Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was ordained to the priesthood by Grimaldi.[9] Years later, when Talleyrand was Bishop of Autun in Burgundy from November 1788, he was sworn in by Grimaldi under a papal order on 4 January 1789 as the Bishop of Noyon in the chapel of Saint-Sauveur de la Solitude, a retreat attached to the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Issy.[5][10] The diocese of Noyon was abolished 12 July 1790.[11]

In 1791, Louis Grimaldi refused the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, and emigrated to England. He lived in London and the British government gave him a small pension until his death in London, 28 December 1804.[2][12]

• Gimpel, Jean (1983), The Cathedral Builders, Harper & Row, ISBN 978-0-06-091158-4