Duperron, Jacques Davy (1556-1618)

Swiss-born French churchman and statesman. A convert to Catholicism, he played an important role in defending Catholicism in the French religious conflicts of the late 16th century. He was a friend of Henry III and after the king's death in 1589 he supported first Cardinal de Bourbon, and then the Protestant Henry IV. In 1593 he brought about Henry IV's conversion to Catholicism, and in 1595 obtained papal absolution for him.

Duperron was born in Berne, the son of French Huguenot refugees. In 1573 he went to Paris, and studied the Fathers of the Church, the schoolmen, and Roman Catholic theologians. He was received into the Roman Church by the Jesuits about 1578.

In 1591 he became bishop of Evreux, and was made cardinal in 1604 (when he went to Rome as the king's chargé d'affaires) and archbishop of Sens in 1606. In 1607 he reconciled Pope Paul V and the Venetians, whom the pope had placed under an interdict on account of their defiant assertion of secular control in matters affecting the property and buildings of the church.

Duperron took part in the conference at Nantes, and in 1600 he had the advantage in a theological disputation with the Protestant du Plessis-Mornay. Duperron was a defender of ultramontanism, and corresponded with James I of England on the question of the true church.