FRAYSSINOUS, DENIS, COUNT OF: French Roman Catholic; b. at Curières (200 m. s.w. of Lyons), Department of Aveyron, May 9, 1765; d. at St. Geniez, also in Aveyron, Dec. 12, 1841. He was originally intended for the law, but his own inclinations led him into theology. After the signing of the concordat of 1801 (see CONCORDATS AND DELIMITING BULLS, VI. 1, § 1) he became the leader of a great agitation against the materialism and atheism of current philosophy. Although he was a zealous royalist, the government offered no opposition to him, even making him an inspector in the Paris Academy and giving him a canonry in Notre Dame. Finally in 1809 his discourses at the Church of St. Sulpice were prohibited; but they were resumed on the restoration of the Bourbons. On the return of Napoleon from Elba, Frayssinous fled to the mountains of Aveyron, where he lived till he was recalled by Louis XVIII. In quick succession he now became grand almoner, court preacher, titular bishop of Hermopolis, grand officer of the Legion of Honor, a count and a peer of France. As minister of public instruction and ecclesiastical affairs he supported Charles X. in his plan to make Jesuitism dominant in legislation. Deprived of his offices by the July Revolution, he went into exile with Charles X. (1830), but returned to France in 1838, living thenceforth in retirement. His principal works are, Les' Vrais Principes de l'Église gallicane (Paris, 1818); and Defense de Christianisme (3 vols., 1825, new ed., 2 vols., 1889; Eng. transl., A Defence of Christianity, 2 vols., London, 1836).

(C. PFENDER.)