The Emigration Route Across the Channel of the Bishop of Rodez Colbert de Castlehill: A Network Woven in Occitania and in the Sorbonne

Patrick Ferté has attempted to reconstruct the network of relationships that underpin the period of Colbert’s exile. Across the Channel, whether in Scotland or London. This network was forged well before the Revolution in four converging centres of friendship (1) with his first mentors, the bishop of Chartres, Lubersac, his character witness, and his patron in Toulouse, Loménie de Brienne, and above all in his diocese of Rodez since 1781; (2) with the liberal La Rochefoucauld family, particularly the Duchesse d’Enville and her nephew the Duc de Liancourt, followers of Turgot and Adam Smith; (3) at the Sorbonne, through some of his fellow students but above all through his professors, some of whom were from Rouergue and whom he later met again in London; (4) his British connections also played a major role, due to his Scottish origin, but Ireland was just as decisive in this instance. These four focal points, segmented to clarify the presentation, are most often intertwined: Some of the Irish refugees he met or ordained in Toulouse or Rodez became professors at the Sorbonne before fleeing to England or Dublin (to the Catholic College of Maynooth); others were from his Rouergat flock who themselves obtained a chair at the Sorbonne and/or a position as chaplain or confessor to the royal family. The fact remains that these four hotbeds, which formed a solid network, shared the same ideology and converged towards exile, usually in London.