CHEVERUS, JEAN LEFEBVRE DE French ecclesiastic, was born on Jan. 28, 1768, in Mayenne, France. He was made canon of the cathedral of Le Mans and began to act as vicar to his uncle in Mayenne, but owing to the Revolution he emigrated in 1792 to England, and thence in 1796 to Boston (Mass.). He spent several months in the Penob scot and Passamaquoddy missions and visited scattered Catholics. During the epidemic of yellow fever in 1798 he won great praise for his courage and charity ; and his preaching attracted many Protestants. In 1808 the pope made Boston a bishopric, suffragan to Baltimore, and Cheverus its bishop. Ill-health caused him to resign his bishopric, and in 1823, Louis XVIII. having insisted on his return to France, Cheverus became bishop of Montauban. He was made archbishop of Bordeaux in 1826; and in Feb. 1836, in accordance with the wish of Louis Philippe, he was made a cardinal, only five months before his death, which took place in Bordeaux on July 19, 1836.
See J. Huen-Dubourg, Vie du cardinal de Cheverus (Bordeaux, 1838) ; Eng. version by E. Stewart (Boston, 1839).