DARBOY, GEORGES (1813-1871), archbishop of Paris, was born at Fayl-Billot in Haute Marne on Jan. 16, 1813. He was appointed bishop of Nancy in 1859, and in January 1863 was raised to the archbishopric of Paris. The archbishop was a strenuous upholder of episcopal independence in the Gallican sense, and sought to suppress the jurisdiction of the Jesuits and other religious orders within his diocese. At the Vatican council (q.v.) he strongly opposed the dogma of papal infallibility, against which he voted as inopportune. When the dogma had been finally adopted, however, he submitted. During the Franco Prussian War he organized relief for the wounded and remained at his post during the siege of Paris and the brief triumph of the Commune. On April 4, 1871, he was arrested by the Communards as a hostage and confined in the prison at Mazas, from which he was transferred to La Roquette on the advance of the army of Versailles. On May 27 he was shot within the prison along with other hostages. He died in the attitude of blessing and uttering words of forgiveness. His body was recovered with difficulty and received a public funeral (June 7) . Darboy was the third arch bishop of Paris who perished by violence between 1848 and 1871. He wrote a Vie de St. Thomas Becket (1859) and translated the works of St. Denis the Areopagite and the Imitation of Christ.
See J. A. Foulon, Histoire de la vie et des oeuvres de Mgr. Darboy (1889), and J. Guillermin, Vie de Mgr. Darboy (1888), biographies written from the clerical standpoint.