Cardinal Benjamin Richard - Fran蔞is-Marie-Benjamin Richard (March 1, 1819 - January 29, 1908), archbishop of Paris, French prelate, was born at Nantes. Educated at the seminary of St Sulpice he became successively vicar-general of Nantes, bishop of Belley, and in 1875 coadjutor of Paris. In 1886 the death of Archbishop Guibert was followed by Mgr. Richard's appointment to the see of Paris, and in 1889 he received a cardinal's hat. He presided in September 1906 over an assembly of bishops and archbishops at his palace in the rue de Grenelle, a few days after the papal encyclical forbidding French Catholics to form associations for public worship, but it was then too late for conciliation. In December he gave up the archiepiscopal palace to the government authorities. He was then an old man of nearly ninety. ?007 TopFoto