1. Guillaume Dubois was, according to his enemies, the son of an apothecary, his father being in fact a doctor of medicine of a respectable family, who kept a small drug store as part of the necessary outfit of a country practitioner.
18 Facts About Guillaume Dubois
1. 2.
Guillaume Dubois was educated at the school of the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine at Brive, where he received the tonsure at the age of thirteen.
3.
Guillaume Dubois gained the favour of Louis XIV by bringing about the marriage of his pupil with Francoise-Marie de Bourbon, Mlle de Blois, a natural but legitimized daughter of the king and Mme de Montespan; and for this service he was rewarded with the gift of the abbey of St Just in Picardy.
4.
Guillaume Dubois' policy was steadily directed towards maintaining the peace of Utrecht, and this made him the main opponent of the schemes of Cardinal Alberoni for the aggrandizement of Spain.
5.
Guillaume Dubois' success strengthened him against the bitter opposition of a large section of the court.
6.
Guillaume Dubois prayed the regent to give him the archbishopric of Cambrai, the richest in France.
7.
Guillaume Dubois aimed for the Cardinal's hat because such an ecclesiastical title would give him the utmost prominence and precedence in the Conseil d'en haut, giving him the ability to remove his political adversaries with impunity.
8.
Guillaume Dubois was after received at the, and he was named President of the Assembly of Clergy.
9.
When Louis XV attained his majority in 1723 Guillaume Dubois remained chief minister.
10.
Guillaume Dubois had accumulated an immense private fortune possessing in addition to his see the revenues of seven abbeys.
11.
Guillaume Dubois was a prey to the most terrible pains of body and agony of mind.
12.
Guillaume Dubois's health was ruined by his debaucheries, and a surgical operation became necessary.
13.
Guillaume Dubois' portrait was thus drawn by his long-time rival, the Duc de St Simon,.
14.
Guillaume Dubois was a little, pitiful, wizened, herringgutted man, in a flaxen wig, with a weasel's face, brightened by some intellect.
15.
Guillaume Dubois was so consummate a liar that, when taken in the fact, he could brazenly deny it.
16.
Guillaume Dubois was unscrupulous, but so were his contemporaries, and whatever vices he had, he forged a European peace that, with the exception of small, restrained military expeditions against the Austrian Habsburgs, would last for a quarter of a century.
17.
In 1789 appeared Vie privee du Cardinal Guillaume Dubois, attributed to one of his secretaries, Mongez; and in 1815 his, edited by L de Sevelinges.
18.
Guillaume Dubois is played by Jean Rochefort in the movie by Bertrand Tavernier, Que la fete commence.