FLEURY, ANDRÉ HERCULE DE, CARDINAL, the celebrated minister of Louis XV. of France, was born in 1653 at Lodève, in Languedoc. He was educated by the Jesuits at Paris, and became successively almoner to Marie Thérèse, queen of Louis XIV., in 1699 bishop of Fréjus, and ultimately preceptor to the young prince, who afterwards succeeded to the French throne as Louis XV. On the death of the Regent Orleans in 1723, Fleury was made a member of the Council of State, and in 1726 (though at that time in his seventy-third year), was called to the office of prime-minister, which he held till his death in 1743. At the time when Fleury was called to the direction of affairs, the condition of France was truly deplorable. The nation was impoverished and worn out, and the exchequer emptied by the long wars of the Grand Monarque and the extravagances of the regent. Commerce was annihilated, public credit ruined, the government held in contempt, and the church distracted by internal dissensions. Fleury immediately set himself to reform these abuses, and by his honesty, economy, disinterestedness, and decision, effected very great reforms. Indeed the only reputable part of Louis XV.'s reign was that in which the helm of state was guided by the hand of the aged cardinal. Though he was a confirmed friend to peaceful measures, he was twice driven by court intrigues to take part in foreign wars; first, in the case of Stanislaus Leczinsky, the dethroned king of Poland, whose daughter Louis had married; and afterwards in that of the Austrian succession, of which he did not live to see the end. One of the most useful acts of Fleury's administration was the completion of the Royal (now the Imperial) library, which he enriched with many valuable manuscripts, chiefly in the oriental languages.