Arnaud d'Ossat (20 July 1537 – 13 March 1604) was a French diplomat and writer and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, whose personal tact and diplomatic skill steered the perilous course of French diplomacy with the papacy in the reign of Henry IV of France.
Biography
Early life and studies
Arnaud d'Ossat, son of Bernard d'Ossat, was perhaps born at Larroque-Magnoac in Gascony; a contract entered into by M. Arnaud d'Ossat on 22 April 1559 states that he was from La Nogue en Maignac. His mother, Bertrande de Conté, was a native of Cassignebere in Gascony, the property of the Lords of Ramefort. Hence the conjecture (which goes back to Scipion Dupleix' Histoire d' Henri IV of 1635) that Armand was the bastard son of the Lord of Ramefort. Many of the important connections in Ossat's life were with other southerners, the most prominent being Henri IV himself.
On 26 December 1556, he was received into the clergy, by being tonsured by Dominique de Bigorre, Bishop of Albi, administrator of the Diocese of Auch in the name of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este (1551-1563). He was sent first to the nearby College of Auch as tutor to the sons of a local merchant, Thomas de Marca, then, in the first week of May, 1559, to the Collège de France, Paris. There he studied rhetoric and philosophy for more than two years with the famous humanist logician and mathematician Petrus Ramus, who became his friend. He was unfortunately drawn into an academic dispute between his master Ramus and the famous Jacques Charpentier, Rector, Dean, Censor, and finally (in his victory over Ramus) Professor of Medicine and Mathematics at the College Royale (1566). Seeing his own reputation and prospects diminishing as a result of the quarrel, Ossat withdrew to Bourges at the end of 1565 or beginning of 1566. He studied law briefly at Bourges under the famous legist Jacques Cujas, though his legal studies ultimately filled more than two years. He was back in Paris by 8 September 1568, when he wrote to his mother that he was going to practice as an advocate before the Parlement of Paris. Around the same time he agreed to act as a director of the studies of the twenty-three year old Jean de la Barrière, the abbot of the Feuillants and its eventual reformer, who was eager for guidance in the pursuit of an ecclesiastical career.
Early Diplomatic Career
In 1572 he joined the household of Paul de Foix, Archbishop-elect of Toulouse since 1577, whom he accompanied on various embassies. One of these was certainly the Embassy to Poland for the accession of the Duc d'Anjou as King of Poland in 1573. Immediately after that mission, allegedly to thank all the princes of Italy for their felicitations on the election, King Charles IX sent Foix on an embassy to Italy; the instructions were issued on 7 October 1573. D' Ossat again accompanied him. Their reception at the Papal Curia was not what they had expected. Despite his diplomatic status, Foix found himself under interrogation for his actions and opinions during the events of 1559 leading to the Edict against heresy of 2 June. His orthodoxy was ably defended by d'Ossat in a memoire composed for his defense. However, only too aware of the views and intrigues of his fellow cardinals, Cardinal Prospero Santacroce advised his friend Foix to depart from Rome before any further proceedings could take place. The death of Charles IX on 30 May 1574 provided the appropriate opportunity.
D' Ossat accompanied Msgr. de Foix again on his mission to Rome (1582-1584), where the Archbishop was granted his bulls on 5 November and his pallium on 15 December 1582. Letters of the Archbishop in Rome to the King in France survive. The next Ambassador Ordinary was the Marquis Pitany, who was not received until 1592, after some struggle; this long delay of eight years was due to the irregular status of Henri IV as an heretic; a pope could not enter into direct friendly relations with an heretic, and Sixtus V was violently opposed to Henri IV; he had also excommunicated Henri III for allowing the murders of the Duc de Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine in 1589. Therefore, after Msgr. de Foix died in Rome on 29 May 1584, d'Ossat remained at the Papal Court in Rome, supervising the French embassy for a year, to the evident satisfaction of King Henri III and Secretary Villeroy, who presented him with a gift of 2,000 ecus on 18 July 1586. They were evidently impressed by the report of the Bishop of Paris, Pierre de Gondi, who had been in Rome in early 1586, attempting to smooth over difficulties between Pope Sixtus V and the French Ambassador Marquis Pitany.