Ambrose Maréchal (1768–1828), Catholic archbishop of Baltimore, was born in Ingré, near Orléans, France, and educated at Catholic seminaries in Orléans and Bordeaux. Ordained in Paris early in 1792, he relocated to Baltimore immediately thereafter; spent two years as a missionary in Philadelphia; and taught theology at Saint Mary’s Seminary (later Saint Mary’s Seminary and University), 1794–95, 1799–1801, 1802–03, and 1812–17, and philosophy at Georgetown College (later Georgetown University), 1801–02. Maréchal went back to France in 1803 and worked as an educator at various Sulpician seminaries there before his return to Baltimore in 1812. He was named coadjutor bishop of Baltimore in 1817 and became archbishop later that year after the death of Leonard Neale. Maréchal spent much of his tenure countering what he saw as undue Jesuit and Irish influence in his diocese, which, until 1820, included Virginia and South Carolina. During a visit to Rome, 1821–22, he won papal support for his belief that the Baltimore archbishop should be the ranking Catholic in America. Maréchal died in Baltimore (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Ronin John Murtha, “The Life of the Most Reverend Ambrose Maréchal, Third Archbishop of Baltimore, 1768–1828” [Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1965]; MdBS: Archdiocese of Baltimore Archives, Maréchal Papers; Memorial Volume of the Centenary of St. Mary’s Seminary of St. Sulpice, Baltimore, Md. [1891], esp. 5, 7, 15, 39; Baltimore Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser, 31 Jan. 1828).

h.h.: “His Holiness,” the pope. Cardinal Antonio Dugnani commented in a letter to Maréchal written at rome on 10, not 20 Sept. 1817: “j’attend des nouvelles de M. Jefferson, comme vous m’avez fut esperer” (“I await news of Mr. Jefferson, of which you had made me hopeful”) (RC in MdBS: Archdiocese of Baltimore Archives, Maréchal Papers).

TJ’s daughters Martha Jefferson Randolph and Maria Jefferson Eppes had been educated during the 1780s at a Parisian convent, the Abbaye Royale de Panthémont (MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, 2 vols., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 1:730).