Abbé Félix Coquereau (1809–1866), Naval chaplain
1st image: Soirée; 2nd: engraving La vie Parisienne (1858); 3rd: painting by Vincent Vidal (1866); 4th: caricature by Eugène Giraud drawn March 18, 1859, at de Nieuwerkerke's soirée.
31 jan 1852
From an early age, Felix Coquereau demonstrated remarkable rhetorical skill, aspiring to become an attorney.
However, after earning his law degree in Paris, he abandoned his legal ambitions and entered the seminary to serve as a priest in the French Navy.
During one of his many voyages aboard the frigate Belle-Poule, he visited Saint Helena and facilitated the return of Napoleon I’s remains to Paris.
This historic event, along with his book Souvenirs de Sainte-Hélène, brought him immense popularity. In recognition of his service, he was decorated by the king and appointed aumônier (chaplain) of the French fleet in 1850.
A favorite of Princess Mathilde —de Nieuwerkerke's16 lover— Coquereau was a jovial presence at numerous soirées and dinners. According to the Goncourt brothers’ famously sharp gossip columns, he was humorously nicknamed “the bishop of Assnières” due to his imposing derrière.
Horace de Viel-Castel43, however, viewed him far less favorably, considering him a pretentious hypocrite. In his diary entry of January 1856, he wrote:
"Princess Mathilde has second-rate intriguers: Abbé Coquereau, first-class joker, false good priest, inciting against the bishops and the court of Rome, mocking the devotion to the Immaculate Conception in the Princess's salon, affecting great purity while indulging himself; in short, knowing how to live well while criticizing others […] I don’t like the priests in the Princess’s salon. Mathilde’s particular position should keep them away, and yet they come there and court Nieuwerkerke."