Born in Cap Français in
Saint-Domingue (now
Cap-Haïtien, Haiti) on October 27, 1740, as the son of a
French father and
Black Haitian mother, Jacques Bonnaud came to France while still young to avoid racism. When the Jesuits were
expelled from France in 1762, Bonnaud continued his ecclesiastical studies at the Saint-Firmin Seminary in Paris and then moved to the
Southern Netherlands where he completed his studies in theology, civil law and canon law. After his priestly ordination, he first served the
Diocese of Paris (1764). From 1783 to 1787, he was vicar general under
Pierre-Louis de Leyssin,
Archbishop of Embrun. Bonnaud was very present in theological and ecclesiastical controversies. In his
Tartuffe épistolaire démasqué, he proved that a letter attributed to
Pope Clement XIV was the work of a former priest of the Oratory, Luigi Caraccioli. He was also the author of an anti-Protestant 1787 pamphlet,
Speech to be read to the Council, in the presence of the King, by a patriotic minister, on the project of granting Civil Status to Protestants, familiarly called "Mémoire de Madame de Noailles" (because she was responsible for "taking it to the members of the Council and Parliament"). In 1788, Bonnaud was called to Lyon by Archbishop
Yves-Alexandre de Marbeuf, who made him one of his vicars general and assigned him the priories of
Sermaize and
Arnicourt. Bonnaud was the author of the archbishop's pastoral letter in 1789, alerting the faithful and calling on them to be vigilant and courageous in the face of imminent religious persecution during the
French Revolution. Bonnaud then settled in Paris, where he wrote pamphlets and tracts defending the rights of the
Catholic Church and opposing the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which he refused to sign and derided as
Jansenist. Arrested around August 10, 1792, Bonnaud was locked up in the
Carmes Prison in Paris, where he was massacred by the
sans-culottes along with many other priests and religious during the
September Massacres on September 2, 1792. == Veneration ==