François d'Escoubleau de Sourdis was a French Catholic prelate, the Archbishop of Bordeaux and founder of the Irish College there in 1603.
Background
He was born at Châtillon-sur-Sèvre in Poitou, the eldest son of François d'Escoubleau and Isabeau Babou de la Bourdasière. His father was seigneur of Jouy, Aunau and Montdoubleau, marquis d'Alluye, and governor of Chartres, and François himself held the title of Count of La Chapelle.
Education
He studied humanities at the Collège de Navarre in Paris, fought in the siege of Chartres (1591) and was engaged to marry Catherine Hurault de Cheverny, daughter of the royal chancellor Philippe Hurault.
Career
As the eldest son, he was not initially destined for a career in the church. During a visit to Rome, he met Federico Borromeo and Filippo Neri and decided to enter the church. He was named abbot commendatario of Preuilly, of Montréal, and of Aubrac (1597-1600) and created cardinal priest in the consistory of March 3, 1599 by Pope Clement VIII. With the aid of a dispensation for being under the required age, he was elected archbishop of Bordeaux and primate of Aquitane on July 5, 1599.
He was consecrated on December 21, 1599, at St. Germain des Près, Paris, by Cardinal François de Joyeuse, archbishop of Toulouse, and received the cardinal's hat almost exactly one year later (December 20, 1600). In 1603 de Sourdis welcomed Reverend Dermit MacCarthy, a priest of the Diocese of Cork, and forty companions, who formed the core of the new Irish College at the University of Bordeaux. In 1615, he officiated at the wedding of Elisabeth of France with Infant Felipe (future Philip IV of Spain), and of Louis XIII, king of France, with Infanta Anne of Austria, Felipe's sister, in St. Andrew's Cathedral.