Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury.

About Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury

Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury was a member of the distinguished Joly de Fleury family, originally from Burgundy, from which came a number of leading French magistrates and officials under the ancien regime. He is notable for four principal things: his strong opposition to the philosophes and the publication of the Encyclopedie in 1759; his role in the expulsion of the Jesuits; his involvement in the Lally Tollendal Affair; and his ban on inoculation against smallpox in June 1763. In a pun on his name, Voltaire described him as ‘ni Homère, ni joli, ni fleuri'. In one of his private letters, Voltaire described him as a ‘little black balloon puffed up with stinking vapours’