at two years of age, DuBourg was sent to France to be educated. He lived with his maternal grandparents in Bordeaux, and eventually enrolled at the College of Guienne, where he proved to be a good student. Deciding that he would become a priest, DuBourg entered the Saint-Sulpice Seminary, attached to the Church of Saint-Sulpice, in 1786. There, he studied under the direction of Francis Charles Nagot, who would later introduce the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice to the United States. In 1788, Nagot selected DuBourg to be the superior of the newly established Sulpician minor seminary in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside of Paris. At the same time, he continued his studies at the College of Sorbonne, and was ordained a priest by Antoine-Éléonor-Léon Leclerc de Juigné, the Archbishop of Paris, on 20 March 1790. Exile and arrival in Maryland DuBourg was not in Issy long before the school became the target of the French Revolution. With the persecution of clerics during the Reign of Terror, he left the seminary. Five days later, on 15 August 1792, it was attacked by a Jacobin mob that massacred the four remaining priests. DuBourg fled first to Bourdeaux. However, his aristocratic lineage, the presence of anti-clerical spies, and the conduct of home inspections forced him to eventually leave France. Disguised as a traveling fiddler, he escaped to Ourense, Spain. While exiled in Spain, DuBourg became fluent in Spanish. The Spanish government believed French clergy were engaged in heterodox practices, and restricted their ability to teach and publicly minister. Dissatisfied with these limitations, DuBourg sailed for the United States and arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, on 14 December 1794. He was incardinated in the Diocese of Baltimore by Bishop John Carroll and petitioned Jacques-André Emery, the Sulpician Superior General, for admission to the order, which was by then operating in Baltimore. On 9 March 1795, he became a professed member of the Society of Saint Sulpice. In Baltimore, there was a rapidly growing population of West Indians who had fled the Haitian Revolution, and French who had fled the French Revolution; in a short time, they doubled the total number of Catholics in the United States. DuBourg began ministering to these French-speaking immigrants and holding classes for their children, as well as those of Spanish immigrants. By teaching these classes, DuBourg learned English, and came to be regarded as a polished and effective preacher. President