With his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, François graduated with a M. A. in August 1682 and a theological licentiate and a doctorate on 30 September 1692. Joseph Bergin, Crown, Church, and Episcopate Under Louis XIV (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004), , page 383. When he was still at the Sorbonne, he was posted to the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, for two years, beginning in November 1683, and then lived at the Missions Etrangères seminary, also in Paris. He became the commendatory abbot and Comte (Count) de Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in Normandy on 4 November 1690 but he was not ordained as a priest until 1692. The next year, in 1693, he became the commendatory abbot of the Val Richer Abbey in Saint-Ouen-le-Pin, also in Normandy, with the Cistercian Order, in 1693; and the Grand Vicar of Strasbourg with the Order of Saint Benedict in 1694.
