Olivier-Simon Le Bon

Olivier-Simon Le Bon (17 March 1710 – 27 October 1780) was a French missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and was Vicar Apostolic of Siam from 1776 to 1780.

Biography Le Bon was born on 17 March 1710 in St Malo, France. After joining the Paris Foreign Missions Society he was sent to Siam in 1745 and served for three years as a professor at the Collège Général seminary. In 1750, he went to Burma and then to Pondicherry before returning to Siam where he and Fr Brigot expanded the seminary, adding new buildings and changing the studies.

Le Bon went to Macau in 1754 as procurator of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in the territory, succeeding Fr Lucerne, and remained in the post for ten years. On 22 August 1764, he was appointed titular Bishop of Metellopolis and coadjutor in Siam. However, he could not be consecrated in Macau due to an absence of the bishops, and could not go to Siam to take up the office of coadjutor due to the Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767), so he returned to France, and was consecrated in Rome on 28 December 1766 by Pope Clement XIII. He settled in Goa where he died on 27 October 1780.