François-Marie-Benjamin Richard de la Vergne (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swamaʁibɛ̃ʒamɛ̃ ʁiʃaʁ dəla vɛʁɲ]; 1 March 1819 – 27 January[1] 1908) was a French cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and served as the Archbishop of Paris.

He was ordained to the priesthood on 21 December 1844 by the Archbishop of Paris Denis Auguste Affre.

[1] Pope Pius IX appointed Richard as the Bishop of Belley on 22 December 1871.

In January 1900 the trial of the Assumptionist Fathers resulted in the dissolution of their society as an illegal association.

He presided in September 1906 over an assembly of bishops and archbishops at his palace in the rue de Grenelle, a few days after the papal encyclical forbidding French Catholics to form associations for public worship, but it was then too late for conciliation.