[1] Henri studied classics in Paris at the Collège de Clermont or the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and converted to Catholicism at about the age of fifteen.

In April 1718, he established the Association of Perpetual Adoration of the Sacred Heart in Marseilles; its statutes were drafted by Visitation nun (later Venerable) Anne-Madeleine Remuzat, whom the bishop had received into the congregation as a novice.

The suite of the princess took to flight, and with them all the notables of the city, but Bishop Belsunce remained with a few friends, and together they battled against the plague, till they conquered it.

[2] The bishop went three times on foot to the chapel at Notre-Dame de la Garde on September 28, December 8, 1720; and August 13, 1721 to bless the inhabitants of the city.

[4] In the midst of the plague, on 22 October 1720, at the suggestion of Soeur Anne-Madeleine, Belsunce established a feast in honour of the Sacred Heart.

But he was the soul of the rescuers and the praises bestowed on him by Alexander Pope and Charles Hubert Millevoye (Essay on Man and Belsunce ou la peste de Marseille)[6] were deserved.

During the occupation of World War II, knowing that the Germans were looking for non-ferrous metals, resistance fighters hid the 2800 kg of bronze of the statue in a warehouse on Boulevard de Louvain.