In 1810 Lamennais was named a canon of the cathedral of Rennes. The seminary which he had helped to found, however, was closed in 1812 due to an imperial decree of the previous year affecting Church instruction in the Empire. He was then appointed by the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc, Jean-Baptiste de Caffarelli du Falga, as Vicar General for the diocese. At the same time, the family business had suffered from the blockade of France, enforced by Great Britain as part of the Napoleonic Wars, to such an extent that it went bankrupt and he was required to oversee the legal process of the liquidation of the family estate.