César-Guillaume La Luzerne

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

French cardinal b. at Paris, 1738; d. there, l821. He studied at the Collège de Navarre, and rose, through the influence of his kinsmen Lamoignon, to the See of Langres (1770), thus becoming duke and peer of the realm. In that Capacity he took part in the Assemblee des Notables (1788) and in the Etats-Généraux (1789). The futility of his efforts to keep the "Constituante" within the limits of moderation caused him to withdraw from that body. In 1791, he refused to take the constitutional oath and emigrated to Constance and Venice where he gave a generous hospitality to the French exiles and wrote extensively. Under the Restoration he returned to France, became cardinal and state minister (1817) and was re-appointed to the See of Langres which he had resigned at the time of the Concordat. His principal works are: "Oraison funèbre de Louis XV" (Paris, 1774); "Considérations sur divers points de la morale chrétienne" (Venice, 1795-1799); "Explication des évangiles des dimanches et des fetes" (Venice, 1807); "Considérations sur la déclaration du clergé de France en 1682" (Paris, 1821). An excellent apologist and a lucid expounder of Catholic faith and Christian ethics, La Luzerne, like Frayssinous, Talleyrand-Perigord and Bausset, was a belated representative of the old Gallicanism. His efforts to revive it failed, owing partly to the fall of the Bourbons and partly because of the galaxy of brilliant writers who, in "L'Avenir" and other publications, gave to France a definite Roman orientation.

Vie de la Luzerne in MIGNE, Demonstrations Evangeliques; DEIMIE in Encyclopedie du XIX Siecle, s. v.; ROHRBACHER, Hist. de l'Eg1ise, ed. GAUME, IV (Paris, 1869), 623; BELAMY, La theologie Catholique au XIX6 siecle (Paris, 1904); BAUNARD, Un siecle de l'Eglise de France (Paris, 1902).

J.F. SOLLIER