Melchior de Polignac was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 diplomat, Roman Catholic cardinal

Cardinal (Catholicism)

A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 and neo-Latin

New Latin

The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...

 poet.

A younger son of Armand XVI, marquis de Polignac, he was born at Lavoûte-sur-Loire

Lavoûte-sur-Loire

Lavoûte-sur-Loire is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France.-External links:*...

, Haute-Loire

Haute-Loire

Haute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.-History:Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...

, Auvergne

Auvergne (province)

Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....

. At an early age he achieved distinction as a diplomat. In 1695 he was sent as ambassador to Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, where he succeeded in bringing about the election of François-Louis de Bourbon, prince de Conti as successor to John Sobieski (1697). The subsequent failure of this intrigue led to his temporary disgrace, but in 1702 he was restored to favour, and in 1712 he was sent as the plenipotentiary

Plenipotentiary

The word plenipotentiary has two meanings. As a noun, it refers to a person who has "full powers." In particular, the term commonly refers to a diplomat fully authorized to represent his government as a prerogative...

 of Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 to the Congress of Utrecht.

During the regency he became involved in the Cellamare Conspiracy

Cellamare Conspiracy

The Cellamare Conspiracy of 1718 was a conspiracy against the then Regent of France, Philippe d'Orléans . "Created" in Spain, it was the brainchild of Antonio del Giudice, Prince of Cellamare.-Background and Plot:...

, and was relegated to Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 for three years. From 1725 to 1732 he acted as a French emissary at the Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

. In 1726, he received the Archbishopric of Auch, and he died at Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1742.

He left unfinished a refutation of Lucretius

Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".Virtually no details have come down concerning...

, written in Latin verse and published after his death by the abbé de Rothelin (Anti-Lucretius, 1745). The poem was very popular in the eighteenth century and translated several times: for example, Jean-Pierre de Bougainville

Jean-Pierre de Bougainville

Jean-Pierre de Bougainville was a French writer and the elder brother of the explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville....

 translated it into French prose in 1749, and François-Joseph Bérardier de Bataut

François-Joseph Bérardier de Bataut

François-Joseph Bérardier de Bataut was a French teacher, writer and translator living in the Age of Enlightenment.- Biography :...

 translated it in French verse in 1786.

External links

• Melchior de Polignac at the Catholic Encyclopedia
  Catholic Encyclopedia
  The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...