BRIENNE, ETIENNE-CHARLES LOMÉNIE DE

BRIENNE, Etienne-Charles Loménie de. — Cardinal, b. in Paris on 9 Oct. 1727, d. on 18 Feb. 1794. A characteristic figure of a prelate of the 18th century, destined by his family for the ecclesiastical state, in which he lived as a refined and intelligent gentleman, but with little spiritual feeling, more open to the new ideas spread by the philosophers than to sacred doctrine. Bishop of Condom in 1760, then of Toulouse in 1763, he played a leading role in the Commission of Regulars (1766–80), which was to reorganise the existence of religious orders in France above the authority of the Pope and canon law, and overturned all traditional arrangements. In 1770 he entered the French Academy, though his literary merits were very slight. Called by Louis XVI in 1787 to succeed Calonne as Controller-General of Finances, he attempted to reorganise the administration of the State, but only earned the opposition of those interested in waste and unpopularity, so that on 25 Aug. 1788 he had to give way to Necker. In compensation that year he was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Sens and created cardinal on 25 Dec. 1788. He did not trouble to come to Rome, travelled and returned to France as the Revolution began at the end of 1789. He took the civic oath at Sens on 28 Apr. 1790 and publicly adhered to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy on 30 Jan. 1791, thereby incurring the Pope’s reproof (23 Feb.). B. replied by renouncing his cardinalate; but the Sacred College expelled him on 26 Sept. 1791. In the new division of the diocese he was elected bishop of the Yonne; he was also president of the Jacobin club in Sens. Arrested twice under the Convention, he died (it seems) of apoplexy.