LANGENIEUX, BENGÎT-MARIE. - Cardinal Archbishop of Reims, b. at Villefranche (Rhône) on 15 Oct. 1824, d. at Reims on 1 Jan. 1905. Ordained in 1850, he subsequently served as parish priest in several important parishes in Paris, until in 1871 he was appointed vicar general of the archdiocese. Bishop of Tarbes in 1873, the following year he was promoted to the see of Reims, which he governed for more than thirty years. In 1886 Leo XIII conferred upon him the cardinal’s hat, with the title of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina.
Legate a latere to the Eucharistic Congresses of Jerusalem, Reims, and Lourdes, promoter of the beatification of Giovanna d'Arco, which he celebrated at Orléans in 1885 with a speech that became famous, he particularly delighted in the title of “cardinal of the workers,” bestowed on him because of the prominent part he played in the social sphere, in application of the Leonine encyclical Rerum novarum. When the anti-religious policy of the French government began, the cardinal of Reims was among the most zealous defenders of the rights of the Church and published two particularly important writings: the Déclaration des cardinaux et exposé de la situation faite à l'Église de France (1892) and the Lettre au Président de la République (1904). He also produced a history of the Church, widely used in French seminaries.