Estrees, Cæsar D'

, cardinal, abbot of St. Germaindes-Prés, son of the preceding, was born in 1C28, and raised to the see of Laon in 1653, after having received the doctor’s hood of Sorbonne. The king made choice of him, not long after, as mediator between the pope’s nuncio and the four bishops of Aleth, of Beauvois, of Pamiers, and of Angers, and he had so far the art of conciliating the most opposite tempers, as to effect a short-lived peace to the church of France. He went afterwards to Bavaria, by the appointment of Louis XIV. to negociate the marriage of the dauphin with the electoral princess, and to transact other affairs of importance; and afterwards he went to Rome, where he asserted the rights of France during the disputes about the regale, and was charged with all the business of the court, after the death of the duke his brother, in 1G89. He reconciled the disputes of the clergy with Rome, and had a great share in the elections of popes Alexander VIII. Innocent XII. and of Clement XI. When Philip V. set out to take possession of the throne of Spain, the cardinal d‘Estrées received orders to attend him, to be one of the ministry of that prince. He returned to France in 1703, and died in his abbey the 18th of December 1714, at the age of eighty-seven. The cardinal d’Estrées was well-versed in the affairs both of church and state. With 31 comprehensive genius, he possessed agreeable and polite manners, an amiable talent in conversation, a great equality of temper, a love for literature, and was charitable to the poor. If he was not always successful in his negociations, it was neither the fault of his understanding nor of his prudence. He wrote, 1. “L'Europe vivante et mourante,” Brussels (for Paris), 1759, 24mo. 2. “Replique, au nom de M. Desgrouais, a la lettre de l’abbé Desfontaines, inserée dans le 6 e vol. des Jugemens de M. Burlon de La Busbaquerie,” Avignon, 1745, 12mo. ¹