FRANZ EGON (1625-1682), bishop of Strasbourg, was the elder son of Egon VII., count of Fiirstenberg (1588-1635), who served with distinction as a Bavarian general in the Thirty Years' War. He began life as a soldier in the imperial service, but on the elevation of his friend Maximilian Henry of Bavaria to the electorate of Cologne in 1650, he went to his court and embraced the ecclesiastical career. He soon gained a complete ascendancy over the weak-minded elector, whose Francophile policy he insti gated. Ecclesiastical preferments were heaped upon him, and in 1663 he became bishop of Strasbourg. On the conclusion of a treaty between the emperor and the elector of Cologne, on May i 1, 1674, Franz was deprived of all his preferments in Germany, and was compelled to take refuge in France. He was, however, amnestied with his brother William by a special article of the Treaty of Nijmwegen (1679), whereupon he returned to Cologne. He died on April 1, 1682 at Strasbourg.
His brother WILLIAM EGON (1629-1704), bishop of Strasbourg, began his career as a soldier in the French service. He went to the court of the elector of Cologne at the same time as Franz Egon, whose policy he shared. In 1672 William was seized by imperial soldiers in the monastery of St. Pantaleon at Cologne, hurried off to Vienna and there tried for his life. He was saved by the intervention of the papal nuncio, but was kept in prison till the signature of the Treaty of Nijmwegen (1679) . As a reward for his services Louis XIV. appointed him bishop of Stras bourg in succession to his brother in 1682, in 1686 obtained for him from Pope Innocent XI. the cardinal's hat, and in 1688 succeeded in obtaining his election as coadjutor-archbishop of Cologne and successor to the elector Maximilian Henry. At the instance of the emperor, however, the pope interposed his veto; the canons followed the papal lead, and, the progress of the Allies against Louis XIV. depriving him of all prospect of success, William Egon retired to France. He died on April io, 1704 near Paris.
In the Stiihlingen line the most notable was KARL EGON (1796 1854), prince of Fiirstenberg, the son of Prince Karl Alois of Fiirstenberg, a general in the Austrian service, who was killed at the battle of Loptingen on March 25, 1799. In 1804 he inherited the Swabian principality of Furstenberg and all the possessions of the family except the Moravian estates. By the mediatization of his principality in 1806 the greater part of his vast estates fell under the sovereignty of the grand-duke of Baden. In politics he distinguished himself by a liberalism rare in a great German noble, carrying through by his personal influence with his peers the abolition of tithes and feudal dues and stanchly advocating the freedom of the press. His palace of Donaueschingen, with its collections of paintings, engravings and coins, was a centre of culture, where poets, painters and musicians met with princely entertainment. He died on Sept. 14, 1869, and was succeeded by his son Karl Egon II. (182o-1892), with the death of whose son, Karl Egon III., in 1896, the title and estates passed to Prince Maximilian Egon, head of the cadet line of Furstenberg-Piirglitz.
See Munich, Gesch. des Hauses and des Landes Furstenberg, 4 vols. (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1829-47) ; S. Riezler, Gesch. des fiirstlichen Hauses Fiirstenberg bis 1507 (Tubingen, 1883) ; Fiirstenbergisches Urkunden buch, ed. S. Riezler and F. L. Baumann, vols. i.—vii. (Tubingen, 1877-91), continued s. tit. Mitteilungen aus dem fiirstlich. Fiirsten bergischem Archiv by Baumann and G. Tumbult, 2 vols. (ib. 1899 1902) ; Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire (Leiden, 1890-1893) ; Almanach de Gotha; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie.
2. The second Furstenberg family has its possessions in West phalia and the country of the Rhine, and takes its name from the castle of Furstenberg on the Ruhr. The two most remarkable men whom it has produced are Franz Friedrich Wilhelm, freiherr von Furstenberg, and Franz Egon, count von Furstenberg-Stamm heim. The former (1728-1810) became ultimately vicar-general of the prince-bishop of Munster, and effected a great number of important reforms in the administration of the country, besides doing much for its educational and industrial development. The latter (1797-1859) was an enthusiastic patron of art, who assisted the completion of the Cologne cathedral, and erected the beauti ful church of St. Apollinaris near Remagen on the Rhine. He was a member of the Prussian Upper House in 1849, collaborated in founding the Preussisches Wochenblatt, and was an ardent de fender of Catholic interests.