POLIGNAC, an ancient French family, which claims to derive its name from a castle—the ancient Apolliniacum—in the department of Haute-Loire, and which since the 9th century possessed the dis trict of Velay. Among its most famous members was CARDINAL MELCHIOR DE POLIGNAC (1661-1742), who received a cardinal's hat after acting as plenipo tentiary of Louis XIV. at the peace of Utrecht (1712). From 1725 till 1732 he was French minister at the court of Rome, and he was appointed Archbishop of Auch. Polignac succeeded Bossuet at the French Academy in 1704, andaeft unfinished the "Anti-Lucretius" (1745), a poem intended for a refutation of Lucretius.
In the reign of Louis XVI. Iolanthe Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac (born 1749; died in Vienna, Dec. 9, 1793), and her husband, Jules Duc de Polignac (died in St. Petersburg, 1817), grand nephew of the cardinal, were among the worst advisers of Marie Antoinette. They obtained vast sums of the public money from their royal master and mistress. The Polignacs knew how they were hated, and were the first of the noblesse to emigrate. From the Em
press Catharine of Russia the duke re ceived an estate in the Ukraine, and did not return to France at the Restoration.
His son, AUGUSTE JULES ARMAND MARIE, Prince de Polignac, was born in Ver sailles, May 14, 1780. On the Restora tion he returned to France; became inti mate with the Comte d'Artois, afterward Charles X.; from his devotion to the policy of Rome received from the Pope in 1820 the title prince; was appointed ambassador at the English court in 1823; and finally, in 1829, became head of the last Bourbon ministry, in which capacity he promulgated the fatal ordonnances that cost Charles X. his throne. He then attempted to flee, but was captured at Granville on Aug. 15, was tried, and con demned to imprisonment for life in the castle of Ham, but was set at liberty by the amnesty of 1836. He took up his residence in England, but died in St. Germain, March 2, 1847. His son, Prince Armand (1817-1890), was a lead ing monarchist.