Francois Joachim De Pierre De Bernis, a French cardinal and statesman, born May 22, 1715, at St. Marcel, department of Ardeche, died in Rome, Nov. 1, 1794. He was of a noble and ancient, but not wealthy family, and was destined from childhood for the church. He went to Paris, and after passing several years at the seminary of St. Sulpice entered society with the title of abbe, and by his personal appearance, graceful manners, and talent for making verses made a favorable impression. He was received into the French academy in 1744. Cardinal Fleury, a friend of his father, disapproved of his gay life; but after the death of the cardinal, through the favor of Madame Pompadour, he was appointed minister to Venice. While in that city (1751-5), a difference having arisen between the republic and the pope, the abbe Bernis mediated between them. After his return to France he was made minister of foreign affairs and cardinal. As minister he negotiated, at the opening of the seven vears' war, the alliance between Austria and France against England and Prussia. The war having led to the disastrous defeat of Ross-bach, Cardinal de Bernis was compelled to send in his resignation as minister, and was exiled in 1758 to Soissons, where he remained till 1704, when he was recalled and made archbishop of Albi. Five years afterward ,he was sent as ambassador to Rome with instructions to labor for the suppression of the order of Jesuits. At Rome he distinguished himself in the conclaves of 1769 and 1774. He lived there in great magnificence until the French revolution deprived him of his revenues, after which he received till his death an allowance from the court of Spain. His letters to Paris-Duvernay and a small volume of CEvvres melees en prose et en vers have been published.