Henry Allen Edgeworth De Firmont, abbe, the last confessor of King Louis XVI. of France, cousin of Maria Edgeworth, born in Edgeworthstown, Ireland, in 1745, died in Mi-tau, Russia, May 22, 1807. His father (Essex Edgeworth of Fairy Mount, whence Firmont) having been converted to Catholicism, and removed to France, he received his education under the Jesuits at Toulouse and at the Sor-bonne in Paris. He was the confessor of Madame Elizabeth, the sister of Louis XVI.; and at her suggestion he was invited by him at the time of his trial and condemnation to administer the consolations of religion. He attended the king during his last days, accompanied him to the scaffold, and was reported to have exclaimed at the moment of the execution, Louis, fils de Saint Louis, monies au del. The abbe himself always professed that he had no recollection of having uttered these words, and Lord Holland has shown that they were a royalist invention, made some time later. After the death of Madame Elizabeth he joined Louis XVIII. at Blankenburg in Germany, and went with him to Mitau. While caring for French prisoners at that place, he contracted a disease which occasioned his death.

He left a volume of "Memoirs," edited in English by C. S. Edge-worth (London, 1815), and in French by L>u-pont (Paris, 1815). A collection of his "Letters" was also published at Paris in 1818.