Edgeworth, , better known as l', confessor of Louis XVI, and vicar-general of the Diocese of Paris at the height of the French Revolution, b. at Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland, in 1745; d. May 22, 1807, at Mittau, Russia. His father, the Rev. Robert Edgeworth, Protestant rector of Edgeworthstown, or Mostrim, was a first cousin to Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the father of Maria Edgeworth, the novelist; and his mother was a granddaughter of the Protestant Archbishop Ussher. The Rev. Robert Edgeworth owned an estate at Firmount, or Fairymount, a few miles distant from Edgeworthstown, where the elder branch of the Edgeworth family resided. The Edgeworths were of English descent, and went to Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth. The title, "Edgeworth de Firmont", by which the abbé was universally known in France, was derived from Firmount, the ancestral patrimony of his family. The vicarage house at Edgeworthstown where he passed his childhood is believed to be the same in which Oliver Goldsmith went to school to the Rev. Patrick Hughes. The Rev. Robert Edgeworth through conscientious motives resigned his living, embraced the Catholic religion, and, finding life at home intolerable under the penal laws, with his family (all of whom became Catholics) removed to Toulouse in France, where Henry Essex, then four years of age, received his early training for the ecclesiastical state. Subsequently he went to the seminary of Trente-Trois, Paris, at the suggestion of Bishop Moylan of Cork (at one time a curé in Paris). After a course of theology at the Sorbonne, Henry Essex Edgeworth was ordained priest and the capital of France became the theatre of his apostolic labors. The Irish bishops offered him a mitre in Ireland, an honor which he declined with his usual humility. On the removal of her confessor, Madame Elisabeth, sister of the ill-fated Louis XVI, requested the superior of Les Missions Etrangères, where the abbé resided, to recommend her another and he unhesitatingly selected the Abbé Edgeworth. The Archbishop of Paris approved of the choice, and introduced him at court. Thus he became known to the royal family as a devoted friend. In their fallen fortunes he stood by them at the risk of his life, followed the survivors after the Revolution into exile, and died in their service.
When the Archbishop of Paris was obliged to fly in 1792 in order to save his life, he vested the Abbé Edgeworth with all his powers, making him his grand vicaire, and committed the great diocese to his care. In answer to the urgent entreaties of his friends to seek safety in Ireland or England, at this time, the abbé replied: "Almighty God has baffled my measures, and ties me to this land of horrors by chains I have not the liberty to shake off. The case is this: The wretched master [the king] charges me not to quit-this country, as I am the priest whom he intends to prepare him for death. And should the iniquity of the nation commit this last act of cruelty, I must also prepare myself for death, as I am convinced the popular rage will not allow me to survive an hour after the tragic scene; but I am resigned. Could my life save him I would willingly lay it down, and I should not die in vain" (Letter to Mr. Maffey, priest in London).