Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach (1726–1794) was the Prince-Bishop of Basel from 1782 to 1794.[1]
Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach (1726–1794) was the Prince-Bishop of Basel from 1782 to 1794.[1]
Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach was born in Zwingen on 14 December 1726, the son of Franz Josef Konrad von Roggenbach and his wife Maria Anna Eva Blarer von Wartensee.[2]
He was educated at the Jesuit gymnasium in Porrentruy.[2] He became a canon of Basel Münster in 1742, and then became its capitulary in 1750.[2]
On 25 November 1782 the cathedral chapter of Basel Münster unanimously elected Roggenbach to be the new Prince-Bishop of Basel, with Pope Pius VI confirming his appointment on 18 July 1783.[3] He was consecrated as a bishop by Raymond de Durfort, Archbishop of Besançon, on 29 September 1783.[3]
Shortly after Roggenbach's election, revolutionary activity began in the prince-bishopric, encouraged by Roggenbach's auxiliary bishop, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel, a supporter of the sans-culottes.[2] The French Revolution eventually spread into the prince-bishopric, and, following rioting in Porrentruy, Roggenbach fled the prince-bishopric on 27 April 1792, under the protection of Austrian troops, traveling first to Delémont, then to Biel, and finally to Konstanz.[2] On 17 December 1792 the French First Republic incorporated the northern part of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel into a new client state known as the Rauracian Republic.[2]
Roggenbach died in Konstanz on 9 March 1794.[2]
