MELUN, ARMAND DE

A major figure in the Catholic social movement of 19th-century France; b. Brametz (Aisne), Sept. 24, 1807;d. Paris, June 24, 1877. He belonged to the cadet branch of the De Melun family and remained faithful to the ideals of the Legitimists until 1830. The influence of Hugues Félicité de lamennais, Père lacordaire, mon talembert, and Anne Sophie Swetchine directed his attention to the social question. In 1838 he became one of the directors of the Amis de l'Enfance, the first of his innumerable activities in behalf of the indigent and the dispossessed. He carefully rejected the suggestion of Abp. Denis Auguste Affre that he enter orders, believing it important that his charitable work be that of a layman, especially in view of his high social status. Beginning in 1845 he published the important journal Annales de la Charité, which supported state responsibility to alleviate want as a general obligation rather than through individual charity. In 1847 he founded the Société d'Économie Charitable, which enlisted the support of the elite in France's public life and Catholic thought. In time the society participated significantly in the international congresses at Malines. Taking advantage of the social posture of napoleon iii, Melun played a major role in the formation of Catholic Sociétés de Sécours Mutuels in Paris and in the provinces. Throughout his long career he gave energy and a conservative center to the Catholic social movement before the Third Republic. His Memoirs were posthumously published in 1890.

Bibliography: l. baunard, Le Vicomte de Melun, d'après ses mémoires et sa correspondance (Paris 1880). a. chevalier, Vie charitable du vicomte de Melun (Tours 1895).

[e. t. gargan]