**BROGLIE, Jacques-Victor-Albert** (d. c.) — French politician and historian, b. in Paris on 15 May 1821, d. there on 9 January 1901. He began his political career in 1843 as a secretary in the embassies of Madrid, London, and Rome. Shortly thereafter (1848), he began publishing his first articles on foreign and ecclesiastical policy with the aim—shared by his brother, the noted Auguste Théodore Paul—of reconciling modern liberal ideas with the Catholic faith, which had long been traditional in the family. Opposed to Napoleon III, he remained in the background during the Second Republic and the Empire (1848–70). Instead, he rose to prominence in the political arena, presiding over the ministry twice (1874 and 1877) during the subsequent transitional period. He later returned to private life (1878), though he attempted, albeit in vain, to hinder the growing anticlericalism of left-wing governments.
During his two long periods of retirement (1848–70 and 1878–1901), he devoted himself to studies, particularly in history and literary criticism. In addition to numerous articles for *Le Correspondant* and the *Revue des Deux Mondes*, as well as political and literary speeches, he left works of lasting value. His masterpiece remains *L'Église et l'Empire romain au IVe siècle* (6 vols., Paris 1856–59; 5th ed., ibid. 1867–68), in which he describes the contrast between the contemporary disintegration of the material unity of the Roman world and the establishment of the moral unity of the Christian world.
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