**BROGLIE, Maurice-Jean-Madeleine**, Prince of. – Bishop, b. at the château of Broglie in Normandy on 5 Sept. 1766, d. at Paris on 20 July 1821. Educated at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, he was initially sympathetic to the Revolution, but subsequent events disillusioned him. He then emigrated to Trier, where he was ordained priest. Returning to France in 1803, Napoleon appointed him almoner, and two years later bishop of Acqui. In August 1807, for reasons of health, he was transferred to the see of Ghent. Decorated with the Legion of Honour, Bishop B. refused to take the required oath, seeing in it an endorsement of the violence perpetrated against Pius VII through the occupation of the Papal States in 1809. In March 1811 he was summoned to the Ecclesiastical Council and was among the most resolute opponents in the National Council to Napoleon’s plan regarding the canonical institution of bishops, which the Emperor sought to remove from papal authority. Imprisoned at Vincennes, B. was compelled to resign his see on 21 Nov.
After the emperor’s fall, B. firmly opposed the provisions of the Dutch constitution, which required a civil oath from the clergy. Again threatened with loss of personal freedom, he took refuge in France. In 1817 the Assize Court of Brabant sentenced the bishop of Ghent in absentia to deportation.
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