GOYAU, GEORGES. - Historian, born in Orléans on 31 May 1869, died in Bernay (Eure) on 25 October 1939. Member of the Académie française from 1922; from the same year he also served as its perpetual secretary; consultor of the Historical Section of the Sacred Congregation of Rites from 1930. A sensitive and refined spirit, he revived the history and Christian tradition with an intimate power of suggestion, in what he defined as «histoire du droit de croire et du droit de prier» (cf. L'Allemagne religieuse. Le catholicisme, I, Paris 1910, p. 11, the most solid work even in the section concerning Protestantism).
An example of his sensitivity is the notable volume La pensée religieuse de Joseph de Maistre (Paris 1921), where he outlines a religious rather than political profile of the Savoyard, the history of a soul rather than an attitude. In collaboration with A. Péricat and Paul Fabre, G. wrote: Le Vatican, les papes et la civilisation; le gouvernement central de l'Eglise, in 1895; id., Le Vatican, la papauté et la civilisation, l'histoire et les arts, 2 vols., in 1901; under the pseudonym Léon Grégoire, Le pape, les catholiques et la question sociale, in 1907, 4th ed., a book that caused a sensation for its espousal of Leo XIII’s social ideas; Autour du catholicisme social, 5 vols., in 1897–1912; Catholische et politique, in 1923. In the historical field, the nine volumes of L'Allemagne religieuse (1898–1913) enjoyed deserved success; the two volumes Une ville Église: Genève (1535–1907), in 1919, on the events of Genevan reformism, and, in the immediate post-war period, L'Église libre dans l'Europe libre, in 1920, on religious freedom. He also published works on historical and literary subjects; particularly important was his activity as a scholar and promoter of missionary studies and research. Among other roles, he was director of the Revue d'histoire des missions and author of Missions et missionnaires (1931), Les grands desseins missionnaires d'Henri de Solages (1933), Clergé colonial et spiritualité missionnaire (1937), and, fundamental,
L'Église en marche. Études d'histoire missionnaire, 5th series, ibid. 1928–36; La France missionnaire dans les cinq parties du monde, 2 vols., ibid. 1948.