GOYAU, GEORGES. — Historian, born at Orléans on 31 May 1869, died at Bernay (Eure) on 25 October 1939. Member of the Académie française from 1922; from that same year he was also the Academy’s permanent secretary; consultor of the Historical Section of the S. Congregation of Rites from 1930. A sensitive and refined spirit, he relived Christian history and tradition with an intimate power of suggestion, in what he defined as «histoire du droit de croire et du droit de prier» (v. Protestantism).
As an example of his sensitivity, the small volume La pensée religieuse de Joseph De Maistre (Paris 1921) is noteworthy: in it he sketches a religious, not political, profile of the Savoyard—a history of a soul, not of an attitude. In collaboration with A. Pératè and Paul Fabre, G. wrote: Le Vatican, les papes et la civilisation; le gouvernement central de l'Eglise, there 1895; id., Le Vatican, la papauté et la civilisation, l'histoire et les arts, 2 vols., there 1901; under the pseudonym Léon Grégoire, Le pape, les catholiques et la question sociale, there 1907, 4th ed., a book that caused a sensation through its profession of Leo XIII’s ideas on social matters; Autour du catholicisme social, 5 vols., there 1897–1912; Catholicisme et politique, there 1923. In the historical field, the nine volumes of Allemagne religieuse, there 1898–1913, enjoyed well-deserved success; likewise the two volumes Une ville Eglise: Genève (1535-1907), there 1919, on the history of Genevan reformism, and, in the immediate postwar period, L'Eglise libre dans l'Europe libre, there 1920, concerning religious liberty. He also composed other works on historical and literary subjects; particularly important was G.’s activity as a scholar and promoter of missionary studies. Among other things, he was director of the Revue d'histoire des missions and author of Missions et missionnaires (there 1931), Les grands desseins missionnaires d'Henri de Solages (there 1933), Clergé colonial et spiritualité missionnaire (there 1937), and the fundamental
L'Église en marche. Etudes d'histoire missionnaire, 5th series, there 1928–36; La France missionnaire dans les cinq parties du monde, 2 vols., there 1948.
BIBLI.: J. Calvet, Le renouveau catholique dans la littérature contemporaine, Paris 1931, pp. 277–97; V. Giraud, Un testament spirituel, excerpted from Revue des deux mondes, 110 (15 Aug. 1940); F. Veuillot, G. G., Paris 1942; M. Petrocchi, Lo spirito di G., in L'uomo e la storia, Bologna 1944, pp. 109–15; G. Hanotaux, Vie de G. G., Paris 1946; J. Ph. Heuzey-Goyau (his second wife), G. G., there 1947. Massimo Petrocchi