MELUN, Armand de. - Viscount, one of the greatest organizers in France of charitable works in the last century, a precursor of Christian social action, b. at Brumetz (Aisne) 24 Sept. 1807, d. in Paris 24 June 1877. From 1838 he devoted himself with particular zeal to the exercise of charity, under the influence of two holy souls, Mme Swetchine, a Russian convert, and Sister Rosalie Rendu, Daughter of Charity (1787–1866), of whom he later (1877) wrote the life.
To give stability and organic unity to the charitable activities flourishing in France, he founded a Comité des œuvres (1842), a coordinating body, and a Bureau des renseignements, an informative organ. Parallel with this effort was his editorial activity. Notable among his works is the Manuel des institutions et œuvres de charité (1841), a kind of guide to charitable institutions and works of assistance; the Annales de la charité (1845), a review later transformed into the Revue d’économie chrétienne and the Contemporain, supported by a Société d’économie charitable for direction, financing and information.
He also envisaged an international organization of charitable assistance, founding the Société internationale de la charité (1847). Deputy to Parliament (1849), he used his new office to interest the State in charitable problems through a series of laws, including the first on social welfare. For him social action (to which he devoted some of his works, aimed at the uplift of the worker) was part of the exercise of charity, the saving grace of society.
Charity, alien to politics, had to be inspired by religion, which in turn could only flourish in a regime of freedom. Of his defence of this freedom of the Church there remains a tract in his pamphlet: La question romaine devant le Congrès (3rd ed., Paris 1860).