MUN, ALBERT de. - Social organizer and political man, b. at Lumigny on 23 Feb. 1841, d. at Bordeaux on 6 Oct. 1914. Taken prisoner in the Franco-Prussian War and interned at Aix-la-Chapelle, he was shaken by reading *L'encyclique du 8 déc. et les principes du 1789* by E. Keller; the advice of Fr. Eck, his meeting with the deputy Lingen of the German “Centre,” opened his soul to the great social problems whose solution he immediately saw could be found only in a Catholicism that would re-educate the peoples.
A first lecture given in the workers’ circle in rue Montparnasse revealed to him his vocation: at Christmas 1871, with his brother Robert, La Tour, Meignen, Keller and others, he founded the Œuvre des cercles ouvriers, which rapidly gave rise throughout France to hundreds of circles. Conservative circles reacted against the clear economic reform purpose proclaimed by de M., as did liberal Catholics, who misunderstood the movement as an attempt to restore the ancien régime. In 1875 he resigned his commission as captain in order to devote himself more freely to propaganda. In 1876 he entered political life with a candidacy at Pontivy, opposed by strong adversaries. The stages of his political career were: from a passionate defense of the monarchical cause he passed to an exaltation of the republican regime; in 1885 he attempted to form a great Catholic party, an attempt that failed because of opposition from Rome, to which M. humbly submitted; in 1888–89 he supported, not happily, the Boulangist candidacy; he took part in the Dreyfus Affair with three famous speeches and in the Chamber defended with incomparable eloquence the rights of morality and the Church against the progressive secularization that culminated in the rupture of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and France. In 1907 he was received among the Academicians. He closed his life with a noble testament of fidelity to the Pope.
His thought is collected in: *Discours et écrits divers*, arranged as follows: *Questions sociales* (Paris 1871–87); *Discours politiques* (2 vols., ibid. 1876–87); *Discours et écrits divers* (2 vols., ibid. 1888–94); *Discours et écrits divers* (2 vols., ibid. 1894–1902); *La vocation sociale* (ibid. 1908); *Combats d'hier et d'aujourd'hui 1902–10* (ibid. 1910); and other minor works.