MUN, ALBERT de. — Social organizer and politician, b. at Lumigny on 23 Feb. 1841, d. at Bordeaux on 6 Oct. 1914. Taken prisoner during the Franco-Prussian War and interned at Aachen, he was shaken by his reading of L'encyclique du 8 déc. et les principes du 1789 by E. Keller; the advice of Fr. Eck and his meeting with the deputy Lingen of the German “Center” opened his soul to the great social problems, whose solution he immediately perceived could be found only in Catholicism, which re-educates peoples.
A first conference held in the workers’ circle on rue Montparnasse revealed his vocation to him: at Christmas 1871, together with his brother Roberto, La Tour, Meignen, Keller, and others, he founded the Oeuvre des cercles ouvriers, which led, with astonishing rapidity, to the establishment of hundreds of circles throughout France. Conservative circles reacted to the clear purpose of economic reform proclaimed by de M., as did the liberal Catholics, who misinterpreted the movement as an attempt to restore the ancien régime. In 1875 he resigned his commission as captain in order to devote himself more easily to propaganda. In 1876 he entered political life by standing as a candidate at Pontivy, opposed by powerful adversaries. The stages of his political journey were as follows: from a passionate defense of the monarchist cause he moved to an exaltation of the republican regime; in 1885 he attempted to form a great Catholic party, an attempt that failed because of Rome’s opposition, to which M. humbly submitted; in 1888–89 he supported, unsuccessfully, Boulanger’s candidacy; he took part in the Dreyfus affair with three famous speeches and defended in the Chamber, with incomparable eloquence, the rights of morality and the Church against the progressive secularization that culminated in the severance of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and France. In 1907 he was admitted among the academicians. He ended his life with a noble testament of fidelity to the Pope.
His thought is collected in: Discours et écrits divers, distributed 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.